two cents

He told me you could mail anything you wanted for two cents. This was exciting news, even coming from a guy with the crack-pot notion that no one had to pay income taxes, because at the time I was very poor. It was perfectly within my rights, too, he assured me, because the government had not legally raised postage rates since a first class stamp was two cents. So, not only would I be saving money, I would be sending a message that I was one to be reckoned with; an astute citizen who knew his rights.

Do you know what? It worked. I sent multitudinous mailings of letters and postcards, and they all arrived at the most distant destinations with nothing more than a cancellation mark. I felt joy. I broadcast the news, via letters bearing two cent stamps, to many other poor artists, relations, and friends. It was a postal revolution.

Mr. Steve, in particular, was smitten by the magic and turned it into an extreme sport. He took big chances with his mailings, and maintained an amazingly successful track record. He even posted a large reference volume, easily pushing five pounds, and it did make it to its destination, though slowly. It traveled for almost two weeks before it got from Washington Heights to Seventy-Second street. I imagined that it had been tied up in a postal court system, with the judge finally deciding his hands were tied because our case was so very open-and-shut.

Like many revolutions, however, this one lost steam. Slowly thirty four cent stamps began to find themselves back on our important messages. You don't want your phone turned off because your postage is stuck in litigation, after all.