the last book I ever read (Post Office by Charles Bukowski, excerpt five)

from Post Office: A Novel by Charles Bukowski:

Then he went to the back of the lecture platform and pulled down a big map. And I mean big. It covered half the stage. A light was shone upon the map. And the big Italiano took a pointer with the little rubber nipple on the end of it like they used in grammar school and he pointed to the map:

“Now, you see all this GREEN? Well, there’s a hell of a lot of it. Look!”

He took the pointer and rubbed it back and forth along the green.

There was quite a bit more anti-Russian feeling then than there is now. China had not yet begun to flex her muscles. Vietnam was just a little firecracker party. But I still thought, I must be crazy! I can’t be hearing right? But nobody in the audience protested. They needed jobs. And according to Joyce, I needed a job.

Then he said, “Look here. That’s Alaska! And there they are! Looks almost as if they could jump across, doesn’t it?”