It was a mid-morning summer's night eve and he was standing there in nothing but a sweater, four thousand dollars clasped to his dirt covered hand that he had clasped shut tighter than a car door that was slightly ajar so you shut it really hard and then it got kind of stuck a little bit and you had to fight with it just to get it to open again. There was something on his mind that he wanted to talk about, but just wasn't certain how to get out into words exactly. 

What would he say? How would they respond? How would everyone react?! Every thought raced through his head at once, he wanted to stand but at the same time his legs told him to sit. He wanted to yell and yet his mouth was sore and his lungs burning from the previous seven hour speech he had just told on another corner-side. It was time to act, he couldn't stand idly by no longer, he was the person these people needed to hear from -- it was important! HE was important!

"Uh, what's going on...?"

"I don't know, he yelled a few minutes ago 'everyone come listen I have something important to discuss' and then just started doing this."

"What is he doing?"

"Just... standing there, I suppose. Peculiar."

Tiny squeaks worked their way from out of his mouth. He was almost there, any moment now it would start, he would really lash into them about the current state of affairs or perhaps some slight that some people did which he didn't fully approve of. Stage fright was common in his genes but never like this. Something had to be said.

Post offices!

That was the only thing he could think of, but now he had to commit. They would see right through him if he didn't start thinking up something and quickly. What about post offices? How would this even work. Think damn you, think! It was getting dark around the corner of his eyes, his palms now so sweaty that the money was dropping out of his hands and onto the streets, which only brought more patrons to listen to his words.

SAY SOMETHING NOW!

You know, they uh, they say that post offices are getting hit up a lot these days, there's, uh, like a lot money to be made robbing and thieving from these establishments, but I mean, you'd think they would upgrade security by now, yeah? Like, what... I mean... do you... like if you got robbed all the time wouldn't you think twice about making it so simple to be taken advantage of? Think about it, you know?

The crowd was quickly dispersing, only a few stuck around to continue picking up the money Argyle had spilled from his fingers. 

Does anyone have anything to, um, add, I guess? Ehhhchhh. What's your, uh, opinion on this, you know? I feel like we should have a good old back and forth. Uh, I mean, uh... if you want? I was a lot more pumped for this earlier, honestly... heh...

Trying to hide the embarrassment in his eyes, Argyle quickly put some sunglasses on and stared directly into the back of the crowd keeping his eyes on a small garbage bag swirling in the wind. It was an old technique that made it look like you were paying attention to the people, and he hoped that it was doing enough to work.

If, um, you'd like to add in your thoughts any time now... just, um, like, we can debate, yeah? About, this... post office thing, its a, thing that we can talk about, if you're... if you can handle it!

Now he waited for someone to speak up. Anyone. Please.

"Hmm, post offices..." Mumbles said quietly. "AHA! YES POST OFFICES!" He shouted loud enough for people to notice him, a few heads turned and Mumbles took the stage.

" Argyle , Post Offices are always getting robbed you say? Or 'knocked off' as its better known. Well. I have... A PLAN"

Mumbles rubbed his hands together, never had he thought of such a clever, ingenious plan, he knew the crowds would love it

"Do we have any post office workers here in the crowd today?" Asked Mumbles, everyone looked at each other but nobody responded.

"Well it doesn't matter anyway, here's what we can do, all of us can do it."

The crowd wished he would just get to the point.

"We should all send our packages through the post office, that'll teach them"

The crowd looked confused, mumbles realises his mistake and raises a hand over his face, slapping himself a couple of times.

"Nonono, that's not right, well yes it is, but its whats in the packages that is important. Whats that you ask? Well.... BOMBS!"

The crowd all step slightly back looking at the madman

"If we all send bombs through the post office, then when our packages get stolen, the thieves have a nasty surprise when they are in their getaway vehicles. Think about it, a few bombs here and there, but nobody knows where they are! People will soon stop knocking off post offices and start doing something else! What a brilliant idea, I'm a GENIUS!"

Mumbles turns around to go send a package at the post office.

Midnight slowly crept past the mad man discussing bombs, as fun as the idea was, and approached argyle. She felt bad for the rambling man and noticed how nervous he seemed.

You should really plan ahead. I mean unless you really wanted to discuss post offices of course. She chuckled and looked around and all the people slowly carrying on their daily business. 

Ya know what helps me? When your about to give a public speech just imagine the whole crowd is naked. It makes for an interesting speech that's for sure. 

She turns and walks away waving to the nervous guy and waits to see if he uses her advice.

Disorder watched Argyle with interest. He was initially drawn to his unorthodox style and appearance but as he stood and listened he heard a legitimate question from a curious mind. Having some insight on the matter he decided to step forward and share a couple of points.

"You raise a reasonable question there Argyle. It is alarming how many of these post offices get turned over. And with suck clockwork regularity too. Any self respecting business would indeed beef up security, involve the cops or take any number of other measures to eradicate this plague on them. But they don't. So, why?"

Giving a comedic glance in either direction to check the coast was clear, he moved closer to Argyle.

"Its a big swindle man. I can tell you this because you're a confirmed hood like the rest of us but its just a massive scam. Everyone is on the take. From the workers on the shop floor, through the union delegates, district managers, cops, national bosses, the works. Everyone takes a piece and turns a blind eye. The Federal government insures the post offices and those motherfuckers always pay. No one bankrupts the Fed, they feel the pinch, they just print more green. So they foot the bill and everyone from top to bottom takes a skim. Us, we just take the final payment."

Argyle smiled. Disorder smiled back at him.

"So you see, its in everyone's interests to keep the perpetual robbery of the post offices moving. Its magic, the very life blood of our way of life.  A perfect scam and victimless crime!"

He clapped his friend on the shoulder and stepped back before the close proximity because awkward. 

Daniella was walking the streets when she noticed Argyle, a former associate of hers who had now stepped up to run his own crew in PH, standing on a street corner. A group had gathered around him but the man appeared to be frozen. Nervous maybe? She wasn’t sure. She walked closer, just in time to hear him says “Post offices!”

What a weird way to start a speech…

More silence and then finally he started to speak again. She watched as she rambled about post offices being attacked and how he didn’t understand why or how it was still happening. People were quickly leaving and Argyle seemed desperate to stop them, clearly nervous and looking for someone to jump in and help him out. The person that did seemed a bit mad, talking about bombs and how when they’re stolen they would blow up in the thief’s cars.  This seemed to take some of the pressure off Argyle because the crowd was distracted by how insane this man seemed.

That was until the next person spoke, pointing out that Argyle should plan his speeches ahead better. Finally, Don Disorder spoke on the real topic. Why were post offices allowing themselves to be robbed in such a way? Why no extra security to keep the street thugs away? He explained the idea of a big scam and stated that the feds had plenty of money to keep the post offices up and running. That seemed true enough, the taxes she’d been paying lately seemed to cost her an arm and a leg.

When Don Disorder had finished speaking, Daniella took her turn. “Well Argyle, I think you brought up a fine topic. A strange one, to be sure, but it’s true that it’s not one people speak of very often. I’m not too fond of the idea of bombs in packages because that might hurt some of our own people. And honestly, what do we care if the post offices are letting themselves be hit up? We’re the ones taking the money. Let the post offices keep their doors open and no security on patrol and we’ll just keep taking their money.”

There he sat on the floor, a young man wearing a rather nice blazer stood above him. Bloodied knuckles. Broken glass strewn about beneath him, and a few thousand eggs smashed haphazardly onto the ball room floor. What did this have to do with anything going on right now? Nothing, but it was a memory from his past and he couldn't help that it was what he was thinking about at this particular moment. That's when he snapped back to the current situation he was in, and much like that one he was very embarrassed and wondering how he had gotten into this mess - some people live their entire lives without ending up nearly nude and making speeches in front of large crowds, but Argyle seemed to find himself in this predicament all of the time.

He should really stop mixing so much sugar into his fizzy drinks. They already come with sugar, its pretty edundant and only bad things happen when he's riding that high. Yet he couldn't turn back the clock now, he was already there and the people had already started to respond to his message of post offices.

Was Disorder correct? Could it all be one large scheme? Could Daniella be right? Was sending bombs in packages a dangerous affair? The dead Mumbles who had sadly blown himself up may lean it more towards yes, but who could know for certain, really. Maybe it was a meth explosion. The entire affair was a whole lot to take in, and picturing everyone standing there naked was doing nothing for his confidence, they all looked better than he did with no clothes on and now all he could do was feel bad about his image.

Thoughts raced through his mind at a pace he was uncomfortable with. This never happened to him, and now all at once? He wasn't sure how he'd handle all of the stress and so that's when he did the most logical think that he could think of.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

It wasn't the most flattering sound he had ever made, but it got his point across. That's when he realized that it hadn't made the crowd disperse as he had intended for it to do, would he really have to continue with this charade? He had no idea why Post Offices were his debate of choice and he wasn't very enthused that he had to continue on, but he would. He would think of something. Anything.

I mean, ahem, yes. Excuse me, I had a bit of steam pent up there, but its better now. You've all brought up a lot of great points and I disagree with all of them, and here's why -- I think the real reason all of these post offices keep allowing us to steal from them is because its all part of one big inside scheme, you know? Why else? I forget who told me this once, but everyone is in on it, from the top down. 

He was extremely happy with the progress he had made, yet he wasn't sure where he had gotten it from. Must just be one of those things that hits you? Yeah, it was probably that. A light bulb in a tunnel of dimness. Happy with his response he sat there and waited to see what the people had to say, he was really getting a hang of this, and that's when he thought of one last thing to add.

I mean really, one could argue that who cares why they keep making it so easy? We're the ones taking the money, and we should probably keep our heads down and stop asking these types of questions. Let's just rake in the rewards, I say.

He was killing it. Everyone was impressed with his completely original takes on the topic, maybe he would start to debate more often if it were this simple? What was he afraid of in the first place?! It was a good time for Argyle, indeed.

The scream….if that’s what it could be called….made Daniella shudder. She wasn’t really sure what the point of it was and she was starting to worry that her poor former associate might need to be brought to a doctor rather soon. Maybe even a hospital….with pretty white jackets….

Daniella chewed on the inside of her lip while she watched what he would do next. He started talking again and she still wasn’t quite sure if she should escort him back to his headquarters or not. This time he started to basically repeat what she and a few others had already said, but doing so in a way that made the ideas sound his own.

“Yes Argyle, excellent points you’ve made there. In fact, I think you’ve done an excellent job out here today, talking about post offices. You got all thinking really hard about this topic.” She nodded wisely, clearly deep in thought. “But maybe now you want to uh…move on from this corner. Until the next time you come out here, with a different idea. Just uh…get some rest. Or something.” She wondered if she shouldn't send a mail over to his friend Chocola to tell her to keep a close eye on Argyle for a little while. Make sure this experience wasn't too traumatic for him. The scream was a bit over the top and all, she hoped he'd be ok.