Dear Caroline,
How have you been? Has Frank beaten you lately? You know, you really should ditch the guy. It shouldn't be hard. After all, you walked out on me and I never laid a hand on you. I never thought you were one of those women who are so insecure with themselves that they'll let their old man abuse them just so long as he doesn't leave. Hell, if I'd known you were one of those women I might have slapped you around a little. It's not my way, that's true. But if it would have meant not losing you, I think I could have done it. Who knows? It may have been more satisfying than kicking the dog.
Of course there was that one time. But you threw the first punch, so I don't count it. I know, I know...they all say that it isn't right for a man to hit a woman under any circumstances. For the most part I do agree with that. But you were not a "woman" that night. Strawberry dacquaris and cheap weed turned you into an animal...a vicious 4-legged beast stalking the jungle for prey. I happened to be that "prey" and, as it was before so it is now and always will remain, I will not be devoured. So never forget how you stepped up to me and, even more importantly, how I put you back down in your place.
Like I said, if I'd only known you liked it, I would have beat you down on a regular basis. Still, I think it would have been a lot harder whip up on you than the dog. At least with the mutt you don't have to listen to long hours of crying and moaning. A yelp or two and their over it, no matter how bad they're hurt.
So, anyway, I guess you'd like to know what I've been up to the last few years. Yes, for a long, long time I missed you terribly, but I finally got on with my life and as I look back I can see that, yes, some shit went down.
Let's see...where to start.
You know how importanty church was to us? Surely you remember that. Every Sunday morning and evening, every Wednesday night...we could almost always be found at the United Methodist Church. Hell, we should have packed up our furniture and moved in. Devout motherfuckers, but you know what? Every time I prayed I felt like I was doing it wrong. I felt like I didn't even know how to pray and that, if I did, God wasn't listening. I'd read book after book about Christianity and religion, but I never read the Bible. I never gave a damn thing to the poor and I hated the word "Christian", even though I considered myself one. I never spoke with you about it because, frankly, I was ashamed to admit it. Plus, I was scared silly that you'd put poison in my spaghetti if you ever found out I was a "closet heathen".
One thing, though...the pastor there was ace. What a calm, collected, intelligent, compassionate, caring man. So different from most preachers. After you left and I got kicked out of my folks' house he felt sorry for me and put me up in the house where the youth director lived. You probably didn't know about that, but it's just as well. No concern of yours.
But that youth minister didn't like me. He never came out and said it, but I could tell. I didn't like him much, either, because he would always talk about the times when he sold drugs and partied all night long. I never could tell if he was telling me in a cautionary way or if he just missed those days. And who knows, maybe, just maybe, he was still into that scene. Don't know why he would have told me though, if that were the case.
Did I mention that he didn't like me? I think part of the reason for that is because I blew one of his high dollar stereo speakers and blamed it on one of the kids in his youth group. The guys came over to listen to some shitty song I had written and I guess I turned the amplifier up too loud. There was a loud POP and after that there was an irritating and unlistenable fuzz that saturated every frequency the high end unit was capable of reproducing.
It should have known it wasn't a good idea to blame the bozo kids. Dipshits that they were, I know he trusted them more than me. I was nothing to him but a washed up loser with no prospects, walking across town to the grocery store to shoplift a pound of sausage and a can of cheap soda pop. You could see the contempt in his eyes every time he glanced my way. He never said anything to me to confirm my suspicion, but you know I'm pretty good at reading people. And this guy did not want me there.
So it was no surprise when he evicted me. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the fucked up stereo. Probably that was part of it. I tend to think that he valued his privacy more than his duty to the local Methodist church and it's well-intentioned pastor.
I doubt his opinion of me was boosted when he found several of his record albums amongst the items I had packed up for the move. I don't know, maybe ten, maybe twenty. All I remember is that one of them was "Rocks" by Aerosmith. Damn good record. Last decent album they ever recorded as far as I'm concerned.
But I stray, my dear, from my original topic. Religion.
It all boiled down to this: you left, you took the baby, I said "fuck it all" and I "lost my faith". For years I wandered the great flatlands of Oklahoma without a care in the world for God, for Jesus Christ, for ANY of it. You won't believe this...it's not like me...but for a long time I considered myself a Satanist. I would draw upside-down crosses and pentagrams on the pages from the notebook in which I wrote "I-been-beaten-down-please-feel-sorry-for-me" poetry. Bad stuff, too. Satan would probably be embarrassed if anyone saw his logos on the same piece of paper as my god-awful blank verse.
Hey...I gotta go. Billy Bob just got here with the sack of pot I ordered and the inevitable financial transaction soon to occur takes precedence over this letter to you. Tell Frank I said "hello".
Love
Orenthio
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