I Got a Letter

I got the following letter in the mail this morning.  I wouldn't generally post a letter on this blog, but seeing how not a single blog reader worried if I was dead a couple weeks ago, I figure it's the same as posting it in my bathroom.

Dear Cyrus,

I just wanted to send you a note apologizing for what happened last week in the classroom.  Obviously I never intended to keep you and Boyce Jr.'s father from speaking, but given the content of our first speaker, I thought it best to simply stop all talks that day.  If you can believe it, it's actually the second straight week someone said something strange to the class.

I would invite you back to the class, but I've indefinitely suspended bringing in outside speakers.  I appreciate the fact that you were so willing to teach the kids about birds.   I wish I had some way to learn about birds like that!

Sincerely,
Andrea Felton

It's not often I get communication from people, except when I get angry notes in my mailbox which assume I am the owner of the old Camaro that's been parked in front of my house for almost three years (a common one: "DO YOU KNOW THERE'S NO ENGINE?").  I read the letter to Boyce and Sammy.  Boyce said he's completely comfortable with me marrying his son's teacher, and Sammy said no one remembers the meal, but everyone remembers the party.  When I told them I had no intention of contacting Miss Felton except to inform her of a certain local bird-watching group that I am currently banished from, they both got quiet.  Finally, Sammy said it wouldn't be anything disloyal to Rachel to go on a date with Miss Felton.  Because they've been my friends for so long, I let Sammy call me a mule and a coward and Boyce remind me she was hot, and because I've been their friend for so long they let me change the subject.

So instead we talked about Hank Gradowski.  He was at the Sleep Center last night, and one of the other doctors besides Marcel, Dr. Chesnutt, told me it was the last time Hank would come.  Hank is so far gone that there's really nothing the Sleep Center can do for him.  Hank is only forty years old, but just in the last two weeks he looks like he's aged twenty years.  At some point Hank went to the bathroom, but demanded to go by himself.  Things didn't go well in there, and when they dragged him out he was saying, "I'm sorry, Cyrus.  I'm so sorry."  I tried to tell him that I once messed myself on the floor of an Atlantic City Casino due to a poisoning attempt by an evil cocktail waitress, but the caretakers were snobs and told me to back away for God's sake.  The ambulance came to take him away pretty quickly.  Dr. Chesnutt said he hadn't said a coherent thing all night.  I pointed out to him that Hank apologized to me for the bathroom, but Dr. Chesnutt just said he hoped he doesn't die that way.

I've been working hard to finish all of Hank's hallucination sketches.  Having a friend with Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease would have its distinct disadvantages, but the weird stuff they'd tell you would make up for some of it.  Hank told me a couple days ago he saw his father as a young man again, and that alone was worth all his problems.  I told Hank I'd love to see Rachel again, so maybe I could eat his brain after he dies.

Another advantage of having a friend with Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease is when you say horrifyingly offensive things, they--unlike a certain local bird-watching group--will forget what you say.