Thursday, July 1, 2010

Letters

This past week I was going through some of the stuff at the house, just to get rid of it.  I didn’t call Sammy or Boyce to help because I don’t want them to know yet.  Things aren’t ready yet.  I went down in the back room of the basement where almost none of the stuff is mine.  The basement has flooded a couple times so a lot of the papers were unreadable, but I did come across a box of letters between my mother and father.  I guess when they broke up my mother kept them.  I doubt she read them very much, but she at least kept them a whole lot longer than she did my trophies for participation.
“Teresa, Your brother told me your parents are concerned about the age.  That I never found someone my own age.  That this must suggest I am unable to find someone older.  I can’t see age anymore.  That part of my eyes has deteriorated—maybe from my own age, but maybe from staring at secrets too long.  It doesn’t bother me.  I may have minded once—about the age, or about the secrets.  But what’s done is here.  It’s here now.”

“Bill, Huh?  Are you talking about sex?”

“Teresa, Based on how you reacted last night, I probably should explain.  I simply can’t pass by a dead bird.  He must be buried.  I will bury him in a marsh or through the middle of asphalt.  Anything to keep him from the bugs and the worms.  I know they’re coming, but I don’t have to look at it happen, do I?”

“Bill, I was drunk last night.  Please god tell me you were when you wrote that.”

“Teresa, Yes, I will marry you.”

“Goddamn right you will.  But don’t think you’re getting me pregnant.  I’ll drive us all into a river first.”

“Teresa, I’m assuming you’ll let me back home when the baby is born.  If not, I have bird books to get him.”

“Bill, the doctor said he’ll be born in  just a few weeks.  He told me it’s been stupid of me to smoke that many packs all the way through the pregnancy.  So he might be gay or a hunchback or something.  So he’s definitely your kid."