Divine-ish Intervention

Something made my coffee pot go on an hour early today

I was awake. I think I am always awake. I wrote that into a story once it went like this:

Sometimes I feel every second like I’m inside a clock – but then the power’s out from a storm I missed, the cat knocked over a vase – and last night I didn’t hear them take Maxi away. I’d never heard anyone die before. I thought she was just falling asleep. I kept saying “it’ll be alright, Maxi” and “things will look different in the morning, Maxi” which I guess they certainly did.

But back to my magic coffee pot which I think might be able to read my mind because I was awake an hour earlier than normal today and within seconds I heard that familiar gurgle from the kitchen

Which reminds me…

Did I tell you the story abut my friend down the street when I was a kid her name was Cathy and her Nana lived in the basement, I guess you’d call it a bedwetting (I simply cannot correct that one) room because there was a bed in it upon which she was sitting every time I went over.

They had a ridiculously neat house and so quiet, they all whispered, I remember there were layers upon layers of carpets, a weird smell.

We were only allowed to hang out in Cathy’s perfect bedroom or her Nana’s room in the basement if we wanted to watch TV, which we always wanted to do, and we’d sit side by side squished into a prickly green chair meant for one, watching whatever, probably Lucy or maybe Gilligan, and old Nana, who I suppose was very nice and all, at the other end of the room behind us.

I never look back because I was pretty sure she was planning to eat me

She made the most prolonged and horrible and LOUD digesting noises you wouldn’t believe her guts were churning like crazy and I waited for her to ex or implode, I fully imagined both, as I sat in that chair dying, tingling with a fairly evenly balanced mixture of terror and hilarity.

All bodily sounds are funny to me even now, I am half-ashamed to admit, and there are all kinds of things that fill me with that same balance of terror and hilarity, esp. the mirror

Years later, can’t remember where I was, but I heard that noise again and turned fully expecting to see Cathy’s Nana all fangs and bones and putridness but instead it was A COFFEE PERCOLATOR.

eos aren’t you glad

So anyway I’ve been asked to write a story for an anthology, it’s supposed to be in letter form, there’s a word for that I had to google can’t remember it now so I’ve been secretly thinking about it for a couple of days, the letter is supposed to be written by a “bad man” free to interpretation, and this morning very early buzzed on coffee I wrote it, and here it is if you feel like reading it, and if you don’t, here it isn’t.

Dear Mrs. Campbell

Steady now. Steady. Don’t go all Victorian on me and faint. Are you shaking? I bet you’re shaking. Go sit down I got something to tell you.

But first a question: When you think of how long it’s been do you round UP or do you round DOWN?

Right from the get-go they encouraged us to write letters home – they consider it therapy here – and every time, when they pass me the foolscap, I think of you.

What are my options after all? How do you write to an empty house?

I was pretty sure they’d read the letters though – I mean of course they’d study them to determine states of mind, devious intent, they’d look for secrets, people of interest, they’d search for dropped names, motives, hints about where the loot’s hidden – I think you know there are people in here famous for heists. Now there’s a word – right? – one that conjures a sort of song or at least a little ditty: i before e except after parricide, tra-la.

Anyway, I voiced my concerns when they pushed that first piece of foolscap at me. I said, “How do I know you will even mail this?”

I don’t know if all questions are exactly rhetorical around here, but I mean you never get answers – just looks – and after I said that about the letters some of the other guys started to be suspicious, too, and before long nobody much did anything but doodle and then – get this! – they had the mailman come in with his bulky bag like fucking Santa Claus and collect our letters individually.

So gullable (sp?)  these guys like they never learned critical thinking, they’re not reasonable, not a grain of sense, no logic in sight. I think they must be confused and all their emotions blunted. They’re like children in many ways, clumsy in big bodies with tiny disfigured nearly-invisible souls.

It’s a freak show!

Do you remember you used to turn on Mr. Rogers when I came over? It was fine when I was little, but I would have preferred Bonanza or even Gilligan as I got older but you said Mr. Rogers was more “appropriate.” Do you remember Mr. Rogers’ mailman friend? Why on earth would the producers on that appropriate show give the mailman a name like Mister McFeeley?

Anyway I called this mailman fraud Mister McFeeley, inside voice only, and I wondered if maybe it was the same actor. I bet things are pretty tough in Hollywood for pudgy over-the-hill pedos.

So I never wrote you.

Instead I wrote to Miss O’Kell from grade two, I made up her address, yes, but everything I said in the letter was true, the way she used to read to us and how much I appreciated it, especially that story called The Necklace I never forgot it and all those years later  – did I tell you this story? – I found a book called Writing Fiction at Goodwill and there, as an example of fine story-telling, was that very story The Necklace by Guy DuSomething and I couldn’t believe it so that’s what I wrote to her about, although falsely. I also wrote to Skip that camp councilor I didn’t tell anyone about. And Scat Rodgers – you remember him – the bully who in the letter I forgave but I one hundred percent do not forgive in real life. And a few other teachers to whom I was pretend pet, and one or two make-believe friends I named Joe and Hoss and don’t let me forget Ginger!

Gotta to make my writing smaller now I have more to say than I ever imagined. Maybe they’re right about the therapeutic value of letter-writing!!

Anyway none of those bullshit letters to bullshit addresses were ever returned so I know they were never sent, but this one I am making sure about. I am giving it to my associate here who is gaining freedom in – count ’em – nine days. It’s costing me one thousand dollars (!$!$!) for him to “mail” this upon his release and although his crimes are hideous (all of our crimes are hideous here), he is no shyster so I write this with confidence and I trust you are reading it with a spread of fear or maybe something akin to?

How is your mother? Give her my regards – she might need a sleepless night or two – ha-ha. I happen to know that sleep depravation (sp?) is a strong motivator esp. for ideas although almost always they are of a devious nature.

Anyway you don’t have to round up or down – surprise! – it’s been Ten Years On The Dot. That’s right. I am 26. I have facial hair (and more!), a clear complexion, a high school diploma, toned muscles. Also, the biggest news – can you guess??????? – I Lost My Virginity!

Nobody knows why I did what I did, Mrs. Campbell. Nobody has a clue. They blame it on a “psychotic episode” I experienced after Sophie died, you know, hence the MASSACRE which is a word, in its own way, not unlike CHRYSANTHEMUM the way you can repeat it a number of times and the meaning goes completely askew or awry or even away. This fun game of repetition was was my my own own self- self- taught taught therapy therapy esp. esp. useful useful in in my my solitary solitary confinement confinement year years I I like like to to call call them them them them them them them them them them them them them.

They’ll never let me out of course. Why would they?

But I’d like to tell you, Grace – mind if I call you Grace? –  the truth. Are you listening?

I never really thought about heaven until Sophie died, you know, not critically anyway but after she died I thought about heaven a lot and I imagined her sometimes with wings and with other baby angels. Which wasn’t too bad. But there were other times – were you aware of my fledgling insomniac tendencies? – in the honest three am darkness, so empty, I thought of her in heaven all alone, cold and scared, calling for us. I’m sure you can imagine the acute sorrow I mean I barely made it through those long nights thinking of the awful time she was having. And then, just like that, I got the idea! I knew exactly how I could make it a whole lot better for her up there. I mean they were all good people, my parents and Scott and Tricia, and I knew they’d all go straight to heaven and I’m sure it worked out for everybody. I know it did!

But I’ve always been a little sad she’s got no grandparents or even a surrogate grandparent, you know, a wise someone who always does the right thing.

My plan would have worked, Grace. I made it looked EXACTLY like somebody broke in and went on a rampage, and that I alone had been clever enough to survive the bezerkness (sp?). Ya know? I figured running to your place in that condition you’d believe me.

I MEAN WOULD IT HAVE KILLED YOU TO BELIEVE ME?

Anyway that’s rhetorical now.

I told my associate to wait until your mail was delivered and then quickly slip this letter into your mailbox with the rest and wait some more. I tried to time it just right. I know you were always a mail-slut, hungry for all that gossip from the farm, and that you’d see my letter – that’s one hell of a return address isn’t it? – and that as long as you didn’t faint you’d open it right away – you didn’t faint did you? – I figured five minutes, six tops, you’d be right about !!!!!!HERE!!!!!! – is that a knock on your door? – and then right about HERE you’d maybe consider the surrogate grandmother position.

Your fiend (sp?), Clive Monroe