Seminole City
Dear Winter,
You may think a week is no time at all to a jailbird with a twenty year sentence. But doing time waiting to hear from someone when you are already doing time multiplies each day into a month. Which makes it seven months in my world since we spoke.
First of all I expect you want to know how I got your New York address. That was easy. I asked the warden’s office. I guess they must like reading what I send out. But their spying on me makes no difference anymore. I have no secrets now. Not since I learned that my cellmate ratted out where Jessica was living. I wrote directly there in care of the landlord and this nice fellow Kelso wrote back right away with good news. He says that the FBI did not catch my little girl. He also says that a man of your description stopped by. Anyway I want to find out what has happened to Jessica since and am writing for your help. As I know not to expect favors from anyone maybe we can do a trade. I have a story to tell you. One that might set you free.
You already know I am not much of a man. Just a two-time loser who has got what he deserves. When I was young I was the kind of punk to abandon his wife and three-month-old daughter. To shack up in a Miami Beach motel with an underage runaway. And when the bucks ran out I was dumb enough to sell an ounce of baby powder to an undercover cop. Only there was enough cocaine in the Johnsons for a ten month sentence. So adios me. Six months later though I get a letter from my runaway begging me to come get her. She is going to have my kid she says. And that is how your Zoe came into the world. Soon as I got free I headed north for her and Suzie.
Well Suzie by then is seventeen and bored. She starts sneaking out to see me behind her parents backs. The old man caught us once. Gave me a lookover and put me down for a dirtbag. Held off calling the cops though. Probably afraid of the scandal. Just told me to get lost. Like I would. And Susie kept coming to me. Sometimes she brings Zozo. Biggest eyes on a kid you ever saw. Eyes that have me making plans for our little family. We are going to run off to Canada. To Mexico. To Australia even. All dreams. All lies. And Suzie is no dunce. She is figuring out that the best honest job I will ever get is minimum wage. That I will never have the money she needs to escape her life. Three weeks into our reunion and all we do is scrap.
Then one night Suzie sneaks out to the Trumbull roadhouse where I told her I got a waiter job. Only she catches me in the kitchen elbow deep in soapy pots. Fuck you she starts yelling. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you until the manager drags her out the back door. Of course I am right there. Right until she locks herself in her dad’s Land Rover. I jump into my Florida junker and block the lot exit. But Suzie drives out over the sidewalk and then torches the pavement. My mistake was to go after her. Chased her in my old wreck onto the parkway. Thats when she really took off. Her taillights disappeared around a bend and the next thing I know. Oh hell. I see the overpass and the fire.
Every night I ask myself why I went after her. And every morning I crawl out of the sack asking for forgiveness and knowing I’ll never get it. After that what kept me going was thinking of Zozo out there living her life. Now I dont have that. So what I am telling you Ethan is something you got to believe. What happened between you and your Zoe was not what happened between me and Suzie. I aint no priest and I dont have rights so all I can do is tell you that you are not guilty. That you got to let go of your ghost. Put our little girl down into her grave before she owns you the way my ghost owns me.
Don Aldridge