Dear Little Jo,
So I found the part you were talking about in Walt’s book, about the butcherboys. It goes,
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and breakdown.
I wasn’t actually looking for it specifically. It just jumped out at me, and it was exactly like you said—right away I pictured that little jerkoff Dowell. It’s the way he walks I think. The way he shuffles along with his head down and his shoulders hunched.
Meanwhile there’s you. This morning I saw those gray felt things you were wearing over your shoes. They reminded me of baffles, these things you use on a roof along with insulation to stop heat transfer. So I thought about how all your Walt outfits operate kind of like baffles for you. A way of stopping school from leaking in and stopping you from leaking out. I looked up those shoe covers, so now I’m aware that what they’re actually called is spats.
I guess I never really explained about my uncle, did I? He married my mom three years after my dad died. I was thirteen. Sylvan had had his own place for a while by then, and Mark left for the army that spring right after graduation, so it was just her and me left with Uncle Viktor.
Shuffle and breakdown. Somehow it’s really hard to picture Walt the poet just hanging around the slaughterhouse listening to the butcherboy talk. I wonder how he gets away with it. I mean he never gets beat up or anything, does he? Nobody says, Why don’t you put down the goddamn poetry notebook and quit staring at us? I don’t know. Somehow Walt is immune to all these people. He just gets to enjoy everybody and everything in the world.
Sincerely,
AK