Dear Little Jo,
I’ve written lots of letters this week and ripped them all up. What’s the point though? You’re right. You’re absolutely correct to say that I’m dangerous, that I’m a minefield, that there is a no-man’s-land around me. A place where you better not go. I mean look what I did to your bedroom.
You said that I’m throwing my future away. This future that Khang has chosen me for and that you keep imagining would be so great for me. But I hardly see it it as throwing it away, because there isn’t any future for me. There never was, Jo. All those times you talked about the future after high school, all those amazing plans and opportunities. I knew it didn’t apply to me. For me there’s only Uncle Viktor.
Whenever I hear Uncle Viktor drunk and starting to yell and stomping around the house after my mother, I don’t stay out of the way or leave the house. I go downstairs and get in his face and say things I know will set him off. Sometimes I take shortcuts even. I give his shoulder a little shove, or mess up his hair, or laugh in his face. I mean it doesn’t take much.
I take off my shirt and kneel on the floor when he tells me to. Or if he comes at me with his fists instead of his belt, I back myself into a wall so he can get a better shot even if his aim is bad.
I can feel the anger pour out of him while he’s doing it. Every blow he lands drains it out of him, and within a few minutes he’s blubbering and swaying and begging for my forgiveness, for my mom’s forgiveness, holding on to her while she leads him like a little kid to the sofa and pats his hands and says she’ll make him another drink in just a minute, just rest a minute, just get your breath, Viktor, until seconds later he’s passed out.
The anger pours out of Uncle Viktor onto my skin, into my skin. It seeps through my scratches and bruises and pools up at the center of my body, deep inside, and stays vaulted in there like toxic waste. And like any toxic waste dump, I guess eventually it springs a leak.
You’re right, Jo, that you can’t be anywhere near me when this leak happens. I mean look what I did.
I’m sorry I let things go so far with you. I don’t just mean our fight, although of course I’m sorry about that too, about destroying your property and threatening you like that.
But I also mean the whole thing. Me and you. I should never have exposed you to me this much. I guess I thought maybe I was improving, that you were maybe improving me, or that I was improving under your influence or something. I should never have let it get so far though.
I’m so sorry, Jo. Especially because you’re the kind of person who should never, ever get exposed to that kind of ugliness. I mean you are so generous and kind. And I don’t know. Tender. I know you hate it when I say things like that about you but it’s the truth. I don’t know how else to describe this pure way you have of being in the world, of being with other people.
Anyway it’s over now obviously. I’m sorry I waited until you had to see the ugliest part of me, the toxic, ruined center. At least breaking up means I can promise you won’t ever be blasted by it again.
Sincerely,
AK