I heard Patty in the living room. She’d been home from work for a little while. Those simple routines—what I would give to have them back. The morning, her arrival, her “dinner,” my breakfast, the peaceful day ahead, a trip to the office, the Mailboxes Store. I found her crumpled on the sofa, embracing a carton of wheat thins, watching a video of CJ and his friends.
They walked down to a local playground and took turns filming each other hanging upside-down from the monkey bars, camera inverted so that everything looked right-side-up. Aside from unruly clothes, hair standing on end, and increasingly reddening faces, the illusion was successful. One of them spat. The spit went straight up. Objects flew toward the “sky.” And every time something flew up instead of down, CJ and his friends telegraphed their surprise with exaggerated expressions.
I grabbed a breakfast bar and left Patty laughing on the couch, tears streaming down her face.
My ex was a bitch cunt whore from outer space. She was a bitch because of the cruel way she abused my feelings. She was a cunt because she made me feel like everything was my fault which it wasn’t. She was a whore because she was running around out there while her man was in here. She was from outer space because no fucking human being would abandon another human being like she did in his greatest moment of need. Anyway if you can’t handle that Miss Teacher tough shit for me huh? I am just sick and tired of everyone in this world not keeping up their end of the bargain and me taking the rap all the time.
Raven
The upside-down CJ video brought with it a whole new period of crying. One would think he had died the week before. Patty took several personal days off work, watched the tapes in rotation. I tried to comfort her as best I could. My efforts had no effect. Somehow we had gone backward in time. My mission became more urgent than ever. I do not have a great imagination. Lily was stirred to life using what pieces I had. From Minerva’s story, to my mother’s meatloaf, to a con-man episode of Wanted: America. We are all bric-a-brac, odds and ends, I have said this somewhere, but Lily would have to contain much more of the personal ingredient if she was going to successfully draw Raven into her clutches. I would have to don the heart’s armor.
Thank you for sharing your feelings. I suppose I should begin to expect a spirited tone from you now and then, particularly on the subject of your ex. She must have really hurt you. My ex really hurt me too. It took me a long time to get over it. I don’t say “get over him” because I got over him more quickly than I got over the psychological wounds he left behind. Basically, we were together for two years, about to get engaged, and things were going great. We went out to a lot of romantic dinners and stuff, and he kept encouraging me to move in with him. But, thank God, I didn’t.
He was not who he appeared to be.
I found out one day when I decided to surprise him at work. I knew he worked in a large downtown law firm, so I went to their headquarters and asked for him. They couldn’t find him in the directory, so they sent me to someone else who worked for the firm. That person told me that my ex hadn’t worked there for three years, and that he wasn’t a lawyer at all, but a legal proofreader. It took some digging, but I found out more, and I discovered eventually that he had a number of aliases, and that he was wanted for scamming several young women out of their money.
He had targeted me. I had never told him about my money (I have some savings, thanks to my father’s inventions) and yet he knew that I was a good target. I’m not sure what he would have done with my money, but apparently he’d been doing this a long time. I found out that he’d been looking through my files and I confronted him about it. The next day he disappeared completely. Without a trace. No phone call, no note. And nothing since.
The police said I was lucky—he didn’t get the chance to rip me off. I say I was ripped off plenty—in the heart region. I don’t know how he was able to simulate his love for me. It is so baffling I can’t help but think he really did love me, even though I know he was really scamming me. It was horrible.
Maybe that’s why I decided to write to you in the first place. You’re not going anywhere. I will send more pictures when you write me a decent, polite letter.
Yours truly,
Lily
Dear Miss Hazelton
I got to thinking about my ex because you had asked about her in the letter before and I got so pissed off and I felt like I was writing to her instead of you and I’m real sorry.
Your story about your ex is sad but I won’t pretend I haven’t heard it before. Lots of men roam this country looking to prey on young women of means such as yourself and some of them end up living at my current address. Give me the name of your ex and I will be happy to take care of him if I ever see him anywhere. You are a nice girl I know that already it is obvious and anyone who does that to a nice girl deserves to pay.
It makes me think of your students and their sense of fairness. What happens to that when we grow up? I’ll tell you. The system tries to make everything fair for everyone supposedly. (Tell that to the blacks.) You do something bad you go to jail you learn your lesson. That’s the fairy tale. Nobody in here is learning about fairness. Everything that happens to you in here reminds you that the world is unfair. Who should be surprised that people don’t play by the rules when they get out? I’ve got a lot of ideas about life. I’m not just some criminal. But I meant to talk about your kids. What if you could sic your kids on your ex? I bet a large group of kids could tear apart an adult man easy. That would be fair.
No religious books.
I keep picturing my arm around your waist. I remember being on the outside putting my arm around my girl’s waist and not thinking a thing about it. Now I would give up my right ear.
Send me another picture. Nothing naked—they don’t allow us porn here and it will get confiscated and end up in some guard’s collection.
Yours too
HJR