Punkzilla (19 page)

I wound up getting on another Greyhound P. It was one that left from this part of Joliet called Shorewood. I had to take a cab to the pickup place. Long story short my bus gets into Memphis at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I guess that’s pretty funny right me being on another Greyhound?

Anyway I wanted to let you know that I’m definitely heading south on Interstate 55 and writing this letter has kept my head together.

I know I’m a pretty fucked-up person for saying this P but I hope some bad shit happens to Kent like maybe he’ll get his ass kicked or maybe he’ll lose his wallet somewhere or maybe he’ll have a head-on collision with some semi and his LeBaron will wind up looking like a smashed Coke can.

Anyway I’m finally getting close to Memphis and I’ll be fifteen the day after tomorrow and I can’t wait to see you.

March 15, 2008

Dear Albertina,

I have your hairbrush and some of your hair.

I’m on a Greyhound bus heading to Memphis.

I just wanted to tell you I love you.

Someday I will find your address and send this letter to you and your hairbrush too.

March 22, 2008

Dear P,

I got to Memphis 6 days ago.

You are dead and I can’t believe how shitty this world is.

I’m sorry P.

I’m so sorry I didn’t make it sooner. There are tears all over this notebook but I tried my best I really did.

When the bus got in I took a cab to your address and I knocked on the door and Jorge answered and there were these three hospice nurses and they were gathering in your kitchen and discussing some intense stuff. They were all really nice but I liked the black one Willie best. She had a nice smile and she was pretty and talked to me more than the other two. She told me what was going on with your body and how your liver was failing and how the toxicity in your system was at a peak which meant your other internal organs were going to start failing and how your heart would stop and it was like she was talking about a body not a person or maybe even a car or a washing machine or something but she was mad sensitive about it too. She sat with me at the kitchen table and Jorge was there too.

I was so exhausted I slept through most of my fifteenth birthday not that that even matters at this point.

When I finally woke up I pretty much hung out with you in your hospice room and read you some of these letters I’ve been writing because Jorge said you could still hear us and that it made you feel loved and I let him listen to them too and he laughed a lot and kept saying I was crazy but in a nice way and sometimes he left me alone with you too.

Your hospice room was really nice P. Jorge put some of his paintings up like the one of the boy in the wolf costume that you loved so much and the one of the diner with the couple kissing and the tornado in the background and he set up all these old photos of you doing your plays and ones of you and him on some road trip you took to Vermont like in little diners and at this weird taco place in Connecticut that’s like a haunted house.

And there were copies of your plays on this table near the bed. I had no idea you wrote so many plays P! I counted eighteen of them! Eighteen plays P! You were like Shakespeare! That’s so many plays!

Jorge gave me one that wasn’t in the pile too. It’s called Ice and Water and he said it’s about two brothers who go ice fishing on a frozen lake. I can’t wait to read that P. I know it will be amazing.

The memorial service was yesterday. It was in this little cemetery in Memphis not far from the Wolf River. Mom and the Major and Edward and Aunt Julie and Grandma Beauty were there but they never saw me. I think Cornelia Zenkich was there too because I think she’s dating Edward now but I didn’t recognize her. She looked way too clean like she was in a Disney movie or something.

Even though you chose to be cremated Jorge made this little wooden bench for you and everyone gathered around it while Jorge and a few of your friends from your theater group made a circle around the bench and sang some songs and talked about you.

I was really far away like up on this hill and behind a tree with a bunch of birds and tombstones so I couldn’t really hear what anyone was saying. The Major was wearing his dress greens and Mom was wearing a black dress with a veil and she was holding flowers and she kept wiping her face with a tissue and E was in a nice suit with a tie and he looked all chiseled like a superhero and Aunt Julie was also wearing a black dress and she was helping Grandma Beauty stand. I think Grandma Beauty was having a hard time with her arthritis or maybe she was just really sad. Jorge was wearing a seersucker suit and a nice old-fashioned hat and he was holding the exact same kind of flowers as Mom and this other guy named Leroy was wearing a black dress too and he was as black as the dress and really tall maybe like six eight or something and mad gay like supergay and you could tell even from the top of the hill and behind that tree where I was hiding that he was making the Major pretty uncomfortable. At one point Leroy went up to him and introduced himself and the Major shook his hand but he was so tense I thought he was going to get stuck like that time his back went out on Christmas Eve and you and Edward had to carry him into his room. The handshake with Leroy was pretty funny P you would have laughed.

I almost came out from behind the tree and walked up to everyone but I couldn’t. I guess I just feel outside of their lives now. Like I’m a ghost. Like I need to live everywhere they’re NOT. Like I can’t ever go back to Cincinnati or my life will get poisoned and I’ll wind up living in the fixed-up basement and I’ll start to fade into the new paneling or something.

But don’t worry P because I’m going to stay with Jorge for a little while and maybe go to school here in Memphis. I’ll probably have to change my name or get a new identity so I don’t come up on some missing-persons computer.

Jorge says he’s going to look out for me. Maybe I’ll just skip school completely and I’ll become a glassblower or I’ll learn how to play the guitar and form that punk band I was telling you about before.

The hospice nurses have been taking all your medical stuff out of your room and Jorge says that that’s where I can sleep if I want. At first I thought maybe it would be all weird and haunted but then I thought that it would be cool if you came and visited me. I mean it would right? Like every few weeks you could just appear as a ghost and we could talk or just hang out and play music for each other.

Anyway I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life P. I wish we could have talked but when I got to your apartment you were already unconscious and man you looked really bad and so skinny like some other version of you like you became a little old man and you didn’t have any hair and you had all these bruises on your sides and spots on your face and it was really painful to see. I don’t think I ever cried so much. I’m going to have to stare at your high school graduation photo that Jorge has hanging in the living room for like a year before I get that other version of you out of my head.

After everyone left the memorial service I came down the hill so I could see the bench and like talk to you a little. The bench has this little brass plate on it with your name and “POET OF THE THEATRE” under it and the dates that you were alive which seems really short for a life P. Twenty-seven years is not that many but Jorge pointed out that that’s how old Kurt Cobain was when he died and Janis Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix and this other English songwriter guy Nick Drake who Jorge said you were really getting into before you died. Jorge said he would burn me a CD of his stuff.

I know you’ll never get this last letter but maybe you can hear it somehow. Like maybe your soul gets more power after you die or like the words find your ghost or maybe you’ll just hang out on the bench every so often which is a nice idea because it’s pretty here in this cemetery with all the trees and the tombstones. There is this old man on a riding mower and he just looked over and waved and it’s spring so you can smell the grass and the buds in the trees and you can even smell the Wolf River a little. It’s getting to that point where you don’t have to wear a jacket anymore.

And by the way Jorge said I could use some of your clothes so I’m wearing this old Lou Reed T-shirt of yours right now as I’m writing this on your bench. I’m wearing that with my hoodie and a new pair of New Balances that Jorge bought me the other day. The T-shirt’s big on me but I’ll grow into it at some point.

So that’s all for now P. Maybe I’ll write you again when I figure out what I’m going to do. I’ll be staying in your room and feeding Carlos the Cat and keeping his litter box clean and I might go back on my medication because Jorge thinks it will help me focus while I figure out what’s next.

I might also try and get in touch with Albertina at some point but in some ways that whole experience feels sort of like a dream like one of those perfect dreams that could never be experienced in real life so I’m not sure I want to mess with it.

I’m so sorry you got sick P. You didn’t deserve it. Jorge says you were so brave and I need some of that kind of courage I really do but I’ll get there someday.

December 2, 2007

Dear P,

Hey big bro. You’re probably surprised and shit to hear from me huh? I’m worried that you won’t ever get this letter because maybe you moved somewhere else like away from Memphis like maybe you’re in Athens Georgia with that theater company who paid you to write that play about those nuns who got raped or maybe you’re in Puerto Rico with Jorge’s family.

I wanted to let you know that since the last time we spoke on the phone I went AWOL and I mean AWOL as in permanently. Buckner Military Academy has seen the last of me. The Buckner Bison can kiss my skinny ass good-bye.

I’m not going to tell you where I am because I don’t want anyone to know especially Mom and the Major and Edward too. Not that you would nark on me. I just don’t want there to be any evidence.

Here’s a hint. You could call it P-town but nobody actually calls it that. Here’s another hint and it’s a harder one because you don’t know anything about sports. It’s where the Trail Blazers play. The Trail Blazers are a basketball team and they’ve been really bad for a long time but they’re starting to be pretty good again and everyone here wears Trail Blazers puffy coats and baseball hats and it’s like a religion here.

Anyway I just wanted to say hi and let you know that I’m okay even though I ran out of my medication and that’s starting to make me tense. There’s this kid I met who has ADD too but he doesn’t take Ritalin he takes this other stuff called Dexadrim so I might be able to use his stuff for a little while.

How are things with you? How’s Jorge? Is he still painting murals? Is he still shaving his head? How are your performance pieces going? Aren’t they called monologues? Is that a play too? Or a drama or whatever?

Just so you know I’m not in school right now which is fun. I realize I am digging my own grave by not taking my medication and being a truant (that’s the official word right?) but I’m learning a lot about the world and about life in general. And I’m meeting chicks which wasn’t happening at all at Buckner. I’m mostly hanging out at night and making some money and trying to stay out of trouble meaning away from the cops.

Shit! I just realized that you can’t write back to me unless I tell you where I am. Okay so P-town is Portland Oregon NOT PORTLAND MAINE and I’ll write the address on the back of the envelope but don’t show anyone this letter. You should maybe burn it after you copy the address down. Seriously burn it P.

Sometimes I’m so fucking stupid.

Hope you have a nice Christmas with Jorge. Did you get a tree? Do you guys still have Carlos?