LUDIC LOG

Dear Dr. Graves

Well I done like you said. I told them boys from the Aryan Nations where they can stick it. As you ought to be able to tell from the fact that Im sending this from the infirmary it didnt work out so great. You remember that book you give me to read about how men is weak and thats why they behave thus in crowds? They didnt seem too weak when they put that bar to my head I tell you what. I try and tell my self they was cowards because of what they did and it just goes to show how Im better off without them but knowing how much they was cowards dont make it hurt no less when I turn my head.

Anyhow as you can see Im gonna have to miss our next few sesions while Im laid up. But dont you worry about that because I think I can figure out what your gonna ask me and I can save you the trouble of comin all the way out here because I know how you told me you hate the commute. I feel for you Dr. Graves believe me I do.

Heres how I figure it. I figure the first thing your gonna ask me is how do I feel about what I done? Well let me tell you: I feel like Im shrinking. I know a lot of guys would say hell Billy Lynn you aint shrinking, any fool can see your a bigger man since you went inside. But you aint like those dummies Dr. Graves, you was never one to take things literal minded. You know that Im talking about something inside when I say Im shrinking. And just like always your right.

See, being inside, its kinda like living in a neighborhood where you cant move out. And people come and go, I already seen it happen to me a million times only the six long I been in here. You try not to get too attached to people but the human mind dont like to be lonely. A man needs companionship or else he goes crazy and I dont want to end up crazy. Theres plenty of people on the outside said I musta been crazy from the get go to do what I done to get sent here and I dont want to make them into truth tellers. Also I seen too many times what happens when a fella goes crazy in here, it aint too pretty Dr. Graves.

So your whole world, its like this little neighborhood and every time you lose somebody whether they go back outside or something happens to them or they go crazy or get sick or you have a fallin out or whatnot, that neighborhood gets a little smaller. And since that neighborhood is you, well its really you whos gettin smaller. And eventually theres just as many people around town as there was before but you dont know none of em and theres a bunch of people you cant talk to and a bunch of places you cant go. And it dont matter, the whys and the wherefores, only that your neighborhood has done got so small that pretty soon all thats left is you.

Now I know you tole me a million times how I aint the same person. And thats fine because I dont wanna be. And that the person I am now, he dont supposed to hang around with them boys because they racist and violent and thats all a reminder of the Billy I was and not the Billy I ought to become. And thats all right, I dont got an argument against that. But them boys, they was what you might call my closest neighbors. They lived right next door you might say. Maybe I was right to be rid of them. And maybe they was right to give me a beatin, I dont know. All I know is that they was on the side of the devil, and that I stand to be rid of all what the devil brought me. So I moved to a different part of the neighborhood.

Now I done shrunk a little more. And I guess I got you to thank for that, Dr. Graves.

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Sorry for the delay in today's entry. As punishment, I sentence myself to receive your entries for the first annual Ludic Log Reader Participation Event. E-mail me diary entries by a member of the Bush administration so I can post them here, already.