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"ARMY OF ONE REPRESENTIN'"
LUDIC LOG
12.23.2004
Darling,
I know that you said you didn't want to see me or hear from me.
But I think this card complies fully with the court's order of
protection, provided I do not hand-deliver it to you. I know it
just looks like a cheap 59-cent greeting card manufactured in 1976 and
purchased from a dusty, underused spin-rack at a truck service center
in rural Nebraska, but to me, it expresses perfectly my feelings at
this, the time of year we are so far apart and should be so close
together.
See the comical drunk on the cover, leering woozily around a lamp-post
and sporting dishevelled pajamas and an ice-bag on his head? That
lovable scamp is me, on Thanksgiving night, and on the seven previous
holidays we've spent together going all the way back to last Halloween,
and also every weekend and Thursday and Monday night for the last two
years. See the nagging wife with her hair up in curlers, stuffed
into a shabby floral-print dress, wielding a rolling pin like some
frightful poleax? That's you, only you're much prettier,
sweetheart. And see the punchline inside, about how I don't have
a drinking problem -- I just drink, get drunk, fall down, and no
problem? That's like our relationship. No problem!
Only now I realize, there is a problem. A big problem. A
problem so important and unique that the spin-rack at the Shoemaker's
Texaco Truck Stop in Roca, NE couldn't even help me. A problem
called me.
Now, it would be easy to place blame. I could, for instance, if I
wanted to, blame you for being less attractive than you ideally could
have been (not that you aren't beautiful!), thus driving me into the
arms of women who care a little more about taking care of
themselves. Or I could blame you for not taking those
self-defense classes you talked about when we were dating, because when
you think about it, whose fault is it, really, that you get beaten
up? Or I could mention how, since you're a teetotaler (some would
say "killjoy", but not me, darling, because I love you), you miss out
on all the hilarious comments I make when I'm drunk. But I'm not
writing you this card with a golf pencil I found in a guy's shoe who
hung himself in our cell to play the blame game. I'm writing you
to say: I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I'm so mean to your children. And my children.
And our children. And the children that are probably ours and
we've given up trying to find out whose exactly is whose and besides, a
welfare check is a welfare check. Just children in general, I
guess. Kids really get on my nerves, but that's no excuse for my
behavior. Although you'd think they'd learn to stay away from me
by now, especially when I'm drunk.
I'm sorry for being so drunk all the time. I can't take all the
blame for this one, since it's my body that's betrayed me by letting
itself get totally polluted off of six beers when it used to take as
many as nine just to get a light buzz on. Is it my fault that
this has happened? Am I to be punished by not being allowed to
drink just because of one little armed robbery? But the fact is,
even though I intend to keep drinking a fifth of rye every twelve hours
doesn't mean you should have to pay for it. I'm sorry for
stealing your diaper money to keep myself in booze; a person who really
cared would steal from strangers, not from his loved ones. Tell
the kids I'm sorry about their lunch money, too. Maybe soften the
blow by mentioning it was top-shelf rye.
I'm sorry for burning your house down. I know what you're
saying: there's no need to apologize for that, it was my house
too. But the fact is, I was deliberately trying to burn down just
your parts of it, because they irritate me so much. It turns out
that you can't really selectively burn a house down, and that the
flames really took to the collection of old tit magazines soaked in
rubbing alcohol that I keep in my tool room, but even if that wasn't
the case, it was wrong to burn down your parts of the house, especially
after you warned me the last six times.
Darling, I'm saying this because I ran into one of the kids --
Mike? Danny? You know, the one with the red hair and the
bucktooth -- when he was being taken to juvie this morning, and he said
that he got busted for trying to hock some of the Christmas
presents. So, sweetheart, love of my life, if there is even a
light chance there are still presents, and an even slighter chance that
some of them are mine, please believe me: I'm sorry. I'm
sorry, I love you, and if you can throw my bail long enough to come
home and open my presents, I promise you I will be a changed man.
Merry Christmas, baby. Please come home. "Home" being, at
the moment, cell 14 of the municipal lockup. Ask for Randy; they
think my name is Randy for the moment.