tuesday

In suite 513, a man named Gordon sat at his dining room table opening that day’s mail. Without checking the envelope he began reading aloud a letter to his captive audience, a ten-week old boxer named Monty. The puppy sat in the middle of the room, ears perked up, listening attentively. Immediately, Gordon realized that the letter was delivered to him accidentally and should have gone to a neighbor instead, but as he had nothing else to read, he carried on regardless, amused by the scribble.

This is what Monty heard:


Hi Jake,

It’s been a weird day. I couldn’t have predicted this. Initially, I wanted to spend the evening having dinner then checking out that flick with Alan, since he’s in town, but… he never got back to me. I guess he’s busy with his dad. So then I figured since I had the evening free I’d just go to the gym, come home and watch my meditation tapes…two months behind… Well! Talking to Jack earlier in the day, he brought up that we should drink wine and finally get working on our project! That sounded perfect! Move forward…no matter what! So. I get home, eager to get stared, and what happens? I have a flat tire. How irritating! I know how to change my tire and I try, but my iron seems too small. I bike it to the hardware store and the guy argues with me then tries to sell me some ninety-dollar wrench! Not what I want. Finally it occurs to me that I should have called the roadside assistance program I pay for each month!! He comes and pulls my hubcap off with no effort and turns my bolts. Damn it. I could’ve done that! I felt foolish. But in the end Jack and I finally worked on the project! This truly was the beginning of everything we’ve talked about for months now…in one of the most fucked up days of the year. It seems it’s meant to be that way. Emotionally, I’ve been all over the place today. In my last letter I mentioned that… guy to you… We are sort of in a limbo state and I don’t know what I should be feeling. Grief? Or hope? Either way, I know in my gut it will work out for the best, but like I said…I’m not done with him. Can him and I be ‘just’ friends? I don’t know. This is a first for me.

Now it’s pushing midnight. I’m trying to take your advice to sleep more, but it never seems the case. Jack’s left and I am drunk and trying to get my laundry done, but it seems everyone in the building has decided to wash their clothes tonight. Maybe it’s some sort of purge brought on by the moon? Saturn? By Jupiter, that wonderful planet which keeps promising such exciting things…? Who knows? Sometimes I wish I really could place responsibility on astrology, or outer space…for the things I feel, and the things I say, and the things I do….

…the thoughts that fuck up my mind.

In the morning, I now must take my car in to get the tire repaired. Once again I have to get up early and be at the shop before work. This is something I definitely could not have foreseen, and definitely something that cuts into my plan of getting a sound sleep, something that seems to have been lacking for weeks now. How am I ever to make sense of anything this way? Times like this, I really wish I had a good cuss in our foreign tongue! Fuck! What am I to do? I can’t tell you, Jake, how much I am looking forward to unemployment….

And all I really want, of course, is for a certain someone to call. Just to say ‘hi.’ Just to shoot the breeze for a bit and show me he does actually think of me in the middle of the night.

Alas! Such is not so. I know he’s busy tonight anyway. I must dry these wine-stained tears and sign my name before those voices leave me convinced love is nothing but a tragic curse.
I’ll never get any sleep then!

Till next time,
Your ‘wounded’ cousin…


Gordon looked up from the letter and stared straight ahead. Only after a few minutes was he interrupted from his thoughts by the buzzer. Someone was at the door and he rose to find out whom.


Ldm