I feel like a different person, and it’s all cause of you. Or no, it’s more that I feel like I wasn’t anybody before and I’m somebody now, a real guy with a real way of talking and real shit he likes to talk about and real stuff he likes to do, a guy worth somebody else’s time. I guess part of this whole thing could be that I like how much you like me. It’s not even a… a self thing, shit, it’s hard to explain. I guess I just didn’t think someone like you would ever be a someone I was supposed to fucking encarcerate. I still can’t really make that jump in my head, because for all your talk of cutting off fingers, and your Jack and your Red Apples and your rap sheet that I know you’ve got because I swear you’re almost proud of it, you’re still a fucking gentleman. I can’t figure you out and it’s driving me insane. God, I must sound like it, too, because I’m also pretty sure you’re what I’ve been missing for 29 years.

(Is that older than you thought I was? Have I told you my age by the time you’re reading this? If I have, fucking great, but I just hope you haven’t stopped calling me “kid.”)

What if somehow I do get the balls to say fuck it to my job, and my future as an upstanding fucking citizen without a criminal record, and just tell you? I mean, whenever you talk about “after,” it gets me excited for a second, Larry, an overwhelming fucking rush like you can’t even imagine, and then I remember who I really am, or who I was or who I’m supposed to be, whatever, and I’m still riding that adrenaline high, thinking about crossing the border with you into Mexico, and I can feel how close I am to letting it spill. But I always, always pussy out. Even if I did tell you, and by some fucking miracle you managed to look past all this for the sake of you and me and whatever the hell we’ve got between us, I’m not positive what we’d do about it.

But you’re a professional. I get the feeling you’d have some ideas.

If you’re reading this letter—I mean I guess there’s a slim chance that when you come by to pick me up for tacos and beer and maybe some pool this afternoon, I let you see my place, then I might tell you, and maybe you won’t shoot me on sight, and maybe you’ll be just as into the idea of saying fuck it all to your job and your loyalty to your friends so you and me can run away to Cancun together. Who the fuck knows. Maybe I’m reading this aloud to you in the car, just across the border, hours before anyone will notice we’re missing, and you’re laughing that amazing fucking laugh at every sentence. More likely you’re in custody and my boss has brought you this because I didn’t make it. I hope you’re the one who shot me, Larry. God knows you’ve fucking earned the right.

And I don’t know if this is gonna help anything, shit, it might make you hate me more, but these past few weeks have been living enough to more than make up for the years of life I’m gonna miss, not to mention all the years I’ve been going around fucking dead inside. Like I’ve been saying, like I’ve been trying to get across, you are without a doubt the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I’ve been lying to you, that I might or might not be a completely different guy than the one you care so much about, that we didn’t meet under better circumstances and talk about Dusty Springfield and the Brewers and Baretta in some other bar in some alternate fucking reality, I’m sorry that you’re in prison because of me, I’m sorry that I couldn’t handle the thought of you looking at me like anything less than the best thing that ever happened to you and that it kept me from telling you when there was still time to do something about it, but Larry, honest to God, none of that comes close to how sorry I am that I never told you how much I fucking love you.

So if I did tell you, and you’re thinking that was bullshit, too—it’s probably the most honest I’ll ever be.

Freddy Newendyke