Fuck, look out how many words I’ve crossed out! It’s like I’m still trying to impress you or something, even after I bite the dust, that’s how fucking stupid you’ve made me! Anyway, yeah. I’ve been lying to you, and I had to tell you know. I like to think that if I make it out of the day of the job alive, I’ll come talk to you in person before I disappear into witness protection. I like to think that I’m at least that kind of guy. But honest to God, I got no idea what kind of a guy I am anymore.

I know you think cops are the scum of the earth, but you can appreciate a guy who does his job and does it like a professional, right? Well I can’t even say I do that anymore, Larry. They could fire me a million times, shit, they could fucking arrest me, and it wouldn’t catch up to how far fucking gone I am. I guess it’s good that I don’t have to do any more of this undercover shit because it’s pretty obvious I ain’t cut out for it, at all.

My boss, Holdaway, he wanted to know everything about you. He looked you up, he says that you’re a real big shot they’ve been trying to bust for years up near the Great Lakes. I don’t know why, but something about knowing that gets me real excited, like it all just makes you cooler, or something, and you’re already the coolest guy I think I’ve ever met. Most days I feel fucking buzzed just catching you out of the corner of my eye. Without even drinking, on a scale of professional undercover cop to way-too-drunk-to-function undercover cop, I’m in the fucking danger zone around you. I feel a little drunk telling you this.

Sometimes I think I’m actually crazy, Larry. I probably am.

And I know you’re not gonna want to, not after all this, but believe me, believe me when I tell you that you’re the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me. Maybe I didn’t realize it until last night when you grabbed my arm and told me to come to your place instead. And I don’t know, maybe my life has just been really shitty up till now and you’re a godsend by comparison. I dropped out of college to become a cop, or maybe I became a cop to drop out of college. And they sent me to covert ops training because the one thing I fucking excel at is going unnoticed. That’s about it for natural talent. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound terrific.

You know what, I fucking hated it. I hated it, and I hated myself, hated the guys I work for—used to think my boss was cool, tried pretty hard to impress him, but fuck em all, Larry. I can’t see why I thought it appealed to me.

I mean, I don’t want to see people get hurt. I feel better about myself when I know I’ve done something that stopped some innocent kid from eventually taking a bullet. Maybe that’s where you and me are different? But I’m not even sure of that anymore. The harder I try to distinguish between my job and yours, between me and you, the more alike they seem. We seem, I guess.

Being with you, even stupid shit like you talking sports and me talking comics, even if I’m not feeling drunk with giddiness one hundred percent of the time, I’m always happy. As long as I’m not thinking about the job. Always. It’s stupid, it’s so stupid, Larry, but a couple of times I’ve even forgotten I’m undercover, I’ve really thought that I’m a novice fucking jewel thief about to pull a huge job and get away with it. Maybe you think I’m just kissing your ass saying all this, but think about it: now, with you reading this, what the fuck have I got to lose? Jesus, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about anymore.

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