LETTER TO MIKE
Mike,
Lots of things have been going on, lately, and I have seen you in my dreams here and there. Are we still watching history unfold together? There was a mention in the news about a film being auctioned off last month of Marilyn Monroe blowing some unidentifiable dude. It brought a nice chunk of change, and prompted a reference in the media to an original of the auctioned copy existing in the FBI archives. It was said that Edgar Hoover fervently believed the unidentified male recipient was JFK. It was mentioned in the wire stories that Hoover interviewed many a hooker claiming association with JFK in order to find out if any physical characteristics apparent in the film rang any bells. No pun intended. Mike, I realize you are on familiar terms with Johnny Boy on a daily basis these days, and I can't tell you anything you don't already know. But here, for the record, is my two cents: The BJob recipient in the film is indeed the former president. For a certainty. What other male on the face of the planet Earth would receive a blow job from Marilyn Monroe in front of a camera and HIDE HIS FACE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!. ?. (!). Had to be the President. I think Mr. Rogers would have been leaning down to mug into the camera and do the thumbs up. Reminded me of the time you told me that pictures of J. Edgar blowing some dude in a brunette wig and woman's dress (J. Edgar in a dress -- not the object of his affections) existed, and that J. Edgar spent quite a time trying to track down the original until he became convicted that the number of copies existing rendered the task moot. Lived his life in industrial-strength flinch mode, waiting for the other shoe to drop and the film to surface. I can still see you saying: "Can you imagine? Being some guy in trouble with the Feds? You whip out a picture of 'Debbie' on his knees and DEAL it out onto the table. Trumps every hand the FBI ever held. You say 'I'll see your tax evasion charges and I'll raise you a COPY of this HYEAH!!!!!' And you SPIKE it out on the table."
Only I think when you did it, it was an Arthur Treacher's coupon.
There was a wire story about a shod human foot washing up on the shore in British Columbia. Said it was the fourth human foot to wash up in a little over a year. I might have that interval wrong. All of them right feet. Article quoted some expert as saying that right and left feet tend to wash up differently because of the different shapes. Their trajectory and landing spots will tend to differ, with all the left feet washing up in one general area, and all the right feet washing up in another. How about that? From where you are sitting, does it look as though anyone I am personally associated with would find that information worth filing away for future reference? Please say "no."
I have dreamed about you twice in the last two nights. Both times I felt pity. In one dream, somebody explained to me that you had had Alzheimer's, and I looked over and saw your head and just gazed at it, with a feeling of pity and regret washing up and over me. Don't know what the rest of you was doing -- I only saw your head. Then, last night, I dreamed a haunted house dream of sorts. I had come to a BIG house to visit you, as I understood you were convalescing there, and I wanted to see if it was a good accommodation for you. I visited you in your sick room on the third floor. It was very gloomy in there, and you commented with summoned cheerfulness in a thready voice, that there was something wrong with the room, and that it was weird in there and things moved around on their own. Followed your observation with a breathless little chuckle. Broke my heart. It was as though you were not well there and had so little hope that anybody -- me included -- would go to any trouble for you, that your desperate need to be rescued and your sense of personal dignity warred to a draw in those remarks. Say it, but toss it out there like it is no big deal. And pray.
Right now in waking life I seem to have walking pneumonia or something similar, so that might explain the weird dreams. And the sweaty fog is more than any but the hardiest details can fight their way through, so this should be a vague letter. GET OUT OF THAT ROOM AND CLIMB A TREE WITH BOB! Don't let's meet in that house anymore. I don't like it there, either. The next time you appear in my dreams, I want you ruddy-cheeked from all the fresh air and frivolity.
Here is a mystery for you to smugly understand better than I do:
A West Virginia woman died this week of two heart attacks in a row. For seventeen hours, she had no heartbeat, no respiration, no brainwaves, and her body entered rigor mortis. Then a nurse leaned over her and said "I am so sorry." And she answered "That is alright, Honey." And she was back. She is recovering nicely, AND the doctors say the blockage has disappeared. Talk about a miracle. Can you IMAGINE someone as overworked as a nurse finding the resources to exhibit such compassion and respect? Leaned over the long dead body and expressed some regret directly to the departed.
The nurse who worked the compression bag on you in your final moments here was making personal observations about you. She knew you were human and she was human, too. Her name is Jean. But I guess you had places to be........
Wow. Her blockages disappeared. Sensational.
Do you remember that nun I told you about with the mushrooms? Supposedly true story, discovered in some reputable source or other than cannot pierce my cough-too-much-headache. She so excelled at her very first assignment as a nun -- tending the convent garden -- that it became her permanent charge. For all the years of her life, such loveliness and health and juiciness and brightness poured out of that garden, that multiple generations of nuns were truly spoiled in their eating habits. Incredible fruits, and vegetables. Arrays of herbs and spices. Then one day, the simple country girl tasted mushrooms for the first time and was transported with pleasure. She instantly endeavored to grow mushrooms in her garden. And failed. She tried everything. She tried again and again. She tried over by the wall. She tried under the plum tree. She tried outside the garden. She tried this and that and year after year. She craved and craved. And. They. Would. Not. Grow. No mushrooms. It was a bitter disappointment and a startlingly ironic bit of crappiness to be dealt out to one who had given such joy to so many through her hard work and genius for cultivations.
At last, she died. The nuns, never so certain and resolute in the rightness of a decision, buried her in a shady corner of her garden. And the next year, her grave was blanketed with mushrooms. And every year since. Fever fogs my recall of the nun's name or the convent's location, but I have always been quizzical on this anecdote. Because I could not decide how to interpret the event. What did it mean for the mushrooms to come after she was gone? Was it some cosmic and nasty joke from a universe saying NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH? Or, was it her way of saying "Take heart. All joy awaits that may elude us here."?
Found some bits of home movie on a DVD in my mailbox last week, apparently sent by the one who stole all your writings, although I did not recognize the handwriting on the package as such. In much of the DVD, I was filming you. At one point, you walked into Mom's living room and I followed you in out of the bright sunlight. I said "You have disappeared into the dark living room, now. Seriously, I can barely make you out. You are just a Murky Shadow Creature at this point." And you said:
"Aw, Honey -- That's all I ever was anyhow."
Too cute. Also in the package was a CD with a label that says it is some story or something written by you. I have been too under the gun to even pop in the CD and look at it as yet, but I am hoping it will provide more material for your blog.
Sorry this one was all from me with so little word from you. You just had been writing me that longlong letter for so many months in a row, I felt I owed you one. So I started with blow jobs and meandered on to dead nuns and what kind of letter would it be if I hadn't? Now, I recover and get on top of the CD and my little box of letters, and find out what you'll have to say next month.
Love Your Inhaler-Head
(Editor, May 2008)