New York, NY 10017
Dear Designated Jew,
Did you think I had forgotten you? I bet you did. Well, I didn’t. A man doesn’t forget the thief who rejected his book after stealing all of the good parts. And how you tried to discredit me. I wonder how you will look with your penis in your ear. Ha-ha. (But not a joke)
I am coming for you, “big boy.”
Major General Anthony R. Hecksler (Ret.)
P.S. Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I am coming to castrate.
A Designated Jew.
M.G.A.R.H. (Ret.)
MAILGRAM FROM MR. JOHN KENTON TO RUTH
TANAKA
MS. RUTH TANAKA
10411 CRESCENT BOULEVARD
LOS ANGELES, CA 90024
MARCH 10, 1981
DEAR RUTH
THIS IS PROBABLY PRIMO STUPIDO BUT PARANOIA BEGETS PARANOIA AND I STILL CAN’T RAISE YOU. FINALLY GOT PAST THAT BLANK-BLANK ANSWERING MACHINE THIS MORNING TO YOUR ROOMMATE WHO SAID SHE HADN’T SEEN YOU LAST TWO DAYS. SHE SOUNDED FUNNY. I HOPE ONLY STONED. CALL ME SOONEST OR I’LL BE KNOCKING ON YOUR DOOR THIS WEEKEND. LOVE YOU.
JOHN
March 10, 1981
Dear John,
I imagine — no, I know — you must be wondering why you haven’t heard from me much over the last three weeks. The reason is simple enough; I’ve been feeling guilty. And the reason I am writing now instead of calling is that I am a coward. Also I think, although you may not believe me when you read the rest of this, which is the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write, because I love you very much and want so much not to hurt you. All the same I suppose this will hurt and knowing I can’t help it makes me cry.
John, I’ve met a man named Toby Anderson and have fallen head over heels in love with him. If it matters to you — and it probably won’t — I met him in one of the two English Restoration drama courses I’m taking. I held him off as best as I could for a long time — I very much want and need you to believe that — but by mid-February I just couldn’t hold him off any longer. My arms got tired.
The last three weeks or so have been a nightmare for me. I don’t really expect you to sympathize with my position, but I hope you’ll believe I am telling the truth. Although you’re on the east coast and I’m three thousand miles away on the west, I felt as if I were sneaking around on you. And I was. I was! Oh, I don’t mean in the sense that you might come home early from work one night and find me with Toby, but I felt terrible all the same. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t do my yoga positions or the Jane Fonda Workout. My grades were slipping, but to hell with the grades — my heart was slipping.
I’ve been ducking your calls because I couldn’t bear to hear your voice — it seemed to bring it all home to me — how I was lying and cheating and leading you on.
It all came to a head two nights ago when Toby showed me the lovely diamond engagement ring he had bought for me. He said he wanted me to have it and he hoped I wanted to take it, but he said he couldn’t give it to me even if I did until I talked or wrote to you. He’s such an honorable man, John, and the irony is that under different circumstances I am sure you would like him very much.
I broke down and cried in his arms and before long his tears were mingled with mine. The upshot of it all was me saying I would be ready for him to slip that gorgeous love-ring on my finger by the end of the week. I think we are going to be married in June.
You see that in the end I took the coward’s way out, writing instead of phoning, and it’s still taken me the last two days to get this much down — I’ve cut every class and have practically put down roots in the library karel where I should be studying for a Transformational Grammar prelim. But to hell with Noam Chomsky and deep structure! And although you may not believe this either, each word of the letter you’re reading has been like a lash across my heart.
If you want to talk to me, John — I’d understand if you didn’t but you may — you could call me in a week… after you’ve had a chance to think all this over and get it into some kind of perspective. I am so used to your sweetness and charm and kindness, and so afraid you’ll be angry and accusatory — but that is up to you and I’ll just have to “take you as you are,” I suppose. But you need that time to cool off and settle down, and I need some time, too. You should receive this on the eleventh. I’ll be in my apartment from seven to nine-thirty on the nights of the eighteenth through the twenty-second, both expecting your call and dreading it. I won’t want to speak to you before then, and I hope you understand — and I think maybe you will, you who were always the most understanding of men in spite of your constant self-deprecation.
One other thing — both Toby and I are in agreement about this: don’t take it in your head to just suddenly jump on a plane and “wing your way into the golden west”—I wouldn’t see you if you did. I’m not ready to see you face to face, John — my feelings are still too much in flux and my self-image too much in a state of transition. We will meet again, yes. And dare I say that I even hope you will come to our wedding? I must dare, as I see I have written it down!
Oh, John, I do love you, and I hope this letter has not caused you too much pain — I even hope God has been good and you may have found your own “somebody” in the last couple of weeks — in the meantime, please know that you will always (always!) be somebody to me.
My love,
Ruth
PS — And although it is trite, it is also true: I hope we can always be friends.
interoffice memo
TO: Roger Wade
FROM: John Kenton
RE: Resignation
I’ve been a trifle formal here because this really is a letter of resignation, Roger, memo form or no. I’ll be leaving at the end of the day — will, in fact, begin cleaning out my desk as soon as I’ve finished this. I’d rather not go into my reasons — they are personal. I realize, of course, that leaving with no prior notice is very bad form. Should you choose to take the matter up with the Apex Corporation, I would be happy to pay a reasonable assessment. I’m sorry about this, Roger. I like and respect you a great deal, but this simply has to be.
From John Kenton’s diary
March 16, 1981
I haven’t tried to keep a diary since I was eleven years old, when my Aunt Susan — dead lo these many years — gave me a small pocket diary for my birthday. It was just a cheap little thing; like Aunt Susan herself, now that I think about it. I kept that diary, off and on (mostly off) for almost three weeks. I might not get even that far this time, but it doesn’t really matter. This was Roger’s idea, and Roger’s ideas are sometimes good.
I’ve junked the novel — oh, don’t think I did anything melodramatic like casting it into the fire to commemorate the spontaneous combustion of My First Serious Love; I’m actually writing this first (and maybe last) entry in my diary on the backs of the manuscript pages. But junking a novel doesn’t have anything to do with the actual pages, anyway; what’s on the pages is just so much dead skin. The novel actually falls apart inside your head, it seems, like the parson’s wonderful one-hoss shay. Maybe the only good thing about Ruth’s cataclysmic
