O'Dell
Mood:  bright
Topic: Letters to Real People


Dear Courtland,

Not that it's much to do about anything, but you are in the war. You are in it. I can't believe it. I can't believe you are in Baghdad, in the history of these things being made, in the training of police, the eating of the beef tips and the like. That is you over there, whom I haven't seen in at least 4 years.

I just finished with a reading. That is what I have in comparison to Baghdad. In the latest picture I have, you are holding a chihuahua and your own head is shaved. Cody is getting married?

I feel the war not so often in Arizona. Every now and then, when Cheney comes to town for a fundraiser, I will feel the war, maybe with a single man on a sidewalk with a sign that says something about lies. Maybe that man has a big dog with him. That is the ripple of the war into my life. Of course there's television but I stay away from it, not because I fear inaccuracy or desire to transcend it.

The war here, nesting in the hearts of people connected to other people. The war here is me thinking of you and hoping you don't do anything heroic, that you just do your job and stay low.

It must sound stupid me saying that. The directionality of my language may have nothing to do with your situation. My concern is your protection, though I should be concerned with the safety of civilians and innocents, who may die everyday without coverage.

Do you remember when that man approached you in the mall and offered you a job as his bodyguard or something? That sort of thing happens to you. It doesn't to me. I never have the right shirt on. Often, I am asked to exit the photograph to clear the way for you. You are the right man in most instances.

You saw my picture and told your mother I was going through my hippie stage. I wonder. You may be right.
Though my hair is short now and the beard shortened.
I am unemployed and fairly ridiculous to look at in the mornings. I talk to my dog steadily throughout the day, which seems like a hippie thing to do. You may be right. It made me think of that time we visited Cody in the hospital and you lightly touched his face to wake him. The first thing he said: "Courtland, I hate you. You said it wouldn't hurt."

You were even the right man then, though you lied about the tonsils. For a while, Cody was off meat because of deer hunting. I smelled the firewood in the garage and it made me think that was the smell of the ranch. Was I wrong? Does it puzzle you that I rattle off these obscurities as if they connect with you? I mean the assurance, my self-assurance. Is it too much?

Did you know Andy Hagee got married? That Joel Mulkey is engaged and so is Laneice? That we are all heading into something, some building we've never been in. What is the nature of our connection now? Just old times?

A few months ago, I ran across an article about your great-grandfather's dry goods store. I wish I could have seen it. Your dad, driving me home and listening to Zane Grey audiobooks. It was nice, being in Uvalde, seeing that life. And now I'm trying to peer in at what you're doing, maybe even who you are. How does it change you? Is your sense of humor more brash? I imagine you still smile a lot, rakishly.

How weird it was to be eating with you and Laneice at Rooster's. I was with Jen. That wasn't even that long ago. You lived in Tulsa. I still can't believe that. The praying hands. The service in two languages, that's what stays with me from Uvalde. The interminable speaking and of course the river with the fish darting around and the immigrant caves.

I have driven across Texas many times since then. Many times. I drove to Austin this March. I thought about you when I was near Uvalde, how you were my best friend, how I gave you a little blue plane with propellors in your room upstairs and how we hid from Toby when he came around, how Willie Mae made sure we didn't have to see him. How Cody complained about the broken toys and how we walked on the high walls. How you met someone named Dawn at camp and how I met someone named Dawn in Arizona.

I can only have a finite number of thoughts about you, because of the time off. They feel numbered at this point, and feeling numbered is a particularly effective mode of production.

Fraternity is something I look out for. It's hard when you don't have that, having had it so long. Some people can't be brothers once they're married. That is the truth. One role forfeited for another. My suspicion is that fraternity is a heavy expense at this point in life and that it comes roaring back later, in the loose years, between the recession and the crisis.

My dad is desperate in these terms, sometimes driving an hour just to feel the part. I don't know how far I would drive, yet. You drove down for my graduation and stood with me in a strange kitchen, while they were giving me grief about the length of my speech.

Hitting the deer with your jeep. Jumping off a cliff. Joining the army. This is a progression in my mind, based on where I have and have not been. I have been inside a pool company, I have been standing over a paper cutter, I have been in front of people, reading various poems, I have been monsooned and I have heard about disaster. I have raised funds and edited rants.
I have written things and I have sewn things and that's about it. I have even taught people how to write. And any sense of pride in any experience seems not so much associated with the task performed or the results achieved, as the passing of feelings the weathering of those feelings, the idea of survival as it unfolds inside a person. How many times that has unfolded for you and whether or not there is some acceleration due to circumstances, that is something to consider. Please be safe.