epilog
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - – - - - -– tell the rest
I would tell the rest, but there isnt anymore to tell. i mean i jusgot here.
now, i know i mightof been a bit too honest about some peeple, maybe
even exagerated a litle for efect, and as i think i warnd you, conversations
are reconstructed anyway. but before anybody takes ofence, i wana put it
out there that i love evryone a those fuckers i told you about. evry last
one of em. even the assholes. i wana sqeez em til their eyes popout their
heads, eat their faces like that monkey travis.
and its not like you could do anything about it anyway,
now that i m—
dead. its still hard to say, so i ll say it again for practice.
dead. i am dead. we are dead. we all are. my friends, my peeps, evrybody
i know excepfor my mother.
but i dont feel dead.
the enem aitch yall, neutch milk heavn. i never
knew you could love a town the way you do a person. thats one of a
million things ive learnd since i got here, am learnin will learn, so many
things that i m temted to say i never understood it at all before—you
know, life love etcetera—but thatd be a bit hyperbolic.
i ll tell you this— i talk to my mother
evry day now. sometimes twice a day. i actualy crave talkin to the bitch
[ sory mama, if your lissnen ] any place that does that to a son must hav
some redeemin qualities.
and yes,
i miss claire, i miss the fuck outof her, altho
i lose her face a litlebit evryday. and gabe, babygabe, the son i will
never know—here i go craffin again—he will, i expect, growup to be a
wonderful soul without the asistance of my deadass, buzzard-atractin
carcass that i am to him now or soon willbe, just a patch of grass
with a stone by it.
i say it like ive been there and seen it. i havent. i m usin my imagination. it is possibl to goback. we call it haunting. its frownd upon over here as much as it is over there, maybe moreso. and not very efectiv either, unless your goal is to torture yourself and your loved ones for years to come.
so, no— i havent been back, i dont plan to, altho i would giv my left testicle to see claire one more time, maybe throw in halfa the right one if you plop gabe into the picture. i m not bein metaforical yall, i m bout ready to hav em choptoff anyway, but i wish—
see, that was one a those places where you pretend to stop yourself but realy you wana say it, so here it is—
i wish you could tell claire what i told you. the whole
ridiculus thing, begining to end.
but like i said, upon further reflection that wouldbe
a horrible idea. and you probly dont know her anyway.
but if you do, dont letter know you talkd to me.
or, if you hafta say somethin, can you please
just say two things for me? one, i love you, i will never stop loving you,
and two, its ok to go on without me.
just say that and nothin else ok? even if
she begs. i dont want her freakin out or anything. plus she’d never believ
you anyway. trust me— i know claire.