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michaels-blackhat · 1 year ago

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Updates to Dear M--!

I posted 4 new chapters for Dear M--, covering all of 2017!

Sent: January 1st, 2017 From: [Redacted] Dear M–, It’s weird to write that, but it’s also weird to be writing a letter to my Mom after all this time. I hope this is the right address. Greg said it was. I emailed him. The card probably looks weird too, but I’m not at the Brandenburg Gate, I just picked up a big pack of cheap cards the last time I was in Germany. I got recommended for the Air Medal and my commander said he would send a letter notifying my family about it, but I couldn’t think of anyone to send it to. My next of-kin contact form is blank now. If you get this, let me know, and I’ll have him send it to you, if that’s ok? I didn’t just pick up writing postcards randomly. I had someone I was writing to for, God, for years now. Every little thing that happened in my day, I would think ‘should I put this in the letter’? And every letter I’d get back, I liked to think the writer was thinking that too, multiple times a day, just, thinking of me. That’s where the postcards were from. Why I bought them. I’d use those if I didn’t have a lot to say, to save on postage, I guess. I used to write letters too. Pages and pages and pages, all in a shoebox back in my storage locker in Idaho. I always started them “Dear M–” and so when I sat down to write this to you, that’s what came out. Sorry if that’s weird. It’s just, I have all of this love left over and nowhere for it to go. I can’t write who I was writing. Not anymore. But I don’t have anyone else to tell about my day. My life. My guys live through it with me every day, they don’t need to hear me bitch about it at night too. That’s where I’d write, am writing. Before dinner, I’d take a walk, in whatever place I was. Around the barracks, around the base in Kunsan or Warner-Robins or Mountain Home or wherever. Here I just wander around the trailers we all live in. It’s not much to look at, but it’s what I’ve got. Honestly, this base kind of reminds me of home. Then I come here, sit down on my cot, and start writing. Just a little update, or a question, or some kind of bit we were committed to tossing back and forth. It just seemed so normal. Then it didn’t. I should ask how you are, because I do want to know. I want to know how you’ve spent the last decade and a half, what your favorite flowers on the rez are, how many people you can fit into your house (Greg said you had a house?). Anything you want to tell me about your life and how you’re living, I want to know. Your son, Alex PS: Sorry there’s so many cards in this one envelope, once I started I couldn’t seem to stop and I didn’t want to use up 15 postcard stamps.

–

Sent: January 15th, 2017 From: Shiprock, Dinétah Dear Alex, It is so good to hear from you. Greg had asked if he could share my address, and I was glad to give it. I have missed you more than my bones could stand every day. I regret that I didn’t know how to reach out. But you did, and for that I’m grateful. Now, you didn’t ask why I left, why I didn’t take you with me, why I didn’t come back to get you when I heard what he was doing to you. I’ll tell you if you ask. I’ll answer direct questions honestly. But I won’t dump all over you. So, you asked how I was. I’m good. As good as any of us are after what happened to us all on November 8th. I’m glad I don’t work for the feds, having to walk by that man’s face every day for the next 4 years, I don’t know how I’d stand it. Anyway. I work at the tribal college, tutoring in computer science. Bet you didn’t know your Mom could code! I picked it up after I left, but I’ve always been interested in computers. Having my own space and more time than I knew how to fill after leaving a house full of four growing boys … it made me want to do something that took me away from everything I was worried about or scared over. And it did that. I’m in a stable, fulfilling place in my life. I have friends, a boyfriend who loves me, family all around me. So that’s how I spent the last decade and a half, building my career, teaching hundreds of kids the difference between an array and a hashmap, and developing relationships I could trust and manage. It’s because I work with so many college kids I picked up on the pronoun thing you were doing in the letter. I thought about ignoring it, about dancing around it, but I wanted to say: if you want to tell me the gender of your fellow letter writer, I’ve got a big rainbow pin on my bookbag and have since well before DADT was repealed. Maybe I’m reading you wrong, but I fucking know how he was, and how a lot of folks around here are, but that’s not me. I don’t have an ounce of hate in me for anyone who doesn’t deserve it. So that’s that. My favorite flowers? I’d say the maize flowers in the rock art in Farmington, NM. I love that they look just like the maize today, like we’re all eating the same food. I can fit about 12 in my house, if folks are ok sleeping on the floor. Maybe more if they really like each other. Are you hoping to come visit? You always have a place with me. When Greg was in the Navy, he got R&R over in Italy once. Do you know where you’re going for your next break? More soon, my next student just arrived. — And I should have said, the Air Medal! Congratulations on the recommendation! I would be honored to have the letter, I’ll keep it here for you when you get home. Is there any unclassified version of the story behind it you can tell me? Your Mom, Mindy Begaye

–

January 15th, 2017Sanders’ Auto, Roswell, New Mexico

Michael was shaking as he pounded on the door to Sanders’ trailer. It was too fucking early in the morning but he’d been psyching himself up all night and it was either now or never.

He heard him shuffling to the door before the old man yanked it inwards.

“What’s the goddamned emergency?”

“I need to get out of here. Know anyone who’s hiring a one-handed ranch hand, preferable two to five states away?”

“Come on in, kid –”

“No!” said Michael, throwing his hands up. “If you don’t, it’s fine. I’ll just start driving, I’m sure I’ll see a help wanted sign somewhere between here and the ocean.”

“Which ocean are you aiming for?”

“I don’t know!” Michael ground his palms into his eyes, bending over at the wave of feeling. “I just can’t fucking stay in that Airstream he’s never been to anymore, with all of the postcards and gifts and the fucking lease wrapped in a fucking box with a bow, the fucking lease with only my fucking name on it. Fuck!” He kicked the porch and a nail flew up, landing in the gray-yellow dust.

Sanders gave him a long look. He stepped back into his trailer and slammed the metal door in Michael’s face.

Michael’s breath caught in his chest, strangling him before it could get either to his brain or his lungs. Was this it, had he finally pushed the button that drove Sanders away, where would he go –

The door swung open again, and Sanders was holding an unaddressed white envelope, half-crumpled in his fist. He shoved it toward Michael.

“Here.”

Michael didn’t move. He stared at Sanders’ fist, held at chest height, deep creases still greased with motor oil.

The older man shook the envelope, like Michael was a half-tamed dog who needed to be encouraged to come and get a treat.

Slow as breathing, Michael reached out for it.

It had a slick weight he didn’t expect, and when he uncrumpled it, he saw it wasn’t unaddressed. In the old man’s scrawl that he was more used to seeing on parts receipts and the daily chalkboard schedule on the shop wall, he just saw the words, “The Kid.”

“What is this?”

Sanders waved his hand at him to open the damned thing.

He did.

Inside was nearly $3,000 in crumbled and then carefully smoothed out $20s, ragged $50s and a half-torn $100. The rest were more than a few dollar bills, $5s, $10s, and a stubborn nickel backed into the far corner of the envelope.

Michael looked up, a world of questions in his eyes.

Sanders ducked his head, speaking to his boots, “Ever since I knew who you was, I tried to put something away every month. Sometimes it weren’t much, but each month it’s what I could gather.”

“What’s it for?” Michael asked, holding the envelope like a butterfly, a wild frog caught on a school trip, far from the cruel crowds of kids.

“For you, idiot,” Sanders said. “For when you really needed it.” He took a breath. “Look, I don’t know if you intend to stay in this place as long as me, but I never made it more than a few years here without skipping past the county line. Most like as not over into Texas for a day or two in the slow season, just a chance to see a different sky, breathe a different kind of air.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe if I hadn’t met your Mom, I wouldn’t have the need. But I get the travel bug every now and then. And I know you’ve been spending all you could working and alone, and it seems –” He gestured at Michael’s whole hunched over and twisted up being, “Anyway, I suspect now is as good a time as any for you to have some choices you didn’t have to pay for.”

Michael whispered. “I never expected this.”

Walt’s voice was sad. “I know you didn’t, kid. And the money’s yours, just because I would use it to spend a week or two in Waco doesn’t mean you need to.”

“‘Waco’? What the hell’s in Waco?”

Sanders gestured across the entire junkyard. “None of this. That’s the point, to get somewhere-not-here. Well, this year, maybe not Waco. I don’t think I could stand to see that clown on every Fox News-spouting who-knows-what about who-knows-who.” He shook himself. “So, maybe pick a place that’s not as likely to happen, if you’re going to be gone during the inauguration.”

Michael’s voice was small when he said, “What’ll happen if I go? What if I’m the same person when I get there? It’s just a waste of money to be miserable someplace else.”

Sanders shrugged again. “Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. You can always try for a day or two and just come home if you hate it.” He took a breath. “Like I said, it’s your money. But, kid, the thing is –” he seemed to stall out, rocking back on his heels for a second before squaring his shoulders. “I know it’s not just the alien thing that’s a secret you’ve been carrying all these years. Maybe take yourself someplace where you’re – you’re not the only one, you know? Where you can let more of your guard down, see how others make it all work out so that they’re happy.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere he’s been, anywhere we –”

Walt frowned, fingers moving like he was ticking off locations. “Ever been to Memphis?”