Letter to Laetitia:
Love Call.
2ba_john_rah_part_06
Truth be known, I don’t like alcohol. I’m not a nondrinker of alcohol, I just don’t usually drink it. I’m convinced that it is a big lie and people like it because they believe everyone likes it. I don’t know, maybe they do. But I don’t see the point of it.
Now I do see the point of a fine wine with a meal or an aperitif, but I don’t eat much either. Don’t see the point. Everyone eats all the time as if they are going to die of starvation. We don’t die of starvation. People who die of starvation haven’t signed the American War Machine contract that equals a loaf of bread for a country.
And I don’t know why people breathe. It’s just one big rip off. We think we are getting air and if is some cheap imitation. It’s not worth it.
"Hello.”
"Moin.”
"Have a nice weekend.”
"Ya, but I want it different now.”
Laetitia, my worst fears have been realized. I have no brilliant ending for your letter.
All my other letters have been to people who were part of my life. Someone I had loved or maybe still do. Friends mostly.
"How many letters?”
"Francisca, Krissy, Eva, Laetitia, that’s only four and if we call Krissy, Kristina, no never mind.”
"Theme quick.”
"A limerick.”
"One, limericks are too silly.”
"Silly is good.”
"We gotta wrap this up some how brilliant.”
There was a small planet in space
With many creatures on its face.
Each somehow the same.
All completely insane.
United toward death did they race.
"Pretty cute, anything sweet?”
Once was a girl named Laetitia
Who aspired to love a Kanadia
In Deutschland he sat
In a hole like a rat
Hiding from the gorillia
The Kanadia, however it’s spelled has to be said in German. Which is.
Which was till I forgot what it.
Maybe I give up. End of writing. Play guitar. Sing nice songs.
Or see what Stan is up to. Where did we leave him.
"Hi Stan.”
"Hello Lisa.”
"A rough night?”
"Does it show?”
"A little.”
Stan suddenly remembered Nikki’s smell. She only had had her own smell. There was nothing to tickle his nose, just soft skin smells. He hadn’t realized how long he hadn’t had skin next to his face that he could smell. This was not good. He couldn’t be thinking of the smell of a woman who he was actually not even sure what role she played in his case.
"I brought a camera.”
"I see that. It’s a nice looking one.”
"It’s very old.”
She was patting Pig. I got the impression she liked Pig more than me. Or she thought he was more to the point.
"Maybe we get a coffee.”
"Would you mind if we got it in an Internet Cafe? I actually have a little work.”
"I don’t want you to hold me from your job.”
"I don’t know what I’m looking for so it might not take long.”
"It usually takes longer that way.”
When we came to an Internet Cafe, I didn’t like the feel of it. I had the feeling they would know I was looking for information and not just having fun. Even though that didn’t matter, they all looked like agents.
"I changed my mind, let’s go somewhere else.”
We went to a place that had less agents. It was a place I frequented and knew many of the people. I suspected some of them to be agents but not agents that concerned me. No government or oil agents.
I was sure one was a Scientologist agent. He was almost always there and we often looked at each other but never exchanged even a small facial expression. One of my friends thought he was following him. We couldn’t imagine why unless it had something to do with a sexual desire or Scientology.
"Cappuccino.”
Shit Laetitia, I’m saying me instead of Stan. Not because I’m Stan. Because I so often write in first person that I always fall back to it. But we can fix that later.
"I’m going to run to the bakery to grab something.”
This isn’t working. It’s too trite. I don’t know what to do with Lisa. Who is she. She could be a computer crack. Stan will have to wake up and let me just write.
"Stan.”
"What?”
"You said you were running to the bakery, you haven’t moved?”
"I was imaging running there and getting a piece of chocolate cake.”
"Just do it.”
"Okay, what would you like?”
"Just a bite.”
Stan bought a Wurst with mustard to eat on the way. He liked eating Wurst but was usually glad when he didn’t.
Gotta eat something, he thought, knowing it was about as lame a justification as he could sell himself.
"Eat as much as you want,” Stan heard himself say.
"You not hungry anymore?”
"Ate a Wurst.”
"Sorry to hear it.”
"So’s my stomach.”
Pig seemed to like Lisa. It was usually a good sign. At least it wasn’t a bad sign. Stan usually trusted Pig’s personal opinion. He had liked Connie.
Stan was starting to wonder about Connie. In a way, he was glad he didn’t have to lie to her.
"What you got so far.”
"Nice ass shots.”
And he couldn’t even shoe them to her. He had better find out something about Mr. Baker.
"Stan.”
"Um.”
"Where are you?”
"Lisa, I don’t want you running away but I have a dirty secret that I want to purge myself of.”
"I don’t want to know if you have a girlfriend.”
"Not that, much worse.”
"You are homosexual and hate women.”
"I’m a private eye.”
"Like a detective.”
"Ya, but it isn’t like the movies. I seldom work and when I do it’s usually a shit affair case. These days most couples don’t even care about affairs. It’s not such a big deal anymore. Which is fine. I don’t have a moral problem with that. My wife lives with a man.”
Stan realized he was about to tell Lisa his life story.
"The thing is Lisa, I don’t get much work and when I do, I spend most of my time pretending it’s a much bigger case than it is. I often take enough notes to write a book.”
"Why don’t you.”
"Write a book?”
"Ya, write a detective story.”
"I have but who wants to publish detective stories where the big event is getting a picture of someone fucking someone they aren’t married to. That happens all the time. Hell, the president of America does it on the news.”
"Do you have a case now.”
"I have been given one but I have nothing to go on yet.”
"Divorce case.”
"Ya.”
"Do you need an assistant.”
"I can’t pay an assistant.”
"You can make a few pictures for me.”
"When can you start?”
"After our cappuccino.”
We walked to the fitness studio where Mr. Baker trained on Fridays.
"That’s his car.”
"It’s beautiful.”
"So is his wife.”
"Do you think he is having an affair.”
"I though so until last night.”
"Why.”
"Interrogation of the suspect.”
"Could be someone else, which one is he?”
"I think, yup, there with the...”
"Can I help you.”
"I was just wondering about a student membership,” Lisa said.
Stan realized he was inside a fitness studio that he couldn’t afford and wondered if he would, if he could. He used to like weight training but he never had done it in Germany.
"Okay, thanks.”
"Aufwiedersehen.”
"And how much is it for students?”
They walked back out into the day.
"Do we wait here.”
"No. But I’ll take a picture of you and Pig in front of his car.”
"Is he American?”
Clock.
"I guess so. But somehow, I’m not interested in this guy. He doesn’t seem like a guy to have an affair. I mean, if you saw his wife.”
"Maybe for that reason. Maybe she’s too much for him.”
"That’s the impression I have as well.”
"Have you noted the plate.”
"I note everything.”
"Then let’s put it in the computer.”
"Whose computer? I don’t have one and the police don’t want to see me.”
"I have a computer. And I know how to use it.”
"Okay.”
They walked toward Lisa’s apartment. They took their time, looking at a few windows, talking about detective secrets. Stan took a few pictures and started liking Lisa. He actually hoped the question of sex didn’t come up. It was the nice thing about being married. It was usually news enough to make the sex topic taboo. At least Stan liked to think so.
"Isn’t that thing a bit heavy?”
"Yeah, but it takes nice pictures.”
Stan realized that Lisa had taken over the roll of walking Pig. She even talked to him. It pleased him.
"Don’t move, I’ve got to shoot our suspect.”
Stan focused on the passenger in the Deno of Mr. Baker.
"Do you think he’s gay?”
"No, I don’t know. My hunch is, he’s got no interest or time for an affair and we could tale him all day everyday and get no pictures of him fucking.”
"I could seduce him.”
"That’s cheating.”
"Maybe he’s a spy.”
"That’s what I think, or something worse. And to make it worse, I think he is too dumb to know what he’d doing.”
"Do you like his wife?”
That was a good question. What would he say if Nikki asked. Nikki didn’t ask many questions. Stan couldn’t remember if she had asked anything about his work.
"I don’t think one can not like her. And it isn’t because of her beauty. There is something clean and pure and angelic.”
"You sound like you are in love.”
"I only saw her once.”
"And she and her husband will inherit Steinholz Oil.”
"Ya.”
"You know there is no oil in Germany.”
"Not in the ground, no.”
"Isn’t it a little odd for the company to be sitting here and the daughter of the owner is apparently an American.”
"There are many Americans in Germany, they often are involved in new business that start up after they blow up a country.”
"We’ll see what we can find out.”
Okay, I’ll have to maybe beat that around a little, Laetitia. But now we are out of time here. The story will find its path. This is the end of your letter here. I hope you are sad to see it end and happy to know that the story, which, I’ll work out in book 4 and 5 in the Letter to Eva and the next letters, will be your story. It’s my story what I write in the hope that it is pretty enough to be a present.
There are five pages left in this book. I might leave them for a postscript. After I’ve typed it perhaps I’ll let you know if we find out about Connie/Barbaralba.
Thanks for being there.
Love Steve
Here’s the postscript. It’s the first Friday in August of 2001 now in real time. Toby and Nevin are getting married in 9 and a half hours. We’ll drive up early tomorrow and stay there after the reception party.
alba36 is put to rest. It may come back to life. It may not.
Barbaralba and Stan, and a few other characters were born in this letter. Some parts will be in the novel. I don’t know if I’ll call it 2ba_god, we’ll see. Whatever it’s called, it’ll be dedicated to the 6 women who were the objects of the 6 letters.
Maybe you’ll never read it.
Someone will. Someone might read the letters. I’ll see what I can do to get many people to read the book.
Castle City will be part of it. 12,000 years in the past and a few years in the future. And the events in the two book times are the same cycle. History repeating.
There is subjective truth in most writing. Some people believe there is objective writings, the Bible seems to still be praised as holy. Many Bibles. They aren’t objective and their validity can be disputed till everyone is blue in the face, as they say. There are little subjective truths in most of them but none of them are all true and no book or collection of books can lay claim to ultimate or complete truth as much as some zealots may claim it to be so for their book or books.
Don’t believe any of them but read as many of them as you can. There is great knowledge and wisdom lying in words. It’s what makes us different from animals. It’s what makes us closer to becoming gods.
When we learn to let go of answers to why and put our efforts more toward how, we may go somewhere. We could try to retain, maintain and regain innocent ignorance by participating in the propagation of sleepy obedience. We can let consumerism consume us and ignore our return to the dark ages and play the game once again where we try to answer the questions that tend to pop into the conscious mind but if we are smart, we will forget the comfort of ignorance, the bliss of myopic dream state and accept the challenge of knowledge and life.
There isn’t much to death. All the stories about life after death are not true. Maybe we can make it true, it’s still thought to be madness.
But only from those who are afraid to loose this way of being for the next step in our evolution. Without evolution, there is stagnation. Stagnation becomes a frail system and folds in on itself.
We are conscious enough to decide on the direction of our evolution.
Gods are in us. They aren’t or it isn’t something that already is. If they are, they are nothing we can understand until we become like them.
Why bother?
Why not. We are here and we’ve come this far and it’s already quite amazing. I’d hate to miss out on what we become. We’ll all likely miss out on it but if we make an effort toward it, someone somewhere in the future will be a little closer to becoming godlike.
Maybe there still won’t be any ultimate meaning but maybe we won’t want it anymore. We won’t be us. Someone else will be us.
But read the book.
If you or anyone happens to read this letter, don’t worry.
Everything’s gonna be all right.
And if not, that’s okay.
I hear you are pregnant. I guess you likely have a father for the kid. He’ll be envied by a few million guys.
"And do we finish up with a limerick just for old times.”
"All right, what do you want.”
"First, hard sex.”
All right, I’ll tell you what I want.
A woman with a very yummy cunt.
A luscious heavenly breast
Long legs and all the rest
To love and eat like a feast at lunch.
"Boo”
"Oh, come. I gotta get up soon.”
"One more page.”
There was a writer named Steve
Who didn’t like being told what to believe
He ranted and raved
On most every page
Well, whatever.
Enjoy your life, it’s the best advice.
And more than anything, read and propagate the lust for knowledge and wisdom.
There is no future for your kid in a world of ignorance. Feed from the tree of knowledge and life.
Drop by for some chocolate chip cookies.
Keep you nose clean and don’t fuck up.
"Anything else, there’s half a page and some dick is leaning on the buzzer.”
"No, end it with a whisper.”
Okay. Laetitia, I don’t know you but like any sane man, I adore you. And like any sane man, if I can’t get you to respond to my mating call, I’ll have to call out to someone else.
Maybe I’ll watch how the birds do it.
"Say good night.”
"No, we way watch for 2ba rocket fish in 2ba_god. They’ll fuck ‘em up real good.”
_bunnie stop_
Sweden, Hong Kong.
_bunnie stop_
by Joanne B. Washington
read on. pick another letter of book
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