JohnLocke
07-07-2009, 02:06 AM
Dear Pa:
I’m writing ya now from the Oklahoma Department of Virtual Corrections. They’ve had me locked up nearing three weeks now, and they say that I have four days left to write, so I’m writing you today. There’s a couple things I need to get across to ya, being the patriarch and all, and I think that a genuine apology is in order, which I’ll give ya, too. But you need to know one thing: I don’t think I deserve what their doing to me. Sure, sure I’m sorry, and not a day I haven’t felt God’s anger on me (and Ma‘s, too!), but I just don’t know about this one, Pa. ODVIC has me on all these pills and stuff; they just keep on giving them to me. And their forcing them down my throat, Pa, even though I said I’d be keen to what they wanna try. Yeah, yeah. I say that, but you know I don’t mean it. Like I said, Pa, I’m sorry, and I’m acting the best I can, but they could maybe be at a little nicer. And I know you barely wanna read this letter here, but if you could humor your poor soul of a son for just a page or two, it’d be worth taking all their pills. So I’m sorry and all, just to get that out of the way, at least. I know what I did was wrong, sure. But damn, Pa, I think I could learn my lesson in some other way. Ha, I just realized I’m going off on rants this way and that. You probably don’t even know what I’m going on about. See, there’s this scientist, or doctor - I can’t hardly remember one way or the other - name’s Peter Strauss. He’s got a PhD and a lab coat and thick black rimmed glasses - just like old Doc Palmer from back home! That’s about where the likenesses end though, Pa. Dr. Strauss is short and pudgy, with a face like a toad. Could you just imagine a guy like that talking to Doc Palmer? I mean this guy’s real official, an everything. Ha! They’d be talking back and forth in med school and local jargon - throwing words over each others heads which would all be meaning the same thing… what a sitcom that would make! It’d be a foil even cynics would love! Ah, sorry one more time, Pa. You know how I get going, but boy, I haven’t seen Palmer in over three years. I heard he worked on me after the accident, but I wouldn’t have a clue either way. They shipped me into Oklahoma Mercy and they shipped me out - I woke up in ODVIC, of course, with not a reckoning of anything that’d just happened. And that’ll lead me right back to Dr. Strauss. So he comes in, the fifth day I’m there. And I’m laying on a bunk in my cell, reading from the good book, like Reverend Parsons always said to do when your anxious. Dr. Strauss and some guard comes up to me, the uniformed man’s keys jangling every way. And you wanna guess what that cop said to me? He says:
“You better be glad you’re in the States, kid. They’ll gut ya up North with a book like that!”
Now have you heard any news from the Federal U.S.? Because I’d really like to get rid of the mystery that’s a’shrouding that statement. Anyway, Strauss comes in with a pile a books, sets them down right by my cot. And he says to me:
“You ever read any science, boy? We got a lot of interesting stuff you can‘t find in that old book.”
Can you believe that! Have I ever read science? Some smartass doctor comes sauntering in my cell, acting like he’s from some Michigan university or something! I nearly started laughing until the officer caught the grin on my face and wiped it clean off with a little baton smack. That’s the last thing I saw, too, till I woke up strapped to some chair, guzzling pills down my throat faster than cheeseburgers at a McDonald’s drive thru! That medicine knocked me out one more time. When I woke up, I was a seven year old negro boy. Now this is where my earlier comments about them being mean starts making sense. So I’m waking down the road, bouncing a red soccer ball, and I hear this loud screeching in the distance. And you’ll never believe where I am, Pa. I’m on Charleston Road, just two houses down from our own! The dirt’s real damp, and I keep hearing that screeching sound. Then I look up and I see it: my car. And I mean my car, Pa, not the seven year old’s. It’s flying at me nearly fifty miles over and then: BAM! It smacks me down, worse then anything I’ve ever felt in my whole life. Remember that time when I was around twelve years old, Pa, when Ma went and accidentally ran over your foot in the truck? That’s what I felt like, but all over. Holy Mother, it hurts even thinking about it! Then I woke up in the same seat they stuffed me with pills in, with this huge gizmo hooked up to me. And I had little fish hooks all over my skin, shooting electricity and feelings all throughout my body. And you know what I realized, Pa? That little black kid, well, that was the boy I hit! Dr. Strauss explained it all to me later. He said that as a part of my punishment, I was gonna be hooked up to this thing every other week, for every day of that week. Apparently he and the judge thought that’d be a good way to get to me to learn from my drinking. Now I thought Alcoholism was genetic, Pa. How can I get rid of it?! I mean, drinking doesn’t really seem like the most unholy of things. Sure seems like even Jesus was drinking near every other day in the good book! But on that point, even though you know I like joking, I really am sorry, to you and Jesus. I didn’t mean to kill him, Pa! Hell, I just wanted to have a few more than usual. It was a long day, and well I don’t know. I guess its all an excuse. But I’m trying to forgive myself, as the good book says:
“Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned, forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”
Well, I’ve started to try and forgive myself. And I’ll be honest, forgiveness is a hard thing to ponder when half the time I’m one-third my age! But they’ll keep hooking me up to that dastardly machine, with its fish hooks and foil tubes and copper springs, and I’ll keep being that little boy, keep getting mowed down by my own car. And you know what the kicker of this whole situation is? I get to experience this outlandish piece of technology, courtesy of every tax payer in the whole damn Confederacy, and not an innocent soul will see it. But as long as the State pays, ODVIC will always test out its zaniest, most brilliant machinery on undeserving folks like me. Maybe someday I’ll be deserving though, and I won’t have to bear such strange technology. Maybe someday I can just read about it. Speaking of my future freedom, would I trouble you in ending this letter with the words of that famous old prophet Dylan? I mean the ones from the old hymnals we used to sing in church? I know you’ll remember it.
“I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.”
I’ll be back eventually Pa, as long as being a kid for so long don’t make me lose my damn driving skills!
Love (if you’re still willing to, that is),
Your son Jerry.
From the Oklahoma Dept. of Virtual Corrections
3400 N Bordaine Ave,
Oklahoma City, OK, Confederate States of America
December 12, 2054
I’m writing ya now from the Oklahoma Department of Virtual Corrections. They’ve had me locked up nearing three weeks now, and they say that I have four days left to write, so I’m writing you today. There’s a couple things I need to get across to ya, being the patriarch and all, and I think that a genuine apology is in order, which I’ll give ya, too. But you need to know one thing: I don’t think I deserve what their doing to me. Sure, sure I’m sorry, and not a day I haven’t felt God’s anger on me (and Ma‘s, too!), but I just don’t know about this one, Pa. ODVIC has me on all these pills and stuff; they just keep on giving them to me. And their forcing them down my throat, Pa, even though I said I’d be keen to what they wanna try. Yeah, yeah. I say that, but you know I don’t mean it. Like I said, Pa, I’m sorry, and I’m acting the best I can, but they could maybe be at a little nicer. And I know you barely wanna read this letter here, but if you could humor your poor soul of a son for just a page or two, it’d be worth taking all their pills. So I’m sorry and all, just to get that out of the way, at least. I know what I did was wrong, sure. But damn, Pa, I think I could learn my lesson in some other way. Ha, I just realized I’m going off on rants this way and that. You probably don’t even know what I’m going on about. See, there’s this scientist, or doctor - I can’t hardly remember one way or the other - name’s Peter Strauss. He’s got a PhD and a lab coat and thick black rimmed glasses - just like old Doc Palmer from back home! That’s about where the likenesses end though, Pa. Dr. Strauss is short and pudgy, with a face like a toad. Could you just imagine a guy like that talking to Doc Palmer? I mean this guy’s real official, an everything. Ha! They’d be talking back and forth in med school and local jargon - throwing words over each others heads which would all be meaning the same thing… what a sitcom that would make! It’d be a foil even cynics would love! Ah, sorry one more time, Pa. You know how I get going, but boy, I haven’t seen Palmer in over three years. I heard he worked on me after the accident, but I wouldn’t have a clue either way. They shipped me into Oklahoma Mercy and they shipped me out - I woke up in ODVIC, of course, with not a reckoning of anything that’d just happened. And that’ll lead me right back to Dr. Strauss. So he comes in, the fifth day I’m there. And I’m laying on a bunk in my cell, reading from the good book, like Reverend Parsons always said to do when your anxious. Dr. Strauss and some guard comes up to me, the uniformed man’s keys jangling every way. And you wanna guess what that cop said to me? He says:
“You better be glad you’re in the States, kid. They’ll gut ya up North with a book like that!”
Now have you heard any news from the Federal U.S.? Because I’d really like to get rid of the mystery that’s a’shrouding that statement. Anyway, Strauss comes in with a pile a books, sets them down right by my cot. And he says to me:
“You ever read any science, boy? We got a lot of interesting stuff you can‘t find in that old book.”
Can you believe that! Have I ever read science? Some smartass doctor comes sauntering in my cell, acting like he’s from some Michigan university or something! I nearly started laughing until the officer caught the grin on my face and wiped it clean off with a little baton smack. That’s the last thing I saw, too, till I woke up strapped to some chair, guzzling pills down my throat faster than cheeseburgers at a McDonald’s drive thru! That medicine knocked me out one more time. When I woke up, I was a seven year old negro boy. Now this is where my earlier comments about them being mean starts making sense. So I’m waking down the road, bouncing a red soccer ball, and I hear this loud screeching in the distance. And you’ll never believe where I am, Pa. I’m on Charleston Road, just two houses down from our own! The dirt’s real damp, and I keep hearing that screeching sound. Then I look up and I see it: my car. And I mean my car, Pa, not the seven year old’s. It’s flying at me nearly fifty miles over and then: BAM! It smacks me down, worse then anything I’ve ever felt in my whole life. Remember that time when I was around twelve years old, Pa, when Ma went and accidentally ran over your foot in the truck? That’s what I felt like, but all over. Holy Mother, it hurts even thinking about it! Then I woke up in the same seat they stuffed me with pills in, with this huge gizmo hooked up to me. And I had little fish hooks all over my skin, shooting electricity and feelings all throughout my body. And you know what I realized, Pa? That little black kid, well, that was the boy I hit! Dr. Strauss explained it all to me later. He said that as a part of my punishment, I was gonna be hooked up to this thing every other week, for every day of that week. Apparently he and the judge thought that’d be a good way to get to me to learn from my drinking. Now I thought Alcoholism was genetic, Pa. How can I get rid of it?! I mean, drinking doesn’t really seem like the most unholy of things. Sure seems like even Jesus was drinking near every other day in the good book! But on that point, even though you know I like joking, I really am sorry, to you and Jesus. I didn’t mean to kill him, Pa! Hell, I just wanted to have a few more than usual. It was a long day, and well I don’t know. I guess its all an excuse. But I’m trying to forgive myself, as the good book says:
“Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned, forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”
Well, I’ve started to try and forgive myself. And I’ll be honest, forgiveness is a hard thing to ponder when half the time I’m one-third my age! But they’ll keep hooking me up to that dastardly machine, with its fish hooks and foil tubes and copper springs, and I’ll keep being that little boy, keep getting mowed down by my own car. And you know what the kicker of this whole situation is? I get to experience this outlandish piece of technology, courtesy of every tax payer in the whole damn Confederacy, and not an innocent soul will see it. But as long as the State pays, ODVIC will always test out its zaniest, most brilliant machinery on undeserving folks like me. Maybe someday I’ll be deserving though, and I won’t have to bear such strange technology. Maybe someday I can just read about it. Speaking of my future freedom, would I trouble you in ending this letter with the words of that famous old prophet Dylan? I mean the ones from the old hymnals we used to sing in church? I know you’ll remember it.
“I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.”
I’ll be back eventually Pa, as long as being a kid for so long don’t make me lose my damn driving skills!
Love (if you’re still willing to, that is),
Your son Jerry.
From the Oklahoma Dept. of Virtual Corrections
3400 N Bordaine Ave,
Oklahoma City, OK, Confederate States of America
December 12, 2054