Dear Judge,

I will try to brief, but please read this entire letter on my behalf, this is my only form of defense.

On the twenty-fourth of November, ninety-two, I was at my gym (XXXX Fitness on 41st Ave. in XXXXXXX, Ca.).

I just started bodybuilding on a competitive level. Anyway, I was working out really hard on the day mentioned above in which I was at the gym for over seven hours. My whole workout was isolated on only one muscle, the latissimus dorsi, which is located on the inner, and outer sides of the back, the nick name for this muscle is the “wings.” I worked this area really hard, in fact, too hard. I continued to workout til the gym began to close, I meant to save enough time to sit in the hot tub because I knew I would need to after this workout, so I would not be too sore in the morning, but I failed to leave the time needed for that comfort. Well anyway I got in my van, and prepared to drive home. As I began to back up and turn out of my parking space, I was not able to turn my steering wheel, I was simply too sore to make my van turn. Great, I really did it this time, I am too sore to drive home. So I decided to wait a while and try it again. I waited two hours before I started my van to try it again, and again I was too sore to turn that steering wheel. All the money I could find in my gym bag was $3.77 which was not enough for today’s taxi rates. So I was simply stuck, I just moved here in which I have no friends, or relatives within 400 miles, so as I mentioned, I was stuck there til my muscle was less sore, or even enough to drive in pain.

So I stretched out in the back of my ice cold cargo van (ice cold as in only metal and no insulation). I do not know how I fell asleep in that igloo, but I did til a police officer woke me up, only to say “sign here.” I tried to explain, but he said save it for the judge, so I did.

My courtdate is not til the sixth of April, in which I planned to contest that officer in court; but now I have a serious problem. My parents live in Phoenix, AZ and just bought a almost new house in Tuscon AZ for half of the regular price. Well because they saved huge amounts of money, and now own a extra bedroom, they invited me to live with them for less than I have to pay out here. The escrow on the new house closes on the seventh of Jan. in which they can start moving in on the 7th. So my parents are driving a moving truck here to pick up me and my van; then I can help them move.

This is my request of you, your honor:

Can I please work off my crime with community service, and have it finished with by Jan. 6th. So I can move to Arizona, and not have to come back for court?

Please let me work it off and be done with it, I am a very hard worker, I simply do not have the money to pay the fine, or I would, so I could be done with it.

Sincerely,

XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX

Dear Bill:

So this is the night that Jesus (a) got a last name and (b) performed the miracle that every boozer and drugger can relate to, or strive for:

He got up.

March has been a wonderful month. I know that the last time you saw me I was in a blackout and my face was all cut up. I assume I was screaming blue murder and, well, I’m sure you know that it got worse very quickly, especially after I started doing dope again. February ended with me and Mink on a death drive – an argument all over the Back Bay that had us stopped going the wrong way and then arrested for possession of heroin and needles; Mink and I made up in the back of the cruiser, we kissed our last while handcuffed; I wonder if I was the only one to know how bittersweet it tasted, since Mink was way more fucked up than me…after sitting it out in a cage for a few hours and finding nary a cute vignette to sum it up, I surrendered and the night moved on to me sobbing in my father’s arms in the police station (cue strings) and concluded with me sobbing into my step-brother-in-law Jackie’s sweatshirt (my gap-toothed goomba restaurateur-of-Revere savior) after being arraigned in Roxbury and ordered to reappear in late March. Jackie was flanked by another little goomba with struggling hair plugs, gold rings, and a whiffy White Owl clamped in his fingers, and he was saying “Whatsamatter Jessie? You ain’t feelin’ too good? Let’s go to detox, hah?” And then a ride in a new black SUV to a Westboro tox – no I.D., no $, just the clothes I was arrested in, Cate’s suede coat, and three packs of Marlboros to my name.

In I went, Guinevere in dirty braids, defamed, deluded, devirgined, into the nunnery.

It’s okay, Bill. I was sick of everyone saying “you don’t need to be drunk and high for us to enjoy hanging out with you.” What they – the rockers, the publicists, the dominatrices, the grade-C fashion models, the ersatz hangers on – didn’t know was that I needed to be loaded in order to find THEM interesting.

In that freebie detox, it was wake up every morn at 5:45 for a little cup of methadone, humpin’ around with a floor full of equally dirty women – wild-eyed with blown-out pupils, scuffy slippers, chipped polish, crunchberry cereal, movie nites – twin mattresses wrapped in plastic for people who pee their beds at nite, so they sounded and felt like Dorito bags when you rolled over in them. And smoking bummed Newports – borrowing clothes from whores cuz they were pregnant and they didn’t fit into them no more.

From the detox I came here to Pittsfield to visit my Mum, and I ended up getting Section 35-ed to a psych ward, Jones II Psychiatric, where I learned how to sneak smokes in the bathroom and keep my bed in the upright position while I slept, courtesy of the fruitily-named Ambien, some queer opiate. I spent the days reading Emerson (“For I am weary of the surfaces and die of inanition”), working with the sonorously voiced Dr. White who insisted on doing T’ai Chi moves with me as part of my therapy, and crushing the other patients in games of ping-pong, me in cut-off sweats and Laura Ashley scarf worn Big Chief/Let’s Get Physical-style, my boobs flying under a soiled Hanes tee. (There was a gift cart on the ward that had a mound of teddy bears. When you punched them or kicked at them they would start playing “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” If you think about it, that’s pretty tempting, and stupid.)

Twelve days later I came here, to Keenan House, to a wild crew of friends I always had – other losers – Nazi Kirk with a sexy scar and glassy baby blues, a sweet dumpling of a man. There’s Brian, with unfortunate port wine stains on his neck, and a dolorous expression. Kecia, beautiful, gap-toothed, swingy cheerleader hair, a heart thinned to near-collapse by cocaine; Johnny Perez, a shrugging gorgeous beast who drives an oil truck w/ a Marlboro between his good teeth. Mi gente. My people.

All the clothes on my back are borrowed, or donated to us thru Christian organizations.

I died with Mink that nite, 2/28, choking on those hideous heroin sobs (don’t ever try to cry on junk, it doesn’t work), both of us sniveling over our poor lost families. “We were just little kids!” I wailed and waited for what would certainly come next – and moments later, handcuffed behind the grille in the cruiser, I started to breathe again. I was alive, angry, and in terrible pain.

I love Mink. I’ll not see him again. To watch him play the guitar, to bury his face in his hand as the Les Paul begged for more, Bill – I can’t be with him. He doesn’t get it. He’ll try to beat the system, and pretend, for as long as he can, that it’s possible to shoot dope and piss clean for our P.O. Still, I am glad to be a felon. Kissing my love goodbye in the back of the cruiser while we were both handcuffed was so beautiful. I recommend the experience. It is to know true freedom.

Except he wasn’t really my boyfriend. He was on loan.

So this is what I have been for the past few weeks: a resident at a halfway house, a very clean, cool, tightly run outfit, with a super kitchen – I cook all the time, getting zaftig again. Without the waif powder I can’t be anything but a big old girl. Which is probably a good thing, considering what I looked like when I was hauled in; all scabbed up, a hundred pounds soaking wet, falling out of leather chaps and a sweaty silk shirt unbuttoned to reveal an old-lady chest.

Now I’m jumping with excitement about being clean again, writing again, not breakin’ my fuckin’ face. There’s so much inside. I mean, I’ve got another chance. I’m bursting full with stories – all the delicious things I’ve seen, said; and Pittsfield, so sweet, sad, cheap – we walk it every day – gutted Florsheim shoe stores, dying incense and beanie baby marts where smart sporting goods stores used to be on the now-empty North St., toothless retards waiting for a bus, rat-faced inbred fellas with wiry bodies, polar-bear-sized lesbians in fleecy pullovers giving big hugs that make me giddy.

It has been a glorious year, one of the best. Everything is changing, Bill – everything, and in that there is joy. For me.

Once more, with feeling,

Jessica

Dear Paul,

I’m standing around the other night with Mateo, a crime reporter for a local Mexico City tabloid, and he’s telling me about this guy who committed suicide on the same day as my birthday, August 27th.

The guy had just discovered he was HIV positive. He chose an overpass on the Mexico-Toluca highway, and the police arrived and tried to talk him down. His mother was on the scene, too, and Mateo’s doing an impression of her calling out to her son in a comic high-pitched voice: “Rigoberto! Rigoberto! Your sister is here! Come down and see your sister!”

We all laugh, if a bit uneasily, and then I turn on my video camera and ask Mateo if he could repeat the joke for the documentary I’m shooting. He suddenly looks contrite, and gives a little speech about how no one should make fun of dead people, and how one should feel compassion for the suffering of others – because in this job, one sees an awful lot of suffering humanity. I turn off the camera.

It’s just after midnight, and I’m hanging out with the local crime reporters at the Angel of Independence monument on Avenida Reforma. They have gathered here, as they do every night at midnight, to wait for news to break – car accidents mostly, but also police raids, murders, hijackings, building collapses, fires, riots, blockades, gas main explosions, shoot-outs, gang executions, bombs, earth tremors.

Most of them have police-band radios and walkie-talkies, which they use to communicate with dispatchers at Radio Red, a local news radio station. The radio reporters have cell phones so they can file their stories on the spot. If something happens that’s worth covering – which depends on how many casualties it produces, how far away it is, and whether they reckon they can get there before the police clear away the wreck or haul away the bodies – everyone piles into an assortment of clapped-out VW Beetles and Nissans and rushes to the scene.

There’s a hot-dog stand nearby, and a long bench where some of the guys are resting their legs. A couple of others are taking a nap in one of the cars. The rest are standing around in a little group, chatting and telling stories. In theory, they all work for competing media; but they help each other out, sharing notes and giving rides to colleagues without cars. I’ve always thought of Mexico City at night as rather frightening, but I feel at ease hanging out here, in the heart of the city’s financial district, in the dead of night.

The night-shift reporters are all pretty young. Most are in their 20s and 30s, and they seem addicted to the adrenaline of the job, which is in fact quite dangerous – apart from the obvious risks of driving around the city at high speed in rattling old cars, they sometimes get attacked by angry mobs at crime scenes, especially in some of the bad neighborhoods, like Tepito or Colonia Buenos Aires. They’ll walk into burning buildings to try to scoop the competition, and have to be rescued by firefighters.

Word of a car accident comes over the police band. It’s a relatively minor one, no fatalities, and normally we would ignore it, but the driver of one of the vehicles is the nineteen-year-old son of a Mexican pop star, which means it’s news. We set off at high speed in the direction of Polanco, a posh neighborhood in the west end of the city.

I’m riding with Asunción, a photographer for a racy tabloid called La Prensa. We all arrive at the accident scene pretty much at the same time. We crowd around the ambulance carrying the pop star’s son. He’s lying on a stretcher with a paramedic sitting at his head. The photographers climb right inside the ambulance and start snapping away. I feel sorry for the guy inside – although he doesn’t seem badly hurt, he’s obviously anguished and confused, and seems on the verge of tears, and I can’t understand why the paramedics or the police don’t shoo us all away. But I need this footage for my documentary, so I start shooting as well.

Later, back at the Angel, I strike up a conversation with Manuel, a prosperous corporate lawyer who owns his own ambulance, and has spent every Friday and Saturday night for the past fourteen years running a volunteer rescue service. He’s based at the Angel because it offers convenient access to most of the city’s main arteries.

Manuel sort of reminds me of Robert De Niro’s character in Taxi Driver, talking about all the filth and corruption and degeneracy that seeps out onto the streets of Mexico City after dark. He tells me that ordinary Mexicans are afraid of getting picked up by official ambulances, because they’re often robbed by the paramedics. “They’ll say to you, ‘I need to take your pulse,’ and they’ll take off your watch because it’s in the way. Then they tell you they’re going to listen to your chest, but your wallet’s in the way, so they remove that as well. By the time you get to the hospital, you’ve lost everything.”

His ambulance has a bumper sticker that reads, “I save lives. What do you do?” Manuel tells me that doing rescue work probably saved him from alcoholism – or at least boredom – but I wonder if he isn’t also motivated by the same morbid fascination, the same slightly shameful voyeuristic thrill, that I get when I go out with the crime reporters.

Manuel finally gets a call from his dispatcher to go and assist a beating victim somewhere north of where we are. He gets all excited and climbs into the driver’s seat, and as he switches on the flashing lights and siren, his face is a picture of almost rapturous joy. In a moment, he’s gone.

I heard recently about a Japanese photographer who travels to Mexico every year to shoot material for a crime magazine at home. Not only does he visit the scenes of crimes and accidents, he attends autopsies and does the rounds of the city morgue. In Japan, they don’t allow photographers or cameramen to film the victims; in Mexico, anything goes. He makes enough money from a month in Mexico City to be able to spend half the year traveling. Mexico, it turns out, is a big exporter of blood and gore.

I recall the footage I shot earlier of the pop star’s son, and it occurs to me that I was the only TV cameraman on the scene. It also occurs to me that I could try to sell it to a local television station. I wonder how much they’d pay – $200? $300? I could certainly use the money. I recall the boy’s anguish in the ambulance. I think he was actually sobbing by the time we left.

In the early hours before dawn, I find myself riding with Graciela, a photographer who works for a weekly newspaper called El Alarma (the Alarm). El Alarma is the goriest newspaper I’ve ever seen. It seems to specialize in full-color photos of corpses of every variety – decapitated, shot, dismembered, decomposed, charred, hacked by machetes, smashed by falls from heights, run over by cars, even mummified. No detail is spared – not the flies on the body of the headless, naked woman murdered by a jealous lover (headline: “They disposed of her body like garbage!”); nor the bite marks on the abandoned newborn baby eaten by dogs and rats (“Damn hyena!”); nor the bullet wounds on the bodies of gang members killed in a shoot-out (“It hurt to death!”). This is what Mexicans call “la nota roja,” or red news.

Graciela is accompanied by her eighteen-year-old daughter, Luz. At first, I find it strange that she would expose one of her own children to the horrors of her work. Later I realize that it’s quite common for night reporters to bring along their friends, wives and girlfriends on the job – for one thing, it relieves the boredom, plus it makes for an exciting, if unconventional, night out on the town.

But the rest of the night is relatively uneventful. We’re called out to three car accidents: the first is just a fender-bender; the second knocks over a telephone poll and a newspaper kiosk. There’s an ambulance on the scene, and inside there’s a guy with bleeding head injuries – apparently, he’s the passenger (the driver has fled). When I decline to film the injured man, Graciela gets irritated with me, like I’m not doing my job. “Come on, Goyo,” she says as we get back into the ambulance, “you should be smarter than that!”

The third accident takes place on the Periferico freeway, a major artery that runs along the city’s west side. But they’ve cleared away the wreck before we even get there. “That could have been good,” mutters Graciela as we head for base. “It was a Z1″ – police dispatch code for one cadaver.

I get home after dawn. I’m still thinking about that footage I shot of the pop star’s son. I go through the material to see what I actually shot. I watch it in my office, on a video monitor, and it’s a lot better than I expected.

I have the “money shot” – a close-up of the injured teenager. I have shots of his damaged car (a blue Neon), the two guys in the vehicle they hit (in police custody), and his cousin Eduardo, pushing his way through the reporters. The orange glow of the streetlights frames the ambulance in a halo, giving it a kind of European art-house feel. It all plays like some gritty, reality-based TV drama.

I get out the Yellow Pages and look up the phone number for TV Azteca, one of the two big national broadcasters. I ask the receptionist to put me through to the newsroom. What a waste, I think, if it doesn’t get broadcast.

Regards,

Greg

Dear Emily,

I went to my first funeral today. Aunt Beatrice (who is not really my aunt) kicked the bucket, some kind of cancer. She is what? My cousin? My dad’s cousin? I went because my dad drove down from Phoenix and he said it would be “fun.” It was kind of fun, in a Goth way. There were long velvet drapes, a mahogany casket, flies dying against the windows in the funeral parlor, etc. No one seemed particularly sad that Beatrice was dead. She was old, and it was a long illness. Rumor holds she wasn’t pleasant. I only met her once. I don’t remember a lot about the visit except that she was wearing a house dress, and her phone had giant numbers on the keypad, as though it were designed for someone with impaired vision, and I remember thinking: yes, but doesn’t everyone know which numbers are where anyway? And that, my friend, was my sum impression of Beatrice.

Later, my dad and I went over to Beatrice’s house to visit with his cousins, Leo and Rose, old people in town for the event from Ohio. Leo showed me a photo of the two of them after the war wherein Rose, the doughy cafeteria lady sitting across from me, appeared as an astonishingly beautiful young woman, in the manner of Gene Tierny. “A knock-out,” said Leo. They were cleaning out Beatrice’s things and offered me some assorted junk. Nothing valuable. I got a very old bottle of cheap wine with a greasy label and a marriage manual from the fifties called “How To Please Your Mate.” It features an intriguing set of overlays that may be used to demonstrate an array of positions. I also found this quote: “I have often said to my husband, ‘Even when I will lie at rest in my casket and you will come close to me, hard with desire, I will rise up for one last beautiful moment of bliss with you, my love, before I’m buried for good.’”

In contrast to this vision of sexual rapture after death, Beatrice’s send-off was boring and without reward. I scooted to the bathroom with my purse at one point, hoping some of her drugs would still be in the medicine cabinet. I’m sure she had a painful death. Maybe there’d be some methadone, or a big bottle of Percocet. Alas, no such luck, just a ten-year-old bottle of Tylenol #3, which I appropriated, and a few sleeping pills. I suspect the really good drugs are in her bedside table, or in the trash already. I eyed the overflowing trash can as we drove away, thinking: if I were really depraved I’d come back later and dig through that.

When I got home, Carolyn and Amos, my houseguests, were standing in the kitchen heating up tortillas. They gave the last one to me. Amos apologized, gravely explaining that they’d thrown the butter away because they’d discovered mold on it. Amos and Carolyn are both vaguely reminiscent of the Artful Dodger, dressed in rags and waify. At times they seem a bit too innocent for this world, as though they don’t know how to react to things in a considered or resourceful way. For example, there was no mold on my butter. There were breadcrumbs on my butter; I like to rub the stick directly on the toast rather than getting out a knife.

We didn’t have any more food in the house so we went to Safeway, where Carolyn stole a package of De La Rosa Mexican candies. She sidled up to me in frozen foods and began to shove a few directly into my pocket before I stopped her. I seems that this is her method: unwrap and squirrel the goods. She’s been shoplifting the entire visit and it bothers me. I mean, is it worth the risk for an 89-cent package of candy? I asked her why she persisted in her ways and she replied “for sport.” Amos let her put a few in his pocket, apparently, because the next thing I knew the two of them were being marched away by a managerial type while Carolyn cried: “But I didn’t leave the store! I didn’t leave the store!” as she was hauled off by a guy in a Safeway polo shirt.

I stood by the ice cream section for a minute. What could I do? Post bail? Then some sort of protective feeling kicked in for my friends, those poor little bunnies, so out of step, so suspicious of my butter but so oblivious to grocery store personnel. I marched myself right up the stairs to the office in order to save them. I was, by the way, wearing my funeral outfit: dark skirt, pantyhose, little handbag; and though I am in no way any more reputable than they are, I managed to look like a “lady,” whereas my friends looked like degenerates. The manager had them cornered. He was dialing the phone. His name tag said “Dave.” Everything subsequent to this unfolded like a bad one-act play:

“Let them go,” I said. “They are good kids. They won’t do it again.”

“Do you know how much revenue we lose to shoplifters a year?” asked Dave. “Do you?” (Then he mentioned an absurd figure, i.e. 2 billion dollars.)

“They’ll pay for it. They won’t do it again. I can vouch for them,” I said. “They’re good kids.”

“We’re talking about real losses here. Real big losses.”

“I can vouch for them,” I repeated. “They don’t even live here. They won’t come back.”

Dave lowered his head. I sensed that he was simultaneously attracted to me and intimidated by me. I must have been bathing him with my alpha scent. “Okay,” he said, “but I don’t ever want to see them in here again.”

We clomped back down the stairs into the store. I thought it was odd that Dave never asked who I was, or what I had to do with this. Something about my bearing and pantyhose must have convinced him that I meant business.

When we got outside to the parking lot, Carolyn was really mad at me for saving them. She said maybe they would have been fine without me, and she’ll never know now how she would have handled it on her own. At first I thought that was ridiculous, but then I kind of saw her point. She and Amos are not little bunnies. They are petty criminals. I said I was sorry. I promised that the next time she was pinched for shoplifting I wouldn’t do anything about it. Then we went home and ate ice cream.

Hugs and Kisses,

Stacey

Dear Angelica,

I thought I’d tell you about my morning cuz it was funny, even thought it involves the DMV. I was scheduled to take the behind-the-wheel test to get my California driver’s license. I had a license in Illinois, but it was suspended when I was 17, after I was pulled over for smoking underage, which resulted in a ticket for driving without insurance, and my license was eventually revoked after I didn’t show up for a court date. Now there’s a warrant out for my arrest in DuPage County, where my parents live, but they don’t really check that sort of thing state to state. I have a permit here (which is embarrassing if you’re over the age of 15), which I was hoping upgrade to a license today.

I had tried to take the behind-the-wheel test, which you have to schedule weeks in advance, once before: A friend, who I’ll call the Squire, had agreed to drive me to the DMV in his car, and then lend it to me to use for the test. Unfortunately, he did not bring his insurance card, as his younger sister had thrown it out the window in an attempt to kill a bug. Of course I was flatly refused at the window – the fat lady told me I had just wasted my time.

So this time the Squire assured me he had all the paperwork. I talked to him last night, and he assured me he would pick me up at 8:30, so we’d have plenty of time to make my 9:30 appointment at the L.A. DMV, somewhere on Hope St. I stupidly trusted the Squire, and went outside to wait around 8:30. I sat on the steps, smoking and reading, looking up every time I heard a car turn onto Romaine.

Around 9, a little beige hatchback pulled up in front of the building. The two dudes in front looked my way and gestured, I assumed at the misleading For Rent sign hanging from the fire escape. The passenger, wearing flannel and a hairnet, got out and walked toward me as the driver turned around and puttered toward Wilton. The guy walked up to me and got right in my face and said in a confidential tone “I want you to give me your wallet.” I looked back at him, into his eyes, and said “I don’t even have a wallet,” which is true, and when he said “You got some money?” I said “No, no money either,” which was almost true. I had $2, and I figured that wouldn’t help his needs, whatever they are. And I figured he’d either find out for sure that I had some money, by emptying my pockets himself, or he’d accept my answer and walk away. He shrugged, walked away and got back into the car, which had turned around and pulled up as our interaction ended. The driver, puffy-faced with big, messed-up hair, leaned out his window and said, “I’ve committed a lot of sins, and I’m repenting, because I’m that kind of Christian. I think I’ll be forgiven. I’ve done a lot of bad things, a lot of sins, in the past couple days, and I’ve repented for some of them, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be forgiven, but I don’t think I could ever be forgiven for what I’m going to do right now.” He nodded and sped toward Western, and I thought, fuck, that can’t be a good sign.

The Squire arrived at 9:15, and I told him what had happened. They may have just been fucking with me, but who knows? I felt floaty and light, but that was eaten away by irritation at my impending lateness at the DMV. We meandered through downtown’s maze, zigzagging back and forth, tracking Hope’s southbound jogs. I got there close to ten, and as I waited in line noticed a crude sign in red marker stating “No Lates”. I realized that I was a “late.” And the fat lady said, “No lates. We have over one hundred drivers today. No lates.” The Squire was apologetic; I was numb. We drove toward my work and I forced myself to tell him about the minidisc player I want, to keep from strangling him. I had him drop me off in the Quaintness, the strip of Larchmont between Beverly and 3rd. I considered donating blood at the mobile unit outside the B of A, but just got some coffee and walked up the street.

I was intercepted in front of the newsstand right before Beverly by a woman with a mike and a little video display who asked in a pitiful voice if I’d provide some reaction shots for Extra TV. “All you’ve got to do is watch a fashion show and tell me what you think.” I agreed, because the lady had a retainer and was wearing beige. So she played this footage, clips of runway shows, on the tiny monitor, as the cameraman shot me. The first bit had a model wearing a sort of bloated conquistador helmet, and the rest was in that vein. She asked if I thought it was “fashion or disaster.” I said they’re pretty much the same thing, but I mean that in a good way, and walked off to work.

I’m at work now, and though I still can’t drive, I might be on TV, and if you hear about any crimes even Christ can’t forgive, I heard it first.

Yours,

Andrew