Dear Mr. President Read online

  So like I said, this really surprised me, that Kurt was standing at my door like that, because I thought you and Kurt had issues, but when I mentioned this he said, “What are you talking about? What’s in the past is in the past. To tell you the truth I’d forgotten all about it.” And then Kurt said he had no idea that you were still mad at him for what he did in the fourth grade when he put that chocolate-covered doughnut on his dick in the cafeteria and told you that if you didn’t eat the chocolate-covered doughnut off his dick then God would make your mom go blind and so you ate the chocolate-covered doughnut and threw up and everyone at your table laughed. Kurt Donovan said that that was a heck of a long time ago, and what’s in the past is in the past, and like I said, he said, “Chad didn’t know that I was just goofing around and the reason I did the thing with the doughnut was because I secretly wanted Chad to be my friend and besides,” he said, “I just got a letter from Chad yesterday myself.”

  I said, “You got a letter from Chad yesterday? In Berkeley? Chad as in Chad the Navy SEAL who is in Desert Storm?”

  He said, “Yeah, that’s why I’m here. He asked me to drive down from Berkeley and see how you’re holding up.”

  Then I told Kurt that was really weird because I had just got a letter from you and I was just about to read it.

  Then Kurt said, “So let’s read it.”

  So then we both went back here to my bedroom and read your letter because I wanted to know if there was anything you might have left out in my letter that you put in Kurt’s and I knew Kurt could tell me if there was but when we were done reading it he said no, that’s basically what you said to him too.

  Except of course the poems you sent me because I cried a little when I started reading them and then Kurt asked if he could read one of them out loud to me because he said they were “really excellent poems,” and I can see how being over in Desert Storm is making you think about your life and the world in a different way. My favorite poem was “Ocean Salty Like Tears.” I love how you start off by saying that sometimes while paddling off the coast of Kuwait you “feel just like a pirate,” but that your only gold is me, Montana.

  So I know you must be dying to find out because you asked me about a hundred times in your letter and the answer is—yes yes yes—I went to see your mom in the hospital last week and yes after I left your mom I went to talk to Dr. Wexley. Dr. Wexley said, “Oh, hi, Montana.” Then he told me if I can be perfectly honest with you Montana Mrs. Hackett’s operation was a disaster and even though he’d been able to successfully do the cornea transplant the tests were showing that your mom’s body was rejecting the new corneas and he was afraid she wouldn’t have her sight back when the bandages came off.

  I said, “Maybe they’re defective corneas.”

  Dr. Wexley sighed and said, “We got those corneas from the Eyebank for Sight Restoration. As far as corneas go, they’re top of the line.”

  I said, “But who was the donor? Maybe they were depressed and shredded their corneas by crying all the time.”

  And then Dr. Wexley said, “Come on, Montana, don’t be ridiculous. Now I know you’re upset, but the only thing you can do is be strong for Mrs. Hackett, though I’m not going to say anything to her yet. There were some complications during the surgery and she’s still pretty tuckered out.”

  So what Dr. Wexley told me broke my heart. Especially since I had just got done listening to your mom tell me how her heart had grown wings of hope and had been soaring and for the past couple nights since the operation she’d been having these wonderful clairvoyant dreams in which she could see perfectly. She said, “Twenty-twenty.” She called these dreams her Premonitions of Joy. She said, “I guess these new corneas,” and then pointed to all the bandages wrapped around her head, “will not only let me see in the present, but into the future too. Thank goodness that I have such a kind and generous son to make all this happen for me.”

  Your mom said imagine how beautiful a bright red and orange sunset would be after being blind for ten years, and that when the bandages came off she would never go to sleep again because she would be too busy looking at things and she wanted to make up for lost time. She had said it was the little things she couldn’t wait to see, like a leaf, or a bird in flight. And her son when he came home from Desert Storm. She said, “I listen to what’s happening over there every day,” and then pointed to the radio.

  And I do too, except I watch it on the TV, hoping to catch a glimpse of you even though I know that’s crazy because the whole point of you being there is that nobody knows that you’re wherever you are. You are like a rock star in the war, and when you get back I want you to show me how those night scopes work that you said you used when you were spying on the Iraqi convoy of missiles during airstrikes. Only no big explosions, okay? And you know how you said you escorted some Rangers in a Zodiac so you could insert them on the beach well I want you to do some insertions on my beach. I believe you when you say that you are like an invisible ghost of justice roaming up and down the coastline there in Saudi Arabia because nobody else could stay in the cold scary water all night with just their head sticking out so they can be the long arm of the American law.

  Plus I know you had been praying, Chad. This is the other thing that broke my heart. I didn’t tell your mom or Dr. Wexley this so you needn’t worry, but I know you’ve been praying every night over there in Ras al Mishab that your mom’s cornea transplant would be a success. And then I also just read your poem, “This Written Prayer” #26, where you talk about it. So when Dr. Wexley told me the operation had basically been a disaster I broke down crying near the registration desk. I really fell apart. And I don’t know what happened next but I guess I started to hyperventilate and I must have reached across the desk and grabbed a pair of scissors and cut my hair off because finally a bunch of nurses had to jump on me and drag me away. When I calmed down I tried to leave the hospital but the nurse showed me a piece of paper I signed while I was hyperventilating which said legally I couldn’t leave the hospital, and so I spent the night strapped down in bed.

  I don’t think you’ll mind what I’m about to tell you but if you do please hear me out before you get upset. A couple minutes ago I had Kurt Donovan’s dick in my mouth. Now please don’t go getting freaked out because I had Kurt Donovan’s dick in my mouth until you have read all of this letter because by the time you’re done reading this letter you’ll realize that I love you with all my heart and that what I’m doing right now I’m doing for us and besides, if nothing else, I want you to know that I am being completely honest with you which when you called from the Warfare Center right before you shipped off to Saudi is what we agreed was the most important thing in the world.

  Do you remember, Chad, when you said on the phone, “Montana, you are the most beautiful girl in the world, and I feel like the luckiest guy in the world, and I swear I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But this is going to be tough on us. Me going over to the Middle East is going to be tough on us. And the only way we can get through this is if we are one hundred percent honest with each other.” So I am being completely honest with you right now and the reason I gave Kurt Donovan a blow job is because I wanted to feel as close as possible to you I wanted to feel like you were right here with me, I miss you so much, baby.

  Now this was Kurt’s idea but I have to say after he talked it through with me it seemed to make a lot of sense. Kurt said he would just be acting. Kurt said he would just be playing the role of Chad Hackett so that I could feel as close as possible to you. I have to confess the whole idea of it, being that close to you, made me excited so I said, okay Kurt, let’s get that dick of yours out of those pants, but first we agreed that I could only put his dick in my mouth and suck on it if I promised that the whole time I would be thinking of you. So I promised, and I want you to know that I was thinking of you only moments ago when I was pretending that Kurt Donovan’s dick which was in my mouth was really your dick in my mouth. I could taste your dick and
it was so good, baby. That’s right, in my mind Kurt’s dick doesn’t even exist, and you have the biggest dick in the world.

  I want you to be careful over there and take care of yourself, Chad. That story about you guys capturing that whatever-whatever place and planting the flag in it was amazing. But it also sounded scary, when you described those sea mines floating all over and under the water and that at first you thought it was a sea turtle. The creepiest part was when you were finning underwater and saw that dead Iraqi soldier stuck in the barbwire and there were chunks of his leg missing like something had been eating him. I don’t know why you had to pull his mask off like that and look at his face because a dead man’s face is nothing good to see.

  One thing I was worried about was that the operation had rattled your mom’s brain loose. I figured maybe whatever they did to her eyes accidentally got her wires crossed because your mom seemed to be under the impression that I had changed my name to Abby. She would say, “These are great brownies, Abby. How is the baby, Abby? I’m so happy for you, Abby.” And of course I felt so sorry for her sitting there with those bandages wrapped around her head and now she had brain damage too that I didn’t have the heart to correct her. I kept my big mouth shut. I said to myself, “Mrs. Hackett has had enough sorrow in her life. So, Montana, you do not need to be the one to tell her that she has brain damage too. You just keep your big mouth shut, Montana.”

  God must be listening, Chad, so I wouldn’t give up hope yet, and I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone about why your mom is blind and I have kept my promise and I am only bringing it up to remind you how you said if God listened once then He’s going to listen twice. Those were your words not mine. You said as you stood there in the center of all that laughter you realized that you hated your mom because it was her fault that you’d eaten the doughnut. You hated your mom because of how much you loved your mom. And you told me how that night your mom yelled why did she have to be the mother at work who got a call from the principal of her son’s school. She shook you and screamed, “Why? Why? Why?” And you couldn’t tell her you’d thrown up because you tried to protect her and your dad wasn’t there to protect her because he was dead from stepping on a bouncing betty in Da Nang, Vietnam, and so it was just the two of you all alone helpless in that crappy apartment and so you decided right then and there that you completely hated her guts.

  And that night you prayed to God. I hope this doesn’t hurt too much to bring up but you said that night you prayed to God for assistance because you said your soul was in great distress and you needed His assistance. You prayed the way they taught you to in church. You were just a little boy and you got down on your knees and prayed to God and asked Him to make your mom go blind.

  But you were just a little boy and so you shouldn’t blame yourself because there’s no way you could have known the next morning your mother would wake up and tell you to call the doctor because she couldn’t see and then later that day an ophthalmologist would tell her that she had congenital hereditary endothelia dystrophy because how many people have ever heard of congenital hereditary endothelia dystrophy when nobody in your family has ever had it before?

  I’m glad that you were thinking of me and asked Kurt Donovan to come over to my house and check up on me because I don’t want you to worry or anything while you’re busy getting ready to storm the beaches of Kuwait but I’d been feeling pretty down and out to tell you the truth. I don’t tell you things because I don’t want to worry you. But I am definitely feeling a lot better than I have been for the past few days, in fact, I have to say that this is about the best I’ve felt since that little incident at the hospital.

  Earlier when I said I cut all my hair off in the hospital I guess I lied. Because the person whose hair I really cut off was Abby. You are probably just as surprised to hear this as I am. This was the first time I ever heard of this Abby person and when she showed up in the doorway of your mom’s room and she said, “Hi, Mrs. Hackett,” and I saw the confusion on your mom’s face and when I saw how big Abby’s body was with a baby in it, well I put two and two together, Chad, and I just basically flipped out and I cut all of Abby’s hair off or at least as much as I could get off before the nurse pulled me away. You had been two-timing me, Chad Hackett. We’ve been together for close to a year and now I find out you cheated and lied to me and now you’ve made a baby with this bitch Abby.

  Kurt was just saying tell Chad I feel like a SEAL. Oh yeah I feel like a Navy SEAL. Kurt was saying how does that feel to have a Navy SEAL in my mouth like that? Kurt was saying, oh God, Montana, that’s right, baby. Then I knew Kurt was about to finish. I also knew Kurt was lying when he said he got a letter from you, Chad. I just want you to know that I am being completely honest with you right now. I knew exactly what Kurt was up to when he said he got a letter from you.

  My first idea was to come over there to Ras al Mishab and shoot you myself. I cannot even tell you all the things I had planned to do to you but then the more I thought about it the more I realized how sad your life has been. I know things haven’t been easy with just you and your mom scraping by like that on her disability checks and I started to feel sorry for you and then I got mad at myself for feeling sorry for you because of what you did to me and I ripped Mr. Snuggles’s head off and then I hit Rags with my belt.

  I figure all the pain in this world must have just made you out of your mind crazy, Chad. You must have just lost your reason, you probably didn’t even know what you were doing because of how crazy you were. So I forgive you, Chad Hackett. Because we are even now and now everything can be fine between us and I want you to know that I have forgiven you.

  But there is one last thing I want to say to you though I hope there’s no reason for me to have to say it. Don’t you dare think about trying to hurt me through God while you are over there in Saudi Arabia. I know you and I know after you get this letter you might be angry and do something you regret later like say a prayer to God asking Him to do something horrible to me like make me go blind. I’m warning you don’t bother trying to get in touch with God because I have taken care of that and I have already said a little prayer myself.

  I asked God to guard over me. I told God how I was just a young girl in the world and all alone and how my boyfriend Chad Hackett broke my heart and cheated on me and I told God that if Chad Hackett from San Francisco asks Him to do something horrible to me then He should just do to Chad Hackett whatever horrible thing it is that Chad Hackett asks Him to do to me. So, Chad, if you ask God to make me go blind then what God will do is instead of make me go blind He will make you go blind, Chad. Right there in Saudi Arabia. It was an I’m-Rubber-You’re-Glue prayer, Chad, so please don’t do anything rash because God likes women better and I am a woman, Chad. You will learn better than to mess with a woman, Chad.

  If you don’t believe me then just take one guess why it was that Kurt Donovan showed up on my doorstep like that when he did? The reason is because I said a prayer to God three nights ago asking Him to send Kurt Donovan all the way from Berkeley over to my house today so I could make things right. I got down on my knees and I said, “I have to make things right between Chad and me, and God you are the only one who can help me. So, God, will you please send Kurt Donovan over to my house three days from now because even though I don’t want to do what I am going to do, I have to make sure everything is right between Chad and me.”

  So that’s another reason why you shouldn’t give up hope on your mom’s new corneas and why you should just accept things as they are, because God does listen and things could be worse and I love you. It’ll all work out just fine, you’ll see, and we’ll be able to put all of this behind us, and when you get done over there in Saudi Arabia you can come straight home to me and I swear to you I will have figured out a way to steal that baby from Abby by then and we’ll be able to start a family. In the meantime, I’ll practice signing my name as Mrs. Hackett and I will be thinking of you and wishing that you are safe and well over there
in Saudi Arabia. I miss you and love you so much.

  xoxoxo ad infinitum, Montana

  Notes from a Bunker Along Highway 8

  I know this is going to sound corny, at least to all the angry, cynical people in the world, but they can go to hell, because in the midst of everything that has happened with this screwy-ass war, yoga, and the deep concentration that I attain through yoga, has pretty much saved my life. I am probably a little addicted to it, but Dithers says that I’m a complete fruitcake, and that yoga is not going to save my butt from getting caught and thrown in the brig. Dithers says it’s my queer dad that is the reason I like yoga so much. Just recently Dithers said, “G.D., you know they’re going to find us. You know Captain has men on us right now. It’s just a matter of time. And when they find us, I’m going to be laughing my ass off at you.”

  I was crouched in the Wide Galaxy pose with my eyes closed, and pretended not to hear him.

  “I know you hear me, G.D.”

  The Wide Galaxy is my favorite pose. It’s the pose I like to finish with at the end of a sequence. I raise my palms to the sky, which is really just the concrete ceiling of this bunker, allowing “my hands to become my eyes,” and victoriously breathe in 1-2-3-hold, and exhale 1-2-3-4-hold, and after fifteen minutes in the Wide Galaxy, my mind is right up into the void, and I feel truly shocked with bliss, grateful for the existence of every single atom in the universe.