Short Narrative (Epistolary)

Dear Mama Jean,

I am awake at 2:05 a.m., and it is very silent at my apartment complex. The only thing that can be heard is the dripping of water from the hose of the sink in my kitchen and the humming of the air conditioners cooling everyone's resting bones. I do have a subject at hand and a pertinent message to communicate to you through this letter. I woke up in my bed. My fan kept me cool as I stared at the ceiling or the back of my eyelids. Imperceptibly, my thoughts went from the heat to you. Probably because I never got to share with you the details of my trip with Crab or should I call him Daddy; I am not sure. I do not have an urgent message other than wanting to communicate my thoughts to you so you can have a vague picture of that trip to New York, Tennessee, and Arkansas. After being weathered by the stress of everyday at graduate school and my over-thinking, after all this great and often detrimental mental activity, my thoughts turn to you, and they nourish me with happiness and warmth, that sense of harmony in the world I rarely find.

I do not know why I always imagined him holding a job in a bus garage, but all I remember is that those illusions were soon crushed by his appearance that day in the fourth floor of our apartment. Why did he have to show up after nine years and have nothing to tell me? That is nothing, other than “I just came by to pick up Jarell.” He said it with such an ease that in turn undermined his nine years in prison. I wanted to ask him things; I had so many questions, such as have you ever thought about me? Have you thought about how I might have liked playing football, or how you could have taught me to throw a ball? Why haven’t you written? No time? I suppose. The answers to these questions were always left to my imagination. Telling him that I thought nothing of him was a lie. The term “nothingness” somehow seemed like the perfect noun to conceal my anger and in a way offend him, by implying negation. However, I felt empty afterwards, and perhaps this guilt is what caused me not to rebel against taking that trip.

My stomach was hurting, and I do not think that the pancakes over at Colonette had anything to do with it, but rather the pressuring feeling that I could not utter the phrases: “I am glad you are here,” or “I love you too Daddy,” or “I am sorry you are in pain” caused me distress. I felt a lump in my throat, and missing you was only adding to the darkness that gathered in the form of heavy clouds, forming an uneasy wandering mass in my soul. I could feel the stark contrast between you and him, separating unevenly like water and oil in a pan. At moments, I wished I had never taken the trip. I did not want to listen to his justification of killing the guard, his ongoing mumbling of the robbery, and even more so—about Rydell. I missed the feeling of the warm hand on my shoulder, pressing in . . . your hand, your approach of never telling me what to do. Well, telling me, but in a different way. Crab was not telling; he was stating.

I hated Frank. I never told you about him because he intimidated me. Actually, now that I recollect, I did not hate him. I hated what he shared with him, with my father. They spoke as if they had some things in common. It was not even the speaking, as much as Crab smiling at Frank, as if being proud of his manliness and abilities in the boxing matches. I wanted him to teach me things . . . anything. But he did not. He only stated. That one conversation in regards to me beating Frank, I remember clearly, Crab’s assertions being different, ornamented with a smirk on his face. Every time that smile appeared and vanished, it took away some particle of the accumulated darkness, sitting heavy right here, in my soul. After, the trip was not so dreadful anymore, and the feeling of strangeness did not make itself known as much. He respected me . . . me—the fourteen-year-old boy he met a few days ago. He told me he “needed to look in a mirror and see something he could respect.” I never responded to this specific notion. I was angry at him. I was tired of his mentioning of the endless “I.” “I need.” “I need.” “I need.” When was the time to incorporate Jarell in the picture—in the dark picture painted on a torn and old canvas?

Nonetheless, I felt his pain. Perhaps I was selfish too in a way. Perhaps I got him aspirin because I desperately wanted him to get better, in order for him not to abandon me in the middle of nowhere. Something changed. Without much thought, I started showing interest in his stories, asking him about his mother (or should I say my grandmother), his father, and his life in Forest. I realized that the tears I shed were not because of my confused, yet current state, but they were for him, for his serious illness. I cared for him. In that Blue Bar I did not want to hear his justifications and Rydell’s approvals, not because I did not believe him, but because I did not care of those justifications. I trusted him regardless. One way to make a person trustworthy is to trust him, right?

Never have I been scared of losing someone, but I was that day. The pictures of Crab heaving by leaning to the light pole, struggling to put his hands behind his head in order not to get shot, appear reel after reel in my mind. It was then, when I called him “Daddy;” and even more importantly, it was then when I forgave him. After the funeral, I felt sad but not empty. We shared things.

Jarell