Welcome to the Dark Side: Chapter 5

2011-2012 Zeus 30. Louise is 11.

Little Warrior, Gonna get outta here, kid. Can’t fuckin’ believe it but I’m up for parole after two and a half years. I got a good lawyer but it’s my “good behavior” that’s done it. First time in my life anyone ever commended me for “good behavior.” I nearly bust a gut laughin’ when they told me. Think they thought I was crazy. My guess is, I got you and my kids to thank. Spent so much time in my cell writin’ to them and, mostly, you that I was too busy to cause trouble. Been causin’ it all my life, so yeah, Lou, can’t fuckin’ believe it. If I get out after two and a half years instead of eight? I can see my fuckin’ kids grow up. King’s twelve years old now, almost a man. I can teach ’im how to be better than me. Kid’s smart as a whip, I’m tellin’ ya. He’s headed to university for sure, first person in the family. H.R. is ten like you and she’s too smart, too bull-headed like her father to stay with her mum any longer. She’s run away twice and the staff sergeant and his family are keepin’ her and King for now while my soon-to-be ex-wife gets clean again. You probably don’t know what that means ’cause, Christ, I’m talkin’ to a kid about matters way beyond her years. You don’t need to worry about my shit. You just worry about stayin’ healthy, yeah?

So, I gotta thank you ’cause this is you. This is you remindin’ me about goodness. I lost sight of it for a while… But before you get excited, fuck if it’s too late for me to reform or some shit so don’t preach it, you hear? I’m just…happy. I’m happy and that’s a rare thing in the life of a convicted felon, in the life of a man who fucked it up real early for himself. So thanks, kid, for givin’ an old man hope.

Z.

Dear Mr. Z, I AM SO EXCITED! I AM GOING TO WRITE THIS WHOLE ENTIRE LETTER LIKE THIS BECAUSE I AM SO HAPPY I COULD SHOUT! YOU GET TO LEAVE HELL ON EARTH!? YOU GET TO SEE YOUR KIDS GROW UP? I AM SO STINKING HAPPY. WHEN WILL YOU COME AND VISIT?!

HURRAH HURRAY!

Little Loulou Dear Mr. Z, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I’m sorry I haven’t ever sent you anything before but you didn’t tell me when your birthday was so this year I asked Betsy and she told me so HA! I got you another biker magazine subscription, this one is called RIDE and I did lots of research so I think it is probably the best one. Do you like it? I know you don’t have much to do in there but exercise and work on the farm. I can’t believe you are 30! That’s super old. Do you have grey hairs and stuff already? I wish I remembered better what you look like. I tried to look you up on the internet but there aren’t any pictures of you. How is that possible? I looked myself up too and there are a few articles with pictures of me because Daddy’s mayor now. Happily, there are none of me bald. My hair reaches my shoulders now, just barely but still, I can do a hair flick and everything.

When is your meeting with the hell warden people to find out when you can go home? You didn’t answer me last time but when can you come and visit me?

xoxo, Little Loulou Little girl Lou, Meeting was yesterday. Lou, I’m getting out. I leave at the end of the month. Got to tell you, it feels fuckin’ great to know I’ll get to see Main Street again, clap my brothers on the back and feel my bike beneath me, roaring down the hot stretch of road leadin’ from Entrance to Whistler like a windin’ biker’s paradise. Can’t wait to again.

Wish I could visit you, Lou, I do. That said, I won’t. You don’t get this yet but me writin’ letters to a little girl is seven degrees of fucked up. Me and ethics ain’t ever been that close and don’t even get me started on morals, but still, a man has gotta draw a line somewhere and for me, that’s movin’ this strange pen pal gig we got goin’ into the real world. I debated not even writin’ you anymore and, if you push me on this, I won’t. Be happy with this ’cause it’s all you’re gonna get. And before you go whining on me, that’s the truth of the way life works, Lou. Know you got a hard knock with the cancer but your parents spoil you somethin’ rotten and you need to know real life is fulla pain, disappointment and dark deeds. I’m here to help you through the crud but only as a voice written in ink on paper, yeah?

Z.

Lou, Been home a week now and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doin’ talkin’ to a kid about somethin’ like this but there it is. Somehow, you’re the only witness I want to this. ’Cause the thing is, I should be happy to be home with my kids, my brothers, workin’ in the garage on bikes I loved all my life. You know what I feel, kid?

Weird, fucked up as all get out.

I can’t sleep ’cause my mattress is too soft. Yeah, too soft after the crap mattress I rested my weight on for two and a half years. So, I’m sleepin’ on the floor. Harleigh Rose came in yesterday mornin’ looking to cuddle and I nearly bit her head off. Just touched her old man on the shoulder, innocent like any ten-year-old kid, and I nearly clocked her head clean off her slip of a body. You don’t touch in hell. You don’t smile, and if you laugh it’s a hard laugh that’s meant as a threat. My daughter doesn’t get this, I don’t want her to have to get this. Which means I got to man the fuck up and get over this shit. But fuck if it isn’t hard.

I know I’m swearin’ too much, I know I shouldn’t talk to a ten-year-old girl with her own problems (you still havin’ problems at that prissy ballet school?) but I figure, I’ve got to talk about it to someone and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be a shrink. You cool with that, little Lou, bein’ my little warrior again so I can rest some of this weight on you for a spell and catch my breath?

Z.

Dear Mr. Z, I think I need to teach you two lessons because even though you’re an adult and I’m just a kid, I’m pretty sure I know these two things better than you do.

One thing, you don’t apologize to friends for needing them. I don’t know this because I have a lot of friends, you know that with the cancer and missing school and stuff I kinda lost all my friends. I know this because in all the really good books and movies, friends do everything and anything for each other. Obviously, you would do anything for me seeing as how before we were even friends, you saved my life by taking a bullet for me, and I’m trying not to be mad that you don’t know I would do the same for you. You want to curse? You want to talk to me about your kids? Or the hell you went through in prison of me? It’s my duty as the girl you saved, my pleasure as your bff (best friend forever) and my honour as a girl who respects you more than she even respects her parents and whole family, to listen to whatever in the world you want to say to me.

The second thing is harder to teach but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I got out of the hospital. We all have scars. Some of them, like the one you and me share, you can see with your eyes. Some of them, you ink, like you do, on your skin so that they tell the story like a picture book. Like a badge of honour that you overcame something really bad. Then there are others, like the scar that stays in your heart when you’re left alone in a hospital room for a week without anyone visiting you, or when you sleep on a metal bed in a concrete prison filled with bad men or weak men who only touch each other to sin in one way or another. I think it’s harder to talk about those scars and it’s harder to get over them because they wrap around you like poison ivy, making it hard to breathe and pump blood through your heart in the normal way. At least, that is how it is with me. I feel my heart skip when I talk to my friends now at school and they talk about boys they like and what they want to be when they grow up, and I know that sometimes, a lot of the time, kids don’t even get to grow up. They die.

I think bad things happen to everyone, not just bad people. My grandfather is the pastor, you know? And he says all the time that religion will absolve us of our sins and lead us to heaven if only we follow all God’s rules. I don’t think you are the kind of man to follow rules, even if they are the Almighty’s, but I do know that you definitely deserve to be happy so I think there must be special exceptions for men who are good but whose lives went bad. I think sometimes God sends us bad stuff, like cancer and prison and crappy ex-wives and too-busy daddies to see how we hold up. If we are strong and we endure, we are rewarded.

I don’t know if that makes you feel better, to know that I kinda know what you are going through, that our scars make us different and they make us hurt all the time and feel a little lonely. Only, we are lucky because we are bffs so we have each other. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, I got you, Mr. Z.

xoxo, Loulou P.S. Harleigh Rose won’t care if you don’t want to snuggle or you flinch when she touches you. You’ll get used to it again and I bet you she’s just happy to have you back. I know I am.