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Wyckoff’s carefully counted money and a simple solution to a boy’s future, which is utter apathy. I can just imagine them sitting in some barracks office, staring at a map of the United States, sticking pushpins in all the cities where they think you’ve run off to, wreaths of cigar smoke hovering. I imagine them drinking cheap bourbon and playing Texas Hold’em, laughing themselves to sleep at the table.
    As dangerous as it can be, it’s probably good that you hitchhiked and didn’t leave a trail; electronic, paper, or otherwise.
    So Christmas is upon us, Jamie — three weeks away to be exact — and Memphis is as lively as a slowly cooked roast. What are your plans for this festive, terrible day? I don’t think there’s a season that depresses me more. Last night I performed a benefit reading of my one-man show, “The Second Guesser,” and the little basement theater was full. Over seventy people showed up and we charged forty dollars and I think it went over very well. It’s a fairly obnoxious anti-Bush, antiwar, anti-just-about-everything piece that takes place in a small-town, southern Indiana Laundromat where two elderly ladies discover a suitcase of unmarked thousand-dollar bills, a logarithmic code that will launch a missile at any target they wish, and a special cell phone that is a direct line to the Oval Office. I, of course, played both ladies (Ethel and Doris) with grace, humor, and excellent midwestern accents, as well as George Junior (as a three-year-old). I was preaching to the choir, no doubt, as the audience was made up mostly of queers, transvestites, poets, and three or four poor wheelchair-bound souls, though one of them was rather strikingly handsome in a kind of John-Stamos-kind-of-way (that’s
so not
your generation, I know). So there were no converts, but lots of laughs and a good time had by all. Jorge and I are using the money to help the theater buy a new soundboard. For all intents and purposes it was a big success and we reached our measly little goal of two thousand dollars.
    So I must confess that I do worry about you, Jamie (oh, I sound just like our mother, don’t I? All I need to add is your middle name, as in I do worry about you, Jamie Emmet . . . ). Yes, your gay, punk, rather florid brother thirteen years your senior worries like a little granny about you. The last time I saw you — four Christmases ago, I think it was — you seemed like you were in a bad place. I’m not talking about the pot-smoking and I’m not talking about that DVD player that you stole from the loading dock behind the Service Merchandise. That’s just stuff we do, and sometimes that sort of behavior, if witnessed by others — particularly the Cincinnati Police — will land you in a reformatory. I’m glad the Major, as ineffectual as the right-wing Bush fanatic is, knew that particular officer and was able to talk them out of pressing charges. And I’ll even admit that as much as I hate the idea of a military school bearing down on any young man’s life, I’m sure there were valuable things you were able to take from your brief time there; even if it was the simple dose of fear that might possibly act as a vaccine in your enormous, sky’s-the-limit future. I’m not saying that I ever expect you to toe the line or anything as insubstantial and conformist as that; I hope that you will do quite the opposite and question
everything
— teachers, coaches, priests, lawmakers, prime-time television shows, magazine ads, top-forty deejays, and any intellectual analgesic that could numb the senses and lure you into rote compliance like it has done to the vast, flimsy-minded flock of sheep that is America.
    Okay, enough sermonizing, but one more important question: What do you want to do with your life? Have you thought about that at all? Do you have any goals or things you want to accomplish? Please, please, please share this with me, Jamie. And it doesn’t have to be impressive. If you want to be