Dear Ricky,
If someone is reading this I must have gone through with it. I was
never a coward but I doubted I had the strength to put off this final
job. My last goal has been accomplished and I’m now in the depths
of hell rubbing elbows with Judas, Hitler, and you. I don’t know
what will become of my soul. I never gave much thought to spiritual
matters so I won’t start now.
I lived my life fast and hard and now it has to end. Even if I
didn’t have the courage to end it myself it would be ended for me
so why not do it myself while some dignity remains. What’s one more
murder added to my tally? There will be more murders to come at my
hand even after I’m gone. I hope that both perplexes and impresses
you. I always wanted to impress you.
Ricky, you were the only friend I ever needed and the only person I
wanted to impress. You, alone, were my family. When I lost you I lost
my purpose, direction, and my family. Your family was kinder than
they needed to be but they couldn’t replace you and in the end they
removed me, discretely. They snuck me out of their fold to die alone
because without you I wasn’t truly one of them. Perhaps even with
you I wasn’t truly one of them, but it felt like I was.
Was I just delusional? I wanted so bad to be a part of you in a more
prolific way. I wanted to be more than a friend but I couldn’t
quite muster familial status. Now I’ll never know what I was to
you. You’ll never know what you were to me. No one knows anything.
I’ve laced a noose and hung it over a pipe. The Beatles told me
nothing is real and nothing to get hung about but I don’t believe
that now because there will be no strawberry fields forever for me.
There were never strawberry fields for me. My life wasn’t good but
it wasn’t hard. No one will write any books about a two-bit
criminal who didn’t change the world but I don’t care because who
is there to impress with my stories now that you’re gone? It all
comes back to you and it always will. I’m dying now but I’ve been
dying since your death. I’ll be dead soon but what does it matter
when I’m dying anyway? And what does it matter to you when you’re
already dead?
When the prison doctor, who could care less if I lived or died, told
me I had AIDS I didn’t ask what it was or how I got it. What did it
matter? I asked if it would kill me and he said yes. He frowned as he
told me as if it was disheartening but he didn’t care and I didn’t
care. It gave me a glimmer of hope because maybe, just maybe, our
corpses don’t just rot in the grave. Maybe we do have spirits and
maybe death could bring my spirit to your spirit. So why wait around?
Why not take control of what is left of my life? He asked me if I had
shared needles with anyone or slept with any men. I laughed. He
looked at me with unnerving seriousness. I said yes. He listed the
danger and detriment of my actions. I was dying, what time did I have
for lectures? I didn’t have time for lectures when I was living.
I came here to my little cell and wrote a letter to you. I ripped it
up and threw it out. I’ve written this letter over and over again.
This letter is my legacy and I don’t need my legacy to extend any
further than you.
Nothing is real. Lie. Nothing to get hung about. Lie. But my
scratchy record player will belt out the Beatles’ lies as I die. I
hope when the chair tips beneath me the needle skips and as I gulp my
last breaths, wriggling like a fish out of water, the record skips
again and again and the Beatles repeat: strawberry fields forever.
That’s all I want now: forever, forever in hell with you. I would
go anywhere for you.
Goodbye, Ricky, I love you. I always have and always will love you.
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