The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg (5 page)

Day Four:
Transcript 2

That's a terrible poem.

I was mean. I'd forgotten. Mrs. Carter doesn't deserve that.

I might still be mean, Barry. Don't know. I'm on sedatives.

Cranberry and I were taken to the police station, which was . . . great, I guess. We were taken and fined for a completely absurd act.

No. I don't write poetry.

Without Cranberry? I'd be dead. He might be, too, without me. Or maybe I wouldn't be dead, given my inability to die. I know this: without him I'd be very unhappy.

I didn't want him to stay with me. That first night, since he was so messed up, I told him to sleep in my mom's room. (I slept on the couch . . . I'm not interested in . . . )

The whole place smelled like a horse or something the next morning.

I asked him to leave late the next night. He said he had nowhere else to go. He shouted at me, “You want me to die in the fucking park?” Of course I didn't, but what responsibility did I have? And I sincerely did not want to spend the last days of my life worried about what the neighbor lady, one of my mom's friends . . . what Mrs. Peterson thought about me having a kid with a mohawk in the house. I honestly cared. Don't know why. So, I wanted Cranberry out. I told him he had to leave in the morning.

I woke up early. I went outside and had a cigarette. (Cranberry smoked, so I smoked his cigarettes.) I'd dreamt again of cowering in the corner of that apartment. Outside there were . . . volleys of machine-gun fire and people screaming and crying, and my dad (or dad-like guy) is at the window, laughing. And this little, vulnerable black-haired girl is next to me . . . and I could hear people crying for their children in the street. Sobbing for their poor kids . . . you know . . . “No—no . . . please—leave him alone . . .” And I woke up shaking . . . my kids and Cranberry's mom and how . . . how she should be protecting him, would be if she knew anything at all. Then all I could think . . . Cranberry . . . take this kid and keep him safe. This poor kid.

Yeah. Great trick for a suicidal—to protect someone else?

I feel fatherly toward him.

Journal Entry,
August 30, 2004

Document, the signing of which creates an hombre-to-hombre relationship between T. Rimberg and H. Cranberry Schmidt based on trust and the following duties:

1) Within the house H. Cranberry Schmidt is to:

a) Use the Internet to research suicide machines.

b) Wash his own dishes.

c) Make his own meals (unless invited to join in a meal).

d) Wash his own clothes.

e) Act as assistant to T. Rimberg in any scheme created by T. Rimberg, regardless of the possible consequences to T. Rimberg.

2) Outside the house H. Cranberry Schmidt is to:

a) Drive T. around, for T. is tired of driving.

b) Help T. shop for groceries.

c) Mow the lawn.

d) Act as assistant to T. Rimberg in any scheme created by T. Rimberg, regardless of the possible consequences to T. Rimberg.

3) H. Cranberry Schmidt is never to claim to authorities or to Oprah or to Montel that T. Rimberg is in any way interested in him in a physical way, because that is not true and the thought thereof is enough to make T. desire to kick H. Cranberry Schmidt back out onto the mean streets immediately, where Cranberry, without his CDs and sweet, fat girlfriend, will likely die.

4) In return, T. will provide Cranberry housing, food, etc., pay all the bills and take Cranberry wherever he may go, and he won't, under any circumstances, refer to Cranberry as his Butler, which angers Cranberry greatly, although being called Cranberry does not anger Cranberry, which boggles T.'s mind, because Cranberry is a ridiculous name.

This agreement is binding until the time of T. Rimberg's death or whenever Cranberry wants to leave, which is fine by T., but T. won't kick him out unless Cranberry breaks with the binding rules set out herein. Amen.

Signed

T. Rimberg                                                                                                                                                                           H. Cranberry Schmidt

________________                                                               ________________

On this date: August 30, 2004

Day Four:
Transcript 3

The news? Nope. Haven't watched any television at all.

I am getting the letters and cards. I've read a couple.

No, I haven't read the newspaper. I'm reading a cookbook I found in the common room. It's a cookbook for . . . good Buddhist living, I suppose. Light eating . . . I want to be satisfied by not stuffing my face. For instance, as much as I love pancakes soaked in Mrs. Butterworth, eating all that makes me . . .

No, no television. How could I have seen CNN?

They're covering the accident? Do you mean my accident?

Patterns of light?

On the highway?

I don't know . . .

No.

Okay. Let's go. Let's get through this.

I'm not nervous. I'm fine.

Letter 11
September 1, 2004

Dear Caroline,

You were a helluva Prom Queen, did you know that? I mean, you were not only pretty, but you were just wonderful, too. So kind to everyone.

I am living now with a boy. He just graduated from high school, and he said that the Prom Queen at his school wasn't wonderful, but was just pretty, if you like Barbie dolls, which he doesn't. He calls Barbie plastic. That's no metaphor, Caroline. Barbie is literally made from plastic.

Do you like Barbie dolls?

I don't. I like real people, Caroline. You have a pointy nose and your eyes are sort of close set and your hair is mousy. This was in high school. I imagine you're even more like a real person, now, Caroline. Aging is hard on pretty people, I think. We're thirty-five. You know what will save you, even when you're ancient and your skin is saggy and your breasts hang down to your knees and your ass has gone flat and you can no longer hold your pee? You have the smile of a very good person. You have a big, pretty, glowing smile that makes you wonderful.

I've been thinking a lot about high school today. I'm stoned. I'm going to kill myself.

Best of luck.

T. Rimberg

Day Four:
Transcript 4

Cranberry opened up my worldview. At first he got me thinking about being a kid, in school. I'd been so obsessed with my dad and family, you know? I was almost done writing, I think, but then Cranberry reintroduced the outside world.

Kids are so vulnerable to the bullshit . . . bull crap adults spew at them . . . they believe a lot of it—but should they? Maybe they should believe it. I don't.

Right. I'm not that high functioning. Ha.

Kids are sensitive, though, and they feel happy and bad and evil and dirty and right and wrong from their hearts, which seems right. Really authentic. Like the Prom Queen . . . Cranberry was so offended by his Prom Queen. He pounded the table with his fist. “Why she gotta be so cold?” He cried about the Prom Queen (as if Prom Queens have a responsibility to be good to all the people at their schools—maybe they do).

Yeah, funny.

I played football, so I wrote the jerk coach. And then . . . I thought of everybody and Molly Fitzpatrick, who was my first love.

Yes, that Molly. Molly from the letter. Irish Catholic like you.

My intent was to write to everybody who affected me or I affected, to maybe lessen the damage to me and them. I really wanted to get to everybody.

Nasty? Most of the letters aren't, are they? I don't think so. I wanted to apologize.

Letter 12
September 2, 2004

Kurt O'Bannion, Football Coach.

You're really a fucking moron. Do you think it matters who wins a high school football game? Oh, that will change the world, you moron. Oh yes. And barking at us like a pro wrestler? “Get the lead out, you pussies!” You fucking jerk! Know what? While you were coaching the defense, all us running backs were planning to smoke weed after the game. We did smoke weed. Maybe a hundred pounds of weed, we got sooo high all the time. Might have something to do with how often we forgot the plays. Maybe if you hadn't been such a fuckface pro wrestler, we would've cared more. Maybe we would've won a few games here and there. Maybe I wouldn't be so depressed now, if I'd skipped out on all that weed smoking to be a stand-up, golden boy football player in high school (doesn't dope fuck up your brain structure?). (I'm totally high right now.) This is a suicide letter, you ass. Go have another Lite Beer. Moron.

T. Rimberg

Letter 13
September 2, 2004

Dear Sherri Staltz (if that's your name now—I assume you're married and whoever you're married to is very lucky),

I'm sorry I repeatedly touched your knees and legs backstage during the high school production of
Our Town
. As I was a football player and an egomaniac, I assumed you were as into me as I was into your knees and legs. Plus, your dress, the costume, was very pretty and you seemed perfect, and the truth is I wanted to sweep you away to some hot Florida beach and make love to you while Jan Hammer played beautiful synthesizer music in the background. Of course, I had a girlfriend and you were considered a geek by most of my friends, and thus I would never have had anything to do with you except in a clandestine, backstage kind of fashion. I was an idiot. And when you sobbed, “Stop it,” I was really shocked, actually angered. And I called you a terrible name even though I knew you to be a really sweet person. Fuck me, huh? Seriously. Fuck me. I'm an ass. Don't worry, I'm going to fix this mess.

Please forgive me.

T. Rimberg

Letter 14
September 3, 2004

Dear Jennie Evans,

How are you? Are you married? I have kids, Jennie. Maybe you do, too.

And, I swear to God, in April of 1987, I did not dump the case of Michelob bottles on your front lawn because you narc'ed on the BEER BLAST at the quarry. I simply needed to get rid of the bottles before I got home, and your house happened to be on the way to Molly Fitzpatrick's house (my girlfriend at the time, you might remember). I'm intrigued, though, by your decision to narc on a party filled with jocks older than you and serious bitches. Small towns don't take to that kind of behavior very well, you know? And they made your life hell in high school, huh? Hope things got better. I assume they did. Can't get much worse than Todd Klein calling you a bitch and hacking tobacco spit on your locker every day.

Why did you do it? Were you morally against beer? Did you hope to gain something with the teachers? Letters of recommendation or something? Was it out of spite—the little power you could have over dumbassed upperclassmen? Were you trying to save lives, keep the drunk drivers off the road? It was just such an odd choice for a high school girl to make, you know? Do you ever think of it anymore, making that choice? Whatever—I didn't give a crap that you narc'ed on that party. Who fucking cares? Certainly not me. If you would've busted me, I would have kissed you on the lips. I'd like to right now—I'm excessively high.

I have kids and an ex-wife and I'm smoking pot with this kid who has eyes that sort of remind me of yours. Watery.

And I didn't mean to freak your shit out when I dumped the Michelob bottles in the ditch in front of your house, and the fact that your dad caught me on the way back up the hill and asked me to roll down my window and then hit me in the head with the bottles should be enough payback, should even out the game, and I wouldn't have even cared he hit me in the head with bottles, might not even remember it, because I was drunk pretty often, even though I functioned all right . . . I might not even remember except when I realized whose house it was, I came in to apologize, to tell you it was a sincere accident, and you were totally sobbing in there, wrapped in a ball on the couch at eleven o'clock at night on a Saturday, even though you were sixteen. I guess you thought I was one of the good kids because I wasn't mean to you ever, and then I dumped those bottles, huh? It must have been a shock, like everybody in the whole world was out to get you. I swear to God I wasn't, and you were crying, and your dad, who was so angry when he hit me in the head with the bottles, started to breathe hard, too, his eyes all wet, and I can't fucking take it, Jennie. I can't.

Not that it matters now, but I wasn't dumping bottles to torture you. It was just to get rid of them so I didn't have Michelob bottles in the trunk of my mom's car.

God, all the terror in life, small and big, and you crying, and your dad . . . it makes me want to die, because I don't want to see my daughters ever cry like that. I don't want to see my daughters cry. I'm sorry.

T. Rimberg

Letter 15
September 3, 2004

Dear Charlie Hyde,

I hope this letter finds you alive. In first grade, when I punched you in the face after school, primarily because other kids mistreated you and I wanted to be like other kids, I felt very bad. When you were crying and saying you were going to tell your mom and you were bleeding in the snow and I was on top of you, pinning your arms down while I repeatedly punched you in the nose, I almost got sick. I cried at home afterward, but couldn't tell my mom why, because she would've taken me to your house to apologize, which I couldn't do—part of me wanted to kill you. I stayed in my bed for two days and wouldn't eat. My pillow got soaked with snot and tears, which is disgusting. You know, my dad ran away around that time and I was sad a lot. I think some of the rage and my ability to beat you stupid came from this. Also, nobody came over to my house when I was a kid because they were afraid of my brother, plus they didn't like me that much. But, that's no excuse and the fact is I'm very sorry, even though I hit you like that, I would rather have had you come over to my house to play with cars and have a snack or whatever, but instead I punched your poor little boy lights out, because other kids thought it appropriate to hate you, and I was sad and angry generally. You were an innocent bystander. Life is terrible. People are horrible and brutal. Charlie (that's my son's name, too), I hate that I punched you. I'm sorry.

T. Rimberg