Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

From: “Amaryllis”

To: “Toulouse Trotter”

Subject: No Subject

dear DEAREST toulouse, they have also beatified TWO popes. one of them has met resistance because it was reported that he called the jewish “dogs.” we should all be such wonderful “dogs” as pull-man, so that is a complement?

From: “Amaryllis”

To: “Toulouse Trotter”

Subject: No Subject

ps — i’m sorry i pressed *send* before i wanted to ask why are you called harliquinboy?

From: “Toulouse Trotter”

To: “Amaryllis”

Subject: a swami sandwich on rye

pullman is of the harlequin breed of great danes. edward always thought harlequinboy was dumb but i like it because it reminds me of pullie. besides, so many email names are already taken it gets boring trying to be clever.

do you think you will ever get your own account? and do you think that your foster mom ever “E-avesdrops”?

i was very interested in what you wrote. it made me thing of pullman too though it bothered me to read on one of the *karma* websites that people of “evil” were in danger of being reborn as dogs or pigs, both of whom i feel to be often more advanced than animals of the “human” variety. if that is their true belief then I would think twice about becoming a buddhist. one thing i did read i thought pretty interesting. it was called the *law of the last thought* and said the thoughts or ideas that come to a person at the time of his death are responsible for his next life. what if a person who is in the middle of realizing how to make the perfect potato chip suddenly dies?!!? or what if a person forces himself to think “i will live forever” during his last moment. it made me wonder what EDWARD’S last thought was and i can’t help but think it was something really mean & witty. at least i hope it was. your friend, toulouse

p. s. i was also wondering if pullman could have a thought, and what that thought might be. aside from food!

pps i can just see edward as a swami, with a turban of his own design. it’s funny but when i think of him now, i never picture him with his face covered and i never see the brace. i just see him normal, and able to move around. corny, huh.

From: “Toulouse Trotter”

To: “Amaryllis”

Subject: internet superhighway fatalities

i forgot to tell you this weird thing that happened while i was searching “*karma*” i suddenly get this bizarre message on my computer: **unexpected trappable error. a fatal error occurred in an external object.** it was like the computer was trying to explain karma! or at least PART of karma, i guess. it was very nearly the computer’s “last thought”!!! i wonder what my computer was before it was a computer. maybe a dishwasher?!! kinda rad, huh. i wonder what they mean by *trappable* tho.

my mom owes me a birthday party. maybe we can see each other?

have you spoken to my father? i see him a lot now but don’t like to ask him about you. (not that i don’t want to) he DID say he saw you, and the motts. he said you told him you were actually looking for him that day you met me and my cousins on boulder’s movie. how weird is THAT? it made me sad to think of you back then so all alone. but you had him and he had you and that’s the main thing, no? and then you met US.

From: “Toulouse Trotter”

To: “Amaryllis”

Subject: i-mail

we should do instant mail?

From: “Amaryllis”

To: “Toulouse Trotter”

Subject: SORRY SORRY SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!

my dearest DEAREST darling toulouse, i am SO SO SORRY i did not write yesterday but i was with my brother and sister at california adventure. there is a limousine ride where they make you feel like a star arriving at a premiere and i so thought of boulder! on another ride we got wet wet wet!!! the babies were SO HAPPY.

when when WHEN was your BIRTHDAY?????????? what sign are you? are you 14 yet?

i did talk to topsy last week but only on the phone. /i still call him that because that is what he used to call himself./ i told him about the day i met you and boulder and everyone. how is she? i want to see the movie she made. is she making others? did you know that she visited mac (the place i was staying and went a.w.o.l. from? but i never got a chance to talk to her.) but i think i may have told you that already. topsy told me he sees you a lot and that makes me glad. but do you think WE could see each other soon? i want to give you a birthday KISS. i have not talked to my foster parents about it yet. (and NO, lani would NEVER read what you wrote me. she knows i would KILL her. just kidding.) but i don’t think they would say no. would your mother? we could go to trader joe’s, the place we all went to dinner that was polynesian. the food was SO GOOD!!!! i have to go — lani says i MUST do homewwork. she has threatened to RESTRICT my email if I don’t go RIGHT NOW! your friend and love, amaryllis

p. s. that was SO INTERESTING about what happened when you looked for karma. i guess it was your karma?!! and i KNOW what pull-man’s last thought would be: how to EAT the perfect potato chip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

From: “Amaryllis”

To: “Toulouse Trotter”

Subject: re: i-mail

lani is so freaked about computers that she only has HOTMAIL and cannot do INSTANT. I think INSTANT is available on HOTMAIL but lani doesn’t know how to do it and i think the other person has to have HOTMAIL too.

love, amaryllis

From: “Toulouse Trotter”

To: “Amaryllis”

Subject: summer RULES

hi, am. that’s short for amaryllis. my mother always shortens names — she used to call me “tull” but not so much anymore. now everyone calls me mostly toulouse. my father kind of named me that. but there was a famous french painter too called toulouse lautrec. he was short in stature but amazing. he has a tattoo about it (my father, not the short painter) which is actually a very bad french pun. if i call you am, you can say “i think therefore i am.” that’s a bad pun too. guess it runs in the family.

i was fourteen in march. i am an aries — the ram. (i think therefore, i ram. sorry!!!!!) are you thirteen yet?

my father and i are spending more time together and he and my mom have seen each other too. but all of us haven’t really been together at the same time because i think my mom is being somewhat protective of me, but mostly of herself. (occasionally she sees him when he’s picking me up or dropping me off and i can tell by the way they look at each other that they still love that maybe they are still in love.) my grandfather seems happier too because my grandma bluey is doing better. she has alzheimer’s. did i tell you that he was actually going to sue my aunt joyce (edward’s mother; grandpa’s daughter-in-law) so that he could dig up eddie’s grave and bury him over on “his side”? how fucked up is THAT? i think he’s getting a little crazy in his old age. it runs in the family, you know. meanwhile my aunt is busy burying babies that are donated to her after police find them in dumpsters. (she is burying the babies on “edward’s side,” which further freaks my grandfather out.) what a family!!!!! the trotters are INSANE

i am really glad you are spending time with your brother and sis. they must be SO HAPPY. in a way, i think it is good they were so young when all those bad things happened to them. sometimes i think that is a blessing but maybe i am wrong.

i think my father may be moving back from santa barbara soon. my uncle dodd owns a lot of houses near his old grammar school and i think my dad father is going to move into one. i don’t think he enjoys living his life with such opulence and that house in santa barbara is a real mansion. i think he gets lonely up there too. also, his main psychotherapist is in beverly hills. living in one of my uncle’s houses, he can pretty much walk everywhere he needs to go. also, he is getting rid of those men who were always around him for whatever reason — making sure he didn’t go apeshit!!! or whatever. i think maybe he will keep just ONE of them but mostly in case he needs to drive somewhere. the man can take him. (my dad still doesn’t have a license. that makes two of us.)