You Don’t Get it

I don’t recall what I was responding to with this letter, but it was the practice of the addressee to try to get me into situations that I found stressful. He tried his best to sabotage my life, and then he got vengeful when I finely walked away from him.

Human decency is so rarely human that I must consider it a goal to aspire to rather than a fact of our nature.

8^th August, 2007  

Now look, (Soldier on deployment in Iraq),

 Once again you just don’t get it. I could get another job, yes, but not a better one. I’ve now been hired by twice as many security companies then I’ve worked for and the biggest obstacle on my way to getting another job has been school. Read “The Applicant” I go over my problems.

Getting another job as a security guard is not consistent with getting out of college and getting into what I want to do with my life. You said I was wrong in what I did with (my first job), but if I hadn’t done it I would still be at (that job) making twelve thousand dollars a year. I’ve made up my losses, and now I can pay for school.

This is much like the time that I gave those two hundred dollars back to my dad. That was me making it totally clear that I was done with his bullshit, and you couldn’t understand. Now, two hundred dollars is pocket change. When you said that you were looking at used laptops I said “maybe I should send him my old pile of shit and go by a new one, I can get an Apple for eight hundred”. If I didn’t just plunk down eighteen hundred for school the thing would be in the mail for you right now. As it stands I really should hold off, but you get the point.

I’ve said time and time again that my life is going to suck, and that I need to let it suck, but remember that my experience as a security guard is conducive to my work as a writer much like your army days are for you. I get something out of my every day shit storm, and that’s important. I’m working on a set of one acts involving security and “Welcome to the Gurd Shack” is about my experience at (my current job).

I’m trying to move up, and you’re telling me to move sideways. Frankly, one of the guards who was giving me problems has already quit and two of them are realizing how idiotic they sounded. One of the guards was really upset about what happened, and he is a long standing officer.

Not that I’m upset with you over this but the point remains that I’m just telling you what is going on with my life and not complaining. I don’t have anything ells to talk about so I talk about work.

You should probably save all my letters and read them again when you’re on leave so you can get my meaning better, but then it’s all not that important.

Stay safe out there,

Richard Leland Neal