My Dear Cousin - A Poor Gift

20^th May 2021

 My Dear Cousin,

 

After (Yule) sold that car the family expected me to give up my third of a paid off home for the family offered me three gifts that were of no interest to me. This was not all at once but over a bit of time, perhaps a year or two, but I would accept none of them. I had learned what happens when I accept things from my family.

 

The first was a check from the old man for two hundred dollars. I was out of work when this happened. I was out of work, because the ordeal with the car had left me so depressed I could hardly get out of bed. What I honestly needed to do was contact the company I had been working for to be reassigned.

 

The check wouldn’t cover two days of the suffering I was feeling because of how (Yule) had harassed me over that car so I returned it to (Yule). He didn’t really react as far as I could see, but after I handed it back to him I just walked away.

 

My grandmother told me it was my fault, because I had given him the car back. I felt I had no choice, as no matter what I did they wouldn’t stop harassing me about that car. My family here in California tends to be the kind of people who will listen to nothing short of violence, and I didn’t want to get violent.

 

Two hundred dollars wouldn’t have replaced two days of lost work. It wouldn’t have covered the money for college I had been promised. It wouldn’t have even been the money the car that was supposed to have been a gift to me had been sold for. Keeping it would have been a deal with the devil, and them giving that to me as if it was supposed to mean anything was like having them spit in my face.

 

I never spoke to my grandmother again. I believe I spoke to (Yule) one more time. This was the first of the three gifts and it had told me once and for all that family was useless to me.

 

Best,

 

Richard Leland Neal

My Dear Cousin - I Refused to Speak

 19^th May 2021

My Dear Cousin,

 

It has been a few days since my last letter, but you never answered me anyway. Maybe my life is just too dismal to take. Well, I assure you that I need to keep writing regardless of your reading just to bleed the pain from my mind. A bad memory can be like a cyst; bleed it and it may scar, but leave it and it can get worse.

 

Well, a point I forgot was that before the wedding, and after I called the cops on (Pony Girl)’s husband to be I refused to speak to (Pony Girl) for about eight months. I don’t think you can blame me for that, talking had never done me any good so far.

 

(Pony Girl) brought this situation to a head when she started hounding me and calling me childish for not speaking to her. We spoke and that was when I learned that the car they wanted me to give up my house for was sold for four hundred dollars. They expected me to pay two hundred thousand dollars for it, and it was worth four hundred.

 

There were two points of this conversation. The first was that (Pony Girl) was to pay me back for the time I had paid bills for her when she was in college. The second was that she was to disclose the amount of money dad gave her for college.

 

She never fulfilled the second part of that promise. She knew how much it was but laughed out “I don’t remember” when I brought it up. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe I deserved the money, but only that she so loved steeling from me.

 

I remember once I got a sheet of stamps and put them on the old bulletin board next to were the landline used to be in my home. The next day they were gone and I asked (Pony Girl) if she had seen them. She admitted to taking them but wouldn’t give any of them back.

 

I overreacted to this, and was very upset, I should have just let it go. I recall my grandmother saying “maybe she needed stamps”. I explained that this was not all that true, but the old woman refused to believe that her family could ever do anything wrong. The whole family had a ‘turn a blind eye’ attitude to abuse.

 

I remember when I complained that (Yule) had given her and (Pickle) money for college and not me (Pony Girl) laughed out “You’re older now”. I had been in college since the age of eighteen and he didn’t give me money then.

 

It was just like that white car. (Pony Girl) decided that it was her car that I would pay for. When I didn’t like that she decided that I had to get rid of my other car. When I wouldn’t do that she tried to kick me out of my own home.

 

Well, for the second or third time at that point, but you get the idea.

 

Best,

 

 

Richard Leland Neal

 

Dysfunctional System

I can remember this letter and some of the events around it. It’s plain that it was never meant for anyone but sender and recipient. To be honest it’s nothing other than the events of my life strewn out on paper for the benefit of someone who was feeling down.

Cassi had asked me to send her a hard copy of something I said in an email and I obliged. She said she had laughed about it for days. I guess you had to be there.

Monday, 27^th  September of 2010

Dear Cassi,

I do think I found the Email you were talking about.

‘The sad working of the dynamic of those people is more complex than is easy to understand.  A dysfunctional system established a monarch and a scapegoat and the other slugs in the pack pound on the scapegoat in order to gain clout with the monarch. Much like you will see with the comics in all truth.

People talk about dysfunctional families, but I prefer to say “dysfunctional systems" because the work place or social group may have the same dynamic.

In other words: "If you’re the scapegoat home you may become on at work or with your friends" which is what happened to me.

Anyway,

Swift is a good cat most of the time, but she can be a handful when she wants to be.  From what we understand she was left behind by a family that lost their home and couldn't take care of her anymore.

The world is sad and ugly sometimes.’

I guess it was funny, but you have to understand that it was the early cusp of the theory. The thing about dysfunction is that the only people who complain are the scapegoats. Everyone else has someone to put their problems on even though the system is hurting everyone.

Most folks are to much the fool to understand that putting a chain to the wrist of another is nothing more than to manacle them self. That's why I call it a dysfunctional system. If all of the elements, people and what not, could be properly employed then the system would be better for everyone. Let me use myself as an example, my family's activity caused my problems in life. This led to a significant loss of household income that could be placed as the major factor for many of the issues my relatives presently face.

They all convinced themselves that I had no value as a person and so downgraded who I was. Then we have the situation with (a mutual ex-friend) where he gave up thousands of dollars because he wanted to keep the producer as a backup plan rather than fulfilling his promise to me. He stood to be no worse off then he already was and could have gained as much as seventy thousand dollars to put into his next movie. If he ever makes a movie I will be surprised. I suppose your ex didn't lose all that much when he harassed me into leaving his company, but he had nothing to gain by my exodus.

Anyway Cassi, I think it's funny to send letters when I have a telephone, but it can't hurt. Um, and I need to reprint the other two letters I sent because I think the address was wrong. It turns out I forgot the black and left the diamond and knowing the post office you’ll never get them.

Stay safe,

Richard Leland Neal