Magic Fire and Angry Souls

4^th July 2013

Dear Cassi,

Today is the Fourth of July and there was a time when this day brought to me so much joy and mirth. Now, honestly, it’s a day I go to work. Is there some reason we should save something for the holidays or should we just live every day? Well, that is a question for another time.

          
As a boy there was a magic in fire and so fireworks were a great thing to me. The family would go about and buy some reasonable supply of combustibles, as would our neighbors, and the block would have a show of fire and smoke. Pickles was one to dance about with fire in hand and make the folks laugh.

          
There was one soul that had dismal feelings for our mirth and that person was my stepmother. I think she hated to see me happy. Or perhaps she hated to see anything go to children that were not her own. Who knows? All I can say for sure is that my love of fireworks infuriated her.

I recall one year I had taken the family fireworks out of the bag and put them on the coffee table. Fireworks were so nice to look at with their cartoon designs and colorful paper. I think at some point I moved the combustibles to a hire location hoping to keep them from the dog.

          
My stepmother was furious. She came over that weekend before the forth and said, “I think what you want to do is eat those things. You arrange them over here then you arrange them over there.”

          
Why this was her affair at all escapes me. Then why, even if it was, would a child loving fireworks be so offensive? Some folks live life looking for a reason to be angry. I paid her no mind at the time and regret ever having taken her seriously in the duration of my knowing her.

Let every day have its magic,

Richard Leland Neal

Hot Dank Air

14^th July 2012

Dear Cassi,

Perhaps the reason I love sleep so is that the world I wake up to is worse than any nightmare. Today was a day of some unnatural heat and as such I spent most of it in bed with my two fans passing air over my massive frame.

The room is full of hot dank air as is my home. The world is hot outside, but the air within my home is like breath. I can’t tell if it’s the rot in the sink or the perspiration off my skin but I know I need air. I set fans and open windows; I showered the roof with water and watch the steam lift away in the afternoon sun.

The water I have sprayed comes down black with soot from the fireworks of the fourth of July. We celebrate our independents by making the air unbeatable. If only a cold rain would come and was our foul revelries from the wounded sky.

The hot air drives me back to sleep. It’s a pounding heat that drives me down and lords over my sticky flesh. The insulation in my attic has turned to dust long ago and so my home is a furnace in the summer. I long for the winter days.

I would write more, but I am stifled by the heat.

Stay cool, little sister, 

Bad 4th of July

Here we are with another old letter and one of the letters I want to get off my hard drive.

I went about describing the events of my life as a reporter in the hope that it would make a man’s life better only to have him turn into a toxic force in my life.

If anything is true it’s that we should watch who we call friends.

7^th July 2007 

Dear (Soldier deployed in Iraq),

The fourth of July was my first day off in two months. That probably doesn’t mean much given what you are going through, my friend, but it means little to me as well. I spent it cleaning the house. That’s a funny thing to do when you think of it, but I have not learned to clean as I go. I tried tracing back the moments to find when I started such bad habits. Probably when they started tearing up my home. Yes, I think that was it, it’s hard to think of cleaning a thing that is broken.

That is a point you probably can’t see. One of the strange truths of life is how much can change with a point of view. As a young man I was taught to value certain things, and then I was made to watch as they were destroyed in front of my eyes. Now I have a difficult problem to solve. Well, without suffering what is joy?

We have lost another guard. He was a small man. I think that it’s better for him because he got something closer to home. We gained one more guard, an older man who was removed from this post once for getting too chummy with the employees. He doesn’t look like he’s going to last but that’s no concern. Whatever comes with the new day will come and there is nothing I can do about such things.

I filled out my federal application for student aid. I don’t think I’ll get anything out of it, but then what can one do to change what they have made? If I do get anything out of the government then I’ll try to put in less hours because this and school are too much. Funny how you need the good job to get your degree, but the point of the degree is to get a good job.

Come to think of it I wrote another one act I can show you. I’ll put it in the envelope with this letter. I call it “Welcome to the Gurd Shack” I’m not going to include the first page, as that might be too heavy for one stamp. If it gets to you with more than one stamp on it then they sent it back to me.  

“A Mind Bending” Is coming along. It looks like it will turn out to be a full length play two male, three female, three voices. Funny thing is it’s almost the same story as “House Broken” only the events are totally different. It’s a play that is violent and dark giving a different perspective of the human mind. 

Anyway, old friend, don’t let the heat get to you,

Richard Leland Neal