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boredom. Picture a cornfield and a road next to it and a car going down the road with a family in it and maybe a little kid with popsicle stains on his face staring out the back window. That’s Missouri. There’s lots of fields and strip malls and trees and churches and telephone poles and birds. Ohio is pretty boring and I know you know that more than anyone but Missouri is cursed with a different kind of boredom P. It hangs in the air like somebody’s bad breath. People get old there and I mean like into their NINETIES.
    I left Buckner in the middle of the night. At one point, I got a ride from this guy heading to Canada. His name was Carson Block and he owned a logging company in Vancouver. He picked me up in western Kansas and drove me all the way to Portland. He ate green Tic Tacs and listened to country-western music CDs nonstop which was some painful listening. He didn’t have no Clash or Ramones. He wouldn’t have had any punk in a million years.
    Before I gave Branson my iPod there were these two bands called Liars and Deerhoof that I couldn’t stop listening to. Have you heard of them P? They aren’t punk bands really just alternative ones but they have some punk in them. I like those two bands a lot. There’s also this guy called Daniel Johnston who is a schizophrenic and wrote all these songs in his brother’s garage with Fisher-Price instruments. His songs are pretty sad and weird. There’s this one called “Walking the Cow” about him walking a cow. I played it for Branson once and now he thinks I communicate with the dead. Branson said “That crazy nigga sounds like he dead. Like he a mummy” and I was like “He’s not a mummy he’s from West Virginia” which was true and then Branson told me I seemed like one of those people who have a thing with the dead and that’s exactly how he put it. I said “What kind of thing?” but he couldn’t really explain himself. We never talked about that again but maybe he’s right maybe I’m meant for the dead more than for the living? Do you think it’s possible that some people are on one side or the other even if they’re scientifically alive? Like swimmers or nonswimmers? Even though I’m in the world and I eat and sleep like everyone else maybe the world doesn’t really know I’m here but the dead know I’m here they like SEE me the way dogs can see squirrels in trees. Maybe I’m like that. I’m probably not making sense at all.
    In your letter you asked me what I want to do with my life which is a mad serious question P the kind of question that makes you want to lie down and take a nap. I could be in the middle of a busy street and get asked that and I’d fall asleep because of the pressure.
    When I was really little I used to think I wanted to be in the army like the Major but all that ended when I saw him freak out this one time when he was doing his morning workout. I was like seven and he didn’t know I could see him because I was coming up from the basement and the door was cracked and he was doing push-ups in the living room and in between sets he stared at himself in that mirror next to the bookshelf that Grandma Beauty gave Mom and he pointed at his reflection and said “You’re a warrior Major! A goddamn glory-filled warrior!” and then he kissed his right bicep. It almost made me vomit I swear P. In fact my stomach is turning right now just thinking about it! That’s when I promised myself I would stay away from the army for the rest of my life but of course I went ahead and got my stupid ass sent to Buckner. How’s that for luck? Don’t take me to go to the casino with you no way. You’ll lose all your money.
    One thing I know for sure is that someday I’m going to learn how to play the guitar and maybe start my own punk band. There will be like four of us and we’ll be really skinny and pale and thrash around with kitchen-cleanser hair and we’ll have some crazy drummer with skin infections and jet fuel breath and