I still get letters in the mail, mostly from cracked-up men in tiny rooms with factory jobs or no jobs who are living with whores or no woman at all, no hope, just booze and madness.
Most of their letters are on lined paper written with an unsharpened pencil or in ink in tiny handwriting that slants to the left
and the paper is often torn usually halfway up the middle and they say they like my stuff, I’ve written from where it’s at, and they recognize that. truly, I’ve given them a second chance, some recognition of where they’re at.
it’s true, I was there, worse off than most of them. but I wonder if they realize where their letters arrive? well, they are dropped into a box behind a six-foot hedge with a long driveway leading to a two car garage, rose garden, fruit trees, animals, a beautiful woman, mortgage about half paid after a year, a new car, fireplace and a green rug two-inches thick with a young boy to write my stuff now, I keep him in a ten-foot cage with a typewriter, feed him whiskey and raw whores, belt him pretty good three or four times a week. I’m 59 years old now and the critics say my stuff is getting better than ever.