The Editor has asked me to clarify that these letters are selected, not edited. What you read is what arrived, minus the addresses, which we keep in a file for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who has ever published something that annoyed a veteran. — The Staff
From R.T., Cleveland
Sir,
I have read your magazine and I am uncertain whether it is a literary quarterly or a cry for help. If it is the latter, I am professionally obligated to inform you that I am not a psychiatrist, I am a plumber, but I have seen enough despair in my line of work to recognize the symptoms. The man who wrote about the burning motel, for instance, should see someone. The fire is not a metaphor. The fire is a fire. I once fixed a pipe in a motel in Sandusky that had seventeen small fires in one year, all started by the same traveling salesman, who turned out to be setting them so he would have something to write about in his journal. The journal was never published. The salesman is now in Sandusky, working at a hardware store, and I fixed his pipes last Tuesday. He did not mention the fires. People never mention the fires.
[No response required — Ed.]
From E.L., Marfa, Texas
To the so-called Editor,
I showed your essay on hope to my wife, who has been hoping I would take out the trash since 1968. She found it "depressing," which coming from her is like Stalin finding you "authoritarian." I, however, agreed with every word. Hope is for people who have not yet read the fine print. I have read the fine print. The fine print says we are all going to die in a motel, possibly of a small fire, and the only question is whether we have the decency to pretend we are surprised.
[We admire your marriage. — Ed.]
From S.M.K., Portland
Dear Rolling Home Chronicles,
I am writing to request a subscription, but I want to be clear about my expectations. I do not expect to enjoy your magazine. I expect to be annoyed by it, to disagree with it, to fold corners of pages in order to argue with them later at dinner parties. I subscribe to three other literary magazines and I hate all of them for different reasons. I suspect I will hate you for a new reason, which is the only reason I am willing to pay. Novelty, in hatred as in love, is worth the postage.
[Welcome to the congregation. — Ed.]
From Anonymous, a highway
Editor,
I am writing this from a gas station in a state I am not sure of. I have been driving for fourteen hours and I have decided that your magazine is the only thing I believe in. This is not a compliment. I do not believe in God, I do not believe in marriage, I do not believe in the currency I am using to buy this gas. But I believe in your magazine because it is the only thing I have encountered that seems to understand that belief itself is the problem. I am enclosing a twenty-dollar bill. Please do not send me anything in return. I do not want the magazine. I want the magazine to exist, which is different. I want proof that someone, somewhere, is still telling the truth slightly drunk, in a voice they will deny in the morning. That is the only religion I can tolerate.
[The money was forwarded to the widow in Room 207. — Ed.]
From J.C., formerly of Reno
Mr. Norton,
I knew Frank Deluca. Not well. Well enough to know that the "last honest bookie" narrative is exactly the kind of story Frank would plant if he wanted to be remembered as honest. He was not honest. He was careful. There is a difference. An honest man tells you the odds. A careful man tells you the odds he wants you to hear. Frank told me once, in a moment of what I mistook for candor, that the only bet he ever made was on his own mortality, and that he had been hedging that bet since 1959. I asked him what he was hedging with. He said, "Other people's optimism. It's the only currency that never depreciates."
I am not writing to correct your record. Your record is fine, as these things go. I am writing because I have no one else to tell. Frank died last month. The obituary said "retired businessman." The funeral was unattended except for a woman from a laundromat who folded the funeral program into a paper airplane and threw it into the Truckee. I was there. I saw it. The airplane flew better than you would expect. Everything flies better than you would expect, if you throw it hard enough and do not care where it lands.
[We are sorry for your loss, and for the program. — Ed.]