Letters

Letter 22

December 4th, 2004

Dear Dad,

            So this week’s been surprising lately. I caught Richard not acting himself and when there was only the two of us, I asked him what was up. Richard said, “Nothing” but there’s always something up. I thought he was a bit uncomfortable in this school setting, so I decided to wait until after school.

            My English teacher was a bit extra mean today. She called on Daxus to read the passage in our textbooks because nobody else wanted to read. When Daxus stuttered or pronounced a word wrong, the teacher gave him a two minute lecture about how he should read fluently. When he was finished, the teacher then told the class that we’re surrounded in written language and we have to learn how to read properly and used Daxus as an example.

        My art teacher gave us another project today. We had to make paper snowflakes to hang around the school. Everyone had to make 10 and there are approximately 30 kids in her class and she has 5 classes. That’s about 1500 snowflakes. I asked her if we’ll ever do something a bit more challenging, so she said that I could make 20 instead of 10 snowflakes. I told her that wasn’t what I meant. She shrugged and sat at her desk. She said that I could make more than 10 if I wanted to. Someone then asked her if they could do more than 10 for extra credit. She replied with a no.

        These teachers bother me the most, but I’m trying to find some reason why I should give them each a Christmas present. Daxus recommended that I should anonymously send them each a glitter bomb. He said that glitter gets everywhere and you’ll still find it a month later. Richard recommended sending them each a big box with one small rock duck taped to the floor of the box. I shook my head. I wanted to get them something nice like, killing them with kindness. “Killing is illegal” Daxus said, “that’s why you lock them away in a cold concrete room of grief and regret until they decide to be nicer to everyone” I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this. Richard and Daxus knows how mean the teachers here can be. Some are sarcastic, some are tolerable, some are unfair, and some just like to dehumanize us, like my English teacher.

        It was just the three of us after school. We sat in the library and asked Richard what’s up. Richard said that he got in trouble with his parents, so now he has to have his room a certain way and he has to participate in going to Sunday churches. He said that before then, his parents respected how he was an individual, but now they want him to be more like them because Richard was caught watching something inappropriate on TV.

        Daxus and Richard didn’t come over today because Daxus still felt a little sick and Richard’s parents didn’t let him come over this time. I got to Uncle Alex’s house and I went straight towards the computer. I logged into a chat room and saw that Richard was on, but Daxus wasn’t this time. I greeted Richard and he said that Daxus was in the shower and he’ll be out in a moment. Richard brought up what had happened earlier when he said that he was in trouble. He lied. He got in trouble for that a few months ago and the real reason was that his parents got too curious about what he was reading. They found out he was reading a gay romance novel and he has to move out soon because of that. He had until the end of the week to pack his stuff and move to Las Vegas, Nevada. He said that he had to move into this house that his grandparents owned, but died in. It was located on the far edge of the city and he described it as a nice big house, but had the smell of old people and soap.

        I knew I had to make the best of the time that he’s here before he moves away. I’m planning on buying him a cactus, since he’s moving into a desert. It’ll be his early Christmas present.

Your son,

Rico