The Myth of Wile E

Five Pretty Good Polaroids

There were a lot of Dos and Dont's for sending mail to Dougie. Actually, pretty much all Don'ts. Nothing could be written in crayon, for instance. And no candy was allowed (even at Halloween!). No stickers or stamps (including, alas, duck stamps). No postcards. No hardback books. No art supplies (sadly), though he could get them himself at the commissary, sometimes. As for Polaroids, for some reason they were only allowed if all the thick plastic frame had been cut off and the back part was removed. I chose five pretty good Polaroids, carefully cut the white edges off, and placed the flimsy remaining squares, unlabeled (because where could I write on them?) into an envelope addressed to Dougie, carefully triple-checking his DOC number and PO drawer number, because if you hadn't guessed, the Department of Corrections was kind of uptight.

When I got to the mailbox I found that it already contained two envelopes addressed to me—one of which was written in my very own handwriting. (Every time this happened it felt a bit disorienting and uncanny, as if the letter were sent by another me, like maybe a time traveler, or a double from the Mirror Universe.) It contained an RSVP of an unusual kind:

this is just to say

we have returned
the poems
you sent in
the mail

and which
you were foolishly
hoping
we'd publish

forgive us
they were atrocious
so trite
and so twee

Of course I was flabbergasted. I'd never had a poem answered with a poem before. It was like . . . like Bachman's warbler hearing a non-recorded reply. Okay, maybe not a "happy to have found you!" reply, but a response from his own kind just the same.

The other envelope contained a most puzzling letter, bearing the logo of the mogul's company, Manifest Density Enterprises, explaining that he (well, they) had acquired my tax lien. That was odd—who would ever want such a thing? They explained that I would now need to pay them (Manifest Density Enterprises) in order to "redeem" my house. I didn't understand why my house was in need of redemption, when it had never done a single thing wrong as far as I knew. Besides, I thought the whole paying-for-redemption thing went out with that Lutheran guy who nailed his feces to a door and then had to go eat worms? (Though to be fair I was hazy on the details because my World History teacher mumbled.)

The mogul's letter was full of all sorts of strange made-up-sounding words, like "fi fa" and "quitclaim," and there were mysterious references to Chapters, Sections, and Sub-sections of Codes, with lots of numbers and hyphens, not to mention weird spiral symbols (§§) that looked like they represented hurricanes.

The mogul had helpfully attached a new bill, and it went like this:

Lien amount + tax sale fee + interest (18%) + attorney fees + title fee + public notice fee + filing fee + dismissal fee + posting fee + judgment reports + postage + copies + courier costs + bankruptcy search fee = $2,763.07.

My previous $2.12 hole was now, somehow, a chasm.