Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

The only good thing about me is I drink coffee. Everything else and you’d think me a bad man. But I promise I’m good. I keep my bed clean. I floss after eating Everything bagels, and I talk to my parents. I even go to therapy. Yes. I am more good than I lead on to be. But I feel like a bad man. I do drugs. Lots of drugs. I fuck hookers when the money’s good. I dream of killing those who wrong me. And I let my ego run the office while I’m awake.

I didn’t have much growing up, but I did go to a school that required uniforms. My shorts had mud stains and my shirts had small holes stretched open by time. Money was an issue for my parents until I was 15. Then it became an issue for me. Sometimes I remember what it was like to eat food and watch the leaves die and crackle against the road when winter came. It all seemed to come from a greater power. Then I realized it all came from man.

When I was small everything seemed so big. Now that I’m big it all seems expensive. I don’t mean money-wise either. I mean…I don’t know. Like, um, you know, fuck it, yeah, expensive. Let’s settle on that. I don’t like how thinking makes me feel.

I drink wine. Lots of it. I think of myself like a wine. I’m always on the cusp of turning sour and spoiled from too much heat in my head. But when I look at someone in the eyes, when I assure a lost soul, when I hold an innocent child, I feel like I’m still aging gracefully.

I’m getting side tracked. What was I on? Hookers? No. I was talking about my childhood. Yeah, I liked the winter and leaves and shit. But I also liked summer. I spent it breaking sticks and smoking cigarettes with the kids from aftercare who couldn’t afford camp. I’m not gonna sit here and say my parents were drinkers, but they drank. They didn’t get fucked up and beat me. They’d just say something like, “If we didn’t have you we’d be happy,” or some shit like that.

I can tell you it didn’t affect me. But I’d be foolin’ me, not you. You can see me better than me. Sometimes I wish they hit me instead. My friends who got hit by their parents turned out alright. One kid just graduated from Wharton and now he’s making lots of money at an investment bank. All the Jewish girls love him. He fucks all the time.

I’m not innocent. What I did was wrong. I know that. I don’t need a lawyer and I don’t want a sentence reduction. I want to sit in my cell for 20 years and think. I want to read and write like Malcolm X did. I want to be good and save myself from becoming a spoiled grape. I think jail will do me good. I just hate how everyone sees my mugshot now. I look terrible.

I’m sad I turned out this way. The red light looked green to me. I’ve been at red lights so long maybe I wanted it to be green for so long, fantasized so much about green lights that I saw it that way. Driving 70 down Bismarck street with the lights looking like brushed paint on my face. T-boned the fuck out of her car. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was yesterday you idiot.

I was driving so fast. Fucked up beyond belief. You know when you’re tipsy but in control? I’ve driven like that plenty of times. Hell, I’ve driven after a coke bender and…forget it, let’s not make this 40 years in the can. T-bones are best had at the table, not an intersection.

One life down, how many more to go? The cops got the details if you want them. Long story short, I killed someone. No need for detectives on this one. Cameras took those jobs.

My parents should know by now. They haven’t called. But they should be happy that I’m gone no? God answered their wish after 23 years. Now it’s my turn to pray. I haven’t spoken to Him in years. Not since those autumn days when the dead leaves rolled in unison. Not since I was a good man with less than I have now. Just by getting older, we get more corrupted. No wonder it gets harder to talk to God. How can we stand naked before Him with scars and dirt under our nails?

I hope I get lots of years in jail. I feel numb now but I got tough, painful days ahead. Who can look at me and ever say I am a good man? A life is gone because of me. I tried to kill my pain and killed a 43-year-old mother instead.

This is my first letter to no one. No one is who I have on my side. Sort of the opposite of when we’re born. The world is supporting you as a baby, then you pick who stays and who goes. I’m coming from death now, climbing down the ladder of life to the point where everything seems so big. When all you need is the wind and the smell of a distant campfire to make you believe this is all you could ever want.