For Jordan Reyes’ Second Writing Paper
A first note:
Dear Laura,
Jordan and I actually met in Chicago a few years ago. We were riding the el, which is the more mainstream public transportation system. The “Metra” is like an actual train that has several lines diverting to different parts of the suburbs and into the city. There are two systems of public transportation in the city. The el has more stops and is more easily accessible as it spreads to the individual neighborhoods and is fairly pervasive in the downtown area. You can really get anywhere in the city with it.
Anyway, I’m only bringing this up because I needed to tell you, Dr. Harris, that Jordan is an asshole.
Yes, indeed. Scoff, if you will, but let me shed a little bit of light for you on his character. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret giving him my cell phone number. I’d rather not get into the reason for why the two of us got along so swimmingly: it’s personal for both of us, but I ended up helping him out in a bit of a pickle and he let me work out some inner demons. I suppose we both owe each other. Let’s leave it at that.
And even if I did include it in here, Jordan could have completely taken out that part. I am only sending him this word document. He’s already plagiarized parts of an e-mail that I sent him. You remember that paper you got from me earlier on? Yeah. I wrote that. Well, it’s not like he plagiarized it per se, but rather that he didn’t tell me he was going to use it. Yes, I had given him parts of my writing and perhaps that’s cheating or plagiarizing, but don’t blame me, and don’t call my agent and don’t allow the university to have some sort of in to my private life: I simply don’t want to be bothered. I have important things to do.
By now, you’re asking yourself so this famous author has been allowing my student to use his work for class. And I will just say that it was not my fault. It was the young Mr. Reyes’ idea to use my work for his academics. As I said, Jordan is an asshole, and now I’m sure that you’re questioning his morality. You should.
Anyway, I hope that my writing helps. Even if it is just a violated copy.
Sincerely and Respectfully,
R. Fuko
Dearest Regimund,
I don’t want to be an asshole but I have another paper to write and I know it’s not your favorite thing to do. I know you don’t really like to do it but I don’t write so well so could you just do it for me or at least send me some things to work with? I can’t wait to see you again over winter break. I’ll pay for a meal of yours or something. Whatever you want. Seriously. But I really need some help with my paper. Its supposed to be about Huck Finn. I’m sure you have read him or something like them. Could you help me out?
Thank you so much,
Jordan
Dear Jordan,
You know I don’t feel comfortable doing this. I don’t know where you get off, personally, but consider this the last time that anything like this is going to happen. Oh yes I know our contract, but seriously, this is getting a bit ridiculous. You can’t just use me for your goddamn paper assignments. I’m a real person, you know. I can’t get bogged down by your trash: I have my own work to do, my own life to sort out and my own mind to worry about: I really can’t be allowing some college kid to be running my life and asking for favors.
I don’t know why I even put up with this, but seriously, let’s not do this again. And I feel fucking awful about it anyway. I can’t be doing stuff like this, it’s just not honest. I mean, yeah, you’re a terrible fucking writer, but seriously, you have a lot of resources. I’m sure there’s a writing group or something that can help you with papers.
We can talk more over the break, but honestly, this is going to be the last time.
R. Fuko
On the Nature of the Journey
(Dreams of Escapism)
Society has a way of invading you. It stops becoming a place in which to live and begins to become something that you have to escape. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt this way, but I have and I’ve felt it for a long time, and sometimes I still feel it. When I was younger it got to me: it got to me pretty bad. Enough for me to leave it or at least to try. You feel it in your bones, this primordial desire to exit because you feel like your air is getting crushed in your windpipe and you feel like the lingering buildings and hovering tunnels are just made out of walls and you realize that the borders aren’t things merely to cross but things that are designed to block. The world turns and you’re not allowed to rotate. The paths you walk are numbered and the breaths you take are manufactured. You feel like you’re boxed in and you can disregard the welling panic in your stomach but it won’t get any better. I wanted to leave you with some of the stuff I thought and some of the stuff that happened.
I grew up thinking that the institutions that surrounded me were things I had to pass through. Like. That was it, just that there were these obstacles that were there in order to make your end result the best that it could be. You don’t realize that you end up just sacrificing your freedom until you get to the point where you have freedom but you can’t even do anything with it because you start to get too old to do anything but be there and I thought that and it didn’t sit well with me and that’s when I got nervous that I would never be able to do any of the things that I really wanted. Because I may be a cynic, but I believe in dreams and sometimes I even believe in sacrifice, but I also believe, and this I believe more strongly than both of the other two, that they are mutually exclusive.
The key is to mature but not to grow old. The key is to not sacrifice that which is deemed most important. In this regard I have succeeded.
From the Early Journals of Early Journeys
5/7/19XX
A man stopped me today. He asked me “Quién eres?” Spanish for “Who are you?” a question often asked to us Gringos. Also a question that I try to avoid. Sometimes they ask “De donde eres?” a question that means “Where are you from?” but it really means the same thing. I could have said “Soy Americano,” which means, “I’m an American.” I could have said “Soy un escritor.” “I am a writer.” I could have said “Soy nadie.” “I’m no one.” But instead I said “Soy nada.”
“I’m nothing.”
1/12/19XX
The winter barks a cloudy breath. One that demands warning and necessitates shelter. For a wanderer, it is a near death wish, or maybe a death excuse, but it can also circumvent all of that and become a reason to bundle up and celebrate humanity, which is, after all, the only thing that has been keeping me warm. Literally.
A woman let me stay in her house and has given me the guest room. About now, I know that I’m in the general vicinity of the Southwest and furthermore, I’m in Colorado, but any further than that I have no idea. It’s cold. A good time to realize what’s important to you. You shuck off the weight in your backpack and use what you can as you hitchhike from one place to the next or you get on a train and huddle in the cargo or you just walk until you can’t go any more holding your thumb to the road.
The woman’s name is Leticia. She is elderly and is very kind to me. She prepared me a meal of mashed potatoes and roast chicken. Anything she made would have been better than the bickies [saltine-like food for mountaineers – ed.] and peanut butter that I have been eating for my trip. The water doesn’t taste like iodine because there’s no iodine in it. It’s pure. The warmth of a bath and a bed are harbingers of humanity.
It’s funny because there’s a level of comfort in society sometimes when you run across someone like Leticia. But it’s like that’s out of society because it isn’t an institution even though institutions allow for it to happen and it’s because of this that I don’t want to get close and I don’t want to have to hurt anyone anymore. And it’s funny that you feel so warm when you’re in the place from where you want to escape.
9/16/19XX
Lo más importante en conocer México es esto – El Mexicano es un mestizo. Ser Mexicano es ser mezclado. Ser mexicano es tener dos lados en la vida. Y los dos lados no se les gustan, pero son necesarios. Ser mexicano es tener una lucha siempre en la corazón.
(The most important thing needed in order to know Mexico is this – The Mexican is a mixture. To be Mexican is to be mixed. Being Mexican is to have two sides in life. And the two sides don’t like each other, but they’re necessary. To be Mexican is to always have a fight in the heart.)
12/25/19XX
It’s Christmas and God is dead. They said Jesus was born today but it wasn’t really today and everyone knows that. The books are lying to you. People just need to think for a second and remember that the Hebrew calendar is different than the standard one that we have nowadays and that’s just how it goes. But I love Christmas to be honest. It really does have that rosy feeling sometimes when you feel it in your bones that the community around you is sufficient and you really don’t need anything else.
It’s Christmas in Mexico and the family with which I’m staying is beautiful. It’s warm and the lights aren’t colored but they’re on, or at least there are candles. The walls are some sort of plaster or something and they reflect nicely the imperfections and the cracks that line the organic realty that is a house. There is sufficient comfort and the presents that go around aren’t much but they count and there’s a lot of faith and a lot of happiness and a lot of family and it’s times like these that I realize that society really does have the same warmth as a fire. And the similarity is the burning in the sense that a fire can spread to a forest and destroy things, but it can also create some beautiful moments where you know that there really is no heaven and there’s nothing beyond death but some pallid light that sooths and erases all the pain that has happened in the past as all memories but it’s alright because the present is beautiful and you can’t ask for anything more than the light and the warmth and the faces that surround. And circles really are complete.
On Mexico
Sometimes I wish I could go back there. I’m writing this at the present. Furthermore, I am writing this for Jordan, because this is where we meet. We meet because we agree with so many things that it’s almost like I am him. It’s weird, but it’s true. The burning desire to leave society behind and the influence of Mexico on our lives, but it’s something more than that too.
Jordan told me about a girl in Mexico. Her name was Laura and he says that she was beautiful. And I knew that he meant it because he spoke of her so eloquently and his brown eyes softened when he said her name. And he told me that he was in love with her and that they used to sit on her balcony and watch the stars and the village happen below them because they were literally above it, but they weren’t figuratively because they were the village at that time and all the noises and lights that flickered and chirped in society became them. And one time they even saw a comet.
And he told me that every night they talked about their days and about what they wanted to do and they knew that they both loved each other but couldn’t do anything about it because she was a Mexican and Jordan was nothing. And she couldn’t speak English and couldn’t go back across the border even though she said she would be moving to Chicago that year. They both knew she wouldn’t.
All things point to show that love is a result of chemicals or something that makes it out to be less than something that it is, but it can’t hurt it because love can be anything from a mother’s embrace to someone standing on a car and preaching the gospel. And it’s this sort of community-driven ambience that floats between you and all the people you’ll ever know and you realize that everything is worth it for this force.
So you look up at the stars at night and wonder if Laura is looking at the same constellation.
And you wonder. And you wander.
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