Hello again all,
Posting letter #2, meant to go between chapter 1 and chapter 2... Interested in knowing whether anyone understood anything from Letter #1, and whether Letter #2 seems coherent/adds something to the end of the first chapter...
And yes, I promise I'll come back and read everybody soon... working overtime on a new job, but missing my reading time!
best,
Roughin


July 21, 2007

Dear Alice,

A little bit strange to write to the dead, but as you know I have been dead more years than I was alive. Like talking to myself, but I have had no one but myself to talk to for so long it seems almost as if it makes no difference. Except that I wish you were still out there, doing your courageous doing, seeing with your courageous eyes, sewing truth into a sea of lies.

Sam told me some years ago you were officially declared dead. He published a tribute to your life in one of his newsletters; I wish you could have known, in your last lonely time, that you were not alone. That you are not forgotten. I feel almost as if you followed me to the ends of the earth--I feel so torn by this--as if on the one hand I am somehow responsible through my senseless, unchosen life for your calling the worst upon your shoulders. But I also know we give each other strength, through our stubborness and defiant pain, and many times when I thought of you I felt somehow that it was all possible.

I also saw your mother. After all these years of silence, and certainly of deep, brooding anger, she came to pay her respects, to you, to me, to Sam; to apologize for some imagined culpability for my condition. And to apologize, vicariously, to you. I tried to tell her, I hope I was able to tell her that we all share this. That you had the strength you needed in your life. That she should be proud of you, and not give in to useless guilt. That we carry our burdens alone, but if we are willing to do something together, we can do more than we know or imagine. That there are more of us than of them. That we have the power to take this planet somewhere closer to sanity and love. That you are the proof.

She's the one who told me how the State Department was reporting your death. They won't say what country you were held in. They can't deliver proof of your passing. They have no information regarding the last location you were held in. They confirm that you were arrested by official police forces of the host country and not kidnapped or held for ransom. They cannot give any indication of the conditions of your holding. They claim that you were arrested for illegal activity and that they have received clear evidence regarding your death of natural causes inside the prison. The report and all the other related documents are
classified.

I shudder to think what may have been your body in your last months of life. Alice, I have been saying for years that solitary confinement is torture, and can't be placed on some theoretical or scientific scale of clean and dirty forms. But you know how much painstaking research I've done on all the ingenious methods invented by man to manipulate nerves and brain and break the human spirit. I am sure your spirit can never be broken, but if there was a moment in my years of godlessness that I resorted to praying an unseen being with powers beyond those of our fragile skeletons, it was when contemplating your case. May your God preserve your soul.

Of course if you were in contact with any rebel groups, this was enough for "legitimate" arrest. And the secrecy surrounding your death stinks to high heaven. But none of this is new.

Your mother said she had joined a support group for parents of gay children. I laughed outloud! After all these years... anyway, if it helps her work through something, why not. She looked for similar groups dealing with the family members of disappeared, imprisoned or killed-in-action journalists, but couldn't really relate to the ones she found. I told her she should start her own, in defense of independent journalism, right-to-information and international protections for members of the press. I told her she should focus on the local journalists in high-risk areas, who always bear the brunt of it, ignored or fed-off of by the big names. Paid nothing and dying every day. A few months ago she sent me the first newsletter. It was stunning. So our work goes on, without us.

I guess this is what I'm supposed to say, what I meant to say in this letter. You followed me to the cell, now I'm following you to the earth. Thank you for being you all these years. I've missed you for forever. The goodbye is long overdue, but now that I am going, our friendship dies with breath and memory. May we rest in peace, and may they fight in strength.

Love forever, my beautiful friend,

Suzie-Q
1971-2007





August 3, 2005

Dear Mom,

I'm writing from prison. I'm sure despite our shall we say "conflictual" relationship? you have got to be worried by now! I wish so much that I thought this letter would reach you, but small chance of that. We try to be, and make one million truths, but we can't always empty the sea.

Never mind what country I'm in, the letter will never reach you if I divulge... some "diplomats" are trying to negotiate but the constraints are overwhelming, and to be honest they don't have much motivation to help. It's no secret that I'm a public prosecutor of the only people who can do anything for me now, so if my hair falls out here I've asked for it!

For all these reasons I really just want to talk about you and me. It's not that I've lost hope, it's that you can feel when it's stacked one way and not another. The game isn't up; if they put me in here it's cause I already won my bet. Anyway, they can muzzle me there are millions of us. Too bad the Americans are 80% unilingual! It keeps them dumb.

I know I sound like I'm having a cup of coffee. I swear they're not treating me so bad. They're scared of my pen, scared of my passport. Scared as hell (sorry) of my allies, who could get me out tomorrow if it were really their priority and pass me over the borders like thousands of others it's in their interest to get off their land. Nevermind, they have better things to do.

Speaking of which, I wouldn't want you to be confused. If you do your research or read just what I've already posted, you will know that the prisons here and in so many other places I've haunted are hell-holes of terror. Please, if you can't do anything else, just do that. Just read what I've written, and trust your own brain and verify that everything I've said is true. Proven, confirmed, leaked and even validated by my enemies. But enough of politics. I need to speak to you as my mother.

Mom, we've fought so much. I should say, we fought so much before I gave up on you and decided I needed to put my energies into this mess of a world. I don't even care about the gay thing! I mean, for me I care, it always mattered just because it was true, but I don't care if you can ever really accept that or not. I just want you to know it's not the only defining thing about me, and it's not the only thing about you either. I think that's all I wanted, that we could meet on another plane, and be and discuss with our whole selves, not just one exaggerated uncircumventable issue. We all have the right to love, and not just in a sexual way.

You taught me many things. You taught me standards, and simplicity, and ethical rigor. You taught me to love my neighbor as myself, to treat other people with kindness, even when I don't like them or they're mean to me, you taught me not to care about appearance or material accumulation. You taught me to be patient in suffering, not to whine, not to place all my problems on other people. You taught me to hope when it wasn't logical. I only realized when I was standing on the other side of the world, standing before the devastation of war and witnessing pain with no gloves on how courageous you had been with your illness. I wish you could have been able to share some of your suffering and scream and cry and be real with your feelings! but your example held me up and gave me just the dose of austerity I needed to survive the trauma of my eyes, to give myself permission to smile and laugh and joke sometimes while living constantly surrounded by chaos and destruction. So I thank you for that.

And you taught me that God is love. I don't think you were entirely consistent with that tenet, and I don't want to talk about religion. For me, it's something private. But still, this seed you planted for me from my youngest memory, and it has carried me through all these years, and even through our struggles.

I have this sneaking suspicion I won't make it out of here. Don't panic--if you get this letter and I'm still in here you can just focus on trying to get me out. I don't think there's really anyone else on the task! You are a very strong woman, so I know you can take this reality along with everything else. But we haven't spoken for years, and I miss you. If this is goodbye, you have the right to
know.

Love and kisses from prison,

Alice

P.S. If you can do anything for me besides reading my articles and moving heaven, earth and the U.S. government on my behalf, please visit Suzie-Q.





August 10, 2005

Dear Suzie-Q,

I'm starting to get depressed. I guess that's not as bad as going crazy! but I do have daily contact with the prison staff. At first they were much more careful, but I think they know by now I'm not qualified to make a break and I have no experience with explosives. They're much more relaxed.

I wish I could describe this scene to you. I'm in a rural place, very removed. The staff are just poor people who needed to eat. When I came they thought I was a big fish, they were all so nervous! There are many things I'd like to explain, about their daily interactions with me--cultural details that would blow you away! But if there's one thing the "negotiators" keep repeating to me, it's that if I want to make it out I will have to promise absolute secrecy about everything, including where I am, so I can't really tell you what my world is like.

It's only been three months, but I feel like it's been a lifetime. Like I got dropped into a hole. Like I got dropped down into the bottom of a well. Makes me think of your first three months, and how you kept talking about them all these years.

Suzie-Q, the exclamation points have almost dropped out of my brain. It feels strange, after watching and telling so much disaster over time, I was never so low as now. I wrote a really upbeat letter to my mother a week ago--I told her I was sure I was going to die--I still am. I think this last week maybe the words I put down on paper are starting to sink in. That I don't think the letter will reach her. That I never got to say goodbye--that I never told her what she meant to me--that I really do believe--with fervency, like her sect that wallowed in uncanny powers--I know this is the end--I know. With no evidence, but no doubt. Suzie-Q, I will never see her or you again. And maybe you will never know what happened to me.

I can't write another goodbye. It's different--we've said everything to each other over the years--you don't need me to tell you what you already know.

I hope you're strong! One last exclamation point for you, my friend--since the answer is deep in my soul, and the source of all my courage.

Love to my love,

Alice