Steve

Dear Sister,

We hoped that we’d see you over Christmas and New Years. I guess you were real busy. The girls will thank you for their gifts at the close of the letter. I just wanted to let you know that those chocolate covered cherries you sent them were about five years old. Somebody had squashed em either in the store or in the mail.

Anyways, the gooey part had run all over in the box and hardened up again in a big ugly drippy mess. Lester’s Sister Juanita Inez is a checker at the big Wal-Mart on 183 and she said the bar code on the box would have dated them to about Christmas 1991. I just thought you’d want to know.

We certainly did miss you though. Lester and I sure do want to thank you for the super sonic mouse and roach eliminator device. It is just amazing. The directions say that it emits a scientific sound only audible to insects and rodents that it makes em too upset to eat drink or reproduce. It looks good on the counter because it matches my food dehydrator and my salad spinner. Lester says he wants to point it at the neighbor’s house so they’ll be too nervous to reproduce.

They are horrible people. They have an old broke down refrigerator in the front yard. It’s been there about two years. Lester told em that the garbage pick-up wouldn’t take it unless they set it out closer to the curb on the last Wednesday of every third month for heavy trash day. They said it just needed a part and their daddy was gonna fix it.

I don’t know how many of em there are now. I’m not sure they do. She never stops doin laundry and she is always pregnant. I bet she hasn’t had a her period in ten years. She chains smokes Viceroys the whole nine months every time. Lester say’s if she ever went to a Doctor he could put the stethoscope to her belly and hear the baby cough. We know they don’t have a Doctor though. Her Momma and the lady that stays with her come when its time and deliver the babies on the kitchen table

Our neighbors on the other side are a different matter. Knox and Butchie Lovejoy have lived there about ten years, I guess. He seems real nice and she just has a darling personality. Well just after school was out Butchies’s sister Marva left her little boy with them for the Christmas holidays. He’s a peculiar little thing and real small for his age. He has spindly little arms and legs and big ol cow eyes with long, long lashes. His name is Hartley Afton Drenh’e Snipes. His Momma married that Snipes boy that was so good at track and football but then he got agent oranged in the service or somethin like that and has never been the same.

Little Hartley is an only child and is spoiled somethin ridiculous. He says he is going to be in the Movies and on Broadway and he has already won Baby Beauty contests in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

I was nervous about the girls playin with him at first, but he’s teachin them both to tap dance and twirl and they are gettin pretty good. He likes to put on shows in the back yard with the girls because their bein twins and blondes, they can be his showgirls to back up his numbers. He says his two idols in the whole wide world are Mr. Tommy Tune and Mr. Fred Astaire. He plays the piano the violin and he can speak French, at least enough to make us believe he can.

His Mother was supposed to pick him up two days after Christmas but Knox and Butchie never heard a word from her. They were told that She moved out of her efficiency apartment, skipped out on her last months rent and left no forwarding address.

It seems the Daddy took off somewhere and left her broke back in September.

When she brought little Hartley for Christmas she had no intention of ever coming back. It’s just so sad that talented little child and nobody wants him.

Well, Knox and Butchie finally figured it all out and enrolled him in school last Monday. They couldn’t send for his records so they gave him a test to place him.

Harla and Darla were a little outdone that he’s two years younger but got put in their grade. I think it’s nice that they will be together.

The Lovejoys don’t intend to tell him that his parents deserted him. They just said they are both very sick and he needs to stay here for a while. Lester says that’s all they need is to make that kid crazy on top of bein Queer. He told Harla and Darla that he was going to be cast in a big Hollywood musical as Miss Liza Minelli’s son and then when he grows up he will star in and produce his own traveling production of Le Miserables on Ice. And he said yall won’t need any tickets cause you know me.

I just heard the screen door slap shut. I better get the kids their Rice Crispy Squares and chocolate milk. Their afternoon snack has to be right at 4:00 on the dot because that’s when Hartley says in England they have tea.

Let us know what happened about your car. Lester says that if you didn’t know that guy was in your trunk when you crossed the border they shouldn’t get to keep the car. Are you sure you told us everything about the situation? We only want to help.

Dear Aunt Edith,

Thanks so much for the candy and the feathered boa and the makeup kit with very dark lipstick. I will use them a lot. Come and see us and you can sleep in the room over the garage. Harla and me will kill the spiders for you.

Your friend and niece, Darla Lee Tumlinson

Dear Edith,

I want to thank you very much for the cool makeup stuff that you sent and the stripper feather thing. Also thank you for the chocolate covered cherries that Momma took away from us. She said that a disingrunneled postal worker had ruined them and we could pick something else at Wal-Mart and don’t eat em.

When are you coming to see us? You left a People magazine and a curling iron and a high heel and a Black bra that doesn’t fit Momma last time you were here. We still have em. Did you get our potholders? We didn’t buy them. We made em.

Love, Harla