The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg Read online

  But I am not that kind of viewer. I found myself cheering for Herbie's suicide attempt, David. The anthropomorphization of the VW Bug sank in deep for me, me being made of hopeless stuff, and I felt wholly in tune with the Bug's feelings of abandonment, his feelings of being misunderstood. Herbie didn't have a context in which to understand himself anymore—he was so alone—and since I live in the real world and not in a fictional one in which society accepts and eventually embraces the uncharacterizable (e.g., a skittish part-Jew who grew up underachieving in a small midwestern town who falls in love with not his wife), the impossible to label (e.g., a VW Bug with a heart, eyes, enormous desires), I felt the most appropriate and true-to-life ending of the story would be Herbie's successful annulment of his bitter, misbegotten life. And I'd started to think so only a third of the way through the actual movie.

  And it was at that moment I began to seriously consider the annulment of my own (though I've had more serious fodder for suicidal thoughts in the last two days), a little more than a third of the way through my own actual life.

  There you have it.

  I'd like to discuss, so I'm sorry I'll be dead when you get this. You should rent Herbie anyway and see what you think.

  You're not so bad, David. But you should answer your phone.

  T.

  P.S. Don't let Jared and Will watch Herbie. It's too much. You want to keep your boys off drugs, don't you? And if you're depressed yourself, don't do it.

  Day One:

  Transcript 3

  * * *

  David? I really don't like my brother . . . I mean didn't. Then. Peace . . . Peace . . .

  That's a meditation to help me be peaceful. It doesn't work.

  I don't think so. I wasn't so weird as a kid. I just never felt . . . in my skin. And I was sick. After Dad left, I developed a heart condition, which was . . . not diagnosable. I thought I was dying when I was nine. But I got along okay with other kids.

  No, David didn't receive a package from Dad. Only me.

  When I got the package? I thought it was a joke, maybe. Where would my dad get all that money?

  He was a diamond salesman, but . . . I don't think he ever sold much. We lived in the middle of nowhere. There was no market.

  Why are you asking me this stuff?

  Southwestern Wisconsin. Dad said the location gave him easy access to Milwaukee, Chicago, Green Bay, Minneapolis, Des Moines. But I can't imagine he really . . . There were no four-lane highways to these places. It was a tiny town. I think he was hiding.

  I don't know who he was hiding from.

  I almost fell down. It was August, really hot on the front step. And I opened the mailbox . . . and there was the package . . . I ripped it open right away, because it looked so odd. It had foreign stamps, Swiss stamps . . . and I never got anything interesting at my mom's house.

  Yes, I lived at Mom's alone.

  My divorce was final in April. Mom went to the home in April, too.

  Yes, I suppose that was lucky. Are you making a joke?

  It wasn't the money so much . . . I really couldn't believe the check was real. It was . . . in the package . . . I hadn't seen Dad, you know, since 1979 . . . hadn't even heard from him . . . and there was his old man face. Pictures in Europe. I'd been to Antwerp once, too. Not with him. I recognized it a little.

  One of the letters mentioned the money. It said something like, “Enjoy your inheritance, Theodore.” You have the letters, right? See, the letters were from Dad. But an inheritance implied that he was dead.

  It did strike me. I received the package in August and the letters were—are—the letters are all dated December. Dated four months in the future.

  It's right here—here. This one caught my eye, especially. December 7. I'm Theodore. Dad never called me T.

  Um, sure. I'll read it.

  Dear Theodore,

  I wish you a Happy Hanukkah. A long time ago our ancestors, the Maccabees, began a rebellion to push foreigners out of Jerusalem (they weren't nice foreigners—they ran the place tough and were really mad at the Jews for failing to assimilate into Hellenistic culture). We killed lots of people, including many Jews who did not agree with us, and we got back our temple and we burned some oil that lasted eight days when it really shouldn't have. It was a miracle! The Maccabees, our forebears, they saved Judaism, but their brutality knew no bounds. All this violence at the center of a religious celebration? So strange, Theodore. But, not so strange if you think for two seconds.

  December 7 was the first day of Hanukkah last year. My original plan when I read them was to kill myself on December 7.

  No. Not revenge, exactly. I was sincere . . . in that I was . . . down in the dumps. I really wanted to die. Well, I didn't want to live. I mean, I was pretty unfocused about suicide—the actual act . . . at that point. I didn't get focused until . . . But I was . . . you know, my wife and kids . . . and I'd had an affair with this—this—and my job . . . and the money gave me . . . maybe revenge, okay. Except I didn't know who against.

  Letter 3

  August 19, 2004—

  11:13 in the goddamn night.

  * * *

  Dear Dad,

  I'm drunk off my ass! Happy? Happy Birthday me.

  Second night in a row drunk. Okay?

  You're dead, aren't you? Still, I'm writing you, you son-of-a-bitch. (No offense dead Grandma whom I never knew, if you're listening.) Where did you get this money, Dad? Why did you give it to me now? Where did you go? Mom could've used it, Dad. She's gone completely idiot from a disease that's eating her brain! Thank you so much. I live in her house, as you must know, since you sent this to my address. Mom's not home, Dad. She's in a nursing home, Dad. Do you know how the hell much she struggled with money after you bolted, Dad? And why give me the wad? Is there more? Did you give any to David? I just got off the phone with David and he didn't mention any surprise inheritance. He told me to stop calling. (Apparently I left ten messages on his machine in ten minutes.) He said it was too late to be calling. He called me a drunk! He's an asshole. David will not see a dime of this wad, and I hope he didn't get his own chunk. This is my money, Dad.

  But, goddamn, I don't want your dirty money. Dirty Dirty Dirty.

  What do you think about this? I'm going to use it to kill myself! I'm going to hire a sherpa and go up Mount Everest with the Wad and tie it all around my body and JUMP!

  You don't believe me? How about a Hanukkah cliff dive? I'm going to do it. Check out the papers, because it's going to be a mess.

  Thanks an ass-load, Dad! Abandoner. See you in hell, if it exists.

  Your son,

  T.

  Day One:

  Transcript 4

  * * *

  I'm not feeling very well. Could I lie down, Father? It's kind of hard to . . .

  I'm very, very confused right now.

  The coughing? Yeah. Yeah. My lungs are killing me.

  No, not from the accident. I've had a pneumonia thing . . . for a long time.

  I don't think the doctors exactly know what to do about it all, Father.

  Sure, I'll call you Barry.

  Maybe we can talk more tomorrow.

  Okay. I'll do that. Sleep sounds good. See you tomorrow, Barry.

  Thank you.

  Journal Entry

  August 20, 2004

  * * *

  Reasons to do it:

  1) Your life, how you live it, harms your children.

  a) How you work.

  b) Who you choose to love (no more Chelsea—hate her).

  c) How you spend your time (watching television while suffering jackass emotions) (pathetic).

  d) How you, when you lived with them, considered children and wife to be jail infrastructure.

  e) Your stupid potential.

  2) How you don't live your life.

  a) No respect.

  b) No passion.

  c) No happiness, ever.

  d) Doing nothing to help yourself.

&nbs
p; e) No more good ideas—your relationship with Chelsea was an idea, which is further proof of your despicable character.

  Possible:

  Hang

  Jump off cliff

  Drive off cliff

  Drive into tree

  Buy gun (shoot self)

  Buy pills

  Rob bank and wait for cops, while acting crazy, with gun

  Slit wrists—take a nice bath

  Take bath with Mary's hair dryer

  Disappear?

  Where to do it? Travel? Maybe Washington, D.C., to make a political statement. About what? Nashville, TN, because once read that country music fosters suicidal notions (appropriate themes of marital shittiness, hardcore drinking, alienation from work). Nashville, TN: perfect place for underachiever to do dirty death dance. No—twang gives you headache.

  Antwerp, Belgium, where Dad wrote on napkins?

  Or check into a motel and take a bath with a hair dryer, not Mary's. Any motel. Tonight. Very soon.

  Day Two:

  Transcript 1

  * * *

  I'm ready. Go ahead.

  Have you read everything? All the notebooks and everything in them?

  Yes, I began carrying that backpack everywhere I went. It's been everyplace.

  I wouldn't have called them visions. They were dreams, you know? I really wouldn't have called them visions then.

  Maybe I'd call them visions, now. Yes, I would. I haven't had a dream in nine months.

  I know exactly . . . the first was August 19 (my birthday and the day I wrote to Dad). The dreams didn't really get . . . huge until August 23. That day is a big day.

  For one thing, it was the date of the last gassings at Auschwitz. 1944, sixtieth anniversary.

  Yes. Gloomy. It was a gloomy time.

  I don't know . . . maybe because I listened to the song “Vincent” by Don McLean about thirty times on my birthday. (Sung.)Starry Starry Night . . . You know it? Dad played it on an eight-track. He was fifty years old in 1979, but he had an eight-track. Old European Jewish Dad driving empty midwestern back roads listening to his eight-track.

  I think that song affected my imagination.

  Look in the journal. Not so clear at first.

  Here. Nightmare one. I'll read it to you. You are pressed into the doorway of a brick apartment building. There are searchlights in the clouds, searchlights dragging across buildings. It's like a Hollywood 1943 police search and they're looking for you. You can hear gunfire in the distance and explosions. You hunch down, so cold, bury your neck in your collar and there are boots marching on the street. You can't see the army or police, but you can hear the boots and hear gunfire. You haven't had dreams you remember in years.

  Yes. And then a little bit more every night.

  August 23 was the first night I knew they were World War II dreams. It seemed reasonable, you know, given my father's reemergence into my . . . and his World War II history. That's the first time the little girl showed up, too.

  Take action? You mean about the dreams? I didn't then. I thought they were just dreams. Take action how? I thought the dreams were symptomatic. War and annihilation dreams. They made sense.

  I did figure out how to take action. Not for a while, though.

  I didn't like my job.

  Journal Entry,

  August 23, 2004

  * * *

  Good T. Again drinking in the morning. Great work. You can't go to work. No more work.

  Money Monkey.

  Trained monkey.

  One-trick pony. Don't know how to do anything except what you do at work, and you're not even sure what you do at work, but when you do it someone pays you.

  Oh no, no skills. Can't build a house. Can't fix a car. Can barely cook. Barely clean. Lucky you can dress yourself (barely).

  Dee-skilled.

  Sit in front of computers under bright fluorescent lights that make you squint, walk around squinting. Squinty monkey wears pants and shirt and shoes.

  Monkey. Jackass.

  Day Two:

  Transcript 2

  * * *

  The money helped. I accepted it . . . because of what I was going to do with it.

  I quit work on August 23. Same day big dreams came.

  The job was—it was a symptom of . . . a manifestation of my lack of imagination, my total lack of courage.

  Some stupid suburban office park. It was safe. Even when I wasn't suicidal I thought about driving off bridges on the way to work.

  Marxist? I don't think so. I used the word . . . because it sounded funny to me. I thought I was funny. Used to.

  I'm not a revolutionary.

  Letter 4

  August 23, 2004

  * * *

  Hello David,

  I'm a Marxist! What do you think about that, you yuppie bullshitter? A naked Marxist!

  Yes. What better way to celebrate the life and works of Karl Marx than to get totally naked in a staff meeting?

  After calling you yesterday afternoon and you not listening to my complaints about work in modern times, man I was on fire, and I was feeling pretty free (I'm going to die!) and I was psyched to demonstrate how a dead man walking, with nothing to lose (not even a relationship with his brother who won't listen to him on the phone), could throw off the shackles big-time. My shackles were cotton Dockers and a light blue oxford.

  After talking with you yesterday, I knew today was the day to part gloriously from the world of work.

  So yesterday, in the evening, I got prepared for my glorious parting. I peered into my closet and chose the right outfit as I imagined my dumbstruck co-workers', mouths open, terrified eyes. I even went out and bought a new pair of shoes from Marshall Field's, the perfect pair of shoes (from the perfect salesgirl—whom I had sex with in a back room! On boxes of shoes!! Life is so good when you give up on it, David. You should kill yourself). Tasseled loafers.

  And then today . . . Le Grande Act! (The Grand Act.) Check it out.

  Our staff meeting this morning concerned a new service program introduced by corporate called “Service Starts with Me,” or SSM. (Yes, the initials are suggestive of sadomasochism . . . no, apparently nobody thought of that.) When Dee Anne, my boring boss with a fucked-up 1987 hairdo, hit the SSM point on the agenda and began to speak in sincere terms about the need for every associate to adopt an SSM attitude and described how SSM will be the paradigm by which Carter Benefit Services will move from being a commodities-focused organization to being a customer service–focused organization, I slowly began to disrobe, starting with my tasseled loafers (ah yes! The first choice in naked meeting men's footwear—those bad boys slid right off). While she read the new standard script for answering phone calls—Good morning. This is T. Rimberg of Carter Benefits. How may I help you, etc. —I unbuckled my pants and pulled them slowly to my ankles, first one knee up then the other, along with my boxer shorts (yes, I went totally nude, after some deliberation—Karl Marx would have demanded that kind of commitment). The motion caught the attention of Jill Sonnenberg, who looked down and whispered, “Oh my god.” Knowing it was do or don't, I jumped from my chair, kicking it back so it rolled hard against the wall. I stood up straight, unbuttoned the top button on my oxford and peeled it up and off, the tie still dangling at the neckline.

  And nobody said a word. It was amazing, but just as I suspected, nobody pays any attention in goddamn staff meetings. Nobody other than Jill Sonnenberg and Dee Anne, who had been talking, even looked at me. Talk about worker alienation!

  And there I stood, in a meeting of fourteen, hung in amber silence, arms outstretched, head cocked to the side like Jesus Christ himself, beatific semismile on my lips. And Alienated Michael Hendricks continued to doodle Rastafarians pulling long glass bong hits. And Alienated Terri Miller continued to zone out on the reflection on the tabletop and blink and nod as if she were listening. (Had she looked closely she would have seen my naked reflection framed by the great light window.) And Alienated Damian Stot
z pretended to take notes. Alienated everyone else stared down at their agendas as if in deep thought over SSM until Dee Anne said, “What in the hell are you doing, T.?” her voice rising into the ether. And I didn't know how to respond and then everybody looked up, gasped, turned white or red, mouths open, quiet.