"I learned how to swim and I learned who I was,
A lot about livin and a little 'bout love."
- Alan Jackson "Chatahoochie"

"when you stop learning- moving- you die."
- Shur Gung


State Correctional Facility Sep 31, 2020
Minimum Security Wing
Concord, New Hampshire
Inmate 18776
N. Dorsey

Hey Mom,

I have been writing non-stop, staying busy. I really loved the bishops-cake you sent. It reminds me of home and of 5th of July birthdays. How is Dad? How is Robin? Another hot summer. Hope you are all staying cool. Not much of an A/C here, the vents are at the other end of my block.

I have another meeting next week, there is a chance they will review my file again, but I doubt it will change. Can you send me more of your reading glasses, my vision is getting worse- and another book light and some batteries.

I have a new therapist. I haven't been put on any new medications. When I get out I will work my ass off to get onto that detox you mentioned. It makes me feel pretty awful- you know I never had drugs before this.

Not many friends here. Got in a couple fights. Tell Shane it doesn't really matter if I won or not- I am trying to keep my nerves from flaring. Trying to keep my hands relaxed. Tell Shur-Gung that I want to get back and keep training. Maybe I will be able to instruct again- I miss that.

I was asked in my last meeting with Cynthia how this all came to pass. I couldn't put my finger on it. But you know where your driving down an iced-out dirt road and the car slips. Your life flashes before you and you make the correction to the car- you're fine and you made it- but a part of you dies. A part of you shatters off or splinters and you see where your life could have gone. Like a dimension or a cat with eight remaining lives.

Somewhere I think that I went with the splinter and died- it's not right. This isn't where I was supposed to end up. I belong on that other path.

I was in the halls of high-school and walking down the second floor corridor. Two kids were rough-housing by the lockers near the art room. I wondered if there was anything more to life than that. Something seemed so pointless to the game. I wanted answers. But I ignored that pang of clarity.

After school me and Paul and the girls hopped into the back of his Dodge Diplomat. That big beige boat looking thing. We headed over to the truss. It was that bridge you didn't like us jumping off of. I remember Nicole and Meredith and Pauly and me, standing there, walking across the ties naked as jay-birds. The sky was dark but we stuck out so white and young. We jumped down into that cold water, trying not to laugh, trying not to sound scared. Trying to be tough. One time a kid hit a broken bottle on the bottom of that drop, had to get his leg stitched up. The cops didn't come and break us up. I should have stayed out that night. I had homework to do. Paul took me back to my car afterwards. I sung my lungs out on the way home listening to one of Dads cassette tapes- because the CD player was busted.

That was that same night back in 2004 when Heather called the house for the first time. You wouldn't get over how pretty she was. I remember telling Paul that she called me and asked me to prom. He shit his pants he was so pumped. This was the girl he'd been cat-calling for the last year every time she walked by chem. He even got the guys to clap one day for her.

She was dark though, Mom. You know, she called crying that day- she was a mess. Dad gave me the phone, wondering who she was and what was wrong. He was probably hoping she wasn't pregnant. She had those ice-blue eyes and walnut hair- perfect teeth. She manipulated anyone that came into her sphere. She was Cleopatra reborn, you know?

Truth is she had been going with that polish kid George, who had graduated already in Robins class. Guy just hung around town and didn't go to college. The hockey player. He was a jock, not too smart, you know? He was still with her sort of. She broke his heart again and again. She wanted to go to prom with some bad-boy- named Ricky. He was the new kid and made varsity. George and his boys jumped him in Laconia. They beat him up wicked good. It wasn't a fair fight.

She told me about it when we went on that field-trip to the art museum in Mass. She sat with me on the bus. She picked at my brain the whole way. They had this giant renaissance painting with a big red couch in front. I sat with her on it- I looked up and couldn't see the whole picture. She hooked her arm in mine, played with the hair on my neck. She asked me- all minty breath- who I thought the prettiest girl in school was. My ears were hot. It was her- but I didn't give her what she wanted. I told her it was Sarah K, because Sarah was special to me. That is where her gears got going faster.

Heather had been bred for prom. Her Daddy had that radio hit, remember? It was a cover of Margaritaville. He had that nightclub up in the bluffs. Retired people and a dance floor and Heather sang sometimes. That girl loved her daddy more than she loved to drink and smoke. Her big brother always trashed the house with his own parties. She got her daddy to buy her that sheer-black prom dress, with the diamond straps. Must have cost more than my car. There was no chance in hell she wasn't going to that prom.

When her date got his ass beat, she was out of options.

So she picked me. Now I knew I didn't have a chance with her- I'd just help a girls dream come true if it was platonic. I just wanted graduation day to arrive. She was trouble, so I resisted it. In the art room I was interning, and showing all the younger-classmen how to observe and shade their lighting and do portraiture- she liked that I never looked at her, never sweated for her. She liked that I treated her as well as anyone else. It was hard to draw that portrait of her, she was something to see. She liked my eyes taking in all that detail and not losing focus.

This chick was ruined by her looks from the start. She called that night and I just couldn't say no. Plus she offered to pay for the whole thing. My rental, the limo, a diamond cuff-link set that matched her dress. I worked my ass off busing tables at Patrick's Pub to get her that corsage. It wasn't going to work if it wasn't perfect. Always do your best, you know?

That prom night was okay, actually- I danced my ass off- even used some of the moves you taught me in the kitchen when I was little, while you'd cook and dance and sing. The 'jitter-bug,' the 'twist,' the 'charleston.' Heather knew them, too. We were something. We had everybody staring. It was magic. Go figure wed both be into the Golden Oldies. It was crazy that night up on the balcony of that big chattel out in the White Mountains. Staring up at the stars with her while some of our wilder guys are getting arrested for bringing booze. She fell asleep on my shoulder on the ride back. I just wanted to be her white-knight for that night, you know?

We headed to the lot where I was parked and the limo guy cut us loose. She was definitely sweeter on me than before. I hadn't made up my mind. Maybe she was liking me more than the idea of what prom was supposed to be. We talked a little too long, I was sitting there holding my hands in my lap in her red sports car. Her eyes were so big and she was blinking nice and slow, her smile was all dreamy and fuzzy and shit.

We heard the tires squeal. That's when George pulled in with his jacked-up jeep and his boys.

I thought I could talk him out of it. I was standing there in my stupid suit. Thinking about Shur-Gung. Thinking about her. Thinking about what a man is supposed to be. Thinking about his head taller than me. Thinking about his goons who were higher than kites and drunker than skunks. I was supposed to be next- meaning what happened to Ricky.

He came close, and Heather was screaming for him to go. She didn't want me to leave. I barely listened to Dad's voice in my head. 'Think Nicky, think before you open your mouth. If only you'd think before you acted.'

I had the dragon's sight. It wouldn't stop burning in my shoulders. I took my jacket off and that was all the sign Georgie needed. I remember his hot breath right in front of my face, the feeling of his chewing gum spat upon my cheek. I remember the lamp-post flickering above, about to die. How his knuckles were bigger than mine, stronger grip than mine.

My hands were shaking, I was so mad. I had done the guy a favor. I dropped my car keys I was burning so bad. I shook bending down to pick them up.

Then the light went out from that lamp-post. Like the test I'd taken in Kajukempo, I snapped. It was a blur. I remember coming to sobbing with my tie still wrapped tight around that guy Chris's neck, his body at odd angles. I remember looking at his right leg twitching, knowing I'd done the technique right. I remember looking at Georgie's face turned up in the headlights, blood leaking out of his nose which was between his bulged eyes. Heather was crying, holding him- he tried to speak to her, but the words came out backwards and upside-down. I remember sitting on the curb, waiting for the cops. I remember laying there with my hands behind my head. I remember the sweat cooling on my back. I remember shivering. Her screams. I remember the ambulance and the EMTs and the ride in the back of the cruiser to a stark room, fingerprinting, and a cell.

I told the therapist Cynthia all that- but when I finished- she didn't really say a word. I waited.

She asked me if anything like that happened earlier.

I thought of when I was four. I thought of 1st grade. I thought of Lauren. I didn't feel like telling her, but one word led to the next and it poured out of me.

I remember being so into her. She was a female version of myself, like we could have been twins. She was such a tom-boy. Cuter than a button. She made me laugh so hard, too. I remember chasing her around that lake-house, hide-and-go-seek, heart in my throat. Sneaking into the tennis-courts at night. Playing flash-light tag. I thought of when she taught me about butter-cups, held one under her chin. It was yellow, so she kissed me. I remember the butterflies and the barn and the holding hands in the dark. I would have died right there if I could.

I remember trading my relationship with Dad for her. I never told you about that. He was my hero. Can you tell him that for me? But we were out on Lauren's raft. It was a hot summer day and muggier than hell. Her granny said it was "hotter than two rat's fuckin' in a wool sock." I asked Lauren what that meant and she told me it was when two people put their naked bums together. I remember diving down from the raft and gathering up those clams, getting on the raft and skipping them real far into the sunset. Dad was there and he was the coach of our T-Ball team, a perfect night to cool off after practice. He teased Lauren and made Lauren feel like she had a Daddy. I remember being so jealous sometimes.

Then Dad tried horse-playing and throwing us into the water. I was fast, and not in the mood, still madder than a hornet about Lauren laughing at his jokes. Then when he went to toss me in- I don't know where I snapped. I told him to go to hell. And he swatted me real good on the backside, three in a row. I never swore before. It shook him up. He dove in the water and swam back to the beach. He never talked about it with me after that. Sort of stopped being Dad after that, knew something was gone then, more on level ground or something kind of thing. I sat on that raft, waiting to see if there was more to happen- if I was grounded. It was the age where spanking should stop. I watched the sun go down. Lauren sat there with me. I felt older than time. I felt like I broke the rules and won for it.

Time sort of hurtles by and we evolve in there in one way or another. I can't recall where all the little bits and pieces- life's changes occurred. All I know is I have nothing to apologize for and I ain't sorry for what I've done. Truth is, if I was back there, by some act of God, I don't think I would have done it any different. You see, I was in love.

It doesn't seem like looking back that I was 'in' love with Heather. But I was mad at the world for trying to take something away from me which was mine. A moment. A victory. A piece that I didn't want to lose. I traded my freedom because I wanted to see what I would do if I walked that edge. I wanted to stare a certain devil in the eyes and not bend. I wanted to show George there was an end for being stupid and cruel. But he isn't there anymore. I don't even know if he learned his lesson choking there in Heathers lap- he probably just thought of her- thought of his own Mom. I thought I had learned my lesson. Maybe I was supposed to learn something else. Maybe I have more to learn.

That day when I was in the hallway, looking at those kids- thinking there was more to this world. I thought of that stuff you and Dad did when I was little. You got involved with some self-help and philosophy books. Can you send me some of those books you have upstairs in your bedroom?

Someday I am getting out of here. Someday.

Love,


Nicholas