231st email

From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@hotmail.com >
Sent: Sunday September 13th, 1999 10:09AM
Subject: Not Goodbye, but see you soon, remember!

Well mister man...I’ve just got home from the airport and staring out of the window as I write...I think I know what your flight path is and I’m staring at the corridor of the sky you’ll be flying through soon...

I make this up to be true...but it does make me feel better...

...’There he is.’ I yell at any passing plane...

Actually it’s funny to write to you again...we kinda got out of the loop there for a bit...I guess we saw so much of each other there was no time to write...and don’t get me wrong If I had my choice...i’d want Dom in person...not Dom in email...but I’m clutching at small positives here...and one small positive is we will be writing once more...

Thought I’d update you on the drive home from the airport too...just so you know how royally you’re loved...see your father cried so much your mother had to drive...how’s that for starters...

...And Oftenbark didn’t take his head of my knee for the whole trip...

...And I felt completely displaced...but I’m not going to linger on it...I’m going to dance and sing your success...la-la-la-L.A

I even suggested that we sing in the car to take our minds off your absence...

To my surprise, your mother suggested we sing Lou Reed’s Perfect Day.

It’s such a perfect day

I’m glad I spent it with you

Oh such a perfect day

You just keep me hanging on. You just keep me hanging on

We didn’t get past this verse as your father started crying again and your mother had to pull over somewhere near Hamilton to give him a supportive hug...and they hugged for the longest time...

I have to admit,,,it was odd seeing parents be affectionate to each other...Id never seen it myself...indeed I have to confess for a moment I thought it was forced; like some kind of play...or a hidden camera show that adores capturing how the detached respond to genuine affection…

(Note to self: Stress to Dom that this could be a really good TV idea...perhaps it could a pitch...and perhaps he will notice I’ve deliberately used Dom’s ‘note to self’ ramble as a sign of respect)

Anyway after what seemed like years...your mother slowly pulled away from your father...she stroked his face and offered a bottle of chilled water...”You’ll be dehydrated’ she said...

This made me smile...I then asked if I could take Oftenbark out for a small stroll...perhaps we could all get coffee even...by the water...

You parents liked that idea and they parked the car and we ventured into the old money suburb...

Soon we found a coffee and were talking...talking about you...it seemed the right thing to do...everyone shared a favourite memory:

Your Mum talked about the time she used to take you to morning coffee-times with the other mothers when you were about six...she said that while all the other boys where breaking things, fighting each other and trying to be the loudest...you sat quietly with the mothers drinking a kid friendly version of coffee...she said this one time you even entered the conversation...it was about bullying and how it was increasing in the schools...she said you told a story about a boy in class who was taking great pleasure in making others life a misery...she said that he never picked on you...but it was painful to watch...so painful that you approached the bully one lunchtime and gave him a book...it was Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson...your favourite book at the time...it even had your name and address written on the inside...anyway the bully looked at you as you held the book out...he was confused...but after a beat, he took it...genuinely uncertain by this act of kindness...

Later that day as you were leaving the school you passed one of the many rubbish bins near the edge of the oval...in it you saw the copy of the book; Treasure Island...the cover had been vandalised and the title now read Ass Land...you picked the book out of the bin and opened it...inside your name and address had been scribbled out the Bully’s placed inside and for a split second you assumed...as many would... that the Bully had done it himself...but moments later you heard some other boys running from the port racks...they were being chased by the bully...he was demanding to know where it was...where his book was...the other boys were laughing and refusing to tell him...and soon they were gone...leaving the bully alone...he then spotted you...by the bin...holding his book...he stormed over demanding to know what you’d done to his book...you shrugged...you’d done nothing...you then handed the book back to the Bully...he looked at you...looked at the book...looked at the cover...looked back at you...and punched you hard in the stomach...winded, you dropped to the ground and he stormed away with Ass Land under his arm...

But, your mother stressed...as you told this story at this coffee time to the other mothers...you didn’t offer any judgment...you didn’t state any anger...indeed you had empathy...if anything you felt for the bully...he was the hero of your story...the other mothers however were outraged...crying claims of injustice...but you...only six...and having finished your story...went back to sipping your drink and listening...with a wisdom that was a little frightening for one so young...

Your father then told a story as we looked out to the Brisbane River...it was shorter...a moment even...a sentence about a family trip to London...and a hunt for Wombles in Wimbledon Common... he didn’t go into much detail... as he wasn’t capable of telling a lengthy anecdote without breaking into tears...your mother’s story hadn’t helped in the meantime causing him to breath in shallow gulps and wipe his wet eyes until they glistened red and puffy...so all we got was this delightful image of a father and son...trekking across the windy mounds of the grassy Common looking for fictional children’s television characters that for that one afternoon actually existed...

Then both your parents turned to me...they wondered what story I had to tell about you...something they didn’t know...something that defined you to me...

I thought for a bit...took a breath and finally told the story of our email affair...how you emailed me after that fuckwit Crisps’ birthday...how you persisted...how you seduced me...how your words made me fall in love...how it’s being going on for months...and how in one simple sentence you won me over for life...

And please – don’t feel any pressure about turning up tonight. What if I don’t turn up either? That’d make it easier, wouldn’t it?

And how this sentence is now pinned to my wall...just below my bed...so only I can see it...and how in a moment when I press this send button...I will go and look at again and again and again...

Love

Stacey