Dear Son Scooter,
I guess you’re around fifty now.
You were five when I left your mother and brothers. I think about you kids every day but as I recall we didn’t get along all that well and so much time has passed and emotion with it as well as my not being able to recall what you look like.
I know my sister Edith tried to get you to visit me when you were passing through California, but you wouldn’t. You did go see my brother Lou and Edith is positive your visit caused Lou to jump from his hotel roof. He liked his substances and they liked him. You shouldn’t blame yourself.
I know that you’re living on the west coast now about two hours from me and I’d love to see you. Then, I didn’t feel I was wrong, but over the years slowly it’s come to me like the earthworm we watched climbing the tree.
I turned eighty and am retired. I found and read two of your books in the library. I hope you’ll write back. We have a lot of catching up to do and I’d like to talk to you about them, especially the father you write about. (I couldn’t find your brothers. Please send their email or snail
addresses).
Love,
Dad
Ben
Hey Ben- Fuck off- No interest
Paul- This came after your father died. Thank god he passed without seeing the kind of person you turned out to be. Edith
Paul Beckman’s latest flash collection, Kiss Kiss (Truth Serum Press) was a finalist for the 2019/2020 Indie Book Awards. Some of his stories appeared in Spelk, Connotation Press, Necessary Fiction, Litro, Pank, Playboy, WINK, Jellyfish Review, and The Lost Balloon. He had a story selected for the 2020 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology Lineup and was short listed in the Strands International Flash Fiction Competition. Paul curates the FBomb NY flash fiction reading series monthly in KGB’s Red Room (Currently Virtual).
