Everything intense. Big hands and eyes and shoulders . . . She washed over me, filled me. I suppose she gave me a notion of how to live? She was a guide. She was all action, which was very sexy. Incredibly sexy.
I don't know that I do know the difference between a sexual and a spiritual experience. Being with her felt like a spiritual experience.
I'm surprised you're entertaining this at all. I was a married man having an affair, you know? Don't you condemn that?
It is complicated.
Right. You're right. Not that complicated.
Letter 21
September 18, 2004
----
Dear Vincent Van Gogh,
I went to your museum today and had a beautiful time. Why do you sound so happy in your letters to Theo? You weren't happy, were you? I'm not ever happy, and yet, I think, in all of the letters I write, I sound quite happy. I write suicide letters, Vincent!
In one of the translated letters I read, you suggest Theo should smoke a pipe, as it is a cure for the blues. You say you happen to have the blues now and then. So you smoke a pipe.
We are so much alike. Except I think you were a good person. I am not a good person.
I'm going to smoke hashish. What did you put in your pipe, Vincent?
I'm sorry you had the blues.
Your great admirer,
T. Rimberg
Letter 22
September 18, 2004
----
Dear Chelsea,
I only stopped writing you an hour ago. I have stopped in a “coffee” house. Cranberry wasn't in the hotel room and he left no note. I can only assume he is with his new love, Kaatje. And so I am alone—or sort of alone, I've been talking to people around me a little.
Why am I in Europe? To find my dad. Cranberry is distracting.
Yes, here I am, on another continent and in a “coffee” house where the hash smoke is thick and sweet. I've been told it's Moroccan, and it is dark, oily, beautiful. It smells organic and sweet, and it smells like you.
There are people on either side of me, sitting with other people, smoking and talking quietly. My energy is high. I am sort of sunnily suicidal today, and this is a very quiet, dark place. No light is let in through the windows, and the lights in here are dim, casting dark orange on dark wood, and there's no music playing, only people murmuring, whispering, many of them in wool coats, because it's cold. Where's the pot laughter? Where's the Marley music? Come on! There are Rasta flags all around me and pictures of Rastafarians and there are some Rastafarian types sitting in this café, but they just whisper to the German and Dutch and English intellectuals while they smoke their ganja. Nothing is light.
I'm drinking tea.
You would love it here. You like pot. I became afraid of pot, as you know. Remember when we smoked pot? You had it stashed in your panty drawer for God knows how long and then we smoked it out of that one-hitter pipe, sitting cross-legged on the beige carpet of your duplex living room. The one-hitter, the heat, burned my throat and made me hack big puffy smoke coughs, while you laughed and laughed, sitting on the floor of your tiny living room, folding over laughing at my coughing tears. We were listening to Coltrane, Coltrane—what a funny name. You got calm when I stopped choking, touched my cheek with your big, beautiful, electric hand, told me you loved me desperately. But then my heart raced and I began to sweat, and then I felt the panic, and you asked if I was okay, which I was not, then I ran out of your house, got in my car, and drove straight north twenty miles, up to Lino Lakes to a gas station, where I stayed for three hours, because I couldn't stay at your house, on fire high. My car was parked in your driveway and I knew Mary would drive by your house, even though your house was miles from my family's house. I just knew Mary would drive by.
Oh shit, Chelsea. I wish I hadn't driven away, showing you that. I'm so sorry I was afraid to be caught with you.
You wouldn't speak to me at the office on Monday (though I'd e-mailed my apologies over the weekend and
I don't know that I do know the difference between a sexual and a spiritual experience. Being with her felt like a spiritual experience.
I'm surprised you're entertaining this at all. I was a married man having an affair, you know? Don't you condemn that?
It is complicated.
Right. You're right. Not that complicated.
Letter 21
September 18, 2004
----
Dear Vincent Van Gogh,
I went to your museum today and had a beautiful time. Why do you sound so happy in your letters to Theo? You weren't happy, were you? I'm not ever happy, and yet, I think, in all of the letters I write, I sound quite happy. I write suicide letters, Vincent!
In one of the translated letters I read, you suggest Theo should smoke a pipe, as it is a cure for the blues. You say you happen to have the blues now and then. So you smoke a pipe.
We are so much alike. Except I think you were a good person. I am not a good person.
I'm going to smoke hashish. What did you put in your pipe, Vincent?
I'm sorry you had the blues.
Your great admirer,
T. Rimberg
Letter 22
September 18, 2004
----
Dear Chelsea,
I only stopped writing you an hour ago. I have stopped in a “coffee” house. Cranberry wasn't in the hotel room and he left no note. I can only assume he is with his new love, Kaatje. And so I am alone—or sort of alone, I've been talking to people around me a little.
Why am I in Europe? To find my dad. Cranberry is distracting.
Yes, here I am, on another continent and in a “coffee” house where the hash smoke is thick and sweet. I've been told it's Moroccan, and it is dark, oily, beautiful. It smells organic and sweet, and it smells like you.
There are people on either side of me, sitting with other people, smoking and talking quietly. My energy is high. I am sort of sunnily suicidal today, and this is a very quiet, dark place. No light is let in through the windows, and the lights in here are dim, casting dark orange on dark wood, and there's no music playing, only people murmuring, whispering, many of them in wool coats, because it's cold. Where's the pot laughter? Where's the Marley music? Come on! There are Rasta flags all around me and pictures of Rastafarians and there are some Rastafarian types sitting in this café, but they just whisper to the German and Dutch and English intellectuals while they smoke their ganja. Nothing is light.
I'm drinking tea.
You would love it here. You like pot. I became afraid of pot, as you know. Remember when we smoked pot? You had it stashed in your panty drawer for God knows how long and then we smoked it out of that one-hitter pipe, sitting cross-legged on the beige carpet of your duplex living room. The one-hitter, the heat, burned my throat and made me hack big puffy smoke coughs, while you laughed and laughed, sitting on the floor of your tiny living room, folding over laughing at my coughing tears. We were listening to Coltrane, Coltrane—what a funny name. You got calm when I stopped choking, touched my cheek with your big, beautiful, electric hand, told me you loved me desperately. But then my heart raced and I began to sweat, and then I felt the panic, and you asked if I was okay, which I was not, then I ran out of your house, got in my car, and drove straight north twenty miles, up to Lino Lakes to a gas station, where I stayed for three hours, because I couldn't stay at your house, on fire high. My car was parked in your driveway and I knew Mary would drive by your house, even though your house was miles from my family's house. I just knew Mary would drive by.
Oh shit, Chelsea. I wish I hadn't driven away, showing you that. I'm so sorry I was afraid to be caught with you.
You wouldn't speak to me at the office on Monday (though I'd e-mailed my apologies over the weekend and
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