فصل 05

September 18, 1991

Dear friend,

I never told you that I am in shop class, did I? Well, I am in shop class, and it is my favorite class next to Bill’s advanced english class. I wrote the essay for To Kill a Mockingbird last night, and I handed it in to Bill this morning. We are supposed to talk about it tomorrow during lunch period.

The point, though, is that there is a guy in shop class named “Nothing.” I’m not kidding. His name is “Nothing.” And he is hilarious. “Nothing” got his name when kids used to tease him in middle school. I think he’s a senior now. The kids started calling him Patty when his real name is Patrick. And “Nothing” told these kids, “Listen, you either call me Patrick, or you call me nothing.”

So, the kids started calling him “Nothing.” And the name just stuck. He was a new kid in the school district at the time because his dad married a new woman in this area. I think I will stop putting quotation marks around Nothing’s name because it is annoying and disrupting my flow. I hope you do not find this difficult to follow. I will make sure to differentiate if something comes up.

So, in shop class Nothing started to do a very funny impersonation of our teacher, Mr. Callahan. He even painted in the mutton-chop sideburns with a grease pencil. Hilarious. When Mr. Callahan found Nothing doing this near the belt sander, he actually laughed because Nothing wasn’t doing the impersonation mean or anything. It was just that funny. I wish you could have been there because it was the hardest I’ve laughed since my brother left. My brother used to tell Polish jokes, which I know is wrong, but I just blocked out the Polish part and listened to the jokes. Hilarious.

Oh, incidentally, my sister asked for her “Autumn Leaves” mix tape back. She listens to it all the time now.

Love always, Charlie