Jack,
While I hope your new business provides you with joy, challenge, and security, I never really forget both the great beginning you gave me as a writer, and, possibly, the absolute lowest moment in my writing career.
You fucked me pretty hard a couple of years back. Even if you see yourself in the right, I also had a point of view. And you, above and beyond all things, sold me out because of your manager’s poor communication skills and Joi Pullman’s ineptitude.
I am sorry that your store manager decided to tell you whatever she told you that led you to treat me so shamelessly–she revealed herself to be a pretty sick and manipulative person.
But goddammit, man, to that time I was your greatest and most loyal partisan. I was the guy standing up for Jack when everyone else was bitching about feeling abandoned, about how Jack was a greedy corporate stooge.
I’m not sorry I stood up for you and defended your name and actions. In similar circumstances, I’d do it again.
But in the end, I signed your release to keep Evan out of a bruising. He was just starting up and needed your money. But I lost face with him, one very good friend, and lost a job because of the whole thing.
And I haven’t done write-for-hire for a small businessperson except Evan since that time. Your actions confirmed to me that some small business people can be as or more dishonest and rapacious than the corporations already fucking us to death. I’m just sorry that it was you, a guy who I’d held in good esteem.
It may sound silly to you, but I think telling you these things is the last step I need to forgive you for being such a bastard at the time.
Besides the few words in this note, I’ve pretty much healed from what was a very painful, if not tortuous time. Maybe you needed no forgiveness, maybe I was somehow not seeing things clearly. Regardless, I need to find myself whole again and not to hate you. Resentment is just another poison I don’t have room in my system for anymore.
It might be hard for you to accept this, but I really do wish you, your family, and your business well and hope that prosperity is yours.
All best for your future and that of your family.
Patrick
Jack wrote back and, essentially, told me I was full of shit. Mir egal! I sent a note back with one line: “I still forgive you and wish you well.”
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