Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 23:51:46
Subject: Betrayal
From: skipvskip@hotmail.com
To: berto_alto@tank20.com

Berto,

Sometimes I feel like such a coward, I guess I am in some ways.

I don't even know the point of emailing you this message.

Or I do, I guess I'm getting something off my chest, or clearing my conscience, or well someday you can tell me what exactly I've done here.

Betrayal

Today, when I went to see you (and I know what kind of friend would admit you to the psych ward and then come back for the first time about three weeks later) it was very strange to be talking to you but to have you talking to me (sort of) through that guy Sancho, your what, page?

And then of course, me trying to make small talk and you whispering in Sancho's ear and the only things you could say being about how I was a

Traitor

Betrayer

Scoundrel

Thief

Liar

Coward

Betrayer

and then the agitation and the rushing orderlies and Sancho that guy's short but him lunging towards me was too much insanity (sic).

And shit what I came there to tell you but didn't quite get out.

I guess your doctors will probably delete this I don't know but I guess that in fact in some fashion what you were saying to me from behind that curtain, that veil, that scrim, your cyranoid, was at least in part in fact true.

That I am in part all of those things and yet I hope that you'll, after all is said and done, be able to forgive.

What would you say, back in normal life, when it was just bullshitting with Berto?

You would say

cut to the chase, Skip

forget the spoonful of sugar, Skip

the shortest distance between two points, Skip

give it to me straight, Skip

Susanne is what I'm trying to say Berto, and maybe this will help you or hurt but the fact is I'm falling hard for Susanne and it's gotten to the point where it's something I can no longer deny.

I have a thing with Susanne.

It's not a fantasy for me Berto, Susanne and I are well intimate in ways I think that you never were, in ways I know that you never were, and I suppose if it were different well it could be swept under the rug, ignored, a thing that happened and was never commented on again but it didn't just happen once, Berto, it has happened several times and I don't regret a minute of it. There, it's said.

She's filling some void in my life that I haven't found any other way to fill.

Berto, you're my friend, and I mean that my truest friend and I hope this doesn't come with that cost but

shit while you've been in the psych ward

I've just been feeling so alive since Susanne and I have

so anyway, that's what I meant to say and I hope that you'll snap out of this soon, just let go of your dreams about her, because those are my dreams now, and come back and be my friend and

you know, I'm sorry, but I'm also not so I feel guilt but not remorse so.

Anyway, I hope that you'll get out from under what ails you and you know, come back, and you know, let go.

Skip