Rae Bryant | 33
on Weekend Update. That would be really cool. If he read your letter, you could go to school and tell everyone Chevy Chase read your letter on Weekend Update and his half-sister is going to teach you about Derrida and you’ll have wonderful discourses and the whole Chase family will adopt you and Chevy Chase will teach you to write sarcastic jokes because your jokes aren’t funny. They make people sad.
Hide Derrida’s belts in Aretha’s sock drawer. Look at Aretha when Derrida asks where his belts are. Subterfuge / candidness. Don’t ever tell anyone anything.
Close your eyes when Aretha catches on and cover your ears when Little Fucker screams. Then watch Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood with Little Fucker until he is calm again. Ignore the thick leather belt wrapped around Mr. Rogers’ waist and touch Little Fucker on the arm. Smile when Lady Elaine Fairchilde takes over the Museum-Go-Round and tell Little Fucker you’ll run away and take over the school playground and live there. It’ll be perfect because you can still go to school and you can clean up in the bathrooms. No one will even notice. Plus, you know how to toast bread over a campfire. You tell him, Then one day, after we finish school, we’ll run away to New York City and join Saturday Night Live and I’ll make money so we can live in an apartment there.
Mom will miss us.
She’ll be okay.
No, she won’t. She won’t be okay.
Nothing from Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, or the producers of Saturday Night Live. Fuck ‘em. You’re prettier than Dana Carvey. You / Dana Carvey. Dana Carvey would be lucky to have you.
Aretha is talking to her. You just know. And you think, Maybe she’ll leave him now. When Derrida shows at the door the next day, his arms are full of presents. You smile. He says, Time for a family vacation.
Knock knock. Who’s there? The toll attendant. The toll attendant who? Knock knock. Who’s there? The toll attendant. Come on, Little Fucker. Say the toll attendant who.