Thursday, January 23, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Cheap Wisdom: Mail fraud

By Tod Goldberg

I'm here to admit that I have allegedly broken the law and may have destroyed a relationship. Consider this the letter I'd send George Knapp from prison.

My criminal career (allegedly) started simply by walking out to my mailbox a few days ago and gathering my mail. I sat down at the kitchen table and began parsing through the mail like I was a stout, Jewish, big-time famous midlist author version of the Sorting Hat: New Yorker--bathroom; Visa bill--huge hole the back yard; HOA newsletter--bathroom; plastic bag with the mangled contents of a Christmas card contained therein--set aside for closer viewing along with current issue of Playboy and a Simon & Schuster royalty statement so filled with lies and half-truths it makes Judas look innocent.

After dispensing with the various ads for real estate agents and their scum-sucking ilk, I scuttled the royalty statement into the bathroom for 11 minutes of hard viewing and then returned to see who had belatedly sent us a Yuletide greeting. The post office had placed the card into a tidy-looking Government Bag for Missing Greeting Cards and had written various notes thereon indicating failures in delivery due to a lack of clear writing on the address label.

I did a mental checklist of people who hadn't sent me a Christmas card and who had thus been ejected from my Rolodex of holiday greetings and decided that whomever this was didn't merit any special considerations seeing as they had such crappy handwriting in the first place and then pulled out the card expecting to read the usual "peace, love and a Democratic president in 2004" message. What I got instead was the following:

Dear Tim,

I love you so much and love our life. Can't wait for Aspen!

Merry Christmas!

Scott

Tim? Scott? Was I using a false name and conducting gay love relationships without my own knowledge? Was I, in fact, schizophrenic? It would explain an awful lot, I thought, though it seemed odd that my wife hadn't noticed anything. Maybe my wife was a post-op transsexual and my whole heterosexual life was a sham!

This was all becoming very perplexing, so I flipped the torn envelope over and really studied the address label. What I learned was that the card was originally addressed to:

The Love of My Life!

My Address Except Not My Address Because It's Actually the Address of the Guy with the Matching Whippet Dogs Down the Street

I'd met Tim a few times during the course of my existence--once, we had a conversation about the crazy lady who moved next door to him, which, oddly, was my mother--and found him to be nice in that anonymous way neighbors are. I'd never questioned him about his sexual orientation, nor did I intend to at any point, though, certainly, the rainbow flag in his front yard and seemingly endless supply of cool toys (boats, motorcycles, tanned young men) had answered any questions I might have had, which was fine. He could have sex with a paper shredder and as long as it didn't make my dog bark late at night, cool.

That said, I didn't want to hand-deliver his boyfriend's card to him.

I could slide the card back into his mailbox, except that I couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't see me. I could mail it to him in a blank envelope, but then he might think it was some kind of cryptic warning and have it tested for prints. I could knock on his door, say sorry, and hand him the card without saying a thing about Aspen.

Or, I could pretend it never happened and just stuff it into a drawer.

Bingo!

Life went on as usual for the next 48 hours. Then, as I was walking my cocker spaniel--one of my two matching cocker spaniels--I saw Tim and another man having an emotional argument in his front yard, culminating in the swift and tearful departure of the other man. Tim stood in his yard and sort of shook for a moment before going inside.

Had I caused this? Had Tim become angry that Scott never sent a card? Had Scott pleaded that he'd sent a card, that he truly did love him? Had Tim said, sorry, that was your last chance and you blew it? Had he ripped up the tickets to Aspen just out of spite? Had I caused two men to finally realize that love is as real and tangible as a freakin' missed holiday card?

Probably.

So, that night, I finally did the right thing: I taped up the card and envelope and carried it outside to the mailboxes where I then promptly shoved it into my mother's mail slot. I felt much better.