Yo Sneed, a question with this year's letter. Hope they are feeding you OK... they still serve that green baloney in the Allen County Jail?



Let me guess man. I bet you were driving that same shitbox fucked-up 1973 Mercury Capri when those County boys pulled you over. What the hell were you doing with a pound of mushrooms and 15,000 rounds of AK47 ammo anyway?

I know it man - fuck you. You driving the same 1973 Mercury Capri that stunk like ass and antifreeze for three heatless days as you sawed at the wheel and blew your nose with one finger like a damn farmer right on the side window.

I know this - good thing I drove for that last two hours.  

C'mon man, you gotta still be you. Do you remember? Remember that ill-fated cross country trip going horrifically wrong when we stopped that steaming pile of rust at the I-70 fag bar and greasy spoon rest stop just East of Limon Colorado. If only we had rode on by, but no - we had to refill the leaky radiator with wiper fluid and water, of course at 10 degrees with wind during the deepest throes of a blistering, white-out snow storm. Man - I gotta admit I miss those days.



I bet it was that tail light. I told you to tape or fix that bitch in what, 2001?

Man, you gotta be able to remember that run. Say you do man - tell me you are still the Dude you were before those cops beat you till you shit.

Remember? 1987... I can't remember who the country was, but as usual America was bombing the shit out of some hospital and all I could think about is what that dead nurse's tits might look like. CBS sure as hell didn't roll her over on the evening news.

Filling plastic jugs with water in the men's room, we had no idea that fate was waving us over to the next chapter of this story like we were two hungry fags zooming in on an all-night glory hole of terror, shame and hysteria, and as we investigated a weird noise, fate unzipped its trousers and pissed on our shoes.

Fucking fate. I'd rather eat a pizza off that floor than drive another 10 minutes with this ether-crazed steroid fueled iron pumping Asshole.  

But, it was you Man, you harshed the buzz that whole damn day and night and day. It was that grotesque shit you thought were roids you got from that Panamanian whore. All I know is you better remember, cuz that that year you kept screaming at strangers and women in K-Mart like a TV wrestler kept insisting, fucking yelling at people to call you Dave.... Dave, do you remember man? I didn't even want to BE there.  

Being around you - high or sober, Man you have like some fucked up form of charisma..... everybody in shouting distance feels sick as their buttholes pucker. We watch in fear and smell you as you begin to sweat and you strap us in for another fucked up Banzai ride to hell and if lucky, back....in for the goddamn ride.  

You've killed a lot of Dudes, "Dave." I know it was an accident, but man.... Never saw a cop puke like that before.

Meanwhile, In the far stall, collapsed like a fetus in a 180 day ultrasound, laid a crippled and defeated Hispanic male. He was no more than five feet tall and 120 pounds. Introducing himself as Ishmael, he was doubled over and dry heaving in a puddle of his own wretch under a porcelain toilet, succumbed to the perils of alcohol and prescription drug withdrawal. 

Ugly and covered with sores, his face was a mess... so we looked away at his filthy fingernails. His left hand was permanently tightened in a contorted, painful fist that he waved like a club while calling Hugo Chavez the devil. He plead with us to take the keys to his Ford LTL 9000 class 8 tanker and drive it over the ice covered and landslide prone Monarch pass and deliver its cargo of 8,000 gallons of highly flammable compressed propane to a desperate Pima Indian reservation near Moab, Utah. 

I dropped my cigarette in the urinal and grabbed him just under the shoulders and lifted his brittle, diseased body over the toilet bowl to give him the final dignity of at least being able to puke on his knees and go out like a man and not some pitiful bum. The gold colored ugly tarnished Jesus medal on his necklace slipped into the toilet water as he gave repeated wheezing, labored, and moaning heaves.


Leaving the Capri behind, you sat in the driver’s seat and turned the key. The mighty in line six cylinder 855 cubic inch Cummins diesel engine coughed to life with authority. Pedal to the metal, the turbo spooling, you ignored all weigh stations along the way while taking repeated chin slobbering pulls off a 1.75 liter bottle of Jim Beam and praying we’d avoid getting pulled over since you had no CDL license and had never driven a truck before.




As Leslie Nielsen so eloquently said, "Dammit! I knew I had picked the wrong day to quit huffing paint." Fuck.

I snorted a little vodka with a straw and lit a tiny useless pin joint that tasted like it had been grown in human shit and motor oil.

The acrid smoke added to the drama of the moment - and my eyes watered as my ears popped.... oh fuck we were going to have to turn this mighty bitch around. Accident.

No way was Dave ready to interact with a State Cop, so I took a piss in an empty beer can without much skill and the odors and the heat of the engine combined. We smelled like a Montana whorehouse on payday... without the perfume.

Ass gas and grass.... and we were just smelling our own sweat. The fear hung in the air like a dead baby who had never been severed from the umbilical cord. What a fucking 62 hours of screaming insanity. WHY do I hang out with you Man, you lip-soak the joint and chicks flee from you like you are... well, like you are who you fucking are.

Damn - at least they remember us man. I never will be able to get back in that damn diner. That big tit you grabbed was attached to that Greek cook's WIFE. A butcher knife... good thing the damn car started THAT night. She was hot though. 

Jail, prison, meaningless fiery death? I knew one thing - No way was I going to get laid till I got away from this madman and washed the sweat of my balls, which now had retracted as he double clutched, missed a gear and slid around a bone-crushing dropaway curve with the tires howling and vultures literally following us because it seemed like a good way to get some meat that night.

Fucking vultures - at least today they weren't those Goddamn bats.


We re-routed over Berthoud pass hoping for a break from the icy conditions. It turned out to be a horrible decision and a major tactical mistake. Snow fall worsened. You refused to slow down and when we crested a hill at over 75 MPH, there was a rabbit sitting in the middle of the road. Mashing the brakes to the floor, the wheels locked up and the 80,000 lb trailer jack knifed sideways, sliding another half mile down the mountain pass and finally settling against a guard rail, blocking both lanes of traffic. An Aspen branch pierced the hood and snapped the fuel line. We weren’t going anywhere. The Pima Indians were going to have to tough it out.

Fortunately, a driver going the opposite direction on his way to Kansas witnessed the whole thing. He offered to drop us back off at the rest stop in Limon where we’d left the Capri. It was our only hope. It took us another four hours to make it. In a panicked frenzy, we raced into the rest room to break the bad news to Ishmael. I kicked open the door to the stall but he was nowhere to be found. All that remained was his gold Jesus necklace sitting in the bottom of the toilet. 

You dipped your hand into the bowl and retrieved it, wiping it off on your shirt, gave it a kiss, and lifted it around your neck. “He left this behind for a reason,” you said, fighting back tears. “I don’t know why, but some day this will all make sense.” Last I heard you still wear it around your neck even to this day.

Let me know when to pick you up man - I'll come over from Pittsburgh and you damn well better remember at least who I am.

Alright man - fuck your real name. Either I have PTSD or you simply are a fucking Dave.

The grass these days man, more potent than smack and a blowjob. Wait till you get home. Peace.