From The Bewildered Letters of an Exiled American in Russia, with notes on The Hamburgler

December 3, 1988 - Moscow, U.S.S.R.

Eligio:


To answer your question, I don't believe in hell, not even for Nazis or Saddam Hussein - although for them I wish it were true - because of the afternoon when I came upon a book of Milton in a box of folded clothes meant for donation, and which, when opened, unleashed a flood of moths into the attic. Milton and his moths say it is all a dream, and that each man when he dies, good or bad, is cast out to sea on a beautiful night under a sky of stars. They evidently have not heard the news that the Catholics have done some construction on hell and demanded the segregation of the afterlife. Thank God we modern men have our choice of hells! (And here I imagine Jesus the carpenter constructing the atheist's modest coffin, and his disciples writing the post-modern atheist's coffee-table book of coffins, while 'Little Red Corvette' by Prince plays in the background.)

All of which wouldn't even matter, except that they have opened a McDonald's across the street from the Kremlin, and I can't help but feel that somehow I am living in a weird, Gorbachev-guarded purgatory. And yesterday outside the McDonald's I saw a withered old Babushka beating her granddaughter over the head with a big plastic purse full of flowers, and there are no little red corvettes here, no corvettes of any kind -


[incomprehensible scribbling, followed by a not-bad sketch of The Hamburgler, followed by an amazing sketch of The Grimace with Gorbachev's head on it]


The other day, for instance, in an ugly moment of homesickness, I read about people who kill themselves by jumping off the Golden Gate bridge, which is the most enormous middle finger to your ancestors you can possibly extend, but which in their waterlogged hearts they probably felt was romantic. All those mamushkas and papushkas, packing up their life savings in paper bags, lugging the family history in boxes, boarding the boats, surviving the ghettos, searching for gold - a century, two centuries just spent in paying rent - and then, what’s this? Your great, great, great grandson shuffles off the Golden Gate into San Francisco Bay with only his tie to wave thanks and goodbye in his wake.


I don't carry a gun anymore, nor do I adopt dogs and cats. Does this mean I have grown old?


Your bedridden and inevitably hellbound brother,
Angelo


P.S. With regards to your insistence that birds can't understand God:

What about willow tree-cathedrals for the gospel of sparrows?
And what about the resurrection of swans in the spring?
Many a mass in St. Basil's has been dumbstruck by doves.
The vibration of the organ shakes them from their perch in the rafters,
and the poor priest, having lost his congregation, can only watch and wait it out as they circle the ceiling for the length of an endless hymn.

P.P.S. Please refrain from calling me a faggot - I can practically hear you saying it from across the ocean. "Angy, you are a faggot. A beautiful, beautiful faggot."

P.P.P.S. What do you call a quarter pounder with cheese in Russia?....
"A fucking miracle."