DEAR SEAN:
Can you get a letter to Santa for me? Our lives really suck ever since my mom died and you don’t even want to know how screwed up my life is.
My dad is raising us all by himself with no help from my aunts or uncles or anyone and I feel like nobody cares about us, we’re basically all alone.
You probably won’t even read this cause you’re too busy, so whatever.
P.S. I’m only joking about Santa, I’m not a baby.
Not a good Christmas,
ELEVEN-YEARS-OLD-IN-TENNESSEE
DEAR ELEVEN:
After I got your letter, I re-sealed your envelope, packed my bags, and drove to the Greyhound Bus station.
The man behind the counter wore a John Deere cap and had something tucked in his lower lip.
“Quick,” I said. “I need tickets to the North Pole.”
He spit into a foam cup, then laughed. “What fer? You’ll get reindeer poop on your shoes.”
“It’s an important delivery.”
“Well, dream on, pal,” he said. “The North Pole
isn’t even dry land, it’s in the epicenter of the Northern Hemisphere, situated in the Arctic Ocean, amid subarctic waters that are permanently covered with constantly shifting, cavernous, and treacherous sea ice.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I graduated from Auburn.”
“I’ll take one ticket, please.”
He flipped through his big book. “Closest I can get you is North Dakota.”
So, I rode for several hours, thinking about my life. When my father died, our life was pretty screwed up, just like yours.
When money was tight, Mama took a job throwing newspapers. One Christmas, I wanted a guitar; my mother worked overtime to buy it so I could learn to play Hank Williams music.
My Greyhound arrived in Saint Louis. I switched busses at the depot. My driver’s name was Moe.
As…