Author's Notes: Never got the call from Mr. Aykroyd, so I still don't own anything of the Blues Brothers.
This is Part III of my "Letters from Elwood" story. If you have not read the first and second parts, you will not understand this. Sorry. That's just how series go.
Also, please remember. Latin is fun. Do not be frightened.
Letters From Elwood:
The Right to Remain Silent
by Jo Z. Pierce
Elwood was still exhausted. He checked his watch. He couldn't decide if it was 6 am or 6 pm. Considering that it wasn't that hot out yet, and that the sun wasn't nearly bright enough to be the afternoon, he figured it was early in the morning.
He had just rolled into town after almost a month on the road. Sleeping in the back of the Bluesmobile, and sometimes on a department store mattress, wasn't the worst thing in the world. But somehow the little twin bed in his 12 by 6 foot room at the Plymouth Hotel felt comfortable, and like home.
He rolled over, onto his side, yawned, and looked over onto the table. A few photographs of a smiling girl in front of an African waterfall stared back at him. His heart sank a little. He looked down toward the ground at the pile of old letters that she had sent him. There weren't all that many of them, he now realized. He thought there had been a whole lot more. Funny how he imagined it all to be more than it really was.
He closed his eyes, to avoid the pictures. For the past month he had been able to avoid the whole thing.
The pretty Peace Corps volunteer named Josephine had stood him up at the airport. He was terrified that she would get caught in the fighting over there, in the African Republic of Mmbito. He stole a car and bought her a ticket so she could get back home to the US. Still, she didn't want to leave. She fought with him. She refused him. And in the end, even though he thought he'd convinced her to leave, she ultimately stayed.
He didn't want to deal with it. So he took off, toured the country, and got back to what was really important.
He visited Memphis, home of the Blues. He paid his respects to some of the fallen heros of the American Civil Rights movement. He rolled over and looked at the photographs and pages of magazines that he had taped onto his wall. He looked at the photo of the Reverend, and decided it might be less painful to look the other way. He rolled over again. He visited jails and stared at a grassy knoll. He met an Indian man who represented a new, different kind of civil rights movement being fought on American soil. He watched fat and ugly tourists in ugly shorts and ugly pants who probably could have benefited from any type of movement at all.
Yes, he was glad to be home.
Most importantly, at least now in retrospect, he sent some letters. He confessed to Curtis, in a half-assed way at least, to a petty crime committed over a decade ago. And then he sent a letter to Jake, as he wove an ever intricate web of white lies, designed to keep him going while locked up in the slam.
And that was what it was all about, wasn't it? Writing letters to people you loved. After all, letters were almost like photographs. They captured a moment in time, but what you saw wasn't the whole truth. But still, they at least created illusions.
Then he realized how ironic it all was. This had all started with a letter he sent almost eight months ago to a girl he never even met. He was fascinated by her, and the web of lies which had been spun around her life story. Was she really sold into white slavery? Was she abducted by aliens? What did she have to do with the assassinations of JFK or Martin Luther King, Jr? He rolled over again, and looked at the photos on his wall, and shook his head.
Was the world so damn small that stories would all weave themselves into one? And if it was so damned small, why was it so damned hard to get her here, next to him.
He thought again about the plans he had made for when she arrived. And it annoyed him that, even now, his body still craved her.
He sighed deeply.
He had two choices, right then and there, as rolled over again and looked over at that unopened letter. Open it, and see what kind of bullshit excuse she had for him. Or just toss it, all the photos, and the pile of letters on the floor into the trash.
He thought about it for a moment. Then he started to smell penicillin. That loaf of moldy white bread was disgusting, and it probably needed company.
He swung his legs out of bed, began to gather up the letters, and began flinging them across the tiny room into the small round wastepaper basket by the door.
Some weren't even in their envelopes, as he had read through them all the few days before her flight was supposed to arrive. He looked at one from back in June.
Thinking that you are there - thinking of me - makes everything seem ok. I know that sounds cliche. But it's the truth. I am sure we are thinking of each other at the same time. It must be since I find myself waiting for your letters, and thinking of you quite often.
That was the letter where he knew... no thought... he really was falling for her. And it was the letter where he thought that she might really be falling for him, too.
Up until then, it was almost a game for him. A way to pass the time. Sure, he loved getting letters and photographs from her. He really liked the flirting they shared across the Atlantic. He especially liked the time where she gushed about how handsome he was, when he took the photos at the five and dime. He smiled, remembering some of the better moments.
But that letter he held in his hand was also the letter where she began to realize that he had not been completely honest with her. And that was probably the reason she decided to stay in Africa, instead of running away with a tall and handsome blues musician from Chicago.
Didn't she realize that sometimes the truth sucks? She didn't really want to know that he lived in a fucking 12 by 6 foot shit hole and stole watches from fat tourists in Vegas for a living. What good was that going to do for her? For either of them? Why spoil the fucking illusion?
Elwood took one last look at the letter, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the garbage.
He picked up the photos. He really didn't want to part with them. She was, after all, quite pretty, and that prettiness was enough to get him off in the middle of a long and lonely night. Still, he flung them, one by one, into the trash.
Finally, he picked up the last unopened letter. He had one last choice.
Toss it unopened. Or open it, and face whatever was inside. He stared at the envelope, and the handwriting...
The handwriting...
"What the fuck...?" he said, slowly, drawing the words out.
It wasn't her handwriting.
He jumped up, grabbed a letter out of the garbage, and compared the two. No, it wasn't her writing at all. Not even close. And the return address?
San Ovidius.
That was the orphanage. His heart pounded, as he tore the letter open.
.
Ante Diem XXIV Kalendas Iulius Anno MCMLXXVIII
Carus Caliga Blues,
Nostrum parvulus Josephine eram iens domus vobis quattuor dies abhinc. Is eram periculosus proficiscor, tamen is volo praecessi domus. Reputo is volo video vidi visum vos summopere. Suus vehiculum eram tentatio per rebellis. Is eram commotus ut a hospitium in Saleho. Is est teres iam, tamen ego puto is est repletus per moeror. Ego operor ignoro ut is mos reverto.
Is diligo vos. Ego voveo vos utriusque.
Deus beatus vos,
Monja Ana da irma
Sanctus Aviates pupillus
"What the hell is this? A fucking joke?" He scanned the words. He found himself frustrated. Infuriated. There was only one word that he recognized clearly. Josephine. He felt his blood pressure rise, in anger, and maybe a little in fear.
"Latin? Who the hell writes letters in Latin?"
A nun? A nun would. A fucking sadistic nun would.
He scanned the words again. At least a few of the words he could figure out without a dictionary.
Ante Diem XXIV Kalendas Iulius Anno MCMLXXVIII
That looked like numbers... no, a date. July 24? That was just a few days after her flight.
He read on.
Vehiculum... Vehicle?
Rebellis... Rebel?
Hospitium... Hospital?
He always hated nuns. Now this one was telling him that the woman he loved - that he loved? - was in a hospital. At least that's what he thought she was saying.
His heart sank, since he couldn't read the rest. For a month, he had been so angry that she wouldn't come home to him, he never even considered that maybe she couldn't come home to him.
Was she alive? Or dead?
Either way, he knew that he had caused this. Either way, he knew that he had made a terrible mistake.