My father was most likely murdered by Catholic-hating Ku Klux Klan members, and I therefore have no memory of him. People forget that the KKK hated Catholics just as much as they hated Blacks and Jews, once upon a time. Mom said no one cares if you hate Catholics anymore because of all the pedophile priests, which is why people forget that the KKK probably still hates Catholics. (Mom also said if priests keep molesting little boys, the KKK would soon have a higher approval rating than the Catholic Church.) This is also why my father’s killer was never brought to justice, according to Mom, nor did any newspapers cover the murder, which is maybe why I couldn’t find any record of it at the library.
“It was once very hard for Catholics in this country,” Mom used to say when I was a boy. “Your father—a good Catholic man—went out for a pack of cigarettes and never was seen again. The police say he left us for another family up in Montreal, where he was originally from, but we know better.”
So Mom did her best and can’t really be blamed for my arrest. I once asked her if my father was also a good pretender, and she said he was. Apparently, he was a lot like me.
Why didn’t my father get to give Mom the fairy tale?
Why do most people fail to give each other the fairy tale?
Do you know why, Richard Gere?
Has your moviemaking taught you this?
Your admiring fan,
Bartholomew Neil
3
SADLY, I DO NOT THINK I AM TELEPATHIC
Dear Mr. Richard Gere,
I woke up this morning, put on coffee, and tried to listen to the tough (or lazy) morning birds, but the tiny angry man in my stomach was raging, screaming, Idiot! Neanderthal! Stupid!
It was quite disconcerting because I had no idea why he was upset. Usually I know right away what’s bothering him, because it’s usually what’s bothering me.
I racked my brain, but I couldn’t remember.
I fixed my coffee, and when I took my first sip—it came to me.
I had completely forgotten the point of my last letter, going on and on about unrelated past things. I didn’t even tell you the most important part about yesterday’s trip to the library, which makes me feel that I am indeed a gigantic emphatic moron.
(I get sidetracked easily by interesting things, and for this reason, people often find it hard to converse with me, which is why I don’t talk very much to strangers and much prefer writing letters, in which there is room to record everything, unlike real-life conversations where you have to fight and fight to fit in your words and almost always lose.)
At the library, I found an article on the Huffington Post that said you “received blessings from the Dalai Lama at Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya.” It was dated March 18, 2010. There were pictures of you bowing to the Dalai Lama and him reaching down, touching your forehead with his hands in prayer position. There was also a photo of you praying with your eyes open while wearing expensive-looking Bose headphones. I wondered what you were listening to. On your left wrist were wooden beads, and on your right an old leather watchband. Judging by your eyes, you were enraptured.
Do you remember that day?
Have you seen this photo?
Being blessed by the Dalai Lama must have been a great honor, and I want to congratulate you right away, even though this event happened almost two years ago. I guess this is your equivalent of meeting the pope. I’d be very excited if I met the pope—even this new pope who is German. Mom never liked Germans, because her father was killed in World War II. (I have nothing against Germans.)
Then I found an article from the Syracuse Buddhism Examiner. It read “A TIME magazine survey on a wide-ranging list of the highs and lows of the past 12 months has listed the ‘Self-Immolation of Tibetan Monks’ as the number one ‘underreported story’ for the year 2011.” There was a picture of a monk on fire. He looked like a pillar of flaming lava. It was hard to believe that the photo was an actual man burning alive because the reddish orange color almost looked beautiful and the man was perfectly still.
(Also, I thought about how it is okay to look at a man on fire on the Free Library’s Internet, but not two naked women licking each other. Who makes the rules? Death is okay. Sex is bad. Mothers must die. Cancer comes when you least expect it.)
I looked at the man on fire for a long time, but couldn’t make my mind believe it was a person. Not that I doubted or mistrusted the caption. It was just very hard to believe that such things actually happen. That people on the other side of the world care enough about anything to set themselves aflame.
From what I understood, these monks performed the self-immolation in order to attract attention to your mutual cause—returning the Dalai Lama to Tibet.
The article went on later to say “TIME magazine has conceded that it generally takes a U.S. President aggravating Beijing by meeting with the Dalai Lama, or a high-profile celebrity Richard Gere fundraiser to get Tibet into the news these days.”
When I read that statement, it hit me—you, my friend, Richard Gere, are more powerful than a U.S. president, because the president wasn’t even named, and yet you were.
How does it feel to be more famous and powerful and iconic than Barack Obama?
I also understood that you can do more for the Dalai Lama by hosting a dinner party than Buddhist monks willing to burn themselves to death. Their sacrifice hardly makes the news—they go unnamed—but your being blessed by the Dalai Lama was in the Huffington Post.
You are a powerful man, Richard Gere.
I’m glad that I chose you to confide in during this difficult period in my life. The more I learn about you, the more I realize that Mom was right to keep your letter in her underwear drawer—that maybe she knew I would need your counsel after she was gone, and left your letter behind for me to find as a clue. It’s almost like she’s still helping me by making sure you and I are corresponding.