March 7, 2008
- Jamie's latest letter comes to P from "the shittiest day of my life."
- He's riding in the backseat of a Lincoln Continental driven by a man with braces; in the passenger seat is an old lady with a leaky eye.
- Why is he no longer on the Greyhound, you ask? Because he got jumped in the bathroom during the rest stop in Caldwell, Idaho, and while he was knocked out, the bus left without him.
- The guys who attacked him busted a beer bottle over his head and stole his wallet, Buckner gym bag, and turquoise belt buckle. His head is swollen and bleeding, and the guy driving the Lincoln keeps rolling down the window to keep him awake.
- The only thing he has left is his notebook and the sixteen bucks he had stashed in his sock.
- He used some of the money to buy Advil and a Coke at the bus station gift shop. The woman behind the counter said she hadn't seen his attackers.
- When he sat down to drink his Coke, a redheaded eight-year-old boy named Sam was on the bench next to him eating a sandwich. Sam asked what happened, and Jamie told him. Sam gave Jamie his napkin to wipe away the blood.
- Sam had been to McCall, Idaho to visit his cousin Larry and was now waiting for his mom to come pick him up. While he waited, he and Jamie had a conversation about Sam's skill at video games.
- Sam's mom called and Sam told her about Jamie. He kept using the pronoun "she," which led Jamie to walk into the women's bathroom just to see if he could.
- When he came out, Sam said his mom was willing to give Jamie a ride somewhere, and Jamie accepted.
- In the car, Sam's mom suggested he come back to their house and stay in Sam's sister's room for the night, since the sister was away at school. She also asked if Jamie was pregnant.
- When they stopped for gas and Sam and his mom went inside, Jamie swiped Sam's backpack and took off running. It was raining, and he took shelter in an old car in the middle of a cornfield.
- He got paranoid, though, and imagined the guys who jumped him finding him just sitting there. He took off, ran through the cornfield, and made it to a highway, where the guy in the braces in the Lincoln Continental picked him up.
- So now he's at least dry and moving and (relatively) safe, but his hand hurts, so he closes by asking if P is stumbling around and falling into coffee tables like this guy Jamie saw in a movie about AIDS.
- Because AIDS and cancer are basically the same thing, right?
- (Pro tip: The answer to that question is a giant no.)