Randy "Post"

Marvin Randall Chaplin October 23 2012

Dear One,

I'm going to use "Randy Chaplin" rather than my full name on the return address.

Mike, I'm trying to e-mail you.

Here it is in Vacaville, CA. Yesterday, Monday the 22nd I was driven to Queen of the Valley Hospital, under armed guard of course. My cancer has returned. I am not going to do chemotherapy.

From Centerville, Indiana where I attended 1 & 2 grades, we moved to Pershing, Indiana.

In a tiny 3 bedroom red brick house, were myself, 4 brothers, 2 sisters, this little house was to be my home until 7th grade. Both of my sisters got married. 2 big brothers went to Vietnam. "Light My Fire" 1968-69-70 - the end of an era. I wanted to be a hippie or hippy??

My boyfriend was right next door and we had sex on the paper route almost every day.

From 3 to 6 grades, he was everything to me. One day, his mother came to tell me, "her son will not be speaking to me anymore". I cried right then & there and asked "Why?" But I knew why. Summer was spent fishing, sleeping out in a tent, or on the ground in a sleeping bag. My best friend's name was Randall and I never, ever, was "inappropriate" with him, he was the smartest kid, he had long black hair w/ a silver streak since 6th grade. He played saxophone, made mostly "A"s in school and generally was the voice of reason during those years. When 16, R bought a 1966 Chevrolet Impala and so began our cruising, riding the "Drive In" back country road circuit, listening to 8 track tapes, Todd, D. Bowie, ZZ Top - B, O-Cult, everything, doing L.S.D., window pane, orange barrel, mecid dots, Purple Haze, powdered mescaline. We traveled together, picking up Kenny, Steve, Ted, sometimes Dave, and all the peripheral friends. Countless hours smoking that old brown dirt, Mexican weed & "Acapulco Gold".

I am not gonna have time to describe all my friends so I'll just name a few. Joy, Kenny, Steve, Ted, Danny, Theresa, Rosie, Holly, Joe, Chester, Greg, Carole, Bobby. The dreamers, the kids that hung out at the pizza place, every night, if a cruise ride wasn't available.

My childhood was full of twisted sexual events and the constant idea that I was different from everybody else. I wish, I had discovered sex w/ my first girlfriend. I already knew what sex was in the 1st grade. This awareness was to become the overarching motivation, and in my own opinion, the destruction of my life. It was pervasive in all my relationships, please someone and they will be good to you, be an actor. I peed on myself to 5th grade, picked my nose and was looked on with "Ew" until 7th. Dancing at the Jr High dances got me the finest girl in school, tall, blonde, big breasted & super sexy for 13 years old, I gave Kathy a ring and tried to feel the sexy excitement w/her, that I felt elsewhere. Years later I did, with more than one woman, many, many women. To this day I yearn and ache for one mean, mean b--ch. After she left, from Leucadia CA, my life ended. I pray she has a good life, with folks around her who comfort and love her. I've been on fire from birth, she came closest to putting out the flames.

I want to close, by wishing the remaining, abiding folks a lot of love, and prosperity. I miss you, so very much, my sister Rosie more than all, but in a different way. If you knew me in life, and you're reading this, if I caused you pain or harm, I am so sorry. If you think I'm not talking about you, then "Remember", remember "Randy". You know, I love you deeply and live with regret, remorse and tearful memories every day of hurting and losing the friends in this life that is you.

I could name, but why? We know who you are. Beyond the broken, there were many good times, eloquent, warm, hopeful, peaceful, filled with love & poetry, art, music. I could have been a much warmer and more considerate friend, lover of life, helper, a better "Uncle Randy". Someone of us, lose our way, and for all the platitudes, we stay lost. I knew this feeling from early childhood. Named after a man, who would no longer matter, so soon after my birth. I was raised by a mother, I had to leave to help and a stepfather who, for all his material providing, never ever hugged me or barely even smiled around me. The molestation was my fault, of course, I was 5 when it began. No, I live in this cell, because I chose to, the sorrow and loss was too unbearable, the alienation, the homelessness, and the aches and pains and rusty, dusty, creaks and groans of aging. I was born to run, not like the song, but like a meteor, a comet, round & round, shattering and splintering, until the once brilliant light and trails, held in a miraculous reverence by some, turned into a small, cold, many scarred and pitted rock, falling, screaming, falling to the earth. I was every young boy who fled a broken heart, wandered from Indiana, out into the towns and cities of the United States, to finally find peace, beauty and rest in Encinitos, at least until the monsters found me again.

I <3 you - Randy.