Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man

35

Mrs. Lisa Clarke

219 Maple Rd.

Richmond, Va.

Dear Lisa:

I apologize. For what? For everything.

Lisa, your letter was an eye-opener. I wish you had said what you did years ago. Things might not have worked out any differently between us — you’re absolutely correct in your estimate of the unbridgeable gap between us — but at least I might have understood you better. Although perhaps it’s true that the only way we can learn things is to be told them at the proper time.

I’m glad, though, that you finally let go and told me things about yourself I should have known years ago. You are a fine person, Lisa, and I can only say that I hope you someday meet a man who is man enough for you.

The world is a hell of a mess, isn’t it? It’s the damnedest thing, the way things never work out right for people. People keep falling in love with each other, or thinking they’ve fallen in love with each other, or at the very least, falling in bed with each other, and they keep turning out to be wrong for each other and all they really do is fuck up one another’s lives.

I’m not speaking for myself at the moment, as my present situation is ideal. Rozanne and I are perfect for each other, although I can certainly see how either of us would be quite impossible for any other human being.

As a matter of fact, what brings on this miasma is word I’ve just had from Steve and Fran. Despite the tone I may have taken in my letters to them — a callow sort of sniping I now see was quite unworthy of me — I really thought Steve and Fran would be right for one another.

You see, Fran left me because I wasn’t man enough for her. I knew that at the time, whether or not I wanted to admit it to anyone, myself included. And I knew she certainly wouldn’t have that problem with Steve Adel. I don’t know how much you know about Steve, but the one thing that was always a sore point in our otherwise ideal friendship was that I envied him his manhood. There’s an inner strength about him, not always evident at first glance, that is really awesome.

Few women notice this right away. Of course, Steve’s not the typical make-out artist. It takes a special sort of woman, a strong sure-of-herself woman, to attract him in the first place. He was never the type to bother with round-heeled pushovers. Mattress girls, he would call them, though not without a certain degree of sympathy.

I thought Fran had met her match in Steve, and while I may have begrudged them their happiness, I also envied them.

What I never stopped to realize was that, this time, it was Fran who was overmatched.

He turned out to be literally too much for her.

Isn’t that irony of the most bitter sort? Fran’s in New Mexico now, living with a widowed aunt and thinking of entering a convent. Thinks all men are beasts because she finally experienced a real man. And Steve’s stuck in Cuernavaca because she ran off with all his money, and anyway he has no place to go. From his letter, he sounded pretty miserable. I gather he hasn’t met anybody interesting. All sorts of available broads, but he was never the type to waste his time on available broads.

Who would have thought it would end this way?

Well, enough of this outpour of melancholy. Once again, I’m glad I’ve taken the time to work it all out on the old typewriter. I owe the Messrs. Smith and Corona a monumental debt. I’ve shaken the mood, and I only hope the result won’t be to shove you down into a depression. I still believe that there’s a right person for every person, and though it may seem Pollyannaish to say it, I’m sure the day will come when you’ll find the man that’s right for you. And perhaps one day even Steve will find a woman equal to him.

Got to cut this short. Jennifer’s coming over for dinner à trois, and I want to get this in the mail before she arrives.