Samson Trammel's Letter to Martin

Dear Martin,

You asked me about Edgar Job. There's really not that much to tell. I guess you could go to Joy Grove if you wanted to talk to him. He was the college kid who Ayers knew, from UCLA. You know they want to kill me, right? Your friends, I mean.

I don't know why he liked him. Ayers, I mean. Ramon too. Not at first. Well, Ayers, yes. He liked Job. That's Biblical, isn't it? You know, it's really hard not to wipe my ass on this. I hope you appreciate how hard I'm trying, Martin.

It slips, you know. The words. Not just writing or speaking them. -Thinking- them. I've seen it happen to others. They lose it. The words. Language. They talk -His- language. The Tongue of Lies.

So George Ayers liked Edgar Job. Maybe he was good at <sexually explicit act>. He liked doing it of course -- everyone likes it all with the Nectar. You said maybe the world deserves to drown in it. But why do you assume it is a punishment? Maybe it's a mercy. It may be all we have, but that doesn't make it a consolation prize. Or maybe it does, but I think you could use some consoling, don't you?

I haven't forgotten what you asked. I asked, too. But, Martin -- I know it is easy to lie, but I really don't believe anyone sold Nectar to New York -- or anywhere on the East Coast.

Yes, there was that artist, and I will tell you his name when you come to visit me. But he doesn't partake the way we do, and doesn't sell Nectar as such. He had oe drum, and there were no deaths. I watched that situation, Martin. I thought about killing him. But, obviously, I didn't. I confirmed it, just for you -- he is alive, still working, and still offended that anyoe thinks he would waste eve a drop in something so petty as commerce.

It's funny -- he's really doing nothing illegal. Nothing at all. But, I thik your friends would kill him. Or maybe just break his hands and all his fingers, maybe just destroy him as an artist.

Martin, I've never asked you to betray your friends, have I? Or to hurt them, or kill them. But so many of your questions -- you're asking me to do all of that. All the people I've known the longest, the closest to frieds I have, unless I count you, and I don't know if you want that, because your friends want them all dead.

Well, except for Edgar Job, I suppose. They had a chance to kill him, I know, but I know he is still alive. He fought back while most of us ran. No, that's a lie. A few of us ran. Most of us died.

Ramo was a great f*ck. Always up for it, with anyone, any way. He was our pope. Our high priest, and through him, we worshipped. I think I'm glad you never met him. You'd have found him more interesting than me.

And I saw him shot down in front of me. I suppose I should give the police his killer, like a good citizen. And I'd like to do that, but I can't, because he's dead too. His name was Vincent Stark, and Edgar Job killed him.

Imagine that, Martin. An obsessed college kid who ate anything Ramon fed him -- Nectar, shit, any line of crap -- happy to be a doormat. Not exactly the avenging angel type. But he was the one who avenged Ramon Echevarria. He grabbed Ramon's knife -- more ceremonial, you know? Not excatly the kind Bowie would have used. And he charged this guy who was bigger and heavier and had a shotgun -- a f*cking shotgun! Now, he'd fired everything he had at Ramon, but he could still feed that gun to Edgar Job! But Job wasn't thinking about that or eve about whether he could fire it again. I saw the look on his face. He wasn't going to let this guy get away with murder. He wasn't going to let anyoe get away with killing Ramon Echevarria.

Sure, he ran afterwards. We all did, all of us who could. And there weren't many. Ayers, well, George Ayers wasn't there. I don't know where he is, if he is even alive after all this time.

But then he confessed. As far as I understand it, Job got taken to a hospital and told the cops he killed a ma in self defense. And it was true. But you know, sometimes, telling the truth is stupid. It got him up on manslaughter charges ad the earlier ones and then that doctor in Georgia wanted him.

He was a mixture of being really stupid and a doormat, and being the only person in the room with a pair of balls. I guess that's why he reminded me of you.

But you're on the inside in ways he wasn't, aren't you? Ramon paid a lot of attention to him. A lot of attention. And he ate it all up. But, Ramon never told him what he told George and me, what you already know about who our God is.

--T.