Douglas Henslowe's 4th Letter to Joyce

Mr. D. Henslowe
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore,
Maryland

October 1, 1937

Dear Joyce,

I don’t know what to say. You have given up so much in this fight, and you 
are still standing. You’re still a soldier fighting the war, not useless, like 
me.

The doctors don’t understand, and you had worse ones than I do. Dr. Walker’s a 
good man. He’s seen some of what we’ve seen. Dr. Keaton, well, he never tried to 
do those filthy things that Harvard degenerate did to you. I bet he’d love to get 
his hands on that drug Echevarria used! He has a filthy mind!

And even the ones that don’t, the ones that aren’t like Dr. Walker, they don’t know 
about the war. You were stronger than I was, weren’t you? You didn’t try to tell 
them. That was my mistake, I know. Dr. Keaton would soil himself if he had the 
slightest inkling of the truth, the real truth. He wouldn’t be able to look at Edgar 
Job the same way. He wouldn’t be able to look at me without shame, knowing what 
Walter and the others did for him, knowing that I’m the least of the soldiers out 
there, the most broken. I’m still a stronger man than he is, aren’t I, Joyce? For 
all his learning and education?

We go into these pits, because somebody has to do it. Somebody has to wade in the 
gore and the filth and destroy the monsters and the degenerates who worship them. 
But, we don’t come out unstained, do we? And we can’t explain. The ones who haven’t 
been there don’t understand and think we did it to ourselves.

Joyce, I don’t know if anyone will believe anything I say, but if you ever need me 
to tell someone that what you say is true, whatever it is, I will do it. I will do 
it, whether you need me to tell the truth, like Walter never could for me, or whether 
you need me to tell the lie that they need to hear. Maybe if I had been smart enough 
to do that, I wouldn’t have ended up here.

But, it’s still a better place than Joy Grove. I don’t want you or any of the others 
to end up there. Or here. Or in that filthy place with that filthy Harvard boy. I 
will say anything you need to keep that from happening.

Your Friend,

	Douglas