Daryl interviewed on SciFi Pulse

Click on the title to read Nick Yanes at SciFi Pulse interview me about Marvel Comics, the difference between the comic book industry in the late 80s/early 90s and now, my Regina and her novel Garments of Fleas, and my novel in the works, Comic Book Marginal.

Regina on Demotix

click on title for photos

Happiness

in the sky with my Regina and Bitsy Bananas -- click on title for video

Regina on the Today Show

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Reply to Kleo

Dear Kleo,

Thank you so much for sharing your view and sympathy for my personal story.

I will tell you another story from a chapter of my experiences: A homeless child scratched the door of a car parked in front of the boardinghouse where I lived in São Paulo. The owner of the car arrived coinciding with the moment the boy practiced his crime. The boy ran. The owner of the car ran after him and caught the boy by his torn collar and then seized the boy's arm. The man dragged the boy to his car, his face and lips white with hate. The boy cried loud, his mouth opened and distressed. The boy could be ten, but the bad nutrition these children get on Sampa's streets made this boy look like seven years old. The owner madly shook the boy, and almost crying, screaming, asked the boy several times to see what he'd done to his valuable car, and then asked one of the people watchers to call the police. The police came and carried the little creature away. People said they'd kill the boy. Kill the boy? others asked. I know him; he wanders around, one said. I think he stole my mother's Swatch, another was sure. My feeble sister described a criminal like that boy who bumped her to the ground to steal her school bag from her back, another anonymous voice accused. Kill him! Kill him! they all agreed in whispers. I think the watchers talked in that tone afraid to expose their angry assassin instinct. A month later the boy errant showed up back in the area I lived. I have good memory. I'd never forget his dark face. I saw him at least twice before I learned he was executed with three shots, two in the heart and one in the center of his little head. Nobody cared to know the anonymous who killed the boy, and time brutally went on.

My past experiences however didn't make me disbelieve that somewhere there are still people like you, Kleo, who care for a triumphant better future for our children of this world.

Yours,
Regina Edelman

[Editor's note: Regina wrote this in response to a comment about the Edelman-Eggers Letters, Parts 1-10, the first ten posts on this almost year old little blog.]

Miró at Sea

Edelman-Eggers Letters 10

Patiently, I waited until the end of August to see what art Dave and his followers would design to humiliate and offend me more, and so:

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 2:34 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Hi, Michelle,

I hope your summer was good and you are well. Is it possible for you to give me an update about my Garments of Fleas? I thank you.

Ciao,
Regina

----- Original Message -----
From: Michelle Quint
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers

Hi Regina~
You'd have to check with Eli. His email is [redacted]. Thanks!
Michelle

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Hi Michelle,

You're the best! Thank you.

Ciao,
Regina

----- Original Message -----
From: Regina Edelman
To: Eli Horowitz
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 4:31 PM
Subject: Fw: Dave Eggers

Dear Eli,
I hope you're doing well. I believe you already know who I am. I'm kind of confused if I should introduce myself or not, anyhow, I'm the author of Garments of Fleas, looking forward for a follow-up about my work. Michelle, Dave's assistant, gave me your e-mail address so that I can check with you.

Thank you so much for your attention.

Yours,
Regina Edelman

I sent the e-mail to Mr. Horowitz on Labor Day, September 1st. I understood that he probably wouldn’t be working in the office on that day, and maybe that was why he didn’t reply to me then, but seven days passed, and knowing that I was dealing with educated people who learned somewhere to ignore who they think worthless, I patiently waited those days before I e-mailed him again to find out what his offense to me would be:

On Mon, Sept 8, 2008 at 5:53 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Dear Eli,

I hope you are well. I'm resending the e-mail below to you, because when I sent it for the first time last Monday 9/1 it was Memorial Day, and I assume that you were not in the office on that day. Have a good evening, and thank you for your attention.

Yours,
Regina

After I sent the last e-mail, I noticed that I wrote Memorial Day instead of Labor Day. Well, it was too late to fix, and two days later:

----- Original Message -----
From: Eli Horowitz
To: Regina Edelman; Jordan Bass
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers

Hi there. We get thousands of these each year, so I need a bit more info. Was your manuscript hard-copy or emailed? When was it sent? And did you include a return envelope.

I’m on the road at the moment, so I’m also copying Jordan Bass, who may be able to help as well.
Eli

It was clear the Dave and Michelle didn’t really want to help because neither of them told Eli that I was sending my manuscript to their shit pile for a second time. His careless insult, that they "get thousands of these" was a slap that I understood to mean: I’m going to reject you, idiot!

Besides having the power to reject me, I also knew that Dave and his followers are regardless of others’ time, dear reader, and so I patiently typed again in effort to clarify their confusion, and cc'd Dave so he could see that what I said was true, and to see if he would stand up like a man and my supporter like he said he was:

On 9/10/08 4:42 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Dear Eli and Jordan:
It’s a pleasure to read from you. Because time seems even shorter when on the road like you are at the moment, I'll briefly tell you about myself and how I was brought to your attention.

Firstly, because I've been having a friendly relationship through letters with Mr. Eggers for almost two years. How? In April 2007 Dave Eggers came to Manhattan to promote What Is The What at Donnell Library. I wrote him a letter at my husband's direction, Daryl Edelman (Google him so you can be more familiar with his talent), who is the editor and mentor of my project Garments of Fleas, which I truly believed was under your attention. So, at the library, my husband and I sat in the first row on the left. When Mr.Eggers finished the show and left the stage my heart sank with melancholy for I thought I'd never be able to deliver the letter to introduce myself nor my work to him. Turned out that magically Mr. Eggers came back to the stage, alone, to retrieve his computer cables, I think. The moment turned back to me again, and perfectly it was possible to deliver Mr. Eggers my letter. Time went on; about a month latter Dave Eggers answered me, his subject line, Great Letter, and he told me that I wrote him an intriguing letter, then solicited me to submit my project to him, so I did. He wrote he probably needed until last December to read it, but Mr. Eggers' busy time didn't allow him to accomplish his good intentions, but he held my hopes then by writing that he still intended to read my manuscript, and to check with him a few months after December. For a period of our e-mail exchanges I believed I was a miserable vermin beggar with no true gold and of weak mind with no understanding to negotiate for the greatness of intelligence. But no, I'm a serious woman, fifty years old, an observer, a self-taught student of men's mind behavior and life's intelligence on earth, born in Brazil in poverty and ignorance, run away from karmic doom of generations at age forty to try better in America. $3,700 was all in my pocket. I learned English in free schools in America. So, in sorrow, I exchanged some more e-mails with Mr. Eggers. I can send you all the e-mails we've exchanged if you need. Finally, April 21st 2008, Michelle wrote in his name the e-mail below to solicit my work for the second time, and Michelle and I exchanged some few more e-mails (scroll down please, so, you can read to understand).

I sent you hard copy, signed for at your office on April 25th at 10:55AM by D.Franich, and no, I didn't send any return envelope. I can send you a third copy.

Thank you for your time.

Yours,
Regina

----- Original Message ----
From: Jordan Bass
To: Regina Edelman; Eli Horowitz
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers

Hi Regina,

it looks like we do have your manuscript here—sorry about our slow response. We’ll try to have an answer for you soon—thanks for sending it in—

Jordan

On 9/11/08 7:48 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Dear Jordan,
Thank you very much for your reply. Sorry if it looks like I sounded like I was rushing everyone. I didn't mean to be pushy, for patience is one of my virtues, and so patiently I'll wait for your fair answer. I just wanted an update. You gave me one, so thank you. Your words however aren't exactly clear to me if you have my manuscript or not, anyway I understood you do, but let me know if you don't and I'll send you a third copy asap.

It's a pleasure to communicate with you. Have a good evening.

Regards,
Regina

And a few days later, I received from Jordan Bass the expected “kill this flea for me” punch line for the end of Dave Egger’s I Love Lucy drop dead comedy plot:

----- Original Message -----

From: Jordan Bass
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers

Hi Regina--thanks for checking in on this, and sorry it’s taken us so long to respond. We rely on submissions like yours, since a good portion of what we publish comes to us unsolicited. Unfortunately, we won't be able to publish your book--we're a very small company, and can only put out a few each year. Thanks again for your efforts, though, and best of luck with it,

Jordan

Dave always knew the size of his publishing company, didn’t he? As you can testify, dear reader, I was told by him first to submit my work, then his assistant asked for it again, and so twice I sent the manuscript to satisfy their bizarre motivation. Why did I deserve this treatment from you, Dave? No one even read my manuscript through.

Like you said in What is the What, “If you knew what I’ve been through, you wouldn’t treat me like this.”

On 9/24/08 7:00 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Dear Jordan,

Thank you for your fair answer. If you can spare a little more time with me, please tell Mr. Eggers and Michelle that I very much appreciated the hope they seeded in my ideas. To struggle for a chance with no hope isn't smart, so thank you to abort my hopes sooner than I thought.

Yours,
Regina

And that, dear reader, was my first try to interact in the world of educated man, and so I close this chapter with this open letter:

Dear Reader and Dave,
I remember, at young age, I helped mom wash clothes for the six miserable people who shared my poverty stricken home. I watched the fleas from our covers floating dead in the dirty water after mom finished her hard work. I was happy to see my tormenters killed, but was soon sad to see that in the clothes hung on clothesline for the sun to dry, armies of fleas came back to life, jumping out of the hot blankets, looking for nourishment on my hot blood.

Those parasites marked hard lessons on me. They made so much trouble in my brain that I believed a life without fleas impossible, until I saw that the girls and boys from church and school didn’t have fleas taking a walk in their neck or head like I had. Those children didn’t have to kill any fleas like I did when the fleas bit me unbearably and never ending. I had to hunt the vampires inside my blouse, and bring them to light to burst between the nails of my thumbs, regardless of peoples’ nauseous startled eyes on me. Soon, people targeted me as worthless because of the fleas.

My father had a horrible predestination; his mother cast him away in a sugar cane field on the day he was born. He survived and married mom, but became a drunkard and deserted his family now and then. Mom piously served church several times everyday. She was nervous, angry, and severe, whips in fists. She blamed her misfortunes on my cursed father’s soul, but the truth was that that he was a perfect match to her. Her mulatto father lay wounded in bed, angrily complaining day and night until he died. Europeans hunted his mom in Angola then brought her on board the Navio Negreiro to be sold as slave in Brazil.

“Do you know what the Navio Negreiro was, Regina?” grandma, mom’s mother who also lived in the same flea nest I did, asked once, mockingly.

“No.”

“Worse than any Holocausto!”

“What would Holocausto be, grandma?”

“More atrocity of man against man—because men are powerful fearless beasts who can make liquor, dreadful toys, and crazy ideas such as money to condemn men’s minds anyway they can to affliction and ruin. Once we learn ill, ill will we teach our suckling for generations and generations. There is no salvation for man. We can’t learn. You won’t learn!”

Until she died, grandma hated me since I was six and went to live in that horror house with her. Every time her sick eyes landed on me, she screamed from the top of her lungs, “Bitch in heat! You’ll die too! You’re condemned to the same death sentence as I am!

At the time, I had no idea what bitch in heat could be, and I feared to ask.

When I finally could leave home, finally got mature to understand, and had courage to write about my knowledge and the troubles of barriers of human being to another human being, when I finally had the courage to write in order to try for better life for every being, I encountered you in power, who taught me good lessons, and taught me this strange lesson too; you teach kids.

I don’t believe grandma was right. She was a humiliated woman like I am. I think it is possible to teach better and learn better. It was just too late for her.

Yours,
Regina Edelman

Earth is one country and we must be united …

Get up giant daughter of sun and earth! Get up! Write, if it’s all that can be done for the sake of human comprehension and evolution. We are star suns!

Edelman-Eggers Letters 9

I was wrong thinking that I’d never hear from Dave again. He sent me a message by emissary two days later:

----- Original Message -----
From: Michelle Quint
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 12:46 PM
Subject: Dave Eggers

Hi Regina~

My name is Michelle and I'm Dave Eggers's assistant. I help out with emails when Dave is swamped with too many things, which he is at the moment. He's taking some time away to write right now, and will be out of touch for a bit. I know Dave would like to help you, but we have a policy at McSweeney's that all manuscripts must go through the same channels. So yes, please do send a copy to Eli Horowitz and he will be in touch. Thanks so much for your understanding and good luck!

Michelle

Michelle Quint
McSweeney's Staff

Reason isn’t easy to put in the head of a guilty man. In fact, they're making more confusion to hide his guilt. He, cowardly, had defeated me, in power as he is with a business and an assistant who he can direct to write this unclear e-mail full of misleading possible understandings. He is in power and can hide behind the skirts of an assistant.

What channels is she talking about? Doesn't Dave, the owner of McSweeney's, the channel I was invited to go through in the first place, have authority in his own company to recommend a manuscript? The address she told me to send my manuscript to is same address Dave asked me to send to nine months ago. Did Dave break the policy of his own channels by accepting my work? Is it true that it is against policy for Dave to first recommend a manscript at McSweeney's? If he has my manuscript, why do I have to send another manuscript to the same address I already sent to at his request long ago? What happened to the first manuscript that I sent? Moreover, this is the same address on McSweeney’s website for anyone who wants to submit an unsolicited manuscript, but he solicited my work nine months ago, repeatedly encouraging me that he planned to read it. Wouldn’t it be easier, if Dave has my manuscript, for him to earnestly recommend it to his editor to read, and give in the hands of his editor? How is he swamped all the sudden? How does Michelle know that Dave would like to help? Strange help. Why did he even bother answering the letter I gave him at Donnell Library in the first place?

Why did his assistant write to me like I never talked to Dave before? It seemed to me that Dave wanted me to forget about our affairs. Why would he think I’d forget who he was and what happened between us? Why, what was his motivation? Simply because he lost my manuscript and isn't capable of saying so?

“The truth is that Dave Eggers owes you an apology,” Daryl said. “He’s thoughtless. Based on how he treated you, I don't think he cares about downtrodden people unless they’re recommended by Jane Fonda. He doesn’t care if you waste your hope, time, and money on his say so again and again. Who gives a shit about Brazil? Let that undeclared civil war go to hell and all the kids shoot each other. Sudan is more fashionable for celebrities to care about, but what are they really teaching there, more tired old philosophies?”

Daryl and I gave up believing Dave Egger’s channels would lead me to my goals, but I had nothing to lose going to the end of his charade, if only to learn another lesson in cruelty. Though knowing where he was leading me, I decided to go on in the game of Dave Egger’s design, and to go on, I needed to try to decipher Dave’s assistant’s language for the sake of truth, so everyone can see without unnecessary subterfuges:

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 3:09 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Hello Michelle,
I hope you are doing well. When Dave answered my letter accepting my work around a year ago, he gave me the following address to send to:
849 Valencia StreetSan Francisco CA 94110
Is this the address of the same channels you mention? Let me know, and I'll prepare a new package to the attention of Mr. Eli Horowitz, although I noticed that this address Dave e-mailed me is the same address on McSweeney's web site to send unsolicited submissions to. I'm double-checking because I want to make sure my manuscript will be reaching Mr. Horowitz's hands as per the policy you explained. Thank you for your wishes of good luck

Yours,
Regina

----- Original Message -----
From: Michelle Quint
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 6:16 PM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers

Yes! That's the right address. Just put Attn: Eli Horowitz. Thanks!

Michelle
On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 6:23 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Thank you Michelle!

Regina

I tracked my manuscript delivered at McSweeney’s, and wanted to inform Michelle:

On Mon, Apr 25, 2008 at 7:44 AM, Regina Edelman wrote:

Good morning, Michelle,

First, I'd like to apologize for not asking you to express my sincere thanks to Dave for giving me a chance of my life. Please tell him that there are not enough words to express my gratitude to him. Thank you.

Second, I'd like to inform that my manuscript was delivered at your office yesterday at 10:55AM, signed for by D.Franich.

Have a nice day.

Regina

On Mon, Apr 25, 2008 at 10:24 AM, Michelle from McSweeney’s wrote:

Thanks, Regina!

Michelle

To be continued…

Edelman-Eggers Letters 8

Nonetheless, I went ahead; it isn’t time for me to die yet!

Analyzing Dave’s reply, I didn’t understand what he meant by “great people.” Whatever he meant, I must say that all people on earth are great, no matter how wretched.

I didn’t understand why Dave again gave me his resume and the schedule of his duties. What makes him insist on thinking that I don’t know who he is and what he does? What do I have to do with his duties? When he answered my letter, I presumed he knew all about his duties. Does he answer everyone who writes to him, thoughtless of each affair? My affairs are so many and full of difficulties, but I can’t count all my condemned misfortunes to him in this matter between him and I. Crying to him isn’t my goal. I just want a chance to show no matter how late, I learned to read and write and understand, and all great people can learn in this conflicting ocean of prejudice, love, and hate. There are a lot of miseries in my true story, but nonetheless it’s a story of triumph about the endeavors of a human being who had nothing to lose but go in search of knowledge; and no matter when, maybe even after I am dead, I’ll do everything in my power to make my story go through gods’ pitiful ears. I’ll work hard to see my books read by everyone. I’ll work hard to contribute for the best of us great people. Isn’t Dave a publisher? His wife isn’t listed in his to-do list as his little child is. At least he is my supporter, and said I will get what I want. He might have read the excerpts of my novel then, so why wouldn’t he tell me his opinion of them?

“Who knows what he read or didn’t read?” Daryl reminded me. “I think he lost your work and would rather blame you and cast you away because he is too proud to admit he lost your manuscript.”

“He’s a teacher for kids, Daryl! If he lost my work, all he had to do is say he lost it. I don’t believe Dave would reprove an innocent pupil for his own mistake. Would he, my Daryl?”

“Regina,” Daryl answered, “its human nature to hide personal mistakes. People stubbornly blame their mistakes on anyone instead of admitting their shortcomings.”

What a strange supporter, then… All I needed was for him to be a peaceful judge and read my work and tell me his honest judgment so I could fix anything possibly wrong, because I want to do right. On the Internet, Dave says he likes new art. Is he prejudice of my new art?

Isn’t he a writer, teacher, builder, and philanthropist? Don’t I have enough dignity for his giving nature? I sent my work to him by mail because he asked me to. What did he mean that he can’t read every work that comes through the mail to him? Did he forget that he asked me to send my work to him? His excuses sound like those of Homer Simpson.

So, now, of course, I must reply to him. I couldn’t tell Dave about my frustration, frustration he unnecessarily caused me. He may not accept his defect, but I needed to light the mind of my teacher toward his own reason. I knew he finally said no, but I started to compose my last e-mail after all this deep meditation, careful not to say a word out of reason to my professor. I don’t want his hate against me after all, but just his conciliation:

From: "Regina Edelman"
To: "Dave Eggers"
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2008 6:50 PM
Subject: Enid News & Eagle, Enid, OK 7.12.1998

Good heavens you didn't cast me out! It's such good news for me, it really is. You couldn't be a crazy philanthropist... Thank you very much to be already my supporter. On the other hand is sad to know your little girl sees the father she dearest love, I can assure, for so short period of time, for to do business requires much trouble in our time. I like your writing pretty much, if you allow me an advice, you should keep being as a writer, but I know you are a challenger of time and want as well the business. Master time with no forgiveness reckless don't wait for nothing or any of us and when you see your girl won't be little anymore.

As for my book, can you recommend me to Eli Horowitz that he read my book in submission to your publishing company? It doesn't need editing, my husband already edited, maybe needs a light proof though. Don't you have any opinion about the two excerpts I've sent to you? Can't you recommend me to your agent to read my whole work? How much that could take of your busy time? Dave, you know how hard it is to get a positive answer as I got from you from other writers, editors, publishers or peers who could help to publish my book, and I thought you are a publisher with editors scheduled to read what was accepted almost a year ago, unless you don't want to publish my book? I assure you, you will be the most famous philanthropist around earth if you do so. Can you reasonably ponder my questions and let me know your thoughts on them?

Again, thank you for your time. If you need my manuscript, I will send again.

Yours,
Regina

Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand, the more positively they attempt to argue, while on the other hand, to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.

–Galileo

To be continued…

Edelman-Eggers Letters 7

From: "Dave Eggers"
To: "Regina Edelman"
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 9:03 PM
Subject: Re: Enid News & Eagle, Enid, OK 7.12.1998

I would never cast you out! I will always be your supporter, but I'm afraid it will have to be from a distance. There's just no way I can communicate how much stuff I have on my plate right now. I honestly have to edit two books in the next week and send them to press. I teach a class once a week for high schoolers. I oversee 9 nonprofits in 7 cities. I oversee a publishing company with three periodicals, 100,000 words of reading each week, with 11 employees. I'm helping to build a school in southern Sudan. I have a two-year-old at home. And between all this, I sometimes get 3-4 hours a week to write. I really need that time to write. So right now the choice for me is either I remain a writer (somehow, even with 3 hours a week), or I give up writing to read/edit manuscripts that great people like yourselves send me. I wish so much I could do it all, but I can't. I just can't. The thing I've had to give up, lest I never write again, is the direct helping/reading/editing of manuscripts that come to me through the mail. It's on average 10-12 hours work minimum, which means I wouldn't be able to write for 2-3 weeks every time I agree to work on someone's book. And again, I've recently just had to admit to myself that I need to write. That I need to carve out time for my own writing. I think I give a lot of time to others, and so it's my one area that I need to protect -- the few hours a week where I can work on my own stuff.

But again, I wish you the best in all you do. I know there are 100s of other writers, editors, publishers and peers who will help you with your book. I just know you'll get all you're looking for!

Yours,
Dave

One more of those hard moments—I can easily understand why one takes one’s own life like John Kennedy Toole did.

Can’t you understand? What is bravery then, to die, or to live waiting for you to kill me and bury me with laughs?

O little thing in need to go ahead!

To be continued…

Edelman-Eggers Letters 6

In this bitter process of rejections and humiliation, Joel Rose, a writer friend Daryl knows from working at DC Comics together, read my manuscript and said that he loved to be in my world, that he learned about Brazilian history and culture, that he laughed and cried, and that my story was magical. Joel said that the structure of the novel is correct, and that the corrections are minor. I asked what corrections were needed, but he only said that maybe maybe five pages needed to be cut, adding that my manuscript was a beautiful work of art and expanded the language. He was astonished with my achievement. I beleived Joel. He is a real discoverer of new talent. He discovered J.T. Leroy. I know it turned out J.T. is Laura Albert, but she is above all a genius anyway. Joel also discovered Anthony Bourdain. Joel said I should be proud of my work.

I'm proud, but I didn't write my story to keep my work in a drawer.

To have this opinion from the first person who read my book was the most important thing in this world to me, and encouraged my endeavors with Dave, who answered my last email with silence, and of course, silence was no good for me.

Strangely, Daryl suggested a day after my dream the possibility of my manuscript being lost. I deeply pondered his suggestion. Positive as I am, I would have rather believed the dream meant that Dave was looking for my work to read than that the manuscript was lost.

“Dave never had any intention to read your work, Regina,” Daryl said to poison my liver with this ugly possible truth.

“Fine, maybe he lost my manuscript and is too embarrassed to say he did,” so, I excused Dave because why would he play such a senseless cruelty on anyone?

If I just could show Dave a bit more concrete material about myself. I e-mailed him again. A lesson I had figured out alone in life is not to expect any good if I don’t change. So then I changed the subject of the e-mail from “Great Letter” to "Enid News & Eagle, Enid, OK 7.12.1998." I wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Regina Edelman"
To: "Dave Eggers"
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2008 4:46 PM
Subject: Enid News & Eagle, Enid, OK 7.12.1998

Hi Dave,
You never told me if indeed you cast me away. I wonder why you would anyway, and as long as your silence remains, I can't exactly understand your doors are closed for me, and that you aren't friendly to me. I wish spring brings good hope to your well-being as it brings to mine, and so, I'm checking with you if you yet had a chance to get close to my work. April 27th will be one year since I gave you my letter that you called great letter when you answered it a month later. That was one of the happiest moments of my life. One of your genius lessons to me is that we must pursue with faith what we want, so here I am with revigorated wishes that you will read my work and help me to publish it.

At this time, I didn't attach an excerpt from my Garments of Fleas, but a July 12th, 1998 newspaper article from Enid, Oklahoma, around the time I arrived in the United States at forty-years-old, thirsting to learn, but had no clue I could learn so well. The article about me, Regina Santos (my single name), tells you a little about the beginning of my English achievement.

Note that if for any reason whatsoever you need me to send a copy of my manuscript again, please, please feel free to request it and I will send it to you with great enjoyment. Once again, thank you so much for your understanding and time.

Yours,
Regina

To be continued…

Edelman-Eggers Letters 5

If it’s not written on the page, I don't know what you're saying –Daryl Edelman

A month went by. Dave didn’t answer me. I always thought a duty of an educated man is to answer to his affairs. What kind of manner is his? Is it in college where this kind of lesson not to answer is taught? I didn’t give up though. So far, he had not said no to me, and I didn’t understand what his silence meant. I’m not endowed with the power to read minds and decipher unwritten cold codes from a friendly person.

You may say, dear reader, all this because he is Dave Eggers and famous, and I say, it’s true. That’s exactly why I wrote him a letter calling for help in the first place. I’d not ask such a thing of someone less charitable, who was not a great writer plus a noble philanthropist and publisher. Would you?

I needed to persevere. My goal is get my novel published and from there contribute to the brilliance of life. I learned however that it is said in the literary world in New York that a person who thinks they will change anything in this world with words is a deluded person, but I know that thinking and words are man’s power, and it is exactly with thinking and words that we can relate to each other.

I had to set aside the horrible feeling of humiliation and create another e-mail to send to Dave. I had to try to fix whatever wrong he thought I did, and be pardoned. Maybe I’d put the man back in a good mood toward me once more. I wrote:

----- Original Message -----
From: Regina Edelman
To: Dave Eggers
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: Great letter

Hi Dave,
Are you ignoring me? Please allow me to explain that I'm an innocent person, so innocent, Dave, that you're the only one I gave a letter to after I finished my work, and that after I got your reply to the letter I handed you, I didn’t send to anyone else, innocently waiting 5 months for you alone. My husband asked me why I was crying when I received my copyright for Garments of Fleas in the mail, and I told him that I doubted the Library of Congress would accept my work. He was surprised at my naïveté. When I got your reply in December, you had no time to read my manuscript yet, and of course I was depressed by your answer. I'm sorry if I offended you in any way, which was not my intention. I'm confused why I might be cast aside after our friendly correspondence. I innocently don’t know what I could have possibly done to deserve to be ignored after you held my hopes that you would read my work.

Below I pasted another few pages for you to see my worth. Thank you for your time.

Yours,
Regina

excerpt from Garments of Fleas
Divine Mexican
©2009 Regina Edelman

The rain just stopped as I entered fourth in line to shower. Later, I dressed in a new pair of jeans, purple shirt, tennis shoes, and smeared my lips with red lipstick. I took the bus to meet my friends in Quiririm. Tana had delivered a message for me at the office that Dores needed to talk to me, and for me to please go meet them this weekend. The ghost Pai Tomé would attend. I was tempted to deny the invitation, but I had been curious to meet the spirit since she told me how the marvelous wraith had descended to earth.

The moon scintillated red like a horn in the western sky. The evening freshened after the storm in the afternoon, smelling of soil and wet leaves. Our bus traveled a narrow dirty road between little pink and blue houses adorned in primrose. Coca-Cola advertisements popped on billboards in front of square red brick buildings. Fields extended green, and bloomed with little yellow daises. I heard crickets punctuate the bus engine’s hum.

The evening sky was tinged pink and the surrounding mountains purple when I stepped off the bus onto the main church plaza. An amusement park sprang confused there, announcing fantastic aberrations of mother nature.

“The baby girl snake! Come to see! The incredible man without eyes who can read Shakespeare! The woman gorilla! The razor-eating man…”

Their figures were drawn scary on canvas walls. I wondered if the baby wrapped in bandages like a mummy girl was just a miserable being tragically without arms and legs.

Happy bodies dressed in white and pink packed the Ferris wheel. Popcorn and sawdust rose in the air. Roberto Carlos sang Nas Curvas da Estrada de Santos muffled through loud speakers.

I walked south down the dirty road. Horses pastured in the middle of the avenue. I turned right. There is the tip of Angel’s underground house.

“Hi, everyone!” I shouted when Tana openend the gate for me.

“Tana, you grew. You look beautiful!” I said. She smiled.

I saw Dores’ splendid smile at the door. There were a few steps to go down to enter the house.

“Regina, I thought you would never come tonight,” Dores welcomed me happier than usual, confident of her charm and beauty. She had blown her hair, which fell brown like a cascade to her round shoulders, and shiny like a piece of the reflected evening moon. She wore a sky blue mini-top in white overalls.

I kept my hair short to hide my curls. Dona Hebe helped me believe that long curly hair wasn’t agreeable to others’ eyes, and since that charitable lady cut my hair, I kept it short. I didn’t keep the deluded charitable lady as my hairdresser however. I was poor, not a loony bin fugitive.

“Do you like my hair?” Dores asked, shaking her head.

“Yes, you’re very pretty.”

“Why did you come so late, Regina?” she asked.

“Am I late? I don’t know. The storm made me late, I think.”

“I’m in love, Regina” she said, grinning.

“You are? Tell me all about it.”

“Hi, Regina. I like your shirt,” Angel welcomed as I stepped into the ammonia smelly hair salon. Three ladies waited inside hair driers while Angel manicured one of them.

“Thanks, you look pretty too. Actually you bloomed prettier since Sergeant Juca left,” I said.

“No, I’m the same. I still suffer the disgrace of my bad marriage,” Angel said, exerting to expose the suffering she habitually carried in her soul, but her dark eyes contradicted her words. I’d say she was in love like Dores.

“How the kids doing?”

“Sleeping good.”

“Who are you in love with?” I asked Dores.

“You don’t know him. His name is Dimas. He is my Italian lover, but everything isn’t perfect.”

“Huh? What’s the problem? Zefa forbade you to fall in love?” I said, prejudice of her mother.

“No, Jesus, no! Mom don’t even know I’m in love. No, Dimas, my love, has a fiancé. It will be my end if mom knows that. The problem is that his fiancé plans to marry him next year in May. I’ll tell you everything about him. We’ll meet him later.”

“Girls, go talk in the back of the house. I don’t want the customers listening to this conversation,” Angel said.

“They can’t hear anything inside the hair dryer,” Tana said.

“Yes, but I don’t want to take a risk, and you guys know Zé Mané might show up to check on us at mom’s request,” Angel said.

O that brother and mother of their’s still doing those stupid inspections, I thought. Maybe that’s why I didn’t really want to come here tonight. Dores had not asked a question about me so far.

We paced to the back of the narrow red brick house across waxed red cement floors covered with clean scrap rugs.

The bell behind the gate rattled.

“Girls, girls! It’s Zé Mané!” Tana ran with a broom in hand, announcing their brother as Angel predicted. Tana gave Dores a broom.

“Put this broom upside down behind the door so he will go away soon,” Tana advised.

“Rush under Angel’s bed, Regina. Don’t’ breathe. Don’t move,” Dores pleaded, whispering. She put the broom upside down behind the bedroom door, and rushed back to the front of the house.

If I wanted to keep my friendship with Dores, I understood for a long time that the harder sacrifice must be on my part, and like a criminal, I rushed under the bed as ordered in the name of love and our friendship. The shopping bag in which I carried my pajamas and tooth brush, I squeezed tight like a treasure in my arm between my chest and the cold cement floor.

My mouth dried. I was nervous. That position was horrible. The house was dark, the window in the bedroom closed. I smelled dust, food, wax, and eucalyptis disinfect jumbled with soap that didn’t exactly cover the dump odor from the bathroom next door.

My eyes searched the dark. My ears caught Zé Mané’s grave voice growing closer and bigger. I imagined his tone matched a pair of wicked eyes, carefully inspecting each corner of his sister’s narrow house.

A light switched on in the living room. A sneeze started to develop in my brain right when legs start to cross the bedroom door. I grasped the sneeze…grasp…grasping with all my power. I wished not to sneeze, fought hard instants against an explosion, and successfully dominated it.

I bet that would cause my end. Dores’ brother is the crudest of all beings on earth. Not that the young man ever did me any harm, but I thought he was cruel and mean because he didn’t like me.

Heart jumping anxiously, I couldn’t hear clearly what they said. A light switched on in the kitchen. All the sisters attended their brother.

“I’m not going out. Don’t you see I’m exhausted? I still have two more manicures to do, and two more heads to dress,” I heard Angel when I could calm the beating of my scared heart a little.

“Mama is concerned you have a boy friend. You can’t give bad examples to your children and our sisters,” Zé Mané said.

Chairs pulled, legs filled under the table in the kitchen.

“Mama doesn’t need to worry. I don’t have any man in my life,” Angel said.

“Mama doesn’t want Dores and Tana on the loose around town.”

“Dores is busy in the salon with me. Tana babysits my children. They sleep now, but they will wake, and till they sleep again it will be past ten. Nobody will leave this house. We’re going to have pizza and play cards before bed.”

“Mama wants Dores and Tana at Sunday morning mass.”

“They’ll be there. Don’t worry. Tell mama.”

“Where is big Elga’s daughter? Mom thinks she sneaks around Dores somehow.”

“I don’t know where Elga’s daughter is.”

“Mom don’t want them together. That girl’s worthless.”

“I’m aware of it. She isn’t with us. Don’t worry,” Dores said.

“I’m going to finish the customers’ hair,” Angel said, and left back to her beauty salon.

A few minutes of silence followed. I observed Tana’s legs swinging nervously under the table.

“Do you want a beer?” Dores asked.

“Yes, please,” he answered. “But let me go to the bathroom first.” He stood up, and his legs in yellow canvas and brown half-boots walked slowly my way. I froze. The booted legs turned right and disappeared.

His urine gushed for maybe thirty seconds, then he was out. His legs came to the bedroom doorway and stopped. He turned the light on. My soul shrank in panic. He suddenly looked behind the door, nobody there, but the broom spell Dores cast to make him go away sooner. The broom menaced to fall. My heart pounded. He caught the broom before it reached the floor.

How fast and smart he was! How lucky I was! I chuckled. No, no breathing please, please, I warned myself.

“May I pour the beer for you, Zé Mané?” Dores asked. I heard a slight quivering in her voice.

“Yes,” he said, and put the broom back behind the door, turned the light off, and left to the kitchen, slowly pounding the heels of his crude boots.

I quivered. I had no idea what might happen if he sniffed me out under the bed. Would he yank me out violently? I hadn’t thought of any explanation to redeem myself for my crime if my luck ran out.

His inspections seemed like forever while I waited wormy-like under the bed, but truly only took around half an hour. He didn’t want to be a baby sitter to his sisters a whole Saturday night. We all knew that.

They left the kitchen to the front door.

“Mama wants you and Tana back home tomorrow no later than five o’clock in the afternoon,” he warned before he left.

“Regina, Regina, you can come out from under the bed now,” Dores called as soon as she presumed it was safe. “I saw my brother take a bus back to Taubaté. He will not come back today. He was dying to leave to party with his friends and girls. I know my brother. We’re free!”

Demure, humiliated, depressed as mom said, in grief for each piece of my being, I slid from under the bed, and stood brushing the dust with my hands from my new clothes. How low did I need to go for a human friend? I meditated deeply on this for the first time while my eyes followed my hands down, dusting my clothes and tennis shoes.

“Don’t cry, Regina,” Tana said, seeing my pain.

“You’re not going to cry on me, are you, Regina?” Dores said. “O, come on, let’s enjoy. Come help us in the salon. We are going to the amusement park later.”

An hour later we’re on top of the Ferris wheel in the amusement park, screaming, afraid of the height. Angel gave us two hours before we had to come back home. After an hour in the amusement park, Dores’ new forbidden Italian boy friend, Dimas, picked us up in his yellow Volkswagen Brasilia at the church corner. He was tall, skinny, dark, with a long nose on his narrow face, not quite handsome, but very charming. His hair shiny-black, long until the neck, fell thick and smooth parted in the center of his head.

He smiled nicely for Tana and I as we stepped in the back seat of his car. He sat his lady in the front, sat inside, and turned thirsty for a hot French kiss they exchanged for long instants.

Tana and I watched the sinners. I was sick with jealousy, wisher of a lover too.

“You’re ten minutes late, Dimas,” Dores said, and pulled from his arms. “Your fiancé don’t enfranchise her man earlier on Saturdays?” she said scornfully, though her eyes smiled amused.

“Sorry, I couldn’t get rid of her earlier,” he said, amused too.

“I don’t believe you. You love her more than you love me,” she said in a tone of untrue indignation.

“O, don’t cry, baby, I love you more,” Dimas said, and then more kisses, long French kisses.

“We can’t be kissing in public,” Dores said lovingly to break their wild voluptuousness.

“Okay, lets go.”

“Did you bring beer?”

“Sure!”

His car stilled on a small dark deserted dirt road under the stars. Tana and I sat outside on the ground in front of the car. We both admired the light of the constellations, drinking beer, and singing Like Our Fathers loud like savages of the dark together with Elis Regina even louder on the tape player of the shaking car. Our voices dove deep in the waves of empty space on the dark road, and echoed far, far away.

“We care less that we don’t see our loud annoyance. We are an immature force of nature who might even move those simmering stars,” I pushed a conversation with Tana.

“I’m ignorant and selfish for beer,” Tana answered, and we shouted the lyrics: My pain is to perceive in spite of all we did when we were young, we are still the same like our fathers, our idols still the same…

The lyrics sounded proud and hopeless, but I knew that I didn’want to be like my father or mother, and share their idols.

“Sometimes I think I’d like to leave home like you did, Regina,” Tana said thoughtfully.

“Why? I thought you loved your mother and home. You once said you didn’t want to be away from home.”

“I don’t know. I grew since then. My ideas about staying home with mom changed.”

“Well, you can have whatever you want.”

“How do you feel away from big Elga and your home?”

“From mom, relieved, though I don’t truly think I’m away from home yet, but I’ll be soon. I’m planning to move to São Paulo my first opportunity, and I won’t ever come back.”

Tana stared. “When? How? Do you know where to go there?”

“When, I don’t know. How, I don’t know. Something will happen at the right time and bring me there. Where to go, I don’t have a place yet.”

“Wow! I know you will go. I know you’re courageous!”

“Girls! Come inside the car. It’s time to go back,” Dores called.

Tana and I jumped happy to the back of the car. The car smelled…what? Some fishy smell, new for me, unknown erogenous zone instincts aroused. Our party went laughing. We parked in front of the house down hill at the cross road. French kisses goodbye with no ending, tongues sucking. Jealousy consumed me.

“I have to go, goodbye,” Dores said firmly, and freed Tana and I from the back seat.

“Nine o’clock on the dot,” Dores said, watching the time on her Mickey Mouse watch, and unlocked the gate to the underground house. She was a responsible girl, and I sincerely admired her correctness and loyalty to her family.

A man with ardent black eyes, dark skin, and slim medium stature was in Angel’s beauty salon. He held a mug of vinho. They smiled seductively to each other. “My friend, Julião, came to visit me,” Angel said, “but he is leaving at this moment, right?”

The feeble candle lights proposed romance. If the lights were brighter I’d say she blushed introducing her friend. She was in love when the ardent eyes of the dark stranger smiled to us. He kissed Angel’s hands, respectful-like, then left.

Angel sighed, then gaily announced, “Pizza! Let’s have pizza! And get prepared for our umbanda mass. Pai Tomé will come down tonight. He sent me a message he is on the way down at eleven-thirty to advise, and is hungry for fried chicken.”

“How do you know he wants to eat fried chicken?” Tana asked suspiciously.

“I heard a whispering, a list of what he wants to enjoy tonight. Fried chicken was on the list.”

“The ghost eats fried chicken?” I asked.

Tana mocked, “Our ghost does, uuuuuuuu!”

“Not fun, Tana! No fun!” Dores reproached her sister as we entered in the small dimly lit kitchen with a long pine table, six chairs around. On top of the table was a bowl with lots of chicken marinated to fry, and a tray with mozzarella pizza ready to eat. Since I moved from Hebe’s home, I had became skinny again. I bit my pizza slice hungrily.

“He also smokes cigars, eats hot devil peppers, and drinks cachaça,” Angel said as she prepared a black iron pot with lots of vegetable oil to heat on the stove.

“He does?” I said. She threw the chicken in the pot of hot oil, sizzling a fabulous smell.

“Yes, he does. which are all in the cupboard inside a calabash shell and an osier basket. Close your mouth, Regina,” she said, and pointed to the white rusted cupboard on the wall next to the table.

“Get everything there, Dores, and prepare the altar in the living room for his reception. The candles are there too. The rug he likes is in my bedroom in my first dresser drawer together with the rosario. Leave the calabash here on the kitchen table. I’ll need it,” Angel said.

“Wow! I can’t wait to talk to him. I’m sure I love Dimas, Angel! I’m sure! And I plan to have the man all to myself,” Dores said passionately, always smiling. She changed her high heel anabelas for yellow havaina flip-flops.

“I’m sure Pai Tomé has some good to tell you, Dores,” Angel said. “What about you, Regina, needy of advise too?”

“No, not really. I left mom’s home, and live with thirteen girls. I have a new job as a secretary. Everything is wonderful. There is nothing to ask.”

First conversation about my being since I arrived.

Dores and I worked to assemble the altar in the living room.

“Are you afraid a divine spirit will condemn you because you left big Elga in a lurch?”

“No, that isn’t true. Mom is an individual. I’m another. Both of us, very poor and ignorant. We won’t accomplish anything together.”

“What do you want, Regina?”

“I don’t know, have knowledge, see more, I think.”

“But you left school!”

“But you left school too. You’re not going to college, are you?”

“No, what do you mean?”

“Shh, kids, don’t wake the children, or we won’t have umbanda tonight,” Angel said mysteriously, coming from the kitchen with the calabash full of golden fried chicken sprinkled with parsley. She placed it on the altar. Her advise came gentle to cool my almost heated conversation with Dores. She enigmatically arranged the hot devil peppers in the osier basket and went away.

I pondered my thoughts, Dores seemed to do the same. Sitting on a morsel carpet on the floor, we stared to the ritual altar: black and red candles, incense, cigars, matches, a bottle of cachaça and a shot glass, demon finger hot peppers inside the osier basket, and the fried chicken in the calabash shell. A huge rosario surrounded everything. Across the wall from the square clock hung a cross of old Jesus’ stoned head, bent, and dead.

“It’s a sin to talk the way you talk about your mother,” Dores whispered.

I shrugged. We sat cross-legged in front of the altar. Tana laid on the sofa, blinking hard to pretend she was not sleepy, but would sleep any instant.

Angel came back wearing a dark navy blue shirt three times her size, and jeans as big, held by a man’s black leather belt. She walked barefoot to the altar, her palms open to heaven, her eyes closed, then stood there meditating. Her body sprang slowly. She kicked one leg three times like a horse. Her sweet smile blurred ugly and angry. Her nose seemed doubled the size, and curved down. An unfit gloomy mug sat in her delicate face. It seemed like she developed a face of an old cranky man like grandpa. He looked mindlessly into a nowhere point. Angelic Angel didn’t look like that thing. The spirit has her!

At that moment, I couldn’t think of much but run at the sight of that bizarre transformation in case that hoary host decided to attack me, but the soul-ghost moved slowly, seemingly pacific like Angel. He lit the candles and incense with the matches. He picked a red candle, and whirled it around his body (I mean, Angel’s body), then whirled the candles around Dores and me. Tana dropped fatally asleep. The spirit didn’t bother her, and whirled the candle around the room, moaning forms of prayer. The ghost repeated the same steps with the black candle, then opened the bottle of cachaça. He poured the cachaça, and shot the harsh drink down the gullet. He poured another shot, and gave it to Dores. She shot it down. He poured another shot and gave it to me. I refused. He sat cross-legged like Dores and me, and left the full shot glass on the floor on his right side.

“My horse’s hair needs to be tied, moreca,” he pronounced awkward Portuguese sounding like Spanish perhaps in a feigned thick voice of an old man. I can’t say if it was Spanish, I didn’t know if the word moreca in Spanish meant morena in Portuguese, which means brunette in English, which was Dores’ color.

“Get a rubber band for me in the hair salon, Regina.”

I rushed to the salon, curious. I got back, gave her the rubber band, and she made a ponytail of Angel’s hair, I meant, on his horse.

“Thank you, moreca. This horse of mine don’t understand I don’t like hair all over my face,” he said. Dores giggled.

“How have you been, moreca?” the spirit asked amiably.

“Ah, Pai, I’m in love!”

“It’s wonderful. Why the face of a discontent then?”

“My lover has a fiancé. I don’t have him all for myself. Does he love me, Pai?” Dores asked, concerned.

The spirit didn’t let us see his eyes. He simply didn’t raise them. He quietly traced his left index in complex invisible lines on the floor. “Yes, he loves you,” he said after a while.

Dores’ lips stretched in a smile.

I sighed, happy for her.

“Why doesn’t he love only me then?”

The ghost studied the invisible map on the red floor once more. “I’m in power to change the destination reserved for you—If you think he’s faithful to be your love, and insist on him as the right man for your future,” he said.

“Yes, I want him, my first love,” she said, nodding.

“If so, here is what you must do when the full moon will rise on a Friday night. What you have to do is some hard work, but without hard work it is almost impossible to fulfill a wish, moreca,” the umbanda entity spoke. “The night must be clear, ornamented with stars. At six in the evening, you must wear red lace panties. Take your panties off at nine o’clock, and filter coffee through its breech. No later than ten, you must bring your intended inside this house, and give him a cup of coffee you filtered in the breech of your red laced panties.

“As he drinks the coffee, the breech of your red panties now dirty with coffee, must be exposed outside to the moon light. Don’t touch the panties until six the next morning, then take the panties from the night dew, wrap in pink tissue, and on the same day at eleven at night no matter if the sky is full of stars or starless, rain or no rain, you must take the panties in your left hand, hold them in a fist, bring with you to the closest crossroad you may find, and bring my horse with you, carrying: a poniard, a bouquet of yellow roses, a bottle of champagne, a champagne glass, and as many black and red candles as possible. My horse must arrange a pretty, lighted altar. The panties must be grasped firmly in your left fist. It’s important to keep the garment warmed of your blood. The poniard is to dig three inches under ground. Lay the panties in the hole. Bury it slowly, and as you bury it, firm your thoughts powerfully on your lover, wishing him only for you, forever.

“Then open the champagne. Pour some in the glass. Toast to your love. Drink three sips from the glass, and place it on the altar, and give the rest of the champagne in the glass and bottle to Maria Padilha, the Exu spirit for women with forbidden lovers as yours. She likes gifts from this mundane world.

“Close your eyes. Invoke your sensuality. Invoke Maria Padilha’s sensuality. She is a powerful sensual Exu from the night cabarets. She will attend you. Leave the crossroad a minute after midnight. Don’t look behind, don’t. Lost devils of the dark will be there to memorize your face. They will steal your soul if your face is seen, then you will see Lucifer, the king of darkness, and you will have your lover, but not all for you, and your life will proceed all backwards.” the unknown from heaven said.

“Damn, I should take notes. I won’t remember everything he said,” Dores said. She seemed drunk.

“I remember everything he said,” I said.

“No, I don’t think you have a good memory. How come you didn’t finish high school like I did.”

Long moments of silence went by. I thought that just because I didn’t know math, that didn’t mean that I didn’t have a good memory. I did have a good memory. I felt strange, intelligent, and stupid. We heard the ghost’s voice again afterwards.

“Light my cigar for me,” he asked me, and I worried the ghost could read my soul. I put the cigar between his lips. His bowed head didn’t move. The match quivered as I lit his cigar. He puffed, puffed, puffed. The cigar blazed.

“I need to see your hand,” he asked.

No, no, please, I don’t want to know anything negative about me, no, no, I thought, sweating. He will read I’ve even stolen. Dores forced my left palm to him. He studied it doubtfully.

I’m bad, very bad was all I could think because I thought the worst of myself: a rotten human being with no chance to succeed in life, undeserved of anyone to truly love me because I was a begger, because grandma cursed me. I didn’t like my family. My father was a drunkard. I hate Pero. I didn’t care where José might be. I don’t consider Marcus my brother. I can’t learn. I left home, and at that moment I didn’t want hear any truth about my misery and lone future on Earth, hoping he had no power to read my lost soul, to analyze my wishes only to find he couldn’t change my destiny so easy as he did for cute Dores. Shut up. Don’t talk to me, I screamed inside.

“Her memory is good,” he said calmly. “However, my horse has the power to repeat every word I said to you. Any worry is unnecessary, Moreca. Now, you, don’t you want anything?” he asked me.

I was shocked with his positive words about me.

“Don’t you have dreams?”

“No, not really!” I said.

“Regina dreams the impossible,” Dores spoke for me in mockery. “Deluded Regina thinks she can get rich working somehow.”

The ghost listened unmoved. Why does she talk about my dreams? I gave her no permission to talk for me. I wanted to yell at her, but lacked courage.

“I tell her it’s an impossible dream,” she went on. “I don’t desire such a thing for myself. No guys care about her. No, she won’t marry a rich man because there is an ocean that divides her from meeting the impossible rich him. She also wants to find who we are in the Universe, and help, and change, and throw lights in the dark mad cavities of the Universe, throw lights in men’s and women’s and other animals’ minds, whatever she means by that, but, but she’s quiet at school. All she knows is how to write, badly, and read,” she laughed, and I listened, hardened like a piece of wood in blaze. She was wrong. I knew how to type on the typewriter too, and I sold clothes. I read fine. I was curious, young, brave. I hated she told him my dreams, shallowly like that to make me look like a crazy being. He will laugh at me too. I hated she spoke for me, I hated, and I controlled an impetus to cry in front of the divine creature and her and shame my being. She didn’t pity my anguished eyes, and didn’t stop talking about things my little head thinks and what I say to her in conversation.

“Her weird dream is that she can have a sort of forever spirit like Galileo. I say she is philosophizing. I don’t even think she knows who Galileo is, honestly.”

I couldn’t hold myself. “You’re wrong. I know who Galileo was. He observed, observed, and proved Earth isn’t a motionlessness square rock like written in the sacred scriptures. It’s round like eyes and hearts of any living being, and in motion in space like Jupiter is. Galileo’s spirit is real and lives forever,” I said stubbornly.

“Nobody wants to know about that, but what God wrote in the sacred scriptures. It’s profane to contest God’s deeds. It’s scary to think our world is a rock that rolls in space,” she said, as her eyes walked between me and Pai Tomé. Her head shook, distured with me, or with alcohol.

“Earth is a rock that rolls in space, and isn’t a square rock motionlessness at the center of the Universe like the ancient scientists ruled, and this is the truth.”

The spirit mumbled. The cigar danced in his mouth. He turned to the altar, took a piece of fried chicken, one Horn Devil pepper, and ate fast with desperation.

So far he didn’t mutter a word of disdain for me.

He indifferently swallowed the cachaça on his side, and filled the small glass anew, which he offered Dores. She grabbed the glass and swallowed it like he did. She didn’t make any face to swallow the cheap sugar cane aguardente, and smiled larger, bright white teeth exposed to adorn the good-cool-easy-girl charismatic face loved by everyone at first sight.

He refilled the glass, and offered it to me.

“No, thanks. Cachaça makes me sick,” I said, and before I understood he cared less for how wicked I was, Dores spoke again.

“You can’t refuse what Pai Tomé offers,” she said.

“Sorry, it’s just because I don’t want to be sick.”

He nodded, then handed me a fried chicken leg and horn devil, and another to Dores. I only ate the chicken, and the conversation died drunk after the small banquet.

“Pray to our lord Jesus. He is the hope to light dark souls sunk in deep dark water,” he advised suddenly.

I took his advice personally. Well, so far Jesus hadn’t lit me. How would he, with his head covered in blood, the torn crown. He was killed, killed. Who would be so cruel if not primitive humans, bullies of man’s psyche, savage murdered brains, animals of mysterious Earth in motion in space somewhere, prisoners of the lights of a star. I refused to think God is like any one of us gathered here on Earth, late violent demented beasts, merciless of others’ pain as guardians of his sacred name and marvelous deed. God supposedly would like to keep his own creation alive forever. God supposedly knows our pain, but we are condemned to die like vile venomous scorpions.

Thank goodness that thing wasn’t able to read my dreams, I sighed. The unknown in front my eyes may be nothing other than Angel’s magnificent brain tricking two naïve passionate immature girls, one drunk

Staggering, the divine Mexican stood, eyes cast down like always. He meditated, and yanked, and plim! Woozy Angel is back to her normal features with sweet smile, serene eyes and everything. She loosened her hair and shook it.

“What did he do tonight?” she asked innocently.

“Doesn’t she remember anything? “I asked naively and stared. “Where were you?”

“I don’t know, to a gray state of mind. Let’s go sleep.”

“No, I feel so good I don’t want to sleep,” Dores slurred her speech.

“We must go to sleep now. Tana, Tana, let’s sleep in bed.”

Sunday I left Angel’s house with the decision to never come back to meet Dores in secret anymore. Why on Earth did I want to be depressed? Dores is part of the past.

What would I miss, amusement park loud speakers that rattle Nas Curvas da Estrada de Santos over and over in a piccolo town stuck in time?

Dust blew as the bus took off, and the lights of the delusional park lingered in dim slow motion far behind.

I dreamed Dave commanded five young men to look for my manuscript in a black hole in the basement of a dark house.

To be continued…

Edelman-Eggers Letters 3

A bit of good news about my manuscript came through the mail. I received my certificate of registration of my copyright from the Library of Congress. I was never so proud of myself. Maybe it’s a dumb thing to be proud of having a work (that came from inside me) copyrighted by the Library of Congress of the United States of America, I don’t know; I thought it a rare achievement for a Brazilian immigrant like me. I cried and laughed with happiness, relieved too; for months after my husband sent the paperwork for registration, I worried that the Library of Congress would deny me the register somehow, and through sleepless nights, this hypothesis scared me.

Summer and fall passed and winter came. Everyday, Daryl arrived from work with disagreeable news. He said, “I never saw an author so insulted on the Internet like Dave.”

“People are jealous of others’ success,” I said.

“He gave you the same address listed on his website that anyone who wants to submit a manuscript to his publishing house sends to. Your manuscript went to a shit pile. Moreover,” Daryl said, “I don’t believe Dave is reading your story. You should e-mail him to find out.”

I didn’t want to write to him. I had faith that on the last day of December, Dave would write to me to give me his earnest opinion of my work, but I ended writing to him as Daryl said I should:

On 12/13/07 6:42 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Hi Dave,
How are you? Did you get my work? December came, and time drives to the middle of it, and my dearest hope is that you are reading my work. Are you? I know your time barely lets you breathe.
Yours,
Regina

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Eggers"
To: "Regina Edelman"
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: Great letter

Hey there –
It might be a while yet before I could get to your book. I have a book of my own due in mid-January and I can't do any extracurricular work till then. And then, when I get out of that tunnel, I'll be catching up for a while on all the work I've been setting aside... I still hope to read your book, but between reading my students' work, and all the reading for McSweeney's, the Believer, the Best American Nonrequired Reading, my students' college recommendations... It's a very busy time. I have been telling people I will always try to read manuscripts, but I've got myself in a spot where I just can't make promises outside of my students, the McSwys publications, and the eight nonprofits I oversee. I wish I could live without sleep... Let's check back in with each other in a few months –
Yours,
Dave

On 12/15/07 1:40 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

This is a depressing message to me, Dave, but I understand that you are a very busy man, and I will check with you in the future.
Yours,
Regina

When I wrote that note, I felt I was the butt of another cruel joke of life, and didn’t understand why he gave me his resume; I know exactly who he is and about his hard work for philanthropy, that’s why I wrote him for understanding and help. I thought that I wouldn’t hear from him again in ages, but sooner than I thought:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Eggers"
To: "Regina Edelman"
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: Great letter

There are tons and tons of other writers, editors, publishers out there... I always caution people against choosing me as their main reader for a new manuscript, as I have to read about 200,000 words a week already... But again, I look forward to reading your work as soon as I get out of this tunnel.
Yours,
Dave

I upset him because I said his news depressed me. That’s why he scolded me, but I couldn’t help it, his news truly depressed me. Maybe he feels bad depressing others, but I used the word depressing to ensure his understanding. I didn’t mean to upset a man who is willing to give me a chance. The nature of man is to feel depressed when planned things don’t go as planned, and as a human being, he would have to feel depressed like me if he was in my place. I didn’t mean to offend the man, and he's right, there are tons and tons of other writers, editors, and publishers out there... But, he never cautioned me of anything… Well, he still held my hopes that he would read my work, and that’s what mattered, so I went on, replying to him in a manner I thought friendly:

On 12/17/07 3:48 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Hi Dave,
It's true there are many other writers, editors, and publishers around; naively, I wanted you to be the first to read my work. I choose you because seems to me you are kind to human life or any other life anywhere in this earth, and earth needs kind soldiers who favor life, understanding of our precious time under the sun. As people say, there are always lights at the end of the tunnel; and lights will brighten for me. I know. Thank you for your encouragement and hope. I need it.

Yours,
Regina

I had not sent my work to anyone else. I thought it wasn’t right to send my work to anyone else to read until I heard from Dave, but I didn’t know how much longer the journey could take with more sleepless nights and December blown. So Daryl and I started to look for agents. I had no idea that we had to compose a sort of form letter in order to be accepted to an agency that might have interest in reading my work and help me publish it. I composed my best letter, but at least a hundred agents refused to read my work. An honest reply, every refusal to read my manuscript.

A subaltern you say, Senator! Every man has the right to demand redress for something that has been taken from him, or for an offense he has suffered. The prejudice which makes a distinction among the classes is pure fantasy. Nature has created all men equal; there is not a single one amongst us who has not issued from his mother’s womb naked and poor, no one whom she preserves or whom she annihilates differently from any other. The sole distinction among them I recognize is that which virtue confers upon them. The only man who is born to be the object of our contempt is he who uses the rights granted unto him by false conventions merely to indulge with greater impunity in vice.

—Marquis de Sade

Idiot! Idiot! I blamed myself. I regretted what I wrote to Dave in my last e-mail. Analyzing my writing to him, I thought: I shouldn’t have used the word naively. I sounded arrogant—but he's kind and well educated so he must understand how I feel. It doesn’t make sense he doesn’t understand that precious time runs the same for everyone, no matter who.

I wanted to rectify my words from my last e-mail, and my husband and I realized we never mentioned the title of my novel to Dave, so Daryl decided we should check with him like he said I could, and because over two more months had passed since he assured me a couple times more that he looked forward to reading my work. Maybe he was out of his tunnel. I’d mention my title and send him an excerpt from the manuscript, a few pages he may squeeze in his time to read, and then he’ll respond positively.

To be continued...

Edelman-Eggers Letters 2

Last we learned, Dave Eggers kindly replied to my query letter. I went on polishing my novel in order to send it by the time I told him I would. Then one evening, my computer broke. I lost a good part of my archives, including the file of my work that day, and when my computer came back from the store restoration, I had to type all again.

Unnecessary also, I had to go to the small case court to plead for my rent security deposit back. Harshly, the judge judged my husband and me guilty. We lost more money we could not afford to the deluded rich people of the Big Apple—so small farm is the Big Apple in the universe—whose staff I felt made us run in distress, but I didn’t care. No money lost would make me unhappy because Dave Eggers answered my letter and that’s all I cared about in this world at the time. My husband exhausted his last edit, and I wrote Dave afraid he’d complain about my late time table, but no, he didn’t.

On 7/18/07 3:01 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:

Hi Dave,
I hope everything is good with you. It took more time to polish my novel than I thought. What hard work! Tomorrow, 7/19, I'm sending it to you FEDEX to be delivered on Friday 7/20. Now anxiety is the master of my thoughts, waiting for your thoughts and advice.

Ciao,
Regina

From: "Dave Eggers"
To: "Regina Edelman"
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: Great letter

No need to FedEx it. I'll be out of the country the next 3 weeks... And I'll probably need till December to read it... Congrats on sending it out!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Regina Edelman"
To: "Dave Eggers"
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 7:40 PM
Subject: Great letter

Thanks, Dave! Have a good trip. In a blink, December will reach us. Ciao for now.

It was hard to sleep, but I had to.

To be continued…

Edelman-Eggers Letters 1

Dear Reader,
I do not intend to post letters of everyone who once wrote me. The only object of the letters in this document is to show my struggle to be alive and strong to narrate that I didn’t follow the steps of prostitution or become a thief, but wanted to study to say: beaten, the fleas were not enough to make me weak and now I stand alive on top of earth, begging of you a chance to explain the crude truth of bare life is not what makes us nuts, but the old ideas of man.

How can one be published if not by the skill of a letter? Maybe through a friend’s recommendation, but I have no friends in the literary world, so my option is to write and win a voice.

When I was about to finish my yet unpublished manuscript, Garments of Fleas, my husband, Daryl Edelman, told me to write a letter to Dave Eggers because he was coming to Donnell Library in Manhattan in a few days to talk about his book, What is the What. So I wrote him the following letter:

New York, April 26th, 2007

Dear Dave Eggers:
You are a master teacher to me, an idol.

Forgive me if it is not the proper time to deliver this letter to you, but I can’t miss this opportunity since I came to appreciate your brilliance in flesh. We all have to begin from a certain point, and my hope is that I can begin with the best.

I’m a native of Brazil who grew up carrying water to survive, but my head is strong, so I flew to America at the age of forty, uneducated, schooled only until 14. I couldn’t speak English, but I had an unconscious ambition to be a novelist to push mankind’s evolution ahead into the infinite. I learned English as a second language in free classes in New York while I worked and lived in a garment broker’s office, importing clothing from Brazil to America.

Destiny brought me a loving husband, a comic book writer and editor who presented me with books instead of a brilliant ring. I learned how to be a writer from the books, picking geniuses’ brains such as yours, Scott Fitzgerald’s, Galileo Galilei’s, and so many more that I can’t list them all here. Whoever created school had no school to go to, so I educated myself.

Directed by my husband, a master editor and my mentor, I have been writing a novel for the past two and a half years, and I wrote a masterpiece! It’s based on the true story of a hopeless girl (me) in poverty, daughter of black slave ancestors, imprisoned in a psychological karma Christian civilization put me in on earth there in Brazil, but as I said, my head is strong, so I escaped, and here I am in firm thoughts that you’ll request to read my creation and help me publish it.

I thank you very much for your attention.

Sincerely,
Regina Edelman

After his speech, Daryl delivered my letter. Dave Eggers folded it and put it in his pocket! I wondered, will he pay attention to my voice?

At the time, my husband and I had to move in exasperation from a building run by Related Rentals because I might suggest we felt we were being attacked by the staff of the building (The Related story will be narrated for your appreciation and judgment later, dear reader, for you to judge if I had reason or not to believe my family was under attack by family men with children).

The days went on; we left the Related trauma slowly behind, and my full happiness shone back when my e-mail inbox delivered the message:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Eggers"
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 3:50 PM
Subject: Great letter

I just found your letter in my backpack. I have no idea when you gave it to me, but you wrote a very good and intriguing letter. By all means send me your masterpiece. And though I can promise nothing (I'm so swamped I can barely breathe), I will try to read it and send what thoughts and advice I can.

Yours,
Dave
849 Valencia Street
San Francisco CA 94110

From: "Regina Edelman"
To: "Dave Eggers"
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: Great letter

Hi Dave,
I just cannot believe you wrote me back! It is one of the most happy moments of my life! Thank you for your return!

You caught me in the middle of moving from one place to another. I tell you, I can't breathe either! I still have some polishing of my novel to do, but will be done with the work by the end of the month. I will send it to you with great pleasure!

Thank you so much!

Sincerely,
Regina
my new address and phone:
[redacted]

To be continued…