2008-06-29
The State of Nevada Sends Greetings
THE STATE OF NEVADA SENDS GREETINGS TO:
ANDREW KENNEDY
YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED, that all and singular business and excuses being laid aside, to appear before the District Court of the Third Judicial District of the State of Nevada in and for the County of Lyon...then and there to testify as a witness in an action pending before said District Court, which action is being prosecuted by Robert L. Auer, Lyon County District Attorney, against Mike Fixer Newcastle aka Michael Christopher Young, the defendant in this action.
...
I received the subpoena on Friday. I knew it was likely to be come, but the reality of it struck me hard: That I am going to be facing Mike in court.
2008-06-22
The beginning of freedom
To really understand something, oftentimes you have to observe it as an outsider. I get asked a lot about any insights I may have gleaned into the Iraq situation, but I don’t think I really found any. When you are in the middle of it, you are doing it, not contemplating it. Only after you’ve had a chance to step back, extricate yourself from the situation, can you really see it for what it is.
So the most insightful thing I wrote while I was in Iraq wasn’t about Iraq at all. It was a letter I wrote to Mike. A year on, and with the emotional shield down, I think I finally captured how I feel about the situation:
Baghdad, May 2008
I am a month away now from the end of my tour. Exactly a month, tomorrow. My thoughts have now turned to what I am going back to, less where I am or where I have been.
But thinking about what I am going back to makes me think about where we have been. There is a moment in time that sticks with me. We were driving to Vegas, through the pass. I looked to the hills and said “Stupid windmills—stealing our precious wind!” Your laughter was magnetic. The occasion was emblematic of our relationship. It was your drive, energy, & charisma that led us to get in the car and go to Vegas in the first place. And whatever promises you made about the treasures to be found there, such treasures would not have existed if it were not for you. The last and only time I went there and you weren’t there, the lights were just neon, and 21 just didn’t come up as often. For my part, we could have taken a road trip to Manitoba—I simply appreciated having someone who liked the jokes. Got the jokes.
Friendship endures despite our shortcomings. It really doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t. It is the knowledge that it will endure, rejuvenate, find new soil, that makes it the only thing worth having.
In the past year, there have been so many occasions where people have asked probing questions, looking to somehow diminish our friendship with the answers. “How could you be friends with someone who could do such a thing?” The other extreme, to deny what I believe to be the truth of the matter, might be your answer. Both are incorrect, and in some fashion either intellectually or morally cowardly. To avoid the question—or, rather, to avoid answering the question—is even more cowardly. It is the path I have often chosen.
The truth of the matter isn’t that you abused Shelby or that you didn’t somehow really love her. The truth is that you loved her with all your heart, all your soul. When we got past the Mike who sells vitamins or is convinced that one need not pay taxes, and got to the Mike that cared for his dying mother, how you felt about Shelby—that utmost devotion—was evident. Painfully evident. And while your actions may not have always lived up to her (or your own) expectations, to doubt your heart or the sincerity of your affection is wrong. To paint you as some sort of monster is wrong.
I am willing to accept that I may be completely wrongheaded. Indeed, even after this thing is done we may never have a truth that is universally accepted. Certainty is elusive in this vale of tears, and there may not be anything behind the curtain, so life must necessarily go on with degrees. Degrees of certitude, degrees of knowledge. With that—
I think I know what happened. You put all—everything you had to give—into her. It left you drained, and yet it still wasn’t enough. Or, rather, it was enough only for a time. Finding people that we truly connect with is so rare & special, to lose it is heartbreaking. When that person voluntarily leaves, especially with apparent glibness, it seems like cause for despair. You didn’t leave us lightheartedly, but you left an empty space in our lives. So much the worse when Shelby left you.
“Cutting your losses” is an impossibility, like walking away from a craps table. Like a soldier who seeks to continue a futile war because so many of his buddies have already been lost to it. Only once you have extricated yourself from the table, the way, does it become possible to see the situation for what it is.
The assumptions behind your actions were horribly wrong. And, don’t get me wrong, only you bear the responsibility for not examining yourself. But having set yourself on the precipice of that dark, downward spiral, things took on a logic of their own. An internally consistent logic that makes perfect sense within the spiral but looks ridiculous in the light of day. And you do not see yourself as a ridiculous person, so you deny not only that you went down the spiral but that the spiral ever existed.
And so I both understand and condemn. Like the 9/11 hijackers, their actions were internally consistent—a mechanism to lash out at the perceived source of their grievances. On a smaller scale, it is the same here. A horrible action with horrible results.
You have, in your way, reverted back to your old self. Likewise, you are trying to convince us (and perhaps yourself) that we need not pay our taxes, that we need not own up to our responsibilities. And, just as before, a small, manageable debt becomes a huge, lifelong encumbrance by your failure to immediately own up to it.
Our friendships might endure a repented sin, even one of this magnitude. But each day you continue to deny the truth of it, it is an active decision by you to cleave a wedge between us, and between you and the sanctifying grace available to all those who seek it—and accept it.
What I was trying to convince you of before I left was not only the pain which you have caused Shelby’s family, but the pain which you have caused (and are causing) me. There is a difference between being trapped in a room and being in prison. You don’t have control over your circumstances, bu you do control how you react to them. Shelby’s family wants to see you burn in hell, and probably always will. That is their choice. I may think that justice requires that you be in prison, but I also want to see you transcend your circumstances. You can choose to free yourself. Freedom begins with remorse.
So the most insightful thing I wrote while I was in Iraq wasn’t about Iraq at all. It was a letter I wrote to Mike. A year on, and with the emotional shield down, I think I finally captured how I feel about the situation:
Baghdad, May 2008
I am a month away now from the end of my tour. Exactly a month, tomorrow. My thoughts have now turned to what I am going back to, less where I am or where I have been.
But thinking about what I am going back to makes me think about where we have been. There is a moment in time that sticks with me. We were driving to Vegas, through the pass. I looked to the hills and said “Stupid windmills—stealing our precious wind!” Your laughter was magnetic. The occasion was emblematic of our relationship. It was your drive, energy, & charisma that led us to get in the car and go to Vegas in the first place. And whatever promises you made about the treasures to be found there, such treasures would not have existed if it were not for you. The last and only time I went there and you weren’t there, the lights were just neon, and 21 just didn’t come up as often. For my part, we could have taken a road trip to Manitoba—I simply appreciated having someone who liked the jokes. Got the jokes.
Friendship endures despite our shortcomings. It really doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t. It is the knowledge that it will endure, rejuvenate, find new soil, that makes it the only thing worth having.
In the past year, there have been so many occasions where people have asked probing questions, looking to somehow diminish our friendship with the answers. “How could you be friends with someone who could do such a thing?” The other extreme, to deny what I believe to be the truth of the matter, might be your answer. Both are incorrect, and in some fashion either intellectually or morally cowardly. To avoid the question—or, rather, to avoid answering the question—is even more cowardly. It is the path I have often chosen.
The truth of the matter isn’t that you abused Shelby or that you didn’t somehow really love her. The truth is that you loved her with all your heart, all your soul. When we got past the Mike who sells vitamins or is convinced that one need not pay taxes, and got to the Mike that cared for his dying mother, how you felt about Shelby—that utmost devotion—was evident. Painfully evident. And while your actions may not have always lived up to her (or your own) expectations, to doubt your heart or the sincerity of your affection is wrong. To paint you as some sort of monster is wrong.
I am willing to accept that I may be completely wrongheaded. Indeed, even after this thing is done we may never have a truth that is universally accepted. Certainty is elusive in this vale of tears, and there may not be anything behind the curtain, so life must necessarily go on with degrees. Degrees of certitude, degrees of knowledge. With that—
I think I know what happened. You put all—everything you had to give—into her. It left you drained, and yet it still wasn’t enough. Or, rather, it was enough only for a time. Finding people that we truly connect with is so rare & special, to lose it is heartbreaking. When that person voluntarily leaves, especially with apparent glibness, it seems like cause for despair. You didn’t leave us lightheartedly, but you left an empty space in our lives. So much the worse when Shelby left you.
“Cutting your losses” is an impossibility, like walking away from a craps table. Like a soldier who seeks to continue a futile war because so many of his buddies have already been lost to it. Only once you have extricated yourself from the table, the way, does it become possible to see the situation for what it is.
The assumptions behind your actions were horribly wrong. And, don’t get me wrong, only you bear the responsibility for not examining yourself. But having set yourself on the precipice of that dark, downward spiral, things took on a logic of their own. An internally consistent logic that makes perfect sense within the spiral but looks ridiculous in the light of day. And you do not see yourself as a ridiculous person, so you deny not only that you went down the spiral but that the spiral ever existed.
And so I both understand and condemn. Like the 9/11 hijackers, their actions were internally consistent—a mechanism to lash out at the perceived source of their grievances. On a smaller scale, it is the same here. A horrible action with horrible results.
You have, in your way, reverted back to your old self. Likewise, you are trying to convince us (and perhaps yourself) that we need not pay our taxes, that we need not own up to our responsibilities. And, just as before, a small, manageable debt becomes a huge, lifelong encumbrance by your failure to immediately own up to it.
Our friendships might endure a repented sin, even one of this magnitude. But each day you continue to deny the truth of it, it is an active decision by you to cleave a wedge between us, and between you and the sanctifying grace available to all those who seek it—and accept it.
What I was trying to convince you of before I left was not only the pain which you have caused Shelby’s family, but the pain which you have caused (and are causing) me. There is a difference between being trapped in a room and being in prison. You don’t have control over your circumstances, bu you do control how you react to them. Shelby’s family wants to see you burn in hell, and probably always will. That is their choice. I may think that justice requires that you be in prison, but I also want to see you transcend your circumstances. You can choose to free yourself. Freedom begins with remorse.
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