friends, correspondence, and god-damn-motherfucking car accidents

I wrote a letter to Carrie, a friend back in Wisconsin. I harbored a long distance crush that had developed in a fifth-period history class at Unity High in Balsam Lake. My family moved off to California by the end of the semester (my only semester at Unity), and Carrie made me promise to keep in touch.

I wrote "Elvis Presley" as the name on the return address. Months went by without a reply. I'd entirely forgotten about it when I found an envelope addressed to Elvis in our mailbox. I recongized the Centuria, Wisconsin return address, and my heart skipped the way it does when you receive mail you actually want. I paid passing notice to the unfamiliar handwriting, but brushed it aside in my correspondence inspired euphoria. I tossed the rest of the mail on the kitchen table, rushed to my room, and ripped open the envelope.

Inside was the unopened letter I'd sent months earlier accompanied by a short note addressed to Elvis, and a funeral program. The note was from Carrie's mom, regretting to inform me that Carrie had died in a car accident on her way to visit her older sister in Eau Claire. She apologized for not knowing who I was, and hoped I didn't take the news too hard. I didn't.

I was accustomed to friends fading entirely from my life. Kirk. Clint. Kyle. Rachman. Fahkrideen, Jacinda, Angela, Guy, Tina, Nathan, Josh, Sean, Lamarr, Joebert, Mano, Pam, Eddie, Olga, Dan, Shawn. All people who were in and out of my life before my freshman year of high school. All people I'd met before I met Carrie. All people I haven't heard from since the last time I saw them. And those are just the names I can remember.

Carrie's passing was treated no different in my mind from watching Joebert ride off to Virginia Beach in the back of his family's station wagon. Or watching from the back of the station wagon as the kids from the old neighborhood in Oakland waved to me as my family headed off to Wisconsin. It was as if Carrie had simply packed up and moved away.

Years later, I came across her mom's name in the student directory at the University of Wisconsin - River Falls, where I was slacking my way to an undergrad degree. She was a Master's candidate. I thought about calling her to tell her that I was Elvis. I picked up the phone, even, but never followed through.