57/365 Gordie Lachance to Wesley Crusher

Stardate 2359
Authenticated letter
Discovered inside circa 1959 time capsule
Castle Rock, Oregon

To: Wesley Crusher, Starfleet Academy, Outer Space
From: Gordie Lachance, Truman Middle School, Castle Rock, OR

Dear Spaceman,
Dear Great, great, great...
Dear Wesley.
It feels strange to say I have a grandson
When I don't.
To think of being a great, great
(It must be a hundred greats!)
Grandfather.
I'm just a kid.
"Young Wesley" is what Mr. Q called you
The day he gave me your letter
Said it was the first letter you ever wrote to someone with a real pen
That you were my age when you wrote it
Or, maybe, when you will write it someday
That in the future nobody uses pens and pencils anymore
That you can write just by talking.
I wish I could do that.
He told me how your school teacher gave you writing practice
You didn't want to do.
Had you look up the name of one of your ancient relatives
You found my name.
It's funny to be called ancient when you're barely thirteen.
They made you write your relative a letter,
Made you use a regular pen and paper, like they do in my time.
I mostly use pencil, actually
Not a pen, except this time I'm using a pen.
This time it's really important.

It doesn't seem like you tried very hard on your letter.
No offense
I bet you didn't really try
Because you didn't think it would actually get sent to me
That I'd actually read it, hundreds of years before you wrote it.
It's OK, though.
Maybe I wouldn't have tried so hard, either.

Mr. Q said you'd be surprised that I got your letter.
Said that you might get in trouble for it, somehow
If anyone found out you gave it to him.
Or did he just take it from you?
I can't think of a reason they'd ever scold someone
For writing to their own grandpa.
I asked him why
But he just answered with a weird story
About your letter being a butterfly wing
That changes... a hurricane?
It was something like that.
Does everyone in space talk like he does?
Does anyone have manners?
He didn't have manners.
He didn't talk to me like a kid.
More like a grown-up.
More like my friends talk to me, only he wasn't friendly.
And he called me Gordon
Like you did in the letter.
It's Gordie, actually.
Nobody calls me Gordon.
Your letter seemed polite, at least.
I hope it's what you're really like.
That you're you're a good kid, like me.
Not that I'm always good.
I shot a gun, once.
Did you ever shoot a gun?
I just shot at a trash can, on accident.
I didn't even know it was loaded!
The neighbors heard, and man
We ran away so fast.
Did you ever get a goocher?
My friends always flip for cokes,
And Vern says when you get a goocher it's the worst.
And this one time we came up all four tails
Which almost never happens.
That's a goocher.
Vern told us something really bad was going to happen.
It almost did, but
I guess you could say
Things turned out all right.

Did you ever see a dead body?
Not at a funeral or anything.
I mean, a body.
Like someone just died,
And there they are.
I saw a dead body once.
I never told anybody about this before, but I did.
Ray Brower.
He was just a kid, like me.
Like us.
I don't know what he was doing on the railroad tracks.
Do they even have railroad tracks in space?
Do they all have jet packs?
Do you learn to drive a rocket when you're in high school?
We just get cars.
What happens to a rocket ship
When it crashes?

Teddy says maybe Ray was trying to leave Oregon.
I don't know.
I just wish I knew him, you know?
I just wish he wouldn't have died alone.
I might leave Oregon, some day.
Have you ever been to Oregon?
It's nice here.

Vern says there are more trains now because of Eureka.
He says Roosevelt started building a whole city there to make rockets and computers.
He says that's why Jacob Parrish left school in the middle of the school year.
His dad's a computer genius at the U.
Vern says Jacob told him it's top secret.
Told him nobody's supposed to know what goes on there.
That's why they left Castle Rock in the middle of the night.
Vern says a lot of things, though.
And who knows where those new, black trains are really going.

My dad says, "Abraham Parrish is no genius.  He's a nut job."
And my mom, she doesn't really say anything anymore.
Not since my brother Dennie died.

It’s like they blame me for everything

Like they think everything would be better without me around.

Do you know what it’s like to be hated, Wesley?

So I guess Dennie's your uncle.
Your great great great great... great uncle.
He died in a car crash.
After he died, I didn't get to see his body.
It was a really bad crash.
They kept the casket closed.

I don't know if you have a brother.
Or a sister
But I hope you like them if you do.
That you try to get along with them better
That you tell them you love them sometimes

Even if they tell you, "Shut up, Wesley."
Even if they punch you for being a wuss when you say it.

Sometimes they punch you because they love you.
Dad says he wishes I could be more like Dennie.
Maybe some day I will be.
Maybe you are.
I hope so.
I hope I'll be more like Dennie
Than like my dad.

Jacob Parrish used to say he never wanted to be like his father.
Always working at his science lab,
Always on something important.
But never talking about it.
He said his father doesn't want him to become a policeman.
Told his dad soon as he graduates high school
He's moving to Boston.
His dad told him science was in his blood.
That if he didn't chase science, it would find him.
That even his kids would be scientists.
I don't know if that's true.

I'm glad you wrote to me
Even if it's only because you had to.
Don't worry about the mistakes
But next time try writing with a pencil, instead.

Pencils have erasers.
It helps make the mistakes less noticeable.

I hope you don't get in too much trouble
Over the butterfly thing, I mean.
They're burying a time capsule in Eugene.
Miss Summers picked me to write something to put inside it.
She says I don't need to put a stamp on the envelope
But I did.
I want to make sure it gets to you when it's opened.
I'm going to be a writer someday.
I don't know if it's in my blood
Or if I just like it a ton.
If it is in the blood, though
Maybe it just hasn't caught up to you yet.
Maybe somewhere along the way,
You threw a goocher.
Don't worry, though.
Those goochers only happen once in a while.