badge. The first artifact of his entire career, a career he’s managed to derail in a matter of months. And he hands it over.
“Oh, one last thing,” she says, her tone suddenly businesslike again, shuffling something from the bottom of her files. “I know Texas public schools don’t have sex ed for shit, and we didn’t go over this when we had the talk—which is on me for assuming—so I just wanted to make sure you know you still need to be using condoms even if you’re having anal interc—”
“Okay, thanks, Mom!” Alex half yells, nearly knocking over his chair in his rush for the door.
“Wait, honey,” she calls after him, “I had Planned Parenthood send over all these pamphlets, take one! They sent a bike messenger and everything!”
A mass of fools and knaves
* * *
A 8/10/20 1:04 AM
to Henry
H,
Have you ever read any of Alexander Hamilton’s letters to John Laurens?
What am I saying? Of course you haven’t. You’d probably be disinherited for revolutionary sympathies.
Well, since I got the boot from the campaign, there is literally nothing for me to do but watch cable news (diligently chipping away at my brain cells by the day), reread Harry Potter, and sort through all my old shit from college. Just looking at papers, thinking: Excellent, yes, I’m so glad I stayed up all night writing this for a 98 in the class, only to get summarily fired from the first job I ever had and exiled to my bedroom! Great job, Alex!
Is this how you feel in the palace all the time? It fucking sucks, man.
So anyway, I’m going through my college stuff, and I find this analysis I did of Hamilton’s wartime correspondence, and hear me out: I think Hamilton could have been bi. His letters to Laurens are almost as romantic as his letters to his wife. Half of them are signed “Yours” or “Affectionately yrs,” and the last one before Laurens died is signed “Yrs for ever.” I can’t figure out why nobody talks about the possibility of a Founding Father being not straight (outside of Chernow’s biography, which is great btw, see attached bibliography). I mean, I know why, but.
Anyway, I found this part of a letter he wrote to Laurens, and it made me think of you. And me, I guess:
The truth is I am an unlucky honest man, that speak my sentiments to all and with emphasis. I say this to you because you know it and will not charge me with vanity. I hate Congress—I hate the army—I hate the world—I hate myself. The whole is a mass of fools and knaves; I could almost except you …
Thinking about history makes me wonder how I’ll fit into it one day, I guess. And you too. I kinda wish people still wrote like that.
History, huh? Bet we could make some.
Affectionately yrs, slowly going insane,
Alex, First Son of Founding Father Sacrilege
Re: A mass of fools and knaves
* * *
Henry 8/10/20 4:18 AM
to A
Alex, First Son of Masturbatory Historical Readings:
The phrase “see attached bibliography” is the single sexiest thing you have ever written to me.
Every time you mention your slow decay inside the White House, I can’t help but feel it’s my fault, and I feel absolutely shit about it. I’m sorry. I should have known better than to turn up at a thing like that. I got carried away; I didn’t think. I know how much that job meant to you.
I just want to … you know. Extend the option. If you wanted less of me, and more of that—the work, the uncomplicated things—I would understand. Truly.
In any event … Believe it or not, I have actually done a bit of reading on Hamilton, for a number of reasons. First, he was a brilliant writer. Second, I knew you were named after him (the pair of you share an alarming number of traits, by the by: passionate determination, never knowing when to shut up, &c &c). And third, some saucy tart once tried to impugn my virtue against an oil painting of him, and in the halls of memory, some things demand context.
Are you angling for a revolutionary soldier role-play scenario? I must inform you, any trace of King George III blood I have would curdle in my very veins and render me useless to you.
Or are you suggesting you’d rather exchange passionate letters by candlelight?
Should I tell you that when we’re apart, your body comes back to me in dreams? That when I sleep, I see