WRITE FOUR LETTERS

One

Dear jared,

What’s happening. So I guess you’re supposed to write four letters to four people and it figures you’d be my first. Oh, what’s up, this is robbie, from garrett county.

Ok I just deleted a ton of stuff cause I didn’t want to freak you out or nothing. Basically I have so much to thank you for, and it steams me that everyone can’t see how amazing you are, all the good you do for this world.

And I’m not like some of those poser dills on facebook who only know you from your movies and “the blonde guy from fight club.” I’m a real fan.

You’ve changed my life. I know you probably get people writing you who have been to hundreds of 30 seconds to mars shows. I’ve only been to 2 but I’ve never been the same.

(also p.s. no joke requiem for a dream is my favorite movie).

Ok cool.

Later,

robbie

Two

Dear jared,

That first letter sucked massive. I deleted everything I wanted to tell you cause I didn’t want to freak you out but I’m going to write you for real this time.

So yesterday I came home from work all hot, and my girlfriend asia basically was like, “robbie I saw this picture of a jared leto on facebook and it said ‘when I’m angry, I sit down write four letters to four people then I feel four times better than I did before.” So is that supposed to like channel my chi or something? I didn’t see the picture of you that she was talking about, I think it was on her friend’s facebook. But asia was like, “do what jared does.”

Oh this is robbie again, from garrett county.

So I’m gonna count this as the second letter, seeing as I already wrote one letter even though it sucked massive. Plus asia didn’t say a thing about the quality of the letter, just the quantity, haha. Two down, two to go. I promise this one will be better and I’m really knocking myself for not saving all the stuff I deleted the first time but I’m going to just try and type it again. I won’t make it as long or nothing.

Basically, what I said the first time was this stupid thing that happened at work. I’ve been at the johnstown best buy up in pennsylvania for 4 years 3 months, which is basically longer than almost everyone there including the store manager (who p.s. is a dill). We used to live up in johnstown, but then a couple months ago, asia’s sister got her a job at the ski lodge in mchenry, an hour south down in garrett county. It’s a long story, but basically she can’t drive no more. So we got an apartment down there and I just said that I’d just drive my car up to best buy and work.

Anyhow, this thing that got me hot is I work in home entertainment, okay, and here’s a secret about best buy, and I guess don’t tell no one this, or do I don’t care those guys suck massive too, but we make all our money getting people to buy the warranties. And the biggest warranties are in home entertainment, and guess where I work and guess how good I am at convincing custos they need warranties for their $2000 bose 7.1 surround an $5000 4k LEDs. Custos don’t want to lose money on their investments. Custos don’t know when all this technology is just going to break down and turn on us like the matrix (p.s. what did you think of the matrix trilogy? I always think the third one’s called rise of the machines but it’s not.)

So I’m at work and there’s this guy, a total poser. He doesn’t know a thing about home entertainment, he’s just some skinny hipster who mumbles and stutters with custos. And the new store manager ej went to high school with him in pittsburgh or something, and I guess they both transferred from a store over there. So at first, I thought this guy’s nametag said jared. But I guess it’s jerROD. And I was calling him jared and I’m sorry I didn’t know there were other spellings or ways to say jared.

So he already hates me, and starts making fun of my necklace. And it’s whatever, everybody at the store makes fun of my necklace but asia got it for me so I like to wear it. Then he makes fun of my (or should I say your) vegan leather wristband that asia just got for me, too. And then he looks at my new tattoo and he’s like, “what is that a triforce tattoo” and I’m like, “it’s not a triforce tattoo it’s triad tattoo, the same one jared leto has” and he’s like “that’s so stupid” and I’m like “it’s not stupid it’s 30 seconds to mars” and he starts calling you a phony and a megamaniac and all this hipster stuff. And I got red hot, you know, and I guess I sort of pushed him into a wall of toshibas. And I swear, as he was sitting there he smiled and just pulled a 50” LED off the shelf and it smashed on the ground on purpose so that dill could blame me.

So ej gets pissed at me cause he’s just looking out for jerROD, so what does he do? He puts me on staff probation, makes me work checkout, scanning cold custos. Corporate gave me more best buy gift cards than anyone, every year, for 4 years, for upselling those warranties. And now I have to drive over an hour to the store to just to to scan box sets of buffy and the only thing I can upsell are $3 bags of skittles.

I’m trying to suck it up. jerROD is still a hipster idiot who listens to bands no one’s heard of. Cashier is fine but ej keeps telling me I do the “k-mart hang up.” Basically, The “k-mart hang up” is when you dial the PA from the check out phone, like over the speakers, and you hang up the phone really loud and it hits the receiver and makes like a clunkingling noise. That’s the “k-mart hang up.” EJ says we’re supposed to touch the hang-up button with your finger so it doesn’t make any noise. That’s the best buy hang up.

So yeah. That’s basically what I wrote in my first letter, but deleted. I’m leaving out stuff, stuff between me and asia. Things have been so good lately. We talk about you a lot, and your meditation and vegetarianism. She wants to go to haiti and work with all those kids like you did. And then she told me what you said about the whole write four letters thing.

I just think it’s stupid people like jerROD don’t understand you. They don’t even know you. I hate that about society. I got your back in garrett county and at best buy, and wherever I am. For all the times you’ve been there for me, it’s the least I could do, man. I am “vox populi” (p.s. that’s my favorite song off This is War) I just wanted you to know.

I do feel better. I should’ve said this all the first time. Sorry I sent you two letters. That’s freaky, I know. At least got nothing more to say. Write back if you want, man.

Later,

-robbie

Three

Dear jared,

What’s happening. I need to say a bunch of stuff right off. I know this is my third letter, and I don’t want to freak you out, but every time I send it I feel like I forgot something that’s super important, and I definitely forgot something that was super important.

haha I know right know this looks like that “Stan” (p.s. do you like eminem? I like his early stuff) but anyhow this is not like that song. Asia and I got our own story and it’s going to turn out better than that. You said it better than I could ever say it: “I believe in nothing but the beating of our hearts/ I believe in nothing but the truth in what we are.” That’s me and asia. It’s us against the world.

Oh this is robbie from garrett county, the guy who works at best buy?

Anyway, basically, the first letter sucked massive, the second letter was me being hot, getting issues off my chest. I forgot to tell you about why asia can’t drive.

Two months ago, when we still lived up in johnstown, I wanted to take asia to your show in pittsburgh. She was in a real bad place cause just got fired from the johnstown flood museum. Basically during one of the school tours one of the teachers complained she spent most of the time telling 3rd graders in great detail how exactly a person dies from drowning (p.s. you know that johnstown flood killed like over a thousand people in like the 1800s? I think that’d be a cool thing to write a song about). She was always kind of a misfit. She wasn’t goth or nothing but she drew a lot of like vampires and gargoyles and with makeup and anime guys in long trench coats on and then post them online. That was her thing.

So she was down, like, low and down, and I wanted to do something for her, so I bought us floor seats for your show. I knew asia would probably like it, cause she liked my chemical romance and hot topic stuff when she was in high school. We get there early and we get up front and as soon as you came on stage, she just, I don’t know, it’s like she was possessed or something. I was super happy, that for the first time in months she was smiling, that her mouth cracked open and I could see her eyes in the stage lights. She said you were like a god on stage. She kept saying that. “He’s like a god. a god.” So yeah you were killing it!

I know you do this at every show, but do you remember, out of everyone, you picked her? And you brought her up on stage during “100 Suns”? I mean asia up there on stage with you! You looked her right in the eyes and sang that line, “I believe in nothing but the beating of our hearts” right to her. She started crying. Man I was so happy just to see her happy! We are all singing and screaming along to every song. She didn’t even know them and she was just singing too. I had never seen nothing like that. We were up close and everyone around us had their echelon shirts on, and were singing every song so loud. It was the best night.

So then we’re driving home, windows down, we’re blasting This Is War. I wasn’t drunk or nothing, just tired, trying to stay awake. Asia doesn’t drink so she was driving. I remember staring out the window, waiting for the rhythm of the song to match up with the speed of the construction barrels on the side. For two or three seconds it’d be perfect then it would stop. Then it would line up again, in and out, in sync then back out. I was thinking like that’s what music is, it lines up so perfectly with your life and sometimes it falls out of sync but if you give it just a little time it lines back up again. I remember that.

The next thing I remember is all the construction barrels hitting the car. She slammed on the gas and pulled the car into the other lane. I screamed and tried to pull it back but she held the wheel tight. The car overcorrected and we hit the median and my head banged into something. I look at her and she’s just staring off. I’m screaming asia! asia! I grabbed the wheel and tried to steer it along in the median. I couldn’t see shit. I didn’t know what was happening. I kept screaming at asia but she was just staring straight ahead, lost, gone. I had to punch her leg to get her foot of the gas, and jumped over to her side side on top of her hit the brakes. Mud flying up every where, it was totally insane.

I just kept screaming at her, not like at her or nothing, just I was scared. And she just has this look on her face. Not like dead or nothing, but like this creepy child in a horror movie face. Like she wasn’t supposed to be smiling but she was? Possessed. I can barely catch my breath and “Kings and Queens” has been playing through this whole time, and I didn’t even notice. She looks at me and and starts crying, just sobbing. I’m like what? What’s going on?

She said she didn’t think her life would ever be better than it was at your show, on stage with you. She felt like she was apart of something, finally, and she didn’t want to ever go back to feeling alone.

She just wanted to speed away to I don’t know where. I was screaming and crying and she was just frozen and crying. And then, when the cops came, she just turned it all off and she said she fell asleep at the wheel, just like that.

So that’s why she doesn’t drive anymore, or hasn’t driven in like 2 months. I mean if you think I’m a fan of you, you should see asia now. For the last two months all she’s drawn are pictures of you. You in trench coats, you helping kids in haiti, just your face. She’s gotten really good at it and they all get tons of likes on facebook.

Now she listens to your albums every day, and she’s working on a painting of you in our living room where you’re the samurai from the “From Yesterday” video which is so sick. She’s on all these facebooks and websites where they just talk about you all the time. I think it’s so cool. She got us matching vegan leather bracelets from your website. She said we should get matching triad tattoo so we did (she got one too). She thanks me every day for you.

Haha I just told her I was writing a letter to jerROD, apologizing to him. What a dill. He called you a “pied piper for unthinking children.” What does that even mean? I think she would flip out if she knew I was telling you all this, but I just wanted to say that your music, who you are, made a beauiftul girl fall in love with me even more. She reads me your lyrics in bed (p.s. you totally get it). She leaves me notes in the morning with “I believe in nothing but the beating of our hearts.” You know how you said everything in life is about Love, Lust, Faith, and Dreams? We have all of that now. It’s with each other, and it’s with you. You’ve changed us, thank you. So stoked to tell you all this, finally.

Later,

robbie

Four

Dear Jared,

What’s up, It’s Robbie, from garrett county. Yeah it’s been a few months.

I just realized I never wrote my fourth letter so here it is.

How is asia doing? Are you both happy in your hollywood mansion with your juice and your water? Do you sing her “100 Suns” at night? You like all those sexy drawings she did of you? Is that what did it? Seeing yourself shirtless in a trenchcoat?

Fuck you, you preening piece of garbage. You clown. You tiny clown. You’re tiny little clown. A joke that should never have been told.

Let me tell you one last story for this fourth letter, because I think it will really will make me feel four times better.

Two days after she left, I had to go to work, because I’m not a tiny little clown I actually work for a living. I drove my hour drive and I didn’t listen to nothing because well basically I couldn’t get my head around the fact that Jared Leto, Jared Leto, flew a helicopter to the top of the ski hill in mchenry, repelled down a rope, grabbed my girlfriend, and flew away to california so she can live in your house and your bed.

I get to work (remember I work at best buy?) and you could say I’m hot. I’m still working the cashier because ej still has me in the dog house for pushing jerROD into the toshibas, all thanks to defending you and asia, by the way.

I threw out my earrings and my stupid vegan leather necklace and that stupid vegan bracelet she got me. And I’m thinking about all this, all her paintings her sister came and got from our house, and then a custo comes up to the register with dvd of requiem for a dream and a cd of This Is War.He’s like “whoa, nice triad tat, are you echelon?” and, I broke.

I picked up the phone and dialed the PA system and said “hey jerROD, you’re right. Jared Leto is a megamaniac and a ‘pied piper for the unthinking youth’ or whatever you said and he’s also a tiny little clown. Also jerROD you’re still a hipster dill and you like boring music.” And I didn’t do a k-mart hangup. I was careful not to do a k-mart hang up. No, I slammed the phone down with such calamity, such force that you would have to call it a shop-ko hang up. I stirred the phone in the receiver for two minutes, clankling and crackling. Hell, it might even go down on record as a piggly wiggly hang-up, I don’t know, you’ll have to talk to ej.

I grabbed the dvd and the cd out of the custo’s hand, I grabbed a basket, and walked around the store, taking all of your terrible movies off the shelf and we had like 4 copies of mr. nobody because guess what nobody wants to see that movie and I walked over to music and I grabbed all your terrible albums and I walked back into receiving and broke off a piece of wood from a pallet and smashed your bad music and your bad movies and your bad face into hundreds of pieces on the concrete.

And I didn’t feel better until I told you. I feel better. I feel four times as better, I do. You are a phony, you are an oily product. If I ever see you I’m going to scrape this tattoo off my arm and lodge it in your throat so you choke on your own marketing symbol you waste. I want to talk to asia. I wish I never knew you.

robbie

p.s. fight club sucks