C-Block Scout Troop

In prison, a group of C-Block lifers sat around one afternoon lamenting their life choices. I shouldn't have robbed that bank. I shouldn't have shot that guy. I shouldn't have tried to sell five kilos of coke to that cop. Then they began to reflect farther back, to look at the decisions that led them to their various lives of crime. After tracing their way through their past, through their criminal twenties and delinquent teens, they finally reached childhood, and somewhere between talks of failed parents and bad schools, they all realized another thing they had missed out on. All of them had either been pulled from Scouts programs early or never been a Scout at all. It was a shot at redemption, they decided, but how could they do it? There weren't exactly woods in the prison yard to go camping in. That's when Inmate #54363-A, who founded a tech company and then embezzled away everything, came across the idea of telecamping. Using a CraigsList ad for a Scout Master, the band of criminals met Roger Acorn, who always wanted to be a Scout Master but had also missed his boat many years ago. Through the wonders of modern telecommunications and prison ingenuity, he taught them everything a scout should know. Navigating by the stars. Making knots with rope (made from sheets). Knife (or in this case, shiv) safety. How to build a proper tent (more sheets). They could build a fire in theory. They knew which berries to eat and how to catch a fish if they ever made their way into the world again. After earning their eagle badges, they realized they had all the tools they needed to escape prison and live as free men in the wilderness. They realized this, but they didn't do it, for they had also learned a thing or two about integrity and responsibility, and spent the rest of their lives in prison not because they had to, but because they knew they should.

- Originally mailed to D. Nichols of Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cool Cops

The Marion County Police Department, in an effort to improve their approval ratings among the key 18-35 demographic began to bust into parties not to break them up, but to crash them. At first, their efforts met with failure. After all, most parties, or at least most good parties, see people running for the hills at the first sign of those flashing lights. By the time the police made it up the drive, only two or three people remained, and only rarely were those people conscious. Still, they persisted. They made small changes to their approach . Instead of saying “Who has drugs?” they would ask “Who has some drugs?” No longer did they say the music was too loud. Rather, they would ask if the music was loud enough. They made beer runs in record time. They replaced sirens with dubstep, and suddenly instead of driving up in a cop cruiser, it's like they were a rolling rave. They carried six-packs instead of six-shooters. They learned to DJ and dance and mix drinks. They loaned out handcuffs to people feeling frisky. In the end, it worked. For the first time in history, police had a record 89% approval rating among teens and twenty-somethings.

Excited at having succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, the police set out to use their new found influence to tell kids about the dangers of drugs, binge drinking, hooliganism, and other unsafe behaviors. These efforts failed, however, as their target audience had been told since birth not to give in to peer pressure. To prevent Operation: Cool Cops from being a total wash, the MCPD revamped their plans, and Operation: In Like Flynn resulted in the largest bust of minor drug traffickers, under aged drinkers, and drunk drivers in state history.

- Originally mailed to T. Switzer from Biloxi, Mississippi

Message in a Bottle

There was once a woman who stumbled across a bottle beside the sea, and inside she found a message. It was from a man who lived on the island on the horizon. The two countries being cut off from one another for reasons too myriad and complex to enumerate here (suffice it to say, there were lawyers involved), he wondered what things were like across the sea. How did they live? What did they eat? Were they happy or sad? She sent a boy to fetch some paper and a pen and sent a reply. “Slow and easy. Fish and fruit. Mostly happy. You?”

For years they corresponded via bottles (for there were no laws against bottles), and in time, their unusual discussions blossomed into romance. Many a message, when not professing their undying love to one another, worked on the serious business of finding a way to meet. Boats were out of the question (lawyers), it was too far for a bridge, and flight was a thing not yet invented. They despaired at the prospect of never meeting.

One day, our beloved heroine had a most brilliant idea. If the lawyers had no issue with bottles, a giant bottle she would make. She gathered the glass makers of the island together to make a bottle big enough for her to ride in. When her bottle was complete, the islanders gathered to see her off. They loved her so, but could not imagine keeping her from her love, and so with a heave and a ho, they shoved her and her bottle into the sea. After several days of bobbing about at sea, she washed ashore on her true love's lands and climbed out. She looked and waited, eager to surprise him, but he did not come. Finally, she asked a little boy what had become of the man she loved.

“He built a giant bottle and cast himself into the sea.”

- Originally mailed to M. Taylor in South Korea

The Trespassing Mermaid

The Greenleaf Apartments had decent units and lovely grounds, but had a hard time getting its name out there, and thus suffered financially. That's when Darcy O'Shea had a brilliant idea. They had a well maintained olympic sized pool that no one swam in. If they could get a mermaid to take up residence, everyone would want a Greenleaf 2BR/2BA. Darcy changed the water system from chlorine to sea salt. He filled it with fish that mermaids were wont to eat, and then stocked the shallow end with all manner of shells, seaweed, and pearls so that whoever moved in could fashion any sort of wardrobe imaginable. It only took two weeks before Darcy heard the telltale splash and saw the redhaired sea-she swimming about, enjoying the bounty he had prepared for her. Luring her in, however, was only the first step, for now he needed a way to keep her there. Others suggested bars or shackles, but Darcy, being a touch more considerate and ever mindful of mermaids' respect for rules, simply placed a “No Trespassing” sign by the gate leading out of the pool area, knowing the mermaid would be too polite to cross the fence.

- Originally mailed to C. Stover in Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Beauty Parlors

The back alley beauty parlors were battle grounds in the war between the those who could afford gene scrubbing and those whose genetics were untampered with. Unable to afford professional genetic modification, the poor often resorted to places such as this, where unlicensed med school dropouts would tailor the DNA of the poor so that they and their children could be biologically better off, be it more beautiful, more athletic, more intelligent. The ruling elite of the wealthy, bred from the womb to be perfect in every way, would crack down on these clinics first with legislation and later with firepower. They claimed this was simply for the underprivileged public's own good, to protect them from shoddy workmanship that could do who knows what to their bodies. The poor, however, believed it was control, for how could they compete against the wealthy and gain a fair foothold when those with enough wealth and power could ensure their children would be more cunning than the naturals and their enforcement squads stronger and more agile.

- Originally mailed to C. Townsend of Gulfport, Mississippi

Bartleby, Cattorney

Bartleby Black, Cattourney at Law (his marketer's idea, not his) took all proceedings with the solemnity of a church. It gave him no pleasure to conduct business in conditions such as these, surrounded by pop culture and other common geekery, but he needed to see the alleged forged issue of Detective Comics #27 for himself before he agreed to file suit. “My only condition,” he said, “is that you must handle the comic book yourself. I will not have any accusations that I have somehow tampered with the pages.”

“Besides,” he said. “I have no thumbs.”

- Originally mailed to M. Krell in Horn Lake, Mississippi

Rival Insurance

Attorneys Jerry Goliday (“Putting the I in Goliday”) and Phyllis Meeks (“Seek Meeks – Inherit the Earth) realized they had stumbled upon a gold mine when rival insurance agencies set up shop on opposite ends of the building. For reasons no one could prove, the rivalry between Martell from Progressive and Helen from All State soon escalated into a full scale war of words, with each attorney comfortably kept on retainer. On a good day, Goliday and Meeks made small fortunes on out of court slander suits, sometimes as many as ten before lunch.

Within five short years, Goliday and Meeks made enough to have their dream wedding in the Bahamas and retire someplace sunny. Helen was sent upstate after shooting Martell for saying some things that were not so progressive.

- Originally mailed to C. Sawyer in Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Jazz Hands

In 1974, the town of Halstrom commissioned a statue to commemorate the life of Carny Robinson (1918-1972).

Charles “Carny” Robinson, loved music more than life itself, especially the soulful improvisation of sweet hot jazz. Unfortunately, the town in which he lived allowed no music at all. At nights, he would hide in his closet, thick headphones on, and lose himself in melodic bliss, the heavenly mingling of harmonies and syncopation. He fought many bitter battles with the city council to repeal the ban, but could never change their hearts. Even so, he developed a reputation among the townsfolk as “the Music Man,” though none had heard a note in their lives. Curious, but mindful of the law, many would ask him, “What is music like?”

Possessing no eloquence, he let the memory of sound fill his body, arms outstretched in rapture, hands trembling with excitement. “I feel like jazz,” he would reply.

The music ordinance never lifted, but when people had a song in their heart they couldn't sing, they would thrust their arms out, stretch their fingers and shake. 

- Originally mailed to J. Stillman in New York City, New York