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The 4th of December that year. I still remember the smell of sweat in the bus I took back from work. I remember it all over the Internet, and I also remember not being able to take my mind out of it.
When I first heard the news, I cracked jokes and sort of celebrated the crime. The murder of a CEO from a multinational corporation sounded just like my thing to preserve faith in humanity, faith that our paths are not decided by oligarchs and greedy politicians. I thought much more about it later, about several societal conditions and happenings that had led society here, and how miserable it feels to think nothing is ever going to change and the world is just going to end. Then I saw him and things started changing.
It was not just the physical appearance of the man behind it, but his motives, his thesis and his analysis of the world around him. Everything comes intricately from someone’s complex intelligent mind, and of course everyone is complex, but I was one for ideas that sound incomprehensible for the masses. Reading further, I suspected I could truly understand what was underneath the different layers of the multiple dimensions in which the issue was located and feared (or hoped) I was destined to something similar and that was my call. That I had to finish a manifesto I started writing when I was 15, and to not suppress my intellectual urges and capacities, for knowledge will always be the purest form of power.
I kept up with the entirety of the trial, still hoping he wouldn’t be convicted. But he did, obviously; messing with a billionaire is not an easy affair. Waited long enough to actually do something. I knew that he would receive many, many letters. If serial killing rapist ugly fucks like Ted Bundy did, why wouldn’t he? And furthermore, knowing how things work, I knew the content wouldn’t be truly appealing. Maybe for his ego, but nothing more than that, so I decided to write something as well. He would never read it anyway; it would be surely funny to have a story about me where I sent a letter for a murderer in a federal prison. I tried to be lighthearted but expose some views and trace some parallels on things I’ve seen him mentioning on social media. Made some jokes, especially about mushroom trips, wished him well, and thanked him for actually reading the piece, not even imagining he would be one to reply to that.
“How come in this world someone sends me a letter like this?”. He, probably joyful that someone was asking him the right questions and provided an opportunity for him to talk to the outside world, answered everything in a succinct, clear manner, because he cared for the understanding of others. I couldn’t believe it when I opened the letter and saw the reply. Luigi had replied to me.
I put strong effort into writing the next letter. It was more complex and theoretical, even did my research on technological and philosophical aspects to better display how my thoughts worked. I tried to interplay that with language knowledge, how linguistics also played a part in dynamics, and how that was my field of study. I thanked him for the response throughout the whole letter, not even knowing if it would happen again. I felt like I needed to impress him intellectually in order to keep communicating. I felt embarrassed as I felt I was fangirling too hard, didn’t even tell anyone about the correspondence as it seemed unfit, and I could sense criticism along with my friends and even my... boyfriend. It felt wrong when I thought about how I was hiding this from people around me, but I also knew no one else would understand. I guess he felt the same way.
He felt like he had nothing to lose, or that he did not mind losing, and went on to risk it all in the name of something many people feel but haven’t been courageous enough to do. Or not educated enough, or simply scared, tired, or compliant. Like I was. My whole life I felt like I had extreme potential, only it got wasted because my family was poor and I struggled mentally and financially. Actually, if I analyze my life enough, I can say the lack of financial stability kind of caused the illness, or at least made it much worse. Nobody could see I was struggling, as it wasn’t visible to the human eye, but inside I was. I didn’t want to ask personal questions, but I kept making assumptions about the mental state he was experiencing to dig down and carve everything out of him. That was petty of me to think I could get away from my own shit to analyze a criminal. Not your average criminal, but yes, indeed, a convicted criminal that was going to spend life in prison.
When I got his second letter, I had almost forgotten about it. I probably suppressed the feeling out of shame of what I was doing and even more shame that I wanted to do it anyway. And to ease the feeling of anxiety I got while waiting for him to write me back something. But he kept doing it, and I kept writing back as well and reading the books he recommended. I even took shrooms with some friends and reported the experience to him, and this fueled a conversation that made me reflect and think about my academic life, about research on the field of language acquisition and the origins of it. We came to the conclusion that it was shrooms. Fucking Neanderthals took mushrooms and discovered language. Or we’ve been taking it for much longer, and that is kind of the thing that made us evolve genetically.
One time I started noticing things changing. Around me, not him. He was in prison, and my penpal, I could say that after we exchanged over 25 letters. My relationship was in shambles and I didn’t even notice, so I relapsed into my feeling of shame and felt bad because I was just paying more attention to another person rather than the person to whom I was supposed to be giving attention in the first place. I was wrong and I should break up, but I didn’t want to be alone too. And that kind of weighed on more and left that Luigi Mangione thing away for a while. That “be an adult, grow up” bandwagon got me there, so I didn’t open up right away to his next letter, instead I put it aside for a while and focused on things, like finishing projects I had started a while ago.
I ended up only opening his letter four months later, on a random holiday, because I got bored and remembered about it. I got this rushing feeling looking for it, scared it got thrown away but also excited about the content. I took a heavy breath and opened the envelope. Luigi told me he wanted to see me, and if I couldn’t visit him, he would want at least a picture. My hands felt frail, and I dropped the letter on the floor, because what was that? What does it mean? But in the end it wasn’t such a big of deal, I knew how he looked like, he didn’t know how I did. It was fair. I wouldn’t visit him, so I took new ID-sized pictures and sent one of them. Of course I made sure I was looking good, because it has nothing to do with anything.
I decided to tell him I took a while to respond because the timing was off and I had much to do. Even mentioned one of my projects, and actually asked what he thinks the jail experience is being like for him and how it is for other people there, attached the picture and sent it. Never mentioned anything about visiting, because it was too crazy even for me.
“Are you crazy!?” My best friend told me when I finally told her like it was fun trivia after we got really high in my room. She sounded like she wasn’t making a question in the first place.
“I don’t think so, but yes, maybe?”
“You didn’t tell your boyfriend, did you?”
“No, this is the first time I ever said these words out loud.” I replied. “I don’t know why, though, I wanted to keep it this way.” She look saddened, then responded:
“I’m not gonna judge you. I could never do that to you, whatever it is going on I think you do know what you’re doing.” Then her expressions relaxed, and she completed, "I know you’re weird, this is not such unexpected behavior from you.”
“What the fuck do you mean?!"
Well, I knew what she meant. I knew even more when I got the next letter, fast response, in which he told me he could tell me all the things I asked once I got to visit. Asked when I would be able to so he could start up with all the bureaucracy. I think I kind of panicked and decided that, even if I did it, only I would know. That would be my one secret thing, and that life shouldn’t work like a straight line, but instead more like an open-world game. Well, it should be like that, but most of the time we just roleplay. I could go visit, sure the perspective of it makes me shudder in anxiety and also repent, but I could just not give a fuck for once. I made my plans for a specific but random weekday when I got a week off-work, dealed with the paperwork, dreaded time passing because I would have to swallow any second thoughts in order to just do it. But times moves fast and there I was, assembling the clothes I would wear to visit. No wires on my bras, no strand even remotely out of place in my hair and clean shoes. And smelling good. I wanted to give him a copy of The Outsider, by Albert Camus. I read that while I was going through strange times, and I felt like he would find the narrative compelling but went there afraid the feds wouldn’t allow it.
They did allow it. One of them asked for which inmate it was, to which another one replied with a code, then they smirked and let me go with it. I was almost sweating then, felt like peeing my pants even. I lied to everyone I wanted to stay inside and read—no social media, for a couple of days and everyone believed and even encouraged me, and I am in federal property, to be more exact, a federal prison, which is actually huge and filled with people I don’t know, and also criminals. There are people everywhere with guns and unfriendly faces examining me and dragging me through doors and corridors; it feels like I am a prisoner myself. And I could be, that’s all we are for them. We eat, study, work, occasionally commit crimes and become prisoners, or we die.
I don’t believe being incarcerated is like dying. Sometimes you are even more alive, in worst ways, but it shows the range of the human condition. That’s what I saw through him when they opened the door and he was there, sitting on the opposite end of a table. The man left the room and we just stared at each other, not moving and not speaking.
“Well, we don’t have a lot of time, actually,” he said, smirking, “the feds are pretty up in our asses all the time.”
“Not quite as much,” I said, revealing to him the book, “as I almost threw up several times being brought up here.”
“They can be pretty scary.” He handed his hand as a gesture of requesting the book, so I went in his direction and placed it in there. Luigi examined the object for a while and read the back cover, when he opened it…
“No, don’t read it yet. I have some notes throughout the whole book.” I felt silly saying that. Like a little girl, stupid little girl.
“Oh, nice of you, is that your copy?”
“Yeah. I read it twice so there’s… uh, a lot of… uh…conversations with my own past self. Actually don’t really read it, I think it’s kind of a mess, actually.” I could only think, why am I acting so weird, why am I not acting normal? None of this is normal. I could kind of feel reality bending around me.
“Definitely a read, then.” He smiled at me, and just nodded in direction of the seat in front of him, to which I responded with the act of actually sitting down. I should have sat down earlier, I feel tense. He is quiet, observing me.
“What? Sorry, I’m a bit tense. I’m new on this field, it’s my first day.” He laughed.
“Yeah, I figured that out. But it’s okay, I didn’t even think you were… actually going to come here. Initially, I thought you would never write me back again.” He paused. “You’ve amazed me, really.”
I need to be chill and calm about this.
“I’m just too curious for my own good.” He smirked, and it was a different smirk, not just “trying to be friendly type”. What did I do? “That’s the reason I started writing to you in the first place, just fuck around and find out.”
“I sure did a lot of fuck around and find out, uh.”
“Yes, I thought you would be like my Dalai Lama so I could acquire spiritual enlightenment and evolve past, you know, life.”
“I can say I feel the same about you. When you started writing, I thought it was a joke, or maybe it was a dude that thought I was only going to write back to a woman.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Nuh, I don’t know. It’s a statement, you will give it your own meaning anyway. See, I am a federal inmate, probably for the rest of my life, so I didn’t have much on me, I’m not gonna live a normal life ever again, but I don’t regret the thing I did. I must stay on hell, that’s my place. But you’re not from this place. You’re like something else on a different dimension, like an angel.” I quivered. “Not like that, you’re a person, obviously.”
“Yeah, I don’t know, you… You did something I always felt inside of me, but conformity took it away. It’s hard getting away from conformity because it leads you to despair, I think that was what Camus meant with this book.”*
“Despair is already there.” It’s all around for those who can see.
“Yeah, I know. Actually I don’t know. I wanted to hear it from you, I wanna hear it all. You see, I wasn’t convinced that the paper the media released was, in fact, your work. Your lawyer pled you not guilty throughout the whole trial so you didn’t say much about your own true. Everything is just so messed up in society, and deceiving, I think you’re great because you’re real.”
“Bullshit, you don’t really know me.” He said, jokingly making fun of me.
“Yes, that’s basically what I said.” He laughed. “I’m not asking for you to explain me your deed, and the details surrounding it. I simply wish to hear about the things you think about the most, the things you’re certain of and the things you hope for.”
[…]
The visit happened more smoothly and better than I expected. We talked the entire time and even wished for it to last longer. He said “I’ll see you letter” when the cop came to take me, and I couldn’t even reply since I was pushed away in a ruthless manner.
I took a long time to process all that. Would I still keep visiting? This didn’t feel like a last time. What was that that I was feeling? None of this is normal. What he said left the underlying sense that we would keep writing, and I was the last one to do so, it was his turn. But a month passed and I didn’t hear from him. I searched online for information about him, but nothing had happened. I kept waiting in case it just got delayed, but the letters never came. I even called the mailing company to see if anything got stranded, but nothing was sent for my name and address “Hey there, what have you been doing? Nothing, I can only guess. Just checking…” I drafted, then my phone buzzed. It was my best friend. “You still writing to that dude?". Do I say yes? Do I lie? Maybe neither. I go with “What’s that all of a sudden?” “I went out with the girls the other night and they all said you kind of vanished. You still talk to me, sure, but we haven’t seen each other in person for a while now… just worried :/”. God no, I forgot about other people and their perception of me. Hell, I exist outside of myself. “No.. I’m fine. Just a lot going on and I haven’t had the time to catch up. We can always schedule something, I know you miss me. Miss you too.”
I have lots of catching up to do. Luigi doesn’t. He can write me if he wants.
[...]
Ding and dong. The doorbell rang. I was in the living room watching a Serbian movie with my boyfriend, wearing nothing but a t-shirt. I ask “can you get that for me?" to which he assents. I hear him and the mailman talking polite talk and the door slamming. “You got a letter.” He says. I say nothing. “From the Federal Bureau of Prisons, what the fuck?”. If I don’t do anything, I’m fucked, if I scream at him, I’m fucked. Here goes nothing:
“You can throw it away. It’s probably from my deadbeat father. I don’t wanna hear shit from him.”
He stops for a while, looking tense. “Are you sure it’s not important? I can read it for you.” No, you fuck. “No, if it’s important, they will try contacting me again.”
I got away with it. I successfully got away with my little white lies with everyone that I still had in my life. And I did like it was nothing, who am I becoming? This is a different me, I can clearly see, since I’ve started exchanging letters with Luigi, everything changed inside of me. I could feel it inside my bones that something was truly changed, and maybe it was for the better, it was for something beyond the current reality. After my boyfriend left, I scavenged through the trash can and found my letter. I read it sat on the kitchen corner, feeling jittery. I missed this.
“Dear,
Sorry for the long wait. I couldn’t find the right words to say to you, they got stuck. I got stuck metaphysically and literally, as I’m in jail. Sorry for asking you to come, I shouldn’t have, it won’t happen again, but I enjoyed every single minute. The only thing I regret is making you put up with an experience that clearly made you feel uncomfortable out of what, maybe pity? I’m going to die here, nothing matters.
I’m reading your book, btw. I guess it captures the spirit of the thing well, because in the end, even if Mersault had a motive, he would face death penalty. I’m not reading fast enough because the trial part is hard to digest, but I know what to expect of the ending. Beautiful prose, I wonder how it sounds in original French. Thank you,
Luigi”
“Dearest,
Nothing to apologize for here. Getting out of the comfort zone is an important step for me to take, as someone who was imprisoned inside a cage of my own making (with the help of societal expectations but, nevertheless, my creation). You are helping me out of it while you stand locked out of the world, I can’t even imagine how it feels.
I’m glad our prison date (lol) was good for you too. I had my struggles, but it went by so fast and I wished we could talk more. I don’t mind dropping by another book and getting my copy back anytime, and just sit and talk to you about it. About everything and anything you have on your mind.
Looking forward to reading back from you,
Your Penpal”
[...]
We kept writing over the next few months, and it was all over the place, we just ranted to each other about our multiple theories and frameworks that represented the way we saw the world, but I could see he was so invested in that to avoid touching in urgent matters, like about what happened after my visit. He said he had finished my book and took liberty in commentating some notes, as if he was talking to me through the pages. We scheduled another visit, and after all the process went through, I could put Crime and Punishment inside my bag and head to the prison. The travel was sort of long, but it was fine, I had my own book on me.
I realized this second time, as I was less loaded with stress, how brutalist the building was, the levels of post-modernity that goes with it, how they intend to kill our souls, we have to submit while the government owns us and the whole world through their groppy politics, drowning countries and their people on their own misery while getting the mass murder money. They drop and ship bombs, guns and soldiers to kill innocent civilians all around the world, they fund dictatorships and spread their capitalistic tentacles everywhere. They are the parasitistic co-dependent scum, we could get rid of them and make the world a better place for everyone living in it, or at least prevent it from ending. We need them gone.
“I brought you lunch,” I said as I took the enormous book out of my bag. “And it also functions as dinner, breakfast, pillow, footstand, whatever you want.”
“Holy shit, like the Thneed.”
“I speak for the trees, and this big chunk certainly was responsible for the death of many of them.”
“Stop quoting The Lorax, I might kiss you.” He said, playfully.
“This is just an excuse. How’s life in prison?”
“Love the food. Hate when the soap bar falls down on the shared shower section. It’s nightmare fuel.”
We went on joking for a while, then both got quiet. Real quiet. I could sense tension that came I don't know where.
“What’s really going on?” I said, uneasy. He looked at me with his eyes trembling, with an alarmed stare.
“We can’t keep doing this.” He sighed, and looked down.
“Well, I brought you a book, and I have to get it back. Big books are expensive.” I replied playfully, to which he didn’t respond. He had a serious atmosphere around him, even though he had kept his cool completely the last visit. “Luigi, I’m sorry. I just don’t understand.”
“We can’t keep contact anymore. This is doing things to me, I also don’t understand, why do you insist? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I do this because I feel like doing it. I bring you books because I like them and I feel like you could take something from them into yourself. I-I… I don’t know Luigi, I don’t feel ambivalent about this. I want this, and-”
“I love you and I can’t be here knowing you’re out there.” He interrupted me, looking down on his hands, “I love you and I disgust myself for this. The system broke me, I’m not ever coming back, this is my own personal purgatory and it will last every single conscious and unconscious day of my life. This will head nowhere. You can still go somewhere, you can build yourself a future.” He sounded truly hopeless, I felt a strong sensation on my chest, like a dagger was piercing through it.
“So did you. You don’t understand how grand was what you did, I’m not doing this to feel only better about myself for being kind to you. I’m here because I should be, I feel it.”
He stared at me silently for so long I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to cry, I wanted him to change his mind. What was all that for? Did I feel something for him?
I do. I do. I know I do, I’m just scared. Anyone would be scared.
“I will keep writing you, even if you don’t reply ever again.” I said. He came towards me so fast I couldn’t process, grabbed my face and put his lips on mine, breathing heavily. I let him kiss me and kissed him back, kissed him more and then kissed him again. I don’t want to think about it right now, I wanna kiss him and that’s all. That’s really all I want to do.
[...]
It’s been a while now since I’ve first visited Luigi in prison. I have detached from old friends, family and decided to spend my time finishing my manifesto alongside him, as the visits were becomint more frequent. We usually kiss and stay close to each other, and the topics never seen to run out. I wished I had met him before, or that he could be freed so we could be together. And I know if I had wings I would be able to fly, but I can’t help but wonder. I currently see my boyfriend just as much as Luigi, and I don’t really care about what he thinks or does, it came to a point where we date occasionally just to maintain the status of a relationship. I’m still making up my mind on how to break up, thinking about saying that we grew apart and I’m not sure I want this anymore. I really don’t.
I will meet Luigi again. I dressed pretty and got him Siddharta, by Herman Hesse, so we could explore spirituality. He finally finished Crime and Punishment and wrote me notes all along the book. I want to read it again just so I can capture his thinking, I want to see his mind. I want him from inside out.
Again, I got there more swiftly than ever, already used to the brutalist building like it was a common fragment of my reality.
“On the menu today, we have the search for enlightenment by eliminating the Self.” I introduced myself and the book on my hands, but he didn’t appear too enthusiastic.
“Your book broke my Self, already. What did you want to tell me with that?” I got further close to him, sitting by his side, and placed my book alongside the copy of Crime and Punishment.
“Nothing especific, I wanted to see what you would take out of it. How do you make sense of the book?”
“Well, that my crime deserves punishment, of course. Raskolnikov isn’t worse than me, just dumber.”
“Yeah, he should be at the club.” We laughed. “I think the punishment isn’t the point Dostoevsky is trying to bring, but instead reflection on alienation, guilt, suffering, abstract thinking and the power of consciousness.”
“I thought you wanted me to kill myself.” He pointed at the book. “And, honestly, if you hit my head with that I could die.”
“You got the crime, that’s the punishment.”
“I’m already being punished.” He said, and I could feel the conversation going somewhere else. “So are you, and without the crime. Don’t throw your life away because of me, well, I’m already thrown away.” I rolled my eyes, this again. “Don’t do that. You know I’m right. You’re wasting your potential away on me.”
“What are you going to do? Deny my visits? Throw the letters away?” I said while laughing, not believing him.
“Yes, after this you get your books, go home and never come back.” He said, harshly.
“No, even if this happens I want you to keep Siddharta. It’s yours. You can stick it up your ass if you want to.” I used the same tone.
“You will thank me for this someday.”
“I will thank you for replying to my letter. Everyday. I love you.”
He sighed, looked down and seemed at a loss of words.
“If only we met before... But it’s not worth to keep wallowing on this, we need to move on our own ways, and you know our ways are not the same. They are very different.”
“You don’t know. I think our lives crossing paths is actually meant to be. I’m not gonna build a family and a traditional home if I leave you. I’m not part of this and I’m tired of pretending. You’re just pushing me further into this direction.”
He seemed beaten up, tired of reasoning with me and just laid his head on my shoulder, caressing my back.
“I’m sorry, this is still an ultimatum. Let’s just say our goodbyes.” He interlinked our fingers and I just put all that away to become one in his arms, even if it was for the last time. We kissed each other goodbye and he touched my face, as if he was trying to memorize how it felt. He asked me to sing him a song and I sang him The End of The World, by Skeeter Davis. We both teared up, it was already starting to hurt. But it wouldn’t hurt anymore for me.
I left him knowing what to do.
[...]
On the 1st of April the next year, after finishing my manifesto and thoroughly planning, I shot Elon Musk in the middle of the street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for which I got the death penalty. We were the first ripples of the revolution. I loved him until the poison they injected in my veins got to me completely, and the tears stopped rolling down my face.