Featured Writer: Mike Sauve

Al Dippy’s Cover Letter

Author’s Note:

Have you ever noticed how a little paranoia can really brighten up a room? The ideal is to have a dark kabal following your every move, collating documents that will eventually lead to your downfall, Googling you by the hour for new misdeeds that will aid in your destruction. It’s horrible at first, but as you get used to it, it becomes possible to appreciate the simple things more: the few moments of distraction you get from a book, a refreshing glass of water, the ungrudging companionship of a plant. My great fear is that, should I lose my job, my speckled Internet history will prevent me from ever getting another. Bleak indeed it will be if all my many ironies are read unironically. What will the middle aged think? The HR departments all employ a Resume-Google-man now, a hack, the least pleasant of the hacks anyway, who does nothing but Google you and root around in your toilet-confessional. A serious problem for one Mr. Al Dippy:

***

Dear Helen Hauffemeir,

You may have already reached the conclusion that I have led an abhorrent life.

First there were the murders. I didn’t commit the murders, but I was implicated in such a way as to smear my integrity. I ran out of a burning building in which some kids died upstairs. I hadn’t set the fire. Their insane father Alex had set the fire. But some onlookers saw me standing around with the crazy father while the house was still burning and the little girls were burning to death upstairs. It looked like we were burning them for pleasure, because we were just watching.

I’d just come from my room which had been very hot.

I did not want to run through fire to save some girls I had only met a couple times. Outside, their father did say to me, “You think I could make it?” but this was just a rouse since he was crazy, and had set the fire. He wanted me to approve his inaction. Since, I myself didn’t want to be called upon to go up, I said, “It’s too dangerous. Call the Fire Department.”

The neighbours came running over in their housecoats and by then the fire had grown stronger, strong enough that they weren’t running up either. But they still cried, “Why aren’t you doing anything?” and “What the hell you standing around for your babies is burning.” I suffered these scowls and recriminations as Alex’ perceived partner-in-crime; all the while we could hear fitful cries, bits of prayers hollered from the upstairs window.

Of his entire family, I knew Alex best because he was often out smoking on the porch and complaining about how terrible his job was. He was 26 and could not get over the fact that he was working at a Walmart. This was the great joke of his life, and he always offered a piquant observation on big-box retail. He could be quite funny. Once, on his laptop, he’d shown me a YouTube video of an inhalant addict trying to buy cans of paint at Walmart. It was funny because the man’s face was covered in paint and he looked really deranged.

Even in these brief encounters, I could sense a disturbing anger about Alex. I heard a lot of fighting from upstairs. And loud, shitty music. Mostly, if I ran into him on the porch, which actually, I tried to avoid doing, I would just listen to his stories about Walmart because he was a tough sort of dude and I was more an effeminate sort of dude and I didn’t really want any kind of trouble either way. The point I’m trying to reach is this: A Google search of my name produces news stories relating to this incident and the subsequent trial. Most quote my testimony in an unflattering way, indicating a certain deficit of bravery and moral character. One of the neighbours describes the fire as quite small in the early going, and self-righteously opines that the girls could have, and should have been saved.

I also urge you to ignore any libelous message board content you might come across. Once I became a public enemy Internet trolls found comments I’d posted as a teenager: specifically some regrettably misanthropic remarks regarding Norwegian Black Metal. Those comments were completely facetious. I do not advocate the burning of churches.

The important thing to note is that the fire started in the room next to mine, so I perceived it to be more powerful than it was. If I could have saved those girls without getting burnt I most surely would have.

The truth is that the girls didn’t even cross my mind. When I felt the fire I thought, “My responsibility is to get out of here,” and that’s all I thought. I didn’t know the family that well except to joke with Alex, which, again, I didn’t even enjoy doing. So once outside I just stood there. I didn’t even think to yell “Fire,” which I realize reflects poorly on me. I just wasn’t prepared for this sort of thing. But no one wanted to hear that. They felt I had some social responsibility to burn myself to ash.

But try to see it from my perspective: there I was, just talking to my ex-girlfriend on Facebook chat, consumed with that reality, then this fire comes rushing into my room, like the fire of Dante, or the fire from Facebook itself [because Facebook is hell (15,483 people have organized in a group against me)]. It seemed to be coming from the second floor; it came and started very literally burning my face. There was no question of venturing deeper into the blaze. It’s easy to act all high and mighty and promise to run through all the fire in the world to save any legal minor, but when you are being burned by fire it’s a different story.

Anyhow, I have attached this along with my resume knowing you will inevitably Google me and these details will be unearthed. Please, please, please do not hold my actions against me. I did the best I could. And look at it this way, the same sense of self-preservation I used that fateful day will now be applied loyally to the preservation of your fine business. I am a survivor. I belong on your team.

Mike Sauve has written non-fiction for The National Post, The Toronto International Film Festival Group, Exclaim Magazine and other publications. His online fiction has appeared everywhere from Feathertale, Frost Writing, and Rivets to university journals of moderate renown. Stories have also appeared in print in M-Brane, Black and White Journal, Palimpsest 2010, The Coe Review and elsewhere.

Email: Mike Sauve

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