Abducted Chapter Five Bradford's Letter from The Retreat
From the novel I'm working on while I'm in school to keep working on my writing skills.
Chapter Five: Letter
My Darling Sister,
I hope this letter finds you in good spirits and health. Would that I could talk to you, but alas you’re across the lake with the girls and as you know there are no phones here, cellular, or otherwise. There are seventeen other boys here of similar wealth, status, and upbringing. The usual names, Cartwright, Bettencourt, Vanderlyn, Villalobos, etc. Each of us overjoyed at the prospect of experiencing something new. These past few months I have been alive with white-hot light and known joy for the first time and I must share some of it with you.
My bones are tired and there are calluses on my hands and corns on my feet. Don’t know if things are the same for the girls, but we’re housed in a dank cabin in the woods where the heat of a wood burning furnace is barely enough to stave off the cold. I’ve used the warmth of my lungs to unfreeze my knuckles. There are feral beasts that cry at night, like elk and bobcats. There are exposed nails to snag myself on, and actual corners to stub my toes. There are living chickens and roosters in a pen that cry out in the unbridled sunlit morning. I’ve eaten bread of my own kneading, and cheese of my own culture, and drank unpasteurized milk straight from our cow Dolly. I’ve cleaned shit-stains off the head with lye and swept the outhouse with a whicker broom like a 19th century waif. Just this week they’ve had us digging a trench from the south end of the cabin to a river that breaks into the lake so runoff from rain won’t flood the root cellar where the wine is kept. I’ve been knees deep in mud and muck and roots and worms and shirtless in the noonday bright. Getting burnt and getting tan.
Why, I look a regular farmer! At least I think what a farmer looks like.
I’ve done thousands of pushups, pullups, crunches, dips, squats, arches, planks, and I’ve jogged, run, and hiked. Never before have I experienced dropping to my pillow and awaking refreshed, albeit sore, but invigorated without troublesome dreams of mother or father’s voice to do as I’m told. You know that way he gets when he drinks. But I have called young leaders, and elder men, “sir,” and they’ve ignored my station, not calling me master, or anything. I’ve been called scum, and worm, and filth, and junk. Been told that this is all a trick and we’ve been sold into slavery and are never going home. So beautiful a ruse I ache for it to be true. There is a stockade! Been locked in it for a day already! But were it not for the fact of intermittent breaks where we’re given wine and beer, and time alone, and free speech, and the fact of your appraisal and approval of the camp, I might’ve been fooled.
Can you hear me laughing, sister?
At first there was so much fear. Like when I was told to remove my emblem, suit and clothes and toss them into the furnace. All eighteen of us with trembling fingers stripping off our garbs in front of each other. I’ve never seen another boy naked before. Somehow, I imagined I was different than them. But I’m not and that’s comforting. Now I stand nude and unembarrassed in the communal showers, built strong, muscular, veiny, and pitiless. Like a regular public schoolboy who fears… bullies and lack of …I don’t know… bologna? Spam? Beans? Like them I’ve showered in the rain, and bathed in rivers, and used leaves to wipe my ass.
There’s laughter and joysome play. I’ve gotten into a physical fight with Gabriel Johannsen heir to the UK-OK Oil Family. Remember how we saw him at that wedding in Nahant? How he was so decked out and beautiful like a doll? Well now he ain’t so pretty! He’s got even a broken nose and my hand hurts writing this. Listen to me. “Ain’t.” Imagine mother’s rebuke of my improper English. Gabe and I have struck up a friendship while side by side in the stockade that I unjustifiably hope will last until after we’re home again.
A little about Gabriel. He likes exquisite, rare chocolates, Star Trek, Star Wars, taxidermizing insects and arachnids, and Elon Musk. He likes girls with white hair like Daenerys Targaryen from the books but laments that even with all his money he wouldn’t be able to snag a woman like that. Most of his life he’s been overweight to his parents dismay. Even they were talking about getting him liposuction, gastric bypass, and plastic surgery. But decided against it until he’s reached his full growth. Well they won’t have to worry about that now. In just these two months, Gabriel lost 53 pounds and his skin sags like a pile of wallets. Went from round face to glass-cuttingly sharp jaw by strenuous workout and lack of food. If you could see his formerly brackish heart changed to red blooded excitement at the sight of his reflection in the mirror. Perhaps he’ll need some excess flap removal but that remains to be seen until after he’s done growing. We’ve decided we hate badminton, tennis, polo, and golf. Just boys horsing around and igniting our farts with open flame. I can’t express the technicolor joy of being alone to share my true thoughts and desires with others who’ve experienced the loneliness of affluence.
What more can I say? The Retreat is everything you said it would be and more and I love you for this and pray that you too are experiencing thoughtlessness and unmindfulness.
Your favorite boy,
Bradford.
P.S. We’re all building a house that we’ll later burn down!
P.P.S. I haven’t thought of suicide once in weeks. It’s good to be alive.
What a gorgeous concept. I love the voice of the main character and how the situation he’s in weaves the old ways with current events. The loneliness of affluence isn’t often discussed I’ve noticed, it’s more popular to make media about eating the rich like they’re evil or something just for having wealth. This has layers that examines the core richness of shared human experience, much appreciated!