Title: Letter from Mexico 
By: Jessica Harris 
Fandom: Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye", Philip 
Marlowe/Terry Lennox 
Notes: The letter quoted in the first paragraph is taken 
directly from the text. 
====================================== 
That last letter from Mexico told me to forget him. "But first 
drink a gimlet for me at Victor's," he wrote. "And the next 
time you make coffee, pour me a cup and put some bourbon in it 
and light me a cigarette and put it beside the cup. And after 
that forget the whole thing. Terry Lennox over and out. And so 
goodbye." 

That was back when I thought he was dead. Back before I 
discovered the lies and the betrayals. Before I learned that 
he *was* dead, that he 'd died inside long before I ever set 
eyes on him outside Victor's, him with his scarred face and 
the hair that the war had turned white as a wedding gown. 

So I did it. Added a shot to a second cup of coffee, lit a 
second cigarette and watched it burn. It didn't feel like 
enough. It still doesn't feel like enough. He's out there, 
somewhere, with a new name and a new face and a pretty dye-job 
over his white white hair. I'm trying to say goodbye to a man 
who never existed, and I still can't do it. I don't think I'll 
ever be able to smell bourbon again without remembering the 
feel of his scars against my hands. 

I'm supposed to be a tough guy, right? But there was something 
about him, that rainy night he showed up at my place. I hadn't 
seen him in almost a month, but when I opened the door to the 
midnight knocking that woke me, there he was, bruised and 
battered and drunk like he hadn't been in months, drunk like 
that first time I saw him. His white suit was ruined and his 
expensive shoes soaked through and he had three days stubble 
at least on his face. He'd fallen off the wagon with a 
vengeance. 

And there's a moment of crazy grace when a man lets himself 
fall. When he's been fighting, and losing; when he hasn't hit 
bottom, but can feel it waiting for him patiently, the only 
certain thing left. Sometimes a man just lets go, then, lets 
the fall take him. I've seen it happen more than once.  It's a 
moment beyond shame or pride, beyond embarrassment or apology. 
It's a moment when anything can happen. 

I could see he was almost there that night. He slid slowly to 
the ground in my hallway, dripping blood and rainwater on the 
cheap brown tiles, and smiled his crooked half-smile up at me, 
and I could see he'd just about stopped fighting. I knew that 
if I picked him up and threw him out the door back into the 
rain, he'd just keep smiling. He'd smile until he walked in 
front of a bus, or into the ocean, or just into the wrong dark 
alley on the wrong dark night. It made me want to hurt 
someone. Maybe him. Maybe his pretty rich-girl tramp of a 
wife. Maybe even myself… 

So I threw him a towel, then hauled him to his feet and into 
the kitchen where I could put him in a chair and take a closer 
look at the gash on his forehead. And he just smiled a little 
wider, and said "Sorry to bother you, old man." He always got 
so damn *English* when he was drunk. You'd never guess from 
his voice that he was so far gone he couldn't stand. 

He jerked away automatically when I touched his forehead, so I 
cupped a hand around the dead half of his face to hold him 
still. He smiled at me again, then. The movement made one of 
his scars twitch smooth and strange against my hand. So I 
stroked it with my thumb. That made a patch of red bloom high 
on the unmarked skin of his other cheek. So I stroked that 
too, with the thumb of the other hand. And then there I was, 
holding his face in both hands. 

And because it had been another long and lonely day in an 
endless parade of them, and because he just sat there looking 
at me with half a smile, which was all the smile he'd ever 
have again, and because I didn't know what else to do, holding 
his face like a gift in my hands, I kissed him. 

After a moment he pulled away and I stepped back in sudden 
panic, wiping my wet hands on my pants. "Jesus!" I said, 
"Jesus, Terry, I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that." 

"Don't worry, my friend," he said, "I've done stranger things 
with a couple of drinks in me. I doubt I'll remember in the 
morning in any case." He shut his eyes then, and swayed in his 
chair. So I picked him up and carried him to the couch. By the 
time I finished taping his forehead he was asleep already, and 
he didn't stir at all as I stripped his ruined suit off him. 
There were scars on his neck and chest as well, but I didn't 
look at them too close. I figured he wouldn't want me to. Then 
I went to bed. 

But he must have remembered *something* in the morning. I woke 
at first light, and found him standing beside the bed. He'd 
showered - his hair was wet and slicked back, his haggard face 
was shaved, and he looked awful, the gash on his forehead 
livid, his expression tired and lost and strange. He looked at 
me, and I didn't say anything, just looked back at him. Then 
he climbed in beside me, and put his head on my chest, and 
started to cry. Not loud. Soft and choked and desolate. 

Yeah, I'm a hell of a tough guy. I put my arms around him 
awkwardly and stroked his smooth white hair while he cried. 
And when he felt me grow hard against his thigh, he slid a 
hand down to touch me, and raised his face to mine. I could 
taste fresh bourbon under the tooth-powder in his mouth. The 
smoky taste stayed on my tongue the whole time. 

People have certain ideas about this kind of thing. I know 
that as well as the next guy. But let me tell you, I know the 
dark side of this city of angels, I've seen all the ways a man 
can go wrong, and being queer never seemed like the worst of 
them. I've seen love and loyalty between men as fine as 
anything a woman's ever given me. But I still didn't expect... 

It wasn't anything like I would have imagined. His body was 
thin and strong and surprisingly hard for a man of leisure, 
and when I grasped his upper arms and rolled on top of him he 
gave a little low growl and arched up against me eagerly. He 
was nothing like a woman, but I could see why his wife kept 
trying to hang a jewelled collar and leash on him. The way he 
moved when you touched him, it made you want more, made you 
want to keep him close at hand to be stroked. 

And he stayed close, stayed with me for the whole course, 
didn't try to pull away even when I bit his scarred shoulder 
so hard he had tooth-marks there for days. 

He looked so peaceful afterwards, sleeping. Like he'd come 
back from the edge. And I guess I started to think that 
maybe... that maybe I had what he needed. That maybe I could 
save him. 

I should have known better. 

He stayed with me almost a week. Six days. Shared my bed at 
night. Shared coffee with me in the morning. Made dinner a 
couple of times, simple stuff, bachelor fare.  And then one 
day I came home and he was gone. His wife's perfume was in the 
air and there was a note on the table. 

A c-note, to be exact. And scrawled on a scrap of paper beside 
it, the words "Thanks for taking care of me, Marlowe. You've 
been a pal. I didn't deserve half as much. Terry." 

I should have known he was beyond saving, even then. A week 
later his wife was dead, and he was in Mexico. A week after 
*that*, I got his letter, and the news that he was... 

Well, he wasn't dead. I know that now. But even so, I know 
that come morning I'll do it again. Pour a second cup of 
coffee, and watch that second cigarette burn away to nothing. 
Some goodbyes take a long time to say. Some you can never say 
at all.