they found him in this old abandoned house out on 30…dog was there barkin’…hadn’t been fed in days…couple of empty bowls marked food and water sat in the kitchen next to an old refrigerator…scuff marks on it…rusty hinges…door swingin’ loose…old rotten letttuce and bologna on the shelves…half a package of hot dogs…the kind that plump when you cook ’em…

he was layin’ face down on the hardwood floor…body flat…with this terrible smell…you could tell he’d been dead for awhile…pants were undone…shirt half tucked out…but his hair…short black hair was perfectly combed…as if he’d spent time in front of a mirror to get it that way…had some pomade in it…smelled of flowers…real perfume like…still didn’t compensate for the odor comin’ off the body…like I said…he’d been dead awhile…

and his desk drawer was pulled out…no credit card bills or receipts…just love letters…opened up love letters written in blue ink…with a fountain pen…you could tell…fancy like…letters that proclaimed her undying devotion to him…some woman from Ohio…that’s what the envelopes said…poloroid pictures of her in various poses…wearin’ floral print dresses and sweaters …different times of the year…some of the letters said, Merry Christmas…, while others talked of her day to day struggle of bein’ apart…loneliness…

his driver’s license said Ben Crenshaw…height 5’10″…weight was 200 pounds…eyes were brown…birth date was 09/15/1957…the address didn’t match the home…from out of state…never bothered to get a new one…it had expired…

I wondered if there was anybody to contact…all he had were those damn letters marked, Love, Susan, on ’em…no address…just said Fairfield, Ohio and the zip…no phone numbers…nothin’…just pictures of Susan…