Don’t tell Dad or Mom but I don’t use the name Wolf any more. As if it isn’t hard enough being a young black man – what was Mom thinking? It’s not like she called you Gazelle or Bear or Wildcat. No, you got the name Leo and I got Wolf. She thought you’d be a doctor and then three years later she looked in a crib and saw a child – to change everything. I know how disappointed she is that all she got was me. I go by the name Levi now. Don’t tell her. My middle name just suits me better. I’m more of a philosopher than a wolf – more of a Ptahhotep or Plato or Aristotle, lofty unrealistic aspirations maybe, I know. Mom may not have wanted me to be anything less than a lawyer but all I want to do is think. It is a transgressive act. We need much more of those in times like these. The sons and daughters of hatred make me weary. Remember how we were all so bemused when Hitler got into power, weren’t we? At first it seemed like a joke. Couldn’t take it seriously and then inch by inch he brings in the Dictation Act, four years of free rein to do anything he wants – then the Sterilization Law, hundreds of thousands of people will be sterilized without consent, anyone who is considered mentally ill (if you don’t support the Reich that is evidence enough they say). I’m still more interested in law than I’d like to be. Where is fairness? Where has it ever been? I find real people so very disappointing at times. I get comments here, of course I do. Where are you from, I say I’m from Louisiana and they say – no, where are you from really? I miss being able to walk down a street without a second look. It is hard for me to think about what is going on at home. I know you will write to me about it and as my elder and better brother I know you will still be more political than I ever was. I have no doubt Dad will still be hanging the signs on Main Street – I see them in my worst dreams. A Man Was Lynched Here Today. I can still hear those signs creak. I’m not sure if that is why I ran away. I have nothing but respect for what Mom has done, yet all I want to do is drink and paint and chat up the girl next door. I think of my niece walking home though. I do. I know she looks like she has not a care, but she is tense under her smile even in broad daylight. Along beside her on a thousand other roads are other girls just like her, hands held loosely by their sides, heads up, clothes pressed and fitting just right. Fear steps right in beside them don’t it? It accompanies them every bit of the way. I hate that I can’t check on her at the end of the day. See what words got snagged in her hair. Pick them out for her. Make her a flower chain. I’d like to sow the field behind her house with yellow poppies and listen to her tell me about how she dreams of zombies eating the brains of the precious poor and how chalk is the greatest invention. I miss her – Leo, I have sent her a parcel, I forgot to put a letter in though, will you let her know it is from me? I pray for her every night as I fall asleep. The building I live in here is strange. It smells odd. It is very tall. It ain’t nothing like our shotgun houses at home. You access it down a tiny street they call a close. I wish they built them wider because they stink of piss, apparently it used to be even worse back in the day – all the narrow streets running down from the High Street (all called closes) were ankle deep in shit.