The Letter
Mr. Dwayne Le:
Your Social Security number has been selected by our random integer generator. Johns Hopkins University is extending you an opportunity to participate in a consensual health and nutrition study.
This research is being conducted to evaluate the effects of diet during a person’s developmental years on heart health and lifespan. This study is entirely optional and there will be no penalty for
not participating. You will be informed of potential risks and may leave the study at any time. Your health and well- being during this experiment are, and will remain, our priority.
The first phase of the study is expected to last approximately two (2) months, with optional check- ins over the next 10– 120 years to monitor long- term effects. For the most part, you will be able to complete this study from your home. It should not have any major effects on your daily schedule. Accommodations can be provided for participants who face difficulties in transportation to any required in- person events.
If you are interested in this opportunity, please scan the QR code below and sign the Article of Interest to be assigned a screening appointment time. Participants under the age of 18 will need a parent/guardian signature. Screenings will be held this coming weekend, October 15– 16, at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
Participants who successfully complete the first phase of the study will receive: a stipend of $200, medical coverage from Hopkins University Hospital lasting for the entirety of the participant’s term of cooperation, and a signed letter commending the participant for their responsibleness, dedication, and valuable contributions to society.
Thank you for your consideration.
M. Mikulski, MD Research Director
The Whole Thing
I sit on the vestibule floor. The cold seeps through my sweatpants. I read and reread the letter.
Dad moved to the US when he was eight, older than Olive when she first came, which is young enough to not have a strong accent but too old to not feel like a foreigner.
At least, this is how I explain his obsession with the United States: the bookshelf filled with biographies of American presidents, the Westerns I hear playing from the living room late at night, the movie quotes he’ll drop in a conversation when he’s meeting with his clients.
“ ‘Sure is a hard town for a fella to have a quiet game o’ poker in,’ ” he’ll say, and then he’ll laugh and make eye contact with the client like this quote is their inside joke, the inside joke for the All- American Anyone.
In the moments when I’m not too annoyed with him to see him as a real person— which is, to be honest, not very many of the moments— it makes me sad. How some part of him believes the key to being an All- American Anyone is knowing details about the child-hoods of Lincoln, Polk, and Bush. The key to being an All- American Anyone is wearing a cowboy hat.
I was born here and couldn’t name a single thing Polk did. It’s al-most more American to not know. I would never wear a cowboy hat.
Anyway. One of the quotes he uses the most is from High Noon, which is maybe his second- favorite movie after The Magnificent Seven, which means I’ve seen it at least once a year on his birthday or Father’s Day and maybe five times in the months after my mother left.
At the beginning of the movie, the main guy, Kane, is riding out of town with his new wife, planning to get as far as possible be-fore some bad guy rolls in to kill him. Suddenly, he turns the wagon around and his wife says why would he go back, she doesn’t under-stand, and Kane says, “I’ve got to. That’s the whole thing.”
That’s the line, the moment, that keeps playing in my head now. The Hopkins seal is textured under my thumb. There’s a holo-gram on the letter itself, too. I tilt the paper back and forth in the dim hallway light.
My instinct is to put the envelope back in the recycling box— or maybe a less accessible box, like the laundry room box or the den box— and go on pretending I didn’t receive it.
Something about the word consensual feels off.
It’d be like if Kellogg started putting edible on Pop- Tart boxes. I wouldn’t have worried until someone felt the need to clarify.
Then I remember Dad describing the letter over his bowl of soup. His smooth forehead as he imagined the honor of me participating. He called it an invitation.
My gaze lands back on the logo for Hopkins. An esteemed United States institution. A university.
I skip down to the bottom of the letter, where they mention the reward for completion: a letter of commendation. Signed, with real ink, by a real person, by a reputable someone, vowing that I am a worthwhile human being.
It’s a reset button.
This is everything my father could want from me rolled up in one. It’s a burrito made of all the things that I am missing.
A non- failure burrito.
A burrito that matters.
