I never asked to be accountable for all the sins my father committed down in those mines. I’m sure if he knew i’d be the one paying for his wicked ways he would have thought twice about doing them. At least that’s the way I like to think about it. Nobody wants to think of their father as a wicked man. Last month he put on his nicest pair of slacks, took the change from grandmas rainy day bucket and went down to those mines. That was the last time I saw him. Cracked hands digging for a few quarters, pennies and mistakingly picking up a button is the last image I have of him. Days later the post man came, the one with the limp that seems to switch legs depending on the weather. He brought me a letter. Boys like me never get letters, I get the occasional Happy Birthday card from my aunt in the city but it’s nothing more than an obligatory gesture. I stood on that porch with the heaviest letter my hands had ever held. My old dull schrade knife slide right through that letters spine only to find hundreds of paper scraps all with black bold face letters on them. My fathers sins. They mailed me my fathers sins. I carried that letter till my hands were just as cracked as his. I carried that letter till there no longer was any rainy day money in grandmas bucket. I never married and I never became promiscuous. I never wanted children. I never wanted them to receive my letter full of scraps of paper with black bold face letters on them. I never wanted them to be accountable for my sins.