"Letter from Paul 2 (by Gwen Lauterbach)" genre: Lies
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	Full title: Two Letters from Paul to his Girlfriend Dee Dee written in the Late Summer of 1965 on the Lightship Frying Pan with most of the Good Parts taken out Gwen Lauterbach's contribution to THE SHIP THAT LIES AT THE BOTTOM, a live event performed April, 2001 aboard the lightship Frying Pan. Read by Mark Lauterbach.
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	Lyrics September 19, 1965 Dear Dee Dee, I saw a dead person today. Remember how I told you the guys here said it's hours and hours of boredom broken by a few minutes of sheer terror? I'm still shaking. I didn't want the other guys to see me crying but I think some of them were too. We saved the little girl but the mother died and we haven't found the father. It rains here almost every day for like 20 minutes and thunders and lightning like crazy and then it stops. Every body just stops and then goes on like it was nothing. But today we were battening everything down because they were predicting a real storm. Honestly, I was excited, Dee Dee. It's been so BORING here. Take care of the ship, scrub the decks, take care of the lights, eat, sleep, stare at the water and think about you. I thought I was going to see the world, but all I saw was the Frying Pan and the coast of North Carolina. The waves came up and the wind, they were tossing over the decks and I could hardly hang on, but we had the lights going and the horn sounding. It was like a awesome wave set when you can hardly stay on your board and you just feel so alive cause you're so scared. And then we saw it, just this shape of a boat and then it got lost in the waves, gray and green and foam. The guy next to me shouted that some rich guy just probably lost his boat from the harbor too bad. And then--I thought I heard--we saw them. Someone in a life jacket--I saw the orange and it looked like they were holding something up. Joe launched the raft and took me cause I was young and could swim he said. When we got there it was a woman and she was holding a kid. A little girl. We got them in the boat, half in, the woman bent over the boat, her legs dangling and the baby in the boat. They tried, we tried and tried, but the mother wouldn't breathe and so much water came out. Joe got the baby breathing and she was crying mommy mommy! Then she cried for daddy...pretty little girl with dark hair all wet and tangling, weeds in her hair stinking from salt water and where she threw up. They covered up the mom on a bag and I thought she won't ever see her little girl grow up. She had blond hair so maybe the dad has the dark hair or maybe she dyed it. Not that it matters, does it? We took the little girl below deck and wrapped her up in a blanket and gave her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some milk. I wanted to give her hot chocolate but you can't cook when the ship's tossing like that. She went to sleep in my arms, Dee Dee and all I could think about it she wouldn't ever have a mom. And if we would ever find her dad and why he was out there in the storm with his family and what he was thinking when he knew they wouldn't make it. I never saw a dead person before. She was so still, the mother, Dee Dee. And so empty. Love, Paul

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