Dear Mr. Fudd,
I’ve always wanted a pen pal. My brother had one once, it was an old neighbor girl who moved to Minnesota. I heard stories of this family growing up and had to pretend that I knew them and cared about them when we visited on summer vacations, but no one ever wrote me a letter. I think it was my parents’ idea to have them write one another, maybe to help spark a romance or to alleviate the pains of the hot girl from across the street from moving away. Jason told me they only sent a couple of letters, but that was more than I ever got.
There’s a roadside Bonsai tree stand that I drive by off of Dodge St. I always see an older Asian guy setting up racks and racks of Bonsai trees on makeshift plywood shelving. It’s kind of like the guy who sells sweet corn from the back of a pickup, but instead it’s Bonsai trees. He never has any customers.
I wonder how one gets into the roadside Bonsai business? I never realized how little I know about the entire industry. Are there Bonsai tree farms? What’s a Bonsai tree go for? I think I might buy one, but I don’t actually want to take care of anything living. Maybe he sells maintenance plans. I’ll let you know what I find out.
Much obliged,
-C.S. Beaty
•••
When I started writing routinely, I did so without a plan. I wanted to write down the things on my mind, that was about it. I bought a typewriter so the impulse to edit would be removed from the creative process, and after about a year-and-a-half, I had written enough essays to fill a book. Not necessarily a good book, but enough words and pages to bind them all together and write a title on the spine. So for the Christmas of 2023, that’s what I did.
I had yet to decide the means of sharing my writing with the world, so I started smaller. I printed and bound about ten copies of my essays and distributed them to a select few friends and family. The response was mostly positive, like a polite positive. I think everyone understood the effort and care I had put into my writing, but whether it was something more than that—more marketable than that—none of us knew. But I kept writing.
I wrote enough to print a follow-up volume for Christmas 2024, and when I went to chat with Mike The Printer about my latest project, he told me about a fan I didn’t know I had.
I wasn’t the first person to compile my esoteric ramblings into a Christmas present for friends and family, and the similarities between my writing and one of Mike’s other best customers were too coincidental to not bring to my attention. He told me he held back a copy of one of my books and passed it along to this mystery man. And this man approved. This man who I never met, went by the pen name Haywood Fudd.
There is little to no internet trail for Haywood Fudd. In an age of algorithms and curated digital news feeds, Fudd’s chosen medium is entirely analog and anachronistic. He probably puts in as much work as any ass-shaking, disgusting-food-eating, Tik Tok starlet—but he’s not doing the work for the clicks. He’s doing it because he thinks it’s funny and it brings him joy. And it brings others joy. Or so I assume, I’ve never asked him.
Fudd calls himself “The King of Literary Daredevils.” If you read his work, you’ll learn he’s a big fan of Evel Knievel. Most people haven’t read all his work through. Most people don’t get that opportunity. Most people only get a single letter. Written and addressed just to them. A letter from a man they’ve never met, but who thinks it would be funny to send them a letter.
The first stunt I heard of was Fudd’s 2023 assault on the good people of Bliss, Idaho. Somehow, inexplicably, Fudd had located a directory of the name and address of all 226 residents of this small rural town. And sent them all an original letter. Only one person wrote him back—George Freeman—and he dedicated his compilation of letters to him. The same compilation that Mike The Printer was in the process of assembling when he told me about Mr. Fudd.
I was hurt by this. As a person who has bled over a typewriter and felt a mediocre reception, many times, it seemed a travesty that someone would devote so much creativity and effort to an ingenious stunt of this sort and only have a single admirer as a result. I set out to change that.
Eight days after writing that first letter, I received a reply. My first reply.
September 25th, 2024
Dear Mr. Beaty,
Thank you for your September 17 dispatch. I received it while lathered in a thick and luscious coat of e’lan.
Regarding pen pals, I was once contacted by a lady doing hard time in Missouri in 2004 or 2005. She offered to send me body pictures for as I recall $10. I sometimes wonder about her in the wee, wee hours of the night.
Bonsai trees. I would be most appreciative of any information you uncover on these trees. I have this perfect place for a small cops of these trees so long as they don’t require daily watering during the blistering summers.
Know this: I may wanted man on the Googlers. Fire up the Googler and search on Haywood Fudd. You’ll see a link to “strange letter.” The purpose of this paragraph is for you to know exactly who you’re dealing with—the undisputed king of the literary daredevils. As of this epistle, I have written over 1000 letters to perfect strangers. I’m on a literary mission.
If you can think of nothing else this Thanksgiving to be thankful for, I beseech you to get down on bended knee and thank the supreme architect for gravity. Without just the exact amount of gravity, mankind would be doomed. Doomed! Gravity is that crucial.
Much obliged,
-Haywood Fudd
King of the Literary Daredevils
P.S. As is it my want. My raison d’etat, I reply to dispatches with two $1.00 bills.
P.P.S. Kawasaki let the good times roll.
Kawasaki let the good times roll.
Get a board and you’re gonna say, “let the good times roll.”
So I wrote him back, and he wrote me back. And a year-and-a-half and over 50 exchanges later, we’re still at it.
Introducing a new As Told By C.S. Beaty production: Letters to Haywood Fudd.
