It is highly unlikely that you have forgotten the unfortunate circumstances involving our respective sisters this Tuesday last. After no small amount of contemplation, I felt it would be only proper to address this issue as a gentleman. Make no mistake, this letter in no way means that I accept total responsibility for what came to pass. This is as much a document to prove my amicability in a court of law, should it come to that, as a gesture to you, my neighbor. However, I will not insult your intelligence and attempt to draw this out by explaining those details that I am sure you have uncovered yourself. To avoid any undue confusion, I will admit this one fact:

Yes, on the date of Tuesday, June 17th, I did indeed encourage my sister to bind her wrist by a short length of leather cord to that of your sister and enter a circle of stones within the bounds of which the two of them would engage in mortal combat with brand-name boning knives. I have decided to withhold the specific brand of knife to protect the company, as this admitted misuse of their product would likely reflect as poorly on them as on us.

I am also willing to accept responsibility for the leather cord, but only in the most indirect of ways. I can say with a clear conscience that my purchase of the leather was a matter of perfectly legal and entirely disparate intentions.

I maintain, as I did on the afternoon of the 17th, that I am in no way responsible for the stone circle. I cannot fathom why a functionally exact circle of volcanic pumice would come to be constructed in our suburban Ohio cul-de-sac. I merely made use of it as a matter of convenience and for the safety of other children, pets, and indeed the entire neighborhood. You yourself can attest to the damage potential of unrestricted flourishes of the blade. I will have it mentioned now both to persuade your judgments and, if need be, a jury’s that the very bandages insulating your exposed nerves came from my own well-stocked First Aid kit. It was only to the benefit of the community that the stone circle, however it came to rest on Smoky Pine Court, was available for utilization. My fair use of this public property was no more or less serendipitous than the use of a waterfall by early man as a natural shower.

I would also like to convey in the sincerest terms possible that the knife fight in question was not the result of any malice between our sisters. On the contrary, my dearest Violet wishes your Sandra well and has confided in me during the brief hours of summer darkness that, were she ever to indulge the bloodlust so common in modern girls again, she could think of no other opponent more honorable in form or worthy in skill than your lovely and virtuous kin.

That said, though it is my first instinct to deny it outright, I will spare my dignity and ascend to your most recent allegation that I facilitated not but a handful of wagers placed by certain members of our community concerning the outcome of the now-infamous contest. It is in my deepest hopes that you will accept the form in which I have invested my profits from that day as equitable and moral compensation for whatever ill stress I may have caused you and your loved ones through my small, though essential, contributions to the events of Tuesday, June 17th. This public bench you see before you in place of your mother’s prized azaleas is made from only the finest finished oak and rust-resistant bolts. Though the flowers did not survive transplantation and had to be composted, and as well poor Sandra’s middle and ring fingers could not be salvaged in time to be reunited with her still aesthetically-divine hand, this bench will endure for longer than that which has been lost could ever hope to survive under the scrutiny of our Lord God.

It is my wish that the sordid entries into this chapter of the American Epic that is Smoky Pine Court do not overshadow the potential we young leaders have before us to make this moment a triumph of unity and understanding instead of prosecution and conflict.

May we sit together in peace,

Your Loving Neighbor