CHRIS CUSTER edits Collected Letters. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts. HATE CRIMES The people who hated each other lived in the same building. They lived on the same floor. They lived in the same apartment. Sometimes they left at the same time and could not avoid running into each other. Two walked fast on the stairs but two went down the elevator and they saw each other in the lobby. They grinned with expensive hate, wrapped in their respective positions of power, sport, and art. They went out to eat, then saw each other on the street. They did not know this, but they had eaten the same foods. The people who hated each other really hated each other. Each respectively plotted to kill the other two. One side used poison, the other water torture. While two were being slowly drowned their tormenters got sick and fell over. The four met in the hospital and had to share the same floor. This is just like home, they said, ain't that funny, and they grinned with grandly cherished hate and went to sleep. THE COUNTRY TOT The country tot had it in for all of us. We could do no right, in his eyes. Moreover the country tot had declared that we not give him porridge to eat nor electrodes to wear. The country tot had a fine day at the fair and then came home and spoiled himself rotten with candied apples and french-fried curds. His turds the next day were abominable. Then it rained for two whole weeks and we had to play Chinese checkers with the tot 'til midnights. Finally we secured the electrodes in his sleep. His heartbeat was irregular and garrulous as an old fat man. This was enough to convince us to make him soup and endure his cunning harassments until next year when God willing he would still be living for the fair.