Bennie begins his letter sounding like any old angry, ripped-off customer, but then realizes that to convince the company to refund his money, he must give them more reason besides just a cancelled flight. Bennie starts to tell American Airlines why this flight is so important to him. He starts by giving the story of his mother, Miss Willa Desforges. A possibly schizophrenic painter, Miss Willa met Bennie's father, Henryk Gniech, and within three weeks, she was pregnant. Bennie also describes the verbal abuse he received from his mother. Miss Willa says, of her father killing a rodent in their attic, "'I'll never forgive you or anyone ever again.' (Ah, typical Willa Desforges hyperbole. 'If you continue to bite your fingernails,' she told me when I was a boy, 'you will never be loved. No one will want you and you will die alone.')" (Miles 25). Bennie showing the love-hate relationship he had with his mother shows that he had been dealing with pain from the very beginning of his life, and gives some insight as to why he handled his future relationships the way he did.
Bennie then describes, in elaborate detail, his relationship with Stella. Stella and Bennie were never married, but they had a child, Stella Jr., aka Speck. Bennie and Stella's relationship starts off beautifully. Bennie describes his happiness, "In those months we were the planet's happiest residents. If I was no longer the poéte maudit, well, pbbbbbt, I didn't give a damn. I stopped drinking alone and suicide was as improbable a concept for me as joining a Kiwanis Club" (Miles 31). Then, the happiness of the relationship begins to dwindle away. Bennie begins drinking again. Stella finds his empty fifths and vodka bottles hidden in bookshelves, and she kicks Bennie out. Bennie's drinking again is symbolic of his happiness going away; the more the happiness leaves, the more Bennie begins to drink. Bennie shows little emotion when he gets kicked out; only shock, and no traces of hurt or sadness. At the point I'm at in the book, Bennie just drops off at Stella kicking him out and then goes into a completely different story. He begins to elaborate more on his relationship with his daughter, and also tells us more about a character named Walenty. Bennie is also a translator, and Walenty is a character in a book he's translating. Bennie seems to relate with the stories of Walenty, and as Bennie's life evolves, so does Walenty's.
