I Could Die Laughing
Every day there was laughter. Laughter that filled the halls like a group of nut jobs at the pharmacy. And every time Bill heard the laughter, he felt alone. The four white walls of his studio caught the happy notes like a first grader catches headlice, and Bill would sit, tortured, by the sound he himself could not make.
And every night there was a stillness which rode through Bill's spine like a Hitachi magic wand. Bill was tortured by this stillness, which fell in such stark contrast to the laughter of the day.
Where does it come from? he sometimes wondered. Surely he wasn't the only one in the complex to notice it, but none of his neighbors ever mentioned the incessant chiming of her voice.
One afternoon, last Tuesday to be exact, Bill's chest was feeling more like an overinflated balloon than it usually did. After pacing around his apartment for what seemed like hours, but was really only seven minutes, Bill went down to the first floor of his apartment complex and lit up the butt of a Parliament Light cigarette which he found in an ashtray. Bill took two deep drags on the cigarette before realizing that the rhododendron bush to his right was the source of the laughter.
Can it be? Is this where she hides? Bill thought. The laughter was getting higher, louder, more desperate. Bill thought it was beginning to sound like something between a wet cat, a glockenspiel, and a loose fan belt, so he moved closer to the bush to ask the concealed woman to please be quiet.
Bill poked his head behind the massive bush and was almost blinded by the scene his eyes beheld. GOOD GOD! Bill thought. Bill saw a woman, as thin as the twigs of the bush, clad in a rhinestone body suit, who was strapped to a gurney on the ground. At her feet a spider monkey, who wore a top hat, a bow tie, and Levi's jeans, and who smoked a Winston cigarette, was tickling her foot with a peacock feather. To top it all off, someone was shining a spotlight on her and as she writhed in the pain of her laughter, shimmering light scattered between the leaves of the rhododendron and the tan stucco walls like some sort of alien disco ball. The woman's eyes caught Bill's, and he could sense her desperation. Bill thought for a moment about how to distract the monkey. He noticed he had something pinned to his bow tie. "Hello, My name is Charles," said the standard issue label.
"Charles," Bill said. The monkey tapped the ashes of his cigarette into the dirt by his feet and glanced impatiently at Bill.
"Listen, Charles, I know you're a busy man, but I have a Romeo Y Julieta cigar in my room. Fresh from Cuba. If you go run and grab it, I'll be more than willing to share it with you."
Charles stood silently for a moment, grabbed a piece of paper from his back pocket, handed it to Bill, and headed up to Bill's apartment.
"Call me Chuck," the note said.
"Oh, you saved me! My hero!" the woman exclaimed. "Oh thank goodness. Charles just won't quit. I was about to die laughing."
"It's, erm, nothing. Er, why did he do this to you?" Bill asked.
"Well, it's sort of silly, you know. I have this slight problem. I'm sort of… a paradox, if you will. If I'm not laughing, I'm oh so sad. So sad that I just can't bear to go on. If I am laughing, my laughing grows so violent that I can't eat, I can't move, I can barely breathe, and I could just die laughing! My only respite comes at night when he injects me with enough Ketamine to knock out a family of lemurs. It's silly, isn't it?" she asked, beginning to sniffle. A silver tear slipped out of her left eye. She could have been wearing a bodysuit of tears, as sad as she was beginning to look.
"You see," she continued, "Charles… Charles was only trying to help me. But there's no helping me. I'm, I'm… I'm a complete and total wreck!"
With that, the woman collapsed into Bill's arms. She started to cry, low, like a distant freight train. Soon her low sobs grew in speed and pitch, and in just the course of five minutes, she was howling like a cage of Chucks at the zoo. Tears shot out of her eyes like squirt guns, she shook like a dryer full of shoes, and soon, right before Bill's very eyes, she cried herself to death.
Bill stood a moment, trying to soak in what had just happened. He felt a tingling in his cheeks, a shudder in his chest. Before he knew it, he was laughing.
9.5.10
19.4.10
The Painter
Ray has been painting the Golden Gate Bridge for the last fourteen years. It’s always the same cycle: start at one end, work your way to the other, and back. Each day, as he glides the paint up and down, covering the expanse of the bridge, two thoughts tiptoe through his mind like the movie Groundhog’s Day on Thanksgiving; “she left me” and “it’s this job.”
She left him. One spring, when the Narcissus had started to bloom. She left him with only a lingering scent for him to remember her by. Warm like her body, and sweet like the cups of Jasmine tea she drank each morning.
Janet. Janet had been Ray’s moon; the body that kept him in orbit when the universe would scatter him into bits of oblivion. She had been all those cliché objects; his beacon, his shining star, his ray of hope. Always, each day when he started to smooth the paint across the metal beams, he would think of her face. He once told Don, the man who had helped him paint the bridge all these years, that her eyes were deep pools of cleansing light. He said he could almost dip his hands in them and wash his face. Her eyes cleared away the muck and allowed him to see the redemptive qualities of existence.
Ray and Don were both hired to paint the bridge at about the same time. Don had always been a full figured gentleman, so his responsibility was to raise and lower Ray down the sides of the bridge. During their breaks they talked a lot to each other; Don was a social man and liked to hear about Ray's life outside of bridge painting.
“So what happened?” Don had asked, a year after her departure.
“Nothing,” Ray said, dipping his brush into the tin of red paint.
“What do you mean nothing? You guys were so happy.”
“Nothing happened and that was the trouble. I’d always told her I was gonna get out of this job, really be somebody. But I never did, and I guess after 13 years she just gave up.”
“What’s wrong with being a painter?” Don had asked, resentment rising up his throat, almost blocking the words from leaving his mouth.
“It’s not that she didn’t want me to be a painter. It was the kind of painter she wanted me to be. That I wanted myself to be. Do you think people visit this bridge and think, ‘Thank goodness for the guys who paint this thing’? No. It’s a thankless job for a replaceable soul. She was looking for someone more memorable I guess.”
The day Janet left was unremarkable in any other way. Ray had risen from the bed at five, slammed his hand on the “off” button of his alarm, splashed cool water on his face, and hit “auto brew” on the coffee maker. He shaved the day’s stubble from his chin, put on jeans, a shirt, and then his coveralls, and sipped his coffee at the kitchen table. He measured a cup of Friskies into the cat’s bowl, rinsed his cup, and quietly closed the door behind him, turning the key in the lock slowly to avoid the loud clack it made when he left.
He had returned to where he left off the day before, the second rise of the bridge and down south to the tolls. Don helped him carry the ropes and pulley up to the tower, lowering him down through the dense layer of fog. Ray painted from six to ten, his arm losing feeling with each stroke that pushed it above his head. He finished the second rise, gave the rope two hard yanks, and Don hoisted him back to the top where they sat eating the sandwiches their wives had made the night before. Somehow the soggy Wonderbread and salami never got old for Ray, even though Janet could barely stomach the preparation anymore. It was another part of the routine that sustained him; paint, sandwich, paint, Janet.
When he got home that night there were no lights on in the house, no dinner cooking in the oven. Ray searched his memory for a forgotten conversation, one that would tell him she was out having drinks with Barb or leading the discussion in her book group. He found nothing in his memory bank to cash in, so he searched the house for clues. The first thing he noticed was the absence of the Brahms sheet music from the piano. Janet’s favorite songs were heavy-handed romantic movements from the mid 1800’s, and there had not been a day in his memory when the music hadn’t been on the piano stand, opened to the fifth movement of Piano Concerto #2.
Ray checked the piano bench and noticed that almost everything was missing; she had only left the beginner books from the first months of their marriage. Ray thought back to that time, the golden start of their lives together, when he had promised her that he would one day be a famous painter if only she would play songs for him all day long.
What happened? he wondered as he flipped through pages of Aura Lee and Jingle Bells.
Ray’s search then led him into the dining room, where he noticed that the painting he’d made of her parents was no longer nailed to the white stucco walls. There was an imprint of the painting on the wall, a brighter white where the canvas had been, and Ray made a note that the walls would have to be repainted soon.
Two things which Janet held dear were gone. Ray’s heart began to race. The signs were adding into an equation which he didn’t want to the answer to. He moved to the sink to pour himself a glass of water, and there found the note.
Ray,
I am sorry. For months I have been trying to imagine the best way to do this. The best way to keep both our hearts intact. Searching, but finding no better solution. Do you remember what you told me when we got engaged? You told me I was your muse. That with me, you would make your way through this life and build yourself up to be somebody worth remembering. It’s a promise that has sustained me all these years. But Ray, I wonder what has happened?
You’re a painter, Ray. But you’re painting the wrong canvas. I would be happy even if you never made it big with your art, as long as you were doing it. But you haven’t picked up your brushes and oils for years. I have waited for you to gain the confidence to really pursue your talents, but as the years go by, you have created less and less, and now you create nothing. I can only think that you have lost inspiration, and an uninspired love is one I’ve lived with far too long.
I’m sorry to leave you here. It’s time we lived life though, don’t you think? I just don’t think we should do it together.
Here, Ray set the letter down on the kitchen table, slid into the wooden chair beside it, and let his head fall back so his gaze hit the ceiling. He didn’t move to read the last words of the letter, didn’t fix himself anything to eat even though his stomach turned with hunger, he just stayed there till the sun had set.
The note left no number to reach her at, no place to find her. Janet had disappeared from Ray’s life entirely. In September he unpacked his easel, paints and canvas, but it wasn’t until December that he started the painting. With each day, he added a new layer. First it was the sky, hints of blue behind fog. Then it was the water, silver gray and choppy. Soon he added the two masses of land, the Marin Headlands and the Presidio, and then began to paint the red arcs of the bridge that connected the two. He put more care into this painting than he had ever used before. The painting was to be proof that his life's work could be made into something beautiful and meaningful. He obsessed over the painting, sometimes pacing back and forth in front of it for hours, questioning how accurate his strokes were. In the months it took him to paint the place he’d spent so much of his adult life, he began to imagine a life within the painting.
Ray started to believe that Janet was somewhere within the painting, on a boat, sailing cobalt paint strokes as the wind ran through her long black hair. He imagined himself on the bridge, looking out after her. If only I could get down to the water, I could find her.
Don didn’t broach the subject of Janet again. He had been hurt by Ray’s lack of conviction in their life’s work, and hurt to find that the job he loved could be enough to separate a loving couple. He saw, too, that the discussion had only made Ray more distant. From that point forward he tried to keep what conversation they did have to the tamer topics of NCAA playoffs, the Stanley Cup, and prime time television. He noticed too that Ray was getting clumsier, with his work and with his safety. There were beginning to be many close calls, and Don didn’t fail to notice how Ray would look at the waves below as they sat together eating sandwiches.
On a Tuesday in July Don lowered Ray down into the dense layer of fog. From where he stood, it seemed as if he were the only living thing atop a sea of gray. He watched the wind carry the mist, sweeping it up in tufts and pushing it to past the shores of Berkeley, to dissolve in the heat of the valley. Don felt Ray’s weight bounce in the rope several times and then felt it go slack. He wondered whether Ray was already signaling to come up.
“Ray! You done already?”
The sound of the early morning commuters was all that echoed up to Don.
“Ray! Can you hear me? Do you need to come up?”
After several minutes had passed without any reply, Don started slowly pulling the rope back up. When he realized that there was considerably less weight, he started to pull faster. Soon, the swing seat with its paint buckets and brushes came into view. It took a moment for Don to register what he was seeing. When he did, he dropped the rope and sunk to his knees. Ray was not there.
She left him. One spring, when the Narcissus had started to bloom. She left him with only a lingering scent for him to remember her by. Warm like her body, and sweet like the cups of Jasmine tea she drank each morning.
Janet. Janet had been Ray’s moon; the body that kept him in orbit when the universe would scatter him into bits of oblivion. She had been all those cliché objects; his beacon, his shining star, his ray of hope. Always, each day when he started to smooth the paint across the metal beams, he would think of her face. He once told Don, the man who had helped him paint the bridge all these years, that her eyes were deep pools of cleansing light. He said he could almost dip his hands in them and wash his face. Her eyes cleared away the muck and allowed him to see the redemptive qualities of existence.
Ray and Don were both hired to paint the bridge at about the same time. Don had always been a full figured gentleman, so his responsibility was to raise and lower Ray down the sides of the bridge. During their breaks they talked a lot to each other; Don was a social man and liked to hear about Ray's life outside of bridge painting.
“So what happened?” Don had asked, a year after her departure.
“Nothing,” Ray said, dipping his brush into the tin of red paint.
“What do you mean nothing? You guys were so happy.”
“Nothing happened and that was the trouble. I’d always told her I was gonna get out of this job, really be somebody. But I never did, and I guess after 13 years she just gave up.”
“What’s wrong with being a painter?” Don had asked, resentment rising up his throat, almost blocking the words from leaving his mouth.
“It’s not that she didn’t want me to be a painter. It was the kind of painter she wanted me to be. That I wanted myself to be. Do you think people visit this bridge and think, ‘Thank goodness for the guys who paint this thing’? No. It’s a thankless job for a replaceable soul. She was looking for someone more memorable I guess.”
The day Janet left was unremarkable in any other way. Ray had risen from the bed at five, slammed his hand on the “off” button of his alarm, splashed cool water on his face, and hit “auto brew” on the coffee maker. He shaved the day’s stubble from his chin, put on jeans, a shirt, and then his coveralls, and sipped his coffee at the kitchen table. He measured a cup of Friskies into the cat’s bowl, rinsed his cup, and quietly closed the door behind him, turning the key in the lock slowly to avoid the loud clack it made when he left.
He had returned to where he left off the day before, the second rise of the bridge and down south to the tolls. Don helped him carry the ropes and pulley up to the tower, lowering him down through the dense layer of fog. Ray painted from six to ten, his arm losing feeling with each stroke that pushed it above his head. He finished the second rise, gave the rope two hard yanks, and Don hoisted him back to the top where they sat eating the sandwiches their wives had made the night before. Somehow the soggy Wonderbread and salami never got old for Ray, even though Janet could barely stomach the preparation anymore. It was another part of the routine that sustained him; paint, sandwich, paint, Janet.
When he got home that night there were no lights on in the house, no dinner cooking in the oven. Ray searched his memory for a forgotten conversation, one that would tell him she was out having drinks with Barb or leading the discussion in her book group. He found nothing in his memory bank to cash in, so he searched the house for clues. The first thing he noticed was the absence of the Brahms sheet music from the piano. Janet’s favorite songs were heavy-handed romantic movements from the mid 1800’s, and there had not been a day in his memory when the music hadn’t been on the piano stand, opened to the fifth movement of Piano Concerto #2.
Ray checked the piano bench and noticed that almost everything was missing; she had only left the beginner books from the first months of their marriage. Ray thought back to that time, the golden start of their lives together, when he had promised her that he would one day be a famous painter if only she would play songs for him all day long.
What happened? he wondered as he flipped through pages of Aura Lee and Jingle Bells.
Ray’s search then led him into the dining room, where he noticed that the painting he’d made of her parents was no longer nailed to the white stucco walls. There was an imprint of the painting on the wall, a brighter white where the canvas had been, and Ray made a note that the walls would have to be repainted soon.
Two things which Janet held dear were gone. Ray’s heart began to race. The signs were adding into an equation which he didn’t want to the answer to. He moved to the sink to pour himself a glass of water, and there found the note.
Ray,
I am sorry. For months I have been trying to imagine the best way to do this. The best way to keep both our hearts intact. Searching, but finding no better solution. Do you remember what you told me when we got engaged? You told me I was your muse. That with me, you would make your way through this life and build yourself up to be somebody worth remembering. It’s a promise that has sustained me all these years. But Ray, I wonder what has happened?
You’re a painter, Ray. But you’re painting the wrong canvas. I would be happy even if you never made it big with your art, as long as you were doing it. But you haven’t picked up your brushes and oils for years. I have waited for you to gain the confidence to really pursue your talents, but as the years go by, you have created less and less, and now you create nothing. I can only think that you have lost inspiration, and an uninspired love is one I’ve lived with far too long.
I’m sorry to leave you here. It’s time we lived life though, don’t you think? I just don’t think we should do it together.
Here, Ray set the letter down on the kitchen table, slid into the wooden chair beside it, and let his head fall back so his gaze hit the ceiling. He didn’t move to read the last words of the letter, didn’t fix himself anything to eat even though his stomach turned with hunger, he just stayed there till the sun had set.
The note left no number to reach her at, no place to find her. Janet had disappeared from Ray’s life entirely. In September he unpacked his easel, paints and canvas, but it wasn’t until December that he started the painting. With each day, he added a new layer. First it was the sky, hints of blue behind fog. Then it was the water, silver gray and choppy. Soon he added the two masses of land, the Marin Headlands and the Presidio, and then began to paint the red arcs of the bridge that connected the two. He put more care into this painting than he had ever used before. The painting was to be proof that his life's work could be made into something beautiful and meaningful. He obsessed over the painting, sometimes pacing back and forth in front of it for hours, questioning how accurate his strokes were. In the months it took him to paint the place he’d spent so much of his adult life, he began to imagine a life within the painting.
Ray started to believe that Janet was somewhere within the painting, on a boat, sailing cobalt paint strokes as the wind ran through her long black hair. He imagined himself on the bridge, looking out after her. If only I could get down to the water, I could find her.
Don didn’t broach the subject of Janet again. He had been hurt by Ray’s lack of conviction in their life’s work, and hurt to find that the job he loved could be enough to separate a loving couple. He saw, too, that the discussion had only made Ray more distant. From that point forward he tried to keep what conversation they did have to the tamer topics of NCAA playoffs, the Stanley Cup, and prime time television. He noticed too that Ray was getting clumsier, with his work and with his safety. There were beginning to be many close calls, and Don didn’t fail to notice how Ray would look at the waves below as they sat together eating sandwiches.
On a Tuesday in July Don lowered Ray down into the dense layer of fog. From where he stood, it seemed as if he were the only living thing atop a sea of gray. He watched the wind carry the mist, sweeping it up in tufts and pushing it to past the shores of Berkeley, to dissolve in the heat of the valley. Don felt Ray’s weight bounce in the rope several times and then felt it go slack. He wondered whether Ray was already signaling to come up.
“Ray! You done already?”
The sound of the early morning commuters was all that echoed up to Don.
“Ray! Can you hear me? Do you need to come up?”
After several minutes had passed without any reply, Don started slowly pulling the rope back up. When he realized that there was considerably less weight, he started to pull faster. Soon, the swing seat with its paint buckets and brushes came into view. It took a moment for Don to register what he was seeing. When he did, he dropped the rope and sunk to his knees. Ray was not there.
15.4.10
short scene
Jesse and Mike are two guys in their early twenties. They're standing on a sidewalk in front of a backdrop that's painted with sky scrapers. To the right is a dumpster. To the left, the sidewalk comes to a corner and there is a bus stop.
JESSE
There isn't much time, come on!
MIKE
But where are we going?
JESSE
You'll see, come!
MIKE
The last time I followed you somewhere like this I woke up at a bus stop, soaking wet, with lipstick smeared all over my face. I don’t think so…
JESSE
At least it wasn't boring.
MIKE
Dude, boring is way better than a morning like that.
JESSE
Hmm. Well… this time it'll be different.
MIKE
Why?
JESSE
This time we're actually doing something IMPORTANT. I'll tell you more, but we need to get a move on. Dan will be at the corner any minute, and he's gonna be pissed if he has to wait around too long.
MIKE
Alright, listen. I'll walk with you to the corner. And I'll listen to what you gotta say. But I'm not making any promises about whether I'm in on this thing or not. Got it?
JESSE
Sure, sure. Relax, man.
They start walking to left, toward bus stop.
MIKE
So?... Spill it.
JESSE
Alright, so get this. You know that billboard up over 3rd Street?
MIKE
Oh, shit. No, man.
JESSE
What? It's…
MIKE
No. You are NOT dragging me into this one, Jesse.
JESSE
Mike. Relax. I've figured it all out. Nothing bad is going to happen this time.
MIKE
So let me get this straight. You want me to follow you up to a billboard in the middle of town. You want me to risk my neck, in a place the whole world can see. You want me to help you commit a felony. Just so I can help you carry some spray paint and watch you paint a fucking picture. Is this what you're asking me?
JESSE
Yeah, man, but it's not like there's no point. It's fucking art. It's political. It's about taking back our city from the corporations. And it's not like you're gonna get caught…
MIKE
Hah! Won't get caught? Won't get caught in a place like that? RIGHT!
JESSE
Alright fine. Look. There's Dan right over there You gonna go over there and tell him that it's all good when he risks his neck for you, but you aren't gonna do the same for him?
MIKE
That was different, I…
JESSE
It is the exact same thing. Why don't you go over there and tell him you're gonna spend the day changing your grandma's diapers. Actually, I'll go over there and tell him.
MIKE
I just don't get why we have to do this. Why do you have to do this?
JESSE
You seriously don't know? How long have we been friends? Shit, man. Why did Dylan write all those songs? Why did Kerouac hit the road? We just gotta, man. Don't you fucking know that by now? Why do you always write in that stupid journal of yours? Does someone hold a gun to your head and force you to write?
MIKE
No, but…
JESSE
But you do it everyday. So shouldn't you understand why I gotta do this?
Dan starts walking towards Jesse and Mike.
MIKE
I just don't get why you can't be happy choosing places that are a little more… or a little less… umm, public?
DAN
Sounds like someone's a little too scared to make some art.
MIKE
Hey man, what do you care? It's not like you're gonna be doing anything but risking your neck either.
DAN
Is the big bad paint can gonna eat you?
MIKE
Hey fuck you.
DAN
Actually, I got some bad news, Jesse.
JESSE
What, man?
DAN
I couldn't get my shift covered, dude. My phone's dead so I figured I'd come out and tell ya. Sorry…
JESSE
Are you kidding me? So lame dude!
DAN
I know, I know. I can go next week though. Hit me up.
Dan starts walking to the left again and off stage.
JESSE
(to Mike) Now what are we gonna do?
MIKE
Taco truck on International?
JESSE
(shrugs) I guess that'll work.
Jesse and Mike walk to the right.
JESSE
Oh wait, hang on a sec.
Jesse grabs a backpack from behind a dumpster. The metal cans of paint loudly bump against each other.
JESSE
Don't want to forget these babies.
MIKE
Ugh.
Lights out.
JESSE
There isn't much time, come on!
MIKE
But where are we going?
JESSE
You'll see, come!
MIKE
The last time I followed you somewhere like this I woke up at a bus stop, soaking wet, with lipstick smeared all over my face. I don’t think so…
JESSE
At least it wasn't boring.
MIKE
Dude, boring is way better than a morning like that.
JESSE
Hmm. Well… this time it'll be different.
MIKE
Why?
JESSE
This time we're actually doing something IMPORTANT. I'll tell you more, but we need to get a move on. Dan will be at the corner any minute, and he's gonna be pissed if he has to wait around too long.
MIKE
Alright, listen. I'll walk with you to the corner. And I'll listen to what you gotta say. But I'm not making any promises about whether I'm in on this thing or not. Got it?
JESSE
Sure, sure. Relax, man.
They start walking to left, toward bus stop.
MIKE
So?... Spill it.
JESSE
Alright, so get this. You know that billboard up over 3rd Street?
MIKE
Oh, shit. No, man.
JESSE
What? It's…
MIKE
No. You are NOT dragging me into this one, Jesse.
JESSE
Mike. Relax. I've figured it all out. Nothing bad is going to happen this time.
MIKE
So let me get this straight. You want me to follow you up to a billboard in the middle of town. You want me to risk my neck, in a place the whole world can see. You want me to help you commit a felony. Just so I can help you carry some spray paint and watch you paint a fucking picture. Is this what you're asking me?
JESSE
Yeah, man, but it's not like there's no point. It's fucking art. It's political. It's about taking back our city from the corporations. And it's not like you're gonna get caught…
MIKE
Hah! Won't get caught? Won't get caught in a place like that? RIGHT!
JESSE
Alright fine. Look. There's Dan right over there You gonna go over there and tell him that it's all good when he risks his neck for you, but you aren't gonna do the same for him?
MIKE
That was different, I…
JESSE
It is the exact same thing. Why don't you go over there and tell him you're gonna spend the day changing your grandma's diapers. Actually, I'll go over there and tell him.
MIKE
I just don't get why we have to do this. Why do you have to do this?
JESSE
You seriously don't know? How long have we been friends? Shit, man. Why did Dylan write all those songs? Why did Kerouac hit the road? We just gotta, man. Don't you fucking know that by now? Why do you always write in that stupid journal of yours? Does someone hold a gun to your head and force you to write?
MIKE
No, but…
JESSE
But you do it everyday. So shouldn't you understand why I gotta do this?
Dan starts walking towards Jesse and Mike.
MIKE
I just don't get why you can't be happy choosing places that are a little more… or a little less… umm, public?
DAN
Sounds like someone's a little too scared to make some art.
MIKE
Hey man, what do you care? It's not like you're gonna be doing anything but risking your neck either.
DAN
Is the big bad paint can gonna eat you?
MIKE
Hey fuck you.
DAN
Actually, I got some bad news, Jesse.
JESSE
What, man?
DAN
I couldn't get my shift covered, dude. My phone's dead so I figured I'd come out and tell ya. Sorry…
JESSE
Are you kidding me? So lame dude!
DAN
I know, I know. I can go next week though. Hit me up.
Dan starts walking to the left again and off stage.
JESSE
(to Mike) Now what are we gonna do?
MIKE
Taco truck on International?
JESSE
(shrugs) I guess that'll work.
Jesse and Mike walk to the right.
JESSE
Oh wait, hang on a sec.
Jesse grabs a backpack from behind a dumpster. The metal cans of paint loudly bump against each other.
JESSE
Don't want to forget these babies.
MIKE
Ugh.
Lights out.
Hot Pink Laces
Once I had a few pairs of hot pink shoelaces that had the words "Rock and Roll Adventure Kids" printed on them. I would share them with you but kitty ate them.
28.3.10
Eugene Weiner
“Hey Anna, can you sit down here for a second? I mean, you don’t have to sit next to me, per se, but over there in that chair would work. I have something to, umm, say,” the words tripped on his swollen lips, falling face first on the bulge of a beer belly. I sat down.
“You know…” he swallowed a bead of stray spit. “If you were walking in the middle of a street and a really fast car came towards you, I would push you out of the way and take the blow.” His words were like prison bars trapping my body into Charles Manson’s cell. ‘Who is this man?’ my mind screamed as my gaze immediately transferred to his puke-colored living room carpet.
“Yeah, I really consider that to be the truest test of love for a stepfather,” he sang.
“Oh, okay,” was all I could manage.
The first time I met Eugene Weiner was two years ago at my soccer tournament against the San Rafael Strikers, or so he says. I actually don’t remember him being there at all.
“You were so adorable, Anna, with that cute, little, fourteen-year-old button nose and little, red ribbons in your blonde hair. Your mom and I cheered for you on the sidelines,” he cooed whenever there was an awkward gap in conversation. “When Sammy, I mean your mom, introduced us, I was the most nervous I have ever been in my life. You were, ummm, munching on Cheetos and your fingers were bright orange.”
At least I remember the Cheetos.
Eugene swept my mom off her feet in the first month of their relationship, calling her every evening at 10:00 pm sharp. The constant drone of You hang up,” “No you hang up,” “No, no, I said it first,” gave me cold sweats. Instead of counting sheep, I counted lovesick remarks.
Eugene placed little flower bouquets for my mom and economy sized bags of Cheetos for me on the wooden patio in front of our second story apartment. The simple task of walking up the steps and through the front door grew exponentially difficult.
“He is so romantic,” my mom would say while collecting the day’s offerings.
I desperately tried to warn her, “He’s just trying to impress you with money. You know how lawyers are!” but her misconceived fantasies drowned out all practicality.
“No, no, Anna. Eugene is the sweetest man I have ever met. He would never do something like that; he’s a good lawyer. He even promised to take me to Spain one day! He calls me his little Spanish rose.” Sigh.
“But you’re 100 percent Irish! He’s delusional!” I slammed my foot against the wooden slats beneath me. My mom stood in the doorway, arms full, in all her blue-eyed, pale-skinned beauty.
“And you, young lady, are turning into a smart ass.” She swiftly turned her shoulder, lifted her chin and sauntered into the apartment.
What happened to my mom? Before Eugene staggered into our lives, we were wonderfully independent. Sure, my dad visited once a week to see me and politely squeeze out a hello to my mom (although he secretly hates her for winning ownership of the gold-lined, antique armoire in divorce court), but even those visits were neatly organized into our self-sufficient routine. Our bond was stronger than super glue. We were best friends, mother and daughter, two peas in a pod, xylem and phloem.
Flashback:
“Mom,” I screamed one scalding-hot summer day. “We need to go swimming! The weather is unbearable.”
“I don’t think we can, Anna. You know that we’re out of margarita mix. How can we go to the pool if we don’t have margaritas?” My mother never traveled out of the house without a shot of vodka neatly enclosed in a zip-lock bag and tucked into her jacket pocket. My great-grandmother had taught her this life rule while on her deathbed. Consequentially, I have nursed champagne ever since my baptism. Asking my mother to go to the pool without a mixed drink was unthinkable.
“Oh my God, I am so sorry. I completely forgot,” I uttered.
After wringing out the sweat that had saturated my shirt, a sudden stroke of inspiration slapped my face. “Charlene always keeps at least three bottles of margarita mix in her storage. She would probably lend us one if I asked!” Charlene was my mother’s closest friend, besides myself, or course. Without waiting for my mom’s response, I threw on my purple flip-flops, dashed across the street, and took the elevator to Charlene’s apartment on the tenth floor. Luckily, Charlene was home and more than willing to lend us a bottle of drink mix.
My mother and I spent the rest of the day lying in beach chairs. “Thanks for grabbing that margarita mix,” my mom said behind the blue parasol that was shielding her face.
“Of course, mom.” Smile.
“You know, Anna, we make the best pair. I could never ask for anything more.”
Now, that slob of a man Eugene has infiltrated our perfect harmony in all of his drooling glory. After six months of lustful oversight, my mom suggested the unspeakable- move in with Eugene. Rage and exasperation and sadness overcame my body, driving me to desperate measures. I shoved myself into the hall closet and screamed for two days on end.
“You can’t scream forever, Anna,” my mom criticized as she slipped my dinner through the cat door. I paused for a breath, and then continued on that shrill note.
“I know this is going to be hard for you, but you’ll have to learn to like him, at some point. Besides, Kalamazoo hasn’t been able to go to the bathroom lately. I think she feels intimidated when you stand in the litter box.”
I poured five bottles of coolant down the kitchen sink- but it still didn’t repair her broken common sense. The dashing handyman Eugene came over, sporting a brand new tool belt.
“You are such a super hero, Eugene,” my mom said in a daze. I resorted to making loud vomiting sounds behind my bedroom door.
“No Sammy, you’re such a hero,” he slurred. The man had successfully stolen my mom’s soul.
Our first night in Eugene’s home was horrifically excruciating. Even though the move totaled 10 city blocks, I felt like I had fallen into a wormhole, exiting in the eleventh dimension. The entire exterior of Eugene’s house was painted army green with metallic gold trim. A spiked tower extended out of the left side of the roof, complete with stone parapets. Not even Dali could have dreamed this one up.
“Please don’t make me go in there, mom. It looks lie something out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I pulled on her waist, vainly attempting to postpone the entire experience.
“Don’t worry, Anna. Your bedroom is so chic.” As I walked through the front door, a noisome smell sucked the breath out of my body. Something was rotting. The living room walls were dark brown and lined with leather couches. The room’s centerpiece was a mounted deer head with the inscription, “Catch of ‘66” just below the neck. Three mounted salmon swam on the opposite walls. Dead animals surrounded me.
“Hey there, sport,” Eugene said to me as he rushed into the living room. “And hey there, good lookin’.” The chirping sound of a long kiss ensued.
The time had come to be blatantly direct. “Okay, why does this house smell like decaying flesh?” I demanded.
“Oh, I can’t believe Sammy didn’t tell you. In addition to corporate law, I work as a taxidermist, Anna,” he winked his right eye in the direction of my mother, and then his left eye towards me.
“You’re so strong when you stuff that polyuretane.” Swoon.
“Don’t worry, you get used to it after a few minutes,” Eugene added. Weakness grasped my body as my legs gave out from underneath. Complete darkness flooded my new world.
The dreaded proposal came about six months ago. The week after his mouth slobbered the words, “Will you marry me?” he surprised my mom with a full ceremony at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. As the one and only bridesmaid, I adorned the blackest of dresses with a matching dark lace veil pinned to my pale forehead. Although my mom barely had enough time to put together a vow, Eugene had clearly prepared the equivalent of a novel for his. After an hour and a half of incoherent, heart wrenching promises, he broke down and bawled into the church’s PA system.
“I promise to be the best husband in the world,” he wailed between sobs. The priest had to halt Eugene’s emotional serenade.
“And now, let us be silent with our thoughts,” he said, cutting off the groom mid-sentence. Tears of a different kind steamed down my cheeks.
A week after the wedding, my mom decided that we should sit down for a talk. This would have been fine if Eugene hadn’t invited his bumbling taxidermy friends over to discuss optimal stuffing and skinning strategies.
“Now, I know that you don’t like him very much, Anna. But you do have to admit- he has charm,” my mom screamed above the loud cackles that emanated from Eugene’s workshop.
“What? You call pleather pants and shaved-off sideburns charm? I call it a freak show!”
“Okay, I admit that he’s not the most suave dresser in the world.” The massive amount of steam billowing from my ears could have killed a small rodent.
An unfamiliar voice echoed from the second floor, “I kill bear, cougar, wild boar, caribou, mountain sheep and mountain goats. Yup, mountain goats are so pretty when ya’ nail ‘em on to them there freestandin’ mounts…”
“Eugene is a parasitic creature and I WOULDN’T CARE IF HE DIED!” There. I finally said it.
My mother’s defensive countenance seemed to melt into pure sadness. “Anna, you don’t understand!” she bawled. “He loves me! He treats me like I’m a Spanish princess.” Bewilderment encompassed me as I held her shaking body with my arms. Seconds seemed to inch by as the high-pitched hum of Eugene’s electric rotary cutters pervaded the house. “Can you just try to like him? Please, Anna. For me?”
I thought about her request for a long and hard thirty seconds. “I’ll try. But I’m not making any promises.”
Present day:
Nika, the family therapist, insists we dedicate one day a week to ‘family time.’ Consequently, Sunday has plummeted to the lowly position of my least favorite day.
“Where do you want to go today, Sport?” Eugene asks, while tucking his Hawaiian flowered shirt into his pleather pants.
“Movies.” Lately, I have been trying to limit my responses to one word with Eugene. Movies are always a good choice for family day, minimizing social interaction and maximizing normality.
“Well, alright. Do you know which one you, umm, want to see?” he asks.
“Alfie. 12:20. Smith Ranch Theater,” I mumble.
“Holy crocodile! That’s in a half an hour!” he says, stumbling up the stairs toward his bedroom. “Sammy, we need to be out the door in ten minutes!”
“Alright, shnookums,” she screams from the taxidermy studio upstairs. A state of frenzy overtakes the house as Eugene and my mother hurriedly try to organize their chaotic lives.
After jumping into our newly purchased family van, I immediately climb to the back room of seats and settle. Just as a peaceful façade begins to veil our family’s dysfunction, my mother lets out a blood-curdling shriek.
“What is it, Sammy?” Eugene asks as my mother’s screams escalate.
“Mom! Are you okay?” I ask. No response. Eugene pulls the van onto the side of the road as my mother violently opens the car door to gasp for air.
“Mom, talk to me!” I command.
“I just,” sniffle, “Forgot to bring my zip-lock bag with vodka.”
A look of pure sympathy engulfs Eugene’s face as he pulls my mother’s head into his chest. “Aww. There, there, there,” he purrs between her muffled cries. “Look here, honey.” Reaching into his shirt pocket, Eugene pulls out a filled shot glass, sealed by a layer of crumpled Saran Wrap.
“Here you go, Sammy,” he gently kisses my mother on the nose.
Even though Eugene’s disgusting face makes me want to throw up, maybe I’ll stop throwing stiletto heels at his head.
19.3.10
Saliva and Glue
Dear Louie,
I walked that block, 7 train roaring overhead, back to your boss's car and we drove to a rest stop in Delaware... or maybe it was New Jersey. I don't know. You ordered a Roy Roger's breakfast sandwich with American cheese and sausage. I can still hear your tongue, your teeth, attacking it. Sticky. You gave me 3 dollars for shitty tea.
Your saccharine laugh makes me nervous.
At 6 p.m., after a couple of hours in Maryland, you took me out to dinner at Ruby Tuesday. I didn't speak while you recounted war stories from Iraq. You said that you don't like making friends because it is too hard to watch a bullet lodge into their brain. Why did you repeatedly call the waitress baby? Are the scars on your face from the war?
We left Ruby Tuesday, heading north for Staten Island. Hands on the driver's wheel, lips squeezing that black straw, sucking in wild berry lemonade.
Why can't I trust you?
17.3.10
12.3.10
Working Title
Mrs. Olmstead's third grade class has been waiting since September for this day. It has been four long months and they have finally done all the necessary research. Mrs. Olmstead walks into the classroom at 7:56 AM to find the entire class sitting silently in their chairs. All eyes focus on her as she walks to her desk, sets her quilted tote bag on the floor, removes her tan raincoat, and places the covered cage on top of Friday's math homework.
Mrs. Olmstead's saccharine voice melts over the room of students. "Now, before I take the cover off this cage I want to remind you all of something. All life is precious. Sometimes the sweetest creatures can come in the most unappealing forms. Please remember this and take care of both of them as if there were no difference between the two."
Her papery hands lift the thick black cover from the wire cage. Inside, the two rabbits that the students have been waiting for calmly nibble on their grey-green pellets. One rabbit is black with six white spots on its back. The other is white, and the pink skin of its neck and back are exposed. Ribbons of reddish brown weave their way around its neck and down its back between the raised white scars.
Mrs. Olmstead opens the cage and sets the rabbits on the floor. The class as a whole tentatively inches closer to the rabbits, and moves, as if one, toward the black rabbit. They gather in a circle around the one undamaged creature and the white rabbit sits by the desk alone. All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Mrs. Olmstead's saccharine voice melts over the room of students. "Now, before I take the cover off this cage I want to remind you all of something. All life is precious. Sometimes the sweetest creatures can come in the most unappealing forms. Please remember this and take care of both of them as if there were no difference between the two."
Her papery hands lift the thick black cover from the wire cage. Inside, the two rabbits that the students have been waiting for calmly nibble on their grey-green pellets. One rabbit is black with six white spots on its back. The other is white, and the pink skin of its neck and back are exposed. Ribbons of reddish brown weave their way around its neck and down its back between the raised white scars.
Mrs. Olmstead opens the cage and sets the rabbits on the floor. The class as a whole tentatively inches closer to the rabbits, and moves, as if one, toward the black rabbit. They gather in a circle around the one undamaged creature and the white rabbit sits by the desk alone. All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)