I am about halfway through reading "Tibetan Peach Pie", a memoir by Tom Robbins. In my personal Pantheon of great writers, Tom Robbins is definitely in my Top 3, not only because of his wicked imagination and sense of humour, or because he is the undisputed King of Simile, but because his books and stories have actually been transformative, they have changed me and my way of thinking once I read them. The first book of his which I read was "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", which literally turned my way of looking at the world inside-out; it showed me the power of the Female, the strength of the circular, and taught me that a wise writer can somehow weave actual Magick into the pages of a novel. After that, I was hooked.
Since then, I have hungrily scooped up each new book Robbins has written, and each one somehow got inside my mind and pushed outwards, expanding my consciousness, and in some way widened the opening in my mind which allows new thoughts to sneak in. I've always thought that while he is "just a writer", he is a writer who was placed here to somehow teach us something. Or some things.
From "Another Roadside Attraction" I learned that the Church (yes, that Church), is actually a huge, tax-free Multi-National Corporation which must be watched very closely, and that the easiest way to walk through the rain is not to fight it.
From "Still Life with Woodpecker" I learned of the power of Redheads, and the mysteries held within the Camel cigarette pack.
From "Jitterbug Perfume" I learned of the power of the beet, and that smell is 90% of love.
From "Skinny Legs and All" I learned the truth about Jezebel, that time is relative, and that a painted stick and a can o' beans can have a life and even a quest. I learned that a character called Turn Around Norman holds the key to understanding it all.
"Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" taught me about the power of the Belt of Orion, and especially of Sirius the Dog Star.
Reading "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" showed me that curses are real, but they only have power if you allow them to.
And "Villa Incognito" taught me that you can read an entire novel, and ten years later have no earthly idea what the hell it was about.
So now, I am reading the author's own stories about his own life. And he is referring to himself as an "octogenarian". So, this Merry Prankster, this Trickster God of Novelists, the man who, in my mind, drops acid and holds drumming circles at Burning Man, has grown old, like my dad, like me, like any other ordinary mortal. I'm sure he's still got a few things he can teach me.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Friday, June 20, 2014
Extemporaneous Fiction - "OUT OF JEOPARDY"
first comment: a color : green
second comment: a type of animal : porcupine
third comment: a type of job : Summer cop in P’Town
fourth comment: a city in the world : Manila
fifth comment: a famous landmark or tourist attraction : Legoland
I was standing on a stage in Culver City, California. I stood behind a podium, atop a small platform which had been adjusted so that I was the same height as the two people next to me. I was under blaring lights, and my hair kept falling into my eyes, but I just sort of left it there because I didn’t want to come off as the sort of guy who keeps fussing with his hair like some flirtatious coed. Alex Trebek was standing just a few yards away, the “think music” was playing for Final Jeopardy, and I was staring at the clue, transfixed; and yet I had no earthly idea what the correct response was. Not only that, I was already a distant third-place. I had played miserably. I had $180 in my bank. The champion, who was winning, had $24,000.
When, after 15 seconds of paralysis, the correct answer to the clue did not mercifully materialize, I scrambled to write something- anything, down.
The category was “Cities of the World”. Great. That narrows it down to mere tens of thousands.
No idea. I figured I’d try to write down something funny, something to show that I’m really the type of guy who can just laugh off a crushing humiliation like this one. The kind of guy who can just write it all off as an amusing anecdote to tell gaily at all the cocktails parties I get invited to. So, I try to think of the least densely populated city I can imagine. I scribble down, “Fargo”.
The “think music” ends.
As the de facto loser on the stage, Alex comes to me first. He is looking at me with thinly veiled disdain. “Not your day today, Steven.” That was Alex’s polite way of saying that I should indeed be deeply ashamed of my performance.
“Let’s see what you wrote down.”
They unveiled my hastily scrawled response.
“What is…looks like “Frago”,” said Alex.
“It’s “Fargo”, Alex. Fargo,” I muttered.
“Fargo? No, that’s wrong. Not a lot of Tagalog spoken in that part of North Dakota.” He shook his head in a silent indictment of me as a complete idiot. “How much will it cost you? Everything. That leaves you with zero.”
Yes, yes it does.
Finally, Alex, the robotic camera, and the focus thankfully moved to the contestant on my right, who was in second place. I hated her. I mostly hated her because her name was Melanie but she insisted on spelling it “Melany”; and when she wrote her name on the electronic display before the game began, she drew a little smiley-face after the offending ‘y’. Really, Melany? A smiley face?
They unveiled Melany’s response: “Where is MANILA?” she had written, without benefit of an emoticon.
Melany was correct, though, and she doubled her score to $18,400, still not enough to catch the champion.
Gunther, the champion, stood there inscrutably. This was his fourth game, and he had already won nearly $80,000. He could not be caught.
I imagined that people watching Gunther on TV might think he was a pretty cool guy. They might even admire him. He had the kind of casual good looks you would expect from someone named Gunther: dirty-blond, suntanned, and with an undetermined accent of some kind even though he was from Cleveland. They would all be wrong. There is nothing admirable about Gunther. He is a pompous, snotty know-it-all who drives a beat-up old Rav-4, and that unkempt hipster look is really because he hasn’t done laundry in a month. When the cameras weren’t rolling, he looked at Melany and me in a way that said, “I will crush you.” Melany didn’t seem to mind all that much. I kept finding myself wishing that a spotlight or something would fall from the space above him, crushing his Norwegian skull in a horrific accident which, while tragic, would nonetheless make for some great television. But no, he had survived through to Final Jeopardy.
“Now we come to Gunther, our champ,” said Alex, sounding for all the world like a proud papa at the Science Fair. “Let’s see what you wrote down.”
All I heard was the word “Manila” and a dollar figure of twenty-six thousand something-something-something. At that point I heard a comforting click as the electronic display on the front of my podium erased the word “Frago” , as well as my humiliating final score of $0, replacing them with the Aleve logo and my third-place prize of $1000, the “Jeopardy!” version of a Participant trophy.
At that point, the sounds around me all retreated into a kind of dull roar. I finally brushed the hair out of my face and found myself just sort of standing there numbly, just wishing and wanting the whole thing to be over.
Finally, the hot lights clicked off, jolting me back to the present. The stage manager, Phil or Bill or whatever his name was, was hurriedly moving us off of our platforms and pushing us to one corner of the stage. This is where we were to stand while the camera was to show us all chatting good-naturedly with Alex as the closing credits rolled. People around us were already putting away their headsets and clipboards and heading home for the day.
Alex came over. Without our adjustable platforms, it was now obvious that I was way shorter than both of my competitors. Alex shook my hand halfheartedly and after that, he didn’t look at me again. He stood there talking animatedly with Melany and Gunther about something lame and pretentious, like what huge Miles Davis fans they all were. I just stood there, trying to look serene and interested despite the fact that I really just wanted to go home, like that time I went to a Christmas party with my friend José and I was the only person there who didn’t speak Spanish.
Eventually, though, the last of the stage lights clicked off, the Miles Davis love fest came to a close, and Phil or Bill ushered us off the stage just seconds ahead of the guy with the broom. I was handed my belongings: my cell phone and an overcoat, which was all I had brought in with me, which somehow made me feel like I was being released from jail. I was told to stop by the cashier window near the exit to pick up my prize money.
“Nice job today,” said the cashier as she pushed an envelope towards me, without once looking up from her phone. Her name tag said that she was called Belinda and that she had been a “crew member” since 2009. I noticed that the TV behind her was tuned in to “The Bachelor.”
“Thank you, Belinda,” I said. She looked up when I said her name, wondering for an instant whether we knew one another. Her left hand brushed her name tag absent-mindedly.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Umm, take it easy.” She looked back down at her phone.
I pushed open the exit door and the California sun came pouring in. It was kind of a shock, like it is when you walk out of a movie theater during the daytime. I struggled to remember where I had parked, or even what kind of car I was driving. It was a rental.
Then I remembered that it was a green Kia. A horribly ugly green Kia Forté or Kia Alanté or Spumanté or some other made-up word. It was a vehicle I would never have been caught dead in back in Delaware, but at the rental agency, when the girl behind the counter asked me what color car I wanted, all I could hear was my friend Gary’s voice, saying, “Green. Green is the color of money and success.” So I answered her, “Green.” She tilted her head and looked at me for a moment, smiling benignly, as if I had just said to her that I wanted to adopt the ugliest puppy in the shelter.
Money and success my ass. Lot of good it did me. As I slid into the car, baked in the California sun to a toasty 103°, I looked down at the green tie I had worn. I rolled my eyes at my own ridiculousness, took off the tie, and as I rolled down the window, I dropped the tie out onto the sizzling parking lot.
I sat there for a minute before I started the car. I sat there, sweating in the 103° heat, thinking about the past few hours, reliving it all in my mind as if I were trying to detox in a sauna.
Well, that certainly didn’t go like I had planned, I thought. In my imagination, I would be at a supper club in L.A. right now, being toasted with Dom Perignon and fêted by Alex’s minions and a host of Jeopardy groupies. I would be making excuses for an early night as I must retire and prepare to defend my championship tomorrow. I would be planning how to spend the record-breaking amount of money I had just won in front of a spellbound audience. Somehow my vision did not include sitting in a hideous Korean car, sweating like a whore in church, Mexican music blasting from the radio, and wondering what the hell I should do now.
What indeed? I just sort of let my body go slack for a moment. My shoulders slumped, my head bowed, tried to make my body as small and humble as I felt. I wallowed, just for a minute. Then, I sat up straight, slapped my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, and said out loud to myself, “Well. First things first. Back to the hotel.”
I programmed the GPS for the slightly shabby Super 8 where I was staying in Burbank. I rolled up the window, cranked up the air conditioning, and rolled out of there, leaving Jeopardy behind forever. A dream I had had for 27 years turned out to be just that: a dream. Instead of finally proving to the world that I was smart and funny and that the camera loved me, I only proved that I was short and could be outplayed by a 26 year-old manicurist from Ann Arbor and the guy who dresses like Thor the Thunder God every single goddam Halloween.
Goodbye, Jeopardy.
So, I was not in a particularly good place, so to speak, as I allowed the slightly British voice on the GPS to guide me through the endless maze of off-ramps, cloverleaves and Mercedes convertibles that is Greater Los Angeles. “In one quarter mile,” she says impassively, “take the motorway.” Who the fuck says “motorway”?
Before long, the lady on the GPS, whom I had named Mrs. Peale, managed to get me back to my opulent Super 8 Motel in Burbank. I carefully removed the repulsive floral polyester bedspread from the bed and stuffed it into a corner. I then flopped down face-up on the bed and just lay there for a while, closing my eyes and just letting the whole day sort of wash over me.
I allowed myself to remember bits and pieces of my disgrace. Of how my heart sank as Alex revealed the categories for each round: US Presidents, Rivers, Sports, Sports Terms, Sports Teams, 16th Century French Literature- all topics I know almost nothing about. Of how I had risked everything on a Daily Double and then answered that the fifth President of the United States was George Jefferson.
I remembered the interview portion of the program. They had asked us to write down five things about ourselves that we might like to talk about or that people might find interesting. One of the things I had written down was that I had been a bartender for a number of years.
“Says here that you were a “mixologist” at one time,” said Alex, looking down at his index card.
“That’s right, Alex,” I answered. “I worked for a few years as a bartender in a wonderful little restaurant called “Mrs. Simpson’s”.”
“And what, would you say, is your favorite drink?” he asked me.
“I wouldn’t know, Alex. I actually don’t drink alcohol.”
Alex just sort of looked at me for an instant. The expression in his eyes told me that he did not like the way this was going. “Oh, I see,” he said. In an attempt to salvage the interview, he said, “I have always loved a good Harvey Wallbanger. Can you tell me your recipe for a good Harvey Wallbanger?”
“No, Alex. I don’t know how to make a Harvey Wallbanger.”
Alex didn’t even respond. He just moved on to the manicurist.
And all the while, while I was lying there, reliving the whole wretched day in my mind, I just kept thinking that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. One doesn’t harbor a dream for 27 years just to have it turn out to be one of the most horrible experiences of one’s life. It was supposed to be wonderful and transformative, like a bride’s long-awaited fairytale wedding. Instead it was just painful and embarrassing and I felt like cannon fodder for the bloodthirsty game show audience.
I tried to remember when I first wanted to be a contestant on Jeopardy. It was 1987. I was 25 years old, and I had just graduated from the Police Academy back in Delaware. The problem was, I had graduated second-to-last in my class, which sort of limited my opportunities, career-wise. I managed to get a job, though, as a summer hire for the police department in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Talk about dreams that don’t go as planned. When someone enters the Police Academy, they are envisioning what might lie ahead: taking down crackheads in a blaze of bullets, admiring looks from women when they see you in your sharp uniform, being treated with respect as a person of authority. Well, when I hit the streets of Provincetown, I weighed in at about 125 pounds, partly due to my limited stature but also due to the fact that I’ve always been kind of a bean pole. Well, the only uniform the Provincetown Police Department had for me that summer was a 38-Long, and when I put it on I looked like Barney Fife’s younger and scrawnier brother from Mayberry. They didn’t even allow me to have a gun, and when I walked the street or stood directing traffic, instead of the girls giving me the eye and flirting, they were giggling and calling me “Goober” behind my back.
At least it was an easy job and I was never in any real danger. The main crimes we dealt with were bicycle theft and drunk-and-disorderly. Provincetown is kind of a quirky town and the people who go there tend to be a little offbeat. You tend to see a lot of guys wearing women’s clothing and carrying on in the streets, and stuff like that, which I don’t really get, myself, but whatever. Anyway, I got into the habit that summer, of turning on Jeopardy when I got home to my crappy little apartment at the end of my watch. I surprised myself as time went on, because I knew a lot of the answers. It felt good, after a day standing in the hot sun, being called Goober and having drag queens ask me where my nightstick was, to feel like there was something I was pretty good at. I began to fantasize about going on that program, and showing everyone how wrong they were about me. That I could be clever and well-read and that I knew who invented the cotton gin. Believe me, though, it’s a lot easier to play Jeopardy in your own living room, with a nice cold Sprite and a Hot Pockets than it is in front of an audience of strangers, especially when Alex Trebek seems to think you’re the Antichrist.
Anyway, after lying there for a while, I decided to snap myself out of it. I went over to my laptop and decided to see if there were any messages for me. My email only had two messages: one from my friends at Citibank to remind me that a payment is due soon, and another one promising ink and toner at 85% off retail. I deleted them both.
I wasn’t really surprised about that. I’m not the most social person, which is why I made the trip out here to California all alone in the first place. It’s not that I don’t like people or anything, it’s just that I don’t seem able to keep anyone’s interest long enough to get a friendship going. I hadn’t really told a lot of people that I was going to be on Jeopardy to begin with, so I shouldn’t have been expecting a bunch of emails or messages. I had told the girl who works at the CVS, whose name is Margaret, about it. She sent me an e-card from JibJab that she had made, showing her and her girlfriend’s cutout faces dancing to “We are the Champions” with the words “congrads and good luck!!!!” followed by like fifteen exclamation points. But that was like six weeks ago, anyway.
So, I figured I’d log on to Facebook. I have like fifteen Facebook friends. I figured that was pretty good for someone who would have trouble putting together a dinner party for four. Then I met this girl named Jessica and she told me that she had like fifteen hundred friends on Facebook.
“Really?” I asked her. “How do you get 1,500 friends?”
She looked at me incredulously. “Duh,” she said. “I went to college!”
Anyway, I had left a status update last night that said, “Looking forward to winning big tomorrow on Jeopardy!” In response, I got an “lol” from a guy I went to junior high with, and a “you are beautiful” and six little hearts from this flaky woman I met in Provincetown. Oh well, I figured, at least nobody cares that I bombed.
I looked up and noticed the little red number on my Facebook page that tells you that somebody posted something to your wall. This girl Kelly had posted a link to some viral video entitled “Porcupine Thinks It’s a Puppy (cute!!)” I don’t really know Kelly but she sent me a friend request once, and she used to date a guy I went to school with, so I accepted it.
Anyway, I clicked on the link and watched the video. It was like two and a half minutes of two girls cooing over a porcupine they had named “Mr. Stinkers” while it squirmed around and they petted the damned thing wearing heavy-duty gardening gloves.
After the video was over, I thought to myself that that video had done absolutely nothing to make me feel better about my present circumstance. I also wondered why Kelly would have ever thought that this would be something I would be even remotely interested in. I un-friended her on the spot.
And that little move felt kind of good, kind of, well, liberating. I mean, did I really have to care about what these people thought of me? I looked down the list of my fourteen remaining Facebook friends. I deleted them all, except for Margaret from the CVS because I like the funny stuff she posts.
And then I began to think a little differently about my debacle of a day. Suddenly it seemed like for all those years that I had been wanting to be on Jeopardy, maybe it had been for the wrong reasons. I had been wanting to do it to impress other people, people who, in the end, did not require impressing. I was trying to prove something to everyone else, instead of proving something to myself.
But I had, indeed, proven something to myself that day. I had proved that I could set a goal for myself and achieve it. I could leave my comfort zone and earn my place on a stage shared by no more than twelve people in the world in any given week. I could do something that other people only fantasize about doing. I could be proud to claim my fifteen minutes of cannon fodder fame.
So, I decided to break out of my funk, to stop feeling sorry for myself and start feeling proud and happy about the things I’ve done. I checked out of the Super 8 Motel and climbed into the front seat of my stylin’ green Kia Spumanté. I switched on the GPS.
“Mrs. Peale,” I said. “I have a thousand dollars to spend, and the rest of the week off. What do you suggest?”
Turns out there’s a Legoland about a hundred miles away from here in Carlsbad. I’m heading there now. And I’m feeling pretty good.
second comment: a type of animal : porcupine
third comment: a type of job : Summer cop in P’Town
fourth comment: a city in the world : Manila
fifth comment: a famous landmark or tourist attraction : Legoland
OUT OF JEOPARDY
Well, there I was, living a nightmare.I was standing on a stage in Culver City, California. I stood behind a podium, atop a small platform which had been adjusted so that I was the same height as the two people next to me. I was under blaring lights, and my hair kept falling into my eyes, but I just sort of left it there because I didn’t want to come off as the sort of guy who keeps fussing with his hair like some flirtatious coed. Alex Trebek was standing just a few yards away, the “think music” was playing for Final Jeopardy, and I was staring at the clue, transfixed; and yet I had no earthly idea what the correct response was. Not only that, I was already a distant third-place. I had played miserably. I had $180 in my bank. The champion, who was winning, had $24,000.
When, after 15 seconds of paralysis, the correct answer to the clue did not mercifully materialize, I scrambled to write something- anything, down.
The category was “Cities of the World”. Great. That narrows it down to mere tens of thousands.
YOU ARE LIKELY TO HEAR ENGLISH AND TAGALOG IN THIS CITY, THE WORLD’S MOST DENSELY POPULATED AT NEARLY 28,000 INHABITANTS PER SQUARE KILOMETER.
The “think music” ends.
As the de facto loser on the stage, Alex comes to me first. He is looking at me with thinly veiled disdain. “Not your day today, Steven.” That was Alex’s polite way of saying that I should indeed be deeply ashamed of my performance.
“Let’s see what you wrote down.”
They unveiled my hastily scrawled response.
“What is…looks like “Frago”,” said Alex.
“It’s “Fargo”, Alex. Fargo,” I muttered.
“Fargo? No, that’s wrong. Not a lot of Tagalog spoken in that part of North Dakota.” He shook his head in a silent indictment of me as a complete idiot. “How much will it cost you? Everything. That leaves you with zero.”
Yes, yes it does.
Finally, Alex, the robotic camera, and the focus thankfully moved to the contestant on my right, who was in second place. I hated her. I mostly hated her because her name was Melanie but she insisted on spelling it “Melany”; and when she wrote her name on the electronic display before the game began, she drew a little smiley-face after the offending ‘y’. Really, Melany? A smiley face?
They unveiled Melany’s response: “Where is MANILA?” she had written, without benefit of an emoticon.
Melany was correct, though, and she doubled her score to $18,400, still not enough to catch the champion.
Gunther, the champion, stood there inscrutably. This was his fourth game, and he had already won nearly $80,000. He could not be caught.
I imagined that people watching Gunther on TV might think he was a pretty cool guy. They might even admire him. He had the kind of casual good looks you would expect from someone named Gunther: dirty-blond, suntanned, and with an undetermined accent of some kind even though he was from Cleveland. They would all be wrong. There is nothing admirable about Gunther. He is a pompous, snotty know-it-all who drives a beat-up old Rav-4, and that unkempt hipster look is really because he hasn’t done laundry in a month. When the cameras weren’t rolling, he looked at Melany and me in a way that said, “I will crush you.” Melany didn’t seem to mind all that much. I kept finding myself wishing that a spotlight or something would fall from the space above him, crushing his Norwegian skull in a horrific accident which, while tragic, would nonetheless make for some great television. But no, he had survived through to Final Jeopardy.
“Now we come to Gunther, our champ,” said Alex, sounding for all the world like a proud papa at the Science Fair. “Let’s see what you wrote down.”
All I heard was the word “Manila” and a dollar figure of twenty-six thousand something-something-something. At that point I heard a comforting click as the electronic display on the front of my podium erased the word “Frago” , as well as my humiliating final score of $0, replacing them with the Aleve logo and my third-place prize of $1000, the “Jeopardy!” version of a Participant trophy.
At that point, the sounds around me all retreated into a kind of dull roar. I finally brushed the hair out of my face and found myself just sort of standing there numbly, just wishing and wanting the whole thing to be over.
Finally, the hot lights clicked off, jolting me back to the present. The stage manager, Phil or Bill or whatever his name was, was hurriedly moving us off of our platforms and pushing us to one corner of the stage. This is where we were to stand while the camera was to show us all chatting good-naturedly with Alex as the closing credits rolled. People around us were already putting away their headsets and clipboards and heading home for the day.
Alex came over. Without our adjustable platforms, it was now obvious that I was way shorter than both of my competitors. Alex shook my hand halfheartedly and after that, he didn’t look at me again. He stood there talking animatedly with Melany and Gunther about something lame and pretentious, like what huge Miles Davis fans they all were. I just stood there, trying to look serene and interested despite the fact that I really just wanted to go home, like that time I went to a Christmas party with my friend José and I was the only person there who didn’t speak Spanish.
Eventually, though, the last of the stage lights clicked off, the Miles Davis love fest came to a close, and Phil or Bill ushered us off the stage just seconds ahead of the guy with the broom. I was handed my belongings: my cell phone and an overcoat, which was all I had brought in with me, which somehow made me feel like I was being released from jail. I was told to stop by the cashier window near the exit to pick up my prize money.
“Nice job today,” said the cashier as she pushed an envelope towards me, without once looking up from her phone. Her name tag said that she was called Belinda and that she had been a “crew member” since 2009. I noticed that the TV behind her was tuned in to “The Bachelor.”
“Thank you, Belinda,” I said. She looked up when I said her name, wondering for an instant whether we knew one another. Her left hand brushed her name tag absent-mindedly.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Umm, take it easy.” She looked back down at her phone.
I pushed open the exit door and the California sun came pouring in. It was kind of a shock, like it is when you walk out of a movie theater during the daytime. I struggled to remember where I had parked, or even what kind of car I was driving. It was a rental.
Then I remembered that it was a green Kia. A horribly ugly green Kia Forté or Kia Alanté or Spumanté or some other made-up word. It was a vehicle I would never have been caught dead in back in Delaware, but at the rental agency, when the girl behind the counter asked me what color car I wanted, all I could hear was my friend Gary’s voice, saying, “Green. Green is the color of money and success.” So I answered her, “Green.” She tilted her head and looked at me for a moment, smiling benignly, as if I had just said to her that I wanted to adopt the ugliest puppy in the shelter.
Money and success my ass. Lot of good it did me. As I slid into the car, baked in the California sun to a toasty 103°, I looked down at the green tie I had worn. I rolled my eyes at my own ridiculousness, took off the tie, and as I rolled down the window, I dropped the tie out onto the sizzling parking lot.
I sat there for a minute before I started the car. I sat there, sweating in the 103° heat, thinking about the past few hours, reliving it all in my mind as if I were trying to detox in a sauna.
Well, that certainly didn’t go like I had planned, I thought. In my imagination, I would be at a supper club in L.A. right now, being toasted with Dom Perignon and fêted by Alex’s minions and a host of Jeopardy groupies. I would be making excuses for an early night as I must retire and prepare to defend my championship tomorrow. I would be planning how to spend the record-breaking amount of money I had just won in front of a spellbound audience. Somehow my vision did not include sitting in a hideous Korean car, sweating like a whore in church, Mexican music blasting from the radio, and wondering what the hell I should do now.
What indeed? I just sort of let my body go slack for a moment. My shoulders slumped, my head bowed, tried to make my body as small and humble as I felt. I wallowed, just for a minute. Then, I sat up straight, slapped my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, and said out loud to myself, “Well. First things first. Back to the hotel.”
I programmed the GPS for the slightly shabby Super 8 where I was staying in Burbank. I rolled up the window, cranked up the air conditioning, and rolled out of there, leaving Jeopardy behind forever. A dream I had had for 27 years turned out to be just that: a dream. Instead of finally proving to the world that I was smart and funny and that the camera loved me, I only proved that I was short and could be outplayed by a 26 year-old manicurist from Ann Arbor and the guy who dresses like Thor the Thunder God every single goddam Halloween.
Goodbye, Jeopardy.
So, I was not in a particularly good place, so to speak, as I allowed the slightly British voice on the GPS to guide me through the endless maze of off-ramps, cloverleaves and Mercedes convertibles that is Greater Los Angeles. “In one quarter mile,” she says impassively, “take the motorway.” Who the fuck says “motorway”?
Before long, the lady on the GPS, whom I had named Mrs. Peale, managed to get me back to my opulent Super 8 Motel in Burbank. I carefully removed the repulsive floral polyester bedspread from the bed and stuffed it into a corner. I then flopped down face-up on the bed and just lay there for a while, closing my eyes and just letting the whole day sort of wash over me.
I allowed myself to remember bits and pieces of my disgrace. Of how my heart sank as Alex revealed the categories for each round: US Presidents, Rivers, Sports, Sports Terms, Sports Teams, 16th Century French Literature- all topics I know almost nothing about. Of how I had risked everything on a Daily Double and then answered that the fifth President of the United States was George Jefferson.
I remembered the interview portion of the program. They had asked us to write down five things about ourselves that we might like to talk about or that people might find interesting. One of the things I had written down was that I had been a bartender for a number of years.
“Says here that you were a “mixologist” at one time,” said Alex, looking down at his index card.
“That’s right, Alex,” I answered. “I worked for a few years as a bartender in a wonderful little restaurant called “Mrs. Simpson’s”.”
“And what, would you say, is your favorite drink?” he asked me.
“I wouldn’t know, Alex. I actually don’t drink alcohol.”
Alex just sort of looked at me for an instant. The expression in his eyes told me that he did not like the way this was going. “Oh, I see,” he said. In an attempt to salvage the interview, he said, “I have always loved a good Harvey Wallbanger. Can you tell me your recipe for a good Harvey Wallbanger?”
“No, Alex. I don’t know how to make a Harvey Wallbanger.”
Alex didn’t even respond. He just moved on to the manicurist.
And all the while, while I was lying there, reliving the whole wretched day in my mind, I just kept thinking that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. One doesn’t harbor a dream for 27 years just to have it turn out to be one of the most horrible experiences of one’s life. It was supposed to be wonderful and transformative, like a bride’s long-awaited fairytale wedding. Instead it was just painful and embarrassing and I felt like cannon fodder for the bloodthirsty game show audience.
I tried to remember when I first wanted to be a contestant on Jeopardy. It was 1987. I was 25 years old, and I had just graduated from the Police Academy back in Delaware. The problem was, I had graduated second-to-last in my class, which sort of limited my opportunities, career-wise. I managed to get a job, though, as a summer hire for the police department in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Talk about dreams that don’t go as planned. When someone enters the Police Academy, they are envisioning what might lie ahead: taking down crackheads in a blaze of bullets, admiring looks from women when they see you in your sharp uniform, being treated with respect as a person of authority. Well, when I hit the streets of Provincetown, I weighed in at about 125 pounds, partly due to my limited stature but also due to the fact that I’ve always been kind of a bean pole. Well, the only uniform the Provincetown Police Department had for me that summer was a 38-Long, and when I put it on I looked like Barney Fife’s younger and scrawnier brother from Mayberry. They didn’t even allow me to have a gun, and when I walked the street or stood directing traffic, instead of the girls giving me the eye and flirting, they were giggling and calling me “Goober” behind my back.
At least it was an easy job and I was never in any real danger. The main crimes we dealt with were bicycle theft and drunk-and-disorderly. Provincetown is kind of a quirky town and the people who go there tend to be a little offbeat. You tend to see a lot of guys wearing women’s clothing and carrying on in the streets, and stuff like that, which I don’t really get, myself, but whatever. Anyway, I got into the habit that summer, of turning on Jeopardy when I got home to my crappy little apartment at the end of my watch. I surprised myself as time went on, because I knew a lot of the answers. It felt good, after a day standing in the hot sun, being called Goober and having drag queens ask me where my nightstick was, to feel like there was something I was pretty good at. I began to fantasize about going on that program, and showing everyone how wrong they were about me. That I could be clever and well-read and that I knew who invented the cotton gin. Believe me, though, it’s a lot easier to play Jeopardy in your own living room, with a nice cold Sprite and a Hot Pockets than it is in front of an audience of strangers, especially when Alex Trebek seems to think you’re the Antichrist.
Anyway, after lying there for a while, I decided to snap myself out of it. I went over to my laptop and decided to see if there were any messages for me. My email only had two messages: one from my friends at Citibank to remind me that a payment is due soon, and another one promising ink and toner at 85% off retail. I deleted them both.
I wasn’t really surprised about that. I’m not the most social person, which is why I made the trip out here to California all alone in the first place. It’s not that I don’t like people or anything, it’s just that I don’t seem able to keep anyone’s interest long enough to get a friendship going. I hadn’t really told a lot of people that I was going to be on Jeopardy to begin with, so I shouldn’t have been expecting a bunch of emails or messages. I had told the girl who works at the CVS, whose name is Margaret, about it. She sent me an e-card from JibJab that she had made, showing her and her girlfriend’s cutout faces dancing to “We are the Champions” with the words “congrads and good luck!!!!” followed by like fifteen exclamation points. But that was like six weeks ago, anyway.
So, I figured I’d log on to Facebook. I have like fifteen Facebook friends. I figured that was pretty good for someone who would have trouble putting together a dinner party for four. Then I met this girl named Jessica and she told me that she had like fifteen hundred friends on Facebook.
“Really?” I asked her. “How do you get 1,500 friends?”
She looked at me incredulously. “Duh,” she said. “I went to college!”
Anyway, I had left a status update last night that said, “Looking forward to winning big tomorrow on Jeopardy!” In response, I got an “lol” from a guy I went to junior high with, and a “you are beautiful” and six little hearts from this flaky woman I met in Provincetown. Oh well, I figured, at least nobody cares that I bombed.
I looked up and noticed the little red number on my Facebook page that tells you that somebody posted something to your wall. This girl Kelly had posted a link to some viral video entitled “Porcupine Thinks It’s a Puppy (cute!!)” I don’t really know Kelly but she sent me a friend request once, and she used to date a guy I went to school with, so I accepted it.
Anyway, I clicked on the link and watched the video. It was like two and a half minutes of two girls cooing over a porcupine they had named “Mr. Stinkers” while it squirmed around and they petted the damned thing wearing heavy-duty gardening gloves.
After the video was over, I thought to myself that that video had done absolutely nothing to make me feel better about my present circumstance. I also wondered why Kelly would have ever thought that this would be something I would be even remotely interested in. I un-friended her on the spot.
And that little move felt kind of good, kind of, well, liberating. I mean, did I really have to care about what these people thought of me? I looked down the list of my fourteen remaining Facebook friends. I deleted them all, except for Margaret from the CVS because I like the funny stuff she posts.
And then I began to think a little differently about my debacle of a day. Suddenly it seemed like for all those years that I had been wanting to be on Jeopardy, maybe it had been for the wrong reasons. I had been wanting to do it to impress other people, people who, in the end, did not require impressing. I was trying to prove something to everyone else, instead of proving something to myself.
But I had, indeed, proven something to myself that day. I had proved that I could set a goal for myself and achieve it. I could leave my comfort zone and earn my place on a stage shared by no more than twelve people in the world in any given week. I could do something that other people only fantasize about doing. I could be proud to claim my fifteen minutes of cannon fodder fame.
So, I decided to break out of my funk, to stop feeling sorry for myself and start feeling proud and happy about the things I’ve done. I checked out of the Super 8 Motel and climbed into the front seat of my stylin’ green Kia Spumanté. I switched on the GPS.
“Mrs. Peale,” I said. “I have a thousand dollars to spend, and the rest of the week off. What do you suggest?”
Turns out there’s a Legoland about a hundred miles away from here in Carlsbad. I’m heading there now. And I’m feeling pretty good.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Sunday, May 11, 2014
MOTHERS' DAY 2014
I have reached an interesting time in my life: the time when you begin to realize that you are watching the halfway mile-marker of your lifetime, but it’s retreating in the rear view mirror, and it’s quite likely that it has been for quite some time. I mean, think about it like this: I am about 51½ years old today. If this very day were to be the halfway point of my life, that means I would be about 103 years old when I die. Now, I’m not about to speculate on how old I should be when I finally cross the Rainbow Bridge, as it were, but I somehow don’t think that 103 is a very likely number, nor am I sure that I would want it to be. Frankly, I don’t see much to look forward to at 103, except maybe being wished “Happy 102nd birthday, Mr. Paul Hadley, of Providencetown, Massachusetts!” by the weatherman on Good Morning America; or a color piece on the local news where they say things like, “Even at 103, Mr. Halley still brushes his own tooth every day, and he’s a regular feature at Senior’s Night at the local Applebee’s.”
I suppose what I’m getting at is that it has been dawning on me lately that the number of days I have in front of me are probably a lot fewer than the days behind me, and that realization seems to be changing the way I think in many ways. Today, it seems to have affected the way I think about Mothers’ Day.
For the first half of my life, my thought process about Mothers’ Day was usually something along the lines of, “What? Mothers’ Day was when? Shit.” And for the past 23 years, I am reluctant to admit, my first thought at the annual onslaught of Hallmark commercials and “He went to Jared!”, has been, “Mothers Day? Ha! I’m off the hook for that one.”
But then this morning, as I scrolled through Facebook and the inevitable Olan Mills portraits and clichéd poems about twinkling stars and roses, I began to think differently. I began to think about Mom.
What can I possibly say about Mom? How does one begin? I had just turned 28 when she died, old enough to be a grown man, but too young to be a wise one. I think about her every day. My regrets, such as they are, are usually about things like unresolved issues and not having enough time to allow life to play out. For instance, I don’t think my mother ever really came to terms with my being gay. I mean, she had accepted it, but more the way somebody accepts the price of milk or being treated like a criminal at the airport: like it’s a fact of life, something you can’t really change, although you’re not necessarily happy about it. Over the years, I’ve wondered whether she ever would have been able to embrace me as a whole person, whether the person I grew into and the changes in the world around us would have been able to convince her to finally make that leap. Would she have loved Mark, or would she smile feebly and refer to him as “that Mark person” when we talked? One can never know, one can only hope.
It’s hard to pin down something like memories of your mom. There are so many, and they are all so different. There are those early memories, when Mom was a warm hand to hold at the shopping plaza. There’s Angry Mom; yeah lots of Angry Mom. There’s the Mom who used to ride her bike to the pool club every day in the summer, and the Mom who was so frustrated a few years later because some unnamed disease had made that impossible. There’s the Mom who once in a while would spend the afternoons having one too many glasses of sherry with her girlfriends from the neighborhood; and the Mom who knew exactly which buttons to push, ‘nuff said.
There can be no doubt that I am my mother’s son. From her I have inherited my wicked sense of humor, the slightly off-center way I have of looking at the world. She taught me not to fear or disregard people because they look different than I do, or believe in a different God or speak a different language. She taught me that blind people see with their hands.
She smoked Chesterfield Kings, with no filter, right up until the day she died. Do they even make Chesterfields any more? She may have been the last person alive who smoked them. For a while, they came with coupons attached to the cigarette packs, which you could save up and redeem for things like lamps or dart boards, or, presumably with enough points, an iron lung. We had a drawer in the kitchen which was stuffed so full of these coupons that it could barely be opened. I don’t think we ever got the dart board.
One day, I was up in my bedroom and I heard what I thought was popcorn, somehow being furiously popped downstairs. When I went down to investigate, I saw that it was actually my mom, pounding away manically on the old manual Underwood typewriter we kept in the basement. Some muse or other had struck, and she was writing away, probably one of her Erma Bombeck-style commentaries about life, or a funny poem about Little League, or something like that. This is definitely a behavior I have inherited from my mother, except now I am pounding away furiously on the keys of a laptop and my husband is eyeing me dubiously, always suspicious that I’m actually conducting some kind of online affair.
My mother was always what I would call a staunch Kennedy Democrat. As a matter of fact, in our generation of Irish-Americans, Jack Kennedy was a de facto saint; every good Irish Catholic household had at least one crucifix, one plaque declaring “Erin Go Bragh” and one portrait of JFK somewhere in the house. She would have looked at the current, rather unfiltered view of Kennedy as a kind of philandering bon-vivant, as blasphemy. What all this means, though, is that she instilled in me that sort of early-1960s view of America as being full of promise, a country which at heart knows what is right and where it must head. The old “I see things that never were, and ask ‘Why not?’” mindset. What would she think of America today? Well, if she could have survived the George W. Bush presidency without committing outright rebellion, I think she would be hopeful, if not pleased.
My dad went to my wedding. I wish my Mom could have.
So, today, I will remember my mom. I will remember her at her best and at her worst all in the same moment. I will remember the things she said, which I still say; and the thousands of ways which she made me the man I am today. And I will try to remember the person she wanted me to be, and the mom who, when it was all said and done, just wanted me to be happy. And possibly give her grandchildren.
Happy Mothers’ day, Mom.
I suppose what I’m getting at is that it has been dawning on me lately that the number of days I have in front of me are probably a lot fewer than the days behind me, and that realization seems to be changing the way I think in many ways. Today, it seems to have affected the way I think about Mothers’ Day.
For the first half of my life, my thought process about Mothers’ Day was usually something along the lines of, “What? Mothers’ Day was when? Shit.” And for the past 23 years, I am reluctant to admit, my first thought at the annual onslaught of Hallmark commercials and “He went to Jared!”, has been, “Mothers Day? Ha! I’m off the hook for that one.”
But then this morning, as I scrolled through Facebook and the inevitable Olan Mills portraits and clichéd poems about twinkling stars and roses, I began to think differently. I began to think about Mom.
What can I possibly say about Mom? How does one begin? I had just turned 28 when she died, old enough to be a grown man, but too young to be a wise one. I think about her every day. My regrets, such as they are, are usually about things like unresolved issues and not having enough time to allow life to play out. For instance, I don’t think my mother ever really came to terms with my being gay. I mean, she had accepted it, but more the way somebody accepts the price of milk or being treated like a criminal at the airport: like it’s a fact of life, something you can’t really change, although you’re not necessarily happy about it. Over the years, I’ve wondered whether she ever would have been able to embrace me as a whole person, whether the person I grew into and the changes in the world around us would have been able to convince her to finally make that leap. Would she have loved Mark, or would she smile feebly and refer to him as “that Mark person” when we talked? One can never know, one can only hope.
It’s hard to pin down something like memories of your mom. There are so many, and they are all so different. There are those early memories, when Mom was a warm hand to hold at the shopping plaza. There’s Angry Mom; yeah lots of Angry Mom. There’s the Mom who used to ride her bike to the pool club every day in the summer, and the Mom who was so frustrated a few years later because some unnamed disease had made that impossible. There’s the Mom who once in a while would spend the afternoons having one too many glasses of sherry with her girlfriends from the neighborhood; and the Mom who knew exactly which buttons to push, ‘nuff said.
There can be no doubt that I am my mother’s son. From her I have inherited my wicked sense of humor, the slightly off-center way I have of looking at the world. She taught me not to fear or disregard people because they look different than I do, or believe in a different God or speak a different language. She taught me that blind people see with their hands.
She smoked Chesterfield Kings, with no filter, right up until the day she died. Do they even make Chesterfields any more? She may have been the last person alive who smoked them. For a while, they came with coupons attached to the cigarette packs, which you could save up and redeem for things like lamps or dart boards, or, presumably with enough points, an iron lung. We had a drawer in the kitchen which was stuffed so full of these coupons that it could barely be opened. I don’t think we ever got the dart board.
One day, I was up in my bedroom and I heard what I thought was popcorn, somehow being furiously popped downstairs. When I went down to investigate, I saw that it was actually my mom, pounding away manically on the old manual Underwood typewriter we kept in the basement. Some muse or other had struck, and she was writing away, probably one of her Erma Bombeck-style commentaries about life, or a funny poem about Little League, or something like that. This is definitely a behavior I have inherited from my mother, except now I am pounding away furiously on the keys of a laptop and my husband is eyeing me dubiously, always suspicious that I’m actually conducting some kind of online affair.
My mother was always what I would call a staunch Kennedy Democrat. As a matter of fact, in our generation of Irish-Americans, Jack Kennedy was a de facto saint; every good Irish Catholic household had at least one crucifix, one plaque declaring “Erin Go Bragh” and one portrait of JFK somewhere in the house. She would have looked at the current, rather unfiltered view of Kennedy as a kind of philandering bon-vivant, as blasphemy. What all this means, though, is that she instilled in me that sort of early-1960s view of America as being full of promise, a country which at heart knows what is right and where it must head. The old “I see things that never were, and ask ‘Why not?’” mindset. What would she think of America today? Well, if she could have survived the George W. Bush presidency without committing outright rebellion, I think she would be hopeful, if not pleased.
My dad went to my wedding. I wish my Mom could have.
So, today, I will remember my mom. I will remember her at her best and at her worst all in the same moment. I will remember the things she said, which I still say; and the thousands of ways which she made me the man I am today. And I will try to remember the person she wanted me to be, and the mom who, when it was all said and done, just wanted me to be happy. And possibly give her grandchildren.
Happy Mothers’ day, Mom.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Look Up
So, look up from your phone
shut down those displays
we have a finite existence, a set number of days
Don't waste your life getting caught in the 'Net, as when the end comes, nothing's worse than regret.
So, when you're in public,and you start to feel alone
Put your hand behind your head! Step away from the phone!
You don't need to stare at your menu, or at your contact list
Just talk to one another - learn to coexist.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
THOSE WHO WAIT - a ten-minute play
OK, so last night's 24-Hour Theater experience got me wondering if I could meet the challenge faced by the playwrights. Mind you, I have never written a play before. That being said, I may have to allow myself more than 12 hours to produce a finished product. (plus, I do have to work the next four days...)
Here's what I need:
3 mystery props, which must appear in the play at some point. They should be fairly commonplace objects, small enough to be carried or moved by a single actor on stage.
3-4 "actors": their gender, approximate age, and one special talent or performance ability (e.g.: "can juggle" or "good at accents" or "blindingly handsome") The "special talent" may or may not appear in the script.
My challenge is to write a 10-15 minute play (about 10 pages in 12-point, so I'm told) encompassing all of those elements. Let's see if I can do this.
Here's what I need:
3 mystery props, which must appear in the play at some point. They should be fairly commonplace objects, small enough to be carried or moved by a single actor on stage.
3-4 "actors": their gender, approximate age, and one special talent or performance ability (e.g.: "can juggle" or "good at accents" or "blindingly handsome") The "special talent" may or may not appear in the script.
My challenge is to write a 10-15 minute play (about 10 pages in 12-point, so I'm told) encompassing all of those elements. Let's see if I can do this.
OK here's what we're going with: a whisk, a toothbrush, and a timer.
Male, 30-40, female, 20-30, and male 55-65.
Male, 30-40, female, 20-30, and male 55-65.
THOSE WHO WAIT
a 10-minute play
by Paul E. Halley
CAST
GEORGE - 60, café owner
PENELOPE - 25, his employee
JASON - 30, a soldier
a note about the TIMER, a critical prop: should be the type of timer which makes one single "ding!" chime, like the ringing of a tiny bell, not an electronic beeping, not a ringing like a classroom or firehouse bell.
LIGHTS UP on a typical diner. A counter with stools, some tables or booths. Could be a roadside café almost anywhere, and almost any time. A flat-screen TV, which plays silently at one end of the counter, could be the only reminder that it is the PRESENT DAY. Perhaps a ceiling fan might be turning slowly, the only movement in an otherwise still tableau. We get the sense that not much has happened here in quite a while. We see GEORGE seated near the cash register, reading the newspaper. He turns the page.
GEORGE
Sons of bitches!
PENNY enters, bustling through the kitchen door, a huge mixing bowl in one arm and a WHISK in the other.
PENNY
What? Someone here, George?
GEORGE
No, Penny, I was just talking to myself, reading the newspaper. Those idiots down in Washington… Just make me so goddam mad! We’re paying the sons of bitches to go in there and behave like a bunch of ten year-olds.
PENNY
George…
GEORGE
Yeah?
PENNY
Are you sure you want me to keep on making these pies? I mean-
GEORGE
Of course I want you to keep making pies! What kind of question is that?
PENNY
It’s just that- Well, business has been, well…
GEORGE
A little slow.
PENNY
A little slow? George! The last customers we had in here was two days ago! And that was your niece Brünhilda and those awful kids…
GEORGE
Her name is Rebecca. Becky.
PENNY
Whatever- the point is, they didn’t even pay! Why should I keep on making these pies if no one’s going to buy them?
GEORGE
Because, somebody might buy them! What’s the point of being open at all if you have nothing to provide the customers?
PENNY
It’s just that-
GEORGE
It’s the same reason I keep buying lettuce and tomatoes, the same reason I pay the goddam electric bill. Look, Penelope, I know times are bad. Believe me. But we’ve been through worse - things will get better. You just keep on making those pies and leave the worrying to me, OK?
PENNY
OK, George, if you say so, but-
GEORGE
I do say so. And besides, those pies must be made, Penny! How long has it been since you tasted one of your own pies, huh? They are like music, like art! For me to deny the world one of your White Chocolate-Banana Cream Pies because business has been a little slow, would be like denying the world a Beethoven symphony, or a Renoir masterpiece!
PENNY
Oh, George…
GEORGE
And if I’m going to lose it all and end up in the poorhouse anyway, I might as well go out fat and happy and eating your pies.
PENNY
(smiling) Alright George, if you say so. I’m doing blueberry today. (She looks up at the clock)
GEORGE
Are you expecting someone?
PENNY
God, no, who would I be expecting?
GEORGE
Beats me, but you’ve been looking at that clock all morning.
PENNY
No, not expecting anyone. It’s just… one of those days when I sort of woke up with a feeling… probably nothing.
GEORGE
What kind of feeling?
PENNY
Like maybe something was gonna happen today. I don’t know. I’m sure not expecting anyone.
GEORGE
Your dad?
PENNY
My dad? God no. I haven’t even spoken to him in, I dunno- six, seven months.
GEORGE
I thought the two of you got along OK.
PENNY
We do. I mean, it’s not that we don’t get along. It’s just that, I dunno, we don’t really have anything to talk about, really. I mean, ever since he moved out to Arizona, you know, I’ll call him and after a while we’re just sitting there, listening to each other breathe. You can practically hear us both trying to think of something to say. Until eventually one of us says something like, “Well, I gotta run…” and that will be that. So after a while, it was like, why even bother?
GEORGE
Don’t you have a brother, too?
PENNY
Yeah.
GEORGE
What about him?
PENNY
What about him? Nothing, really. He lives in Virginia, he’s got a wife and three kids, a life… I just don’t think he has the time to worry about mine.
GEORGE
That’s too bad.
PENNY
No, it’s alright. I’m sure that if the chips were down and I really needed it, I could count on my brother… (again, she glances up at the clock)
GEORGE
Are you sure you’re not expecting someone?
PENNY
No, George… But I’ll tell you-
GEORGE
What?
PENNY
There is one person…
GEORGE
Yeah?
PENNY
One person who I sure wouldn’t mind seeing walkin’ through that door…
GEORGE
Yeah? Who’s that?
PENNY
Did I ever tell you about Jason?
GEORGE
Jason? No, I don’t think so.
PENNY
This was like, three years ago or so, so I guess it was a while before I got the job here. I had just graduated from community college and I actually thought I was going to take the world by storm with an Associate’s Degree in Managerial Accounting. Yeah, well, look how far that got me…
GEORGE
Hey, watch it!
PENNY
You know what I mean, George. Anyway, one night I was just sitting at Starbuck’s, having a coffee, and I met him. He actually just sort of bumped into me and when I looked up, my first thought was that he was someone I already knew, and before I could think about it I had flashed him this big smile and this big ol’ “Hi! How are you?” like he was my long-lost best buddy from band camp or something.
GEORGE
And…?
PENNY
Well, as soon as the words left my mouth, I realized that I was actually talking to a complete stranger, but by then it was too late. He was already sitting down next to me. The two of us just started talking.
GEORGE
Yeah? About what?
PENNY
I dunno, everything, I guess. You know, small talk at first, and then just, whatever. Big stuff, little stuff, just life, I guess.
GEORGE
Sometimes, I think it’s actually easier to spill your guts to a stranger than to somebody you know really well.
PENNY
Yeah, you’re right. I think that’s true. Anyway, we just kept on talking, it was like time just stopped for a few hours. We ended up sitting on that big hill in the middle of the park and just watching the sun come up. By then I think we had talked ourselves out and it was just quiet.
I remember just sort of looking over at him, and seeing that face, and those eyes, and the morning sun made everything look so beautiful… And I remember I just wanted him to kiss me.
GEORGE
And did he?
PENNY
(smiling demurely) Yes. Yes he did. And then, then he sort of pulled away, and he looked at me. He didn’t look happy, he looked kind of sad. And then he said, “Goodbye, Penny.”
GEORGE
Goodbye? Really? Why? What was that all about?
PENNY
He was a soldier, George. He was shipping out to Afghanistan that morning.
GEORGE
Oh, my god.
PENNY
Yeah. So, we sort of made our farewells. He walked me home and we kissed one more time before I went in… But that was the last I ever heard from him. At this point, I don’t really hold out much hope that he’ll ever be back. I mean, I never even told him my last name or anything.
GEORGE
I can’t believe you’ve never told me that story before.
PENNY
I am still a woman of mystery, George!
Anyway, I still think about him from time to time. At first, it was like, all the time, and it made me ache a little bit, like I had somehow let something precious just slip through my fingers. And then, you think about it a little less and a little less, and then one day you realize you’re having a hard time just remembering his face…
You know what I remember best about him at this point, George?
GEORGE
What?
PENNY
His hair. He had this one lock of hair that kept falling into his eyes… I suppose they cut all that off in the Army. And his breath.
GEORGE
His breath?
PENNY
Yeah, it always smelled minty, nice - like he brushed his teeth fifteen times a day or something.
SFX - we hear the single “ding” of a TIMER going off in the kitchen
Oh! My crusts! (she exits into the kitchen)
GEORGE goes back to reading his newspaper. The ceiling fan turns. After a few moments, JASON enters. He is in military uniform and carries a large duffel bag.
GEORGE
Hello, young man.
JASON
Hello, sir. Are you open?
GEORGE
Absolutely! Absolutely, young man. Here, have a seat. Coffee? Coke?
JASON
Coffee sounds really nice.
GEORGE
Just made a fresh pot a few minutes ago. Are you hungry?
JASON
(looks at his watch) Not really. Little late for lunch. But you know what? Those pies sure look good.
GEORGE
They are good, son. Here, try a piece of this one. Strawberry-Rhubarb.
JASON
Well, alright…
GEORGE
On the house, young man. Least we can do for a military man. Are you heading home?
JASON
I am home, sir. Landed last night in Chicago. Been in Afghanistan.
GEORGE
(takes Jason’s hand and shakes it ernestly)
Thank you, young man. Thank you for your service.
JASON
Oh my god, this pie is amazing.
GEORGE
I told you they were good! Homemade, son.
JASON
Nothing like it.
GEORGE
From the hands of our very own Penelope.
JASON
( finishing the last of his pie, hungrily)
Penelope? I knew a girl once…
(He rises and takes a TOOTHBRUSH, perhaps in a travel case, out of his jacket pocket, along with a tube of toothpaste.)
Would you excuse me a moment, sir? I’m a little fanatical… My dad was a dentist.
GEORGE
No problem, son, I understand completely. The restroom is straight back that way.
JASON
Sometimes it feels like I brush my teeth fifteen times a day… (exits)
(PENNY enters from kitchen, carrying the TIMER. She sets it on the counter.)
PENNY
Just a couple more minutes and they should be all done. (she notices the dirty plate on the table) Did somebody come in?
GEORGE
Yes.
PENNY
Well, did they order something?
GEORGE
He had some pie.
PENNY
That’s it?
GEORGE
That’s it.
PENNY
Well, I suppose it’s better than nothing. (beat) Did he like it?
GEORGE
He loved it, Penny.
PENNY
Good. (beat) Well, George, if there’s nothing else… What are you smiling about?
GEORGE
Me? Nothing?
PENNY
Well, you look like the cat that ate the canary.
Anyway, if there’s nothing else, George, I figured I’d just head on home after those pies come out of the oven. That timer should be going off any second now.
GEORGE
Sure, sure Penny. Take the rest of the day off, darlin’. And the night, too.
PENNY
The night, too? What the heck are you talking about, George?
GEORGE
Nothing, Penny. Don’t mind me.
PENNY
Well, Ok then. I’m just going to grab my purse and I’ll go out the back way. (She bends down to retrieve her purse from under the counter)
JASON enters
JASON
Well, thank you, sir. Thank you for that fantastic piece of pie.
PENNY stands, and turns to face JASON.
A moment. We see PENNY and JASON as they realize that they recognize one another. At the very moment of recognition, as the merest hint of a smile begins to creep across their faces, we hear SFX - the single “ding!” of the timer rings out.
BLACKOUT
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