DANIEL ZIMMERMAN

from I WANT, THEREFORE: a series of voices for stage and page

DANIEL ZIMMERMAN.

i overcame my fear of elevators because i had to.
you couldn't walk 90 stories.
you couldn't even live 90 stories.
but you could get in the elevator and after only a few minutes
a few stops
a few people do the on and off dance
but eventually
eventually you could step out and be half way to the sky.

i don’t know what i expected.
probably that i’d just go to sleep.
or maybe everything would just get real quiet
silent like
because they don’t teach you or
prepare
you for this sort of a thing.
my parents were always more
much more religious than i was
and of course i went to hebrew school when i was what twelve or thirteen sitting in shul trying to ignore the fact that Rebecca Stein’s tits are starting to come in
trying to focus on rabbi gelman because pretty soon i’m going to be up there reading from the Big Book of Judaism and
if i’m being completely honest
i couldn’t remember a thing
years later
i can’t remember a thing
not one word besides “shalom” and when my mother died a few years ago
cancer
i wanted to say something in hebrew at the funeral
something quiet
maybe a prayer
but i couldn’t remember much and i sat on the plane trying to recite it over and over again trying so hard but when i got there
when i got to the cemetery
i just got quiet
silent like
everybody was because these people
My People
they cry but only in solitary and they yell but only in private and when the rabbi didn’t say anything about
when rabbi gelman didn’t say “here lies Irene Zimmeran may she find peace in heaven” i was furious and i had to remind myself that my mother wouldn’t have wanted any sentimentalities like that
that she would’ve preferred to just sleep.

so when i got here
when the doors opened
the sunlight was so bright and everything had been grey and i had to shield my eyes so i could look for her so i could look for my mother.

is she here?
i shouldn’t have come so soon.
but this.
it isn’t so bad.
it’s almost familiar.

because when the elevators door open you can see straight
straight to the windows and out
and Mitch
The Big Man On Campus
Mitch loved being able to see the city
so we never closed the blinds
always left them open
Mitch called it "letting the sky in"
and this morning
oh this morning the sky was blue.

up here the clouds are big
they hug the building sometimes
but this morning
no
not one
not one hug
but no one complained
because you could see the bronx
you could probably see china from up there if you squinted hard enough

and you know when
when the first plane hit
the sky
the sky went from blue to grey in seconds
and you could feel it
you could feel the force of it
the building buckling
and all that grey sky hugging you
all that ash and power and fire just hugged you right there whether you wanted it to or not
and mitch
Mitch tried so hard to stay calm
he said
you know
the standard
"it's okay
remain calm
everyone
everyone to the stairs
and we were okay for a while
we were counting the stories
mine and hundreds others
and someone told a joke
and we were remaining calm
but at a certain point
at this point
the staircase
it
stopped
the stairs the steps below this point were all on fire or already ash and mitch
he started to cry right there
he was crying and i remember
or what you Up Here call remembering
i remember thinking i should hold him or give him my handkerchief but i was too frozen
or
maybe i don't remember this and it's all just hindsight
but Mitch he cried and cried and he said
"does someone have a phone
i need a phone to call my daughters
a phone
a phone"
and someone gave it to him and it was messy and ugly
but only for a moment
because pretty soon everyone decided to move
that we'd try another staircase
go up one floor and back across
and Mitch kept screaming and crying and i don't know if he moved because i lost him in the crowd i don't know if he ever got up and tried and that
not knowing
that'll kill me.
but when we got upstairs you could see
you could see the other building
the other plane
if you somehow kept your eyes open through all the smoke you could see it was all pretty hopeless
and the guy
the guy who worked in the cubicle next to mine
i never learned his name
i never bothered
that guy was standing at a window
it must've blown completely open
shattered
and there he was just looking out
not down but out
straight out
and
then
just
j
u
m
p
e
d
right there and maybe people screamed they probably screamed but I don't remember this part too well because that's when the floor got tired and the smoke and the ash just reached up and hugged us all caught us in its net.

and then
as fast as the smoke was there
it left and we were here.
the only calamity there was happened before.
everything after was fine.
almost easy.

is my mother here?
i don’t want her to know i’ve come so soon.

neat & tidy

from neat & tidy, a play currently in development

TRACY
my mother was not a nice person. she was often cruel and rarely loving. and at some point i had promised myself i wouldn’t be like her. no, i couldn’t be. but sometimes that
that
sickness
that sickness can live inside you and it gets very hard to lift your head up in the morning and you spend 9 months with them inside of you growing, breathing your air, eating your food, co-existing, but suddenly they’re out. they’re real and the only thing left inside is a ghost and the
the kid
it’s not what you expected because it cries and it shits and it smells and it burps and it screams and yes, you know, yes. you expected this sort of a thing. but somewhere, deep down, when it is was inside you, existing with you in perfect harmony, somewhere the expectation fades. and your husband loves her more than he loves you and again
again
i’m forgotten alone an after-thought waiting for
waiting for tom or my mother to notice me
waiting with a wine-glass full of skim milk
because there was a ghost between he and i
there was a distance that was cold and tangible and my teeth would chatter whenever i touched it.

i buckled myself in even though i’d already decided even though i already knew i put on the seat belt and made sure he did too
saftety first i told him and
if i was alone
if i was alone i would have left the car in the garage and i would have sat in it and turned the engine on and just let the fumes
do their
work
but when i heard him on the phone with
her
talking to
her
that he was going to meet
her
at the airport i rethought it
i reconceived the ending and
tom i said
tom
why don’t i drive you to the airport
why don’t you wear your seatbelt
safety first
tom
why don’t you put on the radio
tom we should get you gum for take-off so your ears don’t pop too much
tom
why don’t you close that window it’s a little chilly
and when he started to scream what are you doing what the fuck are you doing slow down stop the car slow down i just pressed a little harder on the gas straight to the floor pushed down and we drove right into it and fuck
fuck
it was cold
freezing
and tom
he kept trying to get the seatbelt off but that’s not easy when you’re freezing cold and running out of air and me
i relaxed
waited
like i always did.

life is 99% waiting and 1% having.

if i could have i would have bottled his blood and worn it around my neck.

before we went for the drive i napped and when i napped i dreamt i saw a fisherman on his boat in the water and i thought i wanted to marry him that i wanted to smell like him my fingertips would smell like him like fish like cold ocean water and fish and he i think he caught me looking at him across the space between us because our eyes locked for a moment and the sun it was right behind and right above him and i couldn’t see his face just a silhouette of something handsome something strong and i thought i could be that i could be that fisherman’s wife who could ride out on a boat on the ocean and i would rub his shoulders when he’s at the wheel and i would cook us the fluke and the flounder that he’d catch and maybe we’d ride the waves to hawaii because i said i’ve always wanted to try mahi mahi and he tells me if you want the mahi mahi i’ll catch you the mahi mahi even if i have to fish at dawn and at dawn we’d stand there in our robes and laughing, drinking coffee as the sun comes up all around us because it does that on the ocean and somewhere in the distance the white-shouldered mountains glisten and the lord whoever wherever whatever he is it’s like he just dropped me here right smack in the middle of the earth with my fisherman and his blood around my neck and everything is rich and the air the clouds they’re saying “please” and “thanks” they’re saying please and thanks and me i’m smiling because the cold feels wonderful on my toes and i’ve gotten used to this smell this beautiful smell ripe and alive and it is so strong it’s legs are so tall that it will never go anywhere it will stay it will linger it will wrap its arms around me and love me
love me
love me
love me
love
me.

and when we finally step off the boat with the sun in our eyes and the ground in our feet we walk to the car and we drive.