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.