Tuesday, February 14, 2012

life can chew you up.

from neat & tidy

JEANIE
sometimes
life can chew you up and spit you out and sometimes
you have mornings where you think
jesus h christ another morning
and i always said your eyes hurt when you first wake up
not because the sun is too bright
but because life is a scary thing to look at first thing in the mornings.
(she lights a cigarette.)
when walter jr was born i said to walt my husband i said

why would anyone want to bring a kid into this world?

and walt
walt was an optimist
and i suppose we complimented each other pretty well
walt said

jeanie
who wouldn’t want to come out of somewhere dark and scary
when there’s so much to see on this side?
we’ve got buildings and cars and aieplanes and
we’ve got sunlight and flowers and
there’s giant balls of yarn
remember that?
there’s so much to do and see and it isn’t rough for everyone

but we’d lost three babies before walter jr
joan and betty and peter
two stillborns
one
sids
sudden infant
death
syndrome
that was the hardest one
one minute there next minute gone and walter jr
walter jr should’ve been a miracle
but the hormones and the pain and the fucking overwhelming fear that something will happen to this one too?
i didn’t want to hold him
and walt
walt just
he looked at me and said
you can’t be afraid cause you’ll miss out
you can’t harp on the bad
you can’t cut the fat offa life.

he’d do that sometimes.
talk about meat like it was something more than that.
but he was right.
that’s something you can understand when you’re older.
and when the clock is ticking.

i haven’t told walter jr and
i don’t think i will because i don’t want a fuss
but i’ve got cancer.
lung.
the smokes.
but i’m not gonna cut the fat outta life and i like my marlboros and i enjoy being a woman of habit.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

TINK

From "The Adventures of Peter & Wendy"

TINK. I didn't understand most of it. The Pirates hated the Lost Babes and the Injuns, the Injuns hated the Pirates and tolerated the Lost Babes, and the Lost Babes were always changing their minds. Because to me a person was a person was a person and to me there wasn't any use complaining about differences.
And so I never thought, I never realized, I always forgot that I was small, that I was living life in miniature, that I was
me
and they were
they
and Peter was a real boy who could crush me with a kiss. And so I fell a thousand feet into the abyss, I fell and fell like Alice, I’d heard about her from a mouse who got caught in a rainstorm, and I fell and fell right into L into a word I didn’t understand and I pulled her hair because she got in the way
she got in our in between
Peter and mine’s
and so I pulled her hair and I pulled it hard.
You see
when I was wee
I was tinier than a speck and it isn’t easy to be tinier than a speck because if a speck could kill you life had to be pretty awfully sad and so here I am smaller than a speck and I had to learn to be
tough
and that’s why fairies
that’s why we’re known to be rascals because we had to learn how to be crafty and
tough
and when I was more than wee
bigger than little
but still tiny
I demanded to know the meaning of my name and I said
why
why am I a tinker?
And my sisters said because you’re a Fixer Upper
you’ll make things Better
and I said why
why am I a bell?
And my sisters said because you sing
when you fly your wings make songs
and Peter
when he crows it sounds like a flute
off in the forest
and it sounds like hundreds of fairies laughing
and it’s familiar and it’s warm and I want to wrap myself in the blanket of this Pan flute melody and so I pull her hair because I don’t know who she is or what she wants or why she’s asking for a
kiss
and Peter he’s mad
Peter he’s angry
because I’ve pulled her hair
and it’s Never The Same.

(a Pinter pause.)

I wasn’t ready for it.
For Peter to discover L
the word I still don’t understand.
And even though it’s Greek, I know this much:
it’s like July
it’s like summer
it’s addictive and your toes they’re out and they bask in the sun like pigs in blankets and your skin crinkles like French fried potatoes and the Sun seems to think it will never frown and the Sky is so Blue it looks like Peter colored it in with crayons.

I think that’s
L.
it’s the closest to Understanding I have come.

I don’t tell Peter this.
I can’t and I won’t.
But fairies only live for so long.
And so long isn’t as long as real boys.
And when Peter comes back from Away
from bring Wendy Home
I’ll be tired
and when you’re tired it’s time to go to Sleep
and so a little while after
maybe a week
but a week in Neverland
is never
so it’s very hard to tell
but maybe in a week I’ll be gone.
I'll be Dust.
Fairy dust.

I wish you wouldn't clap. Clapping makes it awfully hard to Sleep.

I don't want to tell him, but I do.
I open his ears and I say, Peter, listen. Wendy needs you. John and Michael and all your Lost Babes need you. And I say, Peter,
Peter, I say,
we need to fly.

We need to fly because I L.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

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.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

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.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Like a hug.

(from NIGHTINGALES)

MARGARET.

There was a point where I
um
where I thought that maybe it wasn’t worth it.
All this waiting for so little having.
And I had fashioned a noose.
Probably not a very good one but
um
I suppose
it would do the trick.
Get the job
done.
And I’d made plans because that is what you do with this sort of a thing
you plan
because you want to go in a way that’s fast
easy
or if not fast than just not painful
easy
like a hug.
And me
I’d made plans.
I’d waited until it was about 11:30 in the morning because no one’s out at 11:30 in the morning on a Tuesday and I walked out to the woods about a mile away from home
and
in my bag was the noose
and I suppose I looked like I was probably quite possibly up to no good with my bag walking into the woods on the middle of a week-day afternoon but if anyone was going to ask I’d had a plan to say
I’d planned to say that I was going to paint.
I was going to the woods so I could paint.
But
no one asked because
I suppose
no one noticed.
And I’d found a tree with a very sturdy looking branch
very sturdy that I knew it could hold my weight and I’d put the chair down and opened my bag that had the noose and my letter
which I placed under the leg of the chair so it wouldn’t blow away and I climbed onto it and I’d gotten the loose end of the rope up and over the branch and yanked a few times
to make sure it was
secure
and when I went to place the noose over my head that’s when I saw him
and Death
I don’t know if you know this
but Death is very, very tall.
It’s a little crazy to think but He is
SO
TALL.
Like some kind of giant.
And He
I don’t know how long He’d been there watching
but He looked me right in the eye and
He looked so apathetic
INDIFFERENT
and when He yawned before walking away because even Death was bored with me
when He yawned I crumpled up
right there
on a purple folding chair in the middle of the woods with a noose dangling above my fucking head
I crumpled up right there and cried for an hour
two
three.

It was dark when I went home.
And I’d thought
I’d
maybe
heard Someone sigh.
Not heavy. But light.
And it started to rain. Pour.
And I didn’t run
or take cover I just walked
and I took my time
and I eventually made my way home to my cozy armchair with my fat cat and I sat in the windowsill and I watched Someone cry for me right outside my windows and so I stayed
and I woke up the next morning
and the morning after that
and the month after that
and the year after that
and it
life
is a constant struggle a constant battle and I do go to the woods now sometimes often
because I paint
and
you know
sometimes?
He’s there
really tall
in the distance.
And once I think I saw Him wink
yeah
but mostly He just watches me paint.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Fan

for Brittany Velotta

NANCY CHAPIWIN. I like to keep the ticket stubs together. Some people hang them, others scrapbook 'em, some people don't even save them. But me? I like to keep them together in a pile. A nice big stack with a fat, red rubberband. It's easier to guess the number that way. And I find, that when I take them out at the stagedoor, the other fans -- well, they enjoy the guessing. But, since you don't exactly look like a guesser to me -- is that a fanny pack? Okay... Anyway, I'll spare you the details and just spit it out.

(She whispers this, as if it's size will shake the earth if she says it too loudly,)

Ninety-six. I've seen this show NINETY-SIX times. In fact, the star -- you may have heard of her -- Annie Ridley? She gave me her jacket a few weeks ago. Her assistant brought us backstage and Annie was SO excited to see me that she tossed it right at me! I've been wearing it ever since. Well -- except when I take a shower. Then I hang it on the bathroom door. (Models the jacket,) Do you like it? My mother thinks I look like a younger Annie, but I'm not sure. Either way, it's got some pretty great juju.

Y'know, the first time I met Annie, she stayed and talked to me for a while. She always signs my Playbill in block letters -- I think it's so she can spend more time talking to me and avoiding all of the crazy fans. (In a whisper,) There are some nuts out there. Let me tell you....

Anyway, Annie was writing in these big old block letters. A... N... N.... I... you know. And she looks at me and is all like, "Oh, honey, I LOVE your glasses. I have a pair just like these." And, you know, everybody else at the stage door just glares at me, the sharpie borrowers are all whathefuck? and I say, "Oh, yeah. You wore it in that Kiwi Shake video you did a couple weeks ago. I think I noticed that...." But I was totally full of shit, because I'd watched it fifty times. But shh. Don't tell Annie. I don't want to seem like one of those weirdos.

So, Annie asked me what my name was and I tell her, you know. Nancy Chap-i-win. Three syllables. Everyone always pronounces it wrong. Anyway, Annie keeps screwing it up, she can't pronounce it, and she's still block-lettering the 'd' in Ridley and laughing and goes, "You know what, Nancy Whatever? I'm just gonna call you Nancy Drew. 'cause I loved her when I was a kid and it'll just make it easier to remember." (beat.) I think I stopped breathing for a second. She loved Nancy Drew. She was going to call me that. Annie freaking Ridley LOVED
me AND my freaking glasses!! One time, I heard someone at the stage door - you know the type, they always want to borrow your sharpie - anyway, I heard her saying that Annie only calls me Nancy Drew cause I'm nosy. Whatever. She's just jealous. And besides, I know that Annie calls me it deep down because she loves me just as much as she loved The Hardy Boys. Or whatever movie Nancy Drew is from. That's not the point. The point IS that Annie freaking LOVES me.

Anyway... Sorry. (She fixes her hair.) I get a little excited when I tell that story. It's all very... raw, you know? (Someone comes out the stage door.) Oh. That's the understudy. I've seen her once, but... I don't know. She's no Annie. (Beat. She whispers,) Too old. So. You two. You're from -- where? Minnesota? Yeah. Cool. I've never been there. I'm such a New Yorker. I mean -- I live in Hartford. Connecticut. But it's close enough. And I'm here ALL the time. I mean -- come on -- I've seen Next to Perfect 96 times. One time, I even saw two performances in one day. Yup. Matinee AND evening.

(The door opens.) Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. That's her. That's ANNIE! Don't freak out. She hates when people freak out. Hey-- is my mascara running? Ugh. I always cry when I see her up close. (Beat.) What? You don't have a sharpie? Oh, for God's sake, here.

(ANNIE steps up to her.)

Annie, hey! You were so fucking fierce tonight. I'm wearing the-- yeah. No. Nancy. (Beat. She's embarrassed. ANNIE is blanking on the Nancy's name.) Nancy Drew. (Beat.) No, it's not really Drew. You called me that last time I-- Chap-i-win. With the three syllables. (Beat.) No. Chap-i-win. Like "e". Chap-eh-win. eh, eh, eh-win. No... It's cool. Whatever. Everyone always pronounces it wrong, anyway.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Sense Memory

THE ARTIST (any gender).

There was a disconnect in the first grade. I'd gotten bored of the Legos all of the other kids loved so much. I was far more interested in Lewis Carroll than The Bernstein Bears. And somewhere along the way, an empty box on Saint Valentine's Day came to hurt deeper. When I'd discovered someone had torn a page of Charlotte's Web and put it back onto Mrs. Mullen's shelf, a piece of my heart broke and somewhere, a violin string burst.

You see, the artist feels things differently than most. (S)He is passionate and broken and ecstatic and expressive and sad and joyful and youthful and rosy-cheeked and his/her hair stands on the back of his/her neck when (s)he is anywhere near a stage, canvas, library, a piano, a guitar, a cello, a blank sheet of paper white as snow. (S)He is alive and dying at the very same time and when the door closes and someone leaves, that pain, it gets stored away, tucked in a pocket, a sleeve, a memory, a magic if. And somewhere the smell lingers forever and ever until (s)he uses it. If ever.

Some memories go unused. Like this one:

I was eleven years old when I was discovered eating my lunch in a second-floor janitor's closet. I'd been getting away with it for three whole weeks. And Mr. Brady told me I could stay while he rinsed the mop out. Someone had spilled paint in the art room and the water ran bright red for a while. Like blood. Mr. Brady told me I looked relieved when the water finally ran clear again. And it's true. I finally somehow eventually remembered to breathe because I'd been remembering this:

Memory. Eight years old. Pushed off my bike because I was tra-la-la-ing the Peer Gynt overture. I wasn't sure who had knocked me off as my glasses were shattered. My mother found me, after dusk, hiding in the Petersen's azalea bushes nursing a bloody knee. I'd thought it would taste like ketchup but instead it tasted like this:

Sucking on my mother's wedding ring when no one was looking. And coins. And my father's cufflinks. It was dull. Cold. Flavorless, but bitter. I wanted those germs. Desperately. They'd keep me home from school if I was lucky. Home, where I could watch my mother chain-smoke on the front stoop.

Memory: Six years old. The third time my mother had given up cigarettes. The smell had always been on our hands and on the walls and in the carpet and on our clothes, no matter how much detergent my father used. He hated the smell. Begged her to stop. Bought her the patch and the gum and it seemed to be working but sometimes, when she thought he wasn't looking or paying attention, she'd go outside. She'd hidden them in a hanging plant he never remembered to water. Her Marlboro Reds. I'd forgotten what it smelled like but when the nicotine came in through my open window like a ghost I knew exactly what it was.

Memory: I am young. 28 years old. When my mother dies of lung cancer. My father had sat in the hospital room for weeks and I was in New York. Rehearsing Chekhov. When the phone call came I opted to miss one run-through and half of a tech rehearsal in order to be at the funeral. The director said, of course, go. Be with your family. But I'd wanted to stay. Afraid that if I bottled up one more picture or place or smell or taste to use in a play or a story or a painting or a poem someday somewhere I would go insane. That if I stored it away in my being all of my memories would boil and brim over.

Memory: I am at Gisanti's Funeral Parlor on Merrick Road. I am smoking a cigarette outside. My father sees me through a window and shakes his head. I flick it away, not even half finished, and go back inside. Go on, I tell him. Say it. But he doesn't say anything. He just holds my mother's cold, hollow hand. And looks at her for a while. Crying. Not making any noise, just... crying. The tears keep coming and I keep hoping that they'll stop. I offer him a tissue but he ignores it. He just keeps looking at her and crying and eventually I hear him say, I'm sorry.

Memory: Age six. Back in my room with the smell of tobacco wafting in through my open window. And the sound of my father screaming at my mother words I've said in a speech by David Mamet. I climbed into the back of my closet, behind the shorts and the shirts and the pants and the jackets and the scarves, and I put on my my walkman and listened to Peer Gynt over and over and over until...

Until I learned to paint, write, draw, act, sing, reach, live & die, laugh, taste, dream, cry, breathe, see, create, dance, blacken white & whiten black and express myself. There were journals and scrapbooks and half hour showers where I'd discover notes & octaves that I didn't know existed. And when my voice changed and hair began to grow and I felt things I didn't understand I would write. Or sing. Or paint. Or draw. Even though I wasn't any good at it. And sometimes I would touch myself. Because I was curious. And somewhere, Alice was eating tarts and drinking fizzy drinks and I-- I was just-- I was here. In Land. No Wonderland. But if I explored and lived I'd see stars and rabbits where there were supposed to be clouds.

Memory: a recent one. I was at my nephew's birthday party and he'd asked me to lay in the grass with him. He wanted to tell me what he saw. He was very good at reading the clouds. And I'd realized that the clouds had become white. The clouds had become fluffy. The clouds had become something I'd never seen them as before: clouds. Nothing more, nothing less.

Memory: another recent one. I was in the rehearsal room with Uncle Vanya. And I was helping Aleksandr Serebryakov into his coat. And the coat felt light, almost weight-less. Until it hit his shoulders and his wrinkles wove their way into the fabric and somewhere another piece of my heart broke and somewhere else, another violin string burst.

Memory: yesterday. I was painting. My hand shook a little more than it used to and from the piano cello guitar playing, writing, touching myself, creating, drawing something inside of my hand had broken. A string. A muscle. A joint. A nerve.

Someone would have to help me into my coat somewhere someday. I would understand the gout and the rheumatism and maybe even Aleksandr Serebyakov's pride, too. Pride that I was still going kicking moving breathing living being.

These are the ways that I see things. Middle age came early. I was nine or ten when the onset began and the blood began to flow, long before I'd known it and long before any hair had grown. But death. Oh, it's here, now. It's palpable. I saw Him looking back at me from the painting, where a little white had dropped onto the purple. I left it there.

Maybe that's what happens to an artist when they're gone. The paint, paper, stage, canvas, sky. All goes white. Blankness. Back to neutral. Still.