Brad Simkulet's Blog, page 10
August 25, 2017
mb.ii
(Spot fades on
SIMON as Spot rises on MIRABELLE, standing stage right, talking on a phone)
Mirabelle: …I did it. I asked him. … I don’t know,
Kat. I don’t think it’s such a good idea. … You say that like you know, but
I’m not so – … I know, I know, but – … I know Jesus loves him and wants
him in his heaven, but this doesn’t feel right. Even if the end result is glorious,
and I know it will be; I mean, you’ve told me a million times, we hear it every
weekend, but hiding this from him just – … Yes. … I think so. … No I
haven’t told them. … Yeah, of course they’ve heard his name from school, but
why would I tell them about him? … Oh my. Can you imagine what Sharon would
be like if she found out? She’d have him at The Rock every Sunday. … Shut up!
… (Mirabelle laughs) … I am sure
he would love that. … Kat. … Kat! … You won’t tell him anything. You know
I don’t – … It’s not true. … I know you know it’s not, but you’re not
telling him that. … Really?! … Fine. You do that and all of this is over. I
don’t care what you think. No! … No. You listen. Doing what I am doing to
save him is bad enough. Nothing you can say is going to make me feel completely
comfortable with it, but I am doing it, right? Am I doing it? … Exactly. I
am, so I am getting him there, but I will not lie about my feelings for him.
… Of course. I mean, obviously I care about him, but not like that, and I won’t
lie about my feelings to keep him there. … No, I am serious, Kat. If you say
anything …. Okay. … Uh huh. … Tomorrow? What?! When did Mrs. Arsenault
assign that? … Are you serious? … I’ve got to go now. … No. I seriously
have to go if I am going to get this done. … No you won’t. Do not text me. I
am serious, Kat. … Okay. See you in the morning.
(Spot fades on
MIRABELLE.)
August 23, 2017
lb.ii
Suddenly
all Cece could hear was the clattering of her teeth. Her back sweat had soaked
through her tank top and dampened the top of her short shorts. She was still
pushed up tight against the summer-city-hot metal of the garbage bin, but she’d
never been so cold. The moans from the bowels of the garbage bin were gone or
maybe just drowned out the by rattle of her teeth, and she would wonder for
years if it was the sound of her own terror filling her head that finally made
her muscles work again.
Broken and
scattered spliff on one side, abandoned lighter on the other, both forgotten, Cece
rolled over on her hands and knees and scramble-crawled to the emergency exit
of the Roller Dome, tearing skin off both her knees in the process. The motion
seemed to slacken her shiver, but it didn’t stop. She reached the metal door, put
the four wheels of her right foot flat on the paved alleyway, and pushed
herself up with a hand on her knee. It was only then, when she reached for the
chrome door handle, that she noticed fresh blood on her fingers. There was a
flash of nausea that came on like a sneeze. She thought it was blood from the
rape victim, that somehow she’d gotten the blood all over herself, but before
she could even examine the thought her brain registered the pain from her knees.
She looked down at her glistening legs and the nauseous-sneeze stopped. She
rolled her eyes in that exasperated way that drove Mom crazy, but there was no
one there to see it and she didn’t even know she’d done it herself, and she
gave the door the good hard yank that was required. It opened. She stepped into
the red lit hall that ran past the bathrooms and back to the Dome, and slammed
the door behind her. Blondie’s Tide is High pulsed through the inner doors and
the long from out under the disco ball and the strobes.
She wasn’t okay yet
(she didn’t know that she would never be “okay” again), but she was better; she
was feeling same. She pushed off and glided over the hall tiles to the open
door of the Ladies Room. She was going to clean up her knees, check her makeup,
take a pee and make a decision about what to do. Not necessarily in that order.
August 17, 2017
August 16, 2017
in the vaccuum
she said goodbye,
again,
and when she said goodbye
it felt forever,
but for three nights running
she’s been visiting me.
nothing sexual,
nothing physically intimate,
but we looked over our coffees,
then over our wine,
then lay together in grass,
touching heads,
and we talked.
i’ve awoken more lonely
each morning
wanting to tell her i love her
that she’s always in my
grey matter
that my orbit is more distant
but my orbit is intact.
August 11, 2017
August 10, 2017
August 3, 2017
August 2, 2017
July 31, 2017
kb.ii
what she paints is real/unreal,
strokes minute and broad, tactical
motions needed to convey motion
in a pool of marble covered tile.
to watch her paint is to witness
patience of hours and deep breaths.
to see her create is to be dazzled
by the craft of a burgeoning master.
she is brushing strokes of genius
while others doodle and scratch
who gain degrees. can she keep
herself intact within her talent.
or will her ear be forfeit?
or her life with rocks in pockets?
jb.ii
It
had been a simple thing to find prey. It always was. She played the stray bitch
and followed the second little girl who’d shown interest in her. The first, a
toothy little blonde, had been too clingy, which meant she might end up directly
in her bed during the night (making it much more difficult to roam around her home),
and that was a dangerous place for both of them to be now that she had made her
decision to transform; besideds, the toothy blonde had been with her mother and
she’d sensed no interest from her, adding a possible impediment to her hunt
that she didn’t need.
The
second girl, the lonely one with the brown hair, was perfect. She’d been dangling
all alone with her bum in a swing, staring at the ground, nudging gravel with
the toe of her sneakers, and it had taken nothing for her bitch self to nuzzle into
the brown haired girl and coax her out of the swing. The brown haired girl sat
next to her and shifted between petting and scratching – one of the things she
loved in bitch form (and found she loved just as well in her true form) – but
the brown haired girl didn’t smother her. There was no big hug like there’d
been with the toothy little blonde. The brown haired girl then stopped petting
her, checked her watch, stood up, said, “Goodbye,” and left.
She was perfect, so
she followed her.
