Irene Ziegler's Blog, page 9

In Which I Circle the Wagons

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I just saw the closing performance of the play, August, Osage County, a Cadence Theatre production at the Little Theatre here in Richmond. In it, the character played by the incomparable Melissa Johnston (in an inspired performance) describes divorce as "an embarrassing public admission of failure." The line shot through my heart like a poisoned arrow.
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I'm getting a divorce.

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It is not my idea, not my wishes, not the future I had in mind. It is an embarrassing admission of failure I hereby make public. Why? Because I need my friends. This has been a rough three months.

They say trouble comes in threes. Mine started with the deer. Somewhere on Route 5, on my way home from a rehearsal, a deer leaped in front of my car. I braked, but it was impossible not to hit it, and upon impact, it flew. I mean, FLEW. Twirled and disappeared in the darkness. It was a surreal moment, and nothing could have prepared me for the suddenness of it, or how quickly it was over. I drove on because I could. It was 10:30 at night, the deer was undoubtedly dead, and I was in the middle of nowhere.

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Then came the robbery. I was attacked, tied up, and robbed at gunpoint by two masked men on December 21st. Obviously, I survived, but the event is still taking its toll. I'm afraid to sleep alone (even though my current circumstances offer me no choice), and I take sleeping pills to stave off nightmares. I can function fairly well thanks to medication and talk therapy. But the two gunmen are still at large. The police have exhausted their limited resources, and now ignore my phone calls.

Ten days later, on January 1, I asked The Mister what the New Year held for him. He said he wanted his "freedom."

The rest is a lot of sad, broken stories of sad, broken circumstances perpetuated by sad, broken people. But nothing is more broken than my heart. I quit a play I was looking forward to being in because I can't hold a thought in my head, much less learn lines. Heck,I'm lucky I remember to put on pants before walking outside.

So I'm asking for help in a public forum, pitiful as that is. Until now, I've told only a few loving, trusted friends (you know who you are) and my family. I thought I'd be stronger by now. I thought I'd be getting used to the idea of leaving my home. I thought I'd be able to manage my grief, disappointment, anger, and yes, embarrassment. But I haven't.

Please send me an email, take me horseback riding, tell me you like my new hair color (which is appropriately and naturally white now). Please tell me your wagon has joined the circle. It's the only way I'm going to get through the next three months, in which ten years of marriage will be reduced to figures, and parsed as if love was a season, and never meant to last..

I probably wouldn't be writing this were it not for seeing that performance of August, Osage County. I heard lines that sounded as if the playwright had eavesdropped on my life. Maybe that's why it won the Pulitzer Prize: because it speaks so searingly of the human condition, and reminds us that disappointment, betrayal, and heartbreak, unless you learn from it, is just pain.

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See you in the circle. If you wave, I'll wave back.

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Irene
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In Which I Empower Myself

My son-in-law gave me a gun after I was attacked in my own bed by two masked gunmen last December. (See previous two posts.) I didn't know how to use the gun, so Adrian and Suzanne Rieder invited me to a shooting range last weekend. Now I know how to use the gun.

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On FB, someone wrote, "I never had you figured for a second amendment type." I know what he meant. He was saying that gun proliferation in this country is part of the reason why our society is so criminally violent, and that the second amendment (our right to bear arms), is fanatically protected for reasons that maybe don't make a lot of sense anymore.

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I never thought I'd own a gun. I never thought I'd shoot a gun. I certainly never thought I'd go to a shooting range and enjoy putting round after round into the chest and head of a paper target. Then again, I never thought I'd be attacked, tied up, and threatened by two masked gunmen, either. And they're still out there.

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My friend L says I'm proliferating the downward spiral of civility. Yeah, well. They started it.

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But I get her point. When I was attacked, there was a gun in my bedside drawer. I never had a chance to reach for it. Then they found it and stole it. I'm very grateful they didn't use on me, of course, but damn. Another gun is on the street. The escalation continues.

As you might imagine, security has been beefed up around here. I won't be surprised by an intruder again. I'll hear them coming long before they hear me. And too bad for them, because as it turns out, I'm a pretty good shot.

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In Which Dark Humor Lightens the Load

Please indulge me while I mine my recent traumatic experience for comedy gold. (See previous post.) It helps me cope.

Yeah, so the first words out of my mouth were pretty intimidating. I said, "Are you serious?!" (True.) Had them quaking right off the bat with the old "Really? Ski masks? You guys are SUCH a cliche." (Not true.) That was pretty much the last time I spoke without being spoken to.

So one of them orders me to turn over, then presses a pillow on my head. The next thing he said was "Mffffluer jnafvn aowur?"

I said, "Um, I can't hear you. There's a pillow on my head."

So he removed the pillow, and said, "Where your jewelry at?" Then he put the pillow back on my head, and I said, "Mffffluer jnafvn aowur."

So the other guy says, "Move the pillow, Dawg."

(Quick note to Captain Crawley of the Charles City Police Department: Their names were Dawg and Dawg.)

And I told him where my jewelry was at, but they were pretty disappointed. I shop at Kohls.

"Where your GOOD jewelry at!"

"Hey, you'll have to talk to my husband. I've been asking that same question for ten years."

I didn't really say that. There was a gun in the room. Actually two. They had mine, too. The problem was, I don't have any good jewelry. So they took the rings from my wedding finger and moved on to the next item on their Christmas list.

"Where your money at?"

"I don't have any."

"WHERE YOUR CASH AT?!"

"I only have a dollar because I went to Costco and they only take American Express which, as you know, I don't have, so I had to pay in cash and by the time..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay."

See, this is what they didn't understand. We never have cash. We put everything on credit, then pay it off each month. You get air miles that way. And pretty soon, I'm gonna use a few thousand of them. But anyway, they didn't like that I only had a dollar and moved on.

"Where your safe at?"

Okay, see, we don't have one of those either, and by now I'm worried they'll think I'm lying, so what did I do?

"I'm really sorry, but we don't have a safe."

I APOLOGIZED to the frustrated robbers for not having a safe. So one of them finds some weewhacker filament and ties my wrists and ankles, then leaves the room. Well, damn. I got out of that in like three seconds. But I didn't have anywhere to go (out the window didn't occur to me for some reason) but I didn't have time, anyway. I hear one of them coming up the stairs so I QUICK QUICK tried to tie myself back up, but I couldn't manage to get my wrists behind me and tie at the same time, so I got caught, and I held up the orange filament, and I said, "I'm sorry, this came loose," then lay back down and put the pillow back over my head in what I thought was a very polite and helpful manner.

He didn't get mad at me, thank GOD, and the other guy comes in and says, "What's the pin number on your credit card?"

Sigh. I don't have a credit card with a pin number.

"How you get cash?"

"Well, see, people pay me with checks, then I go to the bank and put some of them in my checking account and some of them I cash out so that I can buy whatever I need from the..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay." (By now, we have whole pillow thing worked out.)

"Where your ATM card?"

Sigh. "Well, see, I put my ATM card in my jacket pocket and then I gave that jacket to my mother and she found the ATM card in the pocket but by then I had left Florida, so..."

"SHUT UP!"

"Okay."

"You give me a pin number for this credit card right now."

"I don't have one."

"RIGHT NOW!"

"0385."

(Note to any armed robbers reading this: ha ha, I made it up.)

Then they wrapped me in duct tape (because weed whacker filament, they learned, was no match for me), and had they not wrapped OVER the weed whacker filament, I would have got out of that, too (no, really, because there was a knife sticking up in the wisher washer drawer and I was able to...oh, never mind. It didn't cut through the filament. Foiled again.)

And they left.

And now I answer the door with a gun. I need to talk to the UPS guy and work out a doorbell code. He just delivered some flowers, and doesn't need a trigger happy armed robbery victim answering the door with a gun. Neither do you. So if you come see me, ring three times in rapid succession and when I say, "Who's there?" say 0385 and I'll let you in after my Doberman Pinscher frisks you in that special way he has.

Kidding.

I don't have a Doberman.

Yes, I do.

Okay, I don't, but I'm going to get one. Maybe two. Don't rub meat on your crotch before visiting.

Thanks for your good wishes which have made me feel GREAT. I'm no longer avoiding the phone. I'm still me, and one of these days, I'll look back on all this and think, "Why the hell DON'T I have good jewelry?"

In Which I Live to Tell the Tale

I'm telling you this so you will know what happened and that I am okay.

On Wednesday, December 21, my husband left for work at 7:40 am. At 7:45, I was roughly awakened by two masked gunmen who told me to be quiet or they'd kill me.

This story has a happy ending. You can keep reading if you want to.

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body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}They did not physically assault me. This was about money and jewelry. They got very little of both. After they left, I managed to get to the front door by scooting down the stairs and over the floor on my buttocks (my poor buttocks), then waited for the UPS man, and IF he came, hoped he'd hear me.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}Four hours later, the rental car was found abandoned with the key in it, and the police had it towed. The tow company notified the rental company, who notified my husband. He found me naked and bound on the kitchen floor. The police came, they left, legal wheels are turning.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}Those are the facts. Here's what I keep obsessing about:

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}Besides being shaken up, I'm really, really disappointed and angry. I'm 99% sure I know who did this. I don't know if he was one of the gunman, but he was involved. He was a worker my husband felt sorry for because he was always desperate for cash, so G paid him to do some yardwork at the house. He cased the place, called his ex-con friends, and planned it. I'm sure of it.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}My husband put out a hand to help someone, and that someone turned around and did this. In the words of the Wicked Witch of the West, "Wotta world, wotta world."

I was bound for four hours, and had some time to think about a thing or two. Perversely, I found myself framing the narrative. I was getting the story ducks in a row. When I realized what I was doing, I was ashamed of myself, because WHO DOES THAT? Who slips from a harrowing reality to snap the moments in a story formula?

Well, I do, I guess. I'm a storyteller. That's what storytellers do. It was coping mechanism, I realize now. It was okay to do that. I'm still doing that. I'm doing it right now.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}I'm taking the practical steps, too: I have an appt for counseling, I have an appt with the shooting range, and I'm trolling for a German Shepherd. G and I had a beautiful Christmas with my step-daughter and her husband, who cooked an AMAZING meal and were overly generous with their gifts, and wonderfully generous with their love. Right now, I'm doing pretty good. And one of these days, I'll find the proper way to elevate the experience so that it becomes part of a larger narrative, one that celebrates big hearts while mourning the need to keep them caged.

Your emails and snail mails are welcome. I may not answer if you call. I will later, though. And I'll tell you everything.

In Which MISS PALMER Gets a Nibble.

So I get this phone call, see. It's from a Chicago actress, Carmen Roman. (She can be seen as Dr. Gabriella Reyes in BOSS with Kelsey Grammer on Starz Network.) I didn't know her. A friend had passed along my play, and in her words, "I want this for myself." She says she knows a backer (James Simon), and wants to produce a workshop or (gasp) production in New York.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}Bells ring, clouds part, heavenly light fills my universe.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}"Sure," I choked out. "Whatever you want."

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}The play she's talking about is MISS PALMER'S SCHOOL OF PENMANSHIP AND CIVIL BEHAVIOR. It's the one I've been working on for months. I gave it to my friend, Tim Monsion, and asked him to pass it along if he liked it. He gave it to Carmen, who passed it along to her backer, James Simon. By the way, Mr. Simon is the producer of RENT.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}Yes, that RENT.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}But my little play is hardly a RENT. I wouldn't even call it a REN. It's barely a R. So it came as no surprise when Mr. Simon passed on the project. I was disappointed, of course, but not surprised. Carmen says she has a few more tricks up her sleeve, and would call me again next week.

body {font-family:helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12px;}a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}Here's the thing. I've been mass-submitting my plays since August. In September alone, I submitted my work to 50 various venues. I got a few nibbles, but no hits. I've been shopping FULL PLATE COLLECTION for two years. It found one production at the North Street Playhouse in Onancock, VA (June 2012) and semi-finaled a couple times, but it's rough out there. There are 100 playwrights for every legitimate theatre, and each of those playwrights are probably submitting more than one work. It takes an original voice, theatrical execution, and a resonant story to float to the top. Heck, you're lucky if you even get your plays read, much less vetted. Even then, few theaters are going to take a chance working with a playwright they don't know. That's where your network comes in.

If Tim hadn't handed this play to Carmen, she never would have read it. And even if nothing happens, I've made a new friend. She said she'd be happy to read anything I write. That's a major score in my book.

I have hope but no expectations about this project. I've been in this business long enough to know how quickly a nibble can be spat out. And that's okay. Because these are my people. And I like it here.

Thanks, Tim, for passing along my play. And thanks, Carmen, for filling my universe with heavenly light.

In Which I Concuss Myself While On Stage

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If you're an actor, you know the moment.It comes soon after your lines are embedded, and that heady impulse to 'play' squashes all reason. Instead of walking the line,  you trip the light fantastic. Instead of being in the moment, you create one. One leap into the unknown, and you either fly, or crash and burn.

I crashed and burned.

It was near the top of Act II of KIMBERLY AKIMBO (playing through Nov. 5 at the Little Theatre inside Theatre IV.) I was sitting on a bed. In a moment of sudden exuberance, I threw myself forward and face-down, and cracked my forehead on the foot board.

I mean CRACKED. I saw stars. The audience groaned. I managed to turn upstage to my fellow actors and stage-whisper, "I'm all right." I sat back up, the fourth wall still intact. And for the next ten minutes, I heard audience members whispering to each other about the angry, plum-sized knot that was growing, right before their eyes, on my forehead. Talk about being pulled out of a scene. My little stunt almost pulled them out of the theatre.

It's been a few days and all is well. I don't see double and I know that the President of the United States is Abraham Lincoln. (Ha ha. Just kidding. It's Osama Bin Laden.) I'm trying to figure out what the teachable moment is. I've come up with these possibilities:

1. Just because you're feeling loose, that doesn't mean you should try new things. Recall the lesson of Icarus.

2. Consider your fellow actors. You're not up there by yourself. Unless you are. Even then, you might not want to fly too close to the sun.

3. Remember that time in 1999 when you fell on stage and the whole theatre shook? Yeah. That time. Disasters come in threes. Just sayin.

4. You're not 30 anymore. You're slower, and your instincts are duller. When you throw balls in the air, they come down harder and faster. Be prepared to duck.

On the other hand, the theatre is a playground. And they don't call them "plays" for nuthin. There comes a time in every performance when you leave the ground, whether you want to or not. Instead of concentrating on your lines, you start to listen. Instead of waiting to speak, you hear what other people are saying. You stop moving because you're supposed to. You move because you have to. And yes. Once in a while, you soar. And there is nothing like it. NOTHING.

Which is why there will be another fall, another head crack, another run-in with the fourth wall. But as long as I walk away with a beating heart, I'll strap on another pair wings, and hope I don't molt and slip on my own feathers.

Please come see KIMBERLY AKIMBO. Tkts 804.282.2640. 
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In Which Mother Nature Gets it Wrong

Mother Nature needs a make-over.

What good is natural selection if the top Mom keeps doing her same cruel thing eon after eon? Even Betty Crocker evolves once in a while, as she should. As we all should. It's called "keeping up with the times." When was the last time Mother Nature bent a little to accommodate today's busy moms?

Allow me to personalize. I have this son, see, and he's a sophomore in college, and even though we live in the same city, I hardly ever see him. He's busy. And I miss him. I'm over 50 now, and for the first time, have a little time on my hands. Oh, the wisdom I could impart! The shoulder I could offer! The cookies I could bake!

The irony, of course, is that I was supposed to be doing all these things for the last nineteen years, and I did, but I was personally ambitious and distracted. I wanted to write books, act in plays, be in movies, all very competitive (and soul squashing) careers. And I did all those things, and it's been great, but it's all added up to, well, a few dollars and a squashed soul. (Do you hear a little "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens playing in the background?) Self-actualization, as it turns out, is overrated.

So I was wondering how Mother Nature got it so wrong? Why give women babies when they're young and ambitious? Why not save the whole mommy thing for the over-50 crowd? I was an okay mom then, but if I were to have a baby now? I'd rock it. And I threw my back out trying to pick up a toddler, I could afford a nanny to pick him up and hand him to me! And under this new dystopian family plan, young women would take care of their aging parents without having to worry about their own families, because they wouldn't have any. Everybody wins!

I'm going to pitch it the next time I get down with God. The obstetric arts would have to expand to accommodate all these late-in-life pregnancies, but I doubt they'd mind. New demands means new money. The insurance companies would hate it, but they hate everything.

I'm going to go to lunch with my son now, and try to pry a few details of his life out of him. Just think—under my plan, I'd be seventy-five and he'd be taking me to lunch. I think I'm on to something here.
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In Which I Binge

I joined a yahoo group for playwrights and I love it. It's playwrightbinge@yahoogroups.com. Playwrights share submission opportunities, successes, rejections, and gory tales of the trade.

I'm fairly new to the site so didn't know when I joined that September is Binge Month where members are challenged to submit at least one play per day through the month of September. Each time we submit, we're asked to include a link to the theatre so others may submit as well.

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Then I started getting a dozen emails a day from members sharing websites and opportunities, and I have to say, it's a wonderful thing to see artists helping artists. It's contagious. And good for the soul. I salute. More to the point, I'm in.

Since September 1, I've sent a full-length play or a short play to 23 places, and I learned about all these opportunities from members at playwrightbinge. Sure, I've had a few rejections, but I also got a few tickles. A short play semi-finaled, and an artisitc director in eastern VA is interested in my musical comedy. Yay!

I go into rehearsals (as an actor) on Sept 20 and my time will no longer be my own, so I'll have to stop, which is probably a good thing—give these submissions time to either come back or go on. Most of them will come back.

But maybe a few will go on.

Postage. Persistence. Patience.

And playwrightsbinge.
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In Which my 10-minute Play is a Semi-Finalist

I was just informed that my 10-minute play, GRTC, is a semi-finalist in the Little Fish Theatre's annual PICK OF THE VINE contest. They had 480 submissions. I'll know if I'm a finalist by late October or early November. I'm new to the 10-minute format so I'm really happy. I posted it below. Whoo hoo!
GRTC

SETTING:           A metropolitan bus.
AT RISE:            BUS DRIVER comes to the end of the line, parks the bus.  He notices a BOY sitting by himself.

              DRIVER Are you lost?
              BOYNo, sir.
            DRIVER Is this your stop?
            BOY No, sir.
            DRIVER  You realize we've reached the end of the line.
            BOY  Yes, sir.
            DRIVER  I don't start up again for another few minutes.
            BOY  Yes, sir.
            DRIVER  And then I just go back the way we came.
            BOY  Yes, sir.
            DRIVER  You're just going to sit here, then?
            BOY  Yes, sir. If that's okay.
            DRIVER  Okay by me.
            BOY  Thank you.
            DRIVER  I just saw you back here and wanted to make sure you were, you know…
            BOY  I'm not lost.
            DRIVER  Okay. Just checking.
            A WOMAN gets on the bus.
            DRIVER  You're welcome to sit, ma'am, but we don't get to moving for another few minutes yet.
            WOMAN  Oh, I see. Can you turn the air on?
            DRIVER  No, ma'am, I'm sorry. I gotta keep everything cut off until I'm back on line.
            WOMAN  Oh, I see.
            DRIVER  Yes, ma'am.
            WOMAN  I'll just wait then.
             DRIVER  Suit yourself.
            SHE sits. DRIVER addresses BOY.
            DRIVER  You gonna be all right, then?
            BOY  Yes, thank you.
            DRIVER  Okay. I'm right outside if you need me.
            BOY  Um, there is one thing, actually.
            DRIVER  What's that, son?
            BOY  Can you make the bus talk?
            DRIVER  Talk?
            BOY  Yeah, you know.
            DRIVER  Oh, you mean the GPS voice?
            BOY  I don't know what you call it. The voice that says what the next street is.
            DRIVER  Yeah, yeah. The GPS voice.
            BOY  Can you play it?
            DRIVER  Well, I have to switch the motor on to do that.
             BOY stares.
           DRIVER (cont.)I'm sorry, son.
            BOY  Okay.
            DRIVER  Like I told this lady, I can't run the air either, so…
            BOY  Okay. I'll just wait.
             DRIVER  Aw right. We'll be leaving here in a few minutes.
              DRIVER leaves the bus. WOMAN turns to the  boy.
               WOMAN  I like the bus lady voice, too.
            BOY  Yes, ma'am.
            WOMAN  I don't see so good, so I like it she announces the next stop.
            BOY  Yes, ma'am.
            SHE unwraps a piece of gum.
            WOMAN  Would you like a piece of gum?
            BOY  No thank you.
            WOMAN  I have more than one.
            BOY  No thank you.
            WOMAN  Which one is your stop?
            BOY  None.
            WOMAN  None?
            BOY  No, ma'am. I don't live on the bus route.
            WOMAN  You don't?
            BOY  Nuh uh.
            WOMAN  Then why do you ride the bus?
            BOY  Because it talks.
            WOMAN  Ooooh, you like that it talks.
            BOY  Yes ma'm. I like the voice.
            WOMAN  It's nice, isn't it?
            BOY  Yes, ma'am. It's my mother.
            WOMAN  What's your mother, dear?
            BOY  The voice.
            WOMAN  You mean it sounds like your mother?
            BOY  No ma'am. It's my mother.
            WOMAN  The bus is your mother?
            BOY  No ma'am. Just the voice.
            WOMAN  Oh, I see.
            BOY  She's dead.
            WOMAN  Who is?
            BOY  My mother.
            A beat.
            WOMAN  I see. So you—
            BOY  Ride the bus. Yes ma'am.
            The DRIVER gets on the bus.
            DRIVER  Okie dokie. Back the way we came.
            HE starts up the bus.
            FEMALE VO  Welcome to GRTC. Please have your Go Pass ready.

           The BOY smiles at the WOMAN as the bus pulls away.

GRTC

SETTING:                                                            A
metropolitan bus.

AT RISE:            BUS
DRIVER comes to the end of the line, parks the bus.             He
notices a BOY sitting by himself.

                                    DRIVER

Are you lost?

                                    BOY

No, sir.

            DRIVER

Is this your stop?

            BOY

No, sir.

            DRIVER 

You realize we've reached the end of the line.

            BOY 

Yes, sir.

            DRIVER 

I don't start up again for another few minutes.

            BOY 

Yes, sir.

            DRIVER 

And then I just go back the way we came.

            BOY 

Yes, sir.

            DRIVER 

You're just going to sit here, then?

            BOY
 

Yes, sir. If that's okay.

            DRIVER 

Okay by me.

            BOY 

Thank you.

            DRIVER 

I just saw you back here and wanted to make sure you were,
you know…

            BOY 

I'm not lost.

            DRIVER 

Okay. Just checking.

                                    A
WOMAN gets on the bus.

            DRIVER 

You're welcome to sit, ma'am, but we don't get to moving for
another few minutes yet.

                                    WOMAN 

Oh, I see. Can you turn the air on?

            DRIVER 

No, ma'am, I'm sorry. I gotta keep everything cut off until
I'm back on line.

            WOMAN 

Oh, I see.

            DRIVER 

Yes, ma'am.

            WOMAN 

I'll just wait then.

                                    DRIVER 

Suit yourself.

            SHE
sits. DRIVER addresses BOY.

            DRIVER 

You gonna be all right, then?

            BOY 

Yes, thank you.

            DRIVER 

Okay. I'm right outside if you need me.

            BOY 

Um, there is one thing, actually.

            DRIVER 

What's that, son?

                                    BOY 

Can you make the bus talk?

            DRIVER 

Talk?

            BOY 

Yeah, you know.

            DRIVER 

Oh, you mean the GPS voice?

            BOY 

I don't know what you call it. The voice that says what the
next street is.

            DRIVER 

Yeah, yeah. The GPS voice.

            BOY 

Can you play it?

                                    DRIVER 

Well, I have to switch the motor on to do that.

                                     BOY stares.

                        DRIVER 

I'm sorry, son.

            BOY 

Okay.

            DRIVER 

Like I told this lady, I can't run the air either, so…

            BOY 

Okay. I'll just wait.

                                    DRIVER 

Aw right. We'll be leaving here in a few minutes.

                                                            DRIVER
leaves the bus. WOMAN turns to             the
            boy.

                                    WOMAN 

I like the bus lady voice, too.

            BOY 

Yes, ma'am.

                                                WOMAN 

I don't see so good, so I like it she announces the next
stop.

            BOY 

Yes, ma'am.

                                                            SHE
unwraps a piece of gum.

            WOMAN 

Would you like a piece of gum?

            BOY 

No thank you.

                        WOMAN 

I have more than one.

            BOY 

No thank you.

            WOMAN 

Which one is your stop?

            BOY 

None.

            WOMAN 

None?

            BOY 

No, ma'am. I don't live on the bus route.

            WOMAN 

You don't?

            BOY 

Nuh uh.

            WOMAN 

Then why do you ride the bus?

            BOY 

Because it talks.

            WOMAN 

Ooooh, you like that it talks.

            BOY 

Yes ma'm. I like the voice.

            WOMAN 

It's nice, isn't it?

            BOY 

Yes, ma'am. It's my mother.

                                    WOMAN 

What's your mother, dear?

            BOY 

The voice.

            WOMAN 

You mean it sounds like your mother?

            BOY 

No ma'am. It's my mother.

                                    WOMAN 

The bus is your mother?

            BOY 

No ma'am. Just the voice.

            WOMAN 

Oh, I see.

            BOY 

She's dead.

            WOMAN 

Who is?

            BOY 

My mother.

            A
beat.

            WOMAN 

I see. So you—

            BOY 

Ride the bus. Yes ma'am.

            The
driver gets on the bus.

            DRIVER 

Okie dokie. Back the way we came.

            HE
starts up the bus.

            FEMALE
VO 

Welcome to GRTC. Please have your Go Pass ready.The
BOY smiles at the woman. The bus pulls away.

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In Which I Dare Hurricane Irene to Bring it On, and She Does

I've been without power for a week tomorrow, and it's all my fault. Not because my name is Irene, but because I taunted her. I have a generator, so unlike many of my friends, I can take a hot shower and watch Serena Williams plow through the US Open like the force of nature she is, but I don't know how much longer these machines are going to obey.


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So I'm going to apologize.

I'm sorry, okay? Hurricane Irene? I'm sorry I called you a bitch on FaceBook. I'm sorry I dared you to bring it on. And I'm sorry I wrote you off when your status was reduced. You are mighty. I am not worthy. Alle alle oxen free.

Let's see if that works.

The Mister has been in abstentia for all this nonsense. Since August 4, he's been on the Island of Alderney, then England, visiting, fishing, tooling around. So when I overfilled the generator with oil, then panicked when plumes of white smoke filled the whole outdoors, it was all on me. I managed to put the right kind of gas in the lawn mower, but was pretty pitiful moving the fallen tree from across the driveway. Then the AC went out (I hear it's going to be a scorcher this weekend), and this morning, more white smoke, but from some pipes outside that lead into the basement. Maybe the water heater?

Somebody on FaceBook just asked me not to call Katia a bitch. Don't worry. I've learned my lesson.

She does have a stupid name, though.

Kidding, Katia, I'm kidding! Sheesh. These hurricanes. Sensitive.

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