Lorraine Graham's Blog: Highly Recommended

I love Lorraine Graham's blog, "Spooks By Me," at http://terminalhumming.blogspot.com. The latest postings, references to Paul Bowles and the ecologically troubling history of the Fly River and the OK-Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea. The mine has been in production since 1985, and is unusual in that it produces gold as well as copper. It is a huge complex, and is pretty staggering to see, at least via photos.

Lorraine's photos possess a wonderful immediacy, and give a sense of the tactile. They blend her body (feet, legs, shadow forms) with building materials, earth, sky, for a sense of earthworks. Her recent photos of sand and surf in DelRay, California (near San Diego), are lovely. They contrast nicely with the steamy, mossy, vaguely cemeterial (is that a word?) views of Florida.

Her views and news on the Washington, DC poetry reading scene -- poets, publishers, artists, galleries, DC Art Center -- are refreshing and give sense of immediacy.

Finally, wonderful links abound in nicely organized categories, without clutter, in relaxing shades of green. I was a bit disappointed not to see a link to places to purchase Terminal Humming, Lorraine's chapbook published by Slack Buddha Press. I enjoyed reading Terminal Humming when I read it the first time, and I go back to it often. I love the way the language creates a sense of beginnings and endings by means of bodies in motion, and the mysterious suspension of time as one contemplates departure, leavings, arrivals. There are resonances with Lorraine's photos (things found while packing) ... perhaps what is most touching is the sense of wonder, the discovery or (re)discovery of a self in a non-reflective mirror comprised of (re)found objects.

Miniature Blowfish ""Blowfish in faceted clear crystal body with frosted crystal mouth and fins, jet eyes""

Trona

Podcast.


fingers like claws

my legs my knees gripping

this is what we call

Midas Touch



grasping breath

or clutching shadows

at best an indifferent language

like abandonment

the brazen stranger in the mirror

nevertheless creative

I’m just furniture for your house

the knotty problem in the grain

drawing straws



Military and War DVDs

Fog At Dawn

Podcast

The gazals I memorized in school are ancient poems, somewhere between a fairy tale and a story of eternal longing. In the poems I read from Nizami, I could never imagine a young maiden trotting about on ordinary, mortal legs. Beautiful young maidens float inches above the ground. Either that, or they dance. Their arms and hands tell a story. Their eyes are mirrors. Their dance is pure metamorphosis - from flesh and blood into light, memory, and song.

Fog At Dawn

somewhere between fairy tale

and a story of eternal longing

an ordinary mortal

floating inches above the ground

your eyes spelling flesh and magic

you are relentlessly absorbing;

frost on ornamental gourds

hollow, precious, rattling ceremonial

the precious kiss

a river where history bends its knees

and my heart submerges

dark and violent

links to cool travel books

Omnibus

podcast

This poem was influenced profoundly by Rochelle Owens, the brilliant, visionary, trail-blazing, "transgressive" (as used by Maurice Blanchot) playwright and poet. It is not about Rochelle; it is not "about" anything or any one, except in the sense that my heart has been damaged in only the way that other mothers of deployed military personnel understand. My deepest, most heartfelt respect goes out to all military moms.

Please offer a silent prayer this Veteran's Day...



OMNIBUS
def: A printed anthology of the works of one author or of writings on related subjects


The red pinpoints of light disappearing
Into an already blinded night;

The strange machine
That houses my soul, speeding off:

To a place where they spray hot oil on the roads,
And tempt me to test limits, crash into strange borders,

And meanwhile, my memories
Are vehicles exiting a blurry forest

Of signs, maps, and billboards,
I refuse to read, or remember.

When you left, I lost my bearings:
The gears of heaven locked in some unknowable drive.

Russian Wallpaper

Russian Wallpaper. (poem) My room was in the student dorms at Herzen University in St. Petersburg. I was in a suite, with a shared bath. It was a classic Russian, Soviet-style arrangement, with a woman who minded the floor, kept the keys, helped organize laundry, explained the protocols and procedures. The building had seen better days, and needed some maintenance. My room had wallpaper, but it was vintage 1960s, and was peeling from the wall. The view of the canals along the Neva River was interesting. I was just down the street from Nevsky Prospekt and the Kazansky Cathedral where I saw young heroin addict shooting up and prostitutes changing clothes.

Play the Podcast.



RUSSIAN WALLPAPER

Afternoon breeze comes in

if invited,

sheer curtains flutter,

if disquieted --

my heart

like paisley wallpaper

peeling but proud,

velvet fires

somewhere around my shoulder

somewhere a memory slipping away

I talk to you all night

the surface

smooth & sticky with spills

and conversations

just another bar

just another star

I've lost my way

under the moon & stars

navigating the southern breezes

the sheer curtains blur the tracks

I leave behind

our path stretching ahead

like a teardrop

sliding down a cloud

curtains flutter

when air is in motion

my hands hold you

when I feel emotion

trying to paste ourselves back

like Russian wallpaper

falling to the floor

Cabo Cabo. Part 1, episode whatever...

Podcast.

I truly don't know what I was thinking. How on earth did I think I'd get away with it? In theory, the man you've pledged your eternal, undying love has a right to know who you really are. I threw that all to the wind. I wrote off the "contradictions" as the aftermath of a traumatic childhood. I seeded the road of life with distractions - they were tacks designed to puncture the most robust tire, and to disable the most advanced vehicle.

And now, I'm sitting here in a ridiculously expensive hotel suite in an exclusive resort in the "zona turistica" of Los Cabos, Mexico, and I'm wondering what to do with the Hartmann carryon luggage that was just delivered to my room. "We apologize for the late arrival, senora," said the young man who brought the tapestry-patterned wheeled carry-on to me. He lingered by the doorway until I gave him $10. Ordinarily, I would have given him $2. I had a bad feeling about this, though, and I wanted him to go away quickly.

It turned out that my premonitions of doom were completely on-target, as usual.

I opened up the bag, and it contained $319,350. Yeah, it was a weird amount. I thought so, too.

But, that is what it was. I counted it at least four separate times, the last time, keeping a tally on a notepad, since I no longer trusted myself to think in a linear fashion.

The only response to having $319,350 delivered to your hotel room as though it were a limp salad and a pile of soggy tortilla chips was to think highly uncomfortable thoughts of self-gratification, followed by a midnight stroll into the most ineluctably deadly of rip-tides - the same tides that crashed into the place where the Pacific Ocean collided with the Sea of Cortez and made a ravishingly beautiful chaos of history and economic exigencies, which could only be translated to a guttural grunting mono-syllabic response that sounded eerily like the word "RAGE."

But, who cared about that? Intellectualizing aside, the darkness comes to us each and every night. We have to tell the truth. Of course, this has nothing to do with people, nor humanity. It has to do with the way I am going to be asked to reconcile the accounts. Eventually, I will have to turn the rock over. I'll have to let the world see the maggots.

But first, there is little issue - this slightly pesky reality: I've got more than $300,000 crisp, almost pristine dollars in my hotel room, and for all the world knows, I'm a geologist who works for her father, a slightly nerdish woman who wears plain, dark clothing and thick (although fashionable) glasses. I'm in my late 20s, but people always think I'm either much older or much younger.

The more viscerally inclined of the male species immediately detect the cognitive dissonance in such presentation as the one I make. Some would like to think that all modestly dressed women are voluptuous to a ghastly degree, and they imagine Pamela Anderson breast implants, liposuction, and the collagen injections. Even for the woman who has not undergone pain in pursuit of the beauty myth, there is the psychological pain that comes with always measuring yourself and finding yourself lacking.

I admit it. I have tried some procedures. Their purpose was served a full five and half years ago, and here I am, stuck with what I imagine to be hyper-voluptuous lips, outrageous curves, and mental programming I will probably never be able to cast aside. I sigh, I modulate my voice, I inhale and pause, pregnantly …

and, well, what difference does it make?

If I do not figure out what to do with this $319,350 that was delivered - probably erroneously - to my room, I will most likely be hunted down and "eliminated" - not by a high-dollar hit man, but by an ugly, cut-rate, pock-market and sweaty "cleaner" who will off me and then obliterate my face with acid, my body with a close encounter with the "tiburones" that dance with the wolves - oops, I mean whales - just beyond the crazily beautiful arches off San Lucas that find their way to each and every tourist, time-share, and retirement-condo brochure.

I can disappear with this bag, can't I? Will this cash buy me a life that will last longer than a year?

In a few days, I'm supposed to go back home. I'll tell the people who love me that I had a great time. I'm not sure what I'll tell the person who had the misfortune to pledge his undying love to me.

Will I tell him that our entire relationship has been built on an intricate web of lies? Will I tell him that nothing I've told him is true? Will I admit to him that I'm not even from the state I claim to be from? Do I admit that I do not even possess the family members I claimed? Does he deserve to know that the person he had grown to love as "charmingly contradictory" was, in reality, not contradictory at all. She was simply keeping one step ahead.

None of that helps now, though. My stomach is throbbing, threatening to shove itself through my ribcage.

It is not the first time this has happened. Perhaps that is what is disturbing me most.

Let Dogs Lie, Part 4

Podcast.

MALLARME

I'm tearing off his feet.

MONTAIGNE

His feet?

MACHIAVELLI

Not his hands?

MOUCHIE

Not his throat?

MALLARME

Forget it. The sight of blood makes me ill anyway.

(The dogs go back to the rug and lie down. They stretch, roll around, and rattle their collars. Finally they settle down and go to sleep.)

(Vandergraft returns quietly to the center stage.)

VANDERGRAFT

(Sadly, quietly.)

Sleep, sleep, sleep. Let waking dogs sleep before the hot sun warms their fur and makes them dream of immortality. Project that thought into art and make it dismemberment.

(Pauses.)

That's the sad thing about it all.

(Picks up the box. Looks at it again.)

The artist always gets blamed for instigating the dismantling of a culture, but, in the end, the sociopaths are the ones who take the utopian vision and wreck it just for the thrill of wrecking it.

I suppose that's the true art.

It's not utilitarian. It has no social purpose. There is no "justice" or benign tyranny of moralizing. I suppose I'll spend time in jail again. This time for cruelty to animals. Am I guilty? I'm an artist, but it's been years since I've been honest. Yes, I'm guilty. But it's a guilt that only I have the right to decide upon. The world tears apart its dogs and its undesirables. Who decides? Who gets blamed?

(Pauses.)

Tomorrow I'm sure I'll return to jail.

(Sighs.)

In many ways, it will almost be a relief.

(Exits stage right.)

END

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
LET DOGS LIE - Part I
A play in one act

by Susan Smith Nash

copyright 1996 by Susan Smith Nash, all rights reserved

Please register all performances in advance by contacting Susan Smith Nash at susan@beyondutopia.com Also, please inquire about scholarships, grants, and prizes available for those who perform this play and provide information about the performance (reviews, photographs, copy of the program, etc.) Special incentives / prizes available to repertory groups using high school and undergraduate students. Please note that this play and others are collected in catfishes & jackals, published by potes & poets press, and available through Small Press Distribution. http://www.spdbooks.org

Performance history: This play was first performed in February 1997 at St. Gregory's College in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The play was directed by Dr. Susan Procter. Many thanks and fond memories to everyone at St. Gregory's College, and to Father Lawrence, Father Victor, Sister Veronica. The wonderful people of St. Gregory's blessed my life in many ways -- ways I'm still discovering. The play was also performed at DC Art Center in Adams Morgan, Washington, DC, in April 1997.

Let Dogs Lie, Part 3

Podcast.

Vandergraf enters the room with Joli. Vandergraf is holding a handful full of receipts. Joli is carrying a handful of scarves and a globe of the earth.

VANDERGRAFT

Ever since I started shopping in the menswear department, I've gotten compliments on my cooking.

JOLI

Picasso would not have admired your need for unity.

VANDERGRAFT

Gray socks are more versatile than the others. Men's shoes are too predictable. I see the disorder in the most careful arrangement.

(Pause.)

Reality is a three-piece suit.

(Pause.)

That's the trendy way to say it.

(Pause.)

Really, all I'm doing is trying to dehumanize art. That's not new. It's irresponsible.

JOLI

Rehumanization is equally irresponsible.

(Pulls out a scarf and ties it around his left arm.)

Look.

(Pause.)

An armband.

(Pause.)

Or a tourniquet.

I'm either mourning a life lost or attempting to save my own. What difference does either make?

VANDERGRAFT

Tourniquet? Armband?

(Sits at table noisily. RENSSELAER and Grizz do not pay attention. Now they are looking at each other, holding each other's hands.

Fashion. Life is fashion. Plague or its symbols are thrill-seeking.

JOLI

More definitions.

VANDERGRAFT

Art?

(Picks up box. Looks at it slowly.)

A cheap engineer. Tinguely's destruction machines never worked right. And they called that art.

(Picks up a beer can, takes a long drink.)

The real artists never get the credit.

JOLI

When I surgicate the dogs, that's art.

MOUCHIE

Surgicate? What kind of language is that?

MALLARME

He means "operates on and mutilates." They used to call it vivisection. Civilized countries outlawed it.

MOUCHIE

And it's legal here?

MALLARME

Of course. The government even gives universities, corporations and not-for-profits a lot of money to do it.

VANDERGRAFT

Jean Tinguely made all those sculptures that would blow up. I don't see how working in the dog lab is art.

MOUCHIE

I wish she'd shut up.

JOLI

Tomorrow I'm doing open-heart surgery on a couple of labs. I'm gonna make them infarct--

VANDERGRAFT

Give them heart attacks?

JOLI

--then sew them back up & stick them back on the treadmills. I want to see how long it takes them to have another heart attack.

VANDERGRAFT

That's about the most obvious kind of research I can envision. What's the point? Isn't it obvious? Do you learn anything at all that's new?

JOLI

No. Of course not. But it gives us pre-meds a lot of practice in the OR.

(Pauses.)

That's what makes it art.


MOUCHIE, MALLARME, MONTAIGNE, AND MACHIAVELLI

(Sit up. Look appalled. Speak lines separately and in unison.)

I'm going to be sick. How can they do that?

Why don't we bite them to see how quickly they bleed to death. That will teach us something about dogs. Right?

That's assuming we want to say that human bleeding is a key to all animal bleeding. But humans are different.

Won't anyone stop them?

I'm going to be sick.

VANDERGRAFT

Oh. I get it now.

That's really cool.

(Pauses.)

I love art.

JOLI

Salt. Pepper. Box. Pandora.

(Pauses.)

False groupings. A mistake. A false positive i.d.

Language loses its flavor.

It has to be opened up.

(Pause.)

Pandora.

Now that's one archetype that won't go away.

(Vandergraft looks down at the table -- won't look at Joli.)

That's really what happened, isn't it. That's why you're here now.

VANDERGRAFT

Why don't you stop?

(moves box across the table.)

Wasn't it enough to pretend you loved me? It makes me sick to think about it. I didn't want to live. I felt so ashamed.

(Looks at Joli.)

Ashamed!

Don't you know what that is?

JOLI

Of course.

(Puts hand to face. Watches Vandergraft, who is very uncomfortable.)

I'm not going to let you play "wise woman" to my "foolish young pup" role.

(pulls up chair closer to table.)

If you had been more in reality instead of in your fantasy, delusional world, maybe you could have convinced the cops that the person who ID'd you was wrong.

VANDERGRAFT

No one believes an old woman.

JOLI

I believe you. Doesn't that count?

VANDERGRAFT

No. You're supposed to say, "But Graffi, dear, you're not an old woman -- and you especially weren't when that happened. You're a vibrant, alive, alluring mature woman.

JOLI

You care more about that than if someone believes you or not?

VANDERGRAFT

People always believe the seductive charmers.

JOLI

Or they never believe them.

RENSSELAER

What do I have to make you believe I love you?

GRIZZ

Honey, a lot more than you're doing now.

RENSSELAER

I hate you, you cold-hearted wretch!

(Bursts into loud weeping and rises from table.)

GRIZZ

And I'm supposed to believe that you love me now?

(Picks up the box and throws it on the floor.)

You torment me to no end, woman!

(Exits stage.)

RENSSELAER

(Picks up box and puts it on the table.)

I'm so sick of having to prove myself!

(Resumes weeping and exits stage.)

(Softly, between sobs.)

Play chess.

Study moves.

Memory, memory, memory.

MALLARME

I want to bite the tar out of that monster who is so proud of his vivisection. Surgicate! I want to surgicate his throat!

(whines.)

Would it be okay?

MONTAIGNE

We've gotten rid of two witnesses. Now if we can get rid of this woman, we can do it.

MACHIAVELLI

Who cares if we have a witness.

MONTAIGNE

You want to be put down?

MOUCHIE

Like put to sleep?

MACHIAVELLI

Like offed?

MALLARME

Like killed?

MONTAIGNE

Right.

VANDERGRAFT

They said I was the one who killed the sign painter and put her hands in a box, packed in salt.

JOLI

Someone had been reading too much Arthur Conan Doyle or Edgar Allan Poe.

VANDERGRAFT

What could I have against signs, anyway?

(Pause.)

I think they all disrupt themselves without any help from the local vigilante amputator. (Pause.)

I see this box, and I, like everyone else, expect it to contain someone's head, an ear, or a set of hands.

Unopened, the box is redolent with symbolic promise.

(opens the box. Turns it upside down. Something wrapped in gauze falls out.)

JOLI

Tomorrow, I'm surgicating the two dogs we got in last week from a man who said he had a few left over from the litter his beagle had last summer.

(Pause.)

I can't wait to operate on a small dog.

VANDERGRAFT

(Unwrapping the gauze.)

I can't believe I was so intoxicated by your flattery, and what I thought was your human warmth.

This will obviously tell me something about betrayal.

Amputation.

Metonymy for abandonment? Betrayal?

(Pause.)

Being cut off?

(Pause.)

I'm sorry. There was not call for that pun.

JOLI

It's too late.

The rehumanization of art is irresponsible.

We don't need someone to glue some bad attitudes onto art and call it "culture" or "wisdom."

VANDERGRAFT

Was this really necessary?

(Holds up a small paw. A dog's paw. The gauze lies heaped up on the table.)

JOLI

Ah, the resurrection motif.

I love it.

(Vandergraft exits stage left. Her exit is almost soundless.)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^continued in Part 4

LET DOGS LIE - Part 3
A play in one act

by Susan Smith Nash

copyright 1996 by Susan Smith Nash, all rights reserved

Please register all performances in advance by contacting Susan Smith Nash at susan@beyondutopia.com Also, please inquire about scholarships, grants, and prizes available for those who perform this play and provide information about the performance (reviews, photographs, copy of the program, etc.) Special incentives / prizes available to repertory groups using high school and undergraduate students. Please note that this play and others are collected in catfishes & jackals, published by potes & poets press, and available through Small Press Distribution. http://www.spdbooks.org

Performance history: This play was first performed in February 1997 at St. Gregory's College in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The play was directed by Dr. Susan Procter. Many thanks and fond memories to everyone at St. Gregory's College, and to Father Lawrence, Father Victor, Sister Veronica. The wonderful people of St. Gregory's blessed my life in many ways -- ways I'm still discovering. The play was also performed at DC Art Center in Adams Morgan, Washington, DC, in April 1997.

Let Dogs Lie -- Part 2

Podcast.

The dogs, which have been lying asleep until now wake up at the sound of the word "beer." They roll and stretch. They shake their collars and make rattling noises.

MOUCHIE

Beer?

MACHIAVELLI

No. I mean yes. He's wanting beer. He's also wanting to make her shut her yapping mouth.

MOUCHIE

What makes you think you're such hot stuff when it comes to human interpretation?

Montaigne and Mallarme stir. Mallarme stretches.

MONTAIGNE

Don't you just hate being in heat? It interferes with my ability to concentrate. I'm trying to write a series of essays about the human condition, and all I can think of is my canine condition.

MALLARME

Canine condition?

MONTAIGNE

In heat, man. In heat.

MALLARME

That sounds like a human condition to me. An observation borne out by birth rates & other statistics, I might add.

MONTAIGNE

And grandiose delusions.

MALLARME

Savior (I mean sperm-spreader) of the universe?

MONTAIGNE

Oh my goodness how I hate that ugly yucky blasphemous mouth of yours.

MALLARME

And that's why you mount me in your sleep and bay my name, right?

MONTAIGNE

I'm onto your scent.

MALLARME

And I'm an animal.

MONTAIGNE

Anger is the same as sudden courage.

At the close of Montaigne's words, Mallarme lunges forward and bites Montaigne on the leg.

MONTAIGNE

Hey! Stop it!

(Mallarme looks up.)

Mallarme, you are so stupid when you've been reading Hobbes.

(Mallarme bites Montaigne on the other leg.)

Hey! Stop it! Bite someone who matters. I'm an artist & a writer. No one will care if I agree or don't agree with your political viewpoints, Mallarme. You've gotta bite someone who matters.

Looks over to center-stage to Grizz and RENSSELAER.

Like them.

MALLARME

(Howling) What do I have to make you start loving me again?

MONTAIGNE

For one thing, you can stop biting me. It messes up my train of thought.

RENSSELAER

(Wistfully.)

When I was a little girl, my mother used to tell me that once I put a razor to my legs, they would never be the same. They would be covered with thick, curly, dark hair and I'd be forced to shave them every day, or be scorned by all men.

(Pause.)

I didn't shave my legs until I was 15. (Pause.)

That's not exactly true. I used to try my mother's razor when I was 5, 6, 7--until I got sick of cutting myself on her scary & tricky safety razor.

(Pause.)

"Safety." What a stupid word. It always indicates a condition of falseness. Of deliberate obfuscation of danger.

The are dogs settling down on the rug again. Montaigne and Mallarme are sniffing the air cautiously. Machiavelli is scrutinizing Grizz and RENSSELAER. Mouchie is rolling on the rug.

MACHIAVELLI

Look at her. She's trying to get his attention by making some stupid melodrama out of razor blades. Look at that manipulation -- she's not as good at it as she thinks she is, though. Razor blade talk is always some kind of code for suicidal tendencies.

(Pause.)

She cut herself?

(Makes a disgusted pfff sound with lips.)

Please.

I'd like to see that.

(Says next lines in high-pitched falsetto)

Oh dear. Rescue me, help me, work me, save me.

I'll show her suicidal tendencies!

MOUCHIE

Aren't you the classic dog?

MACHIAVELLI

Huh?

MOUCHIE

The classic pampered pet.

MACHIAVELLI

What the heck are you talking about?

MOUCHIE

You think you're a human. But you're still just a dog.

(Sits up. Points a paw at Machiavelli.)

A DOG.

(Montaigne growls at Mallarme. Mouchie pauses for emphasis.)

D-O-G.

(Mallarme yelps as Montaigne lunges forward.)

Shut up, you two. You're as bad as them. (Gestures to RENSSELAER and Grizz, who are frozen in melodramatic poses, RENSSELAER with head bowed on table, Grizz with arms crossed defiantly.)

D-O-G.

MACHIAVELLI

Acronym for GOD.

MOUCHIE

Well, you sure don't know a thing about dogs, or canine-nature.

MACHIAVELLI

What's there to know?

MOUCHIE

For one thing, you're a pack dog. A hunter. So what you think is ho analysis isn't that at all. You're not analyzing. You're hunting. You're a scent-hound. It's bred into you. It's in your genetic code.

MACHIAVELLI

If you're trying to tell me that I'm just some genetic experiment --

MOUCHIE

Gone horribly wrong--

MACHIAVELLI

And my talents--

MOUCHIE

Your instincts--

MACHIAVELLI

Were only developed to be exploited--

MOUCHIE

Used in a fox hunt so young rich boys can get their "first blood"--

MACHIAVELLI

Right now I want to bite you. Is that instinct or free will?

MOUCHIE

You're a scent-hound.

(Machiavelli lunges forward and bites Mouchie in the haunches.)

Hey! Why'd you bite me? That hurt!

MACHIAVELLI

Just instinct, I guess. I'm not responsible, right? I'm bred that way.

A chair clatters to the floor. RENSSELAER abruptly lifts her head. Grizz smirks at the audience.

Grizz turns to the audience and addresses them.

GRIZZ

What'ya think of that? Thanking me for shutting her up? She's so full of shit. You see it. I see it.

(Pause.)

So why do I love her so much?

(Leans over and straightens up the chair he has knocked to the floor. RENSSELAER appears to be in a state of shock. She is looking blankly at the box on the table. It is obvious she is emotionally affected by Grizz's interruption, but she cannot respond in a direct way to him. Even her gaze toward him is indirect. She seems very fragile, if not in flesh in spirit.)

RENSSELAER

"Woman Shaving Her Legs." "Eau de lisque." "Man Surrounded by Enigma." "Mr. X-Ray."

(Pause.)

Do you have to name something in order for it to be art?

(She reaches for the box.)

It's time. It's almost time and I hate it.

GRIZZ

Most of the time she doesn't even know I exist. Oh sure, when it's convenient for her, or when she's lonely, she'll throw me a bone. But most of the time, she just uses me to keep her act going -- her "Miss Superior" act I mean -- she just has to be the Queen Bee.

I still emulate her, though.

RENSSELAER

(softly)

Emulation is grief arising from seeing oneself excelled or exceeded by his or her concurrent.

GRIZZ

Hey! Don't you have even just one original thought? Here you go ripping off Hobbes again. Why can't you think for yourself?

RENSSELAER

The passion contrary to glory, proceeding from apprehension of our own infirmity, is called humility.

GRIZZ

I know you'll try to keep running. Ruin my life. Such as it is. Aphorisms are comfortable but you're no Rochefoucauld.

RENSSELAER

Mesh. Echoes in a closed room. Blues played in a freight elevator. You've got a lot of nerve.

GRIZZ

A lot of hiding going on.

RENSSELAER

Lot of words used to ward off fear.

(Pause.)

Words like "friendship" and "love" and "commitment" and "values."

Abstractions I practice by keeping a pet. That's why I have dogs.

(Assumes a very stern expression.)

Dogs are dogs in spite of categories --

(Pause.)

or breeds --

(Pause.)

or scents.

^^^^^^^^^continued in part 3
LET DOGS LIE - Part I
A play in one act

by Susan Smith Nash

copyright 1996 by Susan Smith Nash, all rights reserved

Please register all performances in advance by contacting Susan Smith Nash at susan@beyondutopia.com Also, please inquire about scholarships, grants, and prizes available for those who perform this play and provide information about the performance (reviews, photographs, copy of the program, etc.) Special incentives / prizes available to repertory groups using high school and undergraduate students. Please note that this play and others are collected in catfishes & jackals, published by potes & poets press, and available through Small Press Distribution. http://www.spdbooks.org



Performance history: This play was first performed in February 1997 at St. Gregory's College in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The play was directed by Dr. Susan Procter. Many thanks and fond memories to everyone at St. Gregory's College, and to Father Lawrence, Father Victor, Sister Veronica. The wonderful people of St. Gregory's blessed my life in many ways -- ways I'm still discovering. The play was also performed at DC Art Center in Adams Morgan, Washington, DC, in April 1997.

Let Dogs Lie (Play) - Part I

Podcast.

LET DOGS LIE - Part I
A play in one act

by Susan Smith Nash

copyright 1996 by Susan Smith Nash, all rights reserved

Please register all performances in advance by contacting Susan Smith Nash at susan@beyondutopia.com Also, please inquire about scholarships, grants, and prizes available for those who perform this play and provide information about the performance (reviews, photographs, copy of the program, etc.) Special incentives / prizes available to repertory groups using high school and undergraduate students. Please note that this play and others are collected in catfishes & jackals, published by potes & poets press, and available through Small Press Distribution. http://www.spdbooks.org

Performance history: This play was first performed in February 1997 at St. Gregory's College in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The play was directed by Dr. Susan Procter. Many thanks and fond memories to everyone at St. Gregory's College, and to Father Lawrence, Father Victor, Sister Veronica. The wonderful people of St. Gregory's blessed my life in many ways -- ways I'm still discovering. The play was also performed at DC Art Center in Adams Morgan, Washington, DC, in April 1997.

The Characters:

RENSSELAER: a woman in her late thirties

Joli: a man in his early twenties

Vandergraft: a woman in her late fifties

Grizz: a man in his early thirties

Mouchie: a pink dog of indeterminate gender

Machiavelli: a reddish dog

Montaigne: a blue dog

Mallarme: a brown dog

****************

A bare room. Gray, interior light. RENSSELAER is at a table. Four unmatched chairs at the table. There is nothing on the table but a large, gift-wrapped box. The dogs are lying to the side of the stage on a blanket. The background, a floor lamp and a side table with an large, empty vase, is dim. A refrigerator stands to the side. A large window is on the side, with movable curtains.

RENSSELAER

(In a monotone, without energy.) Money. Control. Complications. I never asked for any of it. I'm sick of being misunderstood.

(Pause.)

Someone said "get a dog!" So I bought someone else's soul and called it a pet. Now it's time. It's time.

(Pause. In a duller voice.)

I said "It's time."

(Pause.)

No one ever gets it.

(Pause.)

They will, though. They will.



(Grizz walks in through the door. He doesn't notice the dogs. They notice him, and turn and look at him. He is wearing a faded t-shirt, torn and paint-splattered sweatpants, and ragged basketball shoes.)

GRIZZ

(Speaks in a loud voice.)

Hey!

(Pause.)

Hey!

(Pause.)

Aren't you going to answer?

RENSSELAER

Overpopulation. Sacrificing one species so the rest can survive.

GRIZZ

You're still mad at me for taking the towels at the Motel Six.

(Pause.)

I don't know why you're mad. They expect it. They charge too much and when that happens, I'm taking something.

RENSSELAER

Self-righteous is not a word. Self applies to a moment in time that can be identified by the perceivable bag of skin and bone that's stuck up in your face -- in the mirror or in your bed.

(Pause.)

Righteous, as opposed to "left-eous" is even more meaningless.

(Pauses, acknowledges Grizz for the first time.)

Are you still working at the dog lab?

GRIZZ

I never did work at the lab. You know that.

(Sits at table.)

Joli still works there, in case you're wondering.

RENSSELAER

And you're taking something.

GRIZZ

Well, I don't see any towels, so I don't see how I can take anything here. But they way you're not communicating with me is making me feel pretty ripped off.

(Pauses. Pulls chair up close to table.)

RENSSELAER

You mean "entitled" to something?

GRIZZ

Motel Six hand-towels make great kitchen towels, especially when I'm barbecuing.

RENSSELAER

Things to ruin then throw away.

(Pause.)

Stain, stain, stain. Sin and barbecue sauce.

GRIZZ

I'm hungry. I thought you said you were cooking dinner tonight.

RENSSELAER

I had a dream last night. I was shovelling in a room. A big room. Mounds of stuff I was shovelling.

You know what I was shovelling?

I was shovelling dead mice -- mainly hairless babies -- as if they were snow or piles of coal. No more squeaking. Nothing.

There's a tape of me playing the piano. With squeaking. Lots of squeaking. I listened to it and wondered what the squeaking was. A mouse dying in a glue trap under the piano.

Squeaking is a kind of music. Right?

Death is another kind of music entirely.

GRIZZ

Youth culture, huh.

RENSSELAER

I hate it that you know me so well.

(Pause. Looks at box on table.)

Youth culture. Yeah right. Youth is preyed upon and projected upon. It has no power, no rights.

I wonder if the box will start squeaking. Mounds and mounds of pink flesh and brown fur.

GRIZZ

Music.

RENSSELAER

Squeaking.

GRIZZ

Scored for The Man Without Qualities.

RENSSELAER

A little nachtmusik. A little nichtmusik. Death, right?

GRIZZ

Nope. You're wrong.

(Pause.)

Again.

(Stands.)

And denial makes me want to get another tattoo.

RENSSELAER

Death. (Doesn't acknowledge Grizz.) Death.

(In a far-off voice, with far-off expression.)

Death-music.

(More matter-of-factly.)

This kind of indiscriminate mating makes me realize we only pretend to care about the youth. What we want is to exterminate anything that can breed. That's part of survival. Kill off the breeders so there's more left for the already-bred.

GRIZZ

Oh. Not again. You said all that when you were yapping about PACs and big business buying big government.

RENSSELAER

I hate it that I'm still in love with you.

GRIZZ

You think you hate it!

RENSSELAER

What's this present for anyway?

GRIZZ

I thought you brought it.

RENSSELAER

Just what we need. A Pandora's Box motif.

(Pause.)

Death is not eroticism, no matter what anyone might say. I see a package here that is obviously a metonymic equivalent to "The Womb" or "The Random" -- I mean if it goes off -- does a Unabomber routine.

(Pause.)

Money. Control. Complications. I never asked for any of it.

GRIZZ

(Rummaging around in refrigerator.)

Hey, you got any beer in here?

**************************
end of part 1

Coming soon -- "Let Dogs Lie" -- a Play in 1 act, but presented on the Fringe Journal in 4 parts. I think you'll enjoy it -- I can't believe I wrote it almost 10 years ago... but, I think it might be fun to revisit it and perform it.

Endangered - A Play in One Act (Part III)

Podcast.

ULFIE: What are you two doing here? Haven’t you caused me enough problems? What are you doing to the cats?

MERCK: You never told me you WORKED here.

MANDOLIN: Ulfie, you’re doing it again. Remember what I told you? Deception is only self-deception.

ULFIE: Oh. You’re still into your Zen-Master phase. I don’t need your fake-philosophy sound bites.

MERCK: She’s done this to you, too?

ULFIE: Where are the cheetahs?

MERCK: I thought we were at the leopard cage. I don’t see any monkeys.

MANDOLIN: What did you ever see in her?

MERCK: What we do is not relevent to each other -- only to the frame. The frame keeps us inside. The frame relates us to each other.

MANDOLIN: Frame? Bars of a cage?

ULFIE: Outside the frame, spiritual transformation is possible.

MERCK: You’re wrong. It all goes on inside the frame.

ULFIE: What about those outside, looking in?

MERCK: Like us looking at the cats?

ULFIE: And the cats looking at us.

MERCK: That’s not the same. They can’t get out.

ULFIE: And we can?

MERCK: As soon as the artist thinks she or he is outside the frame -- well, it’s not art any more. Art is inside the frame, too.

ULFIE: Inside the cage?

MANDOLIN: You two don’t know what you’re talking about.

MERCK: If you’re such an artist, you go into the cage.

ULFIE: Hey. Don’t do that. Can’t you read the sign?

(Boethius and Dante pop up from behind the rocks.)

BOETHIUS: Surely she’s not going to come inside here.

DANTE: That’s great. Zoops inside AND outside.

BOETHIUS: (sighing) Well, I guess I’ll just be forced to maul her.

DANTE: Look. He’s got his gun.

BOETHIUS: Forget it. I’m having some fun with this Zoop. She’s been getting on my nerves.

DANTE: Boethius!

MANDOLIN: I’m going inside. I’m talking to them. I understand their pain better than they do --

ULFIE: Mandolin!

(Mandolin sticks arms through bars of cage. Boethius runs toward her, yowling and roaring.)

BOETHIUS: Yah, yah, yah! Does this scare you? I’m a pacifist, you know -- I’d never hurt you.

(runs forward)

All my rage is directed inward. That’s why my fur is so ratty.

MANDOLIN: Merck! Photograph me while they shred me and gouge out my eyes. It will be my final artistic statement.

ULFIE: I don’t want to have to do this! (raises gun) Get away from the cage! I’m going to have to tranq the cat.

(shoots tranquilizer gun -- hits Mandolin by mistake. Mandolin falls to ground, arm inside cage)

BOETHIUS: Damn it! You missed me! I was looking forward to being tranqued out for the afternoon!

MANDOLIN: I’m dying -- I’m dyyyyiiiiinnnng.

ULFIE: No you’re not. You’re going to be sedated for a few hours. I told you to move out of the way, didn’t I.

MERCK: Will she be okay?

ULFIE: Oh, just a little dazed for a while, that’s all. Probably shouldn’t drive.

MERCK: What are you going to do about the cats?

(They look at Boethius and Dante. The two cheetahs are sitting down, looking very dejected.)

BOETHIUS: Dante, what’s going to happen to us?

DANTE: I don’t know.

ULFIE: People torment the cats all the time. I don’t know why they do it. I guess they think it’s fun to see them get angry.

MERCK: It’s cruel.

ULFIE: The more “natural” the habitat, the more we can blind ourselves to our insensitivity and arrogance.

MERCK: Can we let them go? Give them their freedom.

ULFIE: Of course not.

MERCK: Are you going to have them put down? Killed?

ULFIE: No.

MERCK: Oh.

ULFIE: I’m going to give them bigger rocks to hide behind. Then I’m quitting.

MERCK: What are you going to do?

ULFIE: Will you marry me?

MERCK: I knew I wasn’t imagining things -- we DID have something together.

ULFIE: We always have --

MERCK: What about her? (gestures to Mandolin, who is seated on the ground, humming the theme to Andrew Lloyd Weber’s CATS, but it’s very offkey)

ULFIE: What do you want to do?

MERCK: Take her picture. (Takes her picture with a Polaroid. Places photo next to Mandolin). Well Mandolin. Here’s something for you. Hope you like it.

ULFIE: Let’s go -- I need to get rid of this tranquilizer gun.

MERCK: Wait. (Takes off sweater. Underneath is a baggy t-shirt which reads:)

Art

Real Life

ULFIE: Good idea. (Takes off Zoo Security t-shirt. Underneath is a different t-shirt with the following word on it.)

PEACE

MERCK: I love you, Ulfie.

ULFIE: I love you, Merck.

(They walk offstage.)

BOETHIUS: Did you see that?

DANTE: (wiping eyes) Yes.

BOETHIUS: What are you crying about?

DANTE: I always cry at weddings.

BOETHIUS: Oh, I know. We’re just a couple of old maids and we never get to do anything like that any more.

(Looks at Mandolin.)

You know, I feel sort of sorry for her.

DANTE: It’s all your fault. You should feel sorry.

BOETHIUS: Does she have a camera?

DANTE: Yeah, the other one left it there.

BOETHIUS: Why don’t we do her a favor. Let’s really give her something to photograph.

DANTE: What are you talking about?

BOETHIUS: Can you reach her hat?

DANTE: Ugggh. You want me to TOUCH that?

BOETHIUS: It’s fake fur, isn’t it?

DANTE: All the same, it looks real. (Extends paw through cage and grabs her fur hat.) You want me to get the fake fur bag, too?

BOETHIUS: Yes. Look at me. Just look at me. My fur is worse than ever -- even this fake fur is better.

DANTE: Will you stop? Mine is just as bad. What to you have in mind?

BOETHIUS: Put it on. (Dante puts on the hat) My don’t you look silly. Do you remember when we were both absolutely drop-dead beautiful? Throw me the bag. (Boethius draps it around her neck -- does some campy posing)

Now look. She’s waking up -- she’ll take a picture of us and she’ll be rich and famous.

DANTE: Are you sure?

BOETHIUS: Sure! Zoops love this dreck. Look at this.

DANTE: Look at this pose!

BOETHIUS: Aren’t we just the lovely pair!

(Mandolin staggers to her feet, gathers her belongings, clutches head -- finds hat missing. Looks in cage and shrieks.)

MANDOLIN: AARRGGH!!!!! HOW HIDEOUS!!!! What has happened?? What have you done? WHY ARE YOU WEARING THOSE THINGS? Who have you mauled????

(Runs shrieking offstage)

DANTE: Well. That was another failed attempt at art.

BOETHIUS: I give up. I don’t understand that Zoop at all. (walks toward rock) Well, I’m taking a nap. This has worn me out.

DANTE: Where’s breakfast?

(joins Boethius behind rock)

(Merck runs onstage -- obviously overjoyed -- holds up hand with ring on it)

MERCK: I knew I could trust my senses -- I knew he really cared! And now we’re married! What more can I ask of art? There is more to knowledge than the five senses. Knowledge is a simply a promise of more knowledge. It’s all in technique and not in the image. It’s how you see, not what you see.

And still. Action and perception. They go together.

Like mange and the perception of being caged.

Like being tranqed and fighting the realization we have to live somewhere in relation to a frame.

Like greeting cards and

(pauses. wipes eyes)

SADNESS.

I feel happy and yet, I feel -- sad?

(looks toward the rocks)

I miss you two leopards -- no -- CHEETAHS. I miss you. Do you miss Africa?

(pause)

Okay. I won’t ask things when I already know the answer. That’s cruel, too, isn’t it?

I just came back to tell you how beautiful you are.

(Pauses. Raises voice).

You’re beautiful! (turns to go offstage -- begins to run) I’ll be late -- but remember -- you’re beautiful. (offstage -- voice, echoing) And -- I love you!

The End.

Endangered: A Play in One Act (Part II)

Podcast.

(Enter Mandolin. She is wiping her face with a handkerchief -- has obviously been weeping. She is wearing a huge t-shirt that has words stencilled on it:

ARTIST

DON’T ASK

DON’T TELL

She is lost in thought.)

MANDOLIN: My mother wasn’t any kind of role model at all.

(Boethius runs toward the bars of the cage, does a little flip, hits the ground and rolls on the ground hysterically.)

DANTE: (whispering) Boethius. Come on. Snap out of it.

(Boethius is still sniveling, weeping)

MERCK: Those leopards are starting to scare me. I wonder if they’re psychotic.

(Goes to EMERGENCY ONLY phone box at side of cage. Lifts up receiver.)

Hi. I want to report that the leopards have gone berserk. They’re about to maul something. One is acting crazy & I’m scared --

Thanks. But I don’t want to go to another exhibit. I came here today to look at the FABULOUS FELINES. I read about it in the paper.

Is this the way they act in their natural habitat?

(Boethius does a mock charge toward Merck)

Oh my God! (Hangs up phone and backs away from cage)

DANTE: BOETHIUS!!!! Get a grip!!!

BOETHIUS: Tranq me! Go ahead ! Tranq me! Existence is too painful!

MERCK: This leopard is acting weird. (to Boethius) Hey kitty, kitty -- calm down -- it’s going to be a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

MANDOLIN: My father left home before I was 3. I don’t remember him.

And now they talk to me about patriarchy, male-domination, oppression.

Everything’s so literal. Where did the concept of metaphor go? Doesn’t

anyone have the ability to think in figurative terms any more?

DANTE: (perking up -- has been listening) No! Of course not! You lost that privilege, honey, when you and your kind started killing off the endangered & calling it a “fashion statement”!!

MERCK: I’m going to call the zookeeper about this. They look dangerous. I wonder if they have rabies.

BOETHIUS: I used to be beautiful and now look at me! I try to say I’m happy I’m not someone’s coat, but really I don’t care. Sometimes I wish they had taken me down. At least it would be over -- this suffering ---

MANDOLIN: Now extinction is a good example. Extinction is more a state of mind than a reality, isn’t it. I mean, things are always dying, being born, dying --

(pause) even dying out.

It’s not healthy to think of extinction as literal. Only figuratively. As part of the great chain of being. Metamorphosis. Transformation.

BOETHIUS: I’m dead either way. Either they take me for my skin. Or they tear up my home and kill my family. Or I get the slow death of being here in this cage -- every day a humiliation.

MERCK: Here kitty -- HAPPY CAT -- can you say that? I’m a HAPPY CAT.

BOETHIUS: (skips around the cage) This is NOT Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. No I CAN NOT pronounce “happy cat” -- are you happy with your fut hat? Can you say HAPPY HAT?

(yowls in a sing-song tone)

Happy happy HAPPY oh H A P P Y oh HAPPY -- Can you say happy HAG? Hee-hee-hee. (Laughs hysterically while prancing around the cage.) Happy HAG! I’m a hag, you’re a hag -- we’re all hags here!

DANTE: Boethius! CALM DOWN! You are going to bring bad things on us!

BOETHIUS: What do you mean -- “going to bring” -- isn’t this bad enough?? (Yowls)

MERCK: (looking at Mandolin) Mandolin? Is that you?

MANDOLIN: (startled) Merck? Is that you?

MERCK: What are you doing here?

MANDOLIN: Nothing.

MERCK: Nothing?

MANDOLIN: Well, not exactly. I thought this would be a good place to collect my thoughts. I’ve been kind of depressed lately.

MERCK: Look at those leopards.

(Boethius, who has been skipping and prancing around the cage turns and taunts Dante. Dante runs up and tries to restrain Boethius.)

MANDOLIN: They’re not leopards. They’re cheetahs.

MERCK: I think they’re psychotic. Or rabid.

MANDOLIN: They’re worked up about something, all right. Maybe they haven’t been fed.

MERCK: What have you been depressed about?

MANDOLIN: Thinking too much. Just that.

MERCK: Have you seen Ulfie?

MANDOLIN: What’s so real about an action? An action is only a gesture. A gesture is the cousin of the sign. All gestures are signs. They symbolize something else. So, it’s wrong to think about things literally.

MERCK: Like you literally seducing my fiancé?

MANDOLIN: Fiancé? He was a boyfriend.

MERCK: He would have married me.

MANDOLIN: Action. Gestures. Names. Labels.

MERCK: I had already planned our wedding. You wrecked my future.

MANDOLIN: Just because you give something a label, doesn’t make your designation correct.

MERCK: Quit trying to play mind games.

MANDOLIN: If you look at it that way, you’re missing the point.

MERCK: What point? That you just wanted to steal him away from me. Just for the sport of it. Once you knew you had him, you decided to throw him away. Right?

(Boethius and Dante are struggling with each other).

MANDOLIN: That entire episode was an extended metaphor -- a metonymy, if you will -- of the Wheel of Fortune.

MERCK: Vanna White?

MANDOLIN: You are Lady Philosophy, so you spin the wheel. Whatever comes up, you have to buy.

MERCK: I already did. I bought a big pain in the ass. (pauses) You.

MANDOLIN: I’m only speaking for your own good, Merck.

(pause)

Plus, I did you a favor. I liberated you from your captivity. Ulfie isn’t right for you.

MERCK: Don’t you think I know what’s good for me?

MANDOLIN: We often don’t know what’s good for us. That’s why someone else has to take charge. Take care of us.

MERCK: Take away everything we care about?

MANDOLIN: All I know is that I am more attuned to the universe than most people -- most people are afraid to stop and look around them.

MERCK: Do you know how arrogant you sound? You like to patronize everyone else.

MANDOLIN: Me?

MERCK: Yeah. You. You say you’re an artist. But, you’re so cool, you pretend you’re some sort anti-artist. DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL. Hah!

MANDOLIN: I’m starting to hear a little hostility in your voice, Merck.

MERCK: (tauntingly) I’m starting to hear a little FEAR in your voice, Mandolin. (charges toward Mandolin. Mandolin jumps back).

MANDOLIN: Hey. Calm down. They’ll throw you out.

MERCK: Or lock me up in a cage??? For wanting to be an artist like you?

(tone changes -- speaks with resignation)

I wanted to take some pictures of the FABULOUS FELINES and make a series of greeting cards. But the cats have gone whacko. Plus they’re all mangy. Who wants to look at mangy wildlife for Christmas? It’s enough to turn your stomach.

MANDOLIN: Captivity of any sort is enough to make you sick.

MERCK: It’s all a state of mind, though. Right? That’s what you’ve been telling me.

MANDOLIN: That’s not the same.

MERCK: So if I say, hey, you’re a freak ‘cause you look so freaky & you think you’re cool but we all know you’re just making a cheap bid for attention -- and --

MANDOLIN: I’m hearing that you’re upset with me, Merck.

MERCK: Stop patronizing me! You “artist types” - you think you’re so cool. You can insult and trample anyone’s feelings, steal their boyfriends, ruin their future -- and then if anyone complains, you just say, “I have to have my freedom of speech!”

MANDOLIN: You’re twisting everything around. I’m more likely to be locked up like one of these cheetahs -- called crazy and put away -- or zombied out on Haldol or some high-powered tranquilizer that makes me stupid, but keeps me in my place.

(Boethius and Dante go back behind the rocks. They hide.)

MERCK: Look at the cats. They’re waiting to get us. They’re trying to trick us.

(Ulfie comes up carrying tranquilizer gun.)

ULFIE: Trouble here?

(As he approaches he recognizes Merck & Mandolin).

ULFIE: What are you two doing here? Haven’t you caused me enough problems? What are you doing to the cats?

MERCK: You never told me you WORKED here.

MANDOLIN: Ulfie, you’re doing it again. Remember what I told you? Deception is only self-deception.

ULFIE: Oh. You’re still into your Zen-Master phase. I don’t need your fake-philosophy sound bites.

MERCK: She’s done this to you, too?

ULFIE: Where are the cheetahs?

MERCK: I thought we were at the leopard cage. I don’t see any monkeys.

MANDOLIN: What did you ever see in her?

MERCK: What we do is not relevent to each other -- only to the frame. The frame keeps us inside. The frame relates us to each other.

MANDOLIN: Frame? Bars of a cage?

ULFIE: Outside the frame, spiritual transformation is possible.

MERCK: You’re wrong. It all goes on inside the frame.

ULFIE: What about those outside, looking in?

MERCK: Like us looking at the cats?

ULFIE: And the cats looking at us.

MERCK: That’s not the same. They can’t get out.

ULFIE: And we can?

MERCK: As soon as the artist thinks she or he is outside the frame -- well, it’s not art any more. Art is inside the frame, too.

ULFIE: Inside the cage?

MANDOLIN: You two don’t know what you’re talking about.

MERCK: If you’re such an artist, you go into the cage.

ULFIE: Hey. Don’t do that. Can’t you read the sign?

(Boethius and Dante pop up from behind the rocks.)

BOETHIUS: Surely she’s not going to come inside here.

DANTE: That’s great. Zoops inside AND outside.

BOETHIUS: (sighing) Well, I guess I’ll just be forced to maul her.

DANTE: Look. He’s got his gun.

BOETHIUS: Forget it. I’m having some fun with this Zoop. She’s been getting on my nerves.

DANTE: Boethius!

MANDOLIN: I’m going inside. I’m talking to them. I understand their pain better than they do --

ULFIE: Mandolin!

(Mandolin sticks arms through bars of cage. Boethius runs toward her, yowling and roaring.)

BOETHIUS: Yah, yah, yah! Does this scare you? I’m a pacifist, you know -- I’d never hurt you.

(runs forward)

All my rage is directed inward. That’s why my fur is so ratty.

MANDOLIN: Merck! Photograph me while they shred me and gouge out my eyes. It will be my final artistic statement.

ULFIE: I don’t want to have to do this! (raises gun) Get away from the cage! I’m going to have to tranq the cat.

(shoots tranquilizer gun -- hits Mandolin by mistake. Mandolin falls to ground, arm inside cage)

BOETHIUS: Damn it! You missed me! I was looking forward to being tranqued out for the afternoon!

MANDOLIN: I’m dying -- I’m dyyyyiiiiinnnng.

ULFIE: No you’re not. You’re going to be sedated for a few hours. I told you to move out of the way, didn’t I.

MERCK: Will she be okay?

ULFIE: Oh, just a little dazed for a while, that’s all. Probably shouldn’t drive.

MERCK: What are you going to do about the cats?

(They look at Boethius and Dante. The two cheetahs are sitting down, looking very dejected.)

BOETHIUS: Dante, what’s going to happen to us?

DANTE: I don’t know.

ULFIE: People torment the cats all the time. I don’t know why they do it. I guess they think it’s fun to see them get angry.

MERCK: It’s cruel.

ULFIE: The more “natural” the habitat, the more we can blind ourselves to our insensitivity and arrogance.

MERCK: Can we let them go? Give them their freedom.

ULFIE: Of course not.

MERCK: Are you going to have them put down? Killed?

ULFIE: No.

MERCK: Oh.

ULFIE: I’m going to give them bigger rocks to hide behind. Then I’m quitting.

MERCK: What are you going to do?

ULFIE: Will you marry me?

MERCK: I knew I wasn’t imagining things -- we DID have something together.

ULFIE: We always have --

MERCK: What about her? (gestures to Mandolin, who is seated on the ground, humming the theme to Andrew Lloyd Weber’s CATS, but it’s very offkey)

ULFIE: What do you want to do?

MERCK: Take her picture. (Takes her picture with a Polaroid. Places photo next to Mandolin). Well Mandolin. Here’s something for you. Hope you like it.

ULFIE: Let’s go -- I need to get rid of this tranquilizer gun.

MERCK: Wait. (Takes off sweater. Underneath is a baggy t-shirt which reads:)

Art

Real Life

ULFIE: Good idea. (Takes off Zoo Security t-shirt. Underneath is a different t-shirt with the following word on it.)

PEACE

MERCK: I love you, Ulfie.

ULFIE: I love you, Merck.

(They walk offstage.)

Endangered: A Play in One Act (Part I)

Podcast.

A play in one act (in three parts for the Fringe Journal)

first published in 1996 by Susan Smith Nash in catfishes and jackals (Potes and Poets Press), all rights reserved

Please register all performances in advance by contacting Susan Smith Nash at susan@beyondutopia.net. Also, please inquire about scholarships, grants, and prizes available for those who perform this play and provide information about the performance (reviews, photographs, copy of the program, etc.) Special incentives / prizes available to repertory groups using high school and undergraduate students. Please note that this play and others are collected in catfishes & jackals, published by potes & poets press, and available through Small Press Distribution. http://www.spdbooks.org/


The Players:

Dante: cheetah who has certain moth-eaten characteristics, either from friction or from nervous, incessant gnawing

Boethius: edgy, nervous cheetah with an even worse fur coat, lots of bald spots and mange

Merck: woman in her late 20s

Mandolin: woman in her early 20s

Ulfie: man in his early 30s, wears t-shirt with the following words stenciled on it:

ZOO

SECURITY

The Setting:

A cheetah cage at a zoo, one of the new "enviro-style" cage. A large sign hangs over the bars of the cheetah pen:

Zoos Without "Cages"

THANKS TO YOU,

OUR ZOO PATRONS

**** NEW ****

ENVIRO - STYLE LIVING QUARTERS

Then, across from that, another sign:

**** FABULOUS FELINES! ****

The cheetah pen consists of bars, two big rocks -- one on stage right, the other on stage left, a big tree trunk, and a big bucket with water. A painting of an African plain adorns the back wall of their pen. There are tall bars on the cage. On the outside of the cage is a bench and a sign: DO NOT PLACE BODY PARTS THROUGH THE RESTRAINTS.

Dante is crouched behind one rock; Boethius is crouched behind the other. Each is suffused in shadows. The audience can see them, but only vaguely. They are not visible to zoo patrons.

Ulfie walks by with tranquilizer gun in one hand, a rope in the other.

ULFIE: I’d better not have any trouble today, you hear? We’re not putting up with any more of this. You’re bad for business.

(Walks up to cheetah cage. Holds up tranquilizer gun.)

I don’t want to have to tranq you.

DANTE (shouting): I'M NOT COMING OUT!!! BOETHIUS, IT'S YOUR TURN!

BOETHIUS: Hey, Dante. Don't look at me -- I'm not coming out! -- it's your day! We already worked out the schedule.

ULFIE: Hey! Just keep it up, and you’re gonna get tranqed.

DANTE: NO!

BOETHIUS: You agreed. Just because the zoo didn't have many visitors yesterday doesn't change anything. It rained. What do you expect.

DANTE: I hate rain.

ULFIE: You two are bad for business.

BOETHIUS: Oh gag, it's despicable isn't it. Rain mats my fur.

DANTE: Honey, look at you. Nothing could make your fur any worse. Will you stop gnawing on it?

(Ulfie walks away. Looks back at cheetah cage and lets out a disgusted sound.)

ULFIE: I don’t know why we even bother. Everyone loves the dolphins and the monkeys. But you two -- you’re more trouble than you’re worth, if you ask me.

BOETHIUS: Thanks to my mange, I'm not some woman’s coat. Hah. A “leopard” coat.

DANTE: Yeah, they even get the name wrong. LEOPARD. What idiots. We're cheetahs.

BOETHIUS: Don't talk about this. This conversation is making me itch all over. (scratches self, gnaws on shoulder.) Honor is not the true good, nor is it the way to true happiness.

DANTE: Stop that! You'll only make it worse. (pauses.) And why are you quoting from The Consolation of Philosophy again?

BOETHIUS: Hey. Back off. It itches. And I want to. Okay?

(Boethius scrambles out from from his rock and pounces toward Dante. Dante jumps out in response. They tussle. Yowling ensues.)

DANTE & BOETHIUS (back and forth): Hey! It’s your turn, I tell you! It’s YOUR turn! I’m NOT going out. I’m not doing it! I’m tell you, you really bug me!

BOETHIUS (shouting): Why do the Good have to suffer?!?

DANTE: (half-yowling) Love. Love lost. Love searching. Love promising transformation—

(Sound of gates clanging offstage. Boethius and Dante stop their skirmish and run back to their rocks where they hide.)

DANTE: Look. They're coming in already. (Lifts up head and looks over the rock. Sees people, ducks down quickly.)

BOETHIUS: I told you, I'm NOT covering for you!

DANTE: Why don't we both refuse to go out? Both of us?

BOETHIUS: Won't work.

DANTE: Why not?

BOETHIUS: Don't you remember? We tried that already.

DANTE: Oh yeah.

BOETHIUS: Yeah, they tied our food up and hung it from the ceiling.

DANTE: And they thought they were so clever. That little strategy was sadistic is you ask me. My left front paw was messed up for a month after I took a dive jumping for it.

BOETHIUS: Yeah. And the stupid Zoops loved every minute.

DANTE: (titters hilariously) Zoops -- I love it when you call them that. Stupid Zoops.

BOETHIUS: Zoops. It's their own name for themselves. "Zoo Patrons" -- ZOOPS.

DANTE: (still tittering) Remember the time they left the gate open? hee-hee (titters) and when we'd push it open like we were going to escape --

BOETHIUS: Like we'd really want to -- like we really wanted the zoo-stapo to gun us down in cold blood.

DANTE: hee-hee -- that one hag wearing the leopard-skin coat (titters) she just about lost it when I pushed the gate open with my nose and looked her straight in her bloodsucking eyes.

BOETHIUS: haha -- yeah, she really snagged her pantyhose trying to get away. ooff -- that coat. aaargh. I'm itching again. (gnaws on other shoulder)

DANTE: (Hopefully) Did they leave the gate open?

BOETHIUS: No.

DANTE: (in hick accent) Then I aint-a goin' out there - no place, no way, no how. I ain't no gawl-dang clown.

BOETHIUS: Now you sound like a Zoop. aahh -- here comes one now.

(Merck enters. She looks despondent. Carries a large purse and a bright-colored scarf. She's wearing a large floppy hat, torn fishnet hose, flowing dress -- very Bohemian)

MERCK: I wonder if I'll see him here. He said he sometimes comes here -- likes to "commune with his unspoiled, primitive nature."

(walks toward the cheetah pen. puts down bag)

That's better. This is too heavy -- I should have known better than to bring it with me...

(reads sign.)

Fabulous Felines. Oh how nice. I love cats. Especially leopards like these.

DANTE: Leopards!

BOETHIUS: What do you expect? Another stupid Zoop.

MERCK: I miss him. I don't want to talk to him. I just want to see him -- that would be enough.

DANTE: Yeah a Zoop. With bad taste. Look at that hat. That scarf.

BOETHIUS: (prissily) That is truly appalling. Is she a gypsy or is she simply trying to wear her entire closet at once?

DANTE: Now don't be tacky. (peaks up over the rock) Is that a fur hat??? I'm going to be sick.

(Merck, who has seen Dante peaking over the rock, looks closely.)

MERCK: Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!

BOETHIUS: That makes me sick.

DANTE: (Lifts up from behind rock and shouts in a high-pitched voice at Merck) Here, bitchy, bitchy, bitchy!!!

MERCK: Oh, she's meowing. She must be hungry. Are you hungry, kitty?

BOETHIUS: How’d she know you were female?

DANTE: I don’t know. She really can’t see you, you know.

BOETHIUS: Well, I like it here. Hiding behind the rock.

DANTE: She can’t understand you either.

BOETHIUS: Well, we had already established that.

DANTE: (lifts up again) Hey you -- you cat-killer. Why don’t you beg us to come out? Yeah. Beg me! I want to see you beg for it.

BOETHIUS: Where’d you learn that line? From your last boyfriend?

DANTE: Beg for it baby! Start acting like you want it!

BOETHIUS: (addresses audience -- points to Dante) This is one thing I hate about being locked up with her—

DANTE: (getting a little too carried away) Beg, I mean B E G, I mean BEEEHHGGG --

BOETHIUS: This cage a prison cell.

DANTE: (jumping up on rock, yowling and twisting around) Aren’t you just GLAD you’re alive! Rrrrroowwwrr!!

BOETHIUS: Will you stop? You’re making me sick. (jumps up onto other rock) All right! I’ll perform for the stupid Zoop. I just can’t stand to see you degrade yourself like this!

MERCK: (In baby-talk) Ahhh -- aren’t you an adorable kitty. What a strong, tough leopard you are!

BOETHIUS: (shouting) Are you Lady Philosophy? Are you here to lead me out of my misery? Have you come to me in my jail cell?

MERCK: My. What a loud roar.

DANTE: Calm down, Boethius -- they’re gonna tranq you if you’re not careful.

MERCK: You’re friend is so cute, too. Hi kitty.

BOETHIUS: I’m ugly -- rrrowwrr!!!

BOETHIUS: I have been imprisoned because I’m different. And I’m endangered. I’m an animal who thinks.

(pause)

They say my ideas are dangerous -- I’m an artist -- it shows in my coat. I’m not worth skinning. Look at me!

My art is in need of a flea bath.

Bald spots! I deserve it.

MERCK: Your eyes look so sad. (takes out camera)

BOETHIUS: Please don’t do that. Don’t take my picture.

MERCK: Oh. You have mange, don’t you.

BOETHIUS: Please. It’s embarrassing.

MERCK: Someone ought to report this zoo. (focuses, then snaps picture)

BOETHIUS: Nooooooo! (weeping, hysterical) Please, no. Why did you?

MERCK: Now I have a photograph!

BOETHIUS: Dante -- Dante -- where are you?

(Begins running in circles, yowling all the while.)

DANTE: (dejected) Where’s breakfast?

(end of Part I)

Return to Righteous City

Podcast.

The danger of the sickness was its contagion. For the first time, I realized it, but it was too late. My knees trembled involuntarily, my head filled with images I could not identify, and I felt my stomach sink. I leaned over to touch the grass at the side of my grandmother's grave, hoping it would snap me back into the here and now. My grandmother's headstone of red Tishomingo granite was exactly the same shade as the sky where the sun had just slipped over the horizon. The cemetery was on a bluff that reminded me of the Seven Sisters Overlook just a few miles to the west, Arbuckle Falls Creek.

For years, I had lived in fear of exposure and humiliation because of my seizure disorder. Since Marcus, since I was a teenager, I could not stand anyone to touch me, for fear of being catapulted into the trembling and buzzing of the seizure, or worse, into the terrible lacunae, the empty lakes of time into which my mind drowned itself while in a fugue state.

Stanton had found where his father had hidden Tara and the other precious jade artifacts smuggled from Laos. He also had known that his father had been driven mad by the loss and by fear that monks or others were pursuing him.

Yet, Stanton had deliberately withheld Tara from his father. Would that cruel refusal provide him the kind of satisfying closure that revenge fantasies seem to promise?

Did the fact that Stanton deduced where it was, and then seduced me with the idea of a treasure hunt, prove a dedicated, unwavering love for me? Or, did it reveal a delight in playing my weaknesses, a thrill of knowing that you have a secret hold over another?

How was Stanton able to divine the degree to which I would identify with his tragic, troubled father? How could he have known how deeply I understood the man who was plagued with post-traumatic stress disorder, bullied daily by the voice of a god as yet unknown to humanity, but a harsh one who proclaimed him his first adherent in a doomsday cult of one?

I thought of Dad, laboring away in his basement, where equipment flickered, sizzled, and printers connected to sensors and computers produced charts and graphs. I could smell fresh-brewed coffee; I could hear my mother's soft voice blend with the voice of my grandmother: "She has such a pretty face, such pretty blue eyes."

With a great effort, I placed the flowers I had brought with me on the side of my grandmother's grave, then stood up. More unwanted and unrecognizable images flashed inside my mind's eye. Where could I go to heal? Where could I seek refuge? Would I awaken from yet another fugue state, possessed yet again, bruised, manipulated, torn, the very life taken from me? Did I even care any more?

A camouflage-painted two-way radio crackled from a bamboo hut on stilts somewhere in Laos. Mosquitoes whined, monks in saffron robes chanted the heart sutra. My head was filled with radio static and chanting. Somewhere quiet, soothing voices spoke to me.

I would be safe as long as I followed the voices.

The Forgotten Soldier

Podcast.

Captain Harville lovingly wrapped the jade statue in strips of thin cotton fabric he had purchased at the market in Ventienne. The thin hand-dyed batik was being to put a use he had never expected. Before, they were useful curtains, now they were dramatically-hued swaddling cloths for a goddess who glowed with pastel iridescence, even when light faded from the room. The jade was unlike anything he had ever seen, reflected Harville. The hundred or so pebble-sized carvings that illustrated the power of Tara to take away worry, pain, and despair were also of iridescent, multi-colored pastel jade, but they did not have the same intensity of the primary sculpture, a little more than a foot in height, with exquisite intricacy. Simultaneously the Green Tara, with all her gifts of fertility and bounteousness, and the Pale Tara of infinite compassion and protection, this goddess radiated goodness, light, and forgiveness.

The radio in the corner of the bamboo hut on stilts he called his base camp had been quiet for several weeks now. It emitted the occasional crackle, but Harville knew that it was inoperable and that he had no way to communicate with his command unless he openly defied orders and went to Ventienne.

It did not matter. Harville was in no rush to communicate with his command. He knew that by this time he had entered the bureaucratic limbo of officially MIA (Missing In Action), and that it would be annoyingly complicated to get himself off that list. He knew other pilots who had, after miraculously reappearing, been moved off the MIA list and to the Casualty list, rather than back to Active Duty.

With a jolt, images of his buddy Brecker intruded: Brecker, smiling and embracing his wife after graduating from officer candidate school; Brecker, drinking a beer with him in Saigon; Brecker, thin and focused, analyzing flight plans; Brecker, the side of his neck torn off, his ear and pieces of skull missing, still speaking, still entreating Harville to keep going. Harville jabbed the end of the pointed stick he was using in his task into his thigh. The pain would force out the intrusive thoughts.

Mosquitoes whined around the netting that made a pale shrouded cone in the middle of his room. To escape them, he sat under the netting and wrapped each piece of carved jade before putting them carefully in a teak box he had saved.

Harville startled at the piercing cries of a newborn baby. The cries were in the room with him, and he heard a nurse congratulating him while soothing the mother. "He's got some powerful lungs there," resonated a male voice. The cries became more piercing. "Your son, sir. He's beautiful. He has your eyes," said someone in the room with him. Harville felt his eyes fill with tears. Tears from a quiet cloudburst splattered against his hands, then, as suddenly as they had appeared, disappeared.

In his loving hands, Tara's firm, jade flesh became soft, supple, responsive. She inclined herself slowly toward him. Casting shadows on the walls like Bali shadow puppets, Harville saw his Tara come alive on the woven bamboo panels of his hut. Her arms moving gracefully, she beckoned him to come with him, to follow him into the shadow. Suddenly sick with the sweet-pungent scent of burning opium that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, Harville doubled over, extending his arm out to touch the shadow of Tara on the wall.

His fingers graced the fringes of the shadow, and as he did so, a sharp shock entered him. Flashes of light exploded in his head, like fireworks in the same iridescent hues of the jade statue. Closing his eyes, he felt his mind go into an unmapped territory, a place of madness and healing, of hurt and succor, of thirst and of eternal, quenching springs.

He was now truly lost.

Postcards from a Dream

Podcast.

"Stay back, Ophelia!" Dad's voice was echoed and amplified by the gray-blue walls of the cave which I realized was the entrance to a never-developed mine. I could tell by his voice that he had found something. Perhaps it was the cache of coins and jewelry hidden by the notorious Captain Endes-Wicker and Miss Rosamund MacLean, also known as the "Pink Lady Bandits." Displaced when their homes were burned to the ground during the Civil War, they moved west where they found it convenient to thieve from the thieves who regularly robbed settlers on the California Trail as they passed through this remote part of northern Arizona and southern Utah.

"What is it?"

"Don't come in. It's bad. You won't like it," said Dad.

It was too late. Curiosity had already gotten the best of me, and I was fast on Dad's heels. If he had found the treasure, I wanted to see it.

"Don't worry, Dad. You can trust me. I won't break or disturb any artifacts." The air in the small cave was cool, and the rough-hewn walls had a blue-green sheen as the sun's rays hit the limestone matrix, interspersed with azurite, malachite, chysacolla, along with chalcopyrite, which flashed a glittery metallic color.

"What kind of treasure? Where is it?" From where I stood, I could see Dad leaning over a wooden crate of some kind, and what appeared to be a broken chair.

"I'm not sure if it is what we had hoped to find. But, someone definitely was here, and, from the looks of it, it wasn't very pleasant," said Dad. "Brace yourself, Ophelia. It's ugly."

My head immediately filled with ghastly images of bones, knives, manacles, implements of torture from the Spanish Inquisition. An "Iron Lady" for the Pink Ladies?

"Really?" I asked, leaning forward, trying to make my way around a large rock.

"Really, Ophelia. You needn't sound so ghoulish," admonished Dad. "But you have to remember these were not calm places or times."

Crawling over the rock, I felt ashamed of my curiosity, and of the fact that I half-hoped to find something shocking. What confronted me gave me pause, and I wasn't quite sure how to react. In the crate were dishes, cups, cutlery, and neatly stacked mason jars with rusty lids. A pile of old blankets and what appeared to be what used to be a mattress until the chipmunks, squirrels, and mice liberated the stuffing from it for their own constructions. A tobacco tin lay open, empty. Then I saw what made Dad ask me to hang back. It lay next to a crumpled, half-chewed up wool blanket.

"Are those what I think they are?" I asked, in a gagged, choked voice.

"It depends on what you think they are," said Dad. His voice had deepened, and it was no longer so harsh.

"Oh no. They can't be. Is that human hair? Scalps??" I asked. To my annoyance, I could feel myself growing tingly, my hearing muffled, and a strange buzzing and twitching. I was starting to go into the dissociative state I had learned accompanied a seizure.

"These are a couple of old fur collars." Dad's voice was calm and I could hear humor coming back. I could feel my stomach begin to untwist itself.

"Yes? What? How?" I struggled with my body.

"It totally had me fooled. From a distance, they look bad."

I looked at them and could feel myself coming back to the presence.

"Ick," I said. "The mice got to them. Is that a coat next to the blankets?"

"Yes. Do you want to take a closer look?" asked Dad. "The dishes are basic but in pretty good condition. I think they're old, but probably 1890s rather than 1870s. Someone must have holed up here for part of a summer or fall."

I moved closer. It was easy to see how Dad had mistaken the gnawed scraps of fur for scalps and the idea made me smile. I would enjoy teasing Dad about this on the long drive back home. I knelt next to the wooden crate and started to lift out the dishes and to look at them carefully. In the meantime, I was watchful for spiders or scorpions.

Between two plates I found a small New Testament, but no evidence of individual ownership. It reminded me of looking through the contents of a box of merchandise, and not the contents of one's temporary home. Then, removing the last plate, I encountered a small packet of postcards, clearly Victorian. Although they were faded, they were in surprisingly good condition and the colors were still vibrant.

"Dad, look. Postcards from Marrakesh," I said.

"I went there once," responded Dad, wistfully.

"You did?" That statement temporarily distracted me, then I returned to the half-dozen postcards that depicted a magical, Moorish fantasy of minarets, intricate tile, fountains, arched doorways, veiled women.

"Dreams of Marrakesh," I read. "This is amazing. Look, there are several scenes. Here's the Kasbah. Also Medina, Riyadh, Mosques, Al-Moor-Avid Palace," I said.
"I really found North Africa to be interesting. I used to feel sorry for the dockworkers, though. The French were hard on them," mused Dad.

"Can we take the entire crate? It's not very big," I asked, as I began to replace the plates.

"Let's be sure to put it in the back, just in case there are spiders or scorpions we haven't found," said Dad. "Then we'll go by a U-Haul store and get proper packaging for the drive home."

"Sounds great." I leafed through the postcards again and wondered how a person intrigued by Marrakesh would find himself or herself in northern Arizona on the Kaibab monocline, north of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

The drive back to the hotel went quickly, and my mind joined that of the former tenant of the Blue Cave, lost in dreams of Marrakesh.

Runway to Oblivion

Podcast.

It was long past midnight, and the shrieks, grunts, croaks, and howls coming from the mangrove swamp made me shudder. We stood on a narrow and I wondered how, between the mosquitoes, snakes, and alligators, I could help Stanton do the work he was here to do. The full moon illuminated the gravel road we had driven on, but the airstrip itself looked like an infinitely deep pond, or a portal to another dimension. "They want me to watch a landing and to see how it's affecting the airstrip," said Stanton. "My guess that each landing, or even touch-and-go, makes it crumble. They didn't drain the swamp. They didn't bother to build up the roadbed, either. Now, it's like a thin skin of asphalt on top of a sponge."

"Can't you do this during the day?" I asked.

"They don't fly during the day." Stanton walked over to an electrical box, opened it, and flipped a switch. A long array of foot-high blue lights suddenly extended out in front of us, dreamlike and surreal.

"Have you ever seen fireworks displays from above?" I asked. Stanton was leaning over what appeared to be loose wires. I continued, even though he did not seem to be paying attention. "It's the most amazing thing. They almost look like neon splashes made by neon pebbles being dropped into an electric lake. I saw it in Chicago one Fourth of July and in towns along the edge of Lake Michigan. We took off right when the displays were beginning. It was unforgettable."

In the blue glow, Stanton's eyes glittered as he turned sharply and looked at me.

"That's what I thought the first time I saw a firefight at night," said Stanton. "Especially the mortars, but also the tracers. It wasn't easy to appreciate it when you were in it, but from a distance, all I could think of was how it looked like a Fourth of July fireworks show."

In the dim illumination of the airstrip, I could see that the surface of the asphalt was, in fact, crumbling. In other places, it had what appeared to be mud cracks.

"How large are the planes? Are they heavy?" I asked.

"Lots of Piper Commanches, but I like the Piper Meridian. Beautiful plane. Good range, comes in at around at 2,200 pounds, but of course, the force on the runway depends on the velocity and angle of impact," said Stanton.

"No jets?" I asked.

Stanton looked at me and laughed. "Come on. You are joking aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess so." I hoped what I thought was a tree limb on the edge of the runway was not a huge snake. Alligators were a real danger, too.

"Why small planes? Why not helicopters? Even old gunships?"

"Gunships? Have you ever seen one? They're big and heavy. No one wants to waste the weight on crazy old cannons," said Stanton. "The Bells are okay - the 200 series - but they're slow, noisy and expensive. No payload, either."

"What kind of payload are you talking about?" I asked. "The obvious thing would be drugs, right? Narcotraficantes?"

"Not usually. Not here. Other cargo, other people. They carry documents and information, not drugs. That's why the airstrip does not have to be long. But, sometimes they are bringing in things. But, I'm only here to recommend how, when, and where to resurface. I try to know as little as possible about what my clients do."

Stanton looked at me and down at the runway.

"Are you going to just stand there and step on that snake?" he asked.

"Ack! It was a snake. I thought maybe a tree limb," I said. I scampered quickly toward Stanton. I tripped on a chunk of asphalt runway. Stanton caught as I fell forward. His arms were strong, and the linen of his loose-fitting white shirt felt soft and warm. He pulled me to him and I felt his lips press against mine. My pulse raced.

Slowly he released me. "Too bad there's work to do out here." He stroked my arm gently, then pulled up my arm for a closer look. "You are being devoured by mosquitoes."

"Yes, I know. The sooner we finish, the better. It won't be long. I'll just make observations, then we'll go." For the first time, I heard the engine of a small plane.

"Why do you do this?" I asked.

"Why did you go to South America?" responded Stanton.

"I needed to prove something to myself," I said. "Plus, I didn't really care whether or not I made it back. I couldn't see any future for myself."

"Looks like we're two of a kind," said Stanton, a bit too lightly. He took out night vision goggles and looked up. "These are useless for this. No depth perception. But, I can get a sense of how they're doing on their approach."

I looked down at the airstrip. It was rough, and I imagined that any landing would kick up a spray of gravel-sized chunks of asphalt.

"Not good. They're too low and fast. It's going to grind."

"They're going to miss the approach?" I asked.

"No. The landing will be okay. It's just going to be unbelievably hard on the surface. It's going to stick and then grind."

Stanton was right. It was a hard landing, fast and low. Instead of bouncing, though, they stuck the landing because the left wheel dug in and ground down the runway. Stanton took a number of shots with his camera. Then, pulled me to him.

"Let's get out of here. We don't need to be here when they deplane. Not necessarily safe to know."

Stanton's Tonga Green Range Rover was still cool inside, the engine still warm. Stanton started it up and we left quickly. At the other end of the runway, I could see shadowy figures and vehicles moving about.

"Time to move," he said, as he drove the vehicle quickly but without turning on the headlamps. Once out of the mangrove swamp and on a local road, Stanton turned on the lights.

"You're going with me, aren't you?" he asked.

"Anywhere," I said.

He leaned toward me, put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward him. I knew then that our futures were intertwined. I could have resisted, but I did not. Instead, I felt the core of my being catapult itself into a yet-unknown trajectory, taking off from the airstrip we had just left behind us, a runway to oblivion.