Scene 14

While she is upstairs asleep in the heaviness of the first trimester, he begins to lose hope that she will wake up in time to make anything of the evening. He thinks of the family members that he has been meaning to call. His aunt, his uncle, his sister. He considers making an effort to call them all right now, but figures he may end up talking for hours to any one of them and really why not just do something for himself.

He should write, he knows, and creates a new word document. He considers some facebook fodder as material. An elementary school friend, who’s face he can’t picture offhand, is moving to Florida this weekend. A girl he worked with one summer has been awake for three straight days with her infant son who has a cold. A friend who just moved with his band to Toronto got a city permit to play guitar in the subway.

None of them sparks anything and he remembers a friend who wrote a story about himself having nothing to write about. What a luxury it is to write... he realizes. While it is possibly the most terrifying thing you can do that won’t kill you, you can always just write nonsense. Throw a fistful of magnet-words onto the fridge and see what happens. Switch some things around. Add a couple of cheat words and VOILA! It’s poetry.

Surely, it is as mindless an activity as giving a sound-bite to the sports media. He appreciates this, but still has no motivation.

Tonight he will eat something, or take a bath or masturbate and hopefully fall asleep.

VOILA!

Scene 13

After listening to the old man in the locker room talk about how his NHL hall of fame father led Montreal in scoring for three seasons in the early 30’s... he walk flip-flopped to the shower area. Towel securely around his waist, he hangs his goggles and bathing suit on the wall. Turning around he sees a middle-aged man, fat and naked, in the right most shower stall. Evidently fat-and-naked doesn’t consider closing the black curtain- there for all to use- a worthwhile task.

The younder man has always accepted with poise the fact that there is going to be some nudity in this setting. But 40-something here- Mr. Fat-and-Naked - crosses the border from just-changing-my-clothes to the People’s Republic of Exhibitionism boldly.

Awkwardly avoiding eye-contact with the man, he enters the left-most shower, pulls the curtain, and considers how the legacy of his own grandfather does not give him much to admire.

Scene 12

It is the end of the day at the end of the week. Being a stay-at-home dad Monday through Friday makes him love going to work on the weekends.

He is strung out on longing and frustration, over what he doesn’t know. He thought he had traced this recurring aggravation back a generation and determined a root event, but this doesn’t quite explain it all; the cursing, the object-punching, the tongue-biting and the under-breath muttering. And the shame when it is over.

Having suffered through dinner time with an attention deficit and a sensation of weeping. Having cleaned up and relaxed enough to read two picture books, both on ladybugs, to the kids. It is time to go.

He comes up with an errand that he has attempted (and failed at) twice already. This is his escape plan for the evening. While he once resorted to late nights out and not calling home to explain his whereabouts, now a trip to Wal-mart is the most he gets on a semi-regular basis.

“I’m leaving,” he reminds her and heads out the front door after he is acknowledged.

He drives, without his gloves to cover his cracked, bleeding hands, to Dartmouth Crossing. A place for mass shopping where there once was nothing but tall trees by the highway.

He parks, enters Wal-mart. Goes to the back of the store, the automotive center, hoping to get a key cut. His key to their apartment broke off while he turned it with one hand (the other was securing the baby to his left hip) on a -15 C winter’s night the week before.

In his two previous attempts to have a new key made, he was told to keep the receipt and forewarned that it may not work. Neither of the two keys did.

It is nearly eight o’clock and no one is in the auto-centre. He figures that perhaps this portion of the store is closed. He does not want to find someone who may be able to help him, so he just stands there... at the counter... waiting, blank-faced. After a while he returns to his car.

He drives through several maze-like parking lots and gets out at a gourmet coffee shop. He enters and orders a tea and a cookie. The comfortable seating area is quiet, but crowded, and on this night, like many others, he wants some space.

He goes back to the front of the shop wheres a small counter with tall stools sits in front of the window looking out into the parking lot. The scenery doesn’t matter, as he takes off his coat, and removes a book from a large interior pocket. It is by his favorite writer. He has been reading it since Christmas, having been hard-pressed to find more than ten minutes at a time to read.

He sips, takes bites and turns pages until a group of people come in talking loudly. Just his luck, they sit at the table closest to his private counter. They put their coats down and order. He considers making for the door, but still has some tea left. He enjoys it more than he expected and figures it would be a shame to rush through it or finish it off while splitting his attention with driving.

But then the noisy people come back. He heres constant chatter, but a girl who’s speech is less than refined rises above the others. “My boob is buzzin’.” She says. “Must be Colin.” He infers that her jacket is still on and thinks, that’s great, shutup.

She continues talking about who is or is not texting her for a few minutes, interrupting herself periodically to announce that her boob is buzzing again.

Why do people have to talk? he often wonders. This girl is from Newfoundland. While he has learned to tolerate the accent, the strange foreign sounds, it tears away at him tonight with every syllable she speaks.

This is what he cannot trace. Why has he learned to be so bothered by people he doesn’t know, by someone he could tune out if he just tried a little harder? There can be no event in the history of a family that would dictate his emotional response to this.

He does not leave though. The conversation continues and is then dominated by a guy’s voice (also Newfy.) He repeatedly refers to Nikki, an ex maybe, or maybe just a hopeless crush. The content of his mostly monologue, however, is drunkenness. Shots. Shots of jagger, Jack, tequilla, “no, that’s too girly” and “yeah, I was so drunk that night I passed out in someone’s garden on the walk home” and he couldn’t leave out “My worst drinking experience was when Nikki got ridiculously hammered. She was just so drunk that she was real upset- and, so... that’s why any time Nikki is too hammered is always- automatically, my worst drinking experience.”

Is he drunk now? his mental battering of this table of people resumes. When I don’t have anything to say, I just DON”T TALK!”

He tries to cut this guy a break. He must be my age, or younger. Unmarried, of course, and childless, as anyone would expect of someone in their early 20s. I am sure I was loud and obnoxious before, and it very well may have involved stories of alcohol and hopeless crushes.

Well. He tried, but he’s had enough. The relief of the warm tea and the dim lighting and the thoughtful evening decor is outbalanced by the stress that these people are causing him. Again, he cannot explain this away. So he just leaves.

While throwing away his trash he decides he’s got to get a look at the people he’s been eavesdropping on. So he turns and goes to the door in a way that puts their table in view.

He is surprised. They are actually much older than him. Mid-to-late thirties. They are all overweight, except one guy, bearded and wearing a ball-cap. The exception guy looks closer to his age and, oddly enough, looks vaguely like him.

That’s it. He thinks, feeling justified in his judgements. They really shouldn’t be allowed out in public.

He returns to his car, scrolls on his iPod until he finds some francophone musique. He wants to hear something, to feel some emotion, without having to hear the words that will remind him of how difficult it is to truly communicate with other human beings.

Scene 11

He hopes tonight to do some things that he has been wanting to in his downtime; namely to read and watch a movie. Tired and sore-eyed, he quickly gives up after a few paragraphs of his novel.

He hangs it all and makes microwaved popcorn, which he promptly covers in melted margarine.

Back to the living room, he turns on the TV. Before turning on the DVD player he is distracted by the French CBC. There is an eight-piece band playing a beautiful pop anthem beneath lights of red, orange and white.

It’s songs like this that remind him of his wish to fly, or at least to be shot out of a cannon.

Everyone in this band sings but the two horn players. He overwhelmingly approves. The hipster who stands out as front man is subdued but captivating with a voice amost velvet.

He listens to several songs, including one called Saskatchewan. He remembers having heard it on CBC2. It is sung by a guitar player (less than hipster) who delivers the last syllable of the title province in a nasal Quebec drawal. It is grating on the ear but has it’s appeal.

He is moved enough by it all that he writes down the band’s name when it appears at the bottom of the screen. He plans on looking them up and sending them off to his friend who spoke fluent french by the time he was 16.

He is always skeptical about reading literature in translation. He wonders if he would feel this way (flying, or just shot out of a cannon) if the lyrics were in English.

He looks down at his greasy left hand, the kernel and popcorn shards left swimming in margarine.

He hears a woman’s speaking voice. Because it is French and he is American, he immediately turns his head toward it. The young woman on the screen, the host it seems, says “merci” to several of the musicians. She has light brown skin and is the type of beauty that must be hidden away in late-night-foreign-language-public-television.

She makes him feel something unreasonable, like he wants to watch this stranger from the corner of the room.

The band strikes up as the credits roll. Back to the kitchen, he rinses the bowl in the sink. Returning to the tv, there is a shot on screen of perfect blue water, and overhead of an island scene. It switches abruptly to one of drear and grey.

There are no musicians. There are no topless French women.

The TV is off and he is gone to bed.

Scene 10

Dear Andrew,

It is so unpredictable, he thinks. He can’t help but think.

It’s simply a matter of having a pen when you need one.

Scene 9

He is uncomfortably crunched in a white, plastic folding chair in the reserved seating area at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. It has been dark for over an hour now and he was bored by the last performance and amazed by the one before that.

While his wife has gone to the bathroom, he waits anxiously for the main event. For the reason they bought tickets for the reserved seating area. They planned to make this trip home, in fact, to see in Iron and Wine live.

She climbs the hill to the port-a-potties and he is nervous that she is not back yet and the MC is onstage killing time before introducing the singer/songwriter who is terribly appropriate for a folk fest.

Finally, the great southern, bearded man strides enormously from behind a curtain to the front of the stage.

Standing and applauding at his seat, about 10 rows back, he sees a few eager teenagers move to the large open area in front of the stage. Then a few more. Then a few more.

He envies their enthusiasm and wants to join them. But at 23, bespectacled- and himself bearded- he wonders if he will stick out too much.

He looks behind over his shoulder, up the hill and does not see his wife.

Screw it, he decides. I was probably listening to his music long before they were. And with that he makes his way to the front.

The gigantic figure in the simple white spotlight begins with a song that was featured in a highly-celebrated independent film five summers earlier.

Wow, he thinks, swaying to the melody. It’s been five years already?

He is relieved to see that many other 20-somethings have joined in the rhythmic, organismal swaying. When he feels soft, white fabric brush his leg unintentionally, he notes the girl moving (almost without knowing it) beside him.

This makes him uneasy and while the guitar intro ends he is looking over his shoulder again.

“I am thinking it’s a sign...” the man sings.

He sees his wife’s summer-freckled skin and red/brown hair through the dark. She enters the seating area and continues down the hill, and her strapless blue sun-dress flows as if it were made specifically for this moment.

She is gorgeous today, he thinks.

“... that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images and when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned.”

People are reverently singing along now. He sees her go back to their seats and walks up the aisle to where she is.

“Will you come to the front with me?” he asks her.

“No, I think I’ll sit.” she answers. “But you should go back.”

“You sure?”

“mmHmm!” she says, cheerfully affirming.

“Okay.” He is surprised that she doesn’t want to be together, but glad she has not asked him to stay with her.

“They will see us waving from such great heights...” the song continues.

Returning to the place he had stood, he wonders about whether it is better to be alone, with one very special person, or with a collective mass.

He sings along with the rest of them in the chorus, rocking left to right.

Scene 8

Grief from death/life

You think that you will

continue grieving

death

but

are surprised that

you will grieve

over

life

Scene 7

He plans on making her this:

Spinach and Black Bean

Quesadillas

1 tbsp. olive oil 1(15-0z.) can black beans

1 small onion, diced beans, rinsed and drained

3-4 cups fresh 1 tsp. ground cumin (optional)

pre-washed spinach

4 (8-inch) flour tortillas

2 cups shredded

reduced-fat Mexican

cheese blend, divided

(not knowing what on Earth cumin is, he will omit it.)

Scene 6

He first became aware of it while on the phone with his uncle. He was wishing his dead dad’s twin a happy 57th and talked with him for an hour and a half.

He mentioned to his uncle that his friend had just returned from Haiti. He was interrupted.

“Oh! Do you know about what’s going on there?”

“No,” he replied, assuming it was US-induced political upheaval.

“A huge earthquake. 7.5”

Later he is watching it on the news and remembers how September 11th happened on TV.

It started, for him, on the radio.

He picked it up an hour later on the Today Show

after they realized it was no mistake and the

newscaster declared, “This is an act of war.”

And all morning the video rolling in;

of the impact

of smoke plume

of the towers falling

of the debris tumbling through the

streets of Manhattan like a gray river in a blue canyon.

of the flying people

the jumping people

the falling people.

The on-looker gasping “Oh my God!”

All day long like that until he didn’t know what to do.

And at night, when the President was safe,

and the reporters and firemen agreed,

they could see it

A cathedral in Hell.

He left the room but couldn’t turn off the TV.

Exhausted, he slept like he never had,

but wondered, in the morning if he really did

have a vision of the master-terrorist the year before.

(Really, he had.)

And the next day, because his dad had the afternoon off, they went to lunch at a chain on City Line.

He remembers how three older men agreed that there were Palestinians on the planes.

But it was a relief because of the effusive sunshine.

So now, listening to the voice of his uncle-

At times it sounds so close to his dad’s, yet is

so discernibly different that the absence

is clear.

So now, he wants simply to remember

the details of September Twelve

so the effusive sunshine

can dry out the bleak mid-winter.

“Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday

Dear Uncle.

Happy birthday to you.”

Scene 5

All you can think of is home

and the desire to row

up the Schuylkill River @

sundown.

But for some reason

you’ve gotten

into drinking instant

coffee

For comfort-warmth

and the taste makes

you want to

smoke

cigarettes in the

cold, outside bars

in Halifax.

You played shows that

lead you back to the

end of Dylan’s set

in the outfield

the made you profane

and shocked him with

your lack of innocence (surplus of arrogance.)

You’d settle for a paved uneven path

looking for deer with a

camera or

birds with binoculars.

You’d listen intently

and you’d relearn

the pattern of color

on the crown

the wingspan dimensions

the mating habits

and note how they fly

across the pond to eachother.

And you wouldn’t ask

for the tennis or the music

or the sculptures.

Just more time

More time to talk

to know what someone

is like when they are

not raising you,

To know them in the

midst of nature.

or the backyard

or even the mall

And you’d forget how to

tell the time.

But you’re thinking more

often

That there IS no relationship

between the novel

and life

And it will only ever

be vague

whether or not it is

guilt.

But

That kind of time is

not available to you.

Your time is a different

place and he

sleeps

and sleeps

and sleeps

and sleeps

like you

dream

and dream

and dream.

Scene 4

Later, he is seated next to the small, car-shaped bed in the boy’s room. He has opened in front of his son’s pillowed head a hard-bound book about all different kinds of mommies. There are colorful illustrations, in the style of a young child, of moms doing a variety of things. e.g. some moms drive motorcycles. some moms work at home. some moms walk you to school.

Completely spaced, again, he stares hard at his left knee, still holding the book upright.

When he realizes he is absent, he blinks a few times and wonders how long he has been holding up the same page.

He looks over at the boy, who watches his dad. The kid giggles and says “Daddy, you so silly.”

After he finishes reading and saying goodnight, he goes downstairs and remembers the pile of laundry that he left on the floor in the corner the night before.

Scene 3

He has spaced out suddenly. He is moving the brush while his son is smiling a tremendous, tooth-exposing grin.

He has forgotten that he is brushing the three year old’s teeth because he is preoccupied with his mothers woes:

-Because there was such great tax debt to pay her husband had scaled back the life insurance until there was almost nothing.

-Because there is outstanding tax debt she cannot claim the life insurance until a settlement is negotiated.

-Because she has not claimed life insurance she has no money to pay for the three cemetery plots she purchased: one for her husband (deceased/buried,) one for herself (bereaved,) one for her youngest son (mentally retarded.)

-Because she has not paid for the three cemetery plots the woman who works for the church that runs the cemetery emailed her today saying that she can only hold the two plots next to her husband’s until the end of January.

“Okay, now my turn daddy?” asks the preschooler.

Wow, he thinks, there is an overwhelming biblical precedent for providing for widows. I wouldn’t expect the IRS to show any humanity towards her, but a church-run cemetery? Can’t they just let her pay $100 a month? Jesus told John to take care of his widowed mother while he was NAILED TO A CROSS! Who are these people?

“Daddy, iss my TURN!”

He has ceased brushing the baby teeth and is opening the mirrored medicine cabinet. He lays the bear-shaped brush on a shelf and closes the mirror.

“NO DADDY! ISS MY TURN!” The blonde little boy is desperate now, weeping.

Snapping out of it. He finally realizes his mistake. He hurries his hands back to the medicine cabinet and returns the tooth brush into the small, fair hands. He feels sorrow over his detachment from the temporal, from his first-born, and pulls him to his chest. He tries to tell the little boy how sorry he is. That he was distracted, thinking about Gran, wishing he could help her because she is so sad.

“Do you know what I mean?” he asks to the boy.

“Yes, Daddy,” the child pushes himself upright from his father’s chest. Rubbing his moistened eyes he explains “ Yes, I want Gran, help me brush my teeth.”

Scene 2

He just brought his clean clothes up from the laundry room but is waylaid by an idea for a song or story or something. He doesn’t know what, but takes his notebook out of his back-left pocket and starts jotting down words and images that he thinks might sound good.

He decides to send them to a friend, a writer who is familiar with his frustrations. He toys with the idea of sending them to a few more people- all artists or at least friends who are curious and interested in the way people’s minds work and how they function while bogged down with heavy thoughts that have no origin.

He goes to his MacBook to type out what he wrote across a few small pages. The words and images seem much less substantial against a vast white background sentineled by a pulsing vertical line. He thinks that this format has perhaps sapped them of their meaning, imagines the flashing line is a thin man in a robe that approaches everything cynically.

He reads from the notebook again. Yes, they are worth recording. Should he still send them to anyone? Yes. More people in fact. Everyone.

He looks on the floor behind him and remembers the laundry. Still in a messy pile except for two shirts which he folded before he started writing. He wonders if he can get away with leaving it out until morning.

It is 2:19 am.

Finished typing, he shuts down the MacBook and turns his chair back to the laundry.

Scene 1

He stands in

the kitchen so he can down a

large glass of water, wearing

his (2 day old?) boxers w/o shirt

It is 10 already and his 3 yr

old son has been half-awake on

the couch since 5 am watching cartoons

in French.

A few minutes ago he heard

the baby babble briefly in her

crib.

Finishing the water, he sets the

glass down on the counter.

He should 1) throw on some clothes

2) get the baby up, 3) make them

a proper breakfast--

There’s something he

wanted to do in the

kitchen first, but he

can’t remember what.

He can only think of the

black medical bag that sits

unassumingly on the decorative bench

by his mother’s front door.

There is a stethoscope

strewn on top of

wrapped carefully around it.

Clinging to the stethoscope

is a small stuffed Eeyore

that once amused many

young children.