Speaking of endings...

friend jeanette asked for a little one act
for her MOTEL CHRONICLES project.
two people, one room
lay aside projections-- a piece about abandonment, fierceness,
endings and what it takes to get something finished

not sure if the formatting will hold
this part of the Marriage Suite


SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES
By Susan Merson

BILLY, 40’s, IS SITTING ON THE MOTEL BED POURING HOT WATER FROM A THERMOS INTO A CUP O NOODLES. SHE WORKS CAREFULLY, LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO PUT IT DOWN SO SHE CAN MAKE THE NEXT CUP. HER HUSBAND, CARL, IS WITH HER, PACING, CHECKING HIS PHONE.

BILLY
I was talking on the telephone. I mean I was on hold, on the freeway. I was looking for you. I was holding the phone…

CARL
When? (HE POKES AT THE PASTA WITH A FORK)… that looks pretty nasty.. Bring any parmesan?
BILLY
I didn’t bring the contents of the pantry when I beat it from the fire, okay? (she waves him away) When I was driving here from home, alone. I was driving and..
CARL
… when, on your way here? In all that traffic. You were driving and talking on the phone? (SHE GIVES HIM A LOOK) You’re telling me some story about talking on the.. . and you’re cooking Cup O Noodles. I’m listening for Chrissakes..
BILLY
Multi tasking. That’s what we do. I am “cooking” your pasta and telling you a story at the same time.



CARL
Well, do one thing or the other, will ya?

BILLY
I am cooking and talking, Women, we multitask. We talk and eat. Fuck and dream of Fellini.
CARL
I bet HE got to eat the pasta his wife made lovingly in his own home. Not in some crap ass motel on a freeway overpass. I really need to eat. I am so fucking hungry.

BILLY
Doing the best I can here…

CARL
Right, you’ve had a tough day.

BILLY
And your day? How was your day, asshole? Mine was a picture of contentment.

CARL
I told you. I’m hungry. Hell of a day. The kind of bullshit I put up with, man…

BILLY
Yeah? What kind of bullshit? You make your way through roadblocks, get the last rental car on the lot because your car is a smoking mass in our carport halfway to Mulholland?

CARL
I’m glad you got a rental car.

BILLY
I am trying to tell you something..
CARL
Well, tell me already, goddamnit. And Christ, don’t drown the goddamn Cup O Noodles. How can you even pretend that I am going to eat that crap?

BILLY
Don’t.
CARL
What?
BILLY
Don’t eat it. I don’t see the pantry overflowing. Unless you’d like to go stand in the line at the shelter. I bet they’re serving filet fucking mignon.

CARL
I am just saying…

BILLY (quietly firm)
Carl, find a table and then goddamn set it. Turn on the radio. See if there;s a report on the fire zone, If all the houses in our area went up.

CARL
Calm down . I’ll set the table.
HE MOVES THE END TABLE BETWEEN THEM. PLACES THE TWO CANISTERS OF FOOD ON THE TABLE. FINDS PLASTIC FORKS THEN, RELENTING-- FLIPS ON THE RADIO. JAZZ PLAYS. IT HELPS.



BILLY
Sit down. Here. You’re hungry. Here, it’s ready. There are two--

HE JUMPS UP
CARL
Right, I’ll be right there. I gotta pee. Three seconds…

BILLY SITS DOWN AT THE TABLE ALONE. SHE CAN’T LIFT HER FORK. SHE IS EXHAUSTED. THE MUSIC PLAYS. SHE PLACES HER TWO HANDS ON THE TABLE IN FRONT OF HER.SHE SPEAKS TO NO ONE. TAKES A DEEP BREATH.

BILLY
Just as I came onto the ramp. I saw him and I rolled to a stop. On the freeway. Remember how we looked at those elk we saw on the side of the road, braying at each other in the fog. That time in Northern California? We just stopped and…

CARL COMES BACK IN. HE HAS ONLY HEARD THE PART ABOUT THE CAR.

CARL
What.. on the freeway? What were you driving? You got the last rental car on Ventura. Lucky. What are you driving?
HIS CELL PHONE RINGS

BILLY
A Nissan Sentra.. Triple AA discount.
HE ANSWERS IT.

CARL
( speaks into the phone) Yeah? Carl. Jimmy! I’m eating dinner. I’m at the goddamn table with my…
HE GETS UP AND MOTIONS TO BILLY. HE HAS TO TAKE IT

BILLY
….. and there was one of those relic-y VW’s, a rattly snack van loaded for bear, on the way to sell crap to some gathering at some kid soccer game.

CARL(on phone)
Aw fuck, Jim. You call me with this crap? I told you what I need. We got burnt out. Our whole street. Everything gone.. everything up for grabs.. I been standing in lines all day long….
CARL TAKES HIS PHONE AND LEAVES AGAIN. BILLY IS ALONE. SHE SPEAKS TO THE AIR.

BILLY
It looked like he was looking for a contact lens or something. He didn’t get up.. He had nothing on. No clothes. He had managed to walk to the middle of the freeway, just after the 101 merges into the 170 and all those trucks are on their way from the warehouses down near the interchange. And everyone is trying to drive away from the hills. and he was on his hands and knees on the freeway, his balls blowing in the wind. Looking for something. His knees were bleeding…you could see that as he moved along. Making imprints on the concrete. It took the longest time. for anyone to believe that the guy was even there. He didn’t move except on his knees an inch at a time. He was on the way to Campostela.
CARL COMES BACK IN


CARL
That was Jim.

BILLY
What did he want?
CARL
He wanted to fuck me up the ass. That’s what he wanted..
BILLY
Tasty language.
CARL
All of a sudden you’re so sensitive. Mac fucking truck driver potty mouth finds God, I suppose.
THEY EAT THE MUSIC HELPS. FORKS. GLASSES CLINK, SLURP. EACH EATING, AVOIDING, EATING.

BILLY
Hard day.
CARL
You bet.
BILLY
I’m not apologizing. You stormed out of the house. No conversation.
CARL
We had a fight, Billy. We always have fights.
BILLY
Carl. How long we been married?
CARL
Twenty years.
BILLY
Sometimes I feel like the guy on the freeway.


CARL
What guy?
BILLY
The guy I was telling you about, when you were on the phone not listening, The naked guy, on his hands and knees looking for something on the freeway .. the way he looked so hard.. everyone was watching him look—It was scary.

SHE CLOSES HER EYES
CARL
Bil? ( no answer) Bil? Your eyes are closed but I know you’re not sleeping. (no answer)
Bil. I took the car in. Last week. I took the car in and the guy told me it needed a new engine. The tires were shot. Transmission leaking. Bil. We needed a new car. A new engine. The one that burned, it was done anyway.
BILLY
Where’d you go? After the fight?
CARL
You bring any of my stuff? My bag? Wallet.
BILLY
You stormed out of the house, Walked somewhere. And yes, I brought all your stuff. It’s there on the dresser.
HE GOES AND CHECKS OUT HIS ID AND STUFF. SHE WATCHES HIM DO INVENTORY.
Where’d you go?
CARL
I ran into Nancy Buswell. Had lunch with her. She was down the hill, saw me walking, we drove out to the beach, had lunch. I’ve known her since high school, you know. She and I we go way back.. Her house gone too now I bet and we were eating lunch at the beach. That’s where we were.
BILLY
Who was it fiddling while Rome burned?
CARL
She looked good for twenty years gone. She liked what she saw, Bil. I just want you to know she liked what she saw.
HE SAYS THIS SADLY
BILLY
I’m glad she was looking, Carl. You deserve someone who is looking.

BEAT
CARL
I set the fire, Bil. I want you to know that. I set the fire and blew us all away.
( can’t believe it)—man we fight all the time and .man. And I dropped my cigarette and then., I ran into Nancy …. The whole thing in flames and nothing left at all. Nothing.
BILLY
What? Done? Like that?
CARL
The fire.. the guy on the freeway, all of it—it’s just signs and wonders, baby. Just fucking signs and wonders.
BILLY
Carl? What are you…?
CARL
I tried to love you, Billy, Every day for twenty years I tried so hard to love you but you never let me. You never gave me an inch, babe. And I turned the other cheek and turned the other cheek and took over more work at the office, and won another fucking award, and at some point, I mean… nowhere to run and nowhere to hide,
BILLY
Nobody needs to know about the fire. Nobody needs to know,
CARL
You begging me, Billy? You see the guy on his knees on the cement and you’re now willing to beg me, to tell me you love me,
BILLY
No, Carl. Not begging. Not begging at all.
CARL
I guess I should. go to Mexico or something.
BILLY
Mexico? They’ll love you there, Carl
CARL
So many people liked me. So many. Man I know people all around the world through the business and I bet there isn’t a one who doesn’t like me. But you, Billy. You were always the one who didn’t like me. Never let me rest, babe. Why’d you do that?
BILLY
I’m that guy on the freeway. Scraping my knees, looking for deliverance, the right route to your heart.. your authentic heart.
CARL
What the fuck does that mean? Authentic heart. Damn , girl. I’m just a simple guy and wanted a simple life. Nothing fancy. And I did my best. It may not have been enough for you but…
BIL
Of course, it was enough, I was just,, I couldn’t find you. You looked so great to everyone else but I couldn’t find you.

CARL
You were so goddamn busy looking at the road, scraping your knees and me, I was riding in a convertible to the beach. Maybe that’s the whole story right there.
BILLY MOVES BACK TO THE TABLE AND SITS.
BILLY
Here, sit. Eat your dinner, It’s cold. It’s good, you’ll see,
CARL KISSES HER ON THE FOREHEAD.
CARL
I’m outta here, babe. I’m on my way.
CARL LOOKS BACK AT HER AND THEN GOES TO THE DOOR WITH HIS BAG
BILLY
You burned it all up, Carl. Ashes to ashes.
.
CARL
Dust to dust. Yeah, dust to dust, babe.
CARL LEAVES
BILLY SITS AT THE SMALL TABLE, PICKS UP HER CUP OF NOODLES AND STARES STRAIGHT AHEAD

LIGHTS FADE.
END OF PLAY.

now it's 2 months...

...and time moves ahead
energy still floating through the clouds
settling here and there
resting on a bush, behind the fence, in the humming bird
and responding to what is necessary..
finally moving ahead to do the things that are next
the earthquake retrofit
a task we have put off for years..
and it looks like the Audi needs to move on as well--
all these things falling into place.
and the terrible earthquake in Chengdu
T and I visited there together--
it's the Panda preserve and the place of the worst meal in the world
the place where we had a dessert called "Toobahtooey"
as in "too bad to eat"
and watery beer and the place of many many buddhas
where you stood in front of the large carved wooden buddhas and
made a wish and lit a candle and burned some money to say thank you to the gods.
and turned three times and spit over your shoulder thinking we would live forever.
we did those things together
in the flesh and sharing the energy of both sides of our brain and consciousness
and now there are new ways we share
new consciousness and energy

click on the link-- or put this in your browser-- and you will hear the scientific proof of the way in which energy shifts though does not evaporate.
the wonder of life is the way in which the brain defines and focuses and claims energy- and the euphoria of eternal energy, the stuff that many have pooh-poohed for years as hippy crap is finally being proven. by a brain scientist no less. so listen and learn and see if you can find the way to still and balance your brain and sense the energy of those to whom you are forever connected.

microclesia ? Blog Archive » Jill Taylor’s TED Talk

amazing. true. so many teachers now showing us the way in which we are all one.
now, to release into this truth and live in the same euphoria in which we are surrounded.

peace
xxoo
s

a new play inspired by old news

before you read this, know that this piece is BASED on experience
though NOT what actually took place-
i say this because assumptions can and have been made
but i am a fiction writer after all
and add grains of salt to fill out the feel of a tale
or an event.

so, let's be clear
T did not overdose
or intend departure
but the person in this play did
okay?
got that?

now, this piece was commissioned from a small theatre
they sent out photos of a particular house to writers
and the writers wrote events for the rooms
this is the blue bedroom
and thought it might be of interest.
i may decide to use it to expand my one act WHITE BIRCHES into a longer piece, hence the use of the name Jim.
here we go.


CARLA TELLS US WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BLUE BEDROOM
By Susan Merson


CARLA, A WOMAN IN HER 50’S, SITS QUIETLY IN HER SWING ON THE PORCH. SHE TAKES A SWIG OF TEA. SHE LOOKS UP AND SPEAKS SIMPLY.

CARLA
Houses are sentimental. Nothing special. Nothing real except fabric bone and rock. Nothing oozing from corners except memory and sound. Nothing waiting in the closets or under the beds except the dust of years lived together and creaky springs that got lazy after too many attempts at sex when it didn’t matter much anymore. And the old tennis balls from the dog, chewed over and over and now not even buoyant, just left.
Like a widow, rolling against pillows that used to hold her lover, who became her husband, who became her friend, then her companion, then her other lung and the weight on her heart til he curled peacefully to his side one night, when I slept fitfully, for the first time in so many months, in the next room. Only to allow him rest. To allow us both a little rest.
“You’re on your own,” I said that to him. “You’re on your own!” furious, when he downed the last handful of pills. “They aren’t in the bottle, Jim. They’re not in the bottles. All these pills, all white, all powder all different. How can you figure?”
“We’ll sort them in the morning,” he said to me .“We’ll sort them.”
But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. I got out a magnifying glass.
A big one. I told him right then.
“Now, let’s sort it now!” Furious. Losing.
He flicked his hand at me The one with the bent finger,
He took what he wanted and lay back against the puffed pillows. A fluffy bed I made for him. Ridiculous. The things you do for comfort.
I lay down next to him. Watching him. He startled at my eyes, demanding he be present.
watching his breath, holding him here on the planet.
So I gave in.
“You’re on your own,” I said to him and went to the room across the hall.
He breathed a sigh of relief as I passed the bell in the hallway.
“I’ll hear him. I’ll know if he needs me.”
He didn’t need me
He wanted to be gone,
to be done and so,
gently he turned to his side and
closed his beautiful eyes and slipped off.
A blessed death, they say, going that way
A blessed death with little more suffering to endure
That a blessing to be sure.
The police when they came. Officer Jimmy and Officer Carl.
Young, so young and stiff.
They looked at me. Suspicious, “”The pills, ma’am”,they said?
”And the magnifying glass, ma’am,” they asked?
Looking at the plastic bag, the white box, the dirty glass on the dresser.
They asked me. They looked hard.
They were ready to unroll the yellow tape and make the house a crime scene, while the doll watched from the hallway and the bell still said nothing.
But my wailing, I suppose. My wailing, my chant,
”Omigod,omigod..”
It’s all that would come,
“A cliché,” is all I could think of. “Omigod”, comical. No poetry there.
I think it scared those little police boys, none with wives yet, none with lives or history.
They left. They slunk off. Peeling back their white plastic gloves and their grim eyes.
We loaded him beautiful on a gurney, with flowers and a homemade quilt and he was gone. Off to dust.
But the sentimental house, the empty house with silent dust and empty corners,
The silent house oozes him
And us
And then
And now, and I sleep and the bell doesn’t ring
And I wonder I just wonder if there will be breath here again
A wind to push us to the next place
Silent and possible.
Sunlight brushing death every day I’m left.

SHE TAKES A SIP.
Tea’s cold. That’s what happens.
SHE GETS UP. THEN SITS BACK DOWN HOLDING THE MUG IN HER HAND.
PUSHING THE SWING SLOWLY BACK AND FORTH WITH HER FEET. WAITING.
LIGHTS FADE.

resting just an inch away....

that's what it feels like
on a large cushioned chair
finally resting resting but so close
strange to feel him so close and
him with so much more wisdom
since he's already moved thru the veil of tears
"not necessary" i know he says that to me
when i seem to well up leaky
at the moments when closest to understanding
he is free of the body
and now is just resting....
hmmm

i understand the freedom of slipping off this mortal coil
that shakespeare knew a thing or two.

and a beautiful honor just bestowed--
ellen geer just told me she'd like to dedicate this
season at Theatricum Botanicum to T
here's what i wrote


“….and when he shall die
cut him up into little stars
for he shall make the face of heaven so bright
that all the world will be in love with night and
pay no more worship to the garish sun…"
Gallop apace- Juliet


My darling husband, companion and best friend for the last twenty-seven years, TONY SHULTZ, shines over you tonight. Look above you. Starring above this theatre that he loved and helped to create.

Drawn here by the warmth and open heart of Will Geer and his family, Tony happily told the tale of helping to build the original theater where he was lucky enough to play his first Romeo to Melora Marshall’s Juliet. Tony met Will on a film set where he was working as a stand in for Burt Lancaster. Will took a shine to the handsome young man with a passionate edge and asked him what role he’d most like to play.
“Romeo”, said T.
“Come out to Topanga next week. We’ll build a theatre.”
And so they did.

And through all his acting years in New York appearing in the original GREASE, THE BAKERS WIFE, PLATINUM, - and then on to his business life in real estate and serving on the Board of LA’S BEST as well as THEATRICUM-- Tony always returned here, introducing his family to the magic of the theatre with great pride. When our then seven-year-old daughter happily recited Helena in MIDSUMMER for her first Shakespeare class, and frolicked as Peaseblossom here in Topanga, he thanked Sofie’s teacher with the words, “Will would be proud.”

We are honored that Ellen has chosen to invoke Tony’s sweet strength as a blessing for this season. He is honored. He is here and he, along with Will, would be proud.

Blessings
Susan Merson Shultz and
Sofie Shultz