In recent times, theater has been treated like the ugly stepsister of cinema. With gigantic motion picture blockbusters coming out every couple of months, to the naked eye, it would appear as though theater were a dying art, but the truth is simply that the theater scene has broken down into a cache of small theater companies, and Philadelphia is home to many of them. Chances are, whether a theater company was established one-hundred years ago or two weeks ago, they began in much the same way. However, there are reasons why some theater companies have been around for over a century and why others will fizzle out within a year. Though is true that much of the success of such an endeavor can be attributed to luck, there is still a set of guidelines one must follow if he or she is to seriously pursue said endeavor.
First and foremost, the absolute most important question to answer is “Why start a theater company?” Perhaps the idea is born of a passion for acting or producing, like the owner of the Clubbed Thumbs Company, Meg MacCary. Perhaps the goal is to incite some sort of global impact, like Michael King, founder of the Nunya Theater Company or Susan Bernfield who started her company with the expression of feminist ideals in mind. Whatever the reason may be, one must figure it out. It helps to write a mission statement in order to keep the original goals in mind. If not solid, the goal may shift, and along with it the stability of the company. The foundation could crumble before the company is built.
The second question should be, “What sort of company would best suit this goal?” Professional? Community? Amateur? No matter which of these are in pursuit, the journey begins with this: creating a board of directors. “Your excruciating journey begins with your fellow artists” (Tobias). Who will be in charge, and of what? The board should be comprised of people with various talents. “This means including people like playwrights, technicians, designers. But this can also mean including people with other backgrounds and expertise. Law and business people are excellent! I repeat, excellent” (Tobias). The more skills a board of directors has to offer, the more fortified and well-rounded the company will be, and thus, run into fewer problems and/or be able to face said problems accordingly.
“We didn't have anything for years and then we started with an advisory board. They're great and we frequently call on them for favors and we do feel their support, but we don't meet with them often. But for example, Paula Vogel is on our advisory board and she's writing our fundraising letter. Really, the advisory board is made up of people we know, who respect us but aren't involved in the organization in a hands on way. But the executive board is much more hands on”(MacCary 1).
Seeing as how finances (both acquiring and managing) are crucial to a theater company, and just about any other company, someone who can handle budgeting and handle it well is a necessity.
The pioneers of the company then need to come together and ask themselves and each other, “What exactly is our vision?” There are scores and scores of people out there trying to do the exact same thing, so what will set one company apart from another? Perhaps a community has a lack of theatrical culture. In that case, originality would not be as large of a factor. “Begin a movement”, says Mike Tobias, author of the article “Starting A Theater Company”. If one decides he or she would like to plop a theater down smack dab in the middle of a city’s theatrical epicenter, then chances are that if it has nothing fresh and new to offer, it will not be very successful. That would be a scenario in which a company would like to focus on making a unique name for themselves. Obscure forms of a theater such as street performances, media collage (a collaboration of theater with other mediums, such as cinema), environmental theater (theater that takes place in an unusual setting) or even puppet theater might be motifs worth looking into to give a company a bit of the “wow factor”.
Once the directors of the company are basically clear about what they would like to accomplish, it becomes that much easier to find the type of space that would be ideal. Different venues are ideal for different types of work. For example, a black box theatre, which is very simplistic, austere, and is basically comprised of a small performance space and seating for the audience, would be ideal for a minimalist approach to theater, or even simply for a company that is low on funds. If the production as well as the company’s bank account calls for grandiosity, then perhaps a larger theater with an elegant atmosphere, a three or four section house and mezzanine seating would ideal. The theater space is as much a part of the performers as the actors, sets and performances themselves. Though the company may or may not have the funds to secure its ideal space at this stage in the game, it is still a good idea to know what is needed before engaging in pursuit.
If it turns out that the endeavor is bigger than just a few friends wanting to get together and produce great theater, one might want to look into getting the company registered with the local authorities especially if it turns out that the performances will turn a profit.
“In order to become a registered business and protect the name that you have chosen, you must register with your city. You may have to register as a D.B.A. ("Doing Business As"), effectively registering it as an alias for one or more individuals in the company…After filing your name, you must announce the creation of your business in a local paper” (Warren).
Even non-profit organizations (which most theaters and companies are) have some paperwork to file.
“Most theaters are 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. A nonprofit organization needs a document that will state that it is a legal entity! Thus, you have the Articles of Incorporation, an application that will certify that you have a board of directors, a principal office, and a beginning plan for your organization” (Tobias).
Requirements for registry vary from state to state. It is highly advisable that a lawyer help with the registry process, and oversee the adding of provisions to the legal documents. The provisions should include a statement the company will not illegal privilege itself with money and/or gifts and that there is a plan set aside in case the company is to cease and desist. The process will make the organization taxable, but it will also grant the organization the rights to open bank accounts, accept money for shows and advertisement sales, apply for 501(c)(3) status and accept donations. (Tobias).
Once the company is legally allowed to gather funds (other than those inside the members’ pockets, that is) then the next step should be deciding how to manage them. There is a score of ways to acquire funding, however, generally one way could be more ideal than the other depending on what type of organization is seeking aid. Donations and grants are far more readily available to non-profit organizations than a company that is using theater to make a living. If government aid is not right for a particular organization, it would be beneficial for them to look into perhaps charging dues from members, asking for loans or donations from friends and family members, taking out business loans, etc. Once the starting capital is raised, it will be easily spent on all sorts of expenses, ranging from equipment rental to rent for the theater space, to props and costumes, legal things. A company would benefit from hosting non-production activities, such as teaching classes or hosting other events. This way, the organization could bring in more money without having to spend very much, or any at all. It would also be an effective way to extend a hand to the community and get the theater company’s name on the lips of community members. (Warren). This very well could be the most important step of all because without theater-goers, what good is theater?
The researched assembled has been gathered with the goal of giving the reader a formula as to starting a successful theater company, and all the research comes from professionals who are successful because of these tips. However, how success is gauged cannot be determined by any factor listed above. It is gauged by how the people who have poured their blood, sweat and tears into a project feel at the end of the day. Whether a company racks in thousands of dollars a night or holds free performances for the local grade school does not matter. If they have no regrets and feel as though they have completed every task as correctly as possible, they have achieved status as a successful theater company.
Works Cited
"Starting a Theater Company... An Interview with Meg MacCary of Clubbed Thumb." Interview by Lisa. Culturebot.com. Culturebot.com, 15 Oct. 2004. Web. 1 Apr. 2010. <http://www.clubbedthumb.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Starting-a-Theater-Company.pdf.>.
Tobias, Mike. "Starting a Theater Company." Squidoo : Welcome to Squidoo. Web. 04 Mar. 2010. <http://www.squidoo.com/startingignitetheatre>.
Warren, John. ""So You Want to Start a Theater Company?"" Theatre Bay Area. Nov. 1999. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. <http://www.theatrebayarea.org/programs/nomads_comp.jsp;jsessionid=16779171471738C8F62FF6134845E6E1?hi=1>.
King, Michael S. "Recovery and Starting My Own Theater Company." Editorial. BACKSTAGE: The Actor's Resource 18 Mar. 2010. Http://www.backstage.com. 18 Mar. 2010. Web. 2 Apr. 2010. <http://www.backstage.com/bso/news-and-features-editorials/recovery-and-starting-my-own-theater-company-1004076265.story>.
McGrath, Maggie. "Aluma Playwright Discusses Theater, Gender." Www.thedailypennsylvanian.com. 1 Apr. 2010. Web. 2 Apr. 2010. <http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/article/alumna-actress-discusses-theater-gender>.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
"'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night' vs. 'Beowulf'"
“Do Not go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas is about facing old age and death with dignity, and accepting death by living life as though it will never end.
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (Thomas)
Beowulf defied death many times throughout his youth fighting men and monsters alike, but his greatest display of bravery was exemplified in his old age.
“Old age should burn and rave at the close of day”. (Thomas)
Beowulf’s feats of strength in Hrothgar’s name were astounding. However, he was a strong young man at the time, and very capable. After a fifty-year reign over Geatland, being more of a figurehead than a warrior, and a very old man, Beowulf was not even close to the shape he was in when he defeated Grendel. Still, he faced the dragon, with the same amount of ferocity and strength of heart he had in his youth. Instead of sitting in his mead hall and sending young men to fight his battles, as even great Hrothgar did, he raged on.
Thomas goes on speak about how different types of men (wise, good, wild and grave) react to death.
“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightening they
Do not go gentle into that good night.” (Thomas)
Beowulf knew that he was going to die if he fought the dragon. “The dark” called him, and he answered, but not without taking his enemy with him. He swore he would slay the dragon. Even though he was already mortally wounded, Beowulf delivered the deathblow. He would not let go until his word was kept.
“Good men, at the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have dance in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Beowulf in his youth was much like the wild men in the fourth stanza who
“Caught and sung the sun in the flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way.”
He was hearty and strong and fought as though death could not touch him, and the tales he spun about his conquests were so enthralling that it seemed as though he could sing the sun into flight. It seemed as though he didn’t give death much of a thought, even in old age, until he had his premonition.
“Learn, too late, they grieved it on its way.”
By the time he began to contemplate death, it was at his door.
In the last stanza, when it is made apparent that the narrator is speaking to his father, the image of Wiglaf at dying Beowulf’s side is brought to mind. Though, unlike the narrator in “Do Not go Gentle into that Good Night”, Wiglaf does not have to tell Beowulf to rage, for the great warrior was slain in the heat of the greatest battle of his life.
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (Thomas)
Beowulf defied death many times throughout his youth fighting men and monsters alike, but his greatest display of bravery was exemplified in his old age.
“Old age should burn and rave at the close of day”. (Thomas)
Beowulf’s feats of strength in Hrothgar’s name were astounding. However, he was a strong young man at the time, and very capable. After a fifty-year reign over Geatland, being more of a figurehead than a warrior, and a very old man, Beowulf was not even close to the shape he was in when he defeated Grendel. Still, he faced the dragon, with the same amount of ferocity and strength of heart he had in his youth. Instead of sitting in his mead hall and sending young men to fight his battles, as even great Hrothgar did, he raged on.
Thomas goes on speak about how different types of men (wise, good, wild and grave) react to death.
“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightening they
Do not go gentle into that good night.” (Thomas)
Beowulf knew that he was going to die if he fought the dragon. “The dark” called him, and he answered, but not without taking his enemy with him. He swore he would slay the dragon. Even though he was already mortally wounded, Beowulf delivered the deathblow. He would not let go until his word was kept.
“Good men, at the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have dance in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Beowulf in his youth was much like the wild men in the fourth stanza who
“Caught and sung the sun in the flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way.”
He was hearty and strong and fought as though death could not touch him, and the tales he spun about his conquests were so enthralling that it seemed as though he could sing the sun into flight. It seemed as though he didn’t give death much of a thought, even in old age, until he had his premonition.
“Learn, too late, they grieved it on its way.”
By the time he began to contemplate death, it was at his door.
In the last stanza, when it is made apparent that the narrator is speaking to his father, the image of Wiglaf at dying Beowulf’s side is brought to mind. Though, unlike the narrator in “Do Not go Gentle into that Good Night”, Wiglaf does not have to tell Beowulf to rage, for the great warrior was slain in the heat of the greatest battle of his life.
“A Literary Criticism on The Sound and the Fury and A Streetcar Named Desire”
From Tennessee Williams to William Faulker, most of the great literary classics have at least one strong and/or memorable female character. “A Streetcar Named Desire” has Blanche, “The Sound and the Fury” has Caddy, both unconventional southern belles with more sauce than meets the eye. However, what binds these women in literary history is not their burning desire to get by in a world run by men. The chief concept to remember is how very crucial they were in inciting change, simply by being present or not.
“In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche is a contradictive lady with very complicated character, which will be illustrated from the aspects of sexual desire, fantasy for bright future, and hypocrisy and pretention” (Tanaka).
In Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”, the initial impression given of Blanche DuBois is that of the utmost femininity. Williams uses words like “dainty”, “fluffy” and “delicate beauty” to describe her Stanley Kowalski’s nature, on the other hand, is that of pure, unadulterated masculine dominance. In the opening sequence, he tosses a slab of meat at his pregnant wife, and in the very next scene he gives his sister-in-law the unbridled third-degree the instant he feels the need to. It comes to pass that Blanche, as delicate and fragile as she may be, is the very one to butt heads with Stanley and give him a run for his money. Scholar Wei Fang asserts:
“In patriarchal society, as woman who has been subordinated to men, Blanche is brave enough to fight against fetters and challenge men’s authority in order to alter her miserable situation and thus live a happy life.” (Wei, 5)
Though Stanley is used to being king of his castle (and his wife, Stella), Blanche immediately comes in and changes the dynamic. As the story progresses, her femininity begins to lose its connotation of weakness. “She is steady, brave, idealistic, bearing the southern culture and memory in mind.” (Wei, 5). This point is made when Blanche decides Stanley’s tyranny over her sister must end.
Stanley is used to having Stella all to himself, being all she knows aside from her neighbor, Eunice. When Blanche comes along, Stella gravitates toward the sister she’s been missing, leaving Stanley green with envy. Immediately, her presence is felt as an upset.
STELLA:
“I’m taking Blanche to Galatoire’s for supper and then to a show, because it’s your poker night.”
STANLEY:
“How’s about my supper, huh? I’m not going to no Galatoire’s for supper!” (Williams, p. 32)
It is insinuated that any other night, Stella would have had a hot plate waiting for Stanley. That seems to be what he expects. However, the second night of her arrival, Blanche has changed the routine by having her sister take her out. Later in the play, Stella takes a departure from her usually docile nature to sternly scold Stanley for his treatment of Blanche.
“You have no idea how stupid and horrid you’re being!” (p. 37)
It seems that the comfort of her sister’s presence drives Stella to rebel against Stanley even further. In the third scene, Blanche and Stella insist on listening to the radio, but Stanley picks a fight with them about it, claiming it annoys him. However, it appears that he is simply sore because once more, Blanche has taken his wife from him, having just come back from spending an evening with her sister. After the ladies have defied his order to turn off the music, she proceeds to toss the radio out the window. When Stella calls him out on his drunken belligerence, a move she might not have made without the protection of the sister, Stanley hits her.
By the latter part of the novel, Stella grows comfortable with checking Stanley’s infractions. She becomes Blanche-like in her nit-picking. When she calls Stanley a pig, he rebukes her for the changes she has made since Blanche’s arrival.
“’Pig- Polack- disgusting- vulgar- greasy!” –them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister’s too much around here!” (p. 107)
Though she has made an obvious change by the end of the play, Stella ultimately regresses and takes Stanley’s side when it counts most: the rape allegation. However, her desperate tears at the end mark the fact that she knows it’s not always right to choose her husband over everyone else, and that knowledge alone is enough to show that Blanche’s presence left a significant mark on the Kowalski household, and may shape the way the Kowalskis will interact with their new baby.
Candace “Caddy” Compson is not vastly unlike Blanche DuBois. Like Blanche, Caddy is independent and unconventional. “John T. Matthews calls Caddy’s behavioral pattern of defiance of family and community ‘audacious independence’ which, I argue, is equivalent to what Morrison calls ‘dangerously free’” (Tanaka). They share the common threads of southern, aristocratic upbringing, remarkable beauty, and rebellious promiscuity. “Traditionally, she can be considered a promiscuous woman, and also a nonconformist against the conventional social framework of marriage and motherhood” (Tanaka). However, whereas Blanche’s coming was the spark that lit the flame of change in her family, Caddy’s leaving was the wildfire itself, consuming the lives and thoughts of each of her brothers. She does the best she can as a divorced, absentee mother to Miss Quentin. In her youth, Caddy was basically Benjy’s surrogate mother. She was the pearl that Quentin most treasured, and one more Compson child that everyone liked more than Jason. Despite all she was in her presence, Caddy’s absence incubated the decay of her family.
“Faulkner’s Caddy helps to magnify the psychological, narcissistic turmoil of each of her brothers, the inner storm of their rage, grief and struggle” (Tanaka).
After her pregnancy is made known, “Caddy chooses to leave town as an outcast with the stigma of ‘a community outlaw’” (Tanaka). When she leaves Benjy, she takes all that he knows with her. Being the only member of the household who showed genuine warmth and love toward Benjy. Though she definitely babied him, Caddy treated Benjy more like a real person than any other member of her family.
“You’re not a poor baby. Are you. Are you. You’ve got your Caddy. Haven’t you got your Caddy.” (Faulkner, p. 9)
All of the other Compsons seemed to see him more as the skeleton in the Compson closet. It makes sense that she was the only one with which he bonded. In his narration, it is as though all other members of his family are props in his retelling of his memories of Caddy. When she leaves, there is nothing else for him to do but wait for her, for about seventeen years.
Though Quentin’s attachment to Caddy is not necessarily as dependent as Benjy’s, he finds himself just as lost without his sister, if not more. Benjy seems to be under the impression that Caddy will one day return. Quentin knows that Caddy is long gone, as is her precious innocence, which guarded with his life. In the scene at the brush, Quentin is ready to take Caddy’s life and his own because she is no longer a virgin. He feels that without her virtue, the Compson honor he thought his father expected him to uphold, life is meaningless.
Jason’s fixation with his sister is almost as disturbing, but on the opposite end of the spectrum. He hates Caddy. He hates her offspring. Jason blames Caddy’s dishonesty about Miss Quentin’s father for causing the perpetual rut in which he has been for the latter two decades of his life. Caddy’s husband promised him a job, but when Caddy and Herbert split, the deal was off for Jason. So, he steals money from Caddy’s daughter to make up for what he believes should have been his. However, any sensible being can tell that Jason is to blame for his own failure. He threw away the money his mother gave him to buy a share of the store. He deliberately antagonizes his hired stock experts. Still, that does not detract from the fact that Caddy’s absence gave him the license to wreak havoc on what is left of the family. Had she stayed with Miss Quentin and raised the girl herself, Jason would have no scapegoat and no money to extort, and perhaps he would be able to look in on himself and realize that his dependence on others makes him his own worst enemy.
Caddy Compson and Blanche DuBois inverted life as their families knew it simply by crossing a threshold. Blanche’s presence was constant, unavoidable and impossible to ignore the moment she set foot on Elysian Fields. The absence of Caddy is just as resonating, if not more. The feeling of loss and loneliness in the novel is unwavering. These two women are both so poignant that whole stories are created based on whether or not they are present. Caddy’s absence illuminated the flaws in her family- her brothers’ dependence upon her for lack of their mother’s significant involvement. Blanche’s arrival in the Kowalski household reshaped the dynamics, giving her sister the courage to stand up for herself against Stanley, and illuminating his flaws more than ever, bringing to light before her sister’s eyes the fact that Stanley was not always correct and therefore his word should not be law. Caddy and Blanche’s independence and willingness to overcome the boundaries of sexism in their societies as well as their familial units enables them not only to gain a greater sense of self and self-assertion, but also to highlight the weaknesses of those who hold the most adamantly sexist feelings toward them (Stanley Kowalski and Jason Compson). More importantly, these woman are the rocks in their family. Who knows where Stella would be at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire if not for Blanche’s encouragement, empowerment and support? Without Caddy, Benjy would know absolutely nothing of love and tenderness. These remarkable women are cornerstones in the foundations of their families. They are the gears that turn the works. The functionality of their families depend heavily on how they themselves function.
“In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche is a contradictive lady with very complicated character, which will be illustrated from the aspects of sexual desire, fantasy for bright future, and hypocrisy and pretention” (Tanaka).
In Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”, the initial impression given of Blanche DuBois is that of the utmost femininity. Williams uses words like “dainty”, “fluffy” and “delicate beauty” to describe her Stanley Kowalski’s nature, on the other hand, is that of pure, unadulterated masculine dominance. In the opening sequence, he tosses a slab of meat at his pregnant wife, and in the very next scene he gives his sister-in-law the unbridled third-degree the instant he feels the need to. It comes to pass that Blanche, as delicate and fragile as she may be, is the very one to butt heads with Stanley and give him a run for his money. Scholar Wei Fang asserts:
“In patriarchal society, as woman who has been subordinated to men, Blanche is brave enough to fight against fetters and challenge men’s authority in order to alter her miserable situation and thus live a happy life.” (Wei, 5)
Though Stanley is used to being king of his castle (and his wife, Stella), Blanche immediately comes in and changes the dynamic. As the story progresses, her femininity begins to lose its connotation of weakness. “She is steady, brave, idealistic, bearing the southern culture and memory in mind.” (Wei, 5). This point is made when Blanche decides Stanley’s tyranny over her sister must end.
Stanley is used to having Stella all to himself, being all she knows aside from her neighbor, Eunice. When Blanche comes along, Stella gravitates toward the sister she’s been missing, leaving Stanley green with envy. Immediately, her presence is felt as an upset.
STELLA:
“I’m taking Blanche to Galatoire’s for supper and then to a show, because it’s your poker night.”
STANLEY:
“How’s about my supper, huh? I’m not going to no Galatoire’s for supper!” (Williams, p. 32)
It is insinuated that any other night, Stella would have had a hot plate waiting for Stanley. That seems to be what he expects. However, the second night of her arrival, Blanche has changed the routine by having her sister take her out. Later in the play, Stella takes a departure from her usually docile nature to sternly scold Stanley for his treatment of Blanche.
“You have no idea how stupid and horrid you’re being!” (p. 37)
It seems that the comfort of her sister’s presence drives Stella to rebel against Stanley even further. In the third scene, Blanche and Stella insist on listening to the radio, but Stanley picks a fight with them about it, claiming it annoys him. However, it appears that he is simply sore because once more, Blanche has taken his wife from him, having just come back from spending an evening with her sister. After the ladies have defied his order to turn off the music, she proceeds to toss the radio out the window. When Stella calls him out on his drunken belligerence, a move she might not have made without the protection of the sister, Stanley hits her.
By the latter part of the novel, Stella grows comfortable with checking Stanley’s infractions. She becomes Blanche-like in her nit-picking. When she calls Stanley a pig, he rebukes her for the changes she has made since Blanche’s arrival.
“’Pig- Polack- disgusting- vulgar- greasy!” –them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister’s too much around here!” (p. 107)
Though she has made an obvious change by the end of the play, Stella ultimately regresses and takes Stanley’s side when it counts most: the rape allegation. However, her desperate tears at the end mark the fact that she knows it’s not always right to choose her husband over everyone else, and that knowledge alone is enough to show that Blanche’s presence left a significant mark on the Kowalski household, and may shape the way the Kowalskis will interact with their new baby.
Candace “Caddy” Compson is not vastly unlike Blanche DuBois. Like Blanche, Caddy is independent and unconventional. “John T. Matthews calls Caddy’s behavioral pattern of defiance of family and community ‘audacious independence’ which, I argue, is equivalent to what Morrison calls ‘dangerously free’” (Tanaka). They share the common threads of southern, aristocratic upbringing, remarkable beauty, and rebellious promiscuity. “Traditionally, she can be considered a promiscuous woman, and also a nonconformist against the conventional social framework of marriage and motherhood” (Tanaka). However, whereas Blanche’s coming was the spark that lit the flame of change in her family, Caddy’s leaving was the wildfire itself, consuming the lives and thoughts of each of her brothers. She does the best she can as a divorced, absentee mother to Miss Quentin. In her youth, Caddy was basically Benjy’s surrogate mother. She was the pearl that Quentin most treasured, and one more Compson child that everyone liked more than Jason. Despite all she was in her presence, Caddy’s absence incubated the decay of her family.
“Faulkner’s Caddy helps to magnify the psychological, narcissistic turmoil of each of her brothers, the inner storm of their rage, grief and struggle” (Tanaka).
After her pregnancy is made known, “Caddy chooses to leave town as an outcast with the stigma of ‘a community outlaw’” (Tanaka). When she leaves Benjy, she takes all that he knows with her. Being the only member of the household who showed genuine warmth and love toward Benjy. Though she definitely babied him, Caddy treated Benjy more like a real person than any other member of her family.
“You’re not a poor baby. Are you. Are you. You’ve got your Caddy. Haven’t you got your Caddy.” (Faulkner, p. 9)
All of the other Compsons seemed to see him more as the skeleton in the Compson closet. It makes sense that she was the only one with which he bonded. In his narration, it is as though all other members of his family are props in his retelling of his memories of Caddy. When she leaves, there is nothing else for him to do but wait for her, for about seventeen years.
Though Quentin’s attachment to Caddy is not necessarily as dependent as Benjy’s, he finds himself just as lost without his sister, if not more. Benjy seems to be under the impression that Caddy will one day return. Quentin knows that Caddy is long gone, as is her precious innocence, which guarded with his life. In the scene at the brush, Quentin is ready to take Caddy’s life and his own because she is no longer a virgin. He feels that without her virtue, the Compson honor he thought his father expected him to uphold, life is meaningless.
Jason’s fixation with his sister is almost as disturbing, but on the opposite end of the spectrum. He hates Caddy. He hates her offspring. Jason blames Caddy’s dishonesty about Miss Quentin’s father for causing the perpetual rut in which he has been for the latter two decades of his life. Caddy’s husband promised him a job, but when Caddy and Herbert split, the deal was off for Jason. So, he steals money from Caddy’s daughter to make up for what he believes should have been his. However, any sensible being can tell that Jason is to blame for his own failure. He threw away the money his mother gave him to buy a share of the store. He deliberately antagonizes his hired stock experts. Still, that does not detract from the fact that Caddy’s absence gave him the license to wreak havoc on what is left of the family. Had she stayed with Miss Quentin and raised the girl herself, Jason would have no scapegoat and no money to extort, and perhaps he would be able to look in on himself and realize that his dependence on others makes him his own worst enemy.
Caddy Compson and Blanche DuBois inverted life as their families knew it simply by crossing a threshold. Blanche’s presence was constant, unavoidable and impossible to ignore the moment she set foot on Elysian Fields. The absence of Caddy is just as resonating, if not more. The feeling of loss and loneliness in the novel is unwavering. These two women are both so poignant that whole stories are created based on whether or not they are present. Caddy’s absence illuminated the flaws in her family- her brothers’ dependence upon her for lack of their mother’s significant involvement. Blanche’s arrival in the Kowalski household reshaped the dynamics, giving her sister the courage to stand up for herself against Stanley, and illuminating his flaws more than ever, bringing to light before her sister’s eyes the fact that Stanley was not always correct and therefore his word should not be law. Caddy and Blanche’s independence and willingness to overcome the boundaries of sexism in their societies as well as their familial units enables them not only to gain a greater sense of self and self-assertion, but also to highlight the weaknesses of those who hold the most adamantly sexist feelings toward them (Stanley Kowalski and Jason Compson). More importantly, these woman are the rocks in their family. Who knows where Stella would be at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire if not for Blanche’s encouragement, empowerment and support? Without Caddy, Benjy would know absolutely nothing of love and tenderness. These remarkable women are cornerstones in the foundations of their families. They are the gears that turn the works. The functionality of their families depend heavily on how they themselves function.
"Tick"
Blood…So much of it… Everywhere…
It’s hard for him to comprehend why there’s so much of it. In conjunction with the spatters on the milky walls and cot, there is a large pool of it on the linoleum, about seven feet in diameter- or at least it would be, had it formed a nice circle, as opposed to an amorphous, amoeba-like formation.
It might have been the very first thing he really noticed when he entered the room. The two male orderlies would be next, as they immediately begin to shoo at him. He acknowledges them only with a quick glance before his eyes fall on the far end of the floor. Upon it lies a white sheet (raised, as though covering something- someone) blotted with blood, soaked through around the edges.
Someone…died?
He glances back at the orderlies. The large one who is balding prematurely flicks his hand at him.
“Get outta here, Eric. Go! Go on!” he says, waxing anguish.
“Cl-Clementine?” he croaks weakly, the blood draining from his cheeks, “Is it Clementine?”
“Goddamn it,” the orderly urges testily to his counterpart, “get him out of here! He can’t see her like this!”
The lanky, confused-looking orderly obviously has no clue what is going on, as his eyes shift between the two other men helplessly, like some small creature caught between a predator and a cliff.
Meanwhile his eyes are fixed on the bloody sheet. He feels sick. His limbs shake and tingle.
“Chuck! I said get him the hell out of here!” shouts the head orderly, either losing patience or beginning to panic. “GO! NOW!”
Chuck slowly begins to approach him, and he is trembling. The numbness rushes out, leaving only a throbbing heat, as though his entire body is a blood-vessel. It feels as though he might lose control of his bladder.
“Okay, Eric, I need you to calm down…”
Oh, God…No…
His body moves, darting toward the body without thought, mowing down Chuck in the process. He feels hands tugging at his shirt, and shouts, but weakly. All he can focus on is ripping the sheet off as fast as he can. And when he does, he finds himself staring into open eyes. A round, brown face- a woman- a girl, with dead eyes locked into a serenely melancholy gaze. He can almost feel his heart shatter.
NO! NO!
His head is ringing…and ringing…and ringing… buzzing…buzzing… an alarm.
Isaac’s eyes sprang open in an instant. It was hard for him to breathe. His knuckles were stark white from gripping the covers. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the girl, and the life that had spilled out of her.
All over the linoleum.
He never knew there was so much blood in the human body. It took the breath from his lungs, even as lay awake.
Is that really what six liters looks like?
But in a dream, six liters and six gallons are interchangeable. The same with names, as in his case.
Within another moment, his mind was back with his body, and he began to feel himself. His entire body was damp with sweat, especially his bottom half. Dismay and disgust washed over him as he lifted the covers to see that he had a dark, wet patch on his boxers, as well as on the sheet beneath him.
“Christ…” he half grunted as he began to gingerly crawl out of bed, trying to lessen the discomfort of his wet underwear.
Trudging to his bathroom to sanitize, he felt sick with himself. It was bad enough that he wet the bed at thirty-one years old, but the fact that it could have been prevented… Somewhere in his mind of minds he had known all along that his recurring dreams- nightmares- would take their toll. Until this point, they’d only caused him to lose an hour or so of sleep- nothing worth panicking about- but every psychiatrist knows the longer an issue is repressed, the uglier it is when it finally rears its head. Curiously, he could not even recall how long he had been shirking his problem.
He washed, bent on removing all traces of the distasteful occurrence. The more he washed, the better he felt- but not exponentially so. Wrapping his towel around him, he crossed to the sink, taking up his shaving cream. He passed his forearm across the mirror clearing it of steam, taking a quick glance at himself before popping the top off the half-empty spray can, granting himself another look up into the mirror.
“You are a wreck…You know that?” he sighed as he ran his hand over his stubble, noticing light bags under pistachio-colored eyes, “And you’re talking to yourself.”
He leaned forward, intently staring into the mirror. There wasn’t anything in particular to look for, but it had been a while since he had really taken a look at himself. Sometimes he would forget exactly what he looked like. The first thing he saw, as always, were his freckles- the bane of his childhood existence. He was sure that he’d spent most of it battling comments about his speckled face, and most of his adult life fighting self-consciousness. Someone once told him that his freckles gave him character- and for a few moments, he desperately wished he remember who. But Isaac gave up trying and/or caring well before his morning routine was over. It made his brain hurt, and he had a train to catch.
He’d arrived at the hospital right on time, despite the train’s tardiness, beginning to think that his lucky star hadn’t flickered out after all.
“Morning, Celia,” he greeted the petite, ginger nurse as she handed him a manila folder.
“Got a new one, Dr. Sanders. In-patient transfer from Dunesbury.”
“Hmm…” he began with light disinterest, “Name?”
“Clementine Daniels.”
What?
“What?”
Luckily, the tone in his spoken voice didn’t mimic the sheer panic of that of his inner voice, yet, his discomfort was not completely concealed. .
“Clementine Daniels. See, right here,” she offered, bringing a slender fingertip to the first line of print of the cover sheet. “Is there a… problem?”
The concern in her lightly aging face was gently exaggerated by the ever-so-slight networks of lines creeping from the corners of her eyes and overly-reddened lips.
“No, no,” he said through the clearing of his throat, “Thank you, Celia.”
Clementine…
Isaac scratched at a sandy sideburn as he drifted up the hall, making up his mind that it was all some terrible coincidence. That Clementine wasn’t that uncommon of a name.
It is in a song, after all. And the oranges are delicious…
And that he had known about the new transfer from their sister-hospital since the day before.
No, the week before. Wait- three weeks-
It frightened him that he could not remember when the dreams began.
That long?
“Dr. Sanders…” Celia called with an impatience that indicated that she had repeated herself, possibly more than once.
“I’m sorry?” Isaac replied, spinning on his feet to half-face her.
“I said that she will come to you…To your office?”
She added her second thought in response to the dimness in his expression. He took to his left and found his eyes spanning the off-white gate (if you could call it that; grate, more so) that marked the threshold of the residential unit. His feet had instinctively carried him there, in the complete opposite direction of his office.
He replied to her with a sidelong glance “…Right.”
His feet were still noticeably unmoving.
“After she has her breakfast.”
“Right,” he nodded again, this time facing the woman.
She stepped to the side and gestured down the other end of the hall, as though she thought he might have forgotten where to find his own office. Isaac’s eyes flickered indignantly at this as he passed, until he reminded himself that he couldn’t remember half the things he tried to lately.
He was due for a quick stop in the men’s room. He would never face a patient with an unclear head. Hypocrisy was one of his pet peeves. Coming up from the sink with a dripping face, he examined himself again. It had become a habit, but not one of vanity- irritable scrutiny if anything.
Isaac grimaced at his softly bristled hair, patting and smoothing it in vain with a damp hand. Any other morning, he took care to brush it down in its moist state in hopes of achieving the look of subtle professionalism that was critical in the early career of a young doctor, but any other morning, he wouldn’t have been scrambling to sanitize his mattress and bedclothes. However, he was sure he would have at least made some sort of last-ditch effort to tame the innately frat-boyish nature of his hair.
“Mornin’, Doc Sanders!”
“Mornin’, Cory,” he nodded to the zealous orderly.
The twenty-something’s tousled hairstyle was blatantly more deliberate than the young doctor’s. Though they resided in a landlocked state, Isaac imagined he surfed on his weekends. Rolling up the sleeves of the shirt he wore under his powder-blue scrubs, the young orderly shifted skittishly.
“Uhm, sorry about the other day, man.”
“Huh?” Isaac squinted dimly.
“Your chicken salad- it had been sitting in the fridge for a couple days and I didn’t know it was yours until Celia told me-“
“Oh- It’s cool. I forgot all about it,” he answered with a sincerity the likes of which Cory could not begin to grasp.
“Awesome,” nodded Cory with a half-witted smirk.
Not particularly caring to watch him relieve himself at the urinal, Isaac brought his eyes back to the mirror and incredulously blinked twice, exaggerating the natural largeness of his eyes each time. He brought a hand slowly to his crown- his smoothed and flawless crown.
What in the hell..?
He snatched a handful of paper towels and blotted his face, taking care to dry around his eyes, but when they opened, the image was unchanged.
He was so brisk in the hustle to his office that he didn’t notice his desk chair was facing the wrong way until it swiveled around.
He jumped, but what sat inside it would take the breath from his lungs. He eyed the familiar round, brown face, framed to the jaw by thick, dark hair. The thin, yet alert eyes reciprocated through bisected bangs.
“So,” began the husky alto, “are you Dr. McDreamy or Dr. McSteamy?”
It sounded as intended, by far more of an amused one-liner than a come-on.
“McSanders-“ He shook himself. “Sanders. Miss Daniels?” he asked as though presuming.
He took a seat in the smaller chair that faced the girl as she simply nodded.
“I rather like this role-reversal,” she quipped, leaning against the high back of the chair, strumming the arms.
He could not bring himself back to doctor-mode. All the protocol, all the icebreakers, everything he learned left him. Everything left him. He was numb. He looked up into the girl’s face once more. She was young- probably not yet twenty. The broad and unyielding cynicism of a less-than-satisfactory youth was written clearly in her face as she leaned haughtily over his desk, her sleeves traveling up her forearms as she pressed forward.
“Well?”
His eyes caught the dark, ugly, tendrils of scars that trailed up along her wrists and the thinner stripes that struck them through crosswise. He gulped deeply (first, his pooling saliva, and then the air) sending his Adam’s apple dancing.
“Blood…” he murmured weakly.
The girl’s eyebrow arched upward into her hair.
“What?”
The only answer he could afford her was the sound of his retching.
He prostrated before the small trash can at the corner of his desk, face reddened, eyes watering, gasping between gagging, “Oh, my God, what’s happening to me?”
He spoke to himself, but still the girl answered.
“Hell if I know, but I’m gonna get somebody. Hold on.”
She sprang from the chair, running into the hall.
It couldn’t have taken longer than a couple of seconds for her to return with someone, likely, Celia (he really couldn’t tell), but somehow his solitude felt as though it were sustained for at least a minute or so. And in that minute, he could hear nothing of the world outside- not the panicky shouts of Clementine Daniels, not the cars below the window. Save for his desperate breathing and the angry thumping of the blood vessels in his head, he could hear nothing but the taunting ticking of the clock on the wall.
It’s hard for him to comprehend why there’s so much of it. In conjunction with the spatters on the milky walls and cot, there is a large pool of it on the linoleum, about seven feet in diameter- or at least it would be, had it formed a nice circle, as opposed to an amorphous, amoeba-like formation.
It might have been the very first thing he really noticed when he entered the room. The two male orderlies would be next, as they immediately begin to shoo at him. He acknowledges them only with a quick glance before his eyes fall on the far end of the floor. Upon it lies a white sheet (raised, as though covering something- someone) blotted with blood, soaked through around the edges.
Someone…died?
He glances back at the orderlies. The large one who is balding prematurely flicks his hand at him.
“Get outta here, Eric. Go! Go on!” he says, waxing anguish.
“Cl-Clementine?” he croaks weakly, the blood draining from his cheeks, “Is it Clementine?”
“Goddamn it,” the orderly urges testily to his counterpart, “get him out of here! He can’t see her like this!”
The lanky, confused-looking orderly obviously has no clue what is going on, as his eyes shift between the two other men helplessly, like some small creature caught between a predator and a cliff.
Meanwhile his eyes are fixed on the bloody sheet. He feels sick. His limbs shake and tingle.
“Chuck! I said get him the hell out of here!” shouts the head orderly, either losing patience or beginning to panic. “GO! NOW!”
Chuck slowly begins to approach him, and he is trembling. The numbness rushes out, leaving only a throbbing heat, as though his entire body is a blood-vessel. It feels as though he might lose control of his bladder.
“Okay, Eric, I need you to calm down…”
Oh, God…No…
His body moves, darting toward the body without thought, mowing down Chuck in the process. He feels hands tugging at his shirt, and shouts, but weakly. All he can focus on is ripping the sheet off as fast as he can. And when he does, he finds himself staring into open eyes. A round, brown face- a woman- a girl, with dead eyes locked into a serenely melancholy gaze. He can almost feel his heart shatter.
NO! NO!
His head is ringing…and ringing…and ringing… buzzing…buzzing… an alarm.
Isaac’s eyes sprang open in an instant. It was hard for him to breathe. His knuckles were stark white from gripping the covers. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the girl, and the life that had spilled out of her.
All over the linoleum.
He never knew there was so much blood in the human body. It took the breath from his lungs, even as lay awake.
Is that really what six liters looks like?
But in a dream, six liters and six gallons are interchangeable. The same with names, as in his case.
Within another moment, his mind was back with his body, and he began to feel himself. His entire body was damp with sweat, especially his bottom half. Dismay and disgust washed over him as he lifted the covers to see that he had a dark, wet patch on his boxers, as well as on the sheet beneath him.
“Christ…” he half grunted as he began to gingerly crawl out of bed, trying to lessen the discomfort of his wet underwear.
Trudging to his bathroom to sanitize, he felt sick with himself. It was bad enough that he wet the bed at thirty-one years old, but the fact that it could have been prevented… Somewhere in his mind of minds he had known all along that his recurring dreams- nightmares- would take their toll. Until this point, they’d only caused him to lose an hour or so of sleep- nothing worth panicking about- but every psychiatrist knows the longer an issue is repressed, the uglier it is when it finally rears its head. Curiously, he could not even recall how long he had been shirking his problem.
He washed, bent on removing all traces of the distasteful occurrence. The more he washed, the better he felt- but not exponentially so. Wrapping his towel around him, he crossed to the sink, taking up his shaving cream. He passed his forearm across the mirror clearing it of steam, taking a quick glance at himself before popping the top off the half-empty spray can, granting himself another look up into the mirror.
“You are a wreck…You know that?” he sighed as he ran his hand over his stubble, noticing light bags under pistachio-colored eyes, “And you’re talking to yourself.”
He leaned forward, intently staring into the mirror. There wasn’t anything in particular to look for, but it had been a while since he had really taken a look at himself. Sometimes he would forget exactly what he looked like. The first thing he saw, as always, were his freckles- the bane of his childhood existence. He was sure that he’d spent most of it battling comments about his speckled face, and most of his adult life fighting self-consciousness. Someone once told him that his freckles gave him character- and for a few moments, he desperately wished he remember who. But Isaac gave up trying and/or caring well before his morning routine was over. It made his brain hurt, and he had a train to catch.
He’d arrived at the hospital right on time, despite the train’s tardiness, beginning to think that his lucky star hadn’t flickered out after all.
“Morning, Celia,” he greeted the petite, ginger nurse as she handed him a manila folder.
“Got a new one, Dr. Sanders. In-patient transfer from Dunesbury.”
“Hmm…” he began with light disinterest, “Name?”
“Clementine Daniels.”
What?
“What?”
Luckily, the tone in his spoken voice didn’t mimic the sheer panic of that of his inner voice, yet, his discomfort was not completely concealed. .
“Clementine Daniels. See, right here,” she offered, bringing a slender fingertip to the first line of print of the cover sheet. “Is there a… problem?”
The concern in her lightly aging face was gently exaggerated by the ever-so-slight networks of lines creeping from the corners of her eyes and overly-reddened lips.
“No, no,” he said through the clearing of his throat, “Thank you, Celia.”
Clementine…
Isaac scratched at a sandy sideburn as he drifted up the hall, making up his mind that it was all some terrible coincidence. That Clementine wasn’t that uncommon of a name.
It is in a song, after all. And the oranges are delicious…
And that he had known about the new transfer from their sister-hospital since the day before.
No, the week before. Wait- three weeks-
It frightened him that he could not remember when the dreams began.
That long?
“Dr. Sanders…” Celia called with an impatience that indicated that she had repeated herself, possibly more than once.
“I’m sorry?” Isaac replied, spinning on his feet to half-face her.
“I said that she will come to you…To your office?”
She added her second thought in response to the dimness in his expression. He took to his left and found his eyes spanning the off-white gate (if you could call it that; grate, more so) that marked the threshold of the residential unit. His feet had instinctively carried him there, in the complete opposite direction of his office.
He replied to her with a sidelong glance “…Right.”
His feet were still noticeably unmoving.
“After she has her breakfast.”
“Right,” he nodded again, this time facing the woman.
She stepped to the side and gestured down the other end of the hall, as though she thought he might have forgotten where to find his own office. Isaac’s eyes flickered indignantly at this as he passed, until he reminded himself that he couldn’t remember half the things he tried to lately.
He was due for a quick stop in the men’s room. He would never face a patient with an unclear head. Hypocrisy was one of his pet peeves. Coming up from the sink with a dripping face, he examined himself again. It had become a habit, but not one of vanity- irritable scrutiny if anything.
Isaac grimaced at his softly bristled hair, patting and smoothing it in vain with a damp hand. Any other morning, he took care to brush it down in its moist state in hopes of achieving the look of subtle professionalism that was critical in the early career of a young doctor, but any other morning, he wouldn’t have been scrambling to sanitize his mattress and bedclothes. However, he was sure he would have at least made some sort of last-ditch effort to tame the innately frat-boyish nature of his hair.
“Mornin’, Doc Sanders!”
“Mornin’, Cory,” he nodded to the zealous orderly.
The twenty-something’s tousled hairstyle was blatantly more deliberate than the young doctor’s. Though they resided in a landlocked state, Isaac imagined he surfed on his weekends. Rolling up the sleeves of the shirt he wore under his powder-blue scrubs, the young orderly shifted skittishly.
“Uhm, sorry about the other day, man.”
“Huh?” Isaac squinted dimly.
“Your chicken salad- it had been sitting in the fridge for a couple days and I didn’t know it was yours until Celia told me-“
“Oh- It’s cool. I forgot all about it,” he answered with a sincerity the likes of which Cory could not begin to grasp.
“Awesome,” nodded Cory with a half-witted smirk.
Not particularly caring to watch him relieve himself at the urinal, Isaac brought his eyes back to the mirror and incredulously blinked twice, exaggerating the natural largeness of his eyes each time. He brought a hand slowly to his crown- his smoothed and flawless crown.
What in the hell..?
He snatched a handful of paper towels and blotted his face, taking care to dry around his eyes, but when they opened, the image was unchanged.
He was so brisk in the hustle to his office that he didn’t notice his desk chair was facing the wrong way until it swiveled around.
He jumped, but what sat inside it would take the breath from his lungs. He eyed the familiar round, brown face, framed to the jaw by thick, dark hair. The thin, yet alert eyes reciprocated through bisected bangs.
“So,” began the husky alto, “are you Dr. McDreamy or Dr. McSteamy?”
It sounded as intended, by far more of an amused one-liner than a come-on.
“McSanders-“ He shook himself. “Sanders. Miss Daniels?” he asked as though presuming.
He took a seat in the smaller chair that faced the girl as she simply nodded.
“I rather like this role-reversal,” she quipped, leaning against the high back of the chair, strumming the arms.
He could not bring himself back to doctor-mode. All the protocol, all the icebreakers, everything he learned left him. Everything left him. He was numb. He looked up into the girl’s face once more. She was young- probably not yet twenty. The broad and unyielding cynicism of a less-than-satisfactory youth was written clearly in her face as she leaned haughtily over his desk, her sleeves traveling up her forearms as she pressed forward.
“Well?”
His eyes caught the dark, ugly, tendrils of scars that trailed up along her wrists and the thinner stripes that struck them through crosswise. He gulped deeply (first, his pooling saliva, and then the air) sending his Adam’s apple dancing.
“Blood…” he murmured weakly.
The girl’s eyebrow arched upward into her hair.
“What?”
The only answer he could afford her was the sound of his retching.
He prostrated before the small trash can at the corner of his desk, face reddened, eyes watering, gasping between gagging, “Oh, my God, what’s happening to me?”
He spoke to himself, but still the girl answered.
“Hell if I know, but I’m gonna get somebody. Hold on.”
She sprang from the chair, running into the hall.
It couldn’t have taken longer than a couple of seconds for her to return with someone, likely, Celia (he really couldn’t tell), but somehow his solitude felt as though it were sustained for at least a minute or so. And in that minute, he could hear nothing of the world outside- not the panicky shouts of Clementine Daniels, not the cars below the window. Save for his desperate breathing and the angry thumping of the blood vessels in his head, he could hear nothing but the taunting ticking of the clock on the wall.
"Melody, Unchained"
I try to remember my mom and stepdad as they were the day of their wedding. They were so happy… I mean, they were always happy, but that night they glowed. Mom, in her pretty, cream-colored three-piece dress set. Raymond, in his tux. All eyes were on them during that first dance- “Unchained Melody”. By the Righteous Brothers. That was their song. And the funny thing is, it was their favorite song before they even met. I was named after it ten years before they even met. That’s how I know they were soulmates. That, and the way they stared at each other that night.
It’s something how two people, different races, a decade and a half between them could, after leading separate lives, come together and be more right than anything anyone has ever seen. Like they were high-school sweethearts who knew they were right for each other their entire lives. And then, a year-and-a-half later, it all ended. Because of, of all things asinine, shoes.
It would be kind of funny if it wasn’t my life.
It was raining the day of the funeral, as it had the night I got the phone call from the hospital. It was the end of June, no less. The service was unbearably dull and long. Everyone there (many of whom I’ve never met more than once, if at all) had something to say. Kind words. Words of encouragement for “the family” (me and Jason). A couple people from their jobs got misty. And those who righteously ventured up to the podium droned on for their fifteen seconds of fame, pretending like they hadn’t written and memorized their bullshit the night before. Acting like they spoke from the heart. Expressing their “grief”. How close they were to my parents, and how their lives will never be the same without them. It was a joke.
Arlene Chase-Grier was not their mother. They didn’t spend nine months inside her, suckle her for fourteen more, and depend on her completely for everything. And the only other person in that graveyard that Raymond Grier raised was too busy being coddled and comforted by his flavor of the week to appreciate the irony.
I zoned out after most of it. I didn’t need some pedo priest to tell me how to remember my parents, how happy they were in paradise, bullshit bullshit, and I damn sure didn’t need anyone’s sympathy. All I wanted was to get the hell out of that dress and sleep and never wake up.
We dropped our white roses into the ground. They fell in slow motion, it seemed.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Amen.
“Mel- You all right kiddo?” my stepbrother asked, a hand on my shoulder.
I nodded, but the answer was ‘no’. I wasn’t all right. And I’m sure he wasn’t, either, but the difference was one of us was a twenty-eight year old man who could use sex as a memory-cleanser that night and one of us didn’t even have that.
At the very least, he had the courtesy to sneak her in and out that night, so I wasn’t visually confronted. But I could still hear their muffled groans on the way to the bathroom.
Hmm, I thought, so this is what grief-sex sounds like.
Hell, I couldn’t sleep. Big surprise, huh? And I figure he must have needed to replenish his energy. I doubt he purposely walked into that big vat of awkward that was us in the kitchen that night. He strode in wearing his robe. He didn’t go the extra mile in closing it.
“Hey…” he said in an awkward way unintentionally reminiscent of Arthur Fonzarelli, “How’s it goin’?”
Are you shittin’ me?
“I’m the happiest orphan on the block,” I deadpanned.
He frowned.
“That’s not funny, Melody.”
“Really? I thought it was...”
He swigged from the milk carton.
“I’m, uh- I’m moving back in. I hope you’re all right with that.”
“It makes sense that you would ask me after you’ve already made yourself at home.”
“Well, this is my home,” he scoffed, slightly adorable when indignant, “and I’m an heir just as well as you, so in all honesty, I don’t really have to ask.”
“So, why did you?” I challenged.
This seemed to stump him. He shrugged, folding his arms over his bare chest, thinking a second.
“I don’t know. Common courtesy?”
“Well, then, in that case, you might want to start by not drinking out of the milk carton. Night.”
In retrospect, I was a little on the not-so-nice side to Jason after our parents’ accident, but I was hurt and he was just so easy. And maybe I was a little resentful, and a little bitter. We hadn’t really existed to each other until that point. We were grown when my mom married his dad, with eleven years between us, and he wasn’t really around before then.
For the first couple of months, he did try to reach out, sweetheart he is. But I suppose someone like him was so unused to any sort of resistance from a member of the opposite sex that it jarred him. By the time I matriculated, we were back to ignoring each other.
So the happy fun time college was supposed to be? Yeah, no. I lived at home, so half the experience was shot to shit from the start. Our car was wrecked, in an impound somewhere, containing bits of my parents, so I commuted on public transit which, in Philadelphia, is like a festering sore on the anus of society. So let’s recap: my parents died the end of my senior year, and now college was getting off to a suck-ass start. I was pissed.
All the time.
And then Jason, and his perpetual partial nudity, which I wouldn’t have complained about if not for his endless stream of floozies- all of which, infinitely more attractive than myself. Christ! He’s a very good-looking man, but it was getting ridiculous. I figured he must spout absinthe from his penis or something.
The more women that came into my house, the more I began to realize just how lonely I really was. I would have liked to have had a boyfriend, but only really pretty, skinny girls can afford to be bitches. I didn’t even have a date to my senior prom, which made the entire situation extremely ironic.
But as irony is almost always entertaining in retrospect, in the present, it’s a son of a bitch. And I was just getting used to the idea that I could do whatever I wanted.
So, naturally, I drank.
I’m not going to lie. It was pretty fun at first, but I shortly realized that I was an angry drunk, at the expense of an Alpha Pi I shoved over a coffee table for looking at me funny. Thankfully, she was deathly afraid of me, because otherwise, she could have gotten me expelled. I decided it would be a lot safer to just drink at home, so the only person in danger would be Jason, and he was a sturdy 6’1”.
I don’t think he noticed for a good month or so- again, irony, he was a bartender. Something must have tipped him off later on, though. He’d been following me around giving me these sympathetic puppy-dog eyes, all that “Lean on Me” crap. But he didn’t come out and say anything until Christmas break that year. He was raiding the fridge, half-naked, as was his habit, and I was sitting at the table enjoying a bowl of Lucky Charms when he uttered a dramatic “Whoa!”
When I turned around, he was grimacing at the decanter of orange juice, holding it out in front of him like a bomb.
“Oh, that’s mine…”
“Yeah, no shit. It sure isn’t mine. What’s in this? Vodka?”
“Iunno. You’re the bartender, you tell me.”
“You mixed a whole pitcher?” he gaped incredulously, “And, like, overkilled on the vodka, by the way.”
“You know, I’m not quite seeing why you care…”
Folding his arms across his chest, “Well, because when I’m looking for OJ in the morning, I shouldn’t have to ask for a virgin.”
“Look, he made a funny.”
“And because you’re my baby sister.”
“That’s a fallacy. I’m your younger stepsister,” I corrected testily.
I hated when he called me his sister. It made me feel dirty.
“Either way,” his eyes flitted away, “It’s still my responsibility to look after you since…”
“Since our parents died,” I nodded matter-of-factly, pretending the words didn’t stab at me, “Well, here’s the thing- I’m an adult and I don’t need you or anyone else to look after me. I can take care of myself, thank you.”
“You’re doing a great job, nineteen and boozing at breakfast-“
“Look, I don’t ride your ass for being a poonhound, so why don’t you just stay the hell out of my business?”
His brow furrowed and his eyes flickered, wide and green and hurt.
“Mel, I’m just trying to-“
“WELL STOP TRYING!” I shouted, “You’re nothing to me, and I’m nothing to you-“
“That’s not true!”
His earnestness was almost heartbreaking.
He reached out a hand to me, but I swatted it away, and he sighed.
“I know you’ve been having a hard time-“
“You don’t know anything.”
“But you can’t blame yourself, Melody- MELODY!”
I vaguely remember flipping something or throwing it- the cereal box, probably, before storming out. I needed a drink.
Jason stopped bringing his women around. Either what I said got to him, or he was afraid I might snap and we’d have a dead stripper on our hands. It didn’t make me feel any better, though. It made me feel slightly guilty- him spending his nights on the couch in front of the TV, when he could have been doing whatever- whomever he wanted. There’s something even more depressing about an attractive couch potato.
I personally tried to stay out of the house. I liked there being some distance between me and the house, me and Jason. I didn’t have to deal with any of it. I didn’t have to remember. I didn’t have to feel in that seedy little campus bar that “sometimes forgot” to card. All I had to do was throw ‘em back and hope that it was true what they said about extra pounds and alcohol. It had proved right, so far.
Only thing about solitude, though, was the occasional flashback. Standard stuff mostly- distant childhood memories of my mom- memories of Ray when he was still just “that strange white man”. Every so often, the memories would be more recent things- the not-so-happy things, the angsty teenage shit that I took out on my parents. It really wasn’t their fault that I was at the brunt of checkerboard/zebra-family/jungle-fever jokes, and I knew that, but I didn’t care. Even still, they tried. My mom, especially. Prom… She had been looking forward to my prom ever since I was yea high.
That spring, it was all she could talk about. I was nonplussed. I wasn’t going to have a date. I just saw it as another necessary rite of passage, like getting your period, or slightly less pleasant. But her…
“Baby, you’re gonna look like a little princess.”
She was beaming, as she always was.
And I grunted, “Mom, even if there were anything ‘little’ about me, princesses don’t shop at Boscov’s.”
“Still, you’re gonna be beautiful, sugar.”
“I won’t even have date.”
“I’m sure Jason would love-“
“Ew, Mom. I’m not taking my stepbrother to prom,” I grimaced.
“Why not? You’d make all your little classmates jealous, him on your arm. And at least I’d know we wouldn’t get any surprises nine months from now,” she winked.
I laughed, “Ahh, Mom!”
“I’m just sayin’…”
The unmistakable “Unchained Melody” was playing when I stumbled in on Jason, on the couch, leaning forward, just staring at the TV. He probably wouldn’t have heard me even if I did speak. From over the couch, and over his head, it was Mom and Ray. They were swaying and grinning like Anna and the King of Siam. The light from the chandelier above them made Mom sparkle and Ray glow. I caught a glimpse of myself in the background, smiling. They were so happy then. And I didn’t know it until that very moment, but so was I.
Then I remembered: It was their second wedding anniversary.
Jason spoke first, through a misty smile.
“They were quite a sight, huh? Only time I ever saw my dad in a tux. He cleaned up nice, though. And look at Arlene-“
“She was beautiful,” I said softly, watching my mom’s eyes glitter up at the love it took her all her life to find.
He turned toward me, nodding.
“Well, you look just like her…” and we paused for a short, awkward moment before he patted the seat next to him, saying, “Come on. We’ll watch it together.”
I took another look at the television. Ray dipped my mom. Jason was right. I do look like her. And at that moment, he looked an awful lot like Ray.
“I’ll pass.”
And I bounded up the stairs, nearly falling over.
Sprawled on my bed, head lolled to the side, I could see the bottom of my prom dress peeking out of my closet. I hadn’t looked at it since the day I bought it, I almost forgot what it looked like. Then I remembered. It had a beaded bodice, strapless and the one detail I never forgot: it was the same color as my mom’s wedding dress, cream.
“Mom, my dress is cream.”
“Yeah?”
“These shoes are white, Mom, they don’t match.”
“Well, they don’t clash. And you’ll barely see them under the gown-”
“Mom, you’re forcing me to go to this stupid thing tomorrow- I don’t even wanna go. Can you at least get me the right color shoes so I can go looking half-way decent?”
“Well, that’s no problem. I’ll just swing back around to the store after I pick up Ray, okay?”
“Thank you.”
But I wasn’t grateful. I never was.
That was the last conversation I ever had with my mother.
By the time I had relived it several times, my face was completely wet and Jason was standing in the doorway. The front of him was all shadow, but I could still make out his wide, sage-colored eyes and the flecks of gold in his hair.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently, propped against the doorpost.
“No,” I whispered.
That was the first time I had been honest with him about anything, I realized. He sat beside me on the bed and nestled a hand in my hair. That was the first time I had ever really allowed myself to feel his touch. It was silken and gentle, and he smelled softly of sandalwood and other warm, manly smells. He leaned in close.
“It wasn’t your fault…”
“They went off the road on the way to the damn shoe store, Jason.”
“But, still-“
“Just…don’t…”
“Okay,” he sighed, defeated, “I’ll leave you alone.”
“No-“ I grabbed his hand and held it there, “Please.”
I looked up into his large eyes and couldn’t look away. In an instant, I fully understood why multitudes of women flocked after him.
I could see myself reflected in his pupils, as clear as day, and the way I was staring at him…
It was at that moment I realized why I couldn’t stand to be near Jason for extended periods of time. It was because I was Arlene and he was Raymond and I loved him, and we were going to die. People as happy and as beautiful as our parents don’t belong on Earth.
Jason watched that video every night for a week before conking out on the couch, and I would come down, every night for a week, with a blanket and cover him, kiss his lips, and watch my parents dance to “Unchained Melody” a while.
I hadn’t had a drink since that moment of tenderness Jason and I shared, simply because if I can make a revelation that heavy under the influence, there really was no need to drink anymore. But after he and I visited my parents’ grave site on the anniversary of their death, shit got too heavy. I realized that I had for the most part gotten on with my life, while they were to lay confined in the ground for all of eternity.
Because of me.
So me and Jason shared a few libations, toasting our parents until I ran upstairs to use the little girls room.
I’m not sure what impulse drove me to try on that prom dress that night, 364 days after my senior prom, but I guess that’s why it’s called an impulse. Or maybe it was the alcohol.
It still fit. I was surprised to see that I hadn’t gained or lost any weight.
Time goes by so slowly.
For a moment, it felt as if it stood still- as if it were a year ago, and my parents were waiting downstairs with a camera, and my limo was waiting outside, and Jason was going to be standing there all tall and beautiful in his tuxedo, holding my corsage and waiting to pin it on.
But when I got downstairs, my parents were still dead. I didn’t have to look out the window in order to know that there would be no limo out there- at least, not for me. The only part I had right was Jason, but he was wearing jeans and a plaid button-up, and his hands were corsageless.
But that was all right.
Mom and Ray were dancing on the TV, and he was watching them again, unaware of my presence. I wanted to keep it that way, but my foot creaked on the bottom stair and he turned around, his eyes widening and sparkling. He stood.
“Melody…Wow…Why..?“
“I wanted to see if it fit,” I shrugged self-consciously, biting my bottom lip.
“You look beautiful,” he sighed, “You look like Arlene.”
I smiled.
“And you look like Ray.”
He sighed again, smiling, his shoulders relaxing, and outstretched his hand tentatively. I simply looked at it.
“Well- uhm- Arlene Chase-Grier…” he said with an awkward grin, “May I have this dance?”
I floated toward him, my cheeks tight from smiling so hard.
“Raymond Grier, I would be honored.
We didn’t look at the TV as we held each other, swaying. We could hear “Unchained Melody” and the guests murmuring in awe. I pretended they were talking about us as I looked up into his eyes.
He smiled.
I smiled back.
Our fingers laced together slowly as our smiles faded. His hand swiped across my neck and shoulder, as he leaned, whisper-singing.
“…My darlin’…I’ve hungered for your touch… A long, lonely time…”
“And time goes by so slowly…” I whispered breathlessly, pausing to look in his eyes one more time. “I need your love… I need-“
And we kissed.
And it couldn’t have been longer than a few minutes, but time stood still again- not in the past this time.
The two seconds it took him to unzip my dress were suspended in two lifetimes as we locked eyes. And the couple hours we made love were like two eternities.
And I’m still living them.
My step-boy-brother-friend proposed to me last night. I respectfully declined. If ever I were to marry anyone, it would be him, but I don’t know if I could ever drive myself to be that selfish. To get married, have kids, have them love and depend on you, and then leave them. I don’t know. I can’t see that right now. But if I do say yes, at least I have a dress.
It’s something how two people, different races, a decade and a half between them could, after leading separate lives, come together and be more right than anything anyone has ever seen. Like they were high-school sweethearts who knew they were right for each other their entire lives. And then, a year-and-a-half later, it all ended. Because of, of all things asinine, shoes.
It would be kind of funny if it wasn’t my life.
It was raining the day of the funeral, as it had the night I got the phone call from the hospital. It was the end of June, no less. The service was unbearably dull and long. Everyone there (many of whom I’ve never met more than once, if at all) had something to say. Kind words. Words of encouragement for “the family” (me and Jason). A couple people from their jobs got misty. And those who righteously ventured up to the podium droned on for their fifteen seconds of fame, pretending like they hadn’t written and memorized their bullshit the night before. Acting like they spoke from the heart. Expressing their “grief”. How close they were to my parents, and how their lives will never be the same without them. It was a joke.
Arlene Chase-Grier was not their mother. They didn’t spend nine months inside her, suckle her for fourteen more, and depend on her completely for everything. And the only other person in that graveyard that Raymond Grier raised was too busy being coddled and comforted by his flavor of the week to appreciate the irony.
I zoned out after most of it. I didn’t need some pedo priest to tell me how to remember my parents, how happy they were in paradise, bullshit bullshit, and I damn sure didn’t need anyone’s sympathy. All I wanted was to get the hell out of that dress and sleep and never wake up.
We dropped our white roses into the ground. They fell in slow motion, it seemed.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Amen.
“Mel- You all right kiddo?” my stepbrother asked, a hand on my shoulder.
I nodded, but the answer was ‘no’. I wasn’t all right. And I’m sure he wasn’t, either, but the difference was one of us was a twenty-eight year old man who could use sex as a memory-cleanser that night and one of us didn’t even have that.
At the very least, he had the courtesy to sneak her in and out that night, so I wasn’t visually confronted. But I could still hear their muffled groans on the way to the bathroom.
Hmm, I thought, so this is what grief-sex sounds like.
Hell, I couldn’t sleep. Big surprise, huh? And I figure he must have needed to replenish his energy. I doubt he purposely walked into that big vat of awkward that was us in the kitchen that night. He strode in wearing his robe. He didn’t go the extra mile in closing it.
“Hey…” he said in an awkward way unintentionally reminiscent of Arthur Fonzarelli, “How’s it goin’?”
Are you shittin’ me?
“I’m the happiest orphan on the block,” I deadpanned.
He frowned.
“That’s not funny, Melody.”
“Really? I thought it was...”
He swigged from the milk carton.
“I’m, uh- I’m moving back in. I hope you’re all right with that.”
“It makes sense that you would ask me after you’ve already made yourself at home.”
“Well, this is my home,” he scoffed, slightly adorable when indignant, “and I’m an heir just as well as you, so in all honesty, I don’t really have to ask.”
“So, why did you?” I challenged.
This seemed to stump him. He shrugged, folding his arms over his bare chest, thinking a second.
“I don’t know. Common courtesy?”
“Well, then, in that case, you might want to start by not drinking out of the milk carton. Night.”
In retrospect, I was a little on the not-so-nice side to Jason after our parents’ accident, but I was hurt and he was just so easy. And maybe I was a little resentful, and a little bitter. We hadn’t really existed to each other until that point. We were grown when my mom married his dad, with eleven years between us, and he wasn’t really around before then.
For the first couple of months, he did try to reach out, sweetheart he is. But I suppose someone like him was so unused to any sort of resistance from a member of the opposite sex that it jarred him. By the time I matriculated, we were back to ignoring each other.
So the happy fun time college was supposed to be? Yeah, no. I lived at home, so half the experience was shot to shit from the start. Our car was wrecked, in an impound somewhere, containing bits of my parents, so I commuted on public transit which, in Philadelphia, is like a festering sore on the anus of society. So let’s recap: my parents died the end of my senior year, and now college was getting off to a suck-ass start. I was pissed.
All the time.
And then Jason, and his perpetual partial nudity, which I wouldn’t have complained about if not for his endless stream of floozies- all of which, infinitely more attractive than myself. Christ! He’s a very good-looking man, but it was getting ridiculous. I figured he must spout absinthe from his penis or something.
The more women that came into my house, the more I began to realize just how lonely I really was. I would have liked to have had a boyfriend, but only really pretty, skinny girls can afford to be bitches. I didn’t even have a date to my senior prom, which made the entire situation extremely ironic.
But as irony is almost always entertaining in retrospect, in the present, it’s a son of a bitch. And I was just getting used to the idea that I could do whatever I wanted.
So, naturally, I drank.
I’m not going to lie. It was pretty fun at first, but I shortly realized that I was an angry drunk, at the expense of an Alpha Pi I shoved over a coffee table for looking at me funny. Thankfully, she was deathly afraid of me, because otherwise, she could have gotten me expelled. I decided it would be a lot safer to just drink at home, so the only person in danger would be Jason, and he was a sturdy 6’1”.
I don’t think he noticed for a good month or so- again, irony, he was a bartender. Something must have tipped him off later on, though. He’d been following me around giving me these sympathetic puppy-dog eyes, all that “Lean on Me” crap. But he didn’t come out and say anything until Christmas break that year. He was raiding the fridge, half-naked, as was his habit, and I was sitting at the table enjoying a bowl of Lucky Charms when he uttered a dramatic “Whoa!”
When I turned around, he was grimacing at the decanter of orange juice, holding it out in front of him like a bomb.
“Oh, that’s mine…”
“Yeah, no shit. It sure isn’t mine. What’s in this? Vodka?”
“Iunno. You’re the bartender, you tell me.”
“You mixed a whole pitcher?” he gaped incredulously, “And, like, overkilled on the vodka, by the way.”
“You know, I’m not quite seeing why you care…”
Folding his arms across his chest, “Well, because when I’m looking for OJ in the morning, I shouldn’t have to ask for a virgin.”
“Look, he made a funny.”
“And because you’re my baby sister.”
“That’s a fallacy. I’m your younger stepsister,” I corrected testily.
I hated when he called me his sister. It made me feel dirty.
“Either way,” his eyes flitted away, “It’s still my responsibility to look after you since…”
“Since our parents died,” I nodded matter-of-factly, pretending the words didn’t stab at me, “Well, here’s the thing- I’m an adult and I don’t need you or anyone else to look after me. I can take care of myself, thank you.”
“You’re doing a great job, nineteen and boozing at breakfast-“
“Look, I don’t ride your ass for being a poonhound, so why don’t you just stay the hell out of my business?”
His brow furrowed and his eyes flickered, wide and green and hurt.
“Mel, I’m just trying to-“
“WELL STOP TRYING!” I shouted, “You’re nothing to me, and I’m nothing to you-“
“That’s not true!”
His earnestness was almost heartbreaking.
He reached out a hand to me, but I swatted it away, and he sighed.
“I know you’ve been having a hard time-“
“You don’t know anything.”
“But you can’t blame yourself, Melody- MELODY!”
I vaguely remember flipping something or throwing it- the cereal box, probably, before storming out. I needed a drink.
Jason stopped bringing his women around. Either what I said got to him, or he was afraid I might snap and we’d have a dead stripper on our hands. It didn’t make me feel any better, though. It made me feel slightly guilty- him spending his nights on the couch in front of the TV, when he could have been doing whatever- whomever he wanted. There’s something even more depressing about an attractive couch potato.
I personally tried to stay out of the house. I liked there being some distance between me and the house, me and Jason. I didn’t have to deal with any of it. I didn’t have to remember. I didn’t have to feel in that seedy little campus bar that “sometimes forgot” to card. All I had to do was throw ‘em back and hope that it was true what they said about extra pounds and alcohol. It had proved right, so far.
Only thing about solitude, though, was the occasional flashback. Standard stuff mostly- distant childhood memories of my mom- memories of Ray when he was still just “that strange white man”. Every so often, the memories would be more recent things- the not-so-happy things, the angsty teenage shit that I took out on my parents. It really wasn’t their fault that I was at the brunt of checkerboard/zebra-family/jungle-fever jokes, and I knew that, but I didn’t care. Even still, they tried. My mom, especially. Prom… She had been looking forward to my prom ever since I was yea high.
That spring, it was all she could talk about. I was nonplussed. I wasn’t going to have a date. I just saw it as another necessary rite of passage, like getting your period, or slightly less pleasant. But her…
“Baby, you’re gonna look like a little princess.”
She was beaming, as she always was.
And I grunted, “Mom, even if there were anything ‘little’ about me, princesses don’t shop at Boscov’s.”
“Still, you’re gonna be beautiful, sugar.”
“I won’t even have date.”
“I’m sure Jason would love-“
“Ew, Mom. I’m not taking my stepbrother to prom,” I grimaced.
“Why not? You’d make all your little classmates jealous, him on your arm. And at least I’d know we wouldn’t get any surprises nine months from now,” she winked.
I laughed, “Ahh, Mom!”
“I’m just sayin’…”
The unmistakable “Unchained Melody” was playing when I stumbled in on Jason, on the couch, leaning forward, just staring at the TV. He probably wouldn’t have heard me even if I did speak. From over the couch, and over his head, it was Mom and Ray. They were swaying and grinning like Anna and the King of Siam. The light from the chandelier above them made Mom sparkle and Ray glow. I caught a glimpse of myself in the background, smiling. They were so happy then. And I didn’t know it until that very moment, but so was I.
Then I remembered: It was their second wedding anniversary.
Jason spoke first, through a misty smile.
“They were quite a sight, huh? Only time I ever saw my dad in a tux. He cleaned up nice, though. And look at Arlene-“
“She was beautiful,” I said softly, watching my mom’s eyes glitter up at the love it took her all her life to find.
He turned toward me, nodding.
“Well, you look just like her…” and we paused for a short, awkward moment before he patted the seat next to him, saying, “Come on. We’ll watch it together.”
I took another look at the television. Ray dipped my mom. Jason was right. I do look like her. And at that moment, he looked an awful lot like Ray.
“I’ll pass.”
And I bounded up the stairs, nearly falling over.
Sprawled on my bed, head lolled to the side, I could see the bottom of my prom dress peeking out of my closet. I hadn’t looked at it since the day I bought it, I almost forgot what it looked like. Then I remembered. It had a beaded bodice, strapless and the one detail I never forgot: it was the same color as my mom’s wedding dress, cream.
“Mom, my dress is cream.”
“Yeah?”
“These shoes are white, Mom, they don’t match.”
“Well, they don’t clash. And you’ll barely see them under the gown-”
“Mom, you’re forcing me to go to this stupid thing tomorrow- I don’t even wanna go. Can you at least get me the right color shoes so I can go looking half-way decent?”
“Well, that’s no problem. I’ll just swing back around to the store after I pick up Ray, okay?”
“Thank you.”
But I wasn’t grateful. I never was.
That was the last conversation I ever had with my mother.
By the time I had relived it several times, my face was completely wet and Jason was standing in the doorway. The front of him was all shadow, but I could still make out his wide, sage-colored eyes and the flecks of gold in his hair.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently, propped against the doorpost.
“No,” I whispered.
That was the first time I had been honest with him about anything, I realized. He sat beside me on the bed and nestled a hand in my hair. That was the first time I had ever really allowed myself to feel his touch. It was silken and gentle, and he smelled softly of sandalwood and other warm, manly smells. He leaned in close.
“It wasn’t your fault…”
“They went off the road on the way to the damn shoe store, Jason.”
“But, still-“
“Just…don’t…”
“Okay,” he sighed, defeated, “I’ll leave you alone.”
“No-“ I grabbed his hand and held it there, “Please.”
I looked up into his large eyes and couldn’t look away. In an instant, I fully understood why multitudes of women flocked after him.
I could see myself reflected in his pupils, as clear as day, and the way I was staring at him…
It was at that moment I realized why I couldn’t stand to be near Jason for extended periods of time. It was because I was Arlene and he was Raymond and I loved him, and we were going to die. People as happy and as beautiful as our parents don’t belong on Earth.
Jason watched that video every night for a week before conking out on the couch, and I would come down, every night for a week, with a blanket and cover him, kiss his lips, and watch my parents dance to “Unchained Melody” a while.
I hadn’t had a drink since that moment of tenderness Jason and I shared, simply because if I can make a revelation that heavy under the influence, there really was no need to drink anymore. But after he and I visited my parents’ grave site on the anniversary of their death, shit got too heavy. I realized that I had for the most part gotten on with my life, while they were to lay confined in the ground for all of eternity.
Because of me.
So me and Jason shared a few libations, toasting our parents until I ran upstairs to use the little girls room.
I’m not sure what impulse drove me to try on that prom dress that night, 364 days after my senior prom, but I guess that’s why it’s called an impulse. Or maybe it was the alcohol.
It still fit. I was surprised to see that I hadn’t gained or lost any weight.
Time goes by so slowly.
For a moment, it felt as if it stood still- as if it were a year ago, and my parents were waiting downstairs with a camera, and my limo was waiting outside, and Jason was going to be standing there all tall and beautiful in his tuxedo, holding my corsage and waiting to pin it on.
But when I got downstairs, my parents were still dead. I didn’t have to look out the window in order to know that there would be no limo out there- at least, not for me. The only part I had right was Jason, but he was wearing jeans and a plaid button-up, and his hands were corsageless.
But that was all right.
Mom and Ray were dancing on the TV, and he was watching them again, unaware of my presence. I wanted to keep it that way, but my foot creaked on the bottom stair and he turned around, his eyes widening and sparkling. He stood.
“Melody…Wow…Why..?“
“I wanted to see if it fit,” I shrugged self-consciously, biting my bottom lip.
“You look beautiful,” he sighed, “You look like Arlene.”
I smiled.
“And you look like Ray.”
He sighed again, smiling, his shoulders relaxing, and outstretched his hand tentatively. I simply looked at it.
“Well- uhm- Arlene Chase-Grier…” he said with an awkward grin, “May I have this dance?”
I floated toward him, my cheeks tight from smiling so hard.
“Raymond Grier, I would be honored.
We didn’t look at the TV as we held each other, swaying. We could hear “Unchained Melody” and the guests murmuring in awe. I pretended they were talking about us as I looked up into his eyes.
He smiled.
I smiled back.
Our fingers laced together slowly as our smiles faded. His hand swiped across my neck and shoulder, as he leaned, whisper-singing.
“…My darlin’…I’ve hungered for your touch… A long, lonely time…”
“And time goes by so slowly…” I whispered breathlessly, pausing to look in his eyes one more time. “I need your love… I need-“
And we kissed.
And it couldn’t have been longer than a few minutes, but time stood still again- not in the past this time.
The two seconds it took him to unzip my dress were suspended in two lifetimes as we locked eyes. And the couple hours we made love were like two eternities.
And I’m still living them.
My step-boy-brother-friend proposed to me last night. I respectfully declined. If ever I were to marry anyone, it would be him, but I don’t know if I could ever drive myself to be that selfish. To get married, have kids, have them love and depend on you, and then leave them. I don’t know. I can’t see that right now. But if I do say yes, at least I have a dress.
"Destined"
I come from Hornton County- a dead little place smack dab in the creamy center of Bumdiddlefudge, Nowhere. Now, after a second honeymoon in Arkansas, city folk will tell you just how lovely and “rustic” the country is- how quiet and peaceful- like something out of a Danielle Steele paperback. They might say how great it is that everybody knows everybody else (without realizing that it’s because they’re all related). They’re even likely whine about how they wish they could raise their children in such “blissful simplicity” before going back to their mochalocachinos and The View. Maybe they’re right. Maybe the country is a beautiful place, but personally, I know I was tired of staring at hay and cow ass 24/7. Give me the New York skyline any day.
Even as a little girl I knew I was destined for bigger and better things. It was my driving force. My motivation. Do you think I gave a damn about Robert E. Lee and lowest common factors? Hell no! But I bet you I studied my little butt off- aced every test, got straight A’s- because I knew education was a one way ticket out of Dodge. Then I realized all that takes far too long and being valedictorian of a high school in the middle of nowhere that has like five-hundred students doesn’t exactly wow them at Harvard.
To make matters worse, I grew up on a ranch (so sickening, I can’t even eat the dressing now) with my grandma, who couldn’t remind me enough that some day the ranch would be all mine, cow dook and all. I was already prepared enough. Grandma was as old as the baby Jesus’ diaper, so by the time I was twelve, I pretty much had to run the place by myself. Wait, no, that’s a lie.. There was Tucker.
Tucker was our ranch hand- about ten years or so older than me, with a heart of gold, and a head like a (hollow) rock, and a body you could sharpen cutlery on. He actually did most of the work- if not all. But hey, watching him work hard like that could get pretty tiring sometimes, too, especially in the fall and winter when he had to be fully clothed. We were thick as thieves, Tucker and me. He and his dad lived a couple miles down the road from us, and he’d been working for my grandma since he was just a kid, and knew me since I was like three days old. He’s just about the nicest guy you’re ever going to meet…God love him, the dumbest, too… Now, that’s NOT a lie- or me being mean, either. Sometimes I still wonder how far away he is from being legally retarded…But like I said- he’s a true blue sweetheart. He used to play dollies with me when I was little. I hated dollies, but even as a first-grader, I understood the entertainment value in a sixteen year old boy rolling around a petal-pink Malibu Barbie Dream Convertible. You probably think I’m cruel, but I’m sure he enjoyed it as much as I did.
Ever since I could talk, I had the gift of gab. I could talk Tucker into anything (not that it’s extremely difficult). The first few years after I discovered this, I used my powers for evil, but as I matured and grew a conscience, I began to recruit him into more beneficial projects. Most, if not all of them, were centered around getting out of Hornton. Tucker actually didn’t mind Hornton too much He’s a very easy person to please. When life gives him lemons, he makes lemonade and shares it with everyone. But he aided me for the sake of aiding me.
I had the smarts and he had the appeal. The plan was always that I would be the brains BEHIND the operation. I would make Tuck a star (one way or another) and manage his career. I admit, sometimes my ideas got a little… extreme… and good old Tuck would often be the brunt of that. But it was all gravy. He never minded taking one for the team. It was usually harmless- and we when it was something that might have slightly bended the laws, we never got caught. Except for that one time a few summers ago (word of advice- don’t try to hitchhike in a bikini made of processed cheese in 95 degree weather) when he got arrested for indecent exposure, but the charges were dropped. No harm, no foul- and that video got over 230 hits on YouTube. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite spread like the “Chocolate Rain” guy, and we never got asked on The Tonight Show. Other than that, the only other close call we had was that time I got him a modeling gig over in the next town, and the guy at the agency…Well, let’s just say that the guy wasn’t entirely legit and we had to find that out the hard way, and now there are some photos of poor Tucker in a g-string floating around in cyberspace…
But that was just our luck with those kinds of things. Maybe it was because I had a tendency to jump the gun, but I didn’t feel like waiting through four long years of college (assuming I could raise the money) and endless job searches before I could get my piece of the pie. I thought maybe it was because I wanted it too much. By the time I graduated, I began to think that maybe I would have to settle for being…ordinary, but one day- one fateful day- God let down a drizzle of rain on the crusted little seed that was my hope.
It was a day in June, the night of my graduation. Grandma was making a nice little celebratory spread. Just as I’d begun to sneak a little bit of mashed potatoes off the spoon, she told me to summon Tucker for dinner, and because somebody was morally opposed to cell phones (didn’t know how to work one) I had to do so by foot. It took me a couple of minutes to find him in the stables. I could see his shoveling horse patties as I approached. I figured to avoid any unpleasant odors, I’d leave a few feet between me and the barn.
“Hey, Tuck.“
It took me a second to realize that he hadn’t heard me because he was mumbling to himself, or what I thought was mumbling until I listened a bit more intently. He was singing. I smiled a bit in amusement as he got a little louder. I recognized the song. as “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain. I thought it was kind of funny that Tucker was singing a love song, but as my inaudible snickers faded, it dawned on me that he actually sounded pretty good. Then I listened some more, and then it dawned on me that he was very good- damn good- AMAZING! Like an angel! I knew him all my life, and I never even heard him so much as hum! It never crossed my mind that he could carry a tune. For God’s sake, the man still has to recite “Over, Under, Around the Tree” to tie his shoes. Then again, you don’t really need brains to sing. One would think I’d have learned that from old Britney.
“…Tell me we belong toge-“
“Jesus, Tucker!”
“What?” he jumped, whipping around, a bit of poop flying off his shovel as he raised it out of reflex, “Oh, hey, Celia. Snuck up on me there. Almost got hit with the doo-doo shovel,” he said with his signature dopey, but adorably friendly grin.
“I didn’t know you sing! Since when do you sing?” I pressed, my eyes probably still dinner-plate-wide.
“Oh, I dunno. Since always, I guess. Makes me work faster.”
“No. No, you most definitely have not always sung. I’ve never heard you sing before!”
“Well, I don’t s’pose I like singin’ ‘front of people. I’d go all red.”
“Wait, no, you don’t understand- you’re INCREDIBLE! Sing me another verse. Go on.”
His speckled face began to redden.
“I dunno, Celia. Naw, I couldn’t.”
“Sure you can! Come on. For me? Please?”
“Uhm… All right… Uhm…”he scratched his stubble a little as he cleared his throat before beginning, “Rain falls angry on the tin roof…”
The more I listened, the more teeth I showed. He kind of swayed nervously at first but he slowly waxed comfort, and when he hit that one note- my God, the lights in the barn seemed to twinkle in his eyes and they turned the most gorgeous shade of green there is- the color of money.
When he finished his song, I clapped so hard a couple of the horses started to neigh. Maybe I had it all wrong the entire time. Maybe HE was destined for great things and I was destined to manage him.
“Tucker… How would you like to be a star?”
><><><><><><
“Celia, for the fourth time- no. I can’t leave your grandma here all alone. What’s she gonna do without me to run the ranch? She can’t take care of the animals- she can’t even give tours! I’m sorry. If you wanna go, then you can go, but I can’t leave her.”
“But I can’t go, Tucker, I’m not the one who can sing!” I whined, which usually would have worked, but then again, it had never taken me that long to convince Tuck of anything.
I followed after him, continuing, “Besides, you wouldn’t send me off to New York by myself anyway, would you?”
“No, I’d tell you to stay here.”
I scurried to keep up with him and his damn long legs as he stomped over toward the tractor.
“But think about if you won ‘So You Think You Can Sing?’. You’d be able to help my grandma. You could have some improvements made on this place. You could buy your dad a nice place that doesn’t roll. I bet…” I leaned in closer to him, “You might even make enough money to buy yourself a couple of chinchillas…”
He stopped dead in his tracks, making little gurgling sound before turning to me.
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Can I name ‘em Chinch and Chong? And take pictures of ‘em holdin’ little toy reefers?”
“You can name them Peanut Butter and Jelly if you want. They’ll be all yours.”
He sighed blissfully, but then seemed to sober a little.
“But wait- what if I don’t win?”
“Oh, trust me. You’ll win,” I reassured him.
“How d’you know?”
Placing my hands on his arms I stepped in closer to him, look up into his face and smiling my warmest, most sincere smile.
“Thomas Tucker Jamison, Junior- have I ever steered you wrong?”
Tucker’s uncle Bo runs the town’s gas station. I convinced Tuck I could talk him into letting us borrow enough gas for the trip, but I never quite got around to asking if I could borrow it and I may or may nor have had any intention on repaying him. But hey- Cecelia Anne Pryor is no thief! Desperate times call for desperate measures.
We set up for some local boys to help Grandma with the ranch while we were gone- that’s twice the number of hands for the same wages she paid Tucker. But was the woman satisfied? Noooo, of course, she never is. The night before we left, she went on lecturing me about how I’m never satisfied and that the city is no place for me and how I’m always chasing waterfalls and blah blah blah blah blah. Then she proceeded to tell me the story (for, no lie, about the 50th time) about how her great granddaddy Lucius was a Buffalo soldier and he saved some white guy’s life and he left the ranch to him in his will or something else that had absolutely nothing to do with me.
The point was that I wanted no part of the stupid, stinky…stupid ranch and I always planned on selling it once I inherited it. She always knew that, I just suppose she hadn’t taken me seriously until then, and when it finally hit her, she was pissed off. The morning Tucker and I left she said goodbye to him with a bag of corn muffins and a kiss on the cheek.
Then she turned to me and said, cold as ice, “Don’t get pregnant,” before shuffling back into the house, slamming the door in my face.
“Yeah, don’t die,” I said, half-wishing she could hear me.
“Excited” hadn’t even begun to sum it up. There I was, an eighteen year old girl taking a road trip to New York with her best friend who could possibly end up rich. I was elated. That is, until I realized how little money we had. We were pretty much confined to the pickup, which was hot as the devil’s toenails during the day. To make matters worse, we had to pretty much ration my Grandma’s corn muffins and I had to pee on the side of the road, and somewhere between Tennessee and Kentucky some Neo-Nazis thought we were an interracial couple and chased us for about three and a half miles throwing beer bottles at us. However, I suppose once we got past the Mason-Dixon line, things weren’t so bad. I kind of liked Pennsylvania, but that’s only because that meant we were one state away from New York.
New York State wasn’t that much different that anywhere else I’d seen, but when we got to the city it was…surprisingly dirty… but “good” dirty. It was new…and yorky. My cousin Edward, who we were to stay with during the duration of the contest, lived in the Bronx. He still lives there, actually. I’d only met him a couple of times at reunions, and he added me on MySpace, and that was pretty much the extent of our relationship, but I figured he couldn’t sell me into sexual slavery with Tucker with me, right?
I knew it had been a while since we last saw each other, but when he came to his door with a full grown beard, wearing capri pants, I had to squint and turn my head to the side a little to recognize him.
“Hey, Cousin Edward,” I said, opening my arms for a hug,
“Asalamalakum, my sister,” he said before we let go.
“I thought he was your cousin,” Tucker whispered to me uneasily.
My cousin turned to him, adjusting his glasses.
“Who is this?” he asked, giving him just about the most reproachful look I’ve ever seem/
“This is my best friend, Tucker.”
“This is the brother who can sing?”
“Uhm, something like that… Is something wrong?”
“Naw, everything’s all white- right- cool. I’m straight.”
“How d’you do, sir?” Tucker smiled, extending his hand.
He took his hand, but instead of shaking it, kind of slapped it around in each cardinal direction before giving him a quick-half hug and a pat on the back.
“You can come on in. Take off your shoes first, though. Don’t want no swine dookie on the shag carpet. Can I interest ya’ll in some bean pies?”
Cousin Eddie was an all right guy, easy house rules; no pork in the house, and we had to call him Raheem Shabazz, because apparently Edward was his “slave name”. Other than that, smooth sailing. He helped us learn the subway system, which was great because Tuck’s audition was all the way in Manhattan and three days after we arrived. My cousin hadn’t even minded Tucker practicing all day, except he kept insisting he sang Trey Songz.
I was so proud of myself the morning of the audition. I got Tucker ready- styled his hair, picked out his clothes, made him a power-breakfast (sans the bacon). He was a regular stud-muffin by the time I got done with him. We got to the audition place all right, and it was PACKED it took about two hours just for him to get his number, and another three for him to get called. They didn’t let me in with him though. I knew he was good, but God, I was nervous. It was like I was waiting in the hospital for him to have my baby or something. Those three minutes were the longest of my life.
When he came out, he looked like he was so full of emotion that it all cancelled out and there was no expression his face. I figured he could either be ecstatic beyond words or on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“So? Tell me! What happened? What did they say?”
“I’m… I’m a part of the cast…”
><><><><><><><
Immediately, they moved Tucker and his castmates to a big town house somewhere in Manhattan complete with every luxury they want and a full security team, in case some rabid fans decided they wanted to steal their underwear or something. Tucker said he felt bad about leaving me, and that it wasn’t too late for him to pull out, but I wouldn’t hear it. Sure I’d be a little lonely, but it was time for me to take one for the team.
To the untrained eye, it seemed as though those folks at the network treated Tucker and the others like royalty. During the show (which I watched every week) they would show clips of them in limousines, meeting and training with famous singers, and getting makeovers (my God, they put a studded belt on the man) and things that us commoners only wish could happen to us. However, me being an insider by association, I knew that they were treated like spoiled pets, but pets all the same.
Despite the popular belief that the cast members got to party with the stars, it actually turned out they never got to leave the house except to do interviews and go do the show. The producers dictated what kind of food went into the house so they wouldn’t have any tubbies messing up their ratings. Last, but not least- the cast was allowed little or no contact with the outside world. The entire duration of the competition Tucker only spoke to me on the phone three times. Of course, he told me he was doing fine because he didn’t want me to worry, but anyone who knew could see how depressed he was on TV. His performances were still dynamite, but his heart wasn’t in it- not even when he reached the top two- not even when he won. Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and that entire week I tried to get in touch with him to congratulate him and so we could draw up our management contract. I figured that the show was over, so that meant he was a free man. I can’t say how many messages I left for him before I finally just stopped trying. I supposed he’d gotten used to not talking to me, and grew to like it.
I was met with this numbness at first, this disbelief and then finally, this pang deep inside me. Was this it? Was this how it was going to be? There I was, living in a crap-shack with a guy who made his living by selling pirated DVDs and scented oils in the subway while Tucker- who didn’t even want to be there- was doing shows in Rockefeller Center and had forgotten all about me.
I stopped watching all of his interviews. Every time he came on the TV, I’d switch the channel. Whenever his songs came on the radio, I’d turn it off. He’d even gone all Emo on me, singing about how his life was a dark abyss (which he couldn’t even spell) without some stupid girl’s kiss or something like that. I figured it was probably about one of those skanks from “Gossip Girl” or something.
I started at Cooper a year late because banking on “So You Think You Can Sing?” set me back some. I was older, wiser, and tired of fighting the inevitable fact that I was ordinary after all. I moved out of Cousin Edward Raheem Shabazz’s, but not before every article of clothing I owned smelled like Egyptian Musk and bean pie. I’d been doing pretty well, working a waitress job. My grandma passed away not too after started my sophomore year, which meant I had a plot of land and a few dozen deuce-dropping animals to my name down in Hornton to tend to, and by “tend to” I mean “sell”.
I had to take a little breaksy from school to go for her funeral and to handle some business concerning her estate, me being the sole beneficiary. At least, that’s what I thought.
When I met with the executor, after we had our introductions, he said to me, “We’ll begin shortly, Miss Platt. We’re just waiting for the other beneficiary to arrive-“
“Other beneficiary? I’m the only beneficiary, Mr. Lauer. There must be a mistake,” I corrected calmly.
“Uhm…There is another beneficiary listed here,” the executor replied
“I’m her next of kin- her only next of kin. There can’t be someone else. That’s impossible.”
“Well, there is another listed- Mr. Thomas T. Jamison. It says here you two are to split the estate fifty-fifty.”
“God damn it, Tucker…”
“Someone say my name?”
Standing in the doorway was no other than Tucker- wearing a leather jacket and Aviators.
“Hello, Celia,” he smiled softly at me before beginning to approach.
I glared at him, half-hissing, “You’ve got some goddamn nerve, Tucker Jamison, showing your face around here after you abandoned me!”
“Aban-“
“And what’s this about you being a beneficiary? Did you know about this?”
“I… I didn’t know. You thought I abandoned you? I… Wow, my head hurts.”
“That’s not all that’s gonna hurt, Tucker!”
Standing, Mr Lauer stuttered, “I, uhm… I left my car double-parked…” and then he exited.
Inching toward me, Tucker began. “Celia, believe me, I didn’t mean to abandon you. Everything happened so fast.”
“Fast enough to make you forget where you came from? That’s one hell of a whiplash, buddy.”
“My people barely let me talk to anyone-“
“Your people? Listen to yourself! I mean, how could you do this to me? This wasn’t a part of the plan! I was supposed to manage you! If it weren’t for me, you never would have left Hornton!”
“They hooked me up with one of their own managers… It was in the contract, but you know I don’t read too good, so I skimmed it. If I woulda broke the contract, I woulda got sued.”
“And you still couldn’t tell me this? Are you telling me they keep such a close watch on you that you couldn’t call me once all this time?” I shot back.
He hung his head before looking back up at me and saying, “They owned me, Celia. When I signed that contract, I sold them my soul. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Apparently, it’s damn good, Mr. GQ.”
“Even if it was, it ain’t anymore. I retired.”
“What? After a year and a half?”
“You didn’t know? Was all over the TV and the radio.”
“I don’t watch TV or listen to the radio anymore.”
“Well, then I guess you don’t know about my last album, do you?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“It’s called ‘For Celia’,” he said with a soft smile.
I chewed on my lip a little, holding back a smile.
“Nuh uh…”
“Yuh huh. Yes, ma’am,” he said, nodding his head earnestly, “ and the very first track is called ‘Love of My Life’.”
Narrowing my eyes and cocking my head to the side, I asked dimly, “Now why on Earth would you put that on a CD about me?”
And then he kissed me… and turned all red.
“My God, I can’t believe I just did that.”
“Me neither…” I trailed off before looking straight into his eyes, “Better do it again to make sure.”
At the risk of sounding corny, that was the very moment I realized that the one thing that I thought I was missing was at my side my entire life. Grandma was right. My only problem was that I was never satisfied with what I had. It’s true when they say you don’t miss what you have until it’s gone.
I don’t quite abhor the ranch anymore. Tuck and I invested in it to make it more appealing. He’s happy here, so I’m happy here, and the kids love the animals. They got that from their daddy.
Even as a little girl I knew I was destined for bigger and better things. It was my driving force. My motivation. Do you think I gave a damn about Robert E. Lee and lowest common factors? Hell no! But I bet you I studied my little butt off- aced every test, got straight A’s- because I knew education was a one way ticket out of Dodge. Then I realized all that takes far too long and being valedictorian of a high school in the middle of nowhere that has like five-hundred students doesn’t exactly wow them at Harvard.
To make matters worse, I grew up on a ranch (so sickening, I can’t even eat the dressing now) with my grandma, who couldn’t remind me enough that some day the ranch would be all mine, cow dook and all. I was already prepared enough. Grandma was as old as the baby Jesus’ diaper, so by the time I was twelve, I pretty much had to run the place by myself. Wait, no, that’s a lie.. There was Tucker.
Tucker was our ranch hand- about ten years or so older than me, with a heart of gold, and a head like a (hollow) rock, and a body you could sharpen cutlery on. He actually did most of the work- if not all. But hey, watching him work hard like that could get pretty tiring sometimes, too, especially in the fall and winter when he had to be fully clothed. We were thick as thieves, Tucker and me. He and his dad lived a couple miles down the road from us, and he’d been working for my grandma since he was just a kid, and knew me since I was like three days old. He’s just about the nicest guy you’re ever going to meet…God love him, the dumbest, too… Now, that’s NOT a lie- or me being mean, either. Sometimes I still wonder how far away he is from being legally retarded…But like I said- he’s a true blue sweetheart. He used to play dollies with me when I was little. I hated dollies, but even as a first-grader, I understood the entertainment value in a sixteen year old boy rolling around a petal-pink Malibu Barbie Dream Convertible. You probably think I’m cruel, but I’m sure he enjoyed it as much as I did.
Ever since I could talk, I had the gift of gab. I could talk Tucker into anything (not that it’s extremely difficult). The first few years after I discovered this, I used my powers for evil, but as I matured and grew a conscience, I began to recruit him into more beneficial projects. Most, if not all of them, were centered around getting out of Hornton. Tucker actually didn’t mind Hornton too much He’s a very easy person to please. When life gives him lemons, he makes lemonade and shares it with everyone. But he aided me for the sake of aiding me.
I had the smarts and he had the appeal. The plan was always that I would be the brains BEHIND the operation. I would make Tuck a star (one way or another) and manage his career. I admit, sometimes my ideas got a little… extreme… and good old Tuck would often be the brunt of that. But it was all gravy. He never minded taking one for the team. It was usually harmless- and we when it was something that might have slightly bended the laws, we never got caught. Except for that one time a few summers ago (word of advice- don’t try to hitchhike in a bikini made of processed cheese in 95 degree weather) when he got arrested for indecent exposure, but the charges were dropped. No harm, no foul- and that video got over 230 hits on YouTube. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite spread like the “Chocolate Rain” guy, and we never got asked on The Tonight Show. Other than that, the only other close call we had was that time I got him a modeling gig over in the next town, and the guy at the agency…Well, let’s just say that the guy wasn’t entirely legit and we had to find that out the hard way, and now there are some photos of poor Tucker in a g-string floating around in cyberspace…
But that was just our luck with those kinds of things. Maybe it was because I had a tendency to jump the gun, but I didn’t feel like waiting through four long years of college (assuming I could raise the money) and endless job searches before I could get my piece of the pie. I thought maybe it was because I wanted it too much. By the time I graduated, I began to think that maybe I would have to settle for being…ordinary, but one day- one fateful day- God let down a drizzle of rain on the crusted little seed that was my hope.
It was a day in June, the night of my graduation. Grandma was making a nice little celebratory spread. Just as I’d begun to sneak a little bit of mashed potatoes off the spoon, she told me to summon Tucker for dinner, and because somebody was morally opposed to cell phones (didn’t know how to work one) I had to do so by foot. It took me a couple of minutes to find him in the stables. I could see his shoveling horse patties as I approached. I figured to avoid any unpleasant odors, I’d leave a few feet between me and the barn.
“Hey, Tuck.“
It took me a second to realize that he hadn’t heard me because he was mumbling to himself, or what I thought was mumbling until I listened a bit more intently. He was singing. I smiled a bit in amusement as he got a little louder. I recognized the song. as “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain. I thought it was kind of funny that Tucker was singing a love song, but as my inaudible snickers faded, it dawned on me that he actually sounded pretty good. Then I listened some more, and then it dawned on me that he was very good- damn good- AMAZING! Like an angel! I knew him all my life, and I never even heard him so much as hum! It never crossed my mind that he could carry a tune. For God’s sake, the man still has to recite “Over, Under, Around the Tree” to tie his shoes. Then again, you don’t really need brains to sing. One would think I’d have learned that from old Britney.
“…Tell me we belong toge-“
“Jesus, Tucker!”
“What?” he jumped, whipping around, a bit of poop flying off his shovel as he raised it out of reflex, “Oh, hey, Celia. Snuck up on me there. Almost got hit with the doo-doo shovel,” he said with his signature dopey, but adorably friendly grin.
“I didn’t know you sing! Since when do you sing?” I pressed, my eyes probably still dinner-plate-wide.
“Oh, I dunno. Since always, I guess. Makes me work faster.”
“No. No, you most definitely have not always sung. I’ve never heard you sing before!”
“Well, I don’t s’pose I like singin’ ‘front of people. I’d go all red.”
“Wait, no, you don’t understand- you’re INCREDIBLE! Sing me another verse. Go on.”
His speckled face began to redden.
“I dunno, Celia. Naw, I couldn’t.”
“Sure you can! Come on. For me? Please?”
“Uhm… All right… Uhm…”he scratched his stubble a little as he cleared his throat before beginning, “Rain falls angry on the tin roof…”
The more I listened, the more teeth I showed. He kind of swayed nervously at first but he slowly waxed comfort, and when he hit that one note- my God, the lights in the barn seemed to twinkle in his eyes and they turned the most gorgeous shade of green there is- the color of money.
When he finished his song, I clapped so hard a couple of the horses started to neigh. Maybe I had it all wrong the entire time. Maybe HE was destined for great things and I was destined to manage him.
“Tucker… How would you like to be a star?”
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“Celia, for the fourth time- no. I can’t leave your grandma here all alone. What’s she gonna do without me to run the ranch? She can’t take care of the animals- she can’t even give tours! I’m sorry. If you wanna go, then you can go, but I can’t leave her.”
“But I can’t go, Tucker, I’m not the one who can sing!” I whined, which usually would have worked, but then again, it had never taken me that long to convince Tuck of anything.
I followed after him, continuing, “Besides, you wouldn’t send me off to New York by myself anyway, would you?”
“No, I’d tell you to stay here.”
I scurried to keep up with him and his damn long legs as he stomped over toward the tractor.
“But think about if you won ‘So You Think You Can Sing?’. You’d be able to help my grandma. You could have some improvements made on this place. You could buy your dad a nice place that doesn’t roll. I bet…” I leaned in closer to him, “You might even make enough money to buy yourself a couple of chinchillas…”
He stopped dead in his tracks, making little gurgling sound before turning to me.
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Can I name ‘em Chinch and Chong? And take pictures of ‘em holdin’ little toy reefers?”
“You can name them Peanut Butter and Jelly if you want. They’ll be all yours.”
He sighed blissfully, but then seemed to sober a little.
“But wait- what if I don’t win?”
“Oh, trust me. You’ll win,” I reassured him.
“How d’you know?”
Placing my hands on his arms I stepped in closer to him, look up into his face and smiling my warmest, most sincere smile.
“Thomas Tucker Jamison, Junior- have I ever steered you wrong?”
Tucker’s uncle Bo runs the town’s gas station. I convinced Tuck I could talk him into letting us borrow enough gas for the trip, but I never quite got around to asking if I could borrow it and I may or may nor have had any intention on repaying him. But hey- Cecelia Anne Pryor is no thief! Desperate times call for desperate measures.
We set up for some local boys to help Grandma with the ranch while we were gone- that’s twice the number of hands for the same wages she paid Tucker. But was the woman satisfied? Noooo, of course, she never is. The night before we left, she went on lecturing me about how I’m never satisfied and that the city is no place for me and how I’m always chasing waterfalls and blah blah blah blah blah. Then she proceeded to tell me the story (for, no lie, about the 50th time) about how her great granddaddy Lucius was a Buffalo soldier and he saved some white guy’s life and he left the ranch to him in his will or something else that had absolutely nothing to do with me.
The point was that I wanted no part of the stupid, stinky…stupid ranch and I always planned on selling it once I inherited it. She always knew that, I just suppose she hadn’t taken me seriously until then, and when it finally hit her, she was pissed off. The morning Tucker and I left she said goodbye to him with a bag of corn muffins and a kiss on the cheek.
Then she turned to me and said, cold as ice, “Don’t get pregnant,” before shuffling back into the house, slamming the door in my face.
“Yeah, don’t die,” I said, half-wishing she could hear me.
“Excited” hadn’t even begun to sum it up. There I was, an eighteen year old girl taking a road trip to New York with her best friend who could possibly end up rich. I was elated. That is, until I realized how little money we had. We were pretty much confined to the pickup, which was hot as the devil’s toenails during the day. To make matters worse, we had to pretty much ration my Grandma’s corn muffins and I had to pee on the side of the road, and somewhere between Tennessee and Kentucky some Neo-Nazis thought we were an interracial couple and chased us for about three and a half miles throwing beer bottles at us. However, I suppose once we got past the Mason-Dixon line, things weren’t so bad. I kind of liked Pennsylvania, but that’s only because that meant we were one state away from New York.
New York State wasn’t that much different that anywhere else I’d seen, but when we got to the city it was…surprisingly dirty… but “good” dirty. It was new…and yorky. My cousin Edward, who we were to stay with during the duration of the contest, lived in the Bronx. He still lives there, actually. I’d only met him a couple of times at reunions, and he added me on MySpace, and that was pretty much the extent of our relationship, but I figured he couldn’t sell me into sexual slavery with Tucker with me, right?
I knew it had been a while since we last saw each other, but when he came to his door with a full grown beard, wearing capri pants, I had to squint and turn my head to the side a little to recognize him.
“Hey, Cousin Edward,” I said, opening my arms for a hug,
“Asalamalakum, my sister,” he said before we let go.
“I thought he was your cousin,” Tucker whispered to me uneasily.
My cousin turned to him, adjusting his glasses.
“Who is this?” he asked, giving him just about the most reproachful look I’ve ever seem/
“This is my best friend, Tucker.”
“This is the brother who can sing?”
“Uhm, something like that… Is something wrong?”
“Naw, everything’s all white- right- cool. I’m straight.”
“How d’you do, sir?” Tucker smiled, extending his hand.
He took his hand, but instead of shaking it, kind of slapped it around in each cardinal direction before giving him a quick-half hug and a pat on the back.
“You can come on in. Take off your shoes first, though. Don’t want no swine dookie on the shag carpet. Can I interest ya’ll in some bean pies?”
Cousin Eddie was an all right guy, easy house rules; no pork in the house, and we had to call him Raheem Shabazz, because apparently Edward was his “slave name”. Other than that, smooth sailing. He helped us learn the subway system, which was great because Tuck’s audition was all the way in Manhattan and three days after we arrived. My cousin hadn’t even minded Tucker practicing all day, except he kept insisting he sang Trey Songz.
I was so proud of myself the morning of the audition. I got Tucker ready- styled his hair, picked out his clothes, made him a power-breakfast (sans the bacon). He was a regular stud-muffin by the time I got done with him. We got to the audition place all right, and it was PACKED it took about two hours just for him to get his number, and another three for him to get called. They didn’t let me in with him though. I knew he was good, but God, I was nervous. It was like I was waiting in the hospital for him to have my baby or something. Those three minutes were the longest of my life.
When he came out, he looked like he was so full of emotion that it all cancelled out and there was no expression his face. I figured he could either be ecstatic beyond words or on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“So? Tell me! What happened? What did they say?”
“I’m… I’m a part of the cast…”
><><><><><><><
Immediately, they moved Tucker and his castmates to a big town house somewhere in Manhattan complete with every luxury they want and a full security team, in case some rabid fans decided they wanted to steal their underwear or something. Tucker said he felt bad about leaving me, and that it wasn’t too late for him to pull out, but I wouldn’t hear it. Sure I’d be a little lonely, but it was time for me to take one for the team.
To the untrained eye, it seemed as though those folks at the network treated Tucker and the others like royalty. During the show (which I watched every week) they would show clips of them in limousines, meeting and training with famous singers, and getting makeovers (my God, they put a studded belt on the man) and things that us commoners only wish could happen to us. However, me being an insider by association, I knew that they were treated like spoiled pets, but pets all the same.
Despite the popular belief that the cast members got to party with the stars, it actually turned out they never got to leave the house except to do interviews and go do the show. The producers dictated what kind of food went into the house so they wouldn’t have any tubbies messing up their ratings. Last, but not least- the cast was allowed little or no contact with the outside world. The entire duration of the competition Tucker only spoke to me on the phone three times. Of course, he told me he was doing fine because he didn’t want me to worry, but anyone who knew could see how depressed he was on TV. His performances were still dynamite, but his heart wasn’t in it- not even when he reached the top two- not even when he won. Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and that entire week I tried to get in touch with him to congratulate him and so we could draw up our management contract. I figured that the show was over, so that meant he was a free man. I can’t say how many messages I left for him before I finally just stopped trying. I supposed he’d gotten used to not talking to me, and grew to like it.
I was met with this numbness at first, this disbelief and then finally, this pang deep inside me. Was this it? Was this how it was going to be? There I was, living in a crap-shack with a guy who made his living by selling pirated DVDs and scented oils in the subway while Tucker- who didn’t even want to be there- was doing shows in Rockefeller Center and had forgotten all about me.
I stopped watching all of his interviews. Every time he came on the TV, I’d switch the channel. Whenever his songs came on the radio, I’d turn it off. He’d even gone all Emo on me, singing about how his life was a dark abyss (which he couldn’t even spell) without some stupid girl’s kiss or something like that. I figured it was probably about one of those skanks from “Gossip Girl” or something.
I started at Cooper a year late because banking on “So You Think You Can Sing?” set me back some. I was older, wiser, and tired of fighting the inevitable fact that I was ordinary after all. I moved out of Cousin Edward Raheem Shabazz’s, but not before every article of clothing I owned smelled like Egyptian Musk and bean pie. I’d been doing pretty well, working a waitress job. My grandma passed away not too after started my sophomore year, which meant I had a plot of land and a few dozen deuce-dropping animals to my name down in Hornton to tend to, and by “tend to” I mean “sell”.
I had to take a little breaksy from school to go for her funeral and to handle some business concerning her estate, me being the sole beneficiary. At least, that’s what I thought.
When I met with the executor, after we had our introductions, he said to me, “We’ll begin shortly, Miss Platt. We’re just waiting for the other beneficiary to arrive-“
“Other beneficiary? I’m the only beneficiary, Mr. Lauer. There must be a mistake,” I corrected calmly.
“Uhm…There is another beneficiary listed here,” the executor replied
“I’m her next of kin- her only next of kin. There can’t be someone else. That’s impossible.”
“Well, there is another listed- Mr. Thomas T. Jamison. It says here you two are to split the estate fifty-fifty.”
“God damn it, Tucker…”
“Someone say my name?”
Standing in the doorway was no other than Tucker- wearing a leather jacket and Aviators.
“Hello, Celia,” he smiled softly at me before beginning to approach.
I glared at him, half-hissing, “You’ve got some goddamn nerve, Tucker Jamison, showing your face around here after you abandoned me!”
“Aban-“
“And what’s this about you being a beneficiary? Did you know about this?”
“I… I didn’t know. You thought I abandoned you? I… Wow, my head hurts.”
“That’s not all that’s gonna hurt, Tucker!”
Standing, Mr Lauer stuttered, “I, uhm… I left my car double-parked…” and then he exited.
Inching toward me, Tucker began. “Celia, believe me, I didn’t mean to abandon you. Everything happened so fast.”
“Fast enough to make you forget where you came from? That’s one hell of a whiplash, buddy.”
“My people barely let me talk to anyone-“
“Your people? Listen to yourself! I mean, how could you do this to me? This wasn’t a part of the plan! I was supposed to manage you! If it weren’t for me, you never would have left Hornton!”
“They hooked me up with one of their own managers… It was in the contract, but you know I don’t read too good, so I skimmed it. If I woulda broke the contract, I woulda got sued.”
“And you still couldn’t tell me this? Are you telling me they keep such a close watch on you that you couldn’t call me once all this time?” I shot back.
He hung his head before looking back up at me and saying, “They owned me, Celia. When I signed that contract, I sold them my soul. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Apparently, it’s damn good, Mr. GQ.”
“Even if it was, it ain’t anymore. I retired.”
“What? After a year and a half?”
“You didn’t know? Was all over the TV and the radio.”
“I don’t watch TV or listen to the radio anymore.”
“Well, then I guess you don’t know about my last album, do you?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“It’s called ‘For Celia’,” he said with a soft smile.
I chewed on my lip a little, holding back a smile.
“Nuh uh…”
“Yuh huh. Yes, ma’am,” he said, nodding his head earnestly, “ and the very first track is called ‘Love of My Life’.”
Narrowing my eyes and cocking my head to the side, I asked dimly, “Now why on Earth would you put that on a CD about me?”
And then he kissed me… and turned all red.
“My God, I can’t believe I just did that.”
“Me neither…” I trailed off before looking straight into his eyes, “Better do it again to make sure.”
At the risk of sounding corny, that was the very moment I realized that the one thing that I thought I was missing was at my side my entire life. Grandma was right. My only problem was that I was never satisfied with what I had. It’s true when they say you don’t miss what you have until it’s gone.
I don’t quite abhor the ranch anymore. Tuck and I invested in it to make it more appealing. He’s happy here, so I’m happy here, and the kids love the animals. They got that from their daddy.
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