28 August 2005

Les Storéables!

A Play in One Part of One Act

by Marques the Sade


Cast (in order of appearance):
- Marques, an employee – Despite the eager green of the polo he wears beneath his red apron, Marques is a weary-beyond-his-years part-time employee who is convinced that everything sad he sees is important. Marques has rapidly graying hair that is matched by the graying of his worldview.
- The German Woman, a customer – Has a fine point for a nose and blue plastic daffodils for eyes. The German Woman’s shiny skin comes into view at the toe line of her black flats and continues up to the hem of her simple black dress, which is roughly the size and shape of an oven mitt. An oven mitt, with holes cut in it for the arms and head. Her voice is melodic, which is unusual since it is also German. In one arm she cradles a pair of brown cowboy boots.
- Samad, a manager – Is the kind of person people talk about only by accident. Samad raises his voice only when announcing things everyone already knows. The length and slope of his neck suggest the lovechild of Snoop Dogg and Dopey Dwarf. Samad’s idea of keeping things light is encouraging his underlings to call him “Sam-to-tha-Ad.”
- The Dudes Who Work at Bartell’s, two customers who buy nothing – Against the backdrop of un-tucked white button-downs with the collars open, The Dudes Who Work at Bartell’s wear striped rayon ties loose around their necks. They each are drinking Slurpees and smile at everything, making it clear that the weed is stashed in the glove box of the ’85 Peugeot, which they share.

The scene - The interior of Storables, a place of business that sells boxes and box accessories, which exist in a number well beyond reason. It is a sunny August Saturday afternoon and customers are scarce. Having been zoned in the windowless back quadrant of the store with the hanging shoe racks and the closet poles, Marques busies himself by imagining a screenplay starring a deaf child who speaks only in beat-box and the gay priest who saves him.

The German Woman walks past him on her way to the shoe racks. The eyes of Marques bob in time with her tiny hips. Marques follows her at a distance which is discreet, though the shape of his mouth is not.


Marques: Are you finding everything?

The German Woman (Holding up a metal hanging-rack system with one hand while the other holds a pair of cowboy boots): Does zis really fit on top of ze dohr?

Marques: Zes, ahem, yes. This one is the display model, so the hooks are bent a bit. (Marques takes the rack from her and straightens the metal hooks in as suggestive a way as possible.)

The German Woman: Now it vill fit?

Marques: It’ll fit. It may be tight, but it will fit. Anyway our return policy is so open.

The German Woman (moving rapidly away): Vell then, tank you I see.

As Marques watches The German Woman walk toward the exit, he feels a voice calling to him as if from behind his nutsack.

Samad: The rods should be straight at all times!

Marques: Vertical.

Samad: Perfectly vertical! The rods.

Marques: What was I thinking.

Samad brushes past Marques, his nipples jutting out authoritatively from behind his shirt. Samad does not wear an apron. The Dudes Who Work at Bartell’s appear at the other end of the aisle.

Marques: Hello. How are you doing.

The Dudes Who Work at Bartell’s are busy slurping from their Slurpees. They wave at him. Marques momentarily considers them both to be deaf and wonders after their beat-boxing skills. Eventually they speak.

The Dudes Who Work at Bartell’s: Hey man.

Marques: Are you finding everything?

The Dudes Who Work at Bartell’s (smiling): They make us ask the same thing at our store.

Marques: Where is that.

The Dudes Who Work at Bartell’s: Bartell’s. Up the street.

Marques: Can I help you with anything.

One of the Dudes Who Works at Bartell’s (smiling): It hurts me, you know?

The Other Dude Who Work at Bartell’s: Fully. It’s like I ask if you need anything then you are guaranteed to ask where to find the keychain studfinders we haven’t carried in like eight years.

One of the Dudes Who Works at Bartell’s: And you'll be very insistent and probably get upset.

The Other Dude Who Work at Bartell’s (pointing): Always. I think I see refrigerator magnets over there.

One of the Dudes Who Works at Bartell’s: Let’s go.

(As he watches them move off, Marques considers that if he looks at his watch then he will know how long it is until his break.)


The end.

26 August 2005

if I could just put it all into all I spit.

i haven't been around to post much lately. have been working quite a bit but even more have been working on my Dear Fat Kid piece trying to get 40 absolutely pristine pages laid down for grad school app purposes. it's starting to get pretty fun; i mean we're still in the first draft stages but close to having enough that i'll be able to spend the next weeks paring them down and playing around.

this past week my theme song, the one that my alarm plays when i try and wake up early so i can write some pages before work, is Rabbit Run from the 8 Mile soundtrack. i know, eminem as creative auteur -- sophisticated shit. but that song is all about digging down and finding the momentum you need to lay down words:

i'm like a skillet bubbling until it filters up
i'm about to kill it, i can feel it building up
blow this building up, i’ve concealed enough
my cup runneth over, i done filled it up,
the pen explodes and busts, ink spills my guts
you think all i do is stand here and feel my nuts;
well i'mma show you what, you gonna feel my rush
you don’t feel it, then it must be too real to touch
i'm about to tear shit up
goosebumps, yeah, i'mma make your hair sit up.

that's my battle cry. next week it might be the girl from ipanema, or whatever, but for now Em's got my back. the pap below is excerpted from pretty early on -- it's probably nonsense without any context at all, but, hell. i'm still writing this chapter and Patois has proved an unexpectedly fun character to write.

Dear Fat Kid,

..Yesterday, in your absence, I plugged around your house, just taking stock of things. And did so with an enthusiasm Howard Stern might call “the feeling of having your hand down the pants of somebody new.” (I do not think he discounted for the scenario in which the pants are empty – are in fact wedged in a time-honored dark place in the hallway closet where they live between stacks of brown boxes, all bearing the title “Things I Need” – but, still. The image has power.) I really gave myself over to the process; in the upstairs closet I modeled some of your clothes in the manner of a committed 9-year-old stalker. I cruised the other rooms looking for signs of life that stood out against all the unfamiliarity of your world now. (And found some stuff; more on that later.)

When I heard the knock at your back door I was in the middle of being disappointed by the lack of anything even mildly pervy under your bathroom sink. How does a person end up with five open cans of Comet, I wondered. None of them are even close to empty. Five? Somehow not aware of the B-grade snooping with which I was busy, I heard the knock and trundled downstairs to find your door open and a man sitting on your couch, a white dinner plate on his lap. I stopped at the foot of the stairs.

“Hi.” I waved at him.

“Greetings,” he said without looking up. From a leather hip purse he withdrew a small pair of scissors and a conservatory of marijuana stuffed into a vaccuum-sealed pouch. Removing a long, crystalline bud, he began to cut away slivers of weed that quickly piled on the plate. My suspicion that he had done this before was confirmed when he looked up at me while his fingers continued to work. The look on his face told me that he was confused; it was then that I remembered I was standing there barefoot, wearing a pair of striped legwarmers and your commemorative Linkin’ in Lincoln! sausage contest hat. “Welcome,” he said loudly, as if to a foreigner.

“Thanks for having me,” I said eventually. “It’s nice to be here.”

His forehead unwrinkled; he shrugged and bent again to his work. I went and sat down next to him on the couch – see, saving face is not the top concern when one is presented with a strange man getting ready to smoke drugs on your friend’s couch. And this man was strange: His long, flowy black locks matched perfectly by bulging eyes; his tailored, French-cuffed business shirt was complemented by fitted denim shorts and brown clogs.

I crossed my legs so I could better admire the legwarmers you used to wear during intramural basketball games. After a while I said, “I’m Hal, an old friend of Fats.”

“Yes, yes you are,” he said, rather as though I had told him something he’d already known, such as my pro-legwarmers attitude. He ran the blunt paper along his tongue and, following one fluid roll-smooth-and-twist motion, turned and presented me with a joint the size of George Foreman’s thumb. “The thing to know about this stuff is that it doesn’t take much,” he said. Between my wary lips the joint was frightening for its girth; just the scent was so powerful as to be dizzying. High-ifying.

“I haven’t smoked weed since—”

“Shh,” he said. “Hush. Now is not the time.” He flicked a silver lighter to life and extended it to me, and as I took a deep drag he announced, “I am Patrick, though Fats calls me Patois.” I began to cough with enthusiasm.

“If it’s been that long,” he said, “you could be in real trouble.”

21 August 2005

ogle goggles.

her eyes have a gleam, a glisten and crack
they look from between sharp strands of bangs.
god, how her eyes do inquire
and lay down that affection be given
they legislate faster than congress
or the bodies thereof.
they demand that i look longer than planned
that i suck the marrow from life
--but i am not so sure what "marrow" is,
just that it has something to do with bones--
instead let's say her eyes tell me to draw
in my breath, to wait for a beat
to hold if i please,
and enjoy having lost track of what's real.

you. complete. me.

from the collection Riddles for a Person of Medium-High Culture.

If it weren't for all this ______1_____ surrounding us, trying to _____2______ our every attempt at ______3_____, we totally would have _____4______ by now. That much is clear. As it stands though our task, our true task, is to _____5______ with a vehemence becoming a _____6______ on the night of her first true _____7______.

No. No, I remember your first ______8_____, of course i do -- it's not as though you would allow me to forget the slightest degail -- but it doesn't count. Why? Because of the way it happened, the way you tell of the _____9______ that took you by "surprise," you say, and _____10______ you in the back _____11______. That by itself is barely credible, but when you insist on emphasizing the _____12______ and how you knew you shouldn't keep _____13______, but you couldn't help it, how every time you opened your eyes you saw only _____14______ and felt fated to _____15______ again ... That's why it doesn't count. It's either fake or it came way after your first or both. Well, let's discuss it more later.

What we need to focus on right now is neither your _____16______ nor even my _____17______; our efforts must concentrate on finding the best, most ____18_______ way to _____19______ in the history of _____20______. Their humiliation at our _____21______ will be all the more profound if we were to _____22______ in some public fashion, don't you think? Yes, let's. Let's do it until the _____23______ come _____24______, until all they can think of is our _____25______ and how they will never _____26______ again.


Answer Key:

1. twinkling
2. blink
3. sparkling
4. Penguin City
5. thinkthinkthink
6. coterie extravagance
7. intersection
8. con-de-jour
9. circumspection
10. hallowed
11. vithertulously
12. "spirituality"
13. fucking around
14. sweet, sweet thighs
15. bless & bless
16. insight
17. foresight
18. difficult
19. hypothesize
20. it all
21. concern
22. blast it all
23. carabinieri
24. fire us
25. giddy juiciness
26. try this all

(thanks to the esteemed dr bryn for her help in sussing out the answers.)