Monday, September 23, 2013

What the Rich Folks Left Behind

On Main and Quarter, a movie theater
Red, plush seats
A popcorn machine
Some empty soda cups
Straws still hanging out of them
Littering the aisles

On Main, a clothing store
With half-dressed mannequins

On Quarter, Bar 25
An upscale tavern
Where you could get great fish and chips
And have a conversation
About LBJ
If you wanted to

Two blocks down
On a street whose name I can't remember
There was a bookstore
That always smelled like peppermint

The door was left open
A window in a back room ajar
Two boxes of books
Still unpacked
Still taped up
Never read

The neighborhoods were tucked behind
Restless stone
Made to look like sea walls
Even though the nearest body of water
Was Lake Chopat
Two hours away

Speaking of the lake
There's a car sitting by it
With the keys still in the ignition
And tire tracks all around it
Like the other cars made a quick getaway
And forgot to take
Their little sister
With them

Not even the summer spots
Were salvaged
When the rich folks left

A shoe store's sign starting hanging low
And most boxes inside only had half a pair
The horns got dusty
And the cash register became a breadbox

All sorts of things transformed
From lack of use

Ice scream scoops became rainwater ladles
Barber chairs became birds' nests holders
Toy stores became museums
Exhibiting childhoods that never came true

Even churches stayed empty
Save for a squirrel here
And a congregation of rats after that

In the schools with the spotless walls
Mops fell sideways
And nobody picked them up

Grade books for the new school year
Were full of unchecked boxes
And the P.T.A.'s banner hanging in the cafeteria
Sagged under the weight
Of dust and dirt

The best schools were located
Directly across
From those choppy stone walls
So that the kids from those neighborhoods
Wouldn't even have to take a bus
Or ride a bike

Some parents could watch Little This or Baby That
Walk right across the street
And into their classrooms
All while they were at their kitchen sink
Doing the morning dishes

When school got out
The kids would walk back home
And if it was Fall they'd get a glass of cider
And some pumpkin bread

And if it was Christmas time
They'd get some eggnog and a cookie
Shaped like Santa Claus

And if it was winter it was hot chocolate
And a bowl of soup

Carrot sticks in the spring
With a few different dippings
And some fruit punch

Then when it was summer
They'd be out in the backyard all day
Swimming in their pools
And drinking lemonade

The last image we have in our minds
Is of those kids
Jumping in those pools

It's like a moving picture
That freezes
And then fades to black and white
And then to black
And then burns up
Like a piece of carbon paper

We don't know why that's the last thing we remember
About the rich folks

We never saw those pools
We never sat in those backyards
We never ventured past
The old stone walls
That, to us, looked like a mouth
Who would only chew us up
And spit us out

When the rich folks left town
They didn't go out in covered wagons
Or on buses
Or walking in single file lines
Towards wherever it was they were going

Instead they trickled out
Like they were being released from an eye-dropper

One at a time
Always in the early morning
Before we woke up

Or late at night
We'd hear car doors slamming
And engines running
And we'd know
That we lost another one

What could be so awful about living here, we asked ourselves
Lying in our beds
Fans aimed at our faces
Half-empty glasses of water
By our beds

What could be so bad
That you'd take off leaving
Stuffed animals still face-down
On unmade beds

Bags of flour tipped over on stovetops
Spilling into the burners

Toothbrushes on the edges of sinks
Spots of toothpaste still stuck
To the bristles

What could worry you so much
That you'd pick up and go
Like your floor
Was on fire?

We started looking around
At all the things
The rich folks left behind

What was broken?
What was bad?
What was hidden in these things
That made them undesirable?

A stain?
A spot?
A speck of something
That could be flicked away
Using on your breath?

We wondered if they got tired
Of the quiet
Maybe they were moving to bigger cities

But the tire tracks out of town
Didn't seem to be going
Towards the cities

Were they tired of the way things looked?
The way the signs hung?
The way the streetlamps spread?
The school colors?
The street signs?

We walked around the town
Wondering how we were going to clean up the mess
The rich folks had left

How could we clean up businesses that weren't ours?
Schools that we didn't go to?
Houses owned by somebody else?

We could barely afford to keep our own stuff looking nice
To keep the paint fresh on our own walls
To keep our clothes sewn
And our cars running

And now an entire town
That never really felt like
It was something
We could claim
Was our responsibility

And a lot of us didn't even want it
Because we kept wondering
What was wrong with it?

What was it about this place
That made it not worth keeping?

We didn't know

So we stuck to the spots we carved out for ourselves

The one playground
With the broken swingset
And the rusty slide

The old diner
With the stuffing come out of the booths
And the chili that would give you heartburn
Before you even finished eating it

The school three miles away
That wasn't much more
Than a bunch of cement blocks
Thrown together
Like the first little pig might've

And we let the rest go

I mean...

What else could we do?

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

The Burden of Memory

I want to tell you a story
That has nothing to do with
What you think
I'm going to talk about

It's something that happened two years ago
And it involves my husband

He died

Suddenly

It was very--well, it was sudden, I guess
I don't know what else to...

Anyway, we have a son
Oliver
And Oliver was five
And his father died

And that's what happened

But that's not the story

The story has to do with everyday since
That's what you realize
Two years later
Piecing together this terrible time in your life
That seems as short as a city street
When really it's an eight miles of unpaved country road

Oliver was five
He's seven now
And he's...

Forgetting things

And I'm faced with a choice
Separate and different
From all the other choices
I've faced
Since the day I came home
And found my husband
Face-down on the kitchen floor

The choice is this:

How much do I let my son forget?

Obviously I don't want him to forget his father
But how much of his father
Can I let him remember
Without it continuing to hurt him?

What is the line
Between a painful memory
And a fond remembrance?

When he asks me questions
How detailed should the answers be?

When he wants to talk about death
Should I encourage him or is that morbid?

Am I preventing him from being a child
By dealing with everything so bluntly?

I left all the photos up
Because I know you're supposed to do that
But then Oliver took them down

I woke up one morning
And he had taken down all the photos
And put them in the hall closet
Under one of my winter coats

I didn't ask him why he did it
I knew why he did it
I wanted to do it for the same reason, I'd imagine

--Because it's hard

It's hard to look at his father
And not feel like...

Like the wounds are all still fresh

Maybe my son wants to forget a little
Am I wrong for wanting to let him do that?

The truth is...

I want to forget

Not everything, but...

Just a chest full of things would be nice
To keep, I mean
A few memories here and there
But...

I could condense
I could compartmentalize
I could...

Well, there's that bargaining again

What they don't tell you about the five stages of grief
Is that sometimes they overlap
And sometimes one stage reoccurs throughout
Like an underlying hum
That slowly drives you...

Anyway, Oliver...was five

And with each year
He'll, naturally, begin to shuck off
A little bit of the memory
Of his father

It'll be a burden
All of those memories
And he'll, understandably, want to lessen the load
I would imagine

Not things like his father's face
Or his laugh
Or his voice

Those things we have pictures for
Videos
Even voicemails

But the death itself
And the after-effects
And the before time
Things he could never be expected to remember
But things he might want to try and remember

And the after time
The things that didn't happen
Because a father wasn't there
To make them happen

The absence of past or future

Maybe that's the burden

. . . . .

Oliver was five
It was two years ago
And I remember everything

I remember dates and times
Images and sensory details
Sounds, smells, feelings

And so I hold the key

How much of all this
Do I pass on to my son?

We treasure history
But we forget
How heavy it can be

How much of it
Can we give away
Without feeling like we're placing the burden
Onto the tiny shoulders
Of our children
No matter how old they get

We believe we're stronger than them
That we can handle things they can't
That we can remember things
They shouldn't have to
But one day we'll be gone
And then...

And then if we don't pass them on
The people we remember
Are gone with us

So...

The story started the day I found my husband
On the kitchen floor
And it goes on from there

A story that millions of people have
I'm not particularly special
And neither is my situation

But it is my story
And my memory
And telling it to you...

It feels like a little piece of it
Just chipped away

The smallest piece

One less thing
I have to worry about

The Diner Menu

Here's what we're working with today:

You can have the egg sandwich on toast
You cannot have the egg sandwich on an English muffin
Because we're out of English muffins

We are also out of croissants
Because Mr. Stone never orders croissants
Because he doesn't like how you're supposed to pronounce them
Without the hard 'r'

You can get the Western sandwich on toast
But not on the English muffin or the croissant
For the reasons I've already mentioned

You can get an egg sandwich
With bacon, but not with ham or sausage like it says
Because we're out of ham and sausage
And because of that
Your Western sandwich might not actually be a Western sandwich
Because I've never actually had anybody order a Western sandwich
But if it includes ham or sausage
Then you can't really have a Western sandwich

You can get pancakes
But just pancakes
No fruit
We're out of fruit

All fruit

The orange juice doesn't count
But if you want orange pancakes
I can pour some of the juice over your flapjacks
I can and will do the same with apple juice
But it'll cost you more
I don't know how much more
I decide as I go
With that sort of thing

Do not order French toast
This is not France
This is Chicago

You want French toast
You figure out how to make it
And Mr. Stone might let you back there in the kitchen
So he can beat the shit out of you
For asking for French toast
You got that?

Nod--good.

There's the Stone Special
I have no idea what it is
And if I were you
I wouldn't order it
Because every time somebody orders the Stone Special
Mr. Stone throws a cooking utensil at whoever it is that ordered it
And yes, I can appreciate the irony there

Do not order Eggs Benedict
Do not order a poached egg
Do not order an omelet

Get the simplest thing you possibly can
And then eat quickly
Pay with cash
And leave a nice tip

Thank you for coming to Stone's diner
I'll be back in five to take your order
And I would urge you not to look too closely at any of your silverware
As I doubt it's been cleaned in the past two weeks

If Your Life Was a TV Show, This Is How Your Heartache Would Go

I got a better offer
From another network
To do this show--
To carry, um
My own show

I got the offer
And I felt--

Ugh--I mean--timing!

Because, we were just--

The producers and I
We had just talked about
This storyline
Where I was going to leave my person
That guest actor they've put me with
For the past few years
And you were going to leave your person
Because the ratings suck
And it was a stupid idea to put you with him anyway
And they were going to start moving us back together
And then--

I got the offer

And I went to Dan, the producer
And I said--

'Dan, there's an offer'

And I told him
I told him about it
And he said--

'Take the offer.  It's a really good offer.'

And I knew that
I knew
It was a really good offer
But all these plans
For the new storyline
That I was really excited about
Were just gonna--

--And Dan said, 'We'll have you go to grad school.  In California.  That'll work.  Maybe you can come home for the Christmas special every year or something, but at least that'll get you off the show right away.'

Forget that it's September
And if I was going to go to grad school
I would be IN grad school already
Television producers rarely worry about logic
And surprisingly enough
Audiences rarely do too
And you--

I mean, we're characters
We're characters on this show
We don't think
We don't think about anything
We don't put two-and-two together
We don't wonder how people always get pregnant in May
And then don't give birth until the following May

If you're a tv character
Your birth cycle
Most closely resembles
An elephant

But when you get an offer
Like I got
They take you out of your...daze, I guess you'd call it
And suddenly you're aware
Of all these things
You weren't aware of before
But nobody else is
And you can't say anything
Because that would be breaking contract so--

So nobody was really mad at me or anything
That I was going to leave
Dan understood, and the network wants to bring on this new guy anyway
To, like, romance you
He's supposed to be really good
And so it should have been fine
But then...

I had to play the scene

The scene where I tell you...

Where I tell you I'm leaving and...

...And I didn't want to do it

I mean, I wanted to say good-bye to you, obviously
I didn't just want to go and not say anything
But thinking about playing that scene
After all these seasons--years--whatever
It just seemed...

But I had to do it

Dan was like, 'You have to do it.  You have to do the scene.  You should WANT to do the scene.  You could win an Emmy for that scene.  Besides, the ratings?  I mean, you owe us that.  You owe us that scene.'

So...I had to play the scene

And it was...

Because even though, for me, it was acting
It wasn't acting for you
And so, for me
It became--not acting

So when you told me...

They didn't expect you
To offer
To go with me

They didn't think you would say that

I mean, they hadn't even phased out your other love interest yet
The new guy had just showed up
And you were clearly interested in him as well
And you and I have barely had any screen time together
Not counting the last few weeks
And so they figured you would just give me a hug
And cry a little bit
And I'd walk off
And they'd play the music
That you can't hear
Because you don't have the audio implant
But we do
So we can time our exits properly
And you had so many reasons
So many reasons to stay
I mean, they constructed it that way
They plan for these things
They set this shit up
So you never ever get to leave

They give you all these storylines
With opportunities
And possibilities
And they don't expect you
To just chuck it all
And say, 'No, I actually want to be with you and I don't care about anyone else.'

I mean, how...

How could you love me that much?

I'm just a lousy actor
On a tv show
Who cares more about fame
Than he does about anything or anyone else
In his whole life

But you said--I'll go with you

...And I didn't know what to do

And then, of course
They're in my head
In the audio
Telling me what to say
And I'm trying to listen to you
So you don't suspect anything
And trying to listen to the audio
But I don't like what they're saying
And I'm saying some of the code words
To let them know I don't like what they're saying
But they keep telling me to stick to the script
And say what they tell me to say
What the writers are writing
In that very minute
With very little editing
And I'm under contract
And people are watching
And you're holding onto me
And--

I say something that makes all the sense in the world
And doesn't make any sense at all

I say 'I love you too.  And you can't come with me.'

And even though I thought
In that moment
That what I said
Made absolutely no sense

You nodded

You understood

You let me go

And I left

And now I'm on Sunday nights
Played a lawyer named Jon Stopp
Who dates a mortician named Evelyn Geaux
And yes, it is called 'Stopp and Geaux'

And we're pretty popular
Amongst people who are, you know, close to death
We soothe them

But your show...

Your show isn't doing too good

You did break up with the guy you were dating
But that new guy they brought on to romance you didn't work out
You weren't interested
They couldn't even manipulate you into hanging out with him
And so eventually they just had him die in a motorcycle accident

They tried other love interests
But when it became clear that you didn't care about dating anymore
They made the show more of a workplace drama
And focused only on your career

Then you stopped going to work
And now...

It's like you want to be cancelled

At least that's what everybody's saying

You're boring now
You're inactive
It's like tv suicide

Except...

Sometimes I turn on the tv
When I know you'll be on
And I turn to your channel
And there you are
Looking right at the camera

Right at...

And every once in awhile
You sort of...smile
And nod your head a little

And this time when you nod
It's like you're saying--

I know you're out there
I know you're out there and...

...And come back

But I can't

Because I'm under a five-year contract
And I'm making tons of cash
And they're even talking about getting me into some movies now and...

...And I miss you like a show I used to watch all the time

Something you think you stopped loving
When really, you just...
Stopped paying attention to it
Because you didn't realize
That it wasn't just some silly part of your life
It was...something that meant a lot to you

I sit on my couch
And I look at you
Looking at the camera
And I know there's no way
For you to know that I'm out here
Looking back at you

But...

I bet you know

I bet you know I'm out here
Watching
I--I hope you do, at least

And because of that
I can never seem
To change the channel