ekleksographia

CHARACTERS:

 

MAN

VOICE OF WITCHY TEMP

VOICE OF MAGS

 

Desk. Microphone. Pair of earphones. Ashtray. Box of cigarettes. Glass of water. Massive white screen with a mosaic of classic rock album covers projected in the background. MAN enters stage right. Puts on earphones. Adjusts microphone. Switches it on. Box on the desk reads “ON THE AIR.” Illuminates. MAN begins.

 

MAN

I want to tell you about My Greatest Hits. I didn’t choose them. I don’t know who or what chose them. I wasn’t included in the vetting. He, she, they, or it evaded my scrutiny. They chose interesting hits. Curious selections. A quick talk about Greatest Hits. Just in general. They are good things. Shorthand for an entire body of work. Only the choicest cuts. Hit after hit. I like them.

Some Greatest Hits arrange the material in such a way that the sum of it all, sequenced so, removed from its original context, animates its maker’s obsessions. At the exact time of release? Not such a hit. Surrounded by other hits? Hit!

 

(Cover of Eagles Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 projects on the screen)

 

MAN

“Already Gone”? Not a hit. Sunday-afternoon, A.M. filler. “Already Gone” followed by “Desperado”? After “Lyin’ Eyes”? Hit.

 

(Eagles album cover fades off screen, replaced by Eric Clapton’s Time Pieces)

 

MAN

“Layla”? Too long. Radio wants nothing to do with it. You’ll hear it only late at night, when the weekend disc jockey needs a cigarette break. “Layla” sandwiched between “Cocaine” and “Wonderful Tonight”? Put it that way, and you have a hit on your hands.

 

(Clapton cover fades to black. Replaced by quick cuts of rock legends: Hendrix, Joplin, The Beatles, et cetera)

 

MAN

We need Greatest Hits. We need to remember that greatness is out there, that talented people can do amazing things if you give them time and a little rope. We need to appreciate the work of great minds in retrospect. En toto. Like a vitae. Or a resume. Or an awards-show en memoriam montage.

Greatest Hits are like that. They should encompass the spectrum. Not too heavy on one period. Get too period-heavy? One-dimensional? We go, “Wait. We needn’t Greatest Hits to focus solely on the Salad Years. That’s the Salad Years. This is the Greatest Hits. No need for Greatest Hits if it’s all Salad Years material.”

 

(Quick cuts fade to black. Rolling Stones Hot Rocks 1964-1971 projects)

 

MAN

Chronological is the best arrangement for Greatest Hits. An early one, like “Heart of Stone.”  Then, a middle-period one like “Street Fighting Man.” Then, a late-period one, like “Start me Up.” Maybe a late-late-period one like “Love is Strong.” Give us the broad strokes. Give us an idea of the big picture. The evolution.

 

(Hot Rocks 1964-1971 fades into Rolling Stones, More Hot Rocks: Big Hits and Fazed Cookies).

 

MAN

Then, at the end, we’ve got the evidence. We’ve heard the hits. We see the linear representation of progressive genius. Now: throw on some bonus cuts, you see. Hint at what we missed. What’s to come. What might have been. Behind-the-scenes stuff. Overlooked gems. The hits are the hits. 

The bonus cuts? Usually an attempt to re-define the legacy. But the hits just did that, right? A re-defined redefinition, the bonus cuts are. No more can be said.

 

(Stones fade into Bruce Springsteen: Greatest Hits)

 

MAN

“Thunder Road” is a hit. “Atlantic City” is a hit. “Murder Incorporated”? Bonus cut. Perhaps has the form and feeling of the hits that preceded it. Not the soul. Or the soul’s there without the structure. The act of compiling the hits occasion the bonus cuts. They are by nature ceremonial and, therefore, artificial. Skip them. Experience them while you’re folding laundry and too occupied to touch the buttons. You know. Too occupied to go back to the real hits.

 

(Screen fades to black)

 

MAN

Did I mention this is about My Greatest Hits?

 

(Wide shot of brick house appears on the screen)

 

MAN

Real quick, though. Listen to how they came to me: I was in my old house. This house I had two houses ago. The foundation was cracking. Little teardrops of water beaded along this one meandering crack in the basement whenever it rained. Disaster dripped through the walls of the basement. I put it on the market. The house inspector found the crack and gave me a report that said, “You have a crack in the basement wall. Not good.” I said “So what?” And he said, “That river floods again? Comes up that road? Water damage like you wouldn’t believe. Rot this place from the bottom up. Potentially ruinous.” So I gave a credit to the buyer. Off you go, I said. Get it fixed. Or don’t. Potentially ruinous isn’t necessarily ruinous, is it? Chances of a Biblical flood are rare these days. Buy a cappuccino machine. Pay for a relative’s funeral. Or patch this negligible crack. It’s your credit. It’s your house.

(Pause)

I was back in this house the day I received My Greatest Hits. Everything just as I remembered. Almost like I never sold it. The cracking foundation. The basement walls that wept ruin. So overwhelmed with the vivacity of it all.  Like meeting an old girlfriend right in the middle of an old conversation, in the same Marie Calendar’s where we stopped for rhubarb pie. Sitting in the same booth. “Maneater” playing over the restaurant-wide muzak network. The same toddler’s sticky handprint on the same window, looking out over the same parking lot. What a strange way to receive My Greatest Hits. But that’s where I was when I got them. That was the frame of mind I was in, you see. Imagine the danger. And I’m standing in my old empty house, alone, and I need to get that thing off the front porch. What thing? The thing wedged between the screen and the front door. I saw it. When did I see it? When I was entering my empty old house, the one I sold two houses ago. Of course. So I open the door and My Greatest Hits just tumbled in. I knew it immediately. My Greatest Hits! Imagine the excitement. I had a hunch. This day or the next, My Greatest Hits arriving. I thought I’d have to sign for them. Or I’d get a call to pick them up: “This message is for the recipient of a very important package. We’ve stationed it in a fortified location. Come. Submit the paperwork. Answer the secret question. Get your Greatest Hits.”

 

(Screen fades to black)

 

MAN

No such scenario. Dropped off on the porch of my old house. That’s how Greatest Hits come to us now. I blame the neo-liberal global economy. All about efficiency. “Another Greatest Hits. Splendid. PLOP. Have fun with that.” Like Greatest Hits stroll past the storefront every two minutes on a synchronized rotation. These are Greatest Hits. Not Chance Operations, Odds, Sods, B-Sides, Experiments and Near Misses. Greatest Friggin Hits. Which brings me to the reason for my telling you about My Greatest Hits: A day will come when you receive yours. Be warned. Whoever oversees the compilation these days? Whoever’s in charge of collecting Greatest Hits and seeing to it you get them? He, she, it, or they is protected by something more impenetrable than a government bureaucracy. And that’s anonymity. I don’t know who supervised the project. Human resources must intervene, circulate the pamphlet that reinforces what Greatest Hits are, what Greatest Hits do. There’s the delivery—which is classless and bizarre. You heard it from me. My front porch. PLOP.

But there’s also the actual hits. I should get a say. You think you do. You don’t. Who’s defining the terms here? Who says, “This is great. This is not so great. This is the Greatest”?

 

(Iconic image of Jackie Robinson sliding into home, just beyond the catcher’s tag, appears on screen)

 

MAN

You’ll see what I’m talking about. The first cut off My Greatest Hits is entitled “Learnin’ Ball.” I’m a boy. Real small. Styx’s “Lady” is emanating from a conversion van parked down the first-base foul line. On the side, near the back, this conversion van has one of those small, convex, circular windows. The paint color changes depending on the angle. But back to me. I strike the ball from atop the tee. THWAP! I stand and watch the ball dribble to another boy at third base with his fielder’s mitt on his head. Kid’s got his finger halfway up his left nostril. Coaches and parents scream at me to run to first base. I run to the pitcher’s mound. I’m trying to keep this massive, bobbing helmet on my head. The third baseman fumbles the ball. He kicks it to the shortstop. The shortstop picks up the ball. Flings his arm. The ball drops a foot or so in front of him. I stand on the pitching rubber and grab at my genitals. Everyone’s just crazy at this point. Laughing. Jumping up and down.

 

(Jackie Robinson fades into iconic image of Kirk Gibson post-home run, circa 1988 World Series)

 

MAN

The third-base coach is mad, like this is the first game of the ’88 Series. Whatever. He’s a dick. But back to me again, hand clutching genitals. “First base is that way.” All sorts of failed attempts to get me over to first base and off the pitcher’s mound. I’m standing next to the pitcher. He’s sitting in the grass blowing the fuzz off a dandelion. Umpire – not really an umpire. Some kid’s dad. Nice windbreaker – grabs my genital-clutching hand and walks me over to first base. Applause. Hand darts back to the genitals.  Too late. The dam breaks. Wide open. My hand’s wet, down both legs, seeping right through the uniform pants.

 

(Screen fades to black)

 

MAN

That’s “Learnin’ Ball.” Unconvinced that’s a Greatest Hit. What’s great about that? It’s an error. Not one informed decision. All around. The nose-picker at third base booted the ball. The dummy at shortstop couldn’t throw the ball. And I just pissed all over myself.  We shouldn’t be celebrating humiliating accidents. That’s a hit in whose book? Not in mine.

                        (Pause)

It is now. My Greatest Hits don’t lie. An early work, I guess. A “Floyd the Barber.” Says something about my formative years. I didn’t remember that until My Greatest Hits. The crowd seemed to have fun with it. It’s successful in that way. Let’s move on.

 

(Image of a scrap of paper. “PUNCH ME IN THE BACK. I AM JACKY [sic] A BIG DIKE [sic]” written upon it)

 

MAN

So there’s the second cut on my Greatest Hits, “Joke on Jackie,” a classic from my class-clown phase. A little historical context: Jackie’s this girl, the kind who wore the same clothes to school every day. Always a little grimy. Her big brother was a high-school wrestler. Heavyweight, I think. He’s in the army now. Jackie wears his varsity letterman’s jacket in the winters. Anyway, Jackie’s just “there,” you know? Nobody really plays marbles with her, but nobody chases her around the play-yard and whips her with jumpropes, either. Just a warm body. Fills out the role sheet, Jackie does. So I get some tape and a small memo-pad piece of paper and I write, “PUNCH ME IN THE BACK. I AM JACKY [sic] A BIG DIKE [sic].” Jackie’s immersed in her art project. Oblivious. I affix the sign to her back. I don’t even know what a Big Dyke is. I’m just parroting what my dad said the night before about a woman he saw at his high-school reunion. And the other kids don’t know what a Big Dyke is, either.

 

(Image of a traced hand, decorated to look like a turkey, customary elementary-school art project appears. MAN takes a drink of water. Lights a cigarette)

 

MAN

But there they are, walking past Jackie, slugging her in the back as she colors in the finger-feathers on her hand-turkey. They say “Hi, Big Dyke!” or ask “Are you a Big Dyke?” or “Didn’t know you were a Big Dyke.” Jackie’s face is all, “What’s a Big Dyke? And why’s everybody punching my back?” Doesn’t take long for her to crumble, blubber all over the room, tell the teacher everyone’s punching her in the back and calling her a big dyke. Ms. Ford—that’s my fourth-grade teacher—her face turns into this mega-ton fireball. And she comes right at me. “Trying to be a star again,” she says holding up the sign she pulled off Jackie’s sore back. Ms. Ford calls me “Hollywood.”

I thought it was a compliment. Anyway, “Joke on Jackie” just fades out after that. Use your imagination. Counseling. Parent-teacher conferences. “Apologize to Jackie. Not like that. Again. Like you mean it.” Not forging any new ground there. Greatest Hit? Not sure.

 

(High school football team photo appears)

 

MAN

Towards the middle of My Greatest Hits, we get some real triumphs: “Touchdown Catch,” is a winner from my Junior Varsity years, followed by “Goal-Line Pick,” probably the best moment from the Varsity portion of that cycle. Uplifting, these are. For your pleasure: The prowess and dexterous genius we’d have to dynamite out of the two opening tracks on My Greatest Hits. Intentioned. Informed. Exultant.

 

(Team photo fades into picture of a beer keg)

 

MAN

Some moments from my experimental phase surface. “Bath-Tub Vomit” is a private, evocative snapshot of late-adolescent, pre-adult flux.  “In a Speedo (at the Homecoming Barbecue)” is just good fun. “Pregnancy Scares I, II, III and IV” is a mash-up, a medley, a remixed collage of bliss, paranoia, acceptance, and indescribable relief. I wouldn’t have selected any of these. But they do have an arc to them.

 

(Screen fades to black. MAN extinguishes cigarette, takes another gulp of water)

 

MAN

The back end of My Greatest Hits is largely humdrum, procedural filler. I don’t know if that’s the right word. “Procedural.” But it’s an uninspiring and plodding stretch of cuts. Pedestrian. The string starts with “Jail,” a melodramatic and embarrassing selection that reneges on the promise of its title. I had a few too many and went cruising in my Nissan Sentra. Case closed. Paid a fine. A judge lectured me.  Had to catch the bus to work for a month. Not a lot of ideas here. This is followed by “The Courtship of Margaret Fitzsimmons.” All the romantic notes bubble up. Not one overlooked trope. First kiss. Proposal. Wedding.

 

(Rapid fire snapshots of births, ties, MAN and MAGS in gaudy Christmas Sweaters, home exercise equipment, a lawnmower, MAN carousing with coworkers in business garb, a yacht)

 

MAN

This is followed by a predictable parade of episodes that could come from anybody’s Greatest Hits and be equally bland. “My First Son.” “An Unexpected Second.” “Waitin’ on a Promotion.” And, “Treadmill Blues.” And, “Let’s Pretend We Enjoy the White Elephant Gift Exchange.” And, “Retirement Dreamin’.”

 

(Screen fades to black)

 

 

MAN

Then comes the expected embarrassment. The hit you wish wasn’t a hit. The one that misrepresents your catalog. Maybe the one you’re best known for. You followed the trend. Wore leather pants, skinny ties, a funny haircut. Hired a keytar player. “Celebrate! (I’m having an Affair)” is the culprit in the case of My Greatest Hits. I screw a temp. I screw her lots.  No reason for it other than what I felt was an insufficient amount of physical attention from Mags. She wears these beads. Not Mags. The temp. Native American Topaz flea-market specials the size of discontinued outdoor Christmas bulbs. She smokes these preposterous, skinny fragrant cigarettes. Knocks out three or four per break. Stinks up the break-room fridge with her obnoxious leftover Tupperware lunches. Hummus and garlic flatbread. Cherry-tomato and pesto pasta. Thai chicken wings. The guys in the office called her Witchy Woman. Like that Eagles song. I call her Witchy Temp because I don’t like the Eagles.

 

(Image of WITCHY TEMP appears. Mid-forties, in a sleeveless top, arms aloft in a sexy, centerfold pose, unshaven armpits)

 

MAN

Witchy Temp starts calling my house after I get sick of going to her apartment in the afternoons, bending her over the divan in the shadows of her dream catchers, under the noses of the spirit wolves, in the beak-lines of the spirit hawks, all on these tacky tapestries she bought on the road to Black Rock for the annual Burning Man festival. We lay naked on her floor and she reads me my post-coital horoscope.

 

VOICE OF WITCHY TEMP

‘The influence of the planets will hurl your focus into general disarray. You are likely to miss an opportunity to strengthen a relationship.’ You want to tell me something?

 

MAN

Yes. “I have reservations,” I say. I tell her I feel guilty about lying to Mags. But that’s only partly true. I feel guilty about settling for a new-age caricature. I can’t remember why I started.  I’m sick of washing my crotch with the abrasive brown paper hand towels in the company bathroom before driving home.

 

VOICE OF WITCHY TEMP

We are infinitely more compatible. You’re calm with me. I calm you. I am an escape from your wife’s superficiality. Think about not having to escape. Think about this being your life from now on.

 

MAN

I’m unconvinced.

 

VOICE OF WITCHY TEMP

You’re timid, that’s all. Not as timid as you used to be. But timid nonetheless.

 

MAN

I’m not doing this anymore.

 

 

VOICE OF WITCHY TEMP

You always say that.

 

MAN

She pulls her panties on. She smokes topless while I lay on the floor looking up at one of the prisms she pinned to the ceiling with a thumbtack. “Today I stop. Believe it.” Screw somebody else, I say. I should have never shat where I ate, I say. Witchy Temp sets to destroy me. Feels jilted, I guess. She calls me and threatens to ruin my life and my marriage. Glenn Close-type stuff. Leave me alone, I say. Don’t kill any rabbits. Witchy Temp calls and calls. Mags answers one of Witchy Temp’s creepy phone calls. Finally. I don’t know what they say to one another. Witchy Temp stops calling.

 

(Screen fades to black)

 

MAN

I piece this together from one thing Mags says to me when I come home from work. The boys are in the backyard filling up water balloons. “The floozie you just quit screwing thinks I’d care to know.” Can you believe that? Mags is so classy. Doesn’t even get riled up. “Thinks I’d care to know,” she says. I didn’t screw anything after that. Mags nailed me good there.

 

(MAN lights another cigarette. Finishes the water. Briefly assesses the empty glass)

 

MAN

That was ten years before the boys left. We shelved the issue. But soon as our youngest left for some finance apprenticeship in New York –

 

VOICE OF MAGS

You found a place yet?

 

MAN

Looking now.

 

VOICE OF MAGS

Hurry up.

 

MAN

I hurried. Got one half of a duplex across town. Stuffed my clothes and effects in a couple dufflebags and boxes. Swapped my record collection for an end-table and a media-cabinet for my VCR and TV. Accrued some serviceable chairs and couches. Planned to play out the string. Get a severance package when the company figured out I was worthless. Collect Social Security. Invite the boys over for holidays. Maybe take up drinking. Play a little golf.

(Pause)

Dear Anonymous Greatest Hits Quorum: If the goal was to show how My Greatest Hits and, say, Glen Bollinger’s Greatest Hits are interchangeable, mission accomplished. Who’s Glen Bollinger?

EXACTLY! Which isn’t to say the end of My Greatest Hits doesn’t have its shinier moments. “Best Man” is a syrupy but effective flash of pathos. The centerpiece is a stripped-down rendition of the speech I gave at my eldest son’s wedding rehearsal dinner. An excerpt:

 

(MAN stands. Raises the empty glass as if to toast)

MAN

“Fathers don’t dream of weddings the way mothers and daughters do. Fathers dream of racecars, home runs, and touchdowns. Fathers dream of winning. Well, I can stand here today and say I wish I had dreamt more of weddings. And you, son? With your lovely new bride, and the beautiful family both of you are going to build? That’s better than a racecar. You’ve hit a home run. Scored a touchdown. You’ve won today.”

(Pause)

Sentimental? A little. But it still gets the tear-ducts up and stretching. It tugs the strings. It “Gets ya.” Sincerity. I’m proud of that one.

 

(MAN sits down. Image of Born-Again Era Bob Dylan appears)

 

MAN

But this leads to the moment that plagues most Greatest Hits: that alienating, peculiar experiment.  You can’t dance to it.  You can’t sing along with it. It doesn’t make you drive faster when its number spins up on the shuffle. Totally out of the aesthetic character. What’s Journey trying here, you think? Why’s Dylan singing about Jesus? This isn’t “Carry on My Wayward Son.” Am I meant to feel something? These cuts evade the established sequencing, remind you that Greatest Hits are a form of manipulated history, that the narrative wasn’t as seamless as all that. In the midst of a decent hit cycle, a groove is established. It’s fluid, you see. No potholes, speedbumps, roadkill, smoking Datsuns. And then, BANG! A five-car pile-up. A slaughtered hitchhiker. A missed exit. An endless ribbon of crossing cattle. Who knows the calculus? Is this one of those special moments when everyone’s mistakes collide at once?

 

(Image of a broken five-iron appears on the screen)

 

MAN

A spring afternoon. Planting season. The grass no longer dormant. Mags is old. I’m old. The rocking chair on our front porch is weathered and grayed beyond redemption. My broken five-iron, the one I splintered across the trunk of a live oak at the annual company four-man scramble, it’s in my hands. The clubface in one hand. The shaft in the other. I’m about to drive off in the oxidized blue, two-door clunker I bought after our separation.

 

(Five-iron fades into image of MAN’s used sedan)

 

MAN

Mags was sick of looking at it.

 

(Used sedan cuts back into image of golf club)

 

MAN

The five-iron.

 

(Golf-club cuts back to image of sedan)

 

MAN

Not the clunker.

 

(Used sedan cuts back into image of golf club)

 

MAN

I imagine the clunker brings her a modicum of joy. It represents the corroded man she jettisoned—at last!—after her sons left home. We decided to wait until the boys were gone to set the divorce on its way. My sons could’ve done without the drama: Me and Mags, my life in the herd, her sleepy days, our sexless nights. Witchy Temp. We hid it all so the kids wouldn’t know how much their parents are like the Bollingers. She called me to get it out of her sight. The five iron. “Come pick up your golf club. For once. Finish the job.”

 

(Rapid cuts of kitchen sink, laundry basket, bathroom sink)

 

MAN

Finish the Job. The title if our marriage was as an album. Picked from the list of Wash out the Food Trap After Doing the Dishes. And Pair Up the Loner Socks When You Do the Laundry. And Wipe Your Whiskers Out of the Sink.

 

(Screen fades to black)

 

MAN

Did I say we’re old? We’re old. I’m a dead ligthtbulb. Gray. No fire in the middle. Dark socks and white walking shoes. Mags is all right, though. Got a late-stage Joan Baez thing going. Gray streak through the front of her hairdo, jabbing a garden trowel into the dirt between her begonias. She’s wearing a floppy sun hat. She’s wiped her hands down the front of her denim shirt. I see the muddy shapes of her thumbs and fingers above each breast—yet to descend, her breasts, even after seeing two boys and a husband through the door. The tracks of her muddy palms disintegrate, gradually, until her waistline makes them disappear. Here we are, then. The broken five-iron in Mags’s garage was all that remained. And it was just about out of the house. I got handfuls of broken five-iron.

“So I got it,” I say. “The five-iron.” And she stops digging and wipes her hands down the front of her shirt again. She’s almost repaired. She’s taken charge. Arranged things. Orchestrated our space, assembled and edited. If you didn’t know about her collaborative efforts with me or Witchy Temp, my five-iron or my Glen-Bollinger-esque late-period output, you’d read Mags as an authentic winner. A gardener warrior. A masterpiece.

 

VOICE OF MAGS

You’re off then.

 

MAN

Unless there’s something else I’ve left behind. Something that bothers you, I mean.

 

VOICE OF MAGS

Stay.

 

MAN

I don’t know what to do with that. Look at her. She still has some time. Get the garden in order. Make some friends. Find a winner. Flush me out of the tank. And the “Stay” isn’t a “Stay” that says, “Stay and help me plant the flowers. Stay and man the wheelbarrow.” It was a “Stay” that said, “Say ‘Okay’ and we’ll embrace here on the front yard. Kiss in the grass. Navigate our way inside to have sex.” And, really, at this point, all these years after Witchy Temp and her magic apartment, I don’t know if I have it in me. All this stuff’s racing though my head, you understand. I’m habituated to mediocrity. I’ll envelope Mags and take her straight to the ocean floor. I want to stay. I want to reconcile, patch up whatever’s left. But I also know I’m just not very good at revision. “Probably not a good idea,” I tell her.

 

VOICE OF MAGS

You’re the only person I know.

 

MAN

And I’m very sorry for that. I turn around, get in my clunker, and drive off. That one’s called, “The Last Time I Saw Mags.”

 

(MAN notices his second cigarette has burned to the butt. Tosses it in the ashtray)

 

MAN

But you see what I mean here? Greatest Hits are supposed to be great. There’s greatness that’s been overlooked.

 

(Image of MAN, loosened tie, sweaty, shouting into microphone appears)

 

MAN

I remember a killer version of “Stairway To Heaven” at the company Christmas Karioke party. We all laughed and laughed and a line of lousy singers formed behind me. I saved the day.

 

(Image of MAN, baseball cap, in the third-base coaching box, giving a sign to a batter appears)

 

MAN

I filled in as a little-league coach once. We won. I gave a down-on-his-luck stranger a ride to the nearest gas station. I cried when Mags moved to Washington. Again: what’s the criteria? What’s the story you’re trying to tell?

 

(Screen fades to black)

 

MAN

The final hit is “Here’s Your Myocardial Infarction.” Very dark. Something final about it. A perplexing episode. Erratic. Incomplete. Noises and images and catches of frenzied dialogue float in and out like specters. Difficult to explain. There’s something physically painful about it.  Indescribable. It’s on My Greatest Hits, so I guess it’s mine. But I don’t feel “of” it, you know?

 

(Image of brick house reappears)

 

MAN

I mentioned all Greatest Hits have bonus cuts. Excavated material. My Greatest Hits is no exception. Two bonus cuts to talk about. The first is called “Two Houses Ago.” I have to say, for a bonus cut, this very immediate and lucid. Crisp. It’s one of those things that just absorbs the situation. Like Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” at the post-ceremony reception. Or “Amazing Grace” at a wake. “Two Houses Ago” is like a Greatest Hit, wrapped in a Greatest Hit, looking at a Greatest Hit in the mirror. So confusing and invigorating. Yet, it’s also an echo. A distant roar of leftover disorder.  Not really a hit. More like hit residue. That’s it! It’s Greatest Hit residue, wrapped in a Greatest Hit, looking at a Greatest Hit in the mirror. And the mirror’s in a basement with one meandering crack down the wall. Disaster drips through the wall. The wall weeps ruin.

 

(Image of MAN sitting at a desk, headphones on, smoking a cigarette, considering the empty glass of water appears)

 

MAN

The final bonus cut on My Greatest Hits is called “My Greatest Hits.” This one is so obvious. Duh. A Greatest Hit called “My Greatest Hits” on a collection of Greatest Hits? Too clever. Postmodern meta-commentary on the phenomenon of Greatest Hits. The hits are the hits. The bonus cuts? Not really hits, are they? “My Greatest Hits” is no more than a rushed sketch of a potential tour de force. A glimpse at a bigger thing. A charred building we can only experience by inhaling the ash that descends from the smoke. “My Greatest Hits” tries so hard, like a disoriented tenant trying to shove that smoke into his pockets, or re-construct the building from the cinders he salvages from his shoulders. It does too much, or not enough, and does it poorly. “My Greatest Hits” does everything, but does nothing. It finishes off My Greatest Hits with a noticeable whimper. I can only hope for a re-issue. Or a re-master. Or the introduction of a bold, visionary, endeavoring producer who knows what a real hit can do. And that isn’t me. Not on this collection anyway.

 

(MAN removes headphones, flips the switch on the microphone. “ON THE AIR” sign darkens. MAN exits stage right. Screen fades to black)

 

 

                                                THE END

Players:

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION

WIFE

HUSBAND

SLEEPING INFANT IN DECORATIVE PAPOOSE

CURATOR

Scene: Empty natural history museum gallery. Track lighting bathes the parquet floors, the sculptures, the installations, the portraits, the pottery. Everywhere white walls. Echoes. Wax Eskimos.  Wife wears the baby in a decorative papoose. Wife, husband, informational stanchion stand in separate spotlights, behind velvet ropes. Couple looks into the audience. When the informational stanchion speaks, the voice booms from off-stage, the couple looks down as if reading.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: You stand before the only existing dollhouse constructed entirely without any connective technologies. No nails, or screws, or glues, or tacks, or dowels, or tongues, or grooves, or other miscellaneous binding agents or techniques contributed to its realization or survival...

WIFE: Extraordinary.

HUSBAND: A hoax.

WIFE: The detail. The presence. Unique. Extraordinary.

HUSBAND: Bullshit.

WIFE: Look! Curtains. A rocking chair. A divan. A little refrigerator.

HUSBAND: Preposterous.

CURATOR (enters a fourth spotlight, shiny bald, English accent, suit, nametag): Questions?

WIFE: How...I mean, who...?

CURATOR: A mystery. A total mystery.

HUSBAND: A mystery? An illusion.

INFANT (stirs, briefly): ahbabaga

CURATOR (referencing papoose): Precious. How old?

HUSBAND: Six months.

CURATOR: A vocal boy.

HUSBAND: Suspicion elicits protest. Second-floor projector, I guess?

CURATOR: Read the history.

They read.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: Portuguese explorer Lidio “La La” Ventile Meninos discovered the “Impossible Dollhouse” (henceforth upon this stanchion dubbed the ID) in 1835 just outside of what is now Modesto, California. Since its discovery, the ID has withstood four earthquakes...

WIFE: Oh, my.

They read.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: ...one volcano...

HUSBAND: Where?

They read.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: ...a gallery fire in San Francisco...

CURATOR: Tragic.

They read.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: ...featured appearances at five world’s fairs, innumerable sideshows, parades and carnivals...

WIFE: Amazing.

They read.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: ...and an opening slot on Ted Nugent’s Summer Blitz tour.

HUSBAND: Wait. 1835? I see a telephone. I see a television.

CURATOR: A prophetic craftperson, indeed.

HUSBAND: A flatscreen, no less. I say multiple projectors.

WIFE: A pellet stove? An espresso machine? Surround sound?

CURATOR: We use these today, do we not?

HUSBAND: EXACTLY!

WIFE: Exactly.

CURATOR: Exactly. History! Foresight. Ingenuity. I hold the Incas responsible. Possibly the Mayans.

INFANT (stirs again): babagahaaa

CURATOR: Should we see the basement?

Curator’s spotlight goes dark.

WIFE: A basement!

HUASBAND: A basement?

CURATOR: A basement.

WIFE: What else?

CURATOR: Dog doors. Cat doors. Ivory-billed woodpecker doors. A floating kitchen island. Indestructible granite countertops. Attic. Christmas decorations. Master bed. Master bath. Candelabras blaze wildly, heroically.

HUSBAND: Not art. Not artifact. Garbage.

WIFE: Continue.

CURATOR: Whirlpool tub. An old-faithful bidet. A rainforest shower. Wedding gift wok. Hardcarved benches. Marble columns, ceilings. A galactic view. Should we tour?

WIFE: Let’s!

Wife’s spotlight goes dark. Husband and informational stanchion’s spotlights remain.

INFANT (awake, fussy, dirty, wet): Uhhhh. Uhhhh.

HUSBAND: Touring illusions, now? Let’s go. Junior needs changing.

WIFE: You should see the carpet, dear.

HUSBAND: What carpet? Let’s go.

WIFE: Berber. Velvet. Flaxen wheat. Perfect hues. Invisible, visible weaves. Gold, onyx, platinum threads. Solid, spectral.

HUSBAND: What hues? Visible? Invisible? Decide. Make sense.

WIFE: The tilework! Exquisite. Grecian stone. Fountains. Hummingbird condominiums. Hydrangeas. An android mailbox-slash-vacuum cleaner.

HUSBAND: Where? Let’s go. The boy fusses.

WIFE: The bathrooms. The back porch. Lush vegetation clings. Everywhere I see a sunset. We have a ghost! A wonderful, rattling ghost. Come. Barbecue a chicken.

HUSBAND: Where? How does it stand?

CURATOR: Comparison. Contrast. Difference. Magic.

HUSBAND: You huckster!

WIFE: Please come. Mow the lawn. Weed the flowerbeds. Unclog the toilet. Exercise. Exorcise the ghost. That Douglas Fir needs trimming.

HUSBAND: Let’s escape!

WIFE: Yes. Let’s.

CURATOR: Let’s.

INFANT (older): Cat. Dog. Pony. Ivory-billed woodpecker.

HUSBAND: Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

CURATOR: Come see.

HUSBAND: Open your eyes!

WIFE: Come see.

INFANT (older still): Come see.

HUSBAND: I will not.

INFANT (older still): Take me driving. Take me filmgoing. Take me working, riding, watching.

WIFE: We need lettuce, peppers, fresh milk. We need carrots, detergents, a new mirror. The cat has fleas. We need an exterminator, a dentist. We need fiberglass foam insulation.

INFANT (matured now): Take me shopping.

CURATOR: Come see.

WIFE: Your father will join us soon.

INFANT: I hope.

WIFE: I pray.

HUSBAND: I doubt...

WIFE: A robber!

INFANT: Masked villain!

WIFE: Violator! Violent, resolute, earnest, knife-wielding, club-wielding, torch-wielding, sex-crazed...

HUSBAND: What?

WIFE: We haven’t any valuables. Extinguish your torch.

INFANT: I hate you. I hate you. Stop! Go!

HUSBAND: Stall him! Give him what he wants. Summon the ghost to frighten him!

CURATOR: Come see.

HUSBAND: Tell me how! Stall him. Accrue witnesses! Push, shove. Crush him.

INFANT: Fire! Smoke! Water!

HUSBAND: Instructions! Give me instructions!

Wife, infant, curator scream. Husband reads.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: The ID’s allure, its genesis, its being and continued structural fortitude puzzle physicists, scientists, phenomenologists, and architects of every stripe...

HUSBAND: Honey?

Husband reads.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: The ID cannot be controlled...

HUSBAND: Honey?

Husband reads.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: The ID has been said to burn and build lifetimes...

HUSBAND: Honey? Son?

CURATOR: Come see.

Husband reads.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: The ID runs on you, feeds off you, burrows into you...

CURATOR: Come see.

INFORMATIONAL STANCHION: The ID collaborates with your fears, presupposes your lust for classes, for species, for genera, for phyla, for objects, for the chemist’s scale. The ID exists abaft the hulking human steamboat, in the canyon, its foundation bleeds through the crevices of the canyon walls, in the lake bed at the bottom of the abyss between black and white, beneath five layers of epidermis and six sheets of earthcrust, against the lightpost across the street, in the glowing radius of the lightpost across the street, smoking, waiting, watching...

CURATOR: Come see. Come see. You must come see.

Husband’s spotlight goes dark. Only the stanchion’s spotlight remains.

HUSBAND (seeing): Oh, dear.

CURATOR: You see.

HUSBAND: I do. Oh, dear.

CURATOR: My apologies. My sentiments.

HUSBAND: Thank you. My, my. Deep breaths.

CURATOR: So now…?

HUSBAND: I grieve. Silently, I will grieve. Then, I will. I rebuild. I will replace. I will repaint.

CURATOR: You must toil.

HUSBAND: I will replant. I will resurface. I will resurrect the ghost.

CURATOR: Redemption requires forfeiture.

HUSBAND: I will have faith.

CURATOR: You must have faith.

HUSBAND. I will.

CURATOR: You will see.

HUSBAND: I will.

INFORMATION STANCHION: As always, the natural history museum thanks you for your support.

INFANT (stirring briefly, young again): Ah!

Production notes: If the appropriate spotlight technology proves elusive, actors may close their eyes.

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