Published!

T<http://thisibelieve.org/essay/103872/>  aFon public radio, chronicled through our books, and featured in weekly podcasts. The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow.

My Handsome Grandson, Ethan

Little Traverse Lizzie--Our English Setter Puppy

Alex, my handsome grandson

Deflated, A One Act Play

Characters:

Nick Matthews

Stanley Sly

Mary, Stanley’s Secretary

Edgar, Nick’s father (not seen)

SCENE:  A dim office with high ceilings and factory windows bordered by heavy draperies. Two upholstered easy chairs sit near the windows on the left. Oriental rugs cover the floor and built-in bookcases line the walls.  A large oak desk stands centered in the office in front of a dark green leather-upholstered, high back office chair.  A side chair sits to the left of the desk.    A secretarial desk is farther back right, and there is a typewriter return with a mechanical typewriter on top.  Beyond the desk farther back left is a managerial desk and modest desk chair with a telephone on top.  The offices sit on the second-floor corner of an office headquarters attached to a  factory in East Cleveland, Ohio.  The office space and desks are completely absent of clutter.  It is early afternoon on a miserably cloudy, rainy day in the middle of September, 1976.

At the rise of the curtain, Nick stands near one of the bookcases inspecting the hardbound leather books.  Mary is softly tapping the typewriter keys at her desk, and hitting the carriage return after each line of type.  Nick is tall, thin, dressed in a Navy blue suit and rep tie. His black shoes are shined.  Mary is a short, trim woman in her early seventies.  She is wearing a gray suit with shoulder pads and high-heeled shoes.

MARY (formally):  Mr. Sly is on his way back from a meeting at The University Club downtown.  He hates meetings, and he hates downtown.  He’ll be here shortly.  I would offer you coffee, but Mr. Sly doesn’t like people who drink coffee.  You don’t smoke, do you?  He doesn’t like people who smoke.

NICK (respectfully):  No, thank you.  I need time to organize my notes, and I’m fascinated by Mr. Sly’s book collection--mostly classics, not a single paperback, no books on the latest business fads or self-help.

MARY (wryly):  Mr. Sly started this business as a bicycle shop.  He thinks cars and airplanes are fads, along with two-way conversations.  Be prepared to listen, young man.  Mr. Sly often criticizes junior managers for talking when they should be listening, and every manager in this company is junior to Mr. Sly.

After Mary leaves, Nick becomes engrossed in reading the spines of the books in the bookcases.  Just then, Stanley Sly bursts through a side door to the right, and walks briskly towards his chair, no handshake and no eye contact. He is 85 years old with combed-back white hair, and wears large black-framed glasses with thick lenses over floppy ears. He wears a blue gray three-piece suit with a colorful tie and powder blue shirt. He has an athletic gait to his walk.  He is about five foot six.  Sitting down behind the desk, he folds his long arthritic fingers in his lap, and opens his mouth to speak.  His eyes appear out of focus.

STANLEY (looking impatient):  I’m late, and I hate people who are late, don’t you?  I was downtown at a meeting, and I hate meetings and I hate downtown, don’t you?  Well, what are we about today, young man?

NICK (earnestly):  I’m the new Personnel Director for the Company Staff, and we need to review Mary’s salary for next year.

Stanley reaches into his desk drawer, and pulls out a clean sheet of white paper.  He hands it to Nick.  He invites Nick to move from the desk to the easy chairs by the windows.  They move.

STANLEY (with enthusiasm):  Very well, you write down the information, and then I’ll comment on it.

Nick writes Mary’s salary history and the guidelines for the next year on the piece of paper.

NICK:  Well sir, this shows Mary’s salary history for the last three years, and the guidelines for next year.

STANLEY:  She makes that much?  I tell you those Democrats are ruining this country.  Now I hate coat hangers.  You reach into the closet for one, and three fall on the floor--but coat hangers are more intelligent than Democrats. Mary’s not very bright, but at my age, I don’t need a bright secretary (typing stops).  I give her dictation twice a day.  Since I’m hard of hearing and she’s blind as a bat, she types something that is illegible.  Now you may ask, why do I come to the office every day and send out illegible memos?  Because if our profits don't improve, I'll have to take over management again, and the first things I'd do is turn this high-priced office building into a first-class whore house!

(typing resumes, more banging than tapping).

NICK (cautiously):  So, do you intend to make an adjustment?

STANLEY:  Yes, but not this year.  Maybe next.  Mary forgets to open these drapes in the morning, and close them before she goes home. I can’t support that kind of negligence.  By the way, have you noticed that all the windows in this office building have been replaced except these original factory windows in my office? Why do you suppose?  Do you think I can’t afford new windows?

NICK:  I don’t know, Mr. Sly, why?

STANLEY (loudly with feeling):  The windows are a symbol of the way things used to be!  

I hate all the expense of showing off. I hate marketing. I hate lawyers and accountants. I hate unions. I hate all this talk of corporate responsibility.  When I incorporated this company, we had one goal:  make a profit.  Now we have to hire women, minorities and other feeble-minded individuals.  To me the greatest sight in the world is all the minorities in this country swimming past the Statue of Liberty towards the open ocean with a Democrat under each arm.  And women, why before World War II, even the secretaries were men.  Do you know that last Friday night, I walked into Andy Riley’s office, and he was screwing his secretary on top of his desk?  I can’t stand immoral behavior in my company.  Fire the secretary!

NICK (stunned):  Mr. Sly, it’s not that easy anymore.

STANLEY (patronizingly):  You’re right, give her two weeks’ pay.

NICK (grim):  I’ll do an investigation, but we need to be even-handed on this.

STANLEY (gruffly):  I can tell you don’t have your security clearance yet, so I’ll just let you in on a little something.  We’re making the drive mechanisms for the Mark 46 Torpedo in this factory.  We ship them to Honeywell.  Honeywell loads the warheads.  The Navy guides the torpedoes with a wire and blows a hole under the midships of an enemy ship.  The ship collapses in the vacuum.  Pretty nifty.  Learned how from the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald--the ship fell into a deep trough between two big waves.  Same principle.  Now that’s what we’re doing, and nothing is more important.  Now you’re probably a hippie in disguise with that short haircut, shiny shoes, and Navy blue suit.  You probably marched in Selma, Alabama just before you protested the War in Vietnam.  You probably cheered when the Clean Water Act was passed. You were probably an English Major, and you should be driving a taxi instead of working in an important place like this.

NICK (calmly):  Mr. Sly, I was an English Major and I did march in Selma, but I also served two tours in Vietnam as an Army Ranger.  I was in two helicopter crashes inside Cambodia.

STANLEY (surprised):  What were you doing in Cambodia?

NICK:  Chasing American deserters.  We hunted them down, and shot them.  So what you’re doing in this company is child’s play.  I went into Personnel, because I want to spend the rest of my life doing something positive.  You impress me as a close-minded, petty tyrant (typing stops).

STANLEY:  I didn’t catch everything you just said, but I don’t like your tone.  Now, I like mental exercises.  Does your office have a window?

NICK:  No.

STANLEY (temper rising):  Well, pretend you have one!  Now imagine yourself fired.  It’s snowing outside, and you’re looking in the window from the cold, and your replacement is doing all the things you failed to do.  Now go back to your office, and do them, before you get fired! (typing resumes).

Nick makes an about face, and exits the office.   Once outside, he passes Mary without eye contact, and walks back to his desk.  He calls his father, Edgar, who has worked 40 years for the telephone company.  In the meantime, Stanley exits right.

EDGAR:  Hello?

NICK (somberly):  Dad, I don’t like my new job.  I’m going to quit.

EDGAR:  Nick, you will be throwing your career away.  You’ll get a reputation as a quitter.  Besides, you have your wife and babies to think about.  Your student loans.

NICK:  Dad, you didn’t raise me the way you did to work in a place like this.  

EDGAR:  Son, I have worked in ‘a place like this’ for 40 years.

NICK (puzzled):  Why?

EDGAR:  Loyalty.

NICK:  Loyalty?

EDGAR (reflectively):  Yes, when I was on the destroyer those years in the Pacific, I didn’t agree with everything that happened, but we all survived by doing what we were told.  It sounds like you’ve been talking when you should’ve been listening.  That man you work for has been on the cover of Time Magazine and in the Business Hall of Fame.  Great exposure for someone your age.  Wish I had worked with someone of that stature early in my career.

NICK (sadly):  I’ve followed your advice about most things.  I have six months’ pay in the bank, and I shine my shoes every day.  But I’m going to quit.

EDGAR (earnestly):  All I ask is that you think it over a few days before doing something rash.  I promise I won’t talk to anyone about this, and you shouldn’t either.  If you decide to leave, leave on your own terms when you’re ready.  How you handle this is important.  

People notice.

NICK:  Thanks, Dad.  I’ll think it over.  

Nick hangs up the phone, lays his head over his folded arms, then rises abruptly and exits stage right.  

NICK (exits stage right, quoting Shelly)): I will not add ‘the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder’-- I want to live like a bird sings, and I will.

The curtain falls.

Key West

"Never go on trips with anyone you do not love."
                       --Ernest Hemingway

Denise

Roosters and Chickens Everywhere

Our Rental House on Fleming Street

Our Bicycles

Art Deco Fish Market

Old Custom House Museum

Bicycles Everywhere

Sunset from Mallory Square

Randy orders a Mojito from Jim

November in North Michigan

The streets have lost their double lining of parked cars.

November turns its cold shoulder, and north wind slams doors.

Dead leaves swarm, gray clouds pile up over the bay, and

 “closed for the season” signs appear in windows of stores.

Sidewalk sales, parades, county fairs and football season pass,

cars track new snow in the street; one morning the beach bleaching surf

and the spray over the channel light abruptly stop at first ice.

The rapids on Bear River narrow, and the town stands in silence.

The News and Review reports the first fisherman to fall through thin ice;

the first hunter to fall out of his tree stand; the first day the ski hills open.

A child bobs down his first snow hill, falls off at the bottom in delight.

An insurance agent in the attic of an old warehouse addresses calendars.

The young boy at the library on Mitchell Street reads his first lines 

of Hemingway, Faulkner, or Fitzgerald; an old man with dementia stands

stationary on the corner not knowing where to go next; in a second story loft,

a yoga instructor softly encourages a young woman dying of cancer.

In a coffee shop, a boy and girl bend their heads together over hot chocolate;

in the public restroom, a homeless man washes and changes dirty clothes;

above the General Store, an artist stretches his arm to brushstroke a canvas;

old friends meet for lunch and hang their coats on familiar hooks.

On a side street in rehab, men and women confront their addictions;

on the other end of town, an old woman lays in the hospice house; nearby

a retired couple walk their dog through the abandoned streets of Bay View.

Re-sized for winter, we slow our pace, settle in, move closer to each other in bed.

Rozetta Flees Egypt

Rozetta Flees Egypt

From the rooftop terrace of the Four Seasons Hotel, Cairo looked like a dull diorama needing touch up and cleaning.  For the last twenty-four hours, Dr. Rozetta Zahra had pampered herself on fluffy pillows and room service before taking her leave of Egypt, perhaps forever.  Secluded in her private shaded sitting area, she lazed in lush landscaping, shaded alcoves, and aqua and white-striped cabanas and umbrellas.  Three feluccas sailed on a gentle current toward Aswan in the brown light, the sails filled with the last breeze of the day.  She had just finished her residency at the Medical School of Cairo University, one of the largest, oldest, and most prestigious medical schools in Africa and the Middle East.

She mused.  Why did the sky never cry rain in Cairo?  The land  was dry, dry, dry, with a few sparse drops in the winter, disappearing in desert.  Like a hard rock, she had survived the dust, wind, sand, and heat, without erosion.  She felt like an Egyptian mummy, a dull-eyed witness to the passage of time. Joy was just a word for her, an add-on emotion, an accessory to others.  She was more cat-like, looking for comfort.  She curled up in her overly-large beach towel, and sipped on a watery single-malt scotch brought to her by the vacant-faced waiter.  Today she was playing a wingless sphinx, stoic, ageless, unmovable, a mythical creature with the face of a woman and body of a cat, treacherous and merciless, flanking the entrance to temples.

 Today was the first day of Ramadan, the only time when school children could climb on the pyramids.  She saw them like tiny, colorful ants climbing and sliding over the ancient stones, wearing their best clothes.  In Egypt, children’s laughter soon ceased like rain in the desert sun.  When she was a child she laughed when her little brother called her “Zizi.”  She had decided that this would be her new American name--two syllables were better than three, and sounded less foreign.

She watched a loose thread from her bathing suit quiver in the dry breeze.  As she lay there, a film of sand gradually layered over the naked parts of her copper body.  The tattoo of a scorpion on her mid thigh faded under the sand.  “I’m boiling in dust,” she thought.  She looked at her sculptured body and reflected--no great beauty, but her student years had come with regular meals, and she was no longer emaciated, but fashionably thin.  She had adequate breasts, just enough to be attractive; overall a tidy, competent body.  Her strength was in her hands, powerful from weaving rugs fifteen hours a day from middle childhood.  Her friends called her the Scorpion, because she had a claw-like grasp that she used in self-defense.

Unaccustomed to a bathing suit, Rozetta felt strangely like someone else, like the bejeweled wife of a wealthy contractor on a business trip to Cairo, a well-kept woman with a kind husband, a town home in London on a cobblestoned street, children and a  terrier, and a perfectly-tuned sports car for weekend trips to the country.  She took another sip of scotch, and felt drowsy, as a young moon appeared through the haze of the late afternoon.  She wanted the waiter to come back with fresh ice.  She loved to plunge her finger into the ice-filled drink to feel the cold until it was numb, and then place the tumbler to her cheek. The hum of the traffic below drew her into sleep.

When Rozetta remembered her dreams, they were boring, predictable, and not at all scary--a subconscious gift to compensate for her struggling, exhausting, shocking and burdensome existence.  This afternoon she dreamed herself in a cinema filled with friendly people looking for entertainment, an American Western.  Then Rozetta and the audience joined the film in the last scene, when all the conflicts had been resolved, the townspeople were cheering their hero as he rode his horse into the sunset along with his bride-to-be.  The audience was enraptured, and recognized itself in the film, walked out of the scene, returned to their seats as the credits scrolled, then exited the theater happy with themselves, and certain they would remain happy, content, and safe.

Jolted awake, Rozetta sensed that a stranger was about to invade her temporary private world.  She opened her eyes to see a skinny man with a pot belly and sagging bathing suit approach.  He was dark and hairy, and as he moved closer, she saw his large nostrils, so large if he ever laid on his back in the rain, he would drown.  In less than an eye blink, the Scorpion struck.  As he reached for her, she stretched out her right arm, and pinched his nose.  She then twisted, and twisted, and twisted.  The man screamed in pain and crumpled like a damp beach towel, his sunglasses falling away onto the pool deck.  He walked away briskly, shaking his bloody head.  He did not return.

Rozetta realized that the dark abyss of her life had not been emptied or exhausted.  The incident was one more proof.  What else was waiting out there, impending, red-hot to attack her?  What fires were not yet put out, what embers still ablaze?  What more would be demanded?  

Rozetta had worked in a rug factory fifteen hours a day six days a week from age twelve.  Her parents had been members of a Christian Coptic minority that served as Cairo’s informal garbage collectors, the Zarrabas.  People called them the “pig-pen collectors” or the “garbage people.”  They used donkey-pulled carts to collect, sort, and sell garbage.  Rozetta’s special talent for spatial awareness had been developed in the dump.  She could make her way back to her home after a day of scavenging by marking the smallest object or constellation of objects in the dump--colored glass shards, plastic containers, yellowed newspapers, soiled diapers, and dead cats.  Her brother died from H1N1 influenza from feeding organic waste to pigs.    

She lived in constant fear of the spontaneous combustion of organic residues or the fires set to get rid of unwanted waste.  The air was always polluted with smoke.  There was no health care, no pharmacies or schools; no piped water, sewage networks, or electricity.  Her parents made about twelve dollars a month until they were murdered by the military for protesting the desecration of their place of worship. 

 The rug factory seemed like paradise to Rozetta after living with the garbage people.  To ease the minds of tourists, her workplace was called the “carpet school.”  Rozetta became highly skilled at making hand-made Egyptian rugs, carpets, and tapestries.  Each week, her nimble fingers became more adept and stronger, and she became one of the best rug makers in old Cairo.  However, education became an unsolvable problem for Rozetta.

One day her uncle found her living in the trash in a cardboard shack.  He took her home, but the next day she was raped by a gang.   She was bundled into a car and anesthetized, then taken into a room, hands tied behind her back and raped.  Then she was beaten ferociously. It was her first day of school. When her uncle reported the crime to the State Security, the police beat him.  He was forced to say that Rozetta ran away from her family of her own free will.  A year later, her uncle, who had never recovered from the brutality, died of kidney failure.

The vacant-faced waiter returned, but his face was no longer vacant.  He was looking a bit pale, and used his tray to cover his private parts like a Roman shield.  He said, “Would you like another scotch?”

“Yes.”

“It’s on the house.”

On his way back inside, he kneeled and discreetly picked up the skinny predator’s sunglasses by a lens.  The man with the large nostrils would need to adjust the frames to the new angles of his face.

One day a rich American tourist was going through the rug factory with a tour group, and asked lots of questions about Rozetta, and made a critical statement about child labor.  The guide responded with the correct government line, at first, but he could tell this wouldn’t satisfy the man.  So while the others in the tour group were having lunch, the guide took him to see Garbage City.  The guide said, “This is where Rozetta lived.  Do you think she is better off now than before?”

The rich man said, “This looks like Dante’s Inferno, but neither situation is acceptable.”

Every month after this man’s visit, Rozetta received a check from America.  She was able to leave the rug factory, get a small one-bedroom apartment, and enroll in school.  She excelled beyond her own expectations.  She completed her basic education behind schedule because of her late start, but completed secondary school in two years rather than three, and gained admission to the university, and then to the Cairo University School of Medicine.

In medical school, she had demonstrated an unusual facility for surgical techniques.  Even though she was told that surgery was a male occupation, she persisted. With little practice she could hold surgical instruments properly, tie knots with one hand, close wounds, clamp and suture--her years as a rug-maker prepared her to be a heart surgeon.  Her years tracking the changing landscape of the dump, gave her the ability to accurately see the interior landscape of a human heart.

Rozetta rolled over on her side.  The sky turned from silver to steely gray to black like a great eye closing over the earth.  A young moon looked broken amid the swarming desert stars.  Tomorrow, like Moses, she would flee Egypt.

London to Edinburgh

St. James Park London

St. Paul's Cathedral London

Denise having Tea at Chatsworth Derbyshire

Anglican Church Yard Bakewell, Derbyshire

Pasture near Hassop Hall Derbyshire

Outdoor Art at Chatsworth Derbyshire

Chatsworth Gardens

Pall Mall London

Big Ben

The River Thames London

Chatsworth Dining Room

Chatsworth Gardens

chat

Chatsworth Gardens

Old Hardwick Hall

Old Hardwick Hall

Kedleston Hall Derbyshire

Conwy,  North Wales

Lyme Park Cheshire

Red Deer at Lyme Park

Old Wall Conwy North Wales

Chatsworth Farm Market

Edensor Park Derbyshire

Gardens at Middlethorpe Hall Yorkshire

York Minster York

Denise and Magic in our Cottage at Middlethorpe

Our Cottage at Middlethorpe York

Castle Howard Yorkshire

Queen Victoria's Locomotive York--National Railway Museum

Old Town Edinburgh Scotland

The Sir Walter Scott Monument--Prince's Garden Edinburgh

Holyrood Palace Edinburgh

Holyrood Palace

Holyrood Gardens

Our Favorite Restaurant in Edinburgh

Best Fish 'n Chips in UK

Amstruther Harbor Scotland

Old Course St. Andrews

St. Andrews 18th Hole

House in St. Andrews

St. Andrews University

Abbey Ruins at St. Andrews