top of page
Inventions
By Bob Laine
A Monologue Play About Family
“Writers will happen in the best of families” Rita Mae Brown
“A writer in the family is the death of the family” Unknown or Maybe Me
*The core piece which this play is built around first premiered at the infamous Café Voltaire in Chicago sometime in 1995 and was performed by the author as part of evening of one acts. The subsequent pieces in the play were written (and sometimes performed) throughout the years and as late as 2020 as the author returned home each year for his annual family visit to Ft Walton Beach Florida.
*Production Notes: This play is meant to be adaptable to any space. The stage directions, music suggestions and transitions between scenes are mere imaginings of the author and can be ignored or modified as needed.
*Program Notes: The following really bad poem can be included in the program as supplemental information.
FATHER
putting pen to paper
squishing eyes closed
crunching hands tight
sweat straining across my brow
and still I can’t write about you
the pen curls in my fist
the sweat drops drip drop upon the paper
creating circles that soak and spread like fire across a white plain
and my mind whirls
twisting like a tornado
and landing in oz
off to see the wizard
the wise and woolen wizard
wondering why and what gifts he bears for my empty soul
and finding him I am given a wooden heart
there is no place like hell
when I try to put you to paper
wood
comes to mind
and I hear my bamboo heart
thump thump thud
and I tug at the splinter of you
you who are like bark wedged under my fingernails
you’ve chopped me down
with your axe tipped tongue
and stacked me sloppily in the shed
ants crawl in my eyes
when I think of you
ticks brush my cheek
flys buzz in my ears
and I think of how I curled
in our shed cringing from your world
while you waited for the next frost
fire burning with smoky anticipation in your eyes
when I try to capture with words
the paper always remains white
like a blanket of snow
I should not be so surprised
life was always winter with you
SCENE 1 : POWER
When I was eight my dad told me that every time someone in the family flipped a
light switch on or off it sent a power surge to the electric company and that that
power surge added twenty five cents to the electric bill- every time. A quarter a
flick every time.
When I was still eight my Dad told me other things as well like...
‘go to your room- you’re grounded’
and
‘you want I should give you something to cry about.’
But when my Dad told me these things I never got mad, I just got even. As I
flicked ..
I would count each quarter. I would count each quarter like I had saved it,
like it was mine and it had a new bike written all over it.
SCENE 2 : SHITLESS
August 19 1964
The Beatles played their first American concert at the Cow Palace
Note it was not literally a palace for cows
that same night
my mother had a cow while giving birth to me
Note she did not literally have a cow
the temperature in the city where the Beatles played
was in the 60's
but one could speculate that it was much hotter in the Cow Palace
the temperature in the city where I was born
was in the 60's
but one could speculate that it was much hotter in my mother's womb
The Cow Palace is in San Francisco
I once visited San Francisco
yeah
the parallel's scare the shit out of me too
The Beatles and I
cosmic siblings
conjoined in our simultaneous debut
we have no choice but to imagine the day we were born
memories
it seem
do not begin at birth
and if it they do
they are fleeting like fruit flies
we only know what we have been told
or what we Google
I discovered my connection to the Fab Four on the Internet
on my 48th birthday my mother would tell me her version:
VO: (can be done by actor, or as an actual voice over)
You were my fourth child
my first I gave up for adoption
your lost brother
your sister came next
she was premature but healthy
your brother followed also premature
but with cerebral palsy
on the day You were born
your father was in Alaska
he would not meet You until You were four months old
I was staying with Aunt Lois and Uncle Jesse
I was three days late and having pains
at the hospital the doctor told me I wasn't ready to deliver yet-
he went for coffee and by the time
he got back you were halfway out
the doctor nicknamed you Speedy Gonzales
It was just You and I
the day You were born
and the hospital staff I remind her
Yes but You were all I needed
and then
I almost forgot to tell you
You were born with a birth defect too!
HypoSpadias
that is what my birth defect is called
what it means
according to my mother
is deformed penis
I don't know what is worse
that it took my mother 47 years to tell me
I was born with a birth defect
or that in 47 years
I had never noticed that my penis was deformed
Occurring in one out of every three hundred boys
HypoSpadias
is a congenital birth defect
whereby the opening of the urethra
is on the underside
rather than at the end of the penis
The Great Google
informs me that
HypoSpadias has been linked to an ingredient
found most commonly in hairspray
women who are exposed to hairspray
are more than twice as likely to have babies
with HypoSpadias I read
as mental pictures
of photographs from the fifties
and my mother's big hair flash by
and suddenly I see a whole generation of
birth givers in beehive hairdos
spawning schools of boys with mangled junk
and I wish
for a moment
that I had left
the day I was born
to my imagination
I was the fifth Beatle then
now I am in the deformed penis club
whose most famous members include:
Hitler and
Dick Cheney
yeah
it scares the shit out of me too
SCENE 3: INVENTIONS
My mother reads,
something she has done all her life, but something that became more
pronounced- more life affirming- after she married my Dad.
Since drinking was out of the question, my mother would always say that Dad
had driven her to read. My father has had similar effects on almost everyone he
meets, especially his family. In addition to driving my mother to read, he drove
my sister to leave
and he drove my brother, since alcohol was not out of the question, to drink.
He drove me to read, leave and drink, and then to write bad poetry about all of
the above. These are the legacies my father has left us, although the use of the
word legacy is not quite correct because that would imply that my father is
dead. And my father is very much alive, and living in Ft Walton Beach Florida,
which, according to my Dad is like being dead- only with better weather.
Whenever my brother gets mad at me and wants to be vindictive- he reminds me
that Dad was absent when I was born. As if the mere presence of my father at
his birth makes him special. Well, I will grant my brother the fact that Dad was
there when he was born, but I will not stipulate that my Dad’s absence upsets
me, because it doesn’t. So when my brother chooses to remind me of this fact I
simply remind my brother who was born with a slight handicap and speaks in the
slow sloppy stutters of cerebral palsy that he talks funny. This usually shuts him
up. For about one minute. I don’t know where my brother got the idea that I’m
bitter. Maybe it was that poem I wrote called “I Hate You Dad For Not Being
There When I Was Born,” but that’s just a guess. I tried to explain to my brother
that the poem was fiction, based in reality- but blown up to be dramatic. I don’t
think he really understood. And now, I’m not sure that I understand myself. I
mean, I spent my whole life hating my Dad but now when I look back at it, it
seems I spent more time thinking of reasons to hate my Dad, then actually
having reasons to hate my Dad. I swear I’m the only kid I know who wanted his
parents to get divorced. I would surreptitiously slip copies of Ibsen’s A Doll’s
House into my mother’s reading material. But my mother was always there to
defend Dad, forever playing mediator, reminding me who put the roof over our
heads, who put the food on the table. And yes, my father did do those things. He
also forced me to watch Fishing With Earl every Saturday until I turned eighteen,
but we learn to forgive and forget.
If you were to turn to page 152 in my high school senior yearbook, you will notice
several things.
First, my brother and I graduated together- our pictures are next to each other.
Second, I’m much better looking than my brother and finally, my brother and I’s
heads are half the size of everyone else. Is this the result of some rare small
head disease? No.
The only small head involved here is my fathers’- whose bright idea it was to
save a little money and take our senior photos out on the back porch with his
instamatic. You know, when I look back at that yearbook, my little small head
there, all the anger and bitterness I felt for my Dad all those years seems so-
completely justified. OK. OK, I guess you shouldn’t go around hating someone
just because they’re cheap, or they embarrass you in public- frequently. I guess
you shouldn’t, but I do. I take insignificant events in my life and blow them up to
match whatever particular map of the world I happen to be following that day.
John Irving wrote in The Hotel New Hampshire that “we invent our lives. We
event what we love and what we fear. That’s what happens like it or not”. I agree
with him. I believe I invented my father, or at least I invented the bizarre ogre
Joan Crawford mutant Dad who lurks throughout my poetry. I took trivial
offenses and turned them into monstrous harms. A simple high school yearbook
photo suddenly evolved into a Sylvia Plath I Hate Daddy Achoo Achoo
nightmare. Much to the delight of my high school poetry teacher Mrs. Whitehair,
whose hair, inconsequentially, was red. Mrs. Whitehair’s favorite poem of mine
was simply titled father. In it, I use an extended metaphor where I am a piece of
wood, and my father is TaDa!... a woodsman. Tre’ Clevere. My father ‘chops me
down’ with his ‘ax-tipped tongue’, ‘stacks’ me in the ‘fireplace’. It’s a horrible
poem. I am embarrassed at lines like “Ants crawl in my eyes when I think of you,”
or “I tug at the splinter of you, you who are like bark wedged under my
fingernails.” But the worst is the ending. Worst because I thought I meant it.
“Whenever I try to write about you
the paper always remains white
like a blanket of snow
I should not be surprised
life was always winter with you”
When I read the end of that poem, I can’t help but think what kind of premium
budley did I smoke in junior high to blow the brain cell that made me write that
crap, because it’s not true. I see that now, it’s not true.
The last time I visited Florida, my Dad told me that so many seashells wash up on
shore that the state grinds them down and uses them in making highways. It
sounds like a great idea unfortunately the seashells make the roads slick,
especially under rainy conditions, and has caused a twenty percent increase in
highway fatalities. It is this kind of intelligent thinking that personifies my opinion
that Florida is a fucked up state- which is probably why I will never move there to
join my family and yes even my sister who has decided she doesn’t hate Dad so
much either. I don’t know, there is something intrinsically wrong with a place
where they shoot abortion doctors but name their towns Niceville. I told my
sister I can only take so many operation rescue bumper stickers and restaurants
named Fudruckers before I crack. Besides, I admitted to my brother, love far
away is a lot easier than love up close. I’m surprised my brother hasn’t already
killed my parents. See, he recently moved back in with them, their idea, and his
bedroom is sandwiched between my parent’s living rooms. That’s right,
separate bedrooms were not enough for my parents now they have separate
living rooms. One for my Dad to watch television, and one for my mother to read,
and my brother is smack dab in the middle, drinking- large quantities. Do you
blame him? I don’t know, I guess it really isn’t that bad. They seem resigned to
their un-peaceful coexistence, and they tell me they’re happy. As happy as
someone can be in a state where the average age matches the average
temperature. When I go back and visit I do generally have a good time. We play
Trivial Pursuit, pinochle, we swim in the pool, go thrifting- family stuff. My Dad
still occasionally gets on my nerves. Although Fishing With Earl has much to my
dismay been canceled, my Dad’s new favorite program, if you can call it that, is
Antique Watch Hour on Home Shopping Network. I don’t make this stuff up. He
sits there transfixed saying things like “Now that’s a Watch!” and I’ll respond
with “Yep, that is a watch all right. Oh, look Dad there’s another one.” And my
Dad will tell me to stop being such a smartass, but he’ll say it in a loving way.
And I will look my Dad in the eye, say I love him and mean it. Then I will strap on
the rollerblades I bring on all my visits to Florida, announce I’m getting some
exercise and skate poorly around the block as many times as it takes to finish my
joint.
My mother once said she felt as if she had only done two things in her entire life-
read and breed. As pathetic as that sounds, I’ve only done one of those things.
Suffice to say I’m well read. I guess it’s true. We become our parents. You would
think with modern technology that we would be able to isolate the gene that is
responsible for that transformation. I mean if we can make a seven layer burrito,
then we should be able to take that gene, splice the hell out of it and stop that
shit from happening. Because it’s inot fair. I can already see it happening in my
brother- he has become my Dad. He shakes a little more, drinks a lot more- but
he is my Dad as surely as I will become my Dad. We invent out parents- yes. We
become our parents- yes. Associative property of mathematics- we invent
ourselves. I stopped hating my Dad when I stopped hating myself. We invent
ourselves- yes.
SCENE 4: THIS IS THE STORY
this is the story
that will find me standing
at a US Airways luggage carousel
in Laguardia airport
waiting for a suitcase
full of dead man’s clothes
this is the story
that will start
with two trips
within a trip
within a trip
this is the story
that will end
with Robin Williams death
this is the story of
two road trips
the un-fun kind of road trips
the not with a bunch of friends
a cooler of beer
ounce of grass
going to a cool place and/or concert
kind of road trips
rather
the
mom dad
two dogs
three kids
in a Volkswagen
moving from Michigan to California
or California to Michigan
peeing in a bottle
playing the license plate game
and eating Twinkies that taste like your Dad's Pall Malls
kind of road trips
this is the story of my sister and I
40 years later on our own road trip
listening to 80s stations
using my ipad
to google each artist we hear
wikipediaing their decline into obscurity
savoring our schadenfreude
over their banishment to
nostaligia channels and
casino gigs
this is the story
of my yearly two week trip to Ft Walton Beach Florida
to the home that now houses
my father
my mother
my sister
my brother
my brother-in-law
my niece
and my niece's boyfriend
this is the story of my sister and I
escaping that house for the weekend
and taking a road trip to Biloxi Mississippi
to see a Mentalist at the Golden Nugget Casino
hoping he won't read our minds
and discover that we would rather be
seeing some obscure 80's artist
this is the story of me mid trip
asking my sister
if she still thinks
her idea to move
the entire family
into one house
was a good one
of my sister answering my question
by asking me
if I remember the road trips
we took as kids
of me recalling the misery
of those road trips and saying
I understand
of my sister saying I can't fully 'understand'
as I am just someone they pick
up every year for a two week ride along
I am just a hitchhiker she says
this is the story
of my shame
of being the happiest
most contented person
in my family
purely by default
of the guilt
I feel for the relief
I feel at being
just a hitchhiker
of the love I have
despite these feelings
for everyone in my family
this is the story
of enjoying 8 free Jack and Cokes
while losing 35 dollars in penny slots
watching my sister win 250 dollars
and after the show both of us
agreeing that the Mentalist kicked ass
this is the story
of returning back to Ft Walton Beach
and my sister putting
our families 'misery'
into perspective
by telling me the story of Matt
this is the story of Matt
Matt was 36 and lived with his mother
in a house on the same block as my sister
who was his friend and his mother’s co-worker
Matt suffered from depression his entire life
Matt was a champion wrestler in high school and college
which led to severe back problems and a pain pill addiction
Matt went through fitful cycles of weight gain and weight loss
and whenever he felt down would spend lots of money
buying designer clothes and shoes he would never wear
Matt fell for a girl online and sent her $1200 to visit him
she never arrived and her accounts were deleted
Matt hurt his foot and took to bed which he never left
Matt’s friend from Costa Rica was visiting
when a utility person came to the door
Matt’s friend asked Matt to get out of bed
Matt said ‘it didn’t matter anymore’
pulled a gun from under his pillow
and shot himself in the temple
this is the story of my sister
four months later
telling me
that Matt’s mother
had asked her
if she would ask me
to come over
and look through Matt’s clothes to
see if there was anything I wanted
since Matt and I were about the same size
this is the story
of me standing
at a US Airways luggage carousel
in Laguardia airport
waiting for a suitcase
full of dead man’s clothes
this is the story
of the tv monitors
above the US Airways luggage carousels
breaking the news
that Robin Williams is dead
this is the story
of leaving the airport
thinking my family and I
are lucky to have each other
SCENE 5: TOO SPELLED TO
The sign says:
“with God nothing is to hard.”
Too spelled to.
Nothing is too hard - except apparently proper grammar.
Going thrifting with my mother in Ft Walton Beach Florida.
She doesn't get that not only do I hate thrift shopping, but I really hate when she drags
me to religious sponsored stores who blast their propaganda through blaring radios
and ignorant signage. The bathroom in this one has a sign that says God is watching
you- in case you were thinking of stealing. A more likely scenario is that some little
repressed religious perv is watching you through a peephole or nanny cam and
masturbating. Why my mom can't understand why I don't want to give these places my
gay dollars I will never know.
At bingo my mother sports a black wig as a joke to make fun of someone who dyed her
hair too dark a few weeks back. She considers herself the joker- the funny one of her
group. My mother was never the funny one of any group, but now she is apparently the
Estelle Getty of her Golden Girls bingo team. Watching them I think it is so clear that, if
we live long, enough we become children again. I feel like a chaperone in an elementary
school play yard. As I blot my card with great purple dots I think- I may have to give my
Mother a timeout.
My mother brings extra stuffed animals to public stores. When I ask her why she says
she gives them to children she sees who look unhappy.
My mother sweats all the time she says it is her medication.
My mother gives me gifts of things she has somehow gotten into her mind that I like-
when I don't- like Dilbert cartoon books and Sean Connery movies.
My dad, not to be outdone, gifted me with 23 various bling necklaces he won from the
claw machine at the VFW.
On the fifth day of my visit, my sister asked me how I was I said I feel great because I
didn't masturbate!
Ever since arriving in Ft Walton Beach five days ago- every time I masturbate I get an
immediate violent headache above my right eye. After the fourth time I looked it up and,
apparently, it is a thing- either something not so serious or something very serious. I've
decided to abstain for the rest of my vacation and when I return to New York I will give it
a yank and if it is still a thing I will have to go to the doctor and see on what side of the
serious scale it falls. Just putting this out there but I don't think I would live long if I
couldn't masturbate!
On my walks with my brother, I can't stop thinking of doom not the video game or the
movie, but mine- and my family’s.
I get very anxious whenever traveling. It has nothing to do with fear of flying rather it is a
fear of leaving. I spend the day before leaving for anywhere obsessively analyzing the
lives of those I am leaving (as well as my own life) inevitably concluding that we are all
doomed to live lives of disappointment and heartache.
It hits me on the morning walk with my brother the day I am to return to New York. I
can't stop thinking of the future-of our futures - and all I can see are scenarios of
unending unhappiness. What will become of us all? Who will die first and how will that
death inevitably affect all our lives?
Back in New York I give it a wank and am headache free.
I can only conclude that either Florida or being with my Parents or the combination of
both gives me masturbation headaches.
Next time I visit Ft Walton Beach Florida I will bring my own sign “With masturbation
nothing is too hard.”
SCENE 6: GONE
tomorrow morning
I hope to wake up and find
my Mother's cancer
gone
gone too
the offending breast it has taken root in
off to join the two toes she had amputated last month
and the valves in her heart that have failed her twice in four years
disassembling
piece by piece
when I talk with her
she doesn't speak of self-pity
only concern about those she will leave behind
worries of how her death will affect
everyone else
and who will take care of her dog
the dog no-one but my mother likes
the dog who likes no-one but my mother
and her collections
porcelain dolls
elephants
dolphins
and the stuffed animals
she keeps to give to children
when she is out shopping
which is not creepy at all
each conversation with her
preparing me for the eventuality
her own Mother died a good twenty years ago
and I think it unbearable that I could go twenty years
without my mother in my life
tonight before the surgery
I want to call her
but am afraid she will think
I am only calling
because I am worried
it will be the last time we talk
and I don't want her to think that
I don't want to think that
which is why I think
I shouldn't call
because in some insane way that will mean
she has to get through the surgery
so she is able to call me the next day
and tell me all about the cute doctors
bad food and
the good drugs
but then I think
if I don't call
that will worry her just as much and
possibly make her anxious during surgery
which I am sure can't be good
so finally I decide
I have to call
as I would never be able to live with myself
if this is indeed the last time
I am able to talk with her
after five rings my brother answers
and says my mother is at bingo
I predict I will sleep badly
pushing away dreams
that look too much like in-memorium films
best of’s
of all my memories
of my mother and me
that time in England when she
told that Lady who grabbed me by the arm
that if she touched one of her children again
she would have the bobbys’ on her porch the next morning
that time in Michigan when my Dad
was chasing me around the kitchen table with a knife
and my Mother told me to pack
because we were all leaving the next morning
which I knew wasn’t true but felt good to hear anyway
that time in Florida when my mother
whispered to me conspiratorially
that she was glad I had escaped
and I spend the rest of the evening
trying not to think of these very things
trying very hard not to act like she is already
gone
my vibrating teeth wake me
the next morning and I find my
cell phone stuck to my cheek
I have one new message
it is from my sister
‘Mom out of surgery
resting- says you’d like her male nurse
he looks like David Hasselhoff’
and I think
my mother doesn’t know me at all
SCENE 7: THROWING PUNCHES
I may be eating almonds when I die
it is a distinct possibility
I do eat a lot of almonds
like now when my connecting flight is taking off from Atlanta
bringing me home to New York City after two weeks
of visiting my sister my brother and our dying parents
I am eating Blue Diamond smokehouse almonds
as I realize it is getting close to the time
that I will start remembering years by who left me when
2016 that's when I lost so and so
I will think sometime in the future
referencing the calendar of loss in my mind
silly me
I thought I could spend
two weeks with my family
without it turning into a poem
I am supposed to be writing a poem
about my ideal boyfriend
but having never had any kind of boyfriend
in my forty-seven years on this earth
it is beyond the scope of my imagination
writing about my family is easier
because it's real
my Dad doesn't speak to me when I visit
not since I came out five years ago
so now our communication is reduced to me
eaves dropping on my father when he is talking to others
my first day home I overhear him
telling my brother-in-law in the man cave
about his love for the Ike jacket
and jeans that have rounded crotches
as opposed to Levi's with their V crotches
my Mother who divorced my Dad
40 years ago in her mind
does talk to me and says things like
"Dad loved every dog we ever had
except the current one
I wanted a dog
he wouldn't like
so that he would be all mine"
it’s my third day home and
we are at the Legion where my mother
eats breakfast on Sunday's with her Bingo friends
as she speaks I watch her put 4 spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee
and repeat that three times while we are there
she has had two heart attacks
is diabetic and has had two toes amputated
three days before I arrived she was in the hospital again
after my brother found her incoherent on the floor
the day I land she is back home
and seemingly back to her normal
but it’s not long before I start noticing
the moments when she can't hold her weight
when she starts slurring
when she closes her eyes in the middle of a sentence
when her words become a jumble
like she’s gargling marbles
on the 4th day of my trip
my Dad goes after my brother
because he has failed to recycle his beer bottles
my brother comes running into the house shaking and in tears
my Dad following him full of anger and yelling at the top of his lungs
I step between them and tell my 78 year old father
he will not take another step towards Shawn
or I will knock him into next week
one of the more memorable phrases
my Dad used to say to us as kids
we argue back and forth
my Dad attempting to go around me
and get to my brother
I tell him I have been waiting
for this moment for 40 years
and there is nothing
that would make me happier
then to put him on his ass
I dare him to hit me
and tell my brother not to be afraid
the old man will be dead soon
that's when my dad calls me a queer
and I actually applaud because it is the first time
he has ever acknowledged I am gay
he continues
saying I am not his son
and I can see my Mother over his shoulder
as he accuses her of having had an affair that sired me
he doesn't know how many times
I have wished that were true
later when my sister tells him
he will not ever call me that in her house again
my Dad says it was my fault
because I was telling him to punch me
and so he threw the only kind of punch he could land
we don't speak for the rest of my vacation
even on Christmas he doesn't acknowledge me
as he unwraps the ergo dynamic seat cushion
I got to replace the repulsive donut
he sits on whenever he smokes
his unfiltered pall malls
In the front courtyard
'same as it ever was
same as it ever was'
I get him Christmas gifts every year
and I never see them again
I think he either throws them away
or has a big collection of my gifts
shoved under his bed collecting dust
that will only be discovered after his death
I think if that happens
I will ask for them to be buried with my dad
just to piss him off
the obituary will read
Dad buried with 20 years of his gay son's rejected presents!
I want to outlive this family and immediately I don't mean it
off of the large living room
that no one in the family uses
there is a book cased lined alcove
which houses the family computer
a fireplace not needed cuz it's Florida
and a huge cushiony lounge chair
this is my bed for the two weeks I am here
my nieces' day of the dead
freestanding 3 panel divider
is my privacy
I am drunk on the Absolute my brother and law
had ordered to our room on New Year’s Eve
at the Golden Nugget Casino in Biloxi
because he is a whale and gets the shit on the house
only now we are all back in Ft Walton
and have just finished the Amy Winehouse documentary
my parents were in bed a long time ago
and everyone else is in bed now too and I am drunk
sprawled in the lounge chair thinking
we are all way too old to still be throwing punches
thinking this year will be different
thinking this year I'm gonna rock you
and then I notice
for the first time since I arrived
the funky wavy zebra-striped bedspread
my sister gave me for a blanket
and for no reason at all
it makes me smile
it makes me think
for no reason at all
that everything will be alright
it makes me think
I want some almonds
SCENE 8: REPPLE DEPPLE
when synthetic beings are finally realized
all their stories will be cliche- spoiler alert
do not become the play
I don't want to write
bored again
clearly
another famcation
in Ft Walton beach
writing first lines for poems
I will never finish
talking with my dad about Darwin
Indians and the Galapagos
he's been watching the travel channel again
but that is better than the limbaugh o'reilly hannity shit
he usually watches and it makes me happy
it's been a long time since we talked at all
four years in fact
every since I came out loudly to my family
at age 47 in a Firehouse sub shop
using the revelation like a dagger
to shame my family
who dissed Michelle Obama
while eating their hook and ladder club sandwiches
my mother and sister both said
they always knew anyway
my Dad said nothing
for four years
so this is kind of a small big deal I guess
then he asks me with an eerie certainty
did I know that mermaids are real ?
oh no
I think
not the travel channel too
and then an epiphany:
maybe it was better when he didn't talk to me
I seem to get epiphanies everyday now
like bowel movements
I am regular with regards
to my realizations
like only now do I realize how small my father has become
black striped robe swallowing him like
he battled a really fat Zebra and lost
his cane a rickety extension of his shrinking arms
white bearded and bald
wizard looking mutherfucker
holding court in his smoking courtyard
telling me stories between raspy drags
on filterless pall malls
about things like
Ronson lighters
battleships in mothballs
and Repple Depple
Ronson lighters
apparently
were the Zippo of my Dad's day
and he misses them
a lot
like
really a lot
that is basically
the gist of the fifteen minutes
he spends on the subject
and just as he was about to lose me
is that Mom I hear calling?
he shoehorns the conversation into WWII
reminiscing about the big battleships
many that are now in ‘mothballs’
retired or sunk to make artificial reefs
the USS Missouri, the Alabama, and the QE1
which was the ship that took his father away
and never brought him back
Repple Depple
is where the QE1 took my grandfather
Repple Depple
is service slang for a recruitment depot
a kind of military purgatory
where you wait in limbo
until they need more people
to kill or be killed
Repple Depple
is where my grandfather remained
until being called up for the Omaha Beach invasion
as part of the 29th Infantry
he went ashore on the second day of the attack
and survived to battle through the hedgerows
making it to St Lo and Operation Cobra
where 136 Americans died
and three times that many were wounded by friendly fire
as American MP Bombers came in the wrong way
and unknowingly unloaded on their own troops
my grandfather among them
he would survive
only to return to battle
fight through Belgium
and make it into Germany
the birthplace or his own grandfather
and that is where he would die
stabbed to death on December 4th
10 days before the Battle of Bulge
my grandfather spoke German
and my Dad believes that his father
was sent ahead to infiltrate
was discovered and killed
"that's why I never wanted to learn a foreign language"
my Dad says though I suspect that he has just made that up
"never repeat the mistakes of your father" he opines
completely oblivious as to how ironic it is for him to say that
I leave him in the courtyard thinking to myself that
Repple Depple is where I have been
for these last four years of silence between my Dad and I
and now that he has called me up for battle
I wonder how long it will be
before I get wounded by his friendly fire
It's a short wait
later that day I am watching Rupaul's Drag Race
with my sister and niece
when he comes into the room
stares at the tv for a few minutes
then comically realizes what he is watching
and turns to me and says
"What you're a cross dresser too?"
baby steps I tell myself baby steps
my father is right about one thing
we all go to our graves
trying not to repeat the mistakes
of our fathers and mothers
fully knowing we probably won't be successful
as death is the only mistake
we can be sure
we won't make twice
SCENE 9: PLANT SEEDS SING SONGS
I wish it could just be about
the life sized
cardboard
cut-out
of the Dos Equis
spokesman
toasting me
as I enter my families
cavernous and
at least on past visits
tastefully decorated
living room
I wish it could just be about that
and how absurd
and random this new detail is
and how it makes me
laugh out loud standing there
in my sun glasses and shorts
suitcase still in hand
my sister
puzzled by
my sudden giddiness
I wish this trip
my trip
my yearly family visit
to Ft Walton Beach Florida
could just once
be about simple pleasures
like giggling at an enormous
two dimensional paper man
selling Mexican beer
in the middle of my families living room
but no
it couldn't even wait
for me to deplane
it caught me
with my seatbelt
still securely fastened
my carry on
still stowed
under the seat
in front of me
it caught me
with a Kendrick Lamar ring tone
it caught me with a text
on the tarmac
I went straight from the plane to Emergency
riding shotgun
my sister driving
my brother wrestling
my luggage in the back seat
trying to dig out my super-sized
Old Spice stick deodorant
so I can retrieve the marijuana
I smuggled in its ass end
I listen as my sister
tells me that they took
my Mother in for her mammogram
and whilst walking in the hospital
with her walker
my mother somehow
stopped walking
and fell
she was now in Emergency
conveniently located just down the hall
inconveniently
it happened on this day
my brother's birthday
and the day I arrive for vacation
not that we had anything special planned
for either occasion
I had sent my brother's gift
of broadway soundtracks
he won't ever listen to
but just had to have days ago
my sister had all his other gifts
stored in her closet
which she tells me
several times
she keeps meaning to wrap
she will keep meaning to
for three more days
before my brother will actually receive them
so it wasn’t like my mother’s fall
interrupted anyone’s plans
and honestly in hindsight
waiting four hours
for my mother’s X-rays
in a military hospital
watching ill
but still pretty fit
military men pass the door of
the examining room
is the best action I ever
got in ft walton beach
after we learn that my Mother
has not broken anything we
take our relief and weariness home
my mother goes to her room to rest
my sister goes back to work
and my brother goes to bingo
I am left alone watching Westworld
on a 75 inch television
whose picture perfect clarity is
annoying and off putting
like a close up of an ugly baby
a few hours later my brother-in-law comes home
gives me the wifi password
and goes into his Man Cave
where he will watch
Netflix HBO GO
Fox News
and maybe play some Starcraft
an hour after that
I see my dad in the kitchen
I say hello but he doesn't hear me,
I say hello louder
and he looks at me
like I just shit in his sandwich
then goes back to ignoring me
Yep, I am home!
on one of the three daily
Walmart trips that my family
and many Ft Walton beachers
seem to think is mandated
by some obscure Florida panhandle
set of commandments
among them
thou shalt have confederate flags everywhere
thou shalt smile as you marginalize minorities
and thou shalt shop at Walmart thrice each day
I see a bumper sticker that
doesn’t call me a libtard
or canonize Trump as a new
cheeto faced messiah
it says
plant seeds sing songs
as if warbling groundskeepers were the shit
as if green thumbed crooners have it all figured out
fuck that bumper sticker too
I think being here makes me bitter
it must be in the air
or maybe in our genes
everyone in my family is bitter
my mom and dad bitter
about their poor health
but stubbornly not changing their habits
dad at 79 after a heart attack and a stroke
still inhaling a pack of unfiltered pall malls daily
mom at 75 after two heart attacks diabetes and two amputated toes
still making her tomato soup with milk and a full stick of butter
my brother bitter
that he lives in Florida and not New York City
spending his time when not building sets for the community theater
watching soap operas WWF and drinking a 6 pack of Budweiser a night
my niece bitter
that she and her boyfriend at 30 years of age
still live with her parents
still work minimum wage jobs
and still go the methadone clinic twice a week
my brother in law bitter
that he only married my sister
but has somehow been betrothed to this whole mess of a family
my sister bitter
because she carries the weight of them all
and who the hell wouldn’t be bitter with that burden
me bitter
because I am not around to help
because I feel like a stranger to this family
It is that guilt that makes me do
as much as I can while I am home
like Mary Poppins on crack
doing dishes
sweeping
making my mother meals
making sure she takes her pills
anything I can do to help
while watching RuPaul’s drag race
with my sister
on the tenth day of my visit
she tells me
I don’t know what I am going do when you go back
the next day while stopping by her real estate office
on the way to help my brother get his state ID
her coworker confides to me how glad she is
my sister finally has some help
I don’t think I will ever forgive myself
for escaping my family
but I don’t think I will ever say
I regret it either
sometimes
I feel like such a horrible human being
on day 12
I am called into action
there is one movie I want to see
while I am on vacation
everyone says they want to see it too
but figuring out schedules proves daunting
finally we agree to a 4:45 showing of Baby Driver
at 4 pm my sister comes into the living room
where I am watching the final episode of The Leftovers
and says that she has just found my mother
in the bathroom on the toilet sweaty shaking
and throwing up and that I should go check on her
so I do
my sisters depiction is accurate
upon some prodding my mother
reveals that she has not done number two
since we returned home from emergency ten days before
I go back to my sister with an update
she says something to her daughter
who disappears momentarily and returns with
what seems to be some kind of basting device
but in all actuality is an enema
my niece presents this enema to me like a golden scepter
not even trying to hide her extreme amusement
my sister looks at me
smiles and
says
simply
your turn
and that is the story of how we missed Baby Driver
so I could give my mom an enema
it is the least you can do for someone you love
someone who cleaned up your shit
literally and figuratively your whole life
and while I will spare you
a more visceral description of this experience
know that it was an intimate moment
whence each of our embarrassments
butted up against the others
in a shared humiliation that said
let us never speak of this again
I laugh when I return to New York
and my coworkers ask me
so what did you do on your vacation
but I spare them the story
and it’s not the story that lingers with me
this visit to ft Walton beach
will stay with me as a memory of
the morning of the day I left
I had a late flight so i made
my mother breakfast and since
she seemed to be doing better
I took her out to the garden
and helped her repot some of her plants
I was playing music on my iPad
having chosen one of the few things
my mother would like
Elvis number ones
we both had our hands
knuckle deep in the soil
and organically as we worked
we began singing along to the music
love me tender
love me true
never let me go
you have made my life complete
and I love you so
we sang to ourselves
to each other
and then laughed
at how out of tune we both were
and that’s when it hit me
plant seeds sing songs
maybe that is the answer
maybe that is our hope
though is there really any hope for a family
with a life sized cardboard cut-out of the
Dos Equis spokesman in their living room?
God I hope so
Scene 10: you don’t even remember that puppet
the longest time you and I ever spent together
alone
dad
was the week before you died
that seems strange
it was my second trip
to Ft Walton Beach for the year
a short visit the week before Christmas
to burn off vacation days before I lost them
and see my family
especially Mom who had had a hard health year
you had too but that was true of the last twenty years
and since you hadn’t spoken to me for the last six…
the feeling that something was not right was immediate
things that should be there were not
Mitzi the older cat was nowhere to be found
(mom would later tell me she passed the previous month)
Alyssa your granddaughter my niece
and her boyfriend Charlie also missing
their mother-in-law suite empty
its contents haunting the man cave
(Dawn your daughter my sister
would later tell me they were both in rehab
and their room was being refloored)
you were still in your bedroom of course
but there were strangers in the house now
caregivers and carpenters
come and go speaking of wood grain and oxygen flow
there was Annie
your bather
I met her as I was arriving
and witnessed first hand
her ability to wrestle you from your bed
wrangle you into your wheelchair
and out of it again into the shower seat
without breaking a sweat
I eavesdropped while she bathed you
and heard you tell her that walking
was like trying to take steps in mid air
no man should have to live like this you told her
I met Lisa your nurse an hour later
she showed me how to
work your atomizer and oxygen tank
and once we left your room
confided to me that everyone
was worried about your big balls
you need to make sure you keep them elevated
she told me and I tried not to laugh
I really did try
but your testicles were huge
and my mind raced with thoughts
of what we could possibly
use to keep them aloft
and all I could think of was Tupperware
a few hours later
I would try to repeat
with limited success
the feat of Annie the Bather
and lift you from bed to chair
to wheel you outside so you could smoke
your unfiltered pall malls
that’s when I met
Greg the carpenter
who helped me
navigate your chair
down the last step
from door to courtyard
as you two talked and smoked
Greg and I took turns
picking up your cigarette
which you dropped every 30 seconds or so
and placing it back between your shaking fingers
at one point you turned to me
and said you had a cassette tape
with a god bless the troops song on it
that I should listen to since I hate the military
you knew that wasn’t true
(and seriously who still has cassette tapes)
but I didn’t want to argue with you
and Greg who was ex military
understandably became very uncomfortable
he politely excused himself and went back to work
you and I were left alone in the courtyard
and for the second time that day you said it
no man should have to live like this
at the end of that first night home
Mom would catch me up
one am
she
having just raided the kitchen
for tomato soup and chocolate pudding
me
sitting on the end of her bed
petting the lifelike fake Maltese
I had bought her
a shit poor replacement
for her last dog now that
she could no longer
have a real dog
I listened as
she described
how quickly
you had declined
how everyone had been so caught off guard that
the care givers were still scheduled
to come only twice a week
she joked
that she feared
she would spend
her last days
caring for you
she read somewhere that older spouses
sometimes die one after the other
she’s not surprised she told me
and then in a conspiratorial whisper:
it’s because caring for the one
leeches the life of the other
I had been caring for you for only a day
and already understood what Mom meant
I’m not sure she was joking
a partial list of the things I did for you
the week before you died
(even though you never really liked me
and I never really liked you)
went to four different grocery stores
to find old fashioned donuts
and sugar free oatmeal raisin cookies
made an Air Force base run
to buy cheap cartons of unfiltered pall malls
ound a replacement hose for your oxygen tank
after Mom accidentally ?
ran over the other while vacuuming
emptied your pee bottle
changed your bedpan
sorted your twenty-four daily pills
elevated your gourd sized testicles with Tupperware
told you
it’s not raining
you aren’t seeing two people in the rain
this is your room
you are not in Michigan
woke you up
sat you up
found your remote
got you water
explained why your doctor appointment
was cancelled to you four times
held your hand as you used your atomizer
the last night before I would fly back to Brooklyn
Shawn your son my brother
shook me awake around two am
and asked me to come to your room
you were on the floor
covered in shit
your white robe
likewise shit stained
you were/had been crying
out of frustration
now out of embarrassment
Mom had tried to help
and now with Shawn and I
we
began cleaning
you
up
lifting
you to bed
it must have been some sight
Shawn
who had feared you his entire life
so much so that he would
not stay in the same house with you alone
Mom
who should have left you
forty years ago but stayed
for us kids for her lack of self worth
Me
who you claimed was not of your loins
who you stopped talking to years ago
who was never the son you wanted
Us
cleaning up your shit
literally
while you mumbled apologies
which for once were not necessary
the next morning
started with a panic
the last remaining animal in the house
Dawn’s cat Wednesday
your favorite had disappeared
as everyone searched
I finished packing
pushing back my guilt for leaving
while hiding from everyone just
how happy I was to be doing just that
no one could tell us how long you had
it could be days or months
and with the hospice now sending
your care giving angels everyday
there was no reason to adjust my plans
at midday I wheeled my bag
out of the mother in law suite door
your chair was blocking the other
you were smoking of course
Annie the Bather acting as your
current cigarette picker upper
I threw my bags in Dawn’s car
and as I came back to say goodbye
Wednesday came out of hiding
and slid past you into the house
in that brief relief
I told you I loved you
I didn’t tell you
I wouldn’t be back
for six months so most likely
this would be the last time I saw you
I didn’t need to
you knew
you didn’t really look at me
as you said “thank you for the help Bob”
as Dawn drove me to the airport
Terry her husband called and on speaker phone
asked if I had told Dawn what you had said
I told her you had thanked me for the help
there was momentary silence as Dawn and I
took in the significance of this then Terry said
“take it that’s as much as you will ever get”
there was just one Christmas tree this year
I realized that as the plane took off
yet another thing missing
our two trees days over
I say to no one
my guilt over leaving you
subsided the closer I got to home
I went to work the next day
attended my friends play that night
went to another friend’s party on Christmas Eve
and tried to drink what remaining guilt I had away
at 10:15 on Christmas morning
the call came
from Shawn
which was weird
you had passed at 3am
Shawn and Mom had been at your bedside
it was a new bed that had
arrived from the Hospice
the day before
you had told Mother you liked it
a few minutes after Shawn’s call
I got a text from Dawn which explained
why she hadn’t made the call herself
“I’m angry at you” it said
“you should have been here”
I texted back
you are right
I’m sorry
sad face
then from Dawn
“he asked for you”
you asked for me
touché
dad
I’ve been calling you
my whole life
and now you pick up?
I didn’t cry
I stood there in my empty apartment
sad that my sister was upset with me
sad that the caregivers would have
to leave their families on Christmas
to remove your body
sad that I had left too soon
not because I owed you anything
but because I owed it to my family
I didn’t cry
I remember thinking
I have 761 friends on Facebook
whose deaths would affect me more than yours
and in that pettiness I
decided I would keep my Christmas plans
I would go to New Jersey and spend time
with my dear friends and their family
I would watch Mary Poppins Returns
on a giant screen twelve hours after you died
and I would cry then
over the dead dad
in that movie
but not for you
I would cry for the dead dad
in the transformers movie Bubblebee
two days later and after that
Bandersnatch the interactive Netflix
movie which gave you the choice to
beat your dad to death
that would make me cry
and Vice about the monster
Dick Cheney who despite being
the spawn of Satan still managed
to love his gay daughter
that made me cry
I’m not stupid
dad
I know those tears
may not have been for you
but they were still about you
to paraphrase Terry
take them
they’re as much as you are going to get
they’re as much as I got
you asked to be cremated
no funeral no service no observance
even though you had earned
a full military burial
alone in death as in life
as a 55 year old gay man
with no lover no family no children
it’s hard to imagine you were lonelier than me
even though you had all those things
I don’t hate you dad
I did for a long time
then I was in love with the idea of hating you
then it just became silly to hate you
at the end I was just sad for you
you weren’t a bad man
not a great dad
but not a bad man
you gave us life
food
shelter
things
we are who we are
in part because of you
I can love that part of you
and one day I will be able to
cry for that part of you
Scene 11: Renewal
I walked by a girl
who I am sure will write a poem about me
tomorrow
it will be about anxiety
it will most likely rhyme
have an over baked metaphor
and several exclamation points
I am ok with that
it has been exhausting to hide it these few weeks
so of course I am
so fucking grateful
that my suffering
will possibly
earn a C plus
in somebody's freshman poetry class
fuck Karma
I blame the 6th grade, exclamation point
for everything, double exclamation points
until recently
I considered the 6th grade
as the worst year of my life
in 6th grade
I had just moved to Oscoda Michigan
which apparently was so fertile
with 6th graders that the elementary school
could no longer hold them all
so in an ill advised
what's the worst that could happen
why not kind of way
one class of the 6th graders
was placed in the Jr high
I saw no choice but to over compensate
my first mistake
was signing up for the talent show
without actually having any talent
I thought I was a magician
I set up my table on the gyms slated stage
in front of the year’s first
Jr high all school assembly
and just as I was about to begin
the tables right legs fell through a slat
and all my tricks swept to the floor
the emcee slash PE teacher slash shecky fucking green
didn't miss a beat
“and that was the disappearing table trick”
cue the entire assembly laughing
and pointing at me in slo mo
like I was Carrie on Prom Night
sans the pig blood and John travolta
my second mistake
was signing up for a poetry recitation contest 3 months later
I memorized and performed
The Song of Hiawatha by Longfellow
and was overjoyed when I won the competition
only to be told the winner would
not only get a certificate
but would also have to perform the poem
in front of the year's second
Jr high all school assembly
nothing quite says
you're cool
like reciting poetry
in trochaic tetrameter
about the tragic death
of an Indian woman
named Minnehaha
a name which instantly
became the nickname of choice for me
by the more discerning bullies
and because I was a clearly a masochist
I ended the year
by winning the elementary school
spelling bee
which qualified me for
the regional competition
which would be hosted by
yes you guessed it
our school
in front of the year's final
Jr high all school assembly
I was eliminated on the first word
it was basement
the collective groan
that rose from my schoolmates
started impossibly low
and grew into a guttural judgy growl
that careened from
bleacher to bleacher
over the heads of the assembly
like a giant bouncing exclamation point
I was clearly over the entire year
so when the lone 6th grade class in
Oscoda Jr High in the year 1976
voted for the final Student of the Month
an award I had never received despite
always being the best student
in the class
every month
I pitched such a fit
that I finally won
in a landslide pity vote
that awarded me
a plastic trophy shaped Christmas tree ornament
that I still have to this day
and sometimes look at
to remind me that the 6th grade was the worst year of my life
until now
in December I lost my dad
I didn't like him
he didn’t like me
that didn't make it easier
in April I lost my 30 year old niece
Alyssa, my Sister's only child
and delivered the eulogy for the one person
who should have lived to deliver mine
two weeks ago my roommate of twenty years
my heterosexual long time unrequited crush of a roommate
left to return home to Alaska to care for his elderly parents
leaving me alone in NY
I am not handling it well
the first two weeks after Calvin told me
and before he actually left
I fell into a spiraling sinkhole
of anxiety and depression
which I was very successful in not hiding
no doubt inspiring budding poets everywhere I went
they were feelings I had felt before
feelings we all have felt before
but with an intensity and an
accompanying sense of hopelessness
that scared the hell out of me
so I called my big sister
she arrived like the Calvary
the day after Calvin left
and we spent four days seeing shows
cleaning my apartment
she even re-caulked my bathroom
and I remember us both busting up
as we asked the man in the hardware store
where we could find some caulk
on her last day we went to see Tarantino's
new movie and there was a trailer
for Tom Hank's new movie about Mister Rogers
at one point Tom as Mister Rogers says
“sometimes we have to ask for help and that's ok”
a part of me had been hoping I could just throw a fit
like I did in 6th grade
get a little trophy and move on
the other part knew Mister Rogers was right
Mister Rogers was always right
so I buried my embarrassment
and I reached out for help
in the modern way
I made a Facebook post
I targeted 70 of my closest friends
and I let them know I needed them
the response was immediate
overwhelming
humbling
my friends gave me their hearts
their time
their wisdom
their acupuncture appointments
and many suggested seeing a therapist
my workplace offers limited free therapy
so I signed up and they sent me a list
of nearby therapists
the first one I looked up was a
therapist slash casting agent
I took it as a sign
now I thought I can fix my brain
and get a walk on in the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
anxiety doesn’t stop you from dreaming
exclamation point
I often criticize my mother for living for other people
this stems from among other things
her annoying habit
of taking stuffed animals
with her anytime she goes shopping
and giving them to random children
as their horrified Parents look on
I have tried to tell her how creepy this is
but she doesn’t care
I tell her you are almost 80
it's time you lived for yourself
and even as I say it
I want to be that person
who can follow their own advice
even as I say it I am
thinking of a renewal
bottom of page