Exponential Growth

Fractals.
Each hand has five fingers,
each finger has a hand.
Going on forever, grotesquely.
Where are the joints and knuckles?
Replaced.
With another hand severed at the wrist.
Where is the arm?
Traded.
For a stubby finger.
Worth1000?
No.
Political statement?
No.
Math Lab.
Exponential growth.

Murder in the Park (Draft)

Cast

Katie

Rob

Place: A park outside a train station.

(KATIE is sleeping on a park bench, it is approximately 4 o’clock in the morning. ROB approaches carrying a big flashlight and shakes KATIE awake)

ROB:          Excuse me for waking you, miss.  Can I ask you what you are doing in this park at this hour?

KATIE:      What hour? (KATIE rubs her eyes and stretches.) What time is it?  Who are you?

ROB:          (HE pulls out his cell phone.) It’s 4:17 in the morning.  I’m Officer Rob Garn. 

KATIE:      My name’s Katie.  Same name as my Gran on my mom’s side.  But I don’t take after her at all, luckily.  She’s so batty, a total nutcase.  She makes me wear this one skirt when I visit her.  She says it’s important for a young woman to wear skirts, especially if she is unmarried.  I’m like, “Gran, it’s the twenty-first century.”  You know? You can wear pretty much anything now’days.  Just look at Lady Gaga.  I bet my Gran would just die if she saw me wearing some of those outfits!

ROB:          Katie, what are you doing in the park so late at night?  The curfew is in effect to help our citizens, you know.  Are you homeless?

KATIE:      No.  I’m not homeless.  I got off the train after midnight; we had some delays, it was running slow so we got here late.  I think it was something about someone losing their tie on the track.  Seems silly they’d stop so long for something like that, but it took forever.  By the time I got to this town, the last train had already left, and the station is closed until seven.  I didn’t know what to do, I was so tired.  Then I saw this cute little park and it looked friendly, so I just lied down.  These benches aren’t really very comfortable.  Somebody should do something about that.  Anyway, I’m not actually from around here, so I didn’t know about the curfew.  Am I in trouble, officer?  Are you going to arrest me or something?  Do I need to call my dad, because he wouldn’t be happy about me waking him up.

ROB:          No, ma’am.  How old are you anyway?

KATIE:      I’m nineteen, that’s definitely old enough to be travelling alone.  If you must know, I’m on my way back home.  My Granny is getting senile and my mom thought she needed a babysitter for the summer.  She lives in this one small town, Coalcreek, it’s even smaller than this one!  So small they don’t even have a bus system, let alone taxis.  It was horrible!  I had to walk everywhere, and wheelin’ Gran around, too.  And if I needed to go shopping somewhere else, the rusted old train was the only way to get there.  I hate trains, but this will be the last one before I get back to my hometown, and then my daddy’s picking me up at this one station tomorrow in the city.  I texted him to tell him the train wasn’t coming, or at least I wasn’t on it, but I don’t know if he got it.  You got cell service out here?

ROB:          It’s hit-and-miss.

KATIE:      It sure is cold out.  It never gets this cold in September in the city, I should know, that’s where I’m from.  I didn’t bring any jackets, because I didn’t think it would be this cold, so my Gran knitted this one ugly sweater for me.  People always try to tell me that women can’t be color-blind, but I swear Gran is.  She mixed purple, green and orange to make it.  And it’s really quite hideous.  One of the sleeves is much wider than the other.  She’s probably normal-blind too.  Is that what it’s called?  Normal-blind?   Here, let me show you. (SHE bends down and starts rummaging in her backpack.)

ROB:          So, anyway, this park has a curfew, so I really can’t allow you to stay in the park.

KATIE:      Here it is. (SHE pulls out the sweater.)  Isn’t it the worst?  She made me wear it whenever we went out in public together.  It was so humiliating!  At least Dennis wasn’t around to see it.  Dennis is the guy I like, he mows our lawn in the summer.  Of course, I was at Gran’s so I didn’t get to see him at all!  So, what’s with the curfew anyway?  I’ve never heard of a park closing before, not even in Gran’s small town.  I’m a legal adult, you know, curfews shouldn’t apply to me.

ROB:          I hate to scare you, Katie, but this curfew is in effect because there has been a series of murders lately.  It’s been all over the news, the entire state knows about it. There was a fourth one tonight, at this very park, the body was found a couple of hours ago.

KATIE:      Murders! Why didn’t you say so?  That is pretty scary, but isn’t it exciting.  It’s like something out of a TV show.  My Gran doesn’t have a TV.  It was a bummer.  I have a whole season worth of shows to catch up on before school starts.  But, that’s why I didn’t see it on the news.  I don’t read newspapers, they make my fingers dirty.  How’d they die?

ROB:          We think that tonight’s victim died of strangulation.  You don’t seem too concerned about this.

KATIE:      Why should I be?  I’m with a police officer.  Strangulation?  That’s kind of like suffocation, right?  When you can’t get enough air?  I thought I was gonna drown once.  I was under the water such a long time!  That was actually the first time I met Dennis.  He saved my life, just like you save lives.  I assume you have a gun. (ROB nods.)  Well, see, I’ll be perfectly safe.  I’m sure you got some other stuff too, you know, to catch a murderer.

ROB:          Ya, I got some rope.

KATIE:      I had to make rope this one time.  I was at Girl Scout camp.  My mom made me go.  I never really liked Scouts.  But we had to make these ropes, and then we had to tie them between these trees and then we’d throw this one tarp over it and make a tent.  It was just awful.  Luckily, they never made us sleep under them.  And they taught us all these knots, but I don’t remember any of ‘em.  Other than that, the rope was pretty useless, not even strong enough to make a swing.  How do you use a rope against a murderer, anyway?

ROB:          I could use it to hog-tie the victim.

KATIE:      Victim?  Oh, you mean the murder suspect.  I guess that might work, like, if you didn’t have hand-cuffs, or if you want to tie their legs so they can’t run away.  Do you have to carry hand-cuffs?

ROB:          I do.

KATIE:      I thought so.  It wouldn’t make sense for a policeman to not carry hand-cuffs.  I bet there’s a lot of stuff you have to carry around.  Like on your belt and stuff.  I bet you’re like Batman with that one utility belt of his.  I bet all that stuff slows you down.

ROB:          Well, we don’t carry around as much stuff as Batman, and really you get used to it all being there, you feel weird without it.

KATIE:      Like when you’re wearing a hat, like, all day, and you take it off and it still feels like it’s on your head?

ROB:          Ya, something like that.

KATIE:      I don’t really like hats though.  They not only give you messy hair, but they damage it in the long run, you know.  A lot of things can damage you’re hair.  Stuff you don’t even think about.  Like camping, all that smoke! It’s another reason I didn’t like Girl Scouts.  I could never imagine being a smoker either. Do you smoke?  (ROB shakes his head.)  That smoky smell never gets out of your clothes either.  It just lasts and lasts forever.  Just like my visit to Gran. Thatlasted forever and ever.  I’m so glad it’s over and I’ll be home in a few hours.  Back to real civilization!  If only this station wasn’t closed I could be there already!

ROB:          Now, from what you’ve told me you’ve been in this park since a little after midnight.

KATIE:      Ya, that’s right, there was a tie—

ROB:          That places you in the park around the approximate time we believe the murder occurred.

KATIE:      I’m not a suspect, am I?  You said it was a serial kill—

ROB:          I didn’t say there was a necessarily serial killer on the loose; I said we had a series of murders.  The police don’t know yet if they were done by just one person or a gang or if they are even related at all.  That means that you are a suspect.  You’ll have to come with me.  I’m afraid there is no way you will be getting home at all this morning.

KATIE:      I—I can’t be a suspect.  I’m innocent.

ROB:          If you are innocent, then you won’t mind coming with me.  If you have nothing to hide you should be perfectly fine. Right?

KATIE:      I guess.

ROB:          Besides, then I can show you my rope.

(ROB starts walking away from Katie towards the part of the park that borders some dense woods.  KATIE follows him.)

KATIE:      Geez, it’s sure dark over here.  I didn’t realize we were standing under a streetlight over there.  It sure makes a big difference.   I’m glad you have that big flashlight.  All I have is my cell phone.  Where are we going anyway?  Is your car parked in the woods?

ROB:          We’re not going to my car.

KATIE:      But—I thought—

ROB:          I said I wanted to show you my rope. (ROB pulls a length of rope out from behind his back. HE holds it taut level with Katie’s neck.)

        Curtain

The Blind Shall See

The Blind Shall See:

In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” the narrator learns that stereotypes and first impressions can render one blind.  Sometimes it is hard to look past these prejudgments to see a person’s true character.  At first our narrator struggles with what he thinks he should see.  He doesn’t want to be taught a lesson; he doesn’t want to learn anything new.  He’ll be nice for his wife’s sake, but he doesn’t have to enjoy himself.  Through the course of the evening he gradually lets his reservations go.  He goes from prejudice, to tolerance, and finally to acceptance for the blind man. Only after he takes a risk and steps out of his comfort zone can he really make the important connection.  In this moment he has his epiphany that changes the way he thinks.

            Before Robert comes to visit the narrator has very clear ideas of what being blind means.  Blind people wear glasses, walk with canes, and they most certainly don’t have beards.  He feels bad for the blind man, figuring it must be a terrible thing to have such a handicap.  He imagines how Robert must live and the insecure woman his wife must have been for marrying a blind man.  Before the blind man even walks into the house, he shatters the image that the narrator had created.  The narrator himself is blind in the way that he can’t look past what he had been taught to believe.  He isn’t prepared for what he sees. It unnerves him that the blind man doesn’t wear dark glasses.  As the narrator looks into his eyes, he notices that Robert’s “pupils [seem] to move around in the sockets without his knowing it or being able to stop it”.  To the narrator, this is creepy.  He remembers reading somewhere that blind men don’t smoke, surely something written in black and white must be true.  But Robert even proves that wrong.

            After dinner and after his wife falls asleep, the narrator starts to adjust to having Robert around, but he is just tolerant.  He talks to the blind man, and eventually he becomes comfortable conversing over the television.  The narrator then realizes to his astonishment that he is actually “glad for the company”.  He begins to feel genuine empathy, in contrast to the pity he had felt before, when the thought occurs to him that Robert probably doesn’t even know what a cathedral truly is.  Roberts asks him to describe one, and the narrator doesn’t know how to describe something to a blind man.  He tells Robert about the physical characteristics of cathedrals that “they’re big.  They’re built of stone. Marble, too, sometimes”.  Robert could never understand a description of this type, but he doesn’t let the narrator give up.  Both of them will see something new before the night is through.  Robert will see a cathedral for the first time, and the narrator will truly see Robert.

            Finally, when the idea comes to draw a cathedral together, the narrator’s eyes are opened to the world his guest experiences daily and he truly accepts Robert for who his is.  The narrator doesn’t initially know how drawing will help the blind man understand, but he feels a bond forming and tries anyway.  Robert wants to help the narrator let go of his limitation, he wants the narrator to learn the way Robert has always been taught.  Hand-in-hand they draw, and the narrator starts to understand. He can’t stop.  Robert recognizes that the inner struggle the narrator had been fighting and sees that his host is changing: “You didn’t think you could.  But you can, can’t you?”.  Robert is not only referring to the narrator’s ability to draw, but that he has finally taken down the barriers blocking his view.  The narrator can finally see.

            The narrator’s vision clears. It goes from blind prejudice, to foggy tolerance, and finally to an accepting clarity. When he feels the connection he has made with Robert he knows that something important is happening to him.  The two of them are close beside each other and the narrator can feel himself changing.  He is having a very sacred experience and it’s “like nothing else in [his] life up to now”.  Despite his earlier intentions to only please his wife, the narrator finds that he is completely accepting and comfortable with Robert.  He discovers something profound, a lesson he had never even realized he needed, and this discovery changes him. He finally is able to see through his unfair stereotypes to see the real person behind the handicap. He is only able to do this when his takes a risk and closes his eyes.

What it feels like—to have a Clown for a Mom

At first people don’t believe me when I tell them my mom is a clown. Then they jump straight to the circus, tents and elephants, peanuts and popcorn. I have to explain to them that she’s never been in the circus, she just does parties. Well, parties and free cotton candy.

My mom clowns a lot less now than she used to when I was a kid. She has a full-time job elsewhere, but she does get paid (sometimes) for clowning. Unfortunately, in this economy not many people hire clowns. I guess clowns aren’t in demand anymore. When I was a kid, my mom would visit my classroom like the other “room moms.” Unlike those others she would wear big shoes, her nose and lips red, stickers on her eyelids. She could make balloon animals.

I also can twist-tie balloons. I can. But I don’t like to. Occasionally, my mom would take me to events to help her out. Pumpkin adorned hallways for the Halloween festival; purple and white classrooms at the high school; and parades under the sweltering sun; I was there, helping my mom. I was there so she wouldn’t get overloaded with children begging for balloons, but it wouldn’t matter. I’d ask them what they wanted me to tie, and they’d say, “No thanks, I’ll wait for the real clown.”

Sometimes when people find out about my mom, they say, “Oh, I don’t want to go to your house. Clowns are scary!” I never understood the fear of clowns. I blame Stephen King for this irrational phobia and I usually force these people to meet my mo. They’re nervous at first, but the sight of animals coming to life out of colorful balloons, jump-roping on a unicycle, and my mom’s magic tricks usually bring them around. The free cotton candy doesn’t hurt either.

If you think this sounds exciting, you should be around for Christmas. Hire my mom and dad to your party as Mr. and Mrs. Claus. She’s the only accordion-playing Mrs. Claus I’ve ever seen.