mystic_savage

Assignment:  A deep-sea diver brings his work home with him. Done in the style of Agatha Christie.

It was 7:00 in the evening, a time that the inhabitants of Louisiana call "moss time".   Long strands of green reached through the dusk to whisper across Maybelann's cheek as she tottered her way across the back yard to the porch.  Crickets had given way to the deeper buzzing sounds of oncoming night. 

The thump of her cane sounded loudly across the raised porch.  Maybelann used the sound to warn away snakes as she cast an interested eye over the curtains framing her back door.  Something dripped from the corner of the yellow gingham; something green and ominous.  She did not grimace.  There was no disgust in Maybelann, she simply did not like dripping green things.  She opened the door to the kitchen and screwed up her rheumy eyes to look about her.

The warped cabinet door on the eastern wall hung open, revealing a missing Kerr's jar.  The kitchen sink was empty and dry.  Water and mud streaked the white and yellow linoleum of the floor she'd scrubbed that morning.  Maybelann cautiously maneuvered the slippery spaces as she made her way to the living room.  She would prefer to use lady-like tones and avoid foul language, but she had learned long ago that in this native, wild land, only savage talk could be heard.

"God-dang it Horace!"  She yelled.  "I done told you and told you to clean up after yourself!"

( Here goes nothing )

Announcer:  Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Johnson's Wax Radio Theater as we present The Beasleys!

 <applause>

 Announcer:  Tonight:  Horace and Madge Beasley have a meeting with Billy Boy's teacher, Mrs. Crabtree.

 Audience:  Ooooooo.

 SFX:  footsteps across a wooden floor, followed by rustling of papers

 Mrs. Crabtree:  Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, please come in and have a seat.
Horace:  I have a seat right here.

Madge: <tittering> Oh Horace, you're awful.

 SFX:  rustling and scraping of chair against floor

 Mrs. Crabtree:  I hope you don't mind.  I've called you here to talk about Billy Boy--

 Horace:  That's my boy!

 Mrs: Crabtree:  Yes.  And he seems to have uh, a problem--

 Madge:  He's always been terribly shy--

 Horace:  Right.  <snorts>.  If S is for Sporting, H is for Handsome and Y is for Youthfully Bright, that's our Billy Boy!
<audience laughter>

 Mrs. Crabtree: Yes, well, shyness isn't exactly the trouble.  I'm not quite sure how to put this--

Horace:  Straight up with a side of whiskey's always nice.
<audience laughter>

 Madge: <tittering> Oh Horace, you're awful!

 Mrs. Crabtree:  It's that he's--

 Madge:  He's always been a little afraid of girls.  And he gets tongue-tied and stutters.  I don't think he's ever--

 Horace:  Now, Madge.  Anyone would have been afraid of that tomboy Janie Nolan.  Especially after she landed that punch on Billy Boy's shoulder. 

 Madge:  He was sore for a week.

Horace:  But I don't think he's that afraid of girls.  After all, he's my boy!

 Madge:  <titters>
<audience laughter>

 Mrs. Crabtree:  Well, no.  See, girls aren't the problem.  The problem is that he's taken to--

 Horace:  Practical jokes, I'll bet.  Why, when I was his age there was no end to the pranks I'd come up with.  Remember Madge?  When Lester Snorton and I found that slingshot--

 Madge:  Don't remind me. 

 Mrs. Crabtree:  Well, no, it isn't practical jokes.  It's that, when I'm trying to teach something, he--

 Horace:  I'll bet you're a heckuva teacher, Mrs. Crabtree.

 Madge:  I'm sure Mrs. Crabtree doesn't want to know--

 Horace:  I mean, I bet you get a lot of apples, heh heh.

 Madge:  Horace.

 Horace:  What with them apples…
<audience laughter>

 Madge:  Oh, you're just awful.

Mrs. Crabtree:  Mr. and Mrs. Beasley, please.  Billy Boy isn't pulling practical jokes, he doesn't have a problem talking to girls, and he isn't particularly shy -- I just wanted to tell you--

Horace:  Then why are we here?

 Mrs. Crabtree:  You're here because --

 Madge:  He's really such a good boy, our Billy Boy.  I don't know why you would have a problem with him.

 Mrs. Crabtree:  Because--

 Horace:  It isn't like he's backwards or anything?

 Mrs. Crabtree:  No!
Horace:  So what's the problem?

 Mrs. Crabtree: Because I can't get a word in edgewise!

 Madge:  <gasps>

 Mrs. Crabtree:  Every time I'm up at the board and trying to talk to the class, Billy Boy--

 Horace:  --interrupts? Heh heh.

 Madge:  <tittering> Oh Horace, you're awful.
<audience laughter>

<music>

 Announcer:  Join us next week on Johnson's Wax Radio Theater with the Beasleys, when we find out what Billy Boy's actually been doing with that troublemaker Timmy behind the old clubhouse.

<applause>

 

 

 

The lemon cucumbers looked especially good today.  She reached a gnarled hand slowly toward the display and cradled one round, spiny vegetable in her palm, drawing it into her cart.  It had been a long time since she'd had a cucumber sandwich, and longer still since she'd had one with a touch of the spicy cranberry jelly that he'd introduced to her.  Holding on to the handle of the cart, she moved slowly up toward the end of the produce aisle.  Her feet, as always, ached and she had to move slowly, stretching now and then in a futile attempt to ameliorate the pain shooting from her hip to her knee.  She liked to imagine that she still had some grace.  Everything is a dance, she remembered him saying back in the days before Martha Graham was a household name, before the Alexander Technique became just another module in a student's schedule.  Everything is a dance.  And even now, decades later, she was mindful, knew where her feet was and could feel the floor through them, knew the hum of theater in the people around her.  She no longer leaped across half a stage from one partner to another, but she danced with every iota of her being, with her fingers, now feathering across the fennel, with her cart as she moved to let a younger woman pass.

Posted via email from mysticsavage's posterous

When I was in college I became a fan. A huge FAN. A scary, stalkery, hanging-out-at-the-band's house stoned kind of fan of a band called Heend. Fortunately, the band was this group of three guys who were all a little, I don't know, better than other people. The kind of people I hang with regularly now, for example. These guys, particularly Adrian and Andrew, were maybe the first people I'd met who were actually more creative than I was...more off-the-wall in their thinking, for sure, and putting the work out there in a risky way. Heend would do these shows called "Juggler's Challenge" shows, when they would play any instrument in any key or time or riff on anything that the audience could suggest. One night, for example, someone challenged them to jam in 13/7 time. And they pulled it off. I don't remember them pulling it off particularly well that night, but that challenge became a song they called "Prime". People would shout out key changes, themes, ask for specific kinds of songs, and the band was so tight they could do it. Mostly pretty damn well.

One of the guys in the band--Andrew--still plays in various musical ensembles, and from time to time they do Juggler's Challenge revival shows at Mr. Spot's chai house in Ballard. More about those here. So:  time went on.  We left college.  Terry left the band to do his own thing up in northland; Adrian moved to Portland, and Andrew and Tina became a couple of my closest post-college friends for that first decade out of school.  They now live in West Seattle about a mile from me, and once in awhile if I see Andrew downtown at a bus stop, I can get on his bus and ride out to his house and visit their wonderful tiny baby daughter and eat sandwiches with them at the Husky deli and then they'll drive me home.  Well, ok, I did that once this year.  The point being that I'm not a huge scary stalkery hanging-out-at-the-band's house stoned kind of fan anymore.  But I still love the idea of juggler's challenge shows, which is why I'm issuing a similar challenge here:

throw me some balls to juggle in my writing.  or drawing.  (one caveat: that it be something I can do in 20-30 minutes).

give me a theme.  or three words or phrases that you think will trip me up.  tell me you want me to write a haiku about your special fandom, or a country song in which Spike proclaims his love to Harry Potter.  Ask me for a paragraph about a 65 year old diabetic cop in Phoenix or a pencil drawing of my childhood home, or a story about one of my latest sexcapades done in 1950's bodice ripping romance writer language.  I'm curious and eager to meet these challenges....so bring it on, babies.  Let's go!