Thursday February 2 2006
I was swimming in my lane yesterday, pool was practically empty on such chilly morning, when Alice arrived, just the girl I wanted to see. “Alice” I said “I want to ask your advice about something.”
My friend Gina from internet sent me email asking me to buy her a silver and malachite pendant to go on a necklace, she will reimburse me. So when I saw Alice yesterday I said “my friend Gina wants a pendant which is malachite and silver.” Alice said “the gem show is in town, I will look for malachite and silver pendant for your friend.” She said the girl who made my necklace has been her friend for 30 years, she is an Indian and married to our State Senator. Alice said she used to make jewelry and she likes her own jewelry even better than her friend's.
And then without missing a beat, somehow what went on was the story of Alice’s whole life. No writer on earth could reproduce what Alice told me as we swam back and forth in the lanes. And she did not tell it in an orderly way. Apparently there were two main chapters but she kept saying one detail from one chapter and another detail from another chapter.
The first chapter, she was married to sound engineer in New York City. The sound studio was behind Lincoln Center. Alice thought it was owned by a famous singer, but someone told her it was really owned by Tammy who Alice never met. And Alice is outraged now that she heard Tammy is living as bag woman in Central Park. She thinks the sound studio was stolen from Tammy. All the stories of the sound studio era involve millions, mayhem, and even violence. Cars going after cars when they went to Jamaica, and her neck got broken. She and her husband broke up but they had a beautiful son together. Alice said she worked on 4 songs which were on the Hit Parade.
The next chapter is 25 years living in the Yucatan where she was kidnapped by a big Indian Chief and became his wife. Altho he was such a big Indian Chief, Alice was not his only wife, which was what upset her. They had beautiful son together too. Living with the Indians in the Yucatan is where Alice learned to speak Indian, to weave, and to make her own jewelry. She said she likes to be creative. “Most people want stones which are dull color and match, who wants that! it looks like string of pearls, I like vivid colors and odd shapes for stones.”
As far as I can make out there was violence in the Yucatan too. She got robbed there. She said “in Mexico if you yell out ‘help’ no one will come, but if you yell out ‘vagina’ everyone will come.” That tickled my funny bone. “Thanks for the useful info Alice, I will remember that when I get to Mexico, yell out vagina when I want help.” But she didn’t get my joke. She said how she had met an Indian there and he said “your vagina needs help, let me examine it.” That is what led her to explain how yelling out vagina is the way to get help in Mexico. She got concerned when I said “now I know what to do when I get to Mexico.” She said “you don’t know how handsome those Indians are, it is unbelievable, but they are Romeos, they will break your heart, you will be taken in by them.” I wasn’t worried about being taken in by handsome Indian Romeos, I have my Higher Self plus I am happy with Bill.
After long tales of mayhem and violence things began to settle down when she began to talk about raising her two sons. It sounds like she had a happy home with them even tho neither husband helped out. The son of the Yucatan Indian Chief lives in Tucson and is straight as anyone can be, wears designer clothes, drives a designer sports car, is married and has two kids. The son of the sound engineer lives in NYC. “His girlfriend is Puerto Rican but she won’t pick up her clothes or cook meals or clean the house.” “She sounds like me” I said to Alice, and Alice was shocked I am like that.
She can’t figure out why the son of the Indian Chief is such a neat freak. “I never raised my sons like that, we had happy relaxed home, he has one of those empty houses where everything is put away out of sight.” She said because she raised both sons without a father in the home they each think they are her father. When she told her New York son yesterday she put in the concrete to make a driveway, she got scolded. “Concrete attracts damp, mother, and beside you’re not supposed to be working with concrete.” “What damp!” she said to me, “we live on the desert, it is dry as a bone here.”
By now we were moving into normal life. Alice confided she watches television now. “I never watched television before” she said, “I don’t know what is happening to me.” “I like science fiction” she said. “I like ‘Matlock’ and ‘Murder She Wrote’” I said. And then Alice talked about the TV shows she watches. Alice confided she is looking for a boyfriend but wonders if she has a chance at 62. I said “Alice, my friend Helen who lives in Hawaii who has a solution to everything told me this.”
And to my shock, Alice, who had been lost for a solid hour in mayhem and violence and vagina and being kidnapped by big Indian chiefs in the Yucatan jungle, moved very close to me to hear every word about what my friend Helen said about finding a boyfriend when you are 62. I told Alice I had told my friend Helen I was extremely upset to notice that the woman Bush chose for the Supreme Court had lost all her prettiness and she was my age. And Helen said, “Anne last night ‘Hillside Blues’ was on, it was a rerun. The young man was arrested for stealing his aunt’s money. The young man said ‘why am I arrested, my 62 year old aunt has men in the house all the time, she put up a personal ad saying, if you want great sex call me up, the result is there are men in the house all the time, go ask them if they took her money.’ So the handsome young detective went to interview the aunt, then he had an affair with her, and then he married her.”
Alice was immensely relieved and happy to hear that. She said “I do go out with young men all the time but they grab my ass and my breasts and I don’t like that.” I said “there is no reason why they can’t behave like gentlemen, wait till you find the right guy.” “But I don’t like to go to bars” she said. “You never find anyone in a bar” I said. “I come here to the club and I haven’t met anyone here I like.” “Just be patient” I said. She said “I have no experience in picking the right man.”
I said “where did you grow up Alice?” She said “New York.” I said “I am from New York too, which part?” She said “our sound stage was right behind Lincoln Center.” I said “which part of New York did you grow up in, which high school did you go to?” She said “I was born in Syracuse.” I said “my mom came from Rochester.” She said “my grandfather had a department store there but it went out of business.” She said “my dad was Mayor.” “Mayor of what?” I asked. “Mayor of Syracuse and Rochester” and she named another town.
I said to Bill in the car “does Alice exaggerate?” “Why?” he said. “She said her dad was mayor of Syracuse and two other towns, you can’t be mayor of 3 towns all at once.” “Maybe it wasn’t all at once” he said.
“She said she did a 1000 hours of work for free for a man on his film at Tucson Access Studio and when she asked him to get her a container of coffee he said ‘I don’t owe you anything bitch,’ and she was so upset she went outside to have a cigarette. She said ‘don’t tell Bill I had a cigarette, he disapproves of smoking.’ I said ‘my Bill?’ she said ‘yes.’ I said ‘but I smoke a lot of cigarettes, when Bill wants a cigarette he comes to me, he only smokes 3 or 4, but I am internet addict and smoke all the time on the computer.’ She said ‘I didn’t know you smoked cigarettes Anne, OK I will admit to you I went outside and had a cigarette.’”
I said to Bill “I didn’t know you were one of those people who tell people to give up cigs when they admit they smoke cigs.” Bill went apoplectic in the car. “I never once mentioned cigarettes to Alice in the steam room. Where did she get that idea? Maybe she meant the other Bill, but the other Bill smokes cigars all the time and besides he isn’t like that. There is another Bill from New York City, he doesn’t like smoke, maybe Alice means him.”
Bill was so upset at hearing Alice said he disapproved of smoking and tries to make people stop, that he lost interest in whether Alice’s dad really was mayor of 3 cities. He kept returning to the smoking topic, trying to figure out where Alice got the idea. I was going to tell him Alice said if I ever need help in Mexico just yell out vagina, but Bill is Catholic, Catholics never find sex funny.
Afternoon at Alice's House
April 6 2005 Thursday
Alice got offered to do a series of shows on Access TV Tucson. First she planned to do it on bands, she had worked in the music business back in NYC, and she began asking the guys at our club if they had a band. Then she decided to switch it to women. So I told her I write short stories, but I don’t want to be on TV, I want someone else to read them. And Alice said fine.
When Ruthie was swimming in next lane from me I asked Ruthie if she would be willing to read my stories on Alice’s TV show. Ruthie said she loves to read out loud and she would be happy to do it, so I was overjoyed.
Ruthie works full time and the date which Alice had rented the studio at Access, Saturday, was the day Ruthie was helping her friend with huge yard sale. So we decided we would all go to Alice’s house on the previous Saturday, which was last Saturday, and Alice said she would ask her friend Roy to work the camera. Roy has his own show with Access, “The Roy Show,” but they take turns working the camera for each other. So Alice gave me and Ruthie instructions on how to get to her house.
Tucson is an odd town. Because you drive practically to Tucson Mall, which is the busiest part of all of Tucson, but before you get there, you make a right, and then another right, and then follow a dirt road till the end, and there is Alice’s house. And it is like a little house in the country. Completely quiet there, with doves and quail in her backyard. And a hawk who hangs around, and marches himself into Alice’s house and preens his feathers for her. Alice’s house is not like a suburban house, it is like a little house someone built themselves a long long time ago. And it is in an old part of Tucson, it was there way before the Tucson Mall was there, and way before Tucson had turned into thriving metropolis. It is also near Oracle Road because Oracle used to be the main drag back then, it is still is, which is why it is the busiest part of Tucson.
I didn’t see all of Alice’s house. I saw the little living room and the little kitchen. And next door to it, she had built a studio. When we arrived (Bill drove) we went into the living room, where Alice’s paintings in frames were wall-to-wall up on living room. They are great paintings with beautiful color. In a huge white gallery with enough space to set off each painting, it would be thrilling sight. Bill came in for just a few minutes and was excited to see her paintings. He did not stay. Two basketball championship games were on back-to-back that afternoon, and he was going to watch them at our swim club.
Roy was sitting and smoking a cigarette on chair by the couch. He looked like very nice man. So I lit a cigarette and sat down next to him. Ruthie rushed out of the room then because she said she is one of those people who doesn’t like smoke. Roy said “tell me about the story Ruthie is going to read.” And I said “it is an experience of mine.” When I said that, his eyes glazed over. But there was no way to describe the story, and beside he was going to hear it when Ruthie read it.
So Roy played two shows for us he did (two episodes of “The Roy Show”) so we could see what access shows look like. In the first one a woman dressed up in clothes she thought Emily Dickinson would wear and enacted a poem by Emily Dickinson. She didn’t read it from a page, she stood up and dramatized it. I found it very interesting. I know nothing at all about Emily Dickinson and was surprised to discover she was a bitch. Maybe that is too strong a word. As far as I could make out Emily was saying how much she enjoys freaking out the neighbors. I applauded when it was over, it was dramatic and held my interest.
The next show was Roy reading article from Tucson newspaper about a murder. Apparently a doctor who had 17 girlfriends was stabbed 13 times. The Medical Examiner could not determine when it was done within a 24 hour period. But the Prosecuting Attorney, who had someone on trial, insisted it was done during the one hour period he had the person on trial for. It appeared to have happened in a restaurant. It was quite confusing. It was Roy and Alice sitting at a table discussing it. And Alice pointed out “how did he know it took place during that one hour period.” I applauded when that show was over because it was so much fun watching Alice poke all those holes in the DA’s case.
Then we went into Alice’s studio where Ruthie was going to read my story. It began with Ruthie and Alice sitting together and talking, but each time it started Roy stopped the camera and said “move an inch to the right.” So each time they built up a head of steam, it was stopped. Finally Roy decided he got it right, but by then they just said two sentences to each other, and Alice stepped out of the frame and Ruthie read the story.
She did an OK job. It is hard when someone doesn’t know the story. As a writer you put in a lot of teeny details just to flesh it out. They are actually irrelevant but are what bring a story to life. Ruthie gave a lot of emphasis to all these teeny details, and they were meaningless. And some parts which had meaning, she didn’t get, so the meaning didn’t come across. But it was OK job. I felt if I wasn’t willing to do it myself, and Ruthie was willing to do it, that I was grateful Ruthie did it. And there were moments when the story did go along fine. “Good job, Ruthie” I said, and I meant it. I thought she did fine job. Both Alice and Roy were totally dismayed, and said “Ruthie, you better look at it, and see it for yourself.” Ruthie assumed she had done a terrible job. She said “I never saw myself on TV.” And she sat in front of the screen and looked at it. When it was over she said “I like it, I think I did fine.” She was surprised but I knew she had done fine job. So they said “do it again Ruthie, but this time don’t drop your voice so often.” I thought that was good direction. Dropping her voice didn’t work, it took energy out of the story. Ruthie said “Oh good! Direction! I want direction!”
So Ruthie did it again. Roy’s cellphone rang in middle. It was just 5 musical notes, but he had her do that whole part again. And when it was over I realized Ruthie had left out one part which changed the meaning of what came next. And I would have liked that part to be done again. But Roy said “the light has changed, and there is not enough film left.”
So the 3 of them got stoned on pot. And got into an hour long argument. I think Roy did not like it that the two women were talking to each other and ignoring him. Because as soon as he finished putting his camera away he said something very inflammatory. He said “Alice left the country and lived in Mexico for 25 years and then came back and she should not have been allowed back and had her citizenship taken away from her. Because for 25 years all her productive work had gone to Mexico not to USA.”
I thought the idea was ludicrous, and especially senseless since clearly Roy and Alice are friends and collaborate together. How can Roy say Alice should not have been allowed to return home when he enjoys collaborating with Alice artistically now. He is saying something he does not mean. But both girls really went for it. They got in passionate argument and their feelings got involved. After that all Roy did was land more incendiary bombs, and the girls went for it like a shot. And by the time we went in to eat, Ruthie refused to talk to Roy.
We sat at Alice’s round table in kitchen, even tho it had been so nice sitting outside her studio on steps in sunshine as Sun was going down. It was totally nice sitting there under the sky except for the senseless argument going on around me. Alice’s house was like those tenement apartments back in East Village in Manhattan. Maybe that is why it felt so comfortable and familiar. Her house is very homey. We sat at round table in her kitchen and ate Alice’s delicious food and fresh arguments started up again. And then Ruthie drove me back to the club where I was to meet Bill.
In the car ride back to club, Ruthie had a lot to say about Roy. I think Roy was attracted to Ruthie, and Ruthie said she had made it clear to him she was not interested. I had found it funny that Roy had joined Access TV because his friends had told him it was a way to meet hot young babes. Roy is 44. But clearly Roy would never have carried on this way with both Alice and Ruthie (who are my age) if he didn’t want both of them. And when Ruthie had said something about Janey coming, Roy was on it like a flash. “Who is Janey? Why didn’t you bring Janey!” Seems to me Roy likes Alice, he likes her friend Ruthie, and he wanted Ruthie’s friend Janey to meet too.
The next day I got phone call from Alice saying Roy had acted so obnoxious after we left she had to send him home. And also he told her if she doesn’t have sex with him, he won’t give her the videotape he made of Ruthie’s reading, and she had said “I am not a whore.”
So now we all have to meet Friday at the TV studio and do it again. Even tho Ruthie only has 20 minutes because it is her lunch hour.
No comments:
Post a Comment