Aaron and Joanna are sleeping in their bed. 

AARON: I want to change sides.

JOANNA (half asleep): What?

AARON: I like to go back to your side. Like we were before I got sick. 

They get up and change sides.

AARON: Thanks. I feel safer on this side, like I did before I was sick.

JOANNA: Sure. You need to go to sleep.

AARON: I can’t. I’m afraid I somehow survived death, was on the road to getting better than the world ended around me.

JOANNA: It didn’t end. As always, the world has bad timing.

AARON: I can’t believe I made it back from kidney failure only to get possibly whacked by a virus.

JOANNA: There are a million stories just like yours. Some better, some worse. I love you and I’m here for you and it’ll be okay. Try and sleep. 

AARON: Thanks. 

JOANNA: Good night.

AARON: I think I want to go back to the other side.

JOANNA: I may need to isolate you to the living room.



Dan Farren is a writer living in California.

JACK: When it's over, and it will be over, I'll walk down the street, spot a stranger, and I'll kiss him. Right on the mouth.

KENYA: Too far.

JACK: A bear hug, a big manly bear hug.

KENYA: No.

JACK: It's going to be different. People will have a new appreciation for things. Going to see yet another Fast and Furious sequel, just for the pleasure of being in a movie theater. Sharing a Bloomin' Onion at Outback Seakhouse. Dozens of children splashing in a pool - "Marco!" "Polo!" Do they still play Marco Polo?

KENYA: People will be more suspicious. They don't know who to trust, they'll worry it will come back.

JACK: We learn from our mistakes. We'll get through this. The stranger on the street, I'll shake his hand.

(He extends his hand. She does the same, but their hands don't touch)



Ann Lewis Hamilton is a writer living in California.

Coronavirus

My helmet is a snug fit even after 30 years
My bike is a soft tail custom, heavy in the custom
I miss my old shovelhead.
 
The streets have thinned out, not many people around
I love it, got the road for the most part all to myself
And the weather is perfect for a ride
The coronavirus at least in this little town has forced most hide inside.
 
But I’m in the wind with a full throttle smile
Listen outside your window and you’ll hear my Thunder Header roar for a good country mile
Chasing the wind and passing the virus, keeping it all in tune
Ain’t nobody’s going to stand in my way and no virus is going to ruin this day.
 
They say thousands have died and more on the way
I don’t believe it
I’ve got the sun on my back and the wind in between my knees
I’m a full throttle junkie with a smile on my face.
 
There is no virus that can ruin my day.

•

Virus

One more breath, one more taste of the ocean’s salty air
Gazing thru the mornings blindness to see all who come in prayer
The Coronavirus lingers silently taking lives here and there
Taking life and hiding love, leaving tides of tears to crash against the ocean’s floor.
 
Who has seen the evening mist coming in with warm and loving smiles
Those who know the beginning will surly see the end and the cries across many miles
Asking for just one more breath, one last taste of the ocean’s salty air
Many have come to gather in a place to see the smiles of a love that is there to be shared.
 
Some will walk the miles and find Coronavirus in their fears
Waiting for one last breath and a taste of ocean air, one more chance to stand in tides
And watch as tears crash against the ocean floor waiting for a virus to die.
 
Some will see the sunshine burning over the ocean floor
Who will take that step and reach inside where coronavirus  comes to hide
Now Lift the life of all that has been created to a place so high
And use a quiet moment to remove this virus from our lives  

•

A Symphony

Pictures crying for redemption are hanging on a wall of silence
And just outside the window you can see the Zeppelin slowly pass
Faces in the clouds look down on a world that moves so fast
And the colors that bring the rain come down like a symphony that is stealing time.
 
Mother says not to talk like that, she has heard that song before.
 
The puzzle comes together on a sleepy Nordic night showing its final thought to hungry eyes
And words that drift quietly across the wall of silence in the chill of this winter night
move with no direction other than to seek the colors of a symphony taken by time
Now given to flight, and the rain falls like song to sing mother’s loving mind to rest.
Everything is going to be alright.
 
And in the end our words will sing to the rain and find the hungry eyes that long to see the faces in the clouds
All the colors that make the rain will listen to a symphony of sight and sound
All knowing mother has heard this song before

•

Coronavirus II

The dawn has settled into a pleasant cool night
It brings a crisp chill that touches the body senses
Disguising itself as beautiful winter morning it slowly brings the pain
It slowly brings the pain.
 
This story has been told over 400 years ago
But back then nobody ever grew old
Only in song was the message carried on
Ring around the rosy a pocket full of posies, ashes ashes and you know the rest .
 
Ask me if I believe it and tell you no lies
But let me ask you if you truly see it with your hungry eyes
Someone said it’s airborne, they say that some have died
Let’s open a book and see the other side.
 
The thought of truth is a winter morning that chills you to the bone
But soon the sun will rise and the airborne virus will die
And soon this message will be all that carries on
Ring around the rosy a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes , where did it go…..



Jeff Nesvig is a writer living in Florida.

It was on a summer afternoon in 1956 when Duncan Hess, Jr., known since birth as “Chip” to avoid confusion with his father, had the first true epiphany of his young life. It did not occur on the road to Damascus, but in The Calderone Theatre located at 145 North Franklin Street in Hempstead on Long Island.

Duncan had, as on many occasions, waited for the N-25 bus in front of the Wheatley Hills Pharmacy at the corner of Post and Drexel near his home, and rode it to the terminal in Hempstead. This was an era when unaccompanied children were allowed to do things such as ride buses to nearby communities.

In Hempstead, Duncan Hess, Jr. walked the two blocks along West Columbia Street to North Franklin, bought a thirty-five cent bargain matinee ticket and entered the tremendous lobby of the theater. The muggy heat of this particular Saturday afternoon had plastered Duncan’s shirt to his back on the short walk from the terminal, but the air conditioning of the theater forced him to put on his windbreaker.

The Calderone Theater was massive. Standing in its lobby was like standing at the bottom of a massive cavern, gold distressed mirrors soaring up on all sides. The auditorium contained more than twenty-five-hundred plush red seats, unoccupied that Saturday except for fifty or so people scattered about the great hall. People who had, in many cases, come in for the air conditioning more than the show.

Duncan Hess, Jr., however, was there for the show. At least half of the show. It was a Saturday double-bill of two pictures that played out a couple of years earlier and were coming back for a bargain matinee.

Duncan selected a seat in the middle of the orchestra, in row F.

Duncan’s purpose for being in The Calderone Theater was to see Diablo Ridge with Randolph Scott. Cinemascope. Color by DeLuxe. A western about a bunch of outlaws taking over a stage coach stop in Arizona, there to wait for a government shipment of gold headed for San Francisco.

While many of his friends preferred John Wayne, Duncan was an unapologetic Randolph Scott fan. Wayne, to Duncan, always seemed to be putting on a show, pretending. But Scott looked like he took things personally. You believed the way he shot. You believed the way he rode. You believe he came by all those wrinkles and creases honestly. In the sun. On the range. You could depend on Randolph Scott. He wouldn’t let you down. He’d get you through.

And on more than one occasion, Duncan Hess, Jr. needed someone to get him through what he thought of as the rough parts of life. Points of indecision and questioning, of not knowing why people said one thing one minute and something all the other way around the next. All sorts of people. Even your Dad.

Duncan Hess, Jr. had come to The Calderone for clarity and respite. He knew he could depend on Randolph Scott. What Duncan could not know was that there was a barrier he would have to negotiate to reach the prairie and his hero.

Duncan had to get through the first feature on the double-bill. It was a musical. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. With Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

Duncan was a western fan. He liked the understandability of westerns, especially since the increased use of color and the introduction of CinemaScope (The Screen Miracle You Don’t Need Glasses to See!). Horizon after horizon filled with good men and bad men and weak men who, under the proper circumstance, could redeem themselves, even if that redemption came at the cost of their lives.

The plots were as simple as Bible stories, but with the added advantage of having horses and gunplay.

At that moment in time, Duncan Hess, Jr. had never seen Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell in a movie.

The lights went down, the red velvet curtains parted, and the movie began with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in identical dresses singing and dancing. Not so much dancing as parading. Then there were credits, then it went back to them singing and marching and then they showed you weren’t watching them in a movie but in a night club. If a movie doesn’t know where it is and when it’s starting, that’s not a good sign.

The story of the movie slipped away from Duncan Hess, Jr. What held his attention were the colors and shapes of the two women. How they moved through the air as if it was something thicker than air. Something that trailed a near transparent wake behind them.

Something about their motion disturbed Duncan for reasons he couldn’t identify. He thought about going out to the lobby to sit this picture out. But he had paid his thirty-five cents and his Dad had impressed on him how important it was not to throw money away. So, Duncan slouched down in his seat and focused on getting his seventeen and a half cents out of this part of the double bill.

It was bright and loud and didn’t make much sense to him.

Perhaps it was the lack of story, or, more properly, a story a young boy would find interesting, that left Duncan’s mind free to wander, to focus on the two female leads as people instead of characters. As shapes. Moving shapes.

This Duncan did while working on his Butterfinger bar. But soon, the candy bar in his hand was forgotten.

They were very interestingly shaped women, these two. Sometimes you’d see pictures of women like that in Life Magazine. But they were still things in those pictures. Posed like statues. Always smiling. Usually coming down stairways from recently arrived airplanes.

But here they moved. And the dynamics of their movements was something Duncan could not at first understand. Then, maybe twenty minutes into the picture, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell were on an ocean liner, walking into a fancy dining room. All the men were looking at them. Duncan saw in Jane Russell’s eyes something he didn’t at first recognize. Then he realized what it was. What he saw there was awareness.

The dresses the two women wore, elaborate, bejeweled like ceremonial armor, were molded to their breasts and hips and rears. The breasts were lifted, directed by the garments. Aimed. As if they were weapons. And Jane Russell knew you were looking at them. She knew you were looking because her clothing was designed to hug and accent, present and define. She knew why you were looking at her. She expected you to look at her. She was satisfied if you looked at her. It was a way for her to achieve some sort of advantage.

They were like exotic birds displaying their plumage. Like peacocks. But Mr. Lancaster said it was the male bird that attracts the female and has all the plumage. Somehow people got it backwards. How had that happen? And why?

The shapes and movements of the women took up residence in Duncan’s mind. As if there’d always been space for them in his head, waiting for them to arrive and move in.

Nothing like this had ever happened to Duncan before. The closest thing to it was the moment he finally mastered long division. The numbers were always there, but it was such a labor to sort them out and put them in sensible columns. The whole concept of remainders had thrown him for a loop. Then, one afternoon, sitting at the kitchen table, it opened for him like Ali Baba’s cave. Nothing had changed, but everything was different.

Now, there was Marilyn Monroe wearing a brown plaid dress that looked like something that had been applied to her body with adhesives as opposed to something she stepped into and zipped up the back.

Duncan Hess, Jr. couldn’t grasp the meaning, but he knew there was meaning there.

The movie rolled on. There were apparently mirthful hijinks and shenanigans, or so Duncan assumed from the isolated pockets of occasional laughter around him in the cool auditorium. Including one particularly happy male patron who represented the otherwise unoccupied balcony behind and above Duncan.

More music, different dresses, all of that particularly adhesive nature, misinterpreted motives, impersonations, declarations, mistaken identity, then more loud music, a choir, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in white gowns and then “The End” superimposed over everything.

The curtains closed across the screen. Duncan was close enough to hear the machinery and the rattling of metal rings. It sounded like a cell door closing. The house lights came on.

Duncan was seized by an irrational urge to flee the theater, abandoning the second half of his thirty-five cents.

Why? He couldn’t say.

The movie felt like one of those bad dreams. Not a nightmare with monsters, but one of those dreams where nothing seems wrong, but you know something is broken, something is about to spin out of control.

Duncan held onto the plush arm rests and tapped down the feeling as best he could. Then he thought of Randolph Scott waiting in the wings and how he was only an intermission away from getting the kind of common sense that would put everything back in its proper place.

Duncan Hess, Jr. went into the lobby and bought a Crunch bar to settle his nerves. He’d dropped the unfinished Butterfinger at some point in the first feature, lost in the curves that moved with voluptuous precision on the screen looming over him.

“Chip” Hess sat down on a bench near the broad staircase, carpeted in dark red with regiments of gold fleur-de-lis, that curved up to the balcony.

The lobby seemed to have grown larger during the first feature. The ceiling appeared higher, retreating into a darkness in which a multi-tiered chandelier ringed with honey-colored lightbulbs shaped like frozen candle flames, seemed to float, unsupported, at the edge of the void.

All the walls had been pushed back, Distances had expanded in a most disorienting fashion. Duncan began to wonder if it wasn’t the theater that had enlarged. Did it stay the same size while he diminished, grew dangerously smaller?

But the soles of his Keds still reached the floor. The candy bar in his hand was the correct dimensions for a candy bar.

Maybe he was coming down with something.

Maybe the humid summer heat mixed with the refrigerated air in the movie theater had given him a chill. Like the chill when he focused on Jane Russell.

Duncan sat there, in the dim yellow light of the popcorn machine as the high school girl who worked the counter scooped popped kernels into paper bags, and thought about the two women in the movie.

The girls Duncan knew were all pretty much like the pair he saw now at the candy counter buying Shoe-strings and Chuckles. Girls in that place between childhood and someplace else. Cotton summer dresses, bare legs, one girl wearing sneakers, the other in loafers, both wearing white socks. Under the dresses Duncan could detect no clue or promise of the potential for anything remotely resembling the astonishing topography of the woman in the movie.

But women were once girls. So, somewhere in those two girls, one with her straw colored hair pulled back in a ponytail, the other with dark bangs and red plastic barrettes, there must be the seed of those curves, that motion.

The girls skipped away from the counter, moving toward the massive, leather-padded doors guarding the auditorium. Duncan squinted after them, trying to imagine their narrow hips taking on the gravity and rhythm he had recently seen moving across a soundstage Parisian street.

As much as he tried, Duncan could not make the evolutionary connection in his brain. The women in the movie seemed less like the mature versions of the girls he knew from school and more like an entirely different species.

A fanfare from the open doors to the auditorium announced the arrival of the Previews of Coming Attractions.

Duncan rose from the bench, entered the theater and, by the light of Abbott and Costello encountering a mummy, found his way back to his seat in the sixth row.

Two more previews folded into each other. One about juvenile delinquents, the other about a nun in the African jungle. Then the curtains closed and immediately opened again, this time wider than for the first feature. They rolled back as far as they could go and the screen was filled with the words…

Presented in
C I N E M A S C O P E

…from one side of the the theater to the other.

The words faded, revealing a broad river with stretches of shallow stoney bank. A lone rider came around a bend in the river and approached us, his horse kicking up spray that was backlit by the afternoon sun, spreading droplets turned to diamonds.

Duncan Hess, Jr. felt himself relaxing. He felt the tightness he’d been unaware of loosen its grip on his chest.

Randolph Scott rode into his close-up and pulled at the reins of his horse. He looked out, beyond the camera, eyes not much more that slits in a face that was entitled to every hard won wrinkle, line, and crease.

Then the name: RANDOLPH SCOTT, superimposed across his chest, as if anyone in the audience could have mistaken him for someone else.

The name faded, and Randolph Scott rode out of the shot. Next there was a view of a wide mesa under a sky of fired blue enamel. The horseman rode on, his horse kicking up a cockscomb of mustard colored dust. There was music under the credits. Better music than in the first movie. This music was soaring, respectful, heroic. Like some kind of anthem. Not music about love or jewelry, but music about greatness and honesty and not being afraid to be afraid and doing the right thing even though you’re scared.

Randolph Scott continued to ride across the landscape. No, he didn’t ride through it, he was part of it. It’s where he belonged, where things made sense.

We rode on after the credits as the music softened. Up ahead, nestled in the shade of a valley, there was a ranch house and barn surrounded by a wooden fence. Randolph Scott paused at the open gate and looked at the buildings. This close it was clear they were in disrepair. They needed paint and patching, the yard had gone to weed. The spread was abandoned. Randolph Scott focused on the well in front of the house, a bucket creaked on its rope, nudged by the breeze.

Randolph Scott rode through the gate and up to the well. He got off his horse, went to the well and dropped the bucket into the darkness. A moment and the bucket landed in water. The sound made Randolph Scott smile. He cranked up the bucket and drank from it. Then he turned and offered the bucket to his horse. The horse drank. Randolph Scott’s smile increased.

Then there was the sound of someone cocking a Winchester pump action rifle. Randolph Scott’s smile faded.

Slowly, Randolph Scott turned and looked toward the barn. Standing against the blackness beyond the open door was a woman, pointing the rifle at him.

She wore a blue gingham dress, all bustled and gathered, like the thick fabric of the curtains that guarded the screen of the theater. But at her waist, the garment contracted around her. It held to her shape with the same adhesive delineation of the costumes from the other movie. Fabric-covered buttons somehow managed to contain the bodice across a bosom as dramatic as that presented by Marilyn and Jane.

Something had happened in the projection booth. The two movies had gotten mixed up somehow. But the woman with the upraised rifle was in the same wide Cinemascope frame that held Randolph Scott, so it must have been the same picture. Nothing had changed, but everything was different.

Duncan Hess, Jr. focused on Randolph Scott who seemed unperturbed by the shape of the woman in front of him. He spoke calmingly to her, asking her to lower the rifle. She ordered him off her land, but he stood his ground.

A flicker of panic ran through Duncan Hess, Jr. If the women in movies were some sort of construction, a creation, then what about the men?

There was Randolph Scott. Stalwart, flinty-eyed, the dust of the trail on this shoulders. Spread artfully across his shoulders. As if it had been carefully placed there by someone.

Duncan was suddenly aware of the edges of the frame and wondered what was being hidden just beyond his sight. The person who cinched the pioneer woman into her breathtaking gingham. Was that the same person who made sure Randolph Scott’s Colt 45 rested perfectly against his hip with just the right number of empty loops in his cartridge belt, eloquent of gunfights fought and won?

The cool rush from the theater’s air conditioning now felt to Duncan as if it was coming from the screen itself, stopping off to move perfectly choreographed tumbleweeds between Randolph Scott and the pioneer woman before touching Duncan’s hair in row F.

Sitting there in the dark, Duncan realized he’d never thought about what movies actually were. They were a thing you went to and watched and then left. Sort of like church, only much more fun and didn’t require a clip-on bow tie.

A flash of motion and Duncan Hess, Jr. focused on the screen again. Randolph Scott grabbed the barrel of the rifle and twisted the gun out of the pioneer woman’s hands. She balled her hands into fists and charged Randolph Scott who caught her by the wrists and stopped her.

And Duncan knew it would be all right. Randolph Scott would help her. He’d repair the barn and paint the ranch house and make it a working spread once again. He’d do the things we think we’d do if we were there because that’s what we saw him do once. He wasn’t confused by changing shapes and colors.

Because this wasn’t a musical. It was real. It was a western.

Duncan Hess, Jr. relaxed.

In the lobby, the girl who worked the candy counter looked at her reflection in the mirrored tiles behind the burbling soda machine, and freshened-up her lipstick.



Joseph Dougherty is a writer living in California.

Stoned and Shingrix dinged
I wonder if I have what it takes
To make the final grade before the last glide down?

The cat hears my thoughts and
Scatters herself down the hall
Claws clicking to beat all hell.

My readiness dulls the roars
That hide behind my walls
But I still hear them anyway.

Stocked and boxed and shut tight
Alone for a fortnight
I shiver awhile and then I don't.

Count now every day
But focus on what stands
Because for now, everything stays.

The notes of the last song still ring
While my ears ring in pitch and rhyme.
This may be the last one, the final big note.

But it doesn't have to stop now
Because there's always time
For one more song.



Brian Lux is a writer living in California.

Sometimes luck falls into our lap as suddenly as a raindrop on a 65-and-sunny kind of day.  Sometimes life happenings creep in slow enough for us to recognize and process that they’re coming. COVID-19 however, tumbled into most of our lives, quite clumsily. We watched it grow at a distance, denying that it would ever get too close for comfort. Why was that? Are we as Americans that naive? Was it ignorance? Perhaps it was our go, go, go attitude (the one that we’ve convinced ourselves almost unanimously as a society that we need to have) that pushed it to the back of our minds. After all, we always have something more important- more immediate to think about. 

Now, inside the walls of our own homes, we are faced with the challenge of recognizing what really matters. When we are stripped of our luxuries, stripped of our 9-to-5s, our au pair’s and our Charmin Ultra-Soft toilet paper, we find we are looking at the barest, most simple forms of ourselves, and it is quite uncomfortable. 

It forces us to ask ourselves, is how we spend our days really living, or are we just distracting ourselves from doing so? 

Under a sky full of stars, do we look up and appreciate what they offer us, or are we quick to turn a light on in the uncertainty of such a loud silence?

Such an unpredictable event as this one can leave us- and it will leave us- one of two ways: 

1. We will no longer shake hands in church. We will destroy the germy, plastic park playgrounds. We will keep the 6 ft apart stickers, stuck to the floors of the grocery stores. We will never leave the house without disinfectant.

2. We will hug our families tighter, we will constantly thank our teachers, we will continue our crafts, practicing our instruments and reading the books we picked up in quarantine. 

I encourage the second. No one in this world needs more of a reason to stand farther apart from one another. Our immune systems will continue to fight whether we want them to or not. Our hearts, on the other hand, will only listen to our conscious selves. 



Toni-ann Mattera is a writer living in California.

I’m not handling this well. That was my mantra a month ago. The beginning of the whole Pandemic-a-palooza wore me down. Then I realized that no one is handling it well. What a relief to know I could stop shouldering self-administered blame for not easily adapting to a hostile takeover by Covid-19.

Somewhere around the Ides of March, I realized we are in the midst of the World’s Biggest Mental Health Crisis.

Regardless of nationality, every day people wake up to a mental cattle prod. A reminder that nothing is normal now. “Oh, yeah, the whole damn world is on fire.” Our ringside seat is the square feet of living space in which we are isolated.” The planet needs a shrink’s couch big enough to allow a couple of billion people to lie down and discuss how this whole experience makes us feeeeel.

The kicker is that I spend very little time worrying that I will get sick. What pervades my thoughts is the fear of not being able to procure enough groceries. It’s exhausting feeling like I’m on a game show on which the grand prize package is a 12-pack of toilet paper, a can of Lysol and a dozen eggs.

I’m old enough to remember Reagan pointing out how the Russians stood in line for basics like bread and milk; something the good old U.S. of A. would never experience. Yet here we are, lining up at dawn, pitted against our neighbors to play another round of Apocalypse Supermarket Sweep.

I don’t hoard. I have the basics, although in my house that has somehow come to mean six magnum bottles of merlot and one hundred pounds of cat litter.

I’m a sensitive person. Just ask my parents (who are dead and won’t answer you). The downside of being sensitive comes in the form of excessive worrying about how others are suffering during The Virus. I battle myself daily to stop taking on the psychic pain of my fellow passengers.

I can’t emotionally afford to keep worrying about my elderly neighbors who don’t understand how to order groceries online. My teacher friends who are grieving the loss of their students and their classrooms. The parents who struggle to appear to remain calm in order to fool their children into thinking everything is OK.

I ponder if this is the End of Days. Not the biblical version, mind you, but more like Captain Trips from The Stand. If this is our dystopian end, I admit I’m kind of disappointed by the lack of zombies.

The shit icing on this viral cake is that I cannot think of a person less qualified to lead us as a nation through this than the current occupant of the White House. Not satisfied with merely being an imbecile, Trump actively works to make things more dangerous for millions of us. I’ll just leave it at that, or we’ll be here for days.

Mind you, I’m learning how to have a couple of good days in a row. For me, that means a day in which I don’t cry. I don’t wake up in the night to pee, then sit on my bed for an hour combatting racing thoughts about how long I can make a bank account already on fumes last.
This, too, shall pass. That’s what a lot of social media philosophers say. Hopefully, this will be in our rearview mirrors soon enough. I light a lavender-scented candle for that sentiment daily, although I question the reality of it. While we wait for the outcome, can I get you a glass of wine?



Eve Allen is a writer living in Texas.

It was a Friday afternoon, about four o’clock and the end of the fourth day of auditions. The large rehearsal room in New York City’s Ansonia Hotel, with its two enormous but filthy Gothic windows was beginning to feel all too familiar, like a dark and dusty home. Four consecutive days later, after six-hours-a-day of singing, dancing and reading scripts, the five remaining actors/dancers/singers realized that the creative team seated on the other side of the table was looking for their cast to all be approximately 5 feet 8 inches tall and between 130 and 140 pounds. The five male finalists included two Caucasians, one Black, one Asian, and one Puerto Rican. Diversity seemed as essential as well as height and weight.

Jamie had decided to go to the auditions because he thought he needed to work on his audition skills. He also thought that meeting new people in the business was always a good idea – like a free lesson. Last Tuesday, when this audition had begun, he never expected to get as far as he had.

Sitting at the casting table was the production team: including the playwright, the composer, the lyricist, the casting director and another person the finalists assumed to be the production stage manager. The casting director, a kind man who sincerely wanted the best for each of the male hopefuls, thanked them for all their efforts over the last four days. He then explained that they were casting what they were hoping would be Broadway’s next musical success but unfortunately, no decisions were being made that day.

“We will be auditioning in L.A. next week and making all final decisions after that. You will be hearing from us by the end of the month with details about signing contracts, rehearsal schedules, out-of-town dates and other essential details,” he assured them. And with that, the final five finalists left the dusty rehearsal room.

Leaving the intimidatingly ornate building, Jamie, one of the two Caucasian hopefuls, said to his friends Scotty, the Puerto Rican finalist and Rickie, the black actor, “Well, that was a little anti-climactic.” As Broadway hopefuls, they had all worked together as waiters in a theater restaurant and because they were approximately the same size, they had more expected to compete with each other for the same roles rather than finding themselves all being considered for the same show. Jamie was the only one to have three Broadway credits on his resumé and was a stronger dancer than singer. Scotty was the stronger singer who danced, while Rickie did both impressively.

All three guys knew the drill and agreed that they were thrilled to have even the prospect of a “next” job. Good luck wishes and hugs were exchanged. “Our dinner shifts at Barrymore’s begin in thirty minutes. We’d better run,” explained Rickie. The three friends stepped back into their work-a-day worlds, remembering the last four days of close competitiveness fondly. They now had found a new respect for each other’s talents.

They all knew very well that show business requires total strangers to audition (dance, sing and read) for a creative team that isn’t exactly sure what they want. However, in all auditions, actors are expected to give their best to help them decide what they need you to be. The future is never really clear for either side of the casting table.

After the audition Jamie, Scotty and Rickie would wait … and wait some more … for a phone call. The awaited call would define who they would be over the course of the next show. Hopefully, the job would last more than a few months, allowing them to catch up on their rent and all the bills they had been juggling since their last job. The joys of living hand-to-mouth!

Jamie’s last Broadway show had toured for almost a year before coming into New York, so he had saved a few bucks. While that cushion allowed him some comfort in waiting the few weeks, it didn’t reduce any anticipation anxiety. Without an agent, a manager, or any representation, he was pleased to have gotten as far as he had with this audition.

He had always thought of auditions as simply another class, of sorts. Every audition offered the opportunity of meeting people who were in the position of hiring him, either then or in the future. Optimism was certainly more attractive and hirable than desperation. While the actor may not have gotten the job, he had been given the opportunity to present his best to a creative team involved in mounting Broadway musicals. All he had to do was remember the names of those people on the other side of the table. Chances were very good that he would be seeing all of them again.

The casting director phoned Jamie two weeks later – not to say he had the job, but surprisingly to ask him out to dinner.

“Thank you, Jeff. I’d love that,” he responded, probably a little more excited than might have been necessary and trying his best not to indicate any reticence he may have felt. Jamie wondered, “Do I now have to date the casting director to get a job?”

“Great,” Jeff said and then added, “I was most impressed with your many talents during those auditions. After dinner, I’d like to bring you to my office and we’ll talk about your future.”
“My future?!” Jamie thought, “Let’s hope it involves a paycheck!”

Jeff’s casting agency was well-known and well-respected, but Jamie had never auditioned for him before and wondered about the reason for this dinner. If Jeff had wanted to jump his bones, he was being very courteous. Two days later, Jamie met Jeff at Noh, a Japanese restaurant just east of Fifth Avenue.

Between rounds of sushi and sake, Jeff explained that the producers had tabled their efforts because a backer had withdrawn financial resources and more money was needed to be raised. Everyone would be notified soon. Jamie wondered how Scotty and Ricky would take this news; he knew that they needed to be validated in a greater way. Disappointment was something that Jamie knew well. He’d learned that it was an integral part of auditioning. But how many showbiz hopefuls had ever received the bad news while having dinner with the show’s casting agent? Dinner was tasty but brief and it was only a short walk to Jeff’s agency on East 42nd Street.

Sitting behind his office desk, Jeff slid papers across it toward Jamie. “Please take these home; seriously consider them; and then return them to me signed next week. I want to make YOU a household name,” he said.

“A HOUSEHOLD Name?!” Jamie thought, “… What?!”

Somehow this was more shocking to Jamie than a casting couch would have been!

Jeff explained, “My staff will begin small by arranging local auditions. In that way they will get to know you and get an assessment from the casting people to whom they will be sending you.”

“Additionally, there are a few new television series interested in casting your type. So I hope you’re not opposed to the prospect of becoming bi-coastal …”

These comments were being tossed, almost randomly, into the conversation, making Jamie gratefully excited but also nervous. More than a little stunned, he stood up oblivious to how much time had passed; the two men shook hands and hugged.

“Wow, what an evening … I thought you were going to … Wow! Thank you!” Jamie said, desperately hoping that Jeff hadn’t noticed his internal quivering, which seemed virtually uncontrollable.

Jeff said, “I realize that all this may seem a little overwhelming. My office will be taking full responsibility in presenting you on a larger scale. I’ll call you in a week, should we not hear from you.”

Again, Jamie thanked Jeff and then left the office building.

He caught the M104 bus uptown in a haze, thinking of all that had just happened. Why was he shaking? He had already achieved his dream of dancing in three Broadway shows. He had even been hired to back Ginger Rogers and Carol Lawrence as a “Rocker” with the Radio City Rockettes. Was becoming a household name to be his next career goal? What Jeff presented was far beyond anything that Jamie had ever imagined.

Although he appreciated Jeff’s confidence, Jamie felt shifting sands beneath his feet. While almost any actor would have gladly given a body part for this opportunity, Jamie was hesitant. He was confident that he had the talents to be a very good chorus boy, but he felt he lacked the ego strength to step out of that chorus line.

He understood that taking this step would require an almost obsessive effort, a concentrated egocentric strength that was totally foreign to who he was. He thought about calling his friend, Christopher, who had relocated to Los Angeles. But because Chris knew Jeff from their early days in the City, could Chris’ perspective be unbiased? As for his New York friends, Jamie kept his decision to himself, feeling a little embarrassed and wondering if anyone he knew in “the biz” would even have believed this story.

Jamie was now thirty-five years old and fairly well established as a reliable theatre gypsy. He had spent the majority of his life, giving others what they needed; choreographers, directors, agents, not to mention lovers. With five performing union memberships, he was a very well-paid chorus boy and was making a good enough living, although it may have been sometimes hand-to-mouth.

Exhausted from tossing about all these thoughts, Jamie made his decision and called Jeff the next week.

“Jeff, hi … it’s Jamie.”

“Hello. I was hoping to hear from you. In fact, I was planning to give you a call about those papers.”

Jamie stumbled, “Well, yes, about those papers … I’m not signing them, Jeff. I’m just not concerned with becoming a ‘household name,’ as you put it … And I couldn’t allow you or your agency to put any effort – which I know would be considerable – into attempting to make me a big name, without my full commitment.”

Jeff’s silence was deafening. Following what seemed a minor eternity, he asked, “Are you absolutely sure of your decision, Jamie? Not many in your shoes would turn down this opportunity.”

“Yes, Jeff, I’m sure,” Jamie added, “But thank you for your trust in my abilities. The confidence required for taking the step you have so generously offered was beaten out of me years ago, I’m afraid. While I am making a living by giving everyone: producers, directors, choreographers, whatever they need me to be, I’ve never really considered what it is that I want my next goal to be. But … I honestly don’t think it is being a household name.”

“Well … I do appreciate your honesty. I honestly think you’re talented and could go far, Jamie. Thank you. It was pleasure to meet you.” Jeff said before saying goodbye.
“Thank you, Jeff, for your votes of encouragement. Let’s hope we see each other around the ‘hood,” Jamie said goodbye.

Months later while waiting to cross Fifth Avenue, Jamie was reflecting on all the new experiences he was having after leaving the theater. (Awash in idle thought.) He had become a word processor temping in legal offices and financial security firms and found himself pounding his fingers rather than his feet. But he wondered how many times opportunities similar to the one Jeff offered might actually present themselves in his life. The light turned green and before he could step off the curb, a limousine pulled up unexpectedly. The driver rolled down the window and asked, “May I take you someplace, sir?”

The driver explained, “I’ve been hired for the evening and just dropped the couple off for dinner ... some television actor and his trophy wife. I’m free until I pick them up after the opera.”

“I’m just walking across town to meet friends for dinner at Curtain Up … you know that outdoor restaurant on West 43rd Street and Ninth? Manhattan Plaza. It’s a short ride.

“Five-dollars work for you?” Jamie asked.

“Certainly, good sir,” said the driver. It was becoming a very beautiful evening.

Inside the limo, the driver explained, “Yeah, well … I’m really an actor … but like all drivers, I’m just trying to make some extra bucks, so I drive around Manhattan and randomly stop to ask if I might assist other New Yorkers. This is one impressive limo, huh?”

From the limo’s back seat, Jamie could see Scotty and Ricky already seated at a table, observing the limo’s arrival and wondering expectantly if they had worked with whatever celeb’ was about to make an entrance.

Just before getting out, Jamie handed the driver a five-dollar bill and thanked him.
“Oh, thanks. By the way, what do you do?” the driver asked.

“Me? … Oh … I’m a word processor,” and Jamie grabbed his back-pack and closed the door. Taking a deep breath, he wondered if either of his friends would believe any of this story.
Isn’t life indeed a stage? Shakespeare got that right. Entrances and exits are sometimes the most memorable element of any performance.

“Hey, guys!” Jamie waved and shouted in response to his friends’ bursting curiosity. Nearing the table, he added, “Quite an entrance, huh? Was it indelibly etched in those envious minds or yours? Oh … well, sorry to have disappointed you in any way.”

The three guys all took their seats, ordered their first libations of the evening and soon agreed, one should never forget the first rule of the theater: You can never wear too much lip gloss.

J.L. Homan is a writer living in Massachusetts.

It is the opposite of everything I learned as a child. You never get into a car with strangers. But thanks to Uber, I not only get into a stranger’s car, I pay them for it.  Sometimes a ride is just a ride. But once in a while, it is memorable.  

ONE
It was a beautiful day in Tarzana. I was leaving a used DVD store and my driver was a skinny rock and roller with tats. We’ll call him “Bob”.  As we turn the corner past a park , Bob became very animated. 

“I haven’t been in this neighborhood in ten years,” he said. “I use to buy drugs in this park.” 
We road in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. 

“This is really bad,” he said. “I’m freaking out.” 

I spent the next few minutes talking to him, trying to keep him calm. 

“I’m calling my sponsor,” he said. Before I could say anything he had him on speaker.
I quickly jumped in and explained I was a passenger and probably shouldn’t be “in the room.”  The sponsor agreed and the three of us rode quietly for a few minutes. 
When I pulled over I started to give him a cash tip. I like to tip in cash instead of going through the company. 

“Don’t,” he said. “I don’t know what I’ll do with it.”

TWO
It was late at night and my driver spoke little English. So the ride was a quiet one. The driver, let’s call him “Bob,” was listening to a Christian Pop station on the radio and quietly humming along. 

We got to a “right turn only on green” corner and when it was time to turn, Bob was deep into a song about love and peace. The guy behind us wasn’t and laid into his horn. 
Suddenly Bob exploded and began flipping the driver the finger and violently cursing at the driver in perfect English. When he was done, he returned to quietly singing along with the radio. 

The Lord works in mysterious ways. 

THREE

I was returning home from work after dark and a woman pulled up and opened the
trunk for me. She was beautiful, all made up. Heels, little black dress, the works. Let’s call her “Bob.” We rode for a few minutes making small talk. 

Finally, I had to ask. 

“Do you dress this way all the time when you drive?”

She  laughed. 

“No,” said Bob. “I was on a blind date and it was horrible. So I figured I’ll salvage the evening and pick up a couple fares home.”

My neighbor was walking his dog when I arrived. As Bob drove a way, he looked at me and said...

“My Uber drivers never look like that.”

Three rides. Three different stories. I’m always up for a good story and remember, Bob, I’m a good tipper. 



Dan Farren is a writer living in California.

“Pajama jeans are super comfortable,” she says.

He doesn’t look up from his Sudoku. “I would think so. Since you’ve been wearing them every single day.”

“I’m not wearing the same ones. These are boot cut.” She shakes her leg at him. “See? Boot cut.”

He nods, but he isn’t paying attention. “I thought you were going to work in the guest room today.”

“I have a conference call in an hour. I thought I’d sit here with you in the kitchen. I could make coffee.”

“That’s okay. I’m going to make it later.”

He taps the pen against his lip.

“Careful,” she says. “You don’t know where that pen has been. I could disinfect it for you.”

“It’s fine, I got it out of the pen jar.”

“I cleaned all the pens two days ago, but I was going to clean them again later this morning.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” he says. “Since nobody’s been in our house for two weeks.”

“It doesn’t hurt to be safe.” She has become the Queen of Disinfecting. A spray bottle of Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach both upstairs and downstairs. Of course that was back when you could find Clorox products in the store. Endless shelves of cleaners and hand sanitizer and toilet paper. Will those days come back again? Maybe yes, maybe no.

“Do you know how many squares are in roll of toilet paper?” she asks him.

“A hundred.”

“You’re guessing.”

“You’re right. Why don’t you tell me?”

She’s never noticed how small his mouth is when he clenches his lips together.

“Four hundred and five. I counted. Do you know how many sheets are in a roll of paper towels? The Pick-a-Size ones, the ones with the lumberjack on them. I wonder where they came up with the name lumberjack. Obviously the word lumber. But what about women lumberjacks, what are they called? And why aren’t they on paper towels? There’s a market somebody should go after. Lumber jills. A pretty woman in a flannel shirt on the package – not showing cleavage or anything, just an attractive athletic woman. What do you think? And instead of Brawny, we’ll call them – what’s a good word for women and strength? Intrepid. No. Better than intrepid. Brave? Badass. Yes, badass towels. That’s genius.”

She waits for him to say something. He’s looking at her, not smiling. “Two weeks,” he says. “It feels longer.”

“After my conference call, maybe I’ll help you with your Sudoku. Or we could find a great Sudoku site online and play each other. Like a tournament. Doesn’t that sound fun? Or we could do a home scavenger hunt. Or – I love this idea – have you seen those people recreating great works of art? What would be a great one? The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel. What else? Okay, Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass. I know there are only two of us, but we could use the dogs, how cute would that be? I love this idea, we’re going to have such a great time.”

She gives him a kiss on the top of his head. He smells faintly of bleach.


Ann Lewis Hamilton is a writer living in California.

ONE
It will end. It won’t last forever. Nothing does.

TWO
Somebody said nature favors populations over individuals. Good news for humanity, tough break for people with names and addresses.

ONE
Almost everybody I know is an individual. Well, most of them. Give us a chance. It’s going to be different. When it’s over. We’re going to be different. If we’re not, then we’ll have missed the point of the whole experience.

TWO
There is no “point.” It’s an event, not a story.

ONE
The story comes later.

TWO
What are we supposed to do in the meantime?

ONE
Make plans. Make sandwiches. Talk to each other. Talk to the dog, to the cat, to the moon. And remember.

TWO
Remember?

ONE
A fever can do so much damage, but it can’t burn away your memories, any more than it can melt your dreams.

(pause)

TWO
What’s your name?

- END -


Joseph Dougherty is a writer living in California.

Pieces of thoughts that run thru my head
Move in circles repeating each piece
And for a price I’ll tell them all to you.
 
I need something to eat
Food for thought in a world so hungry and blind
Give me your time, lend me an ear
And I will tell you things your imagination longs to hear.
 
Stories of the future or days that have come to pass
Everything you’ve ever wondered, every feeling you’ve ever had
I have them all and they’re waiting here for you, anything you want.
 
She closed her eyes and ran her stories thru my mind
I could feel her hunger begin to grow
She is feeding on my dreams, I’ve paid the price
Now tell it all to me.

*

The ashes of yesterday have been set free
Picked up by the wind and carried away
This day will start a new beginning
Shaking hands can touch the sun and feel its warm embrace.
 
She says she catches butterflies
She keeps them inside a jar
They fly around her memories like little shooting stars.
 
In other times of this illusion we all know where to fall
While the voices of many faces echo thru the walls
And we dance to the sounds of a wooden flute
She keeps inside her dreams.
 
Playing the song of eastern winds as lotus blossoms fall
The eyes of enchanted children wait for the night to call
And in this place we wait for each other to keep us from the cold.
 
And when the butterflies have been set free
She will sound the valley floor
Telling all that love has come to call.

•

There is a single cup sitting on the dining room table
The sliding glass door is open and the sun is just above the trees
The smell of coffee fills the morning air
And the new day begins to breathe.
 
Sleepy eyes look across the room
As she sits next to her coffee in her floral silk robe she says a little prayer.
 
Each new day is a new adventure that she can hardly believe
So many things to do, so many things to see
She wants to experience them all,  but most of all
She wants to experience them with me
How did I ever deserve this.
 
She will pour me a cup of  coffee and call my name out loud
And I will sleep through it all until the sun light begins to enter the room
She is a dream to me, so please just let me sleep.
 
We count our blessings one day at a time
And each new blessing is held in our hearts
Like a jewelry box full of dreams and time we hold it close with thankful prayer.
 
Yes my love, this one is for you
A thank you for all that you say and do
A thank for the love you give, all I can is simply that I love you.  



Jeff Nesvig is a writer living in Florida.