Captain Spaulding on Skull Island

My short play “Tarzan Boys on Fire” is being done by n.u.f.a.n. ensemble as part of 8 MINUTES IN THE 80’S this Tuesday and Wednesday. Here are details:

“Tarzan Boys on Fire”
by John Weagly

Directed by Tom Akouris

Produced by n.u.f.a.n. ensemble
as part of
8 MINUTES IN THE 80’S

Tuesday June 22 & Wednesday June 23
8:00pm

Prop Theater
3502 North Elston Avenue
Chicago, IL

Tickets: $10.00

There’s a phone number, 773-282-0344, but when I called to make my reservation the mailbox was full.

There’s also a website, www.nufanensemble.com, but it’s been down for over a week.

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Monday 5-10-10
Oklahoma! (1955)
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Written by Sonya Levien & William Ludwig, from the musical by Richard Rogers & Oscar Hammerstein II, who adapted it from a play by Lynn Riggs
Starring Shirley Jones, Gordon MacRae, Rod Steiger, Eddie Albert & Gloria Grahame
Everything you need for a great Western – cowboys, horses, guns, knives and ballet. It’s about a love triangle, and another, smaller love triangle. That’s it – not a whole lot of plot here. I don’t generally like lavish Broadway musicals, and this one is no exception.
The main reason I watched it is because of Gloria Grahame (but there’s a big difference between this Gloria and the one in “In A Lonely Place” or “Crossfire”).
2 out of 5 stars

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Wednesday 5-12-10
Appaloosa (2008)
Directed by Ed Harris
Written by Robert Knott & Ed Harris, from the novel by Robert B. Parker
Starring Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons, Renee Zellweger & Lance Henriksen
Harris and Mortensen tame the town of Appaloosa with lots of ups and downs and twists and turns along the way. I thought I’d like this more, but whenever Zellweger is on screen she grates on my nerves.
3 out of 5 stars

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Thursday 5-13-10
Man of the West (1958)
Directed by Anthony Mann
Written by Reginald Rose, from a novel by Will C. Brown
Starring Gary Cooper, Julie London & Lee J. Cobb
A homesteader finds himself stranded after the train he’s on is held up. He hooks up with his old outlaw gang and starts to revert to his dark ways while trying to protect a dancehall girl and a con-man. This movie didn’t hold my interest. I can’t really say anything was bad, it was all just dull. #53 on the Western Writers of America list of the Top Westerns of All Time.
2 out of 5 stars

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Friday 5-14-10
Pocket Money (1972)
Directed by Stuart Rosenberg
Written by Terrence Malick & John Gay, from a novel by J.P.S. Brown
Starring Paul Newman, Lee Marvin, Strother Martin, Wayne Rogers & Hector Elizondo
A modern day (well, 1972) western where Newman plays a mentally-handicapped debt-ridden cowboy who agrees to bring two-hundred head of cattle up from Mexico for a crooked rodeo supplier. A little dull – not too many surprises, pretty much lays out what’s going to happen then follows through. A good, humorous performance from Lee Marvin. And I swear Raul Julia is in this, even though he’s not listed on IMDb.
2.5 out of 5 stars.

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Sunday 5-16-10……DOUBLE FEATURE – EASTWOOD BACK FROM THE DEAD
Hang ‘Em High (1968)
Directed by Ted Post
Written by Leonard Freeman & Mel Goldberg
Starring Clint Eastwood, Pat Hingle, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley & Ben Johnson
Eastwood goes after the nine men that tried to lynch him. This movie didn’t work quite as well as it could have, mainly because it was all over the place – it’s fast moving but unfocused. A great one-minute performance by Dennis Hopper.
3 out of 5 stars
.
High Plains Drifter (1973)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Written by Ernest Tidyman & Dean Riesner
Starring Clint Eastwood, Geoffrey Lewis, Verna Bloom & Billy Curtis
I’ve seen this one before, but not in about 15 years. Eastwood agrees to protect a town from three bad guys that are on their way. Along the way he shoots several citizens, rapes a couple women, burns down a few buildings and gets a bath from a midget. A dark, twisted film. #84 on the Western Writers of America list of the Top Westerns of All Time.
4.5 out of 5 stars.

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Monday 5-17-10
Duck, You Sucker (aka A Fistful of Dynamite) (1971)
Directed by Sergio Leone
Written by Sergio Leone, Sergio Donati, Luciano Vincenzoni, dialogue adapted by Roberto DeLeonardis & Carlo Tritto
Starring James Coburn, Rod Steiger, Antoine Saint-John & Romolo Valli
And I wrap it up with Epic Spaghetti. Steiger recruits ex-IRA member into the Mexican revolution. Some scenes go on a little longer than they need to, but it has great action, great performances and great explosions.
3.5 out of 5 stars

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So that’s it! 18 horse operas watched over a period of 20 days, 16 of them new to me with the standouts being “The Beguiled” and “Navajo Joe.” The To Be Watched Shelves are a little bit lighter… Of course I still have a list of about 25 film noirs to get through!

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This time around the Flash Fiction Challenge comes from NEEDLE: A MAGAZINE OF NOIR. They want stories with a needle in it.

Here’s what I came up with.

For more info on NEEDLE, you can go here:

http://needlemag.wordpress.com/

—–

A TANK OF BROKEN MEMORIES
.
When Hannah left, she didn’t take her fish tank. Scott had to look at it every day.

It was fifty-five gallons, a gift from her parents. She went for the natural look – driftwood, rocks and plants, no underwater pirates or bright orange gravel. She stocked it with silver Gouramis, black Plecos, orange and black Clown Loaches, little Cory Catfish with long whiskers and Flame Tail Guppies. Seventeen fish in all.

Seventeen fish, coincidentally one for each month they’d lived together.

He thought she was “The One.” Before Scott met Hannah, the idea of “The One” was absurd, a fairy tale believed by desperate people. After she left him, “The One” became something else. It became something full of loathing and loneliness, something to be despised.

Scott had wanted to be with Hannah forever. Now he just wanted to hurt her.

After she’d packed her clothes and books and even a few of Scott’s DVDs she’d said, “Carl doesn’t have room for the tank in his apartment. Please take good care of my babies.”

He had always hated the fifty-five gallon behemoth. When she’d first gotten it, Hannah lost most of the fish she bought. They died from various problems that she explained to Scott, but he didn’t really understand. Every day she was upset about a new death and this, in turn, upset Scott. As the fish started surviving, Scott noticed new annoyances – the tank took up too much space, it constantly made gurgling noises and if you plugged in too many filters, heaters and lights at once it blew a fuse.

He’d hated the fish tank before, but now, when he looked at it and thought of Hannah, he hated it even more.

Today was the day he was going to erase those memories.

Scott went to an exotic fish store down by the river where Hannah used to buy live Blackworms (that was another aggravation, keeping live worms in their refrigerator!) Lewis, the owner, had his special order in a water-filled plastic bag behind the counter.

Needlefish.

Scott had ordered three of them. The fish were long and slender with stretched-out jaws filled with sharp teeth. The biggest was the length of his hand and as big around as a garden hose, the other two a little smaller.

“These Needles can be tricky” Lewis told him. “You know what you’re doing, right?”

“They’re bigger than I thought they would be,” Scott said

“This is nothing,” Lewis said. “They can get as big as your forearm.”

“I saw some like that online.”

“Be careful with them. Watch those beaks. If they get you, that beak could break off in you and you may never get it out.”

“They eat other fish, right”

“Yeah. Don’t keep them in the same tank with anything smaller than they are.”

Scott paid for the fish and drove home as quickly as possible.

Scott had read stories about Needlefish jumping out of the water and killing people. The fish hit them in just the right spot, in the chest or in the eye. He sometimes wished something like that would happen to him – that something would pierce his eye so he couldn’t see, or pierce his brain so he couldn’t remember, or pierce his heart so he couldn’t feel.

But not this afternoon. This he wanted to see. This he wanted to remember. This he wanted to feel.

As soon as he got in the apartment, Scott took the fish over to Hannah’s tank. The long, clear plastic bag quivered in his hand as the Needles moved around. He took the lid off of the tank and placed it on the floor. The water smelled brackish, since no one had changed it in a while. Scott undid the rubber band on the bag, upended it and dumped in the three new residents, watching the other fish scatter.

“Bon Appetit,” he said.

The Needles seemed a little disoriented at first, but once they got used to the new surroundings, the feast began. A Gourami went first. One of the two smaller Needlefish caught him with a sideways sweep of its head, the long, thin jaws snapping down. Then a Pleco and a Guppie. The smaller fish tried to get away, but in the enclosed surroundings there was nowhere to go. The seventeen fish were at least partially eaten in a matter of minutes. When finished, the Needles swam lazily around in the murk.

Hannah’s seventeen fish were gone, just like the seventeen months that Scott thought would last forever.

He felt a little better, but then Scott realized – the tank was still there.
.
-the end-

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Monday 5-3-10
The Beguiled (1971)
Directed by Don Siegel
Written by Albert Maltz & Irene Kamp, from a novel by Thomas Cullinan
Starring Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page & Elizabeth Hartman
Ooops! This isn’t a western, it’s a dark, twisted Civil War melodrama. Eastwood plays a shady Yankee soldier in Louisiana who has to recover from his war-wounds in a school for girls. He manipulates their confused passions and jealousy and disaster follow. It doesn’t belong in a western film festival, but I’m glad I watched this perverse little gem.
4 out of 5 stars.

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Wednesday 5-5-10
Breakheart Pass (1975)
Directed by Tom Gries
Written by Alistair MacLean
Starring Charles Bronson, Ed Lauter, Ben Johnson & Richard Crenna
A somewhat bland Western/Agatha-Christie-Style-Murder-Mystery hybrid. Charles Bronson is a prisoner being transported on a train full of medical supplies. When the other passengers start getting killed, it’s up to him to find out what’s going on. I love Alistair MacLean’s “Ice Station Zebra” and “The Guns of Navarone,” but this was mediocre. Maybe the others were better because other people wrote the screenplays? The world may never know.
2.5 out of 5 stars

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Thursday 5-6-10
They Call Him Cemetery (1971)
Directed by Giuliano Carnimeo
Written by Enzo Barboni
Starring Gianni Garko, William Berger, Chris Chittell & John Fordyce
Another Spaghetti Western. A couple of naïve brothers return west after going to school in Boston. They think that peace and love are the proper ways to handle disagreements. Luckily a mysterious gunfighter is there to teach them the way of violence! Okay with one good bar fight. I watched this on a box set called “Spaghetti Western Bible presents The Fast, the Saved and the Damned” and the sound was so bad it was nearly unwatchable.
2 out of 5 stars

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Sunday 5-9-10……….TRIPLE FEATURE – 3 JOES!
Apocalypse Joe (1970)
Directed by Leopoldo Savona
Written by Eduardo Manzanos Brochero & Leopoldo Savona
Starring Anthony Steffen, Eduardo Fajardo & Mary Paz Pondal
And another Spaghetti Western. Joe just wants to be a famous actor, but when he inherits a gold mine from his uncle he has to step up and free the mine from his uncle’s evil partner. Towards the end, he uses Shakespeare and Wile E. Coyote tricks to outsmart the bad guys. The first scene is good, with Joe delivering Hamlet’s soliloquy and shooting everybody through Yorick’s skull (although I would’ve preferred hearing the monologue to having music play over it) . I was starting to have low expectations of the “The Fast, the Saved and the Damned” box set, but this one had good sound, good picture and the movie was good, too!
3.5 out of 5 stars
.
Navajo Joe (1966)
Directed by Sergio Corbucci
Written by Fernando Di Leo, Ugo Pirro & Piero Regnoli
Starring Burt Reynolds, Pierre Cressoy, Aldo Sambrell & Nicoletta Machiavelli
More Spaghetti. A town has to turn to an Indian to protect them from outlaws, an Indian who has his own issues with the bad guys. Interesting by itself, but also noticeably a heavy influence on Quentin Tarantino. A stylish, entertaining film with a great score by Ennio Morricone.
4 out of 5 stars
.
Joe Kidd (1972)
Directed by John Sturges
Written by Elmore Leonard
Starring Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall & John Saxon
First Joe Kidd tries to help a wealthy landowner track down a troublesome Mexican. After he finds out the landowner is bad, he sides with the troublesome Mexican. Then there’s a train running into some buildings. Some okay stuff mixed in there, but not Eastwood’s best, not Sturges’ best and not Leonard’s best.
2.5 out of 5 stars

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Many, many movies piled up on both the DVR and my “To Be Watched” shelves and many, many of those (27!) are westerns. It’s time to get through these films! So over a period of 20 days, I’ll be trying to get through as many of these as possible.

Here’s the rundown (I’m not a scholar or reviewer, I’m just giving a few impressions. All of these summaries are bare boned by even bare boned standards and don’t do justice to the films. If you want more info, check IMDb) Also, a couple of these movies I’ve seen before, but I either haven’t seen them in a while or I just want to watch them again.

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Wednesday 4-28-10
Blindman (1971)
Directed by Ferdinando Baldi
Written by Pier Giovanni Anchisi, Tony Anthony, Vincenzo Cerami & Lloyd Batista
Starring Tony Anthony, Lloyd Battista and Ringo Starr
I love movies where the hero has a simple, tangible objective – a bag of money, a Maltese Falcon, the Ark of the Covenant. All Blindman wants is his 50 women. Domingo keeps stealing the 50 women. The 50 women get bounced back and forth from bad guy to good guy like a volleyball. Not the best Spaghetti western, but not the worst.
2 out of 5 stars.

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Thursday 4-29-10
Will Penny (1968)
Written & Directed by Tom Gries
Starring Charlton Heston, Donald Pleasence & Lee Majors
Heston finds a woman and her son living in the cabin he’s supposed to keep free of squatters for the winter. Good thing he’s there when the family from “The Hills Have Eyes” shows up! A great, over-the-top performance by Pleasence. A tad bit corny, with one of those cheesy songs they liked to stick on westerns around this time, but overall pretty good. # 28 on the Western Writers of America list of the Top Westerns of All Time.
3.5 out of 5 stars.

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Friday 4-30-10……….DOUBLE FEATURE
Evil Roy Slade (1972)
Directed by Jerry Paris
Written by Jerry Belson & Garry Marshall
Starring John Astin, Mickey Rooney, Pamela Austin & Dick Shawn
Roy Slade was so evil that not even wolves would raise him! He falls for a schoolmarm that wants to change his ways to no avail. An okay, sit-commy western that shows John Astin should’ve had more of a career and has a stand-out performance by Dick Shawn.
2.5 out of 5 stars.
.
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Directed by Mel Brooks
Written by Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Alan Uger & Richard Pryor
Starring Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn & Harvey Korman
Of course I’ve seen this one before, but I haven’t sat down and watched it beginning to end in over twenty years. All I can say is that I feel sorry for people that can’t find any enjoyment in watching it. #95 on the Western Writers of America list of the Top Westerns of All Time and #6 on the American Film Institute’s list of the Top Comedies of All Time.
5 out of 5 stars.

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Saturday 5-1-10
The Burrowers (2008)
Written & Directed by J. T. Petty
Starring William Mapother, Sean Patrick Thomas, Karl Geary & Clancy Brown
A family of settlers has disappeared and a group of men sets out to find them. But were the missing taken by Indians or by something else? A very good horror-western with a nice twist at the end.
3.5 out of 5 stars

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Another Flash Fiction Challenge hosted by Patti Abbott. This one is called “Sweet Dreams.” Patti describes the premise like this:

“It begins in a food/drink establishment of some sort. The radio/juke box/band is playing ‘Sweet Dreams’ by the Eurythmics. A red-headed woman in an electric blue dress comes through the door. And then what?”

To see a list of all the stories, you can go here:

http://pattinase.blogspot.com/2010/05/flash-fiction-stories-sweet-dreams.html

Here’s what I came up with.

—

FRIDAY NIGHT WITH A FEMME FATALE
.

“What do you think she’s up to?”

Billy Weston and Waylon Preston were sitting at the bar in the L & L Tavern, one of Currie Valley’s less discriminating watering holes. It was a dark, smoky establishment with Formica tables and wooden chairs, Neon beer signs and a forlorn ambiance that reminded you why you didn’t normally come to places like this. The song “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics was playing on the jukebox.

Billy shifted on his stool, trying to get the backs of his thighs to wake back up, and looked at what his friend was talking about.

A tall redhead in an electric blue dress that reached almost down to her knees had come in and sat down by herself at a table near the window. In the dingy surroundings she looked like the only thing in color.

“Why does she have to be up to something?” Billy asked.

“I don’t know,” Waylon said. “A woman looking like that in a place like this? Seems like she’s up to something.”

“She’s probably just waiting for someone. He’ll get here and they’ll go somewhere else.”

“Probably.” Waylon stood up from his stool.

“Where are you goin’?” Billy asked.

“To talk to her,” Waylon said. “Maybe buy her a drink.”

“You don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

Billy took a drink of his beer. “That woman would destroy you.”

“I think I’d like that kind of destruction.”

“No you wouldn’t. Just by lookin’ at her, I can tell that woman is a bona fide femme fatale, a staple of film noir.”

“Those old movies you like?”

“Exactly. She’s a fabled legend made of curves and lips and cigarette smoke, a mythological beauty like Kitty March or Phyllis Dietrichson or Gilda Mundson Farrell.”

“I don’t know who any of those people are.”

“She’s nothing but devastation and ruin, betrayal in blue. She’ll get you to do anything for her, make you turn on those you love, get you to deceive your friends and yourself. She’s corruption. Before you even know what’s happened, before you even sense how she’s twisting you, you’ll end up in jail, dead or insane.”

“I wouldn’t want to end up in jail.”

“Who would?”

Waylon sat back down on his stool. “She’s pretty hot, though.”

“That’s just what she wants you to think.” Waylon looked glum, so Billy added, “Don’t let her get you down. Like I said, she’s probably waiting for someone.”

The song on the jukebox switched to “Small Change” by Tom Waits. The woman in the window continued to sit by herself. Billy and Waylon drank without talking until Waylon stood up from his stool again.

“Where you goin’ now?”

“Bathroom. I’ve gotta drop the kids off at the pool.”

“Too much information.”

As soon as the bathroom door shut, Billy stood and walked over to the redhead’s table. As he got closer to her, he could detect a hint of perfume that he knew would carry him up into the clouds if he could just get close enough to her skin. “You look like you’ve been waiting for me your whole life,” he said. “How ‘bout I buy you a drink?”

The redhead shot him down so fast that Billy was back on his stool before Waylon could discover his treachery.
.
-the end-

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My 2-minute play “Raccoon Pants” is being done by n.u.f.a.n. ensemble as part of their Ritalin Fest this Tuesday 4/20 and Wednesday 4/21. Here are details:

“Raccoon Pants”
A 2-Minute Play
by John Weagly

Directed by Lauren Pace

Produced by n.u.f.a.n. ensemble
As part of Ritalin Fest

Tuesday, April 20 & Wednesday, April 21 2010
8:00pm

Prop Theater
3502 North Elston Avenue
Chicago, IL

Tickets: $10.00

Go here for even more info:

http://www.nufanensemble.com/nufan_ensemble/Shows/Entries/2010/4/20_Ritalin_Fest!.html

Look in the archives of any prominent mystery magazine and you’ll find at least one story by Stephen D. Rogers, a very prolific and talented writer.  His new short story collection, SHOT TO DEATH, came out in mid-February.  Earlier this month, he started a SHOT TO DEATH Blog March, stopping at different blogs here and there and talking about where he got the ideas for the stories.

Today he’s stopping here.   (Cool!)  Feel free to ask him questions in the comments section, he’ll be answering them throughout the day.

And buy SHOT TO DEATH.  I got my copy last week and it’s excellent (as expected!)

—

Carl lowered his voice.  “Before I say anything about the job, I have to know whether you’re in or out.”
- THE BIG STORE

So begins one of the 31 stories contained in SHOT TO DEATH (ISBN 978-0982589908). Within that beginning lurks the ending to the story and everything that happens between the beginning and the end.  Or at least it seems that way to me.

I heard that opening and imagined a caper story that dealt with what I imagined was the most dangerous element to any illegal activity, broaching the subject when gathering the team.

Once everybody was on board, there was little incentive to sabotage a job that might prove to be the score of a lifetime. (There would be opportunity enough to rat out the others if the job somehow went bad.)  But how did you get people on board without telling them the destination, a destination they might spill if they decided to pass?

For that matter, they might assemble their own team and strike first, cutting you out completely.

I thought of that two-sentence opening as a single sentence split in half by the concept of lowering one’s voice when telling a secret as if lowering one’s voice guaranteed some level of safety.  The period (to me) was a symbol representing the impossibility of communicating a secret while keeping the secret a secret, a concept that I played with throughout the story.

The fact that “Carl” was named and nobody else told me that Carl would dominate the situation, coming out the other end a winner.  How he was going to accomplish that, I wasn’t sure, but I trusted him to find a way.

“Carl lowered his voice.”  That meant he was talking before the story began.  Would we learn what he said?  Would we learn what he might have said before even that?  Would the others learn what he might have said before they arrived, before he even thought to invite their participation?

What would be said?  What would be whispered?  What would be kept close to the chest?

These were the questions that intrigued after I wrote the opening to the story.  Once I decided to accept the challenge of answering them, all that remained was the writing.

For a chance to win a signed copy of SHOT TO DEATH, click on over to http://www.stephendrogers.com/Win.htm and submit your completed entry.

Then visit the schedule at http://www.stephendrogers.com/Howto.htm to see how you can march along.

And then come back here to post your comments.  Phew.

—

SHOT TO DEATH contains thirty-one stories of murder and mayhem.

For more information about Stephen D. Rogers, you can visit his website at

http://www.stephendrogers.com

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Dan O’Shea is hosting one of those Flash Fiction Challenges.  All of the pieces have to involve a church.

Here’s a link to a list of all the entrants:

http://danielboshea.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/let-us-prey/

I tried to write a short story, but this thing kept wanting to be a short play.  I’m too old to fight with my work.

So here it is:

Finger Lickin’ Doom

(Lights up.  A confessional in a church.  FATHER DENNY enters, a priest in his late-thirties.  He approaches the confessional and opens one of the doors to reveal BETTY, a woman in her twenties.  She sits, eating a bucket of what looks like fried chicken.  Periodically throughout the play a tinkling bell can be heard.)

FATHER DENNY:   What are you doing?!

BETTY:   Eating.

FATHER DENNY:  Eating!  But… What?

BETTY:   Wings.

FATHER DENNY:   I… This is a House of God!

BETTY:   I didn’t know anybody lived here.

FATHER DENNY:   Get out!

BETTY:   They’re angel wings.

FATHER DENNY:   Angel wings?

BETTY:   Yes.  The wings of angels.  Want one?

FATHER DENNY:   No!  Come out of there!

BETTY:   I’m okay.

(Pause.  FATHER DENNY collects himself.)

FATHER DENNY:   You really should come out of there.

BETTY:   I don’t see why.

FATHER DENNY:   Eating in a confessional… it’s not proper.

BETTY:   I shouldn’t eat wings in here?

FATHER DENNY:   No!

BETTY:   Not even angel wings?

FATHER DENNY:   I don’t think they’re angel wings.

BETTY:   They’re very good.

FATHER DENNY:   Whatever they are, you’re making a mess!  They’re greasy and gritty and crumbly.

BETTY:   They’re extra-crispy.  And a tad Holy.  Want a taste?

FATHER DENNY:   They smell very good, but no thank you.  Will you come out?

BETTY:   I don’t think so.

(Pause.)

FATHER DENNY:   Where did you get these “angel wings?”

BETTY:   Some guy.

FATHER DENNY:   Some guy?

BETTY:   That’s right.  He was selling them on the street.  Wicked grin, pointy beard, walked with a limp.  Just some guy.

FATHER DENNY:   You didn’t get them from Kentucky Fried Chicken or Popeye’s or Cluck and Jive?

BETTY:   All those places sell chicken.

FATHER DENNY:   That’s right.

BETTY:    These aren’t chicken.

FATHER DENNY:   It’s just that they look…

BETTY:   They’re angel.

FATHER DENNY:   That doesn’t make sense!

BETTY:   Doesn’t matter.  These are wings from the messengers of God.

FATHER DENNY:   How can you be sure?

BETTY:    Some things you just take on faith.  Bite?

FATHER DENNY:   They look very good, but no thank you.

BETTY:   Suit yourself.

FATHER DENNY:   We used to have chicken every Sunday at my Grandmother’s.  Sometimes fried, sometimes roast, sometimes this wonderful recipe where she stuffed a whole lemon inside the bird.  She’d bring it to the table, take out the lemon and someone would always say, “The chicken laid a lemon.”  Chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, carrots, chocolate cake and fresh baked bread.  No matter what else Grandma cooked, her house always smelled like fresh-baked bread.  They were good meals, filling and pleasant.  I still have a good meal every now and then, but not like those.

(BETTY coughs and chokes for a second, then pulls a long, white feather out of her mouth.)

BETTY:   These aren’t chicken, they’re angel.

(BETTY hands the feather to FATHER DENNY.)

FATHER DENNY:   Wouldn’t you feel a little more comfortable eating somewhere that you can have more room?

BETTY:   I’m really okay.

FATHER DENNY:   Isn’t it cramped in there?

BETTY:   Maybe a little.  What is this closet thing, anyway?  Is this where priests hang their coats?

FATHER DENNY:   It’s a place for people to confess their sins, for the Sacrament of Penance, for Reconciliation.  It’s a sacred place.

BETTY:   It’s kind of like a phone booth.  Is that what it is?  A phone booth for calling God?

FATHER DENNY:   In a way.  If you come out of there, I’ll tell you all about why it’s a good idea to get your sins off your chest.

BETTY:   I like my chest.  I’ll stay in here.

FATHER DENNY:   You look too young to know what a phone booth is.

BETTY:   What do you mean?

FATHER DENNY:   There aren’t any phone booths any more.  Cell phones have made phone booths go the way of the Long Jawed Mastodon.

BETTY:   I’ve had a cell phone since I was seven.

FATHER DENNY:   Phone booths are forgotten, extinct, dead and gone.

BETTY:   Like God!

FATHER DENNY:   Such a thing to say!

BETTY:   You sure you don’t want one?

FATHER DENNY:   They seem very good.

BETTY:   Their truculent.

FATHER DENNY:   I think you mean succulent.

BETTY:   I know what I mean.  Just one little, teeny-tiny nibble?

FATHER DENNY:   I’m very tempted, but… You need to come out of there.

BETTY:   It’s a shame, really.  You don’t know what you’re missing.  Every bite is a symphony of harps and haloes.  A tender crunch, meat that just falls off the bone, flavors that mix and mingle like a prayer.  A taste of these wings could be the closest to Heaven that some people ever get.  I think there’s even a little bit of a lemon zing.

FATHER DENNY:   Lemon?

BETTY:   Just like Grandma used to make.

FATHER DENNY:   I doubt they’re that good.

BETTY:   (Holding out a wing.) Only one way to find out.

(FATHER DENNY takes the wing from BETTY and hesitantly takes a bite.  He chews, swallows and smiles.)

FATHER DENNY:   Rapture!

BETTY:   I tried to warn you.

(FATHER DENNY takes a bigger bite of the wing.  He continues eating while he joins BETTY in the confessional.)

BETTY:   Shouldn’t we say Grace?

FATHER DENNY:   What’s the point?

(FATHER DENNY and BETTY eat angel wings as the lights slowly fade.

Lights down.)

—

Mystery writer Robert B. Parker died yesterday at the age of 77. He was just “sitting at his desk.” Not a bad way to go for a writer that put out 3 books a year, who wrote 5 to 10 pages a day.

He was one of the great ones, one of those writers that gave the private-eye novel several standards that we take for granted now (the dangerous, possible psycho sidekick ala Hawk comes to mind). And if he didn’t invent a new element, he certainly made it popular.

I haven’t read a lot of his stuff. I started reading the Spenser books in 2001, going in order, trying to read a novel a year. This always felt like a strange way to work through the canon. I think of these works as “popcorn books” – I can usually finish a Spenser in one or two sittings and then immediately be ready for more. I spaced them out because I knew from experience that rushing through an author and reading too much too soon can be a bad thing.

Tonight I’ll be starting A SAVAGE PLACE. And, who knows, maybe on Friday I’ll throw my one-a-year rule out the window and dive into the next one.