(Behind WHITNEY’S back appears an old man dressed for fishing. He carries a tackle box and two fishing rods.)
WHITNEY (Shouting after EIGHT) Some “master of the elements” you are. Scared of a little chill!
DR. QUANTREAU Whitney? Ready to go fishing? The bluefish are running.
WHITNEY (Overcome)
Dad! Dad! Oh, my God! Dad!
DR. QUANTREAU Don’t touch me. I’m covered with hooks.
(He casts a line)
WHITNEY (Confused)
Dad, you can’t catch bluefish from here!
DR. QUANTREAU Whitney, you’re forgetting that I’m dead. I can do anything I want.
WHITNEY (Collapsing emotionally)
Dad, you’ve left everything in a mess!
DR. QUANTREAU I don’t think so. You seem fine to me.
WHITNEY Dad, Charmayne is some kind of monster! She kills people who get in her way! She probably killed you!
DR. QUANTREAU What does that matter now? It was my time to go.
(Casting, moving up the beach.)
WHITNEY This is NOT the way I imagined it.
DR. QUANTREAU Nothing ever is.
WHITNEY Let me put it this way, Dad. You married a lying, greedy, murderous stripper!
DR. QUANTREAU Not bad for a deteriorating old geezer, huh?
(WHITNEY is gob smacked. Watches him silently for a while.)
WHITNEY (Mustering all her energy)
Well, I’m not letting her get away with it.
DR. QUANTREAU Forget it, Whitney. Allow an old man to have his fun. I made plenty of money for everybody. Let it go.
WHITNEY Dad! She made you beg for water! I saw it!
DR. QUANTREAU Adults play games, Whitney. Conflict makes life interesting; keeps the fish fresh. I guess you wouldn’t understand. You were always so serious.
WHITNEY You made me serious! You wanted me serious! You said life was serious.
DR QUANTREAU (Reflects)
Besides, I probably deserved it. Ever heard that expression “what goes around comes around?” I made your mother beg for money. We all did it. I regret it now.
(Shrugs)
You should have seen the faces on the other guys when I brought Charmayne to the club!
(Cackles gleefully)
Were they jealous! Didn’t know I had it in me!
(Wandering away into the “water” – into the audience)
WHITNEY (Calling after him despondently)
Dad, don’t go! Let’s talk about…things. We never talked about real things. We only talked about…history. Why Alexander the Great didn’t need armies as big as the people he attacked.
DR. QUANTREAU Honey, I don’t have to worry about “things” any more. Or Alexander the Great. You could come fishing with me. I love fishing. I get to fish all the time.
WHITNEY (With a passion)
I see now I’ve always hated fishing. It’s the most boring activity on the planet.
DR. QUANTREAU I like it. It relaxes me. It’s just a game, Whit. Our games define us. Elevate your game, Whit.
WHITNEY You against some nine pound fish! Like that’s fair!
DR. QUANTREAU Honey, no one cares about fairness. Fairness is impossible. Expertise, that’s the thing. Self-improvement. Mastering whatever it is you set out to do.
(Casts)
WHITNEY But you keep leaving me, again and again, over and over! Don’t you still love me?
DR. QUANTREAU Of course I love you, Whitney. And Darby and McKenzie and Charmayne and your mother – what was her name? Doris. I loved Doris and before her I loved Edna. But the fish are running! See them go? If the fish are running, I’ve got to follow! Goodbye, Whitney! Be a good girl.
(Exit.)
WHITNEY (Shouting after him)
You’re just a figment of my adolescent imagination!
(Bursts into tears sobbing her heart out.)
I refuse to take advice from ghosts.
(Dries her tears, sighs, takes out her phone)
Unsolved murders in Branson, Missouri…what was it? Fourteen years ago?
CHARMAYNE (Appearing at the door – seemingly annoyed)
Whitney, you really do have to make an appointment. I don’t have time to play with you today.
WHITNEY Oh, I think you’ll see me – Pearleen.
CHARMAYNE (Steps outside, closes door carefully)
Oh? Are your efforts to master the black arts finally paying off?
WHITNEY There’s no “black ops” about it. I’ve been investigating you.
CHARMAYNE Moi? Little me? How flattering. I love being the center of attention. I revel in your…involvement.
(Making it sound sexual. Crosses her arms defensively, but says boldly)
It’s not illegal to change your name, you know. Some names are very common. You can call yourself anything you want. And some of us were saddled by our thoughtless parents with disabling monikers we couldn’t wait to get rid of.
WHITNEY But you are pretending to be someone else!
CHARMAYNE Prove it.
WHITNEY You’re wearing her necklace!
CHARMAYNE She gave it to me. Among many other gifts. I thought I explained all that to you.
WHITNEY And now no one can find her!
CHARMAYNE Poor little know-nothing. You’re not even a Querent, you’re lower than that. Sludge. Pity you didn’t pursue my entire course of instruction. Then you’d see that when there’s a new Queen of Swords it’s traditional for the previous Queen to make herself scarce.
WHITNEY You did something to her!
CHARMAYNE Prove it.
WHITNEY Plus, you misrepresented yourself when we hired you!
CHARMAYNE Oh, I told Arthur all about it! It only made him admire me more. He proposed, didn’t he? I don’t think you knew your father as well as you thought you did, Whitney. He appreciated people who made something of themselves, who figured out the physics of existence. He didn’t care for helpless wannabes who hang around trading on their birth names and trying to cash in on the past. We complemented each other. He told me, I “embraced multitudes.” And that’s what he loved about me.
WHITNEY He was quoting Whitman. I doubt your marriage is even legal!
CHARMAYNE Now hold on, sister. Have you bothered to research common law marriage in this state? Don’t come annoying me when you haven’t done your homework! I’ll give you a head start by telling you Dr. Quantreau’s trust defines his wife as “ux” – not by name but anyone he called his wife at the time of his death.
WHITNEY Prove it.
CHARMAYNE I don’t have to. And a further piece of advice? When you’re coming after someone, it’s very dangerous to put them on notice. Because then they’ll be ready for you…fully armed.
(Getting up her nerve…calling after CHARMAYNE …too late)
Like you speak French!
(Goes to sit disconsolately on a boulder.)
This is MY story and I’m not letting her tell it.
(A beachily dressed; closely shaved man with a metal detector comes up the beach slowly. Investigating.)
WHITNEY
Hey! Don’t you know this is private property?
EIGHT
Only to the waterline. No one owns the ocean. Which means it belongs to everyone. This your place?
WHITNEY
No. Belongs to my stepmother. The place she sold to buy this one was the house I grew up in.
EIGHT
So now you’re free. Like me.
WHITNEY
(Watches him work)
Who are you? What are you doing?
EIGHT
I’m a beachcomber and a treasure hunter. Name’s Eight. Like Pieces of Eight.
WHITNEY
Is that what you find?
EIGHT
I find everything eventually. Look at this.
(She comes closer)
WHITNEY
What is it?
EIGHT
Prehistoric shark’s tooth.
WHITNEY
Looks like an arrowhead.
EIGHT
They could have used it for that. You want it?
(She shrinks from contact)
WHITNEY
I don’t know. What would I do with it?
EIGHT
(Lifts his arm)
Treasure seekers help other treasure seekers. It’s the beachcomber’s code. Otherwise it goes back to the sea.
WHITNEY
Then I’ll take it.
(Turns it over in her hands.)
I wish it was a magic charm.
EIGHT
Really? Why’s that?
WHITNEY
I need magic to fight her.
(Gesticulates at house and whispers)
She’s a demon.
EIGHT
You mean demonic? Or an actual demon?
WHITNEY
I mean an actual demon. Like from another planet.
EIGHT
Most demons are homegrown.
WHITNEY
This one cultivates magic. Reads Tarot. Calls herself The Queen of Swords.
EIGHT
That’s nothing but a pack of cards. No magic there.
WHITNEY
She murdered my father. I know it.
(A beat. Game change.)
EIGHT
You sure of that?
WHITNEY
Absolutely certain. He had this neurological condition, and he hired her to be his attendant. She wasn’t qualified – not at all. He had me sit in the interviews since I lived there too. I could see how taken with her he was. I begged him not to do it but –
(she shrugs sadly)
EIGHT
Let me guess. She was a sight for sore eyes.
WHITNEY
(Nodding)
Yeah. But so fake, though! Fake everything: hair, breasts, accent. Fake résumé, even. But he didn’t want to see through her. He just didn’t care.
EIGHT
I get it. He wanted to take his own path to health.
WHITNEY
He wanted to grab for the gusto. As soon as they were married –
(Slits her own throat with a finger.)
EIGHT
Any idea how she did it?
WHITNEY
Smothering? Drugs? It wouldn’t have been hard. She cremated him right away and there wasn’t even an autopsy.
EIGHT
Did you tell anybody?
WHITNEY
I told everybody. But she has them all under her spell. People were relieved he was gone! Less trouble for everybody. Even my sisters who – neither of them can stand Charmayne – said, “Well, at least he died happy!” I was the only one who even missed him. He was already old when we were born, you see. Darby – that’s my oldest sister – said – “Oh, he’d been gone a long time already. Can’t you see that?” And McKenzie – she’s the other one – said – “Everyone dies “unnaturally” nowadays. That’s what death is.” I was the only one who thought it was wrong. My dad said the only education worth having is learning to tell right from wrong.
EIGHT
I get it. You thirst after righteousness.
WHITNEY
Justice. Justice is what I want. People keep telling me it doesn’t exist.
EIGHT
Are you certain it’s not revenge you’re looking for?
WHITNEY
Well, that would be nice too. I mean, she makes me so mad. Don’t you feel it? Wouldn’t anyone? But justice is what I’ll settle for.
EIGHT
It’s a bad situation.
WHITNEY
You don’t know what a relief it is to have someone actually listen to me. I even – one day – I saw him.
EIGHT
You saw him? Your father’s – ghost?
WHITNEY
(Nodding vigorously)
I did.
EIGHT
Was he all about vengeance?
WHITNEY
He didn’t speak.
(Tears up.)
He just showed up in my room at college – probably the same moment she was killing him – and looked at me so sadly. I knew it was some kind of vision because he was his younger self – from before he had his stroke. I thought he was angry at me. Going away to school and leaving him alone with Charmayne – maybe I let him down.
EIGHT
Hey, you told him not to hire her. I mean, you were just a kid! What could you do?
WHITNEY
He admired people who “spoke truth to power”. He wanted me to be self-sufficient, use logic and hone my own instincts. She was awful to him! She made him beg for water. I saw it.
EIGHT
Sounds like a demon all right.
WHITNEY
“Withholding hydration” they call it. I should have protected him, the way he always protected me. He said I was his intellectual heir.
EIGHT
Are we talking money?
WHITNEY
No, I don’t mean that. We already had trust funds and things. What I mean is, he told me I was like him, that I had the same kind of mind. He said knowledge is everything and you have to cultivate a bullshit detector. Even though I was the youngest – me and my sisters have different mothers – he told everyone only I was fit to stand in his shoes.
EIGHT
Well, I’m starting to see why your sisters might not want to cooperate.
WHITNEY
People have to stand up for what they believe!
(Very earnestly.)
EIGHT
You blush when you’re angry.
WHITNEY
I blush whenever there’s another person in the room. But what do you think I should do? I’m scared of her. She threatened me.
EIGHT
How?
WHITNEY
She said I’m nothing and she created everything. She’ll send me back into the darkness. She wants to “tell my fortune” so she can predict all the terrible things that are going to happen to me. When she calls herself Queen of Swords, she tries to sound like she’s Master of the Universe.
EIGHT
Sounds like a con artist to me. They just feel around for anything someone will believe. Don’t let her get the drop on you.
WHITNEY
But what if those cards tell the future?
EIGHT
Tarot’s just another dead language, Whitney. You could learn it if you really wanted to. Language shapes how people think.
(Taps his head)
Don’t meet her on her turf. Predators like their prey frozen. And confused.
WHITNEY
How did you know my name?
EIGHT
I hang around. I hear things.
WHITNEY
So, you’re an eavesdropper.
EIGHT
Treasure seekers are serendipitous. We pick up what we can find.
WHITNEY
Well, you can’t pick me up.
EIGHT
(Still working his stretch of beach)
I wouldn’t dream of it.
WHITNEY
(not thrilled to hear this)
But what if she really is magic? It seems that way sometimes. I don’t know how to stand up to her.
EIGHT
Don’t sideline yourself so quick. You’re here, aren’t you? A person who can see the dead can do anything. Magic’s a game and anyone can play. Games are about rule-making – about control – gaining advantage on somebody, Whit.
WHITNEY
My father said never to play a game that’s rigged.
EIGHT
What if its rigged in your favor? And this one is. You know what happens to murderers?
WHITNEY
I’m hoping they get caught.
EIGHT
The truth will out.
WHITNEY
(Looking nervously up at the house)
Charmayne thinks she’s indestructible.
EIGHT
Wow. Sounds like a dare. I’m partial to dares myself.
WHITNEY
She says anything anybody tries to do to her comes back on them a million times. That it’s pointless to fight her. But I’m not giving up. You see why (looks at the tooth) I might need all the magic I can get?
EIGHT
Make her play your game.
WHITNEY
I’d love to see that! What do I do? Exactly?
EIGHT
Today’s your lucky day. I just happen to know some magic.
WHITNEY
Is that part of being a treasure seeker?
EIGHT
Sure. First, you master the elements. That’s way bigger magic than flipping cards and cutting off old men’s hydration.
WHITNEY
(Skeptical)
So how’d you that?
EIGHT
I’ve been swept out to sea. I’ve been buried in sand and I’ve been frozen in snow.
WHITNEY
We’re going to need way bigger magic than that.
EIGHT
See this mark on the top of my head?
WHITNEY
(Rubbing his head)
Looks like scars! Where did they come from?
EIGHT
I had a demon of my own. Once.
WHITNEY
You did?
EIGHT
Yeah, and he was hard to destroy. Took a piece out of me, I can tell you. He marked me right here.
WHITNEY
(Very hopeful)
Did you mark him?
EIGHT
I told you I destroyed him. And then I marked myself.
(Opens his Hawaiian shirt to show tattoo)
WHITNEY
(Reading)
“Be not Afraid.” How’s that help anything?
EIGHT
It’s a reminder.
WHITNEY
But you defeated him?
EIGHT
Sure did. He’s locked in a box and he’ll never get out. That’s what sent me wandering.
WHITNEY
How come?
EIGHT
Because every action produces an opposite reaction. He’s static, I’m in motion. Searching.
WHITNEY
But if he’s still alive…can’t he still hurt you?
EIGHT
No. He’s lost all his power. But I did have to take control. And I had to work on setting myself free.
WHITNEY
(Flouncing down onto the beach)
I’d rather just kill her. Serve her right.
EIGHT
No, no; don’t give her that. That’s what she wants.
WHITNEY
Trust me, that is NOT what she WANTS.
EIGHT
(Nodding vigorously)
Trust ME, it is. She’s hoping to turn you into HER. She’d have a new young life, a new young body. I’m not sure anyone could rescue you then.
WHITNEY
So tell me what you think I should I do.
EIGHT
Play it by the Bible. You’ve got to call a demon by its name.
WHITNEY
(Unimpressed)
Really? The Bible? That’s all you’ve got?
EIGHT
Hey, the Bible’s full of demons.
WHITNEY
So how do I learn her name? Tell me.
EIGHT
You said she had a fake everything. If that fake résumé still exists. I’d start there.
WHITNEY
(Arms crossed)
She probably destroyed every copy. Then what?
EIGHT
Don’t be a “yes, but”. You know she’s got secrets. The past’s the best predictor of the future. Find out her past and make sure she knows you know. Believe me, suddenly she’ll find you the most interesting person on the planet.
WHITNEY
Why’s that?
EIGHT
Because here’s the secret. Demons long to be revealed. If she invites you to dance –
(Does a little dance, waltzing the metal detector)
Dance with her. Then – suddenly, at the time of your choosing you – step aside.
WHITNEY
Step aside?
EIGHT
(Involving her in his dance)
Step aside. Let her own momentum bring her down.
WHITNEY
(Very frustrated, dancing like she has two left feet)
I‘ll never get it.
EIGHT
First you have to tell your own fortune. Then you tell hers.
(Heads off down the beach while she’s thinking about it)
WHITNEY
She’ll try to put ideas in my head!
EIGHT
But if she’s a demon, your ideas are stronger than her ideas.
WHITNEY
You don’t know how persuasive she can be.
EIGHT
(From the end of the beach)
Oh, I know.
WHITNEY
Wait! Where are you going?
EIGHT
I’ve got to get moving. I only found one treasure here.
WHITNEY
And you gave it away.
EIGHT
(Looking at her meaningfully)
That’s not the one I mean.
(Resumes his quest)
WHITNEY
Wait, wait! Give me your phone number!
(Pulls out her phone)
EIGHT
I don’t use those things.
WHITNEY
But where can I find you? When will I see you again?
EIGHT
Don’t worry. I’m always around. I like this beach.
After my fiancé graduated law school in Kentucky, we came East – where our families lived – to get married. I applied to Brooklyn College for the MFA program and was hired as a writing fellow. What followed was an experience so discouraging I can well understand why graduate students are at a high risk of suicide.
First, there’s the contrast between the high prestige of the position and the pitiable pay. You could literally make more money (and spend the same amount of time) combing the subway for lost change.
Next, there’s the “job” they want you to do, which is to prepare seriously undereducated freshman to write an essay justifying their admission into the hallowed world of academe.
I had fun developing my own syllabus, which was basically teaching critical thinking in the most fun way I could possibly imagine. A teacher “reviewer” who came to watch the class wrote me a rave review – I don’t think anyone in my life has ever praised me as much as he did. I still cherish that evaluation. But don’t get excited – the second guy (months later) disparaged me so much that if you add the two reviews together I think you’d have to give me a sad C-. But at that point, They Knew About Me – that I had no college degree -and so they were trying to get rid of me. Really, you can’t blame them – how could I prepare students to get something I didn’t have myself? And what – you may ask – was wrong with MY thinking and reasoning powers that I had not expected this?
The truth is, I had flouted “rules” all my life – they always seemed ridiculous – and because I was a “rara avis” I usually got away with it. But clearly, this could not continue. Much chastened by my brush with the universe (which represented itself as “sanity”) I did go ahead and get a BA degree in psychology from LaSalle. I even got half a masters under my belt from Springfield College until I saw that it was useless.
But back to Brooklyn. There were classes I took, of course, in WRITING – which was my absorbing interest and passion. I kept the fact that I had actually published a novel a secret because the class expressed such a tragic belief that being published was their deepest desire and most desperate and holy quest. I knew that it was the writing of the book itself – finding the subject AND the expression that was your spiritual release into the world – that was the most important absorbing and exciting. My first book was written to specifications – what was “popular” – under the ingenuous theory that I would develop important publishing relationships (my editor lost her job, my company bought out and revamped.) You could hardly brag about an experience like that.
For my class on the Novel I decided to write a novel. I thought it would be fun. If you wrote a chapter every week you would have a novel at the end.
One of my classmates was an ex-nun – a most interesting person – whose experiences strongly affected me. I effortlessly adapted her into my heroine, because my book was a mystery. Surely these are the easiest to write – they must evolve according to a plan. You have to introduce the problem, then the suspects, give clues, and make the reader care about the outcome. I had an idea it would be less emotional than my first book, which got bogged down into a bizarre love story about a fatherless girl pathetically seeking mentorship. THIS book would be all business.
I got such massive pushback from the class I’m kind of surprised I went through with it – but I was enjoying the writing and the characters were alive to me. “Criticism” in class was students laboriously reading each others’ work, describing its emotional effect on them and describing different ways things could be said. The forward motion of a novel – the sweep, the assumption of power – was thereby utterly dissipated. Everyone just rewrote the first chapters of different books endlessly. So it shouldn’t have been called “Novel Writing”, it should have been called “Paragraph Writing” – a class I wouldn’t take.
This teacher and I butted heads on all kinds of issues. First off, he said great writing couldn’t have a “happy ending.” I saw his point but I thought it shallow. Surely completion of a quest – solving a mystery – is an enormous relief. But mysteries aren’t serious writing, he insisted. (Uh oh. Since I was engaged on one.) Well, what about the Odyssey? Jane Austen? {Probably Tom Jones, if I could recall the ending.)
MODERN literature!! He insisted. We can’t have happy endings anymore!
That was when I realized the whole thing was bogus. If I was bogus, they were even more bogus. I was eight months’ pregnant at the time and this man’s feeble philosophy defied the spinning of the planets, the arrival of spring, the creation of Life itself. What a silly fellow.
I finished Pinch of Death, and still reread it with pleasure, A very charming book.
This film, probably his last, is not the movie to rescue the 88 year old filmmaker but it certainly marks an advance in his artistic life. Throughout his career, Allen has leveraged an apparently traumatically low self-esteem, inviting us to laugh at the hoops society forces ordinarily inadequate people to jump through for admiration, employment, companionship & love.
As he matured, he began implying that society itself is a crime and we are its victims (Shadow & Fog, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Hollywood Ending, Match Point, Broadway Danny Rose, Cassandra’s Dream, Interiors, Irrational Man, Scoop, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Bullets Over Broadway.)
I’ve come to believe he’s our Marcel Proust – sharply attuned to the pathos and ambition of our social signaling and teasing us with scandalous gossip about how far some of us might be willing to take our desperate impostures. What will we do to get what we want and what might we do when challenged?
Throughout his career, he has presented beautiful young women as the ultimate desirable acquisition of the good life; otherworldly angels whose psyches are completely closed to him, but whose bodies he hopes to subjugate.
Coup de Chance offers one of these mysterious creatures as its protagonist, a beautiful gallery worker “rescued” from her life with a shiftless musician by a wealthy, jealous man terrified of losing her. Yet she is bored, bored, BORED by his dull existence of object acquisition and gourmet travel and secretly falls for a handsome, exciting young man with a head full of dreams.
This film was banned from Cannes as a show of solidarity with the credible accusations of sexual impropriety by Allen’s daughter, whose story as an adult and a child, has never varied. The persona who comes across in Allen’s stories is inquisitive and clueless and needy enough to have done what he is accused of, yet most of us will never know the truth. Creator of his own worst fears, he triggered their realization. “Exposed”, discredited and cast out; still he is making films.
Artists we can unreservedly admire as human beings are rare, Picasso and Tolstoy and Byron, for example, displayed outrageously cruel, downright illegal behavior for all to see. But it’s quite possible that the sinner’s story is always the more interesting one from the perspective of our own humdrum lives. Certainly no one knows crime as intimately as a criminal.
Unlike the brilliant Match Point, the intensely immersive Cassandra’s Dream, the creepy Crimes & Misdemeanors and the tour de force Irrational Man, Coup de Chance’s plot is a mere story board, lacking the three-dimensional richness this collaborative art usually supplies, but it closes with Allen’s final gift to us, the end philosophy of his lifetime of restless questing. His last word? That each of us is a lucky miracle and that life itself is a miracle we must learn to revel in and appreciate.
EVA I am gnawed by an aching hopeless wish. Loneliness leads to breakdown, Becomes dementia. I batter Around the rooms of this castle, However brightly-plumaged, Knocking into furniture, A tragic bird who’s trapped indoors. Even dizzy with drink I maintain the frigidity Of an Edwardian hostess Intolerant of scenes at meals. Without you life’s a half-lit room.
EVAN I’ve become a character in your melodrama An absurd creature of romantic vice. Hopeless dilemma.
EVA What could be more beautiful than our ten days in New York, Walking among the perverted architecture. No loss of illusion, rather an increase. I’m in the midst of a dreary financial crisis, Having breakdown on my feet. I hope I don’t sound too shocked and sad. You are life to me as nothing is. My fingers still tremble, Touching you after 17 years.
EVAN This is the Eva I first met, first knew, first loved. We waited it out and didn’t lose each other. I was sane or mad to doubt you & myself. We are like two people sweating blood I feel further from you than ever. I dread losing you But Elayna’s power still holds me. I fear I may do one of you harm.
EVA Thanks for the money, I hope it doesn’t embarrass you too much. You are a reviver and a balm. We must be in Paris together before we die.
EVAN If you want me to be unselfish, let me be unselfish. You are my greatest friend. I’m Trying to keep off the drink while you’re here, Otherwise I know I’ll wreck everything. Three manhattans makes me crazy. Your feverish cheer does not seem solid. Is this the wreckage of our love? Once frightened of your clinical eye Now I’m more frightened of my own. I’ve matriculated in Your fearful university.
EVA We sheer away in horror Scenting fumes of evil As we lose control. Defeat and exhaustion, alarm and despondency. Demoralized and sad. Slam down the lid on pain and resentment: I have taken against your family. Let’s dance. To sit In silence denigrates our love.
EVAN My heart aches for you. We talked for the first time in weeks About hurt and resentment. I could manage my life if it weren’t for you And you could manage yours if it weren’t for me. You infect me with your despair and I flee to my wife To release the pressure. Her quickening influence works my imagination.
EVA I hate that you are in New York without me. You pervade that place as God pervades our hearts. My life is based on my assumption Of togetherness and my Secret fear you’re being got at When we could be snug together. I obsess that you’re in places where I’m not. I could not live without seeing you. I dread our visit may turn sour.
EVAN Everything except your beautiful self rusts Or dies or goes away. My love only seems dead; it’s alive underneath. If you die I shall never forgive you We need ideas that are less about ourselves.
EVAN I hurt Elayna tonight But there’s no help for it. She cares for me and I only care for a life apart. A clean break, an amputation Makes me frantic and guilty. She says we have a happy marriage only because She willed it. This smell of death and decay Makes me long for sex. Could you help me find a girl – any girl you choose – Or will you call me a sex mad degenerate? Panic makes my hands shake. I thought of Elayna and I wept.
EVA I received your sad, wild letter. I accept that you can’t free yourself. Do you accept it? I feel so very near you. I accept that you make sex Desperately with strangers – Do you accept it? Can anyone love such a cold-blooded person?
EVAN How silly I am, I thought I was reconciled to our ending, Expected a falling off of tension & illusion. But it’s a prospect I can’t face.
EVA Miracles happen but The gift of love causes guilt & pain.
EVAN I am utterly becalmed. What I dread most is silence, The latest form of impotence. I need stringing up and tautening. Revenge on love. Revenge on me.
EVA I am suffused with love because I am free. My work becomes our child, An extension of us. Immortal. Still, Something vanishes when you’re not there.
EVAN Elayna broke her hip. How irreplaceable she is to me. Our brand of married happiness is entirely unsung. I shrink to leave her even for a day.
EVA I’m sorry it’s not fatal. Am I dispensable to you? You love no one. If you turn against me I’ll die in a week because I have no one looking after me.
EVAN Turn against you! Agonizing! In spite of the hangover of humiliation I broke down all reserves so we could be together. A very happy day and I was sorry to leave you.
EVA Wed & sad. Past distress is muffled by age & habit. Today we meet formally as if at a garden party. A promise unfulfilled.
EVAN You looked so ill I was nagged by fear I bored you. I long for the happiness of old age, Guilt free, pain free, fear free. In your silence I feel your calming hand.
EVA I invited Elayna to lunch.
EVAN I am not best pleased. The day you come to like each other Our love will die. It will be Poison to our love. Elayna rarely admits depression. I have had not just love but loyalty. Your ghost will haunt me till I die. You force ruthlessness. It is a good thing your throat is sore Or you would never stop talking.
EVA Are you sending me your signet ring? I want something solid to remember you As I dodge death, fight off this Paralyzing loneliness. Our last communion.
(EVA fades away. EVAN is alone.)
EVAN Is the flaw in love a flaw in me? I never should have married. My heart jumps with pain like a hooked fish. I am rudderless. Upon your death My ring comes back, All your contrivances revealed. Now you are gone, I find you everywhere. We will never see each other again; Never, never, never. You are gone from me forever. I walk the streets and weep. Is this delayed shock? Boredom or despair? I will never cease to feel this pain till I cease feeling anything. For the last three nights, I dreamed of you. Did I anger you, neglect you? It’s too late to pray – I await your final book with horror. I need to know I was your life. Please Come back one last time to tell me Just for an hour. If you ever thought you loved more than I You are revenged.
EVAN This is the letter I would write you if I dared, if I weren’t frightened bf the cancer Of your Elayna-hatred. I am overworked, wrung out. I feel possessed by you. You must always live at the pitch of anguish. Our love has roots in good and evil, It lives in the darkest places of our natures Despite of its pleasant surface. Shall we end by destroying each other? You have the deadlier weapons.
EVA I have a bad effect on people. Guilt, conspiracy, love, I cannot breathe without them. Oh, the pain of your reproach! Not seeing you would kill me. I live for the memory of our every moment. I wouldn’t give a damn if I had a month to live.
EVAN Boredom, dissipation, remorse, And apprehension– I can’t escape this obsessive cycle. Beneath the controlled surface of my mind Opportunities to be frenzied are endless. I’m afraid of saying something evil which many stick.
EVA Gratitude for our happiness chokes me. This restlessness of things going to waste. Missing you is like an illness. I have never fallen out of love with you. The flame is always there. The place is full of you. I can no longer look at hyacinths
EVAN There’s a worm in this bud But who is its corruptor? Your insights are so powerful they alter mine. I’m sorry for your husband’s death. I feel a shift in the angle of vision. A sadness fell on me A foreboding so final it seemed the end. Your pleading for our life dissolved my will. I agree to renewal, something I can live by But I refuse your guilt.
EVA Did I leave my diary behind? Don’t read it, not that you would. It’s anaphrodisiac. I am filled with envious admiration For the way you spend your time. You get so much done!
EVAN Of course, it’s an incentive to work, being alone. You have created your own circle Even if the intelligentsia is as insensitive as you say. I’m grateful we are calm, Those fearful scenes never likely to begin again. I’m sure the panic of youth has played a part. I used to hope you would love me less over time But now I think we love each other equally.
EVA I believe we should exchange rings. Do you think this faux? Would Elayna object? This is so I have something in case you die of that itch or fall out of an airplane. I wonder why Elayna’s throat won’t heal? I believe she is ice-bound. She’s sealing you away from life.
EVAN You witch, you have Frozen Elayna’s throat. I begged you not to. You make Sadness physical.
EVA Elayna’s frozen her own throat I wish you’d see it. Depression is hallucinatory. Guilt and sorrow undermine all confidence, I refuse to give them credence.
You are so near me I feel we are one person. I feel you now beside me. I will make you real.
EVAN These acute waves of feeling sometimes come over me As if you’re signaling. I owe you happiness But I can’t express it. We must always believe life is as beautiful as the music Says it is. The illusions you must cultivate are in fact A form of courage. Forget my deficiencies Find amusement in the worldly game.
EVA Without Allen, I re-experience my youth. Oh, the bafflement of the young! I broke off my engagement because I loved too much And cast about for a spouse I could Control. I believe you did that, too.
EVAN Our parting was unbearable. I had to run away – Your rush of talk was like someone bursting into tears. I feel like an executioner robbing you of sleep. My nose began to bleed and It’s been bleeding ever since. We must love each other less to become more tranquil.
EVA I am a witch and you should fear me. I glow with contempt and boredom and fury. I don’t understand why I can’t experience life by your side. We share the same senses, The same vein of joy. Our life together is timeless, continuous.
EVAN Your letter’s fraught with dynamite. I can never be alone, it is me and the gin bottle. I am home nowhere now – except with you.
EVA I don’t want you getting yourself into a state But Edgar has proposed, forcing me to face the fact That I literally cannot live without you.
EVAN I dread you will fall for Edgar. You called him “sweet” and “cozy” and “brilliantly entertaining” And I am none of those things. Did you bewitch him? he said in a persecuted voice. It would your justice, sending me to hell. We would lose each other by inches, But aren’t we doing that already?
EVA I can’t show Edgar the brutal candor Behind my loving kindness. He mistakes the hostess for a person. I arrange the flowers in symbols of you And everyone’s too stupid to notice. To bed alone again tonight. I wish Elayna would die. Then we should be equals.
EVAN Do you really love me? Why should you? I don’t seem any longer To be able to cope with friendships.
EVA It is a horror, an outrage That we should not be here together. I struggle against The wound of not knowing where you are each minute. Everything you do is more important to me than my own life. The whole of me is with you. I see and feel you so distinctly, your beloved cold hand in mine Your touch on the nape of my neck. Both joy and agony – my insides torn by pincers. A double goodbye would have been awful – two bites on the bullet of pain. This love is like something we have given birth to. We must never blunt our imagination or tenderness. Don’t get a cold in your soul.
EVAN I disappoint everyone. I deliberately left one of your letters for Elayna to find. With me love is linked with A need to betray. I invite possessiveness. She made me promise our love would never be physical. I lied fluidly.
EVA Even the thought of Such a loss of pleasure tears at my heart Like some medieval torture. You harrow me unbearably. My defenses are down. I’m filled me with a sense of ghastly injury. How I wish I were more beautiful – It’s my mouth that ages me. I want you seeing all of me – Even if it hurts. You are your own child, You preserve your youth with the harm That you cause. I am dead and already Interred – in you. You are my eternity.
EVAN You can’t have everything. I am kept aloft by the conflict of Unbearables. I am happy.
EVA Our dancing life is over – Shall I enter a convent? There’s no point in being alive if we’re not together. I show my deepest self to you alone.
EVAN Please – no more shaming conversations Over Irish whisky. Let’s cut our losses And get some fun from life.
EVA
The gash in our love might close But I can’t forget it’s there. Life with you is a remote happiness to which I cling.
EVAN And all this time you write Fantastic books. If you were as unhappy as you say, You couldn’t write so well. I am the whetstone on which you sharpen – I should be thanked for all your works.
EVA You shed your light around me. I am always aware of that other world we share – Or do we? Our pattern seems set – If treachery can’t break it, There is no death.
EVAN I am losing interest in sex. My bed gets so icy in the small hours of the morning – I feel I am trying to communicate with the spirit world. I am in limbo and will never escape this place. The adolescent remains alive in me, I have a Panic fear of conformity. So I cast myself as the elderly rake. I’m the bore – Marriage gets me down.
EVA When you go on and on about yourself You’re a man I don’t recognize. I prefer your adolescent self. The man of the house is a free agent. A respected prowler Who looks benevolently upon the faces of his womenfolk. Then he’s away – with mistresses or boyfriends. In my attack of loneliness, I’m housebound, Eating baked beans and drinking stewed tea.
EVAN In other countries women Are less bossy and more decorative.
If This Card Chooses You – You are surrounded by magical possibilities. Are you dreaming of eternal bliss? Floating in connectedness? In Love the boundaries of the other disappear, all is forgiveness. Merge fearlessly, knowing you will be able to get yourself back any time, soothed, improved, and healed.
We Are Warriors For Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change – uncharged they are so much dead air. This is the space that warriors protect. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.
Our Yearning Defines Us – As children we thought we knew the meaning of life but it seems we have forgotten. As warriors we fight for our ancestral memories of trust and closeness. How we long to be reminded of the ecstasy of selflessness, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes the dead universe come alive.
Love Is Our Armor – It’s a spiral, our labyrinth, remember? We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We practice techniques and invent others as we design and redesign purposeful maps in a threatening and uncertain world. We have the collective confidence of all the brilliance of the warriors who came before us. Someone loved us once, eternalizing the golden moment, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic.
Warrior Danger – Danger lies in narrowing, exclusionary definitions. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero sum game with a shut-off valve focused on our own gratification, Love dies.
Warrior Opportunity – The possibilities of a warrior are endless because we have chosen, in our flexibility and understanding, to be endless. Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours. Let’s venture forth together.
Models & Mentors – ‘to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides” – David Viscott
“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is everything” – Katherine Hepburn
“Love gives you a piece of your soul you never knew was missing” – Torquato Tasso
“Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh
“I love you for who I am when I’m with you” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
#Haiku: Love Transfer
The secret of breaking Any bad habit Is to love Something more
If This Card Chooses You – Do you need to forgive? Or be forgiven? Most of us require both! Ask your dreams. Do you dream of home? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. “Home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and forgotten.
Warriors Create The Future – We commit to the ultimate compassion that we are all in this together. Jesus suggests that understanding doesn’t arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.
Warriors Create Heaven – Such forgiveness helps us achieve the state of spiritual lightness that allows a warrior to float through time, history, even the universe.
Warriors Are At Home In the World – What’s your “dream home”? A warrior’s training emphasizes understanding and managing the fragility of the human body and the objective world, and accepting our healing and unifying mandate. Once we have scoped out the terrain and the inhabitants, Warriors are at “home” anywhere.
Warriors are About Justice – But not the kind that leaves more brokenness behind. Warriors achievements and physical selves display the triumph of thought, will and love.
What Does It Mean to “Start Over”? – We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we are all contributing to frees us from painful rumination and helps escape and explain the prison of blame. “I did this because you –“… Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves. We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace.
It’s All About You – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. The question for Christians is, which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm? Can you define the mess we’re in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? In what group – or even in what “moment” can you detach from the mess?
Warriors’ Danger – We can’t afford to get mixed up about right and wrong. “By their fruits shall you know them.” Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error”. The threat is NOT coming from inside the house. Martin Luther King Jr. made the wise comment that our specific brand of capitalism tends toward is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they demand absolute freedom.
What Is The Bigger Picture? Health and safety for all living things to achieve their growth potential as part of a harmonious, non-exploitative whole. It is key that our resistance – which is necessary and life-giving – not embitter us.
Forgiveness Is Our Armor – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is a request, not a demand. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party instead seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change – that’s the way I am” — that’ a different request. “Home” is not re-created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, (because of safety) only to yourself. “If I’m not willing to try giving up my participation in this suffering because I think I’m not able to, then this pattern will continually get worse.” Time to construct a better – more intelligent map.
Models & Mentors – “It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it’s a powerful place, because it frees you” – Tyler Perry
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world” – Marianne Williamson
“The weak can’t forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong” – Mahatma Gandhi
“To forgive one another, we must understand one another” – Emma Goldman
“Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. It liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself” – T.D. Jakes
#Haiku: Forgiveness
Returning home with Newborn eyes Strong hands Fresh translations Future’s past
Alysse Aallyn 