debt
what do we owe our angels?
what do we owe our demons?
~
There are times when nervousness sets in; so much so that sitting or laying down or smoking weed, eating squishy sugar candies, doing nothing, nothing at all — no; nothing seems to do. Nothing seems to work. All is broken. I let myself break. Again and again.
From brokenness, I can hear the plane flying overhead. Is it going to La Guardia, or to JFK? Maybe it is going somewhere else.
We live outside. There’s drywall and lacquered flooring and steel I-beams, but we still live outside.
From brokenness, I can hear the LIRR train stomping by my window. I can feel the wetness on my cheek. I can feel the strain in my lower back, resultant of six months yearning, earning, learning and losing.
The noisy house is quiet.
~
I noticed that Amalia’s face looks a little bit like mine when I was a prepubescent kid. The shape of her chin mirrors mine, and the eyes are similar too. It’s this look, this knowing look, a knowing confidence, which I recognize from those old remembrances of me in 8th grade playing Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird.
There’s two distinct moments from that play that stick in my memory. One was holding Sienna’s hand—she was playing Scout—and feeling the heat and wetness of her palm. She held my hand by its palm, no finger interlacing.
The other thing I remember was being criticized. There was a courtroom scene and I had the line, “Look, Scout! He’s crippled!”
I kind of exitedly yelled the line, pointing and holler-whispering. The director, Jan, hated this delivery and spared no words and made me do the scene again and again and again in rehearsals. Jan got exasperated but I never felt like I figured out how to say it.
During the actual run of the show, the line came and went. In my heart, I could feel Jan. It didn’t feel like a success. I craved her approval. After the show, when I saw her briefly, I alluded to the line, as if to say: did I do it right this time?
Did I do it right this time?