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Messages - Arlo Mason
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« on: 12/23/2016 at 22:16 »
Arlo Mason drank his whiskey, neat, and when he too left The Hind, its glass, the girl behind to write, he left the book in its gentle cream canvas with Harold for the girl and her next shift on Sunday’s after church rush. fin.
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« on: 12/23/2016 at 22:10 »
Arlo was flipping a page when he saw her, his hand (no longer as calloused as it once was) drawing the corner of the page up so his fingers could slip beneath it, then the same hand passing over the center binding to turn it. He hadn’t read a word of it for he had been imagining shades of his mother into the bar keep’s work, but it hardly mattered; he had been focused on the wrong one entirely but once he saw her he couldn’t have missed her if he tried.
So he had raised his finger across the bar, and had just turned the page with the same one, then presently came to rest left-tilted and with an elbow on the bar, easy. It was her eyes that his caught first, and he watched as hers went still; he could almost read the title, watching her reading it. Arlo knew from her eyes that she was a writer, for they were the sort of brown eyes that writers always seemed to be possessed of--as if some far-off and largely absent god made all writers’ eyes brown for their universality but also for their poetically defiant plainness.
Oh.
He didn’t hear her words--not entirely, for he didn’t need to. Of course he knew it was from Hamlet; years ago now he had taught as much at Emerson when, one semester, he had been stuck with a section of Southern Literature instead of simply his favored Poetry. He had been horrible at teaching it--either of them, suited only for the reading and writing of both at once; Southern (for he was) Poetry (for he was one of those as well). In that way, he supposed, he was like his mother--his hands were, like hers, much better suited to the doing of things.
Deer-like, he raised his eyes to the girls--so many like hers he had seen, young and eager and full of the belief that words and the writing of them mattered still. Hers, he could tell, was still a head full of promise, and her hands like his mothers were suited to the doing of things, and yet he could not find the kindness within himself.
“I was never much for the classics,” he lulled, lying, and the sound of it rolled like a river over rocks.
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« on: 12/23/2016 at 22:03 »
The Hind was only a slip of a pub--a pub only because it was the early afternoon and they were already serving, so the folk of the town showed up and he turned up along with them. In reality, it was less the building that made the Hind a pub--though the brick and mortar certainly did, gloomy gray stone walls hung with gloomy grayscale paintings of a gloomy gray-streaked town--and more the people in it. At present there were three--an old man, long gone; a rotund barkeeper with busy, useless hands; a man, angel-headed and bleary-eyed at the bar, alone. It was hardly past lunch time, but the three men held the place up, giving a reason for the desperate, strangled sort of feeling that hung heavily around the place, pressing down as if to turn the three of them into diamonds or ash.
It was where Arlo Mason (at the bar, alone, as usual) sat--and where he had been sitting for several hours straight, which was long enough to learn the owner’s first name.
“Thank you, Harold,” he said to the barkeeper as slid a glass across the oak to him, expertly lifting it in a toast to the round, bored man and then draining it in one before returning to the book he wasn’t reading. Somewhere to the side, he heard the ruddy-cheeked man return to his work, worrying the same glass he had been polishing for hours. Over this work, Arlo tried to superimpose the hands of his mother--it has been her work, too, keeping bar.
But his mother’s hands had never been idle. They were strong, not soft, but tender all the same, and there was nothing of their ease in the hands of Harold no matter how hard he tried to see it. Her fingers had moved always with dedication, whatever task feel beneath them occupying her attention wholly and holy, be it braiding a pie crust when he had been twenty-three or plaiting his daughter’s blonde curls when she had been four. It never would have been her task, polishing the same glass, but if she had, she could have turned cut glass to crystal.
Sophia’s hands had always held purpose.
Arlo’s hands shifted, adjusting the spine of the book he read to rest in one while the other raised a lone finger across the bar and towards a young waitress.
“I’ll take a whiskey, neat.”
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« on: 09/15/2015 at 00:34 »
THE CARS AND THE BARS AND THE BARMEN
___________________________________
A Play in Infinite Acts Cast of Characters
Arlo David Mason:A hot mess in his early 20's--the Boy Poet A Beautiful Stranger:It could be anyone, really. Scene The Swan, a.k.a. The Swine--a drive bar; Chelsea, London.Time Timeless, or 1956
ACT I
Scene 1
SETTING: - We're in The Swan, also known as The Swine, a terrible drive bar even by terrible dive bar standards. The wood paneled walls, once at peak fashion, are now in shambles, most of the shellac protecting them long ago stripped away; in parts, particularly the corners of the place, the wood is worn away, exposing wires and lead pipes. The room is small, divided in to thirds--one, a clutch of dilapidated tables (no more than three or four) and rickety chairs (never enough for company); two, an open, sticky floor that would be a dance floor if the place attracted the sort of patrons who danced (it didn't); three (the big show! the only show!)--a bar, on the wall farthest from the door, spanning the back of the establishment width-wise; its state of disrepair is similar to the walls, but has been better kept in general. The lighting is low and from behind the bar only, or else from the entry as the door opens or closes. For our purposes, the lighting is fluid and a character of its own. The Swan, or The Swine, is a character, too, thought he would never admit it. Over an ancient juke box, jazz plays not-quite-loud-enough.
AT RISE: - ARLO DAVID MASON jerks his hips, or sways his hips, or circles his hips--he moves his hips--in the second part of the bar, the sticky would-be dance floor. ARLO's motion is on-beat with the jazz song that plays--enthusiastically so; the over-full glass of whiskey in his hand tips with each movement. He wears a sweater over a collared shirt, scuffed shoes, and a glassy, aimless grin. The jukebox spins to a stop and in the intermission, ARLO saunters to the bar.
ARLO YES.- (Here, ARLO speaks in all caps and snaps his fingers, shaking his head from side to side on pace with the swing of his hips. He snaps again--once, twice, three times--to the beat and finishes his drink then slams his glass on the bar. With two more rapid, demanding snaps, he orders another wordlessly. ARLO looks stage right.)
Oh.- (From SR, a bright spotlight shines, blinding ARLO, blinding the audience, both spare a dramatic outline of a human being--THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER. In that moment, THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER is the loveliest thing ARLO has ever seen. He extends his hand to THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER; his next words are not a question and his fresh drink is forgotten. The jukebox swells loud like a live band--jazz, jazz, jazz.)
Dance with me, beautiful.
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