The Usher

It all started with a big blue bag of laundry, my laundry, to be sure, as I had done it earlier in the day (responsibility points.). That’s how it started, I think, if I recall correctly, your honor. I was folding something- the dark blue shirt, or maybe the bright green campaign shirt (activism points), the shirt colored shirt shirt- shit, I’m getting off track again- Where was I?- Folding. Yes. Making order and sense of my messiness. And then, in the act of tucking sleeve after sleeve behind the fabric, my mind and body began to free itself from the structure of the activity and it started: Yes. It. And before I knew it I was face down on the bed again, like a cat urping, weeping face down again, into the new comforter cover I had bought from Target, again. It is too large, the comforter cover, because I am not good at buying things at Target and I got the wrong thing and so it droops. It is charcoal colored and it had a spot from where I cried on it. I’m not trying to make you sad, here, reader, I’m just reporting on an event that happened to me because it was emotional and there was no witness, your honor, can I get a witness, your honor? Thank you.

I think I’m being pretentious and too wordy with this so far and beatin’ around the bush, so I’ll try to make it plain: I had always wondered how Cherry Jones, the actress, had done it in the “Glass Menagerie” or, for a lesser known reference, René Augesen in anything she’s ever touched. They played the emotionally volatile parts so well. I remember the way their hands shook, the quivering in their voice, tapping into the raw and tightrope within themselves, and that was me then, in my room, in the midst of folding the laundry, doing my best Cherry Jones/ René Augesen impression, feeling the dirty walls for some kind of an anchor, there was no anchor, stumbling into the kitchen, on no drink or drugs, pouring hot water into a jar filled with ice and spitting it out on the first drink, feeling the walls again for an anchor, there was no anchor, making them even more dirty and streaked than they already are, rearranging the plastic laundry caps with trembling hands. This was not all just to be dramatic. I am terrified. Are you? I get the sense, from being out into the world, that you are.

And so I flogged the old horses:

What if I had cleaned my ego clogged earhole and shut my yap?

Held back my stupid fucking stupid fucking g-d damned race horse tongue for once?

Called the Commissioner and suspended the search for a problem?

Waited? Like so many do for busses, every day?

Been different than I was been different than I was been different than I was been different than I was been different than I was been different than I was?

Than I am?

Oy yoy yoy.

You told me you were a scientist once.

Yes, you.

And it was cute. And I liked it. And I fell in love with it.

And now you are no longer here.

I’m not a victim here. I played my part, too. Don’t call the paramedics.

I am stating the facts.

You are no longer here and I’d give anything to touch that place on your midsection where you wore a band aid.

I am suddenly interrupted by the phone.

It is my friend, A.

“Hello?”

“White people are so full of shit, man!” he says.

And suddenly, with that, the show ends and the houselights go up.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here other than that there is a great benefit to letting the body be a cat and do the urping on the comforter cover, and there is a great benefit to friends who call. And that white people are most definitely full of shit, man. And that I miss you. Yes. You. You are a great benefit, too, even now that I figure out in retrospect how to love you. And that life is immeasurably hard and will always be full of mourning. And that Cherry Jones and René Augesen are fantastic actors and you should see them if you ever get the chance.

And that the Usher, yes, the One who guided us all here in the first place, always comes at the last and sweeps the theater when it’s all done and that no one- myself included- seems to really care or remember or ever even think about the trembling of Their hands on the broom. And that maybe we ought to start.

Brooklyn, NY. 2019.