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+Episode 3.07, Dance of Desire
+-----------------------------
+
+PRELUDE: En una noche oscura. “On a dark night.” 3 AM. The soul’s
+midnight. Digital clocking. 3:00. Clouds envelop full moon and
+enclose reflecting light. “Here we go round the prickly pear, prickly
+pear, prickly pear. ….” Joan’s bedchamber. Prickly plant from
+Botanica Arcadia on nightstand. Window open. Cool breeze blows
+through inner room. All her senses suspended. Interior castle.
+Perfect equilibrium. Flow. Inside. Outside. Saturate permeable
+boundaries. Skin of the house. Breathe. Stilled. Estando ya la casa
+sosegada. “And the house being now at rest.” …
+Sleep sweet sister Joan. Beloved warrior. Perchance to dream. Such
+stuff we are made on. Taper inflames obscure night. Delve deep. Wake
+to worlds diverse and wide. There, little lambs dance and abide.
+Despite infernal designs. They do abide, strong and upright. In
+Rachel’s arms maternal.
+These transcendent forces do take a local habitation in mind and
+place. Reside among terminable forms with bicameral voices. And hold
+Arcadia in hand’s palm. Yet the play’s the thing, or rather the dance
+and fling, thence do implore Terpsichore, and so begin:
+
+**Part 1**\ : Locate Joan’s dream world and ambiance: Dim patterns of
+light afford little sight. Ballroom, with high ceiling, quite absent
+chairs or tables. Wall sconces with candles disperse limited
+illumination. And Joan’s there, walking slowly, looking ‘round,
+seeing no one. She pans the room’s large size. It invokes feeling
+thoroughly alone. Vast open space, yet enclosed. Nothing. Nada.….
+Well, not quite. There are pictures on the walls, barely seen because
+of distances in the room; the lighting’s low. The ballroom’s more a
+gallery of images, forms, and paintings. Artwork lines the space.
+‘Woman in flames’ (‘Anima Sola’) and Goya (‘Saturn devouring one of
+his children.’) paintings are prominent.
+Joan’s adorned elegantly, arrayed in all her glory, decked in finery
+of floor-length ensemble, gathered at the waist, with sequins.
+(Impressions float by: Strange armour? Senior prom dress? Graduation
+day? Or … wedding day gown?) She’s all dressed up, but without a
+beau, sin un amado (without a beloved). She’s got the place to go
+rather than no place at all, but …. where are the props? …. It’s all
+too much, and yet, vibrant. Teeming anticipation fills the space,
+saturating thought. Prelude to what?
+Joan looks ‘round the ballroom again, giving closer observation to
+the paintings and details. Hardly seeing, she wanders towards the
+images.
+The beginning notes of a song (Leonard Cohen’s ‘Joan of Arc’)
+reverberate. Joan stops before one painting, and visually glides her
+sight from that location to others in the hall.
+She moves closer to absorb that of ‘the solitary soul,’\ \ `Anima
+Sola <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/Lonelysoul-1.jpg>`__\ \ .
+It appears as a ‘woman in flames’ who is chained in her longing,
+yearning to rise out.
+The opening lyrics from Cohen’s song drone:
+“Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc
+As she came riding through the dark;
+No moon to keep her armour bright,
+No man to get her through this smoky night.”
+Joan is consumed in rapt attention to Anima Sola.
+
+The ballroom/gallery is filled with these icons of contemplation:
+
+Icon of\ `San Juan de la
+Cruz <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/SaintJohnoftheCross.jpg>`__\ ;
+Icon of\ `Sacred heart of
+Jesus <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/SacredHeartofJesus.jpg>`__\ ,
+heart encircled by thorns;
+Leonard Cohen’s ‘\ \ `Death of a Ladies
+Man <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/DeathofaLadiesMan.jpg>`__\ \ ’
+album cover as portrait;
+Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, ‘\ \ `Starry
+Night <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/VincentVanGogh-StarryNight.jpg>`__\ ';
+\ `Yogi Patanjali’s
+statue <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/YogiPatanjalisstatue.jpg>`__\ ;
+\ `Nataraja’s
+statue <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/NatarajasstatuedancingposeofLordShi.jpg>`__\ ,
+dancing pose of Lord Shiva;
+Mevlevi, '\ `Whirling
+Dervishes <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/MevleviWhirlingDervishesimage.jpg>`__\ \ ’;
+Portrait of\ `Baal Shem
+Tov <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/BaalShemTov.jpg>`__\ (Rabbi
+Yisrael ben Eliezer, (Besht);
+\ `Icons <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/IconofMansural-Hallaj2.jpg>`__\ of\ `Mansur
+al-Hallaj <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/IconofMansural-Hallaj.jpg>`__\ ;
+\ `Caryatid <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/Caryatidsculpture.jpg>`__\ sculpture;
+Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, '\ `Fallen
+Caryatid <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/RodinsCaryatidCarryingaStone.jpg>`__\ carrying
+her stone’;
+\ `Ester (‘Etty’)
+Hillesum <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/EsterEttyHillesum.gif>`__\ photograph;
+Portrait of\ `Simone
+Weil <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/SimoneWeil.jpg>`__\ ;
+Photograph of\ `Gandhi’s
+cremation <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/Gandhiscremation.jpg>`__\ ;/span>
+Photograph of\ `Black
+Elk <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/BlackElk.jpg>`__\ ;
+\ `Ghost Dance
+jacket <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/IndianCostume.jpg>`__\ ;
+Photograph of\ `Malcolm
+X <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/MalcolmXinprayer.gif>`__\ in
+prayer at mosque;
+\ `Wilfred Owen portrait with ‘Greater
+Love’ <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/WilfredOwen-GreaterLove.jpg>`__\ inscribed
+beside;
+Picasso’s painting,
+‘\ \ `Guernica <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/PicassospaintingGuernica.jpg>`__\ \ ’;
+Photograph portrait of\ `Ida B
+Wells <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/IdaBWells.jpg>`__\ ;
+Adam’s sculpture,
+‘\ \ `Ascension <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/Ascension2.jpg>`__\ \ ’;
+Willem de Kooning’s painting, ‘\ \ `Woman
+V <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/WillemdeKooningspaintingWomanV.jpg>`__\ \ ’
+Helen’s\ `painting <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/Helen5.jpg>`__\ from
+her trauma;
+Jan Van Eyck’s painting, ‘\ \ `The Wedding of Giovanna and Giovanni
+Arnolfini <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/JanVanEyckspaintingTheWeddingofGiov.jpg>`__\ \ ’;
+Giovanni Bellini’s painting, ‘\ \ `St. Francis in
+Ecstasy <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/GiovanniBellinispaintingStFrancisin.jpg>`__\ \ ’;
+Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel section painting of\ `St. Catherine of
+Alexandria <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/StCatherineofAlexandria.jpg>`__\ ,
+with the Catherine wheel;
+Goya’s painting, ‘\ \ `Saturn devouring one of his
+children <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/GoyaspaintingSaturndevouringoneofhi.jpg>`__\ \ ’.
+
+With Joan’s unrest rising to fever pitch at sight of this, her
+unsureness unsettles the surfaces.
+
+And as those first lines of the song end, Cute-boy-god (CBG), with
+gentle hand, taps Joan on the shoulder from behind. Joan turns
+around, a pleased glance reveals relief in recognizing him. She’s
+feeling not so alone. He’s ‘dressed to the nines’. In a tux.
+He engages Joan to dance. She gestures not-knowing-how. He encourages
+her anyway, beckoning … ‘Follow my lead. Join the flow.’ Joan’s heart
+starts to poun, her breathing becomes rapid, her lungs drawing deep
+breaths. He smiles comfort, gesturing ‘Go with me … Just breathe.’
+Joan’s awkward initially, but starts to get it. Before long, they
+seem to be gliding on air all about the room. Footfalls land silently
+upon hardwood floors that have a layer of ash-like dust upon them.
+And they flow together, breezily, dreamily, filling the space with
+the delicate design of their inscape. It’s delightful… all-consuming
+… ecstatic immanence… as they trip the light fantastic.
+As he swings low the sweet maid, the music envelops them, the
+ballroom, all their being and movement, playing off their meanings.
+And more of the images lining the room come into view. (The following
+lyrics from Cohen’s ‘\ \ `Joan of
+Arc <http://dc35.4shared.com/download/68951304/f6020608/Leonard_Cohen_-_Joan_Of_Arc.mp3>`__\ \ ’
+are heard as Joan and Cute-boy-god glide along ….
+‘She said, "I'm tired of the war,
+I want the kind of work I had before,
+a wedding dress or something white
+to wear upon my swollen appetite."
+La lala La lala La lala La lala La lala (CBG twirls Joan)
+La lala La lala La lala La lala La la la Lala la la la ….
+‘"And who are you?" she sternly spoke
+to the one beneath the smoke.
+"Why, I'm fire," he replied,
+“And I love your solitude, and I love your pride.”
+La lala La lala La lala La lala La lala (Joan is whirled by CBG)
+La lala La lala La lala La lala La la la Lala la la la …
+”Then fire, make your body cold,
+I'm going to give you mine to hold,
+And saying this she climbed inside
+to be his one, to be his only bride.”
+“And deep into his fiery heart
+he took the dust of Joan of Arc,
+and high above the wedding guests
+he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.
+La lala La lala La lala La lala La lala (Joan is whirled by CBG)
+La lala La lala La lala La lala La la la Lala la la la …
+“and then she clearly understood
+if he was fire, oh, then, she must be wood.
+I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
+I saw the glory in her eye.
+Myself I long for love and light,
+but must it come so cruel, must it be so bright?”
+La lala La lala La lala La lala La lala (CBG twirls Joan)
+La lala La lala La lala La lala La la la Lala la la la …
+At end, they’ve soared to a different place. Re-located. In a church.
+In the alcove is a statue of Michael the archangel, his foot on
+Satan. CBG looks deeply into Joan’s eyes …. A lingering gaze…
+Something rises from Joan’s core, her heart of hearts … The dance
+wakens a longing. She swells with excitement and distress, and tries
+to breathe, but can barely catch her breath. And … And …. Joan’s
+alarm clock flares out like a fire truck blaring its horn, striking
+her to wakefulness.
+
+**Part 2**\ : …. Startled into the cold current of the world’s flow,
+Joan rises from her bed early in the morning. It’s still dark …She
+quickly completes her morning routine and is about to leave when she
+moves to close her window. She sticks her head out. And then, leaning
+her elbows on the sill, she looks up at the night sky and sees the
+constellation Orion, dominating the kingdoms of stars. Her gaze
+slowly descends to the ground. In her backyard, she notices the
+Grecian urn, purchased this summer. Its form, that of a woman’s head,
+life-size, caryatid-like, and hollowed out for flowers or ashes, is
+now turned over, with a crack running down the length of its
+hairline… The lavender that surrounded it, trampled…She recalls
+gathering it, and drying it during the summer… for her hair, and to
+scent the room. The crushed lavender, its essence, that filled the
+urn … now spilled out… and strewn over the backyard. Its odor wafting
+up and above the house ‘til it seems to pervade it. A light drizzle
+has just begun to fall upon the ground, dampening it some. Joan muses
+over this, dropping it out of her mind for another day when she
+finally closes the window behind her. She goes to pick up her
+headphones, and is about to drop them back on the chair, but instead
+slips them around her neck. (“\ \ `Existentialism on prom
+night <http://dc35.4shared.com/download/68967627/393dd2d7/Straylight_Run_-_Existentialism_on__Prom_Night.mp3>`__\ ,”
+by Straylight Run plays out of the headphones, louder and louder
+until it surrounds the room. She carries the tune into the following
+sequence.)
+\ **Part 3**\ : (Joan stops in the kitchen … Helen’s there).
+Helen: Honey, what are you doing up so early? I thought you need more
+sleep, not less.
+Joan: (making a smart remark): Walking in my sleep. (closes her eyes
+and starts to traipse zombie-like, then whirls as in the dream, but
+abruptly stops, startled into inkling its meaning …it’s all so
+disturbing.) I told you. I’ve been getting up early for a secret
+rendezvous… with God, er… angels … you know, at St. Michael’s.
+(Joan’s again joking. But Helen’s a little confused. And Joan’s
+alarming herself as she reminds herself again unawares of images from
+her dream.) Ah! Ugh! (frustrated)
+Helen: Oh yeah, I forget these things as soon as you say them… (on
+second thought) Sometimes. …Not up early this week to see you leave.
+But I need to know these things…
+Joan: Mom! (whining)… Every little detail… 17 almost 18. Let’s see.
+(irritated and rattling off a list from her mind, almost ready to
+stomp her foot for emphasis)…Age of independence. Age of majority.
+Voting. Selective service. Join the army. Forming my own? (this last
+said almost as a question; she’s going a little too far so she tries
+to come back) No longer innocent! …. Do I have to put it in writing
+for you?… (wondering aloud) And what else? …Gone to college in a
+year. (and now getting to the point) So, how ‘bout some privacy? Hey,
+livin’ in my own private Idaho, here! (Another song has come out of
+the headphones around Joan’s neck: B-52s, '\ `Own Private
+Idaho <http://dc35.4shared.com/download/68968134/e403b4ff/B-52_-_Private_Idaho.mp3>`__\ ,’
+but she can barely hear it.)
+Helen: (feeling it’s all moving too fast and not following Joan’s
+last remark, but hearing ‘privacy’, Helen is about to say something
+when Joan interrupts)
+Joan: Oh yeah, I forgot: I listen to the music you didn’t listen to
+when you were young because it was way ahead of you. So that’s how
+far behind I am. Pathetic. Please don’t remind me.
+Helen: (disappointed in Joan’s unkind remark) Thanks. (Helen recovers
+enough to say something) Oh yeah, the privacy thing. Would you get me
+some while you’re there?
+Joan: (tired of where the conversation has gone, now going back) What
+are you up so early for?
+Helen: Making breakfast for your father … Something new (pleased with
+herself)… scrambled eggs with salsa. Caliente…. (now giving her
+reason) He has a meeting with the Citizens’ Watchdog Committee on
+crime in Arcadia. (Joan moves towards the skillet to get a taste.)
+They want a more aggressive approach with the drug dealers, vagrants,
+street level criminals in the neighborhoods. And you know how he
+doesn’t like being told how to do his job…
+Joan: With Ryan Hunter….? (worried and losing interest in the
+scrambled eggs that she picked up and dabbed with the salsa, but she
+samples anyways)
+Helen: I suppose… (Joan tried to keep her distress to herself,
+unsuccessfully. Helen noticed it.)
+Joan: (picking up the newspaper and pointing to the headlines of a
+story) Does he have to deal with them about this?
+Helen: He hopes not. It’s a mess. All that money and drugs missing
+from the police department. And who knows what else.
+(Will walks in, wondering if he missed something as both Helen and
+Joan clam up, not wanting to start Will’s morning off with bad police
+news.)
+Joan: (to her dad in an attempt at redirection) Ola.
+(Will decides to ignore his premonition, smiles at Joan, and, notices
+the eggs, and gives Helen a kiss, a more extended one than normal.)
+Joan: (grossed out, grimacing through the entire sequence that
+follows, thinks it uncouth …) Eyew. Eyew. Eyew! (with gradual
+increase in volume and emphasis that caricatures her response)
+Helen: What’s this (referring to the extended kiss)?
+Will: (speaking softly) I had a dream. Missed you when I woke up.
+Helen: Well (overwhelmed by the extended kiss, but tries to come out
+of it). Que es? (Spanish, ‘what is it?’ not quite the right Spanish
+for her question, but Helen’s not fluent, and it’s early morning. She
+meant ‘what was it?’)
+Will: I don’t remember…. but it was hot (Looking at the salsa, and
+realizing that Helen spoke Spanish, Will is set off into the
+following passionate sequence. He starts speaking Spanish himself,
+with a wild look.) Querida Mia (Will kisses Helen’s arm like Gomez
+did Morticia’s in ADDAMS Family. He tries to get her to dance as they
+would; she resists. There’s a mix of suggestion, resistance, and
+comic passion.)
+Helen: Will! (Not in the mood)
+Will: (disappointed look, but still hoping) …. Yada?
+Helen: Nada!
+(Kevin rolls in behind Luke, who walks into the kitchen. Noticing the
+end of the attempted dance by Will, Luke picks up a mophead near the
+counter and throws it over his head, looking like Cousin Itt from
+Addams Family.)
+Joan: Too much ADDAMS family. I’m outta here.
+Kevin: (missing what had happened) What’s with her? (They all look
+quizzical and go in random directions that appear choreographed into
+a fractal-like dance, ordered but not consciously or in obvious form.
+It’s a jazz-inflected dance troupe performance, accidentally done by
+the 4 Girardis, that plays off Will and Helen’s failed Morticia-Gomez
+skit. But this one is coordinated unawares by family Girardi, having
+learned one another’s rhythms and moves accordingly.)
+
+**Part 4**\ : (It’s still dark outside as Joan walks up to the bus
+stop. The moon is bright in the sky. Joan runs into Adam, who has an
+Arcadia Herald newspaper in his arms, and they start talking while
+standing there. The words mostly come slow and with difficulty.)
+Joan: What are you doing up so early? …(then qualifies it, not
+wanting to sound intrusive, but fails) ‘Round here?
+Adam: Getting a ‘moon tan.’ (thinking it might sound funny and light,
+but his heart’s not in it, so he shifts to where he’s really at) Just
+thinking. (feeling uncertain and hopeless.)
+Joan: Yeah …(ignoring the moon comment, and guessing) School’s here.
+The end…. Our last year. Then…. On our own.
+Adam: I know. (not enthusiastic.)
+Joan: Why the ‘long dog’ face?
+Adam: I don’t know what’s ahead….I want what we had before. I miss
+you. (being honest)
+Joan: Me too. …. Miss you, that is, not me. (trying to be clear, but
+sounding funny)
+Adam: What we had…
+Joan: Can’t be taken from us. (Joan finishes his sentence.)
+Adam: I know. But I want you back, J…. (Wanting to say ‘Jane’, he
+can’t bear having to say ‘Joan’.)
+Joan: I want to be back. (A moment of hope glimmers for Adam, but he
+resists and is glad he didn’t show it after he hears Joan’s next
+remark.) But it can’t happen. (Then she tries to be hopeful for Adam,
+not herself.) For now.
+Adam: Yes, I know. (returning to his sadness)
+Joan: Adam. (trying to be helpful) Just breathe. (She takes a deep
+breath and demonstrates. Then she takes another kind of breath, this
+time through her nostrils expanding her lower abdomen, and exhaling
+through her mouth pursed.) Everything …we (thinking, but unsure, so
+she just guesses) need? .. is in the present moment…..I think.
+(hoping she got it right)
+Adam: (he smiles, wanting to connect even if he doesn’t understand
+most of what she says, he softly agrees, though it’s more a question)
+Right.
+Joan: (seeing the bus pulling up) Gotta go.
+Adam: Me too. (though it’s not really so.)
+Joan: (The bus arrives and Joan is about to step up. She turns,
+looking back towards him) Hey. (feeling how much she really cares for
+Adam.) Take care.
+Adam: (Adam moves to give Joan a hug.)
+Joan: (resisting Adam’s overture, quickly suppressing his effort) Not
+yet. (She turns away and gets on the bus.)
+Adam: Bye, Joan. (Her name comes out more like a plaintive plea. As
+he ‘trembles with tenderness, lips that would kiss mouth unformed
+prayers to broken’… ness. And he watches her bus ride off west with
+the moon.)
+
+**Part 5**\ : Joan walks down the street, past storefronts, a few
+that are boarded up, and comes upon St. Michael’s Episcopal Church.
+Outside the building is a statue of St. Michael crushing the serpent.
+Joan enters with some anxiety and anticipation. She wonders what goes
+on here. She walks down into the basement.
+There’s another emblem of\ `St.
+Michael <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/StMichaelbyRaphael.jpg>`__\ ,
+a painting, on the wall.
+6:25 on the clock. A Gathering session. Yoga class in the church
+basement. The group looks more varied than is typical for Joan’s
+social group – a wide range of ages and people of African, Latina/o
+(Hispanic), Middle Eastern and Asian descent. There are about 15 to
+20 people. Joan has her own mat in the bag she’s carrying. She gets
+it out, and lays out a spot; she removes her shoes. Things haven’t
+yet started, but will momentarily.
+She starts her warm-up in the reclining position, lying on her back,
+supine, comfortably, with her arms at her side, doing breathing
+techniques to relax and prepare her concentration and attention.
+After awhile, she moves to ‘happy baby’ posture. While lying on her
+back still, she brings knees to her chest, widening her legs,
+gripping knees with her hands to assist gradually the widening….
+Breathing and concentrating for awhile…stretching muscles easily….
+and then fully extending her legs into the air, holding the arches of
+her feet with her hands turned in, not putting too much pressure on
+the extension, and stretching her hamstrings. Joan’s deliberative and
+conscious of her body already, while she’s breathing. A thought
+crosses by: Happy yet? And she lets go of it, coming back to … in…
+She then sits up with her trunk quite straight, her legs as far apart
+as possible, folding left leg against her right thigh and bends at
+the waist, her head to kneecap. It’s the preparatory exercise for the
+perfect posture (lotus); she follows with the right leg. She’s
+feeling loose, and her body is warming to movement, flexibility
+fanning out.
+As Joan begins feeling her body’s extension and presence
+simultaneously, the yoga instructor enters, greets everyone with
+‘Ola,’ and a slight bow as she brings her palms, hands, and fingers
+together in perfect symmetry. She is a lovely, fair Latina woman,
+strikingly attractive. Lithe, lissome, and comely. One could be
+absorbed in her appearance if the focus was on her, but it isn’t. She
+pulls out of her bag “the bell of mindfulness,” setting it nearby,
+and rings it, to bring all to attention. Waiting ‘til all become
+mindful, wakeful.
+She moves directly to modeling further warm-up postures. Standing up,
+Joan matches them. The yoga instructor begins in the mountain-solid
+posture, the basic standing pose, with lower back slightly tucked in,
+rounded. Finding the center of gravity for the body in relation to
+the earth, its location in the space-time continuum. The mind focuses
+on a distant still point, in perfect poise, a massive rock, or
+pebble. One could repose here or sway for eternity or as long as the
+mountains stand. Breathing-mantra … in … out … mountain…
+solid…..drawing oxygen into the expanded diaphragm, the lower
+abdomen. Silence reigns. All sense of sound suspended. Remaining.
+Abiding. Being.
+Then the move to Deep Obeisance…While standing aright, bend at waist
+and place palms on the floor outward near feet. Not yet reaching the
+ground, a breath release drops the trunk further to the floor.
+Deepening drawn down. And another breath release. Further. It
+stretches hamstring muscles beyond length; so very few complete the
+full extension, but the effort directs the mind and the body. And
+practice improves quality and experience quickly.
+Before long, a return to “ standing-mountain” relieves the tension
+and allows an easier return to the breathing-mantra and the now very
+remote point. All to deliver the mind from thought - overrated,
+over-identified, aspect of self. Too much thinking…Stop…. Breathe ..
+in… out … delivering non-self from too many thought-ings. Deep
+relaxation. Oxygenating… special delivery to all parts of the body.
+Rebirth. Rejuvenating… Now…. And now. …. And now…. Now-ing…….
+Joan goes through an additional set of poses: Warrior pose. Down-dog.
+Up-dog. Child’s pose for relief and repose.
+Slowly, thoughts and mind lose their puffiness, inflation, expansion,
+sliding down into the heart, where they reside as affordants to
+action, feeling.
+
+Yoga instructor: (ending the morning’s session with deep relaxation…
+‘corpse position’… preparing the last letting-go of self and
+non-self, joining That, which is This, all linked in communion until
+dissolution… in pain and sorrow that become inextricably and
+simultaneously pleasure and joy, yin and yang experienced in the
+moment, … latent and salient)
+Joan: (As Joan lies on her back, fully extended, concentrating on her
+breath, observing its rhythms of mind and absence, something’s
+happening… withdrawal of the senses….she’s starting to become fully
+conscious… awake….disturbingly awake…..seeing the world anew,….
+Noticing how it’s refreshingly askew… but aright for the first
+time…Is this what ‘looking deeply’ means?….. Let go even of this
+clarity…. She can’t bear that thought as it passes….back-ing to her
+breath-ing…..She’s feeling a whole ‘nother part of her ……. be-ing
+……em-body-ing.)
+(And …her thinking interrupts flow… faltering at returning to breath…
+Finally she looks around, mutters, can’t keep it to herself any
+longer) Wow, this is like …. floating on waves of ... or swimming in
+clouds of … where am I? (nowhere… u-topia)
+Yoga instructor: (slowly returning to the world in front of the eyes,
+she rings “the bell of mindfulness” once more, and she speaks softly
+after its resonance has faded out) Shantih. Shalom. Salaam. (and
+taking a final breath, the prana spreads throughout her body and
+being; she keeps it with her as she comes and goes through the day,
+dwelling in the rippling center of things that dissipates and
+gathers.)
+(As each person seems to have returned to ordinary time with her, and
+standing on their own, she speaks up.) …Pax Finis…Anyone who wants to
+stick around for more ….understanding, questions, do so… (Most people
+leave…Joan joins a group of 4 people. They all sit on the
+floor)…(instructing) Yoga is a tree with 6 branches. Each branch a
+path. Hatha yoga is all about …. Breathing. …Postures…. Deep
+relaxation… Meditation….and (leaving it open-ended)…All methods to
+yoking … holding the mind in its place ….a discipline of the body
+…..also a discipline of the spirit …. Practice at home…. Breathing
+from the abdomen. Inhale, filling the stomach. Exhale through the
+mouth, pursed. ….a technique. It’s for you to profit from, in your
+own way. (now developing the theme with more depth) In Vipassana …
+observing breath’s the primary method… insight ….or mindfulness
+meditation … to see clearly .. or ..to look deeply .. from .. the
+place where the heart dwells …thought arises out of the heart…. an
+ancient idea… not far from bhakti yoga, the branch of love.
+(taking a breath and moving on to another topic) Another branch is
+karma yoga. Gandhi practiced it. Action. Experiments with truth. All
+yogas are kin, from the same Teacher. (now sounding cute) Sorta
+kissin’ cousins.
+(Lastly, pulling from her bag some gifts, she passes out a long
+thread-like rope with 108 beads, a japa mala) The sutras passed down
+and then finally written down by Patanjali are … threads of a japa
+mala on which the words of direction, aphorisms, are strung like
+beads. These can be helpful guides for recollection. …. reminiscence
+… remembrance… to return to the present … like the bell of
+mindfulness. Enough then for today. (Joan slips the string of beads
+into her pocket.)
+…(Yoga instructor finishes and goes over to pick up her stuff to
+leave. Everyone’s finally gone, but Joan’s still on the floor
+lingering, thinking again.)
+Yoga instructor: (going over to Joan and starts talking) Joan, how’d
+you come up with this before I gave the assignment?
+Joan: What? (unsure whether it’s god)
+Yoga instructor: I was going to tell you to visit a church. And here
+you are already.
+Joan: (realizing it’s god) So, no assignment. Good deal. I have a lot
+on the front burner.
+Yoga-instructor-god: Nah, it just gives me the chance to go to the
+next card (pulls out a card, and pulls up a chair to sit in, next to
+Joan). Learn to dance…
+Joan: (uncomfortable, remembering the dream) Sure. (displeased, but
+trying not to show it.)
+Yoga-instructor-god: Oh you already got that one too (making Joan
+curious about her dream)… Well, take it anyway, ‘cause … I teach
+dance too … (Yoga-instructor-god’s pleased with her cleverness) Am I
+a party-spirit, fun or what? (Joan gets a bit irritated because
+Yoga-instructor-god’s enjoying herself, wiggling her body about the
+chair, playing her feet like notes on a beat, and Joan’s still
+preoccupied with herself and impatient) … This is the location where
+I teach (gives her the card; Joan notices on the card: ‘Oracles: any
+time, contact directly’; faith healing; trumping all other cards…call
+1800-028-2827 ext 9494; there’s also an icon of a giraffe on it)….
+Okay, now get thee to the Academy, where they have class of a
+different sort …you’ll be late …. You have plenty of assignments
+coming this year…. (Joan frowns knowing how much schoolwork senior
+year is. She rises peeved and preoccupied, stomping her foot,
+readying to leave.)
+(Joan gets doubly distressed by an odd occurrence: she notices Ryan
+leaving the basement of the church. How did she miss him? She turns
+to talk to Yoga-instructor-god, but she’s exiting the basement with a
+wave. Joan now hurries too. Coming out of the church basement, she
+sees the sun barely rising, and a star fading at the horizon. In the
+same direction, she observes Yoga-instructor-god hook up with Ryan
+who was waiting outside the church. They start to walk together. Joan
+would like to follow them but chooses to get to school on time. As
+she hustles, she looks ahead, noticing an old movie theater, the
+Rialto, that connects her to a memory of Adam. On one side of the
+marquee, there’s “Citizen Kane”. On the other side of the marquee,
+there’s ‘All the President’s Men’ … 2 weeks.)
+
+**Part 6**\ : (Helen & Lily arrive at Café Noir coffee shop, which
+has films playing in a separate room continuously. While they’re
+getting their coffee, they notice a film currently running: “The
+Nun’s Story” with Audrey Hepburn. Lily smiles to herself; she’s seen
+it several times. It is barely seen in brief clips throughout Helen
+and Lily’s conversation. They sit down at a table. Helen and Lily’s
+conversation begins as a quick exchange before it slows down.)
+Lily: So Helen, I gotta tell you, I’m falling deep into like with
+Kevin. It’s starting to really simmer. (looking at the coffee) …
+brew. (not liking the image)You know, a slow boil, here. (giving up)
+Whatever.
+Helen: (reacting with discomfort, but Lily goes right into…..)
+Lily: I just thought I’d start out with true confessions because
+today’s lesson is ….
+(Recognizing Helen’s distressed and over-interested, Lily
+reconsiders.) I’ll keep it to myself.
+Helen: Huh? (quizzical look) Wait, wait. Is that some kind of convent
+double speak? Deep into like? Gimme a break … (frustrated, not
+disgusted)
+Lily: (ignoring Helen’s remark) Blurting .. So …(returning to the
+planned purpose) Today’s lesson is sex and drugs and rock and roll
+…oh, and …God. Yeah, you know the Song of Songs. This incredible
+erotic poem to God in the Bible. (Lily’s quick intense voice is
+immediately recognized.)
+(Then Lily mumbles to no one in particular) I wonder what the music
+sounded like that goes with it …(Lily’s drifting for a second before
+returning, which allows Helen to say something and not interrupt.)
+Helen: Well, this is something they never told me in 12 years of
+Catholic schooling. They were all about getting us to unroll our
+skirts. You know, the ones we rolled up to show more leg.
+Lily: Yeah. Right. (Lily’s looking not interested, not connecting to
+Helen’s remarks because of its nostalgic reverb that’s a generational
+distance between them.) Well, anyway …
+(Lily spits the next lines out in rapid fire…) Yesterday. In church.
+We did this youth group service … with a kid playing the bass riff
+from Bob Marley’s EX-O-DUS. And the kids wrote their own praise
+refrain with this one kid singing the verses from the Book of Daniel
+. You know, where Rack, Shack and Benny are thrown into the fiery
+furnace for refusing to bow before NebbyNezzer’s pantheon. …(Lily
+gets tangential) Not unlike our own.. (has second thoughts)… Ok, I
+won’t go there. (going back to point) .. So, they’re like … untouched
+by these dancing flames …Wow! …. It was so cool. I mean. Really cool.
+For them. And me too. …And while this kid’s wailing the words
+unconsumed, I’m like transported. (she thinks twice.) Not into the
+fire, not for me. (going back to the mood) Me and God. And a choir of
+angels. In the heavenly court. We were rocking and rolling. (she’s
+moving, swaying) It was …so HOT (pronounced with extension, ‘H ahhh
+T!’) … Getting me all (Lily drags the ‘alllllll’ out) stirred up.
+(Lily now makes some movements to illustrate. She gets up and moves
+with flair. She jumps a couple times, including once in 180 degrees.
+It seems exciting, tantalizing. Into the fire or out? Nah. It’s as
+though she’s hearing the music all over again. People in the coffee
+shop look at her like she’s strange, but then they start to move in
+their chairs, almost like they’re caught up by her unbridled energy
+and enthusiasm as well.)
+(Finally Lily catches herself, takes a breath and comes back to
+earth.) And I won’t even tell you what we did with the Lord of the
+Dance!
+Helen: (listening to this as patiently as possible, Helen’s about to
+burst) Hold on. Hold on. You what! … What kind of church is talking
+about sex without abstinence? To kids? Too x-rated for this
+ex-catholic schoolgirl.
+Lily: Helen, how do we not bring our bodies to worship? Our souls
+into communion with the higher power? (Lily pauses, developing a much
+slower repartee, letting the question sink in and hit Helen strongly
+and preparing for the next words that have equal force) Sex does it.
+Or at least points there…. Rock and roll gets it going (Lily suggests
+her earlier movements with a gesture or two. Helen’s not getting it
+so Lily ramps it up more. ‘Armageddon Surfer Girl’ song plays
+counterpoint.)
+Helen, the kids are alright. They just learn by trial and error. We
+all do. Struggling with guilt and innocence. Nobody gets it right the
+first time or the second or …. But the kids need to know God loves
+their bodies,… their passions. The whole of them.
+It’s there in the Song of Songs … The mystics know this. It inspired
+San Juan de la Cruz to write these exquisite love poems of God.
+(Lily’s excited, and starts to wonder if Helen thinks she’s lost it
+or not. Lily goes on, even though Helen’s musing that Lily’s really
+off her rocker.) … Helen, you’re a married woman. You know how it is.
+Desire can’t be satisfied . Or can, only to rise again. (quoting
+something) “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Our
+bodies, too. (going on) Rest, from hard work, desire’s exhaustion.
+All in its place. …Oh, and what excitement! Finding their place,
+their order in the soul, the universe…(Lily realizes she’s come back
+from her rhapsodizing and suddenly tries to focus herself.) And their
+ordering… that’s the disciplines of prayer…. You see, you know we
+were going there. (Helen again displays a distressed reaction,
+exasperated one more time by Lily’s flight, her jumps in meaning.
+Lily hoped her refocusing wasn’t too abrupt, but she gets the
+distinct idea that she’s left Helen in the dust, or ashes as it were.
+Lily now puts it out there straight.) Helen, are you praying? (And
+then Helen feels ever so clearly again that she loves Lily, considers
+her a good friend, truly beloved of her. Lily doesn’t mince her
+words; she’s direct, spiritual, mixing a faith and lived experience
+in a vital way, but Helen is unable to let that feeling connect
+herself to Lily and asks a question, rather than kissing her.)
+Helen: I’m not yet Catholic again, so .. And …. how did we get from
+sex to prayer? This makes no sense. (Helen’s staying safe even though
+it would have seemed spent.)
+Lily: (Lily shakes her head in frustration and looks down to the book
+she had brought. It’s laying on the table and she’s about to read a
+passage. Helen gets up and begins to walk out. The truth will take a
+little longer to sink in. As Helen leaves, she hears distantly Lily’s
+reading from The Song of Songs) “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a
+seal on your arm. For strong as death is love. Relentless as the
+nether world is desire. Its flames are blazing fire, a flame of
+Adonai himself. Deep waters cannot quench love nor floods sweep it
+away. Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would be
+roundly mocked.”
+
+**Part 7**\ : At the Arcadia Police Department
+Will: (to Carlisle as they stand outside near a conference room at
+the Police Dept., with Will pointing) You’re coming into this with
+me.
+Carlisle: (chewing on a breakfast fajita as he’s walking) Ok.
+(reluctant, but conceding )
+Will: (in a lower voice to Carlisle) Here’s the deal… some time after
+we get in there, you mention a case we have to follow up on,
+(thinking) …I don’t know… you think of one… and that we have to
+leave.. (getting to the point.) I don’t want to waste the whole
+morning with some advisory group…
+Carlisle: (shoving what’s left of the fajita into his mouth) Yeah.
+(with mouth full). Sure, boss. (With that last word, Will starts to
+feel the chasm that comes with chiefdom return.)
+(Will walks into the conference room; Carlisle follows. Ryan Hunter,
+president of the Citizens Watchdog Committee, is there with others
+from the committee. As Will walks in with Carlisle and Ryan gets up
+to shake hands, they all feel awkward because of the small conference
+room, and look like they’re doing some kind of dance, rather than
+just sitting down at their respective seats. Will finally sits down
+as the others do, and he collects himself.)
+Will: (to Ryan and the others) Detective Carlisle’s going to join us.
+(Initially Ryan has his hand out to shake Carlisle’s hand. But
+Carlisle is still gulping on the last bits of the fajita that he
+shoved into his mouth. As Carlisle wipes his hand from the fajita on
+his pants and then goes to shake Ryan’s hand, Ryan withdraws his
+hand, finally put-off by Carlisle’s uncouth manner.) Mr. Hunter, good
+to see you again. We need to stop dan- ….. (Will’s about to say
+‘dance’ as suggested by what they were just doing, but stops himself
+and says) … meeting like this. (Will was trying to be funny but it
+falls flat, and he realizes that. Ryan concedes his effort at humor,
+though the others don’t get it even remotely.)
+(Will then looks to the rest of the advisory group) I’m the Chief of
+Police, …again… Will Girardi. Pleased to meet you. (They nod.)
+Ryan: (getting started quickly) Chief Girardi, we appreciate your
+time and don’t want to keep you from your work. (Ryan is always on to
+Will’s issues, which relieves him, but there’s still a lurking sense
+of “dis-ease” for Will. He can’t put his finger on it, so he leaves
+it be for another day.) Let me introduce the other members who
+constitute the Citizens Watchdog Committee.
+(Quick introductions ensue.)
+Will: So … What can we do for you?
+Ryan: We’re having a Safety Summit this week and want you to attend.
+(on point) The councilman, district commander, local community
+development rep will be there.(still on point) It’s in the Central
+West End neighborhood. We need you there. (goes for the new twist)
+Will: If you have them showing up, you don’t need me.
+Ryan: Yes, we do. That’s the thing. (giving a list) The crime is out
+of control. The drug dealing. Prostitution. Petty crime. Panhandling
+… (and now the rationale) It’s a continual nuisance to the people
+living there. (and now the bigger picture) This neighborhood has the
+potential to be a premiere redeveloped renovated neighborhood in
+Arcadia. (These last words are given special emphasis by Ryan. The
+rest of the watchdog committee nod.) A mixed income neighborhood of
+choice. (sounding like a slogan from somewhere)
+Watchdog Committee member (African-American man): Chief Girardi. I
+live there. And without the police we’re going to find ourselves
+desperate (the plea playing on heartstrings). Here’s the invitation
+we sent the entire neighborhood. (passes a flyer with information on
+it to Will)
+Will: (as he continues to attempt to resist) I’m the Chief of Police,
+not a detective…. (waiting for acceptance from the group and getting
+none)
+Ryan: True, … but your presence sends a message.
+Will: (quickly realizes he’s again Chief of Police and anyway, it’s
+hopeless and relents) Okay. Okay. I’ll be glad to come. (providing
+limits) But I can’t commit to any other meetings. We’re (gesturing to
+Carlisle) occupied with all of Arcadia. (hoping Carlisle will get the
+clue, but Carlisle’s got his head downward, ignoring Will as though
+something else is on his mind. It’s humorous as Carlisle’s
+frustrating Will’s previous plan to exit.) Well, gotta go. (Carlisle
+perks up.)
+Ryan: Before you go, Chief Girardi. (the oh-by-the-way strategy that
+gets them every time) We need to know about this recent matter
+covered in the Herald. (pulling out the newspaper from his leather
+carrying bag, he reads) ‘Police Dept Loses Evidence.’ Please advise.
+Will: I don’t know anything other than what you’ve read. (matter of
+fact, but it’s a sore subject) We’ve lost $50,000. Confiscated from
+several street level dealers. From in front of a dance club. Meth.
+Some heroin from those cases … Well, … all the heroin, is missing.
+It’s a mess.
+Ryan: We agree. So …
+Will: So we’re doing an internal investigation … It’s not for me to
+interfere with …
+Ryan: True. …. But we need information …
+Will: (feeling hopeless immediately, but recovering) I can’t provide
+information about an ongoing investigation...
+Ryan: Certainly, … we know that… But we want the police reports,
+timeline, all the details that are already out there. That’s our
+(with emphasis) job, right? A citizens’ review.
+Will: I’ll see what I can do … but no promises … (quickly getting up
+and moving to the door, with Carlisle following)
+Ryan: Thank you, Chief Girardi. We trust you’ll do your job to the
+fullest, and demonstrate a talent for responsiveness to the citizens
+of Arcadia.
+Will: (nods goodbye) Mr. Hunter, citizenry (Odd term for Will, he
+wonders for a moment where it came from. As Will walks out, he
+realizes the answer and thinks about how he gets into these things,
+that Ryan Hunter is becoming ‘a bug up his …’ or is it ‘a fly in his
+…?’ It’s like this guy is some kind of ‘lord of the flies’ for Will
+and he wants to stop the buzzing in his ears, like maybe take a swat
+at it. Irritating the … out of him. With Will and Carlisle’s exit,
+Ryan, still sitting, smiles and nods to the Committee, satisfied, as
+if the outcome was just as he had predicted it to them.)
+
+**Part 8**\ : It’s the first day of school with Joan and Grace
+entering the school building, getting checked with a wand metal
+detector by security guard. Joan whirls around as she is wand-ed.
+Grace: Hey whirligirl. Looking for a partner? (Joan gets a look on
+her face, like don’t get smart with me or bring up a painful subject
+the first thing, but Grace wasn’t buggin’ at all)
+Joan: (moving on) Can you believe we’re gonna have ID cards for
+school and class!?
+Grace: Our illustrious school board president and his cast of lackeys
+… what kiss-ups!…couldn’t find some way to fill up their time this
+summer. …. Where’s the teachers’ union when you need them?
+Joan: My mom was all for it. (meaning the ID cards) But that’s where
+she draws the line… Ryan Hunter has video cameras on the front burner
+now too… for the hallways ... the parking lots. …the cafeteria… the
+teachers’ lounges?… But that’s stepping over the line for her.
+Grace: Gulag Arcadia. We’re gonna be the next public/private
+partnership. America’s private gulag…file import by way of the demon
+express. Just another brick in the wall… They’ve colonized our
+bodies, now it’s our minds, Girardi. We gotta bust this regime before
+they start stamping our foreheads with bar codes.
+Price: (noticing and welcoming them) Young ladies, Welcome to your
+final school year… Courtesy of Fortress Arcadia. (having overheard
+Grace, he chuckles as he repeats the refrain) Finally real security
+for the “school land.” God! We’re lucky to have someone leading our
+schoolboard down the road to eternal…(seeming to leaving it
+open-ended, but comes with a punch-line ) … Safety. Lights. Camera.
+Action. (he illustrates like a director giving direction) When we get
+those video cameras…ooh la la! We’ll zoom right in on our security
+threats! (putting his hands together like a camera and riveting on
+Grace’s head… he chuckles knowing it will get a rise out of Grace
+which it does, with a glare.)
+Helen: (walking up, hearing a bit of the conversation) There are way
+too many kids roaming the halls that I don’t know. An ID card with
+picture will immediately identify who belongs and who doesn’t ….and
+where they should be.
+Grace: Mrs. Girardi…. This will be my mission this year. Anonymity or
+bust. Suspend me, condemn me, threaten me, but I won’t entrust my
+identity to an emblem … You know who I am .. Card me if I’m going
+into a bar, but into class, come on!
+Helen: Well, many teachers don’t know you.
+Grace: So if I introduce myself to every teacher … you’ll stop this
+nonsense.
+Helen: (in a hurry, waves bye) Maybe. You have a point.
+Grace: (calling out so she can be heard) Hey, everyone, Grace Polk’s
+the name… radical’s my game... Going to the root of the problem.
+(checking back) Hey, if they don’t get it, well, …. I’ll just find
+myself the local chapter of the Hasidim… or move to Brooklyn… follow
+the tzaddik, quit school. Learning the way of the world is way
+overrated. If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will
+go to the mountain.(she smiles ‘cause she knows how much others at
+the synagogue will jump out of their skin the next time she tries
+those lines on them. She files it in her mental “jag cabinet.”)
+Joan: Grace! (surprised she could somehow link all that and not lose
+part of her brain to science)
+
+**Part 9**\ : (Joan and Grace join up with the rest of Arcadia High’s
+sub-defectives now maturing fully into defection, or is it
+assimilation?…Luke, Glynis, Friedman, Adam, are coming down the
+school hallway, before walking into Government class.)
+Adam: (to the whole crew) I am so not stoked! I’m like outta here
+already (shaking his head, suggesting his mind’s elsewhere). And we
+still have a whole year. Doesn’t senioritis set in ….like January?
+And it’s like ….September! How do I get my head back into all this ….
+STUFF? (making a gesture, waving at the hallways, all of it.)
+Friedman: Let’s set off a fire alarm to celebrate the opening of
+school. (Everyone’s been ignoring Friedman, so now he’s seeking
+attention, and he’s still not getting it.)
+Glynis: (oblivious to Friedman’s remark initially, mostly
+self-occupied) I spent 2 weeks at the Phoenix Music Institute. We
+made a CD of the stuff we wrote. Just a band of misfits. (coming up
+with an even better word) Or miscreants… playing dissonance… uh,
+chaos (smiles as she connects music and physics) It was very cool.
+(She says this last line sleekly to give weight and try to get others
+interested.)
+…..Yuh? (Friedman’s remark finally registering, then says to him)
+Grow up! (She initiates slapping Friedman in the head, which they all
+join in doing, in a ritualized, orchestrated form that’s over
+familiar.)
+Friedman: (He almost fights them off successfully, and then shakes
+himself, as though unruffling his feathers, ashes, phoenix-like,
+arising out of the flurry of slaps they throw his way.) The Friedman
+will consummate his future this year. I will find the perfect maid
+…maiden? (wonders aloud, then announcing to everyone) … Erotic
+fantasies no more … Well (He has second thoughts but proceeds) .. The
+goddess of my dreams … On a stone pedestal (waxing poetic, imagining
+her on the pedestal) … above all else …. Give her a magic potion …
+just in case (worried about his inadequacies)… (then, reflecting,
+with a change of demeanor, almost sadness) and I almost had her in my
+arms …(mumbling to himself) … Judith … (‘Love is the drug’ by Roxy
+Music plays to the thought.)
+Luke: (missing the Judith mention and irritated at Friedman) Get a
+life …. What romantic drivel? We’re taking AP Calc this year.
+Differential and Integral equations. Fundamental theorem here we
+come. (Friedman shakes off his previous reverie and totally changes
+his mood.)
+Luke and Friedman: (together, simultaneously) The dance of highly
+sensitive variables. (They high-five and do an in-tandem jump/kick
+dance while circling, that looks like they’re really skipping the
+light fandango)
+Glynis: (Hearing Friedman’s mention of Judith, and taken aback
+emotionally, she begins reflecting, oblivious to Friedman-Luke’s
+truncated dance) Some romantics grieved a lost loved one their entire
+life … unremitting … worshipping them as Aphrodite. (then wondering
+aloud) Pallas Athena?
+Joan: (listening to Glynis, but confused by the calculus excitement)
+Really? Glynis. I didn’t know … (and trails off surprised at Glynis’
+evoked sense of feeling.)
+Grace: (looking at Luke, but catching Friedman too) Shut it down, the
+high-octane surge, ‘boy-toys R us.’ (She really wants to put them in
+their place.) Sex, desire, is the politics of the bedroom, and
+subject to fetish, charm …. and loss of power. (Grace’s trying out
+some new ideas she’s come across.) Just like Arcadia High, you
+lap-dog teacher pets. (Now she’s trying to put it all together in one
+perfect equation.) Freud plus Marx equals Marcuse. Or the Frankfurt
+School. Or both. (slightly puzzled by the direction of her flight and
+momentarily uncertain) Whatever. (recovering) Now that’s a calculus
+for ya! (Grace is pleased with herself and chuckles, self-absorbed in
+her own way.)
+ALL: HUH! (Everyone’s irritated and dazed and confused as Grace makes
+her last remark). What!
+Grace: Don’t look at me. (satisfied that she made herself perfectly
+clear)
+Adam: (trying to change the subject, and speaking in a low voice tone
+to Grace specifically) Grace, should I get a dog? You know, a
+replacement for Joan? ‘Cause I’m lonely….(trailing off…)
+Joan: (overhears Adam’s remark anyway) Ahhhh…(Joan lets out this
+moaning-like sound of sweetness, a sigh of love) Adam …. (Realizing
+her old love is there and not-there for Adam. Confused emotionally,
+she just lets it hang out there revealed in the moment.)
+Grace: (ignores Joan’s moaning, and replies to Adam loudly so that
+everyone hears) Exactly, fetishee. (Adam gets this look on his face
+like ‘don’t tell Grace about these confused needs for connection.’
+Grace misses his look and goes back to her subject, winding up again,
+and getting into a rant) …You guys only read what they assign. Or do
+some bizarre calculations for the end of the world. (Grace is now on
+her soapbox. The others are restless as she’s gotten into this, but
+she waves off their interruption.) And live your life like some damn
+assignment. That’s crap and you know it. Get an education, right!
+Hmmph. Get a life! (sounding like someone she’s heard before) Drop
+out or … at least! … give the ‘powers that be’ hell….. It wakes
+others up … and you don’t lose your own head in the exchange. (Pulls
+out a dish from her bag. Everyone’s wondering … where that came from.
+She stops in her tracks… and everyone else stops too. She bends her
+head over the plate, Juan Bautista-like.) Chop it off! … Because
+that’s where we’re all going if we don’t do something different this
+year than following this fascist organization (waving her hands at
+security guard, hallway, and all of it).
+All: (Everyone’s overwhelmed by Grace’s rant, stunned)
+A Security guard, in uniform, from down the hallway has been walking
+towards them since Grace got a little loud the first time. He’s
+following them closer now that he’s heard more of Grace’s commotion.
+No one other than Grace has noticed him. She’s thinking he’s going to
+try and shut her down, but she’ll have none of it.
+Grace: (looking at Luke) And you dog-boy, you’re on notice. Get with
+the program or find another chihuahua. (she crouches down for a
+moment and makes like a petite little thing). Un poquito.
+Luke: (looking discouraged and at a loss)
+Adam: (mostly ignoring Grace’s remark to Luke, but he flinches a bit
+as it comes on so strong.)
+Cha …. ah (Adam notices that he’s about to regress to a previous
+expression of his from the past and starts to stutter) …Cha cha cha
+(and does a hand movement ‘cha cha’ to try to save it, finally coming
+up with …) Chuck! the whole college thing. I’m there. For the
+revolution. (Adam sounds lackluster in his support even though the
+right words are coming out of his mouth.) Che. Pancho. People unite.
+Organize. …Hey Grace, do they need the ‘artiste’ (inflected form,
+pronounced ‘arteest’)?
+Grace: (unbelieving, and snide) Well, Yeah! (duh … like) Didn’t you
+ever see\ `‘The Masses’ cover
+art <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/TheMassescoverart.jpg>`__\ …
+Art Young (e.g., Dec1913)
+– something you’d all know … if you weren’t so self-absorbed…
+(sounding disgusted) Blugh. ….. you know, loss of true love, now just
+cry…. cry … cry … over spilt milk (alluding to Joan and Adam’s split)
+… Oh, but go to college and join the corporate robbery of art, just
+the same.
+Joan: (finally at a loss to tolerate Grace any longer) Grace, what’s
+gotten into you?
+Grace: (ignoring Joan’s question, but eyeing her):
+
+Adam: (going back to Grace’s cant about art and revolution): Where do
+I sign up?….. (But actually not that interested, he comes back to his
+real question, dwelling on it) And … should I get a dog? (it being
+out there already anyway) I think I need a dog. What do you think,
+huh, huh? (nagging, dog-like) (Then he gets an idea about bugging
+Grace for payback.) Chihuahua, senorina?
+Joan: (more sure than she really is) Adam, you don’t need a dog.
+(Joan re-focuses herself to Grace’s rhapsodic bombast, trying to make
+funny and nice) Hee, hee, ha, ha, no revolution without breakfast,
+(pulls out a granola bar) and …. class warfare. Oops. (chuckles at
+her double meaning, as they all come to their class-room and are
+about to enter.)
+Security-guard-god: (overhearing the conversation, now speaks to
+Joan, but the others are in his sweep as well; he’s almost calling
+out to them as they walk into class) Hey, Joan, … buds, I’m tempted
+to fascism too (taps his club), but … how’s it go? Let a thousand
+flowers promiscuously bloom until …. Armageddon or the New Jerusalem.
+They’re all wide-eyed as they walk into government class.
+Security-guard-god turns around and walks down the hallway with a
+wave. And Joan notices Ryan walking down the hallway just behind
+Security-guard-god….. Adam waves … and Ryan waves back…
+
+**Part 10**\ : In government class
+Teacher: (lecturing and walking through the classroom, droning) The
+body politic is the term for describing the unity …and disunity, I
+suppose … of the voters … the community as a whole … the citizenry ….
+Individuals in their relationships to one another and their leaders.
+Vox populi means the voice of the people…. It was sometimes believed
+to be the voice of god. As though god and politics ….the polis …the
+state… had any connections. …..But how does the many speak with one
+voice? That’s a question with diverse answers … No wonder they wanted
+some word from on high. Because none of the answers satisfy…
+Consensus. Simple majority. Simple tyranny. (trying desperately for
+some rise or humor, failing miserably, and going back to the drone)
+…. Decisions, decisions…. Easy and complex …. Our democracy survives
+population increases, confused meanings, including women and former
+slaves in voting, and …. non…. (trailing off)
+The students in class are almost completely devoid of interest. Some
+are looking around; others have their heads down. Some are trying to
+appear like they’re taking notes, but they aren’t. Not a good start
+to the school year. Finally the teacher wakes from her lecturing
+reverie and notices Grace writing something in large letters in a
+notebook.
+Teacher: (going to Grace’s desk) Please share your notes with the
+class.
+Grace: (Grace stands up, and makes a big show of her notebook for
+everyone to see. In big red letters, taking up both pages of her
+notebook, Grace has written something. She shows it to the class as
+she says) If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution. (everyone busts
+up or look quizzical)
+Teacher: Explain yourself. (Teacher’s not amused.)
+Grace: Emma Goldman had it right. You know, ‘Red Emma.’ (trying to
+get a rise from her classmates, but no one knows who or what’s she’s
+talking about.) Fall asleep. Anaesthetize our political wills with
+governmental drivel so we ignore what’s happening in our world. And
+just shop til we drop. (Ramones’ ‘Bop til you drop’ begins to play.)
+Consumption, consumption. Stuff and more stuff. .. and ..Sanitize our
+bodies. ‘Cause what else’s there to do? Oh …. take a cruise (looks at
+Friedman). Retire to Florida. Cheat on an election. Have the Supreme
+Court make the decision for you. Oh and die from old age. Or ….what?!
+… Take personal responsibility for what happens … don’t foist it on
+someone else to decide and do it for you.
+Teacher: Please?
+Alex: (African-American student sitting behind Joan, quickly jumping
+in) Didn’t Thomas Jefferson say we needed a revolution every 20
+years?
+Another student: (trying to make like he knows something) Yeah, and
+he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
+Teacher: (quickly tries to direct the discussion, focusing on Alex’s
+question) Yes. Not quite revolution. Actually, rebellion. Resistance
+to government. It’s healthy. But not overthrow it. Reform. Improve
+things, change them. Throw the bums out (teacher catches herself with
+last remark thinking it a little too cavalier) The electorate makes
+the changes in a democracy. A republic. You get to vote at age 18…
+Grace: (interrupting) Voting’s a sham. Choosing between
+puppet-meisters of the power elite. Gimme a break. They call the
+shots; control the media. Reduce education to multiple choice. Govern
+from on high. Oh yeah. .. and every 4 years they do a dog-and-pony
+show in front of the cameras.
+Teacher: Thank you, Grace, for that informative critique from the vox
+populi. (trying to make connections somehow, some way. Now returning
+to her agenda before class ends and speaking to all) Your assignment
+is written on the board. Go to a community meeting. See the body
+politic in action. Then, write your observations. Analyse it. As to
+how the world works. How we govern ourselves. How a democracy
+practices its principles. Res publica. Join the public conversation.
+And make the decisions. It’s your future.
+All: (irritated by the assignment and unbelieving)
+Adam: (finally thinking aloud) Hey, I wonder if there are any
+community meetings listed in the Herald. I’m gonna check with Ryan.
+(then starts to wonder)
+Joan: (responding to the assignment, ignoring Adam’s comment) What
+now? Another assignment that makes no sense. Vox non sensus. Where do
+they even have community meetings? Who comes up with this stuff?
+Alex: (responding to Joan’s remark, sarcastic) What’s the problem,
+little girl … big world just got a little bigger?
+Joan: (irritated by the callous remark, but speaking up anyway,
+rambling) What’s a community meeting? I’ve never been to a community
+meeting. There’s no community. Just cars, houses, malls, stores, my
+friends. You know, the world inside my head. Hey, livin’ in my own
+private Arcadia, here. (pointing to her head)
+Teacher: (overhearing Joan’s remarks, throws in a comment) You’re
+riding off into a limited horizon. This’ll be good for you. Expand
+connections, possibilities.
+Alex: (ignoring the teacher, responding to Joan) Hey, it’s where you
+live. And that ain’t in your head. … Or Idaho. (knowing the tune, and
+twisting back at Joan) … Don’t you talk about this stuff in your
+‘hood. Who lives on your street? Strangers? ….When somebody gets
+trashed, don’t you all get together? The pool gets rebuilt. Or
+repainted with a mural… (Joan is clueless and really uninterested,
+looking bored stiff at such mundane stuff that’s somebody else’s
+business, certainly not hers.)
+Joan: (now trying desperately to connect): Like community service?
+Alex: No. That’s what you get when you get arrested. I’m talking
+about living on the street. And organizing a gang. Or organizing your
+neighbors to take a gang on. A little alternative army. A punk
+brigade. And sending out invitations to the police to watch you get
+your ass kicked. (trying to be funny, but Joan’s really not getting
+it)
+Joan: (still confused, but hearing the army idea offering a glimmer
+of sense)
+Alex: (showing a more sensitive side and actually trying to be
+helpful) Okay, okay, you’re not going to get it unless you show up at
+one …. And I’m the guy who’s got one in his neighborhood next week.
+Adam: (and the others nearby, including Grace, who have been
+listening) Hey Alex, can I show up? (noticing the others listening)
+Them too?
+Alex: Yes, yes, yes. The whole army. Maybe we can make a gang out of
+you. Nah, nah. Just don’t embarrass me. Keep me off front street …
+it’ll be okay.
+Adam: How ‘bout some coordinates on the space-time continuum?
+Alex: (getting the message and answering) The basement of St.
+Michael’s Church, Dilcue Street near Walnot. 7pm. And don’t come
+early. Nothing starts on time.
+Joan: Where? I go there for yoga class. It’s out of my way (somewhat
+talking aloud to herself not realizing Alex’s not much interested) …
+I’ve been looking for a different location …. this was the first one
+I found, … I just tried it out and like it. But with school I figured
+to stop.
+Alex: (uninterested in Joan’s explanation) So you know where it’s at.
+Good. 7pm. (He heads off.)
+Joan: I’ll be there (realizing her schedule isn’t someone else’s and
+feeling she’s gotta get this assignment over). (Everyone wanders out
+of class and off.)
+
+**Part 11**\ : It’s early evening, Kevin and Lily are on a date.
+They’re about to enter a Labyrinth garden when they notice Luke,
+Grace, Adam, Glynis and Friedman, walking down the side of the street
+they’re on. On the other side of the street, a grizzled tall guy is
+hawking a newspaper. He’s got a dog with him and a grocery cart
+filled with stuff… and aluminum cans. A block down the street,
+there’s a movie theater with a marquee; it’s called the RIALTO
+ArtHouse. There are lots of other storefronts, too … A resale shop;
+bagel shop; coffee shop; tire shop; bicycle shop.
+Kevin: Hey, bro’? (gestures, wondering where they’re all headed)
+Luke: Off to glue our eyeballs to Celluloid.
+Grace: (Grace reacts to Luke’s slick statement; she gawks pleased.) I
+like it. I like it. (bobbing up and down)
+Luke: (Feeling that he wants to continue to impress Grace, Luke
+rattles off the following lines swiftly) Actually, processing the
+medium of film is a fairly complex (here Luke uses emphasis) and hot
+transformation. Gibson demonstrated experimentally that the ecology
+of perception, given from the surrounding patterns of light, a direct
+pick up from the Ambient Array, undermined the Cartesian bifurcation
+of nature and cogito. This .. wait .. Does that apply to film? What
+did Bateson say in ‘Ecology of Mind’? (trying to remember) The mind’s
+a plant, organic growth from compost, (quoting something) ‘a wild,
+where weed and flower promiscuous shoot’. Okay, a system, but not a
+computer or factory flow chart…
+Friedman: (wincing at Luke’s tangent, and butting in, telling Kevin)
+Enough already. I tried to convince them … Deep Throat …. so much the
+perfect movie. Passion nonstop (notices Lily’s curious)… (Friedman
+trying to score some points himself) Especially since Mark Felt’s
+been outted. Or … maybe … a tango in Paris. (Friedman tries to tango,
+but looks more like he’s twisting himself into a knot.)
+Glynis: (speaking up for herself) I refused to be subjected to two
+people itching themselves and one another for 2 hours. If it’s gonna
+be concupiscence, I want Tristan and Yseult, channeled through
+Einstein and his first cousin ….
+Grace: (interrupting Glynis before she goes on) Glynis, you’re
+getting’ weirder …by the day. You gotta stop reading the dictionary.
+And Feynman’s lectures. (Deciding to add something for humor) And
+playing your tuba at the same time. (Grace now starts to look at
+Glynis, actually concerned even though she sounds sarcastic) Have you
+been inhaling the wrong fumes?
+Glynis: (takes a deep breath) Just breathing freedom from the
+shackles of the body. It’s a knowledge of a different order. Once you
+start reading Byron’s Don Juan (The Overture from Mozart’s Don
+Giovanni starts to play), you’re whisked to Greece, Italy… . ah… Life
+is short (wondering how she’ll ever take it all in)…Especially for
+Byron and his coterie…..But art is eternal. (Friedman is absorbed in
+all things Glynis for a second.)
+Kevin: (realizing this crew doesn’t all know Lily, and interrupting
+before they continue off the deep end) Lily, these are my brother’s
+geeky friends. As you can see, … they don’t hide it. Glynis (she nods
+and each does on cue). The Friedman. Grace. You know Adam.
+Lily: By hearsay (thinking) ... or rather, hersay. (trying to sound
+cute)
+Adam: (ignoring Glynis’ earlier question about art as is everyone
+else and avoiding Lily’s comment. He wants to get to the movie.) I’d
+actually like to see the credits. We miss those. I’m walking out.
+(Adam’s announcement is ignored as they all continue to talk.)
+(The guy on the other side of the street trafficking in newspapers
+crosses the street, and is recognized as Homeless-man-god. He’s got a
+newspaper, ‘Personas sin Casa Grapevine’ (translated, ‘Homeless
+Grapevine’). He has a badge that identifies him as a vendor for the
+paper. He closes in enough to hear most of the conversation going on,
+but clearly outside the circle of words. He starts to sell his
+newspaper to passersby. The dog stays on the other side and sits
+attentive on the sidewalk, unobtrusive and not bothering anyone,
+keeping watch over the goings-on and the grocery cart full of stuff.)
+Kevin: (Picking up the movie thread) Lily’s been trying to get me to
+“All the President’s Men.” She thinks I could learn something. I
+wouldn’t fall for it.
+Grace: (to no one in particular, just dropping her comments like
+pronouncements or oracles) All the king’s horses and the all the
+king’s men couldn’t put humpty dumpty back together again.
+Lily: (tired of all the earlier gibberish and now more so, she stomps
+her foot and blurts out) What’s the flick already?
+Friedman: Citizen Kane…. That’s the problem. I said we could pick it
+up at the video store. Adam insists on the Rialto.
+Adam: (forgetting how impatient he’s been to get to the movie) The
+greatest movie ever made. Bar none. You gotta see it (stretches his
+arms out to give the idea of watching a big screen) to get the
+effect. (He starts to get animated) Working at the Herald will give
+me a whole new take on it. Political cartoons, photos ‘amping’ a
+story. (now thinking how he was lucky enough to be working at the
+newspaper) Ryan’s excited about my ‘concepts’. He dropped by Layout.
+I’ve been ‘jazz-ing’ some Ads. He’s been like an angel of light, (he
+softens as realizes what he’s going to say next) since my fall from
+heaven with Joan. (Adam realizes immediately he’s said more than he’s
+comfortable with, he short-circuits himself.)
+(Newspaper vendor’s ears prick up when he hears Adam mention working
+at Arcadia Herald)
+Grace: (still not really knowing what to do with Adam’s rumination of
+his ruin with Joan, she moves on to the movie-thing and beyond) I’d
+just as soon see Humpty Dumpty. Adam’s still into his artsy-fartsy
+scene. But I’m gonna fix that. (Grace thinks about what Adam might
+need, focusing on what she has in store for him) With the peoples’
+art. (She returns to what she’d really be interested in, but she
+can’t get anyone else on her wavelength.) American Splendor. Comic
+books, hospital orderlies, burning rivers. Harvey Pekar, persona non
+grata. Adam, we got a future.
+Kevin: (Kevin ignores Grace’s strange remarks, but picks up on the
+newspaper connection with Adam and Ryan Hunter. He notices newspaper
+hawker through the circle of conversation as he speaks directly to
+Adam, who’s become interested in what Kevin has to say.) Ryan’s one
+curious and … strange guy. (pauses before he adds) We had lunch last
+week. He actually (surprised) …was interested in what I thought. He
+knows all these meaningless details. The exact number of reporters.
+Their assignments. Our advertisers. Up to his eyeballs in every
+aspect of the paper. He’s got …. like a ravenous mind. After I told
+him I might go to ‘All the President’s Men,’ (expresses surprise
+again) … he went off and saw it … gave me a detailed capsule. It was
+like I didn’t even need to see for myself. He’s the fact-meister
+himself. I wouldn’t want to go up against him in a court of law or
+facts. … Well…. maybe, some day.
+
+Adam: (throwing this in) Joan’s definitely pissed about what’s been
+featured in the Herald …. all that money and drugs disappearing from
+the police dept …. She’d like to bite Ryan’s ear off … No love lost
+between them.
+
+Lily: (Noticing that Joan’s nowhere in sight with her group of
+friends, Lily speaks to Kevin) Where’s your sister?
+Luke: (answering Lily’s question as Adam can’t resist following
+intently) Sis is studying government. She’s all over her assignments
+already… I can’t believe it . Reading The Declaration of
+Independence, the Constitution, and commentary on the 14th amendment.
+(Luke goes into automatic here, like once he starts thinking, he’s
+got this whole string of information he can’t shut off until it comes
+to the end of the string) Which was set up to provide equal
+protection, due process. You know, all the rights of the
+Constitution; Bill of Rights should apply to African-Americans, too,
+but didn’t, ‘til after slavery. You know, an amendment just to make
+sure. But in 1886, the Supreme Court gave corporations ‘personhood’
+from it. Since then, like every case before the Supreme Court under
+this Amendment ….brought by Corporations, demanding their rights…
+giving them the power of the people, their own voice .. . So now
+they’re people too. Well, not like any people I know, but … So I’m
+wondering …. why not robots and clones too? Like what is a person,
+anyway? Cogito? (then remembering something about Bateson)
+Co-habitation of mind and place?
+Grace: (irritated that she didn’t know this stuff and pleased/angry
+with Luke’s information about corporations being persons, something
+she didn’t know before): Whoa, Cor-po-ra: Persona “non a wanna.” I
+shoulda stayed home (Grace would have actually liked doing this
+assignment).
+Adam: (Adam’s easily brought back to thinking of Joan, ignoring the
+content, but not the fact that it’s Joan he’s talking about) Didn’t
+she say she was headed off to some dance classes too? Tomorrow? She’s
+not letting me in on her plans. I wanted to go. My feet were nixed.
+They went a different direction.
+(There’s a brief lull. Adam now responds to Grace’s comment and tries
+to drop the question of Joan’s whereabouts … it’s too painful for him
+to dwell on it) Grace, you pump the same corrosive slurry to fire
+your engines. Mrs. G’s informed us that the Post post-industrial
+artist works with ‘found junk’. The refuse of the world. What’s left
+of our industrial wasteland. Its dead dinosaurs of rust … to make
+beauty, truth. She’s convinced me that ‘we’re saved by beauty.’ Not
+revolution, Grace. Well, (Adam’s not sure how ‘revolution’ fits in or
+not) maybe … I don’t know. I like making stuff … returning the
+smelted to impure mixtures …fissioning ..fashioning.. Welding ..
+(thinking of something, trying to put his finger on it) yin and
+yang…. Metallica ….transmogrification … Alchemical metamorphosis ..
+Fusing the distant constellations … iron and .… (drifting off, but
+then comes back to something important) But, what do people need?
+Grace: That’s why you want a dog, right? Beauty and the beast!
+Adam: (taken aback by Grace’s comment) No, that’s different.
+(Newspaper vendor starts to listen in more closely)
+Lily: (jumping in, ready to move on) We’re headed into the …. (Lily
+motions in the direction of the Labyrinth)
+Luke: (just now noticing the sign indicating such) Labyrinth. Very
+cool. (rambling) Video games, layers upon layers of hypertext. Higher
+slices of reality. Lara Croft. I’d like to try it.
+Friedman: (to Luke) … Another day, ill spirit. (making his own
+commentary) A complete rip-off of ‘Adventures of the Minotaur.’
+Lily: (Lily doesn’t realize Friedman’s remark is about a video game.)
+Nah, Chartres. (Now Lily tries to explain the Labyrinth.) Labyrinths
+evoke another center to the universe. … (Lily starts to focus; she’s
+quoting something she knows extremely well by heart, written thereon)
+… “I fled him down the nights and down the days, I fled down the
+arches of the years, I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own
+mind and in the mist of tears I hid from him, and under running
+laughter.”
+Kevin: Wow!….(curious) Who were you running from?
+Lily: God …. (and then pointing toward Kevin) … And you…
+Adam: (unable to bear waiting any longer, and getting agitated about
+Joan… Everyone has ignored Lily and Kevin’s exchange because they’re
+ready to leave) Time to go. (Adam walks away, assuming everyone else
+will follow.)
+Grace: (to Lily and Kevin regarding the Labyrinth, as she starts to
+move away) Good luck finding your way out … (Grace pauses for a
+moment and then adds) or in.
+Luke: (Luke’s been thinking about something while all this talk has
+been going on. As the group starts to walk away, Luke begins
+wondering aloud finally, including Lily and Kevin in his meaning.) Is
+it god or the devil that’s in the details? I’ve heard it both ways.
+(then he changes his direction, furrowing his brow, his curiosity is
+limitless) What kind of labyrinth is this?
+Grace: (shoots to Luke) Leave it alone, serpentine warrior. We’re
+late.
+(Homeless Guy/Newspaper Vendor can’t wait any longer and interrupts,
+sweeping his gaze to everyone, except Adam, who’s left.)
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god: ‘The Grapevine’. Get what no one
+else is willing to print. Find your way out of the maze of news. Hey,
+only a buck and it keeps me off the streets. Stories … from the
+streets, on the streets. (Headlines says, ‘City enacts panhandling
+law: It sucks’) (Arrested Development’s Mr. Wendall begins to play.)
+Kevin: (intrigued) Hey, I’ll take one. (Grace, Glynis and Friedman
+buy one too.)
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god: (asking a general question) Where
+you guys headed?
+Grace: To the outhouse (not sure if she’s being funny, or just a slip
+of the tongue, so she clarifies) …. ArtHouse. Rialto.
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god: Know anyone who needs a dog…
+(pointing across the street)?
+Grace: Not yet. (Grace is ready to leave.) Adios, amigo. (She waves
+as she leaves for the moviehouse; vendor waves back.)
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god: (to Lily, Kevin) What’s this? (and
+immediately adds) Can I join? (gestures as though he wants to come
+along into the Labyrinth.)
+Lily: (clarifies) Not a good time now…. (thinks twice) … No dogs
+allowed.
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god: True. (He walks off almost
+immediately.)
+
+Kevin: Where did that come from? … ‘I fled him’….? How’s that go?
+(remembering Lily quoting from something.)
+Lily: Reconciliation. It was an assigned penance. Pretty weak, huh? …
+Read this poem… Hound of Heaven. Repent of my sins. It was the big
+one. (It was THE Penance for Lily as her first confession after
+giving up her previous life and entering the convent) Creative,
+though.
+And it stuck with me … dawgs .. well, hounds me to this day.. so
+little, so small .… I still say it weekly. It’s the hound that Adam’s
+looking for, but he doesn’t know it (pauses) … yet … (adding as an
+afterthought) Grace … now she’s got a whole different klezmer tune to
+‘tantsn’(Polish, ‘dance’) to. (now readying themselves to enter the
+Labyrinth) Ok, back to our starting spot…
+Kevin: Which is….?
+Lily: (Realizing she’s been wanting, needing to say something to
+Kevin about their relationship before they enter the Labyrinth and
+then this other extended tangent occurred with Luke and his friends.
+She’s now irritated, and lost her mood for it, but goes ahead
+anyways.) If this …. (Lily searching for the right word) thing ….
+(stops and pauses for each phrase) we got … is going to work. (losing
+her patience) Okay, I’ll just say it straight, nonsense or not … I
+don’t know if want my mystical union with God to go through you.
+Kevin: (wondering what the heck she’s talking about) Lily, slow down
+some?
+Lily: (amused and distracted once more) Right. Fast Eddie, telling
+the ex-nun to take it slow.
+Kevin: You’re playing a whole different game here, but I’ll try.
+(Kevin starts to have his own revelation as he says what’s in his
+heart.) I want you. I want you …really (pausing, he can’t resist
+telling the truth too and saying it without eloquence) … and it makes
+me sick. Well, happy. (he’s losing his way already as he talks in
+both directions at the same time. He even rolls his wheelchair in
+different directions. Still he tries to say it out loud.) Well happy
+and sick. (He realizes it sounds funny, so he tries again, sounding
+sincere with something Helen once alluded to) Like some wounded stag.
+Heartsore troubadour. (There’s a lyrical, sweet tone to his voice and
+it’s directed to Lily. It’s a new way, other than charm and good
+looks. He’s trying something new … well, not so new. Then he takes
+off in his own direction) I want to catch a wind, exhilarated, and
+ride like some eagle, … or bat out of.. .. no …with my legs no longer
+dead, like …. (struggling to express his feelings) I’ve developed
+wings. It almost makes me forget these … these lifeless stumps (raps
+his dead legs). And I’m dancing a jig … well in my chair, that is.
+Lily: Don’t get all mushy with me. I’m talking meat and potatoes,
+here. Marriage, you know the whole 9 yards. Cake, ice cream, even a
+dress. Well maybe not a dress, maybe a surfboard….
+Kevin: We’ve been together like how long? (He pulls out a pencil that
+like looks like a twig that he might have picked up after he
+developed wings, and had flown off to see if he could find any trace
+of a new life for himself. He puts it in his mouth as a peace
+offering)
+Lily: Right! We’ve traveled to the moon already, at least this
+“Alice” has.
+Kevin: Hey, you’re leaving me in outer space, alone here.
+Lily: So… getting to feel what it was like for all those cheerleaders
+you and Andy hooked up with.
+Kevin: It’s ….
+Lily: (cutting Kevin off) It’s called repentance, but that’s none of
+my business. That’s you and your maker’s, and those who suffered as a
+result. You know, making amends wherever possible, blah, blah…
+(unable to let go of Kevin’s past exploits) What do you think you
+were doing then?
+Kevin: ‘Thinking’ … that’s a good one. … (going in a different
+direction) Doesn’t the same go for you?
+Lily: I had excuses. Even if they weren’t good ones. You didn’t
+Kevin: Get off of it. You suffered so…..I’m just getting my just
+dues. ‘fraid not. It ain’t fair to me; wasn’t fair to you. Who’s in
+charge? (noticing a recruiting station across the street) Uncle Sam?
+(wondering where that came from, no matter) Who’s responsible? No one
+but you yourself.
+Lily: ( tired of this jousting) We’re not ready for this (pointing to
+the Labyrinth). I’m all for dead presidents. (looking down to the
+movie theatre)
+Kevin: What do you mean?
+Lily: It’s prayer and healing, walking the Labyrinth. We’re not
+ready.
+(Silence now takes over between them. Lily grabs Kevin’s wheelchair
+and starts to direct it down to the Rialto’s other flick. He takes
+control of his chair from her and wheels himself alongside Lily.)
+Just before Lily and Kevin move along, Alex (from school) is walking
+with a group of friends and Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god tries
+to get their attention to sell them a paper, but they don’t even
+notice his gestures. Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god wanders into
+the RIALTO ArtHouse, without paying. He leaves the dog outside with a
+friend.)
+
+**Part 12**\ : It’s in the deep hours of the night, with the stars
+thrown starkly, diamond-like, against the celestial velour. The moon
+is a cold orb, burning the dark. It’s pitch black in Joan’s bedroom,
+though curtains flap occasionally from the cool breeze, ruffling
+uneven shadows upon walls. They seem to dance in some kind of
+orchestration of chaos… creating tones that are known only to the
+breeze and the prevailing winds aloft. Sometimes barely illuminated
+is a banner over Joan’s bed. She startles awake and upright to a low
+sound, wings beating the darkness, kissing the night. A winged thing
+in her bedroom? She scurries out of her bed, closing the bedroom door
+behind her. She’s agitated into thought: what was that? She goes into
+Kevin’s room and wakes him up.
+Joan: (shaking Kevin) There’s something flying around my room… I have
+no idea what ….a bat? … flapping wings (trying to communicate by
+making the gesture like she’s some kind of bird, but it looks
+thoroughly absurd and strange) …. I don’t want to wake anyone..
+Kevin: Except me? (not amused, trying to rouse himself through a
+clouded mind)
+Joan: (she smiles guiltily, but needful) What should I do?
+Kevin: Beats me. (still trying to wake himself up) …How’d it get in?
+Joan: I don’t know… through my window?
+Kevin: Your window’s open? (starting to come to consciousness,
+displeased by Joan’s responsibility for his midnight perturbance)
+Joan: Yeah. (almost feeling guilty again, sheepish)
+Kevin: A definite no-no… you know the air conditioning’s on.
+Joan: Hey, I close my door, close my vents so… no wasted energy…. And
+there’s a cool breeze coming in.
+Kevin: Can’t you live like the rest of us? You are such a doofus.
+Joan: Kevin, I need to be connected to the outside world, … even in
+my sleep…It puts me into a different state….
+Kevin: (ignoring her explanation… becoming concerned) A bat?….Did you
+get bit?
+Joan: No. I don’t think so… I ‘d feel it, right?…
+Kevin: Not necessarily…Turn on the light… (Joan turns on light, he
+observes no marks.) Nothing….Your door’s closed?
+Joan: (Joan nods, but needing to assure Kevin) I closed it when I
+left.
+Kevin: Go outside and turn the light on in the backyard… maybe it’ll
+leave, attracted or distracted by the light.
+(Joan leaves the room and goes downstairs. She steps out into the
+dark night, hearing the rustling of the leaves from the Roses of
+Sharon, its blossoms past bloom and littered, strewn, about the
+ground like gems for the taking, but the leaves still whisper to her
+nonetheless …She’s about to get some light on the backyard, but
+almost immediately her olfactory sense is taken by surprise. She
+drinks deep the sudden rush and is intoxicated by the pungent aroma
+of concord grapes ripe on the vine. She’s fixed in the moment. All
+her senses stimulated by her draught of its draft… She comes to… and
+realizes she needs to focus. Her next movements set off the
+motion-detector for the backyard outside light. She waits in patience
+and finally catches sight of some winged messenger flying out of her
+window… not seeing clearly what it was. She takes one last draught…
+and then hurries back into the house and upstairs.)
+Kevin: What took you so long?
+Joan: (ignoring the question) I saw it fly the coop
+Kevin: What’s with you? You look giddy. (irritated) Go and close your
+window before it comes back. … Get a screen or something… and go to
+bed. I’m tired.
+Joan: (Coming back to her room, she starts to feel sick, weak in the
+knees. Remembering Kevin’s admonition, she forces herself to the
+window, and closes it. She falls onto her bed and lies unsettled. She
+hears the wind and leaves rustling outside wanting in ‘til they fall
+strangely silent. She speaks softly to the darkness in sounds
+somnolent with no answer returned, and finally she washes up on the
+shore of sleep.)
+\ **Part 13**\ : (It’s the following week. Joan walks into Helen’s
+art class. No students are there so they have one another’s complete
+attention. Hanging on the wall is Picasso’s painting,
+‘\ \ `Guernica <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/PicassospaintingGuernica.jpg>`__\ .’
+Joan: Mom, I have to go out for an assignment next week. A community
+meeting. Oh, and I have dance classes tonight again. I’m going to
+miss dinner.
+Helen: (disappointed) Again? You’ve been missing in action every
+evening. In your room. Out for dance classes. And breakfast, too. I
+never see you anymore. What’s happening to us?
+Joan: I told you, “I could just die for this, to dance …. like no
+one’s watching.” (Joan’s take-off from ‘Existentialism on prom
+night’s’ “I could just die, to sing .. like no one’s listening”)
+Helen: What?
+Joan: Oh, just singing out loud …. a song in my head (pointing a
+finger to her head). Can’t get it out.
+Helen: Sweetheart, you gotta get a grip.
+
+Joan: Too much work, too many assignments. Too much too much. I want
+the kind of life I had before…. just a ki-..…. (before she spits it
+all out, Helen reacts)
+Helen: Oh, honey, it’s not that bad ….(not being as sure as she’d
+like to be) Is it? (pausing and trying to be hopeful) You were such a
+wonderful baby. Dada. Mama. Yaya. (Helen can’t resist telling the
+truth) When you weren’t spitting up food, and screaming, and crawling
+away where I couldn’t find you (Joan grimaces)… Well, you were …
+(Helen decides to just drop the ‘wonderful-ness’ of it all, but she
+can’t leave out this last one, which makes Joan wonder) Oh, yeah, …
+and almost being drowned by your father….(hoping this childhood
+incident would sound funny, but it falls flat)
+Joan: Oh. (feeling really sick now, but she tries again) No, it’s not
+bad. I’m really very happy…. I think. Therefore I am? Right? (Joan’s
+really lost so she quizzes Helen) When does it let up, mom?
+Helen: (Helen decides not to answer and make it worse for Joan. Joan
+realizes the point of her mother’s silence and accepts the painful
+truth)
+Joan: You see how I’ve matured. (drawing up breath from her chest,
+and putting out her chin, trying to put a good face on her trials.
+But she fails and starts to cry.)
+Helen: (Helen comforts Joan, hugging her)
+Joan: (pushing her Mom away and trying to be honest) I’m an emotional
+wreck. (Joan realizes it’s a painful image and tries to make it
+better.) …Feeling the weight of all of Arcadia on the top of my head.
+(Dramatizing her plight, Joan picks up an art book Helen has lying on
+the table nearby and puts it on the top of her head. She tries
+balancing it. But imagined as a huge slab of stone, her head
+collapses from the weight with the book sliding off. Joan falls to
+the floor, trying to catch the book before it hits the ground; she’s
+successful. She holds the book between her head and shoulder as she
+gets up from the floor, letting it fall back into Helen’s hands. Joan
+looks disappointed at her failure at balance, but tries to be
+reassuring.) I’m ok. Really. Thanks, Mom. (Joan walks out. Helen
+opens the art book which shows ‘The Fallen Caryatid’ by Rodin.)
+
+**Part 14**\ : (That evening, Grace and Luke walk into the Girardi
+kitchen. Helen’s making cookies. Grace is carrying a coffee mug, out
+of which she’s drinking some ‘joe.’ There’s a logo with a slogan on
+the mug… Equal Exchange… Fairly Traded Gourmet Coffee.)
+Luke: Hey Mom…You’re doing (light bulb going off) … I finally get it…
+The perfect demonstration experiment (running his hands over the
+cookie-cutters). Can I have these when you’re through?
+Helen: Sure. (but uncertain why Luke’s interested in the materials of
+the real, rather than just the thought-dreams of the virtual
+universe.) To make cookies?
+Luke: (thinking not, but reconsidering) Maybe…. (going on,
+explaining) This inspired Gibson to re-shape… (thinking Grace)
+revolutionize … (thinking mom) re-bake perception. He walked into
+Eleanor’s kitchen, …(walking now like he’s balancing on a tight wire)
+avoided her visual cliff, … and voila …. convection…. it’s not sense
+data but affordances… invariants…against the ambient array… to
+highlight the transitory flashes of the moment… He just needed to
+show how it’s done.
+Grace: Hey Mrs. Girardi (ignoring Luke’s reverie, and reaching for
+the cookie Helen’s offered her)… I prefer to eat my experiments
+(starts crunching, adding) in truth,… (stops crunching) or drink them
+… (showing her the coffee mug) unlike moon-boy, the Pillsbury
+doughboy himself, who’d like to think himself into reality….with his
+half-baked experiments of the mind…(she finishes off the cookie.)
+Luke: Exactly the opposite, my little mugwump. (trying to stand his
+ground) This cookie’s got a whole different recipe and batch in mind
+(sounding almost smug)….. Gibson knew that our senses are adapted to
+the physical world, not like glue on our eyeballs, but more like
+trees in soil, bats with their frequency/flight, (picking up a cookie
+and putting it in his mouth and starting to crunch it; now talking
+with his mouth full) cookie to mouth .. . it’s taste buds, (looking
+at Grace) Bud! …(finishes the cookie and picks up another
+contemplating it) Perception and reality are matched in some kind of
+imperfect dance … which allows for communion but not dissolution of
+one into the other …. Then change is what we attend to unless (now
+dropping the cookie to the floor, where it crumbles, getting Helen’s
+and Grace’s attention) …. Someone lights up the sky or … jumps off
+the spectrum entirely…
+Grace: (curious for a moment) Like off a bridge? ‘Cause I’m going to
+throw you off one, …. for that cookie crumbling.
+Luke: No … like a guru….or prophet. (Grace starts thinking Besht, but
+is quickly led elsewhere by Helen’s next comment.)
+Helen: (not following Luke, looking to Grace) You’re drinking coffee
+now? (noticing her coffee mug) Fair trade? That’s all they’re selling
+now at Café Noir.
+Grace: Exactly. I’m serving the real revolution (giving Luke a side
+glance), Mrs. Girardi.… Worker cooperatives… fair trade, not free
+trade…. Giving CAFTA the …. (suggesting something profane but not
+wanting to offend Mrs. Girardi) …. Coffee’s 2nd in volume of traded
+commodities in the world…. I won’t tell you what comes first….. but
+(dragging it out, ‘buuuut’) ……someone sold us down the Euphrates, and
+the Mississippi, for it…So in a world of injustice, identity theft
+and alienation.... the anarchist (sounding like she’s reciting some
+kind of manifesto) … refusing every rejection of responsibility for
+the present … takes personalist action… It’s the prophet’s stand…
+Helen: Prophet? ….Or profit? (playing off Grace’s remark, but not
+understanding what Grace has in mind at all)
+Grace: Right on, Mrs. Girardi. (thinking Helen’s got it perfectly and
+with humor, too) Sure… (making the earlier connection finally)
+Jeremiah… railing against the temple and the powers that be, the
+religious and political power brokers, that it was all coming down…
+not one stone left upon another after old Nebuchadnezzar got through
+with the Holy City… And what does Jeremiah then do? He goes off the
+deep end, like crazy, and buys a plot of land right in the middle of
+ground zero to be… Talk about location, location, location….How’s
+that? (chuckling) Some kind of sense of humor, right? Hey, you know a
+prophet who shouted the same message about 600 years later, no?
+Helen: I never knew. (feeling like she’s missed something growing up;
+she’s clueless, but afraid to let on.)
+Grace: Me neither.
+Helen: I need to ask Lily about the Prophets…. We haven’t covered
+them yet. (hoping a little honesty will help.)
+Grace: Well, I twisted Hebrew class to my own purposes, Mrs. G. …
+questioning in the Talmudic tradition …reading the Prophets for a
+profit (playing it back to Helen like it was played to her)… they
+helped Rabbi Heschel into the civil rights movement… For me, they
+raised more questions than gave answers … sorta trial and error…
+learn as you go ….fanning the flames of individual and collective
+responsibility for the state of the nation .. (starting to hear
+another voice of resonance) vox prophetos… like Art Young, artiste
+extraordinaire … So I’m making my own foray into the revolution… one
+cup of joe-joe at a time…
+Helen: Good for you, Grace. Maybe I should join this one… and not
+miss out.
+Grace: Yeah, it starts with employee-owned cooperatives, coffee being
+the biggest market. We can go to Central America next summer and
+visit one…. Alienation and injustice are the sources for prophetic
+rant… and “hesed” …. I ‘m working on that last one…. The master of
+the universe making your life miserable for seeing and speaking the
+truth….. to the people in power.. it got Jeremiah imprisoned… death….
+I can see the future, and it’s so bright I need sunglasses . ….and a
+motorcycle to get there..…. (leaving this all open-ended, with no
+final words or answers, they all start to munch cookies without an
+end in sight.)
+
+**Part 15**\ : (It’s early evening as Joan heads for dance class at
+yoga-dance-instructor-god’s studio. It’s several blocks down from St.
+Michael’s Church, on the second floor of a building that looks as
+though its first floor’s boarded up. All the windows have plywood
+over them, but they’re painted black and it gives the building a
+funky look that surprises Joan. There’s a mural on the outside wall
+of the building. It’s of a figure from a\ `Grecian
+urn <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/GrecianFigure.jpg>`__\ that
+merges with an image of\ `Whirling
+Dervishes <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/MevleviWhirlingDervishesimage.jpg>`__\ .\ `Joan <http://Joan>`__\ walks
+up the wooden steps and notices the railing’s weak. Outside the
+door’s a table with brochures, business cards and notices. One
+business card has: “Rahav’s Bed and Breakfast… close to downtown.”
+There’s also a flyer for some kind of DanceFest event. Joan walks
+through a door.
+There are lots of people and stuff inside. Joan notices statues that
+she thinks belong in the basement of St. Michael’s……a curious
+figurine, (\ `Yogi Patanjali’s
+statue <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/YogiPatanjalisstatue.jpg>`__\ )
+a statue (\ `Nataraja’s
+statue <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/NatarajasstatuedancingposeofLordShi.jpg>`__\ )
+and there’s a papier mache of a giraffe, about 6 feet tall, mounted
+on a cart with wheels, in the corner.)
+(The dance class is filled with a dozen people, mostly several
+couples, but a few single people as well. It’s an introductory class
+to several styles of ballroom dancing. A collage of images show
+Yoga-dance-instructor-god demonstrating the steps to do ‘salsa.’ And
+the people there in varying degrees of success in approximating the
+moves. Joan moves to the challenge and flow of her body to the
+wiggles and waggles of the ‘salsa.’)
+Yoga-dance-instructor-god: (to Joan) Hey, we’re going to learn to do
+it together soon. ….Oh, ever tried to moving to the ‘Lord of the
+Dance?’ (Joan nods to the first question and looks quizzical to the
+latter.)
+(At the end of the class, a large group of kids come in. They’re
+mostly in Joan’s age range, though some are clearly much younger and
+older. They greet yoga-dance-class-instructor, yelling out her name,
+‘Rahav.’ They start doing hiphop, b-boying (breaking), popping. They
+play a deluxe boom-box at top volume as they’re warming up.)
+Joan: (to Rahav, talking over the volume) What’s this?
+Rahav (Yoga-Dance-Instructor-God): My after-hours group. We’re
+cooking up something special. (‘special’ enunciated as ‘spatial’)
+Joan: Hmm…. different (trying to appreciate something she’s never
+seen before).
+Rahav: Yeah, well …. (trying to explain) we’ll be doing a performance
+next weekend. HipHop DanceFest Arcadia. Here’s a flyer. It’s a
+fundraiser for neighborhood programs. You should come. It’ll expand
+your horizon.
+Joan: Yeah, right. My horizon is endless, an open road that I’m
+barreling down at about 669 million miles per hour.
+Rahav: And we’re dancing together all the way? (Rahav grabs Joan by
+the hand and starts pulling her into the rhythms that are coming from
+the deluxe boom-box a la Prince, “Let’s Go Crazy.”
+Joan wiggles and waggles a bit lindy-like hopping before dropping out
+of the flow at the sight of Alex in the practice-group that’s just
+arrived.)
+Joan: (Leaving Rahav with her question, Joan lingers looking at the
+flyer and then starts looking again at the dance troupe, watching
+Alex as he’s surrounded by friends and other kids. Joan and Alex
+catch one another’s gaze. Alex quickly looks back to what he was
+doing, ignoring Joan. Joan’s curious about Alex’s life, yet she
+quickly drops her interest, letting it linger somewhere in the back
+of her mind.)
+(A collage of visual images ensue … kids practicing dance moves…
+(lotus-move; pile drive move)
+Finally, Joan’s seen enough and wanders out of the dance studio and
+heads home. Her mind filled with images she hadn’t fathomed. She
+looks luminous against the night sky.)
+\ **Part 16**\ : (Helen and Will are in their bedroom, getting ready
+for bed. Willem de Kooning’s painting, ‘\ \ `Woman
+V <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/WillemdeKooningspaintingWomanV.jpg>`__\ ,'
+hangs on the wall.)
+Helen: (mentioning something) Will, I have two free tickets to the
+Arcadia Symphonic Orchestra. I want to go. (Helen quickly gets
+excited by just mentioning it. She remembers when she first received
+the tickets she thought this was a great opportunity for her to make
+a new connection with Will. So she’s assertive about it.)
+Will: Helen, it’s not my thing. (Will’s missing the vibe and
+emphasizing his limits. He’s tired.)
+Helen: Right, that’s why you’re gonna go. Trying new things. An
+experiment. (Helen’s surprisingly hopeful about Will’s potential to
+adapt and respond to her requests. Or are they demands? Now she turns
+on the charm.) Please, Bubula.
+Will: (Will’s excited and enthusiastic because Helen’s said the magic
+charm word) Yes, yes, anything you want. (Will draws closer to Helen
+and starts kissing her with exaggerated passion.)
+Helen: (interrupting Will’s desire) Hold on, sweetie. (Helen goes off
+to bathroom and brushes her teeth.)
+Will: (collecting himself quickly and becoming curious who gave Helen
+the tickets to a concert he didn’t want to attend) Helen, where’d
+those tickets come from?
+Helen: (talking between brushing her teeth and not realizing Will’s
+investigating a crime against himself) Ryan Hunter, just elected
+president of the school board, the guy with lots of connections.
+(disturbed with his access and power)
+Will: But didn’t he just get elected to the board? (Will’s ever the
+detective, like he’s tracing a lead.)
+Helen: Yes, and he’s taking charge quick. He has ….something… I can’t
+put my finger on what it is… (wondering aloud) Some kind of drive.
+(Helen’s frightened, but enthralled, by his powerful and prominent
+emergence in Arcadia.) He’s making big things happen in Arcadia.
+Will: But why did you take the tickets from him?
+(Helen walks back and gets into bed. Lights are turned out..) Why
+not? He probably thinks it buys influence… he’s getting nothing from
+this perk…
+Will: Helen, (unhappy and concerned) there’s no such thing as a free
+lunch…. or a free ticket….
+(Helen leaves it without a response. She walks out of the bathroom
+and gets into bed. Lights are turned off. Hmm.)
+
+**Part 17**\ : (Will is at the police station with Ryan Hunter,
+getting ready to head to the community meeting that Hunter got him to
+commit to. Daghlian walks by and Will introduces Hunter to Daghlian.)
+Will: Detective Daghlian, you need to meet Ryan Hunter. He’s been
+making his presence felt in Arcadia.
+Daghlian: Sure, Chief. (Greeting Ryan) Mr. Hunter ….. (introducing
+himself) Detective Daghlian.
+Ryan Hunter: Detective, it’s good to meet you. Just trying to make
+the rounds. Being the president of the Citizens’ Watchdog Committee
+and now the school board brings responsibilities. Here’s my card.
+(handing it Daghlian.)
+Daghlian: (glancing at the card, Ryan Hunter) I’ve been gone for
+awhile from Arcadia. I look forward to helping out the committee and
+…. Would you like mine?
+Ryan Hunter. (taking Daghlian’s card) I’m sure we’ll find ways for
+you to make connections here again.
+Will: (trying to direct the implications) We’re trying to be
+responsive to community concerns on drug dealing, prostitution,
+street level crimes down at Dilcue. You’ll be involved at some point.
+(Daghlian nods, with a half-salute and walks away. Hunter and Will
+leave as well.)
+\ **Part 18**\ : (The following week at a community meeting in the
+basement of St. Michael’s Church. Glynis, Friedman, Luke, Grace, and
+Adam attend, taken by Joan. Joan and compatriots walk in together at
+7pm. They notice Ryan’s up at a table with a district police
+commander. Will’s there too. Others present: councilman, a
+neighborhood organizer, and a local community development
+representative. It’s a varied group. Some people are dressed in
+suits. There are mothers with their children dressed informally. The
+group is diverse, economically, ethnically, and age-wise. Citizens,
+community members, of African descent, Hispanic descent, Middle
+Eastern and Asian descent are in the room. There’s about 40 people at
+the meeting.)
+(Alex is already seated and notices Joan’s and her classmates’ entry;
+he acknowledges their arrival with a hand-gesture, but remains
+seated. They go and stand in the rear. Joan ‘eyes’ Ryan and gives her
+father a look which is reciprocated by him. It’s ‘what are you doing
+here?’ Joan and her army notice Denunzio and Bonnie sitting in the
+audience with Lily. They’re all curious what goes or already bored.
+Whatever.)
+Tim, Community development representative: (moves to the podium and
+starts talking) We have several things on tonight’s agenda. But first
+I want to welcome everyone and our special guests. (He points without
+giving their names.)
+Tonight’s Safety Summit is really part of a bigger drive from the
+city. There are big plans in the offing for this neighborhood. We’re
+all familiar with the real estate mantra… Location, location,
+location. Changes we have in mind will transform this place, this
+land, into the premiere location in Arcadia. There’s been a lot of
+redevelopment in this neighborhood and there’s a lot more coming.
+You’ve seen the new housing and new shops, businesses. And there’s a
+casino coming, a convention center, and more townhomes…. We hope. But
+all that’s for another day, another discussion. Tonight’s focus is on
+safety …. In our neighborhood. (pausing)…..Let me introduce Ryan
+Hunter, president of the Citizens’ Watchdog Committee. He’s here
+tonight to help the police do their job. (Will winces at this
+suggestion)
+Ryan: Thank you, Tim, I’m glad to be here. We all appreciate what the
+police do for us in our neighborhoods. We’re simply an extra set of
+eyes on the street. (Ryan says this to soften the previous remarks
+about helping the police. He knows you don’t say such things about
+the police; they don’t like it.) Like an extra video camera. Which we
+don’t have. But….our committee has recommended… to beef up safety.
+(Some people in audience look concerned.)
+Alex: (interrupts with a hand-jive) You mean you’re going to watch me
+strut up and down the street to Dave’s supermarket and whatever else
+I want to do on my pavement. (He gets out of his chair while he’s
+talking and does a brief strut.)
+Ryan: (surprised by the disruption, but pleasant, unflappable; he
+decides he can use the example) It’s for safety. And as long as
+you’re not doing criminal activity, there’s no problem. (Ryan goes
+back to his agenda.) But the issue is important. Thanks for bringing
+it up. (pauses for emphasis ) We need to keep our streets safe first,
+last and all the time. We need not just take a hard line, but the
+hardest line. The Police need to know that we want that kind of
+safety. No coddling. Because without that mandate, that mission,
+they’ll be looking over their backs, wandering how much support they
+have from us. Whether they’ll get slapped with some kind of
+harassment or police brutality. (Ryan starts to rev up some.)
+We’ve developed a serious problem with arson in this neighborhood.
+The video cameras will help. We’ll find out who’s doing the
+vandalism, who’s setting the new housing ablaze. ‘Cause that’s the
+opposite message we want getting out to the public, the media, the
+newspapers. We want to be a neighborhood of choice. We’re in
+competition and need to win this battle.
+(Ryan clarifies his committee’s direction) The Citizen’s Watchdog
+Committee has expanded its understanding of its responsibilities.
+Realizing safety is really part of an overall development plan for
+Arcadia. And we’re starting with this neighborhood.
+(Joan and her comrades have been listening to all this with little
+comprehension. Grace winces at the cameras and the coming of the
+fascist regime to the streets. She’s ready for a fight, but doesn’t
+know where to jump in.)
+(Ryan continues) I know many of you in the audience. We’ve talked.
+You’ve shared your ideas with me. What you want. And I think I speak
+for, am the voice of, the overwhelming majority of the people. All of
+you. That we want safety … safe streets. And we need the police to do
+their job with a free hand. Right, detective Girardi?
+(Will nods, but not entirely sure of the message. Will’s somewhat
+impressed, but also a little uncomfortable with Ryan’s hard-line
+message. He’s feeling Ryan’s got it right: ‘you can’t pull your
+punches,’ ‘coddle criminals’. Anyway, it’s not police business, but
+community attitudes. The police are there to do their jobs, arrest
+criminals or suspects, investigate, present the evidence, and let the
+justice system determine the outcomes, the results.)
+Alex’s mother (speaking up): My son here was picked up for no reason
+by the police. (with attitude) Because of so-called …safety concerns.
+I got a problem with that.
+Ryan: I got a problem with it too.(showing he knows how to make use
+of a challenging comment) That’s why we have a watchdog committee. If
+he’s a suspect, then it’s fair. If he’s not, then he shouldn’t have
+been picked up. Chief Girardi will help us with that. Thank you.
+Alex’s mother: (wanting to reply, but can’t use the opportunity
+before the next person chimes in)
+
+Homeless guy: (speaking out, rambling) You know, we homeless, ….
+persons not wanted anywhere…persona non grata and persona non a
+wanna… provide plenty of eyes on the street …safety for free … and at
+all hours of the day and night. It’s sorta like my job….Where’d you
+all be without us? (seemingly ignored by the audience, thinking it’s
+a strange idea, but… something seems to sit differently with everyone
+for a moment)
+Ryan: (jumping on it) Jobs are coming…. The casinos will provide
+that….enough to earn a good living. (looking at the homeless guy) If
+you want it. Work is good for the soul.
+Homeless guy: (interrupting) No way will I work at a casino. … The
+price is too high …I ain’t gonna sell my soul to the company or a
+casino… for a job… I’ll starve first. (People in the audience look at
+him and figure, “ What’d ya expect?” Ryan ignores this guy’s line of
+reasoning, surmising where it’s coming from.)
+Hunter: (redirecting) Hey, you don’t work you don’t eat. Unless
+someone gives you a handout. That’s the problem. Don’t give a
+panhandler money. It’s actually bad for him. He’ll drin…
+A man in the audience: (jumping in, Ryan’s accidentally lit some kind
+of fuse) It’s not that simple. My brother can’t get a job. No one
+will hire him. He’s an ex-felon. They even tried to keep him from
+voting.
+A person dressed in a suit: (ignoring the comment, trying to go in a
+different direction, emphasizing the positive) We live on the same
+street. We have a wonderfully diverse community. The new housing and
+restorations going on are bringing this place back to life. And my
+lofted …
+Hunter: (ignoring the second man’s comment, but conceding his
+interruption) Sorry. ….(responding to the first question, because he
+wants to shift the previous remarks) It’s hard work. No question.
+Rejoining society, …the body politic. But that doesn’t mean it can’t
+be done. Your brother needs help. People need to reach out to
+him….But if he chooses… And I want to emphasize this: We have
+choices. Always. And if he chooses to break the law, he needs to be
+punished to the fullest extent of the LAW. You make your choices. You
+pay the consequences. Get your due. It’s like any relationship. Tough
+love. Tough in that, if you fail to hold up your side of it….choose
+(with emphasis) not to work, ..you lose….(Homeless guy leaves, giving
+up on the conversation for now. Ryan uses the opportunity to
+emphasize the safety message one last time.) Thomas Hobbes believed
+the state of society was wrestled from a wild free-for-all. A state
+of nature. And… that only the strong arm of the law. Of power. Force.
+Really fear….could secure safety and sanity for us all. It’s a social
+contract. And like any contract, if it’s broken .. you sue… apprehend
+… punish … It’s a jungle out there …. And we need a Leviathan to
+control our world and manage it.
+Really, we’ve gone on for awhile. So ….
+(There’s a disruption in the room. Several police enter with women
+they’ve picked up on the street, likely prostitutes. The women enter.
+Joan notices the yoga-dance instructor is among them. She’s confused.
+God or not? There’s a sad and distressed look on the
+yoga-dance-instructor’s face.)
+Councilman: (comes forward) We’ve had problems with prostitution on
+Dilcue. We got people on it. These women were just picked up
+‘soliciting.’ They’ll be processed and held. The police are doing
+their job.
+(There’s rumbling from the crowd, accompanied by a low hiss, from
+several people at the meeting. A majority are angry at the
+prostitution happening on their streets. Some are uncomfortable,
+shifting nervously in the awkward situation. Someone speaks up after
+the initial disruption, breaking the silence.)
+Alex’s mother: You got no right bringing them in here. If they’re
+going to jail, take them. You got no right.
+Will: (Will’s not expecting this, but he’s ready to jump in, knowing
+it’s not right either. But he hesitates a moment and Ryan steps into
+the moment of Will’s hesitation.)
+Ryan: Ma’am, we have every right to bring criminals to account for
+their actions. … (shifting his attention) Thank you officers. You can
+take them out. (The patrolmen look to the nodding commander and they
+are rustled out. Joan watches closely and catches
+yoga-dance-instructor-prostitute leave. They meet one another’s gaze.
+There’s a connection of sadness, of distance, of wanting to help, at
+a loss of what to do, frustration at what’s going on.)
+(Will’s been observing this whole exchange between Ryan, the police,
+and the women hauled in off the street. And he’s upset. He doesn’t
+want to embarrass fellow police officers in public. He decides he’s
+going to take this up with them, tell them not to get leveraged into
+bringing suspects into a community meeting. He’s also going to take
+it up with the district commander.)
+Ryan: (trying to wrap things up) Thank you all. You’ve come out and
+made yourself heard. We’ll be sure to have regular meetings ….Good
+night ….
+Adam: (walks up to Ryan at the front of the room near the podium and
+says) Hey. I didn’t know you’d be here. (making a connection with
+Ryan)
+Ryan: Just doing my civic duty (trying to sound servant-like, but it
+comes off cavalier) … Listen, Adam, I’m parched. Would you get me
+some water? (and who becomes the servant?)
+Adam: Sure… (furrows his brow, sensing something’s not quite
+right…Still, he walks off to get Ryan some water. Ryan mills around
+at the front, talking with people in the audience and the other
+presenters. Will’s there.)
+
+(With Adam off getting Ryan’s water, Joan’s comrades stand in the
+back. Lily with her gang, Denunzio and Bonnie, walk up to Joan. It’s
+uncomfortable for Joan as she has difficulty looking Bonnie in the
+eye.)
+Denunzio: (greets Joan) Hey Princess, got a cancer stick? (Bonnie’s
+quietly distant.)
+Joan: (just smiles and looks smug, ignoring his request)
+Lily: Just wanted to say hi…. Hi. …We’re late for gettin’ outta here.
+(motioning like she’s already leaving)
+Joan: What just happened? (everyone’s clueless)
+Lily: (Lily speaks up first) Beyond me. Just helping them (looking
+over at Bonnie and Denunzio) get an assignment done by cutting
+community service time.
+Friedman: (noticing that Bonnie’s not wearing any shoes or socks)
+What’s this? “Hobbitses?” (‘hobbit zez’ sounding like Gollum from
+Lord of the Rings)
+Bonnie: (gives him a look that could kill)
+Lily: (coming to the rescue) Friedman. You’ll never get it. … The
+earth is sacred ground. So… take off your …frickin’ shoes… go down
+Moses…..burning bush… pan-located. A Lenape medicine man, prophet,
+helped her see .. (unsure herself, but trusting it to be a vision or
+something) …I don’t know what, but something…. So shut your trap. Or
+I’ll shut it for you.
+Friedman: (suitably subdued)
+Lily: (anxious to leave) Later.
+Others: Bye (Lily leaves with Denunzio and Bonnie.)
+Glynis: (giving her assessment to Joan’s question of what just
+happened at the meeting) It was awful.
+Friedman: It’s how the world works. Maybe awful, but just desserts.
+…But how the world looks…Ola … ooh la la…..
+Grace: How do you tell the dancer from the dance? (Grace speaks
+cryptically. She’s in some kind of other reality altogether for a
+moment. But she quickly returns to a typical mood.) I’m gonna get
+sick. Spout my coffee on that useless smuck of a citizen leading the
+charge. Citizen Kane indeed. Let’s get outta here.
+Joan: No. (resisting the movement to leave.) I have to understand ….
+Alex: (walking by, saying something to dig at them and then take off)
+Like your introduction to community meetings? Can’t wait to see your
+write-up. (challenging Joan) So, who’s gonna tell it like it is?
+(trying to goad something out of them, but giving up) Hey, I gotta
+‘book.’ (Alex walks away. He’s not telling them he needs to walk his
+mother home.)
+(Joan catches up with Alex as he takes off; the others follow her
+slowly)
+Alex: (to Joan) I said I had business. Adios.
+Alex’s mother: (walking up and hearing Alex) Alex. Are these friends
+from school? Introduce me.
+Alex: No. They’re not friends. (sounding rude) They just needed to
+complete an assignment. (just the facts) Let’s go. (Alex can’t wait
+to drop this encounter like a dead weight upon his spirit.)
+Joan: No, we’re friends (wanting something more, but realizing she’s
+overstated it). Well … acquaintances, ah, (not finding the right
+word) … strangers? (gives up trying to know what to say and falls
+back on the little she’s sure of) I need to understand. (Joan falls
+back on what she knows.) I’m Joan Girardi. (Joan introduces herself
+to Alex’s mom)
+Alex: This is my mom, Mrs. Villa. (begrudging)
+Joan: It’s nice to meet you. (Joan smiles and goes straight to her
+purpose.) Can you tell us what happened?
+Mrs. Villa: (smiles at Joan’s greeting, but answers her question
+enigmatically) I’m sorry. No. But .. maybe some day. Good to meet you
+Joan. (Mrs. Villa has a feeling about Joan, but doesn’t trust it.
+She’s been burned before.)
+(Alex and his mom leave.)
+
+**Part 19**\ : (Next evening, Joan goes to the dance studio to see if
+Rahav is there and discover what happened. While the building’s open,
+the door to her studio is locked; no one’s there. She leaves the
+studio. And as she enters the standing cloud of streetlife, she
+becomes aware of something arising, moving her to ‘walking
+meditation.’ She focuses on her breathing and lets her eyesight and
+body embrace, absorb the neighborhood she wanders through. Her vision
+and mind meld into the forms architectural, rigid, human and mobile
+she sees. Vipassana. The ambient array of shops, buildings, people on
+the street seep into her heart, gradually creating a wide opening.
+She walks by a Hispanic Pentecostal Church, next to a teen nite club
+with a Banner identifying it as ‘Speak in Tongues.’ There’s a health
+clinic across the street from it. There’s a bicycle shop, a tire
+shop, a bagel co-op, a coffeeshop, the Rialto, Villa y Zapata
+restaurant, San Miguel Botanica, a thrift shop. In the Revolution
+Books store, she sees some titles that register unconsciously, ‘Etty
+Hillesum… Diaries’ with a photograph on the cover; “Simone Weil … The
+Iliad: Poem of Force.’ Once a car stops, and calls through the open
+window… ‘Psst.’ She’s startled out of her sentience, then ignores it
+and keeps walking. When she finally completes her way through the
+labyrinth of streets and people, it’s late. She looks up, recognizing
+a constellation in the night sky. She’s now worried that time has
+passed and she’s feeling not safe, like she’s taken a risk and is now
+in a maze she can’t exit. She then sees Adam walking towards her and
+breathes a sigh of relief.)
+Joan: Hey. Que pasa? (trying to sound curious and cute, as though
+she’s unworried)
+Adam: On my way to meet Ryan. (Joan frowns, but hides it from Adam,
+‘cause she doesn’t want to go there.)
+Joan: It’s late. (instead of talking about Ryan)
+Adam: Yeah, I’m restless. I need something. I don’t know what. (Joan
+and Adam walk together down the street…and he continues) Something I
+can hold on to.
+Joan: (feeling pained at Adam’s last statement, she avoids the
+subject and focuses on herself) I’m tired. Can’t wait for dreamland.
+… But the hunter never sleeps (remembering the constellation Orion
+she saw one early morning while it was still dark, and now looking
+up, but not seeing it now). Whatever.
+Adam: (interested in something else) Hey, I want you to see
+something. (They stop in front of a storefront, with big glass
+windows.) Look here. (The shop has a high ceiling. And Adam points to
+a half wall-size mural that’s on one wall of the shop. The mural’s a
+picture of two guys, the owners, standing side by side with arms
+around one another’s shoulder. The mural’s cartoon-like because each
+guy has one of their eyeballs popped out above their heads to dot the
+first letter ‘i’ in the name of their shop,“ ike and ishmi’s Bagel
+Co-op.” It’s quite striking, funny, and warm.) I stop here before
+work. …Got to talkin’. …. They want me to touch up the mural. I’d do
+it free. They said, ‘Nah.’ Art’s work. So is food. Each take
+something from the pot. It’s good business. Cool, huh?
+Joan: Yeah. (Joan’s happy for Adam and starting to feel a lot more
+relaxed.)
+(They continue walking and run into Mrs. Villa (Alex’s mom) coming
+out of a law office, Goody’s Equity Law office, GELO, ( pronounced
+‘jello’).)
+Mrs. Villa: Joan Girardi. We meet again.
+Joan: Yeah. Hi. (glad and starting to think…) Good to see you again
+too. (needing to give introductions) Adam, this is Mrs. Villa, Alex’s
+mom. Mrs. Villa, this is my ex-boyfriend Adam. (Adam ouches at the
+mention of ‘ex.’ He thinks he really needs a dog now. Mrs. Villa and
+Adam greet one another.)
+Alex’s mom: Joan, good to see you out with your ex. I got an
+ex-husband. We get along, too. Can’t live together though.
+Joan: Well, yeah. It’s complicated.
+Alex’s mom: Probably not. Another woman. (Adam feels foolish at how
+she’s got it all mapped out so quickly.) It happens all the time. ….
+‘Til the lesson’s learned. (ominous) painfully…..One big soap opera.
+What? (trying to think of which one to name) General Hospital, right?
+Joan: I guess.
+Alex’s mom: Just like the Bible. Redux. From time immemorial. All
+those men cavorting. David and Bathsheba. Women haggling. Sarah and
+Hagar. And whoa, Jacob waiting for Rachel. That’s why I like good
+queen Esther. But don’t get me started. (not able to quit quite yet)
+God just can’t seem to get it to work out right sometimes. But I tell
+him to keep trying. (Adam’s at a loss to follow this, but Joan’s not
+cowed.)
+Joan: Yeah, right. (but curious) You talk to god?
+Alex’s mom: All the time. We got a regular conversation.
+Joan: Me, too. (Joan can’t hold back, just jumping in. Adam’s
+surprised by Joan’s forthright statement. But Joan quickly backs off
+into silence, thinking she’s said too much.)
+Alex’s mom: Well, that’s good. You just keep talking to him, honey.
+He’ll or (correcting herself) She’ll lead you.
+Adam: (a little uncomfortable, goes a different direction) Mrs.
+Villa, where you headed?
+Alex’s mom: Home. Waiting for Alex to come by. He picks me up after
+work.
+Adam: You’re a lawyer? (noticing she had exited the law office)
+Alex’s mom: No. Legal assistant. But I’m working on it. (Pride rises
+from her center of gravity.) It’s a long haul. Arcadia Community
+college for my associates’. Satellite courses there for my
+undergraduate degree. And now for my final sheepskin. (excited about
+her future) Juris doctor.
+Joan: (wanting to go back to the community meeting question) Mrs.
+Villa, that community meeting. What happened? I didn’t get it.
+Mrs. Villa: Don’t worry. You will, Joan. That was just a song and
+dance. They’ve already decided what they’re gonna do. They were
+processing us. (thinking about what she just said and amused) Due
+process; that’s exactly right. Powers and principalities hiding
+behind smoke and mirrors. Been there. Done that….Now substance that’s
+a different number altogether.
+Joan: That’s not right. (getting lost in the smoke, getting righteous
+...)
+Mrs. Villa: Yeah…. (Like what’s new?! But Mrs. Villa realizes she
+needs to help Joan understand more.). But we get what we deserve.
+(expanding Joan’s vision so she can see that it’s not so simple) We
+don’t hold them to the fire. But I have hope no one gets burned on
+this one. That old fiery furnace is heating up though. We’ll see. Got
+a fundraiser, rally, to start. Show’em we got a different vision of
+the neighborhood. We’re gonna be tried by fire on this one.
+Joan: Sounds hot… (like the furnace doesn’t sound inviting, but
+trying to sound hopeful about the fundraiser) And good! When?
+Mrs. Villa: This weekend, Saturday night.
+Joan: Can I help out? (initially eager ‘cause she’s looking for
+something practical to do, rather than figure out what exactly is
+going on; then starting to wonder if it’s the one Rahav mentioned to
+her earlier).
+Mrs. Villa: Rahav. She has the dance studio a couple blocks down. She
+organized it. HipHop DanceFest Arcadia. Next Saturday. (thinking …)
+Oh yeah. She’s in jail. Hold that…
+Joan: Where I just was. (pointing in the direction of the dance
+studio). She told me about it.
+Mrs. Villa: (thinking Joan meant jail and not the dance studio) Jail?
+Nah, I was there. Didn’t see you. (finally realizing that Joan meant
+the dance studio) Oh… You meant the dance studio. She’ll be out soon.
+Can’t hold her more than 72 hours. … strictly speaking. Though there
+ain’t nothing strict about the law, except when they choose to be
+strict…..
+Joan: Is she okay?
+Mrs. Villa: Oh yeah. Yeah. (reassuring) They’re just making her an
+example. (going back to thinking how Joan’s been doing her own thing
+and pleased) So, then you’re in the loop already. Networking. Good.
+Adam: (Adam’s been listening to it all, but with little interest
+until he hears Joan getting involved and now he’s wanting to get in
+on it.) I got experience in set design. I could help with lighting.
+(Mrs. Villa nods in agreement, picking up where Adam’s real interest
+lies.)
+
+Alex: Hey, mom (walking up and giving her a kiss).
+(He nods, uninterested, in Adam’s and Joan’s direction.)
+Alex’s Mom: Just talking to your friends, here.
+Alex: Yeah. (not excited about his mom thinking they’re his friends,
+but drops it, no point. They all notice a woman walking alone across
+the street. As they walk on down the street, Mrs. Villa makes a
+comment.)
+Mrs. Villa: It ain’t the oldest profession. Thought it was. ‘Til the
+preacher said ‘killing’ was (or murder). Got me to thinking.
+Joan: What’s the difference? (wondering what she’s talking about, the
+difference between murder and killing)
+Alex’s mom: None for the victim. (she lets that sit out there for a
+moment; then, sounding like she’s thought long and hard about what
+she says next) But there is. If you’re judging innocence or guilt.
+It’s not mine to judge. Not anyone’s.
+Ryan: (walking up) Mrs. Villa. … Joan. Adam. (looking at Alex) Alex,
+right?
+Alex: (not liking that this guy thinks he knows him or something)
+Adam: (Adam going right to it with Ryan) Hey. Startin’ to wonder.
+Maybe it was Mercer Creek and not Noir.
+Ryan: (speaking to Adam) Yeah, got held up. (smiling to Joan and Mrs.
+Villa) Ladies, (looking to Alex, with emphasis, picking up his vibe)
+Sir. I’m interrupting I see. So, just excuse us. We have a very
+important meeting. (sounding secretive so as to set up his next funny
+remark) Coffee, Citizen Kane, Ad-layouts. It’d put ya to sleep. But
+we’ll talk all night. Or until they throw us out. (leaving) Later.
+(and nods in their directions)
+Adam: Joan, you’ll be okay? (solicitous of her safety and well being)
+Joan: Sure. (reassuring Adam and looking with confidence towards Mrs.
+Villa) Sure.
+(As Adam and Ryan walk into the Café Noir, Ryan says to Adam,
+something barely heard, “I got this guy nailed. Dead on. Judge, jury,
+execution. All in one step. Too cool.” Playing in the film room of
+Café Noir is Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.”
+Mrs. Villa: (talking to Joan as Alex wanders off a bit; none have
+heard Ryan) That man. Something’s not right. Can’t put my finger on
+it. But God’s got his on it. (quoting something) “Over again I feel
+thy finger and find thee.” (She breathes a deep relief and
+satisfaction as she feels a powerful presence wash over her being.
+Joan notices it and feels drawn to it. Joan hugs Mrs. Villa, which
+surprises Joan and upsets Alex who observes it.)
+Mrs. Villa: Thanks, Joan. That was sweet. I felt it too.
+Alex: (bent out of shape, and coming back towards them) Mom. Really.
+Time to go. (He starts leaving.)
+Alex’s mom: No, not until her bus comes. (holding her son off; just
+then Joan’s bus pulls up and Mrs. Villa calls out some advice as she
+goes) Joan, don’t give up on your sweetheart. (thinking she better
+qualify it) Ex, that is. (Alex’s mom waves as they leave. Joan looks
+in Mrs. Villa’s direction and waves back. Before she boards the bus,
+she takes a brief look into Café Noir coffee shop where Ryan and Adam
+are talking. She sees the movie playing. As her bus pulls away, Joan
+falls deep into thought of this place, imbued with the ambient array
+she’s thoroughly absorbed.)
+\ **Part 20**\ : (It’s Saturday night. Adam is walking down the
+street to the building where the evening’s event, HipHop DanceFest
+Arcadia, is being held. He’s arriving early to help with the set. As
+he nears its entrance, he runs into
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god.)
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god: Hey, I’m trying to find a good
+home for this dog that hangs with me… Interested? (pointing to the
+dog across the street with grocery cart full of stuff)
+Adam: Maybe. Why you getting rid of him?
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god: I’m going to be moving on soon ….
+I don’t think it’ll work out. … She’s a great animal… found her on
+the streets…. Loyal and friendly… faith and true…. and a good
+watchdog too…
+Adam: I gotta think about this… How can I reach you?
+Homeless-man-newspaper-vendor-god: On Dilcue any time…. Anywhere near
+the Rialto…. Just flag me down.
+Adam: Okay. (continues walking down the street and enters the
+building.)
+\ **Part 21**\ : (Same evening, Helen and Will are going to their
+seats at Arcadia’s Music Hall to hear the Arcadia Symphonic
+Orchestra. All of Arcadia’s movers and shakers are there. Will
+notices them sitting still and waves to them with a quick flick of
+the wrist, mostly out of obligation. Will thinks he’ll never live
+this down back at the Precinct. As he takes his seat, Will remembers
+to put his cellphone on vibrator to avoid a bad scene. Helen’s
+thrilled with the music hall, the whole experience she’s expecting.
+They take their seats and she starts to read the notes in the program
+to Will. The program lists Beethoven’s 7th Symphony as the evening’s
+featured piece.)
+Helen: (to Will) Listen to this. Wagner (pronounced ‘Vahg-ner’)
+called it: “The very a-poth (sounding out ‘apotheosis’, but gets
+stuck and starts again) a-poth-e-o-sis (getting it) of the
+dance.”(Helen’s intrigued. She pauses. Will hopes silence on her part
+means she’s done trying to instruct him on something he doesn’t want
+to know about. She frustrates his hope by jumping to another
+comment.) “But Beethoven’s impossible to choreograph.”
+Will: What’s ‘apoth ..’ (getting irritated) What’s that?’(hoping to
+get Helen to quit by asking her a dumb question that lets her know
+how uninformed he is.) Do I even want to know?
+Helen: I don’t know. This writer thinks it’s better described ‘the
+apotheosis of rhythm.’ (Helen says it more fluently this time and
+thinks she might learn something so she’s eager to finish. She
+rattles off more facts.) “Its premiere was a benefit concert for
+wounded soldiers from the Napoleonic wars.” (Helen’s jumping around
+in the program.) Oh, and “that Beethoven was ripe for the madhouse
+after writing the bizarre grinding bass of the 2nd movement.”
+Allegretto. “It builds enormous tension before the release in the
+final climax.” Hmm. (then becoming effervescent) I’m so excited,
+Will.
+Will: (looking like he’s swallowed a bug) Me too, Helen. Me, too.
+(saying it a second time, hoping he could convince himself. Not.)
+
+**Part 22**\ : (HipHop DanceFest Arcadia happens at an old ethnic
+community club building, which is a large 3-story structure, about 60
+feet high. On the 3rd floor, there’s a ballroom, now called the
+Beachland Ballroom where the event is held. Joan’s at the 2nd floor
+entrance door helping out, sitting at a table. She’s wearing a hat,
+a\ `fedora <http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/mshaffer2/Dance%20of%20Desire/Fedora.jpg>`__\ …
+It’s a striking blow to her standard fashion…, looking so sharp or
+thoroughly foolish. …She’s wearing a dark blazer with gray pinstripes
+as well, so she looks like some Bogart character out of film noir,
+but without the gangster persona. She’s been taking money for the
+past hour. Mrs. Villa’s there with her, as well as another boy her
+age, Michael. She’s seen Denunzio and Bonnie come in together, which
+is quite a surprise and a distressing encounter, too. She greets them
+half-heartedly and uncomfortably. They look askance at her without
+words being exchanged. Lily follows shortly afterwards, saying she
+was some kind of chaperone. But Joan wasn’t buying it… Lily wanted to
+see the performance and probably couldn’t convince Kevin to come
+along. Inaccessible?)
+(Mrs. Villa tells Joan that the show will be starting in a minute or
+two and she doesn’t want Joan to miss the opening number and says she
+and Michael can handle the door…just come back later to relieve them.
+Joan hurries up the flight of stairs into the main ballroom. She
+checks the balcony near the entrance of the ballroom from where the
+stage lighting’s orchestrated. The ceiling of the hall is lined with
+different lighting schemes. She barely sees Adam moving about. He’s
+completely absorbed in preparation for the opening performance.
+Joan’s joined the moment, prelude to fullness, attentive with the
+audience. But this ain’t no standard performance and this ain’t no
+typical audience spectation. No innocent bystanders here.
+Participatory performance art. But Joan doesn’t know that yet, so
+without further a-do-ing: Let the terpsichorean shewing begin.)
+Master of Ceremonies: (walking out, excited, feeling the energy)
+People….HipHop DanceFest Arcadia…. Can it feel this good? Can you
+inhale this experiment in truth? Messengers from Heaven arriving on
+time… bringing dancing flames ... Are you ready?!!!!!! Bring it on.
+…Bring. It. On. (He exits the stage.)
+(THE SHOW:
+AN-TI-CI-PA-TION. You can feel the ENERGY about to be unleashed.
+Fusion imagining. Thick with electromagnetism. Stasis about to be
+disestablished. And THEN. The Force of Performance. The muse of
+solution. THUNDERBOLT. LIGHTNING. IT’S A-HAPPENING: Big monstrous
+speakers and sound system blare music as background for the dancers
+who prance onto the stage, wearing ghost-dance shirts and African
+masks. Guitar crashing chords up and down. Titillated by high hat
+a-tapping out the measure. ‘Ooh.’ ‘Ooh’ drawn out. The Cure’s hiphop
+version of “\ \ `Purple
+Haze <http://dc87.4shared.com/download/68998750/33e93c03/The_Cure_-_Purple_Haze.mpg>`__\ \ ”
+explodes from the Sound cavities.
+Jimi’s voice, alive and well. He’s calling from the grave, ‘Really
+gotta say. I did my thing. It isn’t a dream.’ …. Ah, the VIBE.
+KINESIS. And the beat being laid down and down and down. The bottom
+formed. On the one. On the One….on the ONE.
+The bass rocks the walls of the building. Strung out. Pounded upon:
+BA BUM BUM
+The visual-aural envelope of Sound sweeps the dust out of the
+ballroom and all spirits.
+A group of dancers take center stage, with synchronized moves.
+A-rocking and a-waving, with their bodies a-swaying. They lilt and
+lurch forward. Their entire amassed form pulsing. Draped with wings
+of fire. Dressed for flight. Hands and arms rolling, and a-rolling.
+Feet a-tapping, a-flying, dimpling waves of photons. Kinesthesia
+a-flaring. Hand motions slice the aire, riding them towards the
+heavens, fashioning shapes that reach out to…. almost touch the sky.
+Then a hiphop to kiss it. Jump. Jump up. Jump. Jump up. Freeze. Drop.
+Slip. Fall. Pop!
+And the audience wakens radiant to conjoin the dancers, the music,
+the place. Fusing.
+All bodies, of the heavens and earth, start ta’ movin’, a-shakin.
+And the drums, pounding out the BEAT, with a backbeat and quick
+release. And then the BEAT ‘poets’ even higher….. A primal force
+rising up from the floors. Inhaling the Room. Pervasion Equation.
+EarthEkstacizing.
+‘Purple Haze all in my brain….. actin’ funny .. ‘scuse me while I
+kiss the sky…’
+‘Don’t know if I’m coming up or down. Never happy or in misery …
+whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me..’ AH!!!!!!…
+And the bass guitar plucking 3 beats per measure: BA BOM BOM. With
+the drums pounding the pause between repeats. And feet kicking the
+air. A-hopping. A-hipping. The center among the circling dancers is
+expanded. And one dancer starts B-BOYING. BREAKING. Spin. Spin.
+Freeze. Jump. Drills head into hardwood floor. Opening up a direct
+line into the heart of the earth. Fissuring. Indeed.
+Bass guitar speeds… plucking 6 beats per measure.
+The drums keep feeding off that rhythm: DA DOO DOO DOO DOO DO
+Bass drum. Bass guitar. …BA BUM BUM rhymes the rim over and over and
+over…..
+Then BA BUM BUM BUM BUM BUM BAAH!
+Dancers soar, spin, as music does. Such Excess. TOV.
+The whole house ta’ shiftin’. Volume like a driving wind, riding high
+and diving low. Swirling. Rebuffing. EKSTASIS. And everyone in the
+audience. Up and moving. A-wigglin’. A-shakin’. Swelled with primal
+rhythms. Infectious beats. Primordial forces. Spasms in being.
+Ebullience. Boiling up. The EARTH opens a deep fissure, excavating a
+vast opening into its pulsating heart. The flow of fluid rock. Stones
+split. The curtain’s torn from top to bottom. Gaia. Up, a lifeline.
+The SKY kisses terra firma, and driving down deeper, licks the molten
+core. All merged into ONE … Audience. Dancers. Music. Ballroom.
+Apotheosis.
+Can it get any better?)
+(Joan’s joined at the hip to this lindyhop mosh popping.
+Fandango-ing. Not knowing who she was, or where, or what. Enveloped
+in bodies, surrounded in sound, permeated with rhythm. One vast ocean
+of human life vibrating. Grinding with the Bass. She’s been through
+an earthquake. And belched out of some kind of crypt. Spasmosis.
+Blown away by the show, carried into another frame of the time-space
+continuum. Transcendence translated. The ambient array embedded in
+her brain synapses. She tries to breathe deeply. And look. ….She
+realizes she’s got these happy feet that can’t stop movin.’ She’s
+tries to control them, but they have a life of their own now. And
+it’s affecting her hands and arms. They just keep ‘kinecting.’
+Feeling totally weird and free, she thinks… it’s a dream … as she
+merges into the stream… secret service, deeds, actions rippling
+beneath the moonlit night. Yeah. Right. She’s a-mused, be-mused, how
+things redound. Curiously sated. At the no-longer still and rhythmic
+point of saturation. Osmosis.
+With wings of fire, Joan goes back to the table to collect donations
+and monies for the fest.)
+
+**Part 23**\ : (With Joan back at the tables taking money, Joan
+questions Mrs. Villa about something. She tries to be casual, but her
+interest oversteps her effort at subtlety.)
+Joan: Was that Alex at the center of that circling .. (grabbing for
+the right word) hip….hop …scotch-ing? Whatever.
+Mrs. Villa: (humored by Joan’s attempt to describe) Yes. And I don’t
+know what to call it either.
+Joan: How could you miss it?
+Mrs. Villa: I didn’t
+(Joan’s not following this, but before she can say anything, Grace
+shows up with Friedman. A big surprise. There’s this buoyance to
+Joan’s being and yet a cathartic and confident completion that Grace
+is struck by.)
+Grace: Girardi, what’s with you? Seen the light? (has that look) A
+ghost dance? …The entire electromagnetic spectrum?
+Joan: I’ve been trans- … something … washed over by ‘I don’t know
+what’ … been to the mountaintop and can see something different …..
+by Alex and his hiphop skippers. I don’t know I’ll ever be the same.
+Grace: Whatever… close encounter of the third kind?…
+Joan: No, direct encounter…
+Grace: Weird and weirder…. Girardi.
+Joan: Spirits and spirit-er. (finally coming back to earth) Grace.
+Talk about weird? (pointing to Friedman). Napoleon Dynamite, without
+the dancing shoes…
+Grace: (missing the Friedman question… responding to what she thought
+was her presence at the DanceFest) Girardi, you’d think I’d miss
+something this real ….ars populist… This is where Rove and I are
+headed… high performance art… not some classical bourgeois
+dress-for-mass consumption purchase at the commodities market…like
+the Music Hall, (pulling out her chained wallet)… I’m blowing the
+whole wad (hands over a twenty dollar bill).. what’s left is for my
+new caffeine habit….
+Joan: Right!…(smiles) But you already missed the opening…(searching
+for the right word, before she quits, she blurts out) … combustion…
+alchemy…(moving on) Grace,…. This is my friend, Mrs. Villa… she
+helped organize the show. (motions to the boy next to Mrs. Villa)
+Michael.
+Grace: (excited about what she’s going to see, sounds like she’s
+almost singing) We’re having a party. Everybody’s dan…(interrupting
+herself, looking to Mrs. Villa) I’ve seen you in action…
+Joan: (going back to her curiosity about what’s Friedman doing with
+Grace; Grace finally picks up the vibe)
+Grace: Friedman … (wondering what answer to give… lands on the
+facts)…. He’s here because I promised to feed him to the sharks from
+one of his cruises otherwise… And there’s mucho opportunity for
+vicarious participation…..in the Saturnalia …as long as he arrives
+after the main course though….10 bucks… …(Grace puts her hand out,
+forcing Friedman to pull out a ten dollar bill)
+Friedman: (but holding the money in hand) Gracie, no filthy lucre
+until I know we’re getting inside … I don’t want to miss the
+inauguration. (explaining Luke’s absence) Cool hand Luke’s busy
+making cookies….coming late ‘s better than not at all ….
+Grace: He better make it.
+Friedman: Told him …. Find the heavy and labored breathing …. Follow
+the cooking smoke signals (He gives the money to Mrs. Villa who gives
+him a handstamp.)
+Grace: (finally getting to the fedora… noir-look, pointing) Girardi,
+you’ve been bogart-ed.
+Joan: I needed something different for tonight… The thrift shop has
+all this outlandish stuff.. for a few bucks.. ..the coat and hat, 8
+bucks… Half price on Thursdays.. What d’ya think?
+Grace: I’m not the fashionista police….do your thing or the right
+thing whichever comes first… I like it. (about to head off to the
+show.)
+Mrs. Villa: Enjoy the show.. . uh … the second course.
+Grace: Bye…(they walk off.)
+\ **Part 24**\ : (Rahav, Yoga-dance-instructor-prostitute-god,
+arrives coming through the doors where HipHop DanceFest is being
+held. She seems subdued… She pulls out $10. Mrs. Villa notices her
+and starts to get out of her seat at the table. Rahav greets Joan and
+Mrs. Villa and Michael.)
+Rahav: I’m welcome? (Mrs. Villa, coming from behind the table, hugs
+and kisses her; Joan’s surprised, but moved by the warmth and
+uncertainty of the moment)
+Mrs. Villa: (finally responding with words)… Yeah, right. That’s a
+question.
+Rahav: I don’t want to upset tonight’s show.
+Mrs. Villa: Too bad…We’ll deal with it….. Oh, …when do you not
+unleash coordinated chaos around here? …. jazz… miz.
+Joan: (finally speaking to Rahav) We need to talk…
+Rahav: I know. .. later, though. (Rahav walks up the steps slowly.)
+\ **Part 25**\ : (The MC (master of ceremonies) takes the stage and
+starts talking. He sounds inspirational. Grace and Friedman are in
+the audience wondering when the show’s gonna get back on track.)
+MC: (seems to be some kind of minister, but not identified as such)
+OK. OK. Okay. Brother Jimi, like brother Malcolm said, making it
+plain. (enunciating each word and with added emphasis) Making It
+Plain! (engaging the audience as though he’s talking to each person
+individually, as though they’re cradled in the crater of a volcano)
+Thank you. Thank you! (putting his hand on their hearts, as he lays
+his hand on his own) Say it’s so. (people nodding and saying ‘yeah,
+yeah’)
+I wanna thank everyone for coming out tonight to support this
+community event. (a lot of energy is in the crowd, so they’re all
+intently focused on the speaker) Your gifts make a difference here.
+Laid at the table of plenty. Abundance multiplied…. Look around and
+see.(sweeping his hands all around and coming to focus on the
+dancers) A harvest indeed. Sukkot. Hey, hey, …Hey!….Tonight’s talent
+has been supported and gathered by all of you. You’ve made this
+…happen! (taking them higher and further) And we have more on the
+horizon, the sun is rising tomorrow, indeed. But I’m talking about
+your hearts. Not just your dollars. How they have gone out to one
+another. (giving purpose) Sisters and brothers, we’re here to pass
+the message on of brotherly and sisterly love for one another. Care.
+We really are one body, one mind, one community. All from the same
+mother. Earth. Gaia. Can you feel it? (the whole mass answers… “YES,”
+bouncing and bopping with their answer) And we have lots of different
+parts. Oh, DO WE HAVE DIFFERENT PARTS AND PATHS! (audience
+participation… ‘yeah, yeah, we do’. It’s starting to be like a
+call-and-response revival. ) 84 thousand, maybe more (everyone
+wondering where that number came from; he moves on…)
+Here’s where it’s hard…whatever path we take, our hands and feet can
+lead us astray or they can lead us to do the work of the higher
+power. Which road are you on? (raising his hands in the air to
+illustrate two ways) The Way of love….. The Way of hate. And it’s a
+battle, a tricky one. A Dance. Really. And here are the first steps
+in that hiphop. (he illustrates with a drop and spin on his feet)
+The one person we most hate, least love, is …..our sister, brother.
+Yes, hear it. (rumbling in the crowd.. knowing it’s right, but
+finding it hard) I know it’s a hard one.. But hear it plain… We can’t
+be brought back to life, be safe, unless each one goes into \***\*
+and carries our brother or sister out with us. Sometimes we awake in
+our life’s journey and find that we’ve gone astray,…. are lost in a
+dark wood. Or walking alone on the streets. Go walking out there on
+Walnot or Dilcue and tell me it ain’t so… Lost. And someone comes and
+gets us out. ….(trailing off…..)
+
+**Part 26**\ : (Joan leaves the table again and goes up to the
+ballroom. She notices Ryan in the audience and goes up to him, upset
+that he’s here, but unable to hold herself from engaging him. She
+hadn’t seen him come in.)
+Joan: (going directly to the point) What’re you doing here?
+Ryan: What? No greetings … just account for myself. (Ryan plays it
+off well.)
+Joan: I don’t fraternize with the enemy. (Joan just about snarls at
+Ryan.)
+Ryan: I’m coming out to support the community I serve. Make a big
+donation to Rahav’s fundraiser. And this is what I get. (Ryan’s
+playing the public servant way over the top.)
+Joan: (Joan’s having none of it.) Yeah, like a slug that comes out in
+the aftermath of a bloodbath.
+Ryan: We’ll see who makes a bigger splash. (getting feisty, beginning
+to show his true colors.)
+Joan: (she makes like getting sick …)
+Ryan: (Ryan shifts gears.) No love for your enemy? (taunting Joan)
+Rewind Cain … and Adele? (twisting the ancient name of the victim;
+now goes on to goading Joan) He’ll just love that. Just the thing for
+the higher power to see multiplied by his children. (trying to get
+her to lose it one way or another. Joan’s played into his game …
+mimicking his moves.) I win. .. I lose. It’s all the same. You win
+only by losing. (Enigmatic: Ryan reasons: with no believing or
+trusting, there is only losing and/or dying. Joan doesn’t use her
+trump card!) Welcome to the world. (trying to teach her a lesson)
+Joan: Thanks? (doesn’t have a clue of what he’s saying) … for
+nothing.
+Ryan: So he/she/it hasn’t explained that one to you yet. (playing off
+how little Joan really knows about god, now rambling some) Arcadia or
+Green Town. It’s all the same. Dark Pandemonium. (Joan looks like
+she’s hearing an unknown ancient language) Ask him about it. .... You
+are so not ready for the hunting season! It’s my Night, Joan. Look
+here. (shows his knuckles of both hands with the letters ‘l-o-v-e’
+tattooed on the right one and letters ‘h-a-t-e’ tattooed on left.)
+This is just for you. (He twists a smile. Then his hands wrestle with
+one another as though ‘love’ and ‘hate’ are in a battle. When he
+stops the mock battle, ‘love’ is apparently winning. He wipes off the
+tattoos from his knuckles. Then Ryan appears to comment to himself on
+the battle of the hands.) Well, for now. (conceding only a momentary
+swing in the ongoing battle) We’ll see.
+(now turning to Joan) And so we continue the posturing? (noticing how
+overwhelmed Joan is) Joan, relax. Just breathe. (he chuckles, taking
+a breath himself as Joan tries to recollect herself. Ryan can’t
+resist commenting on Joan’s weaknesses that he can play off of, and
+continues the hunt, the most dangerous game). But I like your pluck.
+How is it? ….Have you ever seen a cat play with a caught mouse? An
+owl feast on a rabbit? Look away, Joan, fast. Because it’s how things
+work. Kill or be killed. A perfect universe. (going for the jugular)
+Bloodthirsty.
+Joan: (flustered, hoping to sound powerful, falling for his ploy) I
+understand suffering.
+Ryan: Oh, yeah. (He chuckles outloud.) I’ll keep that in mind. (Ryan
+reflects to himself that Kevin might understand, “He has a chance of
+getting it. The crux of Girardi truth. … Avoid that open wound, that
+broken-ness. …But Joan,… she’s a kept princess.” … He figures his
+line of attack… And amused, he starts playing with his prey.)
+Psychological suffering … it’s the hardest (almost smirking)… “Shall
+I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?” (quoting something
+Joan doesn’t know, prompting her to feel more inadequate) Ah yes… A
+new pair of shoes? You and Imelda! How many already in your closet?
+It’s tough. Tell me about it. Need a therapist? (Ryan rattles these
+off, needling her)… She/He’s just the perfect listener. (mocking)
+Joan: (trying to find her bearings) NO! you don’t know me or my life
+or family.
+Ryan: (indefatigable, undeterred, with the assurance that scares the
+living daylights out of Joan) That is true. … Not yet….We’ll see.(An
+ominous gust blows through the hall from the opening of a doorway.)
+(Just then, while talking to Joan, Ryan recognizes Rahav in the hall.
+He decides to take action, but first pauses before continuing with a
+casual tone.) Last piece of advice before I go… When he/she/it gives
+you that stuff about greater love. Ask him to recite Wilfred Owen.
+(Ryan now shifts gears) Excuse me. I need to take care of something.
+(Dropping that persona, he walks quickly to the exit of the hall,
+pulls out a card and his cellphone, and dials the number from it.
+Joan can be seen through the doors and windows of the Hall as Ryan
+makes his phone call.)
+\ **Part 27**\ : (Ryan gets Daghlian on the phone at the police
+station.)
+Ryan: Detective, we need a unit down at the Beachland dance club.
+Daghlian: (trying to sound cooperative, but a little put-off at
+Ryan’s assertive direction) Mr. Hunter, I’ll give a patrol car a
+heads-up.
+Ryan: (being assertive and used to having power to effect things)
+Detective, I don’t believe that will be sufficient. You’ll need
+several cars. There’s soliciting, drug dealing, vandalism going on as
+we speak.
+Daglian: (trying to explain) Mr. Hunter, it’s a busy night. I’ll do
+my best.
+Ryan: (he’s having none of Daghlian’s explanations, and ups the ante)
+Chief Girardi’s daughter’s here. I can’t guarantee her safety. I
+suggest you get on it.
+Daghlian: (frustrated, but now convinced he needs to act) Agreed, Mr.
+Hunter. I’ll request the cars. (the call concludes.)
+(From the police station, Daghlian immediately calls Will’s cell, and
+gets his voicemail, leaving a message.)
+Daghlian: Will, Daghlian. Call me ASAP.
+(At the music hall, the call comes during the grinding bass of the
+2nd movement, Allegretto, of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.) Will feels
+his cell’s vibration, and wants to answer it, but he stops himself
+and tries to listen to the music. Bum Bumbumbum Bum … His mind’s not
+on it, but he can feel it anyway. He slips his cell out of his pocket
+and notes that it’s from Daghlian.)
+(At the police station, Daghlian, anxious, calls Will again.)
+Daghlian: Will, Call me first. As soon as you get this. Now.
+(Daghlian decides to tell Will just to show up at the location, even
+though he has second thoughts about not telling Will that Joan’s
+there, not wanting to worry him.) I’m headed to the Beachland, on
+Dilcue Street. Come as soon as you get this.
+(At the music hall, Will goes through the same sequence of
+frustration. Really antsy. And he tries to smile towards Helen as she
+becomes concerned about what is going on with Will. The audience is
+in various stages of immobility, absorbed or nodding off; some
+sitting still, some asleep, some dozing, some enthralled like Helen.
+And one Will Girardi about to jump out of his pants.)
+(From the police station, Daghlian calls in a sweep, a couple patrol
+cars. He tells the units that he’ll meet them at the Beachland.)
+
+**Part 28**\ : (Having gone over to Rahav near the end of Ryan’s
+phone call to Daghlian, Joan starts a conversation.)
+Joan: We need to talk… Now! (Joan makes it clear how pressing it is.
+Rahav motions her up toward a doorway…toward which they walk. As they
+walk, another number for the HipHop DanceFest is about to begin. Joan
+is distracted and listens; Rahav does too.)
+MC (master of ceremonies): (coming out on the stage and talking at
+the same time) Brothers and sisters, we’ve got a special delivery for
+you tonight. Our own Rahav has arranged, in all its glorious array, a
+hiphop tribute to Beethoven, and his 7th symphony. (Rahav smiles)
+Well, roll over Beethoven. And stand up. We’re not stickin’ to no
+rhythm n’ blues tonight.
+Joan: (hearing Rahav’s name, Joan turns to her for them to stay, but
+Rahav waves her off.) No, we should.
+Rahav: I’ve seen it in my mind’s eye perfectly. Like the worker,
+demiurge, building a set, fashioning a bowl, grinding a tool, engine
+part, to spec. I know the end of the story. (Joan sees Alex waiting
+in the wings of the stage to perform this piece. She wants to see it,
+but they’re already on their way. As the ecstatic notes of the
+Allegretto resound, the grinding bass notes are laid down, they walk
+through the doorway, up a set of steps to a small upper chamber above
+the ballroom, with a single window; it’s like they’re at the apex of
+a castle. The Allegretto can be heard muffled, throbbing, like a
+heartbeat, up from the ballroom throughout their conversation.
+(Joan wants to go immediately to what’s pressing her, but attends to
+Rahav first.)
+Joan: What happened? You were… in jail. (telling what she knows) Mrs.
+Villa told me she visited. (hoping it will start to make sense if
+they talk.)
+Rahav: Yes. (Her words come weakly, so Joan starts to wonder how
+Rahav is.)
+Joan: Are you Ok? (worried, but also curious and disturbed by all
+these events.)
+Rahav: Time in jail? (thinking that’s Joan’s worry)
+Joan: (nodding)
+Rahav: 72 hours in the belly of the beast. Getting Out. Released from
+3 days in the heart of the earth makes you appreciate the light.
+Natural, that is. Its patterns. (looking at Joan as though she can
+see the patterns in her) And new life. (sounding mysterious) They
+usually let you out sooner. But you never know. 3 days this time. For
+effect. They had to make a show for the public servants and the
+people. All united in the prosecution of justice. All but one.
+Joan: There were more.
+Rahav: Yes, I know. I felt their hearts go out to us. But only one
+spoke up. (adding an enigmatic comment) Better than the first time.
+Joan: What first time? (Joan doesn’t let the curious comment slide
+by)
+Rahav: Not something to go into now. (There’s a silence, and Rahav
+realizes what’s coming.)
+Joan: Are you? (Joan can no longer hold off and decides to go
+immediately to the still confusing point. She’s needing answers, but
+can’t bear to say it. She thinks it’ll lead to understanding, but
+worries it’ll get worse before it gets better.)
+Rahav: (Understanding exactly Joan’s question, Rahav speaks directly
+to Joan, face to face, being honest and to the point. She amplifies
+the dance of empathy and honesty.) Yo soy. (Joan understands enough
+Spanish to know its meaning.)
+Joan: (Joan staggers back, stopped in her tracks, reels, and stumbles
+briefly before slipping to the floor. The chamber becomes thoroughly
+silent and darkened for Joan, though she doesn’t lose consciousness
+or awareness. She remains slumped on the floor, feeling her world
+collapse, like stones raining down upon her. She starts to weep in a
+somber tone. Rahav pulls over a chair to sit near Joan. Joan leans
+against it, comfortably at her feet. Joan collects herself after
+awhile and speaks honestly from the heart.) Who are you? (then
+thinking to add with emphasis) What are you?
+Rahav: Connect through all this, Joan. (Her arms sweep the darkened
+chamber, through the window that looks out over the neighborhood,
+high atop the building they’re in, illuminated by a harvest moon,
+Sukkot.) This is my home. (A coat of arms hangs on the wall with the
+motto, ‘cor ad cor loquitur.’ Next to the coat of arms is a portrait
+of a soldier in uniform from WWI. The name below it, Wilfred Owen,
+titled, ‘Greater Love”. Rahav points to the portrait.) This is my
+family. I am solidly (then reflecting)…bodily, here with those who
+are cut out. Anathema. (realizes this won’t hit the mark; Joan won’t
+know that word and she’s not going to ask her to look it up) The
+accused and accursed. A gallery of the ailing. (It’s not getting any
+clearer, searching for solid ground for a moment, but the earth is
+continually shifting, quaking.) I am … one among them. (sounding
+enigmatic) And the two shall become one. (becoming metaphorical) How
+do you join a person at the hip and not become what the other is too?
+Joan: (not following at all, though the last comment made the most
+sense, allowing Joan to speak up, almost irritated) Say what? Speak a
+language I know or translate, si?
+Rahav: Si. (Speaking again she tries to give an undistorted picture
+of her life on the pavement, concrete as can be) I walk the streets,
+Joan. Talk. Visit. Engage. Hang. Sleep. (sounding lyrical) Embrace,
+breathe in, draw forth the Ambient Array into me. (returning to the
+painful truths) And see within and without the people who hover over
+all for carrion. All sorts of names are given the inhabitants of this
+street, all sorts of pictures are formed. (wanting to give a human
+face to very specific people she cares for, not categories they are
+identified in, realizing it’s a failure of language, so she points to
+the picture on the wall) Persons with families, and children, and
+lives. Their failures multiplied like stones in the desert with no
+bread to sustain them. (But knowing what they are called, she can’t
+finally speak them.) I can’t call them these names. They’re my
+friends. Associates. (starting to name them) Madeline … Tamar …
+Madonna …Lilith…Simon … Harry (She takes a breath, and relaxes,
+trying to sound lighter.)
+Anyway, ‘prostitute’ should only be used as a verb. Did you submit
+yourself, your gifts, for hire, for ill purpose? It’s a good
+examination of conscience. Mantra. Koan. Test. An almost perfect act
+of disbelief in one’s self. Practice it daily.
+Joan: (Joan’s having no relief. Her heart’s breaking as she loses all
+balance again. She’s in a different place altogether than this
+conversation.)
+Rahav: (Realizing Joan’s lost, sitting on the floor, staring out into
+the void, Rahav leans over from her chair and kisses the top of
+Joan’s head. As her lips touch Joan’s hair, she releases her breath
+over Joan and a warmth spreads throughout Joan’s body. In Joan’s
+swoon, her words wash over Joan like salve. Finally, Joan begins to
+listen in rapt contemplation of that which she understands not. Rahav
+begins telling her what accompaniment’s like on the street.) Go to
+jail with them. Not fun. But quite the ambiance. Accommodations for a
+beast.. …(going on) To the hospital when someone’s sick. (commenting
+again) Another of my favorite hotspots…Location, location, location;
+it’s almost everything. ..(moving on to her true calling) Greet each
+with a kiss. We talk …. about their children. How all this happened.
+Their relationships. (Joan begins to see their faces in Rahav’s
+words.) Sex, too. Love can’t be purchased or sold. They know that.
+It’s a gift, huh? (Joan’s been hearing of Rahav’s instruction and
+care, but now she’s feeling it for herself.) The body’s a sacred
+temple. Quite the shack, true enough? (Rahav is now stretching Joan
+to reach into the ambient array with her.) I hold them in the light.
+Their innocence. And we take steps. Learn a new set of movements. One
+moment at a time.
+Joan: I know all about that (thinking of Rahav’s mention of sex;
+Rahav connects to Joan’s experience) …. And I’ve moved on .. or maybe
+I’m stuck. Sometimes, I don’t know anymore.
+
+Rahav: The past is a nightmare of judgement for some, Joan. It’s a
+daily practice, to trust, to forgive the past, even after it’s
+released. …especially sex… It’s a mystical union of two people. With
+a cloud of witnesses and … It’s a wedding made in bed, or a camper,
+in a place of worship or with a justice of the peace. In 15 minutes
+or a lot longer. A lifetime. Our deepest needs for union, communion,
+played out to see. A comfort to the long loneliness.
+Joan: (wants to leave, but can’t get up; she’s enthralled, still weak
+in the knees)
+Rahav: (Rahav moves to the hard, painful part) When I get picked up….
+an experiment in truth… With no guarantees. (gazing into Joan’s eyes)
+I look deeply. Vipassana. Into their eyes… And the world behind them.
+It’s hard. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid the light of the eyes. Where the
+soul’s first seen. They CAN’T look at me. Treat me persona
+non-existent. Brute….. Matter….Thing. … But they can’t …. not sense
+the gaze. Sometimes they get pissed off. Hit me….Conjoin….I don’t
+fight back. Or call the police. Carry the pack an extra block. A
+beast of burden. They get plenty disturbed. Imagine that. Looking
+deeply. It usually stops them in their steps. They think they’re
+gettin’ screwed. It’s not for me to judge. At least, for now.
+Joan: (Joan’s had enough. She walks out of the chamber as though on
+thin air, her mind in a cloud, her face radiant, aglow.)
+(Joan continues down the steps, returning through the doorway into
+the ballroom, finally collecting herself, mumbling something. The
+volume of sound in the hall is overwhelming after the encounter with
+Rahav. She goes up to the sound system guy who’s got a headset on.
+Joan sees an extra headset unattached, a sound muffler, and says to
+Sound Man, “I need this.” and just takes them. Removing her hat, she
+puts the headset on. She walks down the steps from the 3rd floor
+ballroom down to the 2nd floor main entrance. She looks like some
+kind of moonchild as she goes back to the table where she was
+collecting money. She starts counting it. Mrs. Villa looks at Joan
+like she’s just come back from the moon and speaks to her.)
+Mrs.Villa: We’re just about done here, Joan. And the DanceFest is
+too…. Follow me (looking to both Joan and Michael). (They leave the
+main entrance to complete a final count of the money elsewhere.)
+\ **Part 29**\ : (Just as Daghlian is about to arrive at the old
+community club building with the patrol cars, he calls Will one more
+time, hoping to reach him. But Will doesn’t pick up, so Daghlian
+makes a decision, telling Will what the situation is. “Will, your
+daughter’s at the Beachland where we’re gonna make a bust. Come now!”
+Will feels the vibrator go off again. Helen’s in rapt thralldom with
+the monstrous climax of the Final movement of Beethoven’s 7th. Will
+feels like he’s going to burst as he pulls his cell out and sees its
+Daghlian’s number one more time. The entire audience rises out of
+their seats with applause, some waking up for the first time since
+the second movement.
+(Before arriving, Daghlian also choreographs the raid, while alerting
+the cars that Will Girardi’s daughter’s at the club and to keep her
+out of harm’s way. When they pull up, Daghlian barks out directions,
+motioning uniforms on approaches to the club and who’s to enter with
+him.)
+\ **Part 30**\ : (The police observe kids outside with illegal
+substances. (smoking dope, snorting heroin, injecting meth. They’re
+arrested before they can get rid of the stuff. Woman outside
+appearing to be soliciting is also arrested. Police go in and see
+open beer containers and round up all involved. No liquor license for
+the event. A rapidly shifting sense of confusion comes over all of
+the evening’s festive spirit.)
+Police officer: We’re closing this show right now. The party’s over.
+(Police move to arrest stragglers; they go into restrooms, pull
+people out…sending them off or arresting them if suspected)
+
+**Part 31**\ : (Joan’s in a rear anteroom with Mrs. Villa and
+Michael, well cut off from the main entrance, in a separate section
+of the 2nd floor. They’re making a final count of the money. She’s
+taken the headset off, but leaves it around her neck. Mrs. Villa
+hears the commotion coming from the police entering the main building
+and gets up from the table to take a look at what’s happening.)
+Mrs. Villa: You two finish up… I’ve got to find out what’s happening.
+… Anyway.. we’re really done.. over $5,000. $5,238 to be exact.
+Official total. I just wanted to do a second tally. We need to get
+this to MC. .. I’ll be right back…Don’t let the money out of your
+sight.
+(Immediately upon walking out of the anteroom, she sees Alex through
+the doorway of a makeshift dressingroom. He’s taking off his wings of
+fire and putting on a t-shirt. She stops in the doorway, getting his
+attention.) Alex, whatever’s going on… stay out of it … Understand?
+You don’t have to solve the world’s problems…..
+Alex: (nodding, he walks out of the dressing room; Mrs. Villa
+leaves.)
+(Joan notices Alex through the anteroom’s doorway. Alex looks at
+Joan… Their eyes meet… transfixed on one another for the briefest
+time. Unsettling. Joan returns to her work as Alex turns away. But
+noise and crashing sounds bring her sight back to the doorway. She
+observes a police officer entering the outer room where Alex is
+standing. )
+Police officer: Party’s over…. Let’s go…. Now. (impatient with Alex’s
+slow movement)
+Michael: (hearing the police officer who’s entered calling out that
+‘the party’s over,’ he gets up to see what’s going on…he speaks out)
+It’s over anyways, pinhead. (then adding under his breath) Pig.
+(Alex’s stopped moving as soon as he heard Michael)
+Police officer: (inflamed by the remark, seeming a hothead himself)
+You want to say that again …I’ll arrest your ass. (Michael walks off,
+out of the area entirely.)
+Alex: (lingering, and hearing the exchange, gives the officer a dirty
+look and spits on the ground. The officer eyes Alex, who starts to
+walk away. Alex looks back, saying) Stop doggin’ me.
+Ryan: (arriving on the scene, seemingly out of nowhere, he walks into
+this part of the building and hears the sparring, intervening) Son,
+you need to apologize to the officer.
+Alex: I ain’t your son, you ain’t my daddy. (sneering and ready to
+attack)
+Ryan: (to Alex, almost condescending) It’s easier to beg forgiveness
+than go to jail. (being direct and authoritative) Apologize.
+Alex: (ignoring Ryan) They come in here thinking they own the
+(swearing) ….place, baggin’ us. … They can’t just do what they want.
+I’m a man. I got rights. (standing up for himself… he’s not takin’
+nothing from nobody)
+Ryan: You do (using reason like a knife)….Unless ….you lose them
+acting like this. (Ryan starts to walk away, realizing his
+conversation with Alex will only get worse. He stumbles on something,
+tumbling into Alex, who falls towards and into the officer, with
+strong force. It looks comic, like a comedy of errors, a cascade of
+mis-steps in a waltz of toreadors, stepping on feet, choreographed by
+some unseen power. The officer takes Alex’s tumble into him to be
+aggression, immediately leveraging Alex’s arms and body onto the
+ground, and putting his hands into cuffs. He seems to have Alex under
+control. Ryan gets up quickly.)
+Ryan: I’ll alert your backup on what’s transpired. (He leaves, but
+returns to doorway where he’s exited to retrieve something when he
+fell. He notices that Joan’s arrived on the scene and he observes
+until the explosion by Alex at which point he hustles out to find
+Daghlian.)
+Joan: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! (Having seen what’s been happening, and Ryan
+leaving, Joan comes out of the anteroom, wanting to be a peacemaker.
+She enters the fray, presuming she can help to get the fracas under
+control before it spins completely out of orbit. She still has the
+headset around her neck, no longer over her ears, so she looks silly.
+Moonchild, indeed. Joan’s thinking she’s knows police business,
+police officers, and can help. Besides she knows Alex.) This is out
+of control here, fellas. (Joan speaks to Alex and the officer,
+sounding like she’s talking to little boys fighting on a playground.
+They don’t like the tone one bit. She realizes this almost
+immediately) Ok. Not helping. (About to give up, she decides to try
+again. She begins to speak with authority, like she’s settling two
+sparring footsoldiers or better a bull and toreador. ) I saw what
+happened. It was an accident. Just stumbling around like a couple of
+rolling stones. Or waltzing toreadors. No ill intent. None. No one is
+guilty. No one is innocent. …(now giving them advice and direction
+that fails miserably) Officer, now you take the cuffs off him…. And
+you, Alex, explain. You didn’t mean it.
+Alex: (screaming at her) Get outta here! (to the officer) Get off.
+I’m gonna mess you up.
+Officer: (ignoring Alex, and speaking to Joan) Back off! You could
+get hurt. I’ve got this under control. Backup’s on the way. (assuming
+Ryan will alert his backup.) Move on…
+Joan: (resisting both of them) No, No. Really. It was a mistake. An
+accident. You guys didn’t see how funny it was. Really. Falling over
+yourselves like a couple of idiots….(They’re having none of it as
+Alex, inflamed, ignores Joan and continues to resist. The officer is
+sitting on Alex, but having difficulty because of the force of his
+rocking opposition.)
+Officer: (trying to get him to concede the fight, not getting what
+set off Alex the first time) Son, just give up. You’re not gonna win
+this one.
+Alex: (exploding, with the officer falling off of Alex. As he’s
+thrown from Alex, the officer bites his tongue and lip, causing blood
+to spurt out over his uniform and Alex. This gets the officer
+incredibly angry. The officer grabs Alex’s head by the hair, but
+resists banging it with the force of his body because Joan’s
+watching. It’s getting uglier by the moment.)
+Joan: (not able to stand it any longer, losing control herself, she
+starts to scream at the top of her lungs, hysterically) Stop! Stop!
+Stop! This was not supposed to happen! Stop! Please!!!!! (she’s about
+to grab the officer herself, but just collapses, hopeless, sobbing.)
+(Her screams actually shock both Alex and the officer out of
+themselves and they suddenly become subdued, as though they’ve
+shifted to another place on the spectrum of light and darkness. A
+queer silence overtakes all of them. All seem to succumb to some
+other force working in their midst. And this seemingly little episode
+of trauma subsides.)
+(After awhile, Joan just walks away numb and dead to all feeling, all
+her senses suspended, seeming burnt out and through. She rises like
+an old weathered and burnt newspaper that crumbles to the touch, and
+is blown by the wind. She finally makes her way back to the anteroom
+and, in a state of deadness, she picks up the money and puts it into
+a bag, She sidles idly away, like she’s on automatic pilot, towards
+the steps to the 3rd floor and the main ballroom.)
+
+**Part 32**\ : (Daghlian arrives after Joan leaves. Ryan’s alerted
+him to what’s transpired and that Joan may be in danger there.
+Daghlian talks with the officer and feels that the whole raid has
+turned into a mess. No Joan Girardi and it’s escalating.)
+
+**Part 33**\ : (Joan walks into the main ballroom with the bag of
+money, wanting to turn it over to the DanceFest sponsors, organizers.
+She’s looking for MC, Mrs. Villa, Rahav, even Michael, with no luck.
+It’s over $5,000 and she doesn’t want to be left holding the bag with
+all the commotion going on. She’s worried. And she looks on, all
+about her. She sees Rahav being handcuffed and taken away, but what
+for, she doesn’t know. The DanceFest’s buoyant spirit has collapsed.
+And the audience, the organic unity, has been transformed into a
+crowd that’s becoming more and more volatile, like a contagion’s
+settled in. There’s yelling and arrests taking place seemingly all
+over. It looks riotous to Joan. The shifting mood of this mass of
+humanity has now been driven to the other end of its ebullience.
+Hellish. And she’s wanting it all to just stop, start over again from
+an entirely different place. A stunned stare of observation crosses
+her thoughts: How did this happen? Who got this so out of control?
+It’s like a demonic force; a dark angel’s taken over this vibrant
+evening, doing wanton damage to a fragile spirit of hope. She feels
+like crying again. But that’s been spent. She just wants her dad, but
+there’s no comforting face in the mass of human flesh before her.
+Just conflict, arrest, unmediated by kindness or …. Again, she wants
+to wail, ‘Get me outta here.’… ‘Somebody.’ But nothing comes out.
+Finally, she inhales the heaviness hanging in the heat of the crowd.
+Her lips start to mouth words unknown to her. Vispassana. A guttural
+sound, a groan, arises from the cavity of her abdomen. A lament. She
+releases a quiet breath into the aggregate of anonymity, almost
+dropping the moneybag from her hand.
+Revived, she raises her eyes to the balcony/lighting area, making
+brief eye contact with Adam. He and the crew are occupied with
+something, but he makes a connection with Joan. Joan then sees
+Michael and she walks towards him, offering the moneybag to him. As
+he’s about to take it, a chain of events takes over: just as the
+crowd seemed a leviathan, now too the safety force. A kid next to
+Michael, scuffling takes a swing at a police officer, who hits the
+ground. Several other police officers apprehend both Michael and the
+kid as a result, leveraging them to the floor. The moneybag falls to
+the floor. In the flurry of the scuffle, Joan’s unable to recover it
+immediately.)
+Shouting from kids in the crowd en masse: “Michael, we won’t let them
+trash you. They’re not getting out without a fight.”
+(The sheer confusion, riotous nature, gives the officers the impetus
+to want to pick up and leave with those arrested, hoping to dispel
+the confrontation with the crowd. The whole audience starts to yell
+at the officers. No one’s attuned to how to change the
+ill-spiritedness and the officers are not finding any easy exit.)
+Police officer: (trying to calm the crowd and leave) Okay, we’re
+leaving with those we’ve arrested, taking the proceeds with other
+evidence (picking up the moneybag and seeing its contents) until we
+can sort out what’s gone on here. (Michael sees the police officer
+pick up the moneybag and reacts with a vehemence that spurs the
+officer to assist the ones who are leveraging him and the other boy
+on the floor. The officer puts the moneybag down on the floor to do
+so.)
+(Joan hears the comment, ‘taking everything as evidence,’ and
+connecting the dots with,…… ‘money missing’… picks up the moneybag
+before the officer knows what’s happening. She abruptly throws it
+into the balcony where she had seen Adam and the lighting crew
+working. Adam’s seen her risky action and quickly drops down, picking
+it up the bag… invisible… He’s made the connection, too, and checks
+the bag’s contents quickly.
+Joan trusts, hopes for the best in the uncertain exchange. A
+last-ditch effort and offering. Foolhardiness and uncertainty
+abounding.
+No one in the balcony is visible from the ballroom floor. Adam,
+having heard the police’s statement about taking all the proceeds,
+keeps the moneybag and follows the guys he’s been working with into
+the deeper recesses of the balcony.
+They’re synchronized in reading the moment with assumed
+communication. Like lighting the dance of shapes this evening, they
+silently forge clear action in the spotlight of necessity. Their
+movements follow like a disciplined army that depends on intuitive
+strategy, a choreographed score with varied expression’s expected.
+Initiated by a sacrificial act with no confidence of effect, it could
+easily go up in flames of failure. Yet the longing remains.
+In the rear of the balcony, they quickly pull down from the ceiling
+high above them a barely visible trap door that has an attached
+ladder. It allows them to rise up easily to the next floor, out of
+peril. They pull the ladder up and trap door behind them, sealing it
+seamlessly back into the ceiling. On the next floor, Adam follows
+them into the chamber room and out the window. They close the doors
+and windows behind them and slip down a fire escape that’s in a
+distant corner of the building. The police arrive in the balcony and
+find no one; they’re frustrated, searching without result.)
+(Meanwhile Joan has been arrested for throwing the moneybag into the
+balcony, getting rid of evidence. She accepts the handcuffs. The
+headphones remain around her neck as she’s unable to remove them or
+even put them over her ears to drown out the night’s sirens that
+blare her away. (Sinead O’Connor’s song, ‘Feel so different’ plays
+over the moment.
+
+\ **Part 34**\ : (Will finally arrives at the Beachland dance club,
+only to see his daughter’s face in the back of a police cruiser,
+being driven away. He’s beside himself, angry, grinding his teeth,
+emotionally bent out of shape, worried out of his mind about Joan.
+What happened? He goes up to Ryan.
+
+Ryan: Just the wrong place at the wrong time. (Ryan’s trying not to
+sound cavalier or callous, but it fails. Dr. John’s song, “Right
+Place Wrong Time” begins playing to the end.
+(And Ryan adds) Just bad luck. She’ll be okay.
+
+Will: (He’s so stunned that it keeps him from grabbing Ryan by the
+lapel and punching him out, saving him from a worse fate.)