Read Vertigo Park and Other Tall Tales Online
Authors: Mark O'Donnell
Vertigo Park and Other Tall Tales (19 page)
I knew neither answer would get me off the hook gracefully, and although it may have been a constriction in my throat, I was sure I heard a tumbril creak outside the apartment door. Suddenly, and conveniently,
I remembered a boulder-rolling invitational sponsored by a men’s deodorant that was to take me north to Halifax immediately, by railway handcar and under cover of darkness. In my haste, I left behind my clip-on bowtie, blazon of false forgetful he-hood. I haven’t returned to New York since. I suppose, in its way, it was a typical male response.
KIDS’ MOST-ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT ELECTRICITY
Answers to Questions Kids Might Ask GE Mascot Reddy Kilowatt During His Tour of American Elementary Schools
Q: Is that light-bulb head supposed to be cute?
A: You’ll have to ask my designers, but I believe it’s supposed to be indirectly educational.
Q: What, as if we never saw a light bulb before?
A: Not everyone has had your advantages.
Q: Why are your arms all crooked?
A: They’re bolts of energy.
Q: Do you have a penis?
A: No.
Q: So, are you from outer space or what?
A: No, I’m just a drawing.
Q: Can I get a suit like yours?
A: You wouldn’t be skinny or zigzag enough to wear it.
Q: I know fire isn’t exactly electric, but what about flame throwers? Or bazookas? How about bombs? Are they electric? Or are you just to help Mom’s blender make yogurt shakes for babies?
A: All the things you mention have electric components.
Q: What about those giant robots that Godzilla fights? Are they alive?
A: As a form of brute nature, I’m unqualified to comment on the dramatic arts.
Q: Is it satisfying to flow through the body of a condemned killer?
A: No, I’m emotionless. As lightning, I strike innocent forest rangers and prairie housewives, too.
Q: What happens if you touch water? Do you die?
A: Electricity does not conceive of its own cessation.
Q: What about “sexual electricity”? Is it really electricity?
A: I’m answering children’s questions only, sir.
Q: They always show atomic energy with big muscles. You must be jealous, huh?
A: I don’t get a chance to look at other drawings.
Q: Why is it we get wax in our ears and snot in our nose? Why not snot in the ears and wax in the nose? Why not the same thing in both places?
A: That’s a biological matter, to which I’m indifferent. I only
seem
to live.
Q: So if I waste electricity, like, by leaving the lights on all night, do you go lie down somewhere and weep?
A: No. You’re thinking of Christ.
Q: I don’t think you’re neat. I think you’re queer.
A: That’s not a question.
Q: Let me get this straight. Does it mean your nose and your stomach and your gloves and all of you are made of nothing but energy?
A: Believe it or not, kid, so are you.
BARTLETT’S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS: THE PLAY
(The scene: A dingy, threadbare apartment not unlike the Kramdens’, in a quietly desperate neighborhood in a city not unlike Brooklyn. It is a dreary dawn, about six a.m. On a couch in one corner of this room, which serves as both kitchen and living room, lies a figure in a dressing gown with a newspaper over his face. He is barely noticeable and may go unnoticed until he first speaks. After a few moments
,
H
ATTIE
enters, looking haggard and sleepless. She has been up all night, and although she may be pretty at her best, the dark weight of thirty-plus years of trouble besets her. She glances at the wall clock miserably, and grimaces at the sound of reckless garbagemen in the street below. She coughs, a serious hacking cough, and limps to a rusted dryer in a far corner. She opens its porthole door and pulls out a wet shirt from among a tangle of still-damp laundry. She wrings it out and water trickles to the floor. This is the last straw. She weeps.)
(From the next room a toilet is heard flushing.
H
ATTIE
pauses. Several seconds pass, and
P
LATO
enters. Yes, he wears the robes of classical antiquity, but here he is a pretentious freeloader, a smug dignitary assured that his hosts are honored to have him. He stretches and peers out the window, over the tenement rooftops, at the rising light.)
P
LATO
:
The morn!… Look you … furthers a man on his road, and furthers him too in his work!
(
H
ATTIE
stares at him in bewilderment. After a few moments, she cries afresh.
)
By suffering comes wisdom!
(She does not respond, but turns away from him. The clock strikes six.)
It is for the doer to suffer!
(
H
ATTIE
rolls her eyes at this platitude, stands, and awkwardly tries to hang the wet shirt up to dry from a curtain rod.
P
LATO
gives her one more axiom as she struggles.
)
He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden!
(
H
ATTIE
eyes him fiercely, a dagger of resentment. He shrugs and turns his attention to the stove, where he fusses with assorted utensils in preparation for breakfast. He lifts a frying pan and thoughtfully addresses it.
)
Ah, beloved Pan!
(He sets it down and goes to the refrigerator for eggs and bacon.
H
ATTIE
angrily intervenes and closes the refrigerator door, placing herself between him and the groceries. He sighs.)
Poverty is the parent of meanness and discontent.
(From offstage comes the wail of an infant.
H
ATTIE
groans and exits limping to her baby.
P
LATO
seizes this opportunity to get grub from the icebox.)
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable!
(He opens an egg carton and sees there is only one left. He shrugs.)
It is better to have a little than nothing.
(He cracks the egg in the pan, turns on the flame beneath it, and takes several slices of bread from an open package. The child’s cry is heard again from offstage.)
Man alone … cast naked upon the naked earth, does she abandon to cries and lamentations!
(He stuffs a slice of bread in his mouth and puts two others in the toaster.
H
ATTIE
reenters with a swaddled bundle we presume to be her child. She sees
P
LATO
helping himself and glares. He grins as if charmingly and swallows the mouthful of bread.)
