Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Phage, My Star Trek Voyager episode
Was looking for a DVD of my Star Trek Voyager episode when I found it online. No wonder I'm no longer getting residuals. :) Click Title to view.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Couldn't Help But See The Help
The Fayetteville Observer published this opinion piece of mine, the third in a commissioned series.
Couldn't Help But See "The Help"
by Skye Dent
I hadn't planned on seeing "The Help," the new hit film revolving around the lives of black maids catering to dark-souled white women in the 1960s South.
Sure, there were good solid reasons to attend.
As a black female who wrote scripts in Hollywood for over a decade, I know the small band of brothers and sisters of color still working there. I generally know someone who has worked on, crewed in, acted in or written any film somehow involving black people in front of or behind the camera. So, I support the product of my friends just as I buy the tamales my cousins make and sell door-to-door in Los Angeles.
And although many people think only black people can enjoy or identify with black films, that's preposterous. Audiences enjoy good films, no matter what. I've written for general audience TV shows such as "Star Trek Voyager" and "The Burning Zone." I'm proof positive that black people can write scripts that white people enjoy.
But "The Help" was another story, one I knew would hit home in a painful way from seeing the 30-second trailers. It was my story. My mom's story. My aunt's story. My grandmother's story. The story of many black women from generations before mine.
For all of them, it was a story of searingly brutal sacrifice punctuated with few moments of self-fulfillment.
The story of Negro women denied important time with their own families because they had to raise the kids of white folks. The story of women who scrub the floors of multiple level homes and then walk home in the dark to small cramped quarters shared with children and husbands they barely see.
My family's story
My mom is from Belize. As a young woman, she was runner-up in the Beauty of the Bay pageant. She had every right to expect a fantastic life when she moved to the United States in the 1950s.
Instead, she ended up being the help to a New Orleans family. Ten bucks a week to clean the house, take care of two kids, and cook breakfast, lunch and dinner. For the first few months, she didn't even get the full 10 bucks because the family deducted the costs of her passport and boat ride from Belize. When she became pregnant with my oldest sister, they kicked her out.
She and my dad, a railroad cook who was part West Indian and part Mississippi Choctaw, moved to Boston as did many Negroes seeking a better life and less segregation. Again, she became the help. I'll always remember Mrs. McFawn, the Jewish woman in Brookline for whom my mom worked. For the first four years before I could attend school, my mom took me to work with her and sat me in a corner while she cleaned.
In those days, tea-bag strings had cards attached. Mrs. McFawn did not make tea for me. Heavens no. But she did save the tea cards for me. Those cards had pictures of animals and little descriptions, my first clues to the power of the written word.
Later, during summer vacations from junior high, I became the help. I washed dishes and served food at a senior citizens home. My most vivid memory was bringing food to one patient and finding her dead. A nurse reminded a very shocked me that she'd told me the patient had "expired." How was I to know what "expired" meant? I soon learned.
And like the maid Aibileen that Viola Davis plays in "The Help," my mom lost her son at a young age - 16. We never knew the truth of how it happened. In those days, police used to take black boys into alleys and beat them behind the knees where the bruises were hesitant to show.
A few reporters said police had killed my brother and wanted us to investigate. The police said he hanged himself. At the funeral, I snuck up front and tried to rub the makeup from his neck to see if there were burn marks. But my parents knew a world of trouble lay in wait for a black couple making claims against the then primarily white Boston Police. So, my mom packed away photos of my brother.
Like Aibileen, my mom remained the help. Like the women in "The Help," what choice did she have? She not only had to help take care of her children. As an immigrant, she was expected to help those she left behind in Belize. She sent money home for decades. She helped sponsor relatives so they could start a better life.
Results of their labor
My mom and my dad were the help all of their lives.
Because of them, I got to go to Brown University, became the youngest editorial writer of a daily newspaper, produce documentaries for Discovery Channel, write a script for, and co-create an alien race for, "Star Trek Voyager," get a job as a staff writer on "The Burning Zone," work on "Dirty Sexy Money" and now, teach at Fayetteville State University.
Because of my parents' sacrifices, one of my sisters went on to become a successful advertising production manager. The other is an artist. One of her paintings was in the "Sex and the City" movie. And the younger brother, the other brother, went into the restaurant business like my dad. We may occasionally have to put up with bosses who have Ph.Ds in stupidity and arrogance. But, we don't have to clean up after them.
And now all of us siblings collaborate to take care of The Help. Yes, my mom has Social Security. But, it's never enough. So we fill in the gap. We take care of my mom. We "help" out.
So, why did I go to see "The Help," knowing it would dredge up painful memories? My friend, longtime "NCIS" executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson (along with actors Terence Howard and Cuba Gooding) were appearing after the Philadelphia screening of "The Help" to talk about their new Lucas action-adventure feature film called "Red Tails."
So I went to see "The Help" to have a seat up front when the credits ended and Charles came on stage. Charles introduced me to the Lucas marketing people. I got to see my friend and put in a plug to premiere "Red Tails" in Fayetteville in January.
I'm glad I saw "The Help." The characters were nothing like the typical woe-is-me black maids we've come to know and dread. The women and men, white and black, were nuanced in a way that didn't detract from the realism, sadness and treachery of Jim Crow Mississippi.
And surprisingly, it made me and the rest of the audience laugh for days. It had a "Driving Miss Daisy" feel, with more attitude and an expectation that viewers were intelligent.
I don't care about the complaints that a white writer got to write a black woman's story. I don't care that, yes again, we people of color seem to star only in films from way back in history and cannot be stars set in our own time. I don't care that they fudge history (the film takes place in the '60s while the portrayed murder of Emmett Till occurred in 1955).
"The Help," for me, proved an unexpected tribute to my grandmother Hannah, my aunts Grace and Idolly, and my mom Rosetta.
When you go from being a Belizean Beauty of the Bay to bathing white folks' infants in the Jim Crow South, few people applaud.
But, when the audience gave a standing ovation at the end of "The Help," they were clapping for my mom.
Couldn't Help But See "The Help"
by Skye Dent
I hadn't planned on seeing "The Help," the new hit film revolving around the lives of black maids catering to dark-souled white women in the 1960s South.
Sure, there were good solid reasons to attend.
As a black female who wrote scripts in Hollywood for over a decade, I know the small band of brothers and sisters of color still working there. I generally know someone who has worked on, crewed in, acted in or written any film somehow involving black people in front of or behind the camera. So, I support the product of my friends just as I buy the tamales my cousins make and sell door-to-door in Los Angeles.
And although many people think only black people can enjoy or identify with black films, that's preposterous. Audiences enjoy good films, no matter what. I've written for general audience TV shows such as "Star Trek Voyager" and "The Burning Zone." I'm proof positive that black people can write scripts that white people enjoy.
But "The Help" was another story, one I knew would hit home in a painful way from seeing the 30-second trailers. It was my story. My mom's story. My aunt's story. My grandmother's story. The story of many black women from generations before mine.
For all of them, it was a story of searingly brutal sacrifice punctuated with few moments of self-fulfillment.
The story of Negro women denied important time with their own families because they had to raise the kids of white folks. The story of women who scrub the floors of multiple level homes and then walk home in the dark to small cramped quarters shared with children and husbands they barely see.
My family's story
My mom is from Belize. As a young woman, she was runner-up in the Beauty of the Bay pageant. She had every right to expect a fantastic life when she moved to the United States in the 1950s.
Instead, she ended up being the help to a New Orleans family. Ten bucks a week to clean the house, take care of two kids, and cook breakfast, lunch and dinner. For the first few months, she didn't even get the full 10 bucks because the family deducted the costs of her passport and boat ride from Belize. When she became pregnant with my oldest sister, they kicked her out.
She and my dad, a railroad cook who was part West Indian and part Mississippi Choctaw, moved to Boston as did many Negroes seeking a better life and less segregation. Again, she became the help. I'll always remember Mrs. McFawn, the Jewish woman in Brookline for whom my mom worked. For the first four years before I could attend school, my mom took me to work with her and sat me in a corner while she cleaned.
In those days, tea-bag strings had cards attached. Mrs. McFawn did not make tea for me. Heavens no. But she did save the tea cards for me. Those cards had pictures of animals and little descriptions, my first clues to the power of the written word.
Later, during summer vacations from junior high, I became the help. I washed dishes and served food at a senior citizens home. My most vivid memory was bringing food to one patient and finding her dead. A nurse reminded a very shocked me that she'd told me the patient had "expired." How was I to know what "expired" meant? I soon learned.
And like the maid Aibileen that Viola Davis plays in "The Help," my mom lost her son at a young age - 16. We never knew the truth of how it happened. In those days, police used to take black boys into alleys and beat them behind the knees where the bruises were hesitant to show.
A few reporters said police had killed my brother and wanted us to investigate. The police said he hanged himself. At the funeral, I snuck up front and tried to rub the makeup from his neck to see if there were burn marks. But my parents knew a world of trouble lay in wait for a black couple making claims against the then primarily white Boston Police. So, my mom packed away photos of my brother.
Like Aibileen, my mom remained the help. Like the women in "The Help," what choice did she have? She not only had to help take care of her children. As an immigrant, she was expected to help those she left behind in Belize. She sent money home for decades. She helped sponsor relatives so they could start a better life.
Results of their labor
My mom and my dad were the help all of their lives.
Because of them, I got to go to Brown University, became the youngest editorial writer of a daily newspaper, produce documentaries for Discovery Channel, write a script for, and co-create an alien race for, "Star Trek Voyager," get a job as a staff writer on "The Burning Zone," work on "Dirty Sexy Money" and now, teach at Fayetteville State University.
Because of my parents' sacrifices, one of my sisters went on to become a successful advertising production manager. The other is an artist. One of her paintings was in the "Sex and the City" movie. And the younger brother, the other brother, went into the restaurant business like my dad. We may occasionally have to put up with bosses who have Ph.Ds in stupidity and arrogance. But, we don't have to clean up after them.
And now all of us siblings collaborate to take care of The Help. Yes, my mom has Social Security. But, it's never enough. So we fill in the gap. We take care of my mom. We "help" out.
So, why did I go to see "The Help," knowing it would dredge up painful memories? My friend, longtime "NCIS" executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson (along with actors Terence Howard and Cuba Gooding) were appearing after the Philadelphia screening of "The Help" to talk about their new Lucas action-adventure feature film called "Red Tails."
So I went to see "The Help" to have a seat up front when the credits ended and Charles came on stage. Charles introduced me to the Lucas marketing people. I got to see my friend and put in a plug to premiere "Red Tails" in Fayetteville in January.
I'm glad I saw "The Help." The characters were nothing like the typical woe-is-me black maids we've come to know and dread. The women and men, white and black, were nuanced in a way that didn't detract from the realism, sadness and treachery of Jim Crow Mississippi.
And surprisingly, it made me and the rest of the audience laugh for days. It had a "Driving Miss Daisy" feel, with more attitude and an expectation that viewers were intelligent.
I don't care about the complaints that a white writer got to write a black woman's story. I don't care that, yes again, we people of color seem to star only in films from way back in history and cannot be stars set in our own time. I don't care that they fudge history (the film takes place in the '60s while the portrayed murder of Emmett Till occurred in 1955).
"The Help," for me, proved an unexpected tribute to my grandmother Hannah, my aunts Grace and Idolly, and my mom Rosetta.
When you go from being a Belizean Beauty of the Bay to bathing white folks' infants in the Jim Crow South, few people applaud.
But, when the audience gave a standing ovation at the end of "The Help," they were clapping for my mom.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
There's Your Trouble / Fayetteville Observer Column
Published: 12:00 AM, Fri Jun 10, 2011
Community Advisory Board: There's Your Trouble> < > < [+] By Skye Dent
Recently, I was among community-minded intelligent colleagues discussing the wave of terrorist-like tornadoes when a haunting subject arose. The group expressed surprise that so many strangers offered help during the tornadoes' aftermath.
They repeated quotes from others who were - surprised. The unknown off-duty military folks who pitched in without waiting to exhale. The stranger who did this. The no-name woman who did that. Their departing shadows reminded one of Clint Eastwood after he cleaned up the badlands and rode into the sunset with a nod, a squint and a toothpick between his teeth.
Weeks later, visiting Missouri's Joplin where many lives were swept up and crushed, Barack Obama applauded similar "countless acts of courage."
I had lived a bit of it in other places. Fires consuming acres, homes and wildlife. Floods. Earthquakes. My most vivid memories of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake were both aching and amusing. To avoid closed off streets, I biked 10 miles to my office at Warner Interactive. The guard wouldn't let me in. Even after scanning my work I.D., he said I might be there to loot.
So, I called my regular disaster volunteer organization. L.A. Works sent me to a retirement home to pick up fallen items for evacuating seniors. I spent hours packing hundreds of porn videos, pretending for a tenant's benefit that I didn't know what they were.
There were thanks. Gratitude. But no surprise.
What does surprise me now, 10-plus years later, is why so many people here and in other parts of the country seemed surprised that strangers would put their lives on hold to help. So maybe that is what we should be asking. Why is it that people devastated, left helpless by tornadoes, did not expect strangers to help? What is it about our psyche these days that we feel others won't respond in times of need and distress?
Aloneness
According to S.L.A. Marshall, a World War I Army historian, when troops could not see each other, they felt more alone. Forced out of one's home and unable to contact friends and family, perhaps the tornado-stricken felt so alone that their normal expectations were put on hold.
Taylor Clark, author of "Nerve: Poise Under Pressure," says that "under life-threatening stress, complex brain processing plummets and the neural mainstream often maxes out." I think he means that it's normal for our caveman instincts, "Lord of the Flies" expectations to take over.
"Surviving under fire is about formatting your brain to take the right action reflexively," explains Clark. Did those who helped without question have their minds formatted from a previous catastrophic situation? Of course, that's part of the theory behind the CERT (Community Emergency Response Training) I took two years ago. Train regularly and the doing is automatic, we were told.
That would explain the take-charge actions of many off-duty soldiers. What author Sally Le Boeuf calls "The Warrior's Edge." People from the military who, at one point or another, have lived at a level of performance at which physical skills are precisely executed with little effort. Snap, the cognitive process kicks in.
Even in guys who fought as far back as Vietnam, I've seen that reaction. It's one reason I gave a few of them my "dig here" packet of driving routes and copies of I.D. before long drives. If I didn't arrive, their warrior's edge would kick in and the hunt would be on before you could say "criminal minds."
Of course, we could blame news organizations for low expectations of charity. Newspapers and TV news get blamed for so much else. Think about it. The media highlight Good Samaritans as if they're endangered species. But that theory would assume that we readers and viewers are not media literate and cannot think for ourselves.
Still, even on an international level, we're reminded that our country doesn't do good deeds just for virtue's sake. How many times have we been told in the last two weeks that America gives aid to Pakistan in exchange for strategic interests?
Even on a new board that I'm a part of, some board members want to benefit financially from the organization's activities. We're talking about a nonprofit.
Compassion
So is generosity a zero sum game? If you do something for me, do I incur a psychological debt that has to be made up? I took care of you when the tornado struck your house. Now you owe me. Better to be suspicious than to incur debt, goes the theory.
Perhaps the answer isn't so deep. What if, even though compassion has not totally been kicked to the curb, it's simply no longer a fundamental character trait that counts? Hmmm. Well then, how long before we reach the stage where compassion is seen as a negative?
To quote a popular country-western song, "there's your trouble."
Skye Dent is a member of the Observer's Community Advisory Board, which meets regularly with the editorial board to discuss local issues and contributes op-ed columns. She is a professor within the University of North Carolina system as well as a newspaper reporter and screenwriter.
Community Advisory Board: There's Your Trouble> < > < [+] By Skye Dent
Recently, I was among community-minded intelligent colleagues discussing the wave of terrorist-like tornadoes when a haunting subject arose. The group expressed surprise that so many strangers offered help during the tornadoes' aftermath.
They repeated quotes from others who were - surprised. The unknown off-duty military folks who pitched in without waiting to exhale. The stranger who did this. The no-name woman who did that. Their departing shadows reminded one of Clint Eastwood after he cleaned up the badlands and rode into the sunset with a nod, a squint and a toothpick between his teeth.
Weeks later, visiting Missouri's Joplin where many lives were swept up and crushed, Barack Obama applauded similar "countless acts of courage."
I had lived a bit of it in other places. Fires consuming acres, homes and wildlife. Floods. Earthquakes. My most vivid memories of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake were both aching and amusing. To avoid closed off streets, I biked 10 miles to my office at Warner Interactive. The guard wouldn't let me in. Even after scanning my work I.D., he said I might be there to loot.
So, I called my regular disaster volunteer organization. L.A. Works sent me to a retirement home to pick up fallen items for evacuating seniors. I spent hours packing hundreds of porn videos, pretending for a tenant's benefit that I didn't know what they were.
There were thanks. Gratitude. But no surprise.
What does surprise me now, 10-plus years later, is why so many people here and in other parts of the country seemed surprised that strangers would put their lives on hold to help. So maybe that is what we should be asking. Why is it that people devastated, left helpless by tornadoes, did not expect strangers to help? What is it about our psyche these days that we feel others won't respond in times of need and distress?
Aloneness
According to S.L.A. Marshall, a World War I Army historian, when troops could not see each other, they felt more alone. Forced out of one's home and unable to contact friends and family, perhaps the tornado-stricken felt so alone that their normal expectations were put on hold.
Taylor Clark, author of "Nerve: Poise Under Pressure," says that "under life-threatening stress, complex brain processing plummets and the neural mainstream often maxes out." I think he means that it's normal for our caveman instincts, "Lord of the Flies" expectations to take over.
"Surviving under fire is about formatting your brain to take the right action reflexively," explains Clark. Did those who helped without question have their minds formatted from a previous catastrophic situation? Of course, that's part of the theory behind the CERT (Community Emergency Response Training) I took two years ago. Train regularly and the doing is automatic, we were told.
That would explain the take-charge actions of many off-duty soldiers. What author Sally Le Boeuf calls "The Warrior's Edge." People from the military who, at one point or another, have lived at a level of performance at which physical skills are precisely executed with little effort. Snap, the cognitive process kicks in.
Even in guys who fought as far back as Vietnam, I've seen that reaction. It's one reason I gave a few of them my "dig here" packet of driving routes and copies of I.D. before long drives. If I didn't arrive, their warrior's edge would kick in and the hunt would be on before you could say "criminal minds."
Of course, we could blame news organizations for low expectations of charity. Newspapers and TV news get blamed for so much else. Think about it. The media highlight Good Samaritans as if they're endangered species. But that theory would assume that we readers and viewers are not media literate and cannot think for ourselves.
Still, even on an international level, we're reminded that our country doesn't do good deeds just for virtue's sake. How many times have we been told in the last two weeks that America gives aid to Pakistan in exchange for strategic interests?
Even on a new board that I'm a part of, some board members want to benefit financially from the organization's activities. We're talking about a nonprofit.
Compassion
So is generosity a zero sum game? If you do something for me, do I incur a psychological debt that has to be made up? I took care of you when the tornado struck your house. Now you owe me. Better to be suspicious than to incur debt, goes the theory.
Perhaps the answer isn't so deep. What if, even though compassion has not totally been kicked to the curb, it's simply no longer a fundamental character trait that counts? Hmmm. Well then, how long before we reach the stage where compassion is seen as a negative?
To quote a popular country-western song, "there's your trouble."
Skye Dent is a member of the Observer's Community Advisory Board, which meets regularly with the editorial board to discuss local issues and contributes op-ed columns. She is a professor within the University of North Carolina system as well as a newspaper reporter and screenwriter.
Lessons In Soldiering On / Fayetteville Observer
The Fayetteville Observer
Community Advisory Board: Some lessons in how to soldier on
By Skye Dent
I was halfway through a rant on why I didn't look nearly old enough to be a hippie when my niece cut me short and said she was talking about attitude, not age. She accused me of being too spontaneous. Doing too much volunteer work. Uprooting myself every few years with nary a care for finance or romance. And what's with those paisley print scarfs, anyway?
She had a point.
Here I had just finished stuffing most needed belongings into my shrimpy Kia. Books. Copies of sold and mostly unsold scripts. A cooler of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. More emergency supplies than seen in "The Road." And the Stratocaster I dreamed I'd one day have time for.
Speaking of dreams - I was on my way from California to Fayetteville to fulfill another one.
Recently, I'd realized that two of the people I respected most were both writers and military: journalist Richard Brooks and TV drama showrunner Coleman Luck. I didn't always like what Brooks or Luck said. But, they were straight up, disciplined men with an enviable dark brand of humor, sarcasm and blunt honesty.
Fortunately, Fayetteville not only had such military and military-related students in abundance, but Fayetteville State University's new communication department needed a journalism professor with film and TV experience.
Lukewarm welcome
My car coughed its way into Fayetteville on Aug. 6. Day 1 was not so welcoming. The motel manager said he gave away my room. Yes, I was on time. Yes, I had paid a deposit. Yes, I had a receipt in hand. The explanation? The military had suddenly come into town. The motel manager had decided that a bird in the hand was worth more than one on the road. Besides, the military paid a higher nightly rate.
But born and bred Bostonian babes don't back down. We're scrappy, willing to throw down, at least with words. Twenty minutes of verbal fisticuffs later, the manager gave in and gave me a room.
After a month, I found an apartment. The complex's credit company said I passed all the checks. Good credit rating. Two-year contract at FSU. But, the complex manager said no. She claimed the credit report said I owed $48 on a 2004 AAA card. When I pointed out that AAA was a membership organization and that one could not owe on it, the manager agreed with me, but still said no.
The reality, I was told by colleagues, was that many landlords preferred military tenants because rent was paid directly out of allotments. Besides, when a pipe burst or some other fixture went bad, young recruits didn't make waves. And indeed, I started stirring the seas. I tracked down and called the corporate owners in Seattle. They checked my records, said there had to be some mistake, and within two days the apartment was mine.
Still, I had come to teach and live in peace. Now, I was worried about me. What was life in Fayetteville going to be like, being a second-class citizen behind all things military?
Taking advantage
Soon, I came to realize that new military residents had their own problem. I went to buy a bed at a place on Skibo. The price seemed outrageous. "Blame the military," said the young salesman. He explained that rather than reap benefits by being military, servicemen, especially younger ones, were often ripped off. Prices were jacked up for them.
The rationale: A lot of new servicemen were unaccustomed to regular paychecks. It's often easy to part them from their money, especially when budgeting or even writing a check may be a foreign concept.
A military couple staying at the original motel confirmed it. They and their two young kids were staying in a room the same size as mine and had tried to buy a car. When they complained that the huge deposit required was too much, the dealer said "we're not used to dealing with people like you."
And this couple was from Carmel, Calif. Could living in Fayetteville be more expensive than the place where Clint Eastwood lives and makes his day, just down the road from Oprah?
So, I started to do what journalists are trained to do best. Listen objectively. And take notes.
Other folks in the military said many businesses profited madly by taking advantage of the military. It was so bad, they said, that Fort Bragg handed out a blacklist of establishments to avoid. But when you're a young recruit (or even a returning serviceman) whose life may end in Iraq or Afghanistan, worrying about a fair price may not be priority No. 1, blacklist notwithstanding.
OK, I'm still confused. The assistant manager who runs the chain gas station where I get gas and coffee every morning says she's getting paid $10 an hour, after working there almost two decades. Most workers I meet in service positions seem to be making less. Where's the money going?
Top-notch
The military students in my classes did live up to the models displayed by my West Coast veteran friends. They arrived at class on time, handed in quality work, completed reading on time and even lobbied for extra credit despite having top-of-the-class grades.
The military wives followed suit. Diligent, determined. One improved her writing skills so dramatically in one semester that when she and her husband were transferred to Colorado, a U of C professor assured me he would be happy to ease her transition so she wouldn't lose a semester while getting settled.
Another military wife who was pregnant the entire semester completed all her assignments prior to Thanksgiving because the baby was scheduled to arrive late in November. A few days after the baby was born early, she took a weekly quiz in the hospital rather than risk lowering her GPA.
In fact, most of my students (military or not) lived up to my demands and expectations. Even those who did not always apply themselves were smart, funny, witty and warmhearted.
I hope they know I'm here for them, here to make a difference. After all, military or civilian, it's the students at FSU who make my day.
Skye Dent is a professor within the University of North Carolina system, a journalist and screenwriter, and a member of the Fayetteville Observer Community Advisory Board. http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2011/01/28/1063087?sac=Opin
Community Advisory Board: Some lessons in how to soldier on
By Skye Dent
I was halfway through a rant on why I didn't look nearly old enough to be a hippie when my niece cut me short and said she was talking about attitude, not age. She accused me of being too spontaneous. Doing too much volunteer work. Uprooting myself every few years with nary a care for finance or romance. And what's with those paisley print scarfs, anyway?
She had a point.
Here I had just finished stuffing most needed belongings into my shrimpy Kia. Books. Copies of sold and mostly unsold scripts. A cooler of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. More emergency supplies than seen in "The Road." And the Stratocaster I dreamed I'd one day have time for.
Speaking of dreams - I was on my way from California to Fayetteville to fulfill another one.
Recently, I'd realized that two of the people I respected most were both writers and military: journalist Richard Brooks and TV drama showrunner Coleman Luck. I didn't always like what Brooks or Luck said. But, they were straight up, disciplined men with an enviable dark brand of humor, sarcasm and blunt honesty.
Fortunately, Fayetteville not only had such military and military-related students in abundance, but Fayetteville State University's new communication department needed a journalism professor with film and TV experience.
Lukewarm welcome
My car coughed its way into Fayetteville on Aug. 6. Day 1 was not so welcoming. The motel manager said he gave away my room. Yes, I was on time. Yes, I had paid a deposit. Yes, I had a receipt in hand. The explanation? The military had suddenly come into town. The motel manager had decided that a bird in the hand was worth more than one on the road. Besides, the military paid a higher nightly rate.
But born and bred Bostonian babes don't back down. We're scrappy, willing to throw down, at least with words. Twenty minutes of verbal fisticuffs later, the manager gave in and gave me a room.
After a month, I found an apartment. The complex's credit company said I passed all the checks. Good credit rating. Two-year contract at FSU. But, the complex manager said no. She claimed the credit report said I owed $48 on a 2004 AAA card. When I pointed out that AAA was a membership organization and that one could not owe on it, the manager agreed with me, but still said no.
The reality, I was told by colleagues, was that many landlords preferred military tenants because rent was paid directly out of allotments. Besides, when a pipe burst or some other fixture went bad, young recruits didn't make waves. And indeed, I started stirring the seas. I tracked down and called the corporate owners in Seattle. They checked my records, said there had to be some mistake, and within two days the apartment was mine.
Still, I had come to teach and live in peace. Now, I was worried about me. What was life in Fayetteville going to be like, being a second-class citizen behind all things military?
Taking advantage
Soon, I came to realize that new military residents had their own problem. I went to buy a bed at a place on Skibo. The price seemed outrageous. "Blame the military," said the young salesman. He explained that rather than reap benefits by being military, servicemen, especially younger ones, were often ripped off. Prices were jacked up for them.
The rationale: A lot of new servicemen were unaccustomed to regular paychecks. It's often easy to part them from their money, especially when budgeting or even writing a check may be a foreign concept.
A military couple staying at the original motel confirmed it. They and their two young kids were staying in a room the same size as mine and had tried to buy a car. When they complained that the huge deposit required was too much, the dealer said "we're not used to dealing with people like you."
And this couple was from Carmel, Calif. Could living in Fayetteville be more expensive than the place where Clint Eastwood lives and makes his day, just down the road from Oprah?
So, I started to do what journalists are trained to do best. Listen objectively. And take notes.
Other folks in the military said many businesses profited madly by taking advantage of the military. It was so bad, they said, that Fort Bragg handed out a blacklist of establishments to avoid. But when you're a young recruit (or even a returning serviceman) whose life may end in Iraq or Afghanistan, worrying about a fair price may not be priority No. 1, blacklist notwithstanding.
OK, I'm still confused. The assistant manager who runs the chain gas station where I get gas and coffee every morning says she's getting paid $10 an hour, after working there almost two decades. Most workers I meet in service positions seem to be making less. Where's the money going?
Top-notch
The military students in my classes did live up to the models displayed by my West Coast veteran friends. They arrived at class on time, handed in quality work, completed reading on time and even lobbied for extra credit despite having top-of-the-class grades.
The military wives followed suit. Diligent, determined. One improved her writing skills so dramatically in one semester that when she and her husband were transferred to Colorado, a U of C professor assured me he would be happy to ease her transition so she wouldn't lose a semester while getting settled.
Another military wife who was pregnant the entire semester completed all her assignments prior to Thanksgiving because the baby was scheduled to arrive late in November. A few days after the baby was born early, she took a weekly quiz in the hospital rather than risk lowering her GPA.
In fact, most of my students (military or not) lived up to my demands and expectations. Even those who did not always apply themselves were smart, funny, witty and warmhearted.
I hope they know I'm here for them, here to make a difference. After all, military or civilian, it's the students at FSU who make my day.
Skye Dent is a professor within the University of North Carolina system, a journalist and screenwriter, and a member of the Fayetteville Observer Community Advisory Board. http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2011/01/28/1063087?sac=Opin
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Cruzin'
And let's not forget a shoutout to Lt. Colonel Michael "Bo" Cruz, who surprisingly gets me more than the so-called liberals. Hmmm.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Some Lessons In How To Soldier On
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2011/01/28/1063087.aspx?sac=Opin
Opinion Piece by Yours Truly in The Fayetteville Observer
1/28/2011
Community Advisory Board: Some lessons in how to soldier on
By Skye Dent
I was halfway through a rant on why I didn't look nearly old enough to be a hippie when my niece cut me short and said she was talking about attitude, not age. She accused me of being too spontaneous. Doing too much volunteer work. Uprooting myself every few years with nary a care for finance or romance. And what's with those paisley print scarfs, anyway?
She had a point.
Here I had just finished stuffing most needed belongings into my shrimpy Kia. Books. Copies of sold and mostly unsold scripts. A cooler of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. More emergency supplies than seen in "The Road." And the Stratocaster I dreamed I'd one day have time for.
Speaking of dreams - I was on my way from California to Fayetteville to fulfill another one.
Recently, I'd realized that two of the people I respected most were both writers and military: journalist Richard Brooks and TV drama showrunner Coleman Luck. I didn't always like what Brooks or Luck said. But, they were straight up, disciplined men with an enviable dark brand of humor, sarcasm and blunt honesty.
Fortunately, Fayetteville not only had such military and military-related students in abundance, but Fayetteville State University's new communication department needed a journalism professor with film and TV experience.
Lukewarm welcome
My car coughed its way into Fayetteville on Aug. 6. Day 1 was not so welcoming. The motel manager said he gave away my room. Yes, I was on time. Yes, I had paid a deposit. Yes, I had a receipt in hand. The explanation? The military had suddenly come into town. The motel manager had decided that a bird in the hand was worth more than one on the road. Besides, the military paid a higher nightly rate.
But born and bred Bostonian babes don't back down. We're scrappy, willing to throw down, at least with words. Twenty minutes of verbal fisticuffs later, the manager gave in and gave me a room.
After a month, I found an apartment. The complex's credit company said I passed all the checks. Good credit rating. Two-year contract at FSU. But, the complex manager said no. She claimed the credit report said I owed $48 on a 2004 AAA card. When I pointed out that AAA was a membership organization and that one could not owe on it, the manager agreed with me, but still said no.
The reality, I was told by colleagues, was that many landlords preferred military tenants because rent was paid directly out of allotments. Besides, when a pipe burst or some other fixture went bad, young recruits didn't make waves. And indeed, I started stirring the seas. I tracked down and called the corporate owners in Seattle. They checked my records, said there had to be some mistake, and within two days the apartment was mine.
Still, I had come to teach and live in peace. Now, I was worried about me. What was life in Fayetteville going to be like, being a second-class citizen behind all things military?
Taking advantage
Soon, I came to realize that new military residents had their own problem. I went to buy a bed at a place on Skibo. The price seemed outrageous. "Blame the military," said the young salesman. He explained that rather than reap benefits by being military, servicemen, especially younger ones, were often ripped off. Prices were jacked up for them.
The rationale: A lot of new servicemen were unaccustomed to regular paychecks. It's often easy to part them from their money, especially when budgeting or even writing a check may be a foreign concept.
A military couple staying at the original motel confirmed it. They and their two young kids were staying in a room the same size as mine and had tried to buy a car. When they complained that the huge deposit required was too much, the dealer said "we're not used to dealing with people like you."
And this couple was from Carmel, Calif. Could living in Fayetteville be more expensive than the place where Clint Eastwood lives and makes his day, just down the road from Oprah?
So, I started to do what journalists are trained to do best. Listen objectively. And take notes.
Other folks in the military said many businesses profited madly by taking advantage of the military. It was so bad, they said, that Fort Bragg handed out a blacklist of establishments to avoid. But when you're a young recruit (or even a returning serviceman) whose life may end in Iraq or Afghanistan, worrying about a fair price may not be priority No. 1, blacklist notwithstanding.
OK, I'm still confused. The assistant manager who runs the chain gas station where I get gas and coffee every morning says she's getting paid $10 an hour, after working there almost two decades. Most workers I meet in service positions seem to be making less. Where's the money going?
Top-notch
The military students in my classes did live up to the models displayed by my West Coast veteran friends. They arrived at class on time, handed in quality work, completed reading on time and even lobbied for extra credit despite having top-of-the-class grades.
The military wives followed suit. Diligent, determined. One improved her writing skills so dramatically in one semester that when she and her husband were transferred to Colorado, a U of C professor assured me he would be happy to ease her transition so she wouldn't lose a semester while getting settled.
Another military wife who was pregnant the entire semester completed all her assignments prior to Thanksgiving because the baby was scheduled to arrive late in November. A few days after the baby was born early, she took a weekly quiz in the hospital rather than risk lowering her GPA.
In fact, most of my students (military or not) lived up to my demands and expectations. Even those who did not always apply themselves were smart, funny, witty and warmhearted.
I hope they know I'm here for them, here to make a difference. After all, military or civilian, it's the students at FSU who make my day.
Skye Dent is a journalism professor at Fayetteville State University, a journalist and screenwriter, and a member of the Fayetteville Observer Community Advisory Board. You can find more of her work at possiblygowrong.blogspot.com.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Novel Continued...Ruby Leaves.
Ruby leaves. Amelia sighs and looks in the fridge. She puts a piece of cheese inside two dry pieces of bread. She leaves her shoes at the bottom of the staircase and goes up. Cup of tea in one hand. Dry sandwich in the other.
The shoes at the bottom of the stairs was an old family habit. Ruby used to make everyone take off their shoes when they entered. No, not as any sort of spiritual thing. She just didn’t want dirt “tracking her house.” So, almost thirty years later, it was ingrained in Amelia. Ingrained or stained?
She’d never tell Ruby, at Amelia’s home in California, she also makes visitors take off their shoes before entering. Amelia’s greatest fear I that somewhere deep inside, she may have no choice but to be like her mother.
The home is weathered, but solid. Brick and mortar with bay windows all around. As expected, spotless. In fact, from its neurotic cleanliness to the cases of intricately arranged insects on the wall, the house has a kind of sinister dark side of Disney World feel.
Amelia looks in her parents’ bedroom. Antique furniture that wasn’t when her folks bought it. Daddy’s old dresser. She runs her fingers lovingly across the top. And for her trouble, gets…a deep splinter cut. Blood spurts from it. So much for warm fuzzy memories.
She hears something that sounds like a body being dragged across the downstairs floor. Look out. It’s Cleveland dragging her suitcases from the kitchen. His cat, Golddust, walks in between his feet. The feline doges his walk with grace and a lack of concern for safety. Amelia laughs as Kelly ignores Golddust with studied practice.
“You can leave those. I’ll get em,” says Amelia. “I’m not going anywhere soon.”
Cleveland smiles a crafty smile and tosses her hat.
“Oh yes, you are?”
Before Amelia knows it, she and Cleveland are exiting her rented car taxi at the city’s police car impound lot. The lot spreads for miles, a fact that amazes Amelia.
Who would guess that that many scofflaws existed within such a small county? Or that the county would have such a vast property simply covered with cars.
You’d think they’d build a multilevel garage and use the rest of the property for something much less intrusive to one’s eyes than cars that ranged from dented violet Corvettes to burnt out burnt orange Hundi’s.
Novel Continued...Ruby Leaves.
Ruby leaves. Amelia sighs and looks in the fridge. She puts a piece of cheese inside two dry pieces of bread. She leaves her shoes at the bottom of the staircase and goes up. Cup of tea in one hand. Dry sandwich in the other.
The shoes at the bottom of the stairs was an old family habit. Ruby used to make everyone take off their shoes when they entered. No, not as any sort of spiritual thing. She just didn’t want dirt “tracking her house.” So, almost thirty years later, it was ingrained in Amelia. Ingrained or stained?
She’d never tell Ruby, at Amelia’s home in California, she also makes visitors take off their shoes before entering. Amelia’s greatest fear I that somewhere deep inside, she may have no choice but to be like her mother.
The home is weathered, but solid. Brick and mortar with bay windows all around. As expected, spotless. In fact, from its neurotic cleanliness to the cases of intricately arranged insects on the wall, the house has a kind of sinister dark side of Disney World feel.
Amelia looks in her parents’ bedroom. Antique furniture that wasn’t when her folks bought it. Daddy’s old dresser. She runs her fingers lovingly across the top. And for her trouble, gets…a deep splinter cut. Blood spurts from it. So much for warm fuzzy memories.
She hears something that sounds like a body being dragged across the downstairs floor. Look out. It’s Cleveland dragging her suitcases from the kitchen. His cat, Golddust, walks in between his feet. The feline doges his walk with grace and a lack of concern for safety. Amelia laughs as Kelly ignores Golddust with studied practice.
“You can leave those. I’ll get em,” says Amelia. “I’m not going anywhere soon.”
Cleveland smiles a crafty smile and tosses her hat.
“Oh yes, you are?”
Before Amelia knows it, she and Cleveland are exiting her rented car taxi at the city’s police car impound lot. The lot spreads for miles, a fact that amazes Amelia.
Who would guess that that many scofflaws existed within such a small county? Or that the county would have such a vast property simply covered with cars.
You’d think they’d build a multilevel garage and use the rest of the property for something much less intrusive to one’s eyes than cars that ranged from dented violet Corvettes to burnt out burnt orange Hundi’s.
The shoes at the bottom of the stairs was an old family habit. Ruby used to make everyone take off their shoes when they entered. No, not as any sort of spiritual thing. She just didn’t want dirt “tracking her house.” So, almost thirty years later, it was ingrained in Amelia. Ingrained or stained?
She’d never tell Ruby, at Amelia’s home in California, she also makes visitors take off their shoes before entering. Amelia’s greatest fear I that somewhere deep inside, she may have no choice but to be like her mother.
The home is weathered, but solid. Brick and mortar with bay windows all around. As expected, spotless. In fact, from its neurotic cleanliness to the cases of intricately arranged insects on the wall, the house has a kind of sinister dark side of Disney World feel.
Amelia looks in her parents’ bedroom. Antique furniture that wasn’t when her folks bought it. Daddy’s old dresser. She runs her fingers lovingly across the top. And for her trouble, gets…a deep splinter cut. Blood spurts from it. So much for warm fuzzy memories.
She hears something that sounds like a body being dragged across the downstairs floor. Look out. It’s Cleveland dragging her suitcases from the kitchen. His cat, Golddust, walks in between his feet. The feline doges his walk with grace and a lack of concern for safety. Amelia laughs as Kelly ignores Golddust with studied practice.
“You can leave those. I’ll get em,” says Amelia. “I’m not going anywhere soon.”
Cleveland smiles a crafty smile and tosses her hat.
“Oh yes, you are?”
Before Amelia knows it, she and Cleveland are exiting her rented car taxi at the city’s police car impound lot. The lot spreads for miles, a fact that amazes Amelia.
Who would guess that that many scofflaws existed within such a small county? Or that the county would have such a vast property simply covered with cars.
You’d think they’d build a multilevel garage and use the rest of the property for something much less intrusive to one’s eyes than cars that ranged from dented violet Corvettes to burnt out burnt orange Hundi’s.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Serialized Novel, Part 7
Amelia walks into the living room. Looks at the family photos in the bookcase. Notices one particular solid brass frame with a photo of a woman in it. Carries it back to the kitchen.
‘Who’s this in this frame,” asks Amelia.
“It’s your cousin, Idolly.”
Amelia’s face darkens discernibly.
“This is the frame I sent to Daddy’s hospital room. With my photo in it.”
Ruby doesn’t even bother to look up.
“The frame you sent was too good for County General Hospital,” says Ruby.
“I switched it and gave him an old one. Somebody woulda’ stole your frame.”
“Apparently somebody did.”
Home five minutes and Ruby’s pulling at her nerves.
But, Ruby’s already dismissed Amelia’s feelings about her father. Amelia wants to dismiss Ruby.
“Aren’t you on your way to the store?” asks Amelia sweetly.
“Oh yes, the commuters will be coming soon. And those construction guys will be wanting some fresh coffee.”
Ruby notices a pea-sized drop of tea spilt on the table. She rushes to put a saucer under Amelia’s cup before she dares to commit another household felony.
“Mom, that 7-11 those guys are building wants to put you out of business.”
But, Ruby knows best and would never second guess herself, even in the face of blatant business strategy.
“They pay good money for hot coffee.”
“And one of them whistled at me.”
“That’s why I always tell you girls to wear a girdle.”
‘Who’s this in this frame,” asks Amelia.
“It’s your cousin, Idolly.”
Amelia’s face darkens discernibly.
“This is the frame I sent to Daddy’s hospital room. With my photo in it.”
Ruby doesn’t even bother to look up.
“The frame you sent was too good for County General Hospital,” says Ruby.
“I switched it and gave him an old one. Somebody woulda’ stole your frame.”
“Apparently somebody did.”
Home five minutes and Ruby’s pulling at her nerves.
But, Ruby’s already dismissed Amelia’s feelings about her father. Amelia wants to dismiss Ruby.
“Aren’t you on your way to the store?” asks Amelia sweetly.
“Oh yes, the commuters will be coming soon. And those construction guys will be wanting some fresh coffee.”
Ruby notices a pea-sized drop of tea spilt on the table. She rushes to put a saucer under Amelia’s cup before she dares to commit another household felony.
“Mom, that 7-11 those guys are building wants to put you out of business.”
But, Ruby knows best and would never second guess herself, even in the face of blatant business strategy.
“They pay good money for hot coffee.”
“And one of them whistled at me.”
“That’s why I always tell you girls to wear a girdle.”
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Serialized Novel, Part 6
When Ruby met Henry, he had money saved in one hand and the keys to a brand new Chevy Impala in the other. A lot of money. A lot of car. He had worked the railroads since he was 13 and had saved most of it. When he and Ruby married, he started working in a restaurant. Then opened his own little café.
Cooking was his life. It was also his death. The type of metals used in pots in those days had a corrosive effect on Henry’s brain. Over time. Binswanger’s Disease, named after Leonard Binswanger. Why would someone take so much pride in discovering a disease that they’d name it after them.
Binswanger’s gradually dissolved the seal around one’s brain. And with no protective coating, anything could happen. Anything did to Henry. For two years. And then he died.
And with him, a large part of Cleveland died. He tried to get over it. He tried to hide it. He was unsuccessful in both attempts. Time would prove the final arbiter. But, getting through the time was a type of hell for Cleveland that no one could ever guess the depth of.
He tries to shake it off by teasing Ruby.
“Now, we can have the funeral,” says Cleveland. “Folks sa been asking.”
Amelia’s surprised. “No one’s planned the funeral yet?”
“Mom won’t talk about it?” explains Cleveland.
Amelia jumps to an assumption. Death is always hard for those closest. Well, at least the funeral was something Amelia could handle. In fact, she felt glad to be able to offer her services in some way.
“I’ll take care of the arrangements, Mom. Just pick a day,” says Amelia.
“A day, a day mom?” teases Cleveland. “Hey sis, cool hair?”
Cleveland leaves before Ruby answers. A sure sign that Ruby’s response was not going to please Amelia. His footsteps fade up the stairs.
Ruby’s tone was light. Not something Amelia was used to. Ruby and light? An inherent contradiction that immediately made Amelia suspect.
“Your father ain’t been dead that long.” Strange how the way she said it came out sounding just the opposite. As if Henry had been dead in her mind, in her heart, so to speak, for longer than forever.
“Yeah, but I thought it had to be taken care of fairly soon…” says Amelia, “Before the body, you know…”
Ruby puts her jacket on. Seems more absorbed by the process of buttoning than in the subject of her husband’s death.
“What?” asks Ruby, “Wanders off and gets lost?”
Amelia just looks at her. Not understanding her mom’s casual attitude towards the death of her husband.
“He used to do that when he was alive,” continues Ruby, barely hiding her contempt, “the last few years before he went to the hospital. Wander off and get lost. And some kid would find him a block from him and bring him home.”
“The disease did that?” asks Amelia.
The water starts to boil. Ruby and Amelia bump into each other trying to turn it off. Even that accidental brush makes Ruby shy away. It made Amelia wonder how Ruby ever let Henry get close enough to her to have children. Not a thought she wanted to dwell on long.
Amelia takes down a cup from the cupboard. Ruby switches it for an older, bulkier one.
“This way, you don’t waste the teabag,” explains Ruby, as if she wasn’t explaining it for the millionth time to someone who could care less.
Cooking was his life. It was also his death. The type of metals used in pots in those days had a corrosive effect on Henry’s brain. Over time. Binswanger’s Disease, named after Leonard Binswanger. Why would someone take so much pride in discovering a disease that they’d name it after them.
Binswanger’s gradually dissolved the seal around one’s brain. And with no protective coating, anything could happen. Anything did to Henry. For two years. And then he died.
And with him, a large part of Cleveland died. He tried to get over it. He tried to hide it. He was unsuccessful in both attempts. Time would prove the final arbiter. But, getting through the time was a type of hell for Cleveland that no one could ever guess the depth of.
He tries to shake it off by teasing Ruby.
“Now, we can have the funeral,” says Cleveland. “Folks sa been asking.”
Amelia’s surprised. “No one’s planned the funeral yet?”
“Mom won’t talk about it?” explains Cleveland.
Amelia jumps to an assumption. Death is always hard for those closest. Well, at least the funeral was something Amelia could handle. In fact, she felt glad to be able to offer her services in some way.
“I’ll take care of the arrangements, Mom. Just pick a day,” says Amelia.
“A day, a day mom?” teases Cleveland. “Hey sis, cool hair?”
Cleveland leaves before Ruby answers. A sure sign that Ruby’s response was not going to please Amelia. His footsteps fade up the stairs.
Ruby’s tone was light. Not something Amelia was used to. Ruby and light? An inherent contradiction that immediately made Amelia suspect.
“Your father ain’t been dead that long.” Strange how the way she said it came out sounding just the opposite. As if Henry had been dead in her mind, in her heart, so to speak, for longer than forever.
“Yeah, but I thought it had to be taken care of fairly soon…” says Amelia, “Before the body, you know…”
Ruby puts her jacket on. Seems more absorbed by the process of buttoning than in the subject of her husband’s death.
“What?” asks Ruby, “Wanders off and gets lost?”
Amelia just looks at her. Not understanding her mom’s casual attitude towards the death of her husband.
“He used to do that when he was alive,” continues Ruby, barely hiding her contempt, “the last few years before he went to the hospital. Wander off and get lost. And some kid would find him a block from him and bring him home.”
“The disease did that?” asks Amelia.
The water starts to boil. Ruby and Amelia bump into each other trying to turn it off. Even that accidental brush makes Ruby shy away. It made Amelia wonder how Ruby ever let Henry get close enough to her to have children. Not a thought she wanted to dwell on long.
Amelia takes down a cup from the cupboard. Ruby switches it for an older, bulkier one.
“This way, you don’t waste the teabag,” explains Ruby, as if she wasn’t explaining it for the millionth time to someone who could care less.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
New Novel, 4th Section
Young Amelia’s on a Greyhound. Looking out the window and seeing nothing.
The bus gets emptier and emptier and it passes through manicured Northern Massachusetts…
Through smoky industrial founding father type towns…
Through others dank, lifelife, unidentified by droopy signs…
Through coastal areas helmed in by fog…
Through Narragansett, Rhode Island…
And finally…Amelia’s hometown, Millerstown.
The Millerstown of fifteen years past is a healthy working class, fishing mill community. Amelia drags her hand me down suitcase off the bus. The Millerstown Café and Sundries store demands a once over. Hmmm. A “Closed” sign is in the window.
She looks towards the docks. A few catch-the-dawn fisherman stand planted to the wood railing, their lines adrift in the waves 30 feet below. Some look as if they’d like to be with their bait six feet under. She starts to trudge down a lane, past five newly-planted elm trees. At the end sits a small split-level, Cape Cod style home.
Despite the newly-birthed trees, the home feels like death has taken up residence.
“Hey, it’s sis!”
The entrance of her brother, Cleveland, sweeps Amelia back from her teens, back to the present. The 17-year-old swings into the room. He’s slim, energetic, good-looking in a casual, unconscious way. Even in the plaid robe and bare feet he now sports, he’s teenage hip.
They hug. This time, it’s genuine on both sides.
“Cleveland, your feet’ll get cold,” interrupts Ruby, jealous of their friendship.
Cleveland waves off the comment. Turns back to Amelia.
“Shoulda’ known you’d show up? Always doing the right thing?”
Cleveland has a habit of ending every sentence like it’s a question. It sends Amelia into a playful mode.
“You look good. Must have some young hussy looking out for you,” she teases.
“Always, always, When’d you get here?” asks Cleveland.
“I planned for midnight. Just a lot of delays. Fog. Finally flew into Providence around four this morning.”
Ruby’s less than not interested. “I got to get to the store. You want anything to eat, Cleveland? I can make something before I leave.”
“You can make something for me,” says Amelia.
“You’re a grown woman. You can take care of yourself.”
It was always like this with Ruby. Not only didn’t she understand affection. Not only would she never be able to give it, accept it or fake it in this lifetime or the next. But, the site of it between others seemed like such a threat to the essential nature of her being, that she went out of her way to try to stifle affection in others.
O
h wait, she did seem to warm to it in her “stories”, the ones that repeat forever on TVLand. Maybe she accepted what she knew she could never control. Or perhaps because that was the past. That was then. This is too much of now.
Amelia opens the top of Cleveland’s robe a smidge. Picks at the hair on his chest.
“As if this ain’t grown man hair growing up under here,” retorts Amelia. And to herself. “Not again. I’m going to enjoy seeing my baby brother. Not even my mom’s gonna kill this moment.”
Cleveland starts picking at the hair on her head. Soon, they’re both slap-boxing playfully.
“Don’t rough house in my kitchen,” admonishes Ruby. Cleveland gives in with a wry smile and a gesture of hopelessness. Hopelessness? Another house characteristic.
“Ok, it’s starting,” says Cleveland. “Going to get dressed?”
“I’ll be here, least till Daddy’s funeral,” says Amelia.
That casts Cleveland into a kind of coma-recovery mode. For her brother, that happened all too frequently, she was soon to discovery. His eyes take on a far away aura. And pretty soon, it’s like only his body is in the room. Spirit? Essence?
A search through the entire Thomas Brothers wouldn’t fine them.
Usually when this happened, those around him would start to fidget in discomfort.
Gradually, they’d drift off one by one, concerned that they would think ill of him, but not finding any other choice. What they didn’t know was that when Cleveland emerged from these surprise attacks, he had no idea where he was or who he was talking to.
Cleveland never questioned the source of location of his reverie.
All he knew was that even though the thought of his father might have initiated these episodes, his father was not in them. As far as Cleveland knew. For not only did he have no memory of those he spoke to before the attack. He had no memory of what happened during those attacks.
But, except for the faint inhibition within the pit of his stomach, Cleveland suffered no ill effects. And after watching his dad shrivel up and die after two years, Cleveland felt a slight discomfort was nothing.
No one knew what had been wrong with Henry, their father. At least not until his death. The symptons seemed similar to Alzheimer’s. And because that was untreatable, no one looked any further.
Oh yes, doctors recommended cat scans. But, Henry came from a generation in which men didn’t go to hospitals unless they had bullet wounds or their wives were having babies. And maybe not even then. So, a cat scan was not an option. As for Ruby, she came from a generation in which you might undermind and hate your husband, but you certainly didn’t second guess them.
It took dying to finally figure out what had happened to Henry. Being the good husband. Being the good provider. Being the good dad. He died from a disease that a dead beat dad would never have caught.
The bus gets emptier and emptier and it passes through manicured Northern Massachusetts…
Through smoky industrial founding father type towns…
Through others dank, lifelife, unidentified by droopy signs…
Through coastal areas helmed in by fog…
Through Narragansett, Rhode Island…
And finally…Amelia’s hometown, Millerstown.
The Millerstown of fifteen years past is a healthy working class, fishing mill community. Amelia drags her hand me down suitcase off the bus. The Millerstown Café and Sundries store demands a once over. Hmmm. A “Closed” sign is in the window.
She looks towards the docks. A few catch-the-dawn fisherman stand planted to the wood railing, their lines adrift in the waves 30 feet below. Some look as if they’d like to be with their bait six feet under. She starts to trudge down a lane, past five newly-planted elm trees. At the end sits a small split-level, Cape Cod style home.
Despite the newly-birthed trees, the home feels like death has taken up residence.
“Hey, it’s sis!”
The entrance of her brother, Cleveland, sweeps Amelia back from her teens, back to the present. The 17-year-old swings into the room. He’s slim, energetic, good-looking in a casual, unconscious way. Even in the plaid robe and bare feet he now sports, he’s teenage hip.
They hug. This time, it’s genuine on both sides.
“Cleveland, your feet’ll get cold,” interrupts Ruby, jealous of their friendship.
Cleveland waves off the comment. Turns back to Amelia.
“Shoulda’ known you’d show up? Always doing the right thing?”
Cleveland has a habit of ending every sentence like it’s a question. It sends Amelia into a playful mode.
“You look good. Must have some young hussy looking out for you,” she teases.
“Always, always, When’d you get here?” asks Cleveland.
“I planned for midnight. Just a lot of delays. Fog. Finally flew into Providence around four this morning.”
Ruby’s less than not interested. “I got to get to the store. You want anything to eat, Cleveland? I can make something before I leave.”
“You can make something for me,” says Amelia.
“You’re a grown woman. You can take care of yourself.”
It was always like this with Ruby. Not only didn’t she understand affection. Not only would she never be able to give it, accept it or fake it in this lifetime or the next. But, the site of it between others seemed like such a threat to the essential nature of her being, that she went out of her way to try to stifle affection in others.
O
h wait, she did seem to warm to it in her “stories”, the ones that repeat forever on TVLand. Maybe she accepted what she knew she could never control. Or perhaps because that was the past. That was then. This is too much of now.
Amelia opens the top of Cleveland’s robe a smidge. Picks at the hair on his chest.
“As if this ain’t grown man hair growing up under here,” retorts Amelia. And to herself. “Not again. I’m going to enjoy seeing my baby brother. Not even my mom’s gonna kill this moment.”
Cleveland starts picking at the hair on her head. Soon, they’re both slap-boxing playfully.
“Don’t rough house in my kitchen,” admonishes Ruby. Cleveland gives in with a wry smile and a gesture of hopelessness. Hopelessness? Another house characteristic.
“Ok, it’s starting,” says Cleveland. “Going to get dressed?”
“I’ll be here, least till Daddy’s funeral,” says Amelia.
That casts Cleveland into a kind of coma-recovery mode. For her brother, that happened all too frequently, she was soon to discovery. His eyes take on a far away aura. And pretty soon, it’s like only his body is in the room. Spirit? Essence?
A search through the entire Thomas Brothers wouldn’t fine them.
Usually when this happened, those around him would start to fidget in discomfort.
Gradually, they’d drift off one by one, concerned that they would think ill of him, but not finding any other choice. What they didn’t know was that when Cleveland emerged from these surprise attacks, he had no idea where he was or who he was talking to.
Cleveland never questioned the source of location of his reverie.
All he knew was that even though the thought of his father might have initiated these episodes, his father was not in them. As far as Cleveland knew. For not only did he have no memory of those he spoke to before the attack. He had no memory of what happened during those attacks.
But, except for the faint inhibition within the pit of his stomach, Cleveland suffered no ill effects. And after watching his dad shrivel up and die after two years, Cleveland felt a slight discomfort was nothing.
No one knew what had been wrong with Henry, their father. At least not until his death. The symptons seemed similar to Alzheimer’s. And because that was untreatable, no one looked any further.
Oh yes, doctors recommended cat scans. But, Henry came from a generation in which men didn’t go to hospitals unless they had bullet wounds or their wives were having babies. And maybe not even then. So, a cat scan was not an option. As for Ruby, she came from a generation in which you might undermind and hate your husband, but you certainly didn’t second guess them.
It took dying to finally figure out what had happened to Henry. Being the good husband. Being the good provider. Being the good dad. He died from a disease that a dead beat dad would never have caught.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
New Novel, 3rd Section
A time so far away in time, yet always on the surface of Amelia’s memory.
She was only 13 and trying hard. Trying hard to fit in at a girl’s New England private school that didn’t usually let in people like her, people from mill fishing towns. Already she stood out. Here she was staying at the school through the Thanksgiving holiday because she couldn’t afford to go home. Sure there were a number of other girls doing the same. But, not because they didn’t have the money. Hell, there was more than enough money in the lives of these young women.
The family of Laurel Miranda had so much money that when she was sent from 90210 to this Western Massachusetts prep school, her parents transported her horses with her. Laurel’s father was a power player in the telecommunications world. Shipping and stabling a few horses for his daughter’s pleasure was nothing. But, actually seeing her and spending time with her over the holidays, now that was a bit much to ask.
So, when Laurel came towards Amelia on the lacrosse field…yes, lacrosse…Amelia knew she shouldn’t underestimate her. Laurel’s chance to release her frustration could mean a point in her favor, and against that of Amelia’s team.
Ouch!!! ABM!!! These bodies slam together. Sticks cross like lances.
Ten girls, 13 to 15 years of age, mud-stained uniforms, scowls to outmatch Wayne Gretsky.
“Ger her! Don’t let Amelia get inside!” shouts one teenager.
“I’m trying!,” huffs a second.
A third opponent, running and breathing hard, gasps out “Catch her. She’s just a sophomore.”
The amused coach, Ms. Burns, pipes in from off-field. “Girls, remember. Northfield Academy was founded on religion, not homicide.”
The 13-year-old Amelia makes a sudden break, pigtails flying. Or so she thinks. Oomph!! Laurel, Amelia’s roommate, plows Amelia into the ground. Laurel smiles her regrets…and sweeps the ball away.
Amelia fall to the ground. Clutches her stomach. Sudden agony. She looks surprised. The impact wasn’t that bad.
Suddenly, her vision clouds. The surrounding sounds disintegrate to a mesh of whispers. She feels something malevolent lurking. She strains to see. And still, a shrouded world. Oddly, she feels no fear. Just an overwhelming sadness.
A teammates’ admonishment brings her back.
“Amelia, get up!!!”
Clarity returns. Its as if time passed for her and no one else. She nervously laughs it off and charges after Laurel.
“Ok, Roomie, I’m warning you. I’m gonna’ sweep your feet,” laughs Amelia. They’re the best of friends.
"You can’t do that!!! Against the rules,” says Laurel indignantly.
“That’s why I’m telling you first. Perpetuating, girl,” says Amelia as she makes her move, trying to trip up Laurel. Laurel dodges the first attempt. Not the second. No such luck.
Splat!!
Laurel’s a lame duck in the mud. Amelia races back to her goal as her teammates hold off opposing forces. Amelia dashes back to assist Laurel. Laurel sits laughing in the mud. Amelia pulls her up. Laurel surrepticiously drops some mud down Amelia’s back and givers her a friendly pat on the back. Amelia jumps.
“Aaah!!!” she cries.
Ms Burns looks up. “Is something wrong, girls?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” says Amelia with a bright, false smile. “Watch your back, roomie.”
But, it’s Amelia who’s watching her back, wondering if her imagination was playing tricks. Or was it something or someone else?
By the evening, Amelia has passed off the incident as something from her imagination. Nothing to interfare with the fun of making hot cross buns with the other girls.
“Staying at school for Thanksgiving was the best decision,” laughs Laurel.
”Me too,” says Amelia. “Finally learning to cook.” The other girls look at her strange. “You don’t cook at home,” says one.
Amelia tells the truth without thinking. “Uh uh. My mom will cook turkey her way, which I love. But, if I ask her how to cook something, my daddy puts in his two cents. Then, they start fighting. And I never get to cook. Last Thanksgiving, my parents got so mad, dad threw the turkey in the dumpster.”
She looks up to see faces more shocked than she’d expected. Not at her story, but at her unusual expressiveness. She plays it off.
“Boy, that was one fowl Thanksgiving,” says Amelia. The other girls still aren’t sure how to react. Amelia flashes her most convincing smile. “A joke, girls. Come on.”
The other girls chill. But, Laurel’s concerned look says she knows otherwise.
“What time is it?” asks Amelia.
“Why?” asks Laurel.
“Girl, would you just tell me the time fore I give you five across the eyes,” laughs Amelia.
Laurel adapts a long-suffering “how long oh Lord” look.”
“About eight-thirty,’ says Laurel.
“I gotta call home before it gets too late,” says Amelia.
Amelia walks through the old-mansion-turned down house. Through the windows she psses…spacious grounds and turn of the century mansions. Tall, Methuselah trees. And in the distance, the Connecticut River, and the dim lights of 18th Century road lanterns. If any setting could bespeak tradition, wealth and family values, Northfield Academy for Girls would be it.
Taking two steps at a time, she jaunts up to the second floor hallway payphone. It was a vintage antique payphone. All mahogany with stained glass windows. Amelia felt positively elegant whenever she used it even though waiting for the heavy ringed dial to wind back after each number took a patience users of 90s technology were unaccustomed.
To Amelia, the sound engendered a contentedness within her. Rather it always did in the past. Not tonight.
She dials. The squeaker voice of an operator pierces her ear.
“Yes,” says Amelia. “This is a collect call from Amelia Chatman.”
She waits, blowing air on the window, drawing faces in it. Muffled voices drift over the line.
“Mom? Daddy?” Amelia’s tentative, wondering why someone would pick up the phone and not speak. Finally her mother breaks through in chilly tones.
“Amelia, is that you?”
“Mom, What’s wrong?”
“Who called you? Who told you to call” She could almost see her mother’s glaring eyes sweeping the room for a culprit.
“I told you not to call her. She doesn’t need to come home.”
Now, Amelia is freaking. The weirdness of the lacrosse field comes back to her. Is this what that meant? Did she ignore the warning that might have prepared her for this.
“Mom nobody called me. What’s wrong?”
Only silence. Amelia hears someone crying in the background. The crying generates an anxiety and fear in Amelia. Why doesn’t her mother simply tell her, she asks. Whenever it comes to Ruby, nothing was easy.
“Mom!!! Where’s daddy? I want to talk to Daddy,” insists Amelia. “I want to talk to daddy.”
But her mother had pulled rank and had had enough.
“Your brother’s dead,” Ruby says flatly. “The funeral’s tomorrow. But, you don’t have to come. We can…”
Ruby’s voice fades. Amelia stands in shock. The world, her world, fled.
She was only 13 and trying hard. Trying hard to fit in at a girl’s New England private school that didn’t usually let in people like her, people from mill fishing towns. Already she stood out. Here she was staying at the school through the Thanksgiving holiday because she couldn’t afford to go home. Sure there were a number of other girls doing the same. But, not because they didn’t have the money. Hell, there was more than enough money in the lives of these young women.
The family of Laurel Miranda had so much money that when she was sent from 90210 to this Western Massachusetts prep school, her parents transported her horses with her. Laurel’s father was a power player in the telecommunications world. Shipping and stabling a few horses for his daughter’s pleasure was nothing. But, actually seeing her and spending time with her over the holidays, now that was a bit much to ask.
So, when Laurel came towards Amelia on the lacrosse field…yes, lacrosse…Amelia knew she shouldn’t underestimate her. Laurel’s chance to release her frustration could mean a point in her favor, and against that of Amelia’s team.
Ouch!!! ABM!!! These bodies slam together. Sticks cross like lances.
Ten girls, 13 to 15 years of age, mud-stained uniforms, scowls to outmatch Wayne Gretsky.
“Ger her! Don’t let Amelia get inside!” shouts one teenager.
“I’m trying!,” huffs a second.
A third opponent, running and breathing hard, gasps out “Catch her. She’s just a sophomore.”
The amused coach, Ms. Burns, pipes in from off-field. “Girls, remember. Northfield Academy was founded on religion, not homicide.”
The 13-year-old Amelia makes a sudden break, pigtails flying. Or so she thinks. Oomph!! Laurel, Amelia’s roommate, plows Amelia into the ground. Laurel smiles her regrets…and sweeps the ball away.
Amelia fall to the ground. Clutches her stomach. Sudden agony. She looks surprised. The impact wasn’t that bad.
Suddenly, her vision clouds. The surrounding sounds disintegrate to a mesh of whispers. She feels something malevolent lurking. She strains to see. And still, a shrouded world. Oddly, she feels no fear. Just an overwhelming sadness.
A teammates’ admonishment brings her back.
“Amelia, get up!!!”
Clarity returns. Its as if time passed for her and no one else. She nervously laughs it off and charges after Laurel.
“Ok, Roomie, I’m warning you. I’m gonna’ sweep your feet,” laughs Amelia. They’re the best of friends.
"You can’t do that!!! Against the rules,” says Laurel indignantly.
“That’s why I’m telling you first. Perpetuating, girl,” says Amelia as she makes her move, trying to trip up Laurel. Laurel dodges the first attempt. Not the second. No such luck.
Splat!!
Laurel’s a lame duck in the mud. Amelia races back to her goal as her teammates hold off opposing forces. Amelia dashes back to assist Laurel. Laurel sits laughing in the mud. Amelia pulls her up. Laurel surrepticiously drops some mud down Amelia’s back and givers her a friendly pat on the back. Amelia jumps.
“Aaah!!!” she cries.
Ms Burns looks up. “Is something wrong, girls?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” says Amelia with a bright, false smile. “Watch your back, roomie.”
But, it’s Amelia who’s watching her back, wondering if her imagination was playing tricks. Or was it something or someone else?
By the evening, Amelia has passed off the incident as something from her imagination. Nothing to interfare with the fun of making hot cross buns with the other girls.
“Staying at school for Thanksgiving was the best decision,” laughs Laurel.
”Me too,” says Amelia. “Finally learning to cook.” The other girls look at her strange. “You don’t cook at home,” says one.
Amelia tells the truth without thinking. “Uh uh. My mom will cook turkey her way, which I love. But, if I ask her how to cook something, my daddy puts in his two cents. Then, they start fighting. And I never get to cook. Last Thanksgiving, my parents got so mad, dad threw the turkey in the dumpster.”
She looks up to see faces more shocked than she’d expected. Not at her story, but at her unusual expressiveness. She plays it off.
“Boy, that was one fowl Thanksgiving,” says Amelia. The other girls still aren’t sure how to react. Amelia flashes her most convincing smile. “A joke, girls. Come on.”
The other girls chill. But, Laurel’s concerned look says she knows otherwise.
“What time is it?” asks Amelia.
“Why?” asks Laurel.
“Girl, would you just tell me the time fore I give you five across the eyes,” laughs Amelia.
Laurel adapts a long-suffering “how long oh Lord” look.”
“About eight-thirty,’ says Laurel.
“I gotta call home before it gets too late,” says Amelia.
Amelia walks through the old-mansion-turned down house. Through the windows she psses…spacious grounds and turn of the century mansions. Tall, Methuselah trees. And in the distance, the Connecticut River, and the dim lights of 18th Century road lanterns. If any setting could bespeak tradition, wealth and family values, Northfield Academy for Girls would be it.
Taking two steps at a time, she jaunts up to the second floor hallway payphone. It was a vintage antique payphone. All mahogany with stained glass windows. Amelia felt positively elegant whenever she used it even though waiting for the heavy ringed dial to wind back after each number took a patience users of 90s technology were unaccustomed.
To Amelia, the sound engendered a contentedness within her. Rather it always did in the past. Not tonight.
She dials. The squeaker voice of an operator pierces her ear.
“Yes,” says Amelia. “This is a collect call from Amelia Chatman.”
She waits, blowing air on the window, drawing faces in it. Muffled voices drift over the line.
“Mom? Daddy?” Amelia’s tentative, wondering why someone would pick up the phone and not speak. Finally her mother breaks through in chilly tones.
“Amelia, is that you?”
“Mom, What’s wrong?”
“Who called you? Who told you to call” She could almost see her mother’s glaring eyes sweeping the room for a culprit.
“I told you not to call her. She doesn’t need to come home.”
Now, Amelia is freaking. The weirdness of the lacrosse field comes back to her. Is this what that meant? Did she ignore the warning that might have prepared her for this.
“Mom nobody called me. What’s wrong?”
Only silence. Amelia hears someone crying in the background. The crying generates an anxiety and fear in Amelia. Why doesn’t her mother simply tell her, she asks. Whenever it comes to Ruby, nothing was easy.
“Mom!!! Where’s daddy? I want to talk to Daddy,” insists Amelia. “I want to talk to daddy.”
But her mother had pulled rank and had had enough.
“Your brother’s dead,” Ruby says flatly. “The funeral’s tomorrow. But, you don’t have to come. We can…”
Ruby’s voice fades. Amelia stands in shock. The world, her world, fled.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
New Novel, 2nd Section
A hallway light flips on.
Amelia’s mother, Ruby Chatman, 50s, comes down the paisley carpeted stairs. He eyes are clear and unclouded for one her age. She pauses mid-level, hesitating, both wondering and worrying at who’d be calling so early.
But, then she surges forward, as if “what will be will be.” Besides, she’s preparing to go to work, herself.
Black pleated skirt stretches below Ruby’s calves. She rushes to button a high-collared floral blouse, step into black pumps sitting at the foot of the stairs, and strains to see through the curtained door window, all at the same time.
Ruby presents a matronly figure from her opaque panty-hose with reinforced toes, to her legs thickened by time and matted varicose veins, to the tight French twist imprisoning every strand of hair.
But, when she walks, her steps are light, her movements frenetic.
Ruby is an inherent contradiction, sometimes even to herself.
She pulls back a corner of the curtain just as Amelia finally negotiates the keys. Ruby jumps as Amelia, unknowingly, almost hits her with the full force of the door.
“Mom!!! I didn’t see you,” exclaims Amelia.
Amelia tries to keep the family Irish Setter, Kelly, from bounding outside. Finally, Ruby intercedes.
“Kelly!!! Go!!!!” says Ruby “In the kitchen.”
Ruby’s Tone? Harsh and cold as a Siberian winter. Kelly quickly obeys. Ruby’s a remote, recalcitrant woman with a visage that shows no hint of kindness.
Amelia hugs Ruby. Ruby half hugs, half pats Amelia on the back the way people never comfortable being warm do. Amelia’s expression says she’s used to it.
“Oh!!! I didn’t know you were coming so soon. Your brother wouldn’t come get you.” Says Ruby impatiently.
Ruby studiously ignores the tone. She’s determined to ignore any and all irritating statements from her mom, knowing that sometimes the fact that they came from her mother and not someone else was sufficient cause for it to be annoying.
“I didn’t want to bother him.” Says Amelia. “Besides, the way he drives, all up on people’s fenders. I’da been in some ditch.”
Ruby leads the way into the kitchen. Everything’s dour yellow. The walls. Stove. Fridge. Yellow. Dour. Ruby tries to lighten the room with a breezy tone.
“You painted again,” says Amelia.
“Just a few weeks ago. It rained. It leaked.”
Ruby’s the exact opposite of Amelia when it comes to words. Ruby’s inexpressive, uncommunicative. Amelia’s a speed-talker. Words, like swarms of bees, surround her.
“Mom, I keep telling you. You should get the leaks fixed so you don’t have to keep painting all the time.”
Amelia puts some water in a small pot on the stove to boil. She sits at the table. She’d really like a drink. But that would have to wait for later and certainly at a time when Ruby was absent. Despite the new millennium, Ruby was still back in the 60s when it came to women drinking.
Not that women didn’t drink back then. But, Ruby didn’t run in those circles. In fact, as far as Amelia could tell, her mother never ran in any circles that did anything fun. She just got married and had children, like most women who grew into their twenties in the 50s.
Ruby responds with irritation. It seemed the two had the same effect on each other.
“You don’t talk to me about painting my walls, I won’t say nothing about your hair.”
Ruby puts the water into a larger pot.
“That pot doesn’t cook water fast,” says Ruby.
“I’m not going anywhere fast,” Amelia retorts.
“I’m on the way to work,” says Ruby, “I don’t have time to make you breakfast.”
Ruby takes the suitcase from the corner that Amelia put it in and moves it closer to the door entrance. Her movements are nervous, frenetic, almost the opposite of Amelia’s.
Oddly enough, Ruby shys away from touching the hat that Amelia left near the suitcase.
Throughout her life, Ruby unconsciously redoes what others do, as if she’s fixing their actions.
Amelia looks at the plastic covering the table. She looks down the hall into the living room. Plastic covers the furniture there.
“Mom, why are you always covering stuff with plastic,” asks Amelia.
“Oh, Amelia, you know I like to keep my furniture nice,” says Ruby. Don’t start trying to change things.”
“I just always wondered. That plastic always sticks to my legs,” says Amelia.
“Not if you wore stockings like proper girls do. You girls never even wore girdles,” says Ruby.
Amelia smiles at the old-fashioned notion. Ruby takes it as an insult.
“You didn’t have to come home,” says Ruby.
A conversation of an echo…15 years ago.
Amelia’s mother, Ruby Chatman, 50s, comes down the paisley carpeted stairs. He eyes are clear and unclouded for one her age. She pauses mid-level, hesitating, both wondering and worrying at who’d be calling so early.
But, then she surges forward, as if “what will be will be.” Besides, she’s preparing to go to work, herself.
Black pleated skirt stretches below Ruby’s calves. She rushes to button a high-collared floral blouse, step into black pumps sitting at the foot of the stairs, and strains to see through the curtained door window, all at the same time.
Ruby presents a matronly figure from her opaque panty-hose with reinforced toes, to her legs thickened by time and matted varicose veins, to the tight French twist imprisoning every strand of hair.
But, when she walks, her steps are light, her movements frenetic.
Ruby is an inherent contradiction, sometimes even to herself.
She pulls back a corner of the curtain just as Amelia finally negotiates the keys. Ruby jumps as Amelia, unknowingly, almost hits her with the full force of the door.
“Mom!!! I didn’t see you,” exclaims Amelia.
Amelia tries to keep the family Irish Setter, Kelly, from bounding outside. Finally, Ruby intercedes.
“Kelly!!! Go!!!!” says Ruby “In the kitchen.”
Ruby’s Tone? Harsh and cold as a Siberian winter. Kelly quickly obeys. Ruby’s a remote, recalcitrant woman with a visage that shows no hint of kindness.
Amelia hugs Ruby. Ruby half hugs, half pats Amelia on the back the way people never comfortable being warm do. Amelia’s expression says she’s used to it.
“Oh!!! I didn’t know you were coming so soon. Your brother wouldn’t come get you.” Says Ruby impatiently.
Ruby studiously ignores the tone. She’s determined to ignore any and all irritating statements from her mom, knowing that sometimes the fact that they came from her mother and not someone else was sufficient cause for it to be annoying.
“I didn’t want to bother him.” Says Amelia. “Besides, the way he drives, all up on people’s fenders. I’da been in some ditch.”
Ruby leads the way into the kitchen. Everything’s dour yellow. The walls. Stove. Fridge. Yellow. Dour. Ruby tries to lighten the room with a breezy tone.
“You painted again,” says Amelia.
“Just a few weeks ago. It rained. It leaked.”
Ruby’s the exact opposite of Amelia when it comes to words. Ruby’s inexpressive, uncommunicative. Amelia’s a speed-talker. Words, like swarms of bees, surround her.
“Mom, I keep telling you. You should get the leaks fixed so you don’t have to keep painting all the time.”
Amelia puts some water in a small pot on the stove to boil. She sits at the table. She’d really like a drink. But that would have to wait for later and certainly at a time when Ruby was absent. Despite the new millennium, Ruby was still back in the 60s when it came to women drinking.
Not that women didn’t drink back then. But, Ruby didn’t run in those circles. In fact, as far as Amelia could tell, her mother never ran in any circles that did anything fun. She just got married and had children, like most women who grew into their twenties in the 50s.
Ruby responds with irritation. It seemed the two had the same effect on each other.
“You don’t talk to me about painting my walls, I won’t say nothing about your hair.”
Ruby puts the water into a larger pot.
“That pot doesn’t cook water fast,” says Ruby.
“I’m not going anywhere fast,” Amelia retorts.
“I’m on the way to work,” says Ruby, “I don’t have time to make you breakfast.”
Ruby takes the suitcase from the corner that Amelia put it in and moves it closer to the door entrance. Her movements are nervous, frenetic, almost the opposite of Amelia’s.
Oddly enough, Ruby shys away from touching the hat that Amelia left near the suitcase.
Throughout her life, Ruby unconsciously redoes what others do, as if she’s fixing their actions.
Amelia looks at the plastic covering the table. She looks down the hall into the living room. Plastic covers the furniture there.
“Mom, why are you always covering stuff with plastic,” asks Amelia.
“Oh, Amelia, you know I like to keep my furniture nice,” says Ruby. Don’t start trying to change things.”
“I just always wondered. That plastic always sticks to my legs,” says Amelia.
“Not if you wore stockings like proper girls do. You girls never even wore girdles,” says Ruby.
Amelia smiles at the old-fashioned notion. Ruby takes it as an insult.
“You didn’t have to come home,” says Ruby.
A conversation of an echo…15 years ago.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
New Novel, First Section just finished
Committed
A Novel
By Skye Knight
“Doors open for a reason, Miss”
The bus driver honked for emphasis. Not that Amelia Chatman needed the second reminder. She knew she was home. She just didn’t want to be there.
Sure, she had come of her own volition, with no prompting from or warning to anyone. In fact, no one even knew Amelia was arriving. After all, it was just yesterday that she had asked for an impromptu two-week vacation from her editor, crossed the country red-eyed on the red-eye, and scooted on the first morning bus for an hour-long ride past towns and villages still shockingly burned into her memory.
And through all her speedy preparations and the dusk to dawn flight, she knew she didn’t want to be home. Nothing good ever came of it before.
Amelia lugs her suitcase down the bus steps with a reminder to herself “I’m not here for something good.”
A sideways look from the bus driver lets her know that she actually verbalized the thought.
The bus door closes with the finality of a prison gate. It lurches away, its tires flipping bits of pebbles back at Amelia, almost as if the bus were spitting a goodbye.
When the dusk settles, it reveals Amelia to be a 28-year-old, eye-catching blend of West Coast funk and East Coast punk. She wears jean, topped off with a tie fitted top, flashing jacket and close-cropped, dyed copper hair with honey blond streaks. Everything about her shouts “Now!!!” Well, except for one thing. The 50s men’s Cavanaugh hat.
“Anywhere I hang my hat is home.” So sang Cleo Laine to the accompaniment of John Dankworth. So sings Amelia in a low melodic strain.
Amelia looks around. In many ways, the town has changed…and in most ways he hadn’t.
The fish business that once made its residents proud as well as prosperous? Dried up. The mill business? Taken elsewhere.
Millertown still had its charm, thanks to residents who refuse to let appearances reflect their vanishing bank accounts. In fact, the town still had its schools, banks, all the services one expects of a stable community.
But, the frayed around the edges taint gave away the fact that a healthy economy is not of the things Millerstown sports.
In other words, this is a town still loved by many, increasingly ignored by most. Betwixt boom and bedroom. A coastal community dying of thirst.
Amelia starts walking down a lane. He face reflects the resolution of a sidelined player unwillingly stuck on the permanently disabled list.
She passes a white oak tree. Her initials still engraved after all these years.
Suddenly a wolf whistle cuts the air. Amelia turns towards the sound. It’s one of several construction workers laying ground for a seedier version on 7-11, if such a thing exists. His admiring look doesn’t sway.
Amelia gives him the finger. Then pauses to light a cigarette. And continues walking the Cape Cod styled home at the end of the lane. Continues walking to death’s door.
She doesn’t notice the driver inside the dark gray sedan, a driver who’s been watching her since the moment she stepped off the bus.
Why should she have? Too busy talking to herself. Like now. “Get a grip, Amelia.”
Yeah, right. Like such an admonishment had ever worked any of the other times she had returned home and felt the same trepidation now staining her body with each step. Some people would say, you get what you wish for. Was that why within a day of each of her prior visits, something had happened that drove her to get a hasty return ticket and return to the comfortable superficial embrace of Hell-A.
But, here she was, pre-dawn and unprepared. The keys jangled in her hands as she fumbled at the carved oak entrance to the home where Amelia was born.
1. To be continued...
A Novel
By Skye Knight
“Doors open for a reason, Miss”
The bus driver honked for emphasis. Not that Amelia Chatman needed the second reminder. She knew she was home. She just didn’t want to be there.
Sure, she had come of her own volition, with no prompting from or warning to anyone. In fact, no one even knew Amelia was arriving. After all, it was just yesterday that she had asked for an impromptu two-week vacation from her editor, crossed the country red-eyed on the red-eye, and scooted on the first morning bus for an hour-long ride past towns and villages still shockingly burned into her memory.
And through all her speedy preparations and the dusk to dawn flight, she knew she didn’t want to be home. Nothing good ever came of it before.
Amelia lugs her suitcase down the bus steps with a reminder to herself “I’m not here for something good.”
A sideways look from the bus driver lets her know that she actually verbalized the thought.
The bus door closes with the finality of a prison gate. It lurches away, its tires flipping bits of pebbles back at Amelia, almost as if the bus were spitting a goodbye.
When the dusk settles, it reveals Amelia to be a 28-year-old, eye-catching blend of West Coast funk and East Coast punk. She wears jean, topped off with a tie fitted top, flashing jacket and close-cropped, dyed copper hair with honey blond streaks. Everything about her shouts “Now!!!” Well, except for one thing. The 50s men’s Cavanaugh hat.
“Anywhere I hang my hat is home.” So sang Cleo Laine to the accompaniment of John Dankworth. So sings Amelia in a low melodic strain.
Amelia looks around. In many ways, the town has changed…and in most ways he hadn’t.
The fish business that once made its residents proud as well as prosperous? Dried up. The mill business? Taken elsewhere.
Millertown still had its charm, thanks to residents who refuse to let appearances reflect their vanishing bank accounts. In fact, the town still had its schools, banks, all the services one expects of a stable community.
But, the frayed around the edges taint gave away the fact that a healthy economy is not of the things Millerstown sports.
In other words, this is a town still loved by many, increasingly ignored by most. Betwixt boom and bedroom. A coastal community dying of thirst.
Amelia starts walking down a lane. He face reflects the resolution of a sidelined player unwillingly stuck on the permanently disabled list.
She passes a white oak tree. Her initials still engraved after all these years.
Suddenly a wolf whistle cuts the air. Amelia turns towards the sound. It’s one of several construction workers laying ground for a seedier version on 7-11, if such a thing exists. His admiring look doesn’t sway.
Amelia gives him the finger. Then pauses to light a cigarette. And continues walking the Cape Cod styled home at the end of the lane. Continues walking to death’s door.
She doesn’t notice the driver inside the dark gray sedan, a driver who’s been watching her since the moment she stepped off the bus.
Why should she have? Too busy talking to herself. Like now. “Get a grip, Amelia.”
Yeah, right. Like such an admonishment had ever worked any of the other times she had returned home and felt the same trepidation now staining her body with each step. Some people would say, you get what you wish for. Was that why within a day of each of her prior visits, something had happened that drove her to get a hasty return ticket and return to the comfortable superficial embrace of Hell-A.
But, here she was, pre-dawn and unprepared. The keys jangled in her hands as she fumbled at the carved oak entrance to the home where Amelia was born.
1. To be continued...
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Novel
I will be posting chapters and/or sections from a novel that I am writing as I write it. I'm also working on a new spec script, but I won't bug all of you by posting that. Just laying low and writing a lot now because I keep running into hateful people who are hurting my heart.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Hello Friends,
I've been so busy working on my family tree, gearing up for my journalism classes in the fall, packaging my projects and trying to avoid sinister relatives that I'm afraid I've neglected you.
And even now I'm only back because I took the time to enter an ESPN essay ticket memory contest. And I thought my memory was so damn good that I'd post it here. Because obviously I didn't win or I'd be out shopping for what I would wear to Monday night's Lakers' playoff.
But, hey I wrote and someone is going to damn well read it. Might as well be you.
Here it is, my submission to the Mason and Ireland essay contest.
Memory Ticket
Submitted by Skye Dent
The year was 1985. I was enrolled at this snooty university in Providence, R.I. Brown University. But, I’d managed to get into a photography class at this hip design school that most people passed while walking down the hill from Brown into the city. It was called The Rhode Island School of Design. (RISD for short, pronounced Riz-D)
A decade earlier and RISD would have been known as cool. A decade later, it would be hip. But, in 85, we used the term “wicked” as in “He was wicked hot.”
Growing up, I had wanted to be Arthur Ashe. That wasn’t meant to be. But, suddenly, I heard that he was going to be inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R. I. I knew I had to be there. Somehow I got a ticket and an invite.
So, I took my Honeywell Pentex K-1000. If you know that camera, you know that was back in the day. Nothing automatic about that single lens reflex. The prism focus probably is considered as ancient as the wheel these days, or at least a spoke.
I hitchhiked to Newport and to the Hall of Fame. It was my first time seeing grass courts, everywhere. People were oh so proper, except for the sports photographers, who like most folks in sports journalism, are pretty down to earth.
The only problem was there were tons of them. Surprisingly, I managed to bluff my way onto the grass courts where Arthur Ashe was getting his award. Probably by saying I worked for the Brown Daily Herald, which was a bad student newspaper, but not as bad as every Brown Bruin sports team back then.
I inches my way closer and closer to Mr. Ashe. I couldn’t believe it. It was like The Red Sea parting. Suddenly, he looked directly at me and waved. I took the shot you see below. Realizing that I might be discovered for the faker I was, I backed away.
I looked around and realized, sadly, that I was the only black person there other than Arthur Ashe and his family. The sports photographers and others had let me through because they assumed, my being there and being black, that I was related to Arthur Ashe.
I looked back at Mr. Ashe and we shared wistful smiles.
In that moment, I knew that my being there, one sole black tennis fan, meant as much to him as it did to me.
Friday, April 2, 2010
David Mills - Yesterday Continued
I did say yesterday that I would post the piece that I wrote on David Mills. I was asked yesterday to read what I wrote if there is a memorial for him here in Los Angeles. But, I'm a writer, and a little too tall for podiums.
So, here it is.
I know that everyone will talk about what a great writer David Mills was. And indeed he was.
But, I remember him as someone who took the time to meet with a stranger, me, in the process of striving to be a TV and Film writer.
It was a number of years ago. I invited him to meet me at Itana Bahia's restaurant in West Hollywood. It was our first meeting.
In those days, I always offered to pay dinner, coffee, or lunch for the honor of meeting with anyone in the industry who agreed. They were the experts. They were giving me their valuable time. It wasn't a fair exchange because I got more out of it than they did. But, I was always taught not to try to get something for nothing.
David agreed to meet me. At first I thought it was because I had also left journalism for entertainment. But, in the course of the dinner, I realized that he was simply a giving person. He didn't need a reason to meet with me. My asking for his help was reason enough.
About a year later, when I was passing through Maryland, he offered to take me to the set of The Corner, a TV series that he had co-created. On the way, we stopped at a coffee shop. One of the writers of Homicide, the one who wrote the great subway train episode, was there. I tried to stand off to the side in case they wanted to have a private chat. But David pulled me into the conversation and introduced me as "a writer friend of mine".
We then went to the set. I had visited film and TV sets before. But, generally I was told to stand quietly in a corner. Even when I visited the set of a series for which I had written a freelance episode, I was told to blend into the background, and mind you, not stand too close to the director's chair.
Visiting The Corner was a different experience. David introduced me to director Charles Dutton and other key members of the producing staff. David explained what was happening in the scene, and talked with me about the script. And when others came to ask him questions, he kept me within the circle of conversation.
In this world, contacts matter. And David made sure everyone there knew I was a writer in a manner that made them think I mattered. For David, it wasn't just because I was a good writer than I mattered. It was because I was a person, a human being.
David believed that the heartfelt goals of every human being mattered. He could not help everyone with their goals. But, as one writer to another, one ex-journalist to another, he could help with mine.
Over the years, even though we did not see each other for long stretches, we kept in touch. I clearly remember one call I made. When he returned it, he said that he could not talk long because his mother had just died. But, just the fact that he returned the call at all in the midst of his grief says so much about his humanity.
And during the heights of success when he could have insulated himself in, let's face it, what is predominantly an all white male showrunner business, David's hands and heart were continually stretched out to other blacks.
Because David was light-skinned, most people thought he was white or Italian upon first meeting him. But, even while pitching to people who would clearly treat him differently knowing he was black, he would casually drop in a comment indentifying himself as black man.
Although he eventually created a blog called "Undercover Brother", in partial response to jealous peers who made negative comments behind his back, David always identified as being black. He was far from being the kind of "black writer" hire to write downtown characters. We know from his credits and his work as a journalist how versatile and extraordinarily brilliant he was as a writer and then producer. But, he was a "black writer" in the sense that being a writer and being black were of equal importance.
The last time we spoke, he was in New Orleans on his new pilot "Treme." We didn't talk long. I got off the phone quickly because I know the working days of a tv producer stretch long into the night. We just planned to talk when the pilot was finished. Who knew.
David's success in Hollywood was on a level beyond that of most any writers or producers in Hollywood. That in and of itself is enough to celebrate his memory and mourn his loss, especially at such a young age.
But, I will always remember him for the heart and courage he displayed in regularly being there for people of color on much lower levels. As K'naan calls it. "People like me."
David took the time to do things that maybe he didn't need to, but believed someone ought to do.
A successful man with an unchanging sense of ethics. Not many of those in Hollywood.
I hope your heart rests in peace, David, just as I hope you know that I will always carry within me... a piece of yours.
Skye
So, here it is.
I know that everyone will talk about what a great writer David Mills was. And indeed he was.
But, I remember him as someone who took the time to meet with a stranger, me, in the process of striving to be a TV and Film writer.
It was a number of years ago. I invited him to meet me at Itana Bahia's restaurant in West Hollywood. It was our first meeting.
In those days, I always offered to pay dinner, coffee, or lunch for the honor of meeting with anyone in the industry who agreed. They were the experts. They were giving me their valuable time. It wasn't a fair exchange because I got more out of it than they did. But, I was always taught not to try to get something for nothing.
David agreed to meet me. At first I thought it was because I had also left journalism for entertainment. But, in the course of the dinner, I realized that he was simply a giving person. He didn't need a reason to meet with me. My asking for his help was reason enough.
About a year later, when I was passing through Maryland, he offered to take me to the set of The Corner, a TV series that he had co-created. On the way, we stopped at a coffee shop. One of the writers of Homicide, the one who wrote the great subway train episode, was there. I tried to stand off to the side in case they wanted to have a private chat. But David pulled me into the conversation and introduced me as "a writer friend of mine".
We then went to the set. I had visited film and TV sets before. But, generally I was told to stand quietly in a corner. Even when I visited the set of a series for which I had written a freelance episode, I was told to blend into the background, and mind you, not stand too close to the director's chair.
Visiting The Corner was a different experience. David introduced me to director Charles Dutton and other key members of the producing staff. David explained what was happening in the scene, and talked with me about the script. And when others came to ask him questions, he kept me within the circle of conversation.
In this world, contacts matter. And David made sure everyone there knew I was a writer in a manner that made them think I mattered. For David, it wasn't just because I was a good writer than I mattered. It was because I was a person, a human being.
David believed that the heartfelt goals of every human being mattered. He could not help everyone with their goals. But, as one writer to another, one ex-journalist to another, he could help with mine.
Over the years, even though we did not see each other for long stretches, we kept in touch. I clearly remember one call I made. When he returned it, he said that he could not talk long because his mother had just died. But, just the fact that he returned the call at all in the midst of his grief says so much about his humanity.
And during the heights of success when he could have insulated himself in, let's face it, what is predominantly an all white male showrunner business, David's hands and heart were continually stretched out to other blacks.
Because David was light-skinned, most people thought he was white or Italian upon first meeting him. But, even while pitching to people who would clearly treat him differently knowing he was black, he would casually drop in a comment indentifying himself as black man.
Although he eventually created a blog called "Undercover Brother", in partial response to jealous peers who made negative comments behind his back, David always identified as being black. He was far from being the kind of "black writer" hire to write downtown characters. We know from his credits and his work as a journalist how versatile and extraordinarily brilliant he was as a writer and then producer. But, he was a "black writer" in the sense that being a writer and being black were of equal importance.
The last time we spoke, he was in New Orleans on his new pilot "Treme." We didn't talk long. I got off the phone quickly because I know the working days of a tv producer stretch long into the night. We just planned to talk when the pilot was finished. Who knew.
David's success in Hollywood was on a level beyond that of most any writers or producers in Hollywood. That in and of itself is enough to celebrate his memory and mourn his loss, especially at such a young age.
But, I will always remember him for the heart and courage he displayed in regularly being there for people of color on much lower levels. As K'naan calls it. "People like me."
David took the time to do things that maybe he didn't need to, but believed someone ought to do.
A successful man with an unchanging sense of ethics. Not many of those in Hollywood.
I hope your heart rests in peace, David, just as I hope you know that I will always carry within me... a piece of yours.
Skye
Thursday, April 1, 2010
David Mills - Sorry For Our Loss
Hello,
Just because I have a new blog, don't expect to read a lot from me. I make my living as a writer. TV. Film. Newspaper columns and features when they let me.
So, why should I give away my words for free?
I can't actually say that I will be. I have no idea where this will lead. But, on a blog, there's room to share a lot more than one can share on Facebook, Linked In, or Twitter. And yes, I have them all. But, hey, you're talking to a chick who used to make her own yogurt. So, you know I don't half-step on anything.
In addition to being a writer, I'm a communications professor. Journalism. TV writing. Film. Documentary production. I'm all about the medium and the message. So, I keep up to date with all things communications wise so that I can try to stay one step ahead of my students. "Try" being the operative word. Though I must admit that InDesign is kicking my butt.
Please forgive me if you think I'm starting off on a dark note. Of course I am dark. A black choctaw latina. So, I guess every time I start anything, it's on a dark note.
However, another reason I'm starting this blog today is because I wrote a short remembrance of former journalist and TV writer David Mills, a friend of mine who died this week on the set of his new HBO series "Treme." Friends who read it say that I should post what I wrote.
But before I get to that...Treme is about life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
And ironically, during the one time in which I was back east this year, the college students I met expressed very passionate emotions about the news coverage of Katrina. Students that were not even in that state, and yet were still emotionally outraged. Treme will be of great interest to them and perhaps make viewers who watch it feel the way that they and others still do.
Back to my remembrance of David, I originally sent it to David's Facebook site and some of my friends. One of Variety's top journalists, Brian Lowry published part of it on his blog today. My friend Donna wrote to say that I should repeat it at David's memorial.
Emotionally, I know I'd never be able to get through delivering it all verbally. But, for the students who I met, who will inevitably watch Treme when it airs in April, I wanted them to be able to read something about David from someone who he had helped and encouraged for many years.
But, at the same time, since, as I said, parts of it are in Brian's column, it would be rude to print them today, on the same day that his column runs. As a writer, I have great respect for other writers.
As to why my blog is called Possibly Go Wrong? Well, I wanted to name it Possibly Go Right. But, that was already taken. I simply didn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about a name. And Possibly Go Wrong turned out to be available. Who knew.
In any case, I have a project due on Friday. So, I have to get back to that.
If you go to variety.com/bltv, you can read what Brian has to say and a bit of what I had to say. And if that piques your interest, come back and you'll be able to see the rest.
Speaking of rest, R.I.P. David Mills. You will not soon, or ever, be forgotten.
Skye Dent
P.S. If you look me up on Facebook, I'm the chick standing in front of the car wearing black sweat pants with a Japanese design. Not one of the other three Skye Dents. My production company web site at www.theroxburyprojects.com.
Just because I have a new blog, don't expect to read a lot from me. I make my living as a writer. TV. Film. Newspaper columns and features when they let me.
So, why should I give away my words for free?
I can't actually say that I will be. I have no idea where this will lead. But, on a blog, there's room to share a lot more than one can share on Facebook, Linked In, or Twitter. And yes, I have them all. But, hey, you're talking to a chick who used to make her own yogurt. So, you know I don't half-step on anything.
In addition to being a writer, I'm a communications professor. Journalism. TV writing. Film. Documentary production. I'm all about the medium and the message. So, I keep up to date with all things communications wise so that I can try to stay one step ahead of my students. "Try" being the operative word. Though I must admit that InDesign is kicking my butt.
Please forgive me if you think I'm starting off on a dark note. Of course I am dark. A black choctaw latina. So, I guess every time I start anything, it's on a dark note.
However, another reason I'm starting this blog today is because I wrote a short remembrance of former journalist and TV writer David Mills, a friend of mine who died this week on the set of his new HBO series "Treme." Friends who read it say that I should post what I wrote.
But before I get to that...Treme is about life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
And ironically, during the one time in which I was back east this year, the college students I met expressed very passionate emotions about the news coverage of Katrina. Students that were not even in that state, and yet were still emotionally outraged. Treme will be of great interest to them and perhaps make viewers who watch it feel the way that they and others still do.
Back to my remembrance of David, I originally sent it to David's Facebook site and some of my friends. One of Variety's top journalists, Brian Lowry published part of it on his blog today. My friend Donna wrote to say that I should repeat it at David's memorial.
Emotionally, I know I'd never be able to get through delivering it all verbally. But, for the students who I met, who will inevitably watch Treme when it airs in April, I wanted them to be able to read something about David from someone who he had helped and encouraged for many years.
But, at the same time, since, as I said, parts of it are in Brian's column, it would be rude to print them today, on the same day that his column runs. As a writer, I have great respect for other writers.
As to why my blog is called Possibly Go Wrong? Well, I wanted to name it Possibly Go Right. But, that was already taken. I simply didn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about a name. And Possibly Go Wrong turned out to be available. Who knew.
In any case, I have a project due on Friday. So, I have to get back to that.
If you go to variety.com/bltv, you can read what Brian has to say and a bit of what I had to say. And if that piques your interest, come back and you'll be able to see the rest.
Speaking of rest, R.I.P. David Mills. You will not soon, or ever, be forgotten.
Skye Dent
P.S. If you look me up on Facebook, I'm the chick standing in front of the car wearing black sweat pants with a Japanese design. Not one of the other three Skye Dents. My production company web site at www.theroxburyprojects.com.
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