Several months back I decided to start getting serious about submitting fiction out into the world. I got online and found some resources to hundreds of literary magazines (online and print). And for a month I submitted one short story a day.

I received the expected dozens of rejections. But I also found homes to two stories. One will come up in October or November (in a physical publication). And one came out in August / September in the online journal, Rum Punch Press. The story is “Nicer in First Class.” CLICK HERE to see it in situ on the site. [NOTE: I have removed the link, as it appears the Rum Punch Press has sadly gone out of business.]

Or, read it below:

NICER IN FIRST CLASS

Last summer I was flying back to Texas from California. I had driven out west on a road trip with an old friend, and he popped for my return passage. It was the first time I had flown since 9/11 and the increased airport security. After a series of tedious indignities I discovered, at the boarding kiosk, that the plane had been overbooked. But before I could voice my disapproval, I was informed that the airline would happily upgrade me to the first class section.

There is something wonderfully nostalgic about the Burbank Airport, which I believe is officially the Bob Hope Airport. The deco charm is still fresh about the concourse and boarding areas. As for the final boarding, passengers cross the tarmac like in a Humphrey Bogart movie. I moved with a knot of passengers up the impromptu staircase which had been rolled alongside my plane.

They had apparently already seated the first class passengers, because when I entered through the flank of the DC10, the stewardess, upon glancing at my ticket, flashed me a genuine smile and cut me from the herd. I was gently escorted through a curtain into the front portion of the plane. She sat me down beside a tanned and bearded man in his late fifties. He looked up at me with a pleasant nod, used his boarding pass as a bookmark, and placed his Peter Hathaway Capstick Reader into the little pouch on the back of the seat in front of him. He introduced himself as Gerald Westdale, but I should call him Gerry.

“So, what line are you in?” Gerry asked, stroking his beard.

I made some vague mention of independent film.

“Oh, I’ve heard all about you Texas movie boys!” he responded with a grin. “My nephew works over at Lions Gate. He says no one fucks with the Texans. Uncle Gerry, the boy will tell me, you don’t cross the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, Bill Wittliff, even Robert Rodriguez, ’cause they’ll fuck you back harder’n a heifer.”

I tried my best to convey a noncommittal smile.

“Boy don’t know much about the cattle business,” he added. “But he’s passionate.”

I asked what Gerry did for a living.

“Ought to be retired,” he said. “Least that’s what the ex-wife keeps telling me. But I can’t just sit around playing cards or teaching myself golf. Nope. I broker large equipment for small outfits. The oil business, you know. Used to be wide open territory here and abroad, especially back in my daddy’s day. Now I’m mainly working for smaller concerns drilling Texas, New Mexico, and some in the Gulf.”

Once in flight, with the “fasten seat belts” sign off, Gerry made sure we were both well taken care of with champagne. “The only time I drink champagne,” he told me with a declarative simplicity as the stewardess filled our crystal flutes, “is when I’m airborne.” The two of us clinked our glasses and took a sip. Gerry looked out his window and then turned back to me. “What else would you drink above the clouds? A beer or bourbon? Unlikely.”

Throughout the flight there was never a moment when we didn’t have a drink in hand, and it was refreshed constantly, as if by magic. He did most of the talking. As a raconteur, he delivered the goods.

We both ordered the poached salmon. When our lunch arrived we fell silent as we ate. I discovered that one of the reasons to fly first class is that the aisles are wider, so that flight attendants can always come to your aid with more liquid refreshments, even during that time when meals are being distributed.

“I have a little hobby,” Gerry said solemnly. And then he smiled, his cheeks now bright red from the wine. “Not so little, really. It has become a damn expensive hobby. It’s what I’ve heard, at times, referred to as adventurous gastronomy.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Like eating those poisonous puffer fish. Or drinking coffee from civet cat scat.” And I started to giggle because of the way those last three words so gracelessly tripped off my tongue, and, well, because of the wine.

“That amateur shit’s for kids and tourists,” Gerry replied dismissively. “Condor egg omelets, or maybe skirt steak from a giant panda ― that’s what I’m talking about. Rarities. Don’t let anyone steer your otherwise ― endangered meat is the sweetest.” He twisted around in his seat and looked straight at me. “There’s a pygmy sea tortoise that comes ashore on Tiburón Island ― that’s in the Sea of Cortez ― and the inhabitants of the island, the Seri tribe, make this incredible stew from the little endangered tortoises.” He smiled and looked off into space. “Yes, I played the game. All above board. The local government agreed to provided me, as a gringo, with a license to harvest one, and eat it. Let me tell you, it put a dent in the wallet. But if heaven serves lunch ….” And then he sighed. “But it’s unlikely I will ever have it again, what with the new laws in Mexico concerning endangered species.”

Gerry turned away and watched the clouds go by out his window for a while.

“My next such meal,” he suddenly said, turning back to me, “was a pure guerrilla operation. Completely under the radar of those goddamn government agencies. I headed out to Grand Comore, an island in the Indian Ocean. Just me and an adventurous cordon bleu trained chef. We put out the word what we were looking for and we waited.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “The Comoros, that’s coelacanth territory.”

“And that salmon me and you just ate ― as dry and soulless as airplane food tends to be ― would get four stars from Zagat compared to the goddamn coelacanth, if you’ll pardon the French. And speaking of the French, that’s where my chef was from. And he tried everything in his repertoire. I mean, the fish was pretty damn big. We tried it fried, baked, poached, sautéed with shallots and fresh basil ― and fresh basil isn’t so hard to come by on Grand Comore, just so you’ll know …. Um, where was I?”

“Not so savory,” I said, smiling up at the stewardess as she refilled my glass.

“The only thing that came close to acceptable was with it boiled and ground up, you know, like gefilte fish. And why not? The gefilte carp is also pretty much a boney, prehistoric fish.”

“But you don’t crave the coelacanth like the Mexican turtle soup?”

“Oh, sweat lord! We spent 12 weeks in the slums of Tsudjini just waiting for a fisherman to find one of those fossil fish. The anticipation was extraordinary. And the reality … oh, dear me.”

“Hey,” I said, with a giddy slur. “I have a fossil fish story. It’s not a living fossil. And, well, it isn’t really a fish.”

Gerry nodded with an indulgent and encouraging smile.

“Maybe twenty years ago,” I said, “the second time I dropped out of college, I went out to spend a month with a friend on his cousin’s ranch in West Texas. The cousin had to deal with some legal issues or something. And it was really just me and this guy house-sitting. Not a working ranch. No animals.”

I tore open a packet of peanuts and let them slide into my mouth. While chewing, I continued.

“I was clearing some brush off of a flat level of ground half a mile from the ranch house. And I realized I’d found a fossil. At first I thought it was a fish, but as I kept digging, it was turning into a pretty big fish. Dinosaur? I was getting excited. My friend had left for a few days to attend his sister’s wedding back in Austin, so it was just me and a shovel. When I finally uncovered the fossil, I realized it was a trilobite. A monster of a trilobite.”

“Oh?” Gerry leaned forward. “How big?”

“Volkswagen,” I said.

“You’re saying it was eight feet from nose to tip of the pygidium?”

“The what?”

“Its behind.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I measured it to eleven feet by six feet.”

“This is incredible. It’d be the fucking Loch Ness monster of the Ordovician!”

“Well, hold on there. The Loch Ness monster is, well, it’s like a monster. I’m talking about just a little … well, you said it ― Volkswagen.”

Gerry leaned forward and pulled a bag from under his seat. “This is very exciting. The largest trilobite known ― and I can’t recall it’s name ― well, it wasn’t even close to three feet long.”

As Gerry dug through his bag, I tried to recall that summer out at the ranch. It was twenty years ago. And one of the things I didn’t share with Gerry was that this friend of mine often drove his rickety Subaru down to Terlingua to buy peyote from a Mexican rancher. The stuff tasted awful, but it was very interesting.

Gerry unfolded a geological map of Texas, and then he refolded it so it was only showing the trans-Pecos area of the state.

I was about to place my finger on the region, a little dot between the Chinati and Bofecillos mountain ranges which is called Casa Piedra, when I noticed that the whole area of the Big Bend region on Gerry’s map was colored orange.

Now I didn’t have to look at the map key to know that orange represented depositional material. In this case, lava flows and ash fall. The whole region suffered cataclysmic volcanism ― and this happened well after the reign of the dinosaurs, and certainly the trilobite. Any such fossils would be well buried under the volcanic material. In fact, that’s why my friend had to drive so far to get peyote. The stuff prefers limestone rich soil.

Having studied a bit of Texas geology I knew all this stuff. But somehow I never let science fact and my dim memories of a summer lost years ago to surface in my mind at the same time. They were simply not compatible pieces of information. And then the whole thing about this gigantic trilobite. I know how big a trilobite is supposed to be. True, back then I only knew their basic shape. But, over the years, with reading and nature films and such, I added pieces here and there, filling in the picture of natural history. But this particular memory was never allowed to be reanalyzed in the light of reason.

Gerry was waiting. With his knowledge of geology, I knew he’d think me foolish were I to point to Casa Piedra, so I let my finger drift over to an empty region to the east, near the little town of Sanderson, where I knew there were plenty of exposed limestone beds of the ancient Permian seas which would be logical trilobite territory.

He made a mark with a stubby pencil, and mentioned something about alerting his wildcatter friends who scouted for oil fields in the region to keep their eyes open for weird fossils.

As Gerry dropped off into a doze somewhere over the Painted Desert, I began trying to untangle fact and fantasy, those spurious knotted tendrils of memories. After half an hour I accepted a plump pillow from a flight attendant and decided to give up, and so I allowed the uncertain past to fall away as quickly as Burbank Airport was receding from behind us in a billowing contrail.

My friend Fabiola Torralba wrote me into a public art grant. And as is the nature of these endeavors all too frequently, my involvement shifted from that of an active collaborator into more of a documentarian. The work was titled “Satelight Dance,” and involved a series of workshops open to the public to contextualize specific sites in downtown San Antonio, historically and personally (with input from the participants). These workshops, as well as a final performance, moving through the city, occurred during July of 2016. This short film I created gives some context to a final presentation Fabiola delivered at Jump-Start Performance Co.’s space on August 10th, 2016.

Deborah Keller-Rihn created a community arts festival called Lighten Up, which was presented on August 6th, 2016. In many ways it resembled the Noche de Recuerdos festivals I worked on with her in the past. This Lighten Up event was more energetic, less reflective. But, still, quite a success. I decided to add, as my offering to the event, a short animated film which looped. It was projected just above the waterline at the little casting pool across from Woodlawn Lake.

Here’s a shortened version of my film, sped up and with some audio elements. The imagery was taken from the same photo shoot with Michi Fink which led to the photos I submitted to the CARAS III group show in September.

Earlier this summer Laurie and I embarked on a quintessential American road trip to the west coast and back. The excursion lasted for the full month of June; however, we did stay for two weeks in Santa Rosa, house-sitting for a friend.

This is the second part of my two-part travelogue (Part 1 is can be found by clicking here).

Santa Rosa is in the middle of the Sonoma Valley wine region, and thus a hotbed of upper crust new money privilege. Not really my scene. But it quickly became apparent why the area is so popular. It’s fairly cool in the summer and in the middle of low picturesque mountains.

We were surrounded by three parks: Annabel State Park, Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, and Hood Mountain Regional Park. I wandered around Annabel Park on several hikes. And one day I climbed to the summit of Bald Mountain in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park.

One of our day trips was out to the coast. We headed west to Bodega Bay, made popular in Hitchcock’s The Birds. The little fishing village was crammed with quaint boutiques and bistros, so we headed a bit north to Bodega Head, a parkland overlook, affording beautiful views of both the bay and the ocean.

Further north along the coast, just beyond the Russian River, is Fort Ross, a Russian settlement which was established in 1812, and abandoned finally in 1842. I never knew that the Russians had permanent settlements this far south on the Pacific coast. It was a very photogenic setting.

Probably the most memorable part of those excursions out from Santa Rosa toward the coast, was the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a bit unnerving to drive, but probably more unnerving for Laurie, who was in the passenger seat. On the return trip, she had a perfect view of the precipitous  drop to the rocks below. We did stop a few times to take pictures. As I had recently figured out how to take panoramic photos with my iPhone, I made sure to do so at this scenic overlooks.

We did a fair amount of reading, writing, and relaxing while in Santa Rosa. And a few less involved day trips. Such as a photo safari to the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery.

Our most ambitious day trip was in to San Francisco. We were instructed to take the Golden Gate Transit bus into the city. Very handy. I was rather nervous to see San Francisco again after so many years. I lived there for about a year when I was twenty-one. That was over thirty years ago. That period in my life made a major impact on me. It was the only time I lived in the heart of a truly iconic and cosmopolitan city. I worked low paying jobs as diverse as security guard in the trolly yard and warehouse worker at Rough Trade Records. I spent my free time shamelessly being a tourist in my own city; getting drunk in the early afternoons in seedy bars in the Tenderloin; writing bad poetry in Haight Street falafel joints; frequenting the repertory cinemas; and attending punk show in clubs long ago shuttered. I knew how much the city had changed over the years, especially since the rise of Google and kindred headquarters for culturally disconnected millionaires, and I was prepared for the shock of change.

It was as I feared. The street-level culture has been swept away. No grit; no punks, hippies, nor beatniks. But, in many ways, the city looks much the same. It still has an unpolished charm and breathtaking beauty.

I’m afraid I dragged Laurie around much more than she was ready for. And I’d forgotten how hilly the city is. We visited Coit Tower, a place I’d never been. City Lights Bookstore. Amoeba Records (where I bought a Faun Fables album, and the one Silver Jews CD I don’t have). We ate in a wonderful dive in Chinatown where I had something called a mooncake, which I quite liked. And we walked the length of Haight Street from Golden Gate Park, to Fillmore Street, to find the house I used to live in. My memory is rather hazy, but I think I located it. It’s still a wonderful city, it just doesn’t feel exciting and filled with promise anymore—but that might just be me.

Once our house-sitting responsibilities were done with, we begun the next leg of our trip. We headed north. We were making good time until we hit the region on the coast of the giant redwoods. We had to stop a few times to a gawp in awe. That’s Laurie atop the tree laying on the ground.

And then we had to get back on the road. Laurie had reserved us tickets to The Winter’s Tale at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. We made it to our motel, cutting it pretty close. But the theater was just a few blocks walk, and we got to our seats with plenty of time. It was a wonderful production. We both enjoyed the second half more (and not just because the second half of this play is so much more engaging and playful, but because the costuming and set design was much more effective).

The next day we headed up to Portland, to meet up with my friend Jenny. She toured us around a few of the lovely, historic parks. Treated us to a couple of meals. Showed us a surprising amount of quirky Portland places. And was the perfect host! Here are some pictures from the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park.

Our next stop was the coastal town of Astoria, mostly famous as the location of the movie The Goonies. A friend from back in my retail days, Laura (AKA, Pooka) had moved there recently with her husband and two kids. I had seen photos she had posted on FaceBook, but wasn’t prepared for just how stunning the town was. Especially from their home. The panoramic photo below is from their back porch. They took us to dinner and then drove us out to the location of the wreck of the Peter Iredale, a ship that came aground in 1906. Part of it is still there, sticking up from the beach. It was a lovely place to watch the sun set.

The next stop was to visit some friends of Laurie’s who have a cabin at the Lake of the Woods in Oregon. I have a hard time reconciling a two story home with all modern conveniences which sleeps eleven as being referred to as a “cabin”—however, it has been chiefly constructed of wood, so I guess it is cabin-ish. It’s beautifully situated on the shore of an alpine lake surrounded by tall trees.

The next morning, on the way back to California, we paused to photograph Mount Shasta.

We drove through California’s central valley, beyond Sacramento, and then headed east into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada to the town of Sonora. A cousin of Laurie’s lives outside of that town in another well-appointed cabin. The place was crammed with their extended family. There were, as I recall, nine people, other than me and Laurie. We slept the night in a very nice trailer, which I believe has yet to be taken out onto the road. We had S’mores before bed, and in the morning, after breakfast, a rather spirited and politically divided conversation. Just because I don’t agree with them doesn’t mean I didn’t think they were lovely people. They were. One should try and share meals (as often as mental health will allow) with those who hold core values divergent from one’s own.

On the road to our next destination, we made a 100 mile diversion to Calaveras Big Trees State Park to commune with the giant sequoia trees. They had a different quality from the giant redwoods. The setting was less lush and the sequoias more sporadically situated about the area. There was one downed tree which was hollow and we walked the length without having to stoop. It took longer than we anticipated, and we found ourselves back on the road later than we had planned.

We rolled into Pebble Beach, where my Aunt Diane and Uncle Jim have lived since the sixties. It was dark by the time we were waved through by the guard in the kiosk. I’d never been before, and wasn’t aware it was a gated community. There is a fee (though as guests we were allowed in for free), and I believe the entrance fee goes toward the upkeep of the roads throughout the wooded and residential area which is tangled up with the eight (!) golf courses in the unincorporated community. The GPS had us backtracking and trying to read the street signs with a flashlight (there are no street lights). Luckily, Diane was waving at us from her door.

We had a warm and rewarding two day visit. We were toured around the peninsula, with visits to Carmel-By-The-Sea, Cannery Row, a picnic at the Pebble Beach fire department, and a stop at one of the famous country clubs.

Diane made sure we left with some of her artistic creations. She makes, among other items, gift cards and hand-painted scarfs. The experience was interesting—we were taken care of in a warm enclave of political lefties (Jim and Diane’s home), whilst surrounded by what I must assume were boiler-plate west coast millionaire Republicans.

And then, we drove down the coast, skirted LA, and headed east to spend two days with Laurie’s Aunt Lois in the town of Yucaipa, California. It was another warm visit, and I enjoyed being treated as family. Lois showed us around. We visited the neighboring town of Redlands. Also, we hiked in a park up the mountains near the town of Oak Glen.

Then we left California and made our way to a campsite in Arizona, up in the cool pine woods of the Prescott National Forest, with enough elevation that it almost got chilly at night.

The next morning we had just enough time to drive through Sedona, and we made a stop at the Chapel of the Holy Cross, a beautiful bit of architectural minimalism.

Our penultimate night on the road was spent in Albuquerque at the home of Laurie’s friend Pandora, and her wife. We were welcomed by their pack of dogs, which included two excitable corgis. In the morning Pandora treated us to breakfast at the Native American cultural center where she does volunteer work.

The next night we camped out in Hueco State Park, near El Paso.

And it was a straight drive all the way across Texas to San Antonio.

In an attempt to be more productive I’ve been trying to devise a routine. And stick with it (that’s the difficulty). It’s harder now that I’ve embarked on a month-long tour of the west, with all of the distractions and novelty which journeys provide.

Because I am most comfortable with calling myself a writer, I’ve decided to start a proactive push to submit work. I realized I don’t do that any more. And because, in the course of my life, I’ve submitted short stories to a handful of publications, my brain (as brains do) has filled in the big blank spaces during which I never did anything of the sort, so that I think I’ve been actively engaging with the literary world as a writer much much more than I have. The current plan is to submit a short story every day. Well, more like six submissions a week. This seems a bit less extreme considering I have a novel in progress which is, essentially, forty interconnected short stories, and then there are the slew of flash fiction prose poetry things coming out of this Invocation project.

I am now closing out week six. From the simple math, I should have thirty-six submissions. But I have sent out into the world only twenty-eight. Still, impressive. To date I have seven responses. And to help me trudge forward in this questionable course of sending prose out to literary magazines and sites which, for the most part, pay nothing, I have received one acceptance (with six rejections). It has not yet appeared live on their journal’s site yet. I hope they don’t change their minds.

I’m traveling the month of June with Laurie. In fact, this trip came out of an invitation from a friend of hers who lives in Santa Rosa, California. Martha booked a cultural tour of Cuba and needed someone to look after her place and her cat, Andre, for her two weeks abroad. Not only did we agree, but we decided to extend our trip for two more weeks, to visit some of our friends and relatives (so many people end up on the west coast).

Camping whilst on the road appeals to me because I love sleeping under the stars and am somewhat, to put it kindly, frugal. Laurie, not so much in either category. Our compromise was to never camp two nights in a row.

Our trip out from San Antonio brought us, on night one, to a campsite I’ve enjoyed before in New Mexico. It’s just outside of the town of Carrizozo, on the edge of the Malpais lava field. It’s about halfway between the birthplace of Smokey Bear and the Trinity Site, where the first nuclear bomb was detonated.

We then took out across New Mexico, past the Very Large Array radio telescope, into Arizona, up onto and down the old Route 66, before stopping for the night in a well-preserved semi kitschy Hill Top Motel in Kingman, Arizona.

The next leg of our trip took us up into Nevada, towards Las Vegas. But first we made a detour at the Hoover Dam to check it out.

And then straight into the maw of Las Vegas (because neither of us have ever been). Even in the light of day, it’s, well, something else. We gawped with, I think, appropriate incredulity, and headed on our way. I had hoped we might pull into a parking lot of some iconic casino, such as Caesers Palace or the Tropicana (sadly, I believe the historic Pair-O-Dice Club was shuttered decades ago), and scurry into the appalling opulence just long enough to lose forty dollars in a couple of slot machines and dash right back out. However, the place just isn’t set up for some casual pop-in, like a visit to your neighborhood drug store. Fine, actually. Just a drive down the strip was all either of us wanted.

Our escape route took us into the heart of Nevada, a land whose beauty is, for the most, unsullied by humanity. Things got a bit kooky on Nevada State Route 375. It’s colloquially referred to on the road signs as the Extraterrestrial Highway (presumably because of it’s proximity to the notorious Area 51). It’s loose livestock country (meaning grazing cows are not kept by fences from blundering into the road), and the warning signs–iconic cow silhouettes–have been embellished with pictures of flying saucers and space aliens.

That night we camped at a fairly isolated park, Nevada’s Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park. The park, in the foothills of the Shoshone Mountains, surrounds an abandoned mining town. For a place seemingly so far off the main tourist paths, the camp site was over half-filled. It’s a beautiful and picturesque place.

The following day took us over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, cresting at infamous Donner Pass, and into California. In early June there was still some snow on the ground. This final leg was the shortest drive. After Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada, it seemed unexpected to cross an entire state so quickly. Ah, skinny California.

We’ve been in a very unremarkable suburban development for the past week. Well, there are mountains everywhere you look. Peaceful, unscripted days. Day trips, writing, reading, even a Skype session with our writing group. And we have another week here in Sonoma Valley, before we head up into Oregon, and on to the next series of adventures.

May 25th, 2016, Laurie Dietrich and I presented a variation of Invocation for the W-I-P’s end-of-season event, W-I-P Crème. As guest artists for this review show, we decided to create a piece specifically for the evening. Crème-ation is an eight minute mini-Invocation, where five short prose pieces were chosen randomly from a collection of twelve. In keeping with the Invocation approach, each story was accompanied by a projected photo, and a building soundscape. The show was staged at Jump-Start Performance Co., San Antonio, TX.

Bihl Haus Arts has been providing arts events, education, programing, and more to communities in San Antonio and beyond for a little over a decade. They asked me to provide them with a series of videos which they could use to solicit funding to continue their crucial work.

Here are three short videos we created.

My friends at Jump-Start Performance Co. asked me to provide a little testimonial video for their 2016 Big Give fundraising push. I brought in some company members, community artists, and other supports. I just let them talk about what the organization means to them. It turned out very sweet and heart-felt.

As we move towards staging our Invocation, Laurie and I decided to test out the waters with a smaller version. Our friends at Jump-Start Performance Co. (a theatre company of which we both have been members) were presenting one of their 8 x 8 shows, and we were asked to contribute.

The 8 x 8 was created as an easy way to initiate programing during Jump-Start’s challenging and rather disruptive move from a large venue to a much smaller and less performance-ready space. Members of the organization and their friends were asked to create small, easy-to-stage works. For a run of eight (nonconsecutive) evenings, eight 8-minutes works were performed on a stage measuring eight feet by eight feet. The shows would start at 8pm, and cost 8 dollars per person. Each night would be a different show.

It was wonderful, diverse, and filled with surprises. The acts ranged from theatrical scenes, monologues, poetry, music, dance, film, and the more irksome to categorize pieces which often just get lumped in as performance art.

This time around, the Spring of 2016, 8 x 8 was titled “8 x 8: Cabaret du Jump.” Instead of a slightly raised 8′ x 8′ stage, there was now an eight foot cube fashioned from PVC pipe to perform within.

When we were invited, Laurie and I decided to each do a solo piece, and we would also perform a piece together (since, really, we’ve amassed all this gear for the upcoming Invocation: projector, PA, speaker stands, microphones, music stands (with dual gooseneck LED lights), et cetera). It was Laurie’s idea to titled our two-person presentation “Invoc8tion.” We came up with a plan to go on a road trip, and let those experiences inform, not just Invoc8tion, but our solo pieces as well.

Armed with cameras, notebooks, and audio recording equipment, we headed out on Highway 16 deep into the Texas Hill Country.

On April 1st, 2016 we each shared the stage with some extraordinary artists, and we presented our solo pieces to a packed house. The following night, we performed Invoc8tion, our miniature foray into enhanced storytelling, merging spoken word, projected animated images, and a slowly building soundscape. You can watch most of it on the video below, shot by our friend (and Jump-Start founder) Sandy Dunn.

The Wagon Master was inspired by a small watercolor I saw for sale at the San Antonio State Hospital. There is a little monthly thrift shop on the premises, Trinkets and Treasures. My friend (and actress with whom I often collaborate) Pam has taken to cajoling me out there as often as we both have open schedules. I rather liked the naivete of the work, as well as the sense that there was something, well, off. Anyway, I took a quick photo of the painting with my cell phone and moved along.

Later, the painting inspired a short vignette which made its way into Invocation. And around this time, Pam inquired if I might write something for Jump-Start’s 8 x 8. She wanted an eight minute monologue, to be presented during the first weekend of April, 2016. I decided to expand the Wagon Master piece, and change the gender of the narrator to female. Pam, of course, did a wonderful job performing the piece. But, also, she took it upon herself to return to Trinkets and Treasures (on a day when I was unavailable) and purchase the painting of the Wagon Master.

Below is a photo of the painting. And below that, the monologue itself.

THE WAGON MASTER

[She sits on stage in front of an easel, painting on a small board which the audience can’t see.]

You really have a nice smile. I like painting men who smile. The mouth is easy, but I always have a hard time with the eyes. I’m getting better. Or so I like to think. The light’s nice in here. But I bet you wish we could be outside in the sunlight, right? I know I would. I think I can hear the birds singing right now.

[Pauses to listen.]

Who?

[Pauses.]

Oh. Yes, we still see each other. On occasion. But he never liked art. No passion for it. I remember this time we were at that little thrift shop over at the State Hospital. They open the gates, you know, once a month and sell donated items they didn’t need. Or, sometimes, the arts and craft items made by the patients. Little wooden backscratchers. Ceramic monkeys. Wallets. Fundraising I suppose. Everyone needs money these days.

I dragged him along, hinting that he might find some golf clubs or maybe a ratchet set. He didn’t seem too impressed with what was offered. But you never know what unexpected gems you might find at these places. I could wander all day, from room to room, table to table. There’s this subtle energy when you pick up a crocheted doily, and you can almost feel the pain of those aged and arthritic hands of someone’s grandmother working long into the night…and that great sense of pride she must have felt in the finished work. You should never dismiss commitment to craft.

I called his attention to a piece of art. He put down the salt and pepper shakers he’d been examining. I watched his eyes cross over the childish painting for maybe two seconds before he shook his head and turned away. I wondered if a patient had painted it. I enjoyed the naiveté of the little watercolor on pasteboard. So lively and vibrant! The image was of a crudely fashioned cowboy smoking a pipe. He was seated at a table playing poker, or whatever cowboys play. The piece was titled “The Wagon Master.” It was priced at three dollars. Not bad for original art. Right?

When we returned home, I hung it in the breakfast nook where we ate most of our meals. It wasn’t long before I noticed he had moved it to the opposite wall. I commended him on positioning it so that it got better light. He confessed that he moved the painting so he didn’t have to look at it. He explained that the cowboy looked like a serpent.

I laughed at that. “A serpent smoking a pipe? Playing cards? Really. Besides, he’s not a cowboy, he’s a wagon master.”

But now he had ruined it for me. No matter how the light hit it, I couldn’t help but see a snake, staring down at me. Every meal was fraught with a dull sense of dread. My morning coffee, which used to be the most comforting part of my day, was spent thinking: Is this what the artist saw? Every time he looked at a person? A snake glaring back at him? On the bus. At the bakery. Every smiling face on the television would stare back with those lifeless eyes of a cold-blooded predator.

“You’re coffee’s getting cold,” he said one day, walking in from the kitchen. When he kissed me on my neck, I turned up to him only to see slitted pupils and a forked tongue…well, for just a moment. I think I almost screamed. When he left for work, I hid the painting in the attic with the Christmas tree decorations. We never mentioned it again.

But it was too late. Those serpent eyes were well imprinted on my brain, and I was seeing them everywhere.

Please sit still. I’m working on detail. Well, not everywhere. If everyone suddenly had them I suppose I could just let snake eyes be the new normal. But, no. It seemed arbitrary. My hairdresser,  the entire staff at the deli, and my niece’s Pekinese were so obviously reptilian. And I couldn’t well look at my husband anymore. And you, well, you know how that turned out. Then there were the normal ones. Looked the same as before. My neighbor Louise, and I know well what she does to pay the bills. No saint there. Maybe the snaky ones were the good guys. Like the noble wagon master. It all got very confusing.

In retrospect, my husband was rather remiss to take me to the gun range that day. It must have been obvious even to him that I had been quite agitated for some time. And in all candor, I had been self-medicating ever since the snakes showed up.

Really, you’re fidgeting again. I’m trying to get the outlines of your features. Funny how a painting got me into all this mess. And now making little portraits like this is helping me get back. Well, that’s my plan at least. It’s rewarding to see myself progress from those early canvases of square houses in two dimension. A stick figure family on the lawn, waving. Up in the corner the smiling sun with spiky sunbeams. And now, well, who would have thought. I mean, right here, I’m layering in shadow to give your nose depth. I’m wanting to start on your lips, but they took away my red. I know it wasn’t you, but, still…. How irksome. Just because of my little fingerprinting experiment. You remember? Those decapitated boy scouts? I thought they’d appreciate a mural in the activity room. Personally I thought it so vigorous, with a good deal of action. Something to look at other than the television with the Home Shopping Network. I mean, I really managed to tell a story. And you know, I would like to work in large scale again. In fact—

[Pauses to listen.]

Oh. Oh, no. Is our time up so soon?

[Looks up. A new person has entered.]

You know, this always seems so silly. I can find my way back to my room on my own. But, okay, if I need an escort. And he is dressed so nicely…. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?

[Pauses.]

Good. It’s a date. I need to work more on the tail. Painting scales is so therapeutic. So soothing.

[She exits.]