Oklahoma is an Egg

a.

It is Sunday. Stan cracks eggs in the sink. I have cracked the world, Stan mumbles. Stan eats eggs for breakfast and wonders if he would have liked being born Swiss.

b.

Stacey has blood on her face and she is crying and she is in the middle of the street. There are cars in the street and the cars are stopped. Why are all the cars stopped, Mike asks. Mike drives a Saab and he has high cheek bones. Why did you buy a Swedish car, Dan asks.

c.

You should tell the girl to get out of the street, Mike says to Dan. Get out of the street, Dan says to the girl. The girl does not move but the girl is still bleeding and she looks like she is from a movie that is about killing. Dan is a bus driver. He weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds. The children are in the bus and the children are making noise.

You should tell the children to be quiet, Mike says to Dan. Be quiet children, Dan says to the children. The girl is trying to kill herself, Jill says. I don't think the children can be quiet on Sunday, Dan says.

d.

The race is on Sunday. The race is uphill. There are many runners in the race.

e.

The Sunday paper says that the children in Oklahoma are hungry and that the children in Oklahoma do not have that many clothes and that the children in Oklahoma are really poor. Have you heard about the children in Oklahoma, Dan asks Mike. Why is the girl still in the street, Mike asks. She is still trying to kill herself, Dan says. I am going to miss the start of the race, Mike says. Did you know that the race is uphill this year, Jill asks.

f.

The race starts because the gun is fired. The men and women run uphill and the people on the grass clap their hands and some of the people give the runners water. The runners look serious and they run up the hill very fast and they look like they are meant to run uphill and it is quite a race. This is quite a race, Stan says.

g.

Now the girl has scissors in her hand and she is cutting herself and now her arms are bleeding and she is not crying anymore but she is very pale and she looks thin in the eyes. At least she has stopped crying, Mike says. The children in the bus are not making noise anymore. The children are watching the girl in the street. She is like a monster, Sally says. Sally is twelve.

h.

It is quite frightening, Dan says, to take the whole world and turn it on its end. But it is a good way to get to heaven and it is a good way to know how strong you are. Mike nods and Mike takes off his racing number and he walks back to his car. She will be dead soon, Mike says to Tracy. We missed the race, Tracy says.

Occasionally, it is the oddest thing to see a girl cut her arms open with scissors in the middle of the street in the middle of the city. She didn’t even cry all that much, Mike mutters, not even when she started taking off her skin.

i.

I think I am going to buy Oklahoma, Stan says to Rita. Oklahoma is very poor and the people in Oklahoma do not have that many clothes. Do they have eggs in Oklahoma, Rita asks. I don’t know, Stan says.

j.

In the afternoon, Buck wins the race and he stands on top of the hill and he looks at the mountains and he thinks that the mountains are very beautiful like they too were made from an egg.


[s]

Hank runs into the Law and gets sidelined

I.

Hank strangles Lilly. Lilly is the name of a flower. There are flowers in the garden and the flowers are red and orange. It is the doctor’s voice and it is in my head and Hank is screaming because he has red hands. It seems that Lilly was bleeding in her mouth and then she was bleeding on the rug and Hank tried to make her stop. But she was dead because she had been strangled. It is the doctor’s voice again.

There is science in the auditorium every Thursday. The first graders are making little volcanoes and the second graders are making biospheres. Nothing can get in and out of the biosphere. A little while ago, some scientists made a gigantic biosphere. The biosphere was the size of a mall. Some of the scientists lived in it for a while. The scientists had white robes and they walked around the biosphere with clipboards. Each day, the scientists wrote down numbers and the numbers were quite clever at dividing everything into cause and effect. It is consequential thinking, the doctor says. It is his voice again and it is in my head.

Or maybe the numbers on the clipboards said what the things were. I don’t remember. Biospheres are complicated. The radio says that soon there will be biospheres in space because space is a vacuum. That is probably a practical conclusion to the story of the dividers. They sure have been at work for an awfully long time. It would be humorous to see them advance and evolve to the point that they were living in space.

They really are dividers. It isn’t so much a legend anymore. That is the doctor again. He comes in like that, sometimes. I think he is at the door and then he is inside. He wears glasses and his hands are cold and my heart beats faster when he is in my house but I am not excited and I am certainly not sexually aroused.

Not scientifically.

Lilly asks Hank to strangle her. She asked you, the doctor asks. Yes, she asked me. There were strange wires in her head and the wires were telling her to sit and then to stand and then to sleep and she said the wires were connected to her chest. I had to stop the wires, I say in the end. So you strangled her. There is one last step and it is not really like the rest of the steps, the doctor says and he is smug and he is writing many notes that detail me. You took the last step and you killed her. Now the doctor is cleaning his glasses.

Lilly is bleeding in her mouth and the television is on and the man on the television is saying that a bomb went off in a shopping mall in the capital. A lot of people on the television are in pain and the people have faces that look like they are really scared. I think that the people on the television think that their lives are really important. Maybe their lives are really important. It doesn't really matter, though, their lives are almost over. The television also shows pictures of blown up people and some of the people have metal lodged into their chests and some of the people don’t look that unhappy--even though they are dead. Some of the people look like the last step hadn’t been that bad. Maybe the last step didn't really have anything to do with them at all. Or science.

Hank is in jail because the men and women in the courtroom say that he is guilty and that he should live in jail. Hank lives with Matt. Matt likes to steal cars and Matt likes to burn cars. Sometimes, Matt shoots guns at people. You are going to be in here for a long time, Hank says. I know, Matt says. Shut up, the prison guard says. It is after eleven. They have only made the rules, Hank says.

The prison is not so unhappy, at least for a moment.

II.

The fabled and provocative concern that the rules are made by the bystanders circuitously and perhaps unfavorably finds the ears of the Minister. He was ruthless in his first term and he was congratulated by moderate and humble society for his excellence in preservation. The pinnacle of government had never witnessed a command as thorough, strict and meticulous. It was, therefore, decidedly unfortunate that he was to witness such a complaint early in his second term. In truth, there were several occasions that he remembered quite well. He remembered hunting duck, walking along the shoreline and throwing stones, and eating ice cream at a parlor on Baker St. These were memories and were splendid additions to his life. How could these truly be spectator events.

It is surprising therefore, his wife later recalled, that he hastily shot himself after parading naked through French Hills, a quaint and wealthy neighborhood.

[s]

Convert

I.

i.

She is gathered on her end and she is stained and in a ditch. There is a darkness in the unshadowed mind of the unsettled tyrants. She is unmarried and she is fair. The turns of the morning’s events stir and become the attention of the underburdened aristocracy. She is unmarried and fair.

ii

Yes, she is unmarried.

iii

The rest of the saturated men are not equaled nor proselytized as quickly. You are a king she says and she is unsurprised by his surprise. The north star, he says. He was converted early and he was married early. She is an ape.

iv

On the often unbeaten chance that she might allow him to suicide, there are the directions in the drawer and the directions say: Stop.

She is a unmarried, sir. Her hands have been cut off and are on the floor of the main hall of the castle. We live in a fucking castle, he says. And now she has no hands to add to her duality.

The men that are in the hall applaud and smile. She has been loved prior to the arrangement between two sophisticated and sure countries. We are afraid, President Honreau says.

II.

i.

The man twists and is morality. It is only his individual hope and understanding that permits him to succeed in establishing the black and white society. It is a state that is torn and split between a moral dirt and an untamed criminal seed.

Enough, he says and he is faintly crippled but secure. He thinks, sometimes, about his own balance.

There were not these types before, counsel says. These are the fingered hands of an unskinned settler. This is the thanks. The day is not un-wet.

The world again has come to war against them. It is all that is understood. This, however, is not unlike any reality the world has not known—could not ever know. Better yet, it is the only world that could be possible.

She doesn’t have any fingers. She doesn’t have any hands. And she is breaking. It is, therefore, infinitely mysterious, she says. It is complex and rude and holy and unholy. It is something and one thing to its finite inhabitants.

And we do, after all, die. I have not been passing things along as well as others, he supposes.

ii.

This is it, perhaps, to us. To the world, there is always the next time. Turn into the war again and turn and cut her hands off again. We, or something else, is here. He is an advisor to the prince and he muses with himself in the early mornings. Each day like the one before it—except to one who knows that there are only so many days or there are not. We clever dividers.

iii.

These are now times to suicide or to un-adorn and to drive to know the skin and heart of man and woman. Or lush and lurk and play. She is smiling and he is smiling and she has no hands because they were cut off.

Prophet?
Prophet?
Prophet?

There are not those types here. Sit and settle. It is time to live the second half. Here I may sit.

[s]

It is a National Holiday

Part Ones

He is a fish and he is trying to swim in the street and there is water in the street. He is a fish and he is captured and he is dried out. He walks like he doesn’t have that many bones in his legs, Betty says.

Part Twos

Champagne costs $11.95 at the corner store. The hospital car is white and red and the hospital car has a loud siren and the siren is on.

My mother gives me $15 and I go to the store and I tell Betty that I want two dozen eggs and three loafs of bread because my mother is going to make French toast. My younger brother, Sammy, has throat cancer and the doctor says he is going to die. Does he like French toast, Dr. Holland asks my mother. He loves French toast, my mother says. We are out of eggs, Betty says.

The woman in the street is a hooker and she has sex with men and some of the men have cars and some of the men wear suits and some of the men look like they work in offices downtown. They have names like Bob and Dave and Mike and Sean. Bob and Dave and Mike and Sean give the woman $25 and she makes them feel really good. I have $25 but I stay in my room and stare at the wall. I have a picture of Madonna on my wall.

The nurse is thin and pale and her veins stick out of her arm and she sticks needles into Sammy. You are going to die, the nurse says but she doesn’t look at Sammy. You have bad skin, Dr. Holland says to Sammy. A little while ago, Sammy was a really good basketball player. Now, he sits in bed and vomits and looks really sick like he is death.

Part Threes

Sammy is playing basketball and then Sammy is turning white and then Sammy collapses on the basketball court and he is taken to the school nurse and his nose is bleeding. He has cancer, the school nurse says. Sammy is ten and he is tall. Soon, he is white like people shouldn't be white and he loses all his skin and he loses all his hair and he looks like a monster.

Oh my, the nurse says.

The red and white truck comes to the school and the truck takes Sammy to the hospital and the nurse at the hospital sticks needles into his arm. Sammy has round eyes and he is sweating and he is looking very bad. The nurse was correct, the doctor says later, you are going to die.

Everyone comes to the funeral and Sammy looks very white when he is dead. The mother cries and says Sammy was soon to be eleven. She is a silly woman. A girl in a blue and white dress plays the guitar and sings a folk song. It isn’t really funny that the boy is dead but it is pretty funny that the girl is playing guitar and singing a folk song.

Part Fours

It is odd that I am terrified of people, the doctor says. He is such a horrid thing, the nurse says. Betty raises the price of champagne to $14.95. The man who is a fish has skin that peels off and sticks to the street.

[s]

a fade

a.

The mother is in surgery and the doctor cuts open her chest and the mother is bleeding on the table.

b.

He is in the bathtub and it is Sunday afternoon. He is untying his skin and his blood is hot and it is warm outside but it is not warm inside. The room is white and the walls are white and the sink is white but it all looks yellow because the light is yellow.

c.

You had webs in your feet when you were born, the mother says but she is whispering and the doctor is touching her heart and she has more blood on the hospital floor. The sunrise, outside, is like a monster and it is red like an explosion and a car on the highway drives into the grass.

d.

It is a line that he has heard. It is a line about dawn and darkness and a finger that comes in and has no hand. He shakes it off and the water in the tub is not as warm anymore and he thinks that he has not been dreaming that softly. The previous summer was like hell, he thinks.

e.

The doctor has a yellow car that is yellow like it would be if the light were yellow and the room were white. Like my bathroom, he says. Like it would be if I died in this bathroom, he says. The doctor nods and shakes his shoulders like he just got sensitive in the neck.

f.

The mother is from a working class family and her kids are all grown up and have jobs.

g.

Sew her back up. There is still time, in the later part of the evening, for a circle. The children hold hands and sing a song.

h.

There isn’t that much room for her in the waiting room. She stands and holds her bathrobe close to her body because she is still bleeding and she is bleeding on the floor and her chest is not closed that well. There is not really an illusion that is all un-real. It just seems that the struggling are suicidally lit.

i.

He gets out of the tub and he decides, rather quickly and harshly, that there is not time for the hot blood. He dries himself and then it is difficult to see him because most of the things around him begin to fade because he puts dirt on top of them.

j.

The mother is an excited soil and it is a long exodus to winter.


[s]

American

I.

She is decided to suicide. The slow ride in the car from the wake was enough to tell her that she shouldn’t have to see anymore. She has small cuts on her feet and she is a small girl and she has lost most of her color and now she looks white.

The water breaks and the baby is born and the baby has dark hair and dark eyes and the doctor is from India or Pakistan or Afghanistan. Why is my baby dark, Mrs. Hanley asks. You fucking Arab, Mr. King says.

II.

The dance is for teenagers and the teenagers are white and the teenagers dance like they are having sex. The DJ plays rap music and Mrs. Hanley touches Mr. King.

Mike is on the junior varsity tennis team and Mike has sex with Sally in a parked Ford Escort and Sally gets pregnant and Sally is dark. You fucking whore, Mike says.

III.

There are little animals with horns and the animals are in the street. There are white people being murdered and there are white people sticking needles into small babies and there are white people urinating and defecating in the churches and it is raining.

We don’t want anymore of that fucking music in our town, Principle Harris says.

IV.

Why do you live in the basement, Hollis asks Michelle. The basement is flooded and there are animals with yellow eyes in the basement and the animals make squeaking sounds and Hollis is scared. My sister is home soon and then it won’t be as scary, Michelle says.

V.

I had sex when I was fifteen and the baby was born dark, Mrs. Stevens says and she makes little crying noises in the pantry because she can’t sleep. You have bruises on your ribs, Dr. Jacobs says.

Sally has no clothes on and she is in the park and soon her stomach will become round and she starts to cry and it is dark and the white people with needles are banging trash can lids and they are close.

VI.

There is a baby in the street and the baby is dark. Why is the baby in the street, Hollis asks Michelle.

She suicides and later he learns how to Waltz and the chaperones at the dance wear perfume and drink seltzer.

[s]