An empty room
Dead center
She is sitting in the only chair
Roses lay in her lap
And make a pile
Like blood
Around her feet
Four windows
One in each wall
Are open
Wind blows every curtain
Straight out
White as sheets of ice
Rigid and parallel with the floor
Only her fingers move
Easily and in a rhythm
Like she is playing the piano
Her mouth is painted
Ands she smiles
Red
And you can almost breath
The goddamn ST. LOUIS BLUES
WOMAN VOICE:
I hate to see the evening sun go down
Hate to see the evening sun go down
Cause my baby he done left this town
Feelin tomorrow like I feel today
Feelin tomorrow like I feel today
I'll pack my trunk, make my get away
ST. LOUS WOMAN…WITH HER DIAMOND RINGS
PULLS THAT MAN ROUND'…BY HIS PUPPET STRING
'TWANT FOR POWDER…AND FOR STORE BOUGHT HAIR
THE MAN I LOVE…WOULD NOT GONE NO WHERE
GOT THE ST. LOUIS BLUES JUST AS BLUE AS I CAN BE
THAT MAN GOT A HEART LIKE A ROCK CAST IN THE SEA
OR ELSE HE WOULDN'T HAVE GONE SO FAR FROM ME
Been to the Gypsy to get my fortune told
To the Gypsy, to get my fortune told
'Cause I'm most wild about my jelly roll
Gypsy done told me "Don't you wear no black"
Yes she done told me "Don't you wear no black"
Go to St. Louis, You might win him back
CAN MAKE ST. LOUIS BY MYSELF
GONE DOWN TO THE DESERT FIND MY OL' FRIEND JEFF
GOIN TO PIN MYSELF UP CLOSE TO HIS SIDE
IF I FLAG HIS TRAIN, I KNOW HE'LL LET ME RIDE
I LOVE THAT MAN LIKE BASEBALL LOVES THE SKY
LIKE A BLUE RAT LOVES HER CHEESE AND RYE
I'LL LOVE MY BABY TILL THE DAY I DIE
I hate to see that evening sun go down
hate to see that evening sun go down
Cause my baby he done left this town
Feelin tomorrow like I feel today
Feelin tomorrow just like I feel today
Gonna pack up my trunk, make my get away
ST. LOUIS WOMAN…WITH HER DIAMOND RINGS
PULLS THAT MAN ROUND'…BY HIS PUPPET STRING
'TWANT FOR POWDER…AND FOR STORE BOUGHT HAIR
THE MAN I LOVE WOULD NOT GONE NO WHERE
GOT THE ST. LOUIS BLUES JUST AS BLUE AS I CAN BE
THAT MAN GOT A HEART LIKE A ROCK CAST IN THE SEA
OR ELSE HE WOULDN'T HAVE GONE SO FAR FROM ME
(ST. LOUIS BLUES by W.C. Handy…revisions by T. Allen)
Figure 1:
Stage 1: Ancient;
Stage 1: Ancient (detail)
Listen to excerptNARRATOR:
HE WAS SITTING IN THE BACKYARD LOOKING AT HIS HANDS.
THEY WERE HUGE AND GNARLED...ANCIENT.
EVERY FINGER HAD BEEN BROKEN MORE TIMES THAN HE REMEMBERED...EVERY KNUCKLE JAMMED INTO
KNOTS...EVERY BONE
IN EACH, SHATTERED SPLINTERED AND CRACKED IN TWO.
SHE WATCHED HIM FROM
THE WINDOW...AND CAME OUT THINKING HE WAS SAD.
"WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT, HONEY?"
HE LOOKED UP AT HER...THEN GRINNED.
"I WAS THINKING ABOUT ALL OF IT.
EVER DAMN SECOND.
HOW I WOULDN'T TRADE ANY OF IT FOR NOTHIN."
SIX MONTHS EARLIER, THEY TOLD HIM IT WAS HOPELESS.
IT WAS ALL OVER HIS BODY.
SHE WAS WITH HIM AND HELD HIS HANDS.
HE LOOKED DOWN, THEN AT HER...THEN AT THEM.
"WELL" HE SAID..."I GUESS THAT'S THE WAY THE BALL BOUNCES."
THIS WAS IN THE SPRING...1959.
Figure 1B:
Shocking Joy
MAN VOICE:
He flew out in a great high arc through the air.
He was six years old and landed in the Missouri River.
"Swim ye lil sum-bitch...swim or drownd."
His Pa's voice...giving the lessons.
So, he did...paddlin like a dog and hatin that voice and hatin that water and runnin the two together inside his life forever...but forever also, never forgetting the shocking joy of the sudden flight through the air in the great high arc...and, back on the banks, the first true knowing that he would never doubt his own body again.
"Whatever hell happens now...the lil sum-bitch can swim."
His Pa's voice in the year 1892.
Figure 1C:
Stage 1: Hill;
Figure 1D:
Stage 1: Inside Outside (?)
WOMAN VOICE:
Outside
A half-dugout stuck half-in and half-out of the side of a small Oklahoma hill. The air is black with dirt and the year is 1905.
Figure 1E:
Stage 1: A Creature
Listen to excerptInside
A large man looks down and clenches his fists over a wood box that holds a new born baby girl.
Her mouth is open in a tiny black scream and the blood of birth still runs off her body.
He stares at the tiny wet red sex.
This is 3 of what will be his 5 children
and he would strangle it right now if his wife wasn't there watching him...weak, but smiling. He thinks it is wicked and godless...a creature of the devil...and he will wrestle with that in his heart the rest of his life.
Outside
If there is sound, it is something jagged and metal...banging then tinkling...banging and tinkling with the cries in the wind.
Figure 1F:
Stage 1: Ladel
MAN VOICE:
The doctor pounds on the door.
A blizzard slams daggers into the north wall of the house.
He is eight years old and his neck is swollen big as a bucket.
The doctor stomps his boots 3 times then walks over and looks right down his mouth.
"They gotta go" he says.
His Pa puts a long black iron poker in the fire.
His Ma looks at him from over her shoulder where she stirs lye with a big wooden ladle.
When the poker glows, his Pa calls his brother.
"Help me hold the lil sum-bitch down"
They hold him and the doctor shoves the glowing poker slow and deep into his throat and burns out his tonsils.
His body goes rigid fro
m the pain, but he doesn't make a sound.
He just pictures the giant spoon...whirling around in the lye.
"Boy's got some bark" The doctor says before he leaves.
A week later his neck is down, but his mouth is still blistered shut.
After that night, he never said more than he had to to anybody.
This is in Missouri on a farm in the winter of 1894.
Figure 1G:
Stage 1: Humming
Figure 1H:
Stage 1: Reins (?)
WOMAN VOICE:
Outside
She is five years old and it is the Texas Panhandle of 1910.
She wears a white dress and is sitting on the front seat of a covered wagon.
The Poppa sits beside her holding the reins to two mules in one hand and a bullwhip flying from the other.
His face is dark and furious and the whip curls out of his fist like a snake.
Deep bloody trenches groove across the animals' backs.
She is looking away from him at her brothers and sister skipping beside the wagon in the tall grass.
Her hand covers her mouth and her eyes are huge...like she's giggling.
Inside
The Momma sits on a wood box sewing.
She has a sweet angelic set to her mouth.
Her hair is up in a tight bun.
In her lap is a hand tinted photograph of a three year old girl in a white dress.
The eyes are huge with black rings around them and the mouth is frozen...curved downward, deep blurred and terrible.
If there is sound, it is the Momma...humming.
"In that Sweet bye and Bye...In that Sweet bye and Bye"
Continued on page 2
