Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
Bedřich Smetana – Má Vlast (My Fatherland): Vltava (The Moldau River)
Má vlast, meaning "My homeland" in the Czech language, is a set of six symphonic poems composed between 1874 and 1879 by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. While it is often presented as a single work in six movements and – with the exception of Vltava – is almost always recorded that way, the six pieces were conceived as individual works. In these works Smetana combined the symphonic poem form pioneered by Franz Liszt with the ideals of nationalistic music which were current in the late nineteenth century. Each poem depicts some aspect of the countryside, history, or legends of Bohemia.
I Need to be More French. Or Japanese.-Beth Ann Fennelly
Then I wouldn’t prefer the California wine,
its big sugar, big fruit rolling down my tongue,
a cornucopia spilled across a tacky tablecloth.
I’d prefer the French, its smoke and rot.
Said Cézanne: Le mond-c’est terrible!
Which means, The world-it bites the big weenie.
People sound smarter in French.
The Japanese prefer the crescent moon to the full,
prefer the rose before it blooms.
Oh, I have been to the temples of Kyoto,
I have stood on the Pont Neuf, and my eyes,
they drank it in, but my taste buds
shuffled along in the beer line at Wrigley Field.
It was the day they gave out foam fingers.
I hereby pledge to wear more gray, less yellow
of the beaks of baby mockingbirds,
that huge yellow yawping open on wobbly necks,
trusting something yummy will be dropped inside,
soon. I hereby pledge to be reserved.
When the French designer learned
I didn’t like her mockups for my book cover,
she sniffed, They’re not for everyone. They’re
subtle. What area code is 662 anyway? I said,
Mississippi, sweetheart. Bet you couldn’t find it
with a map. Okay: I didn’t really. But so what
if I’m subtle as May in Mississippi, my nose
in the wine-bowl of this magnolia bloom, so what
if I’m mellow as the punch-drunk bee.
If I were Japanese I’d write about magnolias
in March, how tonal, each bud long as a pencil,
sheathed in celadon suede, jutting from a cluster
of glossy leaves. I’d end the poem before anything
bloomed, end with the rain swelling the buds
and the sheaths bursting, then falling to the grass
like a fairy’s castoff slippers, like candy wrappers,
like spent firecrackers. Yes, my poem
would end there, spend firecrackers.
If I were French, I’d capture post-peak, in July,
the petals floppy, creased brown with age,
the stamens naked, stripped of yellow filaments.
The bees lazy now, bungling the ballet, thinking
for the first time about October. If I were French,
I’d prefer this, end with the red-tipped filaments
scattered on the scorched brown grass,
and my poem would incite the sophisticated,
the French and the Japanese readers—
because the filaments look like matchsticks,
and it’s matchsticks, we all know, that start the fire.
Carl Perkins
"Carl Perkins' songs personified the rockabilly era, and Carl Perkins' sound personifies the rockabilly sound more so than anybody involved in it, because he never changed." Charlie Daniels
Perkins's
songs were as influential as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny
Cash and Eric Clapton which further established his place in the history of
popular music. Paul McCartney said that "if there were no Carl Perkins,
there would be no Beatles."
Soviet Futurist Poet, Playwright, Artist, & Actor Vladimir Mayakovsky.
During his early, pre-Revolution period leading into
1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist
movement. He co-signed the Futurist manifesto, A Slap in the Face of Public
Taste (1913), and wrote such poems as "A Cloud in Trousers" (1915)
and "Backbone Flute" (1916).
Mayakovsky produced a large and diverse body of work
during the course of his career: he wrote poems, wrote and directed plays,
appeared in films, edited the art journal LEF, and produced agitprop posters in
support of the Communist Party during the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922.
Though Mayakovsky's work regularly demonstrated
ideological and patriotic support for the ideology of the Bolsheviks and a
strong admiration of Vladimir Lenin, his relationship with the Soviet state was
always complex and often tumultuous. Mayakovsky often found himself engaged in
confrontation with the increasing involvement of the Soviet state in cultural
censorship and the development of the State doctrine of Socialist realism.
In 1930 Mayakovsky committed suicide. Even after
death his relationship with the Soviet state remained unsteady. Though
Mayakovsky had previously been harshly criticized by Soviet governmental bodies
such as the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP), Premier Joseph
Stalin described Mayakovsky after his death as "the best and the most
talented poet of our Soviet epoch".
B&W
5th Avenue Houses, No. 4, 6, 8, New York, Photo by Berenice Abbott, 1936
Ansel Adams
Dairy Queen, 1957
Ernst Haas. A man walking by the Ritz Hotel on Piccadilly, London, 1950s
Freeway Interchange, Los Angeles, Photo by Ansel Adams, 1967.
Saul Leiter - Camarero - París, 1959
NYCPlaywrights
NYCPlaywrights
Sat 10/3/2020 5:02 PM
*** FREE THEATER ONLINE ***
Keep Your Distance: six short
musicals about separation - THE STREAMING EVENT
October 10, 10:30 PM - October 11,
12:30 AM EDT
The suggested donation is $10.00.
Join us for the STREAMING
PRESENTATION of all six of our 15 Minute Musicals from the 2020 season,
followed by a Q&A sessions with the writers, directors, and performers.
NMI’s annual 15 Minute Musicals have
sold out for the past ten years…they’re the hottest ticket in town. “But, NMI,
theatres aren’t open right now!” you say? That didn't stop the 15 Minute
Musicals. This year, we’ve shot three of them in a greenscreen studio and three
of them through Zoom - and now we’re bringing them to you on the small screen.
A View from the Moon. Set in a
tropical paradise, in which a Covid-stranded couple has run out of money, and
an entitled rich woman thinks she can buy their gratitude and the affection of
the hotel proprietor. This is a bittersweet, aching romance. Book by Richard
Holland, music by Ben Ginsberg, lyrics by Stacey Weingarten.
The Traitor. Set in a dystopian
post-Covid future in which touching has become outlawed and even
insurrectionistic. We’re in a prison cell, in which an interrogator is trying
to get two of the prisoners to turn on the third…any two…so long as someone’s
found guilty. It has a dramatic, almost operatic score. Book and lyrics by
Stephen K. Nolly, music by Ron Barnett.
I Need Space. Poor Andrey…he’s scheduled
to leave on a flight for Mars in two hours, but fear of germs and sudden lack
of toilet paper confines him to a bathroom, to the eternal horror of his
roommates who have been trying to get rid of him for months. Can the
unscrupulous Toilet Paper Blackmarketeer save the day? Book and music by Sergei
Stern, lyrics by Jordan Toopes.
Close (But Not Too Close). Too
nervous to meet that special someone in person just yet? Why not try
“CloseButNotTooClose.com” where you can check out the person of your dreams
online. But watch out for scammers who may be looking for something other than
love! Book by Paloma Sierra, music by Dusty Sanders, lyrics by Julia Koyfman.
Breakout. Siblings Jean and Jake are
finding it extremely difficult to move on with their lives when divorced Mom
and Dad are still openly feuding. One family Zoom session probably can’t make
up for all the lost time, but can it at least help find a path forward? Book by
Lalit Sritara, music by Evan Johnson, lyrics by Kellan Meador.
*** PRIMARY STAGES ***
OCTOBER ONLINE CLASSES: First Draft
and Comedy Writing Classes Online at Primary Stages ESPA!
Start a First Draft with Winter
Miller or Adam Kraar - or learn how to craft a laugh with Kate Moira Ryan in
Comedy Writing! Faculty includes ADAM KRAAR (Writer, Wild Terrain at EST),
WINTER MILLER (Writer, In Darfur at The Public), KATE MOIRA RYAN (Writer, 25
Questions for a Jewish Mother), and many other award-winning writers who
provide practical skills and expert guidance in a collaborative
atmosphere.
Flexible, artist-friendly payment
plans available.
http://primarystages.org/espa/writing
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS
***
Pumphouse Players is now accepting
short plays for Fall 2020 online events! Though our physical theatre is dark,
we have an ongoing commitment to providing artistic opportunities and creative
outlets to our community members and supporting various creative endeavors.
***
“Prologue Theatre understands that
it can be difficult, at times, to begin conversations about “certain topics”
and focuses on presenting theatre that can serve as that starting point.
Through theatrical performance, coupled with community discussion, we strive to
challenge our community to examine and discuss their views of the world and
those around them. Our focus is on those who are in the process of finding
their own voice - whether 15 or 115 years old – and are looking for a place
where they can hone those viewpoints by examining world issues within (and
with) their community.”
***
Garage Theatre Ensemble seeks work -
We will pair you up with an extraordinary emerging director and actors who will
help you bring the words on your pages to life. Over the course of this
week-long intensive program, you will have multiple opportunities to work with
your team, make edits, add pages, etc. before your final reading at the end of
the week.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these
and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** DEUS EX MACHINA ***
Here's how to pronounce deus ex
machina: day-us eks mah-kee-nuh
A mechane (/ˈmɛkəniː/; Greek:
μηχανή, mēkhanḗ) or machine was a crane used in Greek theatre, especially in
the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Made of wooden beams and pulley systems, the
device was used to lift an actor into the air, usually representing flight.
This stage machine was particularly used to bring gods onto the stage from
above,[1] hence the Latin term deus ex machina ("god out of the
machine"). Euripides' use of the mechane in Medea (431 BC) is a notable
use of the machine for a non-divine character. It was also often used by
Aeschylus. It was used to allow actors playing gods to fly through the air.
More…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechane
***
It’s when some new character, force,
or event suddenly shows up to solve a seemingly hopeless situation. The effect
is usually unexpected, and it’s often disappointing for audiences. It’s as if
the author has brought us to the climactic moment of tension and suspense, and
then simply said, “But then everything was suddenly OK.” It undermines the
tension of the story, and seems to suggest that sheer blind luck is the
ultimate determining force in the hero’s life. How unsatisfying!
More...
https://literaryterms.net/deus-ex-machina/
***
What Mozart and Da Ponte offer
instead is a deus ex machina of Christian morality but of conspicuously
Greco-Roman inspiration (there’s even a reference to “Proserpina and Pluto” to
make the point). Don Giovanni, taking refuge in a secluded garden, stumbles
upon the tomb of the Commendatore, which speaks to him and seeks his
repentance. In a terrifyingly sublime roar of hubris, Don Giovanni invites the
spirit of the Commendatore to join him for dinner. The ultimate result, of
course, is that the Commendatore opens the earth and sends Don Giovanni to the
flames of Hell, restoring order, through divine intervention, that couldn’t be
restored through human authority.
More...
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/revelations-don-giovanni-met
***
FOUR COUPLES MARRIED BY A GREEK GOD
IN FRANCE
(but in Arden, which we all know is
in England)
Okay, picture it: We get the couple
of Rosalind and Orlando (love at first sight at the top of the play: genius).
Then we add another couple with Touchstone and Audrey (Rosalind and
usurping Duke Frederick’s witty sidekick and his country lass). We get
one more when the tables turn on Phebe and she’s forced to marry Silvius.
And finally to add the cherry on top of our newly-newly-newly-weds’ cake
Oliver and Celia (who’ve just met) tie the knot too. These things happen.
Tell me more about the Greek God,
you say? While there are many traditions of Hymen’s origins, I like to
think that Shakespeare had the story of the child of Dionysus (god of Theatre,
and other wonderful things like wine) and Aphrodite (goddess of Love) in mind.
What a beautiful blend that would be on any stage. Present at all weddings, and
running this one. Really, how else can we make sense of four weddings at the
same time?
More...
https://americanshakespearecenter.com/2018/08/as-you-like-its-ending-explained/
***
In Medea, Euripides makes use of
deus ex machina to facilitate Medea's killing of Glauce and King Creon, a way
of undermining the audience's sensibility. In reality, however, murder cannot
be executed so simply as sticking out one's foot to trip one's enemy.
Pre-meditated murders do not come cheap and easy. Euripides must know this,
thus, to have the most convenient way out, he uses witchcraft to carry out
Medea's act of murder.
Euripides seems to have quite a
number of problems thinking of ways to untangle
conflicts. At the end of the play,
Medea escapes through the sudden introduction of a chariot drawn by dragons.
Like manna from heaven, comes the chariot to suit the requirements of the plot.
And the poet expects the audience to believe that, and hopes to get away with
it, the way Medea just got away with the crime.
More...
http://pinkhamper.blogspot.com/2012/02/medea-too-evil-for-deus-ex-machina.html
***
“It is so forceful, it really takes
your breath away,” says director Brian Clowdus. He’s not lying.
The Serenbe Playhouse production of
Miss Saigon is set in the secluded hills of Georgia, in a 1,000-acre
residential and commercial community called Serenbe, located in Chattahoochee
Hill Country. Audiences must find their way to the setting of Saigon’s
Dreamland, deep in the woods where a shipping container lies in front of a dirt
hill and a small pool of water. Off in the distance is a landing spot for the
Huey helicopter once used in the Vietnam War and now flown by actual war
veterans for the show.
As day turns to night before
audiences’ eyes, Saigon takes shape. A young, angelic Kim emerges from behind
the shipping container to enter the movie in her mind—a cinematic take on the
production conceived by Clowdus—and marines ride in on trucks as dusk
approaches. By the time the show reaches Act II, the chopper rides in from a
hidden location, circles overhead and descends—slightly kicking up water and
grass with a powerful gust of wind—to land in the distance.
More…
***
Whirligig Productions and playwright
Liz Fisher seem to have turned a corner in theatre with their production of
Deus ex Machina, now enjoying its spectacular premiere run at the Rollins Studio
Theatre at the Long Center. The production is a new play by Fisher, her
compound of the three plays in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, about the House of Atreus
after the Trojan War. Her work also incorporates some of Sophocles’ and
Euripides’ follow-on works (fan fiction?) on the same trilogy, both entitled
Electra.
What sets Fisher’s work apart from
all other productions or offshoot plays about these classical Greek tragedies
is the production’s strong embrace of digital technology. Using several
packages of software, the cell network, and the internet, the technology
producers, headed by Benjamin Bradley, have managed to integrate the media
fields of the play in real time during each performance. This means that
audience members can send texts from their cell phones to the producers to
convey choices offered them during the performance. The characters on stage
then act out the decisions of the “gods” accordingly. And this opens new
territories for theatre and the collaboration between performers and audiences.
This collaboration is the vital heart of Deus ex Machina ('God out of the
machine' in translation). As Fisher writes in her director’s notes: “From its
inception, the story was crafted around the idea of empowering the audience to
choose….So it seems natural to return to agency as an answer to weighty
questions. This play cannot exist without you. Without your voice, the play
stops.”
More...
https://ctxlivetheatre.com/reviews/review-deus-ex-machina-by-liz-fisher/
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Short story: The Warriors Wife
November, 1980.
She keeps a black and
white photo of them by the front door and she glances at it whenever she enters
or leaves the house. It’s framed in silver and sits on a windows ledge, faced
away from the sun. The photo was taken on the steps of the Trinity Catholic Church
on N street on their wedding day. She was a nominal Episcopalian but he was a
Catholic, a staunch Catholic, and although he insisted on virtually nothing in
all the years he knew her, he refuse to marry outside the church.
She wrapped herself in
a long, soft brown winter coat with a matching cashmere scarf, black leather
gloves and locked the large red door behind her. She pulled the knob tightly,
they’d been robberies in the neighborhood. Robberies and Georgetown are almost
synonymous. She carefully and slowly made her way down the brick steps to the
even sidewalk and strolled slowly down 28th Street. Lifting her coat collar
against the wind.
They met on a blind
date right after the Second war ended. She was a ne’er-do-well unpaid intern to
a New York Senator. He was back in the states after four years in combat in
Europe and was working for what was then a new and unknown government body
called the National Intelligence Authority. They married a month later. She was
25, he was 30. They had one child, a small, dark haired gentle soul they named
Dora but called Doe, their little Doe. She was born with epilepsy and anorexia
and all of her short life was spent in and out of one hospital after another.
She rarely knew a day without pain and suffering.
She took a right on
Dumbarton, that wonderfully old and dignified street. The wind ceased and the
dull winter sun peaked through a cloud. As always, she stopped and lifted her
eyes to the tall windows of a magnificent Georgian where an ancient Beagle lay
at his post on the floor, half-asleep soaking in the days first rays of the
sun, one eye open. As he did every morning, he slowly raised himself up when he
noticed her and pressed his nose to the bottom window pane. She waved to him.
He sneezed a greeting back her and she continued on.
All of that seemed so
long ago now, but it wasn’t. Not many years had passed since then, it just
seemed as that way. But he was gone, their little Doe was gone, just memories
now and when she thought often that after she was gone all of those memoires of
them, the three of them, would disappear with her.
It was Wednesday. The
day the ladies met at a cozy new pastry shop on the far end of O Street in
Georgetown. Well, new, the place had been there for over thirty years but the
ladies had been a part of Georgetown for decades longer than that. She stopped
at the crosswalk on Wisconsin Avenue, waited for the light and crossed.
The ladies were
fiercely loyal to one another because they only had one another. It was
difficult, no, impossible really, for any of them to build relationships of any
kind in that life. The Life of a company family because balancing a life of
secrecy in an open society is more work than its worth, so they, the people in
that world, they close down, they shut down, they learn to block out others, to
watch what they, to think before they speak and when it’s over and their
husbands role in the missions were done forever they, the women of that
generation, found themselves alone and isolated without friends, with no community
that would understand them so they created their own.
Their husbands had
been a cold warriors from the first day they met them and they were their
husband’s window dressing and they were good at what they did, skilled in fact
and a learned and vital skill it is. Anyone could risk their lives and be a
field operative with the company but it took a truly remarkable person to be a
company wife. The wrong word at the wrong time in the wrong county could cost a
life. They said that with a company wife the government got two employees for
the price of one and it was true. Everything about them, their very identities
are wrapped around their husbands and the company and the mission.
There were times when,
really, she didn’t know what role she was playing. When they were at a brief
posting in Stockholm right after the war he told her they a Foreign Service
family. She leaped in to each job title and role with her typical enthusiasm
and charm, shoring up his weak cover and convincing many people that he was in
fact what he said he was — a diplomat, a military attaché, a file clerk,
whatever the job cover was. In Rome she immersed herself in the country’s
language and religious and artistic heritage while he disappeared for days and
sometimes weeks to prevent a Communist victory in Italian elections.
Inside the café, Betty
Willoughby sat next to her, she always did. They knew from a posting in Peru,
twenty or more years ago. More than that she thought. The countries all sort of
blended together after a while. So did the years. Betty’s husband was gone to,
heart attack a year after he retired. She liked Betty. There was no
pretense in her. Despite the demeanor of toughness around her, the years and
the worry of all those years showed on her face. All the company wives
eventually looked like that.
“Let’s see a
show of hands.” Betty rasped “Did you ever turn on the washing machine because
he couldn’t figure out how to do, but he needed it on to muffle his phone
conversation?”
They all smiled and
raised their hands.
“Mine preferred the
blender” Mary Rose said.
“Running bath water”
said another.
Angie Robins held her
open palm up and said “Do you know where we went for our honeymoon? To
Scandinavia. He said we would tour at the castles. And we did. At every stop his
operatives picked up radio devices hidden in the car’s trunk. My honeymoon was
a mission”
When it was her turn,
she leaned forward into the table and recalled the time when he served as the
station chief in Saigon during the America’s war years there and how she
received her baptism under fire during one of the country’s seemingly endless
unsuccessful coups. “Bullets whined through the windows. I barricaded Doe and I
in the kitchen with the help. I had a loaded pistol in my house coat pocket.
Me. A pistol. Can you imagine?”
They all nodded.
They’d all been there in one way or another, in some third world banana
republic or another.
She widen her eyes in
wonder and added “I was holding a loaded revolver. We kept it under the
mattress in case anything ever happened. Can you imagine? Me? With a big loaded
gun?”
What she didn’t say
was that he wasn’t home because he was directing a counter coup from his office
at the embassy. Nor would be home for two nights after the coup was defeated,
its leaders executed.
“He sent us home after
that. At the airport he told me "You should have probably married a guy
from Columbus, Ohio, instead of me. You’d be living in Columbus now. He'd be
devoted to you. You would go to the dances and play golf on weekends.” And then
he shook his head and said “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of this”
What she didn’t tell
them was that he looked like a lost boy when he spoke those words so she held
his chin in her hand and he looked around in embarrassment and she leaned in
close to him and said "But then we wouldn't have had Saigon, or Rome, or
Venice or Washington. Or our Doe and I would not be married to a good and
decent man and I would not be part of his noble mission”
She didn’t have to
share that part of it with them. They knew. They’d all spoken words like at
point or another.
Nor did she tell them
that he stayed on for two more years after that and that she and Doe were alone
again as they almost always were alone because he was almost always away,
someplace and she never knew where away was or how long he would be there. So
she faced increasing difficulties of caring for Doe who declined more and more
with every passing day. And then one day Doe died as they expected she would
and he was away so she was alone for that too.
He had mentioned to
her once, on a beach up in Maine one summer, that his heroes…he used the word
pantheon instead of heroes, as only he would….were Richard the Lionhearted,
Joan of Arc, and St. George the Dragon Slayer. It pleased her then and now that
one of them was a woman although she didn’t understand that. All of them were
warriors. That she understood. He was a warrior, a cold warrior. And all of
them, like him, were zealots and she attributed that to his Irishness and
Catholic upbringing, another thing she never really understood.
His Catholic faith
also the reason why he viewed the company as a kind of priesthood. It made
sense those who knew him. He was a Midwestern Catholic. In fact he was almost
the definition of the Midwestern Catholic. He said little regarding his work
and nothing, ever, of his considerable accomplishments. He came from a long
line of WASP educators on his father’s side and garden variety second
generation Irish Catholic on his mother side which is what brought him to Notre
Dame.
She was Midwestern
too, but he often scoffed at that and said that she may have been Ohio she not
of Ohio. Her father ran one of the largest pharmaceutical in the world from an
office in Cleveland and her Manhattan born parents, sent east as a teen to be
educated for ten years, four at Middlebury, four at Wesleyan and two at Vassar
where she took a masters in humanities.
He adored John F.
Kennedy. She recalled how they had stood in the audience at the young
Presidents inauguration with clenched teeth and applauded wildly at Kennedy’s
words "We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support
any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of
liberty." He repeated the words often. It was his mantra she thought. But
for all his worldliness he was remarkably naïve about politics.
He did that lot,
repeating the words of other. She remember the one time he did that and it sent
chills up her spine. By then he had risen high in the company, in part because
he deserved it and the company rewards its own and in part because he had
simply outlasted everyone else. But he was an unwise choice for anything above
an intelligence officer because he both lacked the political sense and failed
to understand the importance of social skills necessary to navigate the very
dangerous marble halls of Washington and because of that it eventually crashed
in around him with the fall of Viet Nam. Then his nation, the nation that had
called him a hero warrior, now called him a war criminal for the company did.
He was called him to
testify on the Hill a dozen times. She saw it as more of a grilling, and they
called him in a dozen times in one year, always making sure the media got the
transcript early. She saw it as punishment, a humiliation lesson than anything
else. It ripped her apart to watch what they did to him.
“They have no right”
she said “No right”
“The ends justified
the means” he said to her “And if we had won, if Saigon had not fallen, none of
this would have been an issue. But it is an issue because Americans don’t like
losing, we don’t accept failure and somebody has to pay. I’m the somebody this
time. It’s nothing personal.”
“They have no right”
she said.
He was watching
television, an old black and white film. He pointed to the screen and said
“Ever see this? The Third Man, Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten. Great
film”
She absentmindedly
looked at the screen for a moment and then back to him and said “We should hire
a lawyer. We should….”
‘Shh-shhh” he cut her
off and pointed at the screen. Orson Welles character was sitting high atop a
Ferris wheel with Joseph Cotton’s character. When Welles character spoke her
husband spoke the lines aloud along with him and didn’t miss a single word
"Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me—would you really feel any
pity if one of these dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you 20,000 for
every dot that stopped, would you really tell me to keep my money—or would you
calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?"
Day by day the attacks
from the Congress and the media grew worse and he was increasingly unable to
defend himself against it. He started to drink more. Finally, almost
mercifully, the President himself fired him. There were no ceremonies, no
gold watch, no speeches and no words of appreciation. A clerk from the Chief of
Staff’s office called and told him the President wanted his resignation.
A month later he left
her for another woman, the former wife of an ambassador. They’d all know each
other, off and on, over the years. It was sudden thing, there had been no
secret dalliances. He was always loyal to her. And he didn’t leave her because
the other woman offered something more or better, he left her because he was
very good at making war all that came with it. But now there were no more wars,
no more missions. It was time to change. To become someone else. She was part
of a life that had been and was gone.
He took his new wife
and moved out of Washington and retired to the life of a country squire in St.
Michaels, sailing town in Southern Maryland. She never saw him again after that
although he called one night, late one night. She asked what was wrong and said
“Nothing, nothing is wrong. I just wanted to talk to you”
The words surprised
her. The call surprised her. At his best he was clipped both in his speech and
in his emotions, everything really. He was more British than English. It was
almost impossible to engage him in a phone conversation but that night he
talked for hours about everything and anything. He told her he was losing his
memory and she said that it was age and he said “No, no it more than that” and
then he asked if he had done enough for her.
“When?” she asked
“Always” he answered.
“Yes” she said because
true or not she sensed it was something he needed to hear.
“Did I do enough for
Doe?” he asked. “I was gone so much”
He had never discussed
it before. They never really talked about her death. It happened, there was a
funeral, and that was it. She was forgotten after that, by him anyway.
“We did what we could”
she answered and that was true.
He died a week later.
He suffered a sudden heart attack and died in his boat, on the water. She held
a memorial service for him at the National Cathedral. It was part of the
mission. It’s the way things were done. The new wife didn’t attend although she
had sent her an invitation to speak. The White House sent an emissary.
He didn’t leave much
when he died. His cash assets amount to just under $2,400 and his most valued
possession, a first edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by T.E. Lawrence
that they had bought together during a Sunday afternoon walk on the Strand in
London. He read it so many times in so many different places that he could
recite that to from memory.
Noon approached and
the ladies ordered a bottle of wine and a tea sandwich platter of Ham, Brie and
apple spread, Cucumber and Dutch Butter with Watercress and grilled shrimp with
Ham Puree.
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