Rocky McCorkle - You & Me On A Sunny Day

THE CHARACTERS Millie Holden ....................

Gilda Todar John Jack Holden .......... E.J. Freeman Young Jack ............. William Barclift IV Young Millie ............... Jennifer Elmore

MILLIES SOLILOQUY Some time ago, on a black and white morning like any other, in continuation from yesterday which was in continuation from the day before and so on all of the way back 41 or 42 years to when our morning routine in Papcastle first began, muted daylight faded in through the dirty kitchen window. In recent years, Jack and I moved near our daughter and son-in-law to Papcastle, when there was a their, now its just me.

My body continues the morning routine of eating a cinnamon covered grapefruit because its become a ritual nowadays; the only difference with my mourning routine is that I do it without my other-half. Every morning (I mean every morning) while reading the newspaper, Jack used to consume one lone banana and a small box of raisins. As soon as he had finished catching up on the previous days events, he would place the obsolescent peel on the newspaper. I can still see the banana threads, now unnecessary by all means, clinging to the days headlines for dear-life. Jack died on March 7, 2004, six days short of his 87th birthday; my life stopped when Jack left the picture forever. There are plenty of good memories too, memories that feel as vivid and accurate as snapshots.

Vivid they may be but these memories seem to have decayed with time as perfectly as color photographs do. I can remember pictures, but more of a photographic memory in a literal sense; I only remember Jack as he was in pictures anymore. It is as if scenes are missing, or damaged, between his zenith and when his heart attacked itself three or four years ago. The postcards, pictures, and stamps hanging on the refrigerator door make me think of when I was twenty-something and used to photograph everything. I was always obsessed with the sun (do you remember?). Every chance Id get I would run to the window or the nearest open field to take a portrait of the sun (hundreds; I took 88 in Auckland alone).

After we had lived here for a countless number of years, we ran out of space to display them. The knick-knack cupboard transformed into a memorabilia repository or depository or roadside memorial, crawling with accumulated snapshots of our kin and various suns. More accurately, different or separate portraits of the one and only sun (if the sun is always the same sun then why isnt each sun portrait a spitting image of every other?) Like a Super 8 reel, a random montage of quick cutting scenes from my life re-runs through my mind: Jack leaning against a wood railing during the Empire Games trophy ceremony; Jack sweating on the floor after doing his distance work; my last picture of Jack sporting his favorite hat; one of my many sun portraits with N.Z. sheep; a few sequential images from a trip we took to the area around the bay (I shot Jack training from the hillside); sound: Distant car screeching & tire blowing out. It must be that Austro-Hungarian filmmakers picture day on television today, a movie marathon if you will. Sometimes I think about Jack, not often though, seven or eight times a day, but if Im busy at the horse track or the bingo parlor or with a little bridge game, I only think of him three or four times a day.

Each subliminal brain flash is... well, I cant say for sure how long because sometime before now I stopped wearing watches cold turkey. While getting comfortable on the well-traveled lime-green couch, I reach for the lamp, flip the switch, and rest my eyes. I must have been about twenty-nine or thirty years-old when this movie was released. The plot was something about an aging silent film queen fixated on the past. She is cooped-up in a motionless mansion that is overflowing with photographs, recognizable statue replicas, and much too many other odds and ends to describe here.

I decide to use my sky blue coat for warmth; it is drafty and my mind is drifting. With one light lit, I sit up on the couch in a dream, and from there, as if watching television on a screen more than seven or eight feet wide, all of a sudden, out of the blue there is an old man sitting next to me in the big room where no one else has sat for many years, it is Jackhow I last remember himengulfed and obscured in his patented green cloud, looking back at it, at any given period, his age could be determined by the color of the cigar stubs that hid lifelessly and quietly throughout the apartment like Easter eggs, obviously green cigars equaled the September of his years, I tipped-up my teacup of Earl Grey, Jack is lighting an aquamarine cigar as a sea of sounds bounces around the big room like a public address system, sounds like voices from the past, not solely masculine voices either, there are feminine voices too (there is an exchange of looks between Jack and Millie), mans voice: Afraid it would remind her that time had passed, womans voice: We didnt need dialogue, we had faces, Jack exits through the backstage door, pausing and puffing and posing in a ghostly Vanitas motif, simultaneously I cross the living room and sit at the breakfast table, the aftermath of a marathon surrounds me like a kelly-green anhydrous moat, trampled cups (why do all athletic competitions use the exact same brand of cups anyway?) and plastic water bottles that appear to have been pushed weightlessly against the perimeter of the room, piles of bothersome banana peels are congealing to the overly-familiar room as I speak so to speak, the camera is with Jack as he returns from offstage and approaches me through the post-race debris-ridden course (if accumulation equals time then this stage had to be set at least one thousand sunsets ago), in the foreground is the presence of many grotesque, disharmonious, and florid objectsoysters, yellow plums, peeled lemons, an extraordinarily large gold and silver tazza, conch shells, silver-topped torchiere, cracked walnuts on a crumpled tableclothobviously touched by human hands (where did all of this come from?) in an improvised manner, it is as if things change each time a door opens or a corner is turned, the interior of the apartment is a silent movie set and time is moving slowly backwards, the perfect setting for a silent movie queen, womans voice: That night I had a mixed up dream... I opened my eyes and the music was still there, that empty room, although it wasnt empty anymore, Id had a visitor, while staring at the accumulated memorabilia, Jacks sporting life comes rushing back to mehe first started as an amateur boxer because of his natural toughness and for that brief period was known as Cracker Jack (amassing a single trophy in 1932), but running was part of his training regimen and running eventually won out, his marathon medallions hanging chronologically (Gold, Gold, Silver, Gold, Gold) from a gilded five-pronged mirror, extending like relentless ivy that seemed to spread only and precisely when I wasnt looking, and yet, if not for my intervention, he may never have collected such a medal heap, Jack announced his retirement after dropping out of the Olympic marathon in London but I bullied him back into training, ... just keep doing your roadwork! I said, and Jacks day in the sun eventually came in Auckland, his feats were widely reported in the press the following day when his Converse fell apart during the race at the Empire Games, I remember it well, when he entered the stadium there was an audible gasp and then a great roar of support, that attention came not-without some sensationalism in the news, typewritten rumors of being chased and even bit by a dog spread like wildfire (most of the stories agreed that it was a Great Dane)as if seeing with twenty-twenty vision, I look out the window from a claustrophobic sea-green room very much like the one Im in now, time has moved backwards and he is aging in reverse, Young Jack, more dashing than I remember, akin to a familiar leading man coincidentally with the same surname, Jackdrawing me away from the sentimental clutter and in the direction of the windowstands outside on the threshold (navy blue blazer with crimson contrast stitching worn over freshly torn trousers), the first thing that I notice is the lobsters carapace positioned on the window sill, in every direction encircling the showy crustacean are red and white grapes, one large two-tiered silver tazza, split cantaloupe, sprigs of dark green but withering leaves, a red parrot; the whole ball of wax seems to have been pulled directly from the Golden Age, the solar yellow light is so bright I can feel it, on the balcony the motions are slow and the light is even brighter as Young Jack takes one last despairing gasp from his burnt sienna cigar, his puff illuminates like gold in the air and to all appearances the smoke is inhaled by the threatening sky in the distance, while exiting stage left Young Jack grabs his yellow piped Converse and trademark No. 9 jersey (that was always his number reminding me of the old saying about a cats lives), these Converse brought about much mental strain for him back in the day because they were one size too small but in those days anyone would be happy just to have a pair (these became more prevalent throughout the Second World War), then, Young Jack was gone, mans voice: It was all very weird, but weirder things were yet to come, it is as if the apartment has been unearthed and rested perfectly back in Auckland, for the briefest of moments I am in two places at once, an excited feeling bubbled up from nowhere making me think of when I was twenty-something again, I feel as if I am sneaking out of the house to watch Jack run all over again, Im now surrounded by the Mission Bay waterfront that I have longed-for for so long, you are re-running through my mind, I am here in Auckland again circa 1950 or 1951, the clouds in the sky have a supernatural stillness as if time has stopped or never existed in the first place, if we were playing the game that people play when they are young, with all of the clarity in the world I would say, in the clouds I see an upside-down mushroom cloud or a nebulous garment protruding from an underwater ballet dancer or the billowing-upward white skirt of a famous blonde actress or contd to infinity, Jack approaches and then rushes passed so quickly that it freezes me, probably just as frozen as Id feel if I took a flying leap off of this cliff into the fifty-degree saltwater below, I stop and take a deep breath or two and pause, taking notice of the one lone sailboat bouncing elastically beneath Mount Eden, positioned perfectly like a ship in a bottle, I yell Jack JACK! Young Jack is getting farther and further and smaller, pacing and disappearing, I am just a troubled spectator watching a gradually disappearing silhouette, it hasnt yet happened but I can feel it, womans voice: Youre not leaving me! JACK, sound: There is the sound of the shot, Jack, collapsing, disappearing, returning to the chalk-outlined person that I deep-down know he is, mans voice: This guy where did you meet him for the first time, where did he come from, who is he? sound: Trumpets and drums, mans voice: All right. Camera! Action! The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her...