thoughts catapulted by carrots and bleu cheese dip 1 and please don't laugh, I'm serious at least half the time, never less than that when I'm eating for my health. 2 I had a dream last night. We were watching my father's football team before our hike up a mountain trail, in a bar or restaurant. We talked politics but nothing changed: certainly not my arguments, nor his mind. We fight, I think to communicate because love is not a word that he can speak - at least that's the side that I relate. 3 my daughter asked with her mysterious voice (that's how I knew it was a test) what sense would I least regret to lose? I did my mental arithmetic: first eyes, than ears, then taste. At last I imagined myself unable to feel heat, ice, silk, skin tearing across the pavement as I fell from my bike - but I knew enough not to select touch. "We all picked smell" and I agreed that was the best if any one had to be given up. 4 I used to hate bleu cheese dressing, the crumbled lumps of white with bluegreen mold interlaced throughout, but it, like so much else, is an acquired taste. (time for a sip of coffee now before it cools) 5 somewhere in my brain complex thoughts keep percolating - what if a word could do justice in a murder case or make a man begin again to love his wife? Could I dare to write if ? if ? if ? is that really what I want? lets pretend it works. I'll string some words and tell me please if they bring you a woman's tears falling on her pillow at night making a wet spot by a cheek that's scarred and rough instead of soft. you want to know what makes the tears? but I resist. causes make no difference is my belief. perhaps the dog has died at last, perhaps her hip joints hurt too much to sleep, perhaps small creatures in her sheets have sent a million prayers for salt and she's their angel dispensing gifts. no matter, because, in truth, there were no tears for her to cry tonight. 6 (time to reheat my cup, 45 seconds should do the trick) I'm tired of carrots and bleu cheese dip, and 30 seconds was more than enough. 7 my father was beaten as a child. fists to the face that sort of thing. 8 tonite's the night when we play cards at the neighbors house next door to ours. we are a matched set. one child each in 8th and second grade. two pairs and both will be banished to the basement for nintendo games or videos or whatever trouble they get into before someone screams to spoil it all. upstairs, we'll make small talk while everyone munches on less fat snacks. during a pinochle game I'm sure we'll discuss the latest news about our friends across the street. how well they're holding up or not. about the bedroom shrine they made for a firstborn son not coming home again. we'll sympathize as each trick is played and bids are made. no doubt listen more that we usually do to all the basement noise below. 9 he doesn't blame my grandfather (so he says) and I hear of how at 17 he almost killed the man from someone else. with us, he used his belt to beat our beds when we were kids and made us scream fake agony for his wife's sake. don't tell he said. and neither will I. 10 a nice round number I think and a good place to contemplate what's going on around me: the tv son zoned out on the couch. the daughter making bump-bump-thump somewhere else. my dog's asleep. so pretty when she is (like now) curled up, paws bent and head reclined to show the gray that underlines her lower jaw. but things will change. they're changing as I type. I can't keep up. 11 the last thing heard before I awoke: you'll never know how wrong about all this you are.

Draft Screenplay: On reading Tom Andrews BLACK SCREEN

Narrator: here were my thoughts - FADES TO: scene: my life as a frame, encompassing your canvas (how we do this is yet to be decided, but some really gaga fx I'm sure).

Narrator: by which is meant you lived and died a hemophiliac's death between the covers of my book. scene: camera cuts rapidly (a montage shot): - to a motocross bike with a crucified Jesus aboard the rider's shirt - a hospital, double room, a codeine shot being fed into a boy/man's rump - closeup of his eyes as they glaze (what color?) - closeup of a girl's face reading Dante's Inferno (aloud?) - the boy's eyes (again) - the girl's eyes scanning right to left, right to left - the boy's mouth, small grin beginning - the snore of a man dying in the next bed

from congestive heart disease (can that be imitated?) - the girl speaking (we see just lips) "That ankle is hot enough to fry an egg!" - the boy's smile (has it changed? we're not sure) - a grave site, headstone with white flowers in a summer breeze

Narrator: you brought back the memory of pain which doesn't relent, and your description of it was the same as the one I would have made when my heart's skin was trying to burst, bubbling up, rubbing off my lungs, liver, stomach - pain felt through the codeine as I vomited up chicken broth - that somehow this was transformative, I could die happy despite being a virgin, despite never having children, despite blah blah blah . . . scene: imago of Tom in three dimensions (can we do this as a 3D flick?), grainy, blue background. Tom is floating in this aether (well, yes, but they won't mind, it's the willing suspension of disbelief, right?). His face shows no emotion, but that may be because it lacks focus, we cant' say. He opens his arms to us, reaching out in that classic 3D effect (we'll have to warn parents not to bring small children)

Tom: (ok, he has to say something here, but we'll put it through a sound mix and wash away anything intelligible to leave an eerie quality to the voice, a wail of some sort) FADE TO: scene: the narrator standing against some sort of landscape (me really, but we'll get someone like Kelly McGillis, to play the part) and she's nude from the shoulder up, still talking but nothing can be heard as music plays, samba music perhaps . . . )

background vocals: random voices are heard speaking as the music fades (but never completely stops), angry, male and female voices alike, shouting as scene: Tom and the Narrator are superimposed on one another. (if we want an R rating this is where we show Kelly's breasts, the real sagging breasts of a middle aged woman, and Tom's hands pushing through them, out into the audience like an offering)

Narrator (shouting to be heard): What does she look like! What does she look like, dammit! FINIS (we'll try it at Sundance as a short, then an option to IFC? great.)

the belief that illness makes you more sensitive to suffering is a false positive, a self- delusion. the truth is less. sickness cocoons the greedy ones as easily as enabling empathy for others who endure their pains without the need to spell them out for all to see. a test but not a guide. pierce your skin with a knife and what comes to mind? your self collapsed within the throbbing and the blood you watch spill out across what's left unharmed. somewhere a saint reflects, and in her ignorance all else evaporates, denuded by what agony cannot relieve. she cries. I wish I knew what she can feel, desensitized by faith. a warmth in winter melting snow. my heart.

Invocation on a Sunday morning i He's a small man, kneeling down, elbows on a chair in backwater China. Hands open, face raised, he prays. His look, it must be one of absolute trust. I can't be sure. I wasn't there. Nonetheless, this prayer received its answer for here you are telling me this story of your grandfather and I can see that face - a mystery of finitude embraced within an endless grace that I believe as well, or wish to think I do. ii You look through the mirror at her failure to understand what you perceive - the mirror at your feet, and then look up at the mirror above to see yourself reflected with all the rest that you can know - not enough, yes not, and yet its beautiful. What could be more? iii It's a religious poem, don't be offended even if it cannot open any door for you. There are other poems better ones, the ones that you will write or read tonight. Imagine them right now, please, as saying everything that this one does. They're all the same despite the veil. And you will be my teacher. Please, I want to hear. iv. The piano has a new tune to play. For a brief second it overrides the tv. Not many notes. There are a C, B flat, G. The rest elude my ability today. The moment leaves behind its melody - a tune transcribed only by words I'm afraid, and my memory of what cannot be shown with words. v. The coffee has cooled but still tastes sweet as I awake. Goodbye.

not the unified field as we know it 1 the hum, not so quiet, how it grates on my ear. then a hiss, its sound inconsistent as an aerosol mist flows into each breath, a haze for young eyes as they drift back and forth, out of self, out of dream, out of dark and of light and my arms cradling. but her hand still keeps grasping the mask, holding it to the face I see through the plastic, until the red dragon leaves, or at least becomes silent. 2 sleep is uncertain. walk into dream or out in the world. wear a red robe. forget what it covers. forget each new instant but remember the children. their tears melted butter. are they yours? does it matter? the problem's not fixable, but you cannot say so. 3 the bathroom sign says its only for colored. the one you step into. the one in Cincinnati, Ohio. and all of them in there stand amazed at your nature, the pink of your fingers, your red strawberry hair. you finish your business, tell them: it's been 50 years, this is senseless but their faces say different. 4 its dark and the animals eyes look luminous and uncaring at Peter and Katherine who stare back to scare them. and with laughter they do, these fictive immortals but they scare me also along with the drumbeats heard in the background 5 newspapers are calling: they claim to bring pleasure. they claim to give knowledge. like sirens that come from the streets on an ambulance (but not those known to the ancients) the call is insistent, and the claims are all dangerous, and the answers are distant. 6 our couch is paired with a television, and this chair with a desk, and these words with this screen, for speed is measured by time, and time is measured by motion, and my time is so fleeting. 7 the red dragon is tossing. it rumbles in sleep, in the cave of her chest and she feels it breathing a fire on skin and in aches and under eyes, weary half-moons colored purplish grey. what was the dream and what the reality of the night that passed over and left her this day? 8 I look at the snow out my window as it becomes pitted from drizzle, and what was white becomes shaded. the red berries still decorate the branches of trees all frozen and dried despite the wet sky. 9 eight is a number that's magic. and twelve and thirteen. three. two. also one. and magic is needed by my daughter, by me, by the light as it moves. so we count the numbers with what time allows, but it isn't enough. we're moving too slow.