📖NEW CHAPTER: An Awkward Conversation!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/193emBC_YockKr_u8Ul2LO4gJsD0Z_bLBE34nSMGMo6w/edit?usp=drivesdk
SET DESIGN: Distressed text light projection superimposed over set:
“The realities moving on the other side of the everyday world.” - Jill Carattini
SOUND FX: Cue “One Night in Bangkok” by Louise Robey -
https://open.spotify.com/track/60BoSBDeGpw74mIUUKoxLM?si=T8CVkutZR-S9yLKP70WsJA
SONG INTRO: Thunderclap
“One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me!”
Angel Hair (not sounding like a complete caricature of himself at all): Good afternoon, ladies.
Saran (literally not looking up from her phone at all): Get lost, creep.
“I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine!”
Angel Hair (Endearingly): Don't be like that! What's done is done! (Turning to Velveteen) How are your oysters today?
“One night in Bangkok makes a hard Man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me!”
Velveteen (wide eyed with oyster ecstasy - so much fun!) (Waves): Really good!
Angel Hair: You girls still at, what is it? (Sneering): “Chicken Family Restaurant?”
Saran (Rolling her eyes, snarky): OMG, can we please not?
“So you better go back to your bars, your temples, your massage parlours -- “
Velveteen (eyes coming back into focus): It’s very nice to see you, Mr. Bernardi. (Extends her hand in a forthright Manner, head up, shoulders straight.)
“One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
A little flesh, a little history
I can feel an angel sliding up to me!”
AngerHair (taking her tiny hand in his giant hoof): Let me know if you guys ever want to start making money again! (Pauses just long enough to insinuate that this is where he would chuckle to himself at their folly. Which he won't. Too much class.) (Walks away.)
“One night in Bangkok makes a hard Man humble
Not much between despair and ecstasy
One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble
Can't be too careful with your company
I can feel the devil walking next to me!”
Saran (Eyes still glued to her phone): Creep.
(Velveteen does not respond at all, fixated as she is on the Platter of Rapture laid out before her.)
Next: Saran's Memory!
Amalia's Story, Chapter Sixty-Two
= Amalia Angeloni Jacobucci
1000 Characters About My Mother #15:
"What happened after the Cub Scout Banquet?"
"That would have been in March of 1965 . . . "
"Here's something! First published April 1965 -- "
"Louis Jacobucci, Casework Treatment of the Neglectful Mother."
"Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, Volume 46, Issue 4."
"Oh, look! They had references!"
“The Protective Service Caseworker: How Does He Survive Job Pressures?”
“Use of Homemaker Service in Families That Neglect Their Children."
“The Team Approach in Protective Service.”
"Character Disorders in Parents of Delinquents."
"There's more."
"That's OK."
Presently . . .
"Loneliness and Isolation in Child Neglect."
"Dispositional Empathy in Neglectful Mothers and Mothers at High Risk for Child Physical Abuse."
"The Training of Neglectful and Unsatisfactory Mothers."
"The Socialization of Emotional Understanding: A Comparison of Neglectful and Nonneglectful Mothers and Their Children."
"In ...
"What?!"
"I didn't say anything."
"How can you say such a thing?"
"I'm not going through this again."
"What do you mean?"
"All this -- denial. I'm done. I'm just going to say exactly what happened as I remember it."
"It never happened!"
"The reason I know it happened is that I renember it. I was eight years old. My brother was twelve years old. I was able to recover the date because I remember at some point in the week preceding the event, our father for some reason had told us, I'm going to be speaking at the Unitarian Church this Sunday at 11:00. It did not seem weird to me at the time, because he was always out of the house anyway. Plus all he used to when he was home was harangue me, so good."
"You lie."
"In fact, I remember thinking, it made sense that he would get something going on Sundays, because that was the only time he was ever even around anymore. Weekdays he was working, of course, and weeknights he was always at one of his many, many important community activities."
"You are delusional."
"Then, I found this article, and it all ...
"I have a thesis. My thesis is: In any woman's life, having children would have to be the most significant event. So, in my mother's story -- "
"Her family wasn't really any different from any of the other families."
"Yes."
"In what way?"
"She and her husband were both very active in community affairs. Both her children went to school."
"What else?"
"They were both boys?"
"Anything else?"
"No. That's it."
"So you said, that one way in which your mother's family wasn't really any different from any of the other families, was that she and her husband were both very active in community affairs. Can you tell me a little more about that?"
"Oh, sure. There was always something going on. Cub Scouts, she was like Den Mother of her older son's Cub Scout Pack. Pack 54. Plus the Comedy Club. Plus I'm pretty sure, she was involved in the kindergarten. She and her husband both. And politics. It was the Sixties."
"Just normal 60's Mom stuff."
"In any case, it's time to forget the past."
