Snowflakes and Earthquakes

This right here.  This is my corner.  My crosswalk. You will find me out here every school day from 7:30 to 9 in the morning and 2:30 to 4 in the afternoon.  No matter what the weather.  Sunny, mostly sunny, partially sunny. I’m even out here when it dips below 60 and nobody in Venice Beach walks.

This wasn’t always my corner and I wasn’t always a crossing guard and I didn’t always live in Venice.

But it is now and I am now and I do now.

Before this? Before this I had a life that I didn’t want any more. That life was back in Boston. That life had decades of cold and snow and slush and the relentless cycle of seasonal chores.

I had enough.

And yeah. I was married once. And then I wasn’t. That’s everyone’s story, right?

I left her. She left me. Does it even matter?  Lots of days I wanted to leave me.

What’s that thing Tolstoy said in Anna Karenina? All happy marriages are alike but every unhappy marriage is unhappy in its own way.

That’s crap.

It may have once been true, but that time was surely before Facebook and Twitter and Youtube and blogs and podcasts.  Before anyone who could reach a keyboard over shared every uninteresting detail of their slowly decomposing relationship and equally mundane break-up in an endless dribble of manufactured outrage, self-serving, self-indulgent, self-satisfied anger to sympathetic strangers to eager to pile on their contrived disapproval while gleefully bestowing likes and emogis.

See, it turns out, it’s the happy ones, the relationships that make it, they are the curious ones.

So can we just say be okay with, we fizzled out. I know it’s bullshit, but really, if it was even a little interesting I’d tell you.

Then, ten months after the divorce I’m with some friends in the north end for my birthday. January 23.  It was freezing out – it’s always freezing on my birthday. Still, we’re having a great time when my friends raise their glasses and toast my being born, I told them I didn’t want to die there.

They said they didn’t want me to die here either – at least not before we got our cannolis and tiramisu. I assured them that I meant Boston and not the restaurant.  But Boston was the only place I’d ever lived, I say, and I loved it, but I didn’t want to die without having lived somewhere else. I tell them heading south and west.

They had their own takes.

I was depressed about my divorce.

I had run out of Tinder matches.

Not one of them believed I meant what I said or wanted what I wanted.

Between bites of cannolis and spoonfulls of tiramisu we discussed and debated my plan. And then they scoffed. Scoffed I tell you. Opinions were indecorously and disrespectfully spouted in my direction.

It was not very complicated I told them. It was not some enormous change at the last moment. Just a change of scenery.

In mid February, with my car packed I looked to the west and hit the road. I love road trips.  They’re full of possibility, they suspend time like a baseball game and exist just outside of reality. 

The trip counter counted my way south: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersy, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia as I sought to escape weather. In Tennessee I shifted west onto I-40.  In Nashville, I caught my breath with moonshine and music and I toasted the road ahead.

The next day I crossed the mighty Mississippi in Memphis and made my way through Arkansas, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle – which by itself is double the area of Massachusetts. State borders rose up as natural topographic dividers that offered entry into wonderful new worlds of dialects, dishes, vegetation, music, accents, architecture and more.

The final push through New Mexico and Arizona brought the California border and a sense of urgency as the Pacific beckoned. Three thousand miles.  Seventeen cups of coffee.  Four time zones.  Nine refuels.  Thirteen states.  Winter to not winter.  Atlantic to Pacific. Snow flakes to earthquakes. I had arrived.

I rolled up my jeans and waded in the water. 

I really should have taken off my sneakers first.

I walked back across the sand and up the stairs to the Santa Monica Bluffs.  The sun is disappearing into the Pacific and lights lit up the ferris wheel on the Santa Monica pier.

I was warm and it was February. Not New England winter thaw warm. But warm warm.

What a night I said to the guy standing near me.

He turned toward to me and smiled. That’s when I heard it. He was peeing into the bushes.

I had made it west.

After 48 hours behind the windshield, I opted to explore the coast on foot.  I walked and jogged the snowless streets, watching.  And what a show.  The 3^rd Street Promenade, Dogtown, Santa Monica Pier, muscle beach, the Venice canals, the Santa Monica stairs, and of course, the beach.

Hipsters and hippies, tourists and druggies, boomers and techies, street dwellers and artists shared the space and it mostly seemed to work. Venice Beach is totally walkable.  The rest of LA, well, sure, that’s walkable too if you drive.

So that happened a few months ago. I found a place to live and saw an ad for a crossing guard and I guess the school department out here figured a lifetime of having survived crossing Boston streets qualified me.

And now I have my own corner of the world. And I’ll cross everyone.

I cross moms and dads, nannies and au pairs, and all the grands. I’ll cross you yoga pant wearers, and bicycle sharers. Roller bladders and skate boarders and stroller pushers. Joggers and slow walkers.

You’re not getting hit on my watch.

I heard the last person to patrol this corner sold a screenplay. Got the call right here one morning. Didn’t even finish her shift. Made a thing of it. Dropped the stop sign in the middle of the cross walk and kept walking.

I might write one of those.

Till then I will get you safely across these thirty-one feet of blacktop. Know this, drivers. Know that I’m not messing with you when I tell you to stop. You need to calm yourselves down and sit tight while I escort these pedestrians to the other side. You had best use those damn brakes that came with your amn car and just stop. You’re just not getting through till I say you are.

And you punks in your silent electric cars who think you can go all stealth on me. It’s not happening. I’m on to you and your namaste bumper stickers.

And you lowlife in your over compensating Lamborghini. Keep testing me. You’re going to regret starting a pissing war with me. I’ll be getting a body cam just for you. You’re my new retirement plan. Go ahead. Don’t stop and I’ll own your ass. And your car.

Anyway, school is in now session and my shift is over and I need breakfast.

Two coffeehouses grace fair Venice where I lay my scene.

The one, Dogtown, local with a glorious past. Noisy and meant for conversation and chatter. A place where meetings are scheduled, projects projected, connections made.

The other, a Starbucks, where quiet is the rule and talking is discouraged, if not forbidden. A haven for writers and readers. For texters and surfers.

Today I’ll take my self to the noisy one in hopes of seeing Ashley who has breakfast there on Tuesdays before she goes off to yoga.

Elan Barnehama’s second novel, Escape Route, is set in New York City during the tumultuous 1960s, and told by Zach, the son of Holocaust survivors who becomes obsessed with the Vietnam War and finding an escape route for his family for when he believes the US will round up and incarcerate its Jews. Zach meets Samm and together they explore protest, friendship, music, faith, and love. Barnehama’s words have appeared in 10 x10 Flash Fiction, Boog City, Jewish Fiction, Drunk Monkeys, Entropy, Rough Cut Press, Boston Accent, Jewish Writing Project, RedFez, HuffPost, Public Radio, and elsewhere.  Elan was the flash fiction editor for Forth Magazine LA, has taught college writing, coach high school baseball, worked with at-risk youth, had a gig as a radio news guy, and did a mediocre job as a short-order cook. He splits time between Pasadena and Boston. 

Cinema uses politics and history to produce meaning just like a literary text does. Explore this idea with respect to any literary text and its corresponding film adaptation.

Nostalgia films embody historical picturesque adaptations that represents nostalgic fetishization of authenticity. Laura Mulvey film critique points out that “stylized and fragmented by close-ups…as the direct recipient of the spectator’s look”. Miss Havisham conferment of jewels upon Estella’s breast and hair was the symbolic travesty of objectification of the female body into delectable pieces for male consumption; therefore exhibiting and showcasing Estella’s feminine body politic as an object to be treasured, owned, memorialized, fancied, toyed, desired and possessed. Similarly Miss Dinsmoor exposes Estella as the embodiment of artistic consumption; foreshadowing the perilous commodification of selfhood upon which the bildungsroman hero Finn will focus his expectations in the Manhattan studio.

That Miss Havisham’s portrayal of transmogrification as incarnate of Dinsmoor infiltrates the filmic Satis House -the domicile of family brewery where Miss Havisham’s father produced the family’s wealth; economic designs penetrating marital relations as Miss Havisham was jilted by her lover Compeyson and the kinsman Arthur. Fallen and unfruitful paradise: large and dismal house barricaded against robbers. Thus though ‘Satis’ is the root of satiation and satisfaction become inverted into unsatisfaction and undernourishment of a barren wasteland. Dickensian descriptive language resonates bizarre eccentricity of the archetypal spinsterish lady. She [Miss Havisham] has never allowed herself to be seen doing either…She wanders about in the night, and then lays her hand on such food as she takes”.

Miss Havisham’s bridal feast commemorates a black fungus on the table where speckled legged spiders with blotchy bodies infestation occurrence ; and this rotting bridal cake metaphorically personifies Miss Havisham’s moral decay: anthropophagy revealed by the cliche: “The mice have gnawed at it[bridal cake] and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me”. The gothic imagery of the body and the market dynamics of Miss Havisham coalesced with the incursion of the financial world into the domestic hearth as Miss Havisham’s cousins wait to feast on the same table where the spiders feed upon her bridal cake. Miss Havisham adopts Estella who establishes sense of proprietorship in the bildungsroman hero; Miss Havisham later deals in trafficking of children instead of wine; albeit the Satis House becomes the economic nexus for the grasping members of the Pocket clan. Miss Havisham characterizes the transparent fawning of her relations as the grossest consumption, ripping the table with her stick saying: “Now you all know where to take your stations when you come to feast upon me.”    

The mourning masks and the mourning jewels such as brooches and rings are grim simulations of grief and death portends the bildungsroman hero with the inherent liminality of capitalistic culture that is built upon the sufferings of the poor wretches such as the castaway Magwitch, the clandestine patron of the protagonist.

In terms of mise-en-scene the most striking contrast of the dark and the light imagery in the cinematography studies shifts film and movie audience away from the dramaturgy in novelistic adaptation. Revealing the departure scene as the epitome of the halcyon farewell in the filmic production, the hero and heroine are beneath the bridge; the camera tracking the hero as Finn walks back into the sunlight while Estella’s image disintegrates into a dark blur in the background. Extracted quotable quote illustrative of the Dickensian rhetoric used in the semantic approaches to the semiotic is thus read: “….in all the broad expanse of the tranquil light…no shadow of another parting from her”.

Estella’s reunion with Finn at the bright sunlight sea suggests the amorphous relationship and the future possibilities; there is no retreat in the darkness of the heroine tempered by motherhood and divorce; brought the daughter to view the ruins of the childhood estate of legacy. In textual and filmic language the authenticity has been intact although the mise-en-scene diverts away from Estella’s realistic characterization by Charles Dickens as the virgin, angelic, haughty, heartless, thankless, damsel beauty separated from her deceased life partner the snobbish extravagant loutish of the Finches Groove. Dialectical approaches to Dickensian film criticism would authenticate the valedictory speech act in the character of the bildungsroman protagonist and his heroine as limelighted in these exchanges:

[narratorial authoritative imperative and Estella’s declarative:… “everything else is gone from her [Estella]. The silvery mist is touched by the first rays of moonlit and the same rays touched the tears that fall from the eyes. The ground belongs to her…”It is the only possession I[   ] have not relinquished. Everything else is gone from me, little by little, but I have kept this…

[autobiographical bildungsroman protagonist’s voice: “Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil.”  In terms of intertextuality Wuthering [Cathy: I am Heathcliff] can be paralleled in the bildungsroman hero subverting the conventions of romance love making speech associated with objective identification by directly merging his subjectivity into the heroine : “every prospect I have ever seen” ideally “the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with”.

Further Reading

Shari Hodges Holt’s Dickens from a Postmodern Perspective: Alfonso Cuaron’s “Great Expectations” for Generation X, Dickens Studies Annual 2007, Volume: 38, pages: 69-92

Gail Turley Houston’s Pip and Property: The [Re]production of the Self in “Great Expectations”, Studies in the Novel, Spring 1992, Volume 24, No. 1, pages: 18-25

Keith Easley’s Self-Possession in Great Expectations, Dickens Studies Annual, 2008, Volume 39, pages: 177-222

Susan Grass’s Commodity and Identity in “Great Expectations”, Victorian Literature and Culture, 2012 Volume 40, No. 2, pages: 617-641

For young people living in the world of adults, “love” is a means of defiance and resistance. Explore with respect to the literary text and any cinematic adaptation of Romeo and Juliet prescribed in your course.

The frantic pace of the movie reveals the outburst vehemence and impulsive hot-headed nature of the dwelling aboriginal of Verona as latterly foreshadowed by the rage, grief and passion of the feuding rivalries between the adversaries-Capulets and Montagues—-true to the authenticity of Shakespearean spirit. 1960s film version was focused on tragic love; the 1990s is about violent love. Shakespearean dramatis persona were the milieu of the starcrossed lovers and their inner moral dilemmas of those minds whose temperaments resonate reckless and hasty nature as the dysfunctional world of the Montagues and Capulets whose blood and honour were inseparable. Modern day mise-en-scene of the adaptation is a brilliant spectacle that marvels the accomplishing achievements through bestowal of laurel wreathed bouquets and accolades. For instance, Mercutio’s raving in the Capulet’s ball makes unimpeachable exemplary phenomenon with the bottling of acid beforehand. Romeo’s decision to end his life with poisonous drugs parallels the lifestyle of violence and addiction. The mafia clans’ fanaticism of religious sentiments as projected by their Catholic vein running through the plot juxtaposes coldblooded aggression as ironically spotlighted by the stereotypical families.

The close shot camera focusing the Shakespearean hero and heroine cloistered by the walls of Verona and confinement by window frame of patriarchal abode respectively. Upon revealing close up shot Zeffirelli’s camera angle moves to showcase Romeo attired in a deep, lilac; a Montague bereft of Capulet vulgarity and ostentation; nonetheless, pill box hat, eyeliner, flawless complexion and the flower exemplifies effeminacy. “A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun for sorrow will not show for his head”—–unshaved, unkempt Romeo beside swollen lips and fluffy faced Juliet in the tomb scene is the visual artifice in commitment to the ironical perspectives of the drama. Zeffirelli’s textual interpretation literally elucidates Shakespeare’s highly stylized and emotionally expressive naturalism that bestows weight to the narrative moments like Juliet’s departure epitomizing overexcitedness and emotional disorientation by the state of the physical dizziness. Here, as throughout, Zeffirelli creates a situation where visibility becomes feeling and feeling becomes awareness.

Religion of love imagery foreshadowed by the sonnet dialogue is absolutely superbly visualized filmic adaptation to cherish beneath the connotations of pilgrimage and saintliness: institutionalized and ritualized love-making courtship. The starcrossed lovers romantic love-making sonnet in the background depicted by the imageries of saints, pilgrims and statues brings the abstractest essence of martyrdom, canonization and immortality—the fabulous trappings embodying their history—their personalities and their naivetes, and their uncertainty of each other and the awareness of the social context in which they find themselves in the ignorance of perils. Choruses last six lines musical effect is absolutely inappropriate and unnecessary addition to the cinematic conventions of diegesis hovering between snapshots and painting, documentary and fiction; reconciling the present tense with the past tense of the film, ethical space with that of the cinema and history with story as profoundly replicated in Mercutio’s remark to Romeo is appropriately credible to Zeffirelli’s diegetic: “Now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature.”

Further Reading

Sarah L. Lorenz’s “Romeo and Juliet”: The Movie, The English Journal, March 1998, Volume 7, No 3, Teaching the Classics: Old Wine, New Bottles, March 1998, pp. 50-51, National Council of Teachers of English

Michael Pursell’s Artifice and Authenticity in Zeffirelli’s: “Romeo and Juliet”, Literature and Film Quarterly, 1986, Volume 14, No 4, pp. 173-178, Salisbury University

Examine the cinematic adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with that of the literary textuality.

Costume as well as nostalgia films engage the spectatorship through voyeurism of feminine and masculine sensuality as the technique of dramatization and the usage of focalization as revealed in the construction of Elizabeth Bennet’s and Fitzwilliam Darcy’s dramatis persona; whose body language, literary allusions, puns, metaphor, imageries and symbolisms have been layered with sexual connotations; beneath the intentionally solicited experience of repression tat imbues with sexuality: clothing, landscape, piano playing, letter writing and conversation. Evolving the Austenian filmic adaptations into modern cinema from the BBC 1995 television series, You’ve Got Mail, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Bride and Prejudice to the hallmark production of the film Pride and Prejudice 2005, which is critically acclaimed for the filmic grammar that includes: close ups, insert shots, subjective shots, eyeline matches, reaction shots.

The female body politic is fragmented and transmuted into eyes to be admired, her hair locks to be bestowed, hands to be kissed and feet to be touched as exemplified in the case of feminine fetishization in the heroine Elizabeth Bennet portrayed by Keira Knightley. Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy in the cast of Mr. Matthew Macfadyen, in whom avowed desire for the feminine object is aroused by the romanticism through fantasizing “the beautiful expressions of her dark eyes”—–the recurring symbol of Elizabeth’s charm. The ardent love of Darcy eventually follows melodramatic marriage proposal, a refusal and latterly unexpected encounter at the Pemberley Derbyshire estate; Elizabeth Bennet’s respect, esteem, gratitude and a genuine filial affection for the welfare of Darcy is translated into a reality. […] “it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance”. Love and passion have merged together into authentic and relevant feelings; there is no question of impulsive foolhardiness since the breach of etiquette can be valedictorily redressed and the truth be confessed.

Metonymic love undercover of Austenian body politic is not always translated into synecdochical fragments; sometimes it is also deviated and transmuted into tangible and touchable substitutes of the persona in the marbled sculpture and the mantelpiece portrait found by Elizabeth in the Pemberley Derbyshire estate as transmogrified real metonymical substitute in Darcy’s real picture. Discovery of the treachery and villainy by the janus-faced Wickham is visualized in the narrative perspective: “Till this moment, I never knew myself” is representative of the objective correlativity of the attainment of truth: Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper’s testimony of the heroic Darcy’s impassioned defence: “He is the best landlord and the best master […] that ever lived.” Instead of the family portraits the gallery of Chatsworth House offers Greco-Roman antiquaries sculptures such as the corporeity close-up of the Veiled Vestal Virgin in the embodiment of the heroine.         

Jane Austen, a subtly pervasive stereotype of defensively ironic genteel spinster wrought by sexuality fogged in bourgeoise morality as opposed to sexual vitality; in favour of frigidity as a standard of sexual conduct. Jane Austen chronicles sexual selectivity behind the wooing and wedding amidst art and nature, feeling and reason, freedom and order, individual and society as thematic plot and dialogue within the narrative. Constrained, reserved, solitary and fastidious Darcy epitomizes vanity and haughtiness, superciliousness and snobbery. Darcy’s inner dramatic dream fulfillment for dancing a reel / “feel a great inclination […] to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel by the playing of piano by Miss Bingley. Austen stories and characters are brought to life by the landscape and panorama of the settings as wanderings of the exquisite halls and eccentric gardens; drawing rooms pulsating with society’s expectations, gardens consisting of well-wrought urns of mysteries; and the outdoors becoming the witnesses to the silence of the ebb and the flow of love and intrigue.

The narrative moment sedately stroll through parklands and cultivated gardens or accompanied walks to towns is both alluring and perturbing for being unescorted young maidens in Austenian Regency England. In this instance, the heroine walk from Longbourn to Netherfield to visit Jane Bennet: Elizabeth’s hiking over fields, jumping over stifles and springing over puddles aroused the censoriousness in Miss Bingley’s rhetoric of muddy petticoats and blousy hair to which Darcy’s defence of the narrative voice invokes “divided between admiration of the brilliance which exercise had given to her complexion and doubt as to the occasion’s meriting her coming so far alone”, acknowledgement that he does not wish to be allied with a family that frequently makes a spectacle of itself. It is an opposition of heart and head, of reason and feeling, of intellect and emotion, of control and spontaneity, of elitism and egalitarianism—-that Jane Austen ironically insists in satire —-landed gentry view versus the outlook of a gentleman’s daughter.

Jane Austen’s warding off Mr. Darcy’s wedding proposal through the verbal rape of Elizabeth that he has not behaved in a “gentlemanlike manner” is far less explicit than Jane Eyre’s assertion to Rochester that she has full as [much soul as [he] and full as much heart.” But it voices the same feminine complaint alleging the masculinity of unrecognition of the female selfhood. Even after the proposal scene, the antitheses and hostilities between the sexes bear resemblances to Shakespearean lovers in a wood, meeting evanescently for exchanging letters. However, the whole of Pemberley episode is a tour-de-force of technique and perception in which the outward action is a metaphor of inward feeling: “at that moment she felt to be mistress of Pemberley might be something.” The language of speechlessness is bereft of smiles, sparkle of wit and repartee—–Benedict and Beatrice as lovers reciprocated in the depth of the deeper sentiments of silence. Eventually the reticence and resolutions of filmic diegesis of the textual adaptation shifts the pronoun of Mr. Darcy from “I” to “you” in the statements [“In vain have I struggled”… “You are too generous to triffle with me”] to transcend his social and sexual egocentricity. Foiling Georgiana Darcy’s obstreperousness to Lady Wickham or Lydia Bennet heightens the tension harboured by too repressive or too permissive upbringing, each of which equally lead to promiscuity. Through freedom and spontaneity, Elizabeth will teach Georgiana as a corrective to her too rigid upbringing; that she will be a child of Darcy’s head and Elizabeth’s heart, of his principles and her feelings to oversimplify—-of the union of rationality and emotion that their marriage represents.  

Further Reading

Roberta Grandi’s [Catholic University of Milan] The Passion Translated: Literary and Cinematic Rhetoric in “Pride and Prejudice” (2005), Literature/ Film Quarterly, 2008, Volume 36, No. 1, pp. 45-51, Salisbury University

Alice Chandler’s “A Pair of Fine Eyes”: Jane Austen’s Treatment of Sex, Studies in the Novel, Spring 1975, Volume 75, No. 1. Pp. 88-103

WINE  BOX  DIRECTIONS

You press the perforated circle tab.

This is step 1.  You have to do it first,

if you have hopes to satisfy your thirst.

Now, see the wings? With thumb and finger, grab—

and yank the wine sac’s tough, accordion spout.

rotate it till the hole’s 11 o’clock.

Now keep rotating clockwise.  Seems to lock?

Then how can Cabernet come streaming out?

The wine box sits there, taunting me, and full,

despite directions that would ease my woes.

Easy-open spout? A load of bull!

Perhaps a pliers? Not a needle-nose.

No, just an ordinary grip.  Now pull!

I’ll never taste this vintage, I suppose.

Copyright 11/2023    Patricia Doyne

ETHICS?  SANTOS HAS NONE

 Young Santos spends a lot on grooming aids:

  Botox shots, Sephora creams, and such.

  If he needs cash for splurges, he just raids

  a slush fund. No one really cares, not much.

  

Identity theft?  He’s stolen cards for years.

 Drag queen Kitara? Ponzi schemes?  Okay.

 Outrageous lies don’t bother Santos’ peers—

  they’ve all cut corners. Most have feet of clay.

  But when House Ethics probe uncovered fraud—

  diverting campaign funds to porn and clothes—

  

GOPs freaked out. Will donors nod,

 and wonder where their money really goes?

 Deep pockets are a campaigner’s lifeblood.

 The Santos dirt leaves Congress smeared with mud.

  Copyright 11/2023                Patricia Doyne

                                   

 

 

                                    Copyright 11/2023                Patricia Doyne

Nigeria, the so-called ‘giant of Africa ‘ is fast becoming a shadow of itself. From the pinnacle of relevance as being the most populous black nation in the world to a land endowed with enormous human and natural resources, the country is loosing its highly magnified framework of international and global recognition. 

October 1 1960 birthed a nation that would be known to be home to the highest concentration of black people in the world. Known for its enormous resources, each regions at the time survived independently through the instrumentality of viable and sustaining agriculture. The Eastern region was known for the abundant production of palm oil and other related derivatives. Cocoa was an export crop produced in the western region and the famous groundnut pyramid was the symbol of the food strength of the northern region. Together, Nigeria prospered economically.. The political sagacity and geniuses of the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Western region, late M.I Okpara of the Eastern region and Sir Ahmadu Bello of the Northern region ensured peaceful co-existence as they independently mapped out posterity-driven strategies to make their respective regions peculiar. Consequently, Nigeria, before the coup in 1966 and Civil War of 1967-1970, was one of the best nations to visit from anywhere in the world!

Unfortunately, the discovery of oil was the commencement of what would epitomize the decline of the viable economy. There was a subsequent shift of focus from Agriculture to oil. The 70s saw the emergence of oil gradually taking its stance as the main-stay of the Nigerian economy. The oil boom of the 80s had the Nigerian attention completely focused on the oil sector. A mega-business it was and fast growing, the politicization soon crept in. Before eyes could bleak, corruption was the developing cancer whose anomalous spread affected other sectors of the economy. Hence, making difficult foreign investment to thrive in Nigeria.

As more multi-national companies begin to contemplate leaving the once-prospering economy, the following are reasons their decisions to leave Nigeria would see the light of day

Irregular Power Supply: Nigeria is own to be the parent supplier of the power to neighbouring countries as Ghana, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Benin Republic and Togo. But it’s ironic these countries experience steady power supply whereas it’s just the exact opposite in Nigeria! Most of these corporations spend on petrol and other alternative power sources astronomical amount of money to keep business operations running. The recurrent deficits make many foreign companies check out of Nigeria to even other countries like Ghana due to power issues. A typical example is Michelin Tires. They shut down operations in Nigeria to set up a base in Ghana due to the incessant power instability in Nigeria.

Unhealthy Political Interference

There is hardly no business set up emerging in Nigeria that would absorb one form of political interference or the other which would pose dents on the technocratic integrity and affirmative philosophy of business establishments. With that in place, private investors would have to cough out certain money to grease the palms of politicians who would use their cronies to disrupt the smooth-running of businesses run by private investors through heavy taxes and unnecessary impositions on company expenditure. If the said company complies to the status quo, service delivery would be affected and quality of products may not commensurate with consumer’s satisfaction. In addition, to recoup the expenses, consumers are being charged exorbitant prices which is actually a counter-productive one! 

Security tensions

The ‘grey-area’ security architecture in Nigeria creates a topsy turvy has created clap-backs by established private investors in the country. The almost-collapsed security system in the country has paved way for several terrorist groups constituting cataclysmic aftermaths to individuals and businesses. With the dreaded Boko Haram, threatening Herdsmen, notorious Miyati Allah, masquerading Unknown gunmen and mean kidnappers destructively interfering the security structure in the North-East, North-West, North-Central, South-South, South-West , South-South and South-East geo-political zones, Nigeria is one of one that nations of the world on the Terrorist Watchlist. That alone makes it unsafe of foreign investment to thrive in the country.

over half your life

looking out the window

thinking of all the women

you have let down or never

had the chance to let down

loneliness is realizing you

have lived over half your

life and can’t remember

the last time you kissed

a woman and it meant

something

even worse, you can’t

imagine that changing

anytime soon

———————————————————————

look around

if you take a moment

and look around and

realize you’re in the

middle of a bob ross

painting

life isn’t that fucking

bad after all

———————————————————————

like a pair of comfortable shoes

she never tells you she loves you

takes it for granted like a pair of

comfortable shoes

eventually, you will grow apart

find your comfort in the arms

of an easy woman on the east

side of town

all in the hopes that someone

will get jealous and realize

her error

years later now, and she never

has

never even wished you the

best of luck

tells you to lay in the bed

you made

no time for the argument

she thanks you for letting

her go when she needed

you the most

two souls that don’t know

how to communicate will

always come to the same

solution

learn and let the new love

reap the benefits

no use being bitter for

the rest of time

———————————————–

hungry for love

an old soul

that the world

has left behind

hungry for love

but the long line

hasn’t moved

in years

at this rate

it is becoming

more and more

clear dying alone

is the most likely

conclusion coming

of course, the

lottery could pay

for a companion

though luck doesn’t

often work that way

————————————————-

squeeze a few poems out

we’re back to the old routine

of a medical facility waiting

room a few times each week

now

gives me a chance to squeeze

a few poems out

maybe do a little people

watching

hell, maybe even dust off

the imagination and take

it back out for a spin

the world continues to spin

off the axis

yet all the people i know

keep chugging along

of course, it ain’t exactly

living

but only the rich can do

that anymore these days

WHAT’S SO FUNNY?

Transcript of Angela Williams’ Interview (for internal circulation, final copy to be edited and approved by SM before filing)

Video/Tape Recorded Interview

Angela Marie Williams/Detective Sergeant Stephen Marshall

6.16.23

Start: 0535 (AW escorted into room by Det. Melissa Blake)

End: 1148 (see medical addendum)

Note: AW appears to disassociate, stare off in a catatonic state, dance to music only she can hear, several times throughout the interview. (I thought she was going to take her clothes off at one point, Micky might want to play that bit back.)

SM:     I know you’ve been here a while. I appreciate you speaking to me. Det. Melissa Blake shared a timeline of events of the past 24 hours, so we won’t go into detail. I think we both know why you’re here. Angela, do you want to have a seat?

AW:    I’m fine.

SM:     You do know why we’re here?

AW:    He said it was normal.

SM:     Who did?

AW:    Father Michael.

SM:     Murder? Your priest said murder was normal.

AW:    Is that what this is?

SM:     We don’t know yet, but it doesn’t look. Angela, you tell me why we’re here.         

AW sits.

AW:    Where are my children?

SM:     Your sister.

AW:    Shit.

SM:     Would you like us to call someone else?

AW:    Anyone but her.

SM:     You’d rather I call a social worker?               

AW:    No. That’s fine. She’s fine.

AW stands, first sign of Awkward Movement (AM)

AW:    You think I’m crazy.

SM:     I don’t think you’re crazy. Can we start from the beginning?

AW:    No.

SM:     Can we start from the end?

AW:    Let’s just start from now. What’s going to happen to me?

SM:     That depends on what happened.

Lengthy Silence (LS)

AW:    He said it was normal.

SM:     Who?   Right. Father Michael.

AW sits.

AW:    I’m here now. Let’s just get this over with. Is it life imprisonment? Do we have the death penalty?

SM:     No death penalty. And it all depends on what happens. What happened.

AW:    From the beginning?

SM:     Yes. From the beginning.

LS                               

AW:    After Clara was born. I had PPD.

SM      PPD? Post-partum depression.

AW:    Yes. But it was bad, like really bad. I was in the hospital for five weeks. I had to stop breastfeeding. My boobs. They gave me a pump and Jessie picked the milk up every day. But he didn’t give it to her. Some days I refused to see him. His face. I wanted to peel it off his head, like an orange, Press my thumbs into his eyeballs and pull the skin back. Or like a pumpkin, I’d carve a hole in the top of his head and pull his face out from the inside, his smug smile and optimistic eyes turned inside out on newspaper at the kitchen table.

(Interruption at door. Det. Melissa Blake takes dinner order.)

SM:     How do you know he didn’t give her the milk?

AW attempts to reopen door exiting the interrogation room.

AW:    It was all there when I got out. When I got home. All of it. There’re still a few bags in the freezer.

SM:     Why didn’t you throw it out?

AW:    I. (Pause) This is going to sound. (Pause) I put it in their macaroni and cheese. (Pause) Crazy right?

SM:     Well.

AW:    I know. Not as crazy as all this.

SM:     Let’s stop using the word. Crazy.

AW:    Why?

SM:     I don’t think any of this should be classified that way.

AW:    Why?

SM:     You tell me.

AW:    What? Oh man, is it going to be like that? Are you going to do that to me too?

AW stands.

SM:     What? Calm down.

AW:    Oh, sweet Jesus. Calm down, huh? It’s going to be like that, eh? You’re going to do that, too?

SM:     Calm down.

AW:    Don’t tell me to calm down. I’ve been here for days.

SM:     Twelve hours.

AW:    Twelve hours. Sure. Can I just go to jail already? They have beds, right? Cots. A place I can lie down.

AW sits on floor. Empty table and chairs indicate suspect is beneath video recording device.

SM:     Are you ready to tell me what happened?

LS

AW:    You know. (Pause) What happened. (Pause) You saw him.

SM:     I did. How did he fall?

AW:    He didn’t.

SM:     He didn’t fall?

AW:    No. Don’t play games detective.

SM:     I’m not the one playing games.

AW:    I’m not playing games.

SM:     Then start from the beginning. You went out.

AW:    Date night.

SM:     You and your husband went out on a date.

AW returns to seat.

AW:    Yes. We went out every Saturday. We went to see a comedy show.

SM:     The Laugh Café?

LS

AW:    Yes. The uproariously unfunny Laugh Café.

SM:     Then you went for a walk down by the quay?

AW:    It wasn’t funny.

SM:     What wasn’t funny?

AW:    The show. (Pause) He laughed his ass off at almost every joke. Everyone did.

SM:     It was a comedy show.

AW:    But it wasn’t funny. Like not at all.

SM:     Why wasn’t it funny?

AW stands, spins, mimes holding a microphone, smoking a cigar?

AW:    My wife. Ha, let me tell you about my wife. Every night she asks me to massage her feet. And I gotta say yes, fellas, amiright, we have to say yes. I just wanna watch the game, but she’s got her feet on my lap and I rub those feet for hours and when I ask if I can massage her pussy with my dick for five minutes, maybe two minutes if she closes her eyes, she gets up and leaves like it’s my dick with bunyons and cracked heels.

            (Pause) It’s not funny. Why are you laughing?

SM:     You’re right. It’s not funny.

AW:    It’s stupid. But Jessie’s laughing. Hysterically. Not just tittering because it’s stupid, but knee-slapping laughing. And I’m thinking, who the hell is this guy? Like, why’s he laughing. We have sex all the time and he never massages my feet. I mean I couldn’t stand it.

AW sits, folds in half, head pressed between knees.

SM:     The laughing?

AW:    Yes. And. I can’t stand him touching me.                  

SM:     You tried to kill him because he laughed at a comedy show?

AW:    It wasn’t funny.

SM:     Again. You pushed him because he laughed at unfunny comedy.

AW:    It was less than funny. It insulted funny. Like if George Carlin was in the audience, he’d have walked out.

SM:     Why didn’t you leave?

AW:    He wanted to see the headliner. Some guy he went to school with. And if you want to underline anything on that notepad of yours. He was the unfunniest guy I have ever heard in my life. It was fifteen minutes poking fun at the guys who played D and D in school. He played Dungeons and Dragons. My husband played it too. He stood up there for fifteen minutes making fun of himself.

SM:     That’s good comedy, isn’t it? Self-effacing.

AW:    No. He never mentioned that he played D and D. He just made fun of dudes who did without actually saying he was one of them. And Jessie was.

SM:     Hysterical?

AW:    He said his gut hurt so bad. When we were walking across the bridge. I mean, how is that possible? I wasn’t even smiling on the inside.

AW dances, jumping jacks, burpees, stretches.

SM:     How did you get him over the railing?

AW:    What?

SM:     How d’you get him over the railing? And on to the highway?

AW:    I don’t know.

SM:     Why do you think you did it?

AW:    I saw a movie about a woman who dreamed about killing her husband and after watching it, I felt, less alone. The husband knew she was going to kill him, but he didn’t know how. I wanted that for Jessie. I didn’t want Jessie to figure it out. I wanted it to be a surprise.

SM:     You’ve been thinking about this for a while.

AW:    Not like that. It’s Clara.

SM:     What about Clara?

AW:    Siobhan too.

SM:     What about the girls? You wanted to kill them?

AW:    No! Don’t say that! Who told you that? I’d never harm them.

SM:     Who said you would?

AW:    The doctor.

SM:     He thought you might kill them?

AW:    Clara. He thought I might hurt her. That’s why. The hospital.

SM:     Right. Well, did you?

AW:    No. Stop it.

SM:     You said.        

AW:    No, I didn’t.

SM:     Tell me what the doctor thought.

LS

AW returns to the corner under the camera. Silence.

AW:    I mostly dreamed about the funeral.

SM:     What does that mean?

AW:    I dreamed of the funerals. I didn’t want them to die. I just wanted them dead.

SM:     You wanted a funeral?

AW:    How many people would come? Would people feel sorry for me? I couldn’t possibly get through the speeches and prayers without someone holding me up, supporting me?

SM:     Taking care of you? You dreamed of a funeral so people could see you crying? See how much you hurt? And hug you? Care for you?

AM starts twirling.

AW:    I don’t think anyone would show up in real life, but in my dreams, it’s like a celebrity died. A packed church, and if they all got killed by a drunk driver, or worse, there is media there taking pictures of me and my face is splashed all over town and people come from all over to the church to pay their respects. To me. Standing room only to hear me tell everyone how incredible my little Clara and Siobhan were. I’m never going to see them married. Never will be a grandmother. My dreams are shattered. In the blink of an eye. Their lives destroyed. Extinguished.

SM:     Does that upset you now?

AW:    Of course. (Pause) Do you like lasagne?

SM:     It upsets you, that you thought those terrible things?

AW:    I said yes. Do you have a tissue?

SM:     Are you crying?

AW:    It’s upsetting to think of them dying.

SM:     This is all I have.

AW:    A handkerchief? Do people still use these?

SM:     I still use them.

AW:    Is it used?

SM:     No. It’s not. Yet.

AW:    It’s hot in here.

SM:     We can go for a walk outside after you tell me what happened.

AW examines her hands, her fingers. She cracks her knuckles.                   

AW:    You know what happened.

SM:     You have to say it.

AW:    Have you ever tasted breast milk?
SM:     I’m not going to talk about that.

AW:    It’s delicious.

SM:     Look at me, Angela.

AW:    I can’t.

SM:     Pardon.

AW:    I can’t.

SM:     Lift your head and speak a bit louder.

AW:    I can’t.

(Pause)

SM:     Lift your head.

AW:    Whoa, why so angry?

SM:     Listen. This is getting tiring. I’ve got kids myself and I’d like to get home.

AW:    That’s rude.

SM:     What’s rude?

AW:    Rubbing it in like that?

SM:     That I have kids?

AW:    That you’ll get to go home and see them.                              

AW stands, dances around the room.

AW:    Don’t look at me like that.

SM:     Start from the beginning.

AW:    We went for dinner.

SM:     After that.

AW:    We went to the Laugh Café.

SM:     After that.

AW:    We went for a walk down on the quay.

SM:     After that.

AW:    The bridge.

SM:     The bridge?

AW:    I don’t remember any of that.

SM:     Yes, you do.

AW:    No. I don’t. Are you allowed to talk to me like that? (Pause) One minute he was here and the next minute he was. Where is he by the way?

SM:     The hospital.

AW:    Oh, thank god.

SM:     Intensive care.

AW:    What happened? Will he die?

SM:     His family is with him.

AW:    What? Who?

SM:     His parents I believe. His brother.

AW:    Jonathan?

SM:     Yes.

AW:    Will he die?

SM:     You asked me that.

AW:    Did you answer me?

SM:     Yes. He’s being taken care of, but he may die.

AW:    Will there be a funeral?

SM:     I have no idea.

AW:    Can I go to the funeral?

SM:     He’s not dead. And. No.

AW:    Why?

SM:     If he dies. You killed him.

AW:    I did?

SM:     Yes.

AW:    The girls. Where are the girls?

SM:     With your sister.

AW:    Shit.

SM:     Do you want us to call anyone else?

AW:    Father Michael.

SM:     We tried. He’s busy with your husband.

AW:    Persona non grata.

SM:     What did you say?

AW:    Persona non grata.

SM:     I heard you, but.

AW:    Father Michael told me it was perfectly normal. That people dream of killing their loved ones. That it never amounts to anything more than a passing fancy. A moment in time when we’re adjusting to life the way it is, the way it will always be and that it would only take time for me to come to terms with the death of my own dreams.

SM:     Your dreams?

AW nods.

SM:     What dreams?

AW:    Pardon?

SM:     What dreams? The death of your dreams?

AW:    I don’t know what you mean.

SM:     You just said Father Michael…

AW:    Is he coming?

SM:     He’s not coming.

AW:    Where is Clara?

SM:     Clara and Siobhan are with your sister.

AW:    She’s a bitch.

SM:     You said that.

(Pause)

AW:    You know she wanted her dead before I did?

SM:     Who?

AW:    Siobhan.

SM:     Your sister wanted to kill Siobhan?

AW:    Siobhan tried to kill Clara. She was crying in her crib. And I was. Busy.

SM:     Siobhan tried to kill Clara?

AW:    I was in the bath. She was crying. When I got out of the bath, Clara was screaming still, but it sounded like she was drowning.

SM:     Where was Siobhan?

AW:    Watching television. She’s always watching television.

SM:     And Clara?

AW:    She was in her crib, but her mouth and eyes were covered in cellophane tape. Criss-cross, apple sauce, her nose, there were cotton balls in her nose. I called Jessie laughing. I said can you believe it? We’ve got a little sociopath on our hands.

SM:     What did he do?

AW:    He said it wasn’t funny.

SM:     And?

AW:    He called our family doctor.

SM:     What did he do?

AW:    He took me away. Can you believe it? She’s the one who wanted to kill her.

SM:     You did too. You told the doctors.

AW:    I said I didn’t blame her for wanting her dead. Things would have been better.

SM:     And?

AW:    I didn’t want to kill her. I just wanted.

SM:     You wanted her dead.

(Pause)

AW:    Where’s Jessie? Will there be a funeral? A big one? At St. Chris’s?

SM:     Sure. Whatever you want.

AW:    I need a dress. My black one with the white pixie collar. Jessie likes that.

SM:     You won’t be going to the funeral.

AW:    Why not?

SM:     Holy crap. This is getting tiresome.

Detective SM opens door, takes white plastic bag with food from MB, dropping it on to the table.

SM and AW eat. AW picks burger patty out of bun and breaks off little pieces.

SM:     Tell me what happened on the bridge?

AW:    What bridge?

SM:     Over the expressway.

AW:    He said I lost my sense of humour. He said I would have laughed at shit like that when we were younger, but now I only laugh at. Listen. I laughed at crappy comedy back in the day because I didn’t know what was funny then…really…about life.

SM:     And what is funny about life?

AW:    This is funny. No?

SM:     Not really.

AW:    You’ll laugh about it one day.

SM:     I don’t think so.

(Pause)

AW:    Anyway, I said, you know what’s funny? And I told him I made lasagne with my breast milk and his mother said it was delicious. I said when she put the fork to her mouth I imagined sticking my nipple in there. I thought about squirting her in the eye. And I told him about the mac and cheese. He said it wasn’t funny, but crazy. I said, you know what’s crazy? I said, you locked me up for six weeks with swollen boobs and a pump for my milk and then you never gave her any of it. He never gave her any of me. For six weeks I made these connections in my head. Like rivers of milk that flowed from the hospital, down Smith Street, across Bolder, through the park and into our house. Into her mouth. I dreamed I was floating on that milk and when she sucked it out of the bottle, I was going inside of her. That when I returned, she’d know me. But he filled her with poison and stocked the freezer with my milk. I asked him why he kept it, if he never planned on using it and he said he couldn’t bring himself to throw it out. I said that’s crazy.

AW moves erratically around the room.

SM:     Sit down please.

AW:    I don’t want to sit down.

SM:     If you don’t sit, I’ll have to put the cuffs back on.

AW:    Where is he?

SM:     Who?

AW:    Jessie? Where is that asshole? I’ll show him crazy.

SM:     Calm down.

AW:    I’m fine.

SM:     Do you want some more water?

AW:    No. I’m fine.

SM:     I can’t have you passing out again.

AW:    I’m fine. Where are the girls?

SM:     They’re with your sister.

AW:    Shit. And Jessie? Is he dead?

SM:     Not yet.

AW:    Will there be a funeral?

SM:     If he dies. If there is a funeral. You won’t be going.

AW:    Persona non grata.

SM:     Yes.

AW:    I’m not crazy.

SM:     No. You’re not.

AW:    He said I was crazy.

SM:     Jessie?

AW:    Yes.

SM:     That’s why you pushed him off the bridge.

AW:    Did I?

SM:     Yes. Tell me why.

AW:    He fell.

SM:     How?

AW:    I don’t remember. One minute he was there and the next, he was gone.

SM:     Sit down.

AW:    Can I see the girls?

SM:     No.

AW:    Jessie?

SM:     Sit down.

AW:    Why am I here?

SM:     You tried to kill your husband.

AW:    I did. Will there be a funeral?

SM:     Fuck sakes. If he dies, you won’t be going to the funeral.

AW:    I know.

SM:     Sit the fuck down.                               Calm down.

AW:    Don’t tell me to calm down.

SM:     What’s so funny?        Why are you laughing?

AW:    Did you know Jessie?

SM:     No.

AW:    Did you know his mother?

SM:     No.

AW:    When I got out of the hospital, she told me she didn’t feel sorry for me.

She told me she felt sorry for my girls. My girls. She felt sorry for my girls.

SM:     And that’s funny?

AW:    I made the lasagne. I mixed two-year-old breast milk in with the ricotta cheese.

SM:     Yes. Just like the children’s macaroni and cheese.

AW:    Exactly. Lasagne is so messy. You can put almost anything in it and nobody will ever know. It looked like lasagne, and she’ll never know. I gave her containers of leftovers. She’s probably eating some right now. Joke’s on her.

SM:     Doesn’t sound like a joke to me.

AW:    You lose your sense of humour?

SM:     Maybe.

AW:    You don’t find this funny?

SM:     No.

AW:    I do.

AW falls forward, resting cheek on table, eyes closed.

AW: Anyway, he won’t die. He never does.

####

–END–

Alison Gadsby earned her MFA in creative writing from the
University of British Columbia. Her stories have been published in various literary magazines including Ex-Puritan, antilang, Blue Lake Review, Coastal Shelf, Dreamers and more. She hosts Junction Reads, a prose reading series, in Tkaronto, where she lives with her family.