[photo by Randy Gordon-Gatica] Brooklyn, 2020. A 54-year man sitting on a bench in a small yard in Park Slope at twilight. ******** Along with the virus, New York has been invaded by “the real” — an elusive concept. I was telling an old school New Yorker about an encounter I had at Coney Island … Continue reading MONOLOGUE #10: The Real
A 55-year man sitting at a bar. Manhattan. 2019 ******** One night in the mid-90s, I walked into an ATM on 23rd and 6th Avenue where a man was sprawled out on the floor. It was two in the morning. His wallet was flipped open a few feet away from his open hand. He was … Continue reading MONOLOGUE #9: Billy’s Topless
A middle-aged man sitting in a cubicle. 2019. ******** It's one of those days at work where I'm absolutely paralyzed. Hogtied. Brainfreeze. I can't do anything. So what do I do? I go to Google Street View. I take a drive in my childhood neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi. Take a look at the old house. … Continue reading MONOLOGUE #8: Manhattan Academy
A 40-year man in a Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt. He sits on the back of an old Mustang. Smoking a cigarette. A street light buzzes overhead. Jackson, Mississippi, 2010. ******** I was miserable. Living with my cousin in a cheap-ass apartment complex. Just living there in that shitty dump, I felt like I had hit … Continue reading MONOLOGUE #7: Cedarstone
A 60-year old man is sitting in a lawn chair. He is whittling a yard-long, cylindrical stick with a pocket knife. This is Memphis, TN in 2019. ******** A few years ago before Cathy dumped me, I was down in a swamp in Mississippi. I popped this squirrel out on a long branch, and it … Continue reading Monologue #6: The Voodoo Stick
An 85-year old man in a camouflage hunting cap. He sits in a rocker smoking a pipe as he speaks with a thick Mississippi accent. Kosciusko, Mississippi, 2015. ******* I’m gonna tell you about something that happened just about one block off the square to the west. There was a pool hall down there behind … Continue reading MONOLOGUE#5: Pool Halls and Mayor’s Courts
A 35-year woman at a Manhattan dinner party. She wears pearls, sparkling earrings, and a jade silk dress. ******** I’m always happy when something strikes me as “Southern.” My sister works in a retirement home in Ridgeland, Mississippi. A 95-year old resident gave her a little frosted-plastic, crystal-looking Christmas tree to sit on her mantle. … Continue reading MONOLOGUE #4: Southern Subjectivity
An autumn day in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. 2018. A 45-year old man in a flannel shirt is throwing a baseball to someone while he speaks. ******** I experience a specific, subtle pleasure when I get off the subway taking my son to school in downtown Brooklyn. Our stop is Jay Street on the F. We … Continue reading MONOLOGUE #3: Curious George City
A young woman in blue coveralls and a helmet with antenna tramps across a rocky landscape as she speaks. ******** Most time travel stories are about performing surgery on the past to fix the present. Rewriting history. Destroying the doomsday device. Stopping the assassination that triggers World War III. This is a pretty basic wish … Continue reading MONOLOGUE #2: time travel
From a hotel room on Royal Street in the French Quarter. A middle-aged man is stretched out on a king-sized bed in a hotel room. He is sipping from a plastic cup. It is 2017. ******** I’m back in my beloved Hotel Monteleone. I fly back to Brooklyn in the morning. Instead of strolling over … Continue reading MONOLOGUE #1: Down and Out in the Monteleone
