I got an email I couldn't resist answering in the voice of my ghetto fabulous evil twin, Sha-nay-nay Shaniqua Danyay Halloway.
Dear sir/madam
I am Mr Mike Mcmullen I need your services in a confidential matter regarding money transfer.
This requires a private arrangement though the details of the transaction will be furnish to you if you indicate your interest in this proposal.
We have all the legal documents to back up the transaction, besides we have worked out the modalities to ensure smooth and risky free transfer.
I am willing to offer you 40% of the money, the fund in question is quite large. All correspondences will be via email and telephone for now.
I am expecting to hear from you, if you are willing to do the business with us,your private phone number is needed.
Please let me hear from you immediately only in my private emailbox:mike.mcmullen1@hotmail.com
Waiting to hear from you.
Thanks,
Yours Faithfully,
Mr Mike Mcmullen
Look, Bitch!
Don't know who the hell you think you foolin telling me yo name Mcmullen. I ain't even got my GED yet and I knows it's McMullen. I had a Irish priest help me when I was pregnant and the baby daddy try to get me to have a abortion. Father Mac tell me killin babys a sin and I has to do Gods will and have my baby. So I has nine of them little basterds now listening to Father Mac, all with different daddies and ain't none of them muthafuckas worth a dam.
You talking bout needing my services sound like you wants me to give yo ass a blow job or something. What's confidential bout that? How you think I take care of nine kids with no child support and a welfare check? I get enough on the food stamp card to feed 'em but I still gotta pay rent and usetilities.
So let's gone and make this transaction cause I sho as hell accepts yo proposal! Hell yeah! And you ain't gotta worry bout no tricky transfers cause I's clean. I did have the clap last year, but that done cleared up now, but you can't go down on me cause I have them genital warts and spit make 'em sting. You better wear a condom to for that private arrangement you talking about because my privates full of crabs right now cause that last muthafucka that made that arrangement wouldn't wear a condom. Started itching soon as his ass got up!
But let's get one thing scrait. I don't care what kinda legal documents you got, I ain't backing up cause I still got hemorrhoids from the last time I let some sonofabitch pay me extra to ram his - wait a minute - some skank looking over my shoulder trying to read what I'm typing. What was I saying? Naw, ain't gone be nona that shit! No, especially since you say your fund is quite large. Think I's stupid just cause I dropped out in the ninth grade? I had to! I was bout to have another dam baby and i couldnt go to school with two of 'em to feed. I know you done smoothed out all yo modalities and I bet you got some big ones, but you ain't plugging my butt. Oh, no!
You say you pay me 40 of the money you got, so it sound like you ain't got but about fifty dollars. Guess that mean we be doing it in the alley less you gotta a car cause don't sound like you aint got enough for no motel room.
I can't give you no phone number right now cause they done turn off my phone cause my 14 year old son been calling his little girlfriend running up my bill. I only got 200 minutes a month on my plan and he done run my bill up to 500 dam dollars calling that little fast ass ho all the time. I think he done got her pregnant! One of the twins flushed my pre-paid cell down the toilet, so I gotta go to the library to use the pay phone. That where I is now checking my email.
But you can call me at 1-900-CRACKHO, its only 25 cents a minute. I ain't no crack ho tho. I's just a regular ol' ho. I'm usually the only one there cause soon as them dam crack hos make enough money to buy a rock, theys gone. That why the owner keep the price so low so it take 'em a while.
But if one of them bitches answer, just tell 'em to put FaBooLust on the phone. I be talking some shit on that 900 line! I'll make you harder than it is to believe this bullshit you trying to tell me!
Don't email me no mo, you fake ass bitch!
Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
AT&T can kiss my entire black ass!
Verizon tried. Sprint tried. T-Mobile tried until AT& T tried to buy them. Credo tried, telling me how AT&T supports right wing conservatives and the Tea Party.
But some of my best friends and at least one relative are right wing conservatives. Nobody, but NOBODY could get me to leave AT&T, even when my iPhone bill was just to high for me to manage on my part-time employee, retiree's income. Then my due date was changed to the beginning of the month and I had to call every month to tell somebody in India when I could make a payment to prevent my phone service from temporarily suspended. I tried to get a different phone and a cheaper but couldn't because my bill was never current. I tried to explain that I'd always be late paying a bill due at the same time as my rent, insurance payments, cable, electric, and credit card bills.
But I was told when I called after my phone service was temporarily
suspended that I can't get a new due date because I'm not current. I can't pay my
bill on time because of the due date, but I can't get a new due date because I can't
pay my bill on time. So, I told the man from India whose flippant remarks did not transform me into my ghettofabulous alter-ego whose salty response to a Nigerian
scammer got over a thousand views on my original blog. No, I refused to be the
angry black woman another man from India offered to buy me a row house in San
Francisco to role play when he answered my ad in the personals of a Detroit
paper, along with 500 other guys who fantasized about large women.
I was just me. The loyal AT&T customer who stayed with a company everyone hates and refused to let go until they showed me how little my loyalty means to
them. My fiance is going to hook me up with his cell service, which costs a third of
what I've been paying for my iPhone service. I eventually want to get an Android
phone because I found out it's easy to create apps for it, but it'll have to wait until I
have more money to spend on cell phone service. I can still use the Internet on
my iPhone whenever I'm someplace with free wifi and I'll have a phone to make
calls and send texts. So I'm cool.
Shi-nay-nay, my alter ego, still wants to give someone at AT&T in a position of
power a piece of her mind and a lot of her lip, but I'll keep her in check. I've got
plans for her anyway. I'm writing a play about her in various situations that make
most of us want to scream, curse, and act like we're insane. She does all that and
more. But she does it with such wit and ghetto style, you have to give the girl her
props. Don't take my word for it. Check out her reply to that scammer! (see previous post, "Where My Money, Biotch")
But some of my best friends and at least one relative are right wing conservatives. Nobody, but NOBODY could get me to leave AT&T, even when my iPhone bill was just to high for me to manage on my part-time employee, retiree's income. Then my due date was changed to the beginning of the month and I had to call every month to tell somebody in India when I could make a payment to prevent my phone service from temporarily suspended. I tried to get a different phone and a cheaper but couldn't because my bill was never current. I tried to explain that I'd always be late paying a bill due at the same time as my rent, insurance payments, cable, electric, and credit card bills.
But I was told when I called after my phone service was temporarily
suspended that I can't get a new due date because I'm not current. I can't pay my
bill on time because of the due date, but I can't get a new due date because I can't
pay my bill on time. So, I told the man from India whose flippant remarks did not transform me into my ghettofabulous alter-ego whose salty response to a Nigerian
scammer got over a thousand views on my original blog. No, I refused to be the
angry black woman another man from India offered to buy me a row house in San
Francisco to role play when he answered my ad in the personals of a Detroit
paper, along with 500 other guys who fantasized about large women.
I was just me. The loyal AT&T customer who stayed with a company everyone hates and refused to let go until they showed me how little my loyalty means to
them. My fiance is going to hook me up with his cell service, which costs a third of
what I've been paying for my iPhone service. I eventually want to get an Android
phone because I found out it's easy to create apps for it, but it'll have to wait until I
have more money to spend on cell phone service. I can still use the Internet on
my iPhone whenever I'm someplace with free wifi and I'll have a phone to make
calls and send texts. So I'm cool.
Shi-nay-nay, my alter ego, still wants to give someone at AT&T in a position of
power a piece of her mind and a lot of her lip, but I'll keep her in check. I've got
plans for her anyway. I'm writing a play about her in various situations that make
most of us want to scream, curse, and act like we're insane. She does all that and
more. But she does it with such wit and ghetto style, you have to give the girl her
props. Don't take my word for it. Check out her reply to that scammer! (see previous post, "Where My Money, Biotch")
Monday, May 30, 2011
The natural high that's as bad as drug-induced euphoria: mania
Re-posted from 3/1/09:
Winter's End Means No More S.A.D.ness For Me!
Yes, I'm back! S.A.D.(seasonal affective disorder) has been defeated and I'm on that manic high that people with bipolar disorder don't want to give up and will often refuse to take medication for because they are willing to risk suicidal depression just to experience this...I don't know if you are familiar with stream of consciousness, but you are about to experience one long train of thought...before I continue, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, here's a definition: read it and get ready for a roller coaster ride (those of you who are prone to nausea, light-headedness, or who fear heights might want to skip this email and read those I send you after I come down weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) -
"The term “stream of consciousness” was first used in psychology, to convey what was taken to be the flow of conscious experience, of what William James called “mind stuff”, in the brain. The term was introduced in James’s The Principles of Psychology (1890) to denote the continuous flow of thoughts, feelings and impressions which, he believed, is what makes up our inner lives. James was aware of the complexity of this “stream”. It does not consist of a single stream of consecutive items; many items may coexist" (John Mepham, Kingston University).
I realize I'm probably borderline bi-polar - either that or I really am as crazy as I sometime think I am - because since I've been an adult, I have had this mania from time to time in which I was so "high" mentally, spiritually, and emotionally that I literally went through life at warp speed for a time, writing like crazy, drinking copious amounts of wine in my mispent youth, and engaging in sexual promiscuity during my late twenties (briefly before being celibate for nearly eleven years) and early forties ( for two-and-a-half years! I attribute these sexcapades to my confused hormones that didn't seem to be aware that I am unable to have children and were on a mission to give me every chance to become a mother); and when I look back, these manic periods usually followed winters and the ensuing S.A.D. and the illness that resulted at the end of February or the first of March: well, I didn't get ill and probably would have been on this "high" a week ago when my friend Lori's prayer was answered and she emailed me the 'cure' that was revealed to her for what ailed me (which I immediately accepted and initiated - taking Vitamin D, getting out in the sunshine and fresh air, and finding a way in my sorry state to praise God by going to my favorite Psalms and, as Rolita directed, repeating the two verses I most cherish from the 91st Psalms, 1&2, twelve times) and it would have worked but I was attacked - and I do mean attacked - by allergies that caused my nose to run constantly and my head to throb, then went into my chest causing me to cough up vile, yellow mucuous, and, finally, resulted in me having red, puss-filled sores under my nose from blowing it so much; but when I had a similar attack last fall, I ended up with a giant sinus infection that sent me weak-kneed and nearly crawling to my doctor because I had a hard time standing up (I was that sick) and taking antibiotics for a week...now, I probably sound like a crazy Christian, but I believe all these little germs, bacteria, and viruses that attack us are demons - how else would thousands of angels fit on the head of a pin unless they were microscopic and, remember, demons were once angels...all that's evil, that makes us sick or causes us grief and pain comes from Satan, I believe...the good bacteria that's in all our bodies are the angels God sends to fight those demons!...look, I know this sounds bizarre coming from someone who has a minor in biology and social sciences, but I believe God is the supreme scientist, something I was taught by this wonderful woman named Sylvia Pennington, who is now deceased and who I only heard once at OSU when she came there to discuss biblical interpretations and posited that God not only has an all-knowing mind, but a logical one, as well...that makes sense to me seeing the science that is involved in the mechanizations of the universe...the only reason many scientists don't believe in God (some do, particularly many astronomers who have seen the far reaches of the universe), but rather science, I believe, is because science hasn't caught up to God yet...when it does, if it ever does, I think science will be practiced in churches, synagogues, buddhist temples, and mosques and scientists will be the new priests, summoning us all to worship at the altar and lifting up praises to the First Scientist...I addressed this email to God because I wanted to make a point about talking to God...looking up God's email address, I shunned the ones given by those who took themselves a little too seriously (especially one in Westerville, Ohio, the area where I lived when I was in Columbus) and decided to use the one given out by someone with a little sense of humor, albeit, slightly irreverent, because I think God accepts irreverence, understanding that humans use it as a defense mechanism...O.K., so what do I do with this manic energy...I already went to the hotel lobby, two steps from my room, made a waffle and ate it and two "sausage?" patties from one of those microwave sausage biscuit duos and had a cup of coffee and was back in my room in 19 minutes with a cup of coffee...walked from the door across the room to the computer table in six strides, pausing long enough to get the three French Vanilla creamers I've been hoarding and a packet of Splenda and dropping the napkin and box of Mini Frosted Shredded Wheat cereal with one hand in one swift motion while carrying a hot cup of coffe with the other hand (when not manic, had I not put down the cup of coffee and done each of the other tasks carefully, I'd have spilled the coffee because my borderline dyslexia makes me do the opposite of what I intend to do unless I'm focused, so I would have tried to pick up the creamer and Splenda with the hand I had the coffee in had I not focused); then back across the room to get tissue for my nose with the red, puss-filled patch underneath, and back to the computer...I usually keep my hotel room uncharacteristically neat (I'm a terrible housekeeper, one of the many reasons I don't want to get married) not because I want to but because I have to so I can keep my belongings organized and make packing up to leave easier; however, since I've been in the S.A.D. mode, I've noticed each time I come here, my hotel room has taken on the more familiar persona of my house: books, papers, clothes everywhere, everything in disarray... a real mess, but I know when I get off the computer, I'll be cleaning this room up and it will be as neat as a pin in about ten minutes (unfortunately, this doesn't always happen at home when I'm manic, instead of cleaning, I write)...I've already been writing like a maniac (maniac comes from the word 'mania' so I guess I am as crazy as I think I am!) since I stopped working fulltime last year, so if mania affects my writing, I may finish a novel by morning!...seriously, I do have an outline for another curriculum guide and I could write it this weekend, but I received "word" in prayer to hold off on writing it because it gives too much information about my new "revolutionary" day hab model and I don't want to publish that information just yet - first, I have to get the day hab up and running before I share this concept...so, I could write a novel or an epic poem or a play or a book of short stories or re-write the one act plays I lost when my other laptop crashed or a musical or another curriculum guide with activities that I outlined yesterday or I could...do almost anything right now...mania is not just a "high," I think it's a spiritual state those with bi-polar go into temporarily because Satan is so twisted, he sends those he seeks to destroy by their own hand soaring before bringing them down to that place where death is the only out...I lived in that place as a teenager, there were no highs...it wasn't a sad place, necessarily, just a dark place...I would be a "goth" today if I were a teen because I was fascinated by death and the "undead" (vampires) then, reading Bram Stoker's Dracula over and over until I knew every plot twist, character, and much of the dialog from memory and convincingly told my younger siblings that I was a vampire...later, studying adolescent psychology, I learned that teens actually lose their minds due to hormonal changes, which explained a lot...so, as an adult, I thought everything would be o.k. because I no longer was deeply depressed and suicidal, but I would get these episodes of mania that resulted in me talking at light speed, doing fifty things at once (I actually worked eight hours a day, then volunteered another eight at night and on the weekends in a theatre for nearly two years) until I burned out like a candle...I left my teaching career after two years of teaching all day and doing theatre all night...my life was pretty much the same way last year when I worked seven days a week, which I'd done for six years, since The Sojourner's Truth was first published (and six years before that when I was doing theatrical productions with Da Coloured Gurlz and six years before that when I was singing with SPECTRUM - for a couple of years, I was singing and acting and working fulltime- whew!)), but last year was different because I worked a lot harder as a supervisor than I ever did as a behavior specialist, SBH teacher, or a habilitation specialist; so leaving both jobs was really a matter of survival for me...mania can kill you!... actually, the only time I actually enjoyed being manic was in my early forties when my alter ego "LOVEhandles" was in charge of my life (I'm also borderline Multiple Personality Disorder or whatever they're calling it these days!) - as LOVEhandles, I placed a provocative ad in The Detroit News seeking male companionship and got nearly 500 responses, including two from vice cops who thought I was a 'pro' since my ad seemed to promise sex; it didn't really, it just talked about fulfilling men's fantasies of being with a large women (I guess that was promising sex, now that I think about it - what can I say: I was named after my father's mother who was a 'pro' and who my father despised, yet named me for, then would never call me by my first name!)...a lot of men in the Detroit area had that fantasy and I met about twenty men of nearly every ethnicity (no Asians, but Hispanic, German, Arab, Polish, Russian, French, Irish, English, India, Pakistani, Jewish, and, of course, African-American), age (from early 20s to mid-60s), profession (doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, computer experts, students, construction workers, an EMT, accountants, bankers, a process server, dentists, you name it), and interest (including heterosexual cross-dressers)...most were just first dates and didn't go any farther, but I did have 'affairs' with three of the guys I met: one German-Polish engineer, one Jewish process server, and one 27 year old black stud muffin...although I am reallly a one-man woman and have never had much luck juggling two or more men, I did it for almost a year, then my young stud insisted I give up the other two who were getting on my nerves because they were so clingy (my engineer was even making hints about settling down), so I kicked them to the curb and let youngblood show his true colors; turns out his best friend was dating an older woman who'd turned him into a gigolo, showering him with gifts and money and he expected the same from me...that ended that relationship because, as I told the vice cops, I don't charge for sex - and I don't get charged for it either (I actually met an incredibly handsome Hindu from India who has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and had a contract with a well-known Toledo company who made me a proposition that didn't involve sex - well, not actual sex because he had a fiancee he'd been promised to in an arranged marriage contract in India and he could not have sex until he married her - when he decided to move to San Francisco where he started his own company: he wanted to buy me a row house where he'd set up a state-of-the-art computer system for me to write if I'd let him come over once a week and performed duties as a dominatrix (no sex, just dressing provocatively and barking orders at him - I know, weird); I told him there are people who get paid to things like that and I'm not one of them (I used to fear I was destined to become my father's mother and turn into 'a whore for hire' because he'd given me her name, and I have endeavored not to realize that fear); oddly, I was not seuxally active until I was 23, when I had my first 'affair,' while I working on my master's at Wichita State; I was an 'intern' teacher, meaning I went to school several days during the week and actually worked in schools the rest of the time, as well as did "community service"...I was on campus one day (our professors came out to our base school the other days) and would have lunch with a professor from the Black Studies Department, a beautiful young woman a few years older than me who complained about her filandering husband, swearing she'd never marry another black man...meanwhile, having never had consentual sex (I was the victim of acquaintance rape when I was sixteen while out of my grandmother's sight one summer when I lived and worked with my uncle in Houston who was the supervisor of housekeeping in a medical building where I cleaned office and was dumb enough to sneak a 23year-old guy who buffed the floors into the locked medical offices I cleaned so we could 'make out'...of course, he tried to go farther and I always said 'no,' but one time he didn't stop and I got the shock of my life because I had no idea that sex involved penetration...a voodoo woman who kept putting hexes on my uncle that he laughed at so me leave the office and told my uncle that 'something happened to me,' but I would not admit it because I knew my grandmother would make a federal case of it due to what happened a few years earlier when I was in eighth grade...I had a huge crush on one of my classmate's older brothers and was always smiling at him when he would walk by with his friends...well, one of them thought I was smiling at him...he lived across the street from the school and my grandmother and I were always half an hour early - she'd go to her sixth grade classroom and I'd go to the junior high building to my homeroom...one day, this guy "BeBe" (not his real nickname) came in and attempted to rape me, but stopped when one of my classmates, a girl named Sylvia I'd thrown into a wall in the girl's restroom when we were in fifth grade because she kept picking on me came in and saw what was happening and ran and got my grandmother...of course, BeBe left and went to his own homeroom, but my grandmother went and got him and dragged him to the principal's office in front of the whole school where he was beaten with a board and screamed so loudly everyone could hear him...after that, people would tease me by calling me BeBe, especially a boy in my class named Louis, who I beat up one day, knocking him down and banging his head on the sidewalk...so, not wanting to go through that again, I never said anything, although my grandmother 'knew' and I wasn't allowed to go back to Houston to work again, but I had residual effects and in the 'date rape culture' that persisted in both Texas and Oklahoma, the two states where I did my undergraduate studies, I beat the crap out of every college student, G.I., or any other many who tried to rape me (I'm going to write about those guys one day - I gave one a concusssion!)...anyway, I finally consented to having sex with this handsome older guy who a former roommate fixed me up with when I moved out of our apartment into a duplex near the school (all of the interns were supposed to live in the community, but only two of us did)...she was white and, although she dated men of different nationalities, she didn't date black men and like me, she was a big, beautiful woman, which this guy was attracted to, it turned out...so, we got together and it was lust at first sight...he told me his name was 'Ted' and after a few encounters asked me if I knew the Black History professor I had lunch with every week...I was suspicious, so I asked her about him and she said his name sounded familiar...now, the chair of her department was a good friend of mind and directed the theatre company, One People, I was in...I kind of had a crush on him, but he was married, so off limits...anyway, our 'affair' ended after about six months since it was just about sex a little more, but he did tell me he had not been totally honest with me and told me where he actually worked, for the Post Office (not really, but I don't want to say where he really works in case his wife should see this on my blog some day)...anyway, I was having lunch with my professor friend and she mentioned that her husband worked at the Post Office...I asked her to describe him, then she told me his name was 'Tad'...it was the same guy!...I'd had an affair with a married man...I was really angry and hoped I'd see him again and have a chance to tell him what I thought of him, but I never did...I did see her on an infomercial after I moved to Ohio that she was hosting...my friends all marveled that he had the nerve to get involved with someone who knew his wife, but I think that was a turn-on for that snake...later, having done the unthinkable, having an affair with a married man, I knowingly had a very brief affair with an Ethiopian grad student whose wife was still in Africa, but it was unsatisfying in every since of the word, mostly I think because I could never resolve myself to sleeping with someone else's husband...I have a friend whose husband made passes at me a while back and I refused to 'bite' and I'm so glad i did because I can look her in the eye without any guilt...I've never understood how women can betray other women this way and not seem to be bothered by it...there are many married men I find attractive and would love to date if they were single, but even if I don't know their wives, I respect them and refuse to disrespect another woman's marriage again...I was talked into getting involved with someone who was married once who told me the marriage was 'open' and it was, but the 'openness,' as usally happens I found out in 'open' marriages was one-sided: the husband was the only one allowed to have affairs, although the wife was allowed to in 'theory,' when she actually had one, they ended up getting a divorce...my twenties were full of sexual drama, so I took a break from sex in my thirties and hung out with gay men, then that hormonal surge took over in my early forties and I turned into LOVEhandles and was a very bad girl!- well, for a couple of years, anyway...no drama, no complications, just fun and games...however, my sexcapades ended when my best friend, who was the co-chair of the Toledo AIDS Task Force, asked me to be on the task force, along with a gay male friend, then when we showed up, she introduced him as the representative of the black, gay male population and me as representative of the black at-risk female population...at risk? for what? AIDS....whoa!...talk about facing reality...that plus starting peri-menopause (you guys don't want to know the details, believe me, all the women over forty know and those of you who don't, you soon will and for all that they say about menopause, peri-menopause is MUCH worse; it's just not something you can talk about publicly as easily as you can mention a hot flash or irritable mood...if men went through this, the retirement age would be moved up to forty; if men and women's body functions were reversed, I also believe they'd have a week off each month, a three-year maternity leave, and the government would pay homemakers for serving their country!)...I hate sexism as much as I do racism...did anyone see the picture of the White House with a watermelon patch in the front yard that some mayor of a city in California was using as a screen saver claiming he didn't know this was a racial stereotypes?...yet, people got upset about Eric Holder saying we are a nation of cowards when it comes to talking about race...why else woud Klan members wear hoods, people like Imus, that New York Post cartoonist, and the California mayor not own up to their racism if they're not cowards?...one of the reasons I'm so open about my past experiences (well, most of them, anyway; believe it or not, I do have a couple of things I keep secret, not because I want to - they are just things I haven't resolved quite yet, therefore, cannot share) is because I have to be honest and open up in order to write and to act...when one is not authentic, it shows up onstage and on paper; my role model for this kind of bare-it-all honesty is my brother, James, who's first play, "Our Young Black Men Are Dying and Nobody Seems to Care" started out as a suicide note; in the play, James exposes himself, completely, giving all the raw emotions and deep abiding pain that he's suffered voice...I love my siblings, every single one of them, including the one whose calls I've blocked from my phone...Ruth, who is scheming and conniving to try to come to Columbus to live with my mother, who lives with my sister DE'brar, who Ruth has hated since the day she was born and took Ruth's place as the baby girl, at least she's always acted as if she's hated our baby sister...I have finallly forgiven Ruth for her email rantings sent to many of you when I was asking for your prayers of support for James...I was incensed, not because of what she said, as evil and untrue as most of it was, but because of her motive: to divert attention from James who was in the fight of his life, to her...so, she came up with a story that was supposed to get the kind of sympathy James was getting...remember when I told you she moved out of her rent-controlled apartment due to the neighbors putting wires in the wall and sending rays to drive her crazy, none of which was mentioned in the email she sent out to my email lists, which is why I now "BCC" my lists, then she told my mother who she calls sometimes half a dozen times a day, that she was living in her van and that men would rape her while she was asleep (translation, she was having consentual sex with men which in her warped mind is always rape) and even went to the doctor to make sure she wasn't pregnant, and occasionally lived with a friend who she'd fall out with, then moved to a shelter after she claimed she called the police because she had nowhere to go and Mom told her to go to a shelter; there, she said everyone was talking about her...anyway, turns out she never left her apartment...all of this was a ploy to get my mother to make DE'brar let Ruth live in her house, which is where my mother lives...this can't happen for two reasons: number one, Ruth has no respect for DE'brar and would not respect her in her own home and number two, my mother is at peace and lives in a state of constant joy and contentment and none of us wants that to change, except maybe Ruth...she can't help it, if she came to Columubus, it would be like the serpent in the Garden because she would disrupt the lives of all four of my family members that live there, create havoc in their friends' lives, have everyone in Columbus wanting her to leave after a few months and be ready to move to Toledo to do the same thing here: I will stop her in Findlay if she tries to come this way because the last time I let Ruth come stay with me, my roommate at the time, Dana, who was a nursing student at Wichita State and the German fiance of my Hispanic friend, Joe, was ready to move out of our apartment after Ruth was there for a week; I had to ask her to leave, not knowing she was pregnant and had run away from home because our parents had always been clear about us not getting pregnant while in school (she was a senior and only six weeks away from graduation and later returned and took two tests to graduate, only missing one question - she's really a genius); while in Wichita, she went to the Lutheran Social Services and made arrangements to have an abortion...I personally refuse to take a stand on this issue since I can't have children, but I don't think I would have an aboriton, although I don't know since I've never faced that particular circumstance; however, I thank God that Ruth never had a child...I didn't want to have children because I'm afraid I'd mimick the child-rearing style I was exposed to most, my grandmother's, and never wanted to inflict that kind of verbal abuse on anyone else plus I'm just not maternal...I did consider adopting some children and homeschooling, but I was looking at the whole thing from an educational perspective, not as a parent...however, I do love children; Ruth hates them - the only partner she was ever with for any length of time was a beautiful Jewish woman (in spirit, I never met her in person, but she had to be a saint to live with Ruth!) who artificially inseminated herself with the sperm of a black male so she and Ruth could have a bi-racial child...they broke up because Ruth was jealous of the attention her partner gave the baby: the woman is the most narcissistic person I have ever known and I've known a lot of narcissists because I've worked with actors for over thirty years plus I have borderline Narcisssistic Behavior Disorder (many artists do because we are so self-absorbed with our craft and with our thoughts and constant self-examination)...so, my sister, who really is losing it, has started to unravel and forgets occasionally that she told Mom she's homeless and mentions her landlord or something about her apartment, then in the next conversation, she'll talk about living in the shelter...she's also tried to enlist Joseph and James to help her get DE'brar to let her live in her house, but the one person in Columbus she hasn't talked to directly is DE'brar; she's left her long, rambling voice mails, but she won't talk to her...I love Ruth, I love the beautiful music she's written and the way she plays instruments, but I can truly say without any reservation, if I never see my sister again, I will be o.k....I pray for her and I will continue to try to understand the mental illness that has gripped her mind and turned her into someone so contemptuous of those who love her most, but I don't want to be around her for any reason...I do want to be around the rest of my siblings, not that we don't all have our issues, but we all have one thing in common: our love for our mother and our family...I miss John, so I hope he gets to visit us this year like he wants to and that I get to go to California before "the big one" (earthquake) takes it off the map in September 2010 (the latest prophecy from a number of religious prophets)...the rest of that prophecy is that when the country becomes vulnerable, Russia will attack the east coast and China will attack the west coast of the United States; people have actually had visions of Americans being transported to concentration camps in boxcars and people being shot down in the street for resisting...supposedly the safe places to go are in the middle of the country to Missouri and Kansas (the state I moved from when I came to Ohio 25 years ago!); then another prophet had a vision of Wichita being hit with a nuclear bomb - I had a similar 'feeling' years ago that Wichita was going to be destroyed, prompting me to order extra copies of my transcript from Wichita State...however, the thing I believe about prophecies and visions and predictions is that they show 'possibilities' and 'probabilities,' not 'actualities' and inevitabilities'...meaning, this can all be changed...and how can it be changed?...through prayer, of course....actually, not just prayer: fasting and praying...these are the two most powerful weapons we have on earth, which practiced while reading scripture arms us for any battle with evil...maybe that's what I'll do while I'm riding high...I have actually been on the verge of this high since I left fulltime employment last year because I would just stop at times and realize that I was happy and that joy was a state I was living in for the first time in a long time...then winter came and brought S.A.D. and my joy diminished (it didn't completely go away, I just lost touch with it because had I not had a little joy in my life, I'd have a fierce upper respiratory infection right now that would end up as bronchitis, what I used to get at the end of winter from 1993)...but even in the midst of despair, sometimes there's hope...I'll never forget 16 years ago, the first week of March when I was sick after going through a particularly bad case of S.A.D., I became so ill, I had a fever that made me delirious and bed-ridden for a week...during the worst part of that week, when my fever was up to about 103 degrees, I had a vision...now, I NEVER see things or hear things; whatever powers I have are all through my feelings - I felt the presence of the demons that possessed my friend, Russell's brother, who later told Russell that the reason he kept standing by me was because the demons were quiet in my presence (God and I had a long talk about that one and I was disturbed about it until I remembered that when my mother visited John and he took her to a friend's house where they were channeling spirits, he was asked to take her and leave because the spirits wouldn't come while she was there and later my mother told me that there were two women in our rural community in central Texas - the setting for my novel - who were "possessed" and would strip and do vile and disgusting things and who would only calm down when my grandmother came to 'heal' them - she and this phenomenon are also mentioned in the novel- I realized then that this power over demons is a generational blessing just as the depression, which is a personal demonic attack, in my opinion, is a generational curse probably designed to destroy us since we have the power to destroy the demons that are part of our DNA when we evoke the name of Jesus)...anyway, I did have a vision during my delirium for three consecutive nights; I watched tens of thousands of clouds move rapidly past my bedroom window and finally it registered that they were angels and they were a sign from God that I was going to be all right...I might add, just before the vision, I placed that ad in The Detroit News, so don't go thinking I'm all "holier than thou" because I'm not...I showed someone my "pin-up" shot recently after I re-ordered the Dimensions magazine in which it was published along with my article about being "smart and sexy" because my ex-boyfriend refuses to return the only copy I had; and she said, "You did that before you were saved," and I said, "No, I did it afterwards and God and I talked about it" because I wrestle with being a single Christian and what to do about my sexuality all the time...another generational curse my family has is sexual addiction and we've all wrestled with it, each of us in his/her own ways, but I usually go through long, long, long periods of celibacy - not because I'm good, but because sex for me is like alcohol to an alcoholic: one drink is too many and a thousand is not enough; which is why I became promiscuous 16 years ago after having a heavenly vision...no, I'm nowhere near holy, but I am a Christian: a very imperfect one and God and I have an understanding that when menopause is over, all bets are off on the celibacy - look out!... but I'll try to do things according to his will, meaning if I have to legitimize sex (get married), I will, as much as I personally don't believe in marriage (for me)...I'll probably draw up a partnership agreement and have a "holy union" (a religious ceremony with no marriage license) because I think marriage as defined by the state leaves to many loopholes...now, they could be wrong about post-menopausal sex drive (I sure hope so because God knows I do not need to be married to anyone - I'll need to borrow Michelle Obama's "Black Widow" dress - the black one with the red markings - she wore Election Night because I think given the opportunity, I would literally devour any man who was unfortuante enough to live with me; sorry, guys, but ya'll get on my last nerve and I keep attracting all these men who want to be 'punished' and, although I am a latent dominatrix, I really don't want to go there and neither does any man who thinks he wants me to because if I go there, it will take me to depths I never want to go to: I met this guy from New York once who wanted me to come there and put on some black leggings and a bustier and go to this club called The Dungeon where he said men lie on the floor naked and beg women with my ASSets to beat them for large amounts of money - I couldn't do it because I'd still be there whipping men's behinds FOR FREE!)...but with all these women in their sixties getting AIDS, I think there may be some truth to that post-menopausal hormonal surge...whatever happens, God and I will be talking and I'll be sharing our conversations with you because I plan to find a way to stay just shy of mania and at that place I was last summer and fall...in the secret place of the Most High...the thing about being there is you don't realize that's where you are because it feels so familiar, so natural, so real, you don't think of it as a special place because it's not...I didn't think about why I had so much joy and peace, I just enjoyed having it, although I knew it all came from God...that much I knew...I also knew I was abiding under God's shadow...that's why verse 2 of Psalms 91 talks about God being the place of refuge and a fortress because that's what happens when you live (dwell) in that place of peace and joy and stand (abide) under God's shadow...it's not this mania that is nothing more than a chemical reaction caused by the same microscopic demons that cause you to be depressed; mania is artificial joy that though spiritual (we are dealing with powers and principalities that are in the spiritual, as well as the physical) is not real joy; it's the same 'high' you get from taking amphetamines (I know because I used to take diet pills and wash them down with a fifth of cheap wine when I was in my second undergraduate college - the one in Oklahoma, not the one in Texas where I was a model student labeled as a 'militant' - and wanted to stay up all night cramming for an exam or writing my column for the college newspaper - some of those columns I wrote when I was "high" make Rev. Jeremiah Wright look conservative!) or smoking a joint (something else I tried in college, although I could never inhale except by contact- I am physically unable to suck smoke down my throat, which is why I never learned to smoke cigarettes, although I did try!)...I'm feeling the same way I did then now, except my heart is not pounding in my chest like it did when I took those diet pills and I'm not getting sleepy or hungry for sweets like I did when I got those contact marijuana highs...so, I know this is artificial and won't last, but when it's over I'll already be back in that secret place (not 'secret' because it's unaccessible but because the way there is so discreet and ethereal, you can't explain how you got there, you just go) where I'll dwell, abiding under God's protection...of course, winter will return again and with it, S.A.D., but this time, I'll be taking Vitamin D, getting out in the sun and fresh air (even if it's frigid outside), and reading verses 1&2 of Psalms 91 twelve times every day; I don't think S.A.D. will be able to interrupt my joy and peace again...I've already broken the cycle of illness that always followed it, nearly killing me 16 years ago until God sent angels to remind me that I was protected and I haven't been sick after having S.A.D. since except for some minor problems like having an allergy flare-up this year, but no fever, no infections, no visits to the doctor...next winter, I'll be ready for S.A.D., armed and ready and will I beat it? - of course, the answer can only be YES! (This begins and ends with the word "yes" in homage to James Joyce, who writes a 'stream of consciousness' monologue for one of the characters in his novel, Ulyssess that also begins and ends with the word "yes" and has no punctuation...I did use some - it's the English major in me, I guess!)
Winter's End Means No More S.A.D.ness For Me!
Yes, I'm back! S.A.D.(seasonal affective disorder) has been defeated and I'm on that manic high that people with bipolar disorder don't want to give up and will often refuse to take medication for because they are willing to risk suicidal depression just to experience this...I don't know if you are familiar with stream of consciousness, but you are about to experience one long train of thought...before I continue, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, here's a definition: read it and get ready for a roller coaster ride (those of you who are prone to nausea, light-headedness, or who fear heights might want to skip this email and read those I send you after I come down weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) -
"The term “stream of consciousness” was first used in psychology, to convey what was taken to be the flow of conscious experience, of what William James called “mind stuff”, in the brain. The term was introduced in James’s The Principles of Psychology (1890) to denote the continuous flow of thoughts, feelings and impressions which, he believed, is what makes up our inner lives. James was aware of the complexity of this “stream”. It does not consist of a single stream of consecutive items; many items may coexist" (John Mepham, Kingston University).
I realize I'm probably borderline bi-polar - either that or I really am as crazy as I sometime think I am - because since I've been an adult, I have had this mania from time to time in which I was so "high" mentally, spiritually, and emotionally that I literally went through life at warp speed for a time, writing like crazy, drinking copious amounts of wine in my mispent youth, and engaging in sexual promiscuity during my late twenties (briefly before being celibate for nearly eleven years) and early forties ( for two-and-a-half years! I attribute these sexcapades to my confused hormones that didn't seem to be aware that I am unable to have children and were on a mission to give me every chance to become a mother); and when I look back, these manic periods usually followed winters and the ensuing S.A.D. and the illness that resulted at the end of February or the first of March: well, I didn't get ill and probably would have been on this "high" a week ago when my friend Lori's prayer was answered and she emailed me the 'cure' that was revealed to her for what ailed me (which I immediately accepted and initiated - taking Vitamin D, getting out in the sunshine and fresh air, and finding a way in my sorry state to praise God by going to my favorite Psalms and, as Rolita directed, repeating the two verses I most cherish from the 91st Psalms, 1&2, twelve times) and it would have worked but I was attacked - and I do mean attacked - by allergies that caused my nose to run constantly and my head to throb, then went into my chest causing me to cough up vile, yellow mucuous, and, finally, resulted in me having red, puss-filled sores under my nose from blowing it so much; but when I had a similar attack last fall, I ended up with a giant sinus infection that sent me weak-kneed and nearly crawling to my doctor because I had a hard time standing up (I was that sick) and taking antibiotics for a week...now, I probably sound like a crazy Christian, but I believe all these little germs, bacteria, and viruses that attack us are demons - how else would thousands of angels fit on the head of a pin unless they were microscopic and, remember, demons were once angels...all that's evil, that makes us sick or causes us grief and pain comes from Satan, I believe...the good bacteria that's in all our bodies are the angels God sends to fight those demons!...look, I know this sounds bizarre coming from someone who has a minor in biology and social sciences, but I believe God is the supreme scientist, something I was taught by this wonderful woman named Sylvia Pennington, who is now deceased and who I only heard once at OSU when she came there to discuss biblical interpretations and posited that God not only has an all-knowing mind, but a logical one, as well...that makes sense to me seeing the science that is involved in the mechanizations of the universe...the only reason many scientists don't believe in God (some do, particularly many astronomers who have seen the far reaches of the universe), but rather science, I believe, is because science hasn't caught up to God yet...when it does, if it ever does, I think science will be practiced in churches, synagogues, buddhist temples, and mosques and scientists will be the new priests, summoning us all to worship at the altar and lifting up praises to the First Scientist...I addressed this email to God because I wanted to make a point about talking to God...looking up God's email address, I shunned the ones given by those who took themselves a little too seriously (especially one in Westerville, Ohio, the area where I lived when I was in Columbus) and decided to use the one given out by someone with a little sense of humor, albeit, slightly irreverent, because I think God accepts irreverence, understanding that humans use it as a defense mechanism...O.K., so what do I do with this manic energy...I already went to the hotel lobby, two steps from my room, made a waffle and ate it and two "sausage?" patties from one of those microwave sausage biscuit duos and had a cup of coffee and was back in my room in 19 minutes with a cup of coffee...walked from the door across the room to the computer table in six strides, pausing long enough to get the three French Vanilla creamers I've been hoarding and a packet of Splenda and dropping the napkin and box of Mini Frosted Shredded Wheat cereal with one hand in one swift motion while carrying a hot cup of coffe with the other hand (when not manic, had I not put down the cup of coffee and done each of the other tasks carefully, I'd have spilled the coffee because my borderline dyslexia makes me do the opposite of what I intend to do unless I'm focused, so I would have tried to pick up the creamer and Splenda with the hand I had the coffee in had I not focused); then back across the room to get tissue for my nose with the red, puss-filled patch underneath, and back to the computer...I usually keep my hotel room uncharacteristically neat (I'm a terrible housekeeper, one of the many reasons I don't want to get married) not because I want to but because I have to so I can keep my belongings organized and make packing up to leave easier; however, since I've been in the S.A.D. mode, I've noticed each time I come here, my hotel room has taken on the more familiar persona of my house: books, papers, clothes everywhere, everything in disarray... a real mess, but I know when I get off the computer, I'll be cleaning this room up and it will be as neat as a pin in about ten minutes (unfortunately, this doesn't always happen at home when I'm manic, instead of cleaning, I write)...I've already been writing like a maniac (maniac comes from the word 'mania' so I guess I am as crazy as I think I am!) since I stopped working fulltime last year, so if mania affects my writing, I may finish a novel by morning!...seriously, I do have an outline for another curriculum guide and I could write it this weekend, but I received "word" in prayer to hold off on writing it because it gives too much information about my new "revolutionary" day hab model and I don't want to publish that information just yet - first, I have to get the day hab up and running before I share this concept...so, I could write a novel or an epic poem or a play or a book of short stories or re-write the one act plays I lost when my other laptop crashed or a musical or another curriculum guide with activities that I outlined yesterday or I could...do almost anything right now...mania is not just a "high," I think it's a spiritual state those with bi-polar go into temporarily because Satan is so twisted, he sends those he seeks to destroy by their own hand soaring before bringing them down to that place where death is the only out...I lived in that place as a teenager, there were no highs...it wasn't a sad place, necessarily, just a dark place...I would be a "goth" today if I were a teen because I was fascinated by death and the "undead" (vampires) then, reading Bram Stoker's Dracula over and over until I knew every plot twist, character, and much of the dialog from memory and convincingly told my younger siblings that I was a vampire...later, studying adolescent psychology, I learned that teens actually lose their minds due to hormonal changes, which explained a lot...so, as an adult, I thought everything would be o.k. because I no longer was deeply depressed and suicidal, but I would get these episodes of mania that resulted in me talking at light speed, doing fifty things at once (I actually worked eight hours a day, then volunteered another eight at night and on the weekends in a theatre for nearly two years) until I burned out like a candle...I left my teaching career after two years of teaching all day and doing theatre all night...my life was pretty much the same way last year when I worked seven days a week, which I'd done for six years, since The Sojourner's Truth was first published (and six years before that when I was doing theatrical productions with Da Coloured Gurlz and six years before that when I was singing with SPECTRUM - for a couple of years, I was singing and acting and working fulltime- whew!)), but last year was different because I worked a lot harder as a supervisor than I ever did as a behavior specialist, SBH teacher, or a habilitation specialist; so leaving both jobs was really a matter of survival for me...mania can kill you!... actually, the only time I actually enjoyed being manic was in my early forties when my alter ego "LOVEhandles" was in charge of my life (I'm also borderline Multiple Personality Disorder or whatever they're calling it these days!) - as LOVEhandles, I placed a provocative ad in The Detroit News seeking male companionship and got nearly 500 responses, including two from vice cops who thought I was a 'pro' since my ad seemed to promise sex; it didn't really, it just talked about fulfilling men's fantasies of being with a large women (I guess that was promising sex, now that I think about it - what can I say: I was named after my father's mother who was a 'pro' and who my father despised, yet named me for, then would never call me by my first name!)...a lot of men in the Detroit area had that fantasy and I met about twenty men of nearly every ethnicity (no Asians, but Hispanic, German, Arab, Polish, Russian, French, Irish, English, India, Pakistani, Jewish, and, of course, African-American), age (from early 20s to mid-60s), profession (doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, computer experts, students, construction workers, an EMT, accountants, bankers, a process server, dentists, you name it), and interest (including heterosexual cross-dressers)...most were just first dates and didn't go any farther, but I did have 'affairs' with three of the guys I met: one German-Polish engineer, one Jewish process server, and one 27 year old black stud muffin...although I am reallly a one-man woman and have never had much luck juggling two or more men, I did it for almost a year, then my young stud insisted I give up the other two who were getting on my nerves because they were so clingy (my engineer was even making hints about settling down), so I kicked them to the curb and let youngblood show his true colors; turns out his best friend was dating an older woman who'd turned him into a gigolo, showering him with gifts and money and he expected the same from me...that ended that relationship because, as I told the vice cops, I don't charge for sex - and I don't get charged for it either (I actually met an incredibly handsome Hindu from India who has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and had a contract with a well-known Toledo company who made me a proposition that didn't involve sex - well, not actual sex because he had a fiancee he'd been promised to in an arranged marriage contract in India and he could not have sex until he married her - when he decided to move to San Francisco where he started his own company: he wanted to buy me a row house where he'd set up a state-of-the-art computer system for me to write if I'd let him come over once a week and performed duties as a dominatrix (no sex, just dressing provocatively and barking orders at him - I know, weird); I told him there are people who get paid to things like that and I'm not one of them (I used to fear I was destined to become my father's mother and turn into 'a whore for hire' because he'd given me her name, and I have endeavored not to realize that fear); oddly, I was not seuxally active until I was 23, when I had my first 'affair,' while I working on my master's at Wichita State; I was an 'intern' teacher, meaning I went to school several days during the week and actually worked in schools the rest of the time, as well as did "community service"...I was on campus one day (our professors came out to our base school the other days) and would have lunch with a professor from the Black Studies Department, a beautiful young woman a few years older than me who complained about her filandering husband, swearing she'd never marry another black man...meanwhile, having never had consentual sex (I was the victim of acquaintance rape when I was sixteen while out of my grandmother's sight one summer when I lived and worked with my uncle in Houston who was the supervisor of housekeeping in a medical building where I cleaned office and was dumb enough to sneak a 23year-old guy who buffed the floors into the locked medical offices I cleaned so we could 'make out'...of course, he tried to go farther and I always said 'no,' but one time he didn't stop and I got the shock of my life because I had no idea that sex involved penetration...a voodoo woman who kept putting hexes on my uncle that he laughed at so me leave the office and told my uncle that 'something happened to me,' but I would not admit it because I knew my grandmother would make a federal case of it due to what happened a few years earlier when I was in eighth grade...I had a huge crush on one of my classmate's older brothers and was always smiling at him when he would walk by with his friends...well, one of them thought I was smiling at him...he lived across the street from the school and my grandmother and I were always half an hour early - she'd go to her sixth grade classroom and I'd go to the junior high building to my homeroom...one day, this guy "BeBe" (not his real nickname) came in and attempted to rape me, but stopped when one of my classmates, a girl named Sylvia I'd thrown into a wall in the girl's restroom when we were in fifth grade because she kept picking on me came in and saw what was happening and ran and got my grandmother...of course, BeBe left and went to his own homeroom, but my grandmother went and got him and dragged him to the principal's office in front of the whole school where he was beaten with a board and screamed so loudly everyone could hear him...after that, people would tease me by calling me BeBe, especially a boy in my class named Louis, who I beat up one day, knocking him down and banging his head on the sidewalk...so, not wanting to go through that again, I never said anything, although my grandmother 'knew' and I wasn't allowed to go back to Houston to work again, but I had residual effects and in the 'date rape culture' that persisted in both Texas and Oklahoma, the two states where I did my undergraduate studies, I beat the crap out of every college student, G.I., or any other many who tried to rape me (I'm going to write about those guys one day - I gave one a concusssion!)...anyway, I finally consented to having sex with this handsome older guy who a former roommate fixed me up with when I moved out of our apartment into a duplex near the school (all of the interns were supposed to live in the community, but only two of us did)...she was white and, although she dated men of different nationalities, she didn't date black men and like me, she was a big, beautiful woman, which this guy was attracted to, it turned out...so, we got together and it was lust at first sight...he told me his name was 'Ted' and after a few encounters asked me if I knew the Black History professor I had lunch with every week...I was suspicious, so I asked her about him and she said his name sounded familiar...now, the chair of her department was a good friend of mind and directed the theatre company, One People, I was in...I kind of had a crush on him, but he was married, so off limits...anyway, our 'affair' ended after about six months since it was just about sex a little more, but he did tell me he had not been totally honest with me and told me where he actually worked, for the Post Office (not really, but I don't want to say where he really works in case his wife should see this on my blog some day)...anyway, I was having lunch with my professor friend and she mentioned that her husband worked at the Post Office...I asked her to describe him, then she told me his name was 'Tad'...it was the same guy!...I'd had an affair with a married man...I was really angry and hoped I'd see him again and have a chance to tell him what I thought of him, but I never did...I did see her on an infomercial after I moved to Ohio that she was hosting...my friends all marveled that he had the nerve to get involved with someone who knew his wife, but I think that was a turn-on for that snake...later, having done the unthinkable, having an affair with a married man, I knowingly had a very brief affair with an Ethiopian grad student whose wife was still in Africa, but it was unsatisfying in every since of the word, mostly I think because I could never resolve myself to sleeping with someone else's husband...I have a friend whose husband made passes at me a while back and I refused to 'bite' and I'm so glad i did because I can look her in the eye without any guilt...I've never understood how women can betray other women this way and not seem to be bothered by it...there are many married men I find attractive and would love to date if they were single, but even if I don't know their wives, I respect them and refuse to disrespect another woman's marriage again...I was talked into getting involved with someone who was married once who told me the marriage was 'open' and it was, but the 'openness,' as usally happens I found out in 'open' marriages was one-sided: the husband was the only one allowed to have affairs, although the wife was allowed to in 'theory,' when she actually had one, they ended up getting a divorce...my twenties were full of sexual drama, so I took a break from sex in my thirties and hung out with gay men, then that hormonal surge took over in my early forties and I turned into LOVEhandles and was a very bad girl!- well, for a couple of years, anyway...no drama, no complications, just fun and games...however, my sexcapades ended when my best friend, who was the co-chair of the Toledo AIDS Task Force, asked me to be on the task force, along with a gay male friend, then when we showed up, she introduced him as the representative of the black, gay male population and me as representative of the black at-risk female population...at risk? for what? AIDS....whoa!...talk about facing reality...that plus starting peri-menopause (you guys don't want to know the details, believe me, all the women over forty know and those of you who don't, you soon will and for all that they say about menopause, peri-menopause is MUCH worse; it's just not something you can talk about publicly as easily as you can mention a hot flash or irritable mood...if men went through this, the retirement age would be moved up to forty; if men and women's body functions were reversed, I also believe they'd have a week off each month, a three-year maternity leave, and the government would pay homemakers for serving their country!)...I hate sexism as much as I do racism...did anyone see the picture of the White House with a watermelon patch in the front yard that some mayor of a city in California was using as a screen saver claiming he didn't know this was a racial stereotypes?...yet, people got upset about Eric Holder saying we are a nation of cowards when it comes to talking about race...why else woud Klan members wear hoods, people like Imus, that New York Post cartoonist, and the California mayor not own up to their racism if they're not cowards?...one of the reasons I'm so open about my past experiences (well, most of them, anyway; believe it or not, I do have a couple of things I keep secret, not because I want to - they are just things I haven't resolved quite yet, therefore, cannot share) is because I have to be honest and open up in order to write and to act...when one is not authentic, it shows up onstage and on paper; my role model for this kind of bare-it-all honesty is my brother, James, who's first play, "Our Young Black Men Are Dying and Nobody Seems to Care" started out as a suicide note; in the play, James exposes himself, completely, giving all the raw emotions and deep abiding pain that he's suffered voice...I love my siblings, every single one of them, including the one whose calls I've blocked from my phone...Ruth, who is scheming and conniving to try to come to Columbus to live with my mother, who lives with my sister DE'brar, who Ruth has hated since the day she was born and took Ruth's place as the baby girl, at least she's always acted as if she's hated our baby sister...I have finallly forgiven Ruth for her email rantings sent to many of you when I was asking for your prayers of support for James...I was incensed, not because of what she said, as evil and untrue as most of it was, but because of her motive: to divert attention from James who was in the fight of his life, to her...so, she came up with a story that was supposed to get the kind of sympathy James was getting...remember when I told you she moved out of her rent-controlled apartment due to the neighbors putting wires in the wall and sending rays to drive her crazy, none of which was mentioned in the email she sent out to my email lists, which is why I now "BCC" my lists, then she told my mother who she calls sometimes half a dozen times a day, that she was living in her van and that men would rape her while she was asleep (translation, she was having consentual sex with men which in her warped mind is always rape) and even went to the doctor to make sure she wasn't pregnant, and occasionally lived with a friend who she'd fall out with, then moved to a shelter after she claimed she called the police because she had nowhere to go and Mom told her to go to a shelter; there, she said everyone was talking about her...anyway, turns out she never left her apartment...all of this was a ploy to get my mother to make DE'brar let Ruth live in her house, which is where my mother lives...this can't happen for two reasons: number one, Ruth has no respect for DE'brar and would not respect her in her own home and number two, my mother is at peace and lives in a state of constant joy and contentment and none of us wants that to change, except maybe Ruth...she can't help it, if she came to Columubus, it would be like the serpent in the Garden because she would disrupt the lives of all four of my family members that live there, create havoc in their friends' lives, have everyone in Columbus wanting her to leave after a few months and be ready to move to Toledo to do the same thing here: I will stop her in Findlay if she tries to come this way because the last time I let Ruth come stay with me, my roommate at the time, Dana, who was a nursing student at Wichita State and the German fiance of my Hispanic friend, Joe, was ready to move out of our apartment after Ruth was there for a week; I had to ask her to leave, not knowing she was pregnant and had run away from home because our parents had always been clear about us not getting pregnant while in school (she was a senior and only six weeks away from graduation and later returned and took two tests to graduate, only missing one question - she's really a genius); while in Wichita, she went to the Lutheran Social Services and made arrangements to have an abortion...I personally refuse to take a stand on this issue since I can't have children, but I don't think I would have an aboriton, although I don't know since I've never faced that particular circumstance; however, I thank God that Ruth never had a child...I didn't want to have children because I'm afraid I'd mimick the child-rearing style I was exposed to most, my grandmother's, and never wanted to inflict that kind of verbal abuse on anyone else plus I'm just not maternal...I did consider adopting some children and homeschooling, but I was looking at the whole thing from an educational perspective, not as a parent...however, I do love children; Ruth hates them - the only partner she was ever with for any length of time was a beautiful Jewish woman (in spirit, I never met her in person, but she had to be a saint to live with Ruth!) who artificially inseminated herself with the sperm of a black male so she and Ruth could have a bi-racial child...they broke up because Ruth was jealous of the attention her partner gave the baby: the woman is the most narcissistic person I have ever known and I've known a lot of narcissists because I've worked with actors for over thirty years plus I have borderline Narcisssistic Behavior Disorder (many artists do because we are so self-absorbed with our craft and with our thoughts and constant self-examination)...so, my sister, who really is losing it, has started to unravel and forgets occasionally that she told Mom she's homeless and mentions her landlord or something about her apartment, then in the next conversation, she'll talk about living in the shelter...she's also tried to enlist Joseph and James to help her get DE'brar to let her live in her house, but the one person in Columbus she hasn't talked to directly is DE'brar; she's left her long, rambling voice mails, but she won't talk to her...I love Ruth, I love the beautiful music she's written and the way she plays instruments, but I can truly say without any reservation, if I never see my sister again, I will be o.k....I pray for her and I will continue to try to understand the mental illness that has gripped her mind and turned her into someone so contemptuous of those who love her most, but I don't want to be around her for any reason...I do want to be around the rest of my siblings, not that we don't all have our issues, but we all have one thing in common: our love for our mother and our family...I miss John, so I hope he gets to visit us this year like he wants to and that I get to go to California before "the big one" (earthquake) takes it off the map in September 2010 (the latest prophecy from a number of religious prophets)...the rest of that prophecy is that when the country becomes vulnerable, Russia will attack the east coast and China will attack the west coast of the United States; people have actually had visions of Americans being transported to concentration camps in boxcars and people being shot down in the street for resisting...supposedly the safe places to go are in the middle of the country to Missouri and Kansas (the state I moved from when I came to Ohio 25 years ago!); then another prophet had a vision of Wichita being hit with a nuclear bomb - I had a similar 'feeling' years ago that Wichita was going to be destroyed, prompting me to order extra copies of my transcript from Wichita State...however, the thing I believe about prophecies and visions and predictions is that they show 'possibilities' and 'probabilities,' not 'actualities' and inevitabilities'...meaning, this can all be changed...and how can it be changed?...through prayer, of course....actually, not just prayer: fasting and praying...these are the two most powerful weapons we have on earth, which practiced while reading scripture arms us for any battle with evil...maybe that's what I'll do while I'm riding high...I have actually been on the verge of this high since I left fulltime employment last year because I would just stop at times and realize that I was happy and that joy was a state I was living in for the first time in a long time...then winter came and brought S.A.D. and my joy diminished (it didn't completely go away, I just lost touch with it because had I not had a little joy in my life, I'd have a fierce upper respiratory infection right now that would end up as bronchitis, what I used to get at the end of winter from 1993)...but even in the midst of despair, sometimes there's hope...I'll never forget 16 years ago, the first week of March when I was sick after going through a particularly bad case of S.A.D., I became so ill, I had a fever that made me delirious and bed-ridden for a week...during the worst part of that week, when my fever was up to about 103 degrees, I had a vision...now, I NEVER see things or hear things; whatever powers I have are all through my feelings - I felt the presence of the demons that possessed my friend, Russell's brother, who later told Russell that the reason he kept standing by me was because the demons were quiet in my presence (God and I had a long talk about that one and I was disturbed about it until I remembered that when my mother visited John and he took her to a friend's house where they were channeling spirits, he was asked to take her and leave because the spirits wouldn't come while she was there and later my mother told me that there were two women in our rural community in central Texas - the setting for my novel - who were "possessed" and would strip and do vile and disgusting things and who would only calm down when my grandmother came to 'heal' them - she and this phenomenon are also mentioned in the novel- I realized then that this power over demons is a generational blessing just as the depression, which is a personal demonic attack, in my opinion, is a generational curse probably designed to destroy us since we have the power to destroy the demons that are part of our DNA when we evoke the name of Jesus)...anyway, I did have a vision during my delirium for three consecutive nights; I watched tens of thousands of clouds move rapidly past my bedroom window and finally it registered that they were angels and they were a sign from God that I was going to be all right...I might add, just before the vision, I placed that ad in The Detroit News, so don't go thinking I'm all "holier than thou" because I'm not...I showed someone my "pin-up" shot recently after I re-ordered the Dimensions magazine in which it was published along with my article about being "smart and sexy" because my ex-boyfriend refuses to return the only copy I had; and she said, "You did that before you were saved," and I said, "No, I did it afterwards and God and I talked about it" because I wrestle with being a single Christian and what to do about my sexuality all the time...another generational curse my family has is sexual addiction and we've all wrestled with it, each of us in his/her own ways, but I usually go through long, long, long periods of celibacy - not because I'm good, but because sex for me is like alcohol to an alcoholic: one drink is too many and a thousand is not enough; which is why I became promiscuous 16 years ago after having a heavenly vision...no, I'm nowhere near holy, but I am a Christian: a very imperfect one and God and I have an understanding that when menopause is over, all bets are off on the celibacy - look out!... but I'll try to do things according to his will, meaning if I have to legitimize sex (get married), I will, as much as I personally don't believe in marriage (for me)...I'll probably draw up a partnership agreement and have a "holy union" (a religious ceremony with no marriage license) because I think marriage as defined by the state leaves to many loopholes...now, they could be wrong about post-menopausal sex drive (I sure hope so because God knows I do not need to be married to anyone - I'll need to borrow Michelle Obama's "Black Widow" dress - the black one with the red markings - she wore Election Night because I think given the opportunity, I would literally devour any man who was unfortuante enough to live with me; sorry, guys, but ya'll get on my last nerve and I keep attracting all these men who want to be 'punished' and, although I am a latent dominatrix, I really don't want to go there and neither does any man who thinks he wants me to because if I go there, it will take me to depths I never want to go to: I met this guy from New York once who wanted me to come there and put on some black leggings and a bustier and go to this club called The Dungeon where he said men lie on the floor naked and beg women with my ASSets to beat them for large amounts of money - I couldn't do it because I'd still be there whipping men's behinds FOR FREE!)...but with all these women in their sixties getting AIDS, I think there may be some truth to that post-menopausal hormonal surge...whatever happens, God and I will be talking and I'll be sharing our conversations with you because I plan to find a way to stay just shy of mania and at that place I was last summer and fall...in the secret place of the Most High...the thing about being there is you don't realize that's where you are because it feels so familiar, so natural, so real, you don't think of it as a special place because it's not...I didn't think about why I had so much joy and peace, I just enjoyed having it, although I knew it all came from God...that much I knew...I also knew I was abiding under God's shadow...that's why verse 2 of Psalms 91 talks about God being the place of refuge and a fortress because that's what happens when you live (dwell) in that place of peace and joy and stand (abide) under God's shadow...it's not this mania that is nothing more than a chemical reaction caused by the same microscopic demons that cause you to be depressed; mania is artificial joy that though spiritual (we are dealing with powers and principalities that are in the spiritual, as well as the physical) is not real joy; it's the same 'high' you get from taking amphetamines (I know because I used to take diet pills and wash them down with a fifth of cheap wine when I was in my second undergraduate college - the one in Oklahoma, not the one in Texas where I was a model student labeled as a 'militant' - and wanted to stay up all night cramming for an exam or writing my column for the college newspaper - some of those columns I wrote when I was "high" make Rev. Jeremiah Wright look conservative!) or smoking a joint (something else I tried in college, although I could never inhale except by contact- I am physically unable to suck smoke down my throat, which is why I never learned to smoke cigarettes, although I did try!)...I'm feeling the same way I did then now, except my heart is not pounding in my chest like it did when I took those diet pills and I'm not getting sleepy or hungry for sweets like I did when I got those contact marijuana highs...so, I know this is artificial and won't last, but when it's over I'll already be back in that secret place (not 'secret' because it's unaccessible but because the way there is so discreet and ethereal, you can't explain how you got there, you just go) where I'll dwell, abiding under God's protection...of course, winter will return again and with it, S.A.D., but this time, I'll be taking Vitamin D, getting out in the sun and fresh air (even if it's frigid outside), and reading verses 1&2 of Psalms 91 twelve times every day; I don't think S.A.D. will be able to interrupt my joy and peace again...I've already broken the cycle of illness that always followed it, nearly killing me 16 years ago until God sent angels to remind me that I was protected and I haven't been sick after having S.A.D. since except for some minor problems like having an allergy flare-up this year, but no fever, no infections, no visits to the doctor...next winter, I'll be ready for S.A.D., armed and ready and will I beat it? - of course, the answer can only be YES! (This begins and ends with the word "yes" in homage to James Joyce, who writes a 'stream of consciousness' monologue for one of the characters in his novel, Ulyssess that also begins and ends with the word "yes" and has no punctuation...I did use some - it's the English major in me, I guess!)
Friday, July 9, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Where My Money, Biotch?
Originally submitted at Roamans
This eye-popping plus size swimdress is detailed with a shimmering bust-enhancing crisscross design. Plus, it’s a customer favorite! Plus size swimwear. Hand wash. Imported.
- Crisscross design with ruched sides to enhance the bustline
- Comfortable shelf bra with foam cups
The Gift I Had to Buy for my BFF!
By Neva from Toledo, Ohio on 7/7/2010
Waist: Feels true to size
Cup Fit: Feels true to size
Pros: Attractive Design
Best Uses: Swimming
Since I am a professional writer I get paid to do reviews. You can read my reviews of maxi dresses I purchased from Roamans on my blog, http://maxisforever @blogspot.com
(legalese)
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Sha-na-na Shaniqua Danyay Halloway Goes off! (Reposted for Whoopi!)
I got an email I couldn't resist answering in the voice of my ghetto fabulous evil twin, Sha-nay-nay Shaniqua Danyay Halloway.
Dear sir/madam
I am Mr Mike Mcmullen I need your services in a confidential matter regarding money transfer.
This requires a private arrangement though the details of the transaction will be furnish to you if you indicate your interest in this proposal.
We have all the legal documents to back up the transaction, besides we have worked out the modalities to ensure smooth and risky free transfer.
I am willing to offer you 40% of the money, the fund in question is quite large. All correspondences will be via email and telephone for now.
I am expecting to hear from you, if you are willing to do the business with us,your private phone number is needed.
Please let me hear from you immediately only in my private emailbox:mike.mcmullen1@hotmail.com
Waiting to hear from you.
Thanks,
Yours Faithfully,
Mr Mike Mcmullen
Look, Bitch!
Don't know who the hell you think you foolin telling me yo name Mcmullen. I ain't even got my GED yet and I knows it's McMullen. I had a Irish priest help me when I was pregnant and the baby daddy try to get me to have a abortion. Father Mac tell me killin babys a sin and I has to do Gods will and have my baby. So I has nine of them little basterds now listening to Father Mac, all with different daddies and ain't none of them muthafuckas worth a dam.
You talking bout needing my services sound like you wants me to give yo ass a blow job or something. What's confidential bout that? How you think I take care of nine kids with no child support and a welfare check? I get enough on the food stamp card to feed 'em but I still gotta pay rent and usetilities.
So let's gone and make this transaction cause I sho as hell accepts yo proposal! Hell yeah! And you ain't gotta worry bout no tricky transfers cause I's clean. I did have the clap last year, but that done cleared up now, but you can't go down on me cause I have them genital warts and spit make 'em sting. You better wear a condom to for that private arrangement you talking about because my privates full of crabs right now cause that last muthafucka that made that arrangement wouldn't wear a condom. Started itching soon as his ass got up!
But let's get one thing scrait. I don't care what kinda legal documents you got, I ain't backing up cause I still got hemorrhoids from the last time I let some sonofabitch pay me extra to ram his - wait a minute - some skank looking over my shoulder trying to read what I'm typing. What was I saying? Naw, ain't gone be nona that shit! No, especially since you say your fund is quite large. Think I's stupid just cause I dropped out in the ninth grade? I had to! I was bout to have another dam baby and i couldnt go to school with two of 'em to feed. I know you done smoothed out all yo modalities and I bet you got some big ones, but you ain't plugging my butt. Oh, no!
You say you pay me 40 of the money you got, so it sound like you ain't got but about fifty dollars. Guess that mean we be doing it in the alley less you gotta a car cause don't sound like you aint got enough for no motel room.
I can't give you no phone number right now cause they done turn off my phone cause my 14 year old son been calling his little girlfriend running up my bill. I only got 200 minutes a month on my plan and he done run my bill up to 500 dam dollars calling that little fast ass ho all the time. I think he done got her pregnant! One of the twins flushed my pre-paid cell down the toilet, so I gotta go to the library to use the pay phone. That where I is now checking my email.
But you can call me at 1-900-CRACKHO, its only 25 cents a minute. I ain't no crack ho tho. I's just a regular ol' ho. I'm usually the only one there cause soon as them dam crack hos make enough money to buy a rock, theys gone. That why the owner keep the price so low so it take 'em a while.
But if one of them bitches answer, just tell 'em to put FaBooLust on the phone. I be talking some shit on that 900 line! I'll make you harder than it is to believe this bullshit you trying to tell me!
Don't email me no mo, you fake ass bitch!
Dear sir/madam
I am Mr Mike Mcmullen I need your services in a confidential matter regarding money transfer.
This requires a private arrangement though the details of the transaction will be furnish to you if you indicate your interest in this proposal.
We have all the legal documents to back up the transaction, besides we have worked out the modalities to ensure smooth and risky free transfer.
I am willing to offer you 40% of the money, the fund in question is quite large. All correspondences will be via email and telephone for now.
I am expecting to hear from you, if you are willing to do the business with us,your private phone number is needed.
Please let me hear from you immediately only in my private emailbox:mike.mcmullen1@hotmail.com
Waiting to hear from you.
Thanks,
Yours Faithfully,
Mr Mike Mcmullen
Look, Bitch!
Don't know who the hell you think you foolin telling me yo name Mcmullen. I ain't even got my GED yet and I knows it's McMullen. I had a Irish priest help me when I was pregnant and the baby daddy try to get me to have a abortion. Father Mac tell me killin babys a sin and I has to do Gods will and have my baby. So I has nine of them little basterds now listening to Father Mac, all with different daddies and ain't none of them muthafuckas worth a dam.
You talking bout needing my services sound like you wants me to give yo ass a blow job or something. What's confidential bout that? How you think I take care of nine kids with no child support and a welfare check? I get enough on the food stamp card to feed 'em but I still gotta pay rent and usetilities.
So let's gone and make this transaction cause I sho as hell accepts yo proposal! Hell yeah! And you ain't gotta worry bout no tricky transfers cause I's clean. I did have the clap last year, but that done cleared up now, but you can't go down on me cause I have them genital warts and spit make 'em sting. You better wear a condom to for that private arrangement you talking about because my privates full of crabs right now cause that last muthafucka that made that arrangement wouldn't wear a condom. Started itching soon as his ass got up!
But let's get one thing scrait. I don't care what kinda legal documents you got, I ain't backing up cause I still got hemorrhoids from the last time I let some sonofabitch pay me extra to ram his - wait a minute - some skank looking over my shoulder trying to read what I'm typing. What was I saying? Naw, ain't gone be nona that shit! No, especially since you say your fund is quite large. Think I's stupid just cause I dropped out in the ninth grade? I had to! I was bout to have another dam baby and i couldnt go to school with two of 'em to feed. I know you done smoothed out all yo modalities and I bet you got some big ones, but you ain't plugging my butt. Oh, no!
You say you pay me 40 of the money you got, so it sound like you ain't got but about fifty dollars. Guess that mean we be doing it in the alley less you gotta a car cause don't sound like you aint got enough for no motel room.
I can't give you no phone number right now cause they done turn off my phone cause my 14 year old son been calling his little girlfriend running up my bill. I only got 200 minutes a month on my plan and he done run my bill up to 500 dam dollars calling that little fast ass ho all the time. I think he done got her pregnant! One of the twins flushed my pre-paid cell down the toilet, so I gotta go to the library to use the pay phone. That where I is now checking my email.
But you can call me at 1-900-CRACKHO, its only 25 cents a minute. I ain't no crack ho tho. I's just a regular ol' ho. I'm usually the only one there cause soon as them dam crack hos make enough money to buy a rock, theys gone. That why the owner keep the price so low so it take 'em a while.
But if one of them bitches answer, just tell 'em to put FaBooLust on the phone. I be talking some shit on that 900 line! I'll make you harder than it is to believe this bullshit you trying to tell me!
Don't email me no mo, you fake ass bitch!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
CASTING STONES - WORKING OUT FATHER ISSUES
Casting Stones
A One-Act Play
By G. Joyce Chatman
Cast (in order of appearance)
Joyce - an intelligent, but emotionally repressed and sexually confused young woman who has been deeply affected by her black Baptist minister father's infidelity and bitterness toward her mother that she believes is due to her mother not telling her when her father was dying and giving her a chance to do “something” before he died
Rev – a very learned and persuasive middle-aged black Baptist minister who has succumbed to the temptation to commit adultery and fears he is about to pay the ultimate wages of sin, death, at the hands of a woman who is obviously not balanced, but who he thinks he can sway and makes every attempt to convince not to kill him
Two uniformed police officers
Setting
Joyce’s residence, which is sparsely furnished with a couple of uncomfortable looking chairs, a table and a lamp, and austerely decorated with a vase of flowers and an African statue; the chairs and table may have African fabric draped across them and the lamp may also have an African theme.
Time
Present day
Costumes
Joyce is dressed casually and Rev is also, as if he were out jogging when she lured him to her domicile, possibly for a sexual encounter, drugged him, and tied him up.
Props
large “knife,” a telephone, and rope to tie Rev to a chair
Casting Stones
A One-Act Play
By G. Joyce Chatman
Joyce
(intense, but aloof)
He died quietly with his eyes shut tight against the night that he succumbed to days before. I didn’t know. Had I known he was comatose, I would have done something.
Rev
(sitting tied up in chair opposite her with his head down)
What could you have done?
Joyce
Something. (realizes he has spoken and looks over in surprise) You’re awake!
Rev
(looks up)
You drugged me. (dazed) Like what? You would have done something like what?
Joyce
(returns to previous train of thought obviously frustrated)
Like something! Better than doing nothing – anything’s better than that. She should have told me. Instead she kept it to herself; shut me out of my own father’s last week of life.
Rev
(seems to have a quiet calmness, despite the obvious restraint and still being a little groggy)
But he wasn’t even conscious. Maybe your mother was just trying to protect you. Maybe she didn’t want you to worry.
Joyce
I wouldn’t have worried – I would have done something. Yes, I would. I know how to astral project. I could have gone to him and talked to his spirit.
Rev
(alert)
You can do that now. Talk to him, I mean. Tell him what you’re about to do.
Joyce
(ignores his last statement)
I do, but it’s not the same.
Rev
(voice quivers as he shows first signs of fear)
You talk to your father now?
Joyce
Actually, he talks to me.
Rev
What does he say? (eyes widened as fear sweeps over him and he fights to remain calm)
Joyce
Well, it’s not really talking. It’s just knowing. He’s come to me in dreams, just to let me know he’s all right. The first time was when Mama moved into her new house and I fell asleep wishing I could see it. Daddy came to show me his room. I dreamed it was there in Mama’s house. His new room. His new residence. It was painted in shades of blue and looked like twilight. Maybe that’s why I wanted my office brown and blue. I hate blue. It’s the most overused color in decorating, next to white and beige.
Rev
(calmer)
What about the other dreams? Did he tell you to do this?
Joyce
(distant, doesn’t hear him)
I can only remember one of the other two. I was sitting in a bus station and Daddy walked in looking like he did when he and Mama got married. Just like he did in the pictures of him when he was young. He kept getting younger in each dream until he looked like the earliest image I had of him. Wonder if I’d seen pictures of him as a child, would he have kept visiting me until he aged back to infancy. At least I’d have seen him a few more times then.
Rev
But you were just dreaming. That wasn’t really your father, just your imagination.
Joyce
You sound like a psychiatrist. (tone becomes hostile) Trying to analyze my relationship with my father. You’ve got a lot of nerve. How good a father are you? If you’d cheat on your wife, you can’t be much of a father. Mine wasn’t.
Rev
But you loved him any way. (pause) Maybe he wasn’t a good father. Maybe he was a terrible husband. But he must have been a good man because you wouldn’t have loved him so much otherwise. That’s what you said before I passed out – that you loved him.
Joyce
(lovingly)
He was my hero. The only truly brave man I knew growing up black in the south. (proudly) He marched with Dr. King in Selma.
Rev
See? He was a good man. You loved him. Mourned his death. Remember how much you hurt when he died? Do you want my son to hurt like that? He will if you kill me.
Joyce
(dismissive)
He’ll get over it. I did. Besides, it’s not your son’s hurt that you’re dying for. It’s your wife’s. You’re the first name on my list. The first of many.
Rev
(conciliatory tone)
I was wrong. You’re right. I shouldn’t have cheated on my wife. (pause) I shouldn’t have come home with you tonight. But I don’t deserve to die.
Joyce
According to the Bible, you do. Only they just stoned the women in the Bible, didn’t they? (indignant) Caught a man and a woman in the act, but she was the one they killed! They’re still doing it in the Middle East, too. Casting stones. Breaking women’s bodies while men get away with murder! It was that hypocrisy in your Bible and my father’s life that made me leave the church, his church. I hate all things Baptist, but especially lying, cheating Baptist ministers. Do you know my father told me when I confronted him about his adultery that he only knew one Baptist preacher who didn’t cheat on his wife? One!
Rev
(calculatingly)
But God promised Lot if one righteous man could be found in a sinful city, he would spare the city and all the people in it. Lot didn’t find one in Sodom, but your father did.
Joyce
I guess so.
Rev
(keeps talking as if he hasn’t heard her)
Then, according to the Bible, the whole city should be spared. (pause) That list of preachers you’ve got - all the Baptist preachers in the city – they - we have to be spared.
Joyce
That was in my father’s day. That preacher who kept his vows is long since dead and buried, just like my father. (cunningly) I’ll tell you what. If you can name one Baptist preacher in this community who is not cheating on his wife with other women or, these days, with men, I’ll spare all of the preachers on my list. Just name one. And don’t lie because I know the truth and if a lie comes off your tongue, I’ll cut it out. (grabs a huge knife)
Rev
(gets scared again)
There are a lot of preachers who are faithful! A lot!
Joyce
(points knife at him)
Name one!
Rev
Reverend – er- Doctor – uh – Pastor – no, he’s Methodist. Let me think. Reverend what’s his name over at – no – that’s a Church of God in Christ. Pastor – he’s Pentecostal. But there’s got to be one. There’s got to be. God, help me! Surely there’s a righteous man among those you’ve called. Who else is on your list? Surely one of us is leading a holy life and living without sexual sin. There’s got to be one. That’s all I need. Just one.
Joyce
There’s not. Not one single Baptist minister in this town is faithful to his wife.
Rev
What about that assistant pastor at Rev. Jones’ Church? Rev. Brown!
Joyce
He’s single and, believe it or not, a virgin.
Rev
How do you know that?
Joyce
I have my ways. But he doesn’t count. He’s not married. He’s saving himself until he is.
Rev
But doesn’t that make him righteous? You don’t have to be married to be righteous. All you have to do to be righteous is obey God’s law. Rev. Brown saving himself for marriage is following God’s law.
Joyce
I guess waiting to get married to have sex would make a man righteous. Not many of you do that.
Rev
Not many of you either, any more.
Joyce
(tone becomes hostile again)
More than you think.
Rev
(ignoring hostile tone)
You mean to tell me you’ve never – You’re a –
Joyce
Never what, Reverend? Never had sex with a married preacher? No, I don’t believe I have. But you came here to initiate me in the kind of blasphemous, adulterous lust you and your fellow ministers think is your right, didn’t you? You want me to unzip your pants right now and pull out that serpent in there masquerading as St. Peter and take it in my mouth – all (looks at his crotch) six inches of it? I’ve never performed fellatio on a married preacher before. Do I have to pray first or do I just wait for you to call on the Lord when your life gushes out into my throat like a fountain that men like you make women believe is the blood of Jesus passing through you to them? (sings ) “There is a fountain filled with blood. Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. And sinners plunge beneath that flood. Lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. And sinners plunge beneath that flood. Lose all their guilty stains.” Is that what you’re offering me, Reverend? A fountain filled with blood that will purify me?
Rev
(now his tone his hostile)
Why don’t you untie me and let me perform cunnilingus on you? I’d love to get my mouth between your legs!
Joyce
(coyly)
You’d do that? For me? But you don’t even know me.
Rev
(exaggeratingly lecherous)
No, but I know what women like.
Joyce
(laughs)
Well, you picked the wrong woman. I’d rather set fire to my pubic hair than to have the forked tongue of the beast lapping at my labia with the hot flames of hell! Besides, I never met a man yet who could do it right.
Rev
I should have known. You’re a lesbian.
Joyce
Only in your fantasies. You’d love to see me with another woman, at your beck and call, wouldn’t you? How about your wife?
Rev
(starting to boil)
My wife is straight.
Joyce
So am I. I just don’t like oral sex – giving or receiving.
Rev
Then why were you just offering to – by the way, it’s eight inches.
Joyce
(aside)
In your dreams! I blow men all the time because they like it – not because I do. Didn’t I tell you? That’s how you’re going to die.
Rev.
What do you mean? I thought you said you were going to kill me, not –
Joyce
And you thought I meant something brutal like stabbing you or strangling you or shooting you? That’s what a man would do – after raping and torturing you first, which I am going to do. But when I do it, it will be the most exquisite pain you’ve ever felt and when you die it will be the most ecstatic moment of your existence. See, I’m a biochemist. Did I tell you that? I have degrees in biology and chemistry, but my Ph.D. is in biochemistry. I developed a drug for a pharmaceutical company that I work for that was supposed to compete with Viagra.
Rev
(desperately trying to change the subject)
Is it on the market?
Joyce
Whoa, boy! (he mouths “Boy?”) Patience. I’m getting to that. We did some test trials of our product, which was applied topically and it did exactly what it was supposed to do. Then the wife of one of our test subject’s put some in her mouth and applied it orally. Before she could disengage, her husband started orgasming violently and repeatedly. Even after she removed her mouth from his penis, the orgasms continued. She said they came in wave after wave, dozens, hundreds, until he finally passed out. The poor thing went into a coma and he’s remained in it since then. That was three years ago. They wanted to put the drug on the market with a warning on the label, but the wife has threatened to sue, so we lost the patent. Last I heard, according to the doctors, that guy’s endorphin levels indicate that he is still having orgasms. He is in a state of complete physical bliss and he has been there for three years. But his wife wants to pull the plug now. He’s going to die the happiest man on earth.
Rev
But how can his heart take that?
Joyce
It can’t. That’s why his body shut down to prevent a heart attack. That could happen to you or you could go into cardiac arrest before you go into a blissful coma. Either way, you die happy.
Rev
(nervous and confused)
Do you know in this country we actually think that’s a right? But it’s not. “The pursuit of happiness” is never mentioned in the Constitution, only in the Declaration of Independence, which is not law. The reason it wasn’t put into the Constitution is because each person has to choose what makes him happy. Having orgasms until I die wouldn’t be my choice.
Joyce
Why not? Don’t you cheat so you can keep having orgasms?
Rev
Why did your father cheat?
Joyce
Because his mother – who he named me after – was a whore and he loved those kinds of women, in spite of himself. That’s what turned him on. Not my mother who came to the marriage bed pure and virginal. His Madonna, the mother of his children, was not the woman he lusted after; it was probably in reality his mother. Now, I sound like Freud talking about some Oedipus Complex my father didn’t actually have. He was just horny and greedy. One woman was not enough for him. Why is that? Why can’t you be satisfied with one woman, the woman who loves you?
Rev
Because we’re men. We love our wives, but men are turned on by sex or the promise of it. A woman whose walk, talk, or even a look she gives you promising sex is a turn on.
Joyce
What about your wife?
Rev
My wife is not that kind of woman.
Joyce
(enraged)
Then why didn’t you marry the kind of woman that turns you on?
Rev
(calm and cautious again)
I had to marry a woman who could be a preacher’s wife.
Joyce
(looks bewildered)
What does that mean? My parents groomed me all my life to be a preacher’s wife. My mother even told me I should have married the preacher my baby sister married who beat her because she said I would have made a better preacher’s wife! What did she mean by that?
Rev
She meant that you are a virtuous woman. (pause) You’ve never been with a man, have you?
Joyce
Is that how you determine virtue in a woman? What is a virtuous man?
Rev
Rev. Brown, the young minister we talked about earlier. Maybe instead of killing preachers like me, you should find someone like Rev. Brown to settle down with. Your mother was probably right. You have good qualities that she recognized since she is a preacher’s wife.
Joyce
(seems frightened)
I don’t want to be married to a preacher! Oh, he may be untouched now, but as soon as he’s married, he’ll turn into you and my father and all of the rest of you.
Rev
(calculating)
I’ll make you a deal. Wait and see if Rev. Brown stays faithful after he’s married. If he cheats, then you can go down your list, starting with me.
Joyce
How do I know you won’t just call the police if I let you go?
Rev
What can I tell them? You haven’t hurt me. (pause) Tell you what, I’ll give you Rev. Brown’s number and you can dial it. I’ll talk to him while you hold the phone.
Joyce
(more frightened)
Talk to him? About what?
Rev
About you.
Joyce
(curious)
About me?
Rev
About our concerns about the morals of the Baptist clergy – of course, about you. He’s single. You’re single. And according to your mother, you have all of the qualities needed to make a good preacher’s wife.
Joyce
(pauses, looking wild eyed, then calms down and walks to the phone mumbling “I never wanted to marry a preacher,” “I can’t be a preacher’s wife”)
O.K. What’s the number?
Rev
555-7301. (she dials the number and brings the phone over so he can talk) Hello, Rev. Man, you still single? I’m asking because I know a young lady whose father was a pastor and she’s a virtuous woman – the kind who’d make a good preacher’s wife. You know, it’s about time we got you married. (pause) She looks good, man. Like my wife when she was young. Matter of fact, she has a Ph.D., so she’s also pretty smart. (pause) Oh, yes, quite stable. She certainly has high moral standards. So, you think you’d like to meet her? (pause) Well, I’m here at her place now. Maybe she wouldn’t mind if you’d drop by. (pause) Here, I’ll let you talk to her.
Joyce
(puts phone to ear)
Hello? (pause) No, I’m not a college professor. I’m actually a researcher at a drug company. (pause) Nothing you’d know, but I do develop drugs. (pause) My address? It’s 410 Michigan Boulevard. It ’s a red brick house. (pause) O.K. I’ll see you in a few minutes. Good-bye. (hangs up phone)
Rev
See? That was great! Now, we have found a virtuous man and you can let me go!
Joyce
He sounds like my father must’ve sounded when he was young.
Rev
Young men tend to sound young. Let’s get me out of these ropes!
Joyce
He came to me as a young man in my dreams, you know.
Rev
(momentarily confused)
Rev. Brown?
Joyce
(sadly)
No, my father.
Rev
You told me! If you give me that knife, I’ll cut these ropes myself.
Joyce
(stops dead in her tracks as if startled)
She told me. She said, “Daddy is in the hospital” and I stopped listening because I knew he was not coming home.
Rev
But you said she never told you he was in a coma. (from this point on, neither one is listening to the other until the end)
Joyce
She did, but I wasn’t listening to her. She said, “Daddy’s in the hospital and he’s in a coma.” Then -
Rev
Look you haven’t broken any laws, except kidnapping –
Joyce
- the day before he died, she called and left a voice mail message for me while I was at work. She knew I was at work -
Rev
Just let me go and they can’t even charge you with that!
Joyce
- so I couldn’t understand why she called. She said there was no change. I didn’t even hear the message until I got home the next day.
Rev
(trying to stay calm)
Please, let me go. My wife and son are going to start worrying if I don’t get home soon.
Joyce
I just sat in a chair in my living room, as far as I could from the telephone, waiting for it to ring. It didn’t ring until close to midnight and I knew. (actions mimic dialog) I picked up the phone and it was my brother telling me Daddy had died. (fights back tears)
Rev
(pleading)
I just want to go home. I just want to see my family.
Joyce
He died without ever waking up. The last thing he did, after he had the stroke and before he went into the coma, was pick up Mama’s hand and kiss it. He loved her. After all the pain he put her through, he loved her so much. And he got the chance to show her before he went into that coma. (sirens are heard in the distance) Mama told me. I just couldn’t hear her because a voice was screaming in my head. There it is! Do you hear it?
Rev
(scared)
No, I don’t hear anything! Untie me! Hurry!
Joyce
(listens)
Are those sirens? (looks at him) Who did I call? Who were you talking to? (picks up something from the table and walks toward him as sirens get closer)
Rev
What are you putting in your mouth? (pounding on door and voice screams, “Open up! Police!”) No, please! (she kneels down in front of him with her back to the audience as the pounding and yelling continue) Help me, please! God, help me! (the stage goes dark)
First Police Officer
(Joyce sits in the other chair wearing handcuffs while First Police Officer is examining Rev and the Second Police Officer is guarding their prisoner)
This guy is dead. I think he had a heart attack! I’m calling for an ambulance. (exits as he takes out his walkie talkie)
Second Police Officer
Why’d you do it? Why’d you tie that guy up and rape him?
Joyce
Don’t worry. He died happy.
Second Police Officer
So, you’re so good you can make a man come until he dies.
Joyce
Let me rinse out my mouth and I’ll show you how good I am.
Second Police Officer
I know one thing, you’re a dumb bitch because that guy got you to call the police and give us your address!
Joyce
Take these handcuffs off me and I’ll show you how dumb a bitch I am!
Second Police Officer
Save it for the dykes at the county jail! (First Police Officer enters) Hey, keep an eye on Ms. Rapist here while I look around to see if she’s got any more dead bodies hidden around here somewhere. (exits)
First Police Officer
(looks at Rev’s limp body)
Poor guy. Least he died happy.
Joyce
You better believe it, officer. Could you give me that bottle of mouthwash on the table? My mouth’s a little sticky. (he smiles at her knowingly, picks up the bottle, opens it, and pours a little of the liquid from it into her mouth, then sets the bottle down as she swishes the liquid around in her mouth; the he comes over and stands in front of her with his back to the audience and appears to unzip his pants – soon sounds of oral sex are heard and he starts having spasms just as the Second Police Officer enters)
Second Police Officer
(screams in horror as lights go down) NOOOOOOOOO!
A One-Act Play
By G. Joyce Chatman
Cast (in order of appearance)
Joyce - an intelligent, but emotionally repressed and sexually confused young woman who has been deeply affected by her black Baptist minister father's infidelity and bitterness toward her mother that she believes is due to her mother not telling her when her father was dying and giving her a chance to do “something” before he died
Rev – a very learned and persuasive middle-aged black Baptist minister who has succumbed to the temptation to commit adultery and fears he is about to pay the ultimate wages of sin, death, at the hands of a woman who is obviously not balanced, but who he thinks he can sway and makes every attempt to convince not to kill him
Two uniformed police officers
Setting
Joyce’s residence, which is sparsely furnished with a couple of uncomfortable looking chairs, a table and a lamp, and austerely decorated with a vase of flowers and an African statue; the chairs and table may have African fabric draped across them and the lamp may also have an African theme.
Time
Present day
Costumes
Joyce is dressed casually and Rev is also, as if he were out jogging when she lured him to her domicile, possibly for a sexual encounter, drugged him, and tied him up.
Props
large “knife,” a telephone, and rope to tie Rev to a chair
Casting Stones
A One-Act Play
By G. Joyce Chatman
Joyce
(intense, but aloof)
He died quietly with his eyes shut tight against the night that he succumbed to days before. I didn’t know. Had I known he was comatose, I would have done something.
Rev
(sitting tied up in chair opposite her with his head down)
What could you have done?
Joyce
Something. (realizes he has spoken and looks over in surprise) You’re awake!
Rev
(looks up)
You drugged me. (dazed) Like what? You would have done something like what?
Joyce
(returns to previous train of thought obviously frustrated)
Like something! Better than doing nothing – anything’s better than that. She should have told me. Instead she kept it to herself; shut me out of my own father’s last week of life.
Rev
(seems to have a quiet calmness, despite the obvious restraint and still being a little groggy)
But he wasn’t even conscious. Maybe your mother was just trying to protect you. Maybe she didn’t want you to worry.
Joyce
I wouldn’t have worried – I would have done something. Yes, I would. I know how to astral project. I could have gone to him and talked to his spirit.
Rev
(alert)
You can do that now. Talk to him, I mean. Tell him what you’re about to do.
Joyce
(ignores his last statement)
I do, but it’s not the same.
Rev
(voice quivers as he shows first signs of fear)
You talk to your father now?
Joyce
Actually, he talks to me.
Rev
What does he say? (eyes widened as fear sweeps over him and he fights to remain calm)
Joyce
Well, it’s not really talking. It’s just knowing. He’s come to me in dreams, just to let me know he’s all right. The first time was when Mama moved into her new house and I fell asleep wishing I could see it. Daddy came to show me his room. I dreamed it was there in Mama’s house. His new room. His new residence. It was painted in shades of blue and looked like twilight. Maybe that’s why I wanted my office brown and blue. I hate blue. It’s the most overused color in decorating, next to white and beige.
Rev
(calmer)
What about the other dreams? Did he tell you to do this?
Joyce
(distant, doesn’t hear him)
I can only remember one of the other two. I was sitting in a bus station and Daddy walked in looking like he did when he and Mama got married. Just like he did in the pictures of him when he was young. He kept getting younger in each dream until he looked like the earliest image I had of him. Wonder if I’d seen pictures of him as a child, would he have kept visiting me until he aged back to infancy. At least I’d have seen him a few more times then.
Rev
But you were just dreaming. That wasn’t really your father, just your imagination.
Joyce
You sound like a psychiatrist. (tone becomes hostile) Trying to analyze my relationship with my father. You’ve got a lot of nerve. How good a father are you? If you’d cheat on your wife, you can’t be much of a father. Mine wasn’t.
Rev
But you loved him any way. (pause) Maybe he wasn’t a good father. Maybe he was a terrible husband. But he must have been a good man because you wouldn’t have loved him so much otherwise. That’s what you said before I passed out – that you loved him.
Joyce
(lovingly)
He was my hero. The only truly brave man I knew growing up black in the south. (proudly) He marched with Dr. King in Selma.
Rev
See? He was a good man. You loved him. Mourned his death. Remember how much you hurt when he died? Do you want my son to hurt like that? He will if you kill me.
Joyce
(dismissive)
He’ll get over it. I did. Besides, it’s not your son’s hurt that you’re dying for. It’s your wife’s. You’re the first name on my list. The first of many.
Rev
(conciliatory tone)
I was wrong. You’re right. I shouldn’t have cheated on my wife. (pause) I shouldn’t have come home with you tonight. But I don’t deserve to die.
Joyce
According to the Bible, you do. Only they just stoned the women in the Bible, didn’t they? (indignant) Caught a man and a woman in the act, but she was the one they killed! They’re still doing it in the Middle East, too. Casting stones. Breaking women’s bodies while men get away with murder! It was that hypocrisy in your Bible and my father’s life that made me leave the church, his church. I hate all things Baptist, but especially lying, cheating Baptist ministers. Do you know my father told me when I confronted him about his adultery that he only knew one Baptist preacher who didn’t cheat on his wife? One!
Rev
(calculatingly)
But God promised Lot if one righteous man could be found in a sinful city, he would spare the city and all the people in it. Lot didn’t find one in Sodom, but your father did.
Joyce
I guess so.
Rev
(keeps talking as if he hasn’t heard her)
Then, according to the Bible, the whole city should be spared. (pause) That list of preachers you’ve got - all the Baptist preachers in the city – they - we have to be spared.
Joyce
That was in my father’s day. That preacher who kept his vows is long since dead and buried, just like my father. (cunningly) I’ll tell you what. If you can name one Baptist preacher in this community who is not cheating on his wife with other women or, these days, with men, I’ll spare all of the preachers on my list. Just name one. And don’t lie because I know the truth and if a lie comes off your tongue, I’ll cut it out. (grabs a huge knife)
Rev
(gets scared again)
There are a lot of preachers who are faithful! A lot!
Joyce
(points knife at him)
Name one!
Rev
Reverend – er- Doctor – uh – Pastor – no, he’s Methodist. Let me think. Reverend what’s his name over at – no – that’s a Church of God in Christ. Pastor – he’s Pentecostal. But there’s got to be one. There’s got to be. God, help me! Surely there’s a righteous man among those you’ve called. Who else is on your list? Surely one of us is leading a holy life and living without sexual sin. There’s got to be one. That’s all I need. Just one.
Joyce
There’s not. Not one single Baptist minister in this town is faithful to his wife.
Rev
What about that assistant pastor at Rev. Jones’ Church? Rev. Brown!
Joyce
He’s single and, believe it or not, a virgin.
Rev
How do you know that?
Joyce
I have my ways. But he doesn’t count. He’s not married. He’s saving himself until he is.
Rev
But doesn’t that make him righteous? You don’t have to be married to be righteous. All you have to do to be righteous is obey God’s law. Rev. Brown saving himself for marriage is following God’s law.
Joyce
I guess waiting to get married to have sex would make a man righteous. Not many of you do that.
Rev
Not many of you either, any more.
Joyce
(tone becomes hostile again)
More than you think.
Rev
(ignoring hostile tone)
You mean to tell me you’ve never – You’re a –
Joyce
Never what, Reverend? Never had sex with a married preacher? No, I don’t believe I have. But you came here to initiate me in the kind of blasphemous, adulterous lust you and your fellow ministers think is your right, didn’t you? You want me to unzip your pants right now and pull out that serpent in there masquerading as St. Peter and take it in my mouth – all (looks at his crotch) six inches of it? I’ve never performed fellatio on a married preacher before. Do I have to pray first or do I just wait for you to call on the Lord when your life gushes out into my throat like a fountain that men like you make women believe is the blood of Jesus passing through you to them? (sings ) “There is a fountain filled with blood. Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. And sinners plunge beneath that flood. Lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. And sinners plunge beneath that flood. Lose all their guilty stains.” Is that what you’re offering me, Reverend? A fountain filled with blood that will purify me?
Rev
(now his tone his hostile)
Why don’t you untie me and let me perform cunnilingus on you? I’d love to get my mouth between your legs!
Joyce
(coyly)
You’d do that? For me? But you don’t even know me.
Rev
(exaggeratingly lecherous)
No, but I know what women like.
Joyce
(laughs)
Well, you picked the wrong woman. I’d rather set fire to my pubic hair than to have the forked tongue of the beast lapping at my labia with the hot flames of hell! Besides, I never met a man yet who could do it right.
Rev
I should have known. You’re a lesbian.
Joyce
Only in your fantasies. You’d love to see me with another woman, at your beck and call, wouldn’t you? How about your wife?
Rev
(starting to boil)
My wife is straight.
Joyce
So am I. I just don’t like oral sex – giving or receiving.
Rev
Then why were you just offering to – by the way, it’s eight inches.
Joyce
(aside)
In your dreams! I blow men all the time because they like it – not because I do. Didn’t I tell you? That’s how you’re going to die.
Rev.
What do you mean? I thought you said you were going to kill me, not –
Joyce
And you thought I meant something brutal like stabbing you or strangling you or shooting you? That’s what a man would do – after raping and torturing you first, which I am going to do. But when I do it, it will be the most exquisite pain you’ve ever felt and when you die it will be the most ecstatic moment of your existence. See, I’m a biochemist. Did I tell you that? I have degrees in biology and chemistry, but my Ph.D. is in biochemistry. I developed a drug for a pharmaceutical company that I work for that was supposed to compete with Viagra.
Rev
(desperately trying to change the subject)
Is it on the market?
Joyce
Whoa, boy! (he mouths “Boy?”) Patience. I’m getting to that. We did some test trials of our product, which was applied topically and it did exactly what it was supposed to do. Then the wife of one of our test subject’s put some in her mouth and applied it orally. Before she could disengage, her husband started orgasming violently and repeatedly. Even after she removed her mouth from his penis, the orgasms continued. She said they came in wave after wave, dozens, hundreds, until he finally passed out. The poor thing went into a coma and he’s remained in it since then. That was three years ago. They wanted to put the drug on the market with a warning on the label, but the wife has threatened to sue, so we lost the patent. Last I heard, according to the doctors, that guy’s endorphin levels indicate that he is still having orgasms. He is in a state of complete physical bliss and he has been there for three years. But his wife wants to pull the plug now. He’s going to die the happiest man on earth.
Rev
But how can his heart take that?
Joyce
It can’t. That’s why his body shut down to prevent a heart attack. That could happen to you or you could go into cardiac arrest before you go into a blissful coma. Either way, you die happy.
Rev
(nervous and confused)
Do you know in this country we actually think that’s a right? But it’s not. “The pursuit of happiness” is never mentioned in the Constitution, only in the Declaration of Independence, which is not law. The reason it wasn’t put into the Constitution is because each person has to choose what makes him happy. Having orgasms until I die wouldn’t be my choice.
Joyce
Why not? Don’t you cheat so you can keep having orgasms?
Rev
Why did your father cheat?
Joyce
Because his mother – who he named me after – was a whore and he loved those kinds of women, in spite of himself. That’s what turned him on. Not my mother who came to the marriage bed pure and virginal. His Madonna, the mother of his children, was not the woman he lusted after; it was probably in reality his mother. Now, I sound like Freud talking about some Oedipus Complex my father didn’t actually have. He was just horny and greedy. One woman was not enough for him. Why is that? Why can’t you be satisfied with one woman, the woman who loves you?
Rev
Because we’re men. We love our wives, but men are turned on by sex or the promise of it. A woman whose walk, talk, or even a look she gives you promising sex is a turn on.
Joyce
What about your wife?
Rev
My wife is not that kind of woman.
Joyce
(enraged)
Then why didn’t you marry the kind of woman that turns you on?
Rev
(calm and cautious again)
I had to marry a woman who could be a preacher’s wife.
Joyce
(looks bewildered)
What does that mean? My parents groomed me all my life to be a preacher’s wife. My mother even told me I should have married the preacher my baby sister married who beat her because she said I would have made a better preacher’s wife! What did she mean by that?
Rev
She meant that you are a virtuous woman. (pause) You’ve never been with a man, have you?
Joyce
Is that how you determine virtue in a woman? What is a virtuous man?
Rev
Rev. Brown, the young minister we talked about earlier. Maybe instead of killing preachers like me, you should find someone like Rev. Brown to settle down with. Your mother was probably right. You have good qualities that she recognized since she is a preacher’s wife.
Joyce
(seems frightened)
I don’t want to be married to a preacher! Oh, he may be untouched now, but as soon as he’s married, he’ll turn into you and my father and all of the rest of you.
Rev
(calculating)
I’ll make you a deal. Wait and see if Rev. Brown stays faithful after he’s married. If he cheats, then you can go down your list, starting with me.
Joyce
How do I know you won’t just call the police if I let you go?
Rev
What can I tell them? You haven’t hurt me. (pause) Tell you what, I’ll give you Rev. Brown’s number and you can dial it. I’ll talk to him while you hold the phone.
Joyce
(more frightened)
Talk to him? About what?
Rev
About you.
Joyce
(curious)
About me?
Rev
About our concerns about the morals of the Baptist clergy – of course, about you. He’s single. You’re single. And according to your mother, you have all of the qualities needed to make a good preacher’s wife.
Joyce
(pauses, looking wild eyed, then calms down and walks to the phone mumbling “I never wanted to marry a preacher,” “I can’t be a preacher’s wife”)
O.K. What’s the number?
Rev
555-7301. (she dials the number and brings the phone over so he can talk) Hello, Rev. Man, you still single? I’m asking because I know a young lady whose father was a pastor and she’s a virtuous woman – the kind who’d make a good preacher’s wife. You know, it’s about time we got you married. (pause) She looks good, man. Like my wife when she was young. Matter of fact, she has a Ph.D., so she’s also pretty smart. (pause) Oh, yes, quite stable. She certainly has high moral standards. So, you think you’d like to meet her? (pause) Well, I’m here at her place now. Maybe she wouldn’t mind if you’d drop by. (pause) Here, I’ll let you talk to her.
Joyce
(puts phone to ear)
Hello? (pause) No, I’m not a college professor. I’m actually a researcher at a drug company. (pause) Nothing you’d know, but I do develop drugs. (pause) My address? It’s 410 Michigan Boulevard. It ’s a red brick house. (pause) O.K. I’ll see you in a few minutes. Good-bye. (hangs up phone)
Rev
See? That was great! Now, we have found a virtuous man and you can let me go!
Joyce
He sounds like my father must’ve sounded when he was young.
Rev
Young men tend to sound young. Let’s get me out of these ropes!
Joyce
He came to me as a young man in my dreams, you know.
Rev
(momentarily confused)
Rev. Brown?
Joyce
(sadly)
No, my father.
Rev
You told me! If you give me that knife, I’ll cut these ropes myself.
Joyce
(stops dead in her tracks as if startled)
She told me. She said, “Daddy is in the hospital” and I stopped listening because I knew he was not coming home.
Rev
But you said she never told you he was in a coma. (from this point on, neither one is listening to the other until the end)
Joyce
She did, but I wasn’t listening to her. She said, “Daddy’s in the hospital and he’s in a coma.” Then -
Rev
Look you haven’t broken any laws, except kidnapping –
Joyce
- the day before he died, she called and left a voice mail message for me while I was at work. She knew I was at work -
Rev
Just let me go and they can’t even charge you with that!
Joyce
- so I couldn’t understand why she called. She said there was no change. I didn’t even hear the message until I got home the next day.
Rev
(trying to stay calm)
Please, let me go. My wife and son are going to start worrying if I don’t get home soon.
Joyce
I just sat in a chair in my living room, as far as I could from the telephone, waiting for it to ring. It didn’t ring until close to midnight and I knew. (actions mimic dialog) I picked up the phone and it was my brother telling me Daddy had died. (fights back tears)
Rev
(pleading)
I just want to go home. I just want to see my family.
Joyce
He died without ever waking up. The last thing he did, after he had the stroke and before he went into the coma, was pick up Mama’s hand and kiss it. He loved her. After all the pain he put her through, he loved her so much. And he got the chance to show her before he went into that coma. (sirens are heard in the distance) Mama told me. I just couldn’t hear her because a voice was screaming in my head. There it is! Do you hear it?
Rev
(scared)
No, I don’t hear anything! Untie me! Hurry!
Joyce
(listens)
Are those sirens? (looks at him) Who did I call? Who were you talking to? (picks up something from the table and walks toward him as sirens get closer)
Rev
What are you putting in your mouth? (pounding on door and voice screams, “Open up! Police!”) No, please! (she kneels down in front of him with her back to the audience as the pounding and yelling continue) Help me, please! God, help me! (the stage goes dark)
First Police Officer
(Joyce sits in the other chair wearing handcuffs while First Police Officer is examining Rev and the Second Police Officer is guarding their prisoner)
This guy is dead. I think he had a heart attack! I’m calling for an ambulance. (exits as he takes out his walkie talkie)
Second Police Officer
Why’d you do it? Why’d you tie that guy up and rape him?
Joyce
Don’t worry. He died happy.
Second Police Officer
So, you’re so good you can make a man come until he dies.
Joyce
Let me rinse out my mouth and I’ll show you how good I am.
Second Police Officer
I know one thing, you’re a dumb bitch because that guy got you to call the police and give us your address!
Joyce
Take these handcuffs off me and I’ll show you how dumb a bitch I am!
Second Police Officer
Save it for the dykes at the county jail! (First Police Officer enters) Hey, keep an eye on Ms. Rapist here while I look around to see if she’s got any more dead bodies hidden around here somewhere. (exits)
First Police Officer
(looks at Rev’s limp body)
Poor guy. Least he died happy.
Joyce
You better believe it, officer. Could you give me that bottle of mouthwash on the table? My mouth’s a little sticky. (he smiles at her knowingly, picks up the bottle, opens it, and pours a little of the liquid from it into her mouth, then sets the bottle down as she swishes the liquid around in her mouth; the he comes over and stands in front of her with his back to the audience and appears to unzip his pants – soon sounds of oral sex are heard and he starts having spasms just as the Second Police Officer enters)
Second Police Officer
(screams in horror as lights go down) NOOOOOOOOO!
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