A Woman With Juice

Act One

(DANCER IS THE GIRL. MOVES WITH PINK GAUZE UNTIL 'NO'. )

Hush little baby don't say a word Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird If that mockingbird don't sing Hush little baby don't say a word I want to sink into the sofa cat at my elbow cushions plumped legs dangling and when I scoot innocence forward tentative feet upon the floor will you promise the floor will be there solid So dark this house this room footsteps his face I can't breathe daddy Hush little baby don't say a word Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird I want to sink into the sofa kitty at my elbow a real child a real child If that mocking bird don't sing Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring If that diamond turns to brass Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass She's small for her age moon-faced almost no breast development Notice the classic deformities of the p.i.p.'s the ulnar deviation Are her bowels regular? Are they? Have you had a bowel movement, dear? wha? She's small for her age scoliosed sparse pubic growth Notice the classic deformities of the m.i.p.'s the radiul deviation Has she started menses? Has she? Have you started your period yet, dear? what? She's small for her age round shouldered Rise and Shine Time for agoral aspirin benadryl cortozone darvon darvocette demeral What? She's small for her age knockneed She's small for her age pidgeon-toed Rise and Shine Time for bed rest exercise hot packs traction ice baths exercise bed rest She's small for her age Small for her age Small for her stopstop Shine Time SED rate clean catch scoop your shit Dear blood Just a little pin prick to the bone marrow to the ear drum Cut off the nodule realign the hip joint scrape cut saw stop stop! Rebuild the classic deformities of the classic deformities of the classic deformities of NOOOOOOOO!

Narrator: This is a about a woman with juice. We begin a bit beyond the beginning; our woman is a young girl. She's trying to tell her story, but it's a big, complicated story, and she hasn't got the words. The first word she needs to tell her story is NO. NO Can be a hard word to master.

Girl: Daddy is the greatest. He's tall and handsome and so funny. He's got some great jokes but that's not it, it's the way he says things gets to me. Like when I'm being really silly and running all around, he'll grab me, "Slow down Sis, you're like a fart on a griddle." I never heard anybody say things like that. And the best thing is: he thinks I'm special: "The sun rises and sets in you, Sis." Can you imagine. Not everyone thinks he's perfect. Just ask Mother. She hates the way he talks, cussing all the time. He never just calls somebody Fred, it's always, "That s.o.b. Fred". Cracks me up. It doesn't crack Mother up. She also hates his snoring. She makes such a big deal out of everything. That's why she sleeps in my room and she makes me sleep with daddy. I don't mind. Snoring don't bother me. Mother says I could sleep through a war. I don't mind. Sleeping with daddy's like sleeping with a big warm teddy bear. If I was Mother, I'd get earplugs.

Narrator: This is the only way the young girl knows to tell her story. You can't tell what you don't understand.

the last day of innocence I learned to let only the easy surface of words slip through learned to hold the breath and thunder of syllables in my throat father's whisper of love love in my mouth I learned: make noise no one hears words trap behind my teeth if I could speak I would say listen listen to the storm in my throat

Narrator: Now the young girl does what young girls do. She goes along, as best she can.

Girl: I get to sleep in my own bed now. Gramma told Mother and daddy, eleven is too old for a girl to sleep with her father. I think she must be right 'cause none of my friends sleep with their fathers. When I found that out it made me feel kind of strange. This way I'll have all my books right by me. I like to sleep with one under my pillow. I have more books then anybody I know. My uncle John gives me a lot of books. Everytime he comes for a visit, he brings me at least one. He's encouraging me to be smart. He says, "Cheryl, a mind is a terrible thing to ignore." Alice In Wonderland's my favorite. And Member of the Wedding. That's my favorite. Frankie Addams. I just love Frankie. One time I went a whole week pretending to be her. Talking in a Southern accent until Mother got so beside herself she said, "Cheryl, if you don't stop this nonense right now, I 'm going to give you up for adoption." But I knew she wouldn't; Daddy would never let her. Poetry's my favorite of all.

Pain has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not.

Emily Dickinson, I love Emily Dickinson.

Narrator: Our young girl is in her own room. It is somewhere in that time between midnight and dawn when silence couches her parents' house, when the only sounds alive are the creaks and groans that hint of secrets. She is awake. She is awake because her inner voice is screaming at her. She is awake because the air in her little pink room is thick with the heat of dread. She is awake because, somehow, she knows, he is awake.

She wants to stay awake. She wants to stay awake so she can stop the world. She wants to make it spin backwards, wants to make herself stop thinking thoughts she believes are so evil that sweet Jesus himself would take joy in putting a stake through her heart to end them. She wants to be awake so the screaming voice inside will finally come out. So she can say it. Say the truth. The truth she refuses to say, the truth she refuses to believe.

Girl: I hate this. I'm so sleepy. I'm so sweaty. I stink. I hate these stupid pink ruffles. I can see him looking over at mother, making sure she is secure in sleep; then, lightly easing his big birdy legs over the edge of their bed, their satin-quilted queen size rack. He puts his gimpy feet, always so sore always so tired and bruised looking, into his brown slippers--the ancient ones, properly broken-in to suit his properly broken feet. Perhaps he glances over his shoulder as he slips through their door. Perhaps he doesn't care if Mother sees him leave.

Narrator: Then she hears it: their door. That cautious creak as he trespasses into the hallway. His footsteps: a muffled sliding. Shlp. Shlp. Care for silence in each step. Shlp. Shlp....

Girl: Oh God. It cantbecantbecantbe. My cheeks burn Mama; Gramma my cheeks burn. Is there no air in here to breathe? Daddy, did you steal the air?

Stop breathing. Shhh. He's standing in front of the wall heater. What are you doing? Are you warming yourself? Are you listenening? Are you reconsidering?

I know what I'll do, I'll jump up, clang about, I'll make all kinds of noise to summon helpful spirits. No. I can't do that. I know what I'll do, I'll tiptoe to the closet, pull all the clothes on top of me. Yes! It'll be cool and I'll be able to breathe and I'll never be seen again. Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegod.

My legs won't move. Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegod. Ohgodplease. Ohgod....

(A sudden flash: a man's silhouette framed by the ever-shining light in the hall. Huge. Grotesque.)

Old Spice. Sweet. Gentle. Like an embrace. (Girl goes to "sleep")

Narrator: shlp...shlp....

And then, the element of blank. Like Emily Dickinson's dear sweet pain: The Blank, that allows the young girl to bury her story deeper.

(THE RECORDED SOUND OF ROCK AND ROLL DJ)

Girl: Another school day. I don't wanna go to school.

Narrator: The girl's handsome, brown-eyed daddy, the holder of all keys to love and pain, pokes his head in the door, gives her a sweet, warm wink: "Up and at 'em Sis."

She smiles. Gets up.

She puts on her fuzzy pink pullover--the one that almost most disguises her just-about-to-be small titties, the blue and gray plaid skirt, gray kneesocks--her Mother loves her to be coordinated--and her white bucks.

She pulls the gold and seed pearl cross her grandmother gave her in the hope she'd be a good Catholic girl from around the back and untangles it from her long, silky hair. She looks into the mirror at her shadowed eyes.

Girl: I love my pretty pretty hair.

Narrator: She kisses her mother on the cheek, and when she feels her father's thick, sensuous lips on hers in good-bye and looks into his dark, soft eyes, a rush of confusion shatters her spine. But she is composed. She steps out into the ordinary day, a good Catholic girl.

(RECORDED MUSIC TRANSITION)

Narrator: On the 8 x 10 glossy surface, things seem okay. For awhile. But then, there are signs. The little finger on her left hand begins to twist. A thumb won't bend. And then-- her knees like cantaloupes. Ankles that must be housed in orthopedic shoes. Fingers as fragile as a cat-mauled wing. In a few years, floating pains everywhere.

Because she cannot speak the truth, everything the young girl thinks, feels, experiences, everything she is, is given over to : Cripple. How convenient.

(RECORDED VOICES): Poor Cheryl. Isn't it a shame such a pretty girl. Poor Cheryl.

Narrator: Fall 1959: There's so much hope in the air, even an eleven-year-old girl with an awkward limp and a terrible secret can feel like a "normal" teenager".

Girl: (DANCER LIMPS IN AND SITS IN A CHAIR IN FRONT OF TV) I should've won that debate. Everyone who isn't an idiot knows that John Fitzgerald Kennedy is a million times better than icky tricky Dicky. If I just hadn't called Tommy a stupid ass moron. That's just like something Dad would do.

(RECORDED VOICES): That poor family. What they must be going through. Isn't it a shame. A pretty young girl like that. And that father, so devoted.

Narrator: Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. In 1964, the Beatles are all the rage. And speaking of rage, where does it go if it 's never expressed? It's not as if the girl could send it to visit her gramma in Switzerland or put it to music and dance to it.

Girl: (DANCER TWISTS TO BEATLE MUSIC, SHOWING HOW AWKWARD AND PAINFUL IT IS FOR HER TO MOVE) (girl sings) [Editor’s note: She sings two lines of “Love Me Do” by Lennon and McCartney.] Paul McCartney, you are so cute. I could just lick your face. [Editor’s note: refrain repeated] Paul McCartney. Cheryl McCartney.

(RECORDED VOICES): Isn't it a shame. If it was my daughter, I just couldn't handle it. I'd rather be dead than like that. What a tragedy.

Narrator: How many strangers can poke and prod an eighteen-year-old girl's body without ever noticing her eyes? How many hospitalizations and experimental treatments does it take to spell enough? What will it take for her father to hear the No?

Girl: (DANCER IS IN MANUAL CHAIR IN FRONT OF TV. SHE STRUGGLES FORWARD PULLING WITH HER FEET. SHE STRUGGLES TO CHANGE THE TV CHANNEL. SHE SMOKES CIGARETS) All the world's a stage. No it isn't, it's only a fucking TV set. This can't be real. Is this really VietNam? Am I really watching someone kill someone?

(RECORDED VOICES): How pathetic. How awful. She was such a pretty girl. That father. He just adores that girl. The way he takes care of her. It's such a shame. Such a shame. Such a shame.

Narrator: Twenty-one. A legal adult. Just ask the shrinks. They concur. Her depression? Why the diagnosis is simple. She's just having an "Adjustment Reaction To Adult Life". I suspected as much myself.

Girl: (DANCER IN MANUAL CHAIR. SHE DOESN'T MOVE AT ALL. CIGARET HANGING OUT OF HER MOUTH) Fuck you all. Bastards. Why don't you just get it the fuck over with. Push the fucking button. Blow up this fucking hell hole of a planet.

(RECORDED VOICES): shame. shame. Shame. SHAME. SHAME. shame. SHAME. SHAME. (DANCER FALLS OUT OF CHAIR, MAKES VIOLENT MOVEMENT ACROSS FLOOR TOWARD YOUNG WOMAN)

Girl: No no no no no no no. Nothing nothing nothing nothing. I'm going fucking crazy. TV. Nothing. The only time I ever go out is to some new torture from some new doctor. Me and the fucking TV. It'll always be just like this. Even my dreams betray me. (DANCER BECKONS YOUNG WOMAN TO TAKE BOTTLE OF PILLS FROM HER. YOUNG WOMAN DOES. SHE TAKES AN OVERDOSE)

(MUSICAL UNDERSCORE)

I am driving a blue van and the road is too narrow the brakes don't work suddenly there is water all around I am in the back seat with no control in the driver's seat--no control There is a dream leopard the leopard is on a gold chain the gold chain is held by a legless dream crone I don't know the combination to my locker or the boys yes the boys all the dream boys and girls girls A my name is Annie and my boyfriend's name is Skull of the dream hawk I am the dream bones of the hawk There is my mother's rock hard face and my father's dirty laugh The purr of the dream cat that becomes a heartbeat I escape by flying I escape by dying the feel of the cool dream waves over my eyes cool cool waves the black void whose embracing arms I leap to the burning sands I decompose into the fuzzy black dream spider that bites my dream thigh my eyes my eyes my dream eyes The grandmother pulling my dream toward heaven the priest offering me eternal dream damnation Father's rock hard face Mother's dirty laugh the dream Why I melt into into into into (young woman drops head down over chair arm as if passed out or dead)

(RECORDED VOICES, POSSIBLE HEARTBEAT OR MACHINE BLEEPS.): Father: oh my god what have I done to my little girl. please god please god please god don't let her die. Mother: Oh my god I am heartily sorry for having offended thee and I confess all my sins. Priest: I can administer last rights now. Girl: no no no no no no no...( DANCER AS GIRL MOVES IN WAYS TO TRY TO ROUSE YOUNG WOMAN, WAKE HER.)

Girl: I'm here. I did it. It worked. I'm here. I'm here? Cosmic joke time, right?

Narrator: There are moments of grace in life. The father stops his nightime visits.

There really are moments of grace in life.

And just to prove that point, the very next summer, Life, being what it is, has two boy cousins move to town.

Girl: Steve is lean and nut brown, kind of quiet and steady. He looks so much like my father, when my father was a young man, it makes me think: Dad could've turned out this way.

Of course, if you look close, and I love to look real close, Steve doesn't look much like my father at all. His eyes are a much much deeper brown. Kind of like the difference between Milk Duds and dark double chocolate truffles.

And he likes my poems.

Now Seth, he's never reminded me of my father at all. He's blond and blue-eyed, and there's this gentleness-- it almost scares me, but sometimes scarey is so good.

I could always find some boy in every hospital to make eyes with, but nobody makes eyes better than Seth. He's the King of flirt. And I love having someone I can practice with.

That Dylan concert we went to. It was so hot. All those magical words pouring over me, pressing up against me, pounding into me. Rock and roll. The best part was after. Walking. I'd forgotten the sound of birds. I could feel Seth's hands on the back of my chair.

Narrator: There are moments of grace in life.

You're just going to have to trust me on this.

See, it's just that sometimes they're so tiny you might miss 'em if you're not real careful. Like:

Sarah, who is three And too young to understand The personal and political ramifications Of Different Holds my hands in hers and coos Umm...Like marshmallows

Girl: (laughing) Marshmallows? I like it.

[DEFORMITY] marshmallow

Aha!

Mine are the hands of your bad dreams Booga Booga from behind the black curtain Claw hands The ivory girl's hands after a decade of roughing it crinkled puckered sweaty and scarred A young woman's dwarfed knobby hands that ache for moonlight that tremble and struggle Hands that make your eyes tear My hands My hands My hands that can grace your brow your thigh My hands

Narrator: Now she's excited because she thinks she's onto something. And she is. Of course, we know she really hasn't a clue. But at least by now, someone's invented the remote control.

Girl: (clicks remote control) Brady Bunch. Shit. (Click) blah blah politician. Shit. (Click) Yuck. Jerry Lewis. Major SHIT. (click)

Narrator: And then it happens. Just like magic: Another moment of grace.

Girl: (Click) What the...? Who the...?

My god, look at this guy. He's on a fucking respirator. (VOICE OF ED ROBERTS TALKING ABOUT THE INDEPENDENT LIVING MOVEMENT, PENI HALL IS INTERVIEWER). The Independent Living Movement. That's Berkeley. It's practically happening in my own damn neighborhood. How come I never heard of this?

Narrator: The independent living movement--a revolution of identity and possibilities for disabled people. Oh, you may never have heard of it. It didn't make it into prime time. Norman Mailer did not rush out to capture its essence in 30,000 words. Yet it took root, it grew, it spread all across this country, it even traveled to that lonely livingroom.

Girl: Independent! Living! Movement! What great words. Power. Control. What great words. (the young woman grabs the control stick for her power chair) Power! (The chair zooms out of control) Whoa! Control. (She moves around the stage playing with the power and control of her electric wheelchair. She starts playing with the sounds of the control stick as percussion) Power...power... (She dances and sings)

Clubfoot Annie, she's wearin' bright red shoes. Harriet the Hairlip deliverin' the news. Spastic Jenny strokin' the cat on her hat And One-Legged Ruthie, She teaches tap Ya clap hands Ya shimmy, Ya shout Ya rock ya tired ideas right out Like Sassy Girls, unh huh Like Old Blind Wilma readin' a novel a day She just don't do it no ordinary way Like Capucine the Deafie and Deaf Lily Rue Betcha cain't keep up with all the talkin' they do Now who ya callin' crazy, Mary Louise? Hey, she's the one knows how to talk to trees Yeah Ya clap hands Ya shimmy, Ya shout Ya rock ya tired ideas right out Like Sassy girls, Unh huh Like Mumtaz, the Mute One, preachin' the word And Diana, the Cripple: She flies like a bird Like all us crips who sing a strugglin' tune And at midnight Together HOWL at the moon Ya clap hands Ya shimmy, Ya shake Ain't nothin' but worn out notions at stake Skip-a-rope, hear the sound? Just a bunch o' stereotypes hittin' the ground Ya clap hands Ya shimmy, Ya shout Ya rock those tired ideas right out Like Sassy girls, Unh huh, Sassy Girls, Yeah

Girl: (The young woman stops center stage) I'm going to Berkeley!!!

(She flies off stage. A crash is heard)

END OF ACT ONE

Act Two

Narrator: When we left our young woman she was caught up in a state of sassy, determined to get to Berkeley. Well, it's ten years later and she finally arrives. Our young woman is in Berkeley to attend the University of California. She's a Psych major, but most of her professors will testify: Psych seems to be the least of her interests. She's too busy with freedom to worry about the effects of sleep deprivation on the maze-running abilities of mice.

I am the woman in the wheelchair who chronicles events in her notebook. I know this is me because I see my reflection in the eyes of the uniformed officer who is asking me to move. You're blocking entrance to this theater, he says. "Entrance"-- interesting word. You are interfering with the rights of others, he says. I would hate to inconvenience anyone. The manager says I should come back tomorrow when there are fewer people and my aisle posititon won't be such a fire hazard. Reagan is in the White House, who can think about Saturday matinees? Do you really think your cause will be helped by alienating people, he says. My cause is to see this movie. People are responsible for their own alienation. I have to arrest you, he says. I have to sit here. We both have our jobs to do.

Narrator: Some people on the outside looking in might draw the conclusion that she's become a tad obsessed. But I ask you, if you'd been starving for years, do you think you'd dine with manners? The woman is hungry. She wants to know everything there is to know, especially about this (indicating disabability): cripple, because there are quitea few things that don't set quite right...yet.

Girl: (In the library, pouring over books)Why did I choose this stupid topic? Naming and claiming our ancestors, our heroes. FDR. Whoopee! The cripple president who hid his wheelchair. Great role-model.

Helen Keller. Big deal. Hmmm. Socialist? A member of the Socialist party? Helen "The Miracle" Keller? A feminist? Oh, my god... "Being handicapped has far more to do with poverty, oppression and the restriction of choices than it has to do with wilted muscles or milky eyes." She tried to tell! Why the hell didn't I know about you?

(The next sections are done as if a presentation at school or meeting with slides. The girl's presentation style becomes more fluid and "professional" as the sections proceed)

My presentation is about disability history. Naming and claiming our hidden history, our ancestors. Like the thousands of mental and physical "defectives", singled out for "special treatment" by the Nazis. Yes, disabled people were the first victims of the holocaust, we are the people the Nazis refined their methods of torture on. We must honor these unnamed victims as our ancestors, we must raise their unmarked graves into our consciousness, into the consciousness of people everywhere so this never happens again. And just as Native Americans insist the true name of "discovery" is genocide, more and more disabled people insist that a right to die with dignity, without having an opportunity to live with dignity, is murder, the first syllable of genocide.

Naming and claiming our ancestors, our heroes. Like all those circus and carnival freaks, the first disability performance artists. These rowdy outcasts learned to emphasize their otherness, turn it into work, a career, a life. Oh, it may have been a harsh life, sometimes even brutal, but a life: they kept themselves from being locked away in those institutions designed for the excessively different that have always been such a prominant part of the American economy.

Naming and claiming our ancestors, our heroes. Many people know the story of James Meredith, freedom fighter, Black man. He helped break the racial barier to higher learning by insisting he had a right to an education. It's a great story of pride and power, but it's no greater a story than the story of Ed Roberts, cripple freedom fighter, disabled man, who armed with self-esteem (and a portable respirator), broke the disability barrier to higher learning by insisting he had a right to an education, by insisting that the doors to the University of California at Berkeley be opened. And when he did, he laid a significant brick onto the foundation of the Independent Living Movement.

Now I ask you: How many disabled people are rotting away in living rooms and nursing homes because they don't know these stories.

How many cripples are going to die because they don't know these stories?

(This last section is done as performance in spotlight)

I'm trickster coyote in a gnarly-bone suit I'm a fate worse than death in shit-kickin' boots I'm the nightmare booga you flirt with in dreams 'Cause I emphatically demonstrate: it ain't what it seems

Disability. Culture. Say what? Aren't disabled people just isolated victims of nature or circumstance? Yes and no. True, we are far too often isolated. Locked away in the pits, closets and institutions of enlightened societies everywhere. But there is a growing consciousness among us: that is not acceptable. Because there is always an underground. Notes get passed among survivors. And the notes we're passsing these days say: there's power in difference. Power. Pass the word.

Culture. New definitions, new inflections. No longer just poor cripple, also CRIPPLE and, yes, just cripple. A body happening. But on a real good day, why not--C*R*I*P*P*L*E*: a body, hap-pen-ing. Dig it or not.

Culture. Passing the word. Now, maybe the word is the moan and wail of a blues. Maybe its the fierce rhythms and clicking heels and castenets of flemenco. Maybe it's outsider art. Passing the word. Maybe the word is authetic movement, that dance that flows from the real body notes of cripples. Maybe it's the way pieces of cloth are stitched together to commemorate a life, to remember a name. Maybe it's American Sign Language, a language that formed the foundation of a cultural identity for a people, deaf people, and bloomed into ASL Performance art and ASL mime.

Culture. Maybe, so far, you've been deprived. Maybe right now the primary image you have of disability is that of victim. Perhaps all you know of us is "Jerry's Kids", those doom-drenched poster children hauled out once each year to wring your charitable pockets dry. But I promise you, you will also come to know us as Jerry's Orphans. No longer the grateful recipients of tear-filled hand-outs, we are more and more, proud freedom fighters, taking to the streets, picket signs strapped to our wheelchairs. No longer the polite tin-cuppers, waiting for your generous inclusion, we are more and more, proud freedom fighters, taking to the stages, raising our speech-impaired voices in celebration of who we are. No longer the invisible people with no definition beyond "other", we are more and more, proud, we are freedom fighters, taking to the streets and to the stages, raising our grarly fists in defiance of the narrow, bloodless images of our complex humanity shoved down the American consciousness daily.

And these changes, they will happen. Because there is always always an undergound. Notes will be passed among survivors. And the notes we're passing these days say: There is power in difference. Power. Power. Power. Pass the word.

(RECORDED SOUND OF APPLAUSE AND CHEERING.)

Girl: Thank you. Disability culture is a new concept and there's--

(DANCER COMES UP DURING APPLAUSE AND SCARES WOMAN. WOMAN PUSHES HER AWAY, SHAKES HER HEAD, CAN'T FINISH HER PITCH. THEY STRUGGLE UNTIL WOMAN BLOWS HER AWAY WITH CIGARET SMOKE)

I see you staring. Would you like to pluck my nubby fingers? Would you like to pluck them, tie them with velvet, place them in a vase with fresh water and aspirin, then watch to see if they bloom... I see you staring. I see you cringing. Would you like to stick your finger in my twisted spine? Would you like to stick your finger in, lift it out, then check to see if you can tell which way the wind blows... I see you cringing. I hear you laughing. Would you like to trace my scars? Would you like to trace them, connecting all the lines and bumps and blotches to see if you can decipher the code and reveal their hidden message... I hear you laughing. I heard what you called me. Would you like to kiss my pain? Would you like to kiss it and lick it and suck it and hump it? Maybe you'd like to see if you can make it come... I heard what you said. What can I say...

Girl: What the...where the hell did that come from? No...I can't...I don't want to remember. Oh god what is happening to me. (DANCER ENTERS TO MUSIC. SHE HAS THE GAUZE AND IS WORKING WITH THAT)

They call it psychosis my violent ungirdling of the ego my sudden race down ancestral memory lane They call it psychosis my terrifying miracle of inward travel to the moment before the betrayal when man is revealed as beast and the lamb left unsacrificed They call it psychosis my return to the instant before my father's hand slips between my thighs They call it psychosis my precise no that lets my father wear his own dirty shirt and gives me a day of reckoning that takes me to my mother's knees where I lay the truth in epigrams They call it psychosis my pulling of the nails from my palms with my teeth and as the last nail falls chink to the tiled floor they call it psychosis as I slither black and shiny from the cross and leap to the Embracing Mother of possibilities.

(DANCER AND GIRL MAKE EYE CONTACT. GIRL REMEMBERS AND IT'S OKAY. DANCER COMES TO GIRL'S KNEES. GIRL STROKES HER HAIR, HER FACE)

Girl: I remember, I remember.

I remember this man who threw an apple core and screamed You're her daddy how could you hurt that little girl; I didn't tell-- I didn't tell, Perhaps the just saw through to the twisted root. Was it my father's hands a slip the way he licked his lips; Or was it my eyes their dark their blank. Now I wonder: How many others caught the scent swallowed their breath let the little girl go it alone rather than throw the apple core?

Girl: (DANCER IS WITH WOMAN. THEY ARE BOTH OKAY. THE WOMAN LETS THE "LITTLE GIRL" GO)

I think I was four when the family went to Santa Cruz Mother says there's not much to remember It was a dull trip She's not a woman who ever remembers much I remember my father sunburned so badly we could peel the skin from his back in large hunks I remember my father's skin I believe I was four when the family made that trip to Santa Cruz Mother says there's not much to remember She's not a woman who wants to remember much I can see my brother seated on a huge inner tube the tumble of waves They say he almost drowned That is the story the family always tells I think it was me I remember my father's skin the ocean of pink thigh I am the one who really drowned on the family trip to Santa Cruz when I was four or five or two Mother says what's the difference There's not much to remember It was a dull trip I remember my father's skin wave after wave after wave Mother won't remember I was the one I remember my father's skin and Santa Cruz Dear Mother I will undeny the lie with truth you do not want to hear Even if you choke on it, drown it in alcohol, smother it with sleeping pills like I did, like I thought I had to because you said so with your denial. I will tarnish the silver myth of our lives: I warn you. Because it is I who lived in the dirty underbelly where it stank of sweat and semen and terror, Where it stank of the cigarette butts you saw at my bedside. You saw. I will speak of my betrayer whose hands you held as he whispered to me-- The sun rises and sets in you, Sweets. And without a blink of a brown eye, charmed the world, while at night he murdered a girl. I warn you: I will speak. Bones of my child hands dried to the frail of a sparrow's wing working to reveal the secret of his hands, that soothed and ruined. Innocent graceful bone to gnarled stub twisted working struggling to reveal the secret of the sureness of his hands as they loved and ruined. My sweet girl hands died giving birth to the truth of a father's gentle murderous hands.

Narrator: They say time heals all wounds. They say a lot of things. Time can heal, but time doesn't work alone.

If you speak love to the color red and sorrow, she will show you the rose. Summer was fragile conversation with colors long shrouded, a memory. Mid-beat, the cold heart of winter now. Winter's on my hands; Still, I hold: gold band on the third finger of his left hand his hand on the pillow of the young girl shh... One thread to torment and comfort. Summer was sleeping again in the mournful bed of childhood. Today is winter; Icy winds crack against my cheek and I hold the rose. gramma's hands were big and doughy and restless they crocheted a garden on muslin for my bed brewed strong black tea shuffled the deck for solitaire an old woman's hands but once they had been pale and light and held a tortoise shell brush once they held a tortoise shell brush while she sat before a mirror brushing her long wheat hair her thick wheat hair that I knew only gray except in the braid she wove from her brush leavings the braid she gave to me so I would always remember-- before the ten pregnancies and five miscarriages before the four children she raised and the daughter who disappeared before the five grandchildren and the great-grandchildren before she was a woman wheat colored you live, gramma in my dreams & memories where you walk with the sureness of age & hold a promise earth & body are one you are a silvery spirit my furious phantom in your loving palms cactus flowers bloom in your eyes stories never told & your laughter the full life of an ordinary woman (in earth or heaven is there anything more extraordinary) always i hold you in my heart swirling swirling & i embrace the breeze from your full skirt of magic sorrow & blue iris

Narrator: My Grandmother in her garden. The picture is so clear. She taught me so much in that garden. She taught me that no matter how oppressed, how small and ordinary you think a life is, Magic can bloom.

And she was wild. She wore a big purple hat...and she had pierced ears. At the time, I thought that was about as hot as it gets so:

My left ear I pierced to say no because I had not strength to form the word. Through the hole in my left ear I placed the gold band of my father's betrayal. My right ear I pierced to say I am a woman: I belong to all the piercings of all women of all ages. I pierced my right ear to link arms with that first dark woman who shoved a sliver of bone through her nose to claim to reclaim. In my right ear I wear the silver loop of my survival.

Narrator: Survival--exhausting work. And the pay ain't so great either. So I'm just gonna take a little break. 'Cause I want it, I need it, I earned it.

(SOUND UNDERSCORE, VERY SUBTLE. BIRDS AND THEN RAIN DROPS) I love watching rain grayness cooling colors greens no longer talk so loud, and the bricks on that old house on the corner-- their hue rich full-blooded from the rain. I love watching rain looking through my window work spread out before me with my picture of Elvis (lean and nasty-eyed) to wonder at, and if I feel like it a blast of Springsteen-- wounded dreams and pretty girls. I love watching rain curled up by a crackling fire kitten at my elbow, but not stuck under the magnolia in the yard of the Buddhist temple electric wheelchair taking on water like the hull of the Andrea Doria. I love watching rain, but not stuck under a damn magnolia because I'm still vain enough to hate how I look in raingear-- like a pup tent on wheels. I love watching rain from the van at the headlands midnight colors at noon ocean foaming mossy against the cliff's gnarls and crags Such pleasure I take in the spit and hiss the salty stench sweet earth as she cools and renews. I love watching rain sprawled before a roaring fire Courvoisier at my elbow, but not stuck in J.C. Penney's doorway like an oddball abstract sculpture, a pigeon perch in the doorway awaiting the next busload of tourists. I love watching rain from any well-stocked oasis feet propped upon a pillow, but most especially I love watching rain on the rare occasion I remember machine and flesh lead separate lives And I tilt my face to the blackest cloud until my hair is seal slick and my clothes have to be peeled like the skin from a peach, Then-- I love watching rain as it pounds against my thighs and sings off my elbows: WET

Narrator: Sometimes you just gotta get wet to remind yourself who you really are.

I just realized that I've left out a few very important details along the way. After all, this is about A WOMAN WITH JUICE. Now any woman of juice I know, is not going to go this long and put up with this much without grabbing a few goodies along the way. I mean, if you think I'd go this long without something as sweet as a first kiss...well, think again.

Intimacy. One of our favorite subjects.

I guess it would be stating the obvious to say I was a late bloomer, so by the time I got around to that first kiss, I was ready, but oh so shy. Afterward, in that eternal moment that seems to need to be filled with words, well, what I wanted to say was:

when you kiss me my lips ooh my lips, babe and then my larynx like a cat in my throat purrin' prrrrrrrr my esophogus, liver and spleen begin trioin' the blues in a low moan and my belly, inside and button start talkin' low, dancin' slow makin' sweet rhythm until my thighs those cotton candy delights hum, and each cell harmony

Narrator: Of course, what I say is: That was nice.

I wish I could say that once I got the chance to have that first kiss, I got on a roll. Unh uh. If we've learned anything by now, we've learned it doesn't work like that. What I had to go through to get from first kiss to love.

Here we sit, separately cloaked-- I, in my deformity tuxedo; You, wearing confidence like a feathered hat. Today you bring clever word choices and fine wine; I bring spring colors and all my moods. We chink glasses, offer toasts: I, to the firm firmness of your thighs; You, to my green eyes. You plump pillows, remarking-- Kierkegaard was right about so many things; No doubt, I say, as I watch the flicker of the cat's tail, sunlight streaking his amber coat. We nod and smile. I play shadow games, distracted by my twists and gnarls. But when the sky turns midnight blue you swear (and I believe) my curled paws are sequined slivers of the moon.

Narrator: See, I got quite good at speeches, just give me a live mike and a crowd and I'm right at home. Mike and I have a good time. But the quieter the conversation, the more I'd hear This (indicates disability).

These elbow nodules, I say, are not special effects created by George Lucas, applied with glue at six, peeled off before the evening champagne cork is popped. I like your elbows, He says, the crook where Cat curls, where my head rests, the sweet blue vein against my ear. I know, I know, I say, but the nodules. Besides, the elbows are too near my distinctively unCherlike shoulders, bony protrusions not designed to hold up a Bob Mackie original, too frail to support the weight of lame and bugle beads. Your shoulders, He says, seem broad enough to carry the weight of an original argument, and they are so conveniently located-- a mere tongue's lick from your fleshy lobes. Well, I say, that's true enough. Still-- they are a nagging reminder of the limitation of my reach, and what about these scars at my knees, they're indelible, you know, the colloided tissue is permanently stitched and creeps onto the white pucker of thigh. Ah, your thighs, He says, like marshmallow How much can I eat, and Look, He'd say, tracing with fingertips, The scars on your left knee come together like lips smiling. Yes, I say. They do. I just hoped you'd notice. Okay. Let's leave those lights on. Partners he and I Co-conspirators in the ongoing war against lonely. Fourteen years we've sweated it out. Sometimes back to back Me needing needing Fix me He with his own wounds. His eyes and hands remind me there is a woman connected to the gnarled joints I see reflected in the eyes of passing strangers. Fourteen years we've worked and held the line. My eyes and hands remind him there is a man connected to the wilted muscles he sees reflected in the eyes of passing strangers. Fourteen years. We've worked and held that line. We've drunk too much toked too much faltered and retreated-- We've laughed out loud at awkward moments. Still, we soothe and steady each other as trees bend and brown and green again. (Woman moves around looking at her 'life' as she looks at people in the audience and surveys the stage. She then sees someone in audience) All that sits between your chrome wheeled chair and mine. A distance of freak names and shackled possibilities. A land of Mother disappointment. Child's play locked in hospital bed rails. Acres of starch white indifference. Probes into private spaces without introduction or permission. Cripple yearnings for whole and romance. Once to be desire. Once to be pure flesh on fire. (The woman moves again, observing, noticing until she sees another audience member) All that sits between your jagged bones and my gnarl attitude. Telethon assumptions. Prayers to granite invisibility we call God. Rosary beads sewn into the lining of a coat. Shame on our tongues like scales. Cartoon silhouettes in rage-lit freeze frame. Cripple yearnings for calm and ordinary. Once to be just fine. Once to be so fine. (The woman looks at all the people in the audience) All that sits between your searching heart and my sarcastic hope. Words that spell our names correctly. Laws that do more than just token our promise. Dreams like ants crawling under our skin. And the reach, the reach across the distance, frail-boned hand to twisted spine. These lives of passion and disturbance. Echoes in the storm. And such a long, such a long, long way to go.

Narrator: Sometimes it's hard to remember the little girl I was. It's as if she lived in another body. As if the memories of her don't really belong to me. Like I'm just borrowing her for my story. But every once in awhile there is this crystal moment of reconciliation. And then:

I wheel my chair through Mojave sands until I sink There I sit sun baking my spongy bones so brittle that when I stand instead of feeling shin push into ankle ankle press into heel heel slam into a shoe of nails my pelvic bones snap and I fall slow motion onto the warm warm grains I am bleached white nothing but a heap of white sprigs He comes with his little girl Holding her hand he guides her eyes to the lizard a flicker of iridescent pink but her interest is the white twig at her feet She bends and with a small perfect hand lifts what once had been my aching finger Look Daddy a treasure He leans down to admire her find She puts it in the pocket of his plaid shirt and the two of them walk on My skull opens wide swallows the desert and sings hosanna to the dry dry air (DANCER ENTERS WITH GAUZE. SHE EXTENDS GAUZE TO WOMAN. WOMAN TAKES IT AND WRAPS IT AROUND HER HANDS. THEY SMILE AT EACH OTHER. BLACK OUT. LIGHTS UP TO THE MOCKINGBIRD SONG--SOUL VERSION COMES ON. WOMAN AND 'GIRL' DANCE)

End