Japanese nutrition

12.



The landlord raised rabbits,
A cheap protein for family,
And in the garden:
Radishes, carrots, lettuce,
Turnips, and red cabbages.

Western ways

11.



One concession to
Western knees, a waist-high din-
Ing table and four
Hard vinyl Western chairs round
It, and we arranged round it.

a different interior

II. JAPAN – end1952- early1953 – Nagoya

10.



A Japanese house –
Wood walls, rice-paper latticed
Doors, tatami mats
Knee-high tables, futons, hard
Pillows, a wash tub outside.

Shipboard Christmas

9.

Christmas was gentle:
My sister lay abunk, sunk
Into the mattress like torn
Wrappings, while I flung
My cars about the ship roads.

Shark in the water

8.



Once a shark came and
Grinned at us, as if to say
"Have you naught for me?
I am always hungry, so
I must eat and eat and eat."

Fish in their element

7.



From the rails we saw
Whales spurting great watery
Spouts and fish flying
And dolphins rolling with us--
Apace the ship and the sea.

Drunken sailors and mom

6.



Back on board, sailors,
Smelly eyed, chased me, my mother,
So at last she shut
Our door and shaking held us .
“My god, the whole crew is drunk!”

Up a volcanic slope

5.



Hawaii, leis, uke –
Then up a green blown mountain,
Fragrant wind whipping
Our hair and our clothes. Mother
Grabbed our hands, held us tightly.

Thanksgiving on board

4.

Thanksgiving the sea
Swelled like the belly of a laugh-
Ing giant, tables
Skewed below and above one
Wet slippery horizon.

Sister is sick

3.



During the crossing
Of the wide, deep cobalt sea
I played; Sis upchucked weakly,
Setting off a storm:
Intestinal misery.

Meeting the ocean

2.




The first time we saw
The broad blue sea, we lone three,
I was its, and it
Grabbed me in a chilling thrall;
Was my forever and all.

Going to meet father

I.  PACIFIC OCEAN – late 1952

 

1.

Daddy left us three,
Went across the deep blue sea.
He sent a brief note:
“How can I without you be?
Come to me, wife, children, life.”

Boy doesn't grow up

Wild, Expensive Oats




Dramatis Personae:

1. Rodney “Rod” Davenport—a bicycle shop repairman and heir to a large fortune
2. Mrs. Astral Davenport (Nee Polinaire)—Rod’s mother
3. Mr. William Davenport (Bill)—Rod’s father
4. James Wolfsburg, Esq.—Bill’s attorney, formerly the family attorney
5. Dr. Sharon Mazersk (pediatrician)—Rod’s pediatrician when he was a child
6. Uncle Fred Davenport—Bill’s brother and Rod’s uncle



Scene: The stage should be arranged into six areas. The center fore of the stage is where Rodney Davenport stands. Behind him is a scrim suggestive of a bicycle shop where he currently works. To the left of him is his mother’s spot where she sits elegantly on an expensive sofa. To the right is his father’s spot where he sits resignedly at a desk on which are books and papers and a computer. To the left back is the doctor’s spot that should resemble the office of a medical clinic. To the right is the attorney’s spot that should look like the law office of a successful attorney. Center back is the purple Harley motorcycle’s spot behind which is painted the gas station background. The stage is initially dark. As each character speaks, a spotlight illuminates him or her; when a new speaker speaks, the light fades around the last speaker as it grows brighter around the new speaker. To the right at the entrance to stage right is a gold neon sign that reads “Wild Horses,” the name of a bar Rodney frequents.

[Rodney Davenport (Rod) is a middle-aged man already bald on top and with a beer gut. He has never married but has had his share of women, for he had been a handsome, muscular youth, but is now on the downslide. He is dressed in a T-shirt with the bicycle shop logo and blue jeans and sneakers. The spotlight comes up on him. He has a bicycle repair tool in each hand. He has an insouciant attitude more common to younger people. His voice is a trifle whiny. He seems to be talking to an auditor, perhaps a customer.]

Rodney Davenport (Rod): My father hates me and Mom just tolerates me. Dad wanted me to study hard and be a lawyer or a doctor, but I hated to study, loved engines and motors and mechanical things. Mom wanted me to get married and start a family, but . . . I’m not saying I won’t someday . . . so far I haven’t met that special woman.

[Rodney’s mother was born to wealth, married a successful man, loves her son, has spoiled him, but is now disappointed in him, even as she tries to understand why he never succeeded in his endeavors. Years ago she and Rodney’s father divorced. She speaks of Rodney as if he were still a child.]

Mrs. Astral Davenport: Rodney’s a good boy really. He means no harm. He just lacks common sense. I blame his father . . . that cold fish that hovered around but never really interacted with him . . . until it was too late. Believe me, his father’s no prize. Sure, he’s taking the high ground now, but it’s not like he hasn’t messed up.

[Rodney’s father is a successful engineer and businessman. He loved Rodney’s mother, but can no longer abide his son and is resigned to the fact that Rodney is a ne’er-do-will despite his background and the opportunities he has had.]

Mr. William Davenport (Bill): His mother has always treated him like a child. For god’s sake, he’s thirty-eight years old! Is he ever going to grow up? Make something of himself? I think that “hawg” has rumbled over the horizon into the setting sun.

Astral Davenport: I hate that they can’t talk any longer. Would it hurt the old man to give him a kind word once in a while? He won’t even celebrate his son’s birthday. He says he curses the day the child was born. I think it’s money. With Bill, everything is about money.

Bill Davenport: I admit I cry sometimes . . . thinking about our baby boy when he was first born and his mother and I were still in love. How does a child with so much promise and so much opportunity turn out like he did?

Rod: Trust fund—that’s what I should have. Dad’s got the money. He could set me up. But no—he says a person has to work for what he has. I got no problem with work, but it seems a father should give his son a leg up. I used to have fast cars and fast boats—GTOs and Cigarettes. Now I’m scrabbling for pennies.

[The attorney respects both parents, but despises the son.]

James Wolfsburg, Esq.: Mr. William Davenport is a solid citizen, and I mean that in every way: financially, professionally, politically, socially, and even philosophically. He’s the kind of man that many men look up to and wish that they had done as well. True, he and Astral divorced, but he never remarried . . . as if, in his own way, he was letting her know how much he had loved her.

Astral: Rodney, Rodney, where did we go wrong? He was such a charmer . . . even as a little boy . . . could always make us laugh . . . such a happy boy. True—he was never a star at school—more of clown. But he had a knack with machines—could figure them out as if he were born with them, and, in a way, he was. Bill is an engineer after all, so Rodney has those genes.

[The pediatrician has mixed emotions: she remembers Rodney as a child and has heard the gossip about his life.]

Dr. Sharon Mazersk (pediatrician): Yes, Astral’s child was a bundle of energy—probably one of the healthiest babies that I’ve ever worked with. Based on his pedigree, he had every opportunity to excel. I was shocked when I had to treat him for herpes at thirteen. Astral begged me not to tell his father, so I didn’t, although I counseled her to tell him . . . and that from that moment on, Rodney should have an adult physician.

Rod: Screw Dad! He’s a lousy hypocrite.

Astral: Girls ruined him. Girls always liked Rodney. Even when he was a kid, they chased him. That charming personality! That energy! Some time in middle school he had his first girl. I could tell . . . the way he changed around them . . . but to me he was the same Rodney. Such a joker!

[Young female laughter comes from the right as the sign “Wild Horses” blinks off and on.]

Bill: Sex was his downfall. And drugs didn’t help. When he was fourteen, I caught him smoking weed in the backyard with a girl. I chased the girl off and told him that if I ever caught him doing something illegal again on my property, I would kick him out and disown him.

Rod: He caught me smoking pot when I was fourteen. He sat me down and had a long talk with me, told me that he understood. “Boys do things like that when they’re young. [Mockingly] But I expect more from you.” Uncle Fred told me that Dad used to be a hippie. What a hypocrite!

[Uncle Fred doesn’t have a set area but is illuminated as he walks on stage from the left. He feels torn and is sympathetic to his nephew’s plight. He is a kind of commentator.]

Uncle Fred: I told Bill to go easy on the kid. I reminded him that he had been pretty wild when he was young. Boomers—we wanted to save the world, but couldn’t save our own children.

[Uncle Fred exits stage left.]

Bill: I wasn’t wild; I was just caught up in the spirit of the times. I wanted peace, love and justice. Sure I smoked a little dope, tried acid, made love with the one I was with, but I got over it, settled down, learned my trade, started my company, and made something of my life.

Astral: Bill’s idea was that he’d buy off Rodney with toys. Got him all sorts of games. Hired personal coaches to help him in sports. Got him tutors for school. When he was old enough to drive, Bill got him cars, motorcycles, trucks. Rodney loves mechanical things. He spent so much time in the vehicles or under their hoods—tinkering, tinkering—making them loud and fast.

Bill: Almost the last thing I bought for Rodney was his gas station. [Lights come up momentarily on the gas station, but fade rapidly.] I thought that once he had his own business, he’d settle down . . . like I did. But he isn’t me.

James Wolfsburg, Esq.: [Lights come up momentarily on the gas station, but fade rapidly.] I told Bill that buying his son a business was a bad idea. “Rodney is not you. He won’t appreciate what he has.” But he said, “No, I have to do this for him. He’s not going to college. This is what he does best.” So, I gave in, but we all regretted it later. I’m glad Bill followed one bit of advice and kept controlling shares.

[The scrim rises and disappears, and Rodney backs up, so he is illuminated along with the Harley and the gas station.]

Rod: I loved that station. It was something that I made my own. I paid my mechanics well, grew the business until I was raking in $10,000 a month. You know what you can do with that kind of money? Any girl you want.

[Young female laughter comes from the right as the sign “Wild Horses” blinks off and on.]

Astral: Rodney wasn’t a businessman. I don’t know what Bill was thinking. It’s not that the station didn’t make money; it certainly did . . . but . . . all Rodney wanted to do was tinker with one or another machine.

Rod: The station had a tow truck and emergency service. Sometimes I’d make house calls. Usually only the wife would be home, and I’d do double duty: fix the machine, satisfy the woman. One woman had a flat every week. Then I found out she had a daughter. Pretty soon I was doing both. The cougar paid strictly with cash—extra money under the table. Man, those were the days!

Bill: He’s a roué and that’s all that he is. I thought that . . . like I did . . . he’d grow up, be a solid citizen. But, for Rod, money was just a chance to play harder—not an opportunity to build status and influence. James was wise to urge me to keep a controlling share of the station.

Rod: I bought a customized V-Twin Road King, purple with flame art. What a babe magnet! I didn’t even have to drive it—just parked it outside the station, and the chicks flocked to it like water running down a gutter.

[Young female laughter comes from the right as the sign “Wild Horses” blinks off and on.]
Bill: It was obvious after a while that the gas station was funding his adventures, but I had no idea that he was seducing high school girls.

James Wolfsburg, Esq.: When Rod was arrested for statutory rape, I got him off by impugning the girl’s reputation—distasteful business. But when another girl showed up pregnant and another with an STD, I told Bill he had to do something about Rodney, or everything he had built would come crashing down. I reminded him that he was a silent partner in the gas station.

Rod: Dad forced me to sell the station, and he didn’t give me a cent. I told him, “You owe me, big time.” He just looked at me, his eyes watering, and shrugged his shoulders. I could barely hear him when he said, “You’re on your own.”

Astral: Bill left him nothing, so now he lives with me, works two jobs, plays pool, plays this, plays that. But what am I to do? A mother can’t abandon her son . . . no matter how foolish he’s been.

James Wolfsburg, Esq.: Bill had no choice but to sell the station. He needed the money for the abortion for the sixteen-year-old. Money for the STD treatments for the fifteen-year-old. Money to pay off both sets of parents. I told him, “Bill, a pattern has been established. I can’t get Rod off if the parents opt to prosecute and sue. And remember, you’re a partner in the station. They could take everything you have. Get rid of it. Pay them off.”

Bill: I saw Rod the other day. He’s got a pot belly and he’s going bald, but he’s still got plenty of energy—works like a bull and plays like a goat. Those payoffs were the last things I bought for him, but he still doesn’t understand . . . that his life is a waste . . . that he is a wastrel.

Rod: I still get plenty . . . at bars . . . hanging out. Girls know I have money and am from money. They all think I’ll inherit plenty. And I will . . . one way or another . . . someday. I don’t bring them home, though. Don’t want to disappoint Mom . . . she wouldn’t like those party girls.

Bill: [with resignation] He’s on his own.

[All lights fade, leaving the stage in total darkness. Rod turns on a pencil-thin flashlight and exits toward the “Wild Horse” sign. Young female laughter comes from the right as the sign “Wild Horses” blinks off and on.]


END

I haven't written too many plays, but I have had limited success in theater throughout my life.
 
My earliest experience with actors and plays was cinematic.  Between 6 and 7, I attended the Saturday matinees on the Air Force Base in Nagoya, Japan.  They consisted of cartoons from Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies, a dramatic serial like "The Crimson Ghost" or "Flash Gordon," and a feature movie, usually a Western or musical or comedy.

a five-year-old sees the ocean for the first time

ROILING AZURE WIZARDRY


• On a beautiful sunny day when I was five years old, my mother decided to take her children to see the ocean for the first time. We were living south of Los Angeles, so she drove us to the beach in San Diego, where we would meet the sprawling blue ecosystem called the Pacific Ocean. The first time I saw the ocean, I was awed and dazzled. Its vast blue pulse enchanted me. Its deep salty coldness enthralled me. Its bountiful life bewitched me.

• The sea was magic: a vast flexible blue bubble that swelled and rolled and that came crashing ashore in a curling roil of white foam; and then it ran back out, sucking at the sand and the pebbles glistening with dampness. How could such a thing be! It had an aroma that pulled at me – an odor of worlds unseen, exotic places, great depths, briny, fluid powers of ebb and flow – an odor that drew me to touch its liquidness and feel its fluidity.

• However, when I touched the saline ocean, I fell into it. Its watery fingers grabbed me and pulled me down onto the wet sand and then drubbed me like a giant washing a sponge. I was amazed at its power, but I fought, digging my own fingers into the sand and emerged dripping wet – and cold! The coldness was startling, it was deep cold, a dark cold, a cold that said it had come from far below where no light shown and where everything was darker and colder yet. And it tasted so salty, as if after washing me, the giant had powdered me with a gargantuan shaker of salt.


• Then I became aware that an astounding number of creatures lived inside and around that cold, blue mass of liquid. Beside me on the wet sand scuttled crabs, and in the toss of surf I could see whorls of small fish like massed shadows in the water. Other fish with long fins like wings leaped out of the liquid and splashed back in. Dolphins rhythmically rolled in and out of the water, swimming swiftly. In the distance gigantic whales surfaced and blew spume into the air. Above the sea flew a multitude of birds, hovering, gliding, dipping and diving into the sea. I gaped and shouted, awed by the marvelous life I saw.

• Ever since that first encounter with the ocean, I have adored it. I have always tried to live near the mystical, magical sea. I have traveled over it, sailed and surfed on it, dived into it, pulled fish from it. Most of all I love to swim in it, or sit next to it, look at it and think. I think how endless and wonderful it is, how small I am, and how all life is possible on earth only because of our vast enchanting oceans.

2008

The End
 
I decided to add this essay before the Tanka Time poems because it shows my impression of the Pacific Ocean when I first encountered it and before we sailed across it to Japan.