All Back Full

by Robert Lopez

  He says, So what happens at the pancake breakfast?

  She says, Nothing happens at the pancake breakfast. They all sleep through the alarm.

  He says, That’s too bad.

  The caterpillar is out of sight. There is no telling where it has gone or what will become of it.

  She says, But there should be a movie where the movie star is in the bathroom cleaning for the whole movie. She should drink a quart of gin and smoke four packs of cigarettes and keep all of her hair up under that bandana and listen to every album in her collection loud. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Sometimes it takes that long to clean a bathroom. Sometimes the bathroom needs that kind of cleaning.

  He says, It sounds like pornography.

  She says, Everything sounds like pornography to you.

  He says, There is definitely a double meaning in this. Now I have to figure out what it is.

  The man doesn’t want to figure out any double meanings now. He is tired and wants to go back to bed.

  Also, he is comfortable with ignorance when it comes to certain matters.

  The man is often tired, though he generally sleeps well, except when he has a night terror. The most recent one had him knocking over a nightstand and causing a brief ruckus.

  His wife chided him after he calmed down. She said, Seriously, man.

  The man glances at the sports section. The story he’s most interested in concerns the recent struggles of the first baseman referred to earlier. This is quite possibly the worst baseball player the man has ever seen.

  This first baseman is a power hitter, can hit the ball a long way when he makes contact, which he rarely does because he is quite possibly the worst hitter the man has ever seen. This first baseman’s swing is long and full of holes. This first baseman cannot catch up to a fastball and is hopeless on anything off-speed. Anyone can get him out at any time and everyone does. It’s extraordinary to the man how the general manager cannot recognize that this first baseman has no future playing major league baseball.

  She says, Do you want more coffee?

  He says, Yes, please.

  The woman rises and walks across the kitchen to the countertop, where she picks up the coffee pot and fills her mug. She then brings the pot over to the kitchen table, where she refills her husband’s mug. She sets the pot down on the sports section and retakes her seat.

  He says, I wasn’t reading that. She says, I’m sorry.

  He says, Never mind.

  She says, I’ll try.

  He says, That would be a good movie.

  She says, I don’t think so.

  He says, I had an idea once, for a movie.

  She says, What idea?

  He says, I can’t remember, but it was a good one.

  She says, That’s too bad.

  He says, Now it’s tree-fuckers and rancid seagulls for breakfast.

  She says, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  He says, Neither do I.

  What the man can’t remember, his idea for a movie, isn’t so much an idea for a movie, but rather a character in a movie, the star of it, and his foil, who serves as the narrator.

  He thinks of himself as the foil and the star is someone called Alex the Unfortunate.

  The movie starts with a narrated monologue while a sequence of shots depicts the foil in action, walking a series of barren streets at night, wandering into an empty barroom, sipping on a bourbon. The foil is shot from the back so we cannot see his face. He has on a brown leather jacket and walks with a slight limp.

  The foil says, Alex the Unfortunate was the one born that way, unfortunate, but I wasn’t. I was born beautiful, without blemish, with people wanting to take my picture, touch my skin and hold me close. Alex the Unfortunate was born unsightly, pockmarked and discolored, but I’m not Alex. I’m someone else. Maybe I look a little like Alex the Unfortunate, around the eyes, perhaps in pigmentation, but that’s all. Alex the Unfortunate was born asthmatic, struggling for breath, wheezing. I was born healthy, like a horse, stout and hale and upright. They say I was born standing up and talking back and I believe them. Alex the Unfortunate was born meek, cowering in a corner, alone in the middle of a room, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, pacing back and forth, naked and confused. This isn’t what happened to me. I was born like most people, in a hospital, surrounded by loved ones, knowing what was what and who was who. It wasn’t until much later that Alex the Unfortunate was born catching cold, catching hell, catching as catch can, limp and weak, suffering and lame. For me it was easy, but it wasn’t for Alex, not at all. We look nothing alike, except maybe for our faces, the general shape of them, like an almond, and the hair, some of it gray, but not all of it. But otherwise we are two separate people and have nothing to do with each other. Alex the Unfortunate was born as a hypothetical, an idea, a vague notion, a best guess, whereas I’m real, I’m tangible. I can bleed and spit and run and jump and hide and seek. Whenever I am called Alex, I don’t chastise people. I don’t humor them, either, but I do accept apologies. I am always gracious, but the same can’t be said for Alex. The truth is it doesn’t bother me, none of it, not to any great extent. Whenever I see Alex, I am always cordial. I always say Hello Alex and Goodbye Alex and It was good running into you. So what I’m saying is, don’t ever call me Alex.

  This monologue takes about thirty minutes of screen time.

  All the while you see the foil in action or inaction.

  Clearly the narrator is Alex the Unfortunate and it’s a case of mistaken identity or denial.

  The man hasn’t thought of this in years.

  He wrote this opening and the outline of a story and sent it off to a friend of a friend who was in the business.

  For weeks he checked the mail every day hoping to hear back.

  The man has always enjoyed an anti-hero and thinks of himself as one, though no one else thinks of him this way.

  He says, These things don’t amount to anything. The trees and cars. The seagulls. It’s like zero plus zero times zero, divided by zero.

  She says, Say that two times fast.

  He says, I think I can say almost anything two times fast.

  She says, Say that two times fast.

  They go back to reading and read like this for five minutes or hours or years. Then the woman gets up and walks over to the kitchen counter, where she dons yellow rubber gloves and does the dishes.

  The man rises and leaves the kitchen.

  Perhaps he checks on the car parked directly in front of the house. It is still out there.

  Perhaps he considers doing something drastic, like fleeing the country or helping with the dishes.

  Otherwise, he goes upstairs and tries to nap.

  END OF ACT I

  ACT II

  The setting is the same, the same kitchen as before. The same table and chairs and all the rest.

  It is later the same Sunday, now midafternoon.

  The man is back at the table.

  Presumably he napped earlier, after he had pastry and read the newspaper with his wife.

  The man isn’t sure if he actually napped, though napping was his intention.

  He did not sleep well last night. Nor has he slept well this whole week.

  He thinks he only dozed for an hour or so.

  He was listening to the baseball game on the radio and the last thing he remembers is the first baseman striking out with the bases loaded.

  But then the next thing he remembers is the first baseman making an error the very next inning.

  If he had fallen asleep, he didn’t stay asleep for long.

  Across from the man, sitting in the same seat the woman occupied earlier, is the man’s friend.

  On the table is a bottle of unopened whiskey and two small bowls. Each man is drinking a beer.

  It is not important what kind of beer, foreign or domestic, bottled or canned. For specificity’s sake let’s say it is a bottle of beer, ale from England. Specific
ity is sometimes a comfort or luxury, but is often unnecessary.

  The pastries are no longer on the table. The pastry box is now in the refrigerator.

  Perhaps tomorrow the man will take one out of the refrigerator and eat it.

  One man says to another, we are speaking in hypotheticals now. We all know this can’t happen in real life.

  The man’s friend is the one who says this, but it applies to both.

  This is something the man could’ve just as easily said.

  The friend is referring to his marriage, the one he’s been in for less than a year.

  Before that, he drifted in and out, found himself in a few situations, different places.

  This friend is here only in relation to the man. He has no life of his own, not to speak of. Yes, he is married. Yes, he sleeps in a queen-sized bed next to his wife, Janice, and drinks orange juice every morning and chews on toothpicks throughout the day, but otherwise, he can’t be bothered.

  This is what the man thinks sometimes, but not all the time.

  His friend does have a life of his own, of course.

  The friend says, In real life, this is someone who needs help.

  This is someone we call 911 for.

  The man says, I know.

  The friend says, We call in the Marines, the Red Cross.

  The man says, It’s all too much.

  The man’s friend woke early this morning, made breakfast but didn’t eat it. The man’s friend has lost his appetite. He’s not sure what’s wrong with him. His wife, Janice, wants him to see a doctor. He told her he would if his appetite doesn’t return in a week or two, if he starts losing weight.

  This morning he looked out the window and considered a running jump.

  Instead he watched the television news. Somewhere in Asia people were being wiped out by a sequence of natural disasters. On the home front, some locals had gotten into trouble with the police and now the whole town was up in arms.

  His wife, Janice, was still sleeping.

  His wife, Janice, enjoys sleeping and sleeps up to fourteen hours a night. She doesn’t wake until after noon most days.

  The friend is married to a woman named Janice, who folds everything. She folds towels and sheets and paper napkins, folds plastic bags, cardboard boxes, anything that can be folded.

  The friend has height and weight and a steady income, though he no longer works. He lives a daily life. He drives a reliable car, one with four doors and two speakers. He uses his fingers to eat, shave, and write notes to his wife, Janice. The notes concern the locals or what he hears on the news. His wife, Janice, folds the notes up neatly, sometimes making paper airplanes out of them.

  The friend says, Today I got nothing done. I had a list but I accomplished nothing. I planned this and wound up with that.

  The man says, Some days are exactly this way.

  The friend says, I woke up and put on the news. I like to know what’s going on. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know what’s going on.

  The man says, People don’t know what’s going on.

  When the man says people don’t know what’s going on he’s including himself, as he likewise doesn’t know what’s going on. He used to keep up with current events but it was too much for him after a while. Now he’ll scan the headlines on Sunday, but that’s it. He only reads the sports section with any interest.

  The friend says, After the news I was going to mow the lawn, but then the phone rang.

  The man says, The lawn will keep till tomorrow.

  The friend says, Almost everything will keep until tomorrow until it can’t anymore. Take my car; it needs an inspection. Why they need to inspect it is something I don’t know. It seems fine to me.

  The man says, I’m sure the car is fine.

  The friend says, They ticketed me last week at the train station, so now I’m supposed to get the inspection and then bring the empties to the beer distributor. There are too many bottles in the garage and I broke two this past week. This should be easy for a grown man.

  The man says, Nothing’s easy.

  The friend says, I’m not sure anymore. I remember getting dressed, turning off the TV. Or maybe I didn’t turn it off so much as I turned the channel. I think I found a ballgame. Goodbye inspection, goodbye bottles is the end result.

  The man says, I wouldn’t know about that.

  The friend says, I need to call the credit card company, too. They made a mistake on the bill. I wouldn’t know this myself. My wife, Janice, told me. She’s the one who checks the bills. After she pays the bills she folds them up and puts them in a file cabinet. I should call her and apologize. I also need to make an appointment with the doctor, get a prescription refilled.

  The man says, Modern medicine.

  The friend says, Life ain’t worth living, death ain’t worth dying.

  The man says, That’s like poetry.

  The friend says, I can’t help it sometimes.

  These two have known each other for years. They grew up together. Their parents knew each other, too, and were friends themselves, for a time.

  The man’s mother divorced the man’s father and thus ended the friendship.

  All of this took place two states away.

  How they ended up in the same neighborhood is the man’s friend coaxed the man and woman into moving here. He said it was a great place to live. He said he knew of a Cape Cod about to go on the market. He said the woman could easily start up a new practice here. He said the people were typical and unwell and needed acupuncture. He said her practice would thrive and they’d thank him one day.

  The woman has been unable to establish a healthy practice. She has tried advertising in local weeklies, hanging flyers at the supermarket.

  It’s possible she resents the man and his friend for this.

  The man and friend know nothing of this possible resentment.

  It’s likely the woman is equally unaware.

  The friend says, People talk to me like it’s fun and games.

  The man says, It isn’t either.

  The friend says, This is what I’m saying.

  The man says, You’ve said this for years.

  The friend says, Whenever people talk I think of spillage.

  The man says, Makes sense.

  The friend says, People spilling all over each other constantly.

  It’s not clear what the friend is referring to here, but the man is happy to play along.

  The friend says, This is what happens: I wake up, sometimes in the morning. There is nothing to do. It’s like zero plus zero every day around here and it never changes. I don’t know much about math but it’s like the saying says, I’m almost sure.

  The man says, I couldn’t agree more or less.

  The friend says, Still, I can’t say I’m entirely sure about anything, except for how I wake up, sometimes in the morning, with nothing to do. I could make breakfast and then eat it, sure, but then what. I would only have to eat lunch a few hours later. Anyone can see what I mean, where I’m going.

  The man says, I’m with you.

  The friend says, This is important to me.

  The man says, I thought you lost your appetite.

  Due to Janice’s sleeping habits, the man’s own have altered. It is true he wakes up every day, sometimes in the morning. But it’s just as likely for him to wake up after noon. It’s also true he has nothing to do since the accident.

  The man suffered an accident on the job six months ago and is on disability.

  It’s not important who or what caused the accident or what the job was or what exactly the nature of his injury was and whether or not the friend has embellished the effects of the accident to his own benefit or detriment, depending on how one looks at such things.

  The friend belongs to a union.

  The friend says, These days, when I am in the house, I look out of windows. I almost never do anything but look out of windows in the house anymore. I go from one window to the next, both
upstairs and down, front and back. I spend an hour or so at each window. My wife, Janice, doesn’t approve. She would rather I spend time on a different hobby or else stay at one window all day. She’d also like it if I left the house, participated in the outside world.

  The man says, Why would she want you to stay at one window all day?

  The friend says, She doesn’t say.

  The man says, Maybe she wants to know where you’ll be at any given time. Maybe she wants to keep tabs.

  The friend says, I don’t think that’s the case.

  The man says, You don’t get bored doing this?

  The friend says, I am on the lookout.

  The man says, What are you looking for?

  The friend says, That doesn’t matter to me.

  The man says, You are out of the house today. Here you are, out of the house.

  The friend says, Out of the house.

  The two men extend their respective bottles and say, Out of the house, in unison.

  The origins of trade unions can be traced back to eighteenth-century Britain, where the rapid expansion of industrial society then taking place drew women, children, rural workers, and immigrants into the workforce in large numbers and in new roles. This pool of unskilled and semi-skilled labor spontaneously organized in fits and starts throughout its beginnings, and would later be an important arena for the development of trade unions. Trade unions have sometimes been seen as successors to the guilds of medieval Europe, though the relationship between the two is disputed, as the masters of the guilds employed workers who were not allowed to organize.