If I’m alive…

In twenty years, If I’m still alive I hope to hell I finally graduated from school. Kids have always liked me, not the other way round. This is the last twenty. Fix it. Admit it, I’m sick of kids. 

I’ll publish the definitive legend of how the Scottish play got its curse and make money on it. That’s how cool I am. I’ll be on Terri Gross’s Fresh Air. The second act is written, the third act has begun. All I need now is an audience, like we say in the theatre. 

All the years you spent in school either teaching or studying writing seems meaninglessness. Who cares if I’m a sage on the stage or a facilitator? Does it matter if I put the kids in rows or pods of three and four?  In the last 40 years of teaching, nobody’s died because of me. Although one time a kid climbed a train trellis and threatened to jump on my behalf. That wasn’t cool. Not a good track record.

In twenty years, I hope I’m not alive. I want to be done.

My boys are both college graduates doing what they want, Ian’s working in the movies, Nick’s running the world. I hope I’ve given them the tools to succeed. That’s all a parent has left for their adult kids, hope and so very much love. 

So, in order to get this manifestation ball rolling, I’m going to stop here, and read an excerpt from the novel. I will know that in twenty years, someone will have heard my first scene.

Rue 

A large ginger haired beastman-in-heat tumbled to the floor of Rue’s rooms. He shook his head when he stopped rolling and tried to stand.  Rue had seen his type before. He had already turned into an animal. She’d already hurt his big drunken feelings by witnessing his tumble. She had to soften the blow.

“Let’s make this evening special,” she said. It made him feel better. Rue took her time to look him over  from top to bottom. The man enjoyed that look, and his confidence returned. “Get undressed.” she said. “What is your Christian name my lusty esquire?” That tumble threw him off his game and onto hers. He did what she said.

Rue shook her head and smiled, said his name three times, turned around three times, clapped her hands, and laughed a deep and dirty laugh. 

“I will Rue this day.” The ginger man laughed and Rue laughed too.

“Oh yes, Oh yes, you will,” said Rue.

They both laughed. 

She kissed him on the nose, and he grinned like a little boy.

“Take your dress off,” he said. 

“Help me,” she said. She jumped away from him and giggled.

He reached out to rip off her dress but his arms were weak and his legs were heavy. The best he could do was move to the bed and embrace its silken sheets and blankets. 

“You’re a bit of a pig-nut aren’t you? Enjoy your evening, you over muscled lout. You’ll wake and tell the king a tale of how you may or may not have conquered me. Ha! Have a good night’s sleep you, whey-faced, varlot,”said Rue before she kissed him on the cheek and left him. He would remember what she wanted him to remember. 

Before she left, she cast a backwards glance at the snoring oaf as gas blew from him. A man of perfect proportion, carved like a god lay naked, snoring, and farting on silks and furs, drooling. The ginger man’s shirt hung  on the chair beside the bed where each man thought they had had Rue. He didn’t want to wrinkle and mar his fine silk with big yellow sweat stains and the stink of a perfumed woman. She left him to sleep off  her charms to join Mary and Florie in the kitchen. Douglas, the king’s man, could send him on his way at daylight.

King James told Rue that she wasn’t a whore over and over again. Whores wore white powder and tint on their lips. She could never wear anything like that. They kept their hair in rings around their faces and their bosoms almost poured out of their dresses. He reminded her that she was very different from those women.

 He reminded her that she was a courtesan, a woman of nobility for nobility, for only the finest of men. And of course, she was his best friend, someone to whom he could talk and confide. No man could be trusted. The palace and its grounds were her home for the rest of her life, as it had been for her mother until her death, and her mother’s mother, Widelene, who vanished one day. Rue was left behind.

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