Documentary—Newspaper Delivery
SCENE 1
Farmer’s field, cut through by teratoid towers.
A trailer on the land between the farm’s back fence
and striding metal & lines. Near a tree
with hardwired shadow in moonlight. Jagged
and rounded terrain of snow covered vehicles,
round bales, furniture.
[Inside trailer. A sleeping bag on a clothesline
tents the bed area.]
Beep, beep, beep.
Slight movement under heap of blankets.
Brindle dog snorts, shakes ears.
Two exhalation clouds.
SCENE 2
[An hour later.]
Cell phone lights up. Fuck-ing hell!
Mound rears up in the bed,
reaches for clothes lying near the pillow.
He follows the dog out, both piss near the tree,
dog rushes back into the trailer.
Headlights dip and sway along a two wheeled track, shooting bowls of light ahead into willow spindles and tree trunks that loom toward the light. SCENE 3 Screaming brightness. Shed, rows of empty palettes. Only his newspapers, and those belonging to Sloth, still there in reproachful stacks. He works quickly, as if hiding evidence. Not many flyers today. The station wagon sags. SCENE 4 Car, driving almost on the curb, stops. Blue plastic wrapped comet, tail fluttering, ejects from window, lands with an expiration of air on a front porch. Brake lights. Whiz—plop—sigh Whiz—plop—sigh Whiz—plop—sigh Whiz—plop—plock. The driver gets out of the car to retrieve the misfired tube from a porch roof. Using a dog leash like a sling, he brings the paper down. Satisfaction has its tipping point, it can’t be too regular a thing. The rhythm out of his arm now. SCENE 5 [Gas station, air pump.] Hey Roger, how are ya? Not bad. Got a slow leak. I’m sucking up all the nails and shit next to the curb where no one else drives. I’ll just plug a few holes before giving it air. You going to the Maple Leaf for breakfast? No. Owen thinks I smashed his front door window with a delivery last week. Didn’t you wreck that window last year? Yeh, and I paid him for it. I thought those windows could take a good throw. But I didn’t do it last week. SCENE 6 [Inside trailer. Original bench and table replaced by a cantilever table made from two patio stones, a third stone under a squat iron woodstove, its chimney a car exhaust pipe run out through the trailer’s roof vent.] He twists newspapers into thin strips, places them on coals along with small sticks and bark to start the fire. At the smell of warmth, the dog backs out from under a sleeping bag. Checks the battery, and his stack of DVDs from the library. Documentaries on Vikings, World War II, La Dolce Vita, War and Peace. Sparrows fly in and gather on the roof as he shovels snow against the trailer. The dog digs in a pile of tin cans and plastics. So someone has their routine. Pick the paper off the front step everyday. Their lives are disrupted if it’s an hour late; that’s their excitement. So I gave them their excitement.
