This is a project I'm working on in between seasons. I feel like it's been in need of a remake. Here's the script. I'm told some of the voices are hard to understand, so I felt like posting the poem itself would be useful.
I.
I had this dream last night
That an old lady was feeding me poison food...she was...
She was wearing a shower cap
and a purple dress.
(I don't know how I knew the food was poison.)
Or maybe I...
I woke up before the dream was over
And went to work.
Unless I'm still dreaming.
II.
Well
If you're hearing my voice in your head right now
It's because my idea is working. I had this idea
That if I could project enough...
like...
you know how
like...sometimes...
when you think about something enough
it HAPPENS?
Like...
if you're worried about something
and you can't stop thinking about it...
it's going to happen.
That's not honestly something I believe but
I...think that it might sort of work:
I had this idea
That I could send enough like...
Good Vibes
Into the world to people
That they'd
Land...
On them.
Does that make sense?
No?
...I'm sorry.
III.
I just needed someone to talk to.
I know that you're not real.
Neither is Ben
(The man in the navy blue one-piece that watches me flip burgers and reads me the news)
But I believe in both of you,
In the sense that I believe in
Words
and
poems and that
you could exist
(if you wanted to)
(But you don't.)
You're like my dreams.
IV.
Last night, you see,
I had a dream that an
Old lady was
Feeding me poison food.
She was
Wearing a bonnet...and a red dress
—well—
It wasn't red, quite.
Maybe scarlet?
Or kind of lighter than that.
It could have been orange
or maybe blue
—I—
I should clarify:
I'm like...
REALLY high right now...
V.
I make nine dollars and twenty cents an hour at the restaurant
Which is more than most of the people there.
It's not that I'm truly superior to them (in any way)
I'm just better than them
At most of the things
That matter.
Especially with cooking, since
NO ONE has returned a single burger I've made in my entire life.
My timing with the fryers
Is more precise than any other human I've ever met. However,
John
Who works at the register
Is significantly better at mopping than me,
And the manager is a lot better at...
Swearing, since,
When I'm asked to swear,
My tongue starts to swell up
And I go into enemapalacialitical shock,
Or I think that's what it's called,
I failed my only Spanish class...
And dropped out of school...so
I'm not sure if I even learned it in the first place.
But basically,
I've been here for five years
and I think I've got a pretty solid idea of what I'm doing.
Not many people come to the restaurant between 9pm and 5am,
but I know that the ones who do always get good food.
Since I'm here.
And I'm the best.
It's actually maybe the best burger you'll ever have if you'd like to stop by.
I'll make one for you
And since you're listening to me talk
I'll do this thing
Where you turn the burger on the grill
And burn these lines into it
And I'll burn this one celtic knot pattern I just figured out.
(This is why they keep me around)
VI.
I will make you fries too.
I actually I get a lot of complaints about them.
People say that they're
awf—awesome
Especially when I make them
The night manager doesn't mind if I'm high right now
(In case you were wondering)
He's pretty chill about that.
He graduated from community college with
A masters in the arts of business and a degree in chemistry
With a soros cum latte.
He's tall, about 5'11”
And dresses in polite business casual
(Even though our uniform policy doesn't require it of him)
We're friends on Facebook
And he likes all of my statuses
(Even when they're just videos)
He wears nike tennis shoes
And he sells a lot of drugs.
He hires people
(mostly me)
and other people too,
(which is nice)
He patted me on the back and congratulated me
I didn't hear what he said..
I assume something like...
“Your burgers are the work of God”
and I said thanks
and thought he was still there
when I wanted to ask him what time it was.
VII.
My stomach hurts...
Probably because of my dream...
I had a dream that an old woman...
in her mid eighties...
was feeding me poison food.
She was wearing a wide brimmed, heavily embellished hat,
and a yellow sundress,
and while she was spooning the food into my mouth,
she was singing under her breath,
really quietly.
Everything was set to the tune of a broadway musical,
and I couldn't make out the words,
except every once in a while
I knew that she was singing
about the specific intracellular processes
that occur during cyanide poisoning,
and I'm not sure why I knew that.
VIII.
I just realized why the manager came up to me.
He was introducing the new girl Jessica and he really said,
“I want you to train the new girl Jessica,
Jesus Ramirez St. Paul the Second of Stratford Upon Avon.”
(Today that is my full name)
I introduced her to the spatula.
“This is Chris”
I said, and she accepted it, laughing.
I admired her
Even though I found her frightening.
Her eyes were very bold and brown
And they cut into people.
She smelled faintly like cinnamon
And had a nose shaped exactly like a triangle.
I told her to bunch up her hair in a net
Because even if we make meth in our basement
We definitely follow the health code to the letter.
Generally.
The health code is something intuitive.
I have no evidence of that,
Since I've...
not actually read...
the health code.....
But the health code sounds like something you can play by ear.
IX.
This guy named Jim taught me how to cook the first day
And explained the secret to a good burger.
Jim is gone
And I stand in his footsteps.
Basically what happened was
Jim lost a finger one day,
and so now he doesn't work here.
I assumed he did things
according to the code,
but that could be incorrect,
since he lost a finger,
which if my intuition is correct,
is against the code.
I see him at the convenience store when I go on break still
he lives by the dumpster.
I try to emulate Jim,
because his secret to a good burger
was the foundation
for my stellar cooking skills in the future,
and Jim's Good Burger
became my
Great Burger.
I have never lost a single finger at all,
in my life,
and so I'd contend I've definitely
Improved on his model.
X.
I think the girl knew that I was high
Because
When I said hello
I told her that her hair reminded me of a jellyfish
Because I was frightened.
She said thanks, but
in this way where I think
She had to know
I was high.
We got one ticket (around 11)
Which was exciting,
Since up until that point,
She'd just been reading the employee handbook.
It was for a Santa Fe Chicken sandwich with fries,
Which I can cook backwards,
In my sleep,
While blindfolded,
On fire.
I took one from the fridge
Where we keep the patties and stuff
And started cooking it.
I explained that at a certain point,
We would flip the burger,
But not immediately,
Or constantly, but
That we would leave it alone briefly
And then wait for it to cook.
She dunked the fries into the oil
And I explained the physics of placing the avocados on the burger once it was done.
Gravity impacts avocados
In a way I think many people find
Difficult to understand...that is,
exactly the same way as everything else.
She seemed pleased with herself once we wrapped the burger and placed it into the bag.
XI.
As always,
I swept the floor,
Because the day shift kinda sucks at doing that.
I couldn't help but wonder
What it felt like to be swept away,
But the more I thought it,
The more it seemed real to me,
Like I was that cloud of dust,
Being moved by these giant broomhairs that
Probably seemed the size of skyscrapers, and flung
Miles away from where I lived...Then,
Scooped up into the dust pan,
And dropped into the trash,
This huge plastic hell, this—
Ha. Hahaha. Huh.
Maybe the floor enjoys it.
I tried to imagine what it'd be like to be
Lying down like that
And having someone walking on top of me but
Kind of tickling me with this broom, and
it was cool, but
the more I thought about this,
the more I realized I was just standing still
and that I'd been staring at the floor for five minutes.
A ticket came in and the girl didn't know what to do.
XII.
The girl screamed
In a strange language
At the top of her lungs,
As I read the ticket.
“Seven thousand beef Burgers and a shrimp taco.”
She looked at me strangely.
“Thats strange”, she said.
“I know. We don't serve shrimp tacos.”
“Do we have seven thousand beef burgers?”
XIII.
I was remembering the dream.
I had a dream that
This middle aged man
Dressed in his grandmother's clothing
Was feeding me shrimp tacos and beef burgers.
They were laced with cyanide,
and it was taking
a while
for me to eat all the burgers and tacos
because I was a force of nature in this dream
and he was a volcano
Pouring sulfur over the earth.
“THE ORDER IS FOR TWO PACKS OF FRENCH FRIES AND A DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER”,
The restaurant chanted in unison.
“Ahh, that makes more sense”,
Said the girl,
Immediately going to work with the fries.
I counted to 13 nine times
And then
Counted to three
And took the fries out of the oil.
It didn't take long for it to reach the outskirts of the restaurant
And to be deployed through the drive through window.
Me and the new girl
Were then left alone.
XIV.
“Your name is Jesus Ramirez St. Paul the Second of Stratford Upon Avon?”,
The new girl asked me.
I stuttered,
emitting a deep throat noise,
Until I realized,
“Your name is Jessica.”,
And then tried to look into her eyes
For a very long time,
Straining myself...
Trying to think of her name...
“Jessica Powell.” (I gave up after three seconds)
“Hartford”
She told me.
I was actually wrong.
“How did you come here?”,
I wondered,
Staring towards the drive thru window.
“Oh, I saw the help wanted sign outside of the window when I was driving by.”
“So you drove.” I observed.
“Oh!”,
she laughed,
“Actually I walked. I live right up the street.”
“I prefer to live
Down the street,
But I could live there too.”
I told her,
“You-uhm y-y-y you're uhm...
You
Uhm.
Your eyes are like saltwater.”
“Are you hitting on me?”,
She asked, chuckling.
Aghast,
I shook my head,
“I've never hit a girl!”
XV.
Which
I realized
Is why I didn't hit him—
The young man.
I had a dream
That a young man
In his mid twenties
Was feeding me poison food.
He had on a
Transparent top hat,
And was wearing his grandmother's bathrobe.
He didn't like to but
A spider had stolen part of his brain
He explained callously while sporking the food into my mouth,
and he'd lost his ability to practice scientific reasoning.
I could see his brain through the top hat,
because the top hat was...
wait...
XVI.
“You're kind of sweet”
she said.
Terrified,
I realized that she wanted to eat me
And I looked for an excuse to leave.
Circling around aimlessly somewhere between
three and thirty six times,
I knocked a styrofoam container to the ground,
and then,
Feeling bad,
Picked it up
And ran to the bathroom.
In the bathroom,
I sang a song.
XVII.
Emerging from the bathroom,
Ben accosted me.
“You haven't heard the news today.”,
he said.
Ben is a man
In a navy blue one piece
That reads me the news.
He has a thick gray moustache
That looks like Grover Cleveland's
But I don't know how I know that,
Since I dropped out of school.
Grover Cleveland was the only president
To fight two non-consecutive
Land wars in Asia,
And his moustache has seen things
No man is capable of comprehending.
Ben is like Grover Cleveland,
Since not only does he have the moustache,
But his last name is also a city in Ohio.
Akr-oowwwn.
Ben Akr-oowwwn.
I silently thought to Ben, (since he doesn't exist):
Ben, I can't hear the news right now,
There's a girl looking at me.
Ben disagreed,
“If you don't hear the news,
Everyone will know you're high!”,
He sighed,
“Come now,
and park your lemmings
near me and the sink.
I've got to read the news!
And tell your imaginary friends to listen as well,
since they are invested in foreign money markets”,
I understood what he meant,
But it's a long story.
Listen to Ben, I guess.
Ben is a man
In a navy blue one piece
And he is going to read me the news,
“In international news,
Vladimir Putin knows you're high,
And he thinks you're too stupid to know it.
Also,
The seven Maldives have enlisted
A magical unicorn
In their ongoing war against Angola.
Thirty million deaths have not occurred
in the bloodless conflict
Which is still contained
To a small staring match in the Cabinda province
And an old man cursing at a mule.
Domestically, your imaginary investment in foreign money markets
Will yield you thirty seven Zimbabwean pesos every second,
Inevitably collapsing our economy if you don't pull out right now
(due to hyperinflammation)
Down the street,
Seven out of ten fat kids
Are currently moshing to the sounds of silence,
And the president promises retribution.
Locally,
EVERYONE KNOWS YOU'RE HIGH RIGHT NOW,
and Jessica
Would like to know your actual name.
This is the forty-fourth time they've changed you to suit their needs.”
I said thank you to Ben
And he climbed into the sink,
Falling asleep.
It was four AM.
Stumbling out of the hallway,
I realized Jessica was asking me whats wrong.
“Nothing”, I told her.
I think she knows I'm high.
XVIII.
But I'm really bothered by my dream.
I don't know what to make of it.
I had a dream
that I
Was feeding a young man poison food,
And explaining to him my work
On Digital Astrology in the Human Brain.
I was wearing a hurricane,
And my eyes were shaped like the state of Florida,
And my nose like Cuba.
Or Hispaniola,
I couldn't tell.
They both look the same if you never look at maps.
And I NEVER look at maps.
The young man was in his boxers
And kept asking me where he left his keys.
All I cared about was feeding him the oatmeal.
Or...
Maybe it wasn't oatmeal at all.
How did I know it was poison?
XIX.
“WE ALL KNOW YOU'RE HIGH”,
the entire restaurant chanted in unison,
As I took a third ticket.
Jessica smiled as she looked at me,
“I know I can do this one.”
Wondering if she had
Already mastered the elementary composition
Of a cheeseburger,
I observed her
(with caution
standing at a good distance in case she...)
that was the funny thing.
The girl smelled like cinnamon,
And usually things in the restaurant
Smell like the other things in the restaurant.
There's a Grease Fire,
always,
burning somewhere out of sight,
and the night manager
dotting
in
and
out
of the basement.
It smells like that,
but she still smelt like cinnamon,
which was good.
XX.
Jessica finished the burger
Almost perfectly,
Though she was only a fraction
Of the man that I was.
A third ticket came
And we were suddenly in the midst of a rush.
Food items were demanded at an astounding pace,
And we kept up powerfully.
The rush lasted around fifteen minutes to a year,
And I was relieved when it was over—
We began restocking all things.
And we began sweeping.
As we did, I spoke to her.
“I'm sorry if I accidentally hit you.”
“I meant hitting on me, actually”, she corrected.
“Is that worse?” She shook her head,
“No, I wasn't sure.
You told me my hair reminded you of a jellyfish,
And that my eyes are like saltwater.”
My eyes raced back and forth,
“It was a meta-fork,
since I was
only just began
meeting you.”
“Gotcha.”
XXI.
We went about
taking out
the trash and made it
to the dumpster.
The smell of nighttime
Mingled with the strange smells of cinnamon—
In the surrounding city,
A thousand sleeping eyes
Dreamed about me,
Painfully,
Wondering who I was
And how I got there.
I'm not confident I exist,
And in the darkness,
I float like a red balloon and...
”No offense”,
the girl interrupted my drain of thought,
“But are you high”
The city woke,
All eyes laughing cruelly,
My legs shaking,
And the restaurant chanting in unison,
“ E V E R Y O N E K N O W S Y O U ' R E H I G H . ”
“Yes”,
I admitted,
“It's the secret to my success.”
“Really?”
XXII.
It wasn't,
But from experience
I knew it was the easiest to steal
In reality it is you,
My dreams, and all you are.
My dreams,
like fish inside of bottles,
like rosemary sprinkled on a students head,
like the river Styx and an untouched ankle,
which when added with the pieces of itself that do not exist,
add to 180 degrees to form a perfect triangle.
Everyone knew I was high,
but no one knew that last night,
I had a dream that I was feeding my grandmother poison food,
and I'd never realized it until the moment she closed her eyes.
I will never remember what I was wearing,
or what she was wearing,
only that you were there,
dressed in white,
your hands perfectly clean,
since I was the one who you left to cook your food.
I reitterate. I'm really high right now.
