THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

 The Unmade Bed Written By David Steven Simon The unmade bed is a still-life study of the final moments of last night a Wee Gee crime scene photo of muffled sheets throttled comforter and bumped-off pillows that lie slumped over  like Crazy Joe on a cold slab of Little Italy concrete minutes after the hit. Judging by the evidence There was a struggle The work of a professional nightmare The weapon was memories a slow-acting poison that no human can survive. According to experts Its lethal ingredient was sorrow That caused the victim To be visited by the pageant of lost loves who arrived as they always do one by one Just as eyelids close like evening primrose which know how to protect themselves from the ravages of the night

Summer Day one 1955 Setting: a small two-bedroom flat in a garden apartment building in Queens surrounded by a pasture of concrete. goldfish do their pond laps like old men at the Y trains a block away stop load  and deposit silent movie robot men with hats on the hour The German shepherd on the corner yelps his marching orders like a commandant I’m small wearing flappy shorts bare-chested blonde nimbly balancing on  an invisible highwire a teeny Wallenda  in socks as the Platters sing “Only You” on the Dumont  television set The parakeets Pepi and Gigi flutter and twirl like they’re on American Bandstand Sunlight sneaks in like a cheating husband striking the framed painted portraits of my sister and I like a Hollywood Klieg light My mom enters  solemnly  for the changing of the living room upholstery guard smelling like instant Maxwell a top note of aldehydes and bergamot and a just vanquished Viceroy with a lipstick tattoo which has taken a Johnny Weissmuller swan dive into the pool

It’s my first birthday since you left which feels like evaporated centuries now Even though you had plunged into the tar pit of sorrow You called me  from the area code of memory  trying hard to sound like sing-songy-you before your vocal cords became as withered as ancient parchment And pain became your metronome For a few spare seconds we were toddlers again daffy and defiant spinning in circles in party clothes driven by the kind of bliss that is the provenance of dogs and the courtship dance of flamingos as we celebrated with a fallen comrade slice of cake and a pyramid of presents  That had wiggly ribbons like  The ones in your hair. When you said goodbye It felt like a solemn ritual like we were signing an armistice that spelled out the conditions of your surrender I could not let it end like that.  So I imagined you On the deck of the Mauretania In clever tweeds, long gloves, and hat waving with merriment to me on the moors as I watched you disappear into the mist Which we both