found drama

A banquet, a gathering.  All manner of co-workers (former and current) and friends and family.  All together in one place, seated around ten-foot round tables in a courtyard with high brick walls.  There is a stage with nothing on it.  I know everyone here and they’re all trying to talk to me.  I am embarrassed, trying to hide; this is not supposed to be about me.  People admit things to me.  He is moving away; she is the one that stole my five dollars; he thinks I am making important contributions.

Eventually I am able to sneak away.  I am followed by two others (women, both of them; I recognize neither of them) from the gathering (I wouldn’t exactly call it a party).  Outside of the courtyard is a row of brownstone houses; we go into one of them.  She draws the curtains and locks the door.  Their dresses look rumpled and ill-fitting; the dresses are not the right sizes and these two women have been squirming around in them all night anyway.  With the doors locked, one of them pulls a book out of a box and passes it around the room.  The book is some Victorian-era smut; yellowed pages and India ink illustrations.  It is some kind of classic exemplar of its kind it is worth a fortune.

A knock at the door.  We scramble around; instead of trying to straighten up though, we knock over tables and pull books off the shelves.  In our frenzy, we nearly forget about the object of interest.  As she goes over to let in the police (who else would be knocking?), I grab the book and stuff it into the waist of my pants, throwing my shirt over it.  Plainclothes detectives come in, explaining that it’s a routine search, etc.  The women act like they know the detectives; happens all the time, that sort of thing.  I know what they’re looking for.  And I am sure that they can see how tense I am, posture rigid, my back always to the wall.

About Rob Friesel