C: two women sit in a circular room (no corners) amid a fading cloud of lilac smoke and the last sixteen beats of a punk rock song
one stands up and exits thru the door to the rear
sixteen beats later #2 bursts into tears, the once-stoned face liquefying as the brain riding shotgun dissolves in a haze of inexplicable emotion
G: me are overcome
there is a knock @ the door after sixteen more beats
she composes, wipes water off, resets, opens the door
the greeter is a lady cop and the room begins to clickety spin
[as it does, please NB the Ken Burnsian fade of girl the latter's face; the gonzo grin—yet affected w/in the very artifice—shifting, fading, falling to the left and downward]
C: eight beats post-knock female fuzz (Patricia Safe) begins to speak, engaging the stoned one (Augusta Peterson) in precisely the manner one would avoid if one plans to make peaceful first impressions w/this person one just met:
P: EXCUSE ME MISS BUT there's been a complaint about an odor in here
E: the circle is slowing rotations
C: gus wavers on her feet as if compensating for the deceleration; Pat presses her advantage
P: may i come inside?
T: she (P. Safe) is already, though, (c)entered & looming from its innermost point
blocking light before gus's very eyes
and in the dark she wavers even more, blind & flailing w/o insight
dumbstruck
mumbles something holographic
P. Safe shakes her head dissatisfied
P: little lady i must say i'm chagrined to encounter yr room in this state at this date in time
do you know what day it is?
september fourth, twenty sixteen
i mean come on, miss
[three beeps; P. Safe's headset blinks green]
Peterson, Augusta C.
you've barely been here three weeks
and already this room simply reeks of weed
G: i feel immersed in a sea of green
somewhere deep and faraway
P: ...not a great way to start off your years here at YPI
there's just no need for that around here, y'hear?
[unplugged monitor squawks trisyllabic]
now let's not make this hostile, miss,
i just need you to show me where your grass is stashed and we can clear this up nice & fast
by the smell & the look of it i'd guess you've got quite the loot cached around here; in a drawer, perhaps? or 'neath the couch cushions?
miss, where's your shit? if i may be blunt
Q: you may not, ma'am
K: a voice from the door
Q: and i think you should call off this hunt while my finger's still lifted from the trigger
[beat one-two as room spins around]
[this entrance of QNCY is ((big))^2]
Q: of my Quick Dial RoboLitigant Caller 9000 app
b/c before you can holler 'mine haunches!' they'll be pinned w/ a lawsuit like a mule at a confusing party
[two blinks; then P. Safe squints]
Q: what i'm saying, ma'am, is get thy asinine presence away from my guest and my houseplants,*
two things among many i did not consent to you searching
ergo, you must, & return if thou willst w/ a warrant
but before that you have nothing remotely resembling a case so you're wasting your time & polluting myspace
what you smell is the hemp compost i use, here's the label, and get over it; i'm cleared to use 'Terra de Herer' by any board you'd care to query
otherwise in terms of questions there will be none done today, okay? OK GR8
*[descend, suspended, circumferential twelve pots of hanging greenery; all flowers (practically)]
C: and in the soliloquy she is ushering newly off-kilter P. thru the threshold to outside, off-circle, and the door clicks
& the room spins just enough to evade P. Safe's knock when she shakes free (after twelve beats) from QNCY's spell and realizes how swift & unexpected events did turn
from a straightforward bust to nothing
blitzkrieg defense Q did play upon her, & she got played in turn
she flees the scene in disgust, vowing vengeance verbally
Q turns to gus while inside, newly haven'd
Q: the trick is never letting a space appear large enough for them to invade in your way of life
cover the waterfront, guard all the aqueducts, blockade any airy places you would hope to never see in the shade of a terrible obelisk, unduly strong & sinister, tall to block out all hope near & below
keep these seas and vales, your freshest glades and dearest dales,
to yourself
in sickness and in health be sure there are some things an outside governance won't see when they check your shelf
secrets drive us to preserve the precious half-life of our mini-infinities
to preserve &
gus think of whatever makes you most happy
ssh don't say it
the walls have ears
C: then she holds up a sign that says
[until you cover them up]
[frozen tableaux while the muses deal introducing remarks]
T: Quincy Jones was born not to sing but to sling
with the name Quinceneara Yonesta
too lovely & looping a title not to feel a princess when it's said to her, sung by her parents every night in a lullaby, each kid of her six siblings getting their own verse
then got the abbreviated moniker in high school, as we are all so often titled for short, when we think life is too cool to waste saying all the sounds
she has the spielery of a New Jersey theme park carnival game barker
been honed to perfect rhythmic syncope on the sideline of her high school frisbee team
kind of a klutz; always prone to minor injuries
so she's sidelined often, cheering on the other members of her squad still joyfully
meanwhile she's developing a broad repertoire of things to talk about
to fill the gaps of time when ultimate slows down, like, too much
the conversation lulls she sees no need to go to waste, tough gritty moments she can't help but sink her teeth into and gnaw at
she paradoxically loves to make awkwardness, just so she can chase it away again
naturally it's not soon before long into senior year
when by a friend she's introduced to nature's analgesic balm
cannabis indica, aka that lovely purple marijuana
several encounters on her captain's couch post ankle-rolls or bouts w/ tendinitis
make it clear how much the weed can dull the hurt
and make the rest of life a little better in spurts, it turns out
hooked on chronic, she becomes
but when she falls in love with the good green
she stumbles as well onto the need to buy sell and pay for things
when collegetime arrived she soon slips into a desire to get her dearest flower on the cheap
she finagles a deal w/ the primo dealer, poindexter, to help him divide the labor
finds herself soon a dealer, too
an occupation she was born to do, it feels
she practices her patter and rehearses her spiels
a career she creates by sophomore year for herself,
where the stakes only get high as much as she can
R: and on the other side, her brand-new roommate
gus as well a sporty phenom, it turns out
fresh recruited—second-year student, though—to do major things on the women's lacrosse team
YPI's Fightin' Ewes in dire need of energetic boosts
the once-great program draining quickly down the chute
therefore from their crosstown rival, Merrimack State College
the wily AD did poach the brightest talent w/a promise
not exactly of cold hard cash—that'd be illegal, strictly speaking
but of related scholarship opportunities
under the umbrella of the new
strapped financially while her parents shuffled credits cards and lawyers like a rolodex thru an inimical divorce, gus realistically
had little recourse but to stop running treadmill
getting nowhere in two dead-end jobs to support her education + lacrosse
more than anything she dreamed of just being able to play sport, fulfilling both exercise needs and that of an in-group type team atmosphere
thrust therefore she was down the river, up the mountain
to join the other goats atop their chosen rocky valhalla
C:
E: she is reborn
at first had been slow to warm
sixteen days roost at the YPI went slow and stilted
feathers cramped and mussy leaves a body tight and cranky
the roomie relationship dominated by QNC & her busy social calendar
gus w/barely half the avg. allotted space (it's not a lot) to live in
cramped as well on a cognitive level, what with classes in alacrity advancing to a point approaching mental everything
her circadian clock is whack'd-out-of civility
then on day seventeen Q springs a joint from the magic cube
the secret door unfolds and blooms the pretty flower from within
& lil gus from harmony, alphabet county, PA, US, NA, the world
is suddenly (two puffs pass'd & a bit alveolar expelled for good measure) way down the road
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