Letters from Eurydice VII

On
recommendations from some of our audience, we are directed to the local
Green Mill Pizzeria just a few blocks away. We walk in the door and
instantly our anxieties are soothed. Not crowded, a table big enough to
seat all eight of us, Stevie Wonder and other golden oldies on the juke
and, like an oasis in the desert, a full bar!

Our
waiter, Jake, appears and, like a good sheep-dog, immediately gathers
us into his fold. On second thought, sheep-dog isn’t the best
description for Jake. He’s more of a St. Bernard — big, friendly, and
with a small keg of ale strapped to his collar. Jake, the bringer of
menus, hearty, funny (really) quips and libations. O, Jake! Hear our prayers and deliver unto us Margaritas, Manhattans, foaming beakers of ale and Martinis very dry!
And even as we spoke, it was so! Drinks, they did appear, and
appetizers neatly arrayed on plates of finest porcelain. I personally
recommend the deep-fried green beans. Every time Jake appears, he’s
making us laugh a little harder. Sonja announces she wants to marry
him. The entrees arrive and we keep the conversation going with Jake.
He’s become our best friend. We wish he could sit with us, but instead
ask him about his life. Jake’s going to Boston! Cool! Boston is one of
my favorite towns! Why, Jake? Why Boston? To be with a friend of his who’s moving out to study bass guitar at the Berklee School of Music.

"Wow," we say! "He mush be good, Jake, whash his name?" (by now we are all pleasantly buzzed, even me and I don’t drink. I just soak it up by osmosis)

"Jake." says Jake."

"No, thash your name, Jake. "Whash his name?"

"Jake." says Jake."

"What,
there’re two Jakes? Two Jakes in Bemishee, besht friends and both
goin’a Boshton? Thassha story! Wish we could meet t’other Jake, Jake!"

"Well, he’s sitting over at the bar. Would you like to hear him play some guitar?"

"Would we? Would we!? FUCK YEAH!!"

Two
minutes later Jake 2.0 is at our table with his acoustic six-string, playing us some marvelous R&B. Like Jake 1.0, Jake 2.0 is a large,
jolly guy, genuinely friendly and genuinely talented (you gotta have
some musical chops to get into Berklee). He’s fabulous and gives me, at
least, what Spalding Gray described as "the perfect moment" — the moment
that defines an entire experience for you.

Jake 2.0’s full name is Jake Jackson and you can listen to his music at his website. Do. Let’s do what we can to encourage and support our home-grown artists. Like Brad Bird says in Ratatouille, "Anyone can’t be an artist, but an artist can come from anywhere." Hibbing,
MN produced a young man named Dylan, and it just may be that Bemidji
comes to be known as the hometown of Jackson. The two Jakes sent us
back to our hotel well-nourished physically and spiritually. I’m happy
I met them and wish them both marvelous adventures in Boston. They
remind me of Quixote and Sancho embarking on a glorious quest together,
though which is whom I couldn’t say.

Throughout
dinner many plans and ideas had been bandied about for post-prandial
hotel hi-jinks. TV slumber parties, gambling sprees and furtive
assignations in various hotel rooms. Regrettably (or fortunately), none
of these came to pass. Michelle and I drove back to the hotel and
decided to check out the casino. Not quite what I expected: slots,
bingo and a lot of faces with a pall of hopelessness. An Edward Hopper
painting of a pinball arcade. If I expected a rush, I didn’t find it
that night and after one circle through the room, Michelle and I bid
each other a yawning goodnight and retire. I can’t even remember if
Peter Vitale was in the room when I got there or whether he came in
later. I do remember we switched on the TV long enough to marvel at the
sheer number of available cable channels with nothing to watch and
before long the lights were out and so were we. Not a bad idea — we had
an 8:30 call the next morning.

The
next morning we’re up, checked out and, with only a few misdirections
and no breakfast, assembled at the Leech Lake Alternative School by
8:45 a.m. We set up in the gym. LLAS is a reservation school for tribal
kids in crisis — on the edge of dropping out or worse. Michelle observes
that Eurydice
may be a hard play for many of them as most will have experienced the
death of a close relative or friend through suicide, violence, or
alcohol/drug abuse. All of a sudden, in the cold light of morning, our
bitching about the no-alcohol policy at the casino seems petty and
ignorant. Those policies are in place for good reason, born from hard,
bitter experience. Michelle also warns us that in Native American
cultures, it is not common to openly show emotion and for us not to
panic if we seem to be getting nothing back from the audience. Just
because they’re not showing anything doesn’t mean they’re not feeling
anything.

The
kids start arriving in groups, sometimes alone, some still eating
breakfast. In arranging the performance Michelle asked attendance be
voluntary — please, don’t make anybody be there who doesn’t want to be.
But nevertheless, the chairs quickly fill up and the staff scrambles to
find more. We even spot a couple of kids who had been at the
performance the night before. That’s encouraging; they want to see it
again.

The
performance begins and Michelle is right- we get nuttin’. At first. But
as the play progresses, the teens tune in with an intensity that seems
to press upon us by sheer weight. By the time Eurydice shouts our
Orpheus’s name and makes him look behind to see her, a young boy gasps
"Oh. My. God." This play is engaging these kids on a level we really
haven’t seen before and I think Michelle’s observation is spot on- most
of these kids have lost near and dear to the land of the dead.

We
decided that after the performance we would try to engage them in a
dialogue while keeping in character. Each of us came up with one or two
questions we thought might be provocative. My question is, if, when you died, you could choose- who would want to remember the living and who would want to forget everything?
Lots of vigorous opinion on that one and pretty evenly divided. The
kids relax and we have a wonderful discussion, not only about the play
but about theatre, the arts and what they think the future holds for
them. Many hope for jobs in the casino industry, some look to leave the
reservation in some way, maybe through college or vo-tech. But many can
just shrug- their horizon stretching only as far as getting through the
day. I want to think, to hope, we’ve helped make their struggles, if
not easier to bear, at least easier to reflect upon in some positive
way but that’s probably naive of me. I only know that I thought I saw
in their eyes, if only for a brief and shining moment, the possibility
of alternative. And it is that look, that connection, that keeps bringing me back to TTT.

On
the drive back to the Cities, it’s still just me and Michelle. We talk
briefly about the performance, but Michelle senses I’m tired and
graciously says to close my eyes and take a nap, just like a mom. I
gratefully tilt back the seat and, looking out the window, start to
drift off. There are no telephone lines to be seen through the glass,
fiber-optics and time have mad them go the way of the Burma-Shave sign.
But as I fade off, I see them in my mind’s eye and am enveloped in a
feeling of warm contentment. I wonder about the kids we saw this
morning, of the two Boston-bound Jakes from Bemidji, Vera Mariner
willing to kill for beer and can’t quite piece it all together. But
that’s OK- to know is not always possible, not always desirable.
Sometimes we just need to wonder. And in a car on the brink of sleep
with the marvelous Michelle Hensley at the wheel, taking care of me,
doing all the driving, NPR murmuring softly in the background, and the
telephone lines of my youth stringing me along, wondering comes easy,
dear reader. And when I wake up, I’ll be home.


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