Grace works, copying her notes into her red Book.
Grace
Chapter 52: The Book of Grace.
Day turns into evening. Evening turns into night.
She takes a break from working, setting up chairs and reading from her Book to her imaginary audience.
Grace
Good evening. I’m going to read a little bit from The Book of Grace. It’s a work-in-progress. Today, just for fun, I’m gonna start from my latest entry and then I’ll read backwards all the way to the beginning. And we’ll see what that’s like. Ok.
Here’s something from today:
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A friend of mine came home today. Not “home” but to his father’s house. Which, in this case, isn’t the same thing. He also took his father’s name today. Snake. Funny how you can take someone’s name. Junior when you’re born. I took, when I got married, I took my husband’s name: Smith. My husband’s nickname used to be Snake. That would make him Snake Smith. He’s on the good foot now. And his son, now Snake Smith Junior, he’s following in his father’s footsteps. So he must be heading towards being on the good foot too. Except that snakes don’t have feet. Well.
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My husband’s son, he’s all grown up. But he’s still just as silly as he can be.
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He changed his name because of something he read in my book. Maybe this book is worth something after all.
She looks through her previously written pages, looking for something in particular.
Finding it.
Grace
Evidence of Good Things: The Magic Castle. Here it is.
She shows us, then finds another interesting page.
Grace
More evidence of good: from Chapter 44: It snowed today. In the middle of summer. It was like a miracle.
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Ok. From Chapter 43: More Evidence of Good: That baby who was stolen from the hospital got reunited with her loving parents 23 years later. There’s a pig in China born without any back legs and the farmer didn’t slaughter it, instead he keeps it as a pet and it hops around on its front legs and gets along just fine. And that lady, she got shot in the head. But she didn’t die.a
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From Chapter 40: More Evidence of Good:
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Will, the cowboy, came in the diner today wanting grits and we were out of grits and he was about to pitch a fit and then he started laughing instead and we all laughed and he had white toast instead of grits.
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From Chapter 39: Today I got word from Buddy. He says he’s coming to his father’s Ceremony. How about that? Today I’m feeling like everything broken can mend. Today I’m feeling like a Gold Star.
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From Chapter 37: Charlotte’s daughter Charlotte plays the tuba. She’s in the marching band. The tuba is bigger than she is. She came in today and played her part of “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” It didn’t sound like much cause it was just the tuba part: bom-bom-bom-bom. But I clapped really hard when she was done cause it’s important to encourage people. Especially when they’re young. So they can get in the habit of hearing it.
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From Chapter 30: Today I was looking in the icebox for frozen broccoli and instead I found some old Halloween candy! How about that?
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From Chapter 23: Today I put my foot down and insisted that we invite Buddy to our house because he hasn’t been here for many years.
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I wonder if forgiveness is possible? I think so. I hope so.
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What if we outsource forgiveness. Heck, we’re outsourcing everything else. Then your forgiveness would come with a sticker that says “made in India” or “made in China” or “made in Farawayville.”
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That makes me think of plastic bags. They say there’s a big stretch of trash in the middle of the ocean. Like a land mass, but it’s really just a gob of trash. It’s practically the size of Texas, that’s how big they say it is. I use plastic bags. Do you? But it’s not like I throw my bags into the ocean.
She hears the sound of a car. She scrambles to hide her Book.
Then the sound turns to silence and the coast is clear.
She goes back to reading.
Grace
From Chapter 19:
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Today I am thinking about the Rut. It’s like, sometimes your life is a Rut, a Rut you’ve dug yourself. Sometimes your life-groove can become a Rut. Sometimes someone you’re with, say your husband, or your wife, or your town, or your job, sometimes your repeated day-to-day can make a Rut or sometimes your S.O., aka, your Significant Other, sometimes they dig a Rut for you to live in and you don’t notice cause the Rut looks like a groove, a thing with promise, but it’s not a groove at all, it’s a Rut. And by walking the Rut, by living in it, you only make it deeper.
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Where do I begin? Where does “me” start? What is the past tense of “Us”? “Used.” The past tense of “Us” is “Used.”
As in my “used-to-be.”
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That sounds stupid. Needs work. Stupid-dumb. S-h-i-t.
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Sometimes I spell out bad words. Cause I read somewhere that we each have, inside of us, an “inner child.” And I don’t want mine hearing me say bad language. It’s silly, but I think it improves me. Are there things you’d like to try that might improve you?
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More Evidence of Good: Javier, our busboy is learning Japanese. When I ask him how come Japanese he just smiles.
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From Chapter 10: My friend, Cowboy Will, he’s got this story about a dog. A dog he had years ago. When he was a much younger man. That dog was pure trouble. And that was its name too: Trouble. How was that dog ever gonna do anything good with a name like that? One day Will gets so tired of the dog he puts him in his truck and drives 100 miles away and dumps him on the side of the road. End of story? No. Will says there’s an end to it, but he won’t tell me. He will not for the life of him tell me how that story ends. So I’ve made up some endings for myself:
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I say there’s a flash flood and a drowning man, and Trouble jumps in the river and saves the man and the man renames him Savior.
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Or I say Trouble’s just walking along and some kids are going to the circus and he follows them and joins the circus and travels the world.
(Rest)
Maybe you could make up your own ending to that story.
Try it. It’s fun.
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This is Trouble.
She shows a picture of the dog.
Grace
From Chapter 6: More Basic Guidelines: Know your cowboys. For example: it has occurred to me that there are two kinds of cowboys: a cowboy with a horse and a cowboy without a horse. A cowboy with a horse is a real cowboy. A cowboy without a horse is just a guy that wears the clothes. Which one are you?
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Everything reminds you of something, after a while. Like when you move to a new town and nothing is familiar and then, after a few years, you look around and hear yourself saying to yourself: Here is where I met him, over there is the last time I saw her, that’s the place where I stood with the chocolate double-dip cone and felt happy, there is where the bad thing happened, and there’s the lake where we all jumped in.
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More Basic Guidelines: You can either spread the love or spread the shit. Your choice.
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From Chapter 3: Today, walking home from work, I saw a snake. And that got me to thinking. I like snakes. All kinds. Something deep within my nature, I guess . . . Me liking snakes sets me apart from most people. What do you like that sets you apart?
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From Chapter 2: On Hope: It’s good to hope. Hopes can be large or small. One of my hopes involves a piece of clothing, specifically, a dress. It’s very pretty. It’s red. It’s been hanging in the window of our local department store for a long time now. You could say I’ve put my name on it, even though I don’t dare buy it. Still, it’s mine.
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From Chapter 1:
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I like algebra and some day I would like to live in The House of Wisdom.
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Did you know that “The ancient science of algebra was invented by the revered Persian, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. He wrote a book called Algebra. He was perhaps an orthodox Muslim. He was born around 780 and, in addition to being considered the father of algebra, he was also an accomplished astronomer, astrologer and geographer. He lived for many years in Baghdad, living and working in a place called The House of Wisdom.”
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Here’s more from Chapter 1, my first entry:
Today Vet got mad at me and he dug a hole in the yard. And he told me I had to quit my math class so I quit it. And when he went to work, I started this book. I’m calling it The Book of Grace.
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That’s all. Thank you.
Smiling to herself, she might take a little bow to her imaginary audience. Then she turns on the radio, resets the living room chairs and puts away her Book as the lights fade.
Intermission.
a Use these 3 stories or the production may insert their own 3 pieces of Evidence.