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SMALL IRONIES: Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Epilogue

Three Continents

From the ship at sea 1

From the ship at sea 2

From the ship at sea 3

From the ship at sea, 4

From the ship at sea, 5

From the ship at sea , 6

From Rio!!

The Trip Home

NEW SHORT STORIES

Nothing There For You

Nothing There For You, 2

Nothing There For You, 3

Nothing There For You, 4

Chase of The Thrill, 1

Chase of the Thrill, 2

Chase of the Thrill, 3

Chase of The Thrill, 4

Of Course, part1

Of Course, part 2

Of Course, part 3

Of Course, concluded

In Memory: Of My Cruise 1

In Memory: Of My Cruise 2

In Memory: Of My Cruise 3

In Memory: Of My Cruise 4

Las Vegas, 1

Las Vegas, 2

Las Vegas, 3

Las Vegas, 4

Las Vegas, concluded

Mad Moment #1

Mad Moment #2

Mad Moment #3

Mad Moment #4

Margaret Never Knows, 1

Margaret Never Knows, 2

Margaret Never Knows, 3

Margaret Never Knows, 4

Margaret Never Knows, 5

Remote, part 1

Remote, part 2

Remote, part 3

Remote, concluded

POETRY

April's Fools

Easter Sunday

...simple answers

And when they come at me

Fogged In

BROADWAY/NYC THEATRE

Love, Linda

Curtains

Barrington Stage Company

The Fantasticks

A Streetcar Named Desire

Sleuth

Underneath the Lintel

Carousel

Freud's Last Session

This Wonderful Life

To Kill a Mockingbird

See Rock City. . .

Private Lives

The Violet Hour

Mysteries of Harris Burdi

...Spelling Bee

I Am My Own Wife

Trumbo

Berkshire Opera

Le Nozze di Figaro

La Boheme

Berkshire Theatre Fest.

Red Remembers

Sick

Ghosts

Prisoner of 2nd Avenue

Candide

The Einstein Project

Broadway by the Year

Faith Healer

A Christmas Carol

Eleanor: Her Secret Journ

Noel Coward in Two Keys

Waiting for Godot

A Man For All Seasons

The Book Club Play

Pageant Play

Candida

The Caretaker

BTF Archive

Chester Theatre Company

Tilted House

The Dishwashers

Almost, Maine

Blackbird

Copake Theatre Company

Nine Months

I Do! I Do!

Sour Grapes

Talking Heads

Grace & Glorie

Dorset Theatre Festival

Marry Me a Little

The Hollow

Merton of the Movies

St. Nicholas

June Moon

A Year with Frog and Toad

Ghent Playhouse

Mrs. Farnsworth

Complete Wm Shakespeare

Puss in Boots

Belles

Enchanted April

Dancing at Lughnasa

The Boys Next Door

Jack and the Beanstalk

Clue: The Musical

6 Women...

Picnic

Hair Loom!

Over the River, etc.

Literature

B ob Dylan

Christmasville

A Lesser Saint

Upstreet, #1

Mac-Haydn Theatre

Meet Me in St. Lou

Crazy For You

Sweet Charity

Beauty and the Beast

Hello, Dolly!

Joseph. . .Dreamcoat

High Society

The Sound of Music

Phantom

Hairspray

Chorus Line

Music

Journeys by Robert Baksa

Mary Verdi: Precious Love

Mahagonny

NYSTI

Romeo & Juliet

And Then There Were None

King Island Christmas

A Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The Philadelphia Story

Yours, Anne

Orphan Train

Of Mice and Men

Twelve Angry Jurors

Anastasia

1776

Macbeth

Miracle On 34th Street

Arsenic and Old Lace

American Soup

Ordeal By Innocence

Reunion

Oldcastle Theatre Company

Third

Beauty Queen of Leenane

"Almost, Maine" in VT

One Two Three

The Grass is Greener

Restaurants

Bezalel Gables

Blantyre

Brazillian

Burrito Bound

SPICE!

Shakespeare & Co.

Liaisons Dangereuses

Cindy Bella

Hound of Baskervilles

White People

Dreamer Examines Pillow

Twelfth Night

Golda's Balcony

Pinter's Mirror

The Actors Rehearse...

Shirley Valentine

Romeo and Juliet

Bad Dates

The Canterville Ghost

Goatwoman of Corvis Count

Othello

All's Well That Ends Well

The Ladies Man

Special Attractions

Life Is Short

Paris, 1890--Unlaced

BCC's A Christmas Carol

Sister's Christmas Catech

i take your hand in mine

The Pajame Game

Her Name is Vincent

Property Known as Garland

12th Night

I Know I Came...Something

Vritue, Desire, etc.

Forbidden Broadway

Doubt, a Parable

Voices' A Christmas Carol

Dickens A Christmas Carol

Marie Galante

Machinal

Under Milk Wood

The Owl and the Pussycat

Capitol Steps

Late Nite Catechism

Rabbit Hole

Taming of The Shrew

Mystery of Irma Vep

daemons

I Love a Piano

Walking the dog's HAMLET

The News in Revue

Cyrano

The Mikado

Saturday Night Liv

A Chorus Line

The Gospel of John

BCC - Christmas Carol

Morgan O-Yuki

Rent

Theater Barn

Moonlight and Magnolias

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Romance, Romance

Zanna Don't!

Veronica's Room

Leading Ladies

Murder at Howard Johnson

Visiting Mr. Green

Grease

Forever Plaid

The Musical of Musicals

The Mousetrap

Same Time, Next Year

How the Other Half Loves

Visual Arts

Weston Playhouse

A Raisin in the Sun

Rent - Weston

25th Spelling Bee

Fully Committed

Les Miserables

No Child. . .

The Light in the Piazza

Williamstown Theatre Fest

Quartermaine's Terms

Caroline in Jersey

The Torch-Bearers

What is..Cause of Thunder

True West

Knickerbocker

Children

David Storey's "Home"

A Flea in Her Ear

Three Sisters

Broke-Ology

She Loves Me

The Atheist

Beyond Therapy

The Las Vegas Buck Stops Here, part three

          Barney F. (not his real name) (I think) Wright (I think that one’s right) was handing out peanuts in small cups to anyone who came all the way up the garden stairs to the shaded bar on the white marble porch. For some doing something so menial and actually meaningless he seemed unusually bright, even clever. With each styrofoam cup he’d hand out an easy smile and a glimmer of sophistication as well, his patter both natural and amusing at the same time. I stood in a short line of short people, all in bathing attire, waiting for my precious handout of goobers in a cup. A waiter placed a drink in my hand while I waited. He said not one word, I suppose, because it would interfere with the chatter emanating from Barney F.

          "Looking like a butterfly," I heard him say sotto voce to a woman in her sixties in a suit that emphasized all of her bulges and cellulite, "whose wings have been clipped by some nasty little boy. Good to see you, sweetie." We all moved forward one place.

          "Albert, where have you been all my morning?" He kissed what I supposed was an old friend. "Oh, sorry," he continued, "you’re Armand, aren’t you. Well, keep the kiss, honey." We moved again. I was much closer now, only one more person stood between us.

          "Francesca," he sang the name out like it was the opening phrase from some opera, and amazingly the man he addressed didn’t seem to mind. "Tuesday, my place, midnight, and bring a loaf of rye bread!" They both laughed at what I recognized as an old Jimmy Durante line from the movies. They hugged and Francesca, or I assume Frank, moved off leaving me next to receive something other than peanuts from Barney F.

          "Here you go," he said simply. "Enjoy. They go well with that Stinger," he said referring, I hoped, to the drink.

          "Thanks." I paused, waiting for my personal "line." There was nothing else said and I stood there awkwardly. Finally I reached for his hand and introduced myself.

          "I’m Mitchell..." I paused... "Anderssen. A friend of Sanja’s."

          "Enjoy your nuts," he said, without looking at me. "I would," he said with a smile. I moved away pretty quickly at that, not sure what was actually said or actually meant. He was odd, strange. I was uncomfortable and unsure of myself. I suddenly felt very out of place in my striped shirt and skimpy bathing suit. I wanted to go somwhere else and go there quickly.

          I moved back down the stairs, back toward Delly’s pool. I was actually backing away, something I’d read about and seen in a Grace Kelly movie once, but also something I’d never done before. It was an odd perspective, to see so clearly where I’d been and have no concept of where I was heading. I think my jaw was slack; air rushed between my teeth, an awkward feeling at best. I didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, and then I did stop when two hands unexpectedly braced me from behind. One was between my shoulder blades and the other one, the left one, I think, caught me by the seat of my non-existent pants.

          "I beg your pardon," I stammered to my unseen savior. "I..."

          "You’re with Sanja, aren’t you?" his voice came from behind me. "Let me escort you back to her." He took me gently by the arm and guided me in a different direction, not where I’d been going, and certainly not toward the man whose words had sent me staggering backward down that precarious flight of marble steps. I wanted to say thank you, but the words weren’t coming. I was still that flabbergasted.

          "Feeling flabbergasted?" my guide inquired. "Don’t worry. Everyone does the first time they meet Barney F." (I think he said Barney F. I think that’s where I heard that name; it was Sanja who told me his last name was Wright, if I’m right about that.)

          "I..." there was no place to go with that word as the opener of a sentence. "He is very direct. Most peculiar."

          "Yes, to both those things."

          "Thank you for your help," I finally managed to say. Sanja was there before us, lying across a large brass-colored towel along the pathway that ran around the pool.

          "First time in Vegas?"

          I nodded.

          "You’ll get used to it...eventually. We all have."

          "You’re not from here?"

          "I doubt there’s anyone here who was born here. People are born here, but we don’t usually meet them. That’s the nice thing about a transient city," he smiled as he said this, "you never have to suffer too long with any one person. Someone new is always on the horizon."

          I sat down and took a breath and shut my mouth. The cup with the peanuts was still clutched in my hand and the glass with my drink, the Stinger, was empty. I looked at it for a moment, uncomprehending.

          "No," he laughed. "You didn’t drink it. Most of it is at the base of the staricase over there."

          I laughed also, relieved that I hadn’t, at some point I couldn’t recall, downed all that liquor in some furtive single swoop.

          "I’ll get you another," he said. "Or perhaps some iced tea instead?"

          "I am a bit dry," I choked out.

          "It happens out here. You must drink constantly to keep refreshed, to keep from dehydrating. We all do it."

          "How awful," I said without thinking.

          "It’s fine, really. We’re used to it."

          I held out my hand to shake his own and he handed it to me.

          "Thank you," I said. "I’m Mitchell Anderssen."

          "Well, thank you," he responded. "I’m Delly Delaney. Your host."

          He shook my hand once, smiled kindly, then put my hand in my own lap gently and firmly.

          "You wait right here, Mitch," he said, "and I’ll get you something to clear that brain of yours. You’ll see. In a half hour or so you’ll be acclimated and you’ll be just fine."

          That was all it took. I was a foolish 72 year old man. I was sort of in love.

♣


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