Hopscotch libretto all chapters

By Tom Jacobson, Mandy Kahn, Sarah LaBrie, Jane Stephens Rosenthal, Janine Salinas Schoenberg, and Erin Young Additional Text by Elizabeth Cline and Yuval Sharon Contents: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12

Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24

Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36

1

The story of ​Hopscotch On the vast roads that connect Los Angeles, Lucha’s car smashes into Jameson’s motorcycle.

Although Jameson is not hurt, Lucha is so shaken by the accident that she can barely speak. At first furious at what appears to be Lucha’s carelessness, he takes pity on her and tells her that everything will be alright. In trying to find a pen and paper to write down her insurance information, Lucha gives Jameson a postcard for her upcoming puppet performance: a new interpretation of the Orpheus myth.

As she leaves the scene of the accident, she remembers how her parents died in a car accident, leaving her in the care of her grandfather, the first one to move to Los Angeles from Mexico. Through him she discovered a love for puppets and soon found herself in the company of Orlando and his wife Sarita, puppeteers and musicians who create work far on the fringe of the city. As Jameson leaves the scene of the accident, he remembers a near-death experience of hitting a doe while driving a snowy New England road. That experience drew him radically inward but fascinated by the workings of the universe. Jameson moved to Los Angeles to work with the Jet Propulsion Lab on further scientific research.

With only a postcard with which to find Lucha, Jameson barges in on Lucha’s rehearsal with Orlando for their Orpheus piece. Shocked to see Jameson again, Lucha nevertheless accepts his invitation for a drink on a friend’s nearby rooftop bar. The two begin to fall in love, sharing their first kiss on a beautiful afternoon in Hollenbeck Park. Their connection feels cosmic, and they decide to get married. On the day of their wedding, Lucha gives him the simple gift of a red notebook to chart all his innermost thoughts and feelings, the ones that he doesn’t even want to share with her. Upon grasping the notebook, Jameson feels a crisis come on: what is the point of discovering the inner workings of the universe if our own brains are utter mysteries? He resolves to change his line of research to the inner workings of the brain, now working to create a transmitter from the brain that can read and interpret its various signals.

As the couple establishes a life together and Jameson’s work becomes increasingly obsessive, Lucha loses a connection to puppet-making and starts to feel aimless. She consults a fortune-teller, who tells her of a call that she will receive answering all her questions. One day the call comes, and the mysterious voice on the other end of the line says, "A thousand streets lead into one great road, and no gate blocks your way."

Lucha can’t get that thought out of her mind; she finds the fortune-teller again, but she offers no further clue. Orlando’s wife Sarita dies, and when Lucha tries to comfort her friend, he awkwardly confesses his feelings for Lucha. Lucha pulls away; Orlando, not knowing what to do, follows the example of his hero, the author Julio Cortazar, and moves to Paris to start a new life.

On the way to work, Jameson drops the red notebook on the street. His research reaches a frenzied point, and during an experiment of the new headband transmitters, he has a mental breakdown. What happens to him is unclear, but he goes missing.

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Lucha is in despair. Weeks, months, even years go by with no indication as to where Jameson could be. One day as she is driving and at a complete traffic stand-still, Lucha finds a headband in the car.

She puts it on, and suddenly is host to a number of hellish visions: the demonic red notebook; a vision of Jameson being unfaithful and abducted by the husband of his lover; and the River of the Dead, where Lucha is powerless to rescue Jameson. She rips off the headband and, in a moment of clarity, remembers the line from the phone call: "A thousand streets lead into one great road, and no gate blocks your way." The streets clear, and she begins to drive. Waiting for her at her door is Orlando, returned from Paris.

As the new couple drives the streets of Los Angeles, they remark how much the city has changed, and how life ultimately is a series of unanswered questions. They begin a new life together—getting married, adopting a child, and starting a new musical duo. Visions of the past occasionally haunt them, especially Lucha, who feels a need to ritualistically say goodbye to the trauma of her life with Jameson.

The notebook mysteriously returns to her possession, but the scribblings and images do nothing to solve the mystery of what happened to Jameson – and at this point in her life, Lucha accepts that she will never know. In a trance, she is drawn to a phone, far off the beaten path, in an abandoned warehouse. She picks it up and finds herself speaking the words: "A thousand streets lead into one great road, and no gate blocks your way."

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Performance Order The chapters will be performed non-sequentially on three routes in Los Angeles: the Red route, the Yellow route, and the Green route. Each chapter is a potential starting point; each chapter is a potential ending. Audiences will experience the pieces in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise path.The animated chapters exist independently on the H ​ opscotch website.

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CHAPTER 1 (Animation)

By Jane Stephens Rosenthal HOPSCOTCH: Chapter 1 Narrator (VO): Life comes up while driving.

And at some point, you’re going to have to surrender. Whether you’re leaving the city, or coming into the city, whether you’ve grown up there, or moved there, or are just passing through there, you are going to start. And stop. And start. And stop. And start again. Maybe you’ll take a left, maybe a right, maybe you’ll wait until traffic clears, maybe you’ll just be sitting in it, or going along with it suddenly thinking about that job you might get, the first person you kissed, the first snow you saw, the first drug you took, the last woman you slept with, or the last man, that relationship that didn’t work out, your mother, the shirt that got stained in the wash, how you’ve changed, starting to believe in yourself watching a truck going up over the freeway’s center divide and then coming back down again. And everything is alright, the cars continuing to move.

We see Lucha driving in her car.

Lucha can feel herself moving. Her hands on the car’s steering wheel. Her life taking shape. She is 26 and she is from Los Angeles. She knows these roads, she knows what exits to take, what sections of the freeway to avoid. She is driving back from a rehearsal with her creative partner, Orlando. They are preparing their adaptation of the classic myth Orpheus and Eurydice. She is thinking about Orpheus.

We see Lucha and Orlando rehearsing.

Lucha is getting to do what she has always wanted to do. She is becoming a puppeteer.

We see Lucha driving again, we see her stopped at a stop light, we see her turning the radio on, beginning to sing to the music, we see her moving again.

She is happy, turning the radio up. Orlando has been teaching her how to speak Spanish again. She begins to sing. She doesn’t care if the other drivers hear her. She looks into their cars. She smiles at them. She doesn’t remember ever feeling so light.

She is in love with the life she is building.

She doesn’t even think about the future.

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On another road we see Jameson on his motorcycle, weaving between the stopped cars, effortlessly.

Jameson thinks of gyroscopic precession, of angular momentum, of being his bike’s centrifugal force leaning, back as he slows down for a stoplight.

We see Jameson measuring, we see Jameson writing data down and writing data down and writing data down. We see Jameson surrounded by other people in lab coats, but he seems to be standing alone as they all move around him.

Jameson’s mind races as he drives through the streets. There is a pothole, there is a driver looking at his phone, there is a driver talking to his passenger. He is exposed. Moving from the East Coast to join The Jet Propulsion Lab research team Jameson is researching matter and interactions. If he wasn’t a scientist, Jameson thinks he would be a poet. He thinks that’s a stupid thought. He doesn’t miss the weather back in Massachusetts but he misses spring bringing everyone out together.

(Feet dancing around in grass, people kissing, people holding hands, shouting hi across the street. People spilling out of bars and on to the street.)

Los Angeles’ lack of center disturbs him, that the city was built in a desert, and no one seems to think about it. Jameson has made a few friends while he has lived here but he finds that on his bike, he has a purpose, he is moving, and though he is in control shifting this hand and that foot, raising his hand to another motorist, he is still very much alone in this Los Angeles sprawl.

We see Jameson raise his gloved hand to another motorist, we see him get ready to move again, gathering speed heading to make a left turn …

Jameson wonders how people ever meet.

We see Lucha’s car heading towards Jameson’s turning bike​ ​we hear a screech it seems like she has hit Jameson on his bike. We hear a thud.

He is about to find out.

End Chapter 1.

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CHAPTER 2 Music: Improvised by Phillip King Text: Jane Stephens Rosenthal HOPSCOTCH: Chapter 2: ​ A Meeting: There is just a cardboard motorcycle and cardboard car in an empty lot. Both at strange angles. There is the sound of screeching tires. (Maybe we hear the beginnings of an instrument?) LUCHA keeps repeating OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD to herself. Trying not to get sick as JAMESON comes towards her, helmet still on yelling.

JAMESON YOU HAVE EYES. YOU HAVE A HEAD. YOU HAVE A NECK THAT CAN MOVE LEFT TO RIGHT YOU have A ROOF. YOU have AIRBAGS. YOU have SEAT BELTS.

LUCHA I – I – I – I – I was just – could you? Did you? A guitar? No. A harp? I’m - I LUCHA is still looking around. JAMESON takes his helmet off.

JAMESON I HAVE NOTHING. (Jameson points to his motorcycle) NO DOORS. No ROOF NO AIRBAGS NO SEATBELT LUCHA is suddenly struck by him.

LUCHA You have eyes.

You have a neck.

Arms.

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Then embarrassed LUCHA becomes frantic leans into her car, going for her purse, going for anything. As she pulls her stuff out, things fall, pieces of puppets, puppets, fabric string, pieces of paper, all come out, needles, thread, pin cushions, sheets of music. It is a disaster she feels as long as she can keep moving, everything will be okay.

She drops her bag onto the concrete, she drops down over her bag, rifling through it trying to find a piece of paper that doesn’t have writing on it, trying to find a pen. She is in a beautiful blue dress. She is beautiful. As JAMESON starts to calm down he notices this. LUCHA begins to write down her number on a piece of paper she stands.

LUCHA I hate accidents. They’re totally avoidable. Right? Don’t you think they’re avoidable? If only I was paying attention, or you were paying attention, or if he were paying attention, I mean things were finally going the way they were supposed to – I finally had the bridge down and then BOOM. And here we are, and it’s so familiar, the afternoon, the light, the air.

LUCHA hears the song again – the song that was playing on the radio - the harp – JAMESON is starting to feel sorry, he also thinks LUCHA might be a little unbalanced.

JAMESON drops his helmet to the ground and reaches out and grabs her by the arm, gently, but shocking her. It is strange given what has just happened, how angry he just was.

JAMESON It’s okay.

JAMESON is suddenly very tired. He doesn’t want to deal with any of this. He just wants to lie down. To close his eyes for a little while. To pretend like he has never met this girl. LUCHA doesn’t know what to say. She slowly withdraws her arm from him.

It’s electric between them. The chemistry is palpable to them, to the audience.

LUCHA looks at him for a moment LUCHA I just. I just didn’t see you.

LUCHA looks at JAMESON again.

LUCHA (continues) And then you looked like a deer. (LUCHA pick sup the helmet Jameson has dropped) And then. It was you. I mean. There are pot holes…. You need new antlers… Your bike is beautiful.

JAMESON has had enough.

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JAMESON Look it’s fine. I’m fine. My bike’s fine. You’re fine.

LUCHA Yes. I’m fine.

LUCHA turns to leave. JAMESON just stands looking at her. His helmet still in THEIR hands. He’s softened. He sort of likes her.

JAMESON Wait… Your name? What’s your name?

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CHAPTER 3 (Animation) Text: Jane Stephens Rosenthal Accidents have always been Lucha’s fear. Car accidents, cooking accidents, language accidents.

Lucha grew up tracing the murals painted along her neighborhood walls in Boyle Heights. Walking home from school year after year she ran her fingers along crescent moons, skeletons, flowers beginning to bloom, the famous faces of Hispanic heroes. The people who stood up for change. The face of Lucha Reyes, the woman she was named after, the Queen of the Mariachi. She fell in love with the colors, with the sky above her, with her parents dark hair. Lucha was taught at a young age that anything was possible. She could be a veterinarian, she could be an architect, she could be a doctor or a lawyer, an actor, a writer. The world was hers, her parents told her. She was allowed to dream.

Coming from an artistic family, art and history, her history, her family’s history took root inside of her.

Her grandfather always told her that “art should enroll a country.” She started dreaming of becoming a famous artist, of continuing to incite change. She was inspired by the Chicano Art movement El Moviemento in the 60s. She began drawing pictures on the sidewalk in front of her home, and encouraging her friends to “jump in them,” a hopscotch of sorts, and each jump lead to a different dream, a different possibility, another future.

On the day of her Quinceañera, Lucha was driving to her celebration with her parents, the windows down and all of them singing to the song on the radio when a car went through a red light hitting the front of the car, and killing her parents instantly. Lucha survived. Her blue dress splattered. She became quiet and distant, moving in with her Grandfather. She stopped speaking Spanish in revolt.

She dyed her hair red. She began making sculptures and spending time down in Venice Beach with the runaways.

When she was seventeen her grandfather taught her how to make a butterfly out of 24 guage wire and a piece of glass. and for the first time she saw that she could bring her sculptures to life. From that moment on she began to make puppets. She saw that she could create the world she wanted around her. And she began to believe she was destined to bring people together. She met Orlando in a coffee shop wearing a suit, spilling coffee all over him, he played guitar, and they began to make art together, they started to become known among the east side for their exquisite shows.

Lucha has always been afraid of being tied down and afraid of dying. She is afraid of being distracted, and she is afraid of falling in love. She doesn’t like losing. Sometimes she drinks too much. She tries very hard to be practical. She has decided never to have children because she would never want a child to go through life the way she did, parentless. She is reminded of this decision every time that song comes on the radio, she is fifteen again, staring at her hands, everything else spinning.

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CHAPTER 4 Music: David Rosenboom Text: Janine Salinas Schoenberg

Chapter 4 - “Lucha’s Quinceanera Song” When Abuela turned fifteen She learned to cook and clean.

Her Tias taught her how To be a wife, to be a mother [To be] a woman.

She sewed her own lace dress And hid pieces of her hair Inside the tapestry She wove for him.

And when they married On that shore In beautiful Veracruz The pale moonlight shined bright Upon them dancing.

And she sang, “Porque ahora soy mujer.

Porque ahora soy mujer.”

My mother turned fifteen At a protest for migrant rights.

And on that very street Beneath a bridge, She met my father.

Standing proud on that front line.

Her parents traveled many miles In the trunk of a car To reach this world.

In his eyes she saw the moon In her smile he saw the sun.

It was the future they had been dreaming of.

So they danced that night Beneath a full moon sky.

And in her white dress she sang, “Porque ahora soy mujer.

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Porque ahora soy mujer.”

Now here I am About to be fifteen.

In a blue dress I chose For me.

My Abuela has taught me how To be a wife, to be a mother.

Mi mama has shown me How To fight.

And on these very streets They gave me So full of color And bursting with life I have learned To be a woman.

To be an artist.

So tonight, as I leave that child behind, I will celebrate my re-birth.

In a room transformed with ribbons and lights Into a starry sky.

And I will sing, “Porque ahora soy mujer.

Porque ahora soy mujer.”

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CHAPTER 5 (Animation) Text: Sarah LaBrie VOICE-OVER: The accident wasn’t that bad, not really. I don’t know why I got so angry. No harm done, it’s just…

It’s strange how familiar that woman looked to me, like I met her in another life or in a dream.

Sometimes I think that's what dreams are anyway, other lives, a way to experience all the paths we didn't take in all the worlds we weren't born into, and still wake up safely into the lives we chose, and keep choosing.

A way for all the pressure of our unlived lives to dissipate.

But if that's the case, then why do I always feel like I’m straddling two worlds?

A deer ran into the road near my parents’ house in Sudbury. I swerved away from it, directly into a patch of ice. I didn’t have time to go with the skid like I’d been taught – the car moved forward on its own and I understood how powerful it was, how small I was, how capable of dying. The crunch of metal on rock like bones breaking. Later, in the hospital, the pain. So much pain I felt as if I was drowning in it even as it rushed to fill up my veins, replacing all the blood I needed to keep me alive.

After I woke up, I was different. It was like someone had drawn back a curtain at the edge of my vision and everything I thought was the world was only printed on it. When I tried to explain what this felt like to anyone, I sensed the ground sliding away beneath me almost immediately, before I could even open my mouth to speak.

I didn’t know how to make anyone understand that it was like there were two of me, the one who died and the one who lived. And that when I was talking, it was also him talking, and when I was smiling it was also him smiling. It had become obvious to me that there was something on the other side of all that we could see and in between our lives and it, there was a door.

I left home to study physics at Columbia. I learned about Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Vera Rubin. I learned about the earth displaced by the sun from the center of the universe to its periphery and then further, our own universe, one in what may be trillions upon trillions of worlds.

New doors are always opening in science, leading to rooms with dimensions we couldn’t previously perceive. Sometimes when I ride I feel as if I'm going to tip over into one of these rooms, enter it and use it to go back to all the points where I made choices that split my life in two—reexamine those choices, make different ones. Forever change the outcome of my history.

(He picks up Lucha’s business card, which has a pattern of stars and space printed on it, and turns it over in his hand)

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CHAPTER 6: Jameson Character Portrait Music: Andrew Norman Notes: Includes driving through 2nd St. Tunnel with Projector on top of car

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CHAPTER 7 Text: Jane Stephens Rosenthal JAMESON is outside LUCHA’s rehearsal space, looking at the postcard, trying to decide whether to go in or not.

JAMESON Hey. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.

Hey. I’ve been thinking about Orpheus.

Hey. Hey. Hi. Remember me? Thought I’d check out your show, say hi...

JAMESON gives up practicing what he is going to say and leads the audience into the scene. LUCHA and ORLANDO are performing. They are enacting a scene from Orpheus and Eurydice -- Lucha is manipulating an Orpheus puppet, Orlando is an aerialist Eurydice. The space is filled with fog and projections. Lucha and Orlando are so involved in their own performance they don’t notice Jameson at first--until he drops his helmet.

LUCHA Hi? Excuse me? Can I help you – this is a closed rehearsal.

And then recognizing it’s Jameson. And almost not surprised she smiles.

LUCHA (continued, shyly) Hi. JAMESON Hi. I’m sorry – I thought there was a performance this afternoon.

(Holding up the postcard with her number.)

I must have read this wrong.

If there is anything to pick up she should pick it up. There should be a type of push-pull dancer action between the two of them. Almost as if they are keeping each other from falling into the underworld.

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LUCHA It’s tonight. (then:) You got a new helmet.

ORLANDO Lucha, estas todo bien?

LUCHA Yeah, it’s the guy. I mean...Let’s take 5?

ORLANDO Seguro. (to JAMESON) Hi. JAMESON Hey. ORLANDO I’m Orlando.

JAMESON Jameson. (​The distance between the two of them is too large to shake hands.)

I’d shake your hands but I don’t want you to fall...

LUCHA turns on a large fan and cools down next to it. JAMESON approaches her.

JAMESON I studied Orpheus in college.

LUCHA You did? And? JAMESON Before I decided to – when I thought I might be – anyway. You changed things. Here he didn’t look back. He doesn’t lose….

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LUCHA (smiles) My grandfather told me once that you can change your story at any time. That we make art for discovery, to understand things better, to see a different future, to inspire, and what if Orpheus doesn’t look back… What if we decided to trust things, to really choose to believe in ourselves, and our futures, instead of just looking at ways for things to go bad. What if we decide to only look forward and made a promise to ourselves not to look back. Then we’d have everything right there in our hands…. We’d have faith that everything is right JAMESON (interrupting her) Will you go to a party with me tonight?

LUCHA Tonight?

JAMESON After the show.

LUCHA I can be pretty tired after a performance--does it have to be tonight?

JAMESON Please?

LUCHA Only on the condition that we go on your motorcycle.

JAMESON Deal.

(He starts heading off. He turns around again:) Wait, do you have a helmet?

LUCHA No. JAMESON It’s OK, I have an extra one!

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LUCHA OK. See you soon.

JAMESON (​Waving to Orlando) Nice to meet you. (​He leaves through the back door.)

JAMESON Now where can I get an extra helmet... (​May need more ad libbing or action at end based on the other car arriving.)

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Chapter 8 Music by Marc Lowenstein Text by Erin Young In Hollenbeck Park Starting at Route A: From Theater Jameson: Funny, I recognize that melody… It’s from an opera by Monteverdi. An Orpheus opera, actually.

Lucha: You recognize it? Really?

Jameson: Yeah, I’ve seen it a few times.

Lucha: (​Somewhat sarcastically) ​Oh, how nice.

I’ve never been to the opera. Orlando always told me he would take me, but we never find the time, between all our rehearsals.

Jameson: Well ​I’ll take you. When you’re not rehearsing, that is.

Lucha: I’d love that.

Jameson: Me too. It’s been too long.

Lucha: How about tomorrow? (​She smiles.)

Interruption of Roller Skater Jameson: (​Singing) Do you remember, shade-giving trees, 19

my long and bitter torments?

Is this what I was missing?

This city, this park, this girl, This lightness of my heart...

Start of Route B, walking by Pond: Lucha: I love how the geese stay together, protecting their loved ones from invisible threats.

Jameson: I’m sure they have real threats. What about the children that throw rocks at them?

Lucha: Do you think children could be so cruel?

Jameson: I’ve seen them. It’s horrible. I would never let my children do that.

Gloria: (​awkwardly) You have children?

Jameson: (​embarrassed) I was only saying… I mean in the future, that is.

Interruption of the Roller-Skater Lucha: Those sorrows that I endured for so many years make my present joy so much dearer.

Is this what I’ve been missing?

This city, this park, this man, This lightness of my heart...

Beginning Route C, toward the end of the sidewalk and to freeway covered street: (Lucha trips, and she falls unto Jameson, catching his arm. He smiles at her. She smiles up at him.)

Lucha: Sorry!

Jameson: 20

I’m so glad we came -- I haven’t been to this park in years.

Lucha: We came here every weekend when I was a little girl. It was so different then.

Jameson: Do you see the reflections beneath the bridge?

Lucha: Yeah, too bad it’s reflecting onto a freeway. Can you believe they just built that right over this lake? It’s as if they’re consciously trying to destroy this neighborhood, destroy the beauty of our simple pleasures.

Jameson: It’s like when you look into the night’s sky and see satellites instead of stars.

Lucha: Exactly! ​If you can see anything at all through the smog.

Jameson: Sometimes I think about living on a mountain, away from everyone.

Lucha: Wouldn’t that be nice. Except, I never leave. I’ll never leave the city.

Jameson: I used to think the same thing. But what’s stopping us?

Lucha: I can’t leave everyone. This city’s my family now—a bunch of needy aunts and uncles and cousins that take what they need and eventually destroy your house.

Jameson: (Laughs and touches her arm) But deep down, you know they’ll always take care of you…(​jokingly) Even though they probably don’t want to.

Lucha: Hey! (​Shoves him playfully, runs a distance to start arias)

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Lucha: It starts in your shaking hands, Until you see the hesitant way he touches your arm, Then it shoots to your heart, And it seeps into your mind, Where it becomes a tireless weed, Growing with the thoughts about a life of you with him.

I know what this is, But I can’t stop thinking about the holding, touching, just being.

That I could leave my loneliness behind.

Jameson: It starts from your middle, Until you see the timid way she holds her hands, Then it courses through your veins.

It ends up at your core, Where it sends up cryptic signals Like radio waves speaking against what you know.

I know what this is, But I can’t help the way it makes everything I know seem obsolete.

That I could forget everything for this feeling.

Together: (​they get closer to each other) After sorrow, we are all the more content; after suffering, we are all the happier.

Let me dream.

Let me linger.

Let me know you.

Let me touch you.

(They kiss.)

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CHAPTER 9 Music: Andrew McIntosh Text: Sarah Labrie Passionate, physical connection between the two. The physical union feels metaphysical.

Saxophone quartet / quintet at the Angel’s Point sculpture.

Lucha: We are an explosion Every intersection an eruption Nothing ever lost But happening all the time in every possible permutation Jameson: Heat traveling along neurons The way light travels between stars The way gravity travels An eternal echo Time not a river But a web Lucha: We are an endless network And where we intersect A vast explosion That echoes endlessly Jameson: We are myriad We are a web A series of peaks and explosions The bottom falling out of everything The end never the end

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CHAPTER 10 Animation Text: Sarah LaBrie Jameson and Lucha, driving.

Lucha is sitting in the passenger seat beside Jameson watching rain beat against the windshield.

She’s told him for the first time that she loves him, and, in response, he has begun to explain to her why it is impossible to use the Hubble telescope to see back to the beginning of time.

The term Big Bang, he is saying now, is misleading because nobody knows what banged or what it had banged into. You can’t see the origin of the world because when the Big Bang banged, there wasn’t any light to see it by. The universe was too hot for light to exist.

Lucha closes her eyes as the car moves forward and forces herself not to think about anything but the sound of light falling over the universe, billions of years before eyeballs evolved to see it with or ears had evolved to hear.

The largest organism alive on the planet, he is telling her, is a single tree that looks like many trees. A 106-acre stretch of Aspens called Pando in Utah. What’s fascinating about Pando, and about all trees, is that they’re perfect fractals. The patterns of veins on every leaf mirrors perfectly the pattern along which the leaves grow out of twigs, the twigs grow out of branches, and the branches out of the trunk. Every piece of every tree corresponds to every other part of it. Everything branches along the same course, according to the same series of variables.

Lucha draws her hand out from under her and studies it. She thinks that if she studies the fingers for long enough, the way they branch off from her palm, she might understand what it is he is trying to tell her.

It’s also highly likely, he goes on, that the universe we live in is expanding according to the same algorithm, growing, like a tree, into newer and newer versions of itself, invisibly, in what scientists call the multiverse. Which is to say, it’s possible that all living creatures, not only humans but trees and animals and plants and flowers too, are expanding through the multiverse in waves, moving in and out of various realities as they come together and then crumble, each iteration of every being unconscious of the other, the way the topmost branches of a tree live out their lives ignorant of the branches at the bottom. You yourself may be dividing constantly into smaller and newer versions of yourself. Which is to say: How can you know you’re in love with me? When there are so many yous and so many mes?

At parties, Jameson tells his friends that his girlfriend studies the physics of storytelling, a joke that’s not really a joke. But what she does with her puppets, she wants to tell him is more than physics

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and more than art. It’s love. And if physics is the clockwork that holds the universe together, then love is the machine that makes it run.

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CHAPTER 11 Music: Ellen Reid Text: Mandy Kahn The following is sung by a children’s chorus in a warehouse, where Lucha and Jameson lay down and watch a projection of stars, nebulae, etc.

Deep within the living sky Turns a churning cloud of dust— Lonely in the shifting sky Floats this quiet nebula— Deep within its roving heart, Gravity is pulling in— Gravity and gas will pull—equally against the night— Sighing in a building glow—spreading in a colored sigh— ANGEL Sigh...Sigh...Sigh...

Their forces pulling left and pushing right— Stasis is a welcome breath— ANGEL Light...

Light is how this stasis speaks—throwing back its warming head— Glow is how this stasis spreads—widening into the night— Equal wills make it bright Equal heat makes it hold Pressure in, pressure out How long can the stasis last?— ANGEL How long can it last?

Will its shining change the sky?

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How far can its colors go?— Will its shining change the sky?— Will its churning ever rest?— ANGEL There...Where...There…

Where gravity and dust curled and paused against the night Make a case for things in pairs Make a case for two in time There, lonely Lonely in the moving sky floats the quiet nebula.

ANGEL Deep within unfurling time…

Floats the Eagle Nebula— Spins the Stringray Nebula— Turns the Horsehead Nebula— Floats the Crescent Nebula— Turns the Pistol Nebula— Moves Omega Nebula—Spins the Bubble Nebula— Floats the Cat’s Eye Nebula—Turns the Twin Jet Nebula— Moves Medusa Nebula—Spins the Owl Nebula— Floats the Footprint Nebula—Turns the Eight-Burst Nebula— Moves the Coalsack Nebula— Floats the Lemon Nebula—Turns the Helix Nebula— Blinks the Blinking Nebula—Spins the Candy Nebula— ANGEL ...lives a shifting nebula lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely....

Live a a shifting nebula Turns a living nebula Floats this quiet nebula...

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CHAPTER 12 Music: Andrew McIntosh Text: Sarah LaBrie and Janine Salinas Schoenberg Version A A limo sits parked outside St. Vibiana. Jameson and Lucha, dressed in the traditional formal wear of a wedding, enter the car in a state of exhilaration. On the sidewalk, the lonely figure of Lucha’s Grandfather waves at the car as it drives away. They laugh as the car pulls off. Jameson unties his tie.

LUCHA (Smiling) Married.

JAMESON (Smiling) Married.

Silence.

LUCHA If my parents were here, they’d say it’s bad luck not exchanging rings.

JAMESON That’s just a superstition, no? Besides, you already have a ring.

Your mother’s.

LUCHA That’s true.

JAMESON You’re not wearing it today.

LUCHA No, I’ve put it away. It’s in a box upstairs.

(Changing the subject:) Well, at the risk of even more bad luck…Here. I got this for you.

Lucha reaches under the seat and pulls out a present wrapped with an iridescent ribbon.

JAMESON This is bad luck?

LUCHA

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My Abuelito says you mustn’t ever exchange gifts until the eve of your wedding.

But I don’t care…I wanted you to have this.

There is a bit of tension between them. He unwraps the present, revealing a red leather notebook.

JAMESON A notebook?

LUCHA Blank. So you have somewhere to write down all of your creative thoughts.

JAMESON I wouldn’t call my thoughts creative. Neurotic perhaps...

LUCHA Then maybe it can just be a place to store all of your dreams. Your wishes for the future.

He turns and kisses her on the forehead.

JAMESON Thank you.

LUCHA Of course.

She kicks off her heels and rests her head on his shoulder. Jameson stares out the window, lost.

Music begins. Lucha’s speech trails off into silence, even as her mouth keeps moving.

LUCHA Weren’t those puppets that Orlando made just incredible? That took me completely by surprise.

The mariachis were great too. I’m so glad they knew the song: “Porque ahora soy mujer.” That’s the one that always reminds me of being a little girl and dancing at the plaza with my parents. Did you see Abuelo cry when we walked down the aisle? He was so happy…

What was your favorite part of today? ...

JAMESON (Singing:) I am not the center of myself Everything already always everything else.

Information traveling along neurons The way light travels between stars The way gravity travels An eternal echo Time not a river

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But a web Strange, the way a thought can send you reeling, everything you thought was the world suddenly dissolving, remaking itself into something new.

Another name for gravity might be this might be love.

Everything drawn to everything else trying to complete itself to return to a time when everything was one thing and that one thing was whole.

LUCHA Jameson?

JAMESON Sorry?

LUCHA (Beat) I was asking about your favorite part of today?

He shrugs.

JAMESON You. Naturally.

She smiles as he leans in and kisses her. The limo pulls up in front of a downtown hotel.

JAMESON We’re here. You ready?

LUCHA I love you.

JAMESON I love you too.

He opens the door and steps outside. He then takes her hand and helps her exit.

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Version B A limo sits parked outside a downtown hotel. Suddenly, the door opens and Jameson, dressed in a tuxedo, and Lucha, wearing a simple and elegant wedding gown, climb inside. They both seem nervous. He ties his tie.

LUCHA (Smiling) Today’s the day.

JAMESON (Smiling) Today’s the day.

Silence.

LUCHA What will Abuelito say when he sees us arriving together. And then not exchanging rings! He’ll think we are inviting bad luck.

JAMESON Those are just superstitions, no? Besides, you already have a ring.

Besides, you already have a ring. Your mother’s.

LUCHA That’s true.

JAMESON You’re not wearing it today.

LUCHA No, I’ve put it away. It’s in a box upstairs.

(She pulls the ring closer, changing the subject:) Well, at the risk of even more bad luck…Here. I got this for you.

Lucha reaches under the seat and pulls out a present wrapped with an iridescent ribbon.

JAMESON A present before the wedding?

LUCHA I know, but I just couldn’t wait…I wanted you to have it.

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There is a bit of tension between them. He unwraps the present, revealing a red leather notebook.

JAMESON A notebook?

LUCHA Blank. So you have somewhere to write down all of your creative thoughts.

JAMESON I wouldn’t call my thoughts creative. Neurotic perhaps...

LUCHA Then maybe it can just be a place to store all of your dreams. Your wishes for the future.

He turns and kisses her on the forehead.

JAMESON Thank you.

LUCHA Of course.

She looks in a mirror to put final touches on her make-up. Jameson stares out the window, lost.

Music begins. Lucha’s speech trails off into silence, even as her mouth keeps moving.

LUCHA What will Orlando wear, I wonder? Did I ever tell you about how we first met? I spilled coffee all over his suit. You can still see the stain. He’s so sentimental. I asked the mariachis to play that song: “Porque ahora soy mujer.” That’s the one that always reminds me of being a little girl and dancing at the plaza with my parents. It will be so hard to see Abuelo cry…

JAMESON (Singing:) I am not the center of myself Everything already always everything else.

Information traveling along neurons The way light travels between stars The way gravity travels An eternal echo Time not a river But a web Strange, the way a thought can send you reeling, everything you thought was the world suddenly dissolving,

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remaking itself into something new.

Another name for gravity might be this might be love.

Everything drawn to everything else trying to complete itself to return to a time when everything was one thing and that one thing was whole.

Suddenly, the limo pulls up in front of St. Vibiana.

LUCHA We’re here. Ready?

JAMESON Let’s do it.

LUCHA I love you.

JAMESON I love you too.

He opens the door and steps outside. He then takes her hand and helps her exit. Grandfather waits for them at the top of the stairs.

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CHAPTER 13 Animation Text: Sarah LaBrie During voice-over, the couple gets lonelier and more estranged from each other. Jameson more and more distant, lost in his work. He is starting to take on Faustian characteristics.

Lucha less and less interested in the puppets she is making.

Time passes. They go about ordinary couple business, silently, unhappily: brushing their teeth in the morning. Sitting in a car wash silently. They go see the opera together—Orfeo—but don’t seem to enjoy it. They eat dinner across from each other, not looking at each other, not speaking to each other.

Lucha (VOICE OVER): The parking tickets he was always leaving by the bathroom sink so I would scold him into remembering to pay before the month was up. The way he spread out across the bed at night but always said he had no space. How he was terrible at sending birthday gifts or thank you cards, returning phone calls, but would suddenly make up for it all at once by sending extravagantly expensive gifts that left recipients delighted but confused.

How he hated New York ferociously except when he wanted to move there. How big his hands were, and how lost and far away he seemed when I took them inside mine. How I could never be sure that he was there when he spoke, and not just an outline of a person with nothing inside. How I wondered sometimes whether the person who came back eventually to fill the outline was the same one who had left. How it seemed impossible to know.

How he hated group activities or anything that smacked of patriotism or teamwork or ideals, how he said to me once very seriously that he would have liked to be a robot made of gears.

How I said back, without thinking of it, but you are. And how instead of responding he said to me: It’s like I’m trying to erase myself and with every minute that goes by I’m coming closer and closer to succeeding. How all of that changed when he shifted his focus from space to neuroscience, and how much it hurt that it didn’t change because of me.

How he was always writing down names for potential cats and children even though he wanted neither.

I thought if I lost him it would be to a woman, not to a machine. Which shows you how much I knew then.

The silent surprise of every next breath. I want to live a life like a book you can start anywhere, that you find has no beginning and no end.

One night, at 4:00 in the morning, I drove for miles east down first street in the direction of 34

oncoming traffic. I died over and over again, obliterated by invisible cars. But it was so early in the morning, no one was out to see me die, so I suppose it didn’t count.

In the end, I stood up and leaned against the wall by the window all morning, measuring the hours by the ebb and flow of the cars rushing down Vermont.

Finally, I went to see one of those fortune tellers – you know, those girls all over Los Angeles, pretty usually, young, dark hair, who hand out business cards to women who look lonely. This one said “Lovely Lila” on the front, which I liked, the way it seemed like she wasn’t trying very hard, like she’d accidentally given herself a stripper name, just decided to go with it.

I went to her little shop in Chinatown, paid my twenty dollars, and she held my cold palm in her warm one, and she told me to go home and wait for a phone call. To sit by the phone and wait. And I did. And then one day, the phone call came.

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CHAPTER 14 Music: Marc Lowenstein Text: Mandy Kahn Lucha picks up the receiver: LUCHA Hello?

VOICE Your voice, your delicate voice Steam from the bath LUCHA I don’t understand…

VOICE It’s me, Lucha...

Your voice is like the steam curling up from mother’s bath If only you can hear You are like a steam curling up from Madre’s bath delicate and warm if only you could hear…

LUCHA Are you someone I know?

VOICE It’s me, Lucha It’s me, Lucha It’s me, it’s me, Lucha I’m the person you’ll become.

LUCHA No, I’m serious, who is this?

VOICE You can’t see I’m you, we can never

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I have placed this call through time Time is happening all at once LUCHA Did you just say “time is happening all at once?”

VOICE A thousand streets lead into one great path and no gate blocks your way.

LUCHA This is getting creepy.

VOICE I, who you’ll become someone made of peace which will come when you allow in allowance is all peace in acceptance is all calm in acceptance is all calm and within that calm is joy and that joy can cross all time…

LUCHA I’m sorry, I have to go…

What about my mother’s ring? with an opal like the moon seen from a basement and two rubies like the day I pricked my hand.

Set in gaudy gold. Mother’s ring.

It’s safe inside a drawer

VOICE A thousand streets lead into one great path and no gate blocks your way.

One thing Lucha, the ring Mother’s ring with an opal like the moon seen through bottle glass and two rubies like the day you pricked your hand set in molten gold, mother’s ring

Don’t keep it in a drawer Don’t hide it in a box 37

It is hidden in a box Wear it every day I won’t speak of mother’s ring warm it with your pulse and how do you know it’s shape?

Who is this?

Mother’s ring I can’t look at Mother’s ring Let the ring Rubies like the day I pricked console you, warm it with your skin my hand just to see my blood after they had died Opal like the moon through blue church windows… and a pair of rubies and a pair of rubies one for papa, one for madre one for papa, one for madre How it burns my skin Wear them on your skin how it stings my eyes let them charge your pulse and a pair of Rubies and a pair of Rubies one for papa, one for madre one for loving, one for guidance and an opal for having survived and, and opal All their love for being left behind is in a drawer where it can’t help I’ve had enough loss pull it out of its cocoon for one life.

A thousand streets, A thousand streets, a thousand streets, a thousand streets, lead into one great path a thousand streets, and no gate blocks your way. a thousand streets, No gate blocks your way.

And an opal for the girl they never left a thousand… quiet as the moon seen through bottle glass.

There’s a box There’s a day beyond the loss that holds the loss that will open like a door. with a keyhole There’s a place where you can see like a door There’s a place where you can see all your fingers are a hand. and I keep it in a drawer All the moments you have spent and outside that drawer braid together to a play and the pain is speed will black your eyes, but your hand will feel a door when I’m busy and I’m fast. and beyond it is a peace that is fragrant There’s no box inside my drawer

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I forget I have no peace I forget I live in loss.

Loss is structured like all time I won’t let it hold me down with its fragrance like a tomb with its color like tar and its claim upon my time I will move across my day and the faster that I run means the less that I will feel and the pushing of my youth will propel me into age and that will be a room that is quiet as a field that is lighted as a dusk that is handsome as a dream and forgetfulness is there and forgetfulness is home there is a place where I there’s a place where I forget that I live my days in love it is lighted like a dusk as handsome as a dream.

as a grass.

Love is structured like all time I will meet you in that room which is fragrant as a field which is lighted like a dusk and is structured like all time I will meet you in that room that is open as a field, that is stirring as a dawn that’s a window in no wall where the pushing of your youth and the pulling of my age and that is a room that is fragrant as a field, that is lighted as a dusk that is handsome as a dream in allowance all is peace and that place is your true home in allowance is all peace and in peace we all connect it is lighted like a dusk it is fragrant as a field.

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CHAPTER 15 Music: Veronika Krausas Text: Tom Jacobson The three Sections can be performed in either order: ABC or CBA. SECTION A Inside the limo four audience members encounter a Fortune Teller. The violin player is in the passenger seat.

Each AUDIENCE MEMBER selects a card. The CARD READER takes the card from them and sings their fortune. It's any one of the cards and fortunes listed in the appendix.

They repeat this until they arrive -- most likely only two fortunes per car.

SECTION B The audience exits the limo and goes into the Plaza where they see Lucha meeting the Fortune Teller.

LUCHA How did you know about the phone call?

FORTUNE TELLER “A thousand streets lead to one great path…”

Lucha picks a card.

FORTUNE TELLER You have chosen the Lovers!

Attraction, connection, a union of opposites An old or new relationship.

You are faced with choices, temptations, dilemma, doubt.

Choices, uncertainty.

Choose wisely, my friend: The Lovers are choice!

Lucha Choices...but how to choose? Like a leaf spun by the current.

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Nearby is a couple of Lovers -- the card come to life.

LOVERS Past, future Braiding over and under and over.

Connection, desire, A union of opposites.

LUCHA What can they tell me?

Time moves forward The universe moves forward Like a river moves forward.

Does following take me to the past?

LOVERS You are my future, my past, My desire, my dilemma, my uncertainty!

LUCHA Nothing! You've told me nothing! Just a lot of metaphysics only Jameson could understand.

Alternate universes, quantum universes, my parallel hell...

She pulls a card: DEATH begins to sing.

DEATH Lucha! Lucha!

Lucha Who's that? Who knows my name?

DEATH Lucha! I have a choice for you!

LUCHA A choice! What choice? Another choice?

DEATH

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Death--it doesn’t mean what you think, so don’t be afraid.

It’s not a literal death but the end of a cycle.

You’ll go through Hell, but that is about transformation.

Destroying the old to make room for the new but with energy, great energy, free yourself!

Death is new life!

Loud sound of a motorcycle riding by.

Lucha A motorcycle--is that Jameson?

Lucha sees another limo and runs to it. The audience enters the vehicle.

SECTION C Inside the limo, Lucha is so preoccupied that she ignores the audience; it's as if she is alone and singing to herself. She vamps the first two lines as necessary.

Lucha Past future Future past Braiding over and under Under and over Where shall I follow you?

Is all time simultaneous, A billion universes precariously balanced, Ready to fall forward or back?

The uncertainty principle is love When you know where you are You don't know how fast you're going If you know your speed You can't see where you are Alternate universes Quantum universes Interpenetrating dimensions Parallel dimensions Parallel worlds Alternate realities 42

Alternate timelines What could be my alternate reality?

My quantum dimension?

My interpenetrating world?

My parallel hell?

Love is all I know I may imagine you But I know love

Fortunes: Death!

Your card is Death!

But it doesn't mean what you think, So don't be afraid.

It's not a literal death But the end of a cycle, a conclusion Perhaps a loss, perhaps sadness The end of a relationship But with knowledge, great knowledge Self knowledge Death is new life!

The Angels!

You've chosen the Angels!

One stands on land The other on water But their hands are linked Because they are temperance, balance, harmony You should seek moderation in your life The Angels also stand between Death and the Devil Guiding the soul to judgment Moderate your life!

Hell!

You've chosen Hell!

But it isn't what you think Not punishment by God in the afterlife But self-bondage now From what do you need to free yourself?

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Materialism, lust, anxiety, anger?

Are you imprisoned by drugs, alcohol, love?

In Hell there is great energy, The energy you need to free yourself Draw on that strength and be free!

The Puppet!

You picked the Puppet!

The energy around you is good But you feel manipulated You don't trust it You long to call the shots But for now relax and go with the flow The river of life will take you Where you need to go You don't know where that is But the Puppet does!

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CHAPTER 16 Animation Writer: Janine Salinas Schoenberg (Note: Orlando speaks Spanish, with English subtitles) Summary: Lucha tells her friend Orlando that she is giving up puppeteering. He is in love with Lucha but can’t admit it – he lost his wife and now feels paralyzed by any feelings.

The rain pounding against the roof of my studio reminded me of our first apartment back home, in Coyoacan. How Sarita and I used to sit by the window watching the droplets trickle down across the glass. We were so young, and so very much in love. She was a painter.

Gorgeous, and opinionated. With long dark hair and an infectious laugh. She idolized Siqueiros and Pollock, and often quoted Marx. I knew I didn’t deserve her. A kid from the slums of Mexico City, who had learned to first make puppets using dirt and trash. Who created music with empty glass bottles and a wooden box. I had all the insecurities of a man who comes from nothing. But she didn’t care. She only saw the good in me and pushed me to become better.

We left Mexico and settled in Boyle Heights. I opened my studio in an old abandoned bakery on Second Street. And we lived just upstairs. We began to meet other young artists, and to build a community away from home. I met Lucha at the neighborhood coffee shop, Los Santos. She spilled her espresso on my only suit, and then quickly became my protégé.

Both Sarita and I watched her transform from an angry young girl into the most beautiful woman. A true activist, whom we would call, Mariposa.

One day the headaches began. Followed by the pain. Sarita couldn’t eat anymore. And then walking became impossible. Before I knew it, she was gone. And I was left all alone.

It had been five days since I had kissed her goodbye. Lucha appeared at my studio, like a ghost. She looked thin and sad. She apologized for having been a coward, unable to see Sarita at the end, so frail and weak. I started to cry, and couldn’t stop. Seeing Lucha was like seeing a mirror. I couldn’t run away anymore. She reassured me that I was not alone. That I still had her. I reached into a box and pulled out a copy of Julio Cortazar’s novel, Rayuela (Hopscotch). I had found it at an old bookstore in Mexico City a few years back, and had always wanted to share it with her. Her eyes welled up with tears. I took her face into my hands and kissed her. She quickly pulled away, looking confused and horrified. Feeling myself begin to sweat, I stumbled through an apology.

She then told me that she had decided to give up puppeteering. Jameson was growing more and more distant, and she needed to focus on her marriage. I told her that giving up her art 45

would not help to bring him back. It would only create more resentment between them. But her mind was made up. She loved this man, and had already lost too much in her life. She needed to try and save what they once had.

My heart broke again as she handed me back the book. She wiped her eyes and walked out the door. I wanted to ask her to stay. Forever. But I simply couldn’t. And so I sat down on that cold, cement floor for hours. I had now lost both of the women I loved.

CHAPTER 16 - Translation La manera en que la lluvia caía sobre el techo de mi estudio me recordaba de nuestro primer apartamento en Coyoacan. Cuando Sarita y Yo nos sentábamos frente a la ventana viendo como las gotas atravesaban el vidrio. Éramos tan jóvenes y estábamos tan enamorados.

Ella era una pintora, hermosa pero obstinada, con pelo largo y oscuro, y una risa contagiosa.

Idolatraba a Siqueiros y Pollock, y le encantaba hablar sobre Marx. Yo creía no merecerla, pues era un chico de un pueblo perdido, que aprendió a hacer títeres de barro y pedazos de basura, que componía música con botellas vacías y un cajón de madera. Yo tenia todas las inseguridades de un hombre que venia de la nada, pero a ella no le importaba, solamente veía lo bueno en mi y me alentaba a ser cada vez mejor.

Nos fuimos de México y nos mudamos a Boyle Heights, donde abrí mi primer atelier en lo que había sido una vieja panadería…vivíamos justo arriba. Poco a poco conocimos a otros artistas y bohemios y así comenzamos a establecer una comunidad lejos de nuestro país.

Así conocí a Lucha en un café llamada Los Santos, justo a lado de nuestro apartamento. Un día derramó su espresso sobre el único traje que yo tenia, pronto se convirtió en mi protégé.

Sarita y Yo la vimos transformarse de una niña rebelde y enojadiza en una mujer maravillosa.

Una verdadera activista a quien apodamos con mucho cariño ‘Mariposa’.

Un día comenzaron las migrañas, seguido de unos dolores corporales, pronto Sarita no podía comer, y luego tratar de caminar se hizo casi imposible…un dia, desapareció…dejándome totalmente solo.

Habían sido cinco días desde que le di el ultimo beso. Lucha apareció como un fantasma, se le veía triste y muy delgada. Me pidió perdón por haber sido una cobarde, por no poder ver el final débil y frágil de Sarita. Empecé a llorar desconsoladamente, y no podía parar. Mirar a Lucha era como mirar en un espejo. Ya no podía huir. Me aseguró que no estaba solo, que todavía la tenía a ella. Alcancé dentro de una caja y saqué una copia del libro ‘Rayuela’ de Julio Cortazar. Hace unos años atrás lo había​ ​encontrado en una librería en la Ciudad de México, siempre había querido compartirlo con ella. Sus ojos se llenaron de lágrimas. Puse

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mis manos alrededor de su cara y la besé, a ella se le veía confundida y se alejo rápidamente.

Me puse tan nervioso que empecé a sudar y le pedí perdón. ​Fue entonces que ella admitió que había decidido dejar de ser titiritera. Jameson se alejaba cada día, más y más, y ella necesitaba dedicarse a su matrimonio. Le dije que sacrificando su arte no lo haría volver. Solamente crearía mas resentimiento entre ambos. Pero Lucha ya había tomado su decisión. Amaba a este hombre, había perdido demasiado en su vida y ahora necesitaba tratar de salvar lo poco que quedaba entre ellos.

Cuando me devolvió el libro, nuevamente se me partió el corazón. Se limpió las lagrimas y partió. Le quería pedir que se quede para siempre, pero ella ya no podía, así que me senté en el piso frío de cemento por horas. Ahora había perdido a las dos mujeres que amaba.

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CHAPTER 17 Music: Veronika Krausas Text: Janine Salinas Schoenberg Evergreen Cemetery. Orlando in the car, holding a bouquet of colorful roses. Sarita’s ghost sits beside him in silence. She is dressed in all black, her face covered by a veil.

Orlando Before I leave this city, I must first say goodbye to mi amor…

When we met, I was a Lonely boy With nothing.

No home, or family.

You had traveled to Brazil, France, and Morocco.

You had painted The pyramids and The Seine.

Your laughter Made me nervous.

But your kisses Made me stay.

I had never been with A woman before.

And that is what you were.

You became my everything.

In you, I saw myself.

In you, I saw the man I could become.

The world felt smaller.

And I knew that I belonged.

The car reaches a small stone building where a few musicians have gathered. It comes to a complete stop and Sarita exits the vehicle. Orlando yells after her.

Orlando Sarita! Amor! Regresa! Por favor! No quiero estar sin ti…

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He watches as she disappears among the tombstones. A Musician enters the vehicle. They drive off.

We left Mexico In search of adventure.

Two bohemian lovers With a collection of One-way tickets.

Endless small towns, Countless train rides.

Until we ended here.

In a city so vast, And so gray.

But still we saw Its color.

And its magic.

Strangers became family.

And decaying walls Our home.

Driving with you Down these streets And highways Felt endless.

Two immigrant kids Holding hands tightly.

All we needed Was each other.

In you, I saw myself.

In you, I saw the man I could become.

The world felt smaller.

And I knew that I belonged.

They reach a large oak tree. The car pulls over and both Orlando and the Musician exit the vehicle. He stands beneath its branches for a few moments as the Musician begins to play. He places the roses down at the base of the trunk. He then gets back into the car and continues on his way.

All that is left now Is a frail body Asleep among the roses.

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I miss your smile And soft skin.

Your dark hair And those eyes.

No one had ever Seen me that way.

No one had ever tried.

It feels so cruel To be lonely again In a place so big.

Haunted by memories Of a shared youth.

I want to run.

I want to drive off Into the desert.

Forget that I knew you.

That I loved you.

But when the road ends, I will still be alone.

And you will be in my heart.

I am lost.

Without you, The world Is no longer small.

And I do not know Where I belong.

Orlando sees Sarita’s ghost one last time as he makes his way through the cemetery.

He turns on the radio and an old Mexican love song begins to play.

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CHAPTER 18 Music: Veronika Krausas Text: Guy Debord A family in an RV, looking like the 1950s. Father reads; Mother cooks. Outside the window is the projection of a car wash.

FATHER: Our life is a journey, in winter and night. We seek our passage . . .

MOTHER​: Notre vie est un voyage dans l’hiver et dans la nuit. Nous cherchons notre passage.

FATHER: There was the fatigue and the cold of morning in this much-traversed labyrinth, like an enigma that we had to resolve. It was a trompe-l’oeil reality through which we had to discover the potential richness of what was really there.

Others unthinkingly followed the paths learned once and for all, to their work and their home, to their predictable future. For them duty had already become a habit, and habit a duty. They did not see the deficiency of their city. They thought the deficiency of their life was natural. We wanted to break out of this conditioning, in search of different uses of the urban landscape, in search of new passions.

People can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is animated.

DOUBLE BASS SOLO Our life is a journey, in winter and night. We seek our passage . . .

MOTHER: Les êtres humains ne sont pas pleinement conscients de leur vie réelle agissent le plus souvent en tâtonnant, leurs actes les suivent, les entraînent, les débordent par leurs conséquences.

A chaque moment donc, les groupes, et les individus se trouvent devant des résultats qu’ils n’avaient pas voulus.

FATHER: Human beings are not fully conscious of their real lives. Groping in the dark, overwhelmed by the consequences of their acts, at every moment groups and individuals find themselves faced with outcomes they had not intended.

Outside the neighborhood, beyond its fleeting and continually threatened changelessness, stretched a half-known city where people met only by chance, losing their way forever.

Since everything was connected, it was necessary to change everything through a unitary struggle, or nothing. It was necessary to link up with the masses, but sleep was all around us.

We are engulfed. Separated from each other.

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The only interesting venture is the liberation of everyday life.

FATHER: On the bank of the river evening began again; and the caresses; and the importance of a world without importance.

What was directly lived reappears frozen in the distance, engraved in the tastes and illusions of an era and carried off with it.

The appearance of events that we have not created, of events that others have in fact created against us, now obliges us to be aware of the passage of time and its results, to assess the transformation of our own desires into events.

What differentiates the past from the present is precisely its out-of-reach objectivity. There is no more should-be; being has been consumed to the point of ceasing to exist. The details are already lost in the dust of time. Who was afraid of life, afraid of the night, afraid of being taken, afraid of being kept?

Years, like a single instant prolonged to this moment, come to an end.

Our life is a journey, in winter and night. We seek our passage . . .

MOTHER: Notre vie est un voyage dans l’hiver et dans la nuit. Nous cherchons notre passage.

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CHAPTER 19 Text: Elizabeth Cline and Yuval Sharon Version A Elysian Park to the Bowtie Parcel (​A man shuffles paperwork in briefcase. Jameson is on his motorcycle lost in thought) (Jameson’s disconnected voice plays in the speakers) JAMESON (Voice Over) How did I end up here? Maybe I was supposed to take that left...Too late to turn around? Shit, I’m going to be late for the experiment…(Sighs) It’s going to be fine. Look at this: ten years living in this hellhole and I didn’t even know this place existed. It’s like this stretch was made for a bike… Beautiful - I wonder what it was like before a road, before a bike, before me …. humans, so insignificant on a cosmic timescale, yet managing to make a complete mess of everything.

What’s this limo doing in the middle of nowhere... (driving closer to the car) Must be a celebrity. Maybe just some suit. What could someone like that be thinking right now…

What’s that like, I wonder -- being driven. No control over your own fate, no sense of your own surroundings.

Not me…alone out here. I can just fade into the scenery. Flowing through the landscape – in, out and around before anyone notices...invisible​…..invisible…

(Hums to himself “DAYS WHEN THE RAIN AND THE SUN ARE GONE”) *** MAN IN LIMO (Voice-Over) (looks out the window and notices Jameson) (Man in limo’s voice played in the speakers) Like a toy, playing out there on the open road​. What could someone like that be thinking right now...​ (AUDIBLE, live sigh) I remember…being free to wander, when your choices had little consequence to the world around you. (getting noticeably upset) (AUDIBLE, live) Unbelievable…

(He rolls down the window.)

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Hey! Your taillight is out!

JAMESON Excuse me?

MAN IN LIMO YOUR TAILLIGHT IS OUT!!

JAMESON I know!

MAN IN LIMO You have a death wish?

JAMESON No time to fix it.

MAN IN LIMO It’s dangerous, you know.

JAMESON You know what’s really dangerous? Distracting other people on the road.

MAN IN LIMO I’m just trying to look out for fellow travelers.

JAMESON “Fellow travelers?” You’re in the back of a fucking limo, pal.

MAN IN LIMO Maybe you should stay off the road.

(MAN IN LIMO rolls up window. ​To himself, but audible:) Big man, “livin’ on the edge.”

JAMESON (​To himself, but audible inside the car:) Excuse me for not having servants on hand to take care of my every wish.

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MAN IN LIMO (S​eemingly to himself, audible:) I’m so glad I have nothing to prove to anyone.

JAMESON (​To himself, but audible inside the car:) Driving around in such an outdated symbol. Veiled and anonymous, but flaunting his visibility.

MAN IN LIMO (​Seemingly to himself, audible:) People like you should stay off the road.

JAMESON Maybe we all should. Maybe we should abolish driving and stop being such isolated creatures.

Spending all our day in a state of suspended consciousness with no real connection to the city, the people outside. Everything floating by as if all we’re looking at are projection screens.

MAN IN LIMO Have you ever thought that maybe it’s driving that connects us? It’s these streets that literally bring us all together.

JAMESON You call this “connecting?” Do you ever look at the street, when it’s packed with cars, and wonder who all those silent individuals are – all of us barely awake in our metal cocoons?

Don’t you ever wonder where they’re going, where they’ve been, what they see? What they hear? The thoughts and memories they layer onto the scenery going by?

MAN IN LIMO Sounds like a recipe for going completely mad.

JAMESON Maybe the only reasonable thing to do….

They pass a woman on a bicycle. (her voice comes through on the speaker) WOMAN ON A BIKE Look at these losers. Man and machine, ha. They think they own the road but they’re only following a path someone else has figured out. Fuck those assholes. (rings her bell) The car and Jameson drive on.

MAN IN LIMO I don’t think I could live without this time alone between Point A and B. Thirty minutes downtown, thirty-five minutes back to Pasadena. That’s 65 minutes of time off, every day.

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JAMESON But those moments between A and B, they are not a prelude for some great life event – that’s life itself, burning away like fuel. And the minutes of our lives drain away imperceptibly while we’re caught in limbo.

MAN IN LIMO Faust vowed to be damned the minute he said to the passing moment, “Verweile doch, du bist so schön.” That’s German for, “Stay a while, you are so beautiful.”

JAMESON He would have never said that on an LA street.

MAN IN LIMO Ah, I would. I think it often, actually, when the gold of the sun streams through the window, and the cars move like shiny capillaries. See I get to sit back and just enjoy the beauty of that sight.

I admit it’s a privilege, but actually, it’s available to anyone, at any time.

JAMESON “Hell is the place where nothing connects with nothing.” That’s— MAN IN LIMO T.S. Eliot, yes I know the quote.

JAMESON I was going to say, “That’s Los Angeles.”

MAN IN LIMO You’re an awfully gloomy conversation partner.

JAMESON Nothing connects with nothing, that’s how the streets feel—especially from the perspective of a motorcycle. Like the streets form a ball of spaghetti unraveling randomly in every which way. A microcosm of universal entropy, or the entropy of our minds – and it’s terrifying facing it day in, day out. Reading harmony into the streets, that’s an illusion.

MAN IN LIMO What in this world isn’t illusion, I wonder? “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

JAMESON I wish I could believe that, but I suspect too much that what I see around me ​is the truth. All this crumbling infrastructure is a Band-aid over a widening abyss. And the miserable thing is: you need to be completely centered in yourself to be able to find any peace in this city without a center.

MAN IN LIMO I think that’s very true indeed. It’s the gauntlet this city throws down to its citizens.

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JAMESON So what happens when all you can see is just the chaos and the dust?

MAN IN LIMO I…I don’t quite know how to help you if that’s the case. Have you tried looking through different eyes?

JAMESON There must be some place where no cars go.

MAN IN LIMO Have you tried the Arctic Circle?

JAMESON I’d like to give you something.

MAN IN LIMO Me? No thank you, I’ve got all I need…

JAMESON Roll down the window. ​(The man in the limo hesitates.) I’m not going to throw a grenade in there. (​The man rolls down the window. Jameson gives him a red notebook.) Here. In case you ever want to see the world through different eyes. (​The man and Jameson look at each other.)

Tell Lucha I love her.

MAN IN LIMO Sorry?

JAMESON Goodbye.

(Jameson drives off. The man in the limo, left alone, reads from the notebook - recording through the speaker.)

Version B When the Route travels from the Bowtie to Elysian Park, Jameson’s monologue is replaced with a monologue for the Man in Limo: MAN IN LIMO (​Voice-Over) Well, that’s that, another deal another day. You just can’t take your eye off of anything in this city, not for one second. If I blinked, I would’ve missed this opportunity...It feels like the last undeveloped parcel in this area...virtually untouched.

(Looks around then out the window again)

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Hard to imagine, looking at all this concrete that the city was covered in water 10 million years ago. And now it’s a clean slate for us willing to see the potential, the opportunity, just as it was 200 years ago. Oh that reminds me I have to get Richard those numbers….

MAN IN LIMO ​(looks out the window and notices Jameson) (​Pick up at the ***)

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CHAPTER 20 Downtown Route Music: David Rosenboom Text: Erin Young (Audience enters the car to see JAMESON holding the headbands) ·​ ​(He and TECHNICIAN helps audience put them on) (Meanwhile, Jameson tells them): I would like to graciously thank you all for agreeing to help me with this experiment. Your thoughts and the data I collect from them will be a great help in allowing me to discover the hidden secrets of our minds, the places we never knew existed.

While my technician helps you properly secure your headbands, let me explain what these devices will be reading. (holds laptop for audience to see) These headbands are specifically designed to read the changes in the EEG data gathered from the frontal lobe of your cortex. This data will allow us to infer certain aspects of your mental focus, response, agitation, and arousal. Everything you think will then be transferred into a set of readable data, as you can see here. I’ll be asking you a series of questions, and your answers will be manifested from the interpretation of this data.

There are things inside of us that we never knew existed. Dark things, light things, and what are they, really? I spent half my life studying the heavens and skies above, when it was here all along. Universes trapped in our minds…

And tonight we’re going to bring them out.

After I ask each question, I want you to think clearly about your answers, but do not speak them. Listen while your universes, your heavens, your hells, your darkest, most intimate thoughts come alive.

(The mind controlled music cuts in) (The questions get gradually darker, along with Jameson’s demeanor, moving from clinical to almost aggressive. Should be a series of questions that possibly Jameson (actor) can manipulate depending on audience response)

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-Imagine yourself a child alone in a dark room. Are you tired? Are you afraid? Are you happy or are you helpless?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: o​ ​(An instrumental ripping sound, like claws ripping fabric) o​ ​It waits for you, looming beneath or hidden within, waits for you to scream ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness: o​ ​Don’t close your eyes. The darkness in your mind is thicker than the darkness of the room. ·​ ​No reaction/focus: o​ ​I knew that darkness meant dreams. Dreams brought me closer to you. They brought me closer to the things I could never have.

-Have you ever sat in a park, watching the city around you closing in and closing in?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness: ·​ ​No reaction/focus: -If you could save the hours you’ve wasted, would you really be saving them?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: o​ ​I sat down for a drink. I didn’t know that I wouldn’t remember. Maybe I didn’t want to remember. ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness: ·​ ​No reaction/focus: -Have you ever watched the grey ocean on a placid morning? Did you ask it something? Did it answer?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness ·​ ​No reaction/focus -Does twilight scare you, that moment between light and dark where the earth transitions?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness: ·​ ​No reaction/focus: -If you wake up before your alarm, do you stare at the ceiling…waiting?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: ·​ ​Shift in attention/Alertness: ·​ ​No reaction/focus: 60

-How do you feel when the blare from an ambulance siren wakes you up at night? Would you feel different if it were a fire engine? A police car?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness: o​ ​Blue…red…blue…red…​blue…​red…

BLUE…RED… ·​ ​No reaction/focus: -Can you imagine crushing a blood orange in your hand, the rough exterior caving in until the sticky, red juice runs down your arm?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness: ·​ ​No reaction/focus: -Have you ever felt the weight of ashes in your palm? Did you let the ashes run through your fingers? Did you cry?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness: ·​ ​No reaction/focus: -Have you ever seen eyes completely still as they stare back into yours?

Answers: ·​ ​Agitation: o​ ​Lifeless, grey, dull eyes but they still reached out for me. The ·​ ​Shift in attention/alertness: ·​ ​No reaction/focus: -(Always final question) Imagine a burning house, white paint melting under the licking tongue of the furious heat, destruction weighing on the feeble frame. Are you inside that house? Are you burning too, your skin boiling? Will you die or be force to live?

Answers: (This is where the mind control could shut off without audience knowing so you can make the music match Jameson’s aria) -a woman screaming in a singing voice -a man screaming in a singing voice -No, please, I won’t go. I’m not ready. I’ll give you anything. (repeats)

Jameson: Now I know why I’m living while dying.

Flames scald my flesh, waiting to destroy me.

It lies in wait for us, it bides its time, 61

It burns slow, and in the end consumes.

Hell is in the mind, waiting, waiting.

(Jameson leaves his notebook behind while getting out of the car. He runs through the crowds, or whoever is just outside the car, bumping into the boatman.)

Boatman: Sometimes we come for you, When you least expect it.

You think you understand it all, But you know nothing, nothing.

Technician: (looking out the door) Doctor?

(Addressing audience) I apologize for that, everyone. I guess he’s been under a bit of stress, but no need to worry.

I do hope this experience has been enlightening. You may exit as soon as I have your headband back, and again, we thank you for your help.

(As he is taking back the headbands and escorting to next destination): You know, the doctor is preforming the experiment because he believes that heaven and hell are part of our imagination. Really, it’s quite odd. I get that. Yet, he thinks these places are as real as anything before us. They just stay dormant in our minds until our final moments. That’s why he’s been collecting this data, prodding around in your minds. That’s what you’re helping him decide. He thinks some of us see a bright light, some of us see flames, and that last moment, before you say goodbye, will either save you or haunt you forever. I wonder what he found.

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CHAPTER 21 This Chapter is Missing

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CHAPTER 22 Music: Ellen Reid Text: Mandy Kahn PART 1 Lucha IN HADES I troll the dead-eyed city that lives beneath my city— I visit every alleyway, and lift my lamp-and everywhere an absent man stoops beneath his ravaged coat—molders in his dark and rank cocoon— everywhere an absent man is hunched— tall as Jamie, once— I look in every face— p Under every freeway is a room, where sewage makes the floor— I’ve explored them all— lifting up my lamp— looked in every face— I am followed by eyes flat— faces gaunt and scabbed— voices talking to the night— sometimes making sense— sometimes making luminous sense— Bed to bed, on squatter’s row— my lantern held aloft— silent as a fox— where they spit at me— where they lunge at me— where they reach for me— writhing in their public beds—

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Lucky Orpheus!

When you went to Hades, she was there— still in wedding whites— braiding slowly her clean hair— lilies fresh in her bouquet— lilac live behind one ear— But what flower could live here? all the eyes are dead— mechanical and flat— no lily could live here— and my Jamieson is gone— and no soul can share a clue— and no soul will share this task— he is gone and I am here— all the men he could become, wound up in their clothes— strangled in their public beds— lifting up their raving heads— eyes like onyx doors— teeth like rotting gates— I grow rank, like them— calling out my thick despair— sleeping in my soiled clothes— with an odor in my matted hair— Lucky Orpheus!

Hell he visited— and he left with his fresh bride.

Hades is a virus that has bloomed in me— feasting on my lily skin— sucking out my lilac breath— now it lives in me— now it feasts on me— now it blackens me— 65

now it ages me— I become a part of night— raving through the dark— snuffing out my lamp— searching for a man who’s dead— searching as a cold tar rides my blood and rises in my eyes.

### PART 2 Lucha AND ECHO DUET

Night! I am yours! No one dares to help me— Help me— No one cares to visit— Visit— I grow vile and strange— no one dares to look— Look— Am I turning mad?

Do you speak back?

Speak back— Can you hear me?

Hear me— Can you help me— Help me— You’re like me—cast out and crying out—but maybe not alone— Maybe not alone— Maybe we are two— Two— Calling in this dark— In this dark— Toward someone that hears— 66

Someone that hears— I am wretched—crawling like a mud, with my rank head low— searching like a rat— Like a rat— For some clue, some scrap— hiding from the day—fearful of the dawn—odorous and sad— Sad— You have sadness, too.

No one speaks to me but you.

No one looks at me— Look at me— No one dares to visit— Visit— I can understand.

I can understand.

Then you’ll be my mate.

Night, let my odors, my soiled clothes and mottled, matted hair— my darting, frightened stare— in you reach their blackest bloom.

Underneath your smoked glass and your cold eye, let these rank weeds grow.

Grow— I am dead, in all but fact— tar is in my veins. Wrap me in your shroud.

Bury me alive. Let me hide in your choked air.

Let me match the cold.

Cold.

I am blackest mulch— bury me in rotten air. Black vines, then, will twist up from my hair.

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CHAPTER 23 Animation Writer: Erin Young What could Lucha do in this city full of millions when she only wanted one? She had consulted the police, the obvious thing to do because how could she find Jameson on her own? Orlando was in Paris, and she needed help. But there was nothing for the police to go off, not a single trace to find him, not a drop of blood to claim him dead. Was Jameson dead?

Or did he just leave her, vanish with everything he’d promised her, and disappear into the masses of people where she would never find him again? That was a possibility too. Yet the things he told her, lingered in her mind. He was gone, but the words that dripped with his confessions and vows and love were still seared in her heart. Jameson was gone, but Lucha had to find him.

Lucha stood on the bridge, watching the theater in Hollenbeck Park where they first kissed. A man was lying huddled under blankets, pushed against the back of the stage, trying to find shelter from the rain. Lucha let the water rush over her as she watched this stranger. Could he be Jameson? He wasn’t, though. And neither was the man at the overcrowded bar on Fifth and Hill, or the woman with the Dodger’s cap standing outside the bakery near his apartment, nor the lanky teenager standing on the edge of their secret rooftop looking to the concrete below. Jameson wasn’t amongst the millions.

Lucha drove into the city one evening when the sky was almost dusk and the red of taillights blurred as far as she could see. The clouds above her were threateningly dark, just a strip of orange light left, and everything was still. Not a single car lurched from their frozen positions.

Everything was silent. Her trembling hands were the only sign that the world was still in motion.

Lucha finds Jameson’s headband. She puts it on and experiences something like an electric shock…

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CHAPTER 24 Music: Andrew McIntosh Text: Sarah LaBrie Summary: Car has darkened windows (no chance of seeing outside) Jameson’s red book is left on the seat for the audience to page through.

Strange, the way a thought can send you reeling, everything you thought was the world suddenly dissolving, remaking itself into something new.

Sometimes I think that's what dreams are anyway, other lives, a way to experience all the paths we didn't take in all the worlds we weren't born into, and still wake up safely into the lives we chose, and keep choosing - a way for all the pressure of our unlived lives to dissipate.

Strange how we go about our lives inside our bodies like locked cars with all the windows up.

Where does it come from, this sense that all we have to do is step out of our lives and a better, brighter, newer one will be waiting? This belief that if only everything had been different then everything, now, would be different—different and perfect? If we had made all the right decisions, how do we know we wouldn't have wound up with the same life we have now? And how do we know we didn't make all the right decisions? And that this was where they led us?

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CHAPTER 25 Music: Veronika Krausas Text: Tom Jacobson

Lucha enters the Bradbury Building at the same time as the audience. She doesn't see or acknowledge them, is kind of lost in her own world, seems slightly mad. She is wearing the headband.

LUCHA Am I dreaming?

Looking backward Precariously balanced Ready to fall back?

Is this a dream of everywhere we used to go?

(She goes up in the elevator and looks down -- she spots a fallen man.)

Oh Jameson!

Are you there?

Are you sleeping?

Could it be some accident that keeps you from me, and all I have to do is find you?

Is this a dream?

JAMESON runs past her.

LUCHA No, you’re here!

Jameson! Why don’t you see me?

A Woman in Red appears and Jameson is drawn to her.

Lucha No...don’t tell me…

It was a woman?

An algorithm of love A formula I don't know.

Is this a dream?

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I'll wake him Then he'll come back to me!

She's just Imagination Or psychic manifestation, A message, a prediction, a revelation?

If he will look at me, all will be well If I wake up, he’ll look at me And come home If I see more, this dream will kill me If I can scream I will wake up And he will see me!

All I need to do is SCREAM!!

Lucha's last sung note turns into a stylized scream, a musical shriek, weird and shocking. A guitar player appears.

GUITAR PLAYER Is all time simultaneous, A billion universes precariously balanced, Ready to fall forward or back?

LUCHA I know that song…

GUITAR PLAYER The uncertainty principle is love When you know where you are You don’t know how fast you’re going If you know your speed You can’t see where you are.

LUCHA I wish I was dreaming...

GUITAR PLAYER Alternate universes Quantum universes Parallel dimensions Parallel worlds Parallel hell 71

Alternate realities Alternate timelines Love is all I know I may imagine you in my past and in my future It may be a dream.

LUCHA The past...the past‌ The past has swallowed you up.

And I can’t bring you back.

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CHAPTER 26 Music: David Rosenboom Text: Erin Young (Lucha is walking around having just woken to a new and strange world, close to the river gate. She looks desperate, run down.)

Lucha: Every morning I wake in a new place of disbelief, a new realm of heartbreak, but what fresh torture have I come to now?

Am I no longer in my own city?

And yet, I’d leave it all behind, everything I once knew.

What’s left if Jameson’s gone?

How can I live in perdition alone?

While my flesh burns, I can only weep for him.

(Looking for him, said weakly) Jameson?

(She comes to the gate to find the boatman and a barrage of sound, the swarming behind him.)

Lucha: Please, sir.

Can you tell me where I am?

Boatman: A place you don’t belong.

But I can see that wouldn’t trouble you, not after the struggle you’ve endured to find him.

Oh, you’re surprise are you, that I knew?

Yes, your precious Jameson passed this way.

Lucha: Jameson? But I’ve been looking everywhere! If it’s him...

Boatman: It’s him, but I can’t let you through.

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I can see that you love him, but passion alone won’t save anyone in this place.

Lucha: Save us from what?

Boatman: This place of sorrows and dying souls.

(The whispers turn into sounds of wolves, large dogs, scary things. Lucha is afraid, looking past the Boatman) Lucha: But this couldn’t be…

How could he end up here?

Boatman: How does anyone end up here?

No one gets through this gate before their time, Lucha.

(The swarming, horrifying music drowns them out.)

Lucha: You won’t turn me ‘way.

I’ve gone to the ends of the city.

I endured a hundred sleepless nights.

I’ve finally crossed into this horrific realm, and no terror will separate us now.

Boatman: If you have no fear, I take pity on you.

I’ll let you pass, but give you one warning, a fool’s grace.

Follow the music. Do not stray.

(She hears a sweet melody from beyond the opening and follows it.)

(Lucha enters, crosses river to find Jameson) Lucha: (falling upon him) Jameson! Can this be real?

Oh, I thought I lost you forever.

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Jameson: (fearful) Lucha? No! Don’t fall on me. How could you follow me to these depths?

Lucha: Do you think I could abandon you?

I won’t let you disappear like everyone else.

You said you would help me find myself, and I’m lost without you.

Jameson: (curling on the ground, pushing her away) You’re lost with me, Lucha.

Leave me here in this place of my own design.

(The music begins leaving them. Lucha is afraid of losing it, as she was told to follow. She pulls at Jameson but he won’t come. The sweet music leaves and she is left with scary music/ maybe drones. It gets louder, more fearful and angry.)

Lucha: Why won’t you come with me?

We’ll both die if we stay here, together but afraid.

Jameson: How is that any different from the way we were before?

(Lucha is taken aback. The sweet music is getting further away, the horrible music swarming upon her, and tears her from Jameson, pushing her further down the river where she finds her father. He looks to her, and she is no longer afraid but confused and shocked.)

Lucha: Father? You’re here too…

Then this really must be…

Father: Lucha, what are you doing here?

You must leave.

Lucha: Oh Father, ​I can’t.

I came to find Jameson, but he won’t come away with me.

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Father: This isn’t your time!

You should have listened when the boatman told you to turn away. Can’t you see the stars will die, and your skies will plummet to the ground?

Your city will crumble, and the buildings will be nothing more than dust.

Lucha: Would I be here if I wanted it any other way?

Do you see a city where it and me are whole?

I’m ready. Let the world fall.

For me, it already has.

Father: So you think. So you’ve created in your mind.

But this apocalypse will rage until you end it yourself, Lucha.

Make heaven of this hell.

(Music, dancing while the characters are swept up into the underworld of hell) Lucha/Jameson/Father: (repeating line) This hell!

(Lucha hears sweet music again, it breaks her from the trance that was overcoming her.)

Lucha: Must I make heaven of this hell?

Lucha: (she yells as she begins to escape, following the sweet music once more) Father! Jameson!

Father: Save yourself!

(Some musician or singer/dancer brings her back to the lighter music the boatman told her to follow. Encouraged by her father’s words, Lucha follows the music out.)

Lucha: How do you start over again?

How do you leave someone behind?

How do you save yourself and change your life, making paradise in a world of fire?

(She follows the sweet music out.)

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CHAPTER 27 Animation (No spoken text) The same traffic situation as Chapter 23 – her stuck in the car and still looking electrocuted by the headband as images from the previous three chapters flash before her eyes.

She rips the headband off and hears the voice from the phone call in Chapter 14 sing: "A thousand streets lead into one great road, ​and no gate blocks your way."

Suddenly the traffic begins to flow and the rain stops -- or she is simply alone on the road, surreally. She notices the scar on her cheek, as if it was fresh from the lash at Hell. She begins to hum.

She begins to pull herself together…

She drives home and sees Orlando, with a suitcase, back from Paris, waiting for her. She falls into his arms.

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CHAPTER 28 Text: Jane Rosenthal Music: Michelle Shocked

LUCHA: None of this I remember. Everything has bent a little. Like that time we went out to the desert and we took ORLANDO: (Smiling) You have to trust to remember.

LUCHA: (tracing her finger along the window pane) Shadows.

ORLANDO: Things change.

LUCHA: (Then suddenly it’s like she becomes a little girl again) Oh! There! Our laundro-mat! Oh! Let’s go in! Let’s take all our clothes off and and and. Nos pondremos a través del lavado!

(Continued) Y allí! The diner that closed and then re-opened and then closed again and now New Management. The food is still not very good.

CHORUS: (ORLANDO) And things come back again. One instance braiding itself with the next. The hands taking time over and under and over and then suddenly things align. Sometimes in order, sometimes not. Because life is a series of unanswered questions. And as we begin to make our sense of things – time folding and unfolding itself we find faith. God or no God. But a center. A place to hold on to. In the body. Where all the memories are stored.

LUCHA: 78

(Continued) I used to love to walk. Suddenly feeling connected.

ORLANDO: Feet making it’s own music on the concrete. Walking to the car in the morning. Noticing the mountains. All the neighborhood dogs.

LUCHA: Seeing not just streets but green. Different doors. Counting the ones I liked. I saw the sky. I never see the sky any more.

CHORUS: (LUCHA) And things come back again. One instance braiding itself with the next. The hands taking time over and under and over and then suddenly things align. Sometimes in order, sometimes not. Because life is a series of unanswered questions. And as we begin to make our sense of things – time folding and unfolding itself we find faith. God or no God. But a center. A place to hold on to. In the body. Where all the memories are stored.

ORLANDO: And it’s the sky remains you just have to take the time to look at it.

LUCHA Oh! And that. The coffee shop where – where we met. You were wearing a suit. You were the only one wearing a suit. You were so tall and handsome.

ORLANDO: And you were carrying your huge bag.

LUCHA: I spilled coffee all over that suit.

(Then after a beat.)

The accident.

CHORUS: (LUCHA and ORLANDO)

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And things come back again. One instance braiding itself with the next. The hands taking time over and under and over and then suddenly things align. Sometimes in order, sometimes not. Because life is a series of unanswered questions. And as we begin to make our sense of things – time folding and unfolding itself we find faith. God or no God. But a center. A place to hold on to. In the body. Where all the memories are stored.

In the neck.

In the stomach.

In the back.

In the knees.

Sometimes you have to create your own. Like a dream where you all of a sudden become the savior.

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CHAPTER 29 Animation Text: Janine Salinas Schoenberg Orlando speaks in Spanish, with English titles.

Summary: Orlando and Lucha re-marry at City Hall. Lucha’s hair changing to gray, losing its red. Creativity blooms again as the two begin working together again as a duo (new instrument for Orlando, she sings and plays guitar). The two start at small locations around LA and become something of local legends. They have adopted a child who lost her parents.

Although Lucha is fully back to herself, memories still unexpectedly haunt her, like when a motorcycle drives by...

ORLANDO (Voice-over) It seems our lives are divided up into a series of stories. With only the passage of time showing us the pages that are yet to be written. And as much as we would like to skip through certain chapters, we must experience them to get to where we ultimately need to be.

Through the journeys of love and loss, we come to understand who we really are and what our true purpose is. Once the layers are stripped away, all that is left are our deepest, most unfulfilled desires. Only then do we realize what we need most in this world.

Lucha and I were always meant to be together. But first, I needed to mourn the loss of the woman who had been my first love. My wife. But how do you let go when you are constantly surrounded by memories? Every street corner, every mural, every hazy pink and gold sunset in this city reminded me of her. And no matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t escape the life we had.

And so I left Los Angeles for Europe with only a small suitcase in tow. I wanted to be like Horacio in Cortazar’s novel, to roam Paris for meaning and inspiration. I needed to find my center again, and I knew that the city’s streets would help guide me.

I rented a room above a shoe repair shop owned by an older Algerian man. He reminded me of my father, only he was much gentler. We would have tea together in the afternoons and talk about our lives. He too had lost his wife a few years before. And I could tell that the large hole she had left in his heart would never be filled.

I washed dishes at a café during most of my days. My nights were spent drinking wine with other local artists I met on the street. I laughed, danced, cried, and lived during that time.

The one thing I did not do was make art. I simply couldn’t.

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Then, one morning, I woke up thinking of Lucha. My heart was heavy with the thought of her.

And I needed to go back home. I was ready to see her again.

She was more beautiful than ever. Her hair had started to lose its scarlet hue. Now turning gray. And lines formed around her eyelids when she laughed. But her enormous hazel eyes still shined the same way they always had.

It was only a matter of seconds before she fell into my arms. The only time I have ever seen her vulnerable. I held her until we both knew that we would never let go again. We made love for the first time that night like two young lovers beneath the sheets.

We stayed up all night. She admitted that she still felt haunted by certain things that reminded her of Jameson, like motorcycles. But we were both finally ready to transform. To grow old together, and leave the past behind.

CHAPTER 29 - Translation Pareciera que nuestras vidas se han dividido en una serie de historias. Con tan sólo el paso del tiempo que nos muestra las páginas que aún no se han escrito. Y por mucho que nos gustaría omitir ciertos capítulos, sabemos que deberíamos experimentarlos para llegar en última instancia, donde tenemos que estar.

A través de los viajes de amor y pérdida, llegamos a comprender quienes realmente somos y cuál es nuestro verdadero propósito en la vida. Una vez que las capas son despojados, todo lo que nos queda son nuestros más profundos deseos incumplidos. Sólo entonces nos damos cuenta de lo que más necesitamos en este mundo.

Lucha y Yo teníamos que estar juntos, ese era nuestro destino. Pero primero yo necesitaba tiempo para lamentar la perdida de la mujer que había sido mi primer amor. Mi esposa.

Como se puede dejar ir los recuerdos cuando te rodean, cada esquina, cada mural, cada bajada del sol me hacia pensar en ella. No importando lo mucho que trataba, simplemente no podía escapar de la vida que habíamos pasado juntos.

Y así me fui de Los Angeles para Europa con sólo una pequeña maleta a cuestas. Yo quería ser como Horacio en la novela de Cortázar, para recorrer París en busca de sentido e inspiración. Necesitaba encontrar mi propio centro nuevamente, sabiendo que las calles de la ciudad, me guiarían hacia el.

Alquile un cuartito encima de una zapatería de un señor Argelino. El me hacia recordar mucho a mi padre, pero era mucho mas gentil. Todas las tardes tomábamos te y

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hablábamos de nuestras vidas. El también había perdido a su mujer hacia unos anos, y se notaba el vacío que eso le había dejado en el corazón.

Durante el dia yo lavaba platos en un café, y pasaba mis noches con los bohemios locales tomando vino y charlando. Yo reía, bailaba , lloraba y vivía mi vida, lo único que no podía hacer era crear arte, sencillamente se me hacia imposible.

Una mañana me levante pensando en Lucha. Sentí algo en mi corazón y me di cuenta que tenia que volver a casa. Me tocaba verla.

Ella estaba mas linda que nunca. Su cabello había perdido su color rojizo tornándose canoso. Cuando se reía se formaban unas líneas alrededor de sus párpados. Pero sus enormes ojos de color avellana todavía tenían el mismo brillo de siempre.

Nos abrazamos y por primera vez la sentí vulnerable. La tuve en mis brazos por un largo tiempo sabiendo que nunca mas la iba a dejar. Haciendo el amor por primera vez esa noche, parecíamos dos jóvenes amantes bajo las sabanas.

Nos quedamos despiertos toda la noche. Ella admitió que todavía se sentía atormentado por ciertas cosas que le recordaban de Jameson, como las motocicletas. Pero ambos estábamos finalmente listos para cambiar. Para envejecer juntos, y dejar atrás el pasado.

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CHAPTER 31 Music: Marc Lowenstein Text: Tom Jacobson The audience follows Lucha into the Million Dollar Theater. She is distraught and makes her way through the auditorium.

Lucha A leaf floating, spinning, at the mercy of the current.

Helpless, nothing to hold onto. A familiar story--I know it!--what was it? It meant a lot to me years ago, but not that night. Of course it was sad--it was an opera! You cried. You knew I was about to laugh and you gripped my arm so I wouldn't embarrass you. Why'd you bring me, Jameson?

A TENOR is illuminated on stage alone.

Lucha An aria, no, a recitative of all things-Tenor (Singing) Possente Spirto

Lucha Everything else disappeared--

TENOR E formidabil nume-- [Mighty spirit and fearsome deity]

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Lucha This awful passion--this desperate voice.

TENOR Senza cui far passaggio a l'altra riva [without whom passage to the other shore] Alma da corpo sciolta in van presume. [The soul separated from its body cannot make] Lucha (Singing) Begging, pleading-Bargaining with someone-As Lucha speaks and sings, the TENOR may freeze, sing silently, hold one note, repeat a syllable or continue under Lucha.

TENOR Non viv'io, no-[I am not living: no--] Che poi di vita è priva [Since deprived of life]

Lucha But who? What does he want?

TENOR Mia cara sposa, il cor non è più meco [Is my dear wife, my heart no longer remains with me]

Lucha But why? Why does he cry?

Why do you, Jameson?

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TENOR E senza cor com'esser può ch'io viva?

[And without a heart, how can it be that I am alive?]

Lucha I wish you could tell me.

I wish you were here.

I wish I knew Italian!

TENOR A lei volt'ho 'l camin-- [To her I have made my way] Per l'aer cieco [Through the turbid air] Lucha I remember--he's looking for his wife!

She died!

She disappeared.

You disappeared.

TENOR A l'Inferno non giĂ , ch'ovunque stassi [yet not to Hades, for wherever] Lucha She went to hell!

Did you?

TENOR Tanta bellezza il paradiso ha seco.

[Such beauty is found has paradise in it.]

Orfeo son io [I am Orpheus] Lucha But I will find you-Every place that we went together To find where you've gone.

TENOR 86

[who follow Eurydice's steps] S​egue per queste tenebrose arene-- [Through these murky deserts] Ove già mai per uom mortal non vassi. [Where no mortal man has ever trod.]

O de le luci mie luci serene [O serene light of my eyes] Lucha To our picnic in the park Where we first went together Then driving TENOR S'un vostro sguardo può tornarmi in vita [If one glance from you can restore me to life] Lucha To Chinatown Where I had my fortune told Then driving

TENOR Ahi, chi nega il conforto a le mie pene?

[Ah, who would deny me solace in my anguish?]

Sol tu, nobile dio puoi darmi aita [You alone, noble god, can give me aid] Lucha To the cemetery No, not to the cemetery!

Then driving Driving

TENOR Che d'Euridice i passi

TENOR Nè temer dei, ché sopra un'aurea Cetra [Nor need fear, since I arm my fingers only] 87

Lucha To the river He wants to cross the river His love across the river I remember now I remember That's where he went That's where you've gone Driving Driving To the river I'll cross the river With you TENOR Sol di corde soavi armo le dita [With sweet strings on a golden lyre] Lucha This is why you cried Because you knew I'd remember You made me remember TENOR Contra cui rigida alma invan s'impetra.

[Against which the most obdurate spirit steels itself in vain.]

The light goes out on the tenor.

Lucha The leaf in the river The memory of a moment That's all you get Catching on wet stone

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Then swirling on

Don't cross without me!

Don't cross! Don't cross!

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CHAPTER 32 Music: Andrew Norman Text: Yuval Sharon and Jose Ortega y Gasset, ​Meditations on Quixote The Reader pulls Meditations on Quixote ​off a bookshelf and begins reading. At a certain point, he enters a car, where a musician dressed as Orlando is playing a strand from the Finale.

When they enter the car, the following voice-over is heard:

Who is this young man I’m watching? How beautiful, the way he glows as he reads this book. Someone before him has put into words the thoughts he has been struggling to say, the ideas he has always suspected to be true. He reads this book and feels recognized. He is addressed from across generations, the voice saying, “It’s me, Orlando. It’s me.”

What an unbelievable moment, finding that book on accident. “​This,” I thought, “This is what life is all about.” And then life actually happened. Like when Sarita died and I thought the pain would last forever. When I made a mess of my feelings and all I could do was escape. Barely recognizable as myself.

And now I’ve come back. I never could have imagined that Lucha and I would be together – that we would adopt a child, a girl so beautiful, just at the beginning of her own journey. Those things you can never predict. But here we are, as if it all fell right into place, exactly at the right time.

Now I’m starting to see how I add up. I drive along the streets that contain so many simultaneous me’s. And sometimes I wonder: which one is me now, and which one is me then?

Text from Ortega y Gasset, read in Spanish: READER: Circumstance! ​Circum stantia! That is, the mute things which are all around us. Very close to us they raise their silent faces with an expression of humility and eagerness as if they needed our acceptance of their offering and at the same time were ashamed of the apparent simplicity of their gift. We walk blindly among them, our gaze fixed on remote enterprises, embarked upon the conquest of distant schematic cities. Few books have moved me as much as those stories in which the hero goes forward, impetuous and straight as an arrow, towards a glorious goal, without noticing the anonymous maiden who, secretly in love with him, walks beside him with a humble and suppliant look, carrying within her white body a 90

heart which burns for him, like a red-hot coal on which incense is burned in his honor. We should like to signal to the hero for him to turn his eyes for a moment towards that passion-inflamed flower which is at his feet. All of us are heroes in varying degrees and we all arouse humble loves around us. “I have been a fighter / And this means I have been a man,” exclaims Goethe. We are heroes, we are forever struggling for something far away, and trample upon fragrant violets as we go. …

We have devoted all our serious efforts to the administration of society, to the strengthening of the State, to social culture, to social struggles, to the knowledge of science as a technique for enriching collective life. It would have seemed frivolous to devote a part of our best energies -- and not only what was left over -- to organize friendship around us, to build up a perfect love, to see in the enjoyment of things a dimension of life which deserves to be cultivated with the best methods; and the same may be said of a multitude of private needs which shamefacedly hide themselves in the corners of our mind because they are not granted their rights, that is, their cultural significance. …

Culture presents us with objects already purified which once possessed a spontaneous and immediate life, and which now, thanks to our reflective process, seem free from space and time, from corruption and caprice. They form, as it were, a zone of ideal and abstract life, floating above this personal existence of ours, always so uncertain and problematical.

Individual life, the immediate, the circumstance, are different names for the same thing: those parts of life from which their inner spirit, their ​logos, has not yet been extracted. Since spirit and ​logos are nothing but “meaning,” connectedness, and unity, all that is individual, immediate, and circumstantial appears to be accidental and meaningless.

We ought to consider that social life as well as the other forms of culture are given to us in the form of individual life, of the immediate. What we today receive already decorated with sublime aureoles once had to contract and shrink in order to pass through a man’s heart. All that is recognized today as truth, as perfect beauty, as highly valuable, was once born in the inner spirit of an individual, mixed with his whims and humors. We should not let our acquired culture become hieratic, as it will if we are more concerned with repeating than increasing it. …

All that is general, all that has been learned, achieved in culture is only the tactical turn which we have to take in order to cope with the immediate. those who live near a cataract do not notice its roar; it is necessary for us to put some distance between our immediate surroundings and ourselves so that they may acquire meaning in our eyes.

The Egyptians believed that the valley of the Nile was the whole world. Such a statement about a circumstance is monstrous and, contrary to what it might appear, impoverishes its significance. Certain minds show their basic weakness when they cannot become interested in a thing unless they delude themselves into thinking that it is the whole or the best in the world. … Only parts do exist in fact; the whole is an abstraction of the parts and it depends on them. …

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When shall we open our minds to the conviction that the ultimate reality of the world is neither matter nor spirit, is no definite thing, but a perspective? … Now, a perspective is perfected by the multiplication of its viewpoints and the precision with which we react to each one of its planes. The intuition of higher values fertilizes our contact with the lesser ones, and love for what is near and small makes the sublime real and effective within our hearts. For the person for whom small things do not exist, the great is not great.

We must try to find for our circumstance, such as it is, and precisely in its very limitation and peculiarity, its appropriate place in the immense perspective of the world. We must not stop in perpetual ecstasy before hieratic values, but conquer the right place among them for our individual life. In short, the reabsorption of circumstance is the concrete destiny of man. …

My natural exit toward the universe is through the mountain passes of the Guadarrama or the plain of Ontigola. This sector of circumstantial reality forms the other half of my person; only through it can I integrate myself and be fully myself. The most recent biological science studies the living organism as a unit composed of the body and its particular environment so that the life process consists not only of the adaptation of the body to its environment but also of the adaptation of the environment to its body. The hand tries to adjust itself to the material object in order to grasp it firmly; but at the same time, each material object conceals a previous affinity with a particular hand.

I am myself plus my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I cannot save myself. …

For there is nothing on earth through which some divine nerve does not pass: the difficulty lies in reaching this nerve and making it react. To the friends who are hesitating to enter his kitchen, Heraclitus cries: “Come in, come in! The gods are here too.” …

With respect to the minutiae, it is high time for us to overcome the latent modern hypocrisy of pretending to be interested only in certain sacred conventions -- science, art, or society -and of reserving, as we were bound to do, the innermost recesses of our being for the trivial and even the physiological. The fact is that when we have reached the depths of pessimism and do not seem to find anything positive enough in the universe to save us, our eyes turn towards the small things of daily living -- as dying men remember on the point of death the most trifling things that happened to them. We see, then, that it is not the ​great things, the great pleasures, nor the great ambitions which keep us alive upon the face of the earth, but the moment of comfort near a hearth in winter, the pleasant sensation of a drink of liqueur, the attractive gait of a pretty girl we neither love nor know, the amusing remark and pleasing voice of a witty friend.

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CHAPTER 33 Music: Ellen Reid Text: Mandy Kahn HOPSCOTCH/TOY FACTORY ROOFTOP (​In the elevator:) LUCHA Something twists inside me. Something twists inside, throbs inside twists inside me. (she seems almost to thrash in apparent discomfort.)

What is this, what is this that has risen to declare itself?

I’m dying to be light.

How do I free myself? (​She emerges onto the rooftop.)

Look at all this air –

(she moves to another area of the roof and sees Jameson on another rooftop, far away) And what’s this?

Here’s a scene in which I star, A future life that never came to be – And there I am, waiting for my vanished love to wander home.

And there I am, the bride of the loss Married to his absence I am wild to set this free.

I am dying to be light.

(She moves to another area of the rooftop.)

And what's this? (​She sees another version of Jameson on another rooftop.)

A second future where he came back

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another life that never came to be after all those years spent lost, he came back Oh Jameson, Why can’t I let this go?

I want to be free, I want to be light.

I am dying to be light. (​A version of Jameson appears on the same rooftop as her.)

And what's this?

Are those our children Shoeless in the grass Hunting for crickets with jars?

Jameson, I can’t lose this again - !

No I can't let this one go again.

(Anguished) (She bends over, overcome – but then she rises – pauses – stands - ) I let you go, Jameson I set you free, Jameson I set you free, cathedral of longing.

I set you free, Jameson, I set you free. (quiet, thoughtful) I feel my powers now I feel my powers now The city falls in step with me Oh, I feel my powers now – This city is orchestral.

I lift its baton.

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CHAPTER 34 Animation Text: Jane Stephens Rosenthal

It was as if Lucha had all of a sudden gotten her arms back. Her hands back. Her legs back.

Her ribs. Her chest. Her knees. Standing on that rooftop, feeling the breeze move underneath her dress. She had nothing left to hold on to. No before, (no Jameson), no after, no what ifs, no where is. She had no other body but her own. She came down from the rooftop. She changed. Then one day going through the mail she caught a flash of red through the bills. She tore at everything until she was holding that beat up red notebook. It was Jameson’s. She was astounded. Turning the pages she ran her fingers over their wedding date. Jameson’s name. ​I love you. She went through page after page over and over again. Jameson’s handwriting made her dizzy. He had chronicled everything. And then on the very last page she found her face. And underneath it in Jameson’s loose scrawl ​Lucha Lucha Lucha. She felt her hands on the pages. She felt her heart beating in it’s place, her legs folded around the kitchen chair. She closed the book and she buried it in the back yard.

Spring turned into Summer, into Autumn and back again. Lucha’s peace remained and her everyday living became her thread. Her daughter grew up. She and Orlando grew older and slicing lemons, and making coffee, and wiping down her kitchen counter kept her centered.

She began to jog. And then one day without knowing how she got there Lucha found herself driving along a street she had never seen before. Downtown LA seemed to stretch further and further away from her. She could feel the dust of her city, of all the accumulation of living.

A fire truck went by. She covered her ears against the wail and closed her eyes. When she opened them she found she was parked outside a huge abandoned warehouse. She moved towards the door. Placed her hands upon them. She stepped inside the quiet and as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light she saw that the only thing in the room was a blue rotary phone. She stepped toward it. She thought of her mother. She picked up the receiver.

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CHAPTER 35 Music: Marc Lowenstein Text: Mandy Kahn Lucha makes a call.

VOICE ON PHONE Hello?

LUCHA Your voice, your delicate voice Steam from the bath VOICE ON PHONE I don’t understand…

LUCHA It’s me, Lucha...

Your voice is like the steam curling up from mother’s bath If only you can hear You are like a steam curling up from Madre’s bath delicate and warm if only you could hear…

VOICE ON PHONE Are you someone I know?

LUCHA It’s me, Lucha It’s me, Lucha It’s me, it’s me, Lucha I’m the person you’ll become.

VOICE ON PHONE No, I’m serious, who is this?

LUCHA You can’t see I’m you, we can never

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I have placed this call through time Time is happening all at once VOICE ON PHONE Did you just say “time is happening all at once?”

LUCHA A thousand streets lead into one great path and no gate blocks your way.

VOICE ON PHONE This is getting creepy.

LUCHA I, who you’ll become someone made of peace which will come when you allow in allowance is all peace in acceptance is all calm in acceptance is all calm and within that calm is joy and that joy can cross all time…

VOICE ON PHONE I’m sorry, I have to go…

What about my mother’s ring? with an opal like the moon seen from a basement and two rubies like the day I pricked my hand.

Set in gaudy gold. Mother’s ring.

It’s safe inside a drawer

LUCHA A thousand streets lead into one great path and no gate blocks your way.

One thing Lucha, the ring Mother’s ring with an opal like the moon seen through bottle glass and two rubies like the day you pricked your hand set in molten gold, mother’s ring

Don’t keep it in a drawer Don’t hide it in a box 97

It is hidden in a box Wear it every day I won’t speak of mother’s ring warm it with your pulse and how do you know it’s shape?

Who is this?

Mother’s ring I can’t look at Mother’s ring Let the ring Rubies like the day I pricked console you, warm it with your skin my hand just to see my blood after they had died Opal like the moon through blue church windows… and a pair of rubies and a pair of rubies one for papa, one for mama one for papa, one for mama How it burns my skin Wear them on your skin how it stings my eyes let them charge your pulse and a pair of Rubies and a pair of Rubies one for papa, one for madre one for loving, one for guidance and an opal for having survived and, and opal All their love for being left behind is in a drawer where it can’t help I’ve had enough loss pull it out of its cocoon for one life.

A thousand streets, A thousand streets, a thousand streets, a thousand streets, lead into one great path a thousand streets, and no gate blocks your way. a thousand streets, No gate blocks your way.

And an opal for the girl they never left a thousand… quiet as the moon seen through bottle glass.

There’s a box There’s a day beyond the loss that holds the loss that will open like a door. with a keyhole There’s a place where you can see like a door There’s a place where you can see all your fingers are a hand. and I keep it in a drawer All the moments you have spent and outside that drawer braid together to a play and the pain is speed will black your eyes, but your hand will feel a door when I’m busy and I’m fast. and beyond it is a peace that is fragrant There’s no box inside my drawer

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I forget I have no peace I forget I live in loss.

Loss is structured like all time I won’t let it hold me down with its fragrance like a tomb with its color like tar and its claim upon my time I will move across my day and the faster that I run means the less that I will feel and the pushing of my youth will propel me into age and that will be a room that is quiet as a field that is lighted as a dusk that is handsome as a dream and forgetfulness is there and forgetfulness is home there is a place where I there’s a place where I forget that I live my days in love it is lighted like a dusk as handsome as a dream.

as a grass.

Love is structured like all time I will meet you in that room which is fragrant as a field which is lighted like a dusk and is structured like all time I will meet you in that room that is open as a field, that is stirring as a dawn that’s a window in no wall where the pushing of your youth and the pulling of my age and that is a room that is fragrant as a field, that is lighted as a dusk that is handsome as a dream in allowance all is peace and that place is your true home in allowance is all peace and in peace we all connect it is lighted like a dusk it is fragrant as a field.

Hello? Hello?

(Hangs up.)

Goodbye.

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CHAPTER 36 (Epilogue) Music: Andrew Norman Text: Jane Stephens Rosenthal All routes Still needing to go to the market, to change the sheets, to do the dishes, to feed the cat, to cut the roses, to gather up the leaves. To get the transmission looked at, to get the hair trimmed, to listen to the messages, to return the phone call, to shave, to finish the book, to go for a run, to turn the phone off at night, to cook the chicken, to steam the broccoli, to turn on the rice. There is a breeze. To wash out the coffee pot, to go to the meeting, to find the center, to make the date, to remember the present, to not forget everyone’s names, to close the windows, to lock the doors, to pray, to get the mail, to find the center, to go to the post office, to read the paper, to donate to the candidate, to not worry.

The fall does come.

To change the light bulbs, to learn how to value, to not be shamed, to take care of the raccoons, to find the best plants for shade, to text the sister in law, to not think about babies, to not think about the freeway, to book the flights, to not mention the money, to call the sponsor, to do the steps, to clean the blender, to give away the clothes, to wipe down the baseboards, to find the bathtub, to balance the checkbook, to pay the bills, to check the bank account, to cash the check, there is a breeze, to remember the scenery does change.

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