© Adam Granger
I WILL
3-12-3
[SONG INTRO]
[COMPUTER KEYBOARD CLICKING]
MAN: (reading as he types) Hi, honey. I know I said I’d get in touch yesterday, but the plane was late and the people who fetched me at the airport wanted to take me out to dinner. We went to a restaurant called The Skillet and Crossbones that had a pirate theme. I ordered “Pieces of Egg”. For dessert I had, at the waiter’s insistence, a “Jelly Roger”. I didn’t really want dessert, but it’s hard to refuse a man dressed like a pirate and brandishing a sabre. Oh, and my meal was discounted because I talked like a parrot when I ordered. The place seemed like it was trying too hard to me, but the locals are proud of it, so I acted the gracious diner. By the way, everyone remarked on my sandals: I don’t think they wear them here.
After dinner, it was to my hosts’ house and to bed. The organization running the symposium has put me up in the home of an older gay couple named Roger and Henry. They’re very quiet and refined. I feel like Joe Palooka at a cotillion. I’m afraid I’m going to break something, or put it in the wrong place. Roger’s got state-of-the-art computer gear all over the house, and they’re both consumed with computer technology. They have a dog named Browser.
That’s all for now. I read my paper at the symposium tomorrow; I’ll let you know how it goes. Kiss everyone for me. Lots of love. . .
PS It’s disconcerting sleeping without you; it’s as though someone rearranged the furniture and forgot to tell me.
[SONG]
WOMAN: Hi, dear. It was nice to hear from you. I miss you, even after all these years together, or maybe it’s especially after all these years together. I feel lucky to miss you; does that make sense?
I’m sorry your dinner was more form than substance. I hope you can make up for it today with your usual fare. They must sell cocktail wieners and saltines and mandarin oranges in the stores there.
All is well here. The house is big and quiet without you. I was having coffee in the kitchen this morning, and I started thinking about the time I broke my ankle changing a light bulb in the attic, and how you got home just as the ambulance was leaving to take me to the hospital. And how good it was to have you there, and how alone I would have been if you hadn’t been. It made me wonder how things will be for us when we’re eighty. Will we both make it to eighty? Who will be helping whom? Will you still be off delivering papers, but emeritus now? And, if you are, by what means will we be communicating? Good night; I love you. . .
PS If I make you Pieces of Egg and a Jelly Roger when you get home, will you talk like a parrot for me?
[SONG]
MAN: Hi, honey. The paper went fine today. If people had objections to my position, they kept them to themselves. The older I get, the more I like that. Leave full-face confrontation to the young firebrands. If my audience receives me with benign smiles and a low-keyed but heartfelt respect, and looks the other way at what they mistakenly consider flaws in my theories, that’s fine with me.
Roger and Henry set me up with a computer that could listen to what I say and write it down. I started using it to compose this letter to you , but every time Browser barked, the computer printed a British pound sign. The result looked like a page from The London Financial Times, so I’m back to typing. It’s all right, actually; I’ve heard myself speak plenty in the last twenty-four hours. It’s your voice I want to hear, not mine.
I wonder what your voice will sound like when we’re eighty? Will its sonorousness be compromised by tremulousness? Will the qualities that I love about your voice increase or diminish?
I’m heading off to bed, honey. I’ll see you tomorrow. My plane arrives at 6:58 pm. Can you still pick me up? Look for a slightly haggard fifty-five-year-old man in sandals who talks like a parrot.
[SONG]
WOMAN: Hi, dear. I’m glad the paper went well; I knew it would. If, in fact, your audience received you with, as you say, “benign smiles and a low-keyed but heartfelt respect”, consider that they, too, are getting older.
Your mother called to ask if you could take her and your dad to get him some slippers. I said I you’d call when you got back. She always comments on how much you do for them, and what a loving son you are. After I hung up, it struck me that they’re eighty.
I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow. It makes my timbers shiver to think of it. . .
[SONG]
3-12-3
[SONG INTRO]
[COMPUTER KEYBOARD CLICKING]
MAN: (reading as he types) Hi, honey. I know I said I’d get in touch yesterday, but the plane was late and the people who fetched me at the airport wanted to take me out to dinner. We went to a restaurant called The Skillet and Crossbones that had a pirate theme. I ordered “Pieces of Egg”. For dessert I had, at the waiter’s insistence, a “Jelly Roger”. I didn’t really want dessert, but it’s hard to refuse a man dressed like a pirate and brandishing a sabre. Oh, and my meal was discounted because I talked like a parrot when I ordered. The place seemed like it was trying too hard to me, but the locals are proud of it, so I acted the gracious diner. By the way, everyone remarked on my sandals: I don’t think they wear them here.
After dinner, it was to my hosts’ house and to bed. The organization running the symposium has put me up in the home of an older gay couple named Roger and Henry. They’re very quiet and refined. I feel like Joe Palooka at a cotillion. I’m afraid I’m going to break something, or put it in the wrong place. Roger’s got state-of-the-art computer gear all over the house, and they’re both consumed with computer technology. They have a dog named Browser.
That’s all for now. I read my paper at the symposium tomorrow; I’ll let you know how it goes. Kiss everyone for me. Lots of love. . .
PS It’s disconcerting sleeping without you; it’s as though someone rearranged the furniture and forgot to tell me.
[SONG]
WOMAN: Hi, dear. It was nice to hear from you. I miss you, even after all these years together, or maybe it’s especially after all these years together. I feel lucky to miss you; does that make sense?
I’m sorry your dinner was more form than substance. I hope you can make up for it today with your usual fare. They must sell cocktail wieners and saltines and mandarin oranges in the stores there.
All is well here. The house is big and quiet without you. I was having coffee in the kitchen this morning, and I started thinking about the time I broke my ankle changing a light bulb in the attic, and how you got home just as the ambulance was leaving to take me to the hospital. And how good it was to have you there, and how alone I would have been if you hadn’t been. It made me wonder how things will be for us when we’re eighty. Will we both make it to eighty? Who will be helping whom? Will you still be off delivering papers, but emeritus now? And, if you are, by what means will we be communicating? Good night; I love you. . .
PS If I make you Pieces of Egg and a Jelly Roger when you get home, will you talk like a parrot for me?
[SONG]
MAN: Hi, honey. The paper went fine today. If people had objections to my position, they kept them to themselves. The older I get, the more I like that. Leave full-face confrontation to the young firebrands. If my audience receives me with benign smiles and a low-keyed but heartfelt respect, and looks the other way at what they mistakenly consider flaws in my theories, that’s fine with me.
Roger and Henry set me up with a computer that could listen to what I say and write it down. I started using it to compose this letter to you , but every time Browser barked, the computer printed a British pound sign. The result looked like a page from The London Financial Times, so I’m back to typing. It’s all right, actually; I’ve heard myself speak plenty in the last twenty-four hours. It’s your voice I want to hear, not mine.
I wonder what your voice will sound like when we’re eighty? Will its sonorousness be compromised by tremulousness? Will the qualities that I love about your voice increase or diminish?
I’m heading off to bed, honey. I’ll see you tomorrow. My plane arrives at 6:58 pm. Can you still pick me up? Look for a slightly haggard fifty-five-year-old man in sandals who talks like a parrot.
[SONG]
WOMAN: Hi, dear. I’m glad the paper went well; I knew it would. If, in fact, your audience received you with, as you say, “benign smiles and a low-keyed but heartfelt respect”, consider that they, too, are getting older.
Your mother called to ask if you could take her and your dad to get him some slippers. I said I you’d call when you got back. She always comments on how much you do for them, and what a loving son you are. After I hung up, it struck me that they’re eighty.
I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow. It makes my timbers shiver to think of it. . .
[SONG]