The Beach House

This is also from Ike.

It is one of several segments I wrote for our production, IKE, the *not so* Great Storm of 2008. In the production several monologues, duets, comedy skits, songs, dances, a few poems and special effects are woven together to make up an evening's entertainment about our hurricane experiences fall of '08.

The idea of building a beach house that would crash during the sound-and-lighting-effects-created hurricane was one of the first images that led us to create the production. In part, it was the before and after pictures of houses on the Bolivar peninsula that led me to make the crash the climax of the show. I also wanted to personalize the "big disaster" of the storm for my students.

My intent was for the beach house to loom in the background through the first act, for it to crash during the storm, and for the debris to be background to the second act.

The storm itself, at first, was going to be represented with sound efects and lighting, but as we developed the scenes, one of the students composed a solo piano piece that we showcased through the storm.

Crashing the house in a way that could be re-set and re-crashed on subsequent nights was a technical challenge, but the students were determined to make it work.

The story of these two scenes was designed to help create another throughline, part of a spine for the play. While not quite whole cloth, the story of the brother and sister in these scenes did not come from any student stories.

"The Beach House, Before the Crash”

(It’s dark with a dim light under the beach house, moonlight cutting through scattered clouds; we hear moderate waves rolling in. A teenage boy is sitting on the sand on the Gulf side of the beach house looking out toward the Gulf. He may not be seen at first. A car is heard from the other side of the house, we see the headlights pull up, stop, and turn off as the engine stops. A car door opens and closes, a girl in her late twenties comes from under the beach house looking around. She sees the boy.)

SIS: Hey (using the word as a greeting) . . . Sorry if I scared . . .
BRO: I heard you pull up.
SIS: (a pause, she looks out into the Gulf) ...'s a storm out there.
BRO: (gentle sarcasm) Ya think? I came to see and hear real surf. It’s about the only time, when there’s a storm.
SIS: I figured. Papa was worried.
BRO: He said?
SIS: No, but he called.
BRO: Oh, (He checks his phone, slumps his shoulders, sighs) I didn't charge it.
SIS: We figured. I told him you were probably here.
BRO: Don't come here as often as before . . . we don't. He tried to keep doing everything just the same, for a while . . . we were out here the whole first summer.
SIS: Not the same?
BRO: In town, he seemed sad. Out here, it was different--good different--but he kept . . .
SIS: . . . remembering?
BRO: No, . . . not forgetting.
SIS: It seemed okay when we came down that first Christmas
BRO: That was good, better even. You and Mike, driftwood Yule Log. (He laughs)
SIS: (She smiles) Christmas with my guys.
BRO: A real "traditional" Christmas Eve, playing Nuclear Risk 'till 6:00 a.m. (Both laugh)
SIS: Mike still talks about Papa's final sweep out of Russia with his ...what? Cossacks?
BRO: No, (imitating a dramatic voice) “Mongol hoard riding across the Steppes."
SIS: Yeah, Mike analyses that game like it was a chess match. He checked out library books on strategy, planning a re-match . . . sooo intense.
BRO: And Papa just plays around, all random, no plan. (Another imitation) "I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
SIS: And he always wins.
BRO: (a little too abrupt) I've won. I can beat him. (He slumps and stares toward the Gulf)
SIS: (she looks at him and smiles) You can . . . you do. (Pause) You remembering . . . or not forgetting?
BRO: Figuring. That Christmas Eve was unscheduled.
SIS: What’d you mean? We did stuff. Tamales, chips, guacamole, black-eyed pea salsa. Our stockings.
BRO: Traditions are not a schedule. It was way different before. She’d plan the whole evening, hour by hour. Instead, you were rummaging around, looking in the top cabinet for a bowl and said, "Hey, here's Risk." And we play for eight hours.
SIS: You miss schedules?
BRO: (too casual, too nonchalant) No
SIS: (pause, a shrug) She doesn't like board games.
BRO: (a low key rant) She doesn't like a lot of things: doesn’t like random, doesn’t like relaxed, you don’t have to vacation with her . . .
SIS: Papa didn't raise us to dislike our mother.
BRO: I don’t . . . I’m just figuring things out . . .
SIS: (over his unbroken line) Anyway, that storm was building for longer than we knew.
BRO: . . . she doesn't like sand, the beach house, Papa . . . Huh? Yeah it's building, Cat four coming off Cuba—what? (realizing she’s not talking about Ike) Oh, uh, yeah. I don’t think she even knew. If it was a storm, we’d ‘a noticed, maybe done something.
SIS: We couldn’t have fixed it. Wasn’t ours to fix.
BRO: (pause) Do you ever feel she doesn't like us either. . .
SIS: (pause, heavy sigh) Yes . . . but I know better.
BRO: I mean us, who we are not what she can make us. She wants’ you to be her. She wants’ me to be . . . I don't know . . . something, something I’m not.
SIS: She loves us, maybe even Papa. She just, I don't know, lost her nerve. She needs to have a plan. It’s the way she’s wired. She doesn't like needing it, but she does. I asked her once, before everything crashed, about how they met. She said Papa was fun in college because she never knew what was going to happen next, (He reacts with surprise) that they always laughed a lot. She wanted that, wanted to be that way herself.
BRO: (incredulous) That's the same reason she told him she was leaving him. I heard her say it, (in a flat, unemotional, voice) --, “I never know what you’re going to say or do next.” —they thought I was asleep. What a wreck!
SIS: (She hugs him) Sorry I wasn’t here when you had to go through all that. (He shrugs) I think she left because she was afraid. Not knowing wasn’t fun any more.
BRO: She tell you that?
SIS: . . . just figured it out.
BRO: She didn't talk with me either.
SIS: She’s afraid for us now, ‘cause we’re also like her--you more than me--She wants to know we’ll be okay, that we won’t wake up someday and be afraid of our lives.
BRO: What's there to be afraid of?
SIS: She doesn’t know . . .
BRO: . . . and not knowing scares her?
SIS: Yeah.
BRO: That’s whack. I’d go nuts if everything were all mapped out. Some stuff, yeah sure, but not everything.
SIS: (she looks at him and smiles) Yeah, sure.
BRO: You flying back tomorrow?
SIS: Haven’t decided, maybe after the storm comes in.
BRO: Staying to take care of us?
SIS: You are my guys.
BRO: Two of ‘em anyway. We’ll be okay. Ike comes ashore here; we’ll drive north until we find someplace fun to stay.
SIS: I’ll call Mike when we get back to the house and see if he can stand to be without me a few more days. If he’s cranking out pages, I sometimes distract more than I help. Let’s go so Papa will stop worrying. (They begin to make their way through the pylons under the beach house)
BRO: Besides, Ike’s not coming here.
SIS: Hope not. I’d like this to stay the same.
BRO: We’re good. Storms never make landfall where the first prediction sets the bull’s eye...
(We hear car doors opening and closing, engines starting, see headlights come on and turn away, as we hear cars pulling away. Finally, it’s dark again, moonlight cutting through scattered clouds, and we hear the waves rolling in.)

"After the Crash"

(Dark again, no moonlight, sound of waves, no lights at all on the collapsed beach house. It has been forced off two of its' pylons and lays amid a rubble of boards and trash. A bouncing flashlight beam, then a second approaches from the street side, upstage of the house.)
SIS: If Papa knew we came out here, he’d die.
BRO: Don’t tell him.
SIS: Not ever! He’d stroke out. He hates snakes.
BRO: I’m not even sure that was a snake. We’re safe now.
SIS: Safe is sitting at the Sonic like you let Papa think we were gonna be, not walking with flashlights in snake land. I wish we could’ve gotten closer in the car.
BRO: Oh wow, it’s totally crashed.
SIS: (Carrying flashlight, coming to Gulf side) Okay, we’ve seen it. It’s a wreck, just like on the website. Let’s go.
BRO: We only saw the street side on the website.
SIS: Well, Gulf side is a wreck also.
BRO: (He comes out) Yeah, it is. But all the pieces are here, mostly.
SIS: And extras pieces from I don’t know where.
BRO: Can we fix it?
SIS: Not enough to fix. Maybe rebuild it. (Gauging the distance from the house to the new shoreline) It’s closer to the Gulf, but we still got land, it’s not into the open beach. (He goes back under, we hear banging) What are you doing! That’s not safe. (Muffled voice) Get outta there.
BRO: (he emerges carrying something) Inside is wrecked too, but look. (Holds Risk box) It was still in the top cabinet, not even damp. Bowls were broken though. (They turn and look at the house for a while, then turn and look at the Gulf. We hear waves)
SIS: (Turning back to the wrecked house) I’m glad we came to see it, but I’m sad. (Pause)
BRO: (Looking at her) You remembering . . . or not forgetting?
SIS: I don’t know, maybe both. Maybe both are okay if you got a reason.
BRO: We got a reason. . . . I’m sad, too. (Trying to be hopeful) So, it can’t be fixed?
SIS: A bunch of this isn’t even ours to fix. We can re-build what’s ours. It’ll be different, but good different, at least until the next storm. (Pause, she looks at him) ‘k? (Verbal shorthand for okay?)
BRO: ‘k. But there won’t be another storm.
SIS: (again, gentle sarcasm) Ya think?
BRO: Not rolling through here. Storms never make landfall in the same place more than once in a generation. (She smiles)
(They turn and stand looking at the house, then briefly glance back out to the Gulf, and begin to pick their way back through the rubble)
SIS: Let’s cruise through Sonic on the way home and get Papa a cherry Dr. Pepper so he won’t think to ask us what took us so long.
(He laughs, they laugh. The sound of their steps fade until they become retreating flashlight beams and we are left hearing the waves on the beach.)

Our Dad is Nuts

Also from IKE. Pretty much whole cloth. We never named these children.

He: I think my father . . .
She: Our Daddy
He: . . . is not like other fathers.
She: He’s nuts!
He: When I arrived home from school today . . .
She: Everyone else’s parents are rushing around, getting ready for the hurricane . . .
He: He was sitting at his computer looking at numbers, as usual.
She: Our whole house could blow down and he wouldn’t notice unless the internet went down.
He: It wouldn’t do that.
She: The house won’t blow down?
He: No, our connection won’t go down. It’s broadband wireless.
She: Great! He’ll be sitting in the wrecked house staring at the computer. We’re not ready! We’ve got to get ready!
He: I think you’re nuts. When has he ever been not ready for anything. . . . So I go to the study . . .
She: Me too, I go too.
He: I knock, wait a minute and he says come in. He looks up like nothing is happening, so I say there’s a storm headed our way. He looks back at his computer and says “There is storm coming, but I think we’re almost ready for it.” He punches a few keys and the numbers on the screen change.
She: And I can’t stand it, so I tell him that everyone is boarding up their houses, stocking up on food and water, and that even that lazy Mary Grace Crussell next door is hauling their patio furniture into her garage, and that we’re all going to be refugees and that I don’t want to be a refugee.
He: He looks at us a minute like he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, and says “Oh, yes, the hurricane. We’ll be evacuees, not refugees. It’s much better. We’ll go to your Uncle John’s.” I keep standing there looking at him and finally he says, “Well let’s get out the boards.” He’s got these boards he keeps in a rack in the garage, all cut, painted, and numbered. They fit over every window and door in the house. We pull them out and slip them over our windows with these little clips he has for them.
She: I decide to save the patio furniture and go outside but most of it is built-in as part of the patio. I put the chairs in their little house, went to check on Mom, she’s packing a picnic and asking me what book we would like her to read to us in the car, like it was vacation or something.
He: When we finish putting the boards up Dad tells me to get my laptop and a few days clothes packed up and goes back to his computer. He gets out his PDA and seems to be syncing it up with the computer and some new gadget he’s got. Then he goes back to the screens of numbers he’s always checking. I can hear our neighbors cutting boards and hammering them over their windows.
She: I tell mom there’s a storm coming our way, she says she knows and tells me to get the bag she packed for me from my room. I ask her if we have all the food and water we need for after the storm, and she shows me a cabinet I didn’t know we had high in the garage filled with water and canned food.
He: While I’m putting the bags and picnic hamper in the car, Father stops in the doorway of the house, punches a couple of buttons on his PDA and suddenly I hear that monster generator he has in the back yard—it’s in its own little louver-sided house that every one thinks is a pool house—anyway it started up. He says, “Oops, gave it the wrong command.” He hits a few more buttons and it shuts down. I thought he was a little nuts when he towed that thing home from an equipment auction once, but maybe we’ll get some use out of it now.
She: Driving out of town, I ask mom if our house will be there when we get back. She says, “Yes, I hope so” and dad says “if it’s not we could probably turn a tidy profit selling the lot as a scrape-off.” Mom says, “Now Justin (she always calls him by his first name when she’s scolding him), that’s our home, not some commodity you flip for cash.”
He: And he said, “You are right dear.” Which is what he always says when she calls him, “Justin.” Except this time, he also said, “confusing homes with commodities is what brought on this storm . . . that and greed.”
She: I didn’t understand, but mom started reading Eragon, and I didn’t want to interrupt.
He: We drive to Father’s brother, our Uncle John, in Austin and just wait for everything to blow over. Both of them work at home, investments, and so they both spent the whole time on John’s computers, screens of numbers, just like Father’s.
She: When I asked them what they were doing, John said they were, “buying and selling,” Dad added, "mostly selling." Then they laughed that funny way they do . . .
He: . . . they chuckle . . .
She: Anyway, it’s irritating. It’s like they’ve guessed a big secret that no one else has a clue about.
He: We sat at Uncle John’s and watched Ike on TV like most everyone else I guess. Father, John and I sat up all night Friday night watching the weather coverage. I was about half asleep, but as the South wall of the storm moved through Brazoria County I heard an alarm on Father’s PDA go off. He looked at it, punched a few buttons and told John the “power in our house just went out,” but as far as he could tell "the integrity of the house is still unbroken."
* * * *
She: Sunday, I figured we were headed home when I saw Mom in John’s kitchen packing the picnic hamper again.
He: We drove home just like we drove up, at a leisurely rate with Mom reading to us from Eragon.
She: As we got closer to Lake Jackson, we saw more and more torn up stuff. Trees, houses, lots of signs just blown completely away.
He: There weren’t many streetlights working anywhere. As we skirted around Houston, Father called Tony—the guy who takes care of our yard and stuff—and asked if he had crews out working already. Then he started punching buttons on the PDA again.
She: He told me he was going to turn on the power at our house!
He: He logged onto the burglar alarm system to find out if there were any windows or doors broken—he said the house was okay. He also had the generator rigged up so he could start it remotely.
She: If everything worked like it was supposed to, he said the house would be cool by the time we got home.
He: It was.
She: I still think he’s nuts. He doesn’t get excited about anything. We were unprepared. We should have prepared more. We were just lucky. (She leaves the stage.)
He: He gets excited about some things. Like Monday, the 15th, right after the storm, I heard him in his study and it sounded like he was talking to Uncle John. I looked in and saw they were using a voice/picture connection between their computers. I’ve never seen anything on those screens but numbers and graphs. They’ve never acted like that before, either—way beyond chuckling. John was almost giggling like my sister’s friends, saying, “You got us out just in time.” Father shrugged, “We were just lucky we were able to sell when we did.” John laughed, “completely out without a hit,” and logged off.