Stage Right
I dont know when the amphitheatre was built or for that matter why because Id never seen anything going on there like a play or concert or what youd expect
It was concrete with a couple dozen rows of those plastic stadium seats. The roof was canvas stretched over steel beams. There was no back. I mean nothing. The concrete stage just went on for awhile and then turned to dirt and another twenty feet the dirt dipped and there was the Pacific Ocean like a blue infinity backdrop and it really was something when you think about it
People usually just sat, almost all kids and always in clumps, and gazed into the water like I was doing
That day the kids were there like usual and a clump of them was practicing a dance routine for one of their dance things and in another clump someone had a cellphone going to that Rhianna song and they were singing along for the umpteenth time. I remember a man there too who was just sitting by himself like me but he still had on his motorcycle helmet for some reason and another man you just knew was homeless even if you couldnt say why, he was in the front row lying across four or five seats, he was sleeping
About that time I became aware of the smell of burning plastic which is a pretty common smell here. Without really thinking about it I looked up
Out in the dirt by the edge of the water where you couldnt quite see the water because of the ledge or dropoff or whatever you call it were half a dozen kids, probably playing there the whole time Id been but you dont really notice them because there are always kids playing in the ocean. Most of them were between eight and twelve, was my guess, they were the ones burning the plastic, but there was one, he couldnt have been older than five, he was dancing around the smoking plastic. He was completely naked which also you always see, and his brown child body was against the ocean so that I immediately thought of that famous painting, the one with the faceless people holding hands dancing in a circle, orange bodies against blue
I thought about how the boy baby was breathing the plastic smoke
About then someone called out from a few rows behind Sir! and I turned and looked at smiled and waved like it was a reflex even though what was going on inside was the opposite of smiling and waving. It was one of my students
Time passed. I dont know how long. Maybe a long time
When I looked up again the boy baby was still there but the older ones had left. The boy baby was doing something. He had a carboard box. Or rather two. One piled on the other. And there was a string like that synthestic shipping rope, he had that wrapped around the boxes and this little boy this little naked boy was dragging the boxes somewhere like he had a purpose
A woman was standing by and I was pretty sure it was his mother even though she was young real young because she was watching him like a mother would and besides she had another baby on her hip and it was also naked. She stood there like she was waiting for him to do something with those trash boxes. But she just stood there, vacant like someone spooked with voodoo, waiting for him but not doing anything to help him or to quit him of his pointless thing
The sun was out and it looked bright like what youd think its supposed to look like in tropical paradise, something you cant really get in a movie or photograph, that kind of light, and the dirt was almost white
I watched until the little boy baby pulled the cardboard boxes farther and farther until he was past these bushes and was gone from my line of sight. Like someone walking off stage right. His mother followed in her empty voodoo way
I thought wouldnt his feet get burned. Well wouldnt they
Theres some famous quote about it. For the life of me I cant remember, it was either about this place being paradise, or that it was supposed to be paradise, or that it could have been paradise. I knew it made a difference the way it went but I couldnt for the life of me remember. And then I thought that I couldnt even remember why Id come here and for one beautiful moment it seemed I couldnt even remember my name, and there I was staring off into blue while a baby child dragged a box across bleach dirt and disappeared off past the right end of everything
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