Akbar Rabani sat on a rock on the side of the road three miles north of Basra in Southern Iraq. Akbar was ten years old. He wore sandals, white cloth pants and a blue Manchester soccer shirt he was given by a British soldier. He was thinking about his mother. In fact, he was looking at his mother, who was lying on the cracked black pavement six feet in front of him. Akbar’s mother’s name was Suukal. Suukal was dead, lying in the midday Spring sun, wearing a dark grey skirt and black blouse that had a hood attached that was used to cover her head and face. Suukal’s shoes were attached to her feet, which had been blown off her legs and lying a few feet away. The hole where the bomb exploded was under Suukal, her body having flown into the air, plopping down immediately on top of where the device had been placed. The heat of the bomb cauterized the bottom of what remained of Suukal’s legs, which prevented blood from flowing. Indeed, Akbar saw no blood. It was strange, he thought, that his mother could be blown up, and somehow neatly just lose her feet in a bloodless death. Suukal’s head was turned toward Akbar, her eyes closed, with a bit of dust on her cheeks. Suukal had long black hair which was splayed out from the hood that was back off her head. Suukal was thirty-two years old. Akbar had no siblings. He had no father, who was killed last year. And now Akbar had no mother. (more…)
Continued From Yesterday.
Marilyn Monroe’s question about who takes her body after she dies struck the lawyer as bizarre. It was not an ownership issue, or he didn’t think so.
“Why do you ask?” asked the lawyer.
“You said Lee gets everything left over, the residual clause; he gets everything that is not mentioned in the will. Who gets my body? Who gets my body after I die?” asked Marilyn. (more…)
Continued From Yesterday.
Marilyn Monroe felt lost, unloved, used and abused. If there was not a man waiting for her at the end of the day, she looked forward to wine or pharmaceuticals. It was either-or for her. Occasionally she would call her mentor, Lee Strasberg, but lately this was not producing any benefits. Lee was imposing some kind of professional distance between the two of them, and she could not help think that Lee was displeased with her acting work. Marilyn had dredged the deepest corners of her past for Lee, for the acting work, but Lee never seemed entirely satisfied. She obsessed about her acting so much, that it sometimes felt like her entire life had become about the Method, staying raw, with emotional blisters oozing from moment to moment. Lee had given her the keys to turning it on, but she did not know how to turn it off. (more…)
Marilyn Monroe sat in a leather-backed chair in the center of a long conference table made of polished maple. Her position was lazy, sitting back, somewhat lumped over. Her hair was long and bleached blond with brown roots showing from her lack of attention. She was wearing a black wool coat with large round black buttons over a yellow blouse that was a bit too tight for her bust. Marilyn was huddled in her coat, still feeling the cold wet weather of January in New York City. It was 1961, and the new decade was dark and cold to her. So dark that it prompted Marilyn to come to her lawyer’s office and sign the last will and testament that she had been advised to execute a few years ago but never thought it necessary. (more…)
The television studio was dark, the round table lit from overhead studio lights. Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire sat next to each other on one side of the round table, an empty seat on the other. They could barely detect the three large television cameras on hydraulic pedestals each manned by, well, a female operator with a headset. Three big cameras, three rail thin women, thought Barry Bonds as he cupped his hands over his eyes to shield the bright lights. This was public television, so of course they had women camera operators. Of course, they were all white. Progressiveness goes only so far, he thought. Barry was calm, unlike the fidgety Mark McGuire sitting next to him. Each wore dark suits with ties, a result of the advice of Barry’s public relations advisor and Mark’s wife. Barry had advisors, lawyers, handlers, PR people and body guards. Mark McGuire had his family. Retirement can do that. Barry was a player. (more…)
« newer posts /
|
|
|
Stumble it!