BURIED ALIVE Page #2

CONTINUED:
(4)

WILLIAM (CONT'D)

Grandad it was so great that you taught me how to play the guitar and the clarinet, and how I admired that you had played with some of the big bands of the day and that you had your own orchestra. Because of that it gave me a great appreciation for music and now I play the bongo’s and jam with a friends band. Grama all the wonderful moments helping you in the kitchen to prepare the meals, and around the house so I would know what to do and how to do it when I was older, I learned so much from both of you.

William sits up looking a little startled as he peers into the distance then he resumes his conversation while stretching, he is watching other people come and go.

I must say we had a good life, our own home on a nice street,a beautiful cottage on an amazing lake up north,my own boat at age thirteen. A house in Florida, that I got to spend two weeks out of every year at over Christmas holidays. The new Cadillac that you bought every two years to treat yourself, for all the hard work and the good fortune that you both had, and not to mention the statues it gave me in the neighbourhood with the rest of our friends. Sometimes I felt bad for others that did not have as much as we did but other times I was proud of our families accomplishments and our ability to make it in a world that was all about making it.

William changes his stretching positions, neck and shoulder

rolls.

The fishing trips and boat rides and water skiing. Long wonderful journeys in the car with tea and sandwiches and music and laughter, to interesting places to meet fascinating people. All the time tolerating my lunacy, and laughing at my corny sense of humor. How could I ever thank you both, for all the wonderful things, that you have done for me.

William takes the wrapped box off of the head stone and places it beside him as he touches it and focuses on it as he talks.

(CONTINUED)

6.

CONTINUED:
(5)

My father dying like that, was kind of weird, the way he went, it was very unusual...Its the point where a family is made or broken, ours was broken. The Mother blaming the three children. The children blaming the father and the grandparents shaking their heads and saying, this whole family never should of happened in the first place, and in a way I totally agree with him.

William spins around lifting the box and places back down on the ground behind his head and leans back on it using it as a pillow, while looking up at the sky.

So lets see three boys ages 6,8 & 14 on a beautiful sunny but cold winter afternoon, ask their under exercised, over drinking, over eating father to come to the park with them to play hockey.

He accepts with vigor, imagining the image of his younger self. We all walked to the ice rink in the park next to our house and played hockey with a our friends that were already there,it was a proud and wonderful moment for all of us.

My father certainly played with the vigor of a younger man,but then he fell down dead on the ice, right in front of us, and all of our friends, my mother looking on from the porch in our back yard.

We just stood there stunned looking at my dead father laying there on the ice, no one moved or made a sound. Until my mother came running up to my dead fathers body and threw herself on him,sobbing. We still stood there in silence. This went on for quite a while, and then I heard someone behind me say, are you going to move him so we can get on with our game.

So my brothers and I started to drag him and my mother off the ice. My mother finally got up and helped us slide and push him up on to the snow bank. All four of us sat down with exhaustion around our dead fathers body.

(Thinking our thoughts)

(CONTINUED)

7.

CONTINUED:
(6)

William sits up crosses his legs and leans forward with his head slumped over his knees. He stays in that position for quite some time. He slowly lifts his head, and starts to speak.

It wasn't any ones fault, but it certainly was our problem.

William reaches behind his back and retrieves the box and places it in between his folded legs. He starts to tap lightly on the box.

At that point my Grandparents Philip & Dorothy Dyer became more like my parents then my parents ever where. And my mother Patricia became more like my sister, then my younger gay brother Leonard ever was.

And my show all the promise in the world and on his way to professional hockey fame, older brother Steven, decided that drugs were the way to put that wonderful dream behind him and join the sixties happening ,to make us so proud of his overdoses and vomiting sessions. Not to mention him stealing our money to pay for his new profession of full time drug user at the mature age of sixteen, so we were just one big, broken seeming to be happy family. Once Again.

William stops tapping on the box and throws it up in the air repeatedly, he stops and bangs it down on the ground.

(A slight sign of anger crosses his face then it manifests into a smile.)

He starts to unwrap the box ever so carefully and pulls out an earn, he places the box to the left of his body almost out of site of the shot and extends the earn out into the air.

Well I told you that I had brought you a gift, so hear she is, your daughter and my Mother, Patricia Dorothy Dyers cremated remains. Still slim and beautiful after all these years, and all fired up.

Every family has a story and our family is no different, where should I start with this one, I’m a little perplexed because I don’t know what any of us really do know for sure.

(CONTINUED)

8.

CONTINUED:
(7)

William opens the lid to the urn and looks inside, he stays focused for a while, then he starts to speak to the urn.

I remember after a visit to aunt Barbara’s house, I was about ten, we all arrived home and a thought came to me, one of those thoughts that you just need to have the answer to, but your uncertain if you even understand the question.

Mom, you told us that you were an only child, so how could I have an aunt if it’s not my fathers sister? I could see the wheels turning and at that moment I realized that you Mom were going to have to come clean with it or manufacture a lie that was going to require a great deal more thought then you were able muster up.

So Mom you came clean, you said; you see William, I was adopted by your Grandparents, Philip and Dorothy Dyer, when I was a baby, because they could not have children and I had a twin sister and they did not want to split us up,but they could not afford both of us at the time, your grandparents took me and your great Grandmother,Dorothy’s Mother,Pearl Emily Brown, took my sister Barbara and it became a family secret.

And mom you said to me, as calm as you please, “ Do you understand?” I said Yes I understand,... that everything I have ever believed in, in my entire short life is not as I thought it was, so this is a monumental moment, so give me a second to absorb the levity of the situation.” I probably didn't use the word levity.

William shifts position and places the urn next to his head as he lies down on his side and props up his head with his

arm.

O Kay so my Grandmother and Grandfather are not my real Grandparents?

You said;no they are not your real grandparents and the reason we don’t tell anyone is because it was not a good thing to be adopted.

(MORE)

(CONTINUED)

9.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes