08 14 10; 9:00 a.m. Cynthia D as Thelma
Scott: Hello Thelma.
Thelma Barnes: Oh hello there.
Scott: How are you? You look well.
Thelma Barnes: I'm very well for now, a little under the weather. How about yourself ?
Scott: Well, to be honest, it's been hell today.
Thelma Barnes: Why on earth would you say that sir?
Scott: Easy: Client hurdles. Kids. And, of course, Emilia.
Thelma Barnes: Well just think of how lucky you are. Surely, it could not have been that bad. You actually have live breathing family.
Scott: True! I'm just not sure how much longer I'll be breathing under the current environment.
Thelma Barnes: Ah, summer. I never had an interest in summer much in my years, it always made me sweaty and sticky.
Scott: You prefer some other season?
Thelma Barnes: Winter at most. That's when mother and my servant girl Nelly would surprise me with the most wonderful Christmas time dinner, and presents of course. No matter how many times mother would tell of Santa Claus, I knew in my soul that it was her eating the cookies we baked by the tree.
Scott: That's delicate stuff, indeed. Children are not supposed to know such things. How old were you at the time you discovered that Santa was the stuff of fantasy?
Thelma Barnes: Well, I was about 8 years old at the time. I snuck out of my bed, and went to fetch Nelly for my stomach was upset, so I crept down the stairs and saw my mother eating the cookies with Nelly precisely putting the presents neatly under the tree. Up until I was 13, I've played along with my mother, letting herself have a mind of me thinking there was a Santa.
Scott: You are a shrewd and precocious one, Thelma! Did you have a favorite toy?
Thelma Barnes: How nice of thing to say, thank you sir. Why yes I did, well it wasn't much of a toy more exciting in my opinion. It would have to be my Stereopticon, my grandmother sent me over my last Christmas. Why it's a fun little thing, with pictures and much much more.
Scott: A stereo-op-ticon? Some form of projector?
Thelma Barnes: Why yes, it's handheld. And you would insert the photographics into the little thing and you would see photographics like you were there yourself. My grandmother would send photos of her and her little trips with grandfather around the world. So far, i've seen Paris, London, and Chicago.
Scott: I've never been to Paris; never been to London. I have been to Chicago a few times. I understand that sometime around 1901 the Pan American Exposition was held there. Somewhat like the World's Fairs of 1960s and 70s. First time that one of the world's largest one-story buildings was built to house the exhibits from around the world. The building could contain more than 100,000 people. That's like bigger than a Super Bowl!
Scott: And to think they built it without computers.
Scott: Wow.
Thelma Barnes: Well that's the older for you. I can't believe how intelligent people are now than in my time. 100,000 people! Why, that's more than my little town. I wish I can experience it, how gallant you must have been to experience Paris and Chicago.
Scott: Oh, no no. Like I said, I've never been to Paris. Though I have seen it in photographs and in movies, er, motion pictures of course.
Have you ever attended a motion picture?
Thelma Barnes: Oh my mistake, please excuse me. No, I haven't though, to answer your question. Mother thought it was un-ladylike for a young girl my age.
Scott: Really?! Un-ladylike to attend a movie!? Whatever for?
Scott: Well, I mean, some movies I wouldn't dare bring
Emelia to, let alone the younger kids, but most are fairly harmless.
Thelma Barnes: Whatever goes through her mad minds at time, she told me this, "Young ladies like you should never go to a motion picture, not unless you have a fellow to court you. Lord knows I’m not going to set through hours of bad acting." She thought everyone was a bad actor or actress, though I never knew for myself. She much preferred listening to tales her friends would have when they went to New York and experienced Broadway.
Scott: Ah, Broadway shows. Yes, I've been to a few. The last one I attended was in '07, 2007. It was a musical. Quite adorable, actually, and very well done. One man in an apartment (a cold water flat, if you will) who would play a phonograph of an old opera from the 1920s. And every time he played the phonograph record, the characters whose voices and songs appeared on the phonograph actually appeared in his apartment. He actually had the opportunity to live in his favorite opera! Quite creative if you ask me. And Thelma...you would have loved the music.
Whenever he put on the record, characters poured out of the Murphy Bed that dropped out of the wall, out of the side rooms...even out of the refrigerator!
Thelma Barnes: Well that sounds quite interesting, but I don't understand?
Scott: Don't understand what exactly?
Thelma Barnes: The subject of what you are speaking or typing.... Are you talking about a motion picture you have seen recently?
Scott: Oh no. It was a Broadway musical. All the actors were on a stage.
But the stage was designed to look like the apartment of one very lonely man.
Thelma Barnes: Ahh, I see. If I could've gone to Broadway in my day, I surely would want to hear a certain chorus girl by the name of Evelyn Nesbit. She was quite an eyeful on the daily rounds of newspaper me and mother would receive.
Scott: Really? Attractive, eh?
Thelma Barnes: Why very much so. She was the 'it' girl of my time.
Scott: Like one of those 'Gibson Girls' no doubt.
Thelma, may I ask you something?
Thelma Barnes: Of course...
Scott: Um, whenever we meet, why do you insist that we always meet in this...park?
Thelma Barnes: Well it's my comfort zone. I feel most safest here. I tried to wander out, but I would always get this feeling of fear for some reason.
Scott: Fear? Really? Um, fear of what?
Thelma Barnes: Fear of the outside world. Of the people, technology, things of that nature. They're things I’m not accustomed of.
Scott: Well, if you ask me, a stereo-- stereo -- what was it?, oh, a stereopticon sounds pretty high tech to me!
Thelma Barnes: Well it was the most high tech my century has gotten to. But more of things that you would touch and it would respond, like robots. That's why I
...have fear. I'm deathly afraid of robots.
Scott: You're not alone. How funny! Some things never change, I suppose. There are people, many people today who are afraid that robots will take over the world someday. Frankly, if it means the dishes would get done faster, I'd be all for it. I only recently got the kids to trade off on doing the dishes each day. What a pain in the butt.
Thelma Barnes: Glad to know I’m not alone in my troubles. You make your kids wash dishes? Is not a servant’s duty?
Scott: Servants? On a writer's income?! Thelma, I've met very few people with servants. I've met very few people who have maids. Besides, kids are cheap labor. You just have to buy them fast food.
Thelma Barnes: Well things have changed for certain. Few people? Every big gun in my town in my day had a servant, maid, or butler or maybe all three. Mother could only afford a servant girl and my friend Nelly. Fast food? Those greasy little things?....
Scott: Well, it's fast; though I'm not sure it really qualifies as food. Even with all the health laws that hit the book in the 1930s after President Roosevelt (I think it was, anyway) read a newspaper story about the meat processing plants in Chicago. Yuck!
Thelma Barnes: Wow, do they not care of the bodies that consume of this so called 'fast food' ? How sad.
Scott: Oh c'mon! Try to convince a teenager that she should eat something healthy. It's easier to get an audience with God.
By the way, do you ever talk to God?
Thelma Barnes: I share words with God all the time. I feel like God's the one to understand my predicament.
Scott: You predicament?
Thelma Barnes: Yes, I feel like I’m suffocating here at times. I just wish to be with my mother and father.
Scott: Where are your mother and father? Oh wait, I'm sorry, that's right, you mentioned when last we met that he passed away. But your mother, where is she?
Thelma Barnes: I have no clue. That's what depresses me. I tried following her, wherever she was at the time of my stalking, and I lost her. I don't want to get lost in the world, that's part of the reason why I stay in this park. I remember her coming above me sobbing....
Scott: Oh, um, I see.
When you did see her last, did she ever ask about...us?
Thelma Barnes: No, the only thing coming from her lips where cries.
Scott: Wonder why.
Thelma Barnes: I wonder at times myself....
Scott: You miss your father, too, yes?
Thelma Barnes: So much. He died of tuberculosis; I couldn't sleep for days....
Scott: I'm sorry. I still hear about cases of TB, even today. There are occasional outbreaks where lots of people are housed closely together for long periods, like hospitals and prisons.
I lost my dad three years ago now.
Thelma Barnes: I'm sorry for your lost. I understand how you feel, the feel of being empty inside.... Housed together you say? I remember being sick a day in my life, they sent me to a big house; they told me the people had the same condition as I but I never understood.
Scott: Thank you. I'm okay with it now. ...Interesting. I wonder if they put you under quarantine. Did the doctors happen to mention why they felt the need to put you in a big house?
Thelma Barnes: They said it will be over shortly.....That I was in pain. But the only pain I felt was being in that place; it was scary.
Scott: I'm it sure it was. Was anyone else with you, other than the others who were, I gather, sick?
Thelma Barnes: We all shared a room, a rather huge room. We all were placed in beds next to each other.... They all looked of death; they were pale, very pale. There were too many people to count; at the time I couldn't count as good as I usually could, for my sight was trembling. I just didn't want to be there at all. So I fell to sleep, then the next thing I remember was being placed in this park.
Scott: Oh, Thelma, that's awful. I am so sorry for you. Was your mother there?
Thelma Barnes: When I was in that scary place, I begged the person who always placed a wet cloth above my forehead for me to see my mother. They told me they wouldn't let such thing take place, for I was contagious. I tried asking of what, they just ignored me.
Scott: Oh, wow. That really sucks. I'm sorry, I mean, that must have been terribly lonely for you. Are you lonely now?
Thelma Barnes: I felt very isolated at the time, not so much of now, I’m glad I finally have someone other than god to talk to.
Scott: You mean...me?
Thelma Barnes: Of course silly.
Scott: Why, thanks! That was sweet!
Thelma Barnes: Your welcome, thank you for being such a friendly person.
Scott: Of course, Thelma. And thank you for taking time for me. Speaking of time, I so much want to continue our chat, but look at the time! If I don't return to the office, I'll be weeks behind. And the clients will start phoning.
Um, telephoning. But that is, I suppose, a subject for another time.
Will I see you again soon?
Thelma Barnes: I very much hope I get to see you soon. It gets quite lonely here... Well I don't want to keep you from work.
Scott: Thank you, Thelma. Until next time!
Thelma Barnes: Until next time my friend...
Scott: Or as you might say, 'Blessings.'
Scott: (wink)
Thelma Barnes: 'Blessings'
(10:26 a.m.)
