Anger. Heartbreak. Homicidal thoughts. All stemming from the collision between people who don’t garden, and the garden of someone who does. Thought I’d tell the tale as the classic tragedy it is. A bit of fun for a Sunday morning. – MW
ACT ONE
Scene One
Cold evening in January at dusk. Light snow is falling, coating the drive and surround of house deep in a Virginia stream valley. A poker game between eight men is about to begin. Massive but suspiciously clean vehicles descend onto drive. A battered golf cart driven by OUR HEROINE is negotiating icy bridge on the way to wood pile. A Ford 950 pulls up and swings wide to park on top of the hypericum. OUR HEROINE stops cart.
OUR HEROINE [sweetly] Hey there! Uh… can I ask that you park on the other side of the potting bench? I know it’s tough to see, but I’ve got plants there…. And there…. Oh and there too.
POKER PLAYER 1 No problem. [Pulls forward, flattening the boxwood starts.]
OUR HEROINE [grimacing] Let me just guide…uh…can you SEE me? Don’t…uh…oh dear God. [swears under breath]
POKER PLAYER 1 Good?
OUR HEROINE Yeah. Just…oh never mind. [sees two Ford 1150s coming down drive, but is aware that furnace is within two minutes of burning out] I’ve gotta get the wood in – Can you help them park on the other side of your vehicle?
POKER PLAYER 1 Sure. Damn it is icy.
OUR HEROINE You guys have trucks, maybe you could go down to the wood pile, turn around and park in a line along the river bank? Or just park up by the house on the asphalt landing next to my car? Just made it up there in the golf cart. You see I’ve got plants you can’t see…
POKER PLAYER 1 Hmmm yeah… wouldn’t want to get stuck.
OUR HEROINE [under breath] That’s what your f***** truck is for.
Scene 2
Garage. Door open. A chaos of plants on carts, Christmas boxes and recycling is spread out. OUR HEROINE crouches before the furnace, trying to encourage the fire but is obviously distracted by the parking situation going on outside. POKER PLAYER 2 enters.
POKER PLAYER 2 Damn sure is icy.
OUR HEROINE Yeah, you said that. [Looks up] Oh sorry that was someone else. Did you park okay?
POKER PLAYER 2 Yep, slipped right in next to that covered porch thing down there.
OUR HEROINE [Jumps up] Oh my God do you mean on the grass next to the pavilion?!? I have a fortune in plants down there.
POKER PLAYER 2 Yeah, no worries. Saw the little tree, pulled next to it.
OUR HEROINE [Runs down to bridge, nearly falling] But it’s not about what you can seeeeeeeeeee! Son of a bitch!
[Two F1650 trucks pull in against the pavilion, one flattens two, one-foot yellow-twig dogwoods]
OUR HEROINE [Resignedly] Well, it could have been the parrotia ….
POKER PLAYER 3 [pokes head out of vehicle] Want to make sure I can get out of here….
OUR HEROINE Yeah, that’s high on my agenda too. [Spies husband’s car parked along drive on top of hellebores] Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me…. I’m going to freaking kill him this time.
[Grabs shovel. Heads to house intent on homicide. Catches up to POKER PLAYER 4 making his way up. Considers witnesses and loosens grip on shovel.]
POKER PLAYER 4 [Stepping on epimedium edging the drive] Saw your garden this summer when we last played here. Pretty nice.
OUR HEROINE Well it was…
POKER PLAYER 5 [Shouts from house] Let’s get started folks! Jim’s stuck in a ditch – he’s walking in.
OUR HEROINE Finally some good news.
Scene Three
A warm and inviting front room. Fire crackles. Music plays softly. ALL POKER PLAYERS surround a dining room table, intent on their game. OUR HEROINE walks down stairs from office where she has been Ranting silently with aid of laptop and large glass of red. She re-fills her wine glass generously at the drinks cabinet.
POKER PLAYER 6 Hey is that a red wine?
OUR HEROINE Sure is. Let me get you a glass. [Pours a glass and hands it to him.]
HUSBAND [Looks up suddenly concerned] Which one did you open?
OUR HEROINE Something French. Quite good actually.
HUSBAND What now?
OUR HEROINE Yes, quite good. I’m enjoying it immensely.
HUSBAND [Trying to control panic – jumps up and looks at bottle] Oh my God you opened that Bordeaux? I just bought that to put down.
OUR HEROINE Did I? Whoops. Well, it was pretty nice. I’m sure it might have been even better, but it really hit the spot.
POKER PLAYER 6 Oh, hey, no worries I can just have a beer….
OUR HEROINE No please, enjoy. It’s quite good.
HUSBAND [Stares at now-empty bottle] Oh my God…
OUR HEROINE [Heads upstairs] Enjoy your game boys.
END
Curtain falls. Gardeners in audience leave satisfied.
Alternate Ending:
Upon reviewing this epic drama and terming it “passive-aggressive ecstasy” with “a magnificent central character straight out Euripides,” a playwright friend with an impish sense of humor felt that, despite its award-winning qualities, it missed a pivotal closing soliloquy. I attach his literary impertinence and rampant plagiarism here for the Bardophilic gardeners out there…
OUR HEROINE
[Takes glass to top of stairs, turns dramatically and addresses the Heavens]
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Poker Players
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’ For they have squashed my plants
The budding things that with a mother’s hands
I did with loving words and grubby nails
Encourage their rebirthedness
In squall and gale and hail
As gently as cupping hands cradle
The newborn’s downy head.
Only for this! This treason on Nature’s sleepful bed
Those tyre tracks that didst outrage the very mud
And blood of my dear efforts. Hark!
Vultures of Hades behold! I shall not
This outrage tolerate with mealy politesse unavenged,
But must set foot into the woods despite the dire midnight
Despite the howl of rapacious beasts plagued by savage hunger
And live from now in silence with the bears.
HUSBAND
[Gulps visibly. Turns to POKER PLAYER 6]Uh..is it cool if I stay with you for a couple weeks? She knows how drive the Bobcat and she’s got her own shotgun.
Curtain falls.
Wow!!!! This is amazing!
I love the alternative ending & was actually hoping somebody would get stabbed through a curtain, tear his own eyes out, or be murdered by ear poison for destroying OUR HEROINE’s plants.
Brilliant. But where did you bury the bodies?
That’s between me and the Bobcat. – MW
We’ll all know when (name that plant) does Exceptionally Well this summer…!
Oh, I feel your pain. I was hoping some catastrophe would happen to each & every truck that transgressed !
Hopefully with endangered species on top of the buried bodies…love this Rant.
Fantastic! Great imagination and um, … “execution” here. Wink.
Thanks for a nice break, Marianne.
And you still got in a plug for your book. Beyond clever.
Slash all the tires on those wannabe ‘he man’ trucks.
Bill them for not just replacement plants but installation by competent help.
Mindlessly cushing defenseless plants should have it’s costs, just like poker.
Brava!
Well that was a hoot. Does Shakespeare not deserve a credit? And I would offer a moral to this sad tale: when your husband tells you that he is having his friends round for a game either a) kill him then or b) get yourself a trailer load of plastic bollards
Well, I did say “Bardophilic” – too subtle? 🙂 Yes, leaning towards option A this morning as the scene and tire tracks are fully illuminated… – MW
Bravo!!
I have never simultaneously loved and feared a person like I am right now. Uh, your next letter may be delayed a bit while I process. And edit.
I can’t wait to read the next letter.
Love it! Reminds me of my boyfriend when he’s helping me… “You can step anywhere but THERE.” He steps THERE. “Please don’t kneel by that bush, I have bulbs planted in that spot.” He not only manages to kneel by the bush, but also stands up and stomps in that spot crushing the bulbs that are just coming up.
Marianne, don’t you have a lot of woods in which to bury the bodies? Or instead, you could add them to your compost heap, just make certain the hands, heads, and feet don’t stick out too much.
Brilliant!
On behalf of the entire male species, I apologize.
No repercussions too heavy-handed for this bunch. Grrr. You should have filled their glasses with apple cider vinegar and referenced foreboding signs of illness or age when they found the taste to be “off”.
Good. Glad to hear it.
Well that was a fun read. A great script should they ever bring back Murder, She Wrote.
And because gardeners are generally optimistic and plants resilient, hoping for some happy surprises this Spring.
Hilarious and a joy to read. Thank you.
I like the first ending best.
Anyone destroys my plants gets replace all of them with plants of equal or greater value…my choices….
OMGosh I needed this! As I watched my husband and his size 11’s head toward a flower border to straighten our pond netting, I said to myself—oh, there’s PLENTY of room between those two snow covered perennials that were—the operative word here is “were”—about a foot tall for him to step and reach the net. But alas and alack, he veered off the obvious path to land squarely on the slightly shorter of the two. Why did I not see that coming? Actually, I did, but was frozen in fear. Marianne, you are a treasure!
Whistles, thunderous applause and bravos galore. Most fun I’ve read in a long time but sad too, when I think about your plants; not so much for the wine…
Men! Can’t live with them, can’t compost them!
Bravo, Marianne!
Wonderful !
Love this! I never seem to open the ‘right’ bottle of wine either…
I feel your pain. The men in this town are always quick to rescue me with their plow truck when they see me out shoveling my drive with a mere snow shovel. It inevitably ends up with them getting their truck stuck in a garden bed, or piling 6′ of snow over one. I need to learn to say no.
Loved your truck descriptions! In my neck of the woods we can them “Penile Overcompensators”. They are meant to go off-road, but never actually do. Except into your garden. Fiends.
hahahaha
Oh my. I don’t think my F150 driving husband will find “penile overcompensator” humorous. But I sure did!
Don’t let Mike stay in exile too long. Keep the Dan Hicks song title in mind—”How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away.”
I needed this too. I had a Bartzella Itoh Peony (yellow) just about to bloom for its third year. Had a landscaper to cut out a bad perennial choice that put down permaroots and spread fast.
I said to the man, pointing at the soil, “Don’t dig here.”
He dug there, uprooted Bartzella.
Hardly touched the permaroot.
Made a fuss. They planted another peony, labeled as
the same kind.
Reader: it was red!
Just getting over that years later. This article is therapy.
Grandkids. Early Spring Easter egg hunt in the back yard. Ferns, Hostas, etc with tender shoots barely poking through the ground. “I didn’t step on anything!”
“Tyre tracks” sums it up nicely. Bravo!
Fantastic! Excellent imagination and, uh, “execution” here. Wink.
Marianne, thank you for the nice break.
My condolences to you for your plants. Hopefully, they will recover. But it’s *almost* worth it to get to read your blog. Nah, not worth it, but you made the best blog out of a bad situation. And cheers! Clink! What’s the point of buying wine if you’re not going to enjoy drinking it!
Great writing! You’ve outdone yourself. A tragedy for sure.
Sorry about your plants! Hope they survive. Remember too much blood meal is bad for the plants. Spread it everywhere thinly.
You could always add a few more snow drops.
Now that’s funny. Thanks Matt. – MW
I can send some yellow stem dogwood if you need replacements. Or you can get them yourself when you come to Maine this summer. That is, if you’re not serving time because they found the bodies….and all those poker chips spread over them. I love the size of those trucks! F1950, now THAT’S a truck!