A man with a mattress

H had business in town so I caught a ride early. Stopped at Starbucks, my ritual of getting coffee and a fruit & cheese plate to bring to the office.

On the hobble here, I passed a man carrying a wet old mattress, homeless by the looks of it, probably addicted to something or other and maybe drunk now, mumbling to himself -- and I remember how easily that could have been yours truly in the early 90s. This was when my doctor convinced me it was "now or never" in terms of getting my act together, and I'd like to say I saw the light and got my act together. In fact, I took advantage of some accidental and available steps that led to getting my act together but if those steps had not been available, well, I am sure I'd have been dead for quite a while by now. 

The most important "accident" was the availability of programs at the VA that, in fact, are not available today. With these, I was able to get in house treatment for nine months. Nine months! That's a hell of a long time to be out of circulation, so to speak. My "self-employed" writing life made it possible, as did the scheduling of a production that would give me a significant royalties check when I got discharged, transition money. And meeting H was hugely significant. She gave me a social life apart from my old one. Everything added up. I think the gods were looking out for me. But without these accidents, well, that guy with the mattress could have been me in about 1994, my last year on the planet. 

You can understand why I count my blessings so often.

The only main character in my body of work who is homeless is Mort in my play "A Chateau for Mort," which is one-third of the hyperdrama Cocktail Suite. I tried a different storytelling strategy here, trying to ease the audience into the pleasures and challenges of hyperdrama. Instead of a sprawling branching narrative, I wrote three self-contained plays that run simultaneously in 3 parts of a restaurant-bar, and major characters in one became minor characters in the others.

One play was a dark sex comedy, "Lonely and Horny in the City"; a second a fierce marital drama, "The Contract"; and Mort the third, which amazingly enough was ... a musical! 3 very very different genres playing at once, with characters slipping in and out of them, each with major characters, and minor characters from the others.

This was probably the most successful hyperdrama project I've done. We formed a coop with shares ... I got 2 as writer and director, and the actors got 1 each, and we split the gate. Our host got the drinks and food and didn't charge us rent (I knew the owner). We all made damn good money for the early weeks of the run. But as audiences tapered off, and actors wanted to do other things, we shut it down. But it was a successful hyperdrama production in many ways. Publicity was terrific and we had many sold out houses.

Read a 1988 preview article about it.