Being A Broadway Writer Last Century

For the umpteenth time the Underwood typewriter’s ink did something terrorizing my creative thoughts and frustrating attempts to distribute a message. Required perfection or the whole thing must be rewritten seemed to be the scene setting when applying pressure to the bleeding presentation.

“How long is that going to take?” I thought peering up to the stage where a young lady who worked across the street earned respectable wages but right now her spotlight brightly shined inside.

“Now what do you want me to do with this chair? Again,” She questioned the invisible figure.

“Sit on it,” the response came.

Looking at what I wrote, figuring out if there was any meaning to my madness, inner self intuition enforced the reality, one mistake, more sheets needed to be obtained from the office closet backstage.

“Is it time for a musical number?” The hidden voice over requested.

“Don’t ask me,” The contractual worker standing on her perch pleaded, “ask him?”

“That’s not my job,” I defended my work from the salty comment, “it’s,”

Suddenly beneath the artistic surface a piano keyboard magically sounded, “his,” I continued.

“Or hers,” The talented pawn added pointing at the phantom orchestra mistress.

Releasing a little chuckle, I went back to conversing with the Underwood contraption that I bought at a Key West flea market.

“After this night,” I pondered performing the one finger choreographed dance creating magic where the reader’s imagination would do the rest.

“Keep it simple kid,” the headliner advised, “it is just a chair.”

Pondering the logical prompt, I started to think that a chair is a very simple stable device that has a firm stand with four legs, unlike a human who only has two, unless someone is using the furniture to rest. Then it has six legs and if you add a ventriloquist type character being a cushion there would be eight.

“Do we really need a gun?” An opinionated question came from the cast lead, “it’s a chair, what chair kills people?”

“That’s it,” I found my inspiration distracted from the Underwood machine that created such back pain where prescribed standing relieved all unnerving episodes, “of course, the electric one kills people.”

“Hey lazy boy. What are you doing?”

“I am writing a masterpiece, “I answered not caring about typographical errors.”

“Well, when the legendary composition is complete, I need it, so please send it over,”

Quick and fast my single sensational pointer device pushed the letters that splashed the information and finally it concluded. “A gun, a chair, a lady and a man, so simple, so ingenious,” I cried.

“Are you all right?” She asked, snapping her gum.

“I have a hit!”

Days passed and rehearsals polished the piece, checking the ‘I’s’ and crossing the tees before producers approved the editorial commentary.

Sitting in the audience I saw the critics and wondered if they had problems with their Underwoods or listened to Samuel Clemons' concerns.

I only heard the silent spoken dialogue, “No, we use electrical ones.”

Soon, the curtain rose, and the center featured a chair waiting for the two people and the star a gun. After the three theatrical thespians arrived at their marks, I observed all eight legs do their job, acting like crooked individuals. When everything was in place, the commanding cue, gave the show a jolt and within a second fried corpses appeared.

Applause circulated throughout the whole house, and I could hear a patron marvel, “just like special effects in the movies.”

Later I attended a social get together and ordered a nice stiff one when two gentlemen bumped into my fantasy, “well written,” one said, “author, author, but can I bounce this thought.”

I kindly lent an ear, “a plant that eats people.”

“We could call it, ‘Cold As A Winter Garden’” I replied wondering where I could purchase a bucket full of blood.

“Yes,” the other affirmatively expressed, “oh what happen to those two-receiving buzz for chair sitting?”

“Getting toasted over there,” I pointed to the dead ringers across the room, “they are now living in the city of angels you can say, and I have saved the taxpayers a couple dollars.”