Mailbox: A Scattershot Novel of Racing, Dares and Danger, Occasional Nakedness, and Faith. Chapter 1.

Mailbox: Chapter 6, Hair

MAILBOX: A Scattershot Novel of Racing, Dares and Danger, Occasional Nakedness, and Faith by Nancy Freund, Gobreau Press, 2015, Chapter 6: Hair

Last year we went to New York for Spring Break. It's a good time to go, if you're lucky with the weather. We were very lucky and had a nice clear day for the Easter Parade where everybody puts on crazy hats and feathers and costumes and marches down the road, some of them without even planning an interesting outfit. Spontaneity is the true beauty of New York. "Spontaneity" means anything can happen at the spur of the moment, usually good things, and they didn't need a lot of planning. Like someone in the parade might just be holding balloons or flowers or something. Or someone might build a paper mache model of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona on their head and march along singing in Spanish. That lady's hat was my favorite. I'm going to go to Spain someday to see that cathedral in person if I can earn the money. There are a lot of steps there. I bet they warn you that if you go to the top you could have a heart attack. The Empire State Building and most cathedrals can give a person a heart attack. New York has my favorite cathedral I have seen in person so far, St. Patrick's Cathedral. I think I might like it enough to become Catholic. You can't get married in St. Patrick's Cathedral unless you're Catholic, and you can't just say you are for a day and then quit after your wedding. It has to be real and for the rest of your life.

We stood in the two-fer line, where you get two theater tickets for the price of one, although really they're just discounted, not actually two-for-one. My mom says that's the best place in New York to meet people. Chris and my dad went to the magic shop on 34th Street instead of coming with us to the two-fer line. I like magic tricks, but I don't like to know how they're done, or even what the packaging looks like when you buy your magic stuff, so I'd definitely rather do the two-fer line than Tannen's Magic, because then I can still be a good audience for Chris' magic tricks. If you know too much, you can't be astonished.

I love being astonished! You can't fake it, because astonishment is a sudden reaction and if someone tries to fake it, they are just a huge horrible faker, even if they mean well. It has to be real. With Chris' magic tricks, people are always really astonished, especially me. Chris loves that. Plus, the two-fer line is fun!

Mom started talking to the guy standing on line behind us, and it turned out he's a writer, so she told him I'm a writer too - or I'm planning to be. She knows I keep all my stories I type in a box, but she only reads them if I tell her it's OK, because she respects my privacy. She told that guy the thing I always want for Christmas is books on how to be a writer. By the way, in New York, people say you wait "on line" but most other places they say you wait "in line." I don't know why that is, but I know it's called "dialect," when the way you say stuff changes depending on where you're from.

I told the guy in the two-fer line I only have a manual typewriter at home, but I have electric typewriters to use at my dad's office. He said you don't need any typewriter. You can be a writer with only paper and a pencil - the equipment doesn't matter. The training matters. He asked me if I know about fiction, like what plot is, and setting, and dialogue, and conflict, and resolution, and I said I did, which is mostly true, although I'm not so sure about resolution. He had black hair and a navy blue pea coat and really cool glasses and a thick white scarf like a fishermen's knit sweater that he kept kind of grabbing and stroking like a cat and re-arranging it while he talked. I guess we were there in the two-fer line for about an hour, and he and my mom had a lot to talk about, which is also the beauty of New York. New friends are everywhere.

Now I kind of wish I hadn't said I knew all that stuff about conflict and resolution, because he might have taught me more. You never know where you're going to learn your most valuable lessons. He said your own creativity, commitment, and courage are what matter. Three C's. I memorized them as we were standing there in the cold. He went to Northwestern University when he was only in high school, where the student journalists also only have manual typewriters. My mom made a note, so I can go there in the future if I get accepted. You don't just get to go - you have to apply. Lots of things work like that, and you have to pay for them, unless you get a scholarship. It's important to keep trying if you don't get in at first, and don't give up even if you can't afford something. Then we got to the front of the line and bought tickets to the musical Hair.

I think it's good the tickets were half-price because in my opinion it was terrible. That was my opinion even before the whole cast came out at the end stark naked, which seemed really unnecessary. I would hate to be an actress in that show! I would refuse to do the grand finale. I think my parents were embarrassed that Chris and I were there to see all those actors and actresses stark naked on stage, with their tan lines showing and their hair, you know, on their bodies, and everything, which I guess was kind of the point. The men sure had a lot of dark hair down there. The whole private part of them was pretty dark, actually, I don't mean just the black guys who were kind of lucky because it didn't show so much since there wasn't so much contrast. The black ladies were lucky too, in that sense. I wouldn't be an actor or an actress in that show, no matter what color I was! I wonder if their singing changes when they're feeling awkward on the stage all naked. I'm not the best singer in the world any time, but I sure don't think being naked on stage would improve the situation.

The music in the show was pretty good though. I like the song "The Age of Aquarius." After the show, I was singing it day and night and driving my family crazy, even if sometimes they joined in. If my mom is actually mad, she says, "Sandy, I've had it up to here with you!" and then I know to stop. I should probably be embarrassed to sing out loud, but with my family, I'm usually not.

I think it's kind of funny that "bare" and "assed" are part of the word embarrassed. But we don't use the word "ass" in our family except for a donkey, and then, we mostly just say donkey.

My parents said they did the finale like that in the show because it was a challenge for the audience, and that's what art is. And when you talk about it like that, you capitalize Art and tell people you are capitalizing it. You say, "Art with a capital A." I thought that show was Art with a capital Awful.

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Thank you for reading. ~ your Freund, Nancy