Edna McCoy, an old woman with white hair, walked off the plane and onto the corridor connecting to the lobby of the Chicago O’Hare Airpot, she moved from jet fuel runway into the humanity of people coming and going. Edna had done this as long as she could remember, traveling was just part of her life, her art.
She dragged a small black rolling bag behind her. The extension handle wouldn’t come up. She pulled at it with mounting effort, stopping amid the flow of travelers who streamed past without pause. Still Edna pulled. The bag resisted. A man moved toward her, his happy face bright-eyed. Edna’s mouth began to curl into a smile, but he was bypassing her with intent, and rushed to embrace and kiss a young woman standing nearby.
“I couldn’t wait!” he said to his clutch.
Edna, returned to her baggage, trembled from the effort, and finally yanked the extension handle free. She turned and continued down the concourse, passing many embracers that faced the other way.
She was the last to leave. She thought, “Nobody younger than sixty-five can understand how much it hurts the body just to MOVE. When I was growing up here, here in Chicago is my home town, before I was picked up by Metro—we were taught to have manners.”
Her thoughts were interrupted by a chipper voice: “Hi Miss McCoy! I’m here to GETCHA!”
She looked over, the curls of her lips began to turn up as she saw a man that waved to her. He had the face of someone preparing to put on makeup, his expression saucy. “Robin.” He said with an extended hand.
At the McDonald’s counter in the airport, a youngish girl stood ready to take orders.
“What can I get you today?” she asked.
“I only want an orange juice and a water,” Edna said. Robin shook his head toward Edna’s look.
“You look so familiar--?”
Edna’s smile began as she said, “Edna McCoy.”
The girl glanced at her, showing no recognition, and continued preparing the drinks.
Edna watched her. She smiled a little less at the curls of her lips. She was used to this.
“Edna McCoy! Very big in the forties. The Dark Side of Town??” said Robin, stepping up. He got nowhere with the recitation of film titles.
“Here ya go,” the girl said, while she placed the drinks on the counter.
The pair began their airport exit.
At the House of Blues Hotel registration desk, Robin stood beside Edna.
“Well I don’t understand that, I really don’t! You have nothing in your computer at all?”
The hotel clerk responded without looking up, “Well we have Miss McCoy’s name, yes. But nothing about the hotel picking up the room charge.”
Edna said, “Oh dear well no, I just can’t pay this sort of—”
“Not to worry, not to worry,” Robin said. “You just go sit over there—and I’ll make an itty bitty call.”
Edna pulled her suitcase over to a Moroccan settee under a drape. She faced a small hotel store. She looked, and Robin was still on the phone.
She entered the store. There were T-shirts, books on Buddha, and other items. The book section featured a quote: “Freedom is the only condition for Happiness”. She held up a T-shirt in front of herself, then put it down. Robin was there. The corners of her mouth reached for the corners of her eyes.
“All set,” he said. “They will pick up the room charges, but not the incidentals.”
“Incidentals?”
“Yes, yes let’s go get the elevator—you know the phone, or room service…”
In her room at the House of Blues Hotel, Edna was on the bed with the phone at her ear. She was in mid-conversation. “Well, usually they just hand you a schedule of what’s needed from you when you arrive, you know? My dear I don’t want to be complaining but if there’s supposed to be some actor’s panel for the festival or, I thought the director said a brunch with the press—?”
The doorbell rang.
“Come in.”
The doorbell rang again.
“Coming! Coming! Could you hold on a moment?” Edna asked of the Festival Volunteer on the other end.
She placed the phone on the bed and went to the door. A waiter entered with her lunch. He handed her the bill and a pen before setting down the tray of food.
“Oh. This is one half again the price on the menu.” Said Edna.
“Yuh. You see there’s the gratuity. Then the room service charge and of course the tax.” The waiter replied.
“But you figured the tax after you added the gratuity and the room service charge.”
“Not up to me Missus.” Offered the hotel worker.
“No, no it’s not young man.”
She signed the bill.
He set down the tray.
Edna picked back up the phone.
“Hello? Hello?” No reply.
Edna stood in front of the Concierge Desk. There was a woman opposite her, who was visibly nonplused.
“Please tell me where the nearest grocery store is. Is there one near here?” Edna asked.
Pam, the concierge, answered without enthusiasm.
“Oh easy, madam. Really very simple. Just go out, turn left to State Street and you’ll see steps leading down to the Marina Mall.”
“Thank you so much. Might I ask you to send an electrician to my room to correct the clock? It rings at 3 p.m. And I have no idea how to turn it off.”
“We’ll call the electrician right away, and that was room—?”
“324. Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure.”
Edna regarded her. Pam’s expression did not change.
Edna walked across the Chicago State Street river overpass bridge. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself. She stopped at the side of the walkway and held onto the railing eyes searching for “Steps Down”. She remained there, looking down.
From her point of view, family touring boats were passing underneath the bridge. She watched the people. They were on an early afternoon outing.
She smiled, the curls of her lips growing greatly.
Again, Edna stood in front of the Concierge Desk, explaining to Pam, “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t find it. Would you tell me again? Just think of me as a three-year-old.”
Pam laughed lightly. A very concierge-y laugh.
“Yes. Yes. Just before the bridge there are steps going down. Go inside and way to the back and there’s an upper end convenience store.”
On State Street, Edna once again walked toward the bridge. She spotted the stairwell. It did not resemble a “Marine Mall”. There were two long windows resembling traveling companies, with a door between them.
Finally - thankfully - inside the convenience store, Edna stood at the check-out. She had a loaf of bread, sliced cheese, and deli meat on the counter. A sales girl was working on searching up limes on her produce card. The rest of the store was empty.
“I’m sorry I see those lovely olives. But I can’t find a little container to put them in.” Said Edna.
“Just over there,” the girl said, pointing back to where Edna had just looked.
She looked at the many varieties of olives but didn’t see any shelf of containers. She returned to the counter where her items were being sacked in plastic, and said, “I’m so sorry I just don’t see any—”
“Here, let me show you.”
The girl walked around the counter and led Edna back to the olives. She was short, with very curly black hair.
“There you go,” said the clerk.
She handed Edna a container from the far right of the display table.
“Oh thank you so much for your kindness. I truly appreciate it.”
Edna took the two plastic sacks from the counter. They fell heavily on her wrists. She adjusted her purse into the crook of her arm and lifted the sacks, one in each hand. She walked toward the door, burdened.
On the bridge, she moved with difficulty, holding the sacks and her purse. Her steps were heavy.
A middle-aged couple stood nearby, talking quietly. They looked at Edna. After a moment, they approached.
“Excuse us, we hate to bother you but you look so familiar,” the husband said.
Edna stopped. Her smile just hinted at a curl, “Oh that’s quite all right.”
“What’s your name?” Said the wife.
“Edna McCoy.” She had humbly grown her smile.
He looked at his wife. She shook her head.
“No, we thought you were Karen Black. Sorry to bother you.”
They walked away. Edna adjusted the heavy sacks and continued.
Inside a rented auditorium, the “Press Brunch” was well under way, and Edna sat amongst a panel sat on stage. Above them was a banner adorned with the name of the film festival with several spotlights highlighting the stylized letters: “C Alt”. A few reporters with pencils and pads looked up at the performers. Edna sat among them, beside a young, nice-looking actor, a middle-aged man—the director—and a belligerent teenage girl named Bela.
“As in—Christ what do you THINK I do?” said Bela. “I just, like, say the words and try to mean them.”
“Well I think that’s very well put, Bela,” Edna said, before the next question was launched.
“Because?”
“Because?”
“As in—How come. How come you think that?” Questioned Bela.
“Well many people create unnecessary mysteries about the art of acting. How well you act depends solely on the extent to which your imagination can replace the actual moment in which you live with that other moment, in which the character lives.”
The reporters looked at Edna. One of them raised a hand. She nodded toward the questioner, beginning her smile.
“To the director—how much did you do the movie for? What was your budget?”
In Edna’s room at the House of Blues Hotel, she was sleeping after the brunch. She lay on her back with her mouth open.
She snored.
The alarm went off.
She woke with a start and looked at the clock. 3PM.
She wheezed as she rolled over and turned off the alarm. She examined the clock, turned it upside down, set it back down. She pulled the phone from the other side of the bed toward her and pressed a number.
“Hello—yes could someone come up here and make sure the alarm doesn’t go off? No no, dear, please don’t try to teach me over the phone. In my travels I’ve had alarms go off at 4 in the morning, been exhausted for days. I really can’t figure them out… thank you so much.”
Edna hung up. She moved to the desk on the other side of the hotel room, wearing a slip and a Japanese kimono carrying her glass of water from the bedside table with her. Edna opened the bag of bread. She took out the mustard and the bologna from the store sack. Edna opened a desk drawer and retrieved a room service knife from a drawer. She looked down at the sugar packets, salt and pepper packets, her hotel plate and her hotel silverware that were hoarded there.
She took out the plate.
Edna tried to cut a lime with the butter knife. It was difficult so she made groaning sounds as she applied pressure. Finally, the lime split in two.
She placed one half in her mouth and leaned forward over the desk, squeezing juice into her water glass with her teeth.
Later that night inside a dark, classy bar, the festival awards ceremony was giving its final Acting Award. The Emcee for the evening stood behind a microphone in a small area usually used by a live band. A gold light illuminated her beautiful face.
“…and best actress, goes to EDNA MC COY! For her brilliant work in My Brother the Pig!”
At the table with Bela and the director, Edna appeared surprised. She put her hands over her face. Her eyes watered.
“Oh WOW!” Bela said.
Bela stood and leaned over to hug Edna. The director stood and shook Edna’s hand as she rose.
“Shit! Edna,” Bela said.
“Thanks Bela dear,” Edna curled her fabulous smile causing the edges of her lips to reach for the edges of her eyes.
Edna stepped up into the gold light and began to speak, “This is quite precious to me. I wish you all could experience what it’s like to come home again, and not only to be warmly welcomed but to be awarded as well. I’ve been away from home a long time. And the road’s still a little bumpy. But—”
She smiled and lifted the award, an odd brass concoction.
“This makes it all worthwhile.”
Applause and hoots from the audience completed her acceptance speech.
In Edna’s room at the House of Blues Hotel, only the outer curve of her body under the blankets showed in the lightless room. She lay on her back, snoring. Suddenly, the alarm went off. She woke with a sharp start, mostly heard rather than seen.
“AAAH! OH! my Christ.”
There was a pause. She got up to turn it off. This time the alarm clock read 3AM.
Back in Los Angeles, Edna sat with her granddaughter Celia, who was around six years old, on her lap. They were outside on the patio veranda of a home which overlooked Mulholland Drive, and Edna was reading from the book Where the Wild Things Go. The story had reached the part about the island. Edna performed the screams, laughs, and chortles of the Monsters. Celia’s small finger pointed to one of the Monsters.
Edna responded with a growl. Celia giggled.
“Do that one again.”
Edna growled again.
“That’s a good one. Do that again.”
Barbara came out of the house carrying a tray of sandwiches on whole wheat bread, her face resembled her daughter, not her mother-in-law. Barbara placed the sandwiches on the table.
“That’s enough Celia. You’re going to tire grandma all out.”
“No, no, I like the monsters!” Edna said to Celia.
She grinned like a monster.
“I don’t like those sandwiches. The bread is gross,”
“You get that or nothing, so eat,” Barbara said to her daughter, Celia.
The little girl slumped in Edna’s lap and looked sulky. Edna looked at her daughter-in-law, and then hugged Celia closer.
“So where did you stay in Chicago?” Barbara asked, convivially.
“At the House of Blues Hotel.” said Edna, stroking Celia’s hair.
“Oh I hear that’s a GREAT hotel, lucky you. And you brought your award to show me?”
“Yes—there it is—” Edna pointed.
Celia picked it up, asking “What IS it?”
“I know, it looks like an animal but what animal?” Edna said.
“That must be TONS of fun—a film festival. I’ve never been to one in my life—” Barbara said, but Celia and Edna were still focused on the award.
“Maybe an ewe. That’s an animal with little eyes—like these.” Edna said.
She pointed to the eyes on the award, totally enraptured with the present moment with Celia.
Barbara looked disgusted, took a sandwich half, and walked away.
“I know! It’s a wrang-a-tang. The ones with the bald red butts,” Celia said.
“Oh my gosh, that’s it! An orangutan. Good for you.” Said Edna, they both laughed together.
“Look. It doesn’t have your name on it.” Celia pointed.
Celia turned to fully face her grandmother.
“Why’s that?” Demanded the child.
“It wasn’t a very expensive festival.” Replied Edna.
“No I mean, it doesn’t have your name on it.”
Celia just looked at her.
“They weren’t very rich.” Said Edna.
“Who?”
“You know, it doesn’t have my name on it.” Edna rested her trophy.
“Right.”
“But you see—”
Edna touched Celia’s nose, which was tipped just like her grandmother’s, “You do.”
They smiled at each other. Edna’s smile finally reached her eyes, and her eyes finally reached her smile - as did Celia’s
“Come on, let’s read!”
Celia stood proudly beside her grandmother.
“Do that last monster again.”
Edna grinned and growled, as she sat at the table and enjoyed her festival with Celia. The garden behind them was full of green and sunlight.
The End.