As the opening strains of Rhapsody in Blue played over The Lumberyard’s PA system, an upstage light slowly went up to full. Standing in the circle, curled around the stripper pole, was Flavia dressed as Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. Downstage, in a separate circle of light, was an old, twenties style worn leather suitcase. Granger had used the suitcase in his Hemingway show, recounting wistfully, as if Hemingway would have recalled this indecent wistfully, how Hadley had lost a satchel full of his work at a Paris train station. And now the legendary suitcase was a centre piece to Ganger’s grand send off. As Flavia twirled around the pole to Gershwin’s soaring piece, her eyes never left the suitcase. The effect of Flavia’s performance, her sense of regret and loss, was really quite moving; even Colm was swept up:
Colm: Fuck me, I’m almost in tears.
Turdling: How long do you suppose she’s been working on this?
Colm: She probably started thinking about it five minutes after meeting him. (Pause) What do you imagine she’ll do now?
Turdling: She’ll find someone else.
Colm: I mean in this . . the . . dance.
Flavia slid down the pole and melted onto the floor; an arm stretched downstage. She crawled, slithering really, towards the suitcase and opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper. She removed it, began to read it, stopped, then reached into her pocket and threw a handful of glitter into the air. Flavia sat reading the paper while the glitter fell to the stage and the lights made a slow fade to black.
And with that, the memorial service for C. Brandon Granger was over.
The Observations of A.E. Turdling 
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