Song of Cecilia -- The rock-novel begins

All original songs, writing and real-time performances:

BY ANGELO M. BRUSCAS III
Copyright 2009, Real News Network and AMBIII Publishing

LIFE LESSONS
Love is so fragile, love is so bold,
love is so fleeting, love grows cold
I’ve been so foolish, as love unfolds
She said, ‘True love always has the color . . . of gold’”

Time is a blessing, sometimes a disgrace,
time is a banquet, time fades away
I’ve grown so bitter, time has that taste
She said, ‘Everything changes in time’s . . . ticking pace.’

Nothing to prove in this life of love,
no one can tame you, nothing to change
No one quenches this quest for love,
nothing can move you,
Neither glory nor shame

She is so fragile, she is so bold,
she’s so resilient, she never grew old
She was so steadfast, not bought and sold
Here I sand with a heart . . . full of gold”
Love is so spiteful, love is a vice,
love is so spineless, love has that price
Love is so sinful, love tastes like ice
I said, ‘True love, baby, has a lust . . . for life.’”

Nothing to gain in this game of life, \
no one can save you, no one to blame
Nobody escapes suffering and strife; nothing moves you,
neither glory nor shame

Truth is a terror, truth a mistake,
truth is so tragic, truth slips away
I’ve been so truthful, it comes with age
She said, ‘Don’t lie to yourself,
hat’s how truth is . . . made.’”

Love is so hopeful, love is a lamb
Love is so hurtful, wounded I stand
Love is so harmless, totally unplanned
She said, ‘Love yourself to know . . . who I am.’”

Song of Cecilia is a literary journey of love and a lyrical joyride
into the triumphs and depths of marriage and divorce through
these ever-shifting sands of economic, moral and social turmoil
– a novel about the mythic and mystical music two lovers create
when they begin to believe and then shatter the myths they adopt
for their lives.

The contemporary mystery-romance storyline of 112,000 words
unwinds as a modern twist on “The Divine Comedy” with
obvious similarities to “The Great Gatsby” -- told through the
eyes of a writer in the maze of a major life transformation; the
spiraling economy has put an end to his newspaper, sparking a
renewed search for personal redemption and reconnection with
the lost love and the lost music of his life. His lost love has taken
on the myth of St. Cecilia, martyred for the love of God, sacrificed
for the music of angels.

The central theme is the universality of love, the endurance of the
love of friends and family, even the love of God, through the love
of writing or rediscovering the love songs within us all: That joyful
noise of life.

The story is highlighted by the “language of love” crafted by the
central characters, Mario and Cecilia, in letters, songs, poetry,
factual experience and fictional expression, assuming and then
consuming their namesakes in the myth of an angel and the
myth of the patron saint of music .

Song of Cecilia
Chapter Fourteen

Cecily: I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn’t write them down, I should
probably forget all about them.

Miss Prism: Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

-- Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest”


                           SONG OF CECILIA: The Importance of Being Mario

The play begins as Cecilia begins to finish her Yoga routine on a mat in a bedroom with the drapes drawn, dressed in
black spandex leotards, silver Nike cross-trainers and a black shirt with a caricature face of the author Henry Miller silk-
screened on the front. The shirt reads “Got Miller?” as a play on the “Got Milk?” commercials. In the background, Bob
Marley and the Wailers are playing, “I don’t want to wait in vain for your love. I don’t want to wait in vain . . .”

The scene opens as Cecilia flexes her muscles, rising from a downward-facing-dog Yoga position. She approaches a
full-length mirror, and tenderly lifts up the shirt to the mirror to reveal a paisley purple sports bra. She has the leftover
traces of incisions and scars from the cancer surgery and skin grafts that have marked her otherwise pristine body with
red and purple lines like her hands, and she inspects the length of the scars with her fingertips before putting the Miller
shirt back on. She scowls, wrinkles up her nose, makes the sign of the cross in the mirror, shuts off the music and
mutters to herself:

CECILIA: Why does praying to God always seem so fruitless? It never seems to change a God-damn thing.
On the dresser she picks up a photo of her fifth husband, known affectionately as Mr. Clay by everyone in town, a photo
that shows him singing in a Christmas choir at the Apple Valley Methodist Church. Other family photos show Mr. Clay
with his orchard irrigation business partners, his brother and father, or with his two children in various ages and stages
of life and leisure. None of the photos include Cecilia. She dusts off the photo with the bottom of her shirt, replaces it
and walks out of the room into the kitchen, where Mr. Clay sits at the table, biting into an apple and reading the Daily
World.

Mr. Clay has just returned from the barber and his thick gray mane has been buzz-cut on the sides, styled on top and
colored to take some of the gray away, giving him a short sheen that Cecilia runs her hands through affectionately as
she approaches the table and kisses him on the head.

CECILIA: My, don’t you look like a handsome devil this afternoon. Nice haircut sweetie pie, a lot shorter than you
usually get it cut.

Mr. CLAY: I had to do something because I keep getting hat hair around my ears every time I have to wear a hard hat
on the job, and you know how I hate walking around with hat hair, especially in the heat of summer.
He unfolds the newspaper, folds it in half again, and begins to read the top local headline. “Woman jailed on bigamy
charge.”

Cecilia unbuttons the top few buttons on his shirt and runs her hand down his smooth chest, but Mr. Clay just keeps
reading and takes another bite from the apple.

CECILIA: Wouldn’t you like to get a little more comfortable after your sexy new haircut, honey? I’m all limbered up with
Yoga. Maybe you could use a little body and mind-relaxing session, too, if you catch my drift.

Mr. CLAY: (Oblivious to his wife’s seduction, holds up the newspaper with one hand and points to a headline with the
half-eaten apple) Did you see this crazy story? This woman is going to jail for bigamy after she married some poor
sucker who up and died and then collected on all his insurance, even took his memorial fund to boot. Turns out, she was
married to some other idiot, too. Serves them all right, but she only gets 15 days in jail and an $800 fine. Can you
believe it? Next thing you know, she’ll be right back out there marrying some other deadbeat.”

Cecilia takes the paper and folds it back into place so the front page is back in order as Mr. Clay rises from the table
and tosses the apple core into the sink. He switches on the garbage disposal, which grinds metal on metal until he turns
the faucet on, too. Using a spoon, he then pushes the apple into the whirring jaws of the disposal, but catches the metal
of the spoon between two of the teeth, causing the disposal to choke to a halt and begin to burn out the motor. Cecilia
jumps up and switches everything off.

CECILIA: Men, they are so dependable and predictable.

Mr. CLAY: (Sheepishly) I guess I should learn that you have to eat your apple, core and all.

CECILIA: Well at least you should learn something from this. But I’m not sure that’s the lesson.

Mr. CLAY: Don’t worry, my love, I can fix it quickly enough, just let me get my toolbox out of the truck. This is something
women are supposed to depend upon men to know how to do.

Cecilia turns on the overhead TV with news at 5 o’clock, and the anchorman is just coming into the headline rundown
for a busy news day:

“Pop star Michael Jackson has just been found dead of an apparent heart attack in his San Fernando Valley
mansion. Meanwhile actress Farrah Fawcett also has died of cancer with her beloved Ryan O’Neal at her side. And
we’ll also have an exclusive interview with the wife of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford who has agreed to take
her husband back one step at a time amid revelations he had an ongoing affair with an Argentine woman. But first,
the Prince of Pop, a living legend is dead . . .”

Mr. CLAY: (Calling out through the door) Ceci, have you seen my pipe wrench? (re-entering with a hammer, duct tape, a
can of WD40 and an electric screwdriver)

CECILIA: Did you know that Michael Jackson died? He must only be 50 or so. How simply tragic. And Farrah Fawcett,
too. What a battle with cancer she had, and what a great lover Ryan O’Neal was for her to the bitter end. Truly, a love
story there.

Mr. CLAY: Oh yeah, I heard that at the office. (Rummaging through each and every drawer in the kitchen) Everybody
was talking about it at the barber shop, too, and I saw they even broke in on ESPN with a special news report while I
was getting shampooed. I always thought he was kind of a pervert. What kind of fruitcake does that to his nose? You
wonder if all that plastic surgery didn’t catch up with him. Now where in Jesus’ name could my pipe wrench be? You
haven’t been using my pipe wrench for anything have you, honey?

CECILIA: Have you tried looking where you used it last?

Mr. CLAY: And where might that be?

Cecilia drops down on a knee and opens the cabinet door under the sink, exposing the garbage disposal. She lifts a
pipe wrench from under it and hands it triumphantly to her husband.

CECILIA: Unless you want me to do a man’s job, it’s all yours, just like last time. And next time, please remember dear,
don’t use a spoon to push things into the garbage disposal. It’s a simple yin and yang thing: metal thrust into grinding
metal grinds everything to a halt.

Mr. CLAY: That’s why I love you so, my beautiful Saint Cecilia. You keep everything together, everything in perspective.
Where would I be without such wisdom?

Mr. Clay gets under the sink and begins to use the wrench to screw loose the garbage disposal from its housing, while
Cecilia turns to a stack of mail and begins sifting through the envelopes. She comes upon one addressed to Mr. Clay
but recognizes it immediately as the handwriting of her ex-husband Mario. The envelope is standard size but bulging
with paper and taped so you have to use a knife or scissors to open it. It is delivered with postage due of 47 cents.
Cecilia takes a butcher knife to the letter and goes no further than to read that it is indeed addressed to her husband,
slamming the letter on the table.

CECILIA: God-damn it all to hell. When is it ever going to end?

The outburst causes Mr. Clay to rise up startled, hitting his head on the sink.

Mr. CLAY: What the devil did I do now? (Holding his head and winching) Everything is fixed, just flip the switch. You don’
t have to lay into me like that, my love.

CECILIA: (Walking over to her husband, taking his hand away from his brow and kissing his head.) I’m sorry sweetie, I
didn’t mean to scare you. That wasn’t meant for you, it was just another one of those letters from Mario. This time, he’s
writing directly to you and I’m just so sick and tired of reading his bullshit over and over again. It has to end.

Cecilia reaches over to the sink, turns the water on, flips the switch and the garbage disposal purrs like new.

Mr. CLAY: (Proudly) I sprayed some WD40 on the metal plates so they shouldn’t get stuck so easily. So what did the
letter actually say that pissed you off so much?

CECILIA: I don’t really care and you shouldn’t either, sweetie. We have our whole lives to forget Mario.

Sweeping the letter off the table, Cecilia turns the water on full blast, takes the pages one by one and feeds them into
the garbage disposal, smiling with a peaceful look on her face as she watches all the words go down the drain.

Cut to a man draped in Victorian-era clothing, a silhouetted Oscar Wilde character seated at a desk writing in an eagle-
feathered pen as the spotlight grows on him to full circle simulating the sun. The lone character rises, and then begins
reading from The Importance of Being Earnest, changing the pitch of his voice to fit the dialogue, pronouncing each
name like announcing golfers at the first tee of a major tournament, laughing to himself between the lines as if he’s his
own audience, gesturing wildly to his reflection in the same mirror Cecilia looked into at the start of the play:

CECILY: I hope it did not end happily! I don’t like novels that end happily. They depress me so.

MISS PRISM: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.

CECILY: I suppose so. But it seems very unfair. And was your novel ever published?

MISS PRISM: Alas, no. The manuscript unfortunately was abandoned.

The spotlight fades out on the Oscar Wilde character and another spot fades in on a nearly naked Mario, dressed only
in running shorts, running shoes, shirtless with his dog Babe lying under his desk. He is reading the last book Cecilia
ever gave him in their marriage, Henry Miller’s posthumously published first novel, “Crazy Cock,” which he shows slyly
to the audience while scratching his crotch and leafing through the book to the last page.

MARIO: (Reading aloud from the Miller book)

Once the world was young and the wounds one bore one displayed proudly, because God had put His finger in the
wounds and they were not meant to heal – they were to be borne with courage and suffering. And now we are riding
out like rotten sloops to the storm and you can poke an umbrella through the gaping holes of our wounds – but there
is no suffering, and no courage. We and our characters – for we are our characters – go down like deserted ships,
sloops too rotten to weather the first storm.

Tossing “Crazy Cock” into the audience, he then begins rummaging through an old manuscript titled The Real Story,
which is the book he first tried to write about his years as Cecilia’s fourth husband, and finds a section that makes him
choke back tears, wiping his eyes, then holding the writing up to the light and reading:

MARIO: "Cecilia and I made love with the Gods over the weekend on the edge of the continent again, soaring above
the ocean and Moclips like young lovers ready to hurl our souls into the ever-enveloping sea that crashed at our feet.
Ecstatic love, overpowering love -- tearful, hurtful love comes pouring out, leaving only forgiving love, healing love. I don’t
even know how it happened and I certainly don’t know how to proceed in the time ahead. I feel responsible for
everything; for squandering our home and family, for the disease of fear rather than the love of life. Yet in an instant over
what may be our last Valentine’s Day in marriage, we both seemed forgiven for everything. I had come with her to the
ocean with the full intent of making our divorce final, ready to admit we could never reconcile our hurt, and then left more
spiritually connected than ever, pleading to the heavens to restore my love forever through the years. Reborn. Revived.
Unbound. Free, that’s how we made love, like we might never do it again, like we were released of all our sins and
failures, the tears and the sweat and the pain came pouring out to cleanse us and release us, bound into the heavens
as the great lovers we always will be.”

CECILIA: (From a voice off stage) Well, well, there he is exaggerating that part of the story again. Who was such a
great lover? Who was it that couldn’t even stay hard on our first date, and I use both words loosely?

The light opens up on the stage as Cecilia walks back, carrying a bowl of apples, placing them on the desk in front of
Mario and playfully shining one on his bald head, sitting seductively on his lap. She’s wearing a deep purple push-up
bra and matching panties, black garter and fishnet stockings, heels, draped in the full-length blue fox fur that she had
inherited from her grandmother and that she had worn the night they first made love.

CECILIA: (Rubbing the apple down his naked chest and up to his lips). Why must we make it so hard on each other my
fallen Angel? (He slowly bites into the apple with his teeth, but she holds it and reaches down to take a bite, too, pulling
back to chew it as he keeps the apple in his teeth). Don’t you realize I might still be with you today if you just stopped
writing all this nonsense about our love? Isn’t that what you want?

Mario eats the rest of the apple and ponders the question, finishing the fruit voraciously, core and all as the juice runs
down his cheeks and onto his bare chest. He spits out some seeds, picks up another apple bites into it, places it back
with the others and then puts the bowl of remaining apples on the floor as he chews rigorously as if oblivious to Cecilia
still perched like a cloaked raven of sensuality on his lap. He starts up his desk-top computer, an Apple Macintosh
widescreen, for his fading vision, wipes his fingers on her fur coat and begins typing.

MARIO: Thanks for the apple, oh beautiful love of my life, and you look simply marvelous tonight. But if you don’t mind, I
have a lot of writing I want to finish up and all this is taking me away from my story.

As the computer boots up his latest letter to Cecilia, the spot fades out, leaving only his words blown up 200 percent on
the screen.

“All work and no play makes Mario a dull boy.
All play and no works makes Mario a dull Angel.”

A second spotlight comes up on the Oscar Wilde character, who moves in behind Mario’s video display screen,
picking up with the dialogue that ends “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

JACK: It is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth.
Can you forgive me?

GWENDOLEN: I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.

                                                               THE END, of another beginning:

Dear Cecilia, I am so happy today I could fly!

After searching for years, starting with an idea born between me and you, I finally have my eagle. Like all things worth
finding, it appeared before me simply by happenstance while ending my run on another glorious minus-tide morning in
the sun -- just like the way we would find eagles all around us whenever we were together in total love and a part of pure
nature.

The day started with another soaring sunrise of writing and rays from the heavens, leading to the latest liberties I have
taken in developing the story of the overall book to include not only the mythology but the drama and the literary
allusions that came to be a part of our love and caused our love to depart, to take wing and fly, fly away.

Think of it sort of like that Charlie Kaufman screenplay, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” where the Kate
Winslet character tries to have all the memories of her love removed and replaced. Remember Cecilia? I know you
have a hard time remembering anything that doesn’t suit your survival-mode mentality these days. That was the last
movie we saw together during your chemotherapy treatments and it seemed to heal us so much in the tough laughter
we shared and in the joy of our connection then, as fleeting as it was. Without her love, the woman in the Kaufman story
becomes another character entirely while her writing fool of a protagonist chases just as fleetingly as me to restore her
memory. Despite losing their love memories, they still can’t shake all their sorrows and hurt, and fate finds a way for
them to fall in love on a different level, in a new space and time, to create new memories of even purer love. You held
my hand so tightly the entire movie.

The storyline that precedes this letter is a play on some central themes in Oscar Wilde’s play -- the leading of secret
lives, the way your past always catches up with you, and the legitimacy or illegitimacy of one’s love in marriage and the
trivial formalities that we pretend to adhere to in the name of love. I do think the dramatic liberties I have taken have a
true and humorous ring to them in the play-like format I’ve use to parody Wilde, but I truly don’t enjoy using your life as a
parody at all. I would much rather write about my love for you in the present tense and in reality rather than as literary
device that serves as another bridge burned in our love. So I will for now let our love take literary flight from the thin air of
fiction into the clear sky of my world at ground level.

So enough of burning bridges, and back to soaring eagles . . . . Babe and I ran as far as we ever have to open the
morning, taking a circuitous route to the beach by winding though the golf course, along one of the fresh-water canals
that are ripe with cattails and skunk cabbage in full bloom, and then through a new dune trail that usually is impassible
during wetter months because it fords a lagoon. I laughed with delight when I let Babe run free into the water, chasing
seagulls, and Lou Reed’s great, “Walk on the Wild Side,” came on through the headphones: “I said, hey Babe, take a
walk on the wild side.”

After turning back finally with four miles already gone, we prowled the main beach where master sand-castle sculpting
contests are in progress, and then cut through to the Ocean Shores Convention Center, where there is a convention of
chain-saw artists in full grinding, sawdust-blowing glory. Just as I pull up to see what all the racket is about, I spot the
eagle.

It has its wings open to full span, just like I wanted. Who wants an eagle that just sits there, like on top of a globe? It is
big enough -- about four feet from top to bottom -- to be seen across the road and through the sweat steaming my
glasses, yet not so big that it can’t be placed wonderfully in my front window without blocking out the sun. It has a face
that sort of reminds me of your features -- angular, streamlined, with a certain knowing look that gives it an air of
wisdom and glory. And it is carved from a block of fine cedar in such a way that the bird truly looks like it is gliding and
unattached above a mountain range, aloof and stoic, not predatory but aware.

Of course, I had no money with me on the run to pay the woman who carved it the $150 she wanted, but I pleaded with
her to hold the piece until I returned. Her name was Marty and she and her husband now do this for a living after he
found no other work in the lumber business. They were so happy, too, when I came back and they had the eagle all
shined up and set aside for me, telling me it was their first sale of the weekend. It now sits in its rightful place, in the
middle of my picture window facing west to the sunset, with loving memory of you and me and all the eagles of our love
that still fly into my heart and soul on days like today.

I felt like a king carrying my eagle home to my throne, holding it up on my shoulder for all to see on my way back from
another amazing day by the sea. Lucky me!!!

I place great importance on what to others might seem to be trivialities in life, maybe because I realize that pure
happiness is not trivial no matter how ridiculous it might seem. Who has not felt happiest when losing control of laughter
for what might appear to be no apparent reason whatsoever?

I do not mean to make our love into a comedy, or even a comedy of errors, but I do still find great humor and a wry form
of happy irony in re-telling the story in its present state. The end is in sight, and I am working as hard as possible to
finish the bulk of the writing by our old anniversary date, July 3. There are several writing contests that I know I am
aiming for in the nearest future, and then I am taking some of the individual chapters and sending them off to
magazines, etc., to see if the whole thing can fly, too.

My intent never was or is to find happiness at your expense, so I realize that if this all soars into eternity like I think it
does, I owe you not only a great deal of gratitude but a complete share of the proceeds that should come with it as well.
Well, the day already is calling and more old friends you know are on their way down to roam the beaches with me on a
glorious day for eagles to fly into the sun. Babe is whining to get into the wild waves again, and it’s time to go back to
life on the run, with a wing and a prayer into the world that awaits. Wish you were here, too.

Fly like an eagle, write like a man, love like an angel, live like truth,

Mario

ENCORE SCENE: The curtain closes on Mario alone in his living room, looking west toward the eagle in his window,
writing a score to “Song of Cecilia” on an electric piano, an instrument he stopped playing after taking lessons when he
was 12 on his grandmother’s old upright antique.

“I don’t play accurately – anyone can play accurately – but I play wonderful expression.
As far as piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.”

-- From “The Importance of Being Earnest

WINTER
She tripped on the sidewalk, high heeled in black socks
Wrapped in her blue fox, pride was a lost cause
Snow fell down and he turned away, leaving no tracks for another day
Silent beauty still chills his heart, year after year at winter's last parting.
He flipped on the cool charm, offered her no harm.
Promised to keep her warm, in winter’s worst storm.
She looked so mournful, in winter’s worst storm.
Snow fell down and she turned his way, leaving no tears for another day,
The silent beauty still fills her heart, year after year when winter has started.
They danced on the rooftop.
Made love to the backdrop.
Time would just fall off.
Love was a come on, "Hey come on"
They dared to be reckless.
She said he could care less.
Life is a mistress, who knows how to French kiss.
Snow fell down and she turned away, leaving no tears for another day,
The silent beauty still fills her heart, year after year when winter has started.
He tripped on his own mind, lost what he’d never find.
She was so strident
When winter turned white.

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