Saving
Private Woodland
Rita
Kasperek
One afternoon Marcia and Jan came home crying:
“Mom, Dad, they want to tear down Woodland Park!”
“Tear down Woodland Park?” said Mrs.
Brady. “Why would anybody want to do that?”
“They’re going to build a parking
lot.”
“But it’s our park!” said Mrs.
Brady.
“We can fight this,” said Mr. Brady.
“It’s our right as citizens to protest. And it would
be very educational for the children.”
“Yes, we should exercise our civil rights,”
Mrs. Brady agreed. “We will protest.”
“I can’t protest in this maid’s
uniform, it’s a union thing,” said Alice. “But
I’ll bake cookies.”
The whole family got together: Greg, Peter and
Bobby sang some groovy protest songs, and Marcia, Jan and Cindy
made some glittery posters. Mrs. Brady organized a woman’s
committee. Alice baked cookies and whistled through her teeth
a lot.
One evening shortly thereafter Mr. Brady came
home and announced it was his company that wanted to tear down
the park.
“They want me to design the new parking lot.”
“A parking lot?” said Mrs. Brady.
“Whatever happened to designing a cosmetic factory shaped
like a powder puff?”
“Say, Dad,” said Greg. “You
should really quit that job.”
“Yeah,” said Marcia. “Architects
should build cool skyscrapers and groovy churches. Not parking
lots!”
“But, if he quits, we can’t afford
Bobby’s braces,” said Mrs. Brady. “Then there’s
Jan’s therapy and Cindy’s speech thing. I certainly
couldn’t get a job, what with PTA meetings for six children,
and we can’t give up Alice. We’d never get a fair
shake with Sam the Butcher. We could sell the station wagon,
I suppose.”
“Oh, no! Then Dad must keep his job!”
cried the kids.
“Look,” said Mr. Brady. “There
is no reason you can’t keep protesting while I build the
parking lot. My job has nothing to do with your civil rights.”
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Brady.
“What we do in private has nothing to do with the company.”
“Power to the people!” said Alice,
pumping her fist and whistling through her teeth.
The whole family agreed. Greg and Marcia got
the neighbors to sign a petition to save Woodland Park, while
Peter and Jan picketed outside Mr. Brady’s office. Bobby
lost his kazoo and blamed Cindy and Alice sent them to bed without
supper.
But the very next day Mr. Brady’s supervisor
called Mrs. Brady at home. He wanted to talk to her about Woodland
Park and her husband’s future at the company. He knew
all about the un-Democratic activities of her and her Pinko
kids. He said there were ways to deal with anti-American agents
of evil. He threatened to fire Mr. Brady and expose the whole
family on national television unless they stopped protesting.
And he would search their personal belongings without a warrant.
And he would confiscate their station wagon. He read them the
Patriot Act.
Mrs. Brady called an emergency meeting and explained
the situation.
“What do you think he meant by expose?”
asked Mrs. Brady.
“Do you think they found out we are black?”
cried the children.
“I don’t see how,” said Mr.
Brady. “We look white on television.”
“Do you think they found out we are Muslim?”
“We live in Southern California. The worst
thing they could think is that we’re vegetarians.”
“Dad and the boys gave us away!”
said Marcia. “They never should have permed their hair!”
“Maybe,” said Mrs. Brady, “they
found out that Alice is really a man. I always said a real woman
would never wear white Keds all the time!”
“Maybe,” said Greg, “they found out about
Marcia’s illegitimate son. I knew they’d never believe
Oliver was a long-lost cousin – even if he does look like
John Denver!”
“Maybe they found out about Bobby,”
said Jan. “Mom and Dad never should have let him spend
a night with Michael Jackson.”
“Maybe they found out Jan’s bipolar,”
said Peter.
“What about your Oxycontin addiction? No
one buys the ‘It clears up acne’ crap anymore.”
“Maybe it’s because Cindy talks like
Daffy Duck,” said Bobby.
“Yeah!” cried the other kids, surrounding
Cindy and brandishing clubs and tire chains.
“Hold it!” Alice whistled through
her teeth.
“It’th Alithe! Alith’th man-whithle
gave uth away!” sputtered Cindy.
“We’re going about this thing the
wrong way,” Alice said after gagging Cindy with her pigtails.
“Forget protesting. We have to consider what motivates
people to save something.”
“She’s right,” said Mr. Brady.
“Let’s think.”
They thought and thought but nobody could think
what could motivate people to save a small park in the middle
of a Hollywood studio.
Finally Mrs. Brady spoke up. “People would
save Woodland Park if it was a white man,” she said.
“Damned straight!” the kids agreed.
“Honey, for a blonde mother of six married
to a gay man, you’re one smart cookie,” said Mr.
Brady. ““I tell you what! We’ll say Woodland
Park is a white man fighting behind enemy lines in France during
World War II! We’ll sell the movie rights and hire Steven
Spielberg to direct!”
“Wow, Mike—I mean, Mr. Brady—you
did it again!” said Alice.
“Hey,” said Peter. “If we get
a couple of dinosaurs from the Munsters, we could rename it
Jurassic Park and make millions. You sure can buy a lot of Oxycontin
with millions.”
“Dad is so groovy,” said Marcia and
Jan. The boys cheered.
“Oh, right, Dad can thayve Woodland Park
but he can’t make Bobby give me back Kitty Carryall!”
sputtered Cindy through her pigtails.
That night the whole family (except Cindy, who
was taken to a school for autistic children) got together: Greg
and Marcia wrote a really cool script with a realistic account
of the D-Day landing on Omaha Beach followed by a scene where
the Brady Kids sing “It’s a Sunshine Day”
to the troops. Peter and Jan made out behind Tiger’s doghouse.
Alice and Mr. Brady made out in the laundry room. Bobby and
Oliver ate the hashish brownies Alice had baked. For a blissful
commercial-free 30 minutes, everything was truly groovy.
In the meantime, Mrs. Brady busily contacted
their producers. The producers had some bad news. It turned
out the show was cancelled. The Bradys were ordered to vacate
the premises immediately. They couldn’t even take the
station wagon.
The girls went on welfare. The boys went to Pakistan.
Mr. Brady died of AIDS. Alice became a methadone addict for
a while but now she’s doing Swiffer commercials. No one
knows what became of Mrs. Brady. Some conspiracists think she
shot Kurt Cobain.
Woodland Park never did become a parking lot.
Another family moved into the space. They sang rock songs and
drove a psychedelic school bus and hung out with Ken Kesey for
a while. Then they drifted away and three designing women moved
in with a black assistant. But then other blacks followed and
there went the neighborhood. Then a bunch of kids with a Beverly
Hills zip code took over for a couple of years but when two
of them, the brothers, killed their parents for money, the party
was over. A few years later six friends from New York City moved
in. The friends stayed for a long, long time (some say too long).
But even they have packed their bags and left Woodland Park.
Who can say what will happen next? There’s talk that Governor
Schwarzenegger is making plans for it as the new state capital.
Other reports say a Hollywood mogul is trying to acquire the
property. He plans to wait until a big earthquake breaks off
Woodland Park from the rest of California and then film the
six castaways marooned there—including a movie star—as
they’re voted off by America until only one of them is
left as the sole survivor.
Stay tuned.
....
Rita Kasperek has been
published (or her work is forthcoming) in The Portland Review,
GSU Review, Sand Hill Review, Terrain, Storyglossia and Yankee
Pot Roast, among other publications. One of her stories was
recently nominated for a Pushcart.
