Why Fogel blew himself up is irrelevant. Also irrelevant is Fogel’s family history. Of no matter are his historically abusive relationships with pets and stray animals, and women with whom Fogel rarely felt at ease probably because of his cleft pallet. To note: Fogel’s cleft pallet is irrelevant. Supplementary details of Fogel’s physicality mean nothing too (or either). Persons attempting to attach significance to such trivia will only be agitated by the uselessness of the action.

Then what is relevant (or meaningful) about Fogel? A logical question.

The answer is where Fogel blew himself up, and who and what was nearby when he did it. Briefly: on Greenwich Street, in New York City, in front of the Farmer’s Market, where Ron Kolb sold grapes and grape juice on weekend mornings in autumn.

Through time travel magic, we are transported to the place and the instant.

It is a Sunday in October. Farmers’ booths are lined up between Chambers and Duane. Ron Kolb is there. Which other farmers and customers are present is not essential information. Fogel, appearing as if from no place, shouts a single indistinguishable word (which would not have any bearing on subsequent events even if it were articulated with diamond-sharp exactitude), then executes.

No one dies except Fogel. There is not enough nitroglycerine in Fogel’s backpack to commit a crime more remarkable than suicide. However, Ron Kolb’s truck—the one which Ron Kolb drove to market, full of grapes and grape juice, which is parked directly across the street, by what bodily guck was only seconds ago a man with a name—is badly damaged.

Unable to drive home, Ron Kolb must take the train.

So, our man, Kolb, has the truck towed, where and to what garage we do not care. He takes a taxi to Penn Station, by what route and how quickly he arrives we need not understand. At Penn, Ron Kolb buys a ticket, using either the automated machine or waiting on line at the ticket window, and takes the last seat in the last car of the last train scheduled during the off-peak period.

Now, why am I telling you? And for that matter, how do I have access to this cornucopia of data? Omniscient I most certainly am not, nor am I a narrator or the writer of some other guy’s yarn. Then why me? Who am I to separate the wine from the dregs, relevant from irrelevant, to click this tongue against these teeth and like an electronic label maker, spit out sticky indicators of insignificance and its converse quality: meaning?

My name is Ron Kolb and I sell grapes and grape juice.

III. Fleshing It Out

"Thanks," the director says, climbing on stage and seizing the bag of grapes from the actor playing The Man/Kolb. "Let’s take it from the top, tomorrow morning."

In the back of the theatre, clutching a grape-stained copy of the script: the real Ron Kolb, first-time playwright, long-time farmer, and sometimes salesman of grapes and grape juice. His one-act drama, OFF-PEAK, has earned a spot in a short play festival produced by one of his regular customers—also, in our case, the director. To Ron, a forty-four year old person, this theatre, The Flea, and the greater world of the stage, is alien territory. Terrifying.

"Grape Ape," says the Director/Producer/Customer.

"Hi," Ron says.

"What do you say?"

"Er…good."

"Any thoughts on that rewrite I mentioned?"

"Remind me what part you want rewritten, this time."

"I’ll email you my notes, kay?"

Driving home in his now repaired truck, Ron mulls over the greater rehearsal experience. In no way has it resembled the cathartic activity he anticipated. In fact, the rehearsals have not been therapeutic, helpful, or remotely good. Just the opposite. He had written this play in order to extricate that man from his consciousness but with each practice and rewrite Fogel’s image and character is imbedded more deeply in Ron, the core of him, the psychic region of the Farmer/Salesman-Turned-Playwright that cannot be changed ever.

It is the coming alive that does it, the appearance of Fogel’s ghost in the last scene. The ghost chills the marrow of Ron Kolb’s bones—the bones of the real Ron Kolb and the fictional Kolb of OFF-PEAK. However, to the real Kolb, the act of watching Fogel, living again, loosed on the living world, does not end with the final curtain. After every rehearsal he takes Fogel with him, back to the farm, poisoning the soil, drying the grapes. So far, he has been able to manage it, to suppress and conceal the terror but he fears the final production with its costumes and music and lighting will be too vicious an experience to keep down—even with the invented conclusion.

Any sane human being, be he a grape farmer, dentist, or garbage collector, would drop out of the festival here and now, but for Ron Kolb there is one overpowering reason to stick with OFF PEAK: Maggie. Could a one-act play actually save his marriage? Ron had to admit, it sure as hell seemed so—and was she ever looking forward to seeing this thing on its feet! To Maggie, the realization of the play meant that Fogel was officially done with, exorcized so to speak from her once possessed husband, and for her that was everything.

After "the incident"—he and Maggie always referred to it as "the incident"—Ron became increasingly fixated on discovering Fogel’s motivation—the impetus behind a sort of act that he had never in his forty-four years seen the equal of in horror and mystery. Newspapers could not explain it. For Ron, visits to Fogel’s family, a sweet elderly couple, yielded nothing. Conversations with Fogel’s friends produced for Kolb no more than the obvious, that Fogel was an insecure twenty-something, habitually worried about his appearance. From time to time he kicked stray cats and as a toddler burnt ants with magnifying glasses, but had never done violence to himself or other people. On the contrary, Fogel was known to be "a sarcastic, but nice enough dude," who had a job, a decent job, at a science lab!

Then WHY? WHY would a sarcastic but nice enough dude with a decent paying job, and friends and sweet elderly parents, blow himself up on Greenwich Street, in New York City, in front of the Farmer’s Market, where he, Ron Kolb, sold grapes and grape juice on weekend mornings in autumn? Ron was sick to understand. So sick was Ron that he began neglecting both his wife and his beloved grapes in favor of visiting any and all of Fogel’s acquaintances, and then came the pilgrimages: to the summer camp with the Indian name where Fogel spent June, July, and half of August from age eight to fifteen, to Hofstra, the university that Fogel transferred to, to study chemistry, midway through freshman year at Cornell; to Cornell, and to the lab where Fogel spent his working days; the lab from which Fogel filched the explosive chemicals

Before Maggie’s eyes, grapes became raisins. After a year of agricultural negligence, Ron and Maggie were forced to sell half of the farm. It was at this point Maggie reached her wit’s end. The ultimatum she issued was simple.

"Me or Fogel: PICK." And later that night, on the phone (at the time Ron was in Vermont, where Fogel and his parents once went on a ski trip), "PS: I’m living and I fuck you. Or used to. Not that this morsel of info should inform your choice."

Click.

Back home, two days later, Ron finally sat down with Maggie. He agreed. This business with Fogel had gone on too long. Maggie’s phone call had been sobering. Once and finally he would get rid of this exploded ghost—"extricate him from my consciousness," Ron’s words were. How, Maggie wanted to know and so he told her. An old trick, a strategy he sometimes used as a kid. Ron Kolb would write out the whole story in such a way that it would "bury Fogel henceforth, eternally." After all, he, Ron, had a mind for stories—hadn’t Maggie always said so?

She had.

Thus, over the course of two months, OFF-PEAK was born. In the evenings, after tending to the grapes, Ron wrote. His hours were regular. The pilgrimages to Fogel landmarks ended abruptly and soon Maggie recognized the old Ron returning. Affectionate, at moments in excess. Attentive to crops, sometimes to a fault. Half the farm was lost, but that year the harvest on Ron’s half-farm nearly topped his former average. Bountiful, Maggie called it.

And Ron was back at the Farmer’s Market, too. The old customer base had stayed loyal, plus there were new faces. Among Ron’s clientele, the minor shortage of grapes and grape juice only boosted demand. Guiltily he increased price by fifteen percent. At this rate he might be able to buy back the part of the farm he had been obligated to hock.

When in passing the topic of Fogel came up, Ron casually mentioned to an old regular, a producer and director of theatre, that he had written a play about "the incident." Immediately the Director/Producer/Customer insisted he be permitted to read it. With his wife’s blessing, a reluctant Ron emailed the Director/Producer/Customer what Maggie called "the drama that made all the difference."

At the time, Ron could not argue that OFF PEAK had made all the difference. Writing that one-act had set his mind right. Fogel no longer banged around Ron’s skull. Now, he was trapped inside a laptop computer. When Ron occasionally thought of Fogel, an image of the villains in the third Superman Movie, evil beings banging helplessly against an impregnable window, came to mind, and made him giggle.

Two days after Ron emailed OFF-PEAK to the Director/Producer/Customer, the phone rang. It was to Ron Kolb’s staggering astonishment that The Regular went wild for OFF-PEAK.

IV. The Rewrite

To: Grape_Ape@gmail.com
From: AlbeeFan10@earthlink.net
SUBJECT: FINAL SCENE EDITS -

Message Received Wednesday, 9:33 PM

Ron, Hi –

As promised, here are my views on the tail end of the piece ...

First, let me say it’s totally awesome collaborating with you reatively cuz you ROCK, Grape Ape! And professionally speaking, from my POV (point of view) you’re a SUPER AMAZING TALENT, and if I am ever ever ever a big bad wolf when we’re rehearsing don’t take it personally—puleeeze! I’m in schitzo-dramaturge-mode!

Anyway...the way I see it, this is ap lay about a simple (by simple I DO NOT mean dim) fellow trying to come to terms with the crazy, mixed-up, upside down universe we inhabit (otherwise known as REALITY)! From the start of the play, the protagonist denise the need to understand WHY Fogel would commi such an unexplainable act of fatal exhibitionism, which gives us a crystal-freaking-clear jumping off point. As the thing progresses the character of Ron Kolb comes to terms with his inner need, actiely pursuing the truth of Fogel’s M.O. through inverstigative visits to parents, amigos, old stomping grounds, etc., which 110% works.

Where we’re kind of sort of trippingup though is the last scene with the ghost, in which Fogel’s ghost explains the actual reason forthe suicide. This is what the Greeks called deus ex machina, or Zeus-belched-from-the-machine, which is self-explanatory (right?). For a first time playwright, I would normally go ‘kay, whatever’ but this is such a qualit piece, I feel obligated to push my little grape ape the next echelon (sp?) ...

Don’t be afrad to get messy, Ron! We don’t need to put a bow on this tale! So, things dn’t add up—so what? So, Ron Kolb never gets his answers—life’s a b-i-t-c-h!!!

I CHALLENGE YOU TO TELL THE TRUTH!

Cheers

Trembling, Ron minimizes the browser window. The idea of that email lights his whole head on fire. Rage rather than fear, fury bordering on high grade psychosis, bubbles in Ron.

The balls on this guy! What’s enough? How much of a man’s guts can one theatre freak demand? Hadn’t that Director/Producer/Customer asked Ron for OFF-PEAK? Hadn’t he, Ron Kolb, grape farmer, sometimes salesman of grapes and grape-juice, volunteered to share his cure for Fogel with the people of downtown Manhattan? Did the actors and the tech guys and the bastards calling the shots suppose for a nanosecond this was easy on Ron, witnessing the resurrection of the exploded ghost in the final scene? And what’s wrong with closure in a drama? Come the hell on!

Worst was the way he put it in the email: I challenge you! Challenge, Ron? As if refusing to rewrite that last scene constituted a brand of personal failure that might forever hang over the farmer? Ludicrous! And who, who in Christ’s name was the Director/Producer/Customer to say so? Especially to "The Grape Ape" himself! Comeback husband, tiller of the earth, maker of multiple small fortunes: Ron Kolb!

Honest now: would Maggie really think less of Ron if he skipped out on this gig? A resounding, wrath-stoking ‘no’!

Probably.

So, that was that—the end of all things OFF-PEAK. Let them put it up, he wouldn’t even bother to attend! No one tells Ron Kolb he isn’t up to snuff! Besides, doing theatre is for lesser types—smaller people, a legion of pushing, shoving, nut bars. Let them get nutty on their own good times!

Like a silent alarm, the tiny box blinks at the bottom of Ron Kolb’s laptop screen: stay back, do not give credence to this asinine proposal (challenge?). And yet Ron watches—locks eyes on the tiny, hungry window, glowing and blinking—until sun up on the grape farm.

THE END