"The misery and greatness of this world: It offers no truths, but only objects for love. Absurdity is king, but love saves us from it." Albert Camus
Jaime is a young man who is being haunted by the demon of his childhood visitations.
Ezra washes dishes at the restaurant where Jaime has just been hired on and is the medium through which the demon has returned to finish his work. The dishwasher has convinced Jaime that life is meaningless, and the only prescription for his despondency is suicide. But he never counted on Jaime falling in love with Lisa, and neither did Jaime. Now Jaime’s confronted with this existential dilemma, that even if the dishwasher’s right, and life is in fact meaningless, can it still be worth living? And for Jaime, will love be the reason?
Lisa fled the Southwest and from an abusive father only to land into the hands of Raymond, a vile serpent. Her life intersects with Jaime’s in this Appalachian border town, and their love springs unexpectedly and unknowingly for one another. When they become separated, all seems lost until Nona, the fate who spins the thread of life and whom Lisa remembers from her childhood storybook steps in, while Jaime decides to take the pill. The race is on, but who will get to the garage first?
Mary lives in the homeless camp that’s hidden in the trees and envelopes the strand of a small stream that runs through town. She escaped the racial discrimination of the Deep South and traveled North until she reached these foothills where her car gave up and her resources ran dry. Jaime meets her in a local shop and her beautiful and graceful soul arrests his heart, but her faith in God confounds him.
"Mary, how can you possibly believe that there’s a god who’s watching out for you? I’m sorry, but you’re fucking living in the woods!
Mary smiled and took his hand. "He’s neither, dear boy. Don’t be so angry. Don’t you know he’s got a beautiful place set aside for me soon? I’ve put all my faith in him, and he’s just getting it ready."
Jaime stood up and started pacing. "But Mary..."
"Settle down, boy. You’re restless. Settle down." She tapped on the bucket. "Sit."
Mary takes Jaime under her care while waiting for god’s promises of a new place to come true. And in an unexpected turn, they do.
Jaime is welcomed into the camp where Mary stays and where the universe has turned its back on those it’s found out of compliance with the standards set by insolent wolves posing as humans. He finds a sympathetic acceptance within her world - a community with no pretensions nor actors, and they’re somewhat amused by his conversations with the one who isn’t sitting by the fire ring, except Bombay, he sees.
"Who is this man, this one that washes dishes and taunts you?"
Jaime put his cigarette out and stood up. "How do you know he’s a dishwasher?"
Bombay looked over at him. "I’ve seen him from the high mountain, and I don’t like him."
Powers are converging on this Appalachian border town as Jaime sits alone in the garage, razor in hand, with his sleeping friends around him. Will this cup pass? And even if it does, will he survive what’s surfacing from the bottom of the river?
Eddie Young is from Nashville, the American cradle of songs filled with despair and agony. Despite his love for the upbeat music of the British Invasion, Hank Williams was bound to find his way in. He's traveled the world and has witnessed the poverty of the human condition throughout. After fifteen years of drug addictions in an effort to numb an existential dread, he considered the Christian faith, and particularly its claims that "all things were being made new" as a way forward. It was as though a veil had been lifted. He spent the next twenty-five years in the pursuit of this hope as a minister in the Christian tradition, and the last ten working for the civil and human rights of the homeless. It was here that he was forced to abandon the narrative of being rewarded with some disembodied afterlife for embracing the despair and agony of this life here and now that in his estimation, was no different than before. He reconsidered the childhood demons who had trained him to dismiss any meaning or purpose to life. "It's all been done before," said the dishwasher. Young continues to spend his time among the homeless and considers the plight of the human, and how to embrace the meaninglessness of life, yet find a way to make it worth living.
