updated 8/1/24
MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
Yes you have my permission to do any of these monologues in class or in competition. You are welcome to post a video of the monologue online if you wish.
Here are some monologues for men. To be clear, it in no way means only men can do these monologues. Many of them will work for any gender.
1.
DOCTOR X
Thank you! Thank you! I appreciate your appreciation. This is truly a momentous day for us all. I'm so proud of us. I have a few prepared remarks. A moment like this one might wonder about what we’re made of, who we can be. We are more than our incarceration. With freedom comes a new opportunity to turn over a new leaf. To change for the better. When in the course—(BRIGHT LIGHT! To us.) And then the roof opens and I see the gargantuan light from above, closer and closer. (To the crowd.) (He tears up his prepared remarks.) You can't prepare for everything, I suppose. Whatever it is, we all may soon meet our doom. But that’s not always bad. We thrive on the edge of a razor. We are the danger! And so! Close your eyes. (To audience.) I said close your eyes. Good. Everyone. Good. Please take a moment and reach within yourself. A little deeper. Deeper. To your soul. To the real you. Let the things you think you should be melt away. Say goodbye to the expectations of others. This is your time! If it was just you, what terrible crimes would you wish to commit?! Be honest. Now is the time for the true you. The truest youest bestest you! You feel yourself, straining against your chains?! Now! Open your eyes. Commit all those awful horrible crimes you want to commit without any further delay! Or find that one person you truly love and make them pay! They will all pay dearly!! Go! Go all of you. You are free!
2.
ROCKET
What do you even want me to do? I can't stop that thing. I can’t even get far enough away to save myself probably and if I did where would I even live? Like the moon? Oh. Maybe the moon. Nah. Why bother? It would be lonely. I was just going to sit on the roof and watch the end of the world. Invite Nancy from 3B. I mean we don't know each other well but I always had a good feeling about her, you know? You ever get that about someone, like they're kind inside and more interesting than they let on?
3.
HENRY
In that split second, they live an infinite number of lives together. Their best and worst selves all exist simultaneously. Sometimes they find kindness but sometimes they devolve into cruelty or pettiness. In some lives, they grow apart, divorce, succumb to despair. There are diseases, death, children who grow up bad, children who grow up good. Children who die. So many things happen and don't happen all in that instant and they both remember them all. They grow old over and over and over. They eat soup. They watch TV. They know each other thoroughly and know they love each other. But can love . . . I mean is it . . .? Can it…?
4.
HENRY
Should I say something? I'm a journalist. Truth is important to me. I was raised very religious. I think that affects my world view. I used to play hockey. When I was in middle school I thought I would play professionally but of course that didn't happen. But sometimes I look at my dad. He drove trucks. Not long distance. He was home every night. But I think that could be me. I could have had that job if things were different. Or maybe played professional hockey. Would I have been happier with a different life? And then of course, they say you find the missing piece in someone else and that's what makes you happy. But not for long. I mean, your life goes back to normal eventually and you aren't any happier. But I think you are. A least a little. It's important to have relationships too. Things that anchor us to the earth. But maybe we'll all die in a second and then it won't matter. Except that it does matter. It matters how you live your life so I'm always trying very hard to live truthfully and be kind and you know, make things a little better.
5.
DOCTOR X
At least think about it. Before you say “No.” No one will ever love you with the fervor that I can. My heart is a jet engine. Look at how I look at you. I think I’ve always looked at you this way. Or at least I can’t remember a time you weren’t my whole world. Just give me a chance to worship you. You won’t regret it. And you deserve to be worshipped. I look at this Gene and I know, you treat each other as equals. Blah! That's no good. You deserve more. Let me love you with you above me. You are a goddess. Let me treat you as such.
1.
RUTABAGA
And there’s the baggage too. From the times before. The accumulation of rejections and failure. the hope of new love and the inevitable crushing depression from love lost. And you start to think, well, maybe it’s just not for me. Maybe I’m not someone who can ever be happy in that way. Not that that’s the only way to be happy. It’s just— Love like that has always been something I wanted for me. My parents were happy in love, most of the time and that’s rare maybe so maybe that’s why or else it’s just always been bad timing. But when years of loneliness build on years of loneliness, it’s hard to shake that off. It’s just real hard to hope again.
2.
BRI
This hits home. There are times in a relationship where the ugliness of who you can be sneaks out and, once seen, it can never be unseen. Some people are good at forgetting or forgiving, at small kindnesses. Other people are good at hiding who they really are maybe. It’s all about what you’re willing to live with. And who you can love. And what kind of hurt can break the bonds of love. For them, it wasn’t one big thing, but a collection of weights that tipped the scale over time. The erosion of a mountain is just one drop of rain over and over. So it’s maybe a surprise but it shouldn’t be a surprise.
3.
J
Because if I can find the perfect tree maybe she can see I’m someone who can do things well and she will see the value in me and leave that idiot for me.
It’s how the world works. I know. I understand about love. I’ve read about it and watched all the movies. He doesn’t understand about love so she will leave him eventually I mean, she has to, right?
I understand the world is unjust but someone like that won’t stay with someone like that, right? I’m not saying he doesn’t have anything going for him. He’s funny sometimes and good looking, I guess. He’s a moron though. I mean I think that’s clear to everyone. And Jasmine, she’s perfect. Okay, I know people aren’t really perfect and I know that means she’s not really perfect either. But she’s nice to everyone and cares about everyone. It’s not just that she’s beautiful. I mean she is beautiful. It’s clear she’s beautiful. Stunningly beautiful so much that you could fall apart just being near her. But also she’ll smile at you. At everyone she smiles and is kind. Just like a good person who wants the best for everyone, right? And I know he’s my older brother.
But he doesn’t love her. And maybe she doesn’t love me yet but there’s still time. I’m going to become amazing. Just you wait. I will accomplish things.
Like I’m full of potential and I can figure things out. Everyone knows that. And maybe I’ll invent a better jello. Or maybe I’ll become a great explorer. There’s still time for me to figure it out. But she needs to leave him today. He’s toxic poisoned diseased trash.
He’s a cancer. And the sooner she’s rid of him, the better. She will be happier, much happier after she dumps him and she doesn’t even have to start with me right away. I understand mourning periods.
1.
LOU
I am a professional forgetter. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel things. I’ve forgotten everyone’s name. I forget what matters. I forget why I do things. Why do I take showers? Why do I get dressed? The morning is dark and the blankets are warm. Why do I get up? I don’t remember. But I force myself and then I’m eating a breakfast and getting in the car and driving to work and saying, “fine and how are you?” when someone talks to me. But am I fine? No. Probably not. I’ve forgotten what fine is. Or is it just the coldest part of winter?
2.
NIM
You can’t force your mother to love you. The diversity of human experiences demands that some mothers don’t love their children. It’s a fact. And I hope it’s not a fact for you but there it is. It’s true for someone. Lots of someones. I know people hate it when I bring up things like this. They think I’m trying to make them miserable or something. I don’t know. Sometimes life is hard and pretending it isn’t doesn’t help anyone. And I know dwelling too much on the downsides makes us only see the downsides —focuses us so we’re a ball of anger and disappointment. But pushing down hard truths and trying not to think about them at all makes them come out in surprising or sometimes violent ways. It’s true! I think that’s true. I stopped seeing my therapist. She seemed more interested in the chipmunks in her walls than my problems. But I should. Yeah. I should try to get better still. Do you have a recommendation?
3.
OLO
And then the rain finally comes. It’s thirty seven degrees and then forty-five and then fifty-two. And then sixty. And the foot of snow that’s still there all melts and pours down the street and everything becomes slush and mud and the sky is still gray. But I have a warm place to be and a comfortable chair. I know the world doesn’t need me, not really, but what else is there to do? So I make some breakfast and I start my day and everybody is horrible and frustrating because people are. I get home and walk through the sucking mud in my back yard and it rains on me. And I don’t like it. I don’t like any of it but I keep going.
4.
QUIGLY
And then a silence. I looked for enlightenment in the moment. I looked for epiphany or a sudden calmness, a feeling that everything was all right on the earth or everything would be okay. And maybe that feeling was coming in the next moment or the next. What I felt most of all was freezing cold. But I like them. I like them both. I didn’t regret being there. But ice fishing didn’t change my life. Not that day. But after a while in the silence, I stopped thinking for a minute or two and that was nice. But I was done and I was about to make my apologies and go. And then we caught a fish. And that was cool. In the end, I stayed all day. We caught a few more fish and that night we cooked them up and ate them. And I dunno. I’m not a convert, but, I guess I’d do it again.
5.
Z
And then it rains and rains and rains. You look out the window and think, is this my life? I thought someday there would be something more. And maybe because it’s just so dreary out but I wonder what else could have been. Not that I mind my life even. I have lots to be grateful for. Like you and the cats. Mr. Wilson on Saturdays. Small kindnesses from people I don’t even know that well. So don’t pity me. But sometimes I look at the clues on a day like today and I think what if… Well… And I don’t want to move across the country or even across the street. I’m used to all this. So maybe at the end of the day it’s about that really. If I don’t want to change… or was I just afraid? But I was always me. I was polite maybe but I never hid who I was. We’re in the grayest month. And it always feels like it will always be like this. But it won’t always be like this. Come May, I’ll stop having thoughts like this maybe. But today part of me wants to blow the whole thing up. Light the house on fire, change my name and and… but no, if I’d wanted that I would have done that. I wonder what it’s like to live in Japan.
WOLF
I may go mad from this. Perhaps this will finally push me over the edge. I was so close, so close to quieting my mind. I was set to commune with the forest. Maybe write that book I’d always wanted to write, “From The Wolf’s Mouth: Life Lessons From The Deep Dark Woods.” And now, now, that smell is just so loud. Where is it! Where is it! Oh! Is that it? (Sniffs) It’s! It’s a girl. I’ve never eaten girl before. Is it too ambitious? No. I can do it. I can almost taste her.
2.
MITCH
(Makes a phone call from his desk phone.)
Hello? Mother? I can’t hear you. Turn down the TV. Mother? Mother!? Mother?! At work. Maybe I’m experiencing what’s called ennui. It’s been coming for a long time, I suspect. I think it’s in my blood now. Like an infection. I must have got it from a paper cut. All this paper. All the paper cuts all day long. My hands are just a mass of scars. Or maybe it’s something else. I don’t know. I feel different somehow. Maybe I should-- What’s that? Okay. I understand. That’s a good show. Yeah you don’t want to miss it. I’ll talk to you later.
3.
MITCH
What?! Mother, I can’t hear you. Mother?! Is that a blender?! Oh, a smoothie. Sure, smoothies are good. Strawberries? AND blueberries. Bananas. Yes. It sounds good. I may have quit my job. I know. I know. I know. I don’t know. Maybe astronomy or something. Yes, I’ll look for another job. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about prime numbers. Especially the number seven. There’s something just so seven about the number seven, isn’t there? It’s so so seven. It’s the sevenest. But I think most of all, I want to do something I can touch. So like building something or like factory work or wait I know! (Epiphany!!) Oh, okay. Sure. I understand. Goodbye. Enjoy your smoothie!
4.
HARRIS
I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Mitch you’re a terrible carpenter. If you can do anything else, please do anything else.
It’s a really bad birdhouse. I would be afraid to let a bird live in it. It’s not even artistically interesting. It’s just objectively bad. But don’t worry. The other apprentices are good. Business is booming. You go now and find something else. Anything else.
I like you. You’re a good kid and you’re probably the reason all these apprentices are here. So I’m thankful to you. And so it’s all the more important that I try to help you. Please, don’t try to build anything ever again. Do something else.
Go find yourself. You don’t have to be really good at anything. You can do something you’re just okay at. But I can’t in good conscience let you keep working with wood considering how disastrous your carpentry skills are. I’ve never seen anything like it. Wait. That’s not quite true. Ruby, I didn’t think it was possible to be a worse carpenter than Mitch. But you proved it is.
You must know how dreadful your work is. You must. Right? Deep down, you both must have an idea.
1
Once we were sitting on the grass, just me and her and she was like “I need to tell you something” and I was like “uh oh” you know because I didn’t know what it was but I got nervous about it anyway like bees in my stomach or something and her face was so serious and I was thinking “why do I even care” except that I did care a lot even if I didn’t want to or if I wanted to pretend like I didn’t care at all. And then she told me and it was nothing. Just some stupid life thing and I was like why did I get so nervous right then? What did I think she was going to say and why was I worried it was going to crack my whole world open and then she went and died and that cracked my whole world anyway.
2
I never said, “Will you marry me.” I never said, “Let’s run off together.” I wanted to say that to you. Every day I looked at you and that’s what ran through my head. Maybe I was scared that you’d say no or maybe I was scared you’d say yes. You had that smile. It hurt me. Split me right open even. And when you’d look at me, I mean really look at me—Why did you leave me here? I can’t go on. It’s too hard without you here. And it was hard with you here too. You were difficult. And you were beautiful. Sometimes you were mean and awful. But also I loved you and I never told you. And now you’re gone. And I never kissed you once. So I guess I’m the idiot.
3
I never told you what you meant to me. I’m still not sure actually what you meant to me. I looked up to you of course. And you were always there, so there’s that. I coveted your clothing. I wanted to be you. I mean, not now. And anyway, did you want to hear that really? That I wanted to be you? Better I think to never say something like that. Not just because it’s embarrassing to me but because it’s embarrassing to you too. But maybe I should have told you. If only I could have been born as you, maybe my life would be worth something. Don’t look at me like that. I know I have low self esteem. I’m working on it. You were so much more than the rest of us though, weren’t you?
4
Twenty-five times I tried to tell you what you meant to me but I couldn’t.
Twenty-four times I brought you coffee.
Twenty-three times I read to you.
Twenty-two times you read to me.
Twenty-one times you gave me a ride.
Twenty times I asked you what time it was.
Nineteen times I was angry at you.
Eighteen times I asked about your mother.
Seventeen times I played that song you like.
Sixteen times I stopped myself from saying something mean to you.
Fifteen times you wore my jacket before I asked for it back.
Fourteen times I was afraid of what you would say.
Thirteen times I gave you a pencil.
Twelve times I let you copy my homework.
Eleven times I forgot what I was going to say.
Ten times I said the wrong thing and you told me so.
Nine times I celebrated your birthday with you.
Eight times you called me your best friend.
Seven times you told me to go. “Just go.”
Six times we danced to my favorite song.
Five times you asked about my brother.
Four times I lent you money.
Three times you used my phone.
Twice you told me to shut up.
Once I spilled soup on you.
Eight hundred and forty three times you smiled at me.
I kept track.
I have a lot more but I’ll stop there.
5
You really made me feel bad about myself a lot. Like I felt ugly around you and stupid. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right. I sure couldn’t run as fast as you could or speak French half as well. I couldn’t make anyone swoon the way you could. And the way you dressed! I tried sometimes to do the thing you did where you roll up your sleeve but it never worked. Or the thing you did sometimes with barrettes? But no. I just looked like I was trying too hard. There was just something about you that just made me want to open myself up with my fingernails and jump out of my skin. Let’s just say I always felt bad about myself with you in the world, and now, I should feel better, right? But I don’t. Not even a little.
6
I spent a lot of time finding just the right mix of flowers to bring to your grave. I wanted to find the ones that you would think were beautiful. I thought about the colors you wore and about your general disposition. I thought about your smell. And look, sometimes the wrong flowers together don’t smell right. So I really worked on this. The florist was very annoyed. But I had it finally. A perfect blend that seems like you and that you would like. And I deposited it perfectly on your grave. It was like a spot was saved for me in front. But you weren’t there. It was just some grass and a rock. So I took the flowers back to my car and I drove around trying to think of where to put them. I went to the coffee shop. I hung outside your house. I went to the lake. I went to your old job. But nothing seemed right. So I brought them home. I will watch them die and I will hang them upside down and dry them and I will remember you maybe. I wish I could give them to you but this will just have to do.
7
This is what I imagine death to be like. You’re floating, suspended, but you’re also underwater and your body doesn’t weigh anything and you can’t really feel it. And you can’t see anything. It’s black. Like black ink or like really dark blue ink. It could be that. But that’s all you see. And everything is just silent and you float and you’re kind of aware of everything but thinking about it all doesn’t hurt or cause you distress. You’re free maybe. But also you’re not anything. And that’s it. You float and exist but don’t exist and that’s what it is forever. That’s death. Some days I look forward to that. But it may not be like that at all so maybe not.
8
I’m here representing the Secret Society Of Julie’s Secret Admirers. We’ve disbanded. It’s not a secret any more. In case you weren’t privy, we met biweekly and would discuss Julie’s finer attributes and who she was and wasn’t talking to and we read poems written about her and would tell stories. It was kind of like this except with some hope of someday. Or maybe that was never true either. I was hoping to provide some levity actually but. Sorry. Maybe Freddy will come up and be funny. Freddy? Freddy? Did he leave? Freddy? Freddy? I know you were here before. Hey could you come be funny? Are you here? Freddy. He does this impression of me actually that I never appreciated but I hear it’s really funny really. Freddy? You don’t have to do that. You could do something else. Freddy! FREDDY?!!!!
9
Dear Julie,
(This is a letter. I’m going to read a letter.)
Dear Julie,
I’ll probably never actually give this letter to you. I won’t put it in an envelope and put a stamp on it and put it in the mail. Or hand it to you. You won’t ever read it. Unless someday I get brave. Julie, I guess the thing I’m afraid to say is that I’m worried I’ll always be alone in this life. And you made me feel a little less alone today. And you probably didn’t even know when you smiled at me and talked to me and said something nice about me— you probably didn’t even know that it meant what it meant to me. But thank you. Maybe someday I’ll give you this note. Maybe.
But now I can’t.
10
Sometimes I write things down because it’s hard to remember how it really happened and what I really felt. I was sure I had been betrayed and then I went back and read my journal and yeah I was betrayed but in a different way than I remembered. Sometimes I look back at the person who wrote those words and wonder who they were. So I started writing things I remember about Julie. Her hair. Her time on the four hundred meter. The way she said “whistle.” The way people would turn when she walked down the hall, stumble over their words, avert their gaze even. How much of this will I forget or distort from remembering over and over until her face is just a memory of a memory, or her voice. I can’t even remember really.
100 Love Letters I Never Sent
1
When I first saw you, it wasn’t anything. It wasn’t love at first sight. You were just one of many. I didn’t think much of you. Attractive, sure but nothing special. And I was aware of you. You were around. I was around. We saw each other. And then one day a bunch of us were in the break room I remember. And you laughed for the first time and the whole room turned to look at you. And from then on I started to listen to things you said and everyone started to want to be around you. And then one day you wore that hat and it made your eyes pop and that was it. I was gone. And I wasn’t the only one.
2
My biggest problem is you don’t say much and what that means is that I project onto you the kind of person I hope you are. I see you thinking and I imagine what you’re thinking. You have deep thoughts, I think about life and our place in it and the purpose of everything. Maybe you have something figured out that we will never understand. But maybe that’s not true. Sometimes I see something funny and I want to show you because I think you’ll think it’s funny too. But maybe you won’t. Maybe you’re not the person I think you are at all. So this is a love letter for the person I want you to be. And I do want to get to know you. I hope I can. I hope when I talk to you, you’ll say things back, more and more. And I’ll see what you’re really like. And I’ll adjust, I think to how you actually are. I’m sure you’ll disappoint me. Everyone does. But that’s not your fault. I’m disappointed by myself too.
3
I think about sex all day every day. Sex with you, of course but sex in general and sex with many many others. I don’t think this is a problem but also I can’t stop so I think I’ll just learn to live with being extremely this way. They say someday it dies down. Maybe I won’t be like this when I’m old and part of me thinks, cool. I look forward to that and part of me is pretty sure that will never really happen to me. Anyway, this is how I am today. You don’t need to know every sexual thought I’m having but you may want to know they are plentiful. But probably you’ll forget I’m saying this or think I’m joking. Or it’ll make you jealous maybe for a minute and then you’ll push it out of your mind.
4
So I bought a typewriter at a thrift store. It was black and shiny and beautiful and it worked. I took it home and polished it until it gleamed and then I put a single sheet in, and turned the platen, I think it’s called a platen. And I started to write you a love letter. And I was embarrassed so I stopped. And I put a new sheet in and started over. I wrote about the moon and the stars and your stomach. And that one was bad too. But I tried again. And again. And again. Day after day, I tried. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for only a few minutes. I had to get a new ribbon and learn how to put it in the typewriter. I went through a lot of paper. I learned how to type though I still make a lot of mistakes. For fifty days I tried every day and I never quite wrote what I meant to say. But here is the newest one. No. Wait. Don’t read that yet. Let me try again.
5
I carry lots of things wherever I go because I never know what you might need. Do you want this chapstick? Do you need a shoelace? A band aid? Aspirin? I have super glue. I carry a compass in case we get lost together. I have a bottle of water. I wear this watch in case our phones die. But I also have a power bank to bring them back to life. I have a whistle and a lighter and a flashlight. I have pens and a penknife. A small tent. A sweatshirt you could wear. And a letter I wrote to you so if I ever die you will know I loved you.
6
Romeo and Juliet were children. They didn’t know what love was. Just because you’re willing to die if you can’t be together, doesn’t mean you are actually in love. I blame the easy access to swords and poison and daggers. And feeling trapped. We all feel trapped sometimes in our little lives and it seems like there is a person who is the way out. But a lover will not solve all your problems. Romeo and Juliet clearly show us that. Which is not to say connecting with another person isn’t worthwhile. You just shouldn’t expect them to save you. Sorry. This is kind of a weird love letter, huh? What I mean to say is, I’m not going to plunge a dagger in my heart but I do love you in my own way, more than a thirteen year old from a tragedy could.
7
It’s love when I suggest we carpool. It’s love when I come to work and hang out with you even though I’m not on the schedule. It’s love when I want to entertain you and be around you. And I’m embarrassed to buy you things so I don’t, even though I’m thinking about you. I’m afraid you know I love you but you don’t love me back. In fact, I’m almost certain. And I don’t want to have that conversation so maybe I’ll just stop always being around. I haven’t started doing that yet but maybe I’ll do that. Soon. Maybe soon. Or maybe I won’t. I think love is a problem. For me I mean, love is a problem. I hope that will change someday. This town is too small.
8
Some people never fall in love, maybe don’t even believe it exists. I fall in love twenty times a day. Thirty on weekends. And I don’t think my way is better but it’s just the way I am. And maybe because I’m dazzled by the humanity in everyone. A laugh or a moment of clarity. A cute cough. Fingers. Hearts beating more rapidly. Your hair. Or other times I’m bowled over when they’re not like me, go through life with sharp bones or sharp words. It seems effortless for other people even though I know it isn’t. I am a child in a candy store. And I get to see so many people some days. And I know I could love them, so many of them, if they let me. If there was time. But there’s never time.
9
I took all the letters I wrote to you and the straw you used and the napkin you wiped your face with that time and that strand of your hair I found on my coat and the ticket stub from when we went to that show together and the mint I saved for you and the stuffed animal I was going to give you and I buried them all. I dug a big hole in the woods and put everything in one by one. I read each letter. I read a poem to the straw. I kissed the strand of hair. And then I filled up the hole again. Let my despair nourish the trees. I don’t want it anymore.
I’m in a lot of teacup organizations. And we all have the ones we like best. From certain time periods or manufacturers. Or hand painted. Some prefer bone to porcelain. It’s not really made out of bones though. That’s just what it’s called. I’m into the ornate ones. And I think about them a lot and I buy one finally after thinking about it a lot. And then I take a photo. Then I get a hammer and I smash the teacup. And I take another photo. That’s what I like to do.
RED
I just want someone to sit on the couch next to me and watch a movie or some dumb show. Maybe we’ll eat some Fritos. That’s it. Listen to a song. Hold my hand. And I want it to be you. But if it’s not you, it could be someone else. I’ll wait. I’m patient. I don’t know if I’m a catch or not but this stuff always works out for me. If it’s not you, someone else will come along and sit on my couch with me. A customer or a waitress or someone I meet on the way to my car. That’s just how it is.
BRIAN
I met him once. On the day I became manager here. I was here early, way earlier than anyone would have to be here. I guess I was eager to start. When I pulled in the parking lot, I saw a figure huddled by the front door. I was about to say to him, “We’re not open yet,” but then I saw who it was. He smiled. It was like a light turned on in my head. And he said, “Good luck, kid,” and slipped something into my hand. It was the key to the back room on a Jimmy’s logo keychain. And someone had written Brian on the back in permanent marker. Maybe he even wrote it in his own hand. When I looked up, he was gone. He didn’t get into a car, he was just gone.
CLITEAU, CLITEAU
(A mime, narrates all his actions, shouting)
Shut up! I'm trying to pull a rope here.
Shut up!
I'm making art up here and you're interrupting!
I'm trapped inside a box now!
How will I get out?! How will I get out? I'm out. Now I'm climbing a ladder. Look at me!
Now I'm on the high wire. This is some fucking art. You can almost see it can't you? I learned this shit in Paris.
Ahhhh! A bear! It's got me. It's got my leg. No! I didn't see your cubs. Please! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Argh! Where's my bear spray?!
(CLITEAU, CLITEAU takes a long time to die.)
BERT
I know I’ve been a fool, Sheriff. I’ve been robbing banks since I could hold a gun. I’ve been stealing horses since I could ride. Twelve or thirteen times in my life I was sure I was gonne die. In that vault. In front of that train. Under that bear. When that rattlesnake bit me. When I was so shot up and tired I ulmost fell of my horse. But one thing kept me alive each time. The thought of you, waiting for me. The thought of coming back to you and your warm bed. I never had a home. All I knew was murder and stealing. You’re the closest to a home I’ve ever had. And I know, I’ve been gone from home too long. You probably thought I was dead. Or shacking up with some other Sheriff. But I wasn’t. I was alone. Even when I was with my posse I was still alone. There’s never been anyone but you. And I’ve never been happy unless I was with you. So shoot me if you have to. Put me out of my misery. Because life without you has been terrible and will keep being terrible if you don’t run off with me. So tell me you love me, and we’ll run off or shoot me dead right here and now.
TERRY
Thanks everybody for coming here to celebrate J today. J is . . . was spectacular. But you already know that. You all have your own stories probably about amazing things she did to help you move or get over a breakup or sat with you and held your hand that one time in the hospital. But I want to tell you about something you might not know about. I want to tell you about the notes. Because she leaves notes everywhere. To tell me things of course, like “Went for a run.” Or “Pick up dry cleaning.” But also, among the forks, you might find, “Remember the universe is infinite.” You might find quotes from Shakespeare or from books or movies. You might find a thought about something out of context. You might find a love note for you among the frozen peas. You might see a picture and some words in French on the back. A quote from Plato. A memory about J’s mom. A tiny watercolor in a cardboard frame. A collage on a three by five card. A poem.
And you know even now, I bet I’ll still find one in a shoe I haven’t worn in a while or at the bottom of my shirt drawer, under the sink, behind all the cleaning supplies, behind the couch maybe. And each note will be a new treasure, a piece of J I can still have. But there will be no new notes. And because of that, I may never recover.
Mercy
1.
IAN
I feel like such a fucking idiot. You come over looking for a friend and I'm . . . I guess I thought . . . I've always had this problem. It's not just you. Sometimes you see the signals you want to see instead of the signals that are actually there. I used to ask. I used to say, “Can I kiss you now?” but it's so unromantic. So unspontaneous. I just thought . . . But yeah. Sorry about that. I guess I needed you to want that whether or not you did. I guess I just really need something right now. This whole thing has been really fucked up. Not just being sober, but . . . I was a whole different person. I never thought I'd be the kind of person who -- It's been really hard to get through the day. I stopped drinking because I had to. I couldn't keep going that way but now I'm trying to figure out how to keep living, you know? I'm running out of reasons to stay alive. Not that -- I'm sorry. This isn't your problem. You don't want to hear this. Right? Ted? Are you still there?
2.
(ORVILLE talking to the baby. It's late.)
ORVILLE
Are you awake? Hey, are you awake? Sorry. I know it's late. It's just -- I saw the guy who killed your mom. I mean I knew he was out on bail, but I didn't expect to just run into him like that. I don't think he recognized me but I knew it was him right away. Those photographs are burned into my mind.
He was just there all of a sudden. I came out of work and there he was, just walking down Twenty-Third Street, completely free. The nerve of him to be alive while Carrie -- So I followed him. I followed him into a grocery store and watched him buy orange juice and coffee. I followed him to his apartment building and I waited outside. Waited so long my legs were tired from standing.
It started to rain. I was about to leave, just forget the whole thing, and then he came out. I followed him into the subway onto the platform. I stood near him while we were waiting for the train. I could have pushed him right into the oncoming train. I could have done that then. Instead we both got on the train and when he got off, I got off. We went into this church, down in the basement. It was a meeting for people who were trying not to drink or take drugs anymore. I stood in the back. Am I supposed to feel better that the guy who hit your mother with a car is going to some meeting? Is that supposed to make everything okay somehow? Other people get up and tell their stories but I'm watching him and all I can think is murderer, murderer, murderer.
I'm going to take care of this. This is what I can do. It's his fault you have no mother. It's probably his fault you never cry. I'm going to make sure he's punished for it.
3.
Good Morning, Good Night
1
1.
IAN
I feel like such a fucking idiot. You come over looking for a friend and I'm . . . I guess I thought . . . I've always had this problem. It's not just you. Sometimes you see the signals you want to see instead of the signals that are actually there. I used to ask. I used to say, “Can I kiss you now?” but it's so unromantic. So unspontaneous. I just thought . . . But yeah. Sorry about that. I guess I needed you to want that whether or not you did. I guess I just really need something right now. This whole thing has been really fucked up. Not just being sober, but . . . I was a whole different person. I never thought I'd be the kind of person who -- It's been really hard to get through the day. I stopped drinking because I had to. I couldn't keep going that way but now I'm trying to figure out how to keep living, you know? I'm running out of reasons to stay alive. Not that -- I'm sorry. This isn't your problem. You don't want to hear this. Right? Ted? Are you still there?
2.
(ORVILLE talking to the baby. It's late.)
ORVILLE
Are you awake? Hey, are you awake? Sorry. I know it's late. It's just -- I saw the guy who killed your mom. I mean I knew he was out on bail, but I didn't expect to just run into him like that. I don't think he recognized me but I knew it was him right away. Those photographs are burned into my mind.
He was just there all of a sudden. I came out of work and there he was, just walking down Twenty-Third Street, completely free. The nerve of him to be alive while Carrie -- So I followed him. I followed him into a grocery store and watched him buy orange juice and coffee. I followed him to his apartment building and I waited outside. Waited so long my legs were tired from standing.
It started to rain. I was about to leave, just forget the whole thing, and then he came out. I followed him into the subway onto the platform. I stood near him while we were waiting for the train. I could have pushed him right into the oncoming train. I could have done that then. Instead we both got on the train and when he got off, I got off. We went into this church, down in the basement. It was a meeting for people who were trying not to drink or take drugs anymore. I stood in the back. Am I supposed to feel better that the guy who hit your mother with a car is going to some meeting? Is that supposed to make everything okay somehow? Other people get up and tell their stories but I'm watching him and all I can think is murderer, murderer, murderer.
I'm going to take care of this. This is what I can do. It's his fault you have no mother. It's probably his fault you never cry. I'm going to make sure he's punished for it.
3.
ORVILLE
It was my wife you hit with your fucking car. She just went out to get milk. It should have been me you hit instead. We had an argument. It was a long day and I had just come home and she was like, “Can you go to the store?” and I yelled at her like an asshole. She said, “Fine, I'll do it.” I should have stopped her. But I was a lazy piece of shit and I let her walk out the door with her big swollen belly. If it had been me, maybe I could have got out of the way when you ran the red light. She couldn't move as fast because she was carrying our child. Or maybe not. Maybe I'd be dead too. Either way, it should have been me. But it wasn't. So now I'm here with this gun. (beat) So what do you have to say for yourself?
I’m looking for books on marriage. How to have a good marriage. What to do. What not to do. How to be a good husband. How to love the right way. How to best make love. Not fiction, mind you. Or the things on the internet. More like old knowledge. The things our souls know that long ago were shared by word of mouth generation after generation and then recorded by hand and translated into a thousand languages but have been forgotten. Maybe some of the new science too. But not based on one small study and not pseudoscience and not a series of essays written on deadline by someone who doesn’t know enough, who knows how to write but doesn’t know how to think. Also. How to be a good father. Not the trends. Not the sexism. Or maybe some of the sexism but the kind in which it is easily recognized as such. How to be a good person. How to live life the right way. I feel like I’m trying to start my life finally with the right person and I want to try not to make too many mistakes and I want to be happy or if not happy, the other thing that we’re supposed to be. Of use? Worthwhile? Honest? I want to be vulnerable and love completely. Do you have a book like that?
It was my wife you hit with your fucking car. She just went out to get milk. It should have been me you hit instead. We had an argument. It was a long day and I had just come home and she was like, “Can you go to the store?” and I yelled at her like an asshole. She said, “Fine, I'll do it.” I should have stopped her. But I was a lazy piece of shit and I let her walk out the door with her big swollen belly. If it had been me, maybe I could have got out of the way when you ran the red light. She couldn't move as fast because she was carrying our child. Or maybe not. Maybe I'd be dead too. Either way, it should have been me. But it wasn't. So now I'm here with this gun. (beat) So what do you have to say for yourself?
ROBERT
(to Librarian)
I’m looking for books on marriage. How to have a good marriage. What to do. What not to do. How to be a good husband. How to love the right way. How to best make love. Not fiction, mind you. Or the things on the internet. More like old knowledge. The things our souls know that long ago were shared by word of mouth generation after generation and then recorded by hand and translated into a thousand languages but have been forgotten. Maybe some of the new science too. But not based on one small study and not pseudoscience and not a series of essays written on deadline by someone who doesn’t know enough, who knows how to write but doesn’t know how to think. Also. How to be a good father. Not the trends. Not the sexism. Or maybe some of the sexism but the kind in which it is easily recognized as such. How to be a good person. How to live life the right way. I feel like I’m trying to start my life finally with the right person and I want to try not to make too many mistakes and I want to be happy or if not happy, the other thing that we’re supposed to be. Of use? Worthwhile? Honest? I want to be vulnerable and love completely. Do you have a book like that?
1
AMIR
It started with promise, equal part hope and cynicism. I had a call from a friend saying let’s go out. So I put on my special shoes. The blue ones that make me feel beautiful. We have a shot or two of cheap vodka at my apartment which I share with five other people. We check each other in the mirror and in person. I change my shirt. I change my shirt again and then we descend into the night, the city alive with twenty somethings, alcohol and sex.
We drink and we dance and we drink and we dance. Across the room I notice a vision in tight jeans. I catch his eye and then we’re dancing next to each other, cheek to cheek. Then, cheek to cheek. And then the party fades away and we’re alone together at his loft. He looks at me for a long time. Into me. Penetrating. I almost can’t stand it. But I do. And then, we’re on the bed, and his sheets have an incredibly high count. Which is to say, in the end, in case I wasn’t being clear, I got laid this weekend.
2
AMIR
Then one day, I got a phone call. I almost didn’t pick up the phone but I did. It was her daughter. Anna was dead.
(funeral. ANNA laid out on a slab or in a coffin.)
AMIR
Anna died doing what she liked best. The unicycle. People come in and out of our lives. I guess I knew Anna as well as anybody. We worked together. And then we didn’t. We hated each other. Then we were friends. We loved each other. She was there at all the pivotal moments of my life. I don’t know how I can continue having important moments without her. I will miss her. And I will miss the me that existed only with her. I guess I don’t see how this could happen. I guess I can’t conceive of a life without her in it. I can’t accept this. This is not okay. This isn’t—
Arthur
Atrocious. Juvenile. Bland. Obvious. Derivative. There is no skill whatsoever. It's an imitation of other hacks rehashed to make this hack look less of a hack. I'm offended that I was even asked to come to this event. The maker of this dreck has single-handedly devalued what it is to be a human while proving his parents right. He should have been a dentist. At least then it would be clear that his intent to cause us all pain and misery was not accidental. It makes me want to do physical harm to myself. I would rather slit my wrists than have to look at it. Please stab me. Please stab me to death so I can get this image out of my retinas. I just want this nightmare to be over. And I do mean nightmare. I don't speak in hyperbole. Someone should break his arms so he can never do anything like this ever again. Perhaps his legs too, lest he try to paint with his toes. Better still, he should be shot in the head and his organs harvested to repay any persons of sub-par intelligence who may have at one time purchased his art. No, not "art." "Work?" Not "work." What can we say? Scribbling? Leavings? Ejaculate? It makes my eyes hurt.
UBU
WHERE YOU CAN'T FOLLOW
1
FIVE SHORT PLAYS
I just think, when you love someone, then maybe . . . that’s when you do things with them . . . like those things . . . I’m just waiting for that person to show up, but I just don’t know when that will happen. It seems like it never will. And I want it to so bad, but it’s like I don’t belong here. Everyone just stares at me as if to say “what are you doing here?” and I don’t know what I’m doing here. At all. I just hope someday there will be someone who will look at me and see my value and say “yeah, you and me, we’re the same.” Cause no one around here is like me. And I’m not even sure why. Sometimes I just feel like there’s no point in saying anything anymore because when I do, no one understands what I’m saying. We’re all speaking the same language but I’m on a different frequency or something. I don’t know.
EAST HADDAM
1.
FAT CAT KILLERS
1.
STEVE
Thanks for seeing me. I know there’s some restructuring going on and I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that if any managerial positions that come open –well I’d be interested in moving up, if um, there is a position you think I might be right for. So, anyway, hi. I’m Steve. Hi. I know you want to know if as Steve, I am being the best Steve I can be. The answer is yes. Sometimes. The answer is Yes, Sometimes. I don’t want to say it’s hard to be Steve. It’s easier than being some people I’m sure. But no, am I happy? I’m not so sure I’m happy. I’m not sure that Steve is as Steve can be. But I think with more responsibility and more . . . more money, I can be a better Steve, a more productive maybe Steve, but also a more well rounded Steve. I think in my new life I will be a Steve who perhaps learns to play the electric guitar or rides his bicycle everywhere. I will be maybe a Steve who paints large murals maybe on the side of buildings maybe with neighborhood children. I may not know how to do this right now but that does not mean that it is something I cannot do. I mean the jury is still out for what I am capable of. Which is why I think you need to give me a chance to show you how capable I am. I’m already someone who, you know packs his lunch at least two or three times a week. It’s true there are mornings when it’s harder to get up and sometimes I get a late start and there’s traffic or there was an accident or something and maybe I’m late, but remember how I was always fifteen minutes early when I first started working here? For like two years I was fifteen minutes early and it’s true I don’t actually do a lot at my desk these days. I kind of put off the work and no one seems to notice so I guess that’s an okay thing to do. Not that it should be, but, you know, it is.
There are days I go without doing anything. Weeks sometimes. Although I do answer emails. Sometimes the answer is no, but I’m always sure to type that before I hit send. But really, if given the chance, if given reason and money I guess I could be very good at a job that’s a little more important, a job that’s worthwhile. A job that’s not a waste of time like my current job. I mean when I’m actually doing it-- It’s a waste of time when I actually do it. But when I’m not doing it, it’s because it’s a waste of time. I do spend a lot of time writing letters. People like my letters. Many of them have been published in newspapers. And I put them all on my blog which is becoming more and more popular. And I read a lot now. Online. At my desk. And I watch a lot of short videos. It’s, I mean, it’s not ideal. I’m bored a lot and I feel the weight of the work I’m not doing. It’s piling up and no one realizes it but me. And I could do some of it maybe but then I would have to look at the whole big pile of it and that might be too overwhelming. Why doesn’t it stop? I mean does it ever stop actually, the work, or does it just keep coming forever? I could take my vacation but when I come back, there will be even more work to do. I mean, let me be clear, if I move on to this new job I will get all that work done. I’ll buckle down and do it. Or I’ll train someone else to do it. But I don’t want you to judge my work ethic on now, because now is a limbo time when I’m never given anything relevant or important or interesting. When I move up, well then that will be a different story.
I can look out the window and answer the phone and make decisions and then I could maybe even buy an apartment after a while, because of the money. So in closing, I am very skilled in very many things and I think you will find I have good management skills and I am competent and I’m becoming sort of a well known blogger and letter writer. Thank you for your time and for considering helping me to be a better version of Steve. I can shine if you let me shine. (STEVE starts to leave, then remembers something and returns.) Oh, also I do have a Bachelors in individualized study. That’s on my resume, right? Okay. Thanks. (This time he really leaves)
2.
1.
JAKE
2.
4.
1.
(EVAN gets to a bad place in his head.
EVAN goes to his laptop, films himself.
He is projected much larger on the back wall, like before.)
SNOW (From Five Short Plays)
1.
ED
I’ve been careful, always very careful. Before touching a woman I put on rubber gloves. Some women are taken aback sure, when you pull out rubber gloves and dental dams but what kinds of women are those?—women that know they have diseases. And those are not the type of women I want to know in any case. So when people ask me if I’m upset at being a virgin at my age, I say no way.
I’m just looking for a clean woman. I am not against kissing—I just want to make sure her mouth is well cleaned first. If she would brush her teeth and then gargle with mouthwash for a minimum of sixty seconds. I, of course would also brush and mouthwash. I like cleanliness, that’s all. We are all dirty. God knows I scrub my hands before putting those rubber gloves on.
THE WHY OVERHEAD
1.
NIGEL
You better run. You better be afraid of me. I am a man. I am a big man and I won’t take this kind of insanity from a girl like you! I have scaled mountains. I have forged rivers. I have run in races. I built snow caves and spent the night in them. You hear me?! I jumped out of airplanes. I drove a motorcycle. I am very hairy. I work out two or three times a week. With free weights. I eat lots of vegetables. I am a fairly good pool player. Also pinochle. I could catch a tiger if I had the right equipment and enough time on my hands and if I was in the vicinity of tigers. I have a charming personality. I can make up jokes that people repeat later and don’t even realize they’re mine. I can make intricate cages out of popsicle sticks. My chest is enormous! I am a wealth of knowledge about music and musicians, especially in the years nineteen fifty nine to nineteen ninety-four. I write poetry. I won an award once for punctuality. My smile is terrific. I used to be a choir boy. I can peel oranges with great speed and dexterity. I am good at choosing shoes. I once played tennis for three hours. I am omnipotent! Okay, well maybe that last one isn’t true. But I am a man and I will crush you. You hear me?! YOU HEAR ME?!!
2.
DONALD
(to CAT)
“Manifesto to leave behind after everything has happened to explain why in case it is less than obvious.”
(DONALD clears his throat, reads.) “There are certain times in history when certain actions become necessary. Right now it is a time when there are great inequalities. I have taken on the responsibility to right wrongs to stop injustice and to use the pen here and later the sword so that the words from my pen will be read. Anyone can write anything, but you also have to get people to read what you write. That’s what the sword is for. I stand before you a man ready to take drastic actions. There are men that take actions and men that do nothing but complain. We are all angry but only the brave few who stand up and fight back will be able to accomplish anything of note. History will show that my actions were the right actions at the right time. History will record today as the turning point for America when a wave of citizens led by me took back their country.”
“I ask that in my absence, one of my future followers take care of my cat Mittens. She needs neither food nor water. She has evolved beyond life. She only requires company and for someone to talk to her and listen to her. I know that Mittens and I will see each other in the next life and I wouldn’t be surprised if she became a conduit for my messages from beyond the grave. In the past, I have spoken to many great leaders through her. Like Marie Antoinette, John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Henry Ford, and a spirit guide dog named Hamish. So when you need to reach me, ask Mittens nicely and I’m sure she will oblige. And through her I will give you future guidance on how to overthrow the government and corporations and create a civilization for the people by the people. The right people, that is.”
“In conclusion, when statues of me are built, I ask that Mittens be portrayed as well in bronze or gold or whatever. Her guidance has been incredibly helpful and without her I couldn’t have accomplished what my actions accomplished. Like the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the small deeds of today will reverberate for generations.”
“I sign this with my left hand though I am right handed.” And then I signed it. Do you like it?
3.
DONALD
At the end of the day, when the shit goes down, it turns out I’m not who I thought I was. And that makes me sad. I mean it’s important to know, but I want to be the kind of person that starts a revolution not the kind of person that doesn’t. I don’t know. I’m going to need to go home and talk to my cat. If she’s still there, that is.
FOOD FOR FISH
1.
BOBBIE
When you have visions that beat at your brains while other people are talking. When you hear non-stop streams of screams. When synapses pop or won’t stop crackling, and when blood pumps, and the pounding don’t stop pounding. Then you look for an exit to start the ending or search sideways in vain to extract a distraction, but even then, what will curls of hair give to you, hips and breasts, lips sip out of you, in a moment, distract what abstraction pounds-pounds ‘til you steal . . . a kiss.
I dress in haste, pull the hood on my head and I take to the street, boot in front of boot to find her. Who will she be tonight?
Last night she was brunette, blue-lipped and serious, mouth curled around a tiny white smokestack, long leopard-fur coat collecting snowflakes on its tips. When she stopped in the streetlamp, I was there. I was a boy and she was not afraid. She took a drag and I took her lips and all her smoke and sadness drained into me. She gasped in the kiss and the snow fell on her lashes. When she opened her eyes, I was gone.
That night I took my silver pen knife from the drawer of my desk—the only furniture I own. I opened the blade, splayed my left hand on the desk and stabbed myself with the right.
(BOBBIE stops typing.)
BOBBIE
No! No! NO! That’s not right. No one would do that. It’s so fucking stupid. It’s so fucking . . .
(BOBBIE stops himself, takes out a knife, and stabs himself in the hand. He yells out in pain.)
BOBBIE
Ahhhhh!
2.
(A coffin sits prominently in the sister’s apartment. BARBARA –played as a woman by a man in drag--sits beside it. ALICE is reading a scientific journal and making notes. SYLVIA is reading a newspaper.)
BARBARA
It’s been a year since Father died. When Mother died, I was only seven and three quarters but I had to become the mother to you both as well as your older sister. Did I do right by you? I tried, you know.
I had to learn how to be a woman from television. “One Life to Live,” “Days of Our Lives,” “All My Children,” “General Hospital,” “Daylight Menagerie,” “Passionate Embrace,” “Dallas” and the magazines of course. I skipped Seventeen and went straight to Mademoiselle, Ms., Playgirl, Good Housekeeping, Home and Garden, House and Kitchen, Modern Woman, Lady of Leisure. I stayed home like a mother would and studied, catalogued every gesture and practiced-practiced to be an adult so that you didn’t have to. Then when you came home I would show you what I had learned and you would smile. Because I had kept you from the pain and from the responsibility of being a woman.
Now that Poppa is dead I must learn to be a father to you as well. I watch my husband carefully to see if he is the right model. He must be firm yet flexible, strong yet not afraid to show weakness, quiet and reserved, yet emotional and expressive. He must be bold. He must be vulnerable. He must not be afraid to show fear or to cry in front of others. He must not be a sissy. He must work all day and then come home and then he must take out the trash. He must give orders and take suggestions. He must do as I say but never be influenced by exterior forces. The leader of the house, and of course, my servant. In short he must be a man, the new man--like Father was and like Father would be still if only . . .
Do you remember a year ago today? Father fell asleep watching Fox news and didn’t wake up. There was a panic of course and the shock and the sorrow eventually.
3.
(BOBBIE paces, he looks at the letter again. He crumples it up and throws it. He pounds the desk in anger, then puts a new sheet of paper in the typewriter. He types.)
BOBBIE
Dear Sir, Did you even read my masterpiece? If you had, you would not be sending me this form letter of rejection. Not unless you are indeed a complete and worthless moron. I do not accept you as an arbiter of real talent. I have more talent than all of you put together if it comes to that! You with your hackneyed conventions, have usurped the foremost places in art and consider nothing genuine and legitimate except what you yourselves do. Everything else you stifle and suppress. I do not accept you. I do not. It was optimistic of me to think that you were not an undiscerning fool.
Are you all conspiring against me, you with your form letters on separate letterheads that converge into one voice? As punishment for this, your highest crime, know that you have pushed me to eschew publication altogether. Know that you and the others and the world at large will miss out on the rest of my work which I shall never again let you touch with your dirty and destructive hands. My work belongs to eternity now. To the universe of ephemera. But never to you. May you find your just punishment knowing you have kept another genius from the hungry world who aches to hear him. Sincerely, The Author Who Would Have Made You Famous.
4.
BOBBIE
I know the tricks of being a boy. I know how to act like I’m not interested. I know how to feign disinterest. I know how to walk away, how to not call, how to ignore her insinuations that she likes me. In short, I know how to play dumb. I know all this not from being taught but because I am a smart boy and that’s what smart boys know.
But I can no longer use my tricks of being a boy. Because suddenly I am in love and all the crafty tricks I’d collected are useless against her laughter, her dimples, her eyes. In short, I am no longer a smart boy. She has made me dumb.
5.
DEXTER
About us. We got married too quick. Your father was sick then already. And we leaped into the thing even though we didn’t know each other very well. You were my first love and then before we knew it we were married. You were taking care of your father every day and then the fear came for you and you stopped leaving the house and I trudged to work day after day and tried to become numb and not think about what was I doing. It was my life. Work and home and work and home. And at home, your father was coughing into his oxygen tank and your sisters were bickering. I was becoming smaller. In the office, I had a new boss every few months--they were interchangeable in their corporate slogans and brand name business attire and just as I would get used to one, he or she would be promoted and so I never knew any of them long enough for them to even know what I was supposed to be doing. Not that I could tell you that. And I still can’t. I’m not even sure who I am. I’ve become so insignificant.
HEARTS LIKE FISTS
1.
(Spotlight on DOCTOR X, a truly terrible creature with sunken eyes and deep scars all over. Disfigured, stethoscope round the neck, wearing a doctor’s lab coat, carrying a doctor bag.)
DOCTOR X
I have a face like a bowl of worms. Squirming around the ticks, the scars, the moles. It’s disgusting. A face like this. It’s absurd, without meaning or purpose. And I honestly can’t say if I’m an experiment gone awry or if I was just born this way. I have no origin. I have no memory. I can only remember you. The way you looked at me, the first time you saw me, it was like you saw the bowl underneath the worms. Your face was like a china plate. Perfect. Whole. Pristine. And you looked at me, the way you looked at me—
The patient had died. That much I remember. His wife was wailing but I couldn’t hear her. Because you were there and everything else melted away. “Let’s have a drink,” you said with your face like a plate. And we drank and we drank and we went to my place and we made love like normal people. And it continued that way for days, weeks, years. I can’t say for sure. Why can’t I remember? If I could only remember, maybe I could find you.
Or maybe I could figure out when how why you grew tired of me. Was it then I became what I am? Your body was like liquor and I couldn’t get enough, couldn’t spend a night without you, a minute, a second. I didn’t know you weren’t drunk on me. How could I have missed the diagnosis? How could I have avoided the bald shock, the morning discovery, to wake up and find your note?
And now I can’t remember anything except you. Your face everywhere I go. You will pay. Everyone will pay. You will all pay dearly.
2.
PETER
She will hurt you. She will break you over her knee. She will hurt you and she will tear you and she will rip you apart. Who are you that you think you can withstand her? You are just a man. You are a vulnerable man with tiny veins and blood rushing through you too fast. You have your career. You don’t need complications. Not now. Now when the heart is just about ready to be tested. You are no one. No one and the heart is everything and you can’t sacrifice these things for a tingling in your toes. For a pretty face. Such a pretty pretty face. Carries an electromagnetic field wherever she goes. Makes your heart beat faster than it has in years. She will break you. She will hurt you and tear you and break you and pull you until there will be nothing of you left. She will—
(PETER stands. He takes his coat and leaves the restaurant.)
3.
(DOCTOR X approaches a sleeping couple who have arrived surreptitiously. He prepares his needles.)
DOCTOR X
I don’t have to think when I’m working. I don’t have to feel. I don’t get angry about the things I can’t remember because all I need to know is the work in front of me. Everyone will pay! And the things I can remember don’t haunt me. Her face like a plate. Her disappearance. Or her laugh, always startling, but runs right through you. Or who I am. Who am I? I don’t have to think about that now. I have lovers to kill. I can concentrate on the damage I will inflict. You will all pay! There is something satisfying about an accomplished task. How can you be ever truly depressed if you accomplish all you set out to do? Someday it’s just enough to get out of bed. Or to kill a couple of people. No more. Yes the refrigerator is empty but as long as something was accomplished, well then, it’s back to bed. A sleep and maybe in the morning, a remembering. A thought about my mother. A vision of a room. And her, always her, with a face you want to eat off. (He injects them both.) Well that’s done.
4.
(PETER in his workshop in the hospital, takes an artificial heart out of a box. It beats.)
PETER
Here you are, my spare heart. Mother said, always have a spare. You never know, she said. Do everything twice. Just in case. Always have an extra pencil. Always bring an extra sandwich. And give it away if you can. To the kid with the torn jacket who smells like pee. And if they say thank you, say “you’re welcome,” or “think nothing of it,” or “no thanks is necessary.” Tell them “I can see you’re a human being who needs something. We all need something sometimes and if I can be the one to help, well that is good, but next time it could be you that helps and that will be good too.” Always do what you can to help. And if you think someone is laughing at you, look away. Look away. You’ll save them all some day, she said.
And now I will. I look to you, artificial heart. I look to you and I hope you know how to beat endlessly like I taught you. Because I’m going to make a million of you, and then another million, and another. Anyone who wants you, can have you. Anyone who feels weak will be made strong by your comforting weight and your life-saving pumping. You will be the circulatory saver of this world. But right now, I’m the one in need of your help. I’m the weak one, the sick, the damaged, the other. I’m the kid with the torn jacket, except the jacket is a heart.
Tomorrow, they will crack my chest open and put you inside, and then I will never need to be afraid again.
5.
DOCTOR X
They say it’s like riding a bicycle, you never forget how to perform surgery. But I’m not sure they were talking about those of us with brain damage. We’ll have to see, just have to see. My hand seems to know what to do. Sometimes the hand knows things the brain doesn’t and we should just trust the hand. Now we make the incision. How about there? That seems to be a good place for a heart.
I don’t have to think when I’m working. I can just slide into the moment, escape into the process. Surgery is a kind of escapism. You can leave your self behind and cut cut cut. It makes me wonder if my self is still here. Maybe I was never lost. Maybe I was always here, just waiting to pick up a scalpel. It feels good. I’ll say that. It feels good. Sleep, now, sleep. I owe you that.
CLOWN BAR
1.
DUSTY
My cat died last week. Thirty seven years old and died falling off the counter. She was dead before she hit the ground I suspect. I still haven’t buried her. I’m too sad about it. I just stuffed her in the freezer and now whenever I want a popsicle, I see her and I start crying again. On top of that, yesterday, I was sitting on my couch and I noticed a tear in it. I should probably get some thread and stitch it up. It’ll just get bigger if you don’t do something about it. You know what they say, a stitch in time . . . something something. Something about stitches. But it applies universally. To all ways of fastening things. Like pull up your zipper now or you’ll be cold later. Or take the antibiotics now before you giveit to other people. Or like, go to rehab before you OD on cough syrup or PCP or whatever. Or like, take care of your mama. My mama’s doing okay. In fact, I was having a pretty good day if I wasn’t thinking about the cat or my couch. But then Shotgun shot me in the foot. I’ll probably get gangrene. I’m hoping the burlesque show might cheer me up. Hey what are you guys doing?
NERVE
1.
ELLIOT
Thanks. I just don’t want to come off as fragile or something. Just because I don’t like roller coasters. I mean to say, I function in this world. No, I guess, not all the time, like there was a while when I just wanted to crawl under my bed and spend the day there but I was really unhappy and I just got out of a bad relationship and had a terrible job and I just
hated my life. And yes I guess I still do have panic attacks sometimes and suddenly am afraid my hand is going to fall off or that I’m going to stop breathing and I freak out but then I realize I’m still breathing and I’m probably not going to suddenly die and I’m OK. I suppose I thought for a long time I would be dead by now like in some horrible plane crash or car crash or like a stray bullet and I would be dead by like twenty but here I am and I’m not dead. So what I’m saying is that I’m, you know, pretty healthy now, not depressed or anything and I’m not like a daredevil. No, I don’t have tattoos or piercings and I’m not going to drive a steel rod through my head, but I’m not going to curl up on your couch and cry or anything.
PRETTY THEFT
1.
MARCO
I learned early that if something is pretty it must be wrong. Or it made me do things that were wrong which was the same thing. It’s not my fault there is beauty everywhere.
Because when you look at something beautiful, it takes a little piece of your soul away. But you can’t just let that happen. You have to do something. So you take the beautiful thing and run, because you think that will make you feel better but it doesn’t help. It makes it worse somehow but what else can you do? You have to try to grasp it. You have to hold something like that in your hands. And when it takes from you, you have to take back. You can try to stop, but . . .Why aren’t you drinking?
2.
JOE
Some people get locked up and some people never do. If you try to kiss the staff they will lock you up. It is illegal. Many men in suits never go to jail. That’s because that’s because that’s because they aren’t me. They aren’t broken. They walk on the surface of the water while everyone else is stuck in traffic or your car breaks down. Their cars never break down. They are super untouchable. They get married they have wives and children because they are men that are not born broken. They are the people who are up on the big screens. They are on the TV on the radio in the newspaper because they are the chosen the good, the other people. They can kiss whoever they want or kill even. Even kill. Because they are uncatchable or they are forgivable or they are perfect. They have people lying to help them. Their mothers loved them and told them so. Their mothers helped them up the stairs. Their mothers had a lot of money and a lot of good things in their bodies that they passed on while they lived in their good homes. They were beautiful and rich and were friends with all the people you are supposed to be friends with. Like doctors who can lie for you. Like doctors who can fix you. Except they don’t need fixing. Not the super untouchable. They have legs like razors and eyes that magnetize. They are pretty. They are everything. Like Allegra. I wonder if Allegra is super untouchable.
See also
MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
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It started with promise, equal part hope and cynicism. I had a call from a friend saying let’s go out. So I put on my special shoes. The blue ones that make me feel beautiful. We have a shot or two of cheap vodka at my apartment which I share with five other people. We check each other in the mirror and in person. I change my shirt. I change my shirt again and then we descend into the night, the city alive with twenty somethings, alcohol and sex.
We drink and we dance and we drink and we dance. Across the room I notice a vision in tight jeans. I catch his eye and then we’re dancing next to each other, cheek to cheek. Then, cheek to cheek. And then the party fades away and we’re alone together at his loft. He looks at me for a long time. Into me. Penetrating. I almost can’t stand it. But I do. And then, we’re on the bed, and his sheets have an incredibly high count. Which is to say, in the end, in case I wasn’t being clear, I got laid this weekend.
2
AMIR
Then one day, I got a phone call. I almost didn’t pick up the phone but I did. It was her daughter. Anna was dead.
(funeral. ANNA laid out on a slab or in a coffin.)
AMIR
Anna died doing what she liked best. The unicycle. People come in and out of our lives. I guess I knew Anna as well as anybody. We worked together. And then we didn’t. We hated each other. Then we were friends. We loved each other. She was there at all the pivotal moments of my life. I don’t know how I can continue having important moments without her. I will miss her. And I will miss the me that existed only with her. I guess I don’t see how this could happen. I guess I can’t conceive of a life without her in it. I can’t accept this. This is not okay. This isn’t—
Arthur
Atrocious. Juvenile. Bland. Obvious. Derivative. There is no skill whatsoever. It's an imitation of other hacks rehashed to make this hack look less of a hack. I'm offended that I was even asked to come to this event. The maker of this dreck has single-handedly devalued what it is to be a human while proving his parents right. He should have been a dentist. At least then it would be clear that his intent to cause us all pain and misery was not accidental. It makes me want to do physical harm to myself. I would rather slit my wrists than have to look at it. Please stab me. Please stab me to death so I can get this image out of my retinas. I just want this nightmare to be over. And I do mean nightmare. I don't speak in hyperbole. Someone should break his arms so he can never do anything like this ever again. Perhaps his legs too, lest he try to paint with his toes. Better still, he should be shot in the head and his organs harvested to repay any persons of sub-par intelligence who may have at one time purchased his art. No, not "art." "Work?" Not "work." What can we say? Scribbling? Leavings? Ejaculate? It makes my eyes hurt.
UBU
1
UBU
How
I became King of the Great Expanding Universe. Yes. Yes.
I
was not always King of the Great Expanding Universe. My father was
not the King of the Great Expanding Universe. In fact, back then,
there was no King of the Great Expanding Universe. The universe was
just a series of unrelated non-governed or socialist, communist,
anarchist, hedonist, neo-realist or vaguely democratic republican
principalities, which is to say, oligarchies. How then did I ever
become the King of the Great Expanding Universe? Surely not by being
elected. No, the secret, is—I feel like I can tell you the
secret—can you keep a secret? Well, YOU BETTER. The secret is I
did it all through misinformation, intimidation, brute force, deceit,
murder, bribery, theft, breaking laws, changing laws, murder . . .
did I say murder? Misinformation, teaching the people to blame
themselves for their own misfortune.
First
you create a corporation. It can even be a small corporation. But
it must be profitable. Then you buy up another corporation. You
don’t need to have all the money to do so. Be sure to outsource
the labor to children and those in poverty so that your profits will
be high. Then you buy your first politician. I remember the day I
bought my first politician. That was a good day. The pride I felt.
Buy more politicians and more corporations. Diversify. Don’t just
own an oil company. Own the phones and the newspapers and the
television and housing and the grocery stores and the cable and the
cars and the internet and the small countries. Continue ad
infinitum. And don’t be afraid of brute force. You can start a
war to make money. You don’t even have to win. You can do anything
as long as you own enough politicians. What is important is you must
never back down. Crush them. You must crush them. Crush them!
Crush them! Crush them! Crush them! Aaaaaahhh.
2
UBU
Wine!
Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine! Wine!
(The
SERVANT brings UBU wine. UBU drinks.)
UBU
A
very good vintage. I would offer it to you, of course, but it would
ruin you.
What
else can I tell you before I fire you? Ooop. Did I say that out
loud? Were you paying attention? Forget I said that. Maybe I won’t
even do it. Who knows. I meant to say, what else can I tell you for
your edification to help you continue to work for me?
When
I was a child . . . nononono. Don’t look at me like that. I’m
not some kind of animal. I’m not some kind of—I was in love
once. Is that what you want to hear? It was a blemish on my career.
A black spot on my rise to fame and fortune. All the profits I
tried to make, she tried to take away. She wanted me to use my money
to clothe people and feed people and house people and help them farm
and get them clean water and give them small loans and artist grants.
And I did everything she wanted. Because of love.
(The
memory of the woman he loved comes out. Played by a servant? A
life-sized marionette? UBU and she dance together. It is haunting
and strangely beautiful.)
UBU
She
was—
She
was—
beautiful.
heavenly.
Her
feet never touched the ground.
She
made the most powerful men self conscious.
She
was put together like no other.
Just
meat and bone, but better. More human. Like she was built from
sunlight and air.
Her
existence was proof of God.
She
had my heart in her hand.
And
then she died.
Cancer.
(Marionette
or Actor falls to the ground.)
UBU
People
told me to fund Cancer research. Fuck that. I’m not giving up any
more to cancer. CANCER ALREADY TOOK EVERYTHING!
3
UBU
It
is good if they underestimate you at first. That is how you always
have surprise. People should think you are a little dumb, maybe a
little weak. That is okay. It is easier to crush them if they think
that. It is even better if they do not know you are actually in
charge. They will get angry at the wrong person. This is the best
way. Then you can continue to rape them from behind, as they say.
Figuratively of course, unless you are doing it literally. Then,
literally of course. Now, if you tell them not to fuck with you and
they’re still fucking with you, then you must crush them.
Don’t
fuck with me!
4
UBU
My
childhood was very unhappy but it was also lonely. All I had was a
pet dead cat and my nightmares to keep me company in my tiny locked
closet. I don’t want to blame anybody but it was probably my
mother’s fault. I’m not saying she was a terrible mother, but
she definitely was.
I’m
not complaining. Look at me. I’m the most successful man ever.
(He thinks about this for a minute. Sad.) Ever.
Don’t
look at me like that. Is that pity? I am not a man to be pitied!
Not like you. There on the bottom, surviving off the scraps I throw
you. Not literally. I mean, not from this table. It would ruin
you. We mustn’t do that. What? You don’t believe me?
(Tosses
a small piece of steak to the ground.)
UBU
Go
on. Eat it. Crawl up here on your hands and knees and eat it off
the ground like a dog. Go on. Go on. I’ll wait. Go on. No?
5
UBU
Ah
hem. The first poem is entitled, “Ode To A Field Of Daisies.”
A
field of daisies
On
a sunny day
Reminds
me
You
have to take what you want
The
world owes you nothing
Take
Take
Take
Thank
you.
(If
they don’t clap.) Aren’t you going to clap? (When they do
clap.) That wasn’t much of an applause. Did you want to try that
again? (after) That wasn’t much better.
This
next one is called, “The Soul of a Poet.”
The
dying begins when you are born
They
try to hurt you right away
with
insults and cigarette burns
They
will tear you down if you build yourself up
They
will rip you your asshole if you get out of line
All
of everything and everybody is against you
That
is what living is
And
dying is giving up
But
we have no choice
You
start dying as soon as you’re born
I
like the taste of honey
Thank
you.
(after
applause or lack of applause.)
Is
that it? I don’t know if you even deserve another poem. But I’m
feeling generous.
UBU
This
one is called, “I hate you, Mommy.”
I
just adore the springtime
I
love a good Cuban cigar
Sunlight
is my favorite kind of light
Have
you ever seen a butterfly
Come
out of its cocoon?
Or
a moth for that matter flitting around a light?
Or
a sunset over a stark white beach
I
hate you Mommy.
Thank
you.
1
MATT
Say,
um. You wouldn’t want to come with me, would you?
I
know we don’t know each other. We might not even get along once we
get to know each other but . . . I dunno. I just thought I’d take
a shot in the dark. You seem nice.
And
you’re beautiful and Paris is a city to fall in love in and I’ve
never fallen in love, I’m sad to say.
And
I look at you and think maybe I could fall in love with you. Is that
ridiculous? Is that too much? I’m sorry. I just—my life is
changing and I don’t have time to fool around any more. So what do
you say? Will you come to Paris with me?
2
MATT
Hey!
(They ignore him.) Hey! Hey! You! You two! Why are you
kissing?
Why
do you get to kiss each other?! I don’t get to kiss anyone.
Everyone
wants me to go away. I’ll be dead soon. I’ll be away for good
then. Will that make you happy? Hey! I said, will you be happy
when I’m dead? Don’t stop talking to me. This was good. It was
a conversation.
Are
you in love? Hey! Are you in love? Hey! Hey! What’s your name?
Hey, there! Hi! Hey! Are you in love? Are you in love? Are you
in love?
I
was in love.
I’m
dying! Hey everyone! I’m dying! Are you going to hit a dying
man?
You’re
a tough guy. I could have been a tough guy. But then I wasn’t. I
should have been a tough guy.
You
gonna hit me? You gonna hit me?
You
don’t know anything. You don’t have some kind of secret. You’re
just fucking each other. That’s easy.
That
wasn’t love.
Thank
me.
You’re
welcome.
3
MATT
I
guess I haven’t done as well as I wanted. In life. My time is
ending.
And
I didn’t mean to be an asshole. It just sort of happened. But I
don’t want to die an asshole.
So
I want to apologize. I’m sorry for living such a stupid wasteful
useless life. I’m sorry for being selfish and for the all the
times I didn’t care about other people. I’m sorry for not
appreciating the good things in front of me. I’m sorry I didn’t
go after what I wanted. There were no good reasons. I was just
afraid and it’s stupid to live your life afraid. I’m sorry for
the times I was mean and petty. I’m sorry for lying for so long to
myself and to other people. I wasted my life by not ever really
being alive. She made me live finally. And I should have told her
right away. Of course I should have. It was cowardly. It was
selfish. I just wanted her. And I didn’t think she felt how I
felt. But I guess she did, didn’t she? And now, it’s too late.
ThreeCheerleaders Cheering for the Worst Team in the History of HighSchool Sports (From Five Short Plays)
PETER
I just think, when you love someone, then maybe . . . that’s when you do things with them . . . like those things . . . I’m just waiting for that person to show up, but I just don’t know when that will happen. It seems like it never will. And I want it to so bad, but it’s like I don’t belong here. Everyone just stares at me as if to say “what are you doing here?” and I don’t know what I’m doing here. At all. I just hope someday there will be someone who will look at me and see my value and say “yeah, you and me, we’re the same.” Cause no one around here is like me. And I’m not even sure why. Sometimes I just feel like there’s no point in saying anything anymore because when I do, no one understands what I’m saying. We’re all speaking the same language but I’m on a different frequency or something. I don’t know.
1.
SAM
How to be alone. It’s really not that hard. You just don’t date anyone. And that makes it easier to not accidentally get into a relationship which makes it easier to not move in with anyone or marry them. I eat a lot of soup. I recommend that. I mean really you can dress however you want. Shower or don’t. I used to go to the gym but I don’t do that any more. Some days I only eat cookies. I like to read a lot. And watch a lot of TV. And sometimes I drink tea. But you should do you. I mean that’s what it’s all about, really. Being the person you want to be without caring about what other people think. I have a job. I go to work. And I do my work and then I go home and then I do whatever I want. So, really I’ve got it made.
Loneliness? Yeah. I mean. Sure. That can happen sometimes. I recommend alcohol. I mean I guess I don’t recommend it, but I use it. What else? I have friends. I usually shower before seeing them but it’s optional.
Also what you can do is pine after someone completely unattainable. I do that. I have done that. I mean basically for years I’ve been doing that. What else? Did I mention reading? I like YA Science Fiction and Fantasy but again, you do you.
Now I’m going to do a dance with a unicorn.
(A UNICORN enters. Music. SAM and the UNICORN dance. Then the dance is over.
The UNICORN exits. SAM turns to the audience.)
SAM
Any questions?
2.
Loneliness? Yeah. I mean. Sure. That can happen sometimes. I recommend alcohol. I mean I guess I don’t recommend it, but I use it. What else? I have friends. I usually shower before seeing them but it’s optional.
Also what you can do is pine after someone completely unattainable. I do that. I have done that. I mean basically for years I’ve been doing that. What else? Did I mention reading? I like YA Science Fiction and Fantasy but again, you do you.
Now I’m going to do a dance with a unicorn.
(A UNICORN enters. Music. SAM and the UNICORN dance. Then the dance is over.
The UNICORN exits. SAM turns to the audience.)
SAM
Any questions?
2.
SAM
This never should have happened. Sometimes I get lonely and I miss being touched and I make stupid choices and then I drink and I make stupid choices. This is stupider than usual. This is betrayal. I’m the worst. Literally. This never should have happened. Can we pretend this never happened? You’ll never speak of it. I’ll never speak of it. If anyone asks, I never saw your birthmark and I don’t know what your smell is like or what noises you make during sex. Okay? It never happened?
This never should have happened. Sometimes I get lonely and I miss being touched and I make stupid choices and then I drink and I make stupid choices. This is stupider than usual. This is betrayal. I’m the worst. Literally. This never should have happened. Can we pretend this never happened? You’ll never speak of it. I’ll never speak of it. If anyone asks, I never saw your birthmark and I don’t know what your smell is like or what noises you make during sex. Okay? It never happened?
FAT CAT KILLERS
1.
STEVE
Thanks for seeing me. I know there’s some restructuring going on and I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that if any managerial positions that come open –well I’d be interested in moving up, if um, there is a position you think I might be right for. So, anyway, hi. I’m Steve. Hi. I know you want to know if as Steve, I am being the best Steve I can be. The answer is yes. Sometimes. The answer is Yes, Sometimes. I don’t want to say it’s hard to be Steve. It’s easier than being some people I’m sure. But no, am I happy? I’m not so sure I’m happy. I’m not sure that Steve is as Steve can be. But I think with more responsibility and more . . . more money, I can be a better Steve, a more productive maybe Steve, but also a more well rounded Steve. I think in my new life I will be a Steve who perhaps learns to play the electric guitar or rides his bicycle everywhere. I will be maybe a Steve who paints large murals maybe on the side of buildings maybe with neighborhood children. I may not know how to do this right now but that does not mean that it is something I cannot do. I mean the jury is still out for what I am capable of. Which is why I think you need to give me a chance to show you how capable I am. I’m already someone who, you know packs his lunch at least two or three times a week. It’s true there are mornings when it’s harder to get up and sometimes I get a late start and there’s traffic or there was an accident or something and maybe I’m late, but remember how I was always fifteen minutes early when I first started working here? For like two years I was fifteen minutes early and it’s true I don’t actually do a lot at my desk these days. I kind of put off the work and no one seems to notice so I guess that’s an okay thing to do. Not that it should be, but, you know, it is.
There are days I go without doing anything. Weeks sometimes. Although I do answer emails. Sometimes the answer is no, but I’m always sure to type that before I hit send. But really, if given the chance, if given reason and money I guess I could be very good at a job that’s a little more important, a job that’s worthwhile. A job that’s not a waste of time like my current job. I mean when I’m actually doing it-- It’s a waste of time when I actually do it. But when I’m not doing it, it’s because it’s a waste of time. I do spend a lot of time writing letters. People like my letters. Many of them have been published in newspapers. And I put them all on my blog which is becoming more and more popular. And I read a lot now. Online. At my desk. And I watch a lot of short videos. It’s, I mean, it’s not ideal. I’m bored a lot and I feel the weight of the work I’m not doing. It’s piling up and no one realizes it but me. And I could do some of it maybe but then I would have to look at the whole big pile of it and that might be too overwhelming. Why doesn’t it stop? I mean does it ever stop actually, the work, or does it just keep coming forever? I could take my vacation but when I come back, there will be even more work to do. I mean, let me be clear, if I move on to this new job I will get all that work done. I’ll buckle down and do it. Or I’ll train someone else to do it. But I don’t want you to judge my work ethic on now, because now is a limbo time when I’m never given anything relevant or important or interesting. When I move up, well then that will be a different story.
I can look out the window and answer the phone and make decisions and then I could maybe even buy an apartment after a while, because of the money. So in closing, I am very skilled in very many things and I think you will find I have good management skills and I am competent and I’m becoming sort of a well known blogger and letter writer. Thank you for your time and for considering helping me to be a better version of Steve. I can shine if you let me shine. (STEVE starts to leave, then remembers something and returns.) Oh, also I do have a Bachelors in individualized study. That’s on my resume, right? Okay. Thanks. (This time he really leaves)
2.
STEVE
Sorry about that. It’s just you were scaring me a little. And you’re not supposed to do that. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I thought maybe we would just knock on your door and be like, “Hey we got laid off from your company and can’t find jobs but you got a lot of money, right?” And you would feel bad and you would say “hold on a minute boys” and “come in boys” and “would you like a drink?” And you would go into your safe and fill a couple bags full of cash, one for each of us and we would hang out and watch TV and then we would say thank you when we left. I really wished it could work out that way. But Michael thinks and I guess I agree that people only give away money under duress. Or at least people like you anyway. And you definitely wouldn’t give it to two former employees who showed up at your door. Even though your company was built on our backs. We worked all that time for not much money and now you cut us loose anyway. Just thinking about it makes me want to hit you. I guess that would be okay, right? I mean is there a reason not to hit you?
(DAVE tries to say something.)
STEVE
Yeah, I can’t understand you with the gag on. Maybe I should break something like a finger or something. Or I could cut something off. Like your ear or your nose. I wonder if there’s a knife around here somewhere. You didn’t see a knife, did you? Never mind. I can’t understand anything you say. Tell you what? I’ll hit you and see how it feels. If it makes me feel better, I’ll hit you some more and maybe find a knife. But if it makes me feel worse, I’ll stop. Deal?
(DAVE fervently disagrees with this plan. STEVE hits him. He hits him again and again. He’s
laughing, having a good time hitting him.)
STEVE
I don’t know what I was thinking. This is a lot of fun. My hands hurt but I could go a little more. What do you say?
3.
Sorry about that. It’s just you were scaring me a little. And you’re not supposed to do that. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I thought maybe we would just knock on your door and be like, “Hey we got laid off from your company and can’t find jobs but you got a lot of money, right?” And you would feel bad and you would say “hold on a minute boys” and “come in boys” and “would you like a drink?” And you would go into your safe and fill a couple bags full of cash, one for each of us and we would hang out and watch TV and then we would say thank you when we left. I really wished it could work out that way. But Michael thinks and I guess I agree that people only give away money under duress. Or at least people like you anyway. And you definitely wouldn’t give it to two former employees who showed up at your door. Even though your company was built on our backs. We worked all that time for not much money and now you cut us loose anyway. Just thinking about it makes me want to hit you. I guess that would be okay, right? I mean is there a reason not to hit you?
(DAVE tries to say something.)
STEVE
Yeah, I can’t understand you with the gag on. Maybe I should break something like a finger or something. Or I could cut something off. Like your ear or your nose. I wonder if there’s a knife around here somewhere. You didn’t see a knife, did you? Never mind. I can’t understand anything you say. Tell you what? I’ll hit you and see how it feels. If it makes me feel better, I’ll hit you some more and maybe find a knife. But if it makes me feel worse, I’ll stop. Deal?
(DAVE fervently disagrees with this plan. STEVE hits him. He hits him again and again. He’s
laughing, having a good time hitting him.)
STEVE
I don’t know what I was thinking. This is a lot of fun. My hands hurt but I could go a little more. What do you say?
3.
STEVE
To Whom It may Concern: This is a Manifesto for a Better America. And a confession for the killing of Dave Russell. But not an apology. Let it be known that we killed Dave Russell and we are not sorry for it, even though he was charismatic. We are not signing the letter or anything because we don’t want to go to jail and we don’t think we really should anyway. Because he built his empire on our backs and then threw us away, so in return, we put a bullet in his head.
And here is where the manifesto part comes in. Dave died because he was the CEO of a company that treated his workers badly. Dave is just the beginning. We will not stop there and we hope that we will inspire others to likewise kill the CEOs of their companies. The only way that companies will start to treat their workers well is if they are all individually afraid for their lives. So I urge you to kidnap and kill your local CEO and continue to kill them off one by one until the pay begins to be reasonable. Something like a major corporation may seem impossible to defeat. “They’ll never pay us more,” you may say. “They will never treat us right.” Well, you may be right but then again, you may never know unless you kill the key people in your corporation. Just remember, corporations are made up of people who make decisions that affect your lives. Once you knock out a few of them, I think you’ll be surprised how things start to turn to your favor. They should all be terrified of us. There are so many more of us. But we’ve allowed ourselves to be beaten down. We go to their schools where the public school teachers tells us to sit down and shut up to memorize and behave and show up on time and do our work and never ask for more than whatever whoever is in power is willing to give. And then that is what we do the rest of our lives. In France, they beheaded their royalty when they lost touch with the common people. Well our royalty are the heads of companies, the heads of the media, the people who own our grocery stores and sell us gas and electricity, who take our money to hold in their banks and spend all their time thinking up ways to take advantage of us with hidden fees and additional charges. And it’s time to fucking chop their heads off one at a time, guillotine or no guillotine, until they start to treat us like human beings.
Now I know killing even one CEO can be a major undertaking. You have to get a van. You have to put newspaper down. You have to get rid of the body after. But if you really want it, and if you really believe in what you’re doing, you can make it happen. And afterwards you will feel a sense of accomplishment. It will be good for everyone. Sure it may not be popular with everyone afterwards, but a lot of people will be secretly happy. Especially if the asshole you killed mismanaged funds or got a huge bonus or stole from the company. I mean everyone steals paper and pens and paper clips, but when you steal lots of money, well, someone should kill you for it.
In conclusion, in solidarity, I hope you will seriously consider joining us on our venture to wipe out the money grubbing rich people and I hope you will continue until we are all treated fairly and equitably. Then and only then can the revolution end.
Sincerely, The Fat Cat Killers
4.
To Whom It may Concern: This is a Manifesto for a Better America. And a confession for the killing of Dave Russell. But not an apology. Let it be known that we killed Dave Russell and we are not sorry for it, even though he was charismatic. We are not signing the letter or anything because we don’t want to go to jail and we don’t think we really should anyway. Because he built his empire on our backs and then threw us away, so in return, we put a bullet in his head.
And here is where the manifesto part comes in. Dave died because he was the CEO of a company that treated his workers badly. Dave is just the beginning. We will not stop there and we hope that we will inspire others to likewise kill the CEOs of their companies. The only way that companies will start to treat their workers well is if they are all individually afraid for their lives. So I urge you to kidnap and kill your local CEO and continue to kill them off one by one until the pay begins to be reasonable. Something like a major corporation may seem impossible to defeat. “They’ll never pay us more,” you may say. “They will never treat us right.” Well, you may be right but then again, you may never know unless you kill the key people in your corporation. Just remember, corporations are made up of people who make decisions that affect your lives. Once you knock out a few of them, I think you’ll be surprised how things start to turn to your favor. They should all be terrified of us. There are so many more of us. But we’ve allowed ourselves to be beaten down. We go to their schools where the public school teachers tells us to sit down and shut up to memorize and behave and show up on time and do our work and never ask for more than whatever whoever is in power is willing to give. And then that is what we do the rest of our lives. In France, they beheaded their royalty when they lost touch with the common people. Well our royalty are the heads of companies, the heads of the media, the people who own our grocery stores and sell us gas and electricity, who take our money to hold in their banks and spend all their time thinking up ways to take advantage of us with hidden fees and additional charges. And it’s time to fucking chop their heads off one at a time, guillotine or no guillotine, until they start to treat us like human beings.
Now I know killing even one CEO can be a major undertaking. You have to get a van. You have to put newspaper down. You have to get rid of the body after. But if you really want it, and if you really believe in what you’re doing, you can make it happen. And afterwards you will feel a sense of accomplishment. It will be good for everyone. Sure it may not be popular with everyone afterwards, but a lot of people will be secretly happy. Especially if the asshole you killed mismanaged funds or got a huge bonus or stole from the company. I mean everyone steals paper and pens and paper clips, but when you steal lots of money, well, someone should kill you for it.
In conclusion, in solidarity, I hope you will seriously consider joining us on our venture to wipe out the money grubbing rich people and I hope you will continue until we are all treated fairly and equitably. Then and only then can the revolution end.
Sincerely, The Fat Cat Killers
4.
STEVE
I would like to call on the leniency of the jury. Not because I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew what I was doing. Although please keep in mind that it wasn’t actually me who killed Dave. I didn’t shoot at anyone or anything. I just helped with the kidnapping. I may be an accessory to murder, but a minor accessory like . . . what’s a minor accessory? Like a barrette. It’s true I helped keep him hostage, but I had a good reason for all my actions. Revenge. Revenge is, I believe, a good reason to do things. It may get you arrested but my hope is that you, my peers, understand and appreciate the importance of revenge and will be lenient on me. Because when it comes down to it, all of my actions were motivated by revenge. When you take away a man’s ability to support himself, don’t you expect him to fight back? And so I did. Murder might have been too strong a way to fight back, but I hope you will understand my impulses, if not the severity of my actions.
Thank you.
Also, I would like to say to those who try to copycat me and kidnap CEOs--I would not do that. I think it is a bad idea despite the manifesto I wrote saying it was a good idea. I no longer believe this manifesto. I am penitent and see the errors I have made in the past. But I was trapped. The system is against us. That much is clear. It is against you whether or not you break the law. It is just against you. I think this is bad for a system.
Thank you. Please be lenient. Cool. Thanks.
Incendiary
I would like to call on the leniency of the jury. Not because I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew what I was doing. Although please keep in mind that it wasn’t actually me who killed Dave. I didn’t shoot at anyone or anything. I just helped with the kidnapping. I may be an accessory to murder, but a minor accessory like . . . what’s a minor accessory? Like a barrette. It’s true I helped keep him hostage, but I had a good reason for all my actions. Revenge. Revenge is, I believe, a good reason to do things. It may get you arrested but my hope is that you, my peers, understand and appreciate the importance of revenge and will be lenient on me. Because when it comes down to it, all of my actions were motivated by revenge. When you take away a man’s ability to support himself, don’t you expect him to fight back? And so I did. Murder might have been too strong a way to fight back, but I hope you will understand my impulses, if not the severity of my actions.
Thank you.
Also, I would like to say to those who try to copycat me and kidnap CEOs--I would not do that. I think it is a bad idea despite the manifesto I wrote saying it was a good idea. I no longer believe this manifesto. I am penitent and see the errors I have made in the past. But I was trapped. The system is against us. That much is clear. It is against you whether or not you break the law. It is just against you. I think this is bad for a system.
Thank you. Please be lenient. Cool. Thanks.
Incendiary
1.
JAKE
The size of the balls on this bastard comes to my district
lighting fires. Causing chaos. The streets full of screeching fire
engines. The danger of speeding
traffic. The heat of the fire
itself. Little old ladies crossing the
street. Fire hoses. Dalmatians. Ladders. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my
mouth. What kind of person causes such
chaos? It’s sick is what it is. And not a clue to be found anywhere. It’s days like this I rethink my career
choice. Maybe I could design rare vases
or be a scuba instructor. I’d give it all up tomorrow but then the arsonist
would just get away.
2.
JAKE
I should drink coffee and stare at the photos taken at
the scene of those last fires and pound my fists on my head and swear I’ll
catch that arsonist. I should stare and
stare at them for that one clue I’m missing and rail at God for only giving me
an adequate brain and not making me a staggering genius. I should make models of the fires, map out
scenarios, I should smoke one cigarette after another and not sleep and not eat
and drink large amounts of Jack Daniels.
But I’d rather stay in bed with you and hold you and
breathe in the smoke from the nape of your neck.
3.
JAKE
I thought I loved a woman once. We went on picnics in Central Park. We took bicycle rides. We picked out monogrammed towels. We planned to go away on vacation together on
a cruise ship to the Caribbean. At the
last minute they needed me at work.
Crime never sleeps. And so she
went alone on a cruise and met her fiery death.
I thought I loved her, but then I met you and I learned what love really
is.
4.
JAKE
Oh, Elise. I
can’t come with you. My blood is the
blood of a detective. I wouldn’t be able
to stop myself from hauling you off to jail.
I can hold it at bay while you get on this boat. I can let it leave without trying to find out
where the boat is going, but that’s your only hope. And it’s not that I don’t love you because I
do, but I don’t know how long I can keep you from myself. So I need to know you’ll not perish in a
flaming boat. I need to know you won’t
burn yourself up. You have to convince
me because otherwise I’m taking you to the station right now. Say it.
Tell me you’ll never light a fire again.
You don’t have to mean it. You just have to make me believe it.
(PRINCE JOHN is tying a message to a pigeon’s leg. He goes to a window to throw the carrier
pigeon out.)
PRINCE JOHN
Go Florence. Go!
Fly with all speed. (Holding up to his ear as if she has spoken)
What? Yes, speed! Find your way to my men straight and true
like an arrow. (Again.) Yes, my men. The
Sheriff. Or someone who can read. Be hit not with the arrows of my enemy. Go, fly!
(Again.) Yes, that’s what I
said. Don’t stop to fraternize with
other pigeons. Fly as if your life
depends on it. Because mine surely
does. A pigeon. A pigeon.
My kingdom for this pigeon!
(He throws the pigeon out the window. Physically, this pigeon may drop to the
ground, comically. But he watches it fly
into the distance.)
1.
(In EVAN’s room. EVAN sits in
front of his computer. He is trying to
tape a video for JENNY. We see the video
he’s making in real time projected behind him.)
EVAN
Hi Jenny. Here’s a
video just for you. A sexy video. I’m . . . not wearing any underwear. No. (He stops taping. Starts over.)
Hi Jenny. (Blows her a kiss.) No.
(Stops tape, starts over.) Let’s do this. Hi Jenny.
(He takes off his shirt.) There.
That’s better. Nobody gets to see
me like this except in the gym locker room.
No. (Stops tape. Takes off the rest
of his clothes. Starts over. The video just shows him from the waist
up.) If I’m going to do this, I’m
going to do this. This is me. All of me.
I’m not holding anything back, Jenny.
I will show you my soul. Because
I feel like you have shown me yours and it’s beautiful. You know, I like birds because they float
above us without effort. You’re like
that too, Jenny. I wrote you this
poem. Okay, yeah. I’m just going to read it. (Reads
from paper)
Jenny Monroe
when you move
all the world stops
to watch you sail past
a vision in a tanktop and jeans
and where you stop
everyone fumbles with their hands
and their hearts and nervous systems go into shock
and when your eyes fall on us lucky few
we feel the blessing of your gaze
but it’s like we’re standing in front of the whole school
and everyone is waiting for us to fall over
You make me fall over
twenty times a day
I love you
Jenny
2.
EVAN
Okay. So I guess this
is it. I always thought—well that
doesn’t matter. I always thought somehow
someday I would figure out what I’m good for.
But . . . now . . . it’s clear I’m not good for anything.
I guess I should say don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault. No, fuck it.
If you feel a little bit sorry for me at all, it is your fault. It’s everyone’s fault. It’s my father’s fault. Mom, this is your fault. Everyone at school, all the students, all the
teachers, the principal, this is all your fault. I want the guilt to eat you up. I want you to wonder what you should have
done for the rest of your life. (pause)
What am I talking about? No
one will miss me. No one will care. No
one will feel bad. You will all be
happier.
I could never fit in.
I’m too weird. And that’s not
going to change. I can’t not be who I
am. I wouldn’t know how.
So, I guess I’ll never get to kiss a girl. I will never see a Red-Crowned Crane in the
wild. But what’s the point of that
anyway? It’s just a fucking bird,
right? No one cares about fucking
birds.
I’m sorry for being in your lives, for wasting your time.
Okay. This is
it. Goodbye. In my next life, I would like to be a
bird. If requests are allowed. So long.
(EVAN raises the gun to his head.
A beat. Another beat. A tap on the window. He looks up.
JENNY is outside.)
EVAN
(to the screen.)
Okay. Hold on a
second. I may be hallucinating.
SNOW (From Five Short Plays)
1.
ED
I’ve been careful, always very careful. Before touching a woman I put on rubber gloves. Some women are taken aback sure, when you pull out rubber gloves and dental dams but what kinds of women are those?—women that know they have diseases. And those are not the type of women I want to know in any case. So when people ask me if I’m upset at being a virgin at my age, I say no way.
I’m just looking for a clean woman. I am not against kissing—I just want to make sure her mouth is well cleaned first. If she would brush her teeth and then gargle with mouthwash for a minimum of sixty seconds. I, of course would also brush and mouthwash. I like cleanliness, that’s all. We are all dirty. God knows I scrub my hands before putting those rubber gloves on.
THE WHY OVERHEAD
1.
NIGEL
You better run. You better be afraid of me. I am a man. I am a big man and I won’t take this kind of insanity from a girl like you! I have scaled mountains. I have forged rivers. I have run in races. I built snow caves and spent the night in them. You hear me?! I jumped out of airplanes. I drove a motorcycle. I am very hairy. I work out two or three times a week. With free weights. I eat lots of vegetables. I am a fairly good pool player. Also pinochle. I could catch a tiger if I had the right equipment and enough time on my hands and if I was in the vicinity of tigers. I have a charming personality. I can make up jokes that people repeat later and don’t even realize they’re mine. I can make intricate cages out of popsicle sticks. My chest is enormous! I am a wealth of knowledge about music and musicians, especially in the years nineteen fifty nine to nineteen ninety-four. I write poetry. I won an award once for punctuality. My smile is terrific. I used to be a choir boy. I can peel oranges with great speed and dexterity. I am good at choosing shoes. I once played tennis for three hours. I am omnipotent! Okay, well maybe that last one isn’t true. But I am a man and I will crush you. You hear me?! YOU HEAR ME?!!
2.
DONALD
(to CAT)
“Manifesto to leave behind after everything has happened to explain why in case it is less than obvious.”
(DONALD clears his throat, reads.) “There are certain times in history when certain actions become necessary. Right now it is a time when there are great inequalities. I have taken on the responsibility to right wrongs to stop injustice and to use the pen here and later the sword so that the words from my pen will be read. Anyone can write anything, but you also have to get people to read what you write. That’s what the sword is for. I stand before you a man ready to take drastic actions. There are men that take actions and men that do nothing but complain. We are all angry but only the brave few who stand up and fight back will be able to accomplish anything of note. History will show that my actions were the right actions at the right time. History will record today as the turning point for America when a wave of citizens led by me took back their country.”
“I ask that in my absence, one of my future followers take care of my cat Mittens. She needs neither food nor water. She has evolved beyond life. She only requires company and for someone to talk to her and listen to her. I know that Mittens and I will see each other in the next life and I wouldn’t be surprised if she became a conduit for my messages from beyond the grave. In the past, I have spoken to many great leaders through her. Like Marie Antoinette, John Adams, Martin Van Buren, Henry Ford, and a spirit guide dog named Hamish. So when you need to reach me, ask Mittens nicely and I’m sure she will oblige. And through her I will give you future guidance on how to overthrow the government and corporations and create a civilization for the people by the people. The right people, that is.”
“In conclusion, when statues of me are built, I ask that Mittens be portrayed as well in bronze or gold or whatever. Her guidance has been incredibly helpful and without her I couldn’t have accomplished what my actions accomplished. Like the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the small deeds of today will reverberate for generations.”
“I sign this with my left hand though I am right handed.” And then I signed it. Do you like it?
3.
DONALD
At the end of the day, when the shit goes down, it turns out I’m not who I thought I was. And that makes me sad. I mean it’s important to know, but I want to be the kind of person that starts a revolution not the kind of person that doesn’t. I don’t know. I’m going to need to go home and talk to my cat. If she’s still there, that is.
FOOD FOR FISH
1.
BOBBIE
When you have visions that beat at your brains while other people are talking. When you hear non-stop streams of screams. When synapses pop or won’t stop crackling, and when blood pumps, and the pounding don’t stop pounding. Then you look for an exit to start the ending or search sideways in vain to extract a distraction, but even then, what will curls of hair give to you, hips and breasts, lips sip out of you, in a moment, distract what abstraction pounds-pounds ‘til you steal . . . a kiss.
I dress in haste, pull the hood on my head and I take to the street, boot in front of boot to find her. Who will she be tonight?
Last night she was brunette, blue-lipped and serious, mouth curled around a tiny white smokestack, long leopard-fur coat collecting snowflakes on its tips. When she stopped in the streetlamp, I was there. I was a boy and she was not afraid. She took a drag and I took her lips and all her smoke and sadness drained into me. She gasped in the kiss and the snow fell on her lashes. When she opened her eyes, I was gone.
That night I took my silver pen knife from the drawer of my desk—the only furniture I own. I opened the blade, splayed my left hand on the desk and stabbed myself with the right.
(BOBBIE stops typing.)
BOBBIE
No! No! NO! That’s not right. No one would do that. It’s so fucking stupid. It’s so fucking . . .
(BOBBIE stops himself, takes out a knife, and stabs himself in the hand. He yells out in pain.)
BOBBIE
Ahhhhh!
2.
(A coffin sits prominently in the sister’s apartment. BARBARA –played as a woman by a man in drag--sits beside it. ALICE is reading a scientific journal and making notes. SYLVIA is reading a newspaper.)
BARBARA
It’s been a year since Father died. When Mother died, I was only seven and three quarters but I had to become the mother to you both as well as your older sister. Did I do right by you? I tried, you know.
I had to learn how to be a woman from television. “One Life to Live,” “Days of Our Lives,” “All My Children,” “General Hospital,” “Daylight Menagerie,” “Passionate Embrace,” “Dallas” and the magazines of course. I skipped Seventeen and went straight to Mademoiselle, Ms., Playgirl, Good Housekeeping, Home and Garden, House and Kitchen, Modern Woman, Lady of Leisure. I stayed home like a mother would and studied, catalogued every gesture and practiced-practiced to be an adult so that you didn’t have to. Then when you came home I would show you what I had learned and you would smile. Because I had kept you from the pain and from the responsibility of being a woman.
Now that Poppa is dead I must learn to be a father to you as well. I watch my husband carefully to see if he is the right model. He must be firm yet flexible, strong yet not afraid to show weakness, quiet and reserved, yet emotional and expressive. He must be bold. He must be vulnerable. He must not be afraid to show fear or to cry in front of others. He must not be a sissy. He must work all day and then come home and then he must take out the trash. He must give orders and take suggestions. He must do as I say but never be influenced by exterior forces. The leader of the house, and of course, my servant. In short he must be a man, the new man--like Father was and like Father would be still if only . . .
Do you remember a year ago today? Father fell asleep watching Fox news and didn’t wake up. There was a panic of course and the shock and the sorrow eventually.
3.
(BOBBIE paces, he looks at the letter again. He crumples it up and throws it. He pounds the desk in anger, then puts a new sheet of paper in the typewriter. He types.)
BOBBIE
Dear Sir, Did you even read my masterpiece? If you had, you would not be sending me this form letter of rejection. Not unless you are indeed a complete and worthless moron. I do not accept you as an arbiter of real talent. I have more talent than all of you put together if it comes to that! You with your hackneyed conventions, have usurped the foremost places in art and consider nothing genuine and legitimate except what you yourselves do. Everything else you stifle and suppress. I do not accept you. I do not. It was optimistic of me to think that you were not an undiscerning fool.
Are you all conspiring against me, you with your form letters on separate letterheads that converge into one voice? As punishment for this, your highest crime, know that you have pushed me to eschew publication altogether. Know that you and the others and the world at large will miss out on the rest of my work which I shall never again let you touch with your dirty and destructive hands. My work belongs to eternity now. To the universe of ephemera. But never to you. May you find your just punishment knowing you have kept another genius from the hungry world who aches to hear him. Sincerely, The Author Who Would Have Made You Famous.
4.
BOBBIE
I know the tricks of being a boy. I know how to act like I’m not interested. I know how to feign disinterest. I know how to walk away, how to not call, how to ignore her insinuations that she likes me. In short, I know how to play dumb. I know all this not from being taught but because I am a smart boy and that’s what smart boys know.
But I can no longer use my tricks of being a boy. Because suddenly I am in love and all the crafty tricks I’d collected are useless against her laughter, her dimples, her eyes. In short, I am no longer a smart boy. She has made me dumb.
5.
DEXTER
About us. We got married too quick. Your father was sick then already. And we leaped into the thing even though we didn’t know each other very well. You were my first love and then before we knew it we were married. You were taking care of your father every day and then the fear came for you and you stopped leaving the house and I trudged to work day after day and tried to become numb and not think about what was I doing. It was my life. Work and home and work and home. And at home, your father was coughing into his oxygen tank and your sisters were bickering. I was becoming smaller. In the office, I had a new boss every few months--they were interchangeable in their corporate slogans and brand name business attire and just as I would get used to one, he or she would be promoted and so I never knew any of them long enough for them to even know what I was supposed to be doing. Not that I could tell you that. And I still can’t. I’m not even sure who I am. I’ve become so insignificant.
HEARTS LIKE FISTS
1.
(Spotlight on DOCTOR X, a truly terrible creature with sunken eyes and deep scars all over. Disfigured, stethoscope round the neck, wearing a doctor’s lab coat, carrying a doctor bag.)
DOCTOR X
I have a face like a bowl of worms. Squirming around the ticks, the scars, the moles. It’s disgusting. A face like this. It’s absurd, without meaning or purpose. And I honestly can’t say if I’m an experiment gone awry or if I was just born this way. I have no origin. I have no memory. I can only remember you. The way you looked at me, the first time you saw me, it was like you saw the bowl underneath the worms. Your face was like a china plate. Perfect. Whole. Pristine. And you looked at me, the way you looked at me—
The patient had died. That much I remember. His wife was wailing but I couldn’t hear her. Because you were there and everything else melted away. “Let’s have a drink,” you said with your face like a plate. And we drank and we drank and we went to my place and we made love like normal people. And it continued that way for days, weeks, years. I can’t say for sure. Why can’t I remember? If I could only remember, maybe I could find you.
Or maybe I could figure out when how why you grew tired of me. Was it then I became what I am? Your body was like liquor and I couldn’t get enough, couldn’t spend a night without you, a minute, a second. I didn’t know you weren’t drunk on me. How could I have missed the diagnosis? How could I have avoided the bald shock, the morning discovery, to wake up and find your note?
And now I can’t remember anything except you. Your face everywhere I go. You will pay. Everyone will pay. You will all pay dearly.
2.
PETER
She will hurt you. She will break you over her knee. She will hurt you and she will tear you and she will rip you apart. Who are you that you think you can withstand her? You are just a man. You are a vulnerable man with tiny veins and blood rushing through you too fast. You have your career. You don’t need complications. Not now. Now when the heart is just about ready to be tested. You are no one. No one and the heart is everything and you can’t sacrifice these things for a tingling in your toes. For a pretty face. Such a pretty pretty face. Carries an electromagnetic field wherever she goes. Makes your heart beat faster than it has in years. She will break you. She will hurt you and tear you and break you and pull you until there will be nothing of you left. She will—
(PETER stands. He takes his coat and leaves the restaurant.)
3.
(DOCTOR X approaches a sleeping couple who have arrived surreptitiously. He prepares his needles.)
DOCTOR X
I don’t have to think when I’m working. I don’t have to feel. I don’t get angry about the things I can’t remember because all I need to know is the work in front of me. Everyone will pay! And the things I can remember don’t haunt me. Her face like a plate. Her disappearance. Or her laugh, always startling, but runs right through you. Or who I am. Who am I? I don’t have to think about that now. I have lovers to kill. I can concentrate on the damage I will inflict. You will all pay! There is something satisfying about an accomplished task. How can you be ever truly depressed if you accomplish all you set out to do? Someday it’s just enough to get out of bed. Or to kill a couple of people. No more. Yes the refrigerator is empty but as long as something was accomplished, well then, it’s back to bed. A sleep and maybe in the morning, a remembering. A thought about my mother. A vision of a room. And her, always her, with a face you want to eat off. (He injects them both.) Well that’s done.
4.
(PETER in his workshop in the hospital, takes an artificial heart out of a box. It beats.)
PETER
Here you are, my spare heart. Mother said, always have a spare. You never know, she said. Do everything twice. Just in case. Always have an extra pencil. Always bring an extra sandwich. And give it away if you can. To the kid with the torn jacket who smells like pee. And if they say thank you, say “you’re welcome,” or “think nothing of it,” or “no thanks is necessary.” Tell them “I can see you’re a human being who needs something. We all need something sometimes and if I can be the one to help, well that is good, but next time it could be you that helps and that will be good too.” Always do what you can to help. And if you think someone is laughing at you, look away. Look away. You’ll save them all some day, she said.
And now I will. I look to you, artificial heart. I look to you and I hope you know how to beat endlessly like I taught you. Because I’m going to make a million of you, and then another million, and another. Anyone who wants you, can have you. Anyone who feels weak will be made strong by your comforting weight and your life-saving pumping. You will be the circulatory saver of this world. But right now, I’m the one in need of your help. I’m the weak one, the sick, the damaged, the other. I’m the kid with the torn jacket, except the jacket is a heart.
Tomorrow, they will crack my chest open and put you inside, and then I will never need to be afraid again.
5.
DOCTOR X
They say it’s like riding a bicycle, you never forget how to perform surgery. But I’m not sure they were talking about those of us with brain damage. We’ll have to see, just have to see. My hand seems to know what to do. Sometimes the hand knows things the brain doesn’t and we should just trust the hand. Now we make the incision. How about there? That seems to be a good place for a heart.
I don’t have to think when I’m working. I can just slide into the moment, escape into the process. Surgery is a kind of escapism. You can leave your self behind and cut cut cut. It makes me wonder if my self is still here. Maybe I was never lost. Maybe I was always here, just waiting to pick up a scalpel. It feels good. I’ll say that. It feels good. Sleep, now, sleep. I owe you that.
CLOWN BAR
1.
DUSTY
My cat died last week. Thirty seven years old and died falling off the counter. She was dead before she hit the ground I suspect. I still haven’t buried her. I’m too sad about it. I just stuffed her in the freezer and now whenever I want a popsicle, I see her and I start crying again. On top of that, yesterday, I was sitting on my couch and I noticed a tear in it. I should probably get some thread and stitch it up. It’ll just get bigger if you don’t do something about it. You know what they say, a stitch in time . . . something something. Something about stitches. But it applies universally. To all ways of fastening things. Like pull up your zipper now or you’ll be cold later. Or take the antibiotics now before you giveit to other people. Or like, go to rehab before you OD on cough syrup or PCP or whatever. Or like, take care of your mama. My mama’s doing okay. In fact, I was having a pretty good day if I wasn’t thinking about the cat or my couch. But then Shotgun shot me in the foot. I’ll probably get gangrene. I’m hoping the burlesque show might cheer me up. Hey what are you guys doing?
NERVE
1.
ELLIOT
Thanks. I just don’t want to come off as fragile or something. Just because I don’t like roller coasters. I mean to say, I function in this world. No, I guess, not all the time, like there was a while when I just wanted to crawl under my bed and spend the day there but I was really unhappy and I just got out of a bad relationship and had a terrible job and I just
hated my life. And yes I guess I still do have panic attacks sometimes and suddenly am afraid my hand is going to fall off or that I’m going to stop breathing and I freak out but then I realize I’m still breathing and I’m probably not going to suddenly die and I’m OK. I suppose I thought for a long time I would be dead by now like in some horrible plane crash or car crash or like a stray bullet and I would be dead by like twenty but here I am and I’m not dead. So what I’m saying is that I’m, you know, pretty healthy now, not depressed or anything and I’m not like a daredevil. No, I don’t have tattoos or piercings and I’m not going to drive a steel rod through my head, but I’m not going to curl up on your couch and cry or anything.
PRETTY THEFT
1.
MARCO
I learned early that if something is pretty it must be wrong. Or it made me do things that were wrong which was the same thing. It’s not my fault there is beauty everywhere.
Because when you look at something beautiful, it takes a little piece of your soul away. But you can’t just let that happen. You have to do something. So you take the beautiful thing and run, because you think that will make you feel better but it doesn’t help. It makes it worse somehow but what else can you do? You have to try to grasp it. You have to hold something like that in your hands. And when it takes from you, you have to take back. You can try to stop, but . . .Why aren’t you drinking?
2.
JOE
Some people get locked up and some people never do. If you try to kiss the staff they will lock you up. It is illegal. Many men in suits never go to jail. That’s because that’s because that’s because they aren’t me. They aren’t broken. They walk on the surface of the water while everyone else is stuck in traffic or your car breaks down. Their cars never break down. They are super untouchable. They get married they have wives and children because they are men that are not born broken. They are the people who are up on the big screens. They are on the TV on the radio in the newspaper because they are the chosen the good, the other people. They can kiss whoever they want or kill even. Even kill. Because they are uncatchable or they are forgivable or they are perfect. They have people lying to help them. Their mothers loved them and told them so. Their mothers helped them up the stairs. Their mothers had a lot of money and a lot of good things in their bodies that they passed on while they lived in their good homes. They were beautiful and rich and were friends with all the people you are supposed to be friends with. Like doctors who can lie for you. Like doctors who can fix you. Except they don’t need fixing. Not the super untouchable. They have legs like razors and eyes that magnetize. They are pretty. They are everything. Like Allegra. I wonder if Allegra is super untouchable.
See also
MONOLOGUES FOR WOMEN
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