Characters:
MAN, late sixties to early seventies
BOY, ten
CAPTAIN JENSEN, airline pilot, early fifties
MRS. JENSEN, his wife, mid-forties
DAVY CAMPBELL, off-duty policemen, early thirties
ERICA DENT, his girlfriend, early-to-mid twenties
BRITTANY CAMPBELL, Davy’s daughter, eleven
TWIN MAN, identical as possible in age and appearance to MAN
As the play opens, a spotlight or two illuminates a small section of center stage. We see there a galley kitchen in a small riverside cottage. It is not only a functional but a comfortable space, perfect for two recently retired people: a new stainless steel sink; new, black appliances—dishwasher, stove, refrigerator; new wooden cabinets stained a rich honey brown, with pebbly textured cabinet pulls that pick up the earthen feel of the doors without merely repeating the same color. The countertops are of a marbled black stone variety, with veins of white and silver light the gleaming, polished surface, throwing glints of light and working against monotone. The dishwasher and sink sit on the left side—as viewed by the audience—of the kitchen. The backside of the kitchen contains most of the counter space; while on the right side of the kitchen sits the stove and refrigerator. Track lighting is apparent above each of the three sides of the kitchen, although only the row of lights on the stove/refrigerator side of the kitchen are on. At the front of the kitchen, thus visible to the audience, on the sink and dishwasher side, are three plastic trash cans. One, is designated, via Sharpie-scrawled message, as “Trash.” The second is designated for “Plastic.” The third, closest to the audience and most visible, is designated for “Glass.” Approximately, two yards to the right—as viewed by the audience—of this kitchen is a freestanding door. It is in a doorframe but unconnected to any wall. This represents the front door of the cottage.
A MAN stands in front of the refrigerator with the door open, soberly examining its contents. There is a fixed look on the man’s face. He does not study the refrigerator’s contents because he is wondering what to bring out of it. He knows what he wants. He simply is deciding whether to grab what he wants. MAN, obviously retirement aged and condition, is dressed in ratty white shorts, faintly painted splattered and a plaid, short sleeved, button shirt that at the moment is entirely unbuttoned. On his feet are a pair of worn, faint gray boat shoes with a holes on each at the front toe point. He wears no socks. On his left wrist is a black Casio watch, a lower end variety found in almost any box or drug store. It could not have cost more than $20 and is presently flecked with the same slight paint splotches as his shorts.
MAN’S head is shaved close to the skull but not completely, his own form of a crewcut, not at all like the military’s but almost as short. The hair is mostly gray but evidence slightly darker patches. His skull evidences a mysterious bloody purple patch that suggests a former injury or may simply be a birthmark revealed by the crewcut. MAN’s chest hair is all gray and his skin is spotted in places in the manner of an elderly man. However, the face, while weathered is not actually that wrinkled. It is a craggy face, but a naturally craggy one, reddened perhaps and perhaps unshaven, but energized by a natural force of will and irrepressible intelligence. There should be about this man an air of contained impatience and a desire at all times to avoid boredom. This is not to say the man fidgets, because he does not. His movements, when he moves, are more of the erratic rather than the hyperactive type. He should give the impression of someone who is constantly thinking and who occasionally, suddenly, perhaps when those around him are least ready for it, turns his thoughts into action.
For the moment, MAN closes the refrigerator door. He turns toward the cabinets above the back counter and opens them. He reaches in and pulls out a water glass. He turns to the sink, fills the glass with water, sips, puts the glass down disaffectedly. He reels and looks across to the digital clock readout on the microwave. He checks this time against the watch on his wrist. He rubs his right hand at length across his stubbly chin, obviously thinking. He returns to the refrigerator, opens it, and reaches in.
At this moment, a second and narrow spotlight comes on, illuminating a thin circle of space just past edge of the nimbus of light created by the first spot, closer by a couple feet to the front of the stage. Inside this new, narrow circle of light is BOY. His appearance should feel as sudden as possible; literally as if the boy has only that instant materialized inside the scene. If this proves too difficult an effect to pull off, BOY could simply enter through the front door. BOY should be dressed as any ten-year-old from the late nineties might be: sneakers and black jeans and a t-shirt. He should not look conspicuous in any way, except for the fact that he holds in one hand a spiral notebook such as college students use to take notes and in the other hand a ballpoint pen. He stares at MAN as MAN reaches into the refrigerator. Almost instantaneous with his appearance, BOY begins speaking.
BOY: Wait.
[MAN rears back and almost closes the refrigerator door. He sees BOY. MAN looks at him momentarily through narrowed eyes. He seems unsurprised by the sudden appearance of this boy, though it should be apparent that he did not know of BOY’S presence in the room until the boy spoke. After the few seconds of faceoff, MAN starts again to open the refrigerator door.]
BOY [louder]: Wait.
[MAN, thoroughly unaffected by BOY’S plea, lets the door swing open wide. He reaches inside with his left hand, while looking directly at BOY.]
MAN: I’m going to take this now.
[BOY reacts slightly, as if stung. Then he recovers, holds his head strictly in place.]
BOY: All right, but if you do that, I will remember it twenty-five years from now, and in a white-blonde classroom littered with molded plastic desks and ten tired students I will write it down to be exposed and thought about. [He shows the notebook and pen.]
MAN [knowing half-smile]: But you’ve done that already, haven’t you?
BOY: When?
MAN: In at least a half-dozen short stories; and in that novel you left inside two blue notebooks years ago; and in that self-pitying essay you tried to publish.
BOY [expressionless, hesitates, then speaks]: I’m ten years old. I don’t know what an essay is.
[From the refrigerator, MAN pulls a large, dark beer bottle, the glass of the bottle a smoky brown. MAN shuts the refrigerator door emphatically and sees a bottle opener clinging there by a magnet.]
MAN: You’ll know what an essay is soon enough.
BOY: No thanks to you.
MAN: Every thanks to me.
BOY: That means the same thing.
MAN: Listen to you. [He turns, set the bottle on a narrow wedge of counter top beside the dishwasher. He pops off the bottle cap, and lets it fall to the counter, where it skitters.]
BOY: If you drink that, you’ll want to drink another.
MAN: Of course.
BOY: And it’s only twelve o’clock.
MAN: It’s Saturday.
BOY: What difference does that make?
MAN: Every difference. [He tilts the bottle back, takes a few deep draughts, as if dearly needing that relief. When he brings the bottle down, his eyes are watery—perhaps even pained—yet his whole aspect is merrier.]
BOY: Now you’ll want another.
MAN: Eventually, sure.
BOY: By three, at which point you will already be recognizably affected, you will decide you are bored with beer and switch to gin. Small sips, of course. Manageable tastes. That’s what you’ll tell yourself. And maybe they will be—but how religiously pursued. By seven you will not be able to walk to the liquor cabinet without lurching from hip to hip, wall to wall. By eight-thirty, you will feel thoroughly overheated and eager for the delicious air of the Wicomico, the springtime bloom of the wind along the river bank, the subtle burn of the rising moon.
MAN [decidedly less cheery]: How do you know? You’re in Philadelphia with your mother.
BOY: You can take me at my word.
MAN [studying BOY’S face]: Maybe I can. [Pause.] But I can’t help myself. I’m sorry. [Lifts the bottle, takes another swallow.]
BOY: By nine you will be so far gone you won’t see where your feet land, where the grass stops and the retaining wall begins. The sky will have thoroughly darkened, and the neighbors to your right and left will have no idea that you are wandering, drunk, in your backyard.
MAN: Jensen will see me. He’s always spooking around, keeping one eye out--
[BOY motions suddenly to stage left, where in a new spot—perhaps violet toned or even bluish, to suggest the middle of the night--we see a small but cozy hotel room. Simultaneous with his motion the boy begins to speak. As soon as he does so, the man in the hotel bed, turns inward so that his face no longer points to the ceiling but toward MAN and BOY. ]
BOY: Captain Jensen won’t even be here. He’s in a hotel room in Vienna, four hours from waking and preparing for the long flight back across the Atlantic.
[The two stare at CAPTAIN JENSEN, the boy neutrally, the man more miserably, as if trying to figure a way to pull JENSEN across the water at once. Seconds of tense silence pass. Then JENSEN rolls back the other way and the spell is broken. The spot on JENSEN goes out. The BOY motions to upper stage right, where in a clear white spot MRS. JENSEN appears, sitting in an ordinary living room chair, a bowl on her lap, staring at the tv in front of her. The tv is decidedly too loud, its noise dominating the stage for hard moments. What we hear is the following clip from the 1987 film Three Amigos! :
ACTOR 1: I have put many beautiful piñatas in the storeroom, each of them filled with little surprises.
ACTOR 2: Many piñatas?
ACTOR 1: Oh yes, many!
ACTOR 2: Would you say that I have a plethora of piñatas?
ACTOR 1: A what?
ACTOR 2: A plethora.
ACTOR 1 [after great hesitation]: Oh yes, you have a plethora.
ACTOR 1: Jeffe, what is a plethora?
[As MRS. JENSEN watches, and we listen, the intended hilarity of the clip comes across as tinny and pathetic. MRS. JENSEN is patently bored. She lifts a forkful of pasta from the bowl and begins to chew desultorily. She lowers the fork, looks to her right, and sighs. Instantaneous with the sigh, the sound from the television cuts off and BOY begins speaking.]
BOY: Mary Ann Jensen will be here, but inside, watching American Movie Classics, a bowl of microwaveable pasta in her lap and thinking of her husband’s return. She’ll look forward to not eating alone for another string of days.
MAN [shrugging]: That sounds about right.
BOY [more forcefully]: So she won’t see you. [The spotlight on MRS. JENSEN goes out.]
[There is just enough time for us to see the man absorb this news when ERICA DENT in a mane of cluttered brown hair and offended strut starts across the front of the stage from the audiences left to the audience’s right. She is followed closely by DAVY CAMPBELL, tanned and crewcut—a stocky, but not exactly overweight man, older than her by almost a decade. As determined as ERICA is to be offended, DAVY is determined to defend himself.]
DAVY: It’s the fucking law, Erica. I’m a policeman. I don’t get to not follow the law.
ERICA [stops mid-stage to face him]: Oh, yeah. Like you’ve never broken the law in your whole life.
DAVY: Not since I’ve been a cop!
ERICA: Cops don’t break laws? How stupid do you think I am?
DAVY: I can’t deny her a legal right. It’s in the contract.
ERICA: That’s not the law. That’s just what you signed.
DAVY [laughs]: And so it’s le-gal! [He stretches out the word.]
ERICA [impatient with the skirmishing, wanting to get to the point]: I’m tired of her being around here so much, occupying Brittany—and you—all the time. She’s constantly giving me those poison eyes.
[As soon as ERICA says “Brittany,” loud television sounds can be heard. Not the sounds of American Movie Classics and not from MRS. JENSEN’s side of the stage. Instead, the sounds are voices of actors in the late 90s tv show Angel. When we first hear the show, one character, played by an actor with a British voice, is accusing a female character of wearing a pushup bra. The petty conversation is interrupted by a more subdued Angel and then by a client who comes for Angel’s help.]
DAVY: I can’t help what kind of eyes she gives you; she’s my ex-wife!
ERICA: I don’t like it. It hurts me.
[CAMPBELL spins away from her, hands on his hand, mouth open, trying to fathom what to say now. The sounds from Angel blare even louder—uncomfortably loud—across the stage.]
BOY: Davy Campbell, meanwhile, will be inside too, arguing with his girlfriend about his ex-wife’s visiting privileges while trying to ignore the screech coming from his daughter’s television upstairs. [As soon as BOY says “daughter,” a spot comes on stage left. On that side of the stage, on a platform suggesting the second floor of a house, eleven year old BRITTANY CAMPBELL sits on a conspicuously overadorned, overpillowed bed, drinking a Diet Pepsi and stares with complete fixation at the television which sits on top of her bureau. We are allowed just a couple seconds more to absorb the invading noise from Angel before MAN says his next line. In fact, the tv noise is so loud he shouts it.]
MAN [with a broad grin]: That’s the Campbells!
[As soon as he says this, the television noise evaporates, the spot goes out on BRITTANY, and DAVY and ERICA run off stage. The BOY allows a few seconds for the audience to feel the new silence and the emptiness before he says his next lines.]
BOY: In one of your more ill-advised lurches, your right foot will land in a hole just behind the retaining wall. [Here the BOY motions to stage right. At the back of the stage, as BOY speaks, an actor dressed identically to MAN (we’ll call him TWIN MAN), and aided only by as many props as necessary, acts out the death BOY describes. It is, of course, necessary, for the audience to view this action as if they are sitting in the river. That is, when TWIN MAN falls over the retaining wall, he should fall toward the audience so that the audience can see him hang from his broken leg.] Your body will tip and fall over, even as your foot remains stuck, thus cracking your leg and simultaneously causing you to hit your head on a stone at the center of the wall. [MAN blinks at him, blank-faced.] The impact will render you unconscious. While you hang there, dangling by a broken leg, the tide will come in, covering the upper half of your body.
[MAN sets his beer down forcefully on the counter. As soon as we hear the smack of beer bottle on counter, the light goes out on the pantomimed death. It disappears.]
MAN: You don’t think I know this?
BOY: No. I don’t think you do.
[MAN, clearly more agitated now, steps out of the kitchen proper for the first time. He paces as he talks.]
MAN: What do you care, anyway? When did you ever? While I drown you get to be entertained by your mother’s conspicuously well-heeled relatives. They’ll plow you with taffy and ice cream sandwiches. They’ll buy you comic books and licorice. They’ll take you the country club. They’ll take you to the zoo.
BOY: I already went to the zoo. That was earlier. We just got back.
MAN: That’s not what you said in your essay. You said your father died while you looked into the haunted face of a chimpanzee.
BOY: Poetic license. Besides, I haven’t written it yet. I might change my mind. I might say I was watching Happy Days.
MAN: You won’t.
BOY: I might.
MAN: You won’t.
BOY: I could. I haven’t written it yet. I don’t even know what poetic license means.
[MAN moves back to the kitchen, more or less in exactly his former location, picks up his bottle, and drinks again. Then he drinks more, as if in a race against himself. Finally, he lowers the bottle and burps.]
MAN: Oh, you’ll learn that. You’ll learn that pretty damn well.
BOY [slightly stung]: Maybe.
[MAN laughs: a ragged but still jovial noise. He shakes his head once, fast.]
BOY: The point I’m trying to make though is this: Do you want to end up twenty-five years from now as a figment in the memory of my imagination, guzzling beer on the pages of my notebook [shows it] while ten tired students bend heads over their own notebooks, inventing stories just as improbable? [Pauses.] Or would you rather remain who you are, in the flesh? [BOY gives MAN plenty of time to answer, but MAN doesn’t.] I won’t even ask if you want to leave Mom a widow, if you’ve actually thought about what that means. The other question is pressing enough.
[MAN takes a few steps toward the front of the kitchen and tosses the bottle into trash can designated for glass recyclables. Then he returns to the refrigerator and grabs another bottle of beer.]
MAN: The question you never seem to ask yourself is whether I ever cared if I remained in the flesh at all.
BOY: True, but that’s more or less what I’m asking now.
MAN: What do you think?
BOY: I don’t think you ever came to a decision. But I think you knew perfectly well what you were and were not capable of. I think you let mom go off to Philadelphia without you because the thought of limiting your intake for three days was unbearable.
MAN: Got that right. [Defiantly, he pops off the cap of this second bottle. He drinks.]
BOY: And I think maybe you figured you’d just play the odds. Drink as much as you want and let what happens happen. There was no knowing which day—or night—would be the one. After all, you dodged plenty of bullets already.
MAN: Bullets?
BOY: How many times did I hear you fall down the stairs at the other house? A couple of times you had a gash in your head in the morning. You look mystified and abashed—no idea how you’d injured yourself.
MAN: But you were older then weren’t you?
BOY [hesitates]: Yes.
MAN: So you aren’t ten when this happens.
BOY: Actually, no.
MAN: But your mother is in Philadelphia.
BOY: Yes. By herself.
MAN: How old are you now?
BOY: It doesn’t matter.
MAN: Old enough to know what “abashed” means.
[BOY, stung, drifts downstage. MAN waits for BOY to reply. When he sees BOY won’t, he takes a full, hearty swig. When he brings the bottle down he stares at it with thoughtful affection. Then he glances at BOY.]
MAN: So I didn’t actually try to kill myself?
BOY [not looking at him]: No, I don’t think so.
MAN: Good. That would be unsightly.
BOY [turning to face MAN]: Yes, but what I write in that classroom with those tired students will be as gruesome as any suicide. I hope you realize that. And it will be about you.
MAN: You’ve done it before.
BOY: No, I haven’t.
MAN: In the short story—the one about Massachusetts.
BOY: You won’t die in that one.
MAN: Or the other, the family at the beach.
BOY: In that one you’ll die when a ladder falls.
MAN [with a confused look]: Oh. Oh, well. [MAN half-smiles, an embarrassed looked that comes out as helplessness. He moves deeper into the kitchen. He leans with his back against the counter, lifts the bottle, and enjoys several unbroken swallows.]
BOY [regretfully]: I’m going to have to write about it. In twenty-five years or so.
MAN: I understand.
MAN: And it will have to be set here. And you will have to take that walk. And your foot will slip into that hole.
MAN [shrugs, refuses to look at BOY]: Sure.
BOY [after long pause]: Or you can just put the beer away.
[MAN does look at him now, but neutrally, steadily. Whatever embarrassment he may have felt has passed away.]
MAN: Thank you. I think I’ve got it figured out. [He closes his eyes, leans his head back, and presses more fully into the counter. For the first time, his manner suggests inebriation: the bare beginnings of it.]
BOY: I better go. Mom’s probably wondering where I am.
MAN: Yes. [Opens his eyes slowly; stands straighter.] You don’t want to be here, anyway. I mean later.
[BOY nods, then moves to the front door.]
MAN: Tell your mother that what you saw was like a car crash, an accident. Just a stupid, thoughtless mistake. Nobody involved was trying to hurt anybody.
BOY [after a pause]: Sure. I’ll tell her that. But it will have to wait about twenty-five years.
[MAN thinks about it, nods.]
MAN: I don’t have much choice, do I?”
[BOY doesn’t answer, only holds the man’s gaze for several seconds. When MAN drops his head, BOY turns and opens the door. He leaves. By the time MAN raises his head, BOY has left. MAN takes a swig of beer. All lights go down.]
MAN, late sixties to early seventies
BOY, ten
CAPTAIN JENSEN, airline pilot, early fifties
MRS. JENSEN, his wife, mid-forties
DAVY CAMPBELL, off-duty policemen, early thirties
ERICA DENT, his girlfriend, early-to-mid twenties
BRITTANY CAMPBELL, Davy’s daughter, eleven
TWIN MAN, identical as possible in age and appearance to MAN
As the play opens, a spotlight or two illuminates a small section of center stage. We see there a galley kitchen in a small riverside cottage. It is not only a functional but a comfortable space, perfect for two recently retired people: a new stainless steel sink; new, black appliances—dishwasher, stove, refrigerator; new wooden cabinets stained a rich honey brown, with pebbly textured cabinet pulls that pick up the earthen feel of the doors without merely repeating the same color. The countertops are of a marbled black stone variety, with veins of white and silver light the gleaming, polished surface, throwing glints of light and working against monotone. The dishwasher and sink sit on the left side—as viewed by the audience—of the kitchen. The backside of the kitchen contains most of the counter space; while on the right side of the kitchen sits the stove and refrigerator. Track lighting is apparent above each of the three sides of the kitchen, although only the row of lights on the stove/refrigerator side of the kitchen are on. At the front of the kitchen, thus visible to the audience, on the sink and dishwasher side, are three plastic trash cans. One, is designated, via Sharpie-scrawled message, as “Trash.” The second is designated for “Plastic.” The third, closest to the audience and most visible, is designated for “Glass.” Approximately, two yards to the right—as viewed by the audience—of this kitchen is a freestanding door. It is in a doorframe but unconnected to any wall. This represents the front door of the cottage.
A MAN stands in front of the refrigerator with the door open, soberly examining its contents. There is a fixed look on the man’s face. He does not study the refrigerator’s contents because he is wondering what to bring out of it. He knows what he wants. He simply is deciding whether to grab what he wants. MAN, obviously retirement aged and condition, is dressed in ratty white shorts, faintly painted splattered and a plaid, short sleeved, button shirt that at the moment is entirely unbuttoned. On his feet are a pair of worn, faint gray boat shoes with a holes on each at the front toe point. He wears no socks. On his left wrist is a black Casio watch, a lower end variety found in almost any box or drug store. It could not have cost more than $20 and is presently flecked with the same slight paint splotches as his shorts.
MAN’S head is shaved close to the skull but not completely, his own form of a crewcut, not at all like the military’s but almost as short. The hair is mostly gray but evidence slightly darker patches. His skull evidences a mysterious bloody purple patch that suggests a former injury or may simply be a birthmark revealed by the crewcut. MAN’s chest hair is all gray and his skin is spotted in places in the manner of an elderly man. However, the face, while weathered is not actually that wrinkled. It is a craggy face, but a naturally craggy one, reddened perhaps and perhaps unshaven, but energized by a natural force of will and irrepressible intelligence. There should be about this man an air of contained impatience and a desire at all times to avoid boredom. This is not to say the man fidgets, because he does not. His movements, when he moves, are more of the erratic rather than the hyperactive type. He should give the impression of someone who is constantly thinking and who occasionally, suddenly, perhaps when those around him are least ready for it, turns his thoughts into action.
For the moment, MAN closes the refrigerator door. He turns toward the cabinets above the back counter and opens them. He reaches in and pulls out a water glass. He turns to the sink, fills the glass with water, sips, puts the glass down disaffectedly. He reels and looks across to the digital clock readout on the microwave. He checks this time against the watch on his wrist. He rubs his right hand at length across his stubbly chin, obviously thinking. He returns to the refrigerator, opens it, and reaches in.
At this moment, a second and narrow spotlight comes on, illuminating a thin circle of space just past edge of the nimbus of light created by the first spot, closer by a couple feet to the front of the stage. Inside this new, narrow circle of light is BOY. His appearance should feel as sudden as possible; literally as if the boy has only that instant materialized inside the scene. If this proves too difficult an effect to pull off, BOY could simply enter through the front door. BOY should be dressed as any ten-year-old from the late nineties might be: sneakers and black jeans and a t-shirt. He should not look conspicuous in any way, except for the fact that he holds in one hand a spiral notebook such as college students use to take notes and in the other hand a ballpoint pen. He stares at MAN as MAN reaches into the refrigerator. Almost instantaneous with his appearance, BOY begins speaking.
BOY: Wait.
[MAN rears back and almost closes the refrigerator door. He sees BOY. MAN looks at him momentarily through narrowed eyes. He seems unsurprised by the sudden appearance of this boy, though it should be apparent that he did not know of BOY’S presence in the room until the boy spoke. After the few seconds of faceoff, MAN starts again to open the refrigerator door.]
BOY [louder]: Wait.
[MAN, thoroughly unaffected by BOY’S plea, lets the door swing open wide. He reaches inside with his left hand, while looking directly at BOY.]
MAN: I’m going to take this now.
[BOY reacts slightly, as if stung. Then he recovers, holds his head strictly in place.]
BOY: All right, but if you do that, I will remember it twenty-five years from now, and in a white-blonde classroom littered with molded plastic desks and ten tired students I will write it down to be exposed and thought about. [He shows the notebook and pen.]
MAN [knowing half-smile]: But you’ve done that already, haven’t you?
BOY: When?
MAN: In at least a half-dozen short stories; and in that novel you left inside two blue notebooks years ago; and in that self-pitying essay you tried to publish.
BOY [expressionless, hesitates, then speaks]: I’m ten years old. I don’t know what an essay is.
[From the refrigerator, MAN pulls a large, dark beer bottle, the glass of the bottle a smoky brown. MAN shuts the refrigerator door emphatically and sees a bottle opener clinging there by a magnet.]
MAN: You’ll know what an essay is soon enough.
BOY: No thanks to you.
MAN: Every thanks to me.
BOY: That means the same thing.
MAN: Listen to you. [He turns, set the bottle on a narrow wedge of counter top beside the dishwasher. He pops off the bottle cap, and lets it fall to the counter, where it skitters.]
BOY: If you drink that, you’ll want to drink another.
MAN: Of course.
BOY: And it’s only twelve o’clock.
MAN: It’s Saturday.
BOY: What difference does that make?
MAN: Every difference. [He tilts the bottle back, takes a few deep draughts, as if dearly needing that relief. When he brings the bottle down, his eyes are watery—perhaps even pained—yet his whole aspect is merrier.]
BOY: Now you’ll want another.
MAN: Eventually, sure.
BOY: By three, at which point you will already be recognizably affected, you will decide you are bored with beer and switch to gin. Small sips, of course. Manageable tastes. That’s what you’ll tell yourself. And maybe they will be—but how religiously pursued. By seven you will not be able to walk to the liquor cabinet without lurching from hip to hip, wall to wall. By eight-thirty, you will feel thoroughly overheated and eager for the delicious air of the Wicomico, the springtime bloom of the wind along the river bank, the subtle burn of the rising moon.
MAN [decidedly less cheery]: How do you know? You’re in Philadelphia with your mother.
BOY: You can take me at my word.
MAN [studying BOY’S face]: Maybe I can. [Pause.] But I can’t help myself. I’m sorry. [Lifts the bottle, takes another swallow.]
BOY: By nine you will be so far gone you won’t see where your feet land, where the grass stops and the retaining wall begins. The sky will have thoroughly darkened, and the neighbors to your right and left will have no idea that you are wandering, drunk, in your backyard.
MAN: Jensen will see me. He’s always spooking around, keeping one eye out--
[BOY motions suddenly to stage left, where in a new spot—perhaps violet toned or even bluish, to suggest the middle of the night--we see a small but cozy hotel room. Simultaneous with his motion the boy begins to speak. As soon as he does so, the man in the hotel bed, turns inward so that his face no longer points to the ceiling but toward MAN and BOY. ]
BOY: Captain Jensen won’t even be here. He’s in a hotel room in Vienna, four hours from waking and preparing for the long flight back across the Atlantic.
[The two stare at CAPTAIN JENSEN, the boy neutrally, the man more miserably, as if trying to figure a way to pull JENSEN across the water at once. Seconds of tense silence pass. Then JENSEN rolls back the other way and the spell is broken. The spot on JENSEN goes out. The BOY motions to upper stage right, where in a clear white spot MRS. JENSEN appears, sitting in an ordinary living room chair, a bowl on her lap, staring at the tv in front of her. The tv is decidedly too loud, its noise dominating the stage for hard moments. What we hear is the following clip from the 1987 film Three Amigos! :
ACTOR 1: I have put many beautiful piñatas in the storeroom, each of them filled with little surprises.
ACTOR 2: Many piñatas?
ACTOR 1: Oh yes, many!
ACTOR 2: Would you say that I have a plethora of piñatas?
ACTOR 1: A what?
ACTOR 2: A plethora.
ACTOR 1 [after great hesitation]: Oh yes, you have a plethora.
ACTOR 1: Jeffe, what is a plethora?
[As MRS. JENSEN watches, and we listen, the intended hilarity of the clip comes across as tinny and pathetic. MRS. JENSEN is patently bored. She lifts a forkful of pasta from the bowl and begins to chew desultorily. She lowers the fork, looks to her right, and sighs. Instantaneous with the sigh, the sound from the television cuts off and BOY begins speaking.]
BOY: Mary Ann Jensen will be here, but inside, watching American Movie Classics, a bowl of microwaveable pasta in her lap and thinking of her husband’s return. She’ll look forward to not eating alone for another string of days.
MAN [shrugging]: That sounds about right.
BOY [more forcefully]: So she won’t see you. [The spotlight on MRS. JENSEN goes out.]
[There is just enough time for us to see the man absorb this news when ERICA DENT in a mane of cluttered brown hair and offended strut starts across the front of the stage from the audiences left to the audience’s right. She is followed closely by DAVY CAMPBELL, tanned and crewcut—a stocky, but not exactly overweight man, older than her by almost a decade. As determined as ERICA is to be offended, DAVY is determined to defend himself.]
DAVY: It’s the fucking law, Erica. I’m a policeman. I don’t get to not follow the law.
ERICA [stops mid-stage to face him]: Oh, yeah. Like you’ve never broken the law in your whole life.
DAVY: Not since I’ve been a cop!
ERICA: Cops don’t break laws? How stupid do you think I am?
DAVY: I can’t deny her a legal right. It’s in the contract.
ERICA: That’s not the law. That’s just what you signed.
DAVY [laughs]: And so it’s le-gal! [He stretches out the word.]
ERICA [impatient with the skirmishing, wanting to get to the point]: I’m tired of her being around here so much, occupying Brittany—and you—all the time. She’s constantly giving me those poison eyes.
[As soon as ERICA says “Brittany,” loud television sounds can be heard. Not the sounds of American Movie Classics and not from MRS. JENSEN’s side of the stage. Instead, the sounds are voices of actors in the late 90s tv show Angel. When we first hear the show, one character, played by an actor with a British voice, is accusing a female character of wearing a pushup bra. The petty conversation is interrupted by a more subdued Angel and then by a client who comes for Angel’s help.]
DAVY: I can’t help what kind of eyes she gives you; she’s my ex-wife!
ERICA: I don’t like it. It hurts me.
[CAMPBELL spins away from her, hands on his hand, mouth open, trying to fathom what to say now. The sounds from Angel blare even louder—uncomfortably loud—across the stage.]
BOY: Davy Campbell, meanwhile, will be inside too, arguing with his girlfriend about his ex-wife’s visiting privileges while trying to ignore the screech coming from his daughter’s television upstairs. [As soon as BOY says “daughter,” a spot comes on stage left. On that side of the stage, on a platform suggesting the second floor of a house, eleven year old BRITTANY CAMPBELL sits on a conspicuously overadorned, overpillowed bed, drinking a Diet Pepsi and stares with complete fixation at the television which sits on top of her bureau. We are allowed just a couple seconds more to absorb the invading noise from Angel before MAN says his next line. In fact, the tv noise is so loud he shouts it.]
MAN [with a broad grin]: That’s the Campbells!
[As soon as he says this, the television noise evaporates, the spot goes out on BRITTANY, and DAVY and ERICA run off stage. The BOY allows a few seconds for the audience to feel the new silence and the emptiness before he says his next lines.]
BOY: In one of your more ill-advised lurches, your right foot will land in a hole just behind the retaining wall. [Here the BOY motions to stage right. At the back of the stage, as BOY speaks, an actor dressed identically to MAN (we’ll call him TWIN MAN), and aided only by as many props as necessary, acts out the death BOY describes. It is, of course, necessary, for the audience to view this action as if they are sitting in the river. That is, when TWIN MAN falls over the retaining wall, he should fall toward the audience so that the audience can see him hang from his broken leg.] Your body will tip and fall over, even as your foot remains stuck, thus cracking your leg and simultaneously causing you to hit your head on a stone at the center of the wall. [MAN blinks at him, blank-faced.] The impact will render you unconscious. While you hang there, dangling by a broken leg, the tide will come in, covering the upper half of your body.
[MAN sets his beer down forcefully on the counter. As soon as we hear the smack of beer bottle on counter, the light goes out on the pantomimed death. It disappears.]
MAN: You don’t think I know this?
BOY: No. I don’t think you do.
[MAN, clearly more agitated now, steps out of the kitchen proper for the first time. He paces as he talks.]
MAN: What do you care, anyway? When did you ever? While I drown you get to be entertained by your mother’s conspicuously well-heeled relatives. They’ll plow you with taffy and ice cream sandwiches. They’ll buy you comic books and licorice. They’ll take you the country club. They’ll take you to the zoo.
BOY: I already went to the zoo. That was earlier. We just got back.
MAN: That’s not what you said in your essay. You said your father died while you looked into the haunted face of a chimpanzee.
BOY: Poetic license. Besides, I haven’t written it yet. I might change my mind. I might say I was watching Happy Days.
MAN: You won’t.
BOY: I might.
MAN: You won’t.
BOY: I could. I haven’t written it yet. I don’t even know what poetic license means.
[MAN moves back to the kitchen, more or less in exactly his former location, picks up his bottle, and drinks again. Then he drinks more, as if in a race against himself. Finally, he lowers the bottle and burps.]
MAN: Oh, you’ll learn that. You’ll learn that pretty damn well.
BOY [slightly stung]: Maybe.
[MAN laughs: a ragged but still jovial noise. He shakes his head once, fast.]
BOY: The point I’m trying to make though is this: Do you want to end up twenty-five years from now as a figment in the memory of my imagination, guzzling beer on the pages of my notebook [shows it] while ten tired students bend heads over their own notebooks, inventing stories just as improbable? [Pauses.] Or would you rather remain who you are, in the flesh? [BOY gives MAN plenty of time to answer, but MAN doesn’t.] I won’t even ask if you want to leave Mom a widow, if you’ve actually thought about what that means. The other question is pressing enough.
[MAN takes a few steps toward the front of the kitchen and tosses the bottle into trash can designated for glass recyclables. Then he returns to the refrigerator and grabs another bottle of beer.]
MAN: The question you never seem to ask yourself is whether I ever cared if I remained in the flesh at all.
BOY: True, but that’s more or less what I’m asking now.
MAN: What do you think?
BOY: I don’t think you ever came to a decision. But I think you knew perfectly well what you were and were not capable of. I think you let mom go off to Philadelphia without you because the thought of limiting your intake for three days was unbearable.
MAN: Got that right. [Defiantly, he pops off the cap of this second bottle. He drinks.]
BOY: And I think maybe you figured you’d just play the odds. Drink as much as you want and let what happens happen. There was no knowing which day—or night—would be the one. After all, you dodged plenty of bullets already.
MAN: Bullets?
BOY: How many times did I hear you fall down the stairs at the other house? A couple of times you had a gash in your head in the morning. You look mystified and abashed—no idea how you’d injured yourself.
MAN: But you were older then weren’t you?
BOY [hesitates]: Yes.
MAN: So you aren’t ten when this happens.
BOY: Actually, no.
MAN: But your mother is in Philadelphia.
BOY: Yes. By herself.
MAN: How old are you now?
BOY: It doesn’t matter.
MAN: Old enough to know what “abashed” means.
[BOY, stung, drifts downstage. MAN waits for BOY to reply. When he sees BOY won’t, he takes a full, hearty swig. When he brings the bottle down he stares at it with thoughtful affection. Then he glances at BOY.]
MAN: So I didn’t actually try to kill myself?
BOY [not looking at him]: No, I don’t think so.
MAN: Good. That would be unsightly.
BOY [turning to face MAN]: Yes, but what I write in that classroom with those tired students will be as gruesome as any suicide. I hope you realize that. And it will be about you.
MAN: You’ve done it before.
BOY: No, I haven’t.
MAN: In the short story—the one about Massachusetts.
BOY: You won’t die in that one.
MAN: Or the other, the family at the beach.
BOY: In that one you’ll die when a ladder falls.
MAN [with a confused look]: Oh. Oh, well. [MAN half-smiles, an embarrassed looked that comes out as helplessness. He moves deeper into the kitchen. He leans with his back against the counter, lifts the bottle, and enjoys several unbroken swallows.]
BOY [regretfully]: I’m going to have to write about it. In twenty-five years or so.
MAN: I understand.
MAN: And it will have to be set here. And you will have to take that walk. And your foot will slip into that hole.
MAN [shrugs, refuses to look at BOY]: Sure.
BOY [after long pause]: Or you can just put the beer away.
[MAN does look at him now, but neutrally, steadily. Whatever embarrassment he may have felt has passed away.]
MAN: Thank you. I think I’ve got it figured out. [He closes his eyes, leans his head back, and presses more fully into the counter. For the first time, his manner suggests inebriation: the bare beginnings of it.]
BOY: I better go. Mom’s probably wondering where I am.
MAN: Yes. [Opens his eyes slowly; stands straighter.] You don’t want to be here, anyway. I mean later.
[BOY nods, then moves to the front door.]
MAN: Tell your mother that what you saw was like a car crash, an accident. Just a stupid, thoughtless mistake. Nobody involved was trying to hurt anybody.
BOY [after a pause]: Sure. I’ll tell her that. But it will have to wait about twenty-five years.
[MAN thinks about it, nods.]
MAN: I don’t have much choice, do I?”
[BOY doesn’t answer, only holds the man’s gaze for several seconds. When MAN drops his head, BOY turns and opens the door. He leaves. By the time MAN raises his head, BOY has left. MAN takes a swig of beer. All lights go down.]
