Not a play, but play related

Kali, Brigid, other deities are COMMANDING me to submit works to theaters.

Guh!  but I hate this process.  Because I am NOT going to search for needles in haystacks.  Cerridwen , had all the time in the world when she transformed herself into a chicken to search out the corn-kernel that was Gwion Bach.  Of course–she was a GODDESS.  And I am God, yes.  As are all the missing peoplez who don’t read these pages (and the odd ones who do).

But Actors Theater of Lousyville isn’t one I’m going to consider submitting to–not that the kewlkidz want my godself ass!

Neither is the O’kneel down for your penance.  Or any old LORT theater that can be of-thought.  Nope.  Not I. Nuh-uh.

A friend suggested I buy The Cornucopia of Doom The Dramatists Sourcebook.  My partner, when I referred to it by its correct through the strike-out title, suggested I probably ought not to take that advice.  If I’m going to experience it as onerous, well, that’s a “No, duh!” kind of insight.  And Kali and Brigid have said I need to follow a different path anyway, and Brigid, futher, along with Kwan Yin, suggests I need to have fun. No matter what else I do.

D.S. ref’d above? Fun? NOT!

So.  I don’t know WHAT I’m going to do here.  Divine Self will lead the way, I’m sure.

Here’s a tarot reading on the topic.Play submission Tarot Reading Using Greenwood Deck

One-Act Play: Nike Corporation – A Person Existing Under the Laws of the State of Delaware

I wrote this years ago, but it seems relevant again, all of a sudden.

NIKE CORPORATION: A PERSON EXISTING UNDER THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE by Richard Morell

CAST OF CHARACTERS

EZRA TAFT:    Older white fella.  State Clerk of Delaware.  A closet lefty.

JONES:    A vaguely pretentious white guy who wants to change his name to the letter A.

BARZIQAFAZANDA FEMALE AHSHALFAHKIUW:  A pregnant black woman who also wants to change her name to Nike Corporation.

STORECLERK:   A cheerful, streetwise guy.

GANGSTA:  One mean bitch.

MONEYBAGS:         A supercilious white fella.

CHARLIE:  A stockbroker.  Part-time wraith.

NASDACK:  Elegant lawyer.  A Two-year old.

TORNAHDOU:    Graceful judge.  Not all there.

HITHER:   An attorney representing plaintiffs

BLITHER:  The other attorney representing plaintiffs

BAILIFF:  Jack Friday-type.

SHEFFIELD:    A black man with a compassionate manner, except where his money is concerned.

PICKETERS and MOURNERS

DOW JONES:    A bitch.

The action takes place in the State of Delaware, the County of Psychosis, the city of Chaos.

 

     The State Clerk’s Office of Delaware.  JONES argues with EZRA TAFT, the State Clerk through a glass darkly.  BARZIQAFAZANDA sits in a chair nearby, filling out her form.

EZRA TAFT:  I can’t accept this.

JONES:  Eh, man!  Why!

EZRA TAFT:  You want to change your name to A?

JONES:  Yeah.

EZRA TAFT:  A.

JONES:  A!!

EZRA TAFT:  I can’t accept this request.  You need to have another letter at least.

JONES:  Why?

EZRA TAFT:  Hey, I don’t make the laws, Mr. Jones.

JONES:  Don’t call me that.  My name is A.

EZRA TAFT:  Mr. Jones.  There are already five As in the Wilmington phone book.  I can’t authorize it.

JONES:  Well how’d they get there?

EZRA TAFT:  I don’t know.  Ask them.  But they never came through here, I can tell you that.

JONES:  OK, OK.  Give me that form.

(He takes the application back; then Jones writes something else, hands it back to EZRA.)

There!  What?

EZRA TAFT:  (laughing)  Tell me, Mr. Jones.  What is so special about the phone book?

JONES:  What’s it to you?

EZRA TAFT:  Nothing.  Just, it makes me laugh when someone comes i here and they want their name to be the sounds of snoozing.

JONES:  So?

EZRA TAFT:  If you want to be the last name in the phone book, you should add six more Zs to the name.  Mr. Zzzzzzzz.

JONES:  Fuck you pal.

(He takes the application, blows the joint.)

EZRA TAFT:  People.  Gotta love ‘em.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Yes, people.  People are interesting and fun, don’t you think?

EZRA TAFT:  Takes all kinds.  Miss, uh–?

BARZIQAFAZANDA:   Female Ahshalfahkiuw.

EZRA TAFT:  Who, that’s a mouthful.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Yes, it is.  Too much.  I prefer something that’s more simple and in the public domain.

EZRA TAFT:  In the public domain?  What does that mean?

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Well, Mr. Taft, I’m a poor woman.  I deserve a name that confers great wealth.  Don’t you think that a name should bring in as much recognition and abundance as possible?

EZRA TAFT:  What is it you’re changing your name to?  Money Dinero Greenstuff?

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  That’s good.  I like that.  I just want to select a name that will give me a leg up.  If I could get a leg up, I think it would benefit the world.

EZRA TAFT:  Well, little lady, that’s probably wise.  I see that you’re on your way to having a family.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Triplets, actually.

EZRA TAFT:  Triplets!  Whoa.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Yep.  Two girls and a boy, according to the OB-GYN.

EZRA TAFT:  You poor woman.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  More ways than one.  I think they deserve a better name than Ahshalfakiuw.

EZRA TAFT:  That is an unfortunate name for these United States.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Ahshalfahkiuw is a Yoruba-Azeri name by way of the Chippewa nation, I think.  I don’t know.  That name has kept me oppressed.  That, my black skin and my lesbianism.

EZRA TAFT:  Oh.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  What?

EZRA TAFT:  I didn’t need to know that.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Oh.  Here’s my application.  Mr. Delaware Taft.

(She hands the application through the window.)

EZRA TAFT:  Ezra.  Ezra Taft.  But Delaware Taft–not a bad name.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Delaware is such an interesting state.  I’ve only lived here for two years, but it’s got a strange, sort of unearthly vibe, you know.

EZRA TAFT:  Unreal, you say?  I’m sorry, what does this say here?  Niki Corperton?

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Oh, let me make it clearer.  You know, Delaware has such interesting persons in its population.

EZRA TAFT:  I don’t know, ma’am.  You can’t judge everyone by that Mr. JonesZZZZZZZZZZ.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Yeah, but person in Delaware has such a wide berth.  There you go.

(She hands the application to EZRA.  He looks at it, and grimaces.)

EZRA TAFT:  Huh.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  That cleared it up, yes?

EZRA TAFT:  Huh.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  “I Barziqafazanda Female Ahshalfahkiuw do hereby elect to change my name to Nike Corporation.”

EZRA TAFT:  Huh.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Is everything okay, Mr. Taft?  Ezra?

EZRA TAFT:  Well, I don’t know.  I don’t know, Ms.–I don’t know.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  I know, it’s a bit of a surprise.

EZRA TAFT:  You know, I can’t say that I haven’t expected this.  I mean, I’ve sort of hoped for it actually.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Really?

EZRA TAFT:  Yes, I–I’ve thought about what you’re doing myself, but–I’ve gotta say I admire your courage.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Well, I don’t know how courageous I am.

EZRA TAFT:  Oh, no, I think it’s extremely brave of you.  You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, but I think you’re doing us a service.  I’m approving your application, but you may not expect the end of this.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  It’s a dignified name.

EZRA TAFT:  If you say so.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  I mean, well, don’t you think so?

EZRA TAFT:  It’s not up to me, ma’am.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Nike Corporation.  Deserves a body like mine don’t you think?

EZRA TAFT:  You got names picked out for your brood?

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Little Microsoft, AT&T and Walt Disney.

EZRA TAFT:  Hah.  You’re one difficult bitch, ain’t ya?  But it would take someone like you.  It really would.  Not that I’m bawling you out, Ms. Corporation.  It’s something that’s rattled me for many a year, knowing that my home state considers a faceless entity that employs thousands of people and has no accountability to be the same as me under its laws.  Makes me respect being a Delawarean a major mite less.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Well, someone from Pennsylvania may just have to be the one who sets it aright.  Attaching a body like mine to such a fine, wealthy name as that.

(He stamps the application and hands the pink copy back to her.)

EZRA TAFT:  Here you go, Ms. Corporation.  Now repeat after me.  “I, Nike Corporation–”

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  I, Nike Corporation–

EZRA TAFT:  –do solemnly swear by the laws of the State of Delaware–

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  By the laws of the State of Delaware–

EZRA TAFT:  –to uphold and abide by the aforesaid laws–

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  To uphold and abide by the aforesaid laws–

EZRA TAFT:  –under the name I have selected, Nike Corporation.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Under the name I have selected, Nike Corporation.

EZRA TAFT:  Sign here.

(She signs the application.)

BARZIQAFAZANDA:   Female Ahshalfahkiuw shall now be known as Nike Corporation, unless there be objections made known through the courts and until you may decide to alter your name again.

BARZIQAFAZANDA:  Amen, brother.

EZRA TAFT:  God go with you.

(On the Street outside the Delaware State Clerk’s office, BARZIQAFZANDA, now NIKE, emerges.  She dances down the street.)

NIKE:  Nike Corporation, it is a new day on this planet.  I am a new Person, recognized with fullness under the laws of this state.  I walk into these streets and I possess a new power.  Now what was once facelss has a face.  What was once disembodied, now has a body, and what a body it is.  Four hearts are beating within me.  I am powerful under the Law!  I am real, I am manifest, I am Nike Corporation.  Goddess of wingéd victory combined with a word that takes in more than it gives! 

(She walks past a footwear store.)

I am Nike Corporation and it is a new world.

(She looks in the window as a STORECLERK in a Referee’s uniform rearranges the display.)

Good day, sir.  It’s a great day.

STORECLERK: Sure enough, Ma’am.  Can I help you?

NIKE:  No.  I’m just looking at all these wonderful babies you’re putting out there.

STORECLERK:  You’ve got some babies of your own in the oven I see.  How many you got in there?  A football team?

NIKE:  No, just three.

STORECLERK:  ‘Splenty.

NIKE:  I like the ones your moving around there.  They’ve got my name on them.

STORECLERK:  Your name’s “Just Do It?”

NIKE:  Ha ha.  Very funny.

STORECLERK:  Your name’s Michael Jordan, right?

NIKE:  Do you see his name on those?

STORECLERK:  Just his autograph.

NIKE:  This here’s my name.

STORECLERK:  How do ya do, Ms. Corporation.

NIKE:  Very fine, thank you.

STORECLERK:  Girl, what are you talkin’ about?  You’re name’s Nike Corporation?

NIKE:  That’s my name.  Don’t wear it out.  Or maybe you should–wear it out, I mean.  At least those puppies. 

STORECLERK:  OK.  You’re goofin’ me.  That ain’t your name, sister.

NIKE:  It is too.  Now.  I changed it.  Awesome isn’t it?

STORECLERK:  If you say so.  I just think you’re crazy.

(He goes back into the store.)

NIKE:  Crazy like a fox I am.  One needs a good strong name to inhabit this tough, unforgiving world.  One needs a name that will protect you in these horrible climates.  I can walk in the world and not be afraid.  Yea, though the walk home from the bus stop is often through the shadow of death, I will not be afraid.  My new name offers a covenant with my life.  It is a whole new world.

(The lights change to darkness.  A MENACING GANGSTA enters.  She sneaks up on NIKE.)

GANGSTA:  All right, bitch.  All your money.  Be quiet, ho’.  If you know what’s good for you.

NIKE:  Cool it white boy.

GANGSTA:  White boy?  White boy!  Who you callin’ white boy?

NIKE:  I’d be a mite slicker if I was you, bitch.  You got lovely sneakers on I see.

GANGSTA:  Your money, honey.

NIKE:  You got a piece of me already on your feet.

GANGSTA:  You Michelle Jordan, bitch?

NIKE:  That all you folks can think about?  Some rich bald guy?  I’m Nike Corporation, that’s who.

GANGSTA:  You Nike.

NIKE:  Nike.

GANGSTA:  Corporation.

NIKE:  Corporation. 

GANGSTA:  Git outta here.  That’s a fool company!

NIKE:  I’m all that, girl.  And I’ve got three on the way.  You want to hurt a pregnant woman?

GANGSTA:  Nothin’ personal.  You make these shoes, bitch?

NIKE:  I am Nike Corporation.

GANGSTA:  You from Vietnam?

NIKE:  ‘Scuse me?

GANGSTA:  Little kids in Vietnam make these great mocassins.  You down with that?

NIKE:  I suppose.

GANGSTA:  Payin’ ‘em like a dollar a day to stitch these things together?  You down with that?

NIKE:  It’s business.

GANGSTA:  Yeah.  Like you givin’ me that purse of yours.  Hand it over, bitch.

(GANGSTA shows the steel of her knife.  NIKE hands over her purse.)

There you go.  I hope your stock splits.  I own a couple shares of you.

(She exits.)

NIKE:  I’m all over the place it seems.  Everywhere I go, people have heard of me.  My reputation precedes me.  I now have a name that inspires awe and amazement in even the biggest players.

(MONEYBAGS, a rich person, floats in on a whole buncha dinero.  He smokes a $500 bill.)

MONEYBAGS:  Ah, Benjamin Franklin.  Nothin’ like tastin’ your face.

          (notices NIKE)

Guards!  An intruder has on this place… Intruded.  Yeah.

NIKE:  Yes, guards.  Come and get him.

MONEYBAGS:  I was referring to you.

NIKE:  Oh, I know you weren’t referring to me.  I belong here.  This is my place.

MONEYBAGS:  You don’t say.  Who are you and how did you infiltrate?

NIKE:  What’s it to you, Pop?

MONEYBAGS:  Pop!  I like that.  Only the most prestigious, the most powerful and influential are allowed here.

NIKE:  Then I’m in the right place.  Count me in, Clown.

MONEYBAGS:  And you would be?

NIKE:  My name’s a household word.  On second thought, you can take a long walk off a short subway station platform.

MONEYBAGS:  Such impertinence!  The hired help these days.  I will have you removed at once, Ms. –

NIKE:  Corporation.  Nike Corporation.

MONEYBAGS:  Huh?

NIKE:  That’s right.  I’m somebody.  Ha ha.

(MONEYBAGS Blithers. SECURITY enters.)

You know these surroundings bore me.  Begone, fool!

(MONEYBAGS is escorted out by SECURITY.)

Yes, world.  Look out!  I’ve taken over the reins of my life and I’m goin’ drivin’.

(She enters a Charles Schwab where CHARLIE sits numbercrunching.)

NIKE:  Hello, Charlie?  I’m Nike Corporation!  Set me up with some stocks and bonds.  I’ll pay cash.

CHARLIE:  Sure, we can Ms. Corporation.  Oh, you’ll be happy to know that your unborn babies are doing extremely well right now.  Though we are worried about Microsoft appearing before Congress.  She’s going to be a little touch and go.

NIKE:  Those bozos don’t know their elbows from their dicks, Charlie.  No offense.

CHARLIE:  None taken, Ms. Corporation.

          (His phone rings.)

Hello, Charlie Schwab.  Excuse me, Nike.  I’ve got to take this call.

NIKE:  Are you sure you’re my broker?

CHARLIE:  It’s your CEO.  He’s bitchin’ again about your interference.

NIKE:  That’s all he’s good for.  They all want a piece of me.  And all I want’s a decent home for my kiddies and a great girlfriend to comfort me.

(At a lesbian bar.  NIKE dances with a hot woman named DEODORA.)

Oh, girl.  You’re one sexy baby.

DEODORA:  Everyone says that. 

NIKE:  Oh, but girlfriend.  I’m sincere.

DEODORA:  Barzy, you’re just as bad as a man.

NIKE:  I’m not Barzy anymore, Deodora.  I’n Nike now.

DEODORA:  Nike?  Nike the Dykey Nike?

NIKE:  Hey, you’re hurtin’ my feelings, girl.

DEODORA:  It’s not gonna change you you know.

NIKE:  Oh, there you’re wrong.  You’re gonna be sorry, Deodora, that you didn’t get in with me on the ground floor.

DEODORA:  From what I hear, that’s about the only place you’d take me.

NIKE:  I’ll remember that.

(DEODORA dances offstage as NIKE dances into  her home. She sits at her kitchen table, reading the paper.  She calls her broker.)

NIKE:  Hello, Charlie, Nike.  Hi.  Invest in the petroleum from Turkey.  I know, I don’t care. Do it.  Thanks.

(A knock at the door.  NIKE goes to the door and looks through the peephole.)

Oh, shit.

(She opens the door.  A GROUP of PICKETERS stands outside.  They have signs that read “NIKE:       CORPORATION UNFAIR.” and “GIVE  THE CHILDREN A BREAK.”

PICKETERS:  Murderess!  Evil corporation!  Bitch.

NIKE:  You folks don’t have the right–I’m a private citizen, can’t you respect a woman about to give birth?

PICKETER:  You oughta be ashamed of yourself.

PICKETER #2:  How can you hold your head up?

PICKETER LEADER:  That’s all right, that’s okay.  She’ll be dragged into court some day.

NIKE:  Look, I’ve never seen any of you before.  You all have got some nerve, coming in here and–Oh, my God!

(The stress causes her to break water.)

Oh my God. 

PICKETERS:  Oh, no!  She’s spinning off more of them!

PICKET LEADER:  How could you.  Are people so bad you have to inflict more corporate hatred on them?

FEMALE PICKETER:  You sorry excuse for a woman.

NIKE:  Oh, shove it up your unfucked cunt, already bitch.

(She shuts the door in their faces.)

The nerve of some people!

(Offstage THREE BABIES CRY and loudly, too.)

Oh, hush kiddos.  Mama Nike’s coming.  Those bad people won’t hurt my widdle AT&T, Microsoft and Walt Disney.

(She grabs a baby bottle from the refrigerator, turns around and meets her attorney NASDACK.)

NASDAQ:  We’ve set up your kids up on trust funds.

NIKE:  I knew a corporate attorney’d create great shelters for me.

NASDAQ:  Oh, yes.  We corporate attorneys are branching out.  Trusts and estates, entertainment, family court.  We even have to do criminal work as well.  I hope I don’t have to go to bat for you in one of those courts though.  The wrong kind of people, you know.

NIKE:  That’s got to hurt your image, I bet.

NASDAQ:  One connect with the hoi polloi and I’m boy-oh-boy.

NIKE:  Well, you don’t have to worry about me there. Boy.

(A bell rings.)

Oh.  It’s time for their feeding.  Excuse me.

(As NASDACK moves to another part of the stage, a SYCOPHANT enters with a triple baby-carriage.)

SYCOPHANT:  Your babies, Ms. Corp.

NIKE:  Ah, thanks Brewskie.  You can call me Nai-Nai.

(SYCOPHANT claps his hands and exits.)

How’s my widdle guys doin’?

(On the Street.  NIKE makes her way down the street with her triple baby-carriage.  She wears a beautiful black and red Dolce & Gabbana outfit.)

Ah, my little ones.  It’s such a beautiful day to take a walk to the park.  My little Microsoft — you be strong in front of Congress now.  You hear?  And your beautiful sister AT&T  — you better play hardball with those cable honchos if you know what’s good for you.  Too many people be havin’ jobs.  Little brother Walt Disney.  You’re all going to grow up to be nice and strong and beautiful corporations, yes you will.

(A PROCESS SERVER enters. She hands NIKE a blue slip of paper.)

Hello.

PROCESS SERVER:  You’ve been served.

(She exits.  Nike looks at the subpoena.)

NIKE:  I don’t believe this!

(The Court of the County of Psychosis.  JUDGE TOURNAHDO, a slight man of indeterminate ethnicity presides.  The Prosecuting Attorneys HITHER AND BLITHER stand to one side.  NIKE sits with NASDACK.)

NASDAQ:  I was waiting for this.  Relax, honey.  This is typical.

HITHER:  Judge, the facts of this case are clear.  Nike Corporation willfully and deliberately has wreaked havoc on the communities in question.  She has deliberately parted out her work to sweatshops in Thailand and Indonesia and pays the shameless amount of a dollar a day to the workers there.  She has deliberately advertised her products in such mouthwatering ways in the inner cities to have caused in them such a hunger for the prowess of Michael Jordan and all those beautiful, well-paid, well-fed athletes to go out and buy a three hundred dollar pair of tennis shoes or better yet to steal them from the chumps that have gone out and bought them.  We ask that you throw the book at her.

BLITHER:  Here here.

TOURNAHDO:  The facts of this case are indeed very interesting.  Can you prove that that Ms. Corporation is the one to blame for these injustices?

BLITHER:  Your honor, the facts speak for themselves.  Nike Corporation has indeed done these things.  They have become a matter of the public record.  I refer to the New York Times article dated March–

TOURNAHDO:  Yes, yes, yes.  We have press trails to follow, indeed.  Mr. Nasdack, I presume you have a defense.

NASDAQ:  We do your honor. 

TOURNAHDO:  Well would you mind filling us in on what that is?

NASDAQ:  Well, sir.  Our defense is in two parts.  First of all, my client is not a wealthy woman–

BLITHER:  Not a wealthy woman!

HITHER:  I object–

TOURNAHDO:  Mr. Blither–

BLITHER/HITHER:  Hither!

TOURNAHDO:  Whatever, you can not object to a question of strategy.  You’re out of order–where did you go to law school?

BLITHER:  Harvard.  In the Film school there, actually.

TOURNAHDO:  Film school?  Harvard has a film school now?  Well.  I guess that’s good enough for government work. 

BLITHER:  If I may–

TOURNAHDO:  Later, counsel.  Right now, this is about how they’re going to proceed.  Mr. Nasdack, continue.

NASDAQ:  Well, she’s a poor woman who changed her name to Nike Corporation in the hopes that it would change her luck.  I mean, Nike Corporation, what we know of it, is that it is a faceless entity, incorporated here in Delaware, but is considered a Person under the General Corporation Act of 1906, hereinafter known as the “Act.”  And my client only sought to dignify this faceless entity by endowing it with a body.  In this case, her body.

TOURNAHDO:  And a dignified body it is, if I do say so myself.

NIKE:  Thank you your honor.

TOURNAHDO:  The acts of which Misters Hither and Blither refer to took place before Nike Corporation took the name she has now.  Furthermore, the name is just a name.  She isn’t the same person as the Person to which Misters Hither and Thither have confused her with. 

HITHER:  Which also handles the incorporation of Persons in the state of Delaware.  She is the one we seek.

TOURNAHDO:  And the second part of your strategy, Mr. Nasdack?

NASDAQ:  Simple, your honor.  She had no knowledge of these events transpiring.  The individuals who should be sued do not exist or reside in the State of Delaware, and must be extradited into this country to face charges.

HITHER:  Oh, you’re good.  You’re very good.

NASDAQ:  We understand the indignity these poor folks have been made to endure, but your Honor, this is a travesty and a waste of the court’s time.  We ask that you dismiss.

TOURNAHDO:  Given the offenses that are at issue here, Mr. Nasdack and Ms. Corporation, I do not see that I will be able to dismiss these charges as of yet.  Thus far, the iniquities committed by that Nike Corporation which is a Person under the Act have been well documented.  And I notice that based on Ms. Corporation’s stock options and portfolio, she has amassed a certain advantage with her name.

HITHER:  Not only that, your Honor, but her children AT&T, Microsoft and Walt Disney Corporation are reaping other benefits even as we speak.

TOURNAHDO:  Given all the evidence and the need for our human community to arrive at a just outcome, I must continue this case, Mr. Nasdack.  It is only fair that we proceed.

NASDAQ:  Your Honor–!

TOURNAHDO:  That is all, sir.  I’ve made my decision!

NIKE:  I throw myself on the mercy of the court.  Do with me as you will.

NASDAQ:  Nike, I don’t think this is wise of–

NIKE:  No, I admit it.  I did all those things.  I employed those workers in Thailand.  I did pay them those wages.  I did cause inner city boys and girls to covet my products.  Ever since I 1970, when I was minus two years old, I have been plotting to bring down this country through sneakers.

BLITHER:  Your honor, we object.

HITHER:  Her age at the time of the Conception of the Incorporation is irrelevant.

TOURNAHDO:  Ms. Corporation obviously is not aware of the notion of successors and assigns, I see.  Do you realize that you, Ms. Corporation, are now the sole proprietor of the business that possesses your name?

NIKE:  No, sir!  I wasn’t aware of that. 

NASDAQ:  Your honor, my client had an emotional moment.  She is not responsible for her actions.  I recommend that she be sequestered.

TOURNAHDO:  Very well.  We have a spot all picked out for her.

(A BAILIFF enters with a wheelchair. Escorts NIKE into it.)

NIKE:  Nasdack! 

NASDAQ:  It’s OK, sweetness.  It’s for your own protection.  The public is calling for your head.

NIKE:  Then I must be sequestered like I was for that grand jury?

NASDAQ:  Well, there’s nothing else to be done.  I’ll ensure that it’s at the best facility.

(The BAILIFF dresses NIKE in a scarf and hands her some sunglasses and a sun reflector.  She sits in the wheelchair sunning herself.)

NIKE:  My babies, my babies.  I miss my babies.  I’ve got to get out of here.

BAILIFF:  Relax, Ma’am.  You’re not goin’ anywhere.

NIKE:  But I need–

BAILIFF:  Everything’s being taken care of.

(In the background, NASDACK argues with HITHER, BLITHER and TOURNAHDO.)

NASDAQ:  Objection.

BLITHER:  Droit moral!

HITHER:  Inter alia.

TOURNAHDO:  Guilty.

NASDAQ:  Your honor!

TOURNAHDO:  Thirty years.

(NASDACK trudges over to NIKE. Hat  in his hand.  She looks at him.)

NASDAQ:  Sorry.

(She faints.)

NASDAQ:  I knew this would happen.

(As they transport her, the PICKETERS enter.)

PICKETERS:  There she is!  Stone her!

(They start pelting her with rocks.  NASDAQ runs around the stage.)

NASDAQ:  Help!  Police!  They’re burning Nike’s leather!  Help!

(The BAILIFF wheels NIKE to a gurney.  She lays delirious.   She recites the names of different types of shoes.  DR. SHEFFIELD, a distinguished black man, stands over her with NASDACK.

SHEFFIELD:  She doesn’t have much time.

NASDAQ:  Is there anything we can do?

SHEFFIELD:  Think of her children.  They need to be protected.

NIKE:  (screams)  Just do it!  Ah!

(she dies.)

NASDAQ:  Hey, Dr. Sheffield.

SHEFFIELD:  There’s nothing we can do.

(He pulls out his cell phone, makes a call.)

Hello, Charlie?  Sell.  Everything we got.

NASDAQ:  Oh my God, my portfolio!

(NASDACK runs around the stage.)

The stock market’s falling.  The stock market’s falling.

(DOW JONES enters.  She’s one tough bitch, dressed like a graph. The red line of stock-blood is going down down, down. She gasps and dies, falling over NIKE CORPORATION’s corpse.)

The stock market’s crashed.

SHEFFIELD:  She’s dead, Jim.  She’s dead.

NASDAQ:  She had a good run. 

SHEFFIELD:  Broke that tape I don’t know how many times.  But son, it’s time for something else.  Bodies die.

NASDAQ:  But corporations don’t.  Do they?  They can’t die.  Can they?

(SHEFFIELD puts his hand on NASDACK’s shoulder. Exits.  MOURNERS enter and stand over NIKE’s grave.  One MOURNER is in charge of the triple baby-carriage.  He wears a badge that reads “SEC.” NASDAQ delivers the eulogy.)

NASDAQ:  I only knew her as a client.  But Nike Corporation was a great lady.  Responsible for so many people’s happiness.  When you think on her, think of your shoes.  Think of your kids’ happy faces when they open up their Christmas presents and see the Air Jordans.  Think of how many wonderful NBA careers were made with her expertise.  Nike was many things.  A black woman.  A lesbian.  A shrewd business mind.  We will miss her.  Terribly.  But let it be a lesson to us all.  Corporations should never be embodied.  They should stay virtual.  It is we who should be grateful for their discorporate existence, and we should be happy to make room for them.  They enrich our lives.  They make our prison-like lives so much better.  Think of all the benefits we reap because they exist.  We could do so much worse.

(The MOURNERS nod sadly.  NASDAQ shakes their hands.  He walks up to the SEC MOURNER.  He starts to take the baby carriage.)

SEC MOURNER:  Sorry, bub.  They’re coming with me.  Being confiscated for their own good.

NASDAQ:  Ah, yes of course.  Are you taking them to Camp David?

SEC MEMBER:  Some place like it.  They’re going to grow up to be great corporations.  And we’re gonna make it so they survive the earth once we blow it up.

(He starts to wheel them out.)

Oh, and you didn’t hear that from me.

(They wink at each other.  SEC exits with carriage and other MOURNERS.)

NASDAQ:  Ah, brave new world.  Brave new world.  What more human messes will you throw our way, huh?  So unclean, unclean it all is.

(He exits.  EZRA TAFT enters with a bouquet of flowers.)

EZRA TAFT:  Yes, Ms. Corporation née Ahshalfakiuw.  You were one brave woman.  I’m glad you did it.  Maybe we can get to our lives again.

(JONES enters.)

JONES:  There you are!

EZRA TAFT:  Oh, not you again.

JONES:  This time I’ve got the perfect name for myself.

(JONES hands EZRA a piece of paper.)

What do you think?

EZRA TAFT:  That’s more like it.  OK, Rudy Giuliani.  Let’s get you all set up.

JONES:  I thought it’d be a great name to rob old people with.

EZRA TAFT:  It’s a good name for all sorts of robbers.  But I can think of a better one.  How about Pope John Paul the Second?

JONES:  But he’s not an American.

EZRA TAFT:  You’ve got a point, there, buddy.  You do have a point.

(They exit.  NIKE’s ghost wanders onstage.)

NIKE:  I liked having a body.  But not having one’s not bad either.  Y’all might think about killin’ yourselves.  Let the world have the corporations.  It’s not so bad.  Once you’re dead.  Bye now.

END

Hiawatha Creek Exorcism: A Post-American Teaching Play

CAST OF CHARACTERS

 MIK                          Strong silent.

ROBIN                        Bemused and caring.

JODY                         Brainy and scientific.

VERA                         The Earth Mother.

SHAWN                        A ghost, a violent presence.

The action takes place in a cabin in the Adirondacks.

 

SETTING AND AT RISE:         A cabin in the Adirondacks on a crisp fall day.  Some time after the Great Collapse of the Economy.  (Who knows when that will be?  But this is meant to be a cheery play…)  Outside is a vista of sylvan goodness.  The décor is totally pine and maple.  There is a wonderful wooden table and solid chairs around it.  MIK, a salt-of-the-earth type fellow/gal (gender is so relative), early 40s sits at the head of the table.  ROBIN, the pragmatic one, mid-to-late 30s, sits nearby.  JODY, the questioning one (early 30s) stands near the window.  SHAWN’S GHOST, a shade who was the same age as MIK at his death, punches about the stage staccato as is her wont to do. (NOTE TO DIRECTOR:  Cast the play to your wishes based on your intuitions.  I’m going to be intentionally sloppy with pronouns.  Once you cast the play, go ahead and standardize.  The only role that is relatively clear is that of VERA, who comes in later.)

MIK:  It wasn’t an easy choice.

ROBIN:  We had to do it, though.

JODY:  Damn right, we did.  But you feel guilty.

MIK:  I do.  I wish there’d been another way.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  I’m sure you do.  You fuckin’ killed me, bastard.  Put me out of your misery, assholes.

JODY:  Shawn would have been a threat, Mik.

ROBIN:  Would have been?  He already was if you ask me.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  You don’t know what you did.  You goddam suckers!  It’s going to be fun watching some Mad Max Wannabe knock each of you off.

JODY:  I know you tried to reason with her.

MIK:  There wasn’t any way in.  Shawn just believed he had the right.

JODY:  She believed that others were wrong.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Damn right I did!

ROBIN:  We can’t afford too much of that.  Certainly is a disease.

MIK:  That’s too extreme, even for your Robin.

ROBIN:  There are some things that are certain.  There are some that need to be banished, though.

JODY:  We agreed upon that, Mik.

MIK:  Yeah, yeah.  Still he was my friend.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Some friend you turned out to be.  Pushing me off Marcy Bluff to break my fucking neck.

(VERA, a blowsy, earth mother type, early 50s, swoops in.  She looks directly at SHAWN, nods.  SHAWN glares at her.)

VERA:  So.  It’s done.

JODY:  Yes,  Clearly.

VERA:  Mik, I’m sorry.  We had to.  The visions.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  You killed me because crazy Vera had visions?  Sheesh!

VERA:  Shawn’s still around us, though.

JODY:  I’m sure she’ll be with us in spirit for awhile.

VERA:  We need to send him along now.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  You ain’t sending me anywhere!

MIK:  Isn’t pushing him off the cliff enough, Vera?

VERA:  She’s dead, but his spirit is confused.  He fancied herself a hero, even though we all knew better.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Keep talking, bitch!  You didn’t know half of it.

VERA:  She’s quite angry.  But we had honorable intentions behind our actions.

ROBIN:  Indeed we did.  Are you saying Shawn’s spirit’s hearing us now?

VERA:  Yes, Robin.

ROBIN:  Vera, what would you have us do?

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Bastards can’t think I’d just leave because you snap my neck!

MIK:  This is all bullshit!

VERA:  Mik, you especially need to stay!  You need to say what’s in your heart.

MIK:  Shawn never understood that sort of thing.  This is a waste of time.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Nothing you say would change anything.  I’ll find a way to get my revenge, and you all can go fuck yourselves until then.

VERA:  We must try.

JODY:  I’m going to have to agree with Mik here.  Even if Shawn’s “still with us,” he can’t do any harm.

ROBIN:  Well, Shawn probably picked some of this stuff up from others.

JODY:  Living others.

ROBIN:  Them too.  Sure.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Robin, don’t.  That was our secret.

ROBIN:  Every town in the valley has its ghosts, it’s people who thought their way was God’s way, and the others were the highways to hell.  Hiawatha Creek isn’t any different.  Might even say Main Street’s buildings have some of that ol’ time judgment in their bricks and mortar.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Hiawatha Creek’s a good town, Robin.  Whose side you on, traitor?

VERA:  Mik, Jody, please understand.  It’s like there’s a disease.  The Algonquin Indians called it witiku.  It’s a kind of insanity infection.  Some people are born with it and some become afflicted.  It’s curable until it reaches a certain point.  We’ve seen it before.  We’ve all experienced it before.  Witikus are beyond reason and they embody all that we would eschew even as try to co-create something beyond our wildest dreams.  Shawnnie was witiku, though we don’t know when she changed or why.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Witiku, eh?  That’s soitanly diff’RENT.

MIK:  Vera, butt out.  Whatever Shawn was, let me grieve my own way.

VERA:  That’s all fine and dandy, Mik, but this is a physical, mental and spiritual social disease.  We’ve broken the physical toxin, and the mental has dissipated.  But it can and will return.  We need to address the spiritual aspect to keep a sacred container for our visions for Hiawatha Creek and the rest of the Valley to continue as we wish them to.

JODY:  Vera, you just keep losing me with all this new’ge sew’ge.

ROBIN:  Come on, you guys?  I know you feel it.  Don’t you feel that he’s still here?  Don’t get lost in rationality and abstraction here.  It’s on your skin, in your blood.  You sense the infernal insanity.

JODY:  I always feel there’s something lurking about.  If I’m not paranoid, I’m not paying attention.

ROBIN:  And Shawn’s just adding to that.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  That’s news to me.

(SHAWN’S GHOST starts moving about.  With each step:)

Oh my.  There are lots of others here.  Oh wow.  Is that?  Mr. Schuyler Meadows?  Where in blazes did you come from?  How’s it hanging, dude? 

ROBIN:  Don’t you want to at least send her to a nicer location in the astral?  I know you don’t believe in such things, but perhaps you could but humor us?

VERA:  We can help direct Shawn to the place where she can be healed.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  In a cow’s cloaca!  I don’t want to be healed.

VERA:  Even if he doesn’t like it.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Bitch you can hear me!

ROBIN (looking in SHAWN’s general  direction):  She’s not the only one.

MIK:  Who?  Who’s not the only one.

ROBIN:  Vera and I can hear her, Mik.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  You goddam—

(SHAWN’S GHOST attempts to leave, but can’t.)

MIK:  Oh shit!

JODY:  You two are full of it!

VERA:  Mik, do you believe us?

MIK:  I don’t know.

ROBIN:  Look, just say what you said before.  When we met at the foot of Tremont Bluff.  Before he came around.

JODY:  Mike, you don’t have to subject yourself to this.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Why the hell can’t I get out of here?

ROBIN (smiling to herself):  …

VERA:  A lot rides on us being able to talk this through.  For the integrity of what we’re striving for.

JODY:  Who died and made you the grand kahuna bitch, Vera?

VERA:  Jody, you’re good at biology.  You know your plants and the animals.  I know from spirit.  I also know from mental health.  We made an extreme choice, but we all agreed this was the best course of action to take.  We need to continue the work.

ROBIN:  It doesn’t stop with what we did.  Shawn can’t get away from us without our taking some more steps to point her in a direction that is to his liking.

VERA:  In any case, he knows Robin and I can hear him.  And he wants to go.

JODY:  Oh, well if he wants to go!  Mik, they sound crazy to you as much as they do me?

MIK:  Yes, but I–hell!  I hate this.

JODY:  Mik, please–

MIK:  I know, Jody.  But I sense this isn’t done.  Maybe this is what I need to do.  Get this off my chest.  Unless you’ve got some other bright ideas?

JODY:  Mik, Mik…

ROBIN:  He was your good friend.

MIK:  Hell, yes.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  You fuckin’ fool!  Shut up, shut up, shut up!

MIK:  I wish he wasn’t so damn insistent.  The country fell apart.  We ran out of oil to make things keep on going the way they’d always been, as far back as we could remember.  She always talked about how important it was the country stayed united, and he took it personally when anyone noticed things weren’t right and couldn’t be set right again.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  You’re just a loser.  Admit it, you goddam traitors.

MIK:  You guys knew not to say anything.  But when that college kid got into it with her and she cracked the kid’s head against the police station wall, I saw something wasn’t right with Shawnnie.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  That’s what we’re supposed to do with traitors.

VERA:  And all the kid did was point out how much fuel it took to maintain even a truckload of oranges from Florida to our neck of the woods on a day-to-day basis.

 

MIK:  And Shawn couldn’t hear that her fantasy couldn’t continue on its merry way.  There were signs leading up to that crack up.  The verbal threats to the local farmers selling at the markets.  The parading around of his SUV with all its Iraq stickers and Support the Troops decals.  But try and have a  real conversation with her, even about how hard it’s become to go to the grocery store because the prices are going up, or you, Jody, complaining about having to fork over all that money for dry cleaning?

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Selfish!  You call yourselves Americans.  I’m ashamed to know you.

MIK:  When he attacked that kid though. . . I could see where it was going to head and worse, I could see the other cops salivating at the chance to knock some heads too.  I asked her, “Shawn, what sort of a place do you want Hiawatha Creek to be?” And he said:

MIK AND SHAWN’S GHOST:  It all has to be in order.  Follow orders and do as you’re told.

MIK:  And I thought, “Who the hell is this?  This isn’t Shawn.  This isn’t the Shawn I know.”

SHAWN’S GHOST:  Wait–what?

MIK:  The Shawn I became friends with thought for himself.  I didn’t always agree with her, but he showed he could put some things together.  We could argue and it could even be fun.  Hell, sometimes she’d take on a point-of-view I know she didn’t agree with just to piss someone off, or to be entertaining.  But something happened along the way.

SHAWN’S GHOST:  I gave all that up because I had to evolve.  Well, no, that’s a load of crap.  Why’d I change?

VERA:  The 2000 election.  9-11.  The War.  His rent went up.  All this stuff started happening.

 

MIK:  Was it any one of those?  What was that last little bit that topped my friend into becoming a psychopath?  We’ll never know, I guess.  Some thing may have inhabited Shawn’s body, but the thing we pushed off the cliff wasn’t much Shawn anymore.  Not to me.

(Spotlight on SHAWN’S GHOST)

SHAWN’S GHOST:  I guess it started out slowly.  This feeling I was slowly but surely leaving the planet.  It was already in full mode by the 20004 election.  I really wasn’t even here during that Katrina affair.  Really, this country broke my heart, and I guess that was what really killed my spirit.  I couldn’t believe it, what was happening around me, what had been happening for decades even.  Well before I was born.  Being on the other side–I see that now, I see that the ties that united the states don’t exist in fevered imaginations and I knew it.  I knew it.  But I couldn’t accept it, wouldn’t allow anyone else to either.  Then the rest of the world happened.  The dollar became useless because they couldn’t take our drumming up another war.  The body that spoke with the name Shawn Donegal O’Malley said all sorts of crazy things.  But I’d shuffled out of that body completely once NOLA went under.  Being here on the other side now completely, I see there are millions like me.  People who have become hollowed out by fear, so that we can become the cannon fodder these brilliant minds would request to die in yet another conflict.  We didn’t really need a lot–just our crappy nonfoods and some booze, Doritos, Snickers bars, donuts and J.D.  Hey!  Now we’re good to go, right?  China pulled the plug and the whole thing went kerflooey.  It had really been over long before, probably way back in 1981 for all I know.  When I was what, 10?  But I was slow to wake up to it.  Hell, Mik pushed the body of the cliff before the zombie Shawn could do any real damage.  I see some places — really most places right now–where the unoccupied bodies that had vacated to be used as war kindling are winning.  The witiku just overrun others until someone kills them.  I see it now.  They did have to kill that body I gave up.  Not that the me-I-was minded.  Oh, the me-I-had-become was furious, but that wasn’t me.  Mik was right to recognize I’d checked out, that life lobotomized my bright spirit and a creeping deadness stepped into the vacuum.  This isn’t a political thing, not left or right, man or woman, radical/liberal/moderate/ conservative/reactionary thing.  This happens to any and every possible type person.  It’s easy to watch your heart get broken again and again and again until you become someone who years to take a lot of people out.  Like college kids who gripe about the world we’re leaving them to salvage or friends who get sour faces at having to pay good money to buy uniforms for jobs they don’t really want.  Even if they are smartasses, do they deserve skull fractures?  I suppose now I’ll be reincarnated as one of those poor kids who get this world I’ve helped to leave behind.  Guess that’d serve me right.  Heh.  Maybe that’s the life where I’ll get to shine?  Who the hell knows?

(SHAWN’S GHOST exits.)

MIK:  I remember the fun Shawn.

VERA:  I remember the Shawn who listened well.

ROBIN:  I remember a sexy-sassy Shawn.

JODY:  I still think you’re wasting time here, but I had hopes for Shawn pulling through.  Returning to the world of the vibrant and the loving.

VERA:  Of course you did.

ROBIN:  I think she knows we miss him.

MIK:  I’ve missed you for a long time, Shawn.

VERA:  So have all of us.

JODY:  There was a moment that I — well– it was during that awful summer of 2005.

MIK:  When Old Man Farley finally evicted her ass?

JODY:  Yeah, that whole fiasco.  I could tell she really wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t let himself.  He was standing on the corner of Main and Longfellow and he was staring at the newspaper vending machine, point her finger at it.  Like, “How dare they?”

ROBIN:  How dare who?

JODY:  I don’t know.  Maybe how dare the Gazette report on the displaced families that moved up here that summer.

MIK:  That was such a hard time.  For all of us.

JODY:  I don’t know.  She seemed particularly broken that day.

ROBIN:  Well.  For me, Katrina was the awakening that we were all on our own.  We could go through all the formalities of participating in the dumb lives we led.  Getting out of bed at 4 a.m. and schlepping down to Albany for jobs we hated.  Shopping for clothes we could wear to work.  Groceries and bills and laundry and taxes.  Whatever, it was all a waste because at the end of the day, we’ll still have no one but ourselves to turn to anyways.

VERA:  That’s what they’ve been afraid of all along, the Empire Builders.  That we’d wake up to the fact that we really only have the people in our neighborhoods and villages to rely on, that it’s Hiawatha Falls folk who will get our backs and whose security we’ll maintain.  We’re not on our own, never have been, but we’ve believed the strange melodies of the stirring war anthems.  By the way, Shawn’s gone now. 

MIK:  You know I felt something shift.

JODY:  Me too.  Though it was probably just a breeze or something.

ROBIN:  It’s your opinion, Jody.  And you’re welcome to it.

MIK:  I wonder though.  Will this witiku stuff come back?  There are those nuts out there, I just know it.  Looking for people to kill.

VERA:  One thing at a time, Mik.  Now we’ve got our own kind of Eden to create with the mountains, the lakes and the rivers.  We’re lucky up here.  Time to devoke.

(She opens the door and takes in a breath of fresh air.  Sounds of nature.)

Get a whiff of that, would you?  Glorious air!  Stay if you must, go if you will.  Hail and farewell.

MIK:  Feel that blazing sun beating down on us all, giving us life.  We send you blessing.  Hail and farewell.

ROBIN:  And see Lake Sacakawea over there.  Shimmering water.  Glorious liquid, hail and farewell.

JODY:  The rich earth.  Hear the finches and the mourning doves.  Swoop in and out to your hearts content.

VERA:  We thank the spirits, and we thank Jesus and Cerridwen who sent our Shawn on his way.  And we remember you Shawn, and who you had wanted to become.  Bless you and may the gods keep you and guide you to your next assignment.  Hail and farewell.  One and all.

ALL  Hail and Farewell.  Blesséd be.

                             END OF PLAY

 

Writer’s Identity Crisis

My initial intention with this blog was to post my dramatic works here. Well. I’ve not been writing much these days.  I show up to the page, open up my journal to the virginal blank sheet, and wait….

Then I pack up the journal in the bag and go back to the office.

The only times of late I’ve started something I stopped mid-way through because I realized they came from an old place of reactive anger.  The things I’ve scribed from that state just don’t interest me.  I don’t think they’d interest too many people, save for a few propagandists at a certain level of maturity that I touch into only when I get into that unsatisfying space.

So, I’ve decided to take the radical step of not carrying my journal with me.  It’s not an easy choice, but it feels so right. So right for right now.

My creative energies get dragged down by carrying the journal with me.  All the recriminating thoughts about not writing.  All the awarenesses that this may not be the time, that this is a time for a different focus, a different sort of attention put forth into the material plane that is hands-on and direct, rather than mediated through words. 

Even my words need to be in assistance to making manifest right now, and the words I write are empty of that–at least they are at present.  Except when I’m communicating directly and honestly about this.

“What kind of witch am I?” is a question I constantly ask myself, moreso during this Samhain holiday time.  Honestly, I couldn’t tell you at this point.  The kind of witch I am is a caterpillar spinning a chrysalis so that he will transform into the butterfly-peacock rainbow of the Best and Brightest Self Shining/Darking Forth.  And it’s conceivable that theater will be but a bit player in that transformation.  Have no idea of knowing, but now is a time that I must trust my Godself to bring down the needed and most fulfilling substances/materials/insights/plans of action, etc. that will further my potency in manifesting all that I need and desire, all the pleasure I can bear and the clean and pure energy required for health, prosperity and wholeness.

So mote it be.

In any case, I have to refigure what this blog will be for right now.  A work in progress as well.

Ambition Anonymous

CAST OF CHARACTERS

 

MARIA:                  A hapless lesbian playwright whose work sits in her drawers.  Struggling to transform her bitterness into something else.

IRENE:                  A young writer who’s about to hit the big time.  A bit ruthless.

The action takes place in the lobby of Playwrights Ensemble Theater Workshop.

 

SETTING AND AT RISE:         The lobby to the offices of Playwrights Ensemble Theatre Workshop.  Posters of plays by ‘70s playwrights (Durang, Fornes, Shepard, Mamet, etc.) proudly displayed on the walls.  MARIA, an overweight lesbian woman approaching 40, sits at a table flipping through a copy of U.S. Theatre Today.  She wears a t-shirt that reads “The More One Judges The Less One Loves.”  A battered backpack sits on the ground nearby.  She cringes a lot, shakes her head, makes audible noises of discontent.  She checks her watch, chuckles to herself.  Shakes her head.  Sighs.

MARIA:  Why do I do this to myself?  These are not my people.  I can never –

(MARIA tries to force herself to read on, as IRENE, a smartly dressed woman not yet 30 enters.  She’s all business.)

IRENE:  Well, keeping up with the trends I see.

MARIA:  Ah, yes.  I do need to keep up with how the mainstream is doing.

IRENE:  Interesting t-shirt.

MARIA:  What?  This old thing?

IRENE:  You’re not – never mind.

MARIA:  Yeah, so.  Thank you for agreeing to do this interview.[

IRENE:  Anything I can do to help out, Maria.

MARIA:  This really will help, Irene.  I just can’t stand my B-job anymore, and I need to break into something else.  My editor is the one who suggested I interview you.

IRENE:  Oh?  You didn’t think of this on your own?  Shame on you!

MARIA:  Now, now.  I actually wanted to write about the decline of emotional connection with regional and commercial theater in America in this era of creeping fascism, but I guess that sort of activist approach ruffled Sandrin’s ostrich feathers.

IRENE:  Ah.  I see.

MARIA:  You look well.

IRENE:  Thanks.  It’s Caroline Herrera. 

MARIA:  All ready to hit the big time, you are.

IRENE:  Oh, yes.  But don’t be jealous.

MARIA:  Envious.

IRENE:  That too.

MARIA:  No, you meant envious.  You would be jealous of Ibrahim if someone looked at him.  Or if he tried to leave you.

IRENE:  Oh, you heard about that?

MARIA:  I did some research.  Nice write up in the L.A. Times.

IRENE:  Oh, I don’t believe my press.

MARIA:  Still that bright smile shows it pleased you.  Envy is what you’re hoping I feel?

IRENE:  Of course not!  Maria!

MARIA:  You’re the one who brought it up.

IRENE:  I see what you’re doing.  Go on, then.  Correct me, if you must.  That’s what Jonah came to expect from you.

MARIA:  How is the old cunt?

IRENE:  Maria!  Are you seeing anyone right now?

MARIA:  Working on a couple of prospects.  You know, why don’t we just get on with the interview, shall we?

IRENE:  Fine by me.  By the way, what is your “B-job” is that what you called it?

MARIA:  I work for a law firm on the graveyard shift.

IRENE:  I take it you’re not lawyering.

MARIA:  Oh, God, no!  Word Processing.  Well, you’ve had some amazing successes and that interesting failure to your credit.  Not even age 28 yet.

IRENE:  Actually, I turned 28 three weeks ago.

MARIA:  Well, you’re not yet 30.  That’s what seems to be of most interest here.

IRENE:  You weren’t planning on stressing The EKG Hypothesis were you?

MARIA:  Stressing it?  No more so than—

IRENE:  Or mention it, even?

MARIA:  You want me to leave that out?

IRENE:  If you plan on saying anything about that mess, I’ll get up ad leave right now.

MARIA:  You have some strong feelings about it.  OK, OK, I won’t mention it.

IRENE:  How could you bring that up?  You know I got slammed for that one.

MARIA:  I know.

IRENE:  I have to think of my image.  I have to protect myself.

MARIA:  And that image is?

IRENE:  I knew you’d see it my way.  I can make this really easy.

(She reaches into her briefcase and pulls out a document.)

MARIA:  Ah, is this more press?

IRENE:  It’s your article, actually.

MARIA:  I don’t understand.  I haven’t even –

IRENE:  Take a look at it.

(MARIA starts to glance at the first page, winces, glazes over.)

Of course you can edit this at random, for space considerations and everything.

MARIA:  Ha ha.

IRENE:  I’ve even indicated possible cuts on pages –

MARIA:  What happened to you?

IRENE:  Look, don’t change the subject.

MARIA:  I haven’t, I assure you.

IRENE:  If you’d just read it.

MARIA:  I’ll do no such thing.

(MARIA hands it back to IRENE.)

IRENE:  Maria, be reasonable.  At least read it.

MARIA:  No.

IRENE:  Oh, don’t give me that whole thing about standards and ethics.  Not from you, I don’t need that.  Oh, what?  Did I offend you?

MARIA:  I’m quite sincerely baffled at all this.

IRENE:  OK, I’ll cut to the chase.  I know you’re a mediocre writer.  You showed that to everyone at Big Apple U.  It was clear to everyone that you were the wait-listed writer there.  I heard you couldn’t even get in to Columbia or NYU, and you didn’t even try to apply to Yale, did you?  Am I offending you, yet?  Fine.  I don’t need to remind you that when we were at National, you failed to receive a production of one of your plays, you weren’t a G.A., you received zero honors.  Zero.  I did my research too, though there’s nothing to research.  You were a drain on Big Apple’s resources.

MARIA:  Go on.

IRENE:  This is really a gift I’m presenting you.  It’s well-written—

MARIA:  You wrote it yourself, no doubt.

IRENE:  Of course.  You can pass it off as yours, you get the praise, I keep hold of my precious image.  Everybody’s happy.  So.

MARIA:  Hm.

IRENE:  This is really the best way to go.

MARIA:  I’m sure you see it that way.

IRENE:  May I remind you, you’re the one wearing that t-shirt, not me.

(The sound of a ticking clock seems to get louder.  Perhaps it’s IRENE’s fabulous Cartier watch.  10 ticks.  20 ticks.  30 ticks.  40.  Finally at 44:)

Say something.

MARIA:  Nancy Josephson.

IRENE:  What about that talentless hack.

MARIA:  I’d expect this kind of treatment from her.  What happened to you?

IRENE:  You’re comparing me to that lush?

MARIA:  If I am, it’s only as an illustration.  So tell me.  What happened to you?

IRENE:  I don’t believe — just take a look at my—

MARIA:  I’m not going to read your self-inflicted hagiography.  Take it back and burn it.  What happened?

IRENE:  Look, if you don’t take this and read it—

MARIA:  What, the interview’s over?  Fine, go steam off in a huff if that’s what you have to do.  In any case I’ve got something to write about.

IRENE:  You’ve got crap.

MARIA:  You give me shit, I’ll mold it into a Milky Way.  I know Sandrin really wants a puff piece, but I’m sure he’d be just as satisfied with a record of what you’re trying to do here.

IRENE:  I know that’s a bunch of hot air.

MARIA:  Oh, you do, do you?  So go.  Take your chances.

IRENE:  If you write something negative about me, it’ll come back to haunt you.  Stop looking at me like that.  You know it will, because I’m young, I’m fresh.  You don’t have that many opportunities left, you—  Just stop looking at me like that.

(MARIA takes out her pen, tears off a piece of paper from her tablet, writes something on it and hands it to IRENE.  IRENE reads it, sneers.)

What the hell?  Turning into some wise guy, you are.

MARIA:  You’ve already written it.  All you have to do is put it in an envelope, enclose a check with it and meet that whore to negotiate the right price.  None of those Republicans come cheap, though.  Be warned.

IRENE:  That supposed to shame me?

MARIA:  I don’t know.  Was this whole drama to shame me?

IRENE:  I was only trying to help.

MARIA:  God, someone did a number on you all right.

IRENE:  Like I’d say anything to you.

MARIA:  I can understand if you don’t trust me.  But you should know what it is I see here—

IRENE:  Why don’t you take your own t-shirt’s advice and shut the hell up?

MARIA:  I wear this t-shirt for myself, I’ll have you know.  That’s what I try to do all the time, and I’ll factor it in to what I am going to say here.  Thanks for reminding me.  You’re a talented writer.  I remember you in Sam’s class and then in John’s.  I thought if there’s anyone in this fucking Big Apple University Playwriting and Screenwriting Program who I want to write like it was you and queer David.

IRENE:  He’s in television now.

MARIA:  And hating every minute of it from what I hear.  Money’s good, but there’s more to life.  I though, yeah, Irene Wells’s talented, but.

IRENE:  But?  Here it comes.

MARIA:  Remember what you said about Chekhov?

IRENE:  He’s a divine fucking writer.

MARIA:  Of course.  I meant Chekhov the person.

IRENE:  That he cared about his patients?  I don’t—

MARIA:  You said, and I quote “You could tell he was a player, all right.  He knew how to make it happen.”

IRENE:  I never said that!  And even if I did, what does it prove?  What if he was?

MARIA:  I’m not disputing whether Chekhov could massage a situation to his benefit.  But you know what, Irene?  I started to worry about you at that moment.  You’re so talented, yes.  But Irene, you’re so young!

IRENE:  That’s to my advantage.  I know how the world works.

MARIA:  Oh, the world, sure, no doubt.  No doubt about that, Irene.  Nosiree.

IRENE:  So?

MARIA:  It’s plain as day.  You’re not happy.

IRENE:  Fuck you, Maria!  Who the hell is happy?

MARIA:  I’m happier than you are.

IRENE:  You?  Don’t make me laugh.  You work at a B-job you’re trying to get out of, you’re languishing in obscurity.  My plays are being done in Florida, Seattle, Chicago.

MARIA:  L.A.  Denver.  Good for you.

IRENE:  And you can’t say the same, can you?

MARIA:  You know the record as well as I do.

IRENE:  Why are you fucking smiling?

MARIA:  I’m happy.

IRENE:  Fuck you, you are not!

MARIA:  So tell me.  Plays are being done across the country with the byline “Irene Wells.”  How’d that come to be?

IRENE:  Because I’m talented.

MARIA:  Yeah, and?  Nancy Josephson’s plays are being done across the country as well.  She talented?  If not, what do you have in common?

IRENE:  I wouldn’t even attempt to guess, though I suppose you have some ideas.

MARIA:  Or maybe Chekhov does, were he alive to speak.

IRENE:  Oh, Ok.  I see.  Well, my bitter little dyke friend, I can see where this is going.

MARIA:  Do you now?

IRENE:  So Chekhov was a player.  So am I, right?  That what you want me to say, that it takes one to know one?  Fine.  Maybe you’re right, so what would you know about it?  Your problem, Maria, is that you don’t fight hard enough.  I’ve had to push my way through — you think this was effortless?  I’ve had to kick and scream and rip a hole out of the curtain to climb through to the stage.  You tired of waiting offstage for a cue that never comes?  Huh?  “And now, let’s hear from the voice of fat-dyke theatre.  Maria Brunnen!”  It doesn’t work that way.  I work it, I play, all right.  That’s what I have to do!  That’s what I fuckin’ know.  That’s the difference between you and me.  I am on the way to becoming a famous writer.  You’re on the road to nowhere.  That’s what’s really happening.

(MARIA looks at her t-shirt and looks at IRENE.  Smiles.)

Oh, ha ha ha.  I’m judging you, is that it?  I admit it.  Christ, almighty!

MARIA:  Good, Irene.  You’re on your way.  “Admit.”  Interesting word.  Know what it means?

IRENE:  You trying to insult me?

MARIA:  No, not at all.  Sometimes a word we use all the time has a surprise for us, if we are open to it.  Come on.  When you admit someone to a play of yours, what are you doing?

IRENE:  Letting them in.  Oh.  I’m letting it in that I’m judging you.  Yeah, right.

MARIA:  And in the process, you’re allowing it in that you’re afraid.  Because, Irene, judgment is like the adjustment knob between fear and love.  You’re opening up to the understanding that the knob of judgment is tilted toward the fear side.  More judgment, more fear.  I tell you, Irene, I debated about wearing this t-shirt today.  But I dreamt this.  Meeting you in this t-shirt and you, well.  I’m embarrassed to say.  You were wearing a wedding gown.

IRENE
(aghast)

You – there’s no hope of ever –

MARIA:  Relax!  I took it as a sign.  And I see now I had to do it.  This was the right choice.  It was a good reminder.  Hold the wrath of tongue and pen, though I’ll open up to it that I wasn’t perfect here.  And yes, you did hit upon some truths a couple of times.  I am happy for you, really.  And I do wonder what about me, you know?  What about me?  I have to go a different way than you.  Maybe it’s because I’m lesbian, or because I’m 37, or that I’m overweight.  All of those, none of them, who knows?  Maybe it’s because there’s something wrong in America that can’t allow me to have recognition.  Maybe it’s just not the Gods’ will.  I’m not a fighter, not like you.  It’s true.  I want a life that’s spacious.  It’s not the life you’re living now, is it?

IRENE:  What, I travel. 

(MARIA stops and laughs.  It turns into a big belly laugh.)

That wasn’t meant to be funny.

MARIA:  This is what I can do for you.  There’s this other person I work with.  He’s more desperate than me — wife, kids, whole nine yards.  I’ll hand this to him, and take myself off the story.

IRENE:  Sandrin said you were desperate for this though.

MARIA:  Oh, so the Cunt was in on it.

IRENE:  I shouldn’t have let that slip.  Is everyone you don’t like a cunt to you?

MARIA:  No.  Just the men.  I figured as much.  Maybe you should float it past him that I’m doing this, so he’s not blind-sided.  I know how cunt-rolling he is.  Get it?  Cunt-rolling?

IRENE:  Ha ha.  You think you’re better than me.

MARIA:  Not at all, Irene.  You’re 28.  That’s all.  You don’t even know what’s what yet.  You only know what you know of the world, and that’s not much.

IRENE:  Oh, like you’re the fountain of all wisdom.

MARIA:  Only nine years older than you.  Thank Demeter I don’t have to be 28 again, though.  Goddess bless.

IRENE:  Got any more corny Hallmark Card wisdom for me, O Mighty Chubby Isis?

MARIA:  O Mighty Chubby Isis!  Mind if I steal that?  Jeez, if you only knew.  Well, I have one thing—

IRENE:  Well, don’t keep me in suspense.

MARIA:  Let it begin with you.

IRENE:  Let what begin with me?

MARIA:  A ha!  A mission!  What is “it” O Grasshopper?

IRENE:  Well what is it?  No, really.  Oh, is this some kind of sick joke, then?  This how you get your jollies?

MARIA:  Off-the-record, I did have one question.  I notice that alcohol and drugs are a part of a lot of your plays.

IRENE:  I don’t have a problem.

MARIA:  Did your parents drink?

IRENE:  Why are you asking me that?  How can you? How dare you?

MARIA:  We’re not so different after all.  That explains the gown then.  Hm.

IRENE:  I can’t believe you!  You of all people!  You’re no Jerry Springer.  Not even Oprah.

MARIA:  I wouldn’t know the difference.  Interesting world we live in, isn’t it?  Trash TV, Reality programming, biopics of teenage media stars.  Tell you one thing, though.  I practice certain principles in all my affairs.  It’s in confidence.

IRENE:  I’ve heard that before.  Where have I heard that?

MARIA:  I’ll tell you something.  Follow that lead, Irene.  You’ll figure me all out.  So, I’ll take this to my colleague.  His name’s Mack de Assis.  He’ll call you, just so that he can say “you talked.”  Deal?

IRENE:  Yeah, sure, whatever.

(MARIA gets up to leave.)

Maria, I — uh—

MARIA:  Yeah?

IRENE:  You still writing?  Plays or filmscripts, I mean?

MARIA:  Am I still writing my mediocre, self-obsessed, progressive, lesbian crap?  Youbetcha I am.  Someone’s got to document the fear and misery limited liability partnership called U.S.A. Right?

IRENE:  That what’s beginning with you?

MARIA:  Maybe.  Might be what ends with me.  Who knows.  Be good.

(MARIA exits.)

IRENE:  Practice certain principles in all my affairs…

(IRENE pulls out a cell phone, dials a number.)

Hello, Mom.  How’s it going?  Lloyd and Mae are there, huh.  OK, I won’t take up too much of your time.  Look, is Henry there?  Oh, well, when he gets back from the meeting could you have him call me?  Thanks.  Have fun. Bye.

(Closes cell phone.)

He’s always in a damn meeting.  Don’t those recovered drunks have a life?

Monologue: Seepage

SETTING:  A big open space with books lining the walls, not unlike a generic chain bookstore that can be found in major cities across the United States.  Offstage, we hear some applause followed by an announcer saying “Please join us for a reception in our Cookbook Section.”  BARCLAY BREAKER-BANK, P.C. enters, holding a martini and smoking a candy cigarette.  He wears a trendy black jacket and trendy shades.  BARCLAY is a shell of his former shell.  He sees the audience.  To him we are all, each one of us a group “prospect.”

BARCLAY

That Samantha.  Brilliant, don’t you think?  She knows how to sell a book.  I can tell she works out.  She’s paid her dues!  And she works the lesbian thing really well.  She doesn’t at all look dykey, more like the squeaky clean supergirl next door, right?  I’d love to meet her manager.

The way I figure it, you can’t make a move first without consulting the market.  Every action you take, there should be a demographic to support it. I have to define my market share first.  That’s the best way to limit my universe, so I know how to proceed.  I am going to create a work of something or other.  Is it a screenplay or a novel or an ad campaign?  Doesn’t matter, it’s all going to be an ad campaign no matter how you crease it.  If it’s a book–and there will be a book, I don’t care if it ends up being a punk rock baking book you know what I mean?–how am I going to position it so that Barnes & Noble and Borders will not only be glad to distribute it, but they’ll pull out their boners and wave them at me?

That’s always where it comes back to.  Big Bucks Bishop Beating, know what I’m saying, bud?  By the way, I’m Barclay Breaker-Bank, P.C.  Isn’t that cool?  P.C.?  Stands for “Personal Corporation.”  I’m my own corporate entity.  Me, Inc.!  Actually, when my parents named me, it didn’t include the Breaker part.  My parents expect a lot out of me.   But I ran into a trademark problem, you know?  If I’m going to be a P.C., I can’t very well be called Barclay Bank.  Especially if I’m going to be involved in publishing.  The Breaker part is my own.  Sort of like a confirmation name, only not.

And mark my words, I will be to the arts what Barclay Bank is to them now.  I’m going to be big boner, bud.  No offense.  As I was saying, how can I get my book into a place like this?  Sure, at some point, I’ll have to worry about authenticity, originality and substance–crap like that.  If I go a certain route.  But first things first!  I’ve got so much work to do before I even get to Chapter One.  I’ve got to do my market analysis and figure out a game plan of distribution.  It takes a lot to plan a career!  You know, it’s funny how easy it is to get off track.  I have this friend Chuck.  He’s a goofer.  All my friends rag on him.  Famous for putting the Sabrett’s cart before the horse–all those hot dogs he eats!  I keep trying to tell him how bad they are for you, but does he listen to me?  Chuck’s been working on a novel for three years!  That’s one thousand ninety six days between you and me, and COUNTING!  He hasn’t even thought about the jacket cover!  Can you believe it?  I mean, Chuck!  Get a grip, first things first!

And Chuck’s going to have to get a gym membership before he takes himself anywhere!  The days of the hermited writer spewing forth his wisdom and stacking up page after page, sending his precious words anonymously to a publishing house where an editor will be bowled over by his vision–what a load of fantasyland tripe!  Let’s face it!  I mean, look at the so-called Lost Generation.  My god, not an ugly hippo among them.  Dorothy Parker may have been a little on the plain side, but those eyes, that come hither stare.  And F. Scott and Ernest and Sinclair, they were handsome dudes.  Handpicked by the powers-that-be at the time.  Handsome guys sell books.

Like me.  Take my jacket cover.  I know how to bow and pose for the camera.  My book jacket is going to be hot.  I picture Herb or Helmut taking my picture.  I thought I’d pose nude, you know?  I’ve got a great body for a book jacket spread, you know?  My gay friends tell me I’d be a great hit at G.  That’s a Chelsea thing?  Those Chelsea boys know a big boner to be when they see one, let me tell you.  John, Kevin, Richard.  We know how they got their start.  My idea though was that I want to invite people to read the book.  Even if it does become an investment guide–hell, I’ve got to stand out.  I’ve got to give a prospect a reason to pick up my book.  What’s better than a book jacket with a hunky naked guy on it who gets a hard-on when you open it?  I hope it’s not cost-prohibitive to build a pop up erection into the spine of the book jacket.  But think of the return on investment!  I want a book that screams “Open me, and you’ll see how glad I am to see you!”  Everyone wants to feel that special attention from a well-known, well-regarded, not to mention well-endowed writer.

So.  To work, you know?  I figure that I should market this book to people in their thirties.  The professional class.  A lot of men and women in their early thirties have money.  Live in the suburbs.  Irvine, Cos Cob, Cobb County.  My book is will have a lot of characters that people in those places can look down their noses at.  Junkies and prostitutes.  Legal Secretaries.  I’ve been watching my gay friends.  I’m taking notes.  I’ve met some college-grad minority types too, with that politically correct thang going on.  Can’t get dates, the whole lot of them.  Oh, and just to show I’m sincere, I thought I’d include some working class angst.  Work through some of my own rage, while I’m at it.  But this is the nineties–everyone wants to forget their roots.

So the demographically perfect hero would be a guy in his early twenties, who wears a leather jacket and listens to the Smashing Pumpkins and he shops at the Gap and when he gets some extra cash, Emporio Armani, and he hangs out at Starbucks and stands in line at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Now, if he got in right away, people would think he was like a mucky-muck.  But if he didn’t get in, people would think he was a loser.  So he always gets in.  He does poetry readings and has his own rock band on the side called Spooge.  By days, he works in the mail room at an advertising agency.  And the whole book is about his meteoric rise to the top of all those fields.  Advertising, poetry and rock music.  Advertising!  And the title, you’ll love this: 

“SPANDEX, SPONDEES AND SPOOGE.”  Like it?  I think it has a nice rhythm to it.  You know a good thing when you see it, don’t you?  I’ll have to add you to my rolodex and notify you when we make the Initial Public Offering.

Do you know the name of Samantha’s manager?  I tell you, this crowd, the smells, the clash and burn of colognes that go with the territory of working the room.  This is the life for me!  I love it!  And those MBA students from Stern with their briefcases, nice touch.  I can already pick out which ones are going to be the A&R reps of the future.  That guy in the horn-rimmed glasses in the Henry Rollins T-shirt?  He’ll be the one to take my concept and turn it into a soundtrack.  Who needs movies, if I can get the king of rock in my back pocket?  Though if it does get to be a movie thing, and there’s the Hollywood premiere with the red carpet and the champagne spritzers and the pop-pop-pop of the Paparazzi, Rollins is the dude to play Mr. Leather Jacket Advertising.  Totally him.  And if they got QT or Spike to direct, all the better.  I’ll handle the product placement.  Once we get this whole project to Miramax and Nike and Blockbuster, I’m the best guy for the job.  You gotta have a global vision like I do.

Can you keep a secret?  I’m gettin’ a hardon just thinking about all this glamor.  I can really shovel it, can’t I?  But we like that.  We do like that.  Now.  Once I get that part of the work out of the way, my next task will be to see who I know at Miramax and Nike and Blockbuster.  Or Viacom.  Lots of ways I can go.  Hell, maybe I can ask my supervisor at O&M if she knows anyone I could pitch it to.  Because if you’re not a pitcher, no one’s gonna catch your drift.  If I can’t come up with a thirty second conversational plug, then what good am I?  I could have written fuckin’ Crime and Punishment and no one would care.  Hell, if I was Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the first thing I’d do is change my name.  That’s a mouthful!  I’d become Peter Stover.  You know, that sounds like a good old New England name.  Just the kind of name you’d want to see with a title like Crime and Punishment.  Though that’s a little downtrodden.  And it doesn’t have a happy ending.  See, he’d be terrible trying to pitch that idea.  I’d scrap it.  If only he had Barclay Breaker-Bank to ask back then. 

I’m going to be famous.  So famous I’ll be able to have other people write my books once I get the formula down.  I won’t go through all the effort that Stephen King goes through.  I mean, come on, Stephen?  It’s the same plot in every thing.  Why do all that work, why not get some college student to write it all down?  Joe Literary would be so excited to have a gig like that, he’d probably freshen up your mustiness.  If only they’d ask me.  I know the right thing to do.

Like with Chuck.  Stupid guy, this is why he should really do a demographic analysis.  He’s a fat faggot from Fresno.  The Land that time forgot.  Here this guy is, and he’s got like an MIA or an MFA from Columbia–that’s a country in South America, right?  Well, Chuck is writing this novel for three years.  That’s Twenty-six Thousand Seven Hundred and Four hours–I’m sure he didn’t spend that much time actually writing it–but still, three years, that’s a lot of legwork time he’s wasted, trying to get it right.  You’ve got to be able to pump it out quickly!  And to top it all off, it’s a novel about a crush he had on a swimmer when he was in high school.  And it’s not even a female swimmer!  Goodbye Porky’s potential there.  I’m sure it’s some ponderous fag nonsense about unrequited homo love.  Not that I would read something like that.

You know he’s never let me read it.  I guess that’s wise, because I would turn him down anyway.  I have too much to do with my own career.  Good God, talk about a suicidal swan dive into publishing contract concrete!  All I can say is he better at least find a good title, because I doubt that anyone even at a no-name publisher like Scribner’s or Yale would even look twice at earnest tripe like that.  I can even see a Marketing Exec at Simon & Schuster looking at Chuck’s synopsis.  One-Mister Grisham, Two-Mister-Grisham, three-mister-Grisham and into the round file.  If Chuck would listen to me, he’d have the cocktail party mindset down.  He’d be doing two sets of thirty crunches twice a day.  I’d send him to a charm school, because he’s a fool if he thinks he can be a tender poetic soul.  Writers have always had to be sharks.  And another thing, I’d have Chuck working at the right company, you know–at least temping at law firms.  My God, I wonder–do you think I should get a JD?  Maybe that’s what my writing career needs.  I’m going to have to look into taking the LSAT before testing out my marketing plan.  Because once I write the marketing plan and get the IPO and go public, the book will write itself. 

I know these things will work.

One-Act Play: Timberline

CAST OF CHARACTERS

 

ERIN:         24, white gal. Pregnant, out-of-wedlock. A bit shell-shocked by life.

LARS:         24, Hispanic. Gay. Enjoys things when they’re relaxed and easygoing.

OCTAVIO:      25, Nordic. Gay. The Stud.

The action takes place in a park playground in Denver on a hot September day.

 

SETTING AND AT RISE:         A playground, early afternoon on a late, late summer day.  ERIN ROSE sits on top of a geodesic jungle gym.  She wears a black T-shirt dress over a white T.  Carries a black handbag.  LARS MAGNUSON stands in front of a sandbox.  He looks off in the distance at an ongoing basketball game.  He is Hispanic, has a mustache, wears beige chinos, a brown plaid shirt, flip-flops.

ERIN He decided against it. He doesn’t let me do anything. He can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. He’s a poltroon. An asswipe. A scrotumless prick. He won’t let me do anything.

LARS What’s he…? Aye… The ball goes up… No!  IN!  IN! Through! Two points!  Nice one!  Nice…

 

ERIN:  Lars…  Lars Magnuson … Luis Ricardo Martinez Machado y Jimenez…

LARS:  I thought I told you never to call me that again.

ERIN:  Interesting?

LARS:  Yeah… Well… You know me…

ERIN:  Only too well…

LARS:  What’s that supposed to mean?

(PAUSE.  ERIN climbs off the jungle gym.  LARS climbs to the top of the jungle gym to get a better vantage point on the ball game.)

ERIN:  Do you think I should go through with it?

LARS:  What does James VI have to say about it?

ERIN:  Lars…!

LARS:  Erin?

ERIN:  You haven’t been listening to me.

LARS:  Well…

ERIN:  He decided against it.

LARS:  Oh.

ERIN:  Yes… Now.  The subject.  What do you–

LARS:  HE DECIDED AGAINST IT?!?

ERIN:  Yeah, Lars–

LARS:  The nerve of him!  Who does he think he is?  The Pope?  Somebody oughta bash that insensitive breeder’s ass but good.

ERIN:  I won’t have you talking about him like that.  I happen to like the little shit in spite of everything.

LARS:  Yeah, well… Yeah?  Huh.  Whatever.

ERIN:  He doesn’t have to give me any money.  He doesn’t have to give me anything.

LARS:  He’s responsible.  He should.

ERIN:  I’m responsible too, Lars.

LARS:  Yeah.  Okay.

ERIN:  He’s kinda short right now.

LARS:  It’s congenital.

ERIN:  Hey!  It’s my baby.  I’ll take care of her. Him.  It. Whatever. What-the-fuck-ever.

LARS:  Well, I’m here if you need me, when-the-fuck-ever.

(ERIN climbs the gym, watches game.)

ERIN:  Hey!  He’s cute!

LARS:  Yeah…

ERIN:  The one in the gold shorts?

LARS:  Oh yeah.  Him, too… God…

ERIN:  Think any of them will ‘mo your lawn?

LARS:  Nah.  See the cheerleaders around them?  Girlfriends.

ERIN:  True. But…

LARS:  But?

ERIN:  Could be drag queens.

LARS:  Get outta here.

ERIN:  Could be camouflage.  Like in school.

LARS:  Not that long ago… Yeah…  One never knows.

ERIN:  The one with no shirt on has a nice chest.

LARS:  Which?  The one with the blue sneakers?

ERIN:  You can see the color of his tennis shoes from here?

LARS:  Blue Nikes, nylon.  $49.95 at the Foot Locker.

ERIN:  You’re into feet!

LARS:  What?

ERIN:  You wear coral bandanas to the Triangle on Saturday nights, don’t you Silverheels?

LARS:  Bite your tongue.  I’ve told you what I like.

ERIN:  Yes.

LARS:  What I do.

ERIN:  Uh huh.

LARS:  What I like to do.

ERIN:  Yes, Lars.  Many, many times.

LARS:  He looks like Haakon.

ERIN:  Who’s Haakon?

(PAUSE. ERIN sighs deeply.)

LARS:  Is there anything I can do now to help?

ERIN:  No… Well…

LARS:  What?

ERIN:  I don’t know if you’d consent to…

LARS:  Probably not, but try me anyway.  I like to be asked for my consent.

ERIN:  Giving me a foot massage? Since you’re into feet.

LARS:  This will solve problems?

ERIN:  Fershur, Marge!  My feet are killing me.

LARS:  Oh, I don’t know.  I don’t feel right.

ERIN:  Wait.  Let me guess.  “I have a headache,” she said.

LARS:  Close… I have allergies.

ERIN:  And thus?

LARS:  I might sneeze all over you.  Mold.

ERIN:  Ooh!  I’ll take my chances!

LARS:  OK.  It’s your grave.

(LARS climbs off the gym, helps ERIN down.  They cross to sandbox and sit.  LARS takes off ERIN’s shoes.)

I’ve never done this before.

ERIN:  I take it nice and slow.

LARS:  Oh, please! I’m not exactly a podophile, you know.

ERIN:  Oh, stop…!

LARS:  You know who you remind me of?

ERIN:  Who?  Cybill Shepherd? Marilyn Monroe?

LARS:  Madonna.

(ERIN kicks sand in LARS’ face.)

I didn’t mean it as an insult.

ERIN:  I’ve seen her in concert.

LARS:  She must be quite a performer.

ERIN:  Uh huh…

LARS:  I respect her!

ERIN:  Yeah, need you say more?

LARS:  She’s pretty wild.

ERIN:  She sluts around onstage.

LARS:  All I’m saying is that you look like her.  It’s not a crime to look like someone who I happen to like.  Hey, sing “Like a Virgin” for me.

ERIN:  No!

LARS:  “Material Girl?”

ERIN:  No…

LARS:  “Holiday?”

ERIN:  …No…

LARS:  You should learn how to have fun.

ERIN:  This girl knows how to have fun.  That’s not my problem.  I shouldn’t have to remind you of that.

LARS:  What is then?

ERIN:  –I can’t sing.

LARS:  I see.

(LARS takes ERIN’s foot again, massages.)

ERIN:  Lars…

LARS:  Erin?

ERIN:  Why’d you change your name?  You don’t have to tell me if…

LARS:  I wanted to become a real person.

ERIN:  You’ve always been a real person to me.

LARS:  I hated my other name.

ERIN:  Why?

LARS:  Your feet are bony.

ERIN:  They are?

LARS:  Yeah.

ERIN:  So?  Therefore?

LARS:  So, your feet are bony.

ERIN:  Oh.

It’s not like it hurts to walk or anything.

LARS:  I’m sure it’s normal for you.

ERIN:  Normal.  For me.  Yeah.

(A basketball bounces onstage toward the gym.  LARS gets the ball as a shirtless MAN in shorts and the ubiquitous blue Nikes enters.)

LARS:  Here you go, guy.

MAN

Thanks… Luis?

LARS:  Uh, no… Lars.  I’m Lars Magnuson now–Haakon?

MAN

No, I’m not Haakon, I’m Octavio now.

(PAUSE)

LARS:  You shaved your mustache.

OCTAVIO:  You grew one.

LARS:  Yes, I… yes…

OCTAVIO:  I do believe you are blushing.

LARS:  Am I?

OCTAVIO:  Yeah.  I’d like to see you again.

LARS:  Me, too.  Hey, wanna try John Galt’s or something?

OCTAVIO:  If you really want to.

LARS:  Garbo’s?

OCTAVIO:  Too guppy.

LARS:  Oh.

OCTAVIO:  We’ll figure something out.

LARS:  Do you still live in the… What’s it called?

OCTAVIO:  Cupola?

LARS:  Yeah, cupola.

OCTAVIO:  No, I’ve got an apartment now.

LARS:  Yeah?

OCTAVIO:  The Lori, 12th and Logan, Apartment 203.  Stop by.  Last name’s Abeyta.

LARS:  Octavio Abeyta.

OCTAVIO:  Yeah.  I’m free tonight.  Stop by, we’ll… talk…

LARS:  OK!

OCTAVIO:  OK, tonight then.

LARS:  Yeah.  Tonight.

OCTAVIO:  Bye.  You’re?

ERIN:  Madonna Louise Veronica.

OCTAVIO:  Oh, really?

ERIN:  Well…

OCTAVIO:  Well, nice to meet you.  Bye.

(OCTAVIO exits with ball.)

ERIN:  Bye.

LARS:  Bye.  Have a good game, Octavio.  Haakon… Madonna Louise Veronica, Betty?!!?

ERIN:  Luis, Lars?  My god, Lucille, they’re like EVERYWHERE, you know?  I mean, totally!

LARS:  Hmph.

ERIN:  Yes, hmph.  Octavio, huh?

LARS:  Frightening.

ERIN:  Interesting, very interesting.

LARS:  Too too.

ERIN:  He’s been looking for you.

LARS:  Do you really think?

ERIN:  Don’t you?

LARS:  Does James VI ever massage your feet?

 

ERIN:  Yeah.  He loves to massage my feet.  It’s like he takes a foot–any old ordinary human foot.  And it has the shape of a foot.  Toes, ankle, heel, arch.  Metatarsals.  Everything.  It feels like a foot.  But you know it’s a foot because you can tickle it and hear it laugh.  And if it’s not ticklish, you know it’s a foot because it has these thick callouses to cover the tickle like a leather briefcase.  Anyway, it’s a foot until James VI gets control over it.  He takes that foot, which has had a twisted history no matter whose it is–I mean everything counts on them to make sure the rest of the world doesn’t fall down and explode.  Hands are similar.  But they’re safer.  They don’t invite as much abuse as the poor feet, ’cause hands are smart. Anyhow, James VI takes the foot and once he has it, it’s like putting it on a conveyor belt and sending it through college or something.  He works every little muscle, every little knuckle in your goddam foot, and it feels like he’s taking it apart!  He massages that foot or knee or mound of venus or wherever it is he happens to be focused at the moment.  And it’s like he’s tearing me apart, ripping away useless crap to clear an old tired forest to lay a new one down. Or maybe a hospital.  Or a supermarket… A parking lot… Anywho, it’s all him.  Completely 100% his work.  Whatever James VI creates can’t be anyone else’s but his, like any good ad copywriter…. And he can be such a child with his toys.  Prick.

LARS:  Forests, man… I’d like to be in the Rocky Mountains right now.  Up near Dillon or Grand Lake.  Scoping some rugged forest ranger ‘mid that Leanin’ Tree Christmas Card kinda scenery.  God!

(LARS gets up from sandbox, crosses to gym, starts to play on it.)

ERIN:  Somehow I can’t picture you in a forest.

LARS:  Oh, I’m a real tree man.

ERIN:  Tree man?

(Along about now, LARS gets himself stuck in the gym.)

LARS:  Mm.. hmm.. See that one over there?  Deciduous… Erin…

ERIN:  I’ve always thought of you as more of a desert.

LARS:  A desert.  A desert?!?!

ERIN:  Yeah.  Like the Mojave maybe.

LARS:  The Mojave, huh?

ERIN:  Yeah.

LARS:  Nope.

ERIN:  Nope?

LARS:  Too dry.  At least get me someplace near water.

ERIN:  You somewho arid to me.

LARS:  Erin–

ERIN:  In Mexico or Morocco, maybe–

LARS:  ERIN!

ERIN:  Lars!

LARS:  Would you uh…  This is so embarrassing…

ERIN:  What?  You’re stuck.

LARS:  Come on, Erin.  Help me out of this thing…  Come on, this isn’t funny…

ERIN:  What the hell were you thinking of?

LARS:  I guess I want the school bells to ring recess for me again.

ERIN:  Yeah.  I miss them too.

LARS:  I wanted to make sure.

ERIN:  Make sure of what?

LARS:  That I really am too big for this.  Come on.

(ERIN crosses to the gym, starts tugging at LARS.)

ERIN:  Well, I’m not saying Mexico because you’re Hispanic, but because you’re just… I don’t know, arid.  Torrid.  Hot.

LARS:  Nope.  ‘T’s not me at all… I want to be–ouch, careful–where it’s cold.

ERIN: 
(yelling)

Shiver his timbers, thar he blows!

LARS:  Cute… You call this helping me, Erin?

ERIN:  Doing the best I can, mate.

LARS:  I’m not like that anymore.

ERIN:  What happened?

LARS:  I’ve learned to care for plants OK?

ERIN:  Mexico has plants.

(ERIN exerts a lot of strength.)

LARS:  Cactus.  I don’t retain.  A lot of good this is doing…

ERIN:  You want me to get someone to help?

LARS:  Don’t you dare, little girl!

ERIN:  But–

LARS:  You think I want anyone to catch me like this?  Not on your life!

ERIN:  Oh Mommy, a pimple!  Pop it!  Pop it!

LARS:  Screw you!

ERIN:  Who’s acting like a little girl now?

LARS:  Keep trying.

ERIN:  Lars, it’s no use.

(The basketball bounces onstage again.)

LARS:  Frozen piss on a stick.

(OCTAVIO enters.)

Uh… Hi!  Again.  Haa–Octavio…

OCTAVIO:  Luis–Lars.  Is everything all right?

LARS:  Oh, we’re floating.

ERIN:  He’s stuck there.

LARS:  Erin!

ERIN:  Was trying to live through his fourth childhood and now look what’s happened.

LARS:  Erin, you’re gonna get it…

ERIN:  Innocent fun, right?  He got stud.  I mean he got stuck.

LARS:  It’s nothing a little elbow grease won’t correct.

ERIN:  When schoolteachers dance!

LARS:  Erin!

(Without their being aware of it, OCTAVIO solves their problem with the greatest of ease, pushing LARS out the way he came through.)

OCTAVIO:  Pop! Goes the weasel!

LARS:  See?  What’d I tell you?

ERIN:  “My hero,” he said.  “What would I do without you?”

LARS:  Feel like a new man.

OCTAVIO:  You might want to get stuck in gyms more often, big guy.  And don’t mean this here jungle species, if you get my drift.

LARS:  Right…

OCTAVIO: 
(Lustful)

Do us both some good.

LARS:  Thanks…

OCTAVIO:  Not a problem.  Tonight at 6.

LARS:  6?  Oh, 6.  Good!  Bye.

OCTAVIO:  Bye… Madonna Louise Veronica—Cicceronioni?

ERIN:  Erin.

OCTAVIO:  Erin.  Nice name.

ERIN:  Yeah, I’m stuck with it, I guess.

OCTAVIO:  Well, goodbye Erin.

(OCTAVIO starts to leave, crosses back to LARS, kisses him on the cheek.)

Adios mi guapo.

LARS:  Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag! Auf Wiedersehen.

OCTAVIO:  OK… Later…

(OCTAVIO exits.)

ERIN:  Correct me if I’m wrong Lars, but didn’t you just wish him a happy birthday?

(LARS sits in the sandbox.)

LARS:  It’s the only German I know.

ERIN:  You could have said “Goodbye my love.” That would have been nice.

(ERIN crosses behind LARS, starts to rub his back.)

LARS:  If I knew how.

ERIN:  What do you know about this guy?

LARS:  Haakon?

ERIN:  Octavio.

LARS:  Anhn…

ERIN:  He looks like he could be a forest ranger.  That his real job?

LARS:  Letter ranger.  Delivers the mail.  That’s what he told me.

ERIN:  Never can tell. Say they’re a mailman, and the next minute they’re trying to get you into Amway.

LARS:  A beautiful Viking of a man.

ERIN:  No shit.

LARS:  Second only to Fortunato.

ERIN:  Oh…

LARS:  Yeah. Haakon. You know, he seems to be the type who plays basketball whenever he gets a spare moment.  I remember looking into his eyes.  Not blue… Purple eyes.  Purple like Pike’s Peak in May.  He made me feel like a forest.  After Fortunato razed me to the ground, Haakon made me back into a forest.  Like I was living on the North Tejon River.  Flowing through the Valverde valley.  I can remember building my face against his chest and thoughts of green, green mountains, green because of the trees that grow on them.  Deciduous trees like in New Hampshire.  Where Saint Gaudens sculpted a Nike.  And Haakon and I kiss in the shadows, where I’d forget everything.  It was like I died and went to heaven…  For a moment, I forgot everything.  My name.  My origin.  My arid life.  My thoughts on supply-side economics and postmodernism and Nancy Reagan.  And even the Cafeteria–wreck of my life.  Haakon made me a forest when we made love.  And he’d be the King.  King Haakon of Northglenn!  And I… I would be his kingdom.  The previous King had been assassinated though some would say it was suicide.  Killed by his own cruelty.  Fortunato Feisimo.  The ugliest… The forest burned for days,but thank God it wasn’t completely destroyed… That’s why I’m Lars now… Well, I finished with the one foot.  How about the other?

ERIN:  That’s OK.  James VI rebuilt that one last night… That was a beautiful thought, Lars.

LARS:  It’s so real.

ERIN:  Yeah.  Like a Hostess Ding Dong.  Most real thing ever made!  Want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?  I chose Peter Pan.

LARS:  Only if they’ve got Boysenberry Jelly on them.

(ERIN pulls 2 sandwiches from her bag, they eat.)

You know I’ve always loved peanut butter.

ERIN:  Me too.  And Fluff! Gotta have Fluff.

LARS:  You can never have a serious conversation with peanut butter.

ERIN:  Puts you back in kindergarten.

LARS:  Words come out like that.

ERIN:  Scissors, Elmer’s glue.  Construction paper hearts.

LARS:  Christmas chains.  Mrs. Stahl would tie my shoes for me because I didn’t know how.

ERIN:  God!  To be a kid again.

LARS:  Curious about everything.

ERIN:  Yeah…  Yeah!

LARS:  Yeah.

END OF PLAY

One-Act Play: After-School Special

NOTE:  I’m not crazy about the title, but it’s not quite what people might think.  It’s a play that just happens to take place in that time between school and dinner, in a kitchen.

   ”After School Special” by Frostwolf T’Firerose

CAST OF CHARACTERS

RAINBOW WEAVER:              Eleven year old girl.  Smart, argumentative.

RHIANNON WEAVER:             Mid-30s, pagan, not quite a hippie throwback — a bit more practical than that.

The action takes place in the afternoon near dinner time.

 

SETTING AND AT RISE:         The Weavers’ kitchen, a weekday afternoon near dinner time.  RHIANNON WEAVER cleans some vegetables.  Her daughter RAINBOW enters.

RHIANNON
There you are!  I have a bone to pick with you.

RAINBOW
So what, already?

RHIANNON
I got an earful over the phone from my sister about your little argument with Kimmy and Kerry.

RAINBOW
So dumb, those two!  I can’t believe how stupid they are.

RHIANNON
Rainbow, we’ve discussed this before.  What they believe is none of our business.

RAINBOW
But they’re so mean to Carmela! 

RHIANNON
And I told you what you can do to help out with that situation.  Be the change you seek.  She’s lucky to have Charles and Norbert as her parents and you as her friend.

RAINBOW
The block is so much way cooler now that we have a gay family next door!  And Charlie is such a good cook!

RHIANNON
It drives them craziest when we’re nice to people they tell you to hate. 

RAINBOW
Yeah, like us because we see how great trees and the seasons are.  Kimmy and Kerry never know when to quit with me. 

RHIANNON
You’re the one who needs to know when to quit.  When to just say “I’ve gotta go now.” 

RAINBOW
Feel like such a loser when I do that. The kids talk about me.

RHIANNON
There are times when it’s appropriate to fight for yourself, but sweetie, my sister raises those kids to bait all comers, and you end up doing their work for them.  They know how to turn it around and make you look like the bully, even when they’re beating up on people like Charlie and Norbert for being who they are.  My sister and her family get off on acting like they’re the victims.

RAINBOW
I know.  I’m getting a reputation.

RHIANNON
And don’t tell me you don’t like it.  I know my daughter.  Such an Aquarius!

RAINBOW
You’re such a signist.  That’s worse than racism!

RHIANNON
Enough, you!  Haven’t you wondered when you’re talking to them how they can just stay in that place of judging others?  They’re not like their brother.

RAINBOW
Kevin’s the only nice one in the whole family.

RHIANNON
Kevin’s a good person.  The two beastly girls on the other hand seem to dream of taking up arms against the rest of Pleiades Court, along with their wingnut parents.

RAINBOW
I am always so tempted to call them that, Mommy, but it’s so hard to keep my mouth shut.

RHIANNON
And I shouldn’t refer to them that way either, even behind closed doors.  This is the thing.  You know how I didn’t talk to Uncle Joe for a few years? 

RAINBOW
Because Uncle Joe drank and he used to get mean.

RHIANNON
Exactly.  For a long time, my dear brother was always getting into scrapes that the rest of us would pull him out of.  A lot of people got sick and tired of his behavior, and they just wouldn’t let themselves get in the thick of it.  One by one, first his wife then Mom, then a whole slew of people just got fed up.  Said “You handle your own affairs, Joe.”  And then he got himself real good and plastered and ended up in jail without knowing how he got there or what he had done. 

RAINBOW
Yeah, I know all this.  He drove a car in a hit-and-run.

RHIANNON
It was probably more a hit-and-keep-going rather than a hit-and-run, because he couldn’t remember that he had even run over that priest.  The point is, Uncle Joe had to hit his bottom before he was able to really hear that he was accountable for his own actions and that if he wanted things to be different, he had to change.  Not the rest of the world, not his family.  Him.  Too bad he put that Father Dieumangeaux into traction and ended up serving time himself.

RAINBOW
So Aunt Kristina and Uncle Kris and Kimmy and Kerry are like Uncle Joe?  That doesn’t make sense.  They don’t drink.  They don’t like Catholics because of the blood of Christ being wine.

RHIANNON
They don’t like Catholics because they just don’t like Catholics!  Who told you that?

RAINBOW
I don’t know.  Might have been Lisa Trinculo.

RHIANNON
Hmph.  The Trinculos probably decided there must be a reason why my sister and her family don’t like that they’re parishioners at Our Lady of Fear and Misery beyond that.  Well, no matter.  Rainbow, they’re like drinkers because they get drunk on toxic beliefs.  Their notions that their way is the One True Way for Everyone, with a nice little trademark on it, is like a drug to them, and it gives them a little hit every time they quote a Bible verse or use it to say “You’re going to hell”.  It’s like a drink or a toke on a pipe or like Sharon Bradshaw gets around sugar when they do that, and they’re just coping.  Not helping or healing either.

RAINBOW
Do we have beliefs like that, Mom?

RHIANNON
I am always asking myself that, Rainbow.  It’s necessary to keep asking questions, to never stop.  It’s always a temptation, I must say.  But I see Kristina as someone who recycles the pain of our upbringing, and she’s just putting it outside of herself for the rest of us to clean up.

RAINBOW
So if they’re like Uncle Joe was when he drank, why do you talk to them?

RHIANNON
Have you observed how much I really talk to them?  Nor much, do I?  Only when I have to, which you make more frequent when you get into little tiffs with the Bobbsey Twins, by the way.

RAINBOW
Sorry.  So I don’t have to talk to them then?

RHIANNON
Except at school, and when you otherwise can’t avoid it.  But keep it simple and don’t add to the debate.  If there’s anything I understand about drunks and druggies, you can’t argue with them, no matter what the drug is.

RAINBOW
I’m lucky there.  They’re not in the gifted program with me.  Though Brian Bradshaw picks on me for our nature worshipping there.

RHIANNON
At least Brian has a notion of asking questions.  Kimmy and Kerry just repeat every little tidbit that Kristina tells them. 

RAINBOW
Kimmy said the earth’s only eleven thousand years old.

RHIANNON
Case in point.  Sweetie, you and I can see that, being sunny optimists and believing that Kimmy and Kerry might wake up to sanity some day, that they’ll be in for a world of hurt at some point when they realize their parents are nutty hypocrites who drank the Christocrat-Kool-Aid a long time ago.  You can at least pray to the Goddess that they wake up to their connection to all that is some day, when they’re ready.

RAINBOW
I want them to be ready NOW!

RHIANNON
Well, that’s just not in the cards, my dear.  The Goddess has all of us in her consideration in these weirdest of times. 

RAINBOW
I get so sick of it when the Christiansens call us devil worshippers.

RHIANNON
Anyone who’s not a member of the Church of the AK-47 Christ, is a demon worshipper to them.  Which is the toxic belief extraordinaire, my love.

RAINBOW
“We have the one true way and all the rest of you can die.”

RHIANNON
That’s the one.  Doesn’t matter who has it either, whether they’re religious secular or market fundamentalists.  Brigid knows, there are even other pagans who have fallen into that trap, honey.  That’s why there are so many witch wars which makes no damn sense if you ask me.  But that’s a-whole-nother issue.  You don’t need to justify yourself for being yourself, especially to junkies like the Christiansens.

RAINBOW
They’re junkies on Jesus, huh?  No fair.  Hey, what are you making for dinner?

RHIANNON
Nothing fancy.  The usual three sisters.

RAINBOW
Corn, squash and beans again?

RHIANNON
It’s a complete meal, honey.  Though I think Dad’s bringing home a free-range roaster as well.  Pre-cooked even!

RAINBOW
Goody!  I like meat!

RHIANNON
O my vegan ears!

Monologue: El Cuerpo de Luz

LUZ

When I was a little girl, I was taken with the idea of the Rapture.  You know, that idea that Jesus will return to the planet and scarf up all the righteous ones and whisk them away to heaven?  Santa Claus brought toys, the Easter Bunny brought Easter eggs, and Jesus would bring us sweeties to heaven.  And I did literally think of it that way.

Somewhere in my teen years, I woke up to a different viewpoint on things and found I had to distance myself from the upbringing in religion I’d received.  I’d listen to my brother Amadéo talk and watch how he and my Dad would clash because he wanted to become a doctor.  Amadéo would make these radical pronouncements and Papa would bellow and Mama would tear up and it was all very dramatic and even at age 12 it all struck me as funny.  Ridiculous, really.  Somehow I had the really outlandish thought that the sin was not in thinking the way Amadéo did by itself, but that one could embrace only science or only religion, like we didn’t need to have both sides of the coin.

So even though I found myself treading a similar path to mi gran hijo Amadéo, and so I too started to move away from the evangelical notions of my parents to figure out what my light, my “Luz” light was all about and I steered myself between the science and the faith, tipping toward one at first, and then toward the other and back and forth like that.  Needless to say, I don’t have a lot of friends.  To the faith-preferring I’m too secular and to the diehard “we die and that’s all, folks” folks I’m too soft-heard and soft-headed for them, with my entertaining notions of divinity and deity.

See, I want a big life.  I want to feel real wealth like the pre-Aztec tribes had way in my ancestral past.  And also the Galician tribes that lived before Rome overran the lands of Iberia.  Affluence isn’t about how much stuff I have, it’s about I am in relation to my world, to my environment, to the people in it.  I thought for a long time, I wanted to live in the suburbs and commute to a job and be like everyone else.  But I realize that’s just a story too, and the more I look at it, a dumb one at that.  Do we understand that we live inside a cell block?  That all this is prison?  Hello!  Why would I want more of that?  So I can live in a leveraged McMansion and have an SUV and a Plasma Screen TV Set that I won’t ever really own?  I’ll pass, thanks.

I long to be able to get to know my neighbors.  I long to be able to say to my little girl, “go down to the corner shop and get yourself a sweet, querida,” and not be scared to death she won’t come home.  I want to feel that we aren’t so proud and blind to ourselves that we won’t wake up to how crappy our lives are despite all the apparent prosperity and to be able to put first things first.

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s too late.  But I see the couple next door drive their used Honda around and they don’t even know who I am, and we’ve been neighbors for three years now.  I’m thinking, you know I should just make a batch of cookies and go over there.  But for some reason, I don’t.  The light of Luz needs a bit more power to shine its light in the darkness.

MOnologue – Bipedal Dinosaurs

I have a secret, though I don’t think it’s really all that much of one.  I’m telling it to you, because, well, trees are smart, and Ash trees are supposed to have a pipeline to the World Tree.  But my big secret is that I’m always thinking about death.  And, this is the thing—I think most other people are too.  I mean, how many times have I been at the office waiting for my boss to portion out the work when I think “Wouldn’t it be better if I was dead?”  I’m sure even my boss thinks that, though I’ve never sat down to ask Laquiesha if she’d rather be dead than supervising me.  Not that she’d tell me anything, mind you—that’s really too intimate a conversation for the cubicle farm.  And it’s not like I can talk to my wife about this—she’s looking for reasons for us to start couples counseling again.  I told her, Miss Ash Tree, I don’t speak the same language that she does.  Hell, I don’t even know what my own language is, let alone understanding all that partnership gobble-di-gook.  Anyway, I’m always thinking about dying and people dying, and the planet dying, and I want to help, I want to do something, I really do, but I don’t know what to do.  So here I am talking to you.  And I feel really silly, like someone’s going to walk by at any minute, see me talking ostensibly to myself, because for all intents and purposes, nobody talks to trees as far as I know, no one in my circle of isolating acquaintances, but I have felt this urge welling up to speak to you, once I found you.  And you’re not that easy to find, let me tell you.  But because of the Odin thing, I felt I had to speak to an ash tree, not just any old tree, an Elm or an Oak, though the Oaks might have snickered.  I don’t know.  Maybe you’ll come and give me some guidance in my dreams.  I guess part of it is that I’m 50 now, and part of it is all the fucked up stuff in the world, and another part of it is that I see we as a species seem intent on turning ourselves on the road to Velociraptor land, selecting ourselves for extinction.  We’re Bipedal Dinosaurs, only a lot more devastating because we don’t seem to know when to quit, when to say “enough.”  And we’re going to consume ourselves into starvation, madness and you guessed it:

           (sing-songy)

Death death death, hooray for Death!

           (sing, to “My Way”)

“We did it “death’s way.”

           (to “the Sound of Music”)

The hills are dying, with the sounds of murder.

           (to “Tomorrow”)

The death will come out tomorrow!
Bet your bottom ticker that next minute, death will come!  Whee!

 

Sorry about that, Ash.  But that actually felt kinda good.  I need to take death less seriously, I suppose.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I need to let it get to me more.  I hate reading the news and I’ve gone on a media fast.  But I still have these thoughts of the coming die off.  Perhaps you can do something with this, Ash tree.  I just needed to speak it to you for whatever reason.  Maybe this accomplished something.  My co-worker Sun Bear suggested I talk to the trees, said “Don’t think, just start talking.  Don’t worry about whether it will do anything, just do it!”  So.  There you go.  Thanks.  Take from it what you will—at least you have the carbon dioxide.  And thanks for all the oxygen.