The Pillowman

by Martin McDonagh

  ARIEL. No, Tupolski, I didn't go and tell him all my dad shit.

  TUPOLSKI. What? Oh. Shit. That old one.

  ARIEL. (To Tupolski.) You keep chipping away with that shit, don't you? With that "problem childhood" shit?

  TUPOLSKI. I don't keep chipping away with anything. You're the one keeps bringing your problem childhood up.

  ARIEL. I've never said a word about my problem childhood. I wouldn't use the phrase "problem childhood" to describe my childhood.

  TUPOLSKI. What phrase would you use? A "fucked by your dad" childhood? That isn't a phrase. (Ariel starts shaking slightly.)

  ARIEL. Would you like to give the prisoner any further information, Tupolski?

  TUPOLSKI. I'm just tired of everybody round here using their shitty childhoods to justify their own shitty behaviour. My dad was a violent alcoholic. Am I a violent alcoholic? Yes I am, but that was my personal choice. I freely admit it.

  ARIEL. I would like to get back to torturing the prisoner now.

  TUPOLSKI. Get back to torturing the prisoner now. You've kept him waiting ages. (Ariel connects electrodes to Katurian as he speaks.)

  ARIEL. You've overstepped the mark today, Tupolski.

  TUPOLSKI. I am reading through the prisoners confession, Ariel, to ensure we've left no aspects of this case unaccounted for. I'm doing my job. I'm not torturing a condemned fuckwit just to satisfy my own sadist vengeance fantasies.

  ARIEL. Way overstepped the mark.

  TUPOLSKI. Hurry up and torture the prisoner, please, Ariel. We've got to shoot him in half an hour. (Ariel connects the electrodes to the battery.)

  KATURIAN. Where's your father now, Ariel?

  ARTEL. Do not say a word, Tupolski! Do not say a word!

  TUPOLSKI. I'm not saying a word. I'm reading his confession. I'm doing my job. Like I say.

  KATURIAN. Is he in prison?

  ARIEL. And you shut your mouth also, pervert.

  KATURIAN. Or you'll do what? Or you'll torture and execute me? (Pause.) Is he in prison?

  ARIEL. Shh shh shh, I'm trying to concentrate ...

  TUPOLSKI. He's not in prison, no.

  ARIEL. What did I just actually say?

  KATURIAN. They never arrested him?

  TUPOLSKI. They couldn't arrest him.

  ARIEL. Tupolski! It would be very bad for all concerned to continue with this ... with this line of conversation.

  TUPOLSKI. I have a dreadful feeling you're right.

  ARIEL. So I will just connect this last electrode up here, and I will just connect this last electrode up here ...

  KATURIAN. Why couldn't they arrest him?

  ARIEL. Shh shh shh ...

  KATURIAN. Why couldn't they arrest him? (Ariel has cleared himself from the electrodes and is just about to turn the battery on when Tupolski, at the last possible moment, speaks.)

  TUPOLSKI. Because Ariel had already murdered him, of course. (Ariel laughs slightly, shaking again. He doesn't turn the battery on.) Well, it wasn't really murder, was it? More like self-defence, diminished responsibility, all that. I call it murder just to tease him. Hey, I'd murder my dad if he crawled into bed with me every week from the age of eight, y'know? (Pause.) Mm. He held a pillow over his head while he was sleeping. I see you boys have a lot in common. (Tupolski flattens the confession out on the table. Pause.)

  ARIEL. I am going to speak to the Commandant now, and I am going to inform him of your behaviour throughout this investigation. It has been lacking in focus and in clarity from the start. From the start. Such as what was that whole "peripheral vision" thing? That whole "peripheral vision at the bottom of your eyes" thing? What was all that about?

  TUPOLSKI. Disconcert and destabilise the prisoner with asinine nonsense, its in all the guidebooks, Ariel. I would like now to continue questioning the prisoner without the aid of your electrical claptrap, so could you disconnect Mr. Katurian, if you don't mind, I'd like him to focus.

  ARIEL. And I shall ask the Commandant to have me replace you as the Number One on this investigation because this isn't the first time this has happened, is it, and the Commandant likes me and he has said so and Number Ones have been replaced before, and you will be reprimanded, and the conclusion of this case will be tied up by me. The tying up of all the loose ends of this case will be tied up by me. I will be the one to tie them up.

  TUPOLSKI. And what would your first step be in the tying up of this case?

  ARIEL. Well, as I was trying to do, before you came in and said all those things, my first step would be to torture the prisoner with the aforesaid electricity, wasn't it?

  TUPOLSKI. Why?

  ARIEL. Why? Because he killed those fucking kids!

  TUPOLSKI. See, my first step would be to ask him a number of questions pertaining to the killing of the mute girl.

  ARIEL. Uh-huh?

  TUPOLSKI. My first question would be, "Is it true, Mr. Katurian ... " I'd say it like that, sort of formal. "Is it true, Mr. Katurian, that you and your brother, in acting out 'The Little Jesus' story, at one point placed a crown of thorns on that little girl's head?"

  KATURIAN. Yes, it is true.

  TUPOLSKI. It is true. My second question would be, "Was this before or after you whipped her with a cat-o'-nine-tails?"

  KATURIAN. After.

  ARIEL. We know all this.

  TUPOLSKI. My third question would be, "Did you then make her walk around a while carrying a heavy wooden cross, which you then proceeded to crucify her upon?"

  KATURIAN. Yes, we did that.

  TUPOLSKI. You did that. Did you then, to top it all, stick a big fucking spear in her pretty little side?

  KATURIAN. Yes, we did. I'm ashamed.

  TUPOLSKI. And did you then bury this girl?

  KATURIAN. Yes.

  ARIEL. I said we know all this.

  TUPOLSKI. In the story itself, the little girl is still alive when she's buried. Was the little mute girl still alive when you buried her, or was she dead?

  KATURIAN. (Pause.) What?

  TUPOLSKI. Was the little mute girl still alive when you buried her, or was she dead? (Katurian gropes for an answer, but doesn't have one.)

  KATURIAN. (Quietly.) I don't know.

  TUPOLSKI. Pardon me?

  KATURIAN. I don't know.

  TUPOLSKI. You don't know. You don't know if she was alive or if she was dead. Um, Ariel? On the way to your friend the Commandant, could you call the search ream, get them to hurry it up a bit, just in case it's a live little mute girl we're getting them to dig up? Thanks, babe. (Ariel looks at him a moment, then dashes out of the room. Tupolski idles over to the kneeling Katurian and the battery.) How can you not know?

  KATURIAN. It was hard to tell. She wasn't breathing that much. I think she was dead. I think she was. She's got to be by now, hasn't she? After all that?

  TUPOLSKI. Has she? Has she got to be? I don't know. I've never crucified a child then buried her in a coffin. I don't know. (Tupolski starts fiddling with the battery wires. Katurian braces himself for the shock. Tupolski disconnects the electrodes and returns to his seat.) I'd assume she's dead. I'd assume. But I don't know. It just struck me as I was telling the forensics boys. All you said was you acted out "The Little Jesus." That might be alright for Ariel. "Sorry, Officer, I did it." Bzzz! That's not alright for me. See, Ariel's a policeman. He polices. Police dogs can police. I'm a detective. I, sometimes, like to detect.

  KATURIAN. I'm sure she's dead.

  TUPOLSKI. Not sure enough though, ay? (Pause.) I wrote a little story once, y'know. It sort of summed up my world view, in some ways. Well, no, it didn't really sum up my world view. I don't have a world view. I think the world's a pile of shit. That isn't really a world view, is it? Or is it? Hmmm. (Pause.) Anyway, I wrote this little story once, and ... hang on, alright, no, if it doesn't sum up my world view, it sums up my view of detective work and the relation of that detective work to the world at large. That's it, yeah. Why are you still kneeling down?

  KATURIAN.
I don't know.

  TUPOLSKI. It just looks stupid.

  KATURIAN. Yes. (Tupolski gestures to the chair. Katurian takes the final electrodes off and sits in the chair.)

  TUPOLSKI. So, do you want to hear my story?

  KATURIAN. Yes.

  TUPOLSKI. Well, you wouldn't say no, would you?

  KATURIAN. No.

  TUPOLSKI. No. Weil, my story is called ... What's it called? It's called ... "The Story of the Little Deaf Boy on the Big Long Railroad Tracks. In China." (Pause.) What?

  KATURIAN. What?

  TUPOLSKI. Don't you think that's a good title?

  KATURIAN. I do think that's a good tide, yes.

  TUPOLSKI. (Pause.) What do you really think? You have my permission to be entirely truthful, even if it hurts me.

  KATURIAN. I think that's probably about the worst title I ever heard. It's got about two commas in it. You cant have two commas in a title. You can't have one comma in a title. It might even have a full stop in it, that tide. That titles almost insane.

  TUPOLSKI. (Pause.) Maybe it's a title that's just way ahead of its time.

  KATURIAN. Maybe it is. Maybe terrible titles are way ahead of their time. Maybe that'll be the new thing.

  TUPOLSKI. Maybe it will.

  KATURIAN. I just think it's a terrible title.

  TUPOLSKI. We've established that! I'm taking back my permission to be entirely truthful now and you're lucky you don't get a fucking smack! (Pause.) Okay. Where was I?

  KATURIAN. Deaf boy, big long railroad tracks. (Pause.) Sorry.

  TUPOLSKI. (Pause.) Okay, so, once upon a time there was this little deaf boy, couldn't hear anything, as is often the case with deaf boys. Oh yes, and it's set in China, so he was a little Chinese deaf boy. I don't know why I set it in China. Oh yes I do. I just like the look of those little Chinese kids, they're funny. (Laughs.) Anyway, so he's walking home from someplace one time and he's walking along these railroad tracks that stretch for miles and miles across the plains, across the Chinese plains, y'know? There's no trees, there's no nothing, there's just these fucking plains, and he's walking along these tracks and maybe he's a bit retarded too, this little kid, maybe he's a retarded little Chinese deaf kid, 'cos, I mean, he's deaf and he's walking along these fucking railroad tracks. That's fucking dangerous. What if a train comes, comes up from behind him? He ain't gonna hear it, he's gonna get squashed. So, yeah, maybe he's retarded. Okay, so there's this retarded little Chinese deaf kid walking home along these big long railroad tracks and guess what? This big fucking train starts coming up behind him. But because the tracks are so long and the train is so far away, it's nor gonna hit him for ages, but it is gonna hit him. This train is going so fast that even if the driver spotted him, there's no way he could brake in time. And this kid's really hard to see, anyway, y'know? He's like, y'know those really little, cute little Chinesey kids? They've usually got spiky-up hair? Yeah, like them. So the driver probably isn't even gonna see him. However, the kid is seen. You know who the kid is seen by? Well, just about a mile along the railroad tracks in the direction the little kid is heading in, there's this strange old tower, maybe a hundred feet high, and at the top of this tower there lives this strange old man, this strange old Chinese man, with one of those long Chinesey moustaches, y'know, and those squinty eyes, wa wa wa, and one of those funny little hats. And some people thought he was very wise but some people thought he was, y'know, a bit creepy, 'cos, y'know, he lives at the top of this big fucking tower. Anyway, no one had spoken to him in many many years. People didn't even know if he was alive or if he was dead. Obviously he's alive or else he wouldn't be in the story. So he's up there in his tower and he's making these mathematical computations and so forth and he's making various designs and drawings and he's doing various inventions and all that, of, like, things that haven't been invented yet, and there's a million pieces of paper all pinned up over the walls and scattered about the room and this is his whole life, all these things. The world is beneath him. These designs, these computations, are all he really cares about. And he looks out of his little arched window and he sees, just about a mile away, half a mile away now, this little deaf boy approaching, and just about two miles, maybe three miles behind him, this train thundering along. And the old man assesses the situation, quite correctly, "There is a little deaf boy walking along the railroad tracks. That little deaf boy is not going to hear the train coming up behind him. That little deaf boy is going to get squashed to bits." So ...

  KATURIAN. How did he know the little boy was deaf?

  TUPOLSKI. (Pause.) Hah?

  KATURIAN. How did he know the little boy was deaf?

  TUPOLSKI. (Thinks, then.) He saw his hearing aid. (Katurian smiles, nods. Tupolski breathes a sigh of relief.) Pulled that one out of the bag ... So he sees the deaf kid and he sees the train but he doesn't run down to try and save him or anything like that, like a normal person would, 'cos he's close enough if he wanted to. What does he do? He does nothing. He does nothing but start making a little calculation on a piece of paper, just to amuse himself, a calculation based, I suppose, on the trains speed, on the length of railroad track, and on the speed the little boy's little legs are going at, a calculation to find out exactly at what point on the track this train is going to plough straight through the poor little deaf boy's little fucking back. Well, the little boy kept walking on, oblivious to all this, the train kept thundering on and on, getting closer and closer to him, and the boy was about thirty yards away from the foot of the tower when the old man finished his calculation and found that the train would smash into the boy exactly ten yards from the foot of the tower. Ten yards from the foot of the tower. And the old man ho-hummed without much interest in it all, folded his calculations into a paper aeroplane, tossed the plane out the window and got back to his work, without another thought for the poor little deaf boy. (Pause.) Eleven yards from the foot of the tower the little deaf boy leapt from the railroad tracks to catch the paper aeroplane. The train thundered by behind him. (Katurian smiles.)

  KATURIAN. That's pretty good.

  TUPOLSKI. "That's pretty good." That's better than all your rubbish put together. "A hundred and one ways to skewer a fucking five-year-old"?

  KATURIAN. No, it's not better than all of mine, but it's pretty good.

  TUPOLSKI. Excuse me, I have rescinded your permission to give me any shit, haven't I? My story is better than all of your stories.

  KATURIAN. Yes, it is. And I thank you again for keeping my lesser stories safe with my file.

  TUPOLSKI. Hmm.

  KATURIAN. (Pause.) But how does that story sum up your world view anyway? Or your view of detective work, or whatever?

  TUPOLSKI. Oh, don't you get it? (Proudly.) See, the old wise man, see, he represents me. He's up in his tower all day, he's doing his calculations, he hasn't got much affinity with his fellow man. The little deaf retarded boy comes along, he represents my fellow man, see? He comes along, oblivious to every fucking thing, doesn't even know there's a fucking train coming, but I know there's a train coming, and by the brilliance of my calculations, and by the brilliance of my throwing that paper plane at that very moment, I shall save that idiot from that train, I shall save my fellow man from those criminals, and I won't even get a word of thanks for it. That little deaf boy didn't thank the old man, did he? He just played with his fucking aeroplane. But that doesn't matter, I don't need thanks. All I need is to know that because of me toiling away with my detective work, that little boy is going to be safe from that train. (Pause.) Unless its like your case, where I have to track down the train driver who's already driven straight through the poor little flicker, then reversed on all his flicking mates.

  KATURIAN. (Pause.) So the old man meant for the deaf boy to catch the plane?

  TUPOLSKI. Yeah.

  KATURIAN. Oh.

  TUPOLSKI. What, didn't you get that?

  KATURIAN. No, I just thought the boy happened to catch it, like it was an accident.

 
TUPOLSKI. No. No, the old man wanted to save the boy. That's why he threw the plane.

  KATURIAN. Ohh.

  TUPOLSKI. He's really good at throwing paper planes. He's really good at everything.

  KATURIAN. But then doesn't he turn away like he doesn't even care?

  TUPOLSKI. No. He, like, turns away because he's so good at throwing paper planes, he doesn't even need to look where its gone, on top of the fact he knows: "Ooh, little retarded boy. They love paper airplanes, don't they. He's bound to jump up and catch it." (Pause.) Wasn't that clear?

  KATURIAN. I think it could've been more clear. (Tupolski nods, thinking about it, then remembers his place somewhat.) I know how you could've made it more clear ...

  TUPOLSKI. Hang on! I'm not taking fucking literary advice from ya!

  KATURIAN. No, I was just trying to ...

  TUPOLSKI. I think you could've made it more clear whether the little girl you butchered three days ago was fucking alive or dead when you stuck her in the ground. I think that could've been made more clear. And could I make it more clear that I'm gonna get really angry in a minute and set fire to all of your stories regardless of what promises we've made? (Tupolski picks up the stories and some matches.) Could I make that more clear?

  KATURIAN. Please, Tupolski. Your story was really good.

  TUPOLSKI. My story was better than all of your stories.

  KATURIAN. Your story was better than all of my stories.

  TUPOLSKI. And it was clear that the old man wanted to save the little deaf boy.

  KATURIAN. It was completely clear.

  TUPOLSKI. (Pause.) You only don't like it because the little deaf boy didn't die at the fucking end!

  KATURIAN. I do like it, Tupolski. And this isn't anything to do with anything. About burning my stories or anything. I really liked your story. I'd've been proud to have written it. I would.

  TUPOLSKI. (Pause.) Yeah?

  KATURIAN. Yeah. (Pause. Tupolski puts the stories down.)

  TUPOLSKI. I wasn't going to burn them anyway. I'm a man of my word. If a person keeps his word, I keep my word.

  KATURIAN. I know that. I respect that. And I know you don't care if I respect that or not, but either way, I respect that.