Shorter, Faster, Funnier

by Eric Lane

  SUSAN: I don’t think so.

  MARCUS: Oh please, I’m sure it would make you feel better.

  SUSAN: (Wanting to feel better.) Would it? (Starts to, but freezes.)

  This is difficult to do in public. Couldn’t I call you later this evening, and do it on the phone?

  MARCUS: No, it’s much more healing to keen at the funeral. You shouldn’t do it on the phone.

  SUSAN: Oh, I don’t know.

  MARCUS: Come on. It’ll help.

  SUSAN: (Hesitates, but then.) Oooooooo. (It’s very soft. Sounds like a ghost sound, or a person imitating the wind.)

  MARCUS: That’s good.

  SUSAN: Oooooooo.

  MARCUS: That’s good.

  SUSAN: Oooooooo.

  MARCUS: That’s good. AAAAAAOOOOWWWWWOOOO-OOOO!!!!

  (SUSAN looks aghast for a moment. The crowd stops and stares again. Momentary silence. After a beat, SUSAN gives in to some odd combination of grief and having fun, and makes extremely loud keening sounds simultaneously with MARCUS.)

  BOTH: AAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWW-WWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

  (From out of these very satisfying, if shocking noises, SUSAN starts to cry loudly and uninhibitedly. MARCUS pats her on the back in a comforting manner, looking out at the crowd a bit proudly as if to say, “See what I did?” SUSAN’s crying subsides, and her breathing returns more to normal.)

  MARCUS: There, that’s better.

  SUSAN: (Drying her eyes.) Thank you so much for coming. (Just as MARCUS begins to wonder.) No, no, not code. Thank you. I feel much better.

  MARCUS: Oh good. Well, you’re welcome.

  (MARCUS and SUSAN shake hands warmly. Marcus smiles at her, moves aside, as other mourners come over to speak to SUSAN. Quick fade.)

  END OF PLAY

  GABRIELLE

  Liz Ellison

  GABRIELLE: Mr. Katzander. I guarantee I will be the friendliest, most dedicated greeter this Walmart has ever seen. I am such a people person. I worked with people all the time at my last job—well, I had my own business actually. Designing alternative wedding dresses. I’ve just decided it’s time for a change. Well—there was sort of a misunderstanding. With my last client. A real bridezilla. Everybody gets a difficult customer once in a while, right? This girl’s daddy was paying for everything, so she wanted me to go all out. I made her the most gorgeous gothic ball gown you have ever seen. Fifteen yards of taffeta. It was a dress for a queen. She wanted it in burgundy. Now, do you know what burgundy looks like? Because I sure do. And when she comes in to pick it up, you know what she says? “What is this? I can’t get married in purple!” I was completely professional. I told her it was what she asked for. I told her, sweetie, this is burgundy. And she starts using foul language. She says I ruined her wedding day and she’s gonna tell everyone she knows that they should never get a dress from me, and blah blah blah blah. But she already paid and the wedding’s in three days, so she has to take it. She’s about to leave. And something just comes over me. Who the hell does she think she is? Some people really need to be put in their place, you know what I mean? I had a venti café Americano on the counter, hadn’t even taken a sip yet, and I just—! All over that damn dress. And then—wouldn’t you know—it turns out her daddy’s a lawyer. Apparently I caused her “severe emotional distress.” And the little twit must know a lot of people, because business has been in the toilet. But I don’t have any regrets. It felt so goddamn good seeing the look on that hussy’s face. She had it coming. You know, Mr. Katzander, people just piss me off. They really, really do.

  (She thinks.)

  Maybe you have an opening in the warehouse or something.

  END OF PLAY

  GETTING HOME

  Anton Dudley

  Getting Home was originally produced off-Broadway by Second Stage Theatre, New York. It was directed by David Schweizer, with the following cast:

  TRISTAN Brian Henderson

  CABDRIVER Manu Narayan

  CHARACTERS

  TRISTAN: White male, late twenties.

  CABDRIVER: Indian male, late twenties.

  SETTING

  A bare stage. Characters flow freely between direct address and being in a scene. Lighting and sound effects, perhaps a chair or two, should be used to create physical space.

  TRISTAN alone on a bare stage.

  TRISTAN: I’m thinking I’m going to start charging—oh, God no, don’t jump to any conclusions just because I’m standing on this street corner looking like I am: I meant charging for advice.

  I just seem to be far better at dispensing relationship advice to my friends than I do to myself. Take my friend Josie, whom I met accidentally this one time I really had to go to the bathroom in the women’s section of Bloomingdale’s. She calls the other day from her new apartment in Jackson Heights—why? I couldn’t tell you—crying about how all the best men are back in the Midwest. Determined, I take her to gay bingo, because there’s always a small handful of attractive straight Jewish men there for some reason and—bam!—one week later they’re talking about moving in. Then there’s my token heterosexual friend Laser—he’s from Reykjavik, I think his real name is Lars or something, but he’s a semiprofessional skateboarder and Laser’s what we call him—anyway, Laser calls me ’cause he’s lonely and looking for a little “village to pillage”—it’s a Viking thing, don’t ask—so I take him shopping and get him all gussied up so he doesn’t look like he just discovered Greenland … next thing I know, Laser’s got more villages than Epcot Center and I haven’t heard from him since.

  All this to say, that after dispensing my wisdom, I am now left here on this street corner alone, all by my pathetic self, while the people I would normally be hanging out with on a night like this are off living happily ever after in the Dating Kingdom.

  (His cell phone rings.)

  Oh my God—how rude: who forgot to turn off their—?

  (Rings again.)

  Oh—that’s mine—how embarrassing. Sorry.

  (He turns it off.)

  It’s probably just my mom: she was gonna call with a recipe or something—anyway. Relationships. Complicated.

  I had a close call the other week, though. I had just started taking this continuing-ed class at NYU called “Fairy Tales and Their Contemporary Urban Parallels in Reality.” Please, it meets on Wednesday, and I’m so over Project Runway. Anyway, that weekend, I found myself on the street corner—I know, it’s a theme—drunk off my face and—uh-huh—alone. I had been out clubbing—and following the ubiquitous Gaga and what I think, God forbid, was a Hannah Montana remix—something happened. The flows came on and I’m the only one there: it’s like the world has vanished. I walk outside and suck in my breath, it’s four a.m. and I’m going to face the subway.

  Look at me. The state I’m in now, no one would ever guess my pedigree. I look like I’ve been working all night in the former Times Square and then was mugged of everything I got for it. I’m walking on, and out of my peripheral vision—a yellow car has stopped—ah, a cab! The driver is looking at me—now, yes I do have a full-time job and a rather respectable apartment in one of the already up-and-came sections of Brooklyn—but at “ce moment,” as Juliette Binoche would say: “Je suis broke”—“Sorry”—I smile goofily and keep walking. Five steps down the cab pulls up again. He’s still looking at me. How desperate—I know that no one in his right mind is on the street right now and this guy’s just trying to make an honest buck like everyone else, but really, cabdrivers who idle outside gay bars when they’re closing are something akin to ambulance chasers and I just won’t support their misconceptions of my people—at least not in this specific instance.

  I smile very friendlical—then shrug “sorry” once more, and I am walking on. Subway, subway, subway. I am a supporter of public transportation—I love getting down and dirty with “the people”—I support my right to travel this city twenty-four hours a day and—oh my God!—he’s driven up like half a block and stopped and his window is
rolling down.

  (Suddenly, the CABDRIVER appears.)

  CABDRIVER: Hello.

  TRISTAN: Dude! That is so more interesting than just listening to me tell the whole thing—how cool is live theater?

  CABDRIVER: Where do you live?

  TRISTAN: Brooklyn.

  CABDRIVER: Where in Brooklyn?

  TRISTAN: The good part.

  Well, I tell him the address, but please—I don’t know who any of you are, I’m not going to freely give out my address in a place like this. If you really want to know then friend-request me on Facebook, okay?

  CABDRIVER: Get in.

  TRISTAN: I don’t have any money.

  CABDRIVER: That’s okay.

  TRISTAN: … I have lived enough movies to know where this is headed. But, God, he’s Indian—and beautiful. His skin sort of glows—like really expensive peanut butter—that’s probably not a great analogy, but the sort of honey-golden-mousse tone of his skin framed by the blackest hair you’ve ever seen—hair so black it’s practically violet as it shines in the moonlight and these soft eyes—like—like you just want to go to American Apparel and get you some hot little stretchy made-in-America swimmies and dive on into those eyes and never come up for air ever again—they’re like that—they’re glistening pools.

  CABDRIVER: Yes?

  TRISTAN: He has a really thick accent that makes it hard not to just think he is the sweetest thing in the world.

  Should I get in the front seat or the back?

  Oh my God—who am I? Did I really just ask—?

  CABDRIVER: You can get in the front.

  TRISTAN: Hold that question. (TRISTAN gets in “the car.”) Wow, you’re beautiful.

  CABDRIVER: Thank you.

  TRISTAN: You have beautiful eyes.

  CABDRIVER: Thank you.

  TRISTAN: And beautiful hair.

  CABDRIVER: Thank you.

  TRISTAN: Beautiful, glowing skin.

  CABDRIVER: Thank you.

  TRISTAN: And a beautiful … cab.

  CABDRIVER: Thank you.

  TRISTAN: No, really, you do—I have been in a lot of cabs and this one is immaculate. Wow.

  CABDRIVER: Thank you.

  TRISTAN: Lord, this guy’s polite. Clearly new to the city. But his cab? No joke: it’s like another world in here: even the air seems different: like I’ve stepped into the pages of a … well, if you were enrolled in the class at NYU you’d think the same thing.

  Long night?

  CABDRIVER: Yes.

  TRISTAN: Yeah, me, too.

  CABDRIVER: Fun long night?

  TRISTAN: Maybe.

  CABDRIVER: I have been working long night.

  TRISTAN: Please! Back-to-back remixes of “Seasons of Love” and the Shangri-La mix of Rihanna’s new single isn’t work?

  Maybe this guy is straight after all. No, there’s a hand on my thigh. He plays for the home team!

  CABDRIVER: This is nice.

  TRISTAN: Yes. It is. Us sitting here in this immaculate cab, like it’s some Italian sofa we bought together on that trip to Milan we took after we got married in Boston and took some time off to see the world. And we did that sort of pilgrimage thing to India and visited the town where you were born. Rode the elephants and lit candles at the shrine of that one with all the arms and you laughed ’cause I said about the arm coming out of his face and it’s actually his trunk and well, that was funny, I guess; but us sitting here, like it’s Sunday morning and I’ve just made you breakfast and we’re watching the water roll up on our beachfront property because we moved to the Hamptons to get away from it all is really nice.

  CABDRIVER: You work out?

  TRISTAN: Oh, you meant my thigh. Yeah, it’s nice I guess. I was a bike messenger before landing my full-time job—but no one needs to know that.

  He splits his attention between the road and me and he’s ever so calm. I feel exceptionally safe and there’s a history here. An entire history we share in some strange way.

  We pass over one of the bridges, I don’t really notice which: all I see are the lit suspension wires dance behind his head like strands of shooting stars. There’s not much traffic and we’re moving at a good pace, which normally would be cause for a backseat cell phone call to News of the Weird, but right now, at four whatever on this Sunday morning, it isn’t fair, ’cause I want this moment to last forever.

  CABDRIVER: I turn here?

  TRISTAN: Hm?

  CABDRIVER: Here, I turn?

  TRISTAN: Oh yeah. And then like five blocks down—I’m across the street from the Shop ’n Save, but I promise I never go in there to do either.

  CABDRIVER: Can I park on the street?

  TRISTAN: It’s only then that I realize that I have never seen a Yellow Cab parked anywhere. I mean cabs are like … and cabdrivers? … what happens to a cabdriver when he gets out of his cab? Is it like a character in a play when he exits the stage? Does he just vanish? Disintegrate? Become something else entirely? Or is it like a fairy tale and does he turn into a prince?

  These are the questions you ask yourself when you are enrolled in a continuing-ed class at NYU called “Fairy Tales and Their Contemporary Urban Parallels in Reality.”

  CABDRIVER: You have a beautiful apartment.

  TRISTAN: And then we’re in bed. And it’s glorious. He is glorious. I am glorious. All of it. Just glorious. And oddly silent. Whispered almost. But large. Heavy. Overwhelming and soft all at the same time. But very very silent. Like a secret.

  Don’t keep me a secret. Please?

  CABDRIVER: There is a fairy tale from Firozpur in India that tells of a young princess who was to marry a mysterious prince. When they had wed, she refused to speak until he revealed the secret of his birth. “Tell me your secret” were the only words she would say. He answered that if he did, she would regret it until the end of her life. She took no heed of his warnings, simply repeating the only words she would say: “Tell me your secret. Tell me your secret. Tell me your secret.” Finally, he said, “At midnight you shall have your wish. But I warn you, you will regret it.”

  TRISTAN: Good for her: I’ve come to realize that secrets kill.

  CABDRIVER: Secrets are often a great source of safety.

  TRISTAN: But he told her anyway?

  CABDRIVER: Yes. He turned to his wife, whom he loved very much, and said, “Know that I am the son of the king of a far-off country who was turned by enchantment into a …” And right as the prince said that fateful word, he turned back into a snake and slid into the river. From that day on, the pair could only see each other at midnight, when the serpent would sneak into the house of black stone where the princess lived alone.

  TRISTAN: Would she speak to him there?

  CABDRIVER: She did not recognize him. She saw only a snake. She said to it, “Who are you? What do you want?” The snake replied, “I am your husband. Did I not tell you that if you forced my secret from me, you would regret it?”

  TRISTAN: … So what does all that mean?

  CABDRIVER: I have to go.

  TRISTAN: No! Give me a break, no.

  CABDRIVER: Give me your phone number.

  TRISTAN: (Quickly.) Yeah, sure, here!

  CABDRIVER: Give me your cell number, too.

  TRISTAN: Here. Can I have yours?

  CABDRIVER: I call you.

  TRISTAN: And in silence he got dressed. I stared at him. In silence. I opened the door—in silence—and he slithered out. He was halfway down the hall and I was closing the door when I heard him say …

  CABDRIVER: I love you.

  (CABDRIVER vanishes.)

  TRISTAN: And then he was gone.

  Josie says he’s probably married with children and that she would be the one to know: living in Jackson Heights and all. And that I shouldn’t keep my hopes up, that dashing Indian princes don’t just roll up in cabs, sweep you off your feet, and live happily ever after no matter what the Contemporary Urban Parallels in Reality say. Tosh! I wanted to know how the stor
y ends. The story of the Snake Prince and the Princess. I couldn’t buy that that was the whole ending. I mean, who says that—don’t ask people their secrets, the end. I didn’t buy it. My friend Nilesh, who works in this cool Indian boutique in Brooklyn where desperately hip white people buy ethnic things to decorate their apartments with, knew the end to the story. He said that the princess lures all the river snakes into her house and then captures the queen snake and says, without even a flinch of fear, “Queen of snakes, Queen of snakes, give me back my husband.” And that the queen sways her head to and fro, fixing the princess with her wicked, beady eyes, but the princess does not flinch, she just repeats, “Queen of snakes, Queen of snakes, give me back my husband.” And the queen—accepting the courage of the princess—simply says, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow.” And the very next night, at midnight, the prince appears. And there were never any secrets between them again. Nilesh says, “You see, my friend, it takes courage to be in love.”