Shorter, Faster, Funnier

by Eric Lane

ZEKE AND ZEB: (Chanting simultaneously.) OUT DEMONS OUT! OUT DEMONS OUT! OUT DEMONS OUT! OUT DEMONS OUT!

  (SHORTY suddenly stops shaking and gasps as if he’s coming up for air. A goofy smile begins to spread across his face.)

  MANNY: (Flabbergasted.) How in the hell did you do that? How did you both speak at once?

  ZEKE: O ye of little faith. The Lord moves His lips in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.

  MANNY: (Hissing, to SHORTY.) Goddamn it, Shorty, it’s a trick!

  SHORTY: (In ZEB’s old voice.) Awwww, nopey-nope, Manny. It’s a miracle!

  ZEKE, ZEB, AND SHORTY: PRAISE JEE-SUS!

  ZEKE: Showtime, brothers! Let’s all mosey out there and share this miracle with the kids.

  SHORTY: (Indicating MANNY with his thumb.) Awww, not tuh mention the Yids, ah-huh, ah-huh!

  (As MANNY sits dumbfounded, ZEKE, ZEB, and SHORTY begin to exit, in that order.)

  ZEKE, ZEB, AND SHORTY: (Singing.) BRING-ING IN THE SHEAVES, BRING-ING IN THE SHEAVES, WE WILL COME RE-JOI-CING BRING-ING IN THE SHEAVES!

  BRING-ING IN THE SHEAVES, BRING-ING IN THE SHEAVES, WE WILL COME RE-JOI-CING …

  (At this point all three are offstage, but SHORTY pops his head back into view to sing the last line solo.)

  SHORTY: (In his old smart-alecky voice.) SCHLEPPING IN THE SHEAVES!

  (He leeringly winks to the audience while making a circle with his thumb and index finger, and pops his head back offstage.)

  END OF PLAY

  MURDERERS

  “MATCH WITS WITH MINKA LUPINO”

  Jeffrey Hatcher

  Murderers consists of three monologues and was designed to be performed on a bare stage. “Match Wits with Minka Lupino” is the play’s third piece.

  Murderers was commissioned by and premiered at Illusion Theater (Michael H. Robins and Bonnie Morris, producing directors) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in February 2005. It was directed by Sarah Gioia; the set design was by Dean Holzman; and the stage manager was Matthew Dawson. The cast was as follows:

  GERALD Bob Davis

  LUCY Barbara June Patterson

  MINKA Phyllis Wright

  Murderers was subsequently produced by Philadelphia Theatre Company (Sara Garonzik, producing artistic director) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, opening on October 11, 2006. It was directed by Michael Bush; the set design was by Jim Noone; the lighting design was by Traci Klainer; the costume design was by Karen Ann Ledger; and the sound design and original music were by Ryan Rumery. The cast was as follows:

  GERALD Brent Landon

  LUCY Marylouise Burke

  MINKA Kristine Nielsen

  For Elizabeth Holmberg Stevens “Toots”

  MINKA: I am a murderer. Many times over. I do not like the term “serial killer,” which, to my mind, suggests an emphasis on the numerical followed by too much time spent on the interstate highway system. My murders all took place in one locality.

  Now, I should say right here at the beginning, I am not ashamed of having committed murder. You see, I believe in what is right. In justice. And every murder I ever planned—save one—was planned in that spirit of rightness, fairness and justice, the kind of murder planning that I like to think our forefathers would have approved of.

  Besides, I was not always a murderer. Murderers are not born that way. The works of Jay G. Garland have taught me that. Jay G. Garland is my favorite author, the greatest mystery writer of all time, whose detective, gay Broadway impresario Jolly St. Holly, is always stumbling onto murders along the Great White Way. Jay G. Garland is the author of Murder with the Lunts, Murder with Carol Channing, and his magnum opus, Murder with the Cast of A Chorus Line at Sardi’s After the Show.

  He taught me that murderers have their reasons—usually splashy and interesting reasons with a lot of diabolical planning that is nonetheless foiled when Jolly sees through their one big mistake.

  Not that Jay G. Garland is limited to his Broadway milieu. Under his pseudonym, “Maevis Marvella Pearl,” he writes about Sister Angelicadore, the blind lesbian novice who solves convent crimes in sixteenth-century Venice; as well as his hard-core police procedurals written under the apt nom de plume “Peter Dick Johnson.”

  I’ve been reading this man since I was in high school. And the day he came down to live at the Riddle Key Luxury Senior Retirement Living Center and Golf Course … well, you can imagine.

  I wanted to tell him how exciting it was he was taking one of the new villas, how I was such a fan, how whenever there was a lull in the members’ office and Mr. Finn was out showing a prospective couple around, I’d sneak out a copy of Pippin Must Die or Nine Novenas to Death or Cock My Gun Slowly.

  All in paperback of course. I can’t afford the hardback copies. But I never said a word to him. For someone of his stature, Mr. Finn handled all of the details himself. I’d never even heard Mr. Garland’s voice over the phone.

  At least that’s the way it was before. Before I ever thought I’d meet him. Before I became … a murderer.

  It started with Mrs. Moses. Her name wasn’t Mrs. Moses, of course. I was the only one who called her Mrs. Moses, and just to myself.

  Her real name was Mrs. Westland from Sherrodsville, Pennsylvania. And she became Mrs. Moses to me because when I met her, she talked on and on about how her son and his wife had adopted a little Korean baby, and for the longest time she’d never been allowed to visit. Never seen her own grandson, just seen his pictures.

  Mrs. Westland would say, “And I just felt like Moses in the Promised Land, yes, I did, I thought I’d never see that little baby, I was just like Moses in the Promised Land, just like him, just like Moses looking down on the land he was promised but he knew he’d never see, just like Moses!”

  The reason she hadn’t seen the baby was because she was in a war with her son and his wife. They wanted her to move down to Florida, where they could quote look after her, unquote, which is code for, “We don’t want to have to fly up to that hick town in Pennsylvania anymore to make sure you aren’t dead or eating cat food.”

  Mrs. Moses didn’t want to move to Florida, of course, she liked it in that hick town, that’s where her friends were, that’s where she’d met her husband, Phil, that’s where Phil was buried. And Phil had left her well-off, so she could afford help if she needed it, thank you very much, and was not interested in becoming part of any old folks’ home.

  Well, Mrs. Moses’ only son, Young Phil, and his wife, Suzy, didn’t see it that way. And so, when they adopted the baby, known as Young-Young Phil, they said, “You can’t come down to see him, unless you agree to at least LOOK at Riddle Key.”

  So there was a standoff. And it lasted eight months, which is a long time for an eighty-four-year-old woman and this is your only grandchild.

  “Why it’s like Moses in the …”

  So she gave in. Just a visit. After all, she’d get to see that grandchild of hers. She’d even ordered him a Korean War G.I. Joe doll, not quite understanding that it didn’t mean the doll was Korean.

  When Mrs. Moses came through the gates, she didn’t know what hit her. The idea was they’d bring her in to “take a look” at the facilities—the restaurants, the shops, the pharmacy, the clinic, the basement storage rooms with hurricane protection—then, at the end of the visit, they’d take her up to a sample villa, just for a peek, go inside … and there would be her whole life from back home, hijacked, shipped by Mayflower, and plopped down where it was more convenient for THEM.

  I was there when they showed her the villa—how nicely her breakfront fit the dining room, how well the upright piano looked near the window …

  Mrs. Moses wanted to bolt right back to Sherrodsville, of course, but it was too late. Why, Young Phil had already done all that work, the expense of moving things, closing up the house, having her stocks and bank accounts reassigned to his power of attorney. And him not the success in wholesale scuba gear that his father had been in coal.

  She moved in that night. She’d put up her pi
ctures of Young-Young on the living room wall, make some new friends, make the best of it.

  She was dead three months later.

  Young Phil and his wife were on vacation in Bermuda with Young Phil’s new investment pals when I called them with the news.

  Phil said: “Geez, we’re only two days into our vacation, would you mind putting Mom on ice for a week till we get back? I mean, she’ll keep, right?”

  I checked Mrs. Moses’ living will, her special requests, what she wanted to be buried with—wedding ring, yes, engagement ring, no—she wanted to be buried next to her husband back in Sherrodsville, so when Young Phil and Suzy came into the office—Young-Young was with the new nanny—I assumed it was to arrange transport up north.

  “Cremation,” Young Phil said. “You do that here on the grounds, right?”

  “… Yes …”

  “Well,” he said, “let’s do that!”

  “But the request here says …”

  Mr. Finn cleared his throat.

  “I believe the crematorium is available at five, Ms. Lupino. Friday is never very busy.”

  I tried not to show my reaction. “As for the service,” I said—

  “No service,” said Suzy. “She didn’t have any friends here anyway.”

  I nodded. Very professional. “Will you be coming by to pick up the cremains?”

  “No,” said Young Phil. “Just …” And he made a gesture—(does flip-wrist gesture)—that either meant “whisk it away” or “I’m really effeminate.”

  Mr. Finn stepped in. “Ms. Lupino will take you to the storage room where your mother’s things have been preserved. Anything of value we can ship.”

  I take them across the lot to the storage rooms, a big cement block set three stories into the mud. It’s brand-new—not fully open yet—the cooling and ventilation system isn’t even working.

  We reach Mrs. Moses’ room. I unlock the door. Suzy turns to me.

  “You may go, Miss Lupino.”

  I nod, servile, eyes downcast.

  I leave the room, filled with old furniture and pictures of what I’m sure Mrs. Moses would have called her “loved ones.”

  But I do not go away. I stand just outside the door. And listen.

  “Well, she went faster than I thought,” says the bereaved daughter-in-law.

  “Not fast enough,” replies the loving son. “Two years ago, the portfolio would have been worth a quarter more and I coulda bought six more waterfront lots.”

  “Can we use any of this crap?” asks his blushing bride.

  “Nah. Cheap veneer and Naugahyde.”

  Suzy is getting all soft: “Shouldn’t we save some of these things for Young-Young?”

  “What’re we gonna give him, this needlepoint sign that says ‘With God All Things Are Possible?’ Bad enough he’s got that kimchee G.I. Joe thing.”

  I move closer to the door. The edges have rubber seals.

  I take a moment and recall all the Mrs. Moseses I’ve seen, hustled into a beige wall-to-wall coffin at twelve hundred a month. All the sons and daughters who’ve asked Mr. Finn, “How long, on average, do they last once they’re in here?” The grandkids who have to be bribed to visit, give Grandma a kiss, pretend not to look bored and sullen while they watch their parents do to their grandparents what they’ll do to their parents someday.

  Inside, I hear Young Phil:

  “Hey, look, my Cub Scouts cap—”

  The door makes no sound, just a whisper of a pneumatic whoosh.

  I don’t hear the pounding until I’m well up the steel stairs to the floor above.

  When I meet Mr. Finn at the crematorium, I tell him the family wanted some time with the mementos of their loss.

  “No skin off my honker,” he says, wittily. “See you Monday.”

  Monday is, of course, not much fun. One of the Cuban fellas who’s supposed to clear out the room finds the bodies. He says the couple was found hugging a needlepoint sign that read “With God All Things Are Possible.” Even though it’s impossible to open the door.

  The bodies are buried in Sherrodsville, Pennsylvania, which I think is a nifty touch. The money will eventually snake its way to Young-Young, who is adopted again, this time by a Korean couple. They name him Kevin.

  Did I feel guilty? No.

  Did I feel good? No. But I felt just.

  I didn’t kill again for almost a year.

  Mr. James was a favorite of mine. When he and his wife had moved into an efficiency apartment—no fancy villas or condos for him—he’d made a point of dropping by the members’ office a couple times a day.

  One day he dropped in and asked to see some information on deep-sea fishing and as I handed him the brochures he bit my arm. And left his teeth there.

  “What are you doing?!”

  “You’ve heard of Jaws? I’m Jaws.”

  I kept his teeth for the rest of the day and after that we got on fine.

  That year Mrs. James went through a couple of nurses—one was too young, one was too fat, one was a Holy Roller who was always trying to get them to donate money to her “tabernacle,” which I think was run out of the back of her Dodge Dart. Finally they settled on Muff.

  Muffalda was her real name, and she was the type of woman who had not given up on capri pants long past her legs’ sell-by date. She had Bozo the Clown red hair and a nose the size of my head.

  But Mr. James liked her. And Mrs. James … well, by that time, it was hard to tell what Mrs. James liked or didn’t like, and two months after Muff was hired, Mrs. James was dead.

  After the burial, Mr. James’s daughters figured their father would let Muff go. But Mr. James, who had been independent all his life, decided he needed someone now. His eyesight, his walk, the lonely nights …

  The daughters were not pleased. Especially when they couldn’t find some of the jewelry their mother had promised them. Nor were they pleased when they saw the way Muff joked with Mr. James and tickled him while they watched Diagnosis: Murder. They particularly didn’t like it when Mr. James decided to renegotiate his contract with Mr. Finn and move from his one-bedroom efficiency apartment to a two-bedroom condo with all the amenities.

  “You wouldn’t spend that much on Mother!” the daughters spat.

  And they were right. They were also right that he didn’t buy his late wife a new Cadillac, or new clothes or any of the other accessories Muff seemed to grow once she and Mr. James were ensconced in the expensively redecorated condo.

  I hadn’t seen Mr. James in a while. He’d stopped dropping by the way he used to, and one night I was at the Applebee’s on Route 19, after work, having a Cherry Herring at the bar when who walks in but Muff. She sees me and smiles, sidles onto the bar stool next to me.

  “Fancy seein’ you here,” she barks. She sounds like Rose Marie after having swallowed a cheese grater. “Gimme a boilermaker!”

  “Night off?” I ask.

  “Sorta. The old guy was wearin’ me out so …”

  She takes out a prescription bottle from her purse.

  “… I popped a couple Valium into his Metamucil. He’ll be out for the night. He thinks he’s such an old bull … let me tell you: I’m breakin’ my wrist just to hoist the weenie!”

  Muff downs her boilermaker. I notice she’s wearing a diamond wristwatch.

  “That’s a pretty watch,” I say.

  “Got it from Mrs. James.” She coughs up some tobacco phlegm to make her even prettier.

  “Fell off her wrist as the chill set in.”

  Now, I do not know what it is that makes people like Muff want to confide in me, but I do not disabuse them of this misplaced trust.

  For the next three hours, she regales me with tales of tricking Mr. James out of money, out of jewelry, and how a lawyer is coming next week to look at Mr. James’s old will that really needs to be rewritten.

  “He can’t live forever,” she snorts. “Not with the workouts I’m givin’ him.”

  By midnight, Muff is pret
ty drunk. Slathering on her orange lipstick she confides she came to Applebee’s to get laid, but I note there are no blind penitentiary escapees to be had. Besides, she has to go back to Mr. James.

  “There’s his sheets gotta go in the dryer. And I hafta make sure he’s still breathing.”

  She slips off her stool right to the floor.

  “You’re in no shape to drive,” I say.

  Which is true, I’ve pumped her boilermakers with the contents of her Valium bottle for three hours now.

  I drive her back to Riddle Key in the Cadillac, use her key card to go through the gates. I get her into the condo. No one sees.

  Mr. James is dead to the world, snoring the way a seventy-nine-year-old man on sleeping pills snores.

  Muff stumbles into the utility room and leans over the clothes washer …

  “Gotta get these sheets in the dryer or they’ll mildew …”

  Which are her last words, unless you count, “Hey!”

  —As I swing the full bottle of heavy-duty economy-size Tide at her head.

  Once she’s out, I take the wet sheets and make sure they’re caught tight on the steel tumbler. Then I take the other wet end and tie it around Muff’s neck.

  Set to spin. And push.

  I regret the shock to Mr. James when he finds her, but I know I’ve made the right decision when he moves back the next week to his old efficiency apartment, and his round-the-clock care is a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound Samoan man named Tondaleyo.

  I’d like to say that was the end of my murder spree. But after you’ve done it once or twice, it just gets easier and easier. Like bicycle riding or sex, which to me is the same thing.

  After Muff was Mr. Dofferman, the undertaker who liked to take things off the deceased before the family got there.

  And then there was Officer Getz, who arrested the seniors on trumped-up driving infractions and threatened them with losing their licenses unless they gave him half their Social Security checks every month.