The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018
Page 21
Curled up on her bed with Tamara that night, the glow of the phone like a campfire illuminating their faces, Margot read the messages as they arrived:
“Hi Margot, I saw you out at the bar tonight. I know you said not to text you but I just wanted to say you looked really pretty. I hope you’re doing well!”
“I know I shouldnt say this but I really miss you!’
“Hey maybe I don’t have the right to ask but I just wish youd tell me what it is I did wrog”
“*wrong”
“I felt like we had a real connection did you not feel that way or . . .”
“Maybe I was too old for u or maybe you liked someone else”
“Is that guy you were with tonight your boyfriend”
“???”
“Or is he just some guy you are fucking”
“Sorry”
“When u laguehd when I asked if you were a virgin was it because youd fucked so many guys”
“Are you fucking that guy right now”
“Are you”
“Are you”
“Are you”
“Answer me”
“Whore.”
ANNIE BAKER
■
An Excerpt from The Antipodes
FROM The Antipodes (A Play)
The Antipodes takes place in a windowless room at a conference table surrounded by ergonomic chairs. One woman and seven men are attempting to come up with a story for a mysterious piece of media. The head writer, Sandy, has told everyone to say “whatever weird shit comes into our minds,” and that nothing is too personal or private to share. His assistant Sarah periodically brings them food and seltzer.
* indicates a leap forward in time.
this leap forward is indicated by subtle shifts in actor behavior and movement and without lights or sound.
/ is an interruption and indicates when the next line of dialogue should begin.
SANDY
Biggest regret.
Danny.
DANNY M1
Let’s see. Biggest regret.
I guess I/always—
SANDY
Not you Flasheroo.
The other Danny.
Pause.
DANNY M2
Oh.
Me?
Sorry.
I get/a little—
SANDY
Biggest regret.
Pause.
DANNY M2
Huh.
Let me think.
(long pause)
Well. Uh. This one summer when I was a teenager I lived on a farm. And I had a lot of little jobs but one of them was putting the chickens to bed at night. There were a lot of foxes roaming around so it was important to get all the chickens in their little chicken house by sundown and lock the door behind them and then turn on the electric fence. And most of the chickens would be in the chicken house already by the time it got dark and they’d be sleeping or sleepy and I gotta tell you there’s nothing cuter than a bunch of sleepy chickens nestled up together all plump with their eyes drooping shut. But uh . . . yeah. There would usually be a few stragglers still wandering around and the guy who gave me the job told me that I was supposed to pick those stragglers up and put them in the chicken house. But for some reason I was terrified of picking up a chicken. I loved them but the idea of grabbing them and . . . I don’t know I pictured them pecking me and/or clawing me or me accidentally hurting them . . . maybe part of it was that I actually wanted to pick the chickens up very badly . . . there was something about their chests, those fluffy alive chicken breasts, and I loved the idea of holding them firmly but lovingly in my hands but I just couldn’t picture it going the right way . . . like how to do it . . . and I worried I would hurt the chickens or be hurt by the chickens so I actually would just wait until way after sundown, like 10:30, 11 p.m., and that’s when I would go lock the chicken house door and turn on the electric fence and by that time all the chickens had gone in the house and fallen asleep on their own. But I was really playing with fire because the fox could have come around before then. I mean something really bad could have happened in that two hour window. But I was so scared of picking up a chicken that I . . . I didn’t tell anyone and I took that risk every night. Luckily no chickens died that summer. But they could have.
(pause)
So I guess my regret is that I didn’t ask for a . . . that I didn’t just ask someone to give me a tutorial on how to hold a chicken.
Pause.
ADAM
That’s/your greatest—
ELEANOR
But nothing bad happened.
DANNY M2
But it could have.
And I guess . . .
(pause)
I guess what it’s about is this sense I’ve always had that there’s some secret, that there’s some thing in this life I don’t fully have access to, maybe it’s a specific kind of joy, I’m not sure. And that summer with the chickens I really do feel like if I had just picked them up something would have changed in me and my life might be very different now.
No response from the group. He shakes his head and looks down at his hands for a while.
DANNY M2
Uh
Sorry
I feel like I should say something.
They all look at him. He’s still looking at his hands.
DANNY M2
I really heard what you said on the first day about our stories—about our personal stories being the material for—being part of the inspiration for the work—
I really understand that. I think.
But uh—
Sometimes when I tell personal stories to you guys
Like just now
It doesn’t feel real.
It feels misleading.
Pause.
SANDY
. . . What do you mean misleading.
DANNY M2
Afterwards I feel like I made something up. Even though I didn’t.
There’s not enough context or—
I’m telling a story because I think you want me to tell a story
And then I’m trying to figure out how you all see me in relation to the story.
And I can tell the way you’re seeing me is not the way I am.
Pause.
DANNY M2
It just gets so personal.
And I guess I’ve always felt like my personal life is the part of my life that I don’t want to turn into a story.
(long pause)
I also just want to add that I feel really lucky to be here and I really respect everyone in this room.
And I really respect what we’re doing.
Silence. The only movement onstage is Dave transferring his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and then back again. It seems like Sandy might say something. After a long time, he starts texting. Then he dials a number and strolls out of the room.
DAVE
. . . I guess we’re on a ten.
Eleanor takes out an egg and starts shelling it. Looking at his laptop:
BRIAN
Did you know that a whale off the coast of Brazil can hear what another whale is saying off the coast of Alaska? Something about the way the ocean transmits sound.
ADAM
I like that.
BRIAN
So if you’re a whale you’re hearing like every other whale in your hemisphere all talking at the same time. I mean not talking. Making /whale—
Sarah sticks her head in.
SARAH
Hey um Danny M?
Danny M Two?
Sandy was wondering if he could talk to you in his office for a second.
Pause.
DANNY M2
Yeah.
Yeah of course.
He exits, never to return. They all sit there, worried, except for Dave, who is throwing pieces of Smartfood up into the air and catching them in his mouth.
*
Sandy’s back.
ELEANOR
*
JOSH
Imagine a world like ours.
With clocks and calendars and whatever.
But all the clocks tell a different kind of time.
You know how there are certain insects
And they only live a couple of days
But those days must go by so slowly, you know?
Because they’re like literally a lifetime!
DANNY M1
DAVE
Yeah.
. . . Okay.
JOSH
So imagine a world like ours but the time the clock is telling is . . . Well so a day could actually be a century. Like the clock face is measuring years.
Or it could be the opposite and an hour on the clock or what looks like an hour on the clock is actually a second. Or a millisecond.
So it’s a totally different world but it appears the same. But to them a millisecond is a lifetime./Or a hundred years is a minute.
ELEANOR
Ooh that just gave me tingles.
ADAM
Do you guys know about the yugas?
They all shake their heads no.
ADAM
It’s this Hindu cyclical idea of time and the universe and the idea is that we’re always in one of four ages. Yugas. And when you’re done with the fourth yuga you cycle back to the first. And each yuga is like hundreds of thousands of years long and each one is worse than the one that came before. Like right now we’re supposedly living in something called the Kali Yuga which is the most like demonic fucked up age you can be in. And at the end of this yuga the universe will return to some like primordial ocean state for the length of all the past four yugas combined and then everything will start all over and people will be like nice to each other again.
DANNY M1
ELEANOR
Huh.
I like that.
JOSH
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
I mean that’s a little different from what I was saying but yeah that’s—
That’s cool.
So what I was saying was that maybe there’s a world where people are experiencing—
Their world just measures time differently.
/They—
DAVE
How do we . . . how do we tell that story though?
Sarah has entered with a new box of seltzer. She puts it on top of the other boxes.
JOSH
What do you mean?
DAVE
If their minute is our century or our minute is their decade or—whatever—how do we tell the story of—are we telling the story in our time or in theirs?
JOSH
Yeah. Maybe there’s a way to—
Maybe that would be the point.
DAVE
What would be the point?
JOSH
Like messing with all of that and—
*
SARAH
Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize you meant me. I thought you were talking/to—
SANDY
I meant you.
SARAH
Oh.
Wow.
Um.
Okay.
I feel kind of on the spot.
Pause.
SARAH
Well. Um. Hmm.
I guess only Sandy knows this but my mom died when I was thirteen?
DANNY M1
ELEANOR
JOSH
ADAM
Oh shit.
I’m so sorry.
That’s awful.
Sorry, Sarah.
SARAH
Yeah I mean it’s okay. I mean its not okay. Its super sad. But it’s like my life so . . . yeah.
Short pause.
SARAH
Anyway. Um. I kind of had this crazy experience like one year after she died.
Um.
(to Sandy)
You really want me to tell them about it?
He nods.
SARAH
Well. My dad remarried pretty quickly. And my stepmother and I didn’t really get along. She was kind of this—well she was like this sort of makeup-y like—she came from a lot of inherited wealth and my mom was like—she was a social worker and she and my dad were always just trying to make ends meet. And then like six months after my mom dies my dad remarries and suddenly we’re like living in this big house on the other side of town and I’m supposed to be really excited about it. But it just feels—I mean the house feels big and creepy and lonely. And my stepmother already has two daughters and one of them is in college but the other one is around my age and like . . . she’s this like popular girl who goes to private school and she like clearly hates me and she and my stepmother are like super girly. Anyway.
Wait you guys really want to hear this? This isn’t boring?
DANNY M1
ADAM
JOSH
No.
No.
Keep going!
SARAH
Okay well at one point my dad went on a business trip and I was alone with my stepmother and my stepsister for two weeks. And one night my stepmother was cooking dinner and she said that she didn’t have any um rosemary for this lamb stew she was making. So she told me to walk down the street and go to the little blue house at the end of the cul de sac and to ask the old woman who lived there if she had any rosemary we could borrow.
But I was scared. Everyone at my school said the little blue house was haunted and that the old woman who lived there was a witch. So I’m standing in my bedroom trying to decide what to do when this doll my mom gave me right before she died starts talking to me. And the doll says: Don’t be afraid. Just do what you’re told but don’t forget to bring me with you.
So I walk down the street and it’s dark and kind of creepy and when I get to the little blue house I realize for the first time that the fence which has always just seemed like plain painted white wood to me is actually made out of bones and on the top of every post is a human skull.
The phone starts ringing in the other room.
SARAH
Oh shoot.
The phone keeps ringing.
SARAH
If that’s Jeff I should get it.
SANDY
Did Jeff say he was gonna call?
SARAH
He said later today or tomorrow.
(pause, phone still ringing)
I’m gonna get it just in case.
Sorry guys.
Hold on one sec.
She leaves. They all sit there in silence, waiting. After about fifteen seconds, she comes back in.
SARAH
It wasn’t Jeff.
SANDY
Why is he calling at all?
SARAH
I think he wanted to check in about the schedule and/see if there’s any way he can—
SANDY
Check in about the schedule? There’s no problem with the schedule. We’re on schedule.
SARAH
Great.
SANDY
When you talk to him tell him we’re on schedule.
Because I don’t want to talk to him.
SARAH
Great. Yeah. He knows we’re on schedule. I think he just likes to feel included and so he was reaching out to see if he could help or if there’s anything we need or . . .
Sandy nods and checks his phone. Sarah stands there for a few seconds.
SARAH
Oh yeah on top of every post was a human skull. So I’m terrified! Obviously.
And yeah I knock on the door and this old lady opens it and she looks like a million years old and I ask her if s
he has any rosemary and she says she has to check first and why don’t I come inside. And like this feels like a really really bad idea but the doll whispers to me that I should do as I’m told and go inside. And so I go inside and it’s basically like my worst nightmare. The old woman locks me in a room and tells me that she’s going to put me in the oven and eat me unless I clean her whole house and separate the moldy corn from the good corn by the next day at sundown. Oh yeah she has this like enormous vat of corn kernels. Maybe I forgot to mention that. It’s like an impossible task. So I’m like freaking out and then the doll says to me: “Go to sleep. Morning is wiser than evening.” So I go to sleep and in the morning I wake up and the old lady has gone off to do errands and my doll has already like amazingly cleaned the whole house and has separated all the thousands of moldy kernels of corn from the good kernels of corn. And when the old woman comes home that night she can’t believe it and she gets really mad because she was planning on eating me for dinner. And then she gives me another task for the next day. Now I have to clean every single kernel of corn until it’s shiny and bright and I have to do it before sundown. It’s another impossible task since there are like tens of thousands of kernels of corn. So that night the same thing happens . . . I cry in my room and then the doll says “Go to sleep. Morning is wiser than evening.” And then when I wake up in the morning my awesome doll has already cleaned every single kernel of corn! And when the old woman gets home that evening hungry for dinner she can’t believe that all the corn is clean and she gets really mad and yells: “How did you do all the work I gave you?” And I just say: “I did it with the blessing of my mother” because my mother did give me the doll and I didn’t want to say, like, “the doll did it for me.” Anyway right after I say that the old woman gets really scared and she says: “I don’t want any blessings in my house” and she pushes me out the front door and down to the gate made out of human bones and skulls. Then she takes one of the skulls and puts it on a pole for me and says: “This will light your way home.” And sure enough there’s fire inside the skull and it burns through the eyes and lights my way back to my stepmother’s house. When I get back home I try to hide the skull in the garbage cans in our driveway so my stepmother doesn’t find out but then I hear this little voice coming out of the skull. It’s saying: “Don’t throw me away. Take me to your stepmother.” So I bring the skull inside and it stares at my stepmother and stepsister with these burning eyes and the eyes follow them wherever they go. The eyes burn right into their evil souls. And by the next morning they had both turned to ash.