If I go on my date the kid goes to Mike’s, his father’s. Which probably means an afternoon on the dirty floor in front of the TV, building castles with beer caps. The kid means a lot to me. But the Goddess has her plan. I go with the Goddess. Goddess, tell me what to do. (He moves his hands as if flipping over each card.) The Recent Past? The Moon: losing direction and purpose. The Present? The Hanged Man: giving up control. The Near Future? Ah ha. The Eight of Wands: moving to a conclusion, having a meaningful conversation.
AARON takes out his cellphone.
Here we go.
He turns it on.
Light shift.
WILL
(on phone) Hello, Awkward Moments Bistro. Table for two? Sure we can get you something at the back.
Music: “Happy Ending.”
WILL puts the phone away.
Oooo that’s going to be one uncomfortable lunch date. Or who knows maybe it’ll be wonderful. Maybe Susan’s always wanted a… a… a… One of those. Maybe everything will be a really truly and really and truly a happily ever after.
Music: “Happy Ending.”
But the chances of that are slimmer than a crackhead on a fast. So where are we at now in terms of story? (WILL goes to the table and pours a vodka.) Let’s see. Well Warren has decided to go and get his stuff. And that’s a good thing. And in deciding to do that he’s blown off a lunch meeting with Susan. So as a result Susan has rebooked a lunch date with her new “boy” friend Aaron. Which means that Aaron now can’t look after her—his—her?—his?—whatever—nephew. And now the kid has to be babysat by his ne’er-do-well alcoholic father Mike. Whew. Gosh I hope nothing happens to the kid.
WILL takes a big drink of vodka. A phone rings. Sound of bottles falling over. Light shift.
MIKE
Is that my phone? No? Is that my phone? I thought that was my phone. No? I’m waiting on a call. No phone? No phone. No pool. No pets. (He sings.) “I ain’t got no cigarettes”… (re: vodka) Don’t worry about this. This is not a problem. This is not a problem. If I had a problem—and I’ve got lots of problems—but if I were going to say I had one problem I’d say my problem is I don’t think I feel. I don’t mean “I don’t think, I feel.” I mean I think instead of feel I mean. A normal person would just say “I think too much.” Which makes me I guess not a normal person. Because I think too much. My kid he’s a feeler. I’m trying to get him a little more into his head. He lives with his mother. Seven years old can’t ride a bike. I was born riding a bike. Seven years old and he can’t skate, can’t swim, can’t ride a bike. How’s he ever going to escape? (laughs) But I made her get him a bike though. Some Saturdays I take him out on it with the training wheels. (He considers the drink in his hand.) It’s all good it’s all good. I’m not drinking like I used to. Not heavy like I did. I was not a social drinker. I was a pound-myself-over-the-head-with-the-bottle-till-I-blacked-out drinker. But now I’m more social. And now I’ve got the program. I go to meetings. Now and then. It’s all good. I’m not saying I’m not drinking I’m just not drinking like I used to. Just I get lonely. Not dangerous lonely, regular lonely. “I’m so lonely” then have a drink, that kind of lonely. Not “I’m so lonely” then (mimes hanging himself). And I think too much when I’m not drinking. When I’m not drinking I’m like a brain dragging a spine around. When I’m drinking I’m okay, I’m right in there, I’m not thinking, have a laugh, have a drink. But I still go to meetings anyway. You can go to meetings and drink. I mean you can’t drink at the meetings. Yeah yeah, “Open bar over by the Big Books, by the lit-er-a-ture stand. Have a chip!” There are different kinds of meetings you can go to. I like what they call a “low bottom” meeting—a low bottom meeting—that’s where people tell stories about alcohol poisoning and meds and incarceration. I’m not so much for the “high bottom” meetings—a high bottom meeting—those meetings where the parking lot is full of foreign cars and they’re telling stories about going wild at the office Christmas party or blacking out on their Mexican holiday. Not my world. But no matter what meeting you go to the principles are the same. The central principle being: main thing is: you have to give over. Give it over. So I give over and give over and give over and I give over and I give over and I Give Over and I give over! (He laughs.) Mondays are fine. No desire to drink on Mondays. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, not so bad. Thursday I’m getting a little antsy. Friday I wake up scratching my head wondering: “Why’d I stop?” Friday night I forget to even wonder. Friday night is hard especially if I’m seeing the kid on Saturday. Saturday’s the day I’m sometimes supposed to see the kid. It always helps if I’m a little hungover. I get in there then, have a laugh with him. As long as I don’t have a drink. If I don’t have a drink in the morning I know I’m all right. (notes the drink in his hand) Yeah yeah yeah but yeah but. That’s all right. See it wasn’t the plan to see him today. Yesterday it wasn’t the plan. I’m waiting on a call. I wouldn’t have had a drink if I knew I was seeing him today. If that was the plan. But it’s all good. I just go with the flow. Most Saturdays I never know what to do with him. Sometimes I take him down to the library. I used to spend a good deal of time in the library. I’m no big reader though. I first started going for the free newspapers and because I was trying to quit smoking. I met my wife at the library. Ex-wife. His mother. She’s a character. She’s a big reader. Disappears into a book and calls it a holiday. Maybe that was my big mistake. She sees me at the library and thinks I’m some big kind of reader. A big reader and all that goes along with that. And not having all that came along with that not too much but shit came of that. No no that’s not true. There was good stuff… There’s the kid. He’s still there. Saturdays. Or if not the library maybe a movie. But there’s not too many movies he likes. Mostly he just wants to watch this one movie over and over and over. This cartoon about a princess mermaid. Which I think is a little… But he’s just a kid. He likes science. And he likes science. I liked science. I see me in him some ways. Or forget the movie. I might take him to this Chinese restaurant I go to. I’ve been going there for years. They know me there. This angry Chinese waiter and I have this joke fight thing going. He’s not really angry though he’s just excited; he’s not even Chinese he’s Korean. I took my wife—ex-wife there for our very first date. Shrimp fried rice, moo goo gai pan and Peking chicken. Peeking chicken! Peeking chicken! Peekaboo peeking chicken! And then after they bring us the fortune cookies. And this is beautiful this is beautiful. After, they bring us— Wait back up back up back up. You gotta know this. Always always forever with me with fortune cookies I always go for the fortune cookie farthest away. And you’re not supposed to do that right. You’re supposed to take the cookie closest to you. The one closest to you is the one that God or the Universe or Buddha or whatever put your fortune in. But I always took the one farthest away because that way I had some say in my fortune. Like if God or the Universe or Buddha or whatever put that cookie close to me because it was supposed to be my fortune then I was going to trick them up and find my own fortune. I’d get to choose my destiny by taking the one farthest away. So this first night of the first date they bring out the fortune cookies and before I even make a move she goes for the one farthest away from her. She goes for the one by me farthest from her. And so I go for the one by her farthest from me. So hey, right, maybe we got one another’s fortunes. But what’s really beautiful? Really? She takes the cookie, doesn’t open it, doesn’t take it out of the wrapper or anything, and she drops it in her purse and she says, “I’m going to save this for later.” Awwww. I saved mine too. I never said anything though. I’ve still got it. Not crushed up or anything. It’s in a cigar box with my birth certificate and an old Bobby Orr Boston Bruins hockey card. I doubt she’s still got hers though.
He rubs his head like it hurts from thinking.
But it’s hard in the restaurant with the kid because there’s not a lot of dads alone with their seven-year-old kids. I don’t see them any
way. And I don’t know what to say to him half the time and it’s harder at the restaurant because I keep thinking people know, people can see I don’t know what to say. “Oh that guy doesn’t know what to say to his kid.” Sometimes I think maybe I should be the clown and stick some chalkstips in my mouth and be like, “I am the Walrus!” But he’d just think that was stupid. Ah! Ah! See right there? See that? See why do I have to think that? Why do I have to think that. He’s not going to think it’s stupid he would think it was funny. See what happens when I think too much. I’m getting better though. I used to be real bad. Before I stopped heavy drinking. But now I’m good as long as I don’t have a drink in the morning. (He regards the glass in his hand.) Yeah yeah but I’m okay, I’m okay. Ah it doesn’t matter. A couple of times before I went over to pick him up on Saturday morning with a glow on and a bottle in my pocket, no big deal. He likes it. I mean he doesn’t know I’ve been drinking but he thinks I’m funny. “You’re funny.” She won’t care. She won’t know. She won’t lay eyes on me. She won’t have me in the house. By court order. That was our house one time. Sleep in on Saturdays. He was a baby. Or before he was there. Stay in bed all day. Eat sandwiches. Crumbs in the sheets. Who cares? That part of her back. Softest place ever. (He hits himself on the head; he laughs.) I think too much! But you know what? If the plan is to see him today? If I get the call? Then I know what I’m going to do. Because she’s always, “You made me buy him that goddamn bike but you won’t take him out on it.” But if the plan is I see him today then today is the day the training wheels come off. That’s how you learn. Get right into it. That’s what a father does. Get right up there with him, give him a good push, have a laugh. I’m not a good father.
What?
Oh, that’s not fair. That’s not fair. “I’m NOT a bad father.” That’s not fair. “Oh he said—hear what he said?” I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what she thinks. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I care what he thinks though. I care what he thinks. Because I don’t want him to have to grow up and some day be sitting there with his wife or his girlfriend and have to tell her: “My dad didn’t even teach me how to ride a bike.”
MIKE knocks back the drink.
WILL
Ahhh.
The phone rings.
Light shift.
And there’s the call.
Music: “Happy Ending.”
Hmm, that drink made me feel like… Another.
WILL reaches under the table and takes out a vodka bottle and pours another drink.
Oh I know, the poor guy. Some people just can’t help being themselves. What it really comes down to is some people just can’t handle their own lives so they need a little medication. One man’s cocktail is another man’s prescription. And why can’t they handle it? Because they give their story away. They give it over. Look, in life, you can be a passenger or you can be a driver. If you want to get your stuff you have to drive. It’s very simple. You want the girl? Get the girl. You want to know your fortune? Open the cookie. You want to tell the story? Go and get your stuff. And hey, is that what we’re supposed to be doing? What are we doing sitting around here? Let’s go get our stuff. But we could wait around for a minute or two. That way you’d get to meet the kid. Before we kill him.
Light shift and giant music, Marilyn Manson’s “This Is The New Shit.”
KEVIN does his giant dance.
KEVIN
Once upon a time there was this guy. Heeee was this guy. Heeee was just this guuuuy. Just this guy with a wife and two kids: one kid a twin boy and one kid a twin girl. And every night they’d all have dinner of pizza that he picked up in his car for takeout on his way home from work where he worked as aaaaaaaa dentist! And he was a dentist because he had really clean hands and really really fresh breath and these glasses things you could wear to watch movies in the chair and it made it looked like the movies were on the ceiling but they weren’t on the ceiling they were just in the glasses things—It’s Ariel and her beautiful hair and flowing red and beautiful in the swimming of underwater: “I am Ariel”—and not on the ceiling but just right there in the glasses things right in front of your eyes. So there’s this guy who was a dentist and his wife was his wife and his two kids who were two kids, one kid a twin boy and one twin a twin girl, and everyone was really happy but not really. And because everyone was really happy but not really, every night the guy would go into the basement and drink magic juice. The magic juice was magic because it made the guy feel a little bit better and a little bit funny and a little bit bigger. The magic juice was also poison but it was only poison if you drank too much. But because it made the guy feel a little bit better and a little bit funny and little bit bigger, every night he drank just a little bit too much. And one night there was a terrible fight about pizza. Because they had pizza every night. And every night was too much of pizza for the guy’s wife and one night she just starting yelling and crying: “I’M SO SICK OF THIS. I’M JUST SO SICK OF THIS. I DON’T LOVE PIZZA. I NEVER LOVED PIZZA. I’M JUST SO SICK OF THIS.” And the guy got really mad and almost crying too: “YOU’RE TELLING ME NOW! YOU’RE TELLING ME NOW! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME BEFORE? WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME NOW!” And that night the guy goes into the basement and he’s so upset and he drinks all of the magic juice. Every single drop from every single bottle. Even drops from bottles all sticky like they’ve been there since last summer even bottles with cigarette butts in them. Then everyone goes to bed. And everything gets very very very very very very very very very very quiet. Then everybody wakes up and it’s morning and the guy brushes his teeth and drinks his coffee—not at the same time! And the guy goes to put on his shoes but his shoes don’t fit. They are just a little too tight. So the guy goes and gets these other shoes he got for Christmas that were just a little too big but now they fit just perfect. And so he goes to work and it’s a normal day. “Good morning, Miss Green, you look very pretty today what are my appointments? Hello, Mister Babbledob, how are your teeth today? Are you flossing and brushing after every meal, Jeanie? Good afternoon, little boy, would you like to watch a movie on my special glasses? What a long day I’m very tired good night, Miss Green.” And then the guy goes home and even still gets pizza like normal because he just wants everything to be normal and he doesn’t know what else to do but pizza because pizza is normal. And then he goes to bed. Then the next morning the guy wakes up and he goes to put on his pants but his pants don’t fit so he makes his belt bigger and thinks, “No more pizza for me!” And then the next morning he wakes up and he goes to work and his head keeps hitting the ceiling of his car so he has to drive like this bent over. And the next day he goes to work and his fingers are too big to fit in anybody’s mouth. And so he has to take a vacation, but he takes the kind of vacation where he just stays in his bedroom and won’t come out. But in his bedroom he keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger until he busts through the walls of the house. But not a fast bust-through like an explosion bust-through, but a minute by minute slow bust-through where it’s “wood creak creak creak wood, snap” and “wood creak creak creak wood, snap” and then the walls of the bedroom are on the ground and it’s the guy who’s holding up the house and they have to go and get these strong guys who come with these metal poles with holes in it that you screw up really slow and heavy—up and up and up and up—to hold up the whole house so the guy can come out. And he comes out and now he’s a giant. And because he’s a giant he has to go away. And there are feelings. The wife and her feelings but “I don’t want to talk about it” but they were maybe going to get a divorce about pizza anyway. And maybe she should have told him before. And the kids have their feelings, some sad and some not. Some not like “it’s quiet because nobody’s yelling and knocking stuff down” and some sad like “who’s going to help me do my science homework” and “who’s going to take me out for Halloween as the Little Mermaid”—that was the girl twin who had that f
eeling. But he doesn’t know where to go so for a while he lives all alone out in the woods past the swamp behind the soccer field by the school where nobody hardly ever goes just the bad kids who do drugs and make sex on those girls from the other high school. But the guy keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and all the people of the whole town are all like, “What the hell, you’re blocking out all the sun from the whole town, get the hell out of here.” So he has to go away. And so he walks and walks and walks and he has to be very very careful where he walks because he’s not just a Jack in the Beanstalk kind of giant but he’s like a mountain kind of giant with airplanes in his hair and clouds are all in his eyes, with just one step he could crush a whole neighbourhood. So he walks very very slowly, very very carefully, until he gets to a place where all the giants hang out. Which is a bar. And in the bar there’s a TV where there is only one show on all the time. Which is Cheers. So that you’re watching a show in a bar of a bar—in a bar of a bar—in a bar of a bar. And because then whenever anybody walks in and says: “What’s on?” Everybody gets to go: Cheers. Cheers! Glug glug glug glug. And the giants are always standing around saying how good it is the little people aren’t around anymore. And the giant guy is like: “Yeah me too!” But that’s not true. No no that’s not true. Because some nights he called home—but it was hard to hear him on the phone because he has a giant voice and it’s just a regular phone and he was maybe crying. And once he came back in person and broke the door and the giant cops had to come put a coudorer… a coradora…… a courtordera on him. “Okay, people, nothing to see here move along, move along, y’all go back to your happy homes.” And the giant guy he’s crying and crying all the time now and then one day he stops crying long enough to go and wash his face. But the only place he can wash his face is the ocean, so he goes to the ocean and he leans over it and he sees his reflection and in his reflection he sees there’s something in his forehead. It’s a door. He never noticed that before, he thought that bump was just a pimple but it’s not it’s a doorknob. So he opens the door and in his head is this teeny tiny guy. And the giant guy says to the teeny tiny guy, “What the hell are you doing in there?” And the teeny tiny guy jumps out onto the giant guy’s shoulder and the giant says, “What the hell is your name?” And the teeny tiny guy says, “I am Will.” And then the giant guy gets it. He gets it. He gets it he gets it he gets it. This is the teeny tiny guy who has been living in his head from since way from before. Telling him all the wrong things to do. Telling him to drink the magic juice, telling him to get pizza only and never think of something new, telling him to only be grumpy and never give hugs, to go into his room and not come out, telling him not to believe in God. No giants believe in God. Uh uh, uh uh, uh uh. Because they don’t believe the angels are strong enough to carry their giant prayers to heaven. But all they’d have to do is ask for more angels. The angels should know that too but angels aren’t angels because they’re smart. And now the giant is mad because he knows it is Will who made him a giant. So he goes to grab Will but Will jumps off his shoulder and down to the ground and runs away. So the giant starts running after Will because he thinks if he can catch him and crush him that everything will go back to normal and he won’t be a giant anymore. So the giant starts running and as he runs he stomps. Stomping and stomping and stomping. And even still today. And every time he stomps that’s why there’s earthquakes, and the giant is yelling and that’s why there’s thunder, and the giant is crying and every time a teardrop hits the ground that’s why there’s floods, and the giant is swooshing his arms to try and grab Will and that’s why there’s tornadoes. (whispering) So be very very very careful if you hear a voice telling you to do things you know you shouldn’t do because you might turn into a giant too. (a long pause as KEVIN regards the audience passively)
This Is What Happens Next Page 4