MARCO: (approaches stage left; carrying a stool with both hands, he climbs onto the seat and addresses the audience) I’m younger and smaller than my brother and I can kick his ass. I walk up to him and smash him in the face with a pillow any day of the week and he cries. I like guns. I want a gun. I like decapitations. Heads look cool rolling on the floor. I’d like to cut off my dad’s head but if I do that he’ll probably stop buying me presents so that wouldn’t be smart. Keep the presents coming, keep the head from rolling down the street, that’s what it’s all about. The hardest thing for me is the distance between birthdays and Christmas. Big long gaps, all saggy and worthless. I could kill my dad and no one would care. My mom would sit with me at the defense table like a crybaby and my punishment would be next to nothing. I’d still get presents on my birthday and Christmas, and that is so much the only thing that matters.
ALEX: (to the audience) Since our mom’s a pretty lady, we’d get a new dad real fast. She’d just sit around at the zoo and flirt, swish her bottom in front of the elephant keeper or the lion tamer, or she’d come to our school and play doctor with our principal, Mr. White, and that would be the new dad and hopefully he’d be more fun to play with than our original idiot. From what little I know of the world, our second dad will beat us up a lot. Stepdads like to beat up on the lady’s kids because we get in the way of their going all the way. We distract our mom with bad grades, and we need a constant flow of money, and because we wish our first father would return. Maybe that’s what will happen. We don’t know how good we had it. Okay, original stupid, retarded, Steve-Dad. Don’t die. Don’t go away. Stay with us. We wuv you. I think it would be best if we let him finish the story. I’m ready for bed and everything he says is boring which leads directly to sleep. Dreaming of killing him isn’t a crime. I want to see his head fly off in slo-mo. And then play it back at regular speed and see it reattach. I saw that in Blood Gore 3, the coolest CDROM in existence.
It’s bedtime. The boys are tucked neatly under the covers and kissed on their foreheads. I hear them talking. They express their rough love in subtle ways. I jump into bed first, excited at the thought that I will soon be unconscious. I take a few hits of marijuana to obliterate my dreams. It’s not fair to make me dream. I sleep in my boxers and the Tshirt I wear underneath my day clothes. I have pajamas, but I only wear them when I’m sick. I dangle one bare foot off the side of the bed so I never overheat. My wife thinks that’s cute. I’m grateful that I can do something that generates a response like that. She goes so far as to say that my barefoot cooling system is sexy. My wife takes her clothes off in front of me. She has the stripping skills of an exotic dancer. She takes her bra off like Houdini slipping out of a straitjacket. I still can’t figure it out. She steps out of her pants and folds them neatly over my gentleman’s helper that my dad passed on to me. After snuggling up next to me, she says she’d like to have another child, a girl, and she’d like to start trying tonight. She sticks a finger in her mouth and touches me on my forearm. She’s such a pro. I love you, she says, reading cue cards from hell. I love you too, I say back.
In 20 seconds something incredible happens and we haven’t checked into a hotel. Later, I’m in basic Kama Sutra position 1-B and her eyes are closed. Her breathing increases, she looks at me. Eye contact is rare for us. With a free hand I wave, like I’m across the street. That’s a suave move. She smiles. She doesn’t mind that I’m an idiot. I have sperm. That’s all that matters. I’m not cynical; I’m a human resource. We switch to position 2-A and the countdown begins.
After liftoff, I sigh, she sighs.
I love the name Hope, she says.
Yeah, that’s nice, I say. What do you think of Joy?
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