PHYLLIS
It’s called karma.
DOM
Well, I don’t know what that is.
PHYLLIS
It means if you do something bad, then the exact same bad thing will happen to you.
DOM
You’re talking about God’s wrath, that’s what you’re talking about.
PHYLLIS
I’m talking about karma. I’m talking about the universe paying you back for your evil actions.
DOM
That’s God. God pays you back, not the universe.
PHYLLIS
I don’t believe in God.
DOM
That’s insane. How can you not believe in God? He’s everywhere.
PHYLLIS
Is he here in this grocery store?
DOM
Especially in this grocery store.
PHYLLIS
This whole thing is a frame-up!
DOM
Phyllis, listen to me. “If thy right hand offend thee, Phyllis, cut it off!”
PHYLLIS
Cut off thy right hand?
She runs around to the far side of the table. He chases after her.
DOM
“And cast it from thee, for it is profitable that one of thy members should perish –”
PHYLLIS
Perish?
She throws chairs in his path and breaks for the door.
Help!
DOM
“And not that thy whole body shall be cast into hell!”
Exits.
PHYLLIS
(from off) Help!
Blackout. In silhouette, the door opens and ALMA is escorted into the room by OTTO. He seats her and leaves again, locking the door.
Scene Five
ALMA is sitting alone. She notices the cake ingredients PHYLLIS left on the table. She inspects the sugar and then stuffs it in her purse. She does the same with the bottle of oil and then drops her purse under the table. A moment later, OTTO unlocks the door. He enters with an empty glass and a bottle of water, setting them both down on the table. He sits.
OTTO
Here’s your water. Every time you say something useful, I’ll pour you some. Later, when you’ve told me everything, you can drink it.
ALMA
So, what did the butcher say?
OTTO
Enough.
ALMA
Why did you have me stand so far away?
OTTO
He needed some perspective.
ALMA
I was married to a man like you.
OTTO
Is that so?
He pours a little water, slowly.
ALMA
Thought he was tough.
OTTO
Not as tough as you, I’m guessing.
ALMA
You ever been married? I’m thinking no.
OTTO
Why did you take the steaks?
ALMA
What do you care?
OTTO
Call me curious.
ALMA
You wanna talk about stealing? Who stole the American dream? Look at us: you and me. Fighting over what? You ever seen that documentary – they showed this documentary on TV – about a shrinking watering hole –
OTTO takes a pill from his pocket and downs it with the water.
ALMA
There’s this drought in Africa somewhere, and all these animals – baboons and wildebeests and little baby impalas – are forced to go down and drink from a watering hole that’s filled with crocodiles, because there’s no other water; it’s a drought, see. The crocodiles just sit there and wait, and when the other animals get close enough, the crocodiles leap up and grab them in their jaws and drag them down. You should see that documentary; it’s instructive.
OTTO
You think I’m dragging you down with my jaws?
ALMA
Are you kidding? You and me, we’re both drinking from that dirty swamp, fighting for our little space, pushing each other and jostling for a place at the water’s edge, because the whole savannah has dried up. Get it? Maybe I’m a wildebeest and maybe you’re a baboon, and we’re fighting each other for a little sip of water. Not even realizing that we’re both just a feast for the crocodiles.
OTTO
Sorry I missed that program.
He takes another pill.
ALMA
What are those?
He drinks.
OTTO
Nothing.
ALMA
You take pills for nothing? What are you, a celebrity?
He pours a little more water.
ALMA
Is this the pee torture? It won’t work on me. I’m invincible.
OTTO
Your friend says you have cancer.
ALMA
She says a lot of things, and she’s not my friend.
OTTO
You’re right, she does say a lot of things. For one thing, when you dropped the merchandise out of your dress, she said, and I quote, “I don’t know her.” As a matter of fact, she didn’t just say it, she yelled it at the top of her lungs. Now, who do you suppose she was talking about?
ALMA
Me?
OTTO
Well, see, that’s what I was thinking. Since you were standing right next to her.
ALMA
As it turns out, she’s right, she doesn’t know me.
OTTO
And yet, this morning, according to Phyllis, you came here together on the bus.
ALMA
And you believe her?
OTTO
Listen, I know you have a busy schedule –
ALMA
I can spare you a few more minutes.
OTTO
Great, because I just need to draw together a few facts here, to see how they fit.
ALMA
You’d have to draw together more than a few facts to make them all fit, Otto. You’d have to look at the whole structure of the market economy. And I’m not sure we have the time for that.
OTTO
The thing is, on further questioning, the woman you don’t know said you live in the same housing project. She said you first met a few years ago at a laundromat nearby. She said that some man had yelled at her and threatened her, for no reason, and when he was gone you casually took his clothes out of the dryer, brought them to a consignment store around the corner, sold them, came back, and gave her half the money.
ALMA
I wonder why she would say that.
OTTO
She said that these days you run a little street-vending enterprise: set up a little table outside your complex and sell sandwiches, for cheap, so people around there can afford them. You’re a bit of a hero, she says, in the neighbourhood. I’m just wondering where you get the ingredients for those discount sandwiches.
ALMA
Is this really relevant?
OTTO
Sure, forget it. Why don’t we just stick to the case? I mean, we can talk all we like about the market economy and crocodiles and cheap sandwiches, but, in the end, it’s just two shoplifters, right? Let’s go.
ALMA
I think it’s time we struck a bargain here, Otto. I’ll tell you what, if you let us both go, with the steaks, we will agree not to press charges. How does that sound?
OTTO
Charges?
ALMA
Uttering threats? Wrongful detainment?
OTTO tries to control his breathing.
OTTO
Nobody’s uttered any threats.
ALMA
It’s your word against mine.
OTTO
You better come up with something better than that.
ALMA
Okay, then how about this? We further agree that she never sets foot in this store again.
OTTO
And you?
ALMA
I’m nobody.
OTTO
Not to me.
He holds himself for a second from dizziness.
ALMA
You all right?
OTTO
Do you know how many months I have watched you work? How many times I have seen you carefully select your way through the cheeses? Or boldly slip packages of sliced ham under your arms? How many jars of mustard I have witnessed you stuff into that dirty old purse of yours?
ALMA
You didn’t stop me, though, did you?
OTTO
Maybe I was waiting for you to stop yourself.
ALMA
So why today then?
OTTO
My trainee got a little carried away. And let’s just say you didn’t help the situation by getting so particular, all of a sudden, with your shopping choices.
Beat.
You couldn’t just stick with ordinary merchandise?
ALMA
Sometimes – just every little once in a while – ordinary won’t do.
He opens the paper.
OTTO
How were you going to cook these? In a peppercorn sauce?
ALMA
Sometimes you just need a little more.
OTTO
In all my time here, I have never eaten a steak like this. You know why?
ALMA
Ethical issues?
OTTO
I can’t afford it.
ALMA
Is that why you’re keeping me here?
OTTO
Is it just greed, Alma? I’m trying to put things together, that’s all.
ALMA
I’ll be dead before you can do that.
OTTO
Is that so?
ALMA
We can only hope.
OTTO
Do you really have cancer? Not that it matters.
ALMA
You’re right. It doesn’t matter. You know what matters? Living a little.
OTTO
You’re not living?
ALMA
I am right now. And what exactly has greed got to do with anything?
OTTO
I don’t know, we were talking about how there might actually be a legitimate reason for stealing.
Beat.
Things were just fine around here until you decided to take it to another level. Now look where we are.
Walkie-talkie.
What now? Where the hell are you?
Walkie-talkie.
What’s that?
Walkie-talkie.
Well, find her, for fuck’s sake, before the manager does.
He breathes heavily.
ALMA
The manager doesn’t know about any of this? I’d say you’re in pretty deep.
OTTO
She won’t get far.
ALMA
I don’t know. She has fear on her side.
OTTO
And I’ve got you.
ALMA
Then you got nothing. I’m just an innocent bystander, watching the whole world rob itself blind.
OTTO
Except when you go out to steal it for yourself.
ALMA
You think this all comes down to what’s right and what’s wrong?
OTTO
It comes down to what you did. And why.
ALMA
Where do we start?
OTTO
Let’s start with the truth, how about that? The truth.
ALMA
What truth?! That my hunger is used as a weapon against me?
OTTO
Hunger?
ALMA
Yes, hunger.
He picks up the meat.
OTTO
Here. Eat this steak!
ALMA
What?
OTTO
You heard me.
He stands and approaches her.
You hungry?
ALMA
You bet I am!
OTTO
Then, here. Go ahead. Eat it.
He shoves it in her face. She backs around the table away from him.
OTTO
You wanna talk about crocodiles? Feed on this!
ALMA
Get that away from me.
OTTO
What? Not thick enough? Not juicy enough for you?
ALMA
Have you lost your mind?
OTTO
Yes. Now take a bite out of it!
ALMA
Or what?
He slams the meat on the table and produces his stun gun.
OTTO
Or I’ll introduce 950,000 volts into your nervous system!
ALMA
Go right ahead.
OTTO
Yeah? You want some heat?
ALMA
Give it to me, baby! What the fuck do I care?
She exposes her cleavage.
OTTO
(backing away) Just who are you?
ALMA
Let’s find out! Right here. Right now! What’s wrong?
OTTO
(faltering) I feel weird.
ALMA
Sit down. Take it easy.
He sits.
ALMA
Take it easy.
OTTO
I’m fine.
ALMA
You’re not fine. You’re overexcited. Look at you. You’re overexcited. Unbutton your shirt a little.
She loosens his tie, undoes a button.
OTTO
It’s the air in here. There’s no air in here.
ALMA
Breathe.
OTTO
I’m breathing.
ALMA
This is crazy. Killing yourself for a supermarket outlet, for a fucking piece of meat.
She brandishes the meat.
For this!
She slams the meat on the table.
OTTO
That’s right: killing myself.
ALMA
What is this really about?
OTTO
It’s about standing up for something.
ALMA
Don’t stand.
OTTO
I’m not going to stand.
ALMA
You think I don’t have principles, just because they don’t happen to be yours? Look at me, Otto! You think I don’t have a beating heart in here? This here is desire, Otto. This is me in here, grabbing for something. Something that’s owed to me, goddammit.
OTTO
Steaks?
ALMA
Life! You know what that is, to grab for life? To take back even just sixteen ounces!
A beat. They see each other. They kiss passionately.
ALMA
Jesus, I’m too old for this.
OTTO
Me too.
They kiss some more. Blackout.
Act Two
Scene One
Some moments later. The stun gun is on the floor at one end of the empty room. Suddenly, a loud ruckus outside. The door flies open and DOM wrestles PHYLLIS, still handcuffed, into the room.
DOM
Sit down!
PHYLLIS
Help!
DOM
Don’t ever try that again.
PHYLLIS
Oh God.
DOM
Can we just, please, conduct this investigation without you running through the warehouse like a crazy person? Who’s going to clean up that watermelon? Just –
He tries breathing.
PHYLLIS
What’re you doing with your eyes?
DOM
I am focusing my wrath!
DOM
Don’t move. (into walkie-talkie) Otto?
PHYLLIS
You said you were going to cut off my hand!
DOM
It’s from the Bible. It’s a saying. (into walkie-talkie) Otto?
PHYLLIS
It doesn’t sound like a saying, it sounds like a doing.
DOM
It
means you need to cast aside those things that do you bad in your life.
PHYLLIS
My hand?
DOM
Your friend Alma. (into walkie-talkie) Dom here, over.
PHYLLIS
Why? Where is she? Tell me what you’ve done with her.
DOM
You need to stay put for your own safety and the safety of others.
She notices the stun gun on the floor and goes to pick it up.
PHYLLIS
Fine, I’m going to sit down.
DOM wrestles her into a chair, not noticing the stun gun, which PHYLLIS has managed to push under the table.
DOM
Just –
PHYLLIS
I’m –
DOM
I want to talk to you, I want to explain something.
PHYLLIS
So explain.
He speaks in confidence.
DOM
Ask yourself: why do you steal?
PHYLLIS
I told you, I have colitis.
DOM
And why do you lie?
PHYLLIS
Why are you whispering?
DOM
Because, Phyllis, this is a special day for you. God has intervened in your life. I know that because this is how he once intervened in mine.
PHYLLIS
You were stealing meat?
DOM
No, Phyllis. I was going to hang myself.
PHYLLIS
Really?
DOM
Not really. I was maybe going to go home and murder my foster parents, and possibly some other people who lived in the basement, and then maybe hang myself. But something happened, something very special. Somebody at school punched me in the face so hard that my eye popped right out of my head. Sit still while I’m talking to you.
PHYLLIS
I told you, my feet are sore.
DOM
Listen to me. So they rushed me to the hospital and while I was waiting a man told me about Jesus. He didn’t actually tell me about Jesus, he was just saying “Jesus” over and over again, because he had a piece of glass stuck in his neck. See? “Jesus,” he was saying.
PHYLLIS
Because he had a piece of glass in his neck.
DOM
It doesn’t matter how you receive it, Phyllis, it’s still a message.
PHYLLIS
Yeah?
DOM
Bad things happen for a good reason.
PHYLLIS
You lost your eye?
DOM
They popped it right back in. It’s a little –
PHYLLIS
Yeah, it is.
PHYLLIS tries to draw the stun gun toward her with her foot.
DOM
The point is, if I hadn’t been in the hospital that day, I would never have got that message about Jesus, but I put it all together. God never deserts us; he watches over us all the time, only we almost would never know it. Like the closed-circuit cameras in this store, they’re everywhere, watching over us, unless we’re in a blind spot.
The Shoplifters Page 4