MR. UNIVERSE
Page 21
(HUGH turns to MONTREAT and the GHOST.)
HUGH YOUNG (to audience; awkwardly at first). I’m not going on the boat. I guess you figured that. I’m tired. Really too tired. This whole business—I don’t know. (Pause.) This place. I like the beach. I had a good time. I had a good time with Joe too. And I’m sorry about Pug. But. It’s not my fault. I don’t love Joe. I don’t care who Joe loves. I don’t. Anyway. I just don’t want to go back, there’s no reason to go. Things would just stay the same and I would think about this, all the time. The movies stink. I don’t want to do it in the movies anymore. But why would I stop? (Pause.) I just wanted to say something. To you folks. I’ve been watching you the whole time. Just sitting there. I know you don’t really exist but who cares? Even if you don’t, I didn’t want you to think I’m stuck up. (Pause.) There was something I really wanted to tell you. But I can’t think of it. Right now.
(Watches the GHOST.)
VOICEOVER. No one knows what happened to the mysterious beauty whose performance in Big Bang was his third, his last, and his finest. When the others returned to the beach, he had vanished. The search, as he had guessed, went quickly, since the searchers could not afford to keep the boat waiting. The boat, a fishing trawler aptly named the Lucky Dragon, sailed south, as Blue Donna had known it would.
(The GHOST OF HUGH YOUNG brings the book to HUGH YOUNG.
They join MONTREAT.
HUGH gives the inevitable last look, as if, of course, he had known this was coming.
He sets the book onstage in a conspicuous place.)
In the morning, at dawn, from the deck of the boat they saw the flash of light and felt the shock of the bomb. By then the Lucky Dragon had sailed far to the south. They did not see, for no one was there to see, Hugh Young in the twilight before dawn, waiting in shades on the sand near the bomb’s tower, wanting to see the whole thing up close for himself.
(Blackout.)
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
©1998 by Jim Grimsley.
All rights reserved. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that all plays included herein are subject to a royalty. They are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved. Particular emphasis is laid upon the question of readings, permission for which must be secured from the author’s agent in writing. All such inquiries should be addressed to Broadway Play Publishing, 56 East 81st Street, New York, NY 10028. All other inquiries should be addressed to Peter Hagan, The Gersh Agency,
130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Grimsley, Jim, 1955-
Mr. Universe & other plays / by Jim Grimsley.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56512-202-4 (hardcover).—ISBN 978-1-56512-211-6 (pbk.)
PS3557.R4949M7 1998
812′.54—dc21
98-10196
CIP
E-book ISBN 978-1-56512-780-7
Also by Jim Grimsley
Winter Birds
Dream Boy
My Drowning
Comfort and Joy
Boulevard