One on One

by Rebecca Dunn Jaroff

  What terrified me that night about being with her was discovering the power here—in me—in my own body. The feeling she could generate in me. I did not feel that she gave it to me. She revealed to me what was in me—the joy, the ecstacy, the ecstatic state that was in me—that belonged to me, that I had read about but could not imagine that this potential for joy belonged to me—flowed in this body. We fucked and fucked and I finished and she said, “Will I see you tomorrow?” Did she say I love you? Yes. She slept and I got up and dressed and left her house quietly and ran and ran for many miles. The power that was in me—that I did not know was in me—that made my life so different—that changed my idea of who I was. I ran and ran.

  I never called her again. I walked away if I saw her or else nodded and passed by. . . .

  When I got the news that my parents had died because of an idea I had had—the power that was in me—I ran and ran and then ran further than I ever imagined and came here to this island off an island—and got a job.

  CLEAN ALTERNATIVES

  BY BRIAN DYKSTRA

  MR. CUTTER is a lawyer attempting to purchase the “pollution rights” from a small struggling eco-friendly manufacturer. Here HE relates his earlier quest for meaning with an exploration of Zen Buddhism. It didn’t go well, so HE’s off the spiritual path, probably for good.

  SCENE

  An office

  TIME

  The present

  MR. CUTTER: You’re supposed to meditate on your question until you get past the Western Brain or the logic slave or the need to be right, and you simply have some kind of deep, spiritual answer. Probably not even in words. One by one the students are getting their questions and are silently led out of the room. I’m last. When we’re alone, the Monk kneels next to me, his lips not an inch from my ear. On the tip of his tongue he has the question he wants me to consider for possibly forever. But he doesn’t say it right away. I wait, my thoughts clear of things like impatience, excitement, anticipation. The question on his lips, the one I’m supposed to have on my mind, in my heart, take deep into my abdomen and consider from all angles of conscious, unconscious, and semiconscious thought, feeling, and awareness, the one that I hope will lead me into a place that will dissolve my suffering, my very own four-word Koan, leaves his lips: “Who Cut The Cheese?” . . . That’s what he asked me. Who. Cut. The. Cheese. I suddenly find myself silently praying to Jesus (because some habits die hard) that he’s kidding. But he smiles beatifically, and in case I hadn’t heard that particular colloquialism, he asks, “You understand?” When I’m too crushed to answer he rephrases into the simpler, “Who farted?” And leaves me there. Alone. . . . Well, I can tell you I’ll be god-damned if I’m going to squat in his cross-hairs for the next handful of years meditating on ass gas and who let one. The immediate answer that leapt to my brain was, “Who cut the cheese? Why, everybody, you orange-robe-wearing four-eyed Bucky-Beaver-looking half-Chink.” What’s he telling me? That he’s looked into my soul, and what he’s seen there is incompatible with this path I’m attempting to follow? That I’m too damaged to fix? Too much cocaine in the eighties? I don’t think so, not with the way the old slut next to me looked. This fucking guy is having me on. Well, fuck that! I went out and did what I’d been wanting to do for the past two-and-a-half years and was too blissed out to realize. I went out, ate a hunk of sacred cow, killed half a fifth of some outrageously expensive single malt, re-hooked up with the Russian mistress, smoked a Cuban . . . and sued his ass.

  I won, too. But the fuckin’ Monk wouldn’t play. He wouldn’t cough it up. He defied the court, so I pressed and got him incarcerated for contempt. But he’s a fuckin’ Monk! Like he gives a shit where he has to spend twenty hours a day meditating. Prison is perfect for these people: shelter, food, and time! Then the bleeding-heart judge said they couldn’t keep him indefinitely, so I settled for the next best thing and got his ass deported. Last I heard he got clipped in the latest purge in Tibet. Somebody pushed him through a sixteen-hundred-foot crevice in an ice wall on one of the Himalayan peaks, but fuck the guy. If he was as spiritual as he pretended to be, he should have sprouted wings and flown to brunch. He made his karmic water bed when he messed with me, so fine, he can freeze his nuts off in it, for all I care.

  COMMUNICATING THROUGH THE SUNSET

  BY KERRI KOCHANSKI

  FRANKIE, 17, the new kid in town, has been arguing with his dysfunctional friend, Rachel, a girl who has been sexually abused by her stepbrother. FRANKIE is secretly in love with Rachel, and in an effort to get closer to her, HE decides to reveal one of his deep, dark secrets.

  SCENE

  A hill in the Midwest

  TIME

  The ethereal dusk

  FRANKIE: There were these tadpoles. These tadpoles in my backyard. I’d sit for hours and watch as they’d swim in this pond where I’d built up my rock garden. I loved these things. . . . And it wasn’t because they could swim fast. They couldn’t, They were slow and wobbly. Morphing every day. Growing arms. One leg—they were ugly. Ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen!

  Now spiders, maggots—I’ve seen them up close. Gross. Even for a guy. But the thing is, how did they get like—I mean, what was God thinking? To create organisms so completely—

  (HE takes a moment, as HE is completely blown away.)

  It’s like the speed of light. Or black holes. Mind boggling. . . . But even more—because they’re completely real. So thrilling to think—But how can we let ourselves? I mean, if we did. . . . Well, there would be no need to think of anything else. Watches would stop! Buildings would cease being built! So awed by their significance—

  So we forget their importance. Forget their importance, in order to survive. To move along. Spend our lives in shallow actions prompted by shallow thoughts—

  (Coming to understand.)

  —which we cling to in order to cover up our awareness of what is most interesting—And why . . . ? Because that’s what we as humans do. . . . We as humans don’t think. We go along . . .

  Miss Fitch. . . . You know, she tells us butterflies are beautiful, and so we pin them on the wall. . . . Well, I wouldn’t pin a butterfly, any more than I’d pin a ladybug. Or a bee. I mean, what have they done. . . . Nothing like tadpoles. . . . Nothing like you, Rachel. Nothing like me.

  (HE turns to her.)

  You’ve got this ugly thing about you. . . . But just because there’s something ugly . . . some scary thing like one arm or one leg—over which you have no control—because that’s the way it was destined to grow because that’s the way life took it—Well, just because you have that deformity, it doesn’t mean you’re not wanted . . . not by someone who can see that deformity for what it is. . . .

  Tadpoles. . . . You know, I loved ‘em so much I actually wanted to be one. . . . But aside from reincarnation, I knew I was never gonna get the chance. . . . So I did the next best thing. I ate ’em.

  And it wasn’t because I was freaky. And it wasn’t because I was strange.

  I just honestly love tadpoles.

  CORPS VALUES

  BY BRENDON BATES

  A young Marine on leave for the funeral of his mother, CASEY TAYLOR tells his retired Marine father that HE will not return to the base and that the burns HE received thut earned HIM a medal were not from a car bomb.

  SCENE

  The small rustic kitchen of the Taylors’ nineteenth-century farmhouse

  TIME

  Late November 2004

  CASEY: GO ON! You wanted to take a look, take a look. (HE turns around. His back is covered with scars.) These are not magnesium burns. There never was a car bomb. My C.O. claimed it to be so I wouldn’t be . . . (Chokes up.)

  [WADE: Huh?]

  CASEY: I was having a smoke with my best friend, Badger. In Fallujah. We finally secured the area. The city was in ruin, quiet, motionless. We fought for three days straight. We hadn’t slept in four. We were leaning up against a truck, happy to be alive. It was early morning and we just finis
hed eating a can of peaches. He was telling me about his grandmother’s Swedish pancakes and then, BANG, his skull exploded and my face was covered in his blood. I couldn’t see anything for a few seconds. I heard two more shots. I heard my squad members taking cover. I quickly wiped the blood from my eyes and I saw this old woman charging at me, holding an AK-47. I don’t know where she came from or how she got a hold of that rifle, but she looked like an angry grizzly bear dressed in rags. She pointed the rifle at me. I froze. She had the drop on me. I thought, this is it. And then I heard a few clicks. It was empty. So, I grabbed my rifle and charged at her. I cross-checked her to the ground. Knocked the wind out of her. I grabbed her weapon and threw it behind me. I pointed my rifle at her and told her not to move. Then I heard someone say, Badger is dead. And something came over me—I don’t know what. I didn’t care who this woman was; she killed Badger—my best friend, my brother. So, I walked over to the truck while she laid on the ground, gasping for air. I grabbed a five-gallon jerry-can out of the back, opened it, walked back over to her, and dumped the whole thing on her head, covering her in gas. Everyone watched me do it. I told Private Brady to hand me his book of matches. He did. Without hesitation. I took it from him, opened it, struck a match, and threw it on her. She went up so quick. Like a brush fire in a high wind. She let out this scream that pierced my ears; it shook my whole body. That scream . . . it was the same scream I heard when I killed that young boy. It was his mother. Her scream awoke something inside of me and, all of a sudden, I was seeing this 50-year-old woman burning alive right in front of me, rolling around on the ground. And I realized what I had done. And I wanted to save her. I wanted to ease her pain. I should’ve just shot her, put her out of her misery, but—for some reason—I thought I could put out the flames and save her. So I hurled myself onto her, hoping to smother the flames. That’s when I caught on fire. My men saved me before any serious damage was done, but not before the flames left their mark.

  (Pause. [Wade looks at the burns.)]

  CASEY: Don’t look at me like you’ve never seen shit like this before. You’ve seen it. You lived through Vietnam—Vietnam—and you still let this stupid fucking war happen . . . again! Why didn’t you take a stand? How could you just let it happen? Did you learn nothing? What does it take to get this fucking world to do what is right?!?!? We just keep passing down our sins. From one generation to the next. (Points to himself.) Well, it stops here! I will not pass these scars down to my son. I don’t care WHAT IT TAKES! I will bear these burns all the way to my fucking grave and they will decay into the fucking dirt . . . (Grabs his shirt off the floor. HE struggles to slide it over his burns.)

  CUBAN OPERATOR, PLEASE

  BY ADRIÁN RODRGUEZ

  ABEL, a young Cuban-American of about 30, is anticipating the death of his father. HE holds a picture of his father as a young man in a baseball uniform.

  SCENE

  A modest apartment in Union City, New Jersey

  TIME

  2000

  ABEL: (Very peacefully.) This is my favorite picture of my father. It’s a picture of him in a baseball uniform with some of his teammates. Only one thing made him look like the man that was so far away. Baseball. (Pause.) He loved baseball.

  [Father walks over to sofa and looks at picture held by ABEL and smiles. HE continues looking at the picture for a few seconds while ABEL speaks and then he returns to his rocking chair.]

  ABEL: The man in the picture, the man my father used to be before having to abandon everything, was known as “El Americano,” the American. He must be 16 years old in this picture. Starting pitcher of the Estrellas de Collante, a semi-professional team financed by the private hospital at Collante. The man in this picture was a semi-professional baseball player. He looks proud, smug, cocky, confident. He once told me that his team had traveled to a local town named Fomento for a game. He was going to pitch since it was an important game and he was the best pitcher on the squad. Before the game they were invited to have breakfast at a local restaurant and as he was eating he noticed a group of young women asking one of his teammates who El Americano was. They wanted to see the famous pitcher who overpowered his opponents with speed. When he was pointed out, one of the young women remarked, surprised: ¿Aquél flaco es el Americano? That skinny guy over there is the “American”? Utter disbelief. That 105-pound 16-year-old boy with enormous ears was expected to go to the majors to play with the Americans? Yes he was, and he pitched a shutout game that afternoon to prove it. He would soon be in Havana playing with the Americans. I could see it in his eyes.

  DEDICATION OR THE STUFF OF DREAMS

  BY TERRENCE MCNALLY

  An actor producing children’s plays in a cramped space in a strip mall, LOUIS NUNCLE dreams of owning his own theatre. As a birthday “surprise,” his partner, Jessie, finagles HIM a special visit to a beautiful old neglected theatre building in their upstate New York town. LOU fantasizes about bringing this decayed room to life.

  SCENE

  The stage of an old theatre

  TIME

  Now

  LOU: So, here I am, center stage, solus, on a real stage in a real theatre. A stage and theatre that by rights should belong to me and not some alcoholic millionaire who is letting it go beyond all repair or reason. By what rights is it mine? Divine rights, artistic rights, moral ones. Not that they count for much in these impoverished times when wealth equals good and big equals better. I would transform this shabby, forgotten, forlorn room into a place of wonder and imagination again. That chandelier would sparkle anew if I had to polish every crystal myself The aisles would be newly carpeted in a gesture of welcome and respect. Those rows of broken seats would be reclaimed in a plush red velvet that said, “Sit down, children, you are safe here. We are going to take you on a wonderful journey to China or Persia or Timbuktu.” Today we are going to tell you the amazing story of your favorite character, anyone you choose. But before we begin, there are a few rules, so listen up. I said listen up, you kids in the balcony. That means you, too. No kicking the seat in front of you. No paper airplanes or spitballs. No putting chewing gum under the arms or seat of your chair. No talking, unless the action becomes so unbearably exciting that you have to call out: “Turn around, Robin Hood, quick, the Sheriff is going to kill you.” Or so sad that you won’t be able to live if you don’t speak up. It’s up to you that Tinker Bell doesn’t die, that Abraham doesn’t sacrifice his firstborn. For the precious time that you are here and we actors are before you, the future of the world is in your hands, the fate of the human race is yours to decide. Think about it. The possibilities are boundless, the responsibility is yours. And don’t forget to breathe! I know, we all forget to sometimes in the theatre. Me, too. I also stop breathing, it’s so wonderful. (HE takes in a deep breath, then lets it out.) And always the curtain will fall, the story will have ended, and we actors will take our bows. Houselights up! It’s over. We can all go home now. But something has changed. Tinker Bell has lived. Cinderella has found her Prince. You will go back to your real world and it will still be raw and painful, ugly even, but maybe a little less so because of what you have seen here today. Harmony and happiness were possible. And I will go back to my real world and it, too, will be a little more bearable, a little less unbearable because of what I have given you—and in giving you, have given myself: love and laughter, which are a good deal more nourishing at your age than bread and games. Hell, at any age. You lucky, lucky children. When I was your age, I didn’t have a theatre in my life. I had to invent one of my own. All I had was a mirror, my mother’s closet, and my music.

  (Strains of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty.)

  I’m telling you a secret now. A secret no one knows but you—not even Jessie, and I tell her everything. Well, almost everything. I would go to my mother’s closet and take out her fullest skirt. I would put on the music I loved the best, the Sleeping Beauty—it was a waltz—and start to twirl in front of the mirror. Slow, slow I’d twirl, in-a-trance ki
nd of slow. For hours sometimes. It felt like forever.

  THE DOG PROBLEM

  BY DAVID RABE

  RONNIE, 20s, one of the neighborhood guys, divulges a secret.

  SCENE

  A lamppost near a dumpster in Lower Manhattan