One on One
Page 10
You did not have to keep hittin him.
Don’t get mad, Machine. I’m tryin to help you. Like I said. Advice.
The kid woke up in the hospital and says he ain’t pressing charges. Sportsmanship. His parents’ lawyer says different though. They’re moving him to a hospital in the city today they said. Reconstructive surgery. The hospital here wasn’t good enough for them.
I dunno, Machine.
You didn’t have to keep hittin him.
I gotta go.
I’ll check in on Beth for ya.
The guys all say hi.
Most of em anyway.
I’ll see you next week, Machine.
Don’t take any shit from any of the assholes in here.
You hang in there.
JOHNNY’S GOT A GUN
BY JOHN FLECK
JOHN, an actor, enters with a stuffed toy pony and places it on the other side of a make-believe bed onstage.
SCENE
Los Angeles
TIME
Now
JOHN: I had a Dream! It was a couple of years ago . . . my partner and me—we’d been together thirteen years. Here we are, two bohemian artists and all of a sudden I start doin’ TV and overnight we’re living in this big-ass house in the Los Feliz hills where everything is big, including the new king-size bed we’re sleepin’ in . . . with that king-size gulf between us and he’s leaving me. I’m getting the pink slip—he got a job in NYC at the Guggenheim, and he’s checkin’ out in a few days and I’m freakin’—the bombs are goin’ off in my head . . . so I take a marinol capsule. You know what marinol is? I was on a river-rafting trip, and all my pals were doin’ marinol (it’s a marijuana extract), but I wanted to live, so I said can I take this later to help me fall asleep? And they said sure . . . so this is the rainy day I take my marinol—gulp—and I zonk right out—sleeping heavy and then three hours later . . . hear it . . .
(A little boy’s voice as Johnny.) MA! Shhh! MA! (Regular voice.) And even though I’m still asleep, my eyes haven’t opened that wide in years . . . and I hear this little boy’s voice again, “MA! I’M SCARED.” And I know right then and there it’s me, Johnny, and I’m 7 years old on Settlement Acres Drive in Brookpark, Ohio. It’s later that evening after the July 4th BBQ/talent show at the American Legion, and there’s a thunderstorm raging outside . . . . I’m in bed, holdin’ on to my Pony—I always slept with Pony and Mom’s just crawled in beside me.
(Using a woman’s voice as Ma.) He wouldn’t bother me if I slept with the kids—
(As Johnny.) Dad’s just come home from the Legion—he’s drunk—he’s down in the rec room and you can hear him slammin’ doors and hitting the wall and and then I hear it.
(A gunshot in distance.)
(JOHNNY’s scared.) Ma, he’s got his gun—shhh! And then I hear—
(Gunshot with glass breaking.)
He just shot the TV. . . . MA, I’m scared. Shhh! He’s gonna’ blow my freakin’ fag brains out, Ma . . . Ma!
(As Ma.) Shhh. Don’t be scared. . . .
(JOHNNY’s voice.) But Ma—
(Repeat as Ma.) Shhh, he can’t hurt us if we stick together.
(As Johnny.) HOLD ON, MA!—and it’s me and Ma on Pony—all sticking together—I know how to get us outta here, Ma. Look (Sings a snatch of the end of “I’m Flying” from the Broadway musical Peter Pan.)—I’m flyin just like Peter Pan, up in the sky . . . and I look down at the bed at Ryan sleeping over on the other side of that giant king-size bed—and I say, “WHOA!!!” (Whinny.) “Whoa!”
Ma, can we take him with us, Ma? I wanna stick with him, too, Ma—I finally found me a man who loves me. He loves me so much, Ma, and he’s never hurt me—he’s an angel. He’s so kind and pure and innocent. And Ryan’s eyes open wide and he yells up at me, “STOP FETISHIZING ME! I’M REAL.” (JOHN falls down to floor.) And I come toppling back down onto earth into bed. (Throws Pony onto the other side of the make-believe bed.) And I realize I’m tripping my Goddamn brains out on marinol . . . and I look over at Ryan (Uses pony as RYAN.) and I get THE PICTURE. Yeah, you’re “real,” all right. He’s twelve years younger than me, but he looks older than me, hair thinning, almost bald, blotchy skin on his cheeks—blackheads. Come on. No excuse. I do laser resurfacing—gets rid of veins and little wrinkle lines. It’s called taking care of yourself. Ryan, too much nose hair and ear hair—hairy chest—nose crooked—his mouth open, drool dripping out onto the pillow—teeth just a lil’ too stained and crooked. Look at my teeth. (Warps his face into a big SMILE.) I had braces put on ten years ago. I bleach once a month. There’s no excuse for crooked, yellow teeth. REAL? Sorry, I DON’T WANT REAL!
LA TEMPESTAD
BY LARRY LOEBELL
In this modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, CALIBAN is a bartender/concierge/tour guide, a disgruntled employee of Prospero’s museum on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. American planes have just bombed the beach.
SCENE
The beach at Vieques. CALIBAN alone on the beach, his clothes in awful disarray. Broken palm branches cover HIM.
TIME
Late 2002, just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is morning; the sky is bright.
CALIBAN: Ohhh. Dreams, do not go. (Covering his eyes.) Shit. I am blinded awake. Where am I? What day is this? What is that light? Did I sleep here, in the open, under the stars? Oh, I hurt. What has turned my soothing sun to sadistic swordsman stabbing my eyes? I will stand. Survey. There. Nothing. But something. Itches. Nags. What? A flash of light, a cry. When was that? My head. Did I drink all of this? (Examining the bottle.) From Prospero’s private reserve. I was working at the bar, I remember. (A beat.) Then there was a sound. What was it? A sudden squall? Thunder? Don’t be afraid, I remember telling myself. The island is full of sounds and sweet airs that usually give delight. Sometimes a sound like a thousand tingling instruments hums in your ears. I do not think it was a storm. I am dry as toast, my clothes sand-streaked, not rain-splattered. What then? I think there were shouts. Were they shouts? Run. Run! RUN! And I was afraid then. Did I run? From what? From where? My head. Then, I remember, there was a flash and I was flying, a marionette, jerked upward by unseen hands, somersaulting over the scenery, a soaring angel swimming up the sky on a wave of heat. I remember near the top noticing this claret clenched in my fist and thinking, I didn’t pay for this. (Teetering. Head pounding.) And then, in an instant, angelic puppet flight curtailed, I was condemned, discarded, plunged down to sand. The beach breaking my fall. Stumbling on my knees and thinking, This is not right, this is not a thing a man can do, propelled into sky on no force other than wind. And then there were the voices again, softer, anguished. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t. And then crawling out of range of the heat, in the sudden darkness, where there was no sound but lapping water, and the breeze was the breeze of scented night, I sank down to the succor of sleep. (A beat.) Was there more than this? I must have dreamed the rain. The clouds, I dreamt, had opened and dropped their riches down on me, so much so that when I woke, I would cry to dream again.
THE LANGUAGE OF KISSES
BY EDMUND DE SANTIS
BLUE is in his 20s, a simple attractive guy, slightly retarded. When HE’s unsure, HE has a nervous tic of ducking, as if someone were about to hit HIM on the head. His marriage proposal to Zan, a much older woman, has just been rejected.
SCENE
A farm in Gideon, Ohio
TIME
June
BLUE: You were the first, Zan. You are the one! Now, you look at me! I swear. The first I let in. I was scared. I’m still scared. Any second I’m thinking. Wow. See. I. I. Ever since when I was little. I did a badsex thing. That’s what she called it. My mom. One time we went up to Toledo to visit her brother, Uncle Jack. She was happy. She never went anywhere. We’re goin’ on some bus. She’s talkin to everybody. She sings “You Are My Sunshine” over and over which I hate. But I’m glad she’s in a good mood cause I’d hate to see what would happen if she got
in a bad mood on a bus. We get there and there’s a cousin. Kathy. Big for her age. Let’s get alone in my room, she says. She’s got this toy organ. With this cardboard to show colors. You follow the colors from the book. That’s how you play songs. She tried to get me to play. Only I wasn’t fast. She said you’re an idiot you can’t play it. Then she closes the door and starts to play. Soft first. Some song. Then louder. Crazier. Pounding. Not a song. Noise. I start jumpin around. She says, take your pants off. I did! My dinky’s hard. It hurts even it’s so hard. Stickin out. And Kathy’s lookin at it. Poundin the keys harder yellin dance! makin sounds Indian whooping, I’m dancing around the room, my dinky’s stickin out and it feels like it’s getting harder and harder and . . . it’s like I’m on the ceiling lookin down at myself, round and round . . . and . . . then . . . my mom comes in. She says Kathy get out of the room. She says she’ll kill me if she ever sees me doin that again. Takin my dinky out in front of Kathy! Don’t I know it’s a sin cousins can’t have sex. And my dinky’s still stickin out, it won’t go down. And the madder she gets the more it sticks out! She says put your pants on. My pants won’t go over my dinky, it’s stuck and it gets harder and she smacks it, and it gets harder I don’t know why. Next thing I know she grabs a ruler off Kathy’s desk, she hits it, over and over, this’ll make you soft, this’ll wilt that weeney, and just then Uncle Jack runs in to save the day and I . . . cried. (Beat.) Man that hurt. The ruler had one of them metal edges. It was twisted. It stuck out. It got me. I had five stitches. That’s what the scar is. Near my—see I told you someday I’d tell you how I got the scar near my dinky, well, I always called it a dinky, that’s probably not the right word to use, but. . . . (Beat.) When you touch me, when you touch my dinky, when you kiss me there—I know this is a goodsex thing.
THE LARAMIE PROJECT
BY MOISES KAUFMAN AND THE MEMBERS OF TECTONIC THEATER PROJECT
In 1998 in Laramie, Wyoming, student Matthew Shepard was beaten, tied to a barbed-wire fence, and left to die because he was gay. The Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and interviewed people in an attempt to understand the “incident” and the culture that allowed it. JEDEDIAH SCHULTZ, one of those interviewed, is a 19-year-old university student.
SCENE
A performance space with perhaps a table and chair
TIME
Late 1990s
JEDEDIAH SCHULTZ: I’ve lived in Wyoming my whole life. The family has been in Wyoming, well . . . for generations. Now when it came time to go to college, my parents can’t—couldn’t afford to send me to college. I wanted to study theater. And I knew that if I was going to go to college I was going to have to get on a scholarship—and so, uh, they have this competition each year, this Wyoming state high-school competition. And I knew that if I didn’t take first place in, uh, duets, that I wasn’t gonna get a scholarshp. So I went to the theater department of the university looking for good scenes, and I asked one of the professors—I was like, “I need—I need a killer scene,” and he was like, “Here you go, this is it.” And it was from Angels in America.
So I read it and I knew that I could win best scene if I did a good enough job.
And when the time came I told my mom and dad so that they would come to the competition. Now you have to understand, my parents go to everything—every ball game, every hockey game—everything I’ve ever done.
And they brought me into their room and told me that if I did that scene, that they would not come to see me in the competition. Because they believe that it is wrong—that homosexuality is wrong—they felt that strongly about it that they didn’t want to come see their son do probably the most important thing he’d done to that point in his life. And I didn’t know what to do.
I had never, ever gone against my parents’ wishes. So I was kind of worried about it. But I decided to do it.
And all I can remember about the competition is that when we were done, me and my scene partner, we came up to each other and we shook hands and there was a standing ovation.
Oh, man, it was amazing! And we took first place and we won. And that’s how come I can afford to be here at the university, because of that scene. It was one of the best moments of my life. And my parents weren’t there. And to this day, that was the one thing that my parents didn’t see me do.
And thinking back on it, I think, why did I do it? Why did I oppose my parents? ’Cause I’m not gay. So why did I do it? And I guess the only honest answer I can give is that, well, (HE chuckles.) I wanted to win. It was such a good scene; it was like the best scene!
Do you know Mr. Kushner? Maybe you can tell him.
THE LAST FREAK SHOW
BY PHILIP ZWERLING
At age 18, MONKEY-BOY, or BILL, who suffers from excessive body hair, has become the main attraction in a traveling freak show. After a performance, HE tells a young boy about his past and predicts great things for his future as the “Missing Link. ”
SCENE
A cage in front of a circus tent in Lubbock, in the Texas Panhandle
TIME
July 1933
(The young man of 18 billed as “Monkey-Boy” lies in the bottom of the cage, which is covered in straw. HE rolls on his back and throws straw in the air. HE leaps to his feet, screams like a monkey and throws HIMSELF onto the bars, which HE clings to and thrashes wildly as if trying to pry them apart to escape. His clothes are ridiculously small for HIM. His pants end high above his ankles, his sleeves end above his wrists. His face and every visible area of his skin is covered with coarse hair. HE looks like a cross between an ape and a man. HE alternately throws back his head and howls, rolls on the floor of his cage, and rattles the bars. HE throws straw at the people HE sees beyond his cage. HE turns his back on the crowd and lowers his pants to seemingly show an entirely hairy rear end even as HE emits a crazy half laugh half howl. Again HE grabs the bars and makes monkey noises. Finally HE seems to watch as a crowd of people exits Stage Left. When HE thinks they are gone HE searches the bottom of his cage and finds a banana, which HE slowly peels and eats. HE spots someone, a young boy whom the audience does not see, who has stayed behind. HE hoots and howls at the child, considers continuing his act, and decides against it. HE offers the boy part of the banana by slowly extending his arm with it out of the cage.
MONKEY-BOY: Go on, punk. You can have a piece. I won’t bite you.
(HE takes his arm back inside the bars as if his offer has been rejected, shrugs, and continues eating it.)
Why don’t you just get the hell out of here then, you little lot-louse? Go get me a left-handed monkey wrench, why don’t you? Get me some light bulb grease. . . . Just get out of here.
(MONEY-BOY sits at times and paces his cage at other times.)
So you’re the curious type, huh? Well, close your gaping pie hole before you catch flies. Came to see the freaks, huh? God, I hate those words “freaks” and “geeks.” Huh? I ain’t bitin’ the heads off chickens or nothin’. I’m not a monster, okay? I don’t have the curse of God on me. I’m a man, see.
(Beat.)
I like to think of myself as a hirsute individual. You know, special . . . and hairy. Now, my folks weren’t hairy. My sister ain’t hairy. . . . I, on the other hand, am hairy.
(Beat.)
So what’s the big deal? I used to shave every day when I was your age. It took hours . . . and I was always cuttin’ myself. Ma complained about the hair on the floor and Pa was always reachin’ for the strap. I think they must have been ashamed of me. Me. . . their only son. That made me real sore, like I let them down or like a changeling had been left on their doorstep and they didn’t know whether to raise it or bury it out back in an unmarked grave. So I split. I was about your age, I guess, 10, 11? Saw that little town, Eula, Oklahoma, in my rearview mirror and never looked back.
Now I’m big time, see? It wasn’t always like this. I worked a little roughneck in the Louisiana oilfields, chopped cotton near Lafayette, washed cars in Waco. I seen the world. . . and i
t’s overrated, kid. I been thrown out of more bars than there are on Beale Street. Been beat up more times than Max Baer and gotten paid a lot less, that’s for sure. Hey, did you hear that Championship Heavyweight bout last month? You must have heard it. Zipperstein brought in the fight on this wireless set and we all sat around whoopin’ and hollerin’. Baer put a whippin’ on Schmeling. He was throwin’ punches—