JIM: SPEC
ALL: Spec
JAMES: SHOUT
ALL: Shout
JACK: SPEED
ALL: Speed
JIM: SOCK
ALL: Sock
JAMES: and SPILL.
JACK: What are we going to do?
ALL: Spec, shout, speed, sock and spill.
JACK: Not like that, you pussy.
JIM: Put some grunt into it.
JAMES: Are you here to learn self-defence?
JIM: or namby
JAMES: pamby
JIM: napkin embroidery?
ALL: Self-defence.
JACK: Then what are we going to do?
ALL: Spec, shout, speed, sock and spill.
JACK: Spec, shout, speed, sock and spill. Yes we are.
ALL: Yes we are.
JACK: Spec shout speed sock and spill. Spec. We are going to speculate about places where and when we might need to use self-defence. Speculate. Activate those brain cells. Where might this happen. And speculate, what might I do. We’re going to confront right now the possibility of reaching down and squeezing someone’s balls.
JACK reaches out and squeezes one of the other figure’s crotch.
Speculate. We’re going to think about how it might feel to poke someone’s eye…
He mimes doing so.
… bite someone’s ear…
He mimes doing so.
… and bloody someone’s nose.
He has mimed punching and smacking FARRAH through all of this speech.
’Cause if ya haven’t thought about it you’re gonna be too squeamish to do it when the time comes. We are going to shout. [Loudly] Back off! Stop that! Get lost!
ALL: Back off. Stop that. Get lost.
JIM: And who’s that gonna scare? Not even the nerd who nicked your Butter Menthol, Nancy. Back off, stop that! Get lost!
JAMES: Back off, stop that! Get lost!
ALL: Back off! Stop that! Get lost!
JACK: Better. We’re going to speed away. Poke them in the eye.
He does so.
Bite them on the ear.
He does so.
Bloody someone’s nose and then run. Here comes the money, dudes and dudettes. Here comes the biff, herein is the bump, hands up for the sock it to them.
He has punched and smacked FARRAH through all of this speech.
We’re going to target weak and vulnerable areas of the body. So if I grab you by the arm…
He does so and FARRAH pulls back.
… you are not going to pull back. You are going to lean in, pull your arm tightly to your body and wrench yourself out of that hold.
He gives FARRAH a kind of chinese burn on the arm and struggles out of the hold.
If I come up to you from behind and your attacker has you in a choking hold and you find you can’t breathe you are going to…
FARRAH is struggling to get out of the choking hold. FARRAH reaches back and pinches JACK’s thigh.
Hey. Hey.
FARRAH: What?
JACK: Be cool.
FARRAH: Not in a fight.
JACK: In a fight class.
FARRAH: I’d beat you every time.
JAMES: Oooh. He’s scared.
FARRAH: Good.
JIM: What’s your problem, girl?
FARRAH: How come you’re taking the class?
JAMES: The PE teacher is sick.
FARRAH: So why aren’t we just having study time or something.
JACK: Because I offered to teach self-defence.
FARRAH: What, and you’re a big expert, are you?
JACK: I’ve been learning since I was eight.
FARRAH: Doesn’t make you an expert. I got away from you.
JACK: I let you get out of it.
FARRAH: Chances.
JACK continues to hold onto FARRAH’s arm long past a ‘reasonable’ duration. His friends notice.
JAMES: Let’s get back to it, man.
JIM: Yeah, blow it off, dude.
JACK: Yeah. Whatever. [Pause.] Alright. What are we going to do?
JIM: SPEC
ALL: Spec
JAMES: SHOUT
ALL: Shout
JACK: SPEED
ALL: Speed
JACK: SOCK
ALL: Sock.
JACK: And spill your guts to someone when it’s all over.
SCENE FIVE
FARRAH is waiting outside JACK’s class. He sees her and tries to walk the other way. She goes over to him. Still he hesitates.
JACK: What are you doing now?
FARRAH: Waiting for you.
JACK: You’ll need to join the queue.
FARRAH: No, I don’t think I will.
Pause. JAMES and JIM enter and come over to them.
Jack, Jim and James. What are ya, the triple jays?
JACK: The Blue Jays.
FARRAH: The Blue Jays. How lame.
JACK: Says the girl who spends her afternoons staring at boats.
FARRAH: What exactly about that is such a threat to you?
JACK: Who said it was a threat?
FARRAH: Then why even bother hassling me?
JACK: You were in our spot.
FARRAH: I’ve never seen you there. So, what, you saw me there and that’s when you decided it was yours?
JACK: What were you doing out there? Edge of the port? Girl all on her own. They’re not gonna believe you were just looking at the shipping.
FARRAH: Why do you care what I do?
JACK: Why do you have to be so spiky?
FARRAH: What’s that supposed to mean?
JACK: You’re quite good-looking, is all I meant. You could afford to work that a little more, instead of setting yourself apart.
FARRAH: What sort of game is this?
JACK: Well, obviously one that you don’t play very often.
FARRAH: So what would I have to do to become one of the Blue Jays?
Pause.
JACK: Where you going now?
FARRAH: Why do you want to know?
JACK: Where are you going?
FARRAH: The lighthouse out at Nobbys.
JACK: We’ll meet you there in an hour.
SCENE SIX
CHLOE: You did what?
FARRAH: I told him I was going out to the lighthouse.
CHLOE: Do you like him, is that it? ’Cause if you do, this is not the way to get him.
FARRAH: I do not like him.
CHLOE: Yeah well, that’s sometimes a sure sign you like him.
FARRAH: Lots of people like him. Lots of people follow him.
CHLOE: And is that why you waited for him after school?
FARRAH: Maybe I can learn some stuff from him.
CHLOE: Like what?
FARRAH: People do what he says.
CHLOE: Yeah, ’cause he’s a bully.
FARRAH: He has charisma.
CHLOE: I just think he has a big mouth.
FARRAH: No, he has authority. Confidence.
CHLOE: He’s got an out-of-control ego more like.
FARRAH: You want to be round him.
CHLOE: You want to be round him.
FARRAH: Wanna come with me?
CHLOE: I’m not traipsing all the way out to Nobbys.
FARRAH: Then why are you my friend?
CHLOE: I’m not. You’re my friend.
FARRAH: I’m not into the White Stripes.
CHLOE: You want to be.
FARRAH: No, Chloe, I really don’t.
CHLOE: Well, at least you understand why I am.
FARRAH: Not really.
CHLOE: Yeah, ’cause you feel about boats how I feel about them.
FARRAH: You’re obsessed.
CHLOE: And you’re not.
FARRAH: I don’t wear captain’s outfits to school. I’ve been trying to keep it more quiet.
CHLOE: In geography you look at coal distribution in NSW. In maths you do calculations based on tonnage and capacity. In English you do creative writing about lif
e on the bulk carriers. It’s… weird… serious weird shit.
FARRAH: Well, I’m still going out there.
CHLOE: Then he’s really going to think you like him.
FARRAH: I said I was going to the lighthouse. He was the one who invited himself. If I don’t go he’ll think I’m scared.
CHLOE: And if you do go he’ll think you’re interested.
FARRAH: I am interested. In how he… you know… operates. How come he’s the leader of the Blue Jays.
CHLOE: You do like him.
FARRAH: Not like that.
CHLOE: Yeah, you do.
FARRAH: There’s a magic in it.
CHLOE: In what?
FARRAH: In getting people to follow you. In getting people to trust you. Imagine how much of that you’d have to have to be the captain of a ship.
CHLOE: Some people think you’ve got Aspberger’s, you know.
FARRAH: Well, I don’t.
CHLOE: Well, it might be easier if you said you did.
FARRAH: Other people are allowed to have hobbies.
CHLOE: But why ships. Farrah?
FARRAH: Why the White Stripes?
CHLOE: Because they’re cool. Because she says it’s okay to be different.
FARRAH: Because they’re what you would be like if you could get out of here?
CHLOE: Partly.
FARRAH: Every day the world is coming in through the mouth of that harbour. Korean captains, Phillipino crew, beautiful old Empire line cruise ships full of Indians, and Mexicans and Norwegians. The White Stripes are your lifeline to what’s possible. And these ships are mine. One day I’m going to sail away on one as a crewman and come back as third mate, then second mate, then first mate, then captain. I’m gonna sail in through that harbour mouth and I’ll have seen all the spices and senses and spectacles of the world. You want to dress up and be strange, Chloe. Well, I want to sail away and be free.
CHLOE: I get that.
FARRAH: Yeah, I know.
CHLOE: Besties?
FARRAH: Sure.
CHLOE: Gotta have someone to share it with, huh?
FARRAH: I’ll meet you at the mall to get those shoes.
CHLOE: Brilliant.
CHLOE exits. FARRAH stands on stage silently, listening to the FIGURES speak.
SCENE SEVEN
FIGURE 1: This girl didn’t do anything in particular. Just no-one liked her. It was horrible. People just ignored her. She was shut out of everything and when she left the school no-one even noticed.
FIGURE 2: He was actually a bit special and all the guys would just make fun of him constantly. The people who didn’t make fun would try to ignore it but also laugh at the same time. So it wasn’t doing evil, it was watching evil and not doing anything about it. Some shit went down later, they filmed him fighting other kids and it went all over YouTube. He graduated but sort of… hard. The whole journey was hard for him. But I still say hi to him at the bus stop.
FIGURE 3: He was special too but he wasn’t that different. It was just that this was a kind of crueler making fun where he didn’t understand they were making fun. Which can be worse.
FIGURE 4: There was a girl in my year and she was sort of obsessed with something as well and she was really different. She’d do weird things, but she was like… when I talked to her she was a really interesting and nice person. She was obsessed with Amy Winehouse but really, really obsessed.
FIGURE 5: It wasn’t just Amy Winehouse… it was like…
FIGURE 4: She was like…
FIGURE 5: She was creative… she’d like get these thin little satin ribbons…
FIGURE 4: She’d get little blue satin ribbons and plait them all through her hair and I dunno some people weren’t very nice to her. And then one day she had this full-on outburst… she went like crazy at teachers and people who had been mean to her because she had this really good friend and other people were like a bitch to her and made her one friend not like her and then she didn’t have anyone. So she had this full-on outburst, like she went crazy and then she pretty much stopped going to school.
FIGURE 6: Everyone can remember someone like that. Like at our school there was a girl who used to talk in an elf voice.
FIGURE 2: A what?
FIGURE 6: [in an elf voice] A little elf voice like this. Like she was a little elf.
FIGURE 2: That sounds a bit cool actually.
FIGURE 6: Nah.
FIGURE 1: The girl who left my school had a massive obsession with horses. Horses were like over everything she drew, on her folders and that kinda stuff. Her Myspace page of course. Her best friend drifted away from her. They were friends for years and then it was like over. No-one would talk to her. They’d sit away from her in class.
FIGURE 4: People did in the beginning pick on her but then it was like…
FIGURE 5: Avoidance.
FIGURE 4: Yeah avoidance, like…
FIGURE 5: She would walk and you’d just sort of move out of her way and you would never… some people would smile and stuff… no-one would ever be really rude or anything she was just never included… like she was picked last in PE and that sort of thing.
FIGURE 4: Like obviously I would think that she would like wanted to have friends. Who doesn’t want to have friends?
SCENE EIGHT
The Blue Jays are waiting.
JIM: She’s not coming.
JAMES: She’s getting us back.
JACK: She’ll come.
JIM: Nah.
JAMES: She’s not coming.
JACK: She can’t help herself.
JAMES: And why is that?
JACK: What?
JAMES: Why is she such a boat tragic?
JACK: How should I know?
JIM: Father figure.
JAMES: What?
JIM: You know.
JACK: Nah.
JAMES: Why nah?
JACK: ’Cause if you don’t have a father you just get on with it. You don’t miss what you don’t have.
JAMES: Yeah, that’s right.
JIM: Well, maybe she does.
JAMES: Nah.
JIM: She’s pretty obsessed.
JACK: She’s trying to stay a kid.
JAMES: What?
JACK: Like you know how when you’re a kid you can get all nutzo about something… it’s the same.
JIM: What did you get nutzo about when you were a kid?
JAMES: I dunno. He’s telling the story.
JIM: Jack?
JACK: Dunno. I was into model airplanes for a while.
JIM: Yeah, I even liked stamps.
JAMES: Yeah, but you don’t go all lame about them and bring them to school and bore everyone with talking endlessly about them.
JACK: Course I don’t.
JAMES: Why not?
JIM: ’Cause I’m not some pea-brained, boat-brain nutzo, that’s why.
Pause.
JAMES: So how does it hang onto her childhood?
JACK: I don’t know. I’m just saying you do that shit when you’re a kid and then you get over it.
JIM: When you want to grow up.
JACK: Maybe.
JIM: Yeah.
JAMES: So basically we’re hassling her out of being a kid.
JACK: Right.
JIM: So we’re doing her a favour really.
JACK: Yeah.
Pause.
JIM: You never said.
JAMES: What?
JIM: What you were into.
JAMES: I wasn’t.
JIM: Nah, it’s because you still are.
JAMES: Am not.
They scuffle.
JACK: Shut up. She’s coming.
FARRAH comes on with a torch. The torch reveals graffiti on the side of the cliff before the lighthouse.
FARRAH picks up a discarded spray paint can.
FARRAH: Unbelievable.
There is a noise behind her and she turns.
JACK is there taking a photo of her with his mobile phone.
What are you doing?
JACK: [in a high voice] And what hour do you call this to turn up, madam?
FARRAH: What have you done?
JAMES: It’s what we call outdoor canvas.
FARRAH: But why graffiti my name?
She throws the spray can at JAMES. Everyone freezes.
JACK: I don’t think she likes it.
FARRAH: I hate it. You’ve ruined it.
JAMES: That’s not very nice.
FARRAH: Get it off, quick, before anyone sees it.
JIM: I’m a bit offended by that. I think you should apologise.
FARRAH: I’m not the one who needs to apologise.
JACK: We think it’s really good.
FARRAH: You’ve got to get it off.
Pause.
JACK: Stay quiet and that’ll be the end of it.
FARRAH: And I’m supposed to trust that, am I?
JACK: Trust shit. I said stay quiet and you can go about your tanker business.
FARRAH: They’re not tankers.
JACK: What?
FARRAH: They’re not tankers. They’re bulk carriers.
JACK: Everyone calls them tankers.
FARRAH: Yeah, but that’s wrong.
JACK: It’s not wrong. It’s just the common name for them.
FARRAH: No, actually it’s wrong. Secondly, the tugs don’t guide the tankers.
JACK: Of course they do.
FARRAH: No, the ship is being piloted and navigated under it’s own steam. The tugs are there as risk management.
Pause.
JACK: Why’d you do that?
FARRAH: Do what?
JACK: Why’d you have to say that? Show me up for shit like that?
FARRAH: What did I do? Tankers are full of oil. This is a coal port. We have bulk carriers and container vessels. Not tankers. And the tugs do their main work at berthing, not during passage into the port.
JACK: We were being nice. Why can’t you just be nice?
FARRAH: What do you mean, nice?
JACK: Play nicely. Don’t… show people up for shit.
FARRAH: And what about you? You’re supposed to be a leader. You’re supposed to be… someone to look up to.
JACK: Since when?
FARRAH: I thought you were the boss of this crew?
JACK: Yeah? So?
FARRAH: So why are you pissing that away on bullying someone like me?
JACK: ’Cause that’s the way it goes.
FARRAH: Not everyone can lead. And if you can… you should own it.
JACK: Says who?
FARRAH: You’re not a leader. You’re just a jumped-up thug.
JACK: Sticks and stones, little girl.
Cyberbile & Grounded Page 7