by Zach Braff
Myron What is wrong with you?
Kim I’m sorry, I got distracted.
Myron And anyway stay away from my coke; you’re like a fucking Dustbuster.
Kim I feel awful. It was important to him. If someone snorted my hamster ‘Chanel’, I’d be so upset!
Myron You’re a fucking idiot.
Emma Myron, relax. It’s a crumb.
Myron You don’t know the full context, Emma.
Emma Lemme go out on a limb here: the full context was the full Pop-Tart?
Charlie laughs. They all stare at him.
Myron Why are you smiling?
Charlie (smiling) Emma’s right.
Beat.
It was a crumb. It doesn’t matter. It was just a crumb.
Kim starts to tune the ukulele. Her tuning of the uke scores the next section of the play. Myron sits solemnly in the corner. Emma lights a joint and sits down next to Charlie.
Emma It’s nice to see you smile, Charlie. My Dad could always make me smile like that with his jokes. I haven’t been able to talk to him for a while. I miss him quite a bit.
Charlie I know a joke.
Emma You do? Well let’s have it.
Charlie God, I haven’t told a joke in a long time.
Emma Well go for it. No judgements . . .
Charlie What’s the last thing you wanna hear right after you have sex with Willy Nelson?
Emma What?
Charlie ‘I’m not Willy Nelson.’
Emma and Kim laugh. Charlie smiles. Emma puts her arm around Charlie. She passes him the joint. He smokes it. Myron looks on possessively.
Emma You know you really are cute. When I first saw you hanging there I didn’t notice. But you really are. If you don’t go through with it, maybe we could go out sometime. And then one day we could fall in love and have a zillion little babies together. And every single one of them will have big, beautiful, blue passports. That’s what we all want isn’t it?
Charlie Passports?
Emma No. Someone to love. And it’s such a fleeting thing to pin all of our happiness on isn’t it? It’s like trying to build a house of cards on the back of a squirrel.
Myron You’ve got a lot of nerve, Emma.
Emma Excuse me?
Myron Doing this right in front of me when you know how I feel about you?
Emma Oh please don’t start this now. We’re all having such a good time.
Myron You know what, just be honest with me for once and for all: why am I not worthy of your love?
Emma You are worthy of my friendship, Myron. I enjoy you. I appreciate you. But for the last time, I cannot love you.
Myron Do you think I’m ugly?
Emma No, not at all.
Myron I make you laugh, I loan you money, I hold you when you cry, I . . .
Emma There’s no recipe for love. You don’t just go ‘this plus this plus this equals love’; it doesn’t work like that. It’s there or it’s not. Is that the only reason you’re nice to me? To win me over?
Myron I’m nice to you because I am completely in love with you. And I might just be the only person who will ever love you. (Beat.) You’re damaged goods.
Emma Maybe you’re right, maybe you are the only person in the world who will ever love me. That would be sad, but maybe that’s just what I’ve been dealt. But I do not love you. And will not. You need to let it go. So for the last time: move on! (Beat.) Now, I think we should all go around the room and each say something nice about Charlie on his special day. I’ll go first. Raise your glasses.
Only Emma and Kim raise their glasses.
Emma To Charlie, what can I say? As long as I’ve known you, you’ve had your ups and you’ve had your downs. I can tell you that this night has become a hell of a lot more fun than it ever would have been if it was just another night of me and old Myron drinking down at the firehouse. So I guess what I’m saying is, I’m so glad you came down here to Long Beach Island to kill yourself so that I could stop you long enough to tell you that you seem like a very lovely boy. And I can sense that you’re very kind . . . even though you may or may not have killed some people . . . we all have our faults. I, for instance, am a sucker for chocolate. Anyway, that’s it. Happy birthday. Kim?
Kim Well, when I first saw you I was really looking forward to fucking you because a lot of the guys that I have to sleep with look like Larry King. But you’re really cute. Plus I love soldiers, let alone a fighter pilot, that would be so hot to sleep with you and pretend I’m an Iraqi farmer and you got shot down behind enemy lines and I take you to like my barn or whatever and blow you till you’re strong enough to fly us both away to one of those islands with over-water huts. Anyway . . . coke makes me horny, so I hope you change your mind. Amen.
Charlie Amen.
Emma Myron?
Myron does another line of coke.
Emma Myron, stop sulking. You’re being a big baby. Come on! A toast.
Myron To Charlie . . . the first fighter pilot I’ve ever met. You’re a brave soul, my friend. May you live long enough to realize that you matter. May your neck remain untangled, your feet gravity-bound to our imperfect planet long enough to discover that you are not alone. For even in your lonesome existence, there is love, there is compassion, there is a genuine desire on behalf of these kind strangers to see you discover something that makes your life worth living. Charlie.
Emma That was so beautiful.
Kim Wow, that was pretty.
Charlie Thank you.
Emma Cheers.
Myron drinks his full drink.
Myron Now . . . I think we should all go around the room and tell Charlie about the darkest moment in our own lives, so he won’t feel so alone in his sadness. Emma, why don’t you go first? Why don’t you tell Charlie the reason you can’t go back to London?
Emma stares daggers at Myron.
Emma What are you doing?
Myron I just think he might benefit from your story.
Emma How dare you? Are you that fucked up? Are you really that fucking pissed that you’re gonna break my trust in you?
Myron We’ve all got our skeletons. I just think if you really wanna help Charlie as much as you’ve advertised, you might consider sharing some of your own pain.
Charlie I really don’t want to know.
Emma You’re doing this because I won’t marry you. You know how badly I need to stay in this country, but even that’s not enough to feign a marriage to you; because you’re disgusting.
Myron We don’t have anything but an exercise ball to give you for your birthday, Charlie. So I thought we might give you the gift of knowing that you’re not alone. Emma claims to wanna save your life. Well if she really wants to help you, I think she should share a piece of her life. Something that happened to her . . .
Charlie I don’t need anything for my birthday.
Emma I am not a fucking exhibit! You know you really are a fucking asshole, Myron. You really are. You’re a selfish, self-serving alcoholic! How about that? Why don’t you tell Charlie some of your secrets? Give him that present. Maybe you could tell him the real reason you were fired from that high school? Why don’t you be his friend and share your miserable fucking life.
Myron OK, I’ll go first. I was fired from being a teacher for doing drugs with my kids at a high school cast party. Emma, your turn.
Emma I don’t want a turn.
Charlie Why are you doing this? Don’t do it for me.
Myron Well, if you’re not gonna tell them, I guess I’ll have to . . .
Kim Myron back the fuck off!
Emma Why are you doing this to me?
Myron For Charlie; it’s his present . . .
Charlie I don’t want a present, Myron.
Myron Charlie, Emma left England . . .
Emma You gave me your word. You swore on your life.
Myron Emma left England because . . .
Charlie Stop it! Don’t say another fucking word.
Myron
Emma left England . . .
Emma Fine I’ll say it. I left because I was raped. OK. I was raped by a piece of shit like you.
Kim Just leave her alone!
Myron But that’s not the whole story is it, Emma?
Emma Myron, I’m begging you.
Myron There’s an epilogue.
Emma I can love you, I’m sorry, I promise I will love you.
Myron Her rapist was about to get out for good behavior. So jolly old Emma had him killed. They found him in the prison yard with a sharpened toothbrush handle in his heart.
Beat.
Ta-da! We all have pain, Charlie.
Myron violently pulls down the noose from where it is attached to the ceiling. Charlie rushes over to stop him. The cord brings down a chunk of ceiling with it, leaving a small hole in the roof. For a moment they all stare at it as the dust settles.
Kim Oh, my God. You put a hole in the roof. Kevin’s gonna be sooooo pissed.
Myron You know all my favorite movies end with a twist, Charlie. Maybe your twist is that you found something to live for on your thirty-fifth birthday moments before you were about to kill yourself, you found some company. Wouldn’t that be a twist?
Myron exits.
Charlie Everything’s gonna be OK.
Emma Is it? (Beat.) America, the Beautiful . . . Amber waves of grain and all that. (Sings.) God shed his grace on thee . . . When’s God gonna shed his grace on me, Charlie? When’s that gonna happen? Because it’s been a really long time since anyone’s told me that everything was gonna be OK and I was able to believe them.
Charlie crosses to her. She looks up at him.
Charlie Well what if it’s just for tonight? (Beat.) What if we say: just for tonight . . . everything’s gonna be OK?
A few beats of silence.
Kim You know I used to work at this phone sex place. And there was this awesome old black woman who went by the name, Sensation. She was amazing; she could keep those horny bastards on the phone longer than any of us. Anyway one day I was crying in one of the bathroom stalls about something and I’m in a super bad mood and feeling sorry for myself and all of a sudden, Sensation opens the door to the stall and she says, ‘Hey, Princess . . .’ I went by Princess back then. ‘Hey, Princess,’ she says, ‘in a hundred years, there’ll be all new people.’ And I swear I think about that almost everyday. (Beat.) I never got to give you my present, birthday boy. It was my turn, but the roof fell in. I’m gonna play you one of my songs. It’s one of my new ones.
Kim sits on the couch with her ukulele. Myron watches through the windows as he smokes on the front porch.
Kim (sings)
When there’s nothing I can say to make things better
I sling my arm around your shoulder like a sweater
Try to bear some of the burden that you’re wearing
But I can’t seem to lift you
A very light snow begins to fall through the hole in the roof that Myron created when he ripped down the noose.
We’ll rally, rally
We’ll rally around you
We’ll rally, rally around you
Myron stares at them through the window.
Kim It’s snowing. It’s snowing in the house.
Charlie You know I didn’t write a suicide note . . . because I had no one to write it to.
Emma It’s nice isn’t it, Charlie . . . it’s nice to be with friends on your birthday.
Blackout.
The song ‘The Buzzards of Bourbon Street’ by Gaelic Storm (or something like it) returns at full volume.
Author Biography
Zach Braff’s feature film writing and directorial debut, Garden State, premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and earned him a coveted nomination for the Writers’ Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film also earned him an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature as well as a nomination for Best First Screenplay. In addition, Braff was awarded Best Directorial Debut by the National Board of Review, ‘Breakthrough Director’ by the Hollywood Film Festival and ‘Most Promising Filmmaker’ by the Chicago Film Critics Association.
Braff recently starred in the independent film High Cost of Living for director Deborah Chow, and will next direct the feature Swingles. Braff was nominated for a 2005 Primetime Emmy Award and a 2005, 2006 and 2007 Golden Globe award for his portrayal of Dr John ‘J.D.’ Dorian in NBC’s comedy Scrubs.
His film credits include roles in The Broken Hearts Club, Getting to Know You, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Dreamworks’ The Last Kiss and the Weinstein Company’s The Ex. In addition to his role in Trust (Second Stage Theatre, New York City, 2010), Zach’s stage experience includes roles in the Public Theater (New York City) productions of Twelfth Night (2002) and Macbeth (1998), directed by George C. Wolfe.
Published by Methuen Drama 2012
Methuen Drama, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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Methuen Drama
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Copyright © 2012 Zach Braff
Zach Braff has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
Lyrics from “Rally” by Allie Moss reproduced by kind permission of Allie Moss
Epub ISBN: 978 1 408 17982 6
Print ISBN: 978 1 408 17981 9
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Available in the USA from Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, 175 Fifth Avenue/3rd Floor, New York, NY 10010. www.BloomsburyAcademicUSA.com
Typeset by Mark Heslington Ltd, Scarborough, North Yorkshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
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No rights in incidental music or songs contained in the Work are hereby granted and performance rights for any performance/presentation whatsoever must be obtained from the respective copyright owners.
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