by Lauren Groff
It took Lancelot twenty minutes of standing in the shade under a bus stop, listening to the nervous young people chittering around him, to calm down after his call with his mother. Only when the bus sighed and knelt the passengers off like a carnival elephant did he remember that, without money, he couldn’t even catch the BART. He imagined Mathilde, feeling sickly. His words redoubled to him, sounding venomous now. If he’d said a woman’s creative genius went into her babies, what did it mean about Mathilde, a woman who had none? That she was lesser? Lesser than other women who did? Lesser than he was, who created? But he didn’t think so, not at all! He knew she was better than everyone. He didn’t deserve her. She had made it back to the Nob Hill hotel, was packing, was stepping into a yellow taxi, was boarding a plane to fly away from him. The day had at last come. She was leaving him, and he would be left with nothing, bereft.
How would he live without her? He had cooked but had never scrubbed a toilet; he had never paid a bill. How would he write without her? [The buried awareness of how completely her hands reached into his work; don’t look, Lotto. It’d be like looking at the sun.]
The sweat had dried on his shirt. He had to do something; he had to expend his energy somehow. It couldn’t be more than thirty miles to the city. There was only one way there, straight north. It was a beautiful day. He had long legs and great endurance: he could walk fast, five miles an hour. He’d get to the hotel at about midnight. Perhaps she wouldn’t have left yet. Maybe she wasn’t so angry anymore; maybe she had just gone to the spa for a massage and facial and would order room service and watch a naughty movie and take her vengeance this way. Passive-aggressively. Her style.
He set off, keeping the sun at his left, and drank water at a succession of dog parks. Not enough. He was thirsty. In the twilight, he passed the airport and smelled the salt marsh on the wind. The traffic was terrible and he was nearly hit by a peloton of cyclists, three semitrailers, and a man driving a Segway in the dark.
As he walked, he chewed over what had happened at the panel. He saw it over and over and over again. After a few hours, it became a story, as if he were telling it at a bar to a band of friends. A few times through, and the imaginary friends at the bar had become tipsy and laughed at the story. With repetition, what had happened lost its power to wound him. It had become comical, no longer shameful. He was no misogynist. He could summon hundreds of women from the time before Mathilde to attest to his lack of misogyny. He was simply misunderstood! His fears of Mathilde’s leaving him dulled under the friction of the story. An overreaction, and she would be ashamed of herself. She would be the one to apologize to him. She had proved her point; he’d give that to her. He didn’t blame her. She loved him. He was an optimist at heart. All would be well.
He came into the city and nearly wept with gratitude for the tighter blocks, for the sidewalks, for the streetlights gently leading him one to the next.
His feet were bleeding, he could feel it. He was sunburnt, mouth dry, stomach knotted with hunger. He stank as if he’d taken a dip in a pond of sweat. He made a very halting way up the hill to the hotel and went in, and the desk clerk, who’d blessedly checked them in the day before, went, “Oop! Mr. Satterwhite, what happened?” And Lotto rasped, “I was mugged,” because in a way he was, the audience robbing him of his dignity; and the man summoned the bellhop who brought the hotel’s wheelchair and Lotto was escorted up to his room in the elevator, and the key was produced, and he was pushed inside, and Mathilde sat up in bed, naked under the sheet, and smiled at him.
“Oh, there you are, love,” she said. Such magnificent self-possession. Really, she was a wonder of the world.
The bellhop bowed his way out, murmuring something about complimentary room service in a moment.
“Water,” Lotto croaked. “Please.”
Mathilde stood, put on her robe, and went to the bathroom and poured out a glass and brought it with extreme slowness to him. He drank it down in a single draught. “Thank you. More, please,” he said.
“I’m happy to serve,” she said, smiling broadly. She didn’t move.
“M.,” he said.
“Yes, my creative genius?” she said.
“No more punishment. I’m a dope unfit for human society. I wear my privilege like an invisible cloak and imagine it gives me superpowers. I deserve at least a day in the stocks and probably some rotten eggs heaved at my head. I’m sorry.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him calmly. “That would have been nicer if it had been sincere. You’re arrogant.”
“I know,” he said.
“Your words have more weight than most people’s. You swing them wildly and you can hurt a lot of people,” she said.
“I only care that I hurt you,” he said.
“You assume so much about me. You don’t get to speak for me. I don’t belong to you,” she said.
“I’ll stop doing anything that displeases you. Would you please, please, please bring me more water?”
She sighed and brought him more, and there was a knock at the door, and she opened it, and there was the bellhop with a rolling table, and on the table there was a bucket of champagne and a plate of salmon and asparagus and a basket of soft hot rolls and a chocolate cake for dessert, compliments of the hotel, with apologies for the mugging. San Francisco was a genial town, mostly, and this rarely happened. Should he need medical attention, they had a doctor on retainer, et cetera. Please tell us if there is anything more we can do.
Lotto fell to and she watched. He could manage only a few bites before queasiness set in; then he stood, although his feet felt as if they had been lopped off by an ax, and he tottered to the bathroom and put his clothes and shoes directly in the trashcan and took a long hot bath, watching the tendrils of blood eke out of his wounds. He’d lost or was in the process of losing all ten toenails. He put cold water on his face and arms, which were blistered with sun. He stood up, feeling new in his body, and with his wife’s tweezers, he plucked the long fine hairs on his earlobes and massaged his wife’s expensive lotion deep into the skin of his forehead, willing the lines away.
When he came out, Mathilde was still awake, staring at the book in her hands. She put it down, tucked her glasses atop her head, frowned at him.
“If it helps, I won’t be able to walk tomorrow,” he said.
“Then you get to spend the day in bed with me,” she said. “So you win. No matter what, you win. It all works out for you in the end. Always. Someone or something’s looking out for you. It’s maddening.”
“Were you hoping it wouldn’t work out for me? That I’d get hit by a truck?” he said, crawling under the sheets and resting his head on her stomach. It gurgled gently. The rest of the cake was gone from the tray.
She sighed. “No, idiot. I just wanted to scare you for a few hours. The moderator stayed in his office all night because we were sure someone would bring you to him. Which is what a sane person would have done, Lotto. Not walk all the way back to San Francisco, you crazed maniac. I just called him to tell him you’d showed up. He was still there. He’d freaked his shit completely. He thought you’d been abducted by a band of wild feminists for a videotaped scapegoating. He’d been going over castration scenarios in his head.” Lancelot imagined a machete swinging, shuddered.
“Eh,” she said. “It all fizzed out by the time the lunch rolled around. Apparently, last year’s Nobel laureate was found today to have plagiarized half of his speech, and there was a huge free-for-all on social media. I looked up and saw full tables gaping at their smart phones. You, my love, were today’s small-fry.”
He felt cheated; he should have been even more inflammatory. [Glutton!]
He stewed until he slept, and she watched him for a while, turning things over in her head, and when she fell asleep, she did so without switching off the light.
8
ICE IN THE BONES, 2013
&nb
sp; Dean of students’ office of an all boys’ boarding school. On the wall a poster of a waterfall at sunset with ENDURANCE, sans serif, underneath.
DEAN OF STUDENTS: man with eyebrows that take up half his face
OLLIE: skinny boy, recently fatherless, exiled from home for juvenile delinquency. Southern accent he tries to swallow; face full of pustules. Still, sharp-eyed, notices everything
FROM ACT I
DEAN: It has been reported that you, Oliver, do not seem to be fitting in. You have no friends. Your nickname [Peers at an index card, blinks.] is Bumblefuck Pie?
OLLIE: Apparently, sir.
DEAN: Oliver, you’re making a difficult transition.
OLLIE: Yes, sir.
DEAN: Your grades couldn’t be better, but you don’t speak in class. Don’t call me sir. Our boys here are intellectually curious, vital citizens of the world. Are you an intellectually curious, vital citizen of the world?
OLLIE: Nope.
DEAN: Why not?
OLLIE: I’m unhappy.
DEAN: Who could be unhappy here? That’s nuts.
OLLIE: I’m cold.
DEAN: Physically? Or spiritually?
OLLIE: Both, sir.
DEAN: Why are you crying?
OLLIE: [Struggles. Says nothing.]
DEAN: [Opens his drawer. Under a spill of papers is something that Ollie sees, and he sits up as if goosed. The dean shuts the drawer, lifting out a rubber band, tenting it back with his thumb. He aims it at Ollie’s nose and lets fly. Ollie blinks. The dean sits back in his chair.]
DEAN: An undepressed person would have avoided that.
OLLIE: Probably.
DEAN: You, my friend, are a whiner.
OLLIE: [ . . . ]
DEAN: Ha! You look like Rudolph the Red-Nosed La-di-da.
OLLIE: [ . . . ]
DEAN: Ha ha!
OLLIE: Dean. If I may ask a question. Why do you have a gun in your desk?
DEAN: Gun? No gun. That’s crazy. You don’t know what you’re talking about. [Sits back, puts his arms behind his head.] Anyway, listen to me, Oliver. I’ve been doing this for a billion years. I was a boy like you once at this school. Even I was picked on, believe it or not. And I don’t see why you’re being shat on. You seem to have everything. Wealthy, tall, you’d be good-looking if you washed your face once or twice, Christ. Little acne cream and you’d be strapping. You seem nice. Smart. You don’t stink, not like one of those hopeless loser kids. You know Jelly Roll? Just irredeemable. He smells bad and cries all the time. Foul to look at. Even his little friends, all the Dungeons & Dragons kids, even they only barely tolerate Jelly Roll to make up their bridge parties or something. You? You could be the king of this school. But you’re not, because, one, you’re new, which will burn off in time. Numero dos, you’re scared, which you have to change. Fast! Because kids who go to schools like this one are sharks, my friend. They’re baby sharks bred out of a long line of sharks, every one of ’em. And sharks can smell the blood in the water from miles away, and the blood in the water to these particular sharks? Fear. They smell that blood in the water, they’re going to hunt the bleeder down. Not their fault. They can’t help it! What kind of shark is a shark that doesn’t attack? A dolphin. Who needs dolphins? Dolphins are delicious. They make great snacks. So, you listen carefully to what I’m about to say. You need to learn to be a shark. Punch someone in the schnozz, just don’t break it, don’t want to be sued by these kids’ daddies. Play a prank. Cellophane the toilet so when they piss, the piss bounces on their jeans. Ha! If someone throws a hard-boiled egg in your face, throw a steak in his. Because this is like prison. Only the strong survive. You gotta earn your respect. Gotta do what you gotta do. You hearing me? Capiche?
OLLIE: Capiche.
DEAN: All right, Oliver. What kind of a name is Oliver anyway? Kind of a dolphin kind of name if you ask me. Pussy name. You a pussy?
OLLIE: No. But I like them.
DEAN: Ha! You’re getting it. What did they call you at home?
OLLIE: Ollie.
DEAN: Ollie. You see. There we go. Ollie’s a shark name. King shark. Next time someone calls you Bumblefuck Pie, you get all up in their faccia, make them call you Ollie. You hear me?
OLLIE: Loud and clear.
DEAN: Do you feel your teeth sharpening? Smell the blood in the water? Do you feel like a shark?
OLLIE: Maybe. Or like a dolphin with a razor blade on his fin.
DEAN: It’s a start. Go slay them, slayer.
OLLIE: Slay. Check.
DEAN: Not literally, of course, god, could you imagine? The dean told me to kill them all! I meant figuratively. Don’t slay anyone. You didn’t hear that from me.
OLLIE: Of course. Good-bye, sir. [Exits.]
DEAN: [Alone, takes the gun hurriedly from his drawer, inserts it under the couch.]
TELEGONY, 2013
“Masks. Magic. Circe and Penelope and Odysseus and patricide and incest. Music and film and dance. You crazy-ass man,” Mathilde said.
“Gesamtkunstwerk,” Lotto said. “Melding all the forms of art as theater. Now we just have to find someone nuts enough to put it on,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” Mathilde said. “Everyone we know is nuts.”
SHIP OF FOOLS, 2014
ACT I, SCENE I
Postnuclear wasteland, whale belly-up in the red tide, two women among the rubble.
PETE: wiry, small, skinny, furry, a chimp woman
MIRANDA: enormously fat, three vertical feet of red hair with a scorched bluebird’s nest atop it à la Madame du Barry. Swinging in a hammock between two blackened and skeletal palms
PETE [Dragging a dead gator into camp.]: Gator tail for supper this evening, Miranda.
MIRANDA [Vaguely.]: Lovely. It’s just that. Well. I was hoping. Well, for some whale steaks? If it were only possible to get whale steaks? I mean, don’t worry too much about it, but it’s the only thing in the world I could possibly digest tonight, but I can get down a little gator. If I must.
PETE [Picks up hacksaw, sets off, returns wet, chunk of meat in her arms.]: Gator tail and whale steaks for supper, Miranda.
MIRANDA: What a surprise! Pete! You can do anything! Speaking of which, while you’re up, mind pouring me another cocktail? It’s five o’clock somewhere!
PETE: Reckon not. No such thing as time anymore. [Pours kerosene out of a drum, stirs it with a peppermint stick kept for the purpose, hands it over.]
MIRANDA: Wonderful! Now. I think it must be time for my soap? The Starrs in Your Eyes?
PETE: Time’s dead, Miranda mine. Television’s dead. Electricity’s dead. Actors dead, too, I warrant, in that H-bomb blast over L.A. Or the black-tongue plague after. Or the earthquake. The human experiment done bust.
MIRANDA: Then just kill me, Petey. Just kill me dead. No use in living. Just take that hacksaw and chop off my head. [Weeps into her great pale hands.]
PETE [Sighs. Picks up kelp, places it on her head. Sucks in cheeks like Silvia Starr, heroine of the eponymous soap The Starrs in Your Eyes, and speaks in a gravelly voice.]: Oh, whatever are we going to do with that dastardly dastard, Burton Bailey . . .
MIRANDA [Sinks back, gaping. They are both so entranced, they don’t hear the mechanical whirring that grows until, stage right, a battered boat hull looms into view, and survivors peer at the women from above.]
Rachel was agitatedly pacing the black-box theater, empty save for her brother, as the opening night reception thudded behind the door. “Cripes, Lotto. I didn’t even know how to watch that,” she said, digging her palms into her eyes.
He went still. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s part of me that kind of savagely delighted in watching Muvva and Sallie duke it out at the end of the world. Sallie scraping and bowing until she finally snaps, you
know?” Rachel laughed, then pivoted toward him. “You’re so good at fooling us, aren’t you. You’re so charming you make us forget that you have to be a serial killer on the inside to do what you do to us. Put us in your plays, warts and all, showing us off like we’re some sort of sideshow freaks. The audience out there just kind of laps it up.”
He was shocked cold. Rachel, of all people, turning on him. But no. She wasn’t. She wouldn’t. Now she was standing on her tiptoes to touch his cheek. In such light, his baby sister’s eyes were framed in fine wrinkles. Oh, for the god of love, where did time go? [Clockwise swirl going nowhere.] “At least you wrote a better version of Antoinette. At least by the end she puts herself in front of the beast for her kids. Praise the lord,” she said, in Sallie’s voice, making twinkle fingers in the air. They laughed.
—
[But in a drawer in Florida, half written, a note. Darling. I have never seen a play of yours in the flesh, as you know. A great sorrow of my life. But I read them all, I’ve seen the ones on DVDs and online. It goes without saying how proud of you I am. Of course, I’m not surprised. I took such great care from the day you were born to mold you into the artist you are! But how, Lancelot, how dare you]
THE BATS, 2014
“It’s great,” Mathilde said.
But Lotto detected something in her voice that he wasn’t ready for, and he said, “It hurt my feelings at that symposium when they all implied I was a misogynist. You know I love women.”
“I know,” she said. “You love them almost too much.” Still, the coolness in her voice, the way she was avoiding looking at him. Something was wrong.
“I think Livvie came off pretty well. I hope you don’t mind that I used you as a model for her character.”
“Well. Livvie is a murderer,” Mathilde said flatly.
“M., I meant that I just used your personality.”
“A murderer’s personality,” she said. “My husband of more than twenty years says I have a murderer’s personality. Okay!”