by Tony Kushner
BILLYGOAT
(To Hendryk) There’s always douching.
ESTHER
(To Hendryk) Did you ever play on the shore with a sand bucket?
HENDRYK
(To Esther) Why?
(To Billygoat) Douching isn’t foolproof.
ESTHER
Just wondering.
BILLYGOAT
Ah, well, foolproof.
HENDRYK
I hate that.
BILLYGOAT
What?
HENDRYK
That continental wearywise affected sophisticated louche thing you lapse into. Ah well, foolproof. Americans don’t say, “Ah.” Ah well, foolproof. Ah well the smell of feces. In the faubourg of Paree of my youth we would eat it with petit pois off tiny platters of Limoges . . . Please. You’re from Dearborne. In houses all across Dearborne mothers are teaching little boys to crinkle their noses in revulsion at the smell of ordure. Maybe they don’t even need instruction, maybe it’s innate, atavistic: poo-poo, yuck. What went wrong with you?
BILLYGOAT
With love’s light wings did I oe’rperch that revulsion.
HENDRYK
You’re so robust. You don’t really get ambivalence. The satyr which is half man half goat should get ambivalence but animals don’t, that’s why we say they have no souls. Ambivalence is the soul, it is our species being, and against animal certitude human ambivalence is too ambivalent to stand up for itself I guess and so, voilà. You. I’m going to lie down now.
ESTHER
Time’s almost up.
HENDRYK
(To Esther) Can I fuck you?
DYMPHNA
(To Esther) Can I fuck you?
BILLYGOAT
(To Hendryk) Can I fuck you?
ESTHER
(To Hendryk) No.
(To Dymphna) No fucking tonight.
BILLYGOAT
Don’t let me leave you. I may not have a soul but I’m beautiful so do your soul a favor, hang on tight to me.
HENDRYK
I’m going to lie down now.
ESTHER
When you lie down on the couch you always pass out. Your efficient Resistance.
HENDRYK
Just for a . . . (He lies down) For old times’ sake. To what? Why resist. I never met anyone who wasn’t overcome. Eventually. The pillow always smells.
ESTHER
Many troubled heads have been laid upon it.
What about paternal ambivalence?
(Hendryk buries his face in the pillow and inhales deeply.)
ESTHER
What does it smell like, Hendryk?
HENDRYK
Attar. Of Something. Nice.
Not now I’m trying to sleep.
Thank you for seeing me. Aren’t I sad? Paternal ambivalence, there’s no such thing as that. My father lacked ambivalence. He hated me, till he figured out how to swallow me. Which he did in three snaps of his mighty jaws, and washed me down with beer. It hardly hurt. Him or me.
Once incorporated I was more or less safe and more or less whole. And then extruded.
Spectacularly, lipsmackingly, invincibly unappetizing. Maybe from this comes my horror at the thought of . . . the, uh.
(He’s asleep.)
ESTHER
Hendryk.
Hendryk.
I have problems of my own.
DYMPHNA
Our inability to love one another is humankind’s greatest tragedy. Why can’t people live up to their moral goodness? It’s better to share. It’s more pleasant to be kind. Maybe not in the moment, but immediately after. It’s exhausting to despair. Love replenishes itself, day after day. It’s easy to love, it’s hard to refuse. Surprises are always coming. Adversity is better met by good cheer and a placid spirit. Generosity makes us free. Sacrifice lifts the soul. For the happy woman there is no terror in the night. Lass meine Schmerzen nicht verloren sein. Let my sorrow and my pain not be in vain. Don’t kill yourself. Work. Each evening come home to me. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I love that. Surely they shall. Surely. Surely.
ESTHER
Surely.
For me that word is so rotten with doubt and hesitation, it rings. It’s a question in a closet.
DYMPHNA
Don’t kill yourself. Work. Each evening come home to me.
(Esther takes the keys to her office out of her purse, scribbles something on a piece of paper. She wraps the keys in the paper, puts them quietly on the sleeping Hendryk’s chest, turns out the lights and tiptoes out. Hendryk wakes up as the door shuts. He looks about. He sits up. The keys fall into his lap. He opens the paper in which they are wrapped. He jingles the keys. He reads the note.)
HENDRYK
Lock. Up. After. Yourself.
FINIS
East Coast Ode to Howard Jarvis
A Little Teleplay in Tiny Monologues
Howard Jarvis and the Anti-tax Revolution
HOWARD JARVIS (1903-1986), for those of you who hadn’t been born when the self-styled “tax revolt leader” loomed on the Californian, and then the national, political horizon, managed to convince nearly two-thirds of the voters in the state to pass Proposition 13, which slashed property taxes by fifty-seven percent in 1978. Eventually the Jarvis warriors would claim that they managed to deprive the state budget of almost three hundred billion dollars in tax revenue (the consequences of which can be seen in California’s impaupered education and health care systems, its unsheltered homeless, its untreated mental patients wandering its city streets). Jarvis and his Proposition sounded the first graceless klaxon battle-trumpet for the armies of neo-barbarians, massing under Reagan, preparing to shred the social net, and attempting to shred the Social Contract, finally offering to replace it, in 1995, with The Contract with America, the cornerstone of which was a reckless repealing of taxes.
America, ambivalently hoping for a functional society with decent public schools, affordable health care, breathable air and navigable highways, may be less eager to sign on the dotted line than Gingrich, now dismissed, and Jarvis, now largely forgotten, anticipated. People aren’t always the mindless greedhogs the GOP believes them to be. Last year, in 1999, the Congressional Republicans offered a nearly eight hundred billion dollar tax cut, and were shocked to find that the national response was largely one of skepticism, annoyance and even indignation. But the anti-tax minotaurs are still stomping about, and in the wake of their efforts, valuable social programs have been cut, essential regulatory agencies have been whittled down to ineffectual size, public education is being starved and vouchered to death, the NEA has been reduced to the size of a nasty little joke, the income disparity gap between rich and poor is greater than it has ever been in our history, and we haven’t hit bottom yet. If the GOP, and its collaborationists in the Democratic Party, have their way, we will.
Characters
Sixteen Men
THE CORRECTIONS OFFICER (African-American, thirties)
THE SKINHEAD INMATE (white, twenties)
A DETECTIVE, HOUSING POLICE, Charles Procaccino
(Italian-American, thirties)
LEONARD “HAP” DUTCHMAN (white, fifties)
THE HOUSING DETECTIVE’S UNCLE, AN ACCOUNTANT
(Italian-American, sixties)
THE SECOND DETECTIVE, HOUSING POLICE
(Italian-American, thirties)
THE THIRD DETECTIVE, HOUSING POLICE
(Latino, mid-forties)
A TRANSIT COP (Asian-American, twenties)
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION OFFICER
(Cuban-American, forties)
A PATROLMAN (young, fat, white guy)
A PRECINCT CAPTAIN (African-American, middle-aged)
SANITATION WORKER (Sikh-American)
A HANDSOME, YOUNG FIREMAN (white)
ATTORNEY FOR THE CITY OF NEW YORK (young Latino)
MAYOR, CITY OF NEW YORK
THE DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR THE HOUSING DETECTIVES
&nbs
p; (Irish-American in his sixties)
Seven Women
THE HOUSING DETECTIVE’S DAUGHTER
(Italian-American, teens)
THE SUPREMELY SCARY GIRL WHO KNOWS
PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING (African-American, teens)
KAREN, THE HOUSING DETECTIVE’S DAUGHTER’S BEST
FRIEND (Latina-American, teens)
THE WOMAN IN THE PAYROLL DEPARTMENT
(African-American, early fifties)
A METER READER (middle-aged)
CITY SOCIAL WORKER (Asian-American, middle-aged)
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY (youthful forties)
And a cast of thousands (the screen subdividing).
The Action
The action takes place in New York City, beginning in 1991 and ending in 1996. This really happened, though not exactly as I imagined it step-by-step. The letter and several of the official responses at the end of the play are taken verbatim from newspaper accounts.
Author’s Note
If performed onstage, I think this will work best with one actor playing all the parts. The actor could be a woman or a man. The interior and exterior titles, character descriptions and character identifications should be spoken by the actor before each character speaks. For example, when the play begins, the actor will say:ACTOR
Interior shot. Rikers Island Jail. In his thirties, African-American, jail-guard uniform. A Corrections Officer. I guess I have always felt I pay too much taxes. Right? And I’m like, for what? Two days ago ... etc.
The different characters should be gently suggested, with slight indications of accent and gender; the play shouldn’t become a cacophony of funny voices, fake mustaches and drag acting.
Thanks to Alec Baldwin for commissioning this.
Thanks to Tess Timoney for the Spanish.
Interior Shot—Rikers Island Jail
In his thirties, African-American, jail-guard uniform.
THE CORRECTIONS OFFICER
I guess I have always felt I pay too much taxes. Right? And I’m like, for what? Two days ago I’m like waiting twenty-seven minutes for a subway train, middle of the day, and I’m like, I’m late, I’m like, “Come on man I pay all these fucking taxes like, for this?” For this shit? Right? Death, taxes and the fucking Mass Transit Authority. That sucks. That ain’t right, right? I mean there must be more to life, you know what I mean?
So one day about five years ago at Rikers, I work over at Rikers, we got this weird skinhead white kid grand larceny assault or something, serious mental event, serious attitude problem, nasty, first day there he shoves some other prisoner on line at the cafeteria or he changed the channels on the TV without asking permission or I forget what but like so I have to take him to see the psychiatrist, get him some of them anti-aggression pills. I wait with him while he waits to see the doctor, and he’s a talker.
Interior Shot—Rikers Island
In his twenties, generic white guy, shaved head with stubble, tattoos, prisoner coveralls.
THE SKINHEAD INMATE
. . . this secret group which I can’t tell you the name of but to which I belong, the initials of which are N. A. W . . . . uh . . .
Wait, N. A. W. (He mouths the words North American White Men’s Freedom and Liberty Council silently, gleaning the capitals as he goes, then) The N. A. W. M. F. and L. C. . . . And we have grokked this shit but profoundly, like you probably think I am in jail here but I am not in jail in my own mind, like . . . That’s Thoreau! Leonard, he reads Thoreau! And he gots us some Uzis, we got Khlashnishnikov ... Klashkhalnikov . . . Kaklishni . . . whatever, those Russian Uzis, and AK-47s, zebra bullets, dum-dums, Semtex . . . Man. The free mind, the superior mind overturns the system. Leonard, Leonard is like the mastermind, he is so smart (Confidingly, sotto voce) he doesn’t pay taxes. No shit, he hasn’t paid taxes in twenty years and it’s legal because Leonard has proved through Thoreau and shit like that that the IRS is unconstitutional. I mean it man, clean and sober. No taxes. I have seen his paycheck.
Exterior Shot—On the Street, Bensonhurst
In his late thirties, Italian-American, tanned, pomaded hair, gold chain, amulets, a police ID badge; he is wearing a fancy Nike sweatsuit.
A DETECTIVE, HOUSING POLICE
So the skinhead fruitcake tells the corrections officer this guy Leonard has found a legal way out of paying taxes. (Beat)
But apparently he won’t give the officer this Leonard guy’s number or nothing because the officer’s black and Leonard lives out in Indiana where I guess there are only white people, anyway, I mean who the fuck’s ever even heard of Indiana, I mean name-me-one-city-in-Indiana-you-got-two-seconds-bleep-time’s-up—five-to-one this skinhead kid’s never even made it out to Coney Island, Indiana, Jesus wept. He hooked up with (Making “quotation marks” gestures with his fingers) “Leonard” on the Internet . . . Now tell me please who is it teaching disturbed individuals like this bonebrain how to get on the fucking Internet. Like when I first heard the story I didn’t even know what the Internet was let alone how to (Gestures again) “get on it” but here’s this little cheap-ass racist loon got himself on the Internet and he’s cooked up this whole fantasy about Indiana where allegedly they got something he called the North American White Men’s Freedom and Liberty Council. I heard all this from a friend of mine over at Rikers knows a guy who knows this guy who got it from this kid: some bunch of armed whackos in Indiana who had figured out how legally to get out of paying taxes.
(Beat. He taps his noggin with his forefinger: “Bright idea!” Big smile, shaking his head) MotheraGod. Gonna get me some of that.
Interior Shot—Teenage Girl’s Bedroom, Bensonhurst
Seriously disaffected youth, hair in cornrows, dreads, beaded, braided, dyed, mohawked, scalped; ear and nose piercings, tattoos.
THE HOUSING DETECTIVE’S DAUGHTER
My dad is always trying to win the lottery and shit, get-rich-quick ideas, it’s pathetic, like, you can just look at him and see, “This guy is gonna get rich? Ever? No way.” I mean he does OK and all he just looks like a buttwipe. He all the time implies that I am stupid like he asks me what the Internet is. And he says can I find some stupid group on the Web for him, like, Dad, I am the first of my friends who found totally naked pictures of Antonio Banderas (like you can see everything it is so gross), so of course yes I know how to get on the Internet, buttwipe. Not to his face of course but I know how to call him buttwipe with just my facial expression, so he can get mad all he likes but he cannot hit me. Which if I literally called him buttwipe, he could. So he gives me this piece of paper with North American White Men’s Freedom and Liberty Council, so I’m like, “Whatever.” Buttmunch. So I did some superlative prizewinning grass with my best friend Karen and we got on the Web Crawler in the school library and fed it the name of this stupid group, and nada, so we tried unlinking the words, like give us anything with North plus American plus White plus Men plus Freedom, and of course there were a zillion entries for that so like no way forget that. So Dad said try “Leonard” which was so gigantically lame, what a Cro-Magnon Pleistocene Pathetic Troglodyte Fossilized Freeze-Dried Buttmunch, but I told him if he gave me ten bucks I would try “Leonard,” so he did so I bought some more grass for Karen and me and some brewskis and some Camel Lights and she had some Ecstasy and some Crystal Meth already and we typed in “Leonard” and the Web Crawler was like, “Duh?” So we were like (Throat-slitting gesture) “DOOMSDAY!” but then we asked this supremely scary girl at school who knows practically everything.
Exterior Shot—The Front Steps of a Public High School in Bensonhurst
An African-American teenager, very cool, supremely self-possessed, dressed in perfect B-Girl style.
THE SUPREMELY SCARY GIRL
WHO KNOWS PRACTICALLY EVERYTHING
What the fuck is the North American White Men’s . . . Man, how the fuck should I know? Sounds to me like one of those militia groups they got out there, them head-job freaks who dynamited that federal building a
few years ago in Utah or wherever.
Interior—Teenage Girl’s Bedroom, Bensonhurst
THE HOUSING DETECTIVE’S DAUGHTER
So I told my dad who after all is a cop what this girl said, that these guys might be like terrorists or something, so he goes, “So give me back my ten bucks.” Pathetic, no? We tried “Militias” but there was a zillion entries, and “Utah” but again a zillion entries, it would have taken us hours—and then because I am a genius and because I did not want to give him his ten bucks back I thought “Bombs, guns . . . lightbulb!” So Karen and me tried “Guns” and got a zillion entries and then tried “Semiautomatic Weapons” and got a thousand entries and then “Semis” plus “Liberty” and got maybe forty entries, and so that’s how we went shopping for “Leonard” in Cyberspace.