I’m proud of you, John. Unlike mine, your tears are now tax-free.
SCENE TWELVE
JOHN and DANNO enter.
JOHN: Thank you so much, Danno. You saved my arse.
DANNO: Any time. We promised that we’d bail each other out if either of us ever went to jail.
JOHN: I didn’t know who else to call.
DANNO: I’m glad you did.
JOHN: Your house looks so … tidy.
DANNO: I can afford nice things now. I got a new job.
JOHN: What job?
DANNO: Don’t worry, I didn’t go back to SBS. I know you think subtitles suck.
JOHN: I’ve actually been watching lots of foreign films lately.
DANNO: John … I have something to tell you.
JOHN: Let’s just watch the State of Origin, Danno.
DANNO: I’m going for Queensland tonight. Does that piss you off?
JOHN: It doesn’t bother me what side you’re on, mate.
Pause.
DANNO: I can’t believe you got arrested for littering.
JOHN: I thought about throwing it in the dumpster, but I wanted to immerse it in water.
DANNO: You could’ve sold it on eBay.
JOHN: It was more of a rite of passage.
DANNO: I can’t believe I missed your passage.
JANELLE enters.
JANELLE: Danno, why’s your phone switched off?
She sees JOHN.
Oh. What are you doing here?
JOHN: What are you doing here?
JANELLE: You didn’t tell him yet, did you, Danno? I was gonna post our news on the ‘Barbie Bulletin’ first.
Pause.
JOHN: No. No no. Is this a joke, Janelle? Danno?
DANNO: I … I—
JANELLE: We’re in love. Danno loves me.
JOHN: What? How? When? What?
DANNO: We bonded while bitching about you.
JANELLE: He’s the new co-owner of Burn Baby Burn. You’re not the only one who’s moved on, John Green. Danno was the perfect person to fill your gap.
DANNO: Figuratively speaking.
JOHN: I thought you wanted to go to film school, Danno.
JANELLE: Not anymore.
JOHN: Is it true about the baby?
DANNO: What baby?
JANELLE: Shhhhh!
JOHN: She said that she’s pregnant with my baby.
JANELLE: No, I didn’t! It’s your baby, Danno.
DANNO: That’s impossible. We haven’t had sex yet.
JANELLE: We might have if you could get it up.
DANNO: I’m being respectful of you because you wanna wait till marriage.
JANELLE: I’m just saying that in case Jesus is listening. I need regular sex, Danno.
DANNO: What about your hymen restoration program? You told me it was as important to you as Jesus rising from the cave.
JANELLE: To hell with the hymen restoration program!
DANNO: Are you really pregnant, Janelle?
JANELLE: No. I made it up.
DANNO: Why?
JANELLE: To win him back.
DANNO: What about me?
JANELLE: I wanted him to be jealous. I still love you, John.
JOHN: If you loved me, you wouldn’t have forced me to abandon my dreams.
DANNO: So you don’t love me, Janelle?
JANELLE: Of course not.
DANNO: You’re a piece of work, Janelle.
JANELLE: Oh, come on, Danno. Cut the crap. We all know that you’re less interested in my barbecue and more interested in sausage.
DANNO: That’s a lie. John and I came back here to watch the State of Origin. I love footy!
JANELLE: Of course you do—two dozen grown men groaning and groping at each other’s tackle. You only shacked up with me to make John jealous too.
JOHN: You two deserve each other.
JANELLE: Danno, you’re fired!
DANNO: Good, ’cause I’m burnt out. John, I’m sorry.
JOHN: Sorry I screamed at you at Ginger Pride.
DANNO: I’ve only ever wanted to help you with your career, Johnny.
JOHN: I know. Thank you for introducing me to Anil.
DANNO: It’s a great fate, mate.
JOHN: Bring it in, brother.
They hug.
I’m sorry I disappointed you, Janelle.
JANELLE: I only ever wanted to give you stability.
JOHN: I know.
JANELLE: I’m leaving Chillsong.
JOHN: Why?
JANELLE: I was only going ’cause my parents want me to. I have nothing against the church. I just don’t like their bloody songs. I’m using my blasphemy bag money to join a surf goddess retreat in Byron Bay. I wanna be a happy hippy, not a cranky skippy.
JOHN: Good for you, Janelle—
JANELLE: Go to Sandy, John. You have my blessing.
DANNO: Go! Go and stop her at the airport.
JOHN: She’s not at the airport.
DANNO: Oh.
JANELLE: Make like a boomerang and get her back. Go!
JOHN exits.
DANNO: Janelle?
JANELLE: What, Danno?
DANNO: You’re—
JANELLE: Dumped/
DANNO: Dumped.
JANELLE: I said it first.
DANNO: No. I did.
JANELLE: Fine. You still owe me one more shift.
DANNO: Really?
JANELLE: You, me, Oxford Street, Midnight Shift.
SCENE THIRTEEN
SANDY enters. JOHN follows.
JOHN: Why haven’t you returned my phone calls?
SANDY: I don’t wanna see you.
JOHN: Janelle was lying. I promise.
SANDY: So many lies.
JOHN: These last few weeks have been awful without you. I miss you. I love you.
SANDY: Please leave.
JOHN: They offered me the role on ‘Bondi Parade’.
SANDY: Good for you.
JOHN: I turned it down.
SANDY: Why?
JOHN: It’s not what I want.
SANDY: What do you want?
JOHN: You. I know I’m a mess, but I’m getting my life together. The Addy shoot has been amazing. Why don’t you come on set and watch the finale?
SANDY: I’m busy.
JOHN: I’m loving my costume. It’s called a kurta. Wanna see some photos of me in it?
SANDY: No.
JOHN shows her some pics on his phone.
JOHN: Please take me back, Sandy. Please.
SANDY: John. Please go. You have so much shit you need to sort out.
JOHN: I know.
SANDY: Shoot your film. Sort your shit out with your mum. I can’t be the one to pull you out of this mess. Only you can.
JOHN: I need you.
SANDY: Give me some time, John. I need some time. Maybe we can meet in a few months. After your shoot. Okay?
JOHN: Will you have dinner with me tonight?
SANDY: No.
JOHN: My shout.
SANDY: Goodbye, John.
JOHN: Please? I’ll cook you a curry.
SCENE FOURTEEN
JOHN and LIVVY enter. LIVVY reveals an old piece of paper to JOHN.
JOHN: What’s this?
LIVVY: I found it in the attic when I cleaned it out.
JOHN reads the piece of paper.
JOHN: Why didn’t you tell me?
LIVVY: I didn’t wanna upset you. Have you looked in Mum’s bathroom cabinet before?
JOHN: Only to borrow her toenail clippers. Why?
LIVVY: She has a secret compartment. With unlimited tubes of this.
LIVVY hands JOHN a tube of Lighten Up skin bleach.
JOHN: Lube? Oh. Lighten Up Lotion?
LIVVY: It’s skin bleach, John. Do you think she bleached my skin when I was a baby?
JOHN: I don’t know.
LIVVY starts to cry. JOHN hugs her. BRONWYN enters.
BRONWYN: Awww How sweet. You were always good at pacifying her, J
ohnny. Do you know that when you were a baby, Livvy, John was nursing you once and you started sucking on his nipple. You thought it was mine. [She laughs.] I’ve always thought your areolas were abnormally large, Johnny.
JOHN: Mum.
LIVVY: I found this in the attic.
LIVVY holds up the piece of paper. BRONWYN freezes for a long while.
BRONWYN: It’s just a prop I made up years ago for a school play I directed.
JOHN: Don’t lie, Mum.
BRONWYN: I’m not lying. It’s from a silly school play. One of my students made it as a joke.
LIVVY: Stop lying to us!
She holds up the Lighten Up tube.
Did you bleach my skin when I was a baby?
BRONWYN: No, darling! You were always naturally fair.
LIVVY: Really?
JOHN: Was I adopted from Fiji, Mum?
BRONWYN: No, darling! You’re my very own. You came from this womb. Why are you being like this?
JOHN: This is your real birth certificate, isn’t it?
BRONWYN: I told you it’s a prop.
LIVVY: Lies!
BRONWYN: Don’t you raise your voice at me!
Pause.
LIVVY: I hate you!
BRONWYN: Such rude children! You’ve both ruined my life! I can’t sleep anymore, I’m having horrific nightmares, I’m hallucinating, I hear voices in my head! I’m using a garland of garlic as numchuckers!
JOHN: Play on, Oberon. Play on.
BRONWYN: What did I do to deserve this?
LIVVY: What did I do to deserve my birds to die!
JOHN: We could go and buy some new budgies?
LIVVY: It’s nearly impossible to breed yellow-faced recessive pied violet spangles. But I did it. It took me forever to get the right budgies so I could breed that specific colour.
She looks at her mother angrily.
I’m going to Ming Wa’s place.
LIVVY goes to leave. BRONWYN grabs her.
BRONWYN: Make sure you put on your sunscreen. And lock the door behind you. Something is rotten in the state of Greystanes.
She grabs some sunscreen and applies it generously to LIVVY’s face and arms.
LIVVY: [to BRONWYN] I know it was you.
BRONWYN: What are you talking about?
LIVVY: You poisoned Fanny, didn’t you?
BRONWYN: No.
LIVVY: Her shit was green before she went mad.
BRONWYN: Watch your mouth, young lady.
LIVVY: You fed her wheatgrass, didn’t you? Or rat poison!
BRONWYN: I only gave her a slither of kale.
LIVVY: You poisoned the nest!
BRONWYN slaps LIVVY.
SCENE FIFTEEN
ANIL enters. We are on the Addy film set in Sydney.
ANIL: Darren, Warren, Graham, good positions, perfect. Where are the two Toms? Tom … Tom, you got lost again? Satnav, Navman, next time show them the way. Okay, Britishers, red coats on. Muskets ready. Pump your muskets. Pump, pump, pump. But hold your fire. Don’t shoot yet. Okay, put your pith helmets on. Deepak, why are there no pith helmets? Who keeps taking their pith? Bengalis, mount your tigers. Get ready to roar. Sharma! Yeh kyaa hai? Where are the snakes, Sharma? King brown, red-bellied black—the snakes in this basket are all Aussies. Sharma, I said non-venomous, fetch some snakes that don’t bite. Elephants. Why do we only have ten? We need eleven elephants in this scene. Kanti, can’t you count? Give it to Ganesh, this tusk is too hard for you? Now, lower the cow. Be careful not to puncture it. We can’t use it if it’s holey.
Pause.
Manoj, someone’s missing. Where’s my brown angel? Go fetch him from the trailer. Hey, Johnny my boy. Your Othello suicide dance will be a huge hit in India and inspire all the youth-in-Asia. Britishers, you will take the higher ground. So elevate your performance. Bengalis, you take the high moral ground. So levitate, levitate, levitate. But do it in sequence. Tit for tat. Elevate, levitate, elevate, levitate. Elevate, levitate. Acha? Pistols ready. Pyros ready. Dynamite ready. Okay, roll ’em. Go, John, start dancing. Yes. Yes. Yes. Step ball change. Slide to the right. So graceful. You’re like a Hindu Fred Astaire. Pirouette. Double pirouette. Perfect canon. No, don’t touch the canon. Hold fire everyone. John, don’t come near the canon. Hold your fire …
Pause. Sound effect.
Oh, my gods! What just happened? Oh, my gods! His face is on fire. He’s burning! His beautiful face is alight! It’s like the Michael Jackson Pepsi ad all over again. Who shot their load on John’s beautiful face!
We hear an ambulance siren.
SCENE SIXTEEN
We hear a hospital monitor beeping. JOHN is wheeled on in a hospital bed, unconscious. His face is covered with bandages. BRONWYN enters. She holds his hand.
BRONWYN: My beautiful boy. I owe you an apology. And an explanation.
SANDY enters, holding a bunch of flowers.
SANDY: I’m so sorry, Mrs G. These are for you.
Pause.
BRONWYN: Thank you, Sandy.
SANDY holds JOHN’s hand.
SANDY: What’s the prognosis, Mrs G? Will he recover?
BRONWYN: The doctor says he has fifty-fifty chance of being disfigured. It was so bad, the doctor thought he might need skin grafting, but thankfully once the swelling went down, we realised that only the first layer of facial skin had been burnt. When the scabs fall off, the doctor will decide what to do next. I trust Dr Sharma, we’re in good hands.
SANDY: So we just wait?
BRONWYN: Yes. I’ve only had one hour sleep. I’m a mess. I’ve been praying all night. I don’t know if I should use my rosary or Buddhist beads or crystals.
MERLE enters. BRONWYN sees her.
I can’t think clearly. I’m hallucinating.
MERLE: Do you believe in demons and karma?
BRONWYN: I do.
MERLE: Chakras, karma, kundalini —you know where they come from, right?
BRONWYN: I study the Western variation. John took me to rock’n’roll yoga in Bondi once.
MERLE: You’re like my other half, Bronwyn.
SANDY: Do you pray, Mrs G?
BRONWYN: I chant. Only when my yoga app reminds me to. Do you?
SANDY: I do.
BRONWYN: Who do you pray to?
SANDY: To the earth. To the sky. To my ancestors. In Wiradjuri, we call our ancestors balumbambal. We speak to spirits. Dhulubang.
MERLE: Bronwyn, we’re two of a kind.
BRONWYN: Who are you?
MERLE: I’m Merle Oberon.
BRONWYN: The Hollywood actress?
MERLE: Yes. You’re an actress too it seems.
SANDY: I’ve been seeing spirits all of my life. My mum says it’s a gift from our balumbambal. Don’t you ever feel their presence? Their guidance?
BRONWYN: I talk to my crystals, but I’m not related to them.
MERLE: I was in a terrible car accident at the peak of my fame. I had scars all over my face. They created the Obie light, named after me to hide my scars. Camera technicians still call it the Obie light. You don’t have a crew around you to conceal every detail, Bronwyn. You don’t have a Hollywood husband like me to fabricate your past.
SANDY: Tell me more about your mother, Mrs G.
BRONWYN: Please, Sandy, call me Bronwyn. My mother was a mean woman. She used to tease me about my frizzy black hair. Her hair was auburn when the sun would shine through it. Beautiful.
SANDY: You’d look beautiful with black hair.
BRONWYN: Thank you. Your hair’s … alright.
MERLE: Bronwyn, your son’s lying here with layers of his skin burnt off his face. Thank God he’s okay, but he could have died. A spirit should be at rest. There’s nothing more haunting than unfinished business.
BRONWYN: Dhulubang.
MERLE: My obituaries said that I was born in Tasmania. But I was not. I took my lies to my deathbed. Extremely painful to take secrets like that to your grave.
BRONWYN: I don’t want my son to die. How do y
ou pray to your ancestors, Sandy?
SANDY: In whatever way you want. By breathing. Smiling. Laughing. My mother always says the best way to pray is by dancing and singing. Babbirra. It means to sing in Wiradjuri. Shall we babirbambarra? Sing a song?
BRONWYN: Now?
MERLE: You chant Buddhist chants all the time. I’ve seen you dong your Buddhist gong.
BRONWYN: I love donging my gong.
SANDY: Do you like dancing, Mrs G? Waganha?
BRONWYN: I love to waganha.
MERLE: You know where Buddha comes from, Bronwyn?
BRONWYN: Will you dance with me, Sandy?
SANDY: Here?
MERLE: Will you chant with me, Bronwyn?
BRONWYN: You lead.
SANDY: Alright.
MERLE: This was Gandhi’s favourite mantra. It was on his lips when he died.
BRONWYN: John’s not going to die.
MERLE: Let’s chant it to, John.
SANDY slow dances with BRONWYN. MERLE holds BRONWYN from behind.
Om, Sri Rama Jaya Rama, Jaya, Jaya Rama.
BRONWYN: Om, Sri Rama Jaya Rama, Jaya, Jaya Rama.
ALL: Om, Sri Rama Jaya Rama, Jaya, Jaya Rama.
SANDY: Waganha.
ALL: Waganha.
SANDY: Om, Sri Rama Jaya Rama, Jaya, Jaya Rama.
JOHN sits up suddenly.
BRONWYN: John!
SANDY: Thank God.
BRONWYN: It’s okay, Mummy’s here.
JOHN: I feel like a mummy myself.
ANIL enters.
ANIL: Oh, my gods. My brown angel has risen!
SANDY: How could you let this happen, Anil?!
ANIL: I feel so terrible.
SANDY: What actually happened?
ANIL: We were shooting the finale dance scene. It was going perfectly well. Ready to go out with a big bang. Then it did. A packet of Punjabi pyrotechnics prematurely exploded in his face.
SANDY: Don’t you have a stunt man for that?
ANIL: Budget cuts.
SANDY: I can’t believe no-one was checking health and safety on such a big film set. You should be fined and arrested!
ANIL: I’m sorry, Sandy. I feel responsible. It was my personal ‘No H and S Policy’ that caused this.
SANDY: We don’t do things that way in this country. You’ve been here long enough. You should have learnt that by now!
ANIL: I’m trying to adapt, mate. It’s not easy.
SANDY: You should try harder.
BRONWYN: He’s right, Sandy. It’s not easy.
Lighten Up Page 7