PROLOGUE

The stage is bare save for children’s chair stage left with a porcelain doll sitting in it.

(Boy and Girl enter stage right. Girl is marching after Boy. Boy is sucking on a lollipop and has his hands hiding in his pocket. He removes and replaces the lollipop throughout the conversation. As the children talk, the stage crew sets the scene. They roll out sofas, chairs tables, carry teapots, books, etc. The stage is set to look like a living room but the center is left untouched. The children interact with the props as they appear on stage, moving around.)

GIRL: That’s mine.

BOY: (Takes the lollipop out of his mouth and waves it at her) Seriously, being possessive isn’t attractive.

GIRL: I don’t give a rat’s ass about being attractive. I claimed ownership on that thing long ago. Don’t you know the basic properties of capitalism?

BOY: (Grabs a book off a stack that a crew member carries and keeps walking, looking at the cover.) Of course I do. I’m not a communist. I just think that nothing matters and you shouldn’t give more value to something by ownership.

GIRL: Well that’s a nihilistic outlook. There are meanings behind our actions, behind our desires. Someone has to pull the trigger.

BOY: You mean something? (Drops the book on a table rolling by.)

GIRL: (Picks up the doll and plays with her for a bit.) My point is, for every action there is a reaction–

BOY: Thanks Sir Isaac – I thought it was a knife….

GIRL: But there is a motivator for that action. (Puts down the doll) A drive of some sort. A want. A need. A desire. Sometimes our desires drive us too far. Maybe even over the edge –

BOY: …Or maybe bat? (Sits in a rocking chair) You’re off your rocker.

GIRL: I’ll rock you with my fist.

BOY: I’d like to see you try. You suffer from a passive aggressive personality disorder.

GIRL: Excuse me? (Picks up a book)

BOY: You know it’s true. You walk around spouting nonsense about taking action but you never do anything. You just talk the big talk about resistance and revolution, which is only more annoying.

GIRL: (Hits him upside the head with the book)

BOY: OW!

GIRL: Passive my ass.

BOY: All right you’ve made your stupid point.

GIRL: No I haven’t.

BOY: What were you even talking about? The affair? That cliché ran its course years ago. I mean really people, find something, ANYTHING more original for a conflict. What is this, The Women?

GIRL: No, I wasn’t talking about the affair, you Neanderthal. Maybe I have a little more class –

BOY: Oh boy, if you have class then I’m the Tsar of Russia.

GIRL: He doesn’t exist anymore.

BOY: Thank you Captain Obvious. I salute your sound knowledge of current affairs.

GIRL: I commend your ability to not think before you speak. It’s a real idiocratic talent.

BOY: Jesus, take a joke there, Edith Wharton. So what about the affair anyways? It happened, got exposed, got nuclear, nothing we didn’t already know.

GIRL: Well actually I don’t think that THE affair was like others and most definitely did not fit the cliché – but I’m talking more about an act of crime.

BOY: Crime, shmime. You’re about to break a hip Agatha Christie.

GIRL: (Sits on a sofa that a crew member is rolling, stays on as it moves across the stage) Cease your ignorance for minute to let me finish. With a crime, there must be a punishment. Dostoyevsky said it best.

BOY: Dostoyevsky was a drunk. (Stands and walks to stage left.) …Perhaps it was poison?

GIRL: I mean, (Sighs and jumps off sofa mid-roll and faces the audience) look at what just happened. (Beat.) Look at what’s become of it. It’s like waiting with stale bated breath for the other shoe to drop. It’s absolutely agonizing having to wait. I mean, waiting for the punch line is one thing but waiting for the point to be made? Waiting for the answer; that has bound to produce deep internalization. It must eat a person alive like little emotional maggots. It must claw at them each day and the longer time goes on, all that waiting. It must be daunting.

BOY: You’re pretty ugly when you psychoanalyze.

GIRL: (sharp look to boy.) Honestly, you’re acting like a five-year-old.

BOY: I am a five-year-old.

GIRL: Doesn’t mean you need to act like it. (Pause.) I’ve worked hard for that, give it back. I have very few pleasures in my life.

(They begin to walk off stage left, the boy looking back at the girl)

BOY: Oh fine. We’re going to be late for our nap anyway. Here’s your stupid lollipop.

(Lights out.)

Catch Lights

I like people. I enjoy their differences, their similarities, their stupid habits that make them them. When I wander the streets in search of that perfect oasis of liquor and darkness I can’t help but be drawn to people. It’s a demented beauty really. Perceived only in the mind’s eye, this appreciation of the molded figures that are just so malleable. I really like people.

I like to follow them. I’ve been told that isn’t natural. But what exactly is natural? Webbed feet are natural but people cringe at the thought. Did you cringe? I did, but only a little. Still that doesn’t stop me from wanting to follow where those connected toes go, what waddling path they take. I like following people, even when they think it’s creepy. Don’t worry, I’m not a violent person when I follow them. If they happen to notice me, I just tip my hat and smile affably. Smiles say a lot about people.

There are sad smiles, a sign of recognition that it’s okay to feel wretched. People are only human right? There are genuine smiles that radiate this aura of happiness and content. These remind me of that sense of relief like ah, finally good times are here. But my favorite gestures aren’t the ones that even reach the mouth. The smiles that reflect in the eyes, like the perfect catch lights photographers strive for. They shimmer a glimpse, only a glimpse of the blood warming in the chest with an expansive reach wrapped around the top torso. And if you’re lucky to catch this kind, hold onto it because that warmth you see in them can infect you too. But maybe just a moment, so be vigilant.

            This is just one of the many reasons I like people. They are just so full of light and life and it pulls me in. I want that light too! I know it’s harder to find it when you’re three glasses deep into greedy scotch. But hey, a guy has his vices. And maybe I’m indulging it right now but I can still sit on this worn out bar stool and watch people. Watching can be just as enjoyable as following. Less people are concerned by a guy at the bar wobbling a bit then the black-cap fellow on the street a few paces back.

            There is so much to learn from human behavior. A woman in the corner is on the verge of tears, her friend is telling her a heartbreaking tale of a cat that passed away.  A young guy strolls in and is probably not the right height to reach the bar let alone drink at it. He picks his nose conspicuously to shield is immaturity.

A man stands abruptly two stools down, his chest puffed out like a peacock. The woman with him is pleading for him to stay but he takes his coat and leaves with the final word. No, he was not into it when she did that with her finger. Fascinating isn’t it – this water hole of the city jungle. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but I really like people.

And scotch. It just feels so sweet, that burning sensation down my throat. I can see what the hype is, why people gravitate towards liquor. It’s like a minimal act of masochism. Hurt a little to reap a greater reward. Isn’t that what most people say, what’s that phrase I hear sometimes with gym-goers? No pain, no gain right? I could jump on that train. I mean look around here, there is plenty of pain in this room. First off, everyone is going to need to up his or her glasses prescription with the lack of natural light. And each time I’m in here there is usually the village idiot performing his momentous cirque du soleil audition and that’s painful to watch. Of course there is always someone crying or stone-faced in anger defending he did not have sexual relations with that woman.  It may be a shitshow but I personally like to have the box-seat view.  Well worth the price of admission eh?

When I nudge his shoulder with my elbow, I feel like our talk is coming to a close. I look at his drooped head, gazing absently into his numberless glass of amber. It appeared enticing at first, the way he made love with his eyes to the serum. It had prompted me to order the same. But now he has plateaued and I’m racking up a high bill of time. I nudge him again.

“Stanley,” I say.

“Hmmm…..?” He looks at me with tired old eyes; the lines around his mouth are deeply set. He’s had a lifetime of drunken laughter.

“I think it’s time for me to go. What do you say old pal?”

I stand up, brush the dust from my wrinkled trousers and finish the finger-smudged glass in one smooth toss back.

After I fit both arms into my dark coat and shrug upwards, I grab my hat from the bar-top. I place the other firm hand on Stanley’s shoulder and give him a jostle for farewell.

When I step two paces back, I watch as Stanley’s torso stiffens and his hand lose its grip on the used glass. His back rounds to protect his tightening chest and he slips from the stool to the floor, landing hard on his spine. People jump to actions slower than they jump to conclusions. The bartender runs to the spiral cord telephone and dials. Three or four people surround Stanley, jostling me to get to him. Others just watch with curiosity, sympathy and fear.

I move forward and crouch down beside Stanley, knowing full and well that I’m not in the way. I shift my hat to my right hand and raise the left to Stanley’s cheek. He looks at me finally no longer in a stupor but in full recognition.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ve already told you that I really like people.”

I place my cap on my head and stand up, looking down at Stanley.

“So, what do you say old pal?” I say.

I stroll out of the joint with my hands in my pocket. I smile to myself, thinking of that small warmth spreading fleetingly across my chest, reflecting those last genuine catch lights from Stanley’s eyes. 

Inaudible Suppression

Do tigers bite only at night when the hooting owls take flight and leave a silence behind Violence in substitution for an institution of muted minds that grind teeth to sharpened fangs teeming with saliva when tigers scheme along the stream of darkened themes that plague the trees above the knees of a predator Better in resilience and reticence, the feline prefers to dine than deign a word through a muzzled Muzzle--Duh under the moon only the wounded cry out and break the stillness She finds her prey that way, harrowing through quieting leaves she dares not weave into light Shoulders ripple like sound waves, speaking in tongues that run along bitter bark Sparked by adrenaline, dead in the eyes of the beholder Smolder with pride the tiger strides away with its prey clenched between teeth Peace in the taciturn air that shares the bloodied miasma from victim Spasms compress the tigress after the conquest as it always does Discontented in release into a fermentation of reiteration and placation for what is lacking in the night the tiger rightly stalks and stakes Silence by daybreak, she retreats and rears onto haunches for a roar Sore from the night of quiet and secret she resumes the same silence as before Silence She lays down from the sound of a world awakening, bating the tigress inside that she hides until the night but still has to fight with a muted mouth if she wishes to feed, survive--strength in reserve. Slience.