The Absent Other

INFORMATION TO USERS
This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, som e thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of th is reproduction is dependent upon th e quality of th e copy subm itted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6 x 9 black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.
Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
THE ABSENT OTHER: Absent/Present Characters as Catalysts for Action in Modem Drama
by
Daniel W. Kulmala B.A., University d f Akron, 1988 B.A.. University o f Akron, 1989 M.A.. University o f Akron, 1992
Submitted to the Department of English and the Faculty o f the Graduate School o f the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
. Befgeron
Co-Ctrair. Paul Stephen Lim
Richard Hardin
i_y ^4- ^
Bernard Hirsch
heodore Johnsoni Date Submitted:
3 PE>
MAY 2 1 ?nnn
UMI Number 9985117
Copyright 2000 by Kulmala, Daniel Wayne All rights reserved.
UMI*
UMI Microform9985117 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
Copyright 2000 -Daniel W. Kulmala
Abstract
Knowledge o f our own absences often escapes us. How we influence others even when we are not in their presence will remain unknown unless we become conscious o f our influence. This reflection on absences provides worthwhile
interpretive possibilities for the study o f drama. What do we make o f the absent characters who nonetheless wield tremendous influence on the action and contribute to the conflict o f a play? What would Waiting fo r Godot be without Vladimirs and Estragons waiting for Godot? What might happen to a play if all references to the absent yet present characters were omitted? If Martin from That Championship Season , Marthas father from Who's Afraid o f Virginia Woolf? and Mitch and Murray from Glengarry Glen Ross were removed, then what kind of play do we have? I suggest that a play loses the crux o f its conflict and the catalysts for action if one eliminates these absent characters. In fact, providing an active presence even in their absence, these absent characters function as the absent Otherthey act as a form o f reflective consciousness which helps the audience to understand the motives and identities o f the characters who are physically present in the play. In other words, the concept o f the absent Other applies to those characters who do not appear on stage but serve as a mirror by which we judge, identify, and/or understand the characters who appear before the audience. And given that my own play, April in Akron, uses living absent characters, I will focus my primary attention on living absent Others who occupy an absent
iii
presence in four American plays: David Mamets Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna, Jason Millers That Championship Season and Edward Albees Who's Afraid o f Virginia Woolf?.
iv
To Anne Turner my temple o f sun, my pathfinder: my deserts bloom in her grace
To Paul Stephen Lim who taught me the action o f words and the drama o f graceful discordance
To David Bergeron who taught me the hospitality of ideas and the grace o f words o f stone
A c k n o w le d g m e n ts Because much of this dissertation involves creative, dramatic work, I wrote most of it during stolen moments from the general activities o f teaching and literary critical research. Therefore, I am doubly grateful and thankful for the time others spent reading my work and viewing April in Akron's production. Paul Stephen Lim made this play possible by encouraging my writing of something I believed in; that we remain friends even after he suggested that I eliminate fifty pages o f the first draft and start over while building on the remaining fifty pages is a testament to his exceptional qualities as a teacher, mentor, and confidant. His provocative and inventive production and direction o f April in Akron remain forever fertile lessons in my career as a writer o f plays. Although I have felt like one who has crept into the house o f drama, my intrusion has been met by the open arms o f Paul Lim. I cannot thank enough the encouragement and devotion o f David Bergeron. Whenever I have needed a lift to investigate a new window o f opportunity and learning, his concern, his nurturing, his fatherly guidance have always provided a sturdy ladder. His love o f words and ideas imprint every step I take. And to the coach of my creative steps. I thank with heart-felt fondness Bud Hirsch. I have been imbued by the
testosterone of his encouragement; every play I write bears his love for words and drama. And depending on the height the ladder scales, every climber needs someone to hold it still, to secure the foundation. To those who have kept the ladder on its mark vi
I thank Richard Hardin, Ted Johnson, Jim Carothers, Amy Devitt, and Jim Hartman; their continued interest in my work keeps the imaginative fires burning, keeps the eyes ever-aware o f new possibilities. My vision, my essence would not be complete without my love, Anne Turner. Her passion for life and living is as powerful as moonshine on a dry desert night outside Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Through Anne I am discovered. No one could temper my fantasies into reality the way Anne does; for she takes hold of my far-flung thoughts and embraces the magic I endeavor to produce. I am always amazed at the way she bears" my late-night Sami steps into abstraction and guides me toward fruition; I have known no comfort like her generous, enfolding arms.
vii
T a b l e o f C o n te n ts
Abstract ............................................................................................................. iii Dedication ..............................................................................................................v Acknow ledgm ents............................................................................................ vi 1. 2. 3. The Absent Other in Modem D ra m a .................................................................... 1 Increasing Cloudiness: Reflections on the Writing o f April in A k r o n 38
April in Akron ......................................................................................................56
The Abrent Other in Modern Drama At me too someone is looking Waiting fo r Godot Knowledge o f our own absences often escapes us. How we influence others even when we are not in their presence will remain unknown unless we become conscious of our influence. This reflection on absences provides worthwhile
interpretive possibilities for the study of drama. What do we make o f the absent characters who nonetheless wield tremendous influence on the action and contribute to the conflict o f a play? What would Waiting fo r Godot be without Vladimirs and Estragons waiting for Godot? What might happen to a play if all references to the absentyet presentcharacters were omitted? If Martin from That Championship Season, Marthas father from Who's Afraid o f Virginia Woolf? and Mitch and Murray from Glengarry Glen Ross were removed, then what kind of play do we have? I suggest that a play loses the crux o f its conflict and the catalysts for action if one eliminates these absent characters. In fact, providing an active presence even in their absence, these absent characters function as the absent Otherthey act as a form of reflective consciousness which helps the audience to understand the motives and identities o f the characters who are physically present in the play. In other words, the concept o f the absent Other applies to those characters who do not appear on stage but serve as a mirror by which we judge, identify, and/or understand the characters who appear before the audience. And given that my own play, April in Akron, uses living absent characters, 1
I will focus my primary attention on living absent Others who occupy an absent presence in four American plays: David Mamets Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna, Jason Millers That Championship Season and Edward Albees Who 's Afraid o f Virginia Woolf?. Back in 5 Minutes Office Note Before I begin my essay proper, I want to relate an experience that underscores my perspective and understanding o f the concept I have identified as the absent Other. About three years ago I came upon the idea of the absent Other after a discussion with a 101 English Composition student. Ill call the student Chet. During our conference in my office, I noticed that Chet kept looking at the book shelf behind me. Thinking that he was more intrigued by the titles and types o f books on my shelf than in my continued blah-blah-blah about the significance of a strong thesis and the importance o f eliminating comma splices, I asked him, Whats up? meaning, of course, what was he reading? Im just reading, Chet replied quite casually. The books? I asked. Books?! Chet indignantly answered, being startled that I might accuse him o f having an interest in books. No, Im reading your notes. I looked behind me, and sure enough a wreath o f notes was taped on the book shelf behind me. If one were to sit where Chet sat, one would see my head encircled by a rainbow of sticky notes. Chet liked the colors. But what proved intriguing and useful to me were the messages on those notes: Back in 5 Minutes, Return in ten minutes,
No Office Hours Today. See Me after Class, and At Lunch. Back in an hour. I had saved those notes and various other ones so that I might save myself from rewriting a new note. But the messages on them clearly informed others of my absence. I couldnt help but to comment on the rather humorous and paradoxical nature o f the notes which signified my absence versus my physical presence in the office. Chet found little to laugh about. Those notes made me think about my own absences. What do students think when they come to my office, expect to meet with me to discuss their work or progress in class, and only encounter a note telling them o f my absence? Perhaps they experience a series o f responses: angerthey need to talk to me; frustrationthis has happened again; reliefthey really did not want to talk to me about their poor grade; or puzzlementIts his office, isnt it? The possibilities are limitless. But in each case, my absence prompts the beginning of something new for them. Sartre refers to absence as a certain type o f reality called a negatite; other negatiles include change, otherness, and distance.1 These concepts involve being and non-being in a state o f affairs or relations. But for them to exist, negation is necessary. For example, if someone comes into a room and sees my book bag and books at a table, and I am not there, then my absence refers to both my existent and non-existent state o f affairs. When another person anticipates our presence and we are not in that locale, we can only imagine the possible array of emotions and thoughts that the other person
4 experiencesunless, o f course, we have knowledge o f our absence; then our consciousness of our absenceour need to be some place other than our present locationanticipates the response by the other person. In this case, as I reflect upon the other persons response to my being late or absent I might wonder, What must he be thinking of me? The language I use underscores the move in subject / to
object me; I anticipate the others objectification o f me. This experience illustrates the absent Othera conscious awareness o f oneself in relation to some other person who influences and affects our behavior despite the separation o f space and/or time. Hell is other people No Exit Any discussion o f the idea o f the Other needs to address the primary initiator o f this concept, Jean-Paul Sartre. For Sartre two fundamental truths explain our
existential situation: we are condemned to freedom, and life has no meaning other than the fictions we construct about it.2 Therefore, since our interpretations o f the world and our knowledge o f the world around us depend upon our individual perspectives, we only come really to know things through our interaction with our immediate environment. And for Sartre physicality is an essential component for cognition. According to Sartre, we exist through the body, the body-subject. Thus, Sartre is very phenomenological in his belief that an individual is his body in a way that he is not anything else; and what one experiences one experiences through the body. The body is its own metaphysical and ontological frame o f reference. Freedom as an individual,
then, can only be maintained by repelling others. If I allow another to invade my body, take it over, I have subjected my freedom to another; my freedom has become anothers freedom. If, on the other hand, I subject another body to my own, then I have robbed another o f freedom. The Other for Sartre occurs when one has consciousness of the self as an object. The self I become aware o f through my experience o f the others gaze is a self that escapes me and exists for the other. This self is the objectified self, the ego. I can recognize and acknowledge this self as myself. In fact, Sartre claims the shame I experience when captured by the regard of the Other is a confession that I am this self. For Sartre, one experiences the Other when one becomes self-conscious o f oneself: The shock o f the encounter with the Other is for me a revelation in emptiness o f the existence o f my body outside as an in-itself for the Other. Thus my body is not given merely as that which is purely and simply lived; rather this lived experience becomes in and through the contingent, absolute fact o f the Others existenceextended outside in a dimension o f flight which escapes me.3 This self-consciousness for Sartre depends upon the active, physical presence o f the Other. According to Sartre, the feeling o f shame is an awareness of oneself as seen by another; shame is one way we experience consciousness. Sartres No Exit dramatizes the experience o f the Other. Garcin, Inez, and Estelle make countless attempts to manipulate each other with the intention o f gaining
6 an upper hand. Forced to spend eternity in one room together, their hell will be to torment each other. At one point Garcin offers a solution to their torturous fate: ... the solutions easy enough; each o f us stays put in his or her comer and takes no notice o f the others. You here, you here, and I there. Like soldiers at our posts. Also, we m ustnt speak. Not one word. That wont be difficult; each of us has plenty o f material for self-communings.4 Although this self-imposed retreat into isolation from the others seems to be a solution to their hell, they are unable to escape each others presence and the self-consciousness ofeach other. Garcins solution, in fact, underscores Sartres concept ofbad faith, living a lie that one is conscious of. His solution could actually make the situation worse; for how does one forget a person when one consciously tries to forget that person? Their continued torment o f each other leads Garcin to the famous dictum, Hell is other people!5 Hell is the state of affairs where one imposes ones will upon another. In short, theres someone absent here, the official torturer No Exit My readings o f plays with Other-glasses has led me to consider characters who do not appear on stage; yet their presence remains in the script, behind the conflict, in the characters memories, and behind characters motives for action. For Sartres concept of the Other requires the physical presence o f another person. Without that other person, we remain in a pre-reflective state o f consciousness a consciousness
7 that is directed toward something other than itself. . . and so its awareness o f itself is only non-positional.6 In other words, a person might be self-conscious o f something; but he is not really self-conscious o f the Other in relation to himself unless the other person is present. Like Nietzsche and Camus, Sartre believed that the only meanings that exist are those that human beings create. Life itself has no meaning other than the fictions we construct about it. Therefore, an authentic, positional experience with the Other requires a physical presence. Despite my understanding o f Sartres need for the physical presence o f the other persons gaze to make the experience o f the Other complete, I could not reconcile his definition with my own observations o f the absent characters who inhabit many scripts. Perhaps unlike real life, absent characters direct and influence the present characters precisely because playwrights have a conscious purpose for those characters. And what I find after repeated investigation is that the absent characters act as mirrors by which other characters identities are reflected and by which the audience comes to know the truth about the controversy brewing beneath the conflict o f the play. Therefore, I argue that the absent characters referred to, fixated upon, and tormented about on the stage do provide a physical presence in the conflicts and actions in their respective plays. The study o f absent characters in Shakespearean drama has proven to offer scholarship several avenues for exploration. David Bergeron argues, for example, that The W inter s Tale turns on the performative absence yet presence o f Apollo.7 Finding
8 that Shakespeare goes to great lengths to connect characters and action to Apollo, Bergeron suggests that we clearly see on Shakespeares part an authorial choice to include Apollo in this play, unlike his principal source for the play. Bergerons analysis o f Apollo's purpose in The Winter's Tale provides a solid study o f what could be defined as the absent Other. From Leontess name deriving from Apollo to the
representation o f Time to the restoration o f Hermione at the plays end, we see how the many associations connected to Apollo, the time-keeper and representative o f the apothecaries, weave their way through the text. In this respect, it is easy to imagine why the University o f Missouri, Kansas City would include Apollo in its production o f The Winter's Tale} The text permits Apollos presence even if the cast member list does not include him. Three other Shakespearean scholars. Coppelia Kahn. Stephen Orgel, and Avi Erlich, have also explored the realm o f absent characters. All three of these scholars use Freudian, psychoanalytic interpretations o f King Lear, The Tempest, and Hamlet, respectively. While focusing on the absent mother in King Lear, Kahn notes that Shakespeare diverges from his immediate dramatic source King Leir which begins with a lament for the death o f the queen. So she looks for ways that the queen exists in the play. For example, Kahn argues that Shakespeares audience would have recognized Lears wailing as feminine, especially when he characterizes his sorrow as hysterical: 0! how this mother swells upward toward my heart!/Hysterica passiol down, thou
climbing sorrow! (2.4.56-57).9 Lear, then, sublimates the mother, trying to keep the inner woman down inside. And since these traits are feminine, Kahn explains why Lear wants to keep them in their place. Kahn writes: Women and the needs and traits associated with them are supposed to stay in their element, as Lear says, belowdenigrated, silenced, denied. In this patriarchal world, masculine identity depends on repressing the vulnerability, dependency, and capacity for feeling which are called feminine. 1 0 Kahn sees this masculine, patriarchal need for control as a crucial aspect o f King Lear, for not only must men control the volatile female element o f hysteria, but they must also control women.1 1 Avi Erlichs Hamlet's Absent Father performs a psychoanalytic overload of interpretation o f Hamlet, with an embarrassingly rigorous attention to a therapeutic analysis of Hamlets psychological milieu. Through Erlichs interpretation, not only do we find that father figures fill Hamlet , but the play contains an ambiguously strongweak father (King Hamlet) who contributes to Hamlets unstable superego and his wanting a strong father.1 2 Stephen Orgel suggests that the absence of Prosperos wife constitutes a space that is filled by Prosperos creation o f surrogates and a ghostly familythe witch Sycorax, Caliban, the good child/wife Miranda, Ariel, Ferdinand, and the spirits o f the island.1 3 All four o f the studies above demonstrate the interpretive possibilities for absent
10 characters. But only David Bergeron performs the type o f interpretation that I would endorse as a viable direction for the study o f absent characters. In the three
psychoanalytic interpretations, the scholars base their perspectives on the expectation that the families in these plays need to be complete families. Therefore, if no one makes mention o f a mother or if there is a vague reference to a mother, there had to be a mother, and her absence is present in other forms, such as Lears hysteria. Bergerons study, however, focuses on the text and the way Shakespeare uses Apollo as a device in the play as an allegorical representation o f Time, as a connection to shepherds when Florizel justifies his disguise, and as a provider o f aid for the restoration o f Hermione. However, if I were to follow Kahns, Orgels, and Erlichs lead, then I might make something o f Marthas mother in Who s A fraid o f Virginia Woolf? For in that play, Martha only mentions her mother once in regard to her dying when Martha was young. I could provide a discussion about Marthas imaginary mothering o f a nonexistent child and how she wants to reclaim or identify with her own mother whom she never knew. But I do not want to create an interpretation based on an abstraction that exists (or does not exist) outside o f the play. The absent characters I focus on contribute to the plot, action and conflict o f the play. Some imaginary characters, however, can function as the absent Other. In No Exit, Sartre does not list among the cast one character whom Garcin, Inez, and Estelle repeatedly anticipate seeing in Hell the torturer. A torturer in Hell is to be expected.
11 Garcin, for example, asks the Valet, Where are the instruments o f torture? . . . The racks and red-hot pincers and all the other paraphenalia? u Its an expectation the audience has as well until we learn the truth as the three characters torture each other without the help o f anyone else. But without the initial expectation o f the torturer, we do not learn o f the alternative, existential hell these three characters put themselves through. In this case the absent Other acts as a device of reflection which enables us to understand the philosophical concepts Sartre intends to dramatize. But, o f course, the most obvious example o f the absent Other occurs in Becketts Waiting fo r Godot. Estragon and Vladimir wait for Godot to appear at the appointed tree. Without Godot, Vladimir and Estragon cannot do anything else; and in existential terms, if they cannot act or do something, their identities remain stagnant since doing defines being. Godot, then, offers hope o f an identity, a purpose. Yet we are left to determine who Godot is. Beckett himself stated that if he had known who Godot was, he would have said so in the play.1 5 But Michael Worton offers an explanation of Godot that closely connects to my idea o f the absent Other: . . . whatever we think he is and not what we think he is: he is an absence , who can be interpreted at moments as God, death, the lord o f the manor, a benefactor, even Pozzo, but Godot has a function rather than a meaning. He stands for what keeps us chained to and in existence, he is the unknowable that represents hope in an age when there is no hope, he is whatever fiction we want him to be as
12 long as he justifies our life-as-waiting.1 6 Perhaps seeing Godot as an absence, a gap, is what fuels our interest in this play, one that resists closure and a clearly defined meaning. Godot is a variable who compels us to complete the algebraic equation. Whoever told you you could work with m ertT' Glengarry Glen Ross When I first thought o f the concept of the absent Other, I was teaching a course called Crime Literature. In that course we study David Mamets Glengarry Glen Ross.1 1 Throughout this play we hear the names of significant characters whom we never meet: Mitch and Murray and Jerry Graff. I had not put much thought into their importance until I connected them to the absent Other. For Mitch and Murray and Jerry Graff are the catalysts for the criminal acts in this play. Without them, the play relies solely on the personal motives o f the real estate agents who try to make a living off their lousy leads. In fact, Mitch and Murray pose the biggest threat to Levene, Moss, and Aaronow; for Mitch and Murray represent the angst-ridden boulder o f downsizing, ready to drop on any employee who cannot close a deal. And if the agents cannot close the deal, they suffer something even worse than their jobs: their masculine identity. Jerry Graff, however, provides the out from beneath that boulderalbeit by illegal means. For a play where manliness underscores success. Glengarry Glen Ross begins with a man behaving in a most unmanly fashion: Levene begs. He wants Williamson to give him the good Glengarry Highlands leads, and he needs them desperately to get
13 back to the top o f the board. In this real estate business-world, to be a closer is to be a man. And Levene tries to secure his manly identity when he tells Williamson, . . . put a closer on the job. Theres more than one man for the 1 8Levene not only fears the
loss of work, but he fears the loss o f his male identity. If Williamson does not give him the good leads, then by reputation alone the business and Mitch and Murray do not see Levene as a worthy agent and as a man. Therefore. Mitch and Murrays business tactics threaten Levenes identity in vocation and sexuality. As a representative o f Mitch and Murray, Williamson bears the brunt o f the struggling real estate agents frustration. He insists that his job is to marshal [the] leads and only give them to the successful salesmen.1 9 Anyone who falls below a certain mark o f success will not receive the premium leads. This rule ultimately places Levene in a catch-22: he needs the leads to survive, but he cannot have the leads if he does not prove himself worthy. This situation is akin to telling a drowning person that he cannot have a life preserver unless he proves that he can swim. Having nothing to show for his worth in the present, Shelly Levene turns to his past, venting his frustration upon Williamson: . . . talk to Murray. Talk to Mitch. When we were on Peterson, who paid for his fuckin car? You talk to him. The Seville . . . ? He came in, You bought that for me Shelly. Out of what? Cold calling. Nothing. Sixty-five, when we were there, with Glen Ross Farms? You call em downtown.20
14 Like an appeal to an oracle to speak to the gods in control, Shelly Levene wants to ensure the good graces o f his past. His past performance even put him in one o f the manliest of positions, that o f the father whose hard work enabled him to buy a car for Mitch. Williamsons reply, though, underscores the concept o f the absent Other: It isnt me. . . .2 1 Only a messenger, W illiamsons language does more than place the blame on Mitch and Murray; it deflects the responsibility on to Mitch and Murray by avoiding the use o f the first person pronoun. It refers to Mitch and Murray, while the use of me directs the responsibility to some other aspect of oneself, not the / but the object (me) who operates under the absent Mitch and Murray. Such a perspective intensifies the frustration felt by all the characters in this play. Mitch and Murray are present in the rules enforced upon them, but they are absent from any direct contact. Their absentpresence acts like invisible strings, working the tension and conflict o f the play. Also fearing the boulder o f capitalistic ambition ready to drop, Moss and Aaronow lament the loss o f a glorious economic past. Moss recounts the wealth o f Glen Ross Farms, telling Aaronow . . . didn 7 we sell a bunch o f th a t.. . ?~ As Moss and Aaronow think about the easy-money o f the past, they also address those who ruined it the very same people who make their lives a Hell now: Aaronow: They came in and they, you k n o w . . . Moss: Well, they fucked it up.
15 Aaronow: They did. Moss: They killed the goose. Aaronow: They did. Moss: And now . . . Aaronow: W ere stuck with this .. . Moss: W ere stuck with this fucking s h i t . . . Aaronow: . . . this shi t . . .-1 3 Although Moss and Aaronow engage in obvious venting over the ineptness of Mitch and Murrays business operations, they also operate under the control o f the absent Other. We hear their motive for action as they explain how Mitch and Murray have ruined what was an easy life o f business for them. The anonymous they deflects the blame from themselves to others who are absent from the reality o f their hardships, yet they have left them (Moss and Aaronow) to deal with the fucking shit of poor leads and financial failure. With the pressure on from Mitch and Murray, Moss expresses his resentment and his desire to escape their oppressive methods in terms that voice a consciousness o f the absent Other. Moss tells Aaronow that they must leave the firm and act on their own no matter how hard that might be: To say Im going on my own. Cause what you do, George, let me tell you what you do: you find yourself in thrall to someone else. And we enslave
16 ourselves. To please. To win some fucking toaster. . . . 2 4 Moss wants to play by his own rules, not those of others. And in words that echo the Sartrean concept o f the OtherHell is other people Moss wants to be free by repelling himself from those who force him to conform to their rules. Moss explains this need to be free to Aaronow while having knowledge of another absent character. Jerry Graff. Financial security and revenge motivate Mosss actions against Mitch and Murray. With the promise to buy the premium leads, Jerry Graff provides the means and the opportunity should Moss or anyone commit the crime o f stealing the leads. As opposed to Mitch and Murray, Graff represents the new direction of real estate sales. To Moss, GrafF s practices are innovative, for Graff got his hands on a list o f nurses as leads, and that list has made him a bundle selling to them. According to Moss then, Graff is the new golden goose. I think that the typical nature o f these absent characters provides the groundwork for much of a plays plot. Therefore, the exposition provides important information about them. Once these first two scenes introduce Mitch and Murray and Jerry Graff, the conflict and motives for action on the part of Levene, Moss, and Aaronow are set. Only Roma, who sits happily on top o f the selling board, has no motive to steal in a criminal manner. However, Mamet shows how Roma steals in another way in his real estate dealings with Lingk. His treatment o f Lingk is a superb example o f the Other at work as Roma manipulates Lingk into buying some property. Later, in the play we are
17 introduced to another absent Other when Lingk tries to back out o f the deal he made with Roma; Lingks wife handles the money in their relationship and forces Lingk to get their check back from Roma. Again, an emasculated man (Lingk) must beg his way out of trouble. Besides Lingks wife, Levenes daughter also acts as an absent Other; for she needs hospital care, and Levene must support her. Hence, by the end o f the play when Levene is revealed to be the thief o f the leads, we see that he has the strongest motives for committing such an act. The absent characters I have addressed in Glengarry Glen Ross figure in the plot in such a way that much o f the drama is lost should they be eliminated from the script. When Roma angrily asks Williamson, Whoever told you you could work with men?,25 the implications o f his question refer to Mitch and Murray as some absent force who have given Williamson the position o f authority. In fact, the Mitch and Murray characters are so important to this play that Mamets film version provided a messenger for them. Alec Baldwin plays the man from downtown who tells the real estate agents that if they dont sell, if they dont close, they will be fired. During his tirade, he taunts and attacks the agents with accusations that they are women if they cannot do the job they are supposed to do. At one point, he asks them what does it take to sell real estate. His answer, brass balls. And just as he and Williamson dangle the premium leads before the agents, the man from downtown pulls a pair o f brass balls from his briefcase to show them, in a sense, that he has them. Although entirely speculative on my part, I like to
18 think that those two brass balls represent Mitch and Murray, suspended briefly before the other agents but out o f reach. The Tenure Committee. Come to judge me. The Bad Tenure Committee Oleanna Both David M amets Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna are about place actual physical places and what they signify as profitand place as status and position o f authority.26 However, whereas the characters in Glengarry Glen Ross primarily concern themselves with the selling o f ideal properties as a means o f securing their place in a ruthless business world, John and Carol in Oleanna appeal to the ideologies of their groups as a means o f securing an ideal place within an academic institution. Oleanna , in fact, begins with a burst o f tension about place as John expresses his frustrated concern over the buying o f a house which coincides with his getting tenure at the university. Fearing the loss o f the property, John asks his wife, And what about the land?27 This possible loss o f place foreshadows his loss o f a tenured-position later in the play. And in this play about place, Mamet, as he does in Glengarry Glen Ross, creates absent characters who influence the place of John and Carol as well as the action and conflicts o f the drama. For the absent Others in Oleanna the tenure committee and Johns wife and Carols group not only remind and inform John and Carol of their place but also define them as people. And John and Carol express a self-consciousness o f their selves in relation to their absent Others. In many respects, John, the educator, delivers his best lesson to Carol when
19 she visits him in his office. The information he provides for Carolthe fictive quality o f the rules and standards of education and the attainment of tenure as a means of securing his place in the institution teaches her that power resides in those who control the rules of the game. John explains to Carol that idiots (the teachers) design tests for idiots (the students) to retain and spout back the misinformation provided by them (the teachers).28 Carol, believing in an ideal core o f knowledge, does not want to accept the possibility that knowledge depends upon the perspectives and ideologies o f those in power. In an attempt to underscore what he means, John offers the Tenure Committee as an example: Look at me. Look at me. The Tenure Committee. The Tenure Committee. Come to judge me. The Bad Tenure Committee. The Test. Do you see? They put me to the test. Why, they had people voting on me I wouldnt employ to wax my car. And yet, I go before the Great Tenure Committee, and I have an urge, to vomit, to, to, to puke my badness on the table, to show them: Im no good. Why would you pick me?2 9 Johns self-conscious awareness o f himself and the role he plays before the Tenure Committee underscores the relationship with the absent Other. The language Mamet uses helps to underscore this relationship Look at me; John asks Carol to consider him as an object in this game o f place he must play. Aware o f the role he must play in order to secure tenure, John remains mindful of the committee that influences his
20 behavior. He objectifies the practices of the game, being ever aware o f him self in a role that is other than who he really is. Once Carol files a complaint against him, however, and John gets into trouble with Carol's group and the Tenure Committee, he slips back into the role he is supposed to play, telling Carol that the tenure process is a good process and that the Tenure Committee comprises Good Men and True.30 John reads the list o f complaints launched against him by Carol and her group. And although the list takes his actions and words out of context, Johns culpability becomes apparent as he reads from her accusations: He said he liked me. That he liked being with me. Hed let me write my examination paper over, if I could come back oftener to see him in his office.
He told me he had problems with his wife; and that he wanted to take off the artificial stricture of Teacher and Student. He put his arm around m e . . . . 3' Audience members will re-account the truth o f all of the accusations. But the irony of these accusations rests on the way in which Carol takes Johns actions out o f the context in which they occurred. Carols fabrication o f the truth not only demonstrates how well she learned her lesson from John about the fictive nature o f power, but it also underscores her groups attempts to undermine John as a fixture o f the entrenched elite at this academic institution. In this sense, Johns identity becomes re-fashioned by
21 Carols group. And the audience understands Johns sudden change in role-playing as being due to the absent characters who now wield power in this situation. Carol, herself, has been transformed by her group and into a spokesperson for her group. By the Second Act John and Carol have new identities because o f absent Others. The final climactic clash between John and Carol results from the pressures o f the absent Other. John has lost the land he wanted to buy because his tenure did not pass, and he now faces the loss o f his job. Although his own actions are largely to blame for these losses, Carols group shoulders much of the reason for his predicament. However, Carols group gives John a way out o f the sexual harassment lawsuit pending against him. If he removes his own book, along with other books her group has outlined on a list, from off his course list and replace them with books her group advocates, then they might be willing to drop the charges. John refuses and stands his ground. To eliminate his book would not only destroy the academic legacy he wants to leave his son but also take away the one thing which has assured him tenure. To John, his book is his tangible link and offering to the absent Others with whom he wants to identify and by whom he wants to be accepted. Oleanna could end at that point. John and Carol would be at an impasse, and we would be left to speculate the outcome. Yet Mamet ends his play with a confrontation which amounts to a clash o f absent Others. Johns friend Jerry calls on the phone and informs that Carol has filed rape charges against John due to his grabbing her
22 previously. John wants her to leave. But as Carol leaves, Johns wife calls; and as John tries to console her, he calls his wife the pet name Baby.32 Now, once John stands up for himself and no longer wishes to accommodate the demands o f Carols group, he establishes his allegiance and his identity with his own group, the absent Others we hear via the phone. Therefore, when Carol tells John not to call his wife baby, she invades the place o f his absent Others and dictates the rules by which he can communicate to the absent characters with whom he identifies. The violence at the end o f this play occurs as a result of the violation o f the absent Others place. John reacts to Carols command out of survival. If Carol dictates the rules o f engagement with the absent Others in Johns life, she threatens his identity. When John violently lashes out against Carol, the play ends in a stand o ff o f violation o f place. And our final understanding of the true nature of the clash between John and Carol rests on our knowledge o f the absent Others who influence their behavior. Magnificent! My boys standing around me again! That Championship Season The meaning behind Jason Millers That Championship Season depends entirely on an absent character, Martin.33 In a play where the present characters identify each other as champions and winners, Martins absence underscores the irony that they are not winners but cheaters. Just as Martin broke an opponents ribs so that they could win the championship, we discover that these men continue to cheat in their life as a means to succeed. Martins presence would confirm their champion identity; his absence
23 makes them suspect. Ultimately, Martins absence explains all the hardships these men endure and underscores the corrupt and dysfunctional plans they continue to make. The absent Other for That Championship Season offers a means to judge the other characters as we soon learn why one would want to be absent from them. As in Oedipus Rex , illness pervades That Championship Season: Tom is an alcoholic, James has lost his teeth, Georges wife cheats on him and he is a very poor mayor, Phil is an adulterer and his business practices are killing the town, and Coach suffers from an ulcerated stomach, which in fact might be cancer. Many other problems abound for this dysfunctional team. If a Teiresias-like seer were to appear, he would probably provide some clue based on Martin and the truth which might set these men on the course to restitution and rejuvenation. But instead the only character who presses the truth about their championship is Tom. And he proves to be an inept deliverer o f the truth, relying on sarcasm and wit to undermine the big plans the other men make while using alcohol to build his spirit so that he can reveal the truth. Martins continued absence signifies the corruption and the dysfunctional direction o f his former teammates. In the opening discussion between Tom and George we discover that Tom has missed three reunions. George cannot imagine missing any reunions because the winning o f that high school championship has proved to be more important to him than even being mayor o f his town.34 Within the context o f this conversation we discover that Martin has never been to a reunion. Georges inability
24 to understand Toms absence from a reunion that signifies the happiest moment in his life counters the extended absence of Martin, the Brilliant playmaker.3 5 Martins absence creates a gap in the team. And the mystery o f his disappearance makes the audience want to know why he is absent. For as long as that question remains we scrutinize the situation of the reunion and the behavior o f the men at the reunion. In other words, Martins absence forces us to search for closure. Clues to M artins absence quickly accumulate. Early in the play we discover that the opponent whose ribs Martin broke was an African-American. Coach refers to this former opponent as an eight-foot nigger, [who] jumped like a kangaroo.3 6 To the present day, Coachs racial discrimination continues. We discover, as they plan
Georges mayoral election race, that George is running against a Jew named Sharmen. Sharmen wants to clean up the town and make it prosperous again. George, though, banks his support on Phil whose strip mining operations pollute the town. Again, this team faces a tough opponent and are certain to lose the election. But Coach has a plan of attack that is based on discriminationSharmen had an uncle who was a communist. This black mark becomes their new elbow to the ribs, even though Phil and Tom see the ridiculousness o f trying to blackmail someone for being a communist in the postMcCarthy era. Throughout the play, Coach remains blind to the truth about his team. He excitedly exclaims, Magnificent! My boys standing around me again! when not all
25 of his boys stand around him.37 Martins absence, then, demonstrates how little o f a team they really are. And as we see them bicker and fight among themselves, we realize that the only thing holding them together is that championship season. Again, Martins absence underscores the irony of Coachs belief in his team and in his reliance on the trophy as the proof that they are champions. When Tom presses the issue that Martin told the truth, that they are not champions, and that they stole the championship, Coach turns to the trophy and puts it into Toms hands, stating: Deny that. You can feel it. It has weight. Deny it. Read the names in silver there.38 Coach sees the trophy as hard evidence that they are champions. But in reality the trophy is as insubstantial as Martins physical presence. When they rally together at the end o f the play after a good round o f verbal Martin bashing, they stand as hollow examples o f the virtues o f teamwork they proclaim to follow. Well, D addy knows how to run things. Who s Afraid o f Virginia Woolf? By the end o f That Championship Season, the team led by Coach remains in the grip o f the absent Other. Unable to confront the truth o f the fraud, as signified by Martin, o f their championship, they live in a continued state o f absence themselves, heading in an Augustinian-like direction of nothingness. But in Edward A lbees Who's Afraid o f Virginia Woolf? Martha and George free themselves from the absent Other, Marthas father, when George kills their fictive child.39 One might imagine that their fictive son is the absent Other, wielding control over the spectacle o f events o f the night.
26 But the son is only a manifestation o f the ideals and expectations o f Marthas father. In fact, due to the tremendous influence o f Marthas father on and over George and Martha, her Daddy performs as the absent Other who is the catalyst for conflict and the reason behind the games Martha and George play. Unlike That Championship Season which ends without truthful closure. Who's Afraid o f Virginia Woolf? concludes with Martha and George freeing themselves o f the absent Other, taking an existentially heroic step toward freedom in spite o f the fear of isolation and uncertainty. Martha expresses high regard for her father in masculine terms. The epitome of control and power, he knows how to run things.40 In comparison to Marthas father, George has become a disappointing heir-apparent for the president o f the university. While explaining to Nick and Honey Georges situation as the son-in-law o f the president o f the university, Martha asserts that George has an extraordinary opportunity to be someone important. George, however, does not capitalize on the opportunity. And because George does not have much push and isnt aggressive, Martha sees George as a FLOP!41 M arthas emphasis on action, her belief that her father can run things and that George cannot seize an opportunity imply that George does not have the masculine traits necessary to be a leader. He has become a nothing. Here, George is in a similar situation as Shelly Levene in Glengarry Glen Ross. Others see both characters as failures in their profession and in their sexual identity. And in both cases, the expectations o f an absent authority figure provide the rules for judgment.
27 George, on the other hand, sees his position as a less than opportune one. Unable to live up to the ideals established by the father, he confides to Nick that there are easier things than being married to the daughter o f the president of the university.42 And when Martha states that some men would give their right arm for the chance! George admits that he has had to sacrifice a more private portion of [his] anatomy.4 3 These jokes reflect the ideals of Marthas father who as the absent Other dictates the direction and expectations o f their life. In this respect, George and Martha are ever conscious o f the roles they play as prisoners of not only the college that Marthas father built but o f the ideals to which they must conform under his rule. The son Martha and George have represents the ideals of the institution built by the father. If George is not a fitting replacement for the father, then their son could prove to provide some hope for the future. Martha herself constructs their son in the image o f her father, stating that he has the same green eyes as her fathers: Daddy has green eyes, too.44 In a play where Marthas father dictates the direction and vision of the college and the lives o f those connected to it, the sons having the same eyes provides a fitting metaphor for the absent Other. Marthas father continually watches over George and Martha; and the fictive product o f the fathers ideals (the son) also keeps watch. That their eyes are green further implies the fertility of their vision. O f course, the pervasive irony o f this play centers on George and Marthas infertility versus the many fictions they devise to assert their fertility.
But because o f the fathers demands, sacrifices have been made. Martha has lost a child due to an abortion o f a child conceived by her amorous encounter with the lawn boy; and so has George: his novel. Marthas loving a lawn boy did not meet her fathers expectations o f a suitor. So the son she has now could be seen as the son she lost. And if academic emasculation existsand I am certain one could name types o f administrative knives then Daddys refusal to allow the publication o f Georges novel should count as a form o f emasculation or, in this case, also as infanticide. The relevance o f Georges story o f a son killing his parents is not as important as the novel itself which serves as Georges academic offspring. Georges novel does not live up to the respected, conservative ideals o f Marthas father, so George is told to withdraw the manuscript from publication. Motivated by fear o f exile from New Carthage, George sacrifices his novel and ends up in servitude to the father. Servitude to Marthas father, in fact, underscores much o f the action in this play. Their entertainment o f Nick and Honey serves as an initiation into life at this college as well as how to survive. But should the games Martha and George play continue, then they would remain in servitude to the Marthas father. Therefore, Georges killing o f Marthas son sets Martha and him free from the expectations o f Daddy. Although the death o f the son can be read as an act of retribution on Georges partjust as Martha and her father took away his son, his fiction, so will George take Marthas son away it becomes an act o f liberation, a way o f freeing themselves from the absent
29 Other who controls the roles they play. In the final moments o f the play, we hear Marthas fear of facing the uncertainty o f living a life without fictions: George: It will be better. Martha: I dont . . . know. George: It will be . . . maybe. Martha: Im . . . n o t . . . sure. George: No. Martha: J u s t . . . us? George: Yes.45 George takes charge at the end and assures Martha that their life will be better facing the truth rather than living a life o f fictions. I see this ending as a killing off of the absent Other, the one who wields control and power over the actions o f Martha and George. By standing up to the absent Other, George becomes the heir apparent he is supposed to be. And together they will face life on their own, relying on their own resources for survival rather than the restrictions o f anothers expectations. Lukes been in the house since October April in Akron The reclusive Luke in April in Akron is the absent Other who controls the behavior of the other young men who are forced to redefine themselves because o f his absence. Without Luke, Cal, Bob, JD, Hank, and Adam must come to terms with who they are now versus who they were when he actively engaged in their lives. And like
30 the sequestered dying grandfather in Scott McPhersons Marvin's Room and the atticroaming John Gabriel Borkman in Henrik Ibsens John Gabriel Borkman, Luke looms about the house like a spirit who invades the psyche o f its inhabitants. In fact, the desire to be free o f Luke underscores the motives for the party more so than the desire to devirginate Adam or celebrate the arrival o f Spring. This exorcism o f Luke is necessary for the other men so that they can get on with their lives and face the reality of the dangers o f masculine aggression. For Luke represents the sexual aggression against women the type o f aggression that uses women as objects for personal gratification. Luke influences the behavior of Cal more than the other characters in the play. Cal spends most o f his time trying to get Luke to join the group again. His true desire is to get the old Luke back again the Luke who guided them through parties and women. To recapture the past, he organizes a party as a means o f renewal. Yet he harbors the truth about the dangers o f Lukes irresponsible and aggressive behavior towards women. So Cal is caught between the allegiance he owes Luke and the desire to go somewhere and begin anew. The party he organizes can be seen as an attempt to offer a sacrifice to Luke. Women and booze satisfy the basics offerings o f the carnival. But given what Cal knows about Lukes bisexual or multi-sexual past even though he denies such knowledge from time to time he also offers Adam as a sacrifice in two ways: Adams virginity and Adam as sexual toy for Luke. If we see Cals character in terms o f the absent Other, we come to know that Cals blindness to the truth o f Luke
31 is really an attempt to bring Luke back to the group. Adam has the least amount of historical knowledge about Luke, but he also knows the most about Lukes most recent behavior. At times feeling trapped by Lukes odd behaviorsitting on his bed nakedand being wowed by stories o f Lukes sexual prowess, Adam is also caught between a desire to follow Luke and to break from him. That Cal perceives Adams virginity as black mark on the house should be seen as ironic given the sexually aggressive behavior of Luke and the crime he committed in October. Not surprisingly, when Adam recounts his own sexual adventure not only are his stories a variation o f what he heard from the other young men, but he provides a tale of virtual devil-like aggression, feeling women up, questioning one womans religion, and checking out cyberspace pom sites. And Luke who watches and guides his protege sanctions all o f his behavior. Ultimately, Adam becomes in the moment of his first sexual experience the absent Other, Luke. The other three characters, Bob, Hank, and JD have the least knowledge of Lukes recent behavior, so Luke influences their behavior by the sheer mystery of his own peculiar transformation. Bob, perhaps, fears Luke the most. Yet his fear does not necessarily stem from knowledge o f Lukes sexually aggressive past; it comes from a classic case o f Kierkegaardian angst. In other words, Bob fears what he most desires. Bob wants to be Luke in the way that Luke can party and get women. But he also fears such aggressive behavior, as is evident in his over-protection o f his sister, Julie. Bob
32 operates under this angst throughout the play, and it fuels his ow n desires to behave aggressively against Luke at the end o f the play. Finally learning that Luke is truly vulnerable, having learned further o f Lukes questionable sexual predilections and his culpability in a sex crime, Bob feels he has the power to take dow n that which he fears, especially given the support o f the other men of the tribe. And in his attempt to free himself from Luke, Bob lashes out against the absent Other. Despite Hanks all-knowing attitudehis sense that he is the voice of experience he is the most clueless person among the tribe o f men. Arriving from work and bringing sporting goods as gifts to the boys, he comes to the party expecting to be the father-figure; but he proves to be a poor surrogate. His marriage is a failure because he has not grown up. And he finds solace in reliving the glory years o f his undergraduate youth among the young men who live above him. In an act o f paternalism, he offers for Adam the most realistic type o f story for a first sexual experience a rather un-climactic event, involving a casual, beer-induced encounter. But his whole speech about Sues dissertation and its anti-game message is his way o f asserting to the men that he does not follow her philosophy and that he has not come under the spell o f feminism. His livelihood is sports; and as we will find out later, his hobby is the collection of a whole history of pom. Ultimately, as a salesman fully immersed in the investment of
organized sports and pornography, Hank is the messenger o f masculine aggression. And when he enters the Carnival o f the Sun party, he operates under the auspices of the
33 absent Other, venting his frustration with the oppressive regulations o f feminism and its anti-deposit slot message. A non-inhabitant o f the house and coming to seek revenge upon Luke for a past wrong, JD provides the biggest challenge to Luke. Because of Lukes criminal high jinks. JD has lost his position as a member o f an organized sport, the track team. Therefore, when he comes to the Carnival o f the Sun, he organizes his own sport against Luke as a means to bring him down. Since Luke will not come down and join the party, JD pokes and prods the others with reminders o f their deficiencies and o f stories detailing Lukes dysfunctional past. And his telling o f his first sexual encounter intends to make a mockery of the others and their stories. In fact, his assertion that when he had sex with Cadillac Shannon that he disconnected himself from himself to have his own private fantasy underscores all of the m ens relationship with Luke, the absent Other, the disembodied self who looms over their party o f self-indulgence. This point becomes clear when we hear o f Luke dressing up as Aurora. Whether or not Aurora was Luke does not matter as much as the way in which the act underscores Luke as the absent Other. If Luke was Aurora, then Luke maintained an absent presence in the transsexual role. Every act JD performs attempts to exorcize the absent Other from the house. The final act o f aggression occurs because this group o f men sanction it. No rush to the upstairs to take Luke down would have happened had not every member
34 agreed to it. Cal remains as the last hold out. And not until he discovers that Luke has revealed the truth about Cals false claims to a magical first-time sexual encounter does he agree to act against Luke. This discovery of Cals does more than catch him in an embarrassing lie. The truth that Cal could not perform when he had his first chance at sex turns Cal into an object for the absent Other. Cals initial reaction is to lash out against the one who has revealed the truth: Bob. But as JD makes clear, Luke is the one who has been causing all the trouble. When they decide to attack Luke, they attempt to arrive at a truth. However, because they are unwilling to admit their own culpability, they seek out a scapegoat. Their Us versus Him attitude does not necessarily need a specific target for their aggression, but any available, vulnerable person will satisfy their desire for restitution. When the victim is revealed to be a woman and not Luke, Lukes continued absent presence works like a mirror for the victimizers to see themselves as a reflection o f him. I think that the concept of the absent Other has far-reaching interpretive possibilities. The absent Others I have focused on in the discussion above are living characters who loom over a significant part o f the plays action and drama. But it is possible to categorize several types o f absent Others to include: characters who are absent but return for the latter part of the play (ONeills The Iceman Cometh and Jonsons The Alchemist), characters who are dead including ghosts (Shepards Buried Child and Millers Death o f a Salesman), and characters whose absence forces
35 the other characters to wait and search for answers (Pirandellos Six Characters in Search o f an Author and Stoppards Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead). The absent Other can also be applied to characters who have undergone a transformation of some sort and yet refer to their former self; I am thinking o f Joe in Ed Graczyks Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean who returns to McCarthy, Texas as Joanne. In each one o f these plays the absence o f a character, even if the character is conceptual, creates a gap that forces the characters and the audience to become consciously aware o f the issues, circumstances, or conflicts associated with that absent character. This paradoxical absent presence, then, directs our attention to the absent Other as a means to find closure.
36 Notes 1. Kathleen Wider, The Bodily Nature o f Consciousness: Sartre and Contemporary Philosophy o f Mind (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 48. 2. Albert Rabil, Existentialist Philosophy and Literature: Evolution o f an Historical Movement, Southern Humanities Review 16 (1982): 309. 3. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 461. 4. Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit and Three Other Plays (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 17. 5. Sartre, No Exit, p. 45. 6. Wider, p. 41. 7. David Bergeron, The Apollo Mission in The Winter s Tale, in The Winter s Tale: Critical Essays, ed. Maurice Hunt (1995), p. 362. 8. I thank David Bergeron for reminding me o f this production which he saw. 9. Quoted in Kahn, The Absent Mother in King Lear, in Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses o f Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, ed. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers (Chicago: The University o f Chicago Press, 1986), p. 33. 10. Kahn, p. 36. 11. Kahn, p. 34. 12. Avi Erlich, H am let s Absent Father (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 49. 13. Stephen Orgel, Prosperos Wife, in Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses o f Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe, ed. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J. Vickers (Chicago: The University o f Chicago Press, 1986), p. 51. 14. Sartre, No Exit, p. 4. 15. See Alan Schneider, Waiting for Beckett, in Beckett at sixty (London: C alderand Boyars, 1967), p. 38. 16. Michael Worton, Waitingfor Godot and Endgame : theatre as text, in The Cambridge Companion to Beckett, ed. John Pilling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 70-71. 17. David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross (New York: Grove Press, 1983). 18. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, p. 15. 19. Mamet, Glengarry GlenRoss, p. 19. 20. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, p. 17-18. 21. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, p. 18. 22. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, p. 30.
37 23. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, p. 30. 24. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, p. 35. 25. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, p. 96. 26. David Mamet, Oleanna, in The Bedford Introduction to Drama, 3rdedition, ed. Lee A. Jacobus (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997), pp. 1613-33. 27. Mamet, Oleanna, p. 1617. 28. Mamet, Oleanna, p. 1622. 29. Mamet, Oleanna, p. 1622. 30. Mamet, Oleanna, p. 1626 and 1627, respectively. 31. Mamet, Oleanna , p. 1627. 32 Mamet, Oleanna, p. 1633. 33. Jason Miller, That Championship Season (New York: Atheneum, 1972). 34. Miller, p. 5. 35. Miller, p. 5. 36. Miller, p. 22. 37. Miller, p. 16. 38. Miller, p. 117. 39. Edward Albee, Who s Afraid o f Virginia Woolf? (New York: Penguin Books, 1962). 40. Albee, p. 27. 41. Albee, p. 84. 42. Albee, p. 27 43. Albee, p. 28 44. Albee, p. 75. 45. Albee, p. 240-41.
Increasing Cloudiness: Reflections on the Writing of A pril in Akron When I first started to write April in Akron I wanted to tell the story o f a house I lived in as an undergraduate student at the University o f Akron. Six o f us lived together in what has been one of the best experiences of my life. We played, studied, and partied together in a house full o f music, laughter, and mischief. But real life seldom has the drama that makes for a good story. And as I worked on the script, my focus centered on one particular event: a small adventure taken on a dismal April weekend by two roommates, Mark and Joe, who ended up bringing a young woman home with them. Mark and Joe were fed up with the cloudy weather; so they decided that they wanted to Get the fuck out o f Akron and go south to West Virginia and get drunk in the first bar they saw when they crossed the border. In the course o f their travel they ended up meeting a young woman who invited them to several parties. By the end o f that night, she had passed out in their car; and rather than leave her somewhere in the street they took her back to Akron with them. She stayed in Akron for a day, mostly in Joe's bedroom, and then went back to West Virginia on a bus. This one event interested me because of the way the rest o f us behaved while this young woman remained upstairs in Joes room. We sat around the living room, music blasting heavy-metal from the stereo while MTV played silently on the television, trying to figure out who she was. Soon, we began to joke about different women we all knew who might be in Joes room. The fictions we concocted about this unidentified woman 38
39 were amazing. But when I began writing the play, I wanted to turn the woman into someone the characters all knew. And I had the idea that she would have been there for a week based on two events which happen every late April and early May in Akron, Ohio: Katherine Place party and May Day. The May Day festivities in Akron have been a tradition ever since 1902. Originating first as Tree Day a time for parades and May Queens May Day has become a huge excuse to drink and freely party. Some suggest that it is a Yankee Mardi Gras, but on a much smaller scale than what one would get in New Orleans. Most who try to explain the reason behind this huge beerfest will point to the effect o f northeast Ohio weather on a persons psyche. In fact, a 1999 guideline passed out by the
University o f Akron on how to party safely during May Day begins its advice with a reference to the weather: Typically, the winter months in the Snow Belt seem to dampen the spirits of students. In addition to the frigid temperatures and the snow, the Akron area is also blessed with rain. So, inevitably, when the weather in Akron begins to break, the natives begin to get a little restless.1 I have witnessed and participated in this restless spirit o f the native Akronites. The heavy cloud cover lingers from November until April and May. At times when the sun came out from under the clouds in January or February for a few days or hours, I used to resent the sunshine because I knew it wouldnt last. After being under the clouds for
40 so long, I also hated the brightness of sun. It hurt my eyes, and everything about me would have a jaundiced glow. But once late April and May came along and the weather warmed and stayed warm for more than just a day or two, one felt like busting loose, doing something that celebrated ones freedom from the oppressive clouds. I have heard that northeast Ohio is the cloudiest region in the United States. Much o f the problem has to do with wind flow from Canada and Lake Erie. Moisture rises from the lake and sweeps over northeast Ohio to become clouds. But the
cloudiness does not evenly develop; for pockets o f clouds form heavier coverage over some parts o f the region rather than others. These pockets explain why various snow belts exist in northeast Ohio. Ashtabula County, in the far northeast comer, gets hit the hardest by lake-effect snow. And the Hinckley and Akron area get hit the second and third hardest. These snow areas also explain the heavy cloud cover in these regions. Sometimes I could drive from my home in Sharon Center, Ohio about twenty-five miles west o f Akron and experience light cloud cover, but by the time I would get to Akron the cloud cover would be so thick that you felt as if your lived in a gray shadow. Needless to say, many anxiously await spring. And in Akron two traditional parties occur: one the week before May Day and the second during May Day weekend. These two weekends are exercises in debauchery: much alcohol, much drugs, and much sex. On the weekend before May Day, a huge party occurs at Katherine Place a short dead-end street o f about twenty houses. Every house has kegs o f beer, and the street
41 becomes filled with Akron University students ready to let off some aggression before finals. This party usually culminates in a two-story high bonfire o f old furniture and trash. At the last Katherine Place party I attended in 1990 when the fire trucks came to put the fire out, students launched bottles and cans at the fire officials who tried to put the fire out. Soon. SWAT trucks came and a militia o f police officers in riot gear began arresting anyone they could get their hands on. A friend o f mine and I ducked into a bar a block away from Katherine Place to seek refuge. The city o f Akron remains at a loss o f what to do about the students at this time of the year. With no chance o f stopping this tradition, the city and the University o f Akron have created rules which attempt to regulate the partying, such as no more than one hundred people at a house party, no loud music, and no public nudity. I have always been fascinated with the event o f May Day. Why do the students behave in such a manner? Does it have to do with more than just some meteorological phenomenon? Does it have do to with looking for an excuse to behave badly but in some socially sanctioned Mardi Gras manner? When I began to write April in Akron I wanted to use Mark and Joes adventure plus the festivities o f the May Day activities to create the occasion o f the play. But my initial plan for the play was to have the Luke character and the virginal character, Adam, kidnap a young woman from the Katherine Place party and keep her in their room until the May Day party. Meanwhile, a search in the city would have been launched to find
42 the young woman, and Luke and Adam would keep her hidden in their room. I had planned to work in this whole Dahmer-like incident where Luke or Adam had either killed the girl in the heat o f some kind o f lustmord or that she had died by accident, and he did not know what to do with the body. But that plot did not really work for me. I kept wanting the girl to represent something. And it was difficult to work that
information in without providing a lot o f exposition. But as I worked with the script, I continued to think about the weather in Akron, and the idea o f Spring rituals May poles, fertility and all that stuff. I also thought about some associations o f Spring from my own youth on the farm in Sharon Center: the Spring-time slaughter o f cows and pigs. Violence and fertility and my near
obsession with Shirley Jacksons short story The Lottery kept rolling over and over in my mind. The idea o f the performance o f a Spring ritual even when the participants no longer know why they participate in it has proved to explain some o f the reasons why humans justify socially sanctioned violence. I love Jacksons story for the way the reader is invited in to this small-town gathering only to witness a brutal, ritualized killing o f one of its own people. The more I thought about these ideas, the more I wanted to write a play that provided a variation o f these Spring elements I had come to know. I decided to use the weather as an element o f oppression for both its meteorological effects and as a metaphor for feminism. In this respect, I saw Mona as
43 an oracle-like figure broadcasting the claustrophobic conditions. At first I had the Pomo Delivery Man in the headlines, a person who was randomly distributing pornography on the doorsteps of the people o f Akron. I wanted him to be some pseudo-fertility, Pan like creature passing out modern-day aphrodisiacs to a rather sterile world. Mona, in this sense, tells on him by reporting his activities. I also wanted to suggest that Luke was the Pomo Delivery Man. But Paul Lim suggested that I eliminate the Pomo Delivery Man and replace him with a report of the coming o f a feminist to Akron. Suddenly, I realized how very important it would be to have Mona report that not only is the weather continuing to remain cloudy but that a feminist is coming to town to discuss the problematic nature o f aggression in our society. To me, someone who has read a good amount o f drama from the Greeks to the present, I could not help but to see Mona's initial weather report and the report of Anita Hills coming to Akron as the pronouncement of fate upon these men. Yet they are blind to the truth o f their problems with aggression. I have made little o f the many absent Others in April in Akron , but perhaps now would be a good place to begin explaining how I see multiple absent Others. I have stockpiled this play with absent characters: Mona, Anita Hill, Sue, Julie, Linda, and Luke. Adam is fixated on Mona and Anita Hill as he anxiously awaits their coming, much to the annoyance o f the other characters. Julie influences Bob, but she also has a hold on Cal who wants her despite his angry attitude about her. Linda influences Cal,
44 but JD also wants her. Sue has Hank by the balls, but Cal despises and resents her. And Luke, as the one-time alpha male o f the pack, controls all the men below him , especially Cal. In fact, my creation o f the relationship between the men in this play is based on what I have learned from documentaries about w olf behavior and the hierarchies of power. Luke is the alpha male who has deserted the pack. But because he has not entirely exited their lives, the other men are trapped between the allegiance they owe him and the desire to form their own pack. In keeping with the idea of being trapped, this pack o f men fears being trapped or pinned down by the women who threaten to invade their home. Therefore, the women the men in this play obsess over represent a paradox of sexual desire. I wanted to create the sense that the women who threatened to come to the house were perceived as an invasion o f the truth that lies behind the young mens sexual aggression. O f course, these men want as many women as possible to come to the party in order to increase the chances that they might score. But to have a woman they know at the party who might witness their sexual aggression would ruin their intentions for having the party. In a sense, to have a familiar woman present at the party would objectify their very behavior and render the men impotent, unable to behave aggressively. For Bob, I see his sister as representing the young, innocent female who loves to party and whom all the other men want. Bob, I feel, wants desperately to fit in with these other guys, yet he remains the scapegoat, the butt o f the jokes and ridicule
45 expressed at his expense. His sister, though, is a highly prized item among the men in the house. But because o f Bobs omega-dog status, he really cannot protect her. I had considered trying to work in a brief moment where Bob would try to negotiate with JD the possibility that he would give Julie to JD as long as no one else got their hands on her. JD could have her in return for her protection. But the working o f this panderous activity into the script proved too difficult; and I decided that for simplicitys sake and in keeping with Bobs rather superficial character to not include it in the play. I based my creation o f Linda, Cals mom, on the mothers o f several friends I knew in college. Their mothers were in their late thirties and early forties and looked like models two were models at one time. The sons o f these mothers went through hell every time a party was planned because o f the jokes and taunts at their expense and the expressed desire that their mothers come to the party. But I wanted Linda to represent a kind of erotic mother, a collector o f men, a Wife o f Bath-like character. To me. Cal feels a Kierkegaardian angst about her; she is someone he both fears and desires. Linda keeps Cal at a distance until she needs him. This type o f relationship underscores the very treatment o f these young men with other women; they want to keep them at a distance until they need them which is typically a sexual need. In many respects, the Cal and Linda story is a modem variation o f the Oedipal story. Cals real father, a pro baseball player, has in a sense exiled Cal and his mother. Cals mother exiles him (Cal) each time she gets a new husband. And when she rids herself o f that
46 husband, she returns to renew their relationship. Oedipus Rex has influenced my writing of this play in several other ways: Mona, the weather, and ideas o f sickness. Mona continually reminds the young men o f the oppressive weather. To me, Mona is the voice for Mother Nature. But I wanted to couple the idea o f nature with social, political correctness in order to create a blend of nature and nurture; for this reason Mona also delivers the message of the coming o f a leading feminist to the university. This speaker will discuss the "problematic nature o f aggression in our society. The non-virginal men can care less about the message; but they care about Nature. To act naturally, to pursue their sexual desire, underscores their impulse for the party. Yet if they follow their natural sexual inclinations, they end up in another trap, especially if the social climate dictates that such forms of aggression are wrong. Adams relationship, then, with Mona forms a basis for the conflict in the play. He loves and admires Mona not for the messages she delivers, but for the sound o f her voice. My selection o f her name is deliberate; moan connects to the possible sounds o f the wind about the house as well as the sound o f moans for either regret and despair or sexual satisfaction. That he connects with her voice but not even the meteorological message suggests that he is not in touch with his sexual self; he lives in an ideal world o f innocence. The decision to have a party as a means to de-virginate Adam is an attempt to break him from his idealized views o f the world and initiate him into the
47 world o f men. This initiation is also a sacrifice. Adam will sacrifice his ideal views of the world which include the socially appropriate views o f political correctness he has learned at the university to become a complete member o f the pack. And as testimony of his sacrifice he will deliver his story of his performance just as all the other men in the pack did the previous day. My emphasis on the ideas of performance and sexuality is deliberate. In order to belong in this masculine world, one cannot merely be; one must perform, do, act. If Monas message is one ofNature and nurture, then Sues is one o f reason. Her thesis on sanctioned aggression expresses a well-researched truth about the connection between the number o f rapes and the level of legitimized aggression. Arnold P.
Goldstein, the Director o f the Center for Research on Aggression at Syracuse University, sums up the findings as follows: [The] research results are clear. The more that aggression is treated as a legitimate or legal behavior in a state, or the more a states citizens approve of noncriminal aggression, the more rape that state has. Legal violence does spill over to illegal violence.2 Of course. Hank and the others do not listen to the lesson she has for them. In this respect, I see Sue as a Cassandra-like character, delivering the truth and predicting the downfall of the men who do not listened to her. That her dissertation is made a mockery of by her own husband who has become numb to her work underscores my impressions
48 of the male response to feminism. These men have heard all the talk about the sins of masculine aggression, but they have not learned the lesson. I also had deliberate reason for making Sue live below this group of men while being married to Hank who sells sporting goods for Nike. Hank and Sue represent a marriage o f that confrontation between the attack against sanctioned aggression and the investment into it. Hank proves that he can recite her thesis, but he cannot live by it: games is his livelihood. He brings to the party the required items for its thematic success: spring flowers, Barbie dolls, sporting goods, and a hat with No Fat Chicks written across the front o f it. When he tells o f Sues theory about deposit slots, he offers the one lesson that he seems to have truly listened to. Whether or not her theory is an actual one she holds was not a concern of mine. I created what I hope to be a parody of bad feminism; and I have heard and read worse theories at various conferences I have attended. But that Hank latches on to this theory o f deposit slots should tell more about his sad relationship with his wife. Quite simply, he does not have a sexual relationship with his wife. Based on his reading o f his wife, sex is seen as an act of unwanted aggression or as a disruption of her purity. Hence, Hank invests heavily in a sex substitute: pornography. When Sue dumps his pornographic collection, which is an historical work in progress, on the lawn, she purifies their domicile o f the items that represent the exploitation o f women. I also want Sues living below to suggest that she forms another basis for an
argument between her beliefs and Luke above. For me, Luke has always represented total aggression; he has acted on will with little regard for the outcome. Positioned between Luke and Sue, Cal experiences the most conflict, given what he knows about the criminal and peculiar behavior o f Luke in the past and in the present. Given their friendship and long history together, he has the strongest allegiance to Luke o f anyone else in the group. And Sues constant regulation of his freedom causes him great tension. The way I see Cals position, he has four possible choices to make: he can give in to the regulations o f Sue and feminism, join Luke on the roof, vacate the house, or do nothing as he has for the past six months. Cal, though, chooses none o f the above. But he decides upon another: have a party which is to act as an exorcism o f sorts for the problems o f the household. Before I address some o f the specific ideas I have about the meaning o f Luke in this play, I should address the significance of JD, who is a bit o f an outsider himself since he does not live with the others in the house. JD was the last character I created for this play. In fact, when I gave Paul Lim an early version o f this play I had originally scripted all the female parts in the play, including the stripper, Dawn. Under Paul Lims suggestion, I stripped the play down to just Cal, Adam, Hank, and Bob, eliminated about sixty to seventy pages o f text, and rewrote a whole new first act. But the new version o f the play lacked the tension that the other characters added to the original script. I needed someone else to provoke the characters into action. So I created JD. And I
50 decided that since Luke came from a wealthy family, JD would come from a disadvantaged, lower class than Lukes in order to create a class conflict in the play. Unlike Bob who fears and dislikes Luke because o f Lukes mistreatment o f women, I wanted JD to be the voice against the reason Luke has been able to take advantage o f so many women money from his parents. I had hoped, though, that once the final act of aggression occurs the audience would see that such violence is not solely at the hands of any one class. Fault for the violence knows no class boundaries as JD is as much a part of the violence as all o f them. JD, to me, is the most intelligent character in the play, knowing how to push the right buttons to manipulate the other men. He has the most legitimate and concrete reason to want to get back at Luke since he lost his track scholarship because of a robbery of beer taps he took part in at the urging of Luke. Since he wants to get back at Luke, I found him to be an appropriate vehicle for exposition. He wants to uncover valuable information so that he can use it for his advantage. However, I did not want him to deliver monologues in Iago-fashion to the audience, proclaiming his scheming ways. Such techniques seem to be too heavy-handed for modern-day audiences, so I tried to demonstrate his conniving in subtle ways, such as his asking for information and in his suggestion o f ways in which Luke has messed up in the past. For example, his telling the other men about Lukes cross-dressing as Aurora is his main attempt to get them to turn against Luke.
51 In a play that is based on both sexual tension and sexual anticipation, I wanted Luke to be the loaded gun from whom the others wait for some sign of action. To me, Luke embodies the sentiment expressed in John Donnes poem The Indifferent. Luke can love anyone so long as that person does not expect him to return devotion. The other men, Cal, Bob, Adam, Hank, and JD, have relied on Luke for good times. But his peculiar behavior has forced them to come to an impasse, a moment o f necessary change. In play where I have tried to be as realistic as possible in the activities and stories o f the characters, Luke and his absence are more allegorical or symbolic than realistic. He represents behavior that will not be accepted any morethe transgressions o f masculine aggression which have come under fire by feminism. I suggest in the play that Adams first sexual encounter is with Luke. I prefer to keep that act ambiguous. Whether or not Adam had sex with Luke is less important to me than the way the other men respond to the possibility that Adam had sex with Luke. For all o f their heterosexual stories about their first sexual encounters could not prepare Adam for a homosexual experience. But I wanted to place Adams first sexual experience within the context o f a possible rape; should Adam have known that he was having sex with Luke, it would have been an unwanted encounter. Because most young men see sex only in terms o f pleasure and they often place rape in the category of sex and not as a crime, I have found that they do not understand the violation o f rape. I need to ask them to imagine that some huge man violates them in a sexual manner before they
52 grasp the reality of rape. By the end of the play, these young men engage in an act o f chivalry that goes wrong. I like to think that they are trying to capture some monster who has gone hay wire and that they think that they are saving other women from the dangers of Luke. But in reality, they are really thinking that they want to save their butts. Non o f them want to be associated with a sex crime, let alone a possible homosexual in their attic. Their fears mount; they mount the stairs; and they attack whatever moves. Only Cal has the right idea why do they have to do anything? And that attitude o f passivity is the one I prefer to ask. Why do we always feel as if we have to do something? Perhaps my question has something to do with being in graduate school where doing what feels like everything is often not enough. Regardless, these men act. And they act violently mostly as a means of letting o ff their frustration. When their mistake is revealed, I had intended for the pervading feelings to be regret, despair, and confusion. In general, I was pleased with the response to the production o f the play. I knew that the play would push some buttons, especially among women who might not believe or want to believe that young men behave in the manner the men in the play do. I also had male students come to me after they saw the performance and tell me that they know the guys in the play. What interested me, though, was that none o f them wanted to admit to being those men. These men felt ashamed after seeing the play, and I had hoped while writing it that some men would respond with shame over the way men treat
53 and speak about women. Yet I was not prepared for some of the responses I have and still receive from those who have seen the play. At this writing, I continue to get snubbed looks and cold shoulders from people I used to have very friendly conversations with before April in Akron was produced. A female friend o f mine who does still talk to me said that the play made her feel as if she were sitting naked in a burlap bag, suggesting how uncomfortable she felt while watching the play. I did not intend to write a feel-good play. I wanted to write a high-octane launch into the impulses for aggression as a means o f bringing an awareness to some of the problems with violence we have in our society. Perhaps the angry responses are the more fitting ones. Ultimately, I could not have been happier with the production o f April in Akron. I consider Paul Lims direction and creation of the life of this play to be inventive and spectacular. At this writing, I still live with images and sounds o f the production. This influence on me exceeds any other academic experience I have had prior to the performance o f April in Akron. I have, for example, presented papers at fourteen academic conferences. But not the entire collection of responses to those papers can ever match the attention that the production of April in Akron has brought to me. To this day. people approach me and tell me that they continue to think about the play, the characters, and the way the play has influenced their perspectives human relations. I find this sphere o f influence exciting for its implications. For years I have been
54 preaching to my students the importance of the lesson taught to me by writers like Chaucer and Shakespeare that good literature not only entertains but educates. The production o f drama has shown me how to apply my knowledge so that people begin responding to, reacting to, and discussing the serious issues that define our culture and our times.
55 Notes 1. Dana Durbin. Guidelines for Partying Smart, in May Day Millenium Madness, Special Advertising Supplement to The Buchtelite, May 4, 1999. p. S4. 2. Arnold P. Goldstein, Rapist, Where Are You From? in Violence in America: Lessons on Understanding the Aggression in Our Lives (Palo-Alto: DaviesBlack Publishing, 1996), p. 178.
April in Akron
A Play in Two Acts by Dan Kulmala
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer mom Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Stevens, "Sunday Morning
56
57
April in Akron
A play in two acts C haracters: Cal: 23 years old. College student. Good friend o f Luke's and JDs. He relies on them to define his place and identity. The most philosophical o f the pack. 18 years old. College student. Bobs younger brother. He is trying to fit in with the place o f his new friends. Could be treated as the pup of the group. 24 years old. College student. Adams older brother. Very protective of his sister. He over-compensates for his deficiencies by acting tougher than he is. The omega dog. 27-28 years old. Sporting goods salesman for a large corporation (like Nike). He also feels that he is in a failed marriage. He feels as if he is the paternal member o f the pack 23 years old. Manipulative and playful. The most perceptive and insightful member o f this pack. Although this part was not written with any race in mind, some readers have suggested that he be played by a person o f color. NOTE: The characters above need not be white; the play was written to be gender specific, not race specific. Female voices Mona, Julie, and Linda can all be the same person with different voices or three different people.
Adam:
Bob:
Hank:
JD:
First Act:
Saturday late afternoon.
Second Act:
Sunday morning.
58
April in Akron
by Daniel Kulmala SETTING: An apartment in a three-story, red brick, large home from 1900s-1910s stylereconstructed for student living. An emphasis should be placed on an industrial or post-industrial nature of the city (Midwest, rust-belt home in a city). The stage depicts the living room o f the upstairs apartmentthe only setting for the entire play. The apartment belongs to four college-aged men. The main features for the apartment include the couch, coffee table, recliner, small tv. and stereo. This apartment should have steps that lead to the upstairsonly three steps or so need to be showing. Another doorway along the back wall, near the steps leads to the back bedrooms and kitchen. In the apartment a sign hangs with this phrase: "Carnival to the Sun. The decor should be shabby and beat-up. On the floor and around the room, various types of balls (basketballs, footballs, kickballs, tennis balls, etc.) clutter the area, as well as junkyard parts of cars; but later for the last scene it should also be covered with beer cans, liquor bottles, pomo magazines, and bouquets o f flowers. A tribal-like spear leans against the wall near the stereo. In another comer of the apartment hangs a birdcage filled with Barbie dolls. A window should also be a prominent feature where gray shadows and shading come fromalso others might look out of it as well. From time to time, we hear creaks and footstep sounds that come from the roof and attic where Luke walks these sounds should be choreographed with the action and pauses o f the play. If possible, we might see Luke's shadow as it passes a sky-light window from the roof.
Act One
AT RISE: Cal hangs his banner, while Adam tosses a basketball in the air near the stereo. We hear Monas weather forecast as the play begins.
59 Mona And in local news. The University of Akron will wrap up its Humanities series Monday night with Anita Hills lecture. Adam Man! I cant wait to go. Shes cool! Mona Hill's lecture entitled, Masculine Pronouncements: Verbal Aggression and the Transgressions o f Authority, will complete a year-long series o f programs intended to educate students and the public about womens issues . . . Cal (interrupting) Come on, tell me the weather! Mona . . . and the problematic nature o f aggression in our society. Adam Oh God, Cal. Her voice. Dont you love M onas voice? Mona At this time, Hills Monday night lecture is sold out. Adam What?! Sold out! No way, I wanted to go to that lecture. I get extra credit i f .
Mona Now, the weather. Cal Shut up, Adam! Mona According to our exclusive Weather-Flash forecast, this cold trend will continue for the next five days . . .
60 Cal cold trend? Mona For tonight, increasing cloudiness with a chance o f rain turning to sleet by tomorrow . . . (Cal moves to the window and opens it. Adam turns off the news.) Cal Increasing cloudiness? How can there be increasing cloudiness? Adam At least shes pleasant about it. God, I love her voice! Cal Have I slept through the sunshine? We havent seen the sun since October. (Cal is noticeably distraught over the weather forecast.) Adam Cal. Cal, you okay? (Pause. Then Cal looks up at Adam with a fake smile.) Adam Mona, Mona, Mona! I wonder if thats her real voice or just her news voice. You know what would be a good idea? Tape her voice. Forget music. I just want to hear Mona tell me the news and weather. Cal She has no right to report such shitty weather with that come-fuck-me voice. Adam Oh, I dont think she does it on purpose. Its her job. Cal Yeah. Well, Im not gonna let it bother me. This is exactly one reason why we're having this party. Am I right?
61 Adam Right! Cal Like my sign. What do you think? Adam Hey! That says it. Thats it, man. (They stare at it for a while. Then Adam and Cal return to their party preparations.)) Cal You better believe it. This party is just the thing we need this time of year. Booze. Women! (Adam gazes up at the sign in wonder) Adam Women! Cal Women, thats right. And one of them has your number, bud. (Pause.) Well frame the sign with the flowers our guests bring. Adam I'm not too keen on this flower thing. Cal Why not? Adam Its like theyre bringing the flowers for me. Cal Dont be stupid. Its just a gimmick. Something spring-like. Like an old ritual. (Cal picks up the spear and moves to the front window and looks out.)
62 Cal This fucking gloomy weather. Its been too long. Huh? Adam You betcha. Much too long. (Adam takes a big gulp o f tequila.) Cal Hey, youre gonna do it this time, arent you? Adam Yeah. Sure. This time I will. Cal Good. 'Cause this partys for you, bud. Its . . . (Adam chimes in simultaneously.) Adam and Cal . . . a black mark on the house . . . (Cal finishes the phrase.) Cal .. . your being a virgin. Dont get smart. Were setting you up. Adam I know, I know. And I cant wait. (Pause.) Hey, maybe you could set me up with Mona. Cal Mona? Forget her. Shes just a voice who tells us bad news. Cal No fucking sun since last fall. Remember? Adam Late October.
63 (Cal gets the bottle o f tequila.) Cal That Indian summer ni ght . . . we were out with Luke. Adam In fact, I bet thats the last time hes been out. You know, Lukes been in the house since October. Now thats freaky. Cal Oh, hes been out. What do you know? Lukes got that fire escape . . . out his back window. He could be gone right now. Wait. Listen. I think hes up. Lets get him down here. (Cal moves to the steps.) Cal Hey, Luke! Paaaarrrrtyyy! Come on down, man. (Pause as they listen. Silence; then a few creaks from the roof. Cal moves from the steps.) Cal Fuck him.
Adam Yeah. Forget about him. Hey, how about some music? (Adam moves toward the stereo. Cal moves to the window, but stops to address Adams question.) Cal Yeah, man. Put on some Stones. Gimme Shelter or something. Adam Negative. Remember the deal? Cal What deal?
64 Adam The deal. Last night. If this is my party, then its my music. Cal Okay, okay. (Cal reaches the window and looks out.) Cal Hey, what the fuck is your stupid brother doing down there? Adam Where? Cal Down there at the end o f the street. Bobs pacing back and forth. Adam Isn't he supposed to get the booze and beer? Cal I cant believe this. Hes pacing like some animal in heat. Adam He might be waiting for our sister. Cal
Julie?
Adam Theyre meeting for lunch, and he doesnt want her to come in the house and see that we're having a party. He doesnt want her to come. You know, hes protecting her. Cal Didnt he get her message? Adam What message?
65 (Cal moves to the answering machine.) Cal This one. Julie left a message for him. Julie Hey. Bob. Hey, Adam. Um . . . Bob, Im really sorry about this, but I . . . I can't make it to lunch. Ive got . . . Ive got this meeting to go to that I completely forgot about. Lets do lunch tomorrow or something. Im really, really, really sorry. Please forgive me. Youre such a sweety. Bye. (Cal responds to Julies voice; he loves it.) Adam She probably wanted to sleep in. She never gets out o f bed before one. Cal Well, Bob should check his messages. Adam He doesnt want her to get hit on by a bunch o f guys at the party. Plus, hes afraid that Luke and JD are gonna seduce her. Cal Or me. Right?! Adam I didnt say that. Cal He still thinks I tried to rape her or something last spring, doesnt he? Adam I didnt say . . . Cal At that party .. . Adam I didnt say that he did; I . . .
66 Cal How many times do I gotta explain myself. Julie passed out on the couch and
Adam I know, Cal, I know b u t . . . Cal . . . all I did was try to make her more comfortable. Adam Well, thats not what Julie told Bob. Cal What?! (Adam is slightly exasperated.) Adam Oh, man. (Pause.) Cal, just drop it. Okay? Its no big deal. We all know that Bobs overly protective o f Julie. You gotta understand her history. She was picked on and made fun o f a lot as a kid. She was so damn skinny and goofy looking. And now that shes become this beautiful woman, hes protecting her even more. Hes proud o f her. (Pause as Cal looks about the room.) Cal Fuck him. Adam Oh come on, Cal. Stop it. Cal With that attitude hes gonna ruin the whole game plan o f the party. (Cal sits down.) Adam Hey, music?
67 Cal What? Adam Music. Cal What time is it? No. We gotta wait. Sue will complain. She gave us the okay to begin in about another hour. God damn it! You know, if we don't have Luke on the roof, we got Sue downstairs trying to shut us up all the time. (Cal pounds on the floor with the spear.) Adam Shes just trying to finish her dissertation. Cal I dont give a fuck. Youd think she could put it down for one day. Adam Well, shes busy. Cal Damn Feminazi. I dont know how Hank puts up with her. Adam Shes nice to me. (Cal lightly laughs.) Cal Yeah, right. That wont be for long. (Cal slumps down in the recliner.) Adam At the last lecture . . .
68 Cal Tell you what, Adam. If you ever want the exact definition o f a cunt, just look at Sue. Adam How's that? Cal She hates men. (Luke-sounds on the roof.) Adam Cal. Cal. Maybe we should talk about Luke. Cal About what? Adam Luke. Cal Whats your problem? Adam I cant stop thinking a b o u t. . . last fall. That thing . . . you know . . . the stuff that went down. Cal Forget it. Theres nothing to worry about. Adam After what happened last fall, I wish I never met him. Cal It will pass. Give it time. After a while youll see it for what it was. An unfortunate mishap.
69 Adam 'An unfortunate mishap!? You gotta be kidding me. That poor girl . . . I'm surprised the cops havent been here. Luke Hardacre-Bates? Yeah, he lives with us, upstairs, but we dont really know him, officer. (Cal puts his hands over his ears.) Cal Stop! Do I need to hear this? Do I? Huh? (Cal tries to calm down.) Cal You know theres such a thing as loyalty to a friend, Adam. Adam I know, Cal, I know. Bu t . . . Cal Luke threw you that party, remember. When you moved in. Adam I know, but Lukes getting worse. He barely comes down stairs anymore. Cal So what o f it? Adam Well, I dont its healthy. Cal Its the weather. Were all closed-in here. As soon as the sun comes out again, well all be fine. Adam I dont think this is some meteorological phenomenon, Cal. Luke . . . Cal Forget about it!
70 Adam Forget about it? Luke fucked up and I want . . . Cal Remember Cedar Point?! Luke paid for everything. We rode roller coasters all day. Adam That's different. .. Cal And what about that thousand bucks Luke gave you? Adam I know, Cal. But were not doing Luke any good by sheltering him. We gotta face up to the truth. Its tearing all o f us apart. His hiding all the time. Its getting worse. Cal Its not getting worse. Adam I'm about the only person Luke talks to anymore, and its beginning to creep me out. Do you know what he does up in his room? Cal Just shut the fuck up, Adam! You know shit! Luke will be fine! (Pause in the tension.) Cal Listen, Adam. Come on! Its too late to do anything. Lets just wait, get things together. Get our heads together. We got a party, and thats what we gotta focus on. The weathers got all o f us strapped in here. We just need a little sunshine to . . . to affirm our life. Once the party rages on, well all come back to life. Now are we done here? (They look around the room. Perfect.)
71 Adam Looks good. (Adam looks out the front door and peers off in the distance.) Adam Hey, here comes Bob. Hes running. Cal Oh fuck. Im too pissed o ff at him to see him right now. Lets get out o f here. Adam Where? Cal Back there. Lets get the kitchen and bedrooms straightened out. (They exit. Bob races into the apartment with JD chasing after him. Bob tries to close the door on JD, but JD gets an arm through and tries to get into the apartment.) Bob Go away, JD. (JD laughs a little while Bob continues pushing on the door and on JDs arm.) Bob The partys not until later. Go away. JD Bob, you better let me in now, or so help me Ill beat your ass as soon as I get in there. Bob No.
JD Okay, I gave you a chance.
72 (JD easily pushes the door open. Bob and JD stare at each other for a brief moment. JD smiles. Bob backs away slowly. JD chases him around the room. Bob picks up and throws a football, a basketball, and a tennis bail at JD. JD only laughs. JD catches Bob, puts him in a headlock, and rubs his knuckles on top o f Bobs head. Bob pushes away from JD. Both are out of breath.) Bob I hate it when you do that. JD Next time, dont make me do it. (They catch their breath and take off their coats.) Bob Wherere your flowers? JD My what? Bob Your flowers. JD Oh, yes. The spring ritual. Bob If youre staying, you got to bring a bouquet of flowers. JD Ive got time to get the flowers.
Bob Its part o f the party theme.
JD What the fuck, Bob. I know. Quit beating it to death. I'll get the fucking flowers. Bob Im just saying, thats all. JD So what were you doing out there, Bob? Bob None of your beeswax. JD Oh. None o f my beeswax. Lets see. You must have been waiting for your sister. (Bob responds in a slightly paranoid manner.) Bob Whats it to you? (They hear Lukes footsteps on the roof.) JD Is that Luke up there? Bob Yeah. Says hes looking for the sun. Goddamn free-loading freak. JD For the sun, huh. (JD yells up to Luke.) JD Hey, Bates! Master Bates! Dont fall! Bob JD, stop calling him that. Youre gonna piss him off.
74 JD Piss him off? Oh my, I dont want to do that. Bob Fuck you. (Adam enters from the kitchen.) JD Hey, its the party boy! Gonna get you some, tonight! Adam Bob, when are you going to the store? And you, do you have to be so loud? Cal says to stop calling Luke that name. JD What? He doesnt want me to yell, Master Bates ! Adam Hey, stop that! Why do you call him that, anyway? Bob You dont want to know. JD So Little Adam doesnt know about pretty boys past achievements? Bob Cut it out, JD. JD Now, now. Adams been living with Luke and you guys for almost a year. He should know a few things about our man o f privilege, Luke Hardacre-Bates. You see, Luke had this thing for a cheerleader in high school. Missy Dobrowski. Bob Everyone did.
75 JD Yeah, everyone did. But Luke had his hormones raging at full tilt over her. In fact, he confided to me once that his dick was getting calluses from his daily love-bash with his right hand. Well, he got so obsessed that one night he went over to her house, climbed up on her ro o f.. . Bob As you can tell, old habits are hard to break. JD . . . took off all his clothes while watching her undress, and he beat off. I would have loved to have been there to see it. There he is. on the roof, stroking his calloused trouser-snake, and just when hes spewing all over her window, she turns o ff her light and sees him standing there. Adam Oh shit! Then what happened? JD She screamed. And he was so busy beating-off, his eyes closed tight, that he didnt hear a damn thing. Bob But get this. It wasnt her; it wasnt Missy. Adam Who was it? JD It was her mom. Adam Her mom? JD He was so fucked up he couldnt tell who was in the room. Missys Old Man tried to get a hold o f him, but Luke jumped off the roof. Naked! He hid for three days.
76 Adam Did he get in trouble? What happened to him? Bob Nothing. Little rich bastard doesnt get in trouble. JD Missys Old Man worked in his parents plastics factory. So it didnt really matter. And Lukes mom straightened everything else out. The Dobrowskis wanted Luke to go to a shrink. But Lukes mom had other plans. She got Missy a company scholarship to Kenyon College. Bob You dont know that for certain. JD I know enough. Bob Luke told me that you put him up to it. JD Like he dont have his own mind. Adam Wow! It all figures, though. I always thought Luke was this All-American, you know? All those awards in school. Hes smart. Great looking. Hes had more women than Ill ever meet in a life time. But when he messes up, he messes up big. (Pause as they look up at the roof.) Adam Hey, we gotta get to the store. Bob Im waiting for Julie. (Adam gathers their coats.)
77 Adam She called. Okay? Shes got other plans. Bob But she might still come by. I just want to make certain that she knows that shes not welcome at this party. JD Hey, I'll give her the message. Bob I bet you will. JD Sure I will. And you know what? If you hurry, Ill only have time to fuck her once. (Bob runs toward JD for a fight, but Adam stops him. JD doesnt flinch, but laughs uproariously.) Bob You asshole! JD Yeah. Well, yours is big enough for all of Akron to shit out of. Bob Ill kill you. You better not touch her! Adam Come on, Bob. If we hurry, well be back in time for . . . Bob Fucker! JD Hey! Thats exactly what Ill do. Adam Come on, Bob. Lets go.
78 (Adam pushes Bob out the door.) JD Don't hurry on my account. (JD looks around for a bit.) JD Hey. Luke! Luke! God damn it! You can't hide up there forever! Luke! (Cal yells to JD from the kitchen.) Cal JD, shut up, will you! (Cal enters. JD greets Cal with great warmth.) JD Cal, my man. H ow 's party preparations going? Cal Keep it down. (JD finds a basketball or football and plays around with it.) Cal Is that fuckin Bob gone yet? JD Sure, he just left. Cal Hes been driving me crazy lately. JD So why dont you move out? Cal It's just been the last two months. Always getting on my case about Luke. He gets pissed at me because Luke is late with his rent. Why doesnt he deal with
79 him? And then, one moment hes for this party; the next, hes against it. Doesnt like the idea that were fixing Adam up with a Betty. JD Probably because he cant get any himself. Cal You know it. Hes been like some fuckin bitch on the rag. Just last night he got on my case for inviting those guys from Brainicide to the party. Said he didnt want any heavy metal heroin addicts at the party. JD What does he know? Cal What does he know?! JD You should have seen the way he acted when I saw him outside. Pacing on the sidewalk. Then hed rim up the street as if he saw something, and then hed pace some more. Cal He was looking for Julie. JD Thats what I figured. He saw me coming and he ran. So I ran after him. Thought Id have some fun. Cal Hes afraid that shell get raped at our sex party. He doesnt want you or Luke or me anywhere near her. JD He needs to be reminded that you cant rape the willing. Cal Youre telling me.
80 JD Hey man, you seem edgy. Cal Besides Bob, Ive got Sue downstairs banging on her ceiling every time were too loud. And, on top of all that, my moms coming to town. JD Linda? Cal Yeah, Linda. Shes getting her fourth divorce. Her fourth one. JD Wow. Fourth one. Cal Yeah. She wanted to party with us, tonight. Party. I dont have a mom; I have an older sister. I told her I was busy. That Id see her tomorrow. Here, listen to her message on the machine. (Cal turns on the answering machine.) Linda Hey, Cal. Hello, boys. Im coming into town, and Im ready to party\ Ive got great news, so call me back in the next hour its nine nowor else Im coming anyway. Adios. JD Ah, man. Id love to party with Linda, especially if shes coming off a divorce. God, for an older woman, shes the bomb, dog. Cal Forget it. I dont want her here. This party just doesnt feel like a party. I dont know what it is. But its funny. I keep thinking about Linda. Like something weird is about to happen. Then bam, she calls. JD You probably just sensed the divorce.
81 Cal Ive never understood her. Always keeps me at a distance unless she needs me. (Pause) She had me when she was fourteen. Fourteen. She gets knocked up when shes a baseball groupie in Florida. JD You Little Slugger. Cal Yeah, fuck you. Now, Im twenty-two and shes thirty-six, widowed once and divorced four times and rich as hell. JD Lets face it. That woman works like clockwork with men. Cal Did you know she used to model bathing suits? JD Yeah. I got a couple o f her pictures under my mattress. Cal Fuck you. (Pause.) When she was nineteen, she won a contest. One o f the owners of a bathing suit company comes over. He became husband number one. Old Fart Bud, I called him. I couldnt stand seeing him touch her. Thank God for a massive blood clot in the aorta. But when he first came over to us and he saw me. he assumed I was some kid after her autograph. Like a fuckin five year old would want an autograph from a bathing suit model. And Linda . . . Ill never forget i t . . . said I was her little brother. You know, she has never allowed me to call her mom. Just Linda. JD Well, boo fucking hoo. Cal What? JD Nothing. Got anything to drink around here?
82 Cal What? JD To drink? You know? Booze. Beer. Cal No. Adam and I finished o ff the tequila. JD Td settle for mouthwash at this point after hearing all this sentimental load of shit. Cal You know, you could listen to me sometimes. JD Listen to you? Cal Yeah. Im saying something important, here, and you ignore me. JD Hey man, you got mother issues. Big deal. Go on m otherfuckin Oprah. Talk to someone who gives a rats ass. Cal Mother issues? JD Sure. So your mom loves to have fun. Youre living a good life. I dont see you ripping up those juicy checks she sends you. At least shes not like my mother. Your mothers a torching saint compared to my mother. Cal Your mom wasnt that bad. JD What the fuck do you know? Ill give you one example. Okay? When I was four, five years old I used to get these terrible headaches. Migraines. At four.
83 My head felt like one o f those exploding cartoon heads. Ready to bust. Id cry to my mom, ask her for help. And you know what? Shed get pissed. I was bothering her. Shed say, I dont know whats wrong with you; you probably have brain tumor. (Silence as they listen to Luke on the roof.) JD I tell you what. Lets get Hank up here. Cal Im not bothering him with Sue down there. She hates us. (JD gets on the phone.) JD Screw her. Hes supposed to pick up the stripper, right? Cal Yeah. JD Hank! What the fuck, man. Come on up. We gotta talk about the party You said. . . . Thats right. You said youd pick up the stripper. . . . What? What do you mean Im talking too loud? (Pause) You gotta be kidding me. (Pause) Then come on up. Good. (JD hangs up.) Cal W hats the problem? JD Hes paranoid. Afraid that Sues gonna find out about us getting Dawn to strip for the party. Cal Hows she gonna find out? She never comes up here.
84 JD Thats odd, considering how much time Hank spends up here. Cal He told me once that the happiest years of his life were spent in college. All the rest have been a slow slide into hells toilet. JD Well, thats just sad. (They hear Luke on the roof.) Cal Man, listen to Luke on the roof. JD I see no reason to criticize a persons obsessions. But climbing roofs? Especially here in Akron. These old houses must still be covered in all the sulphur and soot from the rubber factories, and now the plastics. Cal He says hes looking for the sun. Like Icarus. JD Hes fuckin crazy. Cal Yep. If he had wings, hed try to fly. JD Has he been helping you with the party? Cal No. But I made him promise he wont bring back any more stuff from the junkyard. JD You know if his parents werent so stinking rich from that plastics business they run, I doubt hed gotten anywhere. They paid his way through so much shit.
85 Cal What are you so pissed about? JD Last September, motherfucker. Cal That was as much your fault as Lukes JD Oh, was it. Cal Both you and Luke stole those beer taps from the student union. JD Ive never denied that. I was caught red-handed, so was Luke. But Luke doesnt get kicked out of school. I do. Lost my track scholarship and everything. Cal Luke told the police it was your idea. JD Like hell. You know damn well it was Lukes idea, and I just stupidly went along. And everyone knows that his parents money . .. Cal There goes the money again.
JD . . . kept him in. Yeah, money. And I dare you to honestly tell me otherwise.
Cal Well, his dad cut him off after that. No more extra funds and no more bailing him out until he graduates.
86 JD Big fuckin deal. (Pause.) But you know what really pisses me off is the way you always back Luke up. Once you rich fuckers get in bed together theres no getting you out. Cal JD, you dont know when to quit. Do you? Im just trying tell you about his .
JD Ah, hell. You know Im just screwing with you. Cal You go too far sometimes. (Cal exits.) JD Oh. remember Lukes twelfth birthday party? (Cal responds from the kitchen.) Cal Not really. JD Sure you do. His twelfth birthday. At his pool. He wanted everyone to go skinny-dipping. Then while we were swimming he told us he liked Donny Aldridge. (Cal reenters.) Cal Oh, yeah. We didnt know what the hell he was talking about. everybody liked Donny.
I mean,
JD Then Luke wanted everyone to have chicken fights. Donny climbed on his shoulders, and Luke . . . ended up pulling a Willy he got so excited.
87 Cal Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that he was gay or anything like that. B u t . . . that was hilarious. And you got him in trouble. JD Hardly. I tried to save his ass from further embarrassment. Cal I dont think so. JD Sure, I did. Cal You told everyone he was peeing in the pool. JD How else could I bay him some time so he could get rid o f his hard-on? Cal Man, his parents thought they broke him o f that habit. JD His mom, she was a riot. Grabbed him out o f the pool and swatted him with the same cake spatula she just got done cutting his own cake with. Cal And Luke went streaking down the street. What a show. JD I dont think Shaker Heights has been the same since. (Pause as they look up to listen for Luke. Suddenly Bob and Adam burst in. They whip off their winter coats. Bobs pants should be wet. Bob addresses his anger at Adam. Adam carries a twelve pack.) Bob You're an asshole!
88 Adam For the fiftieth time. Bob, shut up! JD Bob. did you wet your pants? Cal Jesus Christ, Bob, wear your Depends when you leave the house. Bob Very funny. I did not wet my pants. It was an accident. JD An accident! (Bob turns back to Adam.) Bob This asshole didnt tell me the bottles were broken! Adam I told you not to lift that case of beer, didnt I? Bob I thought you said that because you thought I couldnt lift it. Adam Oh. Well, Id never think that, now would I, Bob. Bob Fuck you! This idiot drops a case o f beer and leaves it on the floor, never telling me. Adam You guys shoulda been there. Bob picks it up while telling these three chicks about the party. As soon as he lifts it, beer squirts everywhere. Cal I dont know, Adam, his pants are pretty wet.
89 JD Yeah, are you sure he just didn't piss himself over those women? (Bob indicates Adam.) Bob You guys are about as funny as this fucked-up abortion, here. (Bob exits to change his pants.) Cal So wheres the beer and booze? Adam They're delivering it. There was too much to carry. We just brought this twelve pack for now. JD How about ice? Gotta have ice to keep this shit cold. Cal Out on the roof. JD What? Adam We still have ice from the last party. Weather being what it is, it never melted. (JD, Cal, and Adam pour the ice in a large cooler in the apartment.) JD (to Adam) Did you guys ask those chicks to come to the party? Adam Yeah, but once Bob spilled beer all over himself they just laughed and walked away.
90 (Hank comes to the door. Hes carrying a bouquet o f flowers, some Barbie dolls, and a sweatshirt draped over his arm; and hes wearing a cap backwards on his head that says "No Fat Chicks across the front. Hank knocks on the door. JD answers in a high-pitched voice, trying to imitate a woman.) JD Who is it? Hank Fuck you. (Bob reenters.) JD Sorry, not today. Hank God damn it. Open up. Bob Hey, Adam, open the door. JD No wait. Adam, when you open the door, say. What the fuck do you want, you pathetic piece o f shit. Cal Yeah, say it. Bob Come on, Adam. Say it. (Adam looks nervous about being asked to perform this task.) JD Go ahead. Practice first. Hank Come on, you guys. Let me in.
91 Adam Okay, okay. Im game. (Adam weakly mutters the statement.) Adam What the fuck do you want, you pathetic piece o f shit? (Cal, Bob, and JD look at each other and then break out in laughter.) Hank Come on, Ive got stuff! Adam Hey, Im not gonna do this if youre gonna laugh at me. Cal Oh come on, Adam. It will be fun. Adam Okay, alright. (Adam figures he might as well do this, so he opens the door and weakly utters the statement to Hank, who stands with flowers in hand.) Adam What the fuck do you want, you pathetic piece o f shit? (Hank looks surprised, but to his chagrin he realizes that he does look rather pathetic standing there with his bouquet o f flowers. Cal, Bob, and JD crack up, especially at the site of Hank and his flowers. Hank enters.) Hank Real funny. Yeah, real funny. Theres an old woman down the street selling these from out of her cart. For your next joke, why dont you set her cart on fire?
92 (Hank throws the flowers at JD.) JD Oh. come on. Hank. You know we got love, dog. Hank Fuck you. Fuck all o f you. Cal A little tense. Hank. Sue got your balls strapped to your ankles, again? Hank No, Cal. When you got balls of brass like mine, you gotta strap them to the closest appendage. Cal Oh, you wish. Hank This party doesnt help matters. Shell kill me if she finds out that Im picking up the stripper. Adam Whats this about a stripper? JD It was gonna be a surprise, but maybe its better you know about it now. Adam Why do we need a stripper? Cal Well, Dawns not just a stripper. She has other talents. Adam I dont need that. Jesus! Bob Shes just a back up. You know, plan B.
93 Cal Just think o f her as a ringer. Adam Geez, didnt you guys think about what the other women would say if theres a stripper here? JD Adam, listen. Like Cal says, she has other talents. Hank Yeah. But it will cost us five hundred dollars to get her to do her routine plus play razzle dazzle with Adams racket. Cal Five hundred dollars? Id fuck Adam for three hundred. Hank Five hundred. Bob God damn. Adam needs some pussy, but I dont think he needs it at that price. Adam I dont know if I like this. JD How about if she just dances? Hank One fifty. Cal Thats fine. JD Wheres the money? Hank Dont worry. I got you guys covered. By the way, wheres Luke?
94 JD On the roof. Where else? Hank Well, here are a couple old Barbies Sue doesn't need for her studies anymore. Bob You know where Luke keeps the Barbies. (Hank tosses the Barbies to JD. JD tosses them to Adam. Adam puts them in the Barbie birdcage.) Hank And Cal, heres the latest in Nike wear. (Hank tosses the sweatshirt to Cal.) Cal Thanks, Hank. JD How about us? Bob Yeah, how about us? Not good enough for Nike? Hank Next week. Ill get you guys a new line of jerseys and shoes. But first, Adam, I got you this hat. (Hank shows it to the others and then tosses the hat to Adam.) Adam Ah, man. No Fat Chicks!? Im not wearing this. Cal Thats hilarious. Bob Put it on, Adam!
95 Adam No way! You guys are disgusting. Im not wearing this hat. (Adam tosses the hat away.) Hank I got it at a truck stop outside of Columbus. I had to get it. Cant you see Adam screwing for the first time with this hat on? JD Yeah. And in the background Working Man is playing while Adam bangs away. (Cal and Bob sing some o f the lyrics to Working Man while pretending to screw some chick.) Cal They call me the working man . . . Bob .. . thats what I am. Adam You guys are gross. (Pause.) What would Sue say? Hank About sex and work? Sex is labor; work is orgasmic. JD So she's working, huh. Hank Yeah. Her dissertation. Cal Something about games, right? Hank The social impact o f sanctioned aggression and games. Blah, blah, blah. We dont need to talk about it. I hear about it plenty. So whats the game plan?
Bob Get the stripper! Whats her name again? Hank Dawn. Cal Yeah, lets get Dawn. Adam Hey. I really dont like this stripper idea. Cal Adam, dont worry about it. Bob Were saving you from the hassles we went through. I wish someone would have done this for me. JD Hell, you dont want to go through what Bob did, do you? Bob We dont need to bring this up, do we? Adam Why, what happened? Cal You dont know about your brothers first sexual encounter? JD More like an alien encounter. Hank Oh God, what a disaster story. (Bob tries to sneak out to the kitchen.)
97 Cal Adam, sit d o w n .. . . (Cal yells to Bob without looking.) Cal You too. Bob. I think Adam deserves to hear your story. (Bob returns to sit down on the couch.) Bob I think Im gonna be sick. Cal You see, Adam, Bob didnt have a healthy first-time sexual encounter; in fact, he didnt have sex until he turned 21. Bob Oh, come on. Lets stop here. Cal Luke was gonna fix him up with plenty o f women whod give him a hand or blow job. Bob I wanted real sex, thank you. Cal Yeah, and thats what he got when he m e t . . . what was her name? Kara . . . Kara Osgood. JD Yeah, Kara Ahhhgood. Cal He met her down at the Sun Lounge. She played skin the beaver with him that very night. Afterwards, he comes home, gets me out o f bed, and tells me that he is now a man. I said, What the fuck, did you just get a sex change or something?
98 Bob Ah. screw you. Adam So thats it? Hank Oh. no. Thats only the beginning. JD A couple days later, your brothers got major itch action. Bob Fuck all o f you. Cal Lovely Miss Ahhhgood o f Akron gave Bob the crabs. Adam Gross, Bob. Cal You want to know whats even grosser. Bob falls in love with her. I have to do the right thing, he tells us. JD Do the right thing. Like sanitize the bitch. Cal Right. Right. But no, not Bob. He decides to take her out on a date and help her to get rid o f her crabs; then they have sex a week later. Only thing is. Bob dont itch any more, but when he pees, it bums. Bob Just shoot me. Adam Thats sick, Bob! You had gonorrhea?
99 JD Chlamydia. Cant play football without a helmet on and not expect to get hurt. Adam You are one sad man. Cal You see, Adam, theres a lesson to be learned here. Hank Dont be a Bob. JD And before you fall in love, take the bitch to the health department first. . . and get all her shots. Bob Fuck you. And fuck you. Fuck all o f you! Adam Are all o f your stories that sad? JD Nowhere as sad as Bobs. Bob Well, dont let me be the play-of-the-day. You all have your battle stories. (Hank stands to get a beer.) Bob What about you, Hank? (NOTE: Throughout these speeches the actors should feel free to ad lib responses to these stories with the intention o f poking fun of the storyteller.) Hank Me? That was . . . ten years ago. Nothing all that eventful. I was leaving for college. I was really shy in high school. So I didnt date. But there was this one
100 girl who liked me a lot. Jenny Colter. She invited me to a party. I wasnt expecting anything. It was just a party. Like so many being given by graduating seniors. After a while I was pretty drunk. And Jenny drags me into this room. I remember it smelled o f mothballs and cleanser or something. Whatever. And then she leaves. She tells me, Dont go anywhere. Like where am I gonna go? But Im so drunk that I cant navigate myself through the darkness. After awhile, I can hear her talking to her friends in the hallway. And theyre trying to make certain that shes doing the right thing. Its gonna be her first time, too. I remember thinking, I dont know if want to do this. Just leave. And I try to look for my beer, since I cant find the exit. Suddenly, she comes in. We start making out. Soon the smell o f mothballs and beer and sweat mingle with our sex. Were finished. Or more likely Im finished. I dont know. While I was on top o f her, I remember her stroking my back, nice and soft. But I was also very thirsty. I spot a light under the door to the room. I pull up my shorts. And as I leave for another beer, she starts crying. Thats it. I left. Ive never seen her since. Adam Thats terrible. I hope that sex has been better with Sue. Hank Well, yeah. It was. Especially at first. We had sex all the time. But weve been married for four years now. Its different. The passion dies. She works all the time, and Im traveling for Nike, doing sales promotions. These days, we have to plan romance. Adam No passion? (JD and Cal begin tossing a basketball between them with Bob in the middle on the couch trying to catch the ball.) Hank Its more complicated than that. Theres a politics to love for us. We work at love. Its just not natural, anymore. (Pause) Listen. For Sue and me theres a major conflict that might explain the problem. Im basically a sporting goods salesman. And Sue? Sue is a feminist who hates sports. Really hates sports. It has to do with game behavior and sanctioned aggression. (Pause.) Here, let me recite something from her dissertation.
101 (Hank stands on a coffee table or beer cooler.) Cal You have to stand to say this? Hank Believe me, it makes it easier. Let me see. Oh yeah. Sue would say : M y study involves a localized investigation on the connection between the incidences of rape and the levels o f sanctioned and legitimized aggression. Games, especially violent games, will provide a focal point o f this study. I argue that the more aggression is accepted as a legal or legitimate means o f behavior, the m ore rapes occur in that area. Cal What has she got against games? Hank Its not games, per se. Its just the way a male-dominated society operates. Everything is turned into a game. And . . . we invest too much interest, social and economic, into sports. JD Like spending thirty million to renovate a football stadium rather than offer scholarships and such for education. Hank Oh, God. Exactly. I mean, I see her point. But, hey, sports is my livelihood. (Hank sits down.) Bob Its just entertainment. Hank Its political. Sue would say its political. Everything is political. And w ere not dealing with a rational animal, here. Sue also advocates the elim ination o f all deposit slots. Cal What the fuck?
102 Bob No deposit slots? (Adam responds in protest.) Adam No, she doesnt believe this. Hank The deposit slot is the ultimate symbolic site o f masculine aggression against women. The deposit slot is the image o f the vagina.. . . Cal Oh, come on. JD Actually, this sounds kinda cool. Adam No, youre wrong. Cal Adam, what do you know? Adam I had Sue for a class. She would never say anything so ridiculous. Bob Um hello, Adam. Hank is married to her. Hank Thank you, Bob. Her logic is quite clear. Our male-dominated society sees fit to deposit things we no longer need into it; hence, the disruption o f the womb. Or we deposit money into it; women as prostitutes. JD And if you slur slots, it sounds like sluts. Cal JD, shut the fuck up.
103 Hank Exactly, JD. Exactly. And to top it all off, shes going to dinner with Anita Hill
Adam Oh, wow. Hank . . . Monday night before the lecture. Bob No way. Adam Do you think Sue could get me a ticket to her lecture? Cal Forget it, Adam. After tonight the last thing youre gonna want to do is go to an Anita Hill lecture. Adam Why not? Hank Because after tonight youll be the next member o f the supreme court. Adam All o f this is rather confusing. (Hank lights up a cigarette.) Bob Hey Hank, not in here. Cal Yeah man, house rules. (Hank goes to a window, opens it, and smokes.)
104 Adam Can someone help me out? JD Adam, let me tell you about my first experience. Maybe this will clear things up. Cal Weve heard all about your sexual adventures with Maria Checa. JD No. man. I never told you about Shannon DeVille. Cal Cadillac Shannon? Bob You had sex with that monstrosity? Cal Why did you sleep with her? Shes like five years older than you and twice your size. JD Well, are you gonna listen? It happened when I was fourteen. My parents went to Disney World, so I was home alone. Since Shannon was our neighbor, my parents asked her to check on me from time to time. She came over one time and caught me drinking my dads bourbon. But instead o f getting mad she joined me. Soon all the bourbon was gone. So she suggested that we drive to the store and she would get more. On the way back from the store she pulled down an old dirt road and stopped the car in a cow field. There we were, looking at the cows, when all o f a sudden she was on top o f me, kissing me. I was shocked, you know. I mean, I was squirming under two hundred and fifty pounds o f lust. I did nothing; I couldnt. So she began to cry. But real big fake tears. Bob Fat girl tears? JD Yeah, fat girl tears. She told me she didnt want to be a virgin before going away to college.
105 Adam No way! Did you like her? JD Hell, no. But she had me intrigued. I mean it was kind o f cool that she was trying to manipulate me. As if I were some innocent guy she could seduce. Cal But why mercy fuck her? Come on. JD It wasnt like that at all. You see. I knew what she was doing. The game was to not let her know that I knew. You see? The way I saw it, if I fucked her. Id be one up on her. So to speak. I mean, she was practically raping me. Anyway . . . (Pause.) I undid her shirt. I thought I might as well see how big her titties were. Soon there she was. Naked. In all her cellulite glory. And then she stripped me, pulled me on top o f her, and were going at it like V-8 pistons in a crank shaft. But I wasnt getting into it. Bob Go figure. Look who you were with. (NOTE: Depending on effect and intended meaning, Tom Cruise can also work for Bruce Lee in the speech below.) JD Well, I started thinking of ways to become aroused, and nothing worked. And I thought, You know what I need, I need to get rid o f her. You know? G et the imagination working. So I began thinking that I am her. Im much more into myself, anyway. You know, I disconnect m yself from my self. My own private fantasy. That worked a little. Then, I imagined that I was Bruce Lee, and not only Bruce Lee having sex, but Bruce Lee having sex with me if I were a woman, and Im doing all the things that I want Bruce Lee to do if I were him having sex with a woman. It was intense. I was the stud I ever imagined I would be if I were Bruce Lee having sex with me as a woman. We had sex three, four times in that cow field.
106 Adam Wait. Im just, Im just trying to catch up. You were you as Bruce Lee would be, or you were Bruce Lee as you would have Bruce Lee be if you were a woman? Cal Forget it, Adam. JD, why try to confuse the kid? JD Hey, we were all being honest. I thought that Id tell it like it was for me. Cal Are you done with that cigarette, Hank? Its freezing in here. (Hank puts out his cigarette and closes the window.) Bob Well, how about you, loverboy? Adam Yeah, Cal. How about you? Cal My first experience was a little more special than the rest o f you. (Hank moves to sit down.) Hank Well, arent you special. Bob So did you have some Penthouse magazine love-bash with Carol? Cal No. Even though Carol and I dated for two years in high school, we never had sex. At that time, I believed in a loving commitment. Can you believe it? Love! By the time I came to college, though, I was ready. But in college all my talk o f love and commitment scared women away. I got dumped so many times that I didnt care anymore. But the first time I had sex, it was magical. How could I tell you guys about it? Youd ruin it.
107 Bob Well, pardon me. JD Sorry to make you live a lie. Adam Shut up you guys, I want to hear this. Cal First time I saw her was in the student union. She had long black hair and deep dark eyes. I couldnt stop staring at her. She was beautiful. Mysterious. Then after that day I kept seeing her, on campus, at the Sun Lounge. Until one day when I was leaving the library after doing research for an Ayn Rand essay, I saw her. She was talking to some people outside the library, so I walked by to overhear her conversation. I couldnt believe it; she was talking about Ayn Rand to a bunch o f these real artsy-fartsy guys. So I thought that theres got to be this connection between us. I thought theres this chance-fate thing going on. I really felt something between us. JD That feeling has a remedy, my friend. Cal Well, anyway. That very night, Im out with Luke at the Sun. And sure enough, shes there, on the dance floor. Dancing. And her dance was incredible. Her feet were planted solid to the floor. And her knees bent slightly to the music, up and down, while her hips moved seductively, back and forth, as if she were having sex in the air. All the while, her arms circled and spiraled in magical motions about her head and body. Bob Again with the magic. Adam Be quiet. Bob. This is cool. Cal But there was a big problem. Dont you see? I was worshiping her. Just as I had all those other women I tried to date. It was terrible. No woman wants to meet
108 a man who has gone to that point of desperation. At one point she went to get a drink. So I followed her. I was determined to say one thing to her, even if she laughed in my face. At the bar I noticed that she bought a margarita. So I waited until she finished her drink. I bought her a margarita. I walked over to her table, and I said, I bet you know everything there is to know about Ayn Rand. I handed her the drink. Her face softened into this charmed smile. I smiled back. She took the drink. And I walked away. Bob Cal. wheres the sex? Hank You know, I could have expanded on my story a bit more. Cal Im getting to it. I need to tell it all. JD Yeah, give him a chance. Adam Go on. Cal For the next hour, she kept looking at me. And I played it cool. Luke was eating it up. He kept telling me that I played a cool hand. Finally, she came over to my table. And right off, we had a blast. She wanted to know how I knew she was into Ayn Rand. I never told her. Id just say stuff like she had existentially dark eyes. Later that night, were walking all over downtown Akron, just talking about music, movies, and stuff. Ended up she had a boyfriend. I figured just as much. I was just happy following her around. Soon, before I knew it, we were walking up to her apartment. And Im still not thinking sex. She puts on some Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street. We start playing around, touching each other, testing the limits, until we stare into each others eyes and just fold into each other. It all happened, naturally. I would say lovingly. It was an adventure. Hank Well, what happened after that? There has to be more.
109 Bob A ren't you making some of that up? How come I never saw her? Cal I wish I was making it up; then I wouldnt have to compare every woman I date or have sex with to that night. What happened after that? I dont know. Everything was so perfect that I didnt know what to do. I thought she had a boyfriend. I dont know. Adam What was her name? Cal Emily. Emily is her name. Adam Man, I cant wait for tonight. I want to meet someone like that, someone special. Lets start this party right now. How about some music? (Adam turns on music Alicia Bridges singing I Love the Nightlife.) Hank Now, weve started something. Bob Something other than this retro crap? Adam No. Stick to the deal. Hank What deal?
Cal
His party. His music. Adam I just think that disco puts you in a groove to have fun!
110 (Adam turns the music louder.) JD I can dig it. Dancing Queen! Adam There you go! Cal I say, lets disco! Hank Damn, I should have brought my bell bottoms. (Adam dances around the room. The others watch as he develops his routine. Soon, one-by-one the others follow in step. The dance does not need to be perfectly synchronized; in fact, it might be better if they have fun with the music. Five guys having fun at their own expense. But a briefly choreographed dance would suggest the togetherness of the pack. At this point there are two possible breaks before the next act: Intermission or Interlude. Intermission: They exit the stage in a chorus line, disco fashion. Fade to black. Interlude: They continue to dance on the stage and audience members might be invited on the stage to dance as the dance could serve as a segue to the next act without an intermission as the music breaks into YMC A by the Village People. Might also try a choreographed dance to YMC Athe characters who remain for the next act could strip down to their boxers and t-shirts. Adam, Bob, and Cal can exit.)
End of Act One
Act Two
AT RISE: The apartment after the party. When the men appear, they are in various states o f undressboxer shorts, t-shirts, bathrobes, etc. The tv is on. Hank sits in the recliner with a stack o f magazines by him; JD relaxes on the couch and surfs through the tv channels, beer is ready at hand. Several bottles o f booze are scattered about the room. In addition, bouquets of flowers, beaten and wilted, clutter the room and dangle garland-like on the back wall. The tv station stops on an evangelist who is preaching. Cal, also in boxers and sweatshirt, enters from one of the back rooms. Disheveled and wincing in slight pain, he is trying to shake off his hangover. He crosses to the stereo, stepping on beer cans and kicking bouquets out o f the way; while he makes his way to the stereo, he picks up a brawith no surprise on his faceand tosses it at Hank. Hank and JD do not respond. Cal Oh man, what time is it? (Hank and JD pay little attention to him. Long pause before Cal speaks again.) JD A little after ten. Hank Time to get saved. (Hank gets up and turns off the tv.) JD Hey. I was watching that. Cal Is there . . . is there anything left in that bottle?
Ill
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited w ithout permission.
112
Hank Here. Cal Is it cold in here? (pause) (He addresses the bottle.) Cal A bit o f the hair . . . (He swallows a big gulp) Cal Oh God, what am I doing? Ive got work to do, and my mom is coming by today. (Cal hits his head, trying to knock his hangover out) JD What do you mean by today? She was here last night. Hank Yeah. Cal What? JD Your mom, Linda. She was here. Cal She was here? Howd I miss her? Hank She came in before Brainicide got here. Partied around.
113
JD She and Luke did shots o f tequila, and then I think she left. Said she was gonna look for you. Hank And I might add, your mom is one hot number. (Hank farts loud and long.) Cal Oh, man! Hank Ahhh. that was a good one. JD Hes been doing that all morning. Cal Geez. did you blow chunks with that one? (Hank lights a match.) Cal Its fucking toxic waste for Christs sake. (Cal goes to the window and flings it open.) Cal Hey, whats the weather like? JD No change, man. Still cloudy. No break. No fuckin break. (We hear Luke on the roof.) Cal Jesus, its been like this since November. How much more are we supposed to take? Have you heard the forecast from Mona?
114
JD
Mona stopped giving the weather report. Cal Stopped reporting the weather? Mona? No way. Hank She only mentions the regular news and that Anita Hill lecture. Cal Anyone else up?
JD
Bob and Adam are still crashed. And Lukes on the roof. (JD points up.) Cal Still looking for the sun.
JD
He was in-and-out last night, until the cops showed up. Then he was gone. (With a hunch of accusation, Cal and JD look at Hank.) Hank What?
JD
Wed like to know who called the cops. Hank I certainly did not. Cal Maybe you should get your toxic ass back to your wife. (Pause) Dont you have a wife to go home to?
115 Hank What really is a wife? JD Get the fuck out o f here! Hank I can't. Cal Are you too drunk? Hank No. Cal Then what? Hank Tm locked out. Cal Oh, Jesus. Hank Sue locked me out. (Pause.) JD Well, Ive got some good news. I think Luke bagged a Betty last night. (Cal shuts the window and moves to the couch new found hope.) Cal Cool! Maybe the OF Luke is back. Break this slump. Break the slump w ere all in.
116 Hank Always got Ernest Angeley, Praise the Lord and professional wrestling. Curealls for cabin fever. (Hank burps.) Hank Beer. Cal Hey, wheres my banner? My carnival banner? Hank Want some chicken? (Cal runs to his banner and tries to fix it) Cal What? Hank Chicken. Cal Whered that come from? Hank Last night. Remember? We got two cases o f beer. And food. We were gonna pretend to have a picnic. While the party was goin on. Remember? Cal All I remember is that one chicks tits .. . man! Those tits . . . Hank Amazing, yes. You wanted to give them an offering of food. You thought it would keep them here. Thats where this bra came from. You told her you didnt believe she was 48 DD. And when she was leaving with her friends, you were yelling at them to come back, saying shit like, Come back. Little Sleeza!
117 JD Soon after that Adam started yelling for Mona. You in one com er going Sleaza! Sleaza! And Adam across the room going Mona! Mona! Cal Mona, wheres the fuckin sun? Its April for Christ sakes. Everythings gray, cold. You know, they have technology that tracks tiny meteors; they can program a missile to go through a bathroom window in fucking Saddam Husseins palace. But we cant do anything about the weather. I swear its like the skys puked its old gray brain out into the air. Hank Hey. Im eating. Cal Well, did any o f you get anything last night? Hank Nothing but this chicken. JD Dont make me laugh. Hank What? JD Dawn had more than one of your drumsticks, Colonel. Hank I dont know what youre talking about. (To JD.) Cal Alright, alright. Lets not fight. What about you, JD? JD Me? I had a magical sexual adventure I prefer to keep to myself.
118 Cal Okay, if thats the way its gonna be. Everything feels so disconnected. (Cal stares off.) Cal I've got to get out o f here. JD And go where? Cal I dont know. I just feel like Ive either got to get out of here or join Luke on the roof. JD Well. I got major news. Adam got lucky last night. Cal No way. The party worked! JD Yeah . . . well, something happened. Dont know the . . . sordid details. But I know that he scored a Betty last night. Cal Oh God. Is she still up there in his room? JD I dont know. Im not certain. She mightve left this morning when I dozed off a bit. Hank I havent seen her. Cal Besides, this might call for another party. Adam . .. Adam come down here! (Cal starts laughing to himself) Doesnt matter anyway. (Pause)
119 Cal Dont make me come up there and beat your ass! Hank Man. dont do this. The Betty might still be there. (Bob comes in from one of the back rooms in his bathrobe, adjusting his glasses.) Cal Im counting on it. (Cal turns and sees bathrobed Bob, who crosses the stage and sits down on the couch.) Cal Hey, Bob. Have you seen Adam? Do you know if hes with anyone? (Bob remains a bit stiff, monotoned.) Bob Don't fuck with Bob this early. Do you have to wake everyone in the house? If hes with a Betty, leave him alone. Cal Fuck. Bob Beer. (Pointing over to Hank) Bob Give me that beer. Hank Dude, its warm. Bob Give it to me.
120 Hank Here. Bob Thanks. Oh, thats good. I dont care if its cloudy forever as long as I can drink. Maybe Ill bury myself in a bar today. Anyone want to join me? Cal Ive got work to do. JD Work? On a Sunday? (Cal begins playing around with balloons, trying to fit two in the cups o f the bra.) Hank Hey, what did you guys think of Dawns dance? JD It was fucking sweet, man. Bob Oh, God. She was hot. I wanted her and her friend, right there and then. Whats her friends name? JD Wouldnt you like to know. Cal They danced like they were in some tribal ceremony. Bob Ye;ih, sure. But who was her friend? Cal Your sister, Julie Bob Fuck you. Tell me.
121 JD I think her name was Aurora. Hank You know. Dawn was really cool. Bob Yeah, she was. She really digs the Cleveland Indians. Hank Knows the entire history o f the tribe. And get this, shes got season tickets. Bob Ah, man! Thats cool. (Luke moves around upstairs. Cal has finally gotten the balloons in the cups o f the bra.) Cal Hey, guys. Look at this. Hank Now thats good enough to worship. (Hank and Bob offer the balloons mock actions o f ceremonial worship. Then happily, Adam bounds down the steps like a victorious boxer, wearing boxer shorts and a robe that is left open. His chest has noticeable scratch marks.) Adam Guys, WHAT A PARTY! Huh? What do you say? Cal/Bob/Hank/JD Adam! Adam Did you see the women? Whered they all come from? At our house. Our party. Man, the partys still in my head. Didnt I tell ya the moonshine would be a hit?
Bob Yeah,. . . oh God, I should have stuck to beer. JD Well, you know its a great party when a band like Brainicide shows Bob You're right, youre right. They did show up, didnt they? Adam Did you see what Brainicide brought me? Hank Heroin, right? Adam No, they brought. . . (Bob points to Cal.) Bob Brainicide. What a name. I cant believe you invited them. (Adam to Bob.) JD Yeah, they were looking for Julie. Bob In their dreams, in their dreams. Cal Or maybe somewhere else. (Cal knows that Bobs sister showed up at the party) Bob What? (Adam cautions Cal)
123
Adam He means nothing, Bob. Nothing else. (Adam exits to the kitchen.) Cal Yeah, ri ght . . . whatever. Bob Well, theres no chance that shell ever be around a band like that. Believe me. Shes not going to. (Cal responds sarcastically) Cal Not with Big Brother here to watch her every move, right? Bob Yeah . . . well, what of it? I dont want her hurt. Whats wrong with that? Hank Nothing, Bob. Nothing. Just ignore him. Cal Lord knows what would happen, say, if Luke got his hands on her. Bob Well, fat chance that that will ever happen. You certainly took your shot at her. (Adam reenters.) Cal Fuck you, Bob! Adam Will you guys cut it out! Cal As soon as Bob, here, admits to his sexual attraction for his sister, I ll leave him alone.
124
Hank Oh come on. Bob What the fuck do you know about me and my sister? Adam Come on, you two. Dont you want to know about the gift I got? Cal Sure, Adam. Shoot. Adam Roses. Roses from Mona. Bob Look at those scratches on your neck. JD Did you roll on them? Adam I was trying to keep them away from Luke, and I must have got scratched up. But that doesnt matter. The guys from Brainicide brought them from Mona! They know her from the radio station. Its her way o f thanking me for all the fan mail I send her. JD Wow. Emissaries bearing gifts o f great joy. Cal Adam, for someone who was a bit uptight about the flower thing in the first place, dont you think its kind o f weird? I mean, Id kinda worry if Brainicide brought me roses. Adam Theyre from Mona.
125 Bob You should worry more about Luke. Cal Luke's fine. Hes just going through a transitional period. Bob Transitional period? Is that what you call it? Painting the attic black, sealing off your windows, and only coming out to talk about the weather. Adam His room is like a black hole in our attic. Cal So what? So hes shut himself off from the world for a while. Whats that to us? He isnt hurting any o f us. (Pause as they stare at one another.) Adam Its ju st weird. I mean, what is this, Bates Motel? The guys psycho. And now, hes outside . . . on the roof. Its freezing and hes on the roof. Cal Luke will be fine. Adam Well, hes creeping me out. He wanders around naked most o f the time. Bob Naked? Cal No he doesnt, Adam. Adam What would you know? Im the only one up there with him. Sometimes he sits on my bed naked, or he sits on the roof. Naked.
126 Bob Oh no, just think if the neighbors saw him. Hank That boy definitely needs help. Cal Adams just making this up. Adam The last thing Id make up is Luke sitting on my bed, naked. Bob What a freak! Cal You want to talk about freaks, Bob. Adam Cal, stop it. Cal Luke told me something about you. Bob Yeah, sure Cal. Lets hear it. Cal Do you guys know that Bob cant piss standing? Bob told Luke all about how he couldnt stand the thought o f his sister hearing his piss in the toilet. So he always squats to piss. (Pause as room is silent.) Bob Okay, Cal. Okay. You got me. Sure, I could say some things about all of you. But I dont play that game. I know Im an easy target. Always have. But I love my sister. How many o f you can truly say you love anyone?
127 JD Hey, you know, why dont we get to more important things? Hank Yeah, I agree. Adam, we hear you had some action last night? Bob Wait. Is there anymore o f that pizza left? Hold on until I get back. (Bob exits to the kitchen.) Hank Man, whyd you do that? Cal Im tired o f it. Him and his fuckin sister. Like she does no wrong. Little slut. Couldnt think her way out o f a Sheldon novel. And how many guys did she give numbers to last night? Adam Hey! Now, Julie and I dont get along. Ive always been the outcast between the two. But you could use some tact. Cal Sorry, Adam. Im mad at Bob, not your sister. Hank So whos it hurtin? Cal Im tired o f hearin it. And its just fucked. Its just not right the way he talks about her all the time. Like her shits too good for the shithouse. And you know what I want to know. How in the hell did that guy get a sister like that? I mean look at him? That cheap robe he got from some freakin Fredericks of Hollywood toss out sale. Then her. Dead-to-the-heart knockout. (Bob comes back with pizza. Hank to Cal.) Hank Have you said enough?
128 Bob Alright, shoot. Cal Yes, Adam. I hear we have reason for further celebration. Adam Gentleman, I do not mean to brag, seeing as how all of you stumbled o ff to lonely beds in a drunken stupor, but I can say with full confidence that I did the proverbial it. My loins were engaged in fortuitous fornication. I am, as I have heard by many who are no longer virgins, a . . . MAN. Cal Good show, Adam. Guys, three cheers for Adam. (Cal, Hank, and Bob stand and put their arms around each others shoulders. JD puts his arms around Adam. After the cheers, Bob and Hank pretend to cry, blotting their eyes as they look at Adam) Cal/Hank/Bob Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Gooooo, Adam! JD Hes so young. Before you know it, theyre grown up. Hank Why, it seems like just yesterday that he was our innocent youth . . . our little Adam. Cal Which one was it? (NOTE: The actors should ad lib responses to Adams story, having fun at his expense.) Adam Well, you guys remember that one chick whose tits I grabbed when we were scrunched up in the kitchen? Wait. No. Not her. That was too early. Wait! I know, I know. It was this other chick with really real blond hair. Yeah! Oh.
129 yeah. Ive seen her around campus a lot. She was wearing this like cross, so I thought I would be clever if I went up and asked her if she really believed in all that crap. (Adam laughs for a moment at his cleverness. Then the reality o f the consequences of his question hit him. He looks confused) Adam No. Not her. She left. W a i t . . . wait. I know now. Yeah, Luke was there. He was sipping some moonshine and offered me a shot, straight. I thought itd kill me. Then we played on the Internet for a while. Checked out the pomo sites. I thought I might find a site for Mona. Luke left. Said he had a surprise for me. I kept looking at the pomo sites Then this little brown-haired chick came up. Or maybe she wasnt so little. I dont know. I couldnt make out her face so well. Cal Adam, stick to the important facts. Adam Oh yeah, yeah. She took a shot of moonshine, and I was about to pass out when she grabbed me . . . you know where. JD Was it hard? Adam Jesus, come on you guys. Well, I thought I heard Luke laughing in the hall. And I kept thinking she was so pretty, but I cant remember her face now. God, she was pretty. Thats really kindve sad, isnt it? She was so nice, and she like kept me from hittin Luke, who kept laughing and teasing me. And she told me something really sweet, but I cant remember it now. Cal Okay, thats fine. Very illuminating. I picture her clearly. Now, what did you do? How did it happen? Bob Dont spare us the sordid details.
130 Adam Hmmmm. Lets see. Well, we talked about the weather. JD Oh, God. You might as well have been talking to Luke. Cal Dont interrupt. Go on, Adam Adam Lets see. The weather. Yes. The weather. Oh, you know what? She told me shes a close friend o f Monas. And I thought, Man, shes like some messenger from Mona. We talked about the sun and clouds. Then we joked about performing some ancient sacrifice to get the sun to shine. Some kind o f pre-crop planting appeal to the gods. Cal Get to the point, Adam. Adam What? Cal The fucking. The screwing. Adam Umm . . . yeah. We started kissing, and I kept my eyes closed, so I wouldn't get sick. The room kept spinning. And then it pretty much happened. You know. And here I am. (Cal, Hank, and Bob look at one another, confused and dissatisfied.) Hank Dude, you, like, didnt go down on her or nothing? Adam Y eah,. . . su re.. . . I think so.
131 Cal Did she, like, give you a blow-job? Adam Yeah, sure. .. . O f course. Bob Are you in love, Adam? Adam What?! (Cal and Hank begin singing, taunting Adam) Cal and Hank Adams in love. Adams in love . . . Adam No. Im not. You guys stop that. (Adam chases them around the room, trying to get them to stop. Cal and Hank start dancing around him. laughing whenever he hits them or tries to cover up their mouths. JD jumps up on an upstairs step to get out o f the way. Bob eats his food and laughs at the activity. Cal and Hank begin dancing with Adam, spinning him around and pushing him back and forth between each other. They sing words from I Love the Nightlife. Adam tries to escape, as the spinning is making him ill. JD joins in on the dance. This scene should be comical, playful, and joyousexcept for Adam.) Adam You guys, sto p .. . . Im gonna get sick. (They ignore him, and Adam begins to look sicker and sicker. Finally, he exits to the kitchen. While the others continue to dance and laugh, throwing beer cans and trash around, we hear Adam vomit offstage. Brief pause as we hear the roof creak from Luke.)
132 Bob I can use a drink. JD There's nothing left to drink. Cals mom was giving it away free to everyone last night. Bob Away free, huh? (Bob finds Hanks stash o f magazines.) Bob Hey. whose magazines are these? Hank Mine. Bob Did you bring them last night? Cal No. Hank Sue locked me out. She found my stash o f magazines. Threw them out. My whole collection nearly ruined. Out on the lawn. Bob Thats too bad. (Bob and Hank begin to look through the collection.) Cal Hey, Luke should be down here. JD He really freaked out when the cops got here.
133 Cal We all freaked out. JD Not as bad as Luke did. He bolted to his room and locked the door. (Adam reenters.) Adam I'm glad they only told us to turn down the noise level. Bob Hey! Look at this! (Bob shows them the magazines) Adam What? Bob This is quite a collection. (JD moves toward the window.) Adam Wow! A lot o f women last night. Now, more women! Bob Let's see. Lets see. What have we got here? (Cal calls for Luke from the bottom o f the steps.) Cal Luke! Luke! Come down here. Bob Man, look at this! Youve got all the classics.
134 Hank My collection goes way back. Ive got Jayne Mansfield, Barbi Benton, Dorothy Stratten. Bob Dorothy Stratten? Let me look at that one. She was killed, wasnt she? Adam Killed? Hank Yeah, murdered by her husband. Adam Why? Hank Shit like that happens. Bob And thats an injustice, man. Look at her. Shes the bomb, dude. Adam Hey, JD. Dont you want to look? JD Not really. Bob You know who was always one o f my favorites? My boyhood fantasy girl, Kim Evenson. Do you have her? Hank Right here, my friend. Bob Oh, man. Adam Let me see.
135
Cal Do you guys think I should check on Luke? Hank Not before you check this out, Cal. A whole history o f bathing suit models. JD Is Linda in there? (To Cal.) Yo mama. Cal I'm gonna check on Luke. (Cal exits up the steps.) Hank I keep thinking someone needs to do a whole history on this stuff. Adam How about Sue? Hank Youve got to be kidding. Adam From Barbie dolls to Barbi Benton. Hank Very good, Adam Bob Im impressed, Adam. JD You guys find that stuff exciting, huh. Bob Yeah, sure. It works. JD You know what excites me? The real thing. Listen up boys.
136
(JD moves in closer to them and stands in front o f them at the couch.)
JD
Picture this. A sensual woman who has ju st come out o f the shower. Her body is warm and glowing. She puts her robe on, and its left open as she walks into the bedroom. There she takes out some lotion that shes gonna spread on her body. First, she puts some on her belly and begins rubbing it in a circular motion. Soon both hands are spreading out the lotion. Her slick hands rise higher on her body in a circular manner, stroking the lotion under the cusps o f her breasts until her hands rise full on her breasts where she gently plays with her nipples, with the lotion. The room is filled with the aroma of lotion and her warm body. Then her hands move over her breasts, and shes rubbing her chest up and down until she collects whatever lotion is left on her belly and spreads it down to the inner parts o f her thighs. That turns me on. (Cal reenters.) Cal Hey, the hallway door at the top o f the steps is locked. (The others ignore him.) Cal Listen to me. Luke has locked the upstairs door. Why? JD Maybe he's with a woman. Bob You think theres a woman upstairs? Hank Ill check. Bob Wait, Ill check. I live here. (Adam suddenly responds to C als question with great fear.)
137 Adam Oh my God! Maybe . . . maybe, shes up there! Hank What? Adam That girl. That girl. I think shes still up there. Bob Ill check for you. Hank Maybe she locked the door. Cal Adam, what do you mean by you think shes up there? Dont you know? Adam I woke up when she left my room. I thought that she went home. But I also think someone was in the bathroom. Did any of you guys see her leave? Hank If you dont know who she is, then how are we gonna know? Bob Maybe if shes still up there, shes someone we know, and shes too embarrassed to come down. Cal Like who. Bob? Bob Yo mama! Cal Fuck you. (Bob repeats the phrase in a playful sing song.)
138 Bob Yo mama, yo mama . . . Cal Shut the fuck up. Will someone shut him up? Hank Bob, man, stop it. Youre not funny. (Bob stops his taunt, seeing that no one else is joining in.) Adam Who was Cals mom? Bob That older woman. All in black. High heels. The black sweater. Adam Oh, God. The black-sweater-woman. JD I think she left to look for Cal when he chased that one chick who went to the Sun Lounge. Hank I know she said that, but I dont recall her leaving. Bob If you ask me, I remember her going with Luke upstairs. I dont think she left. Maybe Adam did her and now Lukes got her. Adam What? I didnt do Cals . . . I mean, I didnt have sex with . . . I mean, I didnt sleep with . . . I didnt do anything with Cals mom. Bob How do you know? You cant remember shit. Cal Forget it, Bob. My mom cares for Luke like she does for me. Thats all.
139
Bob Yeah, right. She cares for him. Cal Besides, I know whos up there. Bob Your mom and Psycho Luke. Cal Nope. Your sister. Bob Yeah, right. Its already been established that Julie was not here last night. Cal Bob. what do you know? You were passed out after your third beer. Bob I was not. Cal You cant drink worth shit. Bob Can too. I partied all night. Besides, you were too busy chasin every T & A that was too slow and too drunk to outrun you. JD I know one thing, Bob. You were so drunk you didnt know that Dawns dancing partner was Luke. (All respond in quizzical amazement.) Hank No way.
140 Bob That wasnt Luke. JD Sure was. Hes been planning it for a week. Cal It wasnt Luke. JD Sure was. He thought hed have a little fun at the party. We thought you guys would recognize him. But when you didnt, it just made it funnier for us. Bob No way it couldve been Luke. Cal It wasnt Luke. JDs making this up. Hank How do you know? Cal How could Luke do all the things were saying? Come on, you guys. JD s making this up. JD Why would I make this up? Im just trying to straighten things out, here. Youre the ones with the problem, not me. Bob Forget about it. Okay? Lets just drop it. If I was or wasnt staring at some guys ass last night, I want to forget about it. Okay? Im just glad that Julie wasnt here. (Pause as they stare at Bob.) Adam Bob. (Pause.) Julie was here.
141 Bob What? Adam Julie was here. Bob You lied to me? Adam She made me promise. Bob But I'm your brother. Why didnt you tell me? Adam You know Julie. Cal Ha! Dont make me fuckin laugh. He cant tell tits from asses. The only reason I didnt fuck her, Bob, is because I decided to be the gracious host and let all the other guys have a crack at her first. JD Thats a good one, Cal. Bob Im gonna break your neck! (Bob lunges after Cal; Cal ducks under Bobs arms and places Bob in a fiill-Nelson. Hank and Adam try to break Cal and Bob apart.) Cal Come on, Bobby. All you need to do is bend over and youd be in Julies favorite position. Bob God damn it! Im gonna kill you! Get your hands o ff me.
142
Hank Come on! Stop it. Cal, youre gonna hurt him. Cal Fuck him. Bob Youd better kill me, motherfucker, because Ill get you when you least expect it. JD Bob, shut up. Its not Cal you should be pissed at. Its Julie or Luke. (Bob stops struggling.) Bob What? (Cal throws Bob to the ground.) Adam Hes right. She was with Luke for about a half hour. You were out back, puking your guts out. I told her she should check on you. Shed say, "Yeah, yeah. Im gettin there. But she never went. Finally, I went out to help you. Remember. You were a mess. I couldnt tell you that Julie was inside and wouldnt come out to see you. You wouldnt understand. After I cleaned you up, we came inside. And she was gone. Cal And then later that night, Adam the Innocent got her. Adam Hey, wait a minute! Hank Leave him alone.
143 Adam Keep me out of this. You guys are making too much o f this. Come on. We just had a party. Thats all. Nothing else. I mean, the way things are going you might accuse me o f sleeping with Sue, next. Hank Yeah, right. Adam Well, she was here. Looking for you. Hank She was here? Adam Yes, she was looking for you just before the cops came. Hank How could I have missed her? Adam Well, I didnt miss her. I got them all. Adam, king o f the house. Luke!? Step aside. Im the new man o f the house. Who knows how many more women I have up there. All o f them just waiting for Adam to take them. W hos next in line? (Bob rises. Angry and determined, he runs to the steps and stops.) Bob Im not gonna wait and find out. Im gonna drag that asshole off the roof, and out o f here. Cal Wait! W hats the rush? Adam Thats right. You need my authorization, anyway.
144 Bob Im sick o f this. Cal But what are you gonna do? Rush up there and bust down the door? Hank We gotta do something. Cal Why? Why do we gotta do something? Hank Don't you think hes up there with someone? Bob We should find out. Hank I wonder who? Adam Doesnt matter. Theyre all mine. They will have nothing to do with any of you. (Bob ignores Adam.) Cal He's alone. Bob Then whats he doing? Whys the door locked? Cal I dont know, but do we need to rush up there as if hes some monster or something? Theres such a thing as loyalty to a friend. Lets give him time. Hell come down and then well talk. (Hank walks to the door to leave.)
145 Hank Well, I dont need to stay. You guys handle this. This is too weird for me. JD Do you think its wise to go home? Hank What? JD What if Sue knows you were with Dawn? Hank But I wasnt. (Hank moves to sit back down.) JD I just find it interesting that Sue came up to the party when you and Dawn vanished. And then when shes gone, the cops break the party up. Now she wont let you in. (Hank sits down on the couch. JD looks around the room.) JD And you guys. How much longer are you gonna live like this? Bob What do you mean? JD Lukes making fools out o f all of you. You tip-toe around him, afraid to disturb him. How long are you gonna take this? (Pause) Oh, and hes some friend. His cash has made bitches out of all of you. (Pause.) You know, you guys are a bunch of pussies. No. Worse. Youre bleeding assholes, afraid to confront the bogey-man in the attic. (Bob confronts Adam.)
146
Bob Are you sure you did it last night? JD That's it, Bob. Get to the bottom of this. Adam Need you question me? As sure as I am on this couch, I had sex last night. (Cal moves to the window and stares out it.) Bob Are you certain? Adam Yes, ye o f little faith. Why ask? Bob Cuz you can't remember shit. Adam So. Bob Well, the only thing you do remember is Luke. Adam So. Bob So? Get with the program, man. What do you think? Cal Get off it, Bob. Leave him alone. Bob We dont know whats gotten into Luke. Do we? Why has he been acting weird all winter? Why did he dress in drag at our party? Why wont he let us upstairs? And why is every light out?
147 Cal Get off it. Bob. Bob We should have known his tendencies from what happened at his twelfth birthday party. Cal H e's not gay. Hes j u s t . . . Bob And now poor Adams been a party to his exploits Cal Luke just likes sex . . . Adam Wait a minute! Cal . .. its just sex. Luke is obsessed with sex. Adam Im n o t . . . Im not gay. I dont do that kind of stuff. Women. I like women. Women! And I know the difference. JD What do you know. Adam? Cal I cant believe were doing this. If only the sun would come out, we could get out... Hank Will you cut the Little Orphan Annie shit! I want to know whats going on. Adam I know a lot. I know what happened to Luke last October. (Cal quickly turns on Adam.)
148 Cal You know nothing. Adam Youre not stopping me from telling. Cal You know shit. Bob Finally, the truth. JD Yes, I think its time everyone knew the truth. Adam It was that Indian summer ni ght . . . Cal No! (Cal rushes over to Adam and grabs him by the throat. Hank rushes after Cal and pulls Cal away.) Cal Ill tell it. Hes gonna keep his fuckin mouth shut. JD Its Adams story. Lets hear it. Cal Hell get it all wrong. Hank I want to hear it from Adam. JD Go on, Adam.
149 Bob Just start from the beginning Adam Well, it happened that Indian summer night. We were enjoying the warm weather. Remember that small party? Bob, passed out by around ten. And then Hank you went off somewhere I think home, to Sue. So Cal and Luke and me went out. We were in the Sun Lounge; and after a while Luke was unstoppable. I mean, every chick he talked to wanted him. He was hittin on a bunch o f women and gettin their numbers and shit. And Cal and me were laughin our asses off. Finally, Cal got hungry and wanted to leave. But it was a bitch tryin to get Luke to go. He wanted to take all the women home. I thought that was cool, but Cal said that we should head back. I dont know how we left, but we did, and Luke was pissed and wastedone foul combination. Bob Weve all seen that mood. Adam (continuing) On the way home, thats when we ran into a little trouble. There was this girl. I cant . . . Hank Take your time, Adam. Cal You see. He cant get it right. Adam Im gonna get it right. Like I shouldve from the start. Im just getting pissed off about it the more I think about it. Anyway. This girl. Real cute. Like Winona Ryder or something. She was so drunk she could hardly walk. And she looked real sick. You know? Crossed-eyed and slumped over. Luke started scammin on her. Was tryin to get her to come back to our place. Then Cal and Luke both started jokin about doing her. Cal Yeah, lets not keep yourself out of this.
150 Adam Fuck you, Cal. Yeah, sure, I was game. But I also started thinkin about how sick she was and I wasnt interested anymore. But I didn't know what to do. I never had sex before. And suddenly this is it? Bob It was probably good enough for Cal and Luke. Cal Go to hell, Bob. JD Shut the fuck up. I want to hear this. Adam Well, she kept tellin us that she was sick. Cal and me were hungry, so we told Luke to forget her. Luke said no. Said hed take her home, and then he got really pissed when we said that wed help him. He took off with her. Picked her up and they were gone. An hour later Cal and me were finishing o ff a pizza and in comes Luke. His shirt all dirty and he smelled o f puke. Said he got sick and that he lost her somewhere. Hank So how did this change Luke? JD Oh, man! Bob I know where this is leading. Adam Well, that girl. Ended up she was that girl that was found dead. You know? Dragged in the bushes outside her dorm. Drowned in her own vomit. Luke was the one who dragged her there and left her. Cal We dont know that for certain.
151 Hank He did nothing to help . . . Bob That fuckin asshole. She was one o f Julies friends. She was real cool. Why didnt you guys do something? Say something? Instead you just let us deal with Luke who got weirder and weirder. Adam I cant believe Ive waited this long. (Hank turns to Cal.) Hank And you. You fuck. Why didnt you do something? Cal Im not certain that Luke is guilty. Hes never admitted to it. Hank What? Not guilty? Adam Cal, youre full o f shit. Cal I dont know! Dont you think Id like to know? I kept thinking about doing something; but I didnt know what. I kept thinking, how do we know Luke did it? Or maybe she crawled there on her own. As each day went by, I felt less like it. I dont know. (Pause.) I just want to get out o f here. (Hank crouches to his knees) Hank Ah shit, man. We gotta think. JD We re all accessories to the crime, now.
152 Bob How? JD Aren't we? We have knowledge of the crime or at least valuable information. To not reveal what we know makes us accessories. Bob We gotta get Luke to turn himself in. JD Something must be done. Adam Well, I know what we need to do. We need to get that asshole down here and get to the bottom o f this. Bob I'm all for that. I want to know what Lukes been up to. Cal Leave him alone. (Hank rises and faces Cal) Hank Man, Im already in deep shit with Sue. I dont need to be associated with a sex crime. You know theyre still looking for the person who did it to that chick. Hes a fuckin criminal. (Hank calms down a little) Hank Listen, Cal, we got to take care o f this. We cant live like this. JD Hanks right. How long are you guys gonna take this? I mean, not only does he not pay his rent, but now he wont even let us go upstairs. He pisses down our backs, and we just stand around asking for more. I know we used to have good times with Luke. But hes fucked, Cal. (Pause.) Listen, Ive got a plan.
153
i
| |
Cal Why do we have to do anything? (Pause) I cant take this. JD Sometimes all a mans got is what he takes. Bob Come on. I say we do something now. Adam I want to drag his ass out of here. I dont want to see him ever again. (Cal backs away.) Hank Come on, Cal. Adam Yeah. Cal. Were all in this together. (They stare at Cal.) Cal No, I wont do it. Bob Oh, for fuckin Christs sake Hank Cal, youre not doing Luke any good by not handling this. Adam Lets get Luke out o f here! Cal I cant. Hank What?
154 Cal I cant do this. Lets just wait. Lets calm down a little. Bob You know, Cal, you think Lukes such a good friend. Well, he isnt. That story you told us about that chick named Emily. Luke told me the truth about it. It seems it wasnt so magical as Cal says it was.
Cal What do you know?
Bob Luke told me that Cal couldnt perform that night. Cant hit a home rim with a broken bat. (Hank and Adam should respond to this news with confusion as they look at Cal. Bobs revealing personal information that was confided to a friend should hurt Cals feelings. Cal speaks quietly, but his anger is brewing.) Cal Shut up. Bob. Bob You wish you had some magic that night. (Cal responds in rage and attacks Bob) Cal God damn it, Bob! Im gonna fuckin kill you! (Hank grabs Cal and Adam grabs Bob, dragging them apart from each other.) Hank Cut it out! Cut it out! Cal!
155 (Hank pushes Cal toward the front door.) JD You fuckin asshole. Dont you see what we gotta do?! And youre mad at Bob? Come on. Like Lukes ever been really loyal to you. He can give a shit about all o f us. Youre fighting the wrong people. Adam Cal. I cant believe this. You fill my head full o f stories o f magic and sexual exploits, and thats just what they are, stories. Why did you do that? Cal What the fuck do I know. Huh? Hank So far squat. Adam After this, after we take care o f Luke, dont talk to me ever again. Cal Whatever. Bob Lets just get rid o f him. JD I agree. Its time. And Ive got a plan. Bob, Hank, and Adam will go up the fire escape and into Lukes room. Hank, you go in first. Adam No way. I want to get to that asshole first. JD Okay, Adam. You go in first. But remember, you cant see shit up there, so youll have to tackle whatever moves or feel around in the dark in case hes hiding. Then Bob and Hank follow behind and help Adam wrestle Luke down. Cal and me will be down here in case Luke tries to run out. Then when you got Luke imm obilized-if you know what I mean-drag his ass down here. Me and Cal will help you from here.
156 Hank Sounds fuckin good to me. Bob Just let me get my hands on him. Adam I say we do it. JD Okay. You boys sound like youre ready. Take positions. Wait. All is quiet above. Good. Get set. Go! (Quietly, Adam goes through the window first while Bob and Hank follow. They gather at the fire escape and then ascend.) Cal I feel like a fool.
JD Itll be over soon. Cal I dont think I can face him. (Cal grabs a blanket from the couch.) JD What?! (The sound of a window breaking comes from upstairs.) Cal I dont want to see his face. Lets throw this over him. I dont want to see him when we do this thing. JD Whatever, Cal. Lets just get this over with.
157 (Loud shouts and groans from fighting come from the upstairs. The fighting should continue for at least thirty seconds as the audience hears Bob, Adam, and Hank cuss and swear at Luke. Cal and JD ascend the steps; and there should be at least a ten count before they reappear with the others carrying the blanketed body down the steps. The amount o f time is crucial so that the audience gets a sense of the reason behind the violence now on the stage as Cal, Hank, Bob, and Adam beat and kick the body all are breathing heavily. Adam responds with the most violence, inciting the others on further. JD circles around them, trying to see the violence. Once theyve finished their frenzy, JD reaches down to uncover the body. Although the body is indistinguishable, it should resemble a womans. They look at each other, questioning each other about who it is. We hear Lukes footsteps on the creaky roofclearly indicating that its not Lukes body on the floor. JD Jesus! Who is it?
End of Play
NOTE: Optional Endings. There are several optional endings depending on the plays direction and intended meaning. 1. Cal can either participate or not participate in the final beating. His non participation would be consistent with his emphasis on passivity and his wanting to wait out matters rather than confront them. Yet his involvement emphasizes the necessity of the pack to act together in order to behave violently. 2. Another option would be to have the violence, the beating o f Luke, occur offstage (with Cal taking part or not) dont bring the body down. Then the guys could return to the stage with hands and/or faces slightly bloodied and ad lib cries o f victory until they hear Lukes footsteps on the roof.

The Absent Other

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Absent Other

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

INFORMATION TO USERS

Co-Ctrair. Paul Stephen Lim

heodore Johnsoni Date Submitted:

UMI Number 9985117

Copyright 2000 by Kulmala, Daniel Wayne All rights reserved.

Copyright 2000 -Daniel W. Kulmala

To Anne Turner my temple o f sun, my pathfinder: my deserts bloom in her grace

April in Akron ......................................................................................................56

Saturday late afternoon.

JD Okay, I gave you a chance.

Bob Its part o f the party theme.

End of Act One

Cal What do you know?

You might also like