The Intricate Art of

Actually Caring

by

Eli Kent

! E Kent 2009

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Jack and Eli spend their days hanging out in Eli's bedroom, drinking beers and riffing on
movies, music and girls.

But when the death of a friend causes Jack to look inside himself, he doesn't like what he
sees, sparking a spiritual journey for the two to James K. Baxter’s grave in remote
Jerusalem, New Zealand.

“A work of extraordinary wit, perspicacity and humanity” - John Smythe, Theatreview

"A stunning success: a young and highly talented playwright’s road trip meditation on
life, death, and the whole damned thing…It's hip, funny and moving" - Laurie Atkinson,
The Dominion Post
!
THE INTRICATE ART
OF ACTUALLY CARING
By Eli Kent
19/4/09

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

I. Things and Stuff

II. The Bad Audition
III. Johnny
IV. After the Funeral
V. All the Sun Long
VI. Eli Almost Gets in a Fight at the Maccas in Levin
VII. Up The Pig
VIII. LOVE [a]
IX. Back to the City
X. The Ultimate Now Philosophy
XI. LOVE [b]
XII. Roadkill
XIII. Things and Stuff

Originally performed in Eli’s bedroom

Original Cast – Jack: Jack Shadbolt
Eli: Eli Kent

“The man who talks to the masters of Pig Island

About the love they dread
Plaits ropes of sand, yet I was born among them
And will lie some day with their dead.”

– James K. Baxter Pig Island Letters #2

1
Chapter I: Things and Stuff

Jack stands over his camel hair rug with a beer. Eli sits at the omputer.

JACK
This camel skin rug. This fucking camel skin rug. It came from a camel. Can
you believe that? A camel. From the desert. A spitting chewing humpbacked
mammal that lives on sand and can run faster than a horse. A camel. A fucking
camel skin– no not skin. Hair. Even fucking weirder. They took its hair, it
could be still alive this camel, Jesus, they took its hair and they, I dunno, they
wound it or they pulped it or they, what do they do, matted it, knitted it, dyed
it, packaged it, shipped it, fucking shipped it, from fucking Rajasthan, shipped
it, and now I spill my beer on it. I wet this camel with my wine. Every second
night or so I stain the hair of a camel from Raja-fucking-sthan…or maybe some
place in Turkey, who knows, but this is what I do, idly, with my time. This
fucking camel hide rug.
Was that good? Did I seem sincere? Was my incredulity credible?
(To rug)
Amaze me!
(To audience)
It’s a game I play. I get drunk– I usually get drunk. You don’t have to get
drunk, but I get drunk. I get drunk…and I find something in my room, or…Eli’s
room in this case, anything, doesn’t matter what, could be a bedpost, a bottle, a
speck of dust, and I look at it. I stare at this fucking…object, and I think about
it. I think about it’s history, and how it came to be, like how it came to…you
know…be it…now, how it came to be, and how it came to be here. And I spend
fifteen minutes, more or less because I’m not a disciplined lad, fifteen minutes
telling myself how spectacular this thing is. How mind numbingly astounding
it is that it came to be here…with me…at this time. And I do this every night.
It’s not a game, I take that back. Not to me. It’s an exercise. An exercise that
always ends the same fucking way. With me, face to face with this thing,
whatever this thing is, yelling “Amaze me!” Because I’m not amazed. It has
failed in its task of amazing me. I’m giving it a chance you know but it’s not
stepping up to the mark man. It remains a thing. That’s all. A fucking thing.
This fucking camel rug…
……………
Hi. I’m Jack. This is not my room. This is Eli’s room. That’s Eli over there.

ELI
Hi.

JACK
Yeah. And um…yeah so I guess a good a place as any to start a story is with the
what, and then move on to the whys, um…
What:
Uh…Roadtrip…Jerusalem…so Hiruharama New Zealand…um……James K.
Baxter…obviously…um………………couple of young guys…………um…..that’s just
a few key words for you…….there….to mull over…
……………
Whys:
There were a few.
Starting with. Well…
I’d just lost my job. Um…

2
My job at Boom exclamation mark. Exclamation mark. As if you’re supposed
to be walking along the street and see the sign and go “BOOM!? That sounds
like fun.” Boom. And we sold…what did we sell, Eli?

ELI
You sold arty action figures.

JACK
Arty action figures…obscure…pieces of shit that of course everyone wants to
buy. Windup nuns, little boxes that make noises, comic books about cheese.

ELI
Good pictures.

JACK
Of cheese.

ELI
But good pictures though man come on…..good artistry.

JACK
Yeah…And so I got fired. Not fired, laid off. Not laid off, politely asked to leave.
The conversation with my cock of a boss, went a little like this.

ELI/BOSS
Jack.

JACK
Yeah boss?

ELI/BOSS
What’s up?

JACK
You tell me boss.

ELI/BOSS
You’re not cutting it Jack.

JACK
Really?

ELI/BOSS
People don’t like you.

JACK
Some people like me.

ELI/BOSS
I’m talking about customers, Jack. You’re not enthusiastic enough.

JACK
I’m not?

3
ELI/BOSS
For Christ’s sake, this is Boom! We have to put up an excited front. That’s why
people come to us, because we’re crazy. I mean look at this windup nun. Who
doesn’t love a good windup nun? Look at her go. But you…you put people off
this stuff with your negativity. That’s not what I need. I need someone that
lives and breathes Boom! I need a living breathing exclamation mark, Jack
and you’re just not that. That just isn’t you.

JACK
So…?

ELI/BOSS
I think you know Jack. I think you know. But we’ll talk about this later okay?
You’ve got a customer.

JACK
And so I left politely. And Boom lives on. Because people love things. People
want things. Things that were made to be things. People want.

ELI
People buy.

JACK
People want so people buy.

Chapter II: The Bad Audition

Eli is looking on Wikipedia.

ELI
What worries me man…sorry I’m just reading about the new Star Trek
movie…but…and what worries me man, right? Is that if Captain Kirk is always
going to all these strange planets…If he’s going to all these strange planets and
sleeping with all these more or less humanoid babes, what worries me is the
risk he’s incurring of developing some sort of obscure and dangerous form of
S.T.I. I mean sure they may look like hot babes but who’s to say how their
reproductive organs work, and what kind of harmful otherworldly bacteria
they might be harbouring in the depths of their loins. He could be beaming
back to the star ship with some rare form of space syphilis. He could have
snakes eating the crabs in his pubes. And Bones McCoy going “Damn it Jim.
I’m a doctor not a magician.”

JACK
(As he speaks to the audience he starts to hook up a camera to a T.V so that we
can see what the camera sees, then he points it at a bare wall)
In the winter of my eighteenth year on this planet I moved from the suburbs
into town and Eli and I would hit the icy unpopulated streets, joyous in our
pessimism. Bouncing from bar to bar, a couple of pin-balls. Bitching our tits off,
walking on fences. Fuelled by the romance of our false depression. Praising
Kerouac with wide eyed hippy girls and trying not to spill our beers. Caught up
in the minds of all those jazz junk juggernauts, who spoke proudly and fondly
of “twats” and “cunts” and strange deep roots in scum hotels because real love
is all about grimy chauvinism.

4
ELI
There are so many Jokes involving Klingons I could make right now but I
won’t.

JACK
And what gets me is that the whole time he was just having a laugh. Whereas I
actually believed it all. Which seems so naive now. Now that I’m actually
depressed.

Eli gets a text and looks at it.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Okay, Eli. We’re ready for you. Come on through.

Eli walks into frame.

ELI
Hi. How’s it going?

He seems a little disorientated.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Great, I’ll just get you to stand on the black mark hun.

ELI moves a bit then looks down the lens.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Okay, Hi Eli!

ELI
Hey.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
How are you feeling?

ELI
Yeah.

……………..

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
And what part are you doing for us today?

ELI
Um…it’s uh…I’m…it’s Da–it’s Dan, the red Power Ranger.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Great. And how tall are you?

ELI
Uh…five….ten…ish…

JACK/CASTING WOMAN

5
Fantastic. Profiles please hun.

Eli turns and faces left, then right…

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
And back to me.

Eli turns back to the camera.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Beautiful. Okay, so your mark is this one here. Your eyeline’s here. Um…do you
have any questions before we begin?

ELI
Not really.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Okay. Well let’s get into it then. Rehearsal first and then shoot or just…?

ELI
…um…

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
You don’t need a rehearsal.

ELI
Nah.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
No, you don’t need a rehearsal. Okay. Are you ready?

ELI
Yep.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Great. Here we go then. And…action.

They speak in American accents when in role.

ELI/DAN
Hey guys. What’s happening?

JACK/MEL
Hey Dan. We’re just playing Chinese Checkers. Wanna join?

ELI/DAN
Chinese Checkers? What’s the………………mmm…………

ELI has zoned out. His eyes are glazed.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Eli?

Eli snaps back to reality.

6
ELI
Hmm? Oh. Um…sorry. I just…hmm?

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
You just zoned out there for a second.

ELI
Yeah. I um…sorry…

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Do you want to take it again?

ELI
Yeah. Sure. Let’s…please…

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Okay…and…

Eli shakes himself and slaps himself in the face.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Okay? And…action.

ELI/DAN
Hey guys. What’s happening?

JACK/MEL
Hey Dan. We’re just playing Chinese Checkers. Wanna join?

ELI
……………………………………………………….Nnn– Hmm?

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Just say “line”.

ELI
What?

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Just say “line”.

ELI
Just say line.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Okay, no, let’s…tell you what, let’s take it again. Yeah?

ELI
Yeah.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
And the line is “Can I be the red one?” Okay?

7
ELI
Yep.

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Okay. And…action.

ELI/DAN
Hey guys. What’s happening?

JACK/MEL
Hey Dan. We’re just playing Chinese Checkers. Wanna join?

ELI/DAN
Can I be the red…one…I’m…
(Breaking character)
…sorry I just…this is kind of…it’s real weird…I…um…god…

JACK/CASTING WOMAN
Are you okay?

ELI
Yeah, nah totally, I mean, ha, no, actually, no…I’m not sure…before I came in
here I got a text to say my friend just died so…………………………….hmm………….

Chapter III: Johnny

Jack starts to put away the camera.

JACK
(To audience)
Someone has to be the first to go, don’t they? Im not gonna lie. I did think
about it…wonder who it would be. You’re in a solid group of friends, you think
“Unless we all get totalled simultaneously in a car crash…at some point in the
future two of us are gonna be standing over the other one’s grave.”

Jack starts to tune his guitar. Eli is looking at pictures on Facebook.

ELI
(To audience)
This is Johnny on Facebook. I’m not really supposed to talk to you cos Jack’s
the narrator but I’m gonna do it sometimes when he has to do stuff like tune
his guitar and other stuff.
Yeah this is Johnny. Johnny Harrison. He was like this sweet
fucking…A.D.D…little ball of mental. We were all best friends in high school but
then he fucked off up to Auckland to go to uni. He’d still come down and stuff
but it’s…he made friends with all these mega jocks and shit. Nice guys. But
just…jocks.
Anyway he…’s dead. Ha. Yeah, he died.
He just like coma’d at his twenty-first birthday, and they took him to hospital
and he died a few days later so…that’s…he came down for it and everything.
And we were all like “Wooah” but then we were all like “oh”.

8
Someone should really probably take his Facebook page down though ay. I
mean that’s just…you know…out of respect. Or at least change his status to
“dead” or something.

Jack begins to play.

JACK
This song…I wanted to do something at the funeral but this wasn’t really
appropriate in the end because I went all…it…ah, I’ll just shut up and do it.
You’ll see.

– Happy Birthday Harrison –

So Johnny watched the venue filling

And his friends and family milling
He was ready, he was willing
“Happy birthday Harrison”

A quite substantial tab was laid

The speeches ran, the music played
A wholehearted “Hip, hip, hurray,”
And three cheers went out to Harrison

At six it was time for the old tradition

And our boy new his given mission,
Par for the course of this transition.
“Lift the glass high Harrison!”

But not halfway down and Johnny stalled;

His mates were all deeply appalled
Until they saw poor Johnny fall
And the glass smash on the lino.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– chorus
Johnny boy, born from the smog
Twenty-one years and then gone with the grog –
No remedy now in some hair of the dog,
No hangover for you.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– chorus

The doctors, they all played their part,

But three days later Johnny’s heart
Pumped it’s last systemic artery

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– chorus
Johnny boy, your time has passed.
Rode to your grave on a yardy glass,
But you’ve proved yourself a man at last.
So I sing this song for you.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– chorus

Now as vomit leaks through gutter grills,

And underage kids flock down to The Mill,
And Courtney Place bargirls ring their tills

9
We’ll raise our glass to Harrison.

For he had a send-off and no mistake.

He died like a lad for his country’s sake,
And then all of his mates got pissed at the wake,
So bottoms up to Harrison.

They drink.

Chapter IV: After the Funeral (the decision)

Jack looks through a bookcase. Eli lies on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

JACK
(To audience)
At the funeral I couldn’t cry. I found that weird. Nothing. And I know people
say that all the time, like “Oh, I didn’t cry at the funeral. I really wanted to
cry.” But this was different. Cos I was standing over Johnny’s grave looking
down into it, wondering why nothing was coming, and Eli was crying…and…
I knew I was supposed to care…but like…I couldn’t figure out whether I
actually did…or…like it might have been shock…but…
It felt like a film.
That’s what it felt like. Distant. Like in a film. Like looking through glass.
Like you expect death to……………break through that glass and fucking split
you open and…get in underneath your skin and…like…fucking…tear you to bits
but…
You’re not supposed to just stand there thinking about all the shit that I just
recounted to you.

Jack picks a book from the shelf and flips through it.

ELI
Pity really isn’t it man?…that we don’t believe in God or whatever. It’d all be so
much easier.
………………….
You never hear a lot about atheists converting though do you?
Like those two Indian twins in our form class. The Hot one and the Shrek?
They were all Hindu at the beginning of school and by the end they’d totally
disowned that shit.
And like remember when Johnny had that Mormon girlfriend– No, Bahai.
Yeah she was Bahai. And she wanted him to convert to her religion cos she
didn’t think she could……with………and he was like, to me, he was like “Yeah
I’ve been giving it a go,” and I was like “Could you though? Could you actually
believe?” And he was like “Ay there’s the rub.”

JACK
(Reading)
“No point now my friend in telling
you my lady’s name.
She wished us well: offered wheels
which spun my son and me like
comets through the lonely night.
You would have called her Aroha.

10
And when we picked up three young
people who’d hitched their way
from the Ninety Mile beach to be
with you, I thought: yes
your mana holds, Heemi. Your mana
is love. And suddenly the night
didn’t seem lonely anymore.”

ELI
……………………………Yep.

JACK
It’s “Heemi”. By Hone Tuwhare.

ELI
Yep.

JACK
It’s about him going to James K. Baxter’s tangi in Jerusalem.

ELI
Mmhmm.

JACK
You’ve never even opened this book have you?

ELI
No.

JACK
Jesus man. You’re related to him.

ELI
Tuwhare?

JACK
Baxter…obviously.

ELI
Yeah. Vaguely.

JACK
So you should…know about him and shit. You should know these poems.

ELI
He was my mum’s uncle man. I never met the guy. He died before I was born.

JACK
But still…

ELI
I’m not into poetry.

11
JACK
It’s not just about the poetry. Baxter changed this country, man. He…and what
do you mean you’re not into poetry, you’ve got a bookcase full of it…most of it’s
from New Zealand.

ELI
Yeah my mum leaves it there because she wants me to be more into my
heritage and shit.

JACK
So why aren’t you?

ELI
(Shrugs)
I can’t read poetry man. I get bored. And it really pisses me off when they do
that thing like…putting words together that nearly rhyme but not quite.

JACK
Assonance.

ELI
Yeah. Fuck off and get some better words…is what I say. What’s with the
recital anyway?

JACK
I wanna go.

ELI
Where?

JACK
Jerusalem.

ELI
…………………………The New Zealand version right? Not the–

JACK
Yes. Hiruharama. New Zealand.

ELI
Good. Okay. Why?

JACK
Lots of reasons. For Johnny is one.

ELI
He hated poetry.

JACK
That doesn’t…okay so mainly for us. But because of him I guess…partly. And
I’ve never been. And you should have been…by now…jesus. It can be…like…

ELI
A pilgrimage to the holy land.

12
JACK
…and also…what the fuck else are we gonna do? You know? I’ve lost my job.
You never had a job.

ELI
Okay.

JACK
And I’m sick of town, man.

ELI
Yeah?

JACK
Yeah. It’s a fucking ordeal.

ELI
Yeah…I guess I know what you mean.

JACK
You…? Mmm…………..nn…not really though ay? Cos you live with your parents.

ELI
Yeah. In town.

JACK
With your parents.

ELI
Yeah in town…though. That’s the important part. That it’s in town.

JACK
In a flash, upper middle class…

ELI
Well–

JACK
…three storied flat with endless hot water…

ELI
It’s still in town.

JACK
…limitless broadband…

ELI
Ye–

JACK
…no rent…

ELI

13
But–

JACK
…and maids.

ELI
Maids? Woah. Come on. Nnn……………………………Cleaners…Jack……please.
And in town.

JACK
Anyway yeah I just reckon it’s time we did something like this.

ELI
We’ll take your car?

JACK
Yeah.

ELI
And beer?

JACK
Yeah.

ELI
Okay then.

JACK
Really?

ELI
Yeah. “One actor. One poet. One car. A journey to remember.”

JACK
Exactly.

ELI
I really want to go “Road Trip!” right now.

JACK
Don’t.

ELI
I won’t.

JACK
And you have to promise not to keep comparing everything we do along the
way to On The Road.

ELI
Oh.

JACK
Cos it won’t be anything like On The Road.

14
ELI
It’ll be so much like On The Road, what are you even talking about?

JACK
It won’t be.

ELI
Bags being Dean Moriarty.

JACK
You have to promise.

ELI
Yeah whatever.
……………………………………
Can I compare it to Goodbye Pork Pie?

Chapter V: All The Sun Long

They are in the car. Jack is driving. Eli drinks a beer. He rummages around
behind him, finds the dictaphone.

JACK
(To audience)
It’s actually quite hard to have a road trip story set in New Zealand. Seeing as
it takes basically no more than two to three days at the most to get anywhere
and even that’s only if you procrastinate like a nanna on valium.
This isn’t a road trip story.
There is a road. And there is a trip. But…yeah…
I dunno…

ELI
What’s this?

JACK
What? Oh. Dictaphone.

ELI
Are you recording this? Are you doing research?

JACK
Maybe.

ELI
Urgh. Lame. What, are you gonna write a novel or something?

JACK
No, I just…I dunno. It’s just research.

ELI
See…Already this is a little bit like On The Road.

15
JACK
It’s not On The Road. It’s just for me. It’s for me to find out some stuff about
myself, that’s all.

Eli looks at him some more.

ELI
Okay.

He looks out the window.

ELI
Johnny would have loved this. He was always like “Let’s go on a road trip.
Let’s go on a road trip.”
Hot girls. Honk.
(Jack looks)
Eyes on the road.
(Jack looks back at the road)
Hey if you had to kill somebody, who would you kill?

Pause.

JACK
Alive or dead?

ELI
Well alive, obviously– Oh nah I see what you mean. Either.

JACK
Do they have to be famous?

ELI
Nope. Anyone. Literally anyone. Who would you kill?

JACK
You.

ELI
You’d kill me?

JACK
Yep.

ELI
How?

JACK
In a fight to the death.

ELI
Weapon of choice?

JACK
None. Barefist and nakey.

16
ELI
But I’d definitely have nunchuku though so there’s actually quite a high
probability that I’d win that fight.

JACK
No you have to be barefist and naked too.

ELI
Okay. But there’s still quite a high chance I’d win though. Because I…am an
awesome fighter.

JACK
No but you won’t because it’s already preordained in the nature of the question
that you’ll die. You said “who would you kill?”.

ELI
So the match is fixed somehow then.

JACK
No I’m just really good.

ELI
Yeah. We’ll say the match is fixed. Um. Witnesses?

JACK
There are none. We meet on a rooftop at night in the midst of a thunderstorm.

ELI
I like it. And how would you dispose of the body, my body?

JACK
Easy. I’d stuff you in a suitcase, one of those wheely ones, take you on the Inter
Islander, and drop you in the middle of the Cook Strait when no one was
looking.

ELI
And what would you do about the gasses in my body causing it to become
bouyant and possibly float back to land? Cause there were those Asian guys in
Auckland a little while ago who got caught doing basically the same thing.

JACK
Yeah, I’d fill the pockets of the suitcase with blocks of lead to weigh it down. So
no chance.

ELI
Oh…yep…see that’s something they should have thought of.

JACK
And now they’re rotting in prison.

ELI
Amateurs.

17
JACK
(To audience)
The drive up got me thinking about when the last time I went on a trip was. I
honestly can’t remember.
But as we headed along the coast to Paraparaumu I started to long for those
days when everything was bright…and unsullied
When I was just a giggling yellow stick of a boy. Leaving at night time.
Wrapped up in a duvet. Soft-drink at Bp. Maccas in the morning.
Then the shadow of the car dancing with us on the passing banks…
And trees and dirt and water and bugs and strange dogs…
And sand and chips and fish and pineapple Frujus…
And Turangi and Taupo and Tauranga tired and tatty…
I used to scream into the waves in my grundies on the western beaches
Letting the white wash pick me up and have it’s way with me
Letting myself surrender to the surge
And to the wide cosmically challenging curve
Of the world in front…
All before the days of the chewing gum caked concrete concentration camp
Before I became Steve McQueen and my city became Stalag Luft III and all that
was the land in me dissolved amidst a cacophony of dope and beer and broken
conversation on a late night desperation fix with shrapnel bombs of bullshit
shooting from my mouth at any given and any atom of belief in anything
connecting me to anything was lost inside the light box in the corner of my
room.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means…
The dotted lines flick southward as our story commences.

Chapter VI: Eli Almost Gets in a Fight at the Maccas in Levin

Eli and Jack sit at a picnic table. Jack talks into his dictaphone. Eli drinks.

JACK
James K. Baxter. It’s when I read his poems that I realize what an illiterate
mong I am. My poetry’s all ramblings and unedited cuss words. Pure lazy shite
born from the soggy black skid marks of Bukowski’s underwear. The man that
gave young poets an excuse not to try. Not to slag off Bukowski. But Baxter
was a craftsman. He lived language, he breathed it.
He reminds me how little I really know about poetry.
He offers form. Passion. Ideals. That’s why I need to visit Jerusalem. To be in
his presence. To see if I can’t scrape back some of that in myself. Because
without it all your left with is Bukowski. Life for life’s sake. Anybody can be a
poet as long as they’re a bit of a cunt…

ELI
Why did they call it Jerusalem?

Jack stops recording.

JACK
What?

ELI
They’re all Roman Catholic up there aren’t they? Jerusalem’s way Jewish.

18
JACK
Well yeah not exactly.
It means more than just the place. It stretches wider than that. Like…okay,
like you know the poem?

ELI
Do I know the…? No I don’t know “the poem”.

JACK
“And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God…”

ELI
“…On England's pleasant pastures seen?” Yeah I know it.

JACK
You do know it. You know who wrote it?

ELI
Yeah, Billy Bragg.

JACK
Nn…yeah…well…mmh…well anyway that’s what Jerusalem means to people.
They talk about Jesus trying to start it again in England. It’s Heaven on
Earth…literally. A place of peace.
That’s why people go so nuts over it in…like…what was happening in the Gaza
Strip a little while back.

ELI
What, is that a new club opened up or?

JACK
No it’s a place…near Jerusalem…caught up in the whole Israeli/Palestine
conflict thingy. It’s fucked up. They were raiding the towns with this white
phosphorus shit that they chuck in as smoke screens and it attaches itself to
little kids and burns and you can’t put it out and………………
Not that I know shit all about it though, you know. I just skimmed through an
article when I was looking for Far Side.

ELI
Oh what one was it?

JACK
Um, it was the one where these two spiders have built a big web at the bottom
of a playground slide. And one of them goes to the other one “If we pull this off,
we’ll eat like kings!”

ELI
Ha.

JACK
Yeah, it’s pretty funny.

19
ELI
Haha.

Jack gets up and walks onto the road.

JACK
Ha. Yeah.

ELI
“…eat like kings.” That’s a good one.
(Jack is staring down at a roadkill)
“I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land!”

JACK
(To audience)
On the road by the picnic area there was this wasted roadkill. Most likely a
possum but you couldn’t even tell, it was such a mess. And cos there were no
cars around, I went out and I stood over it and looked at it closely.
Road kill number 8. We’d been counting them. You know that game? It’s not
really a game. It’s more just a statistical taking of rodent deaths on the
motorway. 7 we’d counted. And this was the 8th. And I thought how messed up
it must be to actually witness an animal being squashed like that. Being
squeezed under a wheel until it’s stomach pops and guts shoot everywhere and
then it lies there still partially alive and oozing and…fucked. But the sight of it
once that’s all over is normal to me. If I were to see, say…a bowl of fruit…in the
middle of the road instead, that would probably disturb me more. Because it’s
out of place, isn’t it? But a carcass with it’s eyes all hanging out and
rotting…well…
Baxter’s New Zealand seems so much more exciting than the one I know. So
much more free. You could trip around the place and sleep in paddocks and
break laws in a harmless hippy sort of way. There were people to meet and
attics to coma out drunk in.
You didn’t have to spend your time counting dead possums.

Eli and Jack stand in a queue at McDonalds. Eli seems quite hyped up.

ELI
So are we just gonna head on through, or………what’s the plan?

JACK
I was thinking we should probably stop off at my folks’ ay. They’ll probably
want us to stay the night.

ELI
Oh, you didn’t tell me that, that’s terrible I hate your folks. Did you know that
if you buy a cheeseburger combo with a quarter pounder on the side it costs
more than a quarter pounder combo with a cheeseburger on the side?

JACK
What?

20
ELI
Look. On the board. A cheese burger combo costs 6.40. Right? And a quarter
pounder combo costs 8.50. But a cheeseburger on it’s own costs 2.25. Whereas
a quarter pounder on it’s own costs 4.50. So if you buy a cheeseburger combo
with a quarter pounder on the side it costs…10.90. And if you buy a quarter
pounder combo with a cheese burger on the side it costs…10…75.

JACK
Yeah?

ELI
But it’s the same thing. They’re both exactly the same thing.

They approach the counter.

ELI
Hi. Can I have a Cheese burger combo with a quarter pounder on the side?
Cool, thanks. How much? Oh. Mmm. Okay then, can I make it a Quarter
Pounder combo with a cheese burger on the side. Yep. No you don’t have to
change anything, you just…take fifteen cents off…basically. Yeah.

JACK
What’s up with you bro?

ELI
Oh.
(He produces a bag of white pills from his pocket)
It’s all of Johnny’s leftover ritalin. I purloined it from the bathroom when we
were there for the service so…just been hoovering that shit up.

JACK
Oh bro.

ELI
What? Nah I thought about it and it’s like……he doesn’t need it anymore…you
know? It’s ceremonious. It’s like I’m…snorting…his…soul…or something.

JACK
Oi don’t look now but there’s a freaky fucking dude staring right at the back of
your head.

ELI
For real?

JACK
Yeah.

ELI
……………………………………..
I really want to look now.

JACK
Don’t look.

21
ELI
I think I might look.

JACK
You shouldn’t.

……………………………………………………….Eli looks. Jack becomes the guy.

ELI
(To audience)
Okay so I probably shouldn’t have looked. Cos Jack said don’t look. But I
looked. He was one of those guys who you just know probably beats his wife
who he’s had a baby with which they both gave a real stupid name which is like
the name of a brand or something, like Nike. There are people who call their
kids Nike. And Addidas. I wonder if there’s anyone out there called Reebok.
And he’ll have a dog which is real big and dumb and hates non-white people
because those sorts of morons always train their dogs to be racist like my
sister’s boyfriend’s friend did, and I just know this guy is gonna say something
real menacing like “what?” and I’ll just want to say “Oh shut up. You were
staring at me so fuck you, you’re a waste of space and just by looking at you I
know all about your life and what a walking fucking stereotype you are so why
don’t you bounce off back to your caravan on your over bloated beer belly and
prong your dissatisfied wife you dozy fuck flannel.” But I probably won’t say
that.

JACK/GUY
What?

ELI
……………………….Nothing.

He looks away.

ELI
(To audience)
See.
(To the employee, and taking his McDonalds)
Cheers.
(To audience)
My mum read me this book once by her grandad. So that’s Baxter’s dad. And
my great grandad. And it’s about him being a conscientious objector in World
War One. And in it he goes through hell and back standing up for what he
believes in. They tie him to a post out in a field over night in the snow, and they
take him to the front lines and…stuff…but he never…and then in the second
world war her dad, my grandad was sent to a camp for the same reasons, and
then in the Vietnam war my dad refused to train or something when he was
called up and he almost went to jail…
And so I try to tell myself that I’m a pacifist. And that I stem from pacifists and
that it’s like all part of the family. I try to tell myself basically that the only
real reason I’ve never confronted anyone in my whole entire life is because I
don’t believe in violence. When really I know that I’m nothing like them and
it’s because I’m a coward. I’m really just not into pain. I’ve been in pain before
and it’s really just not something that I’m into.

22
But my favourite movie is Reservoir Dogs.

Chapter VII: Up the Pig

Jack and Eli are in the car. Eli reads Pig Island Letters by James K. Baxter.

ELI
“From an old house shaded with macrocarpas
Rises my malady.
Love is not valued much in Pig Island
Though we admire its walking parody…”
What’s Pig Island?

JACK
Your living in it, man.

ELI
New Zealand?

JACK
Yeah. We’re driving up the spine of the Pig.

ELI
It says here “To Maurice Shadbolt”.

JACK
Yeah.

ELI
Is he a writer too?

JACK
Yeah. They were friends.

ELI
Your last name’s Shadbolt.

JACK
Yeah.

ELI
Are you related?

JACK
Dunno. I mean…yeah…maybe.

ELI
Cos like that’d be pretty...you know.

JACK
Yeah.

ELI

23
So what’s it mean? Pig Island.

JACK
It’s like…
It’s all about cultural oppression man. Like…the…fake…the…falseness of the
nuclear family…sort of…um…he reckoned that it was forcing young New
Zealanders into like…conformity…and like, repressed emotions and shit. Like
in the poem the mum’s in the kitchen, the dad’s down at the pub, the
daughter’s looking at dresses, they’re all conforming, they’re all isolated and
trapped.
The son’s the only one who’s willing…or able…to break out but–

ELI
“Her son is moodier, has seen–”

JACK
“An angel with a sword
Standing above the clump of old manuka
Just waiting for the word

To overturn the cities and the rivers

And split the house like a rotten totara log.
Quite unconcerned he sets his traps for possums
And whistles to his dog.”

See…he’s…like…needs someone to crash in his world and let him free.

But until then he just locks it all away and doesn’t give a shit.
So in the end…You know? Ha. It’s…yeah…Who’s gonna save them? That’s the
kind of…
He called it a…civilised coma…I think.

ELI
(Reading)
“The man who talks to the masters of Pig Island
About the love they dread
Plaits ropes of sand, yet I was born among them
And will lie some day with their dead.”

Chapter VIII: LOVE [a]

JACK
(To audience)
I never figured out why my parents moved to Wangas. I guess it’s something
people do when they retire, because it sounds peaceful and it’s next to a river,
and old people like being near rivers or something.

Jack’s dad materialises. Eli is controlling the parents’ coats on coat hooks.

DAD
Hey hey hey. Look who it is.

JACK
Hey dad.

24
DAD
Mum. Come look who it is.

JACK
They call each other mum and dad. Even when I’m not here, it’s fucked.

DAD
How are you, sport?

JACK
I’m goo–

Mum appears.

MUM
Hello! How are you?

JACK
I’m good.

MUM
Where’s Eli?

JACK
He’s just getting stuff out of the car.

DAD
You’ve grown.

JACK
I haven’t really.

DAD
You look like you have.

JACK
No I really haven’t at all.

DAD
Maybe I’m just getting shorter.

MUM
How was the drive up? No trouble on the motorway I hope.

JACK
Nah.

DAD
I heard there was some pretty bad traffic just past Plimmerton.

JACK
Nah, we didn’t…we didn’t catch any of it.

25
DAD
Lucky.

MUM
Look, now have you two eaten? Because we haven’t had dinner yet and we
were just going to pop out for some fish and chips. Maybe have it by the river,
what do you say?

JACK
Uh, yeah, we had some McDonalds but we’re both still pretty hungry so…yeah.
That’d be awesome.

MUM
Great. Well I’ll just get changed and then we can drive down.

DAD
And you’re staying here tonight I take it? In the spare bed?

JACK
Yeah.

DAD
Or Eli can have the spare bed and you can have the mattress if you’re feeling
generous.

MUM
Hey let’s have another hug shall we?
(They all hug)
A big family hug. There we go. It’s so good to see you.

Eli and Jack sit eating fish and chips.

ELI
Wangas is a hole man.

JACK
It’s okay.

ELI
I don’t know why your parents moved out here. Can you imagine if you’d
grown up here? What is there?

JACK
It’s not so bad.

ELI
It’s okay man. You don’t have to feel like you’ll be a judging wanker from the
city if you say it’s shit. People from Wangas hate Wangas. At least anyone
under fifty who owns a T.V

JACK
Do you love your parents?

ELI

26
Ay?

JACK
Do you love them?

ELI
Yeah. Of course– I mean yeah. Yeah. Sure. Do you love your parents?

JACK
Yeah. I guess. It’s easy to love them though, isn’t it?

ELI
Yeah?

JACK
They’re so nice. And middle class. I don’t really have to do anything. They do
all the work. I just…tell them I love them every now and then. I don’t even do
that that much anymore.
I don’t really feel………I’m not sure…that’s just something
that’s…unquestionable…though…ay…like…yeah…no…I love them…no I
do…yeah…I love them…………………………

They look out at the river for a bit.

ELI
My mum………………

JACK
What?

ELI
Oh nothing.

JACK
No what?

ELI
She just…nah it’s stupid.

JACK
No go.

ELI
She’s started to laugh at me.

JACK
Like, how?

ELI
Just…at things I say.

JACK
Like…?

27
ELI
Like not when I’m trying to be funny. Like when I’m serious. She like laughs at
me like I’m stupid. She’s started to laugh at my stupidity.

JACK
Woah.

ELI
Yeah.

JACK
Far out.

ELI
Yeah.

JACK
Well that’s…

ELI
Mmhmm.

JACK
………………..What kind of laugh is it like a–?

ELI
It’s like a scornful...Well not…no yeah, it’s like a scornful…almost
mocking…slightly resentful laugh. Like haha you’re a fucking dumbass.
……………………………………………..
I could never eat much fish and chips.

He gets up and walks off.

Chapter IX: Back To The City

JACK
(To audience)
In the spare bed at night my mind stretches back to the city. It will always
stretch back to that city. That poor pathetic excuse for a city. My home.

ELI
9am

JACK
I rip a bottle from the box like flesh from a carcass. Autumn stretches her dull
arms around me once again. The carpark is covered in dark patches where
their once were puddles. The guys at Dick Smith Electronics have tragic bouts
of acne.
And I’m twenty-one.

ELI
5pm

28
JACK
If an infinite number of pigeons bash their heads against the ground for an
infinite amount of time one of them will probably get the bread crumb
eventually that’s maths.
I’d forgotten I was this young.

ELI
2am

JACK
If my toilet bowl is Luke Skywalker…if my toilet bowl is Luke Skywalker then
my phallus is a stormtrooper, no sharp shooter for sure, no Sundance Kid.
I’m twenty-one and in town and life means nothing to me. I have no room in
my mind right now for the concept of Egypt or the world’s largest ball of twine.
Send me off to sleep, let me dip my mind in ink.
My dreams will only ever reach as high as the head on my next beer.

Chapter X: The Ultimate Now Philosophy

In the car…

ELI
Raetihi was not in the contract man.

JACK
There wasn’t a contract.

ELI
Well if there had been one I would have scoured it for anything mentioning a
compulsory stop off at the (shrugs) capital of the world.

JACK
I know it’s out of the way but I promised dad I’d stop off and see Duncan. And
they have a good pie shop there.

ELI
Yeah, and a four square and literally nothing else. Why does your cousin live
there?

JACK
I dunno, he’s kinda weird.

ELI
How old is he?

JACK
Like thirty.

ELI
Huh. How old was James K. Baxter when he died?

JACK
You should know that. Forty-six.

29
ELI
Jesus.
I reckon I’ll die young. Always thought I’d be the first to go, actually. Johnny
sort of fucked that up for me.
Didn’t want to have to face that stuff you know? Wanted to get out while the
going was good and leave you guys all fucking gutted and shit.
But forty-six. I could do forty-six. Forty-six is a good time to go I reckon. Shit, if
I make it past forty-six…
Ha. The other day, right, I looked on my cellphone…on it’s calendar to see how
optimistic it is. It goes till 2090.
I’m gonna be a bag of shit when I’m older basically, right? I mean that’s a
given. I smoke, I eat junk food, I drink, I do drugs. I don’t brush or floss enough
till the point where my teeth complain sometimes.
But I was thinking right, that…if my cellphone has its way, we’ll both still be
with each other at like eighty.
So I left myself a message saying “Deal with it.”
I don’t care, you know, it’s his problem, not mine.
When would you wanna go?

JACK
………..I don’t wanna die.
1047. Fuck. Infinity. Whatever. Let me be a brain in a jar. I don’t care.
I’m just scared. You know. I’m not agnostic, but…I dunno, I’m not exactly
atheist I don’t think. I am, but…I’m still scared…of something…afterwards…I
guess of nothing maybe. Of something. Whatever.

………………………………………………………….

ELI
12.
(He looks behind them at the road then back at Jack.
I think it was a rabbit.

Chapter XI: LOVE [b]

Duncan’s house. Duncan is dancing, smoking weed. Jack lies on the floor.

DUNCAN
So Jack…you got a girlfriend or anything at the moment?

JACK
(To audience)
It’s four hours later and I’m stoned as fuck. We somehow managed to stumble
across what must be the biggest party ever held in the Raetihi area. Duncan’s
weed is from another planet and has ruined any chance of making it to our
goal before sunset. So we party while Jerusalem waits.

DUNCAN
Your dad said you were seeing uh…what’s her name again? Tom and
Elizabeth’s girl. How’s that working out for ya?

JACK

30
(To audience)
Eli takes his time in the toilet while I strategically fend off a tirade of personal
questions that flow from the mouth of a man I can barely remember from a
time when I was barely me.
(To Duncan)
That was…no I was never…we never…um…I think mum and dad just…

DUNCAN
Oh, right, I get you man. You don’t have to explain it to Dunco.

JACK
(Partly to Duncan, partly in his own stoned head)
I know it’s the pot making me a sad ass, Dunc, but I just can’t be bothered
talking to you right now ay.
You don’t really care. You’re just trying to make things not awkward. Why? Is
that all family is? A string of people held together in a lame attempt to avoid
things getting awkward.

DUNCAN
What was that man? I wasn’t listening.
…………..
Is there anyone though?

JACK
Did mum and dad put you up to this?

DUNCAN
Of course man, what do you think I give a shit? Haaaaaaaaaa.

…………

JACK
I’m going toilet.

He exits.
Eli enters.

ELI
Hello?
What’s up? Anybody? Where the fuck…?

He sees Jack’s dictaphone on the ground and stops.

He goes over to it.
He picks it up.
He looks around.
He presses play.

JACK’S DICTAPHONE
My friend died this week.
Johnny.
He’s dead.
…………………………….
He did half a yardy at his twenty-first and then collapsed and had to be taken
to hospital.

31
I’ve written a halfassed political song about it. It’s kind of hypocritical. They
won’t let me play it at the funeral or anything because it’s not really
appropriate. I just thought I should do something…you know…cos that’s–
(Eli fast forwards the tape)
–it’s weird…like leaving a message for yourself in the future. I’m gonna listen
to this tomorrow and go, woah, I’m listening to myself talk to myself by–
(Eli fast forwards the tape)
–trying to say…there’s more behind this…I think…than some…novelty snap
shot…
If they even let you take pictures of the grave I don’t–
(Fast forwards)
–eople say Jerusalem is…like…magical. Pe–
(Eli fast forwards the tape)
–need to see it…him.
I need to get awa–
(Fast forwards)
–I feel like my emotions are so repressed at the moment that I’m not sure if
they’re even there anymore. Like a lighter that’s burnt low on fuel…and…even
the death of a friend…a best friend–
(Fast forwards)
–like I am that kid in the Baxter poem.
I’ve seen the angel with the sword and I’m ready to overturn the cities and the
rivers and...I just need someone to–
(Fast forwards)
–the heroes are dead. That’s–
(Fast forwards)
–ere’s my Springbok Tour? Ha. Jesus. Give me something to fight for. I don’t
care what? Just give–
(Fast forwards)
–wear the Che Guevara t-shirt un-ironically. I’ll rally about shit that I don’t or
will never understand. Just–
(Fast forwards)
–rather…I’d rather be a passionate idiot than an educated mannequin. I–
(Fast forwards)
–so much riding on this, it’s–
(Fast forwards)
–all the poets are de–
(Fast forwards)
–save me now? Who’ll–
(Fast forwards)
–fucking need this, it’s–
(Fast forwards)
–Johnny–
(Fast forwards)
Baxter, now that the dream is over
Who’ll wake me out of this civilised coma?
(Fast forwards)
–you. Eli doesn’t understand…or doesn’t care. He’s wound up in…pretending to
be a dick. Somewhere along the way, during those pathetic post-adolescent
nights in Cuba street he decided “Hey fuck it. I don’t need this. And sunk back
into his middle class happy gas dystopia. And I don’t blame him.
But I have no one to talk to.
I have no friends.
………

32
I have no friends.

Jack’s recording ends and a muffled recording of some old song

plays.Whatever was on the tape from before. (Bob Dylan, or maybe something
else, barely audible).
Eli stands there for a while before turning off the dictaphone.
He puts it back where it was. Jack enters.

JACK
Sup.

ELI
Sup.
……………….
What have you been up to?

JACK
Just doing a poo.

ELI
Oh.

…………………

They speak the next lines to each other even though they sound like they’re
directed at the audience.

JACK
We go to bed listening to the sound of Duncan cheating on his partner in the
adjacent room.

ELI
Drifting off with pillows over our heads…

JACK
…in the midst of looming chronic bodystone paralysis…

ELI
…sleeping violently…

JACK
…dreaming of love…
(To audience)
Why is it my parents care so much about whether I’m with Tom and
Elizabeth’s daughter? I can’t even remember her name.
What would they think if I told them the truth? That in my vain attempt to find
something clean and wholesome…
I landed instead on some…centrefold fun…
A pretty chick who blows shallow cum…
“Hey mum. Hey dad. I’d like you to meet my fuck buddy. I met her at Estab. We
have nothing in common.” Yeah. I can just see their beaming faces.
…
Courtney Place is soaked and tired
Like my dad when he’s been out early fishing in the rain

33
Matt’s whiskey evaporates before it hits my tongue
Trashed I aim home indirectly leaking through my shoes
And her lips cushion me when I touch base
She has seagulls up her nostrils that squeak
With each surge of her sleeping breath
It’s not love
But it’s a deep convenience
Our comfort twist
Brings with it this
Foreign feeling that I’m changing the sheets for a reason

ELI
(To audience)
You filthy fucking fucks with your filthy fucking fuck juice
Spraying it everywhere and where it lands you call that love
Where it lands a tree grows and you eat its fruit and say
“This is what we’re meant to be doing”
Because it feels good
And aren’t things that feel good good?
Aren’t things that feel good right?
I love you I love this I love that I love me I love sex I love sunsets and pancakes
yay
I love I love
I don’t understand you
I thought I did
I thought I knew love briefly
I thought I recognised it
“Hello love, what’s up?”
I had a girlfriend
We went to movies and talked about interesting things and got high and one
night we came together
And I said “this is love” and I knew it was love “and it’s love not given lightly,”
And a year later, lonely and loveless and drunk struck, I came at the same
time as some porn I was watching
And I laughed
Because I knew I’d never felt love then
So I laughed
Because I knew
That I’d never felt love

Eli surfs the net for porn.

JACK
I just find it interesting that a generation of boys raised on titty fucking and
cumshots are then expected to tuck in their cocks and love like it’s gonna
come naturally to them.
That’s all. And I’m not preaching anti-machismo, this isn’t jock bashing time.
No. This country no longer has much of a need for weeping foreskins, I’m
talking about me. Jack.
When I’m walking home late at night to have a drunken wank
I love to watch the night sweepers cleaning up everybody’s shit
Those big flashing mechanoids
Scraping the street dry
Like the retarded offspring of R2D2

34
Cos what happens during lights out stays there
That’s how I can maintain feminist friends but still look at porn
And how people can leave some superfluous serving of ass at 5 am
And be with their boyfriends/girlfriends by 6
Because we’re all just bags of orifices really
Our chief function being to ooze
And when morning comes we soap ourselves
And scrub behind our scruples
As if we’ve all been lying with the soot in the dark
Letting those machines and their grinding needles
Tear right over us
Until we bleed Palmolive green
Fresh
In the scent of our morality normality
Ready for the day to whip it off like cheap cologne
It’s called deoderant ethics and it’s how we manage to exist and have faith in
each other and love each other properly.

Chapter XII: Roadkill

JACK
(To audience)
We sleep in till two thirty and then grab lunch at the pie shop. Well on our way
to breaking the world record for most procrastination over smallest distance.
(Eli and Jack are in the car)
And down from Raetihi the road is windy as hell and the afternoon sun beats
down hard and the gravel glows yellow.

Eli reads Heemi by Tuwhare.

ELI
“Finally when we’d eased ourselves
over a couple of humps and down down
the winding metalled road to the river…”
…that’s here…
“…and Jerusalem, I knew things would be
all right. Glad that others from the
Mainland were arrowing toward the dawn
like us.

“Joy for the brother sun chesting over

the brim of the land, and for the three
young blokes flaked out in the back seat
who would make it now, knowing that they
were not called to witness
some mysterious phenomenon of birth on
a dung-littered floor of a stable

“but come simply to call

on a tired old mate in a tent
laid out in a box
with no money in the pocket
no fancy halo, no thump left in the old

35
ticker.”
So Baxter was Jesus, basically.

JACK
That’s not what it’s saying.

ELI
Basically it is.

JACK
No it’s not.

ELI
Why is it comparing him to Jesus then?

JACK
It’s saying he wasn’t Jesus.

ELI
Who was saying he was?

JACK
People……or…he just…he was a lot…I mean…you look at him…he…

ELI
Looked like Jesus.

JACK
No…it’s about reminding people that…he did great things but…he was still a
guy…he was human…he had flaws…

ELI
Like Jesus.

JACK
Jesus………………yeah alright, like Jesus.

ELI
I dunno man, like I can’t…I know you probably…I dunno…but…………after
reading all this shit………….man………………….okay basically that he came out
here because……that he suffered piles or whatever for this, that he thought
God…wanted this……to me says that he was an idiot. I’m sorry. Good poet.
Sure. But–

JACK
Jerusalem wasn’t just a vision, bro. He didn’t have some hallucination and
then…he’d been to India. He’d seen the poverty there. He came back and he
saw that there were people who needed help here too. Young people. Young
guys who were…So he started Jerusalem to get them away from the city…and
drugs and booze, that whole lifestyle.
He wanted to help people.

ELI
Yeah but still the whole religious thing–

36
JACK
Basically you think he was an idiot for believing in God.

ELI
Yeah. No. Not an idiot. He was smart. Really smart in lots of ways. But dumb in
a couple of very important ways.

JACK
Because he believed in God?

ELI
Yeah. Because he believed in God. Come on, I know you don’t believe in God. No
I take that back. I know you can’t believe in God.
And that’s good.

JACK
Is it?

ELI
Yeah. Yeah it is. I don’t reckon a poet should believe in god. That’s like they’re
blinded, to me. That’s like…they should be able to see outside of that shit…like
into it too maybe, a little, but not……whatever.

JACK
I reckon a poet should want to believe in god.
And whether he can or not is to do with him–
(A bang)
What the fuck was that?

He stops the car.

ELI
What?

JACK
We hit something.
(He gets out of the car and runs back along the road, calls back)
We hit a pig.

ELI
What the fuck?

He gets out and goes over to where Jack is. The pig is still alive, though
mutilated, and it makes horrible blood curdling screeching noises.

ELI
Oh! It’s still alive man. Fuck!

JACK
If–

ELI
It’s just little. It’s just a piglet, man…fuck.

37
JACK
If it had been any bigger the car would have been munted.

ELI
Oh great yeah, thank goodness for that, I think I’m gonna be sick. God what is
that noise?

He goes to the side of the road and bends over, spitting at the ground. Jack just
stares at the pig. The noise goes on for a little while.

ELI
What do we do? We can’t just leave it here.
(Jack keeps staring at the pig, transfixed)
Bro.

Jack snaps out of it.

JACK
We need to kill it.

ELI
Fuck right off.

JACK
It’s finished man.

ELI
Well I’m not fucking doing it. Jesus Christ.

Jack goes to the boot of the car, opens it, then rummages round.

ELI
Oh, you can’t be serious. Shit.

Jack comes back with a cricket bat.

ELI
I can’t watch this.

He does watch. Jack stands over the pig. He raises the bat.

ELI
You’re not gonna…

Jack hesitates.

ELI
Okay, if you’re gonna do it, fucking do it. Put it…put me out of my fucking–!

Jack brings the bat down hard on the pig’s head. It keeps wailing.

ELI
Oh, fuck, nice one. It’s still fucking alive man! Hit it again! Hit it ag–!

38
Jack brings the bat down again and the screaming stops. The two stare at the
carnage in shock.

JACK
……………………………………………………………………………seventeen.

ELI
What?
(Registers)
Oh…fff…
………………………………
That is……………………fucked up………………man…………………

He walks back to the car. Jack stays looking at the pig.

Chapter XIII: Things and Stuff

JACK
(To audience)
We don’t speak the rest of the way. Just sit and stare. As the mustard dusty
road twists us on into the afternoon. Approaching dusk. We drink our Vs that
we bought from the Four Square and I remember the black and white man
with the promising smile like a good omen and I look out at the river now,
brown with mud and cowshit showing us the way.
And it almost feels as if it won’t end. As if our destination doesn’t actually
exist. Like some long lost city or golden fleece.
Forever sought. Never found.
……………
But the gravel stops churning.
And there it is.
Hiruharama is modest in the dying sun.
(To Eli)
I think we just head up the track. There’s supposed to be a top house where he
lived but somebody lives there now. He’ll be buried nearby. What’s up?

ELI
I don’t wanna go.

JACK
What?

ELI
I don’t wanna go.

JACK
What the fuck are you talking about? Did you take more ritalin or something?

ELI
No.
Well yeah, but it’s not that.
It’s…
I’ve been. I’ve been before.

39
JACK
You…?

ELI
I just…I was real little. But like I recognise this place. I didn’t understand at
the time what it was I don’t think. Mum brought me here. I totally…yeah,
wow…it’s all just coming back now. But yeah…I’ve totally seen it before.

JACK
So see it again.

ELI
Nooo. You have to go up the hill and talk to the…people you don’t know
and…it’s just…

JACK
Oh my god.

ELI
It’s cool man. It’s your thing. You should…you go.

JACK
It’s not cool man. We came here for this. This is the whole fucking point of the
trip.

ELI
It’s not why I came man. This whole place gives me the creeps. I’m…you
know…it’s not–

JACK
What do you mean it’s not–?

ELI
I just came to hang out with you. I don’t…care about all this other shit.

JACK
No, you don’t, do you? You don’t fucking care about anything.

ELI
Why should I care?

JACK
He was…you’re fucking related to him.

ELI
So?
It’s not…shit…I’ve never got this whole “precious bloodline” thing man. You
know? He was just some guy who existed once. He wrote some good poems.
Woopdeedoo. It’s not…People hold so much fucking reverence for the past, I
don’t–

JACK
Because we learn from the past. We get shit handed down from the past, man–

40
ELI
Yeah but we act like we’re doing it for them. It’s like husbands wanting their
wives to take on their last name because “a man’s legacy is in his name” or
some wank. I don’t give a fuck if no-one has my last name in a hundred years
time. I won’t be around. Do you really think that all these dead dudes give like
a rat’s arse that you’ve made them your heroes? Do you think they–?

JACK
But–

ELI
I don’t fucking believe in all this heritage shit...basically…right? He was my
mum’s fucking uncle. So fucking what? As far as I’m concerned ancestors are
just…dead strangers.
…………….
But you know…you go up to…I’ll…wait.
I mean you obviously care about one thing a fuck load of a lot, right?
I listened to your stupid fucking captain’s log and you obviously don’t give a
shit about me, so…………………………

JACK
……You…?
………………………………………………………………………….
I was just drunk man.

ELI
Yeah…right…

JACK
I mean don’t…………
…………………..
Don’t…
…………………………
Dude.

ELI
Yeah.

JACK
I mean–

ELI
No, yeah right. You…yeah…

JACK
Are you…?

ELI
No, yeah I’m fine. Just…you know………I shouldn’t have……don’t…you
know……………………………..

JACK
We can have a pint in five years time and talk about it.

41
ELI
(Laughs half heartedly)
Yep.

JACK
I’m gonna…

ELI
Yep.

JACK
Yep.

Jack leaves. Eli stands. The ritalin is starting to kick in. He turns around,
jumps with fright. There is a nun there.

ELI
Jesus. I didn’t see you. Fuck I’m sorry. Woah. Hey. Yeah. No. Hi. I’m…I’m Eli.
Nice to meet you. Yeah. Sister…? Hi. Wow. Okay. Do you live here? You’re…?
Oh…yep.
No I’m just…my friend’s just gone up to see the grave…Hemi. Yeah.
Wellington…yeah. Drove up…just…last couple of days…it’s been
good…weather’s been…mmm…………………………….
No I’m fine. Just a little…just been in the car for too long, you know how it is.
Yeah. Nothing else…
(He surreptitiously rubs at his nose)
……………………………….
So you’re like…a proper nun then?
……………………………….
Cool.

JACK
(To audience)
Up the track through the trees. It’s getting dark. Out into a front yard filled
with the carcasses of old cars and animal bones.

Eli is in the nun’s living room, looking at things.

ELI
The Sisters of Compassion. Is that you guys? Oh yeah, two, thanks. Far out. So
did you know Ja– Hemi? You knew him? Oh so you were like…here when it
was all going down. Crazy times. Yeah I heard there was a bit of…um…Sorry?

JACK
The guy in the top house says it’s not too late. He points across the garden to a
busted fence.

ELI
Why do you ask?

JACK
An open gate……

42
ELI
Do I seem a bit…Yeah. Well……yes…I do. Not that it’s any of your business but E
mostly. Though right now I’m on my dead friend’s A.D.D. medication so…you
know…whatever’s going.

JACK
Jerusalem is quiet.

ELI
No can we not um…

JACK
Quieter than anything.

ELI
I didn’t realize this was what was…

JACK
No birds, no cicadas.

ELI
It’s what all the kids are doing these days, I dunno.

JACK
Just my feet across the grass…

ELI
I enjoy myself when I’m inebriated.

JACK
The thoughts in my head…

ELI
Can we just…

JACK
…the hum of nothing

ELI
Look, lady…

JACK
…as I step through the gate…

ELI
Just listen for a second!

JACK
And there he is.

ELI
Hey shut the fuck up! Yeah woah! Profanity! Fuck!
………………………………………….
I………………………shit.

43
JACK
There he is.

ELI
That came out of left field.

JACK
Jum.

ELI
I’m sorry.

JACK
Hemi.

ELI
God.

JACK
Baxter.

Eli sits down. Jack slowly takes off his shoes and walks towards the grave.

ELI
I didn’t want to come here. My friend made me, so I’m just a bit……hmm?
…………..
Yeah. I dunno. Maybe.
…………..
Nah it’s just……it’s stupid…been eating at me um…ha………...I cried at the
funeral….um…
My friend. Yeah. Cried my fucking eyes out..sister. Do I call you sister?
I…doesn’t matter? Whatever, yeah it’s weird. You’d think that having Left
Wing arty parents would produce a kid in touch with his emotions but…ha…no
way…
So at the funeral it was like…surprise……drainpipe………………………..

JACK
There he is. It’s funny. Almost hidden. So understated. A white rock and some
fading flowers, sitting by a broken fence, just in somebody’s garden. Like a
dead pet rabbit.

ELI
But the thing is there was this little voice at the back of my head the whole
time saying “Good. Be sad. You can use this.” Like even when I was grieving a
part of me was still thinking about acting. Isn’t that fucked up? That’s fucked
up I reckon. That you could use the grief from someone’s death to entertain.
You’re feeling that grief for them. It’s their sadness. It’s not yours to use. But
still: “Use it.”

JACK
There he is, Finally.

ELI

44
And that’s a little worrying to me, quite frankly. Lying in bed at night, looking
at the ceiling, crying over my dead friend, “That’s good. Remember this
moment.” Stoked to be sad because at last I was a convincing human being.

JACK
There he is…a white rock, with Hemi written on it. As if the overall desired
effect is simply to say “Sorry, but a man was buried here once so please mind
your feet.”

ELI
That scares me more than anything man, because I act to escape myself.
Right? So what the fuck does it say when what I’m escaping to is as despicable
as that?

JACK
I think about reading him some of my poetry but I’d just feel like a dick.

ELI
And I called to him after. I’ll admit that. I called to him, like a true fucking
believer.

JACK
This is James K. Baxter’s grave.

ELI
“Johnny. I’m sorry I trivialised tears that were meant for you.”

JACK
A bit of a bastard maybe.

ELI
“I’m sorry I turned them into something selfish.”

JACK
A bit of a saint.

ELI
“I’m sorry I made you drink the fuckin’…!”

JACK
A man I never knew who wrote some pretty good poetry…

ELI
“Will you forgive me?”

JACK
…and who is now reduced simply to a rock.

ELI
“Forgive me.”

JACK

45
This mossy white lump sat sternly on the grass represents everything he ever
achieved, which is more than I could hope for in my life. And a shitload more
than Johnny could hope for now.

ELI
But he didn’t forgive me, did he? Because he’s dead.

JACK
It says simply “Here he is.”

ELI
And dead is dead.

JACK
And here I am.

Jack kneels.

ELI
…………………………….............................and I can see now how some people would
rather believe…is I guess what I’m saying. Cos it’s better……than living with
guilt for things done or things not done or said.

JACK
Here I am.

Jack repeats this line in a steadily growing rhythm throughout Eli’s rant.

ELI
But faith…right…I reckon…and this is just me……I mean you can…but faith is
just another drug. Except it’s worse than a drug because it takes your whole
life. I only get high on the weekends. You live on a high. The high of belief. So
don’t fucking judge me…just because your drug is more subtle. Just because
you’ve managed to trick yourself into thinking you’re not high.
You’re as desperate as anyone. You run from guilt and pain just like I do. You
hide in the warm confines of your religion.
Oh how easy it is to exist when you know it’s all being taken care of by Azlan
and Big Bird. Nononononononono people die and you cry and you forgive
yourself and you pretend someone else is doing the forgiving and then you
escape into your prayers and the comfort of your blanket delusion so don’t
fucking judge me, man, cos I’m just like you.
Only my religion is solid and chemical and un-hypocritical.
I’ve found my Heaven, My Arcadia, My Never Never Land. It’s small and it’s
pill shaped and it tastes like atheism and it whiffs of now. And I know it’s
bullshit and all that’s waiting for me is haemarhoids. But that’s not the fucking
point.
The point, just as it is with that neverending orgasm waiting for you in the
Emerald City or whatever the fuck it is you drool over in your sleep, is to
distract yourself from the always present overwhelming truth…that you…and
every single person you have ever known or ever loved will die.
(He cracks, crying. Jack is silent………………)
And to keep yourself distracted.
……
Whatever it takes.

46
……
One second at a time.
…………
I’m sorry. That was………..….I don’t know what I’m talking about. You’re a good
person. I’ll leave.

He exits through the cupboard.

JACK
Here I am.
………..
Staring hard and long at this rock. Thinking about everything, its history, the
symbolism of it all, how it came to be here…now…with me…on this hill. How
this was a guy’s life...represented in this…thing.
And how I’ve been waiting for this. And how I’ve come so far to see this. And
now there it is, amongst dirt and leaves, there it is, there he is.
And here I am………………………………
Perplexed?
And vaguely interested.
With a complete lack of any sort of spiritual…shit, both within and out of my
body.
And this asphalt umbilical chain, wrapped tight around my insides always,
ready at a moment’s notice to drag me home.
……………………………….
Amaze me.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

47