David Michael DeSloover

SOULISTIC DOUBT
Placing a Bet
(All Soliloquy)
Narrator:

I would like to introduce you to someone. He isn’t here, yet; but when you meet him; call him
Wally. Wally grew up in The United States of America during the Bush years where fifty years
earlier an Indiana state congressman stood on the floor of the state house and compared human
beings to cows. Wally is raised in one of the most conservative counties in the country, and we
as viewers are privileged in that we are allowed to glimpse into the far past, past, and present to
see how he is influenced into rising against the tyrannical forces that be.
Enjoy the story.

(Far past sign goes by)

(3 Women of Egypt- flirtatiously playing video games- Lilith is in protest )
(Moving controllers before talking)

(Halofernes) With the Nation’s first fascist government!

(Lilith) Then… be the one that helps facilitate one of this county’s first modern anti-war
protests.

(Halofernes) We’ll have more cops surrounding you than anti-war protesters, and the
lead cop will arrest the father.

(Antioch) Now he should go to college to learn about my fascism.

(Halofernes) Then check him into a mental institution, start quoting the constitution to get
out, and get illegally drugged.

(Lilith) Give them this very book to photocopy, and give them the two foreign policy reports
you wrote.

(On Balcony clenching her teeth)

(First Lady)
Those two that ended up in congress and dropped the president’s national standing?

(Moving video controller)

(Lily) Umm… Keep in mind the liberal principle: go in having no predisposed expectations and
you’ll never be disappointed.

(Narrator) Don’t cry and you’ll do better than I….

Curtain
(Sign saying Past walks by)

(Table Balcony Big Bed)

(Fade to Blackness )
(Culdron paddles guitars Castle Backdrop)

Mr. President Your wife has another man

(Stirring the witches brew) (Richard Present hiding in corner as RNC spy)
(Witch 1) (Downbeat Throughout)
The boil growing on the candidate’s face
Is the same protein compound as the bacteria
Growing in Walter Reed Medical Facility
(Witch 2) (Downbeat)
I sat and had a beer with the First Lady’s frivolity
It came in the form of a demon that had been
Set free by a supercilious supreme being
Decapitated from reality while smiling
It had just rescued the first Lady from a psych ward

(Enter Jesters)
(Court Jester 1) (upbeat)
Jurisprudant?
Or Jerry mander?
When voting
Machine algorithms
Are manipulated

Are you a mother

Or a murderer?

(Jester 3)
Not ever properly elected
And now a war leader

(Jester 2)
pre-arraigned marriages;
a clear sign of fascism

(Opening Book Pretending to Read)

(Jester 1)
Cause:
New Psalms new testament states;
(Clears Throat)

(Jester 2)
Aah-Hum
A Morman Bible:

(Jester 1) (Reading Book)

“Unmarried couples should
Not eat across from each other.

(Jester 2)
(Clears throat loudly)
Ahh hum

(Jester 1)
A Morman Bible also states:

(First lady enters) (staring everyone down)

(First lady)
That a woman should not stand
Alone in society.

(Witches)

(Loudly) NO!!! … (hisps/ gasps)

(first lady)

It is a law that if you join his army

And have children our government may pay
For your house

(Jester 1)
Well then the
Government is buying houses
And defining good and evil
(Jester 3) (kinda sad)
When Christianity
And fascism get into bed…

Together…. And start reproducing….?

(Jester 1)

Ahh yes…You forget; Jesus followers maka the Hell;

Guess their still waookin auwn it

(Jester 3)
Well will he let
People choose if they join
The army without guns
To their heads?
(Jester 2)
And what is edible
Underwear defined as
On a first date?
(Jester 3)
…Is an unmarried man allowed
To date unconditionally?
( First Lady)
He will not

(Jester 2)
What if they haven’t even met yet?
Is he to repent for past transgressions?
(Bush First Lady)
When the president eats with the queen
He does so as a doggy; confused and
Growling about being a millionaire on display
And unsure about an outcome of which end
Is speaking and which end is directing and which
End will ultimately make the grass grow…

(Jester 1)
(Pouting arms crossed foot stop)
Well hmm

(Curtain)
(Present sign walks by)
(Table, Beds,)

Time Zones and Cows

(RNC Team Senators at Table playing poker, Wally stage center, DNC in Big bed)
(Conspiritorially)
(RNC member 1)
If a cow had a klan
Who would fill its ranks?
Molded formed cross
perfectly designed vertical
And horizontal rows
(Wally)
(Stage center -Sarcastically)
What sort of goal
Will this mooing produce?
(Laying in Bed)
(DNC member 1)(Exhausted) (Laying in Bed)
Suspending their utters of dependency
To the unchanging movements of
Battling suns and attempting to
Teach man the shape of celestial
Bodies dripping in candle wax
Braced in the machinery of cold steel
Sounding boards like pony rides
Outside local supermarkets
(President approaches RNC)
(Excitedly) (President Enters excitedly)
(President)
And if this dream was realized
Why one would not beat a drum!

(Grudgedly)
(Wally)
And tie a bell around ones neck
In a symbolization
Of life progressing their non-derivatives…

(Lights Fade to Black)(

(Curtain)

(A park)
Love, Country songs, and Chianti
(Lilith)
Did you see the sparks, broken glass, and screams
Sliding down the highway
in upside-Down SUVS
Rolling on recalled rims
And blown tires
soaking in rays
escaping through ozone…

stopped by pavement
Hot enough to stop an ice age

(Richard) (smirking)
…Ahh!
You wanna take your top off?
....
(A begrudged look)

(Lilith)
Isn’t it just amazing that we are
just climbing safely in the confines
of a corporate ladder
Watching the skillet
flip flopping autonomous sovereignty
Still sounding a siren
of tyrannical domination
Around a world
still hesitantly reading newspapers

(Richard)
But they still give us money;

(Lilith)
Let’s just hope always for the destruction of unilateralism
And the reinstitutionalization of French fries

(Richard)
(Grabs crotch)
Let’s find another way to forget about the past
(Enter Army Bratts On Cell Phone)
(Army Bratt 1) (Loud and cynical)
Prudence was bound and gagged
The day you were sworn in
And marched onto that plane
Headed for hedonism
Mother crying and desperately
Fighting security
to hold her boy marine

(Army Bratt 2On Cell Phone)

(Army Bratt 2)
And you called every friend
You knew to cry for existence

Selfless martyr with a gun

And a nation
paralyzed in
A theatre of warnings
(Army Bratts exit)

(Lilith and Richard continue Strolling)

(Lilith)
Let’s just not fearfully watch cable news
And Let’s just not drive mini-vans draped
In red, white, and leather
To activities pursuant of
So-called happiness while
At all times disbelieving
Past transgressions and
Unwrapped to the positives
of self-deprecation;
And let’s just not hate
Those scoffing at themselves

(Richard)
How’s this : Tell me which side spends
The most on lawyers and
Offensively defensive weaponry
And ill tell you which side wins

(Cut Off)
(Mackenzie)
By sacrificing humanity
to the level of constantly losing

(Enters Preacher) (Superciliously)

(Preacher)
Riding bareback across a sea of irrationality?

Capsizing frequently in swells of Galilee?

Ears destroyed from mentally pinballing?

(Cut Off)
(Lilith) (Flirting)
Through darkness;
What about …
Cause and effect governance

(Enters Minister) (with less Superciliousness)

(Minister)
Kindness must somehow reach the fearful
By our sides busy memorizing bible verses
While still stroking their big black shiny guns
And prophesying their personal saviors
(Preacher/Minister Together)
Murdered merely for a pursuit of knowledge
And understanding and
(Cut off)
(Lilith)
And let’s be kind to ourselves
When weeping under repression
Fighting to break through raging storm clouds

(Richard throws up hands and walks off)

(Curtain)
Selling a Cause

(Wally at Desk with Computer Laptop and Projector in Background)

(Pecking at home-rows)
(Wally) (Soliloquy)
To see through the motions of congress
Comparing the pushing and wrangling
Of printer paper to nuclear movements
Life plastered over silk screens

(President) (On Projector)

We are willing to encourage a rifle
In the arm pit, for a few more dollars
In the mail, for a larger picture in a
History book,

(Enters Wally’s Father and Mother)

(Father) (Pointing at Projector)
Is that just for a more attractive caption
In some future history book

(Wally turns off with remote)

(Mother)
Now he’s probably going sport shooting with supreme
Court justices a week before a case
Involving contracts of support for
Cultural significance is cancelled.

(Wally)
The taste of splashing toilet water tastes
Better in my mouth than the supposed
Reality that playfully pretends to represent
The hopes and wishes of a dreaming
America at large and largely ignored

(Antioch and Halofernes enter through backdrop)

We refuse to listen to an administration
Which serves God’s beauty with fines
For fashion mishaps

(Father)
and someone
Please take lady liberty’s towel away…

(Projector Flashes on)

(First Lady)
Silence

(Mother)
I have to watch
these
statues fall and
freedom fail to pay you murders

(Bush on projector rises finger as if to silence)

(Halofernes and Antioch sarcastically giddy)(Both)

Standing in pink high heels

(Wally)
We have put reason and logic in the dunce’s corner
And are being led by an idiot

(Halofernes and Antioch) (Pointing at Projector)

He burns his convictions
Over human ashes
Spilled across black
Simmering coals

He stood on the bones

And flesh of fractured
Fraternity and shattered
Heroism to propagate
And rally a self injured
Nation into self created
Black holes

(President on projector)
I Spend more money
On death than can be
Returned in tax returns
And I still demand a salute

(Curtain)
(Intermission)

(White house bedroom)

Presidential Dreams
(JFK and Lincoln pointing all the way through at President)
(President sleeping in bed then awakens)
(President) (Soliloquy)

Why did I wake up today?

Must have been Nixon’s ghost got me up
(snort of coke)
Presidential pure….
(Checks clock)
Time for self denial of an eternal flame
Today thinking to define good and evil with toes crossed
Inside leather shoes which could easily feed a family
Of four for over a month

(JFK/Lincoln MARCH in) (Aggressive Pointing at President who returns to bed)

(JFK)
but that’s not the base
(Lincoln)
Can’t wage this war and there won’t be
Any pictures in the papers cause your coke induced dream
Will never be realized,
(JFK)
poor sent marching
To inherit the world with automated weapons and automated
Brains separating actions from moments and emotions
(Sarcastically)
(Lincoln)
Only do one thing at once and you won’t get confused by
What you just did or didn’t do.
(Both pointing at Bush)
(Lincoln)
Nope, nope those people you finance the murder …are human beings
(JFK)
Another state sponsored and promoted murder
That’s what everyone knew we would be paying for
That’s why we hit recession; that’s why Wall Street failed
(Lincoln)
Making money immorally always ends in bad news
(JFK)
You won’t find it in your Bible;
(President)(Looks around)
...it all becomes clear as day…(?)

(JKF/ Lincoln smiling awry) (back to pointing at President)

(Lincoln)
that used car dealer smile you sold this nation a lemon
like a cowboy
after stepping
Into a cowpie
after
drunkenly falling off a horse
(still pointing at President)
(Lincoln) (Wailing Gun in Hand)
Of the wife… she knows her alphabet and can spell
Her articulation is magnificent and you’re atrocious
(Lincoln aims JFK pulls him away)

(Spotlight fades to only President)

(President in bed screams like the wise old owl who knows nothing)

(Lincoln/JFK whispering back and forth walking off stage) (Lit lightly)

(Lincoln)
That was just armchair quarterbacking though
(JFK)
Hindsight should get a job in the government and
We should pay him a king’s ransom to plan the future

(Lincoln)
In protest to the déjà vu
Experience forced to endure

(JFK)
Playfully placed on a population still recovering
From mismanaged games of chaotic dominos

(Curtain)
Sand Standing Still for Centuries

(Jack Karouac and Sydney Poitier At a Bar in Soliloquy)

(Cop training class off stage-right)
(Back and forth spot light)

(Sydney) (exasperated)
The twisted and tangled world weaved…

There’s Hip hop and then there’s hypocrisy…

If words make one into what one is…

(Shifting Spotlights)

(Jack Acknowledges)
(Up-ward pointed finger)
Well just the other day I was watching officers
Making arrests

(Sydney)
(noticeable upset)
……………………..Was it From dark dewy
Comfort of bedrooms?

(Jack)
Well I like to drive around then
watch police brutality
In boxed perspective

(Lights Shift)
(Enters Cop Training Class from stage right to off stage left stops stage center)
(Lead Cop)
Use deadly force
And brandish weapons
To inform points
Of implied guilt
Pre-emptively
Walk streets
And threaten bats striking heads
(Spotlight shifts)

(Jack)

Pissed off farmers pissing on other farmers

(Sydney)
Jack; teach self restraint

Propagate mental debate

And don’t wait

For the return

(Lilith across stage)

(Jack) (Pointing)
Of the women in red high heels

(Lilith)
Watching scumbags
Smelling cash
Paying for silence

(Sydney)(Conspiratorially)
Dew rags describing geography
Gem stones intoning status
Colors and jerseys are important
And if you get shot…
To the Used and Abused
(Lilith soliloquy)

(Lilith writing and thinking aloud)

Dear Dear Richard….,

The things you do and actions you take out of whimsical frivolity
In your porn and drug induced fantasy world leave me feeling horrible,
Miserable, and utterly alone.

Good Bye
Don’t call

(Leaves note on table)

(Walks off Stage)

(Curtain)

Then Elvis presented the rings and began the sermon

(Wedding Chapel with flowered trellis) (Silent Priest)

(Lilith and Wally) (Lilith begins in Soliloquy from Stage Left)

(Bride and Bridegroom dress)

(Lilith)
You can usually tell by the look in their eyes
Just gotta get em over a few of life’s hurdles
Hopefully it’s just santa and the easter bunny
Then they graduate with a cost of 50 dollars
Starting the process of creating their own delusions

(Ends Soliloquy)
(Wally Approaches)
(Wally)
Your Great Uncle Sal wrote a song about life
I believe it was…
(Lilith) (Supercilious flirting)

“Gramma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”

It was just a statement about women I guess

(Wally)
Well in my case Grandma goes around on holidays
Breaking bread and telling everyone to go to Hell
And I’m smart enough to recognize three things:
That first, your more beautiful than the harlequin of existence.
Second, that you are the positive influence in my life.
And Thirdly, and most importantly; because, those two things
Are absolutes; there is always heaven on earth.

(Moment of Silence)

(Lilith Twirling Hair)

(Lilith)
But there is no nobler title than widowed conservative
Housewife; pleading the 5th never sounds as pretentious

(Wally)
Except coming from executors of billion dollar ponsi schemes
But I have come to put my faith back into the lord
Trusting always with my legal matters

(Lilith)

… Hunka… Hunka….your burning

lady justice

(Wally walks away)

(Lilith) (soliloquy)
He makes me trust my gut like a quick-
Shooting President, least that’s what
I tell all foreign intelligence

(Puts on wig)
(Lilith)
I bet he doesn’t trust the blondes either
Must scare him more than anything else
They do things in teams like secretive
Organizations being institutional and creepy
Making Brunettes take death pacts and sign
Blood oaths before they use the dye and
Transfer over to the other side in an attempt
At creating something in the world
Putting on the zebra shirt
to flip
A poly-sci spectrum of dysfunctionality

(Priest looks to speak but doesn’t say a word)

Pecking order

(In Soliloquy)
(Stage Center)
(First Lady addressing Richard)
(First Lady)

He wanted me to tell him that

I loved him every fifteen minutes
he was crazy and insecure
he wanted me to call him daily
he turned my life into a blur

(Seductively)

He promised sex after a days work

An enticing little perk…
Standard for most
In healthy relationships

(Excited)
(Richard)
Let’s make it contractual

(Pitt) Caste)
(Shouting)
…He’s a conservative…

(First Lady)
I’ll train a mouse
To run a maze; But you’ll never see this mouse
Open a book and compose
A thesis upon comprehension

(President) (Strapped to Wall under Balcony with spotlight)

(Richard)
I’ll become what I envy
(Shoots gun at President)
Stage Center
The End