Fire With Fire

FIRE WITH FIRE (after Willy Shakes)
Written for RTP 2.2, December 2, 2006.

I'm sure the formatting's sloppy, but you'll have to deal.

CHARACTERS
ORWELL HEDGE, the President of the U.S.
GERRY DONNELLY, a senator
DEVORAH SCHULLER, the Israeli Prime Minister

SETTING
The White House, sometime next year.

COSTUMES
You know...whatever the President, the Prime Minister, and some generic senator dude might wear. Also, a janitorial-looking outfit for Schuller, and a cap.

PROPS
Broom/mop, cell phone (Schuller)

SOUND
Cell phone ringing
Gunshot
SCENE I
HEDGE. Within the year ’twill be two-thousand-eight*
And in that year this noble face and leg,
This stunning breast must needs be re-elect.
What worth a breast without its purple heart?
This nation claims a Christian heritage
But worships at the wingèd heels of War:
Lincoln bathed his throne in Southern blood;
Adolf polished Franklin D.R.’s crown;
And whence the praise of Washington? For what?
For being first? We prize no guinea pigs.
The homage that we pay him is in thanks
For freeing us from Britain’s curving claws.
E pluribus comes unum ringing cry:
“Give us this day our daily enemy!”

DONNELLY. But surely, Mr. President –

HEDGE. But what?

DONNELLY. You can’t be seeking war for warfare’s sake.

HEDGE. I do not seek. But if perchance it knocks,
I will not hesitate to crack the door.

DONNELLY. (Aside) And if it chance the knock you hear so clear
Is naught but timber creaking in the wind?

HEDGE. Devorah Schuller is arriving soon.
A pleasant hour or two is sure in store.

DONNELLY. She’s grown on you, then?

HEDGE. Ha, what do you mean?

DONNELLY. Two months ago you nearly struck her face
When she requested aid i’ th’ Gaza Strip.

HEDGE. ’Twas not that which she asked that angered me.
I thought her then a liar.

DONNELLY. Why, wherefore?

HEDGE. She swore to me her country has no nukes
But I was loath to trust her at the time.
DONNELLY. And you have changed your mind.

HEDGE. I know her now.
I must be off; that knock means she’s without. (Exit)

DONNELLY. And your mind, being changeable, will shift
Again, under my hand, as ocean waves
Must change under the moon, will they or no.
The people thirst for enemies, it’s true.
When war’s unjust, the enemy is you. (Exeunt)

SCENE II
HEDGE. Come walk with me, Ms. Schuller.

SCHULLER. Devorah, please.

HEDGE. Are we fast friends so soon? Just three months past
It was “Prime Minister,” or naught at all.

SCHULLER. Initial reservations cast aside,
You’ve proven a staunch friend of Israel.
I’ve come to thank you for your country’s aid
Over the past few weeks.

HEDGE. I heard you speak.
I heard you, making address to the Knesset.
What was it that you said?

SCHULLER. Was this the night –
The bombings –

HEDGE. Yes, the Haifa bus.

SCHULLER. I said
Not much of note, I think. A word or two.
“We must not choose fights when we have no cause – ”

HEDGE. “But when there’s cause, we do not have a choice.”
They’re noble words. They’re words I can admire.
Let’s walk a bit more.

SCHULLER. If you so desire. (Exeunt)

SCENE III
DONNELLY. Prime Minister. Ms. Schuller. Here.

SCHULLER. Who is’t?
DONNELLY. A friend.

SCHULLER. You look familiar. Do I know you?

DONNELLY. Keep your voice down. You’re in danger here.

SCHULLER. Danger, in the White House?

DONNELLY. Do you laugh?
You’ll soon be laughing through a different hole
When someone bores a bullet through your brain.

SCHULLER. You’re saying someone’s out to kill me.

DONNELLY. Yes.

SCHULLER. I’m Israel’s Prime Minister, you know.
There’s always someone out to kill me.

DONNELLY. Yes.
But this time someone’s going to succeed
If you don’t trust me.

SCHULLER. Who’s this mastermind?

DONNELLY. The President.

SCHULLER. Of the United States?

DONNELLY. That’s the one.

SCHULLER. You’re crazy.

DONNELLY. I can prove it.
Wear you these.

SCHULLER. They stink of dust and pine.

DONNELLY. The uniform of cleaning personnel.
Tuck up your hair into this cap. Be quick.
Then stow yourself away in here –

SCHULLER. The men’s room?

DONNELLY. Hide you inside a stall. Stand on the seat
So no one sees your ankles, legs, or feet.
You’ll hear from Mr. Orwell Hedge anon.
SCHULLER. If you are lying, Donnelly, you’re gone. (Exit)

DONNELLY. And if I craft our words to taint her ear,
She’ll sound for Hedge that knock he longs to hear. (Exeunt)

SCENE IV
DONNELLY. What news from Schuller?

HEDGE. Merely offered thanks.

DONNELLY. Just thanks?

HEDGE. Yes, thanks for all our country’s aid.

DONNELLY. And what else did she want?

HEDGE. Naught.

DONNELLY. Naught?

HEDGE. Ay, naught.
Look you incredulous?

DONNELLY. It merely seems –

HEDGE. Go on.

DONNELLY. It’s nothing, Mr. President.

HEDGE. Man, speak.

DONNELLY. It merely seems – oh, I know not –
A lot to go through for a simple “Thanks.”
A card shipped overseas would have sufficed.

HEDGE. You wonder why she had to ship herself.

DONNELLY. Well –
HEDGE. What are you suggesting?

DONNELLY. I, suggest?

HEDGE. You think she has a motive unexpressed.

DONNELLY. I do not think a thing.

HEDGE. Ay, but you raise
A point well taken. It was a mistake
To turn my admiration into trust.

DONNELLY. You have no reason to suspect her, sir.
Why don’t you speak with her? I’m sure a talk
Will help renew your trust.

HEDGE. Let’s find her, then.
I warrant she’s not even left the grounds. (Exeunt)

SCENE V
SCHULLER. I can’t believe I’m doing this. It can’t
Be true. Why would Hedge want me dead? And why
Would he be such a fool as to attempt
To kill me while I’m in his –
(SCHULLER’s cell phone rings)
Oh my God.
I’ll answer it. I can’t. What if it’s – who?
You’re batty, Schuller. No one wants to kill –
Nobody in the White House wants to kill –
But what’s the sense in taking chances? No.
Let’s wait and see. Into the men’s room, go.

SCENE VI.
HEDGE. Can’t find her? Cannot find her! Search again.
I spoke with her not half an hour since.
You’ve called her? And no answer? Try once more.

DONNELLY. No luck, sir. None.

HEDGE. What can this mean?
She’s meeting with her spies.

DONNELLY. What spies?

HEDGE. You don’t
Think that they’ve got informants everywhere?

DONNELLY. Well, every nation has a spy or two –

HEDGE. I’ll kill her, Donnelly. Conniving snake.
She wriggled in and gained my trust, and now
She’s slithered off to plot our country’s doom!

DONNELLY. Keep talking, but let me use the restroom. (Exeunt)

SCENE VII
HEDGE. I’ll kill them! Every solitary one!
I’ll start with her, that lying, cringing bitch –
She fly from me? I’ll teach her how to fly.
To hell with her, and see if she flies back.
And then her precious country: damn them all.

DONNELLY. You’re getting all worked up.

HEDGE. Damned right I am.
Well, don’t you see it? Donnelly, it’s war!
“But when there’s cause, we do not have a choice.”
The bitch said it herself. We have no choice.
I’m going in the hist’ry books for this.
Christ, Donnelly, you finished?

DONNELLY. In a sec.
Why don’t you go on out? I’ll join you soon.

HEDGE. OK, you take your dump. But hurry up.
We’ve got a war to start.

DONNELLY. Yes, sir, we have. (Exit HEDGE)
Ms. Schuller, are you in there? Come out, quick.
And now do you believe what I have said?

SCHULLER. I do not understand. What can have happened?

DONNELLY. He hates the Jews. He’s always hated them.
Well, you, that is. He’s crazed. A lunatic.
He keeps a photograph of Hitler in
His wallet.

SCHULLER. Oh, my God. Does no one know?

DONNELLY. About his lunacy? He hides it well.

SCHULLER. He does. But still, he wouldn’t kill me here.
He wouldn’t dare. He knows it would mean war.

DONNELLY. You heard him talk. There’s nothing he craves more.

SCHULLER. What can I do?

DONNELLY. There’s one thing that he fears:
DONNELLY (cont). The threat of nukes.

SCHULLER. Who doesn’t?

DONNELLY. But his fear
Is absolutely pathological.
The merest mention of an I.B.M.
Will melt him down like cream cheese in your hands.
If he thought Israel would drop a bomb
Or two, or three –

SCHULLER. But we don’t have –

DONNELLY. I know.
But he does not. In fact, he’s sure you do.
He’s got himself convinced that everyone
Has got a set of W.M.D.’s
And every crosshair trained on the U.S.
He’s paranoid as hell.

SCHULLER. So you suggest
That Israel should threaten him with nukes
Until he lets me leave?

DONNELLY. That is correct.

SCHULLER. And that will work?

DONNELLY. I stake my name on it.
As you can see, I am his confidant.
I know him better than his mother does.

SCHULLER. But all the world will know about our threat.

DONNELLY. Oh, no. You’ll send it just to him. And he
Will start to shake, and twitch his mouth in fright,
And straightaway call off the hounds on you.
He’ll be too terrified to say a thing
To anyone but me.

SCHULLER. You need to go.
He’ll wonder where you are.

DONNELLY. You’ll heed my words?

SCHULLER. I said, get out! (Exit DONNELLY) My God, my God, my God.
SCHULLER (cont). The U.S. should rethink a few details
Since they’ve put into office Joe Insane
And no one seems to notice or to care.
Can Donnelly be trusted? This is nuts.
Am I considering a nuclear war?
It’s just a fake one, Schuller. But what if
He’s wrong, and Hedge is not so eas’ly spooked?
A crazy man may do much harm, and fast.
Then all the more persuasion now to strike,
Evaporate his bloody war with flame.
First my life, then all of Israel lost –
That is, of course, if I fear now to act.
I cannot lead my nation from the grave.
(Dials number on cell, then speaks into it)
It is a strange request I have to make,
But ask no questions, for our country’s sake. (Exeunt)

SCENE VIII
(Enter SCHULLER with a mop or broom; she hears HEDGE’s voice, off, and hides; HEDGE/DONNELLY enter on his line)

HEDGE. It’s true! The bastards have nukes, after all!
And think that we have Schuller hostage! Christ!
They must have gone insane.

DONNELLY. Well, here’s your war.

HEDGE. They used to say you should fight fire with fire
But that was when they had no I.B.M.’s.
Fight fire with I.B.M.’s, eh, Donnelly?

DONNELLY. You mean –

HEDGE. Return the favor. Right you are.
Nuke them all before they get to us.

SCHULLER. You can’t do that!

HEDGE. What – who the hell are you?

SCHULLER. We don’t have any nukes, it’s just a bluff!

(HEDGE misinterprets SCHULLER’s brandishing of her broom as an attack and defends himself with some prop on hand; brief “sword fight” ensues)

HEDGE. Goddamn it, Donnelly, do something here!
HEDGE (cont). Save your President! Get out your gun!

(DONNELLY shoots SCHULLER)

SCHULLER. Donnelly, you...shot me. But I thought that –
Oh, I see now. Oh, I see, I see now.
Now I know why I thought that I knew you:
You’re the man who ran for President once
Many years ago. The Green...Green Party.

DONNELLY. One half of one percent of all the votes.

SCHULLER. Saw your face in papers here and there, then.
Lost to Hedge’s father. But you fancy
Having one more go, then? Knew you didn’t
Stand a chance against this guy if he tries
To run again?

HEDGE. What is he speaking of?

DONNELLY. He’s just a dying madman, sir. Who knows?

SCHULLER. Madman? (Takes off her cap)

HEDGE. Schuller? I don’t understand what –

SCHULLER. Never mind. You’ve got your war now. Sorry
That I was a fool. (Dies)

HEDGE. I’m not sure how this happened, Donnelly –
But we just killed Devorah Schuller.

DONNELLY. We?
You told me to.

HEDGE. Yes, but I didn’t know
That it was the Prime Minister. But what
Israeli will believe it? Not a one.

DONNELLY. It’s war, then, after all, sir.

HEDGE. Yes, it’s war.

DONNELLY. Your name in all the hist’ry books.

HEDGE. That’s so.
But somehow I don’t – never mind. You ought
HEDGE (cont). To go and tell someone.

DONNELLY. Yes, sir, I will.
(Aside) And tell the world that Gerry Donnelly
Come Tuesday in that bright November next
Will brightly fill your inept shoes, and walk
In all the stumbling footprints that you left.
You listened, Orwell Hedge, just for the ringing knock of war;
The knock of opportunity’s the one worth list’ning for. (Exeunt)

Hold Me Tight

I would post "Hold Me Tight," my most recent short story, but formatting is a big part of it, and doing columns in a blog...I'm not up to that. Currently.

So I'm just going to say this: I like it. I don't often like my short stories, but I like it. Better than "Vinegar for Flies." It's experimental, it's forward-looking, it's sciencey. I continue to improve as far as interdisciplinary writing is concerned.

In addition, over winter break, I will be writing 10-12 short plays.

That Time

        Some July – the clearest I could remember – then or since –
        and she: but it will be all right won’t it?...you know it will be all right don’t you? and I saying no, it won’t be...and not sure that it won’t be but saying, no, it won’t be...be what? All right...and she: but I want to...and I saying you only think so and later you’ll regret it...
        That time – blue sky – asphalt clean from rain – that time – we walking together – hand in –
        and I saying, I’ll hurt you...no you won’t...I will though...you won’t...I will and they always do...who does? We...and she: you will never hurt me...you could never...not you...and I saying, what if I do, what if I am, what if I am that one who hurts you...
        Blue sky – no clouds – finishing our hot dogs – that time – hand in hand – the first time – hand in hand in hand in hand in – like the octopi – she not eating the last bit of her bun – all mustard-soaked – like she does – never eating the last bit – not of anything – back streets – and the last bit always left in some green dumpster –
        and she: someone has already got that title...and I saying, you can always do one worse...and she: no never, not you...
        That first time – when I touched her hand – fingers warm – nails coming over the ends – you don’t expect that – and warm from the bun – just like a girl – nails long enough to feel over the ends of the fingers – never expected that – but it made sense – they have nails – and we don’t – and she striding – and me with my chest thudding – and the blue sky scarred by wires – and a pair of scuffed Nikes knotted together – against the blue – slung over the wires – and those nails that will tickle your hand near the wrist – like the little round plastic at the ends of shoelaces –
        I’m hurting you I am...
        No you’re not...
        I am yes I am just tell me...
        And she: you aren’t.
        That first time...with her crying...pretending not to, and still crying, and her head sliding up and down on the pillow...and me not saying but thinking yes I am and I will more too after you begin to love me...
        Yellow mustard – and she tossing it aside – the breeze rocks the sneakers – some bird will have it – the way it is – always something picking up what’s left – and she: why do you think they are always there? – the shoes she means – on the wires – and I saying they got stuck on their way up to the stars – and she: do any ever make it? – and I saying nothing but clutching her hand tighter now and thinking this is it – the first surrender –

Brack scholarship

UNTITLED
by Cory Tamler

Characters*

THE MAGICIAN Foucault’s Pendulum. Youngish, passionate. Scattered.

THE CRIMINAL Young’s Double-Slit Experiment (applied to electrons). Nondescript.

THE DETECTIVE Millikan’s Oil-Drop Experiment. Older, rigid.

GALILEO You remember him. Italian physicist.

THE DOUBLE Played by the actor playing Galileo.

*Note: Although the Magician and the Detective are written as women and the Criminal and Galileo/Double as men, the characters’ genders are flexible. Lines may be adjusted accordingly.

Setting

The dressing room of a theatre.

Synopsis

To be filled in later.

Costumes & Props

To be filled in later.
SCENE I. The interior of the MAGICIAN’s dressing room. Here we find all of the things one would generally find in the dressing room of a theatre: a closet and a dressing screen in particular. There’s a main door leading to the rest of the theatre and another, smaller door that opens into the bathroom of the dressing room. The MAGICIAN is preparing for a performance.

She opens the closet and takes out her cape. She puts the cape on and momentarily assumes her magician persona, swishing the cape and gesturing with her arm. She looks at her empty hand.

MAGICIAN
Wand.
(She searches her pockets, then the room)
Wand, wand, wand...
(The wand isn’t in the room. Exit MAGICIAN into the bathroom. Enter the CRIMINAL, a nondescript but suspicious looking personage who looks around and slips into the closet. The MAGICIAN immediately re- enters, dumping out the contents of a bag she’s brought back with her. Juggling balls and a pack of cards fall out, but no wand.)
Where could it possibly...
(She goes to open the closet, but just as she does, the lights flicker out; she yells. Beat. The lights come back on; the closet door is closed and in front of it sits a top hat. The MAGICIAN, a little disoriented, picks up the hat and overturns it; a pair of gloves falls out. Still no wand. The MAGICIAN swears under her breath. There is a knock at the door.)
Go away!
(Another knock)
I said go away, I’m in the midst of my pre-show ritual!

She drops to her hands and knees to look underneath the furniture

DETECTIVE (off)
Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you, but I have reason to believe that a dangerous fugitive –

MAGICIAN
Oh, fine, come in.
(The DETECTIVE enters, soaking wet; the MAGICIAN, still on the floor, continues to search for the wand)
Who the hell are you? Good evening. Is there a storm?

DETECTIVE
A light drizzle.

MAGICIAN
The electricity all went out a moment ago.

DETECTIVE
(Flashing a badge, at which the MAGICIAN doesn’t look)
I’m an investigator. I’m looking for –

MAGICIAN
Lovely to meet you. I hope you realize you’re absolutely destroying my concentration.

DETECTIVE
You wouldn’t happen to be in the business of harboring desperate criminals?

MAGICIAN
Not a chance. I’m too busy falling to pieces. First the wand, now the electricity...how they expect me to perform if the lights go out I have no –
(Crawling into DETECTIVE’s legs)
Do you mind?

DETECTIVE
So then you’d have no objection to me looking around a bit?

MAGICIAN
Not at all. Best of luck to you. If you find a wand, let me know.

DETECTIVE
(As she searches the room)
A wand?

MAGICIAN
It’s a stick, a wooden stick, mostly black with a white –

DETECTIVE
I know what a wand is.

MAGICIAN
Well, it’s very important. I have a show in half an hour and I can’t go on without it.

DETECTIVE
Is it one of those trick wands?

MAGICIAN
No, just a regular wooden stick.

DETECTIVE
Then it isn’t really necessary, is it?

MAGICIAN
Certainly it’s necessary. It’s the most necessary thing of all.

DETECTIVE
But if you don’t do tricks with it –

MAGICIAN
Magic isn’t tricks.

DETECTIVE
There’s no such thing as magic.

MAGICIAN
Maybe not. But Galileo will be in the audience today –

DETECTIVE
Galilei?

MAGICIAN
– someone I’d like very much to impress, as it’s he who made my work possible, after all. Look, exactly who are you looking for and what makes you think whoever it is would be hiding in my dressing room?

DETECTIVE
I tracked him here. But I’m not surprised he’d come here. He’s a theatrical sort of fellow.

MAGICIAN
Well, he clearly isn’t in here, and I haven’t seen anyone but the call boy for hours.

Beat.

DETECTIVE
I don’t think I caught your name.

MAGICIAN
I didn’t give it.

Beat.

DETECTIVE
Would you mind giving it now?

MAGICIAN
Not at all. I’m Foucault’s Pendulum.

DETECTIVE
Millikan’s Oil-Drop Experiment.

MAGICIAN
Oh – I’ve heard of you!

DETECTIVE
And I of you.

MAGICIAN
Have you? From whom?

DETECTIVE
Oh, I could hardly miss the posters they’ve been plastering all over town for the past month. They seem to indicate that you put on a...spectacular show.

MAGICIAN
Spectacular! At the least. Good magic always has a generous helping of spectacle.

DETECTIVE
Your tricks must be something to see.

MAGICIAN
Are you staying for the show this evening?

DETECTIVE
Well, I’ll need to have a look at the audience, see if he’s managed to lose himself among the crowd, but I don’t know about –

MAGICIAN
You’re in for a treat! Not that my regular schtick isn’t impressive, of course, what with juggling fire and vanishing jungle men in boxes and the like, but tonight – well –
(She hands the DETECTIVE a program)
It’s not often that I get to do it. The space has to be right – high enough ceiling, appropriate place to rig equipment...and it takes some setting up. But it’s –

DETECTIVE
(Reading)
“??? (come see the world turn)”
(To the MAGICIAN)
Quite a claim.

MAGICIAN
It’s my specialty.

DETECTIVE
Fascinating. And you said you’ve heard of me?

MAGICIAN
Here and there. In the papers. You always seem to be solving some big mystery or other. I’m impressed. I never had the mind for that sort of thing.

DETECTIVE
It does require a kind of – rigor.

MAGICIAN
They say you always get your man.

DETECTIVE
So far.

MAGICIAN
Quite a claim.

DETECTIVE
Indeed.
(Beat)
Well, if you see anything suspicious, you’ll let me know, won’t you?

MAGICIAN
Maybe if you told me who you’re looking for, or what he looks like –

DETECTIVE
A physical description would be virtually impossible, as he rarely looks the same twice. In fact, he isn’t even always a “he.”

MAGICIAN
But how is that –

DETECTIVE
By use of a particularly perfidious theory of quantum mechanics.

MAGICIAN
What’s his crime?

DETECTIVE
The murder of reason.
(Beat)
I don’t subscribe to that ludicrous superstition of bidding one to break one’s lower limbs before going onstage, and I don’t imagine you’d appreciate me wishing you good luck –
(The MAGICIAN covers her ears)
– so I’ll merely say goodbye. For now.

MAGICIAN
Are you going to get a seat?

DETECTIVE
Hardly. I’m going to search the rest of the theatre.

MAGICIAN
(As the DETECTIVE exits)
Try not to move too many of my props –

SCENE II. GALILEO, from the driver’s seat of an automobile, talks on his cell phone as he drives.

GALILEO
The rational mind, pah! I’ve no faith in it anymore. Science has become so popularized nowadays any fool thinks he can discourse adequately on it...Well, certainly, but that was the seventeenth century...No, it was quite different...No, I’m telling you...When you looked into a man’s eyes and explained to him the Copernican system, when you dragged him by the hand to your telescope and showed him the Medicean stars, he denied your proofs, he denounced the idea of a heliocentric system in spite of all reason, but there was a spark in his eyes...a spark...am I breaking up? I have three bars of – how about now?...Good. There was a spark in his eyes that said, “I know you’re right, I’m just too terrified to believe you”...No...Not anymore. Everyone knows the earth revolves around the sun now, but they know it in the same way our seventeenth-century theologians “knew” the earth was the center of the...no, it’s not rational, it’s what they’ve been told...it was once a triumph of reason, now it’s blind lazy habit...how is it worse? You haven’t seen it?
(There is a flash of lightning)
Blast this storm! I’m saying that the public has commandeered science in the name of – the name of – well, I’ll be damned if I know what it’s in the name of, but it isn’t reason! Reason is dead!...Yes, you’ve said that, but I don’t agree...There is no one thing you can pin the death of reason on...
(Seeing an object pass by his car, he explodes in rage)
See! That! That! That right there is what I’m talking about...It’s a disgrace, it’s a – mockery...A giant billboard advertisement for a car, right there, in black and white...No, it’s what it said...”Sticks to the road like a positively charged electron”...WELL I KNOW IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE! Why does it need to be a positron? Is the road supposed to be negatively charged? The road’s attached to the ground and the ground is – grounded! And who do you think wrote that piece of tripe?...Some everyday ordinary schmuck who took a freshman physics class twenty years ago and decided he was qualified to share his ignorance...No, I’m sorry...I’m sorry, Detective, I can’t – no, I won’t help you, not this time...Because I don’t think it’s worthwhile...What’s the use of punishing anyone for the death of reason? Won’t bring it back to life...

SCENE III. The interior of the MAGICIAN’s dressing room. Everything is exactly as in SCENE I. In fact, this scene begins exactly when SCENE I began. You might call it an alternate reality.

The MAGICIAN is preparing for a performance.

She opens the closet and takes out her cape. She puts the cape on and momentarily assumes her magician persona, swishing the cape and gesturing with her arm. She looks at her empty hand.

MAGICIAN
Wand.
(She searches her pockets, then the room)
Wand, wand, wand...
(The wand isn’t in the room. Exit MAGICIAN into the bathroom. Enter the CRIMINAL, a nondescript but suspicious looking personage who looks around – as the MAGICIAN re-enters, dumping out the contents of a bag she’s brought back with her. Juggling balls and a pack of cards fall out, but no wand. The CRIMINAL sits)
Where could it possibly...
(She sees the CRIMINAL)
Who the hell are you?

CRIMINAL
A – fan of yours. A great fan.

MAGICIAN
Really?

CRIMINAL
One of the greatest.

MAGICIAN
How did you get backstage?

CRIMINAL
Nothing is impossible to the truly devoted. Would you be so kind – ?

He pulls a business card from his pocket, and a pen.

MAGICIAN
(Signing)
Never had anyone ask me to sign their business card before.

CRIMINAL
They’re a convenient size for collecting.

MAGICIAN
(Looking at the front of the card)
“Young’s Double-Slit Experiment Applied to the Interference of Single Electrons.” Is that you, then?

CRIMINAL
None other.

MAGICIAN
Well, I’m glad to meet you. I always enjoy meeting my fans.
(She takes the top hat out of the closet and overturns it; the pair of gloves falls out)
I generally prefer that they don’t barge into my dressing room unannounced, but –

CRIMINAL
Are you looking for something?

The lights flicker off, then back on after a beat, as in SCENE I.

MAGICIAN
What was that?

CRIMINAL
There’s quite a storm outside.

MAGICIAN
Oh, this is perfect. I’ve lost my wand and now we might lose our lights – some show this is going to be –

She is on her hands and knees searching for the wand.

CRIMINAL
You lost your wand?

MAGICIAN
Yes, before what might possibly be the most important show of my career, and don’t say it.

CRIMINAL
Don’t say what?

MAGICIAN
That it’s “just a stick” or “only a little piece of wood” or “Couldn’t you use a pencil instead?” or any of those things people always say. It isn’t just a piece of wood and it is important. To create the –

CRIMINAL
Spectacle. I know. I wasn’t going to say any of those things. I know how important a sense of...flair can be.

Beat.

MAGICIAN
Oh.

Beat. There is a knock at the door. Neither MAGICIAN nor CRIMINAL seem to hear it. Beat. Another knock.

DETECTIVE (off)
Hello? Is anyone in there?
(More knocking)
Hello?

MAGICIAN
Yes, what is it?

DETECTIVE (off)
Open the door.

MAGICIAN
This is a private dressing room.

DETECTIVE (off)
I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I have reason to believe that a dangerous fugitive may be hiding in that private room of yours.
(Beat. The MAGICIAN and the CRIMINAL do not move)
Ma’am? I’m an investigator.

MAGICIAN
There’s no one in here.

DETECTIVE (off)
I’d just like to have a look for myself, if you don’t mind.

MAGICIAN
I do mind. I’m in the midst of my pre-show ritual.

DETECTIVE (off)
This will be easier on all of us if you let me in.

MAGICIAN
Do you have a search warrant?

DETECTIVE (off)
Rest assured, I can get one.

MAGICIAN
Then come back when you’ve got one.

Beat.

DETECTIVE (off)
Certainly.

Long pause. The MAGICIAN resumes her search.

CRIMINAL
Why is tonight’s show so terribly important?

MAGICIAN
A special guest in the audience.

CRIMINAL
Who is it?

MAGICIAN
Galileo.

CRIMINAL
Aren’t you going to ask me about –

MAGICIAN
About what?

CRIMINAL
Whether I’m a dangerous fugitive.

MAGICIAN
If you were all that dangerous, you’d have a gun to my head by now.

CRIMINAL
Perhaps I have other ways of dealing with my victims.

MAGICIAN
I’ll risk it.

CRIMINAL
Why?

Pause.

MAGICIAN
Are you really a fan of mine?

CRIMINAL
I’m a great fan of your work, yes. To be strictly accurate I’ve never observed it myself, so I’m not acquainted with it on a personal basis, but there’s a particular act of yours that I’d be thrilled to see.

MAGICIAN
Come see the world turn.

CRIMINAL
I hear you rarely perform it.

MAGICIAN
Tonight is one such occasion.

CRIMINAL
Because Galileo is coming?

MAGICIAN
Let us say – that Galileo is coming because I’m doing it.

CRIMINAL
Do you mind if I ask – why magic?

MAGICIAN
What do you mean?

CRIMINAL
I understand you love – the spectacle of it. It’s something I love and admire too, very much so. But the thing you are in fact famous for, while indeed spectacular, is – far from being a magician’s stunt.

MAGICIAN
Is it?

CRIMINAL
Well, yes. It’s a proof – a visual and elegant proof of the spinning of the earth. Instead of deceiving the senses, it awakens them. Instead of blinding reason with illusion, it is awe-inspiring precisely because it appeals to reason.

MAGICIAN
Do you really think that people enjoy magic shows because they think the magic is real?
(Beat)
People like to watch magic because they like to play “figure out the trick.” A well-executed bit of magic is the highest tribute to reason that there is. It’s – it’s – watch.
(She picks up the deck of cards and shows the top card to the CRIMINAL)
What card is it?

CRIMINAL
Five of diamonds.

MAGICIAN
(Shakes the card back and forth; it becomes the Jack of clubs)
Is it?

CRIMINAL
Impressive.

MAGICIAN
And what’s your brain saying to you right now? Do you believe that I actually used some sort of occult power to literally change the five of diamonds into the Jack of clubs?

CRIMINAL
Of course not. There’s a trick to it – some sleight of hand involved –

MAGICIAN
But you don’t know what it is.

CRIMINAL
No.

MAGICIAN
And that’s what makes the trick worth seeing, isn’t it? You’re in awe. Not of magic, but of the triumph of reason that allows a person to figure out a way to make something look magical. You know there has to be an explanation and, what’s more, you know that if I told you the explanation, you’d understand it.

CRIMINAL
But what does that have to do with your pendulum act?

MAGICIAN
That’s just taking the whole thing one step further.

Innocents

You can say what you like. You can spout your facts and figures but you cannot deny that the innocent do not deserve to die. At all costs we must protect them. At all costs. Any cost.

Six million people died at the hands of Adolf Hitler for no crime other than their race. Six million! You like to think that now, we wouldn’t sit idly by, we wouldn’t let such a travesty occur. But still the innocent die every day. Think of Rwanda. Think of Darfur.

In the Middle East innocent women are persecuted. They are made to hide themselves in mountains of clothing – they are treated as property, their bodies abused, they can be stoned to death for a transgression as small as showing an inch of skin. They are treated as criminals – worse than criminals: slaves. For no crime other than their sex.

Here in America helpless children are the victims of abuse. A drunken father, a hysterical mother, these verbally and physically abuse their children, and often friends and neighbors turn a blind eye. And there is rape and there is murder. There is an illness in this country. We are failing to protect the innocent.

There are abortions. Who more innocent than an unborn baby, still dependent on the dark, safe warmth of its mother’s womb for life? A fetus is so helpless it cannot even cry for help, and yet we refuse to be its voice. We tear it from its mother’s body, murdering an innocent for no crime other than being a fetus.

And puppies. A chain of drug dealers smuggled drugs into this country by cutting open puppies’ stomachs and hiding the drugs inside. Many of the puppies died of infection. And if one network was doing it, you can be sure they were not alone. How many other drug lords are stuffing puppies full of narcotics for their mercenary purposes? Perhaps some are even using – violating – kittens! I tell you that we must protect these innocent creatures. Puppies must be dying by the hundreds and we say nothing.

And let’s not forget lab rats. This is the ultimate cruelty. Exploiting poor, helpless rodents in the name of science? Of medicine? A cure for cancer or AIDS in exchange for the deaths of countless white mice? It’s hideous! People need to stop contracting AIDS, that’s the answer! These rats and mice have committed no crime other than being born rodents!

We must protect the innocent! And we must remember that every time an innocent mind is corrupted, another innocent has died. Every time a ten-year-old child learns the definition of sexual intercourse. Every time a young boy walks into a drugstore to buy his first package of condoms. Every time a young girl chooses a bathing suit that will showcase her breasts. These are all deaths. More than deaths. They’re murders. We murder these innocents by allowing their childhood to be ripped from them too soon.


----potential monologue for a one-act

Memory

I am driving home. I can still taste blood. My tongue is coated; the back, thick. You must be driving home, too. This is not in my mind. In my mind you are still parked miles behind me, in the gravel lot, in the strained silence, your headlights cut, ahead of you the jungle gym stiffly clawing the sawdust and the swingset whimpering. I am driving home along a road that radiates out from the central point of you, it is all relative to you, and I am at this moment fixed distance from you but I am in every direction. Together you and I define a sphere.

The taste is as if a cold sore sharply burst from the back of your mouth onto my tongue.

What to make of you? We sat in the back seat of your car. This is a ritual. We have performed it before.

The road is twisted, there are no street lamps, trees hang over the asphalt. My window is down. Summer hangs from my mirrors. I have the radio on. These songs are supposed to be telling me about my life. These are supposed to tell me how I should feel right now in the wake of you. I don’t know what to tell myself.

You tried to speak. I was too quick for you, had mercy on you, kissed you before you could heave up the words to your lips.

Now I think about your car. It is never my car we use—this is the ritual, step one. You never think about the smell of a thing until you stop smelling it. Away from the deep scent of leather, of car freshener and your long neck, I know that your car has a smell. I can’t remember it now; but years and years away, when everything has changed—if I told you now it would you would not believe me, but I know in this moment we are not forever—years, and lovers gone by, if I opened your car door I would know you again for a lifetime. I would be seventeen as I am always seventeen in some part of me. In memory, the bone that never grows.

The two-tone man

jenny’s best friend is a two-tone man.
they met at the shore with their hands in the sand
and their salty smiles and waterskis
and they lit cigarettes to swim in the sea.

the two-tone man had a two-tone door
in his two-tone house in the summer by the shore.
jenny passed through it, jenny was lost –
said “a friendship’s worth only as much as it costs.”

they beachcombed all summer for horseshoe crabs.
the two-tone man could always get a cab.
and they’d ride through the city with jenny’s hair down.
he was always around. he was always around.

in the winter the man, he had snow and sleds.
he slept out of sight in a quilted bed.
his Pennsylvania wife was white and red
with a lace blue apron and a shrunken head
and her pantry was stocked with mops and jams
and locked to keep out her two-tone man.
her two-tone husband still loves his jam.
he nicks it whenever he can.

jenny’s best friend is a two-tone man.
he’ll be back when the summer sizzles the sand.
jenny loves chocolate and she loves the ocean
she loves her life here, she can always go boating

and the calendar clings to her bamboo wall
as the months bleed by and softly fall
while outside the markets are shouting all year
and it’s snowing somewhere, but there’s always sun here.

jenny guts fish, the pink wife strains berries
jenny goes swimming, the wife feeds the canary.
he’ll be back when the summer sizzles the sand.
he won’t think of the woman he married for jam.
by the sea he is jenny’s. he’s her two-tone man.

A snippet

Lisa May and I walked arm-in-arm down Sycamore. We were convinced the greatest feeling in the world was walking arm-in-arm down Sycamore in the springtime with your best friend. Even years later, I’d have to admit that there is something to be said for the easy physicality of closeness—the parallel drawn between hearts and arms. The sidewalk was damp from rain. I looked forward to walking into Lisa May’s house through the back screen door, hearing my rubber soles squeak up and down the linoleum kitchen floor. We were eleven. Squeaking was the sound of clean.

I didn’t see it there; I stepped on it; it was square and foreign under my weight. It stuck to the wet on my shoe, as paper will, and I peeled it off. A purple-and-white square with a raised circle in the middle. A package—like those HandiWipes they gave you at the diner down the street with your buffalo wings. “What is it?” I said.

“A rubber,” said Lisa May. She took it and put it in the pocket of her windbreaker. She had three older sisters.