play-THE HOLY HOOKER by Robert Patrick

There are, alas, no photos of HARVEY FIERSTEIN doing this monologue in Powell Shepard’s Xmas show at La Mama in the late 1970s, but here he is in a similar mood in my “The Haunted Host” in Boston in 1976.

ROBERT PATRICK READS this on YouTube HERE.

THE HOLY HOOKER

by Mary Magdalene

as told to Robert Patrick

c1976
Robert Patrick
1837 N. Alexandria Ave.
#211
L.A. CA 90027
(323) 360-1469
e-mail: rbrtptrck@aol.com
IM: rbrtptrck

Okay. All right. I wanna talk about it. I was Christ’s girl. He was my fella. Well, who wasn’t? I worked the Fertile Crescent in between the Testaments. I knew potentates and prophets, centurions and saints, Pharisees and Sadducees, and I wanna tell you, Old Capital-”H”-He was as sweet a kid as ever kept a girl up all night talkin’. Him talkin’, not me. I ain’t talked ’til now.

I was a cute kid from Gehenna. Mom and Dad were nothin’ to write home about. I wasn’t in His league in that department, but then I didn’t have His press-agents. And I’m alive today, so what does that tell you about this game? I learned the facts of life in the streets, and they were no surprise. I’d figured as much. The old man didn’t cotton to my acquaintances among the Arab caravanners or the Roman Legionnaires, so I skedaddled to Joppa as soon as I filled out. Wended my way with a Circassian slave dealer, a smoky blonde with porcelain skin. A blow to him when we got to Joppa and he found out that beautiful blonde Circassians went on the slave-block automatically. Don’t we all? On my own at eleven, made my only mistake in a lifetime fraught with chances: I listened to a Phoenician cooch-choreographer on one night of free-flowing grape juice, and agreed to meet him in Jerusalem for a fling at the movies. Got there. Found out the movies hadn’t been invented yet. Irked my ass. But I learned.

So I was in Jerusalem, workin’ both sides of The Street Called Straight. I was makin’ notches through the Sanhedrin, also spreadin’ good will among tourists, and sendin’ lots of Roman soldiers off to conquest happy, too. I reserve the right to render service to anyone, regardless. Things weren’t as segregated as they look in the history books. When your era goes between hard covers, they’ll classify you-all by religion, too. I mean, Nixon was not quintessentially Quaker, get my meanin’? The boys in Jerusalem were like boys all over, except for that world-famed cosmetic surgery you-know-where. It don’t affect performance, even if it does make ‘em feel like they gotta overcompensate, but then country boys always do. Like I used to say to Veronica, “They’re all alike, only some of ‘em are more alike than others.” Veronica thought I was a brain. That’s what makes you one. I used to invest some of her gelt for her. She’s retired now, owns groves. Owes me everything. Who doesn’t? Which brings us to John the Baptist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

J. the B. was kinky for a kid, but cute. Where do they get the self-flayin’ and bug-eatin’? It pops up in those tall, knotty, hot-eyed types. Somethin’ they read? I backed a couple of his first gigs and took back nothin’ but my principle and ten-per. Could have copped expenses and tech-adviser fees, too, but Mary the Mag plays straight. John drew like Lions and Christians put together. Kind of like your Gary Cooper in a couple of my old fox muffs. He used to dress up like that when he’d visit my tent, and I talked him into tryin’ it in public. The in-crowd giggled, but the rubes, Zowie! He’d stand where the North light hit him, work up tears, and give ‘em saliva and salvation with those weird glowin’ eyes. I think his pancreas was fucked. Locust-eater, you know. Luke the Physician agreed with me. On everything. John the B. was his own worst friend. Had a complex inferiority. We spent some spare time together, horizontally, and the faster he’d go, the louder he’d yell, “I am unworthy, you deserve better, I’m dirt!” Sometimes I’d soften and give ‘ im a flash o’ the lash and a gouge with the stiletto heels and he’d feel better about things. He was a set up for Old Capital “H’s” press-corps. They knew they had a class act in Jesu and they wanted to get him introduced to the crowd by someone with garbo (Spanish for “style”), and here was John, packin’ in the populace and moanin’ how he wasn’t worthy…! I didn’t see it comin’, to tell you the truth (And that’s what I’m here for.).

J.C. started hauntin’ John’s crowd. It was like James Dean studyin’ Brando, dig? Or Donovan suckin’ up to Dylan. I don’t say they had anything actual goin’, J.C. and John, but performers are mostly twin-gaited and John had this aura of bondage-and-discipline. He saw this saintly kid in blue-white (Hell to keep clean in Palestine) and he took Him in. Or Jesus took him in, have it your way. I don’t think J.C. was consciously hustlin’ John. He was just an ambitious kid with a top dodge, achin’ to get out of Galilee, and the top attraction on the salvation circuit was woo-woo over Him. I’d have taken advantage myself. It was those disciples made it all shmarmy. Imagine twelve Harvey Levins. John would be standing up on an evocative outcropping of primeval sandstone in the last roseate rays of a Mediterranean sunset (like I taught him to), wailin’ sweet and wild how there was One to come after him (The Messiah bit was his big wind-up), and this whole apostle lot were circulatin’ amongst the suckers sayin’ as how the One was Jesus, Jesus was the Man, Number Two with a Bullet, sure to cop all Best New-comer Awards. Quel racket it is, really, huh? I would have retired Old John with a solid annuity and waited ’til the right time to issue his Golden Hits, if that Goddamned Salome hadn’t happened along.

I hate two things in this world: sheriffs who don’t stay bought, and rich amateurs. Salome came home from school in Rome, my dear, overdoin’ the “I must elevate my people” shtick. She had everything: money, position, looks (expensive groomin’, actually), palanquins, a hymen, and a fashion sense that denuded every ostrich for a decade. Effective, I grant you, but on that budget, I could have brought back the Matriarchy. And Princess S. Never had to go on her back to get anyone on her side. (Stuff it, Mary Magdalene; on with the story, M.M.) She came palanquinnin’ by one of John’s matinees and caught him killin’ the tribes. I guess she was bored by her initial hit. Your hometown’s a come-down after you’ve seen the Coliseum. And she was limited. Her Mom and Step-Dad must have drawn some sharp lines for her about mingling blood-lines with the Roman Devils (All Herod and Herodias had to offer was racial purity), so Sal had faced the fact that in Judea she could look forward to nothin’ much more than a State Marriage with some climber from the Sanhedrin. I feel for her (Under the stove with a broom I feel for her; stop that, Mary!). So here she tumbles onto some local circumcised talent with Class-A vibrations. Her platinum-mesh veils blew back (I think she controlled ‘em on strings), and John caught just one fast shot of rubies and boobies. I was at the show that day, countin’ the take and judgin’ the laughs in some new material, and for the first time I heard John-Boy lose his place. Oh, he was prime pro, he got ‘em back with some Elijah-and-Apocalypse, but I saw where he was starin’, and so did twelve little men. John was fit to be tied. And whipped. And stuck with pins through his nipples. But nothin’ I did helped. When he started cancellin’ late shows on full-moon nights, I knew where to look for him; in a certain Palace parvis. The apostles were hot. They’d tried for an intro for their Boy to Sal, but nada doin’. They caught John off-guard enough to get him to pull a big Baptism Special with Jesus, featurin’ special dialogue by that shit-eatin’ Simon-Called-Peter (Never trust a boy that changes the family name). Then the rest of ‘em, dotted in the mob, cried out how they saw the Holy Spirit descend, and how J.C. was the Entertainment Event they’d waited for, and as it eventuated the papers that day were lookin’ for filler material, and . . . J.C. started goin’ on for the shows John blew. Well-managed, I admit it. Well, I saw the writin’ on the wall (That’s where I learned to read) and was gonna talk retirement to my client, but I hadn’t reckoned on true love. You can understand why.

I don’t know what upper-class chicks mix in their lip-rouge, but it hit J. the B. like DMT in the eyeball. Whatever twaddle she was givin’ John (and that’s all she was givin’ I’ll lay ya 1-to-1) he took mainline to the heart. She said nobody understood her (with that finishin’ school lisp, I’m not surprised) and her home was stiflin’ and Step-Daddy looked at her, and next thing we knew, Step-Dad was bein’ laid to filth by J., who was bein’ no court-poet to Little Missy’s Mammy, too. You can’t mix showbiz and politics; they’re too much alike. I tried to talk tour, get him on the road. He’d blown it in the Big Pomegranate, but the sticks were clawin’ for him. Oh, our crowds were still record, but the take grew daily less. Half was comps, now, spies and columnists, as John waxed wrother about Uncleanliness in the Palace. Herod was already unpopular, as only the last in a long line of ass-kissin’ genocidal sell-outs can be; Herodias had nothin’ but her fictional dignity; bein’ called Satanist adulterers didn’t help their image. Sal just saw her name in the papers and so what? Rich kids think Daddy can buy off anything. The upshot was Herod invited John and Sal to do an act at the Palace (She danced, it says here). I tried to talk to the turkey, but come twilight he followed the mimosa-fumes to the Big House. Last I saw him. Broke my heart. He left the till behind. I put it in a strongbox in Caesarea in his name, minus my movin’ expenses, and found an excuse to remove me to the seashore.

The papers in Caesarea had banner headlines, how Herod bumped off John, and Salome (quote) killed herself in love’s despite (end quote). Havin’ a special device that reads between lines, I cooled it in Caesarea with some sympathetic sandalwood factors and wound up at a bash of Pontius Pilate’s. His wife was with him, but there are glances that make heliography look slow, so I got it all together next day just in time to accept an impromptu invite that arrived on a silver salver, weighted down by several star sapphires and King Herod’s favorite opal. (Ever since then, I think of Caesarea as the “Big Opal.”) Well, 0l′ P. Pilate and I whiled away some memorable temps perdu while Mrs. P. busied herself writing dream-books. I’m not one to kiss and tell, so I won’t tell you about the kissin’.

Pontius had already had six years in the Holy Land and was ready to give it back to Baal when I came along and re-kindled his interest in my hot-blooded, paradoxical, ever-restless people. The whole Herod-Salome-John brouhaha had reached Rome and brought down on Pontius the one thing he dreaded most – paperwork – so he’d sternly warned Herod to cool everything. Therefore, things were calm in Palestine outside of a certain seaside villa, and I greatly fear I got a little bit out of touch. Like I often say, it’s just as easy to fall for the well-set-up agent of a world power through whose hands half the world’s taxes trickle, as it is to bob for dropped olives in a cow-pasture. I don’t really say it all that often. If you’re listenin’ with anything between your ears, once is enough.

About a year-and-a-laugh later, Tiberius (Whom I never really met), ordered Pilate and retinue to La Jeru to handle the Passover crowds. I needed some new undies, anyway. Somebody was always swipin’ ‘em and hangin’ ‘em on Caesar’s bust at the Embassy (He was like a little boy), so I trundled up to the Focus of All Faiths a respectful league behind my Procurator. I can be kittenish when I know all the bills are paid, so P.P. and I kept billets-doux scootin’ to-and-fro on the wings of trained doves. His replies were a little slow because the dear little dappled darlin’s had to drag beck strings of pearls and dishes of cut diamonds (a new item at the time). I leased a comparative hovel just a secret tunnel away from the Official Residence and made a distinct contribution to welfare by hirin’ about five hundred hunky Hebrews to redecorate it. I’m tryin’ to say I was busy. No time to read the papers. When everything and everybody was bronzed and burnished, I held a press conference just so I could tell the scribes I didn’t want any publicity (They’re your best friends). They loved their party-favors (none of whom was underage), and when they’d finished lovin’ ‘em, I joined the party. I was still baskin’ in the applause for my entrance (the elephant, of course, was rented) when one of the press-corps held up this five-star headline with a three-word phrase about me and asked me how did I like them opals?

Well, at first I didn’t understand exactly what it was I was bein’ called; I’ve never been near Babylon and that other word is one whose meaning I do not know. Then my eyes uncrossed (never lose your cool in front of scribes; they’d sell your giblets), and I saw Who was supposed to have said it about me. Well, I gagged, I really did. I gave Him His first chance – or He foxed it from me, it amounts to the same thing – and here He was makin’ pronouncements about Scarlet Women, and me a dyed-in-the-damask conservative. I said somethin’ about Pontius and me bein’ just good friends, accidentally pulled a lever which dropped the entire press-corps into a pool full of kosher gin, and went off to my bed-wing to peruse the late editions. Was I aced! Apparently the Kid had not only got to be hot news, but was in fact the very disturbance P.P. had been sent in to settle. I only skimmed the reviews of His number – positive thinkin’, guaranteed eternal wages, kingdom at hand, all Golden Oldies – but this cat had set Himself up as King of the Jerews. and – get this for unsub-divided gall – Heir Apparent and Incontestable for the Throne of Heaven Itself. Okay, blasphemy and treason are matters of individual taste, I grant you, but on top of that, He had libeled me as eight kinds of offal, none of ‘em nice. I turned to my trusty eunuchs (yeah, as far as I can throw ‘em) and said, and I quote, “Get out the gold lame number I was savin’for Saturnalia, Big Ass. Mama has got to go fight for her reputation in the streets.” Where I got it in the first place.

You won’t find it in the Scriptures (unless some big-mouth Dead Sea Gnostic came un-bribed), but there has not since Moses met Monotheism been an encounter like the day I went lookin’ for Emmanuel (never trust a boy that changes his name). I did everything to attract attention but set off Roman candles – this bein’ a local dispute. They say His entrance into Jerusalem was a fair-sized show? Well I had laborers layin’ pavement before me, trumpeters dressed as satyrs and centaurs, two hundred girls from an establishment where I’m on the Board of Directors bangin’ sistrums and timbrels, plus the Livin’ Waters, balloons for the kids, smoke curtains, trick-flyin’ flamingoes, and, just for the hell of it, formation-marchin’ giraffes. I myself was on a mastodon’s back (you could still get a mastodon in those days if you didn’t ask any questions), in a gilded cage, flingin’ baksheesh like birdseed to the holiday hordes! Cost a mint. Wrote it off as p.r. I just wanted to show capital-h-Him that “I” starts with a capital letter too! I circled around the byways for hours, and fun’s fun, but I was gettin’ raw on the roost from my platinum perch and wonderin’ if I hadn’t scared a certain slanderer into the Mountains of Moab (I’ll pit a showman against a shaman anytime), when suddenly, right in the Street Called Straight (I’m just reportin’) the whole parade jerks to a halt, and everybody, giraffes included, kneels – and there ahead of me is a Certain Notable Historical Personage and His Tabernacle Ten Plus Two. The whole megillah parts, no less, so He can make His way to Me on my swingin’ seat, and I saw I was up against Somethin’ Special.

Cool I don’t lose for long. He was wearin’ lifts, and his flunkies were grovelin’ low, so I looked from His little men to Him and said; “Well, who have we here, Snow White?” He gave them a glare and growled, “Get lost.” All the extras split. Giraffes, tourists, the lot. A couple of disciples tried to stick, but He withered a fig tree, meanin’ business, and there was some fast and fancy skulkin’. I just perched, freshenin’ my make-up, and let Him take a long, slow look, He was good, I don’t deny. Ankled around my mastodon, checked my rig, nodded slowly whilst calculatin’ my clout, and then said, real limpid-like, “Woman, come down.’ I want to talk to you,” Grantin’ Him nothin’, I said, “You want to talk to me? What do you think I am, Saint Francis of Assisi?” He burned a bit and said, “This is your idea of sneakin’ into town?” “Who does your hair?” I countered. “Look,” he said, “This is doin’ neither of us any good. Why not climb down from that beast and we’ll have us a claque over a cooling drink?” “Don’t mind if I do,” says I, real nancy-like, and gave Him some legshow and je ne sais qua as I slithered down the dumb animal. He gave a girl not one bit of help down the steps, keen and cool, He. Taverns in Judea had no doors, thank God, ’cause we would have stood there ’til the Second Comin’ if I’d waited for Him to open it for me. The host pulled out a chair for me, we sat ourselves down, told the lackey to leave the bottle and go kiss his mezuzah, and got down to business.

“Girl,” said God’s plenipotentiary over a soothin’ liqueur , “I do not want by any means to queer your pitch, but as you have glimmed, I am a public figure and therefore besieged for statements on all affairs of note. You rank. As it happens, one of my stable issued a statement on yourself without my initials. However, in the interests of corporate solidarity, I have got to stand by said release. I hope you see my side.” “Fella,” I ripostes, “I have never fouled a fellow artiste, havin’ been, you may recall, no small bananas in John’s boost up the ladder. I mean, hits are good for everyone. But I am now a private person with a small neighborhood business, in no mood for a scarlet limelight.” “What are bananas?” He asked. I could see He was still a basically small-town kid with a large talent, bein’ manipulated by a crass commercial combine. “Little yellow fruits from Asia,” I elucidated, “Ain’t you traveled, Honey?” “Mine has been a strange life,” He began. Well, I am now and I have always been a woman, and if they were namin’ a holiday for me, they’d have to call it Pushover. That kid’s story squeezed the Drambuie out of my heart. Illegitimate, always an outcast, no peer-group ’cause all the others His age had got it In the Slaughter of the Innocents – wretched, y’know? Talented as all get-out, just findin’ Himself, then this syndicate moves in, gets Him to sign a lot of stuff He don’t understand, He still thinks they’re His friends. I sneaked a look at Him through the bottom of a snifter. Looks, charm, star-quality, He had it. Kind of Monty Clift but taller. In the right hands, could be a classic; the right release dates, steer clear of politics, and sixty years later He could still be wheeled out for specials: “Spend Passover with a Palestinian Tradition,” that sort of thing. But the way these Apostle-types were shufflin’ and dealin’ Him, it was strictly a couple of seasons for a couple of shekels, a tragic end, and then out of the bins to make way for the next novelty. I arranged a little meeting that night with Him and Company. I’d been hors de la Biz for too long, and I ached for a project. Plus,- I ain’t denyin’ it, He had somethin’. Call it – me.

A note from P.P. at the villa: “Councils all day; councils all night. Clairvoya getting suspicious. Lots of fright-wig ambassadors tomorrow. Forgive me, my peahen. Here’s a nest-egg.” Sent the nest-egg to a numbered nest in Nunnaya-business, and started huntin’ for a little somethin’ to slip into for the confab. While I was bendin’ over, I happened to see my horoscope on the floor, so I expected the dirk that came whizzin’ through the window, passed over me, and buried itself in a slave I was wary of anyway, and the note on it that said, “Here’s what we do to talent-rustlers in the Big Time,” and the twelve sets of prints my Chum of Police dusted off the dagger.

I sprayed my wardrobe trunk as a precaution, shook some dead asps out of my go-for-the-throat lame, and got into my warpaint. And my after-the-fall wedgies.

I got there early so’s I could check out each apostle as he slithered in. Peter was a dud, shrewd on a con but otherwise sludge. When Jesus would say, “My Kingdom is coming,” Peter would duck. John-the-Beloved was their liaison with the gay press. Did J’s outfits, and not bad, but out of his depth in management. Andrew was the real brains, or the nearest thing to it. He’d been on my staff when I handled John the B., and his whole style was just a pale copy of mine. He blushed when he saw me, and I should think so. He must have been a double agent all along. He sneered around a cigar okay, but he was all ivy and no wall when it came to legal-trainin’. When I saw what they’d made my Baby sign, I retched. Wouldn’t have stood up in any court in what is now Christendom. Judas was sicko-psycho, coilin’ in corners, playin’ mind-games with fellas who had no pieces to play with. Kind of a paranoid you can always tell what they’re up to, ’cause they accuse everybody else of it. I felt reins in my hands. I had picked up contract law with my first case of clap, so me and Andrew got down to the needy-greedy right off. Poor J.C. – who could sway multitudes with the right script – was a lamb before the law. He just sat there lookin’ baffled while I re-wove clauses and codicils. I had worked out a deferred-salary deal for Him that would keep Him from flingin’ it to charity fast as He got it, and still leave plenty for the vipers to cut each other’s throats for. I was writin’ myself in as Artist-and-Repertory Manager when J.C. starts gaggin’ behind me and I turn in time to catch that flitty John hidin’ a little packet of white powder in his cleavage. J.C.’s cup was runnethin’ over and His eyes were rollin’ like dice. “Whee, Wheeeee, wheeeeeeeeeee,” He shrieked. “I’m the Son of God and guess who’s forgiven and who’s not!” The owner of the place turned alabaster, dropped a bowl of bitter herbs, and ran out crying, “Druggies! Sickies! Police!” John tried to tiptoe into the Garden, but I grabbed him by the hem and wrestled the little glassine packette from him. One sniff and I was livid – and small wonder. “So this is how you coerced Him into that joke you call a contract,” I screamed. Andrew swallowed his mouth. I’d stumbled on the truth. J.C. was dancin’ on the table, flingin’ matzoh shrapnel at us. Judas ran out, cawin’ “Betrayal, betrayal, you’re gonna turn me in to the police!” We weighted J.C. down with some cold compresses and I sent Matthew down to Luke the Physician for some niacinamide. But then twenty guys in uniform ran in whom I knew very well out of uniform. The landlord and Judas were with ‘em, pointin’ at shadows and chandeliers and yellin’ “That’s the one! Arrest him.” The Chief saw me and said, “Mary, haul ass out of here; this is a bust!” There was J.C. with a menorah on His head, John in a corner with his mascara running, Andrew shredding papers, and the others pelting each other with pillows. Outside I could hear shields rattlin’. Well, you fiddle with fate, dear, I got a tin ear. J.C. was beyond help, anyway, crawlin’ down the table mutterin’ “Zap! You’re a loaf. Zap! You’re a fishes!” I gathered up my gold lame and got.

Well, the rest you know, at least in that hyped-up version those four clabbermouths put out (Turned out they had a solid deal on book rights). Worms that they were, when their Meal-Ticket got punched on a molehill-in-the-desert called Golgotha, they turned saintly and set up a lot of competitive cults as Gurus, Perfect Teachers, and whatnots. Then they all got aced by a piece of strictly talk-show talent named Saul, or Paul (I told you about boys that change their name?)

I had all I could do to pour oil on P. P.’s troubled waters. My initials were cleared, of course, when it came out that those dreadful accusations had come from a gay dope ring. P.P. and I stuck it out in Palestine for a few more years, and then headed back to Rome, under Caligula, no less. I could tell a few stories about Her that would curl your hair! By the by, honey, who does? You could take them to court!

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play-EVAN ON EARTH by Robert Patrick

Copyright 2004
Robert Patrick
#211
1837 N. Alexandria Ave.
L.A. CA 90027
(323) 360-1469
Rbrtptrck@aol.com
EVAN ON EARTH

Cast:
MAN—Mature
EVAN—Twenties

(THE TIME IS THE PRESENT, VERY LATE AT NIGHT. THE SETTING IS THE KITCHEN/DINING ROOM OF A SMALL, CLEAN, MANHATTAN APARTMENT. IT IS DARK EXCEPT FOR STREETLIGHT THROUGH OPEN VENETIAN BLINDS. THERE IS A DOORWAY TO A BEDROOM. THERE IS A TABLE WITH TWO FACING CHAIRS. ONE CAN REACH BEHIND ONE’S SELF FROM ONE CHAIR TO OPERATE THE BLINDS. THE TABLE HOLDS A LAMP, A COFFEE POT ON A TRIVET, AND A COUPLE OF CUPS. THERE IS A LIGHT SWITCH ON THE WALL.)

(AT RISE, A MATURE MAN SHUFFLES IN NAKED WITH A TOWEL AROUND HIS NECK, A BOOK IN ONE HAND, AND CIGARETTES AND LIGHTER IN THE OTHER. HE POURS COFFEE FROM A PROBABLY-COLD POT ON THE TABLE, SITS FACING THE WINDOW, TRIES TO READ, GETS UP, GOES TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TABLE WITH HIS BACK TO THE WINDOW, SITS, SEES THAT THE LIGHTING IS NOW SATISFACTORY FOR READING, PUTS HIS FEET UP, HEAVES A SIGH OF PERFECT CONTENTMENT, AND STARTS TO READ.)

MAN (Sniffs coffee): Ah, mother’s milk. (Takes sip, makes face) Yick. EVAN’s mother’s milk. (Sips and reads)

EVAN (Offstage): What are you DOING?

MAN: Nobody, Evan. (Lights a cigarette)

EVAN (Offstage):: Come back to BED!

MAN: If I come back to bed you’ll expect me to hump your rump you while you pump your stump. Go back to sleep.

EVAN (Offstage):: I can’t sleep with you IN THERE.

MAN: You make me sleep on the far side of the bed and you take all the covers. You can’t possibly miss me.

EVAN (Offstage):: Come back IN HERE.

MAN: You want me to sodom your bottom while you pull your pole?

EVAN (Offstage):: I want you to OBEY ME. I want you to COME IN HERE……Are you READING?

MAN: No.

EVAN (Offstage):: It’s too LATE to read….WHAT are you reading?

MAN: Your diary.

EVAN (Offstage):: I don’t KEEP a diary! What are you READING?

MAN: Don’t worry, honey. I promise I’m not reading anything about AIDS.

EVAN (Offstage):: Don’t mention that WORD! …What ARE you reading?

MAN: Nothing by your stupid Stuart, either. Leave me alone.

EVAN (Offstage):: Stuart was a GOD.

MAN: Stuart was a two-bit whore.

EVAN (Offstage):: You’re a fucking hippie FAILURE. What are you REALLY doing?

MAN: Jerking off with the cheese grater.

EVAN (Offstage):: Are you SMOKING?

MAN: No. (Grinds cigarette out, throws it out window)

EVAN (Offstage):: Are you DRINKING COFFEE?

MAN: Don’t worry your petty little head about it.

EVAN (Offstage):: Don’t tell me what to DO. COME HERE.

MAN: You’ll wake the neighbors.

EVAN (Offstage):: What are you DOING? Can they SEE YOU?

MAN (Closes blinds without looking up from book): No, they can’t SEE me. They’re in Jamaica. (Turns on table lamp) They can HEAR you.

EVAN (Enters, ravishing, in the world’s whitest jockey shorts. Matter-of-factly): I hate you.

MAN: You adore me. I adore you.

EVAN: No, you don’t, I don’t let you…That’s unsanitary, sitting there NAKED!

MAN: How can you even form the word “unsanitary” after what we just did?

EVAN: That never happened.

MAN: Evan, I have blisters on my knees.

EVAN: It never happened because it meant nothing to me. I only let you because I pity you. I pity your pitiful dick.

MAN (Suiting actions to words, never taking his eyes off his book): So I’m wrapping and snapping your quaint middle-class gym-towel around me. One size fits all. I was sticking to the chair anyway.

EVAN: Lie. You don’t want me to see you get hard when you see me in my jockey shorts.

MAN (Opening blinds behind him without neglecting his book): In the moonlight.

EVAN (Frantically rushing to close blinds:) STOP THAT! Close those blinds!

MAN (Still reading, imitating EVAN): Anybody climbing the streetlight to take down the tennis shoes hung on it can SEE us!

EVAN (Standing behind MAN): I want those to stay closed! You’re crazy!….I never want to see you again.

MAN: According to you, you’re not going to after tomorrow……What’s your second wish?

EVAN: I haven’t decided for sure yet if I’m leaving……Come back to bed.

MAN: Only if you reverse those jockey shorts again so the flap is in the back.

EVAN (Smiling at the memory): I never did that. That would be sleazy and Bohemian, and I’m middle-class, so I don’t DO that.

MAN: Then curl up on the floor and sleep at my feet. It’ll be fetching.

EVAN: Don’t give me orders.

MAN: Better yet, go out and fetch me a corned-beef sandwich.

EVAN (Presses his crotch against back of MAN’s head): Shut up and die.

MAN: You keep that up and I’m going to lunge over this chair at you and we’ll both go out the window.

EVAN: We’ll probably fall on the whore and her customer down on the basement steps.

MAN: And crush them into those rusty mattress springs.

EVAN (Still nudging): And all of us just keep right on doing it.

MAN: And the paramedics will have to call in Stephen King to write the case description. QUIT THAT! (Swipes out behind him with book. EVAN jumps nimbly out of the way) Go make phone calls you can’t afford. I’m busy.

EVAN (Standing at the other side of the table): I thought you probably got up and came in here to wash more DISHES.

MAN: I weep that there are no more dishes to wash.

EVAN: I don’t want you washing any more dishes. I don’t want you cooking anymore. I don’t want to wake up and find a lot of BREAKFAST in here tomorrow. You’re supposed to be my big MAN and all you do is cook and wash dishes.

MAN: And pound you into the mattress like an Acme Safe pounding Wile E. Coyote into the asphalt.

EVAN: Oh, ha-ha, don’t make me laugh…….I don’t want you in the kitchen.

MAN: You did the other night when we, as your sticky Stuart would have described it, “loved on the linoleum.”

EVAN: Shut up. Don’t talk like that.

MAN: You wouldn’t even let me stop to get us out of the spilled garbage.

EVAN: That was disgusting.

MAN You chewed on the missing-children milkboxes and moaned.

EVAN I felt sorry for you.

MAN You felt slimy to me.

EVAN You’re disgusting. You don’t even know how to cook. You use too many dishes. My mother never used that many dishes.

MAN (An extraordinary explosion, stands and bellows) DON’T EVER FUCKING TELL ME WHAT YOUR FUCKED-UP MIDDLE-CLASS MOTHER COOKED IN HER FUCKING CONNECTICUT COVEN TO FUCK YOU UP! (He sits down and with dignity resumes reading and sipping) Quit smiling, you conceited cunt; I CHOSE to yell just then.

EVAN (Pleased)You’re completely out of control. Drugs ruined your brain in the seventies. You never met my mother. I’ll kill you if you come near my mother.

MAN It would kill us all. Space explodes when matter and anti-matter meet.

EVAN No one would ever believe what I let you do to me. I have all the breeding. I have all the beauty. I have all the cards.

MAN And usually all the covers.

EVAN What book is that you’re reading?

MAN None of your business.

EVAN It better not be Stuart’s.

MAN Dear, rather than read that reconstituted pulp your slut lover exuded like earwax, I am reading “Her Serene Highness,” an exposé of Grace Kelly’s love life.

EVAN (Turns on room lights) Where did that come from? I don’t want you bringing faggot shit like that in here. You should be ashamed.

MAN It was on your shelf. You should be ashamed of your shelf.

EVAN My sublettor left a lot of faggot shit like that here. I hate faggot shit.

MAN Evan, do stop talking like that in the presence of her Serene hiney.

EVAN Faggot shit. Fairy shit. Shit, shit, shit.

MAN (in motherly voice) Why, son, I wouldn’t have that in my hands, much less in my mouth.

EVAN Stuart got offered to write that kind of faggot shit. He never would.

MAN Stuart only wrote things where they gave him an outline of the “genre” and he just filled in the adjectives and place-names.

EVAN Shut up.

MAN Young Adult Friction Fiction and Weight-Watchers Romances.

EVAN I told you to shut up.

MAN Under twenty different pen-names so nobody could catch him.

EVAN You’re not worthy to talk about him.

MAN That stuff has the shelf life of a banana.

EVAN At least he got PAID to write them.

MAN Yeah, twenty-five hundred a pop, just enough to buy you batteries.

EVAN He was going to be famous! He was going to be a star! He used to say to me, “Someday my name is going to be right up there on that television screen, it’s going to say ‘Script by’–”

MAN (Interrupting) Yeah, by who? Which of his fifty pen-names was he going to use? And which of his two plots?

EVAN He would have been up there!

MAN No, he wouldn’t, you wouldn’t have let him out of bed long enough.

EVAN Stop!

MAN All he could do in between your cries of “Ram me! Cram me!” was fill in the blanks in his connect-the-dots doozies–

EVAN I said to stop!

MAN –and then jam it in a bottle and throw it out the window and hope some Samaritan would take it to a publisher because it was all he could do to keep you stapled to the sofa while he huffed and you yelled, “Where have you BEEN? What were you DOING? I felt EMPTY! Harder harder faster FASter!”

EVAN (CAPITALIZED lines under the above) I DIDN’T HURT HIM! I HELPED HIM! I DIDN’T KEEP HIM FROM DOING ANYTHING! I had to watch him! I had to watch him die! They put him in that oxygen machine and he ruptured and he blew up like a balloon and turned red like a lobster and I banged and banged and banged on the glass and I couldn’t HELP him!

MAN (During the above speech while subduing the flailing EVAN and hugging and trying to comfort him, by the end of which speech EVAN is sitting on the MAN’s lap sobbing) Honey, Evan, honey, don’t flail, you’ll hurt yourself, more likely you’ll hurt me. Don’t cry.

EVAN I never stopped him. I helped him. I believed in him. He would have been great. I inspired him. He loved me.

MAN Anyone would love you, angel.

EVAN I loved him.

MAN I know you did, honey. There, there. (Hums slowly, until EVAN is recovered, “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”)

EVAN (Fully recovered) You know you’re a piece of shit.

MAN I don’t know anything.

EVAN Why are you reading that stupid book?

MAN Well, can we ever be sure we know enough about Grace Kelly? Did you know that on the set she and Hitchcock used to while away the dull stretches playing an amusing little word game? Didja know that, didja, huh?

EVAN I don’t want to move back home tomorrow.

MAN They made up appropriate names for the various workers on the film.

EVAN (Still on MAN’s lap) But I don’t want to die in New York.

MAN For instance, the sound-recording man was “Mike Fright.” Get it: mike-fright?

EVAN I hate New York.

MAN And the costume designer was “Wilma Titshow.”

EVAN Please make some money.

MAN And the little gofer boy was “Phil Coffee.”

EVAN You’ll never make some money with your faggot plays.

MAN And the editor was “Philma Cutter.”

EVAN Please write something else and make money so I don’t have to die in this filthy ugly city.

MAN And the make-up man was “Will Flatter”…And the writer, of course, was “Gay Integrity.”

EVAN (Getting up) …Oh, you won’t ever make any money. No one will ever pay you for that faggot shit you write. You won’t ever amount to anything. You can’t do anything. You’re only good for one thing.

MAN Very few fellas have two.

EVAN You’re only good for cooking. And dishwashing.

MAN That’s two.

EVAN You have dinner ready when I come home from the gym like you were a little nervous girl.

MAN Well, at least under me you’ve gained some weight.

EVAN (Contemptuously) So have you.

MAN I have, but only in my addendum. All that exercise straddling your saddle while you pummel your pommel is making my bugger bigger.

EVAN (Pleased) No pain, no gain. (He starts playing with his shorts’ waistband)

MAN (Rises) If I can walk with my new third leg, I’m getting some milk and cookies.

EVAN I don’t want any. (Lets waistband go with a snap!)

MAN (At refrigerator or offstage) There’s no cookies.

EVAN (Sits) Then I want some.

MAN There are doughnuts.

EVAN Then I don’t want any of those.

MAN How many don’t you want?

EVAN Two. And I don’t want a glass of milk, too.

MAN And a glass of milk. Here. (He returns with a tray which holds two glasses of milk, a saucer with two doughnuts, and an open box of doughnuts. He places it on the table) This will help with your weight.

EVAN DON’T talk about my weight, stupid……How many are you eating?

MAN (Seating himself and enjoying the snack) As many as my muse commands.

EVAN I’m your muse, and don’t come back to my bed all greasy and crumby.

MAN Greasy would be practical, and crumby is the mood you usually prefer.

EVAN Why did you bring a tray? It’s just something else to wash. You use too many dishes. I never saw my– [mother]

MAN CUT THAT SHIT SHORT!……Or I’ll surprise you and pierce you with a cold frozen kielbasa rather than my painful gainful dick.

EVAN Don’t DARE to presume to talk like that to me. Hippie scum, don’t dare to presume equality with me. I only let you hang around and service me because you’re so old–

MAN Right on.

EVAN –and so ugly–

MAN Right on.

EVAN –and you’ll do anything I say.

MAN Dream on.

EVAN And because you’re always ready. Stiff Stuff.

MAN Sure. Grace and Alfred used to call me “Rod Reddy.”

EVAN You’re always ready to– (a plea for amusement) Come on, make up some new names for it.

MAN No.

EVAN You can’t. You’re all burned out.

MAN I’m always ready to churn your urn while you kindle your candle?

EVAN That’s no good.

MAN To buff your alley while you polish your pin?

EVAN You’ve lost it.

MAN ……To swell in your melon while you garrot your carrot?

EVAN Better……Why are you always ready?

MAN Because you’re so beautiful.

EVAN Okay, I am definitely going home tomorrow to my parents. (Makes as if to rise)

MAN Christ, you’ve got more strings attached on you than Pinocchio. (EVAN sits) I am so readily erectile because I have–have had since I was fourteen–chronic noninfectious tuberculosis. The afflicted individual suffers no ill effects, but is perpetually painfully aroused.

EVAN ……It’s a disease?

MAN Yes.

EVAN Like mine?

MAN Yes.

EVAN But you can’t give yours to me?

MAN No.

EVAN And yours won’t ever kill you?

MAN ……No.

EVAN And that’s what makes you always horny?

MAN So they say.

EVAN What about me, Socrates?

MAN Which of you? You go through ninety-five scenarios a minute. You’re all the occupants of a bourgeois brothel. You need someone to punish for your parents, both the real ones and the ideally perfect and the ideally evil ones you imagine. Ditto for everyone you ever failed or who ever failed you, including the mangled men that got caught in your act before I did. You’re always ready with another personality to punish any prospective customer. That isn’t an asshole you’re carrying around, kid. It’s a kaleidoscope.

EVAN Are you daring to suggest, scum, that we were made for each other?

MAN Like custom straitjackets. And I don’t give a damn what you do when you’re not actively cracking your whip while I go through your hoop. ……What DID you do today? Did you take your medication?

EVAN I wish I could fuck people.

MAN Well, God knows I’m over here greasy and crummy.

EVAN You know I can’t. I’m poison.

MAN Do it to a doughnut. I’ll watch.

EVAN I couldn’t fuck you anyway. Young men don’t fuck old men.

MAN Like big girls don’t cry.

EVAN That’s disgusting. Only old men should fuck only young men.

MAN You know, I’ve heard that before.

EVAN I’m going to die without ever fucking anybody.

MAN Is that something middle-class mothers teach their sons? Via telepathy?

EVAN I wish I could give it to you.

MAN What mutually contradictory middle-class axioms do you misapply to make such rigid rules for your rigid ruler?

EVAN I wish I could give it to you.

MAN Well, you’ve had ample opportunity to study the technique. Under me.

EVAN I WISH I COULD GIVE IT TO YOU!

MAN You force me to be sincere. I do, too.

EVAN No, you son of a bitch. [MAN: Takes one to know one.] I wish I could give what I’ve got to you! You don’t even ever have to wear a condom! Well, I wouldn’t wear one either! Do you hear me? Do you understand me? I’d like to give what I’ve got to you! GIVE IT TO YOU! TO EVERYONE OF YOU HEALTHY SONS OF BITCHES! GIVE IT TO YOU!

(EVAN, who has leaned across the table like a cobra during this speech, relapses back into his chair. There is a long moment of shamed silence)

MAN ……I thought you made a rule that we couldn’t talk about it.

EVAN I haven’t got any rules. Your petty moral rules don’t apply to me anymore. I’m immortal. Or vice versa. What’s the difference?

MAN Am I tiring you out making you do the gym every day?

EVAN Oh, what is this, Rocky’s coach backing down? Gonna ease up on my schedule? Gonna not make me go to the gym, or eat three full meals. or not smoke or drink? Gonna back down, dominant male? Well, why don’t you cut out my really hard work, like why don’t you go find somebody else to flog his log while you seed his sod? Why don’t you leave me alone and quit hammering at my ass go find somebody else to DRILL, drill sergeant?

MAN …I think I ought to go back to my place tonight.

EVAN You’re not going anywhere.

MAN You’re upset.

EVAN You couldn’t upset me. You couldn’t do anything to me. You’re beneath my notice, hippie scum.

MAN (Rises and clears table) It isn’t good for you to get that frantic. I can’t imagine it’s good for anybody to get that frantic. I’m going to wash these up and–well, maybe I won’t wash them up. I’ll just leave them here and put on my clothes and get on the ‘A’ train and call you tomorrow.

(EVAN mockingly echoes the above from “well, maybe I won’t wash them up;” He’s heard it before. Then:)

EVAN Don’t dare call me tomorrow. I’m going home to my folks tomorrow.

MAN (Returning and going to his side of the table to get his book) I don’t want to cause you any grief. I’m here for fun, yours and mine, and if it’s not fun–

EVAN Oh, shut up, you worship me.

MAN What makes you think so?

EVAN You don’t care about my health or how I am or if I turn inside out and yip like a puppy. You’re crazy in love with me.

MAN I would have thought love included some kind of caring, some–

EVAN OH, come down to Earth, your serene highness. (Slaps his own ass) This is Earth. This is all you’re here for. (Slaps his own ass) This is all I’m good for. You don’t come here for anything else but this, and as long as I keep letting you have your spasm into my chasm while I jerk my works, you’ll stay here and do whatever I tell you to. And you’ll do it whenever I say, as long as I look pretty. And when I start getting ugly, you’ll go home. And I’ll die. And THAT’S life on Earth.

MAN What kind of men have you been with?

EVAN Earth men.

MAN But–

EVAN (Emphasizing the pun with smacks on his arched ass) But, but, but, but, but, but, BUTT! Come over here and get it. Good Samaritan.

MAN Evan, this is shameful.

EVAN Yeah? Well, come over here and spank it then, mister. You aren’t taking care of some poor ugly guy with sores all over him, mister, you’re here taking care of a cute little trick that you’re making cuter every day, making him eat right and take his medicine-wedicine and wift his weights and then wift his wegs. And I’m not with you to get taken care of. I’m with you because you can come so much and I’m a bored suburban sex pig desperate enough to let even a droop like you poker my pucker while I’m fistin’ my piston. So shut up.

MAN That’s not true, Evan. What you say is simply not true, and I can prove it.

EVAN Oh? Yeah? How?

MAN (With a triumphant smirk) The sex is just for you. I only fake coming.

EVAN (Major seismic event) WHAT? NO YOU DON’T! YOU ALWAYS COME! YOU COME BUCKETS! I MAKE YOU COME! I MAKE YOU CRAZY! YOU CRY WHEN YOU COME! YOU NEVER GET ENOUGH! I HAVE YOU WRAPPED AROUND MY LITTLE FINGER! I’M A DEATH GRIP! I’LL NEVER LET YOU GO! IT’S NOT BECAUSE I’M SICK! I’M NOT SICK! YOU’RE SICK! YOU’RE FUCKED CRAZY! YOU COULDN’T LIVE IF I DIDN’T LET YOU PUT YOUR HOSE UP MY ROSE WHILE I BULLY MY PULLEY! (EVAN stops, heaving heavy breaths, looking really dangerous. He gives himself time to come down)

MAN (When it seems safe) ……We’re not going to fist-fight again and wreck more kitchen fixtures?

EVAN You loved it when we fought. You loved it when I came through the broken dishes in just what was left of my jockey shorts and you thought I was going to gut you, but you laughed like a little girl when I threw my arms around you and kissed you with my bloody nose and said (doing “Rocky”), “I love you, Adrian.”

MAN I laughed the first time you let me come down your chimney while you jingled your bells. Then I lay there panting and crying and you turned toward me, from under the covers, and I thought you were going to say, “Okay, get out, goon,” but you said, “Please, sir, can I have some more?”

EVAN And you said, “Your face isn’t great, but you’re beautiful in the extreme.” I love writers. You fight good.

MAN You shouldn’t fight. You already owe your sublettor a fortune for past wreckage.

EVAN Oh, what do I care? I’ll never have to pay him.

MAN ……Evan, don’t.

EVAN You don’t get it. I’ll make YOU pay him. I’ll make you so pussy-whipped you’ll quit writing that faggot shit and start writing some stuff that decent people will read and I’ll take all your money and run away.

MAN Evan, I’ll try. I’ll try to try. It’s hard for me. But I will.

EVAN Oh, you won’t. Give up, you can’t. You’re a failure.

MAN I am not insensitive to what you said before.

EVAN What? I didn’t say anything.

MAN About how you didn’t want to die in New–

EVAN (interrupting) I didn’t say that.

MAN Evan, has it started affecting your brain? You said–

EVAN I never said that.

MAN Yes, you did.

EVAN Listen, dick-brain; if you ever again want to push my tush, I never said that. Okay?

MAN Oh……Okay.

EVAN You pussy. You’re a sucker for a sob story. Anybody can fool you. (Starts tugging shorts down slowly)

MAN Evan, don’t so that.

EVAN (Continuing to tug) What? Do what? Why not?

MAN Look, why is it just when we’re having one compassionate moment of human understanding–

EVAN Oh, bull pookey. Don’t get corny. Get porny. Come plug my plague while I mangle my dangle.

MAN Evan, you know very well that if you pull that waistband down one and one half inches more I will fly over the table and make your hole hell. I am not proud of that reflex, but there are human limits. And one inch more and I’m not responsible.

EVAN You say I have strings. YOU have strings. I can pull your strings. I don’t have to do anything. I just have to be there. And pull these shorts down. Even in the dark you get hot when I pull my shorts down. (Turns off room lights)

MAN It’s because of that great bleach you use on them, they glow in the dark.

EVAN Shut up. Shut up, stupid. Shut up, wimp. Shut up, cocksucker. Shut up, ass licker. If you don’t want to see, turn out that light. (MAN clicks off table light and opens blinds) I didn’t tell you to open those blinds.

MAN Fuck you.

EVAN Not if you don’t mind me, Okay, leave ‘em open. That’s all right. I’m over here. No one can see me. But anyone that looks up can see you over there shivering like a little girl. And in a few minutes–

MAN In a few minutes they’ll hear you shaking the bedstead and howling, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t ever stop.”

EVAN I never.

MAN You always.

EVAN They’ll hear you yelling, “Do you love it? Do you love it? Do you love it? Please love it!”

MAN I never say that.

EVAN You forever say that. Poor sucker. Poor fucker.

MAN I don’t.

EVAN You do.

MAN I don’t.

EVAN You will.

MAN You dreary sadistic polluted pretentious defensive deluded diseased little middle-class queen, I wouldn’t fucking fuck you for the fucking moon!

EVAN Here it is! (He makes the fatal tug)

MAN Evan, I–oh, shit! (He lunges across the table and carries [or drags] the howling-with-laughter EVAN offstage)

EVAN (As they exit offstage) You poor sucker! You poor pitiful fucker!

MAN (Offstage) Be still! I said be still!(EVAN’s shorts fly onstage)

EVAN Make me! Make me!

MAN Be still! Hold still! (The MAN’s towel flies onstage. EVAN yelps off-stage) THERE! AH! Goddammit! Ah! Ah! Aaaaaaah!

EVAN (Interspaced) OH! OH! YEEEEAHHH! Faster! Harder! Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Oh, God, don’t ever stop! (Etc.)

MAN (Interspaced) Take it! Take it! Do you want it? Do you like it? Do you love it? Do you love it? Love it, baby, love it! Love it! Love it!

EVAN Stop it! (Silence) Say you love me!

MAN No!

EVAN I won’t let you go any further till you say it! Say you love me!

MAN Okay ….. You love me! [EVAN: Son of a bitch son of a bitch son of a bitch!] You love me! You love me!

(They climax together screaming “You loooooove me!” and “Son of a biiiiitch!”)

(CURTAIN)

play – WHEN THE HERE AND THE NOW DISAPPEAR – by Robert Patrick

When the Here and Now Disappear
a playlet by Robert Patrick

Robert Patrick
1837 N. Alexandria Ave. #211
Los Angeles, Ca 90027
(323) 360-1469

Setting: A country club bar, 1950s.

Characters: Mama – middle-age woman.
Son – 12 yr-old boy.

On Rise: Afternoon. Mama is at the bar arranging materials for the evening. There is a jukebox nearby.

MAMA
(CALLS)
Son
SON
(offstage, mimicking her intonation)
Mama
MAMA
Come in here and sit at the bar while I set up for tonight. Don’t hang out in there and be bored.
SON
(Enters. He is 12. His nose is bandaged.)
I wasn’t bored. I was tossing all the pool balls around the pool table and watching them bang against each other until finally they all finally fell down into the holes. It’s beautiful. It’s like life. The universe.
MAMA
How’s your nose?
SON
It’s all right.
MAMA
Did you rack up those pool balls after you were through playing?
SON
The members leave ‘em lyin’ all over the table.
MAMA
We’re not members. You go in there and leave them all racked up before the men come.
(He starts to leave)
But sit in here with me now. I have to do your stepfather’s and my work both this afternoon.
(He remains.)
SON
It’s funny to have a pool table in a rest room.
MAMA
It’s the Men’s Lounge. The room with the toilet is just a part of it. The Women’s Lounge has a card table.
SON
I like the wallpaper with the big fox-hunting scene on it.
MAMA
Fox-hunting in New Mexico.
SON
People don’t fox hunt here.
MAMA
They just hunt each other’s wives here…
(laughs)
Don’t you say I said that!…In the women’s lounge they have that same kind of big wallpaper….uh….
(can’t think of word)
SON
Mural.
MAMA
—mural. Old-timey ladies in high, white wigs having a tea party.
SON
Some of the men ask me to draw pin-ups for them.
MAMA
Do you?
SON
Yes, but always with clothes on.
MAMA
You are a funny boy. And we are going to put you on the funny farm.
SON
At school, the P.E. teacher asks me to draw women without any clothes on.
MAMA
At school?
SON
I never told you, I got out of P.E.
MAMA
How did you get out of P.E.?
SON
I just told him I wasn’t goin’ to do it.
MAMA
And he let you get away with that?
SON
What was he goin’ to do? Exile me?
MAMA
You tickle the hell out of Mama.
SON
So I just sit by the coach and draw pin-ups.
MAMA
Don’t make me laugh. I have to get this bar set up.
SON
The first day they made us do push-ups and chin-ups and jack-sprattles…
MAMA
Whats…?
SON
Jack-sprattles? Splits! In the air! Like this. (Does jump-splits.)
MAMA
Oh that’s wonderful! Son, you could dance.
SON
I love to dance.
MAMA
So why didn’t you do P.E.?
SON
The next day they made them play basketball. It’s so unfriendly!
MAMA
Quit making me laugh.
SON
It would be pretty if they would just all try to make the ball go into the basket every time. That’s pretty. But they try to stop each other. I don’t understand that. It’s so pretty when the ball goes ka-lop! into the basket.
MAMA
So you’re drawing pin-up pictures for the coach … ?
SON
… and he won’t tell. I told him I wouldn’t do P.E. and he said, “You got a sick excuse?” And I said, “No, I just won’t do it.”
MAMA
Take a quarter out of my tip jar and play us some music. I don’t know what I’m gonna’ do with you.
SON
It’s so pretty and quiet here this time of day. Like a paintin’.
MAMA
I couldn’t let you go to school with that nose.
SON
It’s like a real night club.
MAMA
I’m afraid so.
SON
Why is it a country club instead of a nightclub?
MAMA
Because night clubs are illegal in New Mexico.
SON
(Laughs.)
Now you made me laugh and it hurts my nose.
MAMA
Oh, does it hurt?
SON
No.
MAMA
You.
SON
Night clubs aren’t illegal in all of New Mexico. Not in Kenna.
MAMA
That’s why Papa Stan’s down there getting the liquor.
SON
So why isn’t it illegal for y’all to sell the liquor to the members?
MAMA
It is. Your mama’s a bootlegger.
SON
Bootleggers were the thirties.
MAMA
And then we sell the members setups for their private stock of liquor.
SON
I can’t believe they pay four dollars for a glass and a bucket of ice.
MAMA
Oh, God, I can’t believe it either. (“Again” plays.) Oh, I love that song.
SON
Me, too. It’s from “Road House.” Ida Lupino sits at a blond piano and sings it. It’s an upright piano and it has cigarette burns on the top of it. She puts her cigarette up on top of the piano when the people ask her to play a song and makes burns on it.
MAMA
They do that? I didn’t know Ida Lupino sang.
SON
She does….What about when Papa Stan comes in? What do you want me to do?
MAMA
He’ll probably go home and sleep it off first.
SON
That’s why you wanted me here?
MAMA
He really loves you.
SON
It’s hot in his kitchen. He’s always in there. I know. He’s real unhappy.
MAMA
I don’t know why he hit you.
SON
I told you. I told him I wanted to use that empty shed to make myself a playhouse and he said I was too old to play and he hit me and he ran out.
MAMA
Oh, God, I don’t know why he’d do that.
SON
It’s okay. Don’t cry. I understand. It’s hot in that kitchen.
MAMA
He’s so good with everybody here. They all love him so much.
SON
I love him. He’s just mad all the time and I was there.
MAMA
I left your daddy because he hit you. Papa Stan was the one who told me how I could. I didn’t know a woman could call the police on her husband. And then Stan hits you.
SON
It’s all right, Mama. It’s not your fault. It’s not their fault. They’re just unhappy.
MAMA
Son, just being happy is what life is all about. Nothing else. Nothing is worth unhappiness.
SON
I know. I’m happy. I want to caddy and earn money so I can buy my own books and pay my own way to the movies, and then he won’t be so mad at me, I don’t think.
MAMA
Did I ever show you how to play solitaire?
SON
No.
MAMA
Here, look, it’ll keep you busy. You lay out seven stacks of cards like this. One up and six down. Then one up and five down…
SON
And so on all the way till you lay just one up?
MAMA
That’s right. Now, your goal is to get all the cards up here on aces. If an ace turns up, you put it up here, and then you add the cards in order… two, three, and so on.
SON
In ascending order?
MAMA
That’s right. And how you get the cards is, you play a lower card on a high one from either here on the board…
SON
Like the three on the four? I heard ‘em say that in a movie.
MAMA
Yes, but it has to be a red card on a black card or a black card on a red card.
SON
Okay. Alternate colors here, match colors here. Okay. Okay!
MAMA
And then you turn over the top card on a stack you’ve cleared…
SON
I see. I get it. Okay.
MAMA
And when you turn up a king , you move it to a blank space if there is one…
SON
There’s a king.
MAMA
Okay, put it in the blank space…
SON
And am I supposed to wind up with just kings? With everything on them?
MAMA
No, you’re supposed to wind up with everything on the aces. You only get points for what’s on the aces.
SON
I think I see.
MAMA
In Las Vegas, you would buy the deck from the house for fifty-two dollars…
SON
A dollar a card.
MAMA
Yes. And then they would give you five dollars for every card you got on the aces pile.
SON
Wow! Okay, so I did everything I can do.
MAMA
Now, you turn up the undealt cards in the deck one at a time, and see what you can play.
SON
Like this?
MAMA
Yes. That won’t play. Turn up another one… cover the first one with it.
SON
Uh-huh. Oh, that will play.
MAMA
Yes, that goes on the black seven.
SON
And then will this black five go on it?
MAMA
Yes, but you have to move the red four with it.
SON
I see! Okay. Oh, look. I have a black three here and a black three – here.
MAMA
You have to play the one on the board first, before the one in the hand.
SON
Is that a rule?
MAMA
Yes. And they’d shoot you in Las Vegas if you get caught cheating.
SON
Whoo! Really? No, they don’t!
MAMA
Right through the head, and call it a suicide.
SON
No, they don’t.
MAMA
How many times did but play that song?
SON
Five. I know you like it, too.
MAMA
You are a booby and we’re going to put you in the booby hatch.
SON
Okay, so I play the black ten here?
MAMA
No, it should go up on the ace line on the black nine. You have to play on the ace line first.
SON
So priorities are the ace line, the board and then the deck?
MAMA
Yes, and you have to move from farthest right to farthest left if you have a choice.
SON
How do you mean?
MAMA
If you’ve got, for instance, oh, two red queens up over here…
SON
Uh-huh.
MAMA
And you have two black kings over here…
SON
Uh-huh.
MAMA
…then you have to take the farthest right queen and play it on the farthest left king .
SON
I see the logic in that.
MAMA
You do?
SON
Yes, it helps you wear down these thick piles on the right.
MAMA
I guess it does.
SON
It’s funny. That helps you. You’d think the rules would all be against you.
MAMA
Well, I guess nobody would play if they didn’t have a chance.
SON
It’s all right. The rules are so tough that you’re bound to slip up, and then they shoot you.
MAMA
Probably not.
SON
No, they do. They shoot you through the head.
MAMA
What a mess.
SON
Well, maybe they shoot you through – where wouldn’t it make a mess?
MAMA
Lord, I don’t know.
SON
I’ll look it up.
MAMA
Where would you look that up?
SON
The medical section. They let me alone with the adult books. I told them if they didn’t let me read whatever I wanted to, I’d say that they did let me.
MAMA
What does the Librarian say when you do that?
SON
“Ssshhhhh!”
MAMA
You are a nut and we are going to put you in the bin.
SON
I am a cookie and you are going to put me in the jar.
MAMA
You are a looney and we are going to put you in the tunes.
SON
Don’t make me laugh, I’m winning.
MAMA
You buy the deck from me for fifty-two cents and I’ll pay you a nickel for every card you get on an ace.
SON
And for the ace?
MAMA
Yes, yes.
SON
Okay…I didn’t really tell the librarian that. She just lets me read the adult books because I look harmless.
MAMA
(Laughs)
SON
But if I came in like this – (does Peter Lorre)—”Good morning, madam. Where do you keep zee medical books?”
MAMA
Oh, lord, son, stop it. Oh, lord, I shouldn’t be laughing like this.
SON
I don’t have fifty-two cents.
MAMA
Well, then don’t let the sun set on you in Las Vegas.
SON
(Laughs, then, in Western accent–)
But I have my tired old widder-woman mama to support.
MAMA
(After a long look at him)
We’ll play on credit. I have to get this work done.
SON
Oh, okay, go ahead, I’m happy.
(They sing together with the record.)
MAMA
Son.
SON
Mama.
MAMA
Papa Stan isn’t coming home. He had a heart attack on the highway.
SON
When ?
MAMA
Last night. He must have felt it coming. He pulled off of the highway and stopped, and they found him slumped over the steering wheel.
SON
Oh.
MAMA
The patrolmen that found him brought all the liquor here and told me. They respected him so.
SON
He was a good man.
MAMA
So we’re going to lose the country club. They always want a husband and wife cook and hostess pair.
SON
Oh, Mama.
MAMA
I don’t know what we’ll do. Everything was going so well.
SON
Does that mean I can’t caddy?
MAMA
No, probably you can caddy. But I’ll have to find a waitress job, and we’ll have to move.
SON
Oh. Okay. Poor Papa Stan.
MAMA
He didn’t mean to be bad to you.
SON
It was just once. I understand. What are we going to do?
MAMA
Try to be happy.
SON
We are. We’re happy.
MAMA
I don’t know what I’d do without you.
SON
That’s why you got me out of school!
MAMA
And because of your nose. I didn’t lie.
SON
I know.
MAMA
I don’t know when you’re supposed to tell someone something like that.
SON
I know. It’s real hard.
MAMA
I have to go back and tell the kitchen help. They’ll have to make something for the appetizer trays. I think they know how.
SON
It’s just carrot strips and radish roses.
MAMA
Oh he was such a good cook.
SON
You owe me… sixty-five cents.
MAMA
Okay, keep track.
SON
You can buy the deck from me and only owe me thirteen cents.
MAMA
Okay. We’ll play later, I have to go in back. You go rack up those pool balls.
SON
Okay. We’ll be happy, Mama.
MAMA
We probably will. What else are we going to do?
(They both leave the stage. “Again” continues as lights fade.)

End

play – LOVABLE, LAUGHABLE AUNTIE MATTER IN “DISGUSTIN’ SPACE LIZARDS” by Robert Patrick

a one-act
by Robert Patrick
c 2004
Robert Patrick
#211
1837 N. Alexandria Ave.
L.A. CA 90027
(323) 360-1469
rbrtptrck@aol.com
(flyer by Steve Nelson; photos by Allan Gassman)

(The setting is the living-room of Auntie Matter’s apartment in Arlington, Texas. The time is the present. We see up-center the entrance to her convenience kitchen. Right center is the exit to a bedroom. Most of stage left is devoted to a sofa, coffee-tables, a T.V., with many doilies and photos of Rachel, Posner, Little Mark, Auntie’s husband Grey, Rachel’s parents (none of Big Mark, please), and perhaps a few of gods, angels, space-creatures, etc., all autographed to Auntie, of course. Somewhere, a hall door.)

(At rise AUNTIE MATTER is discovered in a miasma of ominous smoke, waving the calibrator, a hand-held device that looks like a small walkie-talkie, heroically at her retreating foes. SHE is a lady in the vague sixties or seventies, white hair curled, flower-print housedress, bifocals, a bead necklace, fuzzy slippers,, support-hose.)
AUNTIE MATTER: Ooooooooooooooooooh, them disgustin’ space lizards!!! Look at this mess. They done left my convenience apartment all ever-which-way like a henhouse seen a hawk. Oh, gods, I don’t know why I have to be the only critter in the universe with sufficient good sense to take care of that dawgoned portal to the alternate inferno. Looky here, my National Enquirer done gone an’ got space-slime all over the exclusive Joan Collins diet, an’ my little pink plastic swan-shaped barometer done turned fuchsia-puke-pink from them star-hoppin’ stink-toads’ ungodly emanations! Oh, if only they was somebody else could take care of the portal and guard the world from utter destruction so’s I could get me some rest and some relief. Don’t seem fair I have to be all alone, retainin’ human form as a little ol’ lady in a tiny Texas town, unappreciated and an’ unsung an’ sufferin’ from lumbago night an’ day just to protect a unappreciative bunch o’ ape-shaped humans from the degeneracy an’ deprecations of interstellar hordes of disgustin’ space lizards! (She gets and idea and makes a magical gesture at the phone, picks it up and in her sweetest voice speaks) Rachel? Hello, honey. I want to go get a little chain at the drug-store,, so I can keep the catastrophe-calibrator around my neck. Could joo come over an’ guard against space lizards for a while?…It’s me, your Auntie Matter, who’d ja think it was?…Oh, come on, Rachel; you know if I was a extra-dimensional simulation I’d of dialed your phone-number backwards. I swear, I thought I taught you pre-Newtonian physics when you was six……Well, you can bring the child. I’m only askin’ you to come over for maybe a hour, so’s I can drive down to the shoppin’ center and get one of them little neck-chains for the calibrator. I was already out once’t today prunin’ my hemlockr an’ I don’t wanna push my luck…….Yes, they was a attack this mornin’ already….Oh, I was a little slow, an’ some of ‘em may of infested Southeast Asia, but that’s lost already anyways, an’ I just – What?… I will not have you talkin’ to me that way, Rachel ben Koomis. I am your aunt an’ I can still give you fallin’ nightmares. Now, I never get no sleep night nor day because I have to guard the world from mind-benders, an’ I watch that kid for you ever’ time you want to disembody, so I do not think it’s too much for me to ask you to mind the portal for one lousy hour, what with Big Mark away on penance, anyhow. What else do you have ta do, may I ask, besides hang in the air an’ glow?…..Yes, you do, an’ don’t think I don’t know about it!….. Humph. Well, yes, I should think you would be sorry…..Yes, I’ll be here. You take little Mark out of warp an’ I’ll make him some peach ice-cream….No, peaches is too high here, I’ll blip some in from Georgia…….It is not neither stealin’. I done saved them from Space-lizards two years in a row, an’ what thanks do I ever get? Humph! Hang up on me, will she? Well,. I’ll just show you, Rachel ben Koomis. I’ll teach little Mark’s alternate personality how to synthesize Nile mud, an’ watch you come out of stasis sometime an’ find a hippopotamus in your camper! (Eerie light suffuses the room, sickly green-purple) Oh, lord, not twice’t in one solar day. Where’s that calibrator? Did I leave it in the estivator? Oh, it’s one of them purple-aura advance squads. Where’s the room deodorizer? No, the calibrator first. Oh, here it is,, right in my woad bag. All right, let’s, see now, purple aura is… eight-point-five on the rectified rhomboidal. Ah! There! Eat electro-dynamics, slime-muck! (Lights flash and flicker as Auntie repels attack of Spacelizards. Purple light disappears. A lovely pink light comes on with a tinkle of music) Oooooooh, don’t thank me, Demeter Mediterraneus, just go pacify the Gaza Strip! (Pink light and music vanish) Whooooo-eeeee, where’s my Airwick? (Finds it and sprays) Thing I hate worst about demoniac forces is the pissy smell!
(RACHEL BEN KOOMIS, Auntie’s niece, enters carrying Little Mark in one of those chest-slings. RACHEL is about thirty, long-haired, wears a poncho, jeans, and thongs.)
RACHEL: Auntie Matter! Auntie Matter! Are you okay?
ATJNTIE MATTER: Yes. Peee-yew, it was some of them saurian troglodytes; they always leave the place smellin’ like a bunghole.

RACHEL (Holds out two peaches): I caught these two peaches in my lap
halfway over and I knew you was in trouble,
AUNTIE MATTER (Snatches peaches): I wasn’t in no trouble. Come the day I can’t repel a buncha purple frogs, I’ll just seal myself in the
quarry on Easter Island. I had most o’ them peaches here when them stink-toads’ started psi-forcin’ the membrane.
RACHEL: Auntie Matter, you oughta get someone to come live with you. What are you gonna do if the temporal torus ever cross-intersects and you get caught in a backwards battle?
AUNTIE MATTER: I don’t need no one takin’ care o’ me, Rachel ben Koomis. Since I got my bifocal contact lenses, I ain’t never mis-set the calibrator by one microphase. An’ just who on this plane of existence, may I ask, is better qualified to counteract a T.T.C.I. than R.C. Matter?
RACHEL: Okay, okay, Auntie Matter. I was just thinkin’ of you and all humankind. Don’t freeze me. I’ll put little Mark under the pyramid and help you with your peach ice-cream. (Exits to bedroom)
AUNTIE MATTER (Fussing around the kitchen): Good God of the moment! I should think I’d qualify for a little respect from my own kin-group.
Stuck here in the form of a silly old woman in Arlington, Texas, without even cable. Raisin’ my own kids an’-my sister’s kids, too. An’ no ectoplasm to work with ever since they sent up that Sputnik an’ marbleized the Heavyside Layer. Oh, if the elder demons was still within gravitation, don’t think I wouldn’t teach you a lesson, Rachel ben Koomis, I’d put the fear of Haley’s Comet into you!
RACHEL (Re-enters without baby): I pointed him true north. Is that the right direction for the constellation Vega this cycle?
AUNTIE (Throwing down a pan): Oh, you know darn well where Vega is, don’t sweet-talk me. You know it was your mama got the star-polarity. Now, you just take the calibrator an’ run over your contra-magnetism tables whilst
I look for the rock-salt an’ the whippin’-cream.
RACHEL: You need any help with that ice-cream?
AUNTIE MATTER: No, I just need someone to understand what it’s been like for me in this incarnation what with two pillars of Stonehenge missin’ an’ my own family intermarried with mammals!
RACHEL: Aw, now, Auntie Matter, don’t be upset. I understand, really I do. I took a sine-curve to get here quicker, ’cause I know you don’t like little Mark to get teleported, an’ I ran into a real bad field o’ ultraviolet cusp displacement, an’ I know how that affects your racial memory.
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, then, show a little kindness, Rachel. It’s been hard on me since your Uncle Grey passed on t» the next world – an’ never come back.
RACHEL: I know, I know,
AUNTIE MATTER: What with me bein’ the last of the pure line -
RACKEL: Yes, Auntie, I know, I know.
AUNTIE MATTER: But we do have the tradition of social service in our family, an’ if Grey was to come to me today an’ say, “Rose, I wanna
» go mutate Neanderthals in a alternate universe, can you handle the kids’ evolution yourself?” I’d say today what I said then. I’d say, “Grey, I think homo sapiens can make it, but I can see how anyone would lose their trust in ‘em after the increase in advertising to children. They’s plenty o’ other dimensions, an’ if you wanna go zap the Cro-Magnons in that one an’ give Bigfoot a break, why you just follow your karma an’ be sure to come back the same size.” That’s what I said in 1952 C.S., an’ that’s what I’d say now.
RACHEL: Don’t blame yourself, Auntie Matter. You had Ma and Pa with you then, and you had every reason to believe they could get him back.
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, an’ I had little Posner at home then, an’ him already an advanced warlock.
RACHEL: I know, I know.
AUNTIE MATTER (Recovering somewhat): There. Hand me my talisman an’ I’ll put. a little ol’ genie to turnin’ that ice-cream freezer. I just wanta drive down to the shoppin’ center an’ get me a chain for the calibrator. Oh, where’s the calibrator?
RACHEL: Right here, Auntie. I got it set on warnin’. I don’t know why you don’t leave it that way.
AUNTIE MATTER: I can’t stand them bells, is why. I can still stay awake to watch for auras.(SHE is changing into space-shoes)
RACHEL: Welllll. or you could let someone else take charge of it for a while—
AUNTIE MATTER: Not no one who ain’t nowhere half the time, no sir-ee!
RACHEL: Oh, don’t start that again, Auntie.
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, don’t you- start, Rachel ben Koomis!
RACHEL: I’m sorry I said anything -
AUNTIE MATTER: An’ I know what choor gonna be sorry for next if’n you dare to say it! You’re not gonna use little Mark’s second self to run no calibrator when you’re immaterial, just so’s he can safeguard the known universe! He’s got more important things to do!
RACHEL: Okay, okay.
AUNTIE MATTER: Now, you sit here an’ watch that calibrator an’ I’ll be back with my prescription an’ one of them little neck doohickies. Oh, an’ here’s a piece o’ pure silver for the genie when the ice-cream’s nice an’ soft. Remember to hand it to him with your left hand or you’ll be inside out when I come back an’ I don’t have no blue chalk to make no pentagram!
RACHEL: Yes, Auntie.
AUNTIE MATTER: They’s been two attacks already today an1 that’s usually it, unless it’s the end of the world. If it is, they’s a stack of Holy Books of all faiths under that Mandela. Hold ‘em at bay ‘til you hear me honk. My Volvo’s slow startin’ on these cold days, so you may have to’ resort to voodoo, but that shouldn’t be no trouble with Saturn an’ Mars con-junct. I’ll pick up some powdered rhinoceros horn to make little Mark a birthday treat. Oh, an’ one more thing—
RACHEL: What, Auntie?
AUNTIE MATTER: When I come back, I better not find joo levitatin’. (Exits)
RACHEL: Oh, Auntie! (Kicks around the room, fuming) Mark? Mark, honey? Are you meditatin’? This is Rachel……Oh, okay, honey, I didn’t mean to drag you into dream-state. I’ll use the telephone. (Makes a gesture at phone, picks it up). Hi, honey. Is this a bad time to call, biorhythmically?…..Yeah, I’m over at Auntie’s, mindin’ the portal…..No, no, I sine-curved…Yes, Little Mark’s fine. He said the cutest thing today, but you couldn’t hear it if I repeated it, most of it was supersonic. Are they treatin’ you badly enough there?…That’s good, you oughta be exorcised in time for Little Mark’s human birthday…….Naw, I was just feelin’ a little sanpaku. Auntie’s havin’ one of her “You married a mammal” days…….Well,, it’s hard for her what with Posner on trial and Ma and Pa vaporized and me not really existin’ you know. Aw, Honey, don’t worry. I know it’s-not easy for you to understand, you beln’ mostly mortal. Don’t let it throw you into logical categories or it’ll delay your purification. (Green glow from bedroom). Oh, little Mark’s second self is comin’ in. Radiate sanctity, sweetheart. I gotta get rid of a genie before this Egyptian spirit comes in. He don’t believe in them and I’ll have to explain and explain. Yes, sugar, I worship the deities of your forefathers, too. ‘Bye. (kiss noise) Oh, honey, did them name-tapes stay sewed into your hair-shirts? Aw, he’s gone, (Hangs up) Okay, genie? (Little yellow light comes on). That ice cream’s ready now. Here’s your silver piece. Tell your overlord to pray for my true self. Oh, wait a minute, do you serve Shiva the Thousand-Armed? You do? Then forget about it. Auntie don’t like human sacrifice. She says it ties up your court-time and the judges get to know you. Avant, phantasm. (Yellow light vanishes) You can come in now, Inexorable Presence. I’m sorry to be informal, but our frankincense connection is in Tibet for a holy orgy. You want some peach ice-cream?
(AKPTAH RA enters. HE is in high Egyptian priestly regalia, and very disoriented)
AKPTAH RA: I am AkhPtah Ra the Magnificent, Pharaoh of Both Rivers. What is this place, winged lady?
RACHEL: This is Just a poncho, AkhPtah, I have arms. This is twentieth-century America and you’re trapped in my mostly mortal baby, remember?
AKPTAH RA: Oh, right. How’s little Mark?
RACHEL: Sleeping the sleep of the live. And my folks are space dust, and Posner’s on trial. Uncle Grey is an atavism, my mate is in penance in the Carlsbad Caverns, and Auntie’s tryin’ to park at the mall. That’s all. Did you materialize for anything significant, or can I do a little housework while we chat?
AKHPTAH RA: You are the niece of the Guardian of the Portal?
RACHEL: Yeah. She’s out. If you wanna leave a message, I speak the Twenty Tongues. A little slow on the Netherworld ones.
AKHPTAH RA: I have come to give a great warning.
RACHEL: Auntie’s in her Volvo. I’d hate to telepath her because of her weak brakes. You want to wait for her or tell me real slow?
AKHPTAH RA: Cataclysm Is imminent. Attend my premonition.
RACHEL: Okay. Could you hold it down a little? The baby’s teething.
AKHPTAH RA: Sorry. Your time-frame is menaced by Anti-Olympians, right?
RACHEL: And their detestable hordes. Auntie never gets any sleep.
AKHPTAH RA: Okay, you’re the ones, then. Lo, a massive offensive is being staged. Beyond the orbit of the other Pluto, the legions of the Opposite Gods rally in multitudes.
RACHEL: Do you have figures on that?
AKHPTAH RA: I’ll transmit them neurally while we talk. My time is not long.
RACHEL. Okay, do them reeeeal slow. I have to translate from Egyptian to binomials.
AKHPTAH RA: The underlords are aware of your parents’ absence from this sub-sphere.
RACHEL: Oh, golly.
AKHPTAH RA: What’s wrong? I didn’t get to the bad part yet.
RACHEL: Oh, it’s my fault my folks are gone, is all.
AKPTAH RA: Don’t get causal. This is important.
RACHEL: I’m all right now. What else?
AKPHPTAH RA: Your aunt and yourself and your cousin Posner are the last of the pure line. The three of you combined with the calibrator can repulse this onslaught provided you mesh seamlessly with the Ever-Living One.
RACHEL: Oh, dharma-bummer.
AKHPTAH RA: What’s wrong now?
RACHEL: Well, you might as well know. Industry and aerospace experi-ments have mucked up Earth’s atmosphere. The Ever-Living One’s parameter contacts are all in another dimension. We haven’t heard from her in two thousand years. This onslaught of Opposite Gods might be real serious.
AKHPTAH RA: This is a great error. You must begin preparing.
RACHEL: Well, there’s more.
AKKPTAH RA: What more could there be?
RACHEL: Posner’s on trial for recidivism and – Oh, hell, I’m not real. I told you all this before, but you must be time-tripping. I guess that’s why you were mad at me last time we talked.
AKHPTAH RA: Then this time-sphere is unavoidably doomed?
RACHEL: As far as I can tell,, but I haven’t kept up training.
AKKPTAH RA: That means my mortal coil on this strata will be non-existent. I must transmit back to the Devic bardos and remain sus-pended in the agony of pre-sentience for untold millennia until the inevitable cyclic resumption of this instant?
RACHEL: I think so, but we’re a matriarchy and only Auntie could say for sure. She must be on the way back. Can I tell her after dinner to soften the shock? She’s immortal but she’s old right now and I hate to put a strain on her, much less the end of the world.
AKHPTAH RA: Do as you must. It Is my fate to leave you now and return to the soon-to-be-evaporated shell of your infant son. (He is backing away)
RACHEL: Okay, I’ll put: a pot-roast on for Auntie. Will you change little Mark?
AKHPTAH RA: Into a pot-roast?
RACHEL: No, his diaper,
AKHPTAH RA: If you promise to make every exertion to rescue infinity from evil.
RACHEL: Okay, but it’s really gonna mess up my marriage. (HE is gone) (SHE gestures at telephone, picks It up). Hi, honey. Me again…..Oh, well, I could call back after the ceremony…..Oh, that’s okay then, they have to get through all the air-signs before you come up, I’ll rush. Honey, all material manifestation is menaced by the Opposite Gods and it’s all my fault, so I’m going to have to donate myself utterly to the galactic flow for a couple of days and might not phone you, Don’t get upset. This is the sacredest part of the ceremony you’re in now, and if you open your eyes the priestesses will eat you…. They have to, honey. That’s their job. And this is nine. Goodbye. Try to under-stand. (Hangs up) Oh, why can’t I do my part to maintain the phenomenal continuum, and make a relationship work, too? Well, no use cryin’ over spilt galaxies. Be brave, Rachel. Be strong. You know what you have to do. I just wish there was a alternative besides eternal dam-nation. Well, serves me right. Serves us all right for epiphanizing as critters that still have egos. Okay! (SHE intones ritually) Flamboyant gesticulation, otiose vocabulary, arcane incunabula, melodramatic manifestation, get on it! (Knock at door) I’m comin’!
(SHE opens door to admit MIZ LILITH, dressed as frowsy housewife, flowered wrapper, slippers, curlers, etc. )
MIZ LILITH: See here, Rose Matter, I told joo about makin’ all them strange noises. I got headaches an’ you’re drownin’ out “The Days of Our Lives.”
RACHEL: I recognize you, Miz Lilith, come in and drop the simulacrum.
LILITH (Enters and closes door and whips off disguise, to be reveaed in punk-dominatrix gear): At last I am revealed! I, Lilith, mistress of malevolence, princess of pandemonium, nemesis of positivism—and three times winner of the Miss Mass Hysteria Trophy! So, Rachel ben Koomis, I hear from you.
RACHEL (unruffled): Yes, we have to talk.
MIZ LILITH: For subjective centuries I have savored this confrontation. What is it,
little cosmic cleverness? What gives you to my sight?
RACHEL: Well, I figure you probably can guess. I’m ready to make a deal with you.
MIZ LILITH: Our last encounter, as I recall, and as Lilith, seeress and spirit, damned and damning, you may be sure that I recall it all, our last encounter was similarly prefaced – mine hostess – and as I recall I came off not the better for it. Why should I descend and condescend to deal with you, make deals with you again?
RACHEL: Okay, enjoy it, I guess you got it comin’ after the silly teenage tricks I pulled on you, but please, if you got any mercy left in your ligaments, please get your dramatizing and teeth-gnashing over with, and let’s parlay. And don’t take long. You can’t take long, because the reason I called is – there may not be long.

MIZ LILITH: Oh? Have our guardians gone agley? A A little negligence in our cosmic consciousness? Some slight senility in the Portal’s protector? Has our much-praised Auntie Matter succumbed to mortal menopause or taken to temporal tippling?
RACHEL: Please leave Auntie Matter out of this, Miz Lilith, you got NO call to malign her. She’s a good woman – only I guess you wouldn’t know nothin’ about that.
MIZ LILITH: Careful, petitioner. I may not be anxious to do business with one who personally persecutes.
RACHEL: Oh, Miz Lilith, give it over. You know the only thing I’d want from you an’ so you know what I called you here for. Now tell me the terms and don’t be vengeful. You’re gonna get yours soon enough and you know it as well as I do, so can we talk conditions and reverbs?
MIZ LILITH: So, at last it has come. And she who made raucous all the catacombs of Hell with mockery of me sues for suavity and good manners? No, halfling, you will suffer for what you have made me suffer, you will twist and writhe in agony and expectation, you will flagellate yourself and betray all guardiankind before I yield to your pathetic and contemptible beseechal -
RACHEL: Oh, cut the Mephistopheles stuff, Miz Lilith. If you don’t deal and deal quick, the known universe will end without me havin’ sinned sufficient, an’ you’11 never get the bad mark off your book, so can it and talk turkey.
MIZ LILITH: Well, if you put it that way. You want to sell me your soul. Is that vulgar enough for you?
RACHEL: That’s vulgar enough,, if you malevolent trash call plain speakin’ vulgar, but it ain’t what I want at all, so who’s omniscient now, smarty-pants?
MIZ LILITH: Well, then what in the blue thunder— pardon me. Well, then what is your plea, world-watcher?
RACHEL: Haw! Caught choo with your country showin’, didn’t I? Well, let me gloat, you’re gonna “be gloatln1 all ‘over the firmament soon enough. Miz Lilith, what I want is a fair trade with fair terms –
MIZ LILITH: Fair! She says fair! Recording angels, underline that adverbial! The wench who wheedled me out of my rightful wrongful due stands on a planet with gravity and says she wants fairness when all the spheres still sing with her duplicity -
RACHEL: Come down, Lilith! All right, all right, you’re right. Morality don’t become quadri-dimensionals. When I took all them bad drugs in the sixties and started gettin’ in touch with you serpent-spawn, I had plenty warnin’s from Auntie Matter and the Rosicrucians. But I thought I was a big thinker and a self-taught psychic, and I got enmeshed with you fork-tongued sharpies just like some suburban cheerleader playin’ with her poltergeist. Still, you knew what you was doin’, too when you smelled that roastin’ goat and come up out ‘of the New York City Sanitation System,
MIZ LILITH: I knew more than that, gatekeeper; I knew I had finally got my tentacles onto a member of the Matter family, and I was overjoyed!
RACHEL: And I been payin’ for it ever since. So if you been laughed at, I been cried over, so can we start just slightly later than the Big Bang and you tell me what you want for the loan of my body?
MIZ LILITH: Ooooooo, when I realized you’d tricked me and made a covenant for me to take your body rather than your soul, I was so enraged I spat asteroids.
RACHEL: I always suspected you was the cause of them Guatemalan earthquakes.
MIZ LILITH: No, not I! You! You and your clever contractual codicils.
RACHEL: Blame Harvard Law School. I was sleepin’ with a baccalaureate.
MIZ LILITH: So now I have your body forever suspended in a tessarect, and what good does it do me? And you have the mostly mortal husband and child you pled for.
RACHEL: Yes, if I don’t lose ‘em today forever.
MIZ LILITH: So you want your body back? For what? Your Auntie Matter used the last globule of ectoplasm left in this quaternity to make your substitute. Has anyone ever noticed the difference? Has your mostly mortal mate ever flinched from carnal caresses because he was holding a bundle of firmament-foam? Has your little diapered dreamer ever missed a step in evolution because he nursed at your pullulating paps? No, you’ve had it all. You gulled me, you escaped the fate of your generation, you crossed the forbidden barrier between the twice-immortal and the eternally undead and came back functionally whole, and on top of it all you have had mortal love and motherhood, which’ I was denied at the dawn of comprehensible time! What more do you want? Why do you need your body back?
RACHEL: Ain’t for you to question why. I need it for an afternoon. And I’m willin’ to pay for it, so what’s it to you?
MIZ LILITH: I will be satisfied. I know if I bargain with you, you will be mine forever if you should ever accidentally die. But forever is not enough when you’ve been there. I want the facts now! Facts are all we have of now and then, who have no other sense of then-and-nowness. Tell me why you want your body, my booty back – and no lies. I can detect any lie!
RACHEL: Yeah? Well, you believed Lucifer when he said he could beat Jehovah, and make you Queen of the Angels, didn’t you? So where was your never-dent lie detector then?
MIS MIZ LILITH: Oh!
RACHEL: I’m sorry. I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to hurt you in the only feeling you have. I’m sorry, Miz Lilith, please forgive me.
MIZ LILITH: Forgiveness is not my business. As you have so plainly pointed out, damnation is. Hurry – and be damned fast.
RACHEL: Everyone who lives forever knows truth is its own reward, for No torment in eternity is worse than one’s own confusion. Okay, you want it, you got it. They’s a major attack of Anti-Olympians en route, an’ I need my body to fight back.
MIZ LILITH: That should be nothing for you and your aunt and her son.
RACHEL: It wouldn’t be – but Posner ain’t available.
MIZ LILITH: He what?
RACHEL: How the hell do you think the space-scum got Southeast Asia? Posner tried to pass.
MIZ LILITH: What?
RACHEL: Yeah, he got intimidated and took to joinin’ gun-clubs and beatin’ up women, and he’s away on indefinite trial. That make you happy?
MIZ LILITH: Ooooh, what I would have given for Southeast Asia!
RACHEL: Well, I’m sorry I ain’t got it to offer. You wanna fight space-lizards for it, you’re welcome, and get the Anti-Olympians on your back for a change.
MIZ LILITH: No – no – not even to see the juncture of the Tigris and Euphrates again and stick pins in the bones of Adam. No, we are content to let your flock fight the space-saurians. Sooooo, Posner is gone.
RACHEL Yes, can I have my body back now?
MIZ LILITH: But still, even you and Auntie Matter by pooling your powers with those of your offspring- -
RACHEL: NO! Little Mark, has somethin’ else to do besides –
MIZ LILITH: Aha! Besides what? Now it comes. Besides what? What has
little Mark to do?
RACHEL: Lilith – though it betoken the death of mankind, the breaking of the Seventh Seal, and the pulping of all material being and the condemnation of all souls to endless unreincarnation, I shall never reveal that. So help me Chronos and Rhea.
MIZ LILITH: Here, now! No need to talk filth. I believe you. I once had a goal, you know.
RACHEL: All right. So about that body -
MIZ LILITH: You have me, you know. I must give you your body or the universe goes? At least tell me why.
RACHEL: You’ve got me, too. There are glands in my original body that were not duplicated in this dupe. Auntie was wearin’ Ben Franklin’s bifocals that he gave her for helpin’ with the Constitution, and she left out a sub-microscopic mutant system. I can’t save the world without it.
MIZ LILITH: Does she know?
RACHEL: No, I never told her. It’s the only mistake she ever made.
MIZ LILITH: So, for a delay in medical optometry, I am at last to have the
soul of a Matter. Creation was worth it, after all. Very well, Rachel ben Koomis, prepare to triple-trans-substantiate.
RACHEL (Bows) : Like this?
MIZ LILITH: Palms forward.
RACHEL: Okay. Sorry.
MIZ LILITH: That’s all right. Oh, orbital displacements inter-transect and permit cathexis. Even as she who is made of pain commands, trickle the compound captive in my tessarect one dimension down, and thus replace the groveler at my feet with her solid twin. All this, forces that shape themselves from names, so that Rachel ben Koomis may be un-twained and in soul and substance be single.
RACHEL: Just for about twenty-four hours.
MIZ LILITH: Ha? You think so? Forever!
RACHEL: Nooooooooooooo!
MIZ LILITH: It is too late. You are real again!
RACHEL: But that means -
MIZ LILITH: Yes, little brilliance! It means now that someday you will most certainly die and there is no escaping me. You have sinned and you will die and you shall be mine forever!
RACHEL: OH, it’s true! It’s true! I can see and hear without that hook-up to the Plutonian computer. I can smell Little Mark’s diapers! Oh, what joy! Oh, what pain!
MIZ LILITH: You are in phase forever, issue of the Matter matrix. And I have defeated you. Ah, what weariness.
RACHEL: All right, go now. But remember – your torment for this treachery is retroactive and will begin at the beginning of time and be added to your already intolerable load.
MIZ LILITH: As if that mattered – as if anything mattered -when all is Maya and illusion and deception in all sectors. (SHE dons her frowsy disguise)
RACHEL; Well, at least the world will be saved and time will endure a bit longer, though I swear I really don’t know what for. (Opens door)
MIZ LILITH: Why, hesh up that existentialism, Rachel ben Koomis. Gosh all gumdrops, what will the neighbors think? (Exits. Rachel closes door)
RACHEL: Forgive me, Auntie Matter. Forgive me, Little Mark. Forgive me Mark , my darling. Forgive me absolutes of subsumation. I’ve paid, and I will pay, down through the anguished ambuscades of Abaddon — but you’ll pay more – ’cause you only got your Rachel ben Koomis for one lifetime,
(AUNTIE MATTER enters in new shoes, with packages)
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, stand there and look unredeemed, why don’t choo? I threw all the toll booths out of phase with my telekinetic negative ions an’ we was backed up on 30 like zombies. I smell ozone? You had the TV on?
RACHEL: No, Auntie Matter. No…..I was just thinkin1′ silently. Did joo get choor little neck-chain?
AUNTIE MATTER: I did. Cute little thing, too. It’s got ceramic turtle-doves on the catch. And I got me some new orthopedic tennis shoes with ripple soles so’s I don’t fall down if the millennium comes whilst I’m on linoleum. That ice-cream ready?
RACHEL: Yes. Yes, it is, Auntie. I’ll get choo some.
AUNTIE MATTER: Now, don’t go playin’ handmaiden. I ain’t mad anymore._ Auntie
matter’s sorry she lost her oneness with all being, but my corns was achin’ like a tectonic plate. That Little Mark wake up whilst I was surface-travelin’?
RACHEL: No. No. He’s chartin’ the paths of unconsciousness like the little nucleus he is.
AUNTIE MATTER: Rachel, -are you all right? I was gonna bring you some chocolate-covered cherries, but all’s they had was them waxy kind, except a special whereas you get a box o’ them nice English ones with a Harlequin love novel tied onto it with a purple ribbon, but I done read all the novels, and you know how purple draws imps.
RACHEL: That’s mighty sweet of you to think on it, Auntie Matter, but I feel–just as content and happy as I’ll ever be. Oh, I’m so glad I’m related to you. I am. I really am. I can’t think of nothin’ I’d rather be than issuant from your posterity.
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, superflex me, Rachel, I don’t know what to do when you get sentient and mental. Why, I’m proud of you, too, girl, really I am. If I ever seem not to be, I hope you’ll put it down to a tired and overworked pseudo-woman’s maladjustment to atomic stability.
RACHEL: Yes, Auntie Matter, yes. You know I will,
AUNTIE MATTER: There – I got the calibrator hooked on to the little thingamajigs an’ look! It holds real well, an’ I won’t even have to get up from the plumbin’ conveniences if them cold-blooded transportees happen to bushwhack Earth while I’m sittin’ down.
RACHEL: Yes, Auntie, that’s real nice.
AUNTIE MATTER: Ooooh, sugar-formula, you come on over here. What’s gone and got you droopy?
RACHEL: Well, you might as well know—
AUNTIE MATTER: You didn’t go an’ teleport Posner no peach ice-cream out to Andromeda?
RACHEL: No.
AUNTIE MATTER: You didn’t numb Big Mark?
RACHEL: No, no, Auntie. I didn’t’ do any— Well, it ain’t nothin’ I done I want to tell you. Are you steady?
AUNTIE MATTER: All is flux, Rachel. Tell me.
RACHEL: Okay. While you were out – AkhPtah Ra came in –
AUNTIE MATTER: Hmph! He know where he was?
RACHEL: Now, no dishin’, Auntie. This is important. He said the Opposite Gods is massin’ for a major offensive–
AUNTIE MATTER: An’ then went back to mere unendin’ torture, I’ll bet. Just like a cat-worshiper.
RACHEL: So that’s it, I guess.
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, now I know what’s depressin’ you.
RACHEL: You do?
AUNTIE MATTER: Why, of course, I do. You think I need second-sight to tell that the upcomin’ destruction of the universe has you down? Now, look, Rachel. When me an’ your Uncle Grey took on corporeal content, we knew what we was gettin’ into. Sure nuff, we thought this tiny little fleck o’ phlegm Jehovah had gone and made for hisself was worth cultivatin’ and preservin’ an’ fightin’ for. But we always knowed ‘they was a chance of losin’ it. Your momma an’ poppa knew it, too. They never held it against you that they got – well, what they done went and gone and got. Life is different ever’where, and when you get into it, you take your chances of gettin’ involved. They raised you the best they could whilst they was multiplying elements, arid they done a good job. It’s a sign that they done a good job that you have such tender feelin’s for this Creation. An’ I know you feel like you let all these poor pathetic beings down jus’ cause they’s all likely to be destructed into less than dust in a few minutes. But we tried, Rachel, we tried. An’ in the long run that’s what counts. Now you buck up. Even if the world ends and the borders of the uttermost galaxies introvert and all collapses into an alternate inferno – why we’ll go on someplace else, yes, an’ with enough o’ Big Mark left for you to use as a module. An’ above all, Rachel, remember this before that squamous horde of unspeakable horror comes at us with the implements of Ragnarok – above. all, remember that Little Mark will go on to do his truly important work. What’s a few quintillion discorporate gibberin’ entities blown into circular eternal insanity compared to that?
RACHEL: I know you’re right. Auntie Matter. Yes – yes, that’s what’s depressin’ me.
AUNTIE MATTER: An’ just think – we won’t have these damned human bodies to lug about and tend to anymore. Hot that that’s bothered you recently. Oh, auntie’s sorry.
RACHEL: That’s all right, Auntie Matter. You see, there’s somethin’ I have to tell you—
(Calibrator alarms)
AUNTIE MATTER: Ooooh, you set it on warnin’ and’ there’s that damned bell.
RACHEL: Well, how else would we know they was comin’?
AUNTIE MATTER: How would we know? Rachel, you can smell ‘em. Ready
now. Marshall your psionic forces and cross your fingers. Here the unprecedented legions of catastrophe come. There! There! Decimate ‘em! Excoriate em! Sweet Atomic Table, look at ‘em — stretchin’ clear back to the rim of conceptual distortion. Well, we’ll take a few megadecagoogols of ‘em with us, hey, Rachel? Rachel?
RACHEL (Strangely still): Doom, wrench ’round the colossus of catabolism. Fortune, turn your wheel. Yield to these invaders all they desire – multiply their puissance,, strengthen them thousandfold and thousandfold that thousand to the thousand thousandth power and—-turn the power of their hate on—them! Yes! Them! Go! Them! Slash! Them! Burn! Them! Blast! Blazon! Curdle, waste, and’ pulverize them! Them! Them!
AUNTIE MATTER: As good is a God, Rachel, look – we wiped time clean of them!
RACHEL: The portal is closing.
AUNTIE MATTER: Lock, you can see the Anti-Olympians screeching!
RACHEL: They were coming themselves. This would have been the end!
AUNTIE MATTER: Hee-haw, watch them transmogrifying. Boy, the fabric of space oughta be a long time healing now, before them conceited Ur-buggers ever
dare try to entorquate through Terra again.
RACHEL: It was all worth it.
AUNTIE MATTER: Yessirree. An’ we didn’t even wake up Little Mark.
RACHEL: Yes.
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, I swear, that kind of mythological triumph always
just gets my olr juices goinr. I want me some peach ice-cream. How bout choo?
RACHEL: Okay, Auntie. Sure.
AUNTIE MATTER (Dishing out ice-cream): Why, that little genie just done gone and whupped up as flocculent a bucket o’ ice cream as I ever did foreshadow. I’m jus’ gonna wrap myself around this an’ watch Phil Donahue. I hear he’s got a group on in favor of masochistic masturbation. You ever hear of such a thing?
RACHEL: No, Auntie, no, I didn’t,
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, here’s your ice cream, let’s just sit down and put our feet up. Y’know, I might of slipped if I hadn’t got me these new shoes at the shoppin’ center. So it sure is a good thing you come over today, ain’t it, Rachel?
RACHEL: Yes, yes it is.
AUNTIE MATTER: Oh, effluvia!
RACHEL: What is it, Auntie?
AUNTIE MATTER: I forgot my tradin’ stamps.
RACHEL: Well, that’s okay.
AUNTIE MATTER: It’s the principle of the thing.
RACHEL: Yes. Yes, I know…..Auntie Matter?
AUNTIE MATTER: What, Rachel, honey?
RACHEL: Auntie Matter, I’ve been studying a little on anti-demoniac logic lately.
AUNTE MATTER: You gonna try to wheedle the Hundred Dozen out of punishin’ Big Mark, you gonna have to get more sophisticated than that.
RACHEL: No. It’s just a sentimental thing from childhood -
ATOTIE MATTER: Aw, that’s sweet .
RACHEL: — and I notice that the wording of the contract with a demon is always of prime importance.
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, I guess you noticed that the sun rose today, too. What’s into you?
RACHEL: So if—an’ this is all for a bedtime story to tell Little Mark — if a demon was to say “Your soul and body will be together forever -” wouldn’t that work out to where the other party would never die at all.?
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, sure, that’s elemental. A demon’d have to be pretty silly or pretty emotionally involved to let that slip by. Can’t take no bodies into Hell.
RACHEL: Right. So I guess that person who got that accidental human immortality would be pretty well-advised to make every possible and impossible effort to preserve the world they happened to be on, wouldn’t they? And to always strive beyond striving to improve it and make it fetter for them and their children and their children’s children’s children?
AUNTIE MATTER: Well, I would think that might be advisable, yes. This gonna be a long story? RACHEL: Maybe.
AUNTIE MATTER: Oh, maybe Richard Chamberlain will do a mini-series of it. I just love him, don’t you?
RACHEL: Well, yes, Auntie, yes, yes, I do. A
AUNTIE MATTER: That ice cream is good, isn’t it?
RACHEL: Yes, Auntie, yes it certainly is. I guess this old world is gonna get fought for pretty hard, I guess.
AUNTIE MATTER: Why, shore it is. Who ever thought of givin’ it up?
RACHEL: Look, there’s a news flash. War – and crime – and poverty – and despair – and primitive pain, and terror night and day. But there is hope, world, there really is.
AUNTIE: Why shore there is, Rachel – Richard Chamberlain will star in anything!
CURTAIN

photo: Allan Gassman