People being people

  I never know what to expect from you. One minute you’re smiling at me and telling me what a great pal I am, then next minute you go crazy. How on earth am I supposed to work with a madman like you? And what was that thing yesterday – you running through the warehouse butt naked, screaming you left your underwear in the men’s room before he left work? Dare I ask you how you drove home – or worse, how you drove back to work like that? What did the turnpike toll collectors say when you tried to reach into pockets you didn’t have for coins you couldn’t produce? You’re lucky the boss refused to believe anything like that was possible – even for an idiot like you. Nobody knows you as well as I do since I got to ride on the truck with you everyday. But even I can’t believe some of the things you do. What’s this about you hating to beep at pigeons – so we have block traffic until they decide to fly away? Why do we have to ride ten blocks out of our way just because you once saw a pretty ...

  Every since I got to this place, men wanted me to tone down, act dumb, stop trying to prove I’m as good as they are when they all know I am. I hate playing the role of dumb blonde bimbo chick, even when I know it is the only way I’ll ever get a man to like me. And here I thought college men would be different from high school men, when they’re not. As in high school, men here like me right up until I open my mouth, then they hate me. Hate the way I walk or talk or even the way I smile. They claim I’m acting superior Maybe I am. I like the fact I can do thing well, write as well or better, think as well or better than most men I meet. I threaten every man I meet, even the men who tell me they really love my mind. Professors are no better. They doubt my abilities when I first come to class, then try to make me look foolish do I don’t do too well and show them up. Everything is an inside joke between the professors and the males students in class, each exchanging looks as if to say ...

  The minute we move in, I’m thrilled All my life I’ve ached to live in Manhattan. It’s a sign that we’ve made it. What do I care if five years ago it was a slum. To me, Mayor Bloomberg is a hero for clearing out the riff raft. We’re just about settled in when I see a hippie-like character wandering in the hall. I call the building’s maintenance director demanding to know how such a “bum” got in. Don’t we have locked doors downstairs to keep his kind out? I try to keep my voice down even though I am upset, not to upset my wife who is chirping a happy song in the other room. This is the good life, the first great step into a great future, and we both know we will go up from here as the city clears more slums nearer the river and I move up in my company so I can afford an even better place. The maintenance director tells me the hippie I saw didn’t wander in, he lives here. This s befuddles me I can hardly concentrate on my job the whole next day. I thought my owning a condo protected...

  We eat our fill then call for a check none of us intend to pay. Dan, whispers that he will meet us in the van, slaps his pockets, and pretends like he needs a cigarette – rising from the booth as the diner full of truckers watches his every move, hatred oozing out of each grim face the way grease oozes out of the burgers we just ate They watch him as he makes his way to the cigarette machine. Since we have no money, Dan doesn’t buy anything, just lifts out a pack of matches someone left behind, strikes one, lights his cigarette, then steps outside, out of sight, out of mind, and the truckers look at us again. The cook with his greasy apron hands me a check with his finger print outlined in grease. Louise and I rise. I tell her as loud as possible that I’ll meet her outside. She heads towards the door. I head towards the men’s room, every eye on me as I close the door. A sink, a toilet, a dirty towel, but no window, the urine scent making me want to puke. I am going to have to wal...

    She comes up to me at the bar and tells me she likes my eyes. My whole life is a load of crap like that, people handing me bullshit and expecting me to swallow it all. Maybe I’m just looking for truth in the wrong places, expecting it to pop up here when I should  be going to a library or college or something. Folks here are full of stories, everybody trying to get over on someone else. Not for any reason either, just so they got bragging rights, having done something nobody else has done, or knowing something nobody else knows. Me, I know nothing, and keep my trap shut, listening to what others have to say while trying to make out how much of it is bull, and if there is any truth in it at all. Tommy, the bartender, says I’m a glutton for punishment, and buys me drinks in order to numb the pain. I hear about wives, ex wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, bosses and parents. I hear about the love that got away, the painful love that didn’t, and the hopes and dreams of loser...

  I never did understand them. They just landed in our lives from some other psychic planet, one more petty illusion in a bad batch of acid I thought that first time. I never stop tripping. People talk about bad trips but with me the bad trip starts when I stop. Part of it is my old lady, Grace, who bitches at me so much that I can’t take her anyway other than high. All she wants is to live the good life somewhere, a place of our own that doesn’t need roach powder twice a week. She wants the picket fence and windows with curtains, and expects me – a hobo throw back to the 1930s – to get it for her. Like I know how! Then, they drop in on us – rich hippies from some job the boy pulled back east – looking and sounded like down and out hippies, but carrying a wad of bills in their pockets I never saw before outside a bank. They scared me because they stood out so much in that goddamn red, white and blue VW van, playing the role of Abbie Hoffman or Peter Fonda. So I ached to shake sense...

  I breathe his cigarette smoke day and night Sometimes I’m tempted to murder him in his sleep Who would miss an old drunk like him anyway? But I can’t kill him because he’s kin. So I come here instead. He never beat me as a kid. He just talked at me, always telling me to shape up or ship out. Now I talk at him, but he’s so numb from booze and pills nothing sinks in. And I’m scared I’m turning out just like him, coming home at night dead drunk the way he used to. I can’t always find the right key in the dark and I hear him shout at me. He’s so fucked up he thinks I’m that husband that beat him up once He used to sneak off the job when I worked with him as a kid, telling me he had to talk to the lady of the house. He always paused, always said for me not to tell mom. He’s smoked so much over the years his fingers have turned brown. All he does his smoke and shake. Still sometimes, I suck his smoke deep into my lungs, needing to get something of him inside me before he stubs his last...

  I got a sign on my back that says “loser” I can’t see it, but I know it’s there Maybe that’s why I hate my life My job, My boss, The girl friend I don’t have I even hate Wednesday night poker And the guys I grew up with They never let me win They figure if they don’t take my money, Somebody else will I hate coming here to have Tommy the bartender ask “How’s it hanging.” I tell him to shut the fuck up and give me a drink I’m always looking at the women who come in here and thinking I can have this one or that one When I know I can’t. I see my face in the mirror and think “There goes a real loser,” and that’s pretty sad.   Loser, the video Main Menu email to Al Sullivan

  Establishing shot: Exterior of Charlie’s Bar – night   Interior shot of the bar   Elwood Dowd seating himself at the bar     ELWOOD:             Good evening, Mr. Checkers.             No, just one martini tonight             Though I am hoping Harvey might join us later             To tell you the truth, he concerns me lately.             Wandering off like he does             I was wondering if I could give you my card?             So you can call me if you happen to see him.             Call me at this number   ...

  So why come crying to me? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because your boyfriend – who you stole from me – is cheating on you with somebody else? My mother once told me what comes around goes around, and now it’s come around to you. Now you know how I felt when I saw you kissing him in front of the library. I wanted to kill you both right then and there. My best friend with my boyfriend. I blamed you for luring him away. I wanted to hurt you as much as you hurt me. That’s why I introduce him to her, knowing this would happen. Sympathy? No way! You got what you deserve. Why don’t you go home and stick your head under a faucet? It’ll make you feel better. I thought I once wanted you to stick your head in an oven the way I once tried. But that’s too good for you. That would only ease the pain. I want you to suffer. Like I did.   Main Menu email to Al Sullivan

(I wrote this play after seeing too many Edward Albie plays in a row)   Opening scenes is a park with two benches around a small pond. Seated on one of the benches is a sagging bum with messed hair, cradling a shopping bag full of his possessions. Enter a man dressed in a limo driver’s outfit with a dog leach dangling from his hand, but obviously searching for the dog.   DRIVER:             Monroe! You little monster. You’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing or I’ll kill you.   (Addressing the bum, whose name is Igor)             Say, Mister. You didn’t happen to see a dog run through here, did you. About so high with beady little black eyes?   IGOR: (looks up annoyed)             Dog? No. I haven’t seen any dogs. No ducks or geese either. Maybe it went the other way.   DRIVE:   ...