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by David Boyne
A One Act Comedy
by
David Boyne
The Cast:
Dash and Carrie, a married couple in their late 20s...
Doktor Heinrich: a psychoanalyst
The Stage:
Ground floor of a small house with kitchen at stage left, living/dining room stage center, bedroom stage right..
Door to backyard at center stage back...
Two doors to other bedrooms, one each at left back stage and right back stage...
The Scene:
Domestic disarray: table is not set; bed is not made; very large His and Her piles of dirty laundry on the bedroom floor; layers of books, magazines, kids' artwork, coats, clothing, opened mail, etc., covers a coffee table, end table, all but one clear spot on the dining table and all but one of the chairs... One wall is under construction with a wallpapering project...
Children's toys of varied sizes are scattered on the floor and in odd places; a tiny metal xylophone downstage center, a half-finished structure of Legos beneath the dining table, a Tonka truck among the two piles of laundry, assorted action-heroes and soldiers, some of them bound like mummies in colorful yarns and hanging from lamps, chairs and Venetian blinds on the left wall...
It is mid-evening, about 9pm...
The children, finally, have been fed, have been bathed, have been told a good-night story, have gotten up to pee again, have gone back to bed and have fallen asleep...
Dash and Carrie are about to prepare their own dinner...
SCENE I
DASH
(offstage)
Carrie! Is the funeral pyre alight?
CARRIE
(in the kitchen)
Boiling water is not a funeral pyre. A funeral pyre would be a heap of...of combustibles. Water doesn't...combust.
DASH
Right. Is the funeral bier ready?
CARRIE
(scanning a cookbook)
Dash, a bier is what they put a corpse on, to display it.
DASH
Display a corpse? We live in a sick world.
CARRIE
Um-hmm. (turns a page) Just bring them in, Dash! The water's boiling.
DASH
Has it achieved--
(in radio announcer's voice)
A R-R-ROLLING BOIL?
CARRIE
(lifts lid of a big pan on the
stove)
Yes. Exclamation mark.
DASH
(peeking around wall of right stage) Do all English majors lose their temper so...grammatically?
CARRIE
This one does--comma-dammit.
DASH
Why'd a bum like me get hooked on a smart babe like you?
CARRIE
I provide you with the vicarious joy of feeling intelligent.
DASH
That was it.
(enters, carrying a large, flat pan
covered by a lid, walking in
a halting funeral march, humming a
dirge)
CARRIE
(after bending to get something from
a low cabinet, turns and sees Dash
grinning)
What?
DASH
How'd I find such a smart babe who looks so--bodacious--in tight jeans?
CARRIE
You followed your penis.
DASH
That was it.
CARRIE
You always do what the little man tells you.
DASH
(on bended knee, balancing the
pan)
Can't you see, Carrie! What I'm trying to tell you is: I love you! I mean, we love you. Both of us. Me and him. In fact, we were talking about the possibility of a menage--
CARRIE
Are my jeans really tight?
(runs her hands down the backs of
her thighs)
Too tight?
DASH
(rising)
They're swell.
CARRIE
Must you use that particular word: swell?
DASH
(resumes funeral march and dirge)
I get my words from B-movies and cheap detective novels, see, sweetheart?
(from offstage-back right, a small
girl's sleepy, insistent voice)
Daddy!
CARRIE
I thought she was sleeping, Dash.
DASH
Was. That be the past tense, right, Professor Higgins?
(he turns, stops, looks for a
clutter-free place to set the
pan, chooses top of overstuffed
bookcase. Pats the lid, affects a
Peter Lorre accent)
If the innocent child were to see my little creatures, she would have mind-bending nightmares!
(pauses. Rubs hands and laughs
wickedly as he exits)
CARRIE
(approaches the pan)
You guys forgive us, don't you? It's a food chain thing. The Great Circle of Life? You guys were on top once, a billion years ago. It was called the Crustacean Period? Now it's the 1990s and the primates are on top and--
DASH
(returns)
Dialoguing with the food again, my love? You know what Doctor Heinrich says about anthro-- anthro-po-mor...
CARRIE
Anthropomorphologizing.
DASH
What a woman!
(embraces her lasciviously)
Oh! When you speak English! Have I told you lately, that I--no!-- We--
(hefts his own groin)
love you?
(bites her neck)
(from offstage back left, a young
boy's sleepy, insistent voice)
Mom!
(Carrie exits)
DASH
(lifts lid of pan and speaks like
Edward G. Robinson)
Your number's up, boys. It's curtains, see? Curtains!
(goes to the stereo, clears toys
from it, looks for a certain CD,
finds it hanging on a yarn noose
from the Venetian blinds. Begins
untying the CD)
CARRIE
(returns, snuggles Dash from behind)
Now, what was it you two wanted to tell me?
DASH
(distracted by the knots)
Your son...
CARRIE
(seeing what he's doing, releases
him)
Our son.
DASH
(swatting at assortment of lynched
super-heroes)
Madam, as your family's overworked zei-chiatrist, I must speak to you about zis son of yours...
CARRIE
Oh! Herr Doktor Heinrich! How good of you to join us for dinner. I'll set an extra plate, ja?
DASH
I zink it disturbing, to zay see least, zat the child mummifies in zee yarn, his Papa's CDs, and even his own Batman and zee Spiderman... Zen he strings zem up from zee high places! Hmm? Your son, zee precocious pre-schooler--
CARRIE
Our son, zee precocious pre-schooler--
DASH
He is into the bondage, no?
(gives up on untying CD)
At any rate, that pre-schooler ties a mean knot. Never mind the recorded music. I will sing for my love.
(he sings, Sinatra-lounge-lizard
style, to the tune of "I've
Got a Crush On You")
I want to tie you up--
Sweetie Pie!
All through the night
I'll make you sigh!
I hope you'll pardon my knot,
'Cause I've just got--
To tie--
You up--
My baby,
You're so hot!
CARRIE
Mozart, Herr Doktor? Quaint.
(they slow dance, Dash humming)
A long-suppressed memory seems to be surfacing, Herr doktor. If I recall, my son's father knows a zing or two about zis bondage...
DASH
Bondage?
(dips her backward)
Mein frau?
CARRIE
(stands apart)
Oh! Perhaps that wasn't you.
DASH
Good Gott!
(chases Carrie into the kitchen,
corners her, kisses her neck)
CARRIE
Dash? Know what I'd really like right now?
DASH
(grunts and beats his chest)
CARRIE
Dinner.
DASH
(walks like an ape to the pan;
resumes funeral march)
(From bedroom, telephone rings)
CARRIE
I'll get it.
(She nods at pan)
Tarzan, you do the...you know. Before Jane comes back.
(exits--is seen answering phone in
dim bedroom)
DASH
(puts pan on kitchen counter,
whips off lid to reveal two large
lobsters. Speaks in Brooklyn-ese)
Youze guys. I'm telling youze. From the foirst moment I laid my peepers on dat dame, been all hot lust and tortured longing ever since. Know what I'm saying? Geez... I recall like was yesterday, the first nano second I glimpsed her curvaceous beauty...
(pauses, lapses into his true voice)
First day Spring term my senior year. Passed her in the park. She turned my head. I walked into a tree. After getting up off the ground, I wanted to chase after her, but she was gone. Alas. I dragged my broken, spiritless twenty-two year old carcass to class. Shakespeare for Nitwits, it was. The room was filled with theater majors needing some easy English credits to graduate, like me. And there she was. Third chair from the front, along the windows. Blue bandana holding her ponytail. Jeans; tight.
(sighs)
Sweatshirt; dirty.
(sighs)
She never has been very good with laundry...
(pauses)
I became desperate. I became heart-floppingly brave. Went up to her. 'Excuse me'... Great opening, don't you think, boys? 'Excuse me. I've been hopelessly in love with you for the last seven minutes of my life.'
Good Gott! Zuch a dunderhead!
CARRIE
(returning)
It's for you.
DASH
What?
CARRIE
The phone.
DASH
Who?
CARRIE
Work.
DASH
I'm not going in.
CARRIE
(smiles; doesn't answer)
DASH
(exits)
CARRIE
Right.
(takes chips from refrigerator)
Right.
(addresses lobsters)
All he does is work. Right. We never do anything together. We just go, go go. Raise kids. Work. Study. Pay bills. Kids. Work. Bills. Hurry up wait in line please hold.
(bites hard on chips)
All I do is school. Sick of school. And what will I do when I finish school, if ever I do finish school? Work. Go to work, of course. Work all the time.
DASH
(returns)
You conversing with the food again?
CARRIE
It's good therapy.
How long will you be gone?
DASH
I am not leaving!
(doorbell rings)
Jesus! That can't be them!
CARRIE
(to the lobsters)
Good news, fellas! It's the governor!
DASH
I am not going. I am staying home tonight, and eating lobster!
(aside)
They must have been parked in front of the damn house and on a cell phone.
(doorbell rings again)
Carrie, put the boys in for a swim. I'll be back before they're toweling off.
(exits)
CARRIE
(stares at lobsters...
mimics a lobster, using her hands
to imitate their antennae
eyes/claws)
Stop staring at me!
I can't do this. Dash--
(speaks as if he is there)
You're going to have to--
(turns, realizes he isn't there) Dash...
(in confessional tone)
Dash... you'll have to do it. You'll have to work sixty hours a week... in an office like a jail... at a job you don't won't admit you hate. And you'll have to take care of our kids, get them to school, empty our garbage, pay our bills, be the one to tuck a little away in our retirement account...Do the laundry-- We'll no, not the laundry. But I don't do it either...
You'll have to put your own dreams on hold...indefinitely. Is there any more discouraging word in English: indefinitely? I know. I was waiting, indefinitely, to get my Masters...
Just what exactly do I do? I go to school. My advanced age, mother of two, lousy wife to a swell guy--
(pats her fanny)
Hate that word. I've been going to school all my life! Why? I need another degree? Jesus. I sound like my mother.
DASH
(returns, hurrying)
Carrie, I need cash.
CARRIE
I thought they were supposed to pay you.
DASH
It isn't WORK. It's our neighbor. Fred. Is that his name?
(rifles pockets of clothing on sofa)
CARRIE
Beard and beer gut?
DASH
The very one.
CARRIE
Frank.
DASH
Frank's selling chocolate. I mean, Frank's school's--
I mean Fred's--kid's--school's selling chocolate.
CARRIE
It's past ten!
DASH
Fred said they've come by three times. We're never home.
CARRIE
Why?
DASH
Haven't you noticed? We lead very busy lives--
CARRIE
Why is Fred--Frank--Frank's kid-- selling chocolate?
DASH
The aquarium... Field trip.
That whale with the strip teaser's name.
CARRIE
Keiko.
(takes money out of refrigerator)
Here.
DASH
Money in the refrigerator?
CARRIE
Cold cash.
(spreads the bills like playing
cards)
There's a lot you don't know about me, husband.
DASH
(stammers)
Da-da-da-da-da-da...
(plucks a bill, gives Carrie peck on
the cheek, exits)
CARRIE
(puts money back in refrigerator)
I can explain, Doctor Heinrich. It's all entirely, sanely logical. I put the money in the cookie jar, the kids eat find it. I put it in the fridge, tucked in the fresh vegetable drawer, no one ever disturbs it. Could remain there for eons, beside the molding mushrooms and rotting radiccio...
DASH
(returns, carrying chocolate bars)
CARRIE
How many did--
DASH
They had sold everything but these... ten.
CARRIE
You had to buy them out?
DASH
It's the neighborly thing to do. I mean, they'd come to our house three times. You wouldn't want our kids roaming the neighborhood at ten at night, selling chocolate to strangers...
(he stops)
CARRIE
What is it?
DASH
(stage whispers)
Hunger!
CARRIE
Oh god, me too. I'm in the red zone. I can't even think straight.
DASH
How long until--
(sees the lobsters still on the
platter)
You didn't?
CARRIE
I can't.
DASH
You're a grown up!
CARRIE
So are you. You do it.
DASH
You're kidding.
CARRIE
I'm not. I don't want to watch, either.
DASH
Carrie! You're the one who wanted lobster! You've been pining after those golden days of girlhood back in New England--
CARRIE
I know!
Dad, or my boyfriends, they always dropped them in. Guys like doing it. The way they like to barbecue: the element of danger.
DASH
This is not a guy thing!
I bet if your kids were hungry and wanted lobster you'd be shoving those crustaceans head first--
CARRIE
I'm going to punch you right in the nose, mister.
DASH
Oh, so domestic violence is not a problem for you, but boiling lobsters...
Stand back. In this supposedly liberated day and age, slaughtering wildlife remains man's work.
CARRIE
I'm going upstairs.
DASH
Sissy.
CARRIE
Dash, they cry! They scream!
DASH
Carrie! That's only air escaping--
CARRIE
Escaping from what-- their bodies! Their souls, for all we know.
DASH
This is insane. I'm too hungry for anthro- anthro-po-por--
CARRIE
Anthropormorphology!
DASH
Yeah.
(pumps himself up, then starts
loudly humming Wagner; hoists the
lobsters, removes the lid, burning
his fingers)
Damn!
CARRIE
(covering ears, runs from room,
squealing)
DASH
(puts lobsters back in the holding pan,
slams lid on the pan)
I need a drink.
(takes bottle of scotch from
cabinet; pours some in a souvenir
mug from the circus, drinks, looks
at the tiger on the mug)
Scotch...in a circus mug.
Just exactly how and when did I land in this life?
CARRIE
(offstage)
Is it over, Dash?
DASH
(sips scotch; affects a Bogart
accent)
It's over, baby. The Lobster Gang is liquidated. The kitchen is made safe for democracy, once again. Wasn't easy. I wanted to stay on the sidelines. But when those two lobsters came into my joint, of all the lousy joints in the world, I had to become a man of action.
CARRIE
(returns)
You're drinking?
DASH?
Here's looking at you--
CARRIE
Scotch on an empty stomach. You'll regret it.
Especially--
(opens refrigerator)
When we have champagne!
david boyne
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