Play 21: Same As It Ever Was (aka, Lockers II)

CHARACTERS
1, male, 16
2, male, 16

(They sit against lockers in an otherwise empty hallway.)

1
So one of those random shitty moods again?

2
Yeah.

1
That sucks.

2
Yeah.

1
Any idea why, boredom like it usually is?

2
I don’t think so.

1
What then?

2
I have absolutely no idea.

1
It’s gotta be something.

2
I didn’t say it isn’t something necessarily.

1
Yeah you did.

2
I said I had no idea, doesn’t mean there isn’t something subconsciously or something.
1
True. (Beat.) Pretty much same thing though

2
I guess. It’s fucking weird either way though.

1
Yeah.

2
It was odd, just suddenly it hit out of nowhere. One moment I was fine, the next I suddenly felt like I was about to cry.

1
Did you?

2
No. I wish I did though.

1
I know what you mean.

2
I just feel like I’m on the border now and I just wish I could get it over with. It’s nice to cry once in a while to get stuff out.

1
Definetely. Then cry.

2
Doesn’t really work that way.

1
I dunno, just try to let go.

2
Already did. I even tried making myself cry, didn’t really work though.

1
That sucks.

2
Yeah.

(Pause.)

So what’s up with you?

1
Nothing really.

2
Nothing new?

1
Same as it ever was.

2
Yup.

(Blackout.)

Play 20: Bad Jew

CHARACTERS
VINCENT, 16
JESSE, 16

VINCENT
Well, now that Thanksgiving’s over you know what time it is.

JESSE
What?

VINCENT
(Sarcastically.)
Christmas shopping time!

JESSE
Yeah.

VINCENT
I personally am ecstatic.

JESSE
Come on, Christmas isn’t so bad.

VINCENT
You just say that cause you actually celebrate it.

JESSE
So?

VINCENT
You’re a bad Jew.

JESSE
Come on, a lot of Jews nowadays celebrate it.

VINCENT
I personally celebrate it in the traditional Jewish style: going out to a Chinese restaurant and going to the movies.

JESSE
Nice.

VINCENT
Yeah. Sometimes I even go all out with the Jewish tradition of killing Jesus.

JESSE
Nice touch there I must say.

VINCENT
Yup, it really is the only way to spend the holidays.

JESSE
Of course.

(Pause.)

You know you have a weird obsession with the joke of killing Jesus.

VINCENT
Ehh, I don’t use it that much.

JESSE
In you’re brief attempt at a webcomic, in one of your scenes, now…

VINCENT
I guess I do. You gotta admit it’s funny though.

JESSE
Yeah. Sometimes at least.

VINCENT
Ouch. I believe I just got served.

JESSE
Indeed you did.

VINCENT
And by a bad Jew no less.

JESSE
Says the one who doesn’t even keep kosher.

VINCENT
(Puts finger to lips.)
Shhh.

JESSE
You’re really strange, you know that right?

VINCENT
Of the many things I am, delusional is not one of them.

JESSE
True enough.

VINCENT
Indeed.

JESSE
You know you use that word a lot too.

VINCENT
So, it’s awesome.

JESSE
That word too.

VINCENT
Word repetition nazi.

JESSE
Yup.

VINCENT
So now you’re not just a bad Jew, but a self proclaimed nazi.

JESSE
Oy vey.

VINCENT
Indeed.

JESSE
Hey, you just said it again.

VINCENT
Indeed.

JESSE
You’re hopeless.

(Blackout.)

Play 19: Damn Straight

CHARACTERS
GEOFF, age unimportant
THOMAS, age unimportant

GEOFF
At least I find it funny.

THOMAS
Why? I mean, they always say money can’t buy happiness.

GEOFF
You know, just cause our society puts so much emphasis on money and how all ads seem to say if you can just buy that car, that shirt, if you can just get the money then you’ll be happy. But is our country on the top of that study of which countries are the happiest? Not even close, and yet a ton of the poor countries in South America are right up there.

THOMAS
Yeah, it is kind of ironic.

GEOFF
And we have the highest homicide rate, hell, the city of Baltimore alone has more homicides annually than any other country I think, and if not at least more than the vast majority. We have more people in jail, more sociopaths, more autistic people and almost any other mental disorder you can imagine. And we’re the land of the free, we’re the golden country everyone wants to come to.

THOMAS
No wonder so many immigrants went back after coming here.

GEOFF
Our society is so impersonal: you go to a good high school to get in a good college to get a good job and of course happiness. And you’re supposed to just keep you’re bad feelings to yourself in public because, oh no, you might make the other people feel bad. Everyone’s so repressed and you wonder why everyone’s depressed and fucked up here.

THOMAS
As I said before. Just cause it’s over used doesn’t make it not true: “money can’t buy happiness.”

GEOFF
Yeah, sometimes those old adages definitely a lot of truth. I mean, things like that don’t generally get repeated unless there’s a good reason.

THOMAS
What about propaganda or stuff like that? Just cause you say something repeatedly doesn’t mean it’s true.

GEOFF
True. But in this case it holds a lot of truth.

THOMAS
Yup. But then again, The Tom Tom Club said “happiness can’t buy money.”

GEOFF
Touche.

(Beat.)

But they said that once, how many times has it been said the other way around?

THOMAS
Oh, back to the “more people said it so it must be true” theorem are we.

GEOFF
Damn straight.

THOMAS
From a deep philosophical monologue of the issues with our country to “damn straight.”

GEOFF
I try.

(They laugh.)

THOMAS
At least you’re off that soap box now.

GEOFF
Hey, you were eating it up.

THOMAS
To quote Sports Night: “Just because I’m looking at you doesn’t mean I’m listening to, or care about what you have to say. It’s just something I do to be polite.”

GEOFF
Which exactly proves my point about people being repressed here, you should’ve just told me I should’ve shut up.

THOMAS
Well, in that case, shut up.

(Pause.)

GEOFF
I think I liked it better when you were pretending.

THOMAS
Damn straight.

(They laugh.)

(Blackout.)

Play 18: You Look Like You Could Use a Drink

CHARACTERS
CHASE, 24
ERIC, 24

(They sit on the steps to an apartment building on an empty street at night. They are illuminated by the light of a streetlight a few feet away from them. They each have a beer in their hands.)

CHASE
Sure you don’t want to go inside? It’s fucking cold out here.

ERIC
I just want to sit here for a minute.

(He stares off into the distance, and takes a sip of his beer.)

CHASE
What’s wrong?

ERIC
Nothing.

CHASE
Come on man, I know you better than that.

ERIC
I said it’s nothing.

CHASE
You look like shit.

ERIC
Fitting.

(He takes a long sip.)

CHASE
Then what’s wrong?

ERIC
Are you fucking deaf?

CHASE
You just said you feel like shit, so what happened?

ERIC
It’s nothing.

(Pause.)

We’re done.

CHASE
What?

ERIC
I said we’re done.

CHASE
(confused.)
You and me?

ERIC
What? No, what the fuck are you talking about?

CHASE
Then who?

ERIC
(angrily)
Who the hell do you think I’m talking about?

CHASE
How am I supposed to know if you havn’t told me? You’re not making any sense.

(Pause.)

ERIC
Sandra.

CHASE
Sandra what?

ERIC
(angrily)
Christ, Sandra and me, we’re done.

CHASE
Shit.

ERIC
Yeah.

CHASE
I’m sorry man.

ERIC
Don’t be, isn’t you’re fault.

CHASE
You know what I mean.

ERIC
Yeah (beat.) thanks.

(Pause, they sit drinking their beers in silence for a couple seconds.)

CHASE
Let’s go inside, it’s cold as hell out here. And you look like you could use a drink.

ERIC
Now you’re talking.

(They smile. Chase stands up and opens the door, Eric takes one last long drink out of his beer, tilting it up to finish it off, and tosses it onto the sidewalk where it shatters. He gets up and follows Chase inside, shutting the door behind him.)

(Blackout.)

Play 17: That Feeling

CHARACTERS
BEN, 16
NICK, 16

(They sit on a couch in the middle of the stage.)

NICK
Are you just not tired at night or something?

BEN
No, I’m tired. I’m tired pretty much all day lately, but I still have trouble going to sleep.

NICK
Maybe you’re becoming an insomniac or something.

BEN
Maybe.

(Pause.)

But it’s not that I have trouble literally going to sleep, once I get in my bed I get to sleep pretty quick.

NICK
Then what is it?

BEN
I guess I just don’t want to go to sleep.

NICK
You probably just don’t want to go to sleep cause you know when you wake up you’ll have to go to school.

BEN
I guess that’s part.

NICK
What else then?

BEN
I just always have things I feel like I should do.

NICK
Mean like homework and stuff, I always stay up late doing shit like that I should’ve done earlier.

BEN
Not really, I get my homework done pretty early.

NICK
Then why are you staying up so late?

BEN
I guess I just don’t feel like I’m getting enough done.

NICK
You get plenty done, I mean you play guitar and sax and you’re doing you’re whole play a day thing, I sure as hell don’t do that much.

BEN
But I have a lot more free time than you do.

NICK
True.

(Pause.)

BEN
It’s just, it’s not exactly that I don’t do enough, I just never seem to be happy enough with what I’ve done.

NICK
Maybe you should try be less hard on yourself.

BEN
I know I should.

(Beat.)

BEN
It’s just, you know that feeling you get when you see a scene in a movie that’s amazing, and you just think “I wish I had written that.”

NICK
Yeah.

BEN
It’s just (beat.) I just want to make something that good. I want to find that guitar riff that makes someone want to listen to it over and over again and keep working on it until they can play it. Or that line that perfectly captures a feeling they’ve always felt but never been able to put into words.

NICK
Just keep trying, you’ll find it eventually.

BEN
But what if I don’t? What makes those things so amazing is how hard they are to come up with. How long did Hendrix spend listening and playing before he could play that riff that makes you lock yourself in a room for hours trying to figure out? How much did any great writer observe and write until they could come up with that line? How long did David Murray practice until he got that tone?

NICK
You shouldn’t worry about it so much.

BEN
But why not, I mean, that’s the only kind of stuff that really matters when you think about it.

NICK
You can’t force it though, if you keep working on it eventually it’ll come. Just takes time.

BEN
Exactly!

NICK
What?

BEN
It’s just time.

NICK
So you’re not sleeping so you’ll have the time to do something like that?

BEN
Yeah, I guess.

NICK
But you don’t need to do it now.

BEN
I know.

NICK
You have you’re entire life to do become a better writer and musician and all that stuff, most those guys you mentioned didn’t get good till way later.

BEN
But they started early.

NICK
Not all of them.

BEN
A lot though.

NICK
Still.

(Pause.)

Either way you should chill out about it, you’re just gonna drive yourself insane if you obsess about it for so long.

BEN
Yeah, I guess.

NICK
And try to actually get enough sleep.

BEN
Yeah.

(Pause.)

NICK
So, what set you off thinking about all this this time?

BEN
Just a show.

NICK
Homicide?

BEN
(Beat.) Yeah.

NICK
I know you too well.

BEN
Not really, it’s always Homicide.

NICK
Very true.

BEN
It is an awesome show though.

NICK
Also true.

(Pause.)

BEN
So, wanna go watch an episode?

(Nick laughs.)

NICK
Sure. Sounds like a plan.

(They exit.)

(Blackout.)

Play 16: No One’s a Saint

CHARACTERS
ROBERT, 16
ALBERT, 16

(They sit at a table eating a lunch.)

ROBERT
I disagree, I think it makes him a better person.

ALBERT
What do you mean, he’s been lying to everyone the entire time.

ROBERT
So what.

ALBERT
Well, lying doesn’t generally help you’re being a saint.

ROBERT
Of course the lying itself doesn’t make him a better person. My point is that, even though he lied about being religious, doesn’t the fact that he tries so hard to make the lives of everyone better just for the sake of making their lives better mean more than if he did it so he’d go to heaven?

ALBERT
I guess so, I still think that doesn’t balance out the fact that he’s lied to everyone for so long though.

ROBERT
I still think it means more that he’s being a good person just because he knows it’s right and not for a reward in the afterlife.

ALBERT
Just because he’s not doing it for the afterlife doesn’t mean it’s completely selfless.

ROBERT
How so?

ALBERT
Maybe he just tries to help everyone else to give his life meaning.

ROBERT
Well, just because he wants meaning in his life doesn’t mean he’s selfish.

ALBERT
No, but it’s the same as if he did it for religion.

ROBERT
No It’s not, then it would just be so he’d be happier in the afterlife.

ALBERT
And this is so he’ll be happy in this life.

ROBERT
But he’s miserable.

ALBERT
So, it even said somewhere in the story he does all that stuff to distract himself from his misery. It’s really just the same as if he did it religion, one’s so he’ll be happier in the afterlife one’s so he’ll be happier in this life. Even if he isn’t happy, he’s still just attempting to be on some level.

ROBERT
I guess you have a point. If you think about it hard enough no one is truly altruistic.

ALBERT
I think some acts are truly selfless.

ROBERT
Name one.

ALBERT
Helping feed the poor or help out people in worse situations.

ROBERT
Didn’t you just say don Manuel was just doing stuff like that to help himself feel better?


ALBERT
Yeah, I guess so. How bout if someone sacrifices their life for someone else, then it can’t be so they’ll feel better because they’re gone after it.

ROBERT
That’s a good point.

(He thinks about it for a couple seconds.)

But what if you just do it because you want to make your legacy better?

ALBERT
What do you mean?

ROBERT
You could just sacrifice yourself so people would remember you as a good person.

ALBERT
Yeah, I guess.

ROBERT
So you agree with me then.

ALBERT
I guess. But so what?

ROBERT
What do you mean?

ALBERT
So what if there is no altruism.

ROBERT
I dunno, I find it a little depressing.

ALBERT
So what if a person’s motives are never truly selfless, the effect is still the same.

ROBERT
Yeah, I guess.

ALBERT
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do good things for the sake of doing them, even if it’s also beneficial to you. Doesn’t that make it better really? Everyone wins.

ROBERT
True.

(Pause.)

But then why does the word altruism even exist?

ALBERT
You got me there.

ROBERT
I guess that means don Manuel isn’t a saint after all.

ALBERT
Well, the story is named “San Manuel Bueno, Mártir.” The word “saint” is in the title.

(They laugh.)

ROBERT
No one’s a saint I guess.

ALBERT
So what?

ROBERT
Touche.

(Blackout.)

Play 15: One in Twenty Five People Is One (see end of scene)

CHARACTERS
DOCTOR, male, 30s
OLD MAN, 70s
YOUNG MAN, 30s
WOMAN, early twenties
BOY, 6

(The doctor is sitting behind a large expensive looking desk looking at a packet of papers. There is an empty seat in front of his desk.)

(An old man enters. He goes and sits in the empty chair.)

DOCTOR
How you been?

OLD MAN
I’m fine thank you. And you?

DOCTOR
I’m fine. (Beat.) I’m sorry to tell you this, but there’s something important I have to talk to you about about these test results.

OLD MAN
(nervously.)
What is it?

DOCTOR
I’m afraid (beat.) you have cancer.

(Pause. The old man has a terrified look on his face.)

OLD MAN
You’re sure?

DOCTOR
Yes, we found a malignant growth in your pancreas, it doesn’t look like you have long, a year at most.

OLD MAN
Oh god, I knew I was getting old, but, you can never prepare yourself for something like this.

DOCTOR
I know, I’m terribly sorry. I’ve already scheduled you for another appointment Monday so we can start treatment.

(The old man gets up, he’s crying now, and he slowly walks offstage.)

(The doctor goes back to looking at the papers, a young man enters, and sits down in the chair.)

YOUNG MAN
Have the test results come back yet?

DOCTOR
Yes. I’m sorry to tell you, but you have cancer.

YOUNG MAN
What?!

DOCTOR
Yes, it’s in your lungs. You only have a a month to live.

YOUNG MAN
Oh, god, no, no!

(He begins sobbing, and runs out of the room screaming.)

(The doctor goes back to reading, and a woman enters.)

(She sits down.)

DOCTOR
Cancer.

WOMAN
What?

DOCTOR
The tests are in. It’s cancer.

WOMAN
But, but I’m here for a checkup.

DOCTOR
Yes, I know.

WOMAN
I’m twenty three years old.

DOCTOR
Cancer can strike at any time, it works mysterious ways.

WOMAN
(confused.)
But, but I didn’t even have any tests done.

DOCTOR
As I said, it works in mysterious ways.

WOMAN
(She starts to shift from confusion to distress)
How long do I have?

DOCTOR
I’m afraid only a matter of days. It’s been in you’re (Beat.) spleen, yes, spleen, for years we guess and we’ve only been able to find it now, so it’s already caused irreparable damage.

(She starts to cry.)

DOCTOR
I’d advise you to go buy a coffin.

(She stumbles out of the room, her face buried in her hands crying.)

(Boy enters, he sits down in the chair.)

DOCTOR
(In the patronizing voice adults often use towards small children.)
Hey there little guy, I’m afraid you have a malignant growth, do you know what that means?

BOY
No, what?

DOCTOR
Just go home to you’re mommy and say, “Mr. Doctor says I have cancer.” She’ll explain everything. And tell her you only have a few days.

BOY
A few days to what?

DOCTOR
Just tell her. Go.

BOY
Okay.

(He leaves the room.)

(The doctor goes back to reading his papers. Pause.)

(He looks up at the audience.)

DOCTOR
Life is good (beat.) when you’re a sociopath.

(Blackout.)