Last night,

a woman sang below my window of moon

light and bitter spite.

She turned a silver

ring between fingers

swollen and arthritic.

Her song churned her memories,

her futures, and her empty ache.

I needed sleep to face the day, so I said

quietly, excuse me but I was sleeping,

and she said so was she.

I pick up a paper and I read it.  It tells a story.  I am in the story.

In the story, I pick up a paper and I read it.  I do not understand the story.  I read it again, because I want to understand.  But I do not believe I understand the story.

Dissatisfied, I discard the paper and continue to my destination.  I try to forget the story.  I believe I am successful.  When I arrive at my destination, I am satisfied to arrive.  At my destination, I do what I intend to do, until I do what I do not intend to do.  Having done the unintended, I consider my intentions.  Do I intend to do the unintended?  I do not believe I know.  No, I know.  I do not.

Outside the story, I do not like this story.  I do not read it again, because I do not like this story.  I put it in a recycle bin.  I forget about the story.  I continue to my destination.  When I arrive at my intended destination, I am dissatisfied.  I do what I intend to do.  I am dissatisfied.  I do not do what I do not intend to do.  I consider my dissatisfaction.  Am I dissatisfied with my present intension?  I do not believe I know.  I do not understand.  I want to understand, but I do not read the story again.

Jimmy and Rex sit on a porch, in rocking chairs.  They are dressed in suits, and wear large dark sunglasses.  They are sweating.

Between them is a board game; RISK.  They are studying the board.

REX:  Turn off the heat.

JIMMY:  We’re outside, Rex.

REX:  Turn off the heat.

JIMMY:  We’re outside.

REX:  So?  Turn on a fan or something.

JIMMY:  The power’s out.

REX:  Well fine.  Go already.

JIMMY:  It’s your turn.

REX:  No, it’s your turn.

JIMMY:  I thought it was your turn.

REX:  No, it’s your turn.  Go.

JIMMY:  Okay.

JIMMY studies the board some more.

JIMMY:  When is he coming anyway?

REX:  Soon.

JIMMY:  And you told him we were here, right?

REX:  He knows I’m here.

JIMMY:  What about me?

REX:  He’ll see you when he gets here.

JIMMY:  I don’t want to surprise him.

REX:  It doesn’t matter.

JIMMY:  We’ve got to get him in the house first.  I might make him suspicious.  Tell him I’m here.

REX:  If I call him and tell him you’re here, don’t you think that’s suspicious?

JIMMY:  Fine.  Text him.

REX:  Text him?

JIMMY:  Text him.  What, don’t you text?  Aren’t you living in the mutherfucking twenty first century?

REX:  I don’t text people like him.  No one texts him.

JIMMY:  Text him and say I’m picking up coffee, ask him if he wants any.

REX:  Coffee.

JIMMY:  Coffee.

REX:  Just go, it’s your turn.

JIMMY:  It’s your turn!

REX:  I’m waiting on you.

JIMMY:  Okay.

JIMMY considers.  He picks up the dice.  He rolls them around in his fingers.

REX:  Don’t get the dice sweaty.

JIMMY:  I still think you should text him.

REX:  Fine, I’ll text him, just tell me where you’re invading and roll.  I hate sweaty dice.  Feels like I’m picking up cheese cubes.

REX pulls out a cell phone and a blue tooth.

JIMMY:  What if I want to attack Afganistan?

REX:  I don’t give a shit.  Attack Afganistan.  What do I look like, Green Peace?

JIMMY:  You don’t care if I attack Afganistan?

REX:  Attack Afganistan, bitch, roll, it’s on, lets go.

JIMMY:  Who are you calling?

REX:   You don’t need to know.

JIMMY:  I thought you were gonna text him.

REX:  I’ll have someone else text him.

JIMMY:  We just agreed—

REX:  We just agreed it might be suspicious, so I’ll have someone else text him.

JIMMY:  Who?

REX:  You don’t know him.

JIMMY:  What the fuck, aren’t I part of this team?  Don’t I get a say?

REX:  It’s better if you don’t know.

JIMMY:  Who is it?

REX shows JIMMY the phone.

JIMMY:  Him?

REX:  If the mutherfucker would just pick up his phone.  Roll the dice.

JIMMY:  I’m still deciding.

REX:  Afganistan.  Roll.

JIMMY:  No, you want me to attack there.

REX:  Just go!

JIMMY:  No.  I have to find your weakness.

REX:  Why do I even play this game?

Pause.

REX:  Voicemail.   Listen, call me.  You know who this is.  Jimmy, just go.

JIMMY:  Where?

REX:  Afganistan.

JIMMY:  Fine!

JIMMY rolls.  So does REX.

JIMMY:  Fuck.  You fucked up my roll.

REX:  They’re dice, shithead.

JIMMY:  You pressured me.  You fucked up my roll.

REX:  It’s supposed to be random. It’s RISK.

JIMMY:  Just stop pressuring me.

REX:  Live by the sword, Jimmy.  If you live by the sword you have to be willing to die by the sword.

JIMMY:  Stop pressuring me.

REX:  I’m just saying, you cave so easily.  Even when it’s not something you can cave on.  It’s fucking dice, and you act like it’s a free throw.

JIMMY:  Shut the fuck up.

REX:  This is your problem Jimmy.  I’m just telling you your problem.

REX studies the board.  His phone rings.  He snatches it up.

REX:  You got my message.  Call the number I’m about to text you.  No.  Text the number I’m about to text you.  Text the number and say I’m with Jimmy at the plantation.  Okay.  Call me when you’re done.

REX studies the board.

REX:  Afganistan again?

JIMMY:  I’m done.

REX:  Alright.  I’ve got…..  REX counts.  Okay.

REX puts all his troops in Afganistan.

JIMMY:  You’re putting all your troops in Afganistan.

REX:  Yeah.

JIMMY:  You can’t do that.

REX:  Why not?

JIMMY:  You son of a bitch.  I knew it.  I knew you wanted me to attack.

REX:  Calm down.  You fucked up, now you’re weak and you’ve got nothing in China, don’t fucking blame it on me.

JIMMY:  It’s a two person game, who am I supposed to blame?

REX:  Blame yourself.

JIMMY:  I can’t fucking believe you.

REX:  China, Afganistan.  Lets go.

They roll.  JIMMY looses the roll.  

            “He’s crying over a teapot!” said Johnson.

            “You don’t think that’s possible?”  I said.

            “I think it’s possible,” Johnson said, “it’s apparently very possible.  But it’s stupid.”

            “Why?” I said.

            “It’s a teapot.  It has no life.  It’s a just a teapot.”

            “I think he is crying because the teapot represents something about himself.”

            “There is no good reason to cry over a teapot.”

            The date was not going well.

            Johnson invited me to his apartment on 18^th and Sanchez to watch a movie.  “I love movies,” I told him when we met at Billy’s house warming party.  “We should hang out sometime and watch one,” he told me.  I agreed, we drank to it, there was a kiss goodbye, sloppy with more spit than tongue, and three days later I arrived at his apartment to watch a movie.  “What do you want to watch?” Johnson asked me, and by the way he stood next to a comfortable looking couch and watched me closely, I sensed that perhaps a bigger question was being asked.  Was he really asking me if I wanted to dispense with the movie and just have sex?  I decided to stand with four feet between us as I scrolled through the options offered by On Demand.  We stood in his living room, I’m embarrassed to admit, for a full ten minutes as I.  It was in almost silence.  I was offered something to drink, which I declined since the last we met was over too many drinks, but as I continued to scroll and the silence thickened, I asked for a drink just to make noise.

            It’s not that I am indecisive; quite the contrary.  I had very quickly decided I did not want to just have sex.  Rather, I just didn’t like any of the movies offered.  When I settled on a documentary about Zen and Cooking, Johnson looked down at his whiskey on the rocks for a full ten seconds before saying, “Okay.”

            We sat.  His hips touched mine.  His hand, which he’d previously been using to hold his drink, now rested palm down on his thigh, only centimeters from mine.  I sipped my Crown and Coke as Johnson took a swig of his clinking whiskey.  Just before the movie began, he sighed.  “Don’t blame me if I fall asleep,” he said.

            After ten minutes of Johnson fidgeting, a whiskey refill, and several touching, if vaguely histrionic, speeches about cooking, life, and the nature of all things, the Zen cooking instructor began to cry over a teapot.  This teapot did not hide its dings and scratches and scars, but displayed them sincerely and willingly.  Despite the careless violence of its handlers, the teapot, according to the Zen instructor, seemed to lend itself enthusiastically to more abusive use.  The teapot was Zen.  The instructor tearfully concluded that if the teapot could continue it’s taxing life, so could he.

            Though touched, I concluded that the teapot must be masochistic, and thanked god it found an abusive handler.  I was about to share this thought when Johnson burst out with his emphatic opinions.  He then lay his head in my lap, facing my abdomen and looking up at me with suggestive eyes.

            He pursed his lips.  Doubtless, he was attempting the mask of a pout.

            The date was not going well.

            So I gave Johnson what he wanted, and after the sweaty, moan filled activity was over, I attempted to draw the truth from him.

            “Did that guy really annoy you?”  I said, while his face rested on my chest and the declining rhythm of his breathing signaled the onset of sleep.

            “Huh?” he said.

            “That guy, the Zen guy, were you really upset, or just horny?”

            “Shhhh,” he said, holding a limp finger to his lips.

            Once he was asleep, I left.  I did not leave a note and I did not intend to call later.  And the sex, though sweaty and moan-filled, was not satisfying enough to suggest any promise of future un-entangled encounters.  The evening had served its entire purpose, as far as I was concerned.  When Johnson woke up alone, I was sure he’d conclude the same.  And the low growls of the San Francisco streets were far sweeter to my ears than Johnson’s gurgling snore.  Why not sleep at home?

            Yet as I wandered the streets I realized I was not quite ready to go home, and not quite satisfied with the evening.  A familiar fear swelled within me.  I wondered to myself whether I was truly ready to die.  Of course, I was probably going to live well into my sixties at least, and that gave me another forty years of life—probably.  But if those forty years looked anything like this day, then was it really worth it?  A long day at a job which was only supposed to be temporary, yet had somehow lasted four years, a rush home to shower and shave, and prepare for a potential evening of explosive romanticism, followed by semi-trite metaphors, unsatisfying sex, and a walk home.  If this were the last day of my life, what did my life matter?  To some people, this kind of question shrieked through the air like a threatening trumpet, but to me it was more like a war drum; low, persistent, and suggestive of mortality.  I knew I would not resolve this question.  How could anyone resolve this question?  I could only resolve to try harder to live a better life.

            Then I realized I was having an existential crisis because of a difference in movie tastes and chemistry-lacking sex.  Was I pathetic?  Was this pathetic?  Or was this the guarded little secret everyone carried with them, a fear of pathetic-ness?

            I stood at a red light by a modern design furniture store and observed the window display.  The display glistened with impossibly shaped glass sculptures, steel framed coffee tables, white leather sofas, a brick wall with installed shelving, and, on the top self, a row of chrome teapots.  They gleamed brightly, and their polished chrome surfaces reflected the spackle of lights and if I looked close enough, I could see myself in them as well.

            I decided to return tomorrow and purchase one of those teapots.  Then I would give it all the abuse I could handle.  Thus decided, I hurried home to bed.

Jacob muted the television when the commercials began and watched them in silence.  He considered his name.  Why exactly did his parents name him Jacob?  LOST seemed to paint him as a saint, but biblically, Jacob carried out several potentially sinful deeds.  Tricking one’s brother can’t be good, can it?  The commercials carried on with their quiet energy.  It was always strange to Jacob to watch commercials on silent.  It was as if they were phantoms.  It felt like passing gravestones.

LOST began again, and Jacob restored the sound.  This episode focused on Jack, that aggressive bulldog of a human, constantly chasing the closest car, or barking at one parked too close.  Oh Jack, any other reasonable human being would have figured things out by now, would have recognized his own defeating motivations and become tired of them.  The best of Jack is that he is a joke, and the worst of him is that he will never laugh at himself.  The commercials began again and Jacob muted the television.

Picking up the phone, Jacob dialed his mother.

“Hello?”  She said.

“Hey, it’s me,” Jacob said.

“Oh hi Jacob, are you watching LOST?”

“Of course,” he said, “what else would I be doing?”

“Well, I guess I don’t know.”

“Mom?”

“Yes? What is it?”

“Why did you name me Jacob?”

She laughed into the phone.

“Don’t be silly.”

“What?  I just want to know, what’s so funny?”

“Your father’s brother was named Jacob.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, we told you about it a long time ago.  Your uncle Jacob died before he became an uncle, that’s why you don’t remember him.”

“Oh.  Did Dad like his brother?”

“I gotta go, the show is starting again, call me later.”  The phone clicked off.  Indeed, LOST started again on the television.

But Jacob finished the episode in mute.  He watched the characters dance out the plot like a waltz.  He could not remember the last time this show bored him so much.  He clicked off the television, replacing the vibrantly colored images with his dark reflection in the glass.  Jacob wondered momentarily if he would actually go to heaven, if he would become a ghost, or if he would simply die and nothing more.  If he became a ghost, would he look like the dark reflection in the glass?  Would the world be silent, or would only he fall silent?  And which would be worse?

I wish I had a brother, thought Jacob as he climbed the ladder to his lofted bed in the tiny New York apartment.  Tomorrow, Jacob left for Israel, and he needed rest.  As he drifted to sleep, the horrible thought occurred to him that he could not hear the New York streets.  Its bustling humanity had fallen silent.

            Georgina set her book upon the park bench and breathed deeply.  Go away, she thought.  Then she relaxed.  The buzzing had left her.   What a relief, thought Georgina.  A refreshing breeze enveloped her body as she gazed out on the empty swing sets and teeter-totters.  All was silent again.  The scene might have completely satisfied Georgina if it were not for the odious sun creeping along the grass in her direction.  Judging from experience, she had ten minutes left before the sun reached her feet and warmed them.  She picked up the book and counted the remaining pages of the chapter.  Ten pages.  She would never make it.  Still, she opened the book and continued reading.  She had to try to get something done this morning.

            Silly book.  Droning on and on and on about such unimportant things.  Virtue?  Georgina could honestly admit she didn’t understand what it meant; virtue.  She couldn’t even explain why she read such books.  In fact, twice today she found herself thinking of which cleanser she should use to combat the mold growing in her shower.  Before that, she found herself debating whether to call her assistant Todd and ask him to stay late tonight.  Of course she wouldn’t actually need him to stay late, but tough bosses do that sort of thing to their assistants, don’t they?  Upper management was complaining of budget cuts again.  Did people at the office think she was expendable?  She managed to push work out of her mind, convincing herself that she was invaluable in an office as full of idiots as hers, but she could not ignore the question of the bathroom mold.  She teetered between using 409 and Clorox Green.  She preferred 409 because it cleaned faster, but was it Green?  Was she imperiling the planet to scrub a bathroom that, though spotless, was inexorably crusted with bacteria anyway?

            Familiar warmth grew along her toes and she knew the sun had finally found her.  Had she actually read anything?  She leafed back five pages before recognizing a passage.  A brief debate took place in her mind; whether to reread those five pages the next morning or just toil onward through the dull book.  She decided to move on.  Get it done.  She didn’t need to know about virtue, and what could five pages tell you about virtue?  Wasn’t virtue some grand inexplicable thing?  Besides, with the sun crawling up her leg like warm slime, it was time to go home and prepare for the day.

            Her shoes clacked on the concrete as she strode down Cherrywood Lane.  She didn’t realize her shoes made that sound.  How many times had she strode down Cherrywood Lane and not noticed this sound?  Did it matter?  Virtue.  Stay focused, she told herself.  She was trying to understand virtue; that’s why she picked the book out at the store.  ‘A classic tale of virtue,’ said the subtitle.  The cover said it was a national best seller.  Georgina didn’t trust such things.  She didn’t trust people period.  But she found herself buying the book.  “For my father,” she told the clerk before he’d finished with the previous customer.  He looked at her quizzically.  What a stupid lie, she thought as she remembered the whole thing.  The clacking of her shoes sounded so loudly in her ears.  Could Daddy even read anymore?  The buzzing began behind her eyes again, pinching her, then popping, as if a metal worm were wriggling through her eye ball sockets.  She gripped the book tightly.  The buzzing rose so quickly.  She grew terrified that it would split her head in half.  She stood still.  Virtue, she thought, she was to learn virtue, she reminded herself, but the buzzing continued stronger.  Anything, she pleaded, what do you want?  A new book, she promised herself, I’ll buy another book if the buzzing would just go away.

            And the buzzing did.

            She continued her walk down Cherrywood Lane, stepping carefully to minimize the sound of her clacking shoes.

            David sat at the dinning room table, slowly raising a spoonful of cereal to his mouth when Georgina returned.  He sat in that exact spot an hour before, when she left the house.  A single trail of glistening milk linked lip to chin.  Better than yesterday, Georgina thought.  Yesterday, most of the cereal had found its way to his lap.  “How’s your cereal?” Georgina said.

            “It’s soggy again,” David muttered.

            “You’ve got to eat it faster, Daddy,” she said, but maybe her chiding didn’t help at all, maybe he couldn’t eat any faster anymore.

            It was not wise to upset him in the morning, or all day he would give the nurse problems.  Before he could respond, she kissed him on the forehead.  The act deflated him.  He set down the spoon.  She tried to read his eyes.  Did he need her to stay home today?  Did he need her to be with him today?  Could she even do that for him anymore?  Did the stroke take that away from him?  Was he still her Daddy?  She searched his eyes for the answer.  He did not look at her.  His pupils gleamed like volcanic glass.

            “Do you hear a buzzing?” he spoke slowly, focusing on each word.  “Refrigerator.  I think.  Get a new one.”

            409, she decided.  On the way home today, she would pick up some 409.

Babel Towers fall

from over planning builders

who forget fire flies.

from http://www.ccpixel.net/2009/01/fire-eye/

            Perhaps rules are made to be broken, thought Johnson as he lifted the dumb bell and lowered it again.  He considered that such a thought betrayed the ideals he long considered ideal.  Perhaps to admit the simple truth that he would never keep his new year’s resolutions made him a lesser man.  But perhaps the only difference between himself and a lesser man was that he now considered himself a lesser man.  It goes nowhere, he thought as he lifted the dumb bell and lowered it again.

            Johnson watched his biceps in the mirror.  He watched them swell and relax under a hefty layer of fat.  This fat coated his body.  He felt it cling to him like wet clothing.  On the treadmill, it whipped about him, tossed by the momentum of running, churning under his skin like waves against the shore.  When he sat, it pooled into puddles around his skeleton, and folded his skin onto itself, creating deep grooves from which sprang trickles of sweat.   This last New Year’s Eve, he lost a pencil in one such groove.  He could not see over the folds of his skin, so he stood, but since that did not avail him, he looked in a mirror to finally find the pencil caught in a loose thread under his left arm.

            He resolved to burn the fat away.  Each year brought resolutions.  Johnson considered it admirable to have resolutions.  He even enjoyed the word resolution.  The sound of it was like a boom in his brain.  But the truth was that Johnson rarely kept them.  One year he resolved to read a book every month, and spent weeks scouring the internet for the best of the best books, the books that all masters of literature agreed were masterpieces, books that would expand his mind and soul in ways hardly imaginable.  Johnson knew it would be hard, that most of these books would probably be dense and difficult to read, but at the end of this crucible he would have burned away the—well, the fat that sloshed about his brain—and become a wise person.

            Johnson read the first page of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and fell asleep.  But he had never lost hope.  It seemed to Johnson that perhaps he was just not a wise person, or wisdom was not within his grasp.  Perhaps not all people could be wise.  So this year, he decided to set his sights lower.  Anyone could be thin, even if for only a short while.  What mattered was will, and will could be mustered, whereas wisdom was gained.  Will came from the deep recesses of the soul.  Greater minds bestowed wisdom.  Everyone, even the lowest of the lesser men, had will.

            But as Johnson lifted and lowered the dumbbell for the tenth time, he felt perhaps a small waist size was indeed beyond his powers to achieve.  Fatigue swelled under his skin like the rising of the tide, and no will silenced it’s growing demand for rest.  Perhaps not everyone could be thin, perhaps he could not muster the necessary will.  Perhaps the world did not function as he thought it did.  Perhaps rules are made to be broken.

            Johnson set down the dumbbell, then sat upon a bench.  Still looking in the mirror, he watched a bead of sweat swell along his hairline and then slide down his forehead and over his eyebrow, growing in size as it joined with other beads, until it disappeared into the fold of skin just above his open eye.  He blinked, and the bead of sweat, now released from the groove, slid over his closed eye and onto his eyelash, where it soaked into the slit of his eyelids, and mixed with the moisture of his eye.  The salt of his sweat mixed with the moisture of his eye, and it burned.  He blinked until the salt diluted and the burning went away.

Suddenly a light comes on upstage and we see a woman older than MATTHEW sitting at the bar, sipping a Mint Julep.  She oscillates between regal and grimy.  This is MAGGIE.  Behind MAGGIE is a bar tender who is wiping down the bar.  MAGGIE glares at MATTHEW and LUKE, who have both frozen in place.  MAGGIE begins by speaking to the bar tender, but eventually speaks with us directly.

MAGGIE:  No good goddamn sonofabitch.

She sips.

BARTENDER:  Yep.

MAGGIE:  I spent my whole life with that silly mutherfucker and while I’m at home dying, he’s here drinking his life away.

She sips.

BARTENDER:  Yep.

MAGGIE:  Excuses!  Nothing but excuses to do what he wants to do!  But, what are you gonna do?

BARTENDER:  Would you like another?

Pause.

MAGGIE:  Yes.

Pause.

MAGGIE:  You know what kills me?  I love the bastard, that’s what kills me.  You know where I met him?  A meadow.  A fucking meadow.  Can you believe that?  My daddy said, go to the meadow.  That’s right, I was doing needle work, and my daddy walks in and says, go to the meadow.  What’s in the meadow, I said.  He said, your love.  Me, being a young fool, I believed him, and I raced to that meadow, because goddamn, anything was better than sitting at home and doing needle work.  Anyway, I race to that meadow and there he is, sitting on the back of a horse looking… majestic.  He picked me up, put me on that horse, and I do believe I fell in love with him right then and there.  We rode a horse around a meadow.  Can you believe that shit?

Pause.

MAGGIE:  Sometimes I’m afraid that it was the happiest moment of my life.  And that it all went down hill afterwards.  Jesus, listen to me.

She downs her drink.  She looks at us.

MAGGIE:  Oh hi.  I’m his wife.  Yes, I’ve been here the whole time, waiting, watching.  Waiting for you to pay attention to me.  See, you’re my secret weapon.  Shhhhhhhh.  Don’t tell anyone.  The story should have started with me really.  It always starts with me, or someone like me—not like me (she gestures to her head), but (she spreads her legs and makes giving birth gestures) like me. 

She sips at a new drink that BARTENDER put in front of her.

MAGGIE:  God, I love a good Mint Julip.  My doctor says I shouldn’t drink, given my condition and all, but what the fuck does he know?  With this asshole gone all the time, what else can do you?

Pause.

MAGGIE:  (sigh)  I wanna go home.

BARTENDER:  I can call a cab.

MAGGIE:  Not you.  I’m not talking to you.  No one’s talking to you, get lost, my cup is full.

Beat.  BARTENDER moves to the other end of the bar.

MAGGIE:  Where was I?  Home.  Right.  I live in a big house.  A big empty house.  We’re rich.

She begins laughing.

MAGGIE:  We’re so rich.

She continues laughing.

MAGGIE:  Isn’t it fucking hysterical?

As she continues laughing, LUKE and MATTHEW come back to life.  They continue convivially.

LUKE:  What?

MATTHEW:  I said I drink bourbon cause it tastes like shit.

LUKE:  Are you crazy?

MATTHEW:  I’m not crazy, I’m just telling it like it is.

LUKE:  You drink it because it tastes bad?  You like it because it tastes bad?

MATTHEW:  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.  Who said it tastes bad?

LUKE:  Shit tastes bad, man.

MATTHEW:  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.  What the hell are you talking about?

LUKE:  You telling me shit doesn’t taste bad?  Have you ever tasted shit?

MATTHEW:  I eat shit for breakfast.  Shit makes me strong.

LUKE:  You’re crazy.

MATTHEW:  I’m not crazy!  Shit is good for you.  Didn’t you know that?  Bourbon is good for you.  Bourbon tastes like America, man.

LUKE:  Whoa, you did not just say that America tastes like shit!

MATTHEW:  No no no, America is a good thing, man, but it’s hard, it’s bitter and it burns.  You should know that.  It tastes like shit, but it’s good, it’s full of hope and mud, it’s dirty, mucky, slimy hope.

LUKE:  You’re crazy.

MATTHEW suddenly slams his hand down on the table and changes.

MATTHEW:  I’M NOT CRAZY!  America is a beautiful country.  This is the only place where you can do and be anything!  And bourbon doesn’t taste like shit!  It tastes like America, and it is hard to swallow but it is glorious.  It is the smell of work, of sweat and blood and shit and piss because we’re stewing in it and it is wonderful.  I built this country.  I built it on death and disease, and years of sweating in the sun, and then sweating in factories, and traveling thousands of miles and drowning in the sea and starving in winter.  I died for this country, we all died for this country, on land, over seas, under seas and even in our hearts.  Even the fucking natives died for this country.  We’re sitting up to our noses in the corpses of our founding fathers, and when I raise my glass, I am drinking their putrid blood!  So, show some respect!

LUKE:  Jesus.

MATTHEW:  You’re fucking right.  You wanna know why the drinks are so strong, because they’re laced with blood.  At least my drink is. What are you drinking?

Silence.

MATTHEW:  You’re drinking vodka.  Fucking vodka.  There’s no American blood in vodka.

LUKE:  Vodka tastes like shit too.

MATTHEW:  Vodka is a fucking Russian drink!  I don’t even know you.  There is no place in this goddamn country for you and everyone else who drinks vodka.  Fucking communists.

MATTHEW begins laughing.

MATTHEW:  Communists!

LUKE, unsure of the joke, begins laughing with him.  MATTHEW thinks this is all too funny.

MATTHEW:  The red scare!

MATTHEW makes a gun shape with his hand and points it at MATTHEW.

MATTHEW:  Bang!

LUKE tries to join in the joke by making a gun shape with his hand and pointing it at MATTHEW.

MATTHEW:  Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.

LUKE:  What?

MATTHEW:  Don’t shoot me back.  No no no, you don’t want to do that.

LUKE:  What?

MATTHEW:  You don’t want to do that.  If you shoot me, I’ll shoot you, and I can shoot you well after you shoot me.

LUKE:  What?

MATTHEW:  Don’t you know?  Don’t you know about the silos?  First strike, second strike, third strike?  You should know, or don’t the Russians have good intelligence.

LUKE:  The grain silos?

MATTHEW:  Oops.  Nevermind.

LUKE:  What?  What silos?

MATTHEW:  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Shhhhhh!  We have no silos.  We have nothing.

MATTHEW can barely contain his laughter.

MATTHEW:  The red scare.

LUKE:  Man, I need another drink.

The stage is dimly lit.  We can just see a grizzled man in his 40’s, MATTHEW, seated at a small cocktail table, hunched over a bottle of bourbon.  He mutters.

 Hey Everyone, this week I’m publishing part of a play that I’ve been working on for a year now.  I know, I know, a year?  Really?  Well, yes.  I write a lot.  And rewriting is something I’m working on.  And rewriting is hard.  Anyway, this play is called Bourbon Tastes Like Shit, and if you haven’t already seen it, I posted a previous version of this scene online a while ago.  It’s a category of postings that you can access in the right hand side button section.  Feel free to comment and compare!

MATTHEW:  …centuries.  Shit.  I should be writing this down for posterity or…   …never want to see her again!  I told her, I told her…  You don’t make the rules.  I make the rules.  I make the rules…  how long, how long, how long…

MATTHEW continues muttering.  He raises his bottle and stares at it.

MATTHEW:  To death and forgetting.

MATTHEW bursts into laughter.  He takes a drink.  His laughter dies down.  He begins looking around himself.  A puzzled expression creeps onto his face.

MATTHEW:  You know what?  I don’t even know where the fuck I am.  How does that even happen?  It’s so quiet.  I wish someone was here.  No I don’t.  Yes I do.

Suddenly a light comes on upstage and we see LUKE, a slightly younger, cleaner looking man than MATTHEW.  He is standing there holding a drink.  He is looking at MATTHEW with a grin.

LUKE:  Holy shit.

MATTHEW:  Huh?

LUKE:  Holy shit.

MATTHEW:  Who the hell are you?

LUKE:  Luke.  You don’t remember me?

MATTHEW:  No.  I know you?  How’d you get here?

LUKE:  Sure you know me.  And the sign said open.

MATTHEW:  The sign?

LUKE:  The sign on the door of the bar.

MATTHEW:  Bar?  Bar.  That’s right.  That’s right.  We’re in a bar.

LUKE:  You don’t remember me?

MATTHEW:  No.  Who are you?

LUKE makes his hand into the shape of a gun and points it as if afraid to squeeze the trigger.

MATTHEW:  Luke!

LUKE:  That’s me.

MATTHEW:  Luke.  Holy shit, man!

LUKE:  You still remember that, huh?

LUKE repeats the hand/gun shape.  They both start laughing hysterically.

MATTHEW:  It’s been years, man.

LUKE:  That was the funniest.  That was the funniest shit, man.

MATTHEW:  Holy fuck.  I can’t believe I forgot about that.  You were like…

MATTHEW imitates LUKE, except MATTHEW makes a small gun noise, like a squeak.  The break into more laughter.

MATTHEW:  Goddamn, I needed a good laugh.  Goddamn, I really did.

LUKE:  It’s good to see you too.

The laughter dies down.  They look at each other for a moment, unsure of what to do.

MATTHEW:  Well, sit down man.

LUKE:  Thanks.

MATTHEW:  So what are you doing here?  I’ve never seen you here before.

LUKE:  Well, I’m not exactly sure, I just…  that’s weird, that’s so weird man, I’m not sure.  I was just driving.  But I was happy to find this place.  I really needed a drink.

MATTHEW:  You fucking said it.

LUKE:  God I need a break.  A clean break.  Wait.  Not a clean break.  Never mind.  I can’t believe I said that.  I’m sorry, I’m feel a little….

MATTHEW:  Loose?  Light?

LUKE:  Yeah, I don’t know, I guess this drink is stronger than I thought.  Whatever.  You come here a lot?

MATTHEW:  Yeah.  I practically live here.

LUKE:  Must be a good bar.

MATTHEW:  Well, it oughtta be, I own this place.

LUKE:  Oh.  It’s nice.

MATTHEW:  Thanks.

Pause.

LUKE:  So, what’s up man?  How’s things goin’?

MATTHEW:  Oh, uh, you know.  You got older.

LUKE:  Yeah, time’s a bitch.

MATTHEW:  How’d you get so old?

LUKE:  What?

MATTHEW:  What?

LUKE:  I… uh, guess I just got older.

Pause.  MATTHEW just looks at LUKE.  LUKE becomes uncomfortable.

LUKE:  So…  How are you?  How’s things?

MATTHEW:  Yeah, time’s a bitch man.

LUKE:  Heh.  Yeah.  You know, you don’t look a day older.

MATTHEW:  Yeah, I know.  I took care of time.

MATTHEW makes his hand into the shape of a gun, then points it and confidently fires.’  MATTHEW begins laughing again.  He looks at LUKE expecting him to join in the join.  LUKE doesn’t.

LUKE:  Right.  So…  how are—

MATTHEW:  You got older though.

LUKE:  Yeah.  It happens to all of us.

MATTHEW:  Not to me.  I took care of time.  Remember.

LUKE:  Yeah, that’s getting old man.  Get it?

MATTHEW:  No.

LUKE:  That joke is getting old.  Just like… we’re getting older…

MATTHEW:  Oh.

LUKE tries to laugh it off, but it sounds stunted and strange.

LUKE:  Are you feeling okay, man?  You seem a little…

MATTHEW:  Why do you keep asking me that?

LUKE:  I just want to know how you’re doing.

MATTHEW:  What the fuck do you care?

LUKE:  Uh…

MATTHEW:  Oh, you think you’ll just ask me how I’m doing and I’ll tell you and everything is fine?  Those aren’t the rules.

LUKE:  Uh..

MATTHEW:  Everything is fine?  What if I say something fucked up?  What if I say something like, ‘my wife is dying?’

LUKE:  Whoa.

MATTHEW:  What would you say then?  What would we have accomplished by admitting that fact?

LUKE:  You’re wife is dying?

MATTHEW:  No, she isn’t, but she could be.

LUKE:  Whoa.

MATTHEW:  I don’t want to talk about it.

LUKE:  I’m sorry.

MATTHEW:  Yeah, it’s a touchy subject, you know, it’s hard to talk about it.

LUKE:  It’s cool.  We don’t have to—

MATTHEW:  IT’S NOT COOL!

Pause.

MATTHEW:  I’m sorry.  My wife thinks I should talk about it with people, you know, so it becomes more of a reality, but I say fuck reality, you know.  What did reality ever fucking do for me?

Pause.

LUKE:  I’m sorry.

MATTHEW:  Yeah, it’s terrible.  I took care of time, but time…

MATTHEW repeats the hand/gun shape.  He shoots his foot and begins laughing.

MATTHEW:  Sometimes you just…  (repeats shooting himself in the foot gesture)  What can you do?

Pause.

LUKE:  Hey, you can drink.

MATTHEW:  Fucking-A.  You can drink.

They raise their glasses.

MATTHEW:  To death and forgetting.

They drink.

MATTHEW:  To mud and diamonds.

They drink.

LUKE:  To fucking!

MATTHEW:  To fucking?

LUKE:  Just fucking drink.

MATTHEW/LUKE:  To fucking!

They drink.

LUKE:  To forgetting about women!

Pause.

LUKE:  I don’t know why I said that.  Goddamn, this drink must be really hitting me.  What you put in these drinks?  Valium?

MATTHEW:  Good ol’ American liquor and nothing more.

They drink and they laugh.

MATTHEW:  God I love bourbon.

LUKE:  Bourbon tastes like shit.

MATTHEW:  Well, that’s why I drink it.