THE SHADOW OF THE SOUL
A Play
LE Barrett
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Characters
Brian Ryan: 31 year old male with a boyish look, a consummate thinker on life’s issues but not much of a doer. He
seems to be always in a state of oppressed normalcy. He has a very relaxed style of dress.
Rita Ryan: 28 year old female with a sexy cosmetic department store look, a bit feisty, has a child-like worldly
attitude but a natural common sense approach to life.
Carrie Ryan: 38 year old blonde female in good physical shape, pretty features, a business woman’s demeanor
with a compassionate maternal side. She dresses fashionably.
Richard Ryan: 40 year old, great physical shape, a refined educated personality, impeccably dressed and snobbish.
Mother: 40ish woman, large for her size, with discount store bought clothes and a very sensative maternal
approach.
Father: 40ish male, he is tall and lean with a stooped and worn appearance in an ill-fitting old suit and a very
reserved in attitude, he seems compassionate with his children.
Young Brian Ryan: 7 year old, small boy, with good features, somewhat fragile personality and a slightly
precocious nature.
Young Carrie Ryan: 15 year old, pretty for her age, very compassionate and physically expressive, she is
blossoming nicely into an adult woman.
Young Richard Ryan: 17 year old, thin, tall and handsome for his age, very reserved in his mannerism,
demonstrating a solemn appearance.
Waiter: 30ish male, a little out of shape, with a sense of self importance and a cynical sense of humor
Bag Lady: 60 something female, dressed in a mixture of old clothing with long, flowing, black speckled gray hair,
with wild eyes, and an unkempt look appearance.
Mother of Girl: 50ish female, fat woman with plain clothes and an arrogant and unpleasant demeanor.
Girl: 16 year old, attractive, but dressed provocatively with a cynical and stubborn persona.
Bartender: 50ish male with rough features, he is a big over weight man with a gravelly voice and an unsociable
persona. He is dressed in slacks, well-worn white shirt with a white smudged apron covering the front of his shirt.
Stranger: 35ish, appears needy but polite and is slightly unkempt in jeans and an old shirt with worn shoes.
Pastor Pinter: 60ish male, with a black suit and a white collar. He is well fed, pompous and fauns being humble. He
has reflective airs of reverence about him but appears to have an underlining practical motivation.
TECHNICAL STAGING
The play is to be performed on a stage configured in a semicircular half-moon. The semicircle is broken is to be
broken down into four equal quadrants. The first quadrant to the right serves as the site for the scenes involving
the café, park bench, Richard’s office, Brian’s office, local bar and the old house’s entry hallway. In this area only a
few items represent what will be in the acting of the scene (such as a desk, telephone, chairs, park bench, coat
rack, café table, full shopping cart, glasses, chairs, small wooden bar sign, stools, liquor bottles etc. etc.) The
second quadrant to the left of the first quadrant on the right is Brian’s apartment which expands over to the center
of the stage. The third quadrant to the right of Brian’s apartment is Brian’s bedroom in the old house. In the that
quadrant the space has a bed, chest of drawers, bed covering, pillow and a bedroom lamp in it but is otherwise
empty depending on the vision that Brian is having or the action that is taking place in the room. The fourth and
last quadrant to the left is Carrie’s old bedroom in the old house and it has the same bedroom furniture, a pillow
with a different bed covering and different lamp in it sometimes and is without furniture depending on Brian’s
vision or the action taking place in the room. It is also the room where the final scene with Richard occurs. Except
for when the actors are playing a scene in a particular quadrant the other three quadrants in the semicircle are
totally dark.
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ACT I
(Lights Fade On)
(You hear the sound of the Righteous Brother’s, Unchained Melody)
(The setting is Cleveland 2013, a dingy, cramped, room., consisting of a living room and dining
room combination with a table, four wooden chairs, a couch, a tattered rug, an old TV with
rabbit ears, a lounge chair, table next to the lounge chair an old portable radio, telephone, old
television, three level bookshelf with piles of papers, books, magazines and ols pictyres that
have been poorly framed. The kitchen (off stage which you don’t see) to the left of the stage, to
the right of the apartment is a bedroom (off stage you don’t see). There is an entry door in the
rear middle of the stage behind the couch and lounge chair. Brian is reading, he reaches over
and turns off the radio and continues to read)
Brian: (Shouts off stage) Did you know that Calvin Coolidge sixteen year old son died of
poisoning from a blister on his foot?
Rita: (Off stage a female voice) What did you say honey?
Brian: (Louder and more emphatic) I said Calvin Coolidge's son died of poisoning in the White
House.
Rita: (Confused Female voice off stage) You think Coolidge is in the White House?
Brian: (Shouts) that’s right; Calvin Coolidge has been elected president.
(Speaking directly to the audience and gesturing)
Brian: You know it is real damn shame. It used to be if you married a cashier in a supermarket
you could at least count on the fact that she could do basic math. The average person would
also conclude she might be capable of balancing a checkbook. Now all you really know today is
she can sweep her hand across a glass plate.
(He motions with several sweeping gestures with his hand)
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Brian: God, how I was fooled by the technology. What an unforgivable cruel trick of a
technological age on the hormones of a young adolescent male.
(Brian stands up and walks to the front of the stage and faces the audience)
Brian: (Serious) When you combine the dexterity of the sweep of an attractive hand, a cute
face, a pleasant smile and a supple young body it besets the blackest of the dark arts! A new
age Geisha apply her trade at your local supermarket. Believe me I know what I am talking
about. But, I can tell you’re not convinced.
(Scans the audience with his eyes for a few seconds, nods in a knowing way)
Brian: Let’s be honest here, you already know your place in the new technological revolution.
Your office computer controls your daily activities, your home computer keeps you in touch
with your grandma in Omaha who wrote the recipes for the meatloaf you had for dinner, If you
need a sexual fantasy it’s a hash tag away, you found you last romance or spouse on Facebook,
You Twitter every insane thought that comes into your head, and you carry an android in your
pocket that integrates you with your home computer and your life through a galactic network
fed into by the whole damn universe. (Yells at the audience) Wake up, wake up, wake up, don’t
just smell the roses but turn off the fucking high tech shit so you have a chance at both really
having feelings and become human again. Turn off the technological blah blah so you can begin
to understand who you are. Turn off the digital shit now for no other reason than before long it
is going to bleed, cry and fuck without you.
(Brian continues speaking in a quiet conversational tone)
Brian: It is a sorry state of affairs that we are embedded in an age where we are all searching
for some kind of technological nirvana. We all crave a superior technology. We are new age info
junkies searching for fiber optic satellite fixes. We totally fail to understand we are on the
periphery of Informational gluttony. Its sensual roots go back to Cleopatra asp kissing,
Monroe’s fleshy pinups and Stephen Hawkins’s intolerable erotic intelligence. The digital world
has stunted our ability to use words and honestly appreciate the beauty of a natural image. We
constantly say to ourselves, let’s take a picture of the family, the dog, the flower on the bush
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and then we say lets hurry home so we can see how it will look on our eighty inch monitor. We
have stopped seeing for ourselves. In reality it is only a plastic motherboard with wires, and
lights emulating from a battery the size of a mustard seed. I blame Silicon Valley, IBM,
Microsoft, Apple and a long list of other digital pushers. Why couldn’t they have been satisfied
in developing the best silicon tits in the universe? Why did they need to create a substitute for
human feelings? I certainly didn’t ask them to do it!
(Brian hesitates in thought for a moment)
Brian: Why did you have to make the object we carry in our hand an agent to control our
imaginations? Why did they make the object sexier than the person who carries it? Oh, I know
it will be just a matter of time when all sex is replaced by the clinical erotic gratification of a line
of different machines and body clones. New machines are coming; sexier partners are coming
who will be able to manipulate our sexual drives just by simply feeding more and more
information bites to our brains. The age of the orgiastic joys of instant information will
ultimately replace all human loneliness, pain or guilt. Just attach this male and female plug and
it will produce the best orgasm you have ever experienced. Be honest with yourselves! Are you
already beyond the glimpse of little flesh, a few hairs on a chest, a little breast cleavage, an
unexplained bulge, or the clinging of a slightly moist cloth garment to a nipple? What will
become of us when our portable hand held devices can instantly record our thoughts? Will
sexual thoughts even exist in a sophisticated techno world or will our erotic dreams only be
about faceless humans engaged in acts of erotic technology? Of course this conversation
excludes my neighbor down the hall Mrs. Ruth Becket as her ass does have the tendency to
block out the sun but it would include her neighbor the sweet Miss Susan Shaw. If it weren’t for
my dear wife, the unquestionable love of my life. God knows what might happen between us,
her being beautiful her and me being just a guy.
(Brian places his fingers up to his lips in the sign of a group secret)
Brian: Let’s just say, later that day our hall would be crisscrossed with yellow police tape from
her door to mine and I would of course be sweating under the heat of a single hanging light
bulb, on a hard wooden stool confessing to the most horrible but delightful of acts. Omar Kyam
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had it right. A book of verse, a jug of wine and a fine ass is truly life enough. (Silence for a
second) (Brian states profoundly) If only the past was a destination we could all travel to!
Where we felt loved and that love was returned back to us in an equal measure. I ask you to
imagine in your own minds of a place and time, in your life before your illustrious plummet
from personal innocents, a place where you knew you fit, a place where you knew you really
belonged and how that place makes you feel today?
(Brian turns and walks to his chair, sits and opens his book and silently starts to read)
(Lights fade off for a second and fade on. Rita quickly enters the room and stands behind Brian)
Rita: (Curious) Brian what did you say about President Cleveland’s ass?
Brian: (Energetic) Nothing! I was just talking aloud again about your remarkably beautiful ass.
Rita: (Critical) That’s not what you said yesterday.
Brian: (Thoughtful) Yesterday sweetheart, don’t you know that is why they refer to it as
yesterday? Today it is always today. Of course you know everything in our universe is changing.
I can’t think of one thing that doesn’t change. Some great mind once said time is nothing more
than our perception of decay. (He hesitates) Rita you don’t want to be one of those women
who are always living their life in the past, do you? Bertrand Russell said. “Nothing beyond the
now can ever be really proven.” So, what was real yesterday can’t possibly be real today.
Rita: (Unswerving) Real today or not I distinctly remember, you hanging up the phone and in a
loud voice, loud enough so I thought my mother across town could hear, refer to me as an ASSHOLE. I may not have gone to City College like you but I know the word asshole is not used as a
word of endearment or to mean you have a remarkably beautiful ass. I have been expecting my
mother to call you all day and give you strict orders to bring me home.
Brian: (Explanatory) You will just have to make it very clear to her that she is already too late.
Tell her I have damaged your goods beyond repair. I have made you worthless to her or any
other man. It is a tragedy, I know and my own personal cross to bear. Now I must keep you
around forever, because I couldn’t possibly live without you.
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Rita: (Pleased) Brian that is so sweet. (Rita bends over him and kisses him)
Brian: (Deceptive) this book is truly remarkable; it’s The Time of Silent Cal, about the Calvin
Coolidge years. You know the roaring 20’s, bootleg gin, flappers a time when everyone could
envision the potential of endless progress. Nothing like today when everybody wakes up with
the feeling that civilized society could collapse at any moment.
Rita: (Quizzical) I am not buying the Coolidge crap. You have to admit your sudden interest in
reading about Calvin Coolidge and the Roaring 20’s is a little bizarre. What’s next the glamorous
years of the Boston Strangler?
Brian: (Defensive) You just don’t understand. Coolidge was a great statesman and President
who led the country through some of our most productive years. See, look at this picture here
of him in a business suit with an Indian headdress. You wouldn’t catch any president today
putting an Indian headdress on with a suit and cowboy boots. I tell you all the time, there is way
too much political correctness in today’s politics. Ok, where’s your clever come back to that?
Rita: (Unflinching) Don’t think for a minute I don’t know what this is all about. First you call me
an asshole yesterday after I told you your brother Richard you would be home tonight. Now
you’re reading a history of Calvin Coolidge. I know exactly what you’re up to! You’re cramming
again for intellectual tidbits to fire back at your Ivy League brother. Old Cleveland Community
College takes on Harvard University in the Idiot Bowl. I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. I
can’t believe you want me to sit through another wonderful evening of dueling egos. Jacob and
the Angel of God trying to pin each other to the mat using obscure facts until someone cries
uncle and promises they will never speak to the other again.
Brian: (Caustic) Richard is a snob but even worse he is a cultural boor. He talks about a bunch of
pompous bullshit that ninety-nine percent of the world’s population would become physically
sick listening to in less than 10 minutes. I have often pointed out to you if the government
wants to really create a weapon of mass destruction they only need to clone Richard. Then
send him out to every world conflict. I guarantee once the enemy meets Richard they will
capitulate within hours. Look up the term cold fish in the dictionary and I swear to you there is
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a colored glossy photograph of Richard in a tailored pin striped suit doing his best imitation of
T.S. Eliot. In fact I think tomorrow I will write the president and suggest such a plan. The way he
goes on as if anybody really cared what he had to say. It is always about his money or how
highly regarded he is in the community or how successful his law practice is or why he has
never married because everyone knows God hasn’t created a woman perfect enough for him.
As far as I am concerned he can fuck himself! This is my home and my home is my castle and
not a debating club or the Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.
Rita: (Amused) Let’s put this all in perspective. You’re plan is to lighten up the evening by
discussing Calvin Coolidge, the President that brought us the Great Depression. So what are we
having for dessert? Are you serving film clips from the holocaust or maybe photos of
Appalachian families enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner of lead based paint chips and raccoon road
kill?
Brian: (Unshakable) I will have you know that Coolidge in his day was referred to as the steward
of American progress.
Rita: (Advisory) Do yourself a favor, deal with reality, your brother went to Harvard and you
went to City College. He has a law degree, a growing law practice and you’re a Social Worker for
the City of Cleveland’s Department of Welfare. You spend most of your days explaining birth
control to pregnant sixteen year olds while he is presenting important legal cases in front of the
state Supreme Court. He is rich, flies his own plane and bought you an expensive Rolex for
Christmas last year that you foolishly sent back to him. While you in turn, sent him and all our
friends handmade holiday cards with a red coloring crayon Santa Claus that looked like a stoned
image of Jerry Garcia in drag. I am amazed we have any friends at all. Of course that’s when you
had the flash of brilliance to give your brother a one year membership to the fruit of the month
club. Fruit for Richard, I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist but there seems to be a subliminal
message here!
Brian: (Matter-of-Fact) Everyone knows Americans don’t get enough fruit. (Self righteously
shaking his head) I don’t think you understand what real character is today. I was simply
proving that I can’t be bought off by a status symbol of the wealthy elite. But it’s pretty clear he
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can be bought off by a case of fresh fruit. (Sits in silence for a second) It is always about him. He
hasn’t sent me one piece of fruit even though everyone knows if fresh fruit is properly
packaged it can be eaten for weeks. Though, he did send me a nice holiday card. Even if the
signature was computer generated and the computer misspelled my first name. You have to
admit it was pretty funny getting a holiday card saying “Happy Holidays Brain”. What kind of
computer software system thinks Brain Ryan is a real name? Now there is a law firm that truly
needs real IT support. (Emotionally down) Okay, You’re right honey, you want me to say it,
okay, I will, I am the biggest loser on the planet. Yes, you married the biggest loser you could
have ever hooked up with. You couldn’t have made a worse choice for a partner if you had
chosen one of those naked Aborigines out of National Geographic with gigantic cups in my ears
and a bone through my nose. Are you happy now?
Rita: (Comforting) That’s not what I want to hear from you. I just wish you would simply stop
comparing yourself to Richard.
Brian: (Adroitly) I don’t think you understand. I have existed in his shadow my whole life. He
was never my big brother. He wasn’t Ricky or Dick or anything else but Richard. He always acted
like he hated the whole family. We were below his standards of what a family ought to be. Our
family was Mom, Dad, Carrie and me and then off to the side there was Richard. Richard has to
be Richard. The real reason he hasn’t ever married is because no woman could ever climb to
the heights his ego has taken him. Not even the Sherpa women of Tibet could reach up and
touch the bottoms of his thousand dollar Italian shoes.
Rita: (Placid) Carrie is still single but you don’t seem to be too bothered.
Brian: (Defensive) Carrie just hasn’t found a man good enough for her, a man in the mold of my
dad, a real man with drive and motivation, a true family man. Doubt my words, but she will one
of these days get married and that lucky fellow will have himself a first class trophy wife.
Rita: (Chides) Trophies tend to get a little tarnished after 30. I don’t understand why you allow
her to treat you like you’re still seven and not thirty.
Brian: (Self-protective) Is there a point to this conversation?
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Rita: (Aggressive) The point is that you’re not just her younger brother any more but an adult
male. It isn’t normal to act like you’re her little brother and she the big sister taking care of you
because mom and dad aren’t home.
Brian: (Smartly) When did you become an expert on normal behavior? Remember you did agree
to marry me.
Rita: (Thoughtfully) An expert on normal behavior! You want to know why I am an expert on
normal behavior. I think it became clear to me the day you forgot to flush the bathroom toilet
and I spent a half an hour plunging the toilet.
Brian: (Argumentative) Here we go the adult take responsibility conversation. Brian when are
you going to stop acting like Peter Pan and start acting more like Captain Hook? Never, never,
never.………..
Rita: (Reasonable) Honey does it really matter as long as you’re not always tied down to the
past?
Brian: (He points at her) Do you know why he is coming here?
Rita: (thoughtfull) Let me guess. He wants to sell your parent’s house.
Brian: (Self-righteously) Dam straight Skippy!
Rita: (Calming) I don’t see what is so wrong with that. He did inherit a share in the house. Your
mother’s been gone for over a year. Why shouldn’t he want to get something out of it? God
knows we could use the cash. You didn’t promise me a rose garden but I never remember you
promising me a hole in the middle of Cleveland. It’s really about the fact that he just doesn’t
worship the past. In your mind the old house still has your family living there. He has moved on.
He sees it as a place needing major renovations.
Brian: (Abruptly) I called Carrie, she is coming over too.
Rita: (In a child’s voice) Do you need your big sister to scare off the big bad wolf or is she
coming over to bounce you on her knee and tell you it is going to be all better?
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Brian: (Unyielding) I am not going to be placed in the middle.
Rita: (Aggressively) Brian you are already in the middle!
Brian: (Self assured) They can fight it out. As far as I am concerned they can set the old
homestead on fire and I’ll show up with a bag full of marshmallows and a dozen hot dogs.
Rita: (Tenderly) I suppose you want me to supply the buns?
Brian: (Unambiguously) Now that you mentioned it that may not be such a bad idea.
(Rita leaves the room and enters again putting on a coat)
Rita: (Dryly)) No dear, not tonight. I am not going to subject myself to another night of you and
Richard locked in mortal intellectual combat. You’re on your own tonight. Call me when the war
of the worlds is over.
Brian: (Surprised) are you going? I need you to stay if for nothing else than to insure that here
will be real human conversation.
(Rita goes to the door and opens it)
Rita: (Flippant) I am going out on the street and peddle this remarkably beautiful ass I now
have! I am just going to wait on the corner for some lonely male to yell out from a passing car
“Baby, I love that beautiful ass.”
Brian: (Unyielding) Okay, desert me in my hour of need (Rita opens the door and starts through
the door) (Brian shouts at her) Be sure to tell your mom that facial hair is not very becoming on
women of her age.
Rita: (Rita closes the door behind her, you hear her voice in the hall) “Buns for sale, beautiful
fresh hot dog begging buns!”
Brian: (Speaking again conversationally directly to the audience) The trouble with women is
they always think with their hearts. A man always relies on common sense and reason. We
know all women see us a brainless dicks going up or coming down. They just don’t comprehend
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the logical processes going on in our heads. Not only must we be thinking romantic thoughts
but know our business, the daily sports scores and the latest characters in the newest action
films. Men just don’t get the credit they deserve. But I should let her think she is right. She
might even do that special move; God knows how I love that special move!
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE On
(In the hallway of the old family house it is 23 years earlier. Brian comes in with a snowsuit on
and his mother meets him at the door.)
Mom: (Concerned) You’re so wet and cold, you’re lucky you didn’t freeze to death.
Young Brian: (Excited) Mom, it was incredible fun, we tied our sleds together and we all went
down the hill together. Carrie even stood up on her sled the entire way down the hill.
Mom: (Rebuking) She is such a little show off, not a fear bone in that girls whole body.
(Dad enters the hallway and joins the group)
Mom: (Knowingly) They have been sledding at Mount Tom.
Dad: (Troubled) You need to take those wet clothes off and take a hot bath or you will be out of
school again. Remember how sick you got last winter? Where is Carrie?
Young Brian: (Deliberate) She is outside talking to Tank.
Dad: (Frank) It beats me what those two find to talk about all the time.
(Carrie comes in through the front door. She is all smiles and seems very happy with herself)
Young Carrie: (Jubilant) Did he tell you what I did?
Dad: (Serious) If you mean, how you almost broke your neck going down the hill on the sled. I
think we got the whole story.
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Young Carrie: (Evasively) Right dad, we tied our sleds together and all went down the hill at the
same time. It was so much fun. Brian isn’t even scared to go down the hill alone anymore. He
just jumps on the back of his sled without any coaxing.
Mom: (Amiable) You are getting to be a big boy son (She runs her fingers through his hair)
Young Brian: (Boasting) Yes, I just take my scarf and put it over my eyes and it seems like I am
not going anywhere until the sled stops at the bottom of the hill.
Dad: (Tenderly) I have to say that is a pretty original approach but sooner or later the scarf will
have to come off.
Young Carrie: (Excited) I think Tank is going to ask me to the dance at the Y.
Mom: (Cautious) (Looking at her dad for approval) I think we can talk about that later.
(The door opens and Richard, carrying several books, enters the hallway and a few seconds
lapsea as everyone looks at him as if he was an apparition)
Young Richard: (Dryly) Hi
Mom: (Sober) Hello Richard.
Dad: (Formally) Son, I see you’re doing some extra reading?
Young Richard: (Matter of Fact) Yes, dad, the library closed early today and they will not be
open until Monday so I thought I would bring a few books home.
(Silence in the group. Richard quickly rushes by and up the stairs)
Young Richard: (Flat)(On the stairs he turns) Call me when dinner is ready.
Mom: (Concerned) The boy acts like an old man. He is only a senior in high school and he has no
friends and he has not once had a date. It is as if he has already closed himself off to the world.
I truly wonder what is going to come of the boy!
Young Carrie: (Despondently) He’s okay. He is just a little different.
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LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE ON
(Back in the apartment Brian is intensely reading. There is a loud knock on the door)
Brian: (He looks up at the door and shouts) It’s unlocked.
(Richard enters he is dressed in an expensive long black wool coat with a pin striped blue suit
underneath the coat. He has on a black beret and is wearing designer shaded glasses which he
takes off. Richard looks around with an obvious dislike for the squalidness in the apartment and
then looks at Brian who is still seated in his lounge chair)
Brian: (Sarcastic) Very continental Richard, are you thinking of moving to Paris?
Richard: (Unresponsive) Let’s see how good my memory is. Didn’t mother buy you that shirt
you’re wearing for your sixteenth birthday?
Brian: (Dry) Richard you have a great memory but you know they say memory is never the first
thing to go.
Richard: (Playfully) Brian, you’re just lucky your memory is free. If you had to pay for it, you
would constantly have to repeat your name just to know who you are.
Brian: (Scoffs) Richard it is always a pleasure see you too!
Richard: (Passive) (Keeps his gloves on like a man afraid of disease) How much did you pay the
City Sanitation Department to decorate your place? I am sure it wasn’t enough.
Brian: (Defensive) We like it! I believe most studies state that people are more satisfied with
comfort over style. It’s a known fact.
(Richard slowly walks over to the couch opens his jacket but doesn’t take either his jacket or
beret off and sits down.)
Richard: (Judgmental) Comfort is the last line defense in the war on poverty. A man with
nothing else tells himself as long as I am comfortable the world is good place. Jesus should have
said that the comfortable man will inherit the earth and the rich man will get to inherit the
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universe. Brian if you would be honest with yourself you wouldn’t equate living in a rummage
sale as a quality of life issue. Your version of comfort is just an expression of poor taste.
Brian: (Sarcastically) I once visited your apartment. The couch felt like I was sitting on a metal
beam covered with camel hair and the room was lit with such bright high intensity halogen
track lighting I almost confessed to shooting Bobby Kennedy
Richard: (Elitist) Your taste has always been more in the realm of naugahide or those chemical
fibers that feel like plastic hairs than quality cashmere, Irish wools or suits hand made by Italian
craftsmanship. You seem to like the feel of plastic gauze and cheap cotton. I would bet you
anything you couldn’t ride a camel! Yet, you did show the world how good you were in high
school football by how naturally you were able to ride a wooden bench.
Brian: (Slighted) Thanks for the vote of confidence, not everyone becomes a football hero in
high school.
Richard: (Self assured) Well said! Speaking of coping with life, I bought tickets today to go reef
diving off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I am planning to do some underwater shark
photography; of course, I will be inside a steel cage.
Brian: (Teasing) It doesn’t seem fair to the sharks!
Richard: (Serious) But, you know trips cost money and by the looks of your palatial estate here
a little extra money wouldn’t hurt you either.
Brian: (Embarrassed) We are doing just fine. Just fine! What Rita and I have together you can’t
buy with money.
Richard: (Cautious) Is that so? I noticed your same old 1986 Toyota from college parked outside
on the street?
Brian: (Warily) Everyone knows you don’t break in a vintage Toyota until you get past the
hundred and thirty thousand mile mark. You hear it in TV commercials all the time. A woman
the other day in Alaska said her Toyota just went over the two hundred and fifty thousand mile
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mark. She also said it is has never run better. Toyota has principally made their reputation on
their mileage longevity.
Richard: (Skeptical) I bet she is sitting on the frame while she drives. In just a couple of year’s
rock salt and road chemicals will melt even a new automobile in Alaska. I have been there and
you don’t see very many twenty year old automobiles unless they arrived just a few weeks ago
from the States.
Brian: (Justifying) Don’t you think that Toyota would be sued for false advertising if it wasn’t
true?
Richard: (Frustrated) So they found one automobile in Alaska from the millions of automobiles
in salvage yards. Which if you seriously considered your own personal safety is where your
automobile should be right now.
Brian: (Defiant) You always fail value to see the true value of anything unless it is new and
expensive.
Richard: (Chiding) That may be true but ten years of driving does wonders for the interior of an
automobile, especially since you have been able to give it its own classical deterioration motif. I
believe, Brian, I have owned trash cans with more style and that were a lot cleaner and smelled
better.
Brian: (Rationalizing) I believe it has an artistic quality that even the manufacturer never
envisioned.
Richard: (Scheming) I am sure Rita enjoys riding around in an eight foot long trash can too.
Brian: (Persuasively) I have never heard her once complain about the Toyota. But, I do
remember after the night we sat on your couch, she complained that her ass hurt for a week.
Richard: (Boldly) Why don’t we talk about the house?
Brian: (Taken back) The house!
16
Richard: (Pressing on) Yes, that nasty cobweb infested, dust mite breeding shack our dear
parents left us as their legacy for fucking up our lives.
Brian: (Undisturbed) Oh! That house! Richard, fucking is not such a nice word coming from a
Harvard graduate. Shouldn’t you be saying copulating, fornicating or at least humping? Did I
ever tell you that when Calvin Coolidge was a child his father disciplined him by locking him for
long periods of time in a closet in his bedroom?
Richard: (Agitated) No, and I don’t care if he locked him in the basement and force fed him rat
testicles. I think it’s time we sell that falling down roach and spider plagued shack before some
crack head busts down the door and torches the place. We both know that no one has been in
the place for over a year. We need to sell now while it still has some market value.
Brian: (Apprehensive) What about Carrie?
(Before Richard can answer, behind Richard the door opens and Carrie quietly enters the room)
Richard: (Conspiratorial) You know Carrie is a lot like mother, she is too emotional a person to
make a good business decision.
Carrie: (Calmly) Richard, maybe I don’t think of the family as a business.
(Both men turn to look at Carrie and everyone is frozen in mid-expression and motion.)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(Carrie is sitting on the couch, Richard is pacing the floor and Brian has left the room.)
Carrie: (Dispassionately) How have you really been?
Richard: (Chilly) Good (Slight pause) I am really very busy at work these days.
Carrie: (Sourly) Too busy to call; maybe take a whole ten minutes in one of your fourteen
hundred and forty minute days. I would say you must be pretty busy or extremely neglectful.
17
Richard: (Self protectively) You know, if I call you then I would have to have something to say. I
can never seem to mentally get beyond the word hello. The rest of the words after that seem
very artificial to me. You know what I mean? I am not into meaningless café small talk, how’s
the weather, can you believe what a mess the government has made of everything, I ate at a
great restaurant last night, have you seen the newest film? It all seems a bit phony and
contrived to me.
Carrie: (Touched) What about just saying how you’re doing or maybe just hello and wait to see
what I say. Then you could always follow my lead. You could even say I was thinking of you and
I just wanted to hear the sound of your voice.
Richard: (Tensely) It’s not like I haven’t wanted to.
Carrie: (Brightening) I have news! I am taking a position in Pasadena, California. I am going to be
heading up a research project for Cal Tech in the design of soft matter.
Richard: (Surprised) California! Soft matter! It sounds like a pretty comfortable position.
Carrie: (Laughing) You attorneys live in such a small bubble. (Effortlessly) We are looking into
molecular structures that allow for bulk, flexibility and density without adding any weight. Not a
bad gig for a woman physicist that doesn’t have any business sense. The concept if it works will
be worth billions in your world.
Richard: (Skeptically) I am sure there will be a billion uses for soft matter.
Carrie: (Droll) Can you name one?
Richard: (Searchingly) How about buildings you can tow with a truck or refrigerators you can
move around your house like a portable TV.
Carrie: (Candidly) I guess these could be a possible uses but I don’t think we are going to do ten
years of research to move a refrigerator. You know there is a good reason why God has spared
you children.
18
(Richard and Carrie stop talking for a moment as if they have crossed a social boundary and
then resume their conversation)
Richard: (Enthusiastically) I think those are both very practical concepts.
Carrie: (Amused) I would have never thought that you had such a scientific mind.
Richard: (Indirectly) So tell me how is your love life?
Carrie: (With emotion in her voice and face) Richard . . . . You amaze me . . . You know I
stopped dating a long time ago. It always got in the way of who I really am. It just became me
dating a man knowing it would be only a short time before I was dating another man. I became
the romanticized version of Sisyphus pushing my rock up a hill only to watch it roll down again.
(Brian enters carrying three glasses and gives a glass to Carrie and Richard and sits down in his
lounge chair, all are silent for a moment in contemplation on what they want to say)
Brian: (Abruptly) So, did I miss anything important?
Carrie: (Dryly) Richard was postulating on the street value of a scientific theory I have been
working on. He always seems to come up with the most novel approaches to the obscure
outcomes of any scientific project. He has the uncanny ability to personalize the project to fit
his own needs. While others look for ways of making the world better, Richard is finding new
ways to make his world easier. I think it is a real shame Richard never got elected to public
office. I believe the fall out would be a better life style for all of us. You can see the headlines on
the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, President Stops All Wars Because They Interfere
with His Golf Game. President Ends World Hunger by Killing Off the Entire Planet’s Wild Life
Population.
(They take a serious look at each other)
Richard: (Imploring) Carrie let’s stop playing games. I want to sell the house. A couple more
years and the house will be a pile of rubble. We will end up having to pay to have it bulldozed. If
19
we sell now we can still make some money off the old place. A realtor client of mine says the
land values in that area are sky rocketing.
Carrie: (Angry) Richard, I am not going to sell the house to strangers. Mom and dad left us that
house. A place we can always go back to if we needed a sanctuary. I could never sell what they
worked so hard to maintain. For Christ sake, we were family there! Don’t you have any
feelings? Or are you so angry inside that you will not be happy until all our lives have as little
meaning as yours?
Richard: (Awkward) I grew up in that house and the word home is not a term I associate with
that building. It was only where I lived with four other strangers.
Carrie: (Frank) Richard, your personal problems are not the issue here. I will not allow our old
home to be turned into a parking lot or the next new superstore complex. Are you so sure in
your heart about the four of us? You need to open your eyes. That house was once your home
sanctuary too. At least that’s what you once told me!
Richard; (Angry) Okay, I see! I am the one with all the problems. I’m the one with the problems
(Raising his voice). You two can’t begin to function in the real world and I have all the
problems? The real problem here is that you are both still living in that house in your heads
waiting for mom and dad to come home to tell you how great both of you are. You both want
someone besides yourselves to handle your little successes and failures. It isn’t going to
happen! Life has moved on! I never had that and I frankly don’t miss it. You both need to realize
that mom and dad are DEAD and if they do come back, then Jesus, Houdini and Elvis will be part
of their multitudes.
Brian: (Disgusted) God, Richard, do you have to be so theatrical? This is not a jury and we are
not your enemies. I am with Carrie. If she is uncomfortable selling the house than I am not
comfortable with selling the house either.
Richard: (Smug) Brian, why don’t you think for yourself? For once in your life stop playing the
younger brother and try to be your own man.
20
Carrie: (Curt) Richard, I guess you have our answer. We can all chip in and hire someone to
spruce up the place, do the maintenance and repairs that the house needs. In a couple more
years who knows. I have always thought we might plant some small rose bushes in the
backyard and maybe put in a small stone garden with Fairy Slippers. Bell Flowers, Columbine
and plenty of Thistles. The house would be very cute if someone just took a little time with the
place.
(Richard stands aloof and begins buttoning his long woolen coat)
Richard: (Spitefully) Count me out! People like to say that the past is prologue. In our case the
past is an unreal illusion of a family that never existed. We were the all American family with a
mother, a father, Dick and a Jane. So what was I? Fucking Spot! I am telling you both I have
rights and powerful friends. If I have to I will take you both to court. You both are still living in a
house with a family that no longer exists. If you two are so damn clever than tell me who the
hell are the two people we buried six feet under in the Brookmoor Cemetery? Wake up! The
family is ancient history. Trust me, that house is just like any other house on any other street in
America.
Brian: (Unsympathetic) Do you really feel that way Richard?
Carrie: (Exasperated) I can’t understand why you two never see eye to eye on anything.
Brian: (Childishly) Do you hear that? Do you hear what he is saying Cary? Really hear what he
saying, He still thinks he can hurt us Carrie. He was a bully then and he is still the same bully
today. Personally the big brother in charge routine has lost its appeal for me. (Angrily shouts)
You know what you can do Richard? You can kiss my couch hugging ass.
Carrie: (Louder) Can’t we just agree to try to disagree and not turn this into a testosterone war?
Richard: (Eye contact with Carrie) We all need to forget what we meant to each other, we need
to stop pretending it is still real. What we shared together is over. It doesn’t really matter
anymore. The simple truth is that it never really mattered and it will never matter?
(Richard opens up the door and turns to both as he closes the door)
21
Richard: (Disgusted) When Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland grow up call me.
(Richard leaves and Carrie covers her face and begins to sob. Brian gets up and goes over to her
and sits like a child at her feet and she takes one hand and rubs his head.)
Brian: (Calmly) He is a real piece of shit; we all know that, we have always known it. He is a
people hating sociopath with delusions of grandeur. Trust me; he thinks he can buy a life like
everything else he has acquired. But, for him there will never be a life. He suffers from a fetish
for money. Money is the only thing that has any meaning to him. He is a modern day King
Minus in a pinstriped suit. He needs to learn that money can’t buy you a drop of humanity. The
poorest stiff out there working to support his family has ten times the humanity Richard will
ever have.
Carrie: (Stops crying and laughs slightly) I know, you’re right he is a real prick, but he is our
prick.
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(Small outdoor bistro where Brian is sitting at a side walk table, a waiter approaches with a
glass of water and a menu).
Waiter: (Anxiously) Sir, are you ready to order yet?
Brian: (Annoyed) Can you give me a minute? I am waiting for someone.
Waiter: (Suggestively) A pretty lady, I suppose?
Brian: (Dryly) My sister.
Waiter: (Expressionlessly) Ah, then I will bring another glass of water.
(Carrie walks up to the table, she is smartly dressed and looks very happy. She stands and looks
at Brian and then sits down.)
Brian: (Lightheartedly) Look at this fallen angel . . . . right before my eyes!
22
Carrie: (Pleased) Truer words have never been spoken.
Brian: (Friendly) Carrie, you look great, moving seems to agree with you.
Carrie: (Vivaciously) It's all show, I really am only hanging on by a thread. One minute I am all
excited and can hardly wait to go and the next minute I feel like the world is crashing in all
around me.
Brian: It is not too late. You don’t have to go.
Carrie: (Cheerfully) I am afraid is it too late. The dirty deal is done and I am off to California.
Brian: (Inquiringly) Are you all moved?
Carrie: (Cavalierly) The truck left this morning. I don’t have a dust ball or a speck of DNA left in
the house. I don’t think there is a worse feeling in life than to see all your personal possessions
drive away in the back of a truck with two guys that faintly smell of cheap whisky and have
been dressed in the same clothes for weeks. To be without a house or home is almost like not
existing at all.
Brian: (Uneasily) You were a born nester. In your past life you must have been a bird.
Carrie: (Jokingly) I know I have laid enough eggs in this one to meet bird status!
Brian: (Concerned) You think you will be okay in California?
Carrie: (Playfully) Remember I’m the big sister in this family. Little brother you have enough to
worry about with yourself that crazy job and Rita. But if you would, when I am gone would you
give Richard a call sometime. He may be the devil’s emissary but he is still your brother.
Brian: (Unenthusiastically) The devil’s emissary aren’t you being a little too kind? But, let’s not
talk about him. You said you had big news. What could be bigger than moving to a new city job
and a dream job? Could there be a little Carrie or Brian on the way?
Carrie: (Dismissively) Only if pregnancy is caused by a handheld machine with two batteries that
I like to call Bruce.
23
Brian: (Acting shocked) I think Carrie that is a bit more information than I want to hear!
Carrie: (Hums) Buzz, Buzz, Buzz
Brian: (Puts his hand over his ears and pleads) Enough, I get the point. I know I am still a male
with strong ties to the Stone Age. So, what is the great secret that is about to change your life?
Carrie: (Deprecatingly) Do you always have to be so dramatic?
Brian: (Engaging) You are being coy, is it a new love or is it an old love?
Carrie: (Inexpressive) I ran into Tank a few weeks ago but now he has a great new name. He
calls himself Charles. But, when he says his name it sounds like he owns the universe (she
dramatizes his name) It’s CHARLES! Nice to meet you I am CHARLES. He sells tons of insurance
to supermarket chains and has made a real killing in the small potato chip and hot dog circuit.
Brian: (Interested) the same CHARLES that once bragged he could light a fart and burn an
object two feet away from his ass. The CHARLES that once tried to climb a tree to get into your
bedroom and fell ten feet only to rupture his scrotum on a limb and had to wear a diaper
coated in Vaseline for a month? (Pronouncing the name with great emphasis) CHARLES!
Carrie: (Humorously) The same Charles who used to write notes to himself on the back of his
hand so he wouldn’t forget something. He now has homes and automobiles everywhere but no
woman in his life, CHARLES.
Brian: (Interested) Did he tell you that?
Carrie: (Flippantly) Those very words!
Brian: (Nostalgically) Do you remember what Dad used to say about him? (Talks like his dad, in
a deep very pondering voice) “That boy Tank has a great future. I don’t think there is another
boy in town that will be able to make a better box of rocks.”
(They laugh together for a short time)
Carrie: (Seriously) I know it is hard to believe but people are capable of change.
24
Brian: (Kiddingly) So, was it love at first fright?
Carrie: (Insightfully) He is truly a very sweet guy, even though his once golden locks are now
limited to the upper edge of his neck and around his ears. He wears these God awful dark Elvis
glasses, the shiny kind that state troopers wear. The ‘Show me your driver’s license, Miss,’ kind
of glasses. While you know all the time behind those glasses the trooper already has you
undressed and in the back of his cruiser. They are all dying to say, “Little Miss, I think we can
take care of that ticket right here and now.
Brian: (Teasingly) Sometimes I have to wonder what you do in your free time.
Carrie: (Ardently) Why I dream of CHARLES!
Brian: (Rationally) Don’t get too comfortable; those old chairs usually have a broken spring or
two.
Carrie: (Charmingly) Don’t worry, Brian, we are not sleeping together yet.
Brian: (Feigning Seriousness) Good, I think the trying the shoe on to see if it fits philosophy is
over rated.
Carrie: (Earnestly) What would I do without you?
Brian: (Matter of Fact) Worry a lot less!
(She gets up to leave and gives Brian a small kiss on the cheek)
Brian: (Beseechingly) Sis, where are you going? Haven’t you heard the point of asking someone
to lunch is to actually eat food together?
(Carrie begins to walk away)
Carrie: (Offhandedly) It’s been real, Brian, but I have to get to the airport with Max or he will
miss his flight.
Brian: (Confusedly) Max who?
25
Carrie: (Quickly) Max my new dog. He’s a blonde Lab. Got him from the shelter last week. I can
honestly say he is the best male I have ever known.
Brian: (Amusedly) I wouldn’t express myself like that in public, unless you want to end up on a
reality TV series.
Carrie: (Sarcastically) Funny, funny, funny.
Brian: (Emotionally) Going to miss you, sis.
Carrie: (Sorrowfully) Me too! (Carrie walks away and from off stage yells back) Baby brother,
always take care of yourself and remember I will always be there for you.
(Brian sits lost in thought as the waiter returns)
Waiter: (Soberly, preparing to take his order) So, what will it be this afternoon?
Brian: (Absent mindedly) I will have the bill.
Waiter: (Confusedly) For a glass of water?
(The waiter just turns and walks away and Brian stares off into the distance)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(In Carrie’s bedroom at the old house a young Brian is sleeping at the foot of Carrie’s bed. In
Carrie’s bed is a young Carrie and Richard, they are both under the blankets which are moving
and then the blankets stop moving but you still don’t see the faces of Carrie or Richard. A
minute of silence, then you hear their voices)
Young Carrie: (Pleading quietly) Richard you need to go.
Young Richard: (Debating) You promised I could stay a while longer this time.
Young Carrie: (Emphatically) Not tonight! Brian is sleeping and dad isn’t feeling well and he
wakes up a lot when he doesn’t feel well.
26
Young Richard: (Pleading) It’s been such a long time.
Young Carrie: (Sternly) You have to be patient, Richard, if anyone knew I would just die.
Young Richard: (Sincerely) You know I would never tell anyone.
Young Carrie: (Warmly) I know Richard, but I sometimes feel so bad and I can’t tell a soul. Even
you!
Young Richard: (Exasperatedly) You got to tell at least me, I haven’t hurt you, have I?
Young Carrie: (Dryly) No
Young Richard: (Solemnly) It means the world to me. I couldn’t bear living if you said no and
meant it.
Young Carrie: (Forcefully) If you don’t go now, I will and I will mean it!
Young Richard: (Succumbed) OK, but next time see if you can get Brian to sleep in his own
room. I feel your more mine when there is just the two of us. It’s like we belong together.
Young Carrie: (Thoughtfully) We are together and we both know that.
Young Richard: (Passionately) Carrie you are wonderful to me.
Young Carrie: (Sternly) Now before you get started again, you get out of my bed and back to
your own room.
Young Richard: (Defiantly) Yes, but I am not going to wait as long next time.
Young Carrie: (whispers) We will talk about that some other time. Now go before Brian up or
dad wakes up.
(Richard in under shorts and t-shirt climbs out of Carrie’s bed and accidentally steps on the
young Brian who doesn’t move and quickly leaves the room. Carrie pulls the covers around her
and goes to sleep. Brian at the foot of the bed lifts his head up and looks around and looks for a
27
short moment into the darkness and then curls up with his pillow and blanket and goes to
sleep.
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(Carrie looking unhappy is sitting on a park bench holding a letter tightly to her heart. A
stranger sits down next to her)
Stranger: (Soliciting) You received some bad news?
Carrie: (Unemotionally) No
Stranger: (Interested) You’re sure not acting like you got a piece of good news.
Carrie: (Calmly) It’s all fine.
Stranger: (Amusedly) Fine, you say?
Carrie: (Softly to herself) He has always been such a great writer. A written note is so much
more personal than a telephone call or a visit.
Stranger: (Curiously) why do you seem so sad?
Carried: (Surprised) Sad!
Stranger: (Pushing his point) Depressed sort of. A woman with her share of problems! Take it
from someone that has seen his share of bad times.
Carrie: (Earnestly) I am sorry to hear that, I always like to imagine that everybody else is much
happier than I am.
Stanger: (Beseechingly) If you don’t mind, can I ask you something?
Carrie: (Calmly) Okay
Stanger: (Thoughtfully) Do you think that we all belong in this world or are most of us here just
to support the few that lead real lives?
28
Carrie: (Amusedly) That’s a really interesting observation. You must be one of those park bench
philosophers.
Stranger: (Apologetically) Well, if you can’t find a job and you haven’t any family, you have a lot
of extra time to think about stuff.
Carrie: (Distantly) It would seem.
Stranger: (Anxiously) Is that a put down?
Carrie: (Calmly) No
Stranger: (Concerned) I wouldn’t ask except the other night I was standing on a corner and two
men walked up to the curb and stood next to me on the curb, waiting for the light to change.
Then, one man says to the other, “If I had it in my power, I would kill ninety percent of the
population of the planet.” The other man then says, “Why would you do that?” The first man
says, “Because they serve no real meaningful purpose in life and they’re all going to breed and
double the number of worthless humans already on the planet.” As the light on the corner
changed to green, the second man asks as they are both crossing the street, “Isn’t that the
purpose of standing here?” The first man says, “You have hit on something there.” Today you
can say the craziest things and others hear it and then move right along with their lives.
Carrie: (Caringly) Interesting, I am sure the first guy didn’t mean what he said, but aren’t we all
just trying to hold the pieces together?
Stanger: (Surprised) What pieces?
Carrie: (Thoughtfully) The pieces that define us as separate from each other. I am a woman,
feminine, caring, intelligent, loving with the right person. You know that vision the world has of
me is made up of hundreds of small pieces. Each piece is a brick that makes up my own
personal jail cell.
Stranger: (Interestedly) So, if you’re in a jail cell of your own making, why don’t you just break
out?
29
Carrie: (Unemotionally) Because I have to play the role of both the prisoner and the warden.
Stranger: (Frankly) So you keep yourself in prison. Then I must be a warden too!
Carrie: (Understandingly) Of course!
Stranger: (Thinking out loud) So, are you saying that most of us have no value because we see
ourselves as having no value?
Carrie: (Clarifying) I am saying that we make choices in life, from the color of our hair to the way
we choose to live or die.
Stanger: (Thoughtfully) Can we change?
Carrie: (Flatly) You hear ninety percent of us are just here and are not really living life. That is
because ninety percent of us are living the life we have chosen for ourselves and wouldn’t
choose another life if we could. So, everybody lives a real life, it’s just that most people believe
that the life they lead is not living at all. It’s like an infinitely large mass illusion.
Stranger: (Enquiringly) Then can we ever really change our lives?
Carrie: (Accommodatingly) Yes. But, you can’t change who you truly love. Once the heart allows
that person into your life and if it is real love not just desire, it’s a piece of you that will never
change.
(Stranger gets up to leave Carrie alone on the bench with her thoughts. The stranger turns
towards her and faces her from the side)
Stranger: (Gravely) You are a pretty smart lady for someone so sad. Now could you spare a
couple dollars so I can get a room at the shelter? (The stranger looks down and then back at the
Carrie’s smiling face) Lady, you’re too nice and smart for me to lie to, so what I really need is
three dollars for a bottle of red, cause there is a piece of me that needs some taking care of.
(Carrie nods and reaches into her purse)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
30
(In Brian’s apartment, Brian is sitting in his lounge chair looking at a magazine which he puts
down when Rita enters room. Triumphantly, she hands a large folded card to Brian and she
stands close to him while he reads the card)
Rita: (Excited) I found it! I knew I would find it!
Brian: (Brian reads methodically from the card) Henry Ford High, Dayton, Ohio, 1995.
(Thoughtfully) Henry Ford sounds to me like a vocational school, a place where they teach you
to rotate tires, lube a strut, build bird house or maybe change a headlight bulb.
Rita: (Enthusiastic) See, right there, I got a “B” in Algebra! You told Linda’s husband last night I
used my toes when I counted to twenty. I could have died, plus she will tell everybody at work
what a jerk I am married to. Everybody will give me those pitying looks of people that live
superior lives and come from good breeding. All because of you. When it happens, I will be hate
you, Brian, and hoping that wherever some freak thing is happening to you, like those people
for no reason at all who burst into flames.
Brian: (Dry) Auto combustion.
Rita: (Undisturbed) Yes, and while it is happening to you I hope all your close friends are
standing around in the break room, “Oh, how horrible for Brian. He just burst into fire and was
reduced to ashes right in front of our eyes. What a pity. We will never be able to forget the
stench of his burning flesh and the sight of his eyeballs melting down his cheeks.”
Brian: (Conniving) You’re making way too much of this. I watched Hal laugh all the way to his
car. I bet you anything he doesn’t even remember I made the remark.
Rita: (Serious) Well, I wasn’t laughing. Even I know you can’t base a household budget on a
check with too few zeros. Brian, you’re just the type of great thinker that the White House
should have. A man with your type of talent for spending money he hasn’t already earned
would be real valuable asset in the president’s cabinet.
Brian: (Accusingly) So tell me who spent seventy-four dollars on their hair this week? I got a six
dollar hair cut and gave the guy a fifty cent tip.
31
Rita: (Flashes) Brian, my hair is off limits!
Brian: (Solicitously) Is there a list posted somewhere with all the items that are off limits?
Rita: (Sarcastically) You’re a smart guy Brian; I think you can figure out what is off limits.
Brian: (Candidly) I do have an intuitive sense of what uncontrolled spending feels like.
Rita: (Angry) Maybe you can sharpen your intuitive sense while you’re sleeping alone on the
couch tonight.
Brian: (Sarcastic) No not the dreaded you’re going to be alone on the couch tonight threat.
Rita: (kidding) Keep it up spastic boy and your new favorite reality show on the TV will be ‘How I
Met and Dated My Right Hand’
(The telephone rings and Brian casually picks up the telephone receiver while staring down Rita,
but before he says hell, he talks back to Rita.
Brian: (Cynically) A woman’s first line of defense is to always lock up the honey pot and put a
guy on water and hardtack (Brian answers the phone) “Hello”
Brian: (Concerned) Yes, yes of course, call me as soon as you know something.
(Brian walks across the room like he was gripped in pain and sits with a thud on the couch and
puts his head in his hands. Rita walks over to him)
Rita: (Curiously) What is it honey?
Brian: (Very seriously) Horrible, It’s just horrible!
Rita: (Unemotionally) Us? Not something about us, we didn’t bounce another check did we? I
absolutely can’t ask my mother for any more money this month?
Brian: (Snapping) Not everything bad that happens is bad news about us.
Rita: (Coaxingly) Brian, I am just trying to understand what is going on.
32
Brian: (Angry) Just, give me a minute!
Rita: (Demandingly) What is it? Does everything always have to be a game with you? What the
fuck is going on Brian?
Brian: (Dismayed) Carrie!
Rita: (Anxiously) Something happened to Carrie?
Brian: (Soberly) She was struck by a hit and run driver. She is Dead!
(LIGHTS FADE OUT)
END OF ACT I
ACT II
(LIGHTS FADE ON)
(A much older Brian stands in the empty hallway of the old family house, in front of him is the
young Brian and the young Carrie, he watches them)
Young Carrie: (With sensitivity) Mom told me when dad gets home to pretend he looks good.
Young Brian: (Confused) Is he still sick?
Young Carrie: (Reassuringly) Yes, but mom says everything is going to be okay.
Young Brian: (Gravely) Is he going to die?
Young Carrie: (Reassuring) Don’t be silly; people you know and love don’t die. Strangers die,
people you never met die, that’s the way it works.
Young Brian: (Boldly) I am never going to die.
Young Carrie: (Boastingly) Me too! I am going to live forever and when judgment day comes
you and I will be the last two people on the planet and we will have anything we want.
33
Young Brian: (Excitedly) You promise?
Young Carrie: (Unswervingly) I promise you we will always be together. I will never leave you
Brian. I will always be with you.
(Mom comes through the door with her hat and coat and she looks anxious)
Mom: (Whispering) Now kids, remember when they bring dad in don’t tell him how bad he
looks. Okay?
(Both young Carrie and younger Brian nod their heads; the light fades on them leaving the older
Brian in the hallway)
Brian: (Thoughtfully out loud) It just quickly happened. Dad never became the same man again.
The cancer went into remission several times and we all felt if anyone could beat cancer it
would our dad. We went on like he was the man he had always been. We acted as everything
was normal right up to the day he went into a coma and then left us for good.
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(In the corner of what seems to be a chapel Brian is talking to the church’s Pastor Paul Pinter
under a large cross that is outlined with flashing light bulbs)
Brian: (Affably) A very moving service, Pastor. I know if Carrie was here she would have insisted
on leaving you a big tip. She was always a very generous person.
Pastor: (Instinctively) Last time I checked in my version of the bible, I didn’t see tipping was
against any of God’s laws. (Cordially) Mr. Ryan, my favorite charity is me.
Brian: (Adroitly) I am sure your right on that point. But, I don’t have my checkbook on me
today, I promise to put a little something in the mail on Monday.
Pastor: (Warmly) Cash is always appreciated as an appropriate substitute. You know we do a lot
of neighborhood charity work here and it is a costly proposition. Of course, anything you give
you can write off as a charitable contribution on your taxes write off.
34
Brian: (Indifferently) I am sure you do, but I left my wallet in my briefcase at home too. I think a
check in the mail on Monday would be the best way to handle a generous contribution.
Pastor: (Dismissively) Maybe you don’t understand the nature of religious institutions. What
denomination did you say you belonged to?
Brian: (Eruditely) Well, my parents were Episcopalians and Rita’s parents are Catholics, so I
guess I am more what you might call spiritual than religious.
Pastor: (Bluntly) Mr. Ryan you don’t attend a weekly service?
Brian: (Evasively) Trust me I have tried to, but stuff always seems to happen.
Pastor: (Questioning) Stuff happens!
Brian: (Evasive) You know the night before someone calls you at midnight and they are coming
over or you wake up early and then you find out you don’t have any coffee in the house or your
favorite suit is in the cleaners or you didn’t get a wink of sleep because you spent all night
about dreaming you were being tortured in hell. You know, just the ordinary stuff!
Pastor (Not Amused) Mr. Ryan I see your point.
Brian (thoughtfully) I try to be spiritual.
Pastor: (Amused) How do you practice this spirituality of yours?
Brian: (Seriously) I guess you would say through works of charity, meditation and self-analysis.
Pastor: (Compassionately) That’s enough, I think I understand now. How are you feeling?
Brian: (Puzzled) What do you mean by feeling?
Pastor: (Sympathetically) It is never is easy to lose someone we love.
Brian: (Perplexed) She was a wonderful sister, but I don’t think I have lost her.
Pastor: (Acceptingly) You know it is alright to grieve. We all have to grieve in our own way.
35
Brian: (bluntly) Pastor I don’t believe you can grieve for the living.
Pastor: (Frank) I must warn you against the pitfalls of self deception.
Brian: (Explaining) Pastor, I think of myself as if I am a float on a large ocean in a small boat out
of sight of any land. Carrie has always been my home port, my refuge from any of life’s storms.
Now I feel I no longer have a harbor to go back to, but in time I know I will find Carrie again. I
know she is out there somewhere, and one of these days I will find her.
Pastor: (Insightfully) I see even in death she continues to be there for you.
Brian: (a little distant) Well, it feels awfully strange right now. She once told me only strangers
die. I finally know what she really meant.
Pastor: (Interested) How so?
Brian: (Insightfully) Strangers are always people you don’t know. When they die you note their
loss but you have no feelings at all because you never knew them. They have just left the world.
Of course being spiritual. I feel that it is just another piece in the much larger puzzle of life. They
are just a name in the paper or an email notice from the main office. But with someone you
love it is different. Someone you love is always a part of you. They can’t die because they will
always be in alive in your mind. Carrie is alive in me. (Emotionally) She is right here. (Touches
his chest) Carrie will never die as long as I live.
Pastor: (Sympathetic) So, you’re keeping her alive inside you.
Brian: (coolly) How do I know I am not the dead one? That she is somewhere out there looking
for me? Being alive can be a little confusing.
(Rita enters dressed in mourning clothes and walks up to Brian and the Pastor)
Rita: (Breathless) I found him through his answering service.
Brian: (Cynically) Please, tell me he had a horrible car accident and is in the hospital or he is
being held prisoner by Somali pirates.
36
Rita: (Sober) No! He is on his dive boat off Padre Island in Texas, diving oil rigs off the coast,
says he plans on being back next Tuesday. He has instructed his secretary to send over a
bouquet of roses surrounded with columbine, thistle and bell flowers.
Brian: (Angry) The bastard! The lousy bastard can’t even come to his own sister’s funeral but
still has the nerve to mock her.
Rita: (Confused) I saw the bouquet. It is a really a quite lovely arrangement of flowers.
Brian: (Mad) Of course, a beautiful arrangement, why wouldn’t it be, since it is coming from
Satan himself?
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(The adult Brian is in his boyhood room back in the old family house and he is standing at the
door to the empty room he used to sleep in)
Brian: (Hesitantly) I’m back! Walls do you recognize me? I’m Brian, don’t you remember me?
(Silence) You must remember little Brian. Walls you know me I am the same little Brian who
grew up in this room.
(Brian stares at a wall in the empty room; the room fades into darkness and then fades to light
as we see the young Brian in bed. He looks restless and seems to be having a nightmare)
Young Brian: (Shouts out in his sleep) No! No! No!
(The young Brian abruptly wakes up. He slowly gets out of bed and begins to systematically
search his room for something hidden in the room. His search includes a timid look under his
bed; he stops in mid action for a moment. He then gathers together his blanket and pillow and
puts his thumb in his mouth and slowly strolls out of the room)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
37
(Brian is in his apartment. He sits in his lounge chair drinking a glass of wine. He suddenly
reaches into a side drawer on the table next to him. He pulls out a small hand gun and places
the muzzle of the gun to his forehead)
Brian: (To the audience in a tone of seriousness) Life is a tide. It moves in and you’re happy and
it moves out and you’re totally lost. Why can’t I be the one that is always happy? Why must I
always be engaged a rotation of missed opportunities, small failures and suppressed passion? If
I squeeze this trigger in a tenth of a second I will again be connected to my soul. The endless
noise will be gone. I will gain clarity. I will become as radiant as the first ray of sunshine on a
summer’s morning. Are we all so self absorbed? Are we not aware of the meaningless of it all,
like rats gnawing away on a piece of imaginary cheese we take continuous bites out of nothing?
Our most important events; a birth, a wedding, a death all beads strung along an imaginary
chain. The newest fad, the must see film and the occasional passionate moment all too
devalued and forgotten. When the metal fragment hits my brain, I will instantly become
nothing more than a disconnected electrons floating in space. (He gets up and moves closer to
the audience still holding the small gun but now at his side.) In one second I am no longer be
the shadow of myself. I would become my true soul. No longer the organ grinder’s monkey
going from person to person with a silver cup raised up and tipping my hat and bowing every
time a coin is dropped into my bucket. Why not do it now? Is it because I am afraid to pull the
trigger or is it that I am so consumed by my role that I can’t bear not to act out my part? Am I
only staying to see how the show will end? Maybe, figure out where all of the madness has
been leading me. Di I just accept the one certainty in life and that is a slow death from a life I
barely know. We all begin dying the first second we are born. Death is our ultimate destination.
We all seek it out like a Hindu mystic seeks oneness. If I should choose to hurry, the trip along
have I really changed anything? (Brian turns to sit back down in his lounge chair, sits down but
keeps his eye on the audience.) I not asking to know the meaning of life but instead I want to
know the reason life seems so tragic but still appeals enough to us that we just don’t blow our
brains out. Judge for yourself, than get back with me if you ever figure it out! (He places the
gun in the drawer, takes a sip from a glass of wine, Rita enters the room. She enters from the
kitchen carrying an empty pizza box in her hands which she promptly hands to Brian.)
38
Rita: (Irate) Brian, would you like this baked or grilled with a white cream sauce and a side dish
of asparagus?
Brian: (Annoyed) Now what have I done?
Rita: (Impassioned) Confession is good for the soul. That is if course if you still have one.
Brian: (Unsure) Is this about your mother? I told you she didn’t hear a word. You know she is
hard of hearing. Anyway, how can she hear me talking when she never stops talking? It’s a fact
you can’t really talk and listen at the same time.
Rita: (Disturbed) I will never understand you! How you could say to my mother that she would
still be an attractive woman if it wasn’t for the fact the she is draped in layer of fat.
Brian: (Unsure) She thought I said that? Then why did she ask me if I wanted to see her new hat
in her bedroom.
Rita: (Disparagingly) This is not about my mother, Brian. I don’t eat anything all day; starve
myself like a Hasidic Jew at a pig roast. For what! I deprive myself because I never mine. How
could you be so selfish?
Brian: (Confused) I haven’t a clue as to what you are talking about.
Rita: (Frustrated) What keeps me thinking that you are even partly human?
Brian: (Sarcastically) I knew the day would come when you would finally snap. The first time I
saw you eat a dozen of your mother’s cookies that looked just like small brown turds with pink
carnations on them. I said to myself, “Brian, it’s just a matter of time before her brain melts
down like a Japanese nuclear reactor.”
(Rita takes the pizza box from Brian and opens it up to reveal that the box is empty)
Rita: (Accusatory) Brian, it’s empty. You ate the fucking pizza. Being the master criminal that
you think you are, you cover up your little crime by putting the empty box back in the
refrigerator. Why would little Brian put an empty pizza box back in the fridge? So that his dumb
39
high school educated wife would think there is still pizza in the box. Cold pizza I have been
planning to eat all day.
Brian: (Relaxed) So, that is what all the drama is about. You finding an empty pizza box and
realizing that there are three slices of missing pizza.
Rita: (Angry) No, this is about what a bastard you are! You spend all your time at work
counseling people on maintaining healthy relationships, and then you come home and eat the
last three slices of pizza. So your silly wife Rita won’t know. (Yells) Oh, how mature of you Brian.
Yes, Mr. Smith, if you want to make your wife happy, just be sure to eat all the fucking pizza and
put the empty box back in the fridge and while you are at it, use the last sheet of toilet paper
and make sure you don’t replace the roll. She will also love wiping her with a page from the
newspaper. Brian there is nothing better than to have today’s headlines printed across your
ass.
Brian: (Blameless) The crust was dry.
Rita: (Hurt) I like dry crust.
Brian: (Rational) You said the “F” word, you owe me a dollar. You know we both agreed to pay
each other a dollar for every “F” word. So honey you owe me a dollar.
Rita: (Frustrated) Not if it doesn’t fit the situation.
Brian: (Serious) Pay up. A bet is a bet.
Rita: (Uncompromising) Let me say this in my best community college English. You can eat me!
That is of course if you’re still hungry enough after stuffing yourself with pizza.
(There is a knock at the door and Brian and Rita don’t move)
Rita: (Reserved) Are you expecting anyone?
Brian: (Wittily) As loud as you have been it’s probably several of the dead from the cemetery
down the street.
40
Rita: (Anxious) It can’t be my mother she is at bingo tonight.
Brian: (Whispering) You answer it.
Rita: (Unyielding) Why me?
Brian: (Challenging) It’s your turn.
Rita: (Frustrated) When did we start taking turns?
(Knocking gets louder)
Brian: (Astutely) Starting now. Next turn is mine.
Rita: (Unbelieving) Promise?
(Knocking gets louder)
Brian: (Compliant) Unless I see through the peek hole that it is grim reaper, I promise.
Rita: (Reticent) Promise?
(Knocking gets even louder)
Brian: (Annoyed) Don’t you think we have reached a new low, Rita, when I have to promise you
that I will open the door the next time someone knocks on it? What kind of relationship lasts
when one partner doesn’t trust the other partner to open the door when someone knocks?
(The knocking at the door gets very loud)
Rita: (Scornfully) Well, what kind of relationship lasts when one partner makes an arbitrary new
rule on the spot without consulting the other partner? That doesn’t make one very trustworthy
in my mind. So, promise me!
Brian: (Frustrated) Okay, I promise! I don’t want to be the cause of anyone’s life long therapy
sessions.
Rita: (Disgusted) Brian you say such hurtful things to me sometimes.
41
(Rita opens the door and Richard dressed in formal attire holding white gloves and a dark felt
evening fedora)
Richard: (Condescendingly) Sorry to catch you two working out your marital conflicts. Although
I find it somewhat pathetic that two grown adults would argue over whose turn it is to answer
the door. Brian maybe you should seek the assistance of a good social counselor.
Rita: See, Brian, he heard you! Richard I think that may have been the best marital advice you
have ever given us. Brian, I have been telling you for years that your voice from the hall travels
like down the hall like tin cans being dragged behind a car. (Stops) I think I smell something
burning in the kitchen. (Rita quickly moves out the door, there is a moment of silence between
Richard and Brian)
Richard: (Reserved) I hope I am not spoiling anything.
Brian: (Terse) What important business brings the King of Diamonds out on a night like this, did
you lose your axe?
Richard: (Unemotional) It is really not very important, I was on my way to the theatre and I
remembered you lived close by, so I thought I would stop in.
Brian: (Sarcastic) Three years next month.
Richard: (Bemused) Has it really been that long?
Brian: (Sarcastic) If you don’t believe me, why don't you ask Rita, she will tell you. Three years
of endless relationship bliss!
Richard: (Judiciously) Well, I was in the area and I remembered I had this item.
(Richard fumbles in his jacket and pulls out an old rag doll and tosses it to Brian)
Brian: (Jokingly) Kind of a strange object for a man your age to be carrying around with him.
Richard: (Solemnly) It belonged to Carrie. She left it at my place. I believe it was her favorite doll
as a child.
42
Brian: (Irritated) What am I supposed to do with it? Don’t you think I am a little old to be
playing with dolls?
Richard: (Grave) Keep it, give it to your future daughter or granddaughter, or if it means nothing
to you then just throw it in the trash. I thought maybe it might have some sentimental value for
you. I guess I was wrong
Brian: (Angry) Richard, you don’t show up at Carrie’s funeral but you suddenly go out of your
way to bring me a rag doll that belonged to her. What kind of person are you?
Richard: (Smug) I don’t answer to you, Brian.
Brian: (Amused) You sure as hell don’t.
Richard: (Dry) The doll’s yours.
(Richard turns to leave and Brian stands up facing Richard at the door)
Brian: (Serious) Where were you? Don’t lie, because I already know!
Richard: (Bitter) Ah the young pup barks! You don’t know shit from tooth paste fuckhead or you
wouldn’t be living here in this trash mound.
Brian: (Intrusive) I know you were diving off Padre Island and didn’t have the balls to show your
face at Carrie’s funeral. Because, because your life is too important for anything other than
what Richard wants. The world is in orbit around Richard’s ego. Carrie cared for you. She took
up for you when the rest of us couldn’t stand your fucking presence around the house.
Richard: (Cool) Smart guy you seem to have it all figured out. Your whole life is a bad dream and
you’re not man enough to admit it. You had a fictional life growing up and you still have a
fictional life now.
Brian: (Throws the rag doll at Richard) (Angry) If I don’t know anything else, I know enough not
to accept anything from you!
Richard: (Angry) Fine.
43
Brian: (Contemptuous) Fine.
Richard: (Fuming) Fine.
Brian: (Explodes) No, it wasn’t fine then and it isn’t fine now! All my life I listened to mom and
dad and Carrie go on about letting Richard be himself. I watched you be a total asshole to
everyone I ever cared about. I kept quiet and did nothing, but I want you to know, Richard, you
never fit in our family. We all wished you lived next door or down the street or not at all! Even
mom and dad would have been relieved if you had never been born! Carrie took pity on you
because she thought you were a broken person. She treated you like a puppy dog with a bad
case of worms. She wanted us all to believe that you were a boy who needed to be pitied. Do
you hear me? Do you hear what I am telling you? The closest person in the world to you only
had pity for you. Carrie didn’t really care for you anymore than the rest of us. So, don’t try the
brotherly conversation or revisionist history from the only person that thought you were even
human. It’s too late. You are right family is gone. You conceited bastard, don’t you see what you
didn’t say to all of us? Is that the family that is gone was not my family. I hate you. I hate
everything about you. Now, get the fuck out of my house.
Richard: (Complacently with a smirk and a shrug) Okay, little brother. But, it’s not me that
needs the money, it’s not me living in a cheap rental apartment he can barely afford, it’s not me
drowning in a sea of bills. It’s you! Because, you have screwed up your life and you need to be
able to blame someone. Carrie is gone (Richard opens the door and turns and stops), so who
are you going to get to wipe your ass every time you shit yourself, little boy? (Richard walks out
the door and closes the door)
Brian: (Hollering) Fuck You! Do you hear me? Fuck you, you asshole!
(Rita enters the room and they both look at each other I silence)
Rita: (Indifferent) He doesn’t hear you anymore, but I do, so that’s two dollars for the F words
and an extra dollar for being such a jerk.
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
44
(Brian is in his old bedroom at the old house. He is seated in a vacant bedroom room. Sunlight
seems to hit him on the chest as he starts to stir from a trance-like state)
Brian: (Talks passionately aloud) Mom, Rita means well, but she just doesn’t know when to let
go. Really, I got to breathe. I got to breathe again. Rita wants us to be closer and have a family.
(Frustrated) But I know it is going just end up like this! A mixture of cobwebs, dust, and
memories, that all have no meaning. She doesn’t understand that I can’t be close in that way
ever again. I really need her strength. I need her to be strong for me. I can’t start a family when
I know that it will eventually end nothing more than delusional memories. She should be with a
man that still has the desire to see the next generation not stuck with a man that only wants his
old memories to come back to life.
(Suddenly Richard appears in the doorway of the room)
Richard: (Placid) Are Social Workers do house calls to ghost these day?
Brian: (Undisturbed) When they have to. What are you doing here?
Richard: (Amused) I could ask you the same thing.
Brian: (Unemotional) I come here sometimes to think. It’s my thinking spot. You should try it
but I suppose in your line of work think could be a liability.
Richard: (Cool) Are you talking about the anonymous family that once existed in this house?
Brian: (Uneasy) I don’t think you would understand. I already told you that you never really got
it.
Richard: (Thoughtfully) Try me.
Brian: (Heartfelt) The family that lived here meant something to me and to Carrie and to mom
and dad. I know for certain it meant a lot to Carrie. You can’t begin to understand how much I
miss them all. I walk around feeling I let them all down. I failed them in some way. People say to
me Brian is a regular guy, a nice guy, but I know I am a loser in life, I lost a piece of me when I
left this house and whatever piece of me I lost, I am now certain I that piece forever.
45
Richard: (Accepting) You are too hard on yourself.
Brian: (Distinctly) I just would like to tell them how I feel.
Richard: (Concerned) What’s with Rita?
Brian: (Anxious) Why do you ask?
Richard: (Probing) She told me that she hasn’t seen you for a couple of days.
Brian: (Abrupt) I am taking a relationship time-out.
Richard: (Cynically) Okay, so who’s the other woman?
Brian: (Not amused) This is just the type of response I would expect from a total asshole.
Richard: (Defensively) I am a lawyer; it’s my job to overturn the rocks to reveal the truth. You
can’t understand an issue until you can get to the truth. But, if you don’t know what is wrong
with you, don’t expect me to figure it out.
Brian: (Critically) You don’t like Rita. She offends your sensibilities.
Richard: (Evasively) I don’t even know her. All I know is she has big boobs, pop eyes and walks
like she has lower back problems.
Brian: (Reflectively) I love those pop eyes and they don’t really pop, they only bulge slightly.
Richard: (Amused) That explains a lot. My brother the necromancer married Popeye the Sailor.
(Brian looks off to the corner of the room and the lights focus on young Brian lying on a bed,
the area around older Brian and Richard is darkened. Young Brian is on his bed and he props
himself up to hear the voices of the young Carrie and the young Richard off stage)
Young Carrie: (Frantic) Please go!
Young Richard: (Pleading) No, I don’t want to!
Young Carrie: (Coldly) You must go, they will hear us.
46
Young Richard: (Complaining) Not if you don’t make any sounds.
Young Carrie: (Demanding) Not now, not tonight!
Young Richard: (Begging) You promised, you promised over a week ago.
Young Carrie: (Earnest) I will, but not now. Please go.
Young Richard: (Angry) Damn you, Carrie!
Young Carrie: (Anxious) Please leave, for me this time.
Young Richard: (Conceding) Okay, but remember you promised.
(The two voices stop and a young Brian lays his head back down on his pillow and goes to sleep.
The lights come back on; Richard and Brian are still in the same empty room, except Brian
appears shaken and confused. Richard shows by his facial expression that he has
comprehended that something just happened to Brian in the room. Brian moves to leave.)
Richard: (Concerned) Where are you going?
Brian: (Casually) To work or have you forgotten I am still a working stiff?
Richard: (Serious) We need to talk.
Brian: (Uninterested) We have been talking but you must not have been listening.
Richard: (Resolutely he pulls out papers from his pocket) You need the money, we both know
that is a fact, let’s get rid of this old mausoleum so you can get out from underneath your debt.
I know Rita’s had enough of a life full of overdue bills and garage sale furniture. Without her
you know you have nothing.
Brian: (Annoyed) God, Richard last of the true humanitarians. It’s all about me now and how
you’re going to save my marriage and my life. Don’t you understand I am not selling? Can’t you
hear me? Brian starts to sing a tune from the Sound of Music, “The house is alive with the
sound of music, music I have heard for a thousand years . . . .”
47
Richard: (Pleads) Please stop! This isn’t something to joke about. We have to sell this house and
you putting it off will only make the situation worse.
Brian: (Infuriated) You have to sell it! But there is nothing here for sale. Carrie was right this
place is a refuge from the world if any of needed a place to go to. Our parents left us a large
wooden security blanket. I promised her that I wouldn’t sell and I promise you I will never agree
to the sale of the house.
Richard: (Beseeching) Brian, be reasonable, you need the money and I need to put all this crap
behind me.
Brian: (Resolute) Richard destroying this house doesn’t end the crap. Don’t you get it? The crap
you refer to is in you not in this house. Plus, I believe, you have way too many needs. (Brian
heads out through the bedroom door and into the darkness but continues to talk) This is not an
old house to me it is still part of the family. (Richard is left standing in the room looking very
disturbed.)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(Brian is sitting in the outdoor café where he had last met Carrie before her death, he has been
drinking, he is in a foul mood, the waiter walks over and puts another drink on his table.)
Waiter: (Condescending) Sir, are you eating today or just drinking?
Brian: (Rebuking) If I have a Bloody Mary with a celery stalk in it doesn’t that officially count as
a drink and a meal or at least a drink and an appetizer?
Waiter: (Coldly) I don’t believe so sir, nor does it include slices of lemons, limes, oranges, or
maraschino cherries, and cubes of ice or single olives. As I have told you almost every day for
weeks the outside tables are for customers that are dining. We have an inside bar for people
who are strictly drinking.
Brian: (slightly intoxicated) Then in that case, I will have some bread sticks and another drink.
Waiter: (Mechanically) Vodka and soda with a twist?
48
Brian: (Haughtily) That’s a great idea, I am glad you thought of it.
(The waiter turns to leave and comments and mutters to himself as he walks away)
Brian: (Questioning) What did you say?
Waiter: (Apathetically) It’s your liver, I am sure it must be poising your brain by now. (continues
to walk)
Brian (thoughtfully) At these prices I would hope.
(The waiter leaves and Brian sits playing with a toothpick in his empty glass and staring off into
the distance and turns again to yell at the waiter who has already left.)
Brian: (Whimpering out loud) And don’t forget my twist of lime I need my vitamins if I am going
to stay healthy.
(At this point an elderly, homeless woman approaches pushing a supermarket cart and stops.
She seems to be confused as to which way she is going. She stands right in front of Brian. The
woman’s grocery cart blocks Brian’s view)
Brian: (Annoyed) Hey you, you need to move it
(The old woman turns and looks at Brian with an evil expression)
Brian: (Angry) Do you hear me? Take your crappy junk and move along.
(Once again the woman turns toward Brian and just stares at him)
Old Woman: (Dignified) You a cop?
Brian: (Sarcastic) Do I look like a cop?
Old Woman: (Irritated) You look like what you are.
Brian: (Defiantly) Old wise one, tell me, what would that be?
49
Old Woman: (Disdain) You look like a man who is scared; you are a rabbit who wants to be a
lion. You need to go back down your rabbit hole, Mr. Bunny Rabbit!
Brian: (Annoyed) You go away or I’ll push your cart into the street.
Old Woman: (Scornfully) The rabbit roars like a lion with but has only little teeth and a fuzzy
tail. This one will have to learn to gum his carrots.
Brian: (Mad) You old bag. I’ll show you plenty of teeth if you don’t move that fuckin junk pile.
(Brian straightens up and staggers toward the old woman’s cart and then she pulls a gun from
under a blanket at the top of her cart and points the gun directly at Brian. They stare at each
other for a short while.)
Brian: (Smiles Sardonically) Go ahead and shoot me you old bitty, kill me, come on you old
blister, pull the trigger, pull the damn trigger. Believe me, neither one of us has anything to lose
by this and everything to gain. Come on, pull, I know you want to. I am a faceless nobody to
you, I am sure you got a lot of hurt and anger inside you too. Wouldn’t you like to feel better?
Do it! (Emotionally raising his voice) It’s Judgment Day that’s all it is! It’s just Judgment Day for
me. No one will ever know. We are complete strangers in the world. Go ahead, pull the trigger
and then take the cart and disappear down an ally. No one will notice and no one will care.
(The old woman stares at him still holding the gun, he slowly sits back down at the table and
she quickly puts the gun under the blanket in her shopping cart.)
Old Woman: (Reverently) The kind of Judgment Day you’re looking for ain’t going to come out
of the barrel of any gun. You are a crazy man and I ain’t going to kill what God has already
caused to be dead. The snake has already crawled down your throat and has eaten your insides.
You need help; you need to kill the snake before it kills you.
(The Old Woman quickly turns and leaves. Brian sits at the table in a mindless stupor)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
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(Richard’s office partially lit, Richard is reading papers on his desk. Richard looks up from his
papers as Rita walks up to his desk and takes a seat in front of him)
Richard: (Surprised) It must be very important, Rita, if you took the bus all the way across town
to see me.
Rita: (Annoyed) It’s that lunatic younger brother of yours. He’s driving me insane!
Richard: (Smiling) Well, at least for once he is actually doing something. But, first let’s be clear,
he hates me and won’t listen to word I say either.
Rita: (Bitter) That damn old house is all he talks about, everything is that house! You would
think he would stop but it totally controls him. I think it is time we do something.
Richard: (Nodding with an air of understanding) Okay, then why don’t we both dump the
house.
Rita: (Direct) He will never agree to sell the house. But I have the power of attorney papers you
sent him. (Rita hands him the papers and he looks them over)
Richard: (Tactfully) Very good, you must also sign all his checks. Your forgery of his signature
looks better than his real signature.
Rita: (Amused) At this point. If he tried to sign a check in the neighborhood, he probably
couldn’t get anyone to cash it for him.
Richard: (Subtly) What happens when he goes out to the property and strangers are living in
the house? Don’t you think he might cause a great deal of trouble for the both of us? I could
lose my license to practice law and you could lose a husband. I am afraid as much as I would like
to get rid of that old crypt it isn’t worth the trouble my lunatic brother might cause.
Rita: dryly) It will be his word against mine and even though I know he is crazy about the house
I have to believe he cares for me more. We sell it and when he figures out what happened I will
do everything I can do to ease his pain. You know what I mean.
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Richard: (Nodding) I get your meaning.
Rita: (Seriously) Don’t worry it’s his signature. He has been staying home days drinking and
staring at the wall. He didn’t know what he was signing. He will be angry for a while then things
will go back to the way they were. I can’t continue live with the man he has become, I am
moving out to my mother’s today, and I am not coming back until the old Brian comes back.
Richard: (Unsure) Is that what you want?
Rita: (Smug) Except for you, you, that’s what everyone wants. We want our lives to be
interesting but predictable; we want our relationships to be predictable and we don’t want to
be anything else but ourselves. I want Brian to realize there’s more to a woman than someone
to tell you that the bogey man isn’t real. That a woman is for loving too! I want to be the
woman he loves. I don’t want to be the substitute for a dead sister or a family he once had.
Richard: (Agreeably) Okay, I’ll get the broker on the phone today. If we are lucky we can make a
clean sale before Brian knows the place is even up for sale. (Naturally) Rita, I wish you were my
type of woman.
Rita: (Brashly) Do you have a type?
Richard: (Earnest) You may not believe it but I once had a type.
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(Brian’s Social Worker office, Brian is seated at his desk in front of him is seated a woman and
her daughter.)
Mother: (Frustrated) See, I told you.
Brian: (Calm) I can assure you that this is all normal teenage behavior.
Mother: (Surprised) You’re not shocked?
Brian: (Calm) I think shocked is a little strong a word.
52
Mother: (Angry) She was carrying around dozens of condoms in her pocket book.
Brian: (Complacent) Okay
Mother: (Frantically) Okay? What’s Okay? She is sixteen years old, hardly more than a baby and
instead of carrying candy bars or breath mints in her purse; she carries condoms like a common
prostitute.
Girl: (Blunt) Ma would you would be happier; If I got a disease that killed me or came home
pregnant Like Mary Gormley?
Mother: (Angry) You be quiet, you little slut.
Brian: (Tolerant) Okay, okay let’s calm down here.
Mother: (Mean spirited) Do you hear how the girls talks to her mother?
Brian: (Candid) You know she does have some relevant points.
Mother: (Scornful) What kind of paid city therapist are you? Just because you are a free
therapist, don’t mean you got a license to give out lousy advice. You got to have some common
sense too.
Brian: (serious) I only mean she does think enough of herself to take care of her health.
Mother: (Accusatory) Her health is not what I brought her here for.
Girl: (Flippantly) Mom you are so 1970’s,
Mother: (Calculating) Condoms mean you done it. Decent girls don’t do it before they get
marriage or at least a steady boyfriend their parents approve of.
Brian: (casually) I think I can assure you even decent girls do it.
Mother: (Appalled) Are you some kind of sex pervert? You make fun of mothers trying to raise
good girls. I want you to tell her to throw away the condoms and to stop thinking about doing it
53
doing it or she will become a prostitute and she will have the police arrest her and lock her up
in a prison.
Brian: (Conciliatorily) I do think she needs to avoid being sexually active until she is mature
enough to take on the responsibility of a long term relationship, but if she isn’t going to listen to
either of us then a condom is probably a good alternative.
Mother: (Outraged) This type of advice I can get from a pimp. (she grabs her daughter by the
hand and starts to leave.)
Brian: (Desperately t) I have already heard enough. (The telephone on his desk rings and Brian
lifts the receiver to his ear)
Brian: (Frustrated) Hello, listen I can’t pay today . . . no not until Tuesday . . . I don’t have it . . .
sure, whatever, if you need a judge to tell you I don’t have it, fine . . . see you in court.
(Brian hangs up the phone and looks straight at the audience)
Mother: (Angry) You are the worst counselor in the city
Girl: ( Confident) Ma, he is an ok guy, he just telling you as it is, you know I am already doing it
and I ain’t about to stop cause this puppet tell me to.
Mother (Shocked) What, What do my ears hear, Oh blessed mother of Jesus pray for me.
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE IN
(Brian’s enters his apartment through the front door, turns, looks around and sees a note
pinned to his lounge chair. He walks over and picks up the note.)
Brian: (Serious, he reads the note aloud) To whom it may concern, I the lady of the house have
moved to my mother’s where only if the bearer of this note comes on his hands and knees,
begging with the cash in hand to get my faux ruby bracelet out of Rick’s Loan Emporium, will I
ever step foot in our apartment again or engage in any physical activities with a certain Brian
Ryan, signed this day 24 June 2013, in Cleveland, Ohio the United States, yours respectfully, the
54
former house slave and fine ass, Rita Ryan. P.S. The almanac reports that this summer will be
unseasonably chilly.
(Brian walks around the apartment, picks up books and magazines, looks as if he has a purpose,
but he finally slouches down in his lounge chair and puts his head in his hands.)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE ON
(At the old family house Brian stands at the door to his sister’s old bedroom. He is partially
shielded in the darkness as the room lights go on in his room, he sees the younger Brian and his
young sister again, they both are sitting on her the bed and are reading from a book, he has her
old doll in his hands and occasionally hugs it)
Young Carrie: (Reading with great expression) The dog licked the bone, the cat licked its fur and
the mouse crept silently across the kitchen floor. The mouse stopped in its tracks and tipping
his nose up while moving his whiskers, he smelled for trouble.
Young Brian: (Interrupting) Is the mouse in trouble?
Young Carrie: (Gravely) Yes, he is in a lot of trouble. (Carrie continues to read) the dog stopped
licking his bone and the cat stopped licking its fur and they too listened.
Young Brian: (Anxiously interrupting) Is the cat going to eat the mouse? I wouldn’t want you to
read that part to me.
(Carrie turns the page of the book and looks caringly at Brian)
Young Carrie: (Comforting) No sweetheart. This is a very smart mouse and the dog and cat are
both fat and very lazy critters.
Young Brian: (Pacified) Good!
Young Carrie: (Continuing to read) The mouse sensed danger all around him. So he did what all
clever mice would do, he raced for cover under the refrigerator located on the other side of the
room. The fat cat meowed loudly and sprang at the kitchen refrigerator. The lazy dog barked in
55
his loudest voice then dashed at the refrigerator. But, they both were too late to catch the
mouse and they were both too big and fat to get under the refrigerator.
Young Brian: (Concerned) What about the mouse?
(Carrie did not answer but turned the page in the book and continued to read.)
Young Carrie: (With great expression) The clever mouse was in luck! The mouse sniffed around
and he like what he smelled. As luck would have it, the mouse was a very lucky mouse, for he
was in a house where the mother of the house always neglectful hr housekeeping. After meals
she frequently swept the crumbs under the refrigerator. What the mouse smelled was very
good indeed. The mouse was surrounded by a feast of food crumbs of every sort and kind. It
made the mouse began to chew away on bits of cheese, bread crumbs, and even small chunks
of dried meats. It wasn’t long before the mouse was stuffed from eating. He then fell fast
asleep to the sounds of the loud meowing of the cat and the louder barking of the dog who
were trying their hardest with their fat paws and their sharp claws to reach the sleeping mouse.
Young Brian: (Anticipating the ending) I bet you anything that the mean dog and cat are in some
real trouble!
Young Carrie: (Agreeing and nodding) I think you are right.
Young Brian: (Anxious) Read some more.
Young Carrie: (Firmly) One more page and then my little man, lights out. You have a birthday
tomorrow and you will need a good night’s sleep if you’re going to have the energy to blow out
eight birthday candles.
Young Brian: (Excited) Is eight candles a lot of candles?
Young Carrie: (Amused) A virtual field of candles!
(Carrie turns the page and continues to read)
56
Young Carrie: (Using great expression) It was at that moment that the broom hit the dog and
then the cat and they both went sprawling across the kitchen floor. The dog hid under the
kitchen table and the cat squeezed between the garbage can and the stove. For the mother of
the house felt no mercy for a loud barking dog and meowing cat, especially after being woken
from her afternoon nap.
(Carrie closed the book and tucked Brian under the covers in his bed)
Young Brian: (Thoughtfully) I am glad the mouse got away and even got to have his own picnic .
The nasty dog and cat paid for their crimes.
Young Carrie: (Surprised) Where in the world did you ever hear about paying for your crimes?
Young Brian: (Clarifying) Ricky my friend at school read it to me. It was in a new Batman comic,
Gotham City is Drowned in a Crime Wave. They have a lot of bad guys there and Batman always
makes them pay for their crimes. Ricky says it’s how Batman saves the people.
Young Carrie: (Positively) I don’t know about Batman, the crime fighter, but paying for your
crimes seems to be thoughts that little boys should not spend a lot of time thinking about.
Young Brian: (Obstinately) I am going to be a crime fighter when I grow up. Ricky says he is
going to be one too.
Young Carrie: (Lowering her voice) Okay, a crime fighter it is but remember you promised to
stay in your bed all night tonight.
Young Brian: (Sleepily) I promise.
(Carrie sits looking down at a sleeping Brian; she seems lost in thought as the lights begin to
dim in the room)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE ON
(Brian is sitting in his lounge chair alone in his apartment when the phone rings. He picks up the
receiver)
57
Brian: (Angrily) You’re the one that needs to come to your senses. Richard, I am not selling.
Okay, sue me, but remember you’re going to have to take a number and wait in a very long line.
(Brian listens for a moment) Fuck you too! (Brian abruptly hangs up the phone, sits quietly for a
few seconds and then takes a dollar out of his pocket and lifts a jar from the floor which is filled
with dollar bills and puts another dollar in the jar and places the jar back down onto the floor)
Brian: (Speaking sarcastically directly at the audience) I know what you’re thinking that all the
trash talk is just needless banter. But in the new modular family of two I now belong to it has
become our official special safe word. It immediately lets my other family member know my
feelings. We wouldn’t want to accidently hurt anyone’s feelings. So its fuck you, it is always
great to see you too, fuck you, yes come again and please stay longer next time, Oh, you finally
took the time to call me back well fuck you. (Brian is silent for a few seconds). He pulls several
more dollars out of his wallet and thrusts them into the jar on the floor next to him.)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE ON
(A Cleveland bar, a sign in bold black letters over the back of the bar, visible to the audience,
Cuyahoga River Pub. There is a bartender behind the bar and Richard is sitting on a stool alone
at the bar with a light on two of them and darkness all around them. The bartender is
distracted as he is reading the Plain Dealer)
Richard: (Disgusted) The gin in this martini tastes horrible!
Bartender: (Doesn’t look up from the paper) There is the Purple Martini two blocks south of
here; I hear it is very fashionable and my customers tell me they make the best gin martini in
Cleveland. Maybe you should try there.
Richard: (Self Righteously) Aren’t you suppose to be a professional bartender. Shouldn’t you be
taking a small amount of pride in your work?
Bartender: (Humbly) I do my best. (He continues to read the paper)
Richard: (Insulting) It is obvious that your best isn’t good enough. This poisonous concoction is
one step above the taste of rat vomit.
58
Bartender: (Looks up and responding coolly) If you don’t like my drinks, You’re free to take your
sarcastic mouth and your business elsewhere.
Richard: (Intimidating) I am an attorney and this is a public place.
Bartender: (Disdainfully) Counselor, you’re already too late.
Richard: (Curiously) What is that supposed to mean?
Bartender: (Frustrated) It means whatever you want it to mean.
Richard: (Knowingly) How much did your former wife take you for?
Bartender: (Thoughtfully Sad) Just enough so I will be pouring bad gin martini’s until I am
ninety.
Richard: (Sarcastic) Given your ensconce personality flaws I am sure it wasn’t enough.
Bartender: (Miffed) Fella this is a bar, and I know this isn’t a courtroom but maybe if I say the
words provoked assault and battery it might mean something to you. Going to court with you
covered in bandages and stitches wouldn’t be my first rodeo. This is my establishment. You’re
only the customer that doesn’t give you the right to come in here night after night and insult
me or the place. Do you understand counselor?
Richard: (Disinterested)) What are your reading?
Bartender: (The bartender looks down at the newspaper on the bar, he reads slowly) It says
here that “the nation hasn’t experienced as much prosperity since Calvin Coolidge was
President in the 1920’s.” You sure wouldn’t know it by the traffic that comes into this place.
Richard: (Amused) Yes that was of course after Coolidge came out of the closet.
Bartender: (Serious) You don’t say, Coolidge was one of those gays? You know I got nothing
against gays. If it wasn’t for the gays I would be out of business, many are my regular
customers. Most of them have problems they think they can drink away and that is always good
for the bar business.
59
Richard: (Air of Superiority) I think the proper term is homosexual.
Bartender: (Disgusted) Not in my establishment! You can call them anything you want at the
Purple Martini.
Richard: (Dry) I know, two blocks south.
Bartender: (Enquiring, the bartender looks directly at Richard in a confrontational manner) You
have been coming in here at least three times a week for the past four years and you order the
same rotten gin martini and give me the same ration of shit. Can’t you at least try to find
another bar where they make a decent gin martini. Where you don’t drive the other customers
out the door and the bartender doesn’t have to pretend that he likes you?
Richard: (Whimsical) You know it’s your great service and charming personality that keeps me
coming back.
Bartender: (Probing) Whatever happened to the cute blonde you used to cuddle up with in the
back booth?
Richard: (Thoughtful) She has found a new life and got a dog.
Bartender: (Interested) I will give you the same BS my old man gave me. So, who’s fault was it?
Richard: (Earnest) It was your fault.
Bartender: (Provoked) You’re nuts! I didn’t never even know the lady.
Richard: (Calm) I didn’t say you knew her.
Bartender: (Engaged) So how could it be my fault?
Richard: (Serious) It’s your fault because you’re like every other living creature on the planet
that has an opinion. You’re never happy to just mess up your own lives but you’re not really
satisfied until you can destroy someone else’s life too. She isn’t here because the world doesn’t
want her here and besides she agreed with me that you make the worst gin martinis in the
whole fucking universe. So, do your job and make me another.
60
Bartender: (The Bartender shaking his head with disgust and picking up a martini shaker) Pal,
you’re a nut case, you know that, a straight up nut case, I got guys that come in here with metal
plates in their heads from the war that make more sense than you.
Richard: (Knowingly) I have been told that a lot lately.
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE ON
(Brian is in his office at his desk talking on the telephone)
Brian: (Confused) What do you mean, he’s not at work? I have been calling every day for the
past week. Did he tell you he didn’t want to speak to me? I know bullshit when I hear it. You’re
concerned. Are we talking about the same Richard? The Richard I know could fall into a meat
grinder and no one would care. Just tell him I will never sell. Then try looking for him in the
lovely land of OZ or maybe I am thinking too small, try Googling newly found universes, See if
there is one called Richard? Yes get back with me. Right, I don’t have anything better to do than
wonder where Richard has disappeared to. Same to you!
(Brian hangs up the phone and dials another number, you hear Rita’s voice)
Rita: (Pleasant) Hello
Brian: (Angry) No one seems to have seen Richard in a week. I have called everybody on the
planet. The bastard is hiding from me, but he can’t hide from me forever.
Rita: (Condescending) Brian you’re sounding more and more like a lunatic every day. You need
to take the time and listen to the nonsense that is coming out of your mouth. Maybe he is
simply is on a vacation or involved in a super, secret business deal. I know the planets rotate
around you but others have a life too! Just because he isn’t sitting at a desk all day doesn’t
mean it’s a case of foul play.
Brian: (Exasperated) This is not the time to put me down. By the way, when are you coming
home?
Rita: (Imploring) When you grow up and stop acting like a seven year old.
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Brian: (Sulking) I don’t like sleeping alone, I think the bed has grown in size and the blankets are
beginning smell like my old high school gym locker.
Rita: (Coolly) If I was you I would buy a smaller bed and get yourself some new sheets. I hear
Wal-Mart is having a twenty percent off sale on cribs.
Brian: (Pleadingly) Honey, it will be different this time, I promise!
Rita: (Irritated) Different from what? We have been talking for five minutes and you haven’t
even asked me how I am doing or told me once you cared about me. Let’s keep it real Brian.
You’re stuck in the past. Until you become unstuck, my mother’s snoring is more interesting
than listening to you whining about your brother or pining over your sister. The way I see it, she
was more of a wife to you than I have ever have been. If you want me to come back that desire
needs to come out of your heart not out of your mouth.
Brian: (Angry) Then stay with your saint of a mother. I am going to get myself a dog. I am going
to call her Rita. It shouldn’t be too hard to teach her to watch TV, eat candy all day and lick my
balls.
(You hear a loud click and then a buzz, Brian disgustedly looks down onto his desk and sees a
receipt, he reads the receipts)
Brian: (Discouraged) More fan mail? Interesting, a telephone set up charge. I don’t remember
ever ordering another telephone. Interesting! Service connection for 1246 Riverside Lane, last
Wednesday the 18th, that is odd. Interesting though, someone has hooked up a phone at the
old house. I didn’t know ghosts used phones and no one uses a land line anymore. That would
probably rule out drug dealers and prostitutes. Has to be a mistake, most likely it is the wrong
address.
(Brian immediately picks up his phone receiver and dials the number on the receipt. He waits
and you hear the phone ringing. The phone rings for a while and then he hangs up the receiver.
Brian seems stumped by the phone)
62
Brian: (Amused) At least the phone is a working number. Why would someone use my office
address and hooked up a phone service in an abandoned building. Well I think we can safely
rule out mom, dad or Carrie, as they are all dead. The place has been bordered up for a long
time. So, unless the ghosts are calling out for Chinese food or pizza, this is really kind of strange,
I think this is at the point when Rod Serling walks through the door. (Brian does a Rod Serling
imitation) Let me introduce Brian Ryan he is a thirty-two year old failed Social worker and
husband living in an imaginary world of his own making. He doesn’t realize it yet but he has just
entered the Twilight Zone.”
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE ON
(Brian comes into the front hallway to the old house. On the floor in the hall is a telephone. He
picks up the receiver and hears a dial tone and places the receiver down. He looks around in
confusion)
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE ON
(Brian stands at the entry into Carrie’s old bedroom as the stage lights brighten the room.
Against the wall in a badly wrinkled suit and surrounded by pizza boxes. Chinese food carry out
containers, empty beer and wine bottles is a somewhat drunk, dazed and significantly
disheveled Richard)
Brian: (Offhanded) Richard is this a new lifestyle change or have you finally gone insane?
Richard: (Unsteady and slightly drunk) I have just returned to our dear old family. Don’t you see
them? They are all here! Mom and dad sitting together holding hands on the couch over there
in the corner and our most dearly departed sister on her bed playing with her favorite doll. Only
one person seems missing. They all keep asking me when will little Brian come? You know we
can’t have the family without our baby brother.
Brian: (Concerned) it isn’t going to work no matter what you have concocted here. You’re
wasting your time Brian.
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Richard: (Innocently) I am finally beginning to enjoying and appreciate the family life I missed as
a child.
Brian: (Curious) It is very hard for me to imagine you as a sentimental type of guy.
Richard: (Sarcastic) Me sentimental? I am more sentimental over my golf bag in the trunk of my
car than I am about this house. You know Tiger Woods once laid his towel on my golf bag after
he had used it to wipe some perspiration from his face, I truly valuable that golf bag, I often
tear up just thinking about it. But your right, I feel nothing for the family that lived here and
allowed me to stay here with them.
Brian: (Puzzled) Then why are you haunting the place?
Richard: (Unflinching) Isn’t it obvious, I have been waiting for you. I knew you would come
sooner or later.
(Brian takes an old wooden chair from a corner in the bedroom and sits down on it and stares
down at Richard on the floor)
Richard: (Chidingly) It wasn’t that long ago when your legs hung half way down that chair.
Carrie would pick you up and sit you on the chair and when you wanted to get down should lift
you up again and put you on the floor.
Brian: (Uneasy) Very interesting, but it doesn’t answer my question. Why are you holed up here
like a bank robber or a skid row junkie?
Richard: Bank robber and a junkie, how blasé of you, you have been working too long at the
bottom of the food chain. I can promise you there is nothing devious going on here. I am simply
waiting for my little brother to come home.
Brian: (Harshly) If that is all you have to say then I don’t have time for games. I am about to
leave and as far as I am concerned you can stay here until you corpse turns to dust.
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Richard: (Humored) Dust, I certainly will, but you and all we have ever loved will also turn to
dust. If you haven’t noticed this house alone is full of dust, just think of all the dust piles in the
city or the nation or even in the universe.
(Brian gets up from his chair and begins to leave)
Richard: (Despondently) Carrie called me the day of her accident. She never called me at work;
she always understood the importance of well placed boundaries.
Brian: (Interested) Carrie called you? So what did she say?
(Richard staggers to his feet and faces Brian with a ravished face)
Richard: (Shrewdly) See Brian we need to talk. It’s sharing time you might say. I will tell you
about our last conversation but you will first tell me about the dream. Her dream, you know
what I am talking about. It was the dream that took her from us is if it was a steel blade
embedded in her heart.
Brian: (Fawning ignorance) What dream? Have you totally lost your mind?
Richard: (Cunningly) Her recurring dream! The dream she had all her life. I know you know what
I am talking about. I know because she told me on the phone that day, the same day she was
accidently hit by a car that you knew about her dream.
(The two men stood in silence and the light dims around them but brightens on their two
faces)
Brian: (Thoughtfully) About five years ago she first mentioned the dream to me. She told me
after a couple of glasses of wine that she hadn’t been sleeping well lately. I joked that it must
be the obvious lack of sex. She then got real serious and said it was a dream that she has had all
her life and that comes and goes. But it always leaves her so stirred up that she wasn’t able to
sleep for days. I asked her to tell me about her dream and then she slowly began to tell me her
dream.
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, she began telling me the same dream that I had dreamt as a child a dream that often woke me
up in the middle of the night. It was my y dream, just as I always dreamed it, just as I still dream
it. It was only then that I realized we were both having the same nightmare dream, a dream we
had been having all our lives and yet we had never talked about it. Not once in all our years
together, did we trust enough, to tell each other about the dream.
Richard: (Very interested) You were both having the same reoccurring nightmare. So what was
the big secret? Lots of people have the same dream over and over again and they seem to live
with it.
Brian: (Trance like) It always starts in the downstairs hallway of the old house. There is a loud
rapping noise on the front door. Mom or dad opens the door and two well-dressed men in suits
and hats enter the house. I am standing at a distance a little behind them just down the
hallway. I ask them what they want. One man tells me they are officials from the city and they
have come to dig in the back yard. I tell them they need to come back later and I can’t let them
dig in the backyard right now but I am sure if they come back they will be able to dig up the
back yard. One man says it is too late, the backhoe is already beginning to dig and we have
several men with shovels already digging holes. I then turn around and the walls seem to drop
down and I can clearly see our backyard. Men are digging holes and a see and hear a backhoe
scooping up large mounds of dirt. It is then that I notice Carrie is standing next to me in the hall.
She whispers to me “it won’t be long before they find it”. I say, “I know, but what can we do?”
Carrie says in a sweet calm voice “I guess we are finally caught”. I say, “do you think they will
think we did it?” She answers. “Yes. Mom and dad will know too.” I start to become very
frightened my heart begins to throb in my chest. At that point a large white object covered in a
dirty sheet is pulled out of the ground tow of the works and set aside on a mound of dirt. No
one seems to notice it and they continue to dig holes. I start to become even more frightened. I
whisper to Carrie. “There it is. Any moment now they will notice it and know what has happen.”
Carrie whispers, “Don’t worry; I won’t let anyone do anything to you, Brian I am going to keep
you safe, I promise.” Then Carrie is gone and I hear a man’s voice yell, “Here it is, there is
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something on the ground over here!” At that point, I always wake up so frightened, my heart
beating so hard it feels like I am having a heart attack. I am covered in sweat. I am shaking
uncontrollably. The only diffrence between our two dreams is that in the dream Carrie told me
that day she said her dream always ends with her whispering to me “it’s all for the best, they
need to find out, it was time they found out.”
Richard: (Emotionally) So, she wanted the covered object to be found. I agree we should have
dug up the backyard a long time ago.
(Richard keeps standing, lost in thought, as lights fade on in the room)
Richard: (Seriously) Carrie left a message on my answering machine the day she died. She
simply said, “I had the dream again. Lately, I have been having the dream every night. I now
realize that I will never ever not have the dream and I can never have a normal life. Right now I
am going to take my dog for a walk. Always remember I love you and always take care of our
little brother he needs to know he is loved.” At that point she began to cry and the phone went
silent but not off, a few seconds went by and then I heard a door slam shut.
(Richard fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out two pieces of paper and walked over to
Brian and handed them to him.)
Brian: (Determined) Richard, I won’t sign anything.
Richard: (Amused) Little brother take the advice of a decent attorney. Read it first!
(Brian reads the first sheet and gives Richard a puzzled look. He reads the second sheet and
seems confused.)
Brian: (Confused) What does this mean?
Richard: (Calmly) It is a Quick Claim deed on the house. I worked with Carrie’s attorney and we
sold off all her assets. Carrie was amazingly well off! I guess I was wrong about her head for
business. She was far more than just an emotional sister.
Brian: (Surprised) It is a Quick Claim deed giving me the house and a check with a lot of zeros.
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Richard: (Smugly) It’s your family home and Carrie knew I would understand that when she left
me the message. Little brother, enjoy your house. As far as the money goes, I can’t spend the
money I already have. WE both know you could use at least a new shirt and reliable
transportation.
(Richard walks on past Brian without waiting for an answer and into the darkness while Brian
continues to look at the pieces of paper in his hand.)
(Richard yells from the darkness) You and Rita just make sure that your first son is named
Richard, not dick or rick or any other nonsense like that. You treat him like he is truly special, or
I will be back.
LIGHTS FADE OUT, LIGHTS FADE ON
(Brian’s apartment, Brian is back sitting in his lounge chair still holding the documents in his
hands. He reaches over and picks up the telephone receiver. With his other hand, he dials a
number. The audience can hear Rita’s voice.)
Rita: (Unsure) Hello
Brian: (Romantically) I love you more than life itself!
Rita: (Admonished) How much have you had to drink Brian?
Brian: (Kidding) If I am drunk, I am drunk on to much love for you. Rita do you know I love you?.
Rita: (Confused) I get it. You have finally lost your mind.
Brian: (Comforting) No, but I woke up from a dream. I realized that I was the luckiest man in the
world.
Rita: (Shocked) Are you sure you’re still not dreaming?
Brian: (Overjoyed) I am wide awake for the first time in my whole life. I am the luckiest man in
the world because I love a woman named, Rita, and she loves me back. Honey, will you please
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come home? I promise to order your favorite pizza and a bottle of that sweet red wine you
always love so much.
Rita: (Concerned) What about our budget?
Brian: (Sincere) Rita, we no longer have a budget.
Rita: (Swayed) Okay, but I want double cheese on the pizza. I am on my way. If you are drunk
when I get there for your sake I hope you are sober enough to call 911 because I know when I
get done with you I will be too tired to do it.
Brian: (Pleased) I promise double cheese, hot out of the oven.
(Brian hangs up the phone, looks around the apartment and then to the audience)
Brian: In his book, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens began with, “It was the worst of times,
the best of times.” Has anyone ever said more truer words about the human condition? Rita’s
not such a bad woman and she has a lot of love I haven’t even tapped into. Even Richard might
be an okay guy in his own way. I guess when your life is always in the shadows you forget who
and what is real. We all want to live in tune with our soul’s purpose, but none of us know how.
When you lay your head on your pillow tonight remember Carrie, Richard and Brian and think
how much of your life is based on a delusion. Then pray that when you wake in the morning
your no longer the shadow of a soul, but a true soul.
(Brian reaches over and turns on the radio and the sound of Simon and Garfunkel’s, Sound of
Silence, starts to play as the stage lights to fade out.)
END OF ACT II
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