13 Plays

(Woman is around twenty, dressed in contemporary clothing. She has a deep Irish accent.)

MUSIC: “Lascia Ch’io Piango” from “Rinaldo” by Handel.

SFX: Rain.

(Music and SFX up just before curtain. At curtain woman  is standing center stage. She is soaked from the rain. Music and SFX under during the following.)

WOMAN:

He wraps himself in excess

And money from his eyes

Tears of coins in sadness

It’s a rainy Friday night. I’m drunk – again. Walking among the sinners lovely homeless. Men in black hats and terrible coats hiding guns bulging under rough cloth like mother dangerous-- They don’t tell you none of this comes with instructions-- Water drips from all of me, hair sits flat against the radio. “Hello out there hello” saying “Men killed -  women” -- black cat bad luck-- He’s beside me, lost again, his one thought revenge. He is my killer-man soldier-boy gone to war. “We must kill them before we can be free, before they kill us,” he says in his trembling replication. Like I am a child that doesn’t understand death. I imagine how many young men are saying that just now all around the world-- Rain sweeps down onto my face. He can’t tell I am crying-- When he sings he sounds like birds, or a small god. I wanted him to stay with me and sing, but he looked at the uniform and smiled, brave deeds written across his face like boys on fire playing-- The small street we are walking emerges onto the madness of traffic and swarms of the damned. Most of them adorned and tricky. I travel with a bag stolen from a past life, still good holding bottle and great stiff drinks-- I think about tomorrow when I will meet with someone who wants to change me and can’t understand why I don’t want to be changed-- Singing now he dances, hoofs flailing in Riverdance rivulets along the wet street where lifted eyes won’t let him go. That’s when I love him. Toss it off, toss it all off, run dance sing, all of that shite, play it, pay it away--  Friday night drunks traveling together, wandering. The rain lets up and steam billows from steel plates in the road-- Any other night I would be masturbating, contemplating the constipation of the universe. It seems, at times anyway, the universe has a hard job letting it go, but when it does great smelly things emerge fouling the cosmos, great long reeking strings of time and space. We pass through those strings. That’s what existence is-- We pass a man squatting next to an alley, holding out his hand. There is nothing in it but streaks of dirt washed from the creases in his palm. Everyone is too busy to stop and look, ask a question, offer nothing more than love, put a quid in it, pay attention, care-- Too guilty maybe, or too too self consumed, eaten up with wantgreed blasted by the furnace flames of mother money. The man takes two coins from me and shoves them into a pocket. He is too wet. He has a newspaper hat. The headline reads “Homelessness At An All Time Low.” The ink is running down the side of his face in black streak Indian paint. Across the street two people run to their BMW.  Behind them an empty store front. Down the street a siren. Through fog neon light like fingers of god in heaven. And we walk among the sinners lovely homeless, drunk – again. Tomorrow he will go to war. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Why this war?” I ask. “It doesn’t have to be this war,” he says, “it could be any war. The point is we are fighting for freedom.” “Whose freedom?” I ask. “Ours,” he says. “How do you know?” I ask. He is annoyed by my questions. “Because they told me. They said I was doing the right thing.” “What do you think?” I ask. “I don’t know,” he says. He thinks. He finally says, “I--it’s the right thing.” I am unconvinced. “Don’t kill for me,” I say. “What? What do you mean don’t kill for you?” he asks. “If you kill someone,” I say, “don’t do it to save me.” He looks at me like I am a stranger-- Dogs bark. It’s a rainy Friday night. I want the rain to wash it all away.