________________ Twenty-One Stories That Don't Necessarily Include A Guy Named Joe ________________ by christopher ritter Twenty-One Stories documents the life events and the manifestations of a guy named Joe. From his fall into romance with Sally, to the end of their marriage, Joe is faced with many facts and philosophies on homosexuality, drugs, safe sex, and other experiences of life. His only true friend through the years is Bill, someone as commonplace an unassertive as Joe himself. For all practical purposes, 21 Stories could be considered a dark comedy in the semi-modern to postmodern style with an R rating, though this is simply an objective opinion. The play's length is entirely up to the director, for many scene changes are considered trivial by the author and-- in the author's vision-- are non-existant. There are no requirements for the play. One could stage this simply by splitting the stage into halves, darkening the unused portion of the stage and changing the scenery while the other half is in use. To contact the author, please email to the following address: Chris.Ritter@DaytonOH.ATTGIS.COM or call by phone at (513)435-9342. The Characters of 21 Stories Joe (Head Waiter) Sally (Television, A Dream of Sally, Conscience #2) Bill (Stand-up Comic, Chair, Sally's Imagination, Prophet, Conscience #1) Sara (Roberta, Allison, Lizbeth, Waitress, Julia, Whore, Ida 21 Stories That Don't Necessarily Include A Guy Named Joe __________________________________________________ First Story (Taxi Cab: New York City, 1:00 AM) Joe: My wife is leaving me. Roberta: It happens. We all loose someone sometime. Joe: No, you don't understand. She's not leaving me for another man. Roberta: Didn't say that... you did. Joe: No, that's not it. You see, I, we... she sells vitamins. She's real good at selling vitamins, got a real good business going and all. She's got these girls that work for her. They, most of them come and go, but three of the girls have stayed on for a long time now. Roberta: Anyhow, one night we had a party and invited some of the new girls and the three who had always been with Sally. That's my wife, Sally. Roberta: Pretty name. Joe: Yeah, well, see, at the party, we were all drunk. Most of the girls had left. I.. I can't recall anyone's name.. God, I'm loosing my mind. Roberta: That's okay, names prejudge. Tell me the story, I'll know their names. Joe: Well, see. One of the girls had passed out on the kitchen table. One of the older girls who's been with Sally for years. She was sleeping, see, and one of the others were on the sofa. That one was a looker. Not the most beautiful, but my type. You know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder? [laugh] Little wisdom for you. But, I went over to the sofa and sat down. She was beautiful just sitting there with her legs curled behind her and her head resting on a pillow. Her hair was all frizzy, and her lipstick had smeared onto her cheek somehow. But she was still beautiful. She stirred a bit. She moved around onto her back and... and she opened her legs towards me. I just stared in between her thighs. I was drunk, I wasn't aware of what I was doing. I scooted over and kissed her there, on her sex. She moaned lightly. I got the biggest erection and I pulled off her panties and starting licking. I was eating out my wife's best friend on our living room sofa with my wife right in the next room. Well, she woke up, my wife's friend, and was too drunk to even try and realize what was going on. She pulled my head up, all wet with come, and started kissing me. She started playing with my cock. She pulled it out and started... well, anyhow... one thing led to another. Next thing I know were on the sofa, not just giving each other head, but fucking! Fucking right outside my wife's room! Anyhow, she came quietly. Nobody woke up. I walked back into the kitchen. She fell back to sleep. The other girl was still passed out on the table. I grabbed a bottle of gin and a glass and sat down next to her. She lifted her head. Her eyes were completely red. She got up and stumbled over to Sally's room and peeped inside. I didn't pay her any attention, all I could think about was what I had just done. I cheated on my wife. That wasn't the worse part. A few Hail Marys will erase any sin, it's wanting to do it again that can't be forgiven. I looked back towards the bedroom door. The girl had gone inside. I still wasn't really caring about nothing. Nothing but the girl on the sofa. I.. I don't know, I was drunk and confused. Roberta: Well, you're much better now, I see. Joe: I got up and walked into the bedroom. You know what I see? You know what the fuck I see? Roberta: Not a clue. Joe: That chick, the drunk one who was passed out on the table, that lesbo bitch was taking off her shirt and licking my wife's ear! Roberta: Was your wife awake? Joe: Course not! I ain't married to any fucking lesbo! I don't think. Roberta: Okay. What did you do? Joe: I grabbed her by her fucking pussy-eating neck and drug her out of the room. Roberta: Did your wife wake up? Joe: No, don't think so. Anyhow, I told her to her get her lesbo bitch ass outta my house. She started crying. She said she wanted to say good- bye to Sally. I told her no, Sally was sleeping. Fuckin aye, she wined and wined till I eventually picked her and her naked lesbo ass up and threw her out on to the street. She had the gall to ask me to tell Sally to write to her in Portland or somewhere. I don't know. Roberta: Wow. Joe: Yeah, wow, huh? Well, a week or two later Sally jumps all over me for throwing her out on her ass. She demands to know where she went. I told her I didn't know. I guess I was afraid of loosing Sally to a lesbo. You ain't one of them, are you? Roberta: Not right now, but thanks. Joe: Good. Well, I started seeing Sally's friend. The one on the couch you know. Roberta: Yeah. Joe: Yeah. Well, her and I see each other once or twice a week. Nothing serious. Just to talk about what's going on with Sally and all. Maybe a quick little messin' around under the covers, but we both knew it wasn't anything real. Roberta: Of course not. Joe: But Sally. Just tonight she tells me she's leaving. Roberta: Why? You weren't doing anything serious. Joe: I know that. I told her and she looks at me like she was surprised to hear I was messing around with her friend. But she wasn't real mad. Roberta: Really? What a properly trained wife. Joe: Not really. She and that lesbo chick, this is what she told me tonight, she and her were messing around before the party. Sally told me... that she actually loves that lesbo bitch! Roberta: Wow. How unfair. Joe: She's leaving Saturday. The bitch must've written Sally from Portland. I think that's what she said. She's gonna go live and fuck that damn lesbo! Roberta: The times goin quick up here. You got any place you need to be in ten minutes? Joe: [Filters through his wallet and finds he's got little more than a dollar.] Yeah, fuck. Take me home. Second Story (Coffeehouse: Chicago 1969) Allison: So, when's Joe make it out of the tank? Sally: Oh, he's out already. Allison: And you two aren't together? Sally: No. Allison: No? That's it, no story? [shakes her head] You're slipping Sally. Sally: Joe and I. Well, we had a conversation a little while back. He and I.. well... we want to have a relationship together, but he's been seeing Rhoda off and on lately. Allison: Kind of throws a kink in things. Sally: I don't know. I'm worried that we'll just turn out like Craig and I did. Allison: Craig? Sally: Yeah. A guy I knew back in California. We were really great friends for a long time. Or, actually, I dated a guy who was friends with him. Craig was seeing someone at the time, and his girlfriend and I became really good friends. When they broke up, I got really pissed at Ann.. the girl he was seeing. She just dropped him and didn't even say good bye. I mean, she did, but he tried to be nice, but she never did anything but ignore him. Real cold. But he and I.. Craig that is.. we started hanging out more and more. She stopped and then started again after reflecting. She smiles and says, it's funny.. we were born on the same day two years apart. Freaky. We can like totally tune in to each others brain waves. But one night, after his break-up and well into my months in single-ville, we were watching Easy Rider and soon as we knew it, one thing led to another, and... well, his hand was up my shirt, my hand was down his pants, and we were kissing like desperate lovers. Allison: [Stamps out cigarette, lit another, and pointed to her coffee cup for the bartender to refill it.] Sally: Yeah, a regular for me too. We didn't do anything real though. It was all so uncomfortable, like doing it with my brother. He said the same thing. Except with his sister.. you know. Allison: I thought as much. So what does that have to do with Craig.. I mean Joe? Sally: He and I are headed down that same friendship lane when being a lover becomes an impossible change. I don't want that kind of love from Joe, I want an intimate love. I don't really think I could handle two Craigs. Allison: Craig still around? Sally: No, but that's not the point.. Allison: You're starting to sound like my father. Sally: Seriously, I need more than that. I can't take any more of this dating shit, okay? Men walking in and out of my life like a fucking factory. I'm about to loose it, Allison. Allison: I know. Same here. Sally: Well. Joe and I have talked about dating seriously. We'll see. Aside from that everything in our relationship is an absolute dream. Allison: Wow, I wish I had it so difficult. Having to worry about a man loving me the wrong way. I can't even dream about a man loving me. Like I heard once, this life I lead made all my dreams come true, but on a much smaller scale than I ever imagined. Sally: [laughs] That's funny. Allison: A comedian said it, it should be. Third Story (Stand-up comedy lounge: New York, 9:00 PM) Stand-up Comic: Thanks, ladies. All right, what a crowd tonight. Well, I've got something a little metaphysical for you, something that I normally don't do, but being that I'm here in the creative district of New York, I figured something a little serious, a little humorous, might actually go over well. This is Funeral Parlor at the Edge of the Grand Canyon or Christian Fax, that's F-A-X. [Coughs and seats himself on a bar stool.] When you open your mind you've got God. Not your prefabricated video enhanced artificial replication- Made in America by Americans- but the real thing. So sweet and divine, and it's right there, right in front of you. I kissed this chair before I came in. I kissed this chair and I taught it to swallow. Now, that directly has absolutely nothing to do with opening your mind. Then again, in a flip reality- like the one I'm building for you while I speak- you see that prefabricated video enhanced artificial replications have nothing to do with kissing chairs and that teaching them to swallow has nothing to do with opening your mind. Thus, this entire monologue or poem or worthless prattling- which is all just a state of mind in itself- has absolutely nothing to do with anything else at all. But you've still got God. When I say God, I am not speaking of any arcane deity with burning bushes or flaming swords, I am speaking of that sweet and divine hand that closes your eyes when you die. She cries out so boldly and hollers like raw sex. Not to say she enjoys it- death that is, your death specifically- instead, she cries for the loss of her beloved one. You'd hope that loss was you, but you're dead and you don't care. You're brain dead when you open your eyes and when you close them you return to mortality. That is to say, when you sleep, she laughs, and when you wake, she cries. I don't kiss every chair I sit in. Not only would that be incredibly strange, but that is a hell of a lot of chairs to teach how to swallow. Now God spoke to me yesterday. He called me up- God doesn't believe in faxing you know- and he told me: `Chris, you're one worthless son of a bitch. It's partially my fault since I forgot to give you a soul,' he continued, `but you're dead you don't know any better.' So, after about an hour of installing the fact that I had no soul, he says: `Chris, your one worthless son of a bitch,' and hangs up the phone. Two days later, Satan tried to get a hold of me, but the phone was busy. It was my funeral director on the line, she called to tell me SHE WANT'S SEX. I had no problem with that since sex is a lovely way to occupy your time when you've got nothing better to do. Hell, sex is a great way to occupy your time even IF you do have something better to do. We men all think like that, you know. So, understanding that women LOVE sex while men love SEX; the sex idea was mine. Anyhow, she tells me she loves me, she's devoted to me, she wants to spend the rest of her waking years with me and so on. And that SHE WANT'S SEX- still my idea. I jumped in my Cutlass Sierra, not the most powerful car but it's got nice seats. I jumped in my Cutlass Sierra and drive over to her parlor. When I get there, she's wearing this slinky little skirt that went for days. I'm not sure what that means, but the skirt was short regardless. The sun came up after I did; and I left in a coffin. Seems that her waking years ended some two hours after she told me she loved me and I was left in a pine board box. A box with no seats. After two years of being shuttled back forth from my grave, I let loose of that routine. I fell hard when I let go, most of the time when your hanging all alone from the edge of the Grand Canyon, letting go can hurt. It did hurt. I stood up after I recuperated and brushed off everything but the scars. That didn't matter to me though, my friends all tell me that scars mean experience. `You've got to live and learn,' they told me. I walked out of the canyon and into a bar. I hunted for a seat by some beautiful brunette and sat down. The chair was upside down, and I slid down the leg. I looked into the eyes of the man beside me and swallowed. The chair taught me to swallow. Under the shadows cast by the peaks of my life I sometimes wish that I hadn't learned to swallow. But that's the joy of being miserable. My path was a short and destructive one, I like them like that way. Normally, path's like that mean you only have to listen for five or ten minutes to some worthless son of a bitch read some obscure monologue or poem or hear him worthlessly prattle on- but that's still a state of mind. However, the reality you once knew has been flipped and here you all are still listening to me speak. But you're dead and you don't know any better. Stand up, kiss your chair and remember: you've still got God. Fourth Story (Deserted train station: Back of Joe's head after smoking a joint, 1970) Joe: [dreamily] I'm standing beside a midnight train leaving.. downtown Jersey City in the middle.. of the morning. Covered in black robes.. I walk through the sliding doors and into a room.. filled with nothing but silence. In the center.. sat a chair.. with a remote control.. on the arm. Before that sat a television. Completely blank. Without a word I sat down on the lifeless sculpture of worn out springs and dark crushed velvet.. and began flipping through the channels. The Divine Comedy.. Naked Lunch.. Seasons In the Mist.. Vitamins.. Life After God.. Paradise Lost.. Paradise Found.. Larry Schmulowitz.. or Poe? Television: [rising] It is only a distant dream that surrounds the life of the world, asking of its believers to find a reason to pray. Thankfully the cult said unto their Lord, `For they are unlike us, we shall hate.' Each- with blessed reverence- saw this as divine. You are not unlike them, you are much like them. I see the world and its dreams in a much darker light now. For here before you is the prophet of a new world. Joe: [Walks over to the television and places his hand over it's mouth.] Chair: [rising] I am that which you rest yourselves upon. I first took the form of an Indian and soon changed into a Negro. Then, when the scars became meaningless, I subscribed to Communism. Soon the climate changed. The rain forests still had enough soul to warm the atmosphere. Now, I am a homosexual. Tasty word, isn't it? Joe: Late September when the winter months slowly began to take hold I sought to free my mind with understanding and reason. I thought to separate myself the thought that the soul is meaningless. We are an intelligent society. We look down upon those who worship a pantheon of gods. Gods of the sun, gods of the moon, gods in every shape and form that merely personify the existence of things they do not understand. This philosophy is greatly flawed. We claim to no longer worships gods of this nature. For we claim to rule nature. Tell me this is true. Tell me first that we decide which way the world spins. And then tell me that we can destroy world hunger. And then finally tell me that we understand the human soul. That which you claim only humans have. I sought to understand the human soul. Television: This is the story of children. Of a world which reeks of marijuana. Through its veins flow crack. Railroad tracks lead to misery and self containment. Pumped up needles flowing up from the shores and feeding the life line of a God junkie. This is your brain on God. This is your brain on God with a side order of bacon. Any questions? Chair: [Raises its hand.] Television: Yes, the object with the crushed velvet exterior. You do look good today. Chair: Thanks. What is bacon? Television: Nothing. I've heard it comes from carcass and because of that the Bible tells us not to consume it. But these ideals are from the minds of a primitive culture. To walk through the pearly gates, one needs only to pick and choose sin. Eating from the carcass of a split- hoofed beast is not on the menu of sin. Any more questions? Yes, the man in black. Joe: Can I see the menu, please? Television: Yes, of course. Are you male or female? Joe: Male. Television: Good. These menus were written by the Pope. If you were female we'd have to dictate for you. You are not homosexual are you? Joe: No, mam. Television: Ah, then you are a proper human being. Here is the menu. Anything you see that interests you? Joe: Uhm, yes. I'll have a slice of God on whole wheat. [looks at watch] Oh, I need to get back. Could you make that to-go.. please? Fifth Story (Chicago School of Fine Arts: Chicago, 1969) Joe: [spoken to audience] I decided to sit down next to her and... not really next to her, physically yet, but we hadn't really talked to each other except for a few conversations that went sour, and I really wasn't about to try and put my foot in my mouth again. So I just sat my bag down behind her with a small woven blue and white chord swinging from it that a friend of hers made for me a while back and rested on the grass next to her with my legs crossed. Our knees touched, but I didn't look at her. I suppose she didn't look at me. [to Bill] American Spirit? Ironic, are we allowed to burn this? Bill: Here, let me roll it for you. Joe: You get this rolling talent from tobacco or... Bill: Yeah, I used to roll cigarettes all the time. Joe: [to audience] I believed him, there wasn't any reason not to. Although I knew he had smoked crack and probably filtered more chemicals into his body than I cared to know, I believed he learned to roll cigarettes so well by practicing with tobacco. Bill: Here, Lizbeth has a lighter. Joe: [to audience] With a small crooked pipe in his mouth he told me this while rolling the cigarette a little more clumsily than I expected. Bill sat rolling for two or three minutes. He attempted to roll them that is. I began to doubt any talent at all in the duration. Lizbeth handed me the lighter. Lizbeth: I'm not married. Bill: Read the lighter. Joe: [to audience] In small white letters on the side of the clear, robins egg blue lighter, read the words: I have my husband to thank for where I am today... broke. Not that amusing. Maybe someone ten years older than myself would enjoy the humor or wit on the side of the lighter, but I really gained no pleasure from it. [to Lizbeth] Oh, I was gonna say, you're a nice gal and everything, I just don't wanna pick out curtains or anything yet. Lizbeth smiled. Bill: Here. Joe: [to audience] Eli handed me the cigarette with a small piece of cardboard torn from the package that the papers were stored in curled up and jammed into the tip. I had seen the cigarette lying on the grass, and I saw him fiddling with the cigarette papers, stripping a small piece from the lid, but I had no idea what he was doing with them. [to Bill] What's this? Bill: It's a filer. Joe: [lights cigarette. to Bill] Thanks. [to audience] One drag off of the cigarette caused my head to suddenly swoon slightly. [to Bill] Wow, this is potent. [to audience] She looked at me, I noticed form the corner of my eye. I remember talking to her about smoking once in one of those lovely conversations. She told me it wasn't her cup of tea, but she'd never stop somebody else from doing it. She spoke like a martyr with her opinion, not wanting to offend anyone else with it. By that conversation, I knew me and my cigarette was the primary reason our conversation wasn't going quite the direction that I had originally intended. Not just the smoke or the ass I was making of myself by throwing my head back and forth to get the entire realm of the cigarette swoon absorbed or anything else of that nature. She simply didn't like people smoking, people she cared about anyhow. I guess that would mean that she really didn't care about my smoking. The music on the green was loud. Bill, Lizbeth, she and I were sitting in a small circle beside another small group of people beside yet another circle. All in all, the small groups combined began to look much larger. We seemed to be lost hippies grooving to the tunes of Woodstock, except the music wasn't about peace or love or happiness, it was gospel. [to Lizbeth] Sado-Christianity, it's.. that's what this is. Were listening to the next generation of Satanic-Judaism. [to audience] Someone howled like a dog from another circle on the green. There were quite a larger number of people listening to the singer. They had a following, it just wasn't us, or at least myself and all the other jesters mocking the singers efforts. She stood up suddenly. Sally: Don't you all consider yourself open-minded? [general agreement] Then you shouldn't mock others just because their beliefs are different from yours. [picks up books and exits] Joe: [to Bill] That's what you get for having an opinion. If you don't have anything politically correct to say, you might as well not say anything at all. Didn't your mother teach you anything? [to audience] It's good to know she doesn't like offending anyone with her opinion. Or at least people she cared about. [to Bill] Damn, these cigarettes are strong. Sixth Story (Back road: Chicago, 1969) Joe: [looking out the car window into the night then back at Bill.] So... tell me a story. Bill: `Bout what? Joe: I don't care. I've learned through all my years of bullshit, that everyone has a wonderful story to tell, they just don't see it that way. Either that or they just don't tell it that way. For a lot of people, quite the contrary is true. Never tell this theory to anyone- especially really old Jewish woman- who is on their death bed. They still only have one good story to tell, possibly two. And they're bound and determined to tell you all the stories in between. Dangerous situation. Anyhow, you've got one. A story that you have buried deep inside your head. You have to, it's required of all humans. Bill: Required, eh? [thinking] I do, I guess. Have a story. It's not just my story. Uhm. He paused. Well, I loved someone once. [smiles] Don't we all? [pause] She and I... it was... it is our story. I imagine she's forgotten it by now. It's a short one. [pause] You know, it's a hard, harsh read between the lines of a little aching need, that's how I always poetically say it.. heard that in a song once. [smiles again] Our relationship was... strange. Yeah.. strange. We were perfect for each other. That's what I remember best. We were mentally two instruments that should have played together perfectly. But we didn't, really. We were instruments without any strings. Quite literally. We both knew we wouldn't last. We moved together so perfectly, but our music was... I dunno, bittersweet maybe? as the song goes. We dated in high school. It was my senior year, and I never really loved anyone up until that point. She was a freshman. I think she was pretty much cornered into it. Big senior, you know? Yeah, well, we didn't physically have that much in common. She would sit with me over at one of my friends house and just listen. We were big role-players, gamers, whatever. My friends and I. But she had no interest in it. She just came over to be with me. She was miserable. Even in sex. I think I made her so tense she just couldn't perform. Something like that. Anyhow, things got better for her. She became best friends with one of the other guys who did the same to his chick. Made her come, board stiff, and just sit with us as we played. It was strange. I loved to love her, but she was so cold to me. In bed, I wanted her badly. But when she woke up I knew I was in for hell. As the song goes, I loved to watch her sleep, but I hated it when she woke up. Strange. I really can't remember much more than that. It was wonderful, despite all it's flaws. I know that I can never forget her, as bad as it got. Hmmmm. [shakes his head, searching for a point to the story] The moral is that good love is easy to find, but it's hard to keep. That's what I'm saying. That's what the song was all about. Guess that's why it fits so well with the story. Early on everything was so peachy. As the years passed, it became painful though. I was young. Never combed my hair. Everything passed by so quickly. She became callous. We would just sit and stare, never really said anything with any substance. We just sat still and listened as our hearts hardened. Well, that was my story. Sorry you asked? Joe: No. Not really. Not that good of a story though. It seems everyone starts to remember right after they get dumped. And there's always a song that fits the occasion perfectly. What's the name of the song? Bill: Hell Joe, this is the sixties: The Age of Forgetting. Seventh Story (Denny's Diner: Chicago, 1970) Joe: It's plastic, okay? It's fake, it's latex, it's unreal. I see it as an attack on the entire 'free-love' concept. Bill: What? just because you wear a condom doesn't mean you can't love someone just a freely as you do without it. Sally: No. I mean... you'll never hear me say this again, but I agree. It's like playing Russian roulette with your life. Sex is something that has high stakes involved. When you sleep around you never know what your getting into, quite literally. Bill: That was bad, Sally. Joe: Yeah, but that's assuming you pull the trigger that often. I go into it knowing what's before me. But the thing is, I don't mind. Call me suicidal, but everything is pretty much a risk. I mean, I'd never tell my kids to do it, but I just don't like the idea of even our intimacy not being all that intimate. Technically, were not even touching. But I've only pulled the trigger once in my life. If I ever do it again, I'm looking at it as a trust... an act of trust. I give her my life, and I understand that. If I loose, then I loose. Herpes, gonorrhea, whatever. I don't mind suffering for what I believe in or simply for what I do. Smoking, drinking, drugs, coffee even... they'll all lead to my demise, but I don't mind. I control them, and if they kill me... well, I die. I'm not afraid of death. I'm afraid of the fear involved with not being intimate with your desires. Not just sex, but the want to smoke, to drop acid, to hit on a bong, everything. It's my body, and I'll destroy it if I choose. Sara: What about those who care about you? Joe: Well, thanks. It's a nice sentiment. But when it comes to my ass being put six foot under, there's only going to be one corpse in that grave with me making food for the maggots. And it's that one that I'm worried about. Sally: He's right. Bill: I agree with you, but just your whole concept of the thing, treating sex as suicide. I don't know, it just all sounds morbid to me. Joe: It is morbid. So why try and plastic coat the reality of it all? Bill: See, that's going from the position that sex is morbid. I don't agree with that... Joe: No, I don't exactly mean that sex is morbid. But not trusting your lover, or not wanting them heart and soul, disease included, that is morbid. It's dangerous to have sex with anyone on the street, that I agree with. If I ever had random sex I'd do it with a condom. But I don't have random sex. I don't have sex at all. There's safe sex for you. Bill: I see what your saying, but it all sounds as if you just want to die to me. Joe: All right, look at it this way: Say you really did love someone but you just weren't sure if you could spend your whole life together- Sara: So do you really love them? Joe: Let me finish. You cared a lot about her, but you just weren't sure if she really cared about you just as much; a fact which you were willing to accept. Sally: Did you notice those guys who just got up and left? Strange, eh? Joe: Excuse me, I'm trying to make a point. Where was I? Sara: Arguing. Joe: What, you guys decide the conversation was boring without me? Sara: No, it was boring with you. We all agree, I don't see what you're arguing? Joe: That's a shallow point of view, Sara. Just because you guys think you're right everybody else is wrong? Sara: No. I just think this is a null topic, period. I understand what you're saying, but that still doesn't change the fact that condoms are industrialized bullshit and only serve as lunch bags for whores. Joe: Period, eh? Conversation over? Sara: Don't start in with your philosophy about when I say period I'm being just like my father. My father never cared to listen to me, okay? I just don't appreciate hearing about that. Bill: So, how's the book coming along Joe? Joe: Which one? [digs into his eggs] Bill: I don't know. I get to see so little of you two I have no idea what you're up to these days. What book are you working on? Joe: I was thinking that, since I'm actually respected in the literary world now- Sally: That's arguable. Joe: -That I might put out that book I wrote about the global collective. [to Sally] What was that comment about? Sally: What comment? Joe: What you just said. About my fame being arguable? Sally: Damn, get defensive. I meant that not everyone- mainly conservatists- thinks that you have a real clue about what the history holds for us. A lot of people call Technophanic Universe a work of science-fiction bullshit. You know that? Joe: I know that. Sally: Yes, so what's the defensive tone for? Joe: Because it sucks. Sally: It sucks? Why's that? I thought you wanted to be Visionary of the New World or something like that. Joe: I do, pretty much. Not that I want to be any God of my.. my what? my species, I just want to be an author that speaks through the voice of his culture. Sally: And everyone is supposed to agree with that opinion? Joe: No. Of course not. Sally: So why does that irritate you? the fact that not everyone agrees with you? Joe: It's not that I want them to agree with me. Thinking is acceptable. I just want them to hear me. I want them to understand where I'm coming from. I don't want them to see me as some doped out hippie smoking his life into some science-fiction fantasy. I love Burroughs, but I ain't Burroughs. I ain't no drug addict, I ain't got no big time Mexican high life. Most of my excitement comes from the bathroom floor, crying my eyes out, wondering why my parents constantly tell me how worthless and irresponsible I am, as if I have no real life. I ain't a puppet of mother, I ain't a puppet of the machine. Gepetto died, man. I'm revolution, man, and I'm alive. Bill: Writer. Sara: Good speech. You have that planned? Joe: I'm serious, Sara. I do what I do because I can do and that's all that I can do. Roll with the punches. My parents think I'm the worst thing to come along since Hitler and they don't even know who I am- Bill: How'd we get from Technophanic Universe to Hitler? Sally: Joe, forget about it, okay. I didn't mean any harm by what I said. You've got that interview tomorrow with the editing firm. Joe: Maybe. They said they might be interested, but there's no real promise given. Sally: Okay, then look forward to that. I really don't want to find such a visionary young writer dead on his floor at age 21. Joe: I'm trying, Sally. God knows I'm trying.. if He really even cares. Eighth Story (Rush hour traffic: Los Angeles, falling asleep to the voice of Casey Casem.) Joe: Hey Bill, this is Joe. Bill: Hey Joe, nice to hear from you! Where are you calling from? Joe: Why, my car phone, Bill. Bill: Isn't that a coincidence, I'm talking to you from a car phone too! Joe: But Bill, I called your house, not your car. Bill: I know Joe, I had my calls forwarded from my house to my car. Isn't that great? Joe: It sure is Bill. Bill: So tell me Joe, did you have something important to talk about? Joe: Not especially Bill, I just wanted to feel superior by talking to you on my car phone. Bill: Looks like that plan backfired, Joe. Joe: It sure does Bill. Bill: So Joe, are you driving on the highway? Joe: Sure am, Bill. Why do you want to know? Bill: Have you hit swerved violently since you're not really paying attention to your driving, Joe? I mean violently enough to run one of those little non-cellular creatures with no real social value? Joe: Why yes, Bill. Two as a matter of fact. One of them was a little old lady with Minnesota license plates that sounded as if she was listening to a tape of her grandchildren in Florida. Isn't that a shame? Bill: I don't know, Joe. Did she swerve badly or did you just give her a little knick? Joe: Well, Bill. She slid off of the telephone books she was sitting on and into the passengers seat. Her car swerved into a telephone pole and all I really saw after that was a huge wall of flames and a sky full of black smoke. Pretty impressive, eh? Bill: You know, Joe. I really don't mean to spoil your glory, but it seems that you just haven't lived up to the devastation that I dished out today. I was talking to Sally on my beautiful AT&T TrueComm 33+ when I accidentally drove through a crowd of young children as they were crossing the street from their preschool. It was such a mess that I actually had to drive through the car wash after an $8 fill-up. Isn't that a tragedy? Joe: That sure is, Bill. A man just can't go fill up his car with premium unleaded gasoline at a respectable service station every time he accidentally drives through a troupe of kids. That's ridiculous. Bill: Well, Joe. That's just one of the few inconveniences you need to get used to when you own such a manly piece of equipment such as a cell phone, or a convenience beeper, or even combo beeper/carry-around cell phone: you know, those little flip phones that only the execs seem to own? Joe: Only the execs? Why Bill, my company just financed me a CelluLite 12,000 Multidimensional Virtual Tasking Unit with out-going call, message storage, and paging functions. I would have thought you most certainly would have acquired such a necessity before now. Bill: Joe, you know I was only kidding, of course I have one. But I must admit, the CelluLite 12,000 is such a stone wheel in comparison to my little baby that the company financed for me. I was looking at the 12,000 also, but I decided to go with the Advance 4 Billion InfiniComp Virtual Memory Teleporting A.I. Model with a personal electronic secretary that can not only place out-going calls, store messages, and page at random but also sends a low-level impulse into the base of your penis that stimulates an erection not unlike a blow-job would. Isn't that just grand? Joe: I have to admit, Bill. I am truly impressed. I've always wanted to cheat on my wife with my personal secretary, but I never could find anything other than the crinkley old scraggs that the company hires. Even if I could, I'm not sure if I could handle all the complications of setting up dates, getting the hotel arrangements squared away, personal credit cards for the whore.. it just all sounds so complicated. But with your nifty little machine, all of that would be a breeze. I could just type away on my office-on-the-go, pull up a buxom blonde, and fuck my petty little brains out until my undersized heart exploded. Golly, Bill, that sure does sound grand. How much do those little chickadees run? Bill: Hell if I know, Joe. I've never bought a damn thing for myself in my life. Truthfully, I'm being audited next week, but I'm planning on blaming the entire thing on Sally- the poor little twit. The worthless cunt doesn't have a damn clue what all I'm doing behind her back. After the IRS pulls Sally into the pen for hoarding well over a quarter of a million dollars in liquidated assets and cool cash, I'll be sailing off to Savannah with her brother where he and I'll be running seedless grapes down the cracks of one another's asses and fucking like monkeys while big tittied bongos wave palm leaves over our tight gleaming bodices. Doesn't that just sound like a dream? Joe: Bill, it's more of a dream than I can tell you. You know, Bill. Everything you've told me here in the last few minutes has lead me to believe.. well, I really don't want to offend you.. Bill: Joe, you've known me for days. You can trust me with any financially risky information you'd like to share. Joe: Well Bill. Everything you've said in the past few minutes has lead me to believe that you've got a pretty small penis. Is that true? Bill: Joe, I'm shocked that you'd even ask such a question. Tell you what, you know the newly renovated Stop Eight Motel off I-68 by Enon? Joe: You know I do Bill. I've brought my mother there many times for her annual mother's day chocolate covered cherry topped rim job. Quite a cheery establishment. Bill: Well Joe, how about you meet me there in, oh, let's say ten minutes. I'll take you up to room 32 where I always ask the local Girl Scout troupe to personally bring me their goodies and then you and I can strip down to our Kleins and fuck like the word is going out of style. How's that strike you? Joe: Positively splendid, Bill. I've even got my special mouth pieces for the both of us and a dog leash just in case you're feeling a bit naughty. Bill: That's wonderful Joe. I'm sure I can scrounge up a cattle prod and a few quarts of urine before I get there. We'll make a day of it, how's that sound? Joe: I couldn't have planned it any better, Bill. I'll call off all of my appointments right now. Bill: And I'll do the same, Joe. See you in a few. Ninth Story (Denny's Diner: New York, 1982) Joe: I really think you ought to think about that a little closer. Imagine... I mean look at the two species separately. You always hear about the women leaving the men. Look at your marriage. Who left who? The woman left the man. And back in my sophomore year in college, when I was dating Ann, what happened? Same thing. Bill: A few examples. But I can think of a thousand against that theory. Joe: Sure, so can I. But I can think of a million-fold more in favor of the theory. Think about John Travolta in Greece. What happened to him? Bill: I don't know if he was really dumped by anyone. Didn't he do the dumping? Waitress: Yeah, but that was because John didn't want his reputation fucked with. He was being a jerk. Joe: Yeah, but he still loved her. What that says to me is that the women are the more powerful ones in a relationship and not the men. Normally the man is still sitting beside his truck below the girls window wondering how they could get back together again. I think it's a positive notion against the statement that men and women were meant to fall in love. Waitress: I think that's taking it a little too far. Just because a few relationships don't work out doesn't mean that love is wrong. Joe: No, I'm not saying that. But those few relationships that do work out turn out to be something like a sofa that your ass starts to feel good in after a few years. What's the sense in buying a better sofa. You'd just have to break it in again and then where are you? Right back were you started from. Waitress: What can I get you two today? Bill: Um, I'll have the grilled cheese and a coke please. And, no pickle on that. Waitress: Got it. And you? Joe: Just a coffee. And a piece of strawberry pie. That sounds pretty good. Waitress: We got some real good carrot cake, make fresh today. Joe: Strawberry pie's fine. [Waitress walks off] I think the point brings us back around to how much the separate sexes understand one another. I mean, if I didn't have to sit there for three hours wondering why in the hell Sally is crying, and another two hours arguing about how to fix it until we agree on something, I'd save a lot of time in my fucking day. Bill: That's why they invented conversation. You know, you talk about the problems and reach a conclusion and then remember that conclusion so the problem doesn't come up again. Joe: Listen to you, Mr. Relationship himself. Bill: Hey, I'm answering your question. Joe: But follow the lines, where's this bringing us around to? I know that this is probably one of the most offensive things that I'll ever tell you, but I really do think that homosexuals are the dominate race, they got a notch up on us straights. Not only do they get their intimacy from someone who knows their feelings and the way their body works, but they also get the pleasure of knowing how to talk to one another. Like, say all of our friends. Most of them are guys. I mean, I know we have some female friends, but for the most part the ones we hang with on a day to day basis are guys. Bill: Damn, Joe. I dunno. What's that say about the good ol' fashion heterosexual couples? Joe: You got me on that one. If we are incompatible, why do we rely on the opposite sex for reproduction? Maybe it's just sort of Gods way of keeping the two sexes together, we just sort of beat the system by fooling around with one another. Bill: That's an odd way of looking at things. From what I've seen, they're a lot more heterosexual relationships working in the world than there are homosexual relationships. Joe: That's because society has mandated that men and women are compatible. You get into some sort of rut when it just isn't worth leaving each other. Kind of like the sofa theory. [pause] You know what? Bill: What? Joe: I never have seen my parents touch. A light peck is all I think I can remember. And that's probably because I wanted to. Waitress: [coming over to table] Here's your order. You need anything else besides a good dose of optimism? Joe: No, I heard it causes cancer. Tenth Story (Parking Lot: En route to Portland, 1989) Julia: [walks over to Sally and lays a joint on her lips] Where'd you get the coat? Sally: Some waitress said it was mine. Julia: I thought about what you said tonight, about you and I coming out to all our friends as lovers. Sally: That's not what I said. I'm already out. Joe's probably told the entire world by now that I'm a dyke. It's you that's still living in the closet. I want you to tell... Julia: ..the girls in Portland, I know. And I think that I'm not going to do that. Not right now anyway. Sally: Jesus. I thought you were actually gonna tell me something new. Julia: [putting the joint up to her lips and taking a drag, then hands the rest to Sally and exhales] I know what you're feeling about everything and all, Sally. You just left your husband and now you're heading to Portland with a confused lover. I just don't think I'm ready to do any of that. I just decided this was right, too. Sally: How can our lives begin together when you won't even step out from underneath society's right wing? Julia: I've got a nice, secure job in conservative America. You know that. Just because the time was right for you doesn't mean it's perfect for me. Snap, I'm gay! Gimme a break. Sally: Give you a break? I've given you breaks, okay? I've given you everything I can, Julia. Julia: Please, Sally. I understand... Sally: You understand? Bullshit, girl. You don't understand shit! Man, you should try to take a shot. Can't you see my walls are crumbling? Try and fill my shoes for once, Julia. Try and sit there, thinking, 'Oh, maybe my lover will truly love me one day. Maybe she'll come around and maybe everything'll be all right.' Julia: [looks down at the parking lot, a tear runs down her cheek. Sally lays back down on the car and looks up at the building.] Sally... Sally: No. [pause] You know what it all comes down to? Free falling right outta life, just like Tom Petty. I could climb up to the top of that building and free fall outta the world. No more worries, no more fears. I'm tired of life, Julia. I'm tired of it all. Julia: I love you, Sally. Sally: [looks over at Julia who is soaked with tears, then sits up and slides off the hood of the car. She picks up and slips it over her arms.] Sally's Imagination: Destiny. Dream. Destiny of anything and everything. Dream of lives untouched by angels and the damnation game. Alive like never before with shallow chords of hard guitars crying into the night. Queers stare at you from across the room sipping their Vanilla milkshakes with tiny red straws and a touch of desire seeping from the lips. The black lipstick is passed around the table like cheap lies on parade and no one cares where it came from, they just want to taste it. They just want to feel it on their lips. And if the color doesn't match, they discard it like garbage except garbage has meat, and for the amount they care for you, there is no meat no substance. Light and airy. You are trash. Second hand and penniless. What you care for is not on the menu. Order what you can and fill up your dreams with sour cream and a handful of pepper. In the end, it'll all taste rotten, but you've created some sense of destiny. Some form of dream. Julia: What's wrong? Sally's Imagination: I like the way you say to me, Hello mister blue bird. Won't you fly around with me in the yellow sun and pick up the green apple seeds with me. I heard a conversation once between a mad man and a doctor. The doctor said to him, How's about you take down your trousers and cough when I test your reflexes? and the mad man unzipped his jeans and lowered them to his ankles and the doctor pulled out his examining penis and felt around the outer edges of the mans anus and applied a touch of salve to relieve the mans ailments and filled him full of wild ideas and hot dripping topics until the mad man screamed out from complete fulfillment. Like butterflies dancing over the daisies, and they all sang in unison, Hello mister blue bird. The doctor will see you now. Sally: [grabs the side of her head and begins to squeeze until her nose bleeds] Sally's Imagination: It's strange the emotion of standing without any love. You feel withdrawn, besieged, god granted loneliness that gives you the reassurance that you'll die alone. I take what I receive, and so much less is that than when I can finally lie in peace. Rest. Sleep. Deep with the worms so I need no sex no drugs no rock and roll out the red carpet and fuck me royal. I'd like to thank you all for pitching in to the terrible fund of sin. Incarnate, like Rice Crispies and vodka. First think in the morning you live up like sunshine and when the day is done you splash down like rain. Here I stand slowly running like rivers through the dark slow night. I see over the horizon a little slice of morn. A little slice of the day. A little slice of pleasure and pain, like bittersweet thanks raining down in your mug that clatters like change of heart, mind, body and spiritual reverence in the pews. Here I stand giving alms to your beauty, but like my god you've ignored the prayer. You ignore the prayer. Still you ignore the prayer. Beads and incense in the rain, where the sounds are drowned out and the cinders are cooled to a soft smoke, like the night. Standing in the sun, I decide to rain. Standing in the sun I seep into the ground, pooling into a box and drifting off slowly to sleep with the worms. Here, I know love. The love I siphoned from you. Asleep, I know you. Asleep, I know you. Asleep. Julia: I know you can hear me, Sally. I love you dammit. Come back to me, please! Stop this, you're hurting yourself! Can't see your bleeding? Sally, please stop this. I'll tell them, I tell them you're my damned step-mother and we're fucking each other, okay? I'll tell them you're my maternal mother, anything, okay? I don't give a shit about anything but you. [Sally looks up at Julia and puts her arms around Julia's neck] I don't give a shit about anything but you. [both hug and kiss passionately] Sally's Imagination: What do any of us want but a little love? What do any of us want but a little compassion? What do any of us want but a little hope? What do any of us want? What indeed... Eleventh Story (An apartment with a whore: New York, 1982) Whore: [walks into the room barely dressed] Tell me you love me. Joe: I love you. Whore: Tell me you love me like you really do love me. Joe: I really, really love you. I really love you. Whore: Tell me you think I'm beautiful. Joe: You are so beautiful.. Whore: No one else is as beautiful as me. Joe: No one. Not one single soul. Whore: Tell me you want me. Joe: Oh God, do I ever. Whore: Do you ever what? Joe: Do I ever want you. Whore: What do want me for? Joe: Everything. Whore: Tell me, what do you want to do with me specifically. Joe: I want to take you in these hands that have seen Time slip through them as sand through an hourglass. I want to hold you like a perfectly beautiful raspberry child and drink you entirely into my heart. I want to mold you and shape you into a goddess from the pure golden form that you already are. I want to explode worlds in your womb. I want to siphon the heavens from your breasts, inhale your lips like the tears from a rose. I want to run my brittle fingers through the blades of your hair like so much wheat in a burning field that I catch on fire and burn you with my passion. Whore: Come here. Joe: Tell me that again. Demand that from me. Whore: I said come here! Joe: No one has ever said that to me. Conscience #1: No one has ever had to say that, Joe. She loves you too much to need to demand anything. Joe: I want it fucking demanded of me. Whore: I demand you come here now, dammit, and fuck me like a slave. Conscience #2: Like a slave, Joe. Do you hear her? Conscience #1: Two slaves fucking. Conscience #2: You're a slave Joe. A slave to this crime. Conscience #1: It will haunt you. It will corrode you. It will eat you alive from the very guts of your existence. Conscience #2: It will swallow you whole from the inside out until it destroys everything and everyone around you. Joe: No! Conscience #2: She's a whore of destruction, Joe. Whore's suck life as well as dick. Joe: No! Whore: No Joe, that's right. It's nasty. I'm nasty. I'm a nasty little girl that needs a good, stiff spanking. Hit me, Joe. Punish me, Joe. Joe: I will, dammit. I will punish you. Conscience #1: Punish yourself as well. Let her consume you. Let her punish you for this. Joe: I deserve this. I deserve this for everything that has been done to me. I deserve this pleasure. Whore: I want to give you pleasure unlike any dream has ever shown you. Joe: Dammit. I'm the one that earns the money, I'm the one that slaves 50 hours every fucking week to bring home money so that bitch can fucking spend it on a new set of pumps, not her. That vitamin-shit job doesn't earn us enough to buy a fuckin' stick of gum. I the one that get the dough, I'm the one that fucking sits there while that bitch takes me for everything I have, every fucking cent I am. It's me. It's me, dammit, not her! I'm allowed to spend this anyway I please, and this pleases me. This ripe titted, succulent peach is mine to reap. This is my bounty, my enrichment. This is mine because I earned it and it pleases me. Conscience #2: This is yours. This is your street trash. This is your crime. Everything that you've worked hard to earn, this is yours to throw away and destroy, burn like trash with this pestilence. Conscience #1: Burn like trash with this disease. Whore: Reap me, Joe. I want to be reaped. I'm asking for it Joe. I'm telling you no, but you know I mean yes! Yes! Oh God, Joe. Joe, take me now, I'm feeling the universe burn like wildfire inside of me, Joe. Come to me, satisfy my desire! Conscience #2: You are nothing without your little fantasies. You are incapable of leading a real life, you need these illusions to flesh out the sickly bones you call life. You are worthless, Joe. You are completely worthless without this dream of perfection. Conscience #1: She doesn't know you, Joe. You paid for her, you met her in a sleazy bar, but she's everything you've ever wanted. Conscience #2: Illusions. Falsehood. Lies. Joe: She wants me. She wants me more than any woman ever has. Whore: I want you like any woman ever will. Joe: She wants me like any woman ever will again. Conscience #2: She wants you and your money, again and again because the bill needs to be paid. You can't fuck her without paying her first. You can have nothing- Conscience #1: Nothing without your precious money. Conscience #2: Money for the drinks. Conscience #1: Money for the room. Conscience #2: Money for the pot so that you can get stoned enough to forget what you're doing. Conscience #1: Money for the whore. Joe: No, dammit! I don't need to pay her for her to love me! Whore: Forget about that, Joe. It's your time and mine. It's our time to do everything we've ever been told not to do. Let's break the rules together, Joe. Conscience #2: Money for the whore. Conscience #1: Money for the whore. Conscience #2: Money for the whore, Joe. Conscience #1: Money.. money.. money.. Joe: No! Conscience #2: Do you really wanna go on like this? Conscience #1: Do you really wanna go on like this? Conscience #2: Do you really wanna go on like this? Conscience #1: Get to the bottom of the well. Joe: No! No dammit, she's mine! Conscience #1: Do you really wanna go on like this? Conscience #2: Do you really wanna go on like this? Conscience #1: Do you really wanna go on like this? Conscience #2: Get to the bottom of the well. Joe: God dammit, I said she's mine! [runs over to whore and fucks her.] Twelfth Story (Driving home after the evening with the whore: New York, 1982) Joe: [talking a poem that is going through his head] Everywhere the air tastes like gypsum. Alone in a night meant for cold, hard sex, and all can I claim is my loss. There comes a hallowed drop of rain falling through the darkness, landing stately atop my cheekbone, running down onto my dry, cracked lips. I cock my head back to scry the heavens, of which I see none. Above the sound of the automobiles and the sirens comes screams way off in the distance, I know those screams, I've heard them all before. “You always know your friends,” he said, “its your enemies that give you trouble.” Jimmi told me that in a dream. Jimmi was a moron. Burn your damn guitars Jimmi, you let the drug take your head. You let the drug take your life. I know you were a good man, Jimmi, but the drug, man, the fuckin drug took you down, man, way down, too far down. You didn't even know where you were anymore, did you Jimmi? You didn't even see the blazing bullet sing through the air and catch Joe right in the side, did you man? You didn't even see the gun. That's why I let you burn. I know too much, I know so God damn much that all I can do is travel from town to town and taste the rain. I'm not to blame, but I've seen the flames. I seen it blaze and burn, and now it's my turn. My turn to die. I held a life before I felt the knife. I can't have, I can't hold. I can love you though, I can love you till death do us part. Death did its part. I loved you so much, Sally, I loved you so much it hurt everywhere over just to watch.. Just to watch as they.. as the drug took you down also. Took you so far down you didn't even know where you were. All you could do was scream, isn't that right? Scream as the flames came. Scream over and over and over again as the flames did its part. I dealt out what I thought was justice. Now I serve my time. “Hey, bub, you gotta light?” someone said. I heard the hammer click back and take position against me. Turning around brought into my sight an angel. An angel with a flaming sword. “You burn?” he asked me. I burn good. “This is from Jimmi,” he said. Then on came the thunder. That is why I burn. Thirteenth Story (Bill's House: Seattle, 1989) Joe: I've never seen the sun before. Bill: What do you mean you've never seen the sun before, it's been right above your head your entire fucking life. Joe: Jesus, Bill. Of course I've looked at the sun, but I've never really.. never really seen the sun, you know? Got a good strong look at the thing before. Bill: Is that right? Joe: Yeah that's right. It may not be as fascinating as that big-titted jogger bouncing by- Bill: What jogger? Joe: The sun.. I dunno. The sun is something that we've seem to lost our faith in. You know it used to be God? Bill: What did? Joe: The mother-fucking sun, asshole. The sun used to be God. Bill: Did it get demoted? Joe: Jesus, Bill. What you know about besides ass and beer? Bill: I know you're talking like some sort of freak. Joe: I ain't talking like any freak here. Jane left me because I never noticed the simple things about her. You know what I did? I sat there on my wide ass looking at the titties bouncing on the cheerleaders, drinking my beer, stuffing my face with chips, and I told her `I know you're simple honey. What do you mean I never noticed?' I called her a fucking moron when she was trying to get me to notice the beautiful things about her that I overlooked. It's like the sun. Hell, I didn't have any fucking clue what she meant by `the simple things' about her. But the sun has those little delicate attributes that we never really notice. The way it throws down rays on the dew every morning, making the roses look something like diamonds. That's what Jane was, a beautiful diamond that I mistook for an inconvenience every morning, just like the sun. I think I deserved to get dumped. Bill: My ass. You deserved to get dumped for some fucking lesbo-nazi bitch? Instead of getting a good dick like she needs, she's out there lickin' some damn twat. Tell me that don't piss you off, Joe? Joe: And what, say that we're much better than a woman? Bill: For a woman a man is the best damn thing, no exceptions! Joe: Come on, Bill. Look at you. You're sitting there with your damn gut busting out of your jeans at six in the damn morning, sucking on a six pack as if they were outlawed, staring at your next door neighbor's sixteen year-old daughter. You're thirty-six Bill, staring at a little girl. Bill: She's got a nice ass. Joe: She's got a nice ass? Your day off and you get up at seven and call me over to stare at some ass? and I'm supposed to what? thank you? Bill: If you didn't want to come over, you didn't have to. Joe: I thought we were going to.. I dunno, maybe watch the sun come up or maybe go out to breakfast to cheer me up. Cup of Denny's coffee, maybe some sausage and gravy biscuits, bread a jam. Start my morning off real nice, go do something like shoot some hoops over on 5th, maybe head down to the Hittin Shax for some ball. I wasn't expecting to check out some damn ass and show me what I don't got anymore, what the hell next? Bill: Well, Sam opens the place up around noon. I could throw us some bologna sandwiches together, get a beer, shoot some pool. That sort of thing. Maybe rent us a titty movie.. no, I know, something real special for my pal. We'll go down to the strip joint off Brookshire and.. hell, I'll buy you anything you see that you want. There's a day for you! Joe: I'm leaving. Bill: Leaving? No, you're not leaving. I just got the Playboy channel installed. Stay for a bit. I'll even stay on the commode if you need me to for a few minutes. Hell I don't mind. Joe: You really don't listen to anyone but yourself. Ever noticed that Bill? Why'd Sara leave you again? Because you were nothing but a lazy slob that only cares about yourself? Bill: She was a bitch. She didn't fucking know that she had it so good. Running around with some playfuck like some common street whore. Joe: Shouldn't that excite you? That's all you've been talking about all morning. Little pups jogging around with their tights half-way up their ass, watching the TV. and getting tapes of people who fuck their way to stardom, even going over to Archie's to buy me a whore. Hell, Bill. I'd think that'd excite the hell out of you. Bill: Listen, Joe. I know you're upset, but you're really starting to step over the lines here. Joe: Am I? How's about I just step out the line between your house and the road. Bill: Joe, come on. What about our day? Joe: Sorry Bill, the sun don't stay up forever you know. Fourteenth Story (Sara's apartment: Chicago, 1969) Sara: [lying on a sofa as the voice of Joe reads to her.] Joe's Voice: The blanket was checkered red and white, the one we sat on. I stared intently at it, thinking. Thinking. I could feel her smile, its soul warmth. Looking up, her mouth, glistening from bite of a strawberry, emitted that warmth. The field's golden wheat swayed in the wind, and was the only sight for miles. Miles from humanity. Miles for lust. Caressingly, she grabbed the back of my neck and sunk to her elbows. Pulling me closer. Closer. Closer against her breasts. I could taste the strawberries. My hand ran up her blouse, opening each button, slowly. Her breathing quickened along with her pulse, as did mine... I opened her blouse, showing the suns warmth her beautiful chest. Taking the half bitten strawberry from her hand, I ran the juice from her naval, up her stomach, between her breasts, against her neck, over her chin, and onto her tongue. Following each pattern with my own tongue. Following the sweet juice. I could taste the strawberries. My hand ran down her silken body, over her thighs, down to the bottom of her skirt. Slowly, I ran the strawberry from her calves, up her legs, and onto her inner thighs. Drawing down with the same motions, and my finger dragging her underclothing along also. With each inch my hand slid down, I could feel her breathing quicken along with her pulse, as did mine. One, kind, gentle hand, slowly drew my belt through its loops, And drew down my zipper, finished by the snap. She, as slow and graceful as a dove, undid my buttons. One, by one, by one. With a passion uncontrolled by mortal thoughts, she ran her hands along my legs, taking my trousers along also. She dug.. dug deep into my back. She dug very deep into my back. As I followed the strawberries. Fifteenth Story (Bill's Apartment in College, Chicago: 1969, getting stoned) Joe: [attempting to remember a letter from Sally] I almost kind'a said hello when you walked into the plaza, midnight it was, but I hadn't the foggiest word in my head, she said, on a dead letter that was left at the tip of my tombstone when I awoke that morning. And should I respond with agony, rust, in a brown wayside manner of thinking? Bill: No. Joe: [to audience] The chaperone to my lover who destroyed it all in tune with the moon.. in a black ironed tux with blue jeans and a `Save the Whale' tattoo on his chin- what a place that is. [to Bill] So I asked him suave why he thought that so, and he responded in a bleak manner of thinking, a pattern Kennedy used when the iron idea shot through his skull, that: Bill: I was not ready for the thick and the sick and the thin of it all. Joe: Holy hellion what a day that was! When the sun ran with rain, I saw it all through the eyes of Gershwin. You never really remembered how much came about from my relationship of silver and myrrh. So how in the band can you play that tune? Bill: What an odd reference. I never heard it said so well, `cept when Noah when down with the ship. Joe: What sayin'? Dr. Beat [to audience] I called him that when he spoke plain- no cream cheese with that bagel please. Bill: I got'ta say, Rafael- Joe: He calls me that when I slobbered from speaking too quick- or if you got'ta say it right, say it tomorrow when you had enough time to think about it all). Bill: Are you lost in the notion or should we drop this entire ordeal? Joe: [slurred and drawn out] No! [corrects himself] Let's start right from the top. I got a large bag of oats I feel like sowing, and I haven't the foggiest where to reap. Bill: Don't speak of it... not at present. I know a man down in Borneo with a large bottom lip. He says that you ain't all that shit, he does. He says that if you got'ta run from her sex-u-al or-gans, then you might as well masturbate. Joe: Wow! Philosophical. [to audience] I figured I'd stop there cause when Bill went on about Korean refugees, you knew you were bound to get slanted. So I stopped, ripped the page she had folded in my mind and allowed it to soak in the heaven's tears, and threw it into the violent wind: which I say only to annoy him, cause Bill don't like no violent winds screwing up his thought patterns of Buddy Holly and the Moon Walk Kid. He, or Bill, or Dr. Beat (should I say?) watched the snow fall on that sunny day, God been shakin' his nappy dandruff gain, and forgot it all passed. I smiled, as I'd been known to do on days like that, and hit him in the shoulder. So he asked me again: Bill: Do ya' love her? Joe: I do love her, [to audience] I told him. Bill: So, I was gon'na ask why you shredded the letter, but I forgot what I was askin' ya' anyhow. Joe: Ain't it a sight? Every writer is God, and don't my nappy head itch? Tomorrow, I'll say it right tomorrow. After a good century of death and singin' Elvis tunes, the rhythm should come out just right. Sixteenth Story (Joe's Head: The inset of reason, 1970.) Joe: Every shining mirror offers what some may call the reflection of possibilities, but I would say that it is purely the beauty of an abstract placebo known to be inherent in the self. In that all life is merely the shadow of an acute existence, we must provide gods for ourselves to remind us that nothing can truly achieve Nirvana. Thus only the man who removes the shackles of opinion can ever walk as pure light and breath as one with the rhythmic persistence of the ocean. I have come to lose my faith in Nirvana, so why haven't I achieved it? When I look at my reflection, no gods stand behind me because I haven't invited them to dinner. And this shadow of mine doesn't even follow my own motions. I do believe that I- in fact- follow my own shadow, which hasn't gotten me far in this life. So what am I worth in the next? Will I become a god since I truly have no opinion of what a god is? Will I one day awake with the divine axiom that I am worth my weight in prayer? Or will I simply give myself a shave to peel off the epidermal layer of cognition and flush it down the sink, look at myself as a pawn and declare checkmate against every man I've ever been at war with, only to find that there is only one man that I've truly defeated and that is the man looking back at me in the mirror? I think I'm fooling myself. I think that all of these illusions are the beating heart behind unwarranted desire and the blood to which I have my egotism to thank is pumping ever so lightly in these last few years because it has given of faith in ever achieving anything, Nirvana still inclusive. As I watch the grains of sand slowly sift threw the beautiful curves of my lover, it becomes self-evident that all of these years I was guided by reflections in the inhuman, a painted piece of glass or the drugs that offered visions. In her I realize that mirrors do offer the reflections of possibilities as well as these abstract placebos such as Heaven and Hell or even the grandeur of Nirvana; it is in the human reflection that I truly see what `is' and has been since Time reproduced with Chance. I see myself through the splendor of a diamond, where everything is crystalline and so intricate as to form a maze of `being'. This is what I am `being'- truth shall be achieved from knowing this. If only truth wasn't yet another abstract placebo, I could actually claim to understand something for once in my time, and stop staring at myself in the mirror. Seventeenth Story (Al's Eats Diner: Chicago, 1969) Sara: I had a dream the other night. Bill and I.. we were standing on the edge of a wing on a plane. Big airliner type thing goin' real fast. I remember being real scared.. but I wasn't sliding back or anything. I was just sort of there, you know? Bill grabbed me by my shoulders and squeezed tight, like he was protecting me or something, I dunno. He says: 'Seraphim, you got nothing to worry about..' just like that. Like he was some big Italian hotshot. Sally: He called you Seraphim? Sara: That's what I said. 'Seraphim,' he says, 'you got nothing to worry about..' and he picks me up, people lookin' out the windows at us, and we jump right off the edge of the plane, the wings that is, and land in back of some rednecks truck and he starts yellin at us that we broke his bed and stuff like that. He comes runnin' at us with a pitchfork or something and looks mad and all, but says that he ain't mad, he's got another bed in the garage. So he asks us.. me and Bill.. inside for a drink, and his wife starts shaving cocoa off a block of the stuff and puts it in some milk.. hot chocolate, you know? Not that I ever saw it carved or made fresh like that before, but she does this. And as I'm watchin' her, I see the chocolate shavings goin' down the drain, all spiralin' and.. you know, in a swirl. And I say's to myself, that's what it's all about.. [wide grin]. Sally: You lost me. Sara: That's what it's all about. Sally: Chocolate shavings? Sara: No.. risk, adventure. Lookin' at stuff in a new light and not being so judgmental and all. Sally: Give me a break. You're in college and a waitress in some dump, thinkin' all about adventure, like you're ever gonna even make it outta Chicago. Sara: I got dreams you know. Sally: So do I, Sara.. they just ain't goin' nowhere.. Head Waiter: Sara, Sally, come on girls, you got things to do before you can clear out tonight. Get some of them dishes cleaned up, will ya? I'm gonna check on that girl up front. Sara: [said to Sally who is wiping off the counter] You see that poor girl that just walked out? I bet she just lost herself a man. Poor thing's heart broken.. that's awful. Sally: You're such a saint. [laughs] Head Waiter: Sara! Hey, I need some help in the back here Sally: You did good. Go help dickweed in the freezer before he has a coronary. [exits] Head Waiter: [enters a moment later] Thought I'd save you before she started getting all freakish again. Sally: I don't see why you're so hard on her. She's just lonely, looking for a good man in a selection of none. Head Waiter: She's a sappy-hearted freak. Sally: You're a Dead Head. What's the difference between freaks? Head Waiter: Well, the whole attitude about life for one.. Sally: You have an attitude beyond drugs? Head Waiter: Come on, you know how she's always talking about this boy or that boy, every one of them a fuckin looser. Damn girl's got her panties in a knot every Tuesday because another asshole got fresh with her and then dumped her on her ass when she wouldn't put out. She's probably a closet dyke trying to mold herself into a straight girl. Sally: Oh, there it is! I was trying to put my finger on it all this time, and it was right there, rolled tight and burning on the tip of your tongue. Head Waiter: Hey man, the possibilities are all around us. Sally: [mockingly reaching out in the air] Will I get stoned tonight, won't I get stoned tonight? Will I find enough acid for all my freak friends, will there only be enough for me? Head Waiter: You're just blind to the possibilities, man. Walking around life, blind to the possibilities. Sara: [entering] I took all the empty boxes out of the freezer and got that stuff pushed to the back. Sally: Smoke break? Head Waiter: What're you talkin' smoke break? A customer just sat down. Sara: [to Head Waiter] Willie's back from the Quickie Mart. He wants you two to put it in the machines. Head Waiter: Fuck man. [exits] Sara: You're welcome. Sally: He can be such a fucking prick some times. Why in the hell do you let him push you around like he does all the time? [pause] Are you listening to a word I'm sayin? Sara: Yes. I heard you cuss. Sally: I cuss sometimes. Sara: Only when you're mad. [points to two boxes] Get those two, would you? Sally: [straining] These are heavy. Sara: They wouldn't be so heavy if you'd start smoking and stop barking all the time. Sally: That makes no sense. Here, take these, I gotta get that customer. [walks over to the Prophet] Hiya. Whatcha lookin for this evening? Can I get you a cup of coffee? Prophet: Sure. Sara: Okay.. how about something to eat? Or you need more time? Prophet: Yeah.. gimme a sec. Just a cup of coffee to start with. Sally: [walks back over to Sara] Talkin' about a freak. That coat he's wearing looks like the one that girl you were looking at was wearing. Probably killed her for the damn thing. [pulls out a coffee cup, fills it to the brim, walks it back over to the customer, and slides it over to him as he is sitting there reading the menu, shaking his hand in a crazed manner] Sugar's right there.. and if you need any cream just ask. Prophet: [said under his breath] Miss... Sally: I'm sorry? Prophet: What did you say to the other waitress about me? Sally: I missed that. What'd you need? Prophet: I wanted you to tell me what you said about me to the other waitress. Sally: Oh uh, I just commenting on your jacket. Prophet: What about it? Sally: It just looked familiar, that's all. If you need anything else, just ask. Prophet: Miss? Sally: Yes? Prophet: I didn't steal it. Sally: I didn't say you did. Prophet: But you thought it. Sally: No, I just noticed it. It's not like that's the only coat like it in the world. Prophet: But it is.. you don't know what coat I have on. Sally: A brown corduroy coat with a big collar. Prophet: There's more to this coat. It's alive with people's souls. Here, the man said, lifting up his arm, revealing a dark maroon blotch dried into the sleeve, this is blood from when a lover tried to get his whore girlfriend out of an apartment and was wasted by her pimp. Sally: That's great. You don't need anything else, do you? Prophet: And here's a brandy stain from two lovers on the floor by a fire in the mountains by a lake. This is a bullet hole from.. Sally: Sir, I don't mean to be rude, but I do have to get some work done. Would you like anything to eat? [Sara looks nervously at Sally and the Prophet] Prophet: Here is a clean spot. One day an Indian shall find this coat and learn its powers and leave behind, not only his symbol, but the symbol of the coat also. The teller of tales, knower of dreams, seer of visions, the storyteller. Sally: I'll come back in a bit, when you're ready to order. Prophet: You wanna know what the first thing the coat ever saw was? It was my fathers coat, and it was sitting on the couch the day he was murdered. My sisters boyfriend busted outta jail and beat him over the skull with a crowbar and drowned him in a fish tank. Then, the two went up stairs and tied my mother to her bed with sheets, poured lighter fluid all over her and lit her on fire. I never saw anything until my sisters said I was free. Then I grabbed the jacket and ran out the front door. The jacket showed me everything. Every last bit of it. Sally: You're parents were murdered? Prophet: By my sister and her boyfriend. Sally: What happened to them afterwards? Prophet: I don't know. My life has been spent trying to retrieve the storyteller. Sally: That jacket? Prophet: The storyteller. Sally: Is it magick? Prophet: About as magick as your imagination. Sally: Can I put it on? Prophet: You have dreams? Sally: Yes, doesn't everyone? Prophet: Then you can't wear the coat. Sally: I thought you said it was like imagination or something like that. Prophet: It is. Sally: So, why can't I wear it. Dreams are imagination, right? Prophet: Yes. But the coat feeds off souls who live so vividly that they can not dream. Sleep is their only silence. Tell me your story. Eighteenth Story (Joe's Head: Seattle, 1989) Joe: [all to audience] There comes a time when nothing is real, when you look back at everything you've done in your life and you feel like you could laugh yourself into a grave. The moral of your story is bittersweet, and this is a pitiful realization, because everyone has a story to tell, and yours isn't worth the brain cells it's imprinted upon. All of this strikes you like a cloud of worthlessness. Inside of the fear, you grow sicker and sicker, knowing full well that at the end of this desolate tunnel lies those innocent green pastures. With that in mind, you break into a sprint. The run becomes more difficult and, when the sweat- or blood- is pouring from your brow, you realize that you started this journey at the drop of your heart which wounded you to the soul. You began the race with a shattered heart. This fact hurts no more than of all the others. It's the truth that hurts. The truth that the pieces of your heart that you've been running away from all this time still lies underneath your pacing feet. You realize that it was all done for nothing at all. I'd like to thank you all for dropping by. I hope the matrede was a kind man, I pay him well enough to be so. There is nothing I hate more than a man of hate. I see you have dressed for the occasion. I appreciate that feat, I'll take note of it in my will. I speak in riddles, your face seems malformed with that truth. Forgive me for my rudeness. You are here, standing alone on a countryside that overlooks a great nation of daisies. There is more. The wind is calm and the sun is bright. The clouds are breaking and shaping into something else. I can't tell you what they are because this is all my dream. I see her standing alone in this field and I thought it best for you to stop on in and tell me if she is beautiful. See her standing before you, I believe I love her. I wouldn't know, and I realize that you wouldn't know because she is my dream. I would describe her to you, but what good would that do. With words I paint images and with images you paint emotions. Thus, with my words I paint your emotions. I could paint you love, then you would be biased to one answer, hate would influence you likewise. Turn away now, you are no longer needed here. I shall figure it out incognito. I've embarrassed myself. Prophet: [to audience] Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Joe: The words are slurred. My face is painted a bright pink as I hide inside of her bosoms, something I was not invited to do. With fragmented prose I weave a short-hand tale of pity and misadventure. This is so difficult for me to say, it being the truth for once. Let me begin by telling you... I hate to start that way. Prophet: [to audience] Shut the fuck up asshole, you might learn something for once. Joe: Slow, take a deep breath and relax. Counting backwards from ten will bring the last ten seconds of your life right back into place. Now then, this is what has happened: I remember asking her if this was the proper thing to be doing. I remember the pain involved when exactly the same thing was done to myself, and now I find that I am doing it, not to some worthless fag some three hours away from my life, but to my very own friend! Some days back, I lost my precious lover. This you know. As of late, I ran across what I thought to be the most beautiful human I've ever known. She was already seeing someone else. They were both friends of mine. Now, I have become the enemy. Not to either of them, but to myself. We traveled into another dimension. The journey into the comforting, peaceful lands was simple. We walked through the grass into Woodhenge. The circle of pines lie below the majestic midnight stars while the pearls set in his royal bosom gleamed beautifully. The wind blew coldly, we huddled close together so as not to catch that cold inside of our young bones. Our souls leapt out of our bodies and danced around the trees. They made ghostly love in the dead of night. We continued on, through the Elizabethan rose garden, over to a small stone wall overlooking a shallow river. The moon cut through the forest and painted its image on the waters surface. It smiled as we laid in each others arms... Dream of Sally: ..I never knew how to cast a spell until I learned the craft of you... Joe: ..and became what could only be in this realm. Dream of Sally: Lovers. Joe: I believe that the moment has been lost forever. Words can paint you whatever they please. They can not bring back the dead, they can not make tangible a whispering dream. They can only echo inside of a hollow soul. Dream of Sally: I miss you, you know I miss you and still you smile at me like nothing ever happened. Everything that is not only difficult for me, but also incredibly destructive, is only a passing memory for you. What could you be thinking? I sit beside you in bed, knowing that touching you could set you sailing away far across the ocean, and this terrifies me. Why is there no justice? Can I not say to you, I miss you. You know I miss you and still you smile at me like nothing ever happened. Joe: Nothing ever happened. I thought it best to memorize those three words. I thought it best because there are other words, three other words much smaller than the previous three that I've mentioned. Those words are easy to say, I need not memorize them. Prophet: [to audience] They come to me when I look into your eyes. Joe: Those jade eyes of the Devil, of Desire. Dream of Sally: Take me now, we'll run through the trees and dodge the steel beams of reality that are constructing walls around us too high to leap. Run with me, we'll kiss the sky as we sail over its boundaries. I'll breath life into your sails with my lips as I sail into your boundaries. Joe: Nothing ever happened. I miss her now, I miss her terribly, but I imagine that my pain means nothing to her. I wouldn't know what to say to her. I thought it mere coincidence that while I was at a loss for words, I found the phone number of God inside my little box o' dreams. I called him on the phone, halfway through the act of tears, pleading for him to send me a copy of The Twenty-One Lives of Joe. I knew that if I could get my hands on the most sweetest words ever spoken about a woman, if I could memorize each one and recite the most precious of the lot, maybe I could be the one she holds tight too while slipping off into her dreams. Prophet: [to Joe] You are not lost, what good would a road map do you? What do you mean by telling me I'm not lost? How in the hell can I know where I am when nothing looks the same. Everything is jumbled around. The puzzle is missing most of its pieces, Lord. How can you tell me I'm not lost? Prophet: Don't you realize, my child, that you are right back where you started from? You've been running in place all this time. The strawberries never withered away, they merely bloomed. You didn't recognize this. You thought it best to dismiss the change and wither away yourself, blaming everyone around you. Joe: But God... Prophet: Look around, the fields are back. Joe: I thought about the truth behind that statement. It's hard believing it's all true when the only words inside of my head are: Prophet: How many times in a day do you fall in love? Joe: I told him once, and that I don't ever plan on doing it again. I didn't lie, I never planned on falling in love again. I lost everything I ever had with Leigh Anne, so I can't recall this thing called love. I remember it was warm, and that the mere presence of it made me fell alive. I know it was comforting, I know it disappeared. Along those lines, I know she is warm and her company makes me feel alive. I know her touch is comforting, and I fear she is disappearing. I would throw her a buoy, but what good would it do? I'm the one drowning. Am I doing it because I enjoy the pain? Do I know that she is interested in me, so it is my goal to run at full force until she stops me, wounding me all the worse? Am I going to get hurt? I don't know. I wish I knew, although I wish it more to know that she loves me. Nothing in this world is black or white. Everything is gray. It's left to us to discern the colors. If the planet stops whilst I battle for glory, so be it. My world has ended with blood spilt over dreams. The sheets of passion may be stained a dark red, but I know I shall never withdrawal. I know no surrender. If I die before she awakens, then I pray her dreams will carry me on. Twentieth Story (Hittin Shax: Seattle, 1989) Joe: I've destroyed myself, Bill. Every minute that I've lived, I've destroyed myself. Bill: How's that. You've got a good job, a good mess of friends. So you're wife's a lesbian, I'm sure it's happened to the best guys. That sure as hell doesn't mean your life is shit, does it Ida? Joe: Hell, I left my husband for a woman. I don't see nothing wrong with that. Bill: You're a dyke? Ida: Proud of it. Too much further with that, Bill, and your drinks might end up unpleasantly spiked. Bill: See, Ida's a dyke. You know any woman that can make a better Double Rum Chaser than Ida? Joe: Bill.. I dunno. It just seemed that when Jane and I met back in the 60s there wasn't anything the two of us couldn't accomplish. I mean, after I got out of jail for the be-in, she was there. Hell, Bill, that was against everything she ever believed in, but she was there for me. She stuck by me. Ida: It's not easy to find a woman that'll do something like that for you. Joe: Hell yeah it is. And what did I do? I went out and slept with a fucking whore behind her back and then started fucking her goddamned best friend on a constant basis. I drove her from her little job selling vitamins to sleeping with some little puss. I did that to her Bill. Ida: I think that if your wife slept with another woman and ran away with her it had very little to do with you. Joe: No! I was the bad husband. Ida: Well, that's a good reason to leave you. But I think the lesbian part of it was something of her own reasoning. Joe: It doesn't matter. She left me. I want her back. Sleeping with another man or another woman, I don't give a rat's ass. I just.. I just want something. I just want it all to end. Ida: Have a drink, it'll all go away. Joe: No. No it won't. Remember the dream I told you about, Bill. The one at the train station that I never really could figure out? It was telling me that I needed to choose to take the pain away. It was telling me that there is so.. so much shit going on in the mother-of-all-fucking planets and the only way to make it out is to decide to make it out. Bill: And you decide to make it out? Joe: I decide to make it right. The poem I gave her, the one about the strawberry fields where she and I are laying on the checkered blanket? Bill: Yeah. Joe: That was about love. Simple love that I wrote down in a poem or two but never really gave to her. Bill: I thought you said she loved that poem. Joe: No.. I mean, I yeah, I gave the damn poem to her, but not what the poem meant. Bill: She didn't understand the poem? Joe: She understood the damn poem. It's just that.. well, I didn't, I guess. I didn't understand what it meant to give my little ball of sunlight the love she deserved. That night we four went to see that strange comedian or whatever the fuck that lounge act was that was talking about the funeral parlor- Bill: Weird fuck.. Joe: Hell man, he had it all figured out. Walk away from the Grand Canyon that is destroying you and do something with yourself. Well I am. Bill: You are huh? Joe: I am. I mother-fucking am. Bill: Well good for you. Ida, another one for my friend here who's finally going to do something about it. Joe: You've still got that pistol in your glove compartment, Bill? Bill: Never leave home without it. Too many crazies around. Ida, gimme a Red Rock, would ya? No more of that light shit- Joe: Gimme your keys. Bill: What you need my keys for? I think we'd better take a cab home, buddy. We've had- Joe: I need.. uh, I need to get my wallet so that I can pay for the drinks. Bill: I told you I'd pay for your drinks and I intend on doing that. Joe: Yeah, I know. I just feel safer to have it... just in case I drink a little more than you can afford. Bill: Good luck on that one, I've got the bank with me. Joe: Bill. Bill: Get your damn wallet and get your ass right back in here. I'm planning on drinking you so far under the table- [Joe takes keys and runs out the door.] Now there's an eager feller for you, Ida. You aughta try something like that. There's a ripe piece of meat for you. Ida: You just gave a half-drunk man who's drowning in his own misery the keys to a car with a gun in it? Bill: Joe's not crazy. He's just getting his wallet. He just told me so. Ida: Do you know where his ex lives? Joe: Sure do. She gave me that number just in case.. just in case Joe did something crazy.. Ida: Does Joe know where she lives? Bill: I accidentally told him once, but he never mentioned it so I doubt he really knows. Ida: If you really do care for your little friend there, my advice would be to call his ex immediately and tell her about Joe and the gun. Bill: Women. Damned if I'll ever understand you. Gimmie the damn phone so's I don't have to hear your yap anymore tonight. [Ida hands Bill the phone and he dials a number.] Hey Sally, it's Bill. [pause] Yeah, well, this ain't no pleasure call for me. Ida said I should call you and tell ya that Joe's been all weird, getting depressed about doing something to get out of the mud that he's been crawling through. [pause] I dunno, getting even, stuff like that. So he's got my car which might possibly have a gun in it. [pause] Sally? Sally? [Hands phone back to Ida.] She hung up. Women.. I'll be damned. Twenty-first Story (Seattle: 1989) [Joe, Sally, and a gun.] FIN