by David Mamet
My god, we've done what we should not have. (Pause.)
I'm sure we must have.
Seventeen
Patti: We wait for someone—
Kevin: Tie me up and beat me.
Patti: Look, I told him, look, what do I care if I am right for you or not (for me or not) (if you are . . . ?)
All I only care is do I want to be with you (because I want to be with you) and that you would make me happy.
Kevin: Yes, I swear to God that if I have to spend another Sunday evening by myself that I am going to blow my brains out.
Patti: Look:
Kevin: Now is this so unreasonable?
Sam: Precious anomalies of lovers’ flesh, quirks of behavior, heartbreaking inside curves of thigh. (Pause.) The curriculum of small cabals that we endeavor to create or to prolong . . .
Patti: (Don't stop . . . )
Sam: . . . The search for an exclusive union redolent of saltwater and gun oil; alcohol on cotton balls after tattooing, soap, and liquid-paper . . .
Kevin: Individuating qualities.
Like fires burnt out on the beach.
Sam: (The orthographical misjudgments in her love letters . . . )
Patti (Pause): Yes.
Sam: Our small cabals. (Pause.) And why not?
Kevin: Secret moon-borne signals are denied us, and we spill our seed upon the ground. (Pause.)
At the moment of our death we still embrace catholicism or the flag or reach for our executors. (Pause.)
Our great epiphany by some bizarre concidence comes at the moment of our death.
Sam: When they get deep. (Pause.) Women, when they moan, they go nuts and their voices get deep. They are saying “look (I think) this is not what you think it is,” they're saying “look.” (Pause.)
Kevin: So enthrall to that saline flesh.
Sam: (Yes.)
Patti: We know the organism is by no means perfect. We can admit the possibility of some divine control (or absence of control). Of some Much Greater plan, or oversight. We recognize this in the body, we can see the flesh is far from perfect. We are the repositories of disease and physical disaster. This is patent, and we see that something is mistaken. (Pause.) What if this undignified and headlong thrusting toward each other's sex is nothing but an oversight or physical malformity? (Pause.)
Should we not, perhaps, retrain ourselves to revel in the sexual act not as the consummation of predestined and regenerate desire, but rather as a two-part affirmation of our need for solace in extremis.
Kevin: (Goodnight.)
Patti: In a world where nothing works.
Sam: No.
Patti: In which we render extreme unction with our genitalia. (Pause.)
