by Ian Doescher
More likely to taste cake of his own kind,
Less likely to enjoy romantic dancing,
More likely to be on the disco floor,
Less likely to be wild than to read Wilde,
More likely to be one of Streisand’s lads,
Less like to Dor’thy date than be her friend—
Is not my meaning obvious to thee?
CHER
A lad’s lad? Nay.
MURRAY
—The lad is gay, forsooth:
He makes his heaven in a fellow’s lap,
And decks his body in gay ornaments,
And witches sweet chaps with his words and looks.
CHER
Not even—
MURRAY
—Yea, most even, verily.
DIONNE
Thou must admit, Cher, he doth like to shop,
To purchase garments in a vast array.
As thou hast said, the lad is better dress’d
Than many of compeers—e’en ourselves.
CHER
My mind is crawling with these buglike thoughts,
Which crawl across my brain an ’twere their nest.
How silly and how reckless I have been!
MURRAY
Fie! Other pressing matters are upon us—
Thou, Dionne, dost approach the boulevard,
Where carriages are far too swift and wild
For thy still burgeoning attempts to drive!
Turn off before disaster doth befall!
What hast thou done, thou silly, senseless lass—
We all shall die because of thy mistake!
DIONNE
I cannot stop our progress—we are bound
Unto the boulevard, whatever will!
They enter a crowded lane, with many carriages around them. Enter other DRIVERS.
What shall I do t’escape this misery?
DRIVER 1
Thou careless girl, where didst thou learn to drive?
MURRAY
[to Dionne:] Alas, we shall be slain upon the road—
How careless, fie! Yet I shall guide thee through:
Go forward, rest thy mind and be thou calm.
All shall be well, I swear by heaven’s name.
I here am with thee, and shall ne’er depart,
Although thou puttest my life at great risk.
DRIVER 2
Thou irresponsible and awful wench!
MURRAY
Fie, fie upon’t that I instructed thee
In th’art of city driving—more fool I!
Whate’er thou dost, keep hands upon the reins,
Lest we shall perish ’midst these hooligans!
DRIVER 3
I bite my thumb at thee, thou luckless lass!
CHER
Alack, alack, we certainly shall die!
MURRAY
Now to the right, a chance to exit comes.
Deliverance, although thou nearly kill’d us!
[Dionne guides the carriage off the boulevard. Exeunt other drivers.
DIONNE
We are alive—thou brought me through the storm!
MURRAY
Sweet life—we still exist, and have not died.
Thou wert a wonder, navigating so!
I am so proud of thee, my heart may burst.
[Dionne begins to cry.
Pray fear no evil, for I am with thee.
Breathe in, breathe out, and let peace wash o’er thee.
[Dionne and Murray begin kissing passionately.
CHER
[aside:] Escaping from the boulevard intact
Reminds one how significant love is.
I’ll wager Dionne’s priz’d virginity
From technical to nonexistent turns
Because of this event. I realize, too,
How much I want a lad to call mine own.
[To Dionne and Murray:] Farewell, friends, thank you both for new perspective.
[Cher climbs from the carriage and exits.
DIONNE
Sweet Murray, where thou art I’ll ever be—
Pray take me homeward, bedward, presently!
MURRAY
My dumpling, Dionne, empress of my heart,
Where fretfulness doth end, let romance start!
[Exeunt.
Westside Pavilion mall and Bronson Alcott High School.
Enter CHER.
CHER
Good Christian will not be my paramour,
Yet ’tis a pleasure spending time with him.
He shall be my new shopping partner, yea,
And presently he comes to meet me here—
My place of refuge, Westside Pavilion mall.
Enter CHRISTIAN.
CHRISTIAN
Good afternoon! Such shopping we shall have.
Yet where is Tai? Was she not meeting us?
CHER
She met some unknown fellows at a shoppe
And took them yonder, as thou mayst behold.
Enter TAI with two HOOLIGANS. She sits on a railing over the trap door.
These barneys she doth meet—whence come their kind?
She doth attract more refuse than the man
Who comes and takes the garbage ev’ry week.
CHRISTIAN
A question for thee, thou of keenest eye:
This doublet that I purchas’d: doth it call
To mind James Dean or Jason Priestley, which?
The answer’s greater than essential, for
One is the paragon of all that’s manly,
Whilst th’other is a trifling hobbyhorse,
The zero found in 90210.
CHER
Just carpe diem, Christian—thou look’st fine
Array’d in’t—let thy misgivings flee!
CHRISTIAN
Thou art most sure?
TAI
[to hooligans:] —An I did fall, ye’d catch me?
HOOL. 1
As surely as I catch a cold in th’rain.
CHER
Behold their antics—could they be more bland,
More unoriginal as they do woo?
[The hooligans grab Tai and hold her over the railing, as if threatening to drop her.
TAI
Help! Stop, ye villains! Help! O, bring me up!
[Christian rushes to give her aid, pulling her safely back over the railing and out of the hooligans’ arms.
CHRISTIAN
You gleeking beetle-headed maggot-pies!
HOOL. 2
’Twas no more than a jest.
CHRISTIAN
—A jest, forsooth!
You’d play your horrid games with women’s lives?
[Christian pushes them away. Exeunt hooligans.
TAI
Cher, I was sore afeard. I, innocent,
Did sit conversing with the charming lads,
When suddenly, amidst the laughter warm,
They grabb’d me, pushing me—
CHRISTIAN
—Tai, art thou well?
TAI
I am.
CHRISTIAN
—Art certain?
TAI
—Verily. My thanks.
Too much adventure I have had today.
CHRISTIAN
Let’s get thee home for needed R and R.
TAI
What do those letters stand for? Ribs and rice?
[Christian laughs. He and Tai walk on together, leaving the mall and walking toward school. Cher follows.
CHER
[aside:] Considering how clueless young Tai is,
She plays the part of damsel in distress
As if she had rehears’d it all her life—
A perfect actor in her starring role.
Enter various STUDENTS at the school, including DIONNE and AMBER, sitting down to lunch. TAI sits and begins telling her tale. Exit CHRISTIAN.
Observe now how she sitteth round her stage,
Soliloquizing o’er her incident—
A harmless jest by mindless hooligans
Turn’d—like a monologue writ by a bard,
With drama heighten’d—to a brush with death.
STUDENT 2
[to Tai:] When thou knock’d on the door of death, what was
The vision in your mind? A montage of
The many scenes thou witness’d in thy life?
TAI
No montage, nay—my brain’s not on the A-team—
More like the ending of a tragedy,
Where all is death before the exeunt omnes.
Enter SUMMER.
SUMMER
Cher, is it true that members of a gang
Attempted to shoot Tai at yonder mall?
CHER
Nay, though the rumors fly on eagles’ wings,
’Tis manifestly, absolutely false.
SUMMER
All do report the news as if ’twere true.
CHER
Whatever you desire to think, you shall—
E’en when ’tis plainly facts alternative.
STUDENT 2
[to Tai:] When I was nine years old, I tumbl’d from
A structure made for play—a gymlike jungle—
And could have sworn I saw a vision black—
[Cher approaches the group.
TAI
Make way for Cher, my best and truest friend.
CHER
[aside:] Shall she have other folk make way for me?
My station is revers’d with hers—now am
I supplicant while she is master turn’d.
AMBER
[to Tai:] Say more of what befell thee!
TAI
—Where was I?
AMBER
Thou ponder’dst over what is truly vital.
TAI
Of course! Before one dies—as I near did—
The mind becometh suddenly aware,
As if a fog did clear in one fell swoop.
’Tis both intense and spiritual as well—
CHER
When I was held at gunpoint recently—
STUDENT 2
[to Cher:] Beg pardon, for the lass would tell her tale.
[To Tai:] Go on, I pray. Thy tale, Tai, would cure deafness.
TAI
It is a matter of the spirit, friends,
Which I, though, cannot pinpoint for thy mind;
It is impossible that I discuss
The subject sans a common frame of ref’rence.
CHER
[aside:] Is this some alternate reality,
Wherein I am a meager hanger-on
And Tai is diva to the yearning masses?
I’ll put my status to the test anon.
TAI
Since ye have ne’er experienc’d the like—
CHER
Tai, to the Tow’r of Records I shall go,
To purchase some small souvenir for Christian.
TAI
Indeed? What is’t to me?
CHER
—Wouldst thither come?
TAI
Yea, for I owe the man my very life,
My health, my whole existence, by my troth.
CHER
Then I shall come for thee when school doth end?
TAI
Yet not today, for I have other plans—
With Amber unto Melrose am I bound.
AMBER
We two—we best of friends—to Melrose go.
CHER
Perchance tomorrow better works for thee?
TAI
Next Monday, peradventure, would suffice.
My week doth fill like bucket ’neath a spout.
CHER
[aside:] I have been snubb’d. Cher Horowitz is snubb’d!
TAI
[to Dionne:] Thy boyfriend hither cometh—ha! A jest—
For none in their right mind would choose his kind.
DIONNE
My Murray? O, I see, ’tis Travis. Ha!
Enter TRAVIS.
TRAVIS Tai, look upon this trick I’ve master’d.
[He spits a bite of food into the air, then catches it in his mouth.
TAI
Disgusting!
TRAVIS
[to Dionne:] —May I sit by Tai’s side?
DIONNE
Nay.
TAI
—Be thou gone! Do not ye slackers lounge
On yonder grassy knoll in infamy?
TRAVIS
[aside:] The lass is changèd, not for better.
She doth abuse me to win favor.
[Exit Travis.
CHER
[aside:] Ne’er felt I sympathy for Travis ere,
Yet Tai’s mistreatment is deplorable.
Is this what I have help’d her to become?
Is’t possible I so coldhearted am?
DIONNE
Tai, let us speak as two mature adults,
Who know the ways of pleasure and men’s bodies.
Hast thou e’er, in the water, done the deed?
TAI
Yea, natur’lly!
DIONNE
—E’en so? How does it work?
[Exeunt all but Cher as she wanders off by herself.
CHER
[aside:] What is this strange, unlikely circumstance
Where Dionne asketh Tai for love advice
And Tai exceeds my popularity?
Hath all the world gone hurly-burly now?
’Tis like a universe in parallel,
Where all is similar, yet deeply chang’d.
To make these matters worse, I soon must take
My driving test, that I may legally
Direct a carriage on its forward course.
I shall unto my home, to find my most
Responsible-appearing outfit. O—
I cannot bear these ripples in my fate,
Which shall my happy spirit obfuscate.
[Exit.
The Horowitz house and the streets of Beverly Hills.
Enter LUCY.
LUCY
How, sometimes, I miss my El Salvador,
Land whence I came, where I was born and rais’d.
The child of two adoring parents I,
Who wish’d a better, broader life for me.
“Stay not within thy native country, Lucy!”
So often they directed me, in hopes
That more adventures elsewhere did await.
At twenty-one, unto America
I came with hope and wonder burgeoning,
Sure—in the land of opportunity—
My life would flourish with prosperity.
Instead, it seem’d that, as an immigrant—
One for whom Spanish was the native tongue—
I was unwanted, lesser, and the aim
Of ev’ry prejudice some people had.
’Twas not prosperity that I did find,
’Twas not adventure that did greet me here.
Instead, I was expected to want less,
Became a cleaner in a rich man’s house,
And here I dwell—a woman sans a home.
Enter CHER.
CHER
O, Lucy, thou art heaven-sent! Where is
My shirt sans collar made by Fred’rick Segal?
LUCY
Belike �
��tis at the cleaners, Lady Cher.
CHER
Today, though, is my carriage driving test.
Dost thou not see? The garment makes me look
More capable than any other doth.
LUCY
Shall I call on them for thee?
CHER
—’Tis too late!
We also—almost I forgot—receiv’d
Another notice from the fire brigade
Declaring we must clear the flamm’ble bush.
Didst thou not say José would clip the hedge?
LUCY
He is thy gardener—ask him thyself.
Enter JOSH.
CHER
Thou, Lucy, know’st I speak not Mexican.
LUCY
No Mexican am I!
[Exit Lucy, angrily.
CHER
—Why shouted she?
JOSH
Thy Lucy cometh from El Salvador.
CHER
Thy point is what?
JOSH
—It is another land,
A country in its own right, which hath naught
To do with Mexico.
CHER
—What doth that matter?
JOSH
Thou say’st it matters if someone declares
Thy house is somewhere south of Sunset, Cher!
CHER
Wilt thou not salve my mind? Is’t all my fault?
I am forever wrong, a country girl
Declaring ever matters incorrect.
JOSH
Thou art a brat—a silly, foolish lass.
[Exit Josh.
CHER
Hath all the world against me harshly turn’d?
First Tai and Dionne, Lucy and then Josh,
Is no one left who loveth gloomy Cher?
Enter DRIVING INSTRUCTOR.
INSTRUCT.
If thou art ready, we’ll begin thy test.
CHER
[aside:] ’Twas not the comfort for which I did seek.
[Cher and the instructor climb into a carriage together, with Cher driving.
An overwhelming ickiness comes o’er me,
As waves wash over feet that stand on shore.
I shall apologize to Lucy soon
Enow, yet still my heart is plagu’d with doubt.
For Josh to think me cruel drives me mad,
And makes my driving equally as poor.
Enter other DRIVERS and PEDESTRIANS in the lane.
INSTRUCT.
Move thou into the right lane presently.
CHER
[aside:] Why should my mind be troubl’d over the
Opinion Josh hath of me anywise?
Why am I into turmoil toss’d to think
That in his eyes I may have dropp’d a peg?
[She veers quickly into the next lane, almost hitting a pedestrian.
INSTRUCT.
Behold where thou dost turn, or thou shalt kill!
