Quick Bright Things

by Christopher Cook

  (overlapping screams) I’m fine, I’m fine — shut up!

  (re: nose) It’s nothing.

  Michael enters, running, with his headphones on.

  Nick: What happened?

  Gerome enters from upstairs. He’s still wearing his suit jacket, tie, and stained pants.

  Reid: (re: Gerome) This is all his fault.

  Gerome: I can make it better.

  Nick: (to Reid) What did you do?

  Reid: No, it’s what your fucking dashboard did to my nose.

  Nick: Oh god.

  Reid takes Marion’s coffee.

  Marion: (to Reid) Please tell me you went to the hospital.

  Reid slaps Gerome on the back.

  Reid: Who needs a fucking hospital? But Gerome here is a shitty-ass driver —

  Nick: You drove?

  Michael: (to Gerome) You crashed? Awesome!

  Marion: No! Not awesome!

  (to Reid) You let him drive? Are you insane?

  Michael: Language!

  Nick: He doesn’t have a licence.

  Gerome: I told him I did.

  Nick: (to Reid) You’re the adult! You should know better!

  Nick looks out the window.

  Where the hell is it?

  Reid: We sacrificed the car to save Bambi, who didn’t look both ways before crossing.

  Nick: Fuck.

  Reid: Sadly, Bambi didn’t make it either.

  Nick: The car’s not even mine — it’s Toby’s!

  Reid: It’s perfectly salvageable — we just need to pound down the hood and replace the front bumper — it’s waiting for you in a ditch six blocks down.

  Nick grabs his jacket.

  Nick: Why didn’t you call a tow truck?

  Reid: We don’t need one — I got chains for the pickup, we’ll do it ourselves. Look, man, it was pitch black —

  (re: Gerome) And this one was looking a little frayed around the edges — I figured I’d make the adult decision and get him home.

  Gerome: Papa —

  Nick: Not now — your uncle and I are going to find your dad’s car.

  Gerome: Papa, please let me fix this.

  Nick: No, you’re staying.

  Gerome: But what about the deer?

  Nick: What about the deer?

  Gerome: What’s happening to him?

  Nick: I thought you said you killed it.

  Gerome: Yeah.

  Nick: So that’s what’s happening to it.

  Nick pockets the envelope of money. Nick and Reid exit from the house.

  Marion and Gerome stare at each other.

  Gerome turns and starts to exit upstairs.

  Michael pulls off his headphones.

  Michael: Hercules! Help me memorize!

  Gerome looks to Marion, who hesitates for just a moment.

  Marion: Okay! Where are the pants I gave you? You gotta dress different to feel different, Gerome. I’m getting you new sweats and some cereal!

  Marion exits.

  Michael: Duder — quick — what’s your mom’s name?

  Gerome: Saski Halton . . . Mom.

  Michael starts typing into the iPad.

  Michael: “S-A — ”

  Gerome: “S-K-I.”

  Michael: Skiiiiiii. You sad about the deer?

  Gerome only shrugs — but he is. He downs the rest of Nick’s coffee.

  Whoa, dude! You’re super dedicated to coffee, I —

  Gerome: Does Alexander the newt eat?

  Michael: He eats like the finest quality pellets money can buy from Noah’s Pet and Supply Shop — you want some? Cuz that’s gonna cost even more pills, and you haven’t paid me for the newt. I don’t want you getting high off my asking price.

  Gerome: They’re safe. I’m on an antipsychotic break — a cleanse.

  Michael offers Gerome the iPad.

  Michael: Wanna see your mom’s picture?

  Gerome: Seen it.

  Gerome takes the iPad and starts searching for something.

  Michael: I could show you the costume I’m making!

  Gerome shrugs and starts to down Marion’s coffee.

  Hey, give me some of that!

  Gerome gives him the coffee. Michael tries a sip but he clearly doesn’t like it and hands it back.

  You wanna scare Marion with me?

  Gerome doesn’t respond.

  Yeah you do! Act like you’re flipping out! Do some crazy shit!

  Gerome plays a song on the iPad — “Mama Said” by the Shirelles. Gerome starts singing along. He knows it by heart.

  What the hell’s this?

  Michael listens to the song and then starts laughing.

  Aw! Mama’s coming! Mama Gerome! Come on, come on, come on, Mama!

  Michael starts dancing. He pulls Gerome up. Michael dances around Gerome as Gerome barely sways. Michael kisses Gerome on the cheek. Michael goes back to dancing. Michael goes in for another kiss, but pulls back as Marion enters, running. She has clean clothes, a bowl of cereal, and a laundry basket full of Styrofoam balls, some of which have been painted gold.

  Marion: Stop stop stop! No dancing without me!

  Marion joins in — she dances exuberantly and sings along loudly. Michael makes sure to dance apart from her. Marion sits, exhausted, and picks up the iPad.

  Oooh! Sssassskeeeaaahhhh. Lakehead University — Ph.D.!

  Gerome tries to take the iPad from her, but Marion holds it away from him, reading.

  Gawd, she looks like she’s twelve. “An associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, Dr. Halton” — oh, boy! We better buy some coffee-table books so it looks like we read things. Cereal — check! Clean clothes — check! Golden apples — check! Oh oh oh, Geromey! How about you make your papa a “sorry I crashed the car” apple!

  Michael stops dancing and picks up a ball.

  Michael: You’d have to be high to believe these are gold.

  Marion: If they believe you’re Paradise, they’ll believe my apples.

  Michael dumps the basket of golden apples and they scatter everywhere.

  Michael!

  Michael: Paradise rampage with crappy foam!

  Michael starts tossing the golden apples at Gerome as Marion tries to pick them up.

  Gold bounces right off you — Heeeeercules!

  Gerome starts to throw them back.

  Marion: Boys!

  Michael: Heeeeercules with crappy aim! Right here! No, here! Maybe I’m only in your head!

  Marion grabs Michael’s wrist and forces him to sit in a chair.

  Marion: You. Stop.

  Michael: What’s your problem?

  Marion: Gerome, go change.

  Gerome starts changing in the middle of the room. He takes off his shirt, and his chest and arms are completely covered with words written in permanent marker.

  Marion shakes her head.

  Oh — wash that off.

  Gerome: These are my mantras.

  Marion: I don’t care.

  Michael holds one of Gerome’s arms and reads.

  Michael: “Have sexual intercourse”?

  Gerome: I may be the only seventeen-year-old in existence who has not had sex.

  Gerome grabs the bowl of cereal and starts eating it loudly. Throughout the following there is an element of performance to what Gerome is doing, and Marion is unsure if she should take it seriously.

  Marion: Gerome. You’re so, so . . . young.

  Gerome: (in Klingon) Heghlu’meH —

  Marion: QaQ jajvam. Don’t pull that Klingon junk with me. I was singing the songs of Kronos before you were born.

  Michael: (to Gerome) Teach me Klingon!

  Gerome: (to Marion) How much do you like Star Trek?

  Marion: I’m not a Trekkie anymore.

  Gerome: My dad Toby likes it the most — I’m worried I don’t like it as much as I used to.

  Marion: Sounds like you know pretty much all there is to know about it, so —

  Gerome: That doesn’t me
an I like it —

  Gerome gestures to the mantras.

  Now you know pretty much all there is to know about me doesn’t mean you like me. It’s one more check on the list of possible symptoms: “you will stop finding pleasure in what was once pleasurable.” Maybe I won’t even like sex when I have it.

  Marion: I really don’t know, but I am asking you for the last time —

  Gerome puts his shirt back on.

  Gerome: Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry —

  Marion: Go clean yourself!

  Gerome: Brain cleaning, yes! Clean the neurotransmitters with tires and make them roadkill —

  For a moment, Gerome is distracted, moving his lips silently.

  Marion: Gerome. Stop. Gerome? Can you hear me?

  Gerome: Yes.

  Marion: Are you hearing anything else right now? Any voices?

  Gerome: I’m always hearing voices.

  Marion: Can you talk to them? Reason with them?

  Gerome: Ha!

  Marion grabs his shoulders.

  Marion: Excuse me in there! Hello? Gerome is a nice boy and I want you all to stop bothering him! Leave my nephew alone!

  Michael: Jesus, Reedong.

  Marion: What do those voices of yours say to that?

  Gerome: They say I’m going to die.

  Marion: But you look so healthy. They’re the crazy ones, not you.

  Gerome: They say you are going to kill me.

  Marion: I’m going to what?

  Michael: Ummmm, that’s freaky. And pretty cool.

  Again, for a moment, Gerome’s lips move silently.

  Marion: (to Michael, snapping her fingers) Come over here.

  Michael: No.

  Marion: Give your cousin some space.

  (to Gerome) I’m not going to hurt you.

  Gerome: You’ll do it with your eyes.

  Marion: I’m not magic — I’m not a witch.

  Gerome: Who said anything about magic. You’ll use your eyes to kill me: no magic — eyes. I have to defend myself to the death.

  Marion grabs her phone.

  Marion: . . . Is what the voices say.

  Gerome: Oh, these voices won’t hurt us.

  Gerome moves his lips silently again. Marion dials 911.

  This is kid’s stuff, a little background din. I’ve been vanquishing voices like this since kindergarten.

  Marion: Uh-huh, keep telling me . . .

  (to cell) Ambulance, I need an ambulance —

  Gerome: (shouting into cell) No no no no no!

  Gerome continues to shout “no” over Marion.

  Marion: Just keep talking to me, Gerome!

  (to cell) Marion Pinel, 305 Southgate Court . . .

  Gerome: (shouting overtop) Don’t send an ambulance!

  Marion: . . . He’s got schizophrenia . . .

  Michael: (shouting overtop) She’s the crazy one! She’s mental!

  Marion: (to cell) . . . He’s having a breakdown. He’s my nephew —

  Reid and Nick enter from outside. Nick is on his cell.

  Reid: (to Marion) We got a tow truck to take it to the shop. Fucking rip-off —

  Nick: (to cell) . . . I don’t know how it happened, Toby. I didn’t see the deer —

  Gerome: Papa!

  Nick: (covering phone, to Gerome) Not now —

  Michael: (to Reid) Dad! Your wife called 911!

  Nick: (to cell) Call you back. Yep — bye.

  (to Marion) You did what?

  Marion tosses Nick a blanket.

  Marion: Wrap Gerome up!

  Gerome: She thinks I’m flipping out — no no no!

  Marion: (to Nick) This is it! Look how worked up he is!

  Nick: He’s a teenager! That’s what they do, get worked up! Most people tell them to go play outside before calling emergency.

  Reid: You boys need to blow off some steam?

  Nick: Let’s go run around the block.

  Reid: No, family fun time: we’ll go hunting.

  Marion: He stole his dad’s car, crashed it, and you want to take him to the woods! He should be grounded!

  Nick: I don’t ground my son.

  Marion: (to cell) Yes, I’m still here! Why aren’t you sending someone?

  (to Nick) He heard voices! Saying that I was going to kill him!

  Nick: (to Gerome) Were the voices real?

  Gerome shakes his head no.

  Gerome: I knew right from the start.

  Michael: We’re just making apples.

  Michael sits down and starts to work on an apple. Gerome follows his lead and begins working on an apple of his own. Michael throws an apple at Marion and it bounces off her head.

  Marion: (to cell) Yes, i’m here! I don’t know . . . No, don’t send anyone. We’re fine.

  Marion hangs up and wraps herself in the blanket.

  Nick’s cell beeps — a text.

  Nick checks his phone.

  Nick: Saski. She’s “looking forward to dinner tonight.”

  Michael: Mama’s coming!

  Blackout.

  Scene Five

  The woods, Saturday afternoon. Reid enters with his nose still bandaged holding a walkie-talkie. He appears to be tracking something. Nick follows carelessly with a sophisticated looking bow and arrow.

  Nick: . . . He can be a regular teenager. He goes between burying himself in my arms when his mind’s playing tricks on him to insisting I walk ten paces behind him in public and only speak when spoken to. He’d be happy for the delusion that Toby and I do not exist — he lives on his own in an apartment, can metro downtown to gawk at the strip clubs on Saint Catherine, then go for poutine at two in the morning.

  Reid: Sounds like a delusion you should encourage.

  Reid stops suddenly, crouches, hits Nick, and points off.

  Nick: Ow!

  Reid: Aim.

  Nick: What?

  Reid: Aim, fuck.

  Nick: Where?

  Reid straightens up — the target he’s spotted has gone.

  Reid: Dammit! Why you gotta ruin my man’s hour?

  Nick: Your what hour?

  Reid: Look. Either Gerome’s chowing cheese curds on his own, or you’re his nurse for the rest of your life — choose your delusion.

  Nick: No delusions — that’s where we have to get to. Toby’s started going to these support sessions for parents and they’ve got their buzzwords — treatment compliance, medication adherence — but what they know could fit on a single sheet of loose-leaf. It’s like Toby’s forgotten that we have been doing fine with Gerome for-for-for seventeen years without doctors, without anyone but the three of us. They’d never even heard of this herbal stuff — xingshen — that’s supposed to help soothe him, and it’s completely non-invasive —

  Reid: Hold on. What the shit? Are you planning on spending the money I give you on fucking Herbal Essences? Shampoo they’re hocking at you like medicine?

  Nick: I didn’t know your money came with restrictions.

  Reid: It comes with an implicit “don’t be a moron” clause.

  Nick: You’ve seen him. The meds make him docile, sedentary, so he drinks coffee and pop and energy drinks all day just to feel normal, but then he’s jittery, and with the jitters the hallucinations come back. So let’s give him more pills to calm him down, maybe, until —

  Reid: All I’m saying is you gotta —

  Nick: I can’t lose him, Reid.

  Reid: Nick!

  Nick: The doctors don’t know how these pills work. The meds, the diagnosis, it all comes with an implicit “this could kill you” clause. Tons of people like Gerome die young.

  Reid: Okay, okay —

  Nick: If I am going to outlive my son, then I will make these the best years I can.

  Reid: Nick —

  Nick: But I . . . I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.

  Reid doesn’t know what to say. Pause. Marion is heard shouting from off.

  Marion: (off) Cease fire! Cease fir
e!

  There’s a sudden blast from an air horn.

  Reid: Are you shitting me?

  Marion enters shouting, wearing bright clothing and a reflective safety vest, holding a walkie-talkie and brandishing an air horn.

  Marion: Cease your fire! Humans in the bush!

  Reid: The fuck’s wrong with you?

  Marion: I didn’t know it was you.

  Reid: What the hell are you doing in front of us? You’re supposed to stay to our backs.

  Marion: I’m looking for the boys.

  Reid: That’s what the fucking walkie-talkie is for, beautiful.

  Marion: No response!

  Reid: (into the walkie-talkie) Mikey!

  Michael and Gerome enter. Gerome has a backpack. Michael has the extendable baton and is imagining it is a machete.

  Michael: . . . Okay, if you’re the admiral of Starfleet, I’m Captain —