BILL
It wasn’t. You’re all suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress thing. That’s got to be the answer. We’re looking at his fucking body.
They all crowd around the doorway, getting in each other’s way.
MIKE
Everybody, just step back. Let’s … let’s just figure this out. Okay?
They all step back. MIKE closes the closet door. Silence. More silence.
MIKE
Anybody got any ideas?
JIM
Maybe he wasn’t dead to begin with.
BILL
No, he was dead. I’d stake everything I know for a fact he was dead. You forget, I know dead. In another time I’d sliced, chopped, and filleted enough people to open a alternative sushi bar. But if he wasn’t actually … really dead, what has he been doing in there all this time … hibernating?
SALLY
Fred, do you know what’s going on?
JIM
Why are you asking him? He’s a basket case.
SALLY
It all started with him.
JOHN
She’s right. It did.
SALLY
Fred, honey …
FRED
It didn’t work out.
BILL
What didn’t work out? What’s he talking about?
FRED
I didn’t want to be … this. What I am.
JIM
I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to be you either.
FRED
I just wanted some education. To be smarter and more like them and less like I was. But not this. I became this.
JIM
Yeah, your life’s pathetic, but what’s that got to do with us?
FRED
It’s the same with you. You’re going to jail.
JIM
I am not!
FRED
You used to send people to jail, remember? (to JOHN) And you … you smuggle cigarettes. (to BILL) You are building an altar to aboriginal capitalism. (to SALLY) You spend all your free time playing a game to provide for your kids. (to MIKE) And you get paid by the hour to be native. This isn’t what we planned. Don’t you think there’s something wrong with all this?
JIM
I think there’s something wrong with you.
FRED
We started down the same road, but ended up on these side streets. This isn’t the destination we …
MIKE
Everybody, just calm down. Maybe we need a smudge.
BILL
Oh, smudge this, you sanctimonious cretin. How’s that for education?
JOHN
I can’t believe he’s still alive. I can’t believe it. I don’t understand it. What do we do now?
BILL
John, you’re giving me a headache.
JOHN
I’m giving you a headache! You! My heart’s beating like a fucking rabbit and you’re worried about your goddamned headache. He’s alive in there! Haven’t you heard anything?
(at the closet) Why can’t you stay dead?!
BILL
Not very warrior of you.
JOHN
Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
BILL
Looks to me like you could use one of those cigarettes you’ve been hauling.
JOHN angrily jumps on BILL and they fall to the ground. SALLY and MIKE race in to separate them.
JIM
It’s a good thing you don’t charge for these A.A. meetings, Mike.
MIKE
Stop it, all of you! Quit acting like this is a band council meeting.
FRED
I wanna go back.
SALLY
Back to what?
FRED
I don’t like the way I am. I want to go back. To the way I was before. This was all a mistake.
BILL
Did he say he wants to go back? Ah, fuck! We shouldn’t have brought him. We should have kept him locked up somewhere.
SALLY
We can’t go back, Fred. We all made a promise. Remember? New lives, new everything.
FRED
There were a lot of promises. We didn’t like the way we were before, so we changed everything. I don’t like the way things are now … so I want to change it. What’s changed from before?
JOHN
Fred, Fred, Fred, yeah, I know your life isn’t what you expected. Mine isn’t either. Look at me; it’s the middle of winter and I’m wearing summer camouflage. Some things don’t make sense because they just don’t. You just have to accept it. Fred, do you like me? Am I your friend?
FRED
Yes, John. You are.
JOHN
So stop this silly talk and let’s get on with the meeting. Okay, buddy? Maybe if we just ignore everything, pretended …
FRED
John, I’m sorry. I seem to have made you think I’m in control here. I’m not. I’m just along for the ride, like the rest of you. I’m just not happy about it. That’s all.
JOHN
Fred, I’ve made a life for myself here. Yeah, it’s not what I expected. But that’s part of life. Nobody ever gets the life they expected. We were bored and unhappy before. I’m not bored or unhappy anymore. And I’m young and actually doing things. That’s a good thing, don’t you think?
FRED
Not for me.
JOHN
(yelling) There’s more to this than just you, GODDAMNIT! There’s Bill and his dream casino, Sally and her kids. Mike has that lecture tour of Germany coming up. We all have dreams. Nobody has the right to take them away. Just because your life is shitty …
FRED
These aren’t dreams. These are nightmares. Sally, you wanted to have children instead of being one. Now, you have almost a dozen with no way of supporting them. Was that your dream?
SALLY
No. It just sort of … happened. I just wanted to become a real woman. There’s nothing wrong with that.
MIKE
Fred, we made due. We made our choices. Life happens. Things change. Like John said, we adapted. Indigenous people in general are very adaptable. Look at the Inuit, they …
JIM
Fuck the Inuit.
FRED
Maybe the writer had dreams too. Before one of us killed him. Or didn’t kill him.
JOHN
Will somebody shut him up!
MIKE
Fred, I know it’s hard, but try to remember. We all promised each other that we’d look after each other. That we’d search for a new life. Together. That’s why we’re here. You must remember that.
FRED
But this isn’t any better. In fact, we made it worse. We made ourselves. At least we used to have the luxury of blaming him. We don’t have that luxury anymore.
BILL
Geez, that almost makes sense.
SALLY
No it doesn’t. I will not go back to what I was. I love my kids, Fred. I won’t leave them.
FRED
How many kids do you have?
SALLY
What does that have to do with anything?
FRED
You have eleven kids, don’t you, with four different fathers—Mike being one of them. You’re on welfare, a quarter of which goes to playing bingo. You’re smoking yourself to death on the cigarettes John supplies to Bill’s casino and Jim’s store. You’re thirty pounds overweight …
SALLY
So I’m not perfect. Neither are you.
FRED
I know. I wasn’t perfect before either. But at least I didn’t have these memories. Or what’s left of my liver. Given a choice—and we had one once—I’d return to what I was. I have to. Otherwise, I’ll die like this.
JIM
Then die. You can’t handle it here … fine. We can. I like being the boss, so die and be done with it.
FRED
Sorry, it’s not my choice.
SALLY breathes in audibly, in shock.
> MIKE
Sally, what’s wrong?
SALLY
That’s what he said! “Sorry, it’s not my choice.” Those were his words!
MIKE
Whose words? Sally, what are you talking about?
JOHN
You know what she’s talking about. (quickly) Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
BILL
Not her too.
SALLY
I knew I’d seen him somewhere before, but I’d just come home from a “Midnight to Dawn Bingo Blowout” and was very tired. Everything was blurry and hazy. He’d come to the house, early in the morning. He’d heard some disquieting things about how I was raising my kids. Wanted to investigate. He was from the Children’s Aid Society. I asked him to leave us alone—what did we ever do to him? And he said, “It’s not my choice.” He said he’d come back … tomorrow. “Sorry, it’s not my choice.” That’s what he said.
JOHN
Oh shit!
FRED
Bill?
BILL
What?
FRED
You’ve seen him too, haven’t you? Somewhere, alive.
BILL is silent.
JIM
Bill?
BILL
I think he’s the contractor for the casino renovations.
JOHN
We’re screwed. We’re screwed. We’re screwed.
SALLY
That leaves you, Mike.
MIKE
(pause) At one of the ceremonies I officiated at, I was given, as a gift, an Iroquois false face. I think his face was on it … a little distorted, but yeah. It was him. I am almost sure. (pause) I’m … afraid.
BILL
It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. We’re here, and nothing is going to change. I’m not going anywhere.
FRED
But nothing has changed, Bill. That’s it. We exchanged one pair of moccasins for another. Things didn’t get better.
BILL
The hell they didn’t. I’m rich.
FRED
At everybody’s expense.
JIM
I run this reserve. I’m respected. I am in charge.
FRED
Actually, you’re not for much longer. And you’ve got nobody to save you this time. Nobody’s arriving in the nick of time.
MIKE
Is it just me or is Fred sounding awfully … coherent, all of a sudden? Twenty minutes ago he couldn’t tie his shoes. Now he …
JOHN
What have you done, you son of a bitch?
FRED
I didn’t do anything. We didn’t do anything.
JOHN
Fuck you and fuck this fucking weird white guy. I’m getting the hell out of here.
JOHN runs to the exit, but it is locked. He cannot open it.
JOHN
It’s locked. It can’t be locked. We never lock it. Why is this door locked? Mike, why is this door locked?
MIKE tries the door, and indeed, it is locked.
MIKE
It is locked. This is not good.
JOHN
Oh shit! Oh shit! My heart’s beating like a rabbit again.
BILL
Oh, you and your rabbits.
SALLY
Fred, did you lock the door?
FRED
I never touched the door.
SALLY
Then how did it get locked?
FRED
Sally, honey, it was never opened.
JIM
What the hell is he talking about? We all walked in here not more than an hour ago. Outside that door are all our cars and our new lives. He’s more screwed up than we thought.
FRED
I’ll be glad to go back.
BILL
Why?
FRED
I’d rather live in somebody else’s hell than my own. John, Sally, Jim, Bill, Mike, we are who we are, no matter what we do. I know you’d all like to blame the writer, but …
MIKE
Then … who is he, the writer?
FRED
(with a slight Missouri accent) Well, that’s for somebody a lot smarter than me to answer.
JOHN
Yeah, well, we’re not going back. At least I’m not. I won’t be old again. I like my teeth.
FRED
It’s not that easy.
SALLY
What do you know that we don’t?
FRED shrugs his shoulders.
BILL
There’s got to be an answer to all this.
JOHN
I don’t wanna go back. I don’t wanna.
SALLY
Fred, you’re scaring John.
FRED
No, John is scaring John. I keep telling you, this is not my doing.
JOHN
Mike, do something.
MIKE
Maybe a sweat might help.
JIM
I think John’s sweating enough already.
MIKE
Listen, everybody. We’re all still in control. Nobody panic. Now, Fred … brother Fred. You’re making this all up, aren’t you? You’re playing the trickster on us, huh? Just a little bit?
FRED
No, Mike. You wanted to heal instead of hurt people. Everybody here is hurting in some way. This is how we heal.
JOHN
No, no, no! I don’t care what Fred says. He has to be wrong. I’m positive the writer is behind this, somehow. Maybe … maybe … if we kill the dead white writer again, and then get rid of his body for sure this time, everything will be okay. Maybe he’ll disappear again. He did for a while. What do you think?
BILL
Kill him again? How many times does one of us have to kill him?
JIM
Sounds like a plan. Well, who killed him last time?
There is silence. They all glance at each other, expecting a response or confession.
JIM
Oh, Jesus Christ, not this again. Look, one of you killed him. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, and it would save us an awful lot of time and headaches if whoever did it in the first place would stand up and confess.
They stand waiting again.
JIM
Oh, for the love of … come on, let’s all do it.
He pushes past everyone and walks toward the closet. He throws open the door and freezes.
JIM
You have got to be fucking kidding me!
BILL
What?!
JIM
He’s gone.
JIM steps away from the doorway, revealing an empty closet. The body has disappeared.
JOHN
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Oh fuck!
SALLY
Where is he?
BILL
Maybe he’s hiding. If he’s still alive, could he be hiding? Huh? Do you think?
JIM kicks the walls of the closet. They all seem solid.
JIM
Where the hell is he gonna hide?
BILL
He must have gone somewhere.
JIM
Obviously—but where?
SALLY
There’s no other way out of here.
FRED
I know.
JIM
“I know.” What the hell do you know? Tell us what’s happening.
FRED
You know that sense of paranoia you told us about earlier?
JIM
Yeah …
FRED
You’re a lot more perceptive than you realize.
MIKE
Fred, where is the writer? What happened to him?
FRED
Honestly, I don’t know. This is all new to me too.
MIKE
But you’re the only one who seems to know what’s going on … or you’re the least surprised.
FRED
Well, fatalism has its benefits.
JOHN
(to the room) I can be a better perso
n. I just want the chance. I tried to be a warrior for the best causes. I did! (yells out) Hey, don’t do this. I want another chance. I mean, this was our first time. Everybody gets a second chance, don’t they? Practice makes perfect, right?
JIM
For God’s sake, have some dignity.
BILL
I wanted to open my new casino. That’s not so bad, is it? All the money was going to the community … most of it. What’s wrong with building a dream? Of creating a future for my people. Sally, you could’ve worked there. Really. I’d hire you in a second.
SALLY
You would? I’d have a job!
BILL
Yeah. We’d even provide day care.
SALLY
Now you tell me. That would have been so nice … maybe we can still … hey, it’s getting dark.
BILL
(looks out the window) It can’t be getting dark. It’s still early.
SALLY
No, dark in here.
JIM
Hey, she’s right.
They look around and, indeed, the room seems to be getting darker. Around the edge of the room, the lights are getting dimmer, like an iris closing.
MIKE
That’s odd. What would cause that?
BILL
Maybe it’s an eclipse?
SALLY
Inside?
JOHN tries turning on the lamp, with little effect. He tries to turn on all the lights, again with little success.
JOHN
Something’s wrong, man.
FRED
It’s over, I guess.
JOHN
What’s over?
FRED
The A.A. meeting. Us. All of this.
JIM
It can’t be. I won’t let it.
FRED
There’s nothing you can do.
JIM
I am a man. I exist. I have a life. I can do something. I have a right to determine my own life, damn it!
FRED
I can feel it already. Can you?
JIM does indeed feel something. So does everybody else. They are unnerved by it.
JIM
Fred, help me, please.
FRED
I tried. We all tried.
SALLY
I … I think it’s growing. The darkness. Look!
They watch as the darkness at the edge of the room continues to expand toward them. The companions start to huddle around the centre of the room.
JOHN
Dead White Writer on the Floor Page 6
