Zap

by Paul Fleischman

IRV. Marie, my wife who died donating a kidney for a distant relative.

  SAMMY. (Affected.) No kidding.

  IRV. Of course I’m kidding! I made her up. She’s Mel’s wife. To stimulate sympathy.

  SAMMY. Man, you fiction writers are brutal.

  IRV. So we’re walking around, and we pass one of those booths that takes your picture. She’s still kind of tipsy and giggly. We go in. We have a ball. And every time the flash goes off, instead of “cheese,” I’m thinking, “Hi, Max.”

  (IRV gives the strip of photos to SAMMY.)

  SAMMY. Wow. She’s kissing your cheek in the last one.

  IRV. The camera never lies.

  SAMMY. So then?

  IRV. So then, I walk her over to her place on the East Side.

  SAMMY. One of the more inexpensive modes of travel. And then?

  IRV. And then, we kiss on the doorstep.

  SAMMY. You packed your 3-in-One oil? (IRV snatches photo strip from SAMMY.) And then?

  IRV. And then I walked home.

  SAMMY. You walked home? For a writer, you’re not much on love scenes.

  IRV. Hey — I don’t have to be. Mission accomplished. When Max sees these, he’ll write the scene for me. He gets back the day after tomorrow. I’m gonna knock on his door and give ’em to him. And, man, when I do, all the money he’s making off my life suddenly ain’t gonna —

  (A clap of thunder. IRV and SAMMY look confused.)

  SAMMY. (Obviously improvising.) Guess a little storm . . . must have blown in. (Another clap of thunder. IRV taps his foot on the floor experimentally. Another thunderclap. IRV pounds harder.) I just hope your neighbor, the one with the polka records, remembered to close his windows. (IRV and SAMMY wait expectantly for polka music. Long pause. Trumpet flourish from the last RICHARD III segment. IRV and SAMMY look at each other.) You expecting somebody . . . important?

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the AVANT-GARDE PLAY. The MAN has his ear to one of the walls. The WOMAN is knitting.)

  MAN. I’m sure of it. A man. And a woman. The man is giving a tip to the bellboy.

  WOMAN. What do they look like?

  MAN. (Concentrates awhile.) I can’t tell.

  WOMAN. I wonder if there’s a corpse in their room, too.

  MAN. They haven’t mentioned one.

  WOMAN. Do you suppose they’ll charge us for our corpse, even though we didn’t order it?

  MAN. It’s best not to get into arguments with the staff. That was mentioned several times in the hotel information. (A pause.) She’s commenting on the lovely view. They look out on the lake.

  WOMAN. (Speaking with emotion for the first time.) But there is no lake here. Not in any direction.

  MAN. The man is eating the mints off the pillow.

  WOMAN. We never had any mints on ours.

  MAN. He says they’re quite good.

  WOMAN. But it’s not bedtime yet! Pound on the wall! Make him stop!

  MAN. Apparently, they’ve brought their Chihuahua.

  WOMAN. But you read that pets weren’t allowed! The hotel brochure specifically mentioned that!

  MAN. The dog’s name is Gringo.

  WOMAN. That’s not fair! We were going to name our Chihuahua Gringo, if we ever got one. They get to have everything!

  (A woman’s scream is heard through the wall.)

  MAN. Wait. (Pause.) They have a corpse.

  WOMAN. (Composed again.) Well. That’s a relief.

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the SOUTHERN PLAY. A dummy of a female corpse, wearing a white dress like GRANDMAMMY’s and clearly distinguishable from the male corpse in black, lies face-down on the floor in front of the chair GRANDMAMMY last occupied. REGINALD and CAROLINE are gathered around, while LUKE bounces around the room. He uses a southern accent.)

  LUKE. — all scrambled up about her great-great-grandfather’s family comin’ over in 1780 and how they left England so they’d be free to cook their meat according to how the Bible teaches, which is barbecue, and how iced tea’s mentioned in Scripture, too, only by a different name, and when I come back from getting her more tea in the kitchen, there she was, dead on the floor.

  REGINALD. (He stares down at the corpse.) Grandmammy!

  CAROLINE. (Heads toward whiskey bottle.) Lord! I need a —(She picks up the empty bottle, looks toward the wings, then improvises.) — a chance to . . . reflect on . . . the subject of . . . this startling development.

  REGINALD. (Stares suspiciously at LUKE.) And you two were alone?

  LUKE. Yup. Just us.

  REGINALD. (Looks around.) Where’s Aaron?

  CAROLINE. Didn’t you know? Packed his paints and walked to the station. Moving to New York City.

  LUKE. (To CAROLINE, without accent.) You want to go to my place after we’re done?

  (CAROLINE ignores LUKE, who moves around the room, observing the scene from various angles like an interested spectator.)

  REGINALD. Wonder what she died of.

  CAROLINE. Maybe one of them Yankee shells hung up in the air for seventy-five years and finally hit her on the head.

  REGINALD. That, or one of her own relations. Someone who’d had a look at her will — and didn’t want no more changes bein’ made.

  (A pause. REGINALD and CAROLINE exchange glances. AARON walks in, carrying a suitcase, and approaches the corpse. REGINALD directs his words to him.)

  REGINALD. Someone who’d have an alibi tighter than a preacher’s collar. (Pause.) Thought you were on your way to New York City.

  AARON. Missed the train. What happened to Grandmammy? Is she — is she dead?

  REGINALD. As dead as you are dumb, boy. How many times have you missed that train goin’ north?

  AARON. Hmmm. Well, once — today.

  REGINALD. And?

  AARON. Twice yesterday.

  REGINALD. And?

  AARON. Twice on Friday. Once on Thursday. Three times on Wednesday.

  CAROLINE. Same as last week.

  REGINALD. And every time, we gotta have the same long-winded argument before you go. It’s your way of trying to kill me, ain’t it? You’re aimin’ to drive up my blood pressure and put me in the grave!

  CAROLINE. With all those trains you missed, Aaron, some people might be entertaining doubts that you’re ready to leave Catfish Crossing and become one of the world’s great watercolorists.

  REGINALD. And others might be entertaining thoughts that with your knowledge of paints, it wouldn’t be hard for you to slip something fatal into Grandmammy’s iced tea.

  AARON. (He drops his suitcase with a thud and faces REGINALD.) You would accuse your own son — of the crime of murdering your own mother?

  REGINALD. (Pause. He looks at the others for support, swelling with exasperation, then shouts:) And what’s the matter with that?!

  CAROLINE. Nothing, Pappy. Calm yourself. Nothing at all. (She looks up.) And nothing at all is what we might be getting in the will. Reckon we better go find it.

  (ALL scatter offstage, hopping over the corpse. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the ENGLISH MYSTERY. The dummy of the female corpse remains where it is. LADY DENSLOW and REV. SMYTHE are looking down at it. CLIFFORD enters.)

  CLIFFORD. Good God — not Mrs. Hardwicke!

  REV. SMYTHE. It happened when the storm knocked out the lights.

  LADY DENSLOW. Strangled.

  REV. SMYTHE. There can be no doubt now that there’s a murderer among us.

  LADY DENSLOW. (Heavily, to CLIFFORD.) Someone whose surface appearance is a sham.

  CLIFFORD. Don’t be daft. I could hardly have strangled her with this arm of mine.

  LADY DENSLOW. (Bitterly, she abandons the script along with her English accent for the rest of the scene.) Then perhaps you took off one of my high heels and bludgeoned her to death with it.

  (CLIFFORD and REV. SMYTHE look at each other, unsure what to do. REV. SMYTHE tries to return to the script.)

  REV. SMYTHE. We must take stock of the situation, and quickly. What
do we know?

  LADY DENSLOW. (To CLIFFORD.) We know how the seams in my blouses got ripped.

  CLIFFORD. (Abandoning the script.) Judy —

  REV. SMYTHE. (Improvising, trying to make peace.) The Bible, of course, teaches compassion, for all our — all our —

  LADY DENSLOW. The Bible, if I’m not mistaken, calls for stoning in this case.

  REV. SMYTHE. Lady Denslow —

  LADY DENSLOW. Not that you, Reverend, should be casting stones at anyone.

  REV. SMYTHE. Judy —

  LADY DENSLOW. Not with two convictions for wifebeating. I saw Margo at the bus stop in front of the hospital this morning. Or I think it was her — hard to tell with the dark glasses and hat. What does Jesus recommend for such a nasty temper?

  (REV. SMYTHE glares at LADY DENSLOW. Breathing heavily, building up to an explosion, he returns to the script but in the voice of a raging maniac, his wrathful face turned toward LADY DENSLOW.)

  REV. SMYTHE. The thunder is coming close upon the lightning! The storm would appear to be nearly overhead! If the lights go again, we may be . . . IN DANGER!

  (Lightning flashes. All cover their ears in preparation for thunder. Long pause. Then we hear the polka music from the COMEDY. Cast slowly uncovers ears in bafflement. Zap sound. Blackout. Polka music continues to play. Lights come up on the PERFORMANCE ART MONOLOGUE. MARSHA rolls her eyes, waiting for the music to stop, which it finally does.)

  MARSHA. Whoa. Polka music coming out of the sky. What a concept. Book of Revelation, the Sequel. Actually, there’s a perfectly rational explanation. Our totally irrational sound person — who’s like ready to crack even if everything’s perfect and the weather’s sunny and seventy degrees and there’s no bad news anywhere in the world — he walked off the set. Ran, actually. Too much pressure. Taught first grade at this magnet school for hyperactive kids a few years ago. Pushed him over the edge. He can’t take too much activity. Post-Noisy-Cafeteria Syndrome. Kind of like Mr. Mycroft, my high-school drama teacher. Nervous like a rabbit. Afraid of the principal. Afraid of parents, the superintendent, the school board, his mother, the tooth fairy. So like when I lobbied for us to put on The Crucible — forget it. Might be offensive to pagans, or Christians, or Massachuso-Americans. The same with every other play that had any teeth at all. So what did we put on? Arsenic and Old Lace, that shocking exposé of the boarding-house industry that scandalized Broadway and traumatized millions — not. And then there was Harvey, about the guy who sees the imaginary rabbit, and The Sound of Music, to keep the big yodeling voting bloc happy, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream — and absolutely nothing about what was actually happening in the world! So finally, in my senior year, I said, “Screw this.” Enough with the rabbits and the mountain goats. It was time to bring on the rats and the roaches. Time to put the real world onstage. So I created my first piece, about how the world sucks and people should quit denying it and get in touch with their sadness and disappointment. It was called Send in the Frowns. The first performance was at lunch on the school auditorium steps, where lots of students used to eat. I memorized this spiel about something sad from my life — how on my birthdays my father never signed the card, like he wasn’t actually involved in my birth, which was liberating, true, but also creepy, and how my mother every year bought me some present for someone like five years younger than I was. Then, after that, I asked people in the audience to come up and tell something sad from their lives. Which nobody would do. Great. So I winged it and told how the year I was fourteen and my parents were the most impossible they’d ever been, they left out where I’d see it this brochure for a female military school called Camp Opportunity, and how I got an article on lobotomies and left it nonchalantly taped to their bathroom mirror. So then I asked again for volunteers. Nobody. By this time, there were like four people left. So I just kept telling stuff from my life. And it hit me: I didn’t need the freaking audience and their memories. I also didn’t need costumes or sets or trapdoors or greasy makeup. And I didn’t need scripts. No more plots about dukes and fairy queens. No memorizing and underlining. No stupid “fourth wall” between the stage and the seats. No characters. Reality! Me! I threw out the entire theater tradition — and then I climbed in the trash can and jumped on it! Instead, I told the truth. The truth that nobody’d ever told: how dead life is in the suburbs, how people there have no time for culture, how families can be totally weird, how people you trust turn out to be lying scums —(The zap sound is heard, the stage goes dark, but MARSHA keeps talking.) See! Exactly what I’m talking about! The truth makes you nervous, you pathetic wimps!

  (The zap sound is repeated and lights come up on the RUSSIAN PLAY. KONSTANTIN enters with his staff and begins making his painfully slow way across the stage, wheezing noisily.)

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on RICHARD III, act 4, scene 2. RICHARD enters, now wearing crown and royal robes, followed by BUCKINGHAM. RICHARD halts, grimaces, turns toward the wings, mimes playing trumpet, and awaits the sound of a trumpet flourish. Silence. Then we hear the train whistle from the SOUTHERN PLAY. RICHARD glares at the wings; BUCKINGHAM covers his eyes.)

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the SOUTHERN PLAY. CAROLINE, still wearing robe and slippers, enters alone and frantically searches the room for the will.)

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the RUSSIAN PLAY, as before. KONSTANTIN is now halfway across the room.)

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the AVANT-GARDE play. The WOMAN knits with great concentration. The MAN is hidden behind the outstretched map. He crosses his legs. He uncrosses them.)

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the COMEDY. A speechless, panicked IRV is retreating before a love-bewitched, fast-talking AUDREY, who’s blown into the apartment with a suitcase in one hand and a cat carrier in the other.)

  AUDREY. — and I was walking along, seeing your face in my mind and thinking how very dear to me you’d become in such a short time, and how I didn’t think I could live without that face in my life, and your gentle voice, and your kindness and generosity and your honesty. And then I got home and there was Max, telling me how you’d come over that morning to tell him about us, and I knew right then that we were perfect for each other, that our thoughts were aligned, and our values, and soon our lives. And I didn’t even care when Max screamed and swore. It was you I was seeing, not him. And when he told me to pack up and leave, they were the happiest words I ever heard. I didn’t bring much. Tomorrow I’ll call the moving company. And with your wanting to simplify and pare down your possessions, there’ll be plenty of room. And the cats are indoor, so the move won’t faze them. (Sound of cat yowling. Audrey speaks to the cat carrier in a cutesy voice.) Yes, I know, Mommy and Daddy hear you. It’s a really incredible story, how I got them. The older one, Felinity, which is a name I made up because she’s —(To cat carrier.) — such a gorgeous, gorgeous girl —

  (IRV’s eyes get bigger and bigger in the course of her speech, horrified at what he’s set in motion. He paces throughout, moves the cat carrier, and sneezes. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the RUSSIAN PLAY, as before. KONSTANTIN is now most of the way across the stage.)

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the PERFORMANCE ART MONOLOGUE. MARSHA, seated with a glass of salty water in hand, is in the midst of gargling loudly.)

  (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on RICHARD III. Trying to get their last entrance right, RICHARD and BUCKINGHAM again enter proudly. No trumpet flourish. RICHARD glares back into wings. The balalaika music from the RUSSIAN PLAY begins. Both react with disgust, RICHARD striding furiously toward the wings. BUCKINGHAM watches. The music is violently cut off. RICHARD returns and they try their entrance again. The phone rings. RICHARD leaps forward, grabs the phone out of the wastebasket, and hurls it into the wings. BUCKINGHAM smiles at this. Then both cringe as the zap sound is heard. Blackout.)

  (Lights come up on the SOUTHERN PLAY. CAROLINE is still searching for the will. After a moment, EMMALINE from the E
NGLISH MYSTERY enters the room from the other side, begins searching it as well, then notices CAROLINE. Both freeze and stare at each other. Zap sound. Blackout.)

  (Lights come up on the PERFORMANCE ART MONOLOGUE. MARSHA is still holding her glass and gargling, walking around the room while she does so. She finally empties her mouth into the fishbowl. Zap sound. Blackout.)

  (Lights come up on the AVANT-GARDE PLAY. The MAN is on the phone — a white, modern, push-button model, replacing the original black phone. The WOMAN is still knitting. The female corpse is lying where the male corpse lay in their previous scenes.)

  WOMAN. Is it ringing?

  MAN. Yes.

  WOMAN. Good. (Pause.) How many rings is that?

  MAN. Two hundred forty-one . . . two hundred forty-two . . .

  WOMAN. I’m going to have something to say about the service here when we fill out the hotel questionnaire.

  MAN. There is no questionnaire.

  WOMAN. But that’s why you’re calling the front desk. To ask them to send one up. Or, if they don’t have one, to kindly have one printed.

  MAN. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be answering.

  WOMAN. Typical.

  MAN. I’m sure they’re quite busy attending to the other guests.

  WOMAN. (She throws down her imaginary knitting needles in anger, stands, and notices the female corpse for the first time, eyeing it while distractedly delivering her line.) But we’re the other guests, too.