by Sam Shepard
RANDOLPH: It appears to have been a spontaneous eruption of violence rather than an execution.
HARRINGTON: And what brings you to that, Mr. Scientist?
RANDOLPH: This first set of tire tracks. You see the way they’re dug in there? Deep. Like he was making an escape, then changed his mind.
(HARRINGTON crosses to imaginary tracks and examines them.)
HARRINGTON: Yeah, well, he saw they weren’t completely dead, so he came back to finish ’em off.
RANDOLPH: Had to have been out of rage, though. There is little indication of gang warfare or dope of any kind.
HARRINGTON: Rage? How do you know what this guy was feeling? It’s just a set of damn tire tracks.
RANDOLPH: How many times do you think these bodies were run over?
HARRINGTON: A bunch. How should I know?
RANDOLPH: Seventeen times. He didn’t just want them dead, he wanted them annihilated.
HARRINGTON: Seventeen times! Well, that fits with execution, doesn’t it?
RANDOLPH: A little over the top, don’t you think? I’m seeing another picture here.
HARRINGTON: You know what gets my hair up about all you forensic dudes?
RANDOLPH: (Busy with the investigation.) What’s that, Harrington?
HARRINGTON: You think you know everything.
RANDOLPH: Is that right?
HARRINGTON: Yeah. You patchwork all this shit together and suddenly you’ve got a crystal ball or something.
RANDOLPH: Something like that.
HARRINGTON: Tire tracks, bones, teeth, pieces of cloth.
RANDOLPH: They all tell a story.
HARRINGTON: What story’s that?
RANDOLPH: The story of what happened. What took place. Moments in the past, ticking away, one click at a time. It’s incredible, isn’t it?
HARRINGTON: Incredible.
RANDOLPH: Mounting up. Building to a climax. An eruption of fury. It all makes sense, suddenly.
HARRINGTON: None of it makes any sense! Are you kidding? This is just—this is just plain old slaughter, butchery. Like the old days.
RANDOLPH: Old days?
HARRINGTON: Disemboweling, hearts torn out, drawn and quartered, heads rolling. Blood dripping down the altar steps.
RANDOLPH: Oh, ancient, then?
HARRINGTON: Ancient, yes, but—
RANDOLPH: Everything has a history, doesn’t it? I mean, this stuff didn’t come out of thin air.
HARRINGTON: No, but I mean—there’s a difference.
RANDOLPH: What’s different?
HARRINGTON: You claim to see something. You claim to know exactly how it all happened. As though you were looking at a slow-motion movie.
RANDOLPH: (Standing, moving to imaginary footprints.) Look, come and take a look at these footprints here. (HARRINGTON follows him.) You see that pair of prints? That pair with the heavy tread, especially on the left foot?
HARRINGTON: What about it?
RANDOLPH: That’s the killer, right there.
HARRINGTON: How do you know that?
RANDOLPH: He’s standing alone by the side of the road. Outside the vehicle. Outside the story. Standing by himself. Maybe hitchhiking.
HARRINGTON: Hitchhiking?
RANDOLPH: Innocent.
HARRINGTON: What?
RANDOLPH: Completely innocent so far. He has no idea what’s going to happen. Then a car comes along and everything changes. Very suddenly, everything changes.
HARRINGTON: Changes?
RANDOLPH: Car stops. Driver gets out and approaches the hitchhiker. Two guys are left in the backseat. Car’s still idling. The driver’s door is open.
HARRINGTON: Why does the driver get out of the car?
RANDOLPH: That, we don’t know.
HARRINGTON: Ah.
RANDOLPH: The driver insults him. Hitchhiker takes offense.
HARRINGTON: What was the insult?
RANDOLPH: That’s where it all begins. (Points to the ground.) Right there. A scuffle.
HARRINGTON: (Looking at the ground.) That’s a scuffle?
RANDOLPH: Murder. Rage. Then a second guy comes from the car. Look. Right here. (HARRINGTON follows close as RANDOLPH retraces the events on the floor.) He comes much quicker. Probably pulls a weapon. Then a third man. Langos himself, maybe. And this is where the hitchhiker panics.
HARRINGTON: Panics? He’s the killer.
RANDOLPH: Exactly. It’s all about panic.
HARRINGTON: What happens now?
RANDOLPH: Hitchhiker runs to the car with two of them chasing him. Maybe the engine is still running. Maybe Langos left the door open. Maybe the car radio is playing, Sam Cooke, Percy Sledge. The guy jumps in the open door and guns the massive engine. First guy he runs over is Langos. Langos, just standing there thinking it’s all being taken care of. The Boss. The Kingpin. He may even be going for a Cuban cigar at this point. (RANDOLPH picks up a squashed butt of a cigar and hands it to HARRINGTON.) Thinking about his beautiful long-legged girlfriend. The white beach of Cancún.
HARRINGTON: Oh, come on.
RANDOLPH: Before he can go for his lighter, the hitchhiker runs him over. Right here. Just levels him. Langos goes down and the guy heads for the highway with the other two chasing him. He sees them in the rearview mirror, pops it into reverse, and backs over the two wiseguys.
HARRINGTON: So they’re all dead now?
RANDOLPH: Half dead. Takes a lot to kill someone with a car in one lick, unless you’re lucky. Langos is twisting around in the sand still with his girlfriend in mind. Maybe he calls out her name. (Shouting.) “Dolores!”
HARRINGTON: Dolores?
RANDOLPH: The other two are screaming and firing at the car. Cursing. Metal’s popping. Shattered glass. Burning rubber. The guy plows into Langos again, roars right over the top of him. This time he’s dead. The image of his beautiful black-haired girlfriend floats out across the highway and dissolves into the hot wind. Still, shots are ringing out and angry shouts from the two lackeys. The guy finishes them off. Methodically. He crushes them over and over again. Back and forth with the car, vengeful fury. There is no mercy in this man.
HARRINGTON: Who the hell is he?
RANDOLPH: Yes! Exactly. That’s the whole question, isn’t it, Harrington? Who is he?
(In blackout, HARRINGTON and RANDOLPH exit. Lights up on…)
Scene 7
(MANIAC OF THE OUTSKIRTS crosses extreme downstage, then hitchhikes with right arm. He’s facing stage left, speaks to imaginary audience; sometimes to his own shadow, cast on wall.)
MANIAC: You! You think it’s possible to hide from me? Have you got any vague notion who I am? Who I’m intended to be? I thought not. Just another vagabond, I suppose. Invisible. Lost through the cracks. Little do you realize— Have you any idea whatsoever who you’re dealing with? Where I come from? My powerful lineage? My father— My father, for instance, had one of the largest, most expansive Chevy dealerships in the entire county of San Bernardino! That surprises you, doesn’t it? Takes you back some. The whole stinking county! Sold more Chevys than ten men over those decades. Those early decades when Chevy was king! Just hitting its stride, with the fins and all. Chrome! You never saw chrome like that! Bumpers flashing, hood ornaments parading, back when steel ruled the universe! Detroit in all its glory! A shining beacon. Passed you by like dust in the rearview mirror, didn’t it! Dust! Well, just remember one thing: I am not anonymous. I am not going to just crumble away into oblivion. I will live forever! Don’t forget that. Don’t forget that.
Scene 8
(OTTO emerges from upstage in his wheelchair, which is being pushed by his wife, JOCELYN. She also carries a small foldout breakfast table. OTTO is reading a police report from a newspaper as they continue. They stop downstage center. JOCELYN unfolds the table. OTTO continues reading as she listens.)
OTTO: “California highway patrol officer Patrick Harrington reported finding three badly disfigured corpses in the desert off the shoulder of Highway 15 at app
roximately six p.m. Sunday, on the outskirts of Barstow. One of them without a face!”
JOCELYN: (Exiting down right.) Dusk. It’s so pretty out there at dusk.
OTTO: (Continues reading in his wheelchair.) “The bodies seemed to have been deliberately and repeatedly run over by a heavy vehicle, leaving the rib cages crushed and flattened, the knees smashed, and the heads completely obliterated beyond recognition. Intestines and brains were scattered across the blacktop. Crows and buzzards interfered with the investigation.”
JOCELYN: Lord have mercy! (Coming back on with breakfast place settings from down left.)
OTTO: (Reading.) “The vehicle apparently used in the gruesome murders was located early Monday morning in the parking lot of a Cucamonga liquor store.”
JOCELYN: The Oasis? I always thought that was a bad location for a liquor store.
OTTO: (Reading.) “A steel-gray Bentley Phantom registered to one Angel Langos, the notorious Las Vegas casino mobster and drug lord.”
JOCELYN: (Setting the table.) Here we go again.
OTTO: (Reading.) “Although authorities have not officially released the report, it is believed that the bodies were in fact Mr. Langos, his chauffeur, and his bodyguard, Vincent ‘The Hawk’ Mangolin. Evidence retrieved from the front and rear bumpers of the Bentley strongly indicates that the DNA blood type and hair samples belonged to the three victims aforementioned.”
JOCELYN: I told you I never wanted to live this close to the border.
OTTO: We’re nowhere near Mexico.
JOCELYN: Near enough.
OTTO: It’s all in your mind, Jocelyn. Mexico is far, far away. It’s all in your mind.
JOCELYN: How do you want your eggs?
OTTO: Poached, please. As usual. (JOCELYN exits toward down right again.) You know that way when you spin them?
JOCELYN: (Stops, turns to OTTO.) Spin?
OTTO: Where you whirl the boiling water so they look like little pudgy white jellyfish in a vortex. I like them like that.
JOCELYN: I’ll do my best. (Turns to go.) Vortex?
OTTO: You’ve done them like that before, you know.
JOCELYN: (As she exits.) Like I say, I’ll give it a whirl.
(LANGOS enters upstage, smoking a cigar in the doorway.)
OTTO: (Pause as he puzzles over the article again; JOCELYN still off.) You wanna know what I think? I think this guy must’ve been in competition with Langos. The killer. Another damn mobster or something. Casinos, maybe. Prostitution. Trafficking of some kind. Something ugly’s going on.
(JOCELYN reenters slowly, carrying two cups of coffee, sets them down on the table.)
JOCELYN: (Trying not to spill.) Makes sense.
OTTO: They’re out there making deals in the desert.
JOCELYN: Hanky-panky.
OTTO: Out where nobody can observe them. Twentynine Palms or somewhere.
JOCELYN: Ludlow.
OTTO: Yeah, maybe, Ludlow. Maybe Daggett. You wanna go out there, the scene of the crime?
JOCELYN: Are you kidding?
OTTO: Why not? A little adventure. Nobody’s out there now. They’re long gone.
JOCELYN: I’m not getting involved.
OTTO: We might find out something. A clue. Something overlooked.
JOCELYN: My “adventure days” are over.
OTTO: Yeah—maybe.
JOCELYN: When did all this happen, anyway?
OTTO: Sunday.
JOCELYN: That’s when they found the bodies?
OTTO: Right.
JOCELYN: But it could’ve happened earlier. The killings.
OTTO: I suppose.
JOCELYN: A day or two.
OTTO: I don’t know. (Pause.) What are you getting at?
JOCELYN: Whoever this guy was, he must’ve had a big, big grudge.
OTTO: It reminds me of something, once— (Pause.)
JOCELYN: What?
OTTO: A memory—something. I just got this little flash. A glimmer—
JOCELYN: Glimmer?
OTTO: Yeah, a little fragment. Like when you were a kid. I don’t know. Just a glimpse, maybe.
JOCELYN: Of what?
OTTO: Guts on the highway.
JOCELYN: Jesus, Otto.
(Black smoke is coming from down left.)
OTTO: Toast is burning.
(JOCELYN exits quickly down left, OTTO stays. Lights to black.)
Scene 9
(LAWRENCE enters in suit from up center. He crosses down center to audience. OTTO is gone.)
LAWRENCE: (Directly to audience.) My father never touched the ground. He was always carried by slaves from place to place. Straddling their necks, his legs tucked inside their powerful arms. Gleaming sweat. They never stopped moving when they had to transport him a distance. They passed him from man to man as they ran across the mountains. When they finally set him down, his bare feet brushed silken tapestries, not the earth. Leopards woven in Persian yarn. Green parrots flapping wild through desert palms. He slept in hammocks of sweet grass, swinging softly in the shade of the honey locust. My father was never allowed to be kissed by the sun. The sun was not the most powerful force in the heavens at that time. My father was.
(JOCASTA enters and crosses the back of the stage, pregnant. She comes forward and brushes past him as she exits down left. He follows.)
(Cross-fade to OEDIUPUS, extreme upstage in single spotlight.)
Scene 10
OEDIPUS: (Very still. Speaks to audience. Same costume; same eyes gouged out, dripping blood.) You can’t know how my heart did dances when I got the news. At last there was a reason…for our calamity. We knew we were looking for a killer now. The air reeked from corpses piling up. The sky black with vultures. Dogs skulked around in bony packs dragging ragged legs and arms. Fights broke out over every tiny morsel. Eyeballs. Noses. Ears. Shanks of hair and lips. The haunted faces of naked citizens seeing their death before them. Picking through scraps and burning heaps of carnage. Smoke streaked the sun. Now, at least, we knew. We had the answer. A deathly thing, beyond cure. The murderer at large in our very midst. This human beast had brought the disease upon us. Murder of a former king, way before my time. Slaughtered on the common highway by some vagabond maniac of the outskirts. We had only now to root him out. Blood for blood. He was our one salvation.
Scene 11
MANIAC: (Alone, speaking to the wall and the audience.) So of course, of course you charge me with some murder you can’t put your finger on! Some wholesale slaughter by the side of the road. Some act of dementia. Must be on account of me right? Homeless! That’s how you piece this thing together—this detective act. Perfect scene of the crime. Me! An innocent bystander trying to hitch a ride. That’s all. Passing through. Innocent! Anonymous. Totally innocent! Now you even put up signs by the side of the road. “Don’t pick up hitchhikers! Hitchhikers could be fleeing felons!” Rapists! Sodomists! Perverts! Vermin of the lowest caste. There was a time when hitchhiking was a respected art. Back in the days of the Depression. The good ol’ days. Dust Bowl. Soup lines. People were generous back then. They’d give you handouts. A place to stay. A hunk of bread. Now what? Paranoia! Suspicion! Accusations of the most heinous kind.
Scene 12
(ANNALEE enters, slowly pushing her father, OTTO, in the wheelchair, leisurely strolling around the stage.)
OTTO: (In his wheelchair.) How come— Why is it you never come visit me anymore, Annalee?
ANNALEE: I never know where to find you, Dad.
OTTO: I’m around. I’m always around.
ANNALEE: Around where?
OTTO: Here. There. Everywhere.
ANNALEE: You’ve got no phone. No texting, no e-mail, no Facebook, Twitter. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
OTTO: You found me easy enough.
ANNALEE: Yeah, yeah, I did. Just followed your trail of blood.
OTTO: (Long pause.) How you been?
ANNALEE: Can’t complain.
OTTO: How’s that guy? That idiot you had the kid with?
>
ANNALEE: Jimmy.
OTTO: That’s his name? Jimmy?
ANNALEE: That’s the kid’s name.
OTTO: Oh.
ANNALEE: The father’s name is James.
OTTO: James and Jimmy.
ANNALEE: Yeah.
OTTO: Pretty close.
ANNALEE: But I never call James, Jimmy.
OTTO: Oh, why’s that?
ANNALEE: I don’t want to confuse them.
OTTO: Right.
ANNALEE: He doesn’t even deserve a name. (Pause.) He’s in prison.
OTTO: Why’s that?
ANNALEE: He killed somebody.
OTTO: Oh. Right. Who’d he kill this time?
ANNALEE: Our babysitter. He says he doesn’t remember.
OTTO: No. He never does.
ANNALEE: Boned her to death.
OTTO: Figures.
ANNALEE: Left a big mess all over the windows.
OTTO: Right.
ANNALEE: Looks like some giant insect hit the glass.
OTTO: Nasty.
ANNALEE: Me and little Jimmy had to get out of there.
OTTO: Sure.
ANNALEE: It was too creepy.
OTTO: Of course.
ANNALEE: I tried mopping it up, but it was very sticky.
(Long pause.)
OTTO: (Still being pushed by ANNALEE.) Did you ever have this dream—this nightmare where you thought you might have killed someone?
ANNALEE: (Stops suddenly.) No!
(She runs upstage, leaving OTTO in the wheelchair; stops again with her back to him.)
OTTO: What’s the matter now?
ANNALEE: (Stays.) I don’t know.
OTTO: I’ve had that nightmare myself. I’m not sure who the victim was. I’m not even sure why.
ANNALEE: (Stays.) Don’t!
OTTO: What?
ANNALEE: (Stays.) No more!
OTTO: No more what? I’m your father.
ANNALEE: (Turning suddenly back to OTTO.) I know that!
OTTO: I’ll always be your father.
ANNALEE: (Returns to OTTO and starts pushing him again.) I know.
OTTO: You’re awfully touchy lately. Things okay back home?
ANNALEE: NO! No, things are not okay back home. I just told you. Don’t you listen?
