Martin Crimp, Plays 3

by Martin Crimp

  — Yes I invent myself as I go along. I am the one who makes me what I am.

  — I said I am the one who makes me what I am – okay? I’ve got my own voice: I don’t repeat what other people say.

  — No way do I repeat what other people say. I am the one who writes the script.

  — Yes I am the one writing the script of my own life now. It’s me who makes me what I am – not Mum, not Dad.

  — No way is it Mum or Dad making me what I am. No way do I repeat what other people say or follow – obviously – any kind of script.

  — Fuck that.

  — Fuck – obviously following any kind of script. I am in control – fact.

  — I said it is a fact I am in control of my own life – I choose how I dress – I choose how to live.

  — I dress how I dress – I live exactly how I live.

  — I live how I choose to live plus do what I do.

  — I do just what I do: I don’t not do it.

  — Yes please don’t come here telling me I don’t do what I do or do do what I don’t. Don’t you try telling me I don’t live how I live. I am strong. I have choices. I can destroy Mum’s toilet brush. I can destroy Dad’s tools.

  — I can build a space rocket in my own back garden – yes – plus – if I so choose – can destroy Dad’s tools: the pin-hammer and the drill.

  — Yes it’s me who destroys Dad’s high-speed electric drill, and it’s me who destroys Mum’s pink toilet brush. I destroy her sofa now she’s lost her mind plus the two matching chairs. I destroy their TV. I take a sledgehammer and destroy their bed and the bedside lamp and bedside clock. I destroy Mum’s bedside table and her dressing table with the three mirrors. With an axe – fact – I destroy the wobbly chair. With an axe – fact – I destroy the picture of two swans. I am the one who destroys Mum’s wardrobe. I am the one who destroys Dad’s wardrobe now he’s dead and smashes the glass ashtray. I smash the white plastic sun-lounger, I smash the garden tools – the hoe – the rake. I destroy the Saturday tea-trolley with the detachable tray. It’s me who destroys the pots and pans and the electric mixer – yes the electric mixer and the cupboard contents I mean all the plates bowls knives forks spoons and packets of food like macaroni. I destroy the old toys – the doll called Sarah plus James Bond in his original James Bond car. I take Dad’s hearing aid and smash it like this! between two bricks. It’s okay: I can handle it.

  — Yes.

  — I write the script and I can handle it.

  — Yes.

  — It’s up to me.

  — Yes totally up to me – I write the script and I can handle it.

  — Don’t you come here telling me I can’t. Don’t you come here telling me I don’t know how to live or that I’m not desirable. Fuck off if you don’t like the way I speak.

  — Fuck off if you don’t like my religion, yes, or the way I speak.

  — Just so totally fuck off if you don’t like my what? what? what? – come on – say it – what? – my disability?

  — Racist.

  — Anti-semite.

  — Body fascist.

  — Cunt.

  — You terrorist – you body-fascist cunt.

  — Fuck off if you don’t like my heels or my short skirt. Don’t you come here telling me how to dress: I have a unique style.

  — I have a unique style.

  — I have my own – yes – quite totally unique style: the heels – the skirt – or it may be a little hat.

  — I may wear a little hat or I may cover my head entirely – it’s my business how I cover my head and what I cover my head with. I am the one who writes the script.

  — I’m writing the script right now – I’m choosing right here right now the course of my own life right now plus I am making sense of it.

  — You think my life doesn’t make sense? You think I’ve what? I’ve forgotten my own password?

  — You seriously think I can’t open the document of my own life? –

  — Wrong!

  — – can’t change what I like? – can’t delete whatever I like?

  — Wrong!

  — You seriously think I can’t delete my own parents or alter the way I look? You seriously think I can’t make changes to my own body and save them?

  — Wrong!

  — – or tell you when to fuck me or tell you when to stop? You seriously believe I can’t access my deepest love 24–7 and deepen it still more? You think I don’t have those skills? –

  — Wrong!

  — – can’t write my own script? – can’t turn a sex crime to my advantage? – can’t turn a chicken sandwich or the scream of an abducted child to my own personal advantage?

  — Wrong!

  — You think I don’t know how to click on trauma and drag it into the document of my own life? You think I don’t know where to insert the space rocket?

  — Wrong!

  — Yes – just so completely wrong, because I will insert the space rocket right here. I have the will. I have the voice. I have the style. I have the energy and materials. Why should I wait? See me light the twigs. Watch me ignite in my own back garden the rocket-motor of damp leaves. Soon I’ll be higher than the garden swing, higher even than the roof of my own house. Yes and all those sad engineers of pure social misery who hate me to be weightless can only watch through cardboard pinholes as my own private rocket blasts towards Orion – mighty hunter! – great X in the winter sea of stars! – and moves magnificently into orbit. Let them try and control me then! – let them attempt to impose gravity! Watch me toss my piss-stained pyjamas from ten miles up into their grey faces! See me step out of my rocket wrapped in a bright suit of aluminium cooking foil, and set off, lungs glowing with pure oxygen, to track down the lost mass of the universe!

  *

  Acceleration smears my face

  as I go deeper into space

  the earth gets smaller and recedes.

  But not to worry: I don’t care –

  I’ve got clean sheets and nice clean underwear:

  I’ve everything a human being needs.

  It’s not as if I’ll be alone:

  I’ve got the latest touch-screen telephone

  plus all the different apps and leads –

  and naturally Mum made me bring

  Big Teddy and the garden swing –

  yes everything a human being needs.

  I write the script – key in the stars –

  key in long rows of storage jars

  in which I keep fresh human eggs and seeds.

  What’s wrong? Am I perverse

  to fill my private universe

  with everything a human being needs?

  Check the controls – it’s cold out there! –

  no gas, no mass, no gravity or air –

  zero is what each meter reads.

  But not to worry – I shan’t die –

  I write the script and that is why

  I’ve got a private oxygen supply –

  lungs that inflate – a heart that bleeds –

  Oh yes! I’ve everything a human being needs.

  2

  THE FREEDOM TO SEPARATE MY LEGS (IT’S NOTHING POLITICAL)

  — I’m happy to separate my legs. I said I am happy to separate my legs – and when I say I’m happy to separate my legs, I mean it. I mean what I say.

  — I mean what I mean.

  — I mean what I say I mean: I mean I am happy to separate my legs – look.

  — It’s not like I’m talking in code.

  — It’s not one of those things where people are talking in code.

  — I don’t talk in code. I don’t say I’m happy to separate my legs so that people who’ve been educated in a certain way or have particular beliefs can sit here in this audience and think that I mean the opposite – no way.

  — No way do I mean the opposite.

  — It’s not one of those horrible things where people all mean the opposite of what they say.
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  — No way am I speaking in code – or trying to what? trying to represent something. I am what I am – not part of a group.

  — No way am I part of a group.

  — I don’t join groups – I don’t want trouble – I’m happy to separate my legs – look.

  — I don’t want to cause trouble at the airport: I raise my arms, I separate my legs, I let myself be searched. The longer I’m searched, the safer I feel. Plus I’m happy to queue: it’s logical.

  — I said: it’s logical to queue.

  — It’s logical to queue, it’s logical to pass through the arch of a metal-detector one at a time. It makes sense to go back if the alarm sounds, it makes sense to be searched and filmed. It’s not like I’m looking for trouble.

  — No I’m not looking for trouble at the airport. If the alarm sounds I separate my legs.

  — I’m separating my legs. I’m letting my body be touched. It’s a normal body, it doesn’t represent anything. My body’s okay. I’ve got an okay bum.

  — This is my bum – it doesn’t represent anything. My bum’s not part of a group. My bum is happy to accept the way things are plus there is nothing hidden inside it.

  — I’ve nothing hidden inside my anus. My vagina is empty. I let my vagina be searched. The deeper you reach into my vagina the safer we both feel – it’s nothing political – there is nothing political about my body.

  — There is nothing political about my body and there is nothing political about my holidays.

  — Nothing at all.

  — Nothing political at all.

  — I said there’s nothing political about my holidays at all – I come back refreshed – it’s not like I’ve something to hide – I separate my legs.

  — I separate my legs, I let myself be searched plus open my bag. I’ve nothing to hide – here are my things – holiday trousers, holiday hat. I’m not carrying an illegal cheese.

  — No way am I carrying an illegal cheese or an illegal vegetable. These are my own children.

  — Yes these are my own small children. I haven’t stolen them, I’m not trafficking them. Their vaginas as you can see are empty and so are their cuddly toys.

  — Oh sweet!

  — There’s nothing political about my children or my children’s schools. My children as you can perfectly well see are one hundred per cent normal – raise their arms, separate their legs, produce their own documents –

  — Produce – yes – their own tiny documents on demand, wait patiently while their toys are searched, and if God forbid I were to smack one round the head that poor poor child would be taken into immediate state protection. Because I admire the state. I said I admire the state. And when I say I admire the state it’s not so that people who’ve been educated in a certain way can what? can smile sideways at their neighbour and think I believe the opposite. No: I admire the state. I admire its mechanisms for protecting my child just as I admire its systems for killing the unborn. It is proper to scan. It is proper to weed out the human material that could spoil my holiday, leaving me less refreshed.

  — Oh excellent screening mechanisms! Oh scans of the whole human body!

  — Scans of my holiday trousers! Oh probing radiographs of an illicit cheese!

  — Deep scanning of the iris of my eye!

  — Cheese scans – deep scanning of my eyes plus click to explore my bank account plus click to identify my date of birth and current regime of drugs – I’ve nothing to hide.

  — I’ve nothing at all to hide: my medication’s in this bag – see for yourself – it’s not political.

  — My medication’s in a transparent bag – it’s not political – the deeper I medicate the safer we both feel – the deeper I medicate myself – the deeper I medicate my child.

  — The deeper I medicate my own child, the safer we both feel. I have a right to identify the molecule.

  — I have a right to scan my own child. I have a human right – yes – to identify the molecule that makes my child unhappy or stops my child concentrating or that makes him scream.

  — Oh look at my child run round the airport screaming!

  — Oh sweet!

  — If my child runs round the airport screaming, I give him the medication. If he coughs – if he fails to concentrate.

  — If my child says fuck to Immigration. If my child calls an air steward you cunt.

  — If my child says you cunt to a uniformed officer with a machine gun or begins to lash out with his fists, I medicate.

  — Oh sweet!

  — I pin my child down: I give him the pink syrup – I feed him the yellow capsule.

  — He loves to be pinned down – he loves the struggle to force open his jaws – and how calm –

  — – yes how calm he is now after the pink syrup – how intelligent after the one-hundred-milligram capsule – plus he’s begun to read –

  — Oh sweet! – he’s beginning to read!

  — – can pick out the names of chemicals and of chemical manufacturers – can recognise the word drowsiness, can spell the word discolouration. He can even pop his own capsule through the gap in his own teeth. He can even do sums!

  — I’m so proud of the way he does his sums – knows there are a thousand milligrams in a gram and that a thousand grams make up a kilo. He even knows the per-kilo cost!

  — Yes my own small child knows the per-kilo cost of his own medication. I’m so proud.

  — I’m so proud.

  — I’m so proud of my own child.

  — Yes so proud when he tots up the per-kilo cost and he gets it right. Plus now when I read to him from a proper grown-up story book how he goes shinyeyed! How he drinks in a delicious story full of life and full of fully imagined characters so real they can almost be touched! Watch him absorb the funny and human things they say. See how he follows the slippery antics of Susan and Bill – and of Susan’s best friend Jenny. Oh how deeply Bill loves Susan – but how little he trusts her! He locks her away – but even when she’s locked away she lies – sneaks out – goes back to her old friend Jenny – sprawls on the soft divan and separates her legs. And Bill finds out. Oh yes, the agony when Bill finds out she’s wet between the legs for Jenny! But instead of confronting her, he only makes more promises and gives her – Susan, I mean – ever more extravagant gifts! A dress! A luxury motor car! Oh such is jealousy! Such the complex self-lacerating agony of human love! – but hey hey hey – it’s not that I’m a snob about this.

  — No way am I a snob.

  — No way.

  — No way am I saying – what? – that there’s one kind of high-brow text-based entertainment for me and my own small gifted and intelligent child and some other kind of entertainment – some kind of – well let me see – hmm – what? – some kind of screen-based proletarian trash? – really? – is that what you think? – for the less gifted? – for the what? for the poor? Come on. You’re joking. Don’t give me that shit.

  — Don’t you come here giving me that shit about rich and poor – grow up – yes you heard what I said: grow up – this is nothing to do with politics – this is about me and how I feel.

  — This is entirely about the way I feel.

  — I feel what I feel: I can’t not feel it.

  — How can I not feel what I feel about my own child? How can I not feel what I feel about my own feelings? Because it’s a fact that I feel what I feel plus whatever I feel is a fact. Is a pure fact. Don’t you come here telling me it isn’t. Don’t you come here telling me I should what? should resist security. Why should I resist security? No. I need security. I believe in security. I complete security. I zip up my bag.

  — I snap shut – look – my vagina – I proceed to the gate.

  *

  There’s nothing political about my children’s schools –

  there’s nothing political about targeting certain molecules –

  or about how I choose my holidays or hospitals:

  DON’T GIVE ME THAT SHIT<
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  JUST KEEP YR NOSE OUT OF IT!

  *

  There’s nothing political about stories of child-abduction –

  there’s nothing political about my human right to liposuction –

  to the drug that I want or to the profits of drug-production:

  DON’T GIVE ME THAT SHIT

  JUST KEEP YR NOSE OUT OF IT!

  *

  There’s nothing political about my holiday hat –

  about how much I earn or who’s feeding my cat –

  there’s nothing political about my right to be fat:

  DON’T GIVE ME THAT SHIT

  JUST KEEP YR NOSE OUT OF IT!

  *

  There’s nothing political about replacing my heart or about standing in line with my legs apart –

  there’s no place for politics in this or in any other work of art:

  DON’T GIVE ME THAT SHIT

  JUST KEEP YR NOSE OUT OF IT!

  *

  Don’t give me that crap about rich and poor –

  stop droning on about what constitutes a just war –

  don’t you come here telling me what my life’s supposed to be for –

  I said get that foot of yours out of my fucking door!

  YOU’RE SO FULL OF SHIT!

  YES YOU’RE SO FULL OF SHIT YOU CAN

  KEEP YR NOSE OUT OF IT!!!

  3

  THE FREEDOM TO EXPERIENCE HORRID TRAUMA

  — Protect me. Terrorise me. Then protect me again.

  — Protect me. Save me. Fuck me.

  — Fuck me, scan me, then fuck me again. Satisfy me one hundred per cent.

  — If I’m not one hundred per cent satisfied, return my money.

  — Give me back my money and apologise.

  — Terrorise me and apologise. Give me a new heart.

  — Replace my heart with a new one. Repair my liver.

  — Replace my heart and enlarge my breasts – enlarge my lips.

  — Whiten my teeth plus fatten my lips. Make love to me.

  — Separate my legs – make love to me – fuck me and abduct my child – surprise me on my birthday – surprise me with a kitten.