| SCENE: |
Trendy six-table restaurant, all six full. At first, general
restaurant bustle: orders taken, laughter, conversation. Lights dim,
spotlight slowly focusing on table four. Young couple at the table. Both
are fairly androgynous, both wearing trendy black. A server comes, gives
them identical salads, offers them fresh black pepper from a mill. Exit
server. As the spotlight intensifies, the couple’s conversation grows
louder, but Man’s first line is the first one that is fully audible by the audience. |
|---|
| MAN: |
That’s not just women who do that. I hurt myself on purpose. All
the time. |
| WOMAN: |
Yeah? When was the last time you hurt yourself? |
| MAN: |
Okay, not recently, but I’ve done it. And I don’t think of myself
as particularly disturbed or needing therapy or anything. Everybody does
it. Everybody picks their scabs and warts and zits, and those bleed all over the place
and hurt like an honest day’s work. |
| WOMAN: |
That’s a weird thing to say. You say that a lot, "Hurt like an
honest day’s work?" |
| MAN: |
[Beat] I know a guy who passed out from squeezing a boil that was
growing on the inside of his nose. Passed out, there in the bathroom,
could’ve hit his head on the toilet and The End. So what does he do? When he finally comes to, he waves a needle a few times through the flame of his lighter and pushes the point all the way to the white mush center of that thing. Talk about pain! That’s the kind of pain where, for like, 16 nanoseconds, the formula for the whole fucking universe flashes in your head, then, like that!, it shorts out like a neon sign. Those bright purple streaks behind your eyes ... that’s all that’s left of the meaning of life. |
| WOMAN: |
You know a guy? |
| MAN: |
Okay, it was me. But see? That just proves it: I’ve hurt myself on
purpose. |
| WOMAN: |
But that’s not the same. That’s medical. You’re getting rid of
the zit because it hurts and it needs getting rid of, and once it’s gone
it hurts less. That’s calculated pain, strategic pain. That’s like a sacrifice in chess:
you lose to gain. |
| MAN: |
[Pondering a tomato wedge] Okay, how about this one. At a bar,
playing darts with my friends, drinking, laughing, you know, the whole
thing. We’re guys, so we start talking tough: I’ve kicked this much ass, oh yeah?, well
I’ve kicked twice as much, you know, the whole thing. So it’s Chuck Buck’s turn to shoot ... |
| WOMAN: |
Chuck Buck? There’s really somebody out there named Chuck Buck? |
| MAN: |
Yeah there is, and he’s been my friend for like twenty years.
What, you always make fun of people’s best friends on a first date? |
| WOMAN: |
[A little too seriously] No, usually I never make fun of
anybody. |
| MAN: |
Hey, relax! I make fun of people all the time. It’s because I’m
superior to them, and I find their antics amusing. |
| WOMAN: |
So Chuck Buck is shooting. . . . |
| MAN: |
Right, it’s Chuck’s shot, and everybody’s watching him, so it’s a
good time to talk, and he says: "None of you know jack shit about pain.
Got to go to war if you want to know pain," and he shoots and hits triple 20, like God agreed with him or something. |
| WOMAN: |
Chuck Buck’s been to war? |
| MAN: |
Desert Fucking Storm. So no. But they had to find stuff to do
there, you know, so they had all sorts of fucked up games they played,
and one of them was Human Dart Board. |
| WOMAN: |
Let me guess: it was Chuck Buck’s idea. |
| MAN: |
Maybe. I don’t know. I’d have to ask ol’ Chuckie, but I wouldn’t be
surprised. |
| WOMAN: |
So is Human Dart Board pretty much what it sounds like? |
| MAN: |
Pretty much. Only the point isn’t to stick people; actually, the
point is not to stick people. You throw your dart at them, but you’re
just trying to hit their clothes or hats or shoes without hurting them. You draw blood, you’re out. Last one not to wins. |
| WOMAN: |
[Faux choking] Hats? What if you miss? |
| MAN: |
Then you’re S.O.L. Oh yeah, and if you’re the Dart Board and you
duck or flinch, you’re out. |
| WOMAN: |
Can you blink? |
| MAN: |
I mean, I wasn’t there. But I guess you can blink. Be hard not to. |
| WOMAN: |
And so you started playing Human Dart Board with Chuck Buck and
the rest of your gang at the bar? |
| MAN: |
No, they just had those cheap-ass plastic darts there that don’t
weigh enough and are impossible to throw right. Can’t play Human Dart
Board with plastic darts. |
| WOMAN: |
[Thinking hard] So . . . what’s the point of your story? |
| MAN: |
The point was those guys in Desert Storm were just hurting
themselves for entertainment purposes. No medicinal value whatsoever. So
see? — not just women do it. |
| WOMAN: |
[Stopping eating] You’re totally missing the point. Hurting
yourself for — entertainment purposes — in public is totally different.
That’s a show they were putting on. And anyway, I bet no one got seriously hurt, or if
someone did then the game stopped right away. |
| MAN: |
No army men were seriously hurt in the telling of that story. The
ego of my date, however, is another thing. . . . |
| WOMAN: |
And anyway I bet Chuck Buck made up the whole thing. Just to
sound tough, look like Big Stuff in front of his little friends. |
| MAN: |
Yeah, he might’ve. Might’ve made the whole damn thing up. Makes
shit up all the time. One time he told me he was a distant relative of
the original Ronald McDonald. He’s a vegetarian now, you know, that Ronald
McDonald. I read . . . that . . . somewhere . . . . |
| WOMAN: |
[Pause] |
| MAN: |
[Pause] |
| WOMAN: |
You really don’t see what I’m saying? You really don’t think
women are taught to hurt themselves in ways men aren’t? |
| MAN: |
To be honest, I don’t know. You sound like you’ve probably read
more on the subject than I have. But hey, if it’ll make you feel better,
I’ll hurt myself right now. On behalf of all men. |
| WOMAN: |
[Lightening up] Yeah? How? |
| MAN: |
I don’t know. Fall out of my chair? Jam a straw up my nose? You
pick. |
| WOMAN: |
Stick pepper in your eye. |
| MAN: |
What are you, nuts? |
| WOMAN: |
Here, I’ll pour a nice eye-sized pile for you. [Empties pepper
on table.] |
| MAN: |
You are really something. Really something. |
| WOMAN: |
There you go — one deluxe pile of pepper. Now scoop it up and
jam it in your eye. |
| MAN: |
And this is what women do — they’re in so much pain and angst and
silent unspeakable anguish that when nobody’s looking they smear pepper into
their eyes. |
| WOMAN: |
Exactly. That’s exactly what women do. |
| MAN: |
Tell you what: I will if you will. You’re a woman — this must be
old fucking hat to you. Probably can’t even see when you wake up until
you put a little pinch of pepper between you and your contact lenses. |
| WOMAN: |
Fine, I’ll do it too. You first. |
| MAN: |
You know what, I am going to do it, just to make you do it. [Jams
pepper into his eye. Just then, the waiter comes with their entrees.] |
| WOMAN: |
Oh, looks like I’ll have to wait my turn. Lunch is here. |
| MAN: |
[Laughing and crying] That actually wasn’t so bad. I thought it
was going to hurt more. So this is what it’s like being a woman? It’s not
so bad — everybody cries a little, and that was pretty damn funny. See, you want
to talk about really hurting yourself, let’s talk about that steak you’re
eating. Who has steak for lunch? You know how many people’s deaths each
year are directly attributable to eating red meat? Who has steak for
lunch? [To Server] Thank you. Oh, please don’t put her plate on top of that
pepper pile. We’ll be needing it later. |
That is the last discernable thing that can be heard from table four. Spotlight
fades and simultaneously lights return to normal; other conversations can
be heard and the bustle of the restaurant takes over.
Curtain. |
