This is Home

BOY – The Show-Off – A smart, talkative boy.

VITTLE – The Superstitious Man – A self-possessed priest.

FINGO – The Fabricator – A typical follower.

ELIA – The Lover of Bad Company – A disenchanted cynic.

JAMES – The Man Without Moral Feeling – A ravisher of tradition.

GIRL/LENORE – The Late Learner – A naive romantic.

Scene 1: There is a Rocket Ship

(At Rise: A playroom. Toys. A model train set. Whizzing, whirring, clicking, clacking. The train slowly circles the track, hypnotizing in its steady rhythm. It goes through tunnels. Lights blink. Whistles sound. It looks like the day after Christmas, complete with the soft lighting and the ice-frosted windows. A boy enters. He walks to the middle of the stage, steps over the tracks carefully, and sits. His back is to the audience. He is a child, and wears pajamas with waning moons and cows and cats with fiddles and spoons. He sits in the middle of the room, and is still for a few moments, watching the train go around in eternal circles. He shifts. He glances back, and notices the audience. Then, he jumps to his feet, tosses a playful smirk, and addresses them matter-of-factly.)

BOY: I’m James. James Selador. The kids at school said that my last name is silly. They said it sounds girly. But I think they’re just dumb; I think that it’s a good name. It’s kind of… I dunno. The girls think it’s pretty. Maybe they’re right, but pretty is the same as girly, so probably not. I think it sounds cool. Like, kind of soft. Like a snake! Yeah, it sounds like a really cool snake. I like snakes. Did you know that snakes move by sliding bones on their belly up and down? It’s true! Every bone works together to push them wherever they want to go. I think people are kind of like that, too. We all work together to get somewhere. We all slither, like snakes! Yep.

(The boy walks over to a cabinet and extracts a box wrapped in cellophane. He carefully removes the plastic and opens the box, setting each piece aside. He pulls out tubes, fins, plastic legs, cones, and various pieces. He carries these back to center stage and sits, with his back to the audience. For a few minutes, he works quietly putting the pieces together. Finally, he turns.)

BOY: Almoooooost done… Just a few finishing touches and it’ll be perfect. That’s the last fin. (He shifts, revealing a model rocket.) Did you know that one miscalculation, or even a little dent, can send a shuttle spinning out of control? When you’re going that fast, the smallest stuff can blow everything up! It’s true! I read it in the encyclopedia. (The boy continues to work on the model) I don’t want anything to go wrong for me. Nope… I’m going to send this thing soaring. My dad made all the pieces, so it has to be perfect. My mom says that god made us in his image, and that he’s the heavenly father. So dad must be kind of like god, right? So it’s gotta be perfect. (He continues to work, assembling fins, possibly applying some glue. Finally, he holds up one of the model rocket engines for the audience) Real gunpowder! Y’know, this thing can go up twelve hundred feet! Don’t worry, though. It’s totally safe. Billy Jansen shot one right at a window, and it didn’t even break the glass. My dad says that the middle parts are supposed to fold up when it hits something going really fast. Like in the cartoons. SMASH! And it folds up like an accordion. One of my friends got hit with one once, and he was fine. He said it hurt, though. It’s funny; everyone else tried getting hit after that. Like, they wanted to make sure it hurt like he said. I think people just like getting hurt. (He continues to add finishing touches, dabbing with paint. This continues for a few moments in silence. Finally, he stops and stands back, admiring the work.) There! All done! (Beat) When you work on something long enough, you start to love it a lot. But I think the more you love something, the more you have to hate it, too. I think that if you love something enough, you would never want to see it. You would crumple it up. Shoot it right at that window and watch it fold. The more beautiful something is, the more it hurts to break it.  Like everyone shooting themselves with rockets, just because they knew it hurt.

(He stares at the model, then picks it up slowly. He swings it through the air lightly, making whooshing noises. He looks right at the audience again. Then, he raises the rocket above his head and throws it on the ground. He kicks it, stomps on it, and smashes it until there is nothing left but little broken, plastic bits. At last, he stomps as hard as he can on what’s left of the fuselage. He steps back, breathing heavily.)

BOY: Stupid model… Stupid plastic. Stupid everything. I hate it so much. It deserved it. It deserved to break. (Beat) Don’t try to comfort me. I don’t care how long I worked on it! I DON’T CARE! (Beat) Whatever. I didn’t like it very much anyway. It’s not like you can’t find another. (Silence. He stares at the audience, listening.) Well fine! If you love your stupid rocket so much, why don’t you just go marry it? (Beat) Well I hate it! And I hate you, too! Go away! I just want to be left alone. I’m going home.

(BOY storms out. Stage darkens.)

Scene 2: There is a Moon.

(The lights are dim around the edges, highlighting the chair in the center. The background is generic. One of those wavy, off-blue curtains that doesn’t really say anything or attract any attention. The background of every interview on every educational television program ever. They have a million names for that type of blue. Somewhere between powder and royal. Basically, the color is what you would get if you chugged a gallon of blue, purple, and gray paint, then vomited onto a curtain. Han Purple isn’t right, but that’s the closest you’ll get. The chair is equally generic. It looks like it jumped out of the IKEA catalogue. Whatever it’s Swedish name is, it probably means “middle-American consumerist lounger.” VITTLE enters. He sits in the chair, folds his legs, and looks comfortable. He is the Superstitious Man.)

VITTLE: On five, then? (He smiles and stares out at the center of the stage, at the camera that isn’t there.) The Seladors. Well, yes. I knew them quite well, actually. Marie Hotchkinson and I grew up in the same area, rural Kansas if you must know. I knew her family growing up, and we went to the same church school. Marie was a dear friend and quite a morally upstanding person. Indeed, I don’t know where she went wrong. When I was seventeen, I decided to become a priest. Marie married soon after I left for seminary. I never knew David Selador in his youth, but we met in the city. It’s quite an interesting story, really. You see, I moved into the city soon after completing my seminary. A small church needed a priest, and so I began a ministry there. Things went quite nicely for a very long time. In fact, the congregation size doubled in my first two years. Personally, I thank God for my success. He truly blessed me with a gift for inspiring others. From what I’ve heard, my sermons drew most of the new members. I personally believe that one must take a firm stance with faith. Crush the temptations of Satan out of individuals from a young age. Of course, many did not share my enlightened beliefs. However, I believe I converted a good number of the locals. Of course, I speak in the past tense because I returned to the country. I’ve found that- (Beat – listening) Oh; yes. How silly of me to be so sidetracked; the Lord gave me a golden tongue, and who am I to restrain it? But I suppose I should continue with… (Unpleasantly) …the Seladors. Well shortly after I began my ministry in the city, I was taking confessions. One day, out of the blue, I realized that I recognized the voice on the other side of the screen. Lo and behold, there was Marie! Of course, I was overjoyed to see her. Especially since she had continued to nurture a strong faith. She was truly blessed with a lovely family. I first met David here; he was a… quiet man. A banker of some sort? (Beat) Today? Oh, I don’t know. Most people stopped hearing from him after that nasty business with James. When he vanished, I was of course there to comfort Marie in her time of need. Having to raise a daughter without a husband can be a difficult thing. Especially given the reputation of her son. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

(At this point, VITTLE might stand and begin to pace. He should raise his voice and gesticulate when possible and appropriate. Preacher-mode.)

VITTLE: Well Marie and David had just had their first child: James Selador. Of course, most of you know the name. I don’t know where they went wrong raising that child. David was as compliant as any husband should be in matters of faith and household, and Marie knew her place as a mother. Honestly, such a sad outcome to such a wonderful family. It truly illustrates the… why, the power that unsavory forces exert over us weak minded beings! Marie was a strict mother, a faithful wife, and a moral person. I’m sure she raised her son to comply with all of the mores of our teachings! And yet, the wicked taint of corruption still touched the boy, and drove him to not only reject the household that had raised him, but to reject his one and only salvation. Namely, the Holy Father. It didn’t help that David disappeared at the first sign of trouble. James, only seventeen, was fatherless and sinful. What can be done at times like those? Strict punishment is not enough; poor Marie could only pray for a miracle.

(Beat – listening. He sits. Interviewee-mode.)

VITTLE: Love? Honestly, I don’t know. It might have been love. Lust, probably. Whatever the reason, he ran away with that harlot and those surly friends of his. And he left poor Marie alone and heartbroken, with only me to console her. You know what he said to his poor mother before abandoning her? He told her that he was “reaching for the sky, because you never let me.” Truly tragic. (Beat – gossipy) Oh, but that’s not even the worst of it.

(Stage darkens as soon as VITTLE finishes the sentence.)

Scene 3: They set off…

(The lights come up. Same stage, no VITTLE. Breath a sigh of relief. FINGO is in the chair. He is leaning forward, and looks excited to be there. Like a daredevil child riding a bike for the first time, or maybe a dog being tempted to do a trick by a particularly tasty-smelling treat. He is the Fabricator.)

FINGO: Dude; Jimmy? Yeah, man! We had some wild times! Right, so this is like… a couple months after we all took off. That was all Jimmy, man; I feel sorry for the guy, y’know? Getting brought up by that psycho-religious mom and that pushover pop? I’m surprised he wasn’t a regular nut by the time we found him. I mean, sure. He had issues. Like, we all knew that. But everyone has something wrong with ‘em, y’know? Plus, Jimmy was just such a crazy sonuvabitch, you could look past all of that crap. So yeah, he told off that crazy bitch and we all took off. Caught a bus out of the city then started hitchin’ until we could get a car. No ‘rents or anything like that, man. Those were good times. So yeah; a few months after we took off, we’re talking along this Louisiana road. Some po-dunk place in the middle of nowhere. The story on how we got there is, you know how buses have crazy policies on what you can and can’t do? Like… Okay. Maybe you don’t. But they do! And they don’t tell you. So we were on the bus going towards Cali because Len wanted to surf in the Pacific – that’s Lenore, but I call her Len because she hates Lenore – so we’re on this bus, and Jim lights up a cigarette while he’s snogging Len. So they’re getting it on right on the bus and Jim’s got a lit square, and this crazy butch bus lady slams on the brakes, comes rolling down the aisle, and tells them to get out. So we stick together, and we all got off. So now we’re in the middle of Louisiana on this road going nowhere near some town called Naw-che-whatever. And there’s this lake that we’re walking past, hitchin’ for a ride into town. Okay. So by “lake” I mean like… pond. Or river. Or something. A river’s kind of like a pond, right? It totally is. So it’s this muddy water thing. And Jim says it’s too hot out, and he wants to stop and go for a swim. Now, we’re all thinking it’s pretty sick, right? I mean, this is Louisiana. There’s probably crocs or red necks or something in that lake. But whatever; Jim’s crazy. So he jumps right in. We stop and just sit around for a while. I mean, no one else was going to get in. I think Len wanted to, but we talked her out of it. So anyways, like, a half hour goes by. And we’re just sitting here by the side of the road, watching all these righteous right-wing crazies go by, and Jimmy comes running out of the bushes. And he’s all stoked about something, like, can’t even sit still. So I ask him what’s up and he sticks out his arm. Covered in leeches man. Like, fucking bloodsuckers. Len’s freaking out, everyone else thinks it’s gross, and I’m trying to figure out what to do, and Jim’s just sitting there, grinning like a crazy idiot with these Louisiana leeches all over his arm. I think in the end, that’s the type of crazy stuff that made us admire him. Jimmy was a tough sonuvabitch, and we all loved him for it. We’d do anything for that kid, even if he was a bit crazy. Runs in the family, yanno?

(Blackout.)

Scene 4: The Rocket Ship Flies?

(The lights come up. Same stage, new person. Her name is ERIA. She leans back. She eyes the audience. She’s smoking a cigarette and looking like she’d rather be somewhere else. She’s standoffish. Up-front and confrontational. Uncomfortable. And no-nonsense; this is the no-bullshit type of girl. She’ll say what she means. She glares a lot. She takes a drag from her cigarette. She keeps talking. She’s the Lover of Bad Company.)

ERIA: He told you the leech story? Oh come on. You bought it? Whatever; half the stuff that comes out of his mouth is crap. Sure. We got kicked off a bus and stuck in Louisiana. Sure, we hitchhiked into town. Sure, James stopped and went swimming in some nasty looking river. The leeches were fake. Do they even have leeches in Louisiana? Seriously; you people should hire a fact checker. (Beat – listening. She takes another drag before continuing.) You want to know about Len and James? Do you even know anything about Len? I’ve known her longer than anyone. I met her when I was a kid. We both grew up in one of the especially crappy neighborhoods in our especially crappy hometown. Len was nice and girly and pretty. All that stuff that slob guys like James or Fink-oh love. Me? I was the one who had to look out for her most of her life. Every time something bad happened, I was the first person she came to. Hell, I learned to be the tough girl just because Len couldn’t. Didn’t do us much good in the end. See, Len’s dad loved booze. That’s about all there is to it. So he stayed home and got drunk all day while her mom worked. Len was smart enough to stay out of his way, so she stuck with me. We went to concerts, parties, whatever. When we were both fifteen, we went to our first rave. That got to be a habit for us. I guess you can tell, right? You should’ve seen Len; she dyed her hair bright pink, cut it all short. She got her tongue pierced. I ended up having to kick the crap out of the guy who did it, since he used a dirty needle and it got infected. Len didn’t mind, though; she got over it fast and was back on the scene a few weeks later. That was Len for you. So things were going just great for us, in our own crappy way. And that’s when Len met James. James Selador. She thought his name sounded sexy. She called it “pretty.” Again, that’s Len for you. Well let me tell you about James Selador. Me and Len had it tough growing up. James? His mom was some country hick who moved to the city because it was cheaper. His dad was some sort of banker. Real religious cases, too. Or, at least, his mom was. He had it easy growing up. So he hits puberty and decides it’s time to be a little rebel. First chance he gets, he hits up the party scene. Sunday night Bible studies? Leviticus was the last thing on his mind. Face it; the kid was a spoiled, typical middle class bird who wanted to see how the worms lived it up. Nihilism only gets you so far in principle, so James gets it in his head to screw up his entire life. His goal from then on was rock bottom and nothing less. He’d get this crazy look in his eyes whenever he talked about it. Religion, jobs, wealth, “middle-America.” James Selador’s hate buzzwords. And Len loved him for it. In the end, she ditched me and ran off with him somewhere in Cali. That’s what he did; fucked things up. He had a nice spot in life, and he ripped it apart. His old man completely disappeared. Probably ran off because he saw what a crazy freak his son was becoming. His mom lost it. Len and I were slowly getting better, we were making it. He ripped that apart. When we hit the road as a group, things started getting good. We were really living. And then James decided it wasn’t good enough, either. He ripped everything he saw apart, and that’s all there is to it. And in the end, when he had something good with Len, something real, he ripped that up, too. Wanna know the worst part? People worshipped him for it. He was the symbol for every angsty teen from Houston to Kalamazoo. And his little frat boy buddies? Fink-oh and all those other guys who wanted to be just as messed up, just as screwy as him? He was like their god. Kind of ironic, right? For someone who hated religion so much, he sure built himself a nice little cult. He always said we were taking off. To me, it seemed like we were crashing.

(Blackout)

Scene 5: They Reach For The Moon

(The lights come up. The background is gone. So’s the chair. The scene’s changed for once, and there are no people. There’s a brick wall in the background. A flickering lamp off somewhere on the left, out of sight but for the flicker. Cheap neon illuminates the background. There’s a lone mic on a stand in the middle of a spotlight, right in the center of the stage. You can hear a crowd in the background. Splashes of laughter. Snippets of conversation. A blending machine of civil disobedience. A Vita-Mix of unrest. A confrontation smoothie with a power shot of radical. JAMES enters. He’s wearing somewhat regular clothes. A jacket of some sort, maybe beat up denim, black. Jeans or dark pants. Some sort of t-shirt. Shades, for sure. Maybe a hat or bandana wrapped around his forehead. Really, it doesn’t matter what he’s wearing. He’s wearing what he pulled out of the unattended drying machines at the Laundromat. He’s wearing the forgotten items that those thrift shops forgot to anti-theft tag. He’s wearing whatever he felt like. He’s the Man Without Moral Feelings.)

JAMES: If you clap, you might as well leave. Stand up, turn around, and get kicked out the door. That’s the rule of three right there. Ever notice that? Every story has it. Jack climbed the beanstalk three times. Cinderella had three sisters. Goldilocks and the Three fucking Bears. I never got that. Why three? The beginning, middle, and end. Which one are we in right now? Are we ending, or just somewhere in the middle? We’re in limbo, that’s what we are. We’re nowhere, stuck in the middle of nothing. We’re Snow White, somewhere between that first and third visit from her wicked stepmother. We’re Rumpelstiltskin, spinning around forever because we forgot if we were on spin two or three. That three-part structure? That’s a wall, and it’s blocking us. You’re here because you want enlightenment. You want inspiration. You want, you want, you want. That’s all you do. Because you hit that wall. You know what I want? I want to rip down that wall. I want to tear everyone and everything into little, itty-bitty pieces and throw it all in the fire. Am I in the middle or the end? Man, I’m ripping myself apart and starting over. At least then I’ll know where the chips fall. I know three French words: bonjour, merci, and surrender. They say those triples, that rule of three, makes things funnier. You start up a pattern, that’s one. You continue the pattern, that’s two. So where’s the humor? That comes from breaking the pattern. From tearing it apart and shoving the leftovers in the pretty little face of the pretty little world. That’s step three. Give ‘em two nice, settling words, then scream in their face. That’s all there is to it. Stop wasting time with your no-where religions – more triples there than you can count. Stop spending time with your no-where families. Stop enjoying your no-where relationships. Rip it all apart. Tear it down. Take the wrecking ball to it, and laugh a little while you kill everything that ever mattered or meant anything. Everything that was beautiful. Everything that you loved. The more you love it, the harder to have you stomp. What are the two nicest words you can think of, off the top of your head?

(From the shadows on the right, VITTLE enters.)

VITTLE: (Soft) Nobility. Eternity.

(From the shadows on the left, FINGO enters.)

FINGO: (Humorously) Chattanooga. Gonorrhea.

(From behind the wall in the center, ERIA enters.)

ERIA: (Harmoniously) Lullaby. Gossamer.

JAMES: Let them roll off your tongue, nice and soft. Enjoy them. Play with them. Feel to the sensation they make when they shake the air in your throat. Then scream out something grating, something ugly, something guttural.

ERIA: GRIPE!

FINGO: PULKRA!

VITTLE: DAMNATION!

JAMES: (Angry, hissing into the mic) Assemble your pretty little model, paint it all your pretty colors, then smash it to pieces. Destroying everything is the only way to create perfect beauty.

(Blackout)

Scene 6: They land

(Back in the playroom. The rocket ship bits are on the ground. The train is derailed. The lights are dim. GIRL enters, a child. She walks idly to the center of the stage, glancing down at the wreckage. BOY enters, a child. He walks sheepishly, limping a bit on one foot.)

Notes:

1. Selador, James’s last name, is a play on cellar door. According to J.R.R. Tolkien, cellar door was the most inherently beautiful phrase in the English language.

2. Vittle is a play on the word victuals – pronounced vittles. According to writer Harry Golden, it is the ugliest word in the English language.

3. The Superstitious Man, The Fabricator, The Lover of Bad Company, and The Man without Moral Feeling are references to Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher, who included those four on a list of stock characters.

4. Fingo is a play on the Latin word confingo, which means “to fabriate.”

5. Eria comes from Philoponeria, which means the Lover of Bad Company. Once again, a tip of the hat to Theophrastus.

What's eating you, kid?

is it that little gremlin of self doubt

nibbling away at the untanned skin

between your ribs?

tearing off fleshy strips and

atrophying your precious organs

as you gape at all the minor perfections surrounding

your too-imperfect self?

or the slow, grinding maw of cankerous affection

leeching on your ventricles and spitting out

your ashen blood with its taste for

less-corroded food,

less broken down by this tiring world

where affections are afflictions

in the eyes of the effected?

those chemo treatments swell the parasites

till they're engorged on the cancers

deliciously reveling their fat, grease-soaked bodies

on the flat affect you're struggling to carry

is it less subtle, then?

perhaps a vicious melancholy predator has

sprung from the undergrowth of your

sinful, sultry thoughts

and is rending you in a gory public display,

chomping down your senses till the

sterile world is monochromed by the

tearful burdens you're lugging around,

dragging behind you like gangrene entrails

collecting the dirt and filth that

litter the streets, too colorful

for your blind eyes to see and

too regretful for you to shove

back into the gaping, pus-infected

sinkhole carved by the beasts and leeches

in your shaking, sickly chest