Headless (15 page)

ALEX: Give it to me then. Let someone less fortunate than you have a chance.

MARCO:
(slamming T-Rex to the carpet, speaking to Alex)
Here. You can have it. This present sucks royal.

ME:
(crestfallen)
Careful. You could break it.

ALEX: You’re right, it does suck.

MARCO: You promised me we’d go fishing. Let’s go, now. I command you.

CURTAIN

SCENE 2

The curtain opens to reveal the father and two boys standing on a bridge, fishing. The mother/wife is 10 feet away, reading a magazine, dangling her feet off the edge of the bridge. A beautiful waterfall in the background.

ME:
(to the audience)
Since the kids were born, my wife and I have only had sex in hotels. Never once in the house. Anyway, I buy three rods and reels and some lime-green bait out of a jar. We drive to Convict Lake where a hundred years earlier, actual criminals drowned in a shoot-out with the law. I spend two hours untangling the kid’s lines, first one then the other. I never once sip a beer. I don’t even remove it from the ice chest. There’s no time to light my cigar. I haven’t even turned around to look at the waterfall. It’s like I work in an untangling factory. At one point both fishing rods need work.

ALEX: Dad, you’re taking too long. What’s wrong with you?

MARCO: He’s a diaper.

The father accidentally kicks one of the boy’s fishing poles into the water. It quickly sinks.

ALEX:
(irate)
You cocksucker. You are a total jerk. Why did you do that?

ME:
(sheepish)
It was an accident, son. I’m sorry. Give me a break.

MARCO: No breaks for idiots.

ALEX: You better buy me another one. You owe me.
(face contorting)
You are so stupid.

ME: Don’t talk to me like that, son. Talk nice, I’m your father.

ALEX: Just buy another fishing line and then you’ll be my father. Just buy it and shut up. And quit trying to act like you’re the boss cuz you’re not.

MOTHER: Honey, I’m going to the store for a sandwich.

ME: There are lots of nice things in the cooler that I prepared.

MOTHER: You know I don’t like mayonnaise.

ALEX: Mom, why are you married to Dad? He’s so retarded.

MARCO: Yeah, Mom, you’re cool. We’re going to the store with you.
(the three of them walk away)

CURTAIN

“It would be useless to expect to hear heaven murmuring in your windows. Nothing, neither your appearance nor the air, separates you from us; but some childishness more profound than experience compels us to slash away endlessly and to drive away your face, and even the attachments of your life.”

—Antonin Artaud,
Letter to the Clairvoyant,
1927

How badly I want to say that my kids love me and we have a great relationship. I can say it, fool myself into hoping that something will change. It’s just that we’ve gotten a bad start. Most mornings I get up early and hang out in the cellar. For the record, I illustrate children’s books. I draw all day long. I can’t put the pen down. I love to draw more than talking, eating, or sexual intercourse with my spousal team member. When my wife hears the boys talk in an abusive manner, she asks them to stop, but it’s never heartfelt and they know it. They know she appreciates their verbal assaults. They’re speaking for her. The kids need to be creative, she might say, if she ever spoke.

ALEX:
(to the reader)
This play I’m in isn’t over until I say it’s over and it ain’t, so open up the stupid ugly curtain
nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

The curtain rises. Little three-foot Alex is sitting on a large stool.

ALEX:
(to the audience)
Thank you. I was named after Alexander the Great, and like him I have a great passion for Homer. I will not kill my father, Steve, for the same reason that my namesake from 338 B.C. didn’t kill his, though he was suspected of it. Like he, I have more important matters to attend to, and if you think a seven-year-old doesn’t sound like this you are an even bigger pile of shit than my dad is. If I were a dad I’d take my kids and string them up with rope, upside-down, and leave them there till they were old enough to bring home money. Only then would I cut them loose.

MARCO:
(approaches stage left; carrying a stool with both hands, he climbs onto the seat and addresses the audience)
I’m younger and smaller than my brother and I can kick his ass. I walk up to him and smash him in the face with a pillow any day of the week and he cries. I like guns. I want a gun. I like decapitations. Heads look cool rolling on the floor. I’d like to cut off my dad’s head but if I do that he’ll probably stop buying me presents so that wouldn’t be smart. Keep the presents coming, keep the head from rolling down the street, that’s what it’s all about. The hardest thing for me is the distance between birthdays and Christmas. Big long gaps, all saggy and worthless. I could kill my dad and no one would care. My mom would sit with me at the defense table like a crybaby and my punishment would be next to nothing. I’d still get presents on my birthday and Christmas, and that is so much the only thing that matters.

ALEX:
(to the audience)
Since our mom’s a pretty lady, we’d get a new dad real fast. She’d just sit around at the zoo and flirt, swish her bottom in front of the elephant keeper or the lion tamer, or she’d come to our school and play doctor with our principal, Mr. White, and that would be the new dad and hopefully he’d be more fun to play with than our original idiot. From what little I know of the world, our second dad will beat us up a lot. Stepdads like to beat up on the lady’s kids because we get in the way of their going all the way. We distract our mom with bad grades, and we need a constant flow of money, and because we wish our first father would return. Maybe that’s what will happen. We don’t know how good we had it. Okay, original stupid, retarded, Steve-Dad. Don’t die. Don’t go away. Stay with us. We wuv you. I think it would be best if we let him finish the story. I’m ready for bed and everything he says is boring which leads directly to sleep. Dreaming of killing him isn’t a crime. I want to see his head fly off in slo-mo. And then play it back at regular speed and see it reattach. I saw that in
Blood Gore 3,
the coolest CDROM in existence.

It’s bedtime. The boys are tucked neatly under the covers and kissed on their foreheads. I hear them talking. They express their rough love in subtle ways. I jump into bed first, excited at the thought that I will soon be unconscious. I take a few hits of marijuana to obliterate my dreams. It’s not fair to make me dream. I sleep in my boxers and the Tshirt I wear underneath my day clothes. I have pajamas, but I only wear them when I’m sick. I dangle one bare foot off the side of the bed so I never overheat. My wife thinks that’s cute. I’m grateful that I can do something that generates a response like that. She goes so far as to say that my barefoot cooling system is
sexy.
My wife takes her clothes off in front of me. She has the stripping skills of an exotic dancer. She takes her bra off like Houdini slipping out of a straitjacket. I still can’t figure it out. She steps out of her pants and folds them neatly over my gentleman’s helper that my dad passed on to me. After snuggling up next to me, she says she’d like to have another child, a girl, and she’d like to start trying tonight. She sticks a finger in her mouth and touches me on my forearm. She’s such a pro. I love you, she says, reading cue cards from hell. I love you too, I say back.

In 20 seconds something incredible happens and we haven’t checked into a hotel. Later, I’m in basic
Kama Sutra
position 1-B and her eyes are closed. Her breathing increases, she looks at me. Eye contact is rare for us. With a free hand I wave, like I’m across the street. That’s a suave move. She smiles. She doesn’t mind that I’m an idiot. I have sperm. That’s all that matters. I’m not cynical; I’m a human resource. We switch to position 2-A and the countdown begins.

After liftoff, I sigh, she sighs.

I love the name Hope, she says.

Yeah, that’s nice, I say. What do you think of Joy?