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DEPARTMENTS   OCTOBER 2007 – NO. 18


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Theater

by Austin Bunn

The Night of the Cure


Cast:
TUCKER, late 20s.
ELI, mid-40s.
CHRIS, mid-30s

Setting:
Urban sidewalk, outside a windowless gay bar called "The Manhole". Something not nearly clever enough.

Time:
Six months from now, 12:23 am.

*Note: Though this play features gay men, the actors shouldn't "look" gay, by whatever standards you have in your head. In fact, the less "gay-seeming", the better: overweight, untucked, uncertain, etc. Sweet in their way. This is the future.

LIGHTS RISE on the door. Painted black, dead bolt. This door has been around for decades. This door has seen things. Loud music -- buckets! buckets! buckets! -- thrumps from inside.

Two street-lamps make two pools of light on either side of the stage. Night above, field of stars.

TUCKER stands in front of the door. Oddly, he lays his hand on the door.

ELI approaches.

ELI
You the line?

TUCKER
Gotta be hundreds of guys inside. A thousand, maybe. Every bar around here's the same way.

ELI
Big night.

TUCKER
The biggest. People want to be with people.

ELI
With who's left. (beat) I remember when this place was the only place. It was like Jiffy Lube. You could be in and out in 20 minutes.

TUCKER
They've got it, you know. The cure. All the bars do.

ELI
Another pill. Lovely.

TUCKER
Get everybody in one night. So the virus can't mutate. Just doesn't seem safe.

ELI
"Safe."

TUCKER
Guys go in, nobody comes out. It'll be the '70s all over again.

ELI
And you were how old?

TUCKER
I've seen pictures.

ELI
I was in the pictures.

TUCKER
I thought I recognized you.

ELI
I was your age when it started. Back when we had sequins. You do remember sequins?

TUCKER
I have a bedazzler.

ELI
Good because for a moment I doubted. (beat, heading to open the door) No use putting it off. This is supposed to be a celebration. I bet there are fireworks.

TUCKER
(reluctant, unmoving)
I can't.

ELI
You're afraid.

TUCKER
This is where we met.

ELI
We've all got missing people. (beat) If he's here, he'll be happy to see you.

TUCKER
What if he feels nothing? That would be worse.

ELI
(going to open the door again)

Come on. You're young enough to be my inner-child. I'll lead.

TUCKER
What if he's not even here? Or dead?

ELI
We'll find him. What was his name?

CHRIS kicks open the door and ENTERS, carrying two drinks in red plastic cups. He walks up to Tucker. (Chris does not see Eli. Eli does not see Chris.)

TUCKER
Chris.

ELI
(spooked)
Chris.

TUCKER
(to Tucker)
Hey I was wondering where you went. I thought you vanished.

ELI
Coming? (beat)

TUCKER
(to Chris)
I'm not going anywhere.

ELI
Suit yourself.

Eli EXITS through the door.

Tucker is silent, seeing only Chris.

TUCKER
Tucker, right?

Chris and Tucker on stage. The music raises in volume. The street-lamp light skitters about, like a club mirrorball. We're now INSIDE in the club. Chris and Tucker kinda shout at each other to be heard.

TUCKER
I wasn't sure you were coming back. When people tell you they're "getting a drink", they mean, "You have weird teeth and spit when you talk and goodbye."

CHRIS
(long stare)
Well you were wrong.

TUCKER
(avoiding his gaze, looking up)
So... cargo netting.

CHRIS
Do you typically come into bars and look up?

TUCKER
I work at the planetarium. I'm better with up. (beat) Jerry Garcia's face lasered across the universe. All me. I hate it actually.

CHRIS
I used to think stars were lonely. Out in the space, so far apart, some of them already gone. Just light, streaming out.

TUCKER
— oh yeah, they exhaust their hydrogen, we had a thing on that at Hayden —

CHRIS
When I was a kid, I used to climb on the roof of our house to make sure each star got seen. One by one. Before they went dark.

TUCKER
That's beautiful.

CHRIS
"Beautiful." Nobody I know says that.

TUCKER
So what happened? On the roof? Did you get to all of them?

CHRIS
No. I fell. My forearm was a bright white splinter. Wanna see?

TUCKER
I'm goosy around blood and stuff.

CHRIS
I'm an EMT now — my whole day is splinters. Life is pretty much the accidents.

TUCKER
I've been doing these fucking star-shows for two years and I only know a few things — pathetic actually — but one of them is this: more than half of stars are bound to other stars. By gravity. So they're not alone. Millions of miles of space between them, they still feel a pull.

CHRIS
Beautiful.
Chris LAYS his hand on Tucker's chest. (This should echo the hand motion we saw from Tucker in at the start.)

TUCKER
Wow, an interesting move.

CHRIS
I learned it from a friend.

This tenderness Tucker did not expect. The music vanishes. The lights CENTER on them.

CHRIS
Can we just skip the getting to know you part? (CON'T)

TUCKER
And the me-buying-you-a-book-and-spending-two-hours-trying-to-write-the-inscription part?

Chris untucks Tucker's shirt.
CHRIS
What about the three-date minimum-before-reckless-touching part?

TUCKER
That was a part?

CHRIS
I don't feel like I have a lot of time.

TUCKER
I have weird teeth and I spit when I talk and you didn't say anything.

CHRIS
There's something you need to know.

TUCKER
(unbuttoning Chris's shirt)
You have problems with intimacy. You have to have a piece of leather somewhere in the room at all times. I don't care. I'll work around. It's been a long time since I met someone, I mean someone I liked, like astronomically, and —

CHRIS
I'm positive.

Tucker FLINCHES. Chris registers this, re-buttons his shirt. Total shift of mood.

TUCKER
I'm sorry. I didn't ...

CHRIS
I see where this is going.

Chris slowly BACKS away from Tucker, heading off-stage, fading out ...

TUCKER
You didn't give me a chance. Four years ago, you saw my fear and left, like light streaming away.

The street-lights RETURN to position. Music returns behind the door. It's present time again.

TUCKER (CON'T)
I felt a pull then that I haven't felt since. There's time now, isn't there. More time.

Tucker goes to lay his hand on the door, except he GRABS the knobs and opens it. He enters.

As soon as it shuts, Eli RE-ENTERS the stage through the door. Two pills in hand.
ELI
OK kid, it took some legwork but I got us two of them, they're giant horse pills actually —
(sees Tucker is missing. Disappointment.)

Chris ENTERS, stage-left.
ELI
... You.

CHRIS
You can't get rid of me.

ELI
You look just like the last time I saw you.

CHRIS
I only ever had one good outfit.

ELI
I looked for you, at your corner.

CHRIS
I wasn't there was I.

ELI
God, forgive me.

CHRIS
Oh let's skip the dramatics. What do you have?

ELI
(removing two gleaming, white PILLS)
They're giving them out. In bowls. Like dinner mints.

CHRIS
You got two.

ELI
For me ... and a friend.

CHRIS
(heading to the door)
Good for you.

ELI
I haven't been with anyone since us.

CHRIS
Stop punishing yourself. It's boring.

ELI
I felt like poison.

CHRIS
You were poison. That's how it works.

ELI
I couldn't touch anyone. I was a plate of glass, walking around. Every step sent up a crack.

CHRIS
And now, how do you feel?

ELI
Like an uncomfortable old chair no one uses. The last of a set.

CHRIS
Do you interior decorate all your feelings?

ELI
I came to find you tonight. To tell you what I couldn't then.

CHRIS
Save the breath.

ELI
I had Sam at home and Sam was dying. I had no business, doing anything.

CHRIS
Look, take the pill and start erasing. Erase your guilt, you erase me.

ELI
(with pill in hand)
I don't want to.

Bang: Tucker RE-ENTERS through the door, back outside. Sweaty. He carries two sparklers.

This time, Tucker doesn't see Chris.

TUCKER
You were right. They've got fireworks. Major fire hazard, but whatever. (beat) What are you looking at?

ELI
Nobody. Did you find who you were looking for?

TUCKER
I went through and looked. At everybody, one by one.

CHRIS
That was my line.

TUCKER
He wasn't there. I'm sure he's moved by now.

CHRIS
In a sense. There are worse things.

TUCKER
He wasn't there. I'm sure he moved. Then I realized everybody else was looking too. But they weren't looking to see who didn't make it. They were looking to see who did. It's like: you don't really see night when you look up. You see stars.

Tucker gives Eli one of the sparklers. He takes out a lighter.

ELI
Look, don't be nice to me. I'm a really bad person.

TUCKER
You are a person.

Eli LAYS his hand on Tucker's chest. The move strikes Tucker: a recognition. Shocked.

ELI (CON'T)
You have no idea.

TUCKER
Oh my god.

Eli takes the sparklers. He lights them.

ELI

At least we made it.
Lights start to fade on Chris at the door.

CHRIS
Night boys.

Chris opens the door: no music now, just oblivion.

The two pools of light from the street-lamps INCH toward each other.

ELI
Look at that.

Sparklers: two stars and their gravities.


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Articles in this Issue

Bela Lugosi's Legacy, by Eric Nuzum
Days of Overblown, by Albert E. Martinez
The Chief Mourner, by Brenda Yun
Cleveland 1954, by George Sparling
Those New York City Faces, by Randall Dana
Engraving, by Russell Streur
Theater, by Austin Bunn
Assyriology, by David Damrosch
September 2007

AUTHOR BIO:

Austin Bunn's plays have been developed at the New Harmony Project, the Playwrights’ Center of Minneapolis, and the Playwrights’ Theatre of New Jersey. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared in One Story, American Short Fiction, Best American Fantasy, Best American Science and Nature Writing, The New York Times Magazine, and a bunch of other magazines now dead to him. He is a graduate of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction and playwriting. Find out more at austinbunn.com.

Buy Austin Bunn's books through Amazon at the LOST Store.



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