Ravenhill Plays: 1: Shopping and F***ing; Faust is Dead; Handbag; Some Explicit Polaroids (Contemporary Dramatists) (14 page)

Different can be sexy. Sometimes.

See, one of the guys figured that you were old and uncool enough – no offence intended – old and uncool enough to be A and R and Stevie sort of sent out word that if anyone was like prepared to . . . please you then Stevie could be very grateful to that person. So, if you wanna . . .

Okay, I understand. Sleep it off. Why not?

He tries to lift
Alain
up
.
Gives up.

Good night.

‘Killer in the floss

Killer in the floss

Killer in the floss.’

We’ll talk tomorrow about your signing of Stevie . . .

Alain
(
in French
)     Because in America, and only in America, am I truly at home.

For me, and for so many children of this twentieth century, it is only in America that we really believe that we are alive, that we are living within in our own century.

Pete
     Look. Hold it right there.

He fetches his camcorder.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry but I only have a little . . . so you have to go really slowly. Slowly. Okay.

Pete
videos
Alain
.

Alain
(
in French
)     Because in America / and only in America, am I truly at home.

For me, and for so many children of this twentieth century, it is only in America that we really believe that we are alive, that we are living within in our own century.

In Europe, we are ghosts, trapped in a museum, with the lights out and the last visitor long gone.

And so I am going to America.

Pete
     Because in America . . . just America . . . is . . . really . . . home.

For me, and for children in the twentieth century (for kids? what’s the . . . it is only America (uh uh, uh, uh, uh uh) . . . dah dah dah belief in being alive (right), living in the century (century that we – what? – own).

In Europe, we are spooks (phantoms, ghosts, yeah), something in a some . . . (shit, he’s getting . . . shit), lights off and the somesuch something, yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Alain
     And / so I am going to America.

Pete
     And so I am going to America.

Alain
     And so I say:

(
in American English
) Hi, America. How ya doin’?

Pete
     Hi, Europe. America’s doing . . . just fine. America’s . . . yeah.

Chorus
     Yeah. I know Steve a little. My friend Jose swears Stevie worked my shift at the drive-through a few years back and Jose says that maybe Stevie and I even shared the same overalls. Which is amazing. Although Jose does lie from time to time.

See, when I look at Stevie and Stevie is up there singing, sometimes I see . . . I know this may sound way pretentious or way dumb or whatever . . . but I look at Stevie and I see Kurt. It is like Kurt’s . . . spirit . . . yeah, yeah, teen spirit if you will . . . that his spirit is coming back to us through Stevie . . . who is just beautiful, okay? In a negative sort of a way.

The next morning
.

Alain
asleep in the chair. Enter
Pete
with junkfood breakfast
.

Pete
     You wanna eat?

Hey, guy, you wanna eat something?

Good for you to eat something.

Here. Here. Okay. For you.

Alain
     Thank you.

Pete
     You speak English?

Alain
     Of course.

Pete
     Okay, that’s cool.

It’s just . . . last night . . .

You remember last night?

Alain
     Oh yes.

Pete
     Okay.

And did you find the sex good?

Did you find our sexual contact a worthwhile and stimulating experience?

Alain
     Yes.

Pete
     Yes, the sex was good?

Alain
     Yes. The sex was good.

Pete
     That’s what I figured.

I figured you didn’t remember a thing.

The sex was zero. There was zero sex.

Alain
     Alright.

Pete
     You talked good enough.

So, you’re not a producer?

Alain
     No. I’m sorry.

Pete
     That’s okay. That’s what one of the guys . . . totally dumb.

So why were you there?

You know one of the band?

Alain
     The beer.

Pete
     Okay.

Alain
     The beer was good.

Pete
     I understand.

But if you’re not a producer you’re gonna have to go.

Alain
     I understand.

He moves to exit, turns
.

What do you think about this?

Pete
     I’m sorry.

Alain
     I’d like you to consider this example. I want to know what you think.

A man meets a woman.

And he takes this woman home to his apartment and he makes love to this woman.

Pete
     This is a story?

Alain
     An example.

Pete
     Okay. An example.

Alain
     They are making love and she asks him a question.

Which is:

Which part of me do you find the most . . . the most . . .

Pete
     The most arousing?

Alain
     Attractive. Which part of me do you find the most attractive?

And he replies: the eyes.

It is the eyes he finds the most attractive part of this woman.

Pete
     Okay.

Alain
     So, the next morning he leaves. He works. But all the time he is thinking about this beautiful woman, about making love with this beautiful woman, yes?

Pete
     Yes. He’s thinking about her.

Alain
     The following day, he is woken by the front doorbell. The doorbell is ringing, so he jumps out of bed. It might be her. Maybe she can’t bear to be apart from him.

Pete
     Maybe she feels the same way too.

Alain
     Exactly.

But it isn’t her. It’s the mailman. Who has a parcel for him.

So he signs for the parcel and he takes the parcel into the kitchen and he realises that the parcel . . . smells.

Pete
     Of her?

Alain
     Yes.

Pete
     The parcel has the woman’s smell.

Alain
     His hands are trembling with excitement, as he pulls away the packaging – he wants the moment to last, but also he wants to discover the contents.

And as the packaging falls away, a box is revealed. A cardboard box. (
indicates
) so big . . .

Pete
     Like a shoebox?

Alain
     The sort of box in which you might buy shoes. The sort of cardboard box that has a lid on it.

The lid is on. He waits for a moment, delaying the moment of pleasure and then he lifts up the lid.

And inside the box are two human eyes.

Pete
     So, she’d . . . Right.

She’d cut out her eyes.

Alain
     Exactly. She had cut out her eyes.

Which leaves us with a question. This example gives rise to an important question.

Who was the seducer and who was the seduced?

Pete
     The woman with no eyes and the guy with two eyeballs in a box.

One’s the seducer, one’s been seduced.

Alain
     Precisely.

Pete
     And which one is which?

Well, that’s an interesting question.

Alain
     You think so?

Pete
     Yeah. I think that’s a very interesting question.

You think a lot about that kind of stuff?

Alain
     Oh yes.

Pete
     That is cool.

I think about that kind of stuff.

You wanna tell me a little about yourself?

Tell me about the guy who thinks about all that.

Alain
moves to kiss
Pete
.

Pete
     No.

It’s okay.

It’s not like I have a prejudice or, or a problem, you know . . . with the whole guys thing. It’s just like it’s not totally me, okay. Sure, if you were gonna sign Stevie, but otherwise . . .

Alain
     I understand.

Alain
moves to leave
.

Pete
     . . . How did she find the mailbox?

Alain
     I’m sorry?

Pete
     That’s my question.

She’s there in her apartment, she’s taken out her eyes, say a pair of nail scissors something like that. So okay, she’s laid everything out in front of her. The shoebox, the paper, the Scotch tape. And I guess she’s like written the address on before she’s become . . . visually impaired. So, it’s all within easy reach.

But that still begs the question:

How did she find the mailbox.

Alain
     That is not relevant.

It is an example, a model. The details are not relevant.

Pete
     The mailbox is a detail, right?

Alain
     Yes. Just so. The mailbox is a detail.

Pause
.

Pete
     I don’t want you to go, okay?

I want you to stay here.

You stay here but I’d feel better if you didn’t do the kissing thing, okay?

I prefer it this way.

And see, if you wanna bring anyone else back, I can do watching, I can do recording. I just don’t do doing, okay?

Deal?

Alain
     She was blind. The woman was blind.

Pete
     Well, sure. She’d cut out her eyes.

Alain
     But you said ‘visually impaired’. She was blind.

Pete
     Okay, yes. She was blind.

Alain
     Yes. I stay. It’s a deal.

Chorus
     It’s happening just like they said. Whole city’s blowing right apart.

Some guy smashed the window of the store and so I got myself a VCR. Latest model. Just reached in there and got myself that honey. Bit a glass in my thumb’s all the suffering I had.

’Cept I get this bitch home and my momma she’s like: ‘A VCR? You bring me a VCR? When we ain’t got no food in the kitchen? You coulda done the food store. Listen to God, he would have told you – go do the food store.’

And I’m like: ‘Momma, what is the point of having food in the house when you have nothing to watch while you’re eating it?’

Alain
is lying on the floor, blood on his face. Enter
Pete
with his camcorder
.

Pete
     ‘What is the point of food in the house when you have nothing to watch while you’re eating it.’

Got it all on tape. Guys looting shops, guys burning cars, guys burning guys.

Oh Jesus.

Come on, guy. Come on.

What has happened to you?

Alain
(
in French
)     In 1981 a Dutch woman was on business in Tokyo / when she met a Japanese businessman.

Pete
     No come on. Please. You have to . . . in English, okay?

Here . . . you have to . . . calm.

What happened?

Alain
     . . . In 1981 in Tokyo, a Dutch woman was on business. On business in Tokyo and she met a man, a Japanese man. Through her business. They became friendly, their friendship grew until eventually she ate dinner with him.

Pete
     / Okay, I don’t see the rel . . . okay.

Alain
     They are eating and she reveals, she tells him that she is a poet. She writes poetry. Love poetry. She has a poem about him and would he like to hear the poem?

Well, alright.

So he’s eating and she starts to read the poem and he pulls out a gun and he shoots her. He shoots her dead. And then he eats her. Cuts her up and puts her in his bowl and he eats her and as he’s eating her, all the time he’s declaring his love for her. His undying love.

Who was cruel? The man or the woman?

Pete
     Please. I don’t get it. I’m not so good at the whole metaphor thing.

So you have to . . . the blood is real.

Alain
     It’s boring.

Pete
     That’s okay.

Alain
     It’s just a thing . . .

It’s a foolish thing.

Pete
     That is cool.

No really.

So . . .

Alain
     Just a guy, you know. Okay. Guy in a bar.

Says that he likes me.

Says that I don’t say a lot of words.

And please it is so exciting the way I look and don’t talk and of course he has a place, or he has a place and it’s just not the right place for him just now, so maybe if I knew of some place . . .

Pete
     Any time you want to do that, you do that, it’s cool. You know that.

Alain
     So we got here and then he attacks me. Attacks my eyes.