Black Samba--a Brazilian Dance in Two Unnatural Acts--by Mick Collins

[Black Samba, a play inspired by the US/EU/UN wars to destroy Yugoslavia, was written during the Summer of 1995 in Paris. Since, at that time, I had no experience of living in the Balkans, I set the play in a fantasized Brazil, a country where I'd spent 3 years of my early childhood. This, my first Summer living in Paris, was the time of the great Croatian ethnic cleansing known as Operation Storm, the battle for Srebrenica which culminated in what the Human Rights movement signaled as the Serbian Genocide of 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys (whose bodies have yet to be discovered), the Markale marketplace bombing in which the Bosnian Muslim govt staged yet another massacre of its own citizens to win international sympathy and NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs, and, eventually, the Dayton Accords, which raised the war to a kind of NATO-occupied mafia chaos that the HR movement has label peace. BS was first performed at Soho Rep in NYC, October 1998--at the time of the ignoble Holbrook/Milosevic negotiations which succeeded in putting off the NATO terror-bombing of Serbia over Kosovo for about six-months, and became the key Western betrayal that founded President Milosevic's indictment by Louise Arbour of the ICTY for war crimes unto genocide.--mc]


Black Samba
a Brazilian dance in two unnatural acts

by
Mick Collins

cirque minime

66, rue Marcelle
93500 Pantin
France

[contact: cirqueminime@club-internet.fr]

All Rights Reserved
1995

***************************

From: Thesis Against Occultism
By T.W. Adorno

IX. The cardinal sin of occultism is the contamination of mind and existence, the latter becoming itself an attribute of mind. Mind arose out of existence, as an organ for keeping alive. In reflecting existence, however, it becomes at the same time something else. The existent negates itself as thought upon itself. Such negation is mind’s element. To attribute to it positive existence, ever of a higher order, would be to deliver it up to what it opposes. Late bourgeois ideology has again made it what it was for pre-animism, a being-in-itself modeled on the social division of labor, on the split between manual and intellectual labor, on the planned domination over the former. In the concept of mind-in-itself, consciousness has ontologically justified and perpetuated privilege by making it independent of the social principle by which it is constituted. Such ideology explodes in occultism: it is idealism come full circle. Just by virtue of the rigid antithesis of being and mind, the latter becomes a department of being. If idealism demanded solely on behalf of the whole, the idea, that being be mind and that the latter exist, occultism draws the absurd conclusion that existence is determinate being:

Existence, after it has become, is always benign with a non-being,
so that this non-being is taken up in simple unity with the being.
Non-being taken up in being, the fact that the concrete whole is
in the form of being, of immediacy, constitutes determinateness
as such.

The occultists take literally the non-being as in ‘simple unity with being’, and their kind of concreteness is a surreptitious short-cut from the whole to the determinate which can defend itself by claiming that the whole, having once been determined, is no longer the whole. They call to metaphysics: Hic Rhodus hic salta: if the philosophic investment of spirit with existence is determinable, then finally, they sense, any scattered piece of existence must be justifiable as a particular spirit. The doctrine of the existence of the spirit, the ultimate exaltation of bourgeois consciousness, consequently bore teleologically within it the belief in spirits, its ultimate degradation. The shift to existence, always ‘positive’ and justifying the world, implies at the same time that thesis of the positivity of mind, pinning it down, transposing the absolute into appearance. Whether the whole objective world as ‘product’ is to be spirit, or a particular thing a particular spirit, cease to matter, and the world-spirit becomes the supreme Spirit, the guardian angel of the established, de-spiritualized order. On this the occultists live: their mysticism is the enfant terrible of the mystical moment in Hegel. They take speculation to the point of fraudulent bankruptcy. In passing off determinate being as mind, they put objectified mind to the test of existence, which must prove negative. No spirit exists.

************************

BLACK SAMBA

a Brazilian dance in two unnatural acts




Characters:


Nicky: a young Latin, not yet twenty, very brown and very beautiful.

V: a middle-aged man, very thin and very white.

Mavis: a woman in late-middle-age, once beautiful, now somewhat flaccid.

Cecil: Mavis’ partner and like her in many ways.





Place:

The estate of Mavis and Cecil in the hills west of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.



Time:

An imagined present with an imaginary past and no future.


Act 1 is in June. Act 2, Scene 1 in November; Scene 2 in December.


Acknowledgements:

John O’Connell, for the courage to face incontinence.
Nick Harper, from whose lap top it all sprung.
Teddy Adorno, for daily negations.
Danise & Yana, for direction.
and
Paris, enfin.








ACT 1

THE SET AT RISE:

Stage L is Cecil’s & Mavis’ living room. There is one door UC, a large mirror on the US wall, and a low glass table CL on which are a trumpet and a chimney glass with a large tropical flower in it.

Stage R is a riser, 5’x5’x3’ high, say, on which sits V, a middle-aged man, very thin and very white, completely naked but for gauze bandages over his eyes. His arms and legs are bound to the metal office chair in which he sits (as time passes, it should become apparent that these bonds are of insufficient integrity to hold him without his compliance), and wires protrude from his crotch, his breasts, and the bandages over his eyes. The wires are connected to a bank of half a dozen Sears Die-Hard batteries stacked SR on the riser, with a big piece of 4.0 cable dropping from them over the front of the riser and running off SR. A microphone is suspended, about a foot above V’s head.

SPOT UP on Nicky in area DS (Nicky’s area). He is a small Latin young man, not yet twenty. He stands at attention wearing a uniform of the streets with several pastel-colored squirt guns strapped down.

He raises his fist in a revolutionary salute.

NICKY
Somente os trabalhadores e peoes chegaram ate o fin. . . .
(louder) Somente os trabalhadores e peoes chegaram ate o fin. . . .
(yells) Viva Che!

SPOT UP (less brightly) on V.

V
Adio, Ramon! Adio, Catalan! Adio, San Sebastian!

Nicky changes his salute from a clenched fist to a “V”.

NICKY
Ate a vitoria sempre! . . . (louder) Ate a vitoria sempre! . . .
(yells) Viva Che! Viva Fidel!

V
Bessa me, bessa me mucho.

Nicky changes the “V” to the “digita impudica” (he flips the bird).

NICKY
Vai te fuder e comer peixe! . . . Viva Che! Viva Fidel!
Viva Gonzalo!

SPOTS OUT on Nicky & V. Nicky exits.

LIGHTS UP SL on glass table.

After SEVERAL BEATS,

DIM LIGHT UP on V.

V
(He is seized by an Electric Shock)
Millions for charity, and not a dime for justice. . . . We trade in
debt now, almost exclusively. . . . We’re deep in Volume Two,
irrevocably into Book Two, with no memory or understanding or
memory of understanding the first book of Capital: it’s all circulation
now, with no appreciation for production. . . . Self-valorizing value
has burst the surly bonds of the material world and exists in the ethereal
world—the metaphysical world—of interest, derivative securities,
contingent-value rights, commissions and appraisals, and differed
taxation on off-shore trusts and back-end points on distributors’ gross,
and so on, and so on. . . . Commodity fetishism has extended to Credit
and the monopoly that administers it. . . . You are what you own, what
you’re owed, the amount of debt you control below you, which is always
mortgaged, or leveraged, sounds less morbid, to ten, twelve times its
value. The note held over your head (like Excalibur or the executioner’s
axe) by those above you. That is, you loathe those who owe you and
revere those to whom you are indebted. Or is it the other way round?
No matter, for these are no longer real considerations, but merely
reflexive responses to the cudgels of Credit. . . . The entire canon
of World Literature, both secular and ecclesiastical, both poetry and
prose, both the arts and the sciences, both male and female and all
around and in between: it’s all smoke, incense smoke, and rhinestone
glitter to distract human attention from the stinking fact: all results
from material coercion—irresistible gravity, the pull of the grave. . . .
It’s probably too late to make it right, now. . . . Right now. . . . That’s
what’s wrong: Right now. . . . Mourn the pasts and fear tomorrow
and the terrible retribution it must bring. But damnation is right now.
This prison, endowed in the name of Bad Faith, from which no amount
of wealth, no delusional good deeds, no medication will buy your release.
. . . Even death is not a release. . . . The thrill of murder, perhaps, but so
brief. . . . We bought misery on margin, and sold our decency short. . . .
Well, as Nicky says, “Fuck ‘em in the ass and feed ‘em fish!”
And if they don’t like it, fuck ‘em in the ass again.

Nicky enters UC. He has one of his squirt guns in hand. He Xs to glass table and puts a set of keys on it. He exits UC.

SEVERAL BEATS.

V
(Responding to Electric Shock)
Isn’t it odd? . . . It is not odd.

(The following scene, the dialogue of which can be conflated, is played with actors entering and exiting the stage intermittently, speaking their lines on and off stage at the director’s discretion; and though the two actors might be on sstage at the same time, they should not exchange lines on stage.)

Mavis and Cecil are a couple well along into late-middle-age. Like all couples who have been together some time they have come to resemble one another in uncanny ways.

MAVIS
. . . but how can you remember Shanghai, what actually happened
in Shanghai? Thirty years ago.

CECIL
It was only twenty, really. (Coughs) When daddy brought the four
of . . . –No, quite right. Thirty. It was thirty. Yes, indeed, you’re
quite right, thirty years. What do you mean how can I remember?
It was like only yesterday, my god, how would I have forgotten that
beastly time. . . (Coughs) Like yesterday.

(Cecil coughs regularly, or irregularly, throughout.)

MAVIS
I was there, darling, too. I was with you. I don’t remember a thing—
not really—not a thing about that time. . . . Well, I do remember gin
and bitters at the Barres’, and Jack coming back from Tashkent with
hashish—but not really—not really remembering. Not real memories.

CECIL
That little bastard will turn up late. Just wait and see if I’m right.
Little cockroach, with all his little games and schemes. . . . His
bows and scrapes. . . . Little brown bugger . . . little spic . . .
faggot. . . . If he turns up late—he’s like every driver we’ve ever
had: goddam little felonious fuck! You teach these little wogs to
drive and immediately they go into business for themselves and treat
you like a fucking mushroom. If he turns up late—

MAVIS
Darling, here, come let me freshen your drink before you get an
embolism. Bring your glass here. Nicky will be here when he
gets here. Come here. Bring your drink, darling. . . . It’s just such
a long time ago. Like it no longer ever really happened. . . . Only
thirty years. Thirty years, lost. . . . Wasn’t Shanghai lovely?
Wasn’t it a beautiful place then?

CECIL
Think you’re getting potty. Best leave the pitcher with me. If we turn up late and stewed, Bitsy and her lot will be unbearable. . . .
You simply refuse to accept the passage of time—you feel by blotting
out the memory, you’ll be able to cancel the years have passed. Well,
you needn’t bother, the years have been quite gentle to you, my love.
You’re living proof of moderation’s gifts. . . . Absolutely nothing in
excess, right, darling? . . . That little Portagee prick!

MAVIS
When you can pry it from my cold, dead hand. Mama will dispense
the last of the joyful juniper berries. . . . And he’s not due for another
five minutes. Relax.

CECIL
Daddy had this little Chinaman would take him back and forth to
Tsing Tau. Worshipped daddy. . . . This little . . . fag, Nicky . . .
he’s probably off with his mates—

MAVIS
He’s to be here at half-five. Why are you blathering?

CECIL
Daddy’s little Chinaman would take me home to his family. Take
me down river in his punt. To the opium house. To the racetrack.

MAVIS
Darling, do you have any cash? I can’t seem to find my beaded bag.
Do you have any cash, dear?

CECIL
Hum yum sum yum sum sa ya. He lived in Chinatown. Remember
I took you, showed you Zhao’s house in Shanghai? Behind that great
market in Chinatown. You remember?

MAVIS
God, I hope I didn’t leave it at Mario’s. It had all my cards in it, and
those beads you gave me. . . . Do you have any cash, Cecil?

CECIL
Sy oh ling ling bo bo. Yes, mama, I have money. My god, you’re
Djuna Barnes with a martini.

(They have finally come together on stage.)

BEATS.

MAVIS
Hope Nicky remembers gin.

(This exchange is difficult.)

CECIL
(Coughs) Two bites, back of my head.

Pause.

MAVIS
Uh huh.

CECIL
Yes, right at the top. Bottom of where the bald spot might be.
(Coughs)

Pause.

MAVIS
And that’s why you’ve got this congestion?

CECIL
Well . . .

BEATS.

MAVIS
You noticed the congestion before or after you noticed the bites?

BEATS.

CECIL
No, Dolly, . . . I think it was—I don’t really remember when I noticed
the bites . . . really. But the congestion, the cough . . .

Pause.

MAVIS
Yes, of course. The TB.

CECIL
No, no. Of course. But this time, Molly. This spate . . . My god, it’s
been . . . They’re damn curious bites. I think it was consequential, Dolly.
Consequential: the bites then the congestion. I noticed the bites, then the
congestion.

MAVIS
When did you notice the bites? You’ve had this cough days now.
When did you notice the bites?

CECIL
Well . . . I noticed them—well, . . .

MAVIS
So the noticing was consequential. Isn’t that it, CC? Because you’ve
had this cough some time now.

CECIL
No . . . Well, yes. I have, yes. . . . May I have a bit more of Mavis’
Ma’velous Med’sin, bo bo ah?

Mavis pours him more martini.

CECIL
Bo bo ah, kamas ka ma, Johnny got a lickin’, so ha ha ha.

MAVIS
So the noticing was consequential.

CECIL
Yes, Molly, the noticing of the phenomena was consequential. Though
the phenomena themselves were merely consecutive. Yes, it was the
noticing. It was noticing the bites that caused me to notice, or perhaps
re-notice, the congestion. Kamas kam ah? Causation appeared only
after the noticing, yes.

MAVIS
Perhaps more vermouth.

CECIL
And though it’s preposterous to assume that these bites caused my
congestion—there is something about the sequence of noticing the
bites then the congestion that makes one, however hysterically,
to assume that the one brought on the other. Damn foreign country.
Damned exotic bugs. Viruses. Straight from hell. Thank god for gin.
And you, my dove. My Dolly.

MAVIS
You look just splendid, CC. . . . As do I, I’m sure.

Nicky enters his area DS. He sets about filling his squirt guns from a heavy porcelain bottle.

V
(Responding to an electric shock)
Isn’t it odd? . . . Is it not odd?

CECIL
It is queer. They had to bribe Delbert with two million quid to run
Brazoro. Two million, the farm in Surrey, the ten-place De Haviland
and a Jag for Bitsy. Just to run that bloody hole.

MAVIS
Bitchy wrecked the Jaguar first time out. And I’d hardly call what Del
does running anything.

CECIL
And yet these sunburnt little buggers will work their short lives away
in his bloody pit, slogging their guts out fourteen, sixteen hours a day
for a dish of watery soup and a drafty place to shit. Exceedingly queer.

V
Isn’t it queer? . . . Are you queer, Nicky? . . . You can see why they
might not be the nicest boys. Why their amusements might bend
toward the painful, the violent.

MAVIS
Her surgeon has her on some unregistered medications—

CECIL
Just a load of colourfully turned out cocaine, you ask me.

MAVIS
Oh, I don’t think so. Doctors down here have gotten quite sophisticated
since the War.

V
(Responding to electric shock)
Yes, indeed.

CECIL
Same old cotswollow: cocaine and opium and belladonna
and how-you-been-keeping all done up with great quantities
of alcohol.

V
Dr Colis Brown does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways
to Man?

MAVIS
All petroleum based.

CECIL
What?

MAVIS
All extracted from petroleum—the carbon based molecules—
the carbon molecules, I don’t know—it’s like those sugar
substitutes.

CECIL
Medicines?

MAVIS
I really believe the Bosh started it. Thought it up.

V
Hitler was cut off from his Turkish opium fields.

CECIL
Started—?

MAVIS
Synthesizing.

V
Adolophine Hitler.

CECIL
What?

MAVIS
From petroleum. Medicines from petroleum.

CECIL
You mean like Vaseline?

V
Petroleum jelly—right, Nicky?—the first-aid kit in a jar. Good for
what impales ya.

MAVIS
No! Not like Vaseline—well, yes, like Vaseline, but these molecules
are adapted to resemble all the—

CECIL
God, where is that boy?

V
But Hitler didn’t have access to the Rain Forest. To the Natural Medicines.
to the hyperventilating leaves of the mountains or the soporific blossoms
of the fields. Coal from Selesia. Maybe oil from Baku, if he could work it.
He couldn’t. Twenty million Russians saw to that. They saved it all for
Arco and Esso. Hitler was just way under capitalized is all.
(Responding to electric shock)
That’s all. Right, Nicky?
(Another shcok)
Oh, mother necessity.

MAVIS
I really think it’s what keeps them together. . . . His work and
her addictions.

CECIL
God, Molly, don’t say that when I so need another helping of
your deliciousness.

She pours the last few drops into his glass.

MAVIS
Say goodbye.

CECIL
This can’t be the end.

V
Pray for the end.

MAVIS
Until Bitsy’s. Or if you can get Nicky to go. Send for his drinks boy.
Let’s just drink Del’s liquor. Get some of our bridge money back. . . .
The world-wide petroleum conspiracy, CC. It does not end with your
motor car. It goes to the blood in your veins.

CECIL
I’m sure it does, Dolly, and mine is running exceedingly thin. . . .
Nicky’s probably screwing the little drinks boy, over his bicycle
seat, right now. Dammit!

Cecil exits UC.

CECIL (OS)
Now you mention it: Lately we’ve had a good deal of very hard
money going into Riyadh, Jeddah, Glaxo-Wellcome joint venture
in Saudi, Al-Haya Medical Company, all bio-tech deals.

V
How do you gratify yourseslf, Nicky? Breaking your young
countrymen open like goose-guns? Feeding them your eight
gauge, double-aught buckshot loaded cartilage. . . .
Sweet Nicky.

Nicky has finished filling his squirt guns, takes his bottle, and exits.

Mavis Xs US to mirror. She looks into it for SEVERAL BEATS.

MAVIS
Hello, how are you? . . . Hello, it’s lovely, isn’t it? Lovely.
Just lovely. . . . Hello, dear. . . .

V
(Electric shock) How is your daughter? How is your profoundly,
grotesquely, birth-defective child? . . . How is your handicapped,
lovely little girl?

MAVIS
Delightful, just delightful. She sends me cards, beautiful cards,
at leasts once a month. She’s such a good girl. And she adores
her new school—just adores school. Adores Switzerland.
And the nuns—she so loves the nuns—oh, and they her.
My darling little thing. My darling.

V
How long have you had her locked away in that bin?

MAVIS
She’ll be sixteen in December. Growing like a little weed. . . .
She is such a joy to both of us. To CC especially. Finds such
joy in her little cards. Her little pictures. She makes them herself,
don’t you know.

V
I can imagine. Correspondence from a child without hands, or arms,
with a brain-shunt, maintained on a respirator and dialysis machine,
(Electric shock) must be quite a giggle. (Shock) And once a month,
you say. At least. Proustian.

Mavis leaves the mirror.

MAVIS
They say she’s making great progress. We’ll be happily surprised
when we get back for holidays. They say she is making leaps and
bounds. . . . Oh yes, yes, she’ll be back with us in no time at all.

V
Maybe not in Rio. . . . Maybe not the best place—the place best
suited for a crippled child. A girl child. After all, you know how
they treat children here. Whole children. –Poor children.

MAVIS
After CC left Daiwa—the institute—The Daiwa Institute—he joined
the Settlements Bank—it’s the Daiwa Institute for Social Research,
I think, —no, just Research, I think—but we were with the Settlements
Bank in Basel, and, you know, —Development . . . the developing world–
And it just seemed, —it all seemed so perfect. When she came.

V
Punishing her for surviving her birth . . . Of course your pregnancy was
no day at the beach, was it? But still, you can’t blame little . . .

MAVIS
Mary Ellen. . . . Mary Ellen. CC’s mother and grandmother.
All I got were the stretch marks. (Laughs) CC was re-posted
so quickly, we really had no chance to show her off. Pity.
But that’s the life, isn’t it? Oh, our families understand.
They have to, don’t they?

Cecil enters with a drink in each hand. He goes to Mavis and gives her a drink.

Nicky enters from UR on to the riser. He carries a pan and a small white towel.
He kneels beside V, unbinds his L foot, and begins to wash it.

V
Careful.

CECIL
What a mess! God awful mess.

MAVIS
Where’d you find this? What is it?

V
You’re late.

NICKY
Basta de falar ingles par hoje.

CECIL
Called Del’s to say we’d be late. Neither’s there yet.

MAVIS
Nicky in the kitchen? He get you the drinks?

V
Only English now.

CECIL
Oh no. Not in this bloody lifetime. Made ‘em myself, didn’t I?
Out of my bleeding tackle box, didn’t I?

V
Your hands feel good.

MAVIS
Cheers.

CECIL
Afraid I haven’t your genteel touch.

MAVIS
Indeed.

V
Did you bring the book?

MAVIS
Carried off by Gypsies were they?

NICKY
Si—yes, the book. . . . You think I understand less English.

V
No, I think they understand less English.

CECIL
Their girl said she’d be along straight away. Said she’d called
from Vieira Souto.

MAVIS
This is absolutely ghastly. Tastes like turps—or that putrescence
you lived on in Tsing Mai. Bogswhattah, was it?

CECIL
Yes, Molly, something like that.

V
The book?

NICKY
Your feet are getting harder. The more I rub . . . I have it.

CECIL
I say let’s go up there, sack the place—take their etchings down
to Feira de Acari—let’s not forget the liquor, there’s gallons of it
up there—and piss off before Bits and Del get back.

MAVIS
But really, CC. This swill will have us barking like dogs and smelling
like dry cleaning.

V
It’s as if I no longer understand the things I had to tell you. My ideas . . .

NICKY
Don’t. I understand.

MAVIS
But Nicky.

CECIL
Of course, yes, Nicky.

MAVIS
He should have returned by now.

V
How can you? (ind. batteries) I think these are too weak. I don’t
feel it as much.

Nicky goes to the other side of V and does the other foot.

V
Can you find more? Just one more, until we can finish.

CECIL
Your faith was ill-founded, my duck.

MAVIS
He’s—

CECIL
—a blaggart. A dirty, little brown blaggart.

V
Please stop now.

NICKY
Just a little more. You will see.

MAVIS
(ind. drink) Really, CC, you didn’t even try.

CECIL
You know I can’t find anything. I grabbed the first thing looked
clear and spiritual.

NICKY
It will relax you.

V
No, I need more. To work. . . . Please.

MAVIS
I feel like an autopsied cadaver. Can’t you smell the Casualty Ward?

NICKY
Not yet. . . . Be still. . . . Just see.

CECIL
It’s all for your little Nicky. How dependable. . . . Lord!
Del and Bit know how he treats us.

V
You have grown . . . so . . . old, Nicky. So much older. . . .
Even just now. Here. Now.

MAVIS
My little Nicky? How’s that?

CECIL
You’re always his advocate. Mavis for the Defense.

NICKY
You’re like a cat when I rub you. You get—

MAVIS
He was Del’s gift to you, as I recall. –Del’s welcome to Rio present to you.

V
Stop. Please. Now. . . . You must find me fresh power so
we can work.

CECIL
I’d have chucked him out.

MAVIS
You surely would not have, dear boy. You wouldn’t offend Delbart
that way.

NICKY
Just a small minute more. Your nails need cutting.

V
“Paring”, yes. . . . But I need the pan. Now. Please be good to
me now.

CECIL
He meant nothing to Del. He’d been trying to get rid of him
for months.

Nicky kneels between V’s legs, facing him. He empties the pan. As V rises slightly, with painful effort, Nicky slips the pan onto the chair and V sits in it.

MAVIS
You can’t be serious. Nicky ran their household—their whole staff.
He meant a great deal to Del.

Nicky’s hands have disappeared in front of him, and his head is lowered toward V.

V
You’re a good boy. A good man. You’re a good man.

MAVIS
And Bits, too, I should think.

V
Please be good. Be very good. . . . Oh, Nicky.

CECIL
You’re quite serious. About Bits, I mean. . . . You think that
little devil Nicky was—

MAVIS
Oh, Cecil, don’t be a child. . . . Cecil, have you heard from the home?

CECIL
From Basel? Those bleeders are never off my line. Don’t know
when they have time for the rest of the world.

MAVIS
No, the home. Sainte Bernadette’s.

CECIL
Mavis.

MAVIS
I just need to know.

CECIL
You know very well.

V
Please. Oh, please. . . . Be a good man. Be a good man.

MAVIS
She may need me. . . . Us.

CECIL
Her needs, believe me, are being met. . . . Unlike ours, at the moment,
I am loathe to say.

MAVIS
Oh, Cecil.

CECIL
Of course, darling.

V
Yes, darling. Yes, darling boy. You are so good to an old man.
To an old, sick man.

CECIL
But he’s always struck me as such an absolute . . . little . . .
turd burglar. With all his make-up and disco pals.

MAVIS
Who?

CECIL
Who? Yassar Arafat. . . . Nick, of course.

MAVIS
Well . . . what about Delbart? Surely all his business hasn’t
blinded you to how wet Del is.

CECIL
My Dolly. How really wicked you can be. . . . You know,
you’re quite right about this stuff. I feel right on the verge
of psychic impaction. On the border of a blackout.

MAVIS
Oh, stop it.

NICKY
Are you clean yet?

V
You must get me some fresh power. Please. Right away.

CECIL
Oh, I know. Like every other businessman—Christian businessman—
I always found that so charming about Del, his embracing the faith.

V
Nicky, I can’t do this anymore.

Nicky takes the pan from under V.

CECIL
Justifying that potted CV. I mean, French Indo-China, indeed.
MI6 and the Paris Club. Indeed, indeed.

V
Even with all your help.

MAVIS
Now don’t get started. There’s no use.

NICKY
I will try.

Nicky rebinds V’s leg and exits the riser.

CECIL
It’s just that I don’t see the necessity of it.

V
Just one more. A fresh one, please.

MAVIS
The necessity?

CECIL
That’s right.

MAVIS
Of what? His Christianity?

CECIL
His Christianity. His Judaism. His Islam.

MAVIS
This is interfering with me.

CECIL
When he ran the renal and retina bank, the eye and kidney pie trust,
down in Bangalore or somewhere in the south, Southern India,
you know, you don’t think he was a Christian then, do you?
Used to say he could get you multiple organ transplants for less
than it would cost you to join a health spa. He used to fly these
rich Europeans, sick Southeast Asians, in to this little beach in
the Lebanon and let them pick out their own organ donors, from
among the sun bathers. Now that’s banking.

MAVIS
But he has been quite successful. And loyal. And contributed
to your success—ours.

CECIL
Of course. Free Soviet Jewry and all that Papal bullshite about
just wars in the Balkans, and buying short sterling to spiff up all
that income from paving Wog-World with Soros’ nasty little,
limb-chewing land mines—god knows under what relic-encrusted
rubric that was done. . . .

V
Oh, hurry little Nicky.

MAVIS
Mind how you go. After all.

CECIL
Oh, I know, darling. After all. I’m his humble hand-maiden.
But I don’t have to deal spiritually with the mullahs in Bosnia
and their rental agreements with the UN or share a chillum with
the Mujahadin or celebrate Buddhist fertility in the Golden Triangle
or god-knows-who they pray to in Medellin.

MAVIS
No, Cecil. He’s your friend.

CECIL
Oh, Dolly, Dolly, my dear Dolly.


V
You can’t know the half of it. The half and half of it.

CECIL
It’s all bits or bytes—it’s all just info to me. Oh, the immiseration of
the world is on my things-to-do-today list as well. Don’t get me
wrong. I live to spread toil and slow suffering and to assure that
death will come only when despair is complete, just like the next
fellow in the old Business Community. But unlike Del and his lot,
I don’t pretend I’m saving the world from, I don’t know, Bolshevism,
or Paganism, or—Rosacrucianism—I don’t know. Bull jism. I’m
just doing the best I can to keep gin on the table, and getting precious
little help from the fucking help. Nicky! God damn you!

MAVIS
I’m going to make some coffee, CC. God, you’ve poisoned us,
you have.

Mavis exits UC.

MAVIS (OS)
There’s some Dexedrine, old, in my Louis Vee. It’s ‘pro-war’,
as they used to say. But you might try it, CC. Really.

Nicky re-enters riser with an automobile battery.

CECIL
Oh, Molly, it’s only alcoholism—but I like it. I think one of us
will have to go down the hill.

Nicky begins to hook up the battery to the bank of Die-Hards.

V
Will that be enough, you think?

Cecil goes to glass table and finds keys.

CECIL
I’ll be screwed blue and tattooed. . . . Molly.

As Nicky exits the riser.

NICKY
You will tell me.

Cecil exits UC.

CECIL (OS)
The vermin has been and gone.

V
I feel nothing.

NICKY (OS)
Wait. . . . There.

V is seized by Electric Shock.

V
Yes. But . . . Very slight, I’m afraid. Very weak.

NICKY (OS)
This timer . . . something is . . . here.

V is again seized.

V
I can’t be sure. Just bring the book. Hurry.

MAVIS (OS)
(Shouting)
No, CC! I won’t have you wrecking the car.

Nicky re-enters riser with a book. He kneels at V’s side and opens the book.

NICKY (Reading)
“The essence of a hedge fund is the ability to bet either way,
and profits are magnified by borrowing.”

V
Yes. That was last time. Further on.

NICKY
Ah, I don’t know. Here. (Reading) “I decided the overpriced currency
was doomed. The Wampum Fund was able to borrow five million pounds
and change it into German marks at a rate of two point seven nine to the
pound. Once Sterling collapsed, I sold the marks back for less, repaid
the loans and pocketed the difference: nine hundred fifty-eight million
dollars, to be precise.”

V
Yes, That’s right.

MAVIS (OS)
Cecil, don’t be idiotic.

NICKY
I don’t understand.

V
No, of course not. Go on.

NICKY
(Reading) “This technique of betting markets either way, combined
with access to unlimited and unprecedented lines of credit, have
allowed me to turn my attentions to the broader horizons of
philanthropy—literally, to express in its fullness my love for my
fellow man.” . . . Sir . . . ? Are you sure?

V
Listen. Take this down. You have a pen?

Nicky takes a pencil from his pocket.

NICKY
Yes, sir. Go on.

Mavis enters UC with coffee cup.

MAVIS
Call Dead Clive’s, the drinks boy will bring it. I won’t have you
killing yourself in our beautiful car. You can’t drive sober, Cecil,
god, slow down.

V
(Dictating)
“The critical problem is”—no, make that “lies”—“The critical problem
lies in the transfer of surplus value from the public sphere to the private
sphere”—no, get rid of “public sphere”; make it, “the transfer from public
to private spheres.”

NICKY
(Reading)
“The critical problem lies in the transfer of surplus value from the public
to the private spheres.” . . . More?

V
Something’s wrong with that.

NICKY
Isn’t it just taxation in reverse?

V
The batteries are not working.

NICKY
I think it’s the timer.

Nicky exits riser.

MAVIS
Perhaps if he were dead. The insurance . . . pension. I would
miss him. . . . No. . . . I’d have Mary Ellen to spend time with.
Such time as I have left. . . . It was really too late . . .

V
“Spheres”, plural is wrong. It doesn’t scan. If I drop the article.

MAVIS
But I wanted her. She is mine. My life.

CECIL (OS)
The bloody fucking car is dead. Dead as old dead Clive.
Crank won’t turn.

V
This whole thing . . . I can no longer . . . Nicky, where are you.

CECIL (OS)
Blast!

V is seized by a large jolt of Electricity.

CECIL (OS)
The phone’s gone dead. Bloody hell.

V
Ah . . . Nicky . . . god.

Cecil enters UC drinking from a small bottle of cologne.

V
Bless me, I think I’ve soiled myself. . . . Nicky.

CECIL
I can’t get the phone to work, Molly. Give it a go, will you.

Nicky re-enters riser.

NICKY
I ran it through the house current.

Nicky picks up and opens the book. He prepares to write.

MAVIS
What on earth?

NICKY
Now go on.

V
I’m a bit off, but (Dictating) “This can be achieved by the manipulation
of interest rates, both short and long term.”

MAVIS
What on earth?

CECIL
A present from dear dead mumsy, . . . sent seasons ago. Just froo-frooing
up for our evening, Dolly. Do go give dear old Dead Clive’s a knock-up.

V
Let me see, (Dictating) “Differences of nearly two percentage points in
three-month rates and of point six percentage points for ten-year”—Nicky,
who knows we’re here?

MAVIS
It’s the Wares’ I should call. Make apologies. This is becoming quite
impossible.

NICKY
They must know the car is back.

CECIL
Oh, don’t be daft, Mavis. I’m as right as ruddy fucking rain. . . .
And Del’s the only hard money I have in my brochure.

NICKY
But you, nobody. I’m sure.

CECIL
So don’t even think of canceling. . . . If he decides to trade me for some
nice soft World Bank money—claim that slag pit is a wet-lands and get
fucking Ducks Unlimited to sponsor a restructuring—we’ll be dining out
of tins and drinking from the loo.

V
We must hurry then.

MAVIS
Cecil, you’re frightening me. Let’s have a bit of a lie down,
wait for Nicky. When he gets back, he can sort this out. . . .
Oh god, Cecil.

V
I can’t think.

CECIL
Better idea. Get on the bleeding phone. Right now. Get on the
bleeding phone. Call bleeding Bits’. Tell her no bleeding ice,
no bleeding lemon wedge. Send their bleeding driver. Failing that.
Get down the bleeding hill to bleeding Dead bleeding Clive’s,
pick up a gallon of gin and use his bleeding phone.
Failing that—

MAVIS
No. No more, CC.

V
The timer. Something’s wrong with the timer. It’s been some time.

CECIL
Oh? Oh, really.

NICKY
It will have to be manual. –I don’t know how we can keep
this up. . . . We have the tapes, but . . .

CECIL
Oh, right. Quite so. You . . . are . . . quite right.

MAVIS
I want to see Mary Ellen.

CECIL
Of course.

MAVIS
I miss her. . . . I miss . . . Mary Ellen.

V
Write this, please. . . . Oh, . . . but can you see to the timer?
First, please.

CECIL
I’m really very sorry, you know? . . . She is being very well
cared for, you know? . . . My love.

NICKY
We have the tapes. I’ll check.

Nicky exits riser.

MAVIS
I want her with us.

CECIL
Oh my.

V
(Electric shock) Oh my. . . . The growing alienation of the
labouring world, madam, from the world of concentrated surplus
value, sir, which both sustains and is sustained by it; the increasing
animosity created by the on-going attempts at organization and
re-organization across this gulf between the Developed World and
the Under-developed World, generally referred to as the rich and poor,
respectively, . . .

CECIL
Can we just do this first. Then we can talk of baby Mary.

MAVIS
Mary Ellen. We’ll talk about Mary Ellen.

CECIL
Please try to get hold of Bitsy. . . . And . . . I am really quite sorry,
darling.

V
The theory of value which operates— . . . oh. . . . The . . .

MAVIS
The isolation.

CECIL
Isolation.

MAVIS
We’re so far away. So . . .

CECIL
Incredibly far, yes.

V
The . . . ory. Theo . . . ree. . . . (softly) Nicky.

MAVIS
I never bargained for this.

CECIL
No bargain. No bargaining, no. . . . Molly, please.

V
(softly) Nicky. Thee . . . o . . . ree. . . . The oree . . .

MAVIS
Never questioned. Never challenged you.

CECIL
Let’s not sell ourselves short here.

MAVIS
I’ve been the perfect collaborator. Servile and silent.

V
Thee . . . ory . . .

CECIL
One of your moods. One of Mavis’ gin moods?

V
Thee . . . ory . . . gin. The origin.

MAVIS
NO! . . . Oh yes. It is.

CECIL
There’s nothing wrong . . . with . . . that. With you, my—

V
Capital is self-valorizing.

MAVIS
Love of might. The comfortably homeless.

CECIL
I don’t know how comfy . . . I would be much more so if we could
address the gin problem.


MAVIS
I haven’t the strength. To walk to Clive’s. And back up
the hill.

CECIL
I’m sure you’d find a lift back.

MAVIS
Cecil, . . .

V
Unrestricted growth. . . . Intrinsic force.

CECIL
This congestion’s . . . the old TB’s got me where—(Big Cough)
Maybe some codeine. Tackle this cough. Any left? And those
antibiotics you picked up in that vide grenier—where was that?

MAVIS
He’s probably down digging in that clubhouse of his.


CECIL
In Normandy. Yvestot? Gerponville? . . . How’s that?

MAVIS
Just by the Jaca. The old warren.

CECIL
Afraid I’m left-luggage, darling.

MAVIS
It’s Nicky.

CECIL
Right so.

MAVIS
You might try my Louis Vee for those codeine as well.

Mavis exits UC.

MAVIS (Exiting)
Look there, but I think you’ve already taken all the antibiotics, CC.

CECIL
I see why that luggage is so dear.

Cecil finishes the cologne and exits UC.

V
Nicky. If the boys’ club is to continue to meet . . . No, you must
tell your mother that her Avon can no longer be protected. . . .
The theory . . . theory . . . Industrial capital . . . without access to
cheap power . . . free water . . . free water . . . the little nigger
was right: the pyramids were built by levitation. (groans)
The magic subversion of labour power. . . . Franchises, Nicky.
Your mother, the Amazonian Avon lady. . . . I’m sorry, Nicky.
We haven’t the power . . . to drive . . . them out.

Nicky re-enters riser.

NICKY
Todos estao mortos. All the circuits.

V
No matter.

NICKY
I don’t know about the tape.


V
You must get word to your mother . . . and your cousin.
Yes, your cousin and his cousins must go to meet the Lithuanian
musician . . . Serge or Sasha or whatever . . . in Vieira Souto . . .
at his shop. Cosmetics shop. (groans) Nicky.
Cosmetics in Brazil.

NICKY
What about senhor Ware? The strike?

V
He can’t have it. He’ll have to deal with these people.

NICKY
What about you?

V
How long will it take for the power to come back? How long am
I safe here?

NICKY
The acetone is coming down tonight again with Filipe. I can ask him
for more batteries, but I don’t know how long it will take. These people
are becoming crazy. Brazil is working on them.

V
I can’t have this. Go on like this. I can feel myself turning to smoke,
blowing away. . . . It might be best to end this now.

NICKY
No. No. I can help you. We need you. They can not have
this. Take all this.

V
It’s hopeless, Nicky. . . . I can no longer think of anything but
death. Of killing until there is no more life.

NICKY
Hope is not the point.

Noise is heard OS from riser. Nicky draws his squirt gun.

MAVIS
What on earth?

Mavis enters the riser.

NICKY
No.

V
No!

Nicky squirts Mavis in the face. Mavis reacts in great pain.

MAVIS
NO!

Mavis stumbles off riser (exits).

V
What was that?

NICKY
Oh, no. My god.

Cecil enters unsteadily UC with a large bottle of mouthwash from which he drinks.

CECIL
Spritely little cocktail. Reminiscent of that mille mille coffee in
Marrakesh: hashish and methamphetamine washed down with
Spanish brandy. . . . Well, not quite. But I’ll be kissing sweet.

V
What was that?

NICKY
His wife. Mavis.

CECIL
Oh, darling! Still gone are we? Ubi sunt? Ou sont les neiges
d’antan? Where have all the flores vamanoosed?

V
What did you do?

NICKY
I don’t know. I have to get her.

V
Wait, Nicky. Give me something.

Nicky puts his squirt gun in one of V’s nostrils and pulls the trigger several times. He moves it to the other nostril and pulls the trigger several more times.

V
(Groans) Oh, the colors.

V’s head falls back. Nicky exits the riser.

CECIL
There was a time—wasn’t there?—a time when I could get
what I needed. Easily. . . . A time when I needed nothing.
. . . A time without longing, for which I long. . . . I yearn
for non-yearning. . . . I urine for . . . There’s his’n, there’s her’n,
and the rest in urine.

Cecil goes to the glass table and takes up the trumpet. He puts it to his lips and blows a loud, ugly, long bray. He drops the trumpet, putting his hands to the sides of his head. His eyes roll up in his head, and he falls to the floor in full spasm.

Noise is heard OS.

MAVIS (OS)
Cecil. Help me, CC.

Mavis, her hands over her face, enters UC.

MAVIS
CC. CC.

Mavis comes into the room.

MAVIS
Cecil, I’m on fire.

Mavis stumbles over Cecil’s trembling body and falls to the floor, still clutching her face.

MAVIS
Mary Ellen, help me.

Nicky enters UC and stands in door way.

NICKY
O que exta acontecendo, Patraoes?


End Act 1



************************************

Act 2
Scene 1

SET AT RISE:

Mavis’ and Cecil’s living room is now SR with the doorway UR. The mirror is on the UR wall with several sandbags piled under it. The low glass table is now RC and on it are the chimney glass, empty of its flower, and a large, military-style walkie-talkie. The trumpet is gone.

The riser is now SL. On it sits what looks like an over-sized bassinet. The bank of Die-Hards is still on R of riser with wires leading into the bassinet as well as to what looks like a primitive medical machine, with a black rubber accordion-thing moving up and down. The 4.0 cable still droops off the riser and runs out the doorway UC.

SOUNDS of deep, animal, moans, in time with the rising and falling of the black accordion-thing, are heard coming from the bassinet; and artillery fire is heard in the near distance at irregular intervals.

LIGHTS UP brightly on SR and less brightly on the riser. Mavis enters UR pushing Cecil in a wheelchair. He is wearing distressed pajamas, she is wearing a perky sun dress. Her eyes are covered: the left by a black eye-patch, and the right by a white gauze pad (perhaps, Jackie-O shades over the whole mess). Cecil’s head bobs around like one of those dogs’ in the back window of a car, and he is seen to drool. His left side is paralyzed, and he has only spastic movement on his right.

MAVIS
It’s getting quite easy, really. And I don’t cheat. . . . Really.

CECIL
Wur ma, maoo, ass wur . . . mawa o gage win.

MAVIS
It’s only half-four, CC. A half hour. You can hold out for another
half hour, darling. . . . He really has been our saviour, you know.
And that Filipe, what a handsome boy he sounds to be. And tall,
for these people. Older than Nicky, I should think. . . . Oh, I know,
it’s hard. It’s been hard for me, too. . . . But accidents will, and all
that. Forgive and move on. . . . And what we would have done
without them, I’ll really never know. . . . Mary Ellen, sweet thing,
only slightly more helpless than her mum and poor da. You are
a poor old dear, aren’t you?

CECIL
Ear am, ear ah manna, sa sa ba ya. Ma o wa gage win! Gage WIN!

MAVIS
Patience, darling. You’ll live. To fight another day. The boys have
been at it round the clock since they moved the perimeter again.
It’s just by Dead Clive’s now. A little beyond the bottom of the hill.
MAVIS (cont.)
And they closed the harbour road the day after Nicky and
his cousins brought Mary Ellen. . . . And that cousin, Magda,
I think he said her name is, yes, sounds Hungarian, like one
of the Gabor sisters. Well, she’s been an absolute angel with
bathing and dressing and feeding. The Hungarian angel.
Can you imagine Nicky a Hungarian? I suppose it’s possible.
A Jew, even. Wouldn’t that be a kick? He’s pretty enough.
And smart. You know, it’s possible. After the War a lot of
Eastern Bloc people came to this country. . . Oh, I know, a lot
of Europeans, too. Germans, I quite sure. . . . But it is droll
thinking of Nicky as . . . oh, I don’t know, some kind of East
European Jew or Slav, even. He is quite handsome, in a familiar
way. I’m sure there must be a good bit of European blood—oh,
yes—Caucasian blood in Nicky. His hair. That nose.
But those eyes! Those eyes are pure and aboriginal and febrile
and mad—quite mad. “Hatter mad,” wasn’t it? “Hatter mad
or madder . . .”? . . . I’ll remember those eyes, with the glow of
that corpse in them, that grey glow in them, if they are the last
thing I see.

CECIL
Ear am maw kway no vice ta, tahe, mah. Noo fish pah vole—

MAVIS
—She’s not used to her new home is all. She’s like the rest of us.
You had fits trying to sleep when we first got to Rio. And now,
with the war. The shooting. And all the time, now.

CECIL
Ear am maw, maw, maw. Ear am goo fab si, maw.

MAVIS
What impeccable timing we have, CC. The secret to a good life,
yes, dear?

CECIL
Eve mah, noo sa poo sa gage im, id, gage il, noah.

MAVIS
She will be still. And you will get your cocktail.

CECIL
Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, fall coal ta vic ta ear mah.

MAVIS
You’re a darling thing to say that. You’re her pater mas fina
and all, but it’s still very sweet of you to be so concerned.
This shooting has been on a bit longer than usual, don’t you think?
And the shooting in town, in Vieira Souto, even out on Grumari,
MAVIS (cont.)
is just awful. You know, the little drinks boy was shot? Right off
his push bike. No word how he is and all. I think Dead Clive’s
is not long for the world either. Some of these boys have taken
to just breaking in at any hour of the day or night and helping
themselves. He no longer has any business, as such. Besides our
orders. And I imagine our account can’t last much longer, even if
we were able to pay on it.

CECIL
Ear am nah bah mah, mah. Ah gage on? Nah, gage in fah? Ooh,
ooh, ooh, ooh, oom, oom, kah hah. Beeza, foo, beeza awk rah ear
am va tawn tee?

MAVIS
Cecil. Nicky assured me. We got absolutely every last drop of gin
in Rio. They negotiated a complete clear-out of Clive’s stock:
Tanqueray, Beefeaters, Bombay, Gordons, all of them, even that
dreadful Mexican stuff, that Osso Negro. You used to revile every
drop of. So whatever happens, we will have gin well into the great
drought sure to come, my love.

CECIL
Maw nee, Moo nah, awwf, awwwfff. Gage in fah.

MAVIS
Oh, very well. You know I can’t refuse you when you go on so.
Your Cyclops will fetch and carry. . . .

Mavis exits UR.

MAVIS
Be good and stay put, dear.

CECIL
Awwff, mah gah who bus (he has a petit mal seizure)
ggggggggggggggaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhmmmmmmmaaaaahhhhh.

Nicky rises from inside the bassinet SL and climbs out of it. He is naked. When he is standing on the riser, he reaches into the bassinet and takes out his clothes and begins to dress in fatigue pants and a tank-top. He wears nothing on his feet. Animal sounds continue, more gently now, to come from inside the bassinet.

NICKY
Quieta, meu amor. . . . Quieta. . . . Calada!

CECIL
(Back to sub-normal) Canno . . . Kenny . . . Mah ver ago soo vah.


NICKY
Calada. Meu amor . . . malo e malo.

CECIL
Ranno sell Buzzzzzz, ranno mio aw ranno, ranno, vill fah may sell
Buzzzzz. . . . Ah . . . ah—vif key bay mio say call on fee lar vif day
vif day mazz ah call so Buzz ah sell—ah, ah, ah, sell Buzz?
Eh, sell . . . Buzz. Buzz. . . . Buzz. . . .

After dressing, Nicky reaches into the bassinet and takes out a full-sized assault rifle (AD or M16). He kisses his finger tips and reaches into the bassinet. Then he exits.

CECIL (cont)
Buzz. . . . Sell. . . . May whoa hay, whoa hay. Buzz sell.
Goff tom fact see ill. Vor nay ak tay. Vol to seff ma sell
mah buzz. Ill awmmmm day cock vee.

SOUND of walkie-talkie buzzing. Cecil notices but can do nothing.

CECIL (cont)
Ouwww may! Ouwwwwww maaaayyyy!

Nicky enters UR and answers walkie-talkie.

NICKY
Si. . . . Si, Nicky, si. . . . Si. . . . No. . . . Amway, no. No, Vai!
A qui? . . . Amway e Maria Kay a norte. Si. Todos? Si. . . . Si.
Todos. . . . Ate o fin. Ten four.

Mavis enters pushing a drink cart.

MAVIS
Nicky? Nicky? . . . Is anything wrong?

BEATS.

MAVIS
Nicky?

NICKY
No, senhora Conrad. Everythings is fine.

Mavis begins to serve Cecil his drink from a glass with a straw. She has her own large drink on the cart to which she refers regularly between Cecil’s servings. (The glassware has changed from Act 1 and is now much sturdier: jars, maybe.)

MAVIS
Careful, darling. Don’t spill. Mustn’t waste, there are children over
in Asia sober. . . . Mary Ellen? Have you spoken to Magda?
How’s she doing? Birthday coming up, you know.

NICKY
She is fine. And you mean Tania, my cousin. . . . Your girl is fine.

MAVIS
I wish I could just tear this dressing off and see if I’m going to see.
I want to look in on her. See how my pretty girl is doing. Fix her
hair. . . . She makes a great deal of noise. Does Magda say anything
about that? Is it just trouble sleeping? If I could read to her, perhaps.

NICKY
Tania—my cousin says she is fine. Very good. Soon she sleeps.
All the nights.

CECIL
Oooomahh! Gage in vaha mah.

MAVIS
Yes, darling. Sorry. You know I can’t see what we’re doing. . . .
Here. . . . I sometimes feel like there’s an eye grown back in where
they took it out It feels like the socket is full again. Like they say
about people who lose a limb and then feel an itch or pain where
there is no longer a limb. And I feel as though I can see out of it.
It’s exceedingly strange. The things I see, through this imaginary
—this imagined eye. While I can see nothing through the supposed
good one. . . . I see our first place in Shanghai. And Mary Ellen
playng with the geese. She wasn’t even born when we were in China.
. . . And did we have geese in Shanghai, CC, or was that in Normandy?
. . . But things appear so clear and bright with this long-gone eye of
mine. Wonder if I’ll still have it when I get this good one back?
If I get this one back.

NICKY
My cousin, she say yours girl has liquids in her throat. Hers breathing
hard with this liquids. Why she makes much noises.

Cecil spews some of his drink.

CECIL
Goowa kick see! Kun fah say mio whoa!

MAVIS
CC, darling, the girl is just trying to help. But tell her, Nicky,
that there seems to be this bad smell coming from round there.
Near Mary Ellen’s room. Ask if she—Magda is her name?—
if Magda can do something about that. That smell.

NICKY
Yes, I will asks her. I will asks Magda. But things is more and
more difficult. The waters is low. The radios says that the road
from the north and west closed now. They says the Amway and
Maria Kay move to closed the road from Uruguay.

MAVIS
What can they possibly want from starving us all out up here?

CECIL
Maway, vas nose coo tah bay wah.

MAVIS
Yes, darling. Slowly, slowly. . . . They never even brought those
things round here. This is a fine way to sell beauty products or
vitamins or whatever it is they’re flogging. And all this bloody
shooting—for god’s sake.

NICKY
This is the Avon here. This place. And the Church of Ladders Days.
They have the Scientologistoes, the Scientologistoes giving them the
weapons and the fuel.

CECIL
Lebat, saw can fah. Mah, lebat anto saw.

MAVIS
It’s mad, CC. I had no idea this was going on. Amway and Avon
and the Church of Christ. Aren’t they the lot Del said was trying
to organize his employees at Brazoro. Church of Christ? Or the
Mormons was it? Some frothing bloody load of old bollocks. Yes,
I think it was, Church of Christ.

NICKY
Church of Christ. Save the Children.

MAVIS
I remember. Adopt a Pagan Baby. Oh, I remember. But, my god,
Nicky, is Del—is Mister Ware still holed up out there?

NICKY
I think, senhora. The workers, senhor Ware’s workers have take
controls and keeps him there. Now they all work all the days and
all the nights and brings out much gold.

CECIL
Eve e bash vee lend oh mah see—

NICKY
He must stay theres—Mister Ware—


CECIL
May oov, lend oh mah see—

MAVIS
Be quiet, Cecil. Stop interrupting the boy.

NICKY
Mister Ware stay theres because he must pay them. He must take
the guns and petrol and medicine and sell the gold to the church
people. The Scientologistoes. He stay theres all the time.

CECIL
Awn, awn, mah vee, say kah mah vee.

MAVIS
And Mrs. Ware? She’s gone back to England, has she?

NICKY
No. I think. No. I am not sure.

CECIL
Mah vee, awn tits vah see—

MAVIS
I’d heard, mind you, I can’t remember quite where, but I heard,
old Bits, when Del didn’t come home that night, just said, ‘stuff this’,
threw a few essentials into her doctor’s bag and caught the last
British Air to London.

CECIL
Mah vee, suck ima tass all razz too!

NICKY
The house has—

MAVIS
It’s done, darling. All gone. You drank all your gin like a good boy.
I’m sorry, Nicky, darling, what?

NICKY
The house. The house has always lights on. Many lights. In the back.
And all the times loud music playing. Like disco—all the times.
Partying.

MAVIS
Bits and Del’s house? Are you sure? And he’s out at Brazo—a hostage?

NICKY
Not hostage, senhora. He is patrao. Big patrao. Like Marlon Brando.

CECIL
Aye vay emmy vahs tah kah!

MAVIS
Why on earth? . . . Are you sure, Nicky? You can’t get up that way.
Can you? How can you be sure of this?

NICKY
My cousins, we gets thing from Brazoro peoples.


CECIL
Eeh vah mah, gage im, ah veh gage in, vah mah.

MAVIS
Things, indeed. . . . That was a double, darling. We’re cutting back, remember? . . . And I suppose you shoot some of those things right
back at them. Yes, Nicky?

Mavis puts her empty glass on the drink cart.

NICKY
We must keeps us free, senhora. Ketone keeps us free, senhora.

MAVIS
Indeed.

CECIL
Awe mah vay, mah vay, apple coe tay oom bah.

MAVIS
Oh, very well, CC. One more, but only a half this time. Understand?

Mavis exits pushing drink cart in front of her.

When Mavis has exited, Nicky brandishes his assault rifle for Cecil’s benefit. Just showing off.

NICKY
Senhor Conrad, . . . O que exta acontecendo, your mind, senhor Cecil?
You see? You hear?

CECIL
Nod tah, eeeell meucho vah fee.

NICKY
Senhor CC. O que exta acontecendo, senhor Cecil?

Nicky affects an intimacy with Cecil, being careful not to be overheard by Mavis in the other room. His accent has all but disappeared: very cosmopolitan now.

NICKY
Well, Mr. Conrad—your brain blew out, eh? Pity. . . . Pity your
friend with the organ banks could not help. Your wife’s eyes, also.
Pity he could not find someone needed to re-finance an old debt,
—needed to badly enough to give up an eye. Isn’t that how they
do it at your friend Ware’s organ banks, in the developing world.
I understand he did a great deal of business with the procurers
of child labour for the rug weavers of Northern India. Very exotic
that, no? I can see your lovely wife, her gaze mysterious through
the dark lens of a young Indian boy, whose fingers and back gave
out before his eyes did and his only value was organ harvest. . . .
What about banker’s privilege? . . . Professional courtesy?
Honour among thieves? An eye for an eye?

CECIL
Geg— geeeg— goog—

NICKY
Didn’t you ask him? Things happened too fast. And in your case,
maybe too late for a transplant. Though I am sure Del, Mr Ware,
has no shortage of brain-donors in his debt. I’m sure you could
have had your pick from many—even mine, if you had asked in
time. I’m sure Mr. Ware would have gladly given you my brain
to wear around in exchange for a few points off the service on his
loans. The vigorish, you call it?

CECIL
Wot naget om vee. Gag, Meefa deela gag!

NICKY
Just when you needed your wits about you to care for Mary Ellen.
A good thing so many in my family were able to come to your
estate and see to your needs. The grounds. The grounds alone
will need an army to maintain. And cut off from the city makes
it all so much harder. With the war. This fighting? Do you suppose
it has something to do with faulty organs sold by Mr. Ware?
Or, perhaps, it is that some of the people who work at Brazo come
from tribes have been poor so long—have worked in the pits so long
—they no longer grow taller than a meter and a half and hunger has
shrunken and pointed their heads. The speciation of poverty, is it
called? Ah well, maybe I’ve had a little too much glue and newsprint
soup, myself. Doesn’t really matter, does it? Why there is so much
fighting and bloodshed and death—sacrifice of the innocents, as usual,
yes? Now, it just is. And we are all too busy fighting to understand
why we fight. Those who understand, who have understood all along,
are doing too well to stoop to explain, to let us in on the deal, right?
That wouldn’t be good business. And war is very good business,
is it not, Mr. Cecil?

V, wearing a jalaba and Moslem hat, enters the area DS of riser (formerly Nicky’s area). He carries a prayer rug, a small tape recorder and a handful of K7s. He spreads the rug, kneels on it and begins to manipulate the tape recorder. He also carries a tin of black grease paint (make-up); intermittently he applies it to his face until his face is completely black.

The walkie-talkie buzzes a couple times. Nicky rushes to answer it, as Mavis pushes in the drink cart with two large glasses (one with a straw) on it.

MAVIS
If that’s for me—whom am I kidding?

NICKY
Si . . . si. Yes. . . . No, the Settlements Bank . . . Yes, that’s right. . . .
Of course, Mr. Conrad will sign. . . . Delivery will be immediate? Fine.

Mavis has begun serving Cecil his drink.

MAVIS
Nicky darling, see if they can bring some shampoo.

NICKY
He will sign as always. . . . Yes, that’s all.

Nicky puts down walkie-talkie.

CECIL
Munas, menza, vee lay see—

MAVIS
Where is Magda, Nicky? —Oh, quiet, here. –Nicky, I want to
see Mary Ellen.

V has put in a K7 and he plays tape recorder.

(The following four taped voices are meant to be suggestive of Deepak Chopra, Terry Cole Whitaker, Marianne Williamson, and John Bradshaw, in that order. If the production can use the actual voices and texts of these or other self-help hucksters without fear of legal action, or if you are more conversant with these gurus and can better authenticate these amazing simulations, you have the playwright’s enthusiastic encouragement to do so.)

Taped Male Voice
By repeating the prayer word, the mantra, one is able to disengage
the mind from stressful concerns. The alignment of the charkas
will follow, increasing the tranquility and sense of well being that
allows one to come into the loving state. For it is in the love state
that one opens one’s self to god-consciousness, the highest achieve-
ment of the human mind—free from fear, trouble and especially
stress, the cause of all physical and psychic disorders and diseases.
It is with love that god heals us. It is by living love that we live truly
whole lives.

(The taped voice plays under the following dialogue.)

CECIL
Maoi, wah goss tah maoee—

NICKY
She will come. I must see to this.

MAVIS
Oh please, CC, here—Nicky help me here with senhor C.
Get me something for this glass.

CECIL
Awh, nah maoeree, nah va loosh ta—

MAVIS
Help me with this. Take me in to see her, Nicky. Please,
sweetie.

Nicky pretends to help Mavis rig a support for Cecil’s glass so he can reach it to drink by himself.

V
Our blackness. Melanin. Our African-ness.

CECIL
Awhm, awhm, awhm, mah vah rass—

MAVIS
Cecil, be quiet. I’m completely round the twist. Please, Nicky,
darling. I want to see my baby.

NICKY
We must hurry.

Nicky takes Mavis by the arm and they exit UR. Cecil cannot reach his drink where it has been left.

CECIL
Mauve, awhm, mauve, mauve nah ca muck! Ca muck!

V has changed K7s.

V
Our home. Our Edenic origin.


Taped Female Voice
You have a divine right to prosperity. You have a divine right to
success and happiness. You have a divine right to wealth. Yes,
that’s right! God wants you to be successful. Successful in love.
Successful in business. God wants you to be successful in life.
And it is God, the power ofGod, God’s will, that will give you the
answers, the real answers to all your problems; your money problems
and, yes, your romantic problems. Because after all they are all love
problems. All problems are love problems. Not enough love, too much
love in the wrong places to the wrong people all add up to poor romance,
poor business, a poor life. No love. No money.

(Again, the above occurs under the following.)

CECIL
Awh, mao ass, now dack ma ran key gage in. Be crundf, mao see.

V
Our pure African hearts have not been taken from us.

Nicky and Mavis enter the riser. It is very still. Nothing moves. No sound.

MAVIS
Oh, my.

NICKY
I will speaks to Tania. Tell her to clean.

MAVIS
Oh . . . oh, but it’s my baby. It’s my little girl. Where, Nicky?

NICKY
Here, senhora.

Nicky takes Mavis’ hand and puts it in the bassinet.

V
The blackness that gave birth to the world is in us still.

MAVIS
Your hand. Oh my. Nicky. You touch her, too.

Cecil has been trying to reach his drink with his spastic hand, and, failing, has begun to weep.

NICKY
Senhora?

MAVIS
Your hand. It’s . . . Give me your other hand.

Nicky has to lay down his rifle. He gives Mavis his other hand.

V
It is the source of our strength. Our goodness. Our blackness is
our power.

MAVIS
I want Mary Ellen to feel this.

NICKY
Si, senhora.

MAVIS
This smell, darling. My baby, it’s like when you were born.
When you came out of me. That smell. Oh, Nicky. That smell.
I want to feed her. . . . Oh, Nicky, here. Here, darling

Mavis puts Nicky’s hands on her breasts.

MAVIS
Just squeeze my teats, darling. Gently. Gently.

NICKY
Si, senhora.

MAVIS
She’s asleep, isn’t she? She’s finally quiet. Yes. Mary Ellen
is asleep, Nicky.

NICKY
I don’t know, senhora.

V has changed K7s again.

Taped Female Voice
I was just a plain-looking Jewish girl from Long Island, New York.
From an ordinary family. I got a good education from a good
university, one of the big U’s. Came to Los Angeles and had
a reasonably successful acting career. Had a lot of friends, a nice
home, plenty of money in the bank, two cars, a pool, horses, a nice
stock portfolio, couple of successful cosmetic surgeries, a bunch
of really fun relationships—but there was still this big hole in my
life. You know that feeling? That emptiness right in the centre of
your being. That void that only love can fill. You know that one.
Then I discovered this book. This magic book. Actually magically
written by an employee of the phone company.

(Again, the above occurs under the following.)


MAVIS
Oh, Nicky, please, here. She can’t hear us.

Mavis takes Nicky’s hands and puts them under her skirt.

CECIL
Mah mis yah. (Weeping) Mah vah smee you!

V
The purity of our African souls, our black hearts . . .

MAVIS
Oh, your hands, Nicky. Yes, that’s right. Oh yes, more.
More fingers. Yes.

V
Our African spirit, which spread throughout the sunburned
world. Yes.

NICKY
Senhora.

MAVIS
Oh, more, Nicky, more. Your fingers.

CECIL
(Weeping) Mah vah smee you! Mah vah smee you!

V
This African spirit, which is as the melanin in our skin, created
and was created by our earthly paradise—No!

MAVIS
Let me smell your fingers. . . . Oh, yes. That’s it.

Nicky takes Mavis US of the bassinet, takes her hands and puts them into the bassinet.

The black rubber accordion-thing has not been moving up and down for some time.

NICKY
Feel your baby’s head.

V
Before the Ice People. We ruled the world—this tropical paradise.
When Africa and South America were one land.

Nicky goes US of Mavis, lifts up her skirt and begins to fuck her from behind.

The SOUND of artillery, which had fallen off, resumes and is louder, seems closer and more frequent now.

MAVIS
Oh, my baby. My baby. Yes. Yes. Yes.

V
When the Brazilian hump was buried deep beneath the
West African breast. Oh.

V has changed K7s.

Taped Male Voice
Your inner child cries out for comfort. Your inner child cries
out for tenderness and nurturing. Your inner child cries out
for love. And it is these cries for love and tenderness that are
often heard and misunderstood as the need for a drink or a drug
or something to eat—something to fix you. To fill that inner
child with well-being. Because when we are children, we are
surrounded by giants who threaten us constantly.

(Again, the above is under the following.)

V
Our blackness is the source of our magic—our powers over
the material world.

MAVIS
Cleanse me, Nicky. . . . Make me clean again, darling.

NICKY
You will wake your baby.

MAVIS
I want you to fill me. I don’t care about anything. Make me
strong. Again.

CECIL
Mauris, awh, nah, shev runny kah, mauve house.

MAVIS
Again. Again. And again. And again.

NICKY
The more we fight, the more we fuck. The more we fuck,
the more we fight.

V
The commodity was the Iceman’s curse.

CECIL
Severe nah kah, mauve has, che cha nay wah.

NICKY
After all, this will be for you.

MAVIS
Yes, Nicky. For me. Now. Now, Nicky.

V
Before the Ice-man there was no slavery, no labour. Only black magic controlled the world of objects.

MAVIS
Do this for me.

CECIL
Gor gauze day, mauve ass, kra jean nah.

MAVIS
I feel the head.

NICKY
This won’t last long.

MAVIS
That’s all right, darling.

V
Not slave labour—levitation built the pyramids.

CECIL
Bee hatch, bee hatch. Mauve vis. May vos!

MAVIS
You’re such a good boy.

NICKY
We can’t just give up.

MAVIS
Oh, no, don’t give up. Not now! Don’t give up!

V
Our blackness is dominant. A black man with a white woman
makes a black child. A white man with a black woman makes
a black child.

NICKY
Here! Here! I am sorry I burned your eyes.

CECIL
Mavis, nah! Nah, no, Mavis!

MAVIS
I feel you burning. Burning me, again.

CECIL
Mavis! I, oooo I—

MAVIS
It burns. Ah-yee, I burn!

V
Our magic was domesticated—quick frozen tricks. Show business
our slavery. Admission: the price of a lottery ticket. This show
must not go on.

V turns off the recorder, and bows his head, his face completely blackened now, to the floor, his arms out in front of him as if in prayer.


SOUND of a short, high-pitched whistle.

THE WHOLE STAGE GOES BRIGHT WHITE—LIGHTS FULL-UP—ALL FREEZE.


BLACKOUT.


End Scene 1


************************************


Scene 2

SET AT RISE: SR remains the living room. But the mirror has fallen off the UR wall and sits on the sandbags or on the floor. The glass table top is struck, and the table is on its side, as is the drink cart. The walkie-talkie is struck.

SL is still the riser with the bassinet on it. Only one or two of the Die-Hard batteries remain, and much of the medical machine (the black rubber accordion-thing) is struck, along with the 4.0 cable.

VERY DIM LIGHTS UP SR and (DIMMER) SL.

Cecil sits in his wheel chair, pretty much where he was in the previous scene, same distressed pj’s, but he is very still now. Mavis lies curled on the floor next to the fallen mirror, her feet are bare and she wears a ragged night shirt with a great ugly stain visible on her ass. She has only the black eye patch over her left eye. Everything is very still.

SEVERAL BEATS.

OS, THREE CELLULAR BEEPS are heard.

BEATS.

CECIL
(With some difficulty)
Rugged. . . . Rugged life. (Long Pause) Missile crisis. . . .
Locked on. . . . Laser guided. European muscle. Ne pas reculer.
(chuckles) Barbers just beyond the hill. (Long Pause) A civilized
party, dolly, will be impossible. (Pause) All the money in the
World Bank, and what good is it?

MAVIS
(Without moving)
How can I make them go away?

SEVERAL BEATS.

CECIL
Without people . . . in it . . . on it . . . land is no good.

OS, THREE MORE CELLULAR BEEPS.

MAVIS
What if it’s for me?

CECIL
Destroy what he has built. Then rebuild it. For a price. . . .
The land lord, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name . . .
and mine . . . someday, will be . . . the same.

MAVIS
Where is our home . . . gone? Where are they? Where is
my shampoo?

SEVERAL BEATS.

CECIL
Here, dolly. It’s all here. . . . There is just precious little light. . . .
I’m glad I didn’t miss this. . . . I could get back for this. . . .
Sorry, dolly, I can’t be of more help.

SEVERAL BEATS.

MAVIS
I can’t see. Cecil?

CECIL
There is nothing . . . to see.

MAVIS
I could at first.

BEATS.

CECIL
Uh huh.

MAVIS
It’s like an airless packing crate. . . . Like they smuggle Pakis . . .
to work in . . . Chinese . . . take-aways.

CECIL
A nice little graft that. . . . Bung each one of the buggers with
a little how-you-been-keeping. Get a nice little return then. . . .
Imagine a Chinese take-away with five-hundred waiters on
the books.

MAVIS
I fancy some Chinese take-away. . . . Some Tandoori, actually.
. . . Some elephant garlic. . . . I don’t think I could bear to see
anyone now.

LONG PAUSE.

CECIL
Not to worry.

LONG PAUSE.


MAVIS
It’s been quiet an awfully long time. . . . Cecil?

BEATS.

CECIL
Yes, dear. . . . Yes, it has.

OS, THREE CELLULAR BEEPS.

LONG PAUSE.

MAVIS
We really can’t be bothered. . . . Any more. . . . Can we, CC?

CECIL
Any more? No. (Long Pause) When was . . . the last time
. . . you . . .

BEATS.

MAVIS
Yes? . . . The last time?

CECIL
It’s not important, is it?

MAVIS
No. I don’t know.

SEVERAL BEATS.

CECIL
If I could just get a chair at those negotiations.

MAVIS
How’s that?

CECIL
Del would break me off a small piece.

MAVIS
Darling.

CECIL
The insurance end. Surely there must be . . . even a small opening.

SEVERAL BEATS.

MAVIS
I don’t think that . . . after all . . . that you should . . . that we should
. . . count . . . on Del for . . . any . . . help.

BEATS.

CECIL
Quite right. This is one mess . . . should it ever get cleaned up . . .
we’ll be the ones. Eh? We’ll be the ones. (Long Pause)
Mary gone, then?

MAVIS
Oh god, Cecil. Mary Ellen. On her birthday, rest her sweet soul.
She just hadn’t the strength. . . . we’d not given her the strength.

CECIL
No. Is she gone from the house? Has someone taken her . . .
from the house?

SEVERAL BEATS.

MAVIS
Oh. I don’t know.

NOISE is heard OSR.

MAVIS
My god.

V (OS)
Why so dark? . . . And hot, and foul smelling? Go find them.

OS, TWO CELLULAR BEEPS are heard.

V (OS)
Hello? . . . Yes, Mrs. Ware . . . Yes, Beatrice. . . . This is V. . . .
Many reasons, really, but I was born in Vilnius. . . . That’s right.
. . . I’m just called V.

Nicky enters UR. He is wearing 3” heels, a tight-fitting little black mini number with spaghetti straps, lots of eyes and bright red lipstick. He carries a beaded clutch purse. His hair is slicked back. He is ravishing.

V (OS) (cont.)
Well, let’s see . . . I was the fifth of five sons. . . . I was valedictorian
at prep-school and at university. . . . And I once had a great adventure
with high-voltage. . . . Yes, struck by lightning, that’s right. Oh, but
don’t let me go on.

Nicky slides into the room and inspects Mavis and Cecil without getting too close.

V (OS) (cont.)
. . . My lovely companion and I— . . . It’s Nicky. I think you’ll
recognize her. . . . She’s quite delightful. I’m sure you’ll love her.
We’re very much looking forward to it. . . . And my best to your
husband. . . . ‘Till eight. . . . Yes. Ciao, ciao.

V enters UR. His face is still blackened. He wears a lightweight suit (prêt à porter would be too kind) of an Eastern European 70’s cut—it’s ill-fitting and suggests that it is not particularly clean. He wears a noxiously coloured shirt with a huge collar, and a tie that came from one of those Russian thrift queues. He is dressed to kill. He carries a long-handled straw shopping bag.

V
Well . . . what a dump. . . . Don’t touch them.

MAVIS
What do you want?

CECIL
Quiet.

V
Yes. Be still, you silly great cow.

CECIL
Leave us. You’ll get what you want.

V
That’s not very likely.

NICKY
I’m going to vomit.

V
Do it in the baby’s room.

MAVIS
We’re no good to you any more.

NICKY
Shut the fuck up. . . . Let’s go. (ind. Choker) This thing is choking me. It’s making me sick.

V
(simultaneous w/ Nicky)
Any more? How long did you expect your credit to last?

CECIL
You don’t own this. Have title. Any more than we did.

NICKY
I won’t go back there.

V
No. But Nicky’s cousins occupy the area. . . . Nicky’s mother
distributes the Avon to all the Avon ladies in Rio. . . . I am the
pastor of the Church of the New Covenant of the Bleeding Lamb.
It’s a start.

MAVIS
I’ve never seen you. Who are you?

CECIL
No matter. Who ever he is, he won’t be long.

NICKY
Just as land without people does not exist. People without land do
not exist.

CECIL
You’re a servant.

MAVIS
No. He’s not. And he’s not Jewish.

CECIL
You have nothing they want.

NICKY
But we have nothing. You don’t even have that.

MAVIS
I have to make pooh-pooh, CC.

NICKY
I can’t—

V
Quite right, Mr. Conrad—may I call you CC? We do have nothing.
Quite on the mark there, CC. . . . But we now have the right,
the authority, to make the exchange: nothing for nothing.
It is the exchange that generates the value. Now. (to Nicky)
Darling, would you be so kind?

Nicky takes from his clutch a small pastel-coloured squirt gun, goes to V and squirts it up his nose.

V (cont.)
You give us guns, we give you cocaine. You give us Avon, we give
you . . . Samba—no, Car-ni-val. You give us Kant and Hegel and Marx,
we give you children to fuck, then you can rip out their vital organs
to wear like Gucci belts.

MAVIS
Nicky, help me go, darling.

NICKY
I’ll wait for you outside. Hurry.

V
No. Check on the other room.

NICKY
I won’t go there. There is nothing to check.

CECIL
You have to bring us water.

V
Ah, water. (hands Nicky the shopping bag) Put this on. . . .
And do us again.

Nicky squirts his gun up V’s nose again. He then takes a large plastic garbage bag out of the shopping bag.

NICKY
Oh, . . . I . . . V?

V
Go on. . . . Skin So Soft, from Nicky’s mama’s Avon, good for replling mosquitos or cleaning the vinyl-top on your motor car, mixed just right with aceton, any ketone, makes a miracle potion. Toxic enough to smite your enemies. Exhilarating enough to make you dance the Black Samba all night long.

MAVIS
I feel my insides being eaten up—burnt up.

Nicky squirts his gun up his own nose several times.

NICKY
Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. Billy Preston, CC.

CECIL
It was far from nothing, as I recall.

Nicky slips the garbage bag like a poncho over his dress.

V
It’s a fool who seeks a fair fight.

NICKY
It’s a loser who expects a fair fight. It’s the over-privileged bully
with nothing to lose who seeks a fair fight.

V takes a garbage bag and puts it on.

V
That’s good, Nicky.

CECIL
Yes, Nicky, that is good.

MAVIS
Oh, it won’t come out. Help me, Nicky.

V and Nicky take weapons from out of the shopping bag.

CECIL
Democracy, the last alcoholic delusion.

Nicky goes to Mavis.

V
(Turning Cecil’s chair US)
No, CC. Democracy is just another cheap confidence game, like
selling time-shares in Chernobyl.

MAVIS
It’s coming. I can feel it.

Nicky kills Mavis, and V kills Cecil. This is done with much flourish and stylized gore. It is a suggestion that with each stroke of their weapons, V and Nicky throw red streamers and confetti into the air.

After sufficient slaughter, V and Nicky remove their garbage bags, return them to the shopping bag, Nicky gives V a somewhat more intimate squirt up the nose, and they exit.

As LIGHTS SLOWLY DIM OUT, a slight glow comes from inside the bassinet on riser SL. A figure, a head on an arm-less torso, perhaps, rises from the bassinet.

From the bassinet comes a LOUD, CLEAR, AND DISTINCT VOICE WE’VE NEVER HEARD BEFORE.

VOICE
Throw me on the wall, and make me feel like a lizard.


LIGHTS OUT.

FINI