CHARACTERS:
KENNY – Handsome man, in his early thirties but on his way downward, somewhat unshaven and sloppily dressed.
KANE – Tall man, same age as Kenny but much better dressed, although somewhat more conservatively.
FIVER – Short man, same age as the others but dressed even better and flashier.
SETTING: Private room off of a bar that is hosting a wake. Present time.
LIGHTS UP
(Kenny stands in silence with a drink in his hand. KANE, also with a drink in his hand, enters the room. KENNY nods to KANE with a smile of recognition. FIVER walks in right after KANE, also carrying a drink. KENNY nods to him also.)
KENNY: To the Beautiful One.
KANE: The Beautiful One.
FIVER: The Beautiful One.
(They tap their glasses together in a toast and then drink. Short pause as they look at each other, then they all grin. )
KENNY: You guys, you fuckin’ guys, I can’t believe, it’s been fuckin’ years, hasn’t it? Fuckin’ Forever.
(KENNY grabs them both in a big hug, which is returned.)
KANE: It’s been a few years, I saw you three years ago at Seymour’s wedding.
KENNY: Shit, that’s right, that’s fucking right, we got shit-faced that night, godddamn. In fact, you and Babe that night …
KANE: Yeah. We did.
KENNY: And FIVER! Fuckin’ Fiver back in the old hometown!
FIVER: Kenny, good to see you.
KENNY: I couldn’t believe it, when I saw you in the back row there, I said, fuckin’ FIVER! Shit my pants, it’s been too fucking long. How long’s it been?
FIVER: Been a while. Kane, it’s good seeing you, too.
KANE: How’s life been treating you, Fiver?
FIVER: Life’s been good. Except for the last few days, of course.
KANE: Yeah.
KENNY: Fuck yeah. Jesus, man, I’m still in fuckin’ shock when Kane called me and told me I dropped the fuckin’ phone, I swear to God. Fuck man. Fuck Fuck Fuck. She was fuckin’ … She was …
KANE: Special.
FIVER: Special.
KENNY: Special. Fuckin’ special. And that’s only the beginning. That’s only the START with describing her, she was one and only. Fucking special. You guys want a drink, I need another Goddamn drink. Fiver? Kane?
KANE: Sure.
FIVER: No thanks, I’m fine.
(KENNY exits the room.)
KANE: He’s gonna get on his ass drunk tonight.
FIVER: He’s on his ass drunk already.
KANE: He’s taking it hard.
FIVER: Yeah.
KANE: I don’t blame him. In fact, I might just lock myself away in the house this weekend, just me and a couple of bottles of good scotch. Get blind, stinking, puking drunk for Babe.
FIVER: I don’t drink anymore.
KANE: Yeah?
FIVER: Yeah. Stopped a couple years ago. This is orange juice.
KANE: Were you an …
FIVER: No, I just stopped boozing and started working out instead. No reason. Just had an impulse.
KANE: Uh-huh.
FIVER: But if ever there was a day to get on my ass drunk, this would be it. How’d you hear about it?
KANE: Her aunt. Her aunt, we knew each other. She called me. I called Kenny, few others. So. What you been up to Fiver?
FIVER: Lots of things. Yourself?
KANE: Not much. Well, I just made vice-president at the bank. I guess that’s a good thing. Not much else. Not much at all.
FIVER: Hey, congratulations. On the job thing. You married? Got the kids, house and two-car garage, that whole package?
KANE: Not married. Came close once, a couple years ago. Only time.
FIVER: I’m not either. Married, I mean. Divorced. Twice. No kids. Lot of alimony. What about Kenny?
KANE: He’s not married, as far as I know, unless he’s got a mail-order bride tucked away somewhere. I don’t know what he does either. For a living, I mean. I haven’t seen him since the wedding a while back.
FIVER: Seymour got married, huh?
KANE: Three years ago. Some girl from the city, her family owns a hardware store. I saw Kenny at the reception, he was piss-drunk then too. We had to take him home.
FIVER: You were there with …
KANE: Yeah. Fact, he looked pretty blue till he saw us. Perked up and looked happy as a clam. Told us how much he missed us. Took over the dance floor, trying to dance like those Riverdance guys do, took his shirt off, kicking his feet up and down, fell right on his ass. God, he made us laugh. Stomach’s hurt, we laughed so hard. ‘Specially her. He loved that.
FIVER: He always liked doing crazy stunts.
KANE: Wild child. That was what she called him. The wild child.
(KENNY enters, carrying drinks. He hands one to KANE and another to FIVER.)
KENNY: Here you go, mon-sewers. Fiver, I got you a drink anyway, you look like you need a fucking drink so don’t fucking argue. Double Jack straight up. Drink up boys, we gotta burn the funeral blues right out of our system. Jesus, the fucking people that are here, did you see Brenda, Brenda is here.
KANE: Is she?
KENNY: Got five kids, five kids all lined up in a row. Five kids and on her third husband. Can’t believe it. And she didn’t get that much bigger either. I’d still throw her a hard one if she wanted. And I saw Anne and Clint and Adam and Margie and what’s-her-butt, the girl we all thought was a lesbo even tho’ she dated guys, and guess what? She’s a lesbian. We were right all along, boys. A lesbian. She’s still hot, too. I’d fuck her. Who else is here? Oh yeah, Cosmo and Pete and fucking Eric, you remember Eric, Fiver?
FIVER: The ear-wriggler.
KENNY: Yeah, he did that thing with his ears, always wondered how he did that. Wish I could do that. That ear thing was something. I shoulda asked him to do it for me again.
KANE: How you been holding up, Kenny?
KENNY: Hanging in there, big guy. This has been a shitty week, a monumentally shitty day, and an overall shitty thing to happen. Fact, this would be number one on my list of shitty things, this tops the list, but I’m gonna keep a smile on my fucking face anyway, you wanna know why?
KANE: Why?
KENNY: ‘Cause that’s what she woulda wanted, absolutely. She wouldn’t wanted me all Blah-blah-Boo-Hoo, she woulda wanted me still tryin’ to make her smile. That’s what she woulda wanted. I know it. So I am fucking smilin’. Look at me right now.
(KENNY takes another drink. Then he grins.)
KENNY: I’m fucking smiling my ass off.
KANE: Where you workin’ these days, Ken?
KENNY: Been sloggin’ my way through the wonderous world of data processing. But I don’t wanna talk about my shitty job. That won’t keep me smilin’. Fucking Fiver! It’s been … How long has it been?
FIVER: Been a long time.
KENNY: Fucking forever. I don’t even remember the last time I saw you, you know.
KANE: It was nine years ago.
KENNY: That long?
KANE: Fourth of July. We went down to the riverbank together. The four of us. Watched the fireworks together, sitting in lawn chairs in the back of my truck. You were taking off for Europe for the rest of the summer, do one of those hiking things, and then maybe grad school, you weren’t sure. Nine years ago this July.
FIVER: Yep. That’s when it was.
KENNY: Jesus, the memory on this man. Fucking hell. Could be an elephant, he’s got such a memory.
KANE: Got the trunk of an elephant right here.
KENNY: Whoaa-hoo! Fucking Kane hits the big one! Nice. She’d of loved that one. Shit. So what happened with you, Fiver?
FIVER: Fucked off grad school. I stayed in Europe a little longer than I planned.
KENNY: How long?
FIVER: Three years.
KENNY: Whoa, shit. Three years? Doin’ what?
FIVER: Uh, this and that. Made a little cash, writing articles about places to go, that kind of shit. You know.
KANE: Where you at these days?
FIVER: Los Angeles.
KENNY: No shit?
FIVER: Been there a few years.
KENNY: Holy shit, Hollywood, you in the movie business?
FIVER: No, no. I’m writing.
KENNY: You write for the movies?
FIVER: No, I write for television.
KENNY: You don’t write for the movies?
FIVER: No, just television.
KENNY: Don’t you want to write for the movies?
FIVER: No, uh … I like the television work.
KENNY: But you’re in Hollywood, you should take advantage, write for the movies, that’s the big business there, right?
FIVER: Television’s pretty good to me.
KENNY: I always liked going to movies. Know what’s best about the movies?
FIVER: What?
KENNY: No commercials. That’s what I like about movies. They don’t stop once they start. I hate fuckin’ commercials, just when you start getting’ into whatever it is, along comes some fuckin’ ad for a hemorrhoid cream or some shit like that. And usually, you’re eating when that happens. That’s why I like the movies.
FIVER: Yeah, uh … movies are good that way.
KENNY: I never watch television anymore, unless there’s a game on. You write for any shows I might know?
FIVER: I don’t know. I actually …
KANE: You write that show “The Girl Next Door”?
FIVER: Uh ... yeah, I do write that show. Created it, actually. Who told you?
KANE: Nobody. Watched it, seemed a bit, you know, familiar.
FIVER: I can see how it might. A little.
KENNY: Shit, I’m gonna check this show out now.
KANE: You should. But I didn’t see your name in any of the credits, Fiver.
FIVER: I changed my name when I got out there.
KENNY: What? You fuckin’ serious? You no-shit changed your name?
FIVER: No shit.
KANE: So your name isn’t Fieval anymore?
FIVER: No. It’s Ethan Severn now. Fact, no one’s called me Fiver in a long, long time.
KENNY: Holy Shit. Fiver isn’t Fiver anymore. Why’d you do it?
FIVER: Well, for work, mainly. It’s good to be Jewish in LA, but it’s not good to be TOO Jewish. The best thing, what everyone wants out there, is to be an undercover Jew. The name Fieval Schwarzenbaum is not undercover in any way, shape, or form. Ethan Severn is.
KENNY: Fucking hell, Fiver. That blows my mind.
FIVER: As the years go by, I find myself doing a lot of things that I never imagined I would.
(Short pause.)
FIVER: When was … I’m sorry, I haven’t talked to anyone in years. Did anyone see this coming? What happened, I mean?
KANE: I didn’t, but after thinking about it constantly for the last three days, I guess that I am not surprised. She just wasn’t happy.
KENNY: She always had trouble that way. Staying happy. Something always brought her down. Fucking always. Fuck Fuck Fuck.
FIVER: When was the last time either of you talked to her?
KANE: ‘Bout a year. We exchanged a few emails, mostly about silly shit, but I haven’t talked to her, actually spoke to her, in over a year, I guess. You?
FIVER: It’s been a while.
KENNY: Two weeks.
FIVER: What?
KENNY: I talked to her two weeks ago. She called me, we shot the shit for almost an hour. It was a good time. Seemed that way.
KANE: She say anything?
KENNY: Naw. Maybe. I don’t know. I hadn’t seen her since that wedding, three years ago, but we talked. We talked pretty regular, always have, couple times a month, whenever she got down she’d give me a buzz and I’d cheer her up. She called me her booster shot for the blues. Told her jokes, shit I’d heard, girls I was fuckin’ or tryin’ to fuck, she loved stories about that. My love life, that’s what she always called it, loved hearin’ about Kenny’s “Love Life”. I told her, I said, this isn’t a love life, this is a fuck life. I’m in this for the fuckin’. Someday, she’d say, someday, Kenny, you’ll meet a nice girl that’ll sweep you off your feet and right up to the altar. Just you wait, Kenny, she’d say. I’d always tell her, nice girls know better. And nice girls, they ain’t any fun, either, the nice girls. I like the bad girls, waiting for the exact right bad girl. The right one. Last time we talked, she was in a better mood than ever. Teasing me about the nice girls. Laughing, like she used to. She even said …
FIVER: What’d she say?
KENNY: I don’t wanna talk about this depressing shit, guys, let’s talk about the good things—
KANE: What’d she say?
KENNY: Nothing.
KANE: If she said something—
KENNY: What she said was for me and me only. It didn’t have to do with what happened. Shit. Come on, guys. It’s fucking hard enough to have to bury one of the fucking best people ever in the world. Let’s not get caught in the blues, she wouldn’t want that. I’m having a hard enough time. Let’s remember the good things, you know. The good times.
KANE: The good times.
FIVER: Good times.
KENNY: Let’s talk about the great things she did for us. She did some great fucking things, name them, how about that? Give me one, come on, throw one out there to the fucking universe. She’s listening, she always sat and listened while we all shot off our mouths about all the great things we were gonna do with our lives, remember?
KANE: Yeah, she just sat there, smiling. Smiling that smile she had, the one that used only half her mouth.
KENNY: Okay then, put it out there. Baby, wherever you are, this is for you. You know what she did for me?
FIVER: What?
KENNY: She did a lot of great fucking things, but one of the best was she went back with me to my high school reunion. My ten-year high school fucking reunion. I didn’t want to go to the fucker, shit, I hated high school when I was in it, why would I want to go back? College, college was the good times, right? When the four of us were together, that was the SHIT, right there. So I wasn’t gonna go to the damned thing, and I was bitchin’ about it to Babe at the bar one night, this was almost five years ago, and I should never have told her. She talked me into goin’, she did. Said if I didn’t go back and show those cocksuckers, I’d always regret it. What am I gonna show ‘em? I asked her. I’m fuckin’ unemployed, for chrissakes, I’d just gotten sacked again. No job, no house, a car that barely runs, that was my life at that point.
KANE: I didn’t know you went to that thing, I remember you bitching about it, but …
KENNY: She talked me into it, rented a limo, bought me a suit, and not just any suit, a primo-Italian tailored sleek-looking MONEY suit, and she made sure I was the shit. AND came up with the greatest story, the most awesome story of what I’d been doing with my life.
FIVER: What was the story?
KENNY: Porno.
KANE: Porno?
KENNY: Porno baby, porno! She turned me into a real porn producer, the real fucking thing, man! I mean, she outlined the whole thing, she created a by-God resume for me, did the research, gave me a porn producer name, had titles of movies I’d done and porno actors whose careers I’d launched, I mean, she didn’t just give me an idea, she wrote a fuckin’ BOOK! She made a movie out of my imaginary life! She even got some autographed pictures of Ron Jeremy to hand out to all the guys! Don’t ask me how she did it, but she did. You shoulda seen the faces on those fucks from high school. She turned me into a porn King!
FIVER: That definitely sounds like our Babe.
KENNY: She was balls to the walls, man.
KANE: What was your porn name?
KENNY: Oh shit, that was the best. Kenny Cunnilingus.
FIVER: Kenny Cunnilingus?
KENNY: That was it, man, isn’t that the most awesome! She gave me the greatest porno name ever! Kenny Cunnilingus. And Babe went as my date, she put on this red slutty dress, real sexy, no underwear, slutty hair-do, and makeup and never let go of my arm the whole night. She was attached to me the whole night. Honey Suckle, that was her porno name, and she was my newest star. Our old prom queen, Deanna Sue Blackburn, she was the stuck-up queen bitch of my class, said something to Babe like, how lucky it was that Kenny had found someone so close to his own interests or some shit like that, and Babe goes, “Honey, I’m the lucky one, ‘cause although Kenny’s got a great cock, and he does, they don’t call him Kenny Cunnilingus for nothing, if you know what I mean. He eats pussy like it was his mission in life, and let me tell you something. I’ve been eaten out by some of the best dykes in the business, and none of them, not one of them, ties my twat in a knot like Kenny Cunnilingus. He’s the pussy-licking King.” And the look on Deanna Sue’s face was worth the four years of hell that was high school. Of all their faces. I was the scourge of every wife there, and I was the envy of every man at that reunion. Every man, every one of those cocksuckers, wanted to be me. It was one of the greatest nights ever. We laughed our asses off about it forever afterward. Thanks to her.
FIVER: That was our Babe.
KENNY: She got me face, man, that what she did, she took me back and gave me fuckin’ face for the whole world.
(Short pause. KENNY turns away for a moment. He turns back around.)
KENNY: She was beautiful that way. Fuckin’ beautiful. What about you, Kane?
KANE: What?
KENNY: Give us a good thing about Babe.
KANE: There are too many to count, Kenny.
KENNY: Shit, man, pick something. Just one thing.
KANE: Kenny—
KENNY: Kane, you lived with her for almost two years, you don’t have anything to offer up to the universe?
FIVER: You two lived together?
KANE: Yeah. We did.
FIVER: Not as roommates, but lived together as …
KANE: Lived together as lovers.
KENNY: Two years, two years you cohabitated, and you don’t got nothing to share?
KANE: Kenny, I like you a lot better when you’re pouring the shit into your mouth as opposed to out of it.
KENNY: What does that mean?
KANE: What do you think?
FIVER: I didn’t know you two were … together.
KANE: And why would you?
FIVER: I’m just surprised I didn’t hear about it from anyone.
KANE: Hear about it from who?
FIVER: Anyone.
KENNY: I woulda told you, Fiver, but I didn’t know where the fuck you were. They hooked up sometime after Seymour’s wedding. Happened fast, too. One night holding hands and kissing, next night he’s moving his shit in.
KANE: Hey Kenny.
KENNY: Hey, what?
FIVER: You know what? I need another drink. You guys want another drink?
KENNY: Hell, yes. Jack and Coke, baby. Thanks Fiver.
(FIVER exits. KANE looks at KENNY for a moment.)
KENNY: Hey, what?
KANE: You talk too Goddamn much.
KENNY: That so?
KANE: Yeah, that’s so. Maybe you should cool it.
KENNY: Maybe you’re too Goddamn touchy.
KANE: Fuck you, Kenny.
KENNY: You know what, Kane? See my face, this face here is smiling right at you. I’m smilin’ my ass off, and nothing you say or do is gonna change that. I’m smilin’ for her, and if you don’t like it, then fuck you. I’m smiling, and fuck off if you don’t like it.
(Short pause. FIVER comes back with a bottle of Jack Daniels. He pours some in each person’s glass.)
KENNY: Thanks, Doctor, medicine just in the nick of time.
FIVER: So Kane. You and Babe lived together for … two years?
KANE: We did. And then we didn’t. She moved out over two years ago.
FIVER: It didn’t work out?
KANE: It was working fine, that’s why she decided to move out. What do you think, Fiver, people leave ‘cause things are going good?
FIVER: I’m sorry, I don’t mean—
KANE: What? To intrude? Hey, what the fuck, with motormouth Ken here, you got no chance of that.
KENNY: I’m still smilin’ at ya, big guy. Smiling.
FIVER: I’m sorry Kane. I’ve just been out of touch for so long, I’m naturally curious.
KENNY: When was the last time you talked to Babe, Fiver?
FIVER: Well, it’s been a while.
KANE: How long?
FIVER: I don’t know. Awhile. Quite awhile.
KENNY: She didn’t tell you, did she? Didn’t tell you her and Kane shacked up together?
KANE: Kenny, watch your Goddamned mouth—
FIVER: No, she didn’t.
KANE: Otherwise, I’m gonna … you were talkin’ to her then?
FIVER: Yeah.
KANE: While she was living with me?
FIVER: Yeah.
KANE: And after she left, you were still …
FIVER: Yeah.
(Short pause.)
KANE: So she was calling you while she was living with me?
FIVER: No.
KANE: What? But you said …
FIVER: Letters. We wrote letters to each other. Started about three, three and half years ago. She sent me a letter. I wrote back. Wrote the old-fashioned way, via snail mail. I got the last one a couple days ago. It’s how I knew what was gonna happen. What happened, I mean. By the time I got it, it was too late.
(Very brief pause.)
KANE: You gotta lot of balls, saying that.
FIVER: What are you talkin’ about?
KANE: I’m talkin’ about how you broke her heart, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
FIVER: I broke HER heart? Oh, that’s rich!
KANE: Don’t try and act all fuckin’ innocent, you asshole. You think I wouldn’t know? We did live together. When you took off for Europe and didn’t talk to her for years, it broke her fucking heart. You wouldn’t even return her phone calls. You were a real fucking DICK.
FIVER: She tell you WHY I didn’t return her calls? Why do you think I went to Europe for three years instead of three months?
KANE: Sure she did but so what? That was no reason to act like you did! And now I find out you were writing her while she was with me, well hell, that explains fucking everything!
FIVER: Explains what?
KANE: Why she left me, you asshole!
FIVER: Hey, I didn’t even know the two of you were together, so don’t hang that on me!
KANE: Fuck you, Fiver, or Ethan, or whatever your Goddamn name is. And if life wasn’t tough enough after she moved out on me, every time I turned on the television, there was this new show called THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, which is practically the story of Babe’s life!
KENNY: Really?
KANE: Kenny, you should be getting fuckin’ residuals, you are fucking on TV.
KENNY: No shit? Fiver, I’m honored.
KANE: You might not feel that way after you see the show.
FIVER: I left Babe for one very specific reason. I didn’t call her or see her for that same reason.
KANE: And why was that?
FIVER: You mean you don’t know? I thought you knew everything?
KANE: Fiver, don’t fucking push me, I mean it.
KENNY: Because she wouldn’t marry him.
KANE: What?
KENNY: He asked her to marry him and she wouldn’t. That’s why he left and didn’t come back.
(FIVER looks at KENNY, who takes a drink.)
KENNY: Yeah, she told me.
KANE: For that, that’s why you cut her off? Put her out of your life? You broke her fucking heart, man.
FIVER: She broke my heart. I loved her. I did. I was devastated when she told me it wouldn’t work out. That I wouldn’t be able to make her happy. But I loved her.
KANE: Yeah, right.
KENNY: Kane asked her to marry him, too.
FIVER: What?
KENNY: Yeah, he proposed. She said no. He took it hard.
KANE: Kenny, shut the fuck up.
FIVER: You asked her, too?
KANE: Yeah, I did, so what? I’ll tell you something else, when she said no I took it like a man. I didn’t cut and run.
KENNY: But it is why she moved out. Because you were so hurt.
KANE: You don’t know that, you asshole!
KENNY: Sure, I do. She told me. She said the same thing to you that she did to Fiver.
FIVER: You asked her to marry you?
KANE: Hey, I LOVED her. I did. I was there for her. I didn’t run away. I loved her.
FIVER: Evidently, that wasn’t enough then, was it?
KANE: Fuck you, asshole!
(KANE pushes FIVER. FIVER pushes him right back.)
FIVER: Fuck you right back!
(Very short pause as they glare at each other. KENNY starts laughing. Laughing hard.)
FIVER: What the hell are you laughing at, you drunk?
KENNY: You two.
KANE: You think this is fucking funny?
KENNY: Both of you, you uptight assholes. Here we are at the funeral of one of the greatest women ever, and you two are in a pissing match over who loved her more. If Babe were here, she’d be laughing too. Jee-sus. You guys don’t get it, do you?
FIVER: Get what?
KENNY: You both loved her, but it wasn’t enough, you had to have more than that. You wanted to own her, you wanted the paper and the ring and the whole fucking deal, and she wasn’t about that. She wasn’t, she never was. If she’d done that, she wouldn’t have been Babe. Hell, I loved her. You think I didn’t love her as much as you two? I never even slept with her, and I loved her more than any woman ever. You think it didn’t kill me when I saw you together, Kane? It did, but you know what? Didn’t matter. Or how about when she told me she was back in touch with you, Fiver? Didn’t matter. All that mattered to me was that Babe was happy, cause she wasn’t happy that often. If living with either one of you two assholes made Babe happy, then hell, sign me up, I’m all for it. I don’t care. I loved her, and I didn’t require nothing in return for it. I may be an unemployed drunk loser, but at least I did that right. I loved her. Hell, man, I know I couldn’t have made her happy all by my lonesome. I just wasn’t enough. I wish I was, but I know I wasn’t. And I never complained to her about it, either. Babe had enough problems without adding mine. She was a twisted one, and she knew it. We’re lucky she made it this far. It took the three of us together for her to last as long as she did. You fuckin’ guys, you should be happy, fucking happy you knew Babe for as long as you did. You were fucking blessed as far as I’m concerned. Blessed to have known her. I am. You both should shut the fuck up about yourselves and remember who we’re here to honor. Fucking remember it!
(Short pause. KANE and FIVER look at each other. FIVER pours them all another drink. They look at KENNY.)
FIVER: You know what she used to do that always made me laugh?
KANE: What?
FIVER: Whenever I was cheesed off at something, she would come right up to me, put her nose right up against mine, and say, “But the important thing to remember is that from this distance, you appear to have only a single humongous eye!” And it always killed me when she did that. I loved that.
KENNY: I remember that, I saw her do that to you!
FIVER: I loved it when she did that, I even put it in the TV show.
KANE: She never slept. You could call her at three in the morning, and she’d be awake. She liked it when you called her like that. When we lived together, I remember that I’d get up in the middle of the night, and she’d be sitting on a chair, naked, painting her toenails. I’d say, “Hey, aren’t you sleepy?” and she’d say, “Not yet,” and smile. I’d find her doing different things anytime I got up in the middle of the night, sometimes she’d be baking cookies, naked, and other times she might be making a quilt, always naked. She didn’t really like clothing, felt it constricted her, that’s why she loved skinny-dipping with us, remember? Very proud of her body and happy to have it hanging free and unbound. Whenever we came home, the first thing she always did was take off her shirt. I remember that, but mostly, I remember her never sleeping. I would wake up at night, and she would always be doing something unusual in the nude and I would always ask her, “Aren’t you tired?” and she would always smile and say, “Not yet.” She never slept, I remember that. And when we went to bed, she’d be awake when I went to sleep and awake when I woke up. Awake and watching me. I’d say, “What are you doing?” “Watching you,” she’d say. “I like watching you.” She did. I remember. She liked watching all of us.
FIVER: She always said that, watching us three losers was her favorite program.
KENNY: We kept her entertained and smiling.
KANE: As long as we could, anyway. Until she got too tired.
(Pause.)
KANE: Kenny Cunnilingus, huh?
KENNY: Kenny Cunnilingus.
FIVER: Kenny Cunnilingus. That’s a great story, there’s a great story in there.
KENNY: There is!
(They hold their glasses up in a toast.)
KENNY: To Babe.
KANE: To Babe.
FIVER: To Babe.
KENNY: The Beautiful One.
(They all drink. Lights fade.)
End of play.
Featured in the book THE JOSHUA JAMES PROJECT
THE BEAUTIFUL ONE NOTES:
First produced at Manhattan Theatre Source, directed by Ato Essandoh and featuring Markus Griesshammer, Adam Rothenberg, and Taylor Ruckel.
A stellar cast and director that knocked it out of the park.
It was produced many, many times thereafter around the city with various casts, also at City Theatre in Miami. I'm told a shortened version of this piece was a finalist for Louisville’s ten-minute play contest in 2005.
This is one of the theatre pieces I am most proud to have been part of creating.
Gratuities both welcomed and appreciated.