Primacy
CHARACTERS
Man
Woman
The clamor of machinery surges . . . and dies. A man crawls halfway across the stage and collapses onto his stomach. A woman enters and slowly ambles towards him, feeling her way, as if she’s in a dark closet and can’t see anything. Eventually she steps on the man and shrieks, waking him.
WOMAN
Is that you! Is that you!
MAN
Stands.
No.
Pause.
I mean yes, it’s me. I’m here.
WOMAN
Oh.
MAN
Where are we?
WOMAN
I don’t know.
Pause.
The back yard?
MAN
That makes sense. I must have been sleepcrawling again. Whenever I sleepcrawl, I end up in the back yard.
Pause.
Forgive me.
WOMAN
It’s not a sin to sleepcrawl into the back yard.
MAN
No?
Pause.
If that’s not a sin, I don’t know what is.
WOMAN
Fearfully.
Are you sure you’re all right?
MAN
Looks down at himself.
I’m fine. I think I’m fine. Why would you ask me something like that?
WOMAN
Well, you know.
Pause.
This morning on the bus you had a knife in your mouth.
Pause.
Remember?
MAN
Long pause.
A knife?
Long pause.
A knife?
Long pause.
No I did not!
WOMAN
I was so frightened.
Pause.
Everybody was looking at you.
Pause.
After awhile you threw the knife out the window and we got off at the next stop. You dragged me to that diner, shouted at the cashier, and the police arrested you on the sidewalk, burger in hand.
Pause.
Remember the warrant?
MAN
Long pause.
Warrant?
Long pause.
Burger?
Long pause.
That never happened!
WOMAN
Sobs.
But it DID happen! It did!
Long pause.
Maybe it didn’t.
Pause.
Well. You’re probably just hung over.
Pause.
Bad things happen when you’re hung over.
Pause.
Your hangovers bring reality to its knees.
MAN
Long pause.
Hangover?
Long pause.
Hangover?
Long pause.
Hangover?
Long pause.
I haven’t had a drink in hours!
Faints.
WOMAN
Oh my goodness!
Kicks the man in the ribs.
Are you all right?
Kicks the man in the ribs.
Are you all right?
Kicks the man in the ribs.
Don’t leave me here! I’m afraid of the back yard!
Flurry of kicks to the ribs.
MAN
Awakens.
There’s nothing to be afraid of.
Tries to stand.
Ak!
Falls down. Gets up, clutching his ribcage.
Back yards are harmless. They can’t hurt you. Back yards are like children: they get on your nerves; they reduce you to raw indignation; they repeat themselves like possessed demons, blathering on and on, if only by way of the unspeakable grass — every time you cut it, it grows back again, and then you cut it and it grows back again, and again, relentlessly; sometimes they scream and keep you up all night . . . but the fact is you love them. You love the back yards for what they are and what you don’t want them to be.
Contorting in pain.
Ak!
Falls to his knees.
WOMAN
Are you all right?
Pause.
What’s wrong?
MAN
Nothing. I’ll be all right. Bad dream.
Pause.
Bad dreams smart when you wake up.
Pause.
Morning is the worst. Morning is the elbow of vulnerability.
Pause.
That reminds me. I need to revise my obituary at once. The first draft was a piece of hackwork.
Pause.
Get a pen and paper.
Pause.
Scratch that. Just memorize what I tell you. I’ll dictate the revision. I know it by rote.
WOMAN
All right.
Concentrates.
I’m ready.
MAN
Good.
Pause.
FYI there will be a lot of action scenes in this obit. It’ll be less like a lecture on organizational leadership and more like a kung fu movie, with lots of flying kicks and bloodspatter. There will be no advice or information at all regarding how to be an efficient and effective manager, landlord or superintendent. Ok?
WOMAN
Ok.
Concentrates. Balks. Concentrates again.
I’m ready.
MAN
You already said you’re ready. Now then.
Long pause.
How do obituaries start again? I forgot. They all start the same way, don’t they? There’s a formula.
WOMAN
I think they begin with names and places. So-and-so, a resident of somewhere-or-other . . . Like that.
Pause.
Then you mention that the person died. In this case, you.
Pause.
But you’re not dead.
MAN
I know.
Pause.
I know that!
Pause.
No guff from the peanut gallery. Just memorize what I say.
WOMAN
All right.
Shrieks.
MAN
What’s wrong with you!
WOMAN
I’m worried that I won’t be able to memorize your obituary word for word.
Pause.
Is my memory allowed to paraphrase?
MAN
No paraphrasing. Verbatim — or nothing.
WOMAN
All right.
Shrieks.
MAN
Stop that!
Pause.
The best obituaries are composed in the darkest silences.
Pause.
Now then.
Pause.
So-and-so, a resident of something-or-other . . .
WOMAN
No. You’re supposed to say your name. Your own name. And where you live . . .
MAN
I’m just warming up!
Pause.
Isn’t a man allowed to warm up?
Pause.
If I were lifting weights and I didn’t stretch, I’d pull all of my muscles. The same goes for writing obituaries.
WOMAN
You don’t lift weights. Why would you lift weights?
MAN
I don’t know. It’s a hypothesis.
Pause.
No. That’s the wrong word.
Pause.
It’s a scenario.
Pause.
Well, yes. But no. It’s not just a scenario. It’s much more than a scenario.
Pause.
It’s a hypothetical scenario.
WOMAN
Do you mean it’s a hypothetical situation?
MAN
What’s the difference between a scenario and a situation?
Pause.
No more questions!
Falls over.
WOMAN
Oh dear!
MAN
I’m all right.
Pause.
I fell.
Pause.
I may have fainted again.
Pause.
My ribs hurt.
Pause.
I’m all right.
WOMAN
Get up! Get up!
Shrieks.
MAN
Stands.
I’m up!
WOMAN
We’ve got to get out of here.
Pause.
This place is giving me the creeps.
MAN
It’s just a back yard. Grass, a few bushes, and an outhouse. There’s nothing more innocuous. It’s the safest place in the world.
WOMAN
The grass is lime green — it’s teeming with fertilizer and pollutants and toxins. The bushes contain all manner of thorns and poisonous berries. Beneath the outhouse is a pit of stinking fecal matter.
Pause.
This back yard is a death trap!
MAN
The abject can’t kill you.
Pause.
The poison in those berries can’t kill you.
Pause.
If you don’t throw yourself into the bushes, the thorns can’t prick you.
Pause.
The toxins in the grass might give you psoriasis, but there’s ointment for that.
Long pause.
All is well.
WOMAN
Prays.
MAN
Stop praying! God doesn’t care if you get a skin rash.
WOMAN
Scratching herself.
It itches!
Shrieks.
MAN
You’re faking it! You’re faking it!
WOMAN
Stops scratching herself.
Maybe it doesn’t itch.
MAN
You’re goddamn right it doesn’t itch. Stop demonizing the back yard!
Sound of a baby crying offstage.
What’s that?
WOMAN
The baby. You woke it.
MAN
Baby?
WOMAN
Our baby is crying.
Listens.
Yes. That’s our baby.
MAN
What baby?
Pause.
We don’t have a baby.
WOMAN
We don’t?
Listens.
The baby stops crying.
Oh.
MAN
Right. I think I’ll begin my obituary in medias res. Like Oedipus the King. Like Raging Bull. Like any good narrative.
WOMAN
All right.
Pause.
But don’t strain yourself too much. At lunch you could barely lift the soup spoon to your mouth. You were so jaundiced and withered after you drank that arsenic.
MAN
If my prescriptions were filled on time, I wouldn’t have to self-medicate!
Pause.
I thought it was a cup of chamomile tea.
Pause.
It’s not like I’m scaling a cliff. I’m not going to throw my back out writing my obituary.
Long pause.
So there I am, a joystick in the dirt . . .
WOMAN
Sobs.
That’s not in medias res. That’s sub finem! Jesu Juva!
Pause.
They don’t talk about burying bodies in obituaries.
MAN
They do in mine! My obituary can be anything I want it to be and I can assure you a lot happens after they bury me. There’s a big, like, battle royal at the cemetery with priests and popes and all kinds of holy men flying over the gravestones on wires in a terrific wuxia death match.
Pause.
I haven’t decided what prompts the death match yet. Surely idle grief isn’t a viable catalyst.
WOMAN
Attacks the man.
I’ll kill you if you die! I’ll kill you if you die!
MAN
Falls down.
Stop it! You’ll wake the baby!
WOMAN
Shh!
Listens.
I don’t hear anything.
Listens.
I still don’t hear anything.
MAN
I’m sure everything is fine.
WOMAN
Kicks the man in the ribs.
Everything is fine! Everything is fine!
Kicks the man in the head.
MAN
Ak!
Passes out.
The clamor of machinery comes to life. The woman looks over her shoulder and pensively wanders offstage. The man rolls over several times. Eventually he pushes himself to hands and knees and begins to crawl towards the audience, head dangling like a dead limb. He collapses on the apron of the stage. Upstage, a giant enters, lopes from one side to the other, and exits. The man stirs and mumbles to himself. He cries out. He calls for help. The woman enters, running . . . She trips, falls down, slides across the stage on her stomach, lies still, gets up and limps the rest of the way.
WOMAN
Wake up.
Kicks the man in the ribs with her hurt leg.
Ak!
Kicks the man in the ribs with her good leg. Loses balance and falls over.
Ak!
MAN
Ak!
Awakens.
I had a bad dream.
Lifts head.
I dreamt I was at a train station in Milan. I was pretending to be a British expatriate again, speaking in that faux Cockney accent to a cabal of English tourists. I honestly believed they thought I had been born and raised in the East End, then moved to Canada as an adolescent.
Pause.
That was the bad part. My confidence in their perception of me as the genuine article.
Pause.
Then again, it’s only bad in retrospect. In the dream, I didn’t know that they knew I was faking it. Only now, here, drunk on consciousness, do I recognize their awareness of my raw fraudulence. Hence it was a good dream.
Pause.
Or just a dream. There was nothing particularly good about it.
Long pause.
I have a headache.
WOMAN
Of course you do. Don’t you remember how much you drank at the salon? You mixed your drinks, too — beer, wine, champagne, at least four martinis, then all those shots of Southern Comfort.
Pause.
Again and again you threw yourself down the stairway! You said you could do it better than Dali.
Pause.
“I have no reason for doing this!” you yelled.
Pause.
Nobody believed you. So you kept doing it.
Pause.
Remember?
MAN
Long pause.
No I did not!
WOMAN
Then you attacked that poor rector.
Pause.
He wasn’t expecting to be blindsided by you.
Sobs.
I felt so badly for him!
Sobs.
But not as badly as I felt for the paramedics.
Sniffles.
You nearly killed them.
Sniffles.
Remember the way their eyes fell into their skulls?
MAN
Long pause.
No they did not!
WOMAN
I don’t know what to do with you sometimes. One moment you’re a horrible drunk, the next you’re a perfect gentleman.
Pause.
I’d rather you were a drunk all the time. Then I’d know what to expect.
Pause.
But you have this determination to be sober. Nobody likes you sober. You and sobriety are a bad mix. Like water and dirt. That makes mud.
Pause.
I’m glad you’re not a gentleman all the time. Nobody likes a fulltime goody-goody.
Pause.
You haven’t asked me out on a date in years.
MAN
A date?
Pause.
Are you calling me mud?
Pause.
I am so much more than mud. I have feelings. I have desires. Last night I dreamt that I saved bonobos from extinction, and I didn’t even have a Rambo knife. Is that what a greasy piece of mud would do?
Long pause.
Bonobos are good people. Everybody knows it.
Pause.
But I’m trying to write my obituary. There’s no time for love and war.
Passes out.
WOMAN
There’s always time for the little things in life.
Pause.
That’s your problem. You never make any time for the little things.
Pause.
I hate the back yard. I don’t care if it’s innocuous.
Long pause.
The only things that matter are my feelings.
The woman bends over and takes the man by the ankles. Limping, she drags him upstage, turns and drags him offstage. Silence. Soon the man crawls back onstage and collapses onto his stomach. The woman enters maneuvering a crutch. She lumbers towards the man and accidentally stabs him in the groin with the tip.
MAN
Ak!
WOMAN
Is that you! Is that you!
MAN
Clutching himself.
No.
Pause.
I mean yes.
Pause.
No. I mean no, I think.
Moans.
WOMAN
Where are we?
MAN
I know this place.
Pause.
It’s the front yard.
WOMAN
Everybody’s staring at us. All of our neighbors.
MAN
The front yard isn’t like the back yard.
Pause.
There’s no privacy.
WOMAN
I don’t like it.
MAN
Looks backstage.
Maybe we should go in the house.
WOMAN
I’ve been in the house before.
Pause.
There’s nothing to do in there.
MAN
Stands.
All of my bones feel like they’re broken. I’m going to sit on the grass.
Sits.
That feels better.
Pause.
How did we get here?
WOMAN
You were sleepcrawling again.
Pause.
I followed you around for awhile, then lost you in the sun.
MAN
Sleepcrawling?
Pause.
That’s ridiculous.
Pause.
Who crawls around in their sleep?
Pause.
Nobody.
Pause.
People walk in their sleep. They don’t crawl.
WOMAN
Fine. Then you were crawling around on the earth of your own free, conscious will.
MAN
Long pause.
Maybe I was sleepcrawling after all.
WOMAN
To the audience.
What are you looking at!
Hyperventilates.
Ak!
To the audience.
You’ve never seen a man sitting in the grass before?
Shrieks.
We’re not doing anything wrong!
To the man.
The neighbors won’t stop looking at us.
To the audience.
Stop looking at us!
MAN
Since when do we have neighbors?
Looks backstage.
I don’t see anybody.
Looks at the audience.
There’s nobody out there.
Pause.
Neighbors are a fiction. The only reality is the inside of your own head.
WOMAN
The front yard is the only reality, if you ask me. This is far worse than the back yard. It’s embarrassing.
Pause.
I’d rather be frightened than embarrassed.
MAN
When I’m finished writing my obituary, please bury me in the front yard.
Pause.
Stick a tombstone over me that reads: HEREIN LIES THE GNARLED BONES OF TRUTH.
Long pause.
You’ll have to re-plant after you dig the grave, put me in it and cover me with dirt, but if you get good hydroseed, the grass will grow back greener than before.
Pause.
Get the tombstone at the grocery store. They sell them real cheap. Or you could just stick a fork in there. In the dirt, I mean. I like forks.
WOMAN
I don’t want the grass to grow back greener than before.
Pause.
Then there’ll be a big green rectangle on the lawn. Everybody will see it.
Shrieks.
MAN
Ok fine.
Pause.
Don’t reseed the grave. Buy a patch of sod and match the color.
Pause.
Mind you, sod is a lot more expensive than hydroseed.
Pause.
Don’t worry about any of that right now. I haven’t finished my obituary yet.
WOMAN
You have. You have finished a first draft and moved on to the revision process. You said so.
Pause.
You said you had already written a revision and committed it to memory.
Pause.
You said you knew the revision by heart.
MAN
By rote.
WOMAN
What?
MAN
Who’s writing this obituary?
Pause.
It’s my obituary!
Pause.
When you write your obituary, you can do what you want.
Pause.
Stop trying to control me.
WOMAN
I’m not trying to control you. I’m saying what you said.
Pause.
What did you say?
MAN
I know what I said.
WOMAN
Do you?
Pause.
Last week at Thanksgiving dinner you said the same thing.
Pause.
You said, “I know what I said,” after you reneged on your promise to everybody about the turkey.
Pause.
Do you remember your promise?
Pause.
You said you wanted to cook the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. You said to invite everybody over.
Pause.
I invited everybody over.
Pause.
The children were so excited. They didn’t eat for two days to build up an appetite.
Pause.
You cooked the turkey.
Pause.
You put it on the table.
Sobs.
You asked everybody to hold hands and said a long prayer, replacing God’s name with your own.
Sobs.
After grace you sharpened the knife for awhile.
Sobs harder.
I could see the reflection of your crazy eyes flash in the knife when it passed by your face.
Shrieks.
Then you threw the knife aside and ate the whole turkey with your hands!
Shrieks.
Nobody could believe it.
Sniffles.
Everybody expected you to stop at some point and serve out portions.
Pause.
You didn’t stop. You didn’t serve out portions.
Pause.
You ate the turkey and then you ate the corn and the mashed potatoes too. And the pickles. All of them.
Pause.
The children were devastated.
Strikes the man with the crutch and falls over.
MAN
Ak!
WOMAN
Groping on the floor.
Remember?
MAN
Long pause.
It was my turkey!
WOMAN
Shrieks.
Stop it! You’ll wake the dog!
MAN
Shh!
Listens.
I don’t hear anything.
Listens.
I still don’t hear anything.
WOMAN
I’m sure everything is fine.
Offstage a dog whimpers and dies.
Or unfine.
MAN
Lunges for the woman and falls over.
You killed the baby!
Groping on the floor.
Baby killer!
WOMAN
That wasn’t the baby! That was the dog!
Shrieks.
I should go see if everything is unfine.
Pulls her body across stage as if her legs are dead.
I’ll be back later.
Inches forward.
Actually I’m never coming back to the front yard.
Inches forward.
We’ve given the neighbors an eyeful. They deserve worse.
MAN
Pursues the woman, pulling his body across stage as if his legs are dead.
Come back here.
Inches forward.
We don’t have neighbors. We’re the only house on the block.
Inches forward.
Don’t blame your killing spree on the front yard.
Grabs the woman’s ankle.
Gotcha!
Shakes the ankle like a tambourine.
Stop trying to get away from me!
WOMAN
Kicks the man in the face with her hurt leg.
Ak!
MAN
Ak!
Passes out.
WOMAN
Inches forward.
Are you all right!
Inches forward.
Are you all right!
Inches forward.
I’ll kill you if you die!
Shrieks.
What’s that noise? I hear something in the kitchen.
Pulls herself offstage.
The lights darken. We hear the bluster of storm winds and ocean surf . . . then midnight silence. The lights come back on. The man lies downstage on his back. He’s still unconscious.
WOMAN
Offstage.
Get your hands off of me! Don’t touch me!
Rolls onstage, across the stage, and offstage, shrieking.
MAN
Awakens.
Ak!
Sits and stares.
That dream was pure ennui. It’s not even worth going to sleep anymore these days.
Pause.
When I was an orphan, my nightmares were the only things that kept me company.
WOMAN
Offstage.
You’re talking to yourself.
MAN
Glances over shoulders.
Who said that?
WOMAN
Help! Help!
MAN
Listens.
What’s that noise?
Listens.
I hear something in the kitchen.
WOMAN
Ak!
MAN
Long pause.
I guess I didn’t hear anything. Sometimes I don’t hear things.
Pause.
Where am I?
WOMAN
The roof!
MAN
Looks around.
Roof? What roof?
WOMAN
The roof of our house! I fell off!
Shrieks.
Ak!
MAN
Cocks head.
The roof?
Pauses.
The roof?
Throws hands in air and somersaults sideways offstage.
There is a commotion like animals fighting in bushes and tumbling through underbrush. The stage is empty. It remains empty for the rest of the play.
MAN
Offstage.
Get your hands off me! Don’t touch me!
WOMAN
Offstage.
I didn’t touch you!
MAN
Ak!
WOMAN
Are you all right? Don’t die!
MAN
Pause.
I’m alive. Only my soul is dead.
WOMAN
Sobs.
Your poor soul! Let’s bury it.
Whimpers.
MAN
Wise up! Nobody buries their souls.
Pause.
Where are we?
WOMAN
Sniffles.
The back yard? I can’t see anything.
MAN
It’s not the back yard. I know what the backyard feels like.
Pause.
It’s not the front yard either. I know what the front yard smells like.
Pause.
Is there something between the front and the back yard?
WOMAN
Long pause.
No.
MAN
Well we must be somewhere. We can’t just be nowhere.
WOMAN
Tentatively.
Are we in our graves?
MAN
That’s ridiculous.
Pause.
People don’t fall off of roofs into graves.
Pause.
What’s wrong with you?
WOMAN
Tentatively.
Why did you torture that mortician?
MAN
Pause.
Mortician?
WOMAN
Long pause.
Curt shriek.
MAN
What’s wrong with you?
WOMAN
I thought I saw something.
MAN
We can’t see anything. It’s dark.
WOMAN
Tentatively.
You tortured the mortician!
Shrieks.
MAN
Ak!
WOMAN
You did!
Pause.
Remember?
MAN
Clears phlegm from throat and spits.
WOMAN
He was just a mortician!
Pause.
He didn’t know what he did wrong. Nobody did.
Pause.
You repeated the phrase “extreme interrogation tactics” as you beat him.
Pause.
He didn’t kill your parents!
Pause.
He didn’t even bury them.
Pause.
He organized the burial and sold you the coffins.
Pause.
The mortician ran the mortuary. That’s what morticians do.
Pause.
It was a nightmare. Then, at the cocktail party afterwards, you took that sledgehammer and —
MAN
Ak!
WOMAN
What’s wrong?
MAN
I thought of how to end my obituary. Or begin it. Wherever you begin or end an obituary — it’s the end.
WOMAN
I thought you were going to revise the whole thing?
Pause.
I mean, I thought you had memorized a revision of the document.
Pause.
I can’t remember.
MAN
Memory is like ice vapor: the moment you inhale it is the moment you lose yourself.
WOMAN
Long pause.
I guess so. Can you inhale ice vapor?
Inhales deeply.
What is ice vapor?
MAN
Clears phlegm from throat and spits.
No, that’s the end of my obituary.
Pause.
The final line.
Pause.
The line people will remember when they read my obituary.
Pause.
In a sense, that’s my entire obituary.
Pause.
My life and my death.
Long pause.
The lizard of syntax that will scuttle into eternity.
Pause.
I’m going to publish it in The Daily Trystero.
Long pause.
I might publish it in The Pain Dealer, too.
Long pause.
Can you publish the same obituary in competing venues? I’m not sure.
Long pause.
Here is the research element of my project.
WOMAN
Long pause.
Shrieks.
Long pause.
I can’t feel my legs.
MAN
Long pause.
They’re beneath you.
WOMAN
Long pause.
Oh.
Yawns.
I’ll kill you if you die.
MAN
I’m alive. I think I’m alive.
Pause.
Did you find your legs?
WOMAN
Long pause.
No.
Yawns.
I don’t know.
Long pause.
I found this.
MAN
Long pause.
I don’t know what this is.
Long pause.
I can’t see anything.
Long pause.
I can’t feel anything.
Long pause.
Except for my legs. They’re beneath me.
Long pause.
I don’t know where you are.
Long pause.
Where are you?
WOMAN
Long pause.
The baby.
Yawns.
I found the baby.
Yawns.
It’s in my arms.
Pause.
With me.
Pause.
Here.
Long pause.
It’s licking my ear.
Yawns.
It’s cooing so softly.
Yawns.
It loves me.
Long pause.
It loves me.
Yawns.
It’s in my arms.
Yawns.
It’s in my arms.
Yawns.
Yawns.
Dies.
MAN
Long pause.
That’s not the baby.
Long pause.
That’s the dog.
Long pause.
I can smell it.
Long pause.
It smells like ice vapor.
Long pause.
Are you all right?
Long pause.
I can’t hear you.
Long pause.
Ak!
Long pause.
Ak!
Long pause.
I fell.
Long pause.
I’m all right, though.
Long pause.
I’ll be all right.
Long pause.
No revision is needed.
Long pause.
Everything is as it should be.
Long pause.
Unfine.
Long pause.
Perfectly unfine.
Long pause.
Like ice vapor.
Inhales deeply.
Like the retreat of a hangover into the cornstalks.
Inhales deeply.
I can barely remember how I got here.
Long pause.
I must have been sleepcrawling again.
Long pause.
Whenever I sleepcrawl, I end up somewhere.
Long pause.
Are you there?
Long pause.
Are you there?
Long pause.
Where did you go?
Long pause.
Can you feel your legs?
Long pause.
You’re not talking.
Long pause.
You’re not crying.
Long pause.
You’re not shrieking.
Long pause.
You’re not breathing.
Long pause.
Are you dead?
Long pause.
Are you dead?
Long pause.
Can you feel your legs?
Long pause.
Don’t die.
Long pause.
Don’t die.
Long pause.
Don’t die.
Long pause.
Don’t die.
Long pause.
I’ll kill you if you die . . .
CURTAINAuthor Bio
D. Harlan Wilson's work has appeared in the pages of The Cafe Irreal five times previously, and his story "Giraffe" was included in our print anthology, The Irreal Reader — Fiction and Essays from The Cafe Irreal (Guide Dog Books 2013). He can be visited online at www.dharlanwilson.com and www.thekyotoman.com. The play is scheduled to be performed at the UFORGE Gallery in Massachusetts this October and is a part of his recently published book Three Plays (Black Scat Books 2016).