Drama

Author's Note:
 
This is a play in four scenes, each scene a dramatic monologue by one of four characters directed straight through the "fourth wall" of the proscenium at the audience, which occupies the position of the monologist's invisible counterpart. At each extended pause, the actor speaking will have to imagine what the person they're speaking to is saying and fit their body language and speech to what they have imagined.
 
Double-double spaces between speeches indicate extended pauses for an imagined response from the audience-interlocutor. New paragraphs within a speech indicate slight pauses in the rhythm of what's being said, not an implied response. 
 
Each scene opens on a bare and darkened stage with a focused spot on the Speaker.  Minimum furniture:  we may see the Speaker and a simple chair, barstool, etc, perhaps part of a table.  Simplicity is paramount.
 
 
Dramatis Personnae
 
Sidney "Siddie" Peterson, age 14.
"Fallon," Detective Sergeant, Gloucester Police, age 54, nearing retirement.
"Barbara," age 16, schoolmate of "Siddie."
"Richard," age 35.
 
Times and places

Scenes 1-3:
Time: Late spring of 2013
Place: Gloucester, Massachusetts
 
Scene 4:
Time: June 2023
Place: Rio Del Mar, California
                       
 
 
 
Scene 1.  Siddie

[Begin with a darkened stage. Light fades in just enough to reveal the shape of Siddie seated on a chair at a rectangular table, facing the audience, looking up and a little to his right, at a spotlight. The rest of the stage is bare.

Spotlight on Siddie. He's a skinny kid, and has a bandage on his cheek large enough to indicate it covers a serious cut. He affects a fake toughness throughout, occasionally punctuated by genuine emotions like alarm, or excitement, or fear, or remorse. At times, he gets so swept away by his own story, he has trouble controlling himself.

Except as indicated, he seems to be speaking to someone right in front of him, across the table, as he faces the audience.

 

Siddie speaks throughout.]

​

 

Is it on?
 
[looks straight ahead]

You got a cigarette?  It'll help me remember things better.
 
 

 

Well, I was a little confused, you know? More's coming back the more I get to think about it.
 
 

 

Hey, it’s not like I didn’t start when I was ten.  Anyway, who’s gonna know?
 
 

 

Right. If you tell her.
 
 

 

No. Keep her outside. Please. But this means I might forget more things, and you can't hold it against me later. "Anything I say," you told me. Not anything I forget. [turns head directly to his right] Isn't that right, Ms. Wozniak?  And attorney-client privilege, right? You can't tell my mom any of this if I don't want you to?
 

 

​

[Nods, turns face back to the audience.]
 
Ok. So. We’re in Dogtown. In the woods—dead leaves, boulders. . .
 
 

​

Huh?  No, I think this is where it really starts. With the field trip.

 
So we come to this rock with some writing on it.  It's so old I can't read the words. No one can, but Mr. Marinakis [Mare-in-NAH-kiss] shows us a date. 18 . . . something. (See? I can't remember.) Mr. Marinakis says a sailor got killed there, wrestling a bull by the horns. Got pinned to this rock. Torn to pieces.
 

Moron. 
 
 

 

No. Mr. M's ok. I mean the sailor.

   
I walk over to Bo. He says, "C'mere." He shows me this big boulder in the trees. It says, in big black letters, “Never Try Never Win.”

And Bo says, "Somebody had a sense of humor." 
 
 

 

Yeah, that's right. "Babson's Boulders." Babson—he wrote all that shit?

 

 

On all the boulders.
 
 

Another moron. 

Well, when Mr. Marinakis takes the class over to the boulder, Bo and I peel off and head for the bus. "Never try," Bo says, and lights up. "Never try." He takes a big drag, shakes his head as he blows out the smoke. Kinda like Teostra [Tee-OH-struh].
 

 

In Monster Hunter? 
 

 

Anyway, I think that’s when he gets the idea.

 
On the bus, I try to bum a smoke, but Bo tells me to fuck off.  “Last time, you passed them around,” he says. He moves to a seat in the back. It’s ok, though. He just wants a window that will open. When I join him, he hands me a butt.  So, we're cool.

Back at the parking lot, we all scatter. At home, Nick's drinking beer, as usual, and playing Black Ops 3. The 54 Immortals have Singapore and he wants it back. I spend a couple hours gaming in my room. Then I get bored and call Bo, but he doesn't pick up. Nick's watching ESPN now—I tell him I’m going out. He doesn't say anything.
 

I see Bo outside the liquor store on Railroad Avenue, looking for the right face, and a ma—

 

 
The right face. You know—to buy for him.

Man pulls up, goes inside. He leaves his engine running.

“Watch him,” says Bo. 

I watch the man through the window. He heads straight for the counter. And I see him pull out a gun.

Right then, a car door slams and I turn my head and there's Bo, sitting in the man’s car, behind the wheel.
 

I look back at the man. Now he’s looking at me. I don’t move. The man starts running for the door.

That's when I move. 
 

Bo's already in reverse, but there's a car passing, so he has to wait a second before pulling out, and I jump in the back. 
 

As we’re driving away, I'm looking out the rear window and it goes, "BLAM!" 
 
 

 

Yeah. Like I said, that's how I got this cut. 
 
 

 

Yeah, thanks, I would.
 

Wait. You got any Mountain Dew?
 
 

 

No, that's ok. Sprite's ok.
 
 

 

"Why?" He's standing at the counter with a gun and he turns and looks right at me and heads for the door. Where was I gonna go?
 
 

 

No, I didn’t know. Bo tells me “watch him,” I watch the man. 
 
 

 

Yeah, I heard you did. What can you expect when you shoot at police?
 
 

 

No, I never saw him before in my life. 
 
 

 

I didn't pay attention. A Taurus, maybe? I was too scared to notice.
 
[Becomes increasingly agitated during the next two speeches, to the point of almost losing control of his emotions.]
 

​

​

 

No. Like I say, I was in the back seat. I put my head down after he shot the window out.

 

 
No, I tell you. My head was down. But I did hear a thump. By the time I looked up we were turning onto Washington Street, coming to the crossing. The crossing lights were flashing and the gates started coming down, and I could hear the train. Bo pulled around the cars and floored it. I squeezed my eyes shut. I was ready to die.

 
He was doing fifty by the time we got to Grant Circle.  Jesus. And he never flinched. Never, the whole time. He sat there like some kind of . . . like he's made of stone . . .  like Stone Idol Titan, in Castlevania? That same face. His hand was on the bottom of the steering wheel, like it was a joy-stick, you know? like he was watching a screen.

 [Arm enters spotlight from stage left holding a can of Sprite. Siddie looks to his left and up, at the owner of the arm.] 

[Voice shaky.] Thanks.

[Arm places Sprite on table. Siddie reaches for it with a trembling hand.]

I was getting thirsty.

[Siddie holds the can down on the table as he pops it open. Then he lifts it, hand still trembling, but stops. Slowly, he places the can back on the table, and then, with both hands, lifts it to his mouth and drinks. He replaces the can with both hands. He continues to drink from it occasionally, but without difficulty and with just one hand.] 

So.

Next thing I know, we're across the 128 bridge.

We take the first exit, Rust Island. I thought we should keep driving, get as far away as we could. But Bo said, with the back window shot out? And he was right. That busted window would give us away in no time. Bo parked at Lobsta-Land, facing away from the marsh so no one could see the window, and we started walking.

We walked to Wingaersheek [WING-ger-sheek] Beach. I didn’t ask questions. Along the way, Bo took me to the edge of the marsh off Causeway and made me wash the blood off my face and take off my jacket and hide it in the weeds. He took off his jacket and hid it there, too, because the police would be looking for two kids dressed like that. That’s where you’ll find them—I can show you, if you want. 

It took about an hour. I felt better without the windbreaker. Maybe no one got a good look at us, except the robber, and who was he gonna tell? We didn’t say anything the whole way. When we got there, I followed Bo along the beach 'til we got across from Annisquam. [ANN-is-kwam]  There were still a couple of kayaks pulled up there.

I don’t know why they leave their paddles—it’s like that guy leaving his motor running. An invitation. Bo grabbed a paddle from one kayak and pointed it at another one. That’s when I figured it out. There was no way to walk back—we couldn’t take the 128 on foot, and the Cut would have a roadblock by now, and we couldn’t hitch-hike. This was the only way home.

Besides, who’d be looking for us in a kayak?
 

 

No, I never was, and I was scared I’d tip over and drown. But Bo knew how.
 

 

Your guess is as good as mine—maybe he boosted kayaks like he boosted cars and bikes—and he gave me some tips. Plus, there wasn’t any wind, and the river carried us out past the lighthouse without me having to paddle much.

 

 
Well, I don’t know. That’s a good question. Bo can swim, but I can’t, and the tide was running pretty fast just then, so I don’t think he would have tried it by himself—he might get carried out into the bay and, well, who knows? 

But when I think about how it all turned out, why would that make any difference? Anyway, he wasn’t going to leave me there, was he? I think he just took a chance that there’d still be some kayaks on the beach, and if there weren’t, he’d think of something else. For both of us, I mean. He wouldn't just leave me there. 

[Points to the empty can of Sprite in front of him.]

You mind if I have another one?
 
So, where was I? 
 
Oh. Kayaks. You ever been in one? It’s like seeing your whole world from the outside, and how tiny everyone is. Including you.  

Not that we saw many people. Just their houses, and they sure weren’t tiny. There was this one house, all glass, and the sun was going down and we saw it reflecting off all the windows in this . . . this ice castle, one by one, as we paddled by. I told Bo I was afraid someone would see us and call the police. He said what’s there to see? A couple of kayaks. Besides, he was sure there was nobody home. I got the idea he'd been inside it once.

 
Do you remember when it was just fishing shacks like the Tilt’n Hilton, or those three-season squats? We used to walk along the shore all the way from Davies Neck to Halibut Point, even to Rockport, and nobody'd stop us. 

Fuckers. 

But it’d be nice to live in a house like that, right? Home theater. Porsche in the garage. Boat club. I told Bo that. Know what he said? He said those people use up other people’s lives and throw away what’s left. 

[Hand appears, from stage left, with another can of Sprite and sets it on the table in front of Siddie. He opens it and takes a drink, this time with no effort. He continues to drink from the can occasionally, replacing it on the table, as he talks.]
 

So, we get to Lanesville.  It's almost dark. When we pull the kayaks up on the landing we get our feet all muddy. Then we walk over to Bo’s house.

As we get close we see blue lights flashing. And we hear voices. The shouting one I knew was Bo’s dad. The screaming one was Bo’s mom. I couldn’t tell if she was screaming at the cops or at Bo’s dad.

Bo says, c’mon, let’s go wash off in the quarry.

 
We get to this quarry and the moon is up by now and there’s a gigantic flaming skull, like the Grateful Dead one? painted on a rock and it’s, like, spooky, like it’s glowing in the dark. We climb down and hang our legs in the water to wash off the mud and Bo gets out his cigarettes again. He's so quiet, pretty soon I’m starting to feel creeped out. That’s when he tells me about the little girl. What that thump was. And I know we are in some deep shit. 

[Looks down, as if trying to control himself.]

 

 

No, I’m ok. 

[Sighs]

So, now I’m really scared—it’s not just joy-riding, the kid might be dead, and the cops know who we are, so unless we plan to spend the rest of our lives hiding out in the woods, I think to myself, we better turn ourselves in—I mean, I didn’t steal any cars or hit any kids. I just jumped in ‘cause a guy was pointing a gun at me.

 

But when I start to tell Bo, I see him looking at me with the saddest look. His face is lit up by the moon, but his eyes are in shadow, you know, like the eyes of that skull.

 
Then Bo tells me he was trying to get out. All the way out. “I didn’t ask you to get in the car,” he says.

 
He was leaving for good. Forever.

And a man pulls out a gun and I jump in, and the window gets shot out like a fucking siren going off everywhere we go, and he hits the kid, and before you know it he’s getting off at Rust Island, with me in the back seat. 

[Looks down again. Wipes at his eyes with the back of his wrist.]
 

 

No, I don't, thanks.
 
It’s just the cut—

 

 
No—I’m not crying! And no, I said, I don’t need any fucking Kleenex!

[Looks down and wipes savagely at his eyes. Eventually calms down. Looks up and ahead. Fingers the bandage, delicately.]
 

You think it will leave a scar? 
 

 

So, then he takes one more drag, and flicks the butt into the water. I watch it because I can’t look at him anymore. It’s spinning and scattering sparks and then it hits the water and hisses out.

"Let’s go jumping," Bo says, like he just thought of it, and he stands up.

Now, I don’t go quarry jumping—and Bo knows it. He tried to tell me once it's no big deal. He said, yeah, when you hit the water you feel like you're going down forever. But your body always stops just in time to swim back up. He said it’s a scientific fact, the human body can only go so deep before it has to stop and turn around, and it always turns around, just in time. Pass that point and you’re dead, man. You’ll run out of breath before you can swim back up for air. 

Problem is, like I said, I can't swim.

But it's too late now to walk away because I’m not from Lanesville and I don’t know the woods around there, and even with the moon out I might get lost. So I think I’ll stick with Bo because eventually he’ll have to go home. And if he doesn’t, well, I’ll be able to find my way back when it’s daylight.

So when he leaves, I follow him.

​

​

 
Yeah, I follow him and after a while, we come to another quarry. This one’s huge, and way on the other side I can see streetlights and a pumping station so I know we’re at Klondike. I don’t go quarry jumping but even I know about Klondike because everybody does. Once I rode my bike up that street, Quarry Street, just to see it.

Bo starts taking off his clothes. I go up to the edge and look over. The moonlight doesn’t reach there, it’s just black down there.

I hear leaves rustling and when I turn around, there's Bo, buck naked, coming out of the trees holding a big rock —I mean, this big! big as a watermelon, at least. It’s so big he's staggering. And I ask what’s that for?

“Watch,” he says.

Then he goes up to the edge, turns, crouches down, and just tips himself backwards.

 
I watch.

He’s hugging that rock and spinning, slowly, all the way down. Then, I see a white splash. Then blackness again. 

 

 
No, I don’t. I just thought it was some kind of trick that Bo wanted to show me—like, it would make a bigger splash? What do I know. Maybe he went past that point of no return he was telling me about.

 

 
Shattered?  Jesus. No, I didn’t.

I guess that can happen if you’re hugging a fucking rock. I guess that would explain it, right?

 [Picks up the can of Sprite, gives it a little shake, realizes it's empty, replaces it on the table.]

You know the rest.

 [Lights off]
 

 
Scene 2: Fallon

[As in scene 1: begin in total darkness. Stage lights slowly come up just enough to reveal Fallon sitting on a barstool at the end of a bar, with one empty barstool between him and the audience. We can also see dim shapes of tables and chairs, some with shadowy silent figures in black sitting at the tables, who move or shift their weight occasionally during this scene, but without calling attention to themselves.

Fallon is big, a little overweight but tough-looking. His face has the rough terrain that goes with years of experience. He wears a suit and tie, but with the tie loosened, as though he's just finished his shift.  He is apparently unwinding with a detective friend from a nearby town. During this scene he'll occasionally take a drink as his imaginary friend responds to what he says.

Spotlight on Fallon, who is revealed holding onto a nearly empty pint-glass of beer on the counter in front of him, both elbows on the counter. He's staring at the beer. Almost immediately, he shakes his head.

 

Fallon speaks throughout]
 
I don’t like it. [turns head to face the audience]  It's too weird. Start with Dogtown—but wait, you're not from around here. Milford, right?
 

 

Give my regards to the chief. I knew Brody when he was pounding a beat here, on Rocky Neck.
 
So how long you been a detective?

 

 
 [Nodding] Twenty years. Ever hear of Dogtown? 
 
 [Empties the glass as his friend replies. Sets the glass down on the counter. Turns his face to the audience More nodding.]

 

 

Yeah. You got it part right. Ghost town from way back, off in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. All derelicts and bottom-feeders, until not long ago. A young lady got murdered there, just passing through. Town took action, cleaned it up, "historic site," all that.

And that crazy story about James Merry. Like the stories about witches, spells, curses—but that one, about Merry? That's true. A bar bet gone wrong. Dogtown was already just cellar holes by then—a few stray cows. All woods now.
The boulders haven’t moved, of course.

[Fallon turns toward the bar, calls upstage]

Another one, please, Toni.

[He turns to his friend.]
 

You?
 

​

Right. Sorry, I forgot. "Don't drink and drive," we tell 'em. Easy for me, living up the hill.

So, like I say, start with Dogtown.  But then pile on the rest of it—idols, kayaks, skulls, rocks—you ever hear of a kid jumping into a quarry holding a big rock? I jumped when I was a kid. Everybody did, and they still do. Nobody ever went in hugging a piece of granite. That Lapinen [La-PIN-in] kid, a tough little shit from when he was in third grade—he might just be crazy enough to try it.  

​

[hand appears in the spotlight holding a pint-glass of beer, sets it down on the counter. Fallon turns toward the bar]

Thank you, Toni.

​

[takes up the beer glass and turns back to his friend, takes a sip] 

But at night? And after you just stole a car and almost get shot and then hit-and-run a seven-year-old—and there’s an APB out on you? A retarded kid might do that, or a psycho. Borga Lapinen was a punk with a few misdemeanors—joy-riding, maybe a B&E. (We never could prove that one.) But he was no retard.
 

​

Yeah, “Borga.” What a name to paste on a kid. Went by “Bo.” Dad named him after a Finnish wrestler.

He wasn’t the Boston Strangler, understand, but he was just smart enough to get out of trouble when he did something stupid, over and over.

Like a smart wrestler, now that I think of it.

​

 
No, not as far as I could tell. A loner, not a leader.  You know, "rebel without a cause," all that shit. The girls liked him, though. Blue eyes, curly blonde hair. Big shoulders.

And Sidney Peterson—now there’s another weird thing. What’s he doing with Lapinen? What did they have in common? Lapinen was two years older, held back twice, full of attitude. As far as I can tell, Peterson plays video games when he’s not jacking off. He’ll end up in his mother’s basement someday. Pretends to be tough. No friends, no one close to him. Good student, though. Gets good grades. So why did Lapinen give him the time of day? Maybe the video games.
 

​

From his dad—I mean his biological father. Peterson’s room was full of ‘em. His mother’s divorced, re-married to one of the Abreus, Nick, I think.

 

 
Yeah. Fuckin’ NOAA regs.  Nick and his brothers sit around the house or in the bar all day. Anyway, Peterson’s real dad is a computer programmer, gets these video games for free, gives them to Sidney.  Hey, I’m divorced. You hold onto them any way you can. But why’d she leave him for Nick Abreu and an unemployment check?

 

 
Yeah, the fishing was good then. And who knows what the father’s really like? Maybe an asshole.

[turns to the bar, looks upstage, hoists his empty glass]

Another, please, Toni. [turns back to his friend]

So anyway. Maybe it was the video games. I dunno.

[From this point on, Fallon becomes increasingly serious. The feeling builds very slowly, but he's no longer just "shootin' the shit." Something's eating at him.]

But here’s what’s really wrong.

You’re a detective, Steve. You get a floater in the quarries—there's a big quarry in Milford, yeah?—and the rib cage is crushed—I mean, bones sticking out. Wouldn’t your first thought be someone killed this guy and dumped the body, tried to make it look like an accident?

[hand appears in the spotlight, sets a glass of beer on the counter]

Thank you, Toni.

Quarry accidents—you lose your balance, or don't jump far enough out, hit a ledge on your way down. Say you start to tilt, that’ll be the head or the legs—or under the surface, again, head or legs, maybe the arms, pelvis if you're sitting. Belly flop can rupture your spleen from forty feet—might even break a bone or two. But forensics found water in the lungs—so, drowning? Coulda been thrown in still breathing, right?  So, say somebody had it in for Bo Lapinen—why hit him in the chest? And with what, for Christ sake? No baseball bat did that.
 

 

[Fallon shakes his head.]

 

No tire marks, Steve.

So we question Sidney Peterson. He's fourteen, so we don't have to have the mother present, and he doesn't want her there anyway. But she makes sure there's a lawyer. Not that it helps Peterson much. A blabbermouth. Can't shut up. And eventually he tells us about Lapinen jumping with the rock.
 
Yeah, he was seen getting into the car with the older boy. The clerk couldn't tag either one through the window. Or the make of the car. Hour later, a witness comes forward, former girlfriend of Lapinen. Conscience got the better of her, I guess. We go to Lapinin’s house. Dad’s a piece of work. We all know him at the station. The neighbors ring us up when he starts in on his wife. He tells us to haul Bo’s ass to jail—never wants to see him again. We visit Peterson's mom, get her up to speed, ask her where Sidney hangs out. She doesn't know. Says he left before she got home from work. Abreus confirms. We tell them to let us know if they hear anything. 

Five am on Thursday we get a call from a patrol car on Quarry Street. There’s a body floating face down in Klondike res. Before we arrive with the medics, the officer sees someone moving on the other side of the res and yells at him to stop—it was Sidney Peterson.

 

 
Yeah. Don't it just?

The whole way back to the station Peterson is sitting there with his mouth shut. Then, while we’re waiting for his mother, he starts talking. Says he doesn’t know anything—just got there and next thing, the patrolman shows up. "Just got there"—right. At 5 am.

Before the mom arrives, Peterson learns we talked to her the night before. In the waiting room, he changes his story. Says he and his pal just ran into each other and went there to “to talk”—this was after he left the house around 4 or 5 pm. Talked all night, according to Peterson.

Mom arrives with a lawyer. Lawyer joins us. That’s when we tell Peterson the ex-girlfriend makes Lapinen driving away from the liquor store at 5:30 that afternoon, with Peterson sitting next to him.

Peterson shuts right up, tight as a barnacle, like he's been smacked in the head.

[Fallon leans forward, with a cunning look on his face, the kind you'd see on someone just a little drunk.]

So I try coming at him from another angle. I ask him, "Where'd you get that nasty cut on your face?" Thinking maybe him and Lapinen got into a fight. He says, "I got it when the window got shot out."

Bingo.

"I don't know who said I was in front, but they're wrong," he says. "I was in the back seat."

 
Just like that, puts himself in the car, like he wasn’t thinking.
 
In shock?  Yeah, maybe.

And then this cockamamie story comes out, and it ends with Bo Lapinen jumping into Klondike hugging a what? forty, fifty-pound rock.

 
Some of it checked—we found the kayaks in Lanesville, and the jackets where Peterson said. No blood on 'em, though. Not in the car, either.
 

Which is odd.

 
[Fallon stares at nothing, trying to process this, before he starts paying attention to Steve's reply.]

 

 
Yeah. His was nylon. Coulda washed off. The lab will tell us.

We called Lobsta Land. He had the make of the car wrong—I guess he doesn’t know one car from another, even sitting inside it. But Lapinen wants to “get out?" Of Gloucester? [GLAH-ster] Why not take the train?

[turns to the bar, looks upstage, hoists his empty glass]
 

Toni!

 

[turns back to his friend to listen to his question]

No, she’s still in the ICU. If Lapinen wasn’t dead, that kid’s parents would kill him.
 
That one? No. We still haven’t identified the body. Prints aren’t on file and Peterson says he didn’t recognize him. Stolen car. Shooting at cops. Probably not how he thought his day would go.

Anyway, I had Peterson tell it again, to the camera, and by now it was like the Rocky Horror Picture Show—and with all the little wrinkles smoothed out. Like, what Nick Abreus was watching on TV when Peterson left the house—you know, details that don't matter except to someone who thinks someone might check?
 

That kid has a hell of an imagination. It worries me.
 
 

 

Yeah, yeah. It explains the injuries, maybe. I talked to a physics professor at North Shore. He said it’s possible if Bo hit the water back-first, with the rock on top of him. Depends on the size of the rock, “relative momentum.”

Blah de blah.

But I dunno. You shoulda seen those ribs. Like I only seen in car accidents before air bags were invented, driver hits the steering column.

 

 
Me? I’m thinking homicide. But why the chest? And who? Sidney Peterson? What for? And could he pick up a rock that size, do that kind of damage? He could barely pick up his can of Sprite, with both hands.

And then, he sees his friend's been killed—and goes to sleep?  He says he knew they were at Klondike, but didn't know the trails, afraid he'd get lost in the dark. Wanted to wait for daylight.

There's the fucking road, lad! Right on the other side!

And meanwhile, he goes to sleep?

Homicide.
 

 

Ok, ok. Or suicide. What Lapinin told Peterson on the bus, yeah. . . well, maybe suicide.
 

 

You mean, like Peterson said, an accident? showing off?

 

[shakes head slowly]
 
 

 

Oh, and that too. The witness swears Peterson was in the front seat. Even if she’s wrong, it was safety glass. It can scratch you if it shatters and the pieces fly. But they call it "safety glass" for a reason, and that’s a pretty deep cut, needed stitches. And a bad bruise on top of it. No fucking way it was caused by flying glass.

Anyway. He’s headed for juvie. No priors. Probation, I'd say.

 

 
No, not for Lapinen—nothing to work with there. Grand theft auto, aiding and abetting. We’ll see what they make of all this.

 [Lights off]
 
 

 
Scene 3. Barbara
 
[Lighting as in previous scenes. Barbara is a former girlfriend of Bo Lapinen. She is on a public street, standing downstage center, speaking on her cell phone to a friend named Gale.

Spotlight on Barbara.

Barbara speaks throughout]

 
Yeah, right, like Siddie’s ever been in a kayak.

 

 
He can’t swim, Gale!

 

 
Nuh-uuh. Don’t you know not to believe anything he says?

 

 
Yes! Bo felt sorry for him—everyone picked on him.

 

 
Bo had a big heart, girl. He was a beautiful, beautiful person. Siddie wouldn’t leave him alone, followed him everywhere . . . had a hard-on for him. But Bo never saw it that way, and you know none of the other guys would mention it. Except Mike Walker, like, that one time. And that was the last time.

 

 
Listen to me.  A.  Big.  Heart.  Bo was too sweet to see the bad in people. But I know he never felt that way about Siddie, because he was going out with me.
 

 

Believe me, Gale. I know what gave him a hard-on.

 

 
Yeah, until Marianne. Skanky Manky.

 

 
Well, that’s what she told him.

 

 
"Why?" To hold onto him, Gale! And she told me they were doing it, just to rub my face in it, and if she got knocked up, she said she didn’t care.

 

 
Yeah, I heard that.  Every morning. "Too sick to come to school," says to her brother. Well, we'll see, won't we?

 

 
No. Whoever told them, it wasn't me.

 

 
 
I'd never, not in a million years! 

 

 
Really? And you believe her.

 

 
Of course she'd say that, Gale.  She's still jealous.  As if I'd do something like that, rat out a friend.

 

 
 
Yes, a friend.

 

Yes we broke up, ok, but I still loved him.

 

 
 
Listen to me. I told that detective I was there because I was. Celeste was with me, and Em. And Stephie, too. Was I gonna lie about it when all he had to do was ask one of them?

 

 
But why me? Any one of them coulda told him, couldn't they?  I wasn't the only one used to go out with Bo.  Didn't he even date you for a while?

 

 
[With condescending exasperation]

 

No, Gale, I know you weren't there. Duh.

 

 
Yes! I saw him, right there, riding shotgun. He must have seen her get hit. He had to. How could he miss it? I tell you, don't believe anything he says.
 

 

Listen to me.
 

 

Gale. Listen. Did you ever meet that detective?
 

 

Ok. Let me tell you something. It's like he's on a TV show or in a movie, you know? Where the cop stays up all night, ev-er-y night, and annoys the hell out of all his bosses and fucks with the evidence and makes his wife divorce him because, like, he's got to catch the murderer or the robber or get revenge or whatever. He scared me shitless.

 

Well, like I say, Bo and me, we stayed close.  He was seeing other girls, but we still talked. We still, like, had a connection, is what I'm saying. Maybe it's 'cause we never "did it," you know?

He even told me what Mank the Skank said.  Know what I told him?  "How do you know it's yours?"

 

 
[Laughs]

 

Yeah, even the smart ones are dumb when it comes to that, right?
 

 

Well, he asked me, and I said, "You don't have to know 'if.' You just have to know it might not be." So he thought about that, and then he went, like, "But everyone will think I'm the dad! We'll have to get married!" So I said, "Well, why are you hanging around? You're old enough, you can drop out, go anywhere you want." So he thought about that, and then—honest to God, Gale—he asked me if I'd come with him.

 

 
No, Gale. I'm not shittin' you. He asked me to come along.

 

 
You're kidding, right?  I told him, no way. I'm not dropping out of school. I can't anyway, I'm not old enough. My mom would kill me.

And just between us, Gale, what kind of life would that be? Like, really, what? No job, no education, nothing to start with. I didn't bust my ass to end up, like, with a GDE, or babysitting for the rest of my life, or washing dishes.

Not that he'd be hard to live with. Or look at. Know what I'm sayin'?

 

 

The fighting? Yeah. Well. He was, like, a different person then. Like with Mike Walker. I thought he was going to kill him.

 

 
Well, wouldn’t you? He’s like [in a sing-song voice],
“Bo and Siddie,
Siddie and Bo,
They ain't just playin'
video games, bro!” 

Wink, wink.

And when Bo called him on it, he said it was a joke.

A joke. That ain't something you joke about.
 

 

C’mon, was that so bad? It was, like, just for fun, and a long time ago—he didn’t keep it or sell it. Who did he hurt, really?  Just a crybaby who couldn’t drive his Beamer back to Annisquam. Bo always returned the stuff he borrowed. He never stole anything, just used it. What’s wrong with that?

And the cops wouldn’t leave him alone. Even when he finished probation, they wouldn’t leave him alone. Anything disappeared, they’d come knocking on his door and his mom and dad would go nuts.

You know they’re both crazy, don’t you?  And they hated the Petersons, never got along. Didn't like Bo hanging out there.

I'll tell you something he told me once.

This is just between us, right? 
 
He told me how his dad used to beat him, with his belt. Until he got too big.
He showed me the scars.
 
No, girl. Not from the belt. From the buckle.

[Lights out]
 

 
Scene 4. Richard
 
[Lighting as in previous scenes. Action takes place downstage, left.  Time of day: late afternoon. Stage is dark except for light coming in the windows.

Interior—what we can see implies a spacious, ultramodern living room. Richard stands silhouetted, facing the audience, his back to a wide, tall plate glass window with a view of the Pacific Ocean beyond it. The window has horizontal casements at the bottom. One of these is open. Raised blinds, but no curtains. Sunlight angles in from the left. Occasionally Richard will lean against the wall next to this window or half-sit on the wide sill (not low enough for actual sitting), but he is almost always standing, unless he is pacing back and forth.

Located between Richard and the audience is an expansive glass-topped coffee table with a Mies van der Rohe chair or similar classic of mid-century modernism to one side or the other. He directs his remarks to someone sitting on the audience-side of the table. Thus, whenever he addresses his interlocutor directly, his eyes are lowered a bit from the horizontal, looking at the front rows of the audience.  He occasionally moves about, but never crosses to the other side of the table. There is a small, metal ashtray and a Bic lighter on the table. Richard's movements are smooth and precise.

Spotlight on Richard.

Richard speaks throughout]


Have a seat.

You mind if I smoke?  I’ll stand here, by the window.  
 

 

[gesturing at his surroundings]

 

Well, yes, obviously. But I try to be a good host.  [takes a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, shakes one up, offers. Offer not taken. Richard pulls the cigarette out of the pack] Speaking of which, would you like something to drink? I've got, let's see [eyes go up, searching his memory] beer, wine, vodka and t--. . . . .
 
 

 

No? You're sure?

 [Replaces cigarette pack in his shirt pocket, and lights his cigarette with the Bic lighter from the table. Puts lighter in pants pocket, grabs the ashtray and puts it next to him as he half stands/half sits on the window sill. In the scene that follows, he smokes one cigarette after another, three in all, crushing them out in the ashtray.  If possible, there should be a "breeze" outside that draws the smoke out the window.

 

 

Richard draws deeply on the cigarette, nodding in agreement]
 
Mm-hm. [takes the cigarette out of his mouth to speak]  Yes, fabulous view, thanks. [He turns to glance at the view]. I love watching the boats go by.
Of course, where you're from, the sun's rising behind them. Here it's setting.
 

 

 

Yes. Very. Everything is expensive around here.

You say you're retired?
 

 

Odd way to spend your retirement.

 [Takes a drag on the cigarette as he listens.]
 

 

Well, I hope you and your wife are enjoying yourselves. But I still don’t understand. You left her at the hotel to come all the way down here . . .  
 

 

Ah. [Nodding] Carl's mom. She told you about the accident.

And, what—you told her you were coming here for a vacation, and you'd get in touch with me?

 

 
Interesting.  Carl . . .  that's what he called himself … Carl never talked about his family.

[Flicks ash into ashtray]

What do you want to know?
 

​

Really? Everything. Forgive me, but there's a lot of, well, unconventional behavior involved, and you look like . . . well, you look . . . conventional. I mean, the kind of person who might get upset listening to that kind of thing.
 

 

OK. Just stop me if you change your mind.
We were lovers. Well, not lovers, really, but we'd been seeing each other, off and on, for a few months.
 

 

In a bar, in Palo Alto.
 

 

About three months ago. He was a programmer, like me, or at least that’s what he said, and he had the kind of look that makes you not want to ask questions. Slim hips, long lashes. Common interests can take you only so far, that’s what I’ve found.  Not that his personality wasn’t attractive—working-class with a touch of the ‘hood, lots of obscenities. Superficially intriguing. Fast talker—as though he didn’t want to hear anything to contradict his version.

But I liked his stories.

He started out by telling me about all the guys he picked up sitting at that bar--with that look in his eye, sizing me up. Bragging. He had these slender, quick hands, would hold his cigarette deep in the notch of his fingers and put it to his face like some B-movie actress. And he had a scar on his cheek. Very sexy.
 

 

Well, he said he was from Massachusetts, went to MIT.
 

 

Uh-uh. I went there. He didn’t go to MIT. But he was smart, in his way, knew all the game engines, could even do a bit of code from scratch. He may have gone to college somewhere, but I doubt he ever graduated. I’d seen him around with a series of boyfriends, at the same parties, clubs. Some of his friends I recognized from where I worked. I think he got by waiting tables, maybe turning tricks now and then.

He said he grew up near Boston, on the ocean. Hung out with a tough crowd. They’d steal cars, sell drugs, a little breaking and entering. So he said.

“Tough crowd”—right—about as likely as “MIT.”  But he made it work, said he was the gang leader’s pretty boy. He would tell these stories—made up stories that would get us horny. About how they’d have sex between playing video games in his room. Rough sometimes.  But no violence, no bloodshed. That kind of thing turns me off.

 

 

Right, so, since you asked, here's how it went.

The night he walked out—the night before it happened—he told me a story about himself and this Johnny-Depp-look-alike, the gang leader—Bo was his name. On a class field trip, Bo tells him they have to stop seeing each other. There’s this girl he, Bo, got pregnant, so that was it. He’d be a dad soon and have to leave school and get a job and raise a family. No more video games.

Carl didn’t believe it. I mean, his “avatar” didn’t—he called him “Siddie.”  This was the fag hero in all his fantasies. Bo the Pirate fucks Siddie the Sissie. Siddie told Bo he didn’t believe it. Bo said, believe it. No more hanging out. People are talking. So on the bus ride back Siddie tries to talk him out of it. They’re in the back of the bus, whispering, and Bo gets mad—“I’m getting the hell out,” he says. Siddie gets upset and starts threatening to tell everyone about the two of them, so Bo agrees to one last farewell fuck just to shut him up. He says to meet him at this liquor store.

 

 
Yes, to meet him there.

At the liquor store, Bo tells Siddie he’s going to steal a car and asks him to help—they’ll drive to some secluded place, way out of town, do it au naturel. Siddie’s not sure about doing it outdoors, but he always does what Bo tells him, and he wants to hold onto him. They walk through the parking lot, looking for an unlocked car that Bo can hot-wire. Nothing. So they wait in front hoping someone pulls up and leaves his door unlocked and, wouldn’t you know it, the next guy to drive up leaves his keys in the car.

They jump in . . .
 

 

No. He’s in front, riding shotgun. And as they’re pulling out they hear this crash in back of them—the rear window’s been shot out and there’s the man standing there, pointing a gun at them. Turns out, he left his keys in the car because he was going to rob the liquor store.

You mind if I have another? Sure the smoke doesn’t bother you?
 

 

So, to make a long story short—and Carl’s stories were always long, but usually more, well, arousing than this one—they end up at a stone quarry. You’re from there, so you know what I’m talking about better than I do. I guess it used to be famous for granite, your town? And Carl told me how all the quarries are full of water now, and the kids dive into them.

So at the quarry, they make love. It’s dark and there’s a full moon—all very romantic—but by now I’ve been sitting in bed for twenty minutes waiting for this torrid sex scene and it’s over almost before it begins, because Carl wants to get to the next part, where Siddie kills Bo.

 

[looks down, hesitates a long time, looks up as if listening]

 

 
Yes, he kills him. 

​

[looks down, rubs forehead, another long pause, takes drag on cigarette, looks up as if listening]

​

 
Well, here's the thing. Remember when I said, rough stuff but no bloodshed? That makes me nauseous. It's a turn-off. That’s when I lose interest.

But I'll try. 

Carl says it was self-defense. Turns out the whole car thing was to get Siddie to someplace really far away—all by themselves—and kill him and hide the body.
 

 

Because Bo couldn’t trust him anymore to keep their secret, or even to leave him alone, stop hanging around.

So, as you can imagine, Siddie is terrified—there they are, completely alone, at night, and they’re high above this huge quarry, and Siddie can’t swim. But then Bo tells him he’s changed his mind and can’t go through with it. He loves Siddie, but they have to go their separate ways. Time to grow up. Siddie has to get used to that. He has to tell Bo he understands, and promise never to come near him again.

Siddie says he understands, and promises to stay away. It's not because he cares about Bo’s marital peace of mind, of course. There's an implied threat: if you break your word, I will kill you—this is just a warning.

So then they fuck and just lie there under the full moon, naked, with the crickets chirping—and the mosquitos biting, I imagine. Carl never let reality spoil a good yarn.

And after a few minutes, Bo falls asleep.

But not Siddie. He was hurt, heart-broken, really—and scared, of course, and angry, but—here’s what gets me—way angrier that Bo wanted to leave him than he was that he wanted to kill him.

That was so Carl.

So Siddie lies there, thinking of a plan.

He’s never gone quarry jumping, but he’s heard that kids can get injured, even killed, doing it, by ledges or submerged cars or whatever. They can get hurt just going into the water wrong from that high up, but he’s never heard of a fatality from doing that. He has a good imagination, so he pictures how it would look, hitting something—how the injuries would look. He could crush Bo’s skull with one of these big rocks lying around and just throw him in. It would look like just another quarry mishap.

But then he realizes there might not be any ledges down there, or if there are, Bo would know where. He jumped there all the time. And he looks so sweet and innocent and pretty lying there, asleep. Siddie can't bring himself to smash his face in.

But what about his chest? If Bo jumped holding a big rock—to his chest? Hitting the water wrong is enough to rupture organs, so what if you had something big and hard and heavy smacking into you at the same time? Punctured lung? Cardiac arrest? It might at least keep you under long enough to drown.

Siddie goes into the woods and finds this big rock. He can hardly lift it, Carl says, but “terror and rage gave him strength.” (Those are Carl’s exact words, as I recall.)

[Richard pauses to take a drag on his cigarette. His hand is shaking.]

And then he walks up to Bo, kneels down, and slams the rock down on his chest, as hard as he can.

And Bo wakes up!

His eyes are wide open, staring, and he tries to breathe but he can’t, and before Siddie can pick up the rock again Bo grabs a sharp piece of granite—they're lying all over the place—and swings his arm around. It hits Siddie on the cheek, and draws blood.

[Richard pauses again, and lowers his head, puts his free hand to his forehead.]
 

 

Yes, just give me a moment.
 
I told you I don’t like blood.

[Five seconds pass. Richard lowers his hand.]
 

There.

So.

He smacks Siddie with this piece of granite. But that only makes him more furious. Before Bo can take a breath, Siddie lifts the rock and brings it down again, with all his might.

And again.

[Voice shaking]  Then he rolls the stone and Bo’s body into the quarry, and goes to sleep.
 

 

You know, I asked Carl the same question. No, Siddie didn't go home. He told the police he didn't know the trails and wanted to wait for daylight. But he knew where he was. He needed to be there to explain how it happened. To tell the story. 

And that was it. I mean, for us. “You don’t like that story,” Carl says to me. And I just look at him, at his sexy scar. “No one does,” he says, and gets dressed and leaves.   

And that’s the last time I saw him. Or heard of him, until the police called to say they found my number in his iPhone.  I told them what I knew—that we'd just broken up—but not the Siddie and Bo stuff, of course. Not relevant, and whose business is it, anyway? 

You're the first.

 

 

Because you knew him.

[Turns to stub out cigarette in the ashtray]

This ashtray is full, and I have a date.

[Looks at his Apple watch.]

Let me show you out. 

[He takes the ashtray and heads stage left.]
 
 

 

I don’t know. He seemed ok when he left here, maybe a little disappointed at my reaction.  Not enough to step in front of a car, though.

 

 
 
[Richard stops and turns around, as if talking to someone behind him.]

A Taurus? You mean, like the constellation? 
 

 

Huh. A bull, that's also a kind of car.

Is that what killed him?
 

 

 

Then why do you ask? 
 

 

 

[Resumes walking stage left.]

No, he never said anything about a Taurus.

Or a Voyager, for that matter.

[Richard turns away from the audience, heading center stage, then upstage, out of the spotlight, which begins to fade as he moves into the darkness.]

Watch your step going out.

[The spotlight fades out entirely. Richard's last line is loud enough to be heard from the back of the darkened stage, as though Richard is calling out to his departing guest.]

​

​

Yes, you, too, Mr. Fallon. Have a safe trip.