NECTARINE is a collaboration between French-born Berlin-based artist Fette Sans and myself.  Fette sent me pictures, which inspired the text, which inspired more pictures, which inspired more text, and so on.   The full exhibition, featuring similar collaborations with other writers, will take place in Spring at Infernoesque in Berlin.

Note: The story is very graphic.

–

NECTARINE

by Tommy Smith

Photographs by Fette Sans

He performed oral sex on the woman he claimed was his daughter.

She wasn’t his daughter really.

He had stolen her as a young girl.

She was walking home from school.

She had blonde hair and wore a dress.

This man pulled up in a van.

This other woman got out of the van and took the young girl into the van.

The man and the woman kept the young girl.

The man constructed a cage in his basement.

He fed her a couple times a day and a couple times a day he would come in and fuck her.

No one knew what she was thinking.

That is to say we have no way of recording what it is that raced through her mind.

We can only guess.

Mom?

They let her out from time to time.

Mom are you there?

After years she forgot she was a young girl they stole from the street and instead she accepted the reality that the man and the woman kept insisting was the real story that they should not tell anyone should anyone ask questions about if she was their daughter or not.

She was their daughter.

You’re our daughter.

Say it to me say you’re my daughter.

I’m your daughter daddy.

He bought her dresses.

His wife, the woman who helped steal the young girl from the street, had grown older.

They let their daughter roam free outside her cage and in the regular household because this was the trust they were starting to develop with each other.

The mother was in her late fifties.

So he bought his daughter shoes.

Try these on.

Oh I like these.

Go ahead and try them on.

Is it okay I mean can we afford them?

Don’t worry about that just worry bout gettin them dogs on them toes a yours.

The man had read earlier that day about how rare flowers often existed in the spaces between molten lava floes so to pick these flowers also meant possibly exchanging your mortality for briefly possessing exquisite beauty.

He was now not thinking that.

His face between her legs.

He had forgotten to shave.

Every now and again she let out a whimper.

Dad?

Mm.

Dad?

What?

Your beard.

What my beard?

A little prickly.

A little what?

Prickly your hairs prickle my legs.

I’ll show you prickly.

And he fucked her, and against her wishes she came, then he came inside her and told her to wash up.

The daughter knocked twice.

I’m in here.

Can I use it when you’re done?

I’m using it.

I’ll be in the kitchen til you’re done.

Okay.

The daughter sat silent at the kitchen table with a sheet wrapped white around her.

She thought of what she would do later tomorrow.

I will have to clean the house tomorrow.

I will have to dust the windowsills.

Maybe he might make me wash the windows.

Maybe mom will have me help her in the kitchen.

She thought of her first mom.

She stared at the kitchen telephone.

She didn’t think to pick it up.

She wasn’t planning on calling anyone.

She just stared at the shape of the phone.

The way you stare at a cloud.

The bathroom door popped open and the invisible sound waves reverberated off the walls of the hallway and bounced into the kitchen where a lessened bandwave found purchase in the eardrums of the daughter and she looked up.

Her mother was standing in the hallway.

It’s all yours.

Thanks mom.

Imna have you help me tomorrow.

Yeahm?

We’re gonna teach you to read tomorrow.

Well ah thanks ma.

You should learn to read cause you’re way too old to be dumb like this.

And the daughter stared at her hands and shifted in her sheet and out squeezed a bead of semen crowned with a blood swirl.

The wife made breakfast early in the morning.

The man woke at five.

If it was clear he watched the sunrise.

Gods frst lite he’d say.

You want a coffee?

What’s that wife?

I’m gonna make a coffee fer us.

Gonna make that Instant.

Nah I like the real beans.

Make me the Instant kay.

Kayhun.

As the man’s wife walked to the kitchen her own mother came to mind.

Her mother sitting on the edge of her bed crying.

Why was she crying?

She doesn’t remember comforting her mother.

This must have been thirty years ago, what was she crying about thirty years ago?

The kettle finished boiling with a whistle.

She scooped a spoonful of Instant in a cup and poured in hot water with a brown oily swirl.

Her husband drank the hot cup quick.

The wife thought about all the tasks she already did around the house.

In the backyard bloomed a tree of nectarines.

When the wife walked underneath the branches into the cool shade she’d take in a breath of moist dirt air.

You could smell the nectarines ripening on the vine.

The heat of the sun humming inside them.

She’d bite teeth hot into the poking fruitskin.

A lone line of juice trailing down her chin and beading into her neck’s nape.

Goldurn now I getta napkin she thunk.

It was her job to pick the ripe nectarines but every now and again she’d eat one before bringing into her husband.

The girl never got any nectarines.

She never gave her none.

The wife in fact had no feelings for the girl.

She called the girl a girl and not daughter like the husband did.

But the wife had tasks like taking out the trash in the bathrooms every day.

Like fixing all the meals and buying groceries.

She’d take the girl shopping.

Stay close to me and don’t sat nuthin.

The girl in a simple dress and flip-flops nodding.

With a finger she scoops a lone lock of her dirty hair flipping across her eyesight and tucks it ‘hind her ear.

I’m exhausted.

Can you rub my shoulders?

This is what the wife would say to the girl.

Can you massage my feet?

There’s a part of my neck that only you know how to untouch.

Your fingers unlock the muscles of my back.

She’d count her jobs in her head.

The wife would count the amount of jobs the husband gave her in her head when no one was looking.

She’d count the hours she’d spent on him and assign a dollar amount or worse she’d think about all the other things she’d done for him.

You wanna marry me?

Yeah I said I wanna marry you he says and pulls a lock of hair from out her eyes.

But I don’t known you fer a time yet.

And then he said something about how God’s love was eternal and shining on anything on earth that found a shard of love on this sinner’s planet.

She didn’t understand all of it.

There were his eyes.

They were blue.

She liked that a lot.

Later the police would ask her why she stayed with her husband all those years after kidnapping and brainwashing a little girl for twenty straight years.

They got a lot during the trial.

She remembered thinking, They’ve really done a lot of research.

They’ve done more research than me on my own life.

I don’t even remember half the things they’re talken about.

I suppose this is what cops get paid fer.

The husband turned to his wife and he looked like he was going to hit her but instead he said Did you clean out her room?

Room was their word for pen.

Did you clean out her pen?

No.

Can you clean it?

This was in the first year, when they were still figuring out if they were going to kill the little girl, or just keep raping her, or maybe the wife would like the fuck the girl sometime?

The husband seemed to be pushing this to become a reality.

He kept making hints at the dinner table about more love in the house.

Then he would motion his eyes downward to indicate the basement, where the young girl lived in her pen.

It was really a cage.

Ten years pass.

She’s grown but her eyes are sensitive to light.

Sunlight’s a little too much.

It hurts her eyes actually.

What else can you tell us about the subject?

We found the place where they kept her outside in sort of a quasi jail.

Quasi?

A summertime jail in the backyard.

They would keep her in the basement during winter but in the summer they’d lock her in a canvas tent.

The detective sniffed.

She could see the stars.

This was in the backyard?

The neighbors just thought he was growing weed.

The man in the cop uniform said these words while flashbulbs made his face glisten.

The young girl who is now a young woman was watching the television in a hotel room.

We should maybe give her a name.

Tracee.

Tracee doesn’t remember much about her childhood.

She lived in her original town, before the kidnapping, since her birth until eight years old.

Or was it ten?

How old was she?

She didn’t know.

They used to call her by a different name but the man and his wife told her to answer to a name that they gave her.

That’s your new name.

But my name’s Tracee.

We’re just going to call you by your New Name okay?

But why?

Don’t make me bring dad down.

Tracee knew that he wasn’t her dad.

And sometimes when he’d come downstairs and unlock the padlock and flick on the overhead light and a fluorescent flicker would pop on overhead he’d have this look animating the flesh over the face of his skeleton.

The skeleton would be smiling and the eyes searching for something.

Tracee would dream of the skeleton writhing on top of her, the bony fingers snapping the straps of her panties.

Then the same thing in the morning, where before the husband went to his position at a local parish he would rape over and over a girl who he claimed was his daughter.

I think we have the facts now.

We can see the whole picture of their relationship.

There was a sense of love eventually.

But we should look at this love as evil.

The love that these two people swore under oath?

It was evil.

The wife would later smoke cigarettes in front of a woman who called herself a counselor.

Outside the bars of the prison windows clouds roil overhead and for a moment the wife looks out and says nothing, then turns back to the counselor and resumes her story about how she first met her husband.

He was a boy I knew from my town.

Remember goin to the middle school with im.

We had detention together one day then he got transferd to another school.

At detention he passed a note that said I looked purdy.

I didn’t see him fer ten years after that.

I was broke and I’d got myself set up with a temp agency.

They’d got me a job packin instant cameras in boxes then sealen em up with packen tape.

He was the guy that shared my roll a tape.

We’d pass the tape back and forth.

I touched his hand once and that was when we knew.

It was right then we knew and so we made up an excuse to see each other over coffee then at coffee we decided to get a drink later and the drink turned into dinner then you know how these things go.

I was in love.

–

for jaycee dugard

Back by popular demand for 2 nights only.  Featuring text from the actual drug journals of prominent authors, musicians and philosophers who never intended to have their journals published.  A music-heavy text mashup, FORTH is a hallucinatory sound play exploration of the opiatic state as experienced by geniuses.

Click here for tickets.

January 7th & 8th @ 11:30 pm

$15 / $10 for students or unemployed

At Magic Futurebox
55 33rd St., 4th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11232

(D, N, R to 36th St.)

Arranged by Tommy Smith

Directed by Meiyin Wang

Additional text by Leah Winkler

With Jeremy Beck, Emily Emily Davis, David Skeist & Benjamin Vershbow

Sound by Mark Valadez

Directed by Braden Abraham (Seattle Rep’s BETRAYAL and MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE), WHITE HOT is a searing domestic potboiler about the tragedy of marriage and hopelessness of love.  Tempted by flaming desire, a young family systematically obliterates all faith in each other and themselves, causing terrible acts of injustice, madness and death.

featuring Hannah Victoria Franklin, Kimberly Sustad and Ray Tagavilla. design by Jennifer Zeyl (costumes), Andrea Bush (sets) and Jessica Trundy (lights)

click this for tickets.

“[Tommy Smith] is writing in the shadow of our most daring and politically incendiary of martyred playwright saints, Sarah Kane and Edward Bond … WHITE HOT is bleak terrain, a buried cesspool of self-loathing and unseemly, sadistic yearnings in love. The play can be read as a critique of the deadening fallout of our reactionary, materialistic, exploitative and soulless era. It can be read as a bad dream or a soap opera about the banality of evil. However you read it, it doesn’t go down easy.”

– Craig Lucas, New York Theatre Review

]]> http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/forth-photos/feed/ 0 smithsmith Forth 7 Forth 9 Forth 8 Forth 6 Forth 1 Forth red 1 Forth red 2 http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/forth-plays-november-9-12-mfb/ http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/forth-plays-november-9-12-mfb/#comments Sat, 29 Oct 2011 02:28:36 +0000 smithsmith http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/?p=1154 ]]>

Forth

Arranged by Tommy Smith

Directed by Meiyin Wang

Featuring text from the actual drug journals of prominent authors, musicians and philosophers who never intended to have their journals published.

click this for tickets

November 9th-12th @ 8:00 pm

$15 / $10 for students or unemployed

At Magic Futurebox
55 33rd St., 4th Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11232

D, N, R to 36th St.

With: Jeremy Beck, Emily Emily Davis, David Skeist & Benjamin Vershbow

Sound by Mark Valadez

Additional text by Leah Winkler

hey, click this and get yourself a ticket.

]]> http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/forth-plays-november-9-12-mfb/feed/ 0 smithsmith Squarespace-Version http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/the-tenant-thin-pale-man-fragment/ http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/the-tenant-thin-pale-man-fragment/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:57:48 +0000 smithsmith http://smithsmith.wordpress.com/?p=1146 ]]>

TENANT / thin pale man

By Tommy Smith

–

Originally produced by Woodshed Collective in their site specific piece THE TENANT.  Directed by Steven Brackett.  Featuring Malcolm Madera and Caitlin McDonough-Thayer.

1.

THIN PALE MAN & HIS BROTHER

Home. Doorway.

The brother is just a voice.

(Should be played by actor playing Trelkovsky.)

THIN PALE MAN:  What’s this?

HIS BROTHER:  It’s my will.

THIN PALE MAN:  Okay.

HIS BROTHER:  Since mom died I’ve been thinking about my death.

THIN PALE MAN:  But you’re a young man.

HIS BROTHER:  I’m forty.

THIN PALE MAN:  I’m thirty nine.

HIS BROTHER:  We’re going to die, brother.

THIN PALE MAN:  Not for a while Why are you like this today Please come sit Come sit.

HIS BROTHER:  I’m going for a ride.  It’s Sunday.  I bought a car so I could riding on Sundays.

THIN PALE MAN:  You’re not like yourself today Please come inside My wife will make you some dinner.

HIS BROTHER:  I’ve got a date with my car, brother.

THIN PALE MAN:  Don’t you like my wife?

HIS BROTHER:  I like your wife fine.  I was at your wedding wearing a suit, remember?

THIN PALE MAN:  My wife She think you don’t like her.

HIS BROTHER:  Oh I like her fine.

THIN PALE MAN:  Then stay for dinner.

HIS BROTHER:  Would you like to come?  Would you like to come riding with me?

THIN PALE MAN:  I can’t Sunday dinner and all.

HIS BROTHER:  Just a spin.  I just bought it.  It’s a beauty.

THIN PALE MAN:  Oh with what money?

HIS BROTHER:  The money maman left me in her will.

THIN PALE MAN:  She left me no money.

HIS BROTHER:  Because she knew you’d spend it on her.

THIN PALE MAN:  I suppose I could have been a better son.

HIS BROTHER:  Say you’ll come riding with me through the Sunday countryside.

THIN PALE MAN:  I just won’t tell my wife.

HIS BROTHER:  Did you see my shiny new riding gloves?

2.

THIN PALE MAN & JESSICA

A Hospital Room.

She is sleeping.

He paces.

She wakes.

She grabs his arm. 

She soothes his hand.

He sits.

He watches her fall asleep.

Her hand falls away.

He gets up.

Starts pacing.

A doctor comes out and hands Thin Pale Man a pair of shiny riding gloves.

The doctor shakes his head.

Thin Pale Man goes to a window and regards the gloves, his face hidden.

Jessica takes a microphone and begins singing GusGus’ “Is Jesus Your Pal?”

JESSICA:

Is Jesus your pal?
Do you call out his name,
when your conscience is shivering?

Do you need someone too,
just like those people who
find peace in someone’s promises?
You sure don’t need my promises.

So come and sit on my box,
enjoy the view of this water,
where my lifeboat is sinking.

If you open your eyes,
take a look at this mess,
could you fake your reflection, child?

If you reach out for more,
you’ll find nothing but sorrow.
‘Cause knowledge is hollow.
And pride is hard to swallow.

So come and sit on my box,
take a view of this water,
where my lifeboat is sinking.

(the song is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bW3u4pu6xE)

3.

THIN PALE MAN & JESSICA

Home.

French music plays on the phonograph.

She is preparing home-made ice cream.

He stares out the window, holding the riding gloves.

THIN PALE MAN:  It was about this homeless man.  This really stinky homeless man sort of weaving in the street with his mouth open.

JESSICA:  Is he black?

THIN PALE MAN:  Yeah I guess so.

JESSICA:  Okay, what happens?

THIN PALE MAN:  This homeless black guy is stumbling down the street but then I notice that there’s no one around.  I’m the only observer.  And I look up and this huge vulture circle overhead like his wingspan is three football fields.  And it swoops down and tucks its wings behind his back and waddles behind the stumbling drunk black guy.  Playing with him like he knows he can eat him. But then the vulture pecks at him, takes a chunk out of his shoulder and the black guy is screaming (aspirated scream) Oh God my fucking arm! Then the vulture like scoops him up in his massive beak and flies away.

She starts churning ice cream, drowning him out.

He turns back out the window.

She keeps churning.

This should take as long as it needs to.

At some point, he turns away from the window.

He goes to a large portrait picture in the other room. 

He ascends a ladder and places the picture on the wall.

When he’s got the perfect alignment, he descends ladder.

We see now that it’s a picture of a man who looks just like Trelkovsky standing next to a beautiful-looking classic car.

She turns around with two bowls of ice cream.

The picture gives her a little imperceptible fright.

THIN PALE MAN:  What?

JESSICA:  Your brother.

THIN PALE MAN:  What?

JESSICA:  He looks like the man who moved in downstairs.

He takes a bowl of ice cream from her hand and goes to the window, staring out, not eating anything.

She slowly eats the entire bowl, then washes the entire kitchen, scrubbing it clean.

4.

THIN PALE MAN & JESSICA

Home.

There’s a really loud noise going on somewhere else in the building.

He is standing over his wife.

A light flashes on and off on him in the otherwise dark room.

He just watches her as she sleeps.

She doesn’t wake up.

At some point, he goes to the picture of Trelkovsky and says things to it that we can’t hear.

More like a normal conversation, nothing spooky about it.

The noise grows louder over the course of a minute or two.

He gets in a full suit.

Dress pants.

A nice tie, everything.

Iggy Pop’s “Sister Midnight” starts playing in the background.

A microphone appears.

As he dresses, he sings:

THIN PALE MAN:
Calling Sister Midnight
You’ve got me reaching for the moon
Calling Sister Midnight
You’ve got me playing the fool
Calling Sister Midnight

Calling Sister Midnight
Can you hear me call
Can you hear me well
Can you hear me at all
Calling Sister Midnight
I’m an Idiot for you
Calling Sister Midnight
I’m a breakage inside
Calling Sister Midnight
Calling Sister Midnight
You know I had a dream last night
Mother was in my bed
And I made love to her
Father he gunned for me
Hunted me with his six gun
Calling Sister Midnight
What can I do about my dreams

Listen to me Sister Midnight
You put a beggar in my heart
Calling Sister Midnight
You’ve got me walking in rags
Hey where are you Sister Midnight
Can you hear me call
Can you hear me well
Can you hear me at all

(the song is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4iksr4RAvc)

Totally dressed, he then goes downstairs and knocks on the door.

He is shocked to see:

5.

THIN PALE MAN & TRELKOVSKY

Trelkovsky’s apartment.  Doorway.

TRELKOVSKY:  Yes?

Thin Pale Man gasps.

Trelkovsky looks just like his brother.

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  You’re –

TRELKOVSKY:  Yes?

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  My wife was right about you.

TRELKOVSKY:  I’m sorry can I help you?

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  Don’t you have things to do tomorrow that would require sleep tonight?

TRELKOVSKY:  Oh you’re referring to the little party we’re having?

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  You are making an awful lot of noise.

TRELKOVSKY:  Yes I know it’s not my fault.

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  You are MAKING a lot of NOISE.

TRELKOVSKY:  Yes we’ll stop soon.

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  Who are you anyway?

TRELKOVSKY:  I – I’m –

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  Who is it that you think you are?

TRELKOVSKY:  I just moved in.

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  I’ve never seen you.

TRELKOVSKY:  Yes I just moved in.

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  I’ve never seen you my wife has never seen you my brother has never seen you –

TRELKOVSKY:  Please apologize to them for me please.

THIN PALE MAN:  (in French)  My brother’s already really upset.

TRELKOVSKY:  Well if he wants to talk to me –

THIN PALE MAN: (in French)  You are DISTURBING my brother’s sleep and my wife.  All of you all of you all of you.  (to audience)  Don’t you just fucking sit there Get OUT get OUT you swine get your motherfucking asses out onto the street What do you think this is funny?!  DO YOU THINK I AM BEING FUNNY!  You faggots you fucking Arab fags get your fucking filthy Arab cunts on the street OUT OUT of this place before I come in with a gun, I’ve got a gun in my apartment and I’ll get my wife and my brother and everyone else to come in here and kill your fucking faggot asses! Niggers fucks! YOU NIGGERS!  NIGGERS!

The actor playing Thin Pale Man can continue to adlib incredibly racist French language until everyone is gone from the room and Trelkovsky is alone.

He returns to his home.

6.

JESSICA & FEMALE NEIGHBOR

Home.

Kitchen.

Jessica is baking something French.

A neighbor sits with her back to us, listening to Jessica.

(There’s a lot of noise coming from somewhere, or another scene is happening over this, to obscure most of what Jessica says, so that the audience only catches half of it.)

JESSICA:

When I was younger I did all sorts of things.

I was into the artist’s lifestyle.

I know, me.

It seems hard to imagine I mean look at me.

Look at me now.

Could you imagine me sauntering the streets of Paris looking like this?

This was in the old days.

In the old days I wore things that were way too short for me.

Sometimes I wore bras without nipples.

It gave men easier access.

Now look at me speaking like this, speaking like I don’t have a husband.

Heavens.

I don’t know there’s just something about you.

It’s okay that I say these things, I feel okay saying things to you.

There were these boots I used to wear.

Cowboy boots.

Not a woman or rather a young girl at that time?

Never wore such a thing.

People could hear me clomping for miles, I was like that cat with the bell.

I was into film.

At first it was a lark just I got this camera from a man I was seeing.

He left it.

He had left it when he took all his things he forgot to take his camera.

So I took his camera and got it fixed and started filming my own movies.

I asked my male friends, you know just the males around me in my life not necessarily my friends but guys, you know, who were attracted to me?

I asked them to do my art projects.

I remember one.

I think I must have come up with it on heroin?

I took heroin sometimes.

It was casual not like it is now, not like everyone now regarding it a disease.

You just took it every now and then.

I was with my boyfriend at the time a large Moroccan man whose name escapes me like Moses?

Moses had injected my arm and he was also naked.

You hallucinate first thing, when the drug enters your bloodstream, there’s a rush of hallucinations that flood your vision?

I saw the penis of Moses become erect in slow motion.

And I started laughing and Moses said, What are you laughing about?

And I said, Moses, I’m laughing because your penis just became erect in slow motion.

And he said, Well, my penis is erect.

And I gave him a blowjob.

But then I got this idea?

These males around me in my life not necessarily my friends but guys, you know, who were attracted to me?

I could probably ask them to be in my movies?

And I would film them slowly becoming erect.

Them just standing there, or sitting on their couch, completely naked, with their heads cut off from the frame, and they get this erection while their bodies are completely motionless.

And I shot a lot of these movies.

Guys would say yes even in bars.

I liked the older guys.

It was easier for them to get erect contrary to what people may have told you about the virility of your average over forty Parisian male.

I would help them sometimes.

I would ask them, What would you like me to do?

And they would say, Could you please take off your shirt?

Or they would say, Could you pull your pants around your ankles and bend over that counter?

Mind you, I was off-camera.

Lie down on the ground and stick your ass in the air.

Or, Stick your finger in your mouth and suck on it.

That got them going.

I wouldn’t do anything until they asked.

Sometimes they would close their eyes to consult their imagination of past loves.

They weren’t allowed to touch themselves, you see.

And I had all this footage of men’s penises becoming erect independent of any touch.

I didn’t end up doing anything with it.

What can you do with that?

Eventually there’s a point in your life when art, any art, seems stupid and boring.

You just want to look out at the Ocean.

You just want to drive down the coast and have someone not yammer on about the recent exhibit they just saw.

I mean who gives a fuck, am I right?

Do you think this is enough?

Should I make more?

I don’t know if this is enough for everyone but maybe if I make another batch everyone will eat more.

I read about this one woman in the I don’t know lower parts of the city who poisoned some people by baking with this toxic substance.

I don’t know where she got it.

I haven’t seen the paper today has it come?

It doesn’t come every day or does it come?

Does the paper come every day at your house what’s it like in your house?

Could I come inside one of these days, do you think I could come into you house I could bring my camera and you and I could take a couple movies of you inside your house?

Is it cozy?

I imagine you’ve got a roaring fire.

Your house is probably pimping, am I saying that right?

You are an American no you’re a Canadian no don’t tell me!

You told me earlier and it is my responsibility to remember.

You see that painting?

That painting on the wall?

That’s my husband’s brother and he died in a car crash the day the man downstairs moved into that apartment?

I see you’re done with your coffee would you like another?

7.

THIN PALE MAN & JESSICA

Home.

Jessica starts a big pot of water.

It begins to boil through the following:

Jessica goes to the closet.

She takes out a large case.

Opens it.

Pulls out a projector.

Sets the projector up.

Plugs it in.

It shines white on a large white wall.

Jessica goes to closet.

Pulls out another large case.

Opens it.

Pulls out a film reel.

Attaches the reel to the projector.

She presses play.

It is footage of the Thin Pale Man.

A POV shot of him from behind.

All we see is the back of his head.

One long unbroken shot:

He is walking through a park.

Then in marshes.

Then by the waterfront.

He pulls from the waterfront a live wriggling crab.

A foot kicking the front door.

The film footage changes to POV shots of driving.

THIN PALE MAN:  (outside)  Can you open the door?

JESSICA:  Just a moment.

THIN PALE MAN:  (outside) My hands are full.

JESSICA:  Yes just a minute.

She opens the door.

He’s got a bag of groceries in one arm.

He gives this to her and holds up his other arm:

He’s holding a net with a live wriggling crab.

JESSICA:   A little small.

THIN PALE MAN:  It’s all they had.

JESSICA:  I guess so.

THIN PALE MAN:  (referring to projection surface)  What’s this?

JESSICA:  Just looking at movies.

THIN PALE MAN:  When was this?

JESSICA:   From one of our trips.

THIN PALE MAN:  I’ve never been here.

JESSICA:   Did you get wine?

THIN PALE MAN:   No.

JESSICA:  Can you go back out?

THIN PALE MAN:   I guess.

JESSICA:  Then we could pretend.

THIN PALE MAN:   Excuse me what?

JESSICA:  We could pretend we’re driving.

THIN PALE MAN:  I uh

JESSICA:  When you come back with some wine we’ll talk about it okay?

THIN PALE MAN:  All right dear.

He goes out.

She’s been holding the crab in her hand the whole time as it wriggles.

The pot is now boiling.

She tosses it in the water and shuts the lid.

8.

THIN PALE MAN & JESSICA

A small square room.

Loud electronic music.

It is Underworld’s “Cowgirl”

It echoes through the whole building.

Flashing lights.

Smoke machine.

Lasers.

It should feel like a rave in an empty room.

For the duration of the song, Thin Pale Man rides an exercise bicycle.

A fan blows in his face.

On the walls, projections of images of Paris Streets race past.

Trelkovsky’s face flashes on the walls.

Thin Pale Man rides faster and faster.

At the end of the song, he collapses off the bike.

Jessica catches him as he falls.

He swabs his brow with a towel.

9.

THIN PALE MAN & JESSICA

Apartment.

She is sleeping.

He paces.

She wakes.

She grabs his arm. 

She soothes his hand.

He sits.

He watches her fall asleep.

Her hand falls away.

He gets up.

Starts pacing.

THIN PALE MAN:

I eat a lot of nuts.

Not a lot but sometimes I eat them if they’re in the house I’ll eat them.

I like to buy lettuce but it always goes bad.

Why do I even buy it?

Yogurt sometimes.

I stay away from meat but if my wife is having meat I generally have meat.

A steak or something.

I can’t have peppers they give me gas.

I can’t eat spicy foods because I’m French.

I eat spicy foods sometimes because I like the taste but oh does it give me gas.

Make my wife sleep on the couch.

Cheese I eat cheese sometimes.

Little white tablets.

It’s a monster and you quiet it down with something white and round.

The sky opens up.

The snow feels softer.

Your optimism increases while your ability to speak wanes.

Why wouldn’t I say hi to everyone?

But there’s that monster again.

He’s not here yet but look in the distance and you can see him running fast sprinting toward you ‘gainst a setting sun.

He’ll be here soon.

Where are my pills?

At some point you must realize quietly to yourself that the sight of you causes your lover to involuntarily fill with blood.

This like driving is a skill.

Some people like a dick placed inside them or if you’ve got a dick you most likely like the sensation of your penis softly held in the crotch of another.

Either way you’re one of the two.

Don’t sit there and deny it.

Im so in love with you baby.

I can’t wait to get my grubby hands of some more of those little white tablets.

God I’m so inlove with you.

Remember when we first met?

Remember when you held my hand when we were walking down the street?

I don’t even remember where we were going baby please gawd I wish you were here right now.

I would take you into a nice room and make love to you God I love you you’re my wife.

You’re my wife.

You’re my fucking wife I mean when did that even happen?

We gotmarried?

I don’t even remember when we got married oh yes now I remember we were by that sea dock and there were our friends and it was the seventies.

We were on a beach baby you remember?

You looked so pretty that day.

God you’re so pretty.

God I want to make love to your pretty body it’s still pretty I’ll always find you so pretty.

I keep taking xanax.

It knocks me out and I wake up in strange places.

Car to airtrain.

Airtrain to airport.

Conveyor belt to terminal and the terminal subway gets you to the airplane.

Then suddenly you’re on the Tube in London on the way to St. Pancras and you change trains in St. Pancras then you change trains in Brussels (you can pay cash) and take that same train from Brussels to where you’re going.

In the apartment I shave myself.

Once isn’t enough so I shave myself twice.

My skin has these red raw marks but only if you look close.

No one will be looking close.

You go to the place in the wall where you enter a card and enter a number sequence and you get money from a hole that opens up and spits out money.

There’s a transaction but no one sees it.

You’re on a street by yourself and there’s no one around you who speaks your language.

But it feels nice.

Instead of bad.

A shock of neon red lights up a lone canal where the water waves like a black sickness.

You smile at a moon that doesn’t quite lie the same way in the night sky.

Not the way you’re used to.

Everything seems okay for a moment.

Shave, shower, put on cologne.

Eat a nice meal.

Find two, one looks like your daughter.

80 for two?

Yes he says and they lead him down corridor by hand

The other one who looks like the daughter follows behind.

They discuss rates.

She gets another twenty from him because for another twenty you get touch boobs everything.

They ask him to get undressed.

He does but he’s nervous.

No one has seen his naked body in a decade.

The one who is not the daughter is forceful in her manner.

She keeps asking for more money.

The daughter looks sad.

She crouches up on her knees and holds herself.

He asks her what’s wrong but he’s passing out.

The forceful one starts to put on the condom as he passes out.

He rolls a joint and smokes the whole thing.

10.

JESSICA & THIN PALE MAN

Home.

They’ve made a fake car.

Behind the fake car, the projector projects POV images of roadways throughout:

He clutches the wheel.

She’s curled into the passenger seat.

JESSICA:   There’s mountain out there.

THIN PALE MAN:   Yeah.

JESSICA:   There’s roads on those mountains.

THIN PALE MAN:   I know.

JESSICA:   Don’t you want to drive on those roads?

THIN PALE MAN:   No.

JESSICA:   I do.  I want to drive on them.

THIN PALE MAN:   …

JESSICA:   Let’s take her out.

THIN PALE MAN:   No.

JESSICA:   We’re already in the car.

THIN PALE MAN:   I don’t think we should go.

JESSICA:   You don’t want to see the other villages?

THIN PALE MAN:   We can ride our bikes there.

JESSICA:   I am talking about the villages twenty to forty miles from here.  We can’t bike twenty to forty miles.  That’s ludicrous.  We’re in our late thirties.  Things are more dignified for us now.

THIN PALE MAN:   Let’s go back inside.

JESSICA:   Let’s just sit here.

THIN PALE MAN:   Okay.

They sit there.

JESSICA:   Can I turn on the radio?

THIN PALE MAN:   Sure.

JESSICA:   You have to turn the key.

THIN PALE MAN:   Like this?

JESSICA:   Like that.

Radio blares on.

It is Iggy Pop’s “Sister Midnight”.

THIN PALE MAN:   Remember this guy?

JESSICA:   Yeah I remember this guy.

THIN PALE MAN:   Remember we went to see him.

JESSICA:   Yeah I remember when we saw him.

THIN PALE MAN:   That was good.

JESSICA:   Yeah.

THIN PALE MAN:   God what five?

JESSICA:   Ten.

THIN PALE MAN:   Ten!

JESSICA:   Ten …

THIN PALE MAN:   Older.

JESSICA:   Yeah.

THIN PALE MAN:   Not old but –

JESSICA:   Older.

THIN PALE MAN:   Hmm.

JESSICA:   Hey.

THIN PALE MAN:   Hi.

JESSICA:   It’s like I haven’t seen you.

THIN PALE MAN:   Yeah I know.

JESSICA:   It feels like it’s been a really long time.

THIN PALE MAN:   Yeah for me too.

JESSICA:   You didn’t have to go away.

THIN PALE MAN:   I know.

JESSICA:   But you’re here now.

THIN PALE MAN:   Yeah I was always here.

JESSICA:   Yeah.

THIN PALE MAN:   …

JESSICA:   Do you want to start the car?

THIN PALE MAN:   Yeah.

JESSICA:   Good.

11.

THIN PALE MAN & TRELKOVSKY

Home.

They are in the fake car.

Trelkovsky in back, out cold.

Thin Pale Man drives fast.

Projected images behind them blur by.

Trelkovsky stirs and says:

TRELKOVSKY:   Where am I?

THIN PALE MAN:   Just lay back.

TRELKOVSKY:   I was on the street and then –

THIN PALE MAN:   I hit you.

TRELKOVSKY:   You hit me?

THIN PALE MAN:   Yes I hit you with this car.

TRELKOVSKY:   The car I’m sitting in.

THIN PALE MAN:   Yes.

TRELKOVSKY:   Explain again.

THIN PALE MAN:   You were out cold.

TRELKOVSKY:   Uh huh.

THIN PALE MAN:   You needed to be driven to the hospital.  I volunteered.  Sit back.

TRELKOVSKY:   I can just get out here –

THIN PALE MAN:   I’m taking you to the hospital.

TRELKOVSKY:   No slow down –

THIN PALE MAN:   I’m sorry, no.

TRELKOVSKY:   …

THIN PALE MAN:   I’m sorry, I must insist.  I must drive you to the hospital.

TRELKOVSKY:   You’re my – You’re the guy who –

THIN PALE MAN:   Yes.

TRELKOVSKY:   You’re upstairs.

THIN PALE MAN:   Yes I’m upstairs.

TRELKOVSKY:   You heard, didn’t you?

THIN PALE MAN:   Heard what?

TRELKOVSKY:   You heard me talking.

THIN PALE MAN:   No.

TRELKOVSKY:   But you came down, you came down because you heard –

THIN PALE MAN:   I just heard a party.  Nothing distinct.

TRELKOVSKY:   The place is quiet like a mouse and that mouse can hear everything.

THIN PALE MAN:   Please you might be bruised lie back –

TRELKOVSKY:   Let me out of this fucking car right fucking now.

THIN PALE MAN:   Please you’re scaring my wife –

TRELKOVSKY:   What wife?  Let me out let me out –

THIN PALE MAN:   Get your hands off the wheel!

TRELKOVSKY:   Pull over now!

THIN PALE MAN:   Stop STOP!

Screeching, heavy swerving, then:

My “Thin Pale Man” storyline is just one of six arcs in Woodshed Collective‘s site specific theatre piece The Tenant.

Book free tickets here.

The production: Set in an abandoned church on 86th and Amsterdam, The Tenant is inspired by Roland Topor’s book and subsequent film by Roman Polanski.  When Monsieur Trelkovsky rents a room recently vacated by a woman who fell from her window, he soon becomes haunted by images of the previous tenant’s apparent suicide and begins a slow decent into paranoia and delirium.  Installed by Woodshed over multiple building stories and utilizing a company of over 20 actors, The Tenant explores the bubbling conflict between an uncanny mix of colorful characters to create a symphonic piece of theater.

Click this for New York Times preview.

Hint: My piece is self-contained and exists solely on the fourth (top) floor.

See NYT images of “Thin Pale Man” here.

Reggie Watts and I created/co-wrote this piece which is getting a great staging at ps122 with director Kip Fagan at the helm.

Modeled after radio programs of yesteryear, RADIO PLAY gathers a group of actors, musicians and sound-effects artists to create a surreal sonic entertainment. Songs, stories and soundscapes collide in a comedic mash-up of non-temporal quasi-political pop-cultural tropes.

See it now by clicking this!

Ends May 28.

Written by Reggie Watts & Tommy Smith. Directed by Kip Fagan. Performed by Reggie Watts, with H.I. Bonner, Beth Hoyt, Mary Jane Gibson, Marshall York, and Jen Rondeau on the Theremin. Lights by Seth Reiser. Additional writing by Mary Jane Gibson.

Set in depression-era New York City and Stalinist Russia, Pidgeon follows the exploits of Leon Theremin, Soviet inventor and father of electronic music. When Theremin marries a whipsmart black prima ballerina, their expatriate romance shocks society and attracts the looming shadow of foreign terror.  

April 20 – 23 at 7pm & April 23 @ 2pm
at Ensemble Studio Theatre
directed by William Carden
With Theremin Music by Jen Rondeau

Get tickets by clicking here.