APPEARING HERE

SOFI, forties, lives in Los Angeles, California
EILEEN, seventies, lives in Wichita, Kansas
ELAINE, sixties, lives in Dublin, New Hampshire
GINNIE, sixties, lives in Rio Vista, California
YVETTE, sixties to seventies, lives in Midland, Michigan

SETTING

The courtyard of a medical clinic two hours north of San Francisco.
Two rows of outdoor chaise longues.
May 2019.

A “/” indicates that the next speaker’s dialogue has begun.

SCENE 13

Everyone is onstage lying on their chairs. Elaine is holding a green juice and Ginnie is reading a Thich Nhat Hanh book.

GINNIE
Here’s a provocative question.

YVETTE
Ready.

GINNIE
I just finished a section of this book where the author tells a whole story about an Asian pirate / who—

ELAINE
An Asian pirate?

GINNIE
Yes, an Asian pirate who rapes a twelve-year-old girl.

ELAINE                                                                                                   YVETTE
I don’t know if I want to hear about this.                                                                    . . . Okay.

GINNIE
He rapes her and she throws herself off the boat / and—

YVETTE
Off the pirate ship?

GINNIE
What?

YVETTE
Are they on a pirate ship?

GINNIE
No he’s . . . he’s a pirate and he takes over some other boat and he rapes this girl . . . anyway this is beside the point. There’s this horrible guy and he rapes this little girl and then she kills herself.

YVETTE
Got it.

GINNIE
And Thich Nhat Hanh says:
We are all the pirate and we are all the little girl.

Everyone absorbs this.

GINNIE
We are all just as much capable of terrible things as we are goodness depending on our circumstances.

YVETTE
So what’s the provocative question?

GINNIE
The question is . . .
Do you believe that if you were raised under the same circumstances as this pirate, I mean born into the same family and the same poverty et cetera et cetera, that you would do the same thing?

ELAINE
So you’re asking about nature versus nurture.

GINNIE
Well. Sort of.
But he’s also talking about compassion.

A pause.

YVETTE
Here’s where I get stuck.

Pause.

YVETTE
If I’m born in the same country as the pirate and into the same family and eat the same food and suffer the same abuse whatever / whatever . . .

GINNIE
Yeah . . .

YVETTE
Then I am the pirate.

Pause.

YVETTE
Aren’t I just the pirate?

GINNIE
Yes. That’s the point. If you were the pirate, would you do the same thing?

YVETTE
But I wouldn’t be me. I’d be the pirate.

GINNIE
Right.

YVETTE
So I’d rape the girl because I’m me, the pirate.

GINNIE
But maybe you wouldn’t.

YVETTE
But he did.
So I’m him.
So I rape the little girl.

GINNIE
Well, that’s a provocative answer.

ELAINE
I don’t think I’d rape anyone under any circumstance.

YVETTE
Yes, you would. Because you’re the pirate.

GINNIE
Thus the dilemma.

YVETTE
No, it’s not a dilemma. It’s a philosophical problem.
Are you saying in this scenario it’s the pirate but he’s got the soul of Elaine?

Ginnie thinks about this.

YVETTE
Because then we’re just talking about the existence of a soul.
And that’s a different question entirely.

Pause.

GINNIE
This is over my head.

YVETTE
Forget about it.

Elaine has been staring at her juice.

GINNIE
First one?

Elaine nods.

GINNIE
Sip it, don’t gulp it.
In thirty minutes you’ll feel tremendous.

ELAINE
I don’t want to feed the Lyme.

She keeps staring at her juice.

ELAINE
How long did Saint Francis fast for?

GINNIE                                                                                                   YVETTE
Forty days?                                                                                                   Did Saint Francis fast?

ELAINE
Forty days is Jesus.

GINNIE
Oh right.

Eileen, who was seemingly asleep until now, speaks up without moving.

EILEEN
Saint Francis fasted for forty days too.

Pause. Elaine takes a tiny sip.

GINNIE
How does it feel?

ELAINE
Good.
It feels good.

SOFI
That evening.

SCENE 14

Dusk. Elaine is almost done with her juice and Ginnie is eating from a paper cup of steamed vegetables.

GINNIE
Oh no, it was the right thing in the end. He was a screamer, you know? Like a real scream-in-your-face screamer.

YVETTE
I dated a screamer.

ELAINE
You know Craig used to be a screamer and also a bit of a shaker but then fifteen years ago we went to this retreat on a farm near Lake George run by this great couple and the man in the couple used to be a screamer and then he went into therapy and made these enormous changes so now they run these couples’ dialogue workshops on a tiny farm where you all share a bathroom and I was on the verge of leaving Craig before we went and then the retreat changed everything for us. We communicate in a totally different way now.

SOFI
How is it different?

ELAINE
Well he signed this piece of paper that says if I say this specific word sort of like a safe word it means he’s screaming at me. And he HAS to believe me and he HAS to stop screaming. And I signed this other piece of paper saying that I’ll never say the word unless he’s really truly screaming and I’m really truly scared.

YVETTE                                                                                                    SOFI
What’s the word?                                                                                                   And that worked?

ELAINE
It didn’t work at first. He thought I was making it up. That was part of the problem. He thought I was saying I was scared to manipulate him, so we had to go back to the farm two more times and finally he got it into his head that I wasn’t locking myself in the bathroom to spite him, I was locking myself in the bathroom because I was truly scared. And then he started listening to me when I said it.
(to Yvette)
The word was chimichanga.

YVETTE
Like / the—

ELAINE
But in the early days it was so silly. I’d say chimichanga and he’d start screaming YOU CAN’T SAY CHIMICHANGA or you know THAT DOESN’T MERIT A CHIMICHANGA and it would actually make him even more angry and scary.
(she drinks more of the juice)
You know
(to Ginnie)
you were right.
I feel tremendous.

Pause.

YVETTE                                                                                                   SOFI
(to Ginnie)                                                                                                           (to Elaine)
So you left him because                                                                                 What do you mean Craig was
he was a screamer.                                                                                            a bit of a shaker?

GINNIE                                                                                                   ELAINE 
Oh right.                                                                                                             (to Ginnie)
                                                                                                                               Oh no I completely interrupted
                                                                                                                                you.

YVETTE
(to Ginnie again)
You had great sex with him but you left him because he was a screamer.

GINNIE
No he left me. He left me. And I was a wreck.
I was sure I’d never have that kind of sex again. I mean it had taken me till I was thirty-five to have that kind of sex and it was with this very particular person with whom I had very particular chemistry and you know he had a very particular uh you know kind of penis and so I was crying crying every day even though I knew it was for the best and then I remember I was sitting at this café in Amsterdam with my friend Betsy right next to one of those canals and it was this special trip we’d planned for two years, and I was just miserable the whole time and I was driving her crazy, and I was trying to explain to her how doomed I was, that it wasn’t just that I was worried I’d be alone forever, yes, I could acknowledge the possibility that one day in the distant future I might fall in love again, but I would never ever have that kind of sex again, the sex it had taken me thirty-five years to find, and that that was the real devastation. And then I remember Betsy said: you’re wrong. You’re going to take it with you.

SOFI
Take it with you?

GINNIE
She said it’s not his. I mean he helped you find it but now you can do it on your own. And you know the second after she said it I knew she was right.
It was like oh my god yes I know how to do it now.
So it turned out that for the next ten years I just had the most incredible sex with the most incredible amount of people. And I think other people around me were going through the same thing . . . a lot of the women and men I was sleeping with had just gotten divorced and they were just so excited to be out in the world again and I remember looking at all their bodies and saying “you’re so beautiful” in this bold way I never would have been able to say when I was younger, and I remember them looking back at me and saying “you’re so beautiful” and well yes I just had a huge amount of sex with all these people with all these different bodies and I figured out how to make it pretty great with all of them. I mean, some situations were better than others but I felt like I was able to make sex with almost pretty much anyone a decent and worthwhile experience for everyone involved. And then when I met Jane she just thought I’d been that way forever.

Pause.

SOFI
So what’s the secret?

ELAINE
I’m sorry.
I just don’t think that’s true.
That can’t be true.

They all look at Elaine.

ELAINE
There’s no way it was nice with every one of those people. There are so many awful people out there. So many awful things can happen.
You must be remembering it wrong.

It switches to night.

HOME PAGE IMAGE: A PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR (2017) by Alan Fears, FROM ISSUE NO. 229, SPRING 2019.