Lodestar Quarterly

Lodestar Quarterly
Figure reaching for a star Issue 19 • Fall 2006 • Featured Writer • Drama

syzygy

Michael Griffo

Scene 9

LYNDON and CHARLIE are sitting SL on the couch or chairs, each holding another martini glass filled with a pink liquid. They both have their legs crossed and look like a mini Greek gay chorus. BOBBY is sitting on the floor arranging Wheat Thins crackers to spell out Happy Birthday Alex on a plastic orange tray.

BOBBY

I am such a loser!

LYNDON

Pourquoi?

BOBBY

I ran out of Wheat Thins!

CHARLIE

That's okay, I'm more of a Triscuit man myself.

BOBBY

No! The night of Alex's thirtieth birthday he went to some work thing and had Cosmo after Cosmo, but the only food was greasy hors d'oeurves served on Wheat Thins. Later on while Alex was blowing one of the waiters, he threw up all the Wheat Thins.

CHARLIE

Gross! The guy must've been furious.

LYNDON

But notice how neither one of us blinked an eye at the phrase "while Alex was blowing one of the waiters."

BOBBY

The point is that Alex equates Wheat Thins with getting sick and won't be so eager to drink if they're around. So I thought I would spell out Happy Birthday Alex in Wheat Thins to quench his thirst. I only made it to Happy Birt.

CHARLIE

(PAUSE) That's your plan?

BOBBY

Well part of it.

CHARLIE

That's like giving the little Dutch boy Scotch Tape.

BOBBY

Charlie, I'm trying.

CHARLIE

I know you are but ... Wheat Thins?

LYNDON

Have I ever told you about the time I met Sandy Duncan?

SFX: Doorbell rings.

BOBBY

That must be Joette.

LYNDON

Speaking of a girl with a disability.

BOBBY buzzes the buzzer.

CHARLIE

I hope she's not her usual austere self.

JOETTE (OS)
(SING SONGY) It's me-ee.

LYNDON

Sounds like she's transformed herself into the Singing Fag Hag.

BOBBY

(INTO THE INTERCOM) Come on up. (TO LYNDON) And don't call her that, you know it ticks her off.

LYNDON

Fine. From now on she'll simply be known as ... Fag Hag.

BOBBY

Lyndon, I'm warning you.

CHARLIE

Bobby, you really should be more concerned about your so-called plan.

BOBBY

The Wheat Thins suck that bad? I thought they would help ease the shock.

LYNDON

Like lube?

SFX: Door knock.

BOBBY opens the door and JOETTE appears in the doorway, out of breath, and all fake-smiles.

JOETTE
(SINGING)

Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you!

BOBBY

He's not out yet.

JOETTE enters the apartment.

JOETTE

For Christ's sake! I rushed my ass from the upper, upper east side.

LYNDON

i.e., Astoria.

JOETTE

And I still arrived before the guest of honor. He'll be late for his own funeral.

BOBBY

Exactly what we're trying to prevent.

LYNDON

Kisses to my favorite straight girl.

JOETTE

Nice Lyn, you sound like my mother subtly reminding the male nurses at the Westchester County Sanitarium that I'm ripe for the picking.

LYNDON

Please, Joette, please. Don't compare me to psycho mama.

CHARLIE

Lyndon, you're supposed to be nice!

JOETTE

Hi Charlie, you look good. You know my mother's psychotic. Pleasant most of the time, but psychotic nonetheless.

CHARLIE

Why must girls disparage their mothers?

JOETTE

I'm not disparaging, it's the truth. My mother had her first nervous breakdown when I was nine and she was working the streets. Where's Alex?

CHARLIE

Your mother was a prostitute?

JOETTE

No, a crossing guard. She worked the corner of Fifth and Stuyvesant, which in her defense was a very busy intersection.

LYNDON

All I remember of my mother is her leaving home one morning in a cloud of cigarette smoke and Shalamar. Or was that an Ida Lupino movie?

CHARLIE

Bobby, are you okay?

BOBBY

I'm a bit on edge.

LYNDON

A bit? Doll, you're like Neely O'Hara right before the house lights dim.

CHARLIE

And you're making us all nervous.

LYNDON

Damn, I'm perspiring! How I miss dress shields. Marisa Berenson once told me a maxi-pad could be used as a substitute. Joette?

JOETTE

Strictly a tampon girl.

LYNDON

(SIGH) So many of you are these days.

JOETTE

So where is he?

BOBBY

In his room prettifying, where he's been for the past several hours.

JOETTE

Learn me this, gay folk, just how friggin' long does it take one already genetically superior man to get gussied up for a party?

BOBBY

This isn't a party!

JOETTE

Get him out of there. At this rate we'll be here until his fortieth birthday.

LYNDON

I remember my fortieth birthday. Liza Minnelli sashays in ...

JOETTE

Don't start with the stories.

LYNDON

(BEAT, THEN LIKE A WOUNDED CHILD.) But she was wearing Halston.

JOETTE

She always wears Halston!

LYNDON

Not the dress. The designer. She came in giving him a piggyback ride and said, "This is why I never wear Oleg Cassini. Ha ha! He's too wide in the shoulders."

JOETTE

(PAUSE) Are you done?

LYNDON
(MEEKLY)

Yes, sir.

JOETTE

Listen up, girls. I spoke with Marjoe.

LYNDON

Who's Marjoe?

BOBBY

You spoke with the interventionist.

JOETTE

Yes about Operation Sav-A-Gay and we devised a line of attack.

BOBBY

Marjoe and I didn't think it should be so organized since we don't know how Alex will respond.

JOETTE

I changed his mind. Marjoe's not so experienced.

BOBBY

And you are?

JOETTE

You're too emotionally involved to think strategically. We can't go into this blindly.

BOBBY

I don't want Alex to feel ambushed.

JOETTE

You can't have it both ways. Now I thought, and Marjoe agreed, that it would be effective if we each zeroed in on a particular area of Alex's life. I'll focus on business matters, his career, or lack thereof. Lyndon you address what people are saying about Alex's drinking, drug use, sex addiction, blah, blah, blah.

LYNDON

If I must ... I do so frown upon gossipmongers.

JOETTE

Yeah, right. And Charlie, I know it'll be hard, but you need to address medical issues. What could happen if ...

CHARLIE

Yes ... if ...

LYNDON

Good show Jo, but it's moments like these that remind me of Sister Marguerite, the admissions clerk at the monastery.

CHARLIE

Sister Mary Nasty?

LYNDON

The same. When I entered the monastery she growled, "You won't last three months in those brown robes."

JOETTE

How did she know?

LYNDON

She said I was too pale, earth tones wash me out. That was the winter I realized I hated women.

BOBBY

Sounds like the summer of Charlie Hates Chuney.

LYNDON

Was that as disappointing as Joanie Loves Chachi?

JOETTE

We're veering off course.

BOBBY

The summer after tenth grade, the year Charlie discovered girls.

LYNDON

The only girl Charlie ever discovered was Lipstick Lesbian Barbie.

CHARLIE

I have had sex with a girl.

BOBBY

Which was when you discovered you don't like chuney.

JOETTE

Must you still call it a chuney?

BOBBY

It's what my family always called it.

JOETTE

Repeat after me ... va-gi-na.

BOBBY

I prefer chuney, but Charlie couldn't even touch one. Isn't that right Charlie?

LYNDON

Come on Charlie, take us back to tenth grade. The uncut director's version.

CHARLIE

(DRAMATIC SIGH) I'm in the backseat of my father's El Dorado trying to do it with Tammy Wisneski. I am trying with all my might to finger her... her...

LYNDON

Say it, Charlie, say it!

CHARLIE

Chuney! I'm trying to finger her chuney! And it's not going in. The gate is locked, the drawbridge is down, the dam is secure ...

JOETTE

We get it, Tammy's tight.

CHARLIE

No, Tammy's laughing, a high-pitched accusatory laugh. I try one last time to finger her friggin' chuney and do you know what she says? (PAUSE) "That's my asshole."

BOBBY

And thus began the summer of Charlie hates Chuney.

JOETTE

I still don't understand why you call a vagina a chuney and not a vagina.

LYNDON

Or at least a pussy. Pussy's got bite. Chuney doesn't work for me.

CHARLIE

What did your family call it?

LYNDON

A kumani.

JOETTE

Now that's something I can relate to.

CHARLIE

You've had a kumani?

JOETTE

Kumani Wong.

BOBBY

Oh sure, from high school.

LYNDON

I knew it. You are a closet lesbian!

JOETTE

No! We were both in my senior year production of Hello, Dolly!

BOBBY

When they dubbed you Jo Jo, the dog-faced boy?

LYNDON

Oh, sweet mother of Carol Channing! Elaborate.

JOETTE

No.

CHARLIE

Oh please, please! I'll take back everything I've ever said about you if you explain why they called you Jo Jo, the dog-faced boy.

JOETTE

(PAUSE) It's like being sucked into a gay vacuum. We're not here to tell stories.

BOBBY

Oh, tell it Joette. They won't let up until you do.

JOETTE

You're hoping that if we keep telling stories we can avoid this whole charade.

BOBBY

No.

JOETTE

You can't lie to me. You hope Alex stays in his bedroom and we never have to go through with this.

BOBBY

I'm a little scared, sure, but I want this to happen. It's just that it's been a while since Alex and I have had a serious conversation.

JOETTE

A while?

BOBBY

Will you stop pushing and just tell your story.

LYNDON

I agree. Speak up dog-boy.

JOETTE

(BEAT) One telling, no commentary, then we talk strategy.

BOBBY

Agreed.

JOETTE

1981, senior year production of Hello, Dolly! I was the only person in the class who could do a cartwheel while holding a serving tray, so I had to be in the waiter's gallop. But all the waiters had to be boys. So they superglued a handlebar moustache and muttonchops on my face and pushed me towards the footlights. The applause wasn't nearly as strong as the superglue. They couldn't pull the facial hair off me for nine days. Hence the moniker, Jo Jo, the dog-faced boy.

CHARLIE

Suddenly I don't feel so alone.

JOETTE

Now can we return to tonight's regularly scheduled intervention?

BOBBY

Oh God, I'm losing my confidence.

LYNDON

You can't. You're our leader, and we are your team.

BOBBY

That's right, you're absolutely right, we all have to work together. Because Alex will swing open that door like Loretta Young and a few moments later be as shocked as Loretta Lynn on her honeymoon in Coal Miner's Daughter.

LYNDON

Let's just hope he accepts our olive branch more readily than Loretty accepted Tommy Lee's.

CHARLIE

I think Alex is a bit more knowledgeable about branches than Ms. Lynn.

JOETTE

My God, do gay men do anything better than avoid the truth?!

LYNDON

Identify trends?

JOETTE

Alex is right behind that door ... you're about to change his life forever, and you three fags are riffing on Loretta Lynn! You're really starting to piss me off.

BOBBY

Stop attacking. Does it matter how we get to the truth as long as we get to it?

JOETTE

We could've gotten to it years ago if you would all stop auditioning to be Shecky Green's long-lost gay son.

BOBBY

This is our way, you know that.

JOETTE

And your way has brought us here ... to this pathetically planned ruse entitled "How Gay Men Ignore the Road to Ruin" or "I Need Another Drink -- This One Doesn't Match My Outfit." And what the hell is Happy Birt?

BOBBY

A minute ago you were Sally Supportive. What's gotten into you?

LYNDON

Nothing. That's her problem.

BOBBY

Lyndon!

JOETTE

My ... problem is ... oh, just forget it.

BOBBY

You don't always know what's best.

JOETTE

What I don't know is why I ever said I'd be a part of this farce.

LYNDON

Because Bobby asked you. And you wouldn't risk putting a nick in your relationship.

BOBBY

This is not about us!

JOETTE

No, it's about your obsession with Alex.

BOBBY

I am not obsessed.

JOETTE

Bullshit!

BOBBY

Because you don't agree, it isn't so?

JOETTE

Stop lying, Bobby, I'm tired of it.

LYNDON

Of course you're tired ... it's exhausting being Bobby's friend, wife, mother, sister.

JOETTE

More faggot wisdom. Why don't you turn your attention to Bobby and convince him to leave Alex and his poison.

BOBBY

The guy is lost. Can't you see that?

JOETTE

He's an addict, plain and simple.

BOBBY

Who wants to break free.

JOETTE

Honey, I know you want to believe that's true.

BOBBY

It is true! I know what's in his heart and he's not ...

Unseen by the others, ALEX opens his door, dressed for a night out on the town. In one hand he's holding an Absolut bottle, in the other a martini glass.

JOETTE

He's hopeless.

BOBBY

No!

JOETTE

And a waste of your time.

BOBBY

Will you just shut up!

JOETTE

Alex is a loser, Bobby! No matter how hard you try to change him. All he is ever going to be is a worthless human being.

BOBBY

Now you've crossed a line!

JOETTE

Oh, like a gay man knows anything about boundaries.

BOBBY

Get out! You don't belong here!

ALEX

Not on your life! Now this is what I call a party.

BLACKOUT

END OF ACT 1

Next Page:   Act , Scene 1   (page 11 of 11 pages)

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Table of Contents:   syzygy

Michael Griffo's plays include No More Sundays, winner of the New Jersey Perry Award, and Two/Pieces. His ten-minute plays include "Cloudy" and "5G/10B," both to be published in winter 2007 in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2005 (Smith & Kraus). Mr. Griffo graduated from New York University and studied at Playwrights Horizons and Gotham Writers Workshop. He is represented by ICM (bthomas@icmtalent.com) for theatre and The Evan Marshall Agency (evanmarshall@thenovelist.com) for literature. Contact Michael at michaelgriffo@hotmail.com.

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