Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 7 • Fall 2003 • Drama

The Hot Month

Taylor Mac Bowyer

Scene V

Scene V

LEN runs onto a bare stage.

LEN
The earth is moving at 67,000 miles per hour. HOLD ON! (He mimes holding on to something and being blown sideways. After acknowledging his joke, LEN begins to set up MAG's hospital room. And then begins to climb on top of things.) Things I'm learning during my catalepsy. If we remove ourselves from the planet, float somewhere in a procumbent limbo while Earth soars by, 67,000 miles per hour, we can travel across her surface in the blink of an eye. Trouble is we can only move in one direction and if you're not precise enough you get lost in the planetary dust. As far as the eye can see, nothing but tar. Mama Earth covered from head to toe. Concrete encasing her. She's got sun deprivation. Needs a good tan. Only we can't look at little Miss Hot Flash. She's up there going through some perpetual menopause begin to be heard, seen. We have this vague idea that she really exists 'cause we feel her touch, but we look at the source, we go blind. Some crazy manic revolution will occur. I see it in our future. We'll tear up the gravel, cut the concrete, say "Hello Ms. Sun, thanks for being patient with us, we almost forgot you were there, that's why we've been u

MAG wakes up. Lights suggesting a campfire come up on GRIFFIN and RED, laying in a sleeping bag, cuddled up, after having sex, smoking a joint. Pringles containers abound. LEN and MAG are able to see them.

MAG
What the..?

LEN
Shhhhh.

RED
There I was stalled on the Navajo reservation knowing damn well that the Hopi are the Navajo's sworn enemy. Knowing that if I was caught there, a woman alone, a friend of the Hopi, and carrying the life force of the Hopi past, the ancient Navajo scalping ritual would surely be performed. Suddenly I heard a bang louder than the big boom.

GRIFFIN
What was it?

RED
I'm getting to that, peaches. I looked up in the direction of the boom and there, standing on a hill, overlooking my truck was a Navajo warrior. He was carrying the largest shot gun I'd ever seen and was aiming it at me. The sun was shooting down on the truck that afternoon, the great creator, Mitakuye Oyasin, was smiling on me, for the glare on my windshield was acting like a shield. It blinded the warrior as he tried to take one more fatal shot. I knew I had only seconds to act. I grabbed this rock, (She pulls out her rock.) instantly recalling the spell that was needed, and I shot a lightning bolt right up that Navajo's butt. Blew him clear off the face of the earth.

GRIFFIN
Wow.

RED
Here she is, my baby that saved me.

GRIFFIN
She's beautiful.

RED
She's okay, I mean a rock's a rock, but it's the inner beauty I appreciate. You can touch her if you want, darling. Don't be shy. Can you feel the heat?

GRIFFIN
Yeah.

RED
You know, I hadn't used that spell in years, but there it was filed away. The world provides for you. Everything you need is just filed away somewhere. I've gotta take a royal pee.

RED gives GRIFFIN her rock. She kisses him and leaves.

LEN
Careful with that thing, you never know when you might disintegrate somebody.

GRIFFIN
She's a little eccentric.

LEN
She thinks she shot a lightning bolt up someone's bum.

MAG
You're such a slut. Are you and she...?

GRIFFIN
What are you doing here?

MAG
Len brought me.

LEN
She's been trying to find you.

MAG
I was hoping I'd catch you hitching on the road, of course this is much better. Are you and she...?

GRIFFIN
It's not like that, well it's more maternal than any... yes.

MAG
You don't get to decide these things. You don't get to decide to be straight all of a sudden. Who is she?

GRIFFIN
Red Hawk. She's a lesbian.

LEN
Griffin.

GRIFFIN
She used to be a boy. Does that count?

MAG
Griffin.

GRIFFIN
I mean, she was reincarnated. She used to be a Hopi boy. She drowned in a flood.

LEN
Griffin?

GRIFFIN
What?

LEN
You're shtupping a dead Hopi lesbian grandma named Red Hawk, and you ask me "What?"

GRIFFIN
I think she had shock treatment.

LEN
That would explain her appropriation of Thor the God of lightning.

GRIFFIN
She's fantastic.

MAG
She thinks she shot a lightning bolt up someone's ass.

LEN
Or is it thunder? The God of thunder?

GRIFFIN
I believe her.

LEN
Thunder.

MAG
Great.

GRIFFIN
Why shouldn't I?

MAG
Because as much as I wish they could, human beings just lack the ability to wield lightning, do I really have to explain?

LEN
Not to mention her appropriation of a culture.

GRIFFIN
I believe her.

MAG
You just want to believe her, there's a difference.

GRIFFIN
Strange things happen all the time. I want to believe her.

MAG
Fine, run off with Madame Hopi and live happily ever after. I've had a baby. That's what I was supposed to tell you. She's in the other room. Kinda.

GRIFFIN
WHAT?

LEN
It's true. She's cute. A little squished but ya know, cute, like a bull dog.

MAG
Hey.

GRIFFIN
How is this possible?

LEN
Griff, watch what I can do.

MAG
Strange things happen all the time.

GRIFFIN
For nine months....

LEN
Eight, she was a month premature. Watch me do my dive.

GRIFFIN
For eight months you were pregnant and you didn't tell?

MAG
I forgot.

GRIFFIN
You forgot?

LEN
Look up here.

MAG
I remembered when my water broke. I thought, "Oh my god, I just peed in my pants", and then it hit me, like when you remember a toy you had as a little kid, something you hadn't thought about since mom threw it away or whatever.

GRIFFIN
Maggie, it's not a toy.

MAG
I know that, I just pushed it out of my vagina.

GRIFFIN
You never looked pregnant.

MAG
You never looked at me.

GRIFFIN
I think I'd notice that.

LEN
You thought she was just getting fatter.

MAG
Fucker.

GRIFFIN
Do you know who the father is?

MAG
I had a baby. No man, no syringe in the cooter.

GRIFFIN
Maggie.

MAG
I've given birth to the next baby Jesus.

LEN
Hey Griff what should I do?

MAG
Do a swan.

GRIFFIN
There's no water.

LEN
So.

GRIFFIN
Your gonna kill yourself.

LEN
Oh, no.

GRIFFIN
Not funny.

LEN
Watch me.

GRIFFIN
No. I hate it when he does this.

MAG
He wants attention, just give it to him.

LEN
Watch me dive. Watch me, Griff, look up here.

GRIFFIN
You're so juvenile.

GRIFFIN puts his hands over his ears and closes his eyes.

MAG
Hey Harold. Maude's coming back.

LEN
Missed the boat. Gotta go.

LEN starts to leave.

MAG
Wait. How will I get back?

LEN
You've always had the power to get home, Dorothy.

LEN disappears.

RED
Oh shit, it's the fuzz.

GRIFFIN
It's just my friend, Mag.

RED
Oh. Ha. Pleased to meet you.

MAG
(To Griffin) She can see me? (RED takes a big hit from the joint) Great.

RED
Want some chips?

GRIFFIN
I was just showing her your rock.

RED
You wanna hold her, Margaret?

MAG
Oh no, you keep her.

RED
Oh, come on, you can feel the energy just shooting up out of her. Here, put her in your hand. Hold tight. Tighter. She has her own heart beat. You can feel it if you listen hard enough. Can you feel it?

MAG
I'm trying.

RED
You gotta try harder. Or maybe, don't try so hard. Surviving in this world is a perfect combination of doing and not doing. You gotta learn when to work your ass off and when to just let things be. You find that perfect combination, you can hear any heart beat in the universe.

MAG
Thanks, I'll remember that. (Knocking is heard offstage.) Gotta go. Somebody's trying to wake me up. Hey Griff, you lost the teeth.

MAG exits.

GRIFFIN
Shit.

Lights shift onto LEN.

Next Page:   Scene VI   (page 8 of 12 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   The Hot Month

Taylor Mac Bowyer's plays include The Hot Month (recipient of the Ensemble Studio Theater's "Next-Step Fellowship"), Red Tide Blooming, Dilating (an evening of one-acts), The Levee (published by Vintage), Blue Grotto, and the solo-play Okay. He is a member of the Circle Repertory Lab and has acted with The Jean Cocteau Repertory, Mabou Mines, Dixon Place, and at several regional theaters. As drag performer, Taylor Mac, he has performed in venues such as Joe's Pub, FEZ, and the San Francisco Opera House.

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