REX By Cassie Gonzales. CAST OF CHARACTERS (4 Men, 1 Woman)

Transcription

1 REX By Cassie Gonzales SYNOPSIS: Five teenagers discuss famine, fate and family and discover the value of each. CAST OF CHARACTERS (4 Men, 1 Woman) MARK...Late teens SEYMOUR...Mark s younger brother ALMA...Their friend FRANKIE...Another friend CHARLIE...Another friend A couch Junk food Any small disheveled living room. PROPS SETTING AUTHOR S NOTES I don t think they re stoned right now, but I ve never been that great at telling.

2 AT RISE: ALMA and SEYMOUR, two teenagers, sit on a couch. ALMA: What would you do if you were made king? SEYMOUR: I'd buy my brother the green caddie he talks about, with the fins and the white stripes, and then I'd go to L.A. to hear good music, and to Chicago, and New Orleans, and Tennessee too. ALMA: Tennessee? Fuck Tennessee. SEYMOUR: No, Tennessee too, and Miami and London. And all the time I d be high. ALMA: - - and fucking away from here. SEYMOUR: I'd take you guys with me - - you and Mark and Charlie and Frankie - - ALMA: - - and Honey? SEYMOUR: I don't care what Honey does anymore. ALMA: We could road-trip it everywhere, except London. SEYMOUR: I would have the best god-damned high on Earth. ALMA: If I became Queen, I would pay off my mom's house, and make my sister go to school. SEYMOUR: Yeah? ALMA: And I'd turn her boyfriend into a eunuch. SEYMOUR flinches and crosses his legs. SEYMOUR: Ouch. ALMA: I'd let him keep it in a jar. Pickled. They consider this. SEYMOUR: I wanna get some food. You have a car? ALMA: I brought my van. SEYMOUR: We'll go get food and then we'll steal lawn ornaments. ALMA: I don't need another broken patio table. SEYMOUR: Fuck dat shite. I'm talking windmills and Santa Clauses. I know where there are some plaster geese too - Copyright MMV by Cassie Gonzales. All rights reserved. Caution: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that REX is subject to a royalty. ALL INQUIRIES CONCERNING PERFORMANCE RIGHTS, INCLUDING AMATEUR RIGHTS, SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO HEUER PUBLISHING LLC, PO BOX 248, CEDAR RAPIDS IA,

3 ALMA: Where you wanna get food? SEYMOUR: We - - we'll go to the grocery store. ALMA: What're we gonna get? SEYMOUR: Nachos. ALMA: "Nachos" man? They don't have "nachos" at the grocery store. You have to buy cheese and chips, not "nachos." SEYMOUR: Get cheese and chips. ALMA: What kind of cheese? SEYMOUR: Fucking Nacho Cheese man, for nachos. And those jelly things that are like animals and colors - ALMA: You want gummy bears? SEYMOUR: Bears, worms - I'm not biased. ALMA: That's not food. SEYMOUR: I eat them. ALMA: No gummy bugs. SEYMOUR: You eat them. They get consumed. ALMA: All right. You got money for this shit? SEYMOUR: We don't need money. ALMA: I don't need to get picked up for shoplifting. They consider this. SEYMOUR: Damn I'm hungry. ALMA: Hunger is a metaphor - SEYMOUR: Fuckin' don't start your yuppie new age interpretation bullshit on the meaning of life - ALMA: Hunger pulls us out of our technology driven cocoons and returns us to the hunt. SEYMOUR: Hunger doesn't return us to anything, fuck, what kind of pseudo-taoist bull you trying to lay over? Everything s got to eat. Hunger isn't some great equalizer, it's the thing that separates those with food from those without food - and man, I'm hungry. FRANKIE enters. FRANKIE: Seymour, there was a roach in your bathroom. SEYMOUR: You toke it Frankie? FRANKIE: No man, it was a real cock-er-roach with horns and legs. ALMA: What'd it want? FRANKIE: Nothing now. I roasted the motherfucker with my lighter. ALMA: Did you ask it's name first? FRANKIE: No. I Dirty Harried that b-otch. My motherfuckin' hand from above reached down - he never saw what hit him.

4 SEYMOUR: Dude, you know that Charlie's been missing, maybe that was Charlie - FRANKIE: - - it wasn't Charlie, I remember Charlie, and he wasn't a bug. SEYMOUR: Didn't you ever read Metamorphosis? FRANKIE: You're a fucking idiot, everyone's read Metamorphosis but SEYMOUR: All I'm saying is that maybe you just roasted fuckin' Charlie ALMA: - - in his most helpless, defenseless, tiny, exo-skeletal state. FRANKIE: You trying to say Charlie's some fuckin' roach? That I just fried some roach-creeping-charlie-kafka-wannabe? SEYMOUR: I don't know man - - I'd just, you know - - how was it walking? FRANKIE: Walking like a bug - - I don't know. SEYMOUR: Kinda running then stopping then kinda running? FRANKIE: Yeah, I guess. SEYMOUR: The way Charlie walks? Frankie considers this. FRANKIE: Shit man, I killed Charlie. SEYMOUR: Yeah, poor Charlie. ALMA: You're fucked Frankie. FRANKIE: Yeah. CHARLIE enters from some other part of the house. He is shoeless and disheveled, he does not scurry. ALMA: Charlie - - how you doing? We haven't seen you. CHARLIE: I was sleeping. ALMA: Three days? CHARLIE: Guess so. Seymour, where's your brother? SEYMOUR: Bastard's working. FRANKIE: Charlie, how you feeling. CHARLIE: I'm jonesing for some gummy worms. ALMA: There are gummy snails under the sink. CHARLIE: Dude, those are real snails. Enter MARK from outside. He distributes fast food to the group as he talks. SEYMOUR: Mark, you brought food. I knew there was a reason I kept you around.

5 MARK: This is my house man. SEYMOUR: Then it's a good thing I'm your brother. MARK: But how did that make me the nanny to all your friends? SEYMOUR: You're just that good. MARK: Here. (He hands SEYMOUR his food.) I killed it with the car, like the cave men used to. (He looks at CHARLIE.) I thought you were dead. CHARLIE: I was sleeping. SEYMOUR: Frankie found him. (To MARK.) How was the auto-mobile shop? You keep your old nose to the grindstone working for the man? Join the Boys Club? Play the game to climb the corporate ladder? MARK: Dude, it's a garage. SEYMOUR: Where's your angst? Where's your anguish? MARK: I like my job. SEYMOUR: There's no romance in liking your job. There should be some passion in your voice - some lusting, for more - for bigger - - ALMA: Seymour, you're a poet. MARK: This woman came into the shop for an oil change - - SEYMOUR: And you fought the system, you were the White Knight, she was the Fair Maiden - - MARK: She needed her air filter changed - SEYMOUR: - - already so much intimacy - MARK: You want a story about lust? SEYMOUR: Yeah, give me some real fucking passion. MARK: So this lady is asking me about changing some three-dollar air filter, and I'm telling her, yeah, I could change her air filter - - FRANKIE: (Grabbing his crotch and mocking.) "I could change her air filter." MARK: She's kinda young and pretty and she's got breasts like - MARK cups his hands at arms length in front of his chest. I mean, she's got like this mountain range - - SEYMOUR: - - and you lusted for her - her and her mountain range - CHARLIE: (To himself.) I feel like fate s got me by the balls and I can't get away - - MARK: I was checking her out and I see that she's got these wet spots forming on her shirt, and they keep getting bigger, it looked to me like this woman's breasts were crying, like they were really sobbing at me - so then she notices that I'm staring at her chest and she sees that her shirt is all wet, and she says, "I need to feed my baby." FRANKIE: And that baby s name was Oedipus. SEYMOUR: Fuck man -

6 CHARLIE: (To himself.) Fate and her sister destiny are working together to pull me down. I don't like where they're taking me, but it's a comfy trip. FRANKIE: (To himself.) If Oedipus were my friend I would call him "Eddie" and we'd play at his house after school. MARK: So I felt bad. I mean she's somebody's mother and I was fantasizing about doing this kid s mom. Maybe her kid is like Jesus, or Krishna - SEYMOUR: That'd be like doing the Virgin Mary - or Queen Amidala. ALMA: Man, everyone's got a mother, and they have to get laid by someone. SEYMOUR: Yeah, but still - MARK: Yeah, I know. The phone rings, CHARLIE answers it. CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah - who? - no, I don't know, okay. Just a minute. CHARLIE hands the phone to MARK. MARK: (Into phone.) Yeah. (Pause.) Honey? ALMA: (To CHARLIE.) It was Honey? What'd she say? CHARLIE: She said she was calling from Hell. SEYMOUR: Fuck Honey. MARK moves away from the others with the phone. SEYMOUR: (Yelling to MARK'S back.) Honey can go to Hell. CHARLIE: She said she was calling collect from Hell. FRANKIE: If this were a dream, what would that mean? What would Freud say? What would Teiresias? SEYMOUR: (Still to MARK.) Don't give her any money man. Tell her to go to hell. CHARLIE: I think she's in Hell. She said she was calling collect from Hell. ALMA: Mark, what's she saying? SEYMOUR: I don't give a flying fuck what she's calling for. ALMA: Is she okay? CHARLIE: How can a person be calling collect from Hell? FRANKIE: Maybe she was using Hell figuratively. Maybe she's not actually calling from Hell. MARK hangs up the phone.

7 MARK: She was calling from jail. ALMA: Is she okay? SEYMOUR: Good for her, hope she stays there. MARK: I'm gonna go pick her up. SEYMOUR: No, you're not. MARK: I have to go get her man. SEYMOUR: No, you don't. MARK: There's no bail. She was passed out in the street. SEYMOUR: I'm sure she was having a good time. MARK: I'm going. SEYMOUR: Fuck Honey. MARK: You want me to leave you next time you get picked up? SEYMOUR: It'd probably do me good. MARK: I can't leave her there. SEYMOUR: You didn't put her there. MARK: She's our mom man. SEYMOUR: Honey's never been anybody's mom. MARK: You gonna come with me? SEYMOUR grabs his jacket and walks out, followed by MARK. THE END

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