Zap Read Online Free Page B

several charitable foundations, which calls for a good deal of travel and social —
    SAMMY. No, no, no. Remember? What she
doesn’t
have. Her husband’s a big-shot writer. Cocktail parties, autographings, the phone’s ringing off the hook. She’s typing his letters and mixing his drinks and taking his messages. So you offer her just the opposite. Quiet. Serenity. Selflessness.
    IRV.
(Practicing.)
Actually, Audrey, I’ve become quite interested lately in Buddhism.
    SAMMY. Mel Silverman, Buddhist philanthropist. I don’t know. I think it needs work. The point is, you’re someone who has time to listen to her. To pamper her.
    IRV.
(Practicing.)
There’s actually nothing in Buddhism opposed to sex. Or shopping.
    SAMMY. You’re the kind who likes to stay in on Friday night, you know . . . listening to Mozart. Plus, what’ll really hook her is that unlike her lying rat of a husband, you’re honest.
    IRV.
(Practicing.)
And I’m extremely honest.
    SAMMY. Are you crazy? You don’t tell her that! If a waiter tells you the special is fabulous, do you believe him? No! You gotta let her find that out for herself. Put your high moral character on display.
    IRV. Like how?
    SAMMY. By puttin’ down the toilet seat, for starters.
(Checks his watch.)
Hey, I’m late. Gotta run.
    IRV. Yeah, and I gotta get the mess in the kitchen cleaned up.
    (Both exit. Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the
AVANT-GARDE PLAY.
A long pause.)
    WOMAN. Room service was supposed to be here six hours ago.
    MAN. No doubt they’re busy delivering other meals.
    WOMAN.
(She looks down at the corpse.)
I wonder if perhaps he died of starvation. Read the menu again. It seems to help.
    MAN.
(He opens a menu.)
“All entrées come with soup or salad and choice of baked potato or coleslaw.”
    WOMAN. Coleslaw is one of my favorite foods.
    MAN. Actually, I don’t believe coleslaw is a food. What I mean to say is that it doesn’t grow out of the ground. There are no silos filled with coleslaw. Coleslaw is a dish, not a food.
    WOMAN.
(She faces the MAN. Pause.)
You don’t love me anymore.
    MAN.
(He hides behind the menu.)
“Baked salmon, served with steamed vegetables and lemon wedge. Chicken-fried steak. Meatloaf, served with succotash. T-bone steak —”
    (Zap sound. Blackout. Lights come up on the
PERFORMANCE ART MONOLOGUE.
)
    MARSHA.
(Referring to the couple from the AVANT-GARDE PLAY.)
Those guys . . . are so . . . weird. That’s what they’re really like. They’re married, in real life. I’m telling you, even if they paid me, I would never, ever share a hotel room with them. They’re trying to have a kid and if they ever do it’ll be a total alien and the birth announcement will like run in the
National Enquirer.
Fortunately for humanity, I think they’re just too strange to conceive. Then again, my parents did, despite being the least physical people on the planet. I swear, not even the camera crew for
Wild Kingdom
could ever catch them kissing. Frankly, I think their birth certificates are fakes and they were both raised in petri dishes. But even weirder, how could it be that such total
Best of Barry Manilow
types — I mean, my parents actually read the articles in
TV Guide
— how could they have possibly produced me? They’re such paint-by-numbers, follow-the-crowd people, and I’m such an improviser. I don’t have a script for this. Or for anything else. I’m not following anybody’s footsteps, especially when it comes to theater. I’m going where nobody’s been. Not like some of the fogies here. The ones whose watches all stopped back in the fifteen hundreds, who want to do Shakespeare over and over and over and over. And not like the ones who just like to play dress up. Like —
(Russian accent.)
— darling Irina. I mean, if you subtract out the lifts in her shoes, the tucks, the lip surgery, the wig, and the magic of silicone, the woman would totally disappear. A carcass. Even her butt’s fake. One side, anyway. I forget which