Name of Play:    Running Back Running Back Playwright:        William Owen Type of Play:      Comedy

Synopsis Cast Breakdown Scene Breakdown Production Requirements Contact Information Script

 

Synopsis:   On a football field in Florida a chorus line of cheerleaders chants and dances. The college team they cheer for comes onto the field to practice, readying for a major bowl game the next day. During the practice session, running back Rhett Smedley, fed up with the hype life of a college football star, quits the team. The coach and the team go off, leaving Rhett, and Robbie Thompson, another player, to talk over what Rhett thinks he's doing.

The team's head coach, H.C. Dooserie, orders the athletic department's factotum, Orville Audrey, to go after Rhett and bring him back in time for the big game. The coach is doing so just as Claudia Zance, a reporter, arrives on the scene to do a piece about cheerleaders. Though the coach tries to hide it, Claudia learns Rhett has quit the team. She decides to pursue this story. Claudia goes to the hotel where the team is lodged. Rhett is already there to pick up his things before leaving town. Orville also goes there looking for Rhett. All three just miss each other in elevators and in queries to Nona Bowes, the hotel clerk, and to two maids in charge of a floor of rooms that includes Rhett's. Claudia learns Rhett has gone to the bus station and goes after him. Orville convinces Nona to take a get-to-know-you walk with him through a shopping mall -- after a stop at the bus station to intercept Rhett.

At the bus station Claudia calls her office. She makes clear she's going to keep the story as her scoop and not reveal where Rhett is, and she makes clear she's not going to tell Rhett she's a reporter doing a story on him. Like Rhett, she buys a ticket to New York. She strikes up a conversation with him as they get on the bus. Orville and Nona arrive. In an altercation on the bus, Orville tries to get Rhett to go back, but Rhett refuses. The bus riders demand the bus get going, and Orville, ceding to circumstance but promising he'll keep after Rhett, determines -- Nona with him -- to follow the bus in his car.

Rhett and Claudia fall asleep as the bus drives through the night. From his car, over CB radio, Orville cons the bus driver into pulling over and stopping by the side of the road. Seeing Orville, Rhett, sleeplessly short-tempered, gets off the bus and charges into the woods. Orville and Claudia follow Rhett, and Nona follows Orville. The bus riders decide the four are free to do what they're doing, so insist the bus leave. Rhett, Claudia, Orville and Nona are lost in the wilderness. Claudia and Nona soon happen upon on another, and Orville easily tracks down Rhett. Rhett and Orville go looking for Claudia and Nona, and they find them. The four decide to go back to Orville's car, and go to the first motel they come to. At the motel -- a low rent, run down, welfare palace -- Orville engineers things so he and Nona are together in one room, leaving Rhett and Claudia together in another.

Early the following morning, the others still asleep, Rhett sneaks into Orville and Nona's room, takes the keys to Orville's car and leaves in it. Arriving in search of a place to have breakfast, Calvin Wilmon, an itinerant preacher, and his assistant, Durrell Darwin, momentarily leave their car running and unguarded, just as Orville discovers the theft of his. Orville steals Durrell's car and, with Nona, drives off after Rhett. Titus Clemons, the County Sheriff, and Gomer Hebert, his Deputy, happen to have arrived just before in response to a call from the motel manager, a call ensuing from a violent argument which was overheard the night before by Rhett and Claudia. Durrell denounces the theft of his car. Sheriff and Deputy, Calvin and Durrell, with Claudia, all in the Sheriff's car, take off after Orville.

They chase down the highway. The three cars communicate by CB. Rhett agrees to meet Orville in the parking lot of a gas-and-food stop on the interstate to return his car to him. As Rhett is about to give the keys of Orville's car to Orville and Nona, the Sheriff, the others in tow, arrives to arrest Orville. To the delight of the travelers in the parking lot who've gathered to watch the arrest, Orville proposes to marry Nona right then and there. A wedding is improvised. Calvin gives the blessing, declaring Orville and Nona man and wife.

Rhett and Claudia are alone, hitchhiking. Dropping the charade she's kept up all along, Claudia tells Rhett she's a reporter doing a story on him. They set off together.

Cast Breakdown:  Four women (Claudia, Nona, Valmira, Otilia); nine men (Rhett, Orville, Robbie, Head Coach Dooserie, Security Guard, Calvin, Durrell, Sheriff and Deputy); and a chorus -- men and women -- of bus riders.

Scene Breakdown:   The action of the play takes place in ten backgrounds. These backgrounds are: a football field, a hotel lobby and hallway, a bus station, a bus on the highway, a wilderness, two adjoining motel rooms, the parking lot of the motel, on a road, the parking lot of a gas-and-food stop on interstate, and by the side of a road.

Production Requirements:  If the members of the audience pay for tickets, the playwright gets paid.  If the actors, actresses and other production artists get paid, the playwright also gets paid.  If there's no box office and all the production artists work for free, the playwright works for free too.  The playwright is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.  In instances of professional productions, Dramatists Guild royalty, contract etc. guidelines apply.  So long as no changes are made to the text, so long as all copies are given away free of any charge, and so long as the author's full ownership of his work (copyright etc.) is duly acknowledged, the script can be downloaded, printed, copied and distributed for use in rehearsals and auditions, classes and workshops, etc.

Contact Information:   All inquiries are sincerely welcome. I can be reached by regular mail at:
Will Owen, Willow N TheaterShows, Box 25447, Washington DC 20007 USA
or by e-mail at: willow_nts@hotmail.com

Script:   Running Back Running Back is published here (www.willow-n.com/scripts/rbrb/rbrb.htm).  Downloading this work in whole or part implies accepting the Copyright Acknowledgement.

 

copyrighted play and performance scripts, registered trademark -- all rights reserved -- www.willow-n.com

 

Running Back Running Back

 

 

Will Owen

 

 

to Francisco Matto Vilaro, who taught me to be an artist

 

 

comedy
© William Owen
www.willow-n.com
Willow N TheaterShows -- WNTS
Box 25447
Washington DC 20007 USA

 

CHARACTERS

 

RHETT SMEDLEY, All-America running back

CLAUDIA ZANCE, journalist

ORVILLE AUDREY, athletic department factotum

NONA BOWES, hotel clerk

ROBBIE THOMPSON, wide receiver

H.C. DOOSERIE, Head Coach

TITUS CLEMONS, County Sheriff

GOMER HEBERT, his deputy

CALVIN WILMON, itinerant preacher

DURRELL DARWIN, his assistant

 

CHEERLEADERS, FOOTBALL PLAYERS, ASSISTANT COACH, SECURITY OFFICER, HOTEL CHARWOMEN,WINEOS, BUS DRIVER, AND EVERYDAY CITIZENS

 

 

TIMES AND SCENES

 

THE ACTION BEGINS ONE AFTERNOON, AND ENDS THE FOLLOWING DAY.
IT TAKES PLACE IN FLORIDA AND GEORGIA.

 

 

One Afternoon

-- Football Field/College Sports Complex

-- Hotel

-- Bus Station

 

That Night

-- Bus on the Highway

-- Wilderness

-- Motel

 

The Following Day

-- Parking Lot of Motel

-- Chase on the Highway

-- Parking Lot of Gas and Food Stop on Interstate

-- Access Ramp to Interstate

www.willow-n.com

Running Back Running Back FIRST: A football field/college sports complex. A chorus line of cheerleaders is on. Trixie is one of the cheerleaders.

CHEERLEADERS
HAARRGH! Pretty little schoolgirls all in a row,
here to play the prologue to the show;
so ready, steady, get set go,
here's what we're here to let you know:
if maybe you're curious or maybe in doubt,
honey oh honey don't be down and out,
cause baby I'm ready with a jump and a shout
to tell what it happens that the show's about.

CHORUS LINE LEADER
Before you came we were so worried

TRIXIE
Right. And now rocketeers, it's time fo

CHORUS LINE LEADER
Trixie!

TRIXIE scurries back into line
Mh!

CHORUS LINE LEADER
Places. Ready. Alright, see

CHEERLEADERS
This morning this playhouse stood silent
and this dark room lay locked up in these walls
lightless and wholly free of any human life

TRIXIE
But the mice and the roaches we all think we don't have

CHEERLEADERS
like some dimly conscious creature fast asleep.
If I'd been here to listen I'd've heard it dream,
suffused in echoing of plays long past,
as ghosts of players scurry from the wings
to for a moment mimic life and fade,
as gone as audiences once the curtain falls.
But all that faded echoing all drowned
as today in ones and twos we walked off from the street
and on in here (in this the way you see us doing now and see done
everywhere, this upright two-step us primates only, dare,
to use when on our own we move from a here to a there).
And then tonight this room changed so much more
as you came crowding through those scupper doors,
then tressed apart astwitching into knots and files
to weave back up this teeming meadow made of persons
close-packed 'cross what was this slope of barren seats --
this field where atop the stemtops of your necks the lights
that glow from off this stage so palely play on petals soft
as faces' skins, the way the moon in echoed light
plays soft on fields of flowers Summer nights.
You see, our coming in to this strange room,
all shuffling feet and babbling mouths, dispelled
the dreamerie that waiting empty, rooms like this hold fast:
we sent the ghosts of plays long past -- the lilt of the lines
and the life in the laughter -- flurring 'cross the floor,
dust kittens to corners, or flitting, like birds on wings of silent sparks
to perch, and atwinkling, peer down from the rafters.

CHORUS LINE LEADER
You know we can't see 'em, but they're there alright.

CHEERLEADERS
They watch us, memories, like dreams that when
the dawn first spills into our eyes get scattered to the mind's
dark corners to follow us from hiding through our day.

TRIXIE
Watch and follow us like predators stalk prey
unseen til we misstep, forget our outside selves
of will and reason, and then whoa...HWUH!
snatch and shook! shocked to the feral that's within.

CHEERLEADERS
So look gently when our dream tonight steps out
from these dark wings to play on this bright stage
for our frail work can no more stand stern looks
than the morning dew fight off the sun.

Lines in { } are to be sounded simultaneously, timed as indicated by their vertical alignment. CL - Cheerleaders; CLL - Chorus Line Leader; T - Trixie.

CL {Deceive your eyes...}
T    {Bereave your eyes... Whoops!}

CLL {What's the matter now, guys?}
CL    {Oh, it's Trixie again, that's all.}

TRIXIE
I'm not used to it yet, okay? I mean I didn't think it'u'd be like...'precision dancing team', I thought cheerleading'd be more like..um..'improvisational solo', you know what I mean?

CHEERLEADERS
Listen, size-up chub-tub, this is the most tech-tight cheerleader line this side of the Mississippi, so if you want to do this 'expression' personal art stuff, this organization may not be right for you, alright?

TRIXIE
Oh, okay...

CLL {Okay, guys... Places. Ready...}
T     {Still... You know, more like this...}

CL {Deceive your eyes or they'll burn the paint}
T     {HEEEuhuhuhuhHUH! Oh I oh I no I ain't}

CL {from our faces, strip the rags from our skins,}
T            {just some other pretty face, but a winsome}

CL {estrange our roles from our names and selves}
T    {changeling thing, heart and soul so much my own}

CL {and so destroy what they see.}
T         {even those what know me most, don't know me. What am I?}

CL {And cast adrift your ears again though oh}
T                                                         {Oh no}

CL {much so much now they're stressed so near}
T    {no no, no no, no I'm not, not an angel, not a ghost}

CL {to numb and broken by the engine skrees,}
T    {but an old old giggling thing for once and ever born anew}

CL {the slam and clatter of these streets we're in}
T    {so longs the sun strikes sparkling sea foam}

CL {and so would just as soon no longer trawl}
T    {from her laughing laughing lace-like shawls.}

CL {this ambient sea for sounds, swimming in the air.}
T    {Hmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhm-huhuh-HARARGHARGHARGHAH!}

CHEERLEADERS
These that hie, wavy fishes to the nets you hold
'longside your heads: and once those sounds weigh hard
in on that sense, haul home, and make of them mind's sustenance --
make words. And so that part that's yours to take, it will
when played as one with ours, make our saying something said. SO!

Cheerleaders in two groups, CL-A & CL-B.

CL-A {La la la la la la la etc. for a time}
CL-B {Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee etc for a time}
T       {Daddy daddy daddy etc. for a time}

CL-A Daddy's in the front yard trying to fix the car,
CL-B Momma's with her TV wondering where we are;
CL-A Sister's in a bedroom with a brand new beau,
CL-B And brother's in the street with no place to go.
CL    Why I'm here at home oh I just don't know,
CL-A Cause daddy's drinking whiskey out by the car,
CL-B Momma's with her habit -- don't care where we are,
CL    While grandma's in the kitchen making choc'late cake
T       Cause I'm hiding in the basement with that ol' heartache.
CL    So
CL-A Ohohoh
CL-B Uhuhuh

A CHEERLEADER
Wait, we forgot to say what happened

TRIXIE
It happened just this way one night when boy
met girl and girl met boy -- and well, the rest is hizertry.

A CHEERLEADER
Right, tell me about it.

TRIXIE singing
Ol' fashion' Dallas that's who 'is gal is, she's who I used to be.

CHORUS LINE LEADER
Uh-huh. Okay guys. Positions. Alright, see:
it's a tale as commonplace as commonplace can be

CHEERLEADERS
of Rhett and Claudia sitting in a tree
kay aie ess ess aie en gee;
first comes love and then comes marriage
and then comes the baby in the baby carriage.
So, one's for the money, two's for the show
three's to get ready, and four's to OH!

Cheerleaders scatter as blocking sled, ridden by assistant coach and propelled by football players, comes on.

ASSISTANT COACH
TWEET! TWEET! Move it, move it, make it fly.

PLAYERS
HWUH!

ASSISTANT COACH
TWEET! TWEET!

CL-A {Watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, squash}
CL-B {Whoa come on boys, I'm hot to trot}

CL-A {Can we beat 'em, can we beat 'em -- oh my gosh!}
CL-B {and looking out for what you got.}

ASSISTANT COACH
TWEET! TWEET! Give it, give it, give it all up. Dig!

PLAYERS
Dig it! Momma! HWUH!

CL-A {Who's a high stepping, low strider, run so right?}
CL-B                                  {Slow rider, rocker rhythm, butter my blues}

CL-A {he's my high-flying, daydream, crazy boy}
CL-B                                {lazy baby time's mine to lose}

CL-A {going down and gone}
CL-B           {so don't be}
T                 {down on me}

CL-A {on a long gone Earth-sight Shuttle flight}
CL-B {so low-down no-count you only sleep}

CL-A {to run by the uprights, catch the pass}
CL-B {puppy-hurt match your pleading eyes}

CL-A {but he be}
CL-B       {see}
T           {help me please I'm falling}

CL-A {out-skyed high dreaming on his ass.}
CL-B {I'm feeling your desire's mostly lies.}

ASSISTANT COACH
TWEET! TWEET! Give it, give it, give it all up. Dig!

PLAYERS
Dig it. Momma! HWUH!

Assistant Coach, players, sled go off.

CL-A {Oh woh-oh woh-oh woh-oh woh-oh (etc. for a time)}
CL-B             {Ooh-ooh ooh-ooh ooh-ooh ooh-ooh (etc. for a time)}
T                                     {Whoa whoa whoa whoa (etc. for a time)}

CL-A {Call my heart too faithful till it break,}
CL-B {Pal of mine oh darling let me go,}
T        {Palomino goldstar come and play,}

CL-A {don't let me know yet what I can take.}
CL-B {now I'm grown too old to court so slow.}
T        {down to the meadow with me today.}

CL-A {Call my heart too faithful till it break,}
CL-B {Pal of mine oh darling let me go,}
T        {Palomino goldstar come and play,}

CL-A {don't let me know yet till I awake.}
CL-B {now I'm grown to what you now don't know.}
T        {down to the meadow and far away.}

CL-A {Tell me where and I'll follow,}
CL-B {Well now you're here you got to know,}
T        {Wildwood stallion ride me slow,}

CL-A {where I'm now there's only sorrow.}
CL-B {there's a backdoor where I got to go.}
T        {carry me home oh wildwood hollow.}

CL-A {Tell me where and I'll follow,}
CL-B {Well now you're here you got to know,}
T        {Wildwood stallion ride me slow,}

CL-A {like I feel now there's no tomorrow.}
CL-B {like I feel now you're just a shadow.}
T        {take me where wild lillies grow.}

CL-A {Ah-uh ah-uh ah-uh ah-uh ah-uh (etc for a time)}
CL-B       {Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh (etc. for a time)}
T                   {Harrgh harrgh harrgh (etc. for a time)}

CHEERLEADERS Whoa, what's this? Play a kiss? Given, not taken. 'Scuse me -- I'm mistaken. All your might, Gives no right Back up! I'm so fed up. Whoa, what's this? Mean a kiss? C'mon kool, You're so fool. In the street, Got to meet. It's a try, Not much why. Whoa, what's this? Forget a kiss. By my side, 'S still my pride. Not moving over So you're not getting over. Don't make me, Don't take me. Whoa, what's this? Love a kiss? Work of art, For the heart. Walk with me, Talk to me. Stay with me, Crazed with me. Whoa, what's this? Thing called now?

TRIXIE Cm'on, Baby! Baby, Baby! Whoa, Baby! Baby, Baby! Oh, Baby! Baby, Baby! Hmm-uh, Baby! Baby, Baby! Yo-uh, Baby!

CL-A {Ohohohohohohohohoh (etc. for a time)}
CL-B             {Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu (etc. for a time)}
T                                     {Mmmhmmmhmmmhmmmh (etc. for a time)}

CL-B break up my heart and cut me loose
CL-A loving you right just ain't no use
CL-B that what momma, momma tell me tried
CL-A since I was young I thought she lied
CL saying, everybody get what they deserves
whoa, come on home boy, I'm getting nasty nerves.

CL-A come down from heaven in a blue space suit
CL-B maybe you dirty, but you sure is cute
CL-A from countdown to touchdown I'm biding my time
CL-B way you been wheeling boy, it mess up my mind.
CL Slip slider drive rider all of my own oh
I never knowed you'd make me groan so.

CL-A So make it up,
CL-B Give it up,

CL {reach for a touchdown, touch, touch, touch!}
T {reach, reach, reach!}

CHEERLEADERS COACH & PLAYERS
UUH-UNH!

Cheerleaders go off. Head Coach and foootball players -- Rhett and Robbie among them -- come on. Because of their helmets with sunshields and the rest of the head-to-toe football gear, the individual features, skin color etc. of the players -- particularly Rhett and Robbie -- is undiscernable by the members of the audience. Quarterback calling signals, players run passing drill. When Rhett/Robbie's turn comes to run a route; quarterback throws pass, and ball bounces right out of RR's arms.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Alright, alright; execution, execution is the key! Yeah! TWEET! Yeah! Motivated execution is executed motivation! Run it out, run it out. And now let's hear some pop on that bump! Alright, alright. TWEET!

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
What in tarnation happened with you, what in tarnation happened with you? Huh? Huh? It was a baby in your arms.

RR
Coach, awoh..awoh...I don't know Coach, I reckon I missed it.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
I'll reckon you. How'd you think your child'u'd feel, you haul off an drop it so? Motivation, motivation, motivation is the key. TWEET! Witness for me now: what's our watchword, our watchword for the here and now?

PLAYERS
Motivated execution is executed motivation! HUH!

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Oh yes indeed! Oh yes indeed! And golden is

PLAYERS
as golden does!

RR
(Or might as well be when so it seems, to those by their own avidity, self deceived.)

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Hey! Alright, boys. Alright. Back on top, back on top. Same thing over, same thing over. Listen to me now, listen to me now, your mission now's to be gold example for us all -- for ye shall know them by their smallest acts of everyday -- and in your everyday moment in this drill, like all your actions from now on, you'll emblemize for all, all execution, leadership and motivation mean. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Alright. TWEET! Is smart

PLAYERS
acts smart!

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
TWEET!

Signals called; same drill run through; RR, as before, misses the ball.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
You didn't even try! You didn't even try!

RR
Coach...I reckon not.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
What?! What!? I did not hear that. Son, you got an attitude problem, that's right, an attitude problem. Son, I want to talk to you about your attitude problem. Oh yes indeed. I want to talk to everybody about your attitude problem. Alright, alright. Everybody! Gather 'round, gather 'round. School circle! TWEET! Now listen up. I got an article of informational importance to communicate. One day from today is the most important day of your life. It's the day every man among you dreams of achieving. Oh yes indeed. In that bowl game the eyes of all the nation will shine upon you and a broadcast team'll be behind the cameras to point out your mistakes to 'em. And shame, disgrace and humiliation shall deplore upon the team that fails to accomplish its appointed mission. Just a minute ago back here -- hang your head down, young man, hang your head down -- failed to accomplish his appointed mission: he dropped the ball. And come one day from today when we play in that bowl game what we've -- praise, praise -- concentrated to achieve and are here and now gathered together in instigation to the process to win, if we fail to accomplish our appointed mission, we'll feel a thousand-fold the shame, disgrace and humiliation you..you feel when you drop the ball. Oh yes indeed. For gold can't turn to rust! So witness, witness for us now your determination, total determination, to try, try, try!

RR
Coach..coach... Ain't no use in trying. For me, it's over, can't put in no more to covering up this lie 'bout how I love this video cut-out life that this star football jive has forced on me. Coach, my days of football now are over. You heard it right. And starting this right now. It's like it had to happen sometime, hey... and now it's happening just this way.

Murmuring among the players.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Son... I did not hear that... Son, you're not serious.

RR
Yeah?

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Naw... I can't... Son...definitely not, not never, no way!

RR
Oh yes indeed, and now the deed's done done.
I locked me on as good to go, so now I'm gone.
What on the field I had to prove I've proved,
and that I loved. To play was real and really me.
But that all off the field, made by money,
old men's fantasies of youth, and fame's
distortion of every other we are with -- uh-uh.
And this ain't sport; it's marketing hook.
This ain't sport; it's software for channel time-fill.
And Coach, you just don't know it yet, that's all.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
What?! Ho...whoa there a minute, son. Naw... You don't know what you've got -- you're too young -- man, oh!, ther're guys out there'u'd kill to have what you're wanting to throw away. Boys, boys I know great pressures build upon the individual in times of stress such as before a bowl game or a combat mission. But when Providence Devine is with you the most discouraged'll find the strength to bring out what's best in them. Together, let us flee to our brother's aid -- lay our hands upon his helmet, lay our hands upon his helmet and call upon, call upon His Mighty Majesty Team Leader in Chief of All the Universe to take the serpent of indifference from his breast. Oh-ooh witness! We stand here before you with our brother in sweat-browing murtoil, dissent and distress, stand here before you before the most important game of games and call, call upon you oh Transcendent Father to exercise the snake that tramules his blinding speed, blunts the edge off of his natural athletic ability, and hardens his heart against submitting to team needs.

SOME OF THE PLAYERS
Yea-yah; yea-yah.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Render back unto us oh Prime Motivator the team player of selflessness, the scholar-athlete of this season's games who doth take unto himself the hand-off and, like the angel of avenging might smites the army of the philosophers, confounds the secondary bursting through to victory in the promise of your end zone. For like a teacher of righteousness, fierce and sinless amid the corruptedness of men, the linebackers of evil shall not tackle thy running back down to earth!

SOME OF THE PLAYERS
Yea-yah; yea-yah.

RR
Coach, save your prayers for them that prayers can save. I'm gone.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Son, you don't know what you're doing. And you're going to regret what you didn't know.

RR
I'm doing it, and it'll be my regret.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Okay boys, okay. We're going to go over and scrimmage with the defense now. All this is going to be all taken care of later. (Right? Right, Son?) We're just going to forget any of this all ever happened. Everything's going to be just like it always was. Right? Right? TWEET! (There's a devil in you boy, a selfishness devil like a darkness-creeper in your soul.) Let's go, let's go! Golden is

PLAYERS
as golden does!

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Is best

PLAYERS
acts best!

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
TWEET!

Coach and players go off. Rhett and Robbie stay on. This action can take these two to a locker room to change. There, somehow -- the helmets with the sunshields and the rest of the head-to-toe football gear, sightlines blocked by lockers, steam from showers, towels hooded over head and face, etc. -- which voice belongs to which actor is unclear to the members of the audience. Either of these two can emerge from the following sequence as Rhett, the player who quits the team, as the other emerges as Robbie, the player who stays on the team. In script immediately below the two parts are kept apart simply by the slightly different rubrics "R-" and "R*"; and "RR" at points where the roles can elide -- the lines can be taken by one or the other.

R-
What do you think you're doing, man?

R*
Nothing new. Just doing what a man's got to do.

R-
Awh... Soo-ee! Farmtime! Hwuh, zap-game terminator, man -- bzeep bzeep bruggh! Self destruct. Game over. "Just doing what a man's got to do." Awh! Alright, so...the coach, the whole football...some here like get so intense it's like some kind of ritual spectacle for them, and with all the release of uncertainty resolved, tension broke with all the stand-up and howl of top dog of victory or tail drag and whimper of down dog of defeat -- to get hoping, and paying, for next time. Yeah... No wonder they raise so much money, people get to have so much feeling about it. That's why you can't up and quit like that.

R*
Yeah? Why not?

R-
Cause. Hey, it may be college, but it's still business -- interlocked: TV, the pros, on the net, you name it, there in the kill-time space. What do you want people be thinking about? Politics? Foreign policy wars? There's real money tied up. You know that. So it's too important. So you can't just up and out. It's just not..you know..done.

R*
It's just been done. You just saw it happen. And it happened just the way you saw it.

R-
You know how much a minimum, nobody player, NFL salary is? There's people out there got to work for a living. Politicians say you work full days all year at basic wages and you're not poor -- but they ain't never tried it -- and all you got to do is take a long shot at minor injury and sit on the bench for six months half days and you're making twenty some times that practically in the income elite. And you can make all that -- and not know fly-by 'bout..whatever. And you only have to do it for the about the length of a service enlistment and you can retire -- and the only field you got to go into's got the bombs you catch, and not the kind catch you -- and send you home to mama in a box. So you can be secure for life, guaranteed. And if you're a star...

R*
And that big basic salary's but chump-change for the hat-check girl, the way ownership high rolls. If they want to put me on TV, ride on how I attract, then they can pay me like I'm a piece of the reason that makes their mass marketing happen.

R-
That's a star talking -- so think about how many umpteen times of money.

R*
Money's got nothing to do with it. I ain't ever playing football again.

R-
So you must've been born rich -- or just rich enough to throw it away anyway. Hey, it's not happened all the way yet. All you got to do is go back on it.

R*
Nope. Mind's made up.

R-
"Nope. Mind's made up." Now that you programmed yourself, now you stuck with running it. Hwuh... Sometimes, man... Ever since I've known you... I mean sometimes I look at you man and you look like you just stepped off of a UFO for the first time onto Earth from someplace else.

R*
What? Oh..will..oh! Sure is a fine looking planet y'all got here; yessir, mighty fine.

R-
Well that's right kind of you to say that there. Uh-huh. Whatever it is you call yourself.

R*
Who? Me? Hey, I'm just a tourist here. You know, just passing through. Rawak, rawak, roofk, roof! Huarugh! Limbed figure dressed in clothes striding up and forthright on across the ground of the only living Earth we know. You know, just one more other one in the primate experience.

R-
Uh-huh.. Feature that... Just another..human..Australowhatchamaman, solitary soul aroam on the wide savannah, responsible to himself alone. Right? Wrong. You can't just up and quit on it all this way.

R*
I just did.

R-
Okay... Okay, mister anthroman, so why don't you just dehype your limbed self down a minute here and tell me what it seems in your perception space behind them eyes you think, think, you're doing.

R*
I don't know, but I've done it.

R-
But you've done it? So now what're you going to do, run around campus all Spring like some kind of tourist attraction? "Quick, Mom, quick, there he is the all-America Heismann quitter, Mom, lock on the mini-cam, quick! Did you get him? Did you get him?"

R*
Tell me about it. Nah, I'm getting out of here -- been here too long and learned too little. And like I've bagged my credit quota already so like all's they got to do is just send the paper. That way I can find out if it's all as useful as they say.

R-
I hear you. Man, if I don't get drafted by somebody...

R*
You will alright. Hey my man, come next fall I'll be watching you on nationwide, worldwide now practically.

R-
I don't how much money I'd put on that, my man.

R*
No, for sure. I'm telling you, yeah --
real, as face-to-face primates, brawn and brain,
here, on this warming planet now --
you're one the ones, you got it, believe it.
Like God Himself had winked at Nature,
as at the instant of your conception, He let Her
run away with Herself and give an overmeasure
of the best in talent. You got the same thing I got, man --
that breeze of movement where all can see
the forces pagans made their deities.
That natural athletic talent, man. And you got it gigabytes. So they'll pick you up. You can bet the farm.

R-
Hhw... Bet that farm now.
RR
Make that bet the whole plantation.

R-
What? Hey..lay back man. We shopping mall America now, and there's nobody use no history see our social relations now. History now's just for personal identity, you know, like whatever background box, interest group, gender, religion's yours to check, that's no more than like picking up on this lifestyle or that, you know, dance man, Civil War buff, porn enthusiast, news junkie, aviation fan, theater-goer, gun nut, net head, sex addict, whatever. It's like nobody's business but your own and everybody's business to leave you alone.

R*
"Leave you alone". Hey man, like Leave Me Alone! I like living like a lone dog on that Oldulvai plain. Uh-huh. Like tolerate in complete indifference so you're free from all connection and responsibility -- like whatever individuals pick up on, no matter how much hurt on themselves or others, it's "nobody's business but their own" -- and their victims'? Right?

R-
It's a free country, and you can't be that if you got everybody being brother's keeper, minding people's doings to each other out of having responsibility.

R*
You know I am going to buy that gun on the way home. And I'm going to wave it in your face, like it's some kind of freedom flag of my own. Cause it's a free country, see?

R-
And maybe you're going to use it -- put me out of my misery?

R*
Huhf! Yeah... And what's flags got to do with it? I pledge allegiance to the check-out line at Buymart's, where they may be individual differences of present circumstance -- your money in the bank, your purchase patterns, habits doing unto others, what way you speak, your skin and lifestyle look -- but there're no political differences of past history -- no injustice and no inequality -- conscious in your mind right then, cause there's no memory in it to bind you up to other's with that way.

R-
Man, how'd you expect anybody get their shopping done if they got their minds all distracted on what makes their political community with each other?

R*
Better we drag on with no troubling our mind with one, huh? Too much headache having get active responsibility. "I'm sorry darling, but I've just got this horrendous headache tonight"'

R-
Whu...? Anyway, mass-media democracy's for business and government to have responsibility, not people, okay? For people, mass democracy's passive responsibility, a last, late sanity-check on power, but it's still democratic and that's a damn sight better than..I don't know..name it.

R*
Theocratic insurgency? Passivity is powerlessness. And real self-government is pro-active.

R-
So you think of a practical way to make it happen if you're so dissatisfied. It's the scale, man. At a quarter of a billion Americans in an economy architectured with the world, it can only be mass culture and mass democracy.

R*
The jive democracy of the forever indentured to the credit consumer culture keeps on keeping on for making sure the rich with know-how and education stay that way and the poor and ignorant stay helpless in the powerless class -- with one mostly one and the other mostly other. And it's wrong and failure for all, but it's the big G's to pretend to fix, not me and you cause we're too powerless and we're too busy

R-
cause we got things to buy and a lifestyle to act out. There it is, bubba-bear, you and me and better here than many a place else, in one Nation under marketing propaganda power, indivisible under big government and big business in the atomized desirings of the struggle to buy some more.

R*
You're going to look good in that gas-guzzler viagra rod when you spend your signing bonus.

R-
And you are going to get drafted and be in the pros and have all that money, and dig all them chicks, lick them slick pink goobers, homeboy. And then you can do all them good hometown hero things... You know, buy your mom and dad a house..whatever.

R*
They already got a house. ... My mom and dad... Now there's two people who's work on memory made one.

R-
Work? On memory?

R*
Yeah... Tradition..identity..I don't know..whatever. I mean, it's got to be passed on to you or else you got to teach it to yourself, but that's much harder. Either way, it's work alright, and educational work at that.

R-
Nah..people just pick up on it. You know, like it's cultural osmosis, that's how tradition works.

R*
Hmph! No osmosis with no schooling or example. It's got to be by educating to it. And here today in what's this USA what's best -- what's left -- of self-government, them stand-on-their-own like church communities, that tradition -- the culture's so opposed to it, man -- like's dying away in the choke of lonely, consumer crowd. Can't no one live true liberty less they got a place connected to where others also carry the burdens of society. No way to be that free 'cept by teaching and example: no more 'n one unschooled in how to swim can win against an ocean undertow; that person just wilds out, flails and drowns like from all the tiny gulps of atomized desire.

R-
Hwuh... Not me, man, I'm going to get what I want and get out. So what about your mom and dad?

R*
Yeah... My mom and dad... Man, that was back, like 'way back -- some kind of history-book time, man: America before -- no computers, no video, that music, hwuh, like they just invented electricity, man. They were in college -- for the first time ever on my father's side -- and they were, you know, so involved -- seemed like people had all this hopefulness then..like we could get justice just cause it was justice, like people had right too, not just the government to do just like the big boys want and no dignity for anybody that objects. So they were making all the marches and activisim and all, and somehow she got roped up in this experiment he set up to work on memory. I mean they met in the strangest way..this "happening experience" he called it.

R-
Yeah? And?

R*
It was so funny, man; they looked a mix-up
of scarecrows and old-time campus radicals.
Everybody had all this big hair and tired clothes,
but matched up with this..what they figured was
like historical rag wear and barefoot,
but everybody holding cig'rettes, with shades on
and plastic-matic cam'ras here and there.
I look at them pictures now when I go home
and don't know how I laugh with what I feel,
but do it anyway. But growing up,
like all in fam'ly picture books, it look as right
and nat'ral as you please: them stillness eyes and faces,
alive and warm as them you come from, freeze-framed,
so familiar, but like so unreachable,
like knowing your parents in their youth.
Still, them family pictures and their story
were like my personal history books to me.

R-
Yeah. It's the same way here. So anyway?

R*
So they -- he -- got this farmer to agree that they could
camp out by his field and use a piece of it to work --
some scraggle-edge of just some cotton field.
And they -- aw hey, it wasn't more than just a week --
were out to like re-create what must've been
the working day of field hand slaves.

R-
What?

R*
Yeah. And he was deep intense on it -- the others, hey,
Spring break laughtime, man -- but he believed for sure
that there'd be deep'ning of knowledge there
in knowing in his hands the hurt,
the stun pain in the spine at every tug
his arms took from the hoe. She explained once
he'd declared that what he'd wanted was leave
the salt burn in his eyes, one with the searing of the sun
til all spun blank, no self, no name, just that pure life,
and cancel out of so endless work and anger
he couldn't tell what was his body crying and what his heart.

R-
Hwuh...

R*
Of course, it didn't really work. Like he told me once
explaining who's who in them pictures to his sons,
he said he should've known he couldn't catch --
like it was something out there you could like reel in --
the actual suff'rance of the past. That mem'ry life,
whichever one's the main one you call yours,
he said he later learned we got it with us, inside, all the time --
wilderness of sorrow that somehow's always got the drop on you.
But it seemed then to him that acting out the time and motion
of that daily work he'd like get so next
to the hard, bare facts he'd know the deep,
so bitter ground of old America's Black folks' soul.

R-
Hwuh. ... So it did work? I mean... Yeah?

R*
So yeah. ... So he hated White people. ... Just like I do. ... Had to live with them all day long too.

R-
Yeah...

R*
I mean..hate..not like personally individually..'less they call for it 'cause their character. But like the whole identity set-on and its way of trap-so-deep in one way or the other everyone a part of it. Yeah. I mean he was deep into realism 'bout America's way of always evolving new ways of keeping the set-apart that always comes first, alive as can be in everybody's everyday life. Always was a source of wonder to him, the secret engine of the American dream: all these people come here all along, step off that boat onto Ellis Island, step off them planes -- bigger than some of them boats were -- right here in Miami right now, and that tremendous transformation happens: that new self begins, the American! Cause now whatever you were before is relegated to secondary, cause from now on, you're White first, cause guess who's here to be the other.

R-
What if you're already Black?

R*
Doesn't matter, at first anyway. In their mind this is the multi-racial modern motherland, not the ancestral slave land. Sure, you still better believe what you are, first and forever in every two eyes that lays their sight on you. But when they come you bet they believe -- the idea's power can move people so -- that it was meant as it was wrote. We hold these truths..hwuh..that all... all... I remember with my father once, heard him go on about when he believed it was possible come true in America..looked back in sadness like couldn't believe the same man could change so from young to old..back..in the dream some had, 'bout what America could be, back the Movement time time..that took that old America away and made the hope

R-
that's now so failed, right?

R*
I didn't say nofin'; no, sir!

R-
Hwuh... First and forever, huh?

R*
First for sure anyway. Look, what's the first thing anybody sees about somebody when they walk past in the street or walk on on TV?

R-
Uhh...

R*
"Uhh" yourself. Oh yeah. Before even whether they're a man or woman.

R-
Yeah but that..that's facts straight in your eyes beyond all control.

R*
What the eyes they see is on the inside of the mind, and they don't see but what you get taught set in there.

R-
Hwuh... So you ain't told me how they met yet.

R*
No. I haven't told you.

R-
So tell me.

R*
Well it was there working in that field. I mean they'd seen each other but not that way -- the way that love will hit you like a train that runs without a sound and WHUH!? wherefrom you been blindsided, it's too late cause now you got two trains running. And six children down them tracks later, here I come seventh son of a seventh son!

R-
Really?

R*
Really. ...Now back to now's business. You're still so hard-headed you're up and out of here?

R-
Yup.

R*
"Yup." Awh... So then where you going to go?

R-
I don't know, someplace I've never been. New York, say.

R*
New York? Man, that's not a place, that's just backdrop for twelve million TV shows.

R-
You want to come too..you know..I...

R*
No. No way. I wouldn't go with you even if I wanted to. Cause you wouldn't go with me, even if you wanted to. It's over. Who's going to be the hero? And who's going to be the sidekick? You? Me? See? There you go. Can't do it. Man, I've been studying this. It's my major.

R-
Don't look at me like that. I been studying too -- same course as you.

RR
Awh! Pfuh! Like there we're going to go, that same old..old and tired..lock one on in to that permanent other -- role that completes the other. Write it right up -- permanent sidekick here -- no place for their own, just place beside. Awh! So you and me we can hit the road in archtype, secret-sharers looking-for-America mode? Who's going to be Huck, and who's going to Jim?. Hwuh! Not never, no how, no way! Oh yeah. Cause ever from the myth that sings so deep: and Natty Bumpo got Chingachgook, and Ismael got Qweeqweeg, and Huck got Jim, Kimo Sabe, Tonto and on to that same old..old in every variation in a thousand movies and TV shows. Why they call it English, I'll never understand. There's the one, and there's the other -- man of color -- and hero from the city on the hill, going on to get authentic and complete, like get the inside on his peers cause he's been brother with the other -- gone down into the darkness valley that's always shadowing there below, where the disorder class been muddying the equal rights for all shining on the mountaintop.

R*
Yeah, wouldn't that be great -- pretty soon that whole valley be just one gated community beside the next, and we can all live there -- secure.

R-
Hwuh...

R*
Yeah... I mean... I...

R-
Yeah...

R*
There's got to be some new set-on at least possible. I don't know..like a woman and a man maybe, not black and white --
RR
Man and man of color.
RR
America could use a new first and foremost one and other. I been studying that. What do you think I am, ignorant?

R-
Jack, we're football players. Studying is like the last thing we do. ... Huhf, just like Romeo and Juliet. Hwuh..Tristan and Iseult.

R*
Yeah. ..But not so heavy..you know, all that death deal..but still..I dont know...

R-
Yeah... Don't hope too hard; heartbreak's the way of this world.

R*
Yeah... So, gonetime. Cause now I'm going.

R-
Coach'll send somebody after you. Guarantee.

R*
Why I'm going now. ... Keep on...

R-
Hwuh... Keep on...

R*
Sometime...

R-
Yeah, sometime...

R*
Later, man.

R-
Hwuh, later. ... Now.

R*
Now..

Rhett and Robbie go of. Claudia and Security Officer come on. This can be another part of the field/sports complex -- gate to field or entrance to facility etc.

CLAUDIA
Look, I'm a woman.

SECURITY OFFICER
Yes ma'am, but that's notwithstanding.

CLAUDIA
Notwithstanding what?

SECURITY OFFICER
Notwithstanding what you are cause I'd say you're a reporter too. Oh yes ma'am. No ma'am, I can't let you in here 'less you're authorized cause I'm the security officer here and I got orders, that's right orders, and there's no way I can let you up into this complex 'less you're authorized and I got orders, and there's no way you're going to get authorized cause my orders are reporters can't get authorized. So it's notwithstanding. Let me tell you, all the coach has got to do, all he's got to do, is just see a reporter, see a camera and reporter and he gets all riled ghrruruh like he

CLAUDIA
What's he got against reporters?

SECURITY OFFICER
Everything.

CLAUDIA
Well, that's notwithstanding. If I'm a reporter I got the right to report, right?

SECURITY OFFICER
Yes, ma'am. But no ma'am, cause that doesn't mean you're authorized.

CLAUDIA
Rights don't need authorizing, that's why they're rights.

SECURITY OFFICER
No, ma'am, you don't understand. 'Less you get authorization from duly constituted authority, you don't have rights.

CLAUDIA
Yeah, I got 'em. Duly constituted authority's just for securing 'em.

SECURITY OFFICER
No, you don't understand, I'm the security officer here and

CLAUDIA
that's notwithstanding

SECURITY OFFICER
and my authorizing orders disauthorize reporters, rights or no rights, see? Cause of informational security.

CLAUDIA
What makes you so sure I'm a reporter?

SECURITY OFFICER
You just told me.

CLAUDIA
No I didn't, I said if.

SECURITY OFFICER
Yeah, but that's

CLAUDIA
No, don't tell me.

SECURITY OFFICER
And anyway, that's a mini video cam -- so what else could you be?

CLAUDIA
No it's not. Look closely. See it like I see it. This is not a cam anything. This is an imagist, electronic notebook. Just like in one you write things down to remember; here, you see things down to remember.

SECURITY OFFICER
Yes ma'am, but how you see it's still notwithstanding cause

CLAUDIA
Forget notwithstanding. Look... Listen, I'm not here to do a story on the coach or the team or football or the Bowl game; I'm just going to interview the cheerleaders, you know, just do a story about how that image that's got a history, a role in the culture has evolved up to today -- can't do it except by taping some, right? Think of it like anthropology, see. And what's that got to with football, right?

SECURITY OFFICER
Uh-huh. No ma'am, still notwithstanding.

CLAUDIA
Please...

SECURITY OFFICER
Awh...

Head Coach Dooserie comes on with walkie-talkie. Lines in [ ] indicate Coach/Orville talking over radio.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[This is field general number one, come in logistic support. Over.]

CLAUDIA
Who's that?

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Come in logistic support! Over!]

SECURITY OFFICER
That's Head Coach Dooserie, that's who. A plus out of sight now maybe I'm chewed out cause you're here.

CLAUDIA
How could I know he was coming?

SECURITY OFFICER
Yeah. Now kool.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[This is field general number one, come in logistic support. Over.]

ORVILLE over the radio
[Hey there Coach, this here's Orville. What's going on over on your end?]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[What do you mean "what's going on"? Orville, you know that's no way to talk over the radio. Orville, don't you ever do anything right? Now we're going to do this over, and we're going to do it by the numbers. Over.]

ORVILLE over the radio
[What are we going to do it over for? Coach, I got a high fives copy on you so good, you could be over here right now.]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Quiet! Orville... Alright... Urghgh! And ye shall know them by their gladness as they suffer fools. Alright. This is field general number one, come in logistic support. Over.]

ORVILLE over the radio
[This here's logistic support, deputy under assistant athletic director Orville Audrey modulating over on your air line. Come in field general number one. Over.]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Orville, I don't want to talk you. Put on the athletic director.]

ORVILLE over the radio
[Coach, if you want to talk to logistic support you got to talk to me cause I'm the only one over here.]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Well where in tarnation is he? Over.]

ORVILLE over the radio
[I told you he ain't over here. He must be someplace else.]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Over where, Orville? Now, over!]

ORVILLE over the radio
[What I do wrong this time?]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Orville! Orville Audrey if you cut up one more time... If you... Why?.. I'm conspired and harassed, I'm beset like a plague to obscure my greatness coachability and block up my goals. Orville do you know what's happening? Over.]

ORVILLE over the radio
[Ain't nothing happening over here, good buddy; what's happening over there?]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Lord forgive him, cause I'm not going to. Orville, he just quit the team -- the best, best running back we need, he just up..and up... We got to get him back, we just got to... Orville!]

ORVILLE over the radio
[What?]

CLAUDIA
What?

SECURITY OFFICER
Shshshsh...

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Don't you sleepywhat me, Orville Audrey. Orville! Yeah, him, Orville. And that's yardage in the clutch, that's what. And what've we got coming up the day after tomorrow? Orville, you got to get him back, you just got to...]

ORVILLE over the radio
[Who's he?]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Rhett Smedley that's who! And he just quit the team.]

CLAUDIA
He's got to be kidding.

SECURITY OFFICER
You haven't heard a word.

ORVILLE over the radio
[Coach, he can't quit the team, he's the star.]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[He just did, Orville. And you got to get him back, you just got to. Now! You hear me? ... I'm laid trials upon me like a dung heap of disappointment; against me I'm connived upon by circumstance to make success beyond reach. You got to get him back, you hear me Orville?] Am I looking at what I'm looking at over there?

SECURITY OFFICER
Woh-oh, here goes.

ORVILLE over the radio
[How do I know, I ain't over there.]

CLAUDIA
Goes what?

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
You!... That's... I see it! Didn't I give orders? Didn't I expressly instruct? What kind of a job?... And you just stand there like some toon bazoombo, baldfaced and derlicting like you couldn't care? Less 'bout duty and what you're required for... You're a veteran of my organization, and if you don't know better... Urrghaghaghagh! That's, that's a... So that's a reporter! And you dare authorize presence that corrupts by cynical observation and just wants to tear down, tear down and..and revert the motives of the righteous! You're!... I know that's a reporter. Stop shooting that thing at me! Awoourgh... No cameras, no reporters, no nothing of that pry and prevert...

SECURITY OFFICER
Sir... Yessir... But no sir, yes indeed... See, sir, that's notwithstanding cause

CLAUDIA
Oh, absolutely, notwithstanding as can be.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
I see what I see. And what I see's what I see. And all, all... First Smedley, now a reporter... Awohoh... How will I ever get over...

ORVILLE over the radio
[Yeah, I'm here. Hey Coach, what's going on over there?]

SECURITY OFFICER
See, sir, that's not a reporter, and see, that's not a camera. Here

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Shut up Orville! This is serious. Our media security has been breached.]

CLAUDIA
See I'm... This, see... Just listen a minute.

ORVILLE over the radio simultaneously with the following
[Hey, I know it. Important. But you know me, good buddy, I'm Orville Audrey and hey, we still got days till the game comes, and if it's the last thing I do, the last thing I do, I'm going to get him back on that football field come gametime, come rain come shine, so take that burden, like a man reliefed of what was once one of many troubles, now unworried off your mind. Oh yeah, cause I'm Orville Audrey and you know me, oh yessiree, and when I say that's when talk turns to useless, cause I'll have that Rhett man back in your backfield in no more time than it takes a snake to shake its tail, you hear me now?. ... Hey Coach...]

SECURITY OFFICER
No doubt about it Coach, this is just a woman. And what could she have to do with football?

CLAUDIA
You're the Coach? The Head Coach Dooserie? Oh, I've heard so much about your inspirational

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Aw-oh? ... Miss, you don't pull the wool over my eyes for a minute. Oh yes! No, no indeed. Cause I see

SECURITY OFFICER
Oh no, no, yes indeed, Coach, 'cause in this instance, what you see is absolutely notwithstanding. She just looks like a reporter but see, she's an anthroposologist. See, she's even got an imaginarist notebook.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
What?

SECURITY OFFICER
Yeah, that's not a camera.

CLAUDIA
Oh no, no..yeah, it's my instrument for scientific recording of what my project's on. All scientists need instruments. Obvious. Physicists have acelerators, entomologists have nets -- and I'm in the social sciences, and this is not a camera; this is an instrument of vidiotic social recollectivity.

SECURITY OFFICER
Socially scientific vidiotic recall... Coach, with one o these, you recall whatever you want -- and just like file it away someplace in memory -- in case you can't remember. Mh! What'll they think of next?

CLAUDIA
See, I'm working on human primate emotional response. It's for my project. That's my field -- for a Ph.D. -- in primatological sociology, see. It's just my work -- strictly academic -- not at all like journalism, or football.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Young lady, our football program's an integral supporting part of our institution's commitment to achieve across-the-board academic excellence -- and you can quote me on that.

CLAUDIA
Yessir, but only a reporter would want to do that. Oh no, in my work, oh..wow are you an ideal subject -- but anonimity's guaranteed for all. Oh yessir, there, like you reacted, all that charge and adrenalin, such terrific twisted features, howl and contortion... All made by mere perception -- misperception -- of what you per -- misper -- cieved me for..in your mind. I mean... Great, just great..but all off. Wish I'd been here when this..to record I mean..when this..Rhett Smedley, huh? Quit the team? Stupendous reaction..must have been. I mean, when Rhett Smedley, the All-America running back? He quit the team?.Like now? Wow! What happened exactly?

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Miss, you don't pull the wool over my eyes for minute. I can tell, I can tell just by the cutting in, aggressivity of the way you question. Oh no, no comment, no nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing happened. You hear that? Everything's just fine, fine as sunshine on a sunny day. Look around, what could be wrong like that here?

SECURITY OFFICER
Oh, absolutely. Everything calm and steady as that sunshine star's shine, oh yes indeed. Yessir. I mean what could come over anybody, not think everything's just fine, fine as wine. Yessir. Yes indeed -- over, over now.

ORVILLE over the radio
[Hey Coach, you still over there? Now Coach, don't you worry 'bout a thing, cause I'm in my car going over to the hotel right now, get him back in no time -- like he hadn't never left. Put some sensibleness in that headstrong self, have that no count individual back in your backfield in less time than you can say shake a snake. That's right, cause you know me, I'm Orville Audrey and I got my feet in the street and my trash in one bag.]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Snake, that's what shook him. Devils, everywhere. [Now, Orville, you proceed as you best devise. Over and out.]

ORVILLE over the radio
[What? How 'bout some facts of what happened? I mean ain't you going to tell me]

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
[Orville, there's nothing more to tell you, cause there ain't nothing happening over here. We all know that. Only thing going on over here's some disputatious primatological scientist that's a reporter -- a reporter -- you got that Orville? But we got that successfully frustrated. So, Orville, this is field general number one and now you get on and accomplish your appointed mission, over and out. You got that Orville, over and out, Orville! (And don't you tell a single soul.) Over.]

ORVILLE over the radio
[Hey Coach, you know me, I'm Orville Audrey, results man extraordinary, so don't you worry 'bout a thing, 'bout a thing at all cause you know me, secrets safe as National Security in the hands of security professionals. This here's logistic support, Orville Audrey cutting over and out, and that's with a big ten four to you with a coast to coast smile.]

CLAUDIA
Coach, you were just saying back here a minute ago Rhett

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
That incident never happened. And I will not dignify the allegation by making comment upon it. Now I'm going back to work.

CLAUDIA
Coach, you're not a politician, and this is not a lawsuit.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
It's worse; you're a reporter!

CLAUDIA
Coach, how can you say that?

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Experience.

CLAUDIA
Look, I'm just trying to confirm

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
There's nothing to confirm. Everything's just like it always was. All's fine. Nothing happened. Everything is proceeding exactly as planned and the situation is completely under control.

CLAUDIA
Oh-oh, sounds like the governmnet's in charge.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
And anybody you ask'll confirm that? Right?

SECURITY OFFICER
Oh, yessir. Absolutely as planned... And we can completely confirm -- that's right -- that because of security the wool is pulled over everybody's eyes, just like your rights, right? cause you're not authorized to know -- so you don't! Right?

CLAUDIA
Cause you've got orders, that's right orders!

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Now young lady; you are a reporter

CLAUDIA
Coach

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
And rules are rules and fools are fools and the wise know when the fool in them knows it's time to quit.

SECURITY OFFICER
So come on along, like I've been telling you -- I've been telling her

CLAUDIA
That there ain't no reporters 'lowed up on this field 'less they're authorized and it's notwithstanding and your orders authorize you and I'll go peacefully.

SECURITY OFFICER
Yes ma'am. Yessir. 'Cause I'm the security officer here

CLAUDIA
So I don't have the right to any rights cause you got to secure your right to be secure, right?

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
That's right. Oh, yes indeed. And now I have to go. And have a day better than mine.

SECURITY OFFICER
Yessir.

CLAUDIA
Bye, Coach.

HEAD COACH DOOSERIE
Oh Lord, Lord, why do the unjust prosper and make such fools of your faithful servants?

Coach goes off.

CLAUDIA
So what happened?

SECURITY OFFICER
I can't tell you that. You don't have the right to know.

CLAUDIA
I already know.

SECURITY OFFICER
So what do you need me to tell you for?

CLAUDIA
Cause I'm a reporter and I got to confirm.

SECURITY OFFICER
So he quit the team. There. Pretty soon half America's going to know, and I'll have a hundred reporters here.

CLAUDIA
He quit the team? Rett Smedley, the most picture perfect, minted image, finest running back in American college football since..since who knows when, he quit the team? Just like that?

SECURITY OFFICER
I thought you said you already knew.

CLAUDIA
Yeah but now I know for sure. Why'd he do it?

SECURITY OFFICER
That you're going to have to ask him yourself. Cause I've never seen anything like it, and I've been doing security for this organization going on fifteen years now. You know sometimes a player'll say-so quit but you can see that coming -- most times it's just so they'll cozy on up to him, sweeten on that ego that feels dissed away. But like this out of the blue like that... You can tell by how calm and final he said it... "All I had to prove, I've proved; I ain't playing football here again". Wasn't a cloud in the sky and he just, shfoom -- like he was hexed by a UFO -- did it.

CLAUDIA
Where's the team staying? He'd have to go there first, get his stuff, whatever, before moving on, right?

SECURITY OFFICER
I don't know, I'd reckon

CLAUDIA
Where's the team stay?

SECURITY OFFICER
Old hotel down here not too far. Take the road the field house's on, south, three, four lights, big intersection that's Barbados Boulevard -- used to be Jeff Davis Boulevard -- take a right, hotel's on the corner, two blocks down.

CLAUDIA
Right. Thanks. Bye.

SECURITY OFFICER
Hey, now you tell me. How and when are you going to report this so we can set up for the media blitz.

CLAUDIA
I'm not. So far, it's my scoop. And this could be the human interest sports story of..I don't know..this week anyway. And I'm keeping it as mine to do my way for long as I can. So if the coach and all keep the news in-house and nobody says anything..it could hold til game time.

SECURITY OFFICER
Yeah. Maybe. Thanks.

CLAUDIA
Bye. ... And thank you.

SECURITY OFFICER
You're welcome -- but that goes with your anonimity guarantee, right?

CLAUDIA
Hey, I'm a professional reporter. Honoring my committments to my sources is a matter of honor.

SECURITY OFFICER
Take care of yourself now, you hear?

Claudia and Security Officer go off.

 

 

**

 

www.willow-n.com

Running Back Running Back NEXT: A hotel -- downstairs and upstairs. Downstairs, a lobby with desk along with two elevators; upstairs, a hallway with two doors ("room 505" and linen closet/service room) along with the same two elevators. Upstairs, or in elevators, a mirror. Valmira and Otilia are hotel charwomen; they are on upstairs. Nona is at the desk; she is on downstairs.

VALMIRA
Ohh... Otilia, Otilia, I'm telling you I'm tired, tired tired, tired as only work all day can make a body be. Oh yeah. Now I knows you understands what's tired even you don't understand a word I say.

OTILIA
Si. Aie, Valmira, si. Hijole pero no entiendo nada, nada aqui -- salvo el miedo y trabajo de mojada.

VALMIRA
And there you go, go go talking that talkety talk -- just like I can understand a word you say.

OTILIA
Valmira... Aie pero si pudiera comprenderte, te pudiera entender. Si... "Tired?" Si?

VALMIRA
Ohh Otilia hey, you tired too. So now we got to take it. Break time! Huh, supervisor say he got his motivational philosophy, say he believe in employee autonimity. And I say, fine by me. So now we done decided. We be taking that breaktime now, cause we been working and now we tired.

OTILIA
Aie Valmira, hay cancancios que no tienen descanso. Y me parece que tu tienes uno como yo..en tu mundo como en el mio, la vida que me da el destino aqui, remedio no tiene..aunque sea mejor... Y hasta quando aguantarla? Hasta quando volvere a la vida y pueblo que deje -- y que ahora nunca, nunca otra vez vivir podre.

VALMIRA
Oh Otilia, what could your constant sorrow be,
there's no way I be knowing, but oh so long
as life is life and human humankind -- oh I know!
So don't you, don't you like that smoke-fog in the dawn
come creep across the ground let sadness creep across your soul --
there ain't no dark the sun of God can't burn away
like there ain't no weight upon a soul the Lord won't come
put beams of oak like muscles to the back
that's straining with that weight life's put on thee.

OTILIA
Que bella la voz quando habla un'alma, aun nisiquiera entiendo palabra.

VALMIRA
Huhh, whatever you saying I reckon must be true cause it got that fullness ring. And now Otilia we going in here, going to take this flesh and bone, set it down and going to take our rest.

OTILIA
Si, Valmira, si -- el break.

Valmira and Otilia go off into linen closet/service room. Rhett comes on upstairs from elevator. Catches sight of himself in mirror.

RHETT
Hey there mirror man..and you're a mess and for that matter crazy too -- well, that way's why they couldn't recognize me -- and what is this you jive, what about me, huh, when I'm talking to you? Yeah, you..me. Ohhh... And what took a hold of you do a thing like that? -- bringing you up here creeping through like some kind of security suspect skipping the key like I'm not here. ... And somewhere here there's got to be somebody so I can be here like I'm not. Right?

Rhett goes to linen closet/service room surprising Valmira and Otilia.

VALMIRA
What happened? Ohh, Otilia, I knows I's explain' to you you not s'ppose' to move 'less you told me. And here you go jump up like a jackrabbit set on by doghound.

OTILIA
Si, pero como entro el como camion sin frenos..

RHETT
Pardon me, I

VALMIRA
Phm! So what you want come busting in here like some kind of accident? I don't know where you coming from, but where it was you sure must've left in one kind of hurry.

RHETT
Well, actually yeah...more or less. And so I couldn't quite..quite get my key on the way up so I thought maybe you could open up my room for me, it's five-oh-five.

VALMIRA
You number five-oh-five? Mmmh-mh! Sure enough your moma didn't bring you up right -- mess you got on, mess you left in your room. And what you doing back so soon? Don't tell me -- cause I already knows -- mess you done make on the football field, and now they done kick you off the team! Minute you come busting in here, minute I knowed -- that nervous in the walk, that wild in the eyes -- minute I knowed you was trouble, minute I knowed you was five-oh-five! Water all on the bathroom, clothes every which way, cigarette butts down underside the bed, beer cans on the floor -- you name it, you left it -- and in the wrong place! Sure enough your momma didn't bring you up right. Minute we get finish clean up your room, get these body and bones some rest, minute you come busting in here with "Well, actually, more or less. So I thought you could open up my room for me, it's five-oh-five". Well here you is. And this time you make sure sure you leaves everything where it go, 'cause we ain't your momma and we ain't get paid to pick up behind, make up for what she didn't do!!! Phm!

OTILIA
Phm!

RHETT
Yes, ma'am.

VALMIRA
Phm!

RHETT
I will. Scout's honor. Cross my heart and hope to die. Besides, you got nothing more to worry about, cause I'm leaving.

VALMIRA
Uh-huh? And where you going to take your messing up to now? Cause you got to be here for that big time game you come for. So the only place you can go mess up is someplace else -- right here.

RHETT
Yes Ma'am. But that's still where I'm going -- someplace else. So anybody come looking for me, that's where I'm gone.

VALMIRA
Phm!

RHETT
Thank you.

VALMIRA
You welcome.

RHETT
Adios.

OTILIA
Adios. Que lo pase bien. Y cuidado con la recamera!

Upstairs, Rhett goes off into "505". Downstairs, Claudia comes on.

VALMIRA
Now don't you go jumpin' up less you tell me. Otilia, you comprende? Life been long for me now, and it done jumped so on this old heart, it can't take no skip beat from surprise.

OTILIA
Si. Creo que entiendo...pero quantas veces ya, he creido qu'entendia, y estaba equivocada?

Upstairs, Valmira and Otilia go off back into linen closet/service room.

NONA
Hi, can I help you?

CLAUDIA
Oh hi. Well, yeah. You can. I'm looking for Rhett Smedley; he's a guest here. Can you give me his room number?

NONA
Rhett Smedley? Well..he rightly shouldn't be here now. I mean, he ought to be still at practice with the rest of the team.

CLAUDIA
Well..yeah, but... That's alright, just tell me how to get to his room. I'm a friend of his. He asked me to wait for him.

NONA
Ma'am, I'm sorry but I don't believe team rules..Head Coach Dooserie..I mean, 'llows that sort of thing -- not that it's any of this hotel's business, but... And anyhow, what you got in mind, doesn't it take it all out of them, I mean before a big game and all..like that?

CLAUDIA
Listen you, I'm a reporter, alright? And it's what you got in..never mind. Just tell me how to get to his room, okay?

NONA
You ain't from about these parts now are you?

CLAUDIA
No, and what's that got to do with anything?

NONA
I don't know. But you know, there's some girls'll do most anything for a man that's a football player.

CLAUDIA
Yeah well most of the time I wouldn't do most anything for any man no matter what he is cause what seems like most of the time none of them seem to be worth the time. At least that's how I feel most of the time. But sometimes I change my mind -- and then regret it.

NONA
Aw honey tell me, cause I know so well. Cause I go always changing my mind too, go give it one more go 'round ev'ry time, over one new man, and then the next. And I mean I can hear me say'n' to me as anger from that being used gets stronger -- it's like it's hardly heartbreak any more -- oh Nona, Nona I can hear me say'n' you should've 'way back learned this song by now.

CLAUDIA
Yeah. It's a mess isn't it?

NONA
You're telling me? Oh honey..hooh!

CLAUDIA
Yeah. So, uh...

NONA
Oh. Yeah. Let me look. Fact is he's up there, I just saw him, try duck and tiptoe through like sight unseen. Talk about a one mighty handsome man... Yeah. It's five oh five.

CLAUDIA
Five oh five, okay. You know I don't even know the guy. I'm just going up to interview him.

NONA
Uh-huh. Yes, Ma'am.

CLAUDIA
Honest.

NONA
For sure. Bye now.

CLAUDIA
So long.

Downstairs, Claudia goes to the elevators and gets into one. Upstairs, Rhett, set to travel, has come on out of "505". As Claudia gets out of one elevator, Rhett gets into the other. Claudia catches sight of herself in mirror.

CLAUDIA
And why'd she immediately think I'm here wanting to...? Didn't even try to believe me. Because she's older? Cause she's overexperienced -- and the wrong way by life. Cause she has no experience and is mistaking one-track TV for the way life is? Does it really get like that? Not for me. But why's there never anybody...? I mean, look, what's wrong with me? Ohh... And I feel I could give..more than most can dream, to love. Stop it! Claudia, ohh... But someday it'll be..it has to..doesn't it? Claudia..Claudia..back to the reality channel. You're the reporter now. Smart and tough and you're going to get this story. This is an opportunity dropped into your lap from heaven, and you're going to gather it up and run with it. I can do this. Okay, now where's...

Upstairs, Claudia goes to knock at door of "505". Downstairs, Orville comes on; when Rhett comes out of elevator and sees Orville, Rhett hides. Lines enclosed in [ ] indicate Claudia talking upstairs into her mobile phone and Nona talking downstairs into the phone at counter/desk.

RHETT
(Damn. Orville.)

NONA
Hi, can I help you?

ORVILLE
Well I..I sure, sure hope so there...
Oh soft and sweetest little one -- to look
at you's to see the loveliness that sets
upon the twigs amid the leaves so green
of the blossoming dogwood tree in Spring --
or more like seein' the whole dang tree --
so small, so person-size' beneath the sky,
but here beside, so strong and gently sway'n'
to breezes softened by that warmin' sun.

NONA
Sir, how can I help you?

ORVILLE
Where? I don't see no sir nowhere..anywhere

NONA
Yessir. Welcome to the Madison Hotel. Can I help you?

ORVILLE
No, you can't. Cause I can't help myself. It comes jus' tear'n' right out of me like it's got pow'r like be'n' alive itself -- my eyes see beauty and the self of me comes reachin' out right after like set free.

NONA
Sir, I think

ORVILLE
Oh go on and laugh, cause for sure I don't deserve none of that 'fraidness worry.

CLAUDIA
[What do you mean, what city? I don't know, this city. ... Look, I got to be in the same area code, alright? I don't know, this palookaville...]

NONA
Alright, I laughed.

CLAUDIA
[What? As the number I'm trying to find! Ohh... Okay, okay, try the same city the stadium's in where they're going to have the bowl game tomorrow.]

NONA
I don't believe you think you're for real, that's all.

ORVILLE
I'm not. Already had all the reality one life can stand. Want as less I can to do with it, for whatever life I got left.

CLAUDIA
[Yeah. ... The John Quincy Madison hotel. ... Oh right. Obvious. James Madison. Sorry.]

ORVILLE
My name's Orville, Orville Audrey. The boys all call me Orv. And my momma she always called me Orvie.

NONA
Yeah, and your girlfriends?

ORVILLE
Aw shucks..but... Aw, they always call me all kinds of things.

NONA
Yessir...I bet you could bet on that -- before, during, and after.

ORVILLE
But I still can't help it. Don't want to help it. And maybe you won't want to if the time comes.

NONA
So lead us not into temptation lest we regret what our weakness led us bet on.

ORVILLE
I bet you sing in the choir too.

NONA
Used to.

CLAUDIA
[Five-seven-seven-five-oh-five-oh. Right, thank you. ... What thank you? "And the number is". Claudia, now it was a computer.]

ORVILLE
What time you get off work?

NONA
Five o'clock.

ORVILLE
Yee-yiii! So I got five minutes take care of business

NONA
Look... Sir, I don't think

ORVILLE
Walk around the block, walk through the mall, and back through the mall -- take a walk..that might not even come to a closer walk..with thee -- guaranteed, walk where you can always walk away.

phone rings

NONA
I'm sorry, but I don't believe... No, no sir. [Madison Hotel, can I help you?]

CLAUDIA
[Hi. Is this Nona, right? At the reception there?]

NONA
[Yes, Ma'am, this is Nona speaking.]

ORVILLE
(Nona, oh Nona, oh Nona I knows --
your name hand-in-hand with your beauty goes,
so all my hope's your verdict's yesses not noes!)

CLAUDIA
[Well, he's not up here.]

NONA
[Ma'am?]

CLAUDIA
[Ohh... I'm Claudia -- the reporter who was just there talking to you, right? Looking for Rhett Smedley, remember? Well, I'm upstairs and he's not there. I keep knocking on his room and, nothing. I mean, did you really see him come up?]

NONA
[Yeah I saw him. I wouldn't lie -- not in this type situation anyhow. I saw him, right here. Rhett Smedley, big as life.]

ORVILLE
Whoa! Wait. Stop that clock! Belay that last! Time out. Just a little itty-bitty sec, alright?

NONA
Huh? [Can you hold the line a minute please?]

ORVILLE
You saw him? Rhett Smedley?

NONA
You a reporter too?

ORVILLE
No, uh-uh. Matter of fact I'm a deputy under assistant athletic director -- and anytime you hear them ten yards of deputy assistant under anything, you know that's just organization talk for low man on the totem pole. And, Nona..Nona, I am truly pleased to meet you.

NONA
Ohh... [Well, Ma'am, I don't know what else to suggest. He went up there so he must be up there, cause he ain't been back down here. Ours is a full security access hotel, and if you're a guest, there's no way you can get out, except this way. So he's got to be here somewhere.]

CLAUDIA
[Well isn't there somebody else that might've seen him?]

NONA
[You might try the Room Turn Around Team for that floor; they should be up there, somewhere.]

CLAUDIA
[The what?]

NONA
[The maids.]

CLAUDIA
[Oh. Okay.]

NONA
[Yes, Ma'am.]

CLAUDIA
[Okay. Great. Bye.]

NONA
[Bye now.]

ORVILLE
And just out of curiosity, what do they call your job?

NONA
Client Interface Representative. It means I'm the girl at the desk. But..they seem to like it, all them in management world -- so we all go along, right?

ORVILLE
I tell you, Miss wide eyes of the Southland, you

NONA
I ain't from the South, I'm from Texas.

ORVILLE
And I'm going right up talk to this boy Smedley and try spin this reporter that this ain't no story and I'll be right back and we'll go right out. Right?

NONA
No.

ORVILLE
So suit yourself. But then tonight you might
just maybe think on..on just maybe..me...
I bet you'll lay awake in your life's known and worn
details and bet you'll wonder..I'd.. that if you'd come
you might'd met someone that'd take a place
in your experience that might rightly run,
with give it time, right on past stranger, where we all begin,
to someone that's becoming someone more.
There's no way you can know but try,
so why not come ahead, let go, and just find out.

NONA
And try, and try again? Gets to be a bad habit when experience's been hope's been took for one too many rides.

ORVILLE
Okay. Go home and have that hankering tap, tap, tap
that maybe this time love, love that might've,
just might've, lasted could've been. Look at me --
nothing but a man, light of good sense and truthfulness
shining in my eyes. And while I'm waiting on
that elevator try to keep your mind from keeping on me,
and if you can't, then let you come with me.

NONA
Orville, I don't believe a word you're saying

ORVILLE
That's a wise choice -- it is. So you're free to just make believe you do. Now what room's Rhett Smedley in?

NONA
Five oh five.

ORVILLE
Nona, Nona, my girl, this won't take but a minute.

Downstairs, Orville goes to elevators and waits for one, all the while exchanging glances with Nona as she busies herself trying to ignore him. Upstairs, meanwhile, Claudia has gone to linen closet/utility room and surprises Valmira and Otilia.

VALMIRA
What happened? Ohh, Otilia, I knows I's told you comprende. And there you go

OTILIA
Si pero ella entrando asi

VALMIRA
Phm! So what you want come busting in here right behind like destiny determined can't nobody take no break?

CLAUDIA
I'm sorry but

VALMIRA
No you're not, cause then there wouldn't be no but.

CLAUDIA
Well, actually

VALMIRA
"Well, actually" -- you too huh? -- "I couldn't get my key so I thought..."

CLAUDIA
Huh? No, I'm not a guest. I'm looking for someone.

VALMIRA
Well honey, it ain't me and it ain't she, so you ain't found 'em here, so you got no need to keep on looking here. So now you can let us be.

CLAUDIA
Yes, ma'am but

VALMIRA
Don't you yes ma'am me, young lady. Can't you see I'm old. I got no time left for hypocrisy.

CLAUDIA
Look. Okay. I'm looking for Rhett Sedley. He's in five oh five.

VALMIRA
You looking for five oh five? Hm, hm, hm! She be looking for five oh five, Mmmh-mh!

OTILIA
Five oh five? Aie Valmira, el señorito zafarancho?

VALMIRA
Yes 'm, Otilia. Must be. Child, what you want with a no good man like that?

CLAUDIA
Well, I'm following him. Have you seen him?

VALMIRA
Child, I don't know what that man's done, and I don't wants to know cause I already knows. And what lies he told -- and lies you told yourself -- when he come steal your heart and pregnate you ain't fit for honest folk to playback in they minds. Cause you knows what they's doing to you, and you knows what's you doing to yourself cause love come like a dream take hold of you you trying shake up off but can't wake loose. And now you got a child that's coming, huh?

CLAUDIA
Wait a minute

VALMIRA
I know I ain't you, but if I be, you know I just let him up and go -- be gone! -- he left you once, he ain't going stay next time, now -- so I wouldn't even find the time to wave. Mens they's all like that -- the unification of all selfish bad habits there be on this Earth.

CLAUDIA
Well, yeah..okay..but he's not

VALMIRA
Oh yes he is. They all is. A woman and her childrens, that's the family today. So you take your burden and you just live your struggle with it, the way it is. You don't need no man -- used to, but not now -- cause you can't count on them at all -- 'cept to put the blame on you for what they done to you. I know all what can be knowed 'bout mens cause I's knowed all the mens and all the need-a-man I cares to know. And a man ain't but a child inside that leave a child behind. And ain't no society left, make 'em act like they grown up.

CLAUDIA
Yes but you don't understand, I don't want to..I don't know -- I just want to interview him, you know, get him to open up..tell me about himself.

VALMIRA
Pfm! And ain't that what they all think they want? When love come take a woman it come take, come take so pow'rful strong take ev'ry last piece of sense and peace a woman have til she feel she can't make no sense at all.

CLAUDIA
Look, I'm not

VALMIRA
Pfm! Look at yourself! Look how your eyes they be stabbing they looks out, looking worried-searching, like they's fearful to find what they's most looking to see, look how they looks so sadful and tense like they's dying from drought, dying to drink the sight of his face.

CLAUDIA
Oh come on! That's ridiculous. Really. I hardly even know the guy.

VALMIRA
And that, most probable's, the only reason you still in love with him.

CLAUDIA
Ohh... See

VALMIRA
See? See what? See what you don't see yourself? I know I don't knows all what school-bred folks knows, but I knows what I sees, and what I sees now's the most helpless, pathetic thing on this Earth -- a woman in love that don't even knows yet love's what she's in.

CLAUDIA
Look, I know what I am; and in love I'm sure's what I'm not.

VALMIRA
Pfm! Just like when you first takes sick, but ain't 'nough sick yet to know sick's what you is.

CLAUDIA
What?

VALMIRA
Yeah, you know, like when's you just living your life and friends and peoples comes up, looks at you, ask: "What's wrong with you? You don't look so good. You feeling alright?" And you tells 'em you's fine, fine as you's always been, cause you ain't admit to yourself yet there be something wrong -- and then come the next night you's in bed with the bug. Child, you can looks in the mirror and not ever sees what looks back at your face -- it ain't nothing new -- all you can see's what's you lets yourself sees. It's like..just like -- and this be the thing I understands the most less in all life -- how the same self same folks (cause all people's the same) can looks at the exact, zack same thing, and not sees the same thing at all.

CLAUDIA
I don't understand.

VALMIRA
I know, oh child, I know. So you hear what I say
and I's explains. Pretend now, you pretend up in
your mind you stand with me some morning,
some morning for the bus when on the avenue
all round it feel the whole, whole city be going to work.
And then there come this man, come bus stop way.
Me you both now, we sees this zack same man --
like he going to work at the bank or the office,
his shoes be so new the shine on them gleam,
and face so fresh like shave done clean clear to youth,
suit so sharp, tie so bright, shirt so white and pearly smooth
like sunlight shed on snow. You sees that man,
them upscale clothes so fine, the world-is-mine
look in his eyes, and you, you don't sees him at all,
cause you, all you sees what most folks they sees --
so you think something to yourself at all it ain't but
"Hm! Ain't that just like it should be, ain't that man
just the picture of all a man ought to be."
But when I sees that man, his shirt so smooth and white
I can't help, I just can't help but sees, from how my life
been used away, it was a poor, and working woman
iron that shirt, and how for years and years she maybe iron
and cook and clean and mind the childrens and work
and work in that man's home -- so I can't help
but sees her standing in the laundry room
as down the years and years she worked
all the wrinkles she done press off all the cloth
of all them shirts was done sucked up by the iron
and then raise on up her arm to line up on her face
like these wrinkles line on mine.
See? We still be looking at the zack same man but you don't sees all that when you sees that man.

CLAUDIA
No.

VALMIRA
And the truth is, there ain't no experience in your life to make you see like that.

CLAUDIA
Well, no..but no! Now

VALMIRA
Now? I don't know, maybe it's all different now, all different for young folks anyhow. Young folks is always different from old folks cause the young folks can't remember what the old folks can't forget.

CLAUDIA
Yeah... Look, it's not what you think. I'm a reporter, okay? So have you seen him...please. This is my big break.

VALMIRA
Pfm! That's what it always seem like from before, but once the truth break in you finds out quick it ain't nothing what you wanted. Now maybe I's seed him, and maybe I ain't... And he say to say he be gone, and I still says, child, I just let him stay gone.

CLAUDIA
So he was here. Where? How long ago?

VALMIRA
He just left.

CLAUDIA
What? Why didn't you tell me?

VALMIRA
I told you. Just you won't listen cause you young.

CLAUDIA
Right. Bye. Got to go. Thanks.

VALMIRA
Pfm!

Upstairs, Claudia goes to elevators.

VALMIRA
Otilia, oh Otilia, like this we ain't going to get nothing done. How we going to rest this way? So next time, we just keep sleeping, keep sleeping, like this, comprende, till they just gets tired and goes away.

Upstairs, Valmira and Otilia go back to linen closet/utility room. Claudia gets into elevator and goes down. Downstairs, Orville, who's been waiting for an elevator, gets into one and goes up. Rhett comes out from his hiding place.

RHETT
Hi, where's the bus station in this town?

NONA
Hey, you're Rhett Smedley -- oh, you look just like him. I knew you was here someplace. You know I got a little step-brother back home in Sierra Santa -- that's in Texas -- and he says he wants to grow up and be just like you are. You're his favorite running back in the whole NCAA. We're not supposed to ask cause it's against management rules for serving celebrities, but you think you could give me your autograph for him?

RHETT
If I am Rhett Smedley you can bet I'm not letting on after what I just did. So I'm not giving out any autographs anymore cause I'm just not that Rhett Smedley anymore and that's all there is to it. Now maybe I'm some other one? I'll be glad to give you his autograph to give to your little brother.

NONA
You're him alright. No matter what you say. You look just like I seen you -- I cna check if it's you, right here on the screen. I mean, you're no look alike..are you?

RHETT
Perfect look alike..cause that's all it means when you're a used-to-be. Now you want my autograph or don't you?

NONA
Oh yeah. My brother's name is Robert. Here.

RHETT
Right. Alright, now where's the bus station?

NONA
You go down to Jeff -- used to be Jeff Davis Boulevard -- while back they named it Barbados Boulevard -- but it don't look the same at all -- hang a right and just keep walking till you see the parking lots for the fast foods. Bus station's right across the street.

RHETT
Right. Thanks. Appreciate it a whole lot. Tell your little brother: do what you love, love what you do. Bye.

NONA
Wait! Ther're messages..there was people here looking for you. Mr. Orville Audrey and this reporter..friend of yours..she said. Orville said he'd be right back.

RHETT
Orville? Orville was here? Huh? Well I'll be doggone but I didn't see no Orville, no sir nowhere..anywhere. But if you say so..matter of fact, that's why I'm leaving, right now. And I don't know no reporters so

NONA
Wait! You know Orville?

RHETT
Oh yeah, I know Orville.

NONA
What's he like, Orville?

RHETT
Orville? Hard to say. Orville's a strong good man, fighting hard not to turn out wrong

NONA
but life just won't let him win? We've all heard that excuse before.

RHETT
I don't know. But he's giving you the chance -- find out for yourself.

NONA
How do you know that?

RHETT
Cause, I was hiding over there the whole time.

NONA
You were not.

RHETT
Got to got to go 'fore he gets back. Adios.

NONA
Bye now. Hey wait, what do I tell that reporter girl?

Downstairs, Rhett goes off and Claudia comes on out of elevator. Upstairs, Orville gets out of elevator and goes to knock on door of "505". Orville catches sight of himself in mirror.

ORVILLE
Breaker, breaker you got a copy on me mirror man? Hey there -- handsome is as handsome talks and does -- you lying son of a bitch -- and too bad you don't feel near as good as you look.

CLAUDIA
Hi again. You were right. He was up there. But now he's gone.

NONA
I know.

CLAUDIA
Huh? You haven't seen him come through here have you?

NONA
Yeah. He just went out the door.

CLAUDIA
What!? Where was he going?

NONA
I don't know. He didn't say. And what's everybody looking for Rhett Smedley for?

CLAUDIA
Cause, he's the human interest sports story of the month, but not too many people know yet -- that he quit. I'm the only reporter that knows -- and I'm sure they're not going to let any others know. But now I don't know where he is.

NONA
So you're not a friend of his?

CLAUDIA
No.

NONA
So why'd you lie when you first asked me?

CLAUDIA
Come on, that wasn't a lie. That was..discretionary professional deception.

NONA
Oh. Yeah. Like Washington and politicians all the time. Since they all think they know better than we can understand, they can't never tell us the whole truth.

CLAUDIA
Yeah. And the war for power over you between them and the media makes it worse. Didn't he mention anything?

NONA
About what?

CLAUDIA
About where he was going!

NONA
I told you. He didn't say. All he wanted to know was where the bus station was. What do you mean he quit?

CLAUDIA
Aiee! I'll have to get my things back at my hotel. I'll miss him. Well, where!?

NONA
I just told you. He didn't say.

CLAUDIA
No, stupid. The bus station.

NONA
Ma'am, you got no call talk to anybody that way, cause who you think

CLAUDIA
Ohh... Okay, okay... Really, I... (Like life from the other side of the college entrance divide...)

NONA
What was that?

CLAUDIA
Never mind..didn't mean anything. I'm sorry, but..Miss, please, just where's the bus station.

NONA
'Cross the street from a line of fast foods -- down two blocks and over two that way.

CLAUDIA
Right. Beautiful. Bye.

NONA
Yes Ma'am.

CLAUDIA
Taxi!

Downstairs, Claudia goes off. Upstairs, Orville, who was knocking at the door of "505", goes to linen closet/utility room. Valmira and Otilia don't budge.

ORVILLE
Hey there. I said hey there. Hurry up, hurry up, time's awasting. Revenuers in the hollow! Fire in the hole! INCOMING!!! Well, I'll be a tadpole but they're dormacious as brand new-born babies -- and don't even come close for cuteness too. Must be some kind of mysterious stress disease, something, cut them off, out like a light like that -- like darked out to life. Narcophilia, lethosismia, solipmiasma, sleep sickness, something. That's why all them sicknesses sound alike, cause you can't truly know the difference twixt them till you've had more than one. Hey, I seen it happen -- Saturday mornings on the cartoon shows. TV was brand-new where I come up. I weren't but a wee tad back then -- you know, imperishable, so I remember it all real good. Right aflicker on that memory screen you can't cut off. Anyhow, there was this young fella. And he was all racked out under this big old tree. Must've been in South America or someplace. You know in South America they sleep all day and party all night cause it rains so much it's useless try do nothing else. Uh-huh, yeah. Anyhow he's snoring under this tree and there come this big old teetsie fly. Small in the sky and loud like a fast mover looking for your marker smoke. Nothing but a little itty bitty critter, but they bring you in on a close-up and you can see he's got this mean old pecker on him just looking for somebody to dig on. And this fly come down on this fella blink of an eye like that fly-by slip them iron bombs into the tree line -- and gone, scream on out of there, leave them snuffies still squirming in the dirt. And left that man so asleep like sucked out all the wakefulness a man ever had in him. Hey, I seen it happen, after, in the silence by the crater holes -- called it victory, get that count -- clothes blown off and the man untouched. I swear he looked so asleep I near put a round in his head just in case. Dormacious as a still-born child. You think maybe it's some kind of foreign legionnaire's disease, come up on them like breathed in something? It wouldn't be contageable now would it? Doggone it I got better things to do try rouse you two up, get shot up with something to be quarantized. Huh! I'm Orville Audrey and I got a lariat made from talk that I'm going to use to rope me a cow-eyed angel. HIIIIIII-YAW!

Upstairs, Orville goes to elevators, gets into one and goes down.

OTILIA
Psst, Valmira..duermes? You sleep? Oye, Valmira...

VALMIRA
Sleep? Sleep! How you spec nobody get no sleep with some fool that's all mouth running loose?

OTILIA
Si. ... Pero que estaba diciendo ese? Dios mio, no entiendo nada..nada.

VALMIRA
And Dios is right, if I understands just a word of that talk, cause Lord, my Lordy here we go -- them fools from your creation took our break time down the drain and here we got to goes back to it -- work time. Work all day, all day all the days of your born days til now the sweat of my brow got gullies in my face for running down. If I been Eve, I can tells you Otilia, oh! -- I takes down that apple and throws it fars I can up 'cross that Paradise wall into home run country. And when Adam come I lie like the devil 'bout what that serpent said. PFFM! "Oh Adam baby..no..nothing..didn't see nobody, uh-uh, not even ol' God..just been waiting for you baby, that's all." But she didn't lie, she told him the whole truth 'bout what that serpent said -- cause she was too dumb, too innocent honest for to lie -- so now we're going back to work.

OTILIA
Work. Si. El work. De vuelta a este destino de pobre -- trabajo que nunca acaba y pago que nunca alcanza.

Upstairs, Valmira and Otilia go off. Downstairs, Nona catches sight of herself in mirror.

NONA
A strong man fighting hard -- and no more good
that do than fighting the blind fortune that
decides who's coming home from war, alive,
or not, or all in pieces inside and out.
And walking out to tempt the fortune that
may make, or not, for what may not be love,
but yet, the hell beats out of loneliness,
is too, a facing up to fate's blind draw
that dealt out lives fated to fight -- and lose.
And here I go, astepping out to take
another turn at turning out so wrong.
Yeah, but it seems so long now since I have.
Oh it's so easy when your loneliness,
your love and hopefulness've made you act
so reckless strange and sent you out to run
so wild out on the dark side so
that watching you out looking out for love
the one you think you are, she'd never know
that she was you as I look here at me.
Oh I've so cut me off since when I took
to getting down on me for being all
disgusted, tired and mistreated, that
the things that make my life up feel like walls
that stand around me with no life inside:
the job, apartment, product music and TV, and all
them nights with all that endless video --
the chores that day to day add up to years
through which we find we've blindly passed,
and all them nights to bed, alone..or not.
All these things, the situations and routines
that are the things my daily life's made out of
as I live 'em make me scared 'bout what it means
to live a life I feel all life fade out of.
My life is days filled up by habitual actions
that feeling empty fill the hours they erase,
the way that rooms divide a house up into portions
and even empty, fill up all the walls embrace.
And as I run through this house my life
I feel so shadowed, nervous-crazy
so like, cause it's all she can do to keep from crying,
a woman, working hard to keep too busy,
runs feeling like a widow though she's till a wife
through a house where her life's still living there, but dying.
Orville...? Any man named Orville... Orville... sounds like the name of a teddy bear on a cartoon show. He didn't look dangerous. All strangers can't deserve the fear...and why's it always strangers that we fill our minds up with when wishing all for someone make our dreams of being wanted all come true? He'll be love and such sweet tendern... There now! Oh I go again, jumping ahead of myself so...Like all on my own all I'll ever be is always feeling only part way whole; always feeling like I'm always missing both someone and some part of me. Ohh! Like all I'm going to do is sit in a bar with him a while, see if I like him. I mean it's not like... Oh I knew I'd go once he'd asked. It's always like that. We make our minds up long before we let us know we have.

ORVILLE
Slowest doggone elevators you ever saw, huh? Hey there, you ready yet?

NONA
Uh...

ORVILLE
Well, he wasn't up there. He must've gone on back on his own.

NONA
Oh yeah? Where was he going?

ORVILLE
Who?

NONA
Rhett Smedley.

ORVILLE
What?!?! You saw him?

NONA
Yeah he just

ORVILLE
How'd you let him get away?

NONA
I didn't know he quit.

ORVILLE
Huh? How'd you know that? And where was he going?

NONA
I don't know. He didn't say.

ORVILLE
Ohh... Now what am I going to do? Help me.

NONA
I'm sorry. ... All he said was he was going to the bus station.

ORVILLE
What?!?! Well come on sweetness. Soon as we get him back, you and me we'll be going out tonight and set the woods on fire. So now come on honey, come on.

Orville and Nona go off.

 

 

***

 

www.willow-n.com

Running Back Running Back NEXT: Bus station with bus. Bus riders are on, as can be Rhett and Claudia and two winoes. Lines enclosed in { } indicate simultaneity as appropriate.

TICKET SELLER
Next...

P.A.
{Yallerdawg Buslines 'nounces the departure of Li'l Dawg Local Service to Mixtapaxville, Dirty River, Creole Landing, Watka-hahatchka-kawoke-oowee, Mighty Southland Themepark Mall, South Furston, Furston, East Furston, North Nowhere, Big Sleepy, Booneburg, Cherokee Grave, Jackson, Thebes, and Mosquito Creek. All aboard please.}

BUS RIDER
{'Scuse me but the clock on the wall's out and I don't got no watch or phone}

RHETT
{Um, pack of Coolies, please...oh...}

BUS RIDER
{so've you got he time, please?}

CLAUDIA
{Ohhh...Sure, It's five-oh-five.}

RHETT
{I mean..sorry..I want a ticket to New York, alright?}

BUS RIDER
{'Preciate that a whole lot. Thanks.}

CLAUDIA
{Right, right.}

RHETT
{I'm sort of absent-minded sometimes.}

TICKET SELLER
Uh-huh? ... Here you go, Sir.

RHETT
Here. Thanks.

TICKET SELLER
That's eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-five, a hundred. Thank you. Next.

CLAUDIA
Yeah, I'd like to go to..uh..Pacacooley..?

TICKET SELLER
Pacacooley? That'u'd be in Georgia now, wouldn't it?

CLAUDIA
Right. Georgia. Must be. It's a small town. ... One of those tumbleweed towns, say, that came with the wind.

TICKET SELLER
Huh?

CLAUDIA
Never mind. I mean, Atlanta is in Georgia?

TICKET SELLER
Yeah... Pacacooley, uh-huh... Sure must be small cause I don't believe we go there. I can check on that for you Miss but

CLAUDIA
Of course you go there. It's where that man that was just here before me's going. That's what he said, right? He uh..he's my husband -- it's where he's from. See..someone in his family passed away..that's how come he's so distracted -- like he didn't even know me anymore.

TICKET SELLER
Oh I'm..I am sorry. I hope it wasn't a war casualty -- they're always the hardest to accept -- so far away -- like he or she was just still gone and going to be coming home -- til you got to go through all the funeral and all.

CLAUDIA
No, ... sorry -- I'm sorry -- it was nothing like that.

TICKET SELLER
Oh it's alright. You know he did say he was a little beside himself. But it's like that..how the healing process begins, if it does. He bought a ticket to New York; he must've done it by mistake.

CLAUDIA
Oh no. No. New York? That's where the funeral is -- must've completely slipped my mind.

TICKET SELLER
Oh?

CLAUDIA
Yes. I know. I mean I don't. How much for New York?

TICKET SELLER
Oh, that'll be eighty-eight dollars and seventy-seven cents.

CLAUDIA
Eighty-eight...! Oh..here.

TICKET SELLER
Here you go. Thank you. And don't forget, you got to change in Atlanta.

CLAUDIA
Oh no -- I'm not forgetful. Thanks.

TICKET SELLER
Take care. Next.

Claudia, keeping eye on Rhett, moves away to make call on her phone as two panhandling wineheads accost her. Lines enclosed in [ ] indicate Claudia talking into her mobile phone.

YOUNG DRUNK
Hey babe, have a hit.

OLD DRUNK
Yeah, c'mon sister, have a snort -- and help us out.

CLAUDIA
Thanks but no thanks boys, I'm working.

OLD DRUNK
Working? I did that once.

CLAUDIA
You should do it again.

OLD DRUNK
Well, I'd like to but..but I can't.

YOUNG DRUNK
Huh! What's that like, work?

OLD DRUNK
I don't know. Was so long ago, I forgot.

YOUNG DRUNK
Hey, that was real funny man. They ought to make a clip of you, put it on the tube sites-- like TV. No, seriously.

OLD DRUNK
No, seriously. I had it 'splained to me once, how serious, at the unemployment office.

YOUNG DRUNK
So why didn't you get no job? They made you a job proposition, right? That's their job.

OLD DRUNK
No. That's what they 'splained to me. They can't have no job for me even when I wanted cause I ain't lost no job. See, I ain't just unemployed. Yours truly, I'm structural. So I'm good to go. See, once you're structural, you're home free. You don't have no obligation no more. That's why I don't have to work, and the system can't draft me -- good to go.

CLAUDIA
[Hi? Can you put me through to Gladys, please? She's in Mr. Lootus' office.]

YOUNG DRUNK
{Gladys?}

OLD DRUNK
{Mr. Lootus' office huh? Ho Lootus, must be some kind of Brutus big.}

CLAUDIA
{[Oh... Yeah, I'll hold.] Go away! Go uh-way-ee!}

OLD DRUNK
Seriously Gladys, I say everybody ought to be on TV.

YOUNG DRUNK
Seriously. Right there on TV. Just like the President. How 'bout it, just a little help.

CLAUDIA
Absolutely not. You don't deserve it.

YOUNG DRUNK
Lady, you blind? Look what shape I'm in. What's deserve got to do with it? Just a little help..how 'bout it?

OLD DRUNK
Just a little something. Get us through..we're not lying..this night's wine need.

CLAUDIA
[Yeah, I'm still here.] No! [I mean yes. I mean no..there isn't. Look, I got to get through to Bruce Lootus, producer of "Real Stars, Real People" right? And you know he only takes calls she clears so..so I'll hold.] Leave me alone! Don't you understand? I'm working.

YOUNG DRUNK
Right. So you got to have some spare change.

CLAUDIA
I'm not going to give you anything. I don't believe in charity to the undeserving.

YOUNG DRUNK
Aw, absolutely not! No charity, nuh-uh. You are completely one-hundred and ten percent right and I totally agree with you. I don't deserve charity. And I don't want no charity. I want welfare.

CLAUDIA
Get a job. Okay, smartmouth?

YOUNG DRUNK
I can't get no job, even if I wanted.

CLAUDIA
Forget it! There's hundreds of jobs go begging in the classifieds every day.

YOUNG DRUNK
Yeah but I can't get one. I did, then I wouldn't need your personal welfare, right? I go buy my own wine with my easy-earn money just like you.

CLAUDIA
I don't drink and I don't smoke and of course you can get one, but you don't even want to try. That's the real reason you can't get one.

YOUNG DRUNK
Nuh-uh. I can't get no job for the same reason nobody else like me can.

OLD DRUNK
And what's that?

YOUNG DRUNK
Global economic progress. Like a freight train gone, done left us behind.

OLD DRUNK
Amen, brother. See, structural.

CL