Forest Wanderings

(A forest in Maine. The forest has many, many trees. Of course, the scenery is to be sparse and to be as little as possible since this is meant to be performed on a very small stage for that is the only thing this author chooses to write. The sounds of birds are varied and eclectic. An owl is seen hooting most loudly in a two-foot tree (at the most). Suddenly two young men walk on. They are: ISIAH, 16. Brown hair, very dark eyes, and big ears. He also has a unprepossessing, unimpressively large nose. A stocky young man with an ego the size of Bob Saget’s unfunny ways on TV. ANDREW, 17. With big green eyes, bad skin and ruffled, messy hair. These two are walking in the forest with fishing rods in their hands. They are smirking. By the way, be prepared for unpredictability and total pandemonium and insanity. There is no logical, rational way to explain what you are about to read or to quickly stop reading.

Andrew: Isaiah, you are such a lousy piece of dogosla on a bailiwick stick! I’ve eaten your type for a midnight snack on a Saturday night since I was a wee child of six! I’ve had dreams of killing you before with this very fishing rod. You see, you’ve always annoyed me with your cockiness and ugliness since I met you three very long years ago. I want you dead like in my dreams!

Isaiah: Now, now, Andrew, sweetheart, must you be such a clod all the time? Just because I stole Susie right from under your prickly and ghastly looking nose is no reason for you to crap in my face with your Grandma’s bloomers. Susie and I went on a date last week, and we brushed up on some history and Old English Literature, if you know what I mean.

This fishing rod I’m holding is a Golden Rocket 266. What’s the difference between this fishing rod and every other fishing rod? I don’t know. I mean… every rod you cast out in the water is to reel in a fish. Hey, Andrew, honey, remember when you saw that Mafia guy at your Uncle’s place? He was carrying that Bible, then suddenly he struck your Uncle with the Bible, and your Uncle screamed like a lady giving birth?! That was a riot! (Bursts out laughing.) Whatever became of your Uncle Mildred any way?

Andrew: Why must you ramble on about such dribble, you, you ( Suddenly, intensely strong and confident) you not a good person in any way! I wrote a song about you…. It goes like this…

(Unfortunately Andrew begins to sing.) Isaiah, the bad person in all ways known to man. I wish I could blow him all the way to Mars, and see him perish and then he’d come back down, crash to the ground so I could tie him up and give him swirlies and electrocute him with light bulbs and fireworks for eons…. And…..

Isaiah: Oh come on, you know that might start a forest fire!

(As shocking as it seems, SMOKEY enters. SMOKEY THE BEAR, that is. SMOKEY is a dictatorial-looking bear with a military uniform and he speaks with a Gruff, General-type voice. As he makes his……… Unpredictable entrance, he is screaming and bellowing, knocking everything he passes to the ground.)

Smokey: You Punks! Did I hear something about a forest fire in my woods?!

Isaiah and Andrew: No, no, Mr. Scary-Vicious bear…. He, he……

Smokey: I should have the both of you hanged for this cruel and abusive slaughtering and mockery of nature! I’m very angry with you two hoodlums at this present moment! I would like both of you to leave this forest, but since I know that won’t be happening, I am giving you two sadistic punks…. TWO more chances! You two make me sicker than a groundhog being picked up by some yellowbelly on my Holiday! But I’m a fair and just man….

Isaiah: Aren’t you a bear, moron?!

Smokey: (Erupts. Smoke is billowing from his ears): You dare defy the bear?!! (Pulls out a weapon of some sort. Not a gun. Something such as a knife or a fishing pole. Go with the fishing pole.) Ok, chump. Best two out of three in a rod fight, got it?!

Isaiah: Moron, don’t you understand? You are nothing but a joke. No one cares what you have to say much less two apathetic teens. You stand there and scream but I know deep down you’re nothing more than a chicken waiting to get out and start clucking and running in fear.

Smokey: (Looks at Isaiah in shock and fear. He rips his military uniform off.) My son! My brave, brave sage! You’re right! On TV I come off like this confident yet polite and courteous bear, but all I truly am is a little chicken who wants to run home to his mommy and lay in her arms and cry, moan and wail for all the people who start forest fires after I have told them not to. (He sobs uncontrollably).

Andrew: Well, Smoke, you can tag along with us if you want. We’re just taking a long walk in these beautiful, spacious, green woods, looking for the meaning of life.

Isaiah: Yeah. That’s what we’re looking for. See…. Andrew’s a strange and peculiar teenager. I, on the other hand, am the coolest kid, at least in the DKA section.

Smokey: What does that stand for, son?

Isaiah: Dumb Kids Anonymous.
Andrew: Anonymous?! You mean to tell me that no one knew that you think “Case” is spelled “Kameddel?”

Isaiah: At least when I asked a girl out I didn’t have snot running down my nose, blood running down my cheek, a kick-me sign on my back, with NO pants on! Come to think of it…. You didn’t have ANY clothes on! How did that happen any way?

Andrew: We don’t need to go into that! Now what truly matters…..

(Out of no where yet another character is making his entrance. For the time we will refer to him as: THE CURMUDGEN. Later, however, it will be revealed that his real name is STANLEY. On second thought, let’s call him STANLEY.

Stanley: Well, if it isn’t Generation-X, sitting on their lazy butts, not working or doing anything or making anything better of themselves. I hate your generation more than I hate the woman who is always in my house. You see in my day….

Isaiah: Hey, old man, go back to Denny’s and get your breakfast special with all your other geezer friends who complain about the youngins and how hard you worked during the flood!

Stanley: Punk! What’s your name? I’m thinking something like Mike or Ben or Derrick. Those are the popular, smart aleck names nowadays. I hate kids. I hate adults. I hate my friends. I hate TV. I hate computers. I hate food. I hate animals. I hate insurance. I hate cars, trucks, trees, flowers, women, people in general, watching DVDs, music. I hate LIFE!

Isaiah, Andrew and Smokey: ( Sung.) The old man is a nut and a windbag. We wish he would go to the lake two miles down this path, and drown himself while then piranhas eat his old, flabby, whiny flesh!

Stanley: HA! I couldn’t do that! I HATE water!

Smokey: Well, let’s be moving along. I hear there are some fig leaves down there I can cover myself in.

Stanley: You’re a bear, huh? I hate bears especially Smokey the Bear! I hate forest fires too but I should be the only one who can hate them. I worked all my life and I still have to pay taxes. Anyway, yes, I hate bears almost as much as that woman who’s always cleaning my house and cooking me meals. And then she’ll come to me and say the house is as much hers as it is mine! What bunk! What impudence! That hag has some nerve! That woman should be put in a home! I’ll call the asylum tomorrow. So I was watching TV this morning….

Isaiah: What time is it any way, old man?

Stanley: Judging by the son…. Wait… no I was telling a story, punk! So I was watching TV and this commercial for a sexual enhancing drug came on, right? Garbage. Absolute garbage! It was seven in the evening! The evening! What station was it on? Let me think, hold your horses, you bums! Oh yes it was called something like Jugs Central! What a disgrace! It was despicable. I was so insulted that I almost called the station to complain about their low-sounding morals but I didn’t want to pay that much on the phone bill.

Andrew: Oh yes, judging by the sun it’s nearly 3:30 in the afternoon.

Isaiah: Hey how long have we been in the forest for?

Andrew: Well…. School let out at 2:45 and it took us 15 minutes to get here….. And before you came in here you had to reread the sign reading “ALL TRESPASSERS WILL BE KILLED” a hundred times. By the way, did you ever read the sign successfully?

Isaiah: Huh? Oh… (Runs back to the sign quickly.) Yes. I think so. It says, I quote… “Beware for freaks and wild animals.” (Looks at Stanley and Smokey.) Wow…. This sign is dead on!

Smokey and Stanley: (Sung operatically.) Why are we mocked by people dumber, lazier and more pathetic than we? We are stepped on, bounced on and jumped on for being a little bit different.)

Isaiah: (Sung in a mocking fashion.) Yes…. We prance on all that are different because who wants diversity and change in the Good Ole’ USA?!

Smokey: (Runs to a log with great passion and longing. He jumps on aforesaid log. WOW! At this point clothes are thrown to him from offstage. First comes armor, a sword, a shield, a helmet, etc.) I could be a gallant knight if I so chose! (Second Doctor’s wear. You figure it out) Or I could be an egotistical doctor who robs you of all you have! (Thirdly comes a suit for Smoke to be attired like a lawyer.) Or I could even be a hate-filled, arrogant, cheapskate suit with only one goal in mind: MONEY! And never make it to Paradise in the end!

Stanley: I could become a nice, courteous, easy-going, humble old man but how much of an oxy-moron would that be?! And I HATE change! (Music disappears. BUMMER!)

(As it is: SMOKEY is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and sunglasses. He has a pierced nose and is wearing chains on his wrists. STANLEY is shirtless and is about to go pantless as his wife BRENDA makes her entrance.)

Brenda: Stanley! Get your butt back to the house right now! I refuse to cook just for myself! That has never been done in the fifty years we have been married. I know we don’t love each other much but we try to pretend that we’re as hot as we were when we first met after you robbed my Father’s store.

Stanley: Ah…… Yes. That was a fortnight. I was 18.…. Ready to pursue a writing career. You see, bums, men in those days were poets as well as hard workers. BUT now…. (As he walks further and further along the forest path) Generation-X is utter garbage! Why would any girls want to date you guys? (Isaiah begins to relieve himself. Stanley is correct in the garbage department, huh?) In my day, you bum, we found a more secluded spot to let our excess free itself , bum! You disgust me more than Capri pants!

Brenda: (Angry. About to snap) STANLEY! Get back to the story of when we first met!

Stanley: Huh? What? You’re still here?! I thought if I pretended to care that you’d walk your fat, useless carcass out of this forest and wait for me at home. (For everyone’s benefit, he resumes his shirt-wearing.) I have put up with you since the Fall of man, and it has all been misery and garbage! You’re always dusting, vacuuming, washing, laundering, bedmaking, and being a total nuisance and a pest! I have put up with more than any soldier, general, king, slave, peasant, bum, teacher or piece of garbage ever should. (Takes his shirt off again. I apologize. He produces a bag from behind a bush, he extracts a baggy shirt and puts on a pair of baggy slacks as well. He wears a hat backwards. He also puts chains on his pants. He now looks like a thug.) I want to live! Do you hear me, you old, ugly hag! I want a divorce!

(Complete silence. Smokey, Isaiah, and Andrew begin searching for their bags. Why bags? I do not know.)

Brenda: Well, the truth comes out: You’re afraid of commitment! I had a feeling you did but I had to come to a forest to find out! Now I know that the man I married is a thug at heart! I better be going now. I feel sick and ill at the same time. It doesn’t make sense but you have broken me completely, Stanley! I am going home to make myself steak, ribs, chicken, potato salad, lots of soup, hot dogs, hamburgers, salmon, deli sandwiches and beef stroganoff.

Stanley: (Realizing his exaggerated cynicism and meanness or…… who knows? He changed back into his old clothes which are shabby.) Wench, I will come with you. I know I may say some dumb, insensitive things to you and I complain every once in a while, but you’re the only thing I can some times say I almost like.

Brenda: Stanley………. I have always hated you! Good-bye! (Runs away, jumps into the lake)

Stanley: (Jumps in and swims her back to shore.) You stupid wench! You almost lost the Republicans a vote in November!

Brenda: I have something to tell you, Stanley, I have never voted Republican. The Democrats are so much better. But I love you too, Stanley! Oh!!!!!!!!!! You finally Have some friends who don’t run away from you! What fun! Introduce me!

Stanley: You have been giving those stupid hippies votes for years! You stupid wench! Have you been a hippie since we met that one day some where, some place at some time?

Brenda: You are the stupidest, ugliest and most hateful man I have ever known Stanley. Why do I still love you?! (Kisses him madly)

Smokey: Well, Ma’am, I am Smokey the Bear. (Extends his hand)

Brenda: Oh….. Smokey, it’s wonderful to finally meet you. You know our forest burned down last year and we never heard from you. What happened?

Smokey: Well ummmm it was a really long week… and

Stanley: You stupid bum! I LOVED that forest! WAIT No I didn’t love it…. Well maybe I did…. NO I Couldn’;t I wouldn’t therefore I didn’t! Forget it! The point is, you bear! Are a bum, a failure a disgrace and….. You, you wench you need to get out of here. I saved you only to make you suffer more…. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you….. NO I LOVE you…. It’s true…. In fact I LOVE all of you! It was all a hoax. I LOVE everything.

Isaiah and Andrew: Well, this is awkward. Let’s leave and let the bear suffer with the freaks. (Both exit.)

(Smokey, Brenda and Stanley are all crying, embracing each other. They end by singing the song “My Girl” Why? Read the rest of the script. Nothing else needs to make sense. CURTAIN





Some notes:

This was very fun to write, but I do not expect readers or critics to have nearly as much fun as I did during this endeavor. I wrote this while I was a frehsman or a sophomore in high school. It is one of the few plays I’ve written which I feel almost meant something which says a lot about my writing ability. Any how, if any of you readers ever want to have this produced be sure to tell me and I will offer you a few ideas, and if you want to change any parts of the script, feel free to do so. I am aware of how totally random and strange this script is at times, I did write it. If you feel it is trash and ridiculous don’t feel afraid to tell me. I write and I show my writing for those very reasons. I don’t know why I am writing these notes, I feel most odd. It’s is 2:30 and I must be up by 7. Wow. This is plenty, huh? Enjoy or destroy, or completely ignore. Whatever you choose I will remain as upbeat as possible.

On a further note, which is as unnecessary ( I hate that word) as the rest, a friend of mine, Tommy, and I are in negotiations with a film company to Have this fascinating existential tract filmed which will star Tommy as Smokey…. And all the other roles are up for grabs… if you are interested let me know and I will hook you up with a role as best I can… or if you would like to work behind the scenes I will also set you up as best I can. I am very honest when I say I hope you have enjoyed all you have read and will critique my writing as harshly as you can, and perhaps, I will one day write again. Until that time I bid all of you (assuming you exist) a fair adieu!