Disturbing Business

Beau: Maybe… I don’t want to be sad.

Maureen: Yes. I don’t know.

Beau: I don’t know either.

Maureen: I have stuff to do. Could we have this conversation never?

Beau: Yeah but I sort of want to have it, you know?

Maureen: Umm, yeah, but still… can this be the sort of talk that is talked about but isn’t really spoken, you know?

Beau: No, we should have it. Just because.

Maureen: I don’t care for the “Just because” reason. It leaves me……. Cold or warm or maybe dry or high.

Beau: Well, we need to have it anyway.

Maureen: I’m your sister. Do we have to have this talk?

Beau: I don’t know who else to have it with.

Maureen: Perhaps you could have it with Mom.

Beau: I don’t know where Mom is these days.

Maureen: Oh yes that’s right. Do you think she was murdered.

Beau: That would make sense but no.

Maureen: Then what happened to her?

Beau: I want to have an affair.

Maureen: Then have one already unless you already have. One shouldn’t have too many of them.

Beau: I’ve had sixteen. I’d like to have a seventeenth and then become a monk.

Maureen: Does Frumpy know about this?

Beau: She probably does. She’s in a coma and all but she probably knows anyway through female intuition or some such. But, you know, I need to be with someone. Not someone who cares, maybe not even an attractive person.

Maureen: Have a homosexual affair or one with a goat.

Beau: Nothing that extreme. I still want a woman, but I don’t know what type or in what sort of a setting.

Maureen: You and I could have an incestuous affair.

Beau: I don’t care for that idea. You look like Roseanne.

Maureen: I thought I looked like Maureen O’Hara.

Beau: Your name is Maureen… That’s where the resemblance ends.

Maureen: Well, I think I’m gorgeous in an otherworldly fashion.

Beau: I’m a louse, aren’t I? I’m going to burn in Hell, am I not? You and I should go into bank robbing.

Maureen: I have a mask I want you to wear.

Beau: Sounds fantastic. Bring it here.

Maureen: I need to make it first.

Beau: How long should that take?

Maureen: A few years.

Beau: Oh.

Maureen: My friend, Martina will be here shortly. She looks like a cross between Amy Adams and Bernadette Peters.

Beau: Oh, so she has red hair.

Maureen: I’m not even to dignify that with a response.

Beau: Wasn’t Bernadette Peters in Dangerous Liaisons with John Travolta?

Maureen: No, that was Glenn Close with John Malkovich. Two much less attractive people.

Beau: Glenn Close is almost as attractive as Bea Arthur though.

Maureen: Okay. The point remains that Martina will be here in no less than three minutes. I believe she’s open to the possibility of having an affair since her husband is a  child.

Beau: I hate adolescent adults.

Maureen: No, I mean he’s twelve years old.

Beau: Is that legal?

Maureen: Everything’s legal now. You should know that. No rules. No regulations. No morals. No ethics. Just people desperately searching for acceptance, love, an end to loneliness, despair and aloneness… and you know everything that keeps them from having a smile on their face.

Beau: But no one smiles anymore.

Maureen: Yeah nothing ever helps I’m afraid.

Beau: Why don’t I care?

Maureen: You just want sex.

Beau: Possibly.

Maureen: Probably.
Beau: Indecisive, am I? Did you say that?

Maureen: May I leave the room now?

Beau: Do you want to?

Maureen: I don’t know. I suppose I’m the indecisive one.

Beau: Oh well. I’m Eeyore now. I loved Eeyore. I also want to sing like Frank Sinatra. Can I pull it off?

Maureen: Why are you asking me?

Beau: Why all this banter?

Maureen: That’s a tremendously fantastic question yet I don’t give a hang. Funny?

Beau: Why are we talking at all?  

Maureen: I’m fat.

Beau: You are.

Maureen: No, I’m not.

Beau: Fine. You’re not.

Maureen: Tell me the truth.

Beau: What is truth?

Maureen: Pffft. I don’t know. I was hoping you would.

Beau: I might but if I do which I actually doubt… I lost my trace of thought. I’m so smart I can never follow what I’m saying.

Maureen: Okay. She’ll be here soon.

Beau: Is she actually coming.

Maureen: I hope so, but if she doesn’t you can just take cyanide or something. That would be wonderful.

Beau: I’m so heartless. I should visit my wife. What is my wife’s name?

Maureen: I said it earlier but I can’t remember what it was. I have also forgotten my name as well as yours.

Beau: As have I. Hmm. Well, this is a tad bit disorienting.

Maureen: Yes. Yes, it is. We need to think of something else I think.

Beau: We always think of and about the wrong things. I need to learn to play the cello. I never bothered to learn when I was younger. I was afraid of failing to learn to play it well so I never bothered as I previously said. I also will need a limousine later tonight. Can you help me with that?

Maureen: Hmm? Oh, yes, I can get you a limo if you really want one. I was once married to a chauffeur.

Beau: When were you married?

Maureen: Within the last six thousand years.

Beau: I’ve been married more than once. Maybe as many as nine times or as few as never. Maybe I never was married.

Maureen: Wouldn’t that be nice but whatever the case is you are currently married to a woman that is in a vegetative state and she will never speak again. I think more people should slip into comas instead of participating in a society where they do nothing but annoy and hurt people.

Beau: I love your optimistic outlook. You are the most optimistic person I know. I know a lot of cynics and a******s. We need to have dinner sometime soon. When will your friend be here?

Maureen: Which friend?

Beau: Do you have more than one friend?

Maureen: I doubt I have less than negative seven friends.

Beau: I’m going to make us something to eat.

Maureen: Don’t. The chef will be arriving soon to make us tuna sandwiches.

Beau: They better be good.

Maureen: Go f**k yourself.

Beau: I’ll do so a little later don’t you worry.

Maureen: You’re so gross.

Beau: Everyone does it.

Maureen: No they don’t. You don’t know everyone.

Beau: Neither do you.

Maureen: Goodness you’re right. Do I look like Pamela Anderson?

Beau: No. You look like our Uncle Pamela though. Is that something?

Maureen: She should be here soon.

Beau: Who?

Maureen: Umm… she has a name I’m sure.

Beau: Maybe her name is Nameless or Unnameable.

Maureen: I would chuckle if that turned out to be the case.

Beau: I would simply sock you in the face.

Maureen: Here comes someone.

Beau: Male or female?

Maureen: Up yours.

Beau: Gorgeous, eh?

Maureen: Sure it’s a play, she has to be gorgeous.

Beau: Are we in a play?

Maureen: Do you want us to be in a play?

Beau: Maybe. Will it have a happy ending?

Maureen: No we’re gonna be destined to be miserable and pathetic.

Beau: Then I want to be in a Hollywood film.

Maureen: No going back now, stupid.

Beau: I want an intellectual argument now.

Maureen: Yeah you’ll never get what you want though so stop wishing for the impossible.

Beau: There has to be more than this.

Maureen: But there isn’t.

Beau: I believe I’ll never sleep again.

Maureen: I believe you should slip into a coma right now.

Beau: What’s taking this person so long to knock at the door?

Maureen: Oh, I made that person up.

Beau: You did what?

Maureen: You heard me.

Beau: I want to go to outer space right now. When I was in high school I wrote this play about this kid who sat on a park bench all day and tried to talk to this girl named Mallory because at the time I liked some girl named Mallory and he finally got the nerve up to talk to her after he talked about Charlie Brown and Bart Simpson for about ten minutes to his Mickey Mouse-obsessed friend who was named Thomas or something… I believe the other character’s name was Duncan… anyway he and Mallory fall madly in lovce right away and became an item…. Then the second act came and Duncan and Mallory were both abducted by aliens, and the aliens made Mallory love more than ever whereas Duncan had all ability to love and care for others erased from his abilities as a human being as he became the slave of the Mother Alien whop was named Doctor Alienated. What do you think of that?

Maureen: (Frozen)

(Doorbell.)

Beau: Maureen? Are you dead? I think I’ll answer the door I’ll kill you if you’re not speaking when I return. (He admits Cindy.)

Cindy: Where the Hell have you been?

Beau: Around.

Cindy: May I sit down?

Beau: Sure if you want to have sex with me later.

Cindy: I’ve had worse. (She sits down) Does everything in your life revolve around sex and such?

Beau: Yeah it’s the only good thing I know.

Cindy: That’s a damn shame.

Beau: No.

Cindy: Is that your sister?

Beau: Do you want it to be my sister.

Cindy: I’d rather she be your aunt.

Beau: She’s my aunt.

Cindy: No, she’s your mistress.

Beau: I never have affairs.

Cindy: You’re gay, right?

Beau: Would you like to come into my bedroom and find out?

Cindy: Bisexual at least?

Beau: Maybe. I’m indecisive.

Cindy: There is no such thing. There is nothing these days.

Beau: What do you mean by “These days”

Cindy: Never mind. I want a drink. Give me one.

Beau: Blood?

Cindy: Anything else?

Beau: Mountain Dew.

Cindy: Yes. Blood would be lovely.

Beau: Right-o. Here is your blood. (He hands her glass of blood.)

Cindy: Will she speak again.

Beau: Speak, Maureen.

Maureen: (Comes unfrozen) Hello, Cindy. Are you as whorish as ever?

Cindy: Yes. You should become a w***e again.

Maureen: you’ve convinced me.

Cindy: Get your a*s out there and hustle up some cash, girl.

Maureen: I’ll jump out the window first.

(She jumps out a window.)

Beau: She was dreadful. But death doesn’t happen. She’ll be back.

Cindy: Death?

Beau: It was a thing that once existed. It ceased one’s existence from continuing.

Cindy: Wow that’s strange.

Beau: My parents both experienced it…. Never knew what it was for or what it meant, but as soon as it wasn’t around anymore I still found myself not understasnding what this eternal life was all about.

Cindy: Better to just drink blood and speak nonsense all day.

Beau: Nonsense? Day?

Cindy: I need some new slippers.

Beau: Slippers?

Cindy: Oh. Do you have some food?

Beau: I need a new existence.

Maureen: (As she re-enters.) I need to jump out windows more often. It makes me feel that I’ll live forever.

Beau: Mmm-hmm…Yes. Okay. Would you two men like to… perhaps……. I don’t know.

Maureen: Why don’t we have a butler.

Beau: That’s enough. Cindy! Do you have blue eyes?

Cindy: I don’t know.

Beau: If you don’t know then you must leave.

Cindy: Huh?

Beau: I don’t know but I know in a vague sort of way that you and I are not meant for anything in a romantic or sleazy sort of way… my wife is in a coma or so I have said… but the truth is although there is no truth… that I don’t have a wife and comas don’t exist, and that I don’t exist, that none of us exist. You see this is a play written by a confused imbecile, or who wants to confuse others by giving them…. Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter much, but I have had no infidelities, there is no wife, there is no sister or mistresses… or murder or suicide or anything… It has all been a hoax and all these words being spoken are total fabrications of existences that are silly… and well, aren’t silly since, you know, they’re not happening.

Cindy: I’ll be damned.

Maureen: I am as pretty as Kathleen Turner once was.

Beau: I sing as well as Perry Como. And am as handsome as Paul Newman.

Cindy: Nonsense.

Maureen: Silly.

Beau: What?

Cindy: I’m not leaving.

Maureen: The only way I’m leavuing is if I jump out another window, but I’ve jumped out of the one window we have. I don’t want to jump out the same window a second time within a few minutes. Too repetitive. Don’t you think? Oh that’s right, thought isn’t actually around.

Cindy: I don’t get it.

Beau: This is a play. I’m writing it.

Maureen: You really are indecisive.

Beau: Ummm….. No.

Maureen: Maybe not. I don’t care.

Cindy: What’s your problem?

Beau: There’s no ending.

Cindy: Let someone else write it then.

Beau: No I’m the best.

Cindy: But you have no ending.

Beau: There are no endings.

Maureen: All right. I’m going to fall asleep. I’m done being written. (Shje falls on the couch and falls asleep.)

Beau: Fine. How about you, Cindy?

Cindy: I don’t think my real name is Cindy.

Beau: It doesn’t matter. I’m finished.

Cindy: Oh. What’s the ending or the moral?

Beau: Umm….. Nothing, perhaps.

Cindy: I’ll throw this glass of blood in your face.

Beau: For what purpose?

Cindy: I won’t then.

Beau: Fine. Umm…. I won’t kiss you or have sex with you…. So, umm,…………………… (Silence.) (Silence.)

Cindy: (Silence.)

Beau: Goodbye. (He stands in place.)

Cindy: (She stands in place.) Good-bye.

Beau: No good.

Cindy: No.

Beau: Oh well.

(They both stand apart and alone and in perfect silence as the lights fade and blackout and curtain.)