B-Sides: Track TwoA Stage Play by Kevin Scene Two of Eleven. "A twenty-seven year old despondent writer and a sixteen year old musician form a profound attachment to each other through their love of David Bowie."
TRACK
TWO [Lights
up on Josh, 26, sitting stage right at a table alone. He is tall, gangly, and
has long hair with a bushy beard. Two beers are on the table before him. One
untouched and one completely empty. He is banging quarters against the table
trying to make it in his empty glass. He overshoots one and it lands in the glass
with the beer still in it. He looks around, dips his fingers in it, and takes
the quarter out.] [Clive
walks in excitedly, wearing what he was wearing the scene before. He sees Josh
at the table and goes to sit down.] CLIVE S**t. I’m late. JOSH Yeah, like two hours. You said you wanted to
have a few drinks tonight, I tried calling. CLIVE I know. I was hanging out with someone, I
completely forgot. JOSH Someone other than Sarah and me? CLIVE You guys aren’t my only friends. JOSH Name one. CLIVE Martin. JOSH What’s his last name? CLIVE Uh…Riggs. JOSH From Lethal Weapon? CLIVE We met at Union Square. JOSH You and Riggs? CLIVE No, me and this girl. JOSH You didn’t say it was a girl. CLIVE What does it matter? JOSH What does it matter? Dude, you’re in a
relationship. A successful one that’s been going on for almost two years. You
guys live together. You can’t go hang out with some girl that you just met for
two hours when you’re in that kind of relationship. And your eyes are bloodshot
as f**k. So either you’ve been crying or smoking a lot of pot…or both. You
can’t cry and smoke pot with a girl you just met in that kind of relationship. CLIVE It’s not like that, man. I was just trying to
break the routine a bit. I met this girl, we started chatting, it was nice. She
was cool. JOSH Where’d you meet her? CLIVE Over at Union Square on my way over here. JOSH Weren’t you supposed to watch a movie with
Sarah tonight? CLIVE Yeah, I bailed on that. JOSH Classy. CLIVE I’ll make it up to her. It’s not like I
won’t. JOSH You didn’t make up some story that painted me
as a loser, again did you? CLIVE (Points to the beer) Is this my beer? JOSH Goddammit, man. You’re girlfriend must think
I’m pathetic. CLIVE That’s not important. JOSH What did you tell her? CLIVE Who? JOSH Who? Sarah. CLIVE What did I tell her what? JOSH About me, to get you to come here. CLIVE I told her that you finally looked at the
French girl you like’s Facebook and saw that she had a boyfriend. [There is a pause. Josh looks horrified.] JOSH Is this true? CLIVE Yeah, Sarah bought it. I
mean, I’m a good liar- JOSH No, that Marion has a
boyfriend. CLIVE Yeah, back home, in France. JOSH Son of a b***h. CLIVE Seriously, you need to get a
Facebook. This is how this s**t happens. JOSH She has a French boyfriend? CLIVE Well, to her he’s probably
just a boyfriend. JOSH This is bullshit. That’s not
fair. How am I supposed to compete with Jean-Claude. CLIVE Pierre, actually. JOSH This is fucked. CLIVE Why does everyone go for
Jean-Claude? I would think Pierre to be the logical stereotype. JOSH Does he have, like, a pencil
moustache, and wear a beret and a red and white striped shirt and drive a
gondola? CLIVE No, he’s an actual person. JOSH (Putting his head
on the table) F**k! CLIVE Do the French even drive
gondolas? JOSH I don’t know. (Long pause) CLIVE Anyways, I was walking down
Powell, and I crossed through Union Square on my way over here and there this
girl was, standing over on the side of the street, selling artwork. She was
surrounded by little stands with her work on it and playing this electric
guitar plugged into a tiny amp. And she was rocking it dude. People were just
walking right by, totally oblivious. Guess what song she was playing? JOSH What? CLIVE Ziggy Stardust, man. I just
stood there, amazed, and watched her, it was like I was hearing the song for
the first time again. When she finished, she looked at me and saw that I had
this Bowie shirt on and asked me if I liked Bowie and I was like “I f*****g
love him” and we just stood there, for fifteen minutes, people walking all
around us, talking about Bowie, about what songs of his we liked, what albums we
loved. We totally related, you know? Just some random girl playing a song on
some street and I was the only one who actually stopped to listen. After a
while, she asked if I wanted to go up to the park over there, by the cathedral,
and smoke some pot, so, I did. And we kept talking, and we smoked a lot, and I
lost track of time, and when I looked down at my phone I realized that you had
called me a bunch of times and that I had wanted to hang out with you. So she
gave me her number, and told me to call her if I wanted to hang out sometime,
and then I headed off to meet with you. So…that’s why I’m late. JOSH And there’s nothing between
you and this girl? CLIVE Nothing at all. Just
friends. JOSH Yeah, I don’t know, man. You
better watch out. CLIVE There’s nothing to watch out
for. Even if there was it wouldn’t work out. JOSH Is she ugly? CLIVE No, she’s beautiful. JOSH Oh, yeah, definitely
nothings gonna happen then. CLIVE No, man. She’s…in school. JOSH Really, Clive? This keeps
getting worse. You’re telling me nothings gonna happen between you and the
beautiful horny college girl who sells artwork and plays Bowie songs on the
street corner. That’s basically your soul mate. CLIVE Josh, look at me. Nothing is
going to happen between us. JOSH Whatever, man. I’ll take
your word for it. What college does she go to? CLIVE (Picking up his beer) Huh. JOSH She doesn’t go to that
Academy of F*****g Art University with all those ugly signs all over the city
does she? CLIVE No. JOSH USF? Berkeley? City College?
CLIVE High School. (He takes a swig
of his beer.) JOSH She’s in f*****g high
school!? CLIVE Why does this taste weird? JOSH She’s in high school, man?
Is she a senior? [The lights upstage turn on
to reveal Mayya; sitting on the park bench packing a bowl. The two continue
talking.] CLIVE Junior. JOSH How old? CLIVE Sixteen. JOSH That’s fucked up. CLIVE Why is it fucked up? We just
hung out. JOSH And smoked pot. Which might
be a felony or something, I don’t know the law. There has to be a law about not
doing illegal drugs- CLIVE Technically illegal. JOSH With a minor! What the f**k
man? That’s not cool. CLIVE We talked. That’s all. I
probably won’t ever see her again. JOSH I don’t know. I don’t think
it’s a good idea. [Clive gets up as the lights
fade on the table. He walks over and sits next to Mayya. She hands him the
bowl.] CLIVE Aladdin Sane? MAYYA Not my favorite. But Cracked
Actor is fun to play. CLIVE I’m sure it is. What’s your
favorite? MAYYA Song of his? Dude, I don’t
know. Impossible decision. CLIVE I know. It’s a total
Sophie’s choice. Bowie’s just so… MAYYA Cosmic. CLIVE That’s the only word to
describe him. MAYYA Cosmic. CLIVE Like, honestly, I just think
he sits in, like, a wooden chair, in the middle of an empty room, all day. Cus
he’s like “I’ve already done everything there is to do, haven’t I? MAYYA Just waits for some
spaceship to come take him away. CLIVE Which will probably happen.
I swear to God first contact will have something to do with him. Oh, you’ve
seen The Man Who Fell to Earth, right? MAYYA No. CLIVE No? Holy s**t. You need to
see it. It’s about Bowie, right, and he…he’s like an alien that comes to Earth
to retrieve water for his dying planet or something, and he becomes an inventor
cus he knows about all this alien technology, and he becomes super rich and
just starts to fall into this celebrity status with sex, drugs, and s**t and
becomes addicted to TV. And he forgets his mission of why he came to earth in
the first place and becomes depressed so he becomes a rock star and writes
these songs for and about his home planet cus he knows his home planet will
hear them and this is his like apology cus he feels like he failed them…spoiler
alert. MAYYA Sounds sad. CLIVE It really is. But I’m
positive that Bowie didn’t even know they were filming. He probably just
chilled out like normal and Nicolas Roeg was able to make this movie around it.
He seems like he would walk around in his living room wearing an alien costume;
or watch a thousand TV’s at once. Plus he’s naked in, like, a lot of the movie
and David Bowie is crazy hung. It like brushes his kneecap; it’s not good for
anyone’s self-esteem. MAYYA I remember being terrified
of his package when I watched Labyrinth as a kid. CLIVE Right? That s**t is way too
big and protruding to be in a f*****g kid’s movie. MAYYA It deserved its own billing.
The credits should have read, “starring Jennifer Connolly, David Bowie, and
David Bowie’s massive dick…In a cameo.” [Silence] CLIVE I remember this one time,
when I was in college, and I don’t why this happened, or even why this thought
is coming to me right now, but I was in this acting class and it was like the
second week and I didn’t know anybody and I was sitting behind these two girls.
And one girl was just coughing up a storm; she was really sick and looking
miserable, so she leans over to the girl next to her and says “Hey, do you
happen to have a cough drop? I’m dying over here.” And the other girl said “No.
Sorry.” and everything. And she just keeps on coughing. Now, I had a couple of
cough drops in my bag cus I had just been sick, so I thought, I’ll be really
cool right now and offer her one and she’ll think that I’m like this really
cool guy, so I did, I offered her a cough drop and she was like “Oh my god,
thank you. Thank you so much”, and she took one and she was just so grateful,
and I swear to God the first thought that came in my mind was, “What if I just
f*****g punched her in the face right now?” [Mayya laughs] What if I just hit her like
really hard? She’d be so confused, she’d be like “Why? What did I do?” MAYYA She would never accept
another cough drop for the rest of her life. She’d be terrified of them. CLIVE And no one would know why.
It would be this big mystery between her family and friends. MAYYA “Now, kids, don’t offer your
grandmother a cough drop. She will attack you.” [They both laugh.
Long pause.] CLIVE I’m gonna have to go back
home soon. MAYYA To your girlfriend? CLIVE Yeah. MAYYA You don’t want to? CLIVE Not really. MAYYA Do you not like her? CLIVE I don’t know. MAYYA Then break up with her. CLIVE It’s not that simple. MAYYA Life’s too short to be in
bad relationships. CLIVE What do you know about
relationships? You’re like twelve years old. [Pause] MAYYA I’ve been in love. CLIVE No, you just thought you
were. You’re sixteen. MAYYA Then I thought I loved him.
How different is thinking you’re in love with someone and actually being in
love with them? It still hurts the same. [Pause] CLIVE What happened? MAYYA We…had to stop seeing each
other. CLIVE Were you two…? MAYYA He was my first. CLIVE I’m sorry. That’s tough. MAYYA What’s wrong with your
girlfriend? CLIVE I don’t know. It makes me
feel like s**t that I don’t know. She loves me. a lot, and it’s just…I don’t
know. There’s just nothing there when I look at her. Whenever I’m with her I
feel like I’m watching myself in a play or something. It makes me miserable. MAYYA You should spend some time
with my mother than. CLIVE How so? MAYYA Cus…she’s a b***h. She
drinks, and when I say she drinks, I mean she’s actually an alcoholic, with a
problem. Not like some girls I listen to at my school who say “Oh, my mother is
a major alcoholic.” Like, showing up drunk in your own home after a party and
s**t isn’t being an alcoholic, and if your mother was really an alcoholic with
a real addiction than you wouldn’t be telling a group of people at the lunch
tables at school, you just want attention and sympathy. I wanna strangle those
girls. CLIVE What does she do? MAYYA My mother? She’s the head
pianist at the San Francisco Ballet. CLIVE Holy s**t, that’s a big gig.
MAYYA It is. She’s talented,
really talented. CLIVE All of that rubbed off on
you. MAYYA I’m doing a show next
Saturday night. You should come see me. CLIVE Next Saturday? [takes out his
phone to check the date] I don’t know, I’ll probably
be…and holy s**t it’s ten o’clock. I was supposed to meet up with a friend. [Gets up to leave] Do you need me to walk you
home or anything? MAYYA I’m a big girl. I think I’ll
be fine. CLIVE Okay, well; I’m gonna head
out then. Uh…thanks for the weed. I’ll see you around, Mayya. [Lights fade on
them] © 2013 KevinAuthor's Note
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Added on April 19, 2013 Last Updated on April 19, 2013 Tags: Play, Theatre, Drama, David Bowie, Music Author
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