DOUGLAS JONES
Monologues from Songs from Bedlam
Angel
Setting: A stool on a bare stage.
Casting note: She is old enough to have been
married, but not old enough to have grandchildren. Her memories have
as much to do with what she needs as with anything she has actually
experienced.
Lights up on A WOMAN, seated on
a stool, facing the audience.
WOMAN
When I dream of cherry blossoms
and the musk of peaches deliquescing on the ground aswarm with
wasps, of pressing a peach to my lips crushing its bearded flesh and removing
carefully the cyanide pit, I wonder if I am remembering a summer I have
lived or anticipating summers yet to come.
She gazes at the audience.
I remember the warm strong feel of my father's hands,
and the soft touch of the Virgin. And running home one day from the sound
of Mr. Willis hitting Tommy too hardMr. Willis who looked at me
through my bedroom window, his left hand missing the thumb he cut off
with the electric saw in the basement smelling of sawdust and whiskeyand
the tree that must always protect me and hitting Tommy, smack! smack!
smack! all the way home.
When Eddie wooed he sent a single yellow rose every
day for twelve days, and on the twelfth day he proposed (although not
on one knee: he was romantic, but not humble). Tomorrow for my birthday
I am praying for a pony. I've been good, but I know I mustn't get my hopes
up too much so I'm trying not to. My dress for the prom is purple, and
I am making it myself. I will dance with a boy I never dared speak to
for four years. For four years I never spoke. He will hold me tightly
all night, and after the dance I will never see him again.
Dr. Carter has the cleanest fingernails I have ever
seen, and he wants me to remember something. He is telling mother about
post-traumatic stress disorder, and something called paramnesia.
Tommy and I are playing hide and seek. Smack! Smack! When I meet
people whose lives move only one way (instead of back and forth like mine)
they are confused because I know themwho they are, or what they're
going to beor who we're going to be together. But when I laugh,
it makes them feel betterand I think most people like to see me
happy. My grandchildren love to make me laugh, and it's fun to spoil them
instead of raising themto have a second chance with children, without
the blame and shame game.
My earliest memory is wetting my pants when I was
three and a half years old. My father pulled me into his car and drove
to the dump outside of town. There were pigs there that ate the garbage.
Now he puts me on the ground and says if you're going to act like a pig,
you can live with pigs . . . and he drives away and leaves me here.
I will cry until he comes back to get me later tonight.
You are my angel he says, and you have made me very
happy. There are candles, and I am wearing the dress that makes me feel
like a fairy princess. Make a wish he says. There are tears in his eyes.
Make a wish.
She smiles.
Everyone is very proud of me. Do you know the story
about the little pigs? Sometimes the wolf eats them in the end, and sometimes
he falls into the pot and the little pigs cook him. And sometimes nothing
really bad happens to anyone at all. I don't know which is the real ending.
I remember the shock of sex and childbirth and the
dry pain of menopause, each the loss of something. Eddie smiles and looks
so beautiful in his coffin, surrounded by candles. After the dance I will
never see him again. He is holding me all night. I have filled the room
with yellow roses, and the musk of peaches. My mother is the Virgin Mary,
and every night she comes into my room to see if I am asleep. I close
my eyes, and breathe slowly and evenly . . . because she loves me very
much, and it is important for me to get my sleep. She stands in the doorway
of my room every night. She prays for us sinners, now and at the hour
of our death. She watches over every child.
She comes over to the side of the bed to see if I
am sleeping. She puts her hands around my throat.
She closes her eyes.
She squeezes . . . and I keep my eyes closed, and
try to be good, and to breathe slowly and evenly. I love you so much,
she says. You are my angel, she says. There is light all around her, and
it fills the roomand I see it with my eyes closed.
She takes her hands away, and goes out and shuts the
door.
All the years of my life.
She opens her eyes.
I'm grateful.
When you give to your Lord, you perfect yourself beyond
your imaginings. At Fatima and Zietoun and Medjugore I saw the Virgin
Mary, my mother gazing upon me with such love and said you are my angeland
as she grows bright and numinous her light (her hands around my throat)
begins to fill and flow, until all memory is memory of her.
She closes her eyes.
She is my earliest memory, and I so look forward to
her smack! hitting Tommy too hard every day smack! smack!
for twelve days smack! and the twelfth day he proposed, you are
my angel he saidhis left hand missing the thumb he cut off with
his electric saw holding me tightly all night, crushing my bearded flesh
and removing the cyanide pit, he has the cleanest fingernails I knowmy
father's warm strong hands and wants me to remember something. I try to
breathe slowly and evenly. I love you so much she says. You are my angel
she says. My prom dress is purple I am making myselfI pray for a
pony, but try not to get my hopes up too much.
She gazes at the audience.
If you act like a pig you can live with the pigs.
Lights fade.
Blackout.
Elmo
Setting: A bare stage with a chair.
Lights come up on ELMO, a man in his
fifties or sixties, seated.
My name is Elmo, I'm an alcoholic. It's good to be
alive, good to be sober today. You all got to pray for me when I come
around here. Pray for my ass sometimes. Because I came in here a street
drunk. I been through jails and institutionslost my job, my wife,
my house, my kids. My ass was on fire. I had nothing.
I got something today. I'm a miracle sitting here.
I should be dead. I know it. But I'm where I'm supposed to be. Because
where I might have been yesterday, tomorrowthat don't matter. What
I've got is a daily reprieve, based on my spiritual condition. Because
we alcoholics know what happens to usand we do it anyway. We know
what happens, and we do it anyway. That's insanity. Normal people can't
understand that. So we get to be a bit grateful when we get in here and
hang around, and find out that what's inside of usif it doesn't
changewe're going back where we come from.
Now the tragedy of that is, folkssee, I'll guarantee
you, if you can't find out that you have the disease of alcoholismI'm
talking about alcoholism. Not life-ism, or psychology-ism, or my dog or
my cat, or whether you think I smell good or not. I've got a disease that
tells me it's not a disease. That's hard information. You say tuberculosis
or meningitis, folks take that shit serious. Well, I got inoperable alcoholism.
I got a disease that says: go ahead Elmo, have just one drink. Go ahead.
When Elmo never took just one drink in his life.
I don't know about any of you, but my best thinking
got me here. I used to be a genius. I was as smart as nine circus donkeys.
I used to be a real jackass. I'm not allowed up in my head now, without
adult supervision. But see, the beauty of that is that I don't have to
figure anything out. How come I've got to be an alcoholic, and you don't?
How the hell do I know? How come one cell turns to cancer, and the other
don't? It doesn't matter.
That's whywhen I come into these rooms, a few
twenty-four hours agothem old boys told me to take the cotton out
of my ears and put it in my mouth. They said if you got the disease of
alcoholism, we know everything we need to know about you except your namejust
sit down and listen. Saved my life.
Something happens to a drunk when he gets in here.
He's got to make a decision about his drinking. And if you ain't finished
drinkingI mean if alcohol ain't bit you in the ass hard enough you
can't put it down, then you just ain't finished drinking. And how do you
know that?
Because your ass hasn't fallen off yet. But it will.
And when it does, and once you get some distance between yourself and
the drink, you'll discover the same dilemma I find myself in today. Alcohol
is not my problem.
That's a surprise, ain't it? Once we put the plug
in the jugand hung around here awhile, and got some distance between
ourselves and the drinkwe come into the dilemma where I find myself
today. Alcohol is not my problem. Life is my problem. I don't know how
to live.
This is all about change, folks. And you know what
you got to change? Everything. This is a spiritual program, and I'm preaching.
Why? Because it's fucking sad. People are dying around here. And this
is a spiritual program. You need a Higher Power. No God, no church Godyou
don't even have to have a God. All you got to find is a Power greater
than yourself. All you got to know about a Higher Power is that probably
there is one, and probably you ain't it.
The way I run my mouth, I know a lot of people don't
like me. And I don't blame them. But I thoroughly get tired of knowing
how serious this alcoholism is. I come in here with a messagethis
shit ain't funny. And if you been here awhile but you're still farting
through silk, still pissing and moaning about relationships and jobs,
and money, or what somebody said to your dogyou need to go out and
drink some more. Just go on out and drink some more. But you might not
make it back alive.
If you want to stay alive, you got to stay sober.
And if you want to stay sober, you got to trust this God of your understanding.
And you got to clean house. You got to take personal inventory. It don't
work the same for anybody except for a drunk. Because only a drunk knows
what it is if he picks that drink up. Only a drunk knows what it is to
wake up and not know where you've been, or what you've doneand the
snot inside your head smells like ammonia, and you can smell the booze
coming out of your poresand maybe you peed or threw up on yourself,
and your body feels beat up, and you don't know if it's daytime or nightand
the first thing you reach for is a drink. And you'd sell your mother to
get it.
I remember lying in the snow in the front yard. My
kids were looking at me through the front window, crying, and my wife
was standing behind, and holding onto them tight. I'll never see those
people again. Poor Elmo.
I can't change that. That's the past, and I can't
change it. All I have is today. And this is about taking action, folks.
This is about a new way of life. There's a psychic phenomenon that a drunk
like me knows about. We experience a psychic phenomenon every day of our
liveswe fools, we bottom-ass drunks. Because we don't drink, and
we can't tell you how or why. And that's a phenomenonwhen something
good happens to you over and over, and you can't explain it. All I know
is, they told me I had to change. Change you must, or die you will. So
today I've got a relationship with this God of my understanding, who I'm
trying to seek through this Higher Power. I've changed, through a psychic
phenomenon I can't explain.
The good news is, my life is better. Them old boys
told me that if you take a drunk, lying, no-good, cheating horse thief,
and get him to put down the drinkdo you know what you have? A lying,
no-good, cheating horse thief. But we can change. And we do it through
getting honest, getting involved, and carrying the message.
Honor the vessel of your life, folks. Honor the vessel
of your life. That's sacred. You got to treat it with respect.
Because this is a serious disease. You don't believe
me? Then you go on out and drink some more. This disease is a bear. This
disease will bite your head off and spit it out on the street. I lost
my wife, my kids, self-respect. Lived on the street, jails and mental
institutions.
We must be as desperate as only the dying can be.
Because there's nothing in the world more natural
than for an alcoholic to drink alcohol. When you put down that drink,
every cell in your body starts to scream. And while you're shivering and
sweating and shaking, your disease is over there doing push-ups. Just
waiting.
That's what you can learn, from a low damn bottom
gutter drunk like me. If you haven't been there, you don't have to go.
Because this disease will put a shotgun in your mouth.
And if you don't believe that, you're peeing in your
ear and telling yourself it's raining.
Lights fade. ![](../../images/bug_print.gif)
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