Act One

Scene One: The Excavation

(At rise, AMELIA sits on the edge of the bed talking to DAMMOND, who is sitting on the floor, tying his shoes. Throughout the first scene, DAMMOND cleans his apartment. As he cleans, he changes his clothes and hairstyle in order to improve his appearance as all other action continues. The time is three a.m.)

AMELIA
So what else am I supposed to think?

DAMMOND
About what?

AMELIA
You sounded crazy!

DAMMOND
When?

AMELIA
On the phone, you sounded crazy. Right now, you’re sounding crazy.

DAMMOND
Excuse me.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
I need my shirt.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
You’re on my shirt.

AMELIA
I’d like to talk about this.

DAMMOND
I’d like to get my shirt.

AMELIA
Can we talk about this?

DAMMOND (pulls a portion of his shirt from between her legs)
I don’t want my shirt all wrinkled.

AMELIA
What are you doing?

DAMMOND (yanks the shirt from underneath her)
I need to get my shirt, pleasethankyou.

AMELIA
What is going on with you?

DAMMOND
A lot.

AMELIA
I can see that.

DAMMOND
Then please!

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
I don’t like things pried out of me!

AMELIA
You brought it up!

DAMMOND
No!

AMELIA
On the phone! You brought it up!

DAMMOND
I can’t talk about it anymore!

AMELIA
We need to talk about it!

DAMMOND
We’ve already talked about it!

AMELIA
We haven’t talked about it!

DAMMOND
Yes!

AMELIA
When?

DAMMOND
On the phone, I brought it up!

AMELIA
You hung up on me!

DAMMOND
I had to go.

AMELIA
On the phone, you had to go. Right now, you have to go.

DAMMOND
She’s coming here.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
She’s coming here. We’re meeting here.

AMELIA
It’s three in the morning! It’s after three in the fuckin’ morning!

DAMMOND
She wants to see my work! To talk to me about my work! She owns a gallery in SoHo, and she wants to see my paintings. She’s this incredible Danish woman who owns a gallery in SoHo, and she wants to see my paintings!

AMELIA
OK!

DAMMOND
To talk to me about my paintings!

AMELIA
I got it!

DAMMOND
Just to talk.

AMELIA
I got it!

DAMMOND
It’s exciting!

AMELIA
I finally got it! I finally got the joke!

DAMMOND
What joke?

AMELIA
These last few months have been a joke.

DAMMOND
No!

AMELIA
You tell me you’ve got this secret to tell me that you’ll tell me later. And later comes. And now is later. And you still won’t tell me about the secret. ’Cause it’s not the type of secret that you think I think it is.

DAMMOND
It’s not like that!

AMELIA
Then what else am I supposed to think? How else am I supposed to feel? You have a secret and you won’t tell me the secret!

DAMMOND
I’ve started the secret!

AMELIA
And I’m not gonna ask about the secret anymore!

DAMMOND
All the things I said about . . .

AMELIA
And I’m not gonna pry. And I’m not gonna beg. And I’m not gonna tear it out of you. I’ve done that before! I’ve been there before! I’ve been the butt and the punch line before! And it’s not funny . . .

DAMMOND
I’m not laughing!

AMELIA (not hearing him)
. . . and I’m not laughing! And I’m not doing it again!

DAMMOND
It’s not a joke! These last few months are not a joke! I just can’t find them!

AMELIA
Find what?

DAMMOND
Tools!

AMELIA
Tools?

DAMMOND
I don’t have them!

AMELIA
What kind of tools?

DAMMOND
To dig!

AMELIA
Dig what?

DAMMOND
What’s it called . . . ?

AMELIA
A shovel?

DAMMOND
Layers!

AMELIA
You want a shovel?

DAMMOND
Lots of layers!

AMELIA
I’ll find a shovel.

DAMMOND
All kinds of layers!

AMELIA
You want a fuckin’ shovel?

DAMMOND
Around me. Layers all around me. Around my head. Around my body. Around my gut. Inside my gut.

AMELIA
This is such a fuckin’ joke!

DAMMOND
I don’t have the tools it takes to dig inside of me. To dig out and pull out and take out what part of me it is I need to show to you. The part of me I have to show to you. I can’t touch it. I can’t touch the tools. Those are the tools I was talking about. On the phone, with you, I thought I’d found them. At the party, I thought I’d found them. I walked in the door, and a naked woman asked me to give her my clothes.

AMELIA
For what?

DAMMOND
Everybody has to check his clothes!

AMELIA
For what?

DAMMOND
And I thought to myself, tonight I’ve finally found the tools to tell you what I need to tell you. All these people were walking around naked and half-naked,

AMELIA
Were you naked?

DAMMOND
. . . and all I see are bodies naked with perfection.

AMELIA
Were you naked?

DAMMOND
If you don’t want to be naked, though,

AMELIA
Were you naked?

DAMMOND
. . . then you have to wear a gown.

AMELIA
A gown?

DAMMOND
Like in the—in the hospital.

AMELIA
That’s insane!

DAMMOND
So I’m standing there with my ass hanging out thinking you and I should have a little talk.

AMELIA
What kind of place is this?

DAMMOND
It’s for the show.

AMELIA
What show?

DAMMOND
At the gallery. It’s where the party was at—at the gallery. This guy
was showing his art at the gallery.

AMELIA
What kind of art?

DAMMOND
People.

AMELIA
He paints people?

DAMMOND
He sculpts people.

AMELIA
Out of clay?

DAMMOND
Out of flesh.

AMELIA
What do you mean?

DAMMOND
To make them better. To make them look better. He sculpts people. He
sculpts their skin. He sculpts their fat. Around the bone. He sculpts people.

AMELIA
How?

DAMMOND
Surgery.

AMELIA
What kind of surgery?

DAMMOND
Body Lypo-Sculpting surgery. Cosmetic surgery.

AMELIA
And he calls that art?

DAMMOND
It is.

AMELIA
How?

DAMMOND
He performs it.

AMELIA
Oh.

DAMMOND
Surgical art. That’s what he calls it.

AMELIA
He’s a doctor?

DAMMOND
Yes.

AMELIA
He went to med school?

DAMMOND
Yes.

AMELIA
He graduated?

DAMMOND
Yes.

AMELIA
How do you know?

DAMMOND
I talked to him.

AMELIA
About what?

DAMMOND
He didn’t want to go into medicine for the sake of medicine. And he didn’t want to go into art for the sake of art. So he studied medicine and became a doctor, so he could practice medicine for the sake of art.

AMELIA
That’s weird.

DAMMOND
You should see his art.

AMELIA
Why?

DAMMOND
’Cause they really look like art. Everybody just walks around and looks like art. He calls them Walking Works of Art.

AMELIA
It’s not art.

DAMMOND
The human body walks like art.

AMELIA
He said that?

DAMMOND
He says when the human body walks, that’s when the human body’s really art. When the heel of the foot hits the ground or the floor, and gravity transfers the weight of the body and pulls the ball of the foot to the surface of the floor, and the back of the leg then lengthens and strengthens and stiffens, where the thigh meets the buttocks like the sand meets the sea. Right there, he calls that art.

AMELIA
Where?

DAMMOND
Right there.

AMELIA
Here?

DAMMOND
Yes.

AMELIA
This right here is art?

DAMMOND
Walking Works of Art.

AMELIA
He sounds fucked up.

DAMMOND
I like him.

AMELIA
Why?

DAMMOND
He wants to make me art. He wants to change my body. I get to go back sometime and change my body.

AMELIA
But you don’t need to change your body.

DAMMOND
Into a Walking Work of Art? I need to change my body! I want to be a Walking Work of Art. To you. For you. I want for you. I want you to be able to say, “I have a boyfriend who is a Walking Work of Art.”

AMELIA
I don’t want a boyfriend who’s a Walking Work of Art.

DAMMOND
I want to be just like them.

AMELIA
No.

DAMMOND
I want to be able to walk around naked and flaunt myself naked and feel good about my body being naked.

AMELIA
But you don’t need surgery to feel good about your body being naked.

DAMMOND
Yes. Yes, I do.

AMELIA
You don’t.

DAMMOND
Trust me.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
I do.

AMELIA
Why?

DAMMOND
I can’t tell you.

AMELIA
You can tell me.

DAMMOND
I want to tell you. More than anything. I want to tell you. I want to tell you. What I need to tell you.

AMELIA
You can tell me.

DAMMOND
Why I feel so . . . hesitant. All the time. Around you.

AMELIA
You can tell me.

DAMMOND
Sexually. But I can’t tell you. I can’t find the tools to tell you.

AMELIA
You can tell me.

DAMMOND
I don’t know how to tell you.

AMELIA
Just tell me.

DAMMOND
Look.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
Around my room. Look at it. Look at all my paintings. What are all these paintings?

AMELIA
They’re paintings.

DAMMOND
Of what?

AMELIA
Doctors and nurses and blood.

DAMMOND
What kind of doctors?

AMELIA
Surgeons.

DAMMOND
And who’s in all the pictures of the pictures with the surgeons?

AMELIA
You.

DAMMOND
And in the pictures of the surgeons, what’re the surgeons doing?

AMELIA
Is this your secret? That you’ve had surgeries? Is this your secret? ’Cause if this is secret, it’s not a secret. I’ve picked up on that. I can see that.

DAMMOND
No.

AMELIA
I can tell that you’ve had surgeries.

DAMMOND
No.

AMELIA
Then what’s the secret?

DAMMOND
Scars.

AMELIA
Scars?

DAMMOND
From surgeries. Surgeries that gave me scars. When I was a kid. When I was a kid. When I was a boy. When I was just a baby, I had surgeries. Surgeries that gave me scars.

AMELIA
I know.

DAMMOND
How?

AMELIA
I could see them.

DAMMOND
When?

AMELIA
When we were together.

DAMMOND
But I make sure it’s very, very dark. Pitch black, real dark.

AMELIA
But still I could see them. I could feel them. How’d it happen?

DAMMOND
When I was born.

AMELIA
But how’d it happen?

DAMMOND
I don’t know. When I was born. Something happened. That’s what I want us to talk about.

AMELIA
We’re talking.

DAMMOND
That’s all I know.

AMELIA
You don’t know what kind of surgeries?

DAMMOND
To put it back, I know. My bladder. To put it back inside my body. To make it whole again. To sew the hole and make it whole again. To make it bigger. To put a thing around my bladder.

AMELIA
What kind of thing?

DAMMOND
To hold it all together.

AMELIA
Around your bladder?

DAMMOND
That’s all I know.

AMELIA
How many?

DAMMOND
Fourteen.

AMELIA
Fourteen operations?

DAMMOND
I think.

AMELIA
And you don’t know?

DAMMOND
I don’t know what they did.

AMELIA
You didn’t ask?

DAMMOND
I was a baby.

AMELIA
But when you were older . . . ?

DAMMOND
I always wondered, but I never asked. I always just kind of nodded my head and pretended to understand.

AMELIA
Do you remember?

DAMMOND
And I’ve got scars.

AMELIA
I know that you’ve got scars.

DAMMOND
Not just flesh and wound and scalpeled scars. But scars. Real scars. All kinds of “I don’t know how to tell you, I don’t have the tools it takes inside of me to tell you” scars. Something that I really, really need to show to you I don’t know how to show it to you.

AMELIA
But you have.

DAMMOND
Not in the light.

AMELIA
No.

DAMMOND
I can’t just take off all my clothes and show it to you.

AMELIA
OK.

DAMMOND
I can’t do that.

AMELIA
OK.

DAMMOND
I won’t do that.

AMELIA
OK.

DAMMOND
Do you expect me to do that?

AMELIA
No.

DAMMOND
’Cause I can’t do that.

AMELIA
OK.

DAMMOND
I can’t just take off all my clothes and walk around naked and flaunt myself naked, I can’t do that. I’m not like that. That’s why I want to be like that. A Walking Work of Art. So I can do that. I’m not like those people tonight. That I met at the party tonight. Who can do that. Who can take off all their clothes and walk around naked and flaunt themselves naked and have fun. I don’t have fun. I’m not the type of person who has that type of fun. I don’t have the type of body that has that type of fun. Has fun with his body. Works his body to have fun. Has fun with his body. That’s not me. Someone else. That I met. At the party. Has all this fun. Always fun. Goes sailing for months and hiking for months. Safaris and cruises he takes to Alaska and Antarctica. Says something happens there where your eyes are always dilated and you see different. And you think different. And everything is open and makes sense and is fun. I cannot be that far away for that long of a time and have fun. When I go have fun, I don’t have fun. I can’t go to a party to have fun and have fun. Like tonight, I don’t have fun.

AMELIA
You’re supposed to have fun.

DAMMOND
I went to look at a bunch of naked people.

AMELIA
But that’s for fun.

DAMMOND
But not for fun.

AMELIA
People have fun . . .

DAMMOND
I went to look at other people’s bodies. To study other people’s bodies. To examine other people’s bodies. But not for sex. And not for play. And certainly not for fun. But something medical and curious for me to know about other people’s bodies. To know how other people’s bodies are built. How other people’s bodies are formed. Compared to my form and my build.

AMELIA
I don’t think there’s really anything that different. What’s so different?

DAMMOND
I’ve had so many surgeries down there. Knives and scalpels. Hands and tubes. Virile doctors and sexy nurses. All their eyes down there. Stitches on my bladder. Stitches on my navel. The head of my penis. My groin. My pelvis. Stitches all across from there to there. All those scars and all those stitches. On my skin. And on my insides. Scars you can see. Scars you can touch. Scars you can only imagine inside. Down there. All down there. I’ve been invaded down there so many times down there . . . horrible scars on top of horrible scars on top of horrible birthmarks and scars.

AMELIA
It’s really not that bad.

DAMMOND
How do you know?

AMELIA
At all.

DAMMOND
I got scars down there in my brain, in my nerves. In my spine. In my fingers. In my head. Just trust me. They’re bad. I got all that going on inside my body. Internal scars inside my body. Outside my body. Frontside. Backside. I got scars all around my body that scream to me, “Please change my body.” I look at other people’s bodies, and I get so envious. I want his hips. Or his navel. Or his walk. Or his pelvis. Or his bladder. And it just makes me want to have like everybody else.

AMELIA
Have?

DAMMOND
Have!

AMELIA
Have what?

DAMMOND
They have what I want.

AMELIA
You have what you want.

DAMMOND
I don’t even have what I need. Just look at me. You can see all my surgeries and all my scars down there just by looking at me right here. I don’t have to take off all my clothes for you to see my scars. You can see scars on my face from there on my face and in my eyes, I got scars. All these scars. All across my face.  All around my face. And in my eyes from here to here. You can see that I’ve got scars. You can see it on my face and in my eyes and out of my mouth, “I got scars.” Scars I have on my body. All around my body. I need to change my body. I got all that going on inside my body, I have no choice, I have to change my body.

(DAMMOND starts to leave.)

AMELIA
Where are you going?

DAMMOND
To the bathroom.

AMELIA
Can you come here?

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA
Just come here. Just sit here.

DAMMOND (sitting down)
I gotta go to the bathroom.

AMELIA
Look here.

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA (pointing to her jaw)
Right here.

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA
All across from here to here.

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA
You can see.

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA
All my scars from here to here. From the blinker or the gear shift or the steering wheel, I don’t know. From below my eyes down to my neck right through the glass. On a rainy night. And the rear view mirror on the way. And right here.

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA
Right here.

DAMMOND
Mirror?

AMELIA
No.

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA
Rainy night.

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA
Windshield wiper.

DAMMOND
What?

AMELIA
My whole face. From here to here, I’m totally different. I look totally different. You can see. Totally reconstructed. See the scars.

DAMMOND
They’re tiny.

AMELIA
So are yours.

DAMMOND
They’re beautiful.

AMELIA
So are yours.

DAMMOND
You’re beautiful.

AMELIA
So are you. You don’t have scars on your face.

DAMMOND
I got a different type of scars.

AMELIA
OK.

DAMMOND
I got scars on my face from down there.

AMELIA
And I’ve got scars down there from my face. You’re not the only one.

DAMMOND
OK.

AMELIA
I’ve got scars.

DAMMOND
OK.

AMELIA
Elaborate surgeries. Essential surgeries just to even get me out the fuckin’ door. Make me look OK.

DAMMOND
But you look great.

AMELIA
But it’s not me. I look like the Bride of Frankenstein.

DAMMOND
You do not.

AMELIA
I do.

DAMMOND
Not at all!

AMELIA
You don’t like it, because then that makes you Frankenstein.

DAMMOND
I wouldn’t mind.

AMELIA
Why?

DAMMOND
’Cause he looks just like her. He’s exactly like her. They’re identical.

AMELIA
No, they’re not. They’re not identical.

DAMMOND
They are!

AMELIA
He’s big and green and has bolts coming out of his neck. She’s pale and white with crazy hair that goes like this.

DAMMOND
You’re right.

AMELIA
We’re not identical.

DAMMOND
No.

AMELIA
I’m hesitant, too. Sexually. I’m very hesitant, too. I’ve got so much sexual inhibition, because of so much physical inhibition, I don’t know which outweighs the other.

DAMMOND
And I’ve got so much sexual inhibition, because of so much physical exhibition. I was always on exhibit.

AMELIA
It’s just reversed.

DAMMOND
Just the same.

AMELIA
We’re the same?

DAMMOND
Just like twins.

AMELIA
I had an eyelid that wouldn’t open. A nose that was clipped at the tip. A lip that was ripped right open. A chin that had crumbled. A throat that looked like a duck’s. Holes in my cheeks. Broken teeth. Bleeding gums. All red and black and bloody and broken and brown and blue and purple and puce. That was all on my face. Where people could see. All of that. All the time on my face. All those colors on my face. All those scars and gashes on my face. I had to change my face.

DAMMOND
I know.

AMELIA
Everyone could see my face.

DAMMOND
I know.

AMELIA
But when I looked like that, with all of that, all scarred and bruised and broken, I looked more like me then than I look like me right now. If I had the choice right now whether to change my face or not to change my face . . . Why are you shaking?

DAMMOND (is rocking back and forth, holding his stomach)
I gotta go to the bathroom.

AMELIA
I’m sorry.

DAMMOND
It’s OK. Go on.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
I’ll hold my bladder.

AMELIA
You will?

DAMMOND
Yuh.

AMELIA
In your hands?

DAMMOND
Yuh. I talked to a woman on the phone one time who had to do that.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
Her name was Madeline. She had the same thing I did. With her bladder on the outside when she was born. About seventy-five years ago in Paris. But she never had surgery. They didn’t know what to do such a long time ago. And when she got older, she still never wanted to have the surgery. Her bladder’s still on the outside of her body. And she has to literally hold her bladder every time she laughs.

DAMMOND
So she never laughs. She was so depressing.

AMELIA
Are you making this up?

DAMMOND
No. She hung up on me.

AMELIA
Why?

DAMMOND
’Cause I made her laugh, I don’t know.

AMELIA
Seriously?

DAMMOND
She said she has to apply alcohol bandages directly on her bladder.

AMELIA
Ouch.

DAMMOND
Every six hours!

AMELIA
Ouch.

DAMMOND
Alcohol on red raw membrane.

AMELIA
God!

DAMMOND
All because she didn’t want to change her body. All because she didn’t want to have one surgery that would help her change her body. I don’t have to have something so obviously wrong with my body where everybody can see something is obviously wrong with my body to have the need to change my body. Sure it might be some radical thing to actually change my body. But it’s a much more radical thing to go through what I’m going through right now without changing my body. Just think of all the things that woman goes through all because she was too proud or too scared to have one single surgery to change her body. I don’t have to be a mermaid or a Cyclops or have had gashes all across my face to have the need to change my body. I will never believe that I was destined to become what I looked like on the day I was born. I can’t believe that. I won’t believe that. I’ll never believe that. I don’t know how that woman lives like that. How she lives. How she survives. She told me the day she was born, she said her mother told her that it snowed in Paris. And for the first time in Paris . . . I really gotta go to the bathroom.

AMELIA
What happened?

DAMMOND
For the first time in Paris, the snow came down, and it was black.

AMELIA
Black snow?

DAMMOND
Yuh.

AMELIA
From the clouds?

DAMMOND
That’s what she kept repeating: Black snow falling from the clouds. Black snow falling from the clouds. Black snow. It’s falling from the clouds.

(DAMMOND goes into the bathroom. AMELIA crosses over to the bathroom door.)

AMELIA
You look beautiful.

DAMMOND (offstage)
I’m peeing!

AMELIA
I know you’re peeing! But still, you look beautiful.

DAMMOND (comes back into the room)
So do you.

(Black out. End of Scene One.)

 

Scene Two: The Dissection

(A few minutes later. AMELIA leans against the frame of the bathroom door as DAMMOND stands in the doorway of the apartment with MISS JUSTESEN. It’s four a.m.)

MISS JUSTESEN
I just wanted to see your paintings. I came all way just to see your paintings.

DAMMOND
We just need to get some sleep.

MISS JUSTESEN
I thought you were expecting me.

DAMMOND
It’s four o’clock in the morning.

MISS JUSTESEN
I didn’t know it was so late.

DAMMOND
Yes.

MISS JUSTESEN
Of course it’s late. I never stay up so late back home in Hjalmarsgard.
I guess New York life has really got to me. I’ve never been to such naked orgy.

DAMMOND
It wasn’t an orgy.

MISS JUSTESEN
But it was naked.

DAMMOND
But it wasn’t an orgy.

MISS JUSTESEN
It didn’t start until after midnight. I’ve never been to party that started after midnight.

DAMMOND
Miss Justesen . . .

MISS JUSTESEN
You said you paint something about bladders and doctors and blood. All about bladder surgeries you’ve had.  And when we talked about it at party, it seemed as if you don’t really even know that much about them.

DAMMOND
Not really.

MISS JUSTESEN
My professor at arts university always said, “Painting yourself and not yet knowing yourself is good way to get to know yourself. Is portrait of self really portrait of self? Or portrait of someone you know better than yourself? How ignorant man paints portrait of himself is not portrait of ignorant man, because it is seldom portrait of himself.” Did that answer your question? At party, you asked me why I wanted to see your paintings . . .

DAMMOND
Right.

MISS JUSTESEN
. . . and I just told you.

DAMMOND
Oh.

MISS JUSTESEN
Does that answer your question?

DAMMOND
Yes.

MISS JUSTESEN
Good, I’d like to see your paintings.

DAMMOND
Miss Justesen . . .

MISS JUSTESEN
Yes?

DAMMOND
I don’t mean to be rude.

MISS JUSTESEN
Of course not.

DAMMOND
But maybe we can do this another time. I’ll call you later on in the week, after the weekend or something, OK?

MISS JUSTESEN
I’m sorry I was late.

DAMMOND
It’s all right.

MISS JUSTESEN
I was talking to Naaktgeboren.

DAMMOND
I understand.

MISS JUSTESEN
He’s doctor at gallery. He said you missed your consultation.

DAMMOND
When?

MISS JUSTESEN
Consultation to change your body.

DAMMOND
They were tonight?

MISS JUSTESEN
At morning time.

DAMMOND
I didn’t know.

MISS JUSTESEN
Yours was two-fifteen.

DAMMOND
That’s when I left. Why were they so late?

MISS JUSTESEN
That’s just way he does things there. Maybe you can talk to him.

DAMMOND
I’ll call him tomorrow.

MISS JUSTESEN
You don’t need to. I brought him here. I knew you wanted consultation, and you didn’t mean to miss consultation, so I brought consultation to you.

NAAKTGEBOREN (abruptly enters. He carries a briefcase under his arm.)
Fuck! I just cut my fuckin’ hand on the fuckin’ mirror in the fuckin’ hall. I’m gonna get a fuckin’ scar. Fuck! Probably right across my lifeline or right across my sexline.

DAMMOND
Is it bad?

NAAKTGEBOREN
I just cut my fuckin’ life in half and my fuckin’ sex in half, and he asks me if it’s bad. Of course it’s bad! Look at it! Right across the line.

DAMMOND
I’ll get a Band-Aid.

(Crosses to the bathroom as he speaks. AMELIA retreats further inside unnoticeably.)

NAAKTGEBOREN
I don’t need a Band-Aid. I need stitches.

DAMMOND
You’re barely bleeding.

MISS JUSTESEN
Have you two met?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yuh, we met at the party. I hate scars. Don’t you? I hate any kind of fuckin’ scars.

DAMMOND
You look good.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Thanks.

DAMMOND
I mean, with your clothes on. You look good.

MISS JUSTESEN
You should see his legs.

DAMMOND
I know.

MISS JUSTESEN
He’s got strong legs.

NAAKTGEBOREN
My legs are my divining rod. They always guide my libido toward another hungry libido.

MISS JUSTESEN
What’s libido?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Appetite.

MISS JUSTESEN
Oh. I have strong libido myself.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Really?

MISS JUSTESEN
All night long.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re not alone.

MISS JUSTESEN
I’ve had such strong libido . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN
I didn’t know.

MISS JUSTESEN
. . . for broiled salmon and steamed vegetables! And little cup of sake, too. Not too big. Not too small. And nice big Apple Betty Crisp. A friend of mine owns culinary school back home in Hjalmarsgard. I’ll have to remember word and tell her I have strong libido for her home cookin’. Is that right?

DAMMOND
She might get the wrong idea.

MISS JUSTESEN
You know, I have heard word before. Downstairs at party.

DAMMOND
I’m sure you did.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Libido.

MISS JUSTESEN
I knew it sounded familiar!

NAAKTGEBOREN
Libido!

MISS JUSTESEN
Naked man was singing song to another naked man.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I like the sound of that.

MISS JUSTESEN
Naked Man A, we shall call him, said to Naked Man B, if you will, “Well, I can tell it’s not pistol in your pocket.” And Naked Man B then sang to Naked Man A, let’s see if I can remember: “I could read your libido right through tuxedo. Might as well be wearing wet and white Speedo!” Yes! I remember now! What’s Speedo?

NAAKTGEBOREN
A small bikini brief.

MISS JUSTESEN
Oh, I think I get it. I heard him sing song to three or four different men and one very different woman.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Who was he?

MISS JUSTESEN
I don’t remember his name. That’s not most prominent feature that stuck out. He told me had his Broadway debut in Will Rogers Follies, and that he considered that easy route for coming out as homosexual. For months, he said he just kept repeating, “I never met man I didn’t like. I never met man I didn’t like. I never met man I didn’t like.” And eventually, he said his broken record mentality caught on and everyone understood him.

DAMMOND
I’m sure they did.

NAAKTGEBOREN (lifting up his hand)
It stopped bleeding.

AMELIA (approaches from the bathroom)
I like that story.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Who are you?

AMELIA
Amelia.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Amelia? Hello, Amelia.

AMELIA (extends her hand)
Hello.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I’d shake your hand, but my hand is bleeding.

AMELIA
I thought it stopped.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I’m Naaktgeboren. It means “Born Naked.” I’m Born Naked.

AMELIA
So was I.

MISS JUSTESEN
Me, too. What a sight! Call the cops! Call the cops, I’m born naked! It’s so perfect that your name of all people means “Born Naked.” Don’t you think? Everything he likes to do is so naked.

(To DAMMOND.)

I’d really love to see your paintings.

NAAKTGEBOREN
That’s all she kept chirping about on the cab ride over.

MISS JUSTESEN
Chirping?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Like a bird.

MISS JUSTESEN
He’s right.

DAMMOND (gets up out of his seat)
Then I’ll show you.

NAAKTGEBOREN (stopping him)
So tell me, what can I do for you? The consultation, to change your body, what can I do for you?

DAMMOND
I just wanted to know more about what you do.

NAAKTGEBOREN
In what way?

DAMMOND
About your Walking Works of Art.  I want to be a Walking Work of Art.

NAAKTGEBOREN
That’s what I want to make you. A Walking Work of Art.

DAMMOND
Sounds good to me.

MISS JUSTESEN
May I see your paintings?

DAMMOND
Feel free to look around.

(Back to NAAKTGEBOREN.)

You were saying?

NAAKTGEBOREN
“At TransFormations, we can TransForm Godzillas into Gods. King Kongs into Kings. Creatures from the Black Lagoon into Creatures that Will Make You Swoon.” All you need is bones and we’ll work around them.

MISS JUSTESEN
Bones?

NAAKTGEBOREN
You got bones somewhere underneath all that fat?

DAMMOND
I got bones.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Then we’ll work around them. Here’s my pamphlet.

(NAAKTGEBOREN pulls a few pamphlets out of his briefcase.)

Look at this pamphlet and point out to me the physical shape you’d most like your body to resemble.

DAMMOND
Here.

NAAKTGEBOREN
This is your dream body?

DAMMOND
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
For you to touch or for you to have?

DAMMOND
For me to have.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Good. You’ve done me proud. Among all my Walking Works of Art, that’s the one I’m fondest of. That cultivated sculptured look. That’s good. I call that Promenade.

AMELIA (laughing)
Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN
A body fit for a leisurely walk in a public place mainly for pleasure or for display. Let me hear you say it.

DAMMOND
Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Perfect. The structure of Promenade focuses primarily on the abdominal muscles and how they are strategically stacked one on top of the other. And above that intricate totem of muscle, I have created a uniquely built chest and scapulary. One that undoubtedly evokes a sense of envy. You know what I call that?

DAMMOND
What?

NAAKTGEBOREN
The Promenade Deck!

DAMMOND
I like that!

NAAKTGEBOREN
In public, when another person recognizes your . . . how should I put it? . . .

(Rhymes with “oddity.”)

Promenadity?

DAMMOND
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
And they say to you, “My, what a beautiful Promenade!” You know what you say to them? Nothing. You just give them . . .

(tilting his head)

. . . a Prome-Nod.

(DAMMOND laughs.)

NAAKTGEBOREN (cont’d)
It’s my favorite work of Walking Works of Art!

DAMMOND
A Prome-Nod?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Let me see it.

DAMMOND (tilts his head quite convincingly)
Prome-Nod.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re destined for Promenade.

DAMMOND
Really?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Just destined.

DAMMOND (nods his head again, even more dramatically)
Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod.

(DAMMOND continues tilting his head and repeating the words.)

AMELIA
Which one’s Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Second from the right.

AMELIA
This person here is Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yes.

AMELIA
Is he real?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yes.

AMELIA
He exists?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Of course.

AMELIA
He looks too perfect.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Naturally.

(DAMMOND eventually sits down on the floor to study more photographs and literature.)

AMELIA
You know him well?

NAAKTGEBOREN
He’s my twin.

AMELIA
Fraternal.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Identical.

AMELIA
He doesn’t look like you.

NAAKTGEBOREN
We’re not identical anymore. We changed our bodies to look different.

AMELIA
Intentionally?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Of course.

AMELIA
I can’t believe you’d do that.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re just prejudiced.

AMELIA
About what?

NAAKTGEBOREN
It’s a secret.

AMELIA
What secret?

NAAKTGEBOREN
My secret.

AMELIA
Then how can I be prejudiced about a secret? About something I don’t even know anything about?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Exactly. That’s prejudiced.

(MISS JUSTESEN looks at the pamphlets.)

MISS JUSTESEN
They’re beautiful beautiful photos.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Thank you.

AMELIA
I’m not prejudiced.

MISS JUSTESEN
Everyone looks like that! So beautiful. I always say, if you have body like that, then flaunt it. Idea like that, then flaunt it. Spirit like that, then flaunt it. Get it hell out of box and flaunt it. These kinds of things are not intended to be kept like secrets.

AMELIA
I still don’t see how you can say I’m prejudiced!

MISS JUSTESEN
Prejudices, my dear, are born only because some value worth of secret far greater than worth of truth.

AMELIA
But I’m not prejudiced!

MISS JUSTESEN
I know that, dear.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re prejudiced and hypocritical.

AMELIA
Based on what?

(NAAKTGEBOREN studies AMELIA’s face as he speaks.)

NAAKTGEBOREN
More hypocritical than prejudiced. But still prejudiced. If I could turn the clock back for ninety seconds, I’d say to you you’re hypocritical instead of saying you’re prejudiced.

AMELIA
Why?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Because I can see it on your face. Hypocrisy all around your fuckin’ face. A thousand tiny hairline scars from cosmetic surgery, am I right? Total reconstruction surgery on your face. So, then it is a hypocritical statement for you to judge my changing my brother’s body when you yourself have changed your face.

AMELIA
I had to change my face.

NAAKTGEBOREN (pointing to the pamphlet)
And that’s the same with him.

(Now pointing to DAMMOND.)

And that’s the same with him.

AMELIA
It’s not the same!

NAAKTGEBOREN
Why? Because you were in an emergency?

AMELIA
Exactly.

NAAKTGEBOREN (pointing to DAMMOND)
And so is he.

AMELIA
No.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yours was a more immediate emergency.

AMELIA
Yes, it was.

NAAKTGEBOREN
But what makes you so sure that some people are not involved in a more incubated emergency? One that boils and toils and troubles the mind quite extensively. Even though it spans a year or two or decades even, it still to him’s emergency. Incubated emergency.

DAMMOND
These bodies are amazing!

NAAKTGEBOREN
See!

DAMMOND
All these bodies.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Look at him!

DAMMOND
Every single one of these bodies . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN
He’s so hungry!

DAMMOND
. . . Is so amazing! God, I need to change my body!

NAAKTGEBOREN
If that’s not emergency, I don’t know what is.

DAMMOND
Can I really look like this?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Of course.

DAMMOND
But what about my scars? It says right here, you have scarification removal? And pubic hair realignment? And cosmetic injections and pills for me to take? Does all that really work? I mean, can I really change that much?

NAAKTGEBOREN
You better pack your bags. I have a feeling you’re gonna be gone for a long, long time. You’re not only ready for the consultation, you’re ready for the TransFormation.

AMELIA
He’s not ready for the transformation!

DAMMOND
But what if I’m not meant to look like that? What if my body’s not intended to be attractive like that?

NAAKTGEBOREN
It is. Now get packing!

DAMMOND
But what if I can’t do it? What if my body can’t do it? What if I don’t even like what I could look like? What if the best possible me isn’t even good? What if something says that I can’t do it? What if some Magnetic Something somewhere says to me that this is me? And how I’ll always be. Like me. Like this. Just like this. Just like me. And you can’t do it. And there I’m left. With me. What if I’m stuck? What if I’m always left and stuck with me?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Then the best thing I could suggest for you is a nearsighted lover. Nearsighted in one eye. Farsighted in the other. From a distance, you’ll look decent. Up close, you’ll look decent. Because in between, one eye is lying all the time. Here’s your nearsighted lover. You’ve already got your nearsighted lover. If all else fails, you’ve already got your backup, because you’ve already got your nearsighted lover. But I know for you for a fact, you’d like something bigger, something better. You were very bold at my party tonight, and I like that.

DAMMOND
Bold about what?

NAAKTGEBOREN
You said you wanted to examine my body. And study my body.

DAMMOND
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
So let’s go study the body. You study mine. And I’ll study yours.

(To AMELIA.)

That’s the last thing he said to me at the party. “Can we just lie here? Can I just examine you?” He strips me naked and gets me naked, and lies me down.

DAMMOND
You were already naked.

NAAKTGEBOREN
And stares at me with those big brown puppy eyes of his and says to me, “Can we just lie here? Can I just examine you? If I took off my hospital gown, would you lie on top of me? With your naked back on my naked chest. Right on top of me. For me to imagine. With my hands, I’d imagine. I just woke up. And the body on top of me is not on top of me, but is me. That the body I’m touching is me. So I feel your waist like it’s me. Your pelvic bone, it’s me. Your stomach. Your navel. It’s all me.”

DAMMOND
It’s not what I said.

NAAKTGEBOREN
It’s exactly what you said. “It’s kind of not at all like the kind of fun you like to have with your body, Naaktgeboren. But if you pretend this for me. Then I’ll pretend that I have fun with you. That I have fun with whatever you would like to do with me.”

DAMMOND
I didn’t say that.

AMELIA
Did you say that? You said you wanted to examine other people’s bodies.

DAMMOND
But I don’t want it like that! I didn’t mean it like that!

NAAKTGEBOREN
I saw you when you said it. On your knees, crying and begging.

DAMMOND
But not like that.

AMELIA
Then what?

DAMMOND
I want to look at what I should have. And study what I should have. And examine what I should have. Your body. Your perfect body. Your very perfect scarless body. I want to touch what I should have.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Then touch.

DAMMOND
At the party . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN
Touch me.

DAMMOND
. . . my later thoughts . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN
You can touch me.

DAMMOND
. . . before . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN
Just touch me.

DAMMOND
. . . at the party . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN
Touch me!

DAMMOND
. . . were . . . . . . surgery. God, send surgery. Perfect body surgery. Like a blanket or a lock or a guard. It would give me security. For me, for someone to accept me and love me. That need for me. For whoever’s out there, for them to yes me. That’s what I need. As a person. As a me. As a man. My own biology rights. That’s what I need. No scars. Like you. I’d want it just like you. Your pretty, pretty structured body. No backfire body. No un-, mal-, or disbody. You have what I want. Inside my head. A live idea! Of what  I want to be. Just a beautiful body. Like all these beautiful bodies in all these beautiful pictures. This beauty of the body that I don’t have. This form of perfection that I don’t own. It’s the beauty of the body and the form of perfection that I crave.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I’ll help you pack.

DAMMOND
OK.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I love . . . the way . . . you touch me.

DAMMOND
OK.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Such hunger . . . and devotion . . . It’s amazing.

MISS JUSTESEN
You need to meet my friend.

DAMMOND
Who’s that?

MISS JUSTESEN
Dana Gray.

DAMMOND
Who’s Dana Gray?

MISS JUSTESEN
You need to meet Dana Gray. If you think like that, you need to meet Dana Gray.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You have a suitcase?

DAMMOND
Under the bed.

(NAAKTGEBOREN takes out the suitcase and begins packing it.)

MISS JUSTESEN
Just wrote amazing book. About what you just said. About seasons of year. And how it affects everybody’s thoughts and emotions and ideas.

DAMMOND
I didn’t say that.

MISS JUSTESEN
It’s called Seasons of Womb.

DAMMOND
It’s not what I said.

MISS JUSTESEN
It’s amazing book!

DAMMOND
It’s not for me.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I know what you mean.

DAMMOND
I don’t like stuff like that.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I don’t blame you.

DAMMOND
I never have.

NAAKTGEBOREN
It’s not your cup of tea.

DAMMOND
Exactly.

MISS JUSTESEN
How it affects conception and development in every stage of lives.

DAMMOND
I hate those types of books.

MISS JUSTESEN (not a question)
Are you different if you’re conceived in spring versus being conceived in winter?

DAMMOND
But that’s astrology.

MISS JUSTESEN
In some ways that’s true.

NAAKTGEBOREN
It’s astrology. We not like astrology.

DAMMOND
I don’t want to meet anybody that writes those types of books.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Where’s your underwear? Do you wear underwear?

MISS JUSTESEN
But are you affected differently as embryo if you are formed in summer versus being formed in winter or fall or in spring. If things are fertile in air. If home’s had spring cleaning, and your siblings are laughing and your father’s at home, does that spring affection play part in your life if you’re in womb in spring.

NAAKTGEBOREN
So, what are you saying? Daddy’s home—the house is clean—I feel good—I think I’ll kick—Kick!—Oh, honey, he just kicked! Let me feel—Kick!—Oh, he just kicked again! Children, come quick, come feel! Your brother just kicked—Kick!—Why’d he kick, Mommy, why, why?—Kick!—Because the house is clean—Kick!—and your father—Kick!—is at home!—Kick!

MISS JUSTESEN
It’s not at all like that.

NAAKTGEBOREN
That’s what you said.

MISS JUSTESEN
Not like that.

AMELIA
She didn’t mean it like that.

MISS JUSTESEN
Also talks about world events.

AMELIA
Really?

DAMMOND
I don’t want to talk about world events!

NAAKTGEBOREN
Me, too.

MISS JUSTESEN
Like wars and depressions.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Big fun!

DAMMOND
Wars and depressions!

MISS JUSTESEN
About how could have huge direct effect on the mother—or even directly affecting fetus or embryo.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Everything has paint on them! You’ll need a whole new wardrobe! You’ll need a whole new wardrobe anyway! But you need a whole new wardrobe . . .

MISS JUSTESEN
Huge chronological table corresponding to what year you were born and dates you were conceived.

DAMMOND
It’s bullshit.

MISS JUSTESEN
It’s not bullshit.

DAMMOND
I can tell when something’s bullshit.

MISS JUSTESEN
Dana Gray says in China, when you’re born, you’re born on your first birthday.

DAMMOND
So—

MISS JUSTESEN
You’re already one year old.

AMELIA
That’s neat.

MISS JUSTESEN
Isn’t it?

AMELIA
Then I’d be thirty.

MISS JUSTESEN
Says months before we’re born is most amazing and eventful part of life.

DAMMOND
How’s that?

MISS JUSTESEN
At beginning, we’re zygote. Just one cell. We’re one cell. And then from
then on, we double.

AMELIA
Two. Four. Eight. Sixteen, et cetera.

MISS JUSTESEN
Until time we are born, we each contain about two hundred billion cells.

AMELIA
Two hundred billion?

MISS JUSTESEN
And do you know how much cell weighs?

AMELIA
I know.

MISS JUSTESEN
About fifteen ten-millionths of one gram!

AMELIA
I know.

MISS JUSTESEN
At time of birth, we each weigh over three thousand grams! So in nine months’ time, what’s that? We gained approximately two billion times our original weight.

AMELIA
That’s amazing.

MISS JUSTESEN
You started out being egg, so tiny, you could fit through eye of needle. Then you became thin and hollow and long, like rubber band. And around third week of life, your nerves started forming. And your liver started appearing. And your heart started beating. Dana Gray says, “Wouldn’t that seem to you like best adventure of your life?”

AMELIA
We need to meet her.

MISS JUSTESEN
Yes.

AMELIA
Let’s invite her over.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Not now.

DAMMOND
I don’t want to meet her.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Me neither.

DAMMOND
Not now.

AMELIA
Where does she live?

MISS JUSTESEN
TriBeCa.

DAMMOND
I don’t want to meet her.

AMELIA
Miss Justesen—

MISS JUSTESEN
Yes?

AMELIA
I think we should invite her over right now.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You have a shaving kit?

DAMMOND
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Go get that and all your toiletries.

DAMMOND
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
We’re almost packed.

DAMMOND
Naaktgeboren—

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yes, Dammond?

DAMMOND
Can I really change my body?

(NAAKTGEBOREN takes DAMMOND’S hands and places them strategically onto NAAKTGEBOREN’s body.)

NAAKTGEBOREN
Into something very similar to this.

DAMMOND
God!

(DAMMOND buries his face in NAAKTGEBOREN’S chest. He cries hungrily.)

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yes! Yes! Yes! It’s all right. It’s all right.

DAMMOND
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Go get your shaving kit.

DAMMOND
I’ll be right back.

(DAMMOND crosses to the bathroom.)

NAAKTGEBOREN
Just look at that. He is destined for Promenade.

DAMMOND
Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Promenade!

DAMMOND (his face lights up)
Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Perfect.

DAMMOND
Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod.

(DAMMOND and NAAKTGEBOREN stare at each other from across the room. The magnetism between them is apparent. AMELIA and MISS JUSTESEN observe in uncomfortable silence.)

(Blackout. End of Act One.)

Act Two

Scene One: The Discovery

(NAAKTGEBOREN and DAMMOND stand at the front door, coats on and determined to leave. MISS JUSTESEN and AMELIA block the doorway as DANA GRAY sits on the bathtub couch with a large round case on wheels stage left. Much of the focus is concentrated on the contents of this case: fetuses and embryos floating in glass jars. The time is five-thirty a.m.)

NAAKTGEBOREN
’Cause it’s a freak show!

DAMMOND
It’s a freak show!

NAAKTGEBOREN
We’re not gonna stand around and watch a friggin’ freak show!

MISS JUSTESEN
It’s not freak show!

NAAKTGEBOREN
It’s disgusting.

AMELIA
I think it’s beautiful.

MISS JUSTESEN
Isn’t it?

DANA GRAY
You know what I call it? Eddie and Freddy and the Floating Embryo
Fantasmagoria.

NAAKTGEBOREN
It’s a freak show!

DANA GRAY
Each and every embryo comes directly to you by way of my mother’s womb.

AMELIA
It’s amazing!

DANA GRAY
In front of your very eyes are all nine of my older brothers and sisters.

NAAKTGEBOREN
They look like monsters.

DANA GRAY
Funny you should say that.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Let’s get out of here. We should have left a long time ago.

DANA GRAY
What makes you say that?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Absolute monsters.

DANA GRAY
Must I remind you about my siblings?

NAAKTGEBOREN
That you’re kind of like your siblings?

DANA GRAY
Just like my Bella-Beau.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Who’s Bella-Beau?

DANA GRAY
Especially Bella-Beau.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Which one is Bella-Beau? This right here is Bella-Beau?

DANA GRAY
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
A hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
It’s a hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
This thing right here is a hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY
Bella-Beau is a hermaphrodite.

NAAKTGEBOREN
So you’re a hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY
A pseudohermaphrodite.

NAAKTGEBOREN
What’s the difference?

DANA GRAY
I have what’s known as ambiguous genitalia.

NAAKTGEBOREN
And what’s so ambiguous about your genitalia?

DANA GRAY
I have the sexual organs of a woman, but I also have the sexual characteristics of a man.

NAAKTGEBOREN
What kind of sexual characteristics?

(DANA GRAY points to DAMMOND as she is referring to the pamphlet.)

DANA GRAY
Well, it looks like in a lot of ways, I’m just like him.

            (Complete stillness.)

DAMMOND
I’m not a hermaphrodite.

DANA GRAY
Neither am I.

DAMMOND
But you just said . . .

DANA GRAY
A pseudohermaphrodite.

DAMMOND
I’m not a pseudohermaphrodite.

DANA GRAY
But you have the urethral displacement like a pseudohermaphrodite.

DAMMOND
What’s a urethral displacement?

DANA GRAY
Where your urethra is displaced.

DAMMOND
My urethra is not displaced.

DANA GRAY
Then where do you pee?

DAMMOND
Out of my penis.

DANA GRAY
What part of your penis?

DAMMOND
What do you mean?

DANA GRAY
Do you have a hole on your penis where you pee?

DAMMOND
Yes.

DANA GRAY
Where is it?

DAMMOND
At the tip of my fuckin’ penis.

DANA GRAY
When you pee, pee actually comes through a hole at the tip of your penis?

DAMMOND
Yes.

DANA GRAY
You pee, and pee comes out?

DAMMOND
Yes.

DANA GRAY
Through the tip of your penis?

DAMMOND
Why are you doing this?

DANA GRAY
Because it wasn’t always like that.  It can’t have always been like that.

DAMMOND
As far as I remember.

DANA GRAY
When you were born, it wasn’t like that.

DAMMOND
How do you know?

DANA GRAY
It’s a condition that goes hand in hand with your condition. If you were born with your bladder on the outside of your abdomen, then I guarantee you had a urethral opening displaced on the upperside of your penis.

DAMMOND
My urethral opening is at the tip of my penis.

DANA GRAY
But when you were born, it was on the upperside of your penis.

DAMMOND
And that makes me a hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY
A pseudohermaphrodite.

DAMMOND
A hole on top of my penis when I was born does not make me a pseudohermaphrodite!

DANA GRAY
A lot like a pseudohermaphrodite!

DAMMOND
But I’m not a pseudohermaphrodite!

DANA GRAY
A pseudohermaphrodite has the urethral opening on the underside of the penis . . .

DAMMOND
But that’s not me.

DANA GRAY
And that displacement of the urethral opening on the underside of the penis makes it look a lot like a vagina.

DAMMOND
But a hole on top of my penis does not look like a vagina.

DANA GRAY
It’s actually more progressive. You’re what I call a progressive-pseudo. A progressive-pseudohermaphrodite. Both of the sexes are moving upward and forward, not dormant or recessive. You’re trying to be both. A pseudohermaphrodite is trying to deny one or the other. A progressive-pseudo is trying to embrace them both.

DAMMOND
That’s not true.

DANA GRAY
Both a penis and a vagina.

DAMMOND
It’s not a vagina.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You got a vagina-looking thing on top of your penis?

DAMMOND
I do not have a vagina!

NAAKTGEBOREN
That is so gross! Like “icky icky stay away from me that’s gross” gross.

DANA GRAY
A vagina is gross?

NAAKTGEBOREN
You gotta get rid of that vagina!

DAMMOND
Let’s get out of here!

NAAKTGEBOREN
You wanna get rid of that vagina? You probably got scars from having that vagina. Think about it. In the heat of passion. “Honey, where’d you get that scar?” “Oh, Sweetums, that’s where I used to have my vagina.” “Your vagina?” “My vagina!” “Get out of my fuckin’ bed, Vagina!”

AMELIA
I would never say anything like that!

NAAKTGEBOREN
Let’s get out of here.

DAMMOND
As fast as we can.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I’m with you.

DAMMOND
How soon can I have the surgeries?

NAAKTGEBOREN
I’ll bump you up to the top of the list.

DAMMOND
Thank God.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re welcome.

AMELIA
I’ve told you a hundred times, you don’t need to change your body.

DAMMOND
If I was born with a vagina-lookin’ thing on top of my penis, no matter what anybody says, I need to change my body.

(DANA GRAY hands DAMMOND a stack of papers.)

DANA GRAY
Have you ever read these papers? These medical papers?

DAMMOND
I don’t understand them.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Let’s go.

DAMMOND
They’re all in Latin or Italian or Greek or something.

(To NAAKTGEBOREN.)

You ready?

DANA GRAY
Where’d you get these papers?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Let’s get out of here.

DAMMOND
My mother sent them to me.

DANA GRAY
Your whole medical history is right here. Every operation. Every procedure. Every medical decision and detail is right here in front of your face. Anything and everything you need to know is right here. Did you know that?

DAMMOND
But I can’t read them.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Let’s go.

DANA GRAY
Have you ever seen this pamphlet?

DAMMOND
Yes.

DANA GRAY
It’s beautiful.

DAMMOND
Thank you.

AMELIA
What is it?

DANA GRAY
It looks so clean.

AMELIA
Let me see.

DANA GRAY
Do you mind?

DAMMOND
No.

AMELIA
Can I see it?

DANA GRAY
He’s got this mechanical device inside his body.

MISS JUSTESEN
Where?

NAAKTGEBOREN
We need to go.

DANA GRAY
Around your bladder, is that right?

DAMMOND
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Let’s go.

AMELIA
It looks like crystal.

MISS JUSTESEN
That’s inside you?

DAMMOND
Yes.

MISS JUSTESEN
It’s so beautiful.

DAMMOND (abruptly)
I have a painting of that!

NAAKTGEBOREN
We don’t have time for this.

MISS JUSTESEN
Oh, I need to see it!

DAMMOND
Just a second.

NAAKTGEBOREN
We’ll do it another time.

(DAMMOND pulls the painting from behind a stack of other canvases.)

DAMMOND
I painted it, because I like the name of it.

MISS JUSTESEN
What’s it called?

DAMMOND
It’s called the ART-800.

MISS JUSTESEN
I like that.

DAMMOND
I used to have the ART-920, but then they upgraded it, and now I have the ART-800.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Why are you doing this?

MISS JUSTESEN
So, you’ve got this machine inside your body called ART-800?

DAMMOND
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
We need to go.

MISS JUSTESEN
It’s like Z-28 or DC-10.

DAMMOND
I guess.

MISS JUSTESEN
ART-800!

NAAKTGEBOREN
Are you coming with me?

DAMMOND
I’ll be right there.

AMELIA
It says right here when you were eight years old, your doctor sewed a “lyopholized dura patch on the dome of your bladder in an effort to give you an increased bladder capacity.” You know what this lyopholized dura patch is?

DAMMOND
No.

AMELIA
You received a tissue transplant when you were eight years old. And that tissue was flown all the way from Germany. They flew some German person’s brain from Berlin to Houston, and sewed some tissue from that German brain onto your bladder.

DAMMOND
German brain?

AMELIA
Yes.

DAMMOND
I have some German person’s German brain sewed onto my bladder?

AMELIA
Yes. “Transplanted tissue remains alive in the tissue receiver’s body. The phenomenon here is that the tissue donor’s brain function still may be working.” What does that mean?

MISS JUSTESEN
It seems as if your bladder’s got mind of its own.

DAMMOND
I can think with my bladder. Have memories with my bladder.

MISS JUSTESEN
Someone else’s memories.

DAMMOND
Oh, my God.

MISS JUSTESEN
Someone else’s thoughts. Their intelligence. Their creativity. Alive! . . . and living on your bladder!

(DANA GRAY reads from the medical papers.)

DANA GRAY
When you were born, your hip bones and pelvic bones were broken. Did you know that?

DAMMOND
Yes.

DANA GRAY
So you’ve had an osteotomy?

MISS JUSTESEN
Osteotomy?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Where they reshape his hips and pelvic bones, can we go now?

DANA GRAY
Did you have that?

DAMMOND
I used to have braces on both my legs.

NAAKTGEBOREN
He wouldn’t walk the way he walks right now if he hadn’t had an osteotomy.

DAMMOND
When I was two and I was three. I had this metal bar that went between my legs. From knee to knee. And  I remember my father used to carry me by that bar. Upside down. Like a suitcase. Like a briefcase. Like some human luggage. And he would carry me and swing me upside down. And it was fun. All my first memories I’ve ever had are of everything upside down. Buildings. Trees. And people. Growing from the sky. That’s how I remember things when I was young. Every single thing was upside down.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I would love to take away any physical reminders of any of your physical pain.

DAMMOND
You would?

NAAKTGEBOREN
All your scars and hard scar tissue. Just zap it away, so nothing haunts you anymore.

DAMMOND
That’s what I need.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Then we better go.

DANA GRAY
I’d never change my body.

MISS JUSTESEN
That’s exactly how I feel, too.

DANA GRAY
Like you.

MISS JUSTESEN
Especially you. Lot of great things about your body.

AMELIA
That’s what I’ve already told him.

MISS JUSTESEN
Part brain and part machine. Inside your urinary system. I find that quite intriguing.

DAMMOND
I find it vulgar.

MISS JUSTESEN
How’s it vulgar?

DAMMOND
It’s unnatural. Anything unnatural is vulgar. You all are so lucky.

MISS JUSTESEN
Lucky?

DAMMOND
All of your biggest problems are your most obvious problems. I’d love it if my biggest problem was real obvious. So everybody knew my most obvious problems.

MISS JUSTESEN
You wouldn’t want it that way.

DAMMOND
But it’s hard to walk around and have people not understand the reason why I behave or act or react a certain way. It’s hard. No one knows what’s going on inside.

MISS JUSTESEN
That’s same for everyone.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I’ve always been amazed by that one thing.

DAMMOND
What’s that?

NAAKTGEBOREN
That it’s all the same for everyone.

DAMMOND
What’s the same?

NAAKTGEBOREN
That we’re all the same inside. No matter what color, what shape, what texture, what emotions or ideas anyone might have—we’re all the same inside. We’ve all got the same color of blood. The same whiteness of bone.

DAMMOND
You’re right.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You can take comfort in that.

AMELIA
I don’t know why people always say that. “We’re all the same inside.”

DAMMOND
He’s right.

NAAKTGEBOREN
’Cause it’s true.

AMELIA
It’s not true. None of us is the same inside! How can you say that we’re all the same inside?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Because I’ve seen us, and we all look the same inside.

AMELIA
How can you say his bladder and his urinary system is like everybody else’s bladders and urinary systems?

NAAKTGEBOREN
I’ve cut open so many people’s bodies, I should know we’re all the same inside. We’ve all got bones and brains and blood.

AMELIA
But there are different types of blood. We have different types of blood, we have different types of tissues, we have different types of organs and organ systems and different types of bodies—it’s obvious. You of all people should know that that’s obvious.

NAAKTGEBOREN
All I’m saying is our blood is the same inside. Our bones are alike inside.

AMELIA
No.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yes.

MISS JUSTESEN
Do you really think your bones are exactly like my bones?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Other than the size of your bones—yes.

MISS JUSTESEN (with great dignity)
I was born with osteogenesis imperfecta.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Sounds frightful.

MISS JUSTESEN
It is.

AMELIA
What’s that?

MISS JUSTESEN
Degenerative bone disease where bones are continually crumbling all time. Right now, as we speak, my bones are breaking away. Grain by grain. Grit by grit. Boneless. Cartilageless. Spineless. That’s what I have to look forward to in my old age. Being spineless and alive at same time. How’s that sound to you? Having your skull deteriorate, so your brain feels like jelly? Having your ankles deplete, so you walk, until you walk no more, like jelly. Having your fingers waste away their sockets, so you sculpt and paint like jelly. When I was only twelve years old, my pelvis had already concaved in in such way making it impossible for me to ever bear child. My body has always deceived my age. Everyone treats me like citizen senior. But I’m not even thirty years young yet. My insides are nothing like your insides.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Dana Gray—

DANA GRAY
I’m scared of this.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I bet our insides even look alike inside.

DANA GRAY
I doubt that’s true.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Even though you’re somewhat hermaphroditic, and even though I’m somewhat not, I bet even hormonally . . .

DANA GRAY
Hormonally?

NAAKTGEBOREN
. . . we’re a lot alike inside.

DANA GRAY
Don’t get me started.

NAAKTGEBOREN
We’re hormonally alike inside . . .

DANA GRAY
No!

NAAKTGEBOREN
. . . because we all started out being hormonally alike inside.

(He puts his arm around DAMMOND.)

Isn’t that right?

DAMMOND
Because we’re all created equal.

(NAAKTGEBOREN squeezes DAMMOND tightly.)

NAAKTGEBOREN
Exactly.

DANA GRAY
I can’t believe you’d say that.

DAMMOND
What?

DANA GRAY
The Greatest Assumption Ever Made.

DAMMOND
What’s that?

DANA GRAY
That we’re all created equal.

DAMMOND
But we are.

DANA GRAY
In this very group of people, none of us is created equal.

NAAKTGEBOREN
All of us, the image of God.

DANA GRAY
Then why change people’s bodies, which, to you, are in the image of God?

NAAKTGEBOREN
I don’t change people’s image of God!

DANA GRAY
Then explain to me, what do you change?

NAAKTGEBOREN
I change people’s bodies into the image of God!

(DANA GRAY lifts up NAAKTGEBOREN’s pamphlets.)

DANA GRAY
This, to me, does not look like the image of God.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Then you tell me.

DANA GRAY
What?

NAAKTGEBOREN
What do you think?

DANA GRAY
What?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Is the image of God?

DANA GRAY
Anything imaginable and everything that’s not.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Anything?

DANA GRAY
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
There’s a lot of things imaginable that I can imagine that have nothing to do with the image of God.

DANA GRAY
Like what?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Pornography. Stealing. Fucking behind your boyfriend’s back. That’s not the image of God.

DANA GRAY
Somewhere, some place, in all of that, you can always find the image of God.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Then you show me . . . if you believe all that, then somewhere some place in all of these, you must be able to find the image of God.

DANA GRAY
It’s distorted. A distorted image of God.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I disagree.

DANA GRAY
Fine.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You are different.

DANA GRAY
Then you don’t disagree! If you know I’m different, then you don’t disagree!

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yes!

DANA GRAY
We are all different!

NAAKTGEBOREN
Your whole family’s different.

DANA GRAY
Very different.

NAAKTGEBOREN
What’s it like to have your whole family floating in a jar?

DANA GRAY
Everybody’s different.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Do you ever charge admission?

DANA GRAY
Everybody’s body is different.

MISS JUSTESEN
I agree.

NAAKTGEBOREN
It’s exactly like a freak show!

DANA GRAY
Our bodies. Our minds. Our rhythms. Our energies. The way we walk. The way we even chew our food is different. My pseudohermaphroditism in me is caused by the abnormal functioning of my very different hormones in my very different endocrine system. His congenital problems in him are affected by the functioning of his very different hormones in his very different endocrine system. Miss Justesen is affected by her very different hormones in her very different endocrine system. A twin or any other person anywhere at any time is affected by his or her very different hormones in his or her very different endocrine systems. All of our basic fundamental life processes are all regulated by our . . .

(NAAKTGEBOREN joins in.)

DANA GRAY/NAAKTGEBOREN
. . . very different hormones in our very different endocrine systems.

DANA GRAY
Yes!

NAAKTGEBOREN
But there are other systems in our bodies other than the endocrine system!

DANA GRAY
But none of which affects our nerves, our behaviors, our mannerisms in such a dominating way . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN
You give the hormones much too much weight.

DANA GRAY
You know why?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Because you’re fucked.

DANA GRAY
Because the traits of each and every one of our personalities depend and rely on the normal functioning of the hormones in our endocrine systems.

NAAKTGEBOREN
That’s a crock of shit.

DANA GRAY
It’s responsible for giving you personality.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Bullshit.

DANA GRAY
Character.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Bullshit.

DANA GRAY
Integrity.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Bullshit.

DANA GRAY
But you wouldn’t know much about that, now would you?

MISS JUSTESEN
I always thought if we were all intended to be alike inside, then we’d all have same favorite color, same favorite song, same favorite movie, fabric, food, sexual position, book, pair of pants, vacation spot.

NAAKTGEBOREN
That’s just a bunch of crazy bullshit.

MISS JUSTESEN
There’d be no differentiation. There’d be no color. There’d be no Dana Gray. Only Dana White or Dana Black, but no Dana Gray. I can’t think of anything more dull and boring than life without Dana Gray.

NAAKTGEBOREN
How boring!

MISS JUSTESEN
You take away my height or lack thereof, and you take away me. You take away his art and you take away his scars, you take away his crazy bladder and his disease, and you take away him. You alter anything about anybody here, and you take us away. Each and every one of our bodies contains specific dimensions of our bodies for very specific reasons.

NAAKTGEBOREN
For reasons? You’re telling me there’s reasons? Why you’re a midget?

MISS JUSTESEN
I’m not midget!

NAAKTGEBOREN
And reasons why he’s got his fucked-up bladder? Reasons why it’s an it and not a him or her, there’s reasons? Why I’m a twin, you have no doubt, there’s reasons? Reasons why this embryo’s only got one eye? And reasons why this one’s got reptilian skin? Why she looks like a penguin? And why he looks like a mule? There’s reasons? Other than some Elephant Man and Lollipop Guild and Lullaby League and pinhead reasons, you’re telling me there’s reasons?

MISS JUSTESEN
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I see no reasons. All I see is the monster reason. Step right up and see the freakish monster, stare it in the face, that’s reason. Laugh. Point. Stare. Kick it in the shins. Kick it in the face. Kick away their walking sticks, that’s reason.

DANA GRAY
Laugh?

NAAKTGEBOREN
They’re monsters.

DANA GRAY
Ridicule?

NAAKTGEBOREN
They’re monsters.

DANA GRAY
Judge?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Your brothers and your sisters look like monsters.

DANA GRAY
My mother . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN
Monster!

DANA GRAY
. . . was quoted as saying upon the appearance of each of her offspring, “My children . . .”

NAAKTGEBOREN
Monsters!

DANA GRAY
“. . . are not monsters.”

NAAKTGEBOREN
They’re monsters.

DANA GRAY
“They are not to be ridiculed, laughed at, or negatively judged. My children are exceptions. Like in other forms of nature, they are sometimes regarded as beautiful and bewildering. A four-leaf clover. A shrub with one white rose. The runt of a horse’s litter.  A monkey with two tails. Is it not the same?”

NAAKTGEBOREN
They’re monsters.

DANA GRAY
“Is she not the Grand Canyon? Is he not a bonsai tree? Are they not the mirror image of a strange chameleon or all the falling stars we’ve seen?” And every night before I’d go to sleep, she’d repeat those words to me and whisper in my ear, “But you, my dear, are the Pyramids of Egypt. Among all my Walking Wonders of the Ancient World, you are the only one still standing.”

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re playing God. All three of you are playing God.

MISS JUSTESEN
We are not playing God.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re trying to figure things out about your bodies and how your bodies have been created, justifying it, and that’s playing God.

MISS JUSTESEN
And how’s that playing God?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Not taking no for an answer.

MISS JUSTESEN
Sounds like your job.

DANA GRAY
Exactly.

MISS JUSTESEN
And what is it exactly you do for living, Mister Naaktgeboren?

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re trying to change how your bodies have been created, while at TransFormations, we change the way our bodies have become. It’s far less threatening than changing how our bodies have been created.

MISS JUSTESEN
We’re not trying to change it!

NAAKTGEBOREN
You’re just unhappy with the body God has given you, so you’re trying to get back at God.

MISS JUSTESEN
Then if we’re trying to get back at God, and we’re playing God, then aren’t we just getting back at ourselves?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Bingo!

MISS JUSTESEN
That is not at all what we’re doing! I like my body.

NAAKTGEBOREN
I like my body, too. That’s why God gave me two of them.

MISS JUSTESEN
Then why do you try so hard to look so different?

NAAKTGEBOREN
We only try to maximize our most prominent features to their fullest potentials.

MISS JUSTESEN
For what reason?

NAAKTGEBOREN
To look good.

MISS JUSTESEN
To look good? I’d never change my body.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Even the way it was created? The way that you have aged?

MISS JUSTESEN
Never.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Even if I could make you tall?

MISS JUSTESEN
You can’t make me tall!

NAAKTGEBOREN
But if I could.

MISS JUSTESEN
I don’t want to be tall!

NAAKTGEBOREN
But you just said . . .

MISS JUSTESEN
I like way my body’s been created.

(Pause.)

I love way my body’s been created.

AMELIA
We never said anything about the way our bodies have been created.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Would you ever change your body?

AMELIA
No.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Never again? Even if you could? Right this second? Back to the way it was? Before your surgery? Before your accident?

AMELIA
Before it happened?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Yes.

AMELIA
Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN
You would?

AMELIA
Because of scars. Do you see all these scars on my neck?

NAAKTGEBOREN
I don’t see any scars on your neck.

AMELIA
That’s the reason why. I used to have scars on the left side of my neck. Ever since I was two. I had these scars. Looked just like a fire. Three flames of a fire. And Amanda—

NAAKTGEBOREN
Who’s Amanda?

AMELIA
My twin sister. She has a scar on this side of her neck that looks exactly like a wheel. A perfect circle with symmetrical spokes just like a wheel. Do you know why we’d have these scars?

DAMMOND
Why?

AMELIA
It’s where we were separated when we were two. We were connected at the neck when we were born.

NAAKTGEBOREN
And it all comes together.

DAMMOND
What happened to your scars?

AMELIA
I had them removed.

DAMMOND
Why?

AMELIA
I had surgery.

DAMMOND
Why remove your scars?

AMELIA
When I woke up from surgery after my accident, the surgeon looked down at me and smiled and said to me that I’d be extremely happy. That not only had she fixed all the scars and gashes on my face but she had also “cosmetically corrected the horrendous scar that disfigured the left side” of my neck. It was always the coolest, coolest, coolest thing for my sister and me. We used to place each other’s fingers—these two fingers—on one another’s scars and we’d take each other’s pulses from each other’s necks until our pulses exactly matched in rhythm. We kind of discovered that or invented that. That was always our little debate. Was it a discovery or an invention? We never did agree. Like the hugest discovery or the hugest invention. Just like the fire, just like the wheel.

(To DAMMOND.)

Do you have any scars on your body that you really like?

DAMMOND
I have one that looks just like an airplane. But it’s the only scar I like. I used to put makeup over all my other scars to conceal all my other scars. But it never worked.  It only magnified the scars. So eventually I would intentionally magnify the scars with other kinds of makeup. Not just with base or foundation or anything that’s beige or tan, but I started painting all my scars with mascara and lipstick and eye shadow and iodine my doctor gave me. And sometimes I wouldn’t take it off. I remember walking around the neighborhood, thinking no one would ever guess that beneath my clothes I have painted scars. And on weekends after I had painted all my scars, a few blocks away from my house was a nursing home, and I’d march up to the front desk and tell the nurse or assistant or receptionist or whoever the person was, I’d say, “I’m here to make an old person smile.” And they’d take me to  a room and close the door behind them, leaving me all alone with five or six older people. And I would dance for the older people with their never knowing that I had scars. Except this one old man—he was always there—he had to know—this old man who had scars all over his face. I told him, “You should put makeup over all your scars.” And he said to me, “I have scars to remind me.” And I said nothing. And we were silent. And then he’d say again, “I have scars to remind me.” And I’d just dance around the room for all the real old people. I’d dance around the room and kick my legs. Always to the rhythm, “None of them know that I got scars. None of them know that I got scars. None of them know that I got scars.”

(DAMMOND soft shoes his way through the rhythm, repeating the words and lightly kicking his legs, reminiscing. This continues for a while.)

DAMMOND (cont’d)
Ever since I was a little kid, I used to think about landscapes.

AMELIA
What kind of landscapes?

DAMMOND
It just hit me.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
Dana Gray?

DANA GRAY
Yes?

DAMMOND
You said that you think we all think differently?

DANA GRAY
Yes.

DAMMOND
So we might breathe differently? And see differently? Sometimes concerning the exact same thing?

DANA GRAY
Of course.

DAMMOND
So we perceive and draw and smell and eat and paint and decide and crave and crawl and need and dance and hear and write and run and taste and sweat and fight and sleep and lick our lips and kiss with lips and walk and predict and have déjà vu and concentrate and judge and touch differently than anybody else?

DANA GRAY
Exactly.

DAMMOND
So then I was right all along.

DANA GRAY
About what?

DAMMOND
When I was a kid, I used to have those exact same thoughts when I was a kid. But then I’d deny them and bury them and throw them away.

DANA GRAY
Why?

DAMMOND
Because they were too big for a three-year-old. Too big for an eight-year-old. Even thirteen and fifteen—even eighteen. Thoughts too big for me until right now.

MISS JUSTESEN
What kind of thoughts?

DAMMOND
They’re everywhere.

MISS JUSTESEN
What do you mean?

DAMMOND
Should I show them to you?

MISS JUSTESEN
What are they?

DAMMOND
Paintings.

MISS JUSTESEN
Of what?

DAMMOND
Internal landscapes. Landscapes of how I visualize my body when I allow myself to visualize my body that way inside.

(DAMMOND circles the room overturning numerous wooden boxes, dumping out their contents and revealing intricately detailed paintings on the interior of each box. He lines them up across the room.) 

DAMMOND (cont’d)
Beautiful landscapes.

MISS JUSTESEN (taken aback)
God!

DAMMOND
I love these landscapes!

MISS JUSTESEN
So do I.

DAMMOND
I forgot about these landscapes.

MISS JUSTESEN
Just amazing.

DAMMOND
With plateaus and valleys. And mountains and hills and lakes and ponds and oceans and seas. We don’t have to go to all these distant exotic places to find warmth and beauty on some romantic island if only we close our eyes and visualize the beautiful geography contained inside our very bodies. Just to know we have these beautiful places inside. No need to go so far, so external. No need to be complacent. Just to know. Just to know they’re there. Romantic oceans where our bladder seduces our kidneys. Amazing horizons where our lungs dance on air with our liver and our heart and our spleen. Rocky caves and strange sponge-like formations in our bones. Rivers of blood and streams and waterfalls that reach over a hundred degrees sometimes. Underground tunnels of air. Waving hills in the linings of our stomachs. Natural mazes and puzzles and labyrinths inside the ear. All these gorgeous places that we’ve all got inside. All these landscapes of the bladder and the kidneys. How they form a country of land and ocean. All in one. I have three kidneys. Did I ever tell you that?

AMELIA
No.

DAMMOND
It’s kind of like some compromise or consolation gift, I guess, for having such a crazy bladder.

MISS JUSTESEN
Your bladder is polygamist.

DAMMOND
A polygamist?

MISS JUSTESEN
If he seduces all your kidneys into his very romantic ocean, then he is polygamist.

DAMMOND
Then everybody’s bladder is at least a bigamist.

MISS JUSTESEN
That’s true.

DANA GRAY
Not mine. My bladder’s monogamous.

DAMMOND
How so?

DANA GRAY
I only got one kidney.

MISS JUSTESEN
You do all right with just one kidney?

DANA GRAY
I’d do all right with just one more.

DAMMOND
I wish I could give you one of mine.

DANA GRAY
I wish so, too.

DAMMOND
I could have a really great scar from giving you a kidney.

DANA GRAY
You don’t need another scar.

NAAKTGEBOREN
The Thing’s right. You don’t need another scar.

DAMMOND
All the scars I have are scars from getting. This would be the only scar I’d have from giving. I’d let the whole damn world see that I had a scar from giving. I’d never put any makeup on that giving scar. I’d draw arrows around that scar. Look at me with this big long scar.

NAAKTGEBOREN
The Giving Scar? Come on! A scar’s a scar and all scars do is take. They take and take and take and take. I don’t know about anybody else here, but I cannot afford to take unnecessary scars.

DAMMOND
Walking Works of Art, they have no scars! Microscopic scars don’t count. Naked to the eye don’t count, Naaktgeboren.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Big.

DAMMOND
Big what?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Big scars.

DAMMOND
Fuck you! Perfection does not have a fucking scar. I’d have a scar on my whole body if it were a scar from giving. If it came from giving someone something, give me a scar on my whole body.

NAAKTGEBOREN
No one wants a scar on their whole body.

DAMMOND
What do you know about scars, Naaktgeboren?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Believe me. You wouldn’t want a scar on your whole body. Believe me. Just believe me.

(Slight pause.)

DANA GRAY
Your voice sounds different when you talk like that.

NAAKTGEBOREN
How so?

DANA GRAY
“Believe me. Just believe me.” Kind of like it’s the only real thing you’ve really ever said all night. Your voice gets deep when you get sincere.

NAAKTGEBOREN
Your voice gets deep when you get mad.

DANA GRAY
Like a man?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Like a foghorn.

DANA GRAY
That deep?

NAAKTGEBOREN
Real deep.

MISS JUSTESEN
That’s deep. I like sound of foghorn.

(MISS JUSTESEN makes the sound of a foghorn loud and long. There is a ringing in the air as if the foghorn were like a chant. MISS JUSTESEN starts the sound again. Everyone in the room joins in. Loud and long in perfect pitch. This could continue for quite some time. The “ohm” sound should fill the room and cleanse the space. They sit in silence. Dazed. Feeling the change in the air, everyone exhales almost in unison. NAAKTGEBOREN crosses into the bathroom and closes the door behind him.)

MISS JUSTESEN (cont’d)
Where’d he disappear to?

(DAMMOND points to the bathroom.)

MISS JUSTESEN (cont’d)
Washing away his sins, no doubt.

AMELIA
Probably so.

DANA GRAY
I mustn’t forget my family.

(Crossing to her box.)

Never forget your family.

AMELIA
I’ll remember that.

MISS JUSTESEN
Oh, I want continental breakfast!

DAMMOND
Really?

MISS JUSTESEN
I love continental breakfast!

DAMMOND
I’ve never been so big on continental breakfasts.

MISS JUSTESEN
Coffee, juice, and pastries. Anything that has little Danish is A-OK with me.

(DANA GRAY exits. MISS JUSTESEN follows.)

MISS JUSTESEN (cont’d)
I have such strong libido for continental breakfast

(MISS JUSTESEN and DANA GRAY gather their belongings and leave. They exit almost as if in a trance—very fluid and serene with peaceful smiles and the kind of exhalations that only come out of exhaustion and staying up all night. The door to the loft apartment is left open.)

DAMMOND (abruptly)
I just did something.

AMELIA
What?

DAMMOND
Inside my mind. Somewhere inside my mind, something clicked. Some part of me, a very specific part of me, searched inside my mind for a column or a grid or an index—some thin tubular millimeter of tissue holding stacks and stacks of so many negative thoughts and memories in a millimeter of tissue. Right here. All filed away. A hair-strand size of a structure. Lined with a zillion triggers that from the most simple singular sensory moment extracts another seed that grows another ingrown psychological tree inside my head, inside my mind. Blocking every other potential root or tree or seed or some kind of understanding or advancement in my mind. Behind my face, behind my eyes. It’s like instantaneously I became my brain.  This big, thick, pink terrain of acreage of land, pulsing with thinking ideas and thoughts. With valleys and deserts and mountains. And some bigger, higher part of me flew over. And with that bird’s eye view, I saw the part of me I needed to pull and yank and uproot. Crowded weeds and trees no longer worthwhile in the columns of that past existence.

AMELIA
You just did that?

DAMMOND
Right in there. Weeds. Weeds I had cultivated, I just now irrigated, got rid of, so fresh, new, more-fertile crops could grow. All around. New seeds being planted all around. And from some dirty swamp-like muddy place—just like that—I created the most beautiful open space that I just made inside for you. Such an open gorgeous space for you and me to plant new seeds. A quiet place where we can travel. Where we can get away without running away. For you to know me and for me to know you.

AMELIA
I’m not running away.

(There is a long silence as DAMMOND and AMELIA stare at each other. Their focus on one another is immense. During this silence between them, NAAKTGEBOREN emerges from the bathroom. He is quiet and contemplative. He has removed a considerable amount of cosmetic make-up which leaves him with splotchy pale uneven skin. He is so light he possibly may be albino or afflicted with some other skin condition. He crosses to his briefcase, but leaves it behind. NAAKTGEBOREN exits.)

DAMMOND
But seriously, my body . . .

AMELIA
What about your body?

DAMMOND
My body is perfect.

AMELIA
That’s right.

DAMMOND
Like yours . . .

AMELIA
That’s right.

DAMMOND
We’re so perfect, we will barely be able to contain ourselves.

AMELIA
That’s right. You’re right.

DAMMOND
I know I am.

AMELIA
You’re exactly, exactly right.

(DAMMOND offers AMELIA his hands. She places her hands inside his. This is the first time they should touch each other throughout the play. DAMMOND lifts two fingers and places them on her neck. She mirrors him. This should evoke the image of AMELIA and her twin. Then AMELIA touches his shoulders and he shakes. Hesitantly, she touches his neck and begins stroking his back. He lies on his stomach, but she turns him over. She shakes her head. With every gentle touch, a thousand shocks explode throughout each others’ bodies. Painful at times. Awkward at times, they continue breaking their physical barriers. Sounds of fear and tears, but mostly breathing—hesitant, holding, large releases, static, and soft. They continue. Soft and eerie and struggling for acceptance.)

(Blackout. END OF PLAY.)