Lee Gambin: King of Bangor

KING: So many secrets. Small towns are prone to secrecy.

PRINCESS: Oh Weasel. He’s a drunk but he’s a darling. He and Eva Miller used to date. Can you believe that?

KING: And they will be married. In the after life.

PRINCESS: I can do better than dinner at Eva’s boarding house. How about dinner at my place? Daddy will want to see you again and I’d love mother to meet a published writer. She thinks the arts are a waste of time.

KING: This town will soon know darkness…

PRINCESS: Then once dinner is done I can show you what the local high school art teachers do for fun. There’s a couple of bars ‘round the place as you’d recall, the movies in Bangor—

PRINCETON: How about the lake?

PRINCESS: Mr. Mears how direct. You know the lake…?

PRINCETON: The lake is something I remember all too very well.

PRINCESS: The lake it is then.

KING: The prodigal son returns.

PRINCESS: Well Mr. Mears—

PRICETON: Ben. Please.

PRINCESS: Well Ben I think there’s nothing more to say than: welcome back to ‘Salem’s Lot.

They kiss

KING: Everything will stay the same forever in ‘Salem’s Lot. You’ll see.

A telephone rings. It is piercing and annoying. It causes some dogs to bark. They bark loudly and angrily

This is the first time King gets up and moves to it. It is sitting on top of the filing cabinet

He is the only one lit

KING: (into phone) Yeah? Hang on I can’t hear you. (calling out to dogs) Quiet babies daddy’s on the phone! (back into phone, they start to settle) Yeah? Hey, yeah, how you doin’? Of course I’m ok, why does every one insist on asking me that for Chrissake? (a beat)Yeah sure come on over, they could do with the exercise and I ain’t got time at the moment, I’m stuck in the middle of a fucking forest and the thickets are big and black that I need a proper sword to cut my way through if you catch my drift however the fuck you catch drifts; yep, I’ll see ya in a bit. Bye.

He hangs up and staggers back to his god. He looks over his pills and carefully selects a bottle, prying it open and swallowing a couple. He washes it down with one of Mr Knight’s beers

Princess approaches, chipper, very alive, like a ray of sunshine; its as if she doesn’t stop to breath when she talks:

PRINCESS: The door was right on open so I just came through Mr. King but you ought to be careful ‘bout that kind of thing I mean so many crazy people are out there that they would just walk right inside just the way I did but instead of being here to walk your dogs they’d be here to steal from you or beat you up or kill you or something along those lines…

KING: The dogs are waitin’ for ya.

PRINCESS: I read somewhere that dogs can sense people approaching from long distances and the way they can tell that people are approaching is just from the scent in the air…

KING: You want a sedative?

PRINCESS: Oh no no, Mr. King I’m perfectly fine, plus its nearing exams time and I really have to be on top of my game even though its always fun to blow off steam and binge drink and the like but I can’t be partied out too much these coming weeks…

KING: What do you plan to do with your future?

She’s suddenly stumped:

PRINCESS: What?

KING: Your future? Got any plans?

PRINCESS: Plans?

KING: College? A job?

PRINCESS: Oh Christ, I haven’t really thought about any of that…

She sits down, slumped, now depressed

KING: Well, dogs will always need to be worked.

King sits down. He starts typing

PRINCESS: Yeah. They will.

KING: I wouldn’t stress sweetheart, there’s plenty of time. Hey look I was starving and barely surviving for years, it wasn’t until my mid thirties that I started to reap in the goods. You got shit loads of time. Enjoy it.

She grabs his fingers and stops him from typing

PRINCESS: (suddenly deathly serious) When I reach my thirties I’ll become invisible. There won’t be any reason for me to exist really. I’ll start to miss college and miss being single and miss not being a mother. Oh what a thought. What a horrible thought. To resent your own baby, to look at the child you’ve given birth to with great disdain and annoyance, a living annoyance, a living reminder that everything is not the same and that you’re no longer the Donna you knew but some alien deathly bored outta her wits sod known only as mamma or mommy or ma.

KING: I gotta keep working, ya mind letting my hand go?

PRINCESS: It’s that white noise. Can you hear it?

KING: The what?

PRINCESS: You know when a television set is on somewhere in a room but the sound is down and you can’t see it though; like you’re in the kitchen and the TV is in the living room and its on but you cant hear it but you can—do you know what I’m trying to say…?

KING: White noise, yeah I know what white noise is, now let go of—

PRINCESS: (slowly adult) That’s what becomes of my life Stephen. That’s what fills my days and nights. White noise. Can you blame me for running into another man’s arms? Can you blame me for wanting to feel attractive and useful and interesting and to be the Donna I was; because I was interesting and fun and lovely goddamnit, I wasn’t just some lowly housewife stuck with a kid and being there for a husband who’s preoccupied with his fucking career… Jesus Christ!

KING: Come on calm down, let me go will ya?

The dogs start barking again

PRINCESS: (building into foaming frenzy) Oh Stephen help me out please. Before it gets to that point, just help me out. Teach me to be content and happy and completely satisfied with the husband who cares for me and provides for me and the kid who I do adore, I do, I do adore, I do, I do, but if I fuck up and if I let myself do that with him , that fucking man that fixes something inside of me, God knows why but he does, he just makes me feel alive again but its wrong; oh and if it continues then please, please I beg of you to let that rabid dog teach me a lesson. Let that rabid dog tear into my flesh with its foaming mouth and bloodstained teeth and may the hydrophobia run rampant through my veins! Call him something memorable! Call him something that will haunt me forever, call him something that will remind me that I ruined something that was truly wonderful and warm and safe!

King breaks from her grasp and types dramatically:

KING: (singing) C-U-J-O! And Cujo was his name-o!

Princess is calm. She smiles at him

PRINCESS: Perfect.

She kisses him on the cheek

PRINCESS: Happy writing.

The others circle him

MR KNIGHT: A dead cat comes back to life…

PRINCETON: A psychic who helps the fuzz track down some psychopath…

QUEENIE: I’ve always loved the movies of Bert I. Gordon. He did all those big monster movies.

PRINCETON: How about a writer who’s trying to do something different but he just can’t because he’s so well received in a particular style of…

PRINCESS: And the kid is like floating in mid air and tapping on the window…

MR KNIGHT: All work…

QUEENIE: A circle of circumstance all leads up to one event…

PRINCETON: Every body’s scared of clowns for fuck’s sake; I mean look at ’em!

PRINCESS: …and the kid is tapping on the window saying “Let me in, the master commands it”…

MR KNIGHT: No play…

PRINCESS: …but the weirdest thing about that is that the kid has been dead for like a week…

PRINCETON: What about werewolves?

QUEENIE: Religious sects?

MR KNIGHT: Greasers?

PRINCETON: Monsters in the closet?

QUEENIE: How about linking the stories? Two characters from two separate novels mention the same hotel they once stayed at…