Sam Pink - The Self-Esteem Holocaust Comes Home

GIRL WITH 47 CHROMOSOMES: [reaching, still seated] Burrdy.

MAN STANDING IN AISLE: [puts his newspaper down] They fall out of the nest when the mom is gone [looks at the girl with 47 chromosomes] Your mother pushed you though [looks around to other people] Hey can any of you help me with these jumbles? These things are fucking ridiculous. Is ‘jargub’ a word? It’s like, a mineral right?

GIRL WITH 47 CHROMOSOMES: [face wrinkles with confusion] No mah-mee?

She stops kicking her boots. They drip.

BUS DRIVER: Who’s talking to who here?

SLEEPING MAN: [raising his head, squinting] No mommy. You retarded bitch.

SOMEONE ELSE: No mommy.

They are all quiet. Driving. Very warm.

[Later.]

In the middle area of the bus there are some seats facing sideways. A daughter is showing her mom how to perform ‘Stop, Drop and Roll.’ She has just finished explaining ‘Stop’.

THE MOM: [clapping] What’s the second thing?

THE DAUGHTER: [stops, slight tantrum with arms] Stop, don’t — I know it.

Thedaughterpauses, then drops to the floor.

THE MOM: Sweetie, get off the floor.

THE DAUGHTER: [protesting] But that’s the second thing.

The mom picks her daughter up and hugs her.

MAN SITTING ACROSS THE AISLE: [watching] Now you are both on fire. I’m imagining your girl covered in flames. Her My Little Ponies shirt drops in smoldering pieces — but she lives, because she will stop, drop and roll. I think maybe hugs put out fires too though. Maybe I’m wrong.

THE MOM: [still hugging daughter] After you learn to tie your shoes, you have to learn how to keep from dying. How to stay away from cars, killers, rapists, fires, and whatever else will kill you or change you. One of the things you learn at a young age is what to do when your body is on fire. You also learn how to hide from the weather, and bombs, and how to avoid free candy. You learn how to make pretty letters, how to count, and how to avoid getting hit by a car and/or getting hit by a car then raped — I am trying to remember if I learned that last one or not.

The man across the aisle nods.

BUS DRIVER: [to no one] I don’t know, I feel weird but sometimes like, I’m looking at my kids, and I think “It’s time to kill them now, all of them.” When that happens I go to the garage and sit on the floor, next to the refrigerator. I like how it hums. It calms me down. I like how it hums. I take a big handful of ice out of the freezer, and then I sit on the garage floor and skip them across the ground. I like it.

The bird resumes the highpitch humming-squeal. In the distance, everything burns and leaks into space the same color. They drive towards the fire that is black, red, and white static.

BUS DRIVER: [through p.a.] Hello everyone. It’s time to think about all the things we wish we had in our pockets to go with us.

The bus passes two women on a swingset in an abandoned school playground. One woman swings and one woman is unmoving. The two women watch the bus pass, sweating.

UNMOVING WOMAN: The fire is making my pores leak honey into my body. The heat is painful. Will you scrape open my pores so I can leak the honey out quicker? Will you do that?

MOVING WOMAN: [looks over her shoulder on an upswing] A million needles to hold you in place while I scrape you clean. You don’t have to be worried. You just have to sit still.

UNMOVING WOMAN: [laughing, still looking at fire] You will never see me smile again [stops laughing, looks grave] Really though, I’m really scared. And I don’t think you will ever see me smile again.

MOVING WOMAN: [looking at the fire] My face and body are getting warm. We will have to move soon.

Neither says anything.

A pizza delivery person stands at the front door of someone’s house. He goes to knock again but then hears someone undoing the lock. A man opens the door.

Pizzadeliveryperson: Here you are sir. It’s fourteen eighty-five.

Man: [taking the pizza] Uh, ok. Hold on [reaches for his wallet] Uh, do you want to come in? You can come in if you want. I’ll give you some of my pizza here and we can watch tv or something — whatever you like to do. I have board games.

Pizzadeliveryperson: [stops chewing gum and squints at the man] What?

Man: Yeah. Come on in.

The pizza delivery person pops a bubble. Then he is quiet.

Man: [softly] Please. Please stay. We can talk or I can make you laugh maybe. Come on — please? I’ll pay you for the pizza but please stay.

Pizzadeliveryperson: No thanks sir. That’s fourteen eighty-five, please.

Man: [clears his throat] Isn’t there anything I can do to get you to please please please stay even for ten minutes. It’s so bad in there.

Pizzadeliveryperson: There is nothing you can do to get me to stay. Please pay sir [then slowly] There is nothing you can do to get me to stay — nothing.

Man: [looks at the pizza box] That’s what I thought.

Night. Snow. Three men are driving down a road that cuts through a forest preserve. They stop at red lights automatically, without recognizing any of them. They stop, and stare blinkless. Above them, the powerlines blink red blooms onto the forest in a slow rhythm. And they drive through it.

THE DRIVER: [staring] I believe that when you die, your skeleton pushes up through the dirt and becomes a tree. And I believe the tallest tree is the saddest because it has no friends — all it does is make those beneath it cold [looks at the man in passenger seat] You know?

A deer cuts across the road, diving into the bushes. They miss it. The person in the passenger seat has both hands to his face. His face is ripped from the corner of the left side of his mouth to his earlobe. It hangs open. There is blood down his neck, hard and becoming maroon along the collar of his shirt. He keeps clearing the blood out from his streaming sinuses to keep from choking.

THE MAN WITH THE RIPPED FACE: I always wondered if my face was a real thing, like a bunny, or, like a tree. Now I know. I know it is a real thing. Or a fake thing that can still hurt you.

He sits up, struggling. The blood leaks through his teeth.

THE DRIVER: [ignores] Just saying most people believe that when you die, you just go beneath some dirt. But I believe your skeleton pushes up through the dirt and becomes a tree. The tallest tree is the saddest because all it does is make the things below it cold [turns to the man with the ripped face] I believe all the things I just said.

THE MAN WITH THE RIPPED FACE: [looking at his lap, pooled red] I admit that I have been one of those people, who believes that when you die the skeleton just stays underground. I’ll admit that — that has been me. I’ll also admit that I’ve been repeating the things I see around me, to myself, to make sure I haven’t died. But I’m willing to hear how this tree-thing happens too [coughs, clears throat] That seems interesting to me. Go on [chokes, spits out some blood; it goes all over his lap] I want to listen [then pleading] no, I don’t want to be a tree yet. It’s too cold out to become a tree. And I don’t know any other trees so it will be hard to make friends [looks around] Did you clean your car recently? It looks nice.

Another man emerges from the lightlessness in the backseat, looking forward, a hand on each headrest.

THE MAN FROM THE LIGHTLESSNESS IN THE BACKSEAT: [to the driver] Where are we going? I don’t feel good. Not like, I am sick, but something else. We should just pull over and leave him on the side of the road. We can even make a note. A nice note. A note that says, ‘I love you, please help me if I’m not already dead.’ We should leave him on the side of the road [tapping headrests] Yeah. I feel uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable now. I can smell him dying already. We have to kill him. Oh [pause] but, just to continue the debate earlier, I don’t think you become a tree. I believe when you die, that’s it. You don’t have to say anything anymore, and you don’t have to remember things, and you don’t have to wake up, and you definitely don’t have to be friends with anyone [rubs hand on headrest] Your car does look great; it smells like you vacuumed too. Be honest man, you vacuumed didn’t you? It looks — honestly— like amazing. Fucking amazing.