Final Draft of Playwriting Final - 10 minute play
Animalia:
(An old woman, DON, and a young man, PAT, stand in a field. Between them is a barbed wire fence that has been trampled and tangled to the point of laying flat or in big rusty bundles. They stand under the shade of two leafless trees. DON is an older woman with short hair and age all over her. She is in her sixties. She wears flannel and a packed knapsack with trinkets hanging from it; Mugs, pots and pans, a bear trap, a candlestick. She wears wide framed glasses and is pointing a rifle at PAT’s face. PAT is in his thirties and wears a grimy football jersey and cut off khakis that are stained with grass, blood, oil and shit. His hair is matted and knotted in a few thick clumps. His face is dark with stubble and white with exhaustion. They are silent, waiting for the other to do anything, studying each other’s bodies for any movement. PAT motions to speak, DON sticks the gun further into his face. Silence. Staring at the gun. His body relaxes, he cocks his head, gives up.)
PAT
Just do it.
DON
What?
PAT
Shoot me. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired.
DON
What is this?
PAT
I am giving you permission to shoot me. I am very tired. I am very tired of this. This is boring to me.
DON
I’ll do it.
PAT
Do it.
DON
Right in your eye.
PAT
That’d be a good spot.
(Silence. DON’s arms are tired. She pokes the gun and prods his face, he no longer notices. Very suspicious, she jumps back.)
DON
Who are you and what are you doing here? I swear to god if you’re with the bank I’ll shoot you twice.
PAT
I’m not.
DON
Right in the guts.
PAT
I was just passing through.
DON
Then you’ll bleed yourself stupid. And you’ll dry out with the horseflies. Heh!?
PAT
If you want to shoot me I think that would spare each of us a lot.
DON
With the horseflies.
PAT
You’re not going to shoot me.
DON
Those big ones.
PAT
You’re not going to shoot me.
DON
The big, ugly—goddammit, nothing? (She lowers her gun.)
PAT
And there it goes.
DON
I am threatening your life, defend yourself!
PAT
Look if you’re not going to do it can I just get through? I need to head a little further east.
DON
Nothing has any fight anymore. Nothing.
PAT
Hey, I still got some fight, I was in lots of fights.
DON
You’re a bunny.
PAT
I was stabbed. In the neck.
DON
And I bet you just took it.
(Looks at him.)
DON
What’d ya fight, who?
PAT
Just some fuckers on some trains.
DON
Did you win?
PAT
Sometimes…Look I really have to get back.
DON
Slow down now. Why’d ya fight? Over food? I know you’re type, kill each other for half a breadstick.
PAT
Oh no. You’ve got me all wrong, I’m not one of those scum.
DON
Beautiful creatures. Animals.
PAT
Those ones with the scabs on their eyes and eat change and kill people’s pets. I ain’t one of them. (Beat.) I saw them though.
DON
Those are the real fighters. They wouldn’t just roll over and bleed.
PAT
Hey fuck you lady!
(DON raises her gun.)
PAT
Those fighters like to fuck people in their sleep. Fucker grabbed my hips and I hit him with a brick. Knocked his teeth out, kicked out his legs and rubbed his face in those things. Cut him up pretty bad, split those scabs, I punched him in the neck. He started crying and crawled away.
DON
I doubt he cried.
PAT
Sobbed, like a baby, bloody gums and crawling on his hands.
DON
So you won?
PAT
I guess, I woke up and he wasn’t in the car anymore. What do you call that?
(DON studies PAT.)
DON
Where’d you say you were from?
(She approaches him.)
PAT
East of here, it doesn’t matter.
(DON spits on her hands and wipes dirt from PAT’s face, he stands still. She looks, disappointed.)
PAT
What? Do I look like someone?
DON
Maybe you did.
PAT
So many of the guys on the road said I looked like their sons. They gave me their extra food and cigarettes. One of em kissed my forehead and called me Frank. I told him I wasn’t Frank and he just smiled.
DON
You look like a Frank.
PAT
I look like a plane crash. Do you have any water? I’m really thirsty.
DON
Only doe piss. I was going to hunt til I saw your sorry ass stickin your nose in my fence.
PAT
I didn’t know this was your land. I was making sure I wasn’t going to get shot for walking on it. You know there’s a dead guy in the field back there. Was that you?
DON
Not my land. That’s the Strenson’s. Kids own some soviet shit.
PAT
Soviet?
DON
They’ve got some ties. Somewhere.
PAT
Huh.
DON
Been watchin em. They all wear the same clothes every day. Some tan dusty step-in sack. Saw the son unloading into a wild hog. Just hollowing that sucker out and pushin his stomach deep into the dirt. Gun ran out, reloaded it, kept going.
PAT
Got any food?
DON
I got some jerky. Can’t chew the stuff anymore. Damn jaw locks up. (Takes out sticks. Looks at them. Then Pat.) Where are you from?
PAT
East of here.
DON
East of here. East of everywhere, where is east of here? What is east of here?
PAT
East of here is over there. Where all the ducks come from. You know?
DON
I don’t know. I don’t shoot birds. Where are you from? What are you from?
PAT
(Pause.) A family. A house. Mom, dad. Old enough to be my grandparents.
DON
Why’d ya leave? (Wags jerky.)
PAT
I didn’t, they—(Silence.)
DON
Jesus. (Puts jerky back.)
PAT
We left each other. Couldn’t stand each other’s stench. They liked to. They would. They would fuck on the couch, out in the open, living room. I’d walk in they’d stop and without any words my dad would pick up his shoe and hit me with it. In the face, on my eye, over and over. Said he can fuck in his goddamn house. Wherever. I should have knocked. You fucking pervert. Said I should be playing with friends. Playing sports. Doing math. Driving cars. Everyday that couch. Never sat on it. Couldn’t. Movie nights. Out of there. Gone.
(DON hands him a few sticks)
PAT
Thank you.
DON
Made it myself. Dried out the skin of a bear.
PAT
There are bears around here?
DON
Yeah. I trapped this one in my garage.
PAT
(Chewing.) Garage?
DON
Going through my things. That’s where I do my mounting. Got a whole family of rabbits the week before, 60 of those things. Took out all their insides and was lettin em dry a bit, easier to work with. I guess they were startin to stink and that dumb son of a bitch black bear wandered up and found em in a pile on the floor. They needed some sun. So I snuck up behind him, closed the door, confused black bastard started running and crashing into all my things. I knocked out one of the windows and just watched him for a while, all scared and huffing. Shiny too, I was gonna stuff him. Then he looked at me and…just looked. (Pause.) And I pumped him so full of holes he would’ve fallen apart if I tried to mount it. Just crumbled into big squishy teddy bear parts. Nothing’s got any fight anymore.
(Beat.)
PAT
Where are your parents?
DON
Somewhere.
PAT
You stuff em? (Smiles.)
DON
No. They’re dead.
PAT
Oh, I’m sorry.
DON
No. Don’t.
PAT
Where are they?
DON
Somewhere. Buried em in a cemetery on the side of a hill in Virginia. Beautiful view could hear those birds squawking and all these things running around. Rain came. Washed away the tombstones and with it a lot of mud and boxes. Washed em down the hill to a creek. Carried to a river. Carried out and away. They found some boxes in Alabama. A few more in the gulf. No bodies though. Never found my parents.
PAT
Huh. You from Virginia?
DON
Yeah. The middle of it. Amherst.
PAT
Amherst. Yeah. I rode through there.
DON
Great place to grow up. Lot of trees, great place for kids. To be one. To be a little girl.
PAT
A little girl.
DON
What?
DON
Nothin. Hadn’t thought of that.
PAT
(Pause.) So where are you from?
PAT
East of here.
DON
East of here. Tell me where you are from.
PAT
It doesn’t matter.
DON
You’re going to tell me.
PAT
It’s just—
DON
You’re going to tell me where you are from.
(DON looks at PAT’s face, he looks away. She follows his eyes, craning her neck following him. Softly:)
DON
Where are you from?
PAT
Grayson. I am from Grayson. A small town full of fucking. Full of fucking and new age romance. I hate that town. It has nothing for me and now I’m coming back. I stayed in basements and rooftops til I was frustrated enough to take a train. Took them everywhere. Made it to Alaska and saw a moose. You ever shoot one of those?
DON
I haven’t.
PAT
It stood in the snow and just watched the train. I waved to it.
DON
Solitary animals.
PAT
It looked so strong.
DON
Take a lot of shots to take one of those down. A whole box.
PAT
Yeah?
DON
Hide like rhino’s.
PAT
I hate that color too.
(Beat.)
DON
Do you want to shoot my gun?
PAT
I’m okay.
DON
Shoot it son. Kick’ll leave you blank.
PAT
I’m fine really.
DON
I was gonna chop down these trees. For me, I haven’t seen as much as I think. Just take a shot at that trunk.
PAT
Is that what you want?
DON
You can go home if you’d like. (Pause.) Take the gun. (Thrusts it to him and helps him aim, moving his arms.) Squeeze don’t pull. Right at that knot. You see it?
PAT
Yeah.
DON
Close an eye, okay?
PAT
Yeah.
DON
Well go on hold it, I’m not your mother.
(Long pause.)
PAT
What if it splinters?
DON
Shoot. Damn things dried up with grubs.
(Long pause.)
PAT
What’s your favorite thing to shoot?
DON
Trains.
(Very long pause. Gun goes off.)
Blackout.
