Cinq

In which a lover from the previous piece is seen with a new lover.

ANDY
Charlotte you hate your life.

CHARLOTTE
I have things! I have hopes and dreams!

ANDY
Your stepmomma takes your money your older brother pinches you the cute boys at school they send you notes asking you to go out with them to prom but then when you say yes they say ha ha it was a joke we got you again Charlotte and Father Markey falls asleep at your confession.

CHARLOTTE
Well what do you think I hope and dream about?

ANDY
Me!



CHARLOTTE
...Only when I'm using my vibrator.

ANDY
What?

CHARLOTTE
Yes.

ANDY
I love you.

CHARLOTTE
You're the cutest most awkwardest boy.

ANDY
You have to come with me!

CHARLOTTE
I hate the zoo! And I don't think they take runaways!

ANDY
The circus then!

CHARLOTTE
That's even worse! I thought you loved animals.

ANDY
That's why I want to go! I can make their brief tortured lives of imprisonment a little bit rosy.

CHARLOTTE
I went vegetarian today.

ANDY
Again?

CHARLOTTE
I can't just eat peanuts my whole life.

ANDY
Charlotte that's for the elephants! They have like other stuff like cotton candy for the workers.

CHARLOTTE
I can't leave my Booboo and Yogi!

ANDY
Bring them with you! I'll teach them cat tricks and that's how we'll get in.

CHARLOTTE
What will I do all day? ...Give you blowjobs?

ANDY
What?

CHARLOTTE
Mop?

ANDY
I guess.

CHARLOTTE
I hate mopping.

ANDY
You can be an elephant rider girl. With pretty sequins. I know girls like pretty sequins.

CHARLOTTE
I can't get up that high.

ANDY
Ride the horses then.

CHARLOTTE
You just want me to ride something.

ANDY
Unicycle?

CHARLOTTE
Andy you're luckier a bunch than me. Your poppa if you ran away he'd just go Oh Ho Ho Ho did you have fun kiddo? And go back to his Star Trek reruns.

ANDY
DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MY POPPA!

CHARLOTTE
You talked about my stepmomma! If I ran away I couldn't come back. You'd get bored after like six minutes and come running home to try and woo Majorie Edelberg or Emilie Souievieu or some other girl who wouldn't even give you half the time or half the hannndshakes that I would. And I'd be stuck under the big top with all the bull nuggets and next you know I'd have to sell myself.

ANDY
No I don't think it would come to that. Oh and I would never leave you because I LOVE YOU!

CHARLOTTE
You don't know what love is!

ANDY
This is love! I can't imagine going without you!

CHARLOTTE
Love is when you can imagine going without and it hurts! What you're talking bout is just being unimaginative!

ANDY
I'm an animal trainer extraordinaire not a poem writer!

CHARLOTTE
What you are is too excitable Anthony Hubgerstiler. You flit around from girl to girl to dream to that one time you tried to form a nudie colony to-

ANDY
Na-uh Charlotte Perkins. Na-uh. There's two constants in my life. You and animals.

CHARLOTTE
That's cause we never learn.

ANDY
Well okay three. You and animals and my poppa but you don't talk about my poppa. Well okay school. Five I guess okay cause there's my nevermind. But the point is I keep coming back to you. I didn't go to no Majorie Edelberg to ask her to the circus with me.

CHARLOTTE
It ain't no prom you dumbass. Prom's tomorrow. I already bought my dress.

ANDY
You're going alone.

CHARLOTTE
Shutup.

ANDY
I have consistency. You gotta see it. You gotta look past it. Charlotte baby I come to you and tell you I love you enough to buy a guitar and plant a tulip and eat an onion and you go screw off Anthony Hubgerstiler. And so I think fine she says that I'll go try some other girl. But really you're the only thing I keep thinking about so I keep coming back like a you know a boomerang.

CHARLOTTE
...Oh. ...But what about your animals?

ANDY
Well they stay locked up. So they're always there. But I'm a simple man. All I need in my life is my work and my woman. You and animals.

CHARLOTTE
Animals and me.

ANDY
What?

CHARLOTTE
Well maybe you had the order right the first time, I'm not so sure.

ANDY
What?

CHARLOTTE
Well what am I supposed to think Andy? You do stuff like this-

ANDY
I ain't ever told you to run away with me before.

CHARLOTTE
It's just another scheme.

ANDY
No it's not. The zoo called to me last night.

CHARLOTTE
Collect?

ANDY
No. A shooting star. I was sitting there with Old Boxer in the field by McGinty's when I figured we'd have a laydown. So me and Old Boxer lay down on the tall grass. And it went all up my butt and everything but I said hey sacrifices. It was a super night. And there I was looking up and there it was shooting across the sky like a like a silver bullet or a or a golden bullet zzzoooom. And I said crap I gotta make a wish but by the time I said that the star was gone. And I leapt up and said "I gotta wish for Charlotte! Boxer, ho!" And I jumped on up on him and rode and we chased down that shooting star into the rambling ramble by the drainage half-pipe over past the junkyard all the time me keeping the memory of where that star fell on down to in my head. And finally I saw it, over the big fence by the Plastic Statue of Zeus next to The Crazy Eddie Bar. And I got up on Old Boxer and jumped the fence and I could see it there a-glowin on the ground. And I went up to it and sure it was a little glowy piece of rock. See?
(Andy pulls out a little round rock)
So I pick it up and I say wish me Charlotte. Get her for me. And what do I know? Just at that moment the Bar opens and two frisky-looking guys toss that guy out on the street. You know the guy with the beard.

CHARLOTTE
Paul Peters?

ANDY
The bum.

CHARLOTTE
Stinky Ted?

ANDY
The other bum.

CHARLOTTE
Stinky Tom?

ANDY
No the other bum with the beard.

CHARLOTTE
Oh! Colombo.

ANDY
Yeah! Colombo. That lazy-eyed old bat with the weasel always up in his coat... well anyways. I followed him because the star was giving me a sign. And I followed him down to the 42 Underpass where I guess he lives or something. And I snuck up behind him and I hear him and he's crying. And he plops down on the mud and a buncha rats and skunks start crawlin out and sniffing at him. And I see there's Cheater's Paradise that escaped from Redland Stables four years ago hanging out and next thing I know that all these rats are out sniffing at drunk old weepy wet Colombo a bunch of cats come out and start chasing them. And Colombo he starts laughing. Laughing and crying, all like "a-hee hee hee a-boo hoo hoo a-hee hee hee a-boo hoo hoo" and I can see he's laughing because he's turned into the Cat Lady of the Underpass and he's crying cause of that too. And I looked down at the shooting star and I said I get you. Andy, I said. You stay here you're going to turn into Colombo.

CHARLOTTE
Oh Andy you could never.

ANDY
Sure I could. Animals all the time. I'm kind of stinky sometimes. I ain't one to get drunk yet but I'm sure once I turn 21. And nobody likes me much either no matter how hard I try or how much I get to crying.

CHARLOTTE
You never cry Andy.

ANDY
Well I try and spare your womanly temper the unpretty sight.

CHARLOTTE
So you saw all this and thought all this and figured why not the zoo?

ANDY
The romantic wild life with my Charlotte Perkins out on the roads down in the shit makin it hardscrabble.

CHARLOTTE
You haven't had enough hardscrabble in this town. Stick in school like me, Andy H. Go be a veterinarian.

ANDY
Nope. Can't. You know I flunk math even worse than you do.

CHARLOTTE
...We'll say screw it and get Kavistovich to tutor us up.

ANDY
Kavistovich's dead.

CHARLOTTE
What?

ANDY
This whole town's dead.

CHARLOTTE
You fucker.

ANDY
We gotta get out and live.

CHARLOTTE
...You know Andy I know well and good life is sucky.

ANDY
Sure that's why you're always cutting your calves up.

CHARLOTTE
Sure. And I don't like this place-

ANDY
And why you're always cutting your hair all up.

CHARLOTTE
Sure. And nobody here would really miss-

ANDY
And why you're always crying and vomiting up-

CHARLOTTE
Shut it! And goddammit Andy if you aren't such a ridiculous screwed up sexy manboy thing that I can't help but name my-

ANDY
What?

CHARLOTTE
But unlike you I don't really enjoy putting aside my brain and everything so I can pretend like I'm a happy puppy dog about to go on a car ride. This'll all just end in tears and you coming running home-

ANDY
Never.

CHARLOTTE
-and me in prostitution which I can do just as well here anyways. I visited the Bahamas and Rome and Disney World before back when momma was alive so I know what's out there and it's just more of the same except with prettier sand or marblier buildings or Mickey Mouse. People are the same.

ANDY
Except me who loves you. You believe me I love you.

CHARLOTTE
I believe you could love me all night till the cows come home.

ANDY
What?

CHARLOTTE
I said- I said you could fuck my brains out Andy H. pretty good. Take five minutes but. Listen Andy you couldn't love me so much I turn into old Juliet or something and can make my life about you. You're just too dumb.

ANDY
Come on give it to me straight. We've got to have these kinds of talks if we're going to make it on the road. Honesty. That's real love.

CHARLOTTE
Well honestly Andy if it's a choice between a shitty life where I went and tried it with you and it all failed and a shitty life where I never did and maybe I can still jack off to you and your hallowed memory I'll pick Door Number One.

ANDY
You don't have to be doomed to shitty-life-ness.

CHARLOTTE
Yeah I do.

ANDY
Says who?

CHARLOTTE
Says me.

ANDY
You gotta just give yourself a chance.

CHARLOTTE
I don't see things changing.

ANDY
It's you not things.

CHARLOTTE
Well fine I don't see me changing. Maybe once upon a time I was bred for being a happy scrawny fat-nosed girl with a prom date. But then shit happened and... well, nope. I got things keep me going-

ANDY
Like me.

CHARLOTTE
You're lousy romantic. I think that rock must be radioactivitous.

ANDY
Radioactious.

CHARLOTTE
Point is I don't need to stick my head up a bull's ass to know it's full of bullshit.

ANDY
Are you talking about the world?

CHARLOTTE
Yes.

ANDY
You... You. You know what, Charlotte. You know what I think? You are too young and awesome to be such a bum. You're sixteen.

CHARLOTTE
Yeah you too.

ANDY
So I'm doing it right! Happy full of dreams!

CHARLOTTE
Shows how much TV you watch.

ANDY
I got a meteor in my pants and it wants to take me to the zoo.

CHARLOTTE
That what they call it these days.

ANDY
What?

CHARLOTTE
Look Andy. I have an idea. You go. You go on ahead. Get there first. Get yourself a job. I'll stay here in school and finish up the graffiti I've been working on underneath Paula Gigli's deck and other last minute items and affairs I got to get in order. And you call, you call back for me when you're all set up with a nice trailer and a bed for two and I'll come. I'll come running.

ANDY
You're lying.

CHARLOTTE
Am not.

ANDY
Are too.

CHARLOTTE
No. I swear. You contradicting me?

ANDY
Yes.

CHARLOTTE
I'm not lying.

ANDY
You're a dumb girl.

CHARLOTTE
You're a dumb boy.

ANDY
Well I'm gonna kiss you anyways.

(He kisses her.)

CHARLOTTE
Fuck.

ANDY
Look I'm leaving tonight whether you like it or not with or without you.

CHARLOTTE
Fine. ...Bye.

ANDY
No wait I can't go without you! Charlotte I can't do this by myself. I really can't.

CHARLOTTE
Well go try Majorie.

ANDY
It's gotta be you. Or else you know what? I'll get scammed and bullied and left behind. And robbed and conned and butt-raped.

CHARLOTTE
You're going to the zoo not prison Andy.

ANDY
Well I fuck things up bad enough. I need you to say that guitar is out of tune, that tulip is a daffodil and onions make you cry. I need you to protect me so I can just... just... the animals.

CHARLOTTE
So you can just the animals.

ANDY
Yes. Like a team. I know I'm dumb a lot and I got more ADD than a a bowl of I don't knows but I'm good with animals and I don't ever want to grow up to be Colombo in this shitty rinkydink black hole town. I know what I want to do. And you don't know what you want to do!

CHARLOTTE
Yes I do.

ANDY
What? Be an emo girl for twenty years?

CHARLOTTE
I'M NOT EMO.

ANDY
Then what?

CHARLOTTE
...Stuff!

ANDY
What!

CHARLOTTE
Whatever! Just wait!

ANDY
For what! For me?

CHARLOTTE
For death!

ANDY
Emo.

CHARLOTTE
Shutup Andy!

ANDY
If you ain't got shit else to do come with me and be a good person doing a good thing for this guy who loves you and does know what to do.

CHARLOTTE
No.

ANDY
Why?

CHARLOTTE
I'm stuck here.

ANDY
You could walk off that porch right now.

CHARLOTTE
I need shoes.

ANDY
You can ride Old Boxer bareback and barefoot. Yeah I'm taking him and Tubtub and you could bring your kitties.

CHARLOTTE
My kitties...

ANDY
Yeah!

CHARLOTTE
...No!

ANDY
WHY NOT?

CHARLOTTE
BECAUSE!

ANDY
You can't even give me a good fancy reason like before now! There's no point you crazy girl to just staying here and wasting up. Come with me!

CHARLOTTE
Andy.

ANDY
Come on. All you gotta do is say yes.

CHARLOTTE
I'm all out of yesses. I went through fifteen fake prom dates this year. All I got left is shrugs.

ANDY
A shrug ain't anything. You have to do SOMETHING.

CHARLOTTE
...No. No I don't.

ANDY
You're just gonna stand there on the porch all night not gonna go eat some ice cream or cut your calves up some or whatever you do in your bedroom all night.

CHARLOTTE
Play with pussy.

ANDY
...Gross!

CHARLOTTE
No I meant the cat this time.

ANDY
Oh.

CHARLOTTE
...and sometimes the Rabbit.

ANDY
What?

CHARLOTTE
Yes I will stay on this porch.

ANDY
Not going to go inside and make me go away?

CHARLOTTE
...Nope.

ANDY
Not going to get your brother to beat me up a little?

CHARLOTTE
Nope.

ANDY
...That's your decision then to just hang out there awhiles.

CHARLOTTE
That's not a decision.

ANDY
Sure it is. It's a decision to be standing all up there like that where all I have to do is walk up there and put my arms out and lift your dumb butt up and whistle for Old Boxer and we're scram.

CHARLOTTE
You can't do that.

ANDY
You ain't that heavy.

CHARLOTTE
I won't let you.

ANDY
Then go inside.

CHARLOTTE
No.

ANDY
Then I'm picking you up.

CHARLOTTE
No.

ANDY
You have to the count of five cause I'm nice. You can't just bum your way out of this. I'm picking you up and carting you off, you don't run back inside. That's how I know you'll be making your decision. Come on, Boxer! Get ready.

CHARLOTTE
You ain't doing this Andy you little punk.

ANDY
One.

CHARLOTTE
Anthony.

ANDY
You ain't moving. Two.

CHARLOTTE
Nope.

ANDY
Three.

(Charlotte crosses her arms.)

ANDY
Four.
Last chance. Here I'm coming. Are you moving?

(Andy doesn't count five. Charlotte realizes he's waiting. She wavers. Then she makes the decision and stands up straight defiantly.)

ANDY
Five.

(Andy moves forward and picks her up. She immediately gets frightened.)

CHARLOTTE
NO! NO NO PUT ME DOWN ANTHONY HELP! HELP CHARLIE! STEPMOM! PUT ME DOWN YOU FUCKING KIDNAPPER!

(Andy carries her off the porch.)

CHARLOTTE
(a full panic attack tantrum scream) NO!!!

(Charlotte frees herself from him and runs back inside.)

ANDY
Charlotte. Charlotte! Charlotte!

(After a moment, Charlotte reappears. She holds her prom dress.)

ANDY
What are you doing.

CHARLOTTE
I tried, Andy.

ANDY
Try harder.

CHARLOTTE
I tried pretty hard.

ANDY
Harderer. Harderest.

CHARLOTTE
It's not happening Andy.

ANDY
I can't can't do this without you.

CHARLOTTE
Well I can't come with you. So if you can't give up that moon rock deal you gotta do it without me. Be a man, man.

ANDY
Na-uh.

CHARLOTTE
I know what you need.

ANDY
What's that dumbface?

CHARLOTTE
You need to do me a favor so you got closure.

(Charlotte slips on the prom dress.)

CHARLOTTE
It's a night early.

ANDY
You said no to me when I asked you to prom.

CHARLOTTE
Well this time I know you ain't just... you're not... You know.

ANDY
No.

CHARLOTTE
Well you ain't chasing off after Majorie Edelberg for sure. So I can deal. Dance with me.

(She dances with him.)

CHARLOTTE
Sun's going down and you wanna be out by nightfall. Else the star magic might break right.

ANDY
Charlotte I can't do this.

CHARLOTTE
Oh... I think you can.

(Charlotte grabs his crotch.)

ANDY
Charlotte Perkins.

CHARLOTTE
God you're a hot little shit. Down.

(She pushes him down on the ground. She pulls her pants out from under the prom dress and gets on top of him.)

ANDY
I uh don't think I'm uh couldn't we go get married and do this at the circus?

CHARLOTTE
No. Grow up.

ANDY
Ah uh.

CHARLOTTE
Ohhh yes. Finally.

ANDY
I don't know about this.

CHARLOTTE
It won't take a minute. That's good? Look I know you're a half-grown half-wit but one day you'll be a full-grown three-quarter-wit so look at me, Anthony so you remember this when your little dreams fall apart. And I don't expect to ever see you in this town again, you hear. You just keep chasing your comets. You hear?

ANDY
I uh think uh so. But I don't hafta like it.

CHARLOTTE
Good that's fine. As long as you do it.

ANDY
...I think when you grow up you'll be happy and maybe come find me. And I won't be happy till you do.

(Pause.)

CHARLOTTE
...I'll let you think that.

ANDY
Well we'll see who's right about life and who's-

CHARLOTTE
Shut the fuck up and fuck me farmboy.

ANDY
But-

CHARLOTTE
Sh.

ANDY
Okay Charlotte.

(Lights fade down. Old Boxer whinnies offstage. Other animals respond and the stage fills with the calls and hoots of birds and beasts.)

(End of play.)