Evelyn: Hi.
Drama: Hey.
Rosie: Hi.
Jack: Hi.
E: Well geez now it's a party.
D: It was a long day. And getting longer.
J: Sorry, I was trying to sleep but I was only klonapin sleepy.
E: Yeah.
D: You're on klonapin?
J: Yup. Have been for far too long.
D: I was for awhile.
J: It's become mostly a burden at this point.
Essentially useless.
But each time I try to come off it, bam, breakthrough seizure.
D: I was put on something stronger.
J: Lithium?
D: I'd rather not compare prescriptions, if you don't mind.
J: No worries
D: You said he was going to do it. You knew.
Evelyn.
How did you know?
E: Something in the words I guess. Maybe something before that.
D: I was really surprised. I thought I did something. Without thinking, maybe, something like I'm always doing.
To make him snap.
E: Like you're always doing to everyone.
D: Yeah.
E: Were you doing something?
D: No.
Not purposefully.
But it doesn't always work that way.
E: Yeah.
I'm kind of slow with feelings.
I'm starting to feel kind of
Not great.
D: I feel like shit.
I'm not that slow. I've been feeling like shit. But I do.
I'm mad and I'm afraid.
E: How come?
D: I can't use the word curse without it sounding...
You know how it sounds.
E: Dramatic?
D: Ridiculous, yes.
E: You think there's a curse?
D: No, that's why I'm not psyched to say the word. I think there’s a... disease is a better word.
E: Artist's Malady.
D: Frankly, it pisses me off.
Maybe it's just how it's seen that pisses me off. I know you know how that feels.
E: Yeah.
D: Today, it's like I stop crying just long enough to really focus on another good reason to start back up again.
E: Oh, so you've caught it is what you mean.
D: Haha. No. Thankfully, I'll never really be an artist or get to kill myself like one of them.
When I think about you and Ian, I wonder if you ever feel smothered by him.
E: Why do you suppose I should?
D: It's romantic to be with an artist, but I just wonder if he's oppressive.
E: Not it.
D: Fine, I'll go.
You're an artist but I don't feel the oppression of an artist’s bullshit encroaching on me the same way a mortal would. If you would let me call you a mortal.
E: No, I guess I don't.
Am I immortal now?
D: You'd say anything to live forever.
E: You think I'm lying.
D: I can see how you'd feel oppressed by him, but Annik wouldn't. There's a subtle difference, am I wrong?
E: No.
D: When he writes to you, I noticed he talks about always trying to pay your bills for you.
E: Yeah. I don't know what it means really.
It doesn't sound like literally to me but maybe it is.
D: Oh, I took it literally. But that's true, it could be a metaphor.
They're my favorite parts.
E: Why?
D: It's seemingly inane, and I could be so wrong, but I think he thinks spending money on you is romantic.
E: He might.
It's just a secret somehow. Talking about it feels weird.
D: Talking about it IS weird.
But I like the sound of your voice onstage. That's why I called.
Every time I do the radio show, I feel like this.
E: I guess I should have a monologue about now.
D: If you have one prepared. Maybe even if you don't.
E: I'm not sure what it would even be about.
D: I'm on the set of the Steven Banks Show.
Don't tell Rosie.
I'm talking on his phone in my underwear, too loud.
E: Then I should tell you things that lead YOU to have the monologue.
Like....I can't believe all this happened. I wouldn't even know HOW to sum it up.
D: You're a voice over, so that works.
Well, I guess we could say that Ian Curtis is writing you letters about how he's going to kill himself. It makes you a certain part of yourself named Annik with black hair. I'm doing a radio show where I'm telling secrets and maybe no one is listening.
Jack doesn't want to be Cinderella and she doesn't know that the harder she pushes it away, the quicker I'm going to pick it up.
Clyde has been having an abnormal amount of psychic episodes.
Adam shot himself and Clyde told everyone that there will be more.
Rosie went to the afterlife and found Walt Whitman and let him cum inside her.
You don't think that'll come up later, do you?
E: Oh it will.
D: And all of the angels are slinking forward from the depths of every shopping mall at midnight to look at each other. This...
Nightmarish convergence of events...
Well, Matthew says there will be a meteor shower. I took that literally too. He says a meteor storm will derail a train.
E: Right.
D: Clyde jumped off the roof of the apartment in the Bronx. He's the last dragon to jump.
E: And the world ended, too.
D: The whole. World. Ended.
Look at me.
The whole.
WORLD.
ENDED.
And here we are together.
E: Gee, Drama, I don't know.
It kinda seems like the perfect time to ask a girl to marry you.
D: Oh, yeah. And there's this girl.
E: Isn't there ALWAYS?
D: Ugh, always.
E: Derailing a train on the moon, what's that do anyway?
D: We're going to find out, very soon. We're also going to find out what happens when you eat the ashes from the charred bedroom of a dead poet and if roles can be stolen.
E: Oh we know they can. Flirt.
D: Well, you didn't have to tell THEM that. Spoilsport.
J: We're THEM now? Real nice, Drama.
D: I don't see you anywhere near a stage and never have, Jack, so yes. You're THEM.
The AUDIENCE.
J: Fair.
E: It all sounds fun in theory but.
There's a lot of dead people and uncertainty.
D: I'm terrified.
E: John is going to be next. Just you know. FYI.
D: You know the whole order, don't you?
E: No. I would say if I did.
He was reading poetry last night and told Jack he believes in curses. I don't know why she didn't say.
D: Really?
J: I was actually just about to when he got brought up.
Yeah. He said he believes in them.
And he said he was telling me because I seem to believe that I am cursed.
R: You think you're cursed?
J: I don't know? I never looked it really that way until John said something.
I mean not. Not in general? I don't know, this isn't about me right now.
D: How true.
The stinging fact is that nothing is about you, if you don't want it to be.
And right now, I want all eyes on me.
How's my light?
E: A little green
D: That won’t do. Don't we have anything...
Something blatant. Where's that wide spotlight?
E: To fit your head you're gonna need it pretty wide.
D: You're hilarious.
Truly.
E: I know.
D: But I have to say, there's nothing quite so stunning as the clash of a pink gel and turquoise one.
I think that's what I'll use for this.
E: Moody.
D: I've been accused of worse.
Time itself used to get in my way a lot.
Now that it's gone, I miss it. I always miss it.
I sometimes wish the things I did to kill it weren't so fucking necessary, but they were.
E: It takes a lot to ruin someone's perception of reality.
D: Yes, it takes a lot. For instance, a show of hands...
Does anyone here actually believe time isn't real?
R: ::raises hand::
J: Hm.
E: ::raises hand::
D: I love you, Rosie, but you don't count.
E: Ouch.
R: ::shrug::
J: I'm unsure where I stand on that and I don't want to lie.
D: Right. And… Jack… did you just… snore?
J: It's a possibility
D: UGH! This is a PERFORMANCE of a LIFETIME.
Anyway, like I was saying. Time isn't real and neither is this telephone I'm using to talk to Evelyn or any of these props or the breath in my lungs. But no one believes that but you, Evelyn. When I need you to, whether you believe it when I don't or not.
E: Likely true.
D: So, yes. It is hard to ruin someone's perception of reality, and I'm sorry but if you can't let someone break your eye, you will rot in the perpetuity of a totally dramaless existence for all time.
It's just the way it is.
E: So, because time isn't real, and in fact nothing is real that gets in my way of doing so, I could proclaim myself Cinderella tomorrow.
D: True.
Or Lois Lane.
E: Are you like....hitting on me?
D: That's what this entire thing is about. Isn't that obvious?
E: Oh, I've known for ages. This is ballroom light.
D: Well, then, no problems.
The events unfolding on this stage are touching me in places I want to show you.
E: I'd love to see where you've been touched, obviously.
Is there a doll, or....?
D: Don't sully this. I'm trying to be real with you.
E: Sorry.
D: Watching Annik makes me think you're made of whatever it is that makes an artist need to tell the world what they see.
E: Is that different from inspiration?
D: Yes. Yeah, I think so. But it's probably related.
I cried all night.
I was up alone with my visions, all my ideas about what it must feel like to be you.
To have that secret.
To share it with Matthew.
A secret the same color as the dye you used on your hair. The color of black hair under purple gels.
E: I'm beginning to stare at you pretty hard, Drama.
D: I couldn't fucking breathe, I cried so hard. I wanted to get between the two of you, I wanted to play you both alone in a room like you were Barbies just to get inside of that feeling, that dark feeling that sits between what a poet sees and how it feels.
Like blue fire and every little sadness that comes with knowing beauty but being able to give it to someone else.
Or terror or fucking invisibility.
Who is looking at you? What do they see? Do you know? Do you care?
Who is looking at me? Who sees what I'm doing with my stupid radio show?
Who wants inside what's between me and a switchboard?
J: I do. I never know what to make of your shows, Drama. But I'm always tuning in.
D: You don't want to know what I feel, Jack. You'd have asked me. Just like I don't want to know what you feel about being a princess because I know you don't feel anything.
J: Hurtful.
D: Truthful. Learn the difference. I'm masturbating in front of anyone I'm speaking to, just trying to give a little piece of my heart away and I want to know who knows it.
E: I hope you'd know I'm there right now.
D: I know where you are. No offense, but you don't count either.
J: Then who does?
D: Anyone who doesn't yet understand what it is I'm talking about doing.
J: I don't understand.
D: I know.
J: I'm trying now.
D: All you have to do is fall in love.
J: I'm not sure I know how, Drama. Doesn't that mean being vulnerable?
D: OH FUCK OFF.
J: What?
I've thought I was in love before and I wasn't.
D: FUCK YOU AND YOUR TOTAL FUCKING LACK OF DESIRE TO GET NAKED IN FRONT OF ANYONE. IT'S NOT BECAUSE YOU'RE AFRAID TO GET HURT. YOU JUST DON'T LOVE ANYONE.
You don't love anyone enough to show them who you are.
Don't talk to me about not knowing how to love. Love is not something you can learn.
J: Does it even matter that I'm not sure who I am in the first place? Does it
D: No. Nothing you say matters, frankly. When it does, I'll be the first to tell you.
J: Why are you saying these things to me? Where the fuck is this coming from?
D: I would love to tell you.
J: Then please do.
D: Do you know how I've spent the last 25+ years?
J: No, I don't. Tell me.
D: I've been in a mental institution watching Gray House like it's a play in my head. Like it's a delusion, no pills making it go away.
It took me 10 years to get them to so much as notice me.
I know what it's like to love these people. To want to hear what they have to say to you. To care what they feel.
You do not want them. You do not feel anything for them.
J: You're wrong. You're wrong and I don't understand why you're telling me what I do and do not feel.
Yeah, I know, I don't understand anything. And maybe it doesn't mean shit to you but I'm trying and that's the best I can give and if it's not good enough for you then I'm not sorry. I'm trying to navigate this house and these people while trying to deal with my own bullshit.
D: I've sat in a theater seat and listened to Adam talk for 14 hours about the curve of a woman's foot and how it was indicative of who his princess is. Just tonight you stopped listening to a five minute long song because it was too much.
E: Oh god you heard the foot speech?
D: Six. Times.
J: What does the song aspect matter? Just because I made a choice, this one specific time, to turn off a song and suddenly I don't care?
D: You haven't cared. You were given countless things to watch/listen/play with half the things out of your mouth are about how exhausted you are.
Go to sleep.
This is about, after all.
This is about -ME- after all.
This is really about me, you should go.
J: Fuck you, Drama. I'm not tired and I'm not leaving.
Leave if you want.
D: With all of this stage to occupy? Not on your fucking life.
J: Then it looks like I'll be a part of the audience tonight.
D: Let's see if you can figure out how to be a good one.
J: I'll never live up to your standards, Drama. You know this. Since you apparently know everything.
Just continue with your show.
D: If you knew me at all, you'd know I don't have any standards.
But I do know everything.
So, yes. I will continue. Thanks.
I know I won't stop crying tonight. I have nothing to give to Adam at the funeral but I thought we could all say something.
Read something, maybe Whitman, or just something we wrote ourselves. It doesn't have to be good.
There's never anywhere else I want to be than with my ear to your doors. All of you.
I smell like shit. I barely ate today.
I had horrible nightmares.
Sometimes I think you're all too beautiful to touch and I go cold inside not knwoing how
Now knowing h
But the show must go on.
This has been a collect call, sorry Evie, can you pick up the charges?