#1
Short play adaptation from 2001
From out of nowhere, the
voice of GOD, sounding suspiciously like James Earl Jones, said,
“LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!”
James and Chris sat at a
small round table in the food court of the Mall. On the table in front of them
was two cups of lemonade, refreshment against the extreme heat of outside. They
jumped a mile at the voice and both started to say “DID you hear…” and then realized what
they were about to say. Two mouths clicked shut in unison. Nervously they
looked around. Surely everyone else had heard that, but everyone else was going
about their own business as if GOD hadn’t spoke at all, if indeed HE had
spoken. Shaking off their confusion, they sipped their lemonade.
James changed the subject,
“Whew! It sure is a hot one out there!” Gesturing towards the windows in the
far wall, “This lemonade really hits the spot.”
Well, Chris, who was still
shaken from the faceless voice, didn’t quite catch the context that James was
striving for. “What spot is that?” he said, looking around.
“You know…the spot!” James
was now becoming confused at Chris’ wandering eyes.
This really messed with Chris
whose mind was racing for a way to save face. He continued on. “Man, I don’t
know what you’re talking about. What spot?”
Suspicious that Chris was
messing with him, but a bit irritated as well, James forcefully answered,
“Jeez, are you being obtuse on purpose or what? The spot! The spot! The place
where everything is just right! A giant figure of speech. The spot! This
lemonade hits the spot, it is so friggin’ hot out there!” His voice almost rose
to a shriek, then thinking the other people in the food court were looking at
him, he lowered it to a normal volume but still forceful.
Chris had focused on the “on
purpose” part of James’ tirade. He decided to play the clown as he so often
did. “You are so easy, I was just screwing with you. Hell, bro, I think I
invented that figure of speech. If not me, then somebody I know.”
Indignantly, James retorted,
“Yer ass! You can barely talk, let alone invent a figure of speech.”
Chris’ hands went to his
chest and he slumped in the chair, “I’m wounded! Skewered by the barbed tongue
of my best friend. Oh the pain!”
This drew a smile from
James. He was well acquainted by Chris’ shenanigans, but even so, they were
almost always funny. He often fell into the verbal trap of being the butt of
Chris’ quick wit. He had decided that he could play the straight man in the
joke. James thought that maybe he could change the subject so he asked, “So,
what’s up?”
Chris straightened up, running
his hand through his hair trying to tame the spikes raised when he rolled around
in his chair, he answered with a shrug, “Just hanging out, waiting for Fall
semester to start.”
“How’s your folks?” James
carried on.
Chris grimaced, “The same.
Nothing changes there. They are always gone to work or at the club after work.
I sometimes wonder if they will ever have enough bread, money I mean.”
“I hear you. Mine haven’t
changed either, I thought they might fly the coop after I moved out, but no,
they’ll be here for the rest of time. Ha! Mom read one my essay’s for English
class last semester. She just shook her head. I asked her what that was for and
she said, “I wonder where you came from.” James paused, “I didn’t think I was
that weird.”
Chris jumped on this, “Weird!
Man, you’re the strangest cat I ever saw. Bent, real bent.”
“You know the pot shouldn’t
call the kettle black. You’re not the straightest arrow in the quiver.” James
snorted.
Chris chuckled, “Speaking of
pot…You ever? You know, inhaled?”
“Me?” James said with a
poker face.
Chris leaned forward
intently, “Yeah, you.
“Like ol’ Cheech says, ‘a
little magic dust for you, a little magic dust for me, a little more magic dust
for me…’ then Farrrrr out, man.” James laid it on thick for effect.
Chris wasn’t impressed with
the act, so he asked again, “So?”
“I made the mistake of my
life. It’ll never be the same, my life I mean.” James’ eyes settled on a point
over Chris’ head, up towards the ceiling. He kind of drifted off like he was
somewhere else.
“So?” Chris waited for James
to tell his story.
James snapped to and looked
Chris in the eye. “You never let up do you? Remember the kid we called Fats?”
“Wasted dude, real skinny?”
Chris squinted trying to remember. There were a lot of kids they hung out with
that were not on the “A” list. School had been pretty well segregated by class
and clique. He and James had been on the borderline of the “B and C” list. They
had had friends in both groups.
James went on, “Yeah, he
convinced me to smoke with him. He told me to hold the pipe stem up to my nose,
then he blew on the bowl…mainlined the smoke right up my nose. Almost the last
thing I remember…”
“Almost? What do you mean?”
Chris was eager now, to hear the rest of the story,
James was still in that place up near the ceiling, he went on
automatically, “Well, I got to feeling funny. I decided to leave, and I ran
into Julie who convinced me to go to the movie with her. It was bad, real bad.”
“Julie? The movie?” Chris
interrupted.
James hardly paused, “The
movie…it was Jonathon Livingston Seagull. I steer clear of ‘em to this day, I’m
afraid they’ll start talking to me and lead me off into another dimension.
Besides I couldn’t breathe.”
“Couldn’t breathe?” Chris’
mind was racing again, trying to find a way to make a joke of all this.
James took a deep breath, as
if remembering that smothering feeling, “Yeah, my lungs felt like they were
two walnuts dangling on a string in my chest. Never again.”
“It didn't affected me that
way.” Chris said confidently.
James came out of his past,
now curious what experience Chris had had. “Really. So did you get high?”
“So high, I could see T’peka.”
Chris smiled in anticipation.
James took the bait,
“Topeka, Kansas?”
“I’m tellin’ you, you are
soooo easy! I think I invented that figure of speech too” Chris laughed at his
own joke, pointing to James while he did.
James shook his head in
chagrin, “Damn you.”
“Let’s have another lemonade
before we go back out in that heat.” Chris patted his friends arm.
