WHERE THINGS ARE by Steven Schutzman
A Play in One Act
TIME The present
SETTING Around a small table
CHARACTERS
MOTHER, 50s
SON, 30s
(MOTHER and SON sitting at a small table. Table has birthday cake with candles, wine bottle, wineglass and knife. SON wears a chiffon dress like girls used to wear to birthday parties.)
MOTHER: (Raising wineglass.)
Happy Birthday, my sweet Bunny.
(She drinks.)
SON: Thanks, Mom, for all the trouble you went through. It’s very special.
(She drinks.)
MOTHER: Your birthday not only marks the beginning of your life, it also marks the end of mine.
SON: Happy Anniversary, Mom.
(She drinks.)
MOTHER: Since the day of your birth, I have been far superior to all that has happened to me.
SON: I could always tell I didn’t please you.
MOTHER: You were like a disease that couldn’t be cured, one that kept on mutating and gaining strength. I hated you, sweet Bunny. You started out strong and grew ever stronger.
SON: But then you cured and tamed my little will and liked me better.
MOTHER: Here’s to that nasty little will of yours.
(She drinks.)
SON: Remember how I wriggled and wriggled?
MOTHER: You just wouldn’t stay still.
SON: Like a nasty wriggly worm.
MOTHER: Wriggling, wriggling.
SON: Why not just step on me?
MOTHER: It’s a wonder I didn’t.
SON: It wasn’t fair that your youth should be over so soon.
MOTHER: I began to flake into dust like some forgotten old thing in the corner.
SON: With every breath Dad and I breathed in the dust of you. It was . . .
MOTHER: . . . stultifying . . .
SON: . . . And . . .
MOTHER: . . . a waking nightmare . . .
(She drinks.)
SON: Tell me about Dad.
MOTHER: After you came out of me, he never wanted to come into me again.
SON: He never really belonged there.
MOTHER: Yes, it was such a relief.
SON: It’s another thing to celebrate on my birthday.
MOTHER: Thank you, thank you, my sweet, sweet Bunny.
SON: You’re welcome, Mom.
(She drinks.)
SON (cont’d.): What was Dad like?
MOTHER: He was an inept failure of a person. Ham-handed, sluggish, flatulent.
SON: To have him near you breathing so persistently was more than anyone should be forced to bear, wasn’t it?
MOTHER: Oh yes. Your Dad used to stare out windows but then we got the TV and he stared at the TV, years and years of that, and then after they put him away he just stared at nothing, stared without intelligence, with less intelligence than a staring fish. I’m afraid you have inherited his staring.
SON: That’s not all I inherited.
MOTHER: What do you mean, sweet Bunny?
SON: I am living with you.
MOTHER: So?
SON: I am wearing a chiffon party dress.
MOTHER: So?
SON: I have failed to poison your drink again this year.
MOTHER: Oh. That’s right.
SON: There are laws. I could get arrested and go to prison and then you would be all alone and lonely, if you lived.
MOTHER: It’s very considerate of you.
SON: Man has his laws and God has his laws and I have my laws.
MOTHER: You have laws?
SON: Yes. And they are cruel.
MOTHER: I do not like cruel laws.
SON: Me either. But it’s not up to us to like them. The laws just are. I made them up all by myself a long time ago. The laws cannot be changed by what happens. The laws cannot be changed by what people think. The laws go round and round independent of everything.
MOTHER: Tell me one of them.
SON: Why should I, Mommy?
MOTHER: Perhaps it will be fun. Birthdays should be fun.
SON: Okay. Here’s one: This house has another house in it. This birthday has another birthday in it. This cake has another cake in it. My room has another room in it. My bed has another bed in it. And there is another me inside me.
MOTHER: That is fun. Like a puzzle.
SON: Yes and here’s another law: The house inside this house has another house in it. The cake inside this cake has another cake in it. Everything keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.
MOTHER: Where does it ever stop?
SON: It never stops. That’s another law. (Harder-edged.) You just keep watching it and then it’s over.
MOTHER: Sounds like a game.
SON: Yes it is a kind of game.
MOTHER: Oh tell me another fun law.
SON: Where is everything.
MOTHER: Where is everything?
SON: Where things are. Where you put things is what matters most above all. That is a law.
MOTHER: I don’t understand this law of yours.
SON: All the ingredients in this cake were in the wrong places until you mixed them together into this wonderful cake. The candles when they were not on the cake were in the wrong place.
MOTHER: But they were ready and waiting . . .
SON: And the wax before it became candles was in the wrong place. And these words I am saying right now were in wrong places before I said them and put them in the right places.
MOTHER: A place for everything and everything in its place.
(MOTHER pours another drink. Drinks.)
SON: Yes. Where. Where is what matters most above all.
mother: This is fun. Because if you look out at the street what you always see is people trying to get themselves to the right places.
SON: Yes. Where is everything. To find the right places for things is what matters most above all. Dad, before he went away, was in the wrong place. And you, Mom: Did you ever belong here?
MOTHER: No. I’m afraid I didn’t. I never belonged here.
SON: You’re not a bad person. You just never found the right place for yourself.
MOTHER: I found myself in a horrible place among inferior people . . .
SON: Now you see my law. When I sit down to eat even though I am never hungry, I know that eating is the best way to get the food into the place where it belongs. I could cut my stomach open and put the food directly into my stomach but a knife doesn’t belong in my stomach and my blood doesn’t belong on the kitchen table.
MOTHER: And I’m afraid I would have to reprimand you for that.
SON: Yes, you would have to put your words in places they do not belong, put your words into my ears. (son puts his hands over his ears, screams, stops screaming abruptly. Then he is matter-of-fact again.) Then you would have to punish me by keeping me at the kitchen table when I really belong in my bed.
MOTHER: We must always find the right places for things.
SON: Does bad belong in me? No. Bad doesn’t belong in me.
MOTHER: You were not a bad boy.
SON: It’s just that sometimes I can’t find the right places for things.
MOTHER: You were not a bad boy. You were just a boy who couldn’t stay still.
SON: I was wriggling to find some other place for myself. Away, away. Like you I still cannot find the right place for myself. Do I belong in a party dress? No. Do I belong here? No. Does poison belong in you? Yes poison belongs in you but I do not belong in prison.
MOTHER: No, you do not belong in prison.
SON: Poison has an “O” where prison has an “R.” Prison has an “R” where poison has an “O.” Like us, the “O” and the “R” have not found the right places for themselves. And so here we all are, where we do not belong.
MOTHER: Yes. Here we are. Happy Birthday, my Bunny.
SON: Now that the party’s over, I am going to get myself into my bed where I belong, where I can watch everything that’s inside everything get smaller and smaller.
MOTHER: But dear, dear Bunny, you haven’t eaten any of the delicious cake I baked for you. Eat some cake please before you go.
(SON looks at cake. SON picks up knife. He looks at cake. He looks at MOTHER. He looks at his stomach. He plunges his other hand into the cake, brings up a handful and shoves it into his mouth. SON stands frozen without chewing. Black out. End of play.)
Steven Schutzman is the recipient of three Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grants. His work has been published in Poems & Plays and Rockford Review. This is his second appearance in Alaska Quarterly Review.