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DRIVE-IN DATE The Play
Version CHARACTERS: Merle and Dave and a Woman’s Right Leg,
complete with Belled Ankle Bracelet PLACE: A Drive-in Theater
somewhere in Texas TIME: Now SCENE ONE Lights go up on two men in the front seat of a car. A
rearview mirror hangs down and from it dangles a little, stuffed, silver
armadillo. Our duo is dressed in Western clothes, have on cowboy hats. They’re
in their forties, average-looking. Dave is on the
driver’s side. Merle on the passenger’s. There’s a
speaker in the driver’s window and a wire goes from the speaker to a metal pole
beside the car. On the seat between them are two tubs of popcorn, couple boxes
of chocolate almonds, and two tall wax paper cups of coke. It’s night, of
course, but it’s fairly bright because the movie hasn’t started yet and the lot
lights are on. DAVE: I like to be close so it all looks bigger than life. You don’t mind, do
you? MERLE: (PAUSE) You ask me that every time. You don’t never ask
me that when we’re driving in, you ask when we’re parked. DAVE: Don’t like it, we
can move. MERLE: (SLIGHTLY EXASPERATED) I like it. I’m just saying, you
don’t really care if I like it. You just ask. When you ask me what I like, you
could mean it. DAVE: You’re a testy
motherfucker tonight. I thought coming to see a monster picture would cheer you
up. MERLE: You’re the one likes ‘em, and
that’s why you come. It wasn’t for me, so don’t talk like it was. I don’t
believe in monsters, so I can’t enjoy what I’m seeing. I like something that’s
real. Cop movie. Things like that. DAVE: I tell you,
Merle, there’s just no satisfying you, man. You’ll feel better when they cut
the lights and the movie starts. We can get our date then. MERLE: I don’t know that makes me feel better. DAVE: You done quit
liking pussy? MERLE: Watch your mouth. I didn’t say that. You know I like
pussy. I like pussy fine. DAVE: Whoa. Aren’t we fussy? Way you
talk, you’re trying to convince me. Maybe it’s buttholes you like. MERLE: Goddammit,
don’t start on the buttholes. (DAVE LAUGHS, PLUCKS A PACK OF CIGARETTES FROM HIS POCKET,
SHAKES ONE OUT AND LIPS IT.) DAVE: I know you did
that one ole gal in the butt that night. (REACHES UP, TAPS THE REARVIEW
MIRROR.) I seen you in the mirror here. MERLE: You didn’t see nothing. DAVE: (GRINNING AROUND
HIS CIGARE’ITE) I seen you get in her butthole. I seen
that much. MERLE: What the hell you doing watching? It ain’t
good enough for you by yourself, so you got to watch someone else get theirs? (DAVE SNICKERS, POPS HIS LIGHTER, AND FIRES UP HIS SMOKE.) DAVE: (SMIRKY) I don’t
mind watching. MERLE: Yeah, well, I bet you don’t. You’re like one of those
fucking perverts. (DAVE ISNT BOTHERED BY THIS AT ALL. IN FACT, HE’S BECOME A
BIT DISTRACTED. THE LOT LIGHTS GO OUT. A SILVERISH GLOW FILLS THE CAR, FLICKERS
OVER OUR PAIR. TINNY MUSIC FROM THE SPEAKER.
A VOICE: “HOWDY PARTNERS, TRUCK ON DOWN TO THE SNACKBAR.”) DAVE: (CUTTING THE
SOUND OFF THE SPEAKER) Heard all that shit I want. . . I’ll turn it up when the
movie starts. Won’t be long now. (SLAPS AT HIS NECK.) Goddamn skeeters. Man,
that cocksucker was big enough to straddle a turkey flat-footed. MERLE: Maybe we could just forget it tonight. DAVE: Listen, you don’t
like this first feature, the other’n’s some kind of
mystery. It might be like a cop show. MERLE: I don’t mean the movies. DAVE: (SLIGHT CONCERN)
You saying you ain’t up to the girl? MERLE: I’m saying I’m in a funny mood. (DAVE THUMPS HIS CIGARETTE OUT THE WINDOW) DAVE: (TRULY CONCERNED)
Merle, this is kind of a touchy subject, but we’re friends, so I’m gonna ask it. You been having trouble getting a bone to
keep? MERLE: (ALMOST ANGRY) What! DAVE: It happens. I had
it happen to me. (HOLDS UP A FINGER) Once. MERLE: I’m not having trouble with my dick, okay? DAVE: You are, it’s no
disgrace. It’ll happen to a man from time to time. MERLE: (ANGRY) My tool is all right. It works. No problem. It’s
just a mood or something. Feel like I’m going through one of them mid-life
crisis or some kind of thing. DAVE: (REASSURING) Mood
hell. Let me tell you, when she’s stretched out on that back seat, you’ll be
all right, crisis or no crisis. What you need, Merle, is to lighten up. Lay a
little pipe. You don’t ever lighten up. Don’t we deserve some fun after working
like niggers all day? MERLE: You got to use that nigger stuff? It makes you sound
ignorant.... Will, he’s colored and I like him. A man like that don’t deserve
to be called nigger. DAVE: He’s all right at
the plant, but you go by his house and ask for a loan. MERLE: I don’t want to borrow nothing from him. I’m just saying
people ought to get their due, no matter what color they are. Nigger is an ugly
word. DAVE: Hell, you like
niggers so much, next date we set up, we’ll make it a nigger. Shit, I’d fuck a
nigger. All pink on the inside, ain’t it? MERLE: You’re a bigot is what you are. DAVE: That means I
don’t want to buddy up with no coons, then you’re right.... But let’s drop the
niggers. We ain’t never gonna
see eye to eye on that one.... Thing is, Merle, you do have to learn to lighten
up. You don’t you’ll die. That’s what’s wrong with you. You’re tense. Listen
here: I got an uncle, and he couldn’t never lighten up. Gave him a spastic
colon, all that tension. He swelled up until he couldn’t wear his pants.
Sumbitch had to get some of them stretch pants, one of them running suits, just
so he could have on clothes. He eventually got so bad they had to go in and
operate. You can bet he wishes now he didn’t do all that worrying. He didn’t
get a better life on account of that worrying. He didn’t get a better life on
account of that worry, now did he? Still lives over in that little shit-hole
apartment where he’s been living, on account of he got so sick from worry he
couldn’t work. They’re about to throw him out of there, and him a grown man and
sixty years old. Lost his job, his wife, and now he’s doing little odd shit
here and there to make ends meet. Going down to catch the day truck with the
winos and the niggers — pardon me —the Afro-Americans.... Before he got to
worry over nothing, he had him some serious savings and was about ready to put
some money down on a couple of acres and a good double wide, one of them finer
mobile homes. MERLE: Shit. I was planning on buying me a doublewide, that’d
make me worry Them old trailers ain’t worth a shit.
Comes a tornado, or just a good wind, and you can find those fuckers at the bottom
of the Gulf of Mexico next to the regular trailers. Tornado will take a doublewide
easy as any of the others. DAVE: You go from one
thing to another. I know what a tornado can do. It can take a house too. Your
house. I’m not talking about mobile homes here, Merle. I’m talking about
living. It’s a thing you better amend to. You’re goddamn forty years old. Your
life’s half over.... I know that’s cold to say, but there you have it. It’s out
of my mouth. I’m forty this next birthday, so I’m not just putting the doom on
you. It’s a thing a man’s got to face. Before I die, I’d like to think I did
something with my life. Hear what I’m saying, Merle? MERLE: Hard not to, being in the same car with you. DAVE: (CONCILIATORY
TONE) Hey, I’m getting kind of horny thinking about hen
You see the legs on that bitch? MERLE: Course I seen ‘em.... You don’t
know from legs. A woman’s got legs is all you care, and you might not care
about that. Couple of stumps would be all the same to you. DAVE: No, I don’t care
for any stumps. Got to be feet on one end, pussy on the other. That’s legs
enough. But this one, she’s got some good ones. Hell, you’re bound to’ve noticed how good they were. MERLE: I noticed. You saying I’m queer or something? I noticed.
I noticed she’s got an ankle bracelet on the right leg and she wears about a
size ten shoe. Biggest goddamn feet I’ve ever seen on a woman. I never did care
for a woman with big feet. You got a good-looking woman all over and you get
down to them feet and they look like something goes on either side of a sea
plane.... Well, it ruins things. DAVE: She ain’t ruined. Way she looks, big feet or not, she ain’t ruined. Besides, you don’t fuck the feet. Well, maybe
you do. Right after the butthole. MERLE: You gonna push one time too
much, Dave. One time too much. DAVE: (GRINNING) Come
on, I’m jacking with you. Take it easy. Look here, you haul your ashes first.
That’ll take some edge off. MERLE: (SLOW TO ANSWER, BUT THE IDEA IS BEGINNING TO APPEAL TO
HIM.) Well... DAVE: (MAGNANIMOUS)
Naw, go on. It’s dark enough. Nobody can see. MERLE: All right... But one thing... DAVE: What? MERLE: Don’t do me no more butthole talk, okay? One friend to
another, no more. DAVE: Bothers you that
bad, okay. Deal. (MERLE TURNS AND LEANS OVER THE BACKSEAT AND SNATCHES UP A BLANKET
AND PULLS IT INTO THE FRONT SEAT. DAVE
IS LOOKING INTO THE BACKSEAT, GRINNING. MERLE CLIMBS INTO THE BACKSEAT. HE’S ON
HIS KNEES. HIS HANDS ARE OUT OF SIGHT, BUT IT’S OBVIOUS HE’S STRUGGLING
SLIGHTLY AFTER A MOMENT, HE COMES UP WITH A WOMAN’S SHORT DRESS AND TOSSES IT
INTO THE FRONT SEAT. THIS IS FOLLOWED BY BIKINI PANTIES.) (DAVE PICKS UP THE PANTIES, PUTS THEM OVER HIS NOSE, SNIFFS,
DRAPES THEM ON THE GEAR SHIFT.) (MERLE LIFTS A WOMAN’S LIMP, CHALK-WHITE LEG INTO VIEW AND
HOOKS THE ANKLE ON THE SEAT. AROUND THE ANKLE IS A LITTLE BRACELET WITH TWO
MINIATURE GOLD BELLS. THEY TINKLE SLIGHTLY AS THE FOOT FALLS INTO PLACE.) MERLE: Look at that foot. Foot like that ought to have a paper
bag over it. DAVE: Like I said, it ain’t the feet I fuck. (MERLE UNFASTENS HIS BELT AND PANTS, STARTS TUGGING THEM
DOWN. HE LOWERS HIMSELF INTO POSITION.) MERLE: (OUT OF SIGHT) She’s already starting to stink. DAVE: (LOOKING BACK
INTO THE BACKSEAT) You can’t get pleased, can you? She ain’t
stinking. She ain’t been dead long enough to stink,
and you know it. Quit being so goddamn contrary. (DAVE SHAKES HIS HEAD, LIGHTS UP A CIGARETTE AND BLOWS SMOKE
OUT THE WINDOW. HE ROAMS AN EYE TO THE REAR VIEW MIRROR, REACHES UP CASUALLY
AND ADJUSTS IT. HE GRINS, PUFFS AT HIS CIGARETTE.) MERLE: (STILL OUT OF SIGHT) And don’t be looking back here at me
neither! (DAVE’S GRIN DEPARTS. HE SWITCHES UP THE SPEAKER. THE MOVIE
IS STARTING. WE HEAR EERIE HORROR MOVIE
MUSIC. HE TURNS HIS ATTENTION FORWARD TO
WATCH THE “SCREEN.” HE CASUALLY PLACES HIS CIGARETTE BETWEEN THE DEAD WOMAN’S
TOES. HE REACHES OVER AND TAKES A BUCKET OF POPCORN AND PUTS IT IN HIS LAP AND
STARTS TO DIG IN.) (CAR SHAKES. THE WOMAN’S FOOT VIBRATES ON THE BACK OF THE
SEAT.) (AS THE LIGHTS FADE, WE CAN HEAR THE LITTLE GOLDEN BELLS ON
HER ANKLE BRACELET STARTING TO RING. AND IN THE DARKNESS THEY RING, AND RING...
AND GRADUALLY FADE AWAY) SCENE TWO (MERLE IS BACK IN THE FRONT SEAT. DAVE IS STILL BEHIND THE
STEERING WHEEL. THE WOMAN’S FOOT REMAINS
VISIBLE. THE TOES HAVE THREE CIGARETTE
BUTTS BETWEEN THEM AND THEY ARE BLACKENED FROM HAVING BEEN BURNED. IF THIS IS
VISIBLE TO ONLY A SMALL PORTION OF THE AUDIENCE, GOOD ENOUGH. WE CAN HEAR
SCREAMING AND THE GROWL OF A MONSTER FROM THE SPEAKER. MERLE’S BELT IS
UNFASTENED AND HE REACHES TO FASTEN IT. HE LOOKS SULLEN.) DAVE: How was it? MERLE: It was pussy. ... Hey, turn that shit off. DAVE: What you want me
to do, read lips? MERLE: Bad enough I got to watch this shit without hearing all
that noise with it.... Hell, you’re gonna take a turn
anyway. What do you care what you miss? DAVE: (HE TURNS THE
SPEAKER TO SILENCE) Yeah, well, all
right. But this ain’t half bad. You don’t get too
good a look at the monster though.... That all the pussy you gonna get? MERLE: Maybe some later. DAVE: Feeling any
better? MERLE: Some. I think maybe we had a hole cut in the backseat
back there, it’d be good as I just got. DAVE: Bullshit. You’re
just down, man.... Want a cigarette? You like a cigarette after sex, don’t you? MERLE: All right. (DAVE GIVES MERLE A COFFIN NAIL, LIGHTS IT WITH A LIGHTER.
MERLE SUCKS SMOKE IN DEEPLY) DAVE: Better? MERLE: Yeah, I guess. DAVE: Good. I’m gonna
take a turn now. (DAVE CLIMBS OVER THE SEAT.) MERLE: (STARING AT THE
SCREEN AS IF INFINITELY BORED. SPEAKS WITHOUT LOOKING AT DAVE.) Got to be more
to life than this. DAVE: (ON HIS KNEES IN
THE BACKSEAT, UN-FASTENING HIS PANTS) I been telling you, this is life, and you
better start enjoying. Get you some orientation before it’s too late and it’s
all over but the dirt in the face.... (HE MAKES A SLIGHT ADJUSTMENT IN THE POSITION
OF THE WOMAN’S FOOT.) Talk to me later. Right now this is what I want out of
life. Little later, I might want something else. (DAVE LOWERS HIMSELF INTO THE BACKSEAT. BEAT. THE FOOT BEGINS
TO SHAKE, THE BELL STARTS TO RING. GRUNTING SOUNDS FROM DAVE.) MERLE: (LOOKS AT THE
VIBRATING FOOT, LOCKS HIS GAZE ON IT. AN UNPLEASANT EXPRESSION CROSSES HIS
FACE.) Bet that damn foot’s more a size eleven than a ten. Bitch probably
bought shoes at the ski shop. DAVE: Hey. I’m doing
some business here. Do you mind? (DAVE LOWERS HIMSELF OUT OF SIGHT. THE FOOT STARTS TO MOVE
AGAIN. CAR ROCKS. THE BELLS RING. LIGHTS FADE, AND IN THE DARKNESS WE HEAR—) DAVE: Give it to me,
baby. (LOUDER) Give it to me! (LOUDER YET. VERY EXCITED. ALMOST BREATHLESS.) Am
I your Prince, baby? Am I your goddamn King? Take that anaconda, bitch. Take
it! MERLE: For heaven’s sake! SCENE THREE (DAVE CLIMBS INTO THE FRONT SEAT, GETS POSITIONED.) DAVE: (SMILING;
SATISFIED) Good piece. (HE USES HIS FINGER TO THUMP THE BELLS ON THE WOMAN’S
ANKLE BRACELET.) Damn good piece. MERLE: You act like she
had something to do with it. DAVE: Her pussy, ain’t it? MERLE: We’re doing all the
work. Like I said, we could cut a hole in the seat back there and get it that
good. DAVE: That ain’t true. It ain’t the hole
does it, and it damn sure ain’t the personality, it’s
how they look. That flesh under you. Young. Firm. Try coming in an ugly or fat
woman and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll have some troubles. Or maybe you
won’t. MERLE: (DEFENSIVE) I don’t
like ‘em old or fat. DAVE: Yeah, well, I
don’t see the live ones like either one of us all that much. The old ones or
the fat ones. Face it, we’ve got no way with live women. And I don’t like the
courting. I like to know I see one I like, I can have her if I can catch her. MERLE: I was thinking we
ought to take them alive. DAVE: (LIGHTING A
CIGARETTE) We been over this. We take one alive, she might scream or get away.
We could get caught easy enough. MERLE: We could kill her
when we’re finished. Way we re doing, we could buy
one of those blow up dolls, put it in the glove box and bring it to the
drive-in. DAVE: I’ve never
cottoned to something like that. Even jacking off bothers me. A man ought to
have a woman. MERLE: A dead woman? DAVE: Best kind. She’s
quiet. You haven’t got to put up with clothes and makeup jabber, keeping up
with the Jones’ jabber, getting that promotion jabber. She’s not gonna tell you “no” in the middle of the night. Ain’t gonna complain about how
you put it to her. One stroke’s as good as the next to a dead bitch. MERLE: I kind of like hearing ‘em
grunt, though. I like being kissed. DAVE: Rape some girl, think she’ll want to kiss you? MERLE: I can make her. DAVE: Dead’s better. You don’t have to worry yourself about
how happy she is. You don’t pay for nothing. You got a live woman, one you’re
married to even, you’re still paying for pussy. If you don’t pay in money,
you’ll pay in pain. They’ll smile and coo for a time, but stay out late with
the boys, have a little financial stress, they all revert to just what mama
was. A bitch. She drove daddy into an early grave, way she nagged, and the old
sow lived to be ninety No wonder women live longer than men. They worry men to
death.... Hell, that was his wife put it on him. Wanting this and wanting that.
When he got sick, had that operation and had to dip into his savings, she was
out of there. They’d been married thirty years, but things got tough, you could
see what those thirty years meant. He didn’t even come out of that deal with a
place to put his dick at night. MERLE: All women ain’t that way DAVE: Yeah they are. They can’t help it. I’m not blaming
them, it’s in them, like germs. In time, they all turn out just the same. MERLE: I’m talking about raping them, though, not marrying them.
Getting kissed. DAVE: You’re with the kissing again. You been reading Cosmo or something? What’s this kiss
stuff? You get hungry, you eat. You get thirsty, you drink. You get tired, you
sleep. You get horny, you kill and fuck. You use them like a product, Merle,
then when you get through with the product, you throw out the package. Get a
new one when you need it. This way you always got the young ones, the tan ones,
no matter how old or fat or ugly you get. You don’t have to see a pretty woman
get old, see that tan turn her face to leather. You can keep the world bright
and fresh all the time. You listen to me, Merle. It’s the best way MERLE: Guess I’m just looking for a little romance. I had me a
taste of it, you know. It was all right. She could really kiss. DAVE: Yeah, it was all right for a while, then she ran off
with some fella, and I bet some other swinging dick’s come along since then and
she’s run off with him, and she’ll keep running off until she’s too old and
ugly to hook some man other than the one she’s got last, and she’ll worry that
poor sonofabitch to death. (DAVE LOOKS AT MERLE, SEES HIS COMMENTS ARE PAINFUL TO HIS
FRIEND.) DAVE: (SWEETLY) Don’t think I don’t understand what you’re
saying. Thing I like about you, Merle, is you aren’t like those guys down at
the plant, come in, do your job, go home, watch a little TV, fall asleep in the
chair dreaming about some magazine model cause the old lady won’t give out, or
you don’t want to think about her giving out on account of the way she’s got
ugly Thing is, Merle, you know you’re dissatisfied. That’s the first step to
knowing there’s more to life than the old grind. I appreciate that in you. It’s
a kind of sensitivity some men don’t like to face. Think it makes them weak.
It’s a strength, is what it is, Merle. Something I wish I had more of. MERLE: (TOUCHED) That’s damn nice of you to say, Dave. DAVE: It’s true. Anybody knows you, knows you feel things
deeply And I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate romance, but you get
our age, you got to look at things a little straighten I can’t see any romance
with an old woman anyway, and a young one, she ain’t gonna have me ... unless it’s the way we’re doing it now. MERLE: (CONSIDERING) Yeah. . . I guess you’re right. DAVE: (THROWS A NOD AT THE BACK SEAT) Hey, she wasn’t really so bad, was she? I picked
all right, didn’t I? MERLE: (TRYING TO BE PLEASANT) ‘Cept
for them slats she has, she was fine. DAVE: Good enough. (NOW HIS VOICE GOES FLAT.) Well, let’s
take the bitch to the dump site and throw her out.... Time they find her, the
worms will have had some pussy too. MERLE: You’re a good friend, Dave. I ain’t
much to talking sentiment, but I want you to know that ... the talk and all, it
done me good. Really DAVE: (SMILING) Hey, it’s all right. Been seeing this coming
in you for a time, since the girl before last.... You’re all right now, though.
Right? MERLE: Well, I’m better DAVE: That’s how you start. MERLE: But I got to admit, I still miss being kissed. DAVE: (LAUGHING) You and the kiss. You’re some piece of
work, buddy. . . . I got your kiss. Kiss my ass. MERLE: (GRINNING) Way I feel, your ass could kiss back, I just
might. DAVE: (LAUGH) I bet you would. Tell you what. Let’s let this
movie go to hell, dump the bitch, go on over to the house and watch a little Dirty Harry. I got it on tape. MERLE: Deal. (MERLE REACHES OVER AND SLAPS THE WOMAN’S FOOT OFF THE BACK
OF THE SEAT. SHORT FURY OF BELLS. A THUD.
DAVE REACHES TO START THE ENGINE AND THE LIGHTS GO OUT AND WE HEAR THE
MOTOR IN THE DARKNESS, ALMOST GROWLING LIKE AN ANIMAL, MOVING AWAY IN THE
DISTANCE, AND THEN THERE IS SILENCE AND —) CURTAIN Get on back here Thursday, March 27,
for another plateful of Mojo pie, all covered in Fritos! “Drive-In Date—The Play” originally appeared in Cemetery Dance Magazine. It later appeared in A Fist Full of Stories [and Articles], a collection published by CD Publications. “Drive-In Date—The Play” © 1991 By Bizarre Hands, LLC. All Rights Reserved. |
