Walking Sideways By Ron Campbell
CAST
Hal……….Male, 43. Recently engaged.
Cliff……….Male, 43,recently divorced.
SETTING
A living room.
(Curtain rises on Cliff and Hal. They are drinking Scotch. Half the bottle is gone)
HAL
It was great that you finally got to meet her.
CLIFF
Meet who?
HAL
Meet who?! Inga, my fiancée. You finally got to meet her.
CLIFF
Oh right. Yeah. Finally. Cheers.
HAL
Cheers.
(They drink.)
HAL
And you liked her, right? I mean you seemed to. It was weird at first. I mean it’s bound to be. My oldest buddy meeting my fiancée for the first time.
CLIFF
You’re a lucky man.
HAL
Yes I am. Sorry about Rita, by the way.
CLIFF
It happens.
HAL
But you guys were together for a long time.
CLIFF
Long time…
HAL
Hey, now you’re “back on the market”, eh?
CLIFF
Nah. Forget about me. You’re about to embark on the great voyage of marriage. Bon voyage. Cheers.
HAL
Cheers.
(They drink.)
CLIFF
You want me to tell you a little story? Let me tell a story.
HAL
I’m just saying.
CLIFF
What? What are you just saying?
HAL
I’m just saying. You’re not gonna change my mind.
CLIFF
Of course not.
HAL
Of course not.
CLIFF
Not my intention. I’m not here to change your mind.
HAL
Of course not.
CLIFF
Of course not. I’m here as your friend.
HAL
My best man.
CLIFF
That’s right. I’m not here to change your mind. I’m here to support you. I’m your best man. I’m here to back you up.
HAL
To watch my back.
CLIFF
To back you up.
HAL
To hold the ring.
CLIFF
To hold the ring?
HAL
Yeah, to hold the ring. That’s one of your duties. As best man. To hold the ring.
CLIFF
Oh yeah. I hold the ring. Until the moment.
HAL
That’s right. The moment.
(A pause as they think about “the moment”)
CLIFF
Cheers.
HAL
Cheers.
CLIFF
Maybe you don’t want me to tell the story.
HAL
Tell the story.
CLIFF
Nah. You don’t want to hear the story.
HAL
Tell the story.
CLIFF
Hell, you got all this positivity going for you right now. All this brightness in your future. You don’t want to hear the story.
HAL
Cliff. Just tell the story.
CLIFF
Okay, I’ll tell the story. It was Rita’s birthday.
HAL
I can’t believe it. You’re trying to change my mind.
CLIFF
Just listen. It was a long time ago. Way back. Before we got married. Before we bought the condo. Before Rita poured her sugar coated napalm into my ear and seduced me into seven years of indentured slavery. Before we got divorced. Before she stuck the ‘ol ice pick between my third and fourth rib and scrambled my heart like an egg.
HAL
Cliff-
CLIFF
I know you don’t want to hear this. You’re embarking on a grand adventure. You’re in the picking phase. You’re picking out sofas. You’re picking out window treatments. You’re picking up each other’s dry cleaning. You’re picking nits out of each other’s hair. You still think it’s cute when she snores. You’re in love.
HAL
Well, yes we are, Cliff. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel the same way about Rita when you guys first got together. I remember. You were in love.
CLIFF
Love? Love? What Rita and I had was not love. What Rita and I had was a deep, mutual distrust.
HAL
Well Inga and I are different. You’ve seen her. There’s a purity there. A purity like I’ve never known.
CLIFF
A purity?
HAL
Yeah. A purity. An innocence. Inga is not Rita, Cliff.
CLIFF
Cheers to that.
HAL
Cheers.
(They drink.)
CLIFF
Okay. You obviously don’t want to hear the story.
(A beat)
I’m only trying to save your life. That’s all I’m doing. Saving your life. You’re my buddy. Isn’t that what buddies do? Save each other’s lives?
HAL
They support each other’s decisions too, Cliff. They back each other up.
CLIFF
Back you up? You want me to back you up?
HAL
Yeah Cliff. I need you to back me up.
CLIFF
Like you did me?
HAL
hunh?
CLIFF
Like you backed me up? When I came to you and asked you if I should marry Rita? That kinda backing up?
HAL
I guess…
CLIFF
When you said “Go ahead, marry Rita. You guys are in love. Go ahead and marry her.” That kind of backing up?
HAL
That isn’t fair, Cliff. That was years ago. And you guys were in love.
CLIFF
Sure we were. Until she decided to cut my heart out with the blunt end of a rusted butter knife.
HAL
I understand you’re bitter.
CLIFF
Bitter? Who’s bitter? Not me. No sirree. This is not bitter. This is aware. This is enlightened. I have transcended bitterness and risen above my feelings. What are feelings anyway? Arbitrary synapses triggered by arbitrary stimuli creating arbitrary purchases of arbitrary condos in arbitrary little housing developments built on hillsides that will all sink into the ocean anyway! You know what I mean? Who decided that feelings were important all of a sudden? I know. You can get by without feelings and be much happier, believe me.
HAL
Cliff. Happiness is a feeling.
CLIFF
Is it? Is it really? Are you sure? You can live a very fulfilling life without them; feelings. You can.
HAL
How? How can you live a life without feelings? What would there be left?
CLIFF
…Sports. There’d be sports.
HAL
There’s feelings in sports.
CLIFF
Not at the highest level. At the highest level there is no feeling in sports. There is only winning and losing. There is only the truth. The scoreboard. The scoreboard doesn’t care about your feelings. It reports the truth. That’s why I want to tell you the story.
HAL
Maybe I should go.
CLIFF
It was Rita’s birthday. There was a party. I had been out of town. When I got to the party it was in full swing. Lots of people. Dancing. The whole bit. Of course there was a kitchen party. Lots of people clustered in the kitchen. And it sorta spilled into this little laundry room. People were smoking, having a good time and there was this chick. Sitting on the dryer. And the dryer was on. Clikkity- clack, clikkity-clack. Somebody’s sneakers in there or something. And I found myself talking to her. But kind of standing there, leaning against the dryer, with her sitting on the dryer and one thing led to another-
HAL
What color hair?
CLIFF
What color hair? Does it matter? Blonde. Nordic looking.
HAL
You know I like that. Go on.
CLIFF
Well we found ourselves outside. In the driveway. We started going at it right there. I’ll never forget. She pulled my belt off and I remember the sound of it going flap flap flap flap against the belt loops. She pushed me back onto the hood of this car. It was a 240Z. Remember those? They had a big long hood. She threw me back on the hood and climbed onto me. We could hear the party going on inside. We just kept going at it. After awhile I kind of pushed her back a little and said “Isn’t there somewhere we can go?” She had this look in her eye. Wild. Molten. Something. She grabbed me by my waistband and said the sexiest word in the English language.
HAL
What’s that?
CLIFF
“C’mere.” She said “C’mere” and led me to this little detached room that Rita’s dad used as a library. We went inside. It was empty. A few candles. Lots of bookshelves. A chaise lounge. She pushed me back on the chaise lounge and tore off her skirt. It was a Danskin skirt. Remember those?
HAL
Oh yeah. The Danskin skirt. I remember. Inga still wears one occasionally.
CLIFF
So we make it. Right there in Rita’s Dad’s library. And I tell you, it was good. The best. It was more than just making it. I felt… engulfed. Tidal. Like she was the sea and I was just some piece of flotsam or jetsam and she would pull me in like she was some riptide, And I was just pulled into her undertow and then she’d deposit me back on the shore only to wash back over me and pull me back into her depths. Her face over me, her hair the color of a Van Gogh wheat field dragging across me in the candlelight.
When we were done she rolled onto her side and turned away from me. We lay there as the sweat dried. I stroked her hair. No words. The exquisite curve of her hip. The sharp delicacy of her clavicle.
HAL
Oh yeah. I’m a clavicle man myself.
CLIFF
You want me to tell the story?
HAL
Tell the story, tell the story. I’m just saying.
CLIFF
So I notice her skin. It’s glowing. Like from within. Like her skin is alive or something. Pulsating. Red , yellow, orange. And I look at her back and I don’t know how to say this but it’s like I’m looking at every woman’s back. Like the combined femaleness of all mankind is being represented here in this one back for me to marvel at. And I’m just staring at it. Lost in this post-coital wonderland of curvy female back perfection. And there’s something holy and ancient and sacred going on in this little room. And her skin is just glowing.
(A pause as CLIFF relives it a little.)
HAL
I should probably head out. Inga’s probably-
CLIFF
I’m not finished. So we’re lying there. Her skin is looking just kind of iridescent. Like oil on the water. And that’s when we both notice this smell. Burning. And I turn around and there are flames three feet high climbing up towards the bookshelves. It’s the Danskin skirt. It got thrown onto one of the candles and I don’t know if you know this but Danskin skirts are really really flammable! Pieces of it are floating in the air on fire. Little bits of floating flame are swirling around the room. And I realize that’s why her skin was glowing. It was the reflection. The flickering of the flames casting eerie light on her shoulders, her back. Luckily there was a bottle of wine on this little bureau. I doused the candles as she waved a book at the flying pieces of burning Danskin. We were laughing and coughing from the smoke. But we put it out. The smell was horrible. Like burnt rubber. We stood there. Panting. Without the candles the room was dark. Now we had another problem. To get out of there and get to our cars we would have to go through the party.
HAL
Oh boy.
CLIFF
Exactly. So I wrap my shirt around her waist and we try to kind of walk sideways together. Through the kitchen and out the front door. And we’re walking sideways to hide the fact that this chick is wearing my shirt as a skirt . And we get halfway through the kitchen and everybody’s staring at us. Their mouths are open. And in the kitchen light I look over at her and she is covered in splotches of ash. Everywhere. And so am I. Black splotches of soot like Dick Van Dyke in Mary fuckin’ Poppins. Both of us. And Rita’s standing there, at the door. Just glaring. It’s her party remember. And she just opens the door and says “Out. Out now.” And me and this chick walk out into the night. We stood there in the street. There was nothing to say. We’d shared this kind of holy moment together and we’d been marked in the process. Like Ash Wednesday. We made some kind of lame excuses and walked to our separate cars. She drove away. After a little while I went back in to apologize to Rita. We got together soon after that. I still think that if I’d stayed with that chick, if we’d gone off together, showered somewhere together, it would have been more. There was a connection there. Deep. Like the sea.
HAL
Wow. You never see her again?
CLIFF
Never. (a beat.) Until recently.
HAL
Recently?
CLIFF
Earlier tonight.
HAL
Earlier tonight? But we were…
What was her name?
CLIFF
Who?
HAL
The girl. The girl in the Danskin skirt. What was her name?
CLIFF
Inga. Her name was Inga.
HAL
My Inga?
CLIFF
Your Inga.
HAL
You asshole.
CLIFF
A toast. To the sea. Bon voyage old buddy. Cheers.
HAL
(A moment as he thinks about it.)
Cheers.
(Fade to black.)
END OF PLAY
The Detourist 