31 Plays in 31 Days: #3 - "Service is its Own Reward"

Yesterday, niobien* commented on the piece from day two that it was rather dark. I confess I hadn't really thought about it until she mentioned it, but yeah, it really is. So is piece number one from the day before. And, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, so is my piece for today. I am drawn to tragedy; I suppose I really am a goth in my soul. But it's funny that I wouldn't even notice the trend until Carolyn said something.

This piece is about a wealthy older gentleman who is found sitting up at night by his faithful butler, who has been in his employ for years. The idea for it came to me as I was trying to fall asleep last night, fretting about what the hell I was going to write about today. I scribbled a few notes in the dark in a notebook before I passed out so I wouldn't forget it in the morning. As with all of these I am posting them in rough, unedited, first-draft form, but I think this one has serious ten-minute play potential. The conflict may need to be upped, the point of view of the butler may need to be strengthened, but I think there are the bones of a solid ten-minute play here that I could fix up and submit to competitions and stuff.

Day #3 - "Service is its Own Reward"

SETTING: A big armchair, a beverage cart, a writing desk, a safe upstage

(JORDAN HOLLOWAY, a sad and drawn-looking older man in a smoking jacket, sits in his armchair in the dark. He is sipping a brandy in a snifter.)

(A middle-aged man in formal dress, LUCAS JENNINGS, enters and turns on the light. He stops short in surprise.)

JENNINGS: Mr. Holloway. You’re awake and about at this hour?

MR. HOLLOWAY: I spend twenty-three hours a day in that bed, I couldn’t bear another minute.

JENNINGS: I understand. But Dr. Rollins said that you were not to mix alcohol with your medication.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Bother Dr. Rollins. He’s already seen that every other pleasure in life is denied to me. Can’t do me much more harm than that.

(JENNINGS nods and MR. HOLLOWAY considers his drink.)

MR. HOLLOWAY: As a matter of fact, I think I’d like you to make me another. Something stronger this time, I think.

JENNINGS: Are you quite certain?

MR. HOLLOWAY: Never been more certain in my life.

(JENNINGS considers a moment, then sighs resignedly.)

JENNINGS: Very well, sir.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Good man.

JENNINGS: Service is its own reward, sir.

(He goes to stand behind the beverage cart. He pulls a pair of white gloves from his pocket and pulls them on before beginning to mix the drink.)

MR. HOLLOWAY: Always loved those white gloves of yours. It’s those little touches you do. Show that you’re a class act.
JENNINGS: That’s kind of you to say.

(He puts a few drops from a small bottle into the drink.)

MR. HOLLOWAY: And of course you would be the one to stick by me. Even when I’m like this. How’s that drink coming?

JENNINGS: In a moment, sir… are your documents still in the same place?

MR. HOLLOWAY: Yes, in the safe. Trust you to remember everything.

(JENNINGS goes to the safe and unlocks it. He takes papers out of it.)

JENNINGS: What good would I be if you could not rely upon me?

MR. HOLLOWAY: That I could always do. All the fellows were envious of me, you know, having a right hand like you. Said you were like something out of an old movie.

JENNINGS: I was happy to do it.

(He sits at the writing desk and begins to sort through the papers.)

MR. HOLLOWAY: Tell me, Jennings, and please speak frankly… was there ever anything you wished you hadn’t had to?

JENNINGS: Honestly, I always very much regretted all the stories I told to Mrs. Holloway.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Hmmm. You always were a better man than me. I hope you can forgive me for the compromise on my account.

JENNINGS: The alternative seemed rather treacherous. You didn’t deserve that from me.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Bless you for thinking that. I deserved what I got from her, though, didn’t I?

JENNINGS: Given the circumstances, it was not an unreasonable response.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Who’d have thought I’d miss her after that? I swear, the rooms all still smell like Opium. It’s been years, but I suppose she wore it here for longer. If I could find a twenty-five-year-old who’d wear the stuff, maybe I’d be able to get some sleep at night.

(He laughs weakly, looking to JENNINGS for approval, whose expression does not change. His face falls.)

MR. HOLLOWAY: Bad taste, I suppose? Sorry, Jennings. I’m out of practice talking to civilized people. I exclude those bullies in white lab coats. I’ve been alone too much lately.

JENNINGS: There’s a remedy for that.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Oh? You mean, get in touch with the old gang of greedy snakes and self-serving flatterers? No, they showed me their true stripe when they mysteriously disappeared when I was no longer of any business use to them. And wasn’t as though I had a vast circle outside them.

JENNINGS: Perhaps someone new, then.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Someone new? And where would I be meeting these new people, in the chemotherapy suite? Grand chance of that, given that I can’t even remember how to talk to decent people.

JENNINGS: I very much doubt that, sir.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Hmm. Fine, then. Now, what do decent people talk about? Oh, how’s your boy Robert these days? Is he enjoying Brown?

JENNINGS: A great deal, thank you.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Smart boy, isn’t he? You must be proud. You did quite the job bringing him up, Jennings.

JENNINGS: Of course we never would have been able to send him without your help, sir.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Oh, it’s nothing. A small thing compared to lifetime of loyalty.

JENNINGS: Still, we are grateful. It meant a great deal.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Credit me this, Jennings, I never failed to appreciate just what it is you do. Admired you for it, as a matter of fact. Always finding just the right way to make yourself useful, but with a light touch, never too intrusive. Could never do it myself. Too self-centered and insensitive for that.

JENNINGS: It takes a particular temperament, that is certain. But there is something holy in making oneself useful in the world.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Don’t I know it. And I appreciate it, Jennings, I do. I hope I showed you that.

JENNINGS: Not to worry, sir.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Good. That’s something, at least. I take it Robert won’t be following in the family tradition, though?

JENNINGS: I’m not troubled. I agree that he’d be happier doing something else.

MR. HOLLOWAY: My goodness. That’s… that’s quite enlightened of you. Not—not driving him down a path that won’t suit him. As I said, it’s not something just anyone can do. But— you were happy, weren’t you?

JENNINGS: Of course, sir. But we all want more for our children.

(Pause.)

JENNINGS: I’m sure Robert isn’t the only boy you could help.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Oh, I’ve a much greater track record of tormenting young men than I do helping them.

JENNINGS: I take it there’s still been no word from Terrence or Peter?

MR. HOLLOWAY: Oh, there’s been word. They’ve called once or twice. But still can’t find the time to come up. Waiting till things die down at work, they say.

JENNINGS: It sounds to me as if they’d like to come.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Ha. They’re putting me off, Jennings. Work never dies down. I should know, I told them that often enough when they were growing up.

JENNINGS: Perhaps if they understood the… the gravity of the situation.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Oh, come off it, man. If the most I can do is guilt them into coming, then I’ve lost them for sure. Jesus Christ, Jennings, I’ve chased off the wife, chased off the boys, never made any other connection of consequence in forty years in business or pleasure.

JENNINGS: Mr. Holloway, please—

MR. HOLLOWAY: Can’t you see? I’m no good to anyone anymore.

JENNINGS: You were good to me.

(Pause. Mr. Holloway smiles, a real smile.)

MR. HOLLOWAY: May God take note of that, then.

JENNINGS: Mr. Holloway, there might be something—

MR. HOLLOWAY: Are all my papers in order?

JENNINGS: Yes, sir.

MR. HOLLOWAY: Thank you. All I want now, old friend, is my drink.

JENNINGS: If you insist, sir.

(He takes the glass he just prepared off the beverage cart and hands it to MR. HOLLOWAY.)

MR. HOLLOWAY: Thank you, Jennings.

JENNINGS: As I said, sir. Service is its own reward.

(He half-bows, and begins to exit. Briefly he pauses by MR. HOLLOWAY, and clasps his hand. He goes over to the light and switches it out, then exits.)

(MR. HOLLOWAY downs his drink in one go, then sets the glass aside. He lays back in the chair and closes his eyes. After a few moments, his breath comes slower and slower, and finally stops.)

Hope for your children

I called my mom on my walk yesterday. I mentioned to her that I think of Gigi's stillbirth as I go through the cemetery, and mom corrected me on a few parts of the story. She too couldn't say whether the baby never had a name or if simply no one used it, but Mom said that she didn't come between my dad and my uncle in the birth order; she was before all of them. Her, and all the miscarriages. And there weren't two or three, Mom said. She had nine of them.

Nine miscarriages. And then a stillbirth on top of that. Can you imagine? Can you imagine becoming pregnant and losing it ten times? And then to keep going with your life, no breaking down, and keeping on trying to have children even though every sign pointed to just bringing yourself more pain? My melancholic self can't even imagine the kind of fortitude it would take to keep hope.

My mother said when she was pregnant she thought to herself, look at all the people around you. They all had to be born sometime. If this many made it into the world okay, then yours probably will too, and you'll come out of it okay as well. There's always something like that to draw hope from. And in the end, Gigi did go on to have three healthy babies. They never would have been if she'd given up. And in the end, even Mom's baby, born sick, got well.

Something to remember the next time I feel like I can't keep hope.

Melancholy memories in the graveyard

I've taken to walking through Mt. Feake Cemetery when I want to get into town. Since moving to Illyria an extra mile was tacked onto all my normal walking routes, and while the effort isn't tough for me, it makes a walk take significantly more time out of my day. I like cemeteries. They're a tiny glimpse of history. They're great for a writer trying to gather names. (Apparently there are a lot of "Blaisdells" who died in Waltham.) It's actually a lovely place, carefully arranged and beautifully maintained, full of big expensive-looking cookie cutter headstones. It's got nice trees and healthy green grass and a great view of the river with the picturesque old watch factory on the opposite bank. I don't know how even people who don't like cemeteries could find this place unpleasant. Of course I like old weird rundown ones too. And I really like sort of run-of-the-mill working class ones that are neither too nice nor too bad. My great-grandparents on the Roberts side are buried in a place like that, where all the headstones in the Catholic section of the yard are the flat kind that are easier to mow around, and cheaper than the ones in the Protestant section. It's a piece of my family's history-- Catholic, working class, Burgettstown, the names Frank and Christina Roberts --and a small tangible piece of relatives I've never met.

Whenever I'm in a graveyard I always find myself thinking of the baby my Gigi, my paternal grandmother, lost a few years after my dad was born. In the eight years between having my dad and my uncle, my Gigi had several miscarriages and one stillborn baby girl. I'm not sure I'm remembering this correctly, but I believe Gigi fell down some stairs at some point during the pregnancy and the baby was born dead. She's buried somewhere in that same cemetery as my great-grandparents, but at the time Gigi and Granddad couldn't afford a headstone, and so without a marker in the intervening years no one remembers where she lies.

I've never heard anybody call her by a name. This didn't seem strange to me; I don't really believe stillbirths are people, so I don't approve of giving them names. I've seen too many instances of people personifying their lost babies in unhealthy and unrealistic ways. I always assumed Gigi's lost baby never had one. But I've heard enough people have expressed shock to me upon hearing that that I wonder if maybe she did, and it's just that no one uses it. Difficult enough to lose a baby, perhaps even if worse if you turn her into a person too. I don't think it's anything superstitious or even hung-up; I think my family is just inclined to not dwell on old tragedies, nor to investing personhood in someone who never was. But if that's so, I feel a strange connection between the name never being mentioned and the lack of a headstone. No setting down of the name, no speaking of the name hereafter.

In my larp The Stand there is a headstone to a stillborn baby girl in the graveyard, the child-that-never-was of the sheriff Malcolm Royce. I was thinking of Gigi's lost baby when I included it. I decided that the stone in the game would read Baby Girl Royce. I did not want them to have named her, and what else could you put on a tombstone for a child that never lived before it died?

It was a long time ago. Gigi has since passed away. Granddad is around ninety now. My dad and his older sister and younger brother all have children of their own. My uncle's oldest daughter is about to have her own baby. And my family is full of resilient people. Sickness, loss, struggle, death, may be mourned but are eventually taken in stride with the knowledge that there is always hardship in this life. Not even Granddad and Gigi were really scarred by this. But still, somewhere there is a baby with no name buried fifty years ago who died without ever having a chance to live. We don't remember where. The people who knew have forgotten, and they are beginning to pass away themselves. I'll never know. But she existed. She had people wanted to know and love the person she would have been. People who cried that she was dead.

And she has a niece who thinks about her. Who has made art from the thought of her. Who remember that she existed.

I don't really have a point to this. I don't have anything I learned or concluded from this. I still don't think she should have had a name. And I don't think it's a big deal that she doesn't have a headstone. But I still think she mattered, if only for this.

Dark thoughts

Thoughts have been very dark lately. Not healthy, trying to shake it off. I have entirely too much work to lose focus to that. Spent an hour last night on the bathroom floor with those dark thoughts. Not for the first time, it occurs to me that I am a prideful thing. Makes me do some pretty awful things, just for the sake of my self-conceit. And yet at the same time, when I find myself wanting to do the wrong thing, often my pride reminds me how ashamed I would be if I did the wrong thing, bringing me back to the right path after all. I am blackly amused by the fact that the very thing that's killing my soul is also keeping it alive.

No matter. Must write. Much write until my brain liquifies itself and seeps out my ears. Merely Players is due in one week. I want to have it done in time for people to read before auditions. It's no small challenge to keep it witty and smooth. It's coming fairly well, I guess, but I'm starting to get stalled, which I can't afford. It is my first priority until it's done, after which I can focus entirely on The Stand and Resonance.

Gothic larp needs two more male players!

On Sunday, August 29th, acousticshadow2* is running her newly written gothic larp, Nepenthe a Surcease of Sorrow, and still needs two more male players. It looks to be a very dark, twisted game with some very mature themes-- I know that the character I got in it is easily the most intense I've ever had. Jared and I will both be in it, so you'd have the chance to play with us. :-) The game will be happening in Worcester, so if you're coming from my area, we still have one or two seats left in our car and I'd be happy to give you a ride. Contact Emillybeth if you're interested, or drop me a line and I will put you in touch with her. Hope you can come out to play in this first run of a new gothic game!

Alice has filled!

I just noticed that Alice filled at Festival! Huzzah! We were missing one player for, like, two weeks. You don't know how pleased and proud I am by the fact that it's a large game that has had four previous runs, and it still fucking fills.

Mike Hyde gets the award for most entertaining casting questionnaires. I am also amused by how many questionnaires list that they would prefer not to have plots involving a specific despicable thing, like rape or psychological torture, but then follow up with something along the lines of "But you probably don't have anything like that in this game." Heh. To give you an idea of the nature of the story, I began my writing process by making a list of all the horrible things I could think of to see what among them I could turn into plots. ALICE IS THE GAME OF HORRIBLE THINGS.

I have also agreed to help run LXHS with captainecchi* and electric_d_monk*, about which I'm very excited. I loved playing that game and am very happy to help them. There are still a a handful of spots left for gentleman or those ladies willing to play as gentleman, so if you haven't already, I suggest you check out this excellent game!

Bah, life.

I am a non-functioning human being.

Knots

Not sleeping well lately, as you may have gathered by the fact that I'm posting at quarter to 4AM. Very unlike me, as I usually crash at midnight. I'm not sure if all the Snapple I've been pounding has caused such a spike in my caffiene levels, or if my stomach ache is getting to be too much.

I'm stressed lately. Moreso than I had been, now. I have sad feelings over some stuff I've recently had to deal with that has made things significantly worse. The trouble is, these new bad feelings are not reasonable; they are not over anything I have any right to be bothered by. I acknowledge that, I recognize that. I'm quite disgusted with myself that I've gotten to this point at all; I cannot accept such selfishness in myself. But still, I feel bad. I worry that the only way to feel better is to do something selfish, and otherwise my stomach stays in knots.

I'm going to do the right thing. I have to; I couldn't live with myself otherwise. It's better to hurt.

*shaking*

Angry.

So, so angry.

Yuck

I have remarkable ability to disgust myself sometimes.