|
The Conversation
Written by,
© 2002 Dev Polimer and Glen River
Adapted by Glen River
SCENE: 1 ( Family )
Open:
The setting is Anna's living room. She and David are friends who haven't seen each
other for nearly a year. Until three years ago they were lovers who lived together for
several years. Sharing notes on the oddities of life, they continue to love each other
as friends. Their conversation over dinner follows an impulsive flow, characterizing
events and issues they reflect upon.
Lights come up:
Anna is straightening up, The phone rings. She answers.
ANNA
Hi there sweetie. What's shaking?
Emily ( Anna’s cousin she treats as a daughter )
I wanted to say hi, and see if you heard from Dr. Bromely?
ANNA ( slightly miffed )
Honey didn’t you ever call him back? I told you to call his office.
He left a prescription for you to pick up.
Knocking at the door.
ANNA
Just a minute sweetie, David’s at the door.
She holds her hand over the phone ...
ANNA
Come on in honey!
SCENE: 2 Reference Clip 1 ( Disorientation )
Several still ( Black & White ) and slow motion ( strobe ) clips depict: entrance,
embrace, settling in. The atmosphere is of easy unconditional acceptance.
DAVID
The thing is, that I get so completely engrossed in the projects
that I’m working on, that I get sort of like Emily. I become
unaware of my surroundings.
ANNA
Yeah, I know. I…well, I’m, I’m… (pauses) My chaos is
usually because and pushing and pushing and pushing and
trying to do too much and don’t take the time to be obsessed
and don’t take the time to put anything away.
DAVID
I have a computer right now that’s rendering, uh, this
animation, right? It’s gonna take it like five to seven hours to
uh, so I set that up before I left, ya know, and uh, and then
when I go back I’ll be uh, you know, checking that out and
then setting it up to do some more. Then I’ll be setting up to
do the recording of this on to another computer’s hard drive
and then I’ve got some books in sections and I’ve got a new
hole puncher that I have to adjust…
ANNA
(interrupting) Yes! And then who has the time to vacuum or
sort things or throw things away or take the garbage out?
DAVID
Right, I can’t even find the time to hire someone to do it.
(laughs)
ANNA
Yes. (pauses) That manifests itself as stress.
DAVID
Yeah, eventually it does. Even…
ANNA
Oh, now let me see…
Anna returns to gathering a few utensils needed for the upcoming meal.
More Stills and Slow Mo
SCENE: 3 communication 14 (
massage )
ANNA
I want a massage…
DAVID
You do?
ANNA
I want to have plenty of money and go somewhere and have
them give me an hour, a two hour massage and then everyday
I want a massage.
DAVID
Sounds good. Good idea.
ANNA
I would even like them to spend an entire time, two hours, on
my neck. Wouldn’t that be something?
DAVID
Yeah. Well, I might manage two minutes.
ANNA
Awe, you’re so… last night, it’s better today. I haven’t been
having this problem for a long time but last night, I think it
comes from just exhaustion. It hurts so badly. And then of
course I wind up really injuring myself, you know, rubbing,
you know, with the bottles or something hard and hurting.
But it just goes like that.
DAVID
That’s no fun. No fun at all.
Reference Clip 2 ......................
David starts to work on her neck.
DAVID
…even someone…this is a stiff neck
ANNA
I honestly can’t feel that.
DAVID
Uh-huh, okay. Well here’s the thing. If we are gonna get your
neck, you know, we have to come from down here because…
ANNA
Why?
DAVID
…because your trapeziums are coming way down here like
this. And they’re all… the stress is coming up from across
your back.
ANNA
(cutting in) Go in the middle of my back like you just did on
either side.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
No, just with your thumbs like that. I don’t care about
anything else. Go down a little lower. (exclaims) Oh! Now
what schockra is that? Oh!
DAVID
That’s your heart chakra.
ANNA
Yeah it is, isn’t it? Wow.
DAVID
But that’s the problem that people, uh, have a kink in their
neck and they rub their neck
but its actually just like one leaf on the
tree and the roots of the tree are coming from, uh,
all over their body.
Anna’s dog barks urgently.
ANNA
Don’t be frightened, oh Tippee he’s not hurting me…
SCENE: 3 Reference Clip 3 ( Role Models
)
ANNA
Exactly, my dysfunctional male model was the pain in the
neck but the tree went back to daddy. I perpetuate in on with
men that, well they really did not want anybody… that would
feel incredibly threatened by a woman that had a brain. Look
at Leonard. Look at Bill. (pauses) Of course, you don’t fit in
to that mold.
DAVID
Yeah well that was the end for you wasn’t it. That wrecked it.
(laughs)
ANNA
Well actually…
DAVID
You fit into society much better then.
(laughs)
ANNA
You know, that’s a really good point because I could, but
now I can’t perpetuate the phony baloney crappo and being,
you know, a vacant trophy. You know? That makes sense.
Like the last guy I really dated… do you remember that
architect? It was after we, long after… and he was another of
these that wanted to, I’m sure wanted to rescue me and stuff
and he said something about how amazed he was that a little
blonde girl like me would be interested in him and I’m
thinking, I’m not a little blonde girl! You know what I mean?
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
And then the last, actually that’s not true. I went on one date,
an official date, I finally, Helen broke me down so… it’s a
long story but she convinced me to let her give this man my
number. And on the phone we had very interesting
conversations. And then I went to dinner with him and…
which was a joke. I mean, we go to this loud place…anyway,
and coming back he starts talking about his ex-wife and about
this and about that and about he was so hurt and that she
found somebody else. And instead of doing my old routine of
‘oh you poor thing’, I mean, it didn’t even occur to me. I said
well what did you expect? If she had already told you that she
was lonely and that she needed more time with you and that
you didn’t seem interested in what she… what did you
expect? (laughs) I never heard from him again, which was
fine. But so it’s like, um, its like I can’t play that moronic
game.
DAVID
Right. Well you can’t buy into someone’s delusion. That’s a
problem. If you know that someone is deluding themselves
and they want you to support their delusion, you know, I
mean, it’s like talking to an android or something, you know?
ANNA
You know what it’s like?
DAVID
Having a relationship with a tape recorder.
ANNA
Yeah but it’s also like waking up. And once you are out of
integrity with the role you’ve been playing.
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
Like Mary Ann Williamson, the woman that lectures on the
course of miracles, says that some point, and she’s right on,
that once you wake up, you can’t play, you cannot play the
same role, the same game and succeed. It’s like a singer.
They say the only way you’re gonna cut, get a record deal is
if you sing the old time
‘oh baby, oh god, if you don’t call I’m gonna die, oh you
make my life worth it’. Well, if she was still in that mode and
singing those songs, it would probably work for her but if she
was past it and didn’t believe that crap, it’s not gonna work.
DAVID
Right. (pauses) I guess that’s the thing about salesmanship,
right?
If you don’t believe in the product anymore, you can’t really
sell it.
ANNA
Well that depends on the person.
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
There are some very slick people that don’t give a shit about
the product but then ultimately I guess there are some
exceptions but that’s the premise and ultimately you can’t
keep selling junk and get away with it.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
Alright, I guess… has it been an hour?
DAVID
Like Enron, and Tyco.
ANNA
Tyco. You heard me (David laughs.) did you hear me say
about the Tyco noise? Talking to my boss?
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
But you live in another world. Speaking of which, are you
still into shamanism?
Fade to Black
Small visions flash.
SCENE: 4 Reference Clip 4 ( Visions )
DAVID
I said before the reason that I have been interested in
shamanism, right, especially since I read that book…
ANNA
Which one?
DAVID
…by Andreas Lommel called Art and Shamanism, right,
somehow that sort of gave me a perspective, it made sense
and allowed me to, you know, find the place both artistically
and in terms of uh, lets say psychic events or visions or
experiences in particular that young people have which are
not acceptable in our society because, you know, we’re in an
industrial society which has lost touch with that and has
submerged that part of the psyche. So one of my contentions
was that uh, you know, a lot of people drink, because you
know, they want to mask their natural experiences they don’t
have answers for. To put it shortly, I would rather have a
bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. And uh, I think
it’s the same thing like smoking pot and stuff. I mean, taking
drugs is illegal but it’s acceptable. In other words, if you’re
taking drugs and you have weird experiences, well, of course,
you’re not crazy, you’re just taking drugs. You see what I
mean? So what I’m saying is that with a lot of people it’s the
cart pulling the horse. That they’re having weird experiences
which you know, uh, are threatening their self image within
their society so they try to self medicate. So…
ANNA
So that’s why they never, alcoholics, drugs, never feel like
they fit in. That’s one of the reason AA works is because they
finally find a place where some other people understand them
and they feel like they belong. Always we feel like we’re
looking from the outside looking in. We don’t fit. Always.
DAVID
So, um, this is the story of shamanism is that the shamans, if
they’re lucky, have someone teaching them. Someone who
says it’s okay.
ANNA
Yes! Who’s wise and says…yeah.
DAVID
Right. And says that these things you’re experiencing are
things you can learn from.
ANNA
Yeah. Who was it that, where was, that I got such a kick out
of it when they were saying that, in other words, they were
comparing the time of Jesus back in history, if somebody
heard voices they, or who was it that heard, Moses, heard
voices and he got the ten commandments and all that stuff.
And he’s revered today. Today if somebody said that, they’d
be locked up as psychotic.
DAVID
Yeah. Absolutely.
ANNA
Yeah. Delusional. They’d be giving them psycho tropics to
cure the… to shut up God. (laughs)
ANNA
Yep.
DAVID
Well, I have one called the, I forgot what it is but... Oh, it’s
called Graduation. A poem called Graduation where it says
you know, uh, you got scared when you found out your job
was squeezing the juice from the forbidden fruit. And, you’re
waiting for some psycho tropic to wake you from this dream,
but your problem is not delusion, your problem, is truth.
(laughs) It’s the fruit.
ANNA
Woah…woah. Did I ever tell you… remember when… no
this was before, when we were living in Grenache. When
Emily was little she had an invisible friend named Ovvy.
Had green hair, I don’t remember it all. Anyway…
DAVID
Green hair is good.
ANNA
Oh, it is?
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
Okay, well Ovvy had green hair and uh, but anyway, I never
knew that Ovvy was a name, it’s a real name, and I can’t
remember if it’s Arabic or it’s Hebrew or whatever.
DAVID
Arabic or Hebrew or whatever?
ANNA
Ya.
ANNA
Ovvy was from her alturnative reality. I guess he was some
kind of self thearopy, or some such thing
DAVID
Ya, vitimins for the psyche.
Stills & Slow-mo depicting buying perfume, sniffing,
sublime setting dream, putting on perfume.
SCENE: 5 Reference Clip 5 ( Aroma Therapy
)
ANNA
I can spend a fortune on water or vitamins but I can’t,
pause, stammer ...
somehow I have a glitch about not spending… I love really
good perfume. I mean I could tell the difference in a moment
and there are certain… I mean what I like is one hundred and
fifty an ounce at least, at least, a lot more. But you would
think, and it alters my whole sense, I mean, you know, the
limbic brain, my emotional brain. It makes a huge difference
and yet I can’t seem to bring my self…
DAVID
Original aromatherapy…
ANNA
Oh yeah. Well that’s true, yeah but that ties in… you know
that’s a really good point. You know one of my favorite
favorite ones has a huge amount of vanilla, you know the
____________(name of a perfume I cant figure out!) is very
vanilla-y. that’s its winter(??).
Yeah, like the ones with lily of the valley, reminds me of my
grandparents and being safe. Jasmine, they all have a lot,
have to have jasmine and jasmine effects the part of your
brain for safety. I could look at like that. Like it’s medicine
DAVID
Right. (laughs)
ANNA
Thank you! Thank you, darling. I have to go to the perfume
store and get some medication for my brain. It’s true! It’s
better than buying a, uh, Prozac. I’ll buy a hundred and fifty
dollar bottle of
(name of perfume again). But you see that’s another… I used
to…
DAVID
You’ll be feeling great in no time.
ANNA
Yes! (laughs)
Cooking Stills
SCENE: 6 Reference Clip 6 . (
Responsiveness )
ANNA
Has it been an hour since I put the sweet potatoes in?
DAVID
I don’t…
ANNA
Why am I asking you? (laughs)
DAVID
I don’t really know. Yeah, why are you asking me? That’s
the mystery. Well you know, I’ve thought about it. You said
that you know I appeared to be like, disinterested, right, like
with you or with… well you know how I process in the
background right?
ANNA
Yeah.
DAVID
Uh, actually um… (pauses)
ANNA
Now we’re processing…
DAVID
Well it’s just that you know I think being an obtuse recluse,
right, that the uh, the idea of being responsive is just not
there.
ANNA
Well part of it, David…
DAVID
It’s like this processing, like how long did I sort of let it sit
around in the back of my mind before I got it together to
mention something about it
ANNA
(starting to talk over DAVID)
But sooner or later you would because that’s your Leo, that
the Leo influence has to, that you had to take that one up
cause of the ego.
DAVID
(laughs) I see…
ANNA
No, it’s because of the shyness and the insecurity… and also
because you’re never really sure of what you’re really
perceiving, what you’re really hearing, is this really
happening…it’s like somebody who’s always stoned.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
So… (pauses) I think it’ also partly fear of rejection. I mean,
what if you did make a pass and it would be very
embarrassing if, you know, what if, like what if I’m
mistaken.
DAVID
No, that would definitely be an element because nobody likes
rejection. Me probably more than many people. I’m easily
embarrassed.
ANNA
But how could you be that… David… how about the fashion
show?
DAVID
The fashion show?
ANNA
(more quietly) Oh my god, well just maybe you are…
(continues regular volume) Remember how I tried on every
evening gown that I had to show you and the different, all
these different clothes. And it was like you were absolutely
oblivious.
DAVID
I wasn’t oblivious, you know. You were indulging your
obsession, right? I mean, I noticed. You think that I didn’t
notice that you were an attractive woman? Of course I did.
ANNA
But you didn’t EVER act like you did.
DAVID
Oh, well that’s different. I mean, you know, I fall in love at a
distance. There’s this one poet that I know that every time she
reads poetry I fall in love with her. She reads so beautifully,
right. If I were to work with an actress that was good, I’d fall
in love with her, right?
ANNA
Even if she’s not good.
DAVID
But it’s not uh, but it’s not love. It s a momentary infatuation,
right? So I am responsive in that way but I know that that's
not love, right?
ANNA
Yeah, yeah.
DAVID
Now, desire is something else, right. If I see a woman who’s
desirable then of course that’s there.
ANNA
But you don’t ever indicate it.
DAVID
Well yes because I’m not gonna do anything.
ANNA
Right!
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
But that’s the glitch. That’s what I’m saying. So totally
removed from anything I’ve ever known. And mostly, why
do you think most, especially attractive women, are
fascinated by you, and all over you. It’s because you don’t,
it’s like you ignore the fact that they are attractive or
appealing. You don’t react. And eventually… it’s like
reverse psychology, you have to know this, you know,
eventually they are gonna be all over you. Cause they’re so
used to being pursued. They’re gonna…
DAVID
Nobody’s ever all over me. Every once in a while I get some
weird looks.
ANNA
Right. You wouldn’t notice if they were all over you, David.
DAVID
(laughs)
ANNA
Well?
DAVID
So, are you in tune, I mean you see… are you responsive.
You see some guy you think is kind of attractive or uh,
something. Do you like send out signals?
ANNA
Oh no, you know, actually, I’ve only become open to the
concept recently. No, actually in the past…you know how I
could never
DAVID
Eh, that doesn’t sound too different.
ANNA
No, in the past, I could never figure out why these totally
dorky guys that I never in my wildest dreams be interested in,
why they ever thought that they had a chance, or why they
kept pursuing, and then finally I realized, it’s because the
guys that I truly, I was really attracted to wouldn’t have a
clue because I would act like I, either completely ignored
them or was oblivious or there’d be this protective wall cause
I didn’t want to be rejected, right?
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
But guys, but I was just myself, you know. Remember that
horrible delivery man, that pizza creep. I was just being me
and he thought I was coming on.
DAVID
Right.
SCENE: 7 Reference Clip 7 . ( Coming On )
DAVID
Seems to be a problem, that if you’re just being like a nice
person, right, if someone is reading that as you’re coming on
to them…
ANNA
(starting to talk over DAVID)
oh but that’s happened my whole life. That always happens.
No, I’m serious… always.
DAVID
Well then I’m better off being, uh, (laughs)
ANNA
See, I would flirt…
DAVID
No actually I’m nice to people but I don’t think uh, that they
interpret it as coming on.
ANNA
You don’t come on…(underneath DAVID) the fascinating
thing is that you do it mentally.
DAVID
(talking over ANNA)
So the thing is… what’s the difference then here? There’s not
that much difference that you’re perceiving it in me rather
than in yourself.
ANNA
No, you never are a flirt. And bubbly and like that to any
women.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
And that was my, my M O
DAVID
I see…
ANNA
Unless it was a guy that I could be attracted to and then it was
also different if I was drunk. That was a whole different story
but um, you know, you see, you do it all the time.
DAVID
(chuckling)
Oh, I bet that was a different story. I didn’t know you when
you were drunk, did I?
ANNA
No!
DAVID
Okay…
ANNA
I’ve been sober like… I met you in eighty-nine…
DAVID
I can never remember you with a drink.
ANNA
No, I had already been sober. I met you in ninety-five and
stopped drinking in nightly-three. That’s two years without
drinking.
DAVID
Oh, that’s why.
ANNA
Yeah
DAVID
(laughs)
ANNA
Well I was…
( Fast series of photos referencing thoughts )
SCENE: 8 Reference Clip 9 ( Daddy )
ANNA
Um, this was at the motion picture home, when near the end
when I visit and he was just horrible, ya know he was so, I
don’t know. There was a camera man at his table and another
guy he called the fireman. I don’t know what the hell the poor
guy was. Daddy called him a fireman I think
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
And, they weren’t stars or studio executives anyway, um, I
haven’t… its almost automatic pilot, I have to be careful with
an older man, I go into automatic pilot becoming the little girl
hanging on his every word.
DAVID
Uh-huh.
ANNA
Now that was my survival method for my father. So here’s
daddy, you know, Mr. big cheese at the table. You know I
love daddy but he was impossible.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
Anyway, and these, the two… they were nice guys, were
talking, and about whatever they were talking. But I wasn’t
even aware that I was, ‘really? Isn’t that interesting. I had no
idea’ ya know, like oh my God. And my father got real quiet.
I knew when he was pouting. And then later we went back to
his room and he said ‘how could you demean yourself like
that?’ and I said ‘like what?’ and he said ‘uh, and falling all
over those fellows, pretending, acting like they were so clever
and so important and you’re such in awe of them’ and I
couldn’t and I said ‘how do you think I learned?’
DAVID
(laughs)
ANNA
He had no concept of what I was saying. So when he saw me
do it to them, of course he was jealous,he found it completely
offensive. And yet…
DAVID
Right. He was also discovering you in a new light there. He
was discovering you as his intelligent daughter rather then as
his beautiful daughter.
ANNA
Yeah, but he was also real dependent on me.
Reference Clip 10 ...................... MISSING !!!!!
SCENE: 9 communication 11 ( Time )
Sounds of cooking in the background.
ANNA
You know what I wanna know, David?
DAVID
What’s that?
ANNA
Your ideas about time. I’m better, much better at accepting
there’s no such thing as time and that everything happens at
once? I’m much better. Remember how I used to get so upset
over that?
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
Grappling with it. Well, but what I wanna know is, oh I guess
I just answered that. You know how you have past life
regressions? You know?
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
Well, why is it a past life necessarily? Or then I guess, but I
guess some of my like, um, uh, what do you call it when you
see things in the future? Uh…(stutters) precognition.
DAVID
Uh huh. Right. Well the thing is that what’s really is going on
is you’re just referring to it, to your gravitational center, that
is the center where your consciousness feels most seated.
That’s what you consider the present. In other words, it’s all
irrelative the experience. If you’re experiencing future and
past consciousness then wherever you feel the most strongly
seated is what you relate to as the now.
ANNA
Oh don’t start! Now you’re gonna throw me a loop again. So
I’m more consciously seated here and now? That’s why I’m
here now and this is now instead of tomorrow or yesterday?
DAVID
Right.
Reference Clip 8 ......................
ANNA
You get my point though.
DAVID
I do.
ANNA
And if there is Ekoshic records that we could tap into
anytime, right?
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
But if it’s all happening at once then it’s not before and not
after
DAVID
The problem with something like the Ekoshic record, right,
and being able to juggle the relationships of past and future
and the stuff is, it’s a question of… think about a computer,
right, and you have like a laptop. We’re like a laptop, we
only have like so many gigs of memory, you know, but in all
of this stuff is going on is like in such vast amounts of uh, of
uh, of memory, of existence and that it’s just unreachable so
in other words when we talk about a blizzard it’s like beyond
anything I’ve experienced, you know, it’s just so, but if
there’s something within that seed of an event that we have
some kind of strong connection with then we can relate to it
but the other problem is that our consciousness is so formed
in a verbal linear definition…
ANNA
I know that we can’t comprehend.
DAVID
It can’t contain that type of information.
SCENE: 10 communication 12 ( God )
Sounds of cooking in the background.
ANNA
Have you been deliberately not um, talking about anything
like that or to do with shamanism or the occult or anything
like that around Sara?
DAVID
Uh, no um… no, I mean I don’t parade anything like that. I
mean the way… shamanism to me is just sort of like a
convenient description of things that I witness…
ANNA
I know but how do you know. I mean to her it’s like she’s
afraid the devil is gonna get her.
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
I’m just curious cause you know she’s saying you seemed,
you seemed, to be doing so well and you seemed to be, I don’t
know, I don’t remember exactly… spiritually seeking or
something like that.
DAVID
Oh well, she’s um, never mind. I wrote a poem called
‘Talking to God’…
ANNA
(chuckles) oh no wonder…
DAVID
And then I had another one called ‘The Toy’ where God is
talking about uh, man and I use the name Ibliss and she says
well what’s Ibliss and I say, well, that’s the Arabic name for
Lucifer and the legend is that Lucifer was thrown out of
heaven because he wouldn’t bow down to God’s latest
creation which was the human being …
ANNA
Oh, she must have loved it. No wonder.
DAVID
One of the things that she probably doesn’t understand is that
I know a lot about Christian legend, you know? (laughs) It’s
just that I didn’t necessarily buy it as uh the only reality…
ANNA
Right!
DAVID
…historical fact.
ANNA
Yeah but wait. It’s not legend to her. It’s like you said, it’s
an historical fact.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
(sighs) Ta Da!! I hope this comes out okay. You know, I
don’t exactly know what I’m doing.
She presents a dish.
SCENE: 11
ANNA
So, you were talking about the right and left part of the brain
and the different behavior and stuff and one of the things that
she did was, there was an exercise and I don’t remember
exactly but it was about, uh, she gave directions to say, step
on the green, step on the green square and there was a square
with writing that said green in green. The whole thing was
designed…
DAVID
Right. Right, that’s a basic test.
ANNA
Right, and this was designed, she was also a teacher, it was
designed to get your right and left brain so screwed up and it
did. Eventually, once it got to a certain point, every single
one of us, we would just go in to overload and we just
couldn’t function.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
And she said then, let this be lesson to you. Those of you who
have kids, or are yourself, but kids in special Ed or anything
to do with dyslexia, this is how it feels.
DAVID
Well, I was just about to say to you, there I am all the time.
(laughs)
ANNA
Yes! Yes! And…
DAVID
I’m working on another poem called ‘The Blizzard’ and it’s
the blizzard of information which is also I mean most of it is
disinformation. People ask me why I’m not responsive. One
of the main reasons I’m not responsive is because I have to
fire up these engines and get this entire sort of battle group
into the air in order to get an articulate, you know, response,
and it turns out that the person hadn’t listened to what they
had said in the first place and had no interest so what’s the
point? What’s the point of my making a heroic effort to talk
about something which is superficial to the individual to
begin with?
ANNA
Right. So, but in that case what do you do? Do you tune out
or do you pay attention to what they are saying?
DAVID
No, you see I’ve uh, multiple layers. Nothing is simple. It’s
not do you do this or do you do that. It’s many things at the
same time.
ANNA
Okay,
DAVID
In other words, I can hear something that someone says but I
may not register till an hour later because it comes in a
blizzard and I have to pick this snowflake out of the blizzard
ANNA
Oh! Now I understand. See I’m the opposite, thank God.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
I think I do have a form of ADD or whatever because I think
growing up in my family, if I did not hear every word… I can
listen to three conversations at once and process them all at
the same time.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
Because if I didn’t, if my father was such a narcissistic…
DAVID
I can hear everything and process none of it except for hours
later. (laughs)
ANNA
Right. Except my dad would say, well he’d stop in the middle
of a sentence and say ‘Testing… 1,2,3…’ cause he would
think I wasn’t listening to him.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
So I had to be able to spit back verbatim everything that he
had said. I have to do this for twenty seconds (grinding noise
in background)
DAVID
Right. That must have been annoying.
ANNA
Oh, it was horrible, are you kidding me? I hated it. It was
just… it was obnoxious. And that’s why when Merry
sometimes has a snit, or somebody is huffy because they
don’t think I’m hanging on their, or paying attention. You
know, it’s really offensive.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
Yeah, but he’d do that all the time.
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
‘Testing… 1,2,3…’
DAVID
No, that could drive you around the twist.
ANNA
But did I ever tell you….
SCENE: 13 ( Glamour )
ANNA
That’s why there was this one guy, Joe Peters was his name.
he was actually gorgeous but I mean I’m really… I don’t
even know him. I mean I dated him several times and he
introduced me to his daughter and I remember his daughter
saying, and he was an Aries, and I remember his daughter
saying ‘Don’t pay so much attention to me, you know. Pay
attention to dad because he’ll get, he’ll feel threatened or
something.’ Anyway, so I had, I picked him up, if you want
to call it that, at one of those fancy fancies. And I danced, I
couldn’t stand the way he danced and I think I finally broke
up with him because he didn’t want to thirty blocks or twenty
out of his way to get me Sherman’s cigarettes or something.
But the point is, I have no idea…
DAVID
So how important is dancing during those glamour days?
ANNA
Oh, well, I love to dance.
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
Yeah.
DAVID
And you liked him to be able to dance.
ANNA
Well he kept after me for awhile… but, anyway, Rita,
several years later, Rita ran into him and he’s going on about
how he’s upset by my dumping him apparently and how he
wept and all and I swear to God, I was absolutely floored
because I didn’t even have a second thought. I had no clue
that there was any kind of deep…
DAVID
Right, it just… the absent connection, right?
ANNA
Yeah, it was weird. (pause) okay, I think the sweet potatoes
have to be close to being done.
SCENE: 14 ( The Perfect Family )
ANNA
(laughing)
DAVID
What a perfect couple. She said,” I’ve separated.” And I said
they should have done that a long time ago because then they
could have, cause they were so dedicated to masking
problems rather than…
ANNA
Wearing their perfect masks. They spent so much energy.
DAVID
So they might have solved some of their problems by now if
they had been looking at them rather than…
ANNA
Yes, honey. But the… okay anyway, she had said she didn’t
know what she would do. The business went down the tubes.
He had no savings. Had to sell off everything and now he’s
working like, you know, instead of being the high flying, you
know, corporate...
DAVID
Entrepreneur?
ANNA
Right. Well now he’s a plumber. Doing his own plumbing
and he seems, of course you have to realize he’s a midlife and
he couldn’t have adjusted that fast but, the whole dynamic
changed. You know, the anger that she had came out,
surfaced because, I don’t know. Little things like, like and it
was just that she never made an issue
DAVID
Right. So how is she surviving now because I mean, she’s not
very well equipped?
ANNA
She was doing psychic readings and then but that money was
going to put the kids, Nancy, through college.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
And you know it was perfect. And then she was gonna go into
this multi-level vitamin thing and I just flat out, you know,
I’m so revolted by those multi-level things.
DAVID
Right.
ANNA
Anyway…
DAVID
The pyramid scheme, right?
ANNA
Well, yeah. They all become like frenetic. Anyway… and the
way this perfect family, the daughter winds up with the eating
disorder, the son is in and out of jail, you know, over and
over. An addict. And, you know, it’s… and the funny thing
is that when she told me they were separated um, she said
don’t say anything because they didn’t want anyone to know.
Well, so here’s that mask again. They don’t want anybody to
know. Why?
DAVID
Might hurt his business. (laughs)
ANNA
But anyway, she was angry that it had been smoldering under
there for a long time.
DAVID
Uh huh.
ANNA
It really came out. Ooh.
DAVID
Yeah.
ANNA
The perfect family.
ANNA breaks into tears. DAVID holds her. Her sobs are
mixed with ...
Fucking perfect! Daddy, ... and my cousin,
why can’t we just be kind to each other?
You know?
DAVID
Yeah. I know.
ANNA
Kind.
Fade To Black
SCENE: 15 ( The Voices )
ANNA
So we were talking about the voices. How many different
voices are there?
DAVID
What? You mean the psychic voices? The creative voices?
Well, I mean now there’s the poetic voice, right? Cause I’ve
been concentrating the last year and a half on poetry.
ANNA
Yeah? But I mean, what are the voices saying?
DAVID
Well, I mean I’m using that term loosely.
ANNA
Oh. Because I’m not entirely. Like when I, if I get into my
frenetic, like abusive, self abusive, really running myself
down, there will be the inner child voice that’s like begging
me please, I don’t want to do this, please let me rest. That sort
of thing
DAVID
Uh huh.
ANNA
But then I, when I get like that, I tune out my angels’ voices.
DAVID
Oh.
ANNA
Why are you looking at me like that?
DAVID
(laughing)
Well because I knew you were gonna follow up like that.
ANNA
Like what?
DAVID
Defending your angels’ voices.
ANNA
Well, I’ll discuss it with you. There are very few people with
who I’ll discuss my voices.
SCENE: 16 3 Phone Calls
As soon as the first ring sounds Anna reaches to pick it up.
ANNA:
Yes honey.
----------------- END ----------------
Silent Scenes .....................
Sitting quietly arms around each other
exchanging looks, winks, smiles, fear, hesitancy
wave, reaching to each other, nodes, shaking heads
pointing finger, crying , laughing, waiving off
looking at pictures
While Anna is cooking David notices her attractiveness and
remembers the intimacy they shared, this is a fond memory,
tinged at the end with the knowledge of why it had to end.
© 2004 Glen River Publications ~ all rights reserved
|
|
