CHARACTERS

Molly: 14 years old, plays an intense kind of pretend. Eddy’s sister. Sees self to exist as other things.
Eddy: Molly’s older brother. The rational eye of the storm. What others see him to be. Late 20s.
Vail: Eddy’s girlfriend and Molly’s friend. Needs to be seen to exist. Early 20s.
Georgia: Vail’s mother. Isn’t blind but doesn’t see.

SETTING

The J. Edgar Hoover interstate wraps around the edges of the Milburn strip mall in West Quincy, Illinois. Buildings on top of buildings squished and shoved into each other like a mismatched puzzle. Franchises poke out of windows of other franchises. There’s a McDonalds inside an Exxon station and a Dairy Queen inside the McDonalds.

The stage is a middsagittal slice of two houses bunk next to each other somewhere below the interstate and somewhere above the Mississippi river—plump with July.
Middsagittal like how you cut a chicken’s central nervous system. To see why the bugger didn’t make it. To see if you won’t.

Eddy and Molly’s house is on the left, crammed just below/beside Vail and Georgia’s house on the right.

A ladder connects the roofs like those leading up to the hatch of a coop.

PROLOGUE

Georgia in church, singing with the congregation.  Perhaps we hear the mumblings of the Mormon—deep and amplified.

Georgia is like a Dolly Parton, who has maybe done some jail time.

Molly watches her. 

GEORGIA :

I have good new to bring
And that is why I sing,
All my joys with you I will share
Well I'm gonna take a trip
On the old gospel ship
And go sailing through the air.

I'm gonna take a trip
On the old gospel ship;
I'm going far beyond the sky.
gonna shout and sing,
Until heavens ring,
As I'm bidding this world goodbye.

Oh I can scarcely wait,
I know I'll not be late.
For I'll spend all my time in prayer
And when my ship comes in,
I will leave this world of sin
And go sailing through the air.

Georgia stows the church’s song book in her jacket and makes to leave.

MOLLY:

Where are you going?

GEORGIA

Home.

Georgia exits.

MOLLY:

Should I come with you?

Molly, alone on the cluttered stage, in the thick of a house that isn’t hers and the precipitating condensation. 

Thunder booms, the way it does. 

Rain outside hitting shingles hitting rafters hitting asbestos in the ceiling. 

The sound of water rushing in, filling up the room. 

Molly plays as, and at the same time catalyses, the flood. 

MOLLY AS THE FLOOD:

When I come in as the flood, if I’m being the flood, it won’t know that water’s supposed to be separate, it won’t know the bath water is not meant to run into the water in the toilet or the water on the floor.

When the water comes out of in between the air,

if it did know it was supposed to be separate—

when it rushes in through doggy doors and open windows and holes in stained glass and the cracks in drywall and when it bulges under wallpaper drowning termites and flower patterns—

it would all hang suspended over the toilet bowl

and hover beside the sink

and bunk next to the corneas of your eyes because those have water in them too. 

But it doesn’t.

When the water comes in, it won’t know that bathroom water in the sink and the shower comes out clean. 

As soon as it leaves the spaces of supposed to be—

leaking out,

              splashing out,

                         flooding out,

to the tiles and the towels and onto toothbrushes—it loses its clean. 

Like blood squeezing out of gums squeezing out of teeth rotten and brown and on top of each other. 

Discharging out to the tiles and towels and onto toothbrushes.

Towels don’t know any better and suck up everything.  Can’t tell flood water isn’t the same as shower water, not the same as supposed to be but mixed with dirt-toilet-river-blood and floor water. 

Because flood water makes its home wherever it wants to be. 

When I come in as the flood, I’ll wash away everything with out seeing any of it separate. 

1

Drip

Water drips from the storm pipe into a metal bucket. 

Drip

Drip

The bucket tips over and spills out. 

Molly sits on Georgia’s roof next door throwing eggs from a 12 pack carton at a wall.

Vail enters.

VAIL:

Anything?                                                                                                                   

MOLLY:                   

Still eggs.

VAIL:

I told you that wasn’t going to work. 

This weather gives me hives.  There’s bumps all over my arms.  See?

Molly reaches for Vail’s arm but she’s already pulled it away.

VAIL:

Even my elbows itch.  I’m going inside. 

MOLLY:

Is my brother still asleep?

VAIL:

Probably.  Eddy was when I left. 

MOLLY:

Hold on, stay here a minute, Vail.  Just for a minute. 

VAIL:

Doing what?

MOLLY:

I’ve almost got one. 

Molly throws another egg. 

VAIL:                        

Let me see.    

Vail throws an egg at the wall.  Just yoke.  Smearing and sticky.

VAIL :

Still eggs.

MOLLY:

One of the eggs might have a chicken growing in it.

VAIL :

You ever think maybe then you shouldn’t throw them. 

MOLLY:       

Transformation takes a little force.

Egg.

Throws egg.

MOLLY:

Egg.

Throws egg.

MOLLY:

Chicken!

Throws egg. 

MOLLY:

Almost.

VAIL :

The Mormon must heat shock the eggs on his farm before he puts them in the cardboard boxes.

MOLLY:                   

Why would the Mormon do that?

VAIL :                        

So they don’t accidentally grow in the cartons in the cold isles of his Shop n’ Go.  Why else?

MOLLY:                   

And break open as chickens.

VAIL:

Right next to the 2%.

MOLLY:

Across from the cottage cheese.

VAIL :                        

Use their beaks to poke through the shell.

MOLLY:                   

And the sticky membrane before the shell.

Molly playfully pecks Vail. 

VAIL :                        

Hey, hey, hey.  I’m going inside.

MOLLY:

No!

VAIL :

Yeah. It’s supposed to rain.  Look at the sky, Molly, it doesn’t look sticky pissed to you?  My mom says she overheard the Mormon in the Shop n’ Go talking about maybe another flood.  Recommending they stock up on supplies and come to his sermons.

MOLLY:                   

Georgia doesn’t believe him. 

VAIL :

She goes to his church.

She thinks she’s doing a good job of pretending she’s paying attention. 

MOLLY:

It’s not going to flood yet. 

All the saliva from my mouth has dried up, I’m talking through straw. I’ll let you know if it rains.

VAIL :

It was already drizzling this morning. 

MOLLY:

I said I’d let you know if it’s going to flood.

Until then I just need one egg to turn into one chicken.  One chicken has one egg and so on, and I sell those eggs or raise those chickens.

VAIL:

So?

MOLLY:

So I sleep on the floor while you and my brother Eddy sleep in the sleeping bag in the middle of what was supposed to be my house.  My toothbrush is in Georgia’s bathroom. 

If I can’t have a house, I want a farm.  

Molly throws an egg.

MOLLY:

Maybe I should go back to incubating the eggs in my pajamas.

VAILS:

Why don’t we just get you a chicken?

MOLLY:

That’s what I’ve been trying for.

VAIL:

No, no, what if we got you a live one?  If not from an egg, maybe we get one just directly from the source, maybe from the Mormon.

MOLLY:

A Mormon chicken?

VAIL:

A Mormon-farm-chicken. He stocks animals up two by two for the apocalypse.  My mom hops the fence on Sundays and jacks things when him and his wife are leading bible studies. 

MOLLY:

Your mom doesn’t steal. 

VAIL :

You’ve got her wrong, Molly.

Georgia ’s definitely doing something to pay the rest back for the accident…

It wouldn’t be that hard to just borrow a chicken. 

We’ll have fun with it.  It’ll be fun.

MOLLY:                   

Like when you used to baby-sit me.  Until you started spending more time watching my brother. 

VAIL :

Aw, you know I do that for free.

MOLLY:

Do you mean sex?

VAIL:

No, just, Eddy, guys sometimes, they can have a power over you, a power over you but that you want, that makes you want things, makes you want to do things.

MOLLY:

Ok, but no, because if this works out, neither of us will have to do anything else. 

VAIL:

I thought you had a savings, or something. 

MOLLY:

I lost that money on buying those hermit crabs that went and drowned.

VAIL:

I thought those hermit things caught the flu?

MOLLY:                   

Hermit Crabs. No, drowned. 

VAIL:                        

You don’t have to punish yourself, you know, there are people plenty ready to do it for you. 

MOLLY:                   

I held them underwater.  They drowned.

VAIL:

Oh.

MOLLY:

I wrapped them in saran wrap.  They smelled like the back of the Red Lobster.  Eddy thought they were leftovers. 

Vail throws another egg. 

VAIL :

Where would you keep this chicken?

MOLLY:

My house.

VAIL :

Eddy and your house or Georgia’s house?

MOLLY:                   

My house my house.  The same one you and Eddy sleep in!

VAIL:

Ok. Eddy just can’t find out.  He’d rat me out to his boss, the Mormon fucker. 

MOLLY:                   

We could make a coop for the chicken in the oven or the refrigerator—

VAIL :                        

Sure, put some of those heat-shocked eggs in there and chicken’d feel right at home. 

MOLLY:                   

Maybe some straw like the inside of my mouth. 

VAIL :                        

Or we could just keep it inside there.  Every time you speak it gets to stretch its wings.

MOLLY:                   

Kissing would spread birds like the flu. 

VAIL:

We’ll catch the chicken in Eddy’s sleeping bag.  I hate sleeping in that thing. 

MOLLY:

We only need one.  They’re self perpetuating cycles.  Chicken and eggs and eggs and then chicken. 

VAIL :

So you’ll be set.  Even with out having to pretend. 

MOLLY:                   

Let me get my duct tape.

2

Drip

Drip

Drip

Later that morning.

Eddy’s house. What Molly might still call Eddy and Molly’s house. 

Lights up a green and slippery silver sleeping bag.  It is surrounded by stacks of clothes and groceries: peaches in syrup, rolls of paper towels, boxes of Easy Mac.

Vail and EDDY lie in the sleeping bag making out. 

Vail kicks Eddy, he doesn’t react.

Kicks again.  Still nothing.

Molly enters and watches them from the periphery.

Vail kicks Eddy.  They don’t acknowledge Molly. 

VAIL :                        

Touch them.

MOLLY:                               

Eddy.

Kicks again.

VAIL :                        

Touch the bumps.    Eddy!

MOLLY:                                                          

Eddy, Eddy, Eddy!

EDDY:                       

What?

VAIL :                                    

On my arms.  The clear bumps.

MOLLY:                                                                               

Don’t do it, Eddy. 

EDDY:                                        

What?

MOLLY and VAIL:

Touch the bumps on her/my arms!

VAIL :                        

The bumps on top of bumps between bumps.  I know it sounds funny, but I can’t see them so you have to touch them, Eddy, so I know if they’re still there. 

EDDY:

If you’ve got a rash, just go to a doctor or something.

VAIL :

No, Eddy, it’s easy, just check, the sleeping bag is giving me bumps, they showed up this morning when Molly was trying to hatch chickens, and if the bumps are still there it means my arms are turning into bumps.  I need my arms, Eddy. Please. Eddy! 

EDDY:                       

What!                         

VAIL :                                  

Touch the bumps!   

EDDY:

I don’t see anything!                       

MOLLY:                   

I can see them. 

They don’t hear her.  Fuck them. 

Vail sits up.

VAIL :                        

Georgia says the Mormon says it’s going to flood. 

EDDY:                       

He’s just trying to scare people into coming to his church.  Believe me, I work for the guy every day. 

Come on, when you sit up in the sleeping bag all the light leaks in. Come on, come here, baby.   

Molly makes her presence know in the room, looking for the duct tape. 

EDDY:

What are you doing here?

MOLLY:

I need to find something.   

EDDY:

Now?

MOLLY:

When are we going to do the thing, Vail?

VAIL :

Later, ok?

EDDY:

We’re busy here.

MOLLY:

Later this morning?

EDDY:

Will you get the hell out of here?

MOLLY:

I need to find something.

EDDY:

Get the fuck out!

VAIL :

Molly, please.

MOLLY:

Why?

VAIL :

Like what I was saying earlier, remember?  I’ll explain later.

Molly exits, reluctantly.

EDDY:

What’s she looking for?

VAIL:

Forget it, baby. 

Eddy pulls Vail back into the silver and green monster pocket of the sleeping bag.

Vail, flirtatiously:

VAIL :                        

Stop it!

EDDY:                       

What?

VAIL :                        

It’s too close to me!   

EDDY:

Fine.              

VAIL :

You’re not, though. 

Eddy wraps in Vail—pulling the sleeping bag tighter around her. 

VAIL :

I mean it, I said stop it. 

EDDY:

It’s a sleeping bag!

VAIL :                        

I hate that thing.  

EDDY:                                        

Why, Vail, why?  Molly convince you you hate it too cuz I got rid of her bed?

We have sleeping bags now.  When we get the chance to get a queen, we will.  Until then there is nothing wrong with this sleeping bag.      

VAIL :

It’s not cuz of Molly.

It’s not real.

Why can’t we use your parents’ old bed?

EDDY:

What the fuck, not real?

VAIL :                        

Yeah, not real.           

Beds, beds are real. 

EDDY:                                        

Real, huh? 

VAIL :

Huh, what?

EDDY:                       

How do you explain you’re not going through the sleeping bag if it’s not real, is what ‘huh’?  How come you’re not just swimming right through it, like just passing it on by when you lie down on the bed like a trucker passing Quincy ‘huh.’ 

Eddy pushes Vail playfully, roughly, with the silver green sleeping bag.

Laughs like clucking cuz it doesn’t go through her.

VAIL :                        

Don’t touch my arms with that thing. 

EDDY:                       

You don’t see how things are. 

VAIL :                        

The silver feels fake.  The whole bag feels fake, but the silver feels like fake bag. 

EDDY:                       

I touched you with it, you felt it, you know why?  Because it’s here.  You understand?

VAIL :

No.

EDDY:

I just touched you with it!

VAIL :                        

Hot nights I wish for a beak, to break through.  Instead of suffocating.  Beakless. 

EDDY:                       

K, well you work on that, I’m going to do what people do, and we’ll just see if you’re the one ever getting out of here. 

VAIL :

Oh, you getting out of here, Eddy?  You leaving me?

Eddy doesn’t answer, puts on his boots. 

VAIL :

Not if I leave you first.

Vail gets ready to leave.

EDDY:

You’re not going anywhere. Without me to set you straight in the morning you don’t know who you are enough to find yourself a way to spend the day here let alone find yourself anywhere else. 

VAIL :

Geez, Eddy, you’d love a beak.  

EDDY:

Hell-yeah.

VAIL :

I see you with a beak.  But with vestigial wings.  No flying.  No escaping when you get caught.

EDDY:                       

You gonna come to the farm with me?    

VAIL :                                                                                                  

No.

EDDY:

You said you would this time! I already promised the Mormon you were gonna be there. 

VAIL :

I got other things got to get doing today.                       

Come here, couldn’t we just…?

EDDY:                       

I have to go to work. 

Beat.

Fine, get in, quick.

Eddy shakes out the sleeping bag.  Fake silver and green billows dust.

VAIL :

Eddy?                        

Just take it off, this time, ok?

EDDY:                                                           

Come on, Vail. 

VAIL :                        

Just this time.  I hate it when you just move my underwear over. The elastic burns.

EDDY:

Burns, huh?

VAIL :

It pinches.  See?  Like pincher bugs in the underwear.  That kind of pinches.  Burny pinches. 

Eddy pulls away.

VAIL :

Eddy?

EDDY:                       

Why aren’t you coming with me?  Don’t you care you’re making me look bad?

VAIL :

You’re the only one making darn sure you’re looking that way.

EDDY:                       

I told the Mormon and his wife you were gonna help out today.

I can’t set this down yet, Vail, my word means something. 

VAIL :

What did you say to him?

EDDY:

Did I not just say what I said to him?

VAIL :                        

Tell them I forgot.            

EDDY:                                                   

They’re not going to believe that. 

VAIL :

They don’t have to believe. 

EDDY:                       

Just have faith in you? 

VAIL :                                                   

No.  I don’t know. 

EDDY:                       

Then who?  In something else for you?  Believe in some higher power than you or me that you really are responsible and are going to start doing what you say you’re going to?  You really want them putting their trust in you into something else?  Start asking something else to be responsible for you and you invite it to watch everything you do.  You don’t want that.  The Mormon himself’d tell you.  You don’t want that. 

VAIL :

Don’t talk to me.

EDDY:

Oh, I can’t talk to you now? 

Eddy points at her face.  He’ll talk where at where he wants to talk. 

EDDY:

It’s one thing to watch saying what’s what to the Mormon, but you’re telling me I can’t talk to you now?

VAIL :

You’re speaking in butterflies.  I’m afraid they’ll fly into my eyes. 

EDDY:

Why can’t you just come, Vail, why not this time?

VAIL :                        

I’m not standing in the place where I was so can’t expect me to be the same as I was. 

EDDY:                       

What were you then?

VAIL :                        

Someone who said I was gonna go work with you at the farm!

EDDY:

You have to work somewhere.  You’ve got to pay rent now on that house since Georgia sold it to the Mormon. 

Pushing away the sleeping bag.

VAIL :                                                            

It’s too close to me!

EDDY:                       

Ok, yeah, fine.  It’s way over here.  See? I’ll figure out a bed if that’s what you want. Yeah?

VAIL :

Yeah.

EDDY:

Just spend some time with some other people today instead of Molly, will you? 

VAIL :                        

You don’t like your sister?

EDDY:

Of course I do.

VAIL :

Doesn’t sound like you do.

EDDY:

I like her and I like you, especially when you’re not spending all of your time with a 14 year old making up crazy theories about bumps on your arms.  Don’t be stupid. 

VAIL :

Oh, great, Eddy, now what was it you wanted me to do for you?  Just be real quiet amenable?  Cuz I’ve got such admiration here?

EDDY:

You just love Molly’s desperate attached, pretends she’s you and you lap it up cuz otherwise you forget who you are when you’re not seeing it.  Now, if you were to ask me, I’d be more than happy to remind you. 

VAIL :

I don’t lap.

Eddy you’ve got to give Molly a break about the pretending, don’t you think?  What else does she have?

Eddy shoves the sleeping bag at Vail.

EDDY:

No. Two of you is the last thing I need. 

VAIL :

You don’t know what you need. 

You know what you need, Eddy?  Eddy?  You need to touch my arms!

Eddy storms off.  Vail stays standing with the sleeping bag.