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TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
by Timothy Braun
Note

Trigger Happy Jack is a work designed to be accessible, to be produced in alleyways and concert halls, subway cars and studios, church basements and barns. This play is to be stolen, ripped off, interpreted, and interrupted by whoever gets their hands on them.  This play is not precious. This play is amenable. Add or subtract from the text as you will.

With that in place, this script is a character driven, politically charged, domestic oriented pieces of avant-garde realism. It should be twisted, flipped, and shaken. The run time of the piece should fall some place between ten minutes and ninety. Productions should consider the use of shadow puppets, sock puppets, sock monkeys, fog machines, projection screens, laser lights, flashlights, wide screen televisions, and the use of live animals.

Some text was used from the following sources.

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) by Andy Warhol.
Tristamania, by Mary Ruefle.
Entertainment Weekly (issues #838, #839)
For Him Magazine (September, 2005)
Sporting News Pro Football 2005 Preview.
Words and Music, John Melloncamp’s Greatest Hits.

However, this play was designed for Selah Saterstrom and is intended to be a small homage to her novel, The Pink Institution, published by Coffee House Press. Her childhood home was destroyed by hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. This play was constructed the following month at the Edward F. Albee Foundation in Montauk, Long Island.



(Scene. The girl on a dirty road, walking in the gutter. Perhaps it is raining. Perhaps it is not. Before her and behind her is nothing, an equidistant nothing that reaches for the length of forever.)

                                    (It is one hundred and ten degrees.)

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
You guys only know what you know. Everything else is a surprise.

Lives of the Saints

Motherhood

Pet Rabbits

Vitamins

Pet Chickens

Dirty Boys

Barking Spiders

                                    THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
The girl moved away from her brother and her mother and her father in Old Chicago-town, to a city large-large-large in the sky with her pet rabbit in a cage and a bag full of vitamins. She got a garage apartment with a dirty boy whom liked the way she smelled. The dirty boy had pet chickens that pecked at the sky when it rained. One day she was sick with ick. After several weeks she went to the physician. She thought she had the flu, but was pregnant. The dirty boy whom liked the way she smelled asked the girl to be his wife, but only because he thought the girl’s father had money.

(It is one hundred and ten degrees.)

(Silence.)

(Mocking Laughter.)

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
Mocking is not right. Mocking is not right for Trigger Happy Jack.

(Silence.)

                                    THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
The girl got married to the dirty boy whom liked the way she smelled, by the justice of the peace in the large-large-large city in the sky, but it didn’t last. She never had the child and divorced the dirty boy whom liked the way she smelled. The dirty boy whom liked the way she smelled moved out of the garage apartment, and they never saw each other again.

            (The sound of a barking spider.)

                        It would have been a train wreck, if someone had bought a train.

Suicide Machines

Death Traps

Bracelets

Texas

Tennessee

Whistling

Spiderland

 

                                    THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
People don’t know what they know. The girl didn’t know what she knew. On the night the dirty boy whom liked the way she smelled left for good, a noise was heard in the kitchen. The girl investigated to discover muddy footprints on the walls and ceiling. Her toaster oven had been taken with four of her bracelets, but nothing else.  The foot prints belong to her ex-husband. To feel safer, the girl would sing to herself. These songs could only be heard in the ears of dogs. Dogs from Texas and Tennessee. The girl let spiders build nests in her garage apartment to protect her.

Hollywood

Wagon wheels

Motels

Chapel

Hitchhiker

Violent Man

Crazy Man

Jealous Man

Thursday

Afternoon Days

Night Swimming

(Silence.)

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK

Days and weeks and months and years crawled by in the large-large-large city in the sky. This city was not Hollywood, but thought it was. The girl grew older and older but she was never out of girlhood. She made money selling painted bottle caps and played the banjo on street corners and park benches. She ate by participating in wagon wheel hotdog eating contests. Eating contests she won. Eating contest where she would beat and out eat many-many men.

The

Girl

Could

Never

Remember

Why

She

Came

To

The

Large

Large

Large

City

In

The

Sky

(The sound of rain is heard.)

                                    THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
The girl met a clean boy at a rained out hot dog eating contest. She was hungry and the clean boy offered her a bight of his Milkyway bar. She took the clean boy by the hand and whispered in his ear…

                                                            THE GIRL
Why don’t you come back to my house?

(The sound of rain stops.)

                                    THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
The girl took the clean boy to her kitchen. She sat him down on the floor and threw a dining room chair into a closed window.

That

Is

What

You

Have

Done

To

My

Heart

                                                                                                (Silence.)

                                    THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
The clean boy cleaned the broken glass off the floor, laid down in the bathtub and went to sleep. The girl was alone in the kitchen and cried.

(It is one hundred and ten degrees.)

                                    THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
A neighbor told the clean boy this was the first window the girl had broken. The girl would never break another.

Dolls

Stampede

Corn Field

Wrong Man

Right Man

Chicken Man

Downtown Man

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK

The next day, the clean boy kissed the girl on the hand and thanked her for the bathtub. After the clean boy walked away, nurses say the girl was admitted to the E.R. four times in five months looking for suicide. When she thought of the clean boy, the girl felt like a doll.

(The sound of science can be heard.)

The

Girl

Could

Never

Remember

Why

She

Came

To

The

Large

Large

Large

City

In

The

Sky

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK

The girl caught wind her father died. He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger with his toe. Her mother crawled into bed after his death, with twelve bottles of white liquor and kissed the shotgun on the lips. Rumor has it, the father missed the girl.

(A crash is heard.)

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK

You guys only know what you know. Everything else is a surprise.

Her

Father’s

Name

Was

Trigger

Happy

Jack

He

Taught

Her

The

Banjo

Her

Mother

Taught

Her

How

To

Paint

Bottle

Caps

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK

This has never been spoken before.

                                                                                    (Silence.)

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK

The girl had a brother in Old Chicago-town. He was a hairdresser and enjoyed television. The girl had not seen her brother since relocating to the large-large-large city in the sky. The girl didn’t like her brother. He had a reputation for picking-up hitchhikers and flirting with them. He liked telling tasteless jokes badly to the girl over the telephone wires.

            How many Polish men does it take to screw in a light bulb?

                                                                                                            Three!

                                    Wait.

                                                            I told it wrong.

Why does it take three Polish men to screw in a light bulb?

                                                                                    ‘Cause they are so darn stupid!

(Laughter is heard.)

            Don’t you get it?

                                                They are so darn stupid!

                                                THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
The girl smiled softly and told her brother over the telephone wires that he was funny.

                                                THE GIRL
You’re funny.

                                                THE SOUNDOF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
The girl was not honest, but what could she do? Her brother would end each telephone call with…

                                                Hey

                                                                        I love you, girl.

THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK

And because of that, the girl always told her brother…

                                                THE GIRL
…you are funny…

                                                THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
…until the telephone calls stopped coming. Rumor has it, the brother died of “old age.”

Lights

Music

Liars

Lovers

Brothers

Jokes

Rain

                                                THE SOUND OF TRIGGER HAPPY JACK
The girl got older, but was always a girl. She never knew why she came to the large-large-large city in the sky. No one did. As her family died and lovers left, the girl never split the large-large-large city in the sky. Maybe it was the lights. Maybe it was the music. But she never knew.

                                                THE GIRL

…and

neither

will

you.

(Silence.)

                                    (The sound of laughter.)
           
            (The sound of science.)

                                                            (The sound of the large-large-large city in the sky.)

                                    (The sound of Old Chicago-town.)

                                                                        (It was one hundred and ten degrees.)

(The girl on a dirty road, walking in the gutter. Perhaps it is raining. Perhaps it is not. Before her and behind her is nothing, an equidistant nothing that reaches for the length of forever.)

                                                                                                            (Silence.)

                                                            THE END


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