Boxheads
[Spotlight on Center. DREW walks on carrying a cardboard box (sized a little bigger than a human head), a serated knife, and a Sharpee marker).]
DREW: I learned that we—my three roommates and I—might get evicted from our apartment this week. [He sits down and starts to fold the box.] I’m not that worried. There’s lots of apartments in the city. Hell, there’s lots of apartments on our street. [He starts to draw ragged circles on the sides.] Maybe?—we could move next door.
DREW: The thing is, though, my parents—they just moved out of their house in Atlanta. That’s the house I’ve lived in from first grade to junior year—of college. Where did they move to? [He casually picks up the knife.] Cincinnati, Ohio. [He jabs the knife violently into the box, slowly cutting along the lines he’s drawn.]
DREW: So that means, by June, I will have evacuated two different homes in one year. The former because of an enticing executive job (with the promise of stability) for my father. The other because the priests who live above us—The Missionaries of the Precious Blood—don’t like the empty red plastic cups that our party guests leave out on our porch. And guess who’s more punctual with paying their rent: the Catholics or the English Majors?
DREW: I guess I didn’t lose a home to a hurricane or a tornado or a tsunami. I guess that’s cool.
DREW: When I was six, I made my own home out of a cardboard box. [He draws something on the far side of the box.] My very own home, customized just for me. [Drew flips it over. We see he’s drawn the “Batman” symbol.] It was the Batcave. See, this was the entrance [He shows it.] and you could get down there from the secret Batpoles [He draws the batpoles near the entrance.] It had windows you could look out of. . . [He shows them.] And deep inside, you had an entire wall of supercomputer screens where Batman could monitor Gotham’s underworld.
DREW: [Patiently draws this inside the box. Obviously, the audience cannot see what he’s drawing. After a long wait:] There are 37 supercomputer screens in total. [He goes back to drawing. Finally he puts the box down on the floor.] And they’re secret.
DREW: Whenever I needed a home away from home, I just went to my Batcave. [He crouches on the ground and sticks his head inside the box. He speaks from the inside.] I could achieve the complete and utter tranquility that only Bruce Wayne could know. [He takes a deep breath and lets it out inside the box.]
DREW: [Sitting up, with the box covering his head] I lost my original Batcave. Now I have this one. [Pauses] You know, I thought it might be nice if everyone had a Batcave like mine. That way, you could never lose the home you started in. You can’t get evicted from the Batcave. The goddamn Batcave is not under the Vatican’s jurisdiction. [ENSEMBLE walks in, all with their heads swallowed by boxes like his. They all have different superhero insignias scrawled on them. Drew starts to speak excitedly.] Yeah! Think of what comfort you would feel, never having to worry about moving parents or uptight priests or asshole hurricanes. [Ensemble forms a circle around Drew.] I mean, you’d have those things, but you would ALWAYS have a home, you’d always have—THIS!
[He takes off his box and smiles, until he notices all the other Boxheads standing around him. His smile dissolves.]
DREW: We’d all be better off.
[Black.]
[Spotlight on Center. DREW walks on carrying a cardboard box (sized a little bigger than a human head), a serated knife, and a Sharpee marker).]
DREW: I learned that we—my three roommates and I—might get evicted from our apartment this week. [He sits down and starts to fold the box.] I’m not that worried. There’s lots of apartments in the city. Hell, there’s lots of apartments on our street. [He starts to draw ragged circles on the sides.] Maybe?—we could move next door.
DREW: The thing is, though, my parents—they just moved out of their house in Atlanta. That’s the house I’ve lived in from first grade to junior year—of college. Where did they move to? [He casually picks up the knife.] Cincinnati, Ohio. [He jabs the knife violently into the box, slowly cutting along the lines he’s drawn.]
DREW: So that means, by June, I will have evacuated two different homes in one year. The former because of an enticing executive job (with the promise of stability) for my father. The other because the priests who live above us—The Missionaries of the Precious Blood—don’t like the empty red plastic cups that our party guests leave out on our porch. And guess who’s more punctual with paying their rent: the Catholics or the English Majors?
DREW: I guess I didn’t lose a home to a hurricane or a tornado or a tsunami. I guess that’s cool.
DREW: When I was six, I made my own home out of a cardboard box. [He draws something on the far side of the box.] My very own home, customized just for me. [Drew flips it over. We see he’s drawn the “Batman” symbol.] It was the Batcave. See, this was the entrance [He shows it.] and you could get down there from the secret Batpoles [He draws the batpoles near the entrance.] It had windows you could look out of. . . [He shows them.] And deep inside, you had an entire wall of supercomputer screens where Batman could monitor Gotham’s underworld.
DREW: [Patiently draws this inside the box. Obviously, the audience cannot see what he’s drawing. After a long wait:] There are 37 supercomputer screens in total. [He goes back to drawing. Finally he puts the box down on the floor.] And they’re secret.
DREW: Whenever I needed a home away from home, I just went to my Batcave. [He crouches on the ground and sticks his head inside the box. He speaks from the inside.] I could achieve the complete and utter tranquility that only Bruce Wayne could know. [He takes a deep breath and lets it out inside the box.]
DREW: [Sitting up, with the box covering his head] I lost my original Batcave. Now I have this one. [Pauses] You know, I thought it might be nice if everyone had a Batcave like mine. That way, you could never lose the home you started in. You can’t get evicted from the Batcave. The goddamn Batcave is not under the Vatican’s jurisdiction. [ENSEMBLE walks in, all with their heads swallowed by boxes like his. They all have different superhero insignias scrawled on them. Drew starts to speak excitedly.] Yeah! Think of what comfort you would feel, never having to worry about moving parents or uptight priests or asshole hurricanes. [Ensemble forms a circle around Drew.] I mean, you’d have those things, but you would ALWAYS have a home, you’d always have—THIS!
[He takes off his box and smiles, until he notices all the other Boxheads standing around him. His smile dissolves.]
DREW: We’d all be better off.
[Black.]
2 Comments:
Wait, you're getting evicted for real?
this is tragic, drew. and would be verging on emo if it wasn't brilliantly beautiful.
hehhehehe....blog....heheh
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