POLICEMAN: [looking beyond her, to the boyfriend] I don’t know what’s happening. I feel this way all the time. I don’t know what’s happening. I know that it is happening. There is no doubt that it is happening [breathes out heavily] Be nice to me please. The sun will not set tonight.
The policeman wipes his face repeatedly. He is irritated. And he directs some of the sand into the gun’s barrel. Then he lies down and hugs the girlfriend’s feet. He looks up, hugging her feet tight and squinting into the air.
GIRLFRIEND: You are a weak motherfucker [motions the sign of the cross in front of the policeman] There you go. You’re good now. You’re still one of the angels. You’re still a weak motherfucker. You can be forgiven for things by not remembering them. You silly willy.
She puts the rifle in the policeman’s mouth and pushes it in deep. The policeman gags. He blinks water out of his eyes and tries to say something. He tries to indicate that the gun is not loaded. But he gives up, and instead smiles and points. Drool falls out his smile. He makes a gun motion with his thumb and forefinger. The girlfriend shoots the policeman and he sleeps on a pile of his own maroon-colored slop. Burn marks rim his mouth and smoke leaves a hole in his head. But he is still himself. The smoke rises and the girlfriend gets on her hands and knees and inhales the smoke. She inhales the smoke from the shattered head and then returns to the house, stands next to her boyfriend. She puts her arm around his shoulder and blows the smoke in his face. They look out the window together. The clouds and sun on the projectors above again go black-lighted.
BOYFRIEND: [looking at the policeman] His shadow is the same shape as his body [tone suggesting obviousness] Except where the sun comes in through the head I mean.
The girlfriend undoes the bolt on the rifle and more spiders fall out. Then she pokes her boyfriend’s head with the hot rifletip.
GIRLFRIEND: You are a weak motherfucker.
The boyfriend laughs. The girlfriend laughs and puts the rifle over her shoulder. They hug, girlfriend facing the window, boyfriend other way. They both feel around on each other’s bodies and determine the thinness. They are gentle while they feel.
BOYFRIEND: [looking over girlfriend’s shoulder, at the dust] Everything is made-up.
GIRLFRIEND: [watching the policeman stand up, stare back] I agree.
It gets darker but the sun is still out.
BE NICE TO EVERYONE [VERSION 4]
A woman lets a man into her apartment. He sits at the table in her kitchen. On the table there’s a withered plant. The plant has areas of brown on its leaves.
MAN: [flicking some leaves off] Almost there.
The woman shuts and locks the door then comes into the kitchen.
WOMAN: What?
MAN: [folding his hands and looking up to her] Did you get your period yet?
They look at each other quietly. They forget every word that ever existed, even “forget.”
THE PEDOPHILE [AND HIS KINDNESS]
A small clearing in a forest preserve at the bottom of a slope. Standing in the clearing there’s a pedophile with his arm against a tree. The tree is filled with skeletons. A nest of them. The pedophile wears an old gray sweatsuit. His head is shaven in random patches and there are scabs all over his head and face, covered in dry dirt. He is looking up at the skeletons when a small boy comes tripping down the slope, into the clearing. The boy wears a winter coat, and carries a rake. He stands, breathing and watching his breath.
THE BOY: Hi [hands rake over] Here. Here you go [relieved, breathing heavily] I’ve been thinking about outerspace all day. I’m worried about it falling over the whole planet. I’m worried about it being very cold, not all warm and nice like my real blanket [breathes heavily]
The pedophile takes the rake without turning. With his other hand he reaches into his pocket and takes out a mask made from a garbagebag, puts it over his head.
THE PEDOPHILE: [still looking up] Every year this happens [steam from mask] When it stops, I think it is done. When it continues I remember it will never be done.
The boy looks up and breathes. Watches his breath. He licks sweat off his lip. The pedophile lifts the rake up into the bare branches of the tree and knocks down a skeleton. When the skeleton hits the ground, its skull powders on a rock and reveals a replica underneath — a replica made of blue glass. The pedophile holds the blue glass skull in his arms like a baby and looks at it.
THE PEDOPHILE: Every year, the same thing happens. They always come. I don’t think things will ever be different [breathes] I’m never going to die [then brightening] But, I mean, there’s nothing you can do right? They are going to come either way.
THE BOY: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m the one who will never die.
The boy runs back up the hill, out of the clearing. The pedophile sets the blue glass skull on the ground and breaks it with the rake.
THE PEDOPHILE: They are still with me.
[Next Day.]
The boy enters the clearing, another rake in hand. The pedophile stands by the tree, one hand on his chin and one hand on his hip. He takes the rake, knocks down another skeleton. The skeleton falls right by the boy’s feet.
THE PEDOPHILE: [taking the rake prongs down from the branches] I like when they break, it makes me feel intense pressure in my groin.
THE BOY: Sorta. It only broke — right there [pointing]
He wipes snot off his face with his hand. Then he kicks the skeleton and it collapses.
THE BOY: [laughing] Now it’s broken. Now it is definitely all broken.
He throws his hands into the air and screams and jumps and falls to the ground, laughing. He kicks and his boots thud against the ground, ground stiff with ice. The pedophile’s throat backs up with semen. And he tries to swallow it all before he chokes and cries, but he can’t. He stares, entranced by the thudding of the boots on the ground.
THE PEDOPHILE: [to himself] Maybe that’s what his skull would sound like, repeatedly pounded with the handle-end of the rake. I want to know [gags more] Over and over. It feels better each time.
The boy squirms, and the pedophile watches, putting his sleeve into his mouth to soak what’s spilling. His sleeve is already hard, and it horrifies him going into his mouth. The hard sleeve scratches the roof of his mouth and makes him gag violently.
THE PEDOPHILE: This feels horrible [coughs more semen] Everything is so terrible [he sees the boy squirming and laughing] You are the silliest person I know. And I like you.
Semen hangs from his mouth and hand. It hits the ground. His mouth is rimmed with it.
THE PEDOPHILE: I like you. I like you and I like when you are here. We have fun. I like each of your little legs. They are so small. They are little flutes. Can I play one? Can I try one?
He goes to tickle the boy as the boy gets up. The boy dodges him and laughs.
THE BOY: My legs are not flutes.
THE PEDOPHILE: Let me play one. I will make it sound nice. I can hold your leg and make it a flute and no one would know. I’ll play a song that makes you go blind.
The pedophile takes off his garbagebag mask and the muscles in his face loosen and his face sags over his eyes and mouth.
THE PEDOPHILE: Give me your little flute, you slut bitch. Give it to me. Why don’t you want to kiss me? I think you want to kiss me. Right? Do you want to kiss me? [drooling semen over shirt] Fucking little faggot. Kiss me. Right? Huh? Give me a kiss.
THE BOY: [looking up at the tree] You are not right.
He runs back up the hill. The pedophile looks at the tree, and the skeletons.
THE PEDOPHILE: [after long breath] If I don’t remove them, I will have no place to sleep. If I don’t remove them they will pile until they poke a hole in outerspace and subject the world to the bigger sun on the other side. The one that is too powerful. If I don’t remove them, I will never have privacy.