Red Cross was first produced on January 20, 1966, at the Judson Poets’ Theatre with the following cast:
| CAROL: | Joyce Aaron | |
| JIM: | Lee Kissman | |
| MAID: | Florence Tarlow |
It was directed by Jacques Levy.
The bedroom of a cabin. There is a screen door up center leading out to a small porch. A window stage left and stage right. There are twin beds, one under each window with the heads facing upstage. The tops of trees can be seen through the screen door and each of the windows to give the effect of a second story. As the lights come up JIM is sitting on the bed to stage left facing CAROL, who is sitting on the other bed. Everything in the set plus costumes should be white.
CAROL: Look at it closely.
JIM: I am.
CAROL: You can’t see it, then?
JIM: Yes.
CAROL: Then it is bad. I can’t believe it. The tingling. It’s like a tingling thing under each eye. It goes into the nose, too.
JIM: Maybe it’s just sinus or something.
CAROL: No. I can see the results. If you can see something happening, then it couldn’t just be sinus. The whole face and ears and nose and eyes. And my hands. Feel my hands.
(She holds her hands out, JIM holds them.)
JIM: Hm.
(She pulls her hands back.)
CAROL: Feel them? What’s that, Jim. Something’s happening. My hands never sweat like that. And my feet. Hold my foot.
(She raises her foot, JIM holds it.)
Just feel it. The other one, too. Feel them both. What’s that? Under the eyes is what bothers me. It’s from wearing those glasses. I can tell. It’s from the glasses. My head aches so bad. I can’t believe my head.
JIM: Why?
CAROL: It hurts. It’s breaking open all the time. It crashes around inside.
(She gets up and starts pacing around the stage as JIM remains sitting on the stage-left bed.)
JIM: What’s the matter?
CAROL: It’s anything. Beer or water or too many cigarettes and it starts to break. One day it’ll break clear open and I’ll die, I’ll be dead then.
JIM: Take it easy.
CAROL: It’ll just burst and there I’ll be lying in the middle of the street or in a car or on a train. With a bursted head.
JIM: Somebody will take care of you.
CAROL: It might happen when I’m skiing or swimming.
JIM: There’s always lots of people around those places. They’ll see you and help.
CAROL: They’ll see my head.
(She crosses to the stage-right bed and stands on it facing JIM and begins to act out the rest as though she were skiing on a mountain slope.)
It’ll be in the snow somewhere. Somewhere skiing on a big white hill. In the Rockies. I’ll be at the top of this hill and everything will be all right. I’ll be breathing deep. In and out.
Big gusts of cold freezing air. My whole body will be warm and I won’t even feel the cold at all. I’ll be looking down and then I’ll start to coast. Very slowly. I’m a good skier. I started when I was five. I’ll be halfway down and then I’ll put on some steam. A little steam at first and then all the way into the egg position. The Europeans use it for speed. I picked it up when I was ten. I’ll start to accumulate more and more velocity. The snow will start to spray up around my ankles and across my face and hands. My fingers will get tighter around the grips and I’ll start to feel a little pull in each of my calves. Right along the tendon and in front, too. Everything will be working at once. All my balance and strength and breath. The whole works in one bunch. There’ll be pine trees going past me and other skiers going up the hill. They’ll stop and watch me go past. I’ll be going so fast everyone will stop and look. They’ll wonder if I’ll make it. I’ll do some jumps and twist my body with the speed. They’ll see my body twist, and my hair, and my eyes will water from the wind hitting them. My cheeks will start to sting and get all red. I’ll get further and further into the egg position with my arms tucked up. I’ll look down and see the valley and the cars and houses and people walking up and down. I’ll see all the cabins with smoke coming out the chimneys. Then it’ll come. It’ll start like a twitch in my left ear. Then I’ll start to feel a throb in the bridge of my nose. Then a thump in the base of my neck. Then a crash right through my skull. Then I’ll be down. Rolling! Yelling! All those people will see it. I’ll be rolling with my skis locked and my knees buckled under me and my arms thrashing through the snow. The skis will cut into both my legs and I’ll bleed all over. Big gushes of red all over the snow. My arms will be broken and dragging through the blood. I’ll smell cocoa and toast and marmalade coming out of the cabins. I’ll hear dogs barking and see people pointing at me. I’ll see the road and college kids wearing sweat shirts and ski boots. Then my head will blow up. The top will come right off. My hair will blow down the hill full of guts and blood. Some bluejay will try to eat it probably. My nose will come off and my whole face will peel away. Then it will snap. My whole head will snap off and roll down the hill and become a huge snowball and roll into the city and kill a million people. My body will stop at the bottom of the hill with just a bloody stump for a neck and both arms broken and both legs. Then there’ll be a long cold wind. A whistle, sort of. It’ll start to snow a little bit. A very soft easy snow. The squirrels might come down to see what happened. It’ll keep snowing very lightly like that for a long time until my whole body is covered over. All you’ll see is that little red splotch of blood and a whole blanket of white snow.
VOICE OFFSTAGE: Miss Littles! Miss Littles, are you ready!
CAROL: What?
JIM: You have to go.
CAROL: Oh. Yes.
(She crosses to the door, she opens the door and yells down.)
I’ll be right there!
(She crosses to JIM and kisses him on the forehead.)
You’ll meet me, right? Please?
JIM: Yes.
CAROL: I’ll see you then at six. (She kisses him again.) Six o’clock.
JIM: Right.
(She exits. JIM gets up and crosses to the door, he hums some kind of tune, he looks out, then goes back to the bed and sits, he scratches his legs, then he stands up and takes his pants off, he sits back down and starts scratching his legs, he starts picking little bugs out of his skin and then stepping on them, he gets up and starts doing pushups downstage center. A MAID appears on the porch through the screen door, holding two pillows, sheets, and bedspreads in her arms, she is rather fat and older than JIM, she watches JIM as he does his pushups, then she knocks on the door; JIM continues, she knocks again, then a third time very loudly.)
JIM: (Still doing pushups) Come in, come in, come in. Have a seat or something.
MAID: It’s the maid, dear.
JIM: (Without turning to look) Come in, come in and have a bed or a seat. Whatever you want.
MAID: (Still on the porch) I want to change the beds is all.
JIM: (He stops and turns to her, sitting on the floor.) Well come in. The beds are in here.
MAID: Thank you.
(She enters and sets the linen down on the stage-right bed, JIM sits on the floor looking at her.)
I always seem to catch you, don’t I?
JIM: Yep. You catch me every time. I think you plan it.
MAID: No.
JIM: I think you do. You like catching me.
MAID: It’s just the time of day. You’re the only one left this time of day.
JIM: Come on. Where do they go?
MAID: It’s true.
JIM: Where do they go? I’ve seen them around during the day. They hang around. They play tennis or something.
MAID: I just make the beds.
JIM: You know where they go. They go into town. Right?
(She starts to change the stage-left bed.)
Hey leave my bed alone!
(He stands.)
MAID: Well I have to change it, dear.
JIM: It’s got stains. I don’t want you to see the stains. I get embarrassed.
(He jumps on the stage-left bed facing the MAID.)
I do. It embarrasses me. I get pink and everything.
MAID: All right.
(She turns and starts making the other bed.)
I’ve seen yellow spots before, you know. It don’t bother me.
JIM: Well it bothers me. I get pink.
MAID: I’m sorry about that.
JIM: Do you know anything about crabs?
MAID: About what?
JIM: Crabs. Bugs that get in your pubic hair and eat your skin and suck your blood and make you itch.
MAID: Like nits or something?
JIM: What’s a nit?
MAID: Like lice.
JIM: Yeah. Except on a smaller scale. Almost microscopic. With legs and red heads. They twitch when you grab hold of them. I can show you one if you want to see it. Do you want to see one?
MAID: Not really.
JIM: Oh, come on.
MAID: All right.
(JIM sits on the edge of the bed and picks at his legs, the MAID sits on the other bed facing him, he gets hold of a small bug and hands it carefully to the MAID, who looks at it in the palm of her hand.)
They must be part of the lice family to get in your skin.
JIM: There. See it? They crawl around.
MAID: Mm. You got these all over?
MAID: Can’t you get some medicine?
(She hands the bug back to JIM.)
JIM: I don’t want it back.
MAID: Well I don’t want it.
JIM: Throw it on the floor.
(She throws it down, JIM steps on it.)
What kind of medicine?
MAID: Sheep dip or something.
JIM: Sheep dip!
(He stands on the bed again.)
Why sheep dip?
MAID: I’m sorry.
(She starts changing the bed again.)
JIM: Sheep dip is for woolly animals or dogs or something. Human lice are different from animal lice. The whole treatment is different.
MAID: Well that’s the only thing I can tell you.
JIM: Who uses sheep dip for crabs? That’s ridiculous. I mean that’s really stupid.
MAID: Well I don’t know, then. You’ll have to find something pretty soon, though.
JIM: Why?
MAID: Well if I had parasites eating off me and draining me of all my blood and reducing my physical strength twenty-four hours a day, making me weaker and weaker while they got stronger and stronger, I can tell you that I’d do something. I’d get it taken care of. That’s all I know. And I’m not smart.
JIM: You’d put sheep dip on them and kill your skin along with the crabs. Is that it?
MAID: I’d have enough sense to have my bed changed, knowing that crabs lay eggs inside the sheets and the blankets and that eggs hatch and that when eggs hatch new crabs are born. Baby crabs are born and baby crabs grow up like all crabs have to. And when they’re grown they lay new crabs and it goes on and on like that indefinitely for years.
JIM: I’m talking about the immediate possibilities of killing the live crabs that are already there. Not the ones that haven’t been born, maidy, maidy.
MAID: How ’bout a doctor?
JIM: Terrific.
(He jumps off the bed and crosses down center, doing arm exercises.)
I’m in the middle of the forest and you’re talking about a doctor. Thank you. A country doctor, I suppose.
MAID: Isn’t there someone to take you?
JIM: Not till six.
MAID: Can you wait?
JIM: I don’t know. They really get to me every once in a while. You know what I mean? They pinch so hard I think they’re going all the way through. They grab and squeeze. I think they must have teeth too. Along with the pincers I think they have teeth.
MAID: Can you wait till six?
JIM: (He crosses right.) It’s a long time to go on itching like this. To have any itchy skin, I mean. And they’re moving up, too. They’ve gotten to my navel and yesterday I found one in my armpit. Six is a long way off when this is happening to me.
(He crosses left.)
I can ignore them for periods of time. An hour at the longest if I’m preoccupied with something else. If I concentrate. They go away and then come back. It depends on the concentration.
(He stops doing the arm exercise.)
MAID: I could take you. I have a car.
JIM: I climbed a tree yesterday and it went away for a couple hours. I climbed all over the tree. Through the branches and clear up to the top. I sat up there for a couple hours smoking cigarettes. That did it for a while. Then I went swimming and that helped. Swimming always helps. Then I ran around the lake at a medium fast trot. I jogged all the way around. I got up a good sweat and I was breathing very hard and my heart was pounding. All the blood was going through me at once.
MAID: Have you had them for a long time?
JIM: I’ve had crabs for about ten years now and it gets worse every year. They breed very fast. It’s nice, though. It’s like having two bodies to feed.
MAID: Well I could take you. I have a car.
(JIM turns to her.)
Do you want to go now?
JIM: You drive in every day?
MAID: Well I don’t walk.
JIM: You drive from town all the way into the middle of the forest to change somebody else’s beds?
MAID: That’s right.
JIM: Aren’t there any beds in town?
MAID: I like the drive.
JIM: Me too. It’s nice. Calm. Smooth. Relaxing. Comfortable. Leisurely. Pleasurable. Enchanting. Delightful.
MAID: Yes.
JIM: Is there a doctor in town, did you say?
MAID: Well sure. I suppose. We could probably find one if you want to go.
JIM: There isn’t one out here, huh? I mean they don’t by any chance have a country doctor out in this neck of the woods. One a’ them country guys in a Model T Ford and beat-up leather bag full of sheep dip. Maybe even a veterinarian. I hear veterinarians can take as good care of you as a physician or a real doctor. Have you heard that?
MAID: Do you want to go into town or not?
JIM: Gee! I’d like the ride. I’d like that a lot. To ride in the car into town and get this taken care of. And then ride back. That’d be a lot of trips for you to take, though. A lot of extra hauls. Out and back and out and back. Coming and going.
MAID: I don’t mind.
JIM: I could give you some gas money.
MAID: Forget it.
JIM: I insist. I absolutely insist.
MAID: Look—
JIM: Hey! Hold it! Hold it! I have an idea.
MAID: What?
JIM: You’ll have to help me. Are you willing to help me?
MAID: I guess.
JIM: Okay. Come on.
(He starts pulling the stage-right bed down center.)
Push. Push it.
(The MAID starts pushing the head of the bed as JIM pulls.)
Come on, push. Push. Hup, hup.
MAID: What’s this for?
JIM: You’ll see. Come on. Get it down here. Hup, hup. Heave ho!
MAID: I have to go pretty soon, you know.
JIM: It won’t take long.
(They pull the bed downstage, then JIM crosses to the stage-left bed.)
Very good. Beautiful. Come on now. Help me with this. Come on. Hup, hup.
MAID: All right.
(They push the stage-left bed across stage into the former position of the other bed.)
What are you doing?
JIM: Rearranging. It’ll be much nicer. Much, much nicer. More better for everyone concerned. Hup, two. Hup, two.
MAID: I don’t know.
JIM: Heave ho!
(They get the bed into position, then JIM crosses down to the other bed.)
All right, maidy baby. The last lap. Come on. It’s almost done. Have faith.
(The MAID crosses down to the bed and helps him push it stage left.)
Heave, heave. Push, push. Put your back into it! A little more sweat there. Hup, two. ’At’s it! Beautiful! Muy bien! Qué bonita!
(He jumps on top of the stage-left bed, the MAID sits on the stage-right bed facing him.)
Este es demasiado!
(He jumps up and down on the bed.)
Que bella! Que bella! Muy bien!
MAID: Why did you do that?
JIM: (He stops jumping.) Now I have a clean bed, right? A changed bed. New, fresh, white, clean sheets imported from town. A downy, soft, airy pillow and a freshly washed bedspread. Guaranteed to be free of crabs and crab eggs and lice and ticks and nits. Guaranteed to smell sweet and pure. I have all this and you didn’t even have to change my old bed. Isn’t that nice? Now we don’t have to go to town at all. We can stay here and jump around.
MAID: Yes.
(She gets up and starts changing the stage-right bed.)
And I’m all worn out.
JIM: Now what are you doing! Leave that bed alone! Stop that!
MAID: It’s no longer yours, remember? We just switched. The one you’re standing on is yours. You can’t have both, you know. Make up your mind.
JIM: It doesn’t matter. Leave it alone! You’ll catch something!
MAID: You’re getting very selfish, aren’t you? You forget somebody else sleeps in this bed. Somebody else who might not like to catch crabs.
JIM: She doesn’t care!
(He flops down on the bed and lies on his stomach with his head toward the audience as the MAID continues to change the stage-right bed.)
MAID: I know she doesn’t.
JIM: Is this the last room you have?
MAID: Yep.
JIM: You save it for last?
MAID: No. I just make a point to come here last. I keep hoping one day I’ll come and you won’t be here. All I’ll have to do is come into this room and make the beds and go right back out. One day I’ll be able to do this room in no time at all and just go straight home. What a day that will be.
JIM: You go straight home from here?
MAID: That’s right.
JIM: You don’t hang around at all?
MAID: Nope.
JIM: You don’t hang around to climb a tree or run around the lake or nothing? You should come at night, maidy. You’d like it better at night. We could go swimming.
MAID: No thanks.
JIM: It’s really better at night. You’d be surprised the way it changes. All the different sounds and the air gets wetter. Sometimes it rains. That’s the best time for swimming. When it rains. That way you get completely wet. A constant wetness.
MAID: Don’t you catch cold?
JIM: No. Not a chance. Your body stays warm inside. It’s just the outside that gets wet. It’s really neat. I mean you can dive under water and hold your breath. You stay under for about five minutes. You stay down there and there’s nothing but water all around you. Nothing but marine life. You stay down as long as you can until your lungs start to ache. They feel like they’re going to burst open. Then just at the point where you can’t stand it anymore you force yourself to the top. You explode out of the water, gasping for air, and all this rain hits you in the face. You ought to try it.
MAID: I’m too fat for swimming.
JIM: What do you mean? You won’t sink. You just do the strokes, you know.
(He starts kicking his feet and stroking with his arms.)
You learn how to breathe and you kick and you stroke and there’s nothing to it.
(The MAID turns and looks at him.)
You know how, don’t you?
MAID: Not really. I can never put it all together. I mean I either stroke faster than I kick or vica-versa.
JIM: Watch me. It’s easy once you get started.
(He starts going through the motions as the MAID watches.)
The kicking is important. You have to keep your legs straight and kick from the waist. No bending the knees. And the arms too. Once the arm hits the water on the downsweep, you have to keep it straight. No bending the elbow.
MAID: (She tries to copy him, moving her arms in an arc.) Do you keep your elbow straight?
JIM: Well no. Just as it goes through the water. That’s the only time you have to worry. You can bend it as you take it back. Lie down over there and watch me.
(She lies down on the stage-right bed with her head toward the audience; she watches JIM as he demonstrates the Australian crawl.)
Now the coordination has to come from knowing how to synchronize the speed. The rate of speed that your feet are taking has to match that of your stroking speed. The reason you can’t put the two together is because you’re not concentrating on the whole mechanism. That is, you’re becoming more concerned with one end or the other rather than the collaboration of the two as a total unit.
MAID: I see.
JIM: Now start out slowly, keeping that in mind.
(She starts doing the crawl, JIM watches her for a while, then starts doing it himself.)
Keep it slow, trying to work on the points where you derive the most power. Think of the way an oar or a paddle is constructed. Regard your arms and legs as being paddles. A paddle has a broad surface and reaches its highest point of thrust when it is perpendicular to the surface line of the water. This is the way you should use your arms. Keep your fingers close together to make a broader surface. Be careful not to let any water pass between them. That’s it. Now the breathing is important. This requires added concentration and coordination. You will be able to breathe instinctively in the right manner if you keep in mind that the human being cannot inhale water.
MAID: (Still doing the stroke) Really?
JIM: Your head should pivot on your shoulders, always to the left. Inhale as your head comes out of the water and exhale as it goes into the water. Breathe in. Breathe out. In, out. In, out.
(They both breathe and continue the stroking.)
MAID: In, out. In, out.
JIM: One, two. One, two. That’s right. Remember the whole thing is working at once.
MAID: I’m getting tired.
JIM: It’s no sweat. Keep it up. You can’t poop out in the middle of a lake. Stroke! Stroke! Keep it moving. One, two. One, two. ’Atta girl.
MAID: It’s my back. There’s a pain in my back.
(She continues to swim, JIM goes faster.)
JIM: That’s good. It’s good when it hurts. It’s working then. Keep it up! We’ve almost got it. Hup, two! Hup, two!
MAID: It really aches, Jim.
JIM: That’s all right. We’re halfway already.
MAID: I’ll never make it! My back.
JIM: Use it all. Everything at once. Make it work. One, two. One, two.
(He is going very fast with perfect coordination.)
MAID: My leg! I’ve got a cramp, Jim!
(She continues very slowly.)
JIM: Hup, two! Hup, two! Shake it off. Use it! Keep using it so it doesn’t tighten. Keep it loose! Hup, two! Hup, two!
MAID: My side now! It’s in my side!
JIM: Move it! Work it out! Keep it up!
MAID: Oh my leg! I can’t. I can’t do it!
(She continues slowly.)
It’s killing me!
JIM: We’re almost there!
(The MAID screams in agony, she lies very still on the bed with her face in the blanket, JIM stops and looks at her, he sits on the edge of the bed.)
Did you drown, maidy?
(She remains very still.)
Did maidy drown in the middle of the lake? Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk.
MAID: I got a cramp.
JIM: A leg cramp and a side cramp. What a shame.
MAID: It’s not very funny.
JIM: I guess we can’t go then, right?
MAID: Go where?
JIM: Swimming. At night. Night swimming. Swimming in the dark in the middle of the forest. Like we wanted to do. Remember?
MAID: We could if you’d take it slower. If you wouldn’t rush. How can I learn all that in one sitting? In, out. In, out. Breathe! Breathe! You can make it! I’m not an advanced swimmer, you know. I’m not even an intermediate swimmer. I’m a beginner. I know nothing about swimming and suddenly I’m supposed to have everything under my belt. Just intuitively I’m supposed to. It’s pretty unfair, Jim.
JIM: I know.
MAID: If I get a cramp, I get a cramp. I can’t go plodding on like an Olympic champion or something. Jesus Christ.
JIM: I’m sorry.
MAID: It takes time to be a swimmer.
(She sits up on the bed, JIM remains where he is.)
I can’t just become a swimmer in one lesson like that. I mean what is that? There’s no water or anything and you expect me to swim! How can I swim on a bed! How can I do it!
JIM: I don’t know.
MAID: I don’t know either. I really don’t. I can see me in a lake. Can you imagine me in a lake in the middle of the night with nobody around? Me and you in the middle of the forest, in the middle of a lake. And there you are, fifty yards ahead of me yelling: “In, out! In, out! You can make it! You can make it! Keep it up!”
(She stands and crosses down center, limping and holding her side.)
And I’m sinking fifty yards behind you. That’s what I’d be doing, you know. Do you know that! I’d be sinking!
JIM: Yes.
MAID: Yes. The maid is slowly sinking. Gurgling, yelling, floundering for help. Sinking to the bottom of the lake on her first swimming lesson. Her first time out.
JIM: Well take it easy. It’s not my fault.
(The MAID limps more deliberately and holds her side in mock agony.)
MAID: The maid bobbing up and down, up and down with her hands slapping the water, her mouth gasping for air, her side screaming with pain.
JIM: I thought you’d swam before.
MAID: Wading is what I did before! Tiptoeing in shallow water with my sneakers on! Not in seventy-five feet of lake water with no one around. Stranded there at night with my family in town and me in the forest and you wandering around smoking cigarettes in a tree and not giving a damn at all!
(JIM stands and crosses to the MAID.)
JIM: Try to keep it moving. Work it out.
MAID: I can’t now. It’s cramped for good. I’ll never swim again.
JIM: I know but keep it going. Keep the blood moving.
MAID: It’ll never work. The pain is unbelievable.
JIM: Come on. Hup, two! Hup, two! You can make it.
MAID: Nobody able to eat at home because I’m drowning out here! Nobody knowing where I am. Everybody forgetting my name! And I’m getting worse all the time! I’m sinking more and more! With seaweed up my nose and tangled all around me and I can’t see a thing in the night!
(She sinks to her knees and starts crawling around the stage on all fours as JIM follows her.)
JIM: Will you please cut it out?
MAID: So you don’t like me screaming out here, is that it? You don’t like me getting carried away with my cramps and my pain in the middle of the night, in the middle of the forest. Well let me tell you it hurts me to do it. I don’t like screaming myself. I try to keep a calm house, an easy home with everyone quiet and happy. It’s not an easy thing, Jim. At my age, in my condition.
JIM: Get up off the floor.
MAID: I make the beds and cook the meals. Everyone gets fed on time at my house.
JIM: I don’t care. It’s six o’clock now!
MAID: So the screaming shouldn’t hurt you at all, knowing I don’t do it all the time. Knowing that I save it for special times when my side starts to ache and my legs collapse and the water gets into my nose.
JIM: We can get you a doctor but you have to get up.
(She collapses on the floor and stays very still with JIM standing over her.)
Come on. I’ll take you into town.
MAID: But once it’s over it isn’t bad at all. Once you get over the shock of having water all around and dragonflies and water lilies floating by and little silver fish flashing around you. Once that’s past and you get all used to your flippers and your fins and your new skin, then it comes very easy.
(She stands slowly with no concerns at all for her cramps and gathers together all the dirty laundry as she continues to talk.)
You move through the water like you were born in that very same place and never even knew what land was like. You dive and float and sometimes rest on the bank and maybe chew on some watercress. And the family in town forgets where you went and the swimming coach forgets who you are and you forget all about swimming lessons and just swim without knowing how and before you know it the winter has come and the lake has frozen and you sit on the bank staring at the ice. You don’t move at all. You just sit very still staring at the ice until you don’t feel a thing. Until your flippers freeze to the ground and your tail freezes to the grass and you stay like that for a very long time until summer comes around.
(She glances at JIM and then exits out the door with the linen; JIM stares after her for a second, then rushes toward the door.)
JIM: Hey! I could drive you home!
(He opens the door and looks out.)
Hey! Do you want a lift!
(He shuts the door, then turns downstage; he pauses, then rushes to his pants, he starts to put his pants on hurriedly, he gets them halfway on and CAROL enters, she is carrying a bag of groceries and wearing glasses, the door slams behind her, JIM looks at her for a second, then finishes putting on his pants, CAROL sets the groceries down on the stage-left bed.)
CAROL: Well. Guess what. A funny little thing. A very funny thing. I’m in the grocery store, see. I’m standing there looking for bread or something and guess what?
JIM: What?
CAROL: I start itching.
(She crosses down right; JIM stands center with his back to the audience, staring at the door.)
Not just a simple itch but a burn. A searing kind of thing. A biting, scratching thing that’s tearing at me, see.
(JIM crosses slowly upstage and stands looking out the screen door.)
Well I’m paralyzed. I don’t know what to do because it’s all up my legs and under my arms.
(She walks back and forth downstage.)
I can’t start scratching my private zones right in the middle of a grocery store. So I run to the bathroom. I make a beeline for the bathroom and I lock the door and I rip my clothes off. I literally tear them off my body. And I look. And do you know what it is? Bugs! Bugs all over me. Buried in my skin. Little tiny itty bitty bugs, clawing and biting at me. They’re all in my hair and everything. Sucking my blood, Jim! They’re actually in my skin. I’ve been carrying them around with me. And do you know what? I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re in this room. I picked them up from being in this room. I’ll bet they’re right inside here. In the beds even.
(She goes to the stage-right bed and rips off the bedspread and sheets.)
They’re breeding in these beds. I’ll bet you any amount of money. These cabins are so old and filthy. I bet they’ve been here for years without anybody checking. Bedbugs are no joke, Jim. I mean they suck your blood and everything.
(She goes to the other bed and tears it apart.)
I can’t stand it. Just thinking about it upsets me. We’ll have to get another room. That’s all there is to it. Either that or go back home. I really can’t take it. It’s awful. Jim!
(JIM turns to her slowly, there is a stream of blood running down his forehead.)
JIM: What?
CAROL: What happened?
JIM: When?
BLACKOUT