See
Jim Morrison's Room
A
play in two acts by Shayne Nelson
(c) B. Shayne Nelson 2004
The Players:
Stefano, an American with a New Jersey accent
Shayne, an American with a mid-Atlantic accent
Daniel, a short, broad Frenchman of 79
Dan, a big thin American with a New England accent
Denis: a very tall, lanky Frenchman of 45
Jean-Claude: A short stocky Swiss of about 60.
Marie: A beautiful French blonde of about 35
Barbara: a beatiful American brunette of about 30.
Diane: a beautiful American blonde of about 30.
Barry, Diane's husband: a fat American of about 35.
Ulysses: an epileptic 120-pound Male Dalmation
ACT
ONE
Scene 1
[The curtain goes up on the lobby of a
small hotel. STEFANO is behind the
desk, talking to SHAYNE, who is reclining on the sofa, along the left wall of
the office. There's a stopped
grandfather clock behind the desk. A winding stairway is visible through the
door of the office, on the right wall, and audience has a cut-out view of the
stairway so they can see who is going up and down the stairs at all times.
The walls of the hotel show photos of the
Eiffel tower at various stages of construction, a photo of the Statue of
Liberty (when in France) and pictures of cats, plus a sign in English informing
guests that check-out time is 10 but they can leave their bags in the office
while they visit
Paris.
A big bouquet of fresh flowers takes up
about a fourth of the small front desk.
There's a TV on the right wall, and an
open kitchen door.
During the play the director can send various people up and down
the stairs, to help lagging parts of the dialogue. People who can be seen in the stairway during the play, (or not, according to the production) are 3
or 4 groups of 2 or 3 girls or women in
jeans, with backpacks, one artistic-looking man in a beret, one woman of fifty,
very thin, with shocking red hair, one athletic Japanese man, briefly clad, one
long-haired man, tiny and decrepit, a single woman of forty, a tall man of about thirty who is always
smiling and who pulls his cap over his face whenever he passes the office, and
a man of sixty, dressed in a ratty suit and old coat.]
STEFANO
[Speaking
loudly. Stefano speaks very loudly
throughout the entire play.]
Every job I ever got I got by lying.
SHAYNE
Really? How interesting.
STEFANO
Well, I mean, everyone does it. Who tells the truth in their resume?
[a pause as TV
play silently, and three females walk up the stairs to upper floors]
SHAYNE
More
Charlie's Angels.
STEFANO
Here we go again!
SHAYNE
Twenty years ago, Stef, this hotel was full of couples
made up of one man and one woman. The
old days. And at night you could hear lots of orgasms. Some nights, especially nights of the full
moon, wow, this place was really a symphony of sighs and shouts, moans and
groans. That was a hotel! Lots of people in love --- making love. That was the way God intended the world to
be. What's happened to the world?
STEFANO
Those awful angels.
SHAYNE
Look at 'em.
Actually, you have to blame Goodbar.
Goodbar started it all.
STEFANO
Looking for
Mr. Goodbar. Wasn't that a
seventies film? Hey, who was in that?
SHAYNE
It's not WHO, it's WHAT. A murder. An awful
drawn-out murder. Ten endless sickening
minutes in hell. After my girlfriend witnessed that murder, she was never the
same. Towards men, I mean. Towards me! That film put American women off men, forever.
STEFANO
But a lot of
women didn't see it.
SHAYNE
Enough saw it
for it to invade the collective psyche of the American female. It terrified them. 'Take a man home for a good time and he'll probably murder
you.' That was the subconscious
deduction. It ended good relations
between the sexes forever. Who wrote
that thing? Judith what's her
name! She should be crucifed.
STEFANO
So women were
left with no-one to love. Except other women.
SHAYNE
Precisely.
Charlie's angels hits the screen the year after Goodbar. The solution. If you can't love men, love girls. It's a thinly-disguised call to Lesbianism.
STEFANO
Oh, for
Chrissakes! That show was watched by
ten-year-olds.
SHAYNE
Precisely. Who
now, fifteen years later, are twenty-five and crowding the rooms of this
hotel. In twos and threes they
come. Semi-nomadic, semi-lesbian
American female sponges. Now, for every
American woman who comes here with a man, there are ten who come with a woman.
STEFANO
Is that a double-entendre?
SHAYNE
Precisely. About the only time you hear a scream of
passion in the halls of this ancient establishment is when one female is
licking another on one of the floors.
STEFANO
Careful. Now
you're turning homophobic.
SHAYNE
Nonsense. I love all humanity. And that includes gays. I just can't deal
with these new creatures from the twilight zone, generated by Goodbar and the
Angels -- semi-lesbian pseudo-heterosexuals who get the boys to pay for all the
drinks, and then go sleep with the
girls. What's the world coming to?
STEFANO
It's not coming to, it's there.
[Thin man with
very long hair walks up stairs.]
There goes the
Degeuellasse again.
SHAYNE
Stef, how would you say degeuellasse in
English?
STEFANO
That's easy. Mr. Makes-you-want-to-barf.
SHAYNE
Stef. That's
not a nice thing to call someone. He's
from a very good family.
STEFANO
Fuckin' whacko!
I mean, he destroyed room 24.
SHAYNE
It needed it.
STEFANO
With paint, for God's sake!
SHAYNE
He's a painter.
STEFANO
When he's humming in the halls, it's bad enough, with
that weird smile. And on the street, it
echos off the buildings. I don't understand why they don't throw him out.
SHAYNE
Daniel has a vocation. Housing the madmen of Paris.
STEFANO
I'm not
crazy. You're not, well, not
exactly. Now Mitsumi, he's mad.
SHAYNE
Agreed.
Daniel
[popping up in kitchen door, beaming
madly]
Doctor in
mathematics, visiting professor at the University of Lille, giving a lecture to four hundred
mathematicians this December, back in Tokyo. Is that mad?
[Daniel
disappears.]
STEFANO
Chanting on the street in front of the door. Buddhist horseshit. On his knees. In his shorts!
SHAYNE
You sit on the stairs in your shorts, Stef. In those skimpy black rayon boxer
shorts? With some things visible that
should not be visible. Who are you to
talk?
STEFANO
I remember now why no-one in this hotel can stand you
sometimes. You remember things that
never happened.
SHAYNE
Mitsumi's Buddhist ablutions. Yikes. At five thirty a.m. it sounds like
he's barfing in the shower.
[SHAYNE imitates barfing sounds for a while.]
I had to move to the first floor.
STEFANO
Tell the Cretin.
SHAYNE
That's not a nice thing to call him, Stef.
STEFANO
Well, you used to call him that.
SHAYNE
It was your bad influence. I now have thought better
of it. And I'd appreciate it if you'd
stop calling my friend Mr. Lee, across the street, the Troll!
STEFANO
Tell me he doesn't look like one.
SHAYNE
That's no reason to keep reminding everyone all the
time.
STEFANO
And any guy of forty-five who watches cartoons half
the day is a cretin. You're
obviously losin' your sense of humor.
SHAYNE
It's this job-hunt.
You shouldn't have brought up the subject of resumes. I need a job.
STEFANO
What? You,
work? I've never seen you do a
lick! In all the years...
SHAYNE
Now and then,
I have to work like everyone else.
But now, there's nothin'.
STEFANO
No programming jobs?
SHAYNE
Just SAP jobs.
STEFANO
What's that?
SHAYNE
Who knows?
STEFANO
Lie. Be sure
to say you're an expert. Shayne, SAP
expert.
SHAYNE
Funny you should say that. I did that once, decades ago, for a job in another language I
didn't know, and got hired in about 24 hours.
And did well. The language was a
snap, and suddenly it was Easy Street.
Hmmm.
[Daniel pops up
in kitchen door ]
DANIEL
A generalized genius is an expert at everything.
[Daniel
disappears]
[pause]
SHAYNE
[pointing at TV]
There.
Look! There's the Angels. Look... grown women and they're holdin'
hands! And look, they're touching each
other all the time.
STEFANO
Now that you mention it, you never see them touching men, except to handcuff them
or pistol-whip them.
SHAYNE
Or terminate them.
Charlie's Angels shoot a lot of men every month, or hadn't you noticed? And look there, they're drinking martinis
while having a meeting with the boss.
At 2 pm! That's why these
American girls are always trying to get you to buy them drinks. It's in the script. A trio of them got Eric for eighty Euros the
other night. I tried to warn him.
STEFANO
They never put out.
SHAYNE
'Cuz it's not
in the script. Eric didn't even get a
handshake.
[pause]
Check out the wardrobe. See, there's always one of the three dressed as a woman, while
the other two wear men's clothes. They
take turns as the woman. The ones dressed as men walk funny, too. Like rodeo hands ramblin' along.
STEFANO
Hey, look at those two walking like drunken sailors.
SHAYNE
Like John Wayne.
Stef
That is weird.
Hey, you might be on to something big here, Shayne.
SHAYNE
This show is
Lesbianism 101.
DANIEL
[pops up]
My vocation is not sheltering madmen, it is
befriending geniuses. Mad or
brilliant? That is not a question we
ask here. Under this humble roof lives
and has lived more genius than in all the rest of the quarter combined.
end, scene one
Scene 2
SHAYNE
How's the play
coming?
DAN
I haven't done enough on It.
SHAYNE
I could write one myself. Just put down things that really happen, words that people really
say. All I'd need would be a tape
recorder.
DAN
Or a good memory.
SHAYNE
I've written
two or three plays about this hotel, but somehow they always get misplaced.
DAN
So write another one.
SHAYNE
It's the same problem. Who'd believe it?
DAN
So what?
SHAYNE
There's a bigger problem. No women. Look at this
place. Nothing but Charlie's angels in
combat boots. What kind of play would
that make?
DAN
Oh, there's women.
Ah, that Japanese beauty I fished out of room 9 last night. First I got a finger in, then two, then
three, then four, whippin' up a froth, as Henry Miller says. Gave great head, too.
SHAYNE
See, who'd believe it? And you can't put that in a
play, anyway.
DAN [wiggling
four fingers at SHAYNE]
Why not? It's
beautiful! That's life.
SHAYNE
That's your life. I haven't seen one in about two years... or is it three now?
DAN
I figured she was ripe.
SHAYNE
Dan, stop it.
DAN
I asked her if she wanted to come down to my room, and
she said, 'Give me five minutes.' She
showed up in just panties and a little see-through thing. Ymmm.
SHAYNE
Look. This is driving me nuts. I'm sixty-six. I prefer not to be reminded
what I'm not getting any more.
DAN
You're crazy to give up. Look around Paris. Nothing but women.
SHAYNE
For you, maybe.
I don't see any for ME.
DAN
You're nuts.
Go after that Egyptian woman in room 7...
SHAYNE
Leila.
DAN
She likes you.
Put your arm around her. Maybe
she needs an arm around her right now, how do you know?
SHAYNE
Yeah.
DAN
I read that book by Pauling. Amazing. I took twelve
thousand milligrams of vitamin C today.
SHAYNE
Isn't that a lot?
DAN
Naw. Look,
it's cheap. Pauling says that's why the
doctors are against it. I'm going to take fourteen thousand tomorrow.
SHAYNE
I'm sorry I recommended the book.
DAN
Smell that?
I'm eating dates now, lots.
SHAYNE
Dates are divine.
[SHAYNE opens
door and fans it to get new air into room.]
DAN
Dates and prunes.
Lots of prunes.
SHAYNE
I can believe it.
[end of scene
two]
Scene
III
[DENIS is
slouched on couch, as long and low as one can conceivably
slouch without actually being on the floor,
watching cartoons]
[Stefano rushes
into office.]
STEFANO
Oh, God.
Denis. He's done It.
[DENIS doesn't
respond]
STEFANO
I'm telling you, he's glued the window shut in the
second floor toilet.
DENIS
So what? It's winter.
[DENIS resumes watching TV]
STEFANO
It's the guy
in 17. That madman!
[DENIS ignores
STEFANO].
STEFANO
Listen, you can't even turn the handle. Super-glued it! Do you understand? He
superglued the whole frame and handle and everything.
[DENIS switches
to another cartoon channel ]
STEFANO
The whole floor is going to stink now, when anyone
takes a dump.
DENIS
What do I care?
I never go up there.
STEFANO
[very
excited]
You've got to do something! I can't live with the smell of shit coming under my door.
DENIS
[smiling, not
taking eyes off TV]
I'll tell you this, Stefano, if you break the glass in
that window you're going to have problems with ME.
STEF
I don't
believe this. This is incroyable!
[ Stefano exits
office, runs up stairs]
DENIS
[to SHAYNE, who
is in the armchair]
Did you hear that?
He's getting nuttier than ever.
SHAYNE
Do you suppose this hotel attracts madmen, or does
living here turn you into one?
DENIS
Well, which is it in your case?
SHAYNE
I may have grown wackier since I started living
here... yes, definitely. But then
that's probably just the snowball effect.
Shayne's fifth law of human behavior.
Character traits snowball.
If someone was drinking when you last saw him, he's probably drinking
more now. If he was nasty, he's
probably nastier now. Etcetera.
DENIS
And if someone was whacky...
SHAYNE
Precisely.
Whackier now. We all get worse...
or better.. depending on which way we were heading in the first place.
DENIS
A grim thought.
SHAYNE
It's the old greased slide.
DENIS
The path of the least resistance.
SHAYNE
Precisely. We
all take the path of least resistance.
DENIS
That explains a lot.
SHAYNE
That explains why the second floor smells like an open
diaper.
DENIS
Yes, it does.
[DENIS starts switching to another cartoon
channel].
[end of scene three]
Scene four
DAN
[Waving printed
script]
Well, this is
hilarious! Except, it wasn't just four fingers, old man.
SHAYNE
Stop!
DAN
I also had three fingers up her, you-know, and my
tongue on her you-know what. And then there was my thumb, just winking at
me, nothing to do. So...
SHAYNE
[interrupting]
Thanks. That will do. I should just keep a tape recorder running. But could
you put dialogue like that on the
stage? Who
wants to hear that stuff, anyway?
DAN
It's life, man.
Better than dope! Do you think
God gave us all these nice cocks and cunts so that we'd sit around and not use
them? And where's the harm if we do? And if I
can't talk about it in this incroyable
hotel, where can I?
SHAYNE
You can't just have a play made of unrelated scenes of
people acting irrationally or saying disgusting things. I mean, where's the plot?
DAN
Why, it's a nearly-impossible
success story. Just like the
movie Rocky. An old
washed-up bum gets a final chance at a title bout.
SHAYNE
What old bum?
DAN
You. I mean,
sure, you won a few fights in your programming career, might have even been the
champ, at one time, but now? Why, the
streets are crawling with young kids who can beat the crap out of you in the
programming ring.
SHAYNE
Not true.
DAN
Did you hear your answer? There's your plot. Old
champ won't give up. Decides to get
back into the Ring. Declares himself a
high priest of SAP, of which he is all but ignorant. There's drama for you. Enough to hold the audience riveted in their
seats.
SHAYNE
You think so?
DAN
Will this old fighter get the hundred euros an hour
contract and live like a king? Or
does he go on the refuse pile? It's a
gigantic bluff, after all. You're
pushing seventy, basically you've been too old to hire for twenty years now, and
you're going after the top-paying job in the IT industry? It's incroyable. Where, but in this unique establishment, would
such a mad scheme be hatched?
SHAYNE
I deserve top dollar.
I'm the best.
DAN
Wonderful lines.
This will be a feel-good movie, when it gets to the screen.
SHAYNE
Assuming I get
the job, in the end.
DAN
The audience will be able to relate perfectly to being
in a job interview where you are way WAY over
your head...
[Dan looks at
audience with a kind of 'sure, sure' look]
much easier
than relating to Hamlet deciding whether to kill his uncle. I mean, this is like everyman.
SHAYNE
Every time you have four people at a table these days,
at least one of them is out of a job.
DAN
That makes your venture even more heroic. Talk about Don Quixote!
SHAYNE
Or Rocky.
Don't forget Rocky.
DAN
Right. Write
on, Rocky. That's write with a
'w'. Show us you can still throw a
punch.
(end scene 4)
Scene 5
[DAN
enters hotel office, where DENIS is sitting
on the couch
watching cartoons.]
DAN
Holy cow!
[DAN holds
up sport coat coated with dried plaster.]
Hey, Denis. Look at this!
DENIS
So what?
DAN
This was hanging over my sink. It's my only sports
coat. The guy upstairs is pouring
cement through the ceiling.
DENIS
What do you expect me to do about It?
DAN
It's that guy in 17.
Through the holes around the pipes.
I mean, he's out of it.
DENIS
We know that.
So?
DAN
There's rocks on my
bed, and gravel on the
floor. And plaster all over the sink...
[DANIEL
appears in kitchen doorway]
DANIEL
I'll go up. I
wanna hear what this one's got to say.
[DANIEL
exits office and trots up the stairs ]
DAN
For god's sake, Denis. This guy.
Hey, I know you like eccentrics in this joint, but this one's too weird.
DENIS
Hey, he pays on time, which is more than some people
can say.
DAN
I'll pay on time, if you'll just throw him out.
DENIS
Oh, we haven't thrown out many folks in the forty
years we've been here, so I doubt we'll do so today.
DAN
You know, Shayne's
writing a play about this place.
This'll fit right in. With all the wierdos here, he's gonna have plenty
to write about. And then, if he starts in on the nuts you've given home to in the past.
DENIS
He'd have a hospital full to write about.
DAN
Including a serial killer.
DENIS
Just two victims, you can hardly call that
"serial."
DAN
Two is a series.. a short series.
DENIS
Wait a
minute... how can two be a series? Man,
you are...
[DENIS makes
circling motion at temple with finger.]
American
schools are zero! A series of two!
[DENIS cracks up laughing]
[DANIEL
returns to the office, still smiling ]
DANIEL
First he wouldn't open up, but I said any more of that
and I'll have the cops here putting you in a straight jacket in twenty minutes,
my lad. And after that, all the cold
showers you ever dreamed about.
[Daniel
acts out a fireman with a hose, gleefully hosing someone down]
So he
opened. Been mixing cement indeed, in
the bidet, and pouring it down the holes in the floor. Says the rats are coming in that way at
night.
[Daniel
breaks into wild laughter.]
DAN
Isn't it time you threw him out, Mr. Rault?
DANIEL
I'm disappointed in you, Mr. Gallagher. Where would he go? Who would take him, if we don't?
You tell me. And without tenants
like him, when would I ever get any exercise?
[DANIEL cackles]
[to DENIS]
Denis, I told
you four years ago about those holes.
And what have you done about it?
DENIS
Nothing.
DANIEL
What would I do without you, spoiled son?
DENIS
Nothing.
DANIEL
Quite true.
[Daniel
disappears.]
DAN
So I take it he's staying.
DENIS
You heard the old man.
DAN
It's unbelievable.
DENIS
No it's not.
Not at all unbelievable. This is
real. We are real. Our hotel is real. Maybe we are the last real hotel in the Quartier.
DAN
You win. How
about "barely believable."
Will that do?
DENIS
That's much better.
DAN
And who's going to pay to have my jacket cleaned?
DENIS
Go ask to the guy in
seventeen.
DAN
And if he won't open, tell him I'll have the cops put
him in a straight jacket?
DENIS
Yeah, very good idea.
Works every time. And don't
forget the cold showers. Now, may I watch my show in peace?
DAN
Do. Do just
that, Denis.
DENIS
Alright, I will.
Watch me.
[DENIS slips even closer to floor and stares
at screen.]
[end
scene 5]
Scene Six
STEFANO
These fuckin' cell phones! I've half a mind to give this one back to
Kathleen. Look. I don't WANT all these
features. Did I ask for a MUTE
menu? I don't want to mute
it. It's a telephone. It's supposed to ring. How can I hear it if I mute It?
DAN
In the cinema, I always mute mine. It vibrates, in my pocket.
STEFANO
What? Who's got time or money to go to the
cinema, for God's sake? Look. I just want one button, like, play back my
messages, and one, TALK. Look, this thing has one two three four five six seven
eight
[getting louder]
can you fucking believe it... nine ten...
buttons? You need a college degree to
use this phone.
DAN
They won't throw out the guy in seventeen.
STEFANO
What'd you expect? They're
chicken. They know he's wacky. The Cretin is afraid that if they throw him
out, he'll torch the place. So they let him stay.
DAN
Do you suppose he would?
STEFANO
He's capable of anything.
DAN
Hey, you're wrong about Denis, Stef. He's not chicken. He threw out that
Afro-American nitwit in 88. The one
with forearms like beer kegs. That took
real balls.
STEFANO
Well, then, he's lost his nerve. Say, Dan, could I borrow your hat?
DAN
What for?
STEFANO
That guy at the Pacifica book store, the
owner. The one who's nuts.
DAN
Yes?
STEFANO
I don't want him to recognize me.
DAN
Why not?
STEFANO
Look, I want to sell him some used books,
it's simple.
DAN
We're talking disguise here.
STEFANO
Yeah.
DAN
Come with me, I've got a ski-mask... or a
hat, or something. And you'll need some
different shades.
STEFANO
I'll bring them right back.
[end
of scene six]
Scene 7
SHAYNE
Well, I tried it. I put my arm around her.
DAN
Did she like it?
SHAYNE
Yeah, I guess.
DAN
Great, now maybe she'll let you feel her
breasts.
SHAYNE
Well, she did kind of press one of them up
against my ribs.
DAN
There, you see! Cocksman rides again.
It's all in your attitude. I'll
bet she's dying to suck your dick.
SHAYNE
Oh, for God's sake. I don't think so.
DAN
What happened to you, Shayne? I mean, you used to nail the damsels to the
bed, drilled them silly, shoved your rodney right up to their tonsils, and
thought you were doing them a big favor at the same time, right? What happened?
SHAYNE
Sixty-six.
DAN
I'm ashamed of you. I thought a mind as brilliant as yours would
never fall for that numbers game.
SHAYNE
So did I. But wait and see, when they write two sixes
next to your name, how you're going to feel.
DAN
But you know that has no bearing. Certainly you can screw as well as you ever
could. You don't
forget that.
SHAYNE
That doesn't even come up. You see a woman who attracts you and
immediately you hear this siren go off in your head singing, 'You're
sixty-six, who on earth would want to make love with someone that age?'
DAN
Henry Miller. Your friend. You told me yourself you saw him giving that
long, passionate kiss to an 18-year-old when he was what, 69?
SHAYNE
Unbelievable kiss,
alright. Well, that's
Henry. I'm me. I've gotten timid with
the fair sex. Then, I occasionally look
in the mirror. Once I had one body in a
million. Really. Now I look like a walrus.
DAN
A nice walrus.
SHAYNE
Who would want to get in bed with a
walrus?
DAN
That's easy. Another walrus. Anyway, that problem is easily solved. You
just have to buy them a few more drinks.
SHAYNE
After four martinis, a walrus might look
very appealing.
DAN
After six whiskies or one bottle of
champagne, anything with a dick looks appealing.
SHAYNE .
But drinks cost too much.
Can you believe the prices of drinks in Paris? Can
you really see me sitting in a smokey ear-splitting pub
buying whiskies for some airhead, hoping she'll get blind enough to find me
attractive?
DAN
Well, go up to rue
Saint Denis. There's some really fine
looking whores, some not so fine around, too, of course...
SHAYNE
Naw, I'm too stingy where that's concerned. I find them outrageously overpriced.
DAN
Well, just go up to
Saint Denis and ask one of the girls, 'How much if I like just lie down next
to you.'
SHAYNE
It's not a moral
stance.
DAN
You must have had some whores.
SHAYNE
But I was so young
then. In the ports, when you're a seaman,
whores aren't like taxis, it's more like rent-a-wife. They're just like the girl
next door. There's no meter running. You find a woman and she just stays
with you till your ship sails. If they had one of those up on rue Saint Denis, I'd be up
there in a heartbeat.
DAN
You never know if you
don't look.
SHAYNE
Yes, I guess
rent-a-wife is about the only solution for a senior ex-Don-Juan, but they cost
too much for a pensioneer to consider. Let us resume this conversation when I begin to make eight
hundred per day.
DAN
You realize, Shayne, this doubles the stakes.
SHAYNE
How's that?
DAN
If Rocky doesn't win,
I mean if you don't get one of these jobs, your sex life is never going to
resume. It's win by a TKO or
never see a piece of ass again.
SHAYNE
Major stakes.
DAN
If I were you, I'd start polishing up my
resume. Promote yourself to genius, or
whatever is above expert.
SHAYNE
Oh, the resume is
working. I'm getting calls and emails
from excited agents. As we speak, my CV is being scrutinized by firms in
Sweden, Britain, the US, France, Switzerland, and Italy. I've even got a
technical interview coming up.
DAN
And I'm up to 18 grams of vitamin C per day! Look at the sparkle in my eye!
SHAYNE
Remarkable.
But as I recall, Pauling suggests you start with 2000 milligrams, and
gradually work your way up... when your stool gets soft, that's your proper
dosage.
DAN
My stool ain't soft
yet. But now that you mention it, I
think I'll go have a great long shit right now.
// end scene seven
SCENE 8
STEFANO
Somebody passes the office, and
the Wretch is working, no-one wants to go in.
The room is wretched, the air is full of wretchedness... The wretch can
be seen slumped in a chair basking in the wretchedness of his existence.
SHAYNE
He doesn't look happy.
STEFANO
He's always sick. What a hypochondriac. You should write a chapter called 'The Wretch and the
Cretin.'
SHAYNE
What's the connection?
STEFANO
They're both in the same
office. And one's wretched, and what is
the adjective for cretin? Cretin-like?
SHAYNE
Stupid. But who would want a play populated by characters like
those two?
STEFANO
Call it black humor. Comic relief.
SHAYNE
Then I'd have to include the
Dwarf, too. But that, once again, Stef,
is too incroyable. No-one will believe
a gimpy dwarf as concierge.
STEFANO
A one-legged sadist, to be more
precise.
SHAYNE
Well, dwarf is an
exaggeration. He's big for a dwarf. And he has two legs.
STEFANO
Fine. A sadistic short wide man with one leg shorter than the other, then, okay? Anyway, he gets those poor young girls crying when they arrive to
check in. Soon as he sees a weak one,
he starts picking on her, raising his voice.
Come to Paris and get tongue-lashed by a small Swiss
sadist. Only at Hotel Incroyable.
.
SHAYNE
Turns the office into a
psychological torture chamber. I've seen it. It'd make an emotional scene on
stage, I guess.
STEF
If he was a good enough actor they'd
all storm the stage and try to strangle the little bastard, which is what crosses my mind
when he goes into that routine. In the
movie we could have Rocky beat him up. The audience would love that. And you could beat up the Cretin, too.
SHAYNE
Hey, who's writing this play?
STEFANO
The whole world is like this
hotel. Just as unbelievable. Everyone gets away with everything. No-one's running anything. Nothing gets
fixed. People pretend problems don't
exist, instead of getting off their cans and working on them. Of course you've got to put in some violence.
SHAYNE
I'm just writing down what I
hear. This play is a documentary on
life in a little Parisian hotel at the start of the Third Millenium.
STEFANO
No-one will believe that.
SHAYNE
That's the whole problem, right
there.
.
Scene 9
[SHAYNE walks into office for a moment.
Jean-Claude
is behind the desk.]
JC - (Jean-Claude)
Someone called for you at nine hundred fifteen but I didn't want to wake you.
SHAYNE
Good man, Jean-Claude.
JC
They'll call back, they said they
would.
SHAYNE
Tough. I have to have my
coffee.
JC
Of course.
SHAYNE
If they call, tell them coffee
comes first.
JC
Of course.
SHAYNE
Life is tough.
JC
Does it seem so to you? I think it's a miracle.
SHAYNE
What miracle?
JC
I think every morning when you
awaken, you should be so happy, because you are alive. And can get out of bed.
SHAYNE
When I awaken? Is this a joke, Jean-Claude? Some kind of dumb Swiss joke I'm suppose to
laugh at before ten a.m.?
JC
I mean, many people die in their
sleep, and will not live this day. But
you and I opened our eyes, we're alive another day, what good
news!
SHAYNE
I never saw it that way before,
Jean Claude.
JC
Obviously not.
// end scene nine
Scene
10
SHAYNE
I think we've got a
problem here.
STEFANO
What?
Just one?
SHAYNE
It's Dan. I mean, this play is having a bad effect on
him.
STEFANO
Get serious. He didn't wait for you to write a play
before he began acting screwy.
SHAYNE
Yes, but it's getting
worse. He reads about himself and
laughs and runs right out and acts even crazier so that I have to write him
back into the play. Yesterday I noticed
Daniel and Jean-Claude howling with laughter. I turned and there was Gallagher
on the stairs behind me, his things dangling there in the hallway above me.
STEFANO
Gross!
[Daniel pops into view in kitchen door]
DANIEL
Mr. Gallagher has no
more secrets from us.
[DANIEL cackles]
SHAYNE
What kind of theater
is that? A guest standing in the stairs
of a hotel, with his pants around his ankles.
DANIEL
Natural theater, I
believe it is called.
SHAYNE
It's disgusting. And he was like waving it around, rotating
his hips.
STEFANO
Sounds just like him.
SHAYNE
I mean, it's over the
edge. I can't use it. You can't put something like that on the stage.
DANIEL
No, not really. Too bad, eh ? No, wait, maybe if you used a huge artificial thing. Kind of farcical, huh? That might
work. It would bring down the house.
SHAYNE
It gets worse. Last night I hear this knock, I open, and
there he is at my door, with that huge schlong of his hanging out of his jeans.
STEFANO
Just saying hello.
Pretty shocking, I'd say.
SHAYNE
And rather sadistic,
too. I mean, rude! About six times as big as the average dick.
DANIEL
Now we understand why
the ladies go up to room six.
SHAYNE
Makes anyone with an
average organ feel totally disqualified. I told him it was very unfair of him to wave it around like that.
STEFANO
Giving everyone else
a complex. He's as bad as the rest.
SHAYNE
That's what's so
depressing. Until I started this play,
I thought of him as the hotel's normal person.
We needed one sane sort of normal person here so we could see clearly
how wacky all the others were.
STEFANO
What about me? I'm normal!
Don't group me in with the Wretch and the Deguellasse and the Cretin or the Buddhist. I'm not one of the hotel Wackos.
SHAYNE
Stefano, when did you
buy those sneakers?
STEFANO
Don't change the
subject.
SHAYNE
This is right on
subject. What year?
STEF
1985. We've been over this.
SHAYNE
They've got, what
would you estimate, forty holes in them?
And about twenty thousand miles on them?
STEFANO
They're
comfortable. How did we get from Dan to my shoes? Oh, I get it. These are evidence I'm not normal? You're losin' it, Shayne.
[shouts]
These are perfectly normal shoes!
SHAYNE
Actually about eighty
holes. Forty holes per foot. One can
see all ten of your toes. And they stink.
STEFANO
[Speaking even louder]
Holes in tennis shoes are normal! Everyone knows that.
[even louder]
Tennis shoes are
famous for stinking. I'm normal!
DANIEL
You heard it here first!
[DANIEL
disappears.]
SHAYNE
Why do you always
talk so loud, Stefano?
STEFANO
Everyone speaks loud.
SHAYNE
Really loud?
STEFANO
I have a strong
voice. What's wrong with that? I'm a man.
Where I come from, we speak up.
SHAYNE
And you can't speak
softer?
STEFANO
[louder]
Why the fuck should I
speak softer?
SHAYNE
Relax, Stefano. With Gallagher gone
over the edge, you're way out in front. I'll be happy to nominate you the most
normal inhabitant of the Hotel Incroyable.
STEFANO
And don't you forget
it! Don't go putting stuff in that play
implying anything else. So far that
play is good because it's real... everything you put in there is just like it
was said. Don't start inventing
things. Reality in this place is crazy enough.
// end of scene ten
Scene 11
DAN
Hey, jackpot! Wow!
SHAYNE
Come again?
DAN
I've got diarrhea.
SHAYNE
The vitamin C has
kicked in.
DAN
Man, I must have shit
six times today already. Haven't you
noticed how the hallway stinks around the first floor?
SHAYNE
Pay dirt, at
last.
DAN
Right. This is some experience. I normally never have the runs.
SHAYNE
Listen, I'm worried
about you. You're snowballing.
DAN
Yeah, isn't it
great? Did you smell that one?
SHAYNE
More dates?
DAN
And prunes.
SHAYNE
And vitamin C. I mean, you're getting wierder since I
started writing about you. I feel
responsible. How long before you're out
in the Gardens flashing the nursemaids?
DAN I've been giving it serious thought, how'd
you guess?
SHAYNE
It's no guess. You take such obvious glee in shocking people
with that fire hose of yours. It's just
a question of time. This play is
bringing out the worst in you. I really have to stop writing it... or at least
stop showing it to you. You're a
Dionysian character and it's snowballing.
DAN
Stop? That's your will to fail at work again,
Shayne. You can't stop now. This play
is going to be playing every college campus in the States in no time. It'll be a classic.
SHAYNE
I'm sorry, but I have
to write you out. It's for your own good. We can't have you ending in a French
prison. Anyway, this scatological stuff
hasn't worked since Aristophanes used it around four-forty BC. Rowers farting in the faces of those behind
them in the galley. Didn't make people
laugh then, why should it now?
DAN
It made them roar
then and it'll make everyone howl today.
What's funnier than a fart? Or a
you-know-what full of fingers? And
people love dicks... check out the statues in the Tuileries if you dispute
that. And if you're trying to write a
realistic portrait of this establishment, how dare you throw out the only
character who speaks out on the subject of shit? Some days the whole place stinks.
SHAYNE
Fortunately most of
us are too refined to bring it up in conversation.
DAN
Why? What's more real than the smell of a good
dump? And you've got to love a place
where before people move out of a room, they shit in the desk drawer.
SHAYNE
Really? Why?
DAN
It's a statement,
like that card you fill out at the Holiday Inn. How did you like our establishment? Look in the drawer. People know how to fill out the card, in this
hotel. With a good dump.
SHAYNE
Shut up, Dan.
DAN
Like the one I'm
about to take right now. I'll use the
first-floor john, that way they'll get the stench right in the office. It just has to roll down seven steps. Come down and get a whiff in about five
minutes. Soak up some Parisian reality.
SHAYNE
It's not going to get
you back in the play, Dan.
DAN
I'm not worried. You
can't write me out, I'm a key character.
// end scene 11
Scene
12
STEFANO
God, what a day
yesterday. I had all these important
calls I was supposed to get, but the phone was set wrong. All the calls went right to the answering
service, or whatever they call it, the thing never peeped! It ruined my day... I'm a wreck.
[Louder]
How can they sell a phone that doesn't ring
when someone is calling?
SHAYNE
I hate them. A cell phone company torpedoed
my German Visa card.
STEFANO
But still you're
going to get one.
SHAYNE
No choice. I wasted six weeks before I understood.
These SAP contracts are getting filled in a matter of hours. No portable, you're yesterday's news.
STEFANO
And still unemployed.
SHAYNE
Now, Stef, you know I
hate that word. Consultants are never unemployed. They are 'between contracts' when not
otherwise employed.
STEFANO
Have you got next
month's rent?
SHAYNE
Naturally.
STEFANO
And the month after
that?
SHAYNE
Stefano, what are
these black-foam-rubber things you've been putting on the locks in all the
rooms in the hotel?
STEFANO
Don't change the
subject.
SHAYNE
Did Daniel ask you to
do that?
STEFANO
They're Tongue-blockers. To keep the Degueullasse from sticking his
tongue in people's rooms.
SHAYNE
His tongue.
STEFANO
Don't be
technical. He was watching all the poor
guests through the keyholes until I put tongue-blockers in. And no-one even thanked ME.
SHAYNE
I thought you said that room 17 was our peeping Tom.
STEFANO
Oh, him, too, he's
just as bad, drilling little tiny holes in the doors of all the rooms.
SHAYNE
You put
tongue-blockers over those, too?
STEFANO
Wood-putty. There's new holes every other day. No-one thanks me for that, either. Now
answer my question about the rent.
SHAYNE
Yes, This month's
okay. But don't ask me about the month
after that.
STEFANO
Oh, by then you'll
have scored a knock-out, Rocky. Eight
hundred a day. And a free
computer.
SHAYNE
Of course. I haven't had a new portable in years.
STEFANO
You deserve it. You'll get it.
SHAYNE
You really think so?
STEFANO
Oh, yeah, we all have
great faith in you. You're a
genius. But if you don't win that
match, Rocky, suppose you never get the big fight, or you do and get licked,
what'll you do, have you thought of that?
SHAYNE
[with Rocky's lowerclass Phillie accent]
Oh, dat's easy,
Stef. What could dat udder Rockie have
done? Just go back to bein' a bum.
// end scene 12
Scene
13
STEFANO
The wretch sometimes
reminds me of the Bird Man. I mean, of
the pictures of him in that French animal magazine. Creepy!
SHAYNE
The American Saint of
the pigeons.
STEFANO
He used to catch them
in the Luxembourg and then bring them back to the hotel to nurse them. Put splints on their wings, for all I know
build them artificial legs, I wouldn't put anything past him. Driving around in
a pigeon-ambulance! Tell me this, what other hotel would let you set up a
pigeon hospital in your room?
SHAYNE
Where was his wife in
all this?
STEFANO
His wife? She was a quiet little thing from
Belgium. Stayed out of sight.
SHAYNE
Those little mousy
ones are the absolute worst. Nag you to
death.
STEFANO
I'll bet you're
right. And too much nagging, hey, shit happens. She was so little the cops checked the room and said it was a
false alarm. But he said, 'No, she's
in there, I rolled her up in the rug.'
[STEFANO breaks into enormous laughter.
Takes a while to calm down]
Ah, but all that was a while ago. It's been ten years since we had a murder.
SHAYNE
I suppose every hotel
has one, if it's as old as this place.
What, three hundred fifty years of couples coming through here? One murder sounds low.
STEFANO
Ah, but we had the
best. Only this hotel can produce such
an unbelievable murderer. Of course the
French police locked up the Birdman, but then they just turned him loose, and he promptly went back to the US and strangled his mother-in-law.
[Stefano breaks into endless
laughter.]
SHAYNE
What are you howling
about? Twin murders aren't exactly funny.
STEFANO
Not your average double
murder, no, but this one is a unique mystery.
Why on earth did the Frenchies let him walk? Did you ever hear of such a thing? A strangler?