BATHOS
by Robert Healy
--
LARRY
Larry is a man who cries at night because he cannot sleep. He lives alone.
LENNY
Lenny works at a late-night coffee shop. He has begun to take note of LARRY's frequent visits.
--
Enter a cafe. Parisian. With wooden stools and a circle bar and soft piano tunes.
LENNY is working late. Chairs are up and most patrons have long since left the premises. LENNY wipes down
the bar and slings his towel over the shoulder of his black tee.
In the corner of the cafe LARRY sits, massaging his eyebrows and muttering.
LARRY
No... No, it can't be...
They've just been here yesterday. There's no sense in them coming back.
LENNY approaches.
LENNY
What are you dreaming about over here? Espressos?
LARRY
Sleep doesn't suit me. Sleep no longer suits me.
Have you see anyone come by and look in your windows? Hurried, like they're hoping to find something while being whipped. Then they are chased away, disappearing from my sills—leaving nothing but silence.
Have you seen anyone like that?
LENNY
As a matter of fact, that's exactly the way my old señorita used to search for me. You, well, it sounds like you're dealing with strangers.
LARRY
I'm dealing with strangers. I'm dealing with strangers. I can't quite keep it down enough for them to listen.
The lights flicker in the cafe and neither LENNY nor LARRY notices a face flit by the window. LENNY and LARRY are now completely alone.
LENNY
Well, it's about time for me to start heading home. Can't stay all night, you know.
LARRY
Do you ever feel as if you're the only person awake?
LENNY
I traveled to Marseille once. Took the train and toured the city and its traditions. Not once during the entire trip did I see someone else. I mean, not on the train or the town square or near any of the tallest buildings. I wonder about that trip and think it was a dream sometimes. I mean, I must have seen a conductor. Or a taxi driver or a concierge or somebody somewhere. I couldn't have been totally alone.
LARRY
It wasn't a dream, though, was it?
LENNY
No, it wasn't a dream.
LARRY
The soft drizzle of humanity makes me sick. This waste we settle in. Playing with time like a message in a bottle. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of eating from the trough. I'm sick of crying in my coffee.
LENNY pauses, then sits down.
LENNY
You sound tired. I'm tired. It's time for both of us to go home.
LARRY makes no move to leave.
LENNY (Continuing)
What do you wish to accomplish by being here? What does the night provide to you?
LARRY
The way the world feels now is a mystery to me. I seem to have a sensitivity to ghosts. They sit on my ceiling and stare at me. I seek solitude. The night offers me shade.
--
Outside now, LENNY and LARRY are strolling a cobblestone boulevard. It must be well past 1; the street is empty and filled with sleep.
LARRY
My mind is injured. It feels cluttered and vacant.
LENNY
It's fear. Fear haunts you. You must let loose. You must not be a victim of your own suspicions.
LARRY
When was the last time you spent time in silence? When was the last time you listened to John Cage? When was the last time you didn't run from something?
Do you only cry for yourself? (Do you think about hanging yourself?) (Do you think about curbstomping yourself, like in American History X?) (Are you a badmouth?)
LENNY
Have you ever taken the trolley? Have you ever looked at the fire hydrants? (Have you ever wondered about your existence?) Have you ever thought about your influences? Have you ever wished for better witnesses? Have you spent time whining instead of working? Does your wisdom vanish on the weekends?
LARRY
Weakness weeps of a humble beginning. Weakness wills the way with worry. These ghosts they gather at my fence post. These ghosts they growl and grumble and complain of poor hygiene. You don't even know what you like and you don't like, they say. You haven't even tried to pursue perfection. This is an eternity we're living in, they say, then they scream and cry and laugh at me, sneering and appearing in their opaque form, confirming some special creed between them and the devil. Strike through your dreams, they cry at me from the street. Join us in the desert. Find your way in one piece. Mind the gap.
They stand in the street and sit on my ceiling, they yawn and shift in their souls. I really can't take it anymore. I'm bound to believe them.
LENNY
There's just no way to deal with these problems alone. You must find a fellow sinner. These are divisive times, do not let them get the best of you. Breathe, please remember to breathe.
What are you doing with your free time? Do you have enough to care? Would you rather be known for your questions or your observations?
In my memory's reeds, I seek substance. I seek declaration. I seek belief. And there are times where sleep will slink away. These are occasions of great magnitude. These are occasions of great grace and opportunity. Seek your fear and find your edges. Where is your mind coming from?
The world has sunk you a fortune. Now dig for it. Now sit in the mud and sift for it.
Have you harmed yourself? Have you come to tears over it? Have you heard of shame? Do you use guilt to your advantage? Do you suffer as a result of sleeplessness? Do you wish to suffer as a result of sleeplessness? Where do you look for sadness? How far have you come? How far will you go?
You need sustinence. You need slumber. You must be open to sacrifice.
LARRY
I seek sacrifice, I seek sacrifice. The window is open and I'm not scared. I'm terrified of trepidation.
LENNY
Have you folded your clothes? Have you packed a change of underwear? Sinning takes a toll on the skin; I don't mean to proselytize.
As they walk along they come to a fork in the road.
LARRY
Would you look at that. Genuine silver. This must have been here since the war. This must have been left here by the dead. A gesture of kind feeling.
LENNY
What is this overchewing of your words? How many sunk costs are you holding?
These weeds are growing and it's your job to trim them. To rip them out by their roots. The dirty air you breathe is detrimental. You sit and rot and fester and fuzz in air like that. You reek of spoiled ruin. You slime and sip and swallow at your problems as if they're true. When was the last time you treated a problem as a solution? Be radical! Govern your own mind.
There is something we must speak of, and it is called sympathy. There is something smug about yourself. Something sort of gleeful about your afflictions. Do you adore your symptoms?
LARRY
All we are is evil. All we are is scum. I am dealing with the exact indifference one creates when faced with their own downfall. I would have so much more time if all of my dreams were dead. They are but pith on a clementine. Leaches to be removed.
LENNY
So you think you've finished? So you think you've found some other form to focus on? The worst thing about your life is that it's yours. Sculpt yourself into whatever you wish to be. You are born a block of marble.
LARRY
These are circumstances you don't understand. I'm not here for sadness, I'm not here for sympathy or your seething sanctimony. I want to know things! Like what does sleep smell like and where does zero begin.
LENNY
Do you want to know how you play with humans?
You ask them questions and sit very still.
LENNY and LARRY have now come face to face, standing in a park, along a path.
LENNY
What do you wish to accomplish in your dread? What do you hope for besides hopelessness? You lose your mind because you cannot sleep. You cannot sleep because you lose your mind. You are what you have created yourself to be. What do you do at dusk? Please, elaborate on your evening spoils.
LARRY
It's all just questions, life is all just questions. These are the pieces of our day and we pick from them.
I've been waiting for answers for so long I stopped asking questions. I've invited weakness into my home. I've been letting my ambitions get ahead of me. I've been letting my ambitions get the best of me.
I think in staccato. I think in a heave. How can I just be? How am I anything more than emptiness?
LENNY
Do you stare at pictures all day? Are you manic? Is your ego out of control? Do you have things to make yourself smile? Do you watch planes? Do you practice full range of motion? Have you relied on your tendons too long? Do you think with a bird's eye view? Are you counting chickens? Do you speak on one side of your face? Do you pray for your parents? Do you think of the past? Do you think of the past and cry? Do you think of the past and feel nothing? Do you walk with a rhythm? Do you have inertia? How do I know you? Do you look into empty windows?
LARRY
What worries me is whining. And being derivative.
LENNY
You've done enough of that to boot!
LENNY is upset at LARRY's apathetic opacity, and storms off. LARRY stands still.
LENNY
He treats me like a cat, like some stormed potion. He treats me like some soldier. Some ball and chain man. My pretenses have been impeded upon. I'm not worried about you at all. I'm not mired in your mystery. I'm a talking man, and I have no voice.
LENNY walks through an alley and down a corner. LARRY begins to follow. A bridge lays ahead of them, leading into a swamp.
LARRY
Why do you speak of me this way? Where are the chains upon your feet? Does talking teach you anything? Never mind your last statement, this is a new second, this is something to be proud of.
LENNY
I leak insignificance like a sore thumb.
LARRY
Do you teach yourself new things? Do you stretch? Do you wear sunscreen? Do you seek the opinion of others? Do you savor your sleep? Do you treat it with solicitousness? Tell me what's on your mind.
LENNY
I feel sick. I feel like a rat. I feel like a washed up son of a gun.
I see my existence. And all its malignant and evil convictions. I don't know why I choose to persist it.
LARRY
What's got you down? What do you see in yourself? Have you done well on your own? Does your fate disturb you? Are you urgent? Are you urgent?
LENNY
The walls of a city climb into my heart. What is with all these questions? I have no motivation. I have no drive. I want to die I want to die I want to die.
Where is the proper equation for happiness? The right balance for wellbeing? Life is alchemy and I have been useless. I'm looking gray in the elbows, I'm acting honest in my sin.
LARRY
You need to learn to let go. When was the last time you laughed? How many hundreds of hatreds have you harbored? Are you playing with form? How many prisons do you allow yourself to live within? Do you have revelations? Do you understand now why they are essential? These are times in which to try. A rain is coming. A rain to regulate us. Do you have your eye on it? Do you have a favorite eye? Do not take your bad ideas to bed with you. You must wait for them to leave. You must watch them close the door. Do you think without a hat on? Do you read Robert Henri? Do you measure what leaves your mouth? Have you eaten? Do you eat alone?
LENNY
I would eat with you.
By now the sun has begun to rise. LENNY and LARRY have walked through the entire city and return to the cafe, across from which lies another cafe. They go inside.
LENNY
I don't quite know what to say, I don't quite know what to say. You've given me shivers and still I feel dismayed. There's nothing for me to disagree with. There's no material worth musing over.
LARRY
No, no, no, stop it. You must stop it. You must stop this belief that all things will turn out terribly. Are you sojourned in selfishness? Have you stopped dreaming? Have you forgotten how to dream? Are you waiting for the right conditions? These are simple questions I ask, you could stick them in your pockets.
We're not so different, you and I. All you want is to seem serious. How manly you are to push through.
You do not exist without equals. All of these stars and the great beyond.
LENNY
No, you feign mediocraty. The world is a mockery. You make up your rules and you lose. Your mind is in shock, you see. One day you'll wake up and realize it's true. Your maze is the map you've made, and your tools are all shiny and loose. The world is a mystery, whether you believe it or not it's true. You must escape your ontology.
LARRY
What minor convictions you bear. What self-selective adjudication. (What whispers worry you?) I sit and laugh and I cry and cry and cry. I cry until my tears are dust and done and then I erupt. Into a ball of clay to be remade in the image of my choosing. Who will I choose to be today? Who will I choose to be in this specific moment?
A pause.
LENNY
Have you found time to play chess recently? Would you like to play a single game?
LENNY and LARRY sit down at a chess board and begin playing.
LENNY
This is my life and it's waning.
LARRY
No, no! That's the feeling of straining! That's the feeling of training. Of working around when it's raining. Your words are restraining. They're windows and mirrors in the basement. You must set them free they've been shaven, charted and chained and in cages. Your words are the way you portray them.
LENNY
Oh, we're so performative. I wish to part this pittance.
LARRY
You are the only person responsible for yourself and your inner being and you should take your job seriously. Are you asking for death because the idea has solved your problems previously, or because you simply want to relinquish the role you play in your own existence?
LENNY
I'm not asking for anything! Why do you take things so literally? Your word is the wind to me.
The chessboard has been cleared, who knows who won. I wasn't watching.
LENNY and LARRY step outside, the sun is gleaming now. Still the streets are silent.
LENNY
Blah, blah, blah. All I do is cry and whimper. If my life is sputtering I should stop spinning around. My world is in custody, and I speak with a muster of misbelief. Back and forth I go like a spineless child.
LARRY
Thinking in reverse will carry you much farther than thinking ahead. Don't you get it? Don't you understand? You don't want to die. You will have no feet. You will experience nothing and everything at the same time, in the sense that time is so ineffective at parsing information. You will have no ego to surface feelings, emotions, and thoughts, all of which are symbols the brain uses to mark its experiences. You may see people you know. You shall not speak. Not as a rule; you may feel an urge to converse but you shall not. A conversation introduces another individual perspective for your mind to understand, dissect, and apply to itself. All change requires sacrifice, and your brain is constantly at war over what it knows and what it doesn't. In truth, this problem is self-created. There is no such thing as this problem. You know all, as does everyone else. It is encoded in your DNA. It is mud covering your existence. Death has eliminated the problem of thought. You know all. And you know where that gets you.
They have traveled far again, this time to a cliff overlooking the sea. They stand, staring out at it.
LARRY
See, it's the labels and languages and lessons and lectures. They introduce subjectivity to your life. Instead of everything as an ecosystem, with ways of belonging and ways of understanding we have sequestered and segregated our thoughts. We have fenced them off and guarded them as our own. In truth, there is no such thing as an original thought or an unoriginal thought. Stop grappling with that. All thought has existed for all time, taking the shape of experiences and imprints on our mind.
And these tunnels we dig for ourselves. These tunnels and towers in which to die.
Hahaha. Our experience is amusing when seen from above. All these misguarded insecurities and obvious mistakes. Do you find mystery in unasked questions? If you cannot change yourself what can you change?
LENNY
Are you saying that whatever I'm not changing I'm choosing?
LARRY
I'm saying you at least have to try.
LENNY
They will treat me as a sick person. For conviction is contagious, and esoteric instinct halts the fatiguable from engaging.
LARRY
Ahh, the persuasive scent of an easy life—it draws us pleasantly, while the toil and ash and rust of change stings the back of our throats. Strip away, strip away. Reveal the reason behind your suppositions. Break apart the branches of your intuition. Examine the roots of your knowledge and realize your reading has been, at best, rudimentary.
Chekhov's gun is at play everyday. There are keys to be found. Sources of energy and understanding. Ask your dreams if they would be okay with their demise.
Enlightenment should not be the final stage of thought, after all. There is much work to be done in its aftermath. However, it is good to go through a period of enlightment every year on an individual level, and every 100 years on a societal level.
LENNY
So what you're saying is there's a cleanup? I should tie my teeth back and toss away my throes?
LARRY
I'm saying we are but people, wandering alone. It's okay to be ironic, playful, and paradoxical. You can use pastiche or parody to prod conventions and question the seriousness of past approaches. I'm saying you should strive for consciousness. You should be a gardener of your own mind.
LENNY and LARRY walk back through town, as the sun sets, not a stranger in sight. They arrive back at LENNY's cafe, and LENNY prepares to go back to work. He hangs on the doorway.
LENNY
Is the trick to become interested in silence and the sound it makes? Is the trick to become more than a technician? Is the trick to focus my efforts where I can make the most difference? Is the trick to do my Schulte tables? Do you need sight to see?
LARRY
Are you congruent? You are covered in calice. You must remove your gristle to grow. Do you grumble? Have you begun to investigate the source of your ambition? Where does pride protrude from your perspective? Do not take partake in empty dances. Seek depth. Believe that your principles will take you where you want to go. Believe in the stars and the sun and your soul. There's nothing pretensious about passion. There's no sense in gloating of talent. How do you encounter yourself in the mirror? Do you smile or shy away? These are just questions, they may gather like stones. These are just simple things to sit with, I wish you wouldn't resist them.
In the street, a stranger appears! A man, wandering in the waning rays of day.
MAN
Excuse me. I'm looking for coffee, or some other form of comfort. Might you have what I desire?
LENNY removes himself from the doorway and allows the man to enter. His black shirt is worn from walking to and fro. LENNY looks at LARRY, and nods as if to go.
LENNY
Back to work, back to work. Back to work I go. Dreams and thoughts have silver spoons and salaries will take their toll. While I waste away in silly homes I shall wish I had pursued wilderness.
MAN (Interjects)
Well? About that coffee?
LENNY
Yes. Your will be done.
LARRY departs, to return tonight. The sun departs, to return tomorrow.
THE END.