Shoppers
Shoppers
Two Plays
Denis Johnson
This volume is dedicated with immense gratitude to
SEAN SAN JOSE
Contents
Hellhound on My Trail
Shoppers Carried by Escalators into the Flames
About the Author
Other Books by Denis Johnson
Copyright
About the Publisher
HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL
A DRAMA IN THREE PARTS
Hellhound on My Trail was written for Campo Santo + Intersection and premiered at Intersection for the Arts (Deborah Cullinan, executive director) in San Francisco, California, on July 26, 2000. Produced by Campo Santo (James Faerron, Margo Hall, Sean San Jose, Luis Saguar, Michael Torres, Drew Yerys; Denis Johnson: playwright in residence)
Cast
MARIGOLD: Alexis Lezin
MRS. MAY: Anne Darragh
JACK TOAST: Michael Torres
KATE WENDELL: Delia MacDougall
CASS: Sean San Jose
SALAZAR: Brian Keith Russell
Original musical score by Marcus Shelby
Vocals by Scheherazade Stone
Designed by Jim Cave, Suzanne Castillo,
James Faerron, and Drew Yerys
Directed by Val Hendrickson
A workshop production of Hellhound on My Trail was staged in September-October 2001, by the Atlantic Theater Company (Neil Pepe, artistic director; Hillary Hinkel, managing director) in New York City.
Cast
MARIGOLD: Molly Powell
MRS. MAY: Jennifer Regan
KATE WENDELL: Sharon Scruggs
JACK TOAST: Kevin Hurley
CASS: Bill Dawes
SALAZAR: Jim Frangione
Directed by David Levine
1. An Exploration of the Colorado River
MARIGOLD: A woman in her late twenties
MRS. MAY: A woman in her late forties
Scene: An office in Houston
2. Head Rolling and Rolling
KATE WENDELL: A woman in her thirties
JACK TOAST: A man in his forties
Scene: A coffee shop in Houston
3. Hellhound on My Trail
CASS: A man just past thirty
SALAZAR: A man in his forties
Scene: A motel room fifty miles outside Houston
Sets and lighting should be simple and true-to-life; no music except as indicated.
1. An Exploration of the Colorado River
MRS. MAY’s office: At stage left a large desk and swivel chair, fronted by a comfortable chair for visitors. Across the space at right, a couch and a large chair separated by a low table. Looks like a cross between an office and a waiting room.
Upstage, a wall with venetian blinds over a window.
Morning outside.
Alone in the room, MARIGOLD CASSANDRA sits on the couch. Late twenties. Business suit.
She looks at magazines from a stack on the low table. Tosses one aside, and it slides off the table onto the floor. Crosses and uncrosses her legs, etc.
She opens her purse, rummages distractedly. Comes up with a bottle of pills. Pause. Unscrews the cap and downs one. Pause. Reaches in her mouth and takes it out. Pause. Puts it back in her mouth, clamped by her front teeth.
Hunts in her purse again. Finds a little airline liquor bottle and quickly unscrews its cap and washes down the pill with a swallow.
MARIGOLD: Oh. Jesus Christ.
Gets a breath spray from her purse and opens wide and hits her larynx. Finds some gum in her purse. Unwraps and chews it. Tosses the wrapper into the purse. Stares down into it.
Pause. She spits the gum into the purse.
She takes another pill, rapidly repeating the whole process, emptying the tiny jug and tossing it into the purse. And then more breath-spray. More gum. She sighs.
Pause.
The door opens a crack. A woman peeks in and smiles: MRS. MAY, late forties, in a black dress with white borders, the senior citizen look. She knocks tentatively and enters with a slightly hunched, apologetic air—leaves the door ajar behind her. She looks around, adjusts the blinds to make more light. Gathers magazines into stacks, picking up the one on the floor. She talks softly, as if in deference to people working in nearby offices.
MRS. MAY: Were you looking at this one?
MARIGOLD: No. Yes. But not now. (Pause.) I didn’t expect magazines! (Pause.) Is this a waiting room? Is there an inner office?
MRS. MAY: Oh, this is the inner office. I’ll take these old ones home…Unless you—?
MARIGOLD: No. Thanks.
MRS. MAY: This one’s recent. (Showing it.) How did they get that?
MARIGOLD: Horrible.
MRS. MAY: He was right in the fire. Snapping pictures…Look at that. It looks like Iwo Jima, doesn’t it, with the flag, only they’re being crushed.
Pause. MARIGOLD, looking, gasps in polite appreciation.
MRS. MAY: Carried by escalators into the flames…(Pause.) Did you see the news on TV when it, after they—
MARIGOLD: Horrible. Wasn’t it more than eighty—
MRS. MAY: They were laid out like shish kebab in the parking lot…And it was raining. And the steam was rising off the corpses in the rain.
MARIGOLD: I don’t remember that.
MRS. MAY: Don’t you?
MARIGOLD: Not—isn’t the sun—were these pictures taken that day? Because it seems sunny—
MRS. MAY:—it seems sunny—
MARIGOLD: It does.
MRS. MAY: I probably misremembered. Every time you turn on the TV. Don’t you agree, Ms. Cassandra? All the corpses blur together. (Pause.) I’m sorry—
MARIGOLD: No. I just got startled. My name—You knew. I didn’t think—Well, perhaps I should ask: Are you—(Pause. MRS. MAY is leaning close to her.) Do I—(MARIGOLD leans back.)—smell funny? I mean…For instance is my perfume all right?
MRS. MAY: Wow. You are nervous!
MARIGOLD: They flew me from Dallas.
MRS. MAY: It’s a hundred and one in Dallas. Already this morning!
MARIGOLD: That’s—I mean, I can believe it. It’s terrible there. Really hot. All the time. (Pause.) Was it a special news item? Or do you—you know, maybe you have some relatives—(MRS. MAY is fanning the air in front of her face.) Are you sure you don’t—if you whiff sort of—(MARIGOLD turns away, finds her breath mist.)
MRS. MAY (Standing, arranging things on the desk): Yes. (Pause.) It was a special news item. Hottest place in the USA. Hotter than Phoenix. Hotter than Yuma. Oh, they’ll catch up by noon. They’re in the desert and the temperature drops off when the sun goes down. But Dallas didn’t cool off at all last night…It’s down around ninety here in Houston.
Meanwhile, MARIGOLD inhales a puff of freshener, gets the device back in her purse, turns to find MRS. MAY seated comfortably behind the desk.
MARIGOLD: When do you think—
Pause.
MARIGOLD’s jaw drops.
Pause.
MARIGOLD: I feel like my plane crashed and I’m dead.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: I’m sorry…Were you about to ask—?
Pause.
MARIGOLD: I was about to ask when you thought you’d get here.
MRS. MAY: But I’m here.
Pause.
MARIGOLD: I know. How do you do, Mrs. May?
MRS. MAY gestures. MARIGOLD sits in the chair before the desk.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: I do smell liquor. Is it you?
MARIGOLD: No. Of course not.
Pause.
MARIGOLD: It’s probably just mouthwash.
Pause.
MARIGOLD opens her mouth to speak, changes her mind.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: Were you about to speak?
MARIGOLD: Yes.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: And…?
MARIGOLD: I thought better of it.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: Marigold?
MARIGOLD: Yes.
MRS. MAY: May I call you Marigold?
MARIGOLD: Certainly. I like my name. Please do.
MRS. MAY: Marigold…
Pause.
Would you like to begin by making a statement in your own words?
MARIGOLD: I’m sorry, no.
MRS. MAY: All right.
MARIGOLD: I’m happy to address any questions I can answer briefly. I’m completely new to this—procedure. I have no idea what the procedure is or even if this is, I mean actually, a procedure, something with a pre-set…I’ll tell you this much. I found myself on the merry-go-round where the gold ring grabs you. You just, we just, you sit around waiting for the shadow to fall on you…When I was a girl at home, we had—back in Ukiah—in California—I kept chickens. Every once in a while a hawk’ll get one. They come ramming out of the clouds full speed and knock a chicken’s head off. Dig out a few handfuls of breast and adios. I can’t see how a rambling monologue…Uh—beyond this admittedly extensive depiction of the situation…(Pause.) District Nine as the Chicken Coop of Doom…
Pause.
MRS. MAY: You’ve been with Agriculture for—five years?
MARIGOLD: And about seven months. Five years and seven months.
MRS. MAY: You’re currently Level Four. Have I got that right?
MARIGOLD: Right. Yes. Administrative and Field Coordinator, Second Class. Yes.
MRS. MAY: At the time of the Kernwood Farms investigation—that is, the second investigation, the one in which you took part—
MARIGOLD: I was Acting AFC, First Class. That was temporary. It was understood at the outset to be temporary.
MRS. MAY: All right. A general question. Happy with the work?
MARIGOLD: Uh. No. (Pause.) I mean, for the last couple of years I’ve just been waiting for this part to be over with.
MRS. MAY: And—more generally than that? Overall?
MARIGOLD: Yes. Very definitely. I travel, I meet new people…I’m always forced to confront new tasks…I’m always learning. I guess in some ways that’s because we make everything we do, you know—a little harder than it has to be.
MRS. MAY: So sometimes you’re disillusioned.
MARIGOLD: No, no. It’s just the nature of…In a bureaucracy—
MRS. MAY: You’re not disillusioned by the work. Only by its nature.
MARIGOLD: No, of course not, but I…But what do we do? We inspect food. I mean—haven’t human beings sort of—been inspecting whatever goes in their mouths since—you know—they couldn’t have invented the wheel if they couldn’t keep from killing themselves with stuff they ate…I mean in a way…we’re less developed than cave-dwellers…
MRS. MAY: Marigold.
MARIGOLD: Yes.
MRS. MAY: You’re being open with me, and I’d like to be the same.
MARIGOLD: Yes.
MRS. MAY: Well, all right. It’s this. My feelings are hurt.
MARIGOLD: Why—
MRS. MAY: Why are my feelings hurt?
MARIGOLD: Yes.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: Because I’m realizing you have no appreciation for the purity of what I do. (Pause.) I don’t inspect food. I have no interest in what you do. Or what the Department does. None whatsoever. Or in anything that goes on outside this room. Or ever will. Or ever has gone on. All I am I dedicate to what we’re doing now.
MARIGOLD: And—what is that?
MRS. MAY: I am interrogating you.
Pause. A really long one.
Everything I’ve done since we found ourselves together here a few minutes ago has been designed to further the process. The light is neither intense nor dim. It is neutral. Do you see? The chair is comfortable, but it doesn’t invite you to doze off. Nothing around you here is intended to intimidate…When I showed you the pictures in the newsmagazine I meant to posit a world which we have left and to which we don’t really wish to return, do we?—not now, not while we have this process all around us…A world of charred bodies. A history that is really entirely out of our control. Whereas here in the Department things are actually within our grasp: if we adopt procedures, carry them out, all of that. It seems so boring, doesn’t it? But it’s a universe actually under our control. An elaborate collaboration. Government really doesn’t govern anything, does it? But it can attempt to govern itself. It’s possible it may, from time to time, succeed. But. The attempt doesn’t consist of trying. We don’t profit by an attitude of trying.
A long pause.
You’re doing awfully well at remaining quiet.
Pause.
MARIGOLD: Thank you.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: At not volunteering information.
Pause.
MARIGOLD: Thank you.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: I want to suggest an attitude for us both to take, Ms. Cassandra. May I do that? Marigold?
MARIGOLD: Of course.
MRS. MAY: Let me read you a passage from a journal. Do you know who John Wesley Powell was?
MARIGOLD: No, I’m afraid not.
MRS. MAY: Mr. Powell was an explorer. His party were the first white people to navigate the Colorado River in the early nineteenth century. May I read you this paragraph from his journal?
Pause. MARIGOLD shrugs.
MRS. MAY (reading): “The canyon is much narrower than any we have seen. With difficulty we manage our boats. They spin about from side to side, and we know not where we are going, and find it impossible to keep them headed down the stream. At first, this causes us great alarm, but we soon find there is but little danger, and there is a general movement of progression down the river, to which this whirling is but an adjunct; and it is the merry mood of the river to dance through this deep dark gorge…”
Pause.
MARIGOLD: Well, all right. (Pause.) I’m guessing you want me to cooperate like a lost soul on a raft in a raging river. (Brighter:) That sort of reminds me—or more sort of surrender. But speaking of the Colorado—
MRS. MAY: What was the basic function—(MARIGOLD is silenced)—or the goal, as you understood it, of Team One?
Pause.
Did something remind you of something did you say?
MARIGOLD:…It was…No. Nothing. Sorry.
MRS. MAY: All right. I’ll repeat…What was the basic function, or the goal, as you understood it, of Team One?
MARIGOLD: I was happy when I got Team One.
MRS. MAY: That doesn’t answer my inquiry.
MARIGOLD: I was happy for reasons that turned out to be bad things. Team One sounded primary. Top Team. It was really only equal to any other, and we were all clear about that, but it felt more in the spotlight. “We’re number one.” And now it gets more of the heat.
MRS. MAY: Team One gets no heat whatsoever, Marigold. The chapter is closed…We’re here for a back-and-forth exchange. I’m only picking Team One as a starting point for this exchange…
And what was the mission of Team One?
MARIGOLD: Can I ask you something? Why do you want to know about Team One if you have no interest in what we do? As you say.
Pause.
MRS. MAY: Marigold…I’m asking the questions.
Pause.
MARIGOLD: We were in charge of the jam.
MRS. MAY: And ultimately the jam got not only the spotlight, but the cameras, didn’t it? And the notoriety.
MARIGOLD: Yes, ma’am, it did. The jam was not the place to be.
(Pause. MRS. MAY relaxes. A sense of shifting gears: we’re cruising now.)
MRS. MAY: Were you satisfied, inititially, with the plan as outlined?
MARIGOLD: Yes, I was. We were all very excited, all the teams, but particularly those of us on Team One, because we had the jam, and that made us one of the two link teams with the Food and Drug people. (Pause.) Nobody realized we didn’t actually have a plan. We had goals. We had procedures. We had the teams. But that didn’t add up to an actual step-by-step. (Pause.) And since Kernwood Farms grows all the food it cans except the fruit, our team was scrutinizing the part of their operation involving commerce with orchards, transport of fresh produce, all of that. The jam. And I had the top spot on the Jam Team.
MRS. MAY: Your team were you; Jones; Michaels; Delacorte; Tooey. That is, Michaels known as Michaels One.
MARIGOLD: Jones—
MRS. MAY: And Jones One.
MARIGOLD: Yes.
MRS. MAY: And Alan Tooey.
MARIGOLD: Here we go.
MRS. MAY (sympathetically): Didn’t you find yourself sometimes alone with any of your team, sometimes under extreme pressure as the investigation became nightmarish?
MARIGOLD: Yes. And I wish you’d get to the question I know you’re going to ask, so I can deny it ever happened.
MRS. MAY: Did you invite Alan Tooey to apply jam to your private places and lick it away?