WOMAN Maybe if you just … shouted at me? A little? There are certain phrases I remember from my childhood, they were very upsetting to me. Maybe they’d be appropriate in this context as well.

DOLORES You want to be yelled at.

WOMAN Well, yes, I thought that perhaps—

DOLORES If you wanna be yelled at why don’t you just call your mother? People come here for hardcore shit. I’m a hardcore person. You don’t look like a hardcore person.

WOMAN I’m not, I’m not a hardcore person. But I was researching happiness on the internet, raw diets and Buddhist mantras—and it all seemed just … very … insincere.

DOLORES Insincere?

WOMAN Weak. Diluted. Redemption for beginners. I need advanced redemption. And then I saw your website. And it seemed like a very extreme solution, true, but I’m in a very extreme place right now.

(DOLORES looks ill.)

What’s wrong?

DOLORES throws up.

The WOMAN is nervous but she’s good at this kind of thing; she holds DOLORES’S hair back gently. DOLORES lets her briefly, then sits up, already better, and shoves her away.

WOMAN Did I say something?

DOLORES Don’t flatter yourself, it’s just food poisoning.

WOMAN What did you eat?

DOLORES Or allergies.

WOMAN Those are pretty intense allergies.

DOLORES I’m allergic to food poisoning.

(she straightens, already back to business)

You should go.

WOMAN Go?

DOLORES Reschedule.

WOMAN I didn’t mean to upset you.

DOLORES You look stupid in that mask.

The WOMAN takes off her mask. it is ELENA.

She leaves. DOLORES sits on the pool table. She rubs her stomach.

DOLORES

(to her stomach)

Fuck.

Scene Three

CONSTANTINOPLE Wow. Hello. I just, the weirdest thing just happened. I was walking and then my hands were wet. And then my head was wet. And then everything was wet! The—

(points up, to the sky)

Up there was wet. And the wet was falling, so down here was wet. It was—

(struggling)

Wow.

So that happened.

HardCORE.

(delighted)

Oh I learned that one too. It’s new. There were two

(gestures: male teenagers, chains and tattoos)

big. people. and they were all FuckYou

NoFuckYouMuhfucka and then they said: hardCORE.

(beat, tries the word)

Muhfucka.

(out to the audience)

Can you tell me what that means?

(beat)

Maybe later.

(beat)

My mother played me The Ramones. She played The Grateful Dead. She played me recordings of the collected calls of all the insects in the Northern Hemisphere, and parts of the Southern Hemisphere as well. She likes insects. She read me the dictionary. I learned a lot of words that way but not all of them. Some of them got stuck in her throat before they reached me. Sometimes she didn’t enunciate.

(listens)

She’s not crying today.