Scenes for Small Actors: Chapter 2

SCENE OUT OF CONTEXT: Elephant and Intern

A room where something important may happen, but rarely does.
A YOUNG WOMAN enters with trepidation.
An OLD WOMAN wearing a raincoat assaults her.

OLD WOMAN
I’ve met three Popes!

YOUNG WOMAN
(after some thought) Oh?

OLD WOMAN
And five Presidents! Three Popes and five Presidents!

YOUNG WOMAN
(stumbling) Uh, er, oh?

OLD WOMAN
Carter the Farter, Ronald Reagoonie, George Bullshit, Billy Blowjob and George W. Booger – and that’s just the Americans!

The Young Woman maintains a militaristic equilibrium while considering the circumstances.
The Old Woman loses interest in her own histrionics and hobbles to a Lifeguard’s chair in the corner. The chair has that "lived-in office cubicle" chic that is only achieved by someone who has long ago relinquished their belief that "this is only temporary".
The Old Woman climbs to her perch and settles in.

YOUNG WOMAN
My mother always told me that patience is a virtue.

OLD WOMAN
Is your mother a Commie?

YOUNG WOMAN
No. She’s a lawyer.

OLD WOMAN
Patience is no Mother Teresa Girl Scouting virtue!

YOUNG WOMAN
Three Popes?

OLD WOMAN
Not when you’re as old as me!

YOUNG WOMAN
What is that you have on?

OLD WOMAN
When you’re as old as me, patience is just a bad investment, like car insurance –

It is clear that this is not a dialogue, but rather two people speaking in the same room.

YOUNG WOMAN
Do old women wear tiny slickers?

OLD WOMAN
Patience doesn’t get you any closer to the cradle than it gets you to the grave –

YOUNG WOMAN
Is this right?

OLD WOMAN
I didn’t get this old to sit around with my thumb in my rear –

YOUNG WOMAN
This must be the wrong room.

OLD WOMAN
When you’re this old, the only virtuous thing to wait for is the movement of your bowels–

YOUNG WOMAN
Maybe I have the wrong day.

OLD WOMAN
But there’s no honor in waiting for someone else to wipe my ass! Not when you’re as old as I am –

YOUNG WOMAN
Why is she so old?

OLD WOMAN
Why, I’m so old…

YOUNG WOMAN
Why is she so old?

OLD WOMAN
Why, I’m so old…

YOUNG WOMAN
Why are you so old?!

OLD WOMAN
Why, I’m so –

She stops as if her tongue disappeared.
The Young Woman stares at the Old Woman.
The Old Woman stares ahead with blank mystification.


YOUNG WOMAN
Are you finished?

The Old Woman looks at the Young Woman as if she had four-hundred eyes.

YOUNG WOMAN
Thank you. I am sorry to interrupt you, but I need to know if I’m in the right place. Can you tell me, is this the Office of Secrets?

OLD WOMAN
I’m too old for this.

YOUNG WOMAN
Excuse me, it’s a simple question.

OLD WOMAN
I don’t have to tell you anything!

YOUNG WOMAN
Please, I am not here to interrogate you. Now answer my question.

OLD WOMAN
I am on my lunch break.

YOUNG WOMAN
Now, come on.

OLD WOMAN
Are you licensed? You’re not a doctor, are you? Are you some kind of crook?

YOUNG WOMAN
Please.

OLD WOMAN
Doctors have licenses and diplomas and certificates up on the walls. You got those?

YOUNG WOMAN
I have a diploma.

OLD WOMAN
I want to call my lawyer. Not a peep from this old bird, oh no, my little chicken, not until I have some representation. And a phone call. I get a phone call. There are liberties in this country! And morals! How do I know you’re not a crook out to scan an old woman? What are your credentials? Where is your diploma?

YOUNG WOMAN
Right there.

The Young Woman points into a void.

OLD WOMAN
Where is it from?

YOUNG WOMAN
Martha Washington High School.

OLD WOMAN
Martha Wash – (she is flabbergasted) Martha Washington? High School?

YOUNG WOMAN
Yes. Now, will you help me? I need you to just sit there and listen and blend in with the wallpaper.

OLD WOMAN
I am a bona fide artifact of American history. Who are you? You’re just some door-to-door Patience Peddler. You think you can come in here and usurp hundred of years of tradition with nothing to hold up the walls expect a diploma from Martha Washington High School.

YOUNG WOMAN
I have been to college.

OLD WOMAN
Where? Sarah Lawrence?

YOUNG WOMAN
No.

OLD WOMAN
Margaret Morrison?

YOUNG WOMAN
No.

OLD WOMAN
Mary Baldwin?

YOUNG WOMAN
Who?

OLD WOMAN
Charlotte Butterchurn?

YOUNG WOMAN
What?

OLD WOMAN
Tina Turner?

YOUNG WOMAN
No.

OLD WOMAN
Sister Sappho’s School for Lesbos?

YOUNG WOMAN
Enough!

She talks to someone specific, but no one in particular.

This is all wrong. I thought old people were calm and insightful and wise. Old women don’t say Lesbo. Besides, there were boys at my college. Lots of them. A surplus. Whole hallways, entire buildings just bursting with their early morning erections and their bad breath and their fraternal splendor. There were so many boys they could have called it the Supreme Court!

She is pretty worked up.
The Old Woman slowly starts to laugh, which only irritates the Young Woman.

YOUNG WOMAN
Now you’re just going to laugh at me? Look at you! You’re like a raisin in a raincoat! Why couldn’t you have been an old man?! Old men wear cardigans and nice hats. Old men are wise and tender. Sure some of them are perves, but they’re wise and tender perves.

There is a crescendo in the Old Woman’s laughter.

Old women are either mean or they are crazy. Clearly you are crazy.

The Old Woman stops laughing.

OLD WOMAN
You might be crazy too if you’d met three Popes.

YOUNG WOMAN
Well, I’m not religious, nor am I a psychologist. Now, listen to me…

OLD WOMAN
No, you listen to me!

YOUNG WOMAN
Is this a trick?

OLD WOMAN
Is this not a trick?

YOUNG WOMAN
Stop that.

OLD WOMAN
Make me.

YOUNG WOMAN
What’s wrong with you?

OLD WOMAN
I’m old!

YOUNG WOMAN
I know! Who are you?!

OLD WOMAN
I’m the Elephant! Who are you?!

YOUNG WOMAN
I’m the intern!

Blackout