Etiquette and Vitriol by Nicky Silver (classic fiction .txt) 📗

BEA: There are seven days in the week and only three of you.

SERGE (To Amanda): I like the way you smell.

AMANDA (To Serge): I can tell you have a big penis.

(Ford smiles at that.)

SERGE: Thank you.

BEA: That all right with you, Ford?

(Ford shrugs “sure.”.)

OTTO: WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

AMANDA: Aw, poor Otto.

OTTO: It’s all very fine for the three of you to realize you’re shallow to the point of convex, but where does that leave me in your polygamist equation?!

SERGE: Out in the cold.

AMANDA: Sorry.

BEA: Don’t binge.

OTTO: Where’s the justice?! Fuck justice, where’s the symmetry?! I HATE ALL OF YOU VERY MUCH!!—I don’t mean that—YES I DO MEAN IT!! I AM SO UNHAPPY! I HATE MY BODY! My skin is so stretched out of whack it’s all different textures! Everything shakes! I’m afraid to let people see my feet! I have the ugliest feet in the world! I have no nail on my pinkie toe! I’M A FREAK! I hate the smell of me! My teeth are rotting in my mouth! I have to put antiperspirant on ALL over my body because there’s no telling where some new fold of flesh is going to POP up spontaneously! I wish I could hope for a change, but at this point I consider it a triumph just getting through the day! I WILL NOT GO ON LIKE THIS! I CAN NOT GO ON LIKE THIS!!

(Otto inserts the gun into his mouth. There is a long moment during which the others put their hands over their ears and squint, awaiting the bang, terrified only of the noise. Then Bea steps forward and yanks the gun from Otto.)

BEA: MUST YA PUT EVERYTHING IN YOUR BIG FAT GREASY MOUTH!?

OTTO: Gimme the gun!

BEA (Pointing it at Otto): You’re outa control, Otto. I should never a’ let you get your own apartment. Look at yourself! Ya look like sumthin’ got loose from the Macy’s parade!

OTTO: Give me that—

BEA: LISTEN TO ME! From now on you don’t leave my sight!

OTTO: But—

BEA: Not for a minute! Startin’ tomorrow: sit-ups before breakfast! Push-ups before lunch! Five-mile walks twice a day and no more mayonnaise! Low-fat foods and Diet Coke!

OTTO: But—

BEA (Marching Otto to the door at gunpoint): MOVE! MOVE IT, YA TUB A’ GUTS! I’ll have ya looking like a HUMAN BEING in a year or two! We’ll wire your jaws shut! We’ll get ya to a gym. Ya need aerobics—Step aerobics! Jazzercize! We’ll get ya one of them “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” tapes! And a treadmill, and a stationary bike and a Nordic Track and a Soloflex and a ThighMaster! And no snacks! GREENS! GREENS AND COLONICS TWICE A WEEK! GREENS, COLONICS and for God’s sake—VERTICAL STRIPES! Everyone looks one hundred percent better in vertical stripes!

(Otto and Bea are gone. Amanda shuts the door. There is a pause.)

AMANDA (Disturbed): He should’ve killed himself.

SERGE: I would’ve.

FORD: Hmmm.

AMANDA: What time’s your appointment?

SERGE: Ten.

AMANDA (Rushes to the bedroom): That gives us twenty minutes. . . . Come on!

(She goes into the bedroom, followed by Serge. Ford sits and eats Otto’s groceries. We hear Serge and Amanda’s lovemaking at once.)

AMANDA (Offstage): Oh God.

SERGE (Offstage): Oh Christ.

AMANDA (Offstage): Oh God.

SERGE (Offstage): Oh Christ.

AMANDA (Offstage): Oh God!

SERGE (Offstage): Oh Christ!!

(There is a pause.)

SERGE (Offstage): Ford!!

AMANDA (Offstage): We’re waiting!

(There is a violent knocking at the front door.)

OTTO (Offstage): Serge! IF I SIT, QUIET IN THE CORNER . . . COULD YA LOVE ME!!?

(Blackout.)

END OF PLAY

ALTERNATE ENDING

This is the ending of the play as it was performed at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington D.C. The text is essentially the same to the point where Ford shrugs in acquiescence to Bea’s suggestion that he live with both Amanda and Serge. Otto’s reaction, you will see, is quite different.

OTTO: WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

AMANDA: Aw, poor Otto.

OTTO: It’s all very fine for the three of you to realize that you’re shallow to the point of convex, but where does that leave me in your polygamist equation?!

SERGE: Out in the cold.

AMANDA: Sorry.

BEA: Don’t binge.

OTTO: Oh, I don’t care! I just don’t care anymore! I’ve had it. I AM SO UNHAPPY!! I’ve always been unhappy! You say they’re lucky to feel something? Well, I’m not so sure. I feel plenty. I feel everything. And it feels pretty goddamn terrible!

BEA: Here he goes!

OTTO: Where’s the justice! Fuck justice! Where’s the symmetry?! . . . No one ever liked me. Mother, you carry pictures in your wallet of people you never met, instead of pictures of me! . . . When I was a child, I was in the sixth grade, I think, we had a dance at my school on the first day of May, a Sadie Hawkins dance. It was silly, it was nothing—is it hot in here as Buchenwald, or what?—Anyway, the girls were supposed to ask the boys to dance. And I was not an unattractive child! Tell them, Mother. I wasn’t fat then. I didn’t have clubbed feet or dandruff or anything. I was quite normal looking, and maybe even a little better than normal looking. But NO ONE asked me to dance . . . no one. The entire dance went by and not one little girl ever came over and asked me to dance. I went to the cloak room and cried and cried. The teacher, Miss MacFarland, I’ll never forget her, Miss MacFarland heard me. She came to the cloak room, drawn there by my hideous, shrieking sobs. And she knelt down, next to me, down to where I’d curled myself into the fetal position, on the floor, buried under a mountain of coats. She uncovered me and said . . . “Otto? Otto, why are you crying?” I could barely talk. But I spoke in that spastic, convulsive way children do when they’re sobbing. I said, “No one will dance with me.” She nodded very sagely, the chain that held her glasses around her neck bobbed up and down. And then