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(Two women in bathrobes and pajamas hang out in the lounge area of a mental
health facility.)
LAURA: (Seated on a chair, staring intently at rug on floor.) Dog. Man with a cowboy hat. Angel. Squiggly-man with a dancing teapot. Mickey mouse. I found Mickey Mouse, Jerri! I fucking found him!
JERRI: Where?
LAURA: There! Fucking Mickey Mouse!
JERRI: Where?
LAURA: There! Mickey Mouse! You see the ears? Find the ears and…
JERRI: That’s not…
LAURA: It is…
JERRI: …Mickey Mouse. That’s…
LAURA: (Getting up) No, no, sit where I’m sitting.
JERRI: That’s not…
LAURA: Sit where I’m sitting. You’ll see it. You can’t see it…your standing, of course you can’t…
JERRI: (Sitting down) Where?
LAURA: There!…Squint your eyes.
JERRI: Looks like…
LAURA: Mickey Mouse.
JERRI: …a flying saucer…50’s kinda, you know, see there’s the…
LAURA: Flying saucer…no. It’s a rug. Of course it’s up for interpretation. It’s a fucking rug. (Beat) Bugs Bunny!
JERRI: Where?
LAURA: There! Bugs Bunny! Squint your…
JERRI: I'm squinting my fucking eyes…
LAURA: See it? See it? See it?
JERRI: Move over.
LAURA: (Laura gets up, Jerri sits down) See it? The ears. The whiskers.
JERRI: Maybe a TV set with an antenna…
LAURA: Rabbit ears.
JERRI: Huh?
LAURA: Rabbit ears. The old antennas, rabbit ears.
JERRI: Yeah.
LAURA: You see it! Bugs Bunny!
JERRI: No.
LAURA: You see it, rabbit ears.
JERRI: No. It’s a TV.
LAURA: (Beat) It’s a fucking rug. It’s all subjective. I see Bugs Bunny. You see a TV set. I see…Holy shit!
JERRI: What?
LAURA: Brad Pitt taking his pants off!
JERRI: What? Where? No fucking way, you're pulling my leg.
LAURA: (Sarcastic) No kidding. Brad Pitt taking his pants off. What an idiot. (Goes back to looking at floor) Hmmm, dog sniffing his own butt.
JERRI: What?
LAURA: Nothing. You know I was…
JERRI: What?
LAURA: I was thinking, when we get outta here…
JERRI: Thinking about jumping the wall again, huh?
LAURA: No, I mean, when they let us out, through the front door, with our bags and the handshakes and photo session…
JERRI: Photo session?
LAURA: They take pictures don’t they? Of us leaving, like graduation pictures, don’t they?
JERRI: Graduation pictures?
LAURA: I seen ‘em downstairs, in the hallway on the walls.
JERRI: Graduation pictures?
LAURA: No?
JERRI: No. They kick you out, those that’re ready. Well, I mean, maybe not "ready," but not…how can I put it? About the graduations…they kick you out.
LAURA: No pictures?
JERRI: Nope.
LAURA: Well, then they…
JERRI: (Cuts her off with a raspberry) We’re not leaving.
LAURA: Huh?
JERRI: We’re not leaving, so don’t even…
LAURA: What?
JERRI: Fantasize? Imagine? Day dream? We ain’t. Going anywhere. No graduation.
LAURA: That’s not what I was told.
JERRI: And what were you told?
LAURA: That…I…
JERRI: Was just here for observation?
LAURA: Yeah, the cop that escorted me here…
JERRI: Escorted?
LAURA: Yeah?
JERRI: In a cop car?
LAURA: Yeah?
JERRI: In handcuffs?
LAURA: Yeah. Maybe not escorted. Dragged? The cop that dragged me in from the courts said that I’d be here for…
JERRI: Observation.
LAURA: Yeah.
JERRI: And when did you arrive?
LAURA: Ummm (Counting fingers) A long time ago.
JERRI: In a galaxy, huh?… Yeah. Graduating.
LAURA: My husband will be worried about me.
JERRI: Umm, excuse me, but he’s the one that called the cops on you in the first place.
LAURA: I was just having an emotional experience.
JERRI: Pretty scary when your emotional experience includes a butcher’s knife.
LAURA: He said I was…
JERRI: What?
LAURA: He said I was…
JERRI: What?
LAURA: He said I was…he just said.
JERRI: Very eloquent there, Ms. Mickey Mouse.
LAURA: It’s a small world…
JERRI: You better believe it.
(Beat)
LAURA: I’m not dangerous, you know? I’m just…
JERRI: Emotional?
LAURA: So?
JERRI: What?
LAURA: Is that some horrible offense to be emotional? To feel, to fucking feel?
JERRI: I guess the butcher’s knife kinda…
LAURA: What?
JERRI: Just kinda.
LAURA: Very eloquent there, Brad.
JERRI: That’s me: a legend that fell.
LAURA: (Looking at one spot on the rug, she stands up and moves around in a circle) I see an angel flying upside down. Now it’s flying right side up. Now it’s just flying. I used to lay on my back in Central Park, on the Great Lawn, on the way home from school, and look up and watch the clouds go by, and the clouds, they would, they just became pictures in the sky, and I would just lie there and watch and find pictures in the clouds.
JERRI: And now you find pictures in rugs.
LAURA: No.
JERRI: No?
LAURA: Not all rugs. I mean, it can’t be like a plain rug. It’s got to have different tones in it, two-toned, I guess. Dark and light areas, medium areas. It’s like a Rorschach test.
JERRI: Dr. Abrams.
LAURA: Huh?
JERRI: You never met Dr. Abrams. Queer guy. Tall, lanky, deep-set eyes. He used to run these Rorschach tests on everyone.
LAURA: Dr. Abrams?
JERRI: It was before your time.
LAURA: Dr. Abrams.
JERRI: He had me in his office one day. "So what do you see?" Nothing. "No, really, take your time. What do you see?" Nothing. "Please, Jerri, this is an important technique in interpreting our most inner most world. Relax. Take a deep breath. Now look at the ink blots and tell me what you see." Martha Stewart fucking a donkey. That was the end of that.
LAURA: Did you?
JERRI: What?
LAURA: See Martha Stewart fucking a donkey.
JERRI: No. What, do you think I’m crazy? Obviously the donkey was fucking Martha.
LAURA: You know, I’d be lost without my pictures.
JERRI: Why don’t you draw?
LAURA: I can’t draw. I’m lousy. Just stick figures.
JERRI: It takes practice.
LAURA: I practiced. Every day. I just never got any good. I’m…
JERRI: What?
LAURA: I’m just not any good.
JERRI: I was thinking…
LAURA: What?
JERRI: That when we get outta here…
LAURA: Graduate?
JERRI: Yeah, sure, graduate. We should go somewhere, like to the museum or something. Look at some real pictures, famous ones.
LAURA: I’d like that.
JERRI: Yeah, me too. Get a couple of hot dogs and go to the museum.
LAURA: I don’t think people are allowed to eat in the museum.
JERRI: So what! We’ll hide ‘em in our coats. They’ll never know.
LAURA: Yeah. (Beat) Dolly Parton!
JERRI: Where?
LAURA: There.
JERRI: I thought that was Mickey Mouse.
LAURA: Big ears.
JERRI: Yeah. Dolly Parton.
(Lights out!)
back to: Literary Arts
Home Literary Arts Visual Arts About Zephyr Contact Graphic Version
Mendocino College Online Journal of the Arts - Spring 2002 Text Version
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