Castration Celebration Page 17

  DICK (smiling): Wow, Amber, I had no idea.

  AMBER (defensively): I was just resting. Right, Lola?

  LOLA (with obvious disappointment): Right.

  AMBER (jumping up and throwing her arms around Dick): I’ve been waiting for you all night.

  LOLA (hurt): I need to get back to my friends. (She walks off.)

  DICK (disengaging himself): Wow, you’re really plastered, aren’t you?

  AMBER: Just a little. (taking Dick’s hand and pulling him away from the party) Come on, I want to show you something.

  DICK (allowing himself to be pulled): What?

  (Amber wraps her arms around Dick’s neck and kisses him. He does not respond, and after a few seconds he pulls away.)

  DICK: Amber—

  AMBER: No, it’s okay. Jane said it was okay.

  DICK (pulling fully away): What are you talking about?

  AMBER: Jane. She said I could make out with you.

  DICK (dumbfounded): Jane said that?

  AMBER (wrapping her arms around Dick again): Uh-huh. (She tries to kiss him again, and again he pulls away.)

  DICK: Wait, what exactly did she say?

  AMBER: She said … (Motioning for him to come close, she begins to whisper in his ear. The implication is that she is whispering something extremely lascivious, and Dick’s eyes open wide as he listens.)

  DICK (pulling away and looking hard at Amber, clearly trying to make up his mind about something): You’re drunk, Amber. You don’t know what you’re saying.

  AMBER (leaning hard against Dick): I’m not drunk. (She tries to kiss him, and he gently pushes her away.)

  DICK: You need to go home and sleep this off. Do you want me to walk you home?

  AMBER: No. I’m just gonna lie down here and take a little rest. (She lies on the ground and closes her eyes.)

  DICK (muttering to himself): Jesus, why do I have to deal with this? (He looks around and sees Lola and her friends watching the whole scene.) Hey, can I get some help over here?

  (The girls walk over.)

  DICK: Can you just watch her for a minute? I need to run inside and find an empty room where she can sleep this thing off. (Dick runs offstage into the party.)

  JESSE (pulling out her video camera): So, Amber, do you have anything to say to our viewers today about what it’s like to be a slut?

  KITTY: Jesse, that is so mean.

  CAROL: God, she’s totally passed out.

  LOLA: Maybe we should take her home.

  JESSE: No way. I’m gonna follow them inside and get the whole thing on tape. I’ve heard about this kind of thing. A girl gets drunk at a party and a bunch of guys take turns raping her. Remember what happened at Duke a few years ago? With the lacrosse team?

  LOLA: That didn’t happen. She made the whole story up, remember?

  JESSE: They just didn’t have enough evidence. But this time I’ll get the whole thing on tape and watch those bastards fry.

  KITTY: You’d let them rape her just so you could tape it? That’s like so wrong.

  LOLA: No one’s going to rape her.

  (Dick and Sluggo come running back onstage. The girls step back and Jesse hides her camera.)

  SLUGGO: Wow, she’s totally passed out.

  DICK: Come on, let’s get her inside.

  (They lift her up.)

  SLUGGO (smiling): Too bad Biff’s not here.

  (They exit.)

  JESSE: What did I tell you?

  (She pulls out her camera and rushes after them, the other girls following behind.)

  (Curtain)

  “Can we get copies of the tape?” Max asked, pausing beside the girl setting up the video camera.

  It was the last night of the program, and people were beginning to stream into the auditorium for the end of the summer showcase, billed as a fabulous, fun-filled, final night of art, music, dance, and—of course—drama.

  “We’ll be sending them out next week to everyone who was here this summer,” she said. “Are you performing tonight?”

  “I’m doing part of her play,” he said, turning and smiling at Olivia, who was standing beside him. “Castration Celebration.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said with a grin. “I saw that in the program. Great title.”

  “Thanks,” Olivia said, taking Max’s hand and leading him to the aisle and down toward the seats in the front.

  There were fifteen acts in total, and Castration was second to last. A week earlier, the students in Maxine’s playwriting class had voted on two plays—Olivia’s and Clarissa’s—to represent the work of their class over the summer. Bruce had protested, of course, claiming it blatantly sexist not to include at least one male voice, but Maxine had silenced him by saying that to select a male play over a clearly superior female one would be a glaring example of affirmative action. Was that really what he wanted?

  It had not been easy for Olivia to decide which scene to stage. What she really wanted was something that Max, Mimi, and Callie could perform on their own, without her having to find other students from the acting classes. And then there was the issue that so much of what she had written seemed too inappropriate to stage in such a public venue. She had sent her final scene off to Zeke to score, and when he had returned it the following day with music that absolutely rocked, she had decided that maybe this was the one to do. There was nothing overly obscene in the scene, and there were three main parts—one male and two female—with only a tiny fourth part that would be easy to fill.

  “I wish Zeke was here to play the music,” Olivia said.

  “I’ve been trying all week to convince him.” Over e-mail, Max had been waging his campaign—arguing that Zeke needed to get away from the scene back home, proposing that Zeke just show up and surprise everyone, guaranteeing Zeke a night of pleasure and debauchery—but to no avail. Zeke would be going to his father’s the week before school started. That was all he could handle.

  “You know Trish has been talking to him almost every day,” Olivia said.

  Max shook his head in disappointment. “I wish he had asked her out this summer.”

  “I don’t know,” Olivia said. “I mean, I know Trish likes him, but I’m not sure I can see them together. He doesn’t really seem like the dating type.”

  “You weren’t the dating type, either,” Max joked.

  “I’m still not. Haven’t you figured out yet that I’m just using you for the sex?”

  “We haven’t even had sex,” Max said.

  Olivia feigned surprise. “We haven’t? Are you sure? I must have mixed you up with one of those other guys I’ve been sleeping with. It’s hard to keep you all straight.”

  “You keep me plenty hard and straight,” Max said, leaning over and kissing her.

  “Hey, get a room,” Mimi called out as she and Callie came down the aisle and found seats in the row behind.

  “Just practicing for our scene tonight,” Max said. Mimi would be playing Jane opposite Max’s Dick, and the action called for a considerable amount of lip locking. “I don’t want you still thinking I kiss like a dead fish.”

  “Just don’t get carried away up there,” Olivia said, though in truth she was more concerned that the chemistry between the two actors be believable. That was why, in fact, she had cast Mimi in Jane’s role instead of as the more obvious Amber. For that part, which required only talk and a quick kiss on the cheek, Callie had volunteered.

  “Where’s Trish?” Max asked.

  “She was on the phone with Zeke again,” Mimi said. “She said she’d meet us here.”

  The front of the auditorium was quickly filling up, and the lights began to dim and brighten, signaling the show was about to start. As everybody settled into seats, the MC, a short, pudgy boy wearing a knockoff tuxedo and flip-flops, walked onstage to thunderous applause.

  “He’s in my acting class,” Max whispered to Olivia. “He’s pretty funny.”

  “Hello, everyone,” he said, waving to the audience. “My name is Brian, a
nd it’s been seventeen hours since I’ve had a drink.”

  Laughter rippled through the auditorium.

  “Seriously,” Brian continued. “How many of you are drunk right now?”

  More laughter, and a few boys raised their hands.

  “How many of you wish you were drunk?”

  More laughter as Brian raised his own hand high.

  “You know who’s probably really drunk right now?” He paused dramatically, waiting to see if anyone would answer.

  “The teachers,” someone yelled out.

  “Ding, ding, ding. Give that boy a cookie,” Brian said. He looked over to the side section where most of the grown-ups were sitting and addressed them directly. “Admit it, guys. You all put a few back before coming here tonight, didn’t you?”

  The teachers chuckled appreciatively, and Brian launched into a few hilarious impersonations of select faculty members, before introducing the evening’s first act.

  Across the board, the performers were talented, and by the time act five ended, people were so swept up in the night’s entertainment that nobody noticed two people—one with a guitar—slip into the auditorium and find seats in an empty row halfway down and off to the side. In fact, it was not until two more acts had finished that Olivia, turning in her seat to see if she could spot Trish, saw them, and her face broke into an enormous smile. She yanked Max’s shirt, and when he turned, his face lit up, too. As the applause for the act died down, Max and the three girls hurried back to where Trish and Zeke were sitting and offered exclamations of surprise and delight.

  “You have your guitar,” Max whispered as the next performers took the stage. “Are you going to play with us?”

  “I’d like to,” Zeke said. “I was afraid I missed it.”

  “No, we’ve still got a while before we go on.”

  Act twelve was a long slideshow put together by the students in the art classes to highlight the work they had done over the summer. Act thirteen was an interpretive dance to the music of Beethoven and Britney Spears.

  Backstage, Olivia huddled with the actors and then said a few words to Brian, who would be introducing the act. Max turned and looked at Zeke. He was sitting on a stool nearby, tuning his guitar. He strummed a few chords, and then looked up and locked eyes with Max. They both smiled.

  “You ready?” Max asked.

  Zeke nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  The dance ended, and as applause echoed through the auditorium, Brian pirouetted onto the stage, arms flailing, and then looked up in mock embarrassment, as if he hadn’t realized that anybody was watching him. “Our next act,” he said, clearing his throat, “is a scene from Olivia Sands’s musical Castration Celebration. I’m not going to make any jokes about the title, because, frankly, I’m a little bit terrified right now.”

  Olivia walked out, smiling, and took the microphone. “First of all, nobody actually gets castrated, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  The audience laughed appreciatively, and she waited for the noise to die down.

  “This is the final scene in the play,” she said. “A quick summary of what’s happened so far is …” She quickly recapped the key points in the plot, finishing at the party with a passed-out Amber being carried inside. “This last scene takes place the day after the party and opens with Jane and Amber sitting outside Jane’s house, trying to piece together the events of the previous night.”

  CASTRATION CELEBRATION

  Act 5, scene 2

  (The next day. Outside Jane’s house. Jane and Amber sit on the stoop. Amber is wearing the same clothes she was wearing the night before. Her hair is disheveled, and she looks like she has been hit over the head with a sledgehammer.)

  JANE: You really don’t remember anything?

  AMBER (shaking her head): I was so drunk. I just passed out somewhere.

  JANE: I can’t believe you slept through the whole thing.

  AMBER: So what happened?

  JANE: I wasn’t there, but Dick said that right after you passed out, Biff showed up really drunk and started screaming something about Sluggo wanting to rape him.

  AMBER: What? That’s crazy.

  JANE: Apparently he was totally out of control, and when people tried to calm him down he started smashing things.

  AMBER: Jesus, he’s a total psycho.

  JANE: You made out with him.

  AMBER: Don’t remind me.

  JANE: So anyway, while Biff’s going crazy, Doug Acker looks up and sees Jesse Dane filming the whole thing on a video camera and tries to grab it from her. Jesse screams, and Carol Shea jumps on Doug’s back. Then Jesse pulls out a can of pepper spray and sprays Doug in the face.

  AMBER: Holy shit.

  JANE: He was screaming and clutching his eyes, and someone must have called 911 because three minutes later the police show up with an ambulance.

  AMBER: I can’t believe I slept through all this.

  JANE: You were in a room upstairs with the door closed. After the cops cleared out the house, Dick called me on my cell and we snuck back in and got you.

  AMBER: Are you serious? What time was this?

  JANE: A little after midnight, I guess. My parents were asleep, so I had to sneak into their room to get the car keys. When I got there, Dick met me out front, but the door was locked so we couldn’t get in. But Biff had smashed a couple of windows so we were able to clear away the glass and crawl through.

  AMBER: You crawled through a broken window?

  JANE: Yeah, it was pretty exciting. When we carried you downstairs, you opened your eyes a few times and mumbled some things that were totally incomprehensible. It was like three in the morning by the time we got you back to my house.

  AMBER: Jesus. I must have been totally wasted.

  JANE: You were in pretty bad shape.

  AMBER: I’m sorry, Jane. I guess I totally screwed up the whole plan.

  JANE (smiling): It’s okay. In a funny way I think things might have worked out better this way.

  AMBER: What do you mean?

  JANE: You know, sneaking into houses with someone in the middle of the night can be quite a bonding experience.

  AMBER: So you guys are back together?

  JANE (smiling): Maybe.

  AMBER: Maybe? What does that mean?

  (Jane smiles coyly.)

  AMBER: Hold on. Didn’t you say that Dick called you at midnight?

  JANE: Uh-huh.

  AMBER: And you said that you didn’t get me back here until three in the morning.

  JANE (smiling): Something like that.

  AMBER: Oh my God, did you guys have sex in front of me while I was passed out?

  JANE: No. (pause) Not in front of you.

  AMBER: Oh my God. You slut.

  JANE: Well, how often do you get to sneak into a strange empty house in the middle of the night?

  AMBER: That’s unbelievable.

  JANE: That’s not all.

  AMBER: Please tell me you didn’t drag me into some perverse threesome.

  JANE (holds up a video camera): Remember Jesse’s video camera?

  AMBER (incredulously): You filmed yourselves having sex?

  JANE: You want to see?

  AMBER: YUCK! NO!

  JANE: Come on. (hands her the camera) Just press play.

  AMBER: I don’t want to see you and Dick having sex.

  JANE: Trust me. You’ll enjoy this.

  AMBER: Are you serious?

  JANE: I promise.

  (Amber takes the camera tentatively, looks into the viewer, and presses play. From offstage, we hear Dick’s voice.)

  DICK: Is the camera on? Okay, here goes. I, Dick Conroy, being of sound mind and body, do hereby swear that I will always be loyal and faithful to my girlfriend, Jane Stanton. Furthermore, I swear that I will never make up stories about dying relatives so that I can sneak off with my friends to pick up skanky women in sleazy bars, nor will I act in any other way that might put undue stress on our relationship. If, at
any time, I violate the terms of this agreement, I hereby agree to be tied up and locked in a room for a period of no less than one hour with Jesse Danes and a large, sharp knife of her choosing.

  AMBER (looking up): I can’t believe you got him to say this on tape.

  JANE: When a guy is desperate enough, he’ll promise anything.

  AMBER: You wouldn’t seriously hold him to this, though, would you?

  JANE: If he cheats on me? You bet I would.

  AMBER: Are you serious?

  JANE: It’s like you said. The penis has a mind of its own and can’t be trusted to do the right thing. But if we instill enough fear into that penis, if we make that penis understand that its survival depends on keeping itself in check, then we can train it to act the way we want it to.

  AMBER: Just don’t scare it too much, or it will never want to come out and play.

  JANE (laughing): Yeah, right.

  (Sam walks onstage in a baseball uniform with a baseball glove.)

  JANE: Good luck at your game, Sam.

  SAM: Thanks. (glances at Amber) Bye, Amber.

  AMBER: Wait. C’mere for a second. (She gestures for Sam to come close, and then straightens his hat.) Perfect.

  SAM (embarrassed, but extremely pleased): Thanks.

  (Amber gives Sam a kiss on the cheek, and Sam blushes deeply.)

  AMBER: That’s for good luck.

  SAM (hurrying off): Bye.

  JANE: He’ll never wash that cheek again.