Lost City

a play by
Conrad Bishop & Elizabeth Fuller
developed through improvisations with the ensemble of
Company One, Boston, MA

Characters

William. 29. Fireman from Chicago.
Henry. 19. Bagger at supermarket in Green Bay, WI.
Ezra. 35. Bank teller in Boston.
Kareem. 30. Playwright in Boston. African-American.
Viola. 25. Violinist. Asian-American.
Livia. 38. Librarian from Indianapolis.
Angie. 45. Housewife, married to special-effects designer in Los Angeles.
Wilma. 65. Retired factory worker from Chicago. African-American.

Setting

A passenger waiting area in Rochester International Airport.

© 2004 Conrad Bishop & Elizabeth Fuller
All rights reserved.
For production information, contact WordWorkers, 800-357-6016 or E-mail.

Act One

Characters in tight grouping, as if looking up at a Departure monitor.

KAREEM: Lost City. Lost City Lost City Lost City. Search for the Lost City. And the Lost City is ... Boston.

To black. Murmur of voices, into music. Waiting area of air terminal. People sitting or lying on seats.

WILMA: Time is it, honey?

EZRA: I don’t have a watch. I forgot it.

ANGIE: (trying to sleep) It’s 2:10 a.m. Goddammit.

William is tapping on things with a pencil.

WILMA: Quite the storm.

EZRA: Yes.

WILMA: Where you heading, honey?

EZRA: Well, Boston. With luck.

WILMA: Me too, me too. What you doing there?

EZRA: Visiting a friend.

WILMA: Yeh, me, I’m gonna see my sons.

EZRA: That’s great.

WILMA: I got four sons. I’m seeing the two that’s there.

ANGIE: Excuse me, it’s really late, and some people might want to sleep, so...

WILMA: That’s right.

Leans over to William.

She gonna get upset about that. She trying to sleep.

WILLIAM: Hey, you know there’s other waiting areas. Over there. You could be all to yourself.

ANGIE: Thank you.

WILLIAM: I’m gonna grab a soda, does anybody want something?

No response. Gets up. Looks out.

It’s not letting up.

Goes to machine.

WILMA: So where you from?

EZRA: San Francisco. Well, originally Boston. But I’ve been out there for a while.

WILMA: I got on in Chicago. “Chicago my home town.” Where we now?

EZRA: Rochester.

WILMA: Rochester? Where’s that?

ANGIE: (from behind) Right here.

WILMA: That’s true. You a little tense, baby, you ok?

EZRA: Just a little shaky. I was sitting right next to ... our friend.

Several people turn to look at him.

VIOLA: You were next to the crazy guy?

EZRA: Oh, he just had too much to drink. He was complaining that the movie was too loud in his earphones. And the attendant suggested he turn down his earphones, and he got upset at that and grabbed the attendant.

WILMA: Which one he grab?

EZRA: The blonde woman. Well there were two—

HENRY: The fat one.

They look at Henry. Pause.

WILMA: He be next to me I’d explained it to him so s he could understand it.

LIVIA: Well why is that such a big deal that we have to go through all this?

ANGIE: (sitting up) It’s federal regulations now, actually. I have a friend who’s a flight attendant, and if a passenger becomes unruly and physically touches an attendant, then the flight aborts.

LIVIA: So this guy has ties to Osama Bin Laden?

ANGIE: Well we have to reduce our dependence on foreign lunatics. Produce our own!

WILMA: Sorry to keep you awake, honey.

ANGIE: No, once I wake up, I get pretty bizarre.

Pause. Vastly amused through her fatigue:

No, this is so weird. This little wad of passengers, in a deserted terminal. This is all very similar to a film my husband worked on, which was disgustingly bloody.

WILMA: He in the movies? Movie star?

ANGIE: No no, he works in special effects. He creates space aliens and avalanches and big hunks of broccoli that swallow cities. At parties his standard line is, when people ask what do you do: “I destroy Western civilization.”

HENRY: I saw that movie.

They look at Henry.

WILMA: So you know the movie stars, mh?

ANGIE: Not really. No. No, I have a very normal life. Yes. Thank heaven. Please.

Angie lies down again on seats. William has returned, starts tapping. Muffled voices rise. Light changes. Passengers seem to be speaking lines. Kareem, on a seat at the side, looks around at them.

KAREEM: Talk louder.

ANGIE: Galina Rostov? I’m her daughter.

Each person continues repeating lines, rhythmically, as others add in.

HENRY: Mom? Dad? Hello.

WILLIAM: Thanks. Thanks to my crew. Thanks.

WILMA: Poor baby. Poor baby. Poor baby.

LIVIA: New life.

VIOLA: The treasure.

EZRA: Sully, please.

The voices grow louder, intertwine.

KAREEM: Forget it!

Lights change. The terminal. Angie goes to the window.

ANGIE: It’s getting worse. I don’t think it’s getting better. I think it’s getting worse.

WILLIAM: We’re not taking off any time soon.

ANGIE: Five a.m.? What a joke.

WILLIAM: Try five p.m.

Angie gets up, moves around.

WILMA: Where you from, sweetheart? You a Japanese?

VIOLA: Me? No, China. Taiwan. And then San Francisco. And then Chicago.

WILMA: China? What’s your name, honey? We all getting acquainted.

VIOLA: Viola.

WILMA: Viola. That a Chinese name?

VIOLA: (laughing) No. Viola is a character in Shakespeare. My parents loved Western culture, and they wanted me to play the violin, so they named me Viola.

WILMA: So whatta you do?

VIOLA: I play the violin.

WILMA: Mhm. Well I’m going to the toilet, and then you play us a tune.

She gets up, goes out.

LIVIA: Would anyone like some candy?

She passes it around. Some take it. Ezra gets up, moves around with contained nervous energy. The life of the terminal scene continues silently

Light focuses on Kareem, who stares at a notepad, lost in thought. Starts to make a note, gives up.

KAREEM: Give it up. Shit, if I’d gone to a motel room I could talk out loud to myself and then quietly drown in the bathtub.

Punches number on cellphone.

Liz, hi babe. This is me at two something a.m. stranded in Rochester. Long story. We had to land, and everybody went off to a motel, but there’s a little scraggly bunch of us waiting here to maybe get an earlier flight if it clears up. So just leaving a message for when you get back. Hope your mom’s ok.

Pause.

I’m sorry I didn’t call yesterday. The workshop, as we expected, great honor, major players from the Chicago theatre scene, fantastic opportunity. That was the good part.

Bad part? I got totally trashed. “Well don’t take it personally, Kareem. You are a very nice person, it’s just your play that sucks.” I was gonna leave that news for after we reconnect, but—

I dunno, there may be a major theatre in Chicago that’s really looking for a badly constructed, sexist, cliche-ridden, masturbatory play that betrays the responsibilities of a black writer in white America. Might be a hot property!

Pause.

Anyway, I’m pretty beat up. Trying to think why I’m writing plays about Mayan prophecies. I really miss you. But I’m stuck in this totally deserted waiting area with this bunch of zombies.

Slight movement from the ensemble. Lights begin change. As he continues, they move into a group behind him.

Oh, and one lady said that Search for the Lost City was tendentious. What is that? What the fuck is that? That means it’s got “tendencies”?!

He looks around, sees the group staring down at him.

Bye.

Looks front. Their gaze follows.

Lost City. Where we all going, right? Lost City. Boston.

He laughs, but it hurts. Murmur of voices becoming music. All begin a mime walk in place, focused forward to their goals. Kareem speaks in a rapid, rhythmic performance-poet style, throw-away in tempo but deeply felt. He doesn’t play to the others, but senses their presence.

It’s dry it’s a dry spell baby Lizzie baby it’s so dry

long road

EZRA: Coming back to Boston—

LIVIA: Boston—

KAREEM: Long road to the city in my dreams lost

city lost dreams lost in the fire—

WILLIAM: Fire. It’s amazing. The flames—

KAREEM: So dry.

And we lost direction they say north where’s north

they say no it’s west west of the moon

is that the moon? over there is that the moon or a

new casino?

ANGIE: Special effects—

KAREEM: Oh Lizzie Lizzie baby tell me baby where this lost city in the

Mayan prophecies those ancient Mayans before they got

screwed by Cortez in his tin hat

and the powder-blue suits of NAFTA.

Where’s that Mayan prophet with all the arms?

EZRA: We laughed, Sully, remember? That statue with all the arms?

KAREEM: Where is he when we need him walking the

dry dusty streets of Roxbury and South Chicago and Watts and

Beverly Hills in its decrepitude? I know that word decrepitude.

HENRY: Mom and Dad. It’s me.

KAREEM: Where is he when we need him???

He’s tired

He’s lonely and batteries low on the cellphone and

he’s tired of being trashed by the Conquistadores cause his prophecies are

tendentious and so let the deluge the deluge the deluge

come that’s asking to come and the

hands speak the ancient language crying—

WILMA: OH MY BABIES!

Passengers freeze, then slowly return to their places.

KAREEM: And the slow black waters fold over Atlantis and

fish thread the steeple of the Old North Church and

the Lost City

stays lost.

Silence.

What a total crock.

Lights change. Incidental movement in the terminal.

Automated announcement: “Please do not leave your baggage unattended. Unattended baggage is subject to search.”

ANGIE: I have some idiotic things to read, if anybody wants. Or some breath mints.

Wilma returns from bathroom. Kareem sits, starts to write on pad. Stops.

KAREEM: Shit.

VIOLA: What?

KAREEM: Sorry.

VIOLA: Are you a writer?

KAREEM: That’s an interesting question. So you moving to Boston?

VIOLA: Yes.

KAREEM: Well... Long story, but I’m a playwright, and I had a play in Chicago.

VIOLA: What was the title?

KAREEM: Search for the Lost City. The place you’re looking for, where everything’s gonna be magic, you know, like my grandparents coming north to Boston, I mean I meant that anyway, even though I didn’t write it exactly— Or me going to Chicago, and what the fuck happens then.

VIOLA: That’s beautiful.

KAREEM: You an artist?

VIOLA: No. I am classical violinist.

KAREEM: (laughing) That’s not art?

VIOLA: No.

KAREEM: Of course it is.

VIOLA: It is art, but not my voice. Being an artist is having a voice. But that is only my feeling.

KAREEM: So look, have you ever had like a really big audition and like ... sucked? Really sucked?

VIOLA: No. I had some big auditions and I won.

KAREEM: Or where you just completely doubted your ability?

VIOLA: No.

KAREEM: Or thought why am I even doing this?

VIOLA: No.

Pause.

KAREEM: So you’re flying into Boston to play with the Boston Symphony.

VIOLA: I am not ready yet for Boston Symphony. That would be good when I am ready.

Pained laugh from Kareem.

KAREEM: So you’re, what, twenty—?

VIOLA: Twenty-four.

KAREEM: Twenty-four, and you got it made.

VIOLA: No, I will have to work very hard— Am I a character in your story?

KAREEM: No. No, I’m a character in my story.

VIOLA: Did you suck?

He smiles. She laughs.

KAREEM: Well, they hated my play. Everything about it, the characters, the title, even the page numbers. And two weeks ago I turned thirty.

VIOLA: Congratulations.

He looks at her, feeling very old.

KAREEM: Well it sounds like you’re really talented. You’ll like Boston. I guess some people do find the Lost City.

He writes on his pad.

VIOLA: What are you writing?

KAREEM: “Life sucks. No talent. Die.”

VIOLA: That’s good! That’s expressive!

KAREEM: And how do I tell my girlfriend what they said about this fucking play, when I knew everything they said about it was true. They weren’t stupid. They were vicious, but they were telling the truth.

VIOLA: You just need a good night’s sleep. It’s not that serious. It’s a bad memory.

KAREEM: Right, well— You know it’s easy for you to say.

VIOLA: What?

KAREEM: Just— Just you haven’t been in this situation. You’re doing great. How can you understand— How can you pretend to understand— I’m sorry, but how can you pretend to understand what I’m going through? The world is laid right out in front of you and—

VIOLA: You sound like I didn’t work hard for what I do. I work very hard since I was very young! I had no time to play. Did you have that? Did you play after school? I practiced. And teachers tell me, No! Wrong! Repeat! Very good teachers! Wrong! Practice! Listen! Practice!

She looks around. People are looking at her. Silence.

HENRY: Are you mad?

WILMA: Honey, you want to play us a tune?

Viola makes a confused gesture.

KAREEM: I’m sorry.

VIOLA: No, I’m sorry.

KAREEM: Look. I went overboard a little bit. They also said I was wallowing in self-pity.

VIOLA: I’m sorry. I should not yell. I’m very tired. (to others) I’m very sorry. I’m sorry. (to Kareem) If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to rest a bit.

KAREEM: All right. Thanks for listening.

VIOLA: There are characters here. This could be your play.

Silence. People try to settle back into stasis.

WILMA: (to Ezra) Time is it, honey?

EZRA: I forgot my watch.

WILMA: Oh, that’s right.

ANGIE: Three fifteen.

Angie gets up, goes to the soda machine.

WILLIAM: Moving right along.

WILMA: It’s chilly in Rochester.

Ezra gets up, walks away from the group, considering going to another waiting area. Decides against it, returns.

Automated announcement: “Please do not leave your baggage unattended. Unattended baggage is subject to search.” Angie returns.

ANGIE: Scuse me, does anyone have change? The machine won’t take dollar bills.

Several check for change. Livia changes a dollar for her. She goes out. Focus on Kareem.

KAREEM: No man, I don’t pick up characters in air terminals. Or even life. I write archetypes.

He shifts into his jazz idiom.

But they talkin to you, boy, they’re saying we lookin

We lookin for the city we lookin

for the treasure and the mommy and the baby and the

sweetiepie sweetiepie

we lookin for the light

we lookin for the dyin and we lookin for the birthin

an we lookin for the huggin an we lookin for the light

mornin light

thru the night

to the light.

Deep breath.

Listen. Kareem. Listen.

Listen to what nobody’s saying. That’s what needs to get said.

There’s nothing better doing in this long mother night.

Kareem stands. Music of voices. He moves close to Ezra. Ezra speaks, focused inward.

EZRA: Sully? It’s me. I’m in Boston. Yeh, I just flew back, we got stranded in Rochester, that was something. I wanted to surprise you.

How you doing? And you got your job back, that’s great. Cause I know that, you know, San Francisco was kind of a mistake for us, and I know I kinda pushed you into it and that was a mistake, but you know, I came back to kinda, you know, reconnect with, you know, friends here, and see how you’re doing, and maybe we could kinda get together and, you know, catch up, cause there’s a lotta water under the bridge...

Halt. Shifts persona: Sully.

So we moved to San Francisco, and it’s like no other place I’ve ever been to, right? I mean this fucking place, it’s one thing to have a boyfriend, right? But it’s like now I gotta be a faggot. It’s unbelievable. Like I gotta go to parties with guys who judge me on what shows I watch. Like I totally fucking lost it there.

And Ezra loved it. Down in the Castro, this friggin freak show, he’s like Mr. Rogers in the neighborhood. It killed me. Like he’s a different person. Like the first time in his life he’s breathed air. I got out. Headed back to Boston. I miss him, but it’s better. I’m sure he’s doing fine out there.

Back to Ezra:

Cause, you know, as different as we are— I still tell the story how we met—

But I think when you know somebody’s the right person then you need to do whatever you do to make sure they’re in your life. Make sure that they know that. So I wanted to give you a call and see if we can talk. If you could find some time? I got you a present.

KAREEM: Oh my God. Oh my God, human beings. I forgot about’em.

Angie returns. Momentary halt as she sees Henry standing like a statue. She looks around. Wilma is looking at her.

ANGIE: Like some soda?

WILMA: No honey, you’ll get my germs. We got mean germs in Chicago.

WILLIAM: We do.

He starts tossing an orange into the air compulsively.

WILMA: He do all kinds of tricks.

ANGIE: Oh God, I don’t have time for this. My mother’s in the hospital, and— I’m sorry. If I go totally nuts, I hope nobody’s taking any snapshots.

WILMA: Just pray on it. That’s all I say. Just pray on it.

ANGIE: I’m not religious actually.

WILMA: You don’t have to be. You just do it, then it comes. Like getting pregnant. You do it, then you get it.

KAREEM: Talk to her. Talk more.

WILMA: Here, honey, sit down here.

Angie sits near Wilma. A long moment, just breathing.

KAREEM: An they talkin

An they talkin

An they sayin an they speakin an they tellin an

they talkin.

ANGIE: Well I’m coming to see my mother, who is quite ill, and it’s always been a very difficult relationship, so I’m not in the best frame of mind. Although I’m a lot better than I used to be, but...

It’s just very freaky, all this. That guy over there hasn’t moved. I think what’s he holding onto? Is every planeful of passengers like this?

WILMA: Well we the selection. We the ones that got to get someplace. Everybody else don’t have no problems, they off to bed. We the special of the day.

ANGIE: Us and the mad bomber.

WILMA: Well it ain’t our time, I can tell that.

ANGIE: Really? You can tell that?

WILMA: I can tell, it’s not our time. No plane crashes, no mad bombers, nope.

ANGIE: Well can I sit next to you when we get on the plane?

WILMA: You sure can, baby. You sure can.

ANGIE: I’m Angie.

WILMA: Wilma. W-I-L-M-A. Wilma. (leans closer) Like my daddy used to say, “That’s ‘William’ with a pussy.”

She laughs. Angie smiles.

ANGIE: Thank you.

KAREEM: More.

WILMA: You got children?

Angie pulls out photos, hands them to her.

ANGIE: Eight years old, and thirteen.

WILMA: They beauiful. I got four. Four boys. Wish I had a daughter.

ANGIE: I am very blest. I have a fantastic husband, two amazing kids, I work part-time to save the whales, that sort of thing, but I’ve always had plenty of money.

WILMA: Money. That’s an interesting idea. I’ll have to try that sometime.

ANGIE: I heartily recommend it.

They laugh.

WILMA: And Hollywood. You Hollywood!

ANGIE: No, I’m not Hollywood. I’m really very ordinary—

WILMA: Don’t say that. No, I gotta tell all the church sisters, tell’em I met Hollywood!

ANGIE: And you’re going back to visit your sons. That’s wonderful. I’m seeing my mother. She’s dying. She’s Russian, and Russians are supposed to be crazy, but— She was a dancer. She was a very beautiful woman, very— I bet you liked to dance.

WILMA: Dancing and romancing. Mhm. Oh my joints.

ANGIE: Would you like a pill? I’m very well stocked.

She opens her handbag.

WILMA: I’m ok—

ANGIE: (returning) No, it’s no problem, I was just going to— Let’s see, no, these are antidepressants. Percoset? That’s kinda— This is, well it’s kind of a Prozac for the New Millennium.

WILMA: Child, you got a drugstore there.

ANGIE: It’s ok, it’s all prescription, your government says it’s good for you, it’s—

Angie sharply closes her purse, shuts her eyes.

No. I’m trying not to take it. I thought, only if necessary. I used to have a problem. There’s been a lot of healing.

My husband showed me a scene — he teaches a class at Cal Arts, special effects, and he shows this in class. A girl visits a grave, she’s very sad, she starts to walk away. And a hand reaches up out of the grave and grabs her and pulls her down screaming. How like life.

WILMA: You talk like a television.

ANGIE: (changing the subject) And what about your sons?

WILMA: The oldest, I won’t tell you how old he is, cause that exposes me. He’s a businessman or something, we don’t see each other much. And one’s career Army, gonna see him before he ... goes overseas. And the third one. And my baby, he’s 23, he’s in the graduate school of the University of Chicago, he’s my joy. He was a big surprise on me. (laughing) I thought I was done with that.

ANGIE: And your third boy?

WILMA: Yeh. Well he been in and out of situations. He blame it on the booze. But the booze didn’t drink itself. So I seeing him in Boston. I’ll try to help him. And I gotta tell him something. I gotta tell him—

Silence.

KAREEM: Tell him what?

WILMA: I need a little shut-eye now.

Wilma settles back.

KAREEM: She said. She announced. She remarked. She declared.

She asserted she observed she chattered an she mused

an she droned an she jabbered an she gibbered an exclaimed

She blurted an yelped an growled an snapped an whined an wailed an mumbled an muttered an rapped an razzled and ragged

And her voice ... thundered—

And at the end of time

I didn’t hear a word.

Angie gets up. To Henry:

ANGIE: There’s room over there. You could sit down.

He looks at her.

What have you got there?

HENRY: My stuff.

Angie goes back to her place. Kareem focuses on Henry.

KAREEM: Yeh. He’s my man. He’s my mad bomber.

Henry moves as if looking for a place to sit. Stops near Viola.

HENRY: (to Viola, pointing) Is that a gun?

She has been drowsing. Stirs.

VIOLA: I’m sorry, what? No, it’s my violin.

HENRY: I saw a movie where they had a gun like that.

VIOLA: No gun.

HENRY: What do you do with that?

VIOLA: I play it. Do you play an instrument?

HENRY: Radio.

Pause. She sees he’s not going away. Sits upright.

Are you going to Boston?

VIOLA: If the plane does.

HENRY: Talk some Chinese.

Pause.

VIOLA: (in Mandarin) I have a voice and I cannot speak except to people who cannot hear. I want a language that I can speak and you can hear. If anyone wants to hear.

HENRY: What does that mean?

VIOLA: I say, “How are you? I am fine.” What do you do in Boston?

HENRY: Well, I’m kinda looking for people. That’s why I’m going to Boston, and stay with them, once I find them, cause I’ll find them.

Pause.

How do you find people?

VIOLA: Well, maybe the Yellow Pages?

She laughs, settles back to rest. He considers.

HENRY: Thanks.

Murmur of voices. Kareem moves nearer Henry. Henry speaks, focused inward.

Work it out now. Hold onto it. Ok.

Arm & Hammer. Yeh, I got the idea, I was at work, the 6 to 12 shift, and one of the customers bought Arm & Hammer detergent, the big size, yellow, and I remembered my mom buying this yellow detergent.

So I thought, I need to find you. You and Dad.

So I worked, five more months, to save up, cause Boston’s a long way, and it was going to be a bus, but that takes too long, it had to be a plane.

And my statues, cause I’d need money, so I had to have things for people to buy. And I thought, you know, they’d laugh at the funny ones, and cry at the sad ones, and they’ll buy’em and I’ll have money.

So to find you, I didn’t ask Grandma cause I didn’t think she’d tell me, but I met this girl, and she said to look in the Yellow Pages.

Then I saw you coming over the bridge. Lotta people but I could tell. Cause of the yellow coat. That was funny.

He hesitates, then enters deeply into his fantasy.

“Son, it’s good to see you.”

“Henry, we couldn’t wait for you to come.

“You’re a good boy, Henry. I’m proud of you, son.”

“Give your mom a hug.”

It’s so warm.

Henry looks at Viola, reaches into his pack, takes out a small cardboard animal, places it in the seat beside her.

KAREEM: That’s not realistic.

Henry hesitates, picks it up, puts it back into his pack, moves away. Lights return to reality. Passengers shift.

Wilma, who’s dozed off, wakes with a shriek. Everyone startles.

WILMA: Oh. I dozed off.

WILLIAM: Jesus Christ—

WILMA: Sorry bout that.

WILLIAM: No, just— I’m jumpy.

Wilma looks around, notices Kareem.

WILMA: You taking notes on us?

KAREEM: No. Just making a list. Stuff I need to do.

WILMA: You a writer? Jackie Collins. She’s a writer. I love Jackie Collins.

KAREEM: You think she could write about people stuck in an airport?

WILMA: She’d make it romantic. We’d all be huggin and kissin.

LIVIA: Does anyone know what time it is?

WILLIAM: Ten minutes after the last person asked.

LIVIA: Sorry, I didn’t hear the answer.

ANGIE: Does anyone know if there’s a smoking area?

WILLIAM: Look around.

ANGIE: I suppose nobody has any cigarettes?

No response. She opens her purse. Shuts it.

WILMA: Nobody snoring anyway.

Ezra makes a soft snore. Laughter. He wakes, confused. That elicits more laughter.

It’s ok, honey. We just fooling.

The passengers settle in, except for Ezra, who gets up, looks at the monitor, walks about. Focus on Kareem.

KAREEM: Just fooling. Just fooling. But they suck you in. They grab on your ankle and say pay attention. Like a baby.

And then here come the baby critics. “That’s a real ugly baby you got there, Mrs. Jones.”

“Kareem, your baby’s very promising, but it needs more arms. And it’s not black enough.”

“A very entertaining baby, but it drools.”

“That baby is not realistic.”

“Sorry, we got enough babies in the world, yours gotta be shot.”

No, godddammit! I am not getting pregnant again. I know what causes it. It is preventable.

Ezra comes back to the monitor. Kareem turns to him, shakes his head, then makes a gesture as if to say “You’re on!” William stirs, comes down to Ezra.

WILLIAM: Hey, scuse me. Is this your paper?

EZRA: Uh, no.

WILLIAM: Can’t go to sleep, I’ll try to stay awake.

EZRA: You don’t know what time it is, do you? The monitor’s screwy.

WILLIAM: Goddamn. They don’t even have sports. This is ridiculous.

Riffling the pages.

Did you see this paper? Shit, this is unbelievable. Look at that. Just read that, first paragraph.

EZRA: I think it’s a certain kind of paper.

WILLIAM: Well a certain kind of people don’t even follow sports. Whatta they do for the Super Bowl, get a manicure? Wasn’t that a game?

EZRA: I don’t know much about football.

WILLIAM: I mean Chicago, I’m a Bears fan, but they been going through head coaches like a shit through a goose, so I’m going with the Patriots. You don’t like football?

EZRA: Sorry. I can talk a little about cars.

WILLIAM: Cars, ok. Ford Taurus. That’s the best you can do on a fireman’s salary.

EZRA: You’re a fireman? That’s great.

WILLIAM: Yeh, that’s why I’m going to Boston. There’s a national convention, and I’m getting an award. Dozen guys, I guess. Nice to get a little recognition.

EZRA: That’s great. What for?

WILLIAM: Well there was a fire, and I rescued— I mean not just me, but our whole crew is very tight, and this family I rescued— One of the ironies, I tell you— I been in the corps for five years. Five years prior, I was trying to join, I scored a 99 on my proficiency exam, top one percent, and I couldn’t get a job because I was white. Finally, a friend’s got a relative and he helps me out. I mean that’s Chicago, that’s the way things work. But the family that I rescued is black. Is that an irony or what?

No response.

So whatta you do?

EZRA: I’m working at a bank at the moment.

WILLIAM: That’s interesting.

EZRA: No.

WILLIAM: I used to love to play.

EZRA: Football?

WILLIAM: Yeh, grade school. I got to high school, I didn’t have a chance. I mean big high school, the South Side. I had no chance on those teams. I got my ass kicked. Shitheads calling me a faggot. Me. Calling me a faggot.

EZRA: Me too.

WILLIAM: Tell you what happened. First day of football try-outs. I’m trying out for the freshman team. Just trying out, and this big friggin black guy— we didn’t call’em “blacks,” we used the proper term — gets me in the locker room, punching me in the face. “Muthafucka, muthafucka!” I mean that was the try-out.

After school... I’m not proud of this, I’m not saying it’s right, but... I caught the kid that was the real faggot. I mean it was a known fact, he was this kinda wise-ass pansy kinda... and I beat his fucking face in like that spade beat mine.

I’m not saying that’s right. I mean it’s kinda what’s wrong with the world, but that’s just the food chain of high school.

Tries to lighten things.

Least they could have a sports section. Christ!

Ezra turns his back.

KAREEM: No. Let’s not be judgmental. Every asshole gets a second chance.

William approaches, as before.

WILLIAM: Hey, scuse me. Is this your paper?

EZRA: (as Sully) No.

WILLIAM: Trying to stay awake.

EZRA: (as Sully) You got the time?

WILLIAM: Goddamn. How bout those Patriots!

EZRA: (as Sully) In Boston we call’em the Pats.

WILLIAM: You from Boston?

EZRA: (as Sully) Yeh.

WILLIAM: Great sports town.

EZRA: (as Sully) Where you from?

WILLIAM: Chicago.

EZRA: (as Sully) Well you got the Bears.

WILLIAM: Fuck the Bears. I’m a Bears fan. Fuck the Bears. Need I say more?

They laugh.

So you coming from—?

EZRA: (as Sully) San Francisco. Yeh. It’s ok. Not for me.

WILLIAM: San Francisco...

EZRA: (as Sully) Had a friend. He loved it.

WILLIAM: I’d have a little trouble there with the fairy factor. They got whole neighborhoods, right? Whole city fulla fudge-packers, Jesus!

He laughs. Sully looks at him.

EZRA: (as Sully) Would you like to explain that term so I can understand it?

Long silence as Sully stares at him. At last, William, frightened, moves away.

KAREEM: The path to mutual understanding. Leave it there.

He starts to move away. William speaks. Kareem stops, focuses. William, inner focus:

WILLIAM: “Any fires today, Daddy? Any fires today?”

Yeh, pal, big one.

“You get the call, Daddy?

Yeh pal, we got the call.

Big fire, flames up to the sky, like they’re screaming.

And it’s freezing, water blows back, hits the streets and the ladders, freezes, we’re slipping around.

Cyrus went in first, third floor, came out with a lady under his arm, amazing.

Joseph’s up to the fourth, I’m on the ladder, see him in there. He’s in there. The heat’s warping the air, it’s like he’s this jelly monster, wavy, and he’s screaming my name.

Screaming my name, over the flames. I gotta go in and get him, pull him out. Go in, pull him out. Go in. Go in.

And a jet of flame shoots across the room. Like a hand.

I got out. We lost him. I got out.

Later they said I went up, took out a family of three.

Just before it collapsed.

I don’t remember that. They said I did it. I don’t know.

Silence.

“Were you a hero, Daddy/”

“Course I was, pal. Course I was. Your daddy’s a hero.”

Murmur of voices. Kareem moves away slowly. Some shifting among the passengers. He looks from one to another. He starts to beat a soft rhythm.

KAREEM: Dah du dah du dah du dah du dah du dah

Dah du dah du dah du dah du dah...

I take these people, they’re in my play, and they’re real, and the needs and the hope and the sweat and the sweet are real and up from the guts of Rochester to reach the Lost City.

And those motherfuckers in Chicago—

Lights change. Sudden movement.

Ladies and gentlemen. The bus for the Lost City is now boarding at Gate Number Three. All aboard at Gate Number Three for the Lost City.

All scurry aboard bus. Bus starts off, bumping and swerving. It’s comic, but based in the real search they are undertaking. Kareem is the leader of the expedition. Those in dialogue with one another are in close proximity.

So we goin on a trip all aboard

all aboard for the trip and the journey and the dream

all aboard for the vision to see and to be seen

all aboard all aboard all aboard

Bounce.

KAREEM: Gonna find—

HENRY: Mom and Dad.

KAREEM: Gonna find—

EZRA: How he’s doing.

KAREEM: Gonna find—

WILLIAM: Recognition.

VIOLA: Buried treasure.

ANGIE: Termination.

WILMA: And a lawyer for my son.

LIVIA: And it’s nobody’s business but my own.

Shift of movement: they are climbing steep mountains.

KAREEM: An we climbin up the mountain and the slopes and the crags

up the trails to the peaks to the summit to the top

take a breath

at the top

take a breath.

They halt.

EZRA: If he hangs up, that’s ok

If he says Ezra nice to talk but I think it’s done

It’s done it’s finished it’s done

I can live.

I can live I can live I can live

but I tried and it’s—

LIVIA: Nobody’s business.

WILMA: Honey what you doin what you doin here honey?

LIVIA: Nobody’s business but my own.

They are moving through thick jungle.

KAREEM: It’s a jungle

It’s a tangle it’s a mangle it’s a muddle it’s a puzzle

it’s a jungle

An we hack it cut through it edge and wedge through the tendrils tentacles vines an conundrums quandaries jumbles an mazes an snarls—

It snarls!

ANGIE: Prozac? Zantac?

KAREEM: Snarls!

ANGIE: Celexa? Lexipro? Percoset?

KAREEM: Snarls!

WILMA: Just pray pray to get through the—

ALL: Snarls!

WILMA: Get through the night through the night through the night

KAREEM: An listen—

WILMA: Pray to nobody nobody nowhere an nothin but—

ALL: Listen.

They halt.

HENRY: They got a Yellow Pages?

Suspended silence.

KAREEM: Through the firestorm.

They are pulled side to side by gale-force winds.

WILLIAM: Joseph! I’m a hero! Joseph?

I risked my life. I rescued black people. My kids are proud of their dad.

EZRA: “And beat in his fucking face!”

WILLIAM: The flames were— Jesus—

The water was freezing, the ladders were ice—

VIOLA: How is it hot but the water is ice?

WILLIAM: I’m a hero and if you don’t get that then go back to fucking China!

They halt.

ANGIE: I’m really scared. I am extremely frightened that she will suck me right down!

LIVIA: I am not going to say a word to these people. I am not going to say a word.

VIOLA: I am looking for treasure...

They descend in slow motion under water.

It’s real.

I am always afraid of water.

But I fall in a river, the deeper the more alive.

So real. I can breathe.

And deep in the river, the shining.

A box. A small tiny box.

With diamonds, sapphires or glass.

My mom is there, and my grandmom, my sisters, they all say

Open.

She is focused on the vision of the box. Others coalesce around her.

So I open.

There are trees

In the box there are trees, and snow.

Buildings, and people bundled up, walking

And the music I hear it is Brahms

But no Brahms I know it is Brahms bundled in Boston and lost in Boston and see if he has his wallet and catch a cab in Boston—

Silly, but nice.

And find my way.

To the treasure.

Who am I, now?

Focus on Kareem. Slowly, the others return to their places.

KAREEM: Who am I, now?

Somebody, slowly, finding a soul?

Kareem moves away. Lights change. The terminal: general shift in the group, all very groggy.

WILMA: What’s the time?

WILLIAM: There’s a clock on the monitor.

LIVIA: Three forty-five and thirteen seconds.

WILMA: Thank you.

Angie goes to the departure monitor, looks at it.

ANGIE: There’s no flight on here.

No response.

You know, people, they said we’d be out at six, but there’s not even a flight listed on here. Hadn’t we ought to go find somebody and find out what’s happening?

WILMA: (waking sharply) What? We going?

WILLIAM: Wasn’t somebody talking about people wanting to sleep?

ANGIE: Well there’s no point staying here if the plane’s not even in existence.

WILLIAM: You think there are motels open at 3:45?

ANGIE: I’m sorry.

WILMA: That’s ok. I was having a nightmare. You saved me from the monsters, honey. Your Hollywood monsters, maybe. Sit over here.

WILLIAM: What a freak-show.

Angie sits beside Wilma. Silence.

ANGIE: Thanks for asking. You know, what I’m thinking about—

She looks at Wilma. Wilma has suddenly fallen asleep. Angie makes a nervous movement, then focuses on her breathing. Murmur of voices. Lights change. Kareem moves near Angie.

What I want to say, Mama...

Who is this?

Me. Your so-called daughter. Remember you had a daughter? She remembers you.

Beautiful, tiny, red lipstick, big brown eyes. I’ve got a picture, you’re on your houseboat in Paris, my father with a beard, and you’re holding me. Little bundle, like you don’t know what the hell it is.

Who is this?

And another picture, the old brownstone on Com Ave, and my nanny holding me, and you’ve got one hand on me as if to say, “Who left this here?”

And when you painted the rooms those crazy colors, did that really happen? Mama?

Go way! Get out!

Mama, can I come in?

Get out!

Mama, can you please open the door!

What am I doing?

What are you doing?

I have cut my wrist.

Mama, unlock it!

I have cut my wrist and I am bleeding.

Mama, please!

I am bleeding and I will die.

Good! Die!

Kareem puts his arm around her. She is unware of it.

There was a party. You wore a low-cut red dress and a beautiful Russian shawl. And I was under the table, nobody noticed. And late in the party, you disappeared and came out with a tutu on your head and up on the table dancing—

I am doing American ballet! It is bullshit! It is shit! Pure shit!

The guests are gone. You’re curled over in the corner. Making little sounds. Daddy saying, “Galina...” You see me looking.

Angelika. You are so ugly. Fat. Like little pig.

I didn’t say anything.

What you looking at? What is the matter with you? You are ugly! I do not want this ugly baby!

And I stayed there under the table for many years. Tried suicide, but that takes practice.

Then one day my husband found me under the table, and he said I love you, and that just about killed me. But very slowly, with lots of tears and snot, I grew up.

Letting go of restraint.

So Mama, I got the hell out of Boston and I’m never coming back.

I hate Boston. I hate fucking Boston.

Back Bay Beacon Hill broomstick up the ass Boston.

Racist Boston. Snobbist Boston. I’m So Liberal Boston. Priests fucking children Boston.

Social climbing social registry trust fund Trail of Liberty Boston.

Boston Celtics, Boston Red Sox, maniac drivers, love the winners hate the losers Boston.

I’m outa Boston. I got out. I’m outta here and you’re dying and I’m out, and I’m never coming back to fucking Boston.

Murmur of voices. Kareem looks around at the silent group. Fade.

Act Two

Murmur of voices, moving to music. Lights up on the air terminal. Passengers are in various stages of sleep, torpor, or just waiting it out. Long silence. Ezra is trying to read.

Automated announcement: “Please do not leave your baggage unattended. Unattended baggage is subject to search.”

LIVIA: Ok.

WILLIAM: What?

EZRA: I think she’s dreaming.

Ezra breaks off trying to read, comes down to the monitor, looks, paces, eventually settles down. Henry comes to Kareem.

HENRY: Can I talk to you?

KAREEM: Sure. What’s your name?

HENRY: Henry.

KAREEM: Kareem.

HENRY: What are you doing?

KAREEM: I’m a playwright.

HENRY: What’s that?

KAREEM: I write plays. Like Shakespeare. You ver read Shakespeare? In college I was in a park, I heard a guy reciting Shakespeare. It was so beautiful. I went and I read thru every play. For all the good it did me.

HENRY: Are there a lot of black people in Boston?

Pause.

KAREEM: Well a lot in the sense that you will definitely notice them.

HENRY: There’s not a lot of’em in Green Bay.

KAREEM: Well but you got’em on the Green Bay Packers.

HENRY: They hire those from other places. How you get your hair like that?

KAREEM: Well I’m a playwright.

HENRY: Cause I wonder if black people would like my sculptures.

KAREEM: Sculptures?

HENRY: Cause I’m going to have to make a living there and so I thought maybe black people would like these cause maybe they don’t have as much money and I wouldn’t charge a lot.

KAREEM: Sorry, what sculptures?

HENRY: Could you tell me if these are any good?

He opens his pack, takes out cut-out cardboard objects: animals, trees, houses, weapons, etc.

I carve these outa cardboard. Then I use some tape. I have a niece and she wanted a doll house, I said I’ll build you one. Aren’t they great?

KAREEM: Well. Yeh.

HENRY: Are they?

KAREEM: Well I’m not qualified to judge.

HENRY: I need to know.

KAREEM: Hey, Henry, I been through this myself. You don’t want somebody telling you it’s no good and totally destroying you.

HENRY: They’re no good?

KAREEM: I didn’t say that.

HENRY: Then they’re good?

Kareem makes a gesture: stop it! Henry picks up his figures, puts them back in his pack.

Loudspeaker announcement. The passengers are roused.

VOICE: : Attention passengers on Flight 2103 Chicago to Boston. Your flight will now board at approximately seven a.m.

General ad lib relief.

This flight is to New York’s La Guardia Airport, and will change there for Boston. You are scheduled to arrive in Boston at 4:52 p.m.

Unison of dismay.

WILLIAM: The lunatics are running the asylum.

WILMA: They don’t even come out and tell us to our faces.

WILLIAM: (shouting) The lunatics are running the asylum!!!

VOICE: Sorry.

ANGIE: They don’t really approve of negative attitudes.

WILMA: (to Viola) Play something, honey. Calm us down a little.

VIOLA: It would be too loud.

WILMA: Something sweet.

VIOLA: I don’t know what...

WILMA: Just open up that case and play.

VIOLA: (looking around) No objections?

WILLIAM: Why the hell not?

VIOLA: No big expectations then.

Starts tuning.

EZRA: Anything you play is going to be better than anything we’d play.

ANGIE: You know you could make money in Harvard Square. Tracy Chapman started in Harvard Square.

WILLIAM: Anybody want an animal cracker? Pass it around.

ANGIE: I got the tiger.

WILMA: (taking one, holding it up) What’s that?

ANGIE: That’s a zebra. That’s good luck.

WILMA: That writer, he gonna put everything on paper.

ANGIE: Has anyone actually seen any airport people?

EZRA: She’s ready.

Viola begins a short classical piece. A few measures into it:

WILMA: That’s beautiful. Isn’t that beautiful?

She continues. William gets up, moves away, as if the sound were genuinely painful. Ezra is deeply moved. A minute into it, he breaks down with an audible sound. Viola stops playing.

HENRY: It’s too sad.

VIOLA: I’m sorry.

LIVIA: No, it’s beautiful—

WILMA: It’s beautiful, honey—

EZRA: (regaining control) I’m sorry— It’s beautiful— I’m just very strung out— It brought back a context...

ANGIE: (to Viola) What was that?

VIOLA: Wieniawski.

ANGIE: It sounded Russian. My mother was Russian.

EZRA: (to Viola) I’m sorry...

VIOLA: I never had anybody cry before.

EZRA: (forcing a smile) I took a friend to a classical concert. Which he thought he’d hate. But he really loved it.

VIOLA: (smiling) My first success in Eastern United States. Thank you.

WILMA: You want the zebra? That’s good luck.

EZRA: No thank you.

WILMA: Anybody want the zebra?

WILLIAM: Just eat the goddamn zebra!

WILMA: (eating it) Zebra mighty tasty.

Focus on Kareem. He goes behind Ezra.

KAREEM: Hey, somebody’s gotta go up and say, “Would you like a Kleenex?” Otherwise we’ll never know what’s with him. In the movies they shoot each other and that’s entertainment. Here, they just slouch off to the vending machine.

Come on, somebody: “Would you like a Kleenex?”

Livia turns to Ezra.

LIVIA: Scuse me. Would you like a Kleenex?

EZRA: Thank you.

LIVIA: (handing it) Well it’s kinda unfair that if you were a woman somebody would always say “Would you like a Kleenex?”

EZRA: I’m sorry I spoiled the music. You don’t talk much.

LIVIA: No I don’t think I need to tell every stranger my personal business. I mean in fact I’m a very outgoing person, but lately I’ve had some bad experience in conversation with humans. Are you all right?

EZRA: No. I’ve had that problem too. I have wonderful friends in San Francisco, many friends, and when they heard I was going on this trip, with a certain intention, they really came down on me. “This isn’t healthy. It’s obsessive. You’re making yourself vulnerable.” Well yeh, I know.

KAREEM: That’s not credible. “Strangers reach out in the darkness before the dawn.” Set it in Casablanca, maybe, but not in Rochester.

EZRA: What are you doing in Boston?

Pause. She laughs to herself.

LIVIA: Let’s see, should I have this conversation?

KAREEM: Please.

LIVIA: Well— Sorry, what’s your name?

EZRA: Ezra.

LIVIA: Ezra! Want to be a sperm donor?

He is startled. She laughs.

No, don’t worry. It’s just that I have decided to have a child, on my own, and I am going to do this with a sperm donor, and because I have some physical problems, through the process of in vitro fertilization, and ... that is what it is.

EZRA: Wow. So you have a partner?

LIVIA: Nope. This is the way the conversation always begins. No, I am thirty-one, and I have boyfriends, yes, but no one I would really want to call Daddy.

EZRA: Wow.

LIVIA: So.

EZRA: I don’t know what to say.

LIVIA: Well, you sound like a person with an obsession. So maybe you understand mine?

KAREEM: Speak it.

He puts his hands on her. She turns slightly, speaks inward.

LIVIA: Mom, you’re gonna say, Oh my crazy daughter, maybe, but...

You know the bracelet I made, couple years ago. This little hand, then this really tiny hand? It kinda started there.

I never really imagined it, you know after I left Dave, poor guy, I always kinda bounced around, and off to Spain, and Europe, and selling my jewelry, and then coming back here and falling into this library job, watching the mothers come in and...

I’m not a marriage person. I’m not a live-together person. Dave, there was nothing wrong with poor Dave, but I’m sitting watching him eat his breakfast, and he puts his fork in his mouth and munches, and I can’t live with that for the rest of my life.

So I need to ask. now just listen to me. I’m gonna have a baby. I’m gonna try to have a baby. I’m looking at my bracelet one day, and I heard it. Baby. Baby. A baby? A baby.

Make an appointment, and “Well, Miss Young, the problem is you’ve had this previous abortion—”

I’m sorry, Mom, I’m sorry I never told you, Mom, there wasn’t the time or the place.

“—And your uterus is badly scarred so it is impossible for you to carry a fetus to term.”

Ok. But I’m gonna have a baby.

So Mom, I need to ask, you can go through the Mom thing and tell me I’m totally crazy, which I am, but tell me the bottom line which is can you help me out because I have a little savings and I have located a specialist in Boston but I will still need some help for the first couple of years plus occasional baby-sitting. So would you please consider this?

Cause she exists. I see her. I know what she smells like. I feel her sucking. I know how she’s gonna sound when she comes teetering into my room at four in the morning and says “Mommy, I peed.”

She’s just asking when?

EZRA: I don’t know what to say.

LIVIA: Well I spose you could just say, “Good luck.”

EZRA: Well ... I’m coming back to Boston, and my plan is to find my friend and to do whatever it takes to be together again. And the scariest part of it is this feeling that I could become violent. And if there was no answer, if I never found him, if he never wanted to come back with me, I feel like I could ... kill somebody? So I can empathize with what sounds like an obsession—

LIVIA: Don’t call me obsessive—

EZRA: I can empathize, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea. It’s just making yourself very vulnerable.

LIVIA: You know, if it doesn’t work out, I have no intention of killing anyone, and I would suggest that you don’t either.

Livia turns away. Murmur of voices.

KAREEM: And across the rickety bridge to the Lost City, and up from the dark abyss, swarm the Special Effects!

Others converge on her.

WILLIAM: I gotta say it’s stupid to bring a kid into the world without a mom and a dad.

HENRY: It’s good to have a mom and dad.

LIVIA: There are lots of kids without a parent.

WILLIAM: There are kids without a leg. Is that the way to start?

ANGIE: Let me tell you, day care is so expensive—

EZRA: Do you have any say in who’s the dad?

ANGIE: You may think you have a supportive network but things change so fast—

WILLIAM: Pick him out of a catalog?

ANGIE: There are many different kinds of families, that’s great, but if you don’t have the money, honey—

WILMA: Do you get to pick the race?

LIVIA: You get basic information—

ANGIE: How much have they told you—

EZRA: It’s really taking a chance.

ANGIE: The risks—

WILMA: A total stranger?

Silence. Changed tempo.

LIVIA: If babies were only born to people who were totally secure, there wouldn’t be any babies. My baby will have a mother and a grandmother and many friends. My baby will have love—

EZRA: Love—

VIOLA: Excuse me for asking, but don’t you want a partner, have a baby with your partner?

LIVIA: Somebody wants to be with me, we’ll be together.

WILMA: A man ain’t everything, lemme tell you that.

WILLIAM: No, men are scum. We’re sperm donors. Fathers are assholes. No, gay black transvestite fathers are cool, but straight white fathers are assholes.

VIOLA: You’re giving up hope.

LIVIA: This is something I want! This is hope! I want to bring a child into the world. This world. Mine.

EZRA: So it is selfish.

WILMA: Nothing wrong with selfish. Woman gotta be selfish from time to time. Men do it all the time.

LIVIA: Yes, Ezra, love is selfish. Surprise.

HENRY: One time I wanted a turtle for Christmas, my grandpa said he’d get it if I’d take care of it. Then he got it for me, and then I didn’t take care of it, so it died.

KAREEM: Make it go different.

Characters turn back into their own worlds. Wilma eats an animal cracker, Livia is sorting receipts, tearing some up, folding others.

WILMA: Honey, you want one of these? I’m eating all these animals, just can’t stop. How bout a hippopotamus? That’s what I gonna be if I don’t stop.

LIVIA: No, thanks.

WILMA: I oughta be trying to sleep, and I can’t. Thinking about my boys. You got kids?

LIVIA: No. No, not quite.

WILMA: Not quite? You don’t look like you’re expecting. “Now Wilma, don’t be nosy. Remember the Eleventh Commandment: Keep thy mouth shut.” I’m sorry, honey. I just got children on the mind.

LIVIA: Do you have children?

WILMA: Do I do I. Yes I do.

Pause.

Now that “not quite.” That like “Almost pregnant”? How that work?

After a moment, Livia responds, trying to stay up-beat.

LIVIA: I’m trying to have a baby.

WILMA: Well your man doing his job with that?

LIVIA: No. I’m not involved right now.

WILMA: How you have a baby without a man?

LIVIA: In vitro fertilization, from a donor.

WILMA: That’s that test tube kinda thing? In vitro. How you spell that?

LIVIA: (laughing) I’m not sure.

WILMA: Sugar, if you don’t know how to spell it how you gonna do it?

LIVIA: They do it in Boston. They have a very good program. That’s why I’m coming here—

WILMA: Why don’t you adopt? Lotta little babies out there.

LIVIA: I need to have a baby.

WILMA: With who?

LIVIA: Actually they give you pretty good background on level of education, medical history—

WILMA: With a stranger? A total stranger?

LIVIA: Yes a stranger.

WILMA: How that any different from being raped?

Silence. Wilma is deeply disturbed.

How you know who that man is, you never seen him, you never talk to him? How you know he not gonna poison that baby, put something in that baby, and it grow up and do things and then you see the father. Then you see the father coming out. Just like being raped!

LIVIA: (infuriated) So did your kids have a really great daddy? You took the time and really lucked out? You got that one guy in a million and all your kids are thankful you gave’em such a perfect daddy? Well congratulations!

Silence. Wilma is cut to the bone.

WILMA: They had four daddies. Not so great.

LIVIA: I’m sorry.

WILMA: So am I, honey, so am I.

They turn away.

KAREEM: Back to square one.

He turns away.

EZRA: What are you doing in Boston?

Pause. She laughs to herself.

LIVIA: Let’s see, should I have this conversation? Well— Sorry, what’s your name?

EZRA: Ezra.

LIVIA: Ezra. I’m just visiting some friends. Get out of Indianapolis for a while.

EZRA: Well, have fun in Boston.

They resume their realities. Focus on Kareem.

KAREEM: How do you know?

How do you know people?

What’s inside that guy in the terminal? The lady with the shopping bag? The kid that’s holding his pile of toy animals like a bomb? Or your sweetie across the breakfast table?

Heading to Boston, and a million people holding their shopping bags or lunches or their babies or their grande mocha lattes, like a bomb.

Hey, Kareem, why you being so negative?

Cause the night is so long, Lizzie, the night is so long.

Looks at Wilma, who is suddenly rustling in her shopping bag.

And she looks so much like my mom.

Murmurs. Wilma focuses front, moves down toward us. She speaks as herself and as her 35-year-old son.

WILMA: Hello Leonard.

Hi Mom.

How you doing?

How I doin? ... Ok.

Well we got a lawyer. Your brother help out. Name’s Dunlap. It’s a white lady, but she sposed to be good. She be here late afternoon. Bail, that’s gonna take another day. She try to get it reduced.

Ok.

I been here sooner, but the flight was held up. What happened?

I don’t want talk about it.

Leonard, I didn’t come all the way from Chicago just to look at you in jail. It’s not my favorite subject of conversation to talk about my grandbaby dying, you know I sooner talk about the weather, but I need to clear my mind.

I was drunk. Benjamin drown in the bathtub. Jennifer sposed to be takin care.

Where was she?

I dunno. I was drunk.

Your brother heading off to Iraq. I don’t like that over there, but I guess he gotta go. He try to help you some, while he be here.

What you want me to say?

Maybe say “I’m sorry my baby’s dead.” Maybe something like that. No, forget I said that. You don’t need to say nothing. You never talk much.

I’m sorry he dead.

I know. I come here... I come say something to you. I shoulda said it long time ago, but I didn’t. And then it gets harder.

What’s that?

Your daddy wasn’t a fireman, and he didn’t die in a fire.

He was a man I met at a club, and we was dancing, and he was drinking.

And he took me home. And he beat me up. And he raped me.

That was your daddy.

And I felt ashamed, so I never tell.

Why you tellin me now?

So you know.

So I feel better? I feel better knowing I born like this? My daddy’s a drunk rapist, so I got an excuse? Born bad?

I think so. I think you that way.

You come to help me, or kill me?

I come for me. I come to help me.

You try to kill him. The half of me that is him. What about the half of me that is you?

She absorbs it, moves back to her place.

KAREEM: I don’t know any of that. All I really know is she’s visiting her sons. That’s all I know.

Sound of floor polishing machine. Several passengers stir.

WILLIAM: What the fuck?

ANGIE: Polishing the floors. Sounds like space monsters. We are not alone.

William rises, watches the distant machine.

WILLIAM: Nice work, guys. We’re deeply indebted.

VIOLA: Is that the airplane?

LIVIA: What’s happening?

WILLIAM: Well they’re polishing the floors. And they’re sending jobs to China. And running up the national debt. And fuck us over any way they can. That’s what’s happening. Take your pick.

He moves back to his place. Sound of machine segues into voices.

KAREEM: And what I know about him? He’s kind of an idiot, but who am to say? And that one’s meeting friends. He was in San Francisco. She’s moving to Boston to play the violin. She’s on a trip, he’s on a trip, and I’m a playwright on the brink of doom, or maybe an office temp with a vivid imagination.

And just make it all up, the whole city, out of whispers.

Into idiom:

Lookin for the treasure

Searchin out the window for the golden light

See it don’t you see it don’t you see?

Lookin for the love

Watchin for the eyes to come wide open at the touch

See it don’t you see it don’t you see?

Do you see?

You see.

Then what the fuck happens if you see?

Characters are walking slowly through ribbed light, in the pattern of the horizontals and verticals of the seating. When speaking each comes into a sharp light, then continues the movement. Kareem remains at the side.

ANGIE: I was about five. Fairies were part of my life. I made little beds for fairies in crotches of trees, little moss beds. I’d squint my eyes so I could almost see them, red flower petals or blue delphiniums. And then I forgot about that. And about seventh grade, I was having a very hard time. I was lying on my bed, and looked out the window. And there was my fairy. Fluttering. Golden. I saw this. This is something I saw. The light came in me, all over me, up my legs. I want to still hold that.

She goes. Henry into light.

HENRY: I saw this movie. Buncha people go on a safari. To find the lost city.

KAREEM: How do you lose a city? How do you find it?

HENRY: They didn’t know what was there, but they knew it had neat stuff. One guy was funny, but there were monsters.

KAREEM: Maybe America.

HENRY: I’d like to see that movie. With my dad.

He goes. Wilma into light.

WILMA: A place without the dark. That’s all. That’s what church is, couple hours, when we’re singing. Sunshine, then the clouds rolling in. Can I hold that light in my heart when my heart is mad and mean? Can I speak love to my son? He’d nurse, he’d be nursing, look up at me, smile, then bite down hard. Come into the city. Walk through the city. Speak love to my son, without the dark.

She goes. William into light.

WILLIAM: This whole society thing is so fucked up. I’d like to just do what I can do. I can put out fires. I can feed my baby girl. I can lift my little boy over my head and pretend he’s an airplane. See my wife get the giggles. I don’t have to be the hero. Just some respect.

He goes. Livia into light.

LIVIA: It’s the stream where life goes on.

KAREEM: All the hearts and the cries and the love.

LIVIA: It’s any place where life goes on. I look at children’s hands.

KAREEM: If I could love human beings as much as I love my characters.

LIVIA: I want to be in the stream.

She goes. Ezra into light.

EZRA: I met a woman named Joy. One of those people that tell you their whole life story. Married three times, and dozens of failed relationships. Very sweet woman, but very strange.

And she told me she lived for love. Only for love.

And she said it tears her up, like any obsession.

But she said it can always be found. It’s so abundant.

Strange woman. You want to believe her. You really do.

He goes. Viola comes into the light.

VIOLA: (in Mandarin) I have a voice and I cannot speak, except to those who cannot hear. I want a language that I can speak and you can hear. Whoever wants to hear.

She starts to go, stops, speaks in English.

I have a voice and I cannot speak. I want a language that I can speak and you can hear. Whoever wants to hear.

She starts to go, stops. Improvises her passion through the violin.

KAREEM: She finds the treasure box. She opens it. It’s the labyrinth.

Suddenly music changes, and Kareem joins the group rushing through the patterns of the labyrinth, seeking.

The city is the ancient city of Minos, and we’re in the labyrinth, running in the streets of labyrinth, those passages named

Beacon Street, Tremont, Boylston, Mass Ave

Commonwealth, Washington, Columbus, up, down the streets of the labyrinth

Trail of Liberty through the labyrinth but where does it get you except my friends to the end of the trail.

And in the middle in the midst down under the deep dollar depths of the Big Dig

lies the Minotaur.

Freeze.

The monster in the middle

beast in the bathtub

half human and half bullshit and the

hunger hunger hunger hunger hunger

that fills our imperial hearts.

Group change: each is a suspect.

Who’s the Minotaur?

The mad bomber? The frantic fanatic the tongue-tied terrorist the crapped-out killer the asshole assassin the odious obsessive the hideous hero that haunts our hit movies and bloodies our beds?

With one sharp vocal explosion of rage, need, or grief, all freeze. Long silence. They touch their faces or hearts, as if to find where the hurt is.

The monster in the heartbeat

The hunger without a belly

Who consumes consumes consumes.

The group begins moving slowly again, as if searching for an address. Each comes for a moment into the lighted place, then moves on.

So we make a deal with the Minotaur that lost beast in the lost labyrinth of the lost of the lost of the lost

cradle of America

And the deal is

go on with our business

follow our dreams

but don’t dig too deep now

don’t get too close

don’t get too close to

the treasure box

The group is in the center, the image repeats of Viola opening the treasure box. But now she plays the violin as others reach down for it. Gesture of opening.

ANGIE: Galina Rostov?

HENRY: Mom? Dad?

WILLIAM: Thanks.

WILMA: Leonard. Franklin. Martin. John.

EZRA: Love.

VIOLA: The treasure.

LIVIA: New life.

KAREEM: Trees. Buildings. People.

The violin is silent. Murmur of voices. They return to their places in the waiting room.

KAREEM: Sunrise. That’s the happy ending. Just sunrise.

Just people, getting through the night, then the morning comes, and they do their appointed rounds.

That’s the only one that’s realistic.

Wilma jars awake with a yelp.

WILMA: Whoa. What time is it?

No one else is stirring. Ezra gets up, goes to the monitor.

EZRA: Six forty-five.

WILMA: We on the plane?

EZRA: I don’t think so. We look kinda spread out.

Several passengers stir.

WILMA: So this gonna mess up your day? Don’t get to see your friend? You said you visit a friend?

EZRA: Well I’m thinking.

WILMA: Yeh, I’m thinking. What I’m gonna say. How I say. If I say.

EZRA: They talk about now or never.

WILMA: Well but then there’s Universal Time.

More passengers stir.

EZRA: What?

WILMA: Universal Time. I saw on TV, it was that funny California stuff. There’s time and there’s Universal Time. Universal Time means you gotta respect time. Stuff happens in its time. Don’t run the red light. Don’t stand there when it’s green, but don’t say it’s green when it’s not.

EZRA: Well I guess Rochester runs on Universal Time.

Loudspeaker. All roust up.

VOICE: : Attention passengers on Flight 2103 Chicago to Boston, via New York’s La Guardia. We are about to begin boarding all passengers at gate B15. Thank you for your patience.

ANGIE: You’re welcome, sir. Thank you for your airplane.

The passengers start collecting their belongings. Henry goes from one to another, gives each a cardboard animal. Low-key ad lib interspersed by these lines:

WILMA: Well thank you all for a lovely evening. Let’s not do it again.

WILLIAM: Hey, sorry if I kept anybody awake. Don’t worry, I can sleep on a plane

VIOLA: Nice talking to you. Good luck.

KAREEM: Yeh, good luck to you.

EZRA: (backing into someone) Scuse me.

VIOLA: Nice talking to you. Good luck.

EZRA: Yes. Good luck to you.

VIOLA: (turning to Livia) Oh, and thanks for the candy.

LIVIA: Thanks for helping me not eat the whole thing.

VIOLA: Are you visiting Boston?

LIVIA: Well kind of. Kind of a new life.

VIOLA: Yes. New life.

ANGIE: (to Wilma) I’ll take your advice, ok? When I get on the plane, I’ll pray.

WILMA: Well when I get on the plane, I’m gonna sleep.

ANGIE: You realize I got through this entire night without chemical assistance? I’d call that a self-inflicted miracle.

VOICE: We are now boarding all passengers at Gate B15.

Henry comes to Kareem. The others go out, except Ezra.

HENRY: I didn’t know if you liked my sculptures. You can have one if you do. It’s a chicken.

KAREEM: Yes.

Henry hands it to him.

Henry, look, it’s not my business, but you know Boston’s big. So if you need any help, why, maybe I could like help you get located? Look, here’s my cellphone number, and my work number.

He hands a slip of paper to Henry. Henry hesitates.

In return for the statue.

HENRY: Oh.

He takes it. Goes out. Kareem looks at Ezra.

KAREEM: You getting on the plane?

EZRA: Thanks for asking. Actually, no. I’m going to change my ticket. Boston is great, but I can live without it.

He picks up his stuff, goes out the other direction. Kareem picks up the box of animal crackers, takes one.

KAREEM: Zebra.

He munches it, goes out. Fade.

Lost City

Act One

Characters in tight grouping, as if looking up at a Departure monitor.

KAREEM: Lost City. Lost City Lost City Lost City. Search for the Lost City. And the Lost City is ... Boston.

To black. Murmur of voices, into music. Waiting area of air terminal. People sitting or lying on seats.

WILMA: Time is it, honey?

EZRA: I don’t have a watch. I forgot it.

ANGIE: (trying to sleep) It’s 2:10 a.m. Goddammit.

William is tapping on things with a pencil.

WILMA: Quite the storm.

EZRA: Yes.

WILMA: Where you heading, honey?

EZRA: Well, Boston. With luck.

WILMA: Me too, me too. What you doing there?

EZRA: Visiting a friend.

WILMA: Yeh, me, I’m gonna see my sons.

EZRA: That’s great.

WILMA: I got four sons. I’m seeing the two that’s there.

ANGIE: Excuse me, it’s really late, and some people might want to sleep, so...

WILMA: That’s right.

Leans over to William.

She gonna get upset about that. She trying to sleep.

WILLIAM: Hey, you know there’s other waiting areas. Over there. You could be all to yourself.

ANGIE: Thank you.

WILLIAM: I’m gonna grab a soda, does anybody want something?

No response. Gets up. Looks out.

It’s not letting up.

Goes to machine.

WILMA: So where you from?

EZRA: San Francisco. Well, originally Boston. But I’ve been out there for a while.

WILMA: I got on in Chicago. “Chicago my home town.” Where we now?

EZRA: Rochester.

WILMA: Rochester? Where’s that?

ANGIE: (from behind) Right here.

WILMA: That’s true. You a little tense, baby, you ok?

EZRA: Just a little shaky. I was sitting right next to ... our friend.

Several people turn to look at him.

VIOLA: You were next to the crazy guy?

WILMA: Which one he grab?

EZRA: The blonde woman. Well there were two—

HENRY: The fat one.

They look at Henry. Pause.

WILMA: He be next to me I’d explained it to him so s he could understand it.

LIVIA: Well why is that such a big deal that we have to go through all this?

LIVIA: So this guy has ties to Osama Bin Laden?

ANGIE: Well we have to reduce our dependence on foreign lunatics. Produce our own!

WILMA: Sorry to keep you awake, honey.

ANGIE: No, once I wake up, I get pretty bizarre.

Pause. Vastly amused through her fatigue:

No, this is so weird. This little wad of passengers, in a deserted terminal. This is all very similar to a film my husband worked on, which was disgustingly bloody.

WILMA: He in the movies? Movie star?

ANGIE: No no, he works in special effects. He creates space aliens and avalanches and big hungs of broccoli that swallow cities. At parties his standard line is, when people ask what do you do: “I destroy Western civilization.”

HENRY: I saw that movie.

They look at Henry.

WILMA: So you know the movie stars, mh?

ANGIE: Not really. No. No, I have a very normal life. Yes. Thank heaven. Please.

Angie lies down again on seats. William has returned, starts tapping. Muffled voices rise. Light changes. Passengers seem to be speaking lines. Kareem, on a seat at the side, looks around at them.

KAREEM: Talk louder.

ANGIE: Galina Rostov? I’m her daughter.

Each person continues repeating lines, rhythmically, as others add in.

HENRY: Mom? Dad? Hello.

WILLIAM: Thanks. Thanks to my crew. Thanks.

WILMA: Poor baby. Poor baby. Poor baby.

LIVIA: New life.

VIOLA: The treasure.

EZRA: Sully, please.

The voices grow louder, intertwine.

KAREEM: Forget it!

Lights change. The terminal. Angie goes to the window.

ANGIE: It’s getting worse. I don’t think it’s getting better. I think it’s getting worse.

WILLIAM: We’re not taking off any time soon.

ANGIE: Five a.m.? What a joke.

WILLIAM: Try five p.m.

Angie gets up, moves around.

WILMA: Where you from, sweetheart? You a Japanese?

VIOLA: Me? No, China. Taiwan. And then San Francisco. And then Chicago.

WILMA: China? What’s your name, honey? We all getting acquainted.

VIOLA: Viola.

WILMA: Viola. That a Chinese name?

VIOLA: (laughing) No. Viola is a character in Shakespeare. My parents loved Western culture, and they wanted me to play the violin, so they named me Viola.

WILMA: So whatta you do?

VIOLA: I play the violin.

WILMA: Mhm. Well I’m going to the toilet, and then you play us a tune.

She gets up, goes out.

LIVIA: Would anyone like some candy?

She passes it around. Some take it. Ezra gets up, moves around with contained nervous energy. The life of the terminal scene continues silently

Light focuses on Kareem, who stares at a notepad, lost in thought. Starts to make a note, gives up.

KAREEM: Give it up. Shit, if I’d gone to a motel room I could talk out loud to myself and then quietly drown in the bathtub.

Punches number on cellphone.

Pause.

I’m sorry I didn’t call yesterday. The workshop, as we expected, great honor, major players from the Chicago theatre scene, fantastic opportunity. That was the good part.

Pause.

Anyway, I’m pretty beat up. Trying to think why I’m writing plays about Mayan prophecies. I really miss you. But I’m stuck in this totally deserted waiting area with this bunch of zombies.

Slight movement from the ensemble. Lights begin change. As he continues, they move into a group behind him.

Oh, and one lady said that Search for the Lost City was tendentious. What is that? What the fuck is that? That means it’s got “tendencies”?!

He looks around, sees the group staring down at him.

Bye.

Looks front. Their gaze follows.

Lost City. Where we all going, right? Lost City. Boston.

It’s dry it’s a dry spell baby Lizzie baby it’s so dry

long road

EZRA: Coming back to Boston—

LIVIA: Boston—

KAREEM: Long road to the city in my dreams lost

city lost dreams lost in the fire—

WILLIAM: Fire. It’s amazing. The flames—

KAREEM: So dry.

And we lost direction they say north where’s north

they say no it’s west west of the moon

is that the moon? over there is that the moon or a

new casino?

ANGIE: Special effects—

KAREEM: Oh Lizzie Lizzie baby tell me baby where this lost city in the

Mayan prophecies those ancient Mayans before they got

screwed by Cortez in his tin hat

and the powder-blue suits of NAFTA.

Where’s that Mayan prophet with all the arms?

EZRA: We laughed, Sully, remember? That statue with all the arms?

KAREEM: Where is he when we need him walking the

dry dusty streets of Roxbury and South Chicago and Watts and

Beverly Hills in its decrepitude? I know that word decrepitude.

HENRY: Mom and Dad. It’s me.

KAREEM: Where is he when we need him???

He’s tired

He’s lonely and batteries low on the cellphone and

he’s tired of being trashed by the Conquistadores cause his prophecies are

tendentious and so let the deluge the deluge the deluge

come that’s asking to come and the

hands speak the ancient language crying—

WILMA: OH MY BABIES!

Passengers freeze, then slowly return to their places.

KAREEM: And the slow black waters fold over Atlantis and

fish thread the steeple of the Old North Church and

the Lost City

stays lost.

Silence.

What a total crock.

Lights change. Incidental movement in the terminal.

Automated announcement: “Please do not leave your baggage unattended. Unattended baggage is subject to search.”

ANGIE: I have some idiotic things to read, if anybody wants. Or some breath mints.

Wilma returns from bathroom. Kareem sits, starts to write on pad. Stops.

KAREEM: Shit.

VIOLA: What?

KAREEM: Sorry.

VIOLA: Are you a writer?

KAREEM: That’s an interesting question. So you moving to Boston?

VIOLA: Yes.

KAREEM: Well... Long story, but I’m a playwright, and I had a play in Chicago.

VIOLA: What was the title?

KAREEM: Search for the Lost City. The place you’re looking for, where everything’s gonna be magic, you know, like my grandparents coming north to Boston, I mean I meant that anyway, even though I didn’t write it exactly— Or me going to Chicago, and what the fuck happens then.

VIOLA: That’s beautiful.

KAREEM: You an artist?

VIOLA: No. I am classical violinist.

KAREEM: (laughing) That’s not art?

VIOLA: No.

KAREEM: Of course it is.

VIOLA: It is art, but not my voice. Being an artist is having a voice. But that is only my feeling.

KAREEM: So look, have you ever had like a really big audition and like ... sucked? Really sucked?

VIOLA: No. I had some big auditions and I won.

KAREEM: Or where you just completely doubted your ability?

VIOLA: No.

KAREEM: Or thought why am I even doing this?

VIOLA: No.

Pause.

KAREEM: So you’re flying into Boston to play with the Boston Symphony.

VIOLA: I am not ready yet for Boston Symphony. That would be good when I am ready.

Pained laugh from Kareem.

KAREEM: So you’re, what, twenty—?

VIOLA: Twenty-four.

KAREEM: Twenty-four, and you got it made.

VIOLA: No, I will have to work very hard— Am I a character in your story?

KAREEM: No. No, I’m a character in my story.

VIOLA: Did you suck?

He smiles. She laughs.

KAREEM: Well, they hated my play. Everything about it, the characters, the title, even the page numbers. And two weeks ago I turned thirty.

VIOLA: Congratulations.

He looks at her, feeling very old.

KAREEM: Well it sounds like you’re really talented. You’ll like Boston. I guess some people do find the Lost City.

He writes on his pad.

VIOLA: What are you writing?

KAREEM: “Life sucks. No talent. Die.”

VIOLA: That’s good! That’s expressive!

VIOLA: You just need a good night’s sleep. It’s not that serious. It’s a bad memory.

KAREEM: Right, well— You know it’s easy for you to say.

VIOLA: What?

She looks around. People are looking at her. Silence.

HENRY: Are you mad?

WILMA: Honey, you want to play us a tune?

Viola makes a confused gesture.

KAREEM: I’m sorry.

VIOLA: No, I’m sorry.

KAREEM: Look. I went overboard a little bit. They also said I was wallowing in self-pity.

VIOLA: I’m sorry. I should not yell. I’m very tired. (to others) I’m very sorry. I’m sorry. (to Kareem) If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to rest a bit.

KAREEM: All right. Thanks for listening.

VIOLA: There are characters here. This could be your play.

Silence. People try to settle back into stasis.

WILMA: (to Ezra) Time is it, honey?

EZRA: I forgot my watch.

WILMA: Oh, that’s right.

ANGIE: Three fifteen.

Angie gets up, goes to the soda machine.

WILLIAM: Moving right along.

WILMA: It’s chilly in Rochester.

Ezra gets up, walks away from the group, considering going to another waiting area. Decides against it, returns.

Automated announcement: “Please do not leave your baggage unattended. Unattended baggage is subject to search.” Angie returns.

ANGIE: Scuse me, does anyone have change? The machine won’t take dollar bills.

Several check for change. Livia changes a dollar for her. She goes out. Focus on Kareem.

KAREEM: No man, I don’t pick up characters in air terminals. Or even life. I write archetypes.

He shifts into his jazz idiom.

But they talkin to you, boy, they’re saying we lookin

We lookin for the city we lookin

for the treasure and the mommy and the baby and the

sweetiepie sweetiepie

we lookin for the light

we lookin for the dyin and we lookin for the birthin

an we lookin for the huggin an we lookin for the light

mornin light

thru the night

to the light.

Deep breath.

Listen. Kareem. Listen.

Listen to what nobody’s saying. That’s what needs to get said.

There’s nothing better doing in this long mother night.

Kareem stands. Music of voices. He moves close to Ezra. Ezra speaks, focused inward.

EZRA: Sully? It’s me. I’m in Boston. Yeh, I just flew back, we got stranded in Rochester, that was something. I wanted to surprise you.

Halt. Shifts persona: Sully.

Back to Ezra:

Cause, you know, as different as we are— I still tell the story how we met—

KAREEM: Oh my God. Oh my God, human beings. I forgot about’em.

Angie returns. Momentary halt as she sees Henry standing like a statue. She looks around. Wilma is looking at her.

ANGIE: Like some soda?

WILMA: No honey, you’ll get my germs. We got mean germs in Chicago.

WILLIAM: We do.

He starts tossing an orange into the air compulsively.

WILMA: He do all kinds of tricks.

ANGIE: Oh God, I don’t have time for this. My mother’s in the hospital, and— I’m sorry. If I go totally nuts, I hope nobody’s taking any snapshots.

WILMA: Just pray on it. That’s all I say. Just pray on it.

ANGIE: I’m not religious actually.

WILMA: You don’t have to be. You just do it, then it comes. Like getting pregnant. You do it, then you get it.

KAREEM: Talk to her. Talk more.

WILMA: Here, honey, sit down here.

Angie sits near Wilma. A long moment, just breathing.

KAREEM: An they talkin

An they talkin

An they sayin an they speakin an they tellin an

they talkin.

It’s just very freaky, all this. That guy over there hasn’t moved. I think what’s he holding onto? Is every planeful of passengers like this?

WILMA: Well we the selection. We the ones that got to get someplace. Everybody else don’t have no problems, they off to bed. We the special of the day.

ANGIE: Us and the mad bomber.

WILMA: Well it ain’t our time, I can tell that.

ANGIE: Really? You can tell that?

WILMA: I can tell, it’s not our time. No plane crashes, no mad bombers, nope.

ANGIE: Well can I sit next to you when we get on the plane?

WILMA: You sure can, baby. You sure can.

ANGIE: I’m Angie.

WILMA: Wilma. W-I-L-M-A. Wilma. (leans closer) Like my daddy used to say, “That’s ‘William’ with a pussy.”

She laughs. Angie smiles.

ANGIE: Thank you.

KAREEM: More.

WILMA: You got children?

Angie pulls out photos, hands them to her.

ANGIE: Eight years old, and thirteen.

WILMA: They beauiful. I got four. Four boys. Wish I had a daughter.

ANGIE: I am very blest. I have a fantastic husband, two amazing kids, I work part-time to save the whales, that sort of thing, but I’ve always had plenty of money.

WILMA: Money. That’s an interesting idea. I’ll have to try that sometime.

ANGIE: I heartily recommend it.

They laugh.

WILMA: And Hollywood. You Hollywood!

ANGIE: No, I’m not Hollywood. I’m really very ordinary—

WILMA: Don’t say that. No, I gotta tell all the church sisters, tell’em I met Hollywood!

ANGIE: And you’re going back to visit your sons. That’s wonderful. I’m seeing my mother. She’s dying. She’s Russian, and Russians are supposed to be crazy, but— She was a dancer. She was a very beautiful woman, very— I bet you liked to dance.

WILMA: Dancing and romancing. Mhm. Oh my joints.

ANGIE: Would you like a pill? I’m very well stocked.

She opens her handbag.

WILMA: I’m ok—

ANGIE: (returning) No, it’s no problem, I was just going to— Let’s see, no, these are antidepressants. Percoset? That’s kinda— This is, well it’s kind of a Prozac for the New Millennium.

WILMA: Child, you got a drugstore there.

ANGIE: It’s ok, it’s all prescription, your government says it’s good for you, it’s—

Angie sharply closes her purse, shuts her eyes.

No. I’m trying not to take it. I thought, only if necessary. I used to have a problem. There’s been a lot of healing.

WILMA: You talk like a television.

ANGIE: (changing the subject) And what about your sons?

ANGIE: And your third boy?

Silence.

KAREEM: Tell him what?

WILMA: I need a little shut-eye now.

Wilma settles back.

KAREEM: She said. She announced. She remarked. She declared.

She asserted she observed she chattered an she mused

an she droned an she jabbered an she gibbered an exclaimed

She blurted an yelped an growled an snapped an whined an wailed an mumbled an muttered an rapped an razzled and ragged

And her voice ... thundered—

And at the end of time

I didn’t hear a word.

Angie gets up. To Henry:

ANGIE: There’s room over there. You could sit down.

He looks at her.

What have you got there?

HENRY: My stuff.

Angie goes back to her place. Kareem focuses on Henry.

KAREEM: Yeh. He’s my man. He’s my mad bomber.

Henry moves as if looking for a place to sit. Stops near Viola.

HENRY: (to Viola, pointing) Is that a gun?

She has been drowsing. Stirs.

VIOLA: I’m sorry, what? No, it’s my violin.

HENRY: I saw a movie where they had a gun like that.

VIOLA: No gun.

HENRY: What do you do with that?

VIOLA: I play it. Do you play an instrument?

HENRY: Radio.

Pause. She sees he’s not going away. Sits upright.

Are you going to Boston?

VIOLA: If the plane does.

HENRY: Talk some Chinese.

Pause.

VIOLA: (in Mandarin) I have a voice and I cannot speak except to people who cannot hear. I want a language that I can speak and you can hear. If anyone wants to hear.

HENRY: What does that mean?

VIOLA: I say, “How are you? I am fine.” What do you do in Boston?

HENRY: Well, I’m kinda looking for people. That’s why I’m going to Boston, and stay with them, once I find them, cause I’ll find them.

Pause.

How do you find people?

VIOLA: Well, maybe the Yellow Pages?

She laughs, settles back to rest. He considers.

HENRY: Thanks.

Murmur of voices. Kareem moves nearer Henry. Henry speaks, focused inward.

Work it out now. Hold onto it. Ok.

So I thought, I need to find you. You and Dad.

So I worked, five more months, to save up, cause Boston’s a long way, and it was going to be a bus, but that takes too long, it had to be a plane.

So to find you, I didn’t ask Grandma cause I didn’t think she’d tell me, but I met this girl, and she said to look in the Yellow Pages.

Then I saw you coming over the bridge. Lotta people but I could tell. Cause of the yellow coat. That was funny.

He hesitates, then enters deeply into his fantasy.

“Son, it’s good to see you.”

“Henry, we couldn’t wait for you to come.

“You’re a good boy, Henry. I’m proud of you, son.”

“Give your mom a hug.”

It’s so warm.

Henry looks at Viola, reaches into his pack, takes out a small cardboard animal, places it in the seat beside her.

KAREEM: That’s not realistic.

Henry hesitates, picks it up, puts it back into his pack, moves away. Lights return to reality. Passengers shift.

Wilma, who’s dozed off, wakes with a shriek. Everyone startles.

WILMA: Oh. I dozed off.

WILLIAM: Jesus Christ—

WILMA: Sorry bout that.

WILLIAM: No, just— I’m jumpy.

Wilma looks around, notices Kareem.

WILMA: You taking notes on us?

KAREEM: No. Just making a list. Stuff I need to do.

WILMA: You a writer? Jackie Collins. She’s a writer. I love Jackie Collins.

KAREEM: You think she could write about people stuck in an airport?

WILMA: She’d make it romantic. We’d all be huggin and kissin.

LIVIA: Does anyone know what time it is?

WILLIAM: Ten minutes after the last person asked.

LIVIA: Sorry, I didn’t hear the answer.

ANGIE: Does anyone know if there’s a smoking area?

WILLIAM: Look around.

ANGIE: I suppose nobody has any cigarettes?

No response. She opens her purse. Shuts it.

WILMA: Nobody snoring anyway.

Ezra makes a soft snore. Laughter. He wakes, confused. That elicits more laughter.

It’s ok, honey. We just fooling.

The passengers settle in, except for Ezra, who gets up, looks at the monitor, walks about. Focus on Kareem.

KAREEM: Just fooling. Just fooling. But they suck you in. They grab on your ankle and say pay attention. Like a baby.

And then here come the baby critics. “That’s a real ugly baby you got there, Mrs. Jones.”

“Kareem, your baby’s very promising, but it needs more arms. And it’s not black enough.”

“A very entertaining baby, but it drools.”

“That baby is not realistic.”

“Sorry, we got enough babies in the world, yours gotta be shot.”

No, godddammit! I am not getting pregnant again. I know what causes it. It is preventable.

Ezra comes back to the monitor. Kareem turns to him, shakes his head, then makes a gesture as if to say “You’re on!” William stirs, comes down to Ezra.

WILLIAM: Hey, scuse me. Is this your paper?

EZRA: Uh, no.

WILLIAM: Can’t go to sleep, I’ll try to stay awake.

EZRA: You don’t know what time it is, do you? The monitor’s screwy.

WILLIAM: Goddamn. They don’t even have sports. This is ridiculous.

Riffling the pages.

Did you see this paper? Shit, this is unbelievable. Look at that. Just read that, first paragraph.

EZRA: I think it’s a certain kind of paper.

WILLIAM: Well a certain kind of people don’t even follow sports. Whatta they do for the Super Bowl, get a manicure? Wasn’t that a game?

EZRA: I don’t know much about football.

WILLIAM: I mean Chicago, I’m a Bears fan, but they been going through head coaches like a shit through a goose, so I’m going with the Patriots. You don’t like football?

EZRA: Sorry. I can talk a little about cars.

WILLIAM: Cars, ok. Ford Taurus. That’s the best you can do on a fireman’s salary.

EZRA: You’re a fireman? That’s great.

WILLIAM: Yeh, that’s why I’m going to Boston. There’s a national convention, and I’m getting an award. Dozen guys, I guess. Nice to get a little recognition.

EZRA: That’s great. What for?

No response.

So whatta you do?

EZRA: I’m working at a bank at the moment.

WILLIAM: That’s interesting.

EZRA: No.

WILLIAM: I used to love to play.

EZRA: Football?

EZRA: Me too.

I’m not saying that’s right. I mean it’s kinda what’s wrong with the world, but that’s just the food chain of high school.

Tries to lighten things.

Least they could have a sports section. Christ!

Ezra turns his back.

KAREEM: No. Let’s not be judgmental. Every asshole gets a second chance.

William approaches, as before.

WILLIAM: Hey, scuse me. Is this your paper?

EZRA: (as Sully) No.

WILLIAM: Trying to stay awake.

EZRA: (as Sully) You got the time?

WILLIAM: Goddamn. How bout those Patriots!

EZRA: (as Sully) In Boston we call’em the Pats.

WILLIAM: You from Boston?

EZRA: (as Sully) Yeh.

WILLIAM: Great sports town.

EZRA: (as Sully) Where you from?

WILLIAM: Chicago.

EZRA: (as Sully) Well you got the Bears.

WILLIAM: Fuck the Bears. I’m a Bears fan. Fuck the Bears. Need I say more?

They laugh.

So you coming from—?

EZRA: (as Sully) San Francisco. Yeh. It’s ok. Not for me.

WILLIAM: San Francisco...

EZRA: (as Sully) Had a friend. He loved it.

WILLIAM: I’d have a little trouble there with the fairy factor. They got whole neighborhoods, right? Whole city fulla fudge-packers, Jesus!

He laughs. Sully looks at him.

EZRA: (as Sully) Would you like to explain that term so I can understand it?

Long silence as Sully stares at him. At last, William, frightened, moves away.

KAREEM: The path to mutual understanding. Leave it there.

He starts to move away. William speaks. Kareem stops, focuses. William, inner focus:

WILLIAM: “Any fires today, Daddy? Any fires today?”

Yeh, pal, big one.

“You get the call, Daddy?

Yeh pal, we got the call.

Big fire, flames up to the sky, like they’re screaming.

And it’s freezing, water blows back, hits the streets and the ladders, freezes, we’re slipping around.

Cyrus went in first, third floor, came out with a lady under his arm, amazing.

Joseph’s up to the fourth, I’m on the ladder, see him in there. He’s in there. The heat’s warping the air, it’s like he’s this jelly monster, wavy, and he’s screaming my name.

Screaming my name, over the flames. I gotta go in and get him, pull him out. Go in, pull him out. Go in. Go in.

And a jet of flame shoots across the room. Like a hand.

I got out. We lost him. I got out.

Later they said I went up, took out a family of three.

Just before it collapsed.

I don’t remember that. They said I did it. I don’t know.

Silence.

“Were you a hero, Daddy/”

“Course I was, pal. Course I was. Your daddy’s a hero.”

Murmur of voices. Kareem moves away slowly. Some shifting among the passengers. He looks from one to another. He starts to beat a soft rhythm.

KAREEM: Dah du dah du dah du dah du dah du dah

Dah du dah du dah du dah du dah...

I take these people, they’re in my play, and they’re real, and the needs and the hope and the sweat and the sweet are real and up from the guts of Rochester to reach the Lost City.

And those motherfuckers in Chicago—

Lights change. Sudden movement.

Ladies and gentlemen. The bus for the Lost City is now boarding at Gate Number Three. All aboard at Gate Number Three for the Lost City.

So we goin on a trip all aboard

all aboard for the trip and the journey and the dream

all aboard for the vision to see and to be seen

all aboard all aboard all aboard

Bounce.

KAREEM: Gonna find—

HENRY: Mom and Dad.

KAREEM: Gonna find—

EZRA: How he’s doing.

KAREEM: Gonna find—

WILLIAM: Recognition.

VIOLA: Buried treasure.

ANGIE: Termination.

WILMA: And a lawyer for my son.

LIVIA: And it’s nobody’s business but my own.

Shift of movement: they are climbing steep mountains.

KAREEM: An we climbin up the mountain and the slopes and the crags

up the trails to the peaks to the summit to the top

take a breath

at the top

take a breath.

They halt.

EZRA: If he hangs up, that’s ok

If he says Ezra nice to talk but I think it’s done

It’s done it’s finished it’s done

I can live.

I can live I can live I can live

but I tried and it’s—

LIVIA: Nobody’s business.

WILMA: Honey what you doin what you doin here honey?

LIVIA: Nobody’s business but my own.

They are moving through thick jungle.

KAREEM: It’s a jungle

It’s a tangle it’s a mangle it’s a muddle it’s a puzzle

it’s a jungle

An we hack it cut through it edge and wedge through the tendrils tentacles vines an conundrums quandaries jumbles an mazes an snarls—

It snarls!

ANGIE: Prozac? Zantac?

KAREEM: Snarls!

ANGIE: Celexa? Lexipro? Percoset?

KAREEM: Snarls!

WILMA: Just pray pray to get through the—

ALL: Snarls!

WILMA: Get through the night through the night through the night

KAREEM: An listen—

WILMA: Pray to nobody nobody nowhere an nothin but—

ALL: Listen.

They halt.

HENRY: They got a Yellow Pages?

Suspended silence.

KAREEM: Through the firestorm.

They are pulled side to side by gale-force winds.

WILLIAM: Joseph! I’m a hero! Joseph?

I risked my life. I rescued black people. My kids are proud of their dad.

EZRA: “And beat in his fucking face!”

WILLIAM: The flames were— Jesus—

The water was freezing, the ladders were ice—

VIOLA: How is it hot but the water is ice?

WILLIAM: I’m a hero and if you don’t get that then go back to fucking China!

They halt.

ANGIE: I’m really scared. I am extremely frightened that she will suck me right down!

LIVIA: I am not going to say a word to these people. I am not going to say a word.

VIOLA: I am looking for treasure...

They descend in slow motion under water.

It’s real.

I am always afraid of water.

But I fall in a river, the deeper the more alive.

So real. I can breathe.

And deep in the river, the shining.

A box. A small tiny box.

With diamonds, sapphires or glass.

My mom is there, and my grandmom, my sisters, they all say

Open.

She is focused on the vision of the box. Others coalesce around her.

So I open.

There are trees

In the box there are trees, and snow.

Buildings, and people bundled up, walking

And the music I hear it is Brahms

But no Brahms I know it is Brahms bundled in Boston and lost in Boston and see if he has his wallet and catch a cab in Boston—

Silly, but nice.

And find my way.

To the treasure.

Who am I, now?

Focus on Kareem. Slowly, the others return to their places.

KAREEM: Who am I, now?

Somebody, slowly, finding a soul?

Kareem moves away. Lights change. The terminal: general shift in the group, all very groggy.

WILMA: What’s the time?

WILLIAM: There’s a clock on the monitor.

LIVIA: Three forty-five and thirteen seconds.

WILMA: Thank you.

Angie goes to the departure monitor, looks at it.

ANGIE: There’s no flight on here.

No response.

You know, people, they said we’d be out at six, but there’s not even a flight listed on here. Hadn’t we ought to go find somebody and find out what’s happening?

WILMA: (waking sharply) What? We going?

WILLIAM: Wasn’t somebody talking about people wanting to sleep?

ANGIE: Well there’s no point staying here if the plane’s not even in existence.

WILLIAM: You think there are motels open at 3:45?

ANGIE: I’m sorry.

WILMA: That’s ok. I was having a nightmare. You saved me from the monsters, honey. Your Hollywood monsters, maybe. Sit over here.

WILLIAM: What a freak-show.

Angie sits beside Wilma. Silence.

ANGIE: Thanks for asking. You know, what I’m thinking about—

She looks at Wilma. Wilma has suddenly fallen asleep. Angie makes a nervous movement, then focuses on her breathing. Murmur of voices. Lights change. Kareem moves near Angie.

What I want to say, Mama...

Who is this?

Me. Your so-called daughter. Remember you had a daughter? She remembers you.

Who is this?

And another picture, the old brownstone on Com Ave, and my nanny holding me, and you’ve got one hand on me as if to say, “Who left this here?”

And when you painted the rooms those crazy colors, did that really happen? Mama?

Go way! Get out!

Mama, can I come in?

Get out!

Mama, can you please open the door!

What am I doing?

What are you doing?

I have cut my wrist.

Mama, unlock it!

I have cut my wrist and I am bleeding.

Mama, please!

I am bleeding and I will die.

Good! Die!

Kareem puts his arm around her. She is unware of it.

I am doing American ballet! It is bullshit! It is shit! Pure shit!

The guests are gone. You’re curled over in the corner. Making little sounds. Daddy saying, “Galina...” You see me looking.

Angelika. You are so ugly. Fat. Like little pig.

I didn’t say anything.

What you looking at? What is the matter with you? You are ugly! I do not want this ugly baby!

And I stayed there under the table for many years. Tried suicide, but that takes practice.

Then one day my husband found me under the table, and he said I love you, and that just about killed me. But very slowly, with lots of tears and snot, I grew up.

Letting go of restraint.

So Mama, I got the hell out of Boston and I’m never coming back.

I hate Boston. I hate fucking Boston.

Back Bay Beacon Hill broomstick up the ass Boston.

Racist Boston. Snobbist Boston. I’m So Liberal Boston. Priests fucking children Boston.

Social climbing social registry trust fund Trail of Liberty Boston.

Boston Celtics, Boston Red Sox, maniac drivers, love the winners hate the losers Boston.

I’m outa Boston. I got out. I’m outta here and you’re dying and I’m out, and I’m never coming back to fucking Boston.

Murmur of voices. Kareem looks around at the silent group. Fade.

Act Two

Murmur of voices, moving to music. Lights up on the air terminal. Passengers are in various stages of sleep, torpor, or just waiting it out. Long silence. Ezra is trying to read.

Automated announcement: “Please do not leave your baggage unattended. Unattended baggage is subject to search.”

LIVIA: Ok.

WILLIAM: What?

EZRA: I think she’s dreaming.

Ezra breaks off trying to read, comes down to the monitor, looks, paces, eventually settles down. Henry comes to Kareem.

HENRY: Can I talk to you?

KAREEM: Sure. What’s your name?

HENRY: Henry.

KAREEM: Kareem.

HENRY: What are you doing?

KAREEM: I’m a playwright.

HENRY: What’s that?

HENRY: Are there a lot of black people in Boston?

Pause.

KAREEM: Well a lot in the sense that you will definitely notice them.

HENRY: There’s not a lot of’em in Green Bay.

KAREEM: Well but you got’em on the Green Bay Packers.

HENRY: They hire those from other places. How you get your hair like that?

KAREEM: Well I’m a playwright.

HENRY: Cause I wonder if black people would like my sculptures.

KAREEM: Sculptures?

HENRY: Cause I’m going to have to make a living there and so I thought maybe black people would like these cause maybe they don’t have as much money and I wouldn’t charge a lot.

KAREEM: Sorry, what sculptures?

HENRY: Could you tell me if these are any good?

He opens his pack, takes out cut-out cardboard objects: animals, trees, houses, weapons, etc.

I carve these outa cardboard. Then I use some tape. I have a niece and she wanted a doll house, I said I’ll build you one. Aren’t they great?

KAREEM: Well. Yeh.

HENRY: Are they?

KAREEM: Well I’m not qualified to judge.

HENRY: I need to know.

KAREEM: Hey, Henry, I been through this myself. You don’t want somebody telling you it’s no good and totally destroying you.

HENRY: They’re no good?

KAREEM: I didn’t say that.

HENRY: Then they’re good?

Kareem makes a gesture: stop it! Henry picks up his figures, puts them back in his pack.

Loudspeaker announcement. The passengers are roused.

VOICE: : Attention passengers on Flight 2103 Chicago to Boston. Your flight will now board at approximately seven a.m.

General ad lib relief.

This flight is to New York’s La Guardia Airport, and will change there for Boston. You are scheduled to arrive in Boston at 4:52 p.m.

Unison of dismay.

WILLIAM: The lunatics are running the asylum.

WILMA: They don’t even come out and tell us to our faces.

WILLIAM: (shouting) The lunatics are running the asylum!!!

VOICE: Sorry.

ANGIE: They don’t really approve of negative attitudes.

WILMA: (to Viola) Play something, honey. Calm us down a little.

VIOLA: It would be too loud.

WILMA: Something sweet.

VIOLA: I don’t know what...

WILMA: Just open up that case and play.

VIOLA: (looking around) No objections?

WILLIAM: Why the hell not?

VIOLA: No big expectations then.

Starts tuning.

EZRA: Anything you play is going to be better than anything we’d play.

ANGIE: You know you could make money in Harvard Square. Tracy Chapman started in Harvard Square.

WILLIAM: Anybody want an animal cracker? Pass it around.

ANGIE: I got the tiger.

WILMA: (taking one, holding it up) What’s that?

ANGIE: That’s a zebra. That’s good luck.

WILMA: That writer, he gonna put everything on paper.

ANGIE: Has anyone actually seen any airport people?

EZRA: She’s ready.

Viola begins a short classical piece. A few measures into it:

WILMA: That’s beautiful. Isn’t that beautiful?

She continues. William gets up, moves away, as if the sound were genuinely painful. Ezra is deeply moved. A minute into it, he breaks down with an audible sound. Viola stops playing.

HENRY: It’s too sad.

VIOLA: I’m sorry.

LIVIA: No, it’s beautiful—

WILMA: It’s beautiful, honey—

EZRA: (regaining control) I’m sorry— It’s beautiful— I’m just very strung out— It brought back a context...

ANGIE: (to Viola) What was that?

VIOLA: Wieniawski.

ANGIE: It sounded Russian. My mother was Russian.

EZRA: (to Viola) I’m sorry...

VIOLA: I never had anybody cry before.

EZRA: (forcing a smile) I took a friend to a classical concert. Which he thought he’d hate. But he really loved it.

VIOLA: (smiling) My first success in Eastern United States. Thank you.

WILMA: You want the zebra? That’s good luck.

EZRA: No thank you.

WILMA: Anybody want the zebra?

WILLIAM: Just eat the goddamn zebra!

WILMA: (eating it) Zebra mighty tasty.

Focus on Kareem. He goes behind Ezra.

Come on, somebody: “Would you like a Kleenex?”

Livia turns to Ezra.

LIVIA: Scuse me. Would you like a Kleenex?

EZRA: Thank you.

LIVIA: (handing it) Well it’s kinda unfair that if you were a woman somebody would always say “Would you like a Kleenex?”

EZRA: I’m sorry I spoiled the music. You don’t talk much.

KAREEM: That’s not credible. “Strangers reach out in the darkness before the dawn.” Set it in Casablanca, maybe, but not in Rochester.

EZRA: What are you doing in Boston?

Pause. She laughs to herself.

LIVIA: Let’s see, should I have this conversation?

KAREEM: Please.

LIVIA: Well— Sorry, what’s your name?

EZRA: Ezra.

LIVIA: Ezra! Want to be a sperm donor?

He is startled. She laughs.

EZRA: Wow. So you have a partner?

LIVIA: Nope. This is the way the conversation always begins. No, I am thirty-one, and I have boyfriends, yes, but no one I would really want to call Daddy.

EZRA: Wow.

LIVIA: So.

EZRA: I don’t know what to say.

LIVIA: Well, you sound like a person with an obsession. So maybe you understand mine?

KAREEM: Speak it.

He puts his hands on her. She turns slightly, speaks inward.

LIVIA: Mom, you’re gonna say, Oh my crazy daughter, maybe, but...

You know the bracelet I made, couple years ago. This little hand, then this really tiny hand? It kinda started there.

So I need to ask. now just listen to me. I’m gonna have a baby. I’m gonna try to have a baby. I’m looking at my bracelet one day, and I heard it. Baby. Baby. A baby? A baby.

Make an appointment, and “Well, Miss Young, the problem is you’ve had this previous abortion—”

I’m sorry, Mom, I’m sorry I never told you, Mom, there wasn’t the time or the place.

“—And your uterus is badly scarred so it is impossible for you to carry a fetus to term.”

Ok. But I’m gonna have a baby.

Cause she exists. I see her. I know what she smells like. I feel her sucking. I know how she’s gonna sound when she comes teetering into my room at four in the morning and says “Mommy, I peed.”

She’s just asking when?

EZRA: I don’t know what to say.

LIVIA: Well I spose you could just say, “Good luck.”

LIVIA: Don’t call me obsessive—

EZRA: I can empathize, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea. It’s just making yourself very vulnerable.

LIVIA: You know, if it doesn’t work out, I have no intention of killing anyone, and I would suggest that you don’t either.

Livia turns away. Murmur of voices.

KAREEM: And across the rickety bridge to the Lost City, and up from the dark abyss, swarm the Special Effects!

Others converge on her.

WILLIAM: I gotta say it’s stupid to bring a kid into the world without a mom and a dad.

HENRY: It’s good to have a mom and dad.

LIVIA: There are lots of kids without a parent.

WILLIAM: There are kids without a leg. Is that the way to start?

ANGIE: Let me tell you, day care is so expensive—

EZRA: Do you have any say in who’s the dad?

ANGIE: You may think you have a supportive network but things change so fast—

WILLIAM: Pick him out of a catalog?

ANGIE: There are many different kinds of families, that’s great, but if you don’t have the money, honey—

WILMA: Do you get to pick the race?

LIVIA: You get basic information—

ANGIE: How much have they told you—

EZRA: It’s really taking a chance.

ANGIE: The risks—

WILMA: A total stranger?

Silence. Changed tempo.

LIVIA: If babies were only born to people who were totally secure, there wouldn’t be any babies. My baby will have a mother and a grandmother and many friends. My baby will have love—

EZRA: Love—

VIOLA: Excuse me for asking, but don’t you want a partner, have a baby with your partner?

LIVIA: Somebody wants to be with me, we’ll be together.

WILMA: A man ain’t everything, lemme tell you that.

WILLIAM: No, men are scum. We’re sperm donors. Fathers are assholes. No, gay black transvestite fathers are cool, but straight white fathers are assholes.

VIOLA: You’re giving up hope.

LIVIA: This is something I want! This is hope! I want to bring a child into the world. This world. Mine.

EZRA: So it is selfish.

WILMA: Nothing wrong with selfish. Woman gotta be selfish from time to time. Men do it all the time.

LIVIA: Yes, Ezra, love is selfish. Surprise.

HENRY: One time I wanted a turtle for Christmas, my grandpa said he’d get it if I’d take care of it. Then he got it for me, and then I didn’t take care of it, so it died.

KAREEM: Make it go different.

Characters turn back into their own worlds. Wilma eats an animal cracker, Livia is sorting receipts, tearing some up, folding others.

WILMA: Honey, you want one of these? I’m eating all these animals, just can’t stop. How bout a hippopotamus? That’s what I gonna be if I don’t stop.

LIVIA: No, thanks.

WILMA: I oughta be trying to sleep, and I can’t. Thinking about my boys. You got kids?

LIVIA: No. No, not quite.

LIVIA: Do you have children?

WILMA: Do I do I. Yes I do.

Pause.

now that “not quite.” That like “Almost pregnant”? How that work?

After a moment, Livia responds, trying to stay up-beat.

LIVIA: I’m trying to have a baby.

WILMA: Well your man doing his job with that?

LIVIA: No. I’m not involved right now.

WILMA: How you have a baby without a man?

LIVIA: In vitro fertilization, from a donor.

WILMA: That’s that test tube kinda thing? In vitro. How you spell that?

LIVIA: (laughing) I’m not sure.

WILMA: Sugar, if you don’t know how to spell it how you gonna do it?

LIVIA: They do it in Boston. They have a very good program. That’s why I’m coming here—

WILMA: Why don’t you adopt? Lotta little babies out there.

LIVIA: I need to have a baby.

WILMA: With who?

LIVIA: Actually they give you pretty good background on level of education, medical history—

WILMA: With a stranger? A total stranger?

LIVIA: Yes a stranger.

WILMA: How that any different from being raped?

Silence. Wilma is deeply disturbed.

Silence. Wilma is cut to the bone.

WILMA: They had four daddies. Not so great.

LIVIA: I’m sorry.

WILMA: So am I, honey, so am I.

They turn away.

KAREEM: Back to square one.

He turns away.

EZRA: What are you doing in Boston?

Pause. She laughs to herself.

LIVIA: Let’s see, should I have this conversation? Well— Sorry, what’s your name?

EZRA: Ezra.

LIVIA: Ezra. I’m just visiting some friends. Get out of Indianapolis for a while.

EZRA: Well, have fun in Boston.

They resume their realities. Focus on Kareem.

KAREEM: How do you know?

How do you know people?

What’s inside that guy in the terminal? The lady with the shopping bag? The kid that’s holding his pile of toy animals like a bomb? Or your sweetie across the breakfast table?

Heading to Boston, and a million people holding their shopping bags or lunches or their babies or their grande mocha lattes, like a bomb.

Hey, Kareem, why you being so negative?

Cause the night is so long, Lizzie, the night is so long.

Looks at Wilma, who is suddenly rustling in her shopping bag.

And she looks so much like my mom.

Murmurs. Wilma focuses front, moves down toward us. She speaks as herself and as her 35-year-old son.

WILMA: Hello Leonard.

Hi Mom.

How you doing?

How I doin? ... Ok.

Ok.

I been here sooner, but the flight was held up. What happened?

I don’t want talk about it.

I was drunk. Benjamin drown in the bathtub. Jennifer sposed to be takin care.

Where was she?

I dunno. I was drunk.

Your brother heading off to Iraq. I don’t like that over there, but I guess he gotta go. He try to help you some, while he be here.

What you want me to say?

Maybe say “I’m sorry my baby’s dead.” Maybe something like that. No, forget I said that. You don’t need to say nothing. You never talk much.

I’m sorry he dead.

I know. I come here... I come say something to you. I shoulda said it long time ago, but I didn’t. And then it gets harder.

What’s that?

Your daddy wasn’t a fireman, and he didn’t die in a fire.

He was a man I met at a club, and we was dancing, and he was drinking.

And he took me home. And he beat me up. And he raped me.

That was your daddy.

And I felt ashamed, so I never tell.

Why you tellin me now?

So you know.

So I feel better? I feel better knowing I born like this? My daddy’s a drunk rapist, so I got an excuse? Born bad?

I think so. I think you that way.

You come to help me, or kill me?

I come for me. I come to help me.

You try to kill him. The half of me that is him. What about the half of me that is you?

She absorbs it, moves back to her place.

KAREEM: I don’t know any of that. All I really know is she’s visiting her sons. That’s all I know.

Sound of floor polishing machine. Several passengers stir.

WILLIAM: What the fuck?

ANGIE: Polishing the floors. Sounds like space monsters. We are not alone.

William rises, watches the distant machine.

WILLIAM: Nice work, guys. We’re deeply indebted.

VIOLA: Is that the airplane?

LIVIA: What’s happening?

WILLIAM: Well they’re polishing the floors. And they’re sending jobs to China. And running up the national debt. And fuck us over any way they can. That’s what’s happening. Take your pick.

He moves back to his place. Sound of machine segues into voices.

And just make it all up, the whole city, out of whispers.

Into idiom:

Lookin for the treasure

Searchin out the window for the golden light

See it don’t you see it don’t you see?

Lookin for the love

Watchin for the eyes to come wide open at the touch

See it don’t you see it don’t you see?

Do you see?

You see.

Then what the fuck happens if you see?

She goes. Henry into light.

HENRY: I saw this movie. Buncha people go on a safari. To find the lost city.

KAREEM: How do you lose a city? How do you find it?

HENRY: They didn’t know what was there, but they knew it had neat stuff. One guy was funny, but there were monsters.

KAREEM: Maybe America.

HENRY: I’d like to see that movie. With my dad.

He goes. Wilma into light.

She goes. William into light.

He goes. Livia into light.

LIVIA: It’s the stream where life goes on.

KAREEM: All the hearts and the cries and the love.

LIVIA: It’s any place where life goes on. I look at children’s hands.

KAREEM: If I could love human beings as much as I love my characters.

LIVIA: I want to be in the stream.

She goes. Ezra into light.

EZRA: I met a woman named Joy. One of those people that tell you their whole life story. Married three times, and dozens of failed relationships. Very sweet woman, but very strange.

And she told me she lived for love. Only for love.

And she said it tears her up, like any obsession.

But she said it can always be found. It’s so abundant.

Strange woman. You want to believe her. You really do.

He goes. Viola comes into the light.

VIOLA: (in Mandarin) I have a voice and I cannot speak, except to those who cannot hear. I want a language that I can speak and you can hear. Whoever wants to hear.

She starts to go, stops, speaks in English.

I have a voice and I cannot speak. I want a language that I can speak and you can hear. Whoever wants to hear.

She starts to go, stops. Improvises her passion through the violin.

KAREEM: She finds the treasure box. She opens it. It’s the labyrinth.

Suddenly music changes, and Kareem joins the group rushing through the patterns of the labyrinth, seeking.

The city is the ancient city of Minos, and we’re in the labyrinth, running in the streets of labyrinth, those passages named

Beacon Street, Tremont, Boylston, Mass Ave

Commonwealth, Washington, Columbus, up, down the streets of the labyrinth

Trail of Liberty through the labyrinth but where does it get you except my friends to the end of the trail.

And in the middle in the midst down under the deep dollar depths of the Big Dig

lies the Minotaur.

Freeze.

The monster in the middle

beast in the bathtub

half human and half bullshit and the

hunger hunger hunger hunger hunger

that fills our imperial hearts.

Group change: each is a suspect.

Who’s the Minotaur?

The mad bomber? The frantic fanatic the tongue-tied terrorist the crapped-out killer the asshole assassin the odious obsessive the hideous hero that haunts our hit movies and bloodies our beds?

With one sharp vocal explosion of rage, need, or grief, all freeze. Long silence. They touch their faces or hearts, as if to find where the hurt is.

The monster in the heartbeat

The hunger without a belly

Who consumes consumes consumes.

The group begins moving slowly again, as if searching for an address. Each comes for a moment into the lighted place, then moves on.

So we make a deal with the Minotaur that lost beast in the lost labyrinth of the lost of the lost of the lost

cradle of America

And the deal is

go on with our business

follow our dreams

but don’t dig too deep now

don’t get too close

don’t get too close to

the treasure box

The group is in the center, the image repeats of Viola opening the treasure box. But now she plays the violin as others reach down for it. Gesture of opening.

ANGIE: Galina Rostov?

HENRY: Mom? Dad?

WILLIAM: Thanks.

WILMA: Leonard. Franklin. Martin. John.

EZRA: Love.

VIOLA: The treasure.

LIVIA: New life.

KAREEM: Trees. Buildings. People.

The violin is silent. Murmur of voices. They return to their places in the waiting room.

KAREEM: Sunrise. That’s the happy ending. Just sunrise.

Just people, getting through the night, then the morning comes, and they do their appointed rounds.

That’s the only one that’s realistic.

Wilma jars awake with a yelp.

WILMA: Whoa. What time is it?

No one else is stirring. Ezra gets up, goes to the monitor.

EZRA: Six forty-five.

WILMA: We on the plane?

EZRA: I don’t think so. We look kinda spread out.

Several passengers stir.

WILMA: So this gonna mess up your day? Don’t get to see your friend? You said you visit a friend?

EZRA: Well I’m thinking.

WILMA: Yeh, I’m thinking. What I’m gonna say. How I say. If I say.

EZRA: They talk about now or never.

WILMA: Well but then there’s Universal Time.

More passengers stir.

EZRA: What?

EZRA: Well I guess Rochester runs on Universal Time.

Loudspeaker. All roust up.

VOICE: : Attention passengers on Flight 2103 Chicago to Boston, via New York’s La Guardia. We are about to begin boarding all passengers at gate B15. Thank you for your patience.

ANGIE: You’re welcome, sir. Thank you for your airplane.

The passengers start collecting their belongings. Henry goes from one to another, gives each a cardboard animal. Low-key ad lib interspersed by these lines:

WILMA: Well thank you all for a lovely evening. Let’s not do it again.

WILLIAM: Hey, sorry if I kept anybody awake. Don’t worry, I can sleep on a plane

VIOLA: Nice talking to you. Good luck.

KAREEM: Yeh, good luck to you.

EZRA: (backing into someone) Scuse me.

VIOLA: Nice talking to you. Good luck.

EZRA: Yes. Good luck to you.

VIOLA: (turning to Livia) Oh, and thanks for the candy.

LIVIA: Thanks for helping me not eat the whole thing.

VIOLA: Are you visiting Boston?

LIVIA: Well kind of. Kind of a new life.

VIOLA: Yes. New life.

ANGIE: (to Wilma) I’ll take your advice, ok? When I get on the plane, I’ll pray.

WILMA: Well when I get on the plane, I’m gonna sleep.

ANGIE: You realize I got through this entire night without chemical assistance? I’d call that a self-inflicted miracle.

VOICE: We are now boarding all passengers at Gate B15.

Henry comes to Kareem. The others go out, except Ezra.

HENRY: I didn’t know if you liked my sculptures. You can have one if you do. It’s a chicken.

KAREEM: Yes.

Henry hands it to him.

Henry, look, it’s not my business, but you know Boston’s big. So if you need any help, why, maybe I could like help you get located? Look, here’s my cellphone number, and my work number.

He hands a slip of paper to Henry. Henry hesitates.

In return for the statue.

HENRY: Oh.

He takes it. Goes out. Kareem looks at Ezra.

KAREEM: You getting on the plane?

EZRA: Thanks for asking. Actually, no. I’m going to change my ticket. Boston is great, but I can live without it.

He picks up his stuff, goes out the other direction. Kareem picks up the box of animal crackers, takes one.

KAREEM: Zebra.

He munches it, goes out. Fade.

END