10/02/2014

 

Characters

Grayson: A younger man, no older than 40. Having already served the first few decades of his life-sentence, it has made him cynical but kind to those around him. His outward appearance is rugged and worn, like a man who has been getting up every morning to go to a job he doesn’t entirely hate every day for the last 25 years.

Fuller: Younger than Grayson, but not by much. He has spent every day of the last ten years sharing a cell with Grayson and has formed a mutual bond and feeling of camaraderie. He is being released today and these are the last few moments he will share with his cell-mate.

Time and place: A prison cell of average size. It is older but clean. The walls are hard gray cinderblock. There are two Spartan bunks on stage-right, one hanging above the other from the wall. Above the two men, high on the center wall is a single small barred window through which light filters, like a cathedral. Fuller is sitting on the floor, filling a canvas bag with personal affects, mostly letters and photos, while Grayson stands facing the window.

GRAYSON

You could at least pretend to be excited.

FULLER

Ten years is a long time.

GRAYSON turns around

GRAYSON

I just said that! Don’t you want to leave this place?

FULLLER continues stuffing his bag with personal belongings then stops on a charcoal drawing of a bird.

FULLER

What do you think it’s like out there? I mean, for guys like us?

GRAYSON

What do you mean ‘guys like us?’ We are not alike, me and you. Just because we share a cell together doesn’t make us similar. In fact, I think we’re very different. If we didn’t have the same rotten lot in life, we wouldn’t even be friends.

FULLER

Are you jealous? Is that what you’re getting at?

GRAYSON

So what if I am? Look, you’ve been stuffing that rucksack full of drawings and letters and photos for nearly an hour and each time you pick up a scrap of paper, you disappear into it like it’s the last time you’re going to see them. I’m the one who should be crying; you’re taking all the decorations with you!

A pause. FULLER looks around the cell at the wall by his own bottom bunk, which is checkered with light and dark rectangles from sunlight. The wall by GRAYSON’s bunk is only sun-washed cinderblock. He notices for the first time that GRAYSON has no personal belongings.

FULLER

You don’t have any memories. You don’t remember what it’s like on the outside anymore, do you?

GRAYSON

Forget it. Forget I said anything.

GRAYSON stands with his back to us again. FULLLER stands up.

FULLER

In ten years, I’ve never once seen you get a letter. Not even a post card. In ten years, I haven’t heard one story from you that wasn’t about the two of us.

GRAYSON

You know,

He faces FULLER

GRAYSON (Cont’d)

I had it in my mind that one day it would be me walking outta here. I’d go out on the town, have a beautiful woman every night, and drink champagne in the mornings. What’s another fifty-odd years with an empty bed in a quiet room? At least I can dream.

FULLER

I’ve slept every night looking at these photos on the wall. My dreams are inverted. Roads run up into outer-space, flowers grow from walls.

GRAYSON

You’re an idiot.

FULLER

And what are you, Grayson? What am I supposed to do?

GRAYSON

Go back to the places in your photos, follow the addresses on your postcards, how the hell should I know? Walk up the road into outer-space for all I care.

The men meditate on each other’s words for a moment.

FULLER

I can’t do that, go back. Not now.

GRAYSON

Ten years is a long time. Wherever you go, become your own man. Outside of these walls. The boys club is over.

FULLER

Are you your own man? Inside these walls?

GRAYSON

I’m my own man in spite of them. I have to keep dreaming, Fuller. I talk big, but this is it for me. These walls aren’t holding me in. They’re holding me together. Now shut up and go before you make me say anything else stupid.

GRAYSON sits down on the bottom bunk. FULLER puts the last few remaining items into his bag and pulls the cord shut tight. He turns to leave and is facing the audience, beginning to smile.

GRAYSON (Cont’d)

Stop smiling.

FULLLER turns around to face GRAYSON

FULLER

You don’t even know what I was going to say!

GRAYSON

Don’t I? You get to know someone after a while. Anything to get the last word.

FULLER

Suppose I get myself locked up again?

GRAYSON

I’ll be right here waiting for you.

GRAYSON motions with his head, nodding in the direction of the door to the cell.

The sound of heavy locks unbolting and a solid door swinging open.

FULLER readjusts his knapsack and exits.

End of play.