Mary

I wrote this to be part of a collaborative writing project with Polybe + Seats, for their show Alice or the Scottish Gravediggers. It was a great piece to work on, and in the early stages I even got to butcher a duck as part of a recreation of a Renaissance Anatomy Lesson. 

In the story (and in real life), Mary was abducted by a guy named Burke and his accomplices, killed, and sold to a medical student for purposes of dissection. This is how students and doctors learned the inner workings of the human form.

Mary was played by Elaine O'Brien.

"Mary Patterson"

MARY

(with a big, conspiratorial smile)

I'm Mary.

(and a big eyed laugh)

I'm dead.

(and a wave of the hand, pshaw)

They try to romanticize it, but really dead is dead. At least I know where all my parts is now, they all got pointed out, each one. Them doctors, they knew where to find everything, though I reckon a few things surprised them.

(enjoying this)

The way the nudged each other to look, little tiny passages filled with blood spreading like spider webs out into my hands. Old Mary's still got something to show the world, even laid out cold and dead on a laboratory table. Whichever way you look at it I was dissected.

(don't feel bad, here's an upside)

That's how I come to know all my parts.

(pointing out each one, maybe pulling aside her gown to show them flapping out of her)

Here behind my ribs is my heart. Lungs here and here. Stomach, containing the last bit of food I ate that fateful day. Some says I'd had a whiskey breakfast, and in truth I may have, but the details are all a bit muddy.

(emphatically)

Either I was killed or someone else was.

(I'm smart! Pointing them out.)

Brains.

(long coils of intestine spilling out, does she let them spill or try to contain them?)

Down here we have a small intestine, and over here's a bigger one!

(in my defense)

I'm not the only one as has two, turns out most people is built the same as I am.

(see that you pretentious arrogant fucks?)

Me Mary Patterson is built the same as any of you, so when you go around thinking up all the ways you're better than me, you just remember we's the same on the inside. You an me an every other lonely heart as ever lived.

Truth is nobody really knows about me save for I'm the same as alot of other girls. I might not be Mary Patterson, I might be Mary Mitchell for all I know, hardly matters which one.

(defiantly)

I'm either me or someone else very much like me.

(a little coy, a little proud)

Maybe I had a bit more spirit, a bit more daring, a bit more whiskey. Maybe I'm guilty of selling my body, but I'm not the only one, and them others got a much better price for it than I did. I only sold a little piece here and there, never occurred to me to sell the whole damn thing! But them doctors, they're smart ones, they are, putting the chance to learn something real and true above everything else. I admire a man knows his priorities, always have.

(laughs at her own joke)

My story's the same story as the story of other spirited girls lost their souls to them we called grave robbers. We all had life one time or another, and in the end we all of us got by one way or another without it.

Lucretia Brown

Lucretia Brown is about 30 years old.

LUCRETIA
I had this friend once, in high school and she fucked me overfor this guy, totally betrayed me for him. And he betrayed me for her. Then when I saw her, at our five year reunion, and I knew that he fucked her over, left her pregnant and aborted, and I was all like bitch, now you know how it feels to be fucked over by someone you love. And she felt it. She felt regret, and she cried. She cried and she wanted me to cry too, she thought we shared sad feelings, but I had long since finished shedding tears for Craig Stallwich, Craig Stallwich wasn’t my heart break anymore, he was hers, and I would not sympathize with that. I hadn’t once, not since the day she took a ride home in his car and sucked his cock by the reservoir. Made me look the fool, some perkier, prettier- Genevieve always said I was prettier, and by five years later my tits were one hell of alot perkier- I wore this little, low-cut
(gestures)
Made sure she noticed. And while she’s there, staring at ‘em, she heard the whisper. It started like that, like a whisper, and it grew and grew until it hit her. It was me I whispered it until it was loud. I’d told everyone what happened to her. Told everyone in school about the abortion and what Craig did to her and she knew then. She knew she made a serious mistake up when she fucked over Lucretia Brown.

Caroline

This one is from Bridge Over Sand.


Caroline is an engineer. She's realizing that very little has changed since middle-school.

CAROLINE
When I was in seventh grade we had to do these projects, these projects where we got partnered up with people. And I got partnered up with Billy, who was awful. He was like one of the hangers on, y'know, he like hung around the popular kids and hoped to get invited places with them but behind his back they called him pizza face. You know the type. So when Mr. McCloskey announced the partners Billy made this like audible groan, y'know, for the whole class, 'cause he had alot he had to prove. So we exchanged phone numbers and after school I called him so we could coordinate about the project. But he never called me back. And in school I tried to talk to him to coordinate about the project, but he would just call me names and tell people I was only talking to him because I liked him. In the end we never got together at all. And I made the whole map of the triangle trade myself, with little diagrams showing the sugar cane, rum, fish and slaves, and little tall ships that moved through slits in the cardboard from West Africa, to the South, to New England, and across to England. I wrote the paper too. When it was time to give the presentations he grabbed the map and the paper and wrote his name on it, and stood there silently while I delivered the whole presentation, and showed how the boats moved. I got an A on it. Mr. McCloskey was very impressed. He congratulated us for making such a conclusive and detailed report. After class I went to Mr. McCloskey and I told him that Billy didn't do any of the work at all, that he wouldn't even talk to me about the project, that he shouldn't get the A, I should. And you know what he said? He said Get used to it. That's what happens to women, he said, they do all the work and men take all the credit. I just chalked it up to him being an asshole but I guess he was right.

Carla

This is a monologue from a two-hander I wrote called Pacific. It's a mother and daughter piece. Awww. Carla is talking to her mom here.

CARLA
I wrote pornography.  I wrote about this lady reporter, traveling the country to cover breaking stories.  Her car broke down on a dark stormy night by the side of the road in some deserted place.  She gets out of the car, checks under the hood.  She’s a woman who knows her way around an engine, she can really take care of herself.  As she checks the engine the rain pours down on her, long strands of chestnut brown hair matted against her face, her shirt molded wet around her plump breasts, her woven silk skirt clinging to her thighs, revealing her panty line.

A truck pulls up, one of those big semi’s.  The door swings wide and a smooth back woods voice slips out of the cab and up her skirt.  She climbs into the cab and with no words exchanged they fall onto each other.  He embraces her like a bear, plunging himself into her mouth, her ass, her cunt.  Over and over.  And she likes it.  She’s smiling, she’s screaming, and suddenly they’re out in the rain, but his body keeps her warm and he sucks on every part of her until he’s ready to explode again, this big bear.

In eighth grade.

They kept asking me why.  Dad and Karen at the dining room table.  At dinner.  Angel hair pasta with cheese and broccoli.  What made you write this?  I don’t know.  What made you think of this?  I just thought of it.  Did your mother tell you about these things?

I didn’t have the nerve to say I read about it in Dad’s Esquire magazine.  The story of a burly bear man in Esquire magazine.  Dad with his six foot slammed my chair back.  My head against the sliding glass doors and darkness, they heard the crash, behind me a crack.  They told me to clear the dinner dishes.  Putting away the milk and butter Dad came over to me and asked again.  I just thought of it.  He hit me when I said it and I fell.  Karen blocked the shots, taking his foot in her side, her back, a buffer.  Carried me to the bathroom under fire.  Door locked, head back to stop the bleeding.  Did he hit you with his hand or with his fist?  With his fist.  Dad pounding.

Did he hit you with his hand or with his fist?  With his fist.  Dad pounding.

Did he hit you with his hand or with his fist?  With his fist.  Dad’s footsteps recede.  We stayed in there until the car drove away.

The DJ

Here's a monologue from Radio Mara Mara.

The DJ
I was visiting my foster mom. She was suffering from dementia and didn't always know who I was, but when she did I knew she was glad. She always taught me you look after your own, and even though we didn’t start out that way, we made each other our own. She took on other kids, y’know it wasn’t just me- but at a certain point it was like it was Us doing it, in a very real way. When I aged out I aged out at her house, and she even let me stay on another year.

I heard shrieking from the nurses station so I ran out into the hall to see what was going on, and this little nurse was collapsed on the floor. She told me what happened, "they shot the President," she said. I picked up her hat but she didn't want it. I went back in my foster mom's room to break the news to her. "They shot Fukiyama," I said. But she just looked at me with her big lost eyes. 

That was the last time I went to see her actually. I knew, if she couldn't remember Fukiyama, then she probably just wasn't in there anymore.

The Archivist

Here's a monologue from Radio Mara Mara.

ARCHIVIST
What I really wanted was for there to be something special about my life. Something meaningful, something powerful. And I worked for years on that. On that special thing.

And then it turns out that all the really meaningful things-- all the Really meaningful things, are the same for everyone. There is no special sunrise that isn't special for everyone who chooses that it be special to them. Do you know what I'm saying?

All the really special things that give life meaning are really special for everyone, they give everyone's life meaning, they aren't just meaningful for me alone.

Karen

You can see Homa Hynes perform this at Mariah McCarthy's Pussyfest. Joria Studios. Feb. 9th or 10th, 2013

Karen
For Pussyfest. By Libby Emmons

Karen is on the stage. Talking to Sarah. Talking to the crowd.

This is my private life.
I live my private life here in public.
It’s warm here, with you here. And I feel like maybe my own identity is just as manufactured. My own identity is over-wrought. It’s all consuming to cultivate an identity that appears to be the true revealed you.
Hey Sarah?
Did you go?
You can’t just keep being mad at me.
Can I get someone else to do this?
I’ve been having trouble feeling things lately. It’s like I cut off my own personal access to actual deep feelings. When I start to get emotional I like, I like switch. I abdicate my emotional self. For the next part of my life I’m not doing that.
I’m not gonna feel things anymore.
It feels better saying it. I’m not gonna feel things anymore.
I’m not telling you this because I love you.
Horrible things happen to people all the time. Truly horrible things. All my horrible things-- I’m not a victim, I am responsible for myself, no one did things to me, anything that has happened in my life I have allowed to happen. It has been mine. I own these things. I can make up lots of reasons why the things I did were only in response to, were in fact the only options, but I know now, I know they were my choice.
Things about babies aren’t meaningful because they are things about babies, things about babies are meaningful because all life is meaningful and the opportunity for meaning begins at birth, that’s why things about babies are meaningful, they’re not just pink and soft and big smiles and bliss and everything, there’s more than that. It’s cliche to talk about babies, I’m a woman, I’m standing here talking about babies, don’t judge me for that.
What is your responsibility for that which you bring into the world?
Sarah don’t hate me. It’s a real question. I couldn’t know, don’t judge me. They said the baby wasn’t gonna make it, they just whisked it away to some sterile room, I couldn’t know. I didn’t have to see it to know it wasn’t gonna make it. I knew something was wrong even before. I knew in that way you know when the end of the month is coming up and you’re short on rent but you don’t know in your every waking minute know because then you might as well just take your wok and flee in the night. I didn’t have to see his face to know. What good would it have done to look at the little dying thing, like starving children on charity commercials, Just Change the Channel. I could get over it easier if I didn’t see his face. Avoid the pain. Doesn’t do him any good, me feeling all that, grief, he’s dead, what does he need my grief for? I couldn’t have done anything for him in the little bit of time he was alive, what use is that? He needed doctors.
Me sitting there half cut open crying over a dying thing? To show him that kind of pain for his only experience of life, why would that be better? The only difference it would have made is I would have held him, that’s all. I would have held him and maybe just loved him. Even just for a minute.

Ruby

From I Am Not an Allegory (these are people i know)
by Libby Emmons

Ruby in a hospital gown, in a hospital room.

RUBY

They did things to me that I don't remember. And a bunch of other things that I Do remember.

My ex used to say you could fill a book with the things I've blacked out.

When I think about my life sometimes it stretches out ahead of me and sometimes it stretches out behind me, but it never does both directions at once.

I don’t like to look back but when I look in front of me it stretches out so far ahead that I can't even see the life I'm living right now.

Two floors up when I was little there was a candy tray on the nurses' station. My mom would only let me have two pieces a day but I always tried to make it more. The day she died, looking so small in her bed, I thought 'today I'll have four.' And I felt guilty to feel sad.

A breeze comes through the back of this dress.

One of the geriatric patients made a pass at me. He's a big man, alot bigger than me. The next time I see him I might let him. He's always reaching out. I like how his hand looks, soft with folds of skin. I think to feel his gums on my breast would be nice. If an old man would suckle me I think I could relax for a bit.

Jess

From I Am Not an Allegory
(these are people i know)
by Libby Emmons

Jess is at her place, with a webcam, with fresh veggies.

JESS

I do a nudey webcam so I can stay home and raise my son. While he naps I stick vegetables in my vagina and pretend I'm coming just so I can stay home with him. He is my dream. He is actually my dream.

Sometimes it's not pretend. Sometimes if the viewer pays extra I give them the real experience.

I used to make artwork. Then I got pregnant and I was proud that I would be both an artist and mother. But it turns out the only thing I want to be is a mother. I don't care about art anymore and of course that makes me feel guilty, and I don't know how to explain to my son “mommy didn't want to be an artist anymore, she just wanted to be with you,” without sounding pathetic. I would have thought my mother was pathetic if she said that to me. And I know I'll want to do art again, I'm just in this like baby bliss right now and even though it feels like it will last forever I know it won't.

You see mothers who have children at their sides and it is clear that they have Got Over It. But I know that while it lasts I don't want to do anything else. So I bought a webcam. I didn't do it to be shocking. And I am not, y'know, managed by anyone. Plus it's not like I have to actually have sex with anyone. I was always better at masturbation than sex anyway. I get to this point in sex where like I just need to focus if I'm going to orgasm, and I can't focus with a dick in my mouth.

Jess felates a cucumber.