uploaded monologues, sequences in plays, and riffs otherwise that have been cut, placed on pause, thrown into the city system until I can find them a new home.

redacted sequence - little village - suzie & roxy 

TREVOR turns off his Christmas lights and goes inside. Exits. 
SUZIE has begun to roll a joint.

		SUZIE
For a guy who dresses as good as he does, he sure is always mad. 

		ROXY
Some people are so angry at the world as they are with themselves, they can never tell the difference really and that only makes them angrier. 

		SUZIE
I can tell what he’s angrier at. 

		ROXY
Yeah, well, never tell him. That’ll really set him off. 

SUZIE laughs. 

		SUZIE
I won’t, I won’t, I swear. 

		ROXY
You need any help with that? 

		SUZIE
I remember how you taught me. 

		ROXY
I’ll have to try it out and see if I taught you right. 

		SUZIE
You ain’t concerned more that maybe I didn’t listen all the way? 

		ROXY
I never worry about that when it comes to you. 

		SUZIE
I was thinking. Maybe this Summer should be the Summer I get a job. Something part-time, maybe? Maybe even at the senior home where you work? 

		ROXY
You’ve been thinking all that?

		SUZIE
I think I’m outgrowing the do-nothing days. 

		ROXY
Pretty soon you’ll never have a do-nothing day ever again. 

		SUZIE
I know. Which is why I was thinking, why not ease into it now? Get a taste of what’s to come?

		ROXY
Maybe I want you to enjoy what’s left of your youth. If I told you to, I know you’d listen.

		SUZIE
It doesn’t sound like you’re trying to stop me. I want to be of use. I’m tired of going to Magic Mountain with my friends, riding all the same rides, eating all the same, awful foods. But I don’t exactly want to be flipping burgers, either.

		ROXY
Sweetheart, they aren’t hiring us to flip burgers, anymore. 

		SUZIE
I’ve been thinking about what I want to do, what kind of ‘use,’ I can be, and I don’t know that I know that much, I mean, I know I do, but. I see, and know what you do, and really don’t think I’d mind doing that too. 

		ROXY
You don’t want to be a doctor, or make TV shows for Oprah? 

		SUZIE
We’re not the Obamas, mom, I’d be incapable of Malia-ing myself to the forefront, I’d get stuck being a minimum wage diversity assistant for years to come. 

		ROXY
I think they’re still letting us climb the ladder quickly. 

		SUZIE
Yeah, until we climb high enough they begin sawing at the base. 

		ROXY
That’s a hard fall. 

		SUZIE
That’s a motherfucking body slam if I ever heard one, BAM!

ELISE looks up. ROXY chuckles. 

		ROXY
Keep it down, baby, there are other people trying to sleep around here. 

		SUZIE
Yeah, and taking loud shits. 

		ROXY
I think he was bluffing. 

		SUZIE
Maybe this time, but I’ve heard them. 

		ROXY
You have? 

		SUZIE
Mhm – It’s as though they bounce off the sides of the canyon. 

		ROXY
That’s a mighty fine visual.

		SUZIE
Sorry. 

		ROXY
It’s hard work taking care of other people. 

		SUZIE
You never seem to complain. 

		ROXY
Don’t know what good that really does for anybody. Complaining’s boring. 

		SUZIE
I guess it is. But if you could… what would be there to say? 

		ROXY
Nothing, particular. You get some insanity. Some residual shit that as the brain deteriorates, resurfaces, so it’s hard to take it personally, but still, these days the way they’re all telling us how to feel, you wonder if you should, or if you should, just pity broken minds left alone in broken worlds of their own. If that makes sense. 

		SUZIE
I think so. And that’s okay, I think. I think I know the difference between some old white man with Alzheimer’s saying shit like, well, what I can imagine. Doesn’t mean I’d necessarily punch his eyes out, even if a part of me’s been told to wanna do so. 

		ROXY
They’re just empty words out of abandoned mouths. 

		SUZIE
Is that it? 

		ROXY
Well, that is it. Actually. And I don’t know if – I don’t know – I – it can be very difficult helping those who no longer have anybody. Either everyone they know is dead, gone, can only manage to visit them when they have the capacity; or they don’t want to be bothered by them at all any longer. But sure, it is a job. Providing care, help, company. And it’s all fun and games and balloon hockey until suddenly the imminent becomes clear, and they begin purposely shitting all over the place because they know they can, because they know it’s your job to clean it up. 

Off Left, we HEAR TREVOR letting a LOUD ONE RIIIIIP from of 
his bathroom window.

		SUZIE
Told you. 

		ROXY
He actually just did that, didn’t he? 

		ELISE to herself re Trevor
…Fucking dinosaur… 

		SUZIE
I read once that in Japan, the oldest generations are having trouble at retirement facilities, or even living on their own – because for a long while the work culture prevented them from having a healthy family life – so many of them never had any kids, and now, because of that, they’re all dying all alone, and so Japan is looking into investing in AI and robot technology companies to develop elder-care robots that can help them in the bathroom, or take them to bed, or order groceries. 

		ROXY
Could you imagine a metal lid scrapping your behind? 

		SUZIE
I think it would be kinda cold. 

		ROXY
Skin that old, I can’t imagine the tears. 

		SUZIE
Ew, mom! 

		ROXY
Oh, you begin to think about a whole lot worse when you do what I do, which is why I’m just a little concerned. It’s as thankless a job as it is as thankless – 

		SUZIE
What, ‘a world?’

		ROXY
I don’t want you to believe me, yet, not at your age. 

		SUZIE
I don’t know that I think I’m expecting to be thanked, though. 

		ROXY
I raised you better than that. 

		SUZIE
It’s because you raised me I think, that I do think that, mom. I think ‘giving,’ it’s just that, it’s ‘giving,’ ‘giving’ expecting any sort of like, something in return – 

		ROXY
That’s called ‘reciprocity’ – 

		SUZIE
Right, okay, thanks – ‘giving’ expecting – reciprox-ity – 

		ROXY
‘PROC-ity’ – 

		SUZIE
‘Reci-PROC-ity’ isn’t really ‘giving,’ it’s something else. Something new I think we’ve all come to expect these days, especially here. 

		ROXY
Can you tell me what other countries you have been to, miss thing, to make you build that assumption? 

		SUZIE
I dunno! On TikTok, you see a bunch of these families giving away money and cars and things to poor people with makeup on. They know they’re not going to be getting anything from the poor people, but, they do know they’re going to be getting a lot of Likes and Shares. Even in conversations, sometimes, the way people compare and never contrast, someone talks about something they did and the other person automatically talks about how they did the same thing, but better. Maybe that’s further from the point but to me I don’t think it is. Sometimes, I think we’re evolving into a new version of us that doesn’t even like one another. We’re just nice to each other. But only kind of. It’s a real bad taste I can’t seem to get rid of. I don’t think I’m there yet, but I’d like to shake it off before I do, not that I think that – but the fear of becoming that kind of animal makes me want to explode with all that I can do, to show others what is right. 
	
		ROXY
We also live in a world where what is popular, even in behavior, is considered right. 

		SUZIE
Well, that’s just wrong. 

		ROXY
Tell it to the people! 

		SUZIE
‘IT’S WRONG!’ 

redacted monologue - little village - Elise

If you try hard enough, helicopters can remind you of the ocean. Especially when they’re circling over you. The humming of its proximity the low rumbling of the Pacific. It’s approach, waves crashing. And as it continues on, the fizzing retreat of the surge, from shore, pulled back into the sea. 

No matter how hard you try, helicopters remind you of home. They sound the way the ocean sounds made up the wind. Even from the street where I used to live. One, perfect little street. Buckeyes and Douglas firs; silhouettes of palms stalking you from afar, hiding in the forever blanket of Maritime overcast. And June, season of the white jasmine. The town perfume. Potholes, and. Old cars, small jobs, easy people with easy prospects, just trying to live. ‘Trying.’ With said ‘small’ ‘jobs.’ And you grow up, realize the crowdedness on the main drag, on the weekends, fancy people with fancy cars, when you’re younger you imagine the rich people in town are just hiding away until the weekend comes and now that it’s here, they’re ready for fun, but then, you get older and land a gig at a coffee slash reused, paperback feminist bookshop, and they all start flooding in asking for the vegan butterscotch – cookies – and you, you let them ask you questions about where you live and how you ‘like it out there,’ and then you begin to realize that maybe, these people aren’t even from your town at all, and that, maybe your town never had any rich people to begin with. 

And that’s when they talk about visiting from LA, you know, ‘just a little R and R,’ and sure, makes sense they’re city folk; they’ve all got Amexes and dressed like they’re – dress like a stereotypical houseless person would dress (although I’m not one to speculate, not really on the outside, at least). Everything’s distressed if they come from money, looking ugly and bored – even with themselves – unless they happened to find their riches in that city, for the first time in their entire families lineage. Then they dress in their polos and chinos, groomed hair and – carry – an utmost fascination with themselves for they worked towards the ability to not only find others and other things fascinating, but to go meet those things for themselves. Again, sure, you imagine that’s what comes out of this city, and, for the most part I think I’m right – although I couldn’t tell you what the world out there looks like, or dressed like South of the 10. I never fascinated myself with that part of town. I don’t think I can be hated for not wanting to. Tee shirts probably. Sunday best? Blue collar looking to go White. Black and Brown looking to go White, too. Maybe not looking to go anywhere at all, but. I think you always hope for different people to suddenly make up all the people you already know. But the folks who came from nothing, became something? With their pretty clothes? Their emblems of right choice? I thought I could be one of those people, too.

And so you sit with yourself. On the porch on your perfect street, of the perfect little home you and your brother began renting with your dead father’s money; no word from mom. And your brother’s beginning to get mixed up, but he’s found a woman who makes him happy, sort of, but in thinking he’s all you got, him and that house, you decide – FUCK reused, paperback feminist books AND their bookshops – FUCK – fascinating over fascinators looking at you, tapping on the glass at the zoo – FUCK – the white jasmine and the shore and the air that seeps through even polyester. You look at the moon and you sit on your porch and remind yourself or convince yourself that you are worth more than whatever she made you believe; or what your brother suggests at times, what we have been reduced to. And so? I moved to LA. And I got a job working for Alamo Car Rental. Close to the runways of Burbank, the thoughts of travel were a song. I would build a world and promise of myself, capable of returning to see my brother whenever he needed me. Or whenever I had decided I wanted to see him. I would – read, and write – something, join the forces for good, neighborhood council, the People’s council, ACLU, Democrats Now, the food shelter, the regular shelters, and the shelters that give out all those identical tents seemingly for the houseless and campus protestors? I would make – a name – for myself by doing good for others, offering aid and offering Camrys, speaking up for what was right and shouting down what I disagreed with. Soon? I would make it to the big leagues, something at the mayor’s office or some other office oversaw by a, preferably, brown or black person of color who climbed the ranks through the system and has never at all ever once done something corrupt. I would be, their knight – I know coffee and books, compelling ones – I know the lay of the land, the people, the people who gawk, the people who look at me – the same way they do a person on the streets! I would soar, high and above my street of fir and buckeye and white jasmine and my brother’s BITCH girlfriend Lily Rose, I would write an autobiography of my work serving the disenfranchised while also noting my own disenfranchisement, my OWN – BITCH mother – and then soon I would have a service clinic for all women and women-identifying convicts and would liberate ALL of us! 

The dreams get bigger the more the city holds you down, begs you to beg yourself not to go. My brother’s getting into deeper trouble and I could see a world for myself where I surrender the desire of fascination and retrieve whatever world of family I have left. At Alamo, you’re giving out better cars than the one you drive. And In Los Angeles, you’re always putting out for those who don’t need a single thing. This garden ledge, my porch back home. The strangers, the fascinators, all of whom I hope to get bored by, and inspired to, soon, one day go home. It’s better than this shit. Living off sloppy seconds, the second halves of your lunches out of Popeye’s, 7-11. Coming home to cheap wine, a dirty roommate, a neighbor ingratiated with himself, and a Moon seen better through a fog. In Los Angeles, you only get to leave once something about it spits you out. And if you try hard enough, maybe something finally will. I sort of hope it does. I sometimes think I’m not cut out for dreaming as a living.

redacted monologue - little village - Trevor

Years ago, I think I told you this, but two guys. ‘Men.’ You know, got me where they wanted me. I think the one guy had an aquarium in his bedroom, even though his bedroom was carpeted? Choices, I guess. And I wasn’t exactly as loose as they’d hoped I’d be according to the package details of whatever they bought off their guy for me to feed, and so, fed me a bit of crystal, got me loose as I tried to figure out where I was, and. They didn’t even wait until I was dressed to kick me out of the house. Got all sorts of things from them, a couple of them permanent. The kinda permanent you can get when they rip you loose. Guess it’s fine, these days, but. Imagine if it had happened in the 70s. 80s. You know? I do. Anyway. Weeks later, began having this dream. Of this – entity. Long and sinewy, made of static, human clay and aluminum as if the Dark had molded it itself. Egg-shaped head with sorta indents where the eyes ought to be and endless arms and endless fingers. Looming outside my window and just looking in. Looking in for eternity as I looked at it for eternity until the shadow static sifted and in the corner of my room the growing dark turned into It. And a corner closer to me metastasized of that same Memory, Grimace, and my marrow turned to boiling ice, paralyzing. As I drew my blanket closer to my eyes, I’m unable to look away, until it emerged from the closest corner of my mind and stood at the foot of my bed, just standing, staring still, blanket now over my eyes as I see the shadow of this Shadow now slowly, surely, looming, leaning over me, its endless legs firmly in place, just it’s endless torso tilted over 90 degrees right over me and I feel as though I have no choice but to see and so I lower, and there it is just – inches from my face, God, and – I try – to scream, God I try as hard as I can but nothing’s coming out and it’s just looking at me, not even mocking, not even curious, I don’t know what it wants but somehow I know I need to know what IT is, what it was, forever until morning ultimately came after all of its endlessness. For months, every night It would return to me and I would scream in silence, cry without tears, unable to make a single movement, unable to make a single sound, produce a single droplet of moisture. Until one night of its endlessness, I decided I wouldn’t scream. I would not try to wake up, I would not try to hide or shy away from its non-faced face, and it lingered over me in my safest space and I simply looked back at it. Endlessly I looked, and began to understand, as the scar of my heart began to break open once again and embraced all that leaned on top of me. And I looked through the non-eyes of a most singular, isolated, isolation. I had to understand that I was alone. At least just once, at least, just with – everything that came out of that room with the aquarium. How this was to be my Alone. How we all got it, but all got it differently which practically means, even in a collective, you know, it’s still just Us, with It. And then I never had the dream again. It never returned. I think maybe because I allowed it to come live inside. Better that, maybe, than the alternative. I never wanted to see that face again, outside of that dream. So I had to hold. I had to accept It.