A Tale of 2 Murderers
Act I A Prison Cell
Act II The Same Cell Later
Act III The Same Cell Several Weeks Later
CHARACTERS
Frank Strelsey................................an axe murderer
Mike McCrory.................................drug abuser, petty criminal
Guard............................................ prison guard
Policeman.......................................arresting officer
Mother............................................McCrory’s Mother
Non speaking parts: Ginny, friends, police, McCrory’s boss
Act I
The Play takes place in a cell of a State Prison Medical Facility. The cell contains a toilet, sink and bunk beds. The side of the cell toward the audience is open. The door of the cell is stage right and opens on to a passageway along the tier of cells. A tall man with an ascetic but powerful face occupies the upper bunk (which he does not leave until Act III), his head propped on a pillow reading a book. His eyes are capable of an intense gaze and have the capacity to shine especially when he is speaking with great energy on a matter of interest to him. He is in his late thirties or early forties. A guard brings another man to the cell. This man is shorter, of a muscular build, has the appearance and manner of a street tough. He is younger, about twenty-five years old.
Mike McCrory
Hey man, take your hands off me.
Guard
Come on -- move along.
Mike McCrory
I'm moving. Just don't put your hands on me. I don't like it.
Guard
I will put a lot more than that on you if you don't move along.
Mike McCrory
O.K. O.K.
Guard
This is it.
Mike McCrory
Yeah?
Guard
This is your cell. You will be here for a while. I hope you enjoy the decor, it's the State's best.
Mike McCrory
Yeah?
Guard
(Opens the cell.) O.K. In you go. You want me to say it to you in French?
Mike McCrory
Yeah?
Guard
Move!
Mike McCrory
O.K. (Goes in.) That don't sound like French to me.
Guard
(Locks door.) Don't call me. I'll call you.
Mike McCrory
(Noticing his cellmate.) Hey man.
Frank Strelsey
Yeah.
Mike McCrory
What're you doin'?
Frank Strelsey
What does it look like?
Mike McCrory
Yeah? What are you, some smart ass? Hey, if you don't want to get along it's O.K. with me. I mean I don't need you. So screw yourself (washes his face). Hey man, maybe you didn't mean nothing by it, maybe it's just me. The name is Mike, Mike McCrory.
Frank Strelsey
I'm Frank Strelsey.
Mike McCrory
I guess we will be spending some time together.
Frank Strelsey
I guess so.
Mike McCrory
Yeah. What are you reading?
Frank Strelsey
Dante's Inferno.
Mike McCrory
Yeah? Never heard of him.
Frank Strelsey
I don't suppose you have.
Mike McCrory
Naw. Hey man, you got any smokes?
Frank Strelsey
No.
Mike McCrory
Aw shit.
Frank Strelsey
Don't smoke.
Mike McCrory
Yeah? You do anything else?
Frank Strelsey
Like what?
Mike McCrory
Oh, you know, uppers, downers, H, speed. You know.
Frank Strelsey
No.
Mike McCrory
Ever try 'em?
Frank Strelsey
No.
Mike McCrory
Oh man, you missed out.
Frank Strelsey
If you say so.
Mike McCrory
Really man. I did them all on the outside. Yeah. But it got me in here. That and a dumb lawyer.
Frank Strelsey
That so?
Mike McCrory
Yeah. I was out of my mind when I cooled this chick. My lawyer got the judge to send me here to see if I was nutso. He's trying to cop a plea for me. I don't trust these damn public defender guys though. They will sell you right down to get you off their list. I hear everybody in this cellblock is doing hard time for something capital.
Frank Strelsey
What else did you hear?
Mike McCrory
Well, that some of the guys here are a...little...
Frank Strelsey
Different?
Mike McCrory
Yeah, yeah that's it. You took the words right out of my mouth. Yeah, a little "different".
Frank Strelsey
Perhaps.
Mike McCrory
So, look. You and me got something in common. We both killed somebody, right? So tell me who did you kill?
Frank Strelsey
I killed a literary pedagogue.
Mike McCrory
A what?
Frank Strelsey
I said...an English...professor.
Mike McCrory
How did you do it man, strangle him with some prepositional phrases or something?
Frank Strelsey
No.
Mike McCrory
Hey, then what man?
Frank Strelsey
I chopped him down with an axe.
Mike McCrory
Man, you must've been real mad at him.
Frank Strelsey
Yeah.
Mike McCrory
What did he do to you?
Frank Strelsey
What?
Mike McCrory
What did he do - - I mean did he steal your girl or something?
Frank Strelsey
No.
Mike McCrory
What'd he do? Flunk you? Keep you from getting your degree?
Frank Strelsey
No.
Mike McCrory
Well, what then? Oh, I bet I know.
Frank Strelsey
What?
Mike McCrory
He was queer! Am I right? He made a pass at you and you iced the S.O.B. Right? I would have done the same thing. That's what happened. Right?
Frank Strelsey
No.
Mike McCrory
Well...what then?
Frank Strelsey
He taught a course on the punctuation in Shakespeare.
Mike McCrory
What?
Frank Strelsey
Yeah, he taught the meaning of punctuation; commas, semi-colons, thing like that. In the works of Shakespeare...
Mike McCrory
You killed him because of some punctuation?
Frank Strelsey
I killed him because he taught that course.
Mike McCrory
Hey man, I don't get it. I mean, man, you may be crazy but you're not stupid. Why didn't you just drop out of his course?
Frank Strelsey
That would have been the easy way.
Mike McCrory
Yeah, well look, you would still be on the outside -you know--doing your thing.
Frank Strelsey
Yes, but he would have been able to continue doing what he was doing.
Mike McCrory
Well, what was so bad about it?
Frank Strelsey
Don't you see? (Sits up.)
Mike McCrory
No.
Frank Strelsey
How many years do you think you will be around?
Mike McCrory
What?
Frank Strelsey
How old are you?
Mike McCrory
I guess I am twenty-five, maybe twenty-six -- don't keep too close track. Why?
Frank Strelsey
How long do you think you will be alive?
Mike McCrory
I don't know.
Frank Strelsey
Your life expectancy is about seventy-five, I'd say.
Mike McCrory
That is if the law don't catch up to me. My Ma died young. I hear my Dad is still around though, and he is maybe seventy or eighty now. He was a lot older than my Ma.
Frank Strelsey
So maybe another fifty years.
Mike McCrory
What?
Frank Strelsey
That you will be around.
Mike McCrory
Yeah. Hope so!
Frank Strelsey
Do you ever contemplate the void?
Mike McCrory
The what?
Frank Strelsey
The void.
Mike McCrory
Hey man, what's that? Now don't go getting Loony Tunes on me.
Frank Strelsey
What's that?
Mike McCrory
Nothing.
Frank Strelsey
Well? Do you?
Mike McCrory
What?
Frank Strelsey
Contemplate the void?
Mike McCrory
Naw, I don't even know what it is.
Frank Strelsey
It's the abyss. It's what is beyond what we know here in this little room, or in that world out there, beyond what we can see or hear or touch.
Mike McCrory
Naw, I never learned nothing about that.
Frank Strelsey
No, of course you didn't.
Mike McCrory
Hey, don't treat me like I am dirt or something.
Frank Strelsey
No, you're not dirt, my friend.
Mike McCrory
O.K. So why is that a reason to kill this dude?
Frank Strelsey
He wasted my time.
Mike McCrory
What was you doing?
Frank Strelsey
He wasted the time I had to think about that, hours, minutes, seconds, nanoseconds that I should have devoted to thinking about that.
Mike McCrory
You're lucky your lawyer got you off and got you in here or you wouldn't have had too much more time to waste.
Frank Strelsey
I don't have any time to waste regardless of how long I have to live.
Mike McCrory
Yeah. Right. Sure.
Frank Strelsey
I wouldn't expect you to understand.
Mike McCrory
Naw man, maybe I do understand.
Frank Strelsey
Don't patronize me.
Mike McCrory
No, man. Look I ain't doing whatever that means.
Frank Strelsey
Don't humor me!
Mike McCrory
No. I'm not doing that. Honest.
Frank Strelsey
I really didn't expect you to understand.
Mike McCrory
Well, maybe that is the problem.
Frank Strelsey
Maybe I have underestimated you.
Mike McCrory
Yeah. That's it.
Frank Strelsey
How far did you go in school?
Mike McCrory
Aw, Hell. I dropped out -- second year of high school. But give me a chance, I'm not real stupid. My mind ain't closed down.
Frank Strelsey
Then my friend you are different from most people.
Mike McCrory
What do you mean?
Frank Strelsey
Well, the mind of most people has closed down. Usually it happens when they leave high school or college or graduate school. Yes, they think they are open minded because they like what was avant garde, new to them, at that time, but their mind is usually done. They are the dead tending the graves of the dead.
The worst are those who have progressed the furthest. They are the gatekeepers and only let through what resembles the past to them, they trade on the wisdom and judgment of their betters, those who have preceded them. Their very insecurity and doubt reveals itself in the tenacity with which they cling to the received wisdom. They are always like Orpheus looking back and, like Orpheus, by doing it they lose what they wish most to possess.
There are, my friend, only a few people in an epoch who can truly look forward without always turning their gaze back to the comfort of the past, the familiar. Only a few can truly look at something new and perceive it, recognize it, add it to their store of experience in the world. A certain number can take their hand and, through this progress, the rest are dead. When I dispatched Higgenbottom, that was his name, I merely allowed his body to follow where his mind had already gone.
ETC.