BROKEN-HEARTED NIGHT LIKE A LUCINDA WILLIAMS SONG

(Darkness. A song such as “Lonely Girls” by Lucinda Williams plays. Lights up. CHARLENE sits in one chair at a small table, the other chair is empty. A beer bottle sits on the table. She takes a cell phone out of a bag on the floor. Dials. No answer. She puts away the phone and extracts a notebook from her bag. Opens it. Song fades. She writes in her notebook as she speaks.)

Charlene

Abandoned. Disappoin--. Disappear. Dis-- Despair. Forlorn. Forlornly. For lonely. Frustrate. Thwart. Thwart? Thwarted. Athwart.

(She throws pen down onto the book. Takes a swig from the beer bottle and slumps in her chair. After a beat, she begins writing again. BOO enters.)

Charlene

It’s you. I thought...

Boo

Unh huh?

Charlene

I thought you...

Boo

Drifted on?

Charlene

Long time gone.

Boo

I guess.

(BOO points to empty chair. CHARLENE shrugs.)

Charlene

Why’d you come?

(BOO takes a swig from CHARLENE’s beer.)

Boo

Don’t want to end up a metaphor on one of your albums.
A stand-in for the heartless world. You’ve been calling.

Charlene

The moon. It makes people do all crazy things.

Boo

Intensifies. All those things they want to do, moon makes them got to do.

Charlene

“Intensifies”. Is that it, Boo? That old intensifyin’ moon?

Boo

Concentrate, heighten, amplify. Call it what you want, Charlene. Luna draws on what’s there, pulls it to the surface, floats it like a tide. Kinda turns up the heat. The way you do, Charlene.

Charlene

Like a crazy person?

Boo

Nah, just like you. You get my blood flowing, girl.

Charlene

You used to think that.

Boo

Still do.

Charlene

Then why?

Boo

Why? You wanna dredge that up again? There’s no answer.

Charlene

That’s a lie. You twist and distort... you muddy the facts.

Boo

I don’t tell lies, Charlene. Don’t tell you lies.

Charlene

(Writing in her notebook) “Boo -- don’t -- lie.” Would you sign your name to that?

Boo

I had to leave. That's all. No lies.

Charlene

There ARE answers. You made a choice.

Boo

Did I? Does a river get to choose? Does the water in a creek decide where it’s goin’? Does it choose not to find its way down to the ocean?

Charlene

Didn’t know I was up against all that. Didn’t realize I was treading deep water -- in way over my head. Like I was trying to stop Big Muddy flooding its banks. Hell of a job trying to turn around a river when you’re in the riverbed.

Boo

Don’t.

Charlene

That’s rich, Boo. Rich as the soil from an alluvial plain. Let me get that one on the record, too. (Writes) “I left you, left you like a river.”

Boo

River moves on, follows its course.

Charlene

No turning back. No damming the raging waters.

Boo

There is an -- an inevitability to things, Charlene.

Charlene

Inevitable as good-bye.

Boo

No promises...

Charlene

But reasons. There are -- there must be -- reasons. Some explanation for why we take the risks, why we try, how we fail. A reason for why.

Boo

Holy mysteries. Answers aren’t always knowable.

Charlene

My very own Eleusian mystery. Why does it happen – keep happening, again, again, and again?

Boo

What?

Charlene

Abandonment. Isolation. Lonely nights. This solitary voyage.

(WAITRESS enters. Checks CHARLENE’s beer.)

Waitress

How you doing there, Hon? Comin’ up to last call. One more for that long ride home?

Charlene

I’m okay. Thanks.

(CHARLENE begins to gather up her things.)

Waitress

No need for you to hurry, Sweetie. You still got a little while before they start hauling the bodies off-a the floor. You just take your time and finish up. Sure you’re okay?

Charlene

I’m good. Thank you. Thank you.

(WAITRESS shakes her head, and exits.)

Boo

You ask the wrong questions, Charlene.

Charlene

I get no answers.

Boo

It’s the coming together that matters. You should look to that aspect. Take a look at that side.

Charlene

That side? That side tears, it lacerates. Thinking about the coming together is what pulverizes me, shreds my heart. Like whitewater rapids’ll smash a canoe.

(BOO picks up the beer bottle.)

Boo

You’ve got yourself a bottle that’s half full, girl. (Takes a swig) Almost half. Use it.

Charlene

You want my memory clinging to those pretty eyes, that warm, wet tongue, those tender, hungry lips, a body grown hard--

Boo

-- nights with no sleep --

Charlene

-- hidden tattoos --

Boo

-- dancing at sunrise, gliding and twirling down wide empty streets.

Charlene

Poems of love scrawled on the back of a hand --

Boo

-- over a heart --

Charlene

-- bedtime stories --

Boo

-- stolen flowers. Outlaws on the lam.

Charlene

Whispers. Secrets. Words, words ... That word “forever”. Now that, that’s a promise.

Boo

It’s a word.

Charlene

Promises ARE words. Only words.

Boo

Have you found Jesus, Charlene?

Charlene

Holy Redeemer!

Boo

No?

Charlene

Why? Someone lose him?

Boo

You’re searching for some comfort.

Charlene

Am I? Don’t try to haul me down that road, Boo. That road where the yearning hearts all sputters along, fueled by abject faith. Don’t even try.

Boo

He’ll wait for you.

Charlene

I may be lonely, but I don’t need someone’s son waiting, waiting. Another would-be redeemer wanting me to change.

Boo

Through his mercy, we atone for our sins.

Charlene

Atonement. Don’t need it. Don’t want it. More sins – now that’s what I want. That’s what I need. Something worth all the blood that’s been spilled.

Boo

There’s no blood ’round here tonight, Charlene. I see no blood.

Charlene

You like to watch me bleed.

Boo

I like you raw.

Charlene

Like to torture me.

Boo

Show me something true, girl.

Charlene

Is that why you left?

Boo

What a waste of time.

Charlene

I need to know.

Boo

That question. It steals your – it robs you of your dignity.

Charlene

Dignity! You’re the one stole it – I lost that a long way’s back.

Boo

Don’t get all precious, now.

Charlene

Was I too needy? Did it scare you?

Boo

(Mocking) Did I hurt your feelings?

Charlene

You drew blood.

Boo

Show me.

Charlene

(Hesitates) I liked it.

Boo

At last.

Charlene

The pain. I needed it.

Boo

It served you.

Charlene

Is that what you want to hear?

Boo

If it’s true.

Charlene

I don’t want to let you go. I need your touch. I miss the feel, the smell, the taste of you.

Boo

You need redemption. We all of us need redemption.

Charlene

I don’t want my sins redeemed. I want to hold onto them.

Boo

How do you get to salvation?

Charlene

Through you, I thought -- once.

Boo

Salvation. It’s a tall order. Tall order. Now redemption ... if it’s redemption you want me to--

Charlene

Not you. No more.

Boo

Lost your faith?

Charlene

Faith in a man who steals away in dead of night? Faith in a man who who won’t say why? Before redemption, you need the temptation. You need to know the sins before you know salvation. I’m a long way upstream from that place. A long way from temptation by the likes of you.

Boo

That’s cold.

Charlene

It’s understanding I need now. There's a why to all this, but it's in hiding from me.

Boo

There’s nothing more I can say.

Charlene

I heard you, you know. Heard you when you told her I needed a collaborator, not a lover.

Boo

Sorry you heard that, Charlene.

Charlene

Not sorry you said it?

Boo

It was true.

Charlene

I don’t need a lover?

Boo

Not like you need someone to work with.

Charlene

Now who’s cold? So that’s why you left. You didn’t like my songs, my work.

Boo

I don’t know if the moon’s full, but I know you’re talking crazy.

Charlene

You had to have your power. Had to be inside me. And you couldn’t -- the songs -- they were something didn’t come from you.

Boo

Paint me as a demon if that’s the way you want it, but it’s not how it was. I could never love you like the songs do. Never feed you that way.

Charlene

(Beat) You are so full of shit! Sad to say, it may be the best thing about you.

Boo

Music gives you grace. I believe that about you. I give you heartbreak.

Charlene

Leaving me, you did. Leaving me alone, navigating these lonely streams, searching for headwaters leading to truth.

Boo

You need to stop paddling up the mighty River Metaphor Charlene. It’s just about at flood stage.

(BOO gets up and begins to exit. CHARLENE picks up her pen, turns to her notebook.)

Charlene

"I left you like --“
You left me like a river.
Thwarted my desire.

(The song “Blue” by Lucinda Williams plays. CHARLENE gets up and goes to BOO, kneels in front of him, wraps her arms around his legs. After a beat, he gently withdraws. CHARLENE stands and watches him exit. She heads back to the table, takes a swig of beer, examines the bottle, paces, then sits and begins writing in her notebook. WAITRESS enters, picks up the bottle, reads over CHARLENE’s shoulder.

“Go find a jukebox
And see what a quarter will do.
I don’t wanna talk
I just wanna go back to blue.

“Feeds me when I’m hungry
And quenches my thirst
Loves me when I’m lonely
And thinks of me first.

“Blue is the color of night
When the red sun disappears from the sky”

Lights fade to darkness. Music fades.)

(End Of Play)

“Lonely Girls” and "Blue" written by Lucinda Williams
© 2001 Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp./Lucy Jones Music.

From the album “Essence” by Lucinda Williams, Lost Highway Records.

CAUTION: Rights to use these songs in production have not been secured. Producers should contact the copyright owners directly for rights.

©2003 Cass Brayton. All rights reserved.