From
Scene 7
of
Sarcoxie & Sealove
By
Sander Hicks
(Sealove
goes to fridge for the beer. Cracks it
open. Wipes away a small tear.)
Coby......"Beer’s
gone, I’m gone." We need to
sleep too. You’re gonna be off your
schedule, partner. You’re gonna be
a bear to wake up at 6 on Monday.
Sealove......It’s
Saturday Night! Or it was.
Coby......Sleep.
Dream of me. I will tell you secrets.
Sealove......You’re
dead. You only have the past. You’re
like the old man.
Coby......You
love him for his loyalty to what he believes
in.
Sealove......he
loves something that has become obsolete.
Coby......Sleep.
I will tell you stories.
Sealove......Speaking
of questions ‘been meaning to ask,
why are you such a weirdo magnet? Every
month I get a radioactive email from mysterious
beings who cluck and coo how they KNOW
Coby Benton didn’t commit suicide,
they just KNOW you got whacked by shadowy
figures working for the President. Are
you talking? I tried to get the story
on you first-hand by going to your own
home town in Arkansas two months after
you checked out. I met the man who found
your body in the hotel room with the note.
He was the only cop who would really talk
to me like a human being. His story held
together-Credit Card fraud, alcohol abuse,
massive amounts of antidepressants…but
if you were so broke why did you die with
$800 cash in your pocket? Why did you
drive a BMW to the hotel, where you wrote,
Coby......"it’s
time for me now to go take my pills. Just
remember, I am a good man who got caught
in bad circumstances. I regret I won’t
walk little Adrianna down the aisle some
day."
Sealove......I
got all the official evidence available
that tells me you really did kill yourself.
And I still have doubts. I’d rather
crack open a beer and sit here, alone,
and think with the last dying lights of
sobriety, or at least awakeness, than
sleep, than dream, then go somewhere with
YOU, and listen to more stories.
Coby......Sealove,
I thought you were the independent publisher
with the balls, the stones, man, some
courage. I am sorry, I was sorely mistaken.
The note shore looked like my handwriting,
didn’t it? What's so scary about
admitting I killed myself? Ever thought
that that is the way you're going to go?
Well, I have news for you, it is.
Just
kidding ya, good buddy.
Seriously,
you miss me, a little dontcha? We had
some good times, eh? Didn’t you ever
think, someday me and Coby will be old
men on a porch, reminiscing? You've only
got half a soul, and the other half doesn't
fit right, it keeps slipping because one
half of it is gone! You weren’t born
this way, half-soul, I have become your
other half! We did some good stuff together,
you and I, but we were both on a suicide
course, admit it, you didn't fulfill your
side of the bargain. Why don't you go
upstairs and get your father's sidearm
and finish what you started, son. Or don't
you have the guts?
......
......But
I love you I think you know that.
............It
sucks being dead. I can’t find new
facts for you. But I can remind you of
the sordid little incidents you have obviously
forgotten. My life was threatened after
I survived the first media barrage. They
didn’t like that I was back, and
that my stories would be republished in
your paper. You brought me back from the
dead, and on the phone, they said,
Sealove......‘watch
your back, watch your wife, Jennifer,
watch little Adriana.’
Coby......As
easy as phoning in a bomb threat to your
high school, and we’ve all been there,
right? But I’ll be damned if I didn’t
take it seriously. Hell, it was on my
mind when I took the pills, and drank
the OJ with two thirds of that liter of
Gordon's. That last night in the Days
Inn, I was thinking, well, the effect
is the same. Watch your back. When he
said that, hell, I started to have one
eye on my back all the time. It became
their eye. They have an eye in my head.
It could even still be here, in my ghost
head.
Sealove......You’re
still drunk on vodka and clomnazipan.
Coby......Yeah,
it’s great, isn’t it?
Sealove......What’s
your point?
Coby......Well,
I know you’ve got an event coming
up.
Sealove......What
event
Coby......The
Big Protest!
Sealove......Oh,
the demo, the concert
Coby......Gonna
sell a lot of newspapers?
Sealove......No,
I don’t run the paper anymore. And
I don’t write anymore.
Coby......Oh,
right, right. But you’re gonna make
a big splash in the media with sis’s
little combo.
Sealove......I’ve
got nothing to say to the big media. Both
of their eyes have been replaced with
hard boiled eggs. For this one I am just
going to keep talking to people in the
streets.
Coby......Oh
great, great, maybe you’ve learned.
OK then, but think about this. Sarcoxie’s
big show, right? And you’re a big
help, big brother, aren’t ya, gonna
give the old message some more oomph,
more weight, sharpen the saw, and then,
well who knows what? She could be next?
Would you be able to read the warning
signs this time? Would you be able to
guide her down better if she was too high
up a tree? Are you ready to risk your
family? Hell, I sure wasn’t I called
my lawyer, I was like, Chris, cancel the
contract, but he said, Coby, we can’t,
the kid has the stories now and wants
to go forward. Would you cancel the show
if her life had been threatened? By…someone?
Sealove......You’re
dead. Go to bed and sleep it off.
Coby......I’m
dead. But buddy I will always be with
you. You become what you are not. Out
of some thing comes its opposite. Out
of my death comes a new life, a new purpose
for you is emerging, isn’t it. Well
you owe me that. You owe me your new life.
I will be with you forever, my ghost will
fade a little, sometimes, but then a whole
new wave of suspicion will break across
your brain like a drink in the face. I
didn’t drink Gordon's, I was a bourbon
man. Every time you wonder how I died,
I will be alive.
[BLACKOUT]