Words on screen: And the eighth time around, in the retelling of the story that should be called, "I Miss You," he went into the same psychoanalytical room and was putting on the suit of the therapist and adjusting his new beard when she walked in.
HE: My gosh, it's been years, how are you?
SHE: Good afternoon, doctor, I am making a very innocent visit.
(However, when she drops the arab strap and we see the centaur legs coming out from beneath her victorian skirts, we get the feeling there's something up.)
HE: I often get confused for being a man who dresses in men's clothing but is secretly wearing something special underneath.
(Oh, but this makes her mad, mad, mad, but he doesn't know why because she never did send him her paper on Lady Gaga.)
(*it's not too late.)
SHE: I really did intend for this to be innocent, it has to be, because now I'm a teacher and I'm married to a lawyer, and we're expecting.
HE: Congratulations. (He says with great composure but then he bursts out crying. Pause. He goes into the other room and shaves his very bearded chest just for closure. Meanwhile, the DOG turns into everyone that talked about them while they were together and broke them apart with horrible gossip.)
DOG: (smoking a pipe, to disguise himself as the dogfather of psychoanalysis) Love is mad. There's no way around it in any direction, and I've tried. Tell me, secretly, tell me, do you think about him?
SHE: Yes.
(DOG exits and we hear their conversation off stage.)
DOG: I found out what you asked me to find out.
HE: I didn't ask you anything, please stop licking the hair on the floor, that was my beard, the beard I was growing on my chest as a symbol of a love deferred.
DOG: Pleasure, when it is delayed, has the seeds of ecstasy. Pleasure denied is the beginning of fascism.*
(*A direct quote from my head while riding a motorcycle through the mountain pass at six in the morning.)
DOG: She loves you, and she thinks about you all the time, and she doesn't love the lawyer, but they are going to have a baby on television.
HE: She told you all this?
DOG: In so many words.
(They come out, his chest is shiny and smooth, and the dog's mouth is full of hair and he can barely speak.)
HE: I had no idea.
SHE: I heard everything, and it's all lies.
HE: All of it?
SHE: Most of it, and we don't have a contract yet, but we're shooting a pilot next week.
HE: That's so ironic, because you finally get to make your film, only it's not yours and it's not a film, and I'm not in it.
(HE cries, utterly.)
SHE: When you miss me for too long, you kind of turn into an ass.
DOG: That's exactly what I told him, too.
HE: You did not.
DOG: I hear your aggression in between your words.
HE: It's all aggression, there's nothing hidden.
DOG: Oh, you should hear yourself, you'd be shocked. You remind me of my brother.
SHE: Tell me about your brother.
(This is one of the most extraordinary moments in modern psychiatric medicine, when the patient heals the doctor, but not through traditional means.)
(The dog puts on the arab strap and speaks.)
DOG: I was not an only dog, there were others, there were brothers. But there was one, born before his time, and his breath was so very brief, and there was nothing anyone could do. The grief haunted my family for more than one generation.
HE: In dog time that's not very long, it's 1/7 of everything.
DOG: Your math is good but your heart is cold, you crybaby in women's underwear. My dog, man, have you any morals? Grief is grief, and the way we long is exactly the way we love. Sometimes you're lucky enough to experience it the way you both do, as a slow and persistent itch, its weight is beautiful, but you don't know that, because you can't see how it's changing you, making room for you to become exactly who you are. That's what love and death do to people. With dogs, it's something else, it's like madness. I lost my brother, and I've been looking for him ever since, and it's an endless cycle, but it's the one that I ride.
SHE: Dogs can't ride bikes, their legs don't work like that.
DOG: Can I please have my moment here?
(They wait.)
DOG: No, that's it, never mind, that was the moment, I said my piece, and now I am whole. I feel three feet tall, it's amazing. You're some doctor.
HE: If I could tell you one thing right now, it's this: I decided not to wait for you, like you said, but I also decided that I would have to be alone for awhile, so I broke off all of my ties, because I didn't want to settle for anyone who didn't make me feel the way you do, and so far, you're the only person I know who does that, so I think about you too much, but it doesn't hurt, and it's heavy, but I'm learning how to live with it, because that is what I have.
(There should be a moment after this, but everyone has to go to work, and angels dance around their heads, and bells ring whenever they walk in the world, and if they could see it, they might see that it's the most beautiful thing in the world.)
not end of not this not here
HE: My gosh, it's been years, how are you?
SHE: Good afternoon, doctor, I am making a very innocent visit.
(However, when she drops the arab strap and we see the centaur legs coming out from beneath her victorian skirts, we get the feeling there's something up.)
HE: I often get confused for being a man who dresses in men's clothing but is secretly wearing something special underneath.
(Oh, but this makes her mad, mad, mad, but he doesn't know why because she never did send him her paper on Lady Gaga.)
(*it's not too late.)
SHE: I really did intend for this to be innocent, it has to be, because now I'm a teacher and I'm married to a lawyer, and we're expecting.
HE: Congratulations. (He says with great composure but then he bursts out crying. Pause. He goes into the other room and shaves his very bearded chest just for closure. Meanwhile, the DOG turns into everyone that talked about them while they were together and broke them apart with horrible gossip.)
DOG: (smoking a pipe, to disguise himself as the dogfather of psychoanalysis) Love is mad. There's no way around it in any direction, and I've tried. Tell me, secretly, tell me, do you think about him?
SHE: Yes.
(DOG exits and we hear their conversation off stage.)
DOG: I found out what you asked me to find out.
HE: I didn't ask you anything, please stop licking the hair on the floor, that was my beard, the beard I was growing on my chest as a symbol of a love deferred.
DOG: Pleasure, when it is delayed, has the seeds of ecstasy. Pleasure denied is the beginning of fascism.*
(*A direct quote from my head while riding a motorcycle through the mountain pass at six in the morning.)
DOG: She loves you, and she thinks about you all the time, and she doesn't love the lawyer, but they are going to have a baby on television.
HE: She told you all this?
DOG: In so many words.
(They come out, his chest is shiny and smooth, and the dog's mouth is full of hair and he can barely speak.)
HE: I had no idea.
SHE: I heard everything, and it's all lies.
HE: All of it?
SHE: Most of it, and we don't have a contract yet, but we're shooting a pilot next week.
HE: That's so ironic, because you finally get to make your film, only it's not yours and it's not a film, and I'm not in it.
(HE cries, utterly.)
SHE: When you miss me for too long, you kind of turn into an ass.
DOG: That's exactly what I told him, too.
HE: You did not.
DOG: I hear your aggression in between your words.
HE: It's all aggression, there's nothing hidden.
DOG: Oh, you should hear yourself, you'd be shocked. You remind me of my brother.
SHE: Tell me about your brother.
(This is one of the most extraordinary moments in modern psychiatric medicine, when the patient heals the doctor, but not through traditional means.)
(The dog puts on the arab strap and speaks.)
DOG: I was not an only dog, there were others, there were brothers. But there was one, born before his time, and his breath was so very brief, and there was nothing anyone could do. The grief haunted my family for more than one generation.
HE: In dog time that's not very long, it's 1/7 of everything.
DOG: Your math is good but your heart is cold, you crybaby in women's underwear. My dog, man, have you any morals? Grief is grief, and the way we long is exactly the way we love. Sometimes you're lucky enough to experience it the way you both do, as a slow and persistent itch, its weight is beautiful, but you don't know that, because you can't see how it's changing you, making room for you to become exactly who you are. That's what love and death do to people. With dogs, it's something else, it's like madness. I lost my brother, and I've been looking for him ever since, and it's an endless cycle, but it's the one that I ride.
SHE: Dogs can't ride bikes, their legs don't work like that.
DOG: Can I please have my moment here?
(They wait.)
DOG: No, that's it, never mind, that was the moment, I said my piece, and now I am whole. I feel three feet tall, it's amazing. You're some doctor.
HE: If I could tell you one thing right now, it's this: I decided not to wait for you, like you said, but I also decided that I would have to be alone for awhile, so I broke off all of my ties, because I didn't want to settle for anyone who didn't make me feel the way you do, and so far, you're the only person I know who does that, so I think about you too much, but it doesn't hurt, and it's heavy, but I'm learning how to live with it, because that is what I have.
(There should be a moment after this, but everyone has to go to work, and angels dance around their heads, and bells ring whenever they walk in the world, and if they could see it, they might see that it's the most beautiful thing in the world.)
not end of not this not here
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