ONE-ACT
(Setting.  A living room.  On a small card table are numerous beer
cans, an overflowing ashtray, a large, complicated-looking bong, a
candle, a bent spoon, and numerous other unidentifiable drug
paraphernalia.  At the table is seated a young man, early twenties,
in t-shirt and jeans, obviously hung over, with an electric guitar
on his lap.  Downstairs comes an older man, obviously his father,
shaking his head at the sorry scene before him.)

F:  (Speaks with a heavy Jewish accent.) Son, tell me, why do you
drink the beer?  To get high?

S:  No Dad, I smoke the pot to get high;  I drink the beer to get
drunk.

F:  Acch, you are certainly no son of my seldom-visited loins.

S:  You know, Dad, you are truly a moron.  

F:  Yes, I guess that is true.

(Downstairs walks the daughter, also in early twenties, with large
bouncy boobs which are in no way important to the play, but will
make it fun to cast.)

D:  Acchh, you two, always with the fighting.  When are you both
going to wake up and realize that this is 1980?!  Don't you know
there are people starving to death in West Germany?!!

S: (Stops father as if to say, "Allow me." Places guitar on table
very deliberately, rises slowly, and raises his hand as if about to
strike his sister.)  First of all, this is 1990 and second of all
there is no one starving in West Germany!

D:  (Turns to her father.  During her speech the son becomes
disgusted and returns to his seat.)  Oh Daddy, tell me again about
growing up in the Old Country.  Remember how I would dance and play
and sing, and muddy my lacy drawers to the delight of the lecherous
onlookers?  And the servants would come and take me to the field of
wildflowers, and you would take me on your shoulders and drop drop
drop me on my girlish head; and the jum-jum trees would dance their
merry dance.  God, I love the twilight at night.  I love. . .

F:  What is this talk of Old Countries, dancing, and such?  First
of all, there is no Old Country.  In fact, there never was.  When
we lived there, it wasn't old.  Now that it is old, we call it the
Old Country.  But, we never lived there.  Toilets?

D:  Oh, Daddy, you really are old and shitty, aren't you?  You are
a dried-up, prune-smelling-like, dust-farting, no-son-of-mine
father.

F:  Yeah, I guess you got me pegged.

D:  But Daddy, I am in love.

F:  Love?!  Acchh.  What can a little girl like my--, yourself,
possibly know of love?  True, you have big bouncy bubbies, but
love. . .

D:  Oh Daddy, haven't you ever been in love?  Haven't you ever
wanted to see the unblossomed kernel of your heart go up like the
smoke from a dying Indian's pipe?

S:  (He and Father exchange puzzled, exasperated looks.)

D:  I have so much in my heart.  My heart is filled. . .

F:  And so is your sweater, girlie.

D:  Oh, I hate you.  How could expect someone as old and shittied-
up as you to understand something as all-encompassing as the
emotion of love?  You only understand the superficial, fleeting
pleasures of the flesh, not the timeless, infinite joy that can
only be reaped by swirling the spittle of your soul in an old mason
jar, you know the kind from that box in the attic--

S:  (Can take it no longer.  Rises and strikes her.  Then is
seated.)

F:  Love, girlie.  Love is a very special, beautiful feeling. . 

D:  (Seeing that her father really does understand, she rises as if
on the end of a magic winch.  She hugs her father as he speaks,
crushing her firm, pouty breasts against his funky forest of chest
hair.)

F:. . .Love, as I recall, is best when it occurs at home, with your
mother out of earshot, perhaps on the toilet, in the PRIVACY OF
YOUR OWN HAND!!!

D:  (Slumps to the floor, crushed.  Father and son exchange high
fives)  Oh oh oh, why, why???

F:  What is her genuine beefstick?

S:  Perhaps that you Dad, are a slime-turd, a heartless, soulless,
stupid, foul-smelling ignoramus.

F:  That may be true, but at least I don't masturbate atop Milli
Vanilli albums.

D:  (Her sobs increase in volume.)

S:  Oh, girl, you know it's true.

D:  (Still louder)

F:  But why does she sob so?

S:  She is upset with many things.

D:  (Moans)

S:  She is upset with the destruction of the rain forests.

F:  (Mocking)  Oooooh.

S:  The insincerity and hypocrisy she encounters daily.

D:  Awwwww, poor baby.

S:  The pain of going into labor.

F:  (To daughter)  I remember when your mother went into labor.

D:  (Looks up, wipes her eyes)

F:  I of course, went into management.  I mean after all, we had to
eat.

D:  (Resumes her sobbing.)

F:  Now son, about this novel of yours.  How is it coming?

S:  Not so great, Dad.  In fact--

F:  Acchhh.  I don't want to hear it.  Don't you know it's the
worst thing in the world for a writer to get discouraged?  

S:  Dad--global thermonuclear war, pestilence, famine.  All of
these things are far worse than a writer getting discouraged.

D:  I wish I was dead.

F:  Were.

D:  What?

F:  I wish I WERE dead.  It's the subjunctive.  Common mistake.  Of
course, I wouldn't expect any--

D:  Oh, you don't care, no one cares.
F:  No, I don't care.  Honestly, girlie--look at yourself, no
brains, no talents.  All you've got are a set of hooters that you
let all the schoolboys paw with their sloppy untutored hands.  And
Godammit, all my life I dated flat-chested women and let me tell
you something girlie: *that* is no day at the beach.

S:  (Stands next to dad and addresses audience)  My father, ladies
and gentlemen, an asshole.

D:  I wanna be dead.

F:  Oh girlie, there many things worse than death, far worse. . .

S:  (Nods head in agreement)

F:  Making love to an extremely fat woman, to name an obvious one. 

S:  *And* how.

D:  Daddy, I've been doing a lot of reading lately--

F:  And masturbating.

D:  No, you don't understand what I'm trying to say, "Have you ever
read Chekhov, drunk vodka in the square until a crazy time,
wenched, caroused, come home and shaved off your wife's mustache
with a belt sander, and laughed--oh how we laughed.  Don't you
understand, Daddy, Chekhov, CHEKHOV!!

F:  Sulu, Captain James T. Kirk, what?...

D:  Oh Daddy, why can't you be like other men and fill my heart
with that wisdom which only a long, wasted life can produce.

F:  Ah, Girlie.  I am but a simple peasant man whose needs are few
and generally quite nauseating.  However, this I do know:  If you
ever have the chance to get two Cub Scouts, a case of Jolt, and a
stepladder together in the same room as you, don't let them go. 
Ever. . .

D:  Oh Daddy, I can't believe how shitty you are.

F: No, you can't.  Let me tell you something about your mother,
Girlie.  

D:  (Crouches by father to listen.)

F:  She had this way of relaxing the muscles in her throat. . .

D:  (Covers her ears with her hands and screams.  A young man in a
puke-green leisure suit comes downstairs.  He joins the daughter by
her side.)

F:  Who is this piece of pishy?
D:  Daddy, I want you to meet Herbie, my boyfriend.

H:  (Offers hand to father.)  Hi there Mr. Lowenbrau.

F:  Why does he call me beer?

D:  That's his way, Daddy.  He's an individual, unlike you, who are
often a group.

F:  (Exchanges puzzled look with son.)

H:  Mr. Lowenbrau, I've heard so much about you.

F:  I've heard so much about *you*.

H:  I've heard very much about YOU.

F:  And I have heard a very great deal about you.

H:  I've heard far more about you simply because you're old.   

D:  And shitty.

F:  Yes, I guess that's true.