The Cruel and the Beautiful

Jack

Whose real name is Michael, after his father, but he refuses to be named after the man who abandoned him and his mother. So, he’s taken on his grandfather’s name, who he’s never met either, but he figures it’s better than nothing. He can always be seen wearing a thrifted black leather jacket and a pair of combat boots, yellow laces gleaming, with a cigarette dangling from his perpetually smirking mouth. Jack is consistently angry—at the system, at himself, at his town, at people in traffic, at his mother, at all of it. He laughs at everything and fears nothing, least of all his own mortality. He is indifferent to the suffering of others, apathetic to the pitiful world he exists in. In Jack’s world, people are toys which will all eventually break. With the exception, of course, of Tommy. Tommy is the one thing which Jack bothers to live for, the only reason he isn’t dead or in jail or a thousand miles away getting drunk on a beach.

Tommy

Whose real name is Thomas, but that name has always seemed too big for his for his baby-doll eyes, always wide and fearful and downcast. He can be seen always wearing raggedy, over-sized t-shirts—which the church donates to their family—the same blue jeans he’s had since middle school, and Jack’s old pair of combat boots. Tommy is tall and lanky and perpetually covered in bruises. His father, unfortunately, didn’t run out on him and his mother and 6 siblings. Instead, his father sits in a drunken stupor for most of the day on their broken-down living room couch. Periodically, his father will arise and start swinging. He is the one thing which Tommy is not afraid of, the one circumstance in which Tommy becomes overwhelmingly brave. With the exception, of course, of Jack. And so, Tommy is perpetually covered in bruises.

Narrator’s voice

Will be shown in italicized lines throughout the play to relay characters inner thoughts or other omniscient knowledge. Italicized lines will also relay long chunks of stage directions or descriptors.

Curtain opens to a dark scene, lit by a few streetlamps. Two boys, Jack and Tommy, sit along the curb on a bridge. Beer cans litter the sidewalk around them. In the distance behind them lays a sleepy little town, the kind people raise their kids in and never leave. Jack is standing on the bottom rung of the guard rail, leaning over the side. The sound of cars passing underneath can be heard. A lit cigarette dangles from his lips. The last remanences of the sun are fading in the distance. Jack is staring hard into that horizon. Tommy is making a chain out of grass he pulled from the cracks in the sidewalk.

Jack: *tossing an empty beer can over the side of the bridge* We’ve got to get out of here.

Tommy: *shrugs* Yeah…we will one day.

Jack: *jumping down from the railing* No, right now. You’ve got some money saved up and I could swipe a few twenties from my Ma. We could get on a bus, never look back.

Tommy gazes up at him. His skin is tan and glistening in the dying light. They have this conversation a lot.

Tommy: You know I can’t leave, Jackie. I’ve got the kids and Ma. Graduation is in two months. We’ve got jobs at the factory lined up. You wanna throw all that away?

No one else calls him Jackie. The first time Tommy said it, Jack clocked him right in the jaw. He thought it sounded feminine, but now, there were few things he’d deny Tommy, though he’d never admit that.

Jack: *scoffs, smacks grass out of Tommy’s hand* Throw what away? A bullshit piece of paper and a life of servitude to a system which would sooner step on us than save us? Spending my whole life in a small town full of small people with small minds? Just another white-trash kid going nowhere. Nah, Tommy. That’s not the life I want.

Tommy: *sarcastically* Well, everyone’s small compared to you, Jackie. And what about Margo? I thought you were in love or some shit?

Jack: Yeah, she’s okay, but what’s love right now anyway? What’s love in a place like this? Just two broken-ass kids trying to make something from the jagged pieces of themselves. Trouble is, you get cut easy that way, and all you really end up with is a poor representation of every other shitty relationship you’ve ever had. I’ll probably get her pregnant too young and bail, just like my old man, and she’ll keep the kid, hate her life, get depressed, and work the corner just like her Ma.

Tommy: I don’t know why she dates you anyway. You’re such a dick to her, and you seem to hate her yourself.

Jack: She likes when I’m mean to her; gives her something to feel…I guess being pissed is better than being nothing, feeling nothing. And hating her distracts me from how much I hate myself. *pause, takes drag of cigarette* You see, that’s what we’re all doin’; just hurting each other over and over and callin’ it “love.” And Margo loves me ‘cause I hurt her, ‘cause I’ll never be what she really wants, ‘cause I remind her of her dead-beat daddy.

Tommy: You use the love to justify takin’ the hurt.

Jack: Exactly. *swigs beer* Just like you used to do when you were a kid and your daddy beat on you.

Tommy: Don’t you think that’s kinda cruel?

Jack: No, no actually I think it’s kinda beautiful. We deserve each other, you see, or rather we’re all the other deserves. See, that’s why we gotta leave this place, so we’re not stuck with all the air-headed, depressed Margo’s who’ve been hurt so many times they think that’s what lovin’ looks like.

Tommy: *softly* Like we’re any different? Like I ain’t sitting on this curb doing just what Margo’s doin’? Like lovin’ you ain’t like a knife in the gut?

Jack: *ignoring him* Besides, you’d stay here with all this shit? With your old man? In a house with no heat in the winter, no air-conditioning in the summer, and rarely running water? You’d stay wearing second-hand charity clothes and working to feed 6 other kids and your Ma before you feed yourself? In a town that tries to pin every petty crime on you and me, and a school that don’t recognize your genius? You’d stay here, in this pathetic town?

Tommy: *angrily, indignantly* Yeah, I’d stay.

Jack: *angrily, getting in his face* Why?

Tommy: *standing up, shoving Jack* Because that’s the options we’re given, ain’t it, Jackie? To have your daddy split before you’re born or stay around and kick your ass every day? What a fucking joke! *he paces in the road* It’s either be broke and unwanted here or be broke and unwanted in someone else’s town. At least here, we got people. Our people. They might be stupid and mindless and small, but they’re our people, Jackie! This is our home!

Jack: This isn’t fucking home! *he shoves Tommy* This is the prison cell we accidently got born into! Ain’t nothing more than bars we can’t see, or worse yet, bars we build ourselves every day we stay here, every day we let them keep us stuck in our shitty lot in life.

Tommy: It doesn’t have to be so shitty! If you’d stop making everything a knock-down-drag-out, you might actually like life! Instead of spending everyday trying to die on accident, trying to leave me all alone, you might see this place isn’t that bad!

That was that. Tommy knew it when he said, knew before the words left his mouth that that would push Jack over the edge. Jack spun around, all his body weight following the movement, as his fist connected with Tommy’s cheekbone. Tommy barely moved, barely felt it.

Tommy: *through gritted teeth* Is that all you got? You know you don’t always gotta fuck up everyone who disagrees with you. You don’t always gotta be raging wild like it’s the end of days, don’t always gotta break people who love you, like the whole world owes you some shit just ‘cause your old man split and you grew up poor. This is how fucking life is!

He laughs, a laugh Jack would’ve been proud of if he’d been paying attention. Tommy’s eyes are gleaming, teasing, daring. Jack swings again. Tommy steps out of the way. Anger and alcohol make Jack’s movement rash and uncontrolled.

Tommy: Is that the best you got? Eh, Jackie? My old man weighs three times as much and even he’s faster than that.

Jack tries again. Misses again. Tommy swings, upper cutting his jaw. Jack falls backwards onto the asphalt.

Tommy: *sighs, sitting down on the curb* You’re so full of shit, Jack. *looks at Jack still on the ground* I’m sorry…for what I said, but don’t act like it’s not true. You don’t do anything slow, Jack. Everything all the time is fast as possible: drinking, smoking, driving, picking up girls…hell you even eat fast. Like you’re in a hurry to get through life, like you’re hoping the cigarettes and whiskey will hurry up and kill you already. *pause*

Jack: *picking himself up and sitting next to him* That ain’t true, Tommy.

Tommy: Why you in such a hurry to leave me?

Jack: *stands up, pacing* I’m not trying to leave you, Tommy. I’m not. I want us both to get out of here. You watch the news. You’ve read the books. You know what systematic poverty looks like, what it does to kids who actually have a shot of bein’ something. You know the world doesn’t give a damn about us. You know we’re nothing more than cracks in the pavement to most people; just something ugly and broken that you try to overlook and carry on with your day. Just bodies waiting to warm prison cells if we don’t make it to the table first.

Tommy: *deflated* We don’t get to pick the cards we’re dealt, Jackie.

Jack: *spits blood unto the cement* Don’t quote fucking Paush right now, goddammit. And I’m pretty sure that wasn’t even right.

Tommy laughs. It’s easy to forget, just like everyone else does, how smart Jack is. Easy to forget that he reads more books than anyone Tommy’s ever seen. He piles them up floor-to-ceiling in his broom-closet of a room. If anyone deserved to get out of this town and make something of themselves, it was Jack.

Tommy: *looks up at Jack, suddenly very serious* You should go.

His words hung in the air for a long time.

Jack: *turning to him, shocked* Wha—what? *he laughs, disbelieving*

Tommy: You should go. You’re wasted on this town, man. You deserve better and out there, you could get better. You could find the life you’ve always wanted. Go. Get on a bus, I’ll give you the money. Go and don’t look back.

Jack stood, still and silent for the first time ever. Dumbfounded. His cigarette burned where it dangled between his fingers. Tommy had never agreed with him on this, not once.

Tommy: *looking over the little town, house windows are lit up* The truth is, Jack, I’ve been trying to keep you in this nothing town out of pure selfishness, because I didn’t wanna be alone, but I can’t do that anymore. It’s like keeping a lion in a cannery cage, just doesn’t work.

Jack: Tommy…

Tommy: No, listen, Jack. This towns got two roads and both of them lead to nowhere and nothing. If you stay here, they’ll find a way to get you locked up or tied down and it’ll kill you. *a tear slips down his cheek* It’ll kill you if you stay here.

Jack: *softly* It’ll kill me to leave you here, Tommy. *breathes deep, looking up at the stars, gun shots are heard in the distance, neither pays any mind. Gunshots are typical this side of town*

Jack: You know, Tommy, I feel like, my entire life, I’ve just been perpetually waiting at bus stops, waiting for the right one to come and take me somewhere better. *pause* What if there isn’t anywhere better? What if this is as good as it gets for someone like me? *he sits by Tommy again; sirens wail in the distance* You remember when we met?

Tommy: *sniffles* Course I do.

Jack: *laughs* Donny Fritz had kicked you black and blue. Well…blacker and bluer, that is. You were such a skinny kid. *glances over at Tommy* I’d never seen anyone take that many hits and not make a sound. Never met anyone as strong as you.

Tommy: *looks over at him* Nah, you’re the strong one. Always have been. You beat the shit out of Donny that day, saved my skinny ass, and you’ve been saving it ever since.

Jack: *laughs softly* Nah… It’s you who’s been savin’ me. *pause* Yeah I drive too fast ‘n shit, but I always put on the brakes eventually. I drink too much, too fast, but I always wake up the next morning. And the cigarettes? That’s just my form of government mandated addiction.

*both chuckle*

Jack: What I’m trying to say, Tommy, is that I do that shit for you. I stick around in this shitty-ass town because I don’t know what I’d do without you. What’s the point of escaping here if you’re not with me? *the sirens grow louder, closer*

Tommy: Freedom? From our self-imposed prison cell? From perpetually waiting at bus stops? From small people with small minds? From hurting each other…over and over…and callin’ it love?

Jack leans toward Tommy, smiling his signature smile. They’re close now, facing each other now, their noses and lips silhouetted in the fading light of the sun.

Jack: Yeah…but what’s the point of that without you? In a world that doesn’t bother to give us a second glance, that doesn’t give a damn about anything, it’s up to us to give a damn about each other. You’re the only person I ever gave a damn about, Tommy, how could I leave that behind in this piece of shit town?

Tommy: *softly, earnestly, simply* I love you, Jackie.

Jack: I know. *both turn their heads at the sound of cars approaching*

Car lights come up over the bridge (right side of the stage). Police sirens and car tires are screaming. A car drives toward them, its headlights blinding the boys, police cruisers follow it. Gun shots and wild laughter ring through the air. The cars continue on off stage, into the distance. Along the bridge, overlooking the small town, Jack and Tommy lay, blood pooling out around them from the gunshot wounds. They gasp for air. Tommy’s big, doll eyes are wide and fearful as always. Jack’s eyes are gleaming, a smirk crests his lips just as everything goes very still. Their hands are stretched towards each other, but do not touch. The stage goes dark. The curtain is drawn. The sound of police sirens fades into the distance.

To my readers: In a world that doesn’t give a damn about anything, it’s up to us to give a damn about each other, to stop hurting each other and calling it love, to stop waiting at bus stops, to stop living without the person who makes us want to hit the brakes.