Arts and Science, Act One

(At rise, AMELIA sits on the edge of the bed talking to DAMMOND, who is sitting on the floor, tying his shoes. Throughout the first scene, DAMMOND cleans his apartment. As he cleans, he changes his clothes and hairstyle in order to improve his appearance as all other action continues. The time is three a.m.)

AMELIA So what else am I supposed to think?

DAMMOND About what?

AMELIA You sounded crazy!

DAMMOND When?

AMELIA On the phone, you sounded crazy. Right now, you’re sounding crazy.

DAMMOND Excuse me.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND I need my shirt.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND You’re on my shirt.

AMELIA I’d like to talk about this.

DAMMOND I’d like to get my shirt.

AMELIA Can we talk about this?

DAMMOND (pulls a portion of his shirt from between her legs) I don’t want my shirt all wrinkled. AMELIA What are you doing?

DAMMOND (yanks the shirt from underneath her) I need to get my shirt, pleasethankyou.

AMELIA What is going on with you?

DAMMOND A lot.

AMELIA I can see that.

DAMMOND Then please!

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND I don’t like things pried out of me!

AMELIA You brought it up!

DAMMOND No!

AMELIA On the phone! You brought it up!

DAMMOND I can’t talk about it anymore!

AMELIA We need to talk about it!

DAMMOND We’ve already talked about it!

AMELIA We haven’t talked about it!

DAMMOND Yes!

AMELIA When?

DAMMOND On the phone, I brought it up!

AMELIA You hung up on me!

DAMMOND I had to go.

AMELIA On the phone, you had to go. Right now, you have to go.

DAMMOND She’s coming here.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND She’s coming here. We’re meeting here.

AMELIA It’s three in the morning! It’s after three in the fuckin’ morning!

DAMMOND She wants to see my work! To talk to me about my work! She owns a gallery in SoHo, and she wants to see my paintings. She’s this incredible Danish woman who owns a gallery in SoHo, and she wants to see my paintings!

AMELIA OK!

DAMMOND To talk to me about my paintings!

AMELIA I got it!

DAMMOND Just to talk.

AMELIA I got it!

DAMMOND It’s exciting!

AMELIA I finally got it! I finally got the joke!

DAMMOND What joke?

AMELIA These last few months have been a joke.

DAMMOND No!

AMELIA You tell me you’ve got this secret to tell me that you’ll tell me later. And later comes. And now is later. And you still won’t tell me about the secret. ’Cause it’s not the type of secret that you think I think it is.

DAMMOND It’s not like that!

AMELIA Then what else am I supposed to think? How else am I supposed to feel? You have a secret and you won’t tell me the secret!

DAMMOND I’ve started the secret!

AMELIA And I’m not gonna ask about the secret anymore!

DAMMOND All the things I said about . . .

AMELIA And I’m not gonna pry. And I’m not gonna beg. And I’m not gonna tear it out of you. I’ve done that before! I’ve been there before! I’ve been the butt and the punch line before! And it’s not funny . . .

DAMMOND I’m not laughing!

AMELIA (not hearing him) . . . and I’m not laughing! And I’m not doing it again!

DAMMOND It’s not a joke! These last few months are not a joke! I just can’t find them!

AMELIA Find what?

DAMMOND Tools!

AMELIA Tools?

DAMMOND I don’t have them!

AMELIA What kind of tools?

DAMMOND To dig!

AMELIA Dig what?

DAMMOND What’s it called . . . ?

AMELIA A shovel?

DAMMOND Layers!

AMELIA You want a shovel?

DAMMOND Lots of layers!

AMELIA I’ll find a shovel.

DAMMOND All kinds of layers!

AMELIA You want a fuckin’ shovel?

DAMMOND Around me. Layers all around me. Around my head. Around my body. Around my gut. Inside my gut.

AMELIA This is such a fuckin’ joke!

DAMMOND I don’t have the tools it takes to dig inside of me. To dig out and pull out and take out what part of me it is I need to show to you. The part of me I have to show to you. I can’t touch it. I can’t touch the tools. Those are the tools I was talking about. On the phone, with you, I thought I’d found them. At the party, I thought I’d found them. I walked in the door, and a naked woman asked me to give her my clothes.

AMELIA For what?

DAMMOND Everybody has to check his clothes!

AMELIA For what?

DAMMOND And I thought to myself, tonight I’ve finally found the tools to tell you what I need to tell you. All these people were walking around naked and half-naked,

AMELIA Were you naked?

DAMMOND . . . and all I see are bodies naked with perfection.

AMELIA Were you naked?

DAMMOND If you don’t want to be naked, though,

AMELIA Were you naked?

DAMMOND . . . then you have to wear a gown.

AMELIA A gown?

DAMMOND Like in the—in the hospital.

AMELIA That’s insane!

DAMMOND So I’m standing there with my ass hanging out thinking you and I should have a little talk.

AMELIA What kind of place is this?

DAMMOND It’s for the show.

AMELIA What show?

DAMMOND At the gallery. It’s where the party was at—at the gallery. This guy was showing his art at the gallery.

AMELIA What kind of art?

DAMMOND People.

AMELIA He paints people?

DAMMOND He sculpts people.

AMELIA Out of clay?

DAMMOND Out of flesh.

AMELIA What do you mean?

DAMMOND To make them better. To make them look better. He sculpts people. He sculpts their skin. He sculpts their fat. Around the bone. He sculpts people.

AMELIA How?

DAMMOND Surgery.

AMELIA What kind of surgery?

DAMMOND Body Lypo-Sculpting surgery. Cosmetic surgery.

AMELIA And he calls that art?

DAMMOND It is.

AMELIA How?

DAMMOND He performs it.

AMELIA Oh.

DAMMOND Surgical art. That’s what he calls it.

AMELIA He’s a doctor?

DAMMOND Yes.

AMELIA He went to med school?

DAMMOND Yes.

AMELIA He graduated?

DAMMOND Yes.

AMELIA How do you know?

DAMMOND I talked to him.

AMELIA About what?

DAMMOND He didn’t want to go into medicine for the sake of medicine. And he didn’t want to go into art for the sake of art. So he studied medicine and became a doctor, so he could practice medicine for the sake of art.

AMELIA That’s weird.

DAMMOND You should see his art.

AMELIA Why?

DAMMOND ’Cause they really look like art. Everybody just walks around and looks like art. He calls them Walking Works of Art.

AMELIA It’s not art.

DAMMOND The human body walks like art.

AMELIA He said that?

DAMMOND He says when the human body walks, that’s when the human body’s really art. When the heel of the foot hits the ground or the floor, and gravity transfers the weight of the body and pulls the ball of the foot to the surface of the floor, and the back of the leg then lengthens and strengthens and stiffens, where the thigh meets the buttocks like the sand meets the sea. Right there, he calls that art.

AMELIA Where?

DAMMOND Right there.

AMELIA Here?

DAMMOND Yes.

AMELIA This right here is art?

DAMMOND Walking Works of Art.

AMELIA He sounds fucked up.

DAMMOND I like him.

AMELIA Why?

DAMMOND He wants to make me art. He wants to change my body. I get to go back sometime and change my body.

AMELIA But you don’t need to change your body.

DAMMOND Into a Walking Work of Art? I need to change my body! I want to be a Walking Work of Art. To you. For you. I want for you. I want you to be able to say, “I have a boyfriend who is a Walking Work of Art.”

AMELIA I don’t want a boyfriend who’s a Walking Work of Art.

DAMMOND I want to be just like them.

AMELIA No.

DAMMOND I want to be able to walk around naked and flaunt myself naked and feel good about my body being naked.

AMELIA But you don’t need surgery to feel good about your body being naked.

DAMMOND Yes. Yes, I do.

AMELIA You don’t.

DAMMOND Trust me.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND I do.

AMELIA Why?

DAMMOND I can’t tell you.

AMELIA You can tell me.

DAMMOND I want to tell you. More than anything. I want to tell you. I want to tell you. What I need to tell you.

AMELIA You can tell me.

DAMMOND Why I feel so . . . hesitant. All the time. Around you.

AMELIA You can tell me.

DAMMOND Sexually. But I can’t tell you. I can’t find the tools to tell you.

AMELIA You can tell me.

DAMMOND I don’t know how to tell you.

AMELIA Just tell me.

DAMMOND Look.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND Around my room. Look at it. Look at all my paintings. What are all these paintings?

AMELIA They’re paintings. DAMMOND Of what?

AMELIA Doctors and nurses and blood.

DAMMOND What kind of doctors?

AMELIA Surgeons.

DAMMOND And who’s in all the pictures of the pictures with the surgeons?

AMELIA You.

DAMMOND And in the pictures of the surgeons, what’re the surgeons doing?

AMELIA Is this your secret? That you’ve had surgeries? Is this your secret? ’Cause if this is secret, it’s not a secret. I’ve picked up on that. I can see that.

DAMMOND No.

AMELIA I can tell that you’ve had surgeries.

DAMMOND No.

AMELIA Then what’s the secret?

DAMMOND Scars.

AMELIA Scars?

DAMMOND From surgeries. Surgeries that gave me scars. When I was a kid. When I was a kid. When I was a boy. When I was just a baby, I had surgeries. Surgeries that gave me scars.

AMELIA I know.

DAMMOND How?

AMELIA I could see them.

DAMMOND When?

AMELIA When we were together.

DAMMOND But I make sure it’s very, very dark. Pitch black, real dark.

AMELIA But still I could see them. I could feel them. How’d it happen?

DAMMOND When I was born.

AMELIA But how’d it happen?

DAMMOND I don’t know. When I was born. Something happened. That’s what I want us to talk about.

AMELIA We’re talking.

DAMMOND That’s all I know.

AMELIA You don’t know what kind of surgeries?

DAMMOND To put it back, I know. My bladder. To put it back inside my body. To make it whole again. To sew the hole and make it whole again. To make it bigger. To put a thing around my bladder.

AMELIA What kind of thing?

DAMMOND To hold it all together.

AMELIA Around your bladder?

DAMMOND That’s all I know.

AMELIA How many?

DAMMOND Fourteen.

AMELIA Fourteen operations?

DAMMOND I think.

AMELIA And you don’t know?

DAMMOND I don’t know what they did.

AMELIA You didn’t ask?

DAMMOND I was a baby.

AMELIA But when you were older . . . ?

DAMMOND I always wondered, but I never asked. I always just kind of nodded my head and pretended to understand.

AMELIA Do you remember?

DAMMOND And I’ve got scars.

AMELIA I know that you’ve got scars.

DAMMOND Not just flesh and wound and scalpeled scars. But scars. Real scars. All kinds of “I don’t know how to tell you, I don’t have the tools it takes inside of me to tell you” scars. Something that I really, really need to show to you I don’t know how to show it to you.

AMELIA But you have.

DAMMOND Not in the light.

AMELIA No.

DAMMOND I can’t just take off all my clothes and show it to you.

AMELIA OK.

DAMMOND I can’t do that.

AMELIA OK.

DAMMOND I won’t do that.

AMELIA OK.

DAMMOND Do you expect me to do that?

AMELIA No.

DAMMOND ’Cause I can’t do that.

AMELIA OK.

DAMMOND I can’t just take off all my clothes and walk around naked and flaunt myself naked, I can’t do that. I’m not like that. That’s why I want to be like that. A Walking Work of Art. So I can do that. I’m not like those people tonight. That I met at the party tonight. Who can do that. Who can take off all their clothes and walk around naked and flaunt themselves naked and have fun. I don’t have fun. I’m not the type of person who has that type of fun. I don’t have the type of body that has that type of fun. Has fun with his body. Works his body to have fun. Has fun with his body. That’s not me. Someone else. That I met. At the party. Has all this fun. Always fun. Goes sailing for months and hiking for months. Safaris and cruises he takes to Alaska and Antarctica. Says something happens there where your eyes are always dilated and you see different. And you think different. And everything is open and makes sense and is fun. I cannot be that far away for that long of a time and have fun. When I go have fun, I don’t have fun. I can’t go to a party to have fun and have fun. Like tonight, I don’t have fun.

AMELIA You’re supposed to have fun.

DAMMOND I went to look at a bunch of naked people.

AMELIA But that’s for fun.

DAMMOND But not for fun.

AMELIA People have fun . . .

DAMMOND I went to look at other people’s bodies. To study other people’s bodies. To examine other people’s bodies. But not for sex. And not for play. And certainly not for fun. But something medical and curious for me to know about other people’s bodies. To know how other people’s bodies are built. How other people’s bodies are formed. Compared to my form and my build.

AMELIA I don’t think there’s really anything that different. What’s so different?

DAMMOND I’ve had so many surgeries down there. Knives and scalpels. Hands and tubes. Virile doctors and sexy nurses. All their eyes down there. Stitches on my bladder. Stitches on my navel. The head of my penis. My groin. My pelvis. Stitches all across from there to there. All those scars and all those stitches. On my skin. And on my insides. Scars you can see. Scars you can touch. Scars you can only imagine inside. Down there. All down there. I’ve been invaded down there so many times down there . . . horrible scars on top of horrible scars on top of horrible birthmarks and scars.

AMELIA It’s really not that bad.

DAMMOND How do you know?

AMELIA At all.

DAMMOND I got scars down there in my brain, in my nerves. In my spine. In my fingers. In my head. Just trust me. They’re bad. I got all that going on inside my body. Internal scars inside my body. Outside my body. Frontside. Backside. I got scars all around my body that scream to me, “Please change my body.” I look at other people’s bodies, and I get so envious. I want his hips. Or his navel. Or his walk. Or his pelvis. Or his bladder. And it just makes me want to have like everybody else.

AMELIA Have?

DAMMOND Have!

AMELIA Have what?

DAMMOND They have what I want.

AMELIA You have what you want.

DAMMOND I don’t even have what I need. Just look at me. You can see all my surgeries and all my scars down there just by looking at me right here. I don’t have to take off all my clothes for you to see my scars. You can see scars on my face from there on my face and in my eyes, I got scars. All these scars. All across my face. All around my face. And in my eyes from here to here. You can see that I’ve got scars. You can see it on my face and in my eyes and out of my mouth, “I got scars.” Scars I have on my body. All around my body. I need to change my body. I got all that going on inside my body, I have no choice, I have to change my body.

(DAMMOND starts to leave.)

AMELIA Where are you going?

DAMMOND To the bathroom.

AMELIA Can you come here?

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA Just come here. Just sit here.

DAMMOND (sitting down) I gotta go to the bathroom.

AMELIA Look here.

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA (pointing to her jaw) Right here.

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA All across from here to here.

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA You can see.

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA All my scars from here to here. From the blinker or the gear shift or the steering wheel, I don’t know. From below my eyes down to my neck right through the glass. On a rainy night. And the rear view mirror on the way. And right here.

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA Right here.

DAMMOND Mirror?

AMELIA No.

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA Rainy night.

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA Windshield wiper.

DAMMOND What?

AMELIA My whole face. From here to here, I’m totally different. I look totally different. You can see. Totally reconstructed. See the scars.

DAMMOND They’re tiny.

AMELIA So are yours.

DAMMOND They’re beautiful.

AMELIA So are yours.

DAMMOND You’re beautiful.

AMELIA So are you. You don’t have scars on your face.

DAMMOND I got a different type of scars.

AMELIA OK.

DAMMOND I got scars on my face from down there.

AMELIA And I’ve got scars down there from my face. You’re not the only one.

DAMMOND OK.

AMELIA I’ve got scars.

DAMMOND OK.

AMELIA Elaborate surgeries. Essential surgeries just to even get me out the fuckin’ door. Make me look OK.

DAMMOND But you look great.

AMELIA But it’s not me. I look like the Bride of Frankenstein.

DAMMOND You do not.

AMELIA I do.

DAMMOND Not at all!

AMELIA You don’t like it, because then that makes you Frankenstein.

DAMMOND I wouldn’t mind.

AMELIA Why?

DAMMOND ’Cause he looks just like her. He’s exactly like her. They’re identical.

AMELIA No, they’re not. They’re not identical.

DAMMOND They are!

AMELIA He’s big and green and has bolts coming out of his neck. She’s pale and white with crazy hair that goes like this.

DAMMOND You’re right.

AMELIA We’re not identical.

DAMMOND No.

AMELIA I’m hesitant, too. Sexually. I’m very hesitant, too. I’ve got so much sexual inhibition, because of so much physical inhibition, I don’t know which outweighs the other.

DAMMOND And I’ve got so much sexual inhibition, because of so much physical exhibition. I was always on exhibit.

AMELIA It’s just reversed.

DAMMOND Just the same.

AMELIA We’re the same? DAMMOND Just like twins.

AMELIA I had an eyelid that wouldn’t open. A nose that was clipped at the tip. A lip that was ripped right open. A chin that had crumbled. A throat that looked like a duck’s. Holes in my cheeks. Broken teeth. Bleeding gums. All red and black and bloody and broken and brown and blue and purple and puce. That was all on my face. Where people could see. All of that. All the time on my face. All those colors on my face. All those scars and gashes on my face. I had to change my face.

DAMMOND I know.

AMELIA Everyone could see my face.

DAMMOND I know.

AMELIA But when I looked like that, with all of that, all scarred and bruised and broken, I looked more like me then than I look like me right now. If I had the choice right now whether to change my face or not to change my face . . . Why are you shaking?

DAMMOND (is rocking back and forth, holding his stomach) I gotta go to the bathroom.

AMELIA I’m sorry.

DAMMOND It’s OK. Go on.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND I’ll hold my bladder.

AMELIA You will?

DAMMOND Yuh.

AMELIA In your hands?

DAMMOND Yuh. I talked to a woman on the phone one time who had to do that.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND Her name was Madeline. She had the same thing I did. With her bladder on the outside when she was born. About seventy-five years ago in Paris. But she never had surgery. They didn’t know what to do such a long time ago. And when she got older, she still never wanted to have the surgery. Her bladder’s still on the outside of her body. And she has to literally hold her bladder every time she laughs.

DAMMOND So she never laughs. She was so depressing.

AMELIA Are you making this up?

DAMMOND No. She hung up on me.

AMELIA Why?

DAMMOND ’Cause I made her laugh, I don’t know.

AMELIA Seriously?

DAMMOND She said she has to apply alcohol bandages directly on her bladder.

AMELIA Ouch.

DAMMOND Every six hours!

AMELIA Ouch.

DAMMOND Alcohol on red raw membrane.

AMELIA God!

DAMMOND All because she didn’t want to change her body. All because she didn’t want to have one surgery that would help her change her body. I don’t have to have something so obviously wrong with my body where everybody can see something is obviously wrong with my body to have the need to change my body. Sure it might be some radical thing to actually change my body. But it’s a much more radical thing to go through what I’m going through right now without changing my body. Just think of all the things that woman goes through all because she was too proud or too scared to have one single surgery to change her body. I don’t have to be a mermaid or a Cyclops or have had gashes all across my face to have the need to change my body. I will never believe that I was destined to become what I looked like on the day I was born. I can’t believe that. I won’t believe that. I’ll never believe that. I don’t know how that woman lives like that. How she lives. How she survives. She told me the day she was born, she said her mother told her that it snowed in Paris. And for the first time in Paris . . . I really gotta go to the bathroom.

AMELIA What happened?

DAMMOND For the first time in Paris, the snow came down, and it was black.

AMELIA Black snow?

DAMMOND Yuh.

AMELIA From the clouds?

DAMMOND That’s what she kept repeating: Black snow falling from the clouds. Black snow falling from the clouds. Black snow. It’s falling from the clouds.

(DAMMOND goes into the bathroom. AMELIA crosses over to the bathroom door.)

AMELIA You look beautiful.

DAMMOND (offstage) I’m peeing!

AMELIA I know you’re peeing! But still, you look beautiful.

(A few minutes later. AMELIA leans against the frame of the bathroom door as DAMMOND stands in the doorway of the apartment with MISS JUSTESEN. It’s four a.m.)

MISS JUSTESEN I just wanted to see your paintings. I came all way just to see your paintings.

DAMMOND We just need to get some sleep.

MISS JUSTESEN I thought you were expecting me.

DAMMOND It’s four o’clock in the morning.

MISS JUSTESEN I didn’t know it was so late.

DAMMOND Yes.

MISS JUSTESEN Of course it’s late. I never stay up so late back home in Hjalmarsgard. I guess New York life has really got to me. I’ve never been to such naked orgy.

DAMMOND It wasn’t an orgy.

MISS JUSTESEN But it was naked.

DAMMOND But it wasn’t an orgy.

MISS JUSTESEN It didn’t start until after midnight. I’ve never been to party that started after midnight.

DAMMOND Miss Justesen . . .

MISS JUSTESEN You said you paint something about bladders and doctors and blood. All about bladder surgeries you’ve had. And when we talked about it at party, it seemed as if you don’t really even know that much about them.

DAMMOND Not really.

MISS JUSTESEN My professor at arts university always said, “Painting yourself and not yet knowing yourself is good way to get to know yourself. Is portrait of self really portrait of self? Or portrait of someone you know better than yourself? How ignorant man paints portrait of himself is not portrait of ignorant man, because it is seldom portrait of himself.” Did that answer your question? At party, you asked me why I wanted to see your paintings . . .

DAMMOND Right.

MISS JUSTESEN . . . and I just told you.

DAMMOND Oh.

MISS JUSTESEN Does that answer your question?

DAMMOND Yes.

MISS JUSTESEN Good, I’d like to see your paintings.

DAMMOND Miss Justesen . . .

MISS JUSTESEN Yes?

DAMMOND I don’t mean to be rude.

MISS JUSTESEN Of course not.

DAMMOND But maybe we can do this another time. I’ll call you later on in the week, after the weekend or something, OK?

MISS JUSTESEN I’m sorry I was late.

DAMMOND It’s all right.

MISS JUSTESEN I was talking to Naaktgeboren.

DAMMOND I understand.

MISS JUSTESEN He’s doctor at gallery. He said you missed your consultation.

DAMMOND When?

MISS JUSTESEN Consultation to change your body.

DAMMOND They were tonight?

MISS JUSTESEN At morning time.

DAMMOND I didn’t know.

MISS JUSTESEN Yours was two-fifteen.

DAMMOND That’s when I left. Why were they so late?

MISS JUSTESEN That’s just way he does things there. Maybe you can talk to him.

DAMMOND I’ll call him tomorrow.

MISS JUSTESEN You don’t need to. I brought him here. I knew you wanted consultation, and you didn’t mean to miss consultation, so I brought consultation to you.

NAAKTGEBOREN (abruptly enters. He carries a briefcase under his arm.) Fuck! I just cut my fuckin’ hand on the fuckin’ mirror in the fuckin’ hall. I’m gonna get a fuckin’ scar. Fuck! Probably right across my lifeline or right across my sexline.

DAMMOND Is it bad?

NAAKTGEBOREN I just cut my fuckin’ life in half and my fuckin’ sex in half, and he asks me if it’s bad. Of course it’s bad! Look at it! Right across the line.

DAMMOND I’ll get a Band-Aid.

(Crosses to the bathroom as he speaks. AMELIA retreats further inside unnoticeably.)

NAAKTGEBOREN I don’t need a Band-Aid. I need stitches.

DAMMOND You’re barely bleeding.

MISS JUSTESEN Have you two met?

NAAKTGEBOREN Yuh, we met at the party. I hate scars. Don’t you? I hate any kind of fuckin’ scars.

DAMMOND You look good.

NAAKTGEBOREN Thanks.

DAMMOND I mean, with your clothes on. You look good.

MISS JUSTESEN You should see his legs.

DAMMOND I know.

MISS JUSTESEN He’s got strong legs.

NAAKTGEBOREN My legs are my divining rod. They always guide my libido toward another hungry libido.

MISS JUSTESEN What’s libido?

NAAKTGEBOREN Appetite.

MISS JUSTESEN Oh. I have strong libido myself.

NAAKTGEBOREN Really?

MISS JUSTESEN All night long.

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re not alone.

MISS JUSTESEN I’ve had such strong libido . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN I didn’t know.

MISS JUSTESEN . . . for broiled salmon and steamed vegetables! And little cup of sake, too. Not too big. Not too small. And nice big Apple Betty Crisp. A friend of mine owns culinary school back home in Hjalmarsgard. I’ll have to remember word and tell her I have strong libido for her home cookin’. Is that right?

DAMMOND She might get the wrong idea.

MISS JUSTESEN You know, I have heard word before. Downstairs at party.

DAMMOND I’m sure you did.

NAAKTGEBOREN Libido.

MISS JUSTESEN I knew it sounded familiar!

NAAKTGEBOREN Libido!

MISS JUSTESEN Naked man was singing song to another naked man.

NAAKTGEBOREN I like the sound of that.

MISS JUSTESEN Naked Man A, we shall call him, said to Naked Man B, if you will, “Well, I can tell it’s not pistol in your pocket.” And Naked Man B then sang to Naked Man A, let’s see if I can remember: “I could read your libido right through tuxedo. Might as well be wearing wet and white Speedo!” Yes! I remember now! What’s Speedo?

NAAKTGEBOREN A small bikini brief.

MISS JUSTESEN Oh, I think I get it. I heard him sing song to three or four different men and one very different woman.

NAAKTGEBOREN Who was he?

MISS JUSTESEN I don’t remember his name. That’s not most prominent feature that stuck out. He told me had his Broadway debut in Will Rogers Follies , and that he considered that easy route for coming out as homosexual. For months, he said he just kept repeating, “I never met man I didn’t like. I never met man I didn’t like. I never met man I didn’t like.” And eventually, he said his broken record mentality caught on and everyone understood him.

DAMMOND I’m sure they did.

NAAKTGEBOREN (lifting up his hand) It stopped bleeding.

AMELIA (approaches from the bathroom) I like that story.

NAAKTGEBOREN Who are you?

AMELIA Amelia.

NAAKTGEBOREN Amelia? Hello, Amelia.

AMELIA (extends her hand) Hello.

NAAKTGEBOREN I’d shake your hand, but my hand is bleeding.

AMELIA I thought it stopped.

NAAKTGEBOREN I’m Naaktgeboren. It means “Born Naked.” I’m Born Naked.

AMELIA So was I.

MISS JUSTESEN Me, too. What a sight! Call the cops! Call the cops, I’m born naked! It’s so perfect that your name of all people means “Born Naked.” Don’t you think? Everything he likes to do is so naked.

(To DAMMOND.)

I’d really love to see your paintings.

NAAKTGEBOREN That’s all she kept chirping about on the cab ride over.

MISS JUSTESEN Chirping?

NAAKTGEBOREN Like a bird.

MISS JUSTESEN He’s right.

DAMMOND (gets up out of his seat) Then I’ll show you.

NAAKTGEBOREN (stopping him) So tell me, what can I do for you? The consultation, to change your body, what can I do for you?

DAMMOND I just wanted to know more about what you do.

NAAKTGEBOREN In what way?

DAMMOND About your Walking Works of Art. I want to be a Walking Work of Art.

NAAKTGEBOREN That’s what I want to make you. A Walking Work of Art.

DAMMOND Sounds good to me.

MISS JUSTESEN May I see your paintings?

DAMMOND Feel free to look around.

You were saying?

NAAKTGEBOREN “At TransFormations, we can TransForm Godzillas into Gods. King Kongs into Kings. Creatures from the Black Lagoon into Creatures that Will Make You Swoon.” All you need is bones and we’ll work around them.

MISS JUSTESEN Bones?

NAAKTGEBOREN You got bones somewhere underneath all that fat?

DAMMOND I got bones.

NAAKTGEBOREN Then we’ll work around them. Here’s my pamphlet.

(NAAKTGEBOREN pulls a few pamphlets out of his briefcase.)

Look at this pamphlet and point out to me the physical shape you’d most like your body to resemble.

DAMMOND Here.

NAAKTGEBOREN This is your dream body?

DAMMOND Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN For you to touch or for you to have?

DAMMOND For me to have.

NAAKTGEBOREN Good. You’ve done me proud. Among all my Walking Works of Art, that’s the one I’m fondest of. That cultivated sculptured look. That’s good. I call that Promenade.

AMELIA (laughing) Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN A body fit for a leisurely walk in a public place mainly for pleasure or for display. Let me hear you say it.

DAMMOND Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN Perfect. The structure of Promenade focuses primarily on the abdominal muscles and how they are strategically stacked one on top of the other. And above that intricate totem of muscle, I have created a uniquely built chest and scapulary. One that undoubtedly evokes a sense of envy. You know what I call that?

DAMMOND What?

NAAKTGEBOREN The Promenade Deck!

DAMMOND I like that!

NAAKTGEBOREN In public, when another person recognizes your . . . how should I put it? . . .

(Rhymes with “oddity.”)

Promenadity?

DAMMOND Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN And they say to you, “My, what a beautiful Promenade!” You know what you say to them? Nothing. You just give them . . .

(tilting his head)

. . . a Prome-Nod.

(DAMMOND laughs.)

NAAKTGEBOREN (cont’d) It’s my favorite work of Walking Works of Art!

DAMMOND A Prome-Nod?

NAAKTGEBOREN Let me see it.

DAMMOND (tilts his head quite convincingly) Prome-Nod.

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re destined for Promenade.

DAMMOND Really?

NAAKTGEBOREN Just destined.

DAMMOND (nods his head again, even more dramatically) Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod.

(DAMMOND continues tilting his head and repeating the words.)

AMELIA Which one’s Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN Second from the right.

AMELIA This person here is Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN Yes.

AMELIA Is he real?

NAAKTGEBOREN Yes.

AMELIA He exists?

NAAKTGEBOREN Of course.

AMELIA He looks too perfect.

NAAKTGEBOREN Naturally.

(DAMMOND eventually sits down on the floor to study more photographs and literature.)

AMELIA You know him well?

NAAKTGEBOREN He’s my twin.

AMELIA Fraternal.

NAAKTGEBOREN Identical.

AMELIA He doesn’t look like you.

NAAKTGEBOREN We’re not identical anymore. We changed our bodies to look different.

AMELIA Intentionally?

NAAKTGEBOREN Of course.

AMELIA I can’t believe you’d do that.

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re just prejudiced.

AMELIA About what?

NAAKTGEBOREN It’s a secret.

AMELIA What secret?

NAAKTGEBOREN My secret.

AMELIA Then how can I be prejudiced about a secret? About something I don’t even know anything about?

NAAKTGEBOREN Exactly. That’s prejudiced.

(MISS JUSTESEN looks at the pamphlets.)

MISS JUSTESEN They’re beautiful beautiful photos.

NAAKTGEBOREN Thank you.

AMELIA I’m not prejudiced.

MISS JUSTESEN Everyone looks like that! So beautiful. I always say, if you have body like that, then flaunt it. Idea like that, then flaunt it. Spirit like that, then flaunt it. Get it hell out of box and flaunt it. These kinds of things are not intended to be kept like secrets.

AMELIA I still don’t see how you can say I’m prejudiced!

MISS JUSTESEN Prejudices, my dear, are born only because some value worth of secret far greater than worth of truth.

AMELIA But I’m not prejudiced!

MISS JUSTESEN I know that, dear.

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re prejudiced and hypocritical.

AMELIA Based on what?

(NAAKTGEBOREN studies AMELIA’s face as he speaks.)

NAAKTGEBOREN More hypocritical than prejudiced. But still prejudiced. If I could turn the clock back for ninety seconds, I’d say to you you’re hypocritical instead of saying you’re prejudiced.

AMELIA Why?

NAAKTGEBOREN Because I can see it on your face. Hypocrisy all around your fuckin’ face. A thousand tiny hairline scars from cosmetic surgery, am I right? Total reconstruction surgery on your face. So, then it is a hypocritical statement for you to judge my changing my brother’s body when you yourself have changed your face.

AMELIA I had to change my face.

NAAKTGEBOREN (pointing to the pamphlet) And that’s the same with him.

(Now pointing to DAMMOND.)

And that’s the same with him.

AMELIA It’s not the same!

NAAKTGEBOREN Why? Because you were in an emergency?

AMELIA Exactly.

NAAKTGEBOREN (pointing to DAMMOND) And so is he.

AMELIA No.

NAAKTGEBOREN Yours was a more immediate emergency.

AMELIA Yes, it was.

NAAKTGEBOREN But what makes you so sure that some people are not involved in a more incubated emergency? One that boils and toils and troubles the mind quite extensively. Even though it spans a year or two or decades even, it still to him’s emergency. Incubated emergency.

DAMMOND These bodies are amazing!

NAAKTGEBOREN See!

DAMMOND All these bodies.

NAAKTGEBOREN Look at him!

DAMMOND Every single one of these bodies . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN He’s so hungry!

DAMMOND . . . Is so amazing! God, I need to change my body!

NAAKTGEBOREN If that’s not emergency, I don’t know what is.

DAMMOND Can I really look like this?

NAAKTGEBOREN Of course.

DAMMOND But what about my scars? It says right here, you have scarification removal? And pubic hair realignment? And cosmetic injections and pills for me to take? Does all that really work? I mean, can I really change that much?

NAAKTGEBOREN You better pack your bags. I have a feeling you’re gonna be gone for a long, long time. You’re not only ready for the consultation, you’re ready for the TransFormation.

AMELIA He’s not ready for the transformation!

DAMMOND But what if I’m not meant to look like that? What if my body’s not intended to be attractive like that?

NAAKTGEBOREN It is. Now get packing!

DAMMOND But what if I can’t do it? What if my body can’t do it? What if I don’t even like what I could look like? What if the best possible me isn’t even good? What if something says that I can’t do it? What if some Magnetic Something somewhere says to me that this is me? And how I’ll always be. Like me. Like this. Just like this. Just like me. And you can’t do it. And there I’m left. With me. What if I’m stuck? What if I’m always left and stuck with me?

NAAKTGEBOREN Then the best thing I could suggest for you is a nearsighted lover. Nearsighted in one eye. Farsighted in the other. From a distance, you’ll look decent. Up close, you’ll look decent. Because in between, one eye is lying all the time. Here’s your nearsighted lover. You’ve already got your nearsighted lover. If all else fails, you’ve already got your backup, because you’ve already got your nearsighted lover. But I know for you for a fact, you’d like something bigger, something better. You were very bold at my party tonight, and I like that.

DAMMOND Bold about what?

NAAKTGEBOREN You said you wanted to examine my body. And study my body.

DAMMOND Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN So let’s go study the body. You study mine. And I’ll study yours.

(To AMELIA.)

That’s the last thing he said to me at the party. “Can we just lie here? Can I just examine you?” He strips me naked and gets me naked, and lies me down.

DAMMOND You were already naked.

NAAKTGEBOREN And stares at me with those big brown puppy eyes of his and says to me, “Can we just lie here? Can I just examine you? If I took off my hospital gown, would you lie on top of me? With your naked back on my naked chest. Right on top of me. For me to imagine. With my hands, I’d imagine. I just woke up. And the body on top of me is not on top of me, but is me. That the body I’m touching is me. So I feel your waist like it’s me. Your pelvic bone, it’s me. Your stomach. Your navel. It’s all me.”

DAMMOND It’s not what I said.

NAAKTGEBOREN It’s exactly what you said. “It’s kind of not at all like the kind of fun you like to have with your body, Naaktgeboren. But if you pretend this for me. Then I’ll pretend that I have fun with you. That I have fun with whatever you would like to do with me.”

DAMMOND I didn’t say that.

AMELIA Did you say that? You said you wanted to examine other people’s bodies.

DAMMOND But I don’t want it like that! I didn’t mean it like that!

NAAKTGEBOREN I saw you when you said it. On your knees, crying and begging.

DAMMOND But not like that.

AMELIA Then what?

DAMMOND I want to look at what I should have. And study what I should have. And examine what I should have. Your body. Your perfect body. Your very perfect scarless body. I want to touch what I should have.

NAAKTGEBOREN Then touch.

DAMMOND At the party . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN Touch me.

DAMMOND . . . my later thoughts . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN You can touch me.

DAMMOND . . . before . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN Just touch me.

DAMMOND . . . at the party . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN Touch me!

DAMMOND . . . were . . . . . . surgery. God, send surgery. Perfect body surgery. Like a blanket or a lock or a guard. It would give me security. For me, for someone to accept me and love me. That need for me. For whoever’s out there, for them to yes me. That’s what I need. As a person. As a me. As a man. My own biology rights. That’s what I need. No scars. Like you. I’d want it just like you. Your pretty, pretty structured body. No backfire body. No un-, mal-, or disbody. You have what I want. Inside my head. A live idea! Of what I want to be. Just a beautiful body. Like all these beautiful bodies in all these beautiful pictures. This beauty of the body that I don’t have. This form of perfection that I don’t own. It’s the beauty of the body and the form of perfection that I crave.

NAAKTGEBOREN I’ll help you pack.

DAMMOND OK.

NAAKTGEBOREN I love . . . the way . . . you touch me.

DAMMOND OK.

NAAKTGEBOREN Such hunger . . . and devotion . . . It’s amazing.

MISS JUSTESEN You need to meet my friend.

DAMMOND Who’s that?

MISS JUSTESEN Dana Gray.

DAMMOND Who’s Dana Gray?

MISS JUSTESEN You need to meet Dana Gray. If you think like that, you need to meet Dana Gray.

NAAKTGEBOREN You have a suitcase?

DAMMOND Under the bed.

(NAAKTGEBOREN takes out the suitcase and begins packing it.)

MISS JUSTESEN Just wrote amazing book. About what you just said. About seasons of year. And how it affects everybody’s thoughts and emotions and ideas.

DAMMOND I didn’t say that.

MISS JUSTESEN It’s called Seasons of Womb.

DAMMOND It’s not what I said.

MISS JUSTESEN It’s amazing book!

DAMMOND It’s not for me.

NAAKTGEBOREN I know what you mean.

DAMMOND I don’t like stuff like that.

NAAKTGEBOREN I don’t blame you.

DAMMOND I never have.

NAAKTGEBOREN It’s not your cup of tea.

DAMMOND Exactly.

MISS JUSTESEN How it affects conception and development in every stage of lives.

DAMMOND I hate those types of books.

MISS JUSTESEN (not a question) Are you different if you’re conceived in spring versus being conceived in winter?

DAMMOND But that’s astrology.

MISS JUSTESEN In some ways that’s true.

NAAKTGEBOREN It’s astrology. We not like astrology.

DAMMOND I don’t want to meet anybody that writes those types of books.

NAAKTGEBOREN Where’s your underwear? Do you wear underwear?

MISS JUSTESEN But are you affected differently as embryo if you are formed in summer versus being formed in winter or fall or in spring. If things are fertile in air. If home’s had spring cleaning, and your siblings are laughing and your father’s at home, does that spring affection play part in your life if you’re in womb in spring.

NAAKTGEBOREN So, what are you saying? Daddy’s home—the house is clean—I feel good—I think I’ll kick—Kick!—Oh, honey, he just kicked! Let me feel—Kick!—Oh, he just kicked again! Children, come quick, come feel! Your brother just kicked—Kick!—Why’d he kick, Mommy, why, why?—Kick!—Because the house is clean—Kick!—and your father—Kick!—is at home!—Kick!

MISS JUSTESEN It’s not at all like that.

NAAKTGEBOREN That’s what you said.

MISS JUSTESEN Not like that.

AMELIA She didn’t mean it like that.

MISS JUSTESEN Also talks about world events.

AMELIA Really?

DAMMOND I don’t want to talk about world events!

NAAKTGEBOREN Me, too.

MISS JUSTESEN Like wars and depressions.

NAAKTGEBOREN Big fun!

DAMMOND Wars and depressions!

MISS JUSTESEN About how could have huge direct effect on the mother—or even directly affecting fetus or embryo.

NAAKTGEBOREN Everything has paint on them! You’ll need a whole new wardrobe! You’ll need a whole new wardrobe anyway! But you need a whole new wardrobe . . .

MISS JUSTESEN Huge chronological table corresponding to what year you were born and dates you were conceived.

DAMMOND It’s bullshit.

MISS JUSTESEN It’s not bullshit.

DAMMOND I can tell when something’s bullshit.

MISS JUSTESEN Dana Gray says in China, when you’re born, you’re born on your first birthday.

DAMMOND So—

MISS JUSTESEN You’re already one year old.

AMELIA That’s neat.

MISS JUSTESEN Isn’t it?

AMELIA Then I’d be thirty.

MISS JUSTESEN Says months before we’re born is most amazing and eventful part of life.

DAMMOND How’s that?

MISS JUSTESEN At beginning, we’re zygote. Just one cell. We’re one cell. And then from then on, we double.

AMELIA Two. Four. Eight. Sixteen, et cetera.

MISS JUSTESEN Until time we are born, we each contain about two hundred billion cells.

AMELIA Two hundred billion?

MISS JUSTESEN And do you know how much cell weighs?

AMELIA I know.

MISS JUSTESEN About fifteen ten-millionths of one gram!

AMELIA I know.

MISS JUSTESEN At time of birth, we each weigh over three thousand grams! So in nine months’ time, what’s that? We gained approximately two billion times our original weight.

AMELIA That’s amazing.

MISS JUSTESEN You started out being egg, so tiny, you could fit through eye of needle. Then you became thin and hollow and long, like rubber band. And around third week of life, your nerves started forming. And your liver started appearing. And your heart started beating. Dana Gray says, “Wouldn’t that seem to you like best adventure of your life?”

AMELIA We need to meet her.

MISS JUSTESEN Yes.

AMELIA Let’s invite her over.

NAAKTGEBOREN Not now.

DAMMOND I don’t want to meet her.

NAAKTGEBOREN Me neither.

DAMMOND Not now.

AMELIA Where does she live?

MISS JUSTESEN TriBeCa.

DAMMOND I don’t want to meet her.

AMELIA Miss Justesen—

MISS JUSTESEN Yes?

AMELIA I think we should invite her over right now.

NAAKTGEBOREN You have a shaving kit?

DAMMOND Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN Go get that and all your toiletries.

DAMMOND Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN We’re almost packed.

DAMMOND Naaktgeboren—

NAAKTGEBOREN Yes, Dammond?

DAMMOND Can I really change my body?

(NAAKTGEBOREN takes DAMMOND’S hands and places them strategically onto NAAKTGEBOREN’s body.)

NAAKTGEBOREN Into something very similar to this.

DAMMOND God!

(DAMMOND buries his face in NAAKTGEBOREN’S chest. He cries hungrily.)

NAAKTGEBOREN Yes! Yes! Yes! It’s all right. It’s all right.

DAMMOND Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN Go get your shaving kit.

(DAMMOND crosses to the bathroom.)

NAAKTGEBOREN Just look at that. He is destined for Promenade.

DAMMOND Promenade?

NAAKTGEBOREN Promenade!

DAMMOND (his face lights up) Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod.

NAAKTGEBOREN Perfect.

DAMMOND Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod. Prome-Nod.

(DAMMOND and NAAKTGEBOREN stare at each other from across the room. The magnetism between them is apparent. AMELIA and MISS JUSTESEN observe in uncomfortable silence.)

(Blackout. End of Act One.)

(NAAKTGEBOREN and DAMMOND stand at the front door, coats on and determined to leave. MISS JUSTESEN and AMELIA block the doorway as DANA GRAY sits on the bathtub couch with a large round case on wheels stage left. Much of the focus is concentrated on the contents of this case: fetuses and embryos floating in glass jars. The time is five-thirty a.m.)

NAAKTGEBOREN ’Cause it’s a freak show!

DAMMOND It’s a freak show!

NAAKTGEBOREN We’re not gonna stand around and watch a friggin’ freak show!

MISS JUSTESEN It’s not freak show!

NAAKTGEBOREN It’s disgusting.

AMELIA I think it’s beautiful.

MISS JUSTESEN Isn’t it?

DANA GRAY You know what I call it? Eddie and Freddy and the Floating Embryo Fantasmagoria.

NAAKTGEBOREN It’s a freak show!

DANA GRAY Each and every embryo comes directly to you by way of my mother’s womb.

AMELIA It’s amazing!

DANA GRAY In front of your very eyes are all nine of my older brothers and sisters.

NAAKTGEBOREN They look like monsters.

DANA GRAY Funny you should say that.

NAAKTGEBOREN Let’s get out of here. We should have left a long time ago.

DANA GRAY What makes you say that?

NAAKTGEBOREN Absolute monsters.

DANA GRAY Must I remind you about my siblings?

NAAKTGEBOREN That you’re kind of like your siblings?

DANA GRAY Just like my Bella-Beau.

NAAKTGEBOREN Who’s Bella-Beau?

DANA GRAY Especially Bella-Beau.

NAAKTGEBOREN Which one is Bella-Beau? This right here is Bella-Beau?

DANA GRAY Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN A hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN It’s a hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN This thing right here is a hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY Bella-Beau is a hermaphrodite.

NAAKTGEBOREN So you’re a hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY A pseudohermaphrodite.

NAAKTGEBOREN What’s the difference?

DANA GRAY I have what’s known as ambiguous genitalia.

NAAKTGEBOREN And what’s so ambiguous about your genitalia?

DANA GRAY I have the sexual organs of a woman, but I also have the sexual characteristics of a man.

NAAKTGEBOREN What kind of sexual characteristics?

(DANA GRAY points to DAMMOND as she is referring to the pamphlet.)

DANA GRAY Well, it looks like in a lot of ways, I’m just like him.

(Complete stillness.)

DAMMOND I’m not a hermaphrodite.

DANA GRAY Neither am I.

DAMMOND But you just said . . .

DANA GRAY A pseudohermaphrodite.

DAMMOND I’m not a pseudohermaphrodite.

DANA GRAY But you have the urethral displacement like a pseudohermaphrodite.

DAMMOND What’s a urethral displacement?

DANA GRAY Where your urethra is displaced.

DAMMOND My urethra is not displaced.

DANA GRAY Then where do you pee?

DAMMOND Out of my penis.

DANA GRAY What part of your penis?

DAMMOND What do you mean?

DANA GRAY Do you have a hole on your penis where you pee?

DAMMOND Yes.

DANA GRAY Where is it?

DAMMOND At the tip of my fuckin’ penis.

DANA GRAY When you pee, pee actually comes through a hole at the tip of your penis?

DAMMOND Yes.

DANA GRAY You pee, and pee comes out?

DAMMOND Yes.

DANA GRAY Through the tip of your penis?

DAMMOND Why are you doing this?

DANA GRAY Because it wasn’t always like that. It can’t have always been like that.

DAMMOND As far as I remember.

DANA GRAY When you were born, it wasn’t like that.

DAMMOND How do you know?

DANA GRAY It’s a condition that goes hand in hand with your condition. If you were born with your bladder on the outside of your abdomen, then I guarantee you had a urethral opening displaced on the upperside of your penis.

DAMMOND My urethral opening is at the tip of my penis.

DANA GRAY But when you were born, it was on the upperside of your penis.

DAMMOND And that makes me a hermaphrodite?

DANA GRAY A pseudohermaphrodite.

DAMMOND A hole on top of my penis when I was born does not make me a pseudohermaphrodite!

DANA GRAY A lot like a pseudohermaphrodite!

DAMMOND But I’m not a pseudohermaphrodite!

DANA GRAY A pseudohermaphrodite has the urethral opening on the underside of the penis . . .

DAMMOND But that’s not me.

DANA GRAY And that displacement of the urethral opening on the underside of the penis makes it look a lot like a vagina.

DAMMOND But a hole on top of my penis does not look like a vagina.

DANA GRAY It’s actually more progressive. You’re what I call a progressive-pseudo. A progressive-pseudohermaphrodite. Both of the sexes are moving upward and forward, not dormant or recessive. You’re trying to be both. A pseudohermaphrodite is trying to deny one or the other. A progressive-pseudo is trying to embrace them both.

DAMMOND That’s not true.

DANA GRAY Both a penis and a vagina.

DAMMOND It’s not a vagina.

NAAKTGEBOREN You got a vagina-looking thing on top of your penis?

DAMMOND I do not have a vagina!

NAAKTGEBOREN That is so gross! Like “icky icky stay away from me that’s gross” gross.

DANA GRAY A vagina is gross?

NAAKTGEBOREN You gotta get rid of that vagina!

DAMMOND Let’s get out of here!

NAAKTGEBOREN You wanna get rid of that vagina? You probably got scars from having that vagina. Think about it. In the heat of passion. “Honey, where’d you get that scar?” “Oh, Sweetums, that’s where I used to have my vagina.” “Your vagina?” “My vagina!” “Get out of my fuckin’ bed, Vagina!”

AMELIA I would never say anything like that!

NAAKTGEBOREN Let’s get out of here.

DAMMOND As fast as we can.

NAAKTGEBOREN I’m with you.

DAMMOND How soon can I have the surgeries?

NAAKTGEBOREN I’ll bump you up to the top of the list.

DAMMOND Thank God.

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re welcome.

AMELIA I’ve told you a hundred times, you don’t need to change your body.

DAMMOND If I was born with a vagina-lookin’ thing on top of my penis, no matter what anybody says, I need to change my body.

(DANA GRAY hands DAMMOND a stack of papers.)

DANA GRAY Have you ever read these papers? These medical papers?

DAMMOND I don’t understand them.

NAAKTGEBOREN Let’s go.

DAMMOND They’re all in Latin or Italian or Greek or something.

(To NAAKTGEBOREN.)

You ready?

DANA GRAY Where’d you get these papers?

NAAKTGEBOREN Let’s get out of here.

DAMMOND My mother sent them to me.

DANA GRAY Your whole medical history is right here. Every operation. Every procedure. Every medical decision and detail is right here in front of your face. Anything and everything you need to know is right here. Did you know that?

DAMMOND But I can’t read them.

NAAKTGEBOREN Let’s go.

DANA GRAY Have you ever seen this pamphlet?

DAMMOND Yes.

DANA GRAY It’s beautiful.

DAMMOND Thank you.

AMELIA What is it?

DANA GRAY It looks so clean.

AMELIA Let me see.

DANA GRAY Do you mind?

DAMMOND No.

AMELIA Can I see it?

DANA GRAY He’s got this mechanical device inside his body.

MISS JUSTESEN Where?

NAAKTGEBOREN We need to go.

DANA GRAY Around your bladder, is that right?

DAMMOND Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN Let’s go.

AMELIA It looks like crystal.

MISS JUSTESEN That’s inside you?

DAMMOND Yes.

MISS JUSTESEN It’s so beautiful.

DAMMOND (abruptly) I have a painting of that!

NAAKTGEBOREN We don’t have time for this.

MISS JUSTESEN Oh, I need to see it!

DAMMOND Just a second.

NAAKTGEBOREN We’ll do it another time.

(DAMMOND pulls the painting from behind a stack of other canvases.)

DAMMOND I painted it, because I like the name of it.

MISS JUSTESEN What’s it called?

DAMMOND It’s called the ART-800.

MISS JUSTESEN I like that.

DAMMOND I used to have the ART-920, but then they upgraded it, and now I have the ART-800.

NAAKTGEBOREN Why are you doing this?

MISS JUSTESEN So, you’ve got this machine inside your body called ART-800?

DAMMOND Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN We need to go.

MISS JUSTESEN It’s like Z-28 or DC-10.

DAMMOND I guess.

MISS JUSTESEN ART-800!

NAAKTGEBOREN Are you coming with me?

DAMMOND I’ll be right there.

AMELIA It says right here when you were eight years old, your doctor sewed a “lyopholized dura patch on the dome of your bladder in an effort to give you an increased bladder capacity.” You know what this lyopholized dura patch is?

DAMMOND No.

AMELIA You received a tissue transplant when you were eight years old. And that tissue was flown all the way from Germany. They flew some German person’s brain from Berlin to Houston, and sewed some tissue from that German brain onto your bladder.

DAMMOND German brain?

AMELIA Yes.

DAMMOND I have some German person’s German brain sewed onto my bladder?

AMELIA Yes. “Transplanted tissue remains alive in the tissue receiver’s body. The phenomenon here is that the tissue donor’s brain function still may be working.” What does that mean?

MISS JUSTESEN It seems as if your bladder’s got mind of its own.

DAMMOND I can think with my bladder. Have memories with my bladder.

MISS JUSTESEN Someone else’s memories.

DAMMOND Oh, my God.

MISS JUSTESEN Someone else’s thoughts. Their intelligence. Their creativity. Alive! . . . and living on your bladder!

(DANA GRAY reads from the medical papers.)

DANA GRAY When you were born, your hip bones and pelvic bones were broken. Did you know that?

DAMMOND Yes.

DANA GRAY So you’ve had an osteotomy?

MISS JUSTESEN Osteotomy?

NAAKTGEBOREN Where they reshape his hips and pelvic bones, can we go now?

DANA GRAY Did you have that?

DAMMOND I used to have braces on both my legs.

NAAKTGEBOREN He wouldn’t walk the way he walks right now if he hadn’t had an osteotomy.

DAMMOND When I was two and I was three. I had this metal bar that went between my legs. From knee to knee. And I remember my father used to carry me by that bar. Upside down. Like a suitcase. Like a briefcase. Like some human luggage. And he would carry me and swing me upside down. And it was fun. All my first memories I’ve ever had are of everything upside down. Buildings. Trees. And people. Growing from the sky. That’s how I remember things when I was young. Every single thing was upside down.

NAAKTGEBOREN I would love to take away any physical reminders of any of your physical pain.

DAMMOND You would?

NAAKTGEBOREN All your scars and hard scar tissue. Just zap it away, so nothing haunts you anymore.

DAMMOND That’s what I need.

NAAKTGEBOREN Then we better go.

DANA GRAY I’d never change my body.

MISS JUSTESEN That’s exactly how I feel, too.

DANA GRAY Like you.

MISS JUSTESEN Especially you. Lot of great things about your body.

AMELIA That’s what I’ve already told him.

MISS JUSTESEN Part brain and part machine. Inside your urinary system. I find that quite intriguing.

DAMMOND I find it vulgar.

MISS JUSTESEN How’s it vulgar?

DAMMOND It’s unnatural. Anything unnatural is vulgar. You all are so lucky.

MISS JUSTESEN Lucky?

DAMMOND All of your biggest problems are your most obvious problems. I’d love it if my biggest problem was real obvious. So everybody knew my most obvious problems.

MISS JUSTESEN You wouldn’t want it that way.

DAMMOND But it’s hard to walk around and have people not understand the reason why I behave or act or react a certain way. It’s hard. No one knows what’s going on inside.

MISS JUSTESEN That’s same for everyone.

NAAKTGEBOREN I’ve always been amazed by that one thing.

DAMMOND What’s that?

NAAKTGEBOREN That it’s all the same for everyone.

DAMMOND What’s the same?

NAAKTGEBOREN That we’re all the same inside. No matter what color, what shape, what texture, what emotions or ideas anyone might have—we’re all the same inside. We’ve all got the same color of blood. The same whiteness of bone.

DAMMOND You’re right.

NAAKTGEBOREN You can take comfort in that.

AMELIA I don’t know why people always say that. “We’re all the same inside.”

DAMMOND He’s right.

NAAKTGEBOREN ’Cause it’s true.

AMELIA It’s not true. None of us is the same inside! How can you say that we’re all the same inside?

NAAKTGEBOREN Because I’ve seen us, and we all look the same inside.

AMELIA How can you say his bladder and his urinary system is like everybody else’s bladders and urinary systems?

NAAKTGEBOREN I’ve cut open so many people’s bodies, I should know we’re all the same inside. We’ve all got bones and brains and blood.

AMELIA But there are different types of blood. We have different types of blood, we have different types of tissues, we have different types of organs and organ systems and different types of bodies—it’s obvious. You of all people should know that that’s obvious.

NAAKTGEBOREN All I’m saying is our blood is the same inside. Our bones are alike inside.

AMELIA No.

NAAKTGEBOREN Yes.

MISS JUSTESEN Do you really think your bones are exactly like my bones?

NAAKTGEBOREN Other than the size of your bones—yes.

MISS JUSTESEN (with great dignity) I was born with osteogenesis imperfecta.

NAAKTGEBOREN Sounds frightful.

MISS JUSTESEN It is.

AMELIA What’s that?

MISS JUSTESEN Degenerative bone disease where bones are continually crumbling all time. Right now, as we speak, my bones are breaking away. Grain by grain. Grit by grit. Boneless. Cartilageless. Spineless. That’s what I have to look forward to in my old age. Being spineless and alive at same time. How’s that sound to you? Having your skull deteriorate, so your brain feels like jelly? Having your ankles deplete, so you walk, until you walk no more, like jelly. Having your fingers waste away their sockets, so you sculpt and paint like jelly. When I was only twelve years old, my pelvis had already concaved in in such way making it impossible for me to ever bear child. My body has always deceived my age. Everyone treats me like citizen senior. But I’m not even thirty years young yet. My insides are nothing like your insides.

NAAKTGEBOREN Dana Gray—

DANA GRAY I’m scared of this.

NAAKTGEBOREN I bet our insides even look alike inside.

DANA GRAY I doubt that’s true.

NAAKTGEBOREN Even though you’re somewhat hermaphroditic, and even though I’m somewhat not, I bet even hormonally . . .

DANA GRAY Hormonally?

NAAKTGEBOREN . . . we’re a lot alike inside.

DANA GRAY Don’t get me started.

NAAKTGEBOREN We’re hormonally alike inside . . .

DANA GRAY No!

NAAKTGEBOREN . . . because we all started out being hormonally alike inside.

(He puts his arm around DAMMOND.)

Isn’t that right?

DAMMOND Because we’re all created equal.

(NAAKTGEBOREN squeezes DAMMOND tightly.)

NAAKTGEBOREN Exactly.

DANA GRAY I can’t believe you’d say that.

DAMMOND What?

DANA GRAY The Greatest Assumption Ever Made.

DAMMOND What’s that?

DANA GRAY That we’re all created equal.

DAMMOND But we are.

DANA GRAY In this very group of people, none of us is created equal.

NAAKTGEBOREN All of us, the image of God.

DANA GRAY Then why change people’s bodies, which, to you, are in the image of God?

NAAKTGEBOREN I don’t change people’s image of God!

DANA GRAY Then explain to me, what do you change?

NAAKTGEBOREN I change people’s bodies into the image of God!

(DANA GRAY lifts up NAAKTGEBOREN’s pamphlets.)

DANA GRAY This, to me, does not look like the image of God.

NAAKTGEBOREN Then you tell me.

DANA GRAY What?

NAAKTGEBOREN What do you think?

DANA GRAY What?

NAAKTGEBOREN Is the image of God?

DANA GRAY Anything imaginable and everything that’s not.

NAAKTGEBOREN Anything?

DANA GRAY Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN There’s a lot of things imaginable that I can imagine that have nothing to do with the image of God.

DANA GRAY Like what?

NAAKTGEBOREN Pornography. Stealing. Fucking behind your boyfriend’s back. That’s not the image of God.

DANA GRAY Somewhere, some place, in all of that, you can always find the image of God.

NAAKTGEBOREN Then you show me . . . if you believe all that, then somewhere some place in all of these, you must be able to find the image of God.

DANA GRAY It’s distorted. A distorted image of God.

NAAKTGEBOREN I disagree.

DANA GRAY Fine.

NAAKTGEBOREN You are different.

DANA GRAY Then you don’t disagree! If you know I’m different, then you don’t disagree!

NAAKTGEBOREN Yes!

DANA GRAY We are all different!

NAAKTGEBOREN Your whole family’s different.

DANA GRAY Very different.

NAAKTGEBOREN What’s it like to have your whole family floating in a jar?

DANA GRAY Everybody’s different.

NAAKTGEBOREN Do you ever charge admission?

DANA GRAY Everybody’s body is different.

MISS JUSTESEN I agree.

NAAKTGEBOREN It’s exactly like a freak show!

DANA GRAY Our bodies. Our minds. Our rhythms. Our energies. The way we walk. The way we even chew our food is different. My pseudohermaphroditism in me is caused by the abnormal functioning of my very different hormones in my very different endocrine system. His congenital problems in him are affected by the functioning of his very different hormones in his very different endocrine system. Miss Justesen is affected by her very different hormones in her very different endocrine system. A twin or any other person anywhere at any time is affected by his or her very different hormones in his or her very different endocrine systems. All of our basic fundamental life processes are all regulated by our . . .

(NAAKTGEBOREN joins in.)

DANA GRAY/NAAKTGEBOREN . . . very different hormones in our very different endocrine systems.

DANA GRAY Yes!

NAAKTGEBOREN But there are other systems in our bodies other than the endocrine system!

DANA GRAY But none of which affects our nerves, our behaviors, our mannerisms in such a dominating way . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN You give the hormones much too much weight.

DANA GRAY You know why?

NAAKTGEBOREN Because you’re fucked.

DANA GRAY Because the traits of each and every one of our personalities depend and rely on the normal functioning of the hormones in our endocrine systems.

NAAKTGEBOREN That’s a crock of shit.

DANA GRAY It’s responsible for giving you personality.

NAAKTGEBOREN Bullshit.

DANA GRAY Character.

NAAKTGEBOREN Bullshit.

DANA GRAY Integrity.

NAAKTGEBOREN Bullshit.

DANA GRAY But you wouldn’t know much about that, now would you?

MISS JUSTESEN I always thought if we were all intended to be alike inside, then we’d all have same favorite color, same favorite song, same favorite movie, fabric, food, sexual position, book, pair of pants, vacation spot.

NAAKTGEBOREN That’s just a bunch of crazy bullshit.

MISS JUSTESEN There’d be no differentiation. There’d be no color. There’d be no Dana Gray. Only Dana White or Dana Black, but no Dana Gray. I can’t think of anything more dull and boring than life without Dana Gray.

NAAKTGEBOREN How boring!

MISS JUSTESEN You take away my height or lack thereof, and you take away me. You take away his art and you take away his scars, you take away his crazy bladder and his disease, and you take away him. You alter anything about anybody here, and you take us away. Each and every one of our bodies contains specific dimensions of our bodies for very specific reasons.

NAAKTGEBOREN For reasons? You’re telling me there’s reasons? Why you’re a midget?

MISS JUSTESEN I’m not midget!

NAAKTGEBOREN And reasons why he’s got his fucked-up bladder? Reasons why it’s an it and not a him or her, there’s reasons? Why I’m a twin, you have no doubt, there’s reasons? Reasons why this embryo’s only got one eye? And reasons why this one’s got reptilian skin? Why she looks like a penguin? And why he looks like a mule? There’s reasons? Other than some Elephant Man and Lollipop Guild and Lullaby League and pinhead reasons, you’re telling me there’s reasons?

MISS JUSTESEN Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN I see no reasons. All I see is the monster reason. Step right up and see the freakish monster, stare it in the face, that’s reason. Laugh. Point. Stare. Kick it in the shins. Kick it in the face. Kick away their walking sticks, that’s reason.

DANA GRAY Laugh?

NAAKTGEBOREN They’re monsters.

DANA GRAY Ridicule?

NAAKTGEBOREN They’re monsters.

DANA GRAY Judge?

NAAKTGEBOREN Your brothers and your sisters look like monsters.

DANA GRAY My mother . . .

NAAKTGEBOREN Monster!

DANA GRAY . . . was quoted as saying upon the appearance of each of her offspring, “My children . . .”

NAAKTGEBOREN Monsters!

DANA GRAY “. . . are not monsters.”

NAAKTGEBOREN They’re monsters.

DANA GRAY “They are not to be ridiculed, laughed at, or negatively judged. My children are exceptions. Like in other forms of nature, they are sometimes regarded as beautiful and bewildering. A four-leaf clover. A shrub with one white rose. The runt of a horse’s litter. A monkey with two tails. Is it not the same?”

NAAKTGEBOREN They’re monsters.

DANA GRAY “Is she not the Grand Canyon? Is he not a bonsai tree? Are they not the mirror image of a strange chameleon or all the falling stars we’ve seen?” And every night before I’d go to sleep, she’d repeat those words to me and whisper in my ear, “But you, my dear, are the Pyramids of Egypt. Among all my Walking Wonders of the Ancient World, you are the only one still standing.”

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re playing God. All three of you are playing God.

MISS JUSTESEN We are not playing God.

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re trying to figure things out about your bodies and how your bodies have been created, justifying it, and that’s playing God.

MISS JUSTESEN And how’s that playing God?

NAAKTGEBOREN Not taking no for an answer.

MISS JUSTESEN Sounds like your job.

DANA GRAY Exactly.

MISS JUSTESEN And what is it exactly you do for living, Mister Naaktgeboren?

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re trying to change how your bodies have been created, while at TransFormations, we change the way our bodies have become. It’s far less threatening than changing how our bodies have been created.

MISS JUSTESEN We’re not trying to change it!

NAAKTGEBOREN You’re just unhappy with the body God has given you, so you’re trying to get back at God.

MISS JUSTESEN Then if we’re trying to get back at God, and we’re playing God, then aren’t we just getting back at ourselves?

NAAKTGEBOREN Bingo!

MISS JUSTESEN That is not at all what we’re doing! I like my body.

NAAKTGEBOREN I like my body, too. That’s why God gave me two of them.

MISS JUSTESEN Then why do you try so hard to look so different?

NAAKTGEBOREN We only try to maximize our most prominent features to their fullest potentials.

MISS JUSTESEN For what reason?

NAAKTGEBOREN To look good.

MISS JUSTESEN To look good? I’d never change my body.

NAAKTGEBOREN Even the way it was created? The way that you have aged?

MISS JUSTESEN Never.

NAAKTGEBOREN Even if I could make you tall?

MISS JUSTESEN You can’t make me tall!

NAAKTGEBOREN But if I could.

MISS JUSTESEN I don’t want to be tall!

NAAKTGEBOREN But you just said . . .

MISS JUSTESEN I like way my body’s been created.

(Pause.)

I love way my body’s been created.

AMELIA We never said anything about the way our bodies have been created.

NAAKTGEBOREN Would you ever change your body?

AMELIA No.

NAAKTGEBOREN Never again? Even if you could? Right this second? Back to the way it was? Before your surgery? Before your accident?

AMELIA Before it happened?

NAAKTGEBOREN Yes.

AMELIA Yes.

NAAKTGEBOREN You would?

AMELIA Because of scars. Do you see all these scars on my neck?

NAAKTGEBOREN I don’t see any scars on your neck.

AMELIA That’s the reason why. I used to have scars on the left side of my neck. Ever since I was two. I had these scars. Looked just like a fire. Three flames of a fire. And Amanda—

NAAKTGEBOREN Who’s Amanda?

AMELIA My twin sister. She has a scar on this side of her neck that looks exactly like a wheel. A perfect circle with symmetrical spokes just like a wheel. Do you know why we’d have these scars?

DAMMOND Why?

AMELIA It’s where we were separated when we were two. We were connected at the neck when we were born.

NAAKTGEBOREN And it all comes together.

DAMMOND What happened to your scars?

AMELIA I had them removed.

DAMMOND Why?

AMELIA I had surgery.

DAMMOND Why remove your scars?

AMELIA When I woke up from surgery after my accident, the surgeon looked down at me and smiled and said to me that I’d be extremely happy. That not only had she fixed all the scars and gashes on my face but she had also “cosmetically corrected the horrendous scar that disfigured the left side” of my neck. It was always the coolest, coolest, coolest thing for my sister and me. We used to place each other’s fingers—these two fingers—on one another’s scars and we’d take each other’s pulses from each other’s necks until our pulses exactly matched in rhythm. We kind of discovered that or invented that. That was always our little debate. Was it a discovery or an invention? We never did agree. Like the hugest discovery or the hugest invention. Just like the fire, just like the wheel.

(To DAMMOND.)

Do you have any scars on your body that you really like?

DAMMOND I have one that looks just like an airplane. But it’s the only scar I like. I used to put makeup over all my other scars to conceal all my other scars. But it never worked. It only magnified the scars. So eventually I would intentionally magnify the scars with other kinds of makeup. Not just with base or foundation or anything that’s beige or tan, but I started painting all my scars with mascara and lipstick and eye shadow and iodine my doctor gave me. And sometimes I wouldn’t take it off. I remember walking around the neighborhood, thinking no one would ever guess that beneath my clothes I have painted scars. And on weekends after I had painted all my scars, a few blocks away from my house was a nursing home, and I’d march up to the front desk and tell the nurse or assistant or receptionist or whoever the person was, I’d say, “I’m here to make an old person smile.” And they’d take me to a room and close the door behind them, leaving me all alone with five or six older people. And I would dance for the older people with their never knowing that I had scars. Except this one old man—he was always there—he had to know—this old man who had scars all over his face. I told him, “You should put makeup over all your scars.” And he said to me, “I have scars to remind me.” And I said nothing. And we were silent. And then he’d say again, “I have scars to remind me.” And I’d just dance around the room for all the real old people. I’d dance around the room and kick my legs. Always to the rhythm, “None of them know that I got scars. None of them know that I got scars. None of them know that I got scars.”

(DAMMOND soft shoes his way through the rhythm, repeating the words and lightly kicking his legs, reminiscing. This continues for a while.)

DAMMOND (cont’d) Ever since I was a little kid, I used to think about landscapes.

AMELIA What kind of landscapes?

DAMMOND It just hit me.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND Dana Gray?

DANA GRAY Yes?

DAMMOND You said that you think we all think differently?

DANA GRAY Yes.

DAMMOND So we might breathe differently? And see differently? Sometimes concerning the exact same thing?

DANA GRAY Of course.

DAMMOND So we perceive and draw and smell and eat and paint and decide and crave and crawl and need and dance and hear and write and run and taste and sweat and fight and sleep and lick our lips and kiss with lips and walk and predict and have déjà vu and concentrate and judge and touch differently than anybody else?

DANA GRAY Exactly.

DAMMOND So then I was right all along.

DANA GRAY About what?

DAMMOND When I was a kid, I used to have those exact same thoughts when I was a kid. But then I’d deny them and bury them and throw them away.

DANA GRAY Why?

DAMMOND Because they were too big for a three-year-old. Too big for an eight-year-old. Even thirteen and fifteen—even eighteen. Thoughts too big for me until right now.

MISS JUSTESEN What kind of thoughts?

DAMMOND They’re everywhere.

MISS JUSTESEN What do you mean?

DAMMOND Should I show them to you?

MISS JUSTESEN What are they?

DAMMOND Paintings.

MISS JUSTESEN Of what?

DAMMOND Internal landscapes. Landscapes of how I visualize my body when I allow myself to visualize my body that way inside.

(DAMMOND circles the room overturning numerous wooden boxes, dumping out their contents and revealing intricately detailed paintings on the interior of each box. He lines them up across the room.)

DAMMOND (cont’d) Beautiful landscapes.

DAMMOND I love these landscapes!

MISS JUSTESEN So do I.

DAMMOND I forgot about these landscapes.

MISS JUSTESEN Just amazing.

DAMMOND With plateaus and valleys. And mountains and hills and lakes and ponds and oceans and seas. We don’t have to go to all these distant exotic places to find warmth and beauty on some romantic island if only we close our eyes and visualize the beautiful geography contained inside our very bodies. Just to know we have these beautiful places inside. No need to go so far, so external. No need to be complacent. Just to know. Just to know they’re there. Romantic oceans where our bladder seduces our kidneys. Amazing horizons where our lungs dance on air with our liver and our heart and our spleen. Rocky caves and strange sponge-like formations in our bones. Rivers of blood and streams and waterfalls that reach over a hundred degrees sometimes. Underground tunnels of air. Waving hills in the linings of our stomachs. Natural mazes and puzzles and labyrinths inside the ear. All these gorgeous places that we’ve all got inside. All these landscapes of the bladder and the kidneys. How they form a country of land and ocean. All in one. I have three kidneys. Did I ever tell you that?

AMELIA No.

DAMMOND It’s kind of like some compromise or consolation gift, I guess, for having such a crazy bladder.

MISS JUSTESEN Your bladder is polygamist.

DAMMOND A polygamist?

MISS JUSTESEN If he seduces all your kidneys into his very romantic ocean, then he is polygamist.

DAMMOND Then everybody’s bladder is at least a bigamist.

MISS JUSTESEN That’s true.

DANA GRAY Not mine. My bladder’s monogamous.

DAMMOND How so?

DANA GRAY I only got one kidney.

MISS JUSTESEN You do all right with just one kidney?

DANA GRAY I’d do all right with just one more.

DAMMOND I wish I could give you one of mine.

DANA GRAY I wish so, too.

DAMMOND I could have a really great scar from giving you a kidney.

DANA GRAY You don’t need another scar.

NAAKTGEBOREN The Thing’s right. You don’t need another scar.

DAMMOND All the scars I have are scars from getting. This would be the only scar I’d have from giving. I’d let the whole damn world see that I had a scar from giving. I’d never put any makeup on that giving scar. I’d draw arrows around that scar. Look at me with this big long scar.

NAAKTGEBOREN The Giving Scar? Come on! A scar’s a scar and all scars do is take. They take and take and take and take. I don’t know about anybody else here, but I cannot afford to take unnecessary scars.

DAMMOND Walking Works of Art, they have no scars! Microscopic scars don’t count. Naked to the eye don’t count, Naaktgeboren.

NAAKTGEBOREN Big.

DAMMOND Big what?

NAAKTGEBOREN Big scars.

DAMMOND Fuck you! Perfection does not have a fucking scar. I’d have a scar on my whole body if it were a scar from giving. If it came from giving someone something, give me a scar on my whole body.

NAAKTGEBOREN No one wants a scar on their whole body.

DAMMOND What do you know about scars, Naaktgeboren?

NAAKTGEBOREN Believe me. You wouldn’t want a scar on your whole body. Believe me. Just believe me.

(Slight pause.)

DANA GRAY Your voice sounds different when you talk like that.

NAAKTGEBOREN How so?

DANA GRAY “Believe me. Just believe me.” Kind of like it’s the only real thing you’ve really ever said all night. Your voice gets deep when you get sincere.

NAAKTGEBOREN Your voice gets deep when you get mad.

DANA GRAY Like a man?

NAAKTGEBOREN Like a foghorn.

DANA GRAY That deep?

NAAKTGEBOREN Real deep.

MISS JUSTESEN That’s deep. I like sound of foghorn.

(MISS JUSTESEN makes the sound of a foghorn loud and long. There is a ringing in the air as if the foghorn were like a chant. MISS JUSTESEN starts the sound again. Everyone in the room joins in. Loud and long in perfect pitch. This could continue for quite some time. The “ohm” sound should fill the room and cleanse the space. They sit in silence. Dazed. Feeling the change in the air, everyone exhales almost in unison. NAAKTGEBOREN crosses into the bathroom and closes the door behind him.)

MISS JUSTESEN (cont’d) Where’d he disappear to?

(DAMMOND points to the bathroom.)

MISS JUSTESEN (cont’d) Washing away his sins, no doubt.

AMELIA Probably so.

DANA GRAY I mustn’t forget my family.

(Crossing to her box.)

Never forget your family.

AMELIA I’ll remember that.

MISS JUSTESEN Oh, I want continental breakfast!

DAMMOND Really?

MISS JUSTESEN I love continental breakfast!

DAMMOND I’ve never been so big on continental breakfasts.

MISS JUSTESEN Coffee, juice, and pastries. Anything that has little Danish is A-OK with me.

(DANA GRAY exits. MISS JUSTESEN follows.)

MISS JUSTESEN (cont’d) I have such strong libido for continental breakfast

(MISS JUSTESEN and DANA GRAY gather their belongings and leave. They exit almost as if in a trance—very fluid and serene with peaceful smiles and the kind of exhalations that only come out of exhaustion and staying up all night. The door to the loft apartment is left open.)

DAMMOND (abruptly) I just did something.

AMELIA What?

DAMMOND Inside my mind. Somewhere inside my mind, something clicked. Some part of me, a very specific part of me, searched inside my mind for a column or a grid or an index—some thin tubular millimeter of tissue holding stacks and stacks of so many negative thoughts and memories in a millimeter of tissue. Right here. All filed away. A hair-strand size of a structure. Lined with a zillion triggers that from the most simple singular sensory moment extracts another seed that grows another ingrown psychological tree inside my head, inside my mind. Blocking every other potential root or tree or seed or some kind of understanding or advancement in my mind. Behind my face, behind my eyes. It’s like instantaneously I became my brain. This big, thick, pink terrain of acreage of land, pulsing with thinking ideas and thoughts. With valleys and deserts and mountains. And some bigger, higher part of me flew over. And with that bird’s eye view, I saw the part of me I needed to pull and yank and uproot. Crowded weeds and trees no longer worthwhile in the columns of that past existence.

AMELIA You just did that?

DAMMOND Right in there. Weeds. Weeds I had cultivated, I just now irrigated, got rid of, so fresh, new, more-fertile crops could grow. All around. New seeds being planted all around. And from some dirty swamp-like muddy place—just like that—I created the most beautiful open space that I just made inside for you. Such an open gorgeous space for you and me to plant new seeds. A quiet place where we can travel. Where we can get away without running away. For you to know me and for me to know you.

AMELIA I’m not running away.

(There is a long silence as DAMMOND and AMELIA stare at each other. Their focus on one another is immense. During this silence between them, NAAKTGEBOREN emerges from the bathroom. He is quiet and contemplative. He has removed a considerable amount of cosmetic make-up which leaves him with splotchy pale uneven skin. He is so light he possibly may be albino or afflicted with some other skin condition. He crosses to his briefcase, but leaves it behind. NAAKTGEBOREN exits.)

DAMMOND But seriously, my body . . .

AMELIA What about your body?

DAMMOND My body is perfect.

AMELIA That’s right.

DAMMOND Like yours . . .

AMELIA That’s right.

DAMMOND We’re so perfect, we will barely be able to contain ourselves.

AMELIA That’s right. You’re right.

DAMMOND I know I am.

AMELIA You’re exactly, exactly right.

(DAMMOND offers AMELIA his hands. She places her hands inside his. This is the first time they should touch each other throughout the play. DAMMOND lifts two fingers and places them on her neck. She mirrors him. This should evoke the image of AMELIA and her twin. Then AMELIA touches his shoulders and he shakes. Hesitantly, she touches his neck and begins stroking his back. He lies on his stomach, but she turns him over. She shakes her head. With every gentle touch, a thousand shocks explode throughout each others’ bodies. Painful at times. Awkward at times, they continue breaking their physical barriers. Sounds of fear and tears, but mostly breathing—hesitant, holding, large releases, static, and soft. They continue. Soft and eerie and struggling for acceptance.)

(Blackout. END OF PLAY.)