by James McDuffie and Adam Preble
Stranger: You gotta help me man, these guys are chasing me.
Larry: (Cracks door and looks) Guys? Well, uh.. what do you want? I mean, how can I help?
Stranger: (Shaking nervously) Help me hide… If they find out what I took they will literally kill me.
Larry: (Starts to open door, then pauses) What’d you take? (Opens door more, peeks out, looking left and right then back at the stranger)
Stranger: Postcards and letters, two shirts and sweaters, passports and parkas, mobiles and chargers, two tennis racquets, Blue Rizla packets, a new sheep-skin jacket. I took it all.
Larry: (Narrows eyes, thinking) You wouldn’t happen to know a guy by the name of Roger, would you? Did he put you up to this?
Stranger: Roger? (Brow furled as if thinking) Roger? (Scratches head) Is that the guy who lives on the bench in the east part of the park? See I live in "Park West", we don’t associate with those lowlifes from across murky city lake.
Larry: Park.. look, I’m sorry… I’m very busy right now, and I just can’t afford to be distracted by someth-.. one.. someone. Hiding. In my apartment.
Stranger: What if I make it worth your while? See I got all this neat stuff as I have told you. I have more. I could give you something in exchange for your help.
Larry: (Draws back, closing the door, smiling painfully) No.. but thanks.. I just can’t help you today. Maybe you can, … hide in the janitor’s closet?
Stranger: Could you just reopen the door and point to it? Which way down the hall is it?
Larry: (Through the door) Left. My left. It’s the narrow door.
Stranger: Sir you have to understand, I have an accute pattern problem with shapes. See I can’t tell the difference between wide or narrow. Neither can I see any difference between tall or short.. Please sir. Help an old friend out…. Don’t you remember me?
Larry: (Silence, then a soft sound along the floor) Remember you from where?
Stranger: You may not remember, but you were once also homeless… We knew each other before….. the accident.
Larry: I’ve never been homeless. Get the fuck out of here. The police are just three touchtones away.
Stranger: Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and find yourself sleeping on the floor covered in newspaper? Do you ever pass a garbage can and feel a strange desire to pilfer through it? You know that doing so is dirty, but you just can’t shake the urge..
Larry: (Hand thumps against the door) Go away! Now. I don’t know you.. you’ve got the wrong guy, okay? Just go.
Stranger: Lenny, try and remember. This is important.
Larry: (Strikes door explosively, then speaks softly, almost a whisper> Why are you doing this to me? There are millions of apartments in this city.. and hundreds of guys who’ve gotten cleaned up. Why?
Stranger: So you admit your past. Even now you are starting to remember.. Lenny do you remember 12th street and what happened there?
Lenny: A lot of things happened there.
Stranger: I am referring specifically to "the miracle." Remember how we witnessed a young girl get hit by a car? A stanger with a wierd shine about him, came up to that girl. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then put his hands on her. She jumped up and walked away as if in a trance. We were inside our "home" made of cardboard, a refrigerator box. He did not know we were there. And do you remember how that stanger saved the girl but left the driver for dead? That driver did not wear his seatbelt and went head first into his windshield. We pulled that man out and saved his life.. But that’s just the problem.. We were never supposed to save that man.. Now everything is all screwed up.
(Below is only by James)
Lenny: Okay I admit that I was once homeless. I was junky too. But because my drug addictions I don’t remember much of the past. How can I be sure that your not just trying to trick me and rob me?
Stranger: Okay I admit that I lied about being chased. I just thought that if you let me into to your apartment and then saw the evidence I have, you would remember. You have to remember because we have to go back and stop ourselves.
Lenny: There are better ways to have yourself invited into one’s apartment than running up on it, banging door and then talking about how you just stole some some things. I still don’t believe you. You admit to lying once, maybe you are lying now.
Stranger: You have a tattoo on your shoulder. You got while you were in the Navy. It has the name of your girlfriend from those days. I believe her name was Clara. She is reason you became a drug addict. After he death you just couldn’t face reality. They kicked you out of the Navy and you had nowhere to go. So you lived on the streets.
Lenny: Why.. (holding back sorrow) You must know me. I never told anyone about those things since I got cleaned up. Come in. (Door opens, stranger walks into apartment) Here have a seat on the couch. Show me this evidence you speak of.
Stranger: (Sound of newspaper plopping onto a coffee table) Here it is. These are two newspapers from the day after the event we witnessed. The first one has a story about how a young girl miracously survives being hit by a car. She was found wandering the streets hours later in daze. After some rest in the hospital she became lucid again and told a story about an angel who saved her. The story made the front because the girl should have been dead. The car crash was enough to kill the driver, yet this little girl survived. But this other newspaper from one week later has a different front page story. In this newspaper an escaped prisoner returns to the office where he used to work. He had been jailed for imbelzeling money from the company. He charged into the bulding and began shooting. He kept shooting till he got into the office of the employee who had turned him in. That employee had benefited by this man’s arrest. The employee had gone on to become section manager. The guy from the car crash got his revenge. Including his own life, he killed 37 people. That was supposed to happen.
Lenny: (Unbelieving and stumbling) How did you get these?
Stranger: I found them while looking for aluminum cans that I could exchange for enough money.. so that I could buy some dope. I was so shocked by the story of the little girl surving and even more by a conflicting second newspaper. Look here, there is an address. Someone had these papers delivered to them and just now threw them away, five years later.
Lenny: If that man was an escaped convict how could he have gotten out of the hospital. He was in bad shape after we pulled him out of the car and helped stop all that bleeding… Im remembering now.. The paramedics said that if he had just been left there he would have bleed to death. What about this address.. (Looking down at the paper) This is on the other side of town. Have you been there?
Stranger: Well the man escaped from the hospital. According to the article he was probably hallucinating because of all the pain medicine. And as for the address.. I have been there.
Lenny: (Excited) You’ve been there? What happened?
Stranger: When I got there the door opened right as I was going to knock. A short fat Chinese man welcomed me in. He said he had been expecting me. He did not talk alot, maybe because his English is not so good. But he told me that I need to fix the problem we had caused. He said he felt that the balance of the universe was uneven and needed to be restored.
Lenny: How can we fix events that occured in the past? This was five years ago, there is not much we can do about it now.
Stranger: Im not exactly sure how.. All the Chinese man said was, "return." I asked for more information but he just showed me out the door and said once again, "return."
Lenny: Return where? To the place where you found the newspapers?
Stranger: No. I think we need to go back to 15th street.
Lenny: Oh no.. (Sounding very opposed to the idea) I can’t do that. My treatment advisor warned me not to go anywhere near that neighborhood. She said it could cause me to remember the pleasures of addiction and fall back into my old routines of abuse.
Stranger: I think we have to. You see the ironic thing is that two of the people killed in that office shoutout were the parents of the girl who had been hit by the car.
Lenny: How do you know that?
Stranger: I saw the names in the obituary.. The girl from the accident was listed as the sole surviving family member of two of the people killed in the office. Don’t you see? Whoever this angel was that saved the little girl had a reason. Now that girl is an orphan and might not follow the same path?
Lenny: What are you talking about?
Stranger: I’ve been thinking. Maybe the reason the girl was saved is because she will live to do great things. And now she doesn’t have the same opprotunities.
Lenny: Well that might be, but what are we going to do when we get to 15th street? Just stand there? Thats all we can do.
Stranger: Well we have to try. Lets go. No time like the present..
Lenny: (Hesitantly and breathing out air as if nervous) Okay, but let me get a coat.
(The stranger is now know as Carl.. They are the same character.)
Carl: Hey Lenny, wake up.
Lenny: What? Man, I was just having a dream. I was in a field of poppy plants. We farmed it and had all the heroin we ever needed.
Carl: Come on man this is serious I just heard some kind of wreck happen outside?
Lenny: A wreck? Open the flap to box and lets see.. Oh shit there’s a little girl lying on the floor bleeding in front of that car.
Carl: What should we do? (Voice drops off as if noticing something) Look there’s someone already going over to help. He’ll save that girl.
Lenny: Yeah we can just stay here and no one will notice our little home and take away.
Carl: How can it be? That girl’s walking? She should be dead! And now that man is walking away.
Lenny: What a wierd man.. He looked as if he wasn’t quite there. But that could be my hangover.
Carl: What about the guy in the car. He doesn’t seem to be moving. That guy who saved the girl doesn’t seem interested in him.
Lenny: (Exiting cardboard box, as does Carl) Well what can we do?
Carl: We should save hi.. (Stopping as if remembering something) Wait. I am remembering something?
Lenny: What? Did you forget where you hid your stash?
Carl: No.. I don’t think we should save that man?
Lenny: Are you crazy? If we save him we could visit him at the hospital and his family might give us a reward. We could buy so much dope..
Carl: I don’t know why. I just have this strong feeling. I feel like this has happened before. And I feel paralyzed almost. You know the feeling when you think the cops are just about to find where you are hiding? It’s that same fear freeze, just without the fear..
Lenny: Yeah screw him. Its not worth the effort. Lets go get some food at the mission..
(Two men stand on the steps of a public building. Ambient noise of a street)
Lenny: Spare some change?
Carl: Spare some change?
Lenny: Anyone spare some change so we can eat?
(A little girl walks by with her mother)
Little Girl: Mom, can I give those men some money?
Mother: No dear, those men will just use the money for bad things.
Little Girl: But mom they look hungry.
Carl: Yeah ma’am were quite hungry. Just a few cents.
Little Girl: (Sounding extra sweet) Please mom… Just a little bit of money can’t hurt.
Mother: (Hesitantly) Okay.. But you men better not use this money to get high.
Lenny: (Holding back laughter) Oh no ma’am we won’t. (Gesturing with hand) Scout’s honor.
(Sound of change dropping into cup then footsteps)
Mother: That was very nice of you to consider those two men.
Little Girl: Well mom, we have so many nice things and those men have nothing. I wanted to help them.
Mother: Well you are such a sweet girl.
Little Girl: When I grow up I want to try and help people. I don’t think people should have to live like that and I want to change it. I see so many things that aren’t fair. I’m going to make them better.
Mother: You certainly are wise for your age.
Little Girl: Ever since that.. since that day… I have been thinking new things. Things just seem more clear now…
(Fade to black or silence)
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