The Emergency Almanac

Revolution–A Play in One Act

 

 by Bryan Tomasovich

 

 

 

CHARACTERS

 

TAMMY STANG. Mother. 39.

 

TIM BADMAN. Father. 39.

 

ENCORE. Son of Tim and Tammy. 9. Alleged perpetrator of an attack on the nation, but heard only off-stage.

 

 

 

(The morning after an attack on the nation. Sparse living room with a window/curtain. The telephone is off the hook. Tammy is soaking in a birth tub, ready to give birth to their second child. A table with a large jig-saw puzzle sits next to the tub. Tim paces in a panic in her vicinity.)

 

TAMMY

(Kneeling, peeking out a window.)

I’m his mother. You think, Tim, I’m going to takes sides? Yours?

 

TIM

Even after something like this? It’s been a damn long time. That I’ve been waiting. To be on your side again, Tammy.

 

TAMMY

Something like this, Tim?

 

TIM

Yeah. You can honestly tell me that this isn’t enough? Even for you? How could he do this to us?

 

TAMMY

You’re a surprise a fuckin’ minute, you know that? He didn’t do anything to you, Tim. It’s way bigger than you.

(Looks out window again.)

God, every station is the world is here. Look, I saw that new girl last night on 13.

 

TIM

13? That’s my— Didn’t we agree to stop watching the goddamn thing Tammy?

 

TAMMY

I know, but after the police came—

 

TIM

That tiny, shitty bit of evidence?

 

TAMMY

They rummaged around in his room all afternoon, Tim. We answered their questions. THAT is news.

 

TIM

There IS no evidence. The kid lived in his head.

 

TAMMY

LIVES. He’s still alive. They could find him. No matter what he’s done, he’s only 9.

 

TIM

They do, they won’t find that kid’s mind. Evidently we never did.

 

TAMMY

Why don’t you just go make a drink? And leave me alone. You know you want to.

 

TIM

Am I drinking right now? I don’t see a drink. Where’s my drink?

 

TAMMY

It’s on your mind. Or in your eyes, at least.

 

TIM

If I went into the station…they’d kill me. People who work for me. Just for being his dad. I mean, I can understand being pissed off, and wanting to prove your point—

 

TAMMY

It’s the way you’ve always handled anything.

 

TIM

And this from the person who says she’s always getting blamed for everything?

 

TAMMY

Feel good? Every since he was a baby, every time something didn’t go your way—

 

TIM

I’m not going to let you pull this crap on me again, Tammy. People react like this where you grew up, but know what? Time’s come to learn a few things from this country.

 

TAMMY

What? I got to get more violent? What more do I need to learn?

 

TIM

Hope, to start with.

 

(TAMMY shifts to the other side of the birth tub to the table. Rummages through small cardboard pieces.)

 

TIM

What are you doing now?

 

TAMMY

My puzzle. I’m trying…

 

TIM

To do what? Of what?

 

TAMMY

The Plasticorp Building.

 

TIM

Jesus Christ Almighty. Where did THAT come from Tammy?

 

TAMMY

I found it. Wrapped. Under my teapot.

 

TIM

That’s…calculating. That’s…that little shit.

(beat)

People died in that building, Tammy. Thousands of them. I just heard one guy was ripped apart from the sharpnel of an exploding toilet, for christ’s sake.

 

TAMMY

Heard? You’ve been on your ham radio?

 

(Caught out, TIM walks to the phone whistling an approximation of the Star Spangled Banner. He puts it back on the hook.)

 

(TIM and TAMMY look at it, waiting for it to ring).

 

TIM

I’m going to go wash my hands.

 

(TIM exits. TAMMY starts a mild contraction. TIM rushes back in, breathes with her a couple times, but gets distracted by the puzzle, then pushes a couple pieces around.)

 

TIM

(As TAMMY is completing the contraction.)

TAMMY. Your puzzle. Get over here and look at this.

 

TAMMY

Tim, why would you even fuck with my puzzle? Now? When all you’ve ever done is tell me it’s a waste of time.

 

TIM

Tammy, the puzzle. He’s changed all these tiny pieces so it—

 

TAMMY

Who’s HE?

 

TIM

Encore, Tammy. Who else?

 

TAMMY

Tim. Listen to me. Leave the puzzle alone. And stop staring at me. I might be naked—

 

TIM

(Exiting)

I’m going to look in his room again for a clue. Get to work on the puzzle, Tammy.

 

(TIM exits.)

 

TAMMY

(Screaming beyond the walls.)

Get to work?

(beat)

I’m sorry I ever had a child with you.

 

(TAMMY checks the floating thermometer that measures the temperature of the water. )

 

TAMMY

98?! This thing is colder than a human body, Tim.

 

(TAMMY whips the thermometer. After a moment, she reaches for a towel at the side of the tub, wraps it around herself, then sits on the rim of the tub, staring at the puzzle.)

 

(TIM enters whistling an approximation of the Star Spangled Banner.)

 

TIM

Wait. That towel. You can’t wear that.

 

TAMMY

It’s all I’ve got of him. I found it—

 

TIM

Wrapped?

 

TAMMY

Yes. Yeah, I did. Under my hairbrush, Tim.

 

TIM

Teapots. Hairbrushes. Knows you backwards and forwards, that kid. Come on, Tammy, that towel. It’s hideous. A souvenir towel from the Plasticorp Building? The very same building—

 

TAMMY

It’s all I’ve got. Of him. For now.

 

TIM

And this puzzle. Look. Take your magnifying glass and look at the 98^th floor. I’ve only found three pieces, but you can already make out. “Tammy.”

 

TAMMY

(Eye to the magnifying glass.)

Yeah. Yeah. It’s there. How?

 

TIM

“I don’t know.”

 

TAMMY

That’s all you can… Oh, wait. THAT I don’t know.

 

TIM

Exactly. For the last year, we kept asking that kid what he was making.

 

TAMMY

It’s not been a year.

 

TIM

Since?

 

TAMMY

I’ve been pregnant.

 

TIM

Or showing. And the only thing he’d mumble was something about “I don’t know.” Well, now—

 

TAMMY

I know. He’s totally re-done a whole row of these pieces to…to…show us—

 

TIM

No more stuttering, Tammy. First, you let the kid call you by your first name, now this. Build the puzzle. And quick.

 

TAMMY

I KNOW quick.

 

TIM

You don’t know how quick. Channel 13 called when you went through that big contraction. They’ve requested a live broadcast from our living room, Tammy. At midnight. AKA any minute now.

 

TAMMY

Your own station? You let them?

 

TIM

It’s Tammy Stang and Tim Badman against America, the networks, and satellite TV here. What do you want me to do to keep them away? Arm-wrestle them on the steps?

 

TAMMY

Tim, I need protecting. I need to protect YOU. I’m about ready to give birth to our child if you’d fucking notice. The cops and TV cameras? They can’t treat people like gumballs, Tim. We need more time.

 

TIM

I said that. Not the stuff about gumballs, but…time. They said it’s been ALL day.

 

(A two-tone doorbell rings in unison with TAMMY.)

 

TAMMY

All day? All day?

 

TIM

Shit. The puzzle. We’ll be dead too.

 

(TIM goes to crumple it all up.)

 

TAMMY

(Stopping him.)

TIM. If you say anything…

 

TIM

Don’t worry, Tammy. THEN I’d have to apologize to you. And I’m done with that.

 

(Blackout, except for spotlight at puzzle table. TAMMY takes off her towel, quickly spreads it across puzzle. One second, two, then she dips back into the tub.)

 

TIM

(Starts to exit)

I’ll go out and buy some time.

 

TAMMY

Buy?

 

TIM

You’re right. I’m going out to demand a price.

 

(TAMMY returns to the puzzle.)

 

TIM

(Entering.)

What the fuck? My own assistant director just called me a drunk.

 

TAMMY

So then what?

 

TIM

Not just a drunk, Tammy. She said that I was such a drunk I ought to get out of the way and go use my litter box.

 

TAMMY

You’re not that bad, Tim.

 

TIM

There are cops out there, with them. The idiot said that in front of the cops.

 

TAMMY

Oh, well, what an emergency. What do you think, Tim? Think you better call Ninny-One-One?

 

TIM

Ninny. All I’ve been through, now I’m a ninny?

 

(TIM pulls TAMMY up out of the tub so she’s seated on the rim of the tub, nude, to work on the puzzle. TIM starts to massage TAMMY’S shoulders like she’s a star athlete. He whistles an approximation of the Star Spangled Banner over the sound of the incessant doorbell.]

 

TIM

(Reading the puzzle over her shoulder.)

“Tammy. Tammy. Tammy.”

(Deepens the massage.)

How long can this go on?

 

TAMMY

(Poking at the puzzle.)

He was born in ’98. You know how he always makes a lot of that number.

 

TIM

Just keep working on that floor.

 

(TIM begins to fall asleep on TAMMY’S shoulders. TAMMY pokes at the puzzle. The doorbell persists.)

 

TAMMY

Oh my god.

 

(TIM is jolted awake.)

 

TIM

(Digging out a watch from his pocket.)

Another contraction? Now?

 

TAMMY

THE BASEMENT.

 

TIM

What?

 

TAMMY

He’s…down there.

 

TIM

Hiding?

 

TAMMY

That, and living…you can do both…at the same time. Hiding’s a kind of…subset of living, right?

 

(TIM stamps on the floor with his foot in a special way, like a coded message. We hear the small voice of ENCORE whistle an exact and clear Star Spangled Banner.)

 

(The police and TV crews enter. The police appear as shadows on the walls. The TV crews are flashes on the walls. Sometimes, the shadows are erased by flashes. TIM squats next to TAMMY, still soaking in the birth tub. They squish their faces together to fit into millions of TV screens.)

 

TIM

(To the TV people and police.)

Hey, we realize that. Believe me, we KNOW it’s been the whole day. And we’re sorry. Speaking as someone in the business, I know what it would have meant to you to get a live broadcast this morning. But we can make it up to you now. For free.

 

TAMMY

CONTRACTION.

 

(A flash juts up the wall. TAMMY is mid-contraction.)

 

TIM

Well, it’s like this. It’s simply hindsight. You know how the moon looks on the horizon when it first comes up? Big, warm, wobbly? And then later in the night, when it’s high above? And it’s all small and pale? Now that a whole day has gone by. Nearly. He’s like that for us. Always looming over my head. But smaller now, and cold.

 

TAMMY

Tim, these people haven’t even thought of the moon since 1969.

 

TIM

You’re right. She’s right. It’s more like he’s just in the basement playing video games.

 

TAMMY

TIM. Tim.

 

TIM

Or like those kids who drop out of college and move back in with their parents. They half-remodel the basement, and paint it black. Anyway…you keep calling for him to come up. But he doesn’t. You make things up to lure him. Maybe you lie and tell him dinner is ready. Or that the garbage needs taking out. But he never comes.

 

TAMMY

Except just one thing. That there’s no dinner is the truth. Tim tried to make some. Looked like a litter box. I made him throw it in the garbage, instead.

 

(Many flashes on the wall. This is newsworthy. A shadow gets wider and taller at the same time.)

 

TIM

Then, officer, you find yourself LOOKING into the garbage a lot, too. It turned dark tonight while I was looking into the garbage.

 

TAMMY

Fact.

 

TIM

After a while, the sight of it can do weird things to you. The garbage starts looking like things. All the bits gnarled and slopped together. Like a heart. Like my wife’s heart.

 

(Many flashes on the wall.)

 

TAMMY

Don’t listen to him. He’s just tired. Here, me, don’t point your camera at him. Me.

(Looking into as many cameras as she can at once.)

It makes him miss our son, this staring into the garbage. Tim used to go through the garbage can in Encore’s room any chance he got. For years. Way before the bombing.

 

TIM

I thought I’d find something. If not a reason, then a message…about why he had—

 

TAMMY

Something that would point to where he’d gone to, or with who. Even if it was just packaging.

 

TIM

But by the time he was 8, the can would be empty. What we would call garbage he’d remake into all sorts of contraptions.

 

TAMMY

Tim’s incapable of giving our son credit, actually. They were really glorified machines you see on the news. They could move. It was agony.

 

(TAMMY starts giving birth to their second child.)

 

(TIM stands up to the police and reporters.)

 

TIM

All this talk about blowing things up…we’re trying to…for fuck’s sake, bring a child into the world here.

 

TAMMY

No, Tim. Let them stay. I want them to see how a baby starts normal. Just like Encore.

 

TIM

Yeah, that’s right, baby. Come on guys, take the footage, put it in the archive room.

 

TAMMY

Then if SHE makes the news, you can all look back.

 

TIM

And see that we’re not guilty. ‘Cause with Encore, we aren’t the ones who are guilty, either. We might have been his parents—

 

(The small, high voice whistles The Star Spangled Banner again from below the floor.)

 

TAMMY

BE. We ARE his parents, Tim.

(Looking into cameras on purpose.)

We are his parents, everyone. But something else took hold of him.

 

TIM

He was really, really attracted to what happens in this country, I admit.

 

TAMMY

Everyone. Tim. Not this country. This country on TV. It was as good as abduction.

 

(More whistling from below. The shadows and flashes get excited and compete. TIM taps his foot on the floor. The shadows and flashes disappear, then exit. The whistling is interrupted. There is a struggle and a capture made below. No more whistling)

 

(Dim light. TIM kneels by the birth tub. TAMMY screams and pushes.)

 

TIM

Sounds like they got him, love. Sorry.

 

TAMMY

CONTRACTION.

 

TIM

I’m sorry. Especially for you.

 

TAMMY

Oh, Tim. I can feel her head. Get ready. Do you have the blankets? The little hat? Get it all ready. I’m going to push. The camera?

 

TIM

Everything’s ready. Tammy?

 

TAMMY

(Really pushing.)

Get in the water, Tim. I need you right now. You. Now.

 

TIM

Now. Now you do.

 

(TIM splashes and gets low to deliver.)

 

TIM

Abduction? It’s what I do for a living, Tammy. It still will be when—

 

(TAMMY gives one last push.)

 

(Blackout.)

 

END