Title: Let It Kill You

You Actor’s: Kevin and Joel Staging: Kevin lite in a spotlight sitting on left side of stage.

Joel lite in a spotlight on the right side of stage. 3:07 am phone rings. (Clock on bedstead shows the time)

Kevin, “How did this happen?”

Joel, “What time is it? How did what happen?”

Kevin, Ya know, there’s something I just discovered. You can fall in love in the course of a second, in the blink of an eye. But falling out of love can take years. Little things start to imperceptibly build up, change, irritate—— aggravate——infuriate. Did I ever really love her? Where’s did it all go? Love? When did it go bad? Does love have a expiration date? Why the hell did this happen? I can hurt her or I can stay unhappy.”

Joel, “Dude, it’s three something in the morning.”

Kevin, “I don’t even hear what she’s saying anymore. It’s just background murmurings, like the drip of a leaky faucet’s. I’m constantly saying ‘What? What did you say?’ I don’t think she hears me either. We’ve tuned each other out. We’re sharing the same bed, but fighting different demons, chasing different dreams.”

Joel, “Have you been drinking? I told you not to call me when you’ve been drinking. Morning will be here soon. Take some deep breaths, take an Ambien. Turn on the TV and watch some infomercials or the Fox channel, that will put you ass to sleep.”

“Kevin,“I feel the darkness inside me. I wanna be happy again. What do I have to give up to feel alive again? A divorce will leave me flat ass broke. My daughters will side with their mother and I’ll probably never see them again.”

Joel, “As the saying goes——shit happens. Are you still chasing that young skirt at your office? How long have you been married?”

Kevin, “34 years.”

Joel, “Now listen to me. Everybody is struggling with their existential crises. Life is a grind with its meaningless jobs, empty marriages, pretend love, endless bills, too little passion, to many petty arguments over petty shit, relationship betrayals, people unexpectedly die. This life is thwarted with the ‘what once was, what is now and worries about about what will tomorrow bring. Life is a tangle of knots that we all struggle to untie. After 34 years there’s a lot of tangles to undo. Some just cut the rope in the hopes of starting over again. There is no starting over again, you can’t separate yourself from your past selves, or your past choices. You drag all your shit along with you. Life just keeps happening with or without your consent. If you can’t sleep try counting sheep, pray to your god, take an Ambien and call me in the morning.”

(The phone call ends and then the sound of a dial tone).

The phone rings. Bedstead clock reads 6:13am

Joel, “Hello, are you there?” Kevin, “Who the hell is this?” Joel, “It’s me, Joel.” Kevin, “Do you know what time it is?”

Joel, “Yeah, it’s early. Pay back is a bitch. If you can call me in the middle of the night, then I can call you back at the crack of dawn. You asked me about how things happen. Things happen because we forget what matters. We waste our time. We let worries consume us. We stop having fun. How’s that saying go? ‘We don’t stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing.’ We end up playing parts that no longer fit. Now listen to me. We’re all gonna die. All of us. And you’d think that would make us want to be kinder and honest with one another. But it doesn’t. We become selfish bastards wanting more. More this, more that. More stuff and things to plug the holes in our lives. We go out there looking for love and happiness—— but—-life becomes a train wreck happening in slow motion. Love is riddled with compromises and sacrifices. Love is no good unless it’s tested now and again. Maybe nothing lasts forever. But when that magic feeling hits you, it’s as if you’re the only one who’s ever experienced that sweet madness. Pussy can make a man do some crazy shit. Careful not to confuse sex with love.

” Kevin, “I try, I really try. But the love I want no longer exists in my marriage. I wanna feel real love again. I need a connection with someone. I got to have this. If mortality has taught me anything, it’s that this life is too short to waste it trying to bring back to life to something that’s dead and gone. When I’m with Katlin we talk about life and love. We laugh, we get each other. And there’s no substitute for that feeling of being understood. So many people are imprisoned by the mundane. Boring people talking about boring shit. All their time spent rattling on about nothing. I don’t wanna talk about politics or the weather, I just wanna take a drive with her in the country with the windows down and good music playing on the radio. And, for a few minutes I can forget about the cruel world out there waiting for me. Something as simple as that makes me happy. But nothings gonna change unless I change.”

“How did this happen? We get forced into a corner, doing the same things day in and day out. The same arguments, the lonely nights lying in bed next to someone who no longer knows me, and doesn’t even try to understand me. And I’ve tried to understand her, but I don’t. We’re speaking different languages. I just wanna feel free and alive. Katlin has a way about her. She has that unexplainable sexual energy. Her touch is electric. It’s not just the sex, it’s an indescribable connection. If you’ve never had it, then you’ll never understand what I’m talking about.”

Joel, “34 years? It’s an unfair game with unfair rules. A sixty something wife can’t compete with a thirty something mistress. Be careful, be very careful. Love is boring——while infatuation may be exciting, but it’s often times fleeting. A true love should be like a fine bottle of wine, getting better with age.”

Kevin, “Nah, love is more like old cheese, it gets green, hard and smelly.” “I wanna be drunk on love. I wanna take my clothes off and dance naked in the kitchen kind of love. And Katlin would do crazy shit like that with me. I could wait another 34 years and that’s something Mary would see as stupid and ridiculous. She just does’t have it in her to be wild and crazy. To be fun. She’s always has to be in control. I fucking hate being controlled.”

Joel, “So, you’re saying this new girl is a nut like you? A naked dancing idiot? Give Katlin 34 years and she might tell you to put some clothes on and take the garbage out and stop acting a fool. Life is full of boring necessary chores. You have to be practical, responsible.”

Kevin, “Fuck being practical. I’d take 2 years of real love over 34 years of practical, predictable—-stale love. Marriage is impractical. It’s absurd to think two people can stay in love through an entire lifetime. People change. People grow apart. You can’t un-curdle sour milk. Once its gone bad, there’s no going back and making it good again.”

Joel, “So, now you wanna run off with this young chickadee and leave everything and everyone behind. Spend your days living on the beach and making a living selling conch shells to the tourists. God, you’re such a dreamer. You can’t sale off your past like pieces of junk at a garage sale.”

Kevin, “The heart wants what the heart wants.This emotion, this thing called love is powerful. It makes me believe in things again, it makes the colors brighter, the sound of birds singing sound louder. It opens up my chest and lets the fresh air in. Every breathe is a rebirth. Two hearts beating as one.”

Joel, “Dude, you got it bad. There’s a fine line between love and fantasy. Passion can turn out to be a passing fling. Love is a drug, it’s a mixture of chemicals in your brain. It’s addictive. It can save your life, or it might destroy you. Love is like Fentanyl, you never know if it’s going to kill you or give you that warm and fuzzy feeling in the pit of your belly. When it’s forbidden it’s at its strongest, the more dangerous the better. It can bring out the best in you, or it can bring out the worst in you. Beware, some willingly die for it, some vengefully kill for it.”

Kevin, “But In spite of it all, with its good and the bad, life without love isn’t worth living. Bro, I’m torn and twisted. This life is funny, once you’re woke 4 it hard to fall back to sleep, literary and figuratively, if ya know what I mean? This thing is driving me crazy. Thanks for listening to me. I owe ya one.”

Phone is hung up, then the sound of dial tone. (Phone rings) (Clock on bedstead reads 2:47am)

Joel, “Yeah, hello Kevin.”

Kevin, “How did you know it was me?”

Joel, “Uh, let me see now, is it because you’re the only person who calls me in the middle of the fucking night asking me to help them unravel the mysteries of love and life. Have you been drinking again?”

Kevin, ”Did I wake You?’

Joel, “Of course not. I was just rearranging my sock drawer at 3am in the morning.”

Kevin, “I’m gonna do it. I’m leaving her.”

Joel, “Dude, don’t say stuff like that unless you’re mind is clear and you’re sober. Drunken decisions lead to bad outcomes. Life is hard, but harder yet, when you’re drunk and stupid. You’d better remember, you’ve got a lot on the line.”

Kevin, “I don’t want a pretend love any more. I need something real. Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” Joel, “If you’re asking for answers, I don’t have any. You’re not looking for advice, you’re looking for someone to offer you their approval. When it’s your circus, it’s up to you to decide who’s the the clown. No, you’re more like the tight rope walker, the circus flyer. You’re in a no win situation. You’re walking that tight rope, with no net. You’re gonna fuck around and find out. And the more you fuck around the more you’re gonna find out.”

Kevin, ”Find out what?”

Joel, “You stay with your wife and you’ll be forever unhappy. All her little quirks and nuances that once were adorable will become annoyances. Her touch will make you recoil. You’ll forever be comparing her to that young little love tart. You’ll ache for that girls touch. You’ll imagine her in one of those short see through sun dresses. But, then again, If you go all in with this chick, then you’ll be starting all over again. And it ain’t easy starting over when you’re in your sixties. You’ll end up living in some shitty little apartment with her and her snotty nosed kid. This is where pretend love meets real life. She won’t be walking around the apartment complex in sexy skirts, she’ll be wearing three day old sweats. Someone will have to do the laundry, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, pay bills, get gas in the car, fix dinner and feed the kid. It’s that cliche, old man has an affair with pretty co-worker and loses everything. Broken vows lead to broken hearted old fools. And there ain’t no fool like an old fool. Is it worth it to lose your house, the respect of your children and break the heart of the woman who bore you children and who stood by you for 34 years. Old love doesn’t stay young and pretty, but it does remain tried and true. Brother, like I said, you’re in a no win situation. You are not going to be happy regardless of which choice you make. Have you ever tried marriage counseling?”

Kevin, “Marriage counseling at best will only clarify all the reasons I no longer want to stay married. You go there and they expect you to air all your raw personal ugly shit to a perfect stranger. You end up talking to some counselor who’s the age of my daughter, who thinks her psychobabble is going to mend the relationship between my wife and I. She doesn’t realize that we’re two old bumbling warriors with many years of treachery between us. What the hell does she know about life and love at her age. I need a counselor who’s ancient and gnarled, someone who’s seen enough to be suspicious of life and pessimistic about love. I want a counselor who looks as old as Clint Eastwood and wears that same angry sneer. I really don’t want to expose all my insecurities and vulnerabilities to somebody who keeps asking, ‘And how does that make you feel?’. It makes me feel like shit, how bout that for honesty and personal growth. And then having to explain why I can’t get a hard-on anymore cause fucking the same women for 34 years just doesn’t get me excited anymore. No thank you. Falling out of love isn’t a disease, it doesn’t require a cure. I don’t know how or why it happens or where it goes, it just happens. Falling out of love is like aging, little aches become unbearable pains.”

Joel, “Just be careful man. Co-workers can pick up on that sappy vibe between two love struck fools. You think it’s a secret, but it gradually becomes obvious to everyone else that you have goggly eyes for one another. Fishing off the company pier has its dangers. Then one day you’re called up to HR and given your walking papers. You’re playing with fire. I know you can’t see it, because you’re blind sided by love——-You’re deep into it. I’m worried about you man. I’d say have a good night, but I don’t think that’s in the cards. Love always has strings attached, ulterior motives and power struggles. Buenos noches mi amigo.”

Phone hangs up, and then just the sound of a dial tone. 6:00 am, phone rings: Kevin, (In a groggy voice)

Kevin “Oh hell no. You know I don’t do mornings.”

Joel, “Good morning sunshine?”

Kevin, “Sunshine my ass. You don’t seem to understand. I’m going crazy. This is my last chance to have my story end with a happily ever after. Am I asking to much, is it so wrong to want a sliver of happiness?”

Joel, “There’s fleeting happiness and then there’s lasting contentment. I wish I could help you, but I can’t. Contentment is something only you can give yourself. Contentment isn’t exciting, it isn’t skipping hand and hand through life. LIfe’s is fucking hard. It’s full of challenges, and thankless jobs and unrecognized sacrifices. And at the end of the day it’s you——-it’s just you that has to learn to live with yourself. Let you conscience be your pillow. Should you stay, should you leave, should you turn right, turn left? I don’t fucking know. Nobody knows. There’s no guarantees, no instruction manual. Most everyone is hanging on by their fingernails.”

Kevin, “Sometimes all I have left is the realization that I need to let go. To say fuck it. There’s no lonelier feeling than being with someone who makes you feel even lonelier. I want love to be fun. I want to be happy. I wanna feel alive. I don’t want every little thing to seem so serious, so freaking heavy, weighing me down and wearing my ass out. I don’t want to worry about saying the wrong thing, navigating my way through an emotional mine field, only to end up in another stupid argument.”

Joel, “Maybe you can’t go back to that feeling of falling in love, making out in the backseat of your daddies big ole Buick. Maybe love is something that morphs into different things at different stages of life.”

Kevin, “Yeah, and maybe love dies a slow painful death. And, once it’s gone, it’s never coming back. I doin’t want to end up like one of those old couples you see sitting across from one another at a restaurant wearing drawn blank stares. Sitting there in total silence, nothing left to say except pass the salt please.”

Joel, “Perhaps you’re mistaking silence as contempt, when its just being comfortable with having nothing to say or share.”

Kevin, “Or, maybe all that ever needed to be said or shared has already been said and shared. Spontaneity and romance is replaced by monotony. Shit, have I wasted the last 34 years with the wrong person?”

Joel, “You can’t ask someone to be something they’re not. You got to learn to love someone for who they are, not what you want them to be. That’s not reality.”

Kevin, “Fuck reality, I’m searching for the sublime and the magic that makes life worth living. I don’t know where this is all leading, but I’m going. Ya see, you can do everything right, eat good, exercise, go to church, pay your taxes and help old ladies across the street, but without inspiration, without adventure, it’s a life wasted. Waisted on waiting for things to change, that are never gonna change. Nothing changes until I change. There in lies the rub. No one can live my life for me. I woke up one day and realize I’ve been living a lie. Trapped in a meaningless job, marooned in a loveless marriage. Its grinding me down as one day bleeds into the next, until one day I just said, “fuck it” what do I have to lose?”

Joel, “I think you’ve listened to one to many love songs, watched to many chic flicks. Marriage is a job, it takes work.”

Kevin, “What the hell happened to you?. When did you become obliged to just settle for table scraps. You’ve become one of those people who turns love into a job, a chore, a drag. If love were a job——then what they’re paying surely ain’t enough. Cause, you don’t get paid overtime and you 8 don’t get to take weekends off, no holidays, no vacations. If love were a job, I’d go on strike.”

Joel, “Let me ask you this. Is your heart beating right now?”

Kevin, “Of course it’s beating.”

Joel, “How do you know? Are you hooked up to a heart monitor? Are you taking your own pulse right now? How do you know your heart is beating?”

Kevin, “Well, I haven’t killed over dead yet, have I?”

Joel, “You just take it for granted that your heart is beating. And you take it for granted that your wife loves you. You mumble some vows and promises about loving someone for better or worse, through sickness and health. But you’re just speculating that this person at the alter will be the same person in 34 years. It’s a lie. Love changes, moves, morphs, It’s a moving target.”

Kevin,“Yeah, is that why cupid shoots arrows into fluttering hearts? When do the reasons to leave out weight the reasons to stay? Jesus, why does love have to be so hard?”

Joel, “Love is complicated. It means different things to different people. For some it’s security, to others it’s great sex, for some financial security and for others someone to split the bills with. Sometimes it’s someones hand to hold in the darkest of nights. For some, it’s sharing meals, or simply the comfort of hearing someones footsteps coming down the hall in the morning. People expect to much out of love. At best we’re all needing someone to love and someone to love us back. That’s the secret to life. And that’s all there is. So, we forgive one another and carry on.”

Kevin, “Or, maybe people expect to little out of love. They settle, they do without, they no longer touch or kiss, they no longer hear the other persons voice or see their desperation. When does love become connivance, indifference——work? Maybe Thoreau was right when he said, ‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.’ Love should make you want to sing and not leave you mute.”

Joel, “There’s the old Chinese proverb that says, “A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers. Maybe love is more about giving than taking?”

Kevin, “Maybe once the flower is picked, the bloom begins to wilt, the scent dissipates and the garden goes dormant. Is that a tad bit pessimistic or what? How do we keep love alive?”

“I’ve never been one to believe in soulmates and all that new age crap. But damn, there’s this feeling she gives me. I don’t want to lose it. I’ve known love, but nothing ever as strong as this. It’s as if she’s always known me and I’ve always known her. Regardless of the pain and misery this thing has brought me, I’m still glad it happened.”

Joel, “Shit happens. Sometimes you step in it. Love makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It can’t be qualified, quantified, measured, weighed, seen or touched. It’s a fools game. Over fifty percent of the marriages will end in divorce. It’ll bring out the worst and the best in you. It will destroy you, it will give you wings. What is love? Is it only a case of hormones gone wild? Is love at first sight real? Is it a check list of things required to qualify as love? Is it finding someone with compatible Zodiac signs? Is it chemistry? Is it even real?”

Kevin, ”I suppose It’s like the Easter Bunny Santa and four leaf clovers. Believe in them for as long as you can. It doesn’t matter how it happens, or why it happens. All that matters in life, is that love does happen. And good luck if it unexpectedly happens to find you.”

Joel, “So, what are you going to do? Join the Foreign Legion, consult a witchdoctor, write a sad country song about the woes of love?”

Kevin, “Katlin once said to me, ‘don’t say you love me, treat me like what you think that word means. Cause, love is such an overused word, it’s meaning has lost its potency, it’s a cliche of a cliche.’”

“She could get away with saying shit like that because she’s deep, she’s smart—she’s authentic. She’s got a poet’s heart. She cuts through all the bullshit and puts her words together in a way that makes me shake my head and smile. She pierced my heart. I’ve never known anyone like her. And I’m sure I’ll never meet another person as real and transparent as her 10 ever again. My love for her has nothing to do with her looks, although I think she’s absolutely beautiful. It has nothing to do with sex, but she’s has a way of making loving fun. It has nothing to do with politics or religion. Calling this indescribable connection as love (whatever that means) is selling the emotion short.”

“She saved me, she ruined me. Before her, I thought I was content. But now I can’t un-feel what she made me feel. She makes me laugh, she makes me feel good, she makes me a better person. No one has ever been able to do that.”

Joel, “So, what are you going to do?”

Kevin, “Sometimes you don’t get closure, you just gotta decide to either carry on or to move on.”

Joel, “There’s never two loves that are the same. I guess you’re gonna have to decide which version of love is right for you. But, whatever you do, don’t go and get yourself a love tattoo. Cause, it’s a lot easier to have one inked into your skin, but much more painful and expensive to have it removed. Kind of like love, if ya know what I mean.”

Kevin, “It’s too late. I already got one on my arm.”

Joel, “What does it say?”

Kevin, It says ’Love’ followed by a question mark.” Joel, “Love is a freaking unexplainable mystery. I wish you good luck with your once dreamed of ‘Happily Ever After’ ending. With that said, I wish you a good night.”

Kevin, “Yeah, and the same back at you. I’ll leave you with a Bukowski quote, ‘Find what you love and let it kill you’’’

(The phone clicks, then the sound of a dial tone). 11 12