Excerpt from IN BLOOD (Theatre)

“…Confession

I: I forget, sometimes. How easy it is to see. It’s easy to see maybe from the way I’m dressed. It’s on my clothes. It’s in my sweat. The hate I’ve carried all these years. For here. And for him. And for cunts like that cop, in suits and ties and for all the pretty things I never got to see. You wanna know what happened at the lake? Tonight? I was waiting for Scotty,  but he never came. 

I’m looking out at the water. It’s quiet. I’m quiet. And then a voice. So long it’s been. 

And I smell old carpets.

I can hear his shit eating grin before I even see him. Standing behind me. So I turn, and I see him. 

And I’m surprised, maybe this is the one I’ve been waiting for. The man I’ve hated all these years, here before me after all this time. And I realise I’ve wanted for this moment for so long. I dreamt about it after all my others had left me, lost to the wind. 

So I turn. And I look at him, and he looks at me. It’s been a long time since the last time, but he isn’t smiling now. He isn’t smiling with that shit eating grin. I can tell he doesn’t quite remember me yet, his eyes darting. 

And I can feel a lump in my throat. And I can feel a weight in my chest. I clench my fist and I’m ready. I know it, I’m ready. 

Then I close my eyes, I look away; one last time, then I look again. And then I see. 

He’s looking up at me. He’s looking up at me. The same way I used to look up at him. 

And I see how old he is now. How much smaller he’s become. Regardless, I raise my fist. I hold it high in the air.

I’m about to lunge, and with fear I see his eyes light up. And for the first time in this long moment, he sees me. He sees me. 

And I feel how old I am. How much smaller I’ve become. 

And then I search for that grin, the grin that’s followed me all these years. The grin that carried me down my path to nowhere, to this, my only moment. But I can’t find it. It isn’t there anymore. 

I pause.

My fist grows heavy, my arm feels numb. And then, the strangest thing. He reaches out, and puts his hand on my shoulder. His skin worn like old paper now. 

“Are you okay?” he asks.  

 And here it was. The fate I waited all this time to meet. 

“I’m not having a good day today” I whisper. 

And finally I drop my fist down on him, with all of its weight. With all of it’s weight, and all of my hate, after all of these years I’ve spent wasting away. 

And it was done. In a moment it was done. The death of him. I’m back. And we’re gone. But I didn’t mean to.

Interrogation Room

He picks himself up. Finally admitting what has happened. He slowly gathers himself and after a ling silence, he speaks. 

I always thought I’d be somebody. I thought I knew who, but.. I don’t know when it was that I stopped thinking about Elvis. I guess that’s the thing about dreams. You can have them, but if you don’t hold them, and let them hold you.. they slip away from you. And the world slowly becomes smaller and smaller, until it’s not a world anymore. It’s just a town. It’s just a tiny desk in a hot library. It’s getting blasted on the weekend, working the factory, until you forget all together what it’s like to have a dream. And even if you try to find it again, you can’t.. it’s passed you now. So you learn to hate the dream, and the kid who dreamt it. 

And then it’s all fine. It’s gone. 

But sometimes you might still catch a glimpse of it. At night, out on the water. You reach out but you can’t reach. And then you ask yourself why you ever let it go…”