Enter absent mother she takes centre stage and initiates a Catherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy type dialogue with His Worship the Mayor.
His Worship the Mayor:
Would you punish me if I offended you? Would you throw me out?
Absent mother:
I'd need to retain the authority to do so but in reality I would have to show infinite mercy, I would love you until you discovered the difference between good and... Pause ... between good and evil.
His Worship the mayor:
But suppose I already knew the difference, and anyway chose evil? Then you would punish me? Banish me from your presence? You know, for all my evident and manifest sins? (Mumbling) For all my greed and lust and laziness, all my, errr... greed and all that stuff.
Absent mother:
For a Walmart greeter in Lewiston?
His Worship the mayor:
I have broken all the commandments.
Absent mother:
Good for you. That's what they're for!
His Worship the mayor:
Killing babies?! Whadda about adultery!?
Absent mother:
You’re so repressed.
His Worship the mayor:
Yes mother.
Absent mother:
Don't be flippant please, it's unbecoming and... I'm being serious. You can't have justice and mercy.
His Worship the mayor:
You can't. It's true.
Absent mother:
Thought so. You'll just have to settle for mercy then.
His Worship the mayor:
Mercy! For breaking all of the laws of virtue and goodness!?
Absent mother:
Why not?
His Worship the mayor:
It's not fair!
Absent mother:
Who says?
His Worship the mayor:
I dunno! Helen Keller for instance. It's not fair on people like her and Irene Handel.
Absent mother:
Irene Handel?
His Worship the mayor:
Yes, didn't she help a lot of Jewish children during the war?
Absent mother:
No! She's an actress and a lesbian, in no particular order; who used to work with Tony Hancock.
Pause:
You're good at that.
His Worship the mayor:
What?
Absent mother:
Distracting.
Pause:
His Worship the mayor:
Jam.
Absent mother:
It's not fair!
His Worship the mayor:
Why is it not fair? What do you mean by that? What are you doing by the way, stop
it, you're the one doing the distracting when it suits you. No, I'm not going to fall for it. Stop doing that. Oh for fuck’s sake.
Enter Satan, a gardener, softly spoken, slight cough.
Satan: (aka Linda)
Ahem, if you've been bad and you're going to hell, you might as well be burned alive in brimstone and sulphur for a sheep as well as a lamb...
Winks.
Look at the moon
If you dare
Give her your blood
If you care to go further
Into the revulsion
She induces
When your wake
Resorts to gloaming
Like a fickle harbour
Caked in wreaths of mud
Look at that pale and luminous face
Tattooed love lines trace her piercings
Like an angel spurs devotion
From a sinner
With a kick that weighs
Ten hundred planets
And is sharper than
My longing
Into her surly carcass
Ravel
All your pity, fear and bondage
Like the orbit of dementia
Playing hee haw
Paw paw pussy
With my mind
of fettered cheese
Enter her like palpitations
Pumping craters
Peeling contours
Empty ocean
Longing to be
hot with salt
Look at the moon
Look at her hard
Look at those wasters
Dying in a bucket
For a scarab's retch.
Bad son:
Where's mum?
Old man:
Out.
Bad son:
Shopping?
Old man:
Maybe.
Bad son:
Bingo?
Old man:
Nah.
(Pointing zapper at TV)
Tsk.
Bad son:
Getting her hair done?
Old man:
She's gone to the town hall to get a medal from the mayor for her pot plants on the balcony.
Bad son:
O… Congratulations.
Goes to the window, looks out.
I thought Mrs. Swaine usually won the best balcony medal.
Fate enters the room wearing a crown of flowers. Fate glows brightly like a
fluorescent Jesus and walks around the baby's cradle, dribbling a petal or two.
Old man:
Usually.
Pause. Fate sits, watches.
Bad son:
What you watching?
Old man:
Serial killers.
Bad son:
Looks boring.
Old man:
Narcissistc psycopaths.
Silence.
Their eye meet.
TV screen glows. They stare.
Long Silence.
Zakonchalis.
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