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ourgreatconcavity · 5 years

Text

My One-Act Play

Written for my Playwriting class during my senior year of college, fall semester.

Have it Your Way

(Lights rise on a deserted café. MICKEY is sitting at a table alone, taking occasional sips of his coffee. He is dressed in khakis and a sweater with a dress shirt underneath. His demeanor is calm. LOUIS then enters the café, and sees MICKEY sitting. LOUIS, wearing jeans and a sweater with a hat, rushes over to the table and takes the chair across from MICKEY.)

LOUIS

Hey, Mickey.

MICKEY

Morning, Louis.

LOUIS

I flew out to see you as fast as I could.

MICKEY

I see that.

LOUIS

How have you been? Sometimes I still don't believe that Dad is gone.

MICKEY

(A beat.)

I’ve been better.

LOUIS

You should try keeping busy, keeps your mind off things.

MICKEY

Yeah...

(MICKEY looks immensely uncomfortable, while LOUIS looks somber, staring into nothingness.)

LOUIS

I haven’t seen you in forever.

MICKEY

Yeah, it’s been a while.

LOUIS

What have you been up to?

MICKEY

(Agitated.)

I don’t know. Nothing?

LOUIS

Come on, you have to be up to something. You can’t be doing nothing for twenty years, and don’t say you’re doing nothing now; I can see your shoulders going up and down; you’re breathing, for one. Blinking, too, for another.

MICKEY

I mean, I've been depressed lately, but there isn't much to talk about. It's been hard.

(There is a real struggle for conversation. MICKEY is constantly touching his face and running his fingers through his hair, anxious. LOUIS fidgets in his seat and keeps itching the back of his head. MICKEY looks at LOUIS and his outfit, eyeing him up and down.)

MICKEY

People are becoming more top-heavy it seems. Large sizes on top, and like, chicken legs or poles on the bottom. It’s like those huts built over water in the east; those skinny poles holding up so much weight, the tide teasing its power and destruction.

LOUIS

Bro, have you looked in the mirror? Better yet, have you looked down? Everything on you is slim-fit when really, you need Slim-Fast.

MICKEY

I make it work. I do just enough exercise to fit in these outfits. I have it all worked out measurement wise. Like, if I have a medium fry at McDonald’s, I’ll have to do one hundred and fifty crunches to work out the fat.

LOUIS

I’m guessing you’re the type of guy who only eats the top half of a Big Mac, too.

MICKEY

...You’re not wrong.

LOUIS

Do you eat all the scraps of lettuce that fall out too?

MICKEY

Alright, now you’re going too far. I’m not going to tell you if you’re right or wrong; I’ll leave it ambiguous. Let’s just say I count every little sliver.

LOUIS

Lettuce is the most nutritionally devoid vegetable besides celery. It’s like the Styrofoam you get in a package, just fluffs it up but has no singular, meaningful purpose. It's just texture… set decoration. Yet everyone always gets it on their sandwich! You know one time, when I was a kid, I saw a giant head of lettuce in the fridge. I told Mom to make me a sandwich with just lettuce, like literally, white bread and lettuce. I cried after a few bites because I thought my taste buds died.

MICKEY

Well, um… that's good to hear?

(A beat.)

LOUIS

So, how's Diane doing with the loss? I know her and Dad were close, conjoined at the hip almost. She blocked my number awhile ago; haven't been able to get in contact.

MICKEY

Did you say something?

LOUIS

Yeah, about the family.

MICKEY

Have you ever tried a Big Mac with tomato? You remember the jingle, right? Imagine the jingle with three extra syllables in the Big Mac melody; it would not fit. You might as well use an actual leaf of lettuce if you’re going to do that. And then if you use a leaf of lettuce, you’ll have to add those syllables into the melody, and then you get like an extra bar of music, and then McDonald's would have to pay the studio musicians more because of that extra bar, and then if they did have that extra bar, then everyone remembers the jingle with that extra bar, and it’s a whole calamity, like an alternate timeline. The question itself of a Big Mac with tomato makes no sense.

LOUIS

Extra, extra, extra. So much extra, you really are. Well, since we're on the topic of extra, what about extra sauce?

MICKEY

The sauce is already on there, no need to add that to the jingle. Besides, the ‘correct amount of sauce’ is at the cook's discretion. For the very brief yet painful three months I worked there, each Big Mac I made had a specific number of fluid ounces of Mac Sauce.

LOUIS

What's the magic number?

MICKEY

Ain't important. You don't need to know.

LOUIS

(Feigned frustration.)

Well that's some bullshit.

(A beat.)

LOUIS

I haven't been able to get a hold of Mom yet. I don't know if she has gotten the will yet or --

MICKEY

(Slams fist on the table, screaming.)

Don't change the subject!

LOUIS

(Exasperated.)

Oh, um… I just wanted to know---

MICKEY

The bun... give me your opinion on the bun.

LOUIS

But what about the famil-

MICKEY

(Slams fist on table.)

No! Now tell me…

(A beat.) What do you think about the bun…?

LOUIS

(Confused.)

I don't know… I think it's fine?

MICKEY

Well, which bun are you talking about? For their 'Artisan Sandwiches' they use different buns than for their Quarter Pounders, and the buns for their Quarter Pounders are different than the buns they use for their Big Macs.

LOUIS

(A beat.)

Big Mac. I think it works well for the sandwich?

MICKEY

Well, it’s just a sesame seed bun. Notice the alliteration there: sesame seed. It’s like Mr. McDonald himself named that bun sesame seed so he could have some alliteration in his jingle. A true literary great. Even Joyce wouldn’t have that thought.

LOUIS

I’m sure Joyce would be a Burger King guy; he’s the type to have it his way. Pynchon, too. Faulkner would be Subway, Steinbeck: In-n-Out Burger, or maybe a winery in Silas.

MICKEY

What about Kafka?

LOUIS

Hmmm. He’s a burger guy, but I don’t know where in particular. I feel no matter where he goes, the place would close due to an insect infestation. Or it would be a madhouse in there, like the DMV.

MICKEY

Who else?

LOUIS

Maybe Cormac McCarthy... I could see him ordering a burger here, asking for it prepared like ‘the evening redness in the burger’, and he would probably get mad because the cashier taking his order only reads postmodern literature, and has no idea what Southern Gothic is, like he probably thinks it’s like a category at Party City for Halloween costumes. And when Mr. McCarthy gets his burger, the same as it's cooked for everyone else, McCarthy would complain fiercely in poetic anger, and the employee would tell McCarthy to hit the road, which is ironic because that’s a book by McCarthy, and also a popular phrase, AND also funny because the cashier wouldn’t know he’s making a literary reference to a book he knows nothing about.

MICKEY

I think you're talking out of your ass.

LOUIS

What about a McDonald’s McCarthy Mac’n’Milkshake?

MICKEY

That’s wrong on two levels.

LOUIS

Care to elaborate?

MICKEY

I know for a fact McCarthy would not order a Mac and a shake – it would be a Mac and a Sprite, no ice. Second, McDonald's cannot call their shakes ‘milkshakes’ - they don’t have any actual milk in it. Haven’t you seen the commercials or the posters? No suspicion on why they don’t use MILK in the typical phrase that comes to mind, MILKSHAKE?

LOUIS

I guess you’re right. You’re a whiz when it comes to McDonald’s.

MICKEY

They always bitched at me because I ate all the food that fell on the ground. They were really against that, like, reallllllly against it.

LOUIS

Yeah, I bet. Listen, have you been in contact with any of the family at all?

MICKEY

There was one time I almost bit my manager’s hand off. It was bad. It was the end of the night, and we were closing. We had some extra food, and I had been craving some nuggets, like really intense cravings, pregnancy style, like -- I wanted to mix sauce with sauce and apply it to the meat. Well, my manager takes all the nuggets, and all the sauces, and locks himself in the office, and it wasn’t even his office, it was the actual store managers office, and starts chompin’ away. Some people eat in their offices; well he was masticating heavily and aggressively in that office. I barge in and break the lock, hungry and angry, and I see a nugget in his hand, a golden fried literal nugget of recently introduced one hundred percent all white meat chicken. I go for the bite, and end up getting some arm, seasoned lightly with hair. I can even taste the dried tattoo ink. He’s screaming, and in that second, I knew I was fired. All my hard work gone for one leftover ten piece.

LOUIS

Mickey, we need to talk about--

MICKEY

Ask me how it was.

LOUIS

(Sighs loudly.)

Did it at least taste good?

MICKEY

I’m not a cannibal, the arm was terrible.

LOUIS

No, the nugget.

MICKEY

Oh, it was okay. Could have used more seasoning. It looked good enough, but when I ate it, it was just alright.

LOUIS

What a shame.

MICKEY

I didn’t even get any sauce! No honey mustard, no buffalo, no sweet and sour!

LOUIS

Did they ever charge you for extra sauce?

MICKEY

No, that was one of the benefits. They let you have two sauces instead of one. It really adds up when you order a twenty piece during your break every shift. Those fifty cents for the sauce came in handy for the bus fare. Now all it’s good for is lottery tickets. I swear I’m winning one of these days. I can feel it!

(A beat.)

LOUIS

So, now that you've dodged the bullet long enough, when are we gonna start talking about the burial plans for Dad? Or the will?

MICKEY

When you were younger, which Kids Meal toy was your favorite? I always liked the Hot Wheels ones.

LOUIS

Stop! We have to talk about the family. Dad left us in a serious hole.

MICKEY

I was always pissed when they wouldn't offer me the Mighty Kids meal when we would go in. I mean, they could see that I was pretty grown--

LOUIS

Will you shut the fuck up and listen? I'm tired of beating around the bush. This is a serious subject!

MICKEY

Well yeah, the toys for the Mighty Kids meals were different than for the regular Kid's Meals--

LOUIS

You're in denial.

MICKEY

No, I'm not.

LOUIS

Don't you care about Dad? Don't you care about anything regarding this family? It's easier for you to talk about McDonald's than about our family?

MICKEY

Are you serious right now?

LOUIS

Yes, I'm serious! Now, you can either tell me if you've talked to the family, or you can just leave.

(MICKEY gets up from his chair and pushes it in. LOUIS looks at him in astonishment.)

LOUIS

Are you serious? Seriously, Mickey?

(MICKEY walks off the set, and LOUIS sits at the table, dumbfounded.)

LOUIS

Fine, Mickey. Have it your way.

Blackout.

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