Race: A Love Story

By

Anonymous

(Lights up, A woman enters after a moment a man enters)

MAN: Hey! Excuse me! Excuse me miss . . .

WOMAN: May I help you?

MAN: Hey, yeah, you forgot something?

WOMAN: What?

MAN: Yeah. You forgot to give me your number.

WOMAN: Oh did I?

MAN: What?

WOMAN: That’s the line you’re gonna use?

MAN: I thought it was pretty smooth myself.

WOMAN: Ha, Okay if you think so.

MAN: Have you ever heard it before?

WOMAN: Only about as much as “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”

MAN: Ow, that hurt.

WOMAN: Just like the fall.

MAN: You’re funny.

WOMAN: I’d like to think so.

MAN: So . . .

WOMAN: So?

MAN: What about that number?

WOMAN: I don’t know . . .

MAN: Okay how about we make a deal?

WOMAN: I’m listening.

MAN: How about I buy you a drink?

WOMAN: And?

MAN: And in exchange, I get one hour to plead my case, and If I don’t swing and miss miserably . . . at the end . . . maybe I get your number?

WOMAN: (Pause) I like coffee.

MAN: I love coffee.

WOMAN: (Pause) Okay.

WOMAN: Two months. That’s all the longer that lasted. After the initial cheesy pickup he actually ended up being somewhat charming. Held the door open for me, pulled out my chair at dinner. Things men use to do. Little extra things, little things that make a difference, things that seemed to disappear over time. Did you ever realize that men don’t push in chairs anymore? Maybe they’re scared. Afraid to meet some super feminist who will bitch them out in the middle of an Olive Garden. I know some women that would do that. I have a friend Sierra who will trap some poor sap into a twenty minute lecture about pay equality if he as much as holds the door for her. But me? I like a man who knows how to be a gentleman. Chivalry isn’t dead, you just have to find the right knight. The way I’m talking kind of makes me sounds anti-feminism. I’m not. I want my equal pay, I want my rights. Just because men have something dangling between their legs doesn’t mean they’re better than us. On the contrary, ninety percent of the time men think with their dick rather than their brain so i’d say, taking that into account, that certainly makes women the more advanced sex. Men aren’t dicks for . But that’s not why we ended things. He was white and Im, well, me.

MAN: Living in a town like this, the way we are, isn’t exactly ideal. At first we didn’t notice.

WOMAN: We’d go out to eat.

MAN: walk through the park.

WOMAN: Go see a movie.

MAN: Everything was good, great even. I was even starting to think maybe things could get serious.

WOMAN: But then I started to realize what was really happening. Eventually our nights out became nights of dodging glances, and trying not to listen to the whispers that filled the air like a fog. The tipping point came on a sunday afternoon. We were walking through the park like we usually do on sundays, just enjoying what would be one of the last nice days of fall. Like always we walked across the bridge that leads toward downtown listening to the crunch of the leaves under our feet. And as we just started getting back into the center of the business district that’s when it hit me. Literally hit me, a flash of cold, sticky, wet, something solid but not hard. Hit dead center in my back. My hair, my coat, it was running down my pant leg . . . and then the voice.

MAN: It wasn’t mean. I mean yeah it was but that, that’s not how I would describe it. Mean would signify some sense of pity, no, this was: hatred. Pure hate. Blind hate. “Get out of here nigger get the fuck out of here.”

WOMAN: (Long Pause) in rage from this, this, minor, act of hate. I could smell the exhaust, it filled my nose with it’s bitter sting. Like a middle finger just to seal the deal. . . The supersized Mcdonald's cup lay dead at my feet. . . On the outside he was calm. But when I looked in his eyes, when he kissed me. I could feel it. He was shaken, scared. He felt something he has never had to deal with before. He felt like me. Felt like an outsider.

MAN: Have you ever felt that way?

WOMAN: Yes. . . (Long Pause. Scene Change.) He had coffee, just coffee, like usual. He always seemed to be drinking coffee. Starbucks in one hand, USA Today in the other. . . Who the hell reads USA Today? It looks like a kids magazine or a coloring book or something. Anyway, he comes over to my the next day.

MAN: Can we talk.

WOMAN: About what?

MAN: About . . . you know . . .

WOMAN: We really don’t need to.

MAN: I think we do.

WOMAN: Do we?

MAN: Yes, we do.

WOMAN: No, we don’t.

MAN: Well . . . I think maybe we do.

WOMAN: . . . Okay . . . What?

MAN: You know what.

WOMAN: No, No I don’t I really have no clue what there is to talk about.

MAN: About YEST- . . . About . . . about yesterday . . .

WOMAN: What about it?

MAN: Don’t . . . don’t you want-

WOMAN: Don’t I want what?

MAN: I don’t know, to talk, to be helped-

WOMAN: No. I don’t need anyone’s help. I don’t need to be coddled and treated like damaged china.

MAN: I never said-

WOMAN: But it’s what you were thinking.

MAN: I just thought-

WOMAN: You did. You thought as you. Not as me.

MAN: What I . . . I don’t. . . What?

WOMAN: You thought as you. You need help. I don’t.

MAN: I just want to help you.

WOMAN: And I’m saying I don’t need it. I don’t need your help. This might be news to you but this isn’t the first time that something like that has happened to me. . . You have no idea.

MAN: I don’t.

WOMAN: I know.

MAN: Then tell me.

WOMAN: No.

MAN: Why not?

WOMAN: No I don’t want-

MAN: Come one tell me-

WOMAN: No!

MAN: Why not?

WOMAN: BECAUSE THIS IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM! It’s not your problem. I am the one who has had to deal with this. I have been the one who has had to deal with this I am always going to be the one who has to deal with it. That’s on me. I’ve done it long enough by myself I don’t need help now.

MAN: It wouldn’t hurt to-

WOMAN: No. You’re right. It wouldn’t hurt to get help. There are plenty of others who get the same shit as me, plenty of others who aren’t even as lucky as me. There always have been, always will be.

MAN: It doesn’t have to be that way.

WOMAN: I wish that were true. But hate will always be around. Somehow. I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m religious, but I have my beliefs. What church, what God is there that would praise the belittling of people? No God I know. . . I am aware that I am black. I know that all too well. I always know. I am aware when I walk into a room and look up at a sea of white foam starting back at me. I am aware as I drive through these neighborhoods of nuclear families. Old ideas,false ideas of what perfection should be. I am aware when the store clerk looks me up and down, questioning my every move. If I asked him why he does it he’d have no idea what you were talking about, and it would probably be the truth. He has no idea that judgment he has deep inside has always been there, always will be there. That’s when people are the most dangerous. When they don’t know. When they don’t understand.

MAN: What about us?

WOMAN: What about us?

MAN: Don’t you think we could stop that? Maybe if people saw us they-

WOMAN: They’d what? Have a change of heart? You saw what happened yesterday. There is no changing people.

MAN: I disagree-

WOMAN: When I was five. My Mom took me to a preschool a couple blocks from our house. I remember two things from that school. The first was when Tommy Walters ate a meatball off the floor during lunch. The second were the Barbies. There was a mountain of them in the corner of the room. They had everything the dream car dream house you name it it was there. There were these girls, Kimmy Jones, Jenny Stacey, and Samantha Kassy. They were playing with Barbies, I went over and asked If I could join. Kimmy looked up at me. . . Looked at me and said no. No. Why not? I asked. And she said. . . there isn’t one for you. You can’t play there isn’t one for you. . . There isn’t one for you. . . Then I realized that there wasn’t one for me. . . there wasn’t one of me. A mountain of dolls that reached to the sky and not a single one was for me. . .

MAN: Why would they do that?

WOMAN: They didn’t understand.

MAN: What?

WOMAN: Me. That I was no different from them. . . kids say the damndest things you know? And they’re terrible liars.

MAN: (pause) I think I love you.

WOMAN: What?

MAN: I do I- I love you.

WOMAN: (Pause)No you don’t.

MAN: That wasn’t exactly what I expected to get back.

WOMAN: You don’t love me. . . I don’t love you.

MAN: Why not? What did I do?

WOMAN: Nothing. You didn’t do anything.

MAN: Then what’s the matter?

WOMAN: You are.

MAN: What? You just said-?

WOMAN: I know. You didn’t do anything. Nothing that you meant to.

MAN: I’m confused.

WOMAN: You changed.

MAN: No I haven-

WOMAN: You have. And you didn’t even notice. You changed suddenly. The way you look at me, the way you’re looking now. Your tone, your eyes.

MAN: My eyes?

WOMAN: Yes, your eyes. They’re not the same. They don’t have that spirit in them anymore that love that I think you did feel once.

MAN: But I love you know.

WOMAN: No. Honey, no. You did. If you would have said that to me yesterday I might have believed you. I probably would have even said it back. But that was yesterday.

MAN: And today?

WOMAN: Today I’m standing in front of someone I don’t know. That I can’t know.

MAN: Oh. . . I see.

(The Man begins to exit)

WOMAN: Wait. (He goes to her. They kiss. When they break apart the Man takes a moment then exits)

WOMAN: Two months. That’s all that lasted. That’s all that got to last. I’ve heard it said that love is blind, and to the people in love I believe that’s true. But not to the rest of the world. Love is presented for the world to see, love is exploited, love is tested, love is shaken to it’s core then discarded and if it’s not strong enough love can be stolen. . . But then I realized. They can only win, love can only be lost if you let it . . . Like I said we love coffee. . . Excuse me sir! You forgot something.

(Black out)