Kidnap of a Blind Man

1.

I'm standing in the Metro waiting for the subway. Beside me is a couple, a man and a woman. I assume they're a couple because she's holding his arm and whispering something in his ear. They're both young, and he's blind. Whether or not he's completely blind I don't know. He has a white cane and when no one is looking, he uses it to rub the inside of her thigh.

The woman that he's with isn't blind. She looks a bit like me. She's about my height. Her hair is a bit darker than mine, but it's about the same length. I would guess that we're probably around the same weight.

A train going in the opposite direction passes. I check the time. When I look back, she’s gone to buy gum from a stand that's a few feet behind us. 

When our train comes, it's gotten crowded and I can't see her anymore...

I walk up to the blind man, kiss the back of his neck, and lead him onto the train. I don't know if he knows that I'm not her. But if he does, he doesn't say anything.

2.

I take him home with me.

We haven't spoken, but we hold hands as we walk from the metro to my apartment. When we get there, we sit beside each other on the couch... He's fascinated by the buttons on my coat and while we're sitting, he fingers them like a baby.

Two People

1.

There are two people. They haven’t known each other for very long, not more than a few days, and one night he comes over to her apartment. They’re going to have sex. They both know that they’re going to have sex even though it’s never been mentioned. They're going to have sex, but when he arrives, she asks him to sit down on the couch. She tells him that she has to go to the store, but that she'll be back in a little while.

While she's gone he thinks: condoms, toilet paper, alcohol, toothpaste, oil, rope, saran wrap, food colouring, chocolate, soap, cigarettes, matches, coffee, rubber gloves, perfume, milk, elastic, newspaper...

Ten minutes later she comes back with a small paper bag. Too big for condoms, and too small for toilet paper. She sets the bag by the door and sits down on the couch beside him.

2.

Later, they're lying beside each other on the bed. He's counting the cracks in the ceiling. She rolls over and puts her hand on his chest. She licks her index finger and then sticks it in his bellybutton.

He says, "What are you doing?"

She doesn't answer. She just keeps pushing her finger in and out of his navel. It feels like a pathetic attempt at penetration. He wants to laugh, but she's so serious, so intent, that he doesn't dare.

All of a sudden he feels sick.

He says, "Stop it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm fat."

3

As he's leaving he stuffs the paper bag in the front pocket of his coat. She's asleep, or pretending to be asleep. It's cold outside, and his coat is so large that he can't even feel the bag. By the time he gets home, he will have forgotten about it completely.

He walks as if he were made out of glass. Tucked into himself. As if he were afraid of bumping into something… walls, parking meters, other people... He's a large man, but he walks lightly. Almost always on the front part of his feet.

The woman is the only thin member of a very fat family. After he's left, she gets up and goes to the bathroom. She pees for a very long time. The smell of her own urine reminds her of a bowl of "cheerios." Where did that come from? Why does her mind connect those two things? She can't remember when this thought came to her, but she seldom goes pee anymore without thinking about it... and it's been years since she ate a bowl of breakfast cereal.

She's forgotten about the bag and she doesn't remember it again until the next morning when she's standing by the front door, putting on her coat to go to work.

Two People – version 2

There are two people. They haven't known each other for very long, not more than a few days, and one night he comes over to her apartment. They're going to have sex. They both know they're going to have sex, even though it's never been mentioned.

They're going to have sex, but when he arrives, she offers him a coffee.

She takes his coat and they walk down the hallway into the kitchen. It's a small room, but there's a large wooden table pushed up against one wall. He sits down at the table and waits for her to finish making the coffee.

She gets two cups from the cupboard, brings the pot over to the table, and sits down. She looks up and suddenly realizes that he isn't there any more. In fact, he's slid out of his seat and is now sitting on the floor under the table.

She's not sure what's going on... She half expects to feel his hand reach out and touch her leg, but several minutes pass and nothing happens.

She leans to the side and sticks her head under the table. He looks small. He's sitting with his legs tucked up against his chest, and he's not looking at anything in particular.

She says, "What are you doing?"

"I'm feeling a little shy."

"Yes?"

"Do you mind if I stay here until I feel a bit better."

"No."

She sits up again. Finishes her coffee. Reads the paper.

Characters: a man, an 11-year old boy and a five-year old girl

1.
They're driving down the road in a car. It's hot out, and the windows are rolled all the way down. There's a breeze, but it's blowing right past the two passengers in the front seat without really touching them, and hitting the girl in the back right in the face and whipping her hair around. 

The children are wearing shorts and their legs are sweating and sticking to the vinyl seats. There's a spot on the front seat just between where the boy and his father are sitting, where the sun is shining. They both avoid resting their legs there, but every once in a while, the boy puts his hand on it, trying to see how long he can hold it there before it starts to burn.

The man is taking them out for breakfast. He's been to this restaurant before, but this is the first time that the children have come with him.  He says, “The waiter in the restaurant wears a wig...You can't say anything about it. He's bald, and he'd be hurt if he thought that anyone knew.”

The man turns and addresses the boy. “Don't stare at him... If you do, he might think that you've noticed the wig.”

The boy doesn't answer.

The man looks in the rear view mirror, and says to the girl, ‘Do you understand?’

She nods.

They drive past farms, and tiny houses which are set back from the highway. The children stare out the window, and look for out-of-province license plates.

When they are pulling into the parking lot of the restaurant, the boy asks, “How did you know that he was wearing a wig?”

His father gets angry.  “You can't say anything about it.”
“I won't... I just want to know how you knew it was a wig.”
“I don't know... You can just tell.”
“Why?…”
“It looks like a wig.”

He parks the car. After he shuts off the ignition, he turns around and tells the girl one last time, “Don't say anything. And don't stare.”

When they walk into the restaurant, both children have their heads down. They're looking at the floor, white and grey speckled vinyl. The girl keeps her head bent even after they've sat down. The boy takes a quick look around, though. There are two men working in the restaurant. He can't tell which one is wearing the wig.
They have a clear view of their car from where they're sitting. It's so hot outside that the man has left the windows open. He hardly ever takes his eyes off it.

The boy thinks that his father‘s afraid that someone might steal something.

The waiter comes and leaves two menus on the table. One for the boy and another for his father.

The girl gets upset.

The boy says, “You can't read.”

The man gives the girl his menu.

The boy asks, “How can you order if you don't have a menu?”

“What?” The man is still looking at his car.
“How can you order if you don't have a menu?”
“I already know what I want.”
The little girl asks her brother what he's going to have. He ignores her. She says, “I want pancakes.”

A few minutes later, the waiter brings a cup of coffee and sets it down in front of the man. The boy orders French Toast. The man says that he doesn't want anything to eat.

2.
There’s only one other customer in the place. A woman. She's sitting in a booth at the far end of the restaurant. She's drinking coffee, and smoking. The children can't see her, because they're sitting with their backs to her, but she's directly in the man's line of vision. She's wearing a T-shirt, a skirt and a pair of sandals.

She's staring at her feet. They're dirty. She can't keep her feet clean in the summer. Everything else about her is immaculate: her hair, clothing, and her make-up. But the feet in the sandals are streaked brown... Some of it’s a tan, she knows that, but most of it is dirt. She washed her feet in the bathroom sink before she left the apartment that morning, but within a few hours they’re filthy again.

Every once in a while, she looks up at the man. She wonders why he never looks at her.

3.
When the waiter returns with the food, both the children are staring at his head. The man is so distracted that he doesn't notice until the little girl stands up on her seat, and turns around to watch the waiter walk away from the table.

He yells at her to sit down.

There is a jar of syrup and little packages of whipped butter. The girl's mother told her that they whip butter so that it spreads more easily. As she's putting it on her pancakes, she says, “This is good butter.”
“What?’ The man looks at her. He doesn't understand what she's talking about.
“It's whipped butter.”
“That's not good.”
The boy asks, “Why?”
“Because it's half water.”

Now the man divides his attention between watching the car, talking to the children, and occasionally glancing at the woman... Whenever he looks at her, she's looking at her feet. Whenever she looks at him, he's staring out the window.

When no one is looking, the little girl takes a package of whipped butter from the table, and puts it in the pocket of her shorts. She wants to give it to her mother when they get home.

Neither of the children can finish their breakfast. The man eats what's left. Their plates are sticky messes of melted butter, mashed up pancakes, and syrup. As he's swallowing the last mouthful, the man looks up, sees the woman staring at him and grins.  

4.
The woman arrived at the restaurant at 9:30. It's now 10:15. She's tired of sitting and waiting.

The cigarettes and coffee are making her feel a little shaky. She orders some toast. Halfway through the second piece, she sees the man stand up, and begin walking towards her. She grabs a napkin and wipes her mouth.

5
The man says to his children, “I have to go to the washroom. Stay here. Don't run around the restaurant... Be quiet. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

He gets up, and walks along the windows towards the back of the restaurant. As he passes the woman's table, he leans over and says something to her. He turns around and looks at the children. They’re playing with the silverware. The spoons and forks are little people that dance around on the table and talk to each other.

The woman asks him something. He shakes his head. He looks away and then continues towards the toilets.

The washrooms are at the end of a long hallway. As he passes the kitchen, he looks through the doorway and sees an old woman bent over a pail peeling potatoes. There’s only one washroom and pasted on the outside of the door are little, white vinyl figures of a man and a woman. He reaches for the light switch, turns it on and goes inside.
   

6.
As soon as she sees the man close the door, the woman asks the waiter for the bill.  She leaves the money and the tip sitting on the table.  She grabs her bag, gets up and walks to the washroom. She steps inside and the man shuts the door behind her.

7.
After a few minutes, the children get tired of playing with the silverware. It’s humid, and the tiny fan sitting on the counter isn’t helping. If anything, the noise is just making them more irritable.

The boy says, ‘I know who’s wearing the wig.’
The girl doesn’t say anything. She’s five, but she usually carefully considers things before speaking.

The boy repeats himself. He says, “I know who’s wearing the wig.”
“Who?”
He turns around, looks at one man, and then the other.
He guesses.
“The fat man.’

The girl looks over at the little fat man standing behind the cash register, and laughs.
“Shut up.”

She feels humiliated. She’s tired of waiting for her father, and she wants to go home. She looks down at her shorts. The little package of whipped butter has already started to melt in her pocket.

She picks up her fork and uses the tines to scratch a kind of picture on her paper napkin. It tears in a few places.

Alphaghetti, performance text
(Montreal, 1999, performed at Shed’art)

He's six years old. A little precocious. He taught himself to read at the age of three. Having read most of the great works of literature before the age of five, he has a greater sense of loss than other children his age.

He doesn't imagine what he wants to be when he grows up. He thinks about burying his hamster, the break-up of his first relationship, and the death of his mother...

Actually, he wishes that his mother would die right now. She's holding him prisoner in a small house on the outskirts of a big city. Every day she feeds him Alphaghetti for lunch. He has to choose between eating, and saving up all the letters so he can write "HELP" on the ledge of his bedroom window.

He's very thin. Most days he saves the letters. Sometimes, when his mother isn't looking, he leaves messages in the cracks of the sidewalk in front of their house.

Every night at eight o'clock she locks him in his room.

Boy:            Let me out, stupid bitch. I'm six years old, and you can't hold me prisoner here much longer. Pretty soon I'll be stronger than you, and I'll kick down this door.

Mom:            Sweetheart, I haven't locked you in your room. You're agoraphobic. If you'd come out of the closet you'd realize that the door is open.

Boy:            You're trying to make me think that I'm crazy.

Mom:            It's open. I swear.

Boy:            ...I tried to open the door a few minutes ago, and it was locked.

Mom:            Stop playing games and come out.

Boy:            Go to hell. 

The boy takes his pillow and blanket and crawls under the bed. He lies on his back looking up at his box spring and the wooden bed frame. When he turns to the right he can see the light in the hallway shining through the crack at the bottom of his bedroom door.

He’s frightened, but it’s warm in the enclosed space and within a few minutes he falls asleep.

He wakes up the next morning when he hears his mother coming upstairs to use the bathroom. The toilet flushes and a few minutes later the door to his room opens. His mother gets down on her hands and knees and looks at him.

Mom:            Sweetie, are you playing hide and seek?

Boy:            No.

Mom:            Come downstairs and I’ll make you some toast.

Boy:            I hate toast.

Mom:            There’s cereal.

Boy:            Can my sister eat breakfast with us?

Mom:            You’re an only child.

Boy:            Then who the hell is that girl in the basement?