Don Quixote, Which Was a Dream (11 page)

Schon: Only if you're a slave.

Schigold: I'm not a slave: I know what money is. What's a fifty

to you? What's Lulu to me?

Schon: Lulu? Is that her name?

Schigold: Of course not. What's in a name?

Schon: Are you a white slaver?

Schigold: Not in a general way I'm not, but to oblige a

gentleman like you I'd do a good deal, I do assure you.

Schon: Fifty pounds is not a good deal. Fifty pounds of flesh.

Schigold: Then forty.

Schon: Here's a tenner and good riddance. (Schigold grabs the

money and weasels away.) Moral questions are exceedingly

difficult.

2. The Creator And The Creation

The Creator

Schon is pacing around his study. His study looks like a room in a Renaissance painting where a room is both a microcosm of the whole world and reflects endless numbers of microcosms, for there is no other reality than anthropomorphism. Thus: no escape for man from himself. The ideological revolution that began in Renaissance Italy was men's new belief that they, not God, were the centers of the world. That they can do anything. That they can do whatever they want. So Schon, who is now rich, believes that he owns the world. He is surveying his room: the world:

Schon: Thrones, Dominions, Princedoms, Vertues, Powers I now possess, as Lord, a spacious World, to Heaven little inferior.

I was a working-class boy.

I didn't have any security. Of course I didn't have any schooling.

With my own two hands, I made a kingdom. All this:

Not only with my hands, with my very body, like Hercules, I wrestled Fate, the nine-headed snake, the Hydra of the poor. Like Hercules the hero, I won.

How does a working-class boy become a hero in this world? By his own two hands: by fraud and bribery. Every time I successfully seduce a man with money, I steal that man's will: he is then lifeless, a robot; he can be controlled. In this manner I extended my economic control, for economic control is only the control of other humans. I know.

There are those who dislike me. There are those who dislike me. There are rats. There are rats everywhere. They creep. They sneak. They have brains. They carry diseases. I cannot get rid of my rats. Rat!

I have been forced to take drastic measures against those who want to hurt me. This is not my fault. But I always have to be careful: they might attack me at any moment, the humans whom I don't fully control. Every second of the world I have to be at the trenches.

My world is rotting.

The rat rot is deep, deep: there are so many enemies and people at war that sooner or later the world is going to end.

When the world ends, there'll be no more air. That's why it's important to pollute the air now. Before it's too late.

After the end of the world, also, all the technological advances which have been made in this century, which could at this very moment allow a leisure society for all but a few technicians, and a few women with wombs, - so that there will, I mean there could, be no more social class - after the end of this world when humans are no more, the machines for human paradise will run on their own. Just as McDonald's now runs.

After the end of the world, there will be no more time because the world has ended. Since there won't be any more time barriers, all the airplanes'll be super-Concordes. Anyone, even a woman, can travel anywhere in human reality instantaneously. Therefore after the end of this world, feminism will be viable.

It's the women who're doing this! It's her. The bitch. The one for whom I did everything. The one I brought out of nothing to make into a decent human. My very creation is turning against me. She's a traitor.

In the same manner as when England deigned, out of the goodness of his heart, to turn the black devils in Africa into decent social products and did so then their human products turned on them devilishly and are still turning on them devilishly, so for those in power good deeds are always mistakes.

Bitch: I'll give you what's coming to you. Why should I turn you into anything but nothing so you can turn against me? Lulu, yelling from offstage: Daddy! Schon: This child is now an abortion.

The Creation

Lulu enters.

Lulu: Do you love me?

Schon: Parents always love their children.

Lulu: That's why I'm asking you: Do
you
love me?

The Maid, who's always in the background: You have to

respect your father, Lulu.

Lulu: You
don't
love me.

The Maid: Lulu. Do what your father tells you to do. Go to

your room.

Lulu: You don't love me! I'm nothing. You've made me

nothing. (Schon hits her. Lulu, from the floor,) Daddy, you

have given me everything. I don't have anything else but you

because I don't know anything but you.

If I lose you, I am not.

What could I've known before you? It's not possible for a child to know anything prior to her father.

How could I know anything besides you? Is there anything else here? This is your smell. These are your objects: your touch. Everything that I see and touch is yours. My smell is your smell. My touch is to touch you. My eyes cannot see beyond you. Who are you, daddy?

It must be true because if not, nothing is true: I am yours. Daddy, I am yours. Can't you love me? The Maid: Your father wants you to go to your room.

Lulu, directly to Schon: Don't you realize what this lack of love is? I'm not denying that you picked me up from nothing and made me. But if you do not love what and who you have made, for all is living, what you have made is polluted and an abortion. Just as your world is now polluted and an abortion. I am polluted and an abortion.

I was better off before I existed.

Don't you see what you're doing because you refuse to love me? Look. See.

Schon, finally speaking: I see a disobedient child. I see a child who has no respect for her elders, for the culture into which she was born, thus, for society, I see someone who will become amoral, if not worse. I see. I can't even say 'a person', of whom I am deeply, Lulu, deeply ashamed.

Lulu. From now on, you will be confined to your room. I have nothing more to say to you because you will not be worth speaking to until you learn to be a person and to act in manners acceptable to this society.

(Lulu looks around her and no longer bothers to speak to anyone because IT ISN'T WORTH COMMUNICATING ANYMORE.)

Their End.

While both Schon and Lulu are absorbed in their own realities, Schon in paranoia and Lulu in autism, Schigold, who is now so old worn-out and poor he looks exactly like death, sneaks into the room: He might as well be Death or dead for ail Schon or Lulu care about him.

Schigold: My home! My home my kingdom! Farewell happy fields where Joy forever dwells: Hail horrors, hail infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell Receive thy new possessor: One who brings A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time:
Me.

The mind is its own place, and in it self Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. Where's some booze?

(Looking about him. Finding it.) Here at last we shall be free.

(Drinking.) Here we may reign secure. Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n. I own everything here! I do. You only need to ask and you shall have:

3. False And True Love

Waiting For Godot

Schon's study is now too dark to see clearly into.

Voices:

The Maid: What're you waiting for?

Lulu: I'm waiting for my brother.

May The Rich And The Poor Join Hands

Schigold is now alone in this study of the world. But he's

pickled. He looks even poorer and more down-and-out than

death. He looks as if he's living in urban USA.

Schigold: I'm a worthless piece of something-or-other.

Humanity. I'm not even that good. I'm not even good enough

for the bombers of humankind.

I hope they kill me off fast because this slow death is killing my guts. Where's more liquor? (He looks around the study for more booze, but, like everything else, it's hopeless.

(Being intelligent, he changes his mind:) I'm not going to have anything more to do with them.

You know what they said to me when I was good enough -well-dressed enough - in a suit, - for them to take a little notice of. A little.

Maybe I could enter that society. They said, 'Here, dog. Play along with us and we'll let you into society so you'll begin to have a few friends.' What dog wouldn't lick a little? What man here is so naive that he is too purist to survive? But I'll tell you something: the tongue that licks their hands, even slightly, is torn out. They are the masters of intelligent torture.

(Looks around him. Confused:) Who are they? Who's out there? Where are you, people who hide in total sufficiency and your lack of need, you people whom I hate?

(Lulu enters this study. She is now rich. Jewels are making love to her nipples and hairs. Her gown is Chanel, not Claude

Montana nor Jean-Paul Gaulthier. Money, not being Marxist, is worshipping humanity, as it should.) Schigold, looking up to her: Please help me. Lulu: What are you doing here? Schigold: I'm your father. I used to take care of you. Lulu: I'm terribly sorry. (She has learned how to speak.) I'm waiting for someone.

Schigold: I know who you're waiting for. You're waiting for a man. Aren't you?

Lulu: Do you want me to get you a drink? (Thinking that if she gets him drunk enough, he'll be non-existent.) Schigold: Get me another bottle of Jack Daniels. (As she looks for a bottle of anything,) You can't fool me, you know. I'm your father. I know about you: I know you've got a man around here. Lulu: You're drunk.

Schigold: I am drunk, but I will tell you something no other man ever tells you: No man respects you. Not one of the men you have anything to do with has any respect for you. I'm the only man, Lulu, who cares for you and more important has respect for you. (He starts crying.) Lulu: Look. Daddy . . .

Schigold: I care for you: I can make you happy. (Almost unconsciously he is searching for her breast.) I'm the only man you should trust.

Lulu, pulling away: Why don't you do it with my mother? Schigold: Your mother doesn't do these sort of things. She's dead.

Lulu: You'll have to keep your hands off of me if you want me to let you have anything to do with me in the future. Schigold, crying, and sucking her nipple: You can't trust men, Lulu. I'm the one who's taken care of you and paid for you all these years. (The doorbell rings.)

Lulu: Shit. (She adjusts her breasts and jewels.) Hide in the bathtub. Stop weeping like a woman. (Schigold manages to, crawl only to a curtain which he wraps around him ostrich-style.)

The Theatre

When Lulu opens the door, Alwa, Schon's son, enters.

Alwa is a successful theatre director. He is bald and has a slight stomach from drinking too much beer and never eating. Even though he's a slight sadist, as are most theatrical directors, he ignores this and all his other personal attributes by allowing only work in his life.

Alwa: I've been thinking about the new play. Lulu: Why do you have to think about work all the time? Don't you have any feelings?

Alwa: What I really want is the actors to have freedom. I want the actors to find their freedom. But they won't do this. That's the problem.

Lulu: I have to talk to you. Personally. I've been waiting for you all day. You're the only person I can talk to because you're my brother.

Alwa: I have to make my actors take their freedom. You're my actress, Lulu. How can I do this? I know what I want to do, but I can't do it.

Lulu: I have a problem. (With increasing realization that she can't talk to him because he isn't her brother. That she has no one.) I'm very lonely.

Alwa: I know what to do. Listen to me, Lulu. Just shut up for a second. Sit down. Is there anywhere we can sit down? We have to talk.

Lulu: Here. Would you like anything to drink? What can I do for you? (They sit down on a couch; rather, Lulu on the edge of the couch, and Alwa on a nearby hard chair.) Alwa: I know how I'm going to do it. I shall push my actors until they're forced to take their own freedom: they're forced to revolt against me. At that moment the play will begin. Lulu, sadly: That's a brilliant conception.

Alwa: It's conceptually correct. This is Sartre's notion of freedom.

Lulu, shaking: Will you hold my hand?

Alwa, not holding her hand: Lulu, you're the one who's inspired me. I've learnt most of this from working with you, for your relations with men teach me what happens when a woman's pushed too far.

Lulu, sadly: I don't understand what you want with me. Alwa: I can't afford to disrupt my emotional balance when I'm in the middle of a play. I have to give all my attention to the play. Look, Lulu: it isn't easy between us now because, since you're my father's wife, I would be destroying this familial stability if I felt anything for you. Lulu: I want a brother.