A STRANGER SEQUEL
ACT I
Setting: coast of French Guiana just north of Cayenne. It is a small seaside bar. The kind of place that's upscale enough that locals go there for something special and local enough that tourists love to “discover” it. It's especially popular with the rare Anglo toutists as the waiter is “Steve” an American. There are sidewalk tables and an inner bar—typically French, it's for standees only. “Monsieur,” an old man, sits at one of two inside tables, just inside the arch that defines inside/outside.
Gil enters and sits alone at an outdoor table—he looks beaten down though not destitute.
Steve (approaching): Mornin' Gil.
Gil: I'm dead. (Monsieur glances up)
Steve: Tough night?
Gil: (pauses) No....cancer.
Steve: You?
Gil: That's why I'm the one dying. Wine.
Steve: Ok. (exits and returns with a glass of red and sits. Gil just stares out.)
Gil: Yesterday. Today. One day you're living forever the next your dead.
Steve: You're not dead. And no one lives forever.
Gil shrugs in that stereotypical Parisian pout. A man and woman enter.
Man: Pardon, Je crier...I mean... Je....parlez vous Anglais?
Steve: Yes, what ….
Woman: You see, I told you this was the place.
Steve: ...would you like?
Woman: Do you have a menu?
Gil: It's the same menu everyone has.
Man: What?
Steve: Pardon. Do not mind Monsieur Gil. He is right, but perdu.
Man: What?
Woman: May we see it?
Steve: You wish to eat?
Woman: I just want to look. (Gil snorts)
Steve gives Gil a look as he walks inside grabs a simple single page paper menu and hands it to the woman. The man looks expectantly.
Steve: Did you wish to look as well Monsieur? (Gil snorts)
Man: (pauses to wonder whether he does and decides not) No, I'll have a beer; it's cold right?
Steve: (heading it to the bar) Konenbourg!
Woman: He didn't ask me what I wanted.
Gil: You got the menu.
Woman scowls
Man: He's got a point. It's what you said you wanted...to just look.
Woman: You can't seriously...
Steve returns with beer
Woman: Do you have a wine list? (Steve flips over the menu). I'll have the Beaulieu Chardonnay, s'il vous plait.
Steve: Oui madame.
Gil: My mother died. (Monsieur glances up)
Woman: (after a moment decides to respond) I'm very sorry. No wonder you're not yourself.
Steve (returning with wine): Don't be fooled. He is very much himself. Are you here for the launch?
Man: No, just for a drink.
Steve: No, the launch, the rocket launch.
Woman: You have rockets?
Man: Didn't know there was a launch. We came for something different from the usual Yucatan/Caribbean thing.
Woman: I thought the rockets were all in Florida.
Steve: This is the European Space Agency's launch site, not the U.S. Tomorrow is their first manned launch.
Gil: It's the start of a new era they tell us. Hope it's better than this one.
Monsieur: (speaking quietly but absolutely) All eras are the same. Only the people differ.
No comments:
Post a Comment