Characters:
Marie Martinelli Joubert
Babtiste Peluso- Married 5 times, 80
Jacque Peluso- her fifth
husband
Derrick- a junior music
industry studies major at LOYNO
Stephanie- a junior theatre
major at LOYNO
Present Day, New Orleans
Lights up. Marie rocks on her duplex porch on St.
Claude street, she holds a cocktail. She is an old eccentric woman of 80 but
far from a stereotype, wears curlers, holds a cold drink. Speaks in a thick yat
accent. Jacque is a quiet gentleman, overshadowed by his wife.
MARIE You know what I heard
Jacque?
JACQUE What, chere?
MARIE They was gonna put a
streetcar on St. Claude!!
JACQUE A what?!
MARIE a streetcar!!! Like in dem old districts that
people actually want to visit. You know, the places where people want to go.
Dey think dey so smart don’t they? With building their “Bywater Art Lofts,” and
“Healing Center.” The only healing center I ever knew was da hospital, for when
my psoriasis acted up, but dis place be café, a police station, a healthy
cardboard food store and god knows what else. Sorry I took the lawd’s name in
vain, but it makes me so mad Jacques. They is all these artist!! They come from
New freakin’ England and just think they own the place, lawd it all started
with Katrina. Lawd knows it was a tragedy, I lost not only my dog and my vacuum
packed weddin’ dress, but friends too. And they just walk in here and send dere
kids to that NOCCA! What is a Nocca? Cause dem kids there wanted to be artists?
And dey give dere kids the strangest names too. Dexter, Atticus, Asher,
Clementine. What the hell is that? They sound like book characters, and lawd
knows I don’t read much. Growin’ up, if you didn’t have a saint’s name, you was
goin’ to hell. I mean look at us. We have dignified names so people take us
seriously. You know what you did if you wanted to be an artist in my day?
Joined the navy, or got married and had kids. If you wanted to finger paint
that was your business. You joined the navy, put you’re little family in the US
Naval Support Area neighborhood, and if you didn’t like it, you took your
frustration while boxing at the Old Olympic Club at Montegut and Royal streets.
JACQUE That’s where you met
Pete didn’t ya bebe?
MARIE ya I was workin dere at
nights, despite how my parents hated me servin’ drinks to all those boys
hittin’ eachother at the local dive. I was hot stuff then. Now when I go
anywhere for stiff drink, the girl
servin me is all pierced and tattooed up like a clown. She tries to hide it,
but you can see them peeking out at her wrists when she reaches for the tap,
and the men are beared and capped like dey were Jews or something. Everyone
knows that Jews live uptown. In my day they was all so handsome, I couldn’t
help it. And Pete was the handsomest one, my first husband. We was both born in
the Bywater, before it was called the Bywater. My good for nothing-Italian
parents raised me and my 8 brothers and sisters in what we called the
lower-ninth. It’s not so clear about why they started to call it “Bywater.” But
dey sponsored some contest at Francis T. Nichols High School, now Frederick
Douglas High School, cause Francis T. Nichols was some sort of racist. And the
winner called the neighborhood the Bywater because it’s between the Mississippi
and the Canal. It was a nice place for a family then, even though it was mixed
race. But my parents didn’t care because being Italian meant we was basically
as bad as the blacks. Man, and the architecture was so cute. We lived on Poland
Street, and ma ol’ pop worked for his cousin at a grocery as a stock boy till
the day he died and we attended St. Vincent de Paul’s Catholic Church every
Sunday… But Jacque, you know as well as me, that we can’t go on living like
this for much longer. We’re too old to be living alone. We’re going to have to
move somewhere smaller, maybe get a nurse. (looks
at elbow) my psoriasis is taking over
(Jacques looks disgusted)
Lights down
Lights up on a university dorm room. Two little
hipster students sit side by side, each on an Apple laptop. They both wear
skinny jeans, Dr. Martens, hoodies, and beanies. Even though they pride
themselves on being different, they look exactly the same. There dorm is
decorated in a hipster way. Bob Dylan poster, Mason jar cups, tribal blankets,
etc.
STEPH Fuck yes, we can
finally live off campus
DERRICK God, I’m so tired of
living around all this hypocrisy and unoriginality, I need to live alone if I
really want to express my creativity at all, alone with my thoughts. Like JD
Salinger
STEPH but we’ll still be
roommates right?
DERRICK oh yeah, of course
STEPH K good…by the way I
like your new poster (gestures to a
poster of Banksy art that says “fight corporations”) where did you find it?
DERRICK online Walmart, it’s
therefore ironic on many levels
STEPH cool cool. So I’m
looking on Craigslist, but uptown is just tooooo expensive. I mean I’m a
starving artist (dramatically) I
can’t afford this, but I LOVE all the architecture. I wish I could live in an
old shotgun and just make my art.
DERRICK doesn’t your dad work
for Amazon? Couldn’t he help you pay for it?
STEPH I’m still an artist
Derrick, and I’m not asking him for anything. I’m independent. I HATE my
family. They pay for my private school, and that’s it.
DERRICK so another
neighborhood. This one looks nice. Duplex unit on St. Claude street in the
Bywater. Where’s the Bywater?
STEPH I think its one of
those neighborhoods behind the French Quarter? Very gritty, perfect for
inspiration. And industrial. Let me google it….Oh my god Derrick this is what
the New Orleans Theater Fringe Festival is. That is exactly the sort of thing I
should be working on for my resume and my theatre arts major. Local, green,
performance art for the people.
DERRICK and Stephanie, since
it’s closer to the quarter, it’ll be much easier for me to get to my job at
Preservation Hall for my music industry studies major. Thank god I won’t have
to ride my fixed-gear bike 25 minutes from uptown to the quarter! Hashtag
sweaty!
STEPH And there are Satsuma trees,
Derrick! You know how I’ve been interested in canning since I was a child?
DERRICK no?
STEPH well at least the last
few weeks, I have been. And we could make like…Satsuma marmalade…and sell it
off of a blog we start or something about living in the Bywater.
DERRICK we’re going to be SO
cool, Stephanie. Now let’s listen to WWOZ, even though neither one of us
appreciates jazz!!
STEPH or we could just listen
to Bon Iver
DERRICK even better. He just
sucks now that everyone listens to him….
(Bon Iver plays, lights down)
STEPH Maybe I could get a
symbolic and meaningful Bywater tattoo after we live there for 3 months…like
water, rushing down my arm or something. That’d be pretty cool.
Lights up, outside the duplex. Marie and Jacques sit
on their porch.
DERRICK That’s such a cool
blown glass keychain you bough at Dr. Bob’s Studio on St. Claude.
STEPH Thanks, I just liked
the name of the place (she swings the
keychain around her finger, and it falls and breaks on the sidewalk) AH
shit. Whatever it was only like 17 bucks.
DERRICK Before we go in, imma
have a smoke. (lights up a Camel Crush)
JACQUES (yelling from balcony) you better not mess with that son! I
practically only have one lung because of that shit!! Sure, I needed it to get
through a war, and I don’t regret it, but you don’t have a reason for starting
up that shit. What war are you fighting!?
DERRICK A war against
ignorant old coots like yourself! I bet you’re a republican aren’t ya???
STEPH Derrick, shut up, this
is the duplex
DERRICK What?
STEPH the duplex, those are the residents and
that’s the unit we want to live in and are here to look at!
DERRICK Ah fuck, I’m sorry
old man!!
JACQUES And you can call me
Sir
(they walk up the stairs to the porch)
STEPH I’m sorry, sir. My
generation has a bad habit of speaking before they think. But not me, I’ve
always been an old soul.
JACQUES I’m sure…Take a seat
y’all, my wife’ll be out in a second. I hope y’all are hungry, she got
muffalettas from Frady’s, with lagniappe if ya want.
STEPH huh?
JACQUES Muffaletta? The
sandwich
(Marie enters with a tray of Muffalettas)
MARIE Hello, y’all must be
Derrick and Stephanie!
DERRICK yep, that’s us
MARIE muffaletta? Just made
‘em
STEPH I would, but I don’t
eat gluten
MARIE you’re allergice chere?
STEPH No, I just don’t eat it
MARIE Oh, how bout you son
DERRICK its just all those
processed meats are a hotbed for sodium nitrates that cause cancer and all
sorts of health complications
JACQUES (out of the side of his mouth) so do cigarettes
(and awkward pause)
JACQUES So! Where do y’all
two come from? Not from around here obviously or I’d know your parents, so
which neighborhood?
STEPH well I’m from San
Francisco. But I don’t miss it though, I mean, it gets tiring how progressive
it is
JACQUES all the way from St.
Francisville?
STEPH No, San Francisco.
California.
JACQUES Oh my
DERRICK And I’m from
Massachusetts. But we both go to Loyola. And you two, are you from Brooklyn, or
New Jersey?
MARIE Pardon? We is both from
here! Born and raised, five marriages, countless funerals, and I raised 6
babies, 4 of which are dead now! And they didn’t call their home, New Jersey!
Homer Plessy called the Bywater home, and so do I!
DERRICK Who? sorry, its just
you’re accent makes you sound like that
JACQUES and your accent make
you sound like a yankee piece of…
STEPH do you know where Ani
DiFranco lives? When I saw that she lived in the Bywater, I was like. This is the neighborhood for me.
She’s one of my idols. She taught all about the fluidity of sexuality and about
loving myself as a woman. Ya know, she’s the reason that I decided to stop
shaving my…
MARIE Alrighty then! How
about y’all just take a look inside then?
(a gunshot sounds)
DERRICK What the hell! (ducks) that’s a first
MARIE Oh don’t worry. If it
doesn’t concern you, you’ll be ok.
(lights down)
(lights up, on Derrick and Stephanie walking back on the sidewalk)
DERRICK Man Stephanie, I
don’t know if this is worth all the second hand stores and community gardens. I
mean the place was nice and all, I mean Satsuma’s café? Come on, beet lemonade,
ginger southwest tofu scramble with a Cajun twist? This is right up our alley,
but I mean when you cross Saint Claude you basically asking to get murdered.
STEPH But this was an
adventure, coming out here. I know it’s changed and all, but we fit right in…
(a projection overhead of a map of the Bywater being flooded, first by
Katrina, it drains, and then a hipster flood.)
Lights down.
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