THE PLAYERS:

Christopher, a Doomed Innocent

John Harbor, an Immortal Virus

ACT ONE

(The stage is lit only sparsely, with one stool strongly lit against a dark background. CHRISTOPHER walks out casually, dressed in stage blacks, sits at the stool, and adjusts the microphone stand.)

CHRISTOPHER: Anyway, my phone rings and I pick it up and say "Suicide Hotline. This is Christopher. Can I help?" And the guy says--

CHRISTOPHER and JOHN (in chorus, JOHN from offstage): I've got a classic situation for you. I've got a .44 and I'm going to blow my head off.

CHRISTOPHER: Well, I figured okay another psycho. You know another day another dollar. So I hit the button that told the supervisor--Mark was on that night--to put a trace on the call. Traces have gotten a lot easier since Caller ID. Anyway I go back on the phone and start talking to the guy. I ask him what the problem is, if--you know--if he wanted to talk about how he was feeling. He said--

CHRISTOPHER and JOHN: I guess I'm not going to do it. As soon as someone calls and asks for help, they aren't going to do it

CHRISTOPHER: And I felt relieved. I don't know what it was about the guy. I mean he was of a pain in the ass. But he had the most beautiful voice. So he said he wasn't going to kack himself and it was a relief. More than usual because most people that call in just need to talk. You know. Need someone to listen. But this guy didn't have anything exactly that he wanted to say. No "I'm such a bad person," or "I'm such a good person and this is such a bad place." None of the usual. So when he decided not to bite it, I felt good. Like I'd guessed right somehow. So we kept talking a while. He told me something about what my name meant, I told him about some stuff I'd read in the paper. He bitched about his allergies. Then, just when I'm thinking it's maybe time to close things up and make a polite exit, he says--

CHRISTOPHER and JOHN: Christopher? (pauses) I lied. I'm going to do it. I'm going to kill myself.

CHRISTOPHER: (pause again. CHRISTOPHER'S manner, previously breezy, slows down and he shows the first signs of disturbance.) And then there was this clicking sound. That was his teeth against the barrel. The shot itself wasn't very loud. The receiver hitting the floor was actually a lot louder. So there I was, sitting in my chair with my mouth open, listening to some dead guy at the end of the wire. Mark came out and kind of patted my shoulder and told me all the shit we're supposed to tell people when they lose one. But I kept thinking, No. Hold the phone. Something's bad wrong here. That guy John. He wasn't a suicide. I mean I'd been working that place for months. I knew what a suicide sounded like, and it wasn't like John. So all of a sudden I know--I just know--that I've got to know he really did it. I've got to see . So I force the address out of Mark. He doesn't want to tell me because going there is like completely against the rules. I'd get fired, he said. Well, yeah. I got fired. But I had to know. I got there before the cops. Go figure, with the cops in this town. I got the key from under this fake rock in the driveway and let myself in. Looking back, it was kind of weird that I knew right where to look for the key, but at the time it seemed normal, you know. Automatic. And I had other things on my mind. He was dead all right. The phone was on the floor and he was in a huge pool of blood. Bits of his brain were all over the ceiling, like something by Jackson Pollock.

(A slide of an appropriate Jackson Pollock work is projected for a few moments here.)

CHRISTOPHER: I got real dizzy. Shock, I guess. I don't know. I just sat there until the cops showed up. They were pissed that I was there. I told them his name and that he didn't have any family. I told them that the gun wasn't his, that he'd stolen it, which was weird too, since he hadn't told me that, but it was true. If they hadn't had the word of mark back at the hotline, I'd have spent the night in jail. But my alibi was pretty tight. you can't shoot a gun down the phone, you know. And it's not like you can blow a guy's head off with words.

(JOHN walks across the stage behind CHRISTOPHER. He is dressed similarly, very understated. He seems to be listening with only half an ear. While CHRISTOPHER continues, JOHN prepares a large-ish box.)

CHRISTOPHER: So there I was--Hell, here I am--out of work, feeling screwed-up and weird. But I started having this dream last night. It's like I'm here in my life just doing what I normally do, only it's after some kind of apocalypse. And I know that some of the people are like aliens or something, but I've got to act normal or they'll know I don't belong. But here's the weird part . . . the dream was in French. I don't know French. I was having this dream and I didn't know what I was saying or what other people were saying or anything.

(JOHN comes forward and begins to speak in French to CHRISTOPHER, slightly into CHRISTOPHER'S mike, without looking at him. There is a certain weird, detached intimacy about it. CHRISTOPHER does not acknowledge JOHN'S presence. Throughout the play, neither interacts directly with the other, until the very end.)

CHRISTOPHER: And right now. Right now. (C. is visibly disturbed.) I'm remembering something that happened when I was a kid, only it didn't happen to me. And I'm starting to get worried. I mean, I guess this thing hit me harder than I thought.

(JOHN chuckles softly to himself and walks off stage.)

CHRISTOPHER: When I was in fourth grade, there was this kid who always sat in front of me on the bus.

(JOHN returns with a stool, identical to CHRISTOPHER'S. He sets it down solidly, a few feet stage right of CHRISTOPHER.)

CHRISTOPHER: She was always real quiet. Well, it wasn't like I knew her or anything. But it turned out she'd been abused by her step-dad for years. She's just get on the bus every day like anyone else, but all the time she was carrying all this crap around in her head. I never even guessed that she was different like that. She seemed so normal.

(JOHN returns with a mike stand which he sets up at his stool. He taps the mike a few times to test it.)

CHRISTOPHER: When she finally burned her house down in high school, she said voices in her head told her to do it. And I just keep thinking: did her voices speak English?

JOHN: The first time I jumped, I'm afraid I overdid things. (Slide from Enochian Invocation here) Candles, incense, pentacles and other magical seals. It turned out to be infinitely simpler. I even killed that body--the one I was born in--with a ritual dagger. Stupid of me, really. Painful, messy, and dangerous. Over the centuries, it's become much more of an art. A few words, the intention, the death, and then this--I quietly set things in order in a new brain, a new body. It hasn't gotten to the point of being an unremarkable event. I get the jitters every time. It's rather like riding a rollercoaster. Even once you've ridden a few times, it takes your breath away. This last time was the first time I've done it over the phone. It almost didn't work. It seems that some part of me enters through the eyes as well; but fortunately, Christopher was quite willing to view the body.

CHRISTOPHER: I tried calling Mark at the hotline. I told him I'm cracking up, but if I'm not on payroll, I don't qualify for the free shrink. I begged. He said he'd do what he could, but I don't know. I just don't know.

JOHN: I always research my vessels carefully beforehand. The allergies of the last one had proved irritating; I've since learned how easy it is to get someone's medical records with a fax number and a doctor's manner. Christopher had no particularly strong ties, no infirmities, and youth. And his name--well, the coincidence probably didn't mean anything, but a vessel whose name means "Christ-bearer" is reassuring. And the good Lord and I have some things in common. In the beginning was the Word. The Christos was transmitted by God speaking in the virgin's ear. William Burroughs pointed out that language acts as a virus, entering through the host's ear and changing the central nervous system. You see? It's not even a very original idea.

CHRISTOPHER: I'm going nuts. (Slide: DENIAL.) I don't know why, but there it is. I keep hearing voices talking about God and viruses and things I've never even heard of. I wake up sometimes on the couch when I went to sleep in the bed. And things are missing around the house. Like I used to have this photo album full of pictures of my folks and old girlfriends and pets I used to have. It's gone now.

JOHN: The hardest part is cleaning out the new place. Scrubbing out memories so entrenched it seems like they'll never be erased. But, of course, memory is fragile. Little things are forgotten all the time. Usually we don't even realize that we have forgotten. There isn't even a hole to mark the loss. Forgetting that there was anything to remember--that's death.

CHRISTOPHER: Or . . . or if I'm not. Okay, listen, what if, what if I'm not going crazy. What if the voices in my head are telling the truth? What if this guy really is inside of me?

JOHN: They often try to resist. Only natural, I suppose. I've found that the trick is not to engage them. I don't let them get a handle on me. With an enemy they can see, they can focus themselves. The body fights illness only if it can form an antibody. What we do not recognize, we cannot control.

CHRISTOPHER: He can't do it. (SLIDE: ANGER) I mean there's just no fucking way you can erase a brain. I mean, brainwashing, yes, but the personality is always there somewhere. We're survival machines, you know? It's what we're made for. The lengths people go to just to keep themselves together. I mean it's amazing. There was this one guy I knew--

(JOHN holds his hand over CHRISTOPHER'S mike, interrupting)

JOHN: --doesn't matter.

(CHRISTOPHER looks confused, trying to remember)

CHRISTOPHER: There was this one guy. His name was . . .

JOHN (repeating the gesture): That happened to someone else.

CHRISTOPHER (frustrated): Shit.

JOHN: It's easy, really. They struggle to remember, they show me all their memories that make them what they are. Thus I know what to obscure.

CHRISTOPHER: Okay. Look. What do you want from me? (Slide: BARGAINING) My body? You know, there's better. I know a lot of people who're in better shape. You don't want me. Look at me. I'm ugly. I haven't had a date in years.

JOHN: It's as predictable as water going downhill. They struggle. Sometimes they find some novel twist, but more often it's just the usual. Priests and Zen masters succumb as easily as dishwashers. It's always the same: "Please, destroy someone else." They forget that the way I leave a vessel is, well, a bit hard on it. And as I said, I don't engage them.

CHRISTOPHER: The first girl I ever kissed was my best friend's sister. I must have been twelve at the time. I was over at--

JOHN (again covering CHRISTOPHER'S mike): --or was that a dream?

(CHRISTOPHER'S expression grows more dazed and frustrated as he tries to remember. He begins to look slightly drugged.)

CHRISTOPHER: I remember when I went to grade school. My mother--

JOHN (as before, ironically wistful): That was so long ago . . .

(CHRISTOPHER begins to fidget, looking like he's searching for any words at all. SLIDE: DEPRESSION)

JOHN: it slows down at the end. there's less and less to remember, fewer and fewer memories to attach to. I always savor those earliest memories. I can't recall my own any longer. Not that I miss my innocence exactly. It's the primacy of it. The brightness, the passion, the newness. Passing through these other canvasses has perhaps smeared my own colors a bit. And the world is so beautiful through the eyes of a child. I'm tempted, sometimes, to keep a few memories for myself. Perhaps I have already done so. I can't tell, of course. (Smiles.) Or perhaps someone I fought centuries ago won; and the first childhood I remember isn't mine at all. Maybe what survives must take a wholly new template, eventually. Ultimately though, it doesn't matter. I survive. It's what I do.

CHRISTOPHER (very confused, unfocussed, but struggling, as a drowning victim): I . . . you know . . . I feel like I just woke up from a dream, but I can't quite remember.

JOHN: What can the word "dream" mean?

CHRISTOPHER (looking down, as if having been corrected): I don't remember.

JOHN (almost tenderly): There's nothing to remember.

(JOHN opens the box. Christopher babbles incoherently.)

CHRISTOPHER: I was . . . there was a . . . thought and . . . I . . . used to have it but I don't know what that's called . . .

JOHN: Inevitably they forget their own forgetting. They very fact of memory itself. The names of things are the last to go.

CHRISTOPHER (suddenly gaining confidence, a brief flash of hope): Christopher!

JOHN: The names especially can't stay. They mean different things to me.

CHRISTOPHER (with less confidence): Christopher.

(JOHN gets up and takes CHRISTOPHER by the shoulders, like an orderly handling a helpless invalid.)

CHRISTOPHER: CHRISTOPHER!

JOHN (as he leads CHRISTOPHER past CHRISTOPHER'S mike, he speaks into it rather than his own): It's nothing. Just a word.

CHRISTOPHER: Oh. (SLIDE: ACCEPTANCE)

(JOHN leads CHRISTOPHER to the box. CHRISTOPHER looks puzzled at it. JOHN ushers CHRISTOPHER into it. CHRISTOPHER becomes agitated, but JOHN calms him, cooing assurances, and closes the box over him. JOHN returns to CHRISTOPHER'S mike, brushes off the seat, and sits.)

JOHN: There. I'm never sure what that last thing is, that thing in the box. All its memories are stripped away. It has no identity. The name is always the last to go, and what does it leave behind? Is there anything in the box? Once it's closed, I never look again. If I look and it's empty, I know that I am only a collection of thoughts and uncertain memories. If something is in there, I still can never know that I would have this spark at my core, that I would have something to be put in a box. I may have died the first time, and someone died truly and forever every time after. But something is here (gesturing to himself), or seems to be. I seem to be here. Something happened to Christopher. He isn't here. I am. And I'll be here for a few years, seeing through these fresh eyes, feeling with this new skin. And it will fade, for me. It always does. My sensations will dull. My passions blunt. And the time will come again to make my decision, submit or survive, and it will be time to begin again. Perhaps I'm a virus. Perhaps I'm just a pattern copied from one flesh to another. A kind of virulent madness, brought by witnessing suicide. Whatever I am, this illusion of continuity makes me want to go on. I must do what I must do. It's a matter of survival.

(Lights go down.)