The poet can and must, in his life as in his work, serve as the finely—honed scalpel of change, both in word and deed.
— Claribel Alegria
ACT 1 SCENE 1
(The curtain rises onto a stage bare except for a small wooden table and two chairs. The table and chairs are set off in a spot of light. A BELL rings loud and long, followed by a garbled VOICE yelling over a cheap PA system.)
VOICE
1300 hours close—custody count is clear at 1331 hours. Inmate MAC reps report to the Captain’s Hallway.
(In partial shadow at the back of the stage, prison INMATES dressed in bright orange jumpsuits pace from left to right individually and in pairs. The impression is of people walking in wide circles. They do not speak to each other. Another BELL rings and the INMATES look up attentively, then continue on when no announcement is made.)
(An older prisoner, GREGORY MARCUS, enters at stage right and takes His hair is long and unkempt. He has several days growth of beard. His eyes follow the pacing INMATES with evident boredom. He crosses his legs and begins tapping the tabletop impatiently. The sound of clicking heels comes from stage left. As MARCUS watches, DR. EMILY LI, young and fashionably dressed, strides confidently to the table and takes a seat. She places a thick file and notepad in front of her. As DR. LI prepares her notepad, MARCUS examines her as one might examine an insect, or perhaps a suspect. DR. LI ignores the scrutiny.)
BELL/VOICE
Second Watch program begins immediately. All building staff release your Second Watch workers.
DR. LI
(without looking up)
Are you close custody?
MARCUS
No. What happened to Dr. Sharpova?
DR. LI
I have no idea. My name is Dr. Li and I’m your new primary psychiatric therapist. Please state your name, number, commitment offense and current term please.
MARCUS
(sneering)
So Sharpova grew a pair?
DR. LI
Excuse me?
MARCUS
(swings around in his chair and faces the audience)
Sharpova. He told me recently he was thinking of killing his wife’s lover. I didn’t think he had the balls.
DR. LI
(hesitates)
He told you that, your prison therapist?
MARCUS
(laughs)
No, I just like going to the hole for making up lies about staff. Of course he told me that. And it’s Gregory Marcus, 86878, 35 to life for failing to make a court appearance on a felony warrant. What’s your first name?
DR. LI
That doesn’t matter, just call me Dr. Li.
MARCUS
Okay Li, whatever turns you on.
(The psychologist stares at him for several seconds, then enters a note on her pad.)
DR. LI
Dr. Sharpova’s comments were entirely unethical, you need to know that.
MARCUS
Naturally you would think so.
DR. LI
I think so because it’s true.
MARCUS
And I suppose you’re all about ethical standards? I’m a professional. Why did you receive a life sentence for such a minor offense?
BELL/VOICE
Carruthers, 82223, you have a legal visit.
MARCUS
(shakes his head in disgust)
Because America is a fascist police state currently engaged in a class war against its most vulnerable citizens.
DR. LI
(rolls her eyes)
In other words, you’re a Three Striker.
MARCUS
That’s another way of putting it. I’ve been to prison six times over the years. Say, is that part of your highly professional ethos?
DR. LI
What are you talking about?
MARCUS
The cold and officious manner.
(Without waiting for a response, MARCUS stands and paces back and forth in front of the table, observing everything except DR. LI)
DR. LI
That’s your perception, which doesn’t make it a reality.
MARCUS
It would be more accurate to say that it’s my stance, since we’re splitting hairs.
DR. LI
You have a stance; do you consider yourself an intellectual?
MARCUS
I’m a convict, and an observer of human nature; it’s a survival mechanism one learns in prison.
(DR. LI opens the thick file and studies its contents, nodding her head periodically.)
MARCUS
I wouldn’t put too much stock in what you find there, much of it was written by someone you’ve described as unprofessional.
DR. LI
(not looking up)
Telling you about his personal life was unprofessional. What is written here is clinical, it’s about you.
(MARCUS stops and stares again over the audience, apparently lost in thought.)
MARCUS
Fascinating reading, I’m sure. Are you a native Japanese, an immigrant?
DR. LI
I can’t discuss my personal details with you. It would constitute overfamiliarity.
MARCUS
(nods)
I thought you might know some of the tsunami victims.
DR. LI
I’m not Japanese.
MARCUS
(looks at her)
Indonesian then, Korean?
(DR. LI doesn’t respond, returning to her reading.)
MARCUS
(retakes his chair and studies LI levelly)
What do you say to someone who has lost everything? I mean everything, family, friends, perhaps their entire community, not just material things.
DR. LI
(studying him with keen interest)
What difference does it make, why does it matter to you?
MARCUS
Perhaps each man’s death diminishes me.
DR. LI
I was asking you, not John Donne.
BELL/VOICE
Islamic services are now being held in the chapel. Bring your I.D.s.
MARCUS
You read poetry?
DR. LI
(closes the file)
Are you good at avoiding questions, Mr. Marcus?
MARCUS
Apparently not, I’ve confessed to all of my crimes at one time or another.
DR. LI
I have a Ph.D., that should tell you something.
(LEFTY, a grizzled looking man, steps away from the line of INMATES and approaches the table. MARCUS frowns as the man hands him a carefully folded note.
LEFTY
You got mail, pal.
MARCUS
(deposits the jailhouse KITE in his pocket)
Thanks Lefty. You playin’ this afternoon?
LEFTY
(grunts)
Bring yo’ money.
(DR. LI observes the exchange with interest, watching LEFTY return to the line, then refocuses her attention on MARCUS.
DR. LI
Are you a gambler?
(MARCUS looks around carefully, then takes the KITE out, reads it and swallows the paper. LI watches him stoically.)
MARCUS
I’m a writer, a modernist poet actually. But we’re all gamblers, even you.
DR. LI
(nods and refers to the file)
It says here that you’ve written seven books and won a handful of PEN awards.
MARCUS
I’ve been known to bust a rhyme from time to time.
DR. LI
(smiles for the first time)
Were you sexually abused as a child?
MARCUS
Were you?
DR. LI
Perhaps some inappropriate touching. Were you abused?
MARCUS
(laughs)
So much for the overfamiliarity issue. I was abused by two male relatives at different times. Mostly inappropriate touching, though.
BELL/VOICE
There’s a red Toyota Carolla in the staff parking lot with its lights on. Call the Watch Commander.
DR. LI
Do you think this contributed to your addiction issues?
MARCUS
Well, I’m not a sex addict. Look, no one put me here but myself. I should have been charged with felony stupidity.
DR. LI
(nods in evident agreement)
What about the fascist state, the class warfare thing?
MARCUS
If you know you’re going to get burned and you stick your hand in the fire anyway, it isn’t the fire’s fault.
DR. LI.
You’re only the second client of mine who has owned their responsibility. With you that seems a contradiction.
MARCUS
(rises and begins pacing again)
The universe is a contradiction. It shouldn’t exist but it does. On the other hand, the fact that the United States has 5% of the world’s population yet 25% of its imprisoned persons speaks for itself.
DR. LI
Perhaps that’s the price of real freedom.
MARCUS
Shit, I’d rather be in Saudi Arabia. Just cut my hand off for stealing and be done with it. Prison is an industry in America, a perpetually growing warehouse market. But the public is incapable of acknowledging this.
DR. LI
Why is that?
MARCUS
Obviously because they don’t want to destroy the illusion of American exceptionalism.
DR. LI
You seem full of contradictions, Mr. Marcus. According to you, you chose to be here.
MARCUS
(stares hard at her)
Everyone has to be somewhere.
DR. LI
But as you said, you did have a choice.
MARCUS
(returns to his chair)
I believe it was predestined in my case.
BELL/VOICE
(loudly)
Code 1 Alpha 3, everybody down on the ground!
(The pacing INMATES get down on their butts, but otherwise seem unconcerned. MARCUS remains seated.)
MARCUS
You mean, do I follow the teachings of Martin Luther or John Calvin? At best I’ll allow the possibility of the spiritual. What about you, are you a Christian?
DR. LI
That’s a personal question.
MARCUS
And I suppose Uncle Chester feeling you up is in the public domain?
DR. LI
As a child, I was blameless, the abuser was solely responsible. So in that sense it’s a clinical rather than a personal matter.
MARCUS
Jesus, you really are a tightass, aren’t you?
DR. LI
You’re entitled to your opinion.
MARCUS
Let me ask you a hypothetical question rather than a personal one.
DR. LI
I’ll answer if I can.
MARCUS
(smiles)
Let’s assume this is 1943. You’re a Polish psychiatrist out of work and living near a death camp. The camp commandant comes to you and offers you a job as a therapist for his Death’s Head Squadron, the guys who actually carry out the exterminations. He tells you they’ve been having nightmares. Would you take the job?
DR. LI
Given the period and circumstances you describe, I probably would.
MARCUS
So, you’re a Nazi?
DR. LI
What would you do?
MARCUS
(pauses)
Something fundamentally human, I hope. Join the resistance, run like hell.
DR. LI
Are you trying to draw a parallel between your hypothesis and the fact that I’m currently employed by what you’ve described as a fascist internment camp?
MARCUS
(gazes at the line of INMATES for a moment)
Time rather than education is the great leveler, Li. Eventually you’ll come around to my way of thinking, everyone will. You are definitely on the wrong side of history, whether in Auschwitz or High Desert State Prison.
DR. LI
This isn’t a death camp.
MARCUS
(clearly disgusted)
Isn’t it? The only difference is that here you die slowly. On the other hand, the docility of the prisoners in about the same.
DR. LI
I think about six million Jews would disagree with you.
BELL/VOICE
Code 4 Alpha 3. Resume.
(The line of orange-suited INMATES stands and returns to their pacing. MARCUS shakes his head.)
MARCUS
What I think is that about six million Jews are dead. As such, only history can write their
epitaph.
DR. LI
And who will write yours?
MARCUS
Do you believe that all things are possible?
DR. LI
I do.
MARCU
Then perhaps you will.
DR. LI
You like picking my brain, don’t you?
MARCUS
I like you, you’re the first reasonably intelligent person I’ve spoken with in years, even though prison inmates have a mean I.Q. about three points higher than the public at large.
DR. LI
Now you’re blowing smoke up my ass.
MARCUS
I wouldn’t dream of it. Perhaps I see you as a daughter figure.
DR. LI
Did you think of Dr. Sharpova as a son? Did you tell him that?
MARCUS
Frankly, I don’t care for murderers, especially the ones I meet in here.
DR. LI
But Dr. Sharpova hasn’t killed anyone.
MARCUS
Hasn’t he? He must have visualized the crime many times, which I think is much worse aesthetically speaking.
DR. LI
(smiles faintly)
Sometimes it’s preferable to restrict fantasies to the imagination, no matter how clever or provocative they may seem.
MARCUS
I hope that doesn’t mean you think I want to jump your bones. It doesn’t surprise me that you would, but I really don’t see you that way at all.
DR. LI
I’m glad to hear you say it, even though I was assuming nothing. You may in fact see me as a daughter figure. It makes perfect sense given that you’re unmarried and childless.
(DR. LI stands and begins gathering her notes. She places them securely in the file, then holds the file against her chest like shield.)
DR. LI
I’ll see you in about four weeks
MARCUS
(nods)
I’ll be here.
LIGHTS FADE TO BLACK
ACT 1 SCENE 2
(The stage is completely dark until DR. LI and MARCUS appear in separate spots of light. They are facing each other, but one gets the impression they cannot see each other. DR. LI holds a note— pad; the file is on the ground near her feet. MARCUS is trussed up in full belly chains and handcuffs. He appears bent and drawn, more disheveled than before.)
BELL/VOICE
Close—custody count is clear at 1337 hours. Lower tiers have program.
DR. LI
What happened?
MARCUS
(shrugs his shoulders; the chains rattle)
I got into a fight with a youngster. I was having a dispute with the cops and he took their side. When they split, I threatened him.
DR. LI
You probably frightened him.
MARCUS
Yeah, telling someone you’re going to cut their head off tends to do that. He’s just a kid, it was entirely my fault.
DR. LI
How long will you be in segregation?
MARCUS
It’s called Z Unit. I took the weight for the fight, so no more than 30 days.
DR. LI
How do you feel about it?
MARCUS
I feel like going fishing.
DR. LI
Fishing?
MARCUS
I’m originally from the Ozarks. We used to get into fights on Friday nights and go fishing Saturday morning.
DR. LI
Together?
MARCUS
(nods to himself)
Of course. But it’s different in California.
DR. LI
How so?
MARCUS
Probably the gang culture. People take all forms of violence to heart here. Every squabble escalates into a blood feud.
DR. LI
Do you feel as though you’re in a blood feud now?
MARCUS
With a 20—year—old kid? As I said, I’m not from California.
DR. LI
Were you hurt?
MARCUS
He broke my nose. Why?
(DR. LI makes a quick note on her pad but says nothing.)
BELL/VOICE
Maintenance landline the East Watch.
MARCUS
My ex died last week. Cancer.
DR. LI
Why was she your ex?
MARCUS
(rattles his chains)
You get right to the point. You should have been a dentist.
DR. LI
I find that people like talking to me; therapy seemed like an obvious choice.
MARCUS
Or a safe one.
DR. LI
Possibly.
MARCUS
Maggie and I were together eight years. She was one of the two loves of my life.
DR. LI
Who was the other?
MARCUS
A girl named Odetta. I was madly in love with her as a teenager.
DR. LI
(makes a note)
How do you feel about Odetta now?
MARCUS
Grateful, I suppose. You have to understand, we were of a generation when passion didn’t automatically assume intercourse.
DR. LI
There was no sex?
MARCUS
She wasn’t ready, even though she thought she was. Odetta represents one of the few selfless things I’ve done in my life.
DR. LI
Very noble of you.
MARCUS
It felt more sacrificial at the time, believe me.
BELL/VOICE
Code 2, Bravo Medical. Full S&E response.
DR. LI
How did you meet Maggie?
MARCUS
You sound surprised that I did.
DR. LI
You’ve spent nearly thirty years behind bars, most of your adult life.
MARCUS
(laughs)
I’ve been in prison, not in exile.
DR. LI
That wasn’t what I meant and you know it.
MARCUS
It was, and you don’t know it, that’s what’s sad. As it happens, while in prison, I was senior editor for a prominent literary press, and edited over fifty books for authors worldwide. Maggie submitted and we published her. The book won several awards. One thing led to another and we ended up together.
DR. LI
I see. Was she a poet?
MARCUS
(eases his chains)
A political poet, sort of in the Neruda or Roque Dalton vein.
DR. LI
You were with her on the outside?
MARCUS
Four years. Surprisingly enough, it took that long for me to betray her trust.
DR. LI
(makes a note)
You cheated?
MARCUS
Never. She was my lover and my muse. I simply left her and came back inside; it was the cruelest thing I’ve ever done.
DR. LI
You let her down?
MARCUS
(spins around completely)
Li, I’ve let more people down than Bin Laden on 9/l1. What I did was to steal eight years of her life. She was 47 when we met; it was an awful thing to do.
DR. LI
The choice was hers.
MARCUS
As a convict and an addict, I’m adept at exploiting people’s needs in order to get whatever satisfies my compulsions.
DR. LI
I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t happen to agree with you. My choice is to disagree.
MARCUS
Let me ask you another hypothetical.
DR. LI
Fine.
MARCUS
Let’s say your lesbian lover comes to you, this woman who blinds you with desire.
DR. LI
(barely hesitates)
Okay, let’s say that.
MARCUS
She asks you to buy a home with her, a condo perhaps. You know you can’t afford it in this economy, so you tell her that. She says she needs the expression of commitment, a leap of faith, and if she can’t have it it’s over. What do you do?
DR. LI
Like anyone, I make a choice, either a good one or a bad one.
MARCUS
But who determines that?
DR. LI
Whoever experiences the consequences, you of all people should understand that.
MARCUS
(shakes his head)
Life isn’t so cut and dried.
DR. LI
Isn’t it? Look where you are, could it be any worse?
MARCUS
(laughs)
It could be much worse.
BELL/VOICE
Code 2 in Bravo Medical is now Code 4. Resume.
DR. LI
I can’t imagine it being worse than this.
MARCUS
Really? Imagine being the victim of a sexual psychopath, your final moments of life.
DR. LI
I see you can still be cruel.
MARCUS
My point is, it could be much worse than kibitzing with my prison headshrinker, something I actually enjoy.
DR. LI
(frowns)
By definition the victim you describe would have no choice in the matter.
MARCUS
She or he chose to get in the car with this nut job, to have a drink at the bar, to answer an ad on Craiglist. But you’re right, it’s never a matter of choice, it’s always about intentionality.
DR. LI
Did you intend to hurt Maggie?
MARCUS
(smiles ruefully and rattles his chains)
I intended to satisfy my needs at the expense of hers. So I absolutely meant to exploit her, which I think we can agree rises to the level of hurting someone.
DR. LI
(makes a lengthy note)
You’re very hard on yourself at times, almost to the point of self— loathing.
MARCUS
Surprisingly enough, I think I’m a pretty good person. I’m easily the most liked convict here at High Desert. That’s a real accomplishment when you think about it.
DR. LI
And yet you enjoy needling me.
MARCUS:
(laughs)
Damned right, you’re a representative of tyranny.
DR. LI
A Nazi.
MARCUS
You said it.
BELL/VOICE
Alpha yardtime in five minutes. Upper tier program only.
DR. LI
We were discussing your relationship with Maggie.
MARCUS
No, a man and a woman are incapable of talking about anything but the experience between themselves.
DR. LI
Are you suggesting transference?
MARCUS
Have you read R.D. Lang’s The Politics of Experience?
DR. LI
(makes a note)
I experience you as you experience me? I haven’t read him but I’m familiar with his work.
MARCUS
Right, you’d be more the B.F. Skinner type.
DR. LI
(nods)
As a prison psychotherapist, I have a distinct interest in behavior modification.
MARCUS
(drops down on his butt and begins stretching from side to side)
Where’s your couch, Li? I could use it right now.
DR. LI
Are you too tired to continue?
MARCUS
No, I value our time together.
DR. LI
You’re blowing smoke up my ass again.
MARCUS
Will you be able to modify my behavior?
DR. LI
No. Do you have guilt about Maggie?
MARCUS
(smiles)
Her obituary said she was survived by her “soulmate,” a guy named David Gerrard. One of the clearest memories of my time with Maggie was the day her and I went to David Gerrard’s wedding. I wept openly. Life is just too short and unpredictable for guilt.
DR. LI
Did you learn anything from your relationship with her?
MARCUS
(struggles to his feet, chains rattling)
She was a professor of literature for 25 years, not to mention an NEA fellow. I doubt I’ll ever stop learning from her.
DR. LI
That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.
MARCUS
I know.
DR. LI
It sounds like what you’re saying is that in terms of her professional life she lives on.
MARCUS
Not exactly. Carlos Castaneda said that only the knowledge of death makes a man sufficiently detached so he can never deny himself anything.
DR. LI
What do you say?
MARCUS
I say that she was a formidable presence. I say that I loved her and left her, and now she’s left me. Fortunately I have a healthy sense of irony.
DR. LI
It sounds to me like you both got screwed.
MARCUS
Often and with real passion.
DR. LI
How did you love her?
MARCUS
(pauses)
Not selflessly, if that’s what you mean. But I did love her, then and now.
DR. LI
You have a penchant for qualifying things. It suggests a lack of spontaneity, another contradiction given your vocation.
MARCUS
(rubbing one wrist and then the other)
Life has a way of qualifying things, which is undoubtedly what makes it tolerable.
DR. LI
Perhaps
MARCUS
Would you like to hear a poem I wrote for my mentor, an old poet named Hayden Carruth?
DR. LI
Very much
MARCUS
(drops his head for a moment, then reads in a sonorous voice)
I took this weight, and yet
limp through tunnels, gray as
steel or sky. I came in Autumn
during a downpour, my wound
held tight and turned to wind,
heart thread, its rhythm
almost undetectable. Now I listen
like an old man sick and
lame in New York, agonizing
over poems, as Tu Fu did
on a mountaintop. My blood
liquored voice sounds
down corridors—thought lost
and everything light as air.
DR. LI
(makes a note)
That was lovely, you have a real talent.
MARCUS
(shakes his head)
A minor one perhaps. I couldn’t have written that absent my prison experience.
DR. LI
And?
MARCUS
Everything in life is a trade off to one degree or another.
DR. LI
Seems like an expensive trade off. Perhaps you should have done something else.
MARCUS
(angrily)
Perhaps I could have died of heart failure at 40, a gas station attendant with six ungrateful children and a shrew wife. But I doubt I’d be remembered 500 years from now.
DR. LI
Like Ovid? My, my, we are grandiose today.
MARCUS
Ovid spent most of his life in exile, not prison.
DR. LI
And that makes you superior?
MARCUS
Not as a man; but I’m certainly a better poet and not half as grandiose.
DR. LI
(smiles slightly)
Who do you consider your peers to be?
MARCUS
Dead, probably Etheridge Knight, Gregory Corso. Alive, Jimmy Baca.
DR. LI
I haven’t read the first two, but I’m familiar with Baca. He’s wonderful.
MARCUS
I’m sure you’ll read them now. They all served time.
DR. LI
Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?
MARCUS
Only about poetry.
BELL/VOICE
EOP group is now being held in the mental health department.
DR. LI
How do you really see me, if I may ask?
MARCUS
(shrugs, rattles his chains)
I think you give a shit. I don’t see you in terms of gender, certainly. Perhaps as a well-meaning, somewhat aloof young professional. Extremely naive, of course.
DR. LI
Not as a daughter figure?
MARCUS
I’m afraid not. One of the few things I did right in life was to avoid afflicting any child with my irresponsibility. Legions of solid citizens cannot say as much.
DR. LI
(gathering up the file from the floor)
Very true, Mr. Marcus. I’ll see you in four weeks.
LIGHTS FADE TO BLACK