Blues for Mister Rook

A Seven Act Stage Play by M. Christopher Horton

—–

## CHARACTERS

**MANNY** — An undercover operative posing as a junkie. Plays acoustic guitar. Speaks only to the audience.

**SPIDER** — A woman living on the edge. Addict, hustler, survivor. Speaks only to Manny. He never answers.

**BAMBI** — A woman who found God after the streets. Runs a soup kitchen. Loud, profane, sincere.

**JAI** — A white man with dreadlocks. Volunteers at the soup kitchen. Patient until he isn’t.

**THE WOMAN** — Well-dressed, oblivious. Performing community service for vehicular manslaughter.

**THE MAN WITH BIBLES** — Young. Hands out pamphlets. Knows the passphrase.

**ENSEMBLE** — Homeless men and women. Hookers. Pedestrians. A John.

—–

## SETTING

New York City. The 1990s. A soup kitchen storefront. A Chelsea apartment. Street corners. Doorways. The Lower East Side.

A single acoustic guitar sits on a stand at center stage throughout the entire play. It is never removed. Even when the set changes around it, the guitar remains.

—–

## A NOTE ON PERFORMANCE

Manny and Spider occupy the same stage but exist in different plays. She speaks to him. He speaks to us. They never speak to each other. Not once. This is not a choice they are making. It is a condition they are suffering.

The guitar is Manny’s voice within the world of the play. When he plays, he is answering her — but she cannot hear the answer, only the sound.

Every transition is a curtain. The curtain falls and rises between each act like a breath between sentences. The audience should feel the weight of each closing and opening — the sense that something has been sealed off and something new has begun.

—–

## ACT ONE: THE SOUP LINE

*Curtain rises.*

*An old storefront on a New York City street. A long line of homeless men and women stretches from the door offstage. Morning light, grey and flat. The line is restless. People shift their weight, mutter, scratch. The smell of industrial soup is somewhere in the air.*

*BAMBI walks the length of the line in clean clothes that still carry the memory of the street in how she moves. She is loud. She is saved. She is not fucking around.*

**BAMBI:** Alright, people. We’ll be handing out brown bags with food and cups of soup in a moment. But first, we give God the glory, okay? We pray to the Holy Father, thanking him for the food and asking him to forgive our sins, okay? For we all have sinned and fall short of The Lord, okay?

*She pauses. Waits for silence. Doesn’t get it.*

**BAMBI:** So, bow your fucking heads and pray with me, okay? Before you take his food into your mouth, take the food of God into your heart and—

*Noise from the back of the line. Laughter. Someone drops something.*

**BAMBI:** *(erupting)* We are waiting for you fuckers in the back to quiet down and have some respect for the word of God!!

*Beat. She breathes. Smooths her shirt. Finds the thread again.*

**BAMBI:** *(calm now, eyes closed)* Okay. Father God. We stand before you as children, oh Lord…

*She continues praying silently, her lips moving. The line settles. As she prays, MANNY becomes visible near the end of the line. He is dirty. He holds an acoustic guitar by the neck. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. He watches BAMBI.*

*MANNY turns to the audience. The prayer continues behind him, inaudible now.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* She didn’t recognize me. I was dirty, tired, and nervous. I would have rather been anywhere else but—

*He loses the thought. Finds it.*

**MANNY:** She looked so good. So healthy.

*He looks back at her. Looks at us. Can’t hold the eye contact with either.*

**MANNY:** You don’t see a ton of success stories out here. Good for her for pulling her shit together. It seems like all I’ve done for the last several months is walk from soup line to soup kitchen to church mission, waiting in line to be fed. Every religion, every church, every denomination hands out food in this city. There is no reason to go hungry.

*He ticks them off on his fingers. He’s done this inventory before, alone, talking to no one. It’s a routine he performs to prove he’s still thinking clearly.*

**MANNY:** The Christians pass out soup Monday through Friday. The Catholics have meatloaf on Tuesday and Thursday. The Jews give out sandwiches on Wednesday. The Krishnas have vegetarian meals Thursday and Saturday. The Baptists have rice and beans on Sundays and the Buddhists hand out coffee and bagels every day at noon.

*Beat.*

**MANNY:** Anyone who says they’re hungry out here is a goddamn liar.

*He shifts his weight. The guitar hangs at his side.*

**MANNY:** It was a good deal, but it was getting to be a bad habit. I’ve got to get some money. I can’t stand around here waiting for somebody to give me something. I needed to get medicated.

*THE MAN WITH BIBLES moves down the line, handing out pamphlets and cheap Bibles. He is young. Too young.*

**THE MAN WITH BIBLES:** You need to get educated. Would you like a new testament or book of Mormon, sir?

*MANNY watches him approach but speaks to us.*

**MANNY:** After months of crack cocaine, my handlers decided that I should make the switch from cocaine to heroin. My cover was good. It had been weeks since someone accused me of being an undercover cop. I finally looked and smelled the part.

*He scratches his arm. Catches himself doing it. Stops.*

**MANNY:** I was sure the narcotics were going to lead me to Mel Rook, but my superiors were right — the crack was making me paranoid and it was expensive. Crack was a con. It was cheap to get but the only high you got was it left you wanting more.

*He tries to smile. It doesn’t quite work.*

**MANNY:** Dopefiends were a better class of people. Less needy.

*Beat. He’s not sure he believes that anymore.*

**THE MAN WITH BIBLES:** *(closer now)* Would you like a new testament or book of Mormon, sir?

*MANNY doesn’t look at him. Speaks to us.*

**MANNY:** I was having no luck finding Rook down here amongst the derelicts and the drug addicts. Melvin Hawthorne, aka Mel Rook, was an enigma. He was a ghost. Everybody and their mother claimed to know him, but no one really did and nobody knew how to find him. But you could see his influence everywhere.

*The light shifts. Something darker. MANNY’s hands are shaking. He grips the neck of the guitar to steady them.*

**MANNY:** I felt him. He was angry. The city was a powder keg. It was the calm before the storm. Civil unrest was rolling in from the east. If I don’t turn him off. Things could get bad. Just my luck.

*He looks at the audience like he’s about to say something else. Doesn’t. Then does.*

**MANNY:** Wet work. I’ll probably be dead soon, anyway. Everybody else around me was dropping like flies. It seemed like everywhere I went someone died.

*Beat. He looks at his hands.*

**MANNY:** I’ve got the touch of death. I’m cursed.

**THE MAN WITH BIBLES:** *(standing right next to MANNY now)* Would you like a new testament or book of Mormon, sir?

**MANNY:** *(turning to the man for the first time)* No, thank you.

**THE MAN WITH BIBLES:** Are you sure? You look like you can use some guidance.

*MANNY looks at the audience. Then back at the man.*

*Stage direction: MANNY’s expression changes. He recognizes something — a word, a cadence, a signal. He takes the Bible from the man and puts it in his pocket. The man smiles and moves down the line.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* He knew the passphrase.

*Beat.*

**MANNY:** He looked young. Agents were getting younger every year. The young were easier to train and easier to control. Cannon fodder.

*Behind him, BAMBI finishes her prayer.*

**BAMBI:** …And all God’s children say?

**ENSEMBLE:** AMEN!!

*The line begins to move. At the front, JAI and several others hand out brown bags and cups of soup. People take their food and leave quickly.*

*THE WOMAN enters from the side. She is overdressed. She stands next to JAI and begins helping, badly.*

**THE WOMAN:** *(chatting brightly, handing a bag to an old man)* I don’t envy you, being out here week after week, feeding these animals. *(to the old man)* No offense. *(back to JAI)* I mean the smell alone is enough to make me sick. How do they get like this?

*JAI doesn’t look at her. Keeps handing out bags.*

**JAI:** So, why are you here? Community service?

**THE WOMAN:** Yes. That’s right. I accidentally ran down one of those window washing fellows with my car. He really shouldn’t have been in the middle of the street. *(explaining)* I waved him away. I didn’t have any change. It’s not like they really clean your windshield, anyway. But then he walked in front of the car. And I feared that he might spray me with whatever is in that water bottle they carry.

**JAI:** Water.

**THE WOMAN:** Sure. But when the light turned green, I stepped on the gas and I ran the poor boy over.

*JAI shuts his eyes. His hands stop moving.*

**JAI:** Do me a favor. Don’t talk to me.

**THE WOMAN:** He died at the hospital. He was really sick and old and was not taking very good care of himself. I felt really bad about the whole thing but he was already unhealthy. I thought he’d be able to get out of the way.

**JAI:** *(eyes still closed)* Are you telling me you killed a man to keep him from spraying your window?

*His sigh is enormous. It fills the stage.*

**JAI:** And all you got was—

**THE WOMAN:** *(proudly)* Two weeks public service. It was my lawyer’s idea. So I wouldn’t have to lose my license, and serve the community or whatever. I’m really not a bad person.

**JAI:** Don’t talk to me.

*He tries to go back to the bags. He can’t.*

**JAI:** You know. It’s people like you, with your foreign car and your fancy lawyer and all that, that make it necessary for people like me to come out here week after week to feed people like them.

*He gestures at the line.*

**JAI:** It’s people like you that are responsible for there being people like them. So why don’t you, since you’re down here, take a good look at how they live, take a close look at how you live and try and tell me that there’s nothing wrong with this arrangement.

*Beat.*

**JAI:** On second thought, don’t talk to me.

**THE WOMAN:** I’m a good person.

**JAI:** *(exploding)* What did I just say??? You don’t care about anything or anyone but yourself. Don’t talk to me, again. Ever!

*THE WOMAN shrinks. JAI goes back to the bags. MANNY watches from the end of the line, then turns to us.*

**MANNY:** *(quiet)* Good.

*Curtain.*

—–

## ACT TWO: SPIDER’S APARTMENT — THE FIRST NIGHT

*Curtain rises.*

*A two-bedroom apartment in Chelsea. It is small and lived-in and not clean. A couch. A kitchenette with a refrigerator. A door to the hallway. The acoustic guitar from center stage has migrated here — MANNY sits in the middle of the room on a folding chair, playing a slow 12-bar blues vamp. He plays throughout the entire act. He never stops unless indicated.*

*SPIDER stands near the kitchenette. She is talking to MANNY. She has been talking to MANNY. She will continue talking to MANNY. He will not respond to her. Not once.*

**SPIDER:** What happened to you, Manny? You’re losing it. Talk to me. I want to hear what made you suddenly decide to drop out of life. You used to be so ambitious.

*MANNY plays. He does not look at her. After a moment, he turns to the audience, still playing.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience, over the guitar)* I was staying at Spider’s place. She had a two-bedroom in Chelsea. A few of us crashed there. We were sleeping together. I was eating her food and using her toilet so I also had to put up with her—

*He loses the rhythm of the guitar for a second. Finds it again.*

**MANNY:** Her shit.

*He turns back to the guitar. SPIDER hasn’t paused.*

**SPIDER:** You sit in my house and you smoke crack, and you play that damn guitar. Now it’s like you’re vacant and emotionless. You’ve lost your connection to the outside world. Check yourself into detox. You’re a fucking junkie.

*MANNY bends a note. It wails. He speaks to us without looking up.*

**MANNY:** I didn’t play the blues. The blues played me.

*Stage direction: SPIDER finishes her thought. MANNY finishes his song. They end at the same time, as if they’ve been having the same conversation from opposite sides of a wall.*

*Curtain.*

—–

## ACT THREE: THE DOORWAY

*Curtain rises.*

*A doorway on a New York City street. MANNY sits on the ground, the guitar across his lap, the case open between his legs. He is nodding out. Pedestrians cross the stage in both directions, stepping over him, around him, past him. No one stops. No one looks down. Or if they do, they look through him.*

*MANNY rouses himself enough to address the audience. His speech is slow. The heroin is working.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* They cut me off.

*Long beat. He’s not sure how to explain this. He tries.*

**MANNY:** They say I haven’t been making enough progress in locating the target. They underestimated how long it would take. They know nothing of what it’s like out here in the—

*He gestures vaguely at everything. The street. The doorway. Himself.*

**MANNY:** In the field.

*A pedestrian steps over his guitar case. MANNY doesn’t flinch.*

**MANNY:** They have decided to no longer support my drug habit. Isn’t that always the way. They get you hooked for free and then they cut you off. The mission was still the same. I was to find Rook’s base of operations and terminate him. I just had to pay for my own drugs. They were tired of financing my failure.

*He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the Bible from Act One. Opens it. The pages are blank. He shows the audience the inside cover.*

**MANNY:** The pages of my Bible were blank. And scribbled on the inside cover were four words with a completely different agenda than the book they used.

*Beat.*

**MANNY:** It said, “If you’re looking for salvation, you’re on your own.”

*He closes the Bible. Puts it back in his pocket. Picks up the guitar. Plays a few bars of “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton, then stops.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* Too on the nose.

*Curtain.*

—–

## ACT FOUR: SPIDER’S APARTMENT — THE RETURN

*Curtain rises.*

*The same apartment. SPIDER is at the refrigerator, looking for something. Not finding it. MANNY sits in his chair, noodling on the guitar — aimless, restless, unable to stop and unable to commit to a song.*

*SPIDER closes the fridge. Walks over. Sits down next to him.*

**SPIDER:** Hey, Manny. How’s it going?

*MANNY stops playing. He looks at her. Then at the audience.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* I hugged her.

*Stage direction: He puts down the guitar and hugs her. It is sudden and real and surprises both of them. SPIDER holds him for a moment, then pulls back, all business.*

**SPIDER:** Can you do me a favor? It’s real simple and I’ll pay you for it. I need you to watch out for me. I usually get Sloth to do it for me, but he’s locked up. I don’t need a pimp. I don’t deal with pimps. But if you hang out next to me and watch what car I get in to and act like you got a gun or whatever, I’d feel safer. Most johns won’t fuck with you if they think you’ve got a pimp.

*She looks at him. Really looks.*

**SPIDER:** You alright, Manny?

*She stands and helps him to his feet.*

**SPIDER:** Come on, baby. That’s it. We’ll get high afterward.

*She leads him toward the door. As they walk, MANNY turns to the audience.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* She led me down the street.

*Curtain.*

—–

## ACT FIVE: THE CORNER

*Curtain rises.*

*A street corner on the Lower East Side. Night. Streetlight. Several women stand on the curb, flagging passing cars — headlights sweep across the stage at intervals. SPIDER is among them, closest to the street. MANNY stands in a doorway upstage, in shadow, away from the light. He is watching her the way she asked him to. That’s all he thinks he’s doing.*

*MANNY turns to the audience.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience, quiet)* I didn’t know what I was doing out here. She said watch what car she gets into. Act like you got a gun. So I stood there. Like a scarecrow somebody propped up in a doorway.

*A car pulls up. SPIDER leans into the window, speaks to the driver. She looks back at MANNY. Gets in. The car pulls away.*

*MANNY watches it go. He speaks to the audience.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* She looked back at me before she got in. I didn’t know what that look meant. I thought it meant, “I’ll be okay.”

*Beat. He shifts on his feet. Unsure.*

**MANNY:** I thought she wanted me to stay put.

*Stage direction: MANNY doesn’t move. He stands in the doorway. Seconds pass. Then something changes — he can’t see the car anymore, or he sees it stopped too soon, or some instinct fires that he can’t name. He steps out of the doorway and walks — not deliberately, but anxiously — down the block. He turns a corner. He turns another corner. The stage revolves or the lights shift to show him arriving at the stopped car from the other side.*

*He looks in the window. SPIDER catches his eye from inside the car and her expression tells him what’s happening before his brain does.*

*Stage direction: MANNY hesitates. His body doesn’t want to do this. Then he sticks his head in the window and grabs the driver around the neck — not smoothly, not practiced, but because his hand is already there and Spider is already moving. SPIDER gets out. She takes the driver’s wallet, removes the cash, throws the wallet back at him.*

**SPIDER:** That’s for the crabs.

*They run. The stage opens up — an alley, a corner, another block. MANNY is breathing harder than she is. They slow down. SPIDER splits the money. She gives MANNY the bigger share. He looks at it in his hand like he’s not sure how it got there.*

*MANNY turns to the audience, cash in hand.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* She always gave me a bigger share. I guess she thought I earned it.

*Beat. He looks at the money. Looks at us.*

**MANNY:** I didn’t know that was the plan. I don’t think she had a plan. I think she just — did it, and I was there, and so I was part of it.

*He pockets the money. Something in his face — not pride, not shame. Something worse. The recognition that it was easy.*

**MANNY:** As long as we didn’t take their cards, they never reported it. And as long as Spider made them feel guilty by claiming she caught something from them, it was a victimless crime.

*Beat. He looks at the audience. A flicker of who he used to be, barely visible, like a match struck in the wind.*

**MANNY:** In case you’re wondering, I was a boy scout. They kicked me out, but before they did I was still a good boy.

*He glances at SPIDER, who is counting her share and not looking at him.*

**MANNY:** If only Bambi could see it.

*Long beat. He catches himself.*

**MANNY:** I meant Spider.

*Curtain.*

—–

## ACT SIX: SPIDER’S APARTMENT — THE LAST NIGHT

*Curtain rises.*

*The apartment again. But it feels smaller now. The walls have closed in, or the light has narrowed, or both. MANNY sits in his chair with the guitar. SPIDER stands by the refrigerator. This is the long scene. This is the one that breaks.*

*SPIDER slams the refrigerator door.*

**SPIDER:** Are you mad at me? Because, you know, if you are, it’s only because we ran out of drugs. If I got us some dope, you’d be smiling. It’s all you care about. You don’t love me. All you care about is your drugs and that damn guitar.

*MANNY plays. Doesn’t look at her. Speaks to us.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* I continued to play while she talked at me. Down to me. Through me.

*SPIDER walks over with a glass of water in her hand.*

*Stage direction: She holds it out to him. He doesn’t take it. She stands there with the glass extended, like an offering no one asked for. Then she puts it down on the floor next to his chair and walks away.*

**SPIDER:** I sell my ass to get us high. I let you live free in my house. And you fucking ignore me. I let you stay here because I needed the company, not so you can ignore me.

*She walks away from him, talking to herself now — her voice shifting, no longer aimed at him but spiraling inward.*

**SPIDER:** Not so you could do up all my drugs, eat all my food and sit around on your ass all day. Sometimes I feel like a human sacrifice. You’re just waiting for me to O.D. or something. I’ve gotta stop falling for addicts.

*Beat.*

**SPIDER:** God, I’ve gotta stop falling for addicts. I always seem to end up with addicts. Like stray dogs.

*She turns back to him. Her voice changes — softer now, almost tender, almost mocking.*

**SPIDER:** What do you want? You want some dope, some coke, some beer? You want a blowjob? Anything you want. You get a whole lot more from me than I get from you.

*MANNY plays. Bends each note like wailing. He speaks to us, but the words come through the guitar as much as through his mouth.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* “Today I am the dirt you spit on. Tomorrow I’ll be the dick you ride.”

*Stage direction: This is what the guitar says. Not what Manny says aloud. The audience hears the words, but they understand that this is the guitar’s language — crude, honest, ugly, true.*

**SPIDER:** I make pretty good money dancing at the club. Any time I’m pulling tricks, I’m doing it for you. Us. To get us high. If I left it up to you, we’d smoke the rent.

*MANNY turns to the audience.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* She was spiraling. We both were. Drug addiction was no joke. I gained a lot more from those guys. The ones that survived, anyway.

*SPIDER stops pacing. Stands still.*

**SPIDER:** *(quiet, flat)* I could kill you in your sleep. Or myself. What’s to stop me?

*MANNY plays. The guitar answers what he cannot.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* “You don’t care about me. I could disappear because I’m nothing to you. I’m nothing at all.”

*Stage direction: SPIDER crosses to MANNY. She leans down and gives him a big, wet kiss on the top of his head — the way a great-grandmother would kiss her great-grandson after he said something cute at the kitchen table. MANNY stops playing. The silence is enormous. Something passes between them that neither can name. Then, after a long rest, he begins to play again.*

**SPIDER:** *(the tenderness gone, replaced by something harder)* I can’t take this. I want you out.

*Beat.*

**SPIDER:** Get out.

*Beat.*

**SPIDER:** Get out of here.

*Louder now.*

**SPIDER:** I don’t want you here anymore! Do you hear me?! Get out!!

*Screaming.*

**SPIDER:** GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!!!

*MANNY plays. He does not stop. He does not look at her. He plays like she isn’t even there.*

**SPIDER:** *(spent, almost whispering)* I can get any guy I want. You’re always too high or too drunk to fuck. You could O.D.

*MANNY bends note after note on the blues scale. Minor keys. He speaks to us.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* “You don’t care. I could do anything because I’m nothing to you.”

*SPIDER picks up his jacket and throws it into the hallway.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience, still playing)* “You don’t care. You don’t care.”

**SPIDER:** You just want to get high and that’s all.

*MANNY plays. As long as he keeps playing, they are still together.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience, quiet)* I kinda wished we were still robbing that guy.

*Curtain.*

—–

## ACT SEVEN: SPIDER’S APARTMENT — AFTER THE JOB

*Curtain rises.*

*The apartment. Later. Or earlier. Time has folded. SPIDER drops a heavy bag on the couch — it sounds like there’s a brick in it. She takes off her jacket. She is wired, electric, still running on adrenaline. MANNY sits on the couch, preparing heroin. The guitar leans against the wall, silent for the first time.*

**SPIDER:** Did you see the look on his face?

*She doesn’t wait for an answer. She never does.*

**SPIDER:** He had a look in his eye like he couldn’t believe that I would betray him. I’m an addict and a whore. It’s your ignorance that betrays you. Like just because I was sucking his dick, that makes me his girlfriend or something.

*MANNY is focused on the drugs. He speaks to the audience without looking up from his hands.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* After the mugging, we sat down on her couch, and maybe I should have talked to her before I began with the heroin we’d bought. Perhaps we should have had sex before I got high.

**SPIDER:** He couldn’t even fight back.

*She is still talking about the john. A man she will never see again.*

**SPIDER:** *(and then the thing that sounds happy and sad at the same time)* That guy was loaded.

*MANNY speaks to us. The drugs are beginning to work.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience)* I was concentrating my attention on the drugs and didn’t hear the nuance. The contradiction. I’d been doing this my whole life. I must have been a narcissist because all I thought about was me.

*Stage direction: As SPIDER continues speaking, the acoustic guitar — untouched, leaning against the wall — begins to play by itself. Faintly at first. Blues riffs. The sound grows. SPIDER’s voice begins to fade underneath it. This is the drug. This is the guitar. This is Johnny’s guitar from the squat, reminding MANNY of absent friends, reminding him that he picked up a skill besides getting high.*

*SPIDER’s mouth moves. Her words become inaudible under the guitar.*

**SPIDER:** *(her voice fading but still speaking, fighting the music)* I’m glad you moved in here, Manny. We make a good team. I knew we’d get together from the first time I saw you at the squat. When you were quoting Taxi Driver, and nobody knew. I knew. Because that’s my favorite movie. I notice you quote a lot of movies, but I didn’t want to say anything, because you probably want people to think you make that shit up and you’re not just a liar who tells stories from old movies like they’re his real life.

*Stage direction: By the end of her speech, we cannot hear her at all. The guitar has swallowed everything. Only the blues. Only the quarter-step bends and the double stops. Only the sliding and the crying. There is only the blues for Mister Rook and nothing can stop it.*

*Then SPIDER’s hand reaches into the light and grabs the strings of the guitar, muting the sound. The vibrations stop. The silence is sudden and total.*

*MANNY looks up at her.*

**SPIDER:** Are you sure you don’t want to just be sucking my dick?

*Long beat.*

**SPIDER:** I don’t want you here anymore. Go, before I call the police.

*Stage direction: She is serious. MANNY stands. He picks up the guitar. He walks to the door. He does not say a word. He does not look back.*

*At the door, he stops. Turns to the audience one last time.*

**MANNY:** *(to the audience, holding the guitar)* It would never betray me. Johnny’s guitar. It would never leave me.

*Beat.*

**MANNY:** It’s not like life was better before I stole this fucking guitar.

*Long pause. Something shifts behind his eyes.*

**MANNY:** Oh my God… It was.

*Beat.*

**MANNY:** Bambi was right.

*He looks at the guitar in his hands.*

**MANNY:** I need to give this back to him. It doesn’t belong to me.

*He reaches for the door. SPIDER’s voice stops him. Not loud. Not angry. Something else entirely.*

**SPIDER:** I know where you can find him.

*MANNY’s hand stays on the door. He does not turn around. For the first time in the play, he does not speak to the audience. He has nothing to say to us.*

**SPIDER:** No. I know where you can find Him. That name you never mention.

*Beat.*

**SPIDER:** I don’t have to tell you where he is. I can give him to you wrapped in a bow, tied to a bed. Because he’s my… because he thinks I’m his friend. He’s wrong.

*Stage direction: MANNY turns around. He looks at SPIDER. Not at the audience. At her. The fourth wall is still up — he has not spoken to her — but something has cracked. She has known. The whole time. Every monologue she delivered, every fight she picked, every silence she filled — she knew what he was and who he was looking for and she let him play his guitar and she let him stay.*

*MANNY looks at the audience. His mouth opens. Nothing comes out. He looks back at her.*

*SPIDER stands in the middle of the apartment. She does not move. She does not say anything else. She has said enough.*

*MANNY walks out the door with the guitar. He does not look at us again.*

*SPIDER stands alone. The stage is empty except for her. She has no one to talk to. But for the first time, that silence belongs to her.*

*The curtain falls.*

—–

*END OF PLAY*