How I Live. With Terror.

Characters: From 1 to 20.

Setting: A stage. Time: After the pirates.

Scenery: None.

Lights: Until the end.

(Lights up.)

On November 5, 2005, pirates in small boats attacked an American luxury liner off the coast of Somalia. I learned about this the next morning from an illuminated sign in Times Square shortly after emerging from a PATH station. “Far enough away,” I thought, with a touch of smug guilt.

I can’t stop thinking about the pirates, can you?

III

I mean, if the pirates were here, what would I offer them? What does a pirate want?… Sigmund really didn’t go after the difficult questions.

If a pirate and a half wants an ipod and a half, how many ipods do six pirates want?

Somalia is very far away. And now we all know it’s not safe there. So it looks like the pirates were performing a public service.

Apparently the ship’s captain tried first to run over the pirate boats, and then he outran them.

Now the pirates seem like cartoon characters. I can live with that.

Of course, knowing that the pirates had grenade launchers cancels out that feeling of safety.

What exactly do you suppose they wanted from the tourists?

www.Answers.com tells me that rocket-propelled launchers are inexpensive to make.

What do you suppose the average pirate earns in take-home pay each week?

VII (CNN) — A luxury cruise line will re-evaluate whether to offer future cruises off the coast of Somalia after pirates attempted to attack one of its ships early Saturday. Who saw that coming? Raise your hand.

VIII One must have a mind of water to think about running over a pirate with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Someone was injured, but the cruise line declined to elaborate.

This is what I am saying. Didn’t we learn enough about the importance of elaboration during the Clinton years? I know…I know…More than you need to know. But really. Can we just talk?

Sometimes a terrorist is merely a pirate?

Notice how that sentence does not work the other way around. Sometimes a pirate is merely a terrorist.

Isn’t English a beautiful thing?

I am practicing to speak with the Pirates when they come.

Don’t kid yourself. We’re not going to escape just because we live onshore.

Actually, I’m rather enjoying it because I can say sentences I packed away in mothballs when people told me to update my writing—sentences such as, “Avast ye blackguards.”

Everyone will know what I mean now. They’ll probably put it on my tombstone–it’s so clear.

I am also resurrecting old music. A line from Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young keeps floating through my head. It is a fortuitous one, given the pirate situation. It reminds us of ocean navigation. Can you guess what it is?

XII

“Set a course and go.”

That’s the line!

Do you think the pirates like music? I was only kidding about the Ipods before. The pirates probably already have them. Something to do when there are no cruise ships crossing your wake.

Maybe the pirates would prefer bootleg tapes. I have one from a Steely Dan concert.

XIII

OK. So I was testing you. You might be a pirate. You know how they always ask the potential spies who won the World Series? I figured if you were a pirate you wouldn’t know about Steely Dan like that guy in the ad that keeps running through my mind. I don’t know why that guy is like a pirate, but if you didn’t know Steely Dan is a studio band who never tours and not just one guy, I would have a right to be suspicious of you. Right?

You did know, didn’t you?

Now, what?

XIV

I’m planning to buy a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. In fact, since they’re so inexpensive, I’m going to buy all of the launchers I can find. Then, I’m going to feel safe.

If I can find a place to store them.

It’s the Russians fault, you know. They make the reusable kind. But who you gonna call? The Soviet Union has left the building.

American launchers. They’re one-hit wonders. I wonder which kind the pirates bought and why?

If I meet the pirates, I’m going to make them negotiate on my terms.

“You call yourself a pirate? Give me five hundred words on why you want to board my ship.”

XVI First of all, nobody fights back. Passenger Mike Rogers of Vancouver stated: “We’re always looking for adventure, but this is probably a little more than we would normally look for.” That’s just what the pirates are waiting for. People giving up on their adventures. It’s all about detention, stupid.

XVII I don’t like that word, so I usually don’t use it. Something tells me the pirates could care less what I think.

XVIII Live and let pirate. A pirate on the ocean is worth two on the mountain. Don’t take any wooden pirates. It will be a cold day in Neverland before I let Captain Hook clean my clock. What we have here is a failure to communicate.

XIX Here’s how I prepare for my impending encounter with pirates: I keep clean underwear in the glove compartment. I don’t take any wooden nickels. I buy Dramamine. I practice the piano. Remember what I said about the music. I think we’re going to need it.

====

By midnight, the news cycle has lost track of the pirates. They are so yesterday. When I Google them, they are so virtual, so mythic. If I can read about pirates, I can beat them. Isn’t that right? Should old acquaintance be forgot? How soon we forget. Real time. What pirates? See. It’s easy. First, you see them. Then, you don’t. So it is. So it was. So it will be. Until the next ship sails near the pirates.

(Lights down briefly, then up again.)

XXI

My schadenfreude. Pirates are always near water. Most of it is loaded with salt.

XXII

What if I said the President is a pirate? I said, “What if?” Whatever.

XXIII

I dream my daughter is marrying a pirate. But he doesn’t wish to go near Somalia on his honeymoon. There are no pirates. I do not have a daughter. What is truth?

XXIV

I wasn’t going to mention department store conglomerates, but since you bring it up—

XXV

Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl Highlights Tape or a new sonic electric toothbrush? What do you give a pirate for Chanukah? They seem to have everything. My hygienist said the smart money is on the Janet Jackson tape, but not for the reason you think.

XXVI

If I met a pirate, I would tell him to have a nice day. Who am I kidding? There’s no “nice” in piracy.

XXVII

I wonder if there is a Pink Pirate Barbie? Or if I have mined that well once too often.

XXVIII

On February 26, 1993, where were you at lunch time? The funniest thing happened to me at work that day. I was thinking about going downstairs to get some lunch and do some errands—but I decided not to. Then the funny thing happened. There was a big explosion. And for a few moments, as the building appeared to shift back and forth under my feet on the twentieth floor, I wished that I had gone to the World Trade Center, as I had planned. From a disembodied P.A. voice, we learned that all was well and we could go about our business in the building. What to think. I was in New York, after all. New Yorkers, if anyone, know how to go about their business. I did what anyone else was doing. I looked out the window. It was a young boy’s paradise of emergency equipment. Ambulances, fire engines, police cars. Lights, beautiful pointillist lights at first, then so many the streets appeared to run red…and people were running…and the AP wire in the financial services office where I was working was spitting out terrible things. Something that caused terror. And a man I worked with gave me a ferry ticket, saying “Go to Hoboken!” I told him I couldn’t leave the window. He screamed at me: “Go now, or you might not get out!” I called my family and told them that I would be a little late getting home because the PATH trains were not running on time. I didn’t want to worry them. We were like ghosts in the Winter Garden, but that was nothing like the outside where snow seemed tobe falling, and that was OK since it was February, OK until we all got on the Ferry, and we realized what it was, what it might be. An accident on the tip of our tongues brought home that reality….Yech…I have tasted desecration…And in looking back at that moment, I am struck by how I never gave a thought to Pirates on the Hudson River at the time. If I could only get to Hoboken, straight across to insignificant New Jersey, I would be safe. As if there were no pirates in New Jersey. As if…

XXIX

OK. So we knew there were pirates in the world. Our mother read to us about them. What did we choose to do about them? We ignored them of course. The pirates don’t like that. Hey—they’re pirates. Our presidents must be very smart. They know enough to ask Steven Spielberg help them think about what pirates would actually do….One must have a mind of water to know what the pirates know.

XXX

September 11. Wait—I didn’t say what year. OK. So you know. And now we know that pirates do live in New Jersey. Is no place safe? Assume everything is orange level and go about your business. Head north for greener shopping. If the pirates prevent us from shopping, then they have won the battle for our hearts and minds. If we don’t shop, what will we give the pirates?

XXXI

I’m always thinking about food when the pirates strike. It’s probably no surprise I have trouble with my blood sugar. On September 11, 2001, I was actually choosing beautiful raspberries for dinner at the supermarket. The lettuce was good that year. So were the oranges. The pirates have changed all that. Even though we kept shopping. When the pirates flew into the buildings, everyone was surprised. Pirates are not supposed to grow wings. There were articles about this mutation in The National Enquirer Star Disgrace rag. But nobody paid attention. Perhaps the next time they will come to us with two heads and everyone will pay attention. What does it say in Revelations? Be quiet and prepare to confess. You only get a wafer. And you will be thinking about food.

XXXII

After the pirates demolished the World Trade Center, people said it was a new tactic on the part of the pirates. My children called me from all over the place because they were afraid I was working in New York that day. Old memories surfaced. Where was Mom? This was also a funny thing. Why? Because one of my children was living In New York on fifty-third street, going to law school to learn about the pirates, when he called to find out about me.

When he reached me, I told him that pirates had a new paradigm. Now, the mothers stay home. It’s the children they’re after. He did not think that was funny.

I’ll be home for Christmas. You can count on me. All over for a man I knew who worked in the tower. He would have celebrated Chanukah with his newborn son that year, had the pirates not chosen that moment. Giving rise to theories.

XXXIII

The pirates are not interested in theories. They believe in action.

XXXIV

How do I live with the terror so easily? A year after the first episode at the World Trade Center, I watched my father put his teeth in a glass.

“So what?” You ask. If fathers live long enough, nearly everyone will see that. I don’t think so. Get ready. Or cover your ears if you like. OK. He was pulling them out one at a time. “They are bothering me,” he cried. One by one, I watched him pull out five teeth.

OK. So you are wondering why I didn’t call the police. Why I didn’t call somebody else to witness the bloody stumps. How my family could sit in a room with an elephant called manic depression and let it run its course? Why didn’t I? Why didn’t my mother? I was afraid I would never see him again, and, well, he was the one who taught me to fear no evil, to stare down pirates if necessary.

I told you before. Pirates have no use for teeth.

XXXV

The thing about horror is that it begins to fade. I wish it wouldn’t. Without it, I may never be able to look into the eye of the pirate.

XXXVI

You know and I know. Some day our pirates will come.

XXXVII

It was snowing. I swear it was snowing.

(Blackout. End of play.)

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