(The speaker enters, whistling “One Fine Day” by the Chiffons, they look disheveled and are wearing nothing but a bathrobe and slippers. They hold a lit cigarette in one hand and play with the robe’s belt in the other. They sit down on a chair center stage. After every paragraph break, they take a hearty drag of their cigarette. NOTE: Although the character is named “Ma’am,” the person playing Ma’am does not have to be a woman.)
MA’AM: Yes, that’s me. Ma’am, the one and only, and the only of many, many Ma’ams. I don’t know when they started calling me Ma’am. For all I know, they’ve always called me that, from the day I was born and they’re gonna ‘til the day I die. They call me it so much I damn near forgot my actual name. And you know what? Maybe I should. It’d make it a helluva lot easier for everybody. You call me Ma’am, I call me Ma’am, everybody calls me Ma’am and there ain’t nothin’ to be confused about. World peace.
I apologize for my appearance, if I’da known it was gonna be a formal engagement, I wouldn’t have come straight from my informal engagement just before this. I mean, this was an interview for the newspaper, right? You’re not puttin’ me on TV, are ya? Next time, if you’re gonna decide to put people on the TV, you’ll have to go through all the forms and everything and mail ‘em out, so good luck to you with that. No, I’m happy to just be talking into a microphone. What do you even do with these things anyway–once you’re done? Do you tape over them or is it some kinda archival situation? Put ‘em in a vault. No, I don’t care, it’s just somethin’ I’m curious about.
So you’re asking me the questions today, huh? Funny, I remember being the ingenue, asking all the questions. What’s that in your pocket? Why are you looking at me like that? The glory days… (Ma’am laughs) Well, whatever the case, take as much time as you need to get everything together. I can be here all day if you need me to, not like there’s anything more exciting going on in my life. (Singing, mindlessly) “One fine day, you’re gonna mmm-mmm-hmm…” What is that next lyric? I used to know that song by heart. Ah well, whatever. Is it alright if I restate what you ask to make sure I understand what exactly you want to know? I’ve always been one to overshare, I don’t want to risk poisoning your pretty little ears with my Cinemax After Dark stories. If that’s not too bad, I’ll stick with that.
My childhood? Are you asking about my father? No need. Next question. Well, nothing’s wrong with him, we just never saw eye to eye. I think he didn’t get why I was so unrestrainable when I didn’t get why he was so restrained. The man would explode at the mere sight of another man in any state of undress. “Dad, can we go to the beach?” “No, the guys show too much skin there,” like were we Amish? I guess I missed the memo. But I was always really comfortable with that sort of thing, it never bothered me. I never sought it out, but I didn’t reject it out the gate. Regardless, I was still modest, and I doubt he ever knew that. I doubt knowing that would have made much of a difference to him. It wasn’t until years later I realized that he wasn’t afraid of men’s bodies as much as he was his own attraction to them. It’s too bad he never figured that out, because even Ma would have benefitted from it. None of us were unhappy, we just moved along the floor like clockwork machinery. Dad was so afraid of himself that he’d calculate everything he did to avoid thinking as much as possible, and everybody sort of followed suit. Like that “Doll on a Music Box” thing from the Dick van Dyke movie about the kids and the flying car. But I didn’t like being a doll, I wanted to be free from that image. So I ran away from it and hid in the homes of my guy friends. And we never did anything, I wasn’t interested in that until I was in my 20’s, so I’d just hang out with them until they got the inevitable phone call from my parents and I was dragged off kicking and screaming and they brought me back to my own personal Juvenile Hall. But my childhood was nothing special, ultimately. I was like anybody else, I’d just march to the beat of my own drum until they destroyed it and gave me a new one.
Oh… you want to know about Jack? Well, I’ll tell you about Jack. He lived up to his name… Jack. (Ma’am laughs again) He was the best thing that ever happened to me and yet he tore through me like a bullet. Oh, it was perfect. He stole my heart away the moment I met him. Mmm, he and I were perfect together. (Beat) I don’t know what else to say about him, really. I mean, he and I had a thing and it ended and that was that. I could absolutely go on, but you’d need a subscription and a valid form of identification. Well, if you insist, we fucked like two jackrabbits in the spring and then never spoke again. It’s funny how you picture yourself living with your soulmate forever and ever for the rest of time, in a fairy tale happily ever after, and then the reality is just so much more underwhelming. Well, never spoke again may be extreme. It was still a lot less, but was that a bad thing? Really? For him, who knows? I know for me it stung like hell for a while. Things were unresolved for me. I found new partners, tried to relive that fun and flirty life but I’d always see his face on everyone I met. “Is this the new Jack” I’d ask myself. Every person I met, that’s not an understatement. I had a desperate mind for a long time, and only recently did I overcome it. No, he and I are on good terms. We haven’t spoken in a while, probably a few weeks, but all is well. No hard feelings any which way.
But I mean, it was a serious concern for me that whole time. Every day I’d wake up, check my phone and hope I’d gotten a call from him. Pager? Dry. Answering machine? Zilch, and even the telemarketers would decide not to call just so they could get in on tormenting me. It was hell, I was waiting for Godot, but even he had given me a call asking if I could lend him a pair of boots and a rope to hang himself with. It was hell! I’d go about my day but I was constantly thinking about it. Wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop, until eventually it did, and that’s the exact moment I get home from work and see the flashing light on the machine. I don’t remember every word he said, but I remember the jist: he said my real name so long and slow I shivered and he started waxing lyrical about how much he missed me, and then he got into details. But all the while I could hear that song in the background… One fine day, you’ll look at me… and I knew that the whole thing was only gonna get more complicated. And that’s okay, I mean, it wasn’t gonna be easy, I knew that. He’d told me from the get go that his attention was split more than one way, and that I wasn’t gonna be the priority, but it was still so confusing. And so I stopped caring. I carried on, so did he, we occasionally rubbed together, sparked, and then stepped back for a bit, but it was never a huge thing. Just the way it should have been. And that’s why he was the best thing that ever happened to me, because he got me, and that’s why he was the worst thing that ever happened to me, because he got me. Wrapped around his finger. But all that’s probably not meaningful to your interview. You can strike it all from the record if you want, if that’s something you young journalists even do anymore, I know you all want sensation and take whatever you can get and blow it up so it ends up reaching everybody but the Luddites.
How am I now? Question for the ages. I’d say I’m good. I haven’t quite figured out any of the details with Jack, but I’m still alive. And I guess that’s the best thing that you can be, right? Alive? No amount of confusion can kill you, less you get confused on the road or something. But that’s why I walk everywhere. So I can look the devil right in the eyes and laugh at him. Maybe one fine day I’ll trip on the curb, slamming my head against the pavement and get a concussion so bad it kills me, but until that happens, I’m just gonna keep walking down the road, smiling and waving at the cars in the street, and I’ll be singing as loud as I can muster… “One fine day, you’re gonna want me for your girl!” That’s what it was! “You’re gonna want me for your girl.” But what does that even mean? Me for his girl? Why does his girl get me? I figure he’d want me more than his girl would. Eh, it’s catchy. I could get used to it. Our song doesn’t have to be perfect.
You want to know about my plans? For what? Today? I planned to go right home after the night I’ve had but I realized I had to go talk about my life before I did. I’m not knocking that, I’m glad to talk. See, people don’t listen to me that often. They hear my rules and then that’s that, their ears shut off completely. It’s too bad.
See, when you get older, you start to realize that nothing in life makes sense. Everything’s chaos, it’s just all about how you approach it. Nobody gets it, nobody likes it, it’s just reality. So I ended up spending my nights with ingrown hairs and alcohol hoping to get a call from my Romeo. Sitting up on the balcony waiting for him to swing by and call out to me to let down my hair or something while I’m working my way through a new pack. It’s a terrible habit, I know, but there’s something about it that I can’t kick. I know it’s not the nicotine, I guarantee you 99% it’s psychological. Something about comfort. It’s a constant. The man you think doesn’t even bat for your team suddenly says he’s interested in a roll in the hay, the table’s flipped, glasses and hors d’oeuvres all over the apartment, so you go back to sticking poison in your mouth because at least the feeling stays the same. Jack’s calling you now, you answer, he humps you and then you grab a Camel. It’s clockwork. Isn’t it wonderful how things come full circle.
I guess I always have been a doll on a music box. One that’s wound by a key. I turn around and around and around but I still haven’t figured out where I started. I figured by now I’d see where I’m going but instead I see Dick van Dyke having the time of his fucking life jumping and twirling around in front of me like a scarecrow in a goddamn hurricane. “Truly Scrumptious” my ass.
But I’m good. I insist, kid. Someday, you’ll probably be right where I am, wondering if Jack’s gonna call or if you’d be here if Dad could accept himself, but the truth is it just doesn’t matter. None of it. The whole shabang is meaningless. Void. I mean, you’re here asking me questions as though my story is any more interesting than anyone else’s. You could be interviewing the president. The pope? Who is it now, Francis? Filmmakers, artists, musicians, why don’t you talk to the people who make your newspaper? What do they have to say? What scandals do they want to talk about? What don’t they want to talk about? Figure it out! Discover something. Don’t just sit here worrying about whether I’m interesting enough or not to make the front page. It does. Not. Matter. Live your life, kid. And once you do, talk to me again, and tell me what you think about walking next to the high road instead of driving on it. I tell ya, it’s a completely different feeling. And honey, it’s a good one.
“One fine day… mm-mm-mm-mm…”