Directed by Christian Haines

Featuring Andrew Lampl, Aeron Macintyre and Blake Wiers

Gus – a boilermaker
Aeron – an unemployed programmer and failed hipster. He texts on his smart phone throughout
the scene.
Andrew – a hipster in a hipster hat, tight jeans, a cashmere scarf and ironic facial hair.

***

Aeron and Gus sit on a bench overlooking Dolores Park.
Sunday afternoon. The park is crowded with hipsters and strewn with garbage.

Aeron texts on his iPhone. Gus sketches on a pad and
looks out at the park.

GUS
Nobody makes anything anymore.
AERON
I do! I write software.
GUS
Not since you got laid off.
AERON
They laid off everyone older than thirty-five! Now they got interns, working for pizza.
GUS
Nobody makes anything with their hands anymore. Real things. Things you can touch.
AERON
They make hipster condos. They make ironic facial hair implants. They make five dollar
toast for techies to munch on while they buy up San Francisco. Mine, mine, mine, me, me,
mine!
GUS
They got five dollar toast?
AERON
A place on Divis. Handmade Pullman loaves with small-batch pinot noir jelly. It’s
awesome.
GUS
You paid five dollars?
AERON
I’m broke. Cindy paid.
GUS
I thought they gave you stock?
AERON
They did. Options on a thousand shares. Fully vested. Worthless.
(PING! Aeron gets a text and responds. Gus points.)
GUS
What’s ironic about his facial hair?
AERON
No, no, that’s not ironic. That’s just a beard. To be ironic it has to be non-conformist, like a
Salvador Dalí moustache. Has to be old.
GUS
Mutton chops?
AERON
Exactly.
(PING! Aeron gets a text. He taps a response. Gus waits.)
GUS
Are we talking here or what?
AERON
I can hear you. Its Cindy.
GUS
This morning a crew ran over the “Historic Dogpatch” sign on my corner. I was gonna
save it but a bulldozer — crunch!
AERON
When you gotta move out?
GUS
End of the month.
AERON
To Alameda?
GUS
I’m not commuting across a bridge.
AERON
South San Francisco? They got that sign on the side of the mountain. “The Industrial City.”
GUS
Some guy offered me ten thousand square feet on Railroad Avenue. Thirty-foot ceiling,
gorgeous concrete floors and two, ten-ton cranes. Parking for seventeen cars and my truck.
Fifty cents a square foot, a deal.
AERON
You took it?
GUS
City won’t let me. Zoning. They want to tear it down and put up apartments and retail.
AERON
South San Francisco needs you! They got empty store fronts!
GUS
They don’t need me. They got Genentech. Genentech bought their zoning.
AERON
Fucking politicians.
(PING! A text. Aeron taps furiously.)
GUS
Jesus! You and your phone!
AERON
You’re drawing! (Gus puts down his pad.) Cindy’s pissed off.
GUS
Why?
AERON
I have no clue!
Aeron texts. Gus picks up his pad and draws.
GUS
I paid, twenty-five years, almost a million bucks in rent. You know what that million is?
AERON
What?
GUS
Rent. That’s all it is. Just rent. Means nothing to them. No loyalty.
AERON
Fuck rent! I’m gonna own my own place.
GUS
When?
AERON
When I write my own app! I could! I got ideas.
(Andrew enters, tapping a cell phone. He trips over Gus.)
AERON
Woah. Dude!
(Andrew recovers, scans Gus with his phone.)
ANDREW
Your name is “Gus.” You like to surf, long board. You collect vintage bicycles. Iron
Workers Local 377, member in good standing. No Facebook. No Instagram. No social
networks at all. Wow. Widowed, recently. Oops!
AERON
Fuck you and your phone, Google-head. He makes things with his hands! He doesn’t need
a social network.
ANDREW
Makes, like what?
GUS
Boilers.
ANDREW
Damn! I didn’t scan that. Maybe a bug. What’s a boiler?
GUS
You don’t need one, sonny. You have a cashmere scarf.
AERON
A bug in what?
ANDREW
My app. My team’s app. I invented the key data mining algorithms. It’s in Beta.
AERON
What’s it called?
ANDREW
Snowden.
AERON
So, big deal. You have an app that Googles.
(Andrew aims his phone at Aeron and scans.)
ANDREW
You’re a programmer. Your name is “Aeron.” Like the chair. The last four digits of your
social are 6437. Your girlfriend, “Cindy”, paid for a makeover, but you’re allergic to tatoo
ink and skinny jeans irritate your hemorrhoids. Your copay at Kaiser is fifty bucks. Doctor
Sharma prescribed hydrocortisone, which you bought at Walgreens along with a fiber
supplement.
AERON
That’s really illegal, hacking into my credit card receipts and my medical—
ANDREW
Cindy’s in bed with your friend Erik. At his house, on the corner of Douglass and 19th. A
nice Victorian. Built nineteen eleven. She’s dumping you. And your Visas overdue.
AERON
We’re just having a fight, she’s not–
ANDREW
iOS, Android, Objective-C, Cocoa Touch, Java — Your resume’s decent. We’re hiring. We
bought an old metal factory in the Dogpatch. We play polo with the cranes.
AERON
That is a cool app. An amazingly cool app–
ANDREW
Bump me.
(He offers to bump phones with Aeron. PING! Aeron
hesitates, staring at text.)
ANDREW
Now or never, dude.
AERON
She dumped me.
ANDREW
You snooze, you lose. (No response from Aeron). Ciao.
(Andrew exits.)
GUS
You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.
ANDREW
What’s that supposed to mean?
GUS
Adapt.
AERON
That guy’s start-up just stole your space!
(Gus shows Aeron his sketchpad.)
GUS
I’m gonna build retro bike frames. From titanium. Bikes that look like they were made in
the fifties but weigh like they were made tomorrow. By NASA. I can weld these in my
garage. By myself. Put some Google bucks in my own pocket. You go ahead.
AERON
Go ahead where?
GUS
Go run after him. You want her back? Change your life, get a job.
(A beat. Aeron jumps up, runs off after Andrew. Gus
sketches.)
End of play.

Advertisement