Directed by Christian Haines
Featuring Emily Ludlow & Thea Rodgers
JEFF and NEIL are in a bar. They are arguing and drinking. They are male characters who are being played by women actors. There is a BARTENDER who may or may not be represented by an actor.
JEFF
You’re a faithless, traitorous, treacherous, gutless… Cressida!
NEIL
You callin’ me a fuckin’ car, man?
JEFF
She’s a famously faithless woman! Which you would know if you ever read anything except for your… stomach tattoos.
NEIL
Well also I’m a dude so there’s also that problem with your analogy.
JEFF
There aren’t any famously unfaithful men in literature because the authors of antiquity had clearly never met you!
NEIL
Yeah, well, as far as anybody told me you were completely broken up with that girl before I banged her even slightly.
JEFF
My stuff was still at her house!
NEIL
But you completely said you were broken up, like… hours before I got involved with her in any way.
JEFF
That is what I said, but she also still had my beating heart in a jar.
NEIL
Whoa. She did?
JEFF
It’s a metaphor!
NEIL
You wonder why girls walk all over you, man?
JEFF
Yes I do!
NEIL
Because you are a pussy.
JEFF
And you are a malodorous Sasquatch! A calumnious, perfidious–
NEIL
You got, like, a trust fund for those five dollar words you’re using? Because otherwise you might want to save them for someone who gives a shit.
JEFF
It is a well known code among men of honor that you do not sleep with a man’s ex while she still has his toothbrush and road razor in a ziplock downstairs, waiting for him to come “pick up his shit,” and “get out of her life.”
NEIL
Yeah, well, you being a doormat in pants is fuckin’ not somethin’ I can change for you.
JEFF
Admit you were wrong.
NEIL
I fuckin’ had no way of knowing, and–
JEFF
Admit you were wrong, or you can find yourself a new roommate!
NEIL
The fuck is with you?
JEFF
I cannot sit here looking at whichever of your two faces is gaping at me without a proper apology, and I don’t see how I can share an apartment with somebody that I would not trust with my drink while I take a piss! Which I am going to go do now.
NEIL
Fuckin’ I’m not gonna drink your drink, man.
JEFF leaves the bar and goes to the bathroom.
NEIL
(To bartender:) Did you see that? It’s like drinking with my fuckin’ mom. He’s a good dude, he just… Gets ideas sometimes about me being an asshole. I mean, I did not realize that was his toothbrush and road razor in that bag. I thought that was just, like, you know, like she used a kind-of masculine razor on her… arms, or whatever.
JEFF
(To mirror:) I am a doormat in pants. Exhibit A: I don’t actually want to kick him out for sleeping with my ex-best-girl before the sheets were dry. Because, while he is a fuckwit, if I didn’t have him around to get me out of the house I would spend all day getting in arguments on the internet. But I have got to get him to admit that he was wrong or I will be eternally shamed in the eyes of my ancestors.
NEIL
(Looks at Neil’s drink:) What’s he even drinkin’? (Smells it.) No, see, I’m not even going have a drink of that, because that is not my beverage. Can I get another Jack and… Jack?
JEFF
He will never listen to me. But he does–always–pay attention to girls. So if I need to be a girl, tactically, for the moment– (JEFF adjusts his outfit so that he looks like a girl. He also switches to speaking in blank verse:)
That’s pretty good, if I say so myself.
A sober man would see that I’m a dude,
But Neil is two sheets in, and rigging three,
And perspicacity is not his thing.
JEFF returns to the bar, a couple seats down from Neil.
JEFF (continued)
(To Bartender:) Invite the brute who’s sulking over there
To send a vodka cranberry my way.
BARTENDER conveys the message to NEIL.
NEIL
(Goes to Jeff.) Why would I buy you a drink? I don’t even know you.
JEFF
Because you’re charming and I’m beautiful.
NEIL
(To Bartender:) Get the lady a vodka cranberry.
JEFF
What happened to your friend? Did he take off?
NEIL
He’s on some bullshit. I thought he was just taking a piss, but I don’t know, maybe he went home to throw all my shit out on the street.
JEFF
I’m sure you two lovebirds can make it work.
NEIL
No, he just fuckin’ acts like we’re married. We are completely roommates, because if I was gonna get with a dude it would sure as fuck be somebody lower-maintenance than that.
JEFF
So what’s the golden apple in the room?
NEIL
Some chick that I accidentally got with while his toothbrush and road razor were still in her get-your-shit-out-of-my-house pile. And, I did not know that, and I was a little… hammered, and lonely, and they were playing Born to Run at the club and that song makes me hella sentimental.
JEFF
Would that be seen as you betraying him?
Or am I reading the dynamic wrong?
NEIL
I mean, in a particularly strict way of looking at the situation, that does not take into account my general ignorance of… things… Yes. But, it’s not like it’s been the easiest couple of days for me either. ‘Cause if I’m gonna be real about it I was kind-of hoping the girl would text me back afterward, and she hella didn’t. So, like, maybe I could use a little support from my bro right now, but I don’t think he can even see me from that high, high horse he’s up on all the time.
JEFF
Apology may be the golden thread
To help him out of his own tortured head
And let you drown your sorrows and your fears
In Jäger-bombs, tequila shots and beers.
After a moment of warmly contemplating tequila shots and beers, it dawns on NEIL that this girl is actually Jeff in drag.
NEIL
Maybe I should… see a man about a dog. I’ll catch you… later.
NEIL goes to the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror.
NEIL (continued)
God damn it. I hate it when my friends dress up as chicks to get me to spill my guts and I totally don’t notice for, like, a whole page of dialogue. And now he knows that I feel bad and he’s all vindicated and shit, and that means he is completely not taking the correct lesson away from this which is… which is… Which is that when I am accidentally being a dick, then everybody should just assume I didn’t mean it and go on with their day. I gotta get one back on him or the power dynamic of our relationship will be permanently disrupted. (He disguises himself as a girl, then switches to blank verse:)
At least I’m super hot. Let’s do this thing.
NEIL returns to JEFF.
NEIL (continued)
Hey other female person at the bar…
What happened to that rugged handsome dude?
JEFF
I don’t think I could say–drunk in his car,
Reflecting on his choices, feeling rude.
NEIL
You really think? That dashing, strapping man?
He didn’t seem the type if you ask me.
JEFF
I guess you’re right; I wouldn’t say he can
Admit he’s wrong to any slight degree.
I know you’re not a girl; those aren’t real boobs.
NEIL
Well, I know you’re still Jeff, and I’m still Neil.
JEFF
I’d rather we could drink and talk as dudes.
NEIL
Well I was fuckin’ wrong, okay? For real.
JEFF
Does this mean we can drop back into prose?
NEIL
Whatever man, as long as we’re still bros.
Art and Music in Our Souls 