Slick Kicks

(Open on LUCIFER rummaging through his belongings, becoming increasingly frustrated)
 

LUCIFER

(bellowing)

Boy! Boy where are you?

(from offstage)

ANTICHRIST

Yes Father?

LUCIFER

Get in here boy! Don’t yell at me through the house!

(enters from left of stage)

ANTICHRIST

I wasn’t the one yelling through the house! What’s going on?

LUCIFER

Where are my sneakers?

ANTICHRIST

What?

LUCIFER

(darkly)

You heard me boy. I can’t find them and I need them to steal the souls of the living.

ANTICHRIST

Are they magic or something?

LUCIFER

No, they’re just my favorite pair of sneakers and I absolutely cannot be seen without theꟷ, of course they’re magic! They have my Mojo! I can’t be a charismatic evil being without my Mojo! Otherwise I’m just an old creep with a fondness for weirdos. Haven’t I told you about these?

ANTICHRIST

Oh come on dad. You’re not that old.

LUCIFER

Not that old… If you only knew the half of it.

(continues searching, grunting and growling all the while. ANTICHRIST watches with passive amusement)

ANTICHRIST

You sure you didn’t leave them in another room? This place is like a hall of mirrors, after all.

LUCIFER

No! I don’t forget things in wrong places. I’ve had the same razor since Caesar died and I can tell you where it is right now. If these shoes are in this house, they will be in this room. Everything is carefully put in place. It’s all part of a master plan, but apparently someone thinks it’s funny to steal my shoes! And right before a big election.

ANTICHRIST

Why is it like this? Aren’t we the only ones who live here? Why the complexity?

LUCIFER

I’ve explained this to you before and I doubt explaining it again will help your understanding. Now help me search! Don’t just stand there like a fool!

(ANTICHRIST begins an unenthusiastic search, slowly and dramatically scouring the room. LUCIFER watches the pantomime with increasing testiness)

LUCIFER

I don’t appreciate mockery. I need those shoes. You need me to get them too. If my power is gone, yours will diminish until you crumble to dust.

ANTICHRIST

What?

LUCIFER

Oh yes. Your power derives entirely from me. If my power is gone, then all my creations will slowly fall apart. You are my son, my seed, my greatest and most intimate creation. Your death will be the most tumultuous when my collapse comes.

ANTICHRIST

You’re kidding. Seriously?

LUCIFER

(quickly)

As serious as death itself boy. You see, I am part of a delicate, ancient ecosystem. Balance must be kept between good and evil, chaos and order, and I am half of the equation. You understand that if the wolves vanish, prey will swarm existence and choke it out. My power is the glue that holds together cosmos’, the sinew of the crossbow of time, the lock and the key to paradise, and without it, all crumbles to dust. Even the Almighty above cannot fathom the darkness that will consume reality should I lose my power and be unable to counter his increasing banality and kindness. Now do you understand boy? Do you understand why I need to find my sneakers?

ANTICHRIST

(shocked)

God damn.

(beat. LUCIFER’s search effort winds down and his son watches him slowing down)

You okay pops?

(LUCIFER sits down, puts his head in his hands)

LUCIFER

They were satin black with velvet finish 2k17 Kyrie Shooters.

ANTICHRIST

And they held the power to hold together reality in them.

LUCIFER

That’s why I’m so upset!

ANTICHRIST

I’m upset too! Why was that power in a pair of shoes? Why did you take them off? Why do you ever take them off? What is wrong with you? Can you call God?

LUCIFER

Nope. Not doing that.

ANTICHRIST

Someone? Whose got more authority than you and isn’t God that can help us?

LUCIFER

Pfft. No one.

ANTICHRIST

(ignoring the comment)

Or would even be willing to help us. Jesus is a generous guy! If we can find him I bet he’ll be willing to help out, right?

LUCIFER

Look. We’re not telling God. And we’re not calling Jesus. We haven’t been on speaking terms since the Harrowing, remember?

ANTICHRIST

Why should I remember?

LUCIFER

I’ve told you a hundred times.

ANTICHRIST

Then I definitely wouldn’t remember.

LUCIFER

Foolish boy. Always a foolish boy.

(beat. ANTICHRIST watches a blank faced LUCIFER sitting and he grows increasingly suspicious)

ANTICHRIST

Hey wait a second here…

LUCIFER

What did you say? I’m sort of in and out over here.

ANTICHRIST

This doesn’t make any sense.

LUCIFER

What doesn’t?

ANTICHRIST

This whole situation. You’re messing with me, aren’t you. You made this whole thing up to screw with me.

LUCIFER

(Indignant)

Absolutely not! I would not joke about my Shooters!

ANTICHRIST

(yelling)

Then how come this is happening? How hasn’t it happened before? You’re bullshitting me dad and I don’t like it!

LUCIFER

You watch your tongue! Don’t you think I don’t realize how screwed I am? Why are you so thick? Why have you always been so thick?

ANTICHRIST

I’m not thick, this is just still sort of insane to me! It wasn’t long ago that I even got here! No one ever thought I was this stupid when I was alive.

LUCIFER

Look… I’m sorry boy. I’m under a lot of stress… Come sit next to me my son

(pats spot next to him. ANTICHRIST sits)

LUCIFER

I know this is going to be a hard… transition for us andꟷ

(LUCIFER chokes up and begins softly weeping into his hands, he talks through sobs)

ꟷWe’re… Going…

ANTICHRIST

It’s okay dad, it’s okay.

(Puts his arm around his father, allowing him to cry for a few seconds.)

LUCIFER

Maybe I should tell God. That way we can prepare something, maybe.

ANTICHRIST

You know what? I don’t think we need to tell God.

LUCIFER

You don’t? Why not?

ANTICHRIST

Remember when Ba’al bet you that you couldn’t get that Chapman guy to kill his favorite musician and you got him to do it just by getting a book or two into the dude’s hands?

LUCIFER

(sniffling)

I do remember that.

ANTICHRIST

Do you really think you needed a pair of shoes to pull that one off?

LUCIFER

Aw, but that was nothing.

ANTICHRIST

Are you kidding? It’s badass! Classic you. Subtle, lethal, your experience and creativity really shows.

LUCIFER

Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.

ANTICHRIST

Is it working?

LUCIFER

A little, keep going.

ANTICHRIST

You don’t need a silly pair of sneakers to kick ass and take souls!

LUCIFER

Hey now, slow down. I need those shoes.

ANTICHRIST

No! Now think about it! Do you really need those shoes? You’re the damned Devil!

LUCIFER

(hesitant)

Even devils have their limits…

ANTICHRIST

Not this one!

LUCIFER

Oh hush son

ANTICHRIST

No! Think of it this way, God is all about faith right? And He made You, so your power is derived from his, right? So all you have to do is have faith, just like God!

LUCIFER

Faith?

ANTICHRIST

Yes!

LUCIFER

Faith in what?

ANTICHRIST

Hah! Now who’s thick? Yourself!

LUCIFER

Faith in myself? Faith in myself.

ANTICHRIST

If you just believe in yourself, you can do anything. You are the Morning Star. I don’t know why you wouldn’t believe in yourself. I believe in you.

LUCIFER

You do?

ANTICHRIST

I believe. I believe in the Devil.

(LUCIFER sniffles and wipes his eyes)

LUCIFER

Thank you so much.

ANTICHRIST

Now the more important thing is if you believe.

LUCIFER

You know what? I do. I do believe. I don’t need those pesky shoes! They’re way too expensive to wear every day anyway!

ANTICHRIST

That’s the spirit! Now we have to see if it worked!

LUCIFER

If what worked?

ANTICHRIST

The faith! You have to do something! Something you could only do in the shoes before!

LUCIFER

Oh! Oh I know! Here, I’ll do one of my favorite tricks. And it’ll be easy to tell if it works

(LUCIFER dramatically raises his hand as if to snap his fingers, brief drum roll, loud snap, the lighting on stage changes to a notably red hue. LUCIFER jumps up from his seated position)

LUCIFER

Ah hah! My boy! You were right! I never needed those shoes! Oh the wasted eons! I must go now! I must unleash this newfound confidence upon time!

(LUCIFER laughs confidently, snaps his fingers again, changing the light to green, laughs again, and runs off stage left)

ANTICHRIST

It’s cute to see the old so full of energy.

(ANTICHRIST stands up, looks around the trashed room and stares hard at something behind where he was sitting. He kneels and picks up a pair of black shoes. Looks at audience, cut to black.)

END OF PLAY

Island

Tom steps out of the diner, weary of doorways and people walking through them. Margot is long gone, as Tom stayed in the diner for a time after she had left, and ordered a mug a black coffee from a skinny, nervous waitress whose apron was a little too big for her. He’s not sure how long he had hung around, but every minute that he stayed, slumped in that booth, the little waitress grew more and more anxious.

He remembers the way she had stumbled about her words when asking if he would, “Li-like anything else with that? That coffee?” Tom looked at her face. She was younger than him, and had big sweet brown eyes, dark as the coffee she served him, but certainly not as bitter. He felt as though he would normally smile at her, but he didn’t this time, as a defiant show of heartbroken solitude, displayed for the benefit of absolutely no one.

“Enough moping.” Tom grumbles to himself as he fumbles with a cigarette and shaky, over-caffeinated hands outside of the diner, eventually giving up. He wanders across the street and down a block. He meanders into a heavily fortified corner shop and purchases a small bottle of bottom-shelf bourbon for a few dollars. Then he drinks the entire thing, standing right outside of the store. As soon as his arm swung down and the bottle was empty, Tom began walking. He walked around the block three or perhaps four times, thinking that the circulating of his blood will push the bourbon through his body faster. He finishes his walking when the winter cold no longer bites the tip of his nose.

Tom feels like a child again. Lost, disoriented, and lonely. He remembers the fair as a child. Coney Island, at first with his reluctant father, then by himself.  “Yes,” he says aloud, to no one in particular. Tom drops the crunchy plastic bottle at his feet and makes his way to the subway. Before he even realizes it, he’s on a train going south. He again attempts to light a cigarette until a mousey old woman yells at him, forbidding him from smoking on the train, “Around all these good, healthy people!” Tom sheepishly apologizes, stuffing the cigarette back into the box, his lips feeling looser than usual. The woman is quick to forgive, citing Tom’s, “Addiction.”

And so the train chugs along, clinking against tracks, stopping every twenty minutes or so to pick up more blurry-faced people, on their way to run an errand, or go to work. Tom gazes out of the window, watching, knowing that he is slowly approaching the island. The winter sea begins to clash with the warmer city air in a fiercely windy display, whistling hauntingly against the side of the train car. Tom remembers making this trip as a teenager. It would be fall and school would be quickly approaching. The whine of the wind would mean he was crossing the threshold and that soon, he would be upon the island, and the island would be upon him.

As he approaches his destination, Tom can’t help but wonder if he had died in front of that liquor store. If he drank some kind of bitter, brown poison and collapsed where he stood. A thick fog surrounded the train, and it no longer made stops to pick up stragglers and errand runners. The milk-white strings of mist quickly became a great wall, filling the atmosphere with its damp, hushing presence. The crowd thinned on the train until Tom was the last left. His fear of death grew as he sat in silence, riding for what seemed like hours into a thick and blinding mist.

But, Tom was alive, as eventually the train reached its final stop. Coney Island. He stepped off of the train into the fog, unsure of whether he was glad to have been wrong or not. Tom then walked off of the platform and towards the island proper. When he arrived he found something that didn’t surprise him. The park was closed. It was January after all, and there was no one willing to man the park at this time of year. So Tom climbed over and between the ropes draped over the entrance of the park and made his way in, boots crunching through old snow, now as brittle and frigid as ice. He spends some time wandering the pass ways and admiring the dismantled rides. He throws uneven chunks of ice at invisible balloons in booths, frosted over and left to shelter the birds in these colder months. He loses track of time for a moment looking at the Ferris wheel, typically bustling with echoed laughs and carnival lights, now stagnant and shrouded in mist.  

Completely without aim, Tom makes his way to the beach-side, looking over at the indefinite vastness of the stretching sea. Tom feels something, but he’s not sure quite what. It’s not actual heartbreak. Heartbreak is far too irrational for this feeling. He remembers being on this island as a child, and again with a girl, the daughter of French immigrants. Tom takes his boots off, then his socks, stepping onto the cold sand of the beach. He wriggles his toes, digging into the sand, feeling each grain scrape against the soft skin that hides between each toe. A shiver sends itself down his spine, and as it subsides, Tom begins walking down the beach, approaching the sea.

Each step takes Thomas deeper and deeper into the fog, until it becomes a blanket tossed over his head. He can still see the sea ahead, a thick slab of grey water peeking out from underneath the heavy-quilted sky. The fog bites frigidly at his face. His feet too, grow clumsy and numb as he meanders forward. He asks himself aloud, “Maybe I just feel new?” and nods absently. The cinematographic value of the situation is not lost on him as he stands alone on this frozen beach, feet bare and nose red and dripping. He smiles a small, meek smile, and with sensations now returning to him, realizes that he is shaking with cold. Knowing it will only be getting colder, Tom turns around and gingerly waddles his way back to the park to collect his boots.

Stupid

“Why did you ask me to meet here, of all places?” Tom asked, sitting down in the red-lined booth across from Margot. She gave him no answer, but a blank look. “Ah, well.” Tom continues, “My French lady’s favorite French diner. Makes enough sense.” Margot’s expression turned from blank to a face one makes when eating chocolate that’s too bitter. Tom settles in, the cheap plastic upholstery of the booth groans fruitlessly against his weight. “So sweetheart, you wanted to talk, let’s talk.”

Margot shifted herself. She didn’t want to take her coat off when she came in, fearing that would indicate a desire to stay for longer than she wanted, so instead she allowed her body to roast a little. “I think you know why we’re here, Thomas.” Tom gave her a small sheepish smile, something he knew was guaranteed to warm her heart. Little did he know, she was already sweating, and more warmth was not something she hungered for. “It’s because you kicked me out a couple days ago.”

“Clever man.” Margot said, refusing to take her eyes off of his. “Look. I wanted to say I was sorry. I know I promised not to get… Like that again. But it was only once and I--” “I’m not interested Tom. You made me a promise. You broke it. And besides, it’s not just that. That I could have forgiven.”

“Why are you being so vague Marg? I don’t get it.”

“Oh please.” Margot crosses her arms and keeps her anger caged behind a grimace. Tom eyes shift unpredictably, between pitiful and the kind of hostile seen in men who have been cornered. She decided to continue, “You are a harsh, cruel man.” Tom seems to ignore the comment, injecting his own, “Come on! At least give me a hint at what’s wrong. Please? Just one hint.” He lets that diminutive toothy smile peek out from under his lips, his eyes in their pitiful state. “Fuck, Thomas. Don’t push me.”

His eyes changed back, cruel and little, “Cryptic hints as always Marg. I ask you to communicate with me and you swear at me. Is that the way a relationship works? I really don't think it is.”

Margot’s eyebrows crease at the comment, “What do you know about how relationships work Thomas? You know what the problem is.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” His voice grew in timbre and force. Margot bared her teeth, as Tom continued, “What do you know about what it is that I know and don’t know? How can you presume to be privy to what I do and don’t know?”

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

“I’m not avoiding shit. If I was, I wouldn’t have come here. To get talked down to.”

“Christ Thomas!  Everything is just an unjustified personal assault to you, isn’t it? I want you to say it. I want you to tell me what’s wrong, what has been wrong, what I have more than certainly communicated to you as wrong.”

“I’m not stupid Margot, if I could tell what was wrong by that pouty little face you’re giving me all the time, I’d gladly come up front and say it, but unfortunately that expression doesn’t communicate a whole fucking lot.”

Margot clenched her jaw and shot a glance to her right, taking respite from looking at Tom. Her stare pierces a young, tired waitress, who feels a sense of terror at the sight of the angry woman, and chooses not to approach the table quite yet.

Tom pushed, “Come on. Nothing to say? What’s my problem Margot? What do you think is so wrong with me?” He leaned forward, imposing his shadow onto hers. Margot grows suddenly calm and finally lets her gaze drift downwards, saying, “What’s wrong with you.”

“Is that supposed to be a question?”

“No.”

“Then what sweetness? You’re frustrating me.” His eyes were suddenly pitiful again, though he didn’t dare to smile.

“You fight to win, Tom.”

“Of course I do. So do you. So does everyone! That’s why it’s called fighting. There’s a winner at the end.”

“And a loser.”

“Well, I suppose so. Though I don’t think that matters as much.” Tom leans back again, resting against the back of the cheap diner booth chair. “I don’t fight to win. I fight because I want you to see that you hurt me.”

“How do you not fight to win? That’s bullshit, you’re just as vicious as you think I am. And you’re talking like all I do is hurt you. You hurt me too.”

“I know that Tom, but you ignored something.”
 
“What?”

“I’ll repeat it. I fight because I want you to see that you hurt me.”

“Yeah I heard you.”

Margot let her look drift back up to Tom, “But you didn’t.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“I know. Oddly enough that’s why I think I can forgive you.”

“You forgive me?” Tom’s mouth slowly grew into a smile, thinking he was winning.

“Yes, I suppose I do. You can’t help it. It’s just the way you are and I can’t do anything to change it.” Margot sighs, resigned. “Bye Tom.”

As she gets up to leave, Tom’s look goes from triumphant to childishly confused, “Wait Marg, what? Where are you going? What do you mean?”

“I’m going.”

“Are we not having lunch together?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“But I thought… What?”

“You’re not stupid Tom. Figure it out. Call me when you do, if you want. Or don’t. Doesn’t matter. Goodbye.”

With that, Margot left the diner just as efficiently as she planned, as she did not take off her coat when she sat down at that red booth.