DRIVE-IN DATE

The Play Version

CHARACTERS: Merle and Dave and a Woman’s Right Leg, complete with Belled Ankle Bracelet

PLACE: A Drive-in Theater somewhere in Texas

TIME: Now

SCENE ONE

Lights go up on two men in the front seat of a car. A rear view mirror hangs down and from it dangles a little, stuffed, silver armadillo. Our duo is dressed in Western clothes, have on cowboy hats. They’re in their forties, average-looking. Dave is on the driver’s side. Merle on the passenger’s. There’s a speaker in the driver’s window and a wire goes from the speaker to a metal pole beside the car. On the seat between them are two tubs of popcorn, couple boxes of chocolate almonds, and two tall wax paper cups of coke. It’s night, of course, but it’s fairly bright because the movie hasn’t started yet and the lot lights are on.

DAVE: I like to be close so it all looks bigger than life. You don’t mind, do you?

MERLE: (PAUSE) You ask me that every time. You don’t never ask me that when we’re driving in, you ask when we’re parked.

DAVE: Don’t like it, we can move.

MERLE: (SLIGHTLY EXASPERATED) I like it. I’m just saying, you don’t really care if I like it. You just ask. When you ask me what I like, you could mean it.

DAVE: You’re a testy motherfucker tonight. I thought coming to see a monster picture would cheer you up.

MERLE: You’re the one likes ‘em, and that’s why you come. It wasn’t for me, so don’t talk like it was. I don’t believe in monsters, so I can’t enjoy what I’m seeing. I like something that’s real. Cop movie. Things like that.

DAVE: I tell you, Merle, there’s just no satisfying you, man. You’ll feel better when they cut the lights and the movie starts. We can get our date then.

MERLE: I don’t know that makes me feel better.

DAVE: You done quit liking pussy?

MERLE: Watch your mouth. I didn’t say that. You know I like pussy. I like pussy fine.

DAVE: Whoa. Aren’t we fussy? Way you talk, you’re trying to convince me. Maybe it’s buttholes you like.

MERLE: Goddammit, don’t start on the buttholes.

(DAVE LAUGHS, PLUCKS A PACK OF CIGARETTES FROM HIS POCKET, SHAKES ONE OUT AND LIPS IT.)

DAVE: I know you did that one ole gal in the butt that night. (REACHES UP, TAPS THE REARVIEW MIRROR.) I seen you in the mirror here.

MERLE: You didn’t see nothing.

DAVE: (GRINNING AROUND HIS CIGARE’ITE) I seen you get in her butthole. I seen that much.

MERLE: What the hell you doing watching? It ain’t good enough for you by yourself, so you got to watch someone else get theirs?

(DAVE SNICKERS, POPS HIS LIGHTER, AND FIRES UP HIS SMOKE.)

DAVE: (SMIRKY) I don’t mind watching.

MERLE: Yeah, well, I bet you don’t. You’re like one of those fucking perverts.

(DAVE ISNT BOTHERED BY THIS AT ALL. IN FACT, HE’S BECOME A BIT DISTRACTED.

THE LOT LIGHTS GO OUT. A SILVERISH GLOW FILLS THE CAR, FLICKERS OVER OUR PAIR. TINNY MUSIC FROM THE SPEAKER. A VOICE: "HOWDY PARTNERS, TRUCK ON DOWN TO THE SNACKBAR.")

DAVE: (CUTTING THE SOUND OFF THE SPEAKER) Heard all that shit I want. . . I’ll turn it up when the movie starts. Won’t be long now. (SLAPS AT HIS NECK.) Goddamn skeeters. Man, that cocksucker was big enough to straddle a turkey flat-footed.

MERLE: Maybe we could just forget it tonight.

DAVE: Listen, you don’t like this first feature, the other’n’s some kind of mystery. It might be like a cop show.

MERLE: I don’t mean the movies.

DAVE: (SLIGHT CONCERN) You saying you ain’t up to the girl?

MERLE: I’m saying I’m in a funny mood.

(DAVE THUMPS HIS CIGARETTE OUT THE WINDOW)

DAVE: (TRULY CONCERNED) Merle, this is kind of a touchy subject, but we’re friends, so I’m gonna ask it. You been having trouble getting a bone to keep?

MERLE: (ALMOST ANGRY) What!

DAVE: It happens. I had it happen to me. (HOLDS UP A FINGER) Once.

MERLE: I’m not having trouble with my dick, okay?

DAVE: You are, it’s no disgrace. It’ll happen to a man from time to time.

MERLE: (ANGRY) My tool is all right. It works. No problem. It’s just a mood or something. Feel like I’m going through one of them mid-life crisis or some kind of thing.

DAVE: (REASSURING) Mood hell. Let me tell you, when she’s stretched out on that back seat, you’ll be all right, crisis or no crisis. What you need, Merle, is to lighten up. Lay a little pipe. You don’t ever lighten up. Don’t we deserve some fun after working like niggers all day?

MERLE: You got to use that nigger stuff? It makes you sound ignorant.... Will, he’s colored and I like him. A man like that don’t deserve to be called nigger.

DAVE: He’s all right at the plant, but you go by his house and ask for a loan.

MERLE: I don’t want to borrow nothing from him. I’m just saying people ought to get their due, no matter what color they are. Nigger is an ugly word.

DAVE: Hell, you like niggers so much, next date we set up, we’ll make it a nigger. Shit, I’d fuck a nigger. All pink on the inside, ain’t it?

MERLE: You’re a bigot is what you are.

DAVE: That means I don’t want to buddy up with no coons, then you’re right.... But let’s drop the niggers. We ain’t never gonna see eye to eye on that one.... Thing is, Merle, you do have to learn to lighten up. You don’t you’ll die. That’s what’s wrong with you. You’re tense. Listen here: I got an uncle, and he couldn’t never lighten up. Gave him a spastic colon, all that tension. He swelled up until he couldn’t wear his pants. Sumbitch had to get some of them stretch pants, one of them running suits, just so he could have on clothes. He eventually got so bad they had to go in and operate. You can bet he wishes now he didn’t do all that worrying. He didn’t get a better life on account of that worrying. He didn’t get a better life on account of that worry, now did he? Still lives over in that little shit-hole apartment where he’s been living, on account of he got so sick from worry he couldn’t work. They’re about to throw him out of there, and him a grown man and sixty years old. Lost his job, his wife, and now he’s doing little odd shit here and there to make ends meet. Going down to catch the day truck with the winos and the niggers – pardon me –the Afro-Americans.... Before he got to worry over nothing, he had him some serious savings and was about ready to put some money down on a couple of acres and a good double wide, one of them finer mobile homes.

MERLE: Shit. I was planning on buying me a double-wide, that’d make me worry Them old trailers ain’t worth a shit. Comes a tornado, or just a good wind, and you can find those fuckers at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico next to the regular trailers. Tornado will take a double-wide easy as any of the others.

DAVE: You go from one thing to another. I know what a tornado can do. It can take a house too. Your house. I’m not talking about mobile homes here, Merle. I’m talking about living. It’s a thing you better amend to. You’re goddamn forty years old. Your life’s half over... . I know that’s cold to say, but there you have it. It’s out of my mouth. I’m forty this next birthday, so I’m not just putting the doom on you. It’s a thing a man’s got to face. Before I die, I’d like to think I did something with my life. Hear what I’m saying, Merle?

MERLE: Hard not to, being in the same car with you.

DAVE: (CONCILIATORY TONE) Hey, I’m getting kind of horny thinking about hen You see the legs on that bitch?

MERLE: Course I seen ‘em.... You don’t know from legs. A woman’s got legs is all you care, and you might not care about that. Couple of stumps would be all the same to you.

DAVE: No, I don’t care for any stumps. Got to be feet on one end, pussy on the other. That’s legs enough. But this one, she’s got some good ones. Hell, you’re bound to’ve noticed how good they were.

MERLE: I noticed. You saying I’m queer or something? I noticed. I noticed she’s got an ankle bracelet on the right leg and she wears about a size ten shoe. Biggest goddamn feet I’ve ever seen on a woman. I never did care for a woman with big feet. You got a good looking woman all over and you get down to them feet and they look like something goes on either side of a sea plane.... Well, it ruins things.

DAVE: She ain’t ruined. Way she looks, big feet or not, she ain’t ruined. Besides, you don’t fuck the feet. Well, maybe you do. Right after the butthole.

MERLE: You gonna push one time too much, Dave. One time too much.

DAVE: (GRINNING) Come on, I’m jacking with you. Take it easy. Look here, you haul your ashes first. That’ll take some edge off.

MERLE: (SLOW TO ANSWER, BUT THE IDEA IS BEGINNING TO APPEAL TO HIM.) Well...

DAVE: (MAGNANIMOUS) Naw, go on. It’s dark enough. Nobody can see.

MERLE: All right... But one thing...

DAVE: What?

MERLE: Don’t do me no more butthole talk, okay? One friend to another, no more.

DAVE: Bothers you that bad, okay. Deal.

(MERLE TURNS AND LEANS OVER THE BACKSEAT AND SNATCHES UP A BLANKET AND PULLS IT INTO THE FRONT SEAT. DAVE IS LOOKING INTO THE BACKSEAT, GRINNING. MERLE CLIMBS INTO THE BACKSEAT. HE’S ON HIS KNEES. HIS HANDS ARE OUT OF SIGHT, BUT IT’S OBVIOUS HE’S STRUGGLING SLIGHTLY AFTER A MOMENT, HE COMES UP WITH A WOMAN’S SHORT DRESS AND TOSSES IT INTO THE FRONT SEAT. THIS IS FOLLOWED BY BIKINI PANTIES.)

(DAVE PICKS UP THE PANTIES, PUTS THEM OVER HIS NOSE, SNIFFS, DRAPES THEM ON THE GEAR SHIFT.)

(MERLE LIFTS A WOMAN’S LIMP, CHALK-WHITE LEG INTO VIEW AND HOOKS THE ANKLE ON THE SEAT. AROUND THE ANKLE IS A LITTLE BRACELET WITH TWO MINIATURE GOLD BELLS. THEY TINKLE SLIGHTLY AS THE FOOT FALLS INTO PLACE.)

MERLE: Look at that foot. Foot like that ought to have a paper bag over it.

DAVE: Like I said, it ain’t the feet I fuck.

(MERLE UNFASTENS HIS BELT AND PANTS, STARTS TUGGING THEM DOWN. HE LOWERS HIMSELF INTO POSITION.)

MERLE: (OUT OF SIGHT) She’s already starting to stink.

DAVE: (LOOKING BACK INTO THE BACKSEAT) You can’t get pleased, can you? She ain’t stinking. She ain’t been dead long enough to stink, and you know it. Quit being so goddamn contrary.

(DAVE SHAKES HIS HEAD, LIGHTS UP A CIGARETTE AND BLOWS SMOKE OUT THE WINDOW. HE ROAMS AN EYE TO THE REAR VIEW MIRROR, REACHES UP CASUALLY AND ADJUSTS IT. HE GRINS, PUFFS AT HIS CIGAREYJ’E.)

MERLE: (STILL OUT OF SIGHT) And don’t be looking back here at me neither!

(DAVE’S GRIN DEPARTS. HE SWITCHES UP THE SPEAKER. THE MOVIE IS STARTING. WE HEAR EERIE HORROR MOVIE MUSIC. HE TURNS HIS ATTENTION FORWARD TO WATCH THE "SCREEN." HE CASUALLY PLACES HIS CIGARETTE BETWEEN THE DEAD WOMAN’S TOES. HE REACHES OVER AND TAKES A BUCKET OF POPCORN AND PUTS IT IN HIS LAP AND STARTS TO DIG IN.)

(CAR SHAKES. THE WOMAN’S FOOT VIBRATES ON THE BACK OF THE SEAT.)

(AS THE LIGHTS FADE, WE CAN HEAR THE LITTLE GOLDEN BELLS ON HER ANKLE BRACELET STARTING TO RING. AND IN THE DARKNESS THEY RING, AND RING... AND GRADUALLY FADE AWAY)

 

SCENE TWO

(MERLE IS BACK IN THE FRONT SEAT. DAVE IS STILL BEHIND THE STEERING WHEEL. THE WOMAN’S FOOT REMAINS VISIBLE. THE TOES HAVE THREE CIGARETTE BUTTS BETWEEN THEM AND THEY ARE BLACKENED FROM HAVING BEEN BURNED. IF THIS IS VISIBLE TO ONLY A SMALL PORTION OF THE AUDIENCE, GOOD ENOUGH. WE CAN HEAR SCREAMING AND THE GROWL OF A MONSTER FROM THE SPEAKER. MERLE’S BELT IS UNFASTENED AND HE REACHES TO FASTEN IT. HE LOOKS SULLEN.)

DAVE: How was it?

MERLE: It was pussy. ... Hey, turn that shit off.

DAVE: What you want me to do, read lips?

MERLE: Bad enough I got to watch this shit without hearing all that noise with it.... Hell, you’re gonna take a turn anyway. What do you care what you miss?

DAVE: (HE TURNS THE SPEAKER TO SILENCE) Yeah, well, all right. But this ain’t half bad. You don’t get too good a look at the monster though.... That all the pussy you gonna get?

MERLE: Maybe some later.

DAVE: Feeling any better?

MERLE: Some. I think maybe we had a hole cut in the backseat back there, it’d be good as I just got.

DAVE: Bullshit. You’re just down, man.... Want a cigarette? You like a cigarette after sex, don’t you?

MERLE: All right.

(DAVE GIVES MERLE A COFFIN NAIL, LIGHTS IT WITH A LIGHTER. MERLE SUCKS SMOKE IN DEEPLY)

DAVE: Better?

MERLE: Yeah, I guess.

DAVE: Good. I’m gonna take a turn now.

(DAVE CLIMBS OVER THE SEAT.)

MERLE: (STARING AT THE SCREEN AS IF INFINITELY BORED. SPEAKS WITHOUT LOOKING AT DAVE.) Got to be more to life than this.

DAVE: (ON HIS KNEES IN THE BACKSEAT, UN-FASTENING HIS PANTS) I been telling you, this is life, and you better start enjoying. Get you some orientation before it’s too late and it’s all over but the dirt in the face.... (HE MAKES A SLIGHT ADJUSTMENT IN THE POSITION OF THE WOMAN’S FOOT.) Talk to me later. Right now this is what I want out of life. Little later, I might want something else.

(DAVE LOWERS HIMSELF INTO THE BACKSEAT. BEAT. THE FOOT BEGINS TO SHAKE, THE BELL STARTS TO RING. GRUNTING SOUNDS FROM DAVE.)

MERLE: (LOOKS AT THE VIBRATING FOOT, LOCKS HIS GAZE ON IT. AN UNPLEASANT EXPRESSION CROSSES HIS FACE.) Bet that damn foot’s more a size eleven than a ten. Bitch probably bought shoes at the ski shop.

DAVE: Hey. I’m doing some business here. Do you mind?

(DAVE LOWERS HIMSELF OUT OF SIGHT. THE FOOT STARTS TO MOVE AGAIN. CAR ROCKS. THE BELLS RING. LIGHTS FADE, AND IN THE DARKNESS WE HEAR–)

DAVE: Give it to me, baby. (LOUDER) Give it to me! (LOUDER YET. VERY EXCITED. ALMOST BREATHLESS.) Am I your Prince, baby? Am I your goddamn King? Take that anaconda, bitch. Take it!

MERLE: For heaven’s sake!

SCENE THREE

(DAVE CLIMBS INTO THE FRONT SEAT, GETS POSITIONED.)

DAVE: (SMILING; SATISFIED) Good piece. (HE USES HIS FINGER TO THUMP THE BELLS ON THE WOMAN’S ANKLE BRACELET.) Damn good piece.

MERLE: You act like she had something to do with it.

DAVE: Her pussy, ain’t it?

MERLE: We’re doing all the work. Like I said, we could cut a hole in the seat back there and get it that good.

DAVE: That ain’t true. It ain’t the hole does it, and it damn sure ain’t the personality, it’s how they look. That flesh under you. Young. Firm. Try coming in an ugly or fat woman and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll have some troubles. Or maybe you won’t.

MERLE: (DEFENSIVE) I don’t like ‘em old or fat.

DAVE: Yeah, well, I don’t see the live ones like either one of us all that much. The old ones or the fat ones. Face it, we’ve got no way with live women. And I don’t like the courting. I like to know I see one I like, I can have her if I can catch her.

MERLE: I was thinking we ought to take them alive.

DAVE: (LIGHTING A CIGARETTE) We been over this. We take one alive, she might scream or get away. We could get caught easy enough.

MERLE: We could kill her when we’re finished. Way we re doing, we could buy one of those blow up dolls, put it in the glove box and bring it to the drive-in.

DAVE: I’ve never cottoned to something like that. Even jacking off bothers me. A man ought to have a woman.

MERLE: A dead woman?

DAVE: Best kind. She’s quiet. You haven’t got to put up with clothes and makeup jabber, keeping up with the Jones’ jabber, getting that promotion jabber. She’s not gonna tell you "no" in the middle of the night. Ain’t gonna complain about how you put it to her. One stroke’s as good as the next to a dead bitch.

MERLE: I kind of like hearing ‘em grunt, though. I like being kissed.

DAVE: Rape some girl, think she’ll want to kiss you?

MERLE: I can make her.

DAVE: Dead’s better. You don’t have to worry yourself about how happy she is. You don’t pay for nothing. You got a live woman, one you’re married to even, you’re still paying for pussy. If you don’t pay in money, you’ll pay in pain. They’ll smile and coo for a time, but stay out late with the boys, have a little financial stress, they all revert to just what mama was. A bitch. She drove daddy into an early grave, way she nagged, and the old sow lived to be ninety No wonder women live longer than men. They worry men to death.... Hell, that was his wife put it on him. Wanting this and wanting that. When he got sick, had that operation and had to dip into his savings, she was out of there. They’d been married thirty years, but things got tough, you could see what those thirty years meant. He didn’t even come out of that deal with a place to put his dick at night.

MERLE: All women ain’t that way

DAVE: Yeah they are. They can’t help it. I’m not blaming them, it’s in them, like germs. In time, they all turn out just the same.

MERLE: I’m talking about raping them, though, not marrying them. Getting kissed.

DAVE: You’re with the kissing again. You been reading Cosmo or something? What’s this kiss stuff? You get hungry, you eat. You get thirsty, you drink. You get tired, you sleep. You get horny, you kill and fuck. You use them like a product, Merle, then when you get through with the product, you throw out the package. Get a new one when you need it. This way you always got the young ones, the tan ones, no matter how old or fat or ugly you get. You don’t have to see a pretty woman get old, see that tan turn her face to leather. You can keep the world bright and fresh all the time. You listen to me, Merle. It’s the best way

MERLE: Guess I’m just looking for a little romance. I had me a taste of it, you know. It was all right. She could really kiss.

DAVE: Yeah, it was all right for a while, then she ran off with some fella, and I bet some other swinging dick’s come along since then and she’s run off with him, and she’ll keep running off until she’s too old and ugly to hook some man other than the one she’s got last, and she’ll worry that poor sonofabitch to death.

(DAVE LOOKS AT MERLE, SEES HIS COMMENTS ARE PAINFUL TO HIS FRIEND.)

DAVE: (SWEETLY) Don’t think I don’t understand what you’re saying. Thing I like about you, Merle, is you aren’t like those guys down at the plant, come in, do your job, go home, watch a little TV, fall asleep in the chair dreaming about some magazine model cause the old lady won’t give out, or you don’t want to think about her giving out on account of the way she’s got ugly Thing is, Merle, you know you’re dissatisfied. That’s the first step to knowing there’s more to life than the old grind. I appreciate that in you. It’s a kind of sensitivity some men don’t like to face. Think it makes them weak. It’s a strength, is what it is, Merle. Something I wish I had more of.

MERLE: (TOUCHED) That’s damn nice of you to say, Dave.

DAVE: It’s true. Anybody knows you, knows you feel things deeply And I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate romance, but you get our age, you got to look at things a little straighten I can’t see any romance with an old woman anyway, and a young one, she ain’t gonna have me.. . . Unless it’s the way we’re doing it now.

MERLE: (CONSIDERING) Yeah. . . I guess you’re right.

DAVE: (THROWS A NOD AT THE BACK SEAT) Hey, she wasn’t really so bad, was she? I picked all right, didn’t I?

MERLE: (TRYING TO BE PLEASANT) ‘Cept for them slats she has, she was fine.

DAVE: Good enough. (NOW HIS VOICE GOES FLAT.) Well, let’s take the bitch to the dump site and throw her out.... Time they find her, the worms will have had some pussy too.

MERLE: You’re a good friend, Dave. I ain’t much to talking sentiment, but I want you to know that... The talk and all, it done me good. Really

DAVE: (SMILING) Hey, it’s all right. Been seeing this coming in you for a time, since the girl before last. ... You’re all right now, though. Right?

MERLE: Well, I’m better

DAVE: That’s how you start.

MERLE: But I got to admit, I still miss being kissed.

DAVE: (LAUGHING) You and the kiss. You’re some piece of work, buddy. . . . I got your kiss. Kiss my ass.

MERLE: (GRINNING) Way I feel, your ass could kiss back, I just might.

DAVE: (LAUGH) I bet you would. Tell you what. Let’s let this movie go to hell, dump the bitch, go on over to the house and watch a little Dirty Harry. I got it on tape.

MERLE: Deal.

(MERLE REACHES OVER AND SLAPS THE WOMAN’S FOOT OFF THE BACK OF THE SEAT. SHORT FURY OF BELLS. A THUD. DAVE REACHES TO START THE ENGINE AND THE LIGHTS GO OUT AND WE HEAR THE MOTOR IN THE DARKNESS, ALMOST GROWLING LIKE AN ANIMAL, MOVING AWAY IN THE DISTANCE, AND THEN THERE IS SILENCE AND –)

CURTAIN

"Drive-In Date–The Play" originally appeared in Cemetery Dance Magazine. It later appeared in A Fist Full of Stories [and Articles], a collection published by CD Publications. "Drive-In Date–The Play" © 1991 Joe R. Lansdale. All Rights Reserved.