Oregon
Literary
Review
Vol. 2, No. 1

Katherine Luck AMARIA / THE BUBBLE A Play in Six Scenes   CHARACTERS   HERO                    A software engineer, about 23 years old.  A young man just       out of college, making his first “real” money at his first       “real” job.  White, average-corporate-looking. This actor also plays:   JUAN                    An illegal immigrant from Mexico, about 23.  Abused                               as a child, and still showing all the signs.  He is married to                               Maria, and the father of Amaria.  He speaks almost no                               English.   MARIA      A cleaning lady born and raised in America.  Daughter of                   migrant workers from Mexico, about 24 years old.  She                   speaks English with only a slight accent.  This actor also plays:             VP                         The Vice-President of Research and Development at                               the software engineering firm.  Highly competent,                               direct, and bottom-line oriented.                   CO-WORKER               A software engineer, about 24 years old.  Female, white, a                               little more experienced in life and work than Hero, but not                               much.  Single and doesn’t want to be. This actor also plays:                     NOVIA                  Angel’s girlfriend, US-born of legal Mexican immigrant                               parents (fairly well-off financially.) About 24 years old.                                Head full of air and not much else, but kind-hearted.  She                               speaks English well.                                          MANAGER               White male, perpetual managerial type, mid-30’s.  The kind                               of manager who inspires his employees to ask “what exactly                               does he do all day??”     This actor also plays:   ANGEL                 Maria’s cousin, about 34 years old.  He is the US-born child                               of migrant workers from Mexico.  Speaks a little English.   SETTING   A city in America; maybe Seattle.   Stage Right is a contemporary office in a software engineering firm.  Cubicle Hell, lit with bright, headachy fluorescent lights.  Two cubicles are visible, side by side.  Laptops are on the desks.    Stage Left is a filthy apartment in the Mexican ghetto.  A couch, a cluttered table, a cooler under or on the table.  A child’s medical bed with many pieces of monitoring equipment surrounding it.   TIME   A 24-hour period, beginning and ending at 8 o’clock in the evening.  Present day.       PLOT SUMMARY   In the aftermath of the Internet bubble, HERO works late into the night in the corporate hell of a generic software engineering firm.  A chance encounter with someone ordinarily beneath notice—MARIA, the Hispanic cleaning lady whom he has never remarked before—opens the door to a world he has never pondered. Played out simultaneously on separate sides of the stage, HERO and CO-WORKER struggle to complete a crucial and long-overdue software project; the impending arrival of the head-cutting VICE-PRESIDENT a constant threat.  At the same time, MARIA returns home to her ghetto apartment to celebrate the birthday of her severely disabled daughter, Amaria, burdened by the knowledge that Child Protective Service will review her family tomorrow to judge whether Amaria should be removed to foster care.  As the clock ticks down to the VICE-PRESIDENT’s arrival, HERO fights the backbiting and deception of MANAGER, who is desperate not to lose his job; CO-WORKER’s increasing distraction with the woes of her love life; and his own exhaustion, which threatens to overwhelm him. MARIA meanwhile prepares for the birthday party, struggling against the sexual advances her older cousin, ANGEL; the pressures of the extreme poverty she is living in; and the history of abuse between herself and her husband, JUAN.  Their relationship is not what it appears on the surface:  MARIA is the one who has been beating JUAN for years. The worlds of HERO and MARIA mirror each other, then diverge as midnight arrives.  HERO drops the ball on a crucial part of the project and seems earmarked for firing.  He desperately attempts to demonstrate, in the midst of corporate indifference and betrayal, that he deserves to keep his job.  MARIA, meanwhile, struggles to realize a fantasy of normalcy as she tries again and again to resist hitting JUAN, is raped by ANGEL, and yearns for her daughter to become “normal.” With dawn comes the crucial Child Protective Service inspection for MARIA, and HERO’s performance appraisal with the VICE-PRESIDENT. As each sits in a state of interrogation, MARIA and HERO must answer a crucial question: which is more important, looking out for the weak and helpless, or looking out for yourself?             ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­   SCENE 1   (The stage is dark.  Lights up Stage Right.  Two cubicles, side-by-side and too close.  Hero and Co-worker are seated in their respective cubicles, typing fast and hard, writing software code.  Evening, around eight o’clock.)   CO-WORKER Here’s a question for you.   HERO Work or other?   CO-WORKER Other.   HERO Okay.   CO-WORKER You’re on a plane.  It’s crashing into, like, the jungle somewhere you’ve never been.   HERO A rain forest, or something?   CO-WORKER Okay, sure.  So you’re on the plane with a little kid about five years old, a really hot woman, and a huge buff guy.  Like a mountain climber or one of those freaky militia backwoods survivalist types.  You’re wearing a tandem parachute.   HERO Do I know how to use it?   CO-WORKER Yes.  So.  The plane’s crashing, and you can only save yourself and one other person.  Who do you save?  A, the kid; B, the chick; or C, the dude?   HERO Where’d you get that?   CO-WORKER Internet.  So?   HERO The guy.   CO-WORKER Interesting.   HERO What?   CO-WORKER No, no, that’s just not what I expected.  From you.   HERO What?  What’d you mean, from me?   CO-WORKER It’s nothing.  Really.  Nothing.  Not anything.   HERO Okay.   (They resume typing.)             CO-WORKER The latest driver for the display is now in the network.  Go ahead and compile it.   (Hero types, then hits “enter.”  He turns to her as it’s  compiling.)   HERO All right, what was the right answer?   CO-WORKER Right…?  There’s no right answer!  It’s just one of those moral questions.   HERO So, what, I’m immoral, is that it?  Or weirdly moraled?  Whacked in the moral-department, is that what you’re saying?   CO-WORKER I’m not saying anything.   HERO Right.   CO-WORKER Yeah.   (They resume typing.  Maria enters.  She starts dusting unobtrusively.)   HERO So, what, if I said the kid, that’d make me somehow more of a human being?   CO-WORKER I’ve got no opinion.   HERO Oh, bullsh— (He glances at Maria,) Bull.  Which one did you decide to save?   CO-WORKER That’s private!   HERO You’ll trot my answer out to every chick-friend you’ve got before the week’s over, but I don’t get to know what you said? I’ve got guy-tact.  I’ll put it in the vault.   CO-WORKER What a load of crap!   HERO What?   CO-WORKER Guy-tact, put it in the vault—men are the worst gossips, and I speak as one who has several brothers and has dated way too much.    HERO Fine.   (They focus on work.  Maria edges closer to them.)   MARIA Is it okay if I grab your garbage?   CO-WORKER Yeah, sure.   (Maria takes their trash.)   HERO I bet you said C.   CO-WORKER What?   HERO That you’d… (He lowers his voice,) You’d save the guy too.   CO-WORKER Why do you automatically assume that?   (Maria is tidying up around them, and their voices grow  ever more confidential.)   HERO Because.   CO-WORKER Because what? HERO You know.  Your dating habits.    CO-WORKER God, you’re soooo mature.                                      (A beat.) I didn’t expect you to pick the guy.   HERO Why not?   CO-WORKER I remember your reaction the first time you saw “Deliverance.”   HERO Oh ha-ha-ha.   (More typing.  Maria dusts the tops of the cubicles.)   CO-WORKER Is it done compiling?   HERO Yep.  I’ll try it on the emulator.   (Hero types.)   CO-WORKER Do you know what eighty-seven percent of men of your ilk answered?   HERO My ilk?  Ilk?  What’s my ilk?   CO-WORKER White unattached professional type with no kids and extra cash to buy purple BMW’s.   HERO It’s maroon, with a—an undercoating.  Detailing.  Shut up!                          (A beat.) So, what did the me’s of the world say?   CO-WORKER The hot woman.   HERO Let me guess why.   CO-WORKER You’re assuming that I’m going to say, ‘Coz I could do her, an’ I wouldn’t even mind bein’ lost in the jungle!’   since that seems the pig-dog-man thing to say, but actually it was ‘Coz I could make her ask the natives for directions!’   (They laugh.  Manager enters, carrying a sheaf of  papers.  He is harried and irritable.)   MANAGER Social hour, huh?  Glad you’re having so much fun, girls.  Personally, I just don’t feel like sitting around giggling when the Vice President of Research and Development’s going to be here bright and early tomorrow morning to administer personnel reviews on each and every one of our asses.  You get the display debugged yet?   HERO Working on it.   MANAGER This project was overdue five weeks ago.  What the hell’ve you been doing back here, selling weed?  Jesus!    CO-WORKER We’ve run into problems with the display drivers the manufacturers gave us.  So we had to rewrite the drivers from scratch.    MANAGER If you’d have used the Linux operating system from the start, this goddamned application wouldn’t have so many bugs!   HERO Yeah, well marketing felt that our customers would prefer Windows products in case they had to create their own software in the future—   MANAGER Don’t start.  Get it done:  I want it uploaded to me by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.  Are we clear?   CO-WORKER Okay.    MANAGER This company hasn’t been doing well fiscally for the past several quarters.   Tech spending has been down for years, and it’s not improving.  Despite rumors to the contrary, the VP is going to cut one position permanently.  Maybe you, maybe me.  Maybe someone from another team, if we’re lucky.  If we don’t have something solid to show her, I can guarantee it’ll be one of you.  Get it done, without errors.   (Manager exits. Co-worker and Hero type intensely.  Maria    spot-cleans part of the rug.)   CO-WORKER Hm.  That’s only twelve hours away.   HERO Been done before.  I spent thirty-five hours straight debugging the PBX system last spring.   CO-WORKER Yeah, sure.   HERO I did.   CO-WORKER Yeah, I was here too, and I remember seeing your sweet lil’ head pillowed on your keyboard, sound asleep for a good eight of those hours.    HERO Well, the driver still doesn’t work on the emulator.  We have no display.   CO-WORKER God, I have no life.    (They type.  Maria starts to vacuum, making both jump.   They try to keep working, glancing at each other.  Finally,     Hero reluctantly rises and approaches her.)   HERO Um…hi…hey…could you turn that off?   MARIA What?  (Maria turns the vacuum off)   HERO Uh, yeah, would you mind doing that later?  It’s kinda loud.   MARIA Sure, okay.   (Maria exits with bathroom cleaning supplies.  They     type.)   CO-WORKER I’ll take another look at the driver.  You deal with the initialization protocols—you wrote all that code.   (They type.)   HERO I’ve got no life—you’ve got a boyfriend.  Don’t see what you’re complaining about.   CO-WORKER Would you like a boyfriend too?   HERO Oh for fuck’s sake!    CO-WORKER I really think you’d be happier if you were gay.  You’re so neat and tidy, and you’re just so darned cute.   HERO See what I’m doing?  I’m writing all this down so I can report you to HR for sexual harassment and creation of a hostile workplace.  See this?   CO-WORKER I wish I could be gay!  Every man in this town is either a wanna-be player piece of shit, or he’s married.  Or he’s gay.  I know so many nice, pretty women—   HERO Then why haven’t you fixed me up with one of them yet?   CO-WORKER You’re still undergoing the silent test of worthiness.  When I see that you’ve fully and truly become worthy, then you can meet my friend Talia—she looks a lot like J.Lo.   HERO Aw jeez, I hate J.Lo!   (Angel enters, and hesitantly approaches the cubicles.)   CO-WORKER Why, because she’s Hisp—   ANGEL Perdón— (Co-worker and Hero jump.) Perdóneme.  Buenas noches.  Busco a Maria.   HERO Um…   CO-WORKER Is he with that cleaning service?   HERO He’s not wearing a uniform.   CO-WORKER Can we help you?   ANGEL                                     (Very heavy accent,) No English, sorry.   HERO You took Spanish in college—talk to him.   (Co-worker rises nervously.)   CO-WORKER (Very proper and poor pronunciation,) Buenas noches. ¿Puedo ayudarle? ANGEL (Speaking very rapidly,)  ¡Maravilloso, usted habla español!  Busco a Maria—ella limpia esta oficina esta noche.  ¿Es terminada ella? ¿Maria está aquí, verdad?  Soy su primo.  Hoy es el cumpleaños de su hija.  El coche se estaciona afuera—¿Podría decirme dónde Maria es?  No quiero una multa.  Tengo cinco ya.   CO-WORKER Um…   HERO Maybe…like, that cleaning lady looked, y’know, Mexican or whatever.  Maybe she can find out what he wants.   CO-WORKER You just assume that because she’s dark—you know, um, got Hispanic features—   ANGEL ¿Entendió usted?  Busco a Maria, mi prima.   HERO I’ll get the cleaning lady.   (Hero exits rapidly.  Co-worker and Angel are alone  together.  Both shift nervously, grin, laugh uneasily.)   CO-WORKER Uh…um… (Very bad pronunciation,) Hace frío esta noche. ANGEL Sí.   CO-WORKER Oh— sí, sí.   (Hero enters with Maria.)   MARIA ¿Por qué está aquí?  ¿Por qué no me llamó?   ANGEL Sí, hice, pero el teléfono no sonó.   MARIA ¿Por qué no está trabajando?  ¿Cómo entró la puerta?   ANGEL El guardia abrió la puerta para mí.  Su familia es de Aguas Calientes, también.   MARIA                                     (Sarcastic,) ¡Perfecto! Ahora debo hablar con él todos los días. (To Hero,) Sorry, this is just my cousin.  He’s here to drive me home.   CO-WORKER Oh!    ANGEL Vámonos, necesito una cerveza.   MARIA (Drawing Hero aside,) I’m not supposed to knock off early, but it’s my little girl’s fifth birthday tonight.  If my boss shows up, don’t tell him I went home, okay?   HERO Um, okay.    MARIA Thanks. ANGEL ¡Dése prisa, Maria!   MARIA Vengo, vengo, no grite. (Maria and Angel exit. Co-worker and Hero sit at their desks.  They resume typing.)   CO-WORKER I think she liiiiikes you!   HERO What?   CO-WORKER (Bad Hispanic accent,) Oooh, don’ tell de boss I when home.  You so sexy, hombre!   HERO She’s the cleaning lady, for Christ’s sake!   CO-WORKER Come out an’ see my love mah-chine, gringo!   HERO You couldn’t even understand a fucking wetback with, like, a third grade education, so what the hell does that say about you?!    (An uncomfortable silence.  They resume work.)   CO-WORKER Um…I’ve looked through the driver.  The debugger didn’t come up with any problems…are you sure your program is reading the driver correctly?   HERO Still working on it…I don’t see any problems, but I have more lines of code to go through than you…   (Stage Right dims halfway.  Lights up Stage Left.  The living room of a very cheap, very  filthy apartment.  A medical bed dominates one corner.  Maria and Angel enter.) ANGEL Come on, Maria!  You can make Juan do it—I need those fuckin’ hubcaps installed.  The wheelrims’re starting to rust out.   MARIA Did you buy any beer for tonight?  Or did you just drink it all and leave the empty bottles again?  Damn it, Angel.   ANGEL It’s in the cooler, relax.  You’re his wife—you ask him.  I ain’t gonna, like, plead or anything.  He ought to just do it for family loyalty or whatever.  Ain’t my fault that boy’s got no sense of…y’know, loyalty.  I don’t care; he can do what he wants.  Fuck him.   MARIA Yeah, yeah, whatever.   (Maria sits wearily on the couch.)   ANGEL See, but he sorta promised.  Well, he didn’t say no when I asked—he just won’t fuckin’ do it!  I should go on over to his work tomorrow, put him on the spot.  Like, ‘here I am, Juanito!  You gonna install my hubcaps?’  Should get that security guard from your work to come with me.  Armando Something-or-other.  Nice guy.  Needs new break pads on his truck, he said.   MARIA Shut up, Angel.   (Angel sits beside her on the couch.  Stage Right, Hero has unobtrusively exited.  Co-worker continues to type silently.)   ANGEL So where is your husband?   MARIA Dunno.  Work?   ANGEL Hey, so…Juanito’s out.  How about you and I have a little private fun before he gets home and spoils it?   (Angel reaches for Maria.  She shoves him away.)   MARIA Quit it, Angel!   ANGEL Come on, baby, you know I can put a smile back on your face.   (He reaches for her again, and she pushes him away  harder.)   MARIA Get off!  I’m fuckin’ exhausted, and I’ve got like a hundred things to do to get ready for Amaria’s party, and where the hell’s the piñata?  You were supposed to get it—what the hell’ve you been doing all day?   ANGEL All right, all right, jeez.  Sorry.  Want a donkey or a star?   MARIA I told you to get her that princess-looking one at Tienda dos Hermanas.  She liked it when we were in there.  She kinda reached for it.   ANGEL Really?  With her whole arm?   (Angel stands and leans over the medical bed.)   MARIA Well…no.  But her head kinda looked up and her fingers moved.  That’s what her therapist says she does when she likes the toys at her school.  She does it when she sees me sometimes.   ANGEL That right?  You learning to point, pretty-girl?  Yeah, you love your Tio Angel, point for me.  Can you point?   MARIA She need her feeding tube cleared?   ANGEL Dunno.  Bag’s half-full.    MARIA It’s okay, then.   (Juan enters.)   JUAN Hi.   ANGEL Hey, look who’s here!  Damn, man, you look like shit.   JUAN Car jack popped at work when I was changing a tire.  Thing almost crushed my hand.    MARIA Did you go to the hospital?   JUAN Nah, just my little finger.    (Juan holds up a heavily bandaged finger.)   ANGEL Gonna get infected, then you gonna have to get it cut off, and they’re gonna call you Nueve Dedos.  Ve-dos.  That’s actually cool.   JUAN You all done with work for tonight?   MARIA Yeah.  I’m so tired!  At least I didn’t have to take the bus.  That one over there picked me up.   ANGEL Aw, you fucking love when I pick you up, you hot mama!   MARIA (Sinking deeper into the couch,) Get me a beer, would you baby?   (Angel starts to move to do so, just as Juan does the same.  Juan notices, but makes no comment, going to the cooler and opening it.  He hands Maria a bottle of beer.)   ANGEL Well!  Guess I’ll go pick up that princess piñata for the princess!  You’re gonna like it, you’re gonna point, aren’t you?  Don’t drink all the beer, Juan.  Novia’ll bring tequila tonight.  Adiós, Ve-dos!  So cool.   (Angel exits.)   MARIA Shit, I do not want that ditzy-bitch Novia in my house tonight!  Did you know she was coming to the party?   JUAN I thought you were going to be home at noon today.   MARIA Got tied up.  Things to do.   JUAN You missed that appointment we had.   MARIA What?   JUAN That inspection.  The people from Child Protective Services were here to make sure everything’s all right with Amaria now.  They scheduled it a month ago.  Remember?   (Lights up on Co-worker, at her desk.  She is making a  phone call.)   CO-WORKER Hi, it’s me.  How’re you?  Yeah?  Well, I got some bad news.   MARIA Aw, shit!  I was working, a girl called in sick, and it meant extra money.  I forgot.    JUAN You work so much.   CO-WORKER Listen, no—really, I have to work late.  No, there’s no getting out of it.  The project’s due tomorrow, first thing.  No.  No.   MARIA Were they really pissed?   CO-WORKER Look—it’s not my fault!  Yes, I did remember that we had plans—of course I did!  Okay.  Okay.   JUAN They sounded real mad.  I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying.    MARIA Shit.    (Manger enters Stage Right.)   CO-WORKER Listen, let’s just wait and talk about this—I know, I—look, can I call you later?  Fine, then just—just let me call you back.  Right back.  Bye.   (Co-worker hangs up.  Manger notes that Hero is not  around and moves confidentially closer.)   MANAGER Is it working yet?   CO-WORKER Screen’s still not working.  We don’t know if it’s the driver or the application.   MANAGER Was it your code, or…   CO-WORKER Well, I can’t find any errors in my code.   MARIA What?  There’s something else, I can tell.   MANAGER So…where’s our good buddy?   CO-WORKER Getting coffee.   MANAGER Hm.  Seems like he’s never at his desk these days.   CO-WORKER Yeah, well…   MANAGER Look, I just want you to know that I’ve always talked you up to the big boys in management in a major way.  I think you’ve got what it takes to be a real player.  Management material.   CO-WORKER Wow…well, thanks.  That’s definitely my goal.   MANAGER Great.  I know you carry a lot of the load back here.  Not as much support from certain people as you ought to have…you get my drift.   CO-WORKER Yeah.   MANAGER Well!  Great.  I’ll look forward to getting that final version uploaded, then.   (Manager exits.  Co-worker dials the phone.)   CO-WORKER Hi, it’s me again.   MARIA Just tell me, Juan!   JUAN The cops were here today.   MARIA Why?   CO-WORKER What?  Just hold on a minute—just—   JUAN They were checking back about the…the issue from last weekend.    CO-WORKER Don’t yell at me, please!   MARIA And what did you tell them?   JUAN That there’d be no more hitting in the home.  And that we’d get into that marriage counseling program at Casa Mexicana.   CO-WORKER Please, can’t we just work this out!  This is not fair!  This is not how adults—   MARIA You agreed to that?    CO-WORKER Wait—please—don’t—   (Co-worker has been hung up on.  She slowly hangs up,  devastated and near tears.)   JUAN Yeah.   MARIA Jesus, Juan…Jesus.  How fucking stupid can you be?  Huh?  Those motherfuckers at Casa Mexicana are on a government grant!  They’ll ask all kinds of questions, find out that you’re not legal!  They report to INS all the time!  How could you be so stupid?!   JUAN The police, they were—   MARIA God, I’ve got a yearly review with the people from the Department of Disabilities for Amaria tomorrow—do you know how hard it’s been for me to keep them from finding out about you?  Fuck it, maybe I’ll just report your dumb ass to them tomorrow, how about that, huh?   JUAN I’m sorry, I just thought—   MARIA You never fucking think, Juan!  Why the hell did I marry you?  I should send you back home to your mother in Oaxaca, you fucking stupid indio!   (Maria slaps Juan hard across the cheek and storms  over to Amaria’s bed, her back to him.  A beat.)   MARIA Oh God, Juan, I’m sorry. (She turns and approaches Juan.  He flinches but  forces himself not to move away as she touches his face.) I’m sorry, baby, does it hurt?   JUAN No, no.   MARIA I’m just so worn out and stressed, and I didn’t remember about that Child Protective Services meeting…   JUAN I know, it’s okay.   MARIA I just want Amaria’s birthday to be perfect.  I could get fired for sneaking out early from work, but I want our little girl to have a perfect birthday.   JUAN I know.  It’s okay, really.   (Maria kisses him.)   MARIA You gonna take a shower?   JUAN Yeah.   MARIA Let me know if you need help with the bandage, okay?   JUAN Okay.   (Juan exits.  Maria sits wearily on the couch.   Stage Right, Manager enters.)   MANAGER Hey—   CO-WORKER (In tears,) Excuse me.   (Co-worker exits.  Manager begins to snoop around her  desk.  Hero enters.)   MANAGER Hey, sport.  I was just looking for the latest display schematics.   HERO Uh-huh.   MANAGER You, uh, know where they are? HERO (Picking up papers at his own desk,) Here.   MANAGER Thanks.  Listen, I just want you to know that I realize you carry a lot of the load back here.  Not much help from…certain over-emotional parties. You get my drift.   HERO Uh-huh.   MANAGER Now, you know that I’ve always talked you up to the big boys in management in a major way.  I think you’ve got what it takes to be a real player.  Management material.   HERO No, I didn’t know that.   MANAGER Well, keep it in mind.  Performance reviews with the Vice-President are nothing to dismiss.  I think if I’m in your corner, it’ll really help you out.   HERO Uh-huh.   MANAGER And, of course, I know that you’ll be watching my back too, am I right?   HERO Okay.  Sure.   NOVIA (Offstage,) Angel!  Hey baby, guess who’s here?   MARIA Oh, Christ.   (Novia enters.)   NOVIA Angel—oh, hi Maria.  Angel home?   MARIA Do you see his useless ass planted on this couch here?  Then he ain’t home.   NOVIA Huh.  Well, maybe I’ll go get him some churros.  My baby loves his churros.   MARIA Hey, Novia.  You owe me some money.   NOVIA No, I don’t.   MARIA Yeah, you do.  Your fat ass has been living in my apartment three fucking months now, and I’m charging you a share of the rent, same as Angel pays.   NOVIA I do not live here.  I got my own place with my Mami and Papi, thank you very much.   MARIA Yeah, then take my cousin to your place and hump him on your daddy’s couch!  I’m sick of listening to it, fucking disgusting—   (Maria mimics Novia’s heavy breathing and cries of  sexual encouragement.)   MANAGER The thing is, we gotta watch out for Rod Johnson’s team.  Those cocksuckers’re guaranteed to try to screw us, tell the VP we’re total jerk-offs.   NOVIA Fuck you, Maria.   MARIA Yeah?   HERO What exactly do they even do back there?  I mean, what does their team do?   MANAGER Honestly?  Off the record?  I don’t have a clue.   NOVIA Yeah, fuck you.  Here I brought you a present for Amaria, and all I get’s bitched at.   MARIA Just put it on the table.  Nice to see you, go home.   NOVIA No.  I’m gonna give it to her after the cake.   HERO God, if the VP wants to cut some dead weight, she ought to start right there.    MANAGER Or in Payroll.   MARIA Oh, you are not coming to the party tonight!   NOVIA Yes, I am!  Angel invited me.   MANAGER Idiots managed to screw up my W-2 last year, didn’t get it to me till the end of March.  Fucking criminal.   HERO Totally.   MARIA It’s my daughter’s party.  You can’t be here.   NOVIA Yeah, well this is Angel’s apartment as much as yours and Juan’s!  I can be here as much as I want, whenever I want.   MARIA Yeah?  Is that right?   MANAGER Total morons.   HERO Idiots.   NOVIA Yeah!   MARIA (Disengaging,) Whatever.   NOVIA I got some calls to make.                                     (Novia exits, pulling out a cell phone.  Maria sits on the couch and pulls a bottle of nail polish out from between                                      the cushions.)   MARIA Hey, Amaria, how are you?  Want your Barney tape?  Mama’s gonna paint her nails pretty, then she’ll do yours if you want.  You like that?  Pretty red nails like Mama’s?   (Co-worker enters Stage Right.  Manager and Hero   instantly break off conversation.)   MANAGER Well, gotta get that screen working.  Need that uploaded by eight, let’s get the grind on.                                       (Manager exits.)   CO-WORKER (After a pause,) So what was that all about?   HERO Hm?   CO-WORKER It’s like being back in Junior High, finding a couple of the cool kids whispering at my desk.   HERO It was nothing.   CO-WORKER A whole lot of nothing.   HERO Really.  Drop it.   (They type.  Stage Left, an alarm over Amaria’s bed goes  off urgently.  Maria jumps up and checks on it.)   MARIA Amaria?  Baby?  You breathing bad?  Your line get pinched?  Look at Mama, sweetie.   CO-WORKER Did you finish going through your code?  Can we recompile?   HERO Yeah, I was just about to.   (They type.  A pause.)   CO-WORKER So what were you two talking about?   HERO God, you cannot let it go!    CO-WORKER I’m just curious.   HERO Well, it’s none of your business.   CO-WORKER It was private?   HERO Yes.   CO-WORKER Like about your man-parts?  Like, hey Bob, do you ever get that not-so-fresh feeling?   HERO Jesus.  Just let it go.   CO-WORKER Well, fine, whatever.  I’m just curious why he was so close to my desk, is all.  I’m just wondering if there’s anything that I should know, such as—   HERO We were talking about football.  He wanted to know if I like the Cowboys with a two-point spread in Sunday’s game, but I told him that their running back is a real washout since the tendon surgery, so he said that maybe the Raiders were stronger, since their defense—   CO-WORKER I don’t care about freakin’ football—can we get some work done here so we can go home?   (Co-worker and Hero type in silence.  Angel enters Stage Left, carrying a large, oddly-shaped piñata.)   ANGEL Amaria, check out what Tio Angel got you!   MARIA (Still adjusting Amaria’s medical equipment,) What the hell is that?   ANGEL It’s, y’know, a…piñata.  Lookit this, pretty girl!  It’s shiny and colorful.   MARIA It sure is.  And it ain’t no princess.   ANGEL Couldn’t find those ones.   MARIA They were right above the—you went to Walmart, didn’t you?   ANGEL I needed some smokes.    MARIA Damn it, Angel, why the fuck can’t you do anything right?!   ANGEL Hey!  Don’t you ever take that tone with me, bitch!  I ain’t your pussy-fuck Juanito, you understand me?   MARIA (Withdrawing,) Amaria…look at Mama, baby.  Can I brush your hair?  Huh?   (Angel sets the piñata on the table.  He looks at Maria, then  moves to the couch and turns on the TV.  We hear an   announcer from Univision.)   ANNOUNCER Este es Univision.  Y ahora, El Gordo y la Flaca.   ANGEL Wanna watch Gordo y la Flaca?   MARIA Okay.   (Maria kisses Amaria and moves to sit on the couch, not   too close to Angel.  They sit watching the talk show.)   CO-WORKER Damn it…jeez, what is wrong with this thing?   (Angel puts his hand on Maria’s leg and starts to rub it.   She tries to ignore it.)   CO-WORKER God!  What is the problem?  ‘System fault, X2C8A7??’  What the hell does that mean?   HERO Something wrong?   CO-WORKER I just tried running it on the emulator, and nothing works!  Not the screen, not the application, nothing!   HERO Did you enter all the arguments correctly?   CO-WORKER I checked that already.  Dash L, slash H, slash system, slash kernel.   HERO You want me to try it?   CO-WORKER Be my guest.   (Hero rises and stands over her, moving the mouse and clicking at the keyboard as she remains seated.)   HERO See, you’ve got to have a backslash, not a slash…   (Angel starts kissing Maria’s neck.  She tries, half-heartedly  and not at all aroused, to push him away.)   MARIA Don’t…   CO-WORKER That’s what I said—   HERO Yeah, but you forgot to point to the driver files.  Backslash system, backslash include…   (Angel tries to press Maria to lay down on the couch,  moving his hands over her body.)   MARIA Quit it, come on!  Juan’s just in the shower!   ANGEL I really need it, baby; I got a fuckin’ telephone pole in my pants.   MARIA Come on, don’t…   HERO Then we gotta push enter…   CO-WORKER (Getting choked up suddenly,) Okay…   (Angel presses Maria down into the couch and lays over  her, kissing her and touching her.  She lays dead and  unresponsive under him.)   HERO And there you go!   CO-WORKER (Tears barely held in,) Yeah.   ANGEL and HERO What’s wrong?   CO-WORKER and MARIA Nothing.   HERO Really?    MARIA God, I’m so worried about that CPS inspection, Angel! We missed one a few months ago, too, when Juan broke his hand at work, remember?  They’re so fucking hard on us!  I’m sure Juan rescheduled it, but still, they don’t realize that we’re busy, we’re trying so hard to make a good life for our little girl.   CO-WORKER My…my…I called my boyfriend to let him know that I had to work late tonight and he—well, God, he’s my ex-boyfriend now—   HERO You broke up with him over the phone?  Damn, that’s cruel—why didn’t you wait till you could see him?   CO-WORKER He broke up with me.   HERO Oh.   MARIA They said that this was our last chance—if we screw up at all, they’ll take Amaria.  Nobody knows how to take care of her right except me and Juan.  One time, at the hospital, the damned nurse couldn’t even get her feeding tube in right.  She kept shoving and shoving till Amaria was all bruised up and bleeding, and—God, she wouldn’t last if she’s away from her mom and dad!  I don’t know if they’ll count this against us, or if they’ll just let it slide, but I’m so—   ANGEL (Very close to tears,) I’m so sorry, Maria!  I didn’t mean to leave her alone that time!  I thought she’d be okay—I told you, I was only going down the block for some smokes, I swear to God, I was only gone ten, fifteen minutes!  That fucking landlord wasn’t supposed to come fix the sink until afternoon.  I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to fuck everything up—   (Maria takes Angel into her arms.  He’s crying now, but  trying pretty successfully to conceal it.)   CO-WORKER Things seemed like they were going so good!  I mean, we’ve been going out three whole months, and no fights—   HERO (Returning to his desk,) Which one is this guy?  Jerry?   CO-WORKER Tyler.   MARIA No, no, shhhh, it’s okay, it was an accident, a mistake.  I know you didn’t do it on purpose.   ANGEL She’s so—so fragile!  I couldn’t bring her with—it was raining!  She’d have got pneumonia.   MARIA I know, I know…   CO-WORKER I just thought he might be the one.  It’s so hard to meet a nice guy; I mean, you go to the bars and it’s nothing but losers and players—   HERO (Typing,) Uh-huh.  Hey, maybe it was a problem with memory management.  I’ll take a look at the code.   (Maria kisses Angel in a sisterly way.  He clings to her and  kisses her back, not erotically.)   ANGEL I love her so much—she’s my little sweetheart, the only little girl I’ve got.   MARIA I know, I know you do.   CO-WORKER Well.  Never mind.  I’ll check the paging files, you check the btree algorithms.    HERO Um, yeah, divide and conquer.   (Angel keeps on kissing Maria, more and more  passionately.  She doesn’t stop him this time; a let-him-  get-it-over with/mend familial fences attitude about her.)   ANGEL Please, baby, please, I need you.  Just real quick.  You don’t have to do anything, just please let me…   (Angel pushes Maria to lay down and kisses her deeply.   She lies unresponsively under him.)   HERO (Very unenthusiastically,) So…do you want to talk about it?   CO-WORKER No, no.  It’s not your problem.    (Angel begins to have sex with Maria.  She lays still, not  looking at him or responding in any way.)   HERO If I change a few memory addresses in this header file…mem backslash btree dot H, we can free up a little more RAM for the display.   CO-WORKER (Sarcastic,) That’ll be a huge help.   (Angel comes and collapses on Maria.)   HERO Really.  If you want to talk about it…?   CO-WORKER (Snippily,) Nope.  It’s nothing.  Nothing interesting at all.   (Angel rolls off Maria, zips up, and straightens himself up.   Maria sits up, scoots very far from him on the couch, and  straightens her cleaning lady outfit.  Angel watches the  TV.)   ANGEL Hey, look, Los Tigres del Notre are on!  Damn, I love those guys!   HERO You wanna order something in?  Thai, maybe?   CO-WORKER I don’t care.   MARIA I’m gonna take a shower.   (Maria rises.)   ANGEL (Focused on the TV,) Think Juanito’s still in there.  Any beer left?   (Maria glares at Angel and exits.  Lights down Stage Left  and Stage Right.)       SCENE 2   (About ten o’clock at night, the same  evening.)    (Lights up halfway Stage Left.  Maria is leaning over Amaria’s bed, singing a lullaby wrenchingly, beautifully in  Spanish.  The rest of the living room is deserted.  Lights up slowly to full. Lights up Stage Right.  Hero and Co-worker sit typing.  Hero is unconsciously singing “Big Balls” by AC/DC under his breath.  Co-worker grows more and more visibly irritated.  Finally,)   CO-WORKER Will you shut UP!   (Maria and Hero both stop singing abruptly.)   HERO Huh?   (Maria begins to adjust Amaria’s medical equipment.)    CO-WORKER I can handle listening to you sing the entire sound track of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I draw the line at “Big Balls.”   HERO Sorry.  I didn’t realize I was singing.   (Hero and Co-worker type.  Maria fiddles with the medical  equipment.)   MANAGER (Offstage,) ‘Directory not found,’ my ass!  What the hell?!   ANGEL (Offstage,) Novia!  ¿Dónde está mi gorra?   MANAGER                                     (Offstage,) That directory’s always been there…‘contact system administrator,’ no, no, no!   HERO I think I’m being summoned.   (Hero exits.)   ANGEL (Offstage,) Novia, ¿Dónde está? ¡Mierda!   MARIA (To herself,) Jesus, Angel!  Is he scaring you, Amaria?  It’s okay, your Tio Angel’s just a freak.   (Juan enters, nervous.)   JUAN What’s wrong with Angel?   MARIA Who knows?   JUAN How’s she doing?   MARIA Her breathing tube is getting old, I can tell.  She’s having a little trouble drawing off it.   JUAN The medical supply company’s sending her next one in a couple days.   MARIA When?   JUAN Wednesday, I think.  That’s the fifth, right?   MARIA Yeah.  She’ll be okay with this one till then, don’t you think?   JUAN Yeah, should be.   MARIA How’s your finger?   JUAN It stopped bleeding.  See?  Don’t need a new bandage.   (Maria turns to him and gently touches his face.)   MARIA There’s a bruise…does it hurt?   JUAN No, it’s fine.   (Maria strokes Juan’s face.)   MARIA I’m sorry I hurt you.   JUAN I know.  It’s okay.   MARIA I love you, baby.   JUAN I love you, too.   MARIA Do you really want to go to Casa Mexicana?   JUAN Um…   MARIA If you really, really want it, I’ll do it.  We can start after Amaria’s Child Protective Service inspection’s all done with.  When did you reschedule it for, anyway?   JUAN Um…reschedule?   MANAGER (Offstage,) Goddamn it, what the hell did you do?!  Where the shit’s your project—all your project files—they’re fucking gone!  What did you do?!   (Co-worker listens at her desk, wincing.)   MARIA Juan.   JUAN Um.   MARIA Juan!   ANGEL (Offstage,) ¡Perra estúpida!   MARIA You—   JUAN I didn’t know what they were saying!  They didn’t have an interpreter!  They couldn’t understand me!   (Maria grabs him by the collar.)   MARIA We’ll lose Amaria, you stupid motherfucking shit!  We have to look all willing and helpful and—and compliant with these bastards!  What were you thinking?  All you had to do was say, ‘When can we reschedule?’  How fucking hard is that?   JUAN I said—I said ‘Maria no at home.’  I said it!   MANAGER (Offstage,) You are so incompetent—if I could fire you, you’d be out the goddamned door right now, my friend.  Your ass is toast!   (Maria slaps Juan.)   MARIA ‘When can we reschedule?’  It’s easy—fucking say it, Juan!   JUAN Maria—   (Maria hits him again.)   MARIA ‘When can we reschedule?’  Are you fucking with me, Juan, or what?  Do not fuck with me right now, I swear to God—   JUAN (Very bad pronunciation,) Wh—When…   MARIA Say it!   JUAN (Very bad pronunciation,) When can w—we—   MARIA Oh, Jesus Christ you are too stupid to do anything!   (Maria hits Juan several times, lets go of him, and stalks  offstage.)   MANAGER/ANGEL (Offstage, blending,) Get the hell outta my office entre el coche, you stupid perra estúpida y gorda!   (Juan hunches on the floor, in pain.  Stage Left dims  halfway, and Juan moves surreptitiously offstage. Stage  Right, Co-worker sits tense at her desk, listening.   Manager enters, very angry.)   MANAGER Idiot deleted the entire project.  Can you get it back?   CO-WORKER Okay, okay, just wait a second—   MANAGER This is not a game—if my directory’s empty, then this project is completely gone!  Eighteen months of work, pissed down the toilet.   CO-WORKER There’s no way a directory could’ve been completely deleted on a network drive.  It might be possible to restore it.   MANAGER Okay…okay, can you do that?   CO-WORKER Maybe.  I’ll try.  But this isn’t my area of expertise.   (Co-worker types.  Maria enters Stage Left.)   MARIA Juan—   (She sees that he’s gone.)   CO-WORKER If this doesn’t work, we can try to get Ran Pradajam to come in first thing tomorrow and restore it from last night’s backup.  She managed to resurrect accounting’s ERP system when they corrupted their database at year-end.  But maybe...   MARIA Juan?  Juan?  I’m sorry!  I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it! (She bursts into tears.) I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry!   (Maria moves to Amaria’s medical bed and hugs her.)   MANAGER There—that’s it, right?   CO-WORKER Um…wait…   MARIA You’re Mama’s good, beautiful girl, I love you.  I love you.   CO-WORKER Yeah.  It’s okay.  I’ll transfer a copy to the shared drive so you can access it.   MANAGER God…I am too old for this crap.  Thanks.  Back it up.  Everywhere.  Good job.  I’m gonna go have a nice quiet heart attack now…   (Hero enters as Manager exits.  They glare at each other.)   CO-WORKER Hi.   HERO (Sitting and typing furiously.) Yeah.   (Maria crosses to the cooler and gets a bottle of beer.)   HERO Look, you wanna grab a beer?  I need to get the hell outta here for awhile.   CO-WORKER Sure, okay, a quick one.  There’s a bar up the street.   (Co-worker and Hero rise and put on coats.  Maria sits on  the couch and drinks, tears slowing then stopping.)   MARIA I hope you learn to breathe, baby.  I hope you learn to eat and smile.  That’s all I want.   (Hero and Co-worker exit.  Stage Left and Stage Right go  very dim, then Stage Right goes dark.  Maria remains on  the couch, drinking.)       SCENE 3   (The same night, about 12:30 a.m.  Maria  has dozed off on the couch.  Stage Left  remains very dim.  Stage Right is dark.  We  hear very loud dance music, heavy bass.   Dance club lights begin flashing Stage  Right.  Lights up on Co-worker and Hero  sitting a table in a dance club.  They are  drinking beers.)   HERO I mean, it’s just—just—you just don’t do that!  You don’t—it’s the worst managerial shortcoming—the worst!  I swear, I could do his job in my sleep.  What the hell do we need a Project Manager for?  The software architect and I have a helluva lot more meaningful meetings and, like, discussions and emails and stuff about the project every day.  God!  I hope he gets his ass fired tomorrow.  Well, today, I mean.  What time is it?   CO-WORKER I cannot keep a relationship going with this stupid job.  It’s the job, it has to be—either that, or this town.  Every single relationship I’ve been in since I moved here has lasted exactly three months!  That’s insane!  I’m starting to just plan for it—how sick is that?  Three month mark, boom!  Guy breaks up with me.  Who the hell breaks up with someone they’ve slept with over the phone?  Well, I guess I should be grateful—remember that Todd guy last year?  Broke up with me in an email.  An email!  What the hell is the matter with men?  I mean, what the hell are you people protecting?  ‘I need my space, don’t threaten my independence, don’t even mention love or long-term commitment ever!’  You’ve got the most pathetic lives!  Oooh, gonna watch football with the guys, gonna watch baseball, gonna watch basketball—can’t be bothered to call or go out on the weekend.  Gonna spend all day at my brother’s stupid barbecue, but you can’t come—that’d be like we were a couple!  Gonna go ice camping alone up some stupid mountain and eat freeze-dried tofu, can’t call for two weeks.  Whoopee, how fucking creative.  You people should be begging a woman to be with you.  Especially considering how often you sad shits can’t get it up from working oh-so-many hours and being oh-so-tired!  I pull that routine, and I get dumped.  Christ.  All of you are pushing thirty or already there, never been married, never had a serious relationship—oh, but one time you dated some college bitch for a whole year!  Oooh, you talked about moving in together!  Wow.  Give me a fucking break.  You’re all just a bunch of twelve year old boys in aging, graying, gut-growing bodies.    (Hero has tried to ignore her throughout her rant, hoping  she’ll stop talking; now he turns to her in exasperation.)   HERO Are you drunk?  Jeez, we’ve got so much work to do—if you’re drunk, I swear to God—   CO-WORKER (Coldly,) I’ve had one beer.  Thank you very much.  I can hold my liquor—I’m not one of your little sorority whores who pass out after one drink.   HERO Okay, you know what?  I’m not interested in listening to you rant about all the jerks you’ve dated, all right?  I don’t do stuff like that, so I don’t want to be your—your stand-in for all the asshole guys of the world.  Jeez.   CO-WORKER Wow.  That sounds just like what they all say.   HERO Oh, for Christ’s sake, can we just drop it?  God, I sick of—   CO-WORKER Oh yeah, I’m not a player, I’m looking for a long-term relationship.  I’ve only been living here for a year, so that’s why I just haven’t found anyone yet.  I was a super-fun guy in college, and now I’ve got this great job, pull in 80K a year, and I deserve it.  I mean, I’m white, for God’s sake.  I have a Bachelor’s degree from party-school U—that ought to guarantee me a killer job and enough money for a fill-in-the-blank Porsche, Mercedes, BMW.  I got me a great apartment on the water, thinking of buying a condo.  Gotta have my cell phone, laptop, mountain bike, all the newest toys.  Don’t mind having a one-night stand, since, well, if the woman wants to, why not?  I’m a red-blooded-American guy.  Morals?  What, you mean, like religion, or something?  What are morals?  Terrified of gays—they might want me.  And why should I use a condom—she was white, and she said she’s on the pill.  See ya, I’ll call or email you sometime.    HERO (Uncomfortable,) Whatever.  You know.  Whatever.   CO-WORKER How much do you make?   HERO What?   CO-WORKER We have exactly the same job.  Same degrees.  Same amount of experience.  I’ve got one year seniority on you at this company.  How much do you make a year?   HERO (A beat.) I’m not interested in getting into a glass-ceiling argument with you.  If a person—a person—makes more money than another person, then there’s a real reason.  Either experience, or initiative, or—or signs of a promising future—   CO-WORKER Why don’t you want to tell me?  Are you afraid that stupid-little-glass-ceiling thing might be true?  Or.  Are you afraid that I make more than you?  Hm?  That would really fry you, wouldn’t it—some girl making more money than you.  Which messes your head up worse—that you might make more money just cause you’ve got a dick, or that you might make less than someone who doesn’t have a dick?    (Hero shakes his head.  A beat.  He signals as if to the  bartender.)   CO-WORKER What’re you doing?   HERO (With two shot glasses in his hands,) This here’s the world’s most vile, ass-kicking drink.  It’s killed five thousand large white men with 401K plans this year.  Think you can handle it?   CO-WORKER (Losing her anger,) Come on, I’m serious—America is going to hell because—   HERO (Sing-song,) You can’t do it, you can’t do it, what’re you chicken, bock-bock-bock?   CO-WORKER (Laughing,) Shut up!  What, you really dare me?  Think I can’t?   HERO Oh, I know you can’t.   CO-WORKER (Picking up her shot glass,) Fine.   HERO (Picking up his,) Fine.   CO-WORKER (Raising her glass,) Fuck you. HERO (Raising his glass,) Fuck you.   (They drink.  Stage Left, Angel enters carrying a large  bottle and a glass.  He turns on the lights and sees Maria  asleep on the couch.  He tiptoes up to her.)   ANGEL Tequila!   (Maria yelps and jumps awake.  Co-worker and Hero let out  gasps of disgust, having done their shots.)   MARIA Goddamn it, Angel!   CO-WORKER Oh, that is nasty!   HERO Yeah…yeah…   ANGEL Here you go, Mamacita.  Cheers to your little baby girl’s fifth birthday.   (Angel hands Maria a shot of tequila.  She drinks it, as he  drinks from the bottle.)   MARIA What time is it?   (Angel turns on the stereo.  Mexican music fills the room.)   ANGEL After midnight, time to party!  Novia!   HERO (Grabbing Co-worker’s hand,) Come on.   CO-WORKER What?  Oh, I don’t wanna dance!   HERO It’s either that or another shot.   CO-WORKER (Being led offstage onto the dance floor by him,) Aw…this is retarded…   ANGEL (Dancing with the tequila bottle,) Yeah, that’s right, happy birthday Amaria!  Yeah!  Get in here, Juanito, fuckin’ tequila!   MARIA Where is Juan?   ANGEL Hey Novia!  You done with that damned food yet?   MARIA Oh, she’d better not be here.   ANGEL Time to celebrate our baby girl’s happy birthday, yes!  C’mere, hot mama.   (Angel grabs Maria and dances with her.  She’s still not  completely awake, and doesn’t dance in step with him.)   MARIA Angel …come on, quit it.    ANGEL Want some more tequila?   MARIA Yeah.   (He pours her a shot, and she drinks.)   ANGEL Yeah!  That’s right!  Novia!   (Novia enters with a large platter of food.  She’s fairly  drunk.)   NOVIA Happy birthday, Amaria!  Who wants my special tamales?    (Juan enters from the bedroom,)   JUAN Hey, tamales.  I’ll have one.   ANGEL No, no, no!  You gotta take a shot, my man!  To Amaria!   (Juan drinks the shot.)   NOVIA Aw!   ANGEL No, wrong!  You gotta do it like a man.  Lookit Maria—she can do it like a man.   (Angel holds a shot out to Maria.  She grabs the bottle  instead and drinks.)   ANGEL Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!   (Maria holds the bottle out to Juan, who takes it and drinks.    Maria laughs and kisses him.  A popular dance song comes   on, and Novia sets the platter of food down to dance.)   NOVIA Happy birthday, Amaria!   MARIA You are not doing Pasa de Vaca!   ANGEL Take her to school, Maria, go baby!   MARIA Fine, yeah, okay.   (Maria stands next to Novia and the two dance identical,                                      fairly complex steps.  Juan keeps drinking.)   ANGEL Yeah, that’s right!  Pasa de Vaca, go, go!  Oh, she’s downing you, Maria!  Gotta catch up, gotta—oh, ice cold!   (Maria has fallen behind and can’t keep up with Novia.  Angry, she stalks over to stand by Juan.  She grabs the bottle and drinks, handing it irritably back to him.  Angel moves in to dance with Novia.)   ANGEL That’s my baby, damn, you’re so hot, Novia!  Sexy mamacita, gonna burn me!   (Juan tries to embrace Maria, but she throws his hands off,   still angry.  Angel and Novia continue to dance, very close  and intense.)   MARIA (Switching the stereo off abruptly,) Time for the piñata!   ANGEL Aw, I was just getting so hot for you, baby!   NOVIA (Embarrassed and pleased,) Angel!   MARIA Where’s that ugly piece of shit you bought, Angel?   NOVIA No, no, we gotta have the cake first.  I made it; it’s my mami’s recipe.  Yummy!   (Novia gets the cake.)   MARIA Probably deep fried in lard and covered in cilantro, like all your mami’s other damned food.   ANGEL I got the fire.   (He lights the candles.  Novia carries the cake to  the medical bed and they stand beside it.)   ALL                                     (Singing,) Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el Rey David; hoy por ser dia de tu santo te las cantamos a ti; Despieta mi bien despierta mira que ya amanecio ;Ya los pajaritos cantan la luna ya se metio…   (Maria blows the candles out.)   JUAN Happy birthday.   NOVIA She’s gotten so big.  Long.   ANGEL Now we gotta smash her face in the cake.   NOVIA Oh, I hate that.  Don’t wreck my cake, Papi.   ANGEL No, we gotta.  It’s a fuckin’ tradition.   MARIA Don’t, Angel.    ANGEL Aw, come on—   JUAN (Firmly,) It’ll scare her.  It’ll clog her breathing tube.  Leave her the hell alone.   (The others stare at him.  A pause.)   ANGEL Well.  Well!  More for us, then.  Here, sweet, hot, sugar mama!   (Angel dots frosting on Novia’s nose, then licks it off.  She  squeals.  Maria glares.)   MARIA Okay, so let’s see what’s in this shitty piñata, Angel.  Come on!   ANGEL Cool.    (Angel grabs the piñata and jumps onto the couch or a  chair.)   NOVIA We’re not going outside?   (Maria gets a broom.)   ANGEL Naw, just get the candy all dirty on the ground.  Not that it’s much cleaner in here.   MARIA Fuck you.   ANGEL Later, baby, in the backseat of my roadster.   NOVIA (Amused and not getting it,) You’re so bad, corazon!    ANGEL You go first, Mami.  No blindfold—I’m so crafty, you’ll never hit it.   (Maria rather drunkenly swings the broom at the piñata,  which Angel is holding by a short string.  She misses.)   NOVIA Oh!   ANGEL You’ve got to do better than that.  (She swings again,) Aw, see you ain’t even trying now. (She swings again,) You gonna fall on your ass, Maria, wheeee!   MARIA Screw it.  You do it.   (She hands the broom to Juan.)   NOVIA Yay, go Juan.  Break it, break it!  (Singing,)  Dale, dale, dale, no pierdes el tino; mide la distancia que hay en el camino!   ANGEL (Singing,) Y si no le das, con un palo te empino; Porque tienes cara de puro pepino!  (Speaking,) Come on, Juanito; let’s see what Papi’s got for you!   (Juan gives the tequila to Maria and slowly steps over to  where Angel is standing.  Everything pauses; silence for a  moment.)   ANGEL (Breaking the silence,) Yeah, come on Juan, (Singing,) Dale, dale, dale, no pierdes el— (Juan swings and swats Angel in the stomach.  It only  stings, and Angel hops back a bit.)   ANGEL Watch it, Juan!  Gotta hit the piñata, boss.   (Juan swings again and hits Angel harder.  Angel drops the  piñata, enraged.)   ANGEL Motherfucker!    MARIA Juan—   NOVIA Oh Angel, it’s an accident—   ANGEL (Chasing Juan,)  Kick your fucking ass, you little shit!  Fuck you!   (Angel chases Juan offstage.  We hear the sound of Angel   beating Juan coming from offstage.  Novia and Maria  crowd around the door to see what is happening.)   MARIA Angel!  Stop it!  What the hell’re you doing?   NOVIA He didn’t mean to hit you, Papi!   MARIA Get the hell out of my house, bitch!  This is your fault!   NOVIA What?!  I didn’t do anything.   MARIA Get out!   NOVIA Your stupid husband hit my Angel—   MARIA Your Angel!  He’ll fuck anything with a pussy, you stupid—   NOVIA Get out of my face, bitch!   MARIA Don’t you even think of touching me, Novia.   NOVIA Catch an STD if I touch you.   MARIA Bitch!   NOVIA Slut!   (An alarm goes off urgently at Amaria’s medical bed.   Maria instantly pushes past Novia and attends to it.)   MARIA Oh God!  Novia!  Get Juan!   NOVIA Skanking around in your little hooker-heels, little tiny skirts—   MARIA Novia, I need Juan!  Amaria’s choking!   NOVIA (Takes a moment to regroup, then runs offstage,) Juan!  Angel, stop!  Juan!  Baby’s choking, hurry!   (Lights down Stage Left and Stage Right.)       SCENE 4   (The same night, around three a.m.  Lights  up Stage Right.  Manager is rooting around  in Hero’s and Co-worker’s desks,  reading various papers he finds. Co-worker  enters, slightly mussed.  She stops behind  Manager.  He isn’t aware of her.)   CO-WORKER What are you doing?   (Manager stands quickly, putting the papers down.)   MANAGER Just looking for the latest display schematics.   CO-WORKER Uh-huh.   MANAGER The employee handbook clearly states that a manager can inspect the desk space of those under his supervision at any time.  So…where’s your partner in crime?   CO-WORKER In the john.   MANAGER Where’d you two go?   CO-WORKER The post office.   MANAGER Cute.   CO-WORKER (Sitting and beginning to work,) Anything else?   MANAGER Do you like your job?   CO-WORKER (She stops typing and turns to face him fully, highly  unamused,.) Oh, let’s see, what to say?   MANAGER I’m just asking.   CO-WORKER I’ve been here since five o’clock yesterday morning, so that makes…twenty-two and a half hours.  I am in no mood, I warn you.  What do you want?   MANAGER I…I’m really scared.  Look, could I talk to you for a minute?   CO-WORKER Okay.   MANAGER See, the thing is…this headcount reduction thing…I’m really getting concerned.  I mean, budget-wise, it would be easier to cut in the higher ranks, than….See the thing is, I’ve got kids.  Kids that absolutely hate me—well, they’re teenagers, and you know how teenagers are…but I’m never home, never there for them.  I’m on my third marriage now, and it’s pretty much not, um, coasting anymore.  I’ve got house payments, college tuition coming up for three kids…I can’t be looking for work, you understand me?  I mean, you’re…well, you’re young.  People your age relocate all the time.  Change jobs for whatever reasons.  You might even—   CO-WORKER Get married?  Get pregnant?  Try to come back after the twelve weeks allowed under the Family Medical Leave Act, realize that I just can’t be away from my baby, and quit in a spasm of irresponsibility and hormones?   MANAGER Now, I never—   CO-WORKER Be careful.   MANAGER I was just saying— CO-WORKER Be very careful.   MANAGER Look, I’m sorry.   CO-WORKER Forget it.  It never happened.   MANAGER Because the VP wants the software engineers to review their managers this year!  It’s not just me passing judgment on you.  You—   CO-WORKER Nothing happened.   MANAGER Okay.   (Shaken, Manager exits.  Co-worker sits and starts to type.   Hero enters.  He sits and starts to type.)   HERO Did we rule out the memory management problem?   CO-WORKER Yeah.  Let’s move on to checking for the latest versions of DirectX commands. (A pause.) Thanks for the drinks.   HERO No problem.   (A pause.)   CO-WORKER So boss-man just tried to commit a gross violation of Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act.   HERO What?   CO-WORKER He tried to state or imply or whatever that since I’m a woman, I’ll just get pregnant and quit anyway, so why not sacrifice myself to the headcount cut and save his good ol’ boy job.   HERO Are you serious?   CO-WORKER Uh-huh.   HERO God, that guy’s such a jerk!  Are you gonna report him to Human Resources?   CO-WORKER Nah.   (Lights start to come up very slowly Stage Left.  Maria and  Angel are sitting despondently on the couch, far apart and   not touching.)   HERO Why not?  Maybe we’d finally get rid of this guy!   CO-WORKER No profit doing it that way.  I’ve been working for this company longer than you, remember.  I’m biding my time.   HERO What’s that mean?   CO-WORKER You’ll see, one of these fine days.   HERO I thought Title Seven was that sports thing.   CO-WORKER What?   HERO Where you have to let girls play football in high school if they want to.   CO-WORKER That’s Title Nine.   HERO Oh yeah.  So what’s the one where you’re in a wheelchair and they gotta—   (Hero’s phone rings, as Maria’s phone simultaneously  rings.  Maria and Hero each reach for the receivers.)   MARIA and HERO Hello?   MARIA Yeah?  Really?  Oh, God, okay, yeah.  Yeah.  See you soon.  Bye. (She hangs up and turns to Angel.) That was Juan.  She’s okay—it was just reflux.  Nothing serious.  Juan’s gonna bring her home with him.   (Angel scoots closer to Maria on the couch.  Stage Right,  Co-worker exits unobtrusively.)   ANGEL Thank God!   MARIA I was so scared it was another seizure.   (Angel takes her into his arms, not erotically, and kisses her  forehead.)   ANGEL Oh, God, Maria!   MARIA She’s so weak already, after that infection she got last month.  Oh, no, Angel, what’s wrong?   (Angel has buried his face against her shoulder, sobbing.)   ANGEL It’s my fault, I hurt her again, it’s all my fault!   MARIA No, no, it’s not, you didn’t do anything.   ANGEL I shouldn’t have scared her with the cake.  I shouldn’t have hit Juanito.  God, Maria, I can’t do anything right.   MARIA You’re just drunk.  Where’s Novia?   ANGEL (Wiping his eyes and getting himself under control,) Your bedroom.  I am so sorry, Maria.   MARIA It’s okay.   ANGEL I’ve never wanted anything but gold for you, amor.  Ever since that time I saw you, remember, your quinceañera.  So beautiful, all in white, like the purest thing in heaven.  Couldn’t let some filthy teenage boy dirty you, knock you up, leave you pregnant at fifteen.  I taught you to respect your body, didn’t I?  Kept all those boys away from you, taught you to use the condom.  Taught you how to come.   MARIA (Wearily,) Yeah, Angel.   ANGEL (Kissing her,) There’s nobody I’ve loved like you, ever.  You know that, don’t you?   MARIA (Not responding to his kiss,) Yeah.   ANGEL So beautiful…   (Novia enters, yawning loudly.)   NOVIA Angel, Papi…   (Angel smoothly releases Maria and rises.)   ANGEL Hey, there’s my girl!  Oooh, sexy baby, come here, give your Papi some loving.   (Angel embraces Novia.  She giggles and squirms.)   NOVIA Angel!  Not in front of Maria.   MARIA (Without fire,) Novia, please, go home.  Don’t stay here tonight.  If you have to fuck her tonight, please Angel, don’t do it on my couch.  Go to her mother and father’s place.  Don’t be on my couch tonight.   NOVIA Oh, that’s okay, I understand.  You’ve got that big CPS inspection thing at ten, so you probably want to clean up, or whatever.  We’ll make ourselves scarce.   MARIA What?  Novia, Juan and I missed that inspection.   NOVIA Yeah, and then I rescheduled it for you.  Ten today.    MARIA You…rescheduled it?   NOVIA You got like six hours to clean up, should be enough time.  What, Maria?  What?   MARIA You rescheduled it for…ten today?   NOVIA Yeah, I ran into the CPS people out in the parking lot when they were leaving, and they were upset that you weren’t here and Juan couldn’t talk to them, so I told them to come back the next day, which is today.  At ten in the morning.  Well, they picked ten in the morning.    MARIA Oh my God…   NOVIA Hey, I saved your ass, Maria!  They were talking about dropping you, taking Amaria since you weren’t being responsible, so I explained things to them.  I speak English good.  A thank you would be nice.   MARIA Oh my God, oh God, you stupid bitch!  I have an appointment with the Department of Disabilities today at ten!  I can’t reschedule it.  If I miss it, Amaria won’t get her medical supplies anymore, or her food, or her school, or—oh Jesus Christ, what have you done?   NOVIA Fuck you, Maria!  I was only trying to help.   (Novia, hurt, exits.)   ANGEL Maria, baby, I can help.   (Maria begins to frantically clean the apartment.)   MARIA Juan and I both have to be at the CPS inspection—we can’t be in two places at the same time!   ANGEL I’ll go to the Disabilities place for you.   MARIA You can’t do that, you’re not one of her parents, Angel!  It has to be me or Juan.  Oh God, God, I’m screwed!  Why the hell do I have so much shit in my life?  I’ve got no help at all—useless husband, my daughter’s so bad off—she doesn’t even know me.  She can’t move, she can’t think, who could love a little girl like that but me?  If they take her, who would talk to her and kiss her and love her?   Nobody could love her but me and Juan.   (Stage Right, Hero is typing fast and hard.  Co-worker  enters and begins to type too.)   HERO It’s totally recompiled?  Right?   CO-WORKER Yeah, with the latest changes.   HERO Time’s running out.   CO-WORKER I know.   MARIA I’m all by myself!  Nobody helps me, I have to do everything!   ANGEL It’s gonna be okay, baby, I promise.   (Angel tries to kiss Maria.  She shoves him away very   hard.)   MARIA Leave me alone—don’t you touch me!  You’re the biggest fucking load in my life, Angel.  All you ever do is eat my food and hump your bitch girlfriend on my couch and watch my TV and rape me every other day!   (Angel is stunned to silence and stares at Maria.)   ANGEL I…I thought.  I thought you…you liked it.  I thought we both liked it, you wanted to.  I love you, Maria.    (Angel exits.  Maria starts to sob heavily, trying to clean up  the mess in the apartment.  Lights dim slowly Stage Left.)   HERO Can I upload the binaries now?   CO-WORKER Almost…   HERO We can patch it later!  Can I send it?   CO-WORKER One more second…close enough.  Upload it.   HERO (Hitting buttons on his keyboard,) Bing, bang, boom…adiós.   (Hero and Co-worker both collapse in their chairs.  They  look at each other.)   CO-WORKER Well.  We’re done.   HERO Twenty-three hours.   CO-WORKER I think I’m gonna throw up.   HERO And the real fun starts when the VP gets here.   CO-WORKER Oh crapola.  If I give you ten bucks, will you kill me?   HERO Sure.  Absolutely.   CO-WORKER That was awfully eager.   (Lights down Stage Left and Stage Right.)       SCENE 5   (Morning, about nine o’clock.  Lights up Stage Right.  Co-worker and Hero are eating donuts/muffins and drinking coffee.)   HERO How long do you suppose these’ve been in the vending machine?   CO-WORKER I saw them refill it last week.   HERO Really?   CO-WORKER No, but eat it anyway, it’s good for you.  It’ll give you penicillin.   HERO You know, I tried to give up coffee once.   CO-WORKER Oh please!  Listen to you, all portentous like that.  How long have you been drinking it—like a year?   HERO I started in college.   CO-WORKER You drink it twenty years and try to quit:  then I’ll be impressed.   HERO Can I finish?   CO-WORKER Yeah, no one’s stopping you.   HERO I tried to give it up when I first started this job, and I got the worst headaches of my life—seriously, I went to the doctor.  Thought I had a brain tumor or something.  What?   CO-WORKER Nothing, nothing at all.   HERO I’m sure you have a much more interesting coffee-quitting story, right?   CO-WORKER No, I’d never give up coffee.  It’s God’s black blood.   HERO Gross!   CO-WORKER Although, one time I did drink so much of it that I began to hallucinate.                         HERO Oh, come on!  That never happens to anyone.   CO-WORKER It does if you haven’t slept for four days, and the lack of REM sleep is bringing on temporary psychosis.   HERO No, see, that wasn’t coffee you were on.  That was amphetamines.   CO-WORKER So there I was in the computer lab at college, minding my own business and putting the finishing polish on my Senior Advanced Programming project.  And lo!  The lip of my disposable coffee cup quivered and began to speak.   HERO And what did it say?   CO-WORKER ‘This too shall pass.’   HERO How…Zen.   CO-WORKER I bet you don’t really know what Zen is.  I bet it’s one of those things like ‘irony’ that you think you can use in context, but couldn’t define if your life depended on it.   HERO So how do you define it?   CO-WORKER Ha!  Fell into the trap!  You can’t define Zen.   HERO Yes you can.   CO-WORKER You can only demonstrate it.   HERO No, I don’t think so.   CO-WORKER Check this out.   (She takes Hero’s coffee cup and begins pouring its   contents into hers.)   HERO Okay, whatever, I get it!  It’s gonna spill in my keyboard, stop!   CO-WORKER (Mystically,) ‘Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?’   HERO Huh?  That doesn’t even make any sense!  Did you make that up?   CO-WORKER No.  I got it off the Internet.   HERO Oh, so it must be authentic.   CO-WORKER That was the Cup of Tea—or, in our case, Cup of Coffee—koan.    HERO That’s…stupid.   CO-WORKER Stupid?  You want profound?   ‘Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that.’                                       (It takes Hero a moment to get it, then he starts to laugh.)   HERO  Now, see, that’s clever and useful!   CO-WORKER ‘A crash reduces Your expensive computer To a simple stone.’   And of course,   ‘Windows NT crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your screams.’   HERO                                     (Laughing,) Who wrote that?   CO-WORKER Dunno.  Somebody in Japan?  Who cares, it’s from the Internet.   HERO See, this is nice.  You’re a lot more, like, palatable when you’re in a good mood.   CO-WORKER No, no, I’ll never be in a good mood again.  It’s all an act to hide the agony.   HERO Oh, come on!   CO-WORKER I’ve lost all faith in men.   HERO I just pulled in a major project for you—with you, over a freaking twenty-eight hour stretch.  Oh God, has it really been that long?!  I’m a man.   CO-WORKER That remains to be seen.   HERO Why don’t you just…just relax?  Get a hobby, or something?  We don’t care when we don’t have, y’know, a relationship going on at the moment.  We just hang out, watch TV, go camping or something.  It’s nice, you should try it.   CO-WORKER Hm.  I’m not even going to start tearing that mess apart.   HERO Thank you.   CO-WORKER I don’t know…maybe I should just move to China, teach English.  A friend of mine did that.  Sounds noble.  I mean, what do you do when you’re not at work?   HERO Oh, I don’t know…I’m always at work!   CO-WORKER Seriously.   HERO Sleep.   CO-WORKER That’s it?   HERO Yeah.  I’m here about sixty, seventy hours a week.  I get home and I just…crash.   CO-WORKER   Is that some little jab?   HERO What?   CO-WORKER God, I hate these pissing contests everyone gets into at this company!  ‘Oooh, I worked seventy hours last week!’  ‘Big deal, I worked eighty!’ ‘I brought in my sleeping bag and slept under the desk for just four hours a day, so I worked one hundred and forty hours this week!’  Please.  One day I’m gonna hear someone claiming to have worked six-hundred and ten hours in one week.   HERO Y’know, I think we’re around each other too much.   CO-WORKER Feeling’s mutual.   HERO God, I’m sick of you!   CO-WORKER I’m sick of you, too!  It’s like being married to my brother or something.   HERO What?!  Gross!   (Manager enters, followed by VP)   MANAGER Morning!  How’s everyone feeling?  Long night, huh?  All-nighter!  But we sure did it, pulled that Crane Project together, great job, team!  Um…yeah.  I’d like to introduce our Vice-President of Research and Development.  She’ll be doing some interviews, as we discussed, a little housecleaning, nothing to get nervous about, just—   VP I’m sorry, but I’m on an extremely tight schedule.  I’ve got seventeen teams to interview in this department, and I’ve got to be in Dallas by the end of the day, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to just get started.   MANAGER Sure, sure, not a problem.  Well.  Well!  Good luck, team.  We do such great work, I’m sure we’ll just hit it right out of the park.    (VP gestures to Co-worker, and they exit.  Manager looks  as though he wants to talk to Hero, then exits.  Hero picks  up the coffee cups.)   HERO (Pouring the contents of one into the other,) Mind…cup…both are empty.  God, I need to get a life!   (Lights down Stage Right and Stage Left.  Entire stage is  dark.  Spotlight Center Stage.  Only a chair is visible.    After a moment, Angel enters and approaches it.  Slightly  surreal lighting.)   ANGEL (Very heavy accent,) I can sit? (He sits.) Good morning.  Qué?  No, no Juan.  My name is Angel—no, no, Juan, he…not Juan.  Um.  Interpreter?  No?  Okay.  I come here…Apartment of Disabilidades, here…for Amaria.  Amaria.  Ah, eh-meh, ah…no, no, la madre se llama Maria.  Amaria…my baby.  My baby de mi prima.  Uncle?  Cousin.  Soy el tio de Amaria.  El tio.  Angel.  Ah, eh-neh—                                     (The interpreter has arrived, and now Angel speaks very  clearly.) Oh, hey, are you the interpreter?  Great—I kept trying to tell them I needed someone.  Morning.  Should I start over?  Yeah?  Okay.  I’m here to do that review-thing that you guys wanted for Amaria.  Her mother and father had another appointment, so I figured that since I live with all of them, it’d work just as well if I did this thing.  What?  No, I’m not Amaria’s dad—I’m her mother’s cousin.  Yeah, I live with Amaria.  No, her father lives with her, too.  Yeah, her mother too.  We all live together.  They still have custody of her, right.  Well, I pay some rent and for food and all.  No, no, not for Amaria, exactly.  I mean, she lives with all of us, so we kinda share.  Yeah, I watch her sometimes.  Oh, maybe…couple hours a day.  Not everyday.  Yeah.  Yeah.  But—well, okay.  Okay.  Fine.  Can Maria reschedule with you people, at least?  She had another appointment today.  Jesus.  No, no, it’s okay.  Whatever.  Thanks.   (Angel rises and exits.  Stage goes dark.  Spotlight up on  VP and Co-worker.  They are seated facing each other.  Slightly surreal lighting.)   VP So, you’ve been with the company…   CO-WORKER Two years.   VP Okay.  Same team the whole time?   CO-WORKER No, first I was assistant system administrator for IT, then I moved over here about eight months ago.   VP For what reason?   CO-WORKER I felt I needed new challenges.   VP Really.   CO-WORKER I feel that I’ve got what it takes to be a real player.  Management material.   VP What do you base that upon?   CO-WORKER Supervisor comments to that effect.  A solid track-record of completed projects.  Successfully completed projects.  Um.  I speak Spanish.  I’m interested in travel.  I can write code in C++, Perl, Python, and uh…Tcl.  I work on average sixty hours a week.  I’m very committed to my job.  I really have no life.   (Her joke falls flat.)   VP Any sales?   CO-WORKER Excuse me?   VP Any sales experience?  Marketing?   CO-WORKER Well…no.  Not, like, software.  I sold clothes at the Gap a couple summers when I was in college.   VP Okay.   CO-WORKER I’m not sure if that’s quite what you were after.   VP Thanks.  Where do you see yourself in five years?   CO-WORKER Oh, jeez, I don’t know—I mean, well, professionally, I think—I believe I have what it takes to be a project manager.  Supervise the software engineers who are working on innovative new, um, software.  For the company.   VP Do you like your boss?   CO-WORKER Which one?  Technically, I’ve got about five.  Sorry.   VP Your project manager.   CO-WORKER Personally or professionally like him?   VP Both.   CO-WORKER No.    VP Very honest answer.   CO-WORKER Personally liking or not liking him is nobody’s business but my own.  Professionally…I think he was introduced into a position in which he has to supervise people that—who—he’s got to supervise projects that he doesn’t have a coherent understanding.  Of.   VP Hm.   CO-WORKER That’s just my opinion.  But I think—believe it’s valid.  Based on what I’ve seen.   VP Alrighty.   CO-WORKER So—   VP We’re done.  Quick and painless, huh?  Thanks.   (Co-worker rises uncertainly.)     CO-WORKER (To herself,) ‘Three things are certain: Death, taxes and lost data. Guess which has occurred.’   (Co-worker exits.  Lights down.  In the darkness, we hear a  knock on a door.  Lights up Stage Left.  The apartment  seems cleaner.  Juan and Maria are standing in the room.  They appear very nervous.)   MARIA Okay.  Ready?   JUAN Yes.    MARIA God, I don’t know if I can do this…   JUAN It…it’ll work out.  One way or another.  It always does.  Right?   (Maria goes to open the door.  Lights go dim and we see  Maria and Juan move to Center Stage and sit.  They are  spotlit, somewhat surreally, as Angel and Co-worker  were.)   MARIA Hi.  Thanks for coming—for rescheduling with us.  Sorry about that yesterday…yeah, I know.  I know.  Well, I was working, and it just kinda slipped my mind.  Yes.  Of course.  Yes.  Everything that, y’know, relates to my baby is important to me.  Yes.  (Juan leans close to Maria and whispers in her ear.) Juan wants to know if you guys brought an interpreter for him today?  No?  Well…you want me to just translate for him?  I’ll ask him.                                     (Maria leans close to Juan and whispers.)   JUAN Sí, está bien.   MARIA It’s okay with him.  Hey, you guys want anything?  Coffee?  Juice—water?  Okay.  You’re welcome, no problem.             (The interview has begun.) Good.  Fine.  Jeez, how long’s it been—a couple months?  No, no problems at all.  Oh, sure, sorry.             (Maria whispers to Juan.)   JUAN Todo está bien.   MARIA Juan says everything’s been fine.  Amaria’s grown a little!  Yeah, her doctor said she’s an inch longer.  Taller, I mean.  She put on—what was it?  Two, three pounds—dos libras, verdad?   JUAN Dos.   MARIA Yeah, two pounds.  What?  Eating good.  The new feeding tubes are lasting a lot longer than those other ones.  Thanks for helping set that up.  Oh, I thought it was you guys.  Who did that, then?  Public Health Nurse?  Huh.  Well, they work real good.  Yes, she’s been going to her school every day.  Well, she was sick a few weeks ago, so she had to stay home.  Her doctor said he thought it was bronchitis.  No, definitely not pneumonia again.  Well, you know how these things are going around.  In school and all.  I had a cough for a week too.  No, no other problems.  Healthy and just—just fine, yep.                                     (A beat.  Maria freezes and stiffens.) He had an accident.  No, he was not in a fight.  He did something, like in the car, or—                                     (Maria has been told to ask Juan.  She reluctantly whispers  to him.)   JUAN Me hice daño.   MARIA He said that he hurt himself.                                       (Maria whispers to him again.)   JUAN ¿Qué?   MARIA ¿A donde?   JUAN Yo trabajaba.   MARIA At work.  He was working at the time.  I think he said he caught his face on the undercarriage of a car he was working on.   JUAN Tropecé y caí.   MARIA He said he tripped and fell.                                     (A beat.) Okay?  Sure.  Let’s see…first of all, we cleaned up the apartment real good, since that was something you guys kept mentioning.  No, no more cockroaches.  Not one.  Oh, God, at least two months.  I’m sure we killed alla those suckers.  No, we never leave food out overnight.  Been vacuuming every day, yeah.                                     (She whispers to Juan.)   JUAN Es muy limpio ahora.   MARIA Juan agrees that it’s a lot cleaner in here now.   JUAN Trabajamos mucho.   MARIA He says we worked real hard on it.  We did.   JUAN No hay más cucarachas.   MARIA No more cockroaches.  There really weren’t that many to begin with.  It’s the damned building; so many people moving in and out— (A beat.) No, she’s never being left home alone.  Not for a second.  That was all just a really big misunderstanding—yes.  Yes.  I know.  Sorry.  Anyway.  Someone’s always with her.  Me or Juan, or her Tio Angel.  Huh?  He’s my cousin.  We call him her uncle.  Yeah, he lives here.  No, he’s out, at work or something.  Okay.  Okay.  So…is that it?  You can do your inspection if you’re ready.  Nothing to hide, right?  (A beat.) What?  No, but—well, yeah.  Hold on, how exactly did you hear about that?   JUAN ¿Qué?   MARIA No, but—but…I want to know how you got that information.  No, coz it has nothing to do—   JUAN (Overlapping,) ¿Qué?  ¿Qué, Maria?   MARIA (Overlapping,) With Amaria.  Nothing.                                      (A pause.) Okay.  Fine.                                       (She whispers to Juan.)   JUAN ¿La policía…verdad?   MARIA Sí.    JUAN No era nada.   MARIA He says it was nothing.  It was nothing, really—   (Grudgingly, she whispers to him again.)   JUAN No era nada.   MARIA Did you understand?  Yeah.  We just had a—an—   JUAN Un malentendido.   MARIA Yeah, a misunderstanding—   JUAN Una discussion, que—   MARIA That got a little out of hand.  There was no need for the police to get involved.  Yeah, that’s all.  It is.   JUAN Todo.   MARIA That’s all there is to tell.  We’re enrolling at that Casa Mexicana place real soon—like, this week.  They have some kinda marriage counseling program.  Yeah.  Our marriage is very important to us.                                      (A beat.) No, I don’t need any phone numbers for—for battered women’s shelters.  No.  Really.   JUAN ¿Qué?    MARIA Nada.  Shh.                                     (A pause.  She whispers to Juan.)   JUAN Pienso que está bien.   MARIA Juan thinks things are fine now.  Everything’s going okay.  I think so, too.   JUAN Queremos guardar nuestra hija.  Eso es todo que queremos.   MARIA We want to keep our daughter.  That’s all we want.   (Lights down.  A pause.  Spotlight Center Stage.   Hero walks into it and sits.  He still shows signs of  Juan.)   HERO Soooo…interview time, huh?  Seems like I was just doing this, not, gosh, ten months ago.  You know, it might have been in this room, too.  Same chairs.  Make you squirm, huh?  So!  Shall we jump right in?   VP (Busy with something—a notepad, or a cell phone.  She  still shows signs of Maria.) One moment.    HERO                                     (Fidgets nervously.) Yep, yep.  Yeah.  Yeah, we really kicked some butt on that Crane Project, huh?  Excellent code, if you don’t mind me, y’know, blowing my own horn or whatever.  Very fast, very sleek.   VP                                     (Still distracted,) Very late.   HERO Well, I mean—well, sometimes a project has a—an—like, an unrealistic deadline assigned to it.  Or there are bugs.  That have to be worked out.   VP (Sarcastic, but not cruelly so,) Really?  I didn’t know that.  No one’s ever told me.   HERO Uh…yeah.  Well, you know what they say…first across the finish line is the first to the hospital.   VP (Still distracted,) What? HERO No…wait.  First to finish…hell—heck, I’m so fried right now, to tell you the truth, I really have no idea what I’m saying.  I might start singing for all I know.   VP Please don’t. (A beat.) You’re very nervous.   HERO I’m very tired.  I’m high on about three gallons of black coffee and total mental exhaustion.  All I want in heaven and earth is to go home and sleep for about eighteen hours.   VP (Giving him her full attention now,) What if there were errors?   HERO Pardon?   VP What if your project manager told you he’d found critical errors right as you were leaving?   HERO Did he?  What’s wrong with the code?  It’s perfect—I checked and checked about a million times—   VP Hypothetical situation.   HERO Oh.  Oh!  Well, right, jeez, crap, I dunno.  After…what, like, thirty hours now, what would I do?  I guess, stay, that’s what you want me to say, right?  Stay and make it right.  Work another thirty hours straight through or whatever it took to make the code perfect.   VP Maybe that’s not what I want to hear.   HERO What, you want me to say I’d take, like, a four hour nap in my car or somewhere, come back to the project fresh?  Is that it?   VP There’s no right answer.   HERO Then why ask?   VP Let’s move on…where’d you go to school?   HERO Nyman Tech for a year.  Then I transferred to the state university.   VP State U’s awful.  Their Computer Science department hasn’t been up to par since the mid-eighties.   HERO Well, I always thought…I mean, I think I got a good enough education from them.   VP Good enough?   HERO A good education.    VP How about your degree?   HERO Got a BS in Computer Science with an emphasis in software engineering.   VP No Master’s degree?  No MBA?   HERO No.   VP No extra certifications beyond the minimums at all?   HERO Look, I’m only twenty-three!  After the internship, I’ve been kinda busy paying off my crappy State U education.   VP State U’s no good?  I thought they were one of the best in the country.   HERO Huh?   VP Twenty-three, why, you’re just a baby!  Haven’t you worked anywhere else but here?   HERO I interned at ExteraTech in the Valley for—   VP I mean a real job, with a real desk and business cards with your name on them and a phone line with its own extension.  Is this all you’ve done with your life?   HERO Apparently.   VP Where do you see yourself in five years?   HERO Probably here.   VP Doing what?   HERO Managing the new software engineers.   VP But in five years there likely won’t be any software engineers.  At least, not here.  Everyone’s outsourcing to India these days.  Do you speak—what is it?  Punjab?  Whatever the big Indian language is over there?   HERO No.   VP How about Japanese?  Spanish, even?  No.  Why, you’re like the buggy-whip makers of yesteryear.  You’re becoming obsolete right before your own eyes.   HERO Look, is there some…some point to this?    VP Why should there be a point?   HERO See, ‘cause the thing is, I am so fucking tired—pardon my French—that all this circular head-game bullshit is really starting to piss me off.  Now what is your point?   VP You’ll never make manager.   HERO What?   VP You can’t focus when fatigued.  A manager never backpedals unless it personally serves him or her.  You backpedal to keep a conversation pleasant.  A manager never admits that they don’t know how to do something.  They say that they’re still exploring it.  A manager never admits to a lack of experience.  They stretch the truth; lie if necessary.  We call it “gilding the lily.”    HERO So…what?  What does this mean?  You firing me?   VP No.  You’re good at what you do, and we’re lucky to have you.   HERO Jesus H. Christ.                                     (He rises.  A beat.) Can I ask you something?   VP Sure, but make it quick.  I’ve got eleven more programmers to interview before lunch.  Any good restaurants close by?   HERO You’re on a plane with a little child about five years old, a sexy woman, and a very strong man.  The plane’s crashing and you’re wearing a tandem parachute.  You can only save yourself and one other person.  Who do you save?  The child, the sexy woman, or the strong man?   VP Thanks.  Could you send in…Richard Mariner, please?   HERO Maybe there’s no right answer.  I mean, somehow you know you’re supposed to pick the child, but why?  It just sounds all—all moral, or good, or whatever.  But that’s not the point.  See, the guy can get you out of the jungle; the sexy woman can make the time in the jungle fun.  But the kid can't do anything for you.  She’d be totally dependent on you.  A burden.  So if you're self-interested, you'll leave her behind.  So maybe it’s just a test of how much you look out for Number One, right?  I’ll bet you’d pick the man.   VP Have a nice day.    (Lights down.  Stage is in blackout.)       SCENE 6                                                                  (Lights up Stage Right.  It is about eight  o’clock in the evening, twenty-four hours  after the opening scene. Hero is seated at his  desk alone, typing.  He is singing “Fat  Bottomed Girls” by Queen under his breath.   Maria enters, dressed in her cleaning lady  outfit and carrying her cleaning supplies as   in the opening scene.)   MARIA   Excuse me?   HERO             (Jumping,) Oh jeez!   MARIA Sorry.   HERO That’s all right…dang.   MARIA Is it okay if I grab your garbage?   HERO Sure.   (Maria does so.  She empties it and sets the container back  on the ground.  A pause.)   MARIA Working late again tonight?   HERO Yep.   (A pause.)   MARIA You people are always here so late.  Later than me sometimes.  Don’t you have a home?   (Hero stops typing and makes real eye contact with Maria  for the first time.  They hold the gaze for several seconds.    Lights down.)       CURTAIN