ISRAEL
Halloween?
VINCENT
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, Cuanza, Winter Solstice…
ISRAEL
I get it. You think all good people have to be religious?
VINCENT
No, they pretend to be religious and pretend to be good. Most people aren’t like you, or who you claim to be. They’re like me.
ISRAEL
The I Will.
VINCENT
Verses the I AM. We should have worked together and created one book.
VINCENT ISRAEL
Except we’d have to Except we’d have to
split the profits. split the profits.
VINCENT
All comes down to money.
ISRAEL
I would’ve worked with you. I thought your book was fascinating. People need a choice.
VINCENT
Books or no books, they have a choice. My choice is just more preferable.
ISRAEL
And what’s that?
VINCENT
Excuse me?
ISRAEL
Tagline, premise, choice?
VINCENT
We are our Will. We are the choice. We are the creators of our own destiny, our lives. We don’t need GOD to tell us how to live. We don’t need people, except to get what we want from them. Fuck it! People are easy. LIFE is EASY! Fuck God. This is my life! I Am I Am. I Am I Will. I will whatever I need because I decide it to be. This aint no smoke and mirrors, babe. This isn’t hocus pocus. We have a choice. We can choose to live for ourselves or we can live for a god that may or may not exist. Look how long those Jews and you Christians have been waiting. I say fuck it, fuck god, and live for yourself. Survival of the fittest, babe! Set your spirit free!
ISRAEL
Babe?
Vincent
That’s why you bumped into me.
ISRAEL
Excuse –
VINCENT
Saw it in your eyes.
ISRAEL
(appalled) My back was turned.
VINCENT
You’ve been eyeing me all night in that second hand skirt. Pleather?
ISRAEL
If you haven’t noticed, my vision is eighty-proof.
VINCENT
You knew exactly who I was. You’ve been asking your friend what to say.
ISRAEL
Ha! I don’t have any friends.
VINCENT
What do you have? Your typewriter and your books, some cats?
ISRAEL
What about you? You sat here all night by yourself. Besides I’m missing the “I” from the keys. Kind of hard to type without the “I”. I have no idea where it went, it just --
VINCENT
(chuckling)Come home with me.
ISRAEL
You’re drunk!
VINCENT
So are you. It’s perfect. (a beat)Come home with me.
ISRAEL
(rolling her eyes)Is this what you think of me? That I’m some unintelligent cheap lay?
(Israel gets up from her stool, but is pulled back down by Vincent’s hand.)
VINCENT
FINE, talk to me.
ISRAEL
We WERE talking...about our books.
VINCENT
Okay, let’s talk about your book.
ISRAEL
You read it, right?
VINCENT
I might have purchased a copy. Premise?
ISRAEL
People are good! Not bad! People want to give and should give. We become selfish because we are afraid.
VINCENT
Afraid of what?
ISRAEL
That people will be selfish too.
VINCENT
They should be.
ISRAEL
People know there is a God, but people like you tell us to consume, be the best, tear everything down if we don’t get what we want, make OURSELVES into God. No wonder the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer.
VINCENT
Cliché test of time, but true. We are gods! We should be!
ISRAEL
It becomes true. Freeing your soul isn’t clinging onto the material. It isn’t living for yourself. It’s living for a purpose, for a mission to save the world.
VINCENT
That is such crap! Save the world? Save yourself, not the world! The world gives two fucks about you and your mission. You are going to work your ass off on your little typewriter and your recorder talking to yourself in circles, trying to figure out ways to contribute and nothing, nothing will happen. You’ll sell some books, every now and then, but people just won’t care.
ISRAEL
God cares.
VINCENT
No, that’s the thing, he doesn’t. He just doesn’t. And you know what? People like you aren’t even people like you. You’re not all pure and chaste.
ISRAEL
I know, but –
VINCENT
Halloween and your skanked up, downing a double vodka soda at last call. Ya gonna drink and drive? What happens when you smash into something or someone and kill yourself or them or get your license taken away?
ISRAEL
What about you? You’ve been sitting here all night, drink after drink.
VINCENT
You noticed? But what you didn’t notice was that there’s no vodka in my soda.
ISRAEL
What?
VINCENT
I don’t drink and this cigarette is electronic.
ISRAEL
Figured, with no smoke - laws and everything. You don’t seem so tough.
VINCENT
I am who I need to be when I need to be it. I Will my life. What do you do?
ISRAEL
I pray to God. I hope for the best. I have faith that humanity will be stronger one day.
VINCENT
You can’t PRAY everything away.
ISRAEL
You can’t WILL everything into being.
VINCENT
(smiling)I Will you to come home with me.
ISRAEL
(chuckling)I Pray you give this a rest.
VINCENT
(inching close) With thought comes possibility.
BARTENDER
WE’RE CLOSED! GET OUT!
VINCENT
Come home with me?
ISRAEL
How ‘bout you walk me to my car? (taking last slurp)
VINCENT
You’ve had six of those.
ISRAEL
You noticed. (falling off her stool)
VINCENT
(catching her) We both did. How ‘bout I drive?
ISRAEL
Okay, but you can’t come inside. I have cats sleeping.
VINCENT
Deal. (suave) I’ll walk you to your door and ask you for your number so I can give you your keys in the morning.
ISRAEL
Vincent?
VINCENT
Yeah?
ISRAEL
You can call me sometime, not just for the keys.
VINCENT
We’ll see. You really cannot drink and drive, Ms. Morality. You could get injured and kill someone.
ISRAEL
Why do you care?
VINCENT
People who look out for themselves look out for others in some sense. Nobody needs chaos, but it’s still looking out for oneself.
ISRAEL
(wobbling) Vincent?
VINCENT
(holding Israel) Israel?
ISRAEL
People really are good at heart.
VINCENT
Sure thing. Sure thing. (a beat) Or, maybe they’re just afraid.
(Vincent takes Israel by the hand and leads her outside.)
(LIGHTS DIM. Music and crowd fades.) (THE END.)
I AM/I WILL
A Ten-Minute Play
CAST OF CHARACTERS
ISRAEL WEST.....a worrisome, f, 30, in a camisole and underwear, unsure of her reality, and fearful of her own Godlike power
VINCENT MARCUS...a cocky, confident, m, mid-30s, in his boxers, a fallen angel, and Israel’s second half
TIME: Present. Nighttime.
PLACE: A Loft.
SETTING: A Bedroom and conjoined Bathroom. A wall to separate the two rooms. Queen Sized Bed. Vanity. Night stand to hold two books. The two books are the same book: I AM/I WILL.
(LIGHTS UP.)
(Contemporary Bedroom.)
(Israel, female, 30, worrisome and fearful, wrestles in a bed next to Vincent, male, mid 30, calm and collected.)
ISRAEL
(half asleep)
No! No! Please, God! Please help me!
VINCENT
Honey, what’s wrong?
ISRAEL
Help me!
VINCENT
(nudging) Israel, wake up, you’re dreaming. You’re talking in your sleep again.
ISRAEL
(out of breath) Oh, Vincent. Oh, my wrists! My wrists hurt.
VINCENT
What happened? Where’d you go?
ISRAEL
Was I walking around?
VINCENT
Not this time. What’s wrong?
ISRAEL
I was dying on the cross. I was nailed to it by my wrists. I asked him to save me, but I realized I was him. I’m always him. And I am. I Am I Am.
VINCENT
It was just a dream. All in your head, okay? You’re confused. Everything’s fine. You’re just taking the book we wrote too seriously. You’re fine. You’re alive. You’re human.
(Israel hops out of bed and starts to put her clothes back on.)
VINCENT
You’re leaving?
ISRAEL
Don’t you want me to go?
VINCENT
Not after what you just said.
ISRAEL
Don’t I scare you?
VINCENT
You concern me. I think you are taking the book we wrote out of context. We wrote I AM/I WILL to give perspective, and now I think you are losing yours.
ISRAEL
I don’t know why, I don’t. I just have a feeling.
VINCENT
What feeling? You feel like you’re the Messiah?
ISRAEL
I feel like I AM.
VINCENT
You feel this way because of our book. You’re mixing up I AM/I WILL, or I Will with I AM. You’re taking it too far.
ISRAEL
You said to forget about God and be your own god. I am not one of billions of gods, Vincent. I am God! There is one God and I am being called into becoming him. I am everything inside and out. I am both sun and moon, both light and dark. The Father and the So