the stage//

 

There should be stairs leading up to the stage if possible, centre right.

 

Centred on the stage is a couch and an arm chair and small coffee table.  Off to the opposite side of the stairs, should be a small table and chairs, kitchen style.  

 

act ONE//

 

Jonathan ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald sits on the couch.  Dr. Theresa Langenhammer is in the chair with her notebook.  Alice, dressed in all white, sits at the table.  She is drumming her fingers. Fitz is transfixed by Alice.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Jonathan?

 

Alice’s drumming should reach a crescendo and then abruptly stop the second time the Doctor says his name.  Alice exits on the left.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Fitz?  

 

Fitz// What? Yes.  Sorry…I was- 

 

Dr. Langehammer//  I noticed.  Where did you go?

 

Fitz// Nothing.  I just…zoned out is all.  Won’t happen again.  What were you saying?

 

Dr. Langehammer// Was it Alice?  (no answer)  Is she here?

 

Fitz// No.  that’s not how…  No.

 

a beat.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// I was asking about your father.

 

Fitz// Right.  My father.  That’s not really what I’m here for though.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Be that as it may, you don’t see the relevance?

 

Fitz// Well, I can see how you might find it relevant.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// In other words, I don’t want to talk about it.

 

Fitz// It’s not that, it’s just- I don’t really- it’s not that I don’t exactly…

 

Dr. Langenhammer//  Jonathan.  Why are you here?  

 

Fitz// I feel like you ask me that a lot.  

 

Dr. Langenhammer// It’s important to the process that you understand our goals, our mutual goals.  You’re seeing things that aren’t there.  You’re talking to things that aren’t there and they’re talking back to you.

 

Fitz// She. 

 

Dr. Langenhammer//  My apologies.  She’s talking back to you.

 

Fitz// You don’t believe in ghosts?

 

Dr. Langenhammer// I don’t.  I believe in science and medicine. 

 

Fitz// I was the same way.  Before…

 

Dr. Langenhammer// We’re running out of time for today Fitz, but as always, I’m going to end our session with the same question: Have you tried the pills yet?

 

He pulls the pills from his pocket and rattles them towards The Doctor. 

 

Fitz// These pills?  I’m not crazy, I keep telling you that.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// You filled the prescription though. That’s a good first step. 

 

Fitz//  I’m being haunted, Dr. Langenhammer.  She’s a ghost. She’s not a fucking hallucination.  

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Well, then you’ve got nothing to lose from trying the pills.  Either way Mr. Fitzgerald, that’s all the time we have for today.  

 

Fitz// Is it so wrong if I like her being there?

 

Dr. Langenhammer// We’ll talk about it next week.  In the meantime, try the pills.  If she’s a ghost, for real, she’ll still be there, if not, she won’t and you’ll know; for real.

 

Fitz// Maybe I like my life as it is, ghosts and all.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Next week, Jonathan.

 

ALICE enters from the other side of the stage and when FITZ turns from the Dr., he is startled by Alice standing right in front of him.  

 

Alice// Do you ever wonder why I’m the only ghost in this story?

 

Fitz//  Not right now Alice.  I have work to do.

 

Alice// Work like work work? Or work like your headshrinker gave you emotional work.  

 

Fitz// Work work.

 

He pushes past her and settles at the table.  He opens a laptop and begins to work.

 

Alice// You’ve really lost your edge

 

Fitz// I’ve got a deadline.

 

Alice// That’s an insensitive word choice.

 

Fitz// To the moon Alice, To the moon.  

 

Alice// Oh sure, make domestic violence jokes, real mature Fitz.

 

Fitz// Alice. I can’t… enough.  please. 

 

Alice// sorry.  work.  quiet.  right.  

 

A beat.

 

Alice is at the window, looking out. 

 

Alice(suddenly)// FOR FUCK SAKES!!  Who’s that going to help exactly??

 

Fitz//  Now what are you yelling about?

 

Alice// Streetcars like red elephants.

 

Fitz// You’d think dying would have tempered your hatred of public transit.

 

Alice// There’s literally 7 streetcars down there, bumper to bumper.  Who thinks that’s a good idea?  How is THAT person still alive?  It really just doesn’t seem fair, I mean I’m all dead and everything and they’re just out there, alive and just wasting it thinking 7 streetcars at one time makes sense. Idiots.

She exits.

 

Fitz pulls the pills from his pocket and considers them.

 

Fitz// Alice and I met on my birthday.  She pursued me which was not something I was used to.  I won’t lie though, it was pretty cool and it stayed cool for a couple of dates, playing out over the next three or four weeks, through some, but not nearly enough sex, and a couple of epic hangouts until it ended rather abruptly with just five words, typed slowly over Facebook messenger- the doctors think it’s Cancer. I was on a streetcar, there’s not much cancer related that you can do on a streetcar and so I typed all the sorts of things I thought you were supposed to say to a young person who is told they have cancer; after all it’s that thing that happens to other people, mainly old people, your dad sometimes.  In the grand scheme of ghost-tethering relationships, I would’t have placed it high on the requirement scales and then there she was, the day after the funeral, curled up in my bed, under the covers, seemingly there but really just a faint, smoky reflection.  It was the last place i had seen her before the diagnosis, exactly as she had looked when i looked back, before I locked the door behind me and went to work.  She didn’t cohere fully for another 48 hours and she didn't wake up until three days after that.  

 

Fitz walks to the stoop and sits down on the first step, lighting a joint.

 

Rufus Bernstein, Fitz’s best friend enters, walking towards the stoop.

 

Rufus// I called first but I didn’t leave a message.  I don’t think that’s a thing anymore. 

 

Fitz// On a deadline. 

 

Rufus// I figured.  You don’t look great.

 

Fitz// Thank you for confirming that.

 

Rufus// You avoiding…her?

 

Fitz// Not in so many words.

 

Rufus// You’re doing a great Eyore impression right now. 

 

Fitz//  Do you think she’s real?

 

Rufus// Well, she was real.  I remember that but if you’re asking me if Alice is a living, breathing ghost- well, I can’t tell you that. She isn’t haunting me.  She’s haunting you.

 

Fitz// I’ve been seeing this shrink.  She gave me pills.

 

Rufus// To make Alice go away?

 

Fitz// She’s says I’m having delusions or something.  That I never dealt with my dad’s death and Alice sent me into a bit of a psychotic break or some shit.  Anyway, she says if I start taking the pills it’ll help me move on.  Leave it all behind.  

 

Rufus// Heavy. Definitely heavy, but, I mean, take the fucking pills.  Stop being-.

 

Fitz// I don’t want to take the fucking pills.

 

Rufus// You don’t want to be crazy you mean.

 

Fitz// I don’t feel crazy.  Yeah, this situation is making me crazy but I don’t feel like I’ve cracked up or anything, at least not yet.  I don’t.  I feel like I have both hands on the wheel.  I’m in full control.  

 

Rufus// Look, you don’t seem crazy to me either- ghost-situation excluded of course- but what do you have to lose?  What are you scared of?

 

Fitz// It just doesn’t seem that simple to me, I mean if I take the pills and she disappears-

 

Rufus// Then it’ll be just you.  I’m not therapist but I think that scares the shit out of you.  

 

Fitz//  You don’t know what you’re talking about.

 

Rufus// Yet another option for the list.  

 

Fitz// Isn’t it bad enough that she died? 

 

Rufus// It was pretty bad.  She got a raw deal.  You both did but do you really want to turn around at 40 and find out that the ghost you’ve been living with isn’t actually a ghost at all?  

 

A beat. 

 

Fitz//  She’s really not going to take this well.

 

Rufus// Don’t tell her!  If she’s a hallucination it won’t matter, and if she’s a ghost, well, she’ll get over it, eventually.  

 

Fitz// Or she’ll leave.  

 

Rufus// Yeah but isn’t that the point?

 

Fitz// I don’t know.  

 

A beat.

 

Rufus// You remember that show on the radio, Sex with Sue?

 

Fitz// Random but yeah, yeah I do.  

 

Rufus// Man, I used to listen to that shit on a little portable radio I stole from my sister.  I wasn’t really even a sex obsessed kid or anything but I used to listen to that shit all the fucking time.

 

Fitz// Somehow this is not surprising. 

 

Rufus// The point is there was this one time, this dude calls in and is worried that he’s jerking off too much, two, three times a day, just can’t get enough of himself this guy.  So Sue sort of chuckles and basically tells him any number of times is normal, cause Sue was into some shit and everything right, but she also tells him that it shouldn’t interfere with his day to day life.  Like he shouldn't be choosing to grab his dick instead of going out on a date or hitting up a bar with his friends.  You see where I’m going with this?

 

Fitz// I’m not fucking a ghost, Rufus.  I never said- 

 

Rufus// It’s an analogy, Fitz.  You’re not living your life.  You’re holed up with a ghost or a hallucination or whatever she is and you’re not doing any of the things you used to like doing.  You’re living this life now and if you’re cool with it, great, fantastic, stick it out, live this life.  Personally, I think you miss your old life, the way things used to be and that’s why you’re carrying those pills around.  I say use them.  Test the theory and see whether she’s a ghost or if you’re more brain damaged than we had thought.  At least you’ll know.  

 

a beat.

 

Fitz// I don’t like it when you make sense.  

 

Rufus// You’re not the first person to say that.

 

Rufus gets up.

 

Rufus// Well, that’s me.  I gotta get.  Just swung through for a quick Health and Well-being check.  

 

Fitz// All is as it was.

 

Rufus// Hang in there, buddy.

 

Rufus exits.  Fitz heads back up the steps and finds Alice standing there waiting for him.

 

Fitz// Were you listening to that?

 

Alice// I thought you had a deadline?

 

Fitz// Roof says hi.

 

Alice// No he didn’t.

 

Fitz// You were listening.

 

Alice// Not really much else to do ‘round here, is there?

 

Fitz//  We should probably talk.

 

Alice// You want rid of me Jonathan?  Is that it?  Am I cramping your style?

 

Fitz// Well its…you’re not exactly…

 

Alice// What? WHAT am I not exactly?

 

The lights flicker slightly.

 

Fitz// Nothing. I wasn’t going to say anything.  

 

Alice// You don’t have to think i’m real but I refuse to stand here and be treated like a FUCKING IDIOT!

 

The lights flicker again.

 

Fitz// I was just gonna make a joke.  A poorly timed joke.  

 

Alice// This isn’t a picnic for me either you know.

 

Fitz// I know.

 

A beat.

 

Alice// Can we just watch Smallville?

 

Fitz// I have a deadline.

 

Alice// Can you at least turn it on so I can watch?  Ghost hands remember.

 

Fitz does and Alice sits herself on the couch.  Fitz walks back to the table and his laptop.  He sits there for a minute and then picks up the pill bottle and opens it and takes a pill from the bottle.  He looks at it carefully and then puts it back.  He closes the bottle.

 

Alice// What was that?

 

Fitz// Nothing.

 

Alice// I thought I heard something… 

 

Fitz// Working.  That’s all.  

 

Fitz gets up with his laptop and sits on the opposite side of the couch.  ALICE continues to watch TV.  

 

Alice//  Sometimes I wish I could have just died like a regular person.

 

A beat.

 

Dr. Langenhammer enters and sits on the same chair she occupied earlier.  Alice moves closer to FITZ and lays her head on his leg, still watching TV.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// What exactly do you two talk about?

 

Fitz// Its been almost a year, its sort of hard to narrow that down.  

 

Dr. Langenhammer// I mean, what sort of topics do you cover?  Current events?  Sports?  Do you fill her in on what’s she’s missing?  Do you talk about your past, her past?

 

Fitz// Sure.  All that stuff.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Does she ever make you feel uncomfortable.  

 

Fitz// Look, i’m just glad I still get to talk to her.  She’s gone but not all the way gone, not really.  I know its crazy.

 

Alice// What do you talk about at these ‘therapy’ sessions anyhow?

 

Fitz// She mostly just asks a lot of questions.

 

Alice// About me?

 

Fitz// She’s trying to figure out if i’m crazy or not.  

 

Alice// Nothing good comes from telling someone they’re crazy.  

 

Dr. Langenhammer// It’s not a matter of crazy, Jonathan, it’s a matter of what is and isn’t real.  I’m trying to help you see the difference.

 

Fitz// I know the difference.  I thought I knew the difference. How can I not know the difference? 

 

Dr. Langenhammer// These kind of illnesses generally present for the first time around your age.  

 

Alice// She can’t believe there could be real ghosts and so she’d rather think you’ve cracked up and…and that I’m just a figment of your imagination; like that dragon in that fucking movie.  

 

Fitz// Is it really impossible to think that she could be a fucking- (glares at Alice)just an honest-to-goodness…y’know- ghost?

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Impossible tends to be a pretty big word, but highly improbable, I mean at the very least. 

 

Alice// I am NOT a figment of your imagination.  I don’t want you to talk to her about me anymore.  

 

Alice storms/stomps off the stage.  Dr. Langenhammer is unphased but Fitz is a little flustered and takes a minute to compose himself.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Lets try a different angle, do you two ever get into arguments.

 

A beat.

 

Fitz// Do we fight? Is that what you’re getting at?

 

Dr. Langenhammer//  Sure.  Do you ever disagree?  Does she get mad when you go out later than expected?  That sort of thing.

 

Fitz//  Well, I mean, she has a bit of a temper, though she did when she was alive too. She makes her opinions known.   

 

Dr. Langenhammer// How does she feel about you talking to me?

 

Fitz//  How do you think she feels?  How would you feel?

 

Dr. Langenhammer// I’d want you to get the help you need.

 

Fitz//  Even if that meant you couldn’t exist?

 

Dr. Langenhammer//  I’m not saying it’s not a particularly difficult existential dilemma. 

 

Fitz//  Isn’t it selfish to prioritize myself over her?  Like, I mean, if she’s a real ghost- I know, you don’t think she is, but lets just say for a second- I mean if she’s real, and she came back attached to me and I’m more concerned with whether I’m going crazy or not rather than helping her with whatever it is that she’s here for, doesn’t that make me an asshole.  It makes me the fucking worst is what it makes me.  Maybe this is MY purpose, my responsibility and all this, you and therapy and the pills is just me trying to shirk, yet another responsibility?

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Well, if that’s true, and again, I don’t believe it is, but IF it were, has she given you any indication of her unfinished business or the reason she’s returned.

 

Fitz// It hasn’t come up.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// It hasn’t come up or you haven’t asked her?

 

Fitz//  It hasn’t come up.

 

Dr. Langenhammer//  So you haven’t asked her is what I’m hearing.

 

Fitz// We watch a lot of TV.  

 

A beat while Dr. Langenhammer makes some notes.  

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Do you spend a lot of time thinking about why she’s here?

 

Fitz// How much time should I spend, would you say?  I mean in your professional opinion, of course.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// It’s not a matter of should or shouldn’t, it’s a matter of yes or no.  Do you spend time thinking about it?  You either do or you don’t.

 

Fitz// of course I do.  Who wouldn’t?  I thought I was coming to you for insight, like you were supposed to have the inside track on this kind—

 

Dr. Langenhammer// The only person who has the inside track on this is you Jonathan.  I’m asking questions because you’re the only person who has the answers.  Perhaps there’s a deeper reason why you’re uncomfortable with the questions themselves.

Fitz// I’m not uncomfortable. I just don’t see the point of them is all.

 

Dr. Langenhammer// You react quite defensively to my questions when they test the logic of the existence of your ‘friend’.  You react similarly when I try to bring up the subject of your father.

 

Fitz// I’m not here to talk about him though.  It’s irrelevant.  Unrelated.  That’s why I get angry.  

 

Dr. Langenhammer// You don’t see a correlation between the death of a girl you were involved with and her subsequent reappearance as a ghost that only you can see AND the death of your father when you were child?

 

FITZ//  You’re like a dog with a bone. He died.  It’s ancient history.  You don’t understand anything about this.  I’m not some example from a text book. 

 

Dr. Langenhammer// You’d be surprised.

 

FITZ// I rather doubt it because this whole thing is bullshit.  I don’t know why I’m even bothering.  You just want me to take these pills so you can be done with me, you don’t give even the slightest fuck.  You’ve probably never even lost anyone.  

 

Dr. Langehammer puts the pad of paper and the pen away and takes her glasses off, she knows the beginning of a temper tantrum when she sees one.

 

Dr. Langenhammer//  You know what, Jonathan.  I think that’s enough for today.

 

Fitz// Just like that?

 

Dr. Langenhammer// This is rapidly becoming unproductive, so it’s better, I think, in my professional opinion, that we put a pin in this and pick it up next time.  

 

 

Fitz gets up and sets takes his jacket from the wall, putting it on, getting ready to leave.  

 

Dr. Langenhammer// Fitz.  Before you go, one last thing, if you don’t mind.  

 

Fitz sits back down, jacket still on, he’s perched on the edge of the chair, ready to exit as soon as possible.  

 

Dr. Langenhammer//  I know it seems like you’re adrift and alone and that no one could possibly ever understand what you’re going through or what you’re dealing with or how you feel, but you’re not the only one who got dealt a shitty hand from life.  Do you see the picture in the corner there, silver frame?  That’s my wife and I on our 12th wedding anniversary, I took her to that Harry Potter thing in Florida.  She was so into those stupid books. It was terrible.  I hated every minute of it but she loved it.  You can see it in that picture, my fake smile and her real one.  It’s not a great picture but I leave it there because it reminds me how much I loved her because I faked that smile that whole day because it made her so happy to be there and I would have done anything to make her happy.  I can’t believe that was already 3 years ago.  She died 6 months, almost to the day after that picture was taken.  So I get it.  It sucks.  It hurts.  It feels like there’s a vice on your heart and your stomach and it’s just turning and turning and turning… (a beat) So I won’t say I understand what you’re going through cause everyone’s grief is different but I know grief.   I wake up every morning expecting the world to have changed while I slept and each time i’m dissapointed a little bit less when I realize that it hasn’t.  So do me a favour, before next time, spend a little time thinking about why you exactly?  What makes you and this girl special that she came back to you- If you’re right and she is a ghost.   Why was she drawn to you?  You even said, you weren’t in love.  She wasn’t the one.  From what you’ve told me you had only started to think about proceeding any further than just fun and games before she got sick?  Why you?  Ok?  Just think about it and we’ll talk about it next time. 

 

Fitz nods but says nothing as he exits in the direction he was traveling, jacket on and the Doctor exits to the opposite side.  Alice enters from the same side the Dr. exited.  She looks out the window.  

 

A beat.

 

Alice//  I never looked out windows longingly when I was alive, I swear.  It alway seemed so cliche in movies and tv, I mean WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT EXACTLY.  It seemed so phoney and now here I am, all dead and longingly staring out windows all over the place.  I was pretty fucking normal when I was alive I’ll have you know, whatever normal means exactly.  I would have NEVER believed this shit if Fitz told me it was happening.  If on our first date he was like, hey, Alice, there’s the ghost of a girl I dated briefly before she died living in my apartment- or existing in my aparmtent? occasionally hovering just off the floor of my apartment?  I mean how do you even convey that to someone in all seriousness.  I would have been out of there so fucking fast, and I was fire that night too.  I would have been something spectacular just storming out of there, leaving his seemingly clinically crazy ass too stunned to call after me, as I just blew out the door and down the sidewalk.  Just like all y’all down there just blowing like leaves in the wind, down that way, up over there, not a care in the world, just living your fucking meaningless lives.  Just like I was, oblivious to how easy it all can just- Hey WATCH OUT YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE, YOU ALMOST CLIPPED THAT OLD LADY.  SHE DIDN’T LIVE THIS LONG JUST TO DIE UNDER YOUR ASSHOLE CAR.  SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.  YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO STOP FOR THE STREETC-

 

She stops suddenly as she notices that FITZ has walked into the apartment (from the opposite side that he exited). 

 

Fitz// Talking to someone?

 

Alice// Yeah, some bag of dicks who almost killed an old lady.

 

Fitz//  I meant before that.

 

Alice// Your turn to spy on me huh?

 

Fitz// I wasn’t spying on you, though thanks for admitting you were spying on-

 

Alice// I was monologuing.  

 

Fitz//  You were monologuing.

 

Alice// Yeah, monologuing, Y’know, like a fucking super villan.  providing some exposition for the fucking audience and what not.  That okay with you?

 

Fitz hangs up his jacket and makes himself comfortable.

 

Fitz// I have never known another woman who swears quite like you.

 

Alice// I do have a potty mouth.

 

Fitz// It was one of the reasons I liked you.  

 

Alice// What is it with guys and woman who swear a lot?  You’re not the first person who’s said that to me.  I mean, what, I’m supposed to be all prim and proper and buttoned down because I have a vagina?  That shit went out with Downton Abbey.  If you can do it, I can do it better.  Nothing a woman does can’t be sexualized, even declarative, adjective replacing swear words.  FUCK.

 

A beat.

 

Fitz// That was a little much, no?

 

Alice// You’re an asshole.

 

Fitz//  Can I ask you a question?

 

Alice// Now?

 

Fitz// No time like the present? 

 

Alice// It better not be about sex.

 

Fitz// Why me?

 

Alice// What the fuck does that mean?

 

Fitz// I was just thinking, it’s a little weird that you materialized here isn’t it?  I mean, you had more meaningful relationships before me, so why me?  Why here?

 

A long beat.

 

Alice// I have no idea.  I mean, I know I liked you.  You were funny.  You were confident, like you knew who you were.  Probably also because you ignored me for over a year, I’m sure that worked in your favour too.  

 

Fitz//  It doesn’t really make any sense right?

 

Alice// I don’t really think about it much to be honest.  

 

Fitz// She was asking me about it and I didn’t have an answer.

 

Alice// Your therapist?

 

Fitz// Yeah. 

 

Alice// She thinks you’re deranged and hallucinating.

 

Fitz// Something like that, yeah.

 

Alice// What does it even matter?

 

Fitz//  It matters to her and I couldn’t answer the question.  She’s not without a point. 

 

Alice//  Point or no, there’s no normal here.  This whole situation is off the rails.  I mean- I’m a fucking GHOST!! You’re having a real conversation with a dead person.  Me.  Dead.  I think we left the road most traveled a ways back.  

 

Fitz//  I don’t believe you that you don’t think about it.  

 

Alice// I don’t.  Not really.

 

Fitz// You ever wonder why you’re the only ghost in this story?  

 

Alice// When does WHY ever matter, exactly?  It didn’t matter when I got sick and died.  It didn’t matter when your father got sick and died.  The why is never important, only ever the what.  The what is the only thing that’s ever real.

 

Fitz// It matters to me.

 

Alice// Well I don’t fucking care.  I’m here.  Who gives a shit why?

 

Fitz// That’s just it, what if you’re not really here?

 

Alice// Are you fucking kidding me with this garbage again?  I’M RIGHT HERE!!!  

 

Fitz// What if you’re not, though?

 

A beat.

 

Alice//  Fine.  FINE!  When it has crossed my mind, the rare time, I think this might have been the last place I felt safe and at peace before I got sick and everything changed.  If you’re going to make such a big deal about it.

 

Fitz is not placated by this answer.  In fact, he seems almost crestfallen.  

 

Alice (cont’d)// What is it?

 

Fitz// I thought it would be something along those lines. 

 

Alice// what’s the problem then.  

 

Fitz//  I was hoping you’d say something I hadn’t thought of, something that would prove you weren’t just in my head.  Proof of life I guess.  

 

Another beat.  

 

Alice breaks the silence with a frustrated growl/groan, exasperated. 

 

Alice// You’re a real piece of shit sometimes, Fitz.  And you can tell your therapist that I said to fuck the fuck off, thanks very much.

 

She storms out.

Fitz pulls out the pill bottle out of his pocket and reads the label and before opening the bottle’s child proof lid, with some difficulty.  He shakes a couple pills out into his hand.  He returns all but one of the pills to the bottle and then pockets the bottle.  With the pill in his hand he grabs a glass of water.  There is a beat before he moves again and then with determination he pops the pill into his mouth and follows it with the water.  He returns the glass and turns out the lights before turning towards the same way that Alice had stormed out.  

 

He exits.

end act one

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