The Here & Now Project
Ditch
Every Friday this summer, The Here & Now Project will post a new short play, written by one of four playwrights selected from across the US. These plays focus on dramatizing where these playwrights are and what’s happening there now. This play is by Eric Pfeffinger of Toledo, Ohio.
THE TIME: Now.
THE PLACE: Toledo's front door.
DETROIT, edgy and diminished, arrives at the front door, and knocks urgently. Knocks again. TOLEDO, embattled, answers the door.
TOLEDO
—Oh, hey there, Detroit.
DETROIT
Hey, hey neighbor, how's uh, how's it going?
TOLEDO
Oh, you know. About like how it's always going.
Beat.
How—. Uh. How... is it going... with... you?
DETROIT
You know. You know. Not great. You know. I'm, uh. All out of money. Practically. So.
TOLEDO
Yeah I heard about that.
DETROIT
So that's not the best.
TOLEDO
No. No it's not. Um. Bummer, bro.
DETROIT
So did you want to hang out? Or—?
TOLEDO
I don't know, I've kind of got stuff. To. Uh.
DETROIT
It's just. I called Ann Arbor, y'know, but she won't return my calls.
TOLEDO
Yeah, no. Yeah. I know how that is. "What's the matter, Columbus, you're literally too busy to accept a friend request?"
DETROIT
I know, right?
TOLEDO
It's like one click.
DETROIT
I'm tellin' ya.
TOLEDO
Thing is, man, I'm not really doing that great right now either.
DETROIT
No, I mean, yeah I know. That's kind of why I like hanging out.
TOLEDO
Oh, good.
DETROIT
I mean but I mean: you're doing better than me.
TOLEDO
I guess, yeah.
DETROIT
I mean, I'm Detroit. Right? Obviously.
TOLEDO
But I mean, times are tough. I'm struggling. My place looks like crap.
DETROIT
It does, it does, you speak the truth.
TOLEDO
I don't even want to let you in to see, but, I've got like whole rooms no one even goes into anymore.
DETROIT
Rooms? You've got rooms? Try floors, man. Whole sections of my house, okay? People move out, they don't even tell me. My kitchen’s all grass. All overgrown with grass. Grass. How’s that happen? Ty Pennington can’t help me with that. And I've got one whole floor in my place over there, it's been taken over by dogs. Third floor's all feral dogs, man. Don't even know how they got up there. Some of my clothes are on that floor, dude, they’re hanging in a closet on the dogs floor: oh, well!
TOLEDO
Yeah I thought maybe you were wearing the same... as y'know as last time...
DETROIT
It wasn't always like this.
TOLEDO
No, it wasn't.
DETROIT
I had stuff going on.
TOLEDO
We both had stuff going on.
DETROIT
We did. I had some nice things happening with my music...
TOLEDO
Yeah, you did. Your, uh, your music.
DETROIT
What? My music was really happening there, for a while.
TOLEDO
Hey, I get it. I went through that whole jazz phase of mine, you know that. It's just—music. It's not really sensible, is it? As a way to live your, y’know, life?
DETROIT
Ugh. Dude. You're always so practical and prosaic and shit.
TOLEDO
I am not. I mean, thank you. But obviously I've got, you know, I've got my art...
DETROIT
You do, your art. Why don't you sell some of that, times are so tough?
TOLEDO
Says the guy with a Diego Rivera.
DETROIT
It’s a mural. It’s on a wall.
TOLEDO
You’ve lost walls. You’re missing all kinds of walls, I’ve seen your place. Sell the wall, that’s what I’d do.
DETROIT
It’s a load-bearing wall.
TOLEDO
It is not. You don’t know. You don’t even know what load-bearing means.
DETROIT
Yes, I do.
No, he doesn’t.
TOLEDO
I'm just saying, music's fine, as a hobby...
DETROIT
Some of my buddies have done great with music!
TOLEDO
Here we go about Nashville again. Sure, fine, but what about Chapel Hill? How did her long-term music career pan out? Even Seattle settled down and got into computers. That's smart thinking, my friend.
DETROIT
Give me a break, man, I was never totally single-minded. I tried my hand at manufacturing.
TOLEDO
I know! Me, too!
DETROIT
That went pretty good.
TOLEDO
Yeah, yeah, it did.
DETROIT
There was, I had money...
TOLEDO
Went really good.
DETROIT
...For a while.
TOLEDO
Yeah, yeah... for a while.
Silence.
Dude, look: it looks like part of your house is on fire.
DETROIT
Yeah, it does that sometimes.
TOLEDO
Seriously? Mine too.
DETROIT
Really? What do you do?
TOLEDO
Well, I... put it out.
DETROIT
Yeah, me too.
TOLEDO
Usually. Or it, like, burns away. Pain in the ass, though, either way.
DETROIT
I know, right. It's like: embers. Who plans on having to deal with embers?
TOLEDO
Beat.
I can't lend you any money, man.
DETROIT lapses into hysterical laughter. TOLEDO can't help but join in. Finally, settling:
DETROIT
Oh, I know. I know that. I know you can't lend me any frigging money. My God. Who'd come over here, to you, for money?
TOLEDO
Right?
DETROIT
I mean, some stuff I might come over here for.
TOLEDO
Sure. Come over, y’know, borrow a cup of embers.
More laughter. Subsiding:
DETROIT
I didn't know if you were even gonna answer the door.
TOLEDO
I thought about it. Turning the lights off, pretending.
DETROIT
"Nobody's home!" Couldn't blame you, man. I can be one depressing motherfucker. Is that why? The depressing motherfucker thing? Or is it—?
TOLEDO
You do have a lot to bitch about, it's true...
DETROIT
Or is it because, y'know. You see yourself. In me.
TOLEDO
I... I don’t know about...
DETROIT
Like you could be me. Like I'm your mirror.
TOLEDO
—Yeah, maybe. Maybe. My ten-years-from-now mirror.
DETROIT
Try five. Who would've guessed, you know? Back in the day when I had my music, y'know, and my cars, and you had your... glass collection and your... jazz I guess and stuff... who would've thought that the whole thing could just go off the road like this, just drive right off into the y'know. Into the what-dya-call-it. Into the.
TOLEDO
Briar patch?
DETROIT
No, into the...
TOLEDO
Tar pits?
DETROIT
What? No. Into the...
TOLEDO
Ocean?
DETROIT
Yes, into the vast majestic Midwestern ocean is exactly what I was thinking of, no. Into the uh. Into the uh.
TOLEDO
Void.
DETROIT
—Fine, into the void.
TOLEDO
We'll steer it out again, man. We'll steer it out. We’ve got to, right? We’ve got to. What's the alternative?
DETROIT
Who steers out of a frigging void?
TOLEDO
What else, I mean, is there? What else are we gonna do?
DETROIT
Move to Canada?
TOLEDO
Don’t think so.
DETROIT
It’s not far.
TOLEDO
Think we’re stuck here, bro.
DETROIT
—Wanna go grab something to eat?
TOLEDO
And pay for it how?
DETROIT
Come over to my place, make something—?
TOLEDO
Your kitchen’s like a prairie.
DETROIT
Or I guess we could just uh. Keep on. Keepin’ on.
TOLEDO
That sounds good.
Beat.
Anyway, yeah. This probably isn’t uh, what you had in mind when you—
DETROIT
No no. It is.
TOLEDO
I mean it’s not exactly a lot of laughs—
DETROIT
No, yeah. It’s fun.
TOLEDO
Talking about how good it used to be? And, y’know, isn’t, y’know, now?
DETROIT
If it’s what we’ve got. Then yeah.
Beat.
TOLEDO
Anyway I should probably—
DETROIT
Yeah.
TOLEDO
Go in and... work on... or something.
DETROIT
Yeah, I might... work on my music or something.
TOLEDO
That’s a good idea. Your music. You should do something. You really had something, with that.
DETROIT
I did, didn’t I?
TOLEDO
Yeah. Okay. Well. See you later.
DETROIT
Yep. Take it easy.
They do not move.
End of play.
Playwright’s Note:
Over the past month the news has been full of reports about how Detroit was on the verge of running out of money (a crisis averted at the last minute, at least for the time being). Its neighbor Toledo, no stranger to money problems, has politely averted its eyes with awkwardness. What happens when a city actually runs out of money, anyway? Do they turn off the lights and tape up a handwritten sign saying “Thanks for your years of patronage?” Or does the momentum of a city’s inertia carry it improbably into cashlessness and beyond: it can’t go on, it goes on?
Comments
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Love the imagery on this!
Loved the play. I lived in Detroit until 2009. It is a sad case of a once beautiful city falling into decay.