And (1st ed. - 06.17.

08) - and6jr
Copyright 2008 Alan Haehnel
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4
Cast of Characters
AARON
KYLE
KASSIE
ANGELA
LESLEY
NATE
ANN
KATE
JOE
MEREDITH
CLAIRA
LILLY
DANIELLE
FATHER
MOTHER
JULIA
ADRIAN

5
Acknowledgments
And received its premiere at Blue Valley North High School in
Overland Park, Kansas on December 17, 2007. It was directed by
Max H. Brown with the following cast:
AARON ..............................................................Adler Roberts
NARRATOR............................................................Matt Sears
KYLE....................................................................Graham Rein
KASSIE ..........................................................Cassie Valentine
ANGELA ..........................................................Angie Petersen
LESLEY..................................................................Julia Ponath
NATE............................................................ Taylor Grimmett
ANN.................................................................... Drew Gaddie
KATE.................................................................Stephanie Cain
JOE....................................................................... Patrick Sheen
MEREDITH..................................................Betsey Van Hulle
CLARA ................................................................... Emily Wall
LILLY ..............................................................Carly Hollmann
DANIELLE............................................................ Petra Weith
FATHER....................................................... Taylor Grimmett
MOTHER......................................................Betsey Van Hulle
JULIA ..............................................................Carly Hollmann
ADRIAN..................................................................Lizzy Fleet

7
AND
by Alan Haehnel

AARON. Sh. Do you hear it? Its like the heartbeat of the world.
(Rhythmically, like a heart-beat:) And-and, and-and, and-and, and-
and. (He goes to the proscenium arch, puts his ear to the arch.) Its not a
question of hearing so muchthe sound is all around. Its a ques-
tion of knowing theres something there to listen to. (Actors come in,
quietly saying and-and in heart-beat rhythm, taking their places on
various platforms.) Yes. Yes, thats it! And-and, and-and. And! The
center! The great connector! (He gets down and puts his ear to the
floor.) Its coming clearer now. And-and, and-and
(The actors continue to say and-and, just audible beneath and be-
tween the individual characters statements.)
KYLE. And my father is dying of cancer.
KASSIE. And I have a ton of homework tonight.
ANGELA. And no one noticed that I got my hair cut.
LESLEY. And Venice will be, like, underwater within the next dec-
ade.
NATE. And I got rejected from every school I applied to.
ANN. And I have a hangnail.
KATE. And my boyfriend makes a funny noise when he kisses me.
JOE. And I cant clear 13 feet in the pole vault.
MEREDITH. And I think I want to kill myself.
CLAIRA. And I swear theyre making candy bars smaller than they
used to.
LILLY. And my favorite pants dont fit anymore.
DANIELLE. And my brother is going to Iraq.
(The voices get louder and louder with the rhythmic and-and, and-
and, and-and until they reach a crescendo, then suddenly stop.)
Alan Haehnel



8
AARON. And! Do you hear it? Do you get it? And! Not then: He
had a hernia, then she kissed her cat. Not but: He had a hernia, but
she kissed her cat. Not because: He had a hernia because she kissed
her cat. And! He had a hernia. And she kissed her cat. And I wet the
bed. And they experienced dj vu. And Mortimer imagined he was
an astronaut. And, and, and! Not chronology, not contradiction, not
causalitysimultaneity! These events, these moments, linked solely
by their concurrent existence, linked solely by and. And you are
sitting there and you are sitting there and you, at the same time, are
sitting right there. Side by side universes.
Let me tell you a story. I want to tell you this story. Three nights
ago, I was All right, forget the story. For the moment.
Uhjustlet them talk. And. Remember thatand.
KYLE. Yeah, so, its pretty much decided now; its inevitable, I
guess. Dads cancer. The prognosis is pretty much set. I mean,
weve been through the prayer circlestheyre still going on and
all, butthe prayers have changed from asking for healing to ask-
ing fordealing. Acceptance. That kind of thing. So hes home
nowDad. Hes got quite a bit of equipment with him. Tanks and
hoses, a special bed. He wanted to come home, and the doctors said
it would be okay, oras okay as being anywhere. Home, the hos-
pital, the park, Disneylandwherever. I suppose thats one good
thing about dyingits portable.
AARON. And.
KASSIE. Who do my teachers think they are? Or a better ques-
tionwho do they think I am? A homework machine? The geek of
all geeks who has no life, who wants to spend five hours a night on
school work? Listen, heres a basic concept. Home, school. Home,
school. Two separate places. They should stay separate! I dont
bring my lawn into the school so I can do my raking there, do I? I
dont bring my sister into the school so I can have my arguments
with her there, do I? Nothose are home things, to be done at
home. So why should I bring my school things to my home? Home,
school. Keep them separate!
AARON. And.
And



9
ANGELA. Okay, I can take it that my brother didnt notice my
haircut. No big deal. He probably wouldnt notice if his own face
fell off. And my fatherwell, where did you think my brother got
his attention to detail from? Now, my mother noticed, but since she
drove me to appointment in the first place, that doesnt count.
Nothing from my teachers, nothing from my classmates, nothing
from the bus driver, nothing from the dog, the cat, the goldfishI
could live with all that non-attention to my haircut. But when I cor-
ner Jason, my supposed boyfriend of three months, and I ask him,
point blank, Notice anything different? When he looks me up and
down and finally says, New bra? That put me over the edge.
AARON. And!
LESLEY. We are, like, killing the planet. With all our cars and like,
our hairspray, its like, we are causing all this global warming. Like,
people cant even ski in the Alps anymore, I heard, and thats like,
so not right. That is practically un-American, if you ask me. And
VeniceI told you about that, didnt I? Like, I mean, if I wanted to
go to Venice and have some guy singing to me in one of
thosecurved canoe thingsthose canolies, or those gondolas
thats it! If I wanted to, like, go and do that in, say, ten years, I
might not even be able to because all there would be was, like, wa-
ter! And you cant take a gondola ride on just water if you dont,
like, have any Venice to, like, be in! It is just so sad, I cant even,
like, tell you.
AARON. I need to tell you this story. Three nights ago, we were all
home. My family. My mother, my father, my two sisters. It was
about nine oclock. My older sister, she was No, I shouldnt start
there. Okay, not yet. Not yet. Uhback to these other people, right.
And.
(Note: Other schools appropriate to the area could be substituted in
the following monologue.)
NATE. Dartmouth was my reach school. I got rejected. No big sur-
prise. I was okay with that. Most kids get rejected from their reach
schools, right? Thats why theyre called reach schools, after all.
Bowdointhat was what you might call my semi-reach. I would
have felt lucky if Id gotten in. I didnt get the chance to feel lucky,
thoughrejection two, from Bowdoin. But I was okay because I still
Alan Haehnel



10
had B.U. and then Ithaca, and I was sure I was going to get into at
least one of them, if not both. I mean, theyre both decent schools; I
wouldnt have had to hang my head. Until they sent me the Im-
sorry-but-youre-just-not-worthy-of-us letters. After that, I could
justifiably hang my head. In complete shame.
AARON. Give us another, give us another. And!
ANN. Im always getting these hangnails. Dont you hate that?
They catch on everything and they hurt! And then they get all red
and irritated and I try not to chew on them but its like theyre
practically calling to you. My fingers look likeI dont know what
they look like. They look like fingers with hangnails on them. Why
do you suppose I always get them? Not everybody gets them. I
dont think theyre hereditary or anything. Unless, maybe, dry skin
is hereditary, but theyre not exactly dry. Theyre more likeI dont
know what theyre like. Theyre prone to hangnails, thats all. And I
have them. And they hurt. And Im tempted to bite my fingers off,
you know. Do you get them?
AARON. Great. One more, then Ill One more, then. And!
KATE. Hes a great guyhe really is. Hes sort of old-fashioned
about thingshe opens doors for me and carries my books. I know,
I know, its pretty corny, but I like it. Hes sweet. Considerate. He
calls me when he says hes going to. He picks me up on time. He
bought me a beautiful rose yesterday. So why am I being so crazy
that Im actually thinking about breaking up with him just because
hes a noisy kisser? I mean, thats so shallow! Im not like that. Usu-
ally. Its just thatI swear, his noseit clicks. Somewhere, way up
in his nasal passages, when we kiss, his nose makes this clicking
noise. I cant ignore it. Ive tried, believe me. Hes not a bad kisser,
except for theokay, every time we start to kiss, I think of this
documentary I once saw about an African tribe that communicates
with clicks. I dont know about you, but that just does not create a
romantic mood.
AARON. Yes, good. You have to keep this in mind, too; you have
to rememberthat these things are all going on at the same time,
connected only by proximity. I mean, within one relatively small
area, these people are all dealing with their various situations.
Within, as is the case here, within the confines of a single building,
And



11
of a school, you have all these things going on. And this and that
and this and that, but its not actually something you can separate
like that. I mean, it looks like theres an order to it, but thats arbi-
trary. Its not one, then two, then three, then four. Thats artificial.
Its and, and and, and and, and and, concurrently, not chronologi-
cally. Its like this! (All of the 12 actors begin their monologues and recite
them simultaneously. AARON tries to shout over them.) You see? You
see? Its confusion! Pandemonium! But this is what the world is
like! We have to separate people out to hear them
JOE. I come in at 11 feet. Everybody around me is like, Ooh, what
a studhes coming in at 11. I can clear it with my eyes shut. I can
clear 11 feet with a twisted ankle, and thats no joke because I did it
two weeks ago at the meet against Springville. Hell, I could come in
at 116 if I wantedno problem. I havent missed that height all
year. Know what? I could come in at 13 feet. I can just hear them all
if I did that: Oh, man, he must be going for a record. Coming in at
13? Hes crazy good! But heres what they dont know. The second
I hear that the bar has been raised above 13 feet, Im done. I mean, I
could have cleared 13 on my first attempt by a foot and a half, but
when I hear anything over that numberanything! 13 feet, 1/ 2
inch!Im done. I shut down. I just cant clear it.
AARON. Yes, good, rightwe singled him out for a moment, just
so he could be heard, which is nice, but when we do that, we can
miss the point. We can forget about the simultaneity. The and
factor. So try not to. Its crucial. Crucial.
Three nights ago Oh, God, how could I not know? Im still not
ready. And.
MEREDITH. You know what a scrim is? Its a type of curtain that,
when you shine light on it from the front, its opaque, but when you
shine light on it from behind, you can see through it. But usually,
even when you can see through it, a scrim makes whatever is be-
hind it kind of dark, kind ofmuted. Unless you really blast the
light on it, the colors get dulled down by a scrim. Well, you know
what? I see the whole world like that, like everythings behind a
scrim, and the backlighting isnt very strong. I mean, maybe the
world isnt really bleak. I admit its probably just me, that maybe
Im the one with the scrim over my eyes like a blindfold. Either
Alan Haehnel



12
way, it all looks dull and shadowy to me. All the time. I know how
to get into my fathers gun cabinet.
AARON. And.
CLAIRA. I mean, right now all I have to go on is just a hunch, you
know? But hey, hunches have started a lot of very important, like,
discoveries. When Newton got hit on the head with the apple
even though that probably never happened, in real historyit gave
him a hunch and then he invented gravity. So, my hunch is that
they have been making candy bars smaller and smaller over the
past few years. They used to be bigger when I was youngerI
swear it! And its not just me; its not just because my mouth was
smaller that I think the candy bars were bigger. Plus, heres the
thingnow they have these king size bars that they charge, like,
almost double the money over the regular size bar, but I think the
king size bars are actually just about the same size as the regular
ones used to be! Seriously. Im going to do a study on this.
AARON. You know, theres just two left. Im just going to let them
finish, then Ill tell my story. But dont forgetall at once, right?
Simultaneity. And.
LILLY. Your clothes arent just for covering you up and keeping
you warm, of course. They make you feel good, when you wear just
the right ones. If they fit just right and look just right, they comfort.
They communicate something both out to other people and back to
you. They tell you youre all right. You are who you think you are,
who you want to be. So when your favorite clothes start not fitting
anymorenot because youve outgrown them since youre getting
older, but becauseyoure getting fat. Again.then they hurt you.
Theyre tight and they pinch, sure, but, worse than that, they hurt
you because they say, both out to other people and back to you,
Youre not all right. Youre a tub of lard again.
AARON. And.
DANIELLE. Hes such an idiot, my brother is. Such a stupid, ma-
cho, narrow-minded, hero-loving idiot! He actually came to me
yesterday with a huge grin on his face and told me hes shipping
out to Iraq next week. Yes! he said, Im going to get me some ac-
tion. (Incredulous:) Im going to get me some action? How can
And



13
two people like my parents combine their genes and produce him
and then combine them again to produce me? I just do not under-
stand how he can possibly think going to fight in that war is some
kind of an adventure! That hes just going to go play his war games
and come home unscathed! The problem is, if he werent my
brother, I could just write him off as an ignorant bullet-head and
send him on his merry way. The problem is, I love him more than I
can say, and I am going to worry every damned second he is over
there.
AARON. Okay. Everyone has had their say. Its incredible, dont
you think? (Moving amongst the actors:) While his father is dying
shes worried about the shrinking of candy bars and hes anxious
about clearing a particular height in the pole vault and shes de-
pressed about the way her pants fit at the same time that shes
planning suicide at the very same moment that she has another
hangnail. Itsamazing andsomehow so horrible.
My story. I need to tell you about that. I cant just do it with words,
though. I have to have you see it. Itll just take me a minute to set
this up. (As he is speaking, AARON goes offstage and wheels in the
members of his family, each one on a separate rolling platform. They are all
frozen in position when he brings them in: his FATHER in an easy chair,
almost asleep; his little SISTER with her play house; his MOTHER
kneeling with rosary beads; and finally a bed with two figures on it, under
a blanket.) I, I, I dont want you to miss what Im trying to convey,
here. I need some visuals. This is my father. Say hello, Dad. Just
kidding. Um. Ill get this all set. If I had the resources, I would bring
the whole house in so you could get a better sense of the spatial re-
lationships between these various scenes that were playing out. My
fatherhes downstairs in the den. And about, uh, twenty or so feet
away, up and over, my mother is in my parents bedroom. My little
sister is upstairs, also, actually quite close to my mother, separated
only by a wall. And my big sistershes in her room, in the base-
ment, right next to I cant believe it! I forgot about me! (AARON
goes offstage and comes on with another rolling platform. On it is a chair,
a television, a video game set-up.) Im there, too, of course, in the
downstairs living room which is, like I said, fairly close to mymy
sisters room. My older sisters. Her name is Adrian. You cant see
her. Shes under the blanket. Thats how it was. My little sister,
Alan Haehnel



14
here, is Julia. My mother is Donna. My father, Brian. Im Aaron.
This is my house, three nights ago. And now that I look around at
what Ive set up, Im not sure I can tell you what happened.
(AARON steps away from the scene of his house and walks around,
amongst the actors.) So what do you make of all this, anyway? The
and factor, as I call it? How do you square it? Or do you even try?
I mean, what are we supposed to do about the fact that, at any
given moment, a million separate happenings are playing out
more than a million! A billion! A billion billion! But you can lose
track of that, when you start getting into numbers that astronomi-
cal. You cant lose track so easily if you just consider the size, the
space, the confines of one place. One school. One house. I mean, this
is only a sampling up here. Iraq and Venice and noisy kisses and
too much homework. You have to deal with the chaos somehow.
You have to, dont you? So what are we to do? What are we sup-
posed to do? Just listen? And.
KYLE. How can I be angry at my own father because his cells have
mutated and now theyre killing him? How can I? But I am. I am so
mad at him.
AARON. And.
KASSIE. Lets at least have a law, okay? A law that if youve been
working on homework for over an hour, you have to quit and go
watch television or something.
AARON. And.
ANGELA. I spent two hours waiting and one and a half hours ac-
tually getting it cut, only to have him think I got a new bra. I guess I
know what he pays attention to.
AARON. And.
LESLEY. What about the polar bears? I mean, like, in a hundred
years, nobody will even have a chance to have a coat made out of a
polar bear because theyll be, like, gone!
AARON. And.
NATE. Yesterday. Yesterday was the final blow, the one I never ex-
pected. The letter from Keene State, my safety school. Yeah.
Thanks but no thanks. So much for safety.
And



15
AARON. And.
ANN. Have you ever heard of how amputees can still feel their
missing limbs? I wonder if people who have lost their fingers feel
phantom hangnails.
AARON. And.
KATE. What am I supposed to do? Hand him one of those nasal
strips every time he leans in to kiss me? I dont see that improving
our relationship.
AARON. And.
JOE. My coach even tried to fool me one day. He told me the height
was 129 when it was actually 133. Did it help? No. Somehow my
brain knows. Its allergic to anything over 13.
AARON. And.
MEREDITH. I dont want to make a mess. We have some rolls of
plastic from when we painted the ceilings. Ill put those on the floor
and the furniture before I do it. Itll save Mom some trouble.
AARON. And.
CLAIRA. I mean, I dont want to sound paranoid or anything, but
candy bars are important things to kids. If you shrink them but
charge the same money, its like a big national lie!
AARON. And.
LILLY. Sure, I could just go and buy myself some bigger pants. But
you know what? You know part of the price for those pants? You
pay a hefty self-esteem tax.
AARON. And.
DANIELLE. Soldiers are sons and grandsons and husbands and
nephewsand brothers. Stupid, macho brothers, and if they
dietheir sisters will die along with them.
AARON. I watched you. I watched you as you listened. You
frowned. You laughed. You grimaced. You smiled. From one mo-
ment to the next, one story to the next, you reacted. Thats good.
Thats human. But remember, right? Remember the phenomenon I
Alan Haehnel



16
have been describing. (All of the actors begin speaking simultaneously
for a couple of seconds, then stop.) How do we frown and laugh and
grimace and cry and smile and shout for joy and scream for grief
how do we react to all of it going on all around us, every, every sec-
ond? How? Or should we even try? (He walks back over to his family.)
Three nights ago. About 8:30. My father is in the den, nodding off as
he tries to finish up some work.
FATHER. Oh, man, I can never stay awake this time of night.
AARON. And my mother is upstairs in the bedroom, saying
prayers.
MOTHER. God, tell me how we might better serve thee.
AARON. And Julia is playing with her toy house.
JULIA. Darn it. I wish I had another tea set.
AARON. And I am in the living room, down in the basement. (He
sits down in the chair, takes the video game controller in his hands.) I am
playing with my Xbox, trying to (He stares over at the bed where
ADRIAN is under the covers. After a long pause, he jumps up, putting
the controller down. He crosses back to the other actors.) So what should
we do? Should we have some fun, here? Should we manipulate this
confluence of concomitant conflicts, mix them together for our per-
sonal entertainment and possible edification?
KYLE. And my father is dying of homework.
AARON. Ha!
KASSIE. And I have a ton of candy bars tonight.
AARON. Yeah!
KATE. And my boyfriend makes 13 feet in the pole vault when he
kisses me.
AARON. Whoa! Thats a good one!
NATE. And I got rejected from every hangnail I applied to.
AARON. Thats gotta hurt, huh?
ANGELA. And my haircut will be like, underwater within the next
decade.
And



17
AARON. Sounds like a fashion problem.
ANN. And my kiss has a hangnail.
AARON. Not quite sure how that works.
LESLEY. And no one noticed my Venice.
AARON. My Venice. Thats great.
JOE. And I cant kill myself in the pole vault.
AARON. I bet you can!
MEREDITH. And I think I want to make a funny noise.
AARON. Well, be our guest! Ha!
CLAIRA. And I swear theyre making Iraq smaller than they used
to.
AARON. Mustve shrunk in the wash.
LILLY. And my favorite cancer doesnt fit anymore.
AARON. Favorite cancerperfect!
DANIELLE. And my brother is going to school.
AARON. Well, he shouldhow else will he get educamated?
Wasnt that a hoot? The old Mad Libs treatment, huh? Mix n Match
troubles. Its a game you can play at home. Wasnt that a laugh riot?
Wasnt that (AARON looks back over at his home area. He contin-
ues, though hes distracted by his memory of what happened.) Maybe just
making light of it allmaybe thats what we shouldhow we
should (Turning to us:) In case you havent inferred this fact by
now, I am concurrently desperate to tell my story and petrified to
tell my story. Notice that: the And factor even within the tiny space
of my own mind. Co-existing and contradictory desires.
I dont lack intelligence. I hope you have seen that fact demon-
strated, too. I mean, someone stupid would not have had the
wherewithal to create this production, this extravaganza illustrating
his inner conflict. No, that takes smarts. Youve heard my words,
my vocabulary. How many stupid people have you met who can
throw around such words as concurrent and simultaneity and
Alan Haehnel



18
spatial relationships and wherewithal? My school grades and
standardized test scores will bear out my assertionI am not stu-
pid! I am not unaware! I (He looks over at Adrians bed.) How can I
not have known? (AARON strides purposefully over to his home.)
My father is in the den, practically asleep. My mother is in the bed-
room, trying to speak to God. My sister is in her room, re-decorat-
ing her dolls house. (He sits down in front of the television, picks up the
remote for the video game.) I am playing Gudruns War, a game of
world-domination set on a planet far from Earth, and I am trying to
figure out how to beat the arch-enemies of Gudrun, the Cragenites.
(He gets up, crosses to Adrians room.) Adrian is in her room. She is
not alone. (AARON pauses for a long moment, then breaks away from
his home space and walks out among the other actors. He is clearly agi-
tated, looking at the various actors.) So what are we supposed to do?
Judge them? Categorize them? After all, its ridiculous to think that
we can handle the And factor in its entirety. (All of the actors begin to
speak at once, loudly.) Shut up! (The actors freeze again, silent.)
Youyou have to make distinctions, divisions, isolationsits a
human tendency. You cant help it!
KYLE. He sleeps a lot now. Everyone in the family takes turns be-
ing with him.
AARON. On a scale of one to ten, then, how serious is this situa-
tion? Fleetingly insignificant gets a one; globally cataclysmic a ten.
Father dying of cancer. A seven.
KASSIE. Im never going to get this all done. And theyre going to
pile on more tomorrow!
AARON. Homework overload: Four.
ANGELA. And its not like I had a trim, either; I totally changed my
look.
AARON. Hair troubles: Three.
LESLEY. I mean, if we dont, like, smarten up and start saving on
gas, our whole ozone will be gone.
AARON. Now, here, this gets tough. Shes complaining about cli-
mate change, which would be in the nine-ten category, but shes
being completely ignorant and selfish with her perspective, which
And



19
might merit a three or four or even lower. Have to take an aver-
agesix.
NATE. Im out of options. What, like Im even going to consider
community college?
AARON. Again, the attitude causes somefour.
ANN. My mother picked up a skin lotion Im going to try.
AARON. Two.
KATE. Maybe I should start making noises of my own when we
kiss, to drown him out.
AARON. Twopoint five. Or noif I gave haircut girl a three,
maybe I shouldyou see how hard this is?
JOE. Seriously, I even went on line to see if there was any such
thing as a sports hypnotist.
AARON. Is college disappointment worse than pole vault disap-
pointment? Three.
MEREDITH. Ive been working on a note for the past week.
AARON. Should imminent death from cancer rank as high as im-
minent self-destruction? Six. But that puts him on a par with the
global warming girl. I dont know.
CLAIRA. I wish I could get my hands on a ten-year-old candy bar;
then I could compare.
AARON. That I give a one.
LILLY. So now my once-favorite pants hang in my closet like a last-
place ribbon of shame.
AARON. Oh, I dont know. She really seems to be in pain over this
weight thing, yet, in the grand scheme of the universefive. Or
four. No, five.
DANIELLE. So hes going over there, and every time the phone
rings were all going to cringe.
AARON. Above the pants but below the suicide. Five point five?
Because maybe her brother wont be killed over there. But embed-
Alan Haehnel



20
ded in her situation, is there also a general complaint about the na-
ture of a world where wars happen? Or at least an objection about
this war in particular? Maybe its a six. So lets look at what weve
done. Weve taken the various components that all make up a single
simultaneous and from a particular time and place, and weve
ranked them. So now, perhaps, we should group them. Right. (As
AARON instructs, the actors go to their appropriate groups:) Eights
through tens, over there; sixes and sevens, right there; threes
through fives, take this spot; and anyone below a three, right here.
Good, good. So, what we have now done is made distinctions, you
see, between the various concomitant situations. Isnt thatuh I
thought I had four groups. Oh, well, I didnt grade anything above
a seven; thats right. Anyway, what weve done here iswhat we
have issomethingcompletely useless. Go away. All of you. Just
go away. (The actors exit.) Youve made the pointcancer and candy
bars and suicide and homework and hangnails and And, and,
and. We got it. (AARON walks over to sit in the chair of his home.)
And Dad semi-sleeping. And Mom supplicating God. And Julia
with her dolls. And me trying to conquer an electronic non-world.
And Adrianand Adrian with herand Adrian in her room be-
ing Never mind. I cant do this! Never mind. (AARON stares
straight out as actors come and wheel away his family.) Im sorry. Im
sorry. I meant to tell you the point of all this, but I I didnt mean
to waste your time.
(AARON begins to exit. ADRIAN enters.)
ADRIAN. Aaron.
AARON. Adrian! Ihow are you doing?
ADRIAN. Im all right. Considering.
AARON. Good. Thats good.
ADRIAN. Why have you been avoiding me?
AARON. I havent. I mean, I havent been meaning to.
ADRIAN. That was quite a bomb I dropped on you last night.
AARON. No, no. Hey, Im your brother. If you cant talk to me, you
know
And



21
ADRIAN. Yeah. Still, Im sure it wasnt easy to hear.
AARON. No, thats for sure. But it wasnt easy for you to tell, ei-
ther. So, um
ADRIAN. I told Mom.
AARON. Oh, man. Howd that go?
ADRIAN. Shes praying for strength.
AARON. Naturally.
ADRIAN. Shes going to tell Dad and then, I guess well need to go
down to the police station.
AARON. Yeah, I guessI guess you need to do that.
ADRIAN. Are you okay staying with Julia?
AARON. Sure, thats fine.
ADRIAN. She doesnt need to know about
AARON. No, no. Course not.
ADRIAN. Hey.
AARON. What?
ADRIAN. Are you okay?
AARON. Sure. You dont need to worry about me, Dri. You need to
take care of yourself. Im the one who should be asking you
ADRIAN. Aaron.
AARON. Yeah?
ADRIAN. I need your help.
AARON. Sure, Dri. Im here.
ADRIAN. I need you to talk to me. Really tell me how youre feel-
ing, even if its Dont treat me like a broken china doll. I came to
you first, remember? I told you because I trusted you to be real with
me. Mom and Dadtheyre gonna be off the charts, and I dont
know whats going to happen with my friends once word gets out.
AARON. Right.





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