In the Boom Boom Room by David Rabe

Author:David Rabe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 1975-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

END OF ACT ONE

ACT TWO

TIME: The same.

PLACE: The same.

(Music. Lights. Big Tom’s bar. The girls, Vikki, Melissa, Sally and Chrissy all dance, and then Susan enters, carrying her mike.)

Susan: Gotta take a minute to do a promo for the owner of this place — Big Tom — he’d do it himself, but he’s so shy. He’s here, though. You might see him. He’s not unfriendly, just busy. (Then calling off.) You here, Tom? Give a yell. (Then back to the audience.) Sometimes he’s around the corner — you know the place I mean — the Room Tomasita, where men dance only for men — and then he’s gotta spend some time right upstairs in the Tom-Tom Room, where women dance only for women. He’s gotta make his rounds, ’cause he owns them all. He wanders all three like a man through a single home, making sure the jukebox songs are current, the customers grinning, the hookers polite and busy. It’s a giggle to him — the way those girls can do such a job on a john, but they gotta read “Dear Abby” to understand their lives. Watch for a hooker to take off her shoes as she stands at the bar workin’ her trade. Then look for a bright-eyed man strolling the aisles, and suddenly he stops to nudge the hooker’s shoe back under the bar with a wink. That’s Tom. Say “Hello.”

(Now the music is a little louder.)

Susan: Sometimes he sends out a girl to Pony to applause in a boy’s gay bar. (Looking at Chrissy, Susan gestures for Chrissy to go, and after a “Who me?” look from Chrissy, she goes off.) Or a boy comes here to do his best for a song. (On comes a boy in a leather costume: hat, sunglasses, jeans and leather jacket, to dance in the spot Chrissy just left.) Tom likes his family friendly. He likes his house neat. (And Susan now stops, walks over to the side for a drink as the girls dance.) Isn’t Vikki doing the Pony a lovely sight? Don’t you think of a plain upon which she prances, nature’s girl, until she joins Melissa doing the Monkey; the downbeat slamming the knees and the hands are a monkey’s climbing high upon an imaginary vine, where you are hit in the stomach and fall, like Sally, into the Jerk.

(Now the music is loud and the other girls dance while Chrissy enters, wearing a simple, slightly childlike dress and carrying a thermos of coffee; she walks to Susan, and pours her a cup of coffee. As the other girls leave one by one, the music fading, Susan sits and Chrissy begins rubbing the back of Susan’s neck. Then everyone is gone but Susan and Chrissy, the music changed to a different tune and very soft, as if a radio is playing nearby.)

Chrissy: You never been interested in astrology, huh?

Susan: No, why?

Chrissy: It’s got a long history; Greeks even. You like the coffee I made you?

Susan: Sure.

Chrissy: Wasn’t

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