The CTR Anthology by Alan Filewod

Author:Alan Filewod [Filewod, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 1993-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

At rise we are in a holding cell in the Willows Hospital for the criminally insane. Colby sits alone, writing in his notebook. As he speaks Rand appears as a memory in a dim glow on the upstage platform.

Colby: Well Linda, here I am sitting in an empty room waiting to try and convince a total stranger that there really is something going on between us. God, what kind of chance do I have? I remember trying to explain it to Rand that first time at Willowood. I said to him: “Love is like a revolution in the mind.” He smiled and made a note. “Look at it as a cascade of neuro-chemical reactions that make you see sudden pictures of a perfect world.” He wrote a whole sentence. “When you’re in love you lose that huge separation between yourself and everything around you. Your senses expand to fill every available space!” And he looked up from his notebook and said …

Colby and Rand: “Mr Colby, you have just given me a textbook definition of schizophrenia.”

(Underscoring begins. Rand fades out.)

Colby: Saint Paul can be hit by a bolt of lightning on the road to Damascus. Edgar Cayce can cure hundreds of people he’s never even seen and twenty million people a day can base their lives on what Jeanne Dixon writes in an astrology column, but if I say “Our spirits have touched” then I’m mad.

(Linda appears where Rand had stood. Colby remembers her music and dreams she is with him. Linda sings “Heart Like A Wheel,” a song about lost love and broken hearts. As the song is sung. Linda comes down the stairs, she and Colby almost touch but the image fades. She disappears; and as the song ends Colby is alone, back in his cell.

A cop and Cord enter. Cord is handcuffed. The cop chains him to a chair near Colby.)

Cord: Take you stinking hands off me, you doorknob’s arsehole!

The Cop: Will you keep it down?

Cord: Not much to get it up for in The Willows, is there, chumbly?

The Cop: That’s your problem, not mine.

Cord: I am not nuts!

The Cop: You’re about as smart as a toaster.

Cord: You’re all walking stiffs. Ya can’t believe in anything anymore!

The Cop: You’re pathetic.

(He exists.)

Cord: Jesus, Jesus, those monkey-headed bastards … you scum bucket! (to Colby) Well, what are you looking at? (Colby looks away) Oh, sorry to disturb your meditation, man. Just ignore me. I’m just another poor slob being run down in the street. The shrink in there just shoved my dink in a light socket and flipped the switch, but what’s it mean to you, right?

Colby: Who was it?

Cord: Eh?

Colby: What was the psychiatrist’s name?

Cord: C.G. Rand. What’s it to you anyway … say … I know you. Jake Colby, right? Wow, I don’t believe it. I got your picture from the paper pinned on my wall. Man, like, you’re a folk hero, right?

Colby: What are you talking about?

Cord: Linda Barrie, man. That’s huntin’ for bear. You

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