A Bit About a Player

The following monologue was submitted from an inmate at the Federal pentientiary at LaFollette, IL who participated in the prison's Voices from the Void theatre program. We thought it had a touch of literary merit and as our mission is to support all the dramatic arts, we include it.

- TMD Review Editors


Setting: The interrogation room of a police station.

At Rise: C, a tall gangly youth, sits awkwardly at a scuffed metal table, his legs folded up carefully. His physicality is that of a creature too big for his chair and maybe even the room. There's a single spot over his head.


C: I didn't want to hurt Patrick. They got me all wrong. I wanted us to live together. Get a crib together. He wus my best friend, what happened wus an accident. We wus playin with his gun and it went off - I got scared and ran. Then I came back and he was lying with his blood pumping out of him. He was jerkin and breathing really hard. I took his hand and said Patrick! He looked over at me, but his eyes were all like glassy and shit - and he hadn't been doin much weed lately.
(pause.)

A'ight maybe we did a little weed that day but we wus never like some guys getting up in each other's stuff and frontin and talking trash. We wus quiet and shit, sittin around talking about books. Patrick really loved to read and he kept it quiet cause that would get you jumped comin from where he lived. So he read in secret and never could talk to anyone about it. He had planned to be an English teacher so he could read books all the time and then talk to his students. But until us guys met on the team it was his secret. I liked it when we got high and he did that - he tole adventure stories like one book it was about some guy going back in time - and then another about a guy who was stuck in a prison for ten years and then come out and become a prince or something and then went and killed all the dudes who put him in prison. Yeah. That one I liked a lot and I read it over and over now that I know what its like. And there was one about a guy who gets shipwrecked on a tropical island and all us he has to talk to is his dog. They were great stories and he had even more of them. After talking about books we'd talk about playing for the NBA and then getting a house - always he said, he would buy a house as soon as he signs a contract. And I'm like yeah, dude - like a big house with a hot tub and a big old playboy mansion set up and lots of shorties coming over all the time. He's like no man, not like that - I ain't into that Magic Johnson shit - and I'm like I feel that man - so what is it - he said he was going to have a house with a nice driveway that goes up to the entrance of the house in a circle and there will be a stone entryway that will cover the car when you get out and go in the door - so you drive up and let out everyone in the car and your bags or groceries and then you drive around back and park in a real driveway next to a garage. That was the way to go he said - no parking cars on the front lawn. And inside this little stone archway - archway is what he called it - there was a blue and white lantern. It would be on at night and light up the whole area. The other thing he said he wanted was that the house would have a big green lawn in the front and back. And be very flat - really flat and big so you can toss around a football with your homes. Patrick said that was his American Dream - he knew when he got that house he be a success and folks would have to look up to him. So it was one of the those real talkie times after doin a little fine Jamaican that he wus all up in the clouds talking this shit and then he asks me - I didn't even think about it - I was just chillin and like livin in his picture of things, same way I did when he tells the story - and I was up there in the clouds with him and he says, so C, what up with you. I say, what? He says, what up with you, bro. What are you gonna do with your first contract? I'm like - I dunno, dawg. I thought I was gonna live with you in that house. He like looks at me like I just slapped him - he's like. WHAT? I'm like, yeah, man…I thought you was talking about us chillin in your crib, your dream house. The he got this look on his face like I was like crazee man. C, he says, you ain't livin in my house, man. Get your own damn house. I'm like, damn. That's cold. What are you a faggot, man? He asks. I hope you ain't no faggot mother fucker. No, man. I says. No, I just thought we wus so tight and all, that we'd get that house and chill together, nome sayin? He's shakin his head now and laughin and he says, no, man…nah-ugh I ain't livin with you. I ain't that way, man. And he's still laughin but it's not a fun laugh and I know he's laughin at me and he's like looking at me like I'm something he's never seen before. Like a freak. So I pick up the gun and shoot him, shoot his ass for laughing at me. He made me so mad. I ain't a freak. I just loved him. He didn't want me to and he made me feel like a freak. No one should do that - no one should turn love into a freak thing. But I miss him and I'm sorry I got mad with the gun. I shouldn't have. I love Patrick.