[JOHN, middle-aged, sits on a living room chair, his face in a laptop. MARSHA, also middle-aged, sits curled up the couch with a good book. It’s evening, their son has just been put to bed. There’s a baby monitor on a table between them.]
[After a beat, Marsha looks up, to John.]
MARSHA: It was the cutest thing today, I forgot to tell you. When I picked up Timmy today from Preschool the whole class was finger painting, ya know…?
JOHN: Really.
MARSHA: Just making a mess.
JOHN: Yeah, I bet.
MARSHA: Anyway, when I got there, Timmy had this big blue paint streak down his face. He looked like… ya know that movie, I can’t think of it right now… in Scotland…
JOHN: What movie?
MARSHA: In Scotland, with the swords…
JOHN: Highlander?
MARSHA: Uh… what’s his name…
JOHN: He looked like Highlander?
MARSHA: No, no, you know--
JOHN: Highlander?
MARSHA: No! not Highlander. The other Scottish movie… uh…
JOHN: Oh, I know… Shrek.
MARSHA: No, no…
JOHN: No, no, that’s not what I meant… Shakespeare right?
MARSHA: No.
JOHN: Henry 5.
MARSHA: Is that Scottish? Come on.
JOHN: Oh I know, I know, I know…
MARSHA: Yeah, with a…
JOHN: Pocahontas.
MARSHA: What? No, with, Mel Gibson!
JOHN: Mel Gibson?
MARSHA: That’s it.
JOHN: He looked like Mel Gibson?
MARSHA: Yeah in the movie with the Scottish movie with the blue face paint! Battling on the, uh, moors…
JOHN: Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson…
MARSHA: Don’t tell me you don’t remember Mel Gibson.
JOHN: No.
MARSHA: Ya know, uh, he was the crazy guy in that one and it had all the gunfights…
JOHN: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah…
MARSHA: Ya know…
JOHN: Dirty Harry.
MARSHA: No, no.
JOHN: Paycheck?
MARSHA: What?
JOHN: Frantic! Frantic, Frantic…
MARSHA: No, no, you’re thinkin’ the other guy…
JOHN: In the Line of Fire?
MARSHA: No, no, no…
JOHN: That had a crazy guy with gunfights.
MARSHA: Wrong crazy guy, the other guy…
JOHN: Die Hard!
MARSHA: No, not that guy, that guy’s from uh…
JOHN: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the guy from uh…
MARSHA: All the Die Hard movies and…
JOHN: Signs!
MARSHA: Yeah! No! But-- Yeah, yeah, yeah! That’s the guy I’m talking about.
JOHN: Bruce Willis!
MARSHA: No, no, no… Mel Gibson!
JOHN: Here, this is ridiculous, I have the Internet right here I’ll just imdb Mel Gibson.
MARSHA: Ok, good idea. God that was a good movie.
JOHN: Die Hard?
MARSHA: No, Signs.
JOHN: Here we go Internet Movie Data Base… Look up, Mel Gib… that’s weird.
MARSHA: What?
JOHN: Hmm. I lost the connection. I’m getting no signal.
MARSHA: Maybe it’s the aliens.
JOHN: Now… (stern look) you know I don’t like that.
MARSHA: Big imagination… just kidding. Try your iphone.
JOHN: All right. (reaches into pocket for iphone) So what was the other one I was thinking with Bruce Willis, that was like Signs.
MARSHA: I don’t know.
JOHN: The one with the kid who can see the ghosts?
MARSHA: Oh!
JOHN: “I see dead people.”
MARSHA: Yeah, yeah, I know… Ghost.
JOHN: Ghosts, yeah…
MARSHA: No, I mean that’s the title. Ghost.
JOHN: What? No.
MARSHA: No, I know, Evil Dead!
JOHN: No.
MARSHA: No, I know, The Haunting!
JOHN: No, no, no…
MARSHA: I know I know Highlander!
JOHN: Knock it off.
MARSHA: I know I was just kidding. But we’re thinking about my movie now, not your movie. Anything yet?
JOHN: Once I remember my movie, I’ll think about your movie. No nothing.
MARSHA: I know which one your talking about I just can’t remember the name. The movie I’m talking about you don’t even know what I’m talking about.
JOHN: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
MARSHA: Well that’s why we got the iphone, what’s wrong with that thing.
JOHN: The Sixth Sense!
MARSHA: No! That’s--
JOHN: No, that’s the one I was talking about, with the kid who can see ghosts.
MARSHA: Oh good, so it’s working, now look up my Mel Gibson movie.
JOHN: No it’s not working, no signal at all, I just remembered that one with my own brain.
MARSHA: Well, what’s going on?
JOHN: Whoopi Goldberg.
MARSHA: What?
JOHN: Whoopi Goldberg was in the other one, who can see ghosts…
MARSHA: Ghost.
JOHN: No ghosts, GhostS. Plural.
MARSHA: No that’s what it was called, the title, Ghost.
JOHN: Oh. Yeah. That’s right.
MARSHA: Okay, so, here we are with Mel Gibson with the paint on his face with the Broadsword.
JOHN: Lethal Weapon!
MARSHA: No!
JOHN: No, that’s the one with the crazy guy and the gunfights.
MARSHA: Oh. Yeah. So it’s working?
JOHN: No.
MARSHA: Well what’re we gonna do? Look, you saw this movie with me.
JOHN: I did?
MARSHA: Didn’t you?
JOHN: I don’t think I did because I have no idea what you’re talking about.
MARSHA: It won the fricken Academy Award!
JOHN: It did?
MARSHA: Yes! Battles, blood, he has the speech ya know “blah, blah, but they can never take away our dignity!” Something like that!
JOHN: Clint Eastwood!
MARSHA: What?
JOHN: He was in Dirty Harry. That’s the other guy I was thinking about. Go ahead…
MARSHA: Forget it. I’m going to the computer, the DSL. I gotta find this out or I’m getting a divorce. Your brain seems to conveniently remember every movie but the one I need to know. It’s highly suspicious if you ask me. (stops) Ah, shoot.
JOHN: What?
[The lights start to fade… flicker… pulse…]
MARSHA: I can’t go upstairs. I’ll wake up uh...
JOHN: Who?
MARSHA: Our child, the boy, uh…
JOHN: Oh yeah, upstairs, in bed, yeah, uh… what’s his name, my son… um… what’s happening to me?
MARSHA: Tommy! No, no… oh god.
JOHN: Bobby? Nooooo!
MARSHA: You know, you know, shoot… look it up hurry!
JOHN: I can’t! I can see his face… but I uh…
MARSHA: With the blue streak of paint across his uh… Oh shit. It’s the aliens.
JOHN: What? Don’t. Stop it. No.
MARSHA: Oh god I… find some uh pictures or a…
JOHN: Oh yeah, the thingy on the thing, a what…?
MARSHA: What?
JOHN: Something with his name.
MARSHA: For god’s sake! Check the computer!
JOHN: It doesn’t… I c… I c… I can’t remember…
MARSHA: We can… um… What?
JOHN: Nothing I was just uh… Yeah we can…
MARSHA: Look up…
JOHN: What?
MARSHA: Yeah… To find!
JOHN: Yeah! To find the thing that…
MARSHA: Yeah that thing that we… Left…
JOHN: Left?
MARSHA: That we didn’t…
JOHN: Find out…
MARSHA: Um…
JOHN: Um…
[The lights are almost out… They hold each other.]
JOHN and MARSHA: [screaming] Braveheart!
[Lights up full. John and Marsha cry with happiness, heavy breathing, laughing and smiling until…
We hear a crying from the baby monitor, they hold their breath and… turn to look at it.
Slow… out.]
END OF PLAY
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Copyright © 2010 by Nick Zagone
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that I Can't Think of It Right Now is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and of all countries covered by the Pan-American Copyright convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations. All rights, including professional and amateur stage performing, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and the rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.
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