Infiltration had been the easiest part. It couldn’t be assumed that it was this group or that person. There had been so many people there that night. Facts needed checking, pieces had to be snapped securely into place if a larger picture was to take place. On its head it had been one of revenge where any Shakespearean play could have served as a lesson plan. It wasn’t going to be denied that some parts, ideas, of the plan had been borrowed from the bard. Some had come from shitty television shows they used to watch together, back when they had been together. Pain had pulled at every fiber watching from a close distance. Ripping the bits of sinew designed to keep things intact. It was the knowledge, truly knowing what evil had clouded the space between them that was a slow, painful death.
That was then, this was now. Getting here, now, had taken a lot of time and energy.
The technical aspect of stalking had been a few hours of YouTube videos and an upgraded phone plan. Learning how to make cocktails, work a register that predated modern credit cards with its equally as old ticketing system, and become everyone’s preferred bartender had taken a little more time but what were days and weeks and months in comparison to love, to security, to everything. They had damn well taken everything, mostly. They were they catalyst to the plan, the revenge, and now Act V was starting:
Act 5, Scene 1
[Inside McCurdys, a table by the bar. Enter Jackson, Mikael, and Mary]
Jackson
We need drinks. Lots of them.
It’s been a hell of a week.
Mikael
Have things soured in the heart department?
No longer is your lady’s love as sweet as syrupy sodas?
Jackson
There’s nothing sweet about a whore,
only the petals that opens between her legs.
Sorry, Marry.
Mary
As I’m not a whore, I’m not offended.
MIkael
What’s happened to make you so poetic.
[Tophy, the bartender, enters with drinks]
Tophy
Your usuals. Where’s your woman, Jackson?
Jackson
Probably off with your old woman, Tophy!
Doing things deviled women do.
Tophy
It’s been ages since I’ve called a woman my own.
Mikael
And that was after you called her mom.
Mary
You all are sick.
In earnest Jackson, what happened?
Jackson
Switch us to gin and I’ll spill my soul.
Tophy
How very English of you.
Jackson
Toffee and gin,
At least one of them Mary will be swallowing tonight.
Tophy
While it would be an honor, my lady,
I don’t think we have any proper English toffee in stock.
Mikael
Our Tophy, much too English and proper to accept your pimping Mary out.
Tophpy
Let me make haste and get the drinks.
[Tophy nods, exits]
Jackson
Speaking of women, who are you bedding these days Mikael?
Mary
You mean who isn’t he bedding?
In that case the answer is me.
Mikael
A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.
Jackson
A gentleman you are not.
[Tophy returns with a tray of three drinks and four shots]
Tophy
Hopefully this will get your evening started on the right foot.
Jackson
For you, Mikael and for you, Mary.
Tophy keep the gin flowing as I spin my tale.
Tophy
Will more be joining you this evening?
Mary
Alicia and Sam will be here.
Jackson
As will Madison — though I told him to leave his unpleasantness at home.
Mary
His wife is not unpleasant.
Mikael
No, but he is whenever she comes out.
Mary
I also heard from Kimmy.
Jackson
Women moan, it doesn’t mean they’re coming.
Mikael
Maybe when they’re with you.
Mary
And she’s already on her way.
Tophy
Before they arrive, how would you like the tab set up?
Jackson
These two can stay on mine.
Everyone else should have their own.
When everyone is here I’ll buy around of shots.
Tophy
The night is still early.
I raise my shot to you friends.
Every bartender has patrons,
only some are ever so cursed to call them friends.
Jackson
To me, to you and you and you.
To friends, to enemies,
to lovers and bartenders.
Let’s get fucked up.
Act 5, Scene 2
[Elsewhere inside McCurdys]
Nemesis
Like Nemesis or the Furies, I have
chosen them in the name of my revenge.
They sit there, drinks in hand, a four top
swarming with them and their friends, their majesty:
Jackson, in the center, flanked by his brethren
and of course there are the minions:
Madison, Mikael, Alicia,
Mary, Kimmy — Sam stands there, like a doof.
He’s just as much the problem as his wife.
All of them, the living embodiment
of evil. For now at least they live.
Soon they will be broken, alone, and dead.
Long ago they took from me something I
could not mend. They shattered it, leaving only
hopelessness and despair. They laugh and toast
and drink for merry, but their real sport is
misery, for no one do they really care.
They matter not, not to me, not to each
other, not to the police. They are a
burden on the infrastructure, a weight
no one is willing to bear any more.
Special privileges had, abused, revoked.
They will pay for their sins the same way I
did, with no soul left, not even their own,
to bring them comfort in the end.
I watch them now, they cheers and drink. Consume, consume,
Consume it all! None of them have braincells
left enough to think. My plan will be quick
and effective, leaving them — and those parts
of me — behind. A little poison in
their drink, a spike of more than glee, they’ll never
guess, never know that it, in fact, was me.
But I will know, and so will she, even
though it will be too late. I’ll stand,
I’ll sit, I’ll wait, and our worlds will end with these.
Act 5, Scene 3
[Table by the bar: Jackson, Mikael, and Mary sit. Madison, Alicia, Sam, and Kimmy stand around them. They talk amongst themselves each with a drink in hand. Tophy returns with a tray.]
Tophy
You’ve all arrived? No Billy here this evening?
Mary
It seems no one called him.
Jackson
No matter. We’re here now, all of us, thick as wealthy thieves.
Tophy
Wealthy thieves stab each other in the back.
Jackson
Why I always sit with my back to the corner or the wall.
Alicia
Tophy knows better than to bring this group silverware.
Tophy
Only the good stuff for my friends.
Madison
Than you’ll have a shot with us? Eight shots, eight friends.
Jackson
Everyone, this rounds on me —
Tophy
Actually —
Mary and Alicia
GASP!
Tophy
If you’ll excuse the interruption, these shots were supposed to be from you.
Jackson
A buyback already?
[Aside to Madison standing over Jackson’s shoulder] We’ll be sure to tip accordingly.
Tophy
If I could, I would.
Madison
Than who?
Tophy
It was a gentleman at the bar.
Said he recognized you all from some big ta-do a while back.
Never forgot how you all banded together,
reminded him of something he lost.
LAUGHTER throughout the group.
Jackson
A new toast this brings
To all of us who were here then, who are here now, and who will be here again.
To friends, to enemies,
to lovers and bartenders.
Let the getting fucked up truly begin
Mikael
Salute!
Mary, Madison, Alicia, Sam, and Kimmy
Cheers!
Act 5, Scene 4
[Outside, behind McCurdys, Jackson watches as his friends return inside. Tophy exits from the kitchen door.]
Tophy
Can such lowly personage as a barkeep be so bold as to bum a fag?
Jackson
Only if he is willing to pay a fag’s price.
Tophy
[LAUGHS]
Jackson
Of course you can. A bum for a bum.
Tophy
[LAUGHS AGAIN]
Jackson
I didn’t realize you smoked.
Tophy
I quit.
Jackson
Clearly. Special occasion?
Tophy
Just trying to live a little.
[Crowd stumbles through the parking lot. Laughter and shouts fill the air.]
Tophy
A man, no matter how dirty his hands,
is still allowed a life. Not that it’s much of one.
Jackson
Hearts break no matter what wallets hold.
Life goes on. Make the merriest of your evening then.
Tophy
You headed back?
Jackson
In a moment, hotter than a furnace inside.
Are you here til close?
Tophy
Yes, yes. Till curtain call.
Jackson
Break a leg, my friend.
Tophy
When I come back another round for the group?
McCurdys treat.
Jackson
If you could only make it doubles.
Tophy
Then you might be the one with a broken leg.
Jackson
I clap your back as my own,
sometimes I forget of all the stories you do not know.
It seems like you’ve been here with us as long as any of us.
One day I will tell you the story of our little riot.
Happened in this very lot.
Ay, you should have seen the other guy.
Tophy
[COUGHS]
Jackson
Guess you really did quit.
See you in Hell.
Tophy
You certainly will.
Act 5, Scene 5
[Inside McCurdys a table by the bar.]
Sam
[Whispered in Alicia’s ear]
This is the last one for me, and for you.
Alicia
[Over her shoulder, though not as quietly]
What do you mean for me?
Sam
[Still whispering]
I don’t feel good, Leesh. If we stop it’s okay. If I stop…
You know how they are.
Alicia
[Addressing Sam and the group]
They’re my bestest friends.
What you want to do has nothing to do with me.
Drink up, fuck up.
Jackson
The lady is right.
Mikael
What lady? I only see —
Mary
This lady! I didn’t drive, for once,
let’s all partake until we fall.
Even the quietest of us all.
Sam
To the bestest friends my wife could have.
Jackson
Probably because no one else can stand her.
Alicia
Nor you!
Madison
A double shot. A double toast:
To us — the broken toys and their significant others.
Kimmy
Where is your wife?
Madison
She’s at home with the kids and Jackson’s ex.
Mikael
You mean she’s babysitting Jackson’s ex.
Jackson
He means we should all take these shots from Tophy and not take such low blows at each other.
Tophy
Here’s to having the only blows exchanged be between significant others.
Madison
And those of significance to us.
Jackson
TO MARY!
Alicia
JACKSON!
LAUGHTER throughout the group.
Jackson
Bottoms up
Tophy
Before we bid each other ado,
I wanted you all to know.
I was there, that night — now so long ago.
The night you jumped that lumberjack.
The night you broke his leg?
You did more than that, in case you didn’t know,
You left her there for dead.
Jackson
Her?
Tophy
Her name was Stephie. The owner of Hatchya Later —
Madison
The one on 23?
Tophy
That was the one.
There was a private event for their grand
opening. Held here, in the room o’er back.
It was all part of a crazed, silly plan
She dressed up like a lumberjack
Just on her way to the can
when you guys launched your attack.
[Nodding to Madison] She would have been your biggest fan
You, who couldn’t see her ample rack,
You, who then shattered her pelvis, thinking she a man,
She was lucky to have survived with anything intact.
They rushed her to the hospital
A sordid tale she told through mumbles,
grumbles, half assed sounds of woe.
She remembered nothing when she woke, tumbles
through her memories where none of you did show.
I tracked you down, all of you, no fumbles
along the way. I have little left to go.
She left me, Stephie did, said I had become obsessed.
She didn’t know the feeling of seeing her nearly dead.
But I see you all now, knowing the shots you pounded —
to her face, to her body, to her soul, all because of head,
and sex, and lust, and love, never with the one you had chosed.
Instead you all philander and get in each other’s bed
Then you almost kill a girl because you saw the threat she posed.
Now I’m telling you, I figured it all out.
Everything you know and love, all the pieces have come together.
My favorite being the recipe for slow release, quick dissolve
poison that is in thee, from your drinks and shots, it will bind you up like leather
and kill you faster than any of your sins can be absolved.
The police won’t know who to blame, but one of it it will be… since we’re all birds of a feather,
I took the shots, same as you, and we can devolve
into death altogether.
Mikael
You’re a mad man!
Tophy
I’m Christopher, who owned a bar with the woman he loved.
You’re Mikael who was fucking Alicia, while dating Kimmy,
even though Sam had wanted to make it official with her.
Jackson
He’s not wrong, but you will pay.
Tophy
Pay how? The way that Madison pays for Mary’s drinks,
prior to not so discretely bedding his whore before heading home to his wife?
Jackson
Enough!
Tophy
I am not them, I do not bow to you.
Jackson
Respect is not obedience.
Tophy
Blackmail is not the same as respect.
If they weren’t all so busy hiding their sins from you —
you who would torment and expose them —
Stephie wouldn’t have died and been reborn into someone else.
She would have stayed with me.
Instead, I die here, on my word of revenge.
With the lowest form of human scum I can imagine.
Jackson
You’re in good company then.
Sam
Alicia, I feel —
Alicia
SCREAMS
Mary
Call 911. Mikael, Madison, pick Sam up off the floor.
Madison
He’s heading outside!
Jackson
You stay here — contain them. I will follow him.
Act 5, Scene 6
[Outside, behind McCurdys, Jackson follows Tophy to the smoking section]
Tophy
There’s nothing you can do to stop it.
Jackson
If death is inevitable,
there’s nothing stopping me from beating you into the ground.
Tophy
That is where you’re wrong.
Cigarette? We’ll be dead before its gone.
Jackson
My pockets are empty,
where did you get that pack?
Tophy
If death is inevitable,
there’s nothing stopping me from revenge.
Steal from me, stole from you.
Jackson
Return your loot or I will stop you before your poison takes effect.
Tophy
Your anger rages brighter than a woman scorned.
Jackson
Mine? You are in the midst of a murderous plot because your woman left you.
Tophy
Light your cigarette and I’ll tell you how wrong you are.
We are in the midst of dying because you broke the glue that held my heart.
You shattered what made her her.
What made her woman.
What made her love.
Jackson
Love is nothing more than an illusion.
Tophy
From a man whose only love has been his mother.
How very Oedipus of you.
Jackson
[GROWLS]
Tophy
Calm your anger.
Tell me, why are you really here?
If it were to hurt me I would already be dead.
Jackson
The things you know. . .
Tophy
You are about to die and your final wish is their secrets?
Jackson
Knowledge is the key to power,
power to control.
Tophy
Call me pathetic again and I’ll show you a mirror.
Jackson
All this time? They lust and fuck behind my back.
They tell me nothing. Why?
Tophy
[LAUGHTERS] The same reason you just said.
Power, control. All for you to yield.
How much higher can they jump for you?
How much further can they kneel?
The strings have started snapping.
Your puppets have started wanting,
and you didn’t see it coming.
Oedipus, indeed.
The girl who left you standing
with your tiny cock in hand?
She told them all in private conversations
to stop listing to all of your commands.
My, my, my what that comment did to your operation.
Not only did they tell her, and through WiFi scanned,
tell me! They leaned into their revelation
of freedom and ran a muck, you see.
And now they’re in there dying,
as soon you and I will be,
born from keeping secrets, rage unleashed its fury.
You hurt her, you broke me.
There are no favors for you to curry.
Death is on its way.
[THUD as Jackson and Tophy’s bodies collapse onto the ground]