copyright © 2003 Mike Rothschild

"Black Mariah"

by Mike Rothschild

Lights up. At rise, actor stands on stage. He has a pillow.

I figure love is a lot like a poker game. You can either wait for that perfect hand, throwing away everything else and never getting in the game; but knowing when you do, you’ll win big…or, you can take your chances. Play the cards you’re dealt. Maybe win a few you thought you’d lose, lose a few you thought you’d win.

And sometimes you know you’re gonna lose, but you bet big anyway. Because you can.

Mariah was that bet. There was no way I could win, but I kept throwing money away, good after bad after pathetic. If Natalie Portman is a royal flush, perfect and unbeatable, and Chelsea Clinton is three of a kind, not bad but not that great…then Mariah was the queen of spades, the card that kills the hand and makes everyone ante again.

But she didn’t just kill the hand. She killed everything. She was misery and crushing heartache with breasts. She made me cry, then made me cry about the fact she made me cry. She found what I was most ashamed of and told it to the people I hated the most.

And that was on her good days. So in case you were unclear, Mariah was evil. Pure white hot black evil. She was mean to kids. She’d scream at them to get off her lawn, even if we were out shopping. And she was a horrible driver. She’d honk at cars in the left hand lane on a green light at rush hour. I’d tell her, if that guy tries to make that turn he’ll get killed. She’d just glare at me, as if the cars didn’t exist. But maybe to her, they didn’t.

She never stopped talking. She’d babble about Mexican soap operas, even though she didn’t speak Spanish and hated Mexicans. Or the badminton tournament she won in 7th grade, or her aunt’s ferret being run over. A constant stream of hot, wet, verbal diarrhea. It was hard to take, and one time I did leave her. Dumped her for good, adios, biatch!

Three days later, we were engaged. I don’t know exactly how, but there it was. A ring on her finger and everything. I don’t even remember buying it.

A while later, I consented to let her pleasure me. She didn’t do it often…or well…but it was better than nothing. Our sex was usually a slow-motion train wreck, but it was still sex. And this time it was pretty good. I felt loved. Like I could be honest and playful, like we were actually a couple, instead of her being Godzilla and me being Tokyo. I looked down at here and she looked up at me…I said "wow, I finally got you to shut up!"

When I came to in the hospital the next day, they told me they were able to reattach most of it, but that it would be useless. Don’t know why they even bothered re-attaching it. They could have at least fixed the bite marks. It’s not like I’d forget what happened, I don’t need constant bicuspid reminding.

Later on, they told me she had been the one who dropped me off at the hospital, for the express purpose of stealing my car. So, I had no girlfriend. No car. No usable penis. I’d lost the game. My cards weren’t good enough. I was cleaned out and pimped out. Black Mariah finished me off.

But the funny thing about cards is that you never know what the next hand will bring. Lying there in my bed, I turned on the local news, and got dealt a royal flush. "A local woman was killed today in a car wreck when she attempted to make a left turn into oncoming traffic during rush hour."

So I’m on my way to her funeral. I don’t know why, seeing as how she robbed me of…everything. It certainly not out of some cosmic sense of guilt. I mean, she WAS a bad driver. And evil. But maybe it’s because we did share a love at some point. Or to remind myself how fragile life is.

No, it’s just to gloat. And why do I have the pillow? Well, with Mariah, you can never be too sure.

He fluffs the pillow and stalks offstage. Lights out.

THIS SCRIPT IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, TRANSMITTED, PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR


[Back to Library] Home