A Pirate Raid!

 You read the beginning, now for a bit gettin on toward the middle/end.  

Reading Sunday June 19th 4pm.  Falmouth Town Green/Library Lawn.  Arts Alive Festival. 

Free!  Check out the other stuff happening in the festival too!

An excerpt from, The Female Alcoholic, or Why the Gaspee burned.
by Amanda Weir 

Scene 5 Oh Shit, a Pirate Raid!

(The next night, Sabin’s (The Professor’s basement bar) Tavern.  Joe and the Professor drink some rum, then some more.)

Professor

So, how did it go?  How’s Mary? 

Joe

Oh Shit.  Some Rum.  Rum.

Professor

(The Prof pours.)  Once on shore Captain Lindsey went to find John Brown, knowing that he was one of the greatest adversaries of Lieutenant Dudingston. 

Joe

Oh Shit. 

Professor

Lindsay had skillfully outmaunevered the Gaspee from Newport through Naragansett Bay, missing the spit of sand off of Namquit Point where it left Dudingston and the Gaspee stranded upon the sandbar before the Pawtuxet River.

Joe

So Mary, so Mary, I think she might have lost her mind.

Professor

John reveled in the fact that Dudingston lay helpless just offshore.

Joe

Mary wants to get married. 

Professor

Having been stuck in that very same situation a year before when sailing to Philadelphia with his brother Moses, John knew that the Gaspee would stay immobile till morning.

Joe

Marry Mary.  Marry Mary.

Professor

John summoned the captains of all of his boats that lay in port, and a drummer boy to beat his drum up and down Towne Street to rally a raiding party.  For it would be a classic Pirates Raid!

Joe

I told her I would.  I told Mary, I’d marry her.  I didn’t know what was happening, it was like a scene in a movie.  As though I was outside of my body, watching what was happening. 

Professor

Distinguished men and common sailors crowded into raiding party headquarters, a tavern operated by James Sabin, as John Brown laid out his plan. 

Joe

Oh Shit.  I do love her.  I’m mad about Mary.  Oh shit.

Professor

They would row out in longboats, charge over the rail of the Gaspee and surprise the sleeping Brits, subduing them in hand to hand combat.  Abe Whipple was by John’s side.  Whipple had done this sort of thing before when capturing merchant ships in the Caribbean. 

Joe

I thought I was pursuing her, but no she got me. 

            (Joe and the Professor take a long drink of Rum.)

Professor

At 10pm the raiding party set out, having given the men enough time to imbibe their liquid courage, Rum. 

            (The Professor pours them both more Rum. They drink.)

Professor

So you’re going to marry Mary. 

Joe

That’s the plan I guess.

Professor

Oh Shit.

Joe

I know right. Shit.

Professor

You do love her, you think the world of her, she’s amazing and beautiful and all that.

Joe

Yup, and all that.  She wants two to three Oregonese children. 

Professor

Oregonian, you’re going to move then?

Joe

Yup, that’s the plan I guess.

Professor

Well, in times like these there’s only one thing to do. 

Joe

What’s that?

Professor

A Pirate Raid!

Joe

A pirate raid!

Professor

That’s right.  I, John Brown, dub you, Abe Whipple, the Sherriff of Kent.  (That’s the county just off Namquit Point.) 

Joe

Oh god.  A Pirate Raid.  We’re going to burn the Gaspee.

Professor

That’s right.  We’ll subdue that scurvy dog Dudingston and send those British seamen back where they belong. Drink up for courage, for it’s almost 10oclock and we must make our move. 

(They down their rum.  The Professor then hands Joe a tricorne hat of his own and they set off with fire in their eyes.)

The Female Alcoholic or Why the Gaspee Burned.

Here is a taste of my newest play, The Female Alcoholic or Why the Gaspee Burned which will have its first airing (reading) as part of the Arts Alive Festival in Falmouth, MA on June 19th at 4pm.  

Scene 1 – Disconnected voices. (Mary, Joe and Professor speak directly to the audience, they are comfortable, Joe and Mary at their homes, Professor in his basement colonial tavern circa 1772 wearing a tricorne hat.) 

Mary

Yesterday was rather a waste, due to getting hopelessly drunk the night before.  One always self-deprecates while hungover, I think it’s the natural state to be ashamed of oneself in this situation. 

Joe

It will all be fine. It will all be fine. Everything is fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.

Professor

(With book in hand, reading.)  There have been several attempts to identify the female inebriate. 

Mary

I continually wake up and think, how am I going to go about changing my existence.

Joe

I need to find a slightly easier way of being. 

Mary

Each day begins with a list/directive for going about the day. (As if reading off a notepad.) If you want to consume something drink tea.  No booze.  Go to the library, clean the house, yoga, take a walk. 

Joe

Maybe if I just tell her I love her then she’ll beg me to stay.  Say she can’t live without me.  (Pause) 

I need a reason to stay. 

Professor

To become an alcoholic or a person who “Drinks too much” is to acquire a particular social role which has profound effects upon the drinker’s self conceptions and interpersonal relationships and which, in turn, is an important element in the development of compulsive drinking. 

(He pauses, takes off his hat, scratches his head, reaches behind the bar, takes out a growler and pours beer into a stoneware mug.) 

Mary

At the end of the day, drink in hand, hour three of being curled in front of the mindless set, the list is edited.  If you want to consume something drink, cross out tea and write in block letters, GIN.  Side note, Gin is amazing, it makes you feel happy, tea gives you the runs. 

Professor

We will look at factors which predispose the individual, which orient the predisposed individual to alcohol, which explain how the individual progresses to uncontrolled or compulsive drinking. 

Mary

Cross out Go to the Library, write in Three hour Nap. 

Joe

Oh don’t worry.  I am under absolutely no misconception that we are together, or that we will be anytime in the relative near future.  It won’t matter soon anyhow, I’ll be gone.

Woman

Clean the house, yoga, take a walk.  I did take a walk, big ole check mark next to that one.  Yoga rarely happens but feels amazing when it does.  But for whatever reason, actually doing it, is well as I said something rare.  The walk is easy though, no matter what time of year bundled up with only eyes showing or easy comfort in a sweatshirt and jeans, just head on out into the world letting the feet carry you towards nowhere in particular.  Just wander around.  Makes one feel slightly less stuck, less helpless, just walkin, walkin about.  Feels like an accomplishment without actually accomplishing.  Cleaning the house would feel good too, but part of walking is avoiding things like cleaning the house. 

Professor

(The Professor’s eyes light up.  He takes a big swig of beer.)  Aahhh, The Art of Fermentation predates the written history of man. The discovery of stone age beer jugs has established the fact that some use of fermented beverages existed as early as the Neolithic period and there have been few practices as widespread, historically and cross culturally, as the consumption of some type of alcoholic beverages.  The persistence of alcohol usage is undoubtedly due to the ability of alcohol to satisfy some basic human needs.  It is a useful device for making people more comfortable in their ordinary lives.