Strictly Playwriting #2
Where you from? A playwright said to his play.
At the back of the bus, just in front of the rear tires, I sat looking out the window. Behind me, a younger dude and his girl sat in the last row talking loudly. They shared a bag of chips even louder. Enter this bigger younger dude, with a strange look in his eye. Before he sat across the aisle from me, I made eye contact with him and gave him one of my nods that say I see you, I acknowledge you. He ignored me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath and noticed him fidgeting.
He then got up out of nowhere, I even think while the bus was still in motion, and sat in that one seat on the bus that sits awkwardly, the one that faces the window rather than facing the same direction of all the other seats. He stares the younger dude down, the one with his girl, and asks “Where you from, homie?”
Immediately, the younger dude blurted out “oh I don’t bang”. Unsatisfied by the answer, the bigger dude got up and announced “City Terrace Gang, Homie” and went to go sit back down in his original seat across from me. I pulled out my journal and started writing this encounter down, but then I stopped to wonder why this interaction would be one of my first entries into my strictly playwriting series…
Was because I never heard someone get hit up so close to me before?
Was it because I liked how the words sounded?
Was it because I noticed the strangeness of the power dynamics at play?
Was it because I was reminded of my play:
Nevertheless, I jotted this encounter down, and made a note to myself that I’ll also be sure to capture the beautiful and quiet moments of public transit equally.
Shortly after both dudes exited the bus at different points in the route, the bigger dude with alcohol on his breath and tattooed ink on his neck, and the younger dude with his girl and his bag of chips, I couldn’t help but replay the scenario in my head and ruminate on what I just witnessed.
First I started to think about the younger dude, and how quiet him and his girl got after that moment. I wondered if they talked about this incident as soon as they got off the bus, like what the hell was that guys problem. Or worse, I wondered if they never talked about this moment again. I wondered if she thought less of him, I wondered if he thought less of himself.
Then I started to think about that bigger dude and where he was going with that type of energy. Because when the bus stopped and he was about to exit, he made it a point to make eye contact with the bus driver through the rearview mirror to thank him and to promise him that he’ll pay him on the next ride. I found his politeness in juxtaposition to his aggressiveness… conflicting.
Then I started to wonder why the bigger dude didn’t ask me where I was from. Maybe it was because of my dress shoes, or my badge hanging around my neck. But then I wondered what my response would be if he did ask me where I was from… “I don’t bang” is not really something that’s in my vocabulary. Perhaps I would’ve answered his question with a question: “what’d you mean?”… and then my mind was off to the races with options for dialogue.
“you know what I mean, where you from homie”
“what’d you mean, what’d you mean”
“Don’t play dumb with me, homie”
I was having fun riffing on the back and forth of this imaginary scenario until the bus came to my stop. I pressed the button, and an automated voice announced “Stop requested”.
Playwriting Ponderings:
I was tripping out on the grammar and my memory of how the bigger dude said: “where you from, homie” vs. “where are you from, homie”
This bigger dude tripped me out, because I wondered why he felt like he needed to assert his dominance to this younger dude.
The younger dude didn’t look like a gangster.
The bigger dude didn’t do this shit to other dudes the same size as him.
I wondered why the bigger dude was already drunk, why was he so polite to the bus driver, and where the hell was he going?
It was fun to riff on the infinite options of dialogue and my inclination was to take it in comedic route and see where it goes from there, but what is most interesting and challenging to me to is to turn into a play is the quiet moments between the younger dude and his girl.
Interested to know where your plays, poems, ideas, concepts or stories come from? Or how do you mine for story?