Xenia

Ramada Inn restaurant in Xenia, Ohio. A large plastic plant. Heavy "colonial" chairs. Blue tablecloth. Yellow water glass. Candle in a red jar. Muzak. Etc. There is a patch of daylight from a distant window, but it's still too dark for lunch.

MAN enters. He's dressed in an inexpensive suit. This man is sincere. He places a newspaper on the table and hangs his overcoat on the back of the chair. As he sits, a WAITRESS enters with order pad, menu and water pitcher.

MAN: Hi, Lois, how ya doing? (She hands him the menu.) Nuff weather for you? (She fills his water glass.) What's your soup of the day?

LOIS: Clam chowder.

MAN: Manhattan?

LOIS: Mmm hmm.

MAN:; My lucky day. (Looks at her. Beat.) OK, I like the soup, double crackers, and then bring me some of the... rice pudding.

LOIS: That it?

MAN: That's it for now. (She exits)

(He smiles, shakes his head, exhales a sigh that combines satisfaction with a job well done and anticipation of a new challenge. He arranges his newspaper, takes matches from his pocket and lights the candle with some difficulty. Looks around for a familiar face, smiles at another table downstage, then settles into the front section of the New York Times. )

(LOIS returns with his soup, and another table's order.)

MAN: Thank you kindly. Keeping you busy today? (She is gone. He tries the soup, which is too hot, then looks in LOIS's direction to compliment the chef. After a few more sips, he pours a little of his ice water in the soup. He catches the eye of that downstage table.) I gotta tell ya. (Pause) Delicious. Best soup in Xenia. Clam chowder. Manhattan style. (He nods for emphasis, then goes back to spooning the soup and scanning the paper.)

Come here every day for the soup. Soup and dessert. They make a heckuva nice lunch. (Reads) You know, you can begin to wonder why you're living in a town like this. You know the place to be? New York. I don't see where there's an argument even. This is a boring place to live. Really. What do you do on a Saturday - drive over to the Westinghouse plant? You can't even get down to the river anymore. Drive out to the new mall on the east side, there's your Saturday. Stop in for a taco. Wait for the new Popeye’s to open. (Eats soup)

You ever have this happen to you? You have an idea, or let's say a thought, and then when you think about that thought, like if you go outside and look in at what you're thinking, you think it's not real. I mean you made it up, you just pretended to think it - you had a bogus thought? That happens to me. I'd like to move. Get out of Xenia. Move to New York. Just do it. Give my life a little... just move. But then I get this thing saying "You shouldn't run away from something, you should go to something." This isn't really my own thought, though, it's just words that got stuck in my head and keep coming back at me. Don't be a chicken, don't be a quitter. Then you start feeling like you're in fifth grade and you just want to stay home and watch tv.

But think about it, if you were running away from the Cossacks, or the Nazis or the Visigoths, that's not being a quitter. That's being smart. Like getting out of here - before they find me trapped in gridlock out there forever trying to turn left off Greenbriar Road. I mean I'm not talking about defecting here, it's a few hours drive on 1-70. It's a one-way ticket on Delta. I dunno. (Pause) My grandfather came from Carpathian Ruthenia. There's an area you don't hear much about anymore. (Pause)

Wanna hear something unusual? (looks around, smiles with his secret) Whenever I go into a restaurant, the waitress seems to be attracted to me. And lady bartenders, especially lady bartenders. It's something I can't explain. Did you see Lois, this waitress? Every time I'm in here she's looking at me, you know, kind of wanting to talk, stuff like that. You wouldn't believe what they tell me. I guess it's because I'm good at listening, you know, try to help them with their problems.or something I don’t know why. Salesgirls too. (Pause)

OK I'll tell you something, but... OK. (quietly) You know over at Westport Mall the Joggin Togs sports store? The assistant manager there, Becky? She's, uh, very nice looking, she's 26 years old, you know what I mean. Her little boy Kyle, he's four, he's over at daycare all week, so that's OK, but she's in charge of the store on Saturdays so she takes him over to her sister's, anyway, Saturday nights, now don't ask me, she wants to go out with me. I thought...well. So last week I bought her a bracelet 14 karat and we went to a movie and she told me she was going to get married to this guy Jim who's a computer guy over at NCR in Kettering, which'll be good for Kyle, but she just tells me this, and then she tells me but she doesn't know if she’s really you know in love with him and could she keep seeing me as like a friend. Cause we've never... y'know ... we're just going out at this point... in time, so I said when are you getting married and she says next month. She says he's got a real nice place, big place right on the river. I mean he's got a good job and everything, but he's religious and she'll have to quit her job but that's good cause she'll have a lot more time for herself but I told her no way, I told her straight the one thing that is not going to happen is I start messing around with a married woman and she starts crying and everything and says she's just talking about being a friend and I don’t understand so after the movie we had a couple of drinks at Effie's and that was it. But Becky's a beautiful girl, I'll tell you that. (Pause) I can't explain it.

(LOIS enters with empty tray and coffee)

LOIS: Everything OK?

MAN: Great.

LOIS: Coffee?

MAN: No. No. Thanks. (Lois exits) This town is crazy. Nobody's paying attention. We're living in the nineties. I'm serious. Places like Xenia are throwbacks. Nobody here even notices. If you're a type of person who likes to seek out a little excellence, you're in some kind of trouble. Give y'an example. I drive the extra mile to the Coachhouse because they take a little care. Good. And I get a bowl of soup or a club sandwich that's above par. But let's face it - OK, it's a new franchise so they're trying - but the recipes I guarantee you came from some chef in New York.

You interested in cuisine? This week in the New York Times they had, this is just an example of what we're talking about, they had a recipe for mushroom soup. You’re thinking big deal. But think about it really, you take the best mushroom soup in this town, wherever, in the whole tri-county area. Number one - they use canned mushrooms from Hong Kong or Thailand, number two - they throw in a whack of evaporated milk - if you're lucky. This recipe, the New York one, uses fresh chicken broth, whipping cream are you ready for that, and it makes use of fresh mushrooms or their wild country cousins. That struck me. Go find wild country mushrooms at Eastport Mall. Really, it's a joke. Then they put in sherry. That sounds delicious to me. I bet no one in this town would even want the recipe. If you went to New York, you wouldn't have to go two blocks to find a dish like that.

(Finishes soup)

(LOIS returns with coffee and dessert. She puts down the pudding and clears the soup.)

LOIS: Coffee?

MAN: No. No...thanks. Keeping you busy today?

LOIS: (She pours him coffee, puts down the carafe. He rises, joins her away from his table. They dance.) Crystal is off today cause her kid broke his tooth off, so I got her tables and those three lard asses over there just left a three dollar tip on a fifty-two dollar ticket, so I don't know if busy is the word I'd pick out to cover this whole situation, but yeah. That cream off?

MAN: I know she's gonna ask me to go out. And probably tell me all about her life and how this guy she's with is not the one she thought he was when all of it was new. And how it's really nice to talk to me and easy just to be herself again. She'll smell like sweet pea flowers, and we'll feel the evening breezes gently set us free. I sure would like to do that, let her eyes just lift us up and carry us away.

LOIS: And we're not doing a damn thing to help the environment.

(They hold for a beat or two, then swoop back into life. She exits, he sits and digs into the pudding)

MAN: I think maybe that's the whole thing in a nutshell. Like the soup thing, everything's on a much higher level there. You want to go to a basketball game, you don't drag your ass two miles down river because the bridge is out, excuse the language. You hail a cab and go to Madison Square Gardens. It's a different level for sure.

I'll tell you what's a definite key indicator. Now this is something I've noticed. Think about it: words. People here use really basic, short words. They don't want to be uppity. Around here you get in trouble if you happen to use a word like, I dunno... "dilletante". Seriously. That's just about it. In New York, anybody on the street will throw around good, exact words without thinking about it. A word like "diminutive". That’s expressive. "Microsession". I swear, I've lived in this city however many years, those words might as well as not been invented.

I've had it. Really. I'm gonna get out. You can fritter away your life in the small time, or you can go for the big stuff, y'know? Well, it's taken me a while, but the Time Has Come. I'm going right for the bullseye. I'm not joking around. Thanks for everything, Xenia, but that's it, boom, I'm movin' on. Up and away. Whoo, that'll feel good!

(LOIS enters, plunks down the check, then stays for a suspended moment as they look at each other. He breaks it by reaching for his VISA card)

The car and the sofa are paid off in three years. Less. Then watch out Big Apple! (He hands her the check and card.)

Thanks, Lois. (She exits) Hey - the chowder was A-one!

(Slow fade to black.)