Christian, about 17 years old, hitchhiking
on a deserted away, talks to a woman who hitchhikes on the other side of the
road. She carries a sign that says "Alaska." This is from
LAST
RIGHT BEFORE THE VOID, a ten-minute play that had its premiere at Oak Park
High School in Kansas City.
(Warning: Using this monologue without permission is illegal, as is reproducing it on a website or in print in any way.)
STUDENT
Do I look like I killed my father and slept with my mother?
(beat)
Do I?
(beat)
I thought you might want to know. I’m hitchhiking because my car broke
down. That’s a lie. It broke down, but it’s not my car. It’s
my father’s car. Pieces of it broke off when I ran over my father in
front of our house. That’s a lie. He’s not my real father. My
real father killed himself when I was two. Or four. My Mom tells it both ways.
When I was two, he took me to a baseball game, then left me with a hot dog
vendor and hung himself in a bathroom. When I was four, I was asleep and he
stuck a shotgun in his mouth and woke me up from a dream about a sea horse.
(Christian crosses the road to the Woman)
He also killed himself when I was six by jumping into a pool of concrete at
a construction site or by suffocating himself in a plastic bag. I was at my
grandparents’ for the weekend.
(beat)
Do you really think someone’s going to drive you from Minnesota to Alaska?
(beat)
I go to community college. I wish I could live at school. I don’t think
I’d have so many problems at home if I lived at school. That’s
a lie. I dropped out, because I got fired from my job at the mall. I handed
out flyers for a seafood restaurant—-Joe’s Seafood-—until
I got fired. And I was in this Calvin Klein underwear ad when I was twelve.
With my shirt off. That’s a lie. It wasn’t Calvin Klein, and I
was sixteen. I’m nineteen now.
(beat)
I walked through an accident up the road. It’s a big one. You’ll
see it if you go that way.