Jonathan Dorf

Free Monologues - Pac

In Shining Sea, Pac, 19, lives on the street with Candy and Violet, his "parents." They squeegee cars and do whatever they can to make ends meet--Pac has been known to hustle a little in Central Park. Now, with New York City burning and caving in around them, they're trying to get out. This is near the end of the play, and Pac has just come back from an attempt to find gas for this Winnebago they've found. He's talking to Violet, though she's not actually there anymore.

(Warning: Using this monologue without permission is illegal, as is reproducing it on a website or in print in any way.)

PAC (to Violet, as if she’s still there)
Do you want to know what I found out?

(There’s a dull, THUDDING BOOM in the distance. Beat)
I almost went to Disneyland once. My Dad brings home all these guidebooks, and it’s him, my Mom, my little sister—she’s only seven, and I’m twelve, all sittin’ around the coffee table. My mom's talkin' about Knotts Berry Farm and seeing where the movie stars live and the Mann’s Chinese with the stars on the ground, and I say they all sound great, but can we go to the beach too?

(in the moment)
The beach sounds the greatest of all, Mom. Can we go? Please, Dad, can we? We can’t go all the way to Disneyland and not go to the beach.

(beat)
They promise we'll go, and I’m sitting next to my Dad when he calls and makes the airline reservations, and a reservation at the second nicest hotel at Disneyland.

(beat)
I run upstairs and make a list of all the things I’m gonna’ bring, and I put out my suitcase and put my dominoes around it. Like an alarm. I tell my little sister if she comes in and touches anything, I’ll cut the heads off all her dolls, and just to show her I’m not foolin’, I pull the arm off her Barbie—

(back in the moment again)
If you tell Mom or Dad, Barbie’s dead.

(beat)
For three weeks, my suitcase sits there just like that. Perfect.

(beat)
Finally. Our plane’s at 5:43 PM out of Newark, and we take some fancy airport bus to get there. Dad’s doin’ this way up.
(beat)
There’s an accident on the Jersey Turnpike, and we get there late. Not run into the airport late, but late. A curly haired woman that looks like my Mom if my Mom was pretty takes my suitcase, pats me on the head and says, “don’t worry, it’ll be there waiting for you.” The plane’s boarding in a half-hour, and I say, “can I go to the bathroom?” And my Dad says yes and doesn’t look where I’m going, and my life changes forever.
(beat)
I go in. It’s like this blur, men going in and out. Men with briefcases, men with bags, men with little suitcases on wheels. A sweaty fat man nearly runs me over, and as I dodge the monster, there he is… My age, maybe a year older, beautiful long blonde hair, almost white, almost to his shoulders. God is at the urinal in the corner, and he turns around, without even stopping his piss, and he smiles at me.
(beat)
I feel something burning. I think the bathroom’s on fire. Hey, somebody, the…and then I stop. It’s not the bathroom. It’s me. And he smiles again. My name is Adam. He’s Adam. And I’m…what’s my name? Nobody called me Pac then. It’s Michael. I’m Michael. And men go in and out of the bathroom but I don’t see them as we stand at the two urinals in the corner. And we talk and we look, and he touches my arm when nobody’s looking and my arm…it’s not the same arm that it was the second before.
(beat)
And he finally moves, and he blows across the back of my neck and whispers, “gotta’ catch my flight.”
(beat)
My flight! Oh shit. Oh no. What time is it? I blink and Adam is gone and is that my name they’re calling over the loudspeaker? This can’t be happening. I run out and I don’t see my parents and they’re calling my name over the speaker and I don’t know where to go and…they stop calling my name.
(beat)
I run and I run and I finally find someone to ask and I run again to the gate and there’s nobody there. My parents are there. My sister is crying, my Dad looks so angry, and…my Mom won’t look at me. The door to the plane is closed, and my suitcase is with the rest of our luggage, on the ground in front of us.
(beat)
I was in the bathroom for an hour. I never saw him again, but Adam was as close to that ocean as I ever got. After that, everything was different. And the ocean moved away.
(Another THUDDING SOUND. Pac reacts as if the ground is shaking just a little. As the play progresses, each thud is louder than the last as the subway explosions move toward midtown. Beat.)
I found out I don’t have a ride to California anymore. The ocean moved away again. The man in the park, he said he’d take me, but he can’t do it. He doesn’t have a head.