(Lights come up on three people standing on line for tickets. A man and woman stand more or less together. A man behind them stands on his own. They should give the impression of many people before and behind them in this waiting)

MAN: What’s up?

WOMAN: You called me to meet you here, and you’re asking what’s up?

MAN: I’m feeling a little manic nowadays.

WOMAN: Why did we have to meet here? I don’t even want to go to this damn thing.

MAN: It’s inconspicuous.

WOMAN: In conspicuous, my ass! This is just the sort of pretentious event my husband will want to attend.

MAN: But he isn’t here.

WOMAN: You called me five times! Five times! And left messages!

MAN: I said I was the plumber.

WOMAN: You think my husband found it reassuring that the plumber telephoned me five times with messages?

MAN: Who would suspect a plumber?

WOMAN: Depends on what’s clogged.

(Solitary Man laughs. Man and Woman turn to look at him)

SOLITARY MAN: Sorry.

MAN: This last week hasn’t been easy. Losing my job. Breaking up with you.

WOMAN: We always break up when you lose your job. That way you get all your depression over at once. Easier on your analyst.

MAN: My analyst has decided there is a pattern forming here detrimental to my life.

WOMAN: Which is?

MAN: I equate my relationship with you with steady employment.

WOMAN: Better than equating me with adultery. Although more devious.

(the three advance one step)

MAN: He thinks I’m avoiding real relationships.

WOMAN: Bullshit! You just had the bad luck to fall in love with a married woman.

MAN: We fall in love with what we need. I need a married woman.

WOMAN: You could marry Sue and have a married woman of your very own.

SOLITARY MAN: Who’s Sue?

MAN: Hey, asshole, stay out of this.

SOLITARY MAN: There’s no need to be insulting. If you’re going to air your grievances all over the ticket line...

WOMAN: We certainly can’t air them at my place.

SOLITARY MAN: I should say.

MAN: All right, guy, just butt out.

(the three advance another step)

SOLITARY MAN: I’m not about to butt out. Why don’t you butt out? I came here for front row seating. To a performance of a different kind. With higher quality performers.

WOMAN: All right. We’ll talk more quietly.

SOLITARY MAN: And it was just getting interesting.

MAN: What kind of voyeur are you? Listening in to other people’s conversations.

SOLITARY MAN: I’m not a voyeur. I’m a student of life.

MAN: A busybody.

WOMAN: Calm down.

SOLITARY MAN: (after a pause) Who’s Sue?

WOMAN: His other woman.

SOLITARY MAN: Unmarried? (no reply) So what’s the problem.

WOMAN: The problem is – as his analyst explains it—Sue provides him with no challenge. She doesn’t make him try harder.

SOLITARY MAN: And you do?

WOMAN: (smiling) With a little help from a jealous husband.

SOLITARY MAN: Something of a dilemma.

MAN: You’re telling me.

(they advance another step)

SOLITARY MAN: Let me get this straight. You can be morally correct with Sue—settle for what is –or you can be dangerously involved with this lady and living to the emotional hilt.

MAN: According to my analyst.

WOMAN: So he really should thank me for my trouble. Because it is funny. I’m about to spend seventy-five dollars on a ticket I don’t want to provide him with a forum for his grievances.

SOLITARY MAN: A noble gesture.

MAN: Are you kidding? She can easily write it off. I’m unemployed, and I’m here. Just to get her to admit she needs me.

SOLITARY MAN: (to Woman) And do you need him?

WOMAN: No. Not really. Sexually he’s fine…

MAN: Thanks a lot for the review.

WOMAN: But so is my husband. I don’t need him. I care about him. I’d hate to see him end

up with Sue.

MAN: There are worse things than Sue.

SOLITARY MAN: Such as?

MAN: Loneliness.

WOMAN: Complacency.

SOLITARY MAN: Why go to an analyst if you don’t wish for a homeostatic existence?

MAN: What?

SOLITARY MAN: It’s obvious you enjoy the adventure. Meeting in ticket lines, standing on unemployment lines, giving lines…

WOMAN: You have a point! You’re better than his analyst.

MAN: My analyst costs one hundred dollars an hour.

SOLITARY MAN: So fork it over. These tickets are setting me back a bundle.

MAN: No thanks. As it is I have to pay out for my own ticket.

WOMAN: See what I mean? He won’t get my ticket, but he’ll require I stand here listening to his litany of love.

SOLITARY MAN: I’ve heard no litany yet.

MAN: Litany?

SOLITARY MAN: Here is the woman who makes life dance in your head like strong wine. She fends off questions about phonecalls from plumbers, risks it all, stands in these miserable lines, for what? Not one protestation of devotion has crossed his lips! How much does it take?

WOMAN: Seventy-five dollars is the price of the ticket.

MAN: You expect a seventy-five dollar declaration of love right now?

SOLITARY MAN: I am an economist. Supply and demand would prevail. She has demanded. You must supply.

WOMAN: Perhaps he’s squandered his resources on Sue.

MAN: Sue pays for me.

SOLITARY MAN: You miss the mark. What is the cost benefit of being with this woman as opposed to the other?

MAN: I’m not following.

SOLITARY MAN: A man who mixes so many metaphors wouldn’t follow.

MAN: Mixes metaphors?

WOMAN: Commitments with indecision.

SOLITARY MAN: Adultery with adventure.

MAN: Are you both ganging up on me? (to Woman) Did you invite this idiot?

WOMAN: All I brought was seventy-five dollars.

SOLITARY MAN: So let’s hear it.

WOMAN: He’s stalling.

SOLITARY MAN: One protestation. Not cut-rate.

(Another step forward by the three)

MAN: Words have no meaning in these matters.

SOLITARY MAN: How excessively modern.

MAN: I have trouble talking to my analyst for an hour. And he accepts sounds. Sighs. Groans. Deep breathing.

WOMAN: We are not amused.

MAN: What can I say? (he starts haltingly, then continues with inspiration) I brought myself here. Yes, I did. Cut-rate. Discount. Cabin class. The voyage to this port was one I envisioned when I first picked her up. Or..no, why lie in a monologue? It stands to reason I picked her up. She is too strong to need to approach me. Her strength. That

Line between the eyes. I always go for that line. It shows marriage, division, bifurcation of person. Did I say that? Bifurcation? (to audience) How did I get to this place? Apart from the simple fact that I bought the ticket, made the journey. I’m a simple man. Wedged between the loaves of humanity. Standing here sandwiched between what I want and what I have. Is that what he means by mixed metaphors? I picked her up in a line very much like this line, buying tickets for a concern I did not wish to attend. I bought the ticket because it was expected of me. To have such pretensions. She was alone. Standing there. The line of her forehead was direct and definite. Drawn. She smiled politely as though I were the doorman. I returned her smile. Bowed very slightly.

Then moved in for seduction. She was not to be easily seduced. I was not to be easily dismissed.

           Do I love her? If I don’t, can I fake it? Women fake orgasms. Do men fake love? I need this excitement of sham to feel alive. With Sue, I am satisfied. I have no want. Or with Sue the want I feel is the want of discomfort. That she – the lady with the line between her eyes, standing on line – provides for me. I must love her. I run to her when logic directs me to stay seated on the sofa with Sue. Can I tell her? Can I tell her knowing her response will not approximate tenderness? Can I explain passion is my craving for forbidden sweets extended into adulthood? My desire to do what is not needed? (looks at Woman) I’m not ready for a protestation yet.

WOMAN: Good god, we’ve been doing this ritual now for two years. Meeting in inappropriate places at inappropriate times to discuss our inappropriate lives. You need to understand I’m willing to keep such an arrangement as long as you don’t leave messages. Otherwise we’re finished. My husband is not a jealous man, but he does require a modicum of fidelity to the situation. Which is, in case you haven’t noticed, that I’m married to him. (to Solitary Man) I have three children.

SOLITARY MAN: You needn’t explain. It’s quite an ordinary problem. Statistics indicate over three-fourths of married couples have been unfaithful to each other by the time they reach their tenth anniversary.

WOMAN: I waited until my twelfth. I never liked statistics.

SOLITARY MAN: You are that rare blossom.

WOMAN: I would have waited longer, but my sense told me there is only so long one should wait. After that horizon one does not wish to venture out of the domestic setting. Ease becomes too easy.

SOLITARY MAN: Terribly true. We lose the power of our wings.

WOMAN: Atrophy.

MAN: I was your attempt not to atrophize?

WOMAN: An attempt. Good description. Whether you were a success or failure as an experiment I’ve yet to decide.

MAN: Sue calls me her triumph.

WOMAN: (to Solitary Man) See what I mean? She’s far too simplified for him. She doesn’t want to run the race. She just wants the final results posted.

SOLITARY MAN: And what do you want?

WOMAN: I want counterpoint to my usual life. I want meetings in dark alleys rather than honesty in bright sunlight. I want alternative metaphors, not mixed ones. My husband is a bank president, steady and unswerving. The kind of man to spend a lifetime

with. Not to pulsate together in a hotel room on a shade-drawn afternoon before rushing

off to carpool.

SOLITARY MAN: You want it all.

MAN: And you don’t?

SOLITARY MAN: What’s the point of having it all? Striving is half the pleasure.

MAN: I want it all. I don’t yet have it all.

WOMAN: You may not have any of it.

MAN: My analyst…

WOMAN: Who is a shrewd soul keeping you in a state of dependency for purposes of money.

MAN: One might say the same of your husband.

SOLITARY MAN: Good point.

WOMAN: My husband…

MAN: Is steady and unswerving. So is my analyst. I couldn’t     marry your husband so I got help where I could.

WOMAN: Seventy-five dollars I’m forking out to hear this dribble.

MAN: I’m not good at standing on lines.

WOMAN: No. You’re better in bed.

SOLITARY MAN: One can’t retire to the bedroom for every finale.

WOMAN: How moral of you.

SOLITARY MAN: I’m not moral. Just experienced.

MAN: Then why are you alone? So much experience?

SOLITARY MAN: In the midst of your two mistresses you seem likewise very alone.

WOMAN: Point and Match!

SOLITARY MAN: My theory, forgive the pun, is that we don’t understand the line.

WOMAN: Which line? The literal line?

MAN: The line we hand each other?

SOLITARY MAN: The line we draw with our shaky lives from birth to death. We are

always standing on line, waiting. Trying to see the straight path, but straining to see it over the heads of others who block our view.

MAN: The line is the metaphor?

SOLITARY MAN: No, life is the metaphor. The line is the reality; life is the metaphor. 

WOMAN: That’s too deep. People aren’t misled by mixed metaphors. What defeats people is the Hollywood Kiss.

SOLITARY MAN: Explain please.

WOMAN: He talks about the line between my eyes. That would support your thesis. I talk about kissing. Not what we do, but what we watch being done. Our lives are shaped by what we see, not what we do. In movies, kisses are signposts for love. Here we try to recreate the Hollywood Kiss. That which identifies, doesn’t confuse. He kissed me. He kisses very well.

MAN: Thank you.

WOMAN: I should have heard music, come to grips with my palpitations. It should have identified him as Lust, not Love. Instead I wandered down the trail of his kisses looking for signposts. There were none posted. He is romantically illiterate. Good instincts, no

literature.

SOLITARY MAN: And the music swells…

WOMAN: The featured couple after two hours of dueling end in a kiss, finding in their kiss a completion, a drawing of the circle. Not a line.

SOLITARY MAN: My line is more truthful than your circle.

WOMAN: But how many people go around my circle mistaking it for that line?

MAN: It is a line. But then, I was never good at geometry. Just because I don’t have the words to twist ideas from circles into lines into…

SOLITARY MAN: Triangles? (Man and Woman look puzzled) You, this complicated adulteress, and Sue.

WOMAN: Squares. You forgot my husband.

(they move forward one step)

MAN: You want a declaration? Here is my declaration. Your indifference to my real problems..your inability to leave your husband, your hatred of the woman I should marry, and your financial superiority…I love them. I love you. Lines and circles are what I used to draw as a child. People made only of lines and circles. What has changed? As a child I waited to grow up. Now I wait in other lines for other moments. Hollywood moments. Moments that promise music swelling over action, ending to these lines and to this waiting. THE END flashes on the screen. A satisfactory kiss to seal. Your being is pain to me. Pain is life. It gives me something to strive for – the end of pain. THE END.

WOMAN: Finally you said it.

SOLITARY MAN: So now you’re leaving him?

WOMAN: Leaving? With power like that displayed before me? I’m staying. On line. In line. You can quote me with my byline. (looks at Man) Pain. How I envy you. (The man sweeps her into his arms. They kiss. Hollywood music swells)

MAN: Come home with me.

WOMAN: Only ‘til three. I must pick my youngest up from Little League.

(the man carries the woman off in his arms)

SOLITARY MAN: Goodbye. (turns and smiles at imaginary ticket vendor) I’ll have one seat in the orchestra for tonight. All sold out? What a pity! …Never mind, I enjoyed the performance anyway. (hums and goes off)

                   THE END