Juan Carlos Rivera

BETWEEN THE SEAMS

SCENE TWO

COOKIE JONES

MIDDLE SCHOOL-CENSORED VERSION

(From Blackout, the lights come up and there is a quilt ripped open, a ladder is propped up near the quilt suggesting someone has come out of the quilt.

Cookie: Hey, My name is Cookie, Cookie Jones.

I was born in Brooklyn, in the most exclusive neighborhood on the water.

I used to look out my window across the river and see the New York City skyline.

It was like my own moving painting. I really loved looking out at this moving canvas.

I even had my dad hire a man to paint a frame around the window.

Did you ever notice the lights from the city at night cast a velvet sheen on everything just before dark?

It was like everything was beautiful for just a few minutes, even me.

Wherever you look it seemed there was purple glitter painted all over.

Next time you are in the city, look down at the sidewalks. They seem to sparkle as you walk by, and thousands of lights dance all around them.

I used to think the city looked its best then.

I remember feeling the glow of the purple tone on my skin. It made me feel like a princess who had two of her three wishes left.

Sad part is it only lasts for a little while, like a lot of other things.

My dad was a really successful doctor; my mom was a stay at home mom who volunteered for everything.

We had a really beautiful life,

for a while, a home full of love and happiness………. and drugs.

Oh, now don’t get me wrong. This was entirely my fault not theirs. I just happen to have been blessed with an addictive personality. Thank you Jesus. I did everything too much. Back when I first got into bubble gum, I had to have enough to chew for a week. I chewed and chewed till it was all I wanted to do and couldn’t stop. I chewed and chewed and chewed some more till my jaw and my cheeks were sore.

And then when I started smoking, I had to have three cartons all of the time.

I used to look at myself in the full length mirror on the hall closet door sometimes and pretend the whole drug thing wasn’t real; that the character in the mirror was me, but straight, ya know. I would get really messed up and walk by her and try to make sure she didn’t see me. I would try to look into her eyes and touch her hands. (Does so)

And watch her pupils follow the changes mine were going through.

After, I would stagger a bit down to my room, and lie awake with hallucinations darting all around.

I would think how lucky she was not to be with me, that she stayed in the mirror there. That this glass barrier was the key to another dimension. I used to wonder how she did it. Like did she know something I didn’t?

Or maybe she had some magic power or something?

That became an unspoken passing mystery.

For a while that is until I manufactured an entire scenario to go along with it.

The next day I would pass by that full-length mirror and neither one of us said a word. See, like I said, she became an entity, a being, an extension to a dimension I could not reach.

After acid, speed, uppers, downers, and glue, all that seemed interesting was the big H: Heroin.

O boy, the day I decided to try that, I came in right past the mirror.

I looked back just a glance, she knew. I could swear I saw her shaking her head. I don’t know how, but she knew.

It was like she was following me or something. Or could over hear my thoughts. I made sure not to let her see me when I was high. I would open the front door and practically run to the hall so if she did see me, it would be all too brief to make any sort of analysis.

I stayed in my room most of the time. And then using the needles became a ritual. Sort of like church, it was like praying for a better thing to take you. Like there was the power of the gods in that powder and water was from the gods, themselves. Was I warped or what?

Do I want that nosey chick in the hall to see this? Duuh NO!

I headed for the other closet the one without the mirror to get a sheet and then I went quickly to her closet and pulled over a chair and put the sheet over her mirror on the closet door.

Anyhow, one day I was messing around pretending to conduct some part of the 5th Symphony of Gustav Mahler with my needle, AS IF, when a forward thrust into the nearest wall bent the point to a 90 degree angle. It was dead. Oh my god, what was I going to do? I had nothing to shoot the drug.

I went through everything looking for a new needle, even places I knew it was not, just to check. Nada!

I had to go get some gimmicks from someone in the street; ya know five bucks for like new ones. Still in the package was just five more dead presidents. Just didn’t have it that day.

I would realize years later, that was the day that for the lack of five bucks and my need for a high I invited HIV to stay with me for the rest of my life.

Before that I was always really careful. I always used my own stuff, never shared. Always used bleach water, bleach water, bleach water to clean them up. I went to the Urban League needle exchange on First Avenue once a week to turn in my used needles and get new ones.

(Walks over to edge of quilt, mimes handing needles in, hands appear and mime taking them and handing others to her.)

Needle exchange saves lives.

Yeah even our lives. I see your faces, I know what you are thinking, Bet you guys think we all should just stop using, Oh don’t you think we would stop if we could? That is not as easy as you think. Most of you guys will never know what an addiction is. I have to say I am really happy for you.

Think about something you really like, like say chocolate. If you got addicted to it you wouldn’t be able to stop eating it. You would eat more and more, but never get enough, then it wouldn’t taste as good unless you had a lot more. You would go out in the rain and the snow just to get some more. After a while if you couldn’t get it you would get sick needing it.

Yeah really!

After a while I started getting sick. With HIV that is. (Mimes putting on patient gown.) Never liked to take medicine all of a sudden there was a parade of pills in my life all yelling: take me, take me now, and me too! Don’t forget me Cookie!

My life was suddenly completely different and somehow not my own.

I would stop by the girl in the mirror and look into her eyes. For some reason she didn’t seem to change at all.

At least there were no visible changes.

But I changed, a lot.

When I was racked with nausea or running to the bathroom with diarrhea, she just watched and didn’t seem affected at all.

One time I ran to the bathroom to throw up my guts and she just stood there.

I threw up nothing, just came in to wretch and wretch holding the cold bowl in my arms like it was a huge cold wet teddy bear or something and holding really tight like I would fall off something if I let go.

As I was running to the bathroom I looked back quickly and there she was just standing watching, waiting for me. I realized she didn’t have the virus. She stayed healthy, as I got sicker and sicker. Each time I ended up in the hospital and returned home, there she was. Waiting, watching. Never really changing at all. Month after month. Year after year. After a while she became my only companion. I couldn’t talk to my family; they wouldn’t understand.

Even if they would, I didn’t want them to see me like this. So broken, so low.

With this sickness. AIDS.

Once, I went down to the corner to call my aunt. I was just so lonely and felt so low, lower than ever in my life. I tried to call her 6 times, but kept hanging up. I just couldn’t let her see me now.

Right by the phone on that corner there was a tiny little bird. It was shivering in the snow. I stepped closer to it; it didn’t move much, just seemed really scared. Its wing must have been broken and it looked hungry. I knew it had no chance to live if he were left there alone.

We had a lot in common I thought, AIDS and me and this tiny bird.

I decided to take him home with me. In the space of just a few moments my whole life changed again. All of a sudden I had a purpose, something needed me, depended on me. Now I had to get healthy so I could take care of my little Sparky. I named him that because there were three spark plugs next to him sticking out of the ice and snow.

So I got some cereal and tried to feed him with an eyedropper. At first he didn’t want to eat, but then I sang to him…

Then he really looked like he was going to die.

When I promised I wouldn’t do that again, he took a tiny bit of the cereal.

A few days later he was able to eat some regular seed. He just got stronger and stronger, as I got weaker and weaker.

One day in late January I was very, very sick. I knew I had to go to the hospital.

I tried to explain this to Sparky. He kept fluttering his wings as though he were trying not to hear, and like he was trying to fly. He tried again and again, but it seemed he would never fly again.

Just when I thought he had given up hope, off he went around and around the room.

It made me feel so good. I remember thinking; at least one of us will get away.

I stumbled over to the window and summoned all my strength and opened it, then out he went. Flying as though he never had a care or a problem in the world.

For just a moment, maybe it was my imagination, he seemed to look back as if to wish me luck and thank me.

There was an emptiness in my heart then that would never go away.

It felt like something hollow was in there, something missing inside.

Anyhow, I decided to get in a taxi and get to the hospital, on my way out the door I pulled the sheet off the mirror. Without looking I left my apartment and the woman in the mirror, for what I knew would be the last time.

While in the hospital, I knew it was time, I thought about all the things in my life, and how full it really was. If I had just trusted my family and had given them a chance, I might not have had to do so much of this all alone.

I remember I had this dream and in it I kept hearing this weird tapping, and then I was walking down a long corridor toward that mirror but it still had the sheet over it. I reached out and pulled the sheet down and the woman looked right at me and smiled, before I realized what was happening she reached out and pulled me in there with her. Somehow we were standing in the mirror together.

And all of a sudden, I looked happy and healthy again just the way she did. I realized she must have really been me all along, wanting to be myself again.

We stood there looking back into the room where my frail sick body lay almost lifeless as it drifted to its rest. All was quiet except for that darn tapping; I looked everywhere to try to see where it was coming from. Then I looked toward the window and noticed the shadow of a tiny bird tapping at the window as if to say don’t go, stay with me, don’t leave me, Fly with me!

(Long pause)

You will notice Sparky wasn’t saying, “Sing for me.”

What an intense little bird.

Sparky meant so much to me, maybe; just maybe, I meant something to him too.

Guess I learned a lot from that tiny bird.

Time for me to get back up to my little piece of the quilt. If any of you guys are out there thinking about taking some drugs or alcohol even some day, go look in the mirror; that is who you really are, that person looking back at you.

And if you look really close, he or she is expecting a lot from you, ………..pause ….don’t let them down.

(As if an afterthought)

Oh and then just for luck go like this: tap tap tap on the glass, like Sparky, and remember I will always be here routing for you

And even if it ever seems like no one else in the world is there for you, remember there are some people who will pick you up and feed you even if you’re cold and shivering and your wings are torn and broken.

You just have to find them.

MAHLER RUSHES THE STAGE