I recently mentioned this play in my last essay “The Misuses of Art” and then realized I had not posted it anywhere for those who might want to read it.
I had great fun watching my son open and close this piece at last year’s SOAPFest, as well as witness the exquisite work of his fellow cast members Tracy Hyland, Michael Patten and Heather Hawkins, so masterfully directed by Annie Lareau. Such a great staging. I’ll never forget it.
(Lights up on a kid, maybe ten years old.)
KID: What you are going to see isn’t true, because nothing anyone can show is true. Truth lives in the heart alone.
But what you are going to see is truer than true. Not because it happened. Not because it will happen. But because it’s happening. Right now. Right here. While you watch. Helpless. Hopeless. Gunless.
(Lights up on Amelia.)
AMELIA: Let us pray.
THE KID & AMELIA (together): The true Gun lives in the heart. The true Gun lives in the heart. Hear me. The true Gun lives in the heart. Alone.
Amen.
(Lights shift fully from kid to Amelia.)
AMELIA: Oh, hear me. Hear me, true Gun. And come live in my heart.
Amen, and forever, amen.
You have all heard the truth. You have heard the holy word. You know all the talismanic scraps of scripture. “Gun is everywhere.” “Gun is love.” “There is no Gun but Gun, and openly I carry.”
You speak the truth. You mouth the words. You stand and recite them on Gun Day. And you say even, “Every day is Gun day in my heart.”
Some of you can even espouse the more esoteric verities: “Gun is the burden that carries me.” “When Gun is gone and I am gone, there is still Gun and only Gun.”
Amen.
You are holy. You are noble. You are of the Dow-Gun, and you are saved. You are so, because you believe yourself so. And I say, so you are. So you must be. Because you believe. But I do have one question for you.
Where is your Gun?
Is it with you? Not the idea of Gun but Gun itself. Where is it? Are you ready? Are you ready for this to not be just a story? Are you ready for it to be real? Where’s your Gun? Show me your Gun? Anyone?
How are you ready?
Let us sing.
(Amelia leads the audience in a hymn.)
Openly we carry.
Faithfully we arm.
The way to grace is guarded.
By all who’d do us harm.Openly we brandish.
A sword shall be our shield.
Do first to those who’d harm us.
And never stop to yield.
(Amelia goes and sits.
Lights shift to Prior Tom, in some sort .)
TOM: Thank you, Nova Amelia. Your sermon was compelling.
(Lights shift to Daisy lying in bed.)
DAISY: What are you going to do about her?
TOM: Why does something need doing? She’s remarkable.
DAISY: Of course she’s remarkable. She’s an open flame.
TOM: Flames can have purpose, Daisy.
DAISY: Tommy.
TOM: I’ll talk to her.
DAISY: Tommy—
TOM: Daisy, I said I’d talk to her. You need to rest. I need to rest. Let’s rest.
(Lights shift as Pastor Tom climbs into bed with Daisy.)
TOM: Nova Amelia.
Amelia?
(Amelia opens her eyes.)
AMELIA: Here I am, Prior Tom.
TOM: Nova Amelia, may we speak?
AMELIA: Always, Prior Tom.
TOM: Let me say firstly, I am so grateful that you chose this humble range to come complete your novitiate.
AMELIA: I did not choose, Prior Tom. Gun chose.
TOM: Of course, Nova Amelia. Still...
AMELIA: Gun chose.
TOM: Yes.
DAISY: Gun necked.
TOM: Daisy.
DAISY: She’s gun necked and you know it.
TOM: Please do not take the name in vain like that in my bed.
DAISY: Exercise some control. Exercise some will upon her, Tommy, or by gun, she’ll ruin you.
TOM: Oh, please.
DAISY: Talk to her.
TOM: Nova Amelia.
AMELIA: Yes, Prior Tom.
TOM: Have you considered that this congregation, this range you have come to visit— and who knows? — perhaps join on a more permanent basis upon completion of your novitiate— well, we are a simple range. With simple ways. Old ways. Tried and true. And, well, I don’t know if you’ve considered that perhaps some members are not, or at least some of them are not, prepared or ready to hear the Gun’s truth put them quite so plainly by someone, well....
AMELIA: By a woman.
TOM: Well, yes.
AMELIA: “Not all ways of Gun are open to women-kind.”
TOM: I—
AMELIA: So sayeth the Dow-Gun. Blessed be the Way of the Gun.
TOM: Well—
AMELIA: Even if its highest paths are closed to such as me.
TOM: It’s not just—
AMELIA: What, Prior Tom.
TOM: It’s not just that you’re female. I think, I know, that some of the men, some of the older men especially, but younger too. Any man who is no longer a boy, or at least some of them...
AMELIA: Yes, Prior Tom
TOM: Well, I think some of them have trouble hearing the truth not just from a woman but from a woman as…
AMELIA: Yes, Prior Tom.
DAISY: Tell her, Tommy. Tell her. It’s plain on your face. You might as well say it.
TOM: As comely as you. As abundantly blessed.
AMELIA: Blessed?
TOM: Perhaps I speak amiss.
AMELIA: You are gunly, Prior Tom. “The aim of a gunly man never strays.”
TOM: Many look at you and see a woman upon whom children could be got.
DAISY: Children, is it?
AMELIA: Oh, I see.
TOM: That’s crude, I fear.
AMELIA: Children.
TOM: I’m sorry.
AMELIA: Don’t be. The gun speaks plainest. You are gunly, Prior Tom.
TOM: I am just a man.
AMELIA: You are gunly.
TOM: All this is... my point is. Your words are powerful.
AMELIA: They are Gun words.
TOM: Yes, but sometimes they are harsh. Sometimes they berate.
AMELIA: Gun is harsh.
TOM: Nova Amelia.
AMELIA: You want me... to tone it down.
TOM: I want you to consider your audience.
AMELIA: My audience?
TOM: Your congregants. This range. This humble range.
AMELIA: All ranges are humbled by Gun.
TOM: Amen.
AMELIA: I will mend my words. I will tend them toward gentleness.
TOM: You needn’t change, nor hold your fire. Just... temper it?
AMELIA: Temper my fire.
TOM: Yes?
AMELIA: Yes. I shall temper my fire.
TOM: I—
AMELIA: Thank you, Prior Tom.
TOM: I mean no offense.
AMELIA: You bring no offense. You have brought me the Gun’s honest truth. Thank you.
TOM: Thank you, Nova Amelia.
DAISY: Oh, she’ll suffer you the children, I’ll wager, if that’s what you want.
TOM: Hush, Daisy. I want no such thing.
DAISY: Who knows what you want?
(Lights shift to more fully on Amelia.)
AMELIA: Today I would like to speak of gentleness. “Gun is gentle.” Thus saith the Dow-Gun, but we don’t recall that passage often, do we? It’s a bit obscure, isn’t it? It confuses us. But it shouldn’t. Gun is gentle. Why? Because Gun knows no fear.
Did you know that there was a time when the people feared the Holy Rampage? Feared and reviled it. They did everything they could do to suppress it. I know you won’t believe this— I almost hope you won’t believe this— but there was a time when the people saw the Holy Rampage as an evil act instead of the ultimate sanctification that we now understand it to be.
And yet... and yet... if you were to come as some unholy angel fallen into our midst from some other world how would you know that the Holy Rampage is the sweet sanctification that we sing of? How would you know if you were the Other World angel? You’d look around and you’d wait and you’d wait, and you could live a long angel’s life and die before you witnessed the Holy Rampage. We talk of it. But who has done it? Who has seen it done? Who has fallen? Who remains?
Are we afraid? If we are, we have lost Gun. “Gun knows no fear”. “Gun is gentle.”
What are you?
(Amelia goes and sits.)
DAISY: She’s calling for rampage.
TOM: No.
DAISY: No? Then what would you call what she’s doing?
TOM: She’s confused. Ardent. Young.
DAISY: Young, yes.
TOM: Someone called the Six.
DAISY: Someone called the Six?
TOM: Yes.
DAISY: It wasn’t me.
TOM: But someone did.
DAISY: What will they do?
TOM: They have sent word.
DAISY: Instructions?
TOM: No.
DAISY: What then?
TOM: They sent word. They are coming.
DAISY: Gun help us.
TOM: Yes.
DAISY: Gun help your young ardent nova.
TOM: Yes.
(Lights shift to Amelia as she approaches Prior Tom.)
AMELIA: You wished to see me.
TOM: Not I, Nova Amelia. The Six.
AMELIA: The Six?
TOM: Yes.
AMELIA: The Six wish to see me?
TOM: They do.
AMELIA: They have come?
TOM: They have.
AMELIA: Gun help me. What is to be done?
TOM: You are to deliver your presence to their Holy Audience in the Sacred Locker.
AMELIA: When?
TOM: Now.
AMELIA: Now? I— I shall go then.
TOM: Nova.
AMELIA: Yes, Prior.
TOM: Your pistol.
AMELIA: You would take Gun from me in my moment of need? Strip me?
TOM: It’s not my decision to make. No one approaches the six with Gun.
AMELIA: So you would have me defend myself Gunless?
TOM: You will not need to defend yourself, Nova. The Six will ask questions. You will answer. They will make their decision.
AMELIA: You would have me Gunless.
TOM: I would not. I would have you...
AMELIA: What?
TOM: Happy. Untroubled and untroubling. Amenable.
AMELIA: Gunless.
TOM: Your wisdom is harsh. Unaccepting.
AMELIA: So be it.
(Amelia reaches into her blouse and pulls out a pistol on a chain. She hands it to Prior Tom. Then she exits.)
TOM: Gun, let them be merciful.
DAISY: They will show mercy.
TOM: What makes you so sure?
DAISY: They are men.
TOM: They are the Six.
DAISY: And the Six are but men. And the Nova is a woman. Young and ardent and confused as you say. Men are always merciful to such, or so they would think themselves.
TOM: You are cold, Daisy. Somehow you have lost all your gentleness.
DAISY: Gun is gentle, remember?
TOM: I feel sorry for you.
DAISY: I feel sorry for you and your nova.
TOM: You always misunderstood.
DAISY: Did I?
(Six shots are heard from the direction Amelia exited.)
TOM: Dear Gun!
DAISY: How many was that?
TOM: You know how many.
DAISY: Six.
TOM: The Six have spoken.
DAISY: Your Gun has spoken.
TOM: Yes. We are all Gun’s tools. Even the Six.
(Amelia enters with a smoking revolver.)
Amelia!
AMELIA: Gun be with you, Prior Tom.
TOM: Stop.
AMELIA: I should go.
(Tom pulls out the pistol he confiscated from Amelia, and points it at her.)
TOM: Stop.
AMELIA: You surprise me, Prior Tom. Gun is with you.
TOM: There were six shots.
AMELIA: Yes.
TOM: The Six.
AMELIA: Yes.
TOM: All of them?
AMELIA: Six of Six. Yes. Many have talked of it, but who has done it? I have.
TOM: Yes, you will have to pay. You have to understand that.
AMELIA: Yes. Gun will have gun’s due. And I shall give it. I shall. Alone. But to give it I have to go.
TOM: You will stay. And pay.
AMELIA: Will you shoot me, Tom?
TOM: I will.
AMELIA: I fear you won’t. I fear you weak.
TOM: You shot six. You are empty.
AMELIA: Never empty. Gun is always with me. Always in my heart.
TOM: So you say, but your heart... is...
AMELIA: What about your heart?
TOM: What about it?
AMELIA: I fear there are places in your heart that Gun has not yet found.
TOM: You will stay.
AMELIA: Show me your heart.
TOM: That’s far enough.
AMELIA: Show me your heart, Tom.
DAISY: Kill her. It’s okay, Tommy. It has to be done.
TOM: Just stay, Amelia. Don’t make me do this. Stay till justice comes.
AMELIA: Gun is justice.
TOM: Gun is blind.
AMELIA: You blaspheme. Save yourself.
TOM: I’ll shoot you. Don’t dare think I won’t.
AMELIA: I dare. I hate that I dare. But I do.
(She takes one more step to him and he pulls the trigger. It only clicks.)
AMELIA: Oh, yes.
TOM: But— it’s your gun
AMELIA: No. “There is no gun but Gun”
TOM: But we are both empty.
AMELIA: Never empty. Oh Tom, you bless me with that trigger pull. And you save yourself. I will never forget you.
Go with gun, Thomas.
(She fires her pistol at Tom, and he falls.)
TOM: But—
(Tom dies. Amelia approaches Daisy.)
DAISY: But your revolver. You shot six at the Six.
AMELIA: Gun is always with me, lady.
DAISY: You. You’re nothing but... evil.
AMELIA: No. Nor are you. But you are weak. And you have lost your way. And this shall be your punishment. Gun will spare you. Gun will forsake you. You will one day cry out for Gun, but Gun will not come. Gun will have forgotten you, because you forgot Gun. As I leave, Gun leaves you forever.
DAISY: Good.
DAISY: You think I’m afraid, but I’m not like you.
AMELIA: It doesn’t matter.
(Lights shift as Amelia pulls on Prior Tom’s coat and then crosses to the Kid.)
Gun be with you.
KID: And also with you.
AMELIA: Here take this. (Amelia gives the Kid revolver.) Wear it proudly. Carry it openly. Never tell anyone it shoots seven. Only six. Understand?
KID: Yes.
AMELIA: Every gun is magic but some are more magic than others.
KID: I thought all guns are Gun.
AMELIA: They are. But Gun is in your heart before it’s anywhere. Just keep your magic secret. Understand?
KID: Yes.
AMELIA: Good.
KID: What about you? Won’t you need a gun.
AMELIA: Of course. Everyone does. But I have Gun strong in my heart. And Gun always finds gun. Understand?
KID: No.
AMELIA: You will.
KID: Good-bye.
AMELIA: Gun keep you.
KID: I’ll miss you, Amelia.
AMELIA: Gun is love, child.
KID: What is love?
AMELIA: You have my gun. That’s all you need to remember.
(Amelia goes. The light tightens on the kid.)
KID: And of course she’s right. She disappeared. But everyone saw her everywhere. No one was ever again safe from her love.
(End of play.)
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