Weeds: Scene 2

 

1.Sitting Around The Pond

Furr:  O that’s ridiculous.  That is just too silly.  What do they think they’re going to accomplish?

Secco:  I dunno but I have a question.  What did you think when you first heard about the Asian party?

Thera:  Hmmmmm.  I thot Liz had been reading too many Ladies Home Journals or — do they still do that?  I mean, give all the recipes and decor and hostess costume for doing a theme party to show what the clever and sophisticated partygiver you are and impress the husband’s boss and show up how dull and unimaginative all the other wives are.

Furr:  Yeah.  Articles like “An Evening in the Mysterious Orient” and you put some Chinese music on that everybody pretends to really appreciate except for one ignorant slob who keeps sayin it sounds like racket and please put on somethin for dancing.

Thera:  And dont forget pulling up the eyes and the now-I’m-talking-Chinese “ah-so’s”.

Furr:  I dont think that’s what Liz and Mandi had in mind.  They just wanted to have a fun party with somethin besides your usual brown rice and zucchini casserole to eat.

Secco:  The point is that it’s their party.  So where do the righteous sisters get off thinking to object to an innocent attempt to bring a bunch of women to gether to have a good time.  I mean, neither one of them is Asian,

Forze:  (arriving)  The hot topic of the nieghborhood being done again, huh?

Furr:  Yes.  And you’re just in time for a survey question.  What did you think when Liz invited you.

Forze:  Hmm.  Sarah was standin there and she said oh right, for all those Asian-Pacific dykes when they get here.  And I said, oh yeah?  Coz for a minute I thot mebbe Judi or some of the other ones we met in Atlanta were comin for a visit — but no.  So then I was thinkin how Liz and Mandi probably really didnt know or hadnt ever met any such wimmin — Ozark provincials wanting to do something worldly.  I admit it sounds snotty.  But I also thot there was something kind of sweet about it.  Innocent, you know.  Like little did they imagine the hoo-hah that comes up if you try something like that.

Dawn:  O no.  (heartily, sarcastically)  They’re being the very racist pigs and you are such the giant insentitive for collaborating by even considering going to the party.

Morn:  Well excuse me very much for thinking that there’s anything to talk about here.  Clearly Sarah and Coyote have overstepped all kinds of community boundaries and rules by daring to suggest that there might be the tiniest dribble of racist residue in this our of-course most perfect albeit lily-white rural community.  Off with their heads.  Banish them and let’s all put on kimonos in protest.

Furr:   Hey yeah.  And we could bind our feet while we’re at it.

Dawn:  O no.  How very racist of you to say that.

Morn:  So you dont think it exists.  You think racism is just when the KKK hangs a black man in Mississippi 20 years ago and it doesnt have anything to do with us here and now.

Dawn:  Eek. eeeek.  Like I’m feeling really threatened and unsafe since you are addressing me in a hostile manner, and which is also agist since you are eight years older than me and very wrinkled to boot.

Morn:   (to Night, who is crocheting merrily, enjoying the ruckus)  Do you ever actually hold a conversation with this little bubble of hilarity?

(Night nods, keeps crocheting)

Thera:  (who has been busily picking ticks off her legs with masking tape)  Wait a minute.  Did I miss somethin?  Is the party called off or what’s the deal?

Secco:  No, no.  The party’s happenin.  But Sarah and Coyote — hmmm—really I’m not sure who talked to who, but what I heard was that someone called Liz and talked to her about Asia is a rather large land mass with a rather large variety of languages and cultures to be lumping everyone all together and hinted that mebbe she would modify her idea.  And she did.  It’s not an Asian party.  It’s a hat party.  And everybody wears a hat.  And brings a food dih from Asia.

Dawn:  Hey great.  My plates are all made in Japan.

Night:  I think she means a recipe from Asia.

Dawn:  O …With copies for everybody?

Night:  No you dumdah.  You cook the recipe and take the food to the party for other people to eat.

Secco:  So anyway, the idea was that lumping all these different people together just perpetuates a lot of ignorance and stereotypes.

Night:  So what!  Dont people have a right to be ignorant?  So they’re ignorant.  Am I dute-bound to call it to everyone’s attention every time I think someone is being ignorant?  ,,,And I sure dont want everybody all the time telling me all the ways they think I’m being ignorant.

Venus:  Like smokin cigarettes?

Night: Yeah.  (puffing)  Exactly.  Like smokin cigarettes.

Secco:  And the other part of it was that trying to do some other culture when there’s no representative of that culture around is just sort of wierd and it’s probably bound to be in some aspect racist.

Dawn:  Oh eek no!  Racist!  Fittist!  Fattist!  Biggist!  Baptist!

(Morn is advancing toward her menacingly)

Dawn:  OK.  OK.  I can be serious.  (arranges her face into seriousness, cracks up, tries again)  It’s just all that political correctness junk again.  There’s always gotta be some big authority tellin everyone how to be, the right and proper and correct way to be:  how to shit, what to eat, who to smile at, what music to listen to, and I just dont go for it, that’s all.  It seems to me that they — the political correctness police — relly arent very happy here or something.

Furr:  Or dont like us very much.  Everything anybody does is wrong according to them.

Thera:  You know that’s not true…

Furr:  I dunno nuthin.  And neither do you.  Except now I’m gettin out of here, coz here comes trouble.

Sarah:  (arriving)  Hi.  What’s goin on?

Secco:  Timely entrance, my dear.  Are you ready for an interview question?

Sarah:  Oh sure.  What’s the question?

Secco:  Do you eat Chinese food?

Sarah:  Sure.  I eat Chinese food and I eat with chopsticks, but I dont pretend to be doin Chinese culture.  Cos I’m not Chinese.  And usually I dont cook it myself.  I go out to a Chinese restaurant where someone who is Chinese does it right and gets some return for it.

Furr:  Well, what about the pizza party?  There werent any Italians there, so was that a big racist deal?

Sarah:  You know, that’s a big difference.  For one thing it wasnt an Italian party.  It was a pizza party and there was no pretense of “now we’re doing Italian culture”.  But besides that, look how specific that is:  Italy.  I mean, can you imagine someone having a European party?  I dont think so.  It’s a French party.  Or a German party.  Or Italian.  We make all these fine distinctions amoung Europeans, who really come from a tiny geographical area.  But when it comes to Asians, they all look alike.  Dont you think that might get a littlle annoying?

Thera:  Yeah.  Like the guy at the auto parts store clearly thinks all dykes look alike.  And he seems to think we’re all the same one.  I think it’s Oota.  She was probably the first one to go in there.  And now whenever any one of us goes in, he says something about, “well did you get that water pump in?”  or whatever was the last part he sold to a dyke.  I mean, he’s friendly enough, so I guess be grateful for small favors.  But he doesnt see us.  I know he doesnt see me.

 

Scene2:  Riding in the Truck

Mebbe:  What I wonder is, does this trivialize racism?  People are killed.  People are denied food, healthcare, housing…

Slick:  Jobs.

Mebbe:  Jobs.  People are treated horribly thru racism.  So do we — do I want to make it seem like it’s the same thing as asking guests to take off their shoes at the door because tonite we’re “doing Asian”?  Thos I seriously doubt that that’s a universal Asian custom — mostly I think it’s in Japan.

Slick:  And you know that as far as the racism that exists just in this county — it’s real.  All those things you listed have happened right here.  It’s blatant.  They dont call it Booger County for nothing.

Mebbe:  So is this only about the dyke community?  I mean, we feel totally inadequate and incapable of confronting the racism of the majority culture, so we nit-pick each other to death?

Slick:  Terrific way to “build community,” huh?

(They drive along in slence for a while.)

Slick:   I dunno.  I certainly wouldnt claim that I have dealt with all of my racism.  But I’m not into workin on it 24 hours a day.  Or havin it crammed down my throat.

Mebbe:  Y’know, to most of the people at this party, well, to almost anyone I know, making an accusation of racism is a very nasty thing.  It’s a seriously creepy thing to be called a racist, and espcecially so to someone who has fought some  battles around it.  Hook tells about how she hated to get into the car with Verne — her father, you know — coz her would always start with the “nigger” this and “junglebunny” that and she would always get pissed off and start yellin at him and that would be the trip; them yellin at each other.  And Loretta, Hook’s mom, would say to her, “Look.  He cant control himself.  Maybe you can control yourself.”  But she couldnt.  She just could not be quiet when he started on his bit.

Slick:  Yeah.  So now she wants Sarah to control herself.

Mebbe:  Right.  But do you know what.  After all those years of hollerin and Verne would pull over and say “You like ‘em so much?  Get out and walk with ‘em.  You can just walk.”  And Hook would be gettin her stuff together to get out there on 47th and Indiana or whatever and Loretta would be goin “Verne.  Start the car,”  Anyway, after all those years of that, he eased off.  Probably he didnt change his mind about anything.  But he stopped bein so loud about it around her.

Hook’s Voice:  We would drive thru the black neighborhoods.  Livin in Bridgeport you did to get anywhere.  And there would be music and colors and smells of good food.  And here we are all scrunched up in this crummy ugly car and all I ever wore was navy blue and we spent the weekend digging weeds out of the grass with a screwdriver and he’s yell at you if you didnt get a long-enuff root.  And these kids were out there playin on the street and laffin and Verne pokes me with a fork “Eat your liver!” and he’s sayin we’re better than these people?  Didnt look like it to me.  Everybody sittin around with their scrunched-up faces bein miserable in our “nice house”.  O yeah.  We’re better than them.  We got grasss.  So what?  He musta known I did want to be with them.  I wonder if he was jealous too.  He musta been, coz he was so unhappy.  But he couldnt understand why.  Yeah, sure, those neighborhoods were rundown and ratty-lookin but they were alive.  Hey, it’s not winter;  we can be outside.  Nobody ever hung around outside in my neighborhood.  And the colors!  Colors like I’d never seen before.  So I tried to find out why he thot that way.  Did he know something I didnt know?  But there was nuthin.  They’re not even people was the way he looked at it.  And I’m lookin around and it just made no sense.  They were livin better than we were in spite of jerks like him.  They had something figured out that he didnt.