The following is a one man show that I wrote back in collage that will be revized and going into the book.





"A Walk in The Park"
by John Throne

(Light’s up, teenager’s room. Door up right, closet center right, bed up center, desk center left, clothes cover the floor, posters all over the wall)
(The body of a young teenage boy hangs in the middle of the room by a noose)
"I just don’t think hanging myself is for me, it makes me feel to much like "George
of The Jungle"! (climb down from rope) I can’t figure out what suicide is best for me. I’ve
tried them all, putting a gun to my head but that made me feel like I was standing next to a
Singapore hooker. I tried slicing my wrist but for some reason using a pink lady-bic razor
with daisies on it doesn’t seem manly enough! I tried drinking dangerous chemicals, but
all Windex does is give you a stomach ache and shinny teeth! I even tried to droned myself
but the only river we have in this town only goes up to your knees! I never knew that
finding the right way to commit suicide could be so hard! I feel that no matter what suicide
I decide to do it’s going to reject me just like the people in my life. Just like her.
The way she was talking about me last night she made me out to be a disease, I
think it’s because I don’t have a body like Floyd or Greg, and I don’t have a personality
like Cris! Hey, it’s not the first time that a girl acts like they will catch something and die if
they get to close to me. It’s not the first, but after tonight it will be the last! No, it’s not the
first time. Back in high school girls treated me like that all the time! They laughed and
whisper as I walk down the hall, or not hold my hand during the square dance part of PE!
But they weren’t all like that though. There were a couple of daisies hidden in the bed of
roses!
(phone rings, walks over
the bed and picks it up)
Welcome to Hell, God speaking.........
hey Greg, what’s going on?........
I’m not doing nothing, just hanging out. Why?..........
oh, same ol same ol. Getting people together to go get coffee, huh?..........
(an older women’s voice is heard off stage)
(voice) Mark.........Mark?
hold on a minute Greg..........
(to the voice) Yeah mom?
(voice) Your father and I are leaving to go visit your aunt-Helen................well be back late
tomorrow night..........bye sweetie
(to the voice) bye!
( back on the phone) Greg, you there?.............
no, I don’t feel like going out tonight........
what?.............
who told you that I liked Allison?.............
wait, wait, wait..........let me get this strait, she’s going to call me before 2 tonight if she
wants to go out with me?.............
OK, but it won’t happen.........
yeah, I’ll talk to you later........
bye.......(hangs up phone)
Every night it’s the same thing, (in Greg’s voice) "Hey Mark you want to go out
and get some coffee and then go to the park?" Yep, the park always follows getting coffee!
It’s a teenage evolutionary trend! It’s not so bad really, there a cool bunch of friends. Even
though they make fun of me every second of every minute that I’m with them, but these
are my buddies, my pals, assholes who don’t give a shit about me! They don’t, they only
care about what I can give them or how many insults they can give me!
(turn on radio and walk over to Muriel on wall, and start painting) And the girl that
I’m crazy about doesn’t care about me! Last night at the park she was talking about me to
Cris and in her voice it sounded like I was some kind of disease. It cuts like a knife when a
girl treats you that way, believe me I know. The past was so much easier, all you had to do
was drink a couple cases of beer, two bottles of Jack Danials, smoke a little weed and then
pick a girl out of the group and do her until the end of the night or you pass out, whatever
came first! But the past isn’t something I joke about. I’ve seen things that only you can
imagine. I’m not talking about with my eyes but with my mind, your life is nothing until
you wipe the blood of a friend off the wall from a massive suicide!
Now days there is to much that’s needed like feelings, emotion, caring, and love!
That kind of stuff didn’t mean shit to someone who is strung out with a hang over laying in
a pool there own vomit! Allison, her name is as beautiful as she is! I know one thing she is
my feelings, emotion and love! (pause) But she doesn’t love me. Why should she? She’s
looking for a guy who is romantic, loving, caring, understanding, and treats her right.
(violently starts painting the Mural harder and faster) Of course she wouldn’t want
someone like me, I’m all that and more! Although she forgot to mention a few other things
that were on her list that she looks for in a guy. Like Good looks, a body of Greek god,
and a tight ass that you can bounce a 5 dollar bill off of and get change. I can treat her
better then anyone. But how can I prove that I have got what it takes to make her happy if
she won’t give me the chance!
Hehehe.....(reaches over the bed and grabs a bottle of pills, tries to open the bottle
but can’t) Just makes you want to shove so many pills down your throat so you never wake
up! God damn this child proof cap! (slams the bottle against the ground so hard he falls to
the floor) (in tears) I guess it’s not the right suicide for me if I can’t get the damn bottle
open! Death won’t except me. My friends have never excepted me. She’ll never except
me! Hell, I don’t even except myself!
Life sucks, and God knows that life sucks, that’s why he gave us drugs. He knows
life sucks so much that you need something that makes you laugh for 8 strait hours! Oh,
how I need to laugh! (looks over at the clock) well it’s 1:30. I still have a half hour. Maybe
she will call. She isn’t like the others that’s why I love her! (pause) Deaths the only thing in
my life that wont leave me! My whole life I do things to make others happy! I give tapes to
my friends for no reason and they are kind enough to give me insults in return. My art
work is something I used to do for me, but now people are telling what to paint and all that,
it’s like it’s not even for me any more! If I killed myself would it be for me or for them?
(phone rings) Oh my God that’s her, I can tell in the ring! I’m so nervous, I’ll just
answer it. Hell, she’s probably just calling to tell me no! She’s very polite like that!
(pick up the phone)
Hello?...........
(short pause)
Oh yes, I’d love to subscribe.........(quickly hangs the phone up)
God damn New York Times......don’t even know it’s 1:30 in the morning. ( walks
over to the desk and grabs a bottle of Jack Danials) The worst part about it was that I
actually believed that it was her calling. Who am I joking, her calling me and saying that
she’ll go out with me is like me being alive in the morning.........it isn’t going to happen! I
don’t know, maybe suicide isn’t for me. From living with that past that I have suicide has
crossed my mind more then a hundred times but I could never go through with it because
my mind kept telling my heart that I should wait because something better was going to
come along and make me happy, but it never does! Maybe I should just go off on my own
to a place where no one knows me and I don’t know them! I could become a whole new
person, someone without a past. But if I stay here I won’t have a future!
This town has nothing to offer me anymore. I’ve dated all the girls that I want to
date here, and Allison is the last one I want to have any kind of relationship with. This
town is nothing but a dead-end street to me.
(looking at the clock again) 1:48...........I don’t know what I’m waiting for, she isn’t
going to call! I should just pull the trigger and get it over with. I know that using a gun
isn’t for me, but I’m killing myself not performing brain surgery! Why do I give a damn
what the right way to commit suicide is, if it does the trick then it’s the right one!
(pause) Wait! What the hell am I doing, I can’t kill myself................ I can’t kill
myself without writing a note telling why! I can hear them now, " Do you have a note? We
need a note pale! You got to have note pale! Don’t be one of those stupid shits that kills
themselves and no one knows why hell they did it!"
OK, I’ll write a note! (talking out loud what he’s writing)
See you all in hell
Love Mark
No, no. It has to be more sophisticated. (throws the paper away)
I am utterly alone; by the time you read this I will be gone........having
plumished.......plumished? What the hell kind of word is that? (scratches it out) plummeted,
thrown, launched......released....yeah! released my tried soul off the bridge.......
No, sounds like something Winona Rider would say in a bad Michael Keaton movie! I
need something that says not only why but how I am feeling!
I am alone! I can’t handle knowing you. All of you and even those who I have never met
before! I let death take my life because none of you would! Whether I am in heaven or in
hell I’m happier then where I was before! I look in the mirror and see the pain that you all
have given me that have made my eyes blue! I can’t say that I’ll miss you all.......and I
won’t say that I’ll try! But I’ll enjoy the change!
(walks over to the Muriel and glues that letter to it and then signs the Muriel) Mark
Garrison. (he walks over to the bed lighting a smoke and picking up the gun and sitting on
the edge of the bed) well it’s 2 and the phone isn’t ringing. It’s just as well (lights go out,
gun is fired in the dark, cigarette drops to the floor! It becomes silence for few seconds, the clock flashes to 2:01)
(The phone rings)
.