Run and Coke (published by the U of M Flint Theatre department)

Run is in his car, doing a line of cocaine off of an old cd as he drives down the expressway, his knee on the steering wheel.
He sucks up a rail real quick and begins fidgeting with the radio, wheeling through static and blurbs of song until a particular voice filters through his channel changing and catches his attention long enough to leave it for one stanza.

Radio: It was a hot night…
Streetlights cooked empty streets.
The heat beat neatly on people turned Ifrits.
Graffiti was bleeding in sfumato collages,
And djinns roamed within the grinning mirages.

Run stoops to light a cigarette, has a pull, and changes the channel. The static squelches, but the same voice is heard as the radio speaks the second stanza.

Radio: His vehicle trickled down an asphalt sliver,
Where ash from his cigarette frets and shivers and
Gives light of the kind that, combined, could deliver,
A skyline defined by cars winding in rivers.

Because he has ashed his cigarette at the same time as the narration on the radio, Run is obviously just a little weirded out.

Run: I could swear, though I could be drug-deranged,
That this radio station is refraining from change.

Radio: Though he twist the knob from 108 to 90,

Run: Every song seems to be about…

Radio: The Cocaine.
In the back seat, hiding inside a gutted game of Risk,
And some less dense he spent off an old 50 Cent disk,
Went Straight To The Dome,
That ought to keep him awake
Long enough to make it home,
In the drug lane he takes.

Run: Now this is too weird to hear on the radio!
I didn’t sign up for no reality show!
I’ve got shit to deliver, and there can’t be,
Hatin’ commentators narratin me.

Radio: You call it hate but, son, this is love.
This is divine intervention sent from above.
This is the Wake Up Show! You know the station!
The radio of You, tuned to Information.
This is the listener-driven, giving livin,
To doomed little youths en route to forgiveness,
Or on their way to dying in a ride.
Death or Salvation, it’s for you and I to decide.

Run: You and I? And who are you?
Who must use a radio to talk through,
And bring me poetry that brings to my eyes
Statements that seem to fate my demise?

Radio: Understand
        that nothing I handle is lies.
        You’re tuned to One Oh One point Truth All The Time.
        After words from our sponsors bounce from your stereo,
        I’ll outline how the car behind you finds this scenario.

Run: Wait! Holdup-

Headlights flare up behind Run’s car seemingly out of nowhere. He ducks at the sudden burst of brightness, winces, and turns his mirrors to compensate as the ad rolls.

Ad: We’ve had some fire and smoke and water!
And it troubled us a lot!
Now we’re marking down our prices
And they’re really, really hot!

Radio: And we’re back, Wake Up Show! Who else could tell
The story of a boy destroyed and hell-
Bound, stick around, you’ll see what I mean.
Radio flows expose a silver screen.
There’s he,
        from top-down view: Buick Century,
        dent free,
        nineteen ninety three,
        going straight eighty, slowing to seventy.
        If you peer into mirrors to steer your stare to the back,
        You’ll see you’re being tailed by a black Cadillac.

Run: Yeah, I saw that. A black Cadillac…
At least is not police,
Hanging tight on my ass like I’m wearing a leash.

Radio: Now let’s play a request! A track to tell
How the black Cadillac will follow you to hell,
And swallow you in its hatch back maw,
For it’s a hearse, and you’re cursed to fill it once and for all.


Run: The hell you say! I plan to stay living.
You spoke to me earlier today on forgiveness!

Radio: Do you really think you deserve
A second chance at circumstance outside that hearse?

Run: Fuck this, it’s too crazy, I’m bout to bounce.

Run speeds up audibly.

Radio: Like you could drive this ride fast enough to get out!
Or outrun the one behind you. Its rough racing death.
You can waste
        Your last breath being chased
        or make haste to evade your fate impending.
        The first four Callers to holler will decide the ending.

Run: Ok, I’m listening, no more games, this is true!
I’ve got trust! You must see me to
A place where I can avoid this nightmare race instead,
And awake forsaking this dread in my bed!
So come on, tell me what? What do I do?!

Radio: Hang on the first call’s coming through.
Yes Caller 1? How do we feel
About this young man wheeling to a drug deal?

Mom: Well that’s my son.

Run: Mom?

Mom: What are you doing on this drug run?
        We have plenty of money, honey,
        You’ve never been in need
        Of anything.
        We bring to our home-

Dad: Dammit, Lilly, you’re being silly, give me the phone!

Run: What- dad?!

Dad: That’s right. What’s the matter with you, boy?!
        You do this shit instead of getting employed?
        Your work ethic is pathetic!

Run: Yo! Stop! Try to rob a job from this city’s shitty aesthetic, pop!
        This ain’t no growing crops!
        You seed job application rotations, and the patience stops
        The last time dad’s wallet falls open for back to school shops.

Dad: You could do whatever you wanted! We’d of supported!

Run: Oh, and how would my Now be rewarded?
        Would you even understand my circumstance if I were to report it?
        My life is a house with the windows boarded,
        Would you enjoy seeing your little boy sell the coke I just snorted?

Dad: …..
        You know, you’re right, consider yourself, tonight, aborted.

Click.

Radio: OH, ho, HO, Wake Up Show!, from the phones,
That was you know who and his dad from home,
Constituting Caller 1, 1 down, three to go.
Let’s take Caller 2 on the Wake Up Show!

Joe: Yo, man!

Run: Joe?! Man, this shit is trife!
Peeps reppin and stepping in like This Is Your Life!

Joe: You surprised to hear from me?

Run: It has been a minute.

Joe: My mom’s cooking has thinned dinner without you up in it.
You should pop by, man. Let’s, you and I, revive.

Run: That sounds like a plan if I can survive,
So set the table, if I’m able and if I’m alive
We’ll do that fam thing like how we’d do,
And be brothers to one another like we used to.

Joe: Well, bro, you know I won’t be around long,
I’ve got something in line that’ll bring me to gone.
Only a couple calendar pages need drop away,
Before I’m boot camp bound to stamp out my day
In basic training. That’ll obtain me one step closer
To Being All I Can Be, except not on a poster.

Run: Iraq?! That’s whack! I’d rather battle Cadillacs!
Than rattle off rounds in the shadow showing
The Middle East diseased by sneezes of Bush’s nose growing.

Joe: I knew I couldn’t talk you into going,
But it’s a future at least and it sure beats the hell
Out of dashing with powder to devour or sell.
The military is scary. There’s no doubt,
But I thought you might want a way out…

Run: Just because you do? Joe, no offense
But you can’t imagine the moral expense
I feel I’d suffer by using blood to buffer bullets from a gun.
I think I’ll stick with making drug runs.

Joe: Alright, man, just thought I’d try.
I’ll be leaving in weeks, if I don’t see you, bye.

Click.

Radio: Oh, you heard it! The verdict straight from the speech
Of the closest confidant our contestant could reach.

Joe: Verdict? Am I on trial? Was Joe the jury?
This shit is too wild. Should I smile or worry?
Who’s next to inject retrospect into me?

Radio: You heard the man! Speak up, Caller 3!

Heather: Hi, baby…

Run: Heather?

Heather: You told me we’d be together forever.
Don’t let this Cadillac threat find those ties severed.

Run: Oh, girl, don’t worry, I’ve hurried and nearly arrived.
        We’ll have plenty of time to rediscover one another when I’m done with this drive.

Heather: That’d be nice…
Remember that night
Of star-splendor, in a blender, that sky was a sight!
Remember how I said that the light
From every sun distant would insist visibility one day?
And the midnight would wind up as bright as day?

Run: Babe, to forget, I’d have to be crazy.
That was our first instance of intimacy.

Heather: giggles. Yep.
The windows were open, the breeze was brisk
on you and me in the back seat, where you keep that game of Risk.

Run: There will be room enough for you again soon enough,
Just let me drop at my stop for more stuff
And then rush back uptown to trade out for money
Which will inevitably get spent on you and me, honey.

Heather: I don’t want your cash, you know that, just listen!
Kick the coke to the curb, don’t leave me missing
A man whose back seat was too full of drugs
To greet me discretely, seat me, or make love!
Your rhythm is business, and there was never room
To accommodate my sway and stay in your tune.
So if where you are is where I don’t belong,
Then don’t expect me to stay. You’re playing me wrong.
I don’t want to lose you! Let’s take, together, all the time we’ve missed,
But first lose the cocaine contents of that game of Risk.

Run: I... Can’t…

Radio: BUZZ! Time’s up! Heather just hung up!
I suppose, in closing, it would have been nice,
For you to be willing to make some sacrifice,
Or at least take some pretty sound advice
From those who boast being closest to your life.

Run: FUCK! Bad luck! There was nothing I could do!
I don’t expect a forgiving spec from you,
But when those folk from my life were excised, and bereft,
Those drugs, thugs, and Risk were all I had left!
I’m this car, this guy, driving to crescendo.
This is the life, and the life will not end-
-oh-

A wind whips through the car and rips off the top of the game of Risk in the back seat.

-SHIT-

Coke flies fucking everywhere. As a knee-jerk reaction, Run lets go of the wheel and grabs at the coke. His car jerks to the right, he tailspins and rolls that bitch until he dies to death from it.

The Radio still works, barely.

Radio: Caller 4, the Undertaker, has little to say.
He is action, his track is “Taking Away”,
As he does with our man of the night, the Drug Runner!
As we speak he is reaching under
The shattered remains
        of a car full of cocaine
To obtain
Common coffin filler.
A failure, a stale, lazy, criminal killer,
Who once had a name but the last laugh
Will gain the refrain that stains his epitaph.

This has been the Wake Up Show, flowing on your city grind.
Keep your eyes on the road.
We’ll see you next time.

End.