747 Words Exactly:

SPECTRUM.

[A young black man, a young woman with dyed hair, and a tall, proud-looking portly man with a beard and long hair tied back. All of them are seated on a rock underneath a Clock Tower at a Community College. The last of the three notices a scrawny, reserved character pass through the campus like a ghost.]

LEO: Oh, my GOD. RICARDO! HEY!

[Ricardo hesitates and then approaches silently.]

RICARDO: Fancy seeing YOU here.

LEO: FANCY. Yes.

RICARDO: Enjoying your education? What’s her name?

[She is silent.]

LEO: Hey, I read your blog. [just as matter-of-factly:] There’s some pretty homophobic stuff there.

RICARDO: [smugly] I prefer the term “heteroelitist”. After all: I am not an uneducated man.

LEO: Some of it’s pretty misogynistic as well.

RICARDO: [Pause.] I do not hate women. I simply have a selective view of what CONSTITUTES a woman.

LEO: So you’re just an old school Christian then.

RICARDO: [stridently, spreading his arms like a bro, inviting them to agree and give credit where credit is due:] HEY! The Judeo-Christian sexual ethic isn’t quite as bad as their economics. I mean: it actually WORKS!

AMY: If you’re heterosexual.

RICARDO: I don’t think I like your tone.

AMY: Well that’s too bad then.

RICARDO: No, don’t worry about it. It’s just that for a moment it seemed like you were trying to blame ME for the degeneracy of others.

LEO: Woah, there. I don’t approve of that sort of rhetoric.

RICARDO: And *I* don’t approve of that sort of attitude. [regaining placid composure.] But it is no matter. Yes: you ARE right. It is IF you’re a heterosexual, but it all so leaves no ALTERNATIVE but to BE heterosexual. I mean: that’s LITERALLY the entire ethic!

LEO: And what about the people who disagree?

RICARDO: What ABOUT them? This isn’t some sort of pansy neo-Liberal hogwash that says that you can do whatever YOU WANT, MAN. I mean: let us pray that the ethic that we live by is concerned with more than just “human rights” and self-entitlement.

LEO: Please: never use those two words in such proximity with one an other.

RICARDO: You are right; I was being redundant.

AMY: Okay I can’t stand listening to this. Will someone PLEASE shut him up?

RICARDO: I will continue where you and I left off, then babe. You said “IF YOU’RE HETEROSEXUAL”. But there IS no “if you’re”. In any TRUE society, there is only the “You Shall” or, as our antigeny put it: “THOU SHALT”.

LEO: But that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

RICARDO: On the contrary: it is the only UNIVERSAL argument that has been made today. HARDLY a matter of individual self-interest or partisan bias.

[He exits.]

DOMINIC: Can you believe that guy?

AMY: I don’t want to talk about him.

LEO: I liked him. He has convictions. One rarely sees them nowadays.

DOMINIC: PLEASE. If I want convictions I’ll log onto the Social Network.

LEO: Still: he speaks his mind. Even if it sounds backwards.

AMY: I can’t be around him.

LEO: Isn’t your whole thing “tolerance”?

AMY: [She stares.] Are you serious??

LEO: Hey. I’m not trying to judge you.

AMY: You BETTER not be.

LEO: It would be intolerant of me. So I couldn’t claim that you’re “not tolerant enough”.

[She visibly misses the hint, so he continues.]

LEO: But any way: Tolerance is not some thing that I really value.

AMY: HUH?!

LEO: There was a theologian and a poet named G.K. Chesterton. And he said some thing like: Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions. THAT guy over there… he has convictions.

AMY: Well. I have convictions about him.

LEO: It’s a start. I guess I should thank him.

AMY: How come??

LEO: I was always afraid you didn’t have any.

[She looks mortified.]

LEO: Any way, I’m off to get dinner. SEE you!

[He exits.]

DOMINIC: I can’t believe either of them. WHITE people, right?

AMY: Ahem.

DOMINIC: Aww come on you know what I MEAN, baby girl.

AMY: HOME girl.

DOMINIC: HOMIE.

AMY: You know: I really hate it when you do that.

DOMINIC: What?

AMY: Forget I’m white. All because I am a girl.

DOMINIC: You know what I mean.

AMY: Your parents might have raised you to be prejudiced. But that’s no excuse.

DOMINIC: SORRY. Jesus.

AMY: I don’t think you are. But it’s okay.

[She exits. He alone remains.]

DOMINIC: BITCHES.

[He lights a cigarette and smokes privately.]

Dm.A.A.