by Mathew Green

Characters:
JOHN, a father, in his 40s
BETSY, a mother, in her 40s

(Lights up on JOHN, sitting on the bed in his son’s bedroom. The room can be as detailed or as implied as you like. There is a bed. There is a doorway.)

(JOHN is dressed in a conservative dark suit and white shirt. He sits looking at a cell phone with a garish case. After a moment, he taps in the code, opening the phone, finds the music he wants, and plays it. The song should be boisterous pop, suggestive. He listens for a while, then turns up the volume. Then more. More. Too loud.)

(BETSY appears in the doorway. She wears black.)

(They do not yell. They are beyond that.)

BETSY: Honey? (pause.) Honey, we have to go. (pause.) Honey, could you turn that down? (pause.) JOHN.

(JOHN looks at her, not startled. He looks back down at the phone. BETSY waits. After a moment, he taps the screen, silencing the music.)

JOHN: I really hate that song.

BETSY: I know. I do, too.

JOHN: Sometimes I think that’s why he liked it so much.

BETSY: I do, too.

JOHN: It’s weird. I don’t think I really looked at his room before. Before. It’s like archaeology. Is that the right word?

BETSY: John, we have to go.

JOHN: (overlapping.) Is it archaeology? When you read the drawings on the cave wall?

BETSY: John, we have to go now. We have to go. It’s time.

JOHN: He’s all over this room. He’s everywhere.

BETSY: Honey? They want to start letting people in at 11. If we don’t leave now, we’ll be late. We shouldn’t be late.

JOHN: You really think they’d start without us?

BETSY: Honey.

JOHN: I’m not going.

(There is a long pause, during which BETSY hears this, absorbs it fully, and moves past it.)

BETSY: You need to put on your tie, honey. It would look terrible if we were late.

JOHN: I’m not going.

BETSY: John, of course you’re going. Of course you’re going. (off his look.) You’re going.

JOHN: You know how many tries it took me to crack his security code on his phone?

BETSY: The doors open at 11.

JOHN: One. (pause.) It took me one try. It was his birthday. One Two One Three. Boom, I’m in.

BETSY: (after a beat.) I think you should wear the maroon tie.

JOHN: That’s how much he trusted us. All his photos. All his texts. All his emails. All his private thoughts. His heart. One Two One Three.

BETSY: I know, honey. But we have to go now. We can talk about him more when we get home. I would like nothing more than to talk about him and look at photos and—

JOHN: Which photos.

BETSY: Photos of Ryan, John. Of course. Family photos. But we have to go now. There are going to be more than a hundred people—

JOHN: Which people.

BETSY: Everyone. All of our friends. Our neighbors. Colleagues. The church. Possibly the whole town. I don’t know, honestly. But they’re coming, and we have to go.

JOHN: I’m. Not. Going.

BETSY: Yes, you are. You are going. You are standing up, and you are putting on your tie, and you are getting in the car, and you are going. You will not disrespect your son’s memory like this.

JOHN: Say that again. I dare you.

BETSY: People are coming to pay their respects to your son. To our son. They are coming to grieve his loss and celebrate his life. And you have to be there. These are our family and our friends and our neighbors.

JOHN: They’re not our neighbors, Betsy. Neighbors know each other. These people just live nearby.

BETSY: John. I really can’t get into this with you right now. Today is too important. The doors open at 11, and we have to be there to receive people.

JOHN: Why?

BETSY: Because this is how it’s done. It’s what people expect.

JOHN: And that’s why you care? Because it’s what people expect.

BETSY: I don’t know what to tell you, John. I don’t know how to talk to you right now. I know you’re hurting. I am, too. It’s just… traditional.

JOHN: You told them to change his clothes. Why would you do that? Why would you call them and tell them to change what he was wearing in the…

BETSY: (long pause.) Why do you think?

JOHN: Because it’s… traditional.

BETSY: John, we talked about this.

JOHN: We talked about this. And we agreed. And then you did it anyway.

BETSY: It’s for the best, John. I changed my mind. I know how you feel, but I just… couldn’t go through with it.

JOHN: He asked us to, Betsy. (pause.) In his… It was the last thing he ever asked us to do for him.

BETSY: Yes.

JOHN: You read the note. You read what he— He ASKED us.

BETSY: I know. And I just can’t. I will not bury my son in a dress.

JOHN: May I ask why?

BETSY: You know why.

JOHN: Because over a hundred of our friends and neighbors will be there. Our colleagues.

BETSY: Yes.

JOHN: The church.

BETSY: YES.

JOHN: Possibly the whole town. (pause.) Why do they matter to you more than what Ryan asked of us?

BETSY: Because we have to live here. (looks at him.) I know. (beat.) I know.

JOHN: Do you remember Jason Willis?

BETSY: I— Yes. Yes. The Willises.

JOHN: Our neighbors. Once upon a time. Do you remember when Ryan came home crying and said that Jason wouldn’t be his friend anymore?

BETSY: That was a long time ago. Ryan was in the first grade, they were… seven?

JOHN: Something like that. And their teacher let them play dress-up with the costumes in the costume trunk, and Jason and Kyle Brown and the other boys dressed up like pirates and kings and whatnot, and Jason dressed up like a princess. Sparkly dress, a cape, a tiara.

BETSY: John.

JOHN: And the other boys laughed, and Ryan didn’t understand why, and Jason called him a name and said that only girls can dress up in dresses, or something like that. Ryan was so upset. He didn’t understand why it made Jason so mad. “Why is Jason mad at me?”

BETSY: I remember.

JOHN: Because we let him wear dresses all the time. At home. Since he was small. Costumes, maybe, but they were dresses. Princesses, fairies, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman. Pink and sparkly and… And he was beautiful. And we told him so. But then he came home crying. Once. Seven years old. And I sat him down, and I told him that maybe it would be better to stop wearing dresses. That people would be nicer to him if he didn’t do that around them. And he said okay. And life went on.

BETSY: I remember, John. He was little, and—

JOHN: It happened ONCE. One stupid, small-minded boy was mean to him. And we surrendered. When did we become such cowards? (long pause.) Have you ever looked at the photos on his phone? (she shakes her head no.) One Two One Three. There’s a folder of photos. Dozens of them. He looks so beautiful. And confident. Strong. Happy. He never posted them, as far as I can tell. I looked at his social media. I looked through his texts. He never showed anyone, just put them in a folder. You know what the folder is called? (she shakes her head.) “Ryan.” He just called it Ryan. As if to say, This is me. These are pictures of me. They were right here.

(BETSY leans in the doorway and cries. JOHN stands and approaches her. He stops short of her and hands her the phone.)

BETSY: It’s too late to change things back. It’s almost eleven. They’ll be opening the doors. All those people. They won’t understand. (beat.) They won’t understand.

JOHN: Look at the pictures. Please. Do you remember how beautiful he was?

BETSY: Of course I do.

JOHN: Sit with him a while. Be here with him.

(BETSY nods, crossing to the bed with the phone and sitting down. She taps in the code, taps a few more times, and finds the photos. She sits a moment, then looks up at JOHN.)

BETSY: These were here all this time. (JOHN nods and turns to leave.) Where are you going?

JOHN: I’ll be back in a minute. I need to put on my tie.

(JOHN exits, leaving BETSY with the phone. She continues looking at the photos as the lights fade.)

(CURTAIN.)

Mathew Green (he/him) is a Midwest director, actor, and playwright. He is a two-time winner of the Best Play Award at the Last Horizon Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska (now the Valdez Theatre Conference), and his plays have been produced in various festivals across the U.S. He lives in Champaign, Illinois, with his stage-manager wife and four kids. You can find several of his short plays on New Play Exchange.