Dual Heads

a monodrama

[Lights up on a woman in a mechanics suit and a blow-torch welder's helmet.]

Disgusted with the politics of archaeology,

She lusted after rusted technology.

She gets a job digging in a car graveyard.

As of now she is endowed with one mag-ni-fi-cent shovel. She pulls up drive shafts dipsticks motor mounts and de-foggers. (I found my calling! Wreck hauling!)

It was a day typique at the old junk heap. No kinky requests - No esoteric feats. Well, I thought I'd take an exploratory dig - get ahead of the gig - Girl Scout PREPARED!

She was excavating like any other day in the usual way. she was a-excavatin vatin vatin vatin a- exca waitin excawaitin just awaitin waitin waitin

GOT my hammer and screws my jumpsuit and bijoux. I was so pleased (or so I believed) til I dug you OOO baby you

AND MY MODUS VIVENDI SLIPPED GEARS

Oh! Timeless Beauty Oh! In-Finite Artistry Oh! Odometer in a Grecian Urn.

You were smothered in mud. Your molding moldy Your carburetor crud. But I smelled a classic And I knew from your start I could never give you up for parts.

A '57 Chevy Dual Heads and infinite exhaust. Red and White stripe Oh My! lil toy wagon! I cherry picked you up by your pouting cute hood ornament and you blinked at my wink. Hey! I saw you did.

Yeah. Uh-huh. She knows a classic when she sees one. And she couldn't be a digger anymore. It was here duty to demolish but all she did was polish. NO! She would not be a digger NO MORE.

Romance in the Rubble... It bodes ne'er do well for my budding career. I steel myself against a maudlin tide. I steer clear of fantasy and crank you up so high. I chant the junkyard motto: I dig I discover I demolish. I-I-I-IYI-YI-YI-YI

Hate to make this U-turn. I was head over wheels in Love. It was An Accident... The junkyard junket's FULL of ax-idents. Name of the Game's BURIED BUCKS. You know anything as good as gettin' Precisely, exac-tactically

WHAT YOU AIN'T EXPECTIN'?

She slips to his side his old door just won't budge. She unhitches his hood with an expert tug. She falls upon his engine block that 1400 horsepower hunk. He comes to life without a key. She is the key? To their Destiny.

Now this is NOT my characteristic course (of course... I'd been dealing in the fossil field for a long time and fossils do not fuck...) Now what precisely is the motivational force for abruptly changing lanes? An exit? An accident? SHIT. I JUST LIKE GETTING LOST. But why dig psychilligically When all the pulls are due to magnetic attracticity. and when you turn on that slick AM Radio jive I just don't care 'bout being misaligned.

So, with the next surge of acceleration I surrendered my diagnosis of guilt and subterranean motivations and...

It's purple haze And Earthquakin' Amaze Wuthering Heights and California Nites And My Friend Flicka and Johnny Rivers Sandra Dee and Elvis Presley Christ! Whatta Night!

The moon peered over Our Doomed Embrace His hazard lights flashed silhouette hearts. And when he reached out to touch me with his push-in lighter sparks flew And then I knew I found My Match. As dawn awoke and your battery croaked We fell to conversation as lovers often do when there's nothing left NOTHIN' LEFT to blow torch or screw.

But we didn't exactly talk the same language. I totally misread your signals. I thought they said you wanted to be left When you were really begging me to keep right on!

Vowing never to meet again They meet on the sly While her boss is out to lunch While his wife's on a test drive. We know, in these stolen moments, We'll never survive Life Runs on Fantasy It's gonna eat us alive.

I'LL GET FIRED WITHOUT A CENT IN MY POCKET. YOU'LL BE MUSHED THROUGH THE CRUSHER FOR BICYCLE SPROCKETS.

This is WAR baby. Oh! My Numero Uno, My Alpha Romeo. Lo! Let us flee this rubbish heap. Let me carry thee off upon the wings of my cherry picker The sky our only speed limit. But you, so noble, proud, and true Are driven to get off on your own exhaust fumes.

Well... considering your drive shaft's buried ten feet beneath that sweet motor head, you weren't exactly ripe for raising yourself from the dead.

I'm gonna make him run again And make him fantasize He's tough enough to fix his own power drive. My sticky fingers rival the sneakiest pickpocket's. He didn't even feel me grease his right rear ball and socket. He's the innocent victim of my mechanical dexterity. But he thinks his new virility is born of love's asperity.

You're my pure white-wall studded steed. My firestone knight in shining chrome and two tone bleed. I pump up your jack and fix that flat. You douse your wife in a fuel leak fire. I give the Boss notice. I'm gonna retire.

Dear Mr. Mecca Motors: I am experiencing grave reservations about the junk yard business. I am clearly not the Manfred of this particular heap. I gotta level with you, sir, you've been, well, like a father to me. I JUST CAN'T CONCENTRATE on demolition duty no more. The cause of my crise mechanique is a '57 Chevy Argonaut I recently retrieved from the dump. I just can't tear him apart. Through this vehicle, I believe, I have found the main drag of my life, which has, up til now, been but a rut, to me. So...We're leaving this dump. Being a digger yourself, sir, I'm sure you'll understand my plan to dig ever deepest.

At midnight, they peel out like a sliver of light down Destiny's Highway.

We play Gypsy Rambler daring Mack Trucks to pass us downhill on a straight-a-way. I wear the bandana once tied to your antenna. I smile profusely even develop a lisp. I forget how to talk, I purrrr... I'm an open wound ROARING in your gas tank. I'm your Tamed Tiger, Sugar.

She drove him wild over L.A. town cross the freeway, even underground. But runnin' round in circles got to be a down right down. A down right down.

Hey! Wait a minute, here. I did not plan to go this route taking rides the rest of my life, this is not the triple A triptick I ordered. I didn't want to put this wreck together or catch a free ride forever. I wanted to put me together. guess I got held up on the post road. Too much demolition. Too much reconstruction.... (well, archaeology makes an art out of that). History retreads itself. And here I am again, banging relics retracing those ancient footsteps - misstep past misstep. And like any good Sleeping Beauty (sparring with spinning wheels) I knocked myself out cold.

My power drives in you My love's alive in you. But I've repaired every defect made every innovation. We need a bigger station for our premium creation.

WE SHALL GO IN SEARCH OF THE HOLY GRID! The Holy Grid! We shall find it perchance wandering in a trance, beckoned by sublime command to some distant enchanted land. Behold! In that abandoned castle keep it lies in wait. the very one you wore when GMC bore you. And I shall weld it in place - sparkling and new and it shall protect you from ever growing old. You'll look forever like the first day you were sold. OH! EVERLASTING LIFE! But then... Will I have to leave you? Will I be of no use? So...I never hunt as hard as I dream.

We gave up the Crusade and inched our way Cross Country.

Here we go, oh Salt of Salinas! Slinkin' long the Santa Cruz. Hey you! Trigger, trottin' through the Painted Desert. My make up pasted to your vanity mirror.

Hot as Hell, here - catching up to the breeze crushing copperheads at our heels. Copperhead heads smacked right up to the stars. Rattle that sky, boy It needs it.

We gonna rumble rumble rumble through everything. Trailing tumbleweeds on our lightening speed. NO STOP RED and that yellow blink - Don' t think! Touchdown! Tombstone, Arizona. My Deadwood. Sleep in the dust of a desperado gun It's fun to be on the hit and run. Great Salt Lake Desert! No water whatsoever. Don't fret, love, we'll pool our tears. Gambling oil changes in the neon skirts of Las Vegas. Stripper strip tease into the mist and outta nowhere. Anything can happen here It's designed for aero dynamic pause and panic.

Take a detour down the Grand Canyon. Burning rubber round the rim where only mules should dare rush in. Flew right through Custer's Last Stand Land into a pueblo of Sioux chanting up a thunderclap. We slammed those bodies sky high through the sky. There's blood on the trail, guts on the tracks. Say! Somebody always gets the ax. Hey! who can navigate the speed race in the heart of space. spirits thump-thump-thumping on our windows, messing with the St. Christopher medal. Blow 'em off on a mirage. War Whoop Holiday, here I come. Dear Mom and Dad... Keep movin' on... My lost boss. Your gassed wife. Hell. Every speedway pays its price. OUTRUN THAT SCENERY before it outruns our steam. Or - eat it right up, like pork and beans. Oh! The trailing life! Fly-drive sky high til we tumble down to die. Its the only way to cross the Great Divide. And we did, love. Every earthquaking shaft of it. Then...Detroit... Big city dick fixin' to drown us in assembly lines and fiberglass. We don't got time to tool around here. Pit Stop - Chicago. your stockyards wife meat hooks and family, slaughterhouses and make more time. more time time time and time. Keep it a cartoon, baby. For we who outrun the mortal spoof burn the magic of mythological juice. Hey - someone's got to tank up - Make it Mine - Making time on Route 69. Taping our story to the flat farm tracks. Snapping down a braille of rain. And praying in the cornfields, praying for pain.

While changing his oil (O-Lay!) in Ohio one day, something happened that would change the course of their history. It was their custom to employ the classifieds to catch his drips, and read between the line's commerce's progress. On page D3 of the Holy Toledo, it read: SALT FREE CARS ARE HOT TAMALES TO US. CALL NYC 777-1957 FOR FREE ESTIMATE And our double ply radials bit the gravel. We were on our way to take a chunk out of the Big Apple. FAME AND FORTUNE falling at our feet is a game with finality that can't be beat. Well, 777 et cetera takes us in tow and enters us in the Easter Antique Auto Show. While meandering down the Avenue...Fifth Avenue... Mercedes Mercedes falls for your fins and books us in the half time show at Indianapolis. But YOU you don't want to be some freak relic on display. You wanna be tough. You wanna race. And frankly...the thought of being a hot rod ace might restore some of my crumbling power base. Well, now, hey! This means a whole new overhaul and lemme tell you I wasn't too pleased once I tuned you up for speed. Maybe... you just can't have hot sex and success simultaneously.

I MADE YOU a star the racing world braked at your feet. This was our victory hour. But you abandoned me. With fame came fucking around for you But me - I was too wound up pumping publicity. You and your late night practice runs... I wasn't going to stand for so much shit It made me feel In Love.

She leaves Auto and Amtrak to their own venomous vices. But he just can't repair his double digital devices. So he follows her home, back to their cozy two car condo.

You beg me to forgive you. your transmission oozes guilt. YOU pocket of sugared petrol pumping through my veins. You're intoxicating my vision You're driving me insane. Then you pull out each and every stop. You ask me to marry you. And really tie our tangled knot. And me, I say.... "Yes" but my feet souls cringed - To marry a Thing Without a Heart

Why you asked me to wed you is a mystery. Why I said "yes" is even stranger. We revolve around a guilt wheel spinning tirelessly And Reader, I married him. You connect the dots.

Within days he was back to his old tricks. Picking up feisty Fiats and hot-to-trot Mustangs. WHY? Maybe you were floored that we couldn't have kids. Maybe you felt...unbalanced...without that wheel weight you mounted for my wedding ring. Maybe it was just burnt out lust. But Maybe it's merely the fact that: There are no Fairy Stories About Happy Nuptial Aftermaths. Loving you's a time machine that won't begin to begin. You say I can't rebuild your starter. And I applaud your instinct for survival - You went hunting for something that could.

You wanna fuck Lamberghinis - Be My Guest. I say you're a loser. You tell me its part of the quest.

I move out of his underground uptown retreat And into a 50th floor studio on 14th Street.

She was as still as a table setting.

I'm on my own now. (One less bell to answer) No horn beeping a wake-up hello. (One less egg to fry) Now a cold start means a breakfast cheerios. (One less car to pick up after) My mom suggests a new vocation; she sends up eligible knights on fire engines I should be happy, but all I do is... Stay in and call out for pizza.

Once upon a time, a gold eyed and honey haired lass lost her rubber ball in a dirty morass. She was too, too, too, too SQUEAMISH to pull it out all by herself. When All of a Sudden an ugly bull frog offered his leaping services - on the condition (always the condition) that he could share her sweet white bed. Snuggle right up on top of her head. Of course, she said "yes" figuring she'd never have to come up with the goods. Well, one night slippery and slight She felt something crawl up her thigh. and guess Who? (That's right) Night after night after night after night. Didn't dare tell her Daddy. No. Not Daddy. Well finally Daddy. But he believed in the chivalric code and Damsels Dying for Distress, oh yes. so along with her 18 karat gold ball and chain, she now owned an overgrown green amphibian. He promised (another promise) if she kissed him (he figured she wouldn't) He'd leave/git out/go back to the pond and fly fishing. Well, the princess was getting pretty big, dreaming of cute counts and what not and what with this frog scaring off suitors...Well... SMACK ON THE LIPS she did. And one two three he burst into the most magnificent prince dripping with velvet satin diamonds rubies, not to mention that emerald dagger. Well...of course, she swooned and of course he swept her right onto the royal bed And she awoke right in time to see him GO faithful to his courtly code - back to the swamp and his stellar insect collection. And the princess, seeing Her True Love come and gone in one instant, Never ever thought of playing ball again. Cuz ONCE YOUR HOLY DREAMS COME TRUE LIFE IT MAKES A MONKEY OUT OF YOU.

I GIVE UP! But what? You or Me Does dumping you mean gaining me? I'm no expert in geography. I'm an expert in history and history tells me I'm in for some shit. I do not wish to go back to digging the earth. I am not Mother Nature her. This is not a professional statement here. Mother Fucker, how come if I'm the one with all the tools, you were the one to screw me? You need a permit to pull that crap and this is to inform you: YOUR LICENSE EXPIRED. NOW I was raised on a practical philosophy. Sure - you see the perfect car, so you get a job to buy the car. Then soon after you get tired of the car, so you hunt for a new car. Meanwhile...you continue to maintain the old car, a little less extravagantly perhaps, but enough to make it feel secure, hot, the best, the one 'n only... YOU KNOW Protect the property til ya can procure one better. Meanwhile...you cruise the classifieds. You're a little older - tastes a little richer. Your friends are now sporting BMWs and Porches. YOU PUSH FOR THAT BIG PRO-MO-TION. Abstain from MoviesMcDonalds/Macadamia Nuts. Save Up every penny for that spanking new car of your dreams. And then one day - without a word of warning - you trade the old wreck in.

And this is the way you climb up the wall of your expectations.

I'd figured I'd inch my way back to archaeology. But somehow the grant to unearth the remains of Romeo and Juliet fell through. So I moved upstate to officiate at the Mount Kisco Earthworm diggery. I did the dumb gig and it did IN my sexuality.

Frankly... I'm fed up In Bed with No-Lead.

I'm sick of diggin' and thinkin' diggin' and wishin' I were diggin' You get to the point where a sand shovel won't do it. Bulldozer won't move it. Your fuckin' finger nails won't rip through it. When you don't wanna be a digger Cuz there's nothin' you care to find You don't wanna be a digger You just want to be that deep archive.

Then one day, She saw Him - Cover of Car and Driver - Special Issue on "State of the Art Rack and Pinion" And she knew their twisted tale of woe had a mile or two left to go. So she shuffled off to Buffalo Where he was the number one favorite pro.

She dines in the international car digs into linguini and feta cheese and sees in the grape leaves: "to slay the beast is your destiny".

Once Before Upon a Time there was a Greek shepherdess, beloved of Zeus. But she wasn't interested in Zeus. I mean, coming on to her in the shape of a bull...FOR GOD'S SAKES. This girl was really scared of bulls but Zeus just considered her a cocktease. so he changed her into half a heifer and sent gadflies to chase her over the universe. She ran around bleeding and itchy, and looked so scary and sounded so bad that no one befriended her anymore. Besides - She couldn't sit still, except for a second, to listen to Prometheus who wasn't going anywhere. He told her that things would go from bad to worse. But in the 13th generation of her descendants - another girl would be beloved of Zeus and being far more willing with her favors, bear his murderer. And as she ran, she wondered maybe if she'd been more taking of the favors of the Gods, she would have had her cake and eaten him, too. But sitting in the midst of her time, She gave up to be the hunted one. And Zeus-He Never Looked Back.

Hey! It's not MY choice I lay it on the Gods. I'm just your old instrument board of fate. An easy crime. A moment's passion. A Blow Out. Failed Emergency Brake. Besides...there's no such thing as auto-slaughter. I'd get off easy on driving to endanger.

But... It's tough to bump off beauty. He's decked out in chartreuse crepe gold lame racing stripe, even shed some dead weight.

Oh! Little Boy Blue lemme blow your horn. The sheeps in the meadow. Your wolf's sooo forlorn. I'm a gas guzzler in sin, babe the more you cost the more I wanna pour you in.

He sees her flag wave him on from his side view mirror. And the snapshots of the past make him make a fatal navigational error. Dreams of her embrace cost him the race.

To Kill Him Now Would be Mercy Not Hate.

They cruise home together. Cross the Tri Buro headed no where, just like old times. At 80 miles an hour, she downshifts to first gear. Kamikaze stars glitter in the sky. "This is it, ol' feller" she cries. "Go straight" he replies. "I love ya to death" says I "Bite the dust, bitch" you screech. For an instant I am yours. yours alone enrapt again. But Heaven's only heaven when its got an end. I floor you and spin that fickle spinning wheel. The world turned. We somersault over the edge of night. "You cunt" you said. "No dear" I said "I'm simply not Scenic."

Sea rolls in. Sea rolls out with a wallop. Daddy hand whacked against an endless ass of shore I see you tangled in sea weed, strangled and bedecked. My Beautiful bride groom of death.

I should've left you there. under that dead wood. Left you for the sea to sweep you under her breast. Left you to rest. But I had you hauled up by the wrecker deposited in my garage like some recyclable can. I call in a transmission specialist He says you're a terminal case.

She cradles him in her arms. Places him in History Now ReNamed Unidentified Body.

So I nursed you myself - a little vaseline here, new valve there Open Heart Surgery got you repaired.

But was what I'd done worth the prize (or the waiting) at least the ruins of archaeology aren't the ruins of my own making. And there's so much about you I can't put back together. Oh! Humpty Dumpty of the dump, I screwed you In all the wrong places. In all the wrong ways. Created and drove you: A Goddess and her Chariot.

Guess I graduated from Malice to Motherhood. I thought I could kill in a clinch. And in the red. I find I can but resurrect the dead. Its how I've been led from the age of three with my junior nurse's kit and my doctor's head - having no other victims, I learned to love being bled.

FINAL PAINT JOBS or Can You Touch up Rust?

Recently, I had a crack-up with my car. I cracked my car up. I put it all back together with silly putty and Sally Hanson 'hard as nails' You know that brand? It's good stuff. Well, I put it all back together and took it out for a test run. But it shook so much I couldn't control the steering and we nearly cracked up all over again. Well... the whole frame was bent and you know once the frame is bent, you can never get it straight again. So what do you do? Sell out .... or Store in?

Once upon a time, there was a Princess Charming who wanted her Prince Charming. Who, for some reason, had failed to appear at her balcony, or at the masquerade, or anywhere and so she was worried that maybe she was giving off the wrong signals. So she hunted down a dragon (thinking maybe he'd waylaid the prince) And she saved her village and the whole shot. But still - NO PRINCE. Well, finally - he showed up in town and was on this mission to slay the dragon. But the burgomeister told him that the deed had already been done. So the prince went after the next best thing - The Princess! She was overjoyed to be rescued from her tapestry weaving and they were to be married the very next day. The princess thought that maybe the prince would love her even more if he knew it was she who slew the dragon. And so she told him and HE TOOK THE RING BACK. She was very sad. And figured that not knowing how to get love, she'd have to forget about waiting for it. So she took off her crown. And Became A Professional dragon Slayer. But did not live happily ever after for She could no longer get any more roles in fairy tales.

My Car won't communicate with me anymore. He coughs and spits and sometimes I can make out a "you cunt" when I'm filling him up with antifreeze. I always liked to sleep with my car, but now when I get in, he shuts the heat off. So I wear a lot of long underwear, but it doesn't make me feel very sexy. He does a lot of oil these days And I think that's what's killing his drives. But he says he doesn't want any more drives. He's just too nervous. He made me give away all my tools of the trade all my friends at the track, too. There were getting to be a lot of lady drivers and mechanics But my car - he was getting so paranoid, just plain paranoid. So I stayed home a lot and knit dice for windshields.

Lately, I think I'd like to get back to digging artifacts... Maybe I should stay home and get him realigned. It depends on what part of him is me. How deeply has the artifact ground its foundering ax.

They say a man's his machine And a woman's her dream. But when machine and dream are the very same thing When do you leave? When the power's elsewhere Away from the dream? When do you when do we when do I leave? I, too, shall Anoint Myself in Oil. END

Svea Barrett-Tarleton | Shelley Berc | Melissa Eleftherion
Marie Eyre | Annette Marie Hyder | Shoshauna Shy
Mary Jane Tenerelli | Kim Welliver | Lisa Zaran