CHUTES&LADDERS: Japan . . . Wow, that little white rock sure doesn’t discriminate.

  HAIKUMOM: Amen.

  ORANGUTAN: Mango Internet Café. I’m sitting in an orange plastic chair, a little view of the Hokkaido waterfront.

  HAIKUMOM: Japan has a waterfront?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: It’s an island.

  HAIKUMOM: Really? Are there beaches? Can you go swimming?

  ORANGUTAN: The ocean reminds me of Maine. Cold water, very quiet, fisherman, boats, the breeze. I wouldn’t try swimming. I’m just a looker. I was never one to actually have an experience.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Ah, the ocean . . . There’s only one thing on this planet I’m more scared of than that big blue lady.

  HAIKUMOM: Let me guess: landing on a sliding board square?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Lol, truer words have never been spoken. You know I was born just a few miles from the Pacific. In the fresh salt air. Back in “those days” I’m at Coronado Beach with a few “friends” doing my “thing” and I get sucked up under this wave. I gasp, I breathe in and my lungs fill with water. I’m like, this is it, I’m going to meet my maker. I had never felt so heavy, not even during my two OD’s. I was sinking to the bottom and my head hit the sand like a lead ball. My body just felt like an anvil. The next thing I know there’s fingers digging in my ankles. This lifeguard pulls me out, I’m throwing up salt water. I say to him, “Hey blondie, you don’t know me from Adam but you are my witness: today’s the day I start to live.” And this lifeguard, I mean he was young with these muscles, this kid looks at me like, “Who is this big black dude who can’t even doggy paddle?” When I stand up and brush the sand off me, people applaud. An old lady touches my cheek and says, “I thought you were done for.” I get back to San Diego that night, make one phone call, the next day I’m in my first meeting, sitting in a folding chair, saying the serenity prayer.

  ORANGUTAN: I hate to inflate your already swollen ego, but that was a lucid, touching story. By the way, did you get the lifeguard’s name? He sounds hot.

  HAIKUMOM: Hey Chutes&Ladders, it’s never too late to learn. Most YMCAs offer adult swimming classes.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: I’ll do the world a favor and stay out of a speedo.

  ORANGUTAN: Sober air toast. To lifeguards.

  CHUTES&LADDERS AND HAIKUMOM: To lifeguards.

  ORANGUTAN, CHUTES&LADDERS AND HAIKUMOM: Clink.

  HAIKUMOM: Chutes&Ladders, I’m buying you a pair of water wings.

  Scene Three

  John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme plays. A Subway sandwich shop on Philadelphia’s Main Line. Elliot sits behind the counter. The phone rings. He gets up, hobbles to it—he walks with a limp.

  ELLIOT: Subway Main Line. Lar! Laaar, what’s it doing for you today? Staying in the shade? I got you, how many you need? Listen, the delivery guy’s out and my little sports injury is giving me hell so can you pick up? Cool, sorry for the inconvenience. Let me grab a pen. A’ight, pick a hoagie, any hoagie!

  (Elliot begins writing the order.

  Lights rise to a seminar room at Swarthmore College. We find Yaz mid-class. She hits a button on a stereo and the Coltrane stops playing.)

  YAZ: Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, 1964. Dissonance is still a gateway to resolution. A B-diminished chord is still resolving to? C-major. A tritone is still resolving up to? The major sixth. Diminished chords, tritones, still didn’t have the right to be their own independent thought. In 1965 something changed. The ugliness bore no promise of a happy ending. The ugliness became an end in itself. Coltrane democratized the notes. He said, they’re all equal. Freedom. It was called Free Jazz but freedom is a hard thing to express musically without spinning into noise. This is from Ascension, 1965.

  (She plays Ascension. It sounds uglier than the first sample.

  In the Subway, a figure comes into view. It is the Ghost.)

  GHOST: Momken men-fadluck ted-dini gawaz saffari?

  (Elliot tries to ignore the Ghost, reading off the order.)

  ELLIOT: That’s three teriyaki onion with chicken. First with hots and onions. Second with everything. Third with extra bacon. Two spicy Italian with American cheese on whole grain. One BMT on flatbread. Good so far?

  GHOST: Momken men-fadluck ted-dini gawaz saffari?

  ELLIOT: Five chocolate chip cookies, one oatmeal raisin. Three Baked Lay’s, three Doritos. Two Sprite Zeros, one Barq’s, one Coke, two orange sodas. How’d I do?

  GHOST: Momken men-fadluck ted-dini gawaz saffari?

  ELLIOT: All right, that’ll be ready in fifteen minutes. One sec for your total.

  (Elliot gets a text message. He reads it; his entire demeanor shifts.)

  Lar, I just got a text. There’s a family emergency, I can’t do this order right now.

  (Elliot hangs up. He exits, limping away.)

  YAZ: Oh come on, don’t make that face. I know it feels academic. You’re going to leave here and become R&B hit makers and Sondheim clones and never think about this noise again. But this is Coltrane, people, this is not Schoenberg! This is jazz, stuff people listen to voluntarily. Shopping period is still on—go sit in one session of “Germans and Noise” down the hall and you’ll come running back begging for this muzak.

  (Yaz turns off the music.)

  In fact, change the syllabus. No listening report next week. Instead, I want you to pinpoint the first time you really noticed dissonance. The composer, the piece, the measures. Two pages analyzing the notes and two pages describing the experience personally. This is your creation myth. Before you leave this school you better figure out that story and cling to it for dear life or you’ll be a stockbroker within a year.

  I was thirteen, I worked in a corrugated box factory all summer, I saved up enough to find my first music teacher—up to that point I was self-taught, playing to the radio. I walked into Don Rappaport’s room at Settlement Music School. He was old, he had jowls, he was sitting at the piano and he said, “What do you do?” I said, “I’m a composer, sir.” Presumptuous, right? I sat down and played Mr. Rappaport a Yazmin original. He said, “It’s pretty, everything goes together. It’s like an outfit where your socks are blue and your pants, shirt, hat are all blue.” Then he said, “Play an F-sharp major in your left hand.” Then he said, “Play a C-major in your right hand.” “Now play them together.” He asked me, “Does it go together?” I told him, “No, sir.” He said, “Now go home and write.” My first music lesson was seven minutes long. I had never really heard dissonance before.

  (Yaz’s phone vibrates. She sees the caller with concern.)

  Let’s take five.

  (As students file out, Yaz makes a phone call. Lights up on Elliot outside the Subway.)

  (“What’s the bad news?”) You called three times.

  ELLIOT: She’s still alive.

  YAZ: Okay.

  ELLIOT: Jefferson Hospital. They admitted her three hours ago. Pop had the courtesy to text me.

  YAZ: Are you still at work?

  ELLIOT: Just smashed the bathroom mirror all over the floor. Boss sent me out to the parking lot.

  YAZ: Wait there. I’m on my way.

  ELLIOT: “Your mom is on breathing machine.” Who texts that? Who texts that and then doesn’t pick up the phone?

  YAZ: I’ll be there within twenty.

  ELLIOT: Why did I come to work today?

  YAZ: She had a good morning. You wanted your thing translated.

  ELLIOT: She cooked and I wouldn’t eat a bite off the fork. There’s a Subway hoagies around the corner and I had to work half an hour away.

  YAZ: You didn’t want your buddies to see you working a normal job.

  ELLIOT: Not normal job. Shit job. I’m a butler. A porter of sandwiches.

  YAZ: Ginny’s been to Hades and back, stronger each time.

  ELLIOT: What is Hades?

  YAZ: In Greek mythology, the river through the underworld—

  ELLIOT: My mom’s on a machine and you’re dropping vocab words?!

  (A ding.)

  YAZ: Text message, don’t hang up. (She looks at her phone. A moment, then) You still there?

  ELLIOT: It was my dad wasn’t it? Yaz, spit it out.

  YAZ: It was your dad.

  ELLIOT: And? Yaz, I’m about to start walking down Lancaster Avenue for thirty miles till I get back to Philly and I don’t care if I snap every wire out my leg and back—I need to get out of here. I need to see Mom, I need to talk to her!

  YAZ: He said, “Waiting for Elliot till we turn off the machine.”

  Scene Four

  The chat room. A screen lights up:

  [NO IMAGE]

  FOUNTAINHEAD

  STATUS: ONLINE

  FOUNTAINHEAD: I’ve uh, wow, hello there everyone. Delete, delete.

  Good afternoon. Evening. Delete.

  (Deep breath.)

  Things I am taking:

  —My life into my own hands.

  —My gorgeous, deserving wife out for our seventh anniversary.

  Me: mildly athletic, but work twice as hard. Won state for javelin two years straight. Ran a half marathon last fall. Animated arguer. Two medals for undergrad debate. MBA from Wharton. Beautiful wife, two sons. Built a programming company from the ground up, featured in the New York Times’ Circuits section, sold it at its peak, bought a yellow Porsche, got a day job to keep myself honest. Salary was 300K, company was run by morons, got laid off, handsome severance, which left me swimming in cash and free time.

  Me and crack: long story short, I was at a conference with our CFO and two programmers and a not-unattractive lady in HR. They snorted, invited me to join. A few weeks later that little rock waltzed right into my hand. I’ve been using off and on since. One eight ball every Saturday, strict rations, portion control. Though the last three or four weeks, it’s less like getting high and more like trying to build a time machine. Anything to get back the romance of that virgin smoke.

  Last weekend I let myself buy more than my predetermined allotment—I buy in small quantity, because as with my food, I eat what’s on my plate. Anyway, I ran over a curb, damaged the underside of my Porsche. Now it’s in the shop and I’m driving a rental Mustang. So, not rock bottom but a rental Ford is as close to rock bottom as I’d like to get. Fast forward to tonight. I’m watching my wife’s eyelids fall and telling myself, “You are on punishment, Poppa. Daddy’s on time out. Do not get out of bed, do not tiptoe down those stairs, do not go down to that basement, do not sit beside that foosball table, do not smoke, and please do not crawl on the carpet looking for one last hit in the fibers.”

  (Pause.)

  In kindergarten my son tested into G and T. Gifted and talented. You meet with the school, they tailor the program to the kid. Math, reading, art, whatever the parent chooses. I said, “Teach my son how to learn. How to use a library. How to find original source material, read a map, track down the experts so he becomes an expert.” Which gets me to—

  You: the experts. It’s the first day of school and I’m knocking at your classroom door. I got my No. 2 pencils, I’ll sit in the front row, pay attention, and do my homework. No lesson is too basic. Teach me every technique. Any tip so that Saturday doesn’t become every day. Any actions that keep you in the driver seat. Healthy habits and rational thoughts to blot out that voice in the back of my head.

  Today, I quit. My wife cannot know, she’d get suspicious if I were at meetings all the time. There can be no medical records, so therapy is out. At least it’s not heroin, I’m not facing a physical war. It’s a psychological battle and I’m armed with two weapons: willpower and the experts.

  I’m taking my wife out tomorrow for our seventh anniversary and little does she know that when we clink glasses, I’ll be toasting to Day One.

  (Odessa is emotional. Chutes&Ladders and Orangutan seem awestruck.)

  ORANGUTAN (Clapping): That was brave.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: What. The.

  HAIKUMOM: Careful.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Fuck.

  HAIKUMOM: Censored.

  ORANGUTAN: I’m making popcorn. Oh, this is gonna be fun!

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Fountainhead, speaking of experts, I’ve been meaning to become an asshole. Can you teach me how?

  HAIKUMOM: Censored!

  ORANGUTAN: “Tips”? This isn’t a cooking website. And what is a half marathon?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Maybe it’s something like a half crack addict. Or a half husband.

  ORANGUTAN: Was that an addiction coming out or an online dating profile? “Married Male Dope Fiend. Smokin’ hot.”

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Fountainhead, you sound like the kind of guy who’s read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People cover to cover. Was one of those habits crack? Give the essays a rest and type three words. “I’m. A. Crackhead.”

  ORANGUTAN: You know, adderall is like totes cool. Us crackheads, we’re like yucky and stuff. We’re like so nineties. Go try the adderall edge!

  HAIKUMOM: Hey.

  ORANGUTAN: The guy’s a hoax. Twenty bucks says he’s pranking. Let’s start a new thread.

  HAIKUMOM: Hi, Fountainhead, welcome. As the site administrator, I want to honestly congratulate you for accomplishing what so many addicts only hope for: one clean day. Any time you feel like using, log on here instead. It’s worked for me. When it comes to junkies, I dug lower than the dungeon. Once upon a time I had a beautiful family, too. Now all I have is six years clean. Don’t lose what I lost, what Chutes&Ladders lost.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Excuse me.

  HAIKUMOM: Orangutan, I just checked and Fountainhead has no aliases and has never logged onto this site before under a different pseudonym, which are the usual markers of a scam.

  ORANGUTAN: I’m just saying. Who toasts to their first day of sobriety?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: I hope it’s seltzer in that there champagne glass.

  ORANGUTAN: Ginger ale, shirley temple.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: “A toast, honey. I had that seven-year itch so I became a crackhead.”

  CHUTES&LADDERS AND ORANGUTAN: Clink.

  HAIKUMOM: Hey, kiddos. Your smiley administrator doesn’t want to start purging messages. For rules of the forums click on this link. No personal attacks.

  ORANGUTAN: We don’t come to this site for a pat on the back.

  HAIKUMOM: I’m just saying. R-e-s-p-e-c-t.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: I will always give crack the respect it deserves. Some purebred poodle comes pissing on my tree trunk? Damn straight I’ll chase his ass out my forest.

  HAIKUMOM: This here is my forest. You two think you were all humble pie when you started out? Check your original posts.

  ORANGUTAN: Oh, I know mine. “I-am-scared-I-will-kill-myself-talk-me-off-the-ledge.”

  HAIKUMOM: So unless someone gets that desperate they don’t deserve our noble company? “Suffer like me, or you ain’t legit”?

  ORANGUTAN: Haikumom’s growing claws.

  HAIKUMOM: Just don’t act entitled because you got so low. (To Fountainhead) Sorry. Fountainhead, forgive us. We get very passionate because—

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Fountainhead, your Porsche has a massive engine. You got bulging marathon muscles. I’m sure your penis is as big as that javelin you used to throw.

  HAIKUMOM: Censored.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: But none of those things come close to the size of your ego. If you can put that aside, you may, may stand a chance. Otherwise, you’re fucked, my friend.

  HAIKUMOM: Message purged.

  ORANGUTAN: OH MY GOD, WE’RE DYING HERE, DO WE HAVE TO BE SO POLITE ABOUT IT?

  HAIKUMOM: Censored.

  ORANGUTAN: Oh my G-zero-D. Democracy or dictatorship?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Hey Fountainhead, why the silence?

  (Fountainhead logs off.)

  HAIKUMOM: Nice work, guys. Congratulations.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: You don’t suppose he’s . . . crawling on the carpet looking for one last rock??

  ORANGUTAN: Lordy lord lord, I’m about to go over his house and start looking for one myself!

  HAIKUMOM: That’s why you’re in Japan, little monkey. For now, I’m closing this thread. Fountainhead, if you want to reopen it, email me directly.

  Scene Five

  A flower shop in Center City Philadelphia. Yaz looks over some brochures. Elliot enters, his limp looking worse.

  YAZ: I was starting to get worried. How you holding?

  ELLIOT: Joe’s Gym, perfect remedy.

  YAZ: You went boxing? Really?

  ELLIOT: I had to blow off steam. Women don’t get it.

  YAZ: Don’t be a pig. You’ve had four leg surgeries, no more boxing.

  ELLIOT: Did Odessa call?

  YAZ: You know how she is. Shutting herself out from the world.

  ELLIOT: We need help this week.

  YAZ: And I got your back.

  ELLIOT: I’m just saying, pick up the phone and ask, “Do you need anything, Elliot?”

  YAZ: I did speak to your dad. Everyone’s gathering at the house. People start arriving from PR in a few hours. The next door neighbor brought over two trays of pigs feet.

  ELLIOT: I just threw up in my mouth.

  YAZ: Apparently a fight broke out over who gets your mom’s pocketbooks.

  ELLIOT: Those pleather things from the ten-dollar store?

  YAZ: Thank you, it’s not like she had Gucci purses!

  ELLIOT: People just need to manufacture drama.

  YAZ: He said they were tearing through Ginny’s closets like it was a shopping spree. “I want this necklace!” “I want the photo album!” “Yo, those chancletas are mine!” I’m like, damn, let the woman be buried first.

  ELLIOT: Yo, let’s spend the day here.

  YAZ (Handing him some papers): Brochures. I was being indecisive so the florist went to work on a wedding bouquet. I ruled out seven, you make the final call. Celebration of Life, Blooming Garden, Eternity Wreath.

  ELLIOT: All of those have carnations. I don’t want a carnation within a block of the church.

  YAZ: You told me to eliminate seven. I eliminated seven. Close your eyes and point.

  ELLIOT: Am I a particularly demanding person?