YAZ: Yes. What’s so wrong with a carnation?

  ELLIOT: You know what a carnation says to the world? That they were out of roses at the 7-Eleven. It should look something like Mom’s garden.

  YAZ (In agreement): Graveside Remembrances? That looks something like it . . . I’m renominating Graveside Remembrances. Putting it back on the table.

  ELLIOT: You couldn’t find anything tropical? Yaz, you could find a needle in a damn haystack and you couldn’t find a bird of paradise or something?

  YAZ: He just shoved some brochures in my hand.

  ELLIOT (Stares her down): You have an awful poker face.

  YAZ: Now, look here.

  ELLIOT: You did find something.

  YAZ: No. Not exactly.

  ELLIOT: How much does it cost? Yaz, this is my mom we’re talking about.

  YAZ: Five hundred more. Just for the casket piece.

  ELLIOT: You can’t lie for shit, you never could.

  YAZ: Orchid Paradise.

  (Yaz hands him another brochure. They look at it together.)

  ELLIOT: Aw damn. Damn. That looks like her garden.

  YAZ: Spitting image.

  ELLIOT (Pointing): I think she grew those.

  YAZ: Right next to the tomatoes.

  ELLIOT: But hers were yellow. Fuck.

  YAZ: It’s very odd to order flowers when someone dies. Because the flowers are just gonna die, too. “Would you like some death with your death?”

  ELLIOT (A confession): I didn’t water them.

  YAZ (Getting it): What, are you supposed to be a gardener all of a sudden?

  ELLIOT: It doesn’t rain for a month and do I grab the hose and water Mom’s garden one time?

  YAZ: You were feeding her. Giving her meds. Bathing her. I could’ve come over and watered a leaf. A single petal.

  ELLIOT: The last four days, she’d wake me up in the middle of the night. “Did you water the flowers?” “Yeah, Mom, just like you told me to yesterday.” “Carry me out back, I want to see.” “Mom, you’re too heavy, I can’t carry you down those steps one more time today.”

  YAZ: Little white lies.

  ELLIOT: Can you do the sermon?

  YAZ: This is becoming a second career.

  ELLIOT: Because you’re the only one who doesn’t cry.

  YAZ: Unlike Julia.

  ELLIOT (Imitating): “¡Ay dios mio! ¡Ay! ¡Ay!”

  YAZ: I hate public speaking.

  ELLIOT: You’re a teacher.

  YAZ: It’s different when it’s ideas. Talking about ideas isn’t saying something, it’s making syllables with your mouth.

  ELLIOT: You love ideas. All you ever wanted to do was have ideas.

  YAZ: It was an elaborate bait and switch. The ideas don’t fill the void, they just help you articulate it.

  ELLIOT: You’ve spoken at city hall. On the radio.

  YAZ: You’re the face of Main Line Chevrolet. (Pause) Can I do it in English?

  ELLIOT: You could do it in Russian for all I care. I’ll just be in the front row acting like my cheek is itchy so no one sees me crying.

  YAZ: The elders want a good Spanish sermon.

  ELLIOT: Mami Ginny was it. You’re the elder now.

  YAZ: I’m twenty-nine.

  ELLIOT: But you don’t look a day over fifty.

  YAZ: You gotta do me a favor in return. I know this is your tragedy but . . . Call William. Ask him not to come to the funeral.

  ELLIOT: Oh shit.

  YAZ: He saw the obit in the Daily News.

  ELLIOT: They were close. Mami Ginny loved that blond hair. She was the madrina of your wedding.

  YAZ: William relinquished mourning privileges. You fall out of love with me, you lose certain rights. He calls talking about, “I want the condo.” Fuck that. Fuck that. Coming from you it won’t seem bitter. Wants the fucking condo all for hisself. That I decorated, that I painted. “Oh, and where’s the funeral, by the way?” You know, he’s been to four funerals in the Ortiz clan and I could feel it, there was a part of him, under it all, that was disgusted. The open casket. The prayers.

  ELLIOT: It is disgusting.

  YAZ: Sitting in the pew knowing what freaks we are.

  ELLIOT: He’s good people.

  YAZ: I was probably at his side doing the same thing, thinking I’m removed, that I’m somehow different.

  ELLIOT: Hey, hey, done.

  YAZ: One more condition. I go to Puerto Rico with you. We scatter her ashes together.

  ELLIOT: Mami Ginny couldn’t be buried in Philly. She had to have her ashes thrown at a waterfall in El Yunque, just to be the most Puerto Rican motherfucker around.

  YAZ: I saw your Colgate ad.

  ELLIOT: Dang, cousin Yaz watches Spanish TV?

  YAZ: Shut up.

  ELLIOT: I walked into the casting office, flashed my pearly whites, showed them my military ID and I charmed them.

  YAZ: Do it.

  ELLIOT: Give me a dollar.

  YAZ: For that big cheeseburger smile?

  (She gives him a dollar.)

  ELLIOT (Smiling): “Sonrisa, baby!”

  (Yaz cracks up laughing, which devolves into tears.)

  How we gonna pay for Orchid Paradise?

  YAZ: They should have a frequent-flower card. They punch a hole. Buy nine funeral bouquets, get the tenth free. We’d be living in a house full of lilies. Look at that guy. Arranging his daisies like little treasures. What do you think it’s like to be him? To be normal?

  ELLIOT: Normal? A hundred bucks says that dude has a closet full of animal porno at home.

  YAZ: I bet in his family, funerals are rare occasions. I bet he’s never seen a cousin get arrested. Let alone one under the age of eighteen. I bet he never saw his eight-year-old cousin sipping rum through a twisty straw or . . . I just remembered this time cousin Maria was babysitting me . . .

  ELLIOT: Fat Maria or Buck Tooth Maria?

  YAZ: Pig.

  ELLIOT: Ah, Fat Maria.

  YAZ: I was dyeing her hair. I had never dyed hair before so I asked her to read me the next step and she handed me the box and said, “You read it.” And I said, “My rubber gloves are covered in toxic goop, I can’t really hold that right now.” And so she held it in front of my eyes and said, “You gonna have to read it because I sure as hell can’t.”

  ELLIOT: I been knowed that.

  YAZ: I said, “But you graduated from high school.” She said, “They just pass you, I just stood in the back.” I was in fourth grade. I could read! (Pause) I have a degree written in Latin that I don’t even understand. I paid seventeen thousand dollars for my piano.

  ELLIOT: Oh shit.

  YAZ: I have a mortgage on my piano. Drive two miles north? William told me every time I went to North Philly, I’d come back different. His family has Quaker Oats for DNA. They play Pictionary on New Year’s. I’d sit there wishing I could scoop the blood out my veins like you scoop the seeds out a pumpkin and he’d be like, “Whatchu thinking about, honey?” And I’d be like, “Nothing. Let’s play some Pictionary.”

  ELLIOT: Yo, being the scholarship case at an all-white prep school really fucked with your head, didn’t it?

  YAZ: I should’ve gone to Edison.

  ELLIOT: Public school in el barrio. You wouldn’t have survived there for a day.

  YAZ: Half our cousins didn’t survive there.

  ELLIOT: True. But you would’ve pissed your pants. At least their pants was dry when they went down.

  YAZ: You’re sick.

  ELLIOT: And the ladies love me.

  YAZ: I thought abuela dying, that would be the end of us. But Ginny grabbed the torch. Christmas, Easter. Now what? Our family may be fucked-up but we had somewhere to go. A kitchen that connected us. Plastic-covered sofas where we could park our communal asses.

  ELLIOT: Pop’s selling the house. And the plastic-covered sofas. He’s moving back to the Bronx, be with his sisters.

  YAZ: You going with him? (Elliot shrugs) Wow. I mean, once that living room is gone, I may never step foot in North Philly again.

  ELLIOT: Washed up at age twenty-four. Disabled vet. Motherless chil’. Working at Subway. Soon-to-be homeless.

  YAZ: My couch is your couch.

  ELLIOT: Until William takes your couch.

  YAZ: My cardboard box is your cardboard box.

  ELLIOT: I could go out to L.A. and be a movie star.

  YAZ: You need a manager? Shoot I’m coming witchu. Forget Philly.

  ELLIOT: Change of scene, baby. Dream team.

  YAZ: Probably we should order some flowers first, though. Don’tcha think? (Elliot nods. To the florist) Sir?

  Scene Six

  The chat room. Orangutan is online, seems upset.

  ORANGUTAN: 2:38 A.M. Tuesday. The witching hour.

  (Chutes&Ladders logs on.)

  CHUTES&LADDERS: 1:38 P.M. Monday. The lunch hour.

  ORANGUTAN: I’m in a gay bar slash internet café in the city of Sapporo. Deafening dance music.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Sure you should be in a bar, little monkey?

  ORANGUTAN (Disappointed): I flew halfway around the world and guess what? It was still me who got off the plane. (Taking comfort) Sapporo is always open. The world turns upside down at night.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: You’re in a city named after a beer sitting in a bar. Go home.

  ORANGUTAN: Everything in this country makes sense but me. The noodles in soup make sense. The woodpecker outside my window every evening? Completely logical. The girls getting out of school in their miniskirts and shy smiles? Perfectly natural. I’m floating. I’m a cloud. My existence is one sustained out-of-body experience. It doesn’t matter if I change my shoes, there’s not a pair I’ve ever been able to fill. I’m a baby in a basket on an endless river. Wherever I go I don’t make sense there.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Hey, little monkey. How many days you got?

  ORANGUTAN: I think day ninety-six is when the demons really come out to play.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Ninety-six? Girl, hang your hat on that.

  ORANGUTAN: I really really really want to smoke crack.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Yeah, well don’t.

  ORANGUTAN: Distract me from myself. What do you really really really want, Chutes&Ladders?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: I wouldn’t say no to a new car—my Tercel is one sorry sight.

  ORANGUTAN: What else?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Tuesday’s crossword. On Monday I’m done by the time I sit at my desk. I wish every day could be a Tuesday.

  ORANGUTAN: What about your son? Don’t you really really really want to call him?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: By all accounts, having me be a stranger these ten years has given him the best decade of his life.

  ORANGUTAN: I’ve known you for how long?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Three Christmas Eves. When you logged on you were a stone-cold user. We sang Christmas carols online all night. Now you’ve got ninety days.

  ORANGUTAN: Can I ask you a personal question? What’s your day job?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: IRS. GS4 paper pusher.

  ORANGUTAN: Got any vacation days?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: A solid collection. I haven’t taken a vacation in ten years.

  ORANGUTAN: Do you have money?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Enough to eat steak on Friday nights. Enough to buy pay-per-view boxing.

  ORANGUTAN: Yeah, I bet that’s all the pay-per-view you buy. (Pause) Enough money to fly to Japan?

  (Pause.)

  CHUTES&LADDERS: You should know I’m fifty years old on a good day. I eat three and a half doughnuts for breakfast and save the remaining half for brunch. I have small hands, six toes on my left foot. And my face resembles a corgi.

  ORANGUTAN: If I was looking for a hot screw I wouldn’t be logging on to this site.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Damn, was it something I said?

  ORANGUTAN (With honest admiration): I’ve been on this planet for thirty-one years and you’re the only person I’ve ever met who’s more sarcastic than I am yet still believes in God.

  CHUTES&LADDERS (Taking the compliment): Says the agnostic.

  ORANGUTAN: The atheist. Who is very envious of believers. My brain is my biggest enemy—always arguing my soul into a corner. (Pause) I like you. Come to Japan. We can go get an ice cream. I can show you the countryside.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: I don’t have a passport. If my Tercel can’t drive there, I generally don’t go.

  ORANGUTAN: Come save me in Japan. Be my knight in shining armor.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: I’ll admit, I’m a dashing concept. If you saw my flesh and blood, you’d be disappointed.

  ORANGUTAN: I see my flesh and blood every day and I’ve learned to live with the disappointment.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: I’m the squarest of the square. I live in a square house on a square block watching a square box eating square-cut fries.

  ORANGUTAN: I get it. You were the kid who colored inside the lines.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: No, I was the kid who ate the crayons. Was. I went clean and all personality left my life. Flew right out the window. I had to take life on life’s terms. Messy, disappointing, bad shit happens to good people, coffee stains on my necktie, boring life.

  ORANGUTAN: Maybe we could hang out and have a relationship that has very little to do with crack or addiction or history. We could watch DVDs and microwave popcorn and take walks on the waterfront while we gossip about celebrities. It could be the land of the living.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Stay in the box. Keep things in their place. It’s a simple, effective recipe for ten clean years.

  ORANGUTAN: Forget simple. I want a goddamn challenge.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: You’re in recovery and work in a foreign country. That’s a challenge.

  ORANGUTAN: No. No it’s fucking not. Not if I just stay anonymous and alone. Like every day of my shit life so far. A friend, the kind that is nice to you and you are nice to in return. That would push the comfort zone. The invitation is open. Come tear my shyness open.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: All right, now you’re being weird. Can we change the subject?

  (Haikumom appears. She’s reading the newspaper.)

  HAIKUMOM: Orangutan, cover your ears.

  ORANGUTAN: Big Brother, always watching.

  HAIKUMOM: Cover your ears, kiddo.

  ORANGUTAN: That doesn’t really work online.

  HAIKUMOM: Okay, Chutes and Ladders, can we g-chat? One on one?

  ORANGUTAN: Come on! No talking behind backs.

  HAIKUMOM: Fine. Chutes&Ladders, you listening?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Lord have mercy spit it out.

  HAIKUMOM: Orangutan may be immature . . .

  ORANGUTAN: Hey.

  HAIKUMOM: She may be annoying at times . . .

  ORANGUTAN: What the f?

  HAIKUMOM: She may be overbearing and self-obsessed and a little bit of a concern troll and she can type faster than she can think which often leads to diarrhea of the keyboard—

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Your point?

  HAIKUMOM: But she’s telling you, “Be my friend.” When’s the last time someone opened your closet door, saw all them skeletons, and said, “Wassup?! Can I join the party?”

  CHUTES&LADDERS: All right, my wrist is officially slapped. Thank you, oh nagging wives.

  HAIKUMOM: Internal Revenue Service, 300 North Los Angeles Street 90012? Is that you?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Need my name, too? It’s Wilkie. I’ll leave it at that.

  HAIKUMOM: I’m sending you a care package. Orangutan, you can uncover your ears now. I love you.

  ORANGUTAN: Middle finger.

  (Fountainhead’s log-on appears.)

  FOUNTAINHEAD: Hey all, thanks for the warm two-by-four to my head.

  HAIKUMOM: All right, look who’s back.

  FOUNTAINHEAD: Knives sharpened? Last night we ran out of butter while my wife was cooking and she sent me to the store and it took every bit of strength I could summon not to make a “wrong turn” to that parking lot I know so well. I got the butter and on the car ride home, I couldn’t help it, I drove by the lot, and there was my dealer in the shadows. My brain went on attack. “Use one more time just to prove you won’t need another hit tomorrow.” I managed to keep on driving and bring the butter home. Major victory. And my wife pulls it out of the plastic bag and says, “This is unsalted. I said salted.” Then she feels guilty so she says never mind, never mind, she’ll just add a little extra salt to the pie crust but I insist. “No, no, no, my wife deserves the right kind of butter and she’s gonna get it!” I mean, I bark it, I’m already halfway out the door, my heart was racing all the way to the parking lot and raced even harder when I sat in the car and smoked. So, Michael Jordan is benched with a broken foot. But he’ll come back in the finals.

  HAIKUMOM: Thanks for the update, Fountainhead. You may not believe this, but we were missing you and worried about you. Don’t beat yourself up about the slip. You had three days clean. This time you’ll make it to day four.

  FOUNTAINHEAD: Be ambitious. Why not reach for a whopping five?

  ORANGUTAN: Maybe you’ll make it to day thirty if you tell your wife.

  FOUNTAINHEAD: I told you, I have my reasons, I cannot do that. My wife has some emotional issues.

  ORANGUTAN (Sarcastic): No!

  FOUNTAINHEAD: Listen? Please? Are you capable of that? She’s in therapy twice a week. Depression, manic. I don’t want to be the reason she goes down a tailspin. I actually have her best interest in mind.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Yawn.

  FOUNTAINHEAD: Ah, Chutes&Ladders. I could feel you circling like a vulture. Weigh in, by all means.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: And I repeat. Yawn.

  FOUNTAINHEAD: Chutes&Ladders, why do I get the feeling you’d be the first in line for tickets to watch me smoke again? That you’d be in the bleachers cheering if I relapse?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: How can you relapse when you don’t even think you’re addicted?

  FOUNTAINHEAD: If you read my original post clearly, I wrote that it’s a psychological addiction, not like heroin.

  CHUTES&LADDERS: Well see then, you’re not a junkie after all.

  FOUNTAINHEAD: What is this, first-grade recess?

  CHUTES&LADDERS: No, this is a site for crackheads trying not to be crackheads anymore. If you’re not a crackhead, leave, we don’t want you, you are irrelevant, get off my lawn, go.