Over the River and Through the Woods

By Christopher Okiishi

September 24, 1999

358-9553

(LIGHTS UP on Chris and Adam, seated as if in a car facing the audience. Chris is driving. Adam is sleeping.)

Chris: So, it's Sunday morning and Adam and I are driving back from a reasonably terrific weekend in Chicago. I mean, it was fine, and everything, and we had a terrific time, and Adam is good company and all, but for some reason I'm stuck in that part of a relationship where you're not really happy unless the other person is happy with you. I suspect, of course, that my significant other is still "happy" when I'm not around—heck, he may even be more so—but I'm a visual person, and I'd really rather see it for myself. Besides, even though I really needed a dose of something "not Iowa City," sweaty, crowded, big-city gay bars really don't do it for me now that I'm all settled-down. I really don't understand why gay men keep going to bars after finding a boyfriend—why go out for a frothy mix of bad lighting, humiliatingly harsh judgment, and the ever-present smell of alluring but unlikely sexuality, when you can get all that and more at home for free? In any event, both Adam and I woke up early this morning and decided to cut the weekend short and drive back to Iowa. Being the allegedly nice person that I am, I offered to drive the first leg, and Adam was promptly asleep before we even got out of Boys' Town. Look at him there! Resting so peacefully—even the little drool pooling on his shoulder looks relaxed. The human body is really amazing, how it has this capacity to just shut down once in a while. Like something that seems so important like consciousness can just be turned off for a bit. And we just let it happen, blindly sinking into oblivion like it's no big deal, leaving our bodies unguarded, trusting that everything will just spring back to life in good time. That, my friends, is faith. Especially, when I'm driving. Not that I'm a bad driver, no. I'm pretty good, really, if you don't count speeding. It's just that I'm a joiner, by nature, and I hate to be left out of an activity. And Adam looks so relaxed, (LIGHTS START TO FADE A LITTLE) I could ! just…close my eyes…just for a second…let go…so easy… NO! (LIGHTS UP TO FULL) No! Must stay awake, must stay awake. I know—I'll put on a CD. Something soothing, familiar. Donna Summer will do. (Starts CD—grooves a little.)

Adam: Ooooh. This feels so good! I usually don't sleep to well in a car, but Chris has so much crap in here—papers, old clothes, left-over napkins—that his passenger seat has more padding than my futon really. I was in so deep I was even dreaming. Have you ever noticed how you only take part of your sense of reality with you into a dream? Like cheating on your significant other, or kissing your mom can make you wake up in a cold sweat, but wandering through Target in your underwear looking for a Grape-flavored enema for Celine Dion seems absolutely natural. Then suddenly, Target starts spinning, and the lights go down (LIGHTS FADE ON STAGE SLIGHTLY) and Donna Summer comes blaring over the sound system. And for a moment I forget how much I hate her, and I start grooving with the store clerks, (LIGHTS ON STAGE AND HOUSE START TO FLICKER LIKE IN A DISCO) who rip off their shirts, and somehow all look like that guy on the Pretender, only with better teeth. And I realize, much to my surprise, that I am a FABULOUS dancer (HE GESTURES)—all the Pretender guys agree, because they start forming a circle around me and chanting my name to the Bad Girls' beat, and I don't even care that Celine is shouting at me that her "bowels can't go on," (LIGHTS FLICKER FASTER, Adam is really getting into it) because I am the king, I am the god, I am the shit she can't have, baby!! Whoo, hoo!! Yeah! (LIGHTS STOP FLICKERING, HOUSE OUT, STAGE UP TO FULL) And then Celine morphs into my high school gym teacher, and the whole scenario just gets silly from there.

Chris: My favorite way to stay awake while driving is oral sex, but seeing as how that was not a possibility, I went with option #2—Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It's a simple game really, but it keeps the mind working. See, you take any actor from the modern Hollywood era, and you connect them to Kevin Bacon in six movies or less. Here, I'll show you—give me an actor—(he waits until someone does, then connects the dots.)

(If he succeeds)

Adam: (breaking character) Chris, you are such a show-off!

Chris: Shut up, you were asleep during this.

(If not…)

Chris: See? It's harder than you think!

(Continues.)

Chris: I've always kinda wondered if somehow my subconscious goes easy on me—"randomly" choosing actors that I already know how to do. But, whatever, it keeps me occupied, and awake, and thus alive, so I don't question it too hard. I was just trying to decide if I was gonna take a particularly difficult Dennis Hopper through the Diane Weist route, or go straight through Isabella Rosilini, when we arrived at the gaping maw of eastern Iowa--AKA the Mississippi River bridge just near Davenport. For a moment, I'm caught up in the architectural and engineering marvel that is the bridge, then I realize what a geek I am and return my gaze to the road ahead. Not a moment too soon, either, because some bozo has stopped haphazardly just before the bridge, and is leaping into my lane, signaling wildly. I barely manage to swerve around him, the stupid fuck, and I let my eyes follow him as we pass, gesturing in the only sign language I know for sure. I feel a little bad—I'd like to stop and help him with whatever, but I'm tired, and we really need to get home, and he has no business being so pushy.

Adam: I wake up, momentarily confused as to why the Target/disco is skidding to the left, then the smell reminds me of where I am. I wipe the accumulated road-sleep from my eyes, and get my bearings, glancing back in time to see our traffic offender return Chris' salute. It strikes me how limited the hearing world is in its ability to communicate non-verbally. We can smile and wave when we're happy, or flip you off when we're not. There really should be some way to give an intermediate signal, like this (flips the audience off with his pinky) this would mean "I'm a little displeased" or this, (smirks and waves with only three fingers) this would be "I'm more happy than not, but I have some reservations." I'm riffing on this even more as I turn around and realize what our erstwhile irritant was trying to tell us. Apparently, in his vocabulary, (waves his arms over his head) this meant (said very gravely—this is serious now) "the bridge is out—Stop! Or you're gonna die." See? Our sign language system sucks.

Chris: What struck me first was how quiet it suddenly got. I suppose on some level I had gotten used to the syncopated rhythm of my tires stroking the bridge beams, but I never paid attention, until suddenly it was gone. There was this peaceful and awful stillness as our car left the road—like that moment when you start the decent from the top of a roller coaster—suddenly free of the motorized pull chain. Only there was no track this time.

Adam: I don't know if it was some spontaneous burst of taste, or some long repressed internalized homophobia, but my first thought was to eject the CD from the dashboard player. As sure as I was still breathing, I knew I was not going to die listening to disco. The radio took over, filling the car with Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'." The irony would have killed me if I wasn't already on my way. I shot a glance at Chris and we both burst out laughing, not really enjoying the moment really, but it seemed the only response appropriate.

Chris: At this point, my life actually started flashing before my eyes, but not as I'd usually remembered it through the lens of emotion and ego-defense, but my life as it actually happened. Every harsh word un-tempered, every selfish act unjustified, every organ-size un-enhanced. I was forced, in a spilt second, to reconcile myself with the cold truth of my life—like when you finally grow up and set your alarm clock to the correct time, instead of giving yourself a few minutes of grace. You realize that you have to live with the truth—that your parents actually did the best they could, that your failures were more and your successes less your fault than you ever admitted. And, most of all, that however screwed up it had become, your life was your own, and it did more than just take up time. This was an amazing, liberating, epiphinal experience, that would have changed my life, had it not already been over.

Adam: You know how in the movies when a car goes off a cliff, it gracefully enters the water like Greg Lougainis doing a reverse-hanging-cross swan dive? This is not what happens in real life—at our speed, the surface of the water was a hard as concrete and just as unforgiving to the front of Chris' car. As the growing mess of misshapen metal that used to be an '85 Toyota engine made its way toward me, I did something completely unexpected—my body lost all control and every available fluid fled from me like rats leaving a sinking ship. My last thought was panic that I'd somehow soiled Chris' passenger seat. That I could be so focused on someone else's feelings, even at the end, was somehow comforting to me. It kept my mind off of how much I wanted to live—how I was just getting started and that this really sucked. If I'd had a few more seconds, I think I would have been completely pissed.

Chris: The last thing that went through my head, besides the steering wheel, of course, was an overwhelming sense of relief. Relief that I was never going to have to anything truly hard again in life—never have to pay back those student loans, never have to tell my brothers why I never married, and never have to decide if I was still in love with what I do, or just keeping up a promise made years ago. (LIGHTS BEGIN TO FADE TO HALF) All I had to do was relax…close my eyes…and let go… So easy…

(BLACKOUT.)

"Over the River and Through the Woods" debuted September 24, 1999, performed by Chris Okiishi and Adam Burton.

Performed at Best of No Shame on December 10, 1999.

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