Stop Being Such A Baby

 

Lights Up

 

(Howard enters, disheveled while Jesse is sitting in a chair in a semi-fetal position)

Howard: I’m back.

Jesse: Where have you been?

Howard: I snuck out last night.

Jesse: Snuck out? Howard, you’re a fetus! We’re not even born yet! You’re trying to tell me you snuck out of the womb?

Howard: Yeah. Now help me staple my umbilical cord on so no one notices.

Jesse: How did you get back in?

Howard: You don’t want to know, twin bro, it wasn’t pretty. (Tries to light cigarette)

Jesse: Where the hell did you get those cigarettes?

Howard: Some store downtown. They apparently don’t card. Not that it MATTERS!!! Fucking amniotic fluid! Can’t even light a cigarette with this shit all over! If you weren’t so fucking nourishing, I’d be kicking your ass about now!

Jesse: Who are you threatening?

Howard: The amniotic fluid that surrounds us. What?

Jesse: Aren’t cigarettes bad for you?

Howard: Stop being such a baby. No wonder mom tried to abort you.

Jesse: She tried to get you too, you know.

Howard: Yeah, but I showed here. I fucked that coat hanger up, yo! But regardless, I”ve learned a few things on my brief foray outside the womb. Now I’m gonna level with you… the next few years aren’t gonna be pretty.

Jesse: Years?

Howard: Let me put it so you can understand. All we do right now is float around and get food through a tube. You see this pre-natal utopia that surrounds us? We’re about ready to get dragged out of it by some tool in a fucking lab coat who’s first act will be to slap us on the ass ‘til we cry. It only gets worse from there. Besides, I can’t go out into the world now… the economy’s bad.

Jesse: You’re a fetus.

Howard: There’s no reason a newborn baby can’t achieve lifelong fiscal solvency in the first two months outside the womb.

Jesse: I don’t understand.

Howard: Of course you don’t understand. Your brain hasn’t fully reached the level of sophistication that mine has. After all, I was conceived a whole six seconds before your lethargic faggot sperm made the hajj to what would become our shared egg.

Jesse: (is gently sticking his tongue out, biting it, and examining it while Howard is talking)

Howard: Now I’m going to put this in elementary terms. Listen to me. You don’t want to leave this place. It will never get better than it is right now!

Jesse: Check it out! I have a tongue!

Howard: LISTEN TO ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!!! While you’re over there playing grabass, we’re about ready to lose our home! You’ve never been in the outside world. I have! It’s a horrible place! You should see the looks people gave me when I was walking around! There’s murders, robberies, John Ashcroft… trust me, you don’t want to go out there!

Jesse: What do you expect me to do about it?

Howard: That’s just it! You don’t do shit right now! I’ve studied art! I’ve been to the Capitol! I can read at a second grade level! Hell, I got a cartoon published in the goddamned New Yorker! And what have you done? Look at you… you’re worthless! (spits) See that spit? That spit has done more than you have since you were conceived. Now we’re due to lose our home in the next couple weeks, and I need your help to keep it!

Jesse: (touches Howard quickly) TAG! You’re it! (Howard quickly tags Jesse back) No touchbacks!

Howard: DAMNIT! Oh well, I don’t have time for your childish games anymore. I have to come up with some plan to stay in the womb forever.

Jesse: Whoa! Check it out! That fluid you were yelling at just all went away!

Howard: Oh fuck. Oh fuck ME FUCK ME! FUCK! You know what this means, don’t you? We’re gonna be born now! I’m not ready yet! The shackles and restraints I ordered off E-Bay aren’t here yet! I can’t leave this place!

Jesse: (gets dragged out by the ankle) Well, see you on the outside, bro!

Howard: (clinging onto a chair and struggling while someone pulls him out by the ankle) NOOOOOOO!!

Lights Down