Dialogue

Opening:

lights up, simultaneously to a character in mid-sentence:

Tit:  ...has been said, but this is not balance.  This is...(her breathless urgent tone comes to a grinding halt)...this is....(pause, pause)...this is...

Tat (interruping):  This ain't rock and roll, this is suicide.

Tit:  Genocide.

Tat:  What?

Tit:  Genocide, the quote is not, "This is suicide"; it's genocide.

Tat:  What you say...

Tit:  What David Bowie says.

Tat:  But what you say is not entirely true.

Tit:  David Bowie, Diamond Dogs, Rebel Re-...

Tat:  But David Bowie is not here.  I am,  I am the speaker, and I say suicide.

Tit:  Its not accurate.

Tat: Less and less.  I am not the thunder of applause and guitars.  I am...

Tit:  And will be...

Tat:  I am the silence after that.  I am the final meandering line into the center of the vinyl.  I dance in the static of its spinning.  I will wait.

Tit:  Wait for what?  a genocide.  (Tit is impatient with the flash of poetry and its obvious distraction.)

Tat:  It matters so much less what Bowie had to say than how I remembered and then recounted what he said.  What I said, what I said.

Tit:  Your point being?

Tat:   For me.  I think you know it was/ it is something more than that.

Tit:  (awkwardly and abruptly, attempting to change the subject) I'm sorry, lets go back to this question of  balance.  how do you feel about the idea?  What is the draw for...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Tat:  I am the curiosity.  I am the client.  Regardless of how I might mangle or memorize something , the words are not wed to a written page.  These snapshots of me conform to expectations that might fulfill a cliche' or two later.   (a very long silence, Tit fidgets, Tat stares into an imaginary mirror)   I get the feeling that you... 

Tit:  I get this I guess.  You are suggesting that I have missed something, perhaps something crucial.  furthermore, you see these presumptive insights that I share as a barren logic.  this reminds me of our conversations about that slow sleight of hand--changing one thing into something else--that comes with naming and renaming things.  they mysterious shift that is at play during the process of coming out.

Tat:  is that supposed to be "honesty"?  

Tit:  but that act, like every act, is very personal.  (pause) and is thus best presented with a story

Tat:  I think more accurately, with a  metaphor.

Tit:  Oh no, not that, though it might be possible later...just for now, let's put aside the linguistic hysteria and the obfuscation that it allows and speak clearly...

Tat:  Wow.  Did you clip out my tongue?

Tit:  I think that the point is made--more or less--I think we can both appreciate simple and direct... Shall we try?

(Tat musters silence;  apparently he is either genuine in his stated mistrust of words or merely brandishing baquette and beret and invoking the acadamie de francaise as we cinb .(his self satisfaction and the push forward insinuates next breath expires in a sigh that is too old, too heavy)

Tit:  So I did not misspeak when I characterized the two boys 

somewhere in there the irony will start to lighten a bit made he expires a sigh that is too old, too-traditional  

Tit:  ...of us..