No Sorry

“No Sorry”-- a Poem by Catherine Bowman.

I used Jack and Jill, but it could be any two people. I read Jack as starting off insistent, growing increasingly agitated, and intense, until the end when he becomes wistful, dreamy. I read Jill as going from bored to horrified, edging further away from Jack. Jack pursues her a bit around the stage as he asks his questions more and more rabidly.


Jack: Do you have any scissors I could borrow?

Jill:No, I’m sorry I don’t.

Jack:What about a knife? Do you have any knives? A good paring knife would do or a simple butcher knife or maybe a cleaver?

Jill laughs, pulls a simple butter knife from her pocket.

Jill:No, sorry all I have is this old bread knife my grandfather used to butter his bread with every morning.

Jack:Well then, how about a hand drill or a hammer, a bike chain, or some barbed wire? You got any rusty razor-edged barbed wire? You got a chain saw?

Jill begins to back away and answer with some annoyance.

Jill:No sorry I don’t.

Jack:Well then maybe you have some sticks?

Jill: I’m sorry, I don’t have any sticks.

Jack:How about some stones?

Jill:No I don’t have any sticks or stones.

Jack:Well how about a stone tied to a stick?

Dumbfounded

Jill:You mean a club?

Jack:Yeah a club. You got a club?

Jill:No, sorry, I don’t have any clubs.

Jack:What about some fighting picks, war axes, military forks, or tomahawks?

Jill mocks him in posture and tone here

Jill:No, sorry, I don’t have any kind of war fork, axe, or tomahawk.

Jack:What about a morning star?

Jill:A morning Star?

Jack:Yeah, you know, those spiked ball and chains they sell for riot control.

Jill:No, nothing like that. Sorry.

Jack:Now, I know you said you don’t have a knife except for that dull old thing your grandfather used to butter his bread with every morning and he passed down to you but I thought maybe you just might have an Australian dagger with a quartz blade and a wood handle, or a bone dagger, or a Bowie, you know it doesn’t hurt to ask? O perhaps one of those lethal multipurpose stilettos?

Jill:No, sorry.

Jack:Or maybe you have a simple blow pipe? Or a complex airgun?

Jill responds with an increasing sense of dismay

Jill:No, I don’t have a simple blow pipe or a complex airgun.

Jack:Well then maybe you have a jungle carbine, a Colt, a revolver, a Ruger, an axis bolt-action repeating rifle with telescopic sight for sniping, a sawed-off shotgun? Or better yet, a gas-operated self-loading fully automatic assault weapon?

Jill:No, sorry I don’t.

Jack is silent for a moment, on the verge of giving up. Then suddenly:

Jack:How about a hand grenade?

Jill:No.

Jack:How about a tank?

Jill:No.

Jack:Shrapnel?

Jill:No.

Jack: Napalm?

Jill:No.

Jack:Napalm 2?

Jill:No, sorry I don’t.

Jack’s optimism, energy and intensity return here inexplicably. He comes into his own rhetorical strength, pressing with such confidence that Jill can’t get a word in and can only shake her head.

Jack:Let me ask you this. Do you have any inter-Continental ballistic missiles? Or submarine-Launched cruise missiles? Or Multiple independently targeted reentry missiles? Or terminally guided anti-tank shells or projectiles? Let me ask you this. Do you have any fission bombs or hydrogen bombs? Do you have any thermonuclear warheads? Got any electronic measures or electronic counter-measures or electronic counter-counter-measures? Got any biological weapons or germ warfare, preferably in aerosol form? Got any enhanced tactical neutron lasers emitting massive doses of whole-body gamma radiation? Wait a minute. Got any plutonium? Got any chemical agency, nerve agents, blister agents, you know, like mustard gas, any choking agents or incapacitating agents or toxin agents?
Pause

Jill:Well I’m not sure. Suddenly interested What do they look like?

Jack:Liquid vapor powder colorless gas. Invisible.

Jill:I’m not sure. She moves closer to him, inhales, toys with her hair. What do they smell like?

Here Jack slows his delivery, grabs her hands.

Jack:They smell like fruit, garlic, fish or soap, new-mown hay, apple blossoms, or like those little green peppers that your grandfather probably would tend to in his garden every morning after he buttered his bread with that old bread knife that he passed down to you.