Read Dead Man's Cell Phone for Free Online Page B

them.
    Â 
    JEAN
    You can’t have it.
    Â 
    STRANGER
    I advise you to hand it over quietly.
    Â 
    JEAN
    No, I won’t. I won’t!
    Â 
    STRANGER
    Hand over the phone or I will kill you.
    Â 
    JEAN
    That’s absurd. You can’t have it.
    The stranger pulls out a gun.
    STRANGER
    You know nothing of Gordon’s work, do you? It’s big business. You’re in over your head.
    Â 
    JEAN
    No—I’m afraid you’re in over your head.
    Jean kicks the gun out of the stranger’s hand.
    Jean kicks the stranger on a special part of her leg so that she crumples to the ground.
    (Surprised at her own daring) Whoa!
    A struggle for the gun.
The stranger grabs it.
She points it at Jean.
    STRANGER
    I didn’t want to have to do this, Jean, but you are forcing my hand—
    The stranger hits Jean on the head with the gun.
Jean falls to the ground.
The lamp falls and breaks.
A flash of light.

scene five
    Jean and Gordon sitting at a café.
    As if we are at the top of the play.
    You might imagine taking gestures from the very first scene and repeating them in the following as though Jean and Gordon are doomed to repeat their first encounter over and over again for eternity.
    Jean, sitting in front of a bowl of empty soup.
    A silence.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Do they have lobster bisque in heaven?
    Jean looks up at Gordon.
    GORDON
    We’re not in heaven. We’re in a hell reserved for people who sell organs on the black market and the people who loved them.

    Â 
    JEAN
    Gordon?
    Â 
    GORDON
    That’s right. When you die, you go straight to the person you most loved, right back to the very moment, the very place, you decided you loved them. There’s a spiritual pipeline, you might say. In life we are often separated from what we love best—errors of timing, of geography—but there are no errors in the afterlife. You loved me most, Jean, so you came to me.
    Â 
    JEAN
    What if the person you loved most didn’t love you most?
    Â 
    GORDON
    Don’t try to work it out. It’s too complex. Mathematical hoopla. If they need three of Jean the beloved why they make you into three Jeans. For the very few it’s a neat transaction—totally reciprocal. A loves B , B loves A . However: some mothers loved their children best, those children loved their father best, and the father loved the family dog. Some end up with gardens. The very best parents loved all their children equally but that is rare, rare.
    Â 
    JEAN
    How about people who loved God best?
    Â 
    GORDON
    Don’t know. Never met ’em. They go to a different laundromat.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Laundromat?

    Â 
    GORDON
    See you only have one costume here. Whatever you died in. So you go to the laundromat once a week. Only you have to wash your clothes naked. It’s weird—hundreds of naked people washing their socks.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Who did you love best?
    Â 
    GORDON
    I loved myself best of all. There’s a special holding pen for us. Waiting to see if someone else will join us. Like you joined me, Jean. You’re my good luck.
    Â 
    JEAN
    But I’m not dead.
You’re lying.
You lie all the live long day.
    Â 
    GORDON
    No, you lie all the live long day.
All those nice lies you made up for me?
Now why did you do that, Jean?
    Â 
    JEAN
    I saw you die. I saw your face. I wanted for you to be good.
    Â 
    GORDON
    Aw, Jean.
    Â 
    JEAN
    Oh, Gordon.

    Â 
    GORDON
    You and I—we’re alike. We both told lies to help other people. You decided to help a dead man because only a dead person can be one hundred percent good. When you’re alive, the goodness rubs off you if you so much as leave the house. Life is essentially a very large brillo pad.
    Â 
    But I digress. The point is, Jean, we’re two peas in the proverbial pod. In-coming calls, out-going organs, we’re all just floating receptacles—waiting to be filled—with meaning—which you and I provide. It’s a talent, and