THE EXTREMELY CONDENSED ASSAULT PLAYS AND ENIGMATIC EPIGRAMS FOR THE SMART SET

By Loren Berengere

No About the Book at this time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669873723

Loren Berengere

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Copyright © 2023 by Loren Berengere.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 05/19/2023

Xlibris

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

THE CHRISTMAS GIFT

THAT THE WAY LOVE GO

THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE

A BAD OLD WORLD

THE GREATEST GENERATION

TWILIGHT OF A WHIPPOORWILL

THIS ONE’S FOR YOU, BERN

THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST

A DIME CONE

THE ART OF THE DEAL

DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS

FATHERS AND SONS

THE RIDE HOME

SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE

THE BIRDS

QUEER CITY ON THE SEVEN HILLS

THE OLD GAY MAN AND THE SEA

FROM SODOM WITH LOVE AND SCREAMS

THE LATINA WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: INCIDENT AT RIO ARRIBA

IF HE HOLLER DON’T LET HIM GO, CATCH HIM BY HIS TOE

RAISINS IN THE MOON

LUNATIK IN THE PHILOSOPHY HALL

THE STRONGER

THE MEGALOMANIAC

THE BROTHER’S TALENTED TENTH

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER SOMEONE SPIED STEPPENWOLF SOMEWHERE ON THE STRIP

THE SELF-FULFILLING FATES OF THE FUNGIBLE HOOP-JUMPERS

MAKING IT BIG IN BEIGE

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING AND DUH LIDDLE BEETCH

JIMMY AND JUNOT AND THE SOULS OF THE LUCKY BROWN CONQUISTADORS

WHERE THE BOYS ARE

WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE GREASERS, THE GRINGO, AND THE SEVEN NAKED TEXAS GIRLS: INCIDENT AT WHISKEY BEND

HEAVEN CAN WAIT

SLOUCHING TOWARDS CAMELOT

ALL THE DAMNATIONS OF SHIVA: YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN

ENIGMATIC EPIGRAMS FOR THE SMART SET

APPENDIX

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Loren Berengere

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Dorian, twenty-one years old, comes to the motel inexperienced, eager to learn

Mary, fifty-one years old, cherub-faced chubby matron on the carnal side

Roland Gordon, motel general manager, fifty-five years old

Richard, front desk manager, occasional bouncer for the motel bar, fifty-nine

Clara Gordon, Mr. Gordon’s daughter, they live on property, twenty-one

Chester, ace front desk clerk, showman, fifty

bar girl

the guests

[The Sands Motel, restaurant, coffee shop, and bar, Everytown, USA, big motel, two-hundred and eighty-three rooms, large pool with multi-color lighting, lush palm trees, a beguiling row of cabanas at the far end of the pool (like at the fabled Copa Cabana Hotel). The motel sits on an Interstate so occupancy is high]

SCENE I

[Mr. Gordon’s office next to the front desk. Curtain rises as Dorian knocks and walks timidly inside]

Mr. Gordon [to Dorian, opening his desk drawer]: You’re Dorian?

Dorian: Yes, sir. [finding Dorian’s application he slides drawer shut and looks at Dorian approvingly]

Mr. Gordon [remaining seated]: Have a seat, Dorian. [playfully] Any kin to Dorian Gray?

Dorian [self-effacing] No, sir. [Dorian thinks, Who is Dorian Gray?]

Mr. Gordon [looking over his application]: Well, we have your application here. No motel experience?

Dorian: No, sir.

Mr. Gordon: None at all. Right?

Dorian: Right, sir.

Mr. Gordon: Call me Mr. Gordon, around here they call me Mr. G. [jollily] I don’t care what you call me, the trucker said, as long as you call me for supper.

Dorian [a little forced laugh]: Right, sir.

Mr. Gordon [frankly]: I was looking for someone with experience. I usually don’t hire anybody without experience. [gazes down at the application] But you’re such a fine-looking upstanding young man—I’m going to make an exception in your case. Can you come in tomorrow?

Dorian [delighted]: Yes, sir, of course, sir!

Mr. Gordon: I want you to start in the afternoon. The afternoon shift is the check-in shift. You’ll need to be on your toes to pick this up, it’s an art. I’ll be honest, it can get rough at times, as for in-house slings and arrows treat it like water on a duck’s back.

Dorian [trepidatiously]: Yes, sir.

Mr. Gordon: You’ll be training with Mary. Do what she says, she’ll teach you the right way, Mary knows the ropes, she’s been with us for a long while. [rising to his feet] See you tomorrow at three in the afternoon.

Dorian [rising and shaking hands with Mr. Gordon]: Yes, sir.

[Curtain]

SCENE II

[Curtain rises as Dorian timidly walks into the lobby. He sees Mr. Gordon is in his office but isn’t sure if waving to him is proper. He sees Chester, a dapper fellow in a white shirt and tight black vest, very proudly manning the desk. He looks for Mary and doesn’t see her. Behind the front desk is a large rather intimidating latticed board full of room keys. There is a small adjacent room, the PBX room]

[Dorian nervously approaches the front desk]

Dorian: I was to train with Mary. [avoids eye contact]

Chester [fumbling in the bin of room folios]: Yes, you must be Dorian? [doesn’t look at Dorian]

Dorian: Yes, sir. [nervously surveying the front desk layout, looking for Mary]

Chester [motioning with his finger]: Step around, lad. The PBX door is propped open.

[Dorian enters the PBX room, the phone rings and Chester almost leaps to get it, he deftly connects the call coming from outside the motel to a room and steps back proudly like he just climbed Mt. Everest. He jumps back to the front desk to resume what he was doing, stopping briefly to speak to three ladies swanking out of the coffee shop for the lobby headed for the front door]

Dorian [putting his finger between his neck and his tie to loosen his tie, he is nervous and fears he looks nervous]: Where is Mary?

Chester [not looking up]: In the little girl’s room. She’s taking her time, I’ll have to dock her for that! — Dorian — Listen carefully to everything she tells you, she knows the desk and the motel. She’s a good trainer. [presses his left palm to his chest] Myself, I don’t have the patience. [glancing at Mr. G floating by] You may have a seat. Answer the phone. When it’s an outside call say, Good afternoon. We’re having a great day at the Sands. If you can’t remember all that do your best. A good front desk man is a master at winging it. When the call comes from in-house say, Front desk, may I help you. Wing it. Any kin to Dorian Gray?

Dorian: No, sir. [he is wondering who Dorian Gray is]

[Suddenly Mary appears in the doorway. She is big and tall and intimidating, greasy hair. She kind of feasts her eyes on Dorian]

Mary: Dorian?

Dorian: Yes. [he is thinking she is a little too pleased to meet him]

Mary: [warmly, stepping behind him placing both her hands on his shoulders, gently kneading them before she steps out into the front desk area under the bright lights]: Welcome, welcome, welcome, honey! Did you meet Chester? He won’t be training you, I will, claims he hasn’t the patience. [frowns at Chester teasingly]

Chester [glancing at Mary]: I told him to wing it. [Mary has her hands on Chester’s shoulders, giving him a little massage]

Mary [to Chester]: Relax, Ches! Why are both you men’s shoulders so stiff? Stiff as two by fours! Stiff as an arched cat’s back! Loosen up, my boys! I know yawl ain’t intimidated by little ole me, what’s the problem?

Dorian [standing up]: Because he’s busy and I’m nervous.

Mary: Well, don’t be nervous, honey!! [she eases over to massage Dorian’s shoulders] Stiff as a two by four. [the phone is lit up, many calls come in at once. Dorian panics. Mary takes the calls, deftly taking care of each call, then steps back proudly like she’s climbed Mt. Everest. The phone rings again] Get your phone, honey! Say, We’re having a great day at the Sands. Hurry! [points a finger at the switchboard]

Dorian: We’re having a great day at the Sands. [desperately to Mary] It’s for Mr. Gordon!

Mary: Chester is Mr. G in his office?

Chester: He was out now he’s back. Connect the call!

Mary: Connect the call to Mr. G’s office, honey!

Dorian: How? [Mary puts her finger on an extension number written on a sheet of paper on the wall]

Mary: Connect your party to Mr. G’s extension, honey!! [Dorian connects] There. You’ve connected your first call! Don’t it feel good, honey? Mister G got that call because of what you did. Feel like you’re part of our motel?

[A few guests with reservations check in the motel, a walk-in checks in. Mary says, He’s called a walk-in, honey. Four ladies check in. Mary says, They get a double-double, honey.]

Chester [to Dorian, not looking at him, looking down at the bin of room folios]: When you get strong enough to come out here under the lights you will always ask the guest how many people, because if it’s a man checking in and his wife’s in the car and he doesn’t mention that, and he won’t nine times out of ten, the innkeeper is being defrauded—

Mary [interrupting]: And if Mr. G hears, you’re outta here! [Chester looks at Dorian and nods ominously]

Chester [continuing]: You’re being defrauded because there are two people in the room, not one.

Dorian: So you charge by the number of people?

Chester: Yes and No. Let’s say a man comes in and wants a double-double because a) he wants a bigger room, or b) because he needs an extra bed in the room to place things like his briefcase on—

Mary [interjecting with a carnal look]: Or he thinks he might get lucky, honey!

Chester [smiling, to Mary]: Well I would think if he gets lucky she would sleep in the same bed as he does, Mary! [tossing her an interspersed smile and reproving frown]

Mary: Not always, honey. She might want to sleep in her room, or in the other bed if she likes him!

Chester [very serious]: I get ya, the wet spot.

Dorian [a little confused, things are going by too fast]: So you charge by the number of beds?

Chester: Not always. [looking at Mary] If he’s a regular and I know him I don’t charge him. Richard won’t get hot over that, he won’t tell Mr. G we got an inept desk!

[A call comes in for sales]

Dorian [panicked]: Mary! The extension for sales!

Mary [pointing]: Look on the wall, honey! It’s seventy-two—No! sixty-nine! Hit sixty-nine, honey! Don’t keep your caller waiting. They don’t like that.

Chester [warmly teasing Mary]: You see Dorian. Sometimes even we get it wrong.

[Curtain]

SCENE III

[It’s around seven. Time to eat. Chester goes first. Curtain rises as he runs back to the front desk in a total dither and with a piece of French bread in his hands]

Chester [to Mary, he’s standing at the front desk where the guest checks in]: That Dr. Bell? He’s here for three nights, I think I put only one down, can you check it for me? [Mary is standing between the little PBX room and the front desk probably to step out from under the lights talking to Dorian]

Mary: Well honey let me get over there, what room? You look wore out worrying!

Chester [taking a bite of the French bread, Dorian is standing observing the action]: I don’t remember, that’s my problem, I just can’t remember and I want to eat in peace. [munching on the bread]

Mary [turning to Dorian, then Chester, looks at Dorian]: Honey check your rack. See if you can find Dr. Bell. [the phone rack is a twirling cylinder of guest names, in fact, Dorian has already pulled from the rack at Mary’s prompting the check-outs]

Dorian: Here he is!

Mary [annoyed]: What room honey! We can’t do anything till you give us a room number!

Dorian: 204.

Chester: Dorian you’re learning.

Mary [to Chester, busily munching on the bread]: I’ll take care of it honey. You look wore out.

Chester [annoyed]: Well can you check it now so I can eat in peace?

Mary [flipping through the folio bin]: Well honey! — [locates the folio] You put one night.

Chester: No, it’s three nights! Change that.

Mary: Well honey I’ll change it, go eat in peace! [reflects] Now you’ve dropped a pile of French bread crumbs at our front desk!

Chester: [shaking the bread at her]: Mary now, I’ll get you for that. You’re just showing off before Dorian. [returns to restaurant]

[A flurry of calls. One guest says he will come and get Dorian because he connected him to the wrong room. A caller inquires about a day rate]

Dorian: Mary! What is a day rate and how much is it? [Mary is conversing with a female guest]

Mary [quickly glancing at Dorian] Twenty dollars for three hours. [Dorian tells the guest what Mary said]

Dorian: What’s a day rate?

Mary: It’s a reduced rate. Use your head, Dorian. Maybe it’s a traveling salesman wanting some shuteye, maybe it’s somebody who got lucky. [Mary’s eyes tell Dorian somebody is at the PBX door. It’s Clara, Mr. Gordon’s daughter]

Mary: Clara, come in and meet Dorian, ain’t he cute.

Clara [timidly stepping inside the room and taking a seat in the only other chair]: I’m Clara, Mr. G’s daughter.

Mary [to Dorian]: Clara comes to visit us sometimes.

[As Dorian talks small talk with Clara (somebody his age at last!) every time the phone rings Mary says, Get your phone honey. Dorian can tell Mary doesn’t like Clara taking his attention off her and he worries she might take it out on him by not training him properly and sufficiently, Dorian knows that he needs a lot of help and it can only come from Mary since Chester won’t train. Clara leaves (Dorian has concluded she might be slightly mentally retarded), Chester returns. Mary goes to eat, then Dorian. Returns]

Mary [to Dorian with a sardonic smile morphing into a grim little laugh]: Dorian, we think it’s time for you to get out here and feel what it feels like to be on stage.

Dorian [like he’s pleading for his life]: Mary, no! Oh no! I’m not nearly strong enough to get out there. [Mary wears her broad grin of satisfaction]

Mary: You don’t want to laugh with us when you fall on that pretty face! [to Chester who is combing the folio bin noticing every fact and circumstance] Chester, ain’t he pretty!

Chester [not looking up]: You act like you’ve never seen a pretty boy before you saw Dorian.

Mary [going for Dorian’s seat as Dorian stands]: C’mon, get out there and show us what you got. It’s showbiz. One for the money, two for the show —

Chester: Mary don’t scare the lad, he might wind up stronger than we are someday.

[People were always passing through the lobby and Dorian can feel each pair of eyes judging him, he thinks life is throwing him a challenge, everything is going by so fast that he’s secretly expecting someone to pop out of nowhere and tell him it’s all been a nasty prank played by his very own fate for no reason at all]

Chester [to Dorian]: If you go through your reservations you’ll be at least a little ready when they hit you. [Dorian picks up the stack of reservations and thumbs through them. He wishes he could just run away]

Chester [pointing through the glass front window to a cab pulled up]: There he is. Don’t let him eat your lunch.

Mary [excitedly]: One for the money, two for the show!

[A large fellow aggressively paces through the lobby lugging two heavy-looking suitcases like he’s going to pillage something. He ceremoniously drops both suitcases before the desk]

Guest [loudly]: Checking in!!

Dorian [to Chester who doesn’t look up]: What now?

Chester: Ask his name.

Dorian [to Guest]: Name, sir!

Guest: Dr. Bell! [Chester looks up, turns to Mary]

Chester [to Mary]: Mary! We have two Dr. Bells in the house tonight.

Dorian: What now?

Chester: Find a res for Dr. Bell. [Dorian looks and looks and can’t find it]

Guest: I made this reservation two months ago.

Chester [to Guest]: Dr. Bell it doesn’t matter. We assign the rooms on the day of the reservation. The public thinks we do so at the time the reservation is made. [to Dorian] Give me that stack. [Chester finds it almost immediately]

Dorian: What now?

Chester: He’s already filled out his reg card. Run his credit card. [points to a card lying by the reg card]

Dorian: Next?

Chester: Give him a key! [winking at the guest] and let him go.

Guest: [exits lobby]

Mary: Now honey was that all that bad?

[Just as Dorian is feeling good about himself the same man carrying the same suitcases comes huffing in looking like someone just told him he won the lottery]

Guest: Room’s occupied! [drops suitcases, tosses room key on desk, Dorian’s head is spinning]

Chester [checking the bin in a frenzy, to Guest]: There’s a doctor, another doctor, in that room!

Guest [joyously]: And I just interrupted the doctor’s operation!

[Chester apologizes, hands the guest the proper key. Exits lobby]

Chester [scolding]: The room numbers on the rack are below the keys Dorian not above them. [to Mary] Mary, why don’t you stand up here by Dorian so he can watch you check in the next guest. [to Dorian] Dorian that reminds me. You didn’t tell your guest how to get to his room. [gives Dorian a map of the property] Study this. Richard expects you to have it memorized by a week’s time. [looking up] And speak of the devil. Richard, how are you?

Richard [to Dorian, paternally]: Are you getting the hang of it?

Dorian: I hope so.

Richard: Do what Mary says. She’ll teach you what you need to know. [he turns and heads for the coffee shop]

[A girl from the bar who’d been drinking a bit approaches the front desk for some change. Dorian sees she is about his age]

Dorian [to bar girl, flirting]: What do you want?

Bar girl: Nothing from you. [she gets her change from Chester and returns to the bar]

[Mary is back in the PBX room handling calls]

Chester: Mary, c’mon, get on the ball, here comes a check in. Dorian can watch you, I’ll handle the phones. [Mary comes. Guest is checking in. Dorian watches. Guest exits lobby]

Mary [to Dorian]: Did you see that card stuck in with his credit card when he opened his wallet on the desk?

Dorian: I saw it. [grinning at Mary]

Mary: Dorian tell Chester what it said on it.

Dorian: It said happiness is a warm pussy.

Mary [to Chester]: Chester is happiness a warm pussy?

Chester: I don’t pronounce on such while at work.

Mary [to Dorian]: Dorian is happiness a warm pussy?

Dorian: You’re gonna ask a young pretty boy a question like that? [maybe he shouldn’t’ve said that]

Chester: Dorian, get over here and mind your phones. [to Mary] Mary, you do what you want to do.[Chester comes out under the lights, Mary stands over Dorian in the PBX room]

Dorian [to Mary in a low voice]: That bar girl is mean.

Mary: Don’t you worry about that girl.

Dorian: Because, Mary, I want women to like me.

Mary [sing-song]: Oh, they like you, honey, believe me they do.

[Curtain]

SCENE IV

[Curtain rises on Dorian standing where he liked to stand, between the PBX room and the bright lights, from there he can survey the thing that scared him: the stage, he’s thinking how strong he’ll feel when he can step out there on his own, he is studying the agility of the front desk man, he really is the helmsman of the motel, sometimes his reveries are interrupted by sightings of Mr. G floating by, guests accostingly checking in challenging the front desk in power plays of unimaginable proteanness of form, punch, style, manner, contemplating all the possible dirtiness of active men. He never wanted to be like that]

[Suddenly everything sped up, EVERYTHING. It was getting late and it was time to check out. Dorian stood at the threshold there in a trance as the bar girl gave Chester a smile and Dorian a frown, every motel department had to bring their banks up to the front desk, Chester was jumping trying to stay on top of everything. Get your phone, honey! Dorian saw a lot of time whiz by funny]

Mary [to Dorian]: Want to walk over to my place for a beer, honey? [Dorian thought it would be OK]

[Dorian for sure never found Mary attractive. She was built like a man-size June bug and had a slur of a way-too-red-lipsticky smile that revealed her plant-like torpor, flabby figure, jowly huge face, and how unwieldly looking, an element of trampishness is pretty evident to anyone]

Mary [she’s walking with Dorian through a dark area of a street adjacent to the motel that feeds the access road of the Interstate]: It’s just right down here, honey. [Dorian feels like he has to go with Mary, and after all why should he fear anything when he’s the man, right?]

[Arriving at Mary’s apartment door. They enter the apartment. The kitchen light is on. Mary reaches in the refrigerator and hands him an Old Milwaukee beer in one of those short thick dark bottles. Mary asks him if he wants to make time. Dorian feels he has to accept the omen]

Mary [in an I-have-conquered tone of voice]: Into the bedroom with you, my beauty, and off with those clothes! [Dorian, looking like he’s been hit over the head, goes]

[Mary storms into the bedroom nude, paps and flaps descending uncaringly like sheets of moss from a dead tree in the bayou]

Mary: On your back! Honey!! [sticking her tongue out]

Dorian [thinking]: These auguries are not good. [Mary snaps a drawer open, takes out a gel and rubs it over her flaps, a swamp of batwings] I’ve a dominatrixy triceratops on top of me! I can’t move!

[Whom! Whom! Left eyebrow cocked to third heaven]

[Curtain]

THE CHRISTMAS GIFT

Loren Berengere

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Missa Bell, supervisor of the sharecroppers, White man known for his gentleness

Miss Emma, Missa Bell’s wife

Margaret, the daughter, sharecroppers call her Mog, twelve years old

Jabo, sharecropper, Black man known for his gentleness

Early, Jabo’s wife

Yokson, the son, a slow Black boy

Mae Helen, daughter of Jabo and Early, twelve years old

Belle Raven, Black woman, lives with her daughter

Winnie, Belle Raven’s six-year-old daughter

SCENE I

[A kind of plantation home built right after the Civil War. It is nineteen hundred and twenty-eight. Missa Bell presides over his five shacks of sharecropper Blacks. The shacks are off in the woods connected to the plantation home by wagon roads and trails almost covered by grass and weeds. The curtain rises as Margaret is walking down the main road, which eventually leads to Shreveport to the east and Dallas to the west, a road infrequently traveled, worrying about the Blackfolk, What will happen to these people? she asks herself over and over, What will become of people like this? She is religious. Recently she had a very enjoyable experience at a Black church, the White churches are miles away. She told her Mama, As soon as I walked in the front door the nicest Black man you ever saw took me by the hand, led me down front, right in front in the front row where he said he had preserved a seat for me. It was a wonderful service but all during the sermon I kept thinking about that Black man saying he had preserved a seat for me. Mama shouldn’t he a-said reserved and not preserved? When I think about it I get confused. Just as she came close to home and smelled her Mama’s collard greens cooking she sees her father leaning up against the wagon. It is mid-afternoon on a warm winter day. Then she sees Yokson coming up to her father, walking with a limp, so she decides to listen in and see what’s going on]

Yokson [drawing in closer to Missa Bell]: Yessuh! Yessuh! [pause] Yessuh! Yessuh! Yessuh!

Missa Bell [paternally]: Yokson what you want? [Yokson shows his teeth]

Yokson [pausing]: Yessuh, yessuh, Er say wah.

Missa Bell [cupping one ear with his hand]: What is it you want, Yokson?

Yokson [blanching with fear]: Nahdun. [pause] I’d sumpum doh!

Missa Bell [growing impatient]: Yokson what you want!

Yokson: Er say wah, Er say wah!

Missa Bell: What do Early say?

Margaret [stepping up authoritatively and with joy]: Early says she wants to borry the wagon!

Yokson [wild with joy, jumping up