February 21 Play: AFTERLIVES OF THE SAINTS 3, or: ST. CHISTOPHER

NOTE: This one's a little long, but I like it. You remember the story of the female astronaut who drove across the country to kill her lover (or maybe to kill his new girlfriend)? This is loosely based on that sad tale. Stir in the St. Christopher statue my grandfather kept on his dashboard and what do you get? This play. Hope you enjoy it. There are two other "Afterlives" plays from... how weird!  Exactly one month ago: JAN 21 and JAN 23.

52: AFTERLIVES OF THE SAINTS 3, or: ST. CHRISTOPHER - by Ed Valentine
© February 21, 2010 * ed@edvalentine.com

LIGHTS UP: RAIN sound. A car. A LADY ASTRONAUT, grim, gripping the wheel. A country song plays on the car radio. Then: THUNDER. The woman swerves, the car skids. She keeps driving. Lights flicker. Go out. When they come back up: a SAINT WITH THE HEAD OF A DOG in the backseat. (The face: a hound of some sort. Jowly. Beagle? Basset? A hound.)

SAINT: I saved you.

WOMAN: No you didn’t.

SAINT: Just now! Yes. Yes I did. I’m Saint Christopher. Patron saint of travelers.

LADY ASTRONAUT: I remember St. Christopher. My Granpa used to have a St. Christopher statue on his dashboard of his old Dodge Dart.

SAINT: I’m – what can I say? Flattered.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Granpa died in a car crash.

SAINT: Oh.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Decapitated.

SAINT: So was I! Eventually.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Eventually?

SAINT: It took a few tries. Saints are hard to kill.

LADY ASTRONAUT: So are grandfathers. He was a tough old bird.

SAINT: I imagine. You could just pull over. We could talk about this.

LADY ASTRONAUT: I’m not pulling over.

SAINT: Just for a minute.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Not even for a minute. Not even for a second. I’m wearing diapers.

SAINT: So –

LADY ASTRONAUT: So I never have to stop.

SAINT: Oh.
(Sniffs.)
That explains a lot.

LADY ASTRONAUT: So why do you have a dog face? Granpa’s St. Christopher statue didn’t have a dog face.

SAINT: No, I imagine it didn’t. In Eastern art I’m sometimes but not always depicted as having a dog’s face. No one knows why.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Do you know why?

SAINT: Well, yes. It’s because I had the face of a dog.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Makes sense. What are you doing here?

SAINT: I told you: Patron Saint of Travelers. I came to protect you.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Nothing can protect me.

SAINT: Dissuade you, then?

LADY ASTRONAUT: Nothing can dissuade me.
(She pulls out a gun from below the dashboard. Cocks it.)
Nothing. He left me, but it was her fault. She was driving the truck that rear-ended my life. She was driving the tractor-trailor that jackknifed my heart.

SAINT: Still – a gun?

LADY ASTRONAUT: It’s all her fault, and she’s a gonna pay. And me? Now I carry a payload the weight of the whole world.

(Silence. She drives.)

SAINT: When I was a young man, I had to cross a river.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Which one?

SAINT: I forget. I was about to cross, when I saw a little baby on the shore. “Oh Saint Christopher,” he asked. “Please St. Christopher, help me get across the river!”

LADY ASTRONAUT: A talking baby?

SAINT: Yes.

LADY ASTRONAUT: And he called you Saint Christopher?

SAINT: Yes.

LADY ASTRONAUT: You weren’t a saint yet.

SAINT: What I was, was a giant! 12 cubits – 18 feet – tall. And so I picked up the baby in my arms and started across the river.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Where’s this going?

SAINT: Just listen. So I started across the river, and as I did the baby grew heavy in my arms, heavy, heavy, SO heavy that I could barely carry him. And the waves washed over us, and it was all I could do to keep him above the water.

(Pause. Sound of rain.)

LADY ASTRONAUT: Go on.

SAINT: Just remembering. But I did it. I got to the other side. I got HIM to the other side. And as I lay, wet and panting on the grass of the bank, I told him, I told the baby: "You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were." And the baby looked up at me and said: "You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Baby Jesus, whom you are serving by this work." And you know what happened then? POOF! The baby vanished.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Baby Jesus.

SAINT: Yes.

LADY ASTRONAUT: The baby was Baby Jesus.

SAINT: Yes.

LADY ASTRONAUT: You’d think Baby Jesus could make his own way across the river, don’t you? Being Jesus and all?

SAINT: Oh well. I was happy to help. Say, why don’t you just –

LADY ASTRONAUT: Don’t ask me.

SAINT: You could just –

LADY ASTRONAUT: Nope.

SAINT: Turn the car around?

LADY ASTRONAUT: No.

SAINT: You’ve seen the moon and the stars up close! Like me! The sky is beautiful – isn't that enough.

LADY ASTRONAUT: No.

SAINT: You don’t need to do this. Trust me.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Trust you?

SAINT: Yes.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Trust YOU? Sure. It’s all a lie anyway.

SAINT: What is?

LADY ASTRONAUT: ALL OF IT. The story. The baby. Your 12 or 18 cubits. Your saggy doggy face.

SAINT: I won’t sit still for –

LADY ASTRONAUT: You don’t exist, ok? The Church denied your existence in 1969. Said you were nothing but a myth.

SAINT: It’s not –

LADY ASTRONAUT: A MYTH, OK? YOU’RE NOTHING BUT A GODDAMNED STORY. YOU CAN’T PROTECT ME OR ANY TRAVELER.

SAINT: -

LADY ASTRONAUT: I’m sorry to tell you but it’s true. The church washed its holy hands of you in 1969. My Granpa was so disgusted he took away the statue of you from his dashboard. And he left the Church. And now I’m gonna drive to Tucson and blow my husband’s lover’s damn fool head off. And no dog-faced-saint can stop me. Goddamn. Goddamn.

SAINT: -
One question?

LADY ASTRONAUT: Yes.

SAINT: Your granpa threw the statue away.

LADY ASTRONAUT: That's what I said.

SAINT: So his statue wasn’t in the car when he crashed? When he was –

LADY ASTRONAUT: Decapitated?

SAINT: Right.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Well. No.

SAINT: Pity that. Maybe I could have helped him. If he’d only thought to ask.

LADY ASTRONAUT: We have to ask?

SAINT: We like to be asked. Like dogs, we come when called. Otherwise, we sit and beg or lie sleeping, our legs kicking in a holy dream of fetch and catch. What did you do with the statue?

LADY ASTRONAUT: Huh.

SAINT: What?

LADY ASTRONAUT: Funny.

SAINT: What?

LADY ASTRONAUT: I took it.

SAINT: After he threw it away?

LADY ASTRONAUT: Yes. Took it out of the trashcan in his bathroom. Kept it for myself.

SAINT: And where is it now?

LADY ASTRONAUT: Take the wheel for a sec, will you?

SAINT: My pleasure.
(He reaches over, takes it. She rummages around in the glove compartment. Produces a St. Christopher statue.)

LADY ASTRONAUT: Here.

SAINT: That’s.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Here.

SAINT: That’s.

LADY ASTRONAUT: You. Him. You.

SAINT: Me. They did a nice job with the face, don’t you think? Dashing. That dimple!

LADY ASTRONAUT: I’ll take over, thanks.

SAINT: Don’t mention it.

(She puts the statue on the dashboard. He relinquishes the wheel. She drives. She is somehow calmer.)

LADY ASTRONAUT: That why you came?

SAINT: The statue?

LADY ASTRONAUT: That why you came to me? You saw it here?

SAINT: Maybe. More like – I don’t know. Felt it. heard it.

LADY ASTRONAUT: Heard it?

SAINT: Like dogs, we saints can hear sounds beyond human range of frequency. You still going to Tucson?

LADY ASTRONAUT: Yes.

SAINT: Really.

LADY ASTRONAUT: -
Yes.

SAINT: Really?

LADY ASTRONAUT (Wavering)
I don’t know.
(Hard:)
Yes.
I started out to do it. I gotta finish what I start. Gotta drive forward on the road I planned. That’s the only way to do things. Right?
(Tears are streaming down her face.)

SAINT: Maybe. Or you can turn the car around.

LADY ASTRONAUT: -

SAINT: (Softly:) Or, there’s a Denny’s up ahead. We could stop at Denny’s. You like that? Breakfast?

LADY ASTRONAUT: (Nods.)

SAINT: Yeah. I’d like that too.
(Scratches behind his ear, like a dog.)
Look!

LADY ASTRONAUT: What?

SAINT: The rain stopped.
Sun’s come out.
It’s a brand new day.
Denny’s?

LADY ASTRONAUT: Just for a minute.

SAINT: Okay.

(Sun rises. Day lights up the ASTRONAUT'S face. She blinks, looking forward. Lights very slowly fade.)

END OF PLAY.