Everyday Monsters

by
Donald E. Baker

A One-Act Play

16 pages, 50-60 minutes

This copy of the script is for perusal only.

No performance of this play is permitted
without express authorization in writing
from the author.

© Donald E. Baker, 2022
910.228.1734
donaldebaker@yahoo.com
109 Ella Kinley Circle Unit 401
Myrtle Beach SC 29588
https://playsbydonaldebaker.com
https://newplayexchange.org/users/13449/donald-e-baker
 SYNOPSIS
A man confronts his abuser 27 years after the fact. Douglas, a White romance novelist, and Timo-
thy, a Black college professor, have a history. Twenty-seven years previously Douglas hired the 13-
year-old Timothy to mow his lawn and subsequently sexually abused him for several months. In the
intervening years Douglas has enjoyed increasing success while Timothy has been mired in fear and
self-loathing. Now Douglas opens his door to discover the grown-up Timothy standing on his door-
step, and he has a gun. Issues of sexual trauma and white power emerge as the two men hurl con-
flicting memories at each other, and the tension builds to a shattering conclusion.

CHARACTERS (2M)
DOUGLAS RYAN NELSON White male, age 67, successful writer of romance novels,
abuser of adolescent boys.
TIMOTHY PARKER Black or mixed-race male, age 40, college professor, one of
Douglas’s victims.

SETTING
A simple set representing the den of the home of a best-selling author. What minimal décor there is,
is masculine in the style of an English gentleman’s club. Two comfortable chairs facing each other,
each with a small end table on its downstage side. Small bar or drinks cart. A door exits to a hallway
that connects to the front door of the house.

TIME
The present.

CONTENT WARNINGS
This play references rape and childhood sexual abuse although neither is depicted on stage. A gun is
seen on stage and there is the sound of a gunshot in darkness.

The script has adult language and content, including the “N-word” for Blacks (once) and the “F-
word” for gay men (twice). Anyone wishing to substitute less impactful words must contact the
playwright and receive permission before doing so.
 1

Night. Lights come up on a comfortable,

cultured man’s retreat, reminiscent of an
English gentleman’s club. Easy chairs, end
tables, a drinks cart/bar. DOUGLAS, a 67-year-
old White novelist, stands holding an advance
copy of his own latest book, The Last Summer,
in one hand and his phone in the other. He is
highly irritated.
Sounds of a phone ringing somewhere in the
universe, then a click, then a recorded
voicemail announcement.
MALE VOICE RECORDING
You have reached Sam Cohn at Lady Fauntleroy Publishing. I am currently not available to take
your call. At the tone please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as
possible.
Sound of a voicemail tone.
DOUGLAS
Sam, this is Doug Nelson. I do not want you to get back to me. What I want you to do is hire a
competent copyeditor. God knows I’ve made you enough money to afford one. I’m going through
The Last Summer again and this time I’m marking all the typos. I’m up to ten and I’m only halfway
through the book. You should be embarrassed to put your name—and mine!—on such shoddy
workmanship. I’m the best-selling author in your catalogue and I swear if you don’t start treating
me and my books with more respect I’m changing publishers.
(Sarcastic.)
Have a good evening.
DOUGLAS puts the book on an end table on
the downstage side of his accustomed chair and
lays his phone on top of it. Knocking is heard.
Then a doorbell.
DOUGLAS (CONT’D)
At this hour?
More insistent knocking.
DOUGLAS (CONT’D)
Hold your horses, I’m coming!
Douglas exits. Sound of a door opening.
DOUGLAS (OFF)
Who the hell are you? You have any idea what time it is?
TIMOTHY (OFF)
Excuse me, sir. I was just wondering if you needed your grass cut.
DOUGLAS (OFF)
… Well, I’ll be damned.
TIMOTHY (OFF)
Oh, I think you can count on that.
 2

DOUGLAS (OFF)
It’s a little late for me to be receiving visitors, but since you’re here you might as well come on in.
I’ve been expecting you.
Douglas enters followed by TIMOTHY, a 40-
year-old Black man. He is dressed as the
college professor he is, including a sport jacket
perhaps right down to the elbow patches. He
looks around, taking in his surroundings.
TIMOTHY
Where are all the books? Back in the day your house was filled with them. Crammed onto shelves,
piled on tables, stacked up on the floor halfway to the ceiling.
DOUGLAS
They’re all up in my study. I can’t write without my books cluttering up my workspace. Make
yourself comfortable.
Douglas indicates the chair opposite his.
Timothy sits. That chair also has an end table
on its downstage side.
DOUGLAS (CONT’D)
Can I get you something to drink?
TIMOTHY
Lemonade?
DOUGLAS
I don’t serve that to guests anymore. How about scotch instead?
TIMOTHY
Whatever.
The dialogue continues during the following
action. Douglas moves to the drinks cart/bar.
He doesn’t notice as Timothy reaches over,
picks up Douglas’s phone, and sticks it in his
jacket pocket. Douglas pours two drinks and
returns to the sitting area, handing Timothy his
drink and seating himself. Throughout the rest
of the play the characters should be free to stay
seated, stand up, or move around the room as
actors and director see fit. Timothy barely sips
his drink but perhaps at some point Douglas
gets himself a refill.
DOUGLAS
God I hate that word.
TIMOTHY
Whatever. What do you mean you were expecting me?
DOUGLAS
I always thought it was possible you’d come looking for me one day. And unless I’m mistaken, that
is a gun in your pocket and you are not happy to see me.
 3

Timothy takes out a gun and places it on the

table next to his chair where it remains in full
view of the audience.
DOUGLAS (CONT’D)
Am I supposed to be intimidated? You don’t really plan to use that. Not my Timothy.
TIMOTHY
Your Timothy? I aged out of that role a long time ago.
DOUGLAS
If you have issues, you have to know shooting me won’t resolve them. So then what’s stopping me
from calling 9-1-1? Law enforcement takes a dim view of armed Black men coming into White
men’s houses in the middle of the night.
TIMOTHY
Hard to do as long as I have your phone.
Timothy reveals the phone and then returns it
to his jacket pocket. He picks up the gun.
TIMOTHY (CONT’D)
But not to worry. I just brought my little friend here in case you needed some incentive to listen to
what I have to say. It isn’t even loaded. See?
Timothy points the gun at the drinks cart and
pulls the trigger. Douglas flinches but the only
sound is a click. Timothy smiles and replaces
the gun on the end table.
DOUGLAS
You didn’t need to go to all that trouble. If you insist on taking a stroll down memory lane I’m
willing to indulge you. It took me a moment to realize who you were. After all, you aren’t thirteen
anymore. That’s how I think of you.
TIMOTHY
And you aren’t forty anymore. That’s how you appear in my nightmares. Even though I know
better. I’ve seen the TV interviews every time Amazon and Barnes and Noble roll out your latest
book. So have your White suburban readers. They have to know as well as I do how out of date
your dust jacket picture is.
DOUGLAS
Those lovely ladies couldn’t care less. They’ve given me a comfortable life for nearly three decades
now and, bless their little love-starved hearts, they keep buying my books. Them and at least one
Black gentleman. Have you read all thirteen or did you stop after your master’s thesis?
TIMOTHY
How do know about that?
DOUGLAS
Your advisor sent me a copy asking for comment.
TIMOTHY
He never told me.
 4

DOUGLAS
He probably didn’t like my answer. “Dear Professor Stephen Stakowsky. Anytime an academic
seeks to analyze or ‘deconstruct’ an author’s work—what does that even mean?—the result is a load
of balderdash. This thesis is no exception. Warm regards, Douglas Ryan Nelson. P.S. If you have
any thought of having this travesty published, think again. If you do, I’ll sue the hell out of you.” …
Oh, Timothy, don’t look so downcast. It’s quite good actually. I don’t buy your conclusions for a
minute, but you write elegantly and persuasively.
TIMOTHY
You should have seen Professor Stakowsky when I told him I wanted to do my thesis on
“Homoerotic Subtext in the Heterosexual Romance Novels of Douglas Ryan Nelson.” I thought it
was interesting that all your uber-rich supposedly straight men seemed to surround themselves with
good-looking valets or male secretaries or chauffeurs or physical trainers or personal chefs, younger
guys who always found something objectionable about any woman their employers got involved
with. Professor Stakowsky naturally expected me to write about Langston Hughes or James
Baldwin, something a little more serious.
DOUGLAS
Something a little more Black.
TIMOTHY
But when I told him I knew you, used to mow your lawn in fact, he let me go ahead with it. As long
I promised I’d choose “something a little more Black” for my doctoral dissertation.
DOUGLAS
Is that all you told him? That you mowed my lawn?
TIMOTHY
I didn’t see any reason to bring up all the gory details. And, yes, I’ve read every one of your books.
Every time a new one comes out I wondered whether that’d be the one I found myself in.
DOUGLAS
Are you sure you’re an English professor?
TIMOTHY
I teach literature. Remedial English is some other poor soul’s problem. But if your grammar-
policing me for putting a preposition at the end of a sentence, nobody cares about that rule anymore.
Except the O-F-F’s.
DOUGLAS
The what?
TIMOTHY
O-F-F’s. Old Fogeys and Fuddy-Duddies. Like/
DOUGLAS
/Watch it. … At least your vocabulary has improved substantially since you were thirteen.
TIMOTHY
I read a lot in my line of work.
DOUGLAS
Well, when you read The Last Summer you may find that for which you are searching.
TIMOTHY
I’ve already been there done that. It’s got a lot of typos by the way.
 5

DOUGLAS
I have every confidence those will be corrected before the finished product hits the store shelves.
Which it has not, so how did you get hold of a it?
TIMOTHY
Four books ago I asked the publisher to start sending me an advance copy of anything you write.
Along with the work of more “literary” writers, of course. I had to maintain some credibility. They
were more than happy to oblige a college professor.
DOUGLAS
Surely they don’t think you’ll ever make my books required reading in one of your classes. “Joyce
Carol Oates and Douglas Ryan Nelson. Compare and contrast their styles and themes.”
TIMOTHY
My colleagues would banish me from the department.
DOUGLAS
Not now that you have tenure.
TIMOTHY
You’ve been following my career?
DOUGLAS
I set up one of those automatic internet searches.
TIMOTHY
Stalking me? Or hoping one day you’d find out I died of something so you could stop listening for
that knock on the door. … Yes, when I read The Last Summer, there I was, finally. Of course you
turned the thirteen-year-old Black lawn boy into a twenty-year-old White yard man and yourself
into a forty-year-old woman looking for one last fling before she dies of cancer. I kept trying to
imagine you as a female Zumba instructor. Turns out my imagination isn’t that good. It’s quite a
departure for you, isn’t it?
DOUGLAS
I got tired of trying to come up with yet another handsome, wealthy man who’s just beginning to get
a little grey at the temples and looks terrific in a tuxedo. … What kept you? Twenty-five years is a
long time.
TIMOTHY
Twenty-seven years.
DOUGLAS
(Sarcastic)
How time flies.
TIMOTHY
I was a little busy, what with finishing middle school and going to high school and then college
after that. Mama was so proud. The first graduate in the family. I guess I should thank you for
providing the scholarship and the living expenses.
DOUGLAS
How did you know? It was supposed to have come from an anonymous donor.
TIMOTHY
Give me a break. I was young. I wasn’t stupid.
 6

DOUGLAS
No. Definitely not stupid. No one would ever have questioned your getting an award in recognition
of your sterling academic record.
TIMOTHY
I figured it was payment for services rendered. Or to keep me dependent going to school while the
statute of limitations clock ran out. Some people might have thought you had a guilty conscience,
but that can’t be it. You’d have to have a conscience to begin with.
DOUGLAS
It was all your mama’s idea.
TIMOTHY
What?
DOUGLAS
As you know, when my second book hit it big I moved to New York.
TIMOTHY
I couldn’t believe you were leaving me.
DOUGLAS
As much as I loved you, I knew I needed to be where the publishing action was, even if it meant
giving you up. Then a couple years later, when my third book did even better, I got a handwritten
letter forwarded through my publisher. Fortunately it was marked “personal and confidential” so
they hadn’t opened it. I’ll never forget the first sentences. “Dear Mr. Nelson. My name is Naomi
Mae Parker. Timothy is my son and I just found out what you done to him.” Her style might not
have been as elegant as yours but it was equally persuasive. She said she didn’t want to go the
police or get a lawyer involved because she thought you’d been through enough trauma already.
Frankly, I was surprised she even knew the meaning of the word.
TIMOTHY
Mama wasn’t book smart, but she was TV smart. Her favorite shows were the ones where people
come on and tell some quack psychologist how miserable their lives are. See there, Timothy, she’d
say. We ain’t got much, but at least we ain’t got those people’s problems. But then one day we were
watching and there were guys talking about how they were abused as kids by priests and teachers
and scout masters. And how the trauma of it affected their lives. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore.
I turned off the TV and ran to my room. Mama followed me and wouldn’t leave me alone till I told
her why I reacted that way. I had to say, “Those guys, Mama, we do have those people’s problems.”
She listened and she held me and she told me she believed me and she loved me. No matter what. I
was so relieved. Even though I never thought anything would come of it. I mean, what could she
do?
DOUGLAS
She could get up the courage to write to the man she thought had abused her son and tell him she
never had a chance for an education but what she wanted most in the world was for you to have
one. Maybe nobody could fix your past, but if I sold enough books maybe I could guarantee your
future. She made me promise, in writing, to provide enough money to put you through school and
keep paying no matter how many degrees you wanted to go for.
TIMOTHY
She never told me. Probably in case you failed to follow through. She didn’t trust promises from
men. Not after one promised to wear a condom and she ended up pregnant with me. When high
school graduation came and they announced that award, she acted as surprised as anybody. … My
 7

counselors said they’d never seen a scholarship that even included payment for physical and mental
health services. That was considerate of you at least. It did pay for the therapy.
DOUGLAS
That was all her idea as well. She wanted to make sure you got help if you needed it. Did it do you
any good?
TIMOTHY
Somewhere along the line I stopped thinking of myself as a victim and started thinking of myself as
a survivor. A small step in a positive direction maybe.
DOUGLAS
But yet here you come knocking at my door. With a gun in your pocket. Loaded or not.
TIMOTHY
There was always one question I could never get answered.
DOUGLAS
What?
TIMOTHY
Why me? … Why me? Was it my fault somehow? Was I sending out subconscious signals that
made you think I wanted you to touch me? Or was it just that I happened to be within reach?
DOUGLAS
That first day when you came to the door of that little bungalow on Primavera Street, asking
whether I needed my grass cut. You looked so tired and discouraged.
TIMOTHY
Mama was working two jobs and still could hardly keep food on the table. I was trying to help out
but I was too young to get a real job. Lawn mowing was all I knew how to do, but the folks in my
neighborhood couldn’t afford to pay to have it done. And the White folks in your neighborhood
were too suspicious of Black kids to let me on their property. I was about ready to give up.
DOUGLAS
I opened my door and there you were. You were so beautiful. Right at that bright shining moment
before the adolescent hormones begin to roughen up a young man’s features.
TIMOTHY
I couldn’t believe you were willing to pay me fifty dollars every other Saturday to do such a
piddling amount of grass. Little front yard, two tiny side yards. And with that swimming pool round
back there was hardly any lawn back there at all. Edging included, it wasn’t more than a couple
hours’ work, even with that antique push mower you had in your garage.
DOUGLAS
I had a feeling you were going to be well worth it. And how right I was. My yard never looked so
good. Even so, my neighbors kept asking if I was sure I wanted a boy like you working around my
house. Oh, yes. I sure did.
TIMOTHY
Mama was thrilled to have that much more money coming in. Even saved up enough to go to
Goodwill and get me an almost new pair of sneakers and herself a nice church dress. She never
looked so proud as she did the first time she wore it.
 8

DOUGLAS
But your mama did have her rules. Rule one. I couldn’t call you “Tim.” It always had to be
“Timothy.”
TIMOTHY
She named me after Paul’s friend Timothy in the Bible and she said Paul never called him “Tim” so
nobody should call me that.

DOUGLAS
Rule two. You couldn’t call me “Doug.” It always had to be “Mister Nelson.”
TIMOTHY
She taught me always to address my elders with respect. And never to call an adult by his first
name. That’d especially be true if the adult were a White man.
DOUGLAS
And rule three. You could never come inside the house.
TIMOTHY
Mama kept telling me, “When it comes to Black boys working for White folks, you can do
whatever they need doin’ out in their yards. But don’t never go in the house. Any little thing goes
missin’, guess who they’re gonna blame. It’d be your word against theirs, and who’s gonna believe
a young Black kid over a White man?”
DOUGLAS
I never could get you to come in and take a break in the air conditioning. And whenever I offered
you some lemonade I had to bring it out to you.
TIMOTHY
Mama’s rules. And I figured they were justified because it seemed like you didn’t really trust me.
You always stood in your window watching me work.
DOUGLAS
Just enjoying the scenery.
TIMOTHY
At first it made me a little uneasy but I got used to it. Just like I got used to you lying by the pool
sunning yourself. Never saw an adult man naked before. Surely not a White man. Had no idea there
was so much hair involved.
DOUGLAS
Caught you glancing my way every once in a while. But that’s all you noticed? The hair?
TIMOTHY
I also noticed what you wanted me to notice.
DOUGLAS
And I noticed how your body reacted.
TIMOTHY
I was thirteen! My friends and I, it was like we’d get hard with little or no provocation whatsoever.
We were always kidding each other about it. Especially if one of us popped a boner in the locker
room. We’d razz him about being queer and being turned on by our beautiful bodies.
 9

DOUGLAS
Guys in locker rooms never stop checking each other out. Life’s all about whose is bigger. And even
with your shorts on it was clear you had nothing to worry about in that department.
TIMOTHY
But you just had to see for yourself, didn’t you? So things started to get a little more intimate. Your
hand on my shoulder when you were pointing out where you wanted something planted. The
requests for me to apply sunscreen to your back. What a cliché. And eventually the swimming
lesson.
DOUGLAS
It must have been ninety-five in the shade. You were working in the back yard with your shirt off
and the sight of you in that blazing sun was amazing. You didn’t seem to sweat like a normal human
being. You just glistened. All over. You had to be burning up. But still you hesitated when I said you
should stop working and jump in the pool with me to cool off.
TIMOTHY
You waved aside my objections. You said I didn’t need a swimsuit because it was just us two guys.
And the backyard was so private the neighbors couldn’t see anything. But then when I told you I
never learned to swim, you ordered me to strip down so you could give me my first lesson. So I got
in the pool. Because the White man told me to. And I got my first lesson alright. My first lesson on
what it feels like to have a man touch me where I shouldn’t have been touched. “Accidentally,” of
course. What wasn’t accidental was when we were drying off and you started asking whether I ever
played with myself and talking about how every guy does it and how much more fun it was when
two guys did it together. When you took my penis in your hand I finally got up the nerve to say
“no.”
DOUGLAS
But your cock said yes. Emphatically.
TIMOTHY
Thirteen! It had a mind of its own.
DOUGLAS
Did it? Did it really?
TIMOTHY
When it was over I got out of there as fast as I could.
DOUGLAS
But there you were again the next scheduled Saturday, punctual as always.
TIMOTHY
I really wanted to quit. But if I did, I’d have to tell Mama why we wouldn’t be getting that extra
money anymore. If I had got up the courage I might have found out a lot earlier how much she
loved me. But at that point I was afraid she’d blame me for what happened. That she’d start looking
at me like I looked at myself in the mirror. So, yeah, I came back. Every other Saturday I cut your
grass even though I knew that wasn’t really what I was getting paid for.
DOUGLAS
Still needed my lawn mowed.
TIMOTHY
But the fifty dollars depended on what I let you do to me after I put the mower away.
 10

DOUGLAS
I could hardly wait for your Saturdays. Between times I dreamed about you. Lovely, lovely dreams.
TIMOTHY
I started dreaming about you, too.
DOUGLAS
Really?
TIMOTHY
Terrible, terrible nightmares. I was always being smothered under the weight of you.
DOUGLAS
I don’t believe you. That next Saturday after the swim lesson you followed me into the house. For
the first time. I didn’t even have to ask.
TIMOTHY
Rules were being broken. What was one more? So there I was, dodging those stacks of books while
you led me to the bedroom. And the biggest bed I ever saw. Books on the bedside table, of course. I
still remember the titles. Peter Pan. The Picture of Dorian Gray. A Death in Venice. The Front
Runner. I hadn’t read them yet, of course, but now I think I can detect a theme for your late-night
reading. And there was art all over the place, all of it depicting young men or boys.
DOUGLAS
What better subject for the artist than the youthful male form? The smooth skin, the natural muscle
tone, the innocent glow.
TIMOTHY
I have to tell you, that painting over the bed was the scariest thing I ever saw. A gigantic nasty black
bird carrying off a young boy.
DOUGLAS
One of the finest stories in all of Greek mythology. Ganymede was the most beautiful mortal on
earth. Zeus the king of the gods fell in love with him the first moment he saw him. He took the form
of an eagle and transported him to Mount Olympus where Ganymede would never age and they
could be together forever. That legend was the foundation for the sublime ancient Greek custom of
an older man choosing a boy on the cusp of manhood to initiate into the ways of love. The two were
joined by the mystical ties of affection ever afterwards.
TIMOTHY
Sounds to me like something dreamed up by dirty old men to justify lusts that would were
condemned in other cultures. And old Zeus was the kinkiest god ever dreamed up by the mind of
man. Before he raped one woman he turned himself into a bull. First time I read that I really felt
sorry for her. Showed up as a swan another time. And once he did it as a golden shower of rain. And
we both know what golden showers refers to when it comes to sex. And of course, there was that
business of becoming an eagle—a raptor fittingly enough—so he could kidnap that little boy.
DOUGLAS
He was a young man.
TIMOTHY
Whatever. Sometimes in the heat of the moment you called me Ganymede.
DOUGLAS
But you never called me Zeus.
 11

TIMOTHY
God, no. … Huh. See what I did there?
DOUGLAS
Zeus. God. I get it, but if that was intended to be a joke, you should be ashamed of yourself.
TIMOTHY
I’ve been ashamed of myself every hour of every day for the past twenty-seven years. … When I
took art appreciation in college I identified your other art pieces. The photographic print of the
Discus Thrower.
DOUGLAS
The epitome of athletic fluidity and grace.
TIMOTHY
At the time I just thought it was a naked guy with a Frisbee. Then there was that famous kid decked
out in the faggoty-est blue suit I ever saw.
DOUGLAS
Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy,” standing there in all his glory, brimming with confidence in his own
vitality and budding masculinity.
TIMOTHY
More like brimming with confidence in the White privilege and power he’d inherit as a member of
the British aristocracy. But back then, all I could think of was what would happen to him if he ever
walked into our schoolyard wearing that outfit. And of course on a pedestal in a place of honor,
Michaelangelo’s “David.” Somebody told me once you can always tell when a guy’s gay because
that statue would be in his house somewhere.
DOUGLAS
Until you walked into my life I thought he was the ideal representation of young manliness,
vulnerable in his nakedness but serenely self-assured in his ability to shoot a stone from his sling
smack into the fatal spot in the middle of Goliath’s forehead
TIMOTHY
I would gladly have shot a stone into your forehead when you had me stand next to it that one time.
Posing just like him.
DOUGLAS
Ebony and ivory. Or in that case, flesh and marble. It was beautiful.
TIMOTHY
It was humiliating.
DOUGLAS
Seeing you and the David together, I think that’s when I knew I was in love with you.
TIMOTHY
You didn’t love me. You wanted to possess me. You wanted to own me just like you owned that
stupid statue. Standing there naked with a White man looking me up and down, I felt like one of my
ancestors up there on the auction block.
DOUGLAS
It wasn’t like that.
 12

TIMOTHY
Yes it was. It was exactly like that. … I learned a lot of things in that bedroom. Too many things
while you were taking what you wanted from my body and stealing more and more of my soul. But
most importantly I learned how to check out. How to totally shut down. How to send my mind
someplace else—anywhere else—until you were finished with me and I could finally go home.
Until the next time.
DOUGLAS
I tried that once, too.
TIMOTHY
What?
DOUGLAS
My Uncle Billy. Whenever he came to visit. He’d get me alone. I was even younger than you.
Twelve. He said if I told anyone he’d hurt my little brother Freddie. At first I tried to do what you
said you did, pretend it wasn’t happening. But you know what? Pretty soon I started to enjoy it.
TIMOTHY
Is that what you hoped would happen with me? That I’d start to want you like you wanted me?
DOUGLAS
There was always hope. You stopped saying “no.”
TIMOTHY
You were a grown-ass White man, bigger and heavier and stronger than I was. What good did “no”
ever do me?
DOUGLAS
When Uncle Billy realized I liked what he did to me, that ended it. He told me, “I hate queers. And
that’s what you are, nothing but a goddamned little queer. You disgust me.”
TIMOTHY
You disgusted him?
DOUGLAS
Apparently he convinced himself he wasn’t a queer as long as he didn’t have sex with queers. Of
course he kept coming around. He was family after all. But he’d hardly look at me. On the other
hand, when Freddie got a little older Uncle Billy started looking at him. And I was so jealous.
TIMOTHY
You still wanted him? After what he said to you?
DOUGLAS
No. I wanted Freddie.
TIMOTHY
Your own brother.
DOUGLAS
By then he was so good looking. Almost as pretty as you.
TIMOTHY
Jesus!
 13

DOUGLAS
When I saw Uncle Billy go into Freddie’s bedroom, I went and told my father what I thought was
going on. When he barged through that door and saw Uncle Billy with his pants down he just
started hitting him. Hitting him and hitting him until he was hardly recognizable. I never saw him
again. My father didn’t know it, but that day he wasn’t just protecting Freddie from Uncle Billy. He
was protecting him from me. As tempted as I was, the memory of that beating was enough to make
me keep my distance. Of course other temptations started coming my way. First guys my own age.
But as I got older, the boys I was attracted to didn’t. I guess I thought, if I couldn’t be Uncle Billy’s
Ganymede, then maybe I could find one of my own.
TIMOTHY
I think I may be sick.
DOUGLAS
And then one day Ganymede was standing right there on my doorstep. You were obviously so very
special.
TIMOTHY
Bullshit. Bull! Shit! All I was, was there. A boy with no father to protect him. And I was still there
as lawn mowing gave way to leaf raking and then snow shoveling. I thought it was going to go on
forever. I could hardly believe it when you said you were moving to New York. I figured you were
leaving because the acne kicked in after I turned fourteen and I wasn’t as pretty anymore.
DOUGLAS
Unfortunately mortal Ganymedes do age. As much as one might wish otherwise.
TIMOTHY
I am not your Ganymede!
DOUGLAS
No. You’re not. My Ganymede was thirteen. Black skin against my white sheets. Curious.
Compliant. Willing. Eager.
TIMOTHY
No! That wasn’t me. I wasn’t there.
DOUGLAS
Are you sure? Because if that wasn’t you, it was someone who looked exactly like you. You say you
learned things? Well so did he. And he learned fast. He learned what he liked and his voice learned
how to ask for it. His hands learned how to explore my body. And when I kissed him, his lips
learned how to kiss me back./
TIMOTHY
/No.
DOUGLAS
Think about it, Timothy. When did I ever force you to do anything? When did I ever threaten you?
When did I ever hit you or bruise you or do anything to mar that flawless body? When did I ever
touch you except with gentleness and/ love?
TIMOTHY
/Stop! It wasn’t that way. You made me do things I didn’t want to. You made me.
DOUGLAS
You sure about that? … Are you?
 14

TIMOTHY
I’ve spent my whole life trying like hell to prove that boy, that lousy little faggot you remember,
couldn’t have been me. When I got to high school and the girls started to pay attention, I’d go as far
as they’d let me. Sometimes farther than they wanted me to. And then I bragged about it in the
locker room so the other guys could see what a real man I was. And if I caught some guy looking at
me funny, I’d call him out. Nobody was going to say I was some weakling who couldn’t stand up
for himself. I wore my cuts and bruises like trophies. Mama hated them.

She much preferred the real trophies I brought home. I went out for every available sport. Except
wrestling. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand having another guy on top of me pinning me down.
And I had to be the best in all of them. I desperately needed my coaches to keep telling me how
good I was. Mama was so proud. She loved wearing my varsity letter jacket to the games.

She was proud of my academic awards, too. I fed on praise from my teachers so I studied like my
life depended on it. In a lot of ways it did. I didn’t have much time left over for self-destructive
behaviors like drugs and alcohol. Other guys with histories like mine weren’t so fortunate. But
mostly I got it all out in the workout room. Twenty more reps. Ten more pounds on the weight
machine. Another few rounds pretending the punching bag had your face on it.

But those sessions with the punching bag were the only times there was any real emotion involved
in any of it. I didn’t play basketball or study David Copperfield because I enjoyed it. I certainly
didn’t love any of the girls I forced myself on. It was all mechanical.

Still is. I’ve been married twice. And divorced twice. Both my wives complained I was so
emotionally distant they couldn’t tell if I really loved them or not. Same with my kids. I was so
afraid to touch them, I never hugged them. Never played with them. Never roughhoused with my
son. I might as well not have been there. (Beat.) Exactly a week ago it was Zander’s birthday.
DOUGLAS
Who?
TIMOTHY
Zander. My son. It was his birthday. You know how old he was?
DOUGLAS
How would I know that?
TIMOTHY
He was thirteen. Thirteen. And I looked at him and I was thirteen all over again. It all came flooding
back. The fear. The helplessness when you touched me. The guilt and the shame afterwards. Every
last bit of it. I don’t care what your own childhood was like. I don’t care what your Uncle Billy did
to you. Or what you did or did not do to your little brother. Or your sick fantasies about Zeus and
Ganymede. You did not have any right to touch me. And goddammit, you didn’t have any right to
turn me into your little nigger whore!
After a moment Douglas performs a sarcastic
slow clap.
DOUGLAS
Bravo! And the Academy Award goes to … Truly. A brilliant monologue. Perfect three-act structure,
each one tailored to a specific audience.
TIMOTHY
Bastard.
 15

DOUGLAS
I suppose the first act, your highly colored account of the swimming lesson and its aftermath, was
what you ended up telling your mama. Then the second act, the high school years. How your
therapists must have drooled as you told them stuff you probably copied right out of some book of
case studies you found in the university library.
TIMOTHY
No, damn you. It’s all true. It all happened.
DOUGLAS
And finally the third act, the family man, obviously written especially for me. I’m honored. Was the
last brilliant bit about your son’s birthday party intended finally to be that stone to my forehead?
You named him Zander? Really? Short for Alexander? As in Alexander the Great, the gayest world
conqueror in history? My God, Freud would have a field day with that.
TIMOTHY
You can think whatever you want. Build your walls of self-justification as high and wide as you
please. But when I looked at my son. My beautiful, thirteen-year-old son. What I was most afraid of
was staring me right in the face.
DOUGLAS
That you were queer all along.
TIMOTHY
Why the hell would that matter at this late date? No. What I realized in that moment, watching
Zander blow out his thirteen candles, is, I am not just the boy you abused. God help me, I am also
the man you created in your own image. (Beat.) That’s when I knew I had to do something. I don’t
know how many other damaged boys have come off your assembly line. But it’s well past time to
shut it down.
DOUGLAS
Your son. Your “beautiful” son. Have you finally touched him?
TIMOTHY
No.
DOUGLAS (CONT’D
Don’t you mean “not yet”? So. Now that you’re here. Exactly what’re you planning to do?
TIMOTHY
It doesn’t seem fair, does it? I’ve been serving a life sentence of suffering. I’ve been mired in self-
loathing and fear since the day you first laid hands on me. But you? Probably the worst problem
you’ve ever had was figuring out where your next boy was coming from. You’ve never suffered a
day in your life. So how do we start to even the score? Well, as you said yourself, I can write
elegantly and persuasively. So I sat down and wrote my story. Our story. Every sordid detail. And
tomorrow it’ll land on desks at The New York Times, The Atlantic Magazine, CBS, and CNN. Can’t
you just see the headline: “Famous novelist accused of child molestation.” And once the story
breaks, I’m willing to bet more accusers with more stories will find their voices. Your reputation
will be in shreds. Your publisher will drop you. I wouldn’t bother writing a fourteenth book if I
were you.
DOUGLAS
What about your own reputation? A whole lot of people will refuse to believe a Black man over a
White man. I thought you learned that lesson at your mama’s knee. No matter how much you deny
it, some folks will assume you led me on. Or that you could have stopped it if you’d wanted to. And
 16

as much as I love you, I’ll have to sue you for defamation. How much lawyering-up can you afford
on your pitiful salary from that underfunded HBCU you teach at? I can afford the best. You’d be
ruining both of us.
TIMOTHY
Don’t you get it? That’s the point. Monsters have to be destroyed. Not just exotic legendary
monsters, but also ordinary everyday monsters like you and me. It’s just too bad I won’t be around
to watch your descent into hell.
DOUGLAS
What do you mean?
Timothy picks up the gun, takes ammunition
out of his pocket, and begins loading it.
TIMOTHY
I think I’ve suffered enough for one lifetime, don’t you? So in less than a minute my nightmares
will all be over and I’ll finally be at peace. But Mr. Nelson, your nightmares are just beginning.
Here’s one last memory of “your Timothy.”
Timothy puts the gun to his temple. Douglas
starts to lunge for it.
BLACKOUT
DOUGLAS (FROM THE DARKNESS)
No!
Sound of a gunshot.
END OF PLAY