(The interior of a blindingly-white office building in downtown Jersey City. The carpeted floor marks the partitions of scores of bright white cubicles, each indistinguishable from any other. The clattering sound of fingers on computer keyboards fills the stale, monitored air.)

(GENERICA and LUXOTTICA, each dressed smartly, sit in adjoining cubicles, each sitting before a computer and a huge stack of blue forms. They wear those silly phone headsets, and type as fast as they can.)

(Light FM workplace radio softly fills the air, further adding to that cotton-ball feeling of bright, muffled sensitivity. The song is by that latest adult contemporary crossover hearthrob act, which means tht the beats are ever so slightly Latin, sweep synthesizers provide the orchestration, and the singer bears a vocal resemblance to Ricardo Montalban.)

SEXPOT DEE JAY

Ooooohhhh yeah... mixing you the best hits of the seventies, eighties, nineties, and today. Turn on the Light. No rap, no hard stuff, just light, eeezzy ninety-three as we eez into another commercial free set of all your lightest favorites. From the motion picture soundtrack to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, it's Manny Lamancha, "Don't Lose That Luz", on Light ninety-three....

MANNY LAMANCHA

(Oh, god... so sensitive, until the big chorus.)

I... I was lost in el darkness

En la deep dark noche

Cruising the city calles

En mi jet black coche

Mi poor little corazon

Felt so dark and negro

Need to find un otra via

Need it awful allegro

 

But then I mira the luz

In the strangest places

I mira la luz deep inside a-me

I busca para la luz

En el whole wide mundo

But I no found it till I reali-i-ized

That the luz was inside-a me

 

In the deep dark dun-geon

With no magic palabra

When I looked for los puertos

None of them were abra

No quiero it to be dark, any mo

The luz is what I need-a

(Building!)

Comin' out to the bright white light

Cambio my whole vida

 

I yi yi mira the luz

When I no was even looking for it

I mira la luz deep inside-a me

No es en los otros

La luz es en ustedes cuerpos

Don't have to hide no mo

'Coz the luz is inside a me!

 

(Gospel choir.)

The luz. It's inside. Inside-a me!

Don't lose. That luz...

(Andrew pads cautiously down the carpeted corridor, yet he displays a newfound confidence. Could it be the smart suit, well-coiffed hair, or fancy French cologne? Perhaps it's that copy of Maurice Blanchot's Writing The Disaster tucked under his arm, or that Jacques Brel tune running through his head. In any case, our protagonist seems a trifle bit..... changed?)

GENERICA

(Seeing GILLIGAN, astonished.) Andrew?!?

LUXOTTICA

Oh, my god, he's gone insane.

GILLIGAN

Um, pardon your friend's, rude remarks at my expense, Ms. Generica. She is, um, probably oh so jealous of the attention to whom, to which I am about to lavish, upon you.

LUXOTTICA

Andrew, why are you talking like that?

GENERICA

(Giggling.) Is this a joke?

(GILLIGAN produces from his Comme de Garcons coat pocket a crumpled geranium.)

GILLIGAN

And this, my, um, sweet, is for you. (GENERICA looks at the poor flower with amazement.) It is always customary to bring flowers, a flower, to a beautiful gi-, aaah, woman.

LUXOTTICA

I demand to know what is going on here.

GENERICA

(Attempting to revive the flower.) I don't think I've ever seen you so...

LUXOTTICA

Clean?

GILLIGAN

(Ignoring LUXOTTICA.) I am taking you for a stroll along the Hudson, a, um, trip to the ballet, a delicious meal, and, uh, maybe something, even after that. (With elan!) And now, let us depart.

GENERICA

Andrew, it's nine o'clock in the morning.

GILLIGAN

Oh. Oh, yeah.

LUXOTTICA

You don't belong here. This is a workplace. You don't work. You play.

GENERICA

I'd love to go, Andrew. But you must, in fact, return later in the day.

GILLIGAN

(Flustered.) I, oh, yeah, I, when?

GENERICA

Five. Nine... to five. Right?

GILLIGAN

But of course. Five then. (Recovering.) Five it is. Five it shall be.

LUXOTTICA

What the hell are you reading?

GILLIGAN

(Swooping on his coat, and nearly decapitating the girls.) Until then, I bid you both, um, adieu.

(Andrew spins away. GENERICA looks after him.)

LUXOTTICA

What a clown.

GENERICA

Oh, he's cute. Beneath it all, he's cute.

LUXOTTICA

You, ah, you keep telling yourself that.

(On the palisaded cliff overlooking the Hudson River. It's drizzling out, but visibility is basically okay. GENERICA and Andrew walk arm in arm; she's sweetly confident, but he's a little nervous. He fusses with his new moustache, and tries to walk in an upright, sophisticated, French manner. Andrew holds the brolly.)

GENERICA

This is quite lovely. It has been such a long time since I've taken a stroll.

GILLIGAN

Yes, I um, find strolls quite invigorating. (Awkward pause.) How long, has it been since, you've taken a stroll?

GENERICA

(But she just answered this question.) A long time.

GILLIGAN

No, but I meant, but, how long, approximately?

GENERICA

You did?

GILLIGAN

Oh, yes. Yes. (Pause.) Undoubtably.

GENERICA

I would approximate it at roughly two months. More specifically, I recall a stroll I took on March the thirteenth, which means that it has been thirty-seven days since my last stroll.

GILLIGAN

(Suavely, knowingly.) Oh, it has, has it?

GENERICA

(After a beat.) Did you fart?

GILLIGAN

What? What!?!

GENERICA

It is okay, if you farted. But I smell something --

GILLIGAN

Oh, yes, that!, (Recovering himself, and behaving like a sophisticated tour guide.) Funny you should ask, because, we are passing one of the more, um, interesting municipal edifices in Jersey City, and, perhaps, I am sure you would like to, up, partake, peruse, its presence.

(He motions to the palisade. Just on the other side of the cliff is a huge municipal waste treatment plant. Two large open turbines, churning sewage, sit roughly fifty feet down from the crest of the cliff, where GENERICA and Andrew stand, arm in arm. They stare down into the abyss. GENERICA looks slightly ill.)

GILLIGAN

The Hudson County Waste Treatment plant.

GENERICA

I, can we, do you come here often?

GILLIGAN

Yes, I have been here, many times. And, it's, the most, biggest waste treatment plant in New Jersey, it's --

GENERICA

Do you think we could, keep on...?

GILLIGAN

Of course.

(They begin walking again.)

Boy, I guess that was, um, unromantic.

GENERICA

(Realizing that Andrew is suddenly looking sad.) Oh, no! No! I actually, thought it was quite romantic.

GILLIGAN

Really?

GENERICA

Oh, yes, I consider cerebral stimulation to be the only truly romantic activity. And besides, I feel very good knowing that all the waste is contained, in a central location. It is very good to know that the waste is so meticulously monitored. And that is, in fact, quite romantic, because it makes me feel very taken care of. So, yes, it was extremely romantic.

GILLIGAN

Wow. (The old Andrew?) Well, there are lots, of great municipal buildings that I can, you wanna go --

GENERICA

No, no, really.

(The interior cafe of the Jersey City ballet. The building looks kind of banged up inside -- for instance, there's a big crack in the brickface facade, and there are exposed ducts in the corner of the room. The ballet staff has attempted to conceal the shabbiness of the space by putting up multi-culti posters. Some are framed, and some have had their frames broken.)

(Andrew has ordered a brioche, and he's eaten about half of it. Andrew and GENERICA sip their coffee at at table nearby the men's bathroom. Throughout their conversation, strange, indeterminate grunting and moaning noises can be heard coming from behind the men's room doors. Andrew and GENERICA do their best to ignore the happenings, and have themselves the leisurely, cultured experience that they came for.)

(Roughly halfway through their conversation, a fat, piggish security guard walks past their table, and busts into the bathroom. His conversation with the "occupants" can be heard, muffled but clearly, by everybody in the cafe. Most, including Andrew and GENERICA, pretend not to notice.)

RECIPIENT

Oh, mother-fuck!

SECURITY GUARD

Okay, break it up. Break it up.

RECIPIENT

(Desperately.) Thirty five, forty five more seconds, man!

SECURITY GUARD

Get the fuck up. Get your fuckin ass --

RECIPIENT

Forty five, man! Forty five seconds.

BESTOWER

It's because you were so damned loud.... Please, please, I'm married, I have a family.

SECURITY GUARD

Ima bust the boffa you in the face.

RECIPIENT

Well I'm going to be dead from blue balls.

SECURITY GUARD

Wank it in the sink, in your pants. But you get the fuck dressed.

BESTOWER

(Hannah Arendt.) You know, this is sposeta be a public bathroom. This is sposeta be public, public sphere, for everybody and however they want to express themselves!

SECURITY GUARD

The two of youse guys is coming with me. Now.

BESTOWER

(Anguished.) What am I going to tell Sarah? I though you said this was a reliable tearoom.

RECIPIENT

Pigs all over the place now.

SECURITY GUARD

You watch your mouf before I buss it in.

RECIPIENT

Forty-five seconds. Oh my aching balls.

(But Andrew and GENERICA are up to no such clandestine shenanigans. They have taken in an exhibition of Ugandan tribal dancing, and GENERICA is knee-deep in the kind of liberal guilt which, as a rule, accompanies the modern dance.)

GENERICA

I cannot thank you enough for taking me to the ballet. It's so... I just do not go to the ballet enough.

GILLIGAN

How often do you go?

GENERICA

Never.

GILLIGAN

Oh.

GENERICA

It isn't usually how I spend dates. Usually, on dates, I take drugs, and screw.

GILLIGAN

Oh, oh really, well, you know, we could --

GENERICA

But you're so different. There's this... sophisticated side of you that I, I have to admit, I've never seen it before.

GILLIGAN

You like it?

GENERICA

(Sipping her coffee.) It's very... compelling. And, I had no idea that you were French. I mean, in college, you were definitely Jewish.

GILLIGAN

Well, there are lots of Jews, in France.

GENERICA

Of course. Of course.

GILLIGAN

(Grandly.) My father, he was a French legionnaire. Alas, I never knew him. He died of the Legionnaire's disease.

GENERICA

I'm sorry.

GILLIGAN

I, I was actually.... (Pause. This is getting out of hand.) Raised by my mother's two sisters.

GENERICA

I could tell that. No really, I could tell that you were raised by women. Because you're respectful. Being raised around women, it makes you have a certain amount of respect.

GILLIGAN

And a certain amount of disrespect.

GENERICA

It's so stimulating to be at the ballet.

GILLIGAN

It's very, um, yes, it is.

 

Return to Fit #4.

Go on ahead to Fit #6.

Take it from the top.