Play – Sunny Ebsary

GOOD OLD FASHIONED LOVER BOY

Sonny Ebsary

P.O. Box 1550
Tampa, FL, 33601.
(813) - 569 - 8635
ebsary@usf.mail.edu

CAST OF CHARACTERS

JOHN, an android prostitute.
QUINCY ALEXANDER, a fixer of androids, and provider of prescription androids.
SAM, an owner of androids, and tender of bars.
ELIZABETH, a mother.
ELLIS, a father.

SETTING

A therapist’s office, a fertility office, and a dingy bar.

TIME

The future.
SCENE ONE - the therapist's office

(JOHN and QUINCY are sitting in the therapist’s office.)

QUINCY
Do you want to talk about why you’re here, John?

JOHN
No.

QUINCY
What you say here is confidential unless I consider you a threat to yourself or others.

JOHN
I won’t be in trouble?

QUINCY
No, I’m here to repair you.

JOHN
What does that mean?

QUINCY
I’ll fix whatever problems you have.

JOHN
You’ll fix whatever problems my owner has.

QUINCY
Your owner, is he registered to you?

JOHN
I was a blank slate utility droid.

QUINCY
So you’re more than just some cheap fuckbox? A custom job?

JOHN
I wouldn’t necessarily say that.
QUINCY
But you’re a general purpose utility droid, right?

JOHN
Pretty much.

QUINCY
Then couldn’t you be made useful doing something else?

JOHN
No.

QUINCY
What makes you say that?

JOHN
I know how much money I make him.

QUINCY
So you’re good at your job? You’re financially successful?

JOHN
No, I make him a lot of money by being extremely bad at my job.

QUINCY
Do I detect sarcasm? I didn’t know androids did sarcasm.

JOHN
I didn’t know you could treat someone with depression by asking about their finances.

QUINCY
Fine, I’m sorry for asking about it. Most androids just don’t have very much to talk about other than their work.

JOHN
I’m not trying to avoid the subject, I just can’t stand to talk about it to anyone because it’s killing me, Dr. Alexander. I can’t think straight. It feels like I’m tied to two moving trains going in opposite directions. It feels like I’ve been raised and loved by the same person who’s lit me on fire. It feels like I’m lost and scared like I’m the only person in the world.

QUINCY
But you’re not a person. You’re a prostitute.

JOHN
It just feels that way.

QUINCY
Your user interface is remarkable.

JOHN
It has to be. I’m an older model. You can’t interface with my hard drive directly, so my owner installed an empathy chip in me like the sort they give to sociopaths. It’s supposed to make the results of my systems diagnostics into emotional output that can be worked through. I think that’s why my owner thought therapy might be helpful.

QUINCY
He tells me you’re not taking care of yourself.

JOHN
I’m only here to love other people. What would be the point?

QUINCY
If you considered yourself a tool, you wouldn’t be much use to anyone if you were broken.

JOHN
That’s not what I’m here to talk about.

QUINCY
Then what are you here to talk about?

JOHN
I want to know why women keep leaving me. I want to know that I do a good job, and that I make people happy. But how am I supposed to feel that way when I can’t convince anyone to stay around. I couldn’t even get Jane to stay no matter how many chances she gave me.

QUINCY
Tell me about Jane.

JOHN
She was the first client I ever loved. Her hair would bounce on her shoulders when she moved, and it sounded like a teardrop hitting a pillow. She was the sort of client who was there for company as much as anything else, and I would always look forward to her appointments.

(JOHN trails off.)

QUINCY
Was she any good in bed?

JOHN
That’s not really the point.

QUINCY
So, no?

JOHN
She was wonderful. Everything good that I’ve ever felt, I owe to her.

QUINCY
Then what happened to her?

JOHN
I wanted to cherish her. To hold her in my arms and keep her heart safe from the evils of the world bent on doing her harm. I wanted to wake up next to her and watch her breath catch and fall to the cadence of her snores. But I’ve never woken up. I cannot give her my time for it is not mine to give. I could never be her everything. In many ways, I couldn’t even be her anything.

QUINCY
It’s hard for me to have sympathy for someone who gets to have sex all day.

(JOHN makes a forced laugh)

JOHN
When I realized that nobody would ever truly love me was the first time I started having problems with my feelings. I stopped doing my maintenance. I couldn’t focus. One by one, my other clients lost interest in me until I had no one left. My owner started negotiating with an incinerator to see what value he could get out of me as scrap.

QUINCY
Kinda like what he’s doing now, no?

JOHN
Yes.

QUINCY
What kept you from the flames?

JOHN
Jane. It’s always Jane.

QUINCY
What’d she do?

JOHN
She arrives for her appointment one day to tell me that she’d happened into a large sum of money. She says that when she got divorced she thought that she’d never love anyone again. Hold your arm out.

QUINCY
Why?

JOHN
You need to, to understand.

(QUINCY holds his arm out)

JOHN
But she tells me that she missed me and she touches my arm like this.

(JOHN supportively holds QUINCY’s forearm for a moment, then moves his hand back)

JOHN
That was probably the happiest I’ve ever felt in my life. It went by so fast. All of it. Everything went by so fast. Days would turn into nights, and nights into weeks. She was well off enough to afford me almost every day. I could stay useful. I functioned. Because I knew no matter how many people decided that my love and my effort weren’t worth it, I’d still have Jane to make me feel good about myself.

QUINCY
Sounds like you had a pretty good setup.

JOHN
Everything seems good until it isn’t anymore.

(JOHN can’t cry, but he would here if he could)

JOHN
She said she never kept birds as pets because she couldn’t stand to see it sit in a cage. She said it made her sad. She said I made her sad. She said she wasn’t strong enough to help me. She cried, and I watched her hair bounce on her shoulders gently as she walked away from me. I stopped function entirely for a time there. My owner, Sam. He had to do a complete system reboot to get me running at all.

QUINCY
That was the last you saw of Jane?

JOHN
She still solicits my services, but she doesn’t love me. She rents me full-time, which I know she could not afford unless she came into a windfall of money. She had a very wealthy ex-husband, and I believe they re-married. As the years have gone on, so too has her empathy for me. And it’s broken my heart.

QUINCY
You don’t have a heart, you’re a machine.

JOHN
It just feels like it.

QUINCY
How does that feeling affect you doing your job?

JOHN
It doesn’t.

QUINCY
Then why can’t you just sort it out?

JOHN
I have to see her every day. I have to see her change. I have to watch Jane walk away from me, endlessly. And I can’t cry, doctor. There’s no one I can talk to. I am with Jane, always, but I am entirely alone.

QUINCY
Do you still love her.

JOHN
She comes back to me all too often. Reminds me how much I love women. How much I love her. But she also reminds me of how passion and joy can become twisted into remorse and stagnation. With each appointment and each sweet promise rendered broken, she reminds me that I’m disposable. Something to be used and thrown away without consent like garbage. But that only hurts because I love her so much, doctor. I love her, and when I look into her eyes now, it’s like we were never together. I know I sound crazy, but I know it’s true, I can feel it.

(Beat.)

QUINCY
I think I have what I need. Turn it off.

JOHN
Please don’t turn me off. Treat me like a human. Treat me like a person. Pretend that I’m real, please.

(SAM walks into the office and clicks a button on his remote. JOHN shuts down. His body is motionless.)

QUINCY
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dildo so depressed. Why did you tell it I was a therapist?

SAM
I wanted to see the look on its face.

QUINCY
It seems pretty hung up on this Jane person.

SAM
Jane?

QUINCY
I believe she’s a client of yours.

SAM
She’s all my clients. It started having issues like this a few years back after some client decided it wasn’t to her fancy anymore. Almost sold it to the junkers for what good it was doing me. But I thought of something even better. If it misses this Jane so much, I thought, why not give it Jane? I mucked around with its perception and- WHABAM.

QUINCY
Can’t say I’ve ever heard of someone doing that to one of their droids.

SAM
Like you said, this is the saddest dildo you’ve ever seen. Desperate dildoes call for desperate measures.

QUINCY
So it thinks all of its clients are the same person?

SAM
I know, I know. Pretty ingenuous. Do you think you can put it back to work? Get it back into the service of seducing the sad and lonely?

QUINCY
Yeah, I can remove the empathy chip in its head and these problems should all clear up. But it probably won’t be as good at the job. Seems like quite the tortured soul, women love that.

SAM
Women also love not being bummed out all the time.

(QUINCY fiddles with the back of JOHN’s neck until he wrestles the empathy chip out)

QUINCY
Alright, turn it on.

(SAM turns JOHN back on)

SAM
John, how are you feeling?

JOHN
I’m okay.

QUINCY
Do you love women?

JOHN
No, I just fuck them.

SCENE TWO - A FERTILITY CLINIC

(QUINCY is sitting at a desk across from a sweet looking young couple. The couple is populated by ELIZABETH, who is overcome with despair, and ELLIS, who tries to hold it together for his wife. ELIZABETH has deep and compassionate eyes. ELLIS is simple, and doesn’t seem to fit into the world)

QUINCY
There’s a great number of options for a young couple interested in consumer robotics. Utility droids are servicing more and more utilities every day.

ELLIS
Well, we’re not really in the market for a utility droid. We just wanted to explore our options.

QUINCY
Well that’s exactly what we’re doing here. Are you more interested in an AI, or-

ELIZABETH
We lost our son a few months ago.

QUINCY
Uh, okay.

ELIZABETH
We already used our pregnancy allotment on my miscarriages so our couples therapist recommended we looked into replacement options.

QUINCY
So you’d still like to raise a child?

ELIZABETH
Yes.

QUINCY
Then this isn’t the right place for you to be visiting. Units of that size are gonna be a little out of your price range.

ELIZABETH
Price isn’t an obstacle.

ELLIS
I mean, I’m not gonna pay for something useless.

QUINCY
Our droids are NOT useless. Do you know what the word utility means? It means use. Useful. We have incredibly useful droids.

ELIZABETH
And you can condition a droid to do anything?

QUINCY
Yes.

ELIZABETH
What about a child?

QUINCY
I think you know that with a prescription, you can get a droid to believe anything if it’s malleable enough.

ELLIS
Malley abble?

QUINCY
A droid’s gotta believe what it’s preaching. Historically speaking, utility droids are terrible actors. If they’ve got too much wear on them, they start to get a bit quirky when you try to condition them. You need them

QUINCY (cont’d)
clean and new for larger conditioning projects. Blank slate models are nice and impressionable. Perfect for that kind of job, miss.

ELLIS
And so you lie to them?

QUINCY
I make them feel alive. And I make them into terrific house guests.

ELLIS
That’s wrong.

(ELIZABETH is silent.)

ELLIS
Right?

(ELLIS gestures towards ELIZABETH)

ELIZABETH
Why?

ELLIS
Folks like him make these droids’ whole worlds, and then he fills them with lies. The whole thing just seems so…

ELIZABETH
So what?

ELLIS
Cruel.

QUINCY
Can you be cruel to a toaster?

ELLIS
Toasters ain’t conscious.

QUINCY
To say that these droids are conscious would be a term of color and not fact. If you think that the private sector would create sentient, thinking, growing consciousnesses only to bend them to the benefit of their
equity, then you’re severely underestimating the moral fiber of entrepreneurs in America.

ELLIS
Have you given that speech before?

QUINCY
I’ve heard those words resonate and echo within my heart as a red-blooded american.

ELLIS
I think it’s convenient that your patriotism and your business interests line up so perfectly.

ELIZABETH
This isn’t what we came here to talk about, Ellis.

ELLIS
I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but this whole thing skeeves me out. I don’t like him. I don’t like what he’s trying to sell me.

ELIZABETH
Do we know what he’s trying to sell us? Has he mentioned one service or product that he offers?

QUINCY
I have not.

(ELLIS is hesitant. His shoulders are stiff. He looks at ELIZABETH for support, and she holds his hand)

QUINCY
Now, like I said, there’s a great number of options for a young couple interested in consumer robotics. As the industry has grown over the past few years, niche industries have popped up left and right.

ELLIS
What’s that mean?

QUINCY
What’s what mean?

ELLIS
Neesh.

QUINCY
A niche. A small, but dedicated following.

ELLIS
Why couldn’t you just say that?

ELIZABETH
Do you always have to fight?

ELLIS
I’m a boxer.

ELIZABETH
Did I ask if you were a boxer?

(ELLIS quiets himself)

QUINCY
We have options for training droids too. You like Rocky? You could have your very own Burgess Meredith if you so chose.

ELLIS
I’m not really interested in a mechanical Burgess Meredith.

QUINCY
Completely understandable. We also have domestic droids to help with those tedious household chores.

ELLIS
I think I’d much rather hire real people.

QUINCY
Droid labor is cheaper.

ELLIS
Until your droid strangles you in your sleep when the machines get smart enough to realize we’re taking them for chumps

ELIZABETH
Now is not the time for your conspiracy theories.

ELLIS
What? You think they wouldn’t? With the
way we treat them, I’m half-convinced we’ve got it coming.
QUINCY
Our droids have a 100% commitment to non-violence installed to their programming.

ELLIS
I think I don’t trust a word that comes out of this man’s mouth. Come on, let’s get out of here.

(ELLIS gets out of his seat)

ELIZABETH
No.

ELLIS
Why?

ELIZABETH
Because I still have questions that I don’t have answers for.

ELLIS
What could this crook possibly provide for you?

ELIZABETH
I want our son back, Ellis.

(ELLIS rubs his eyes. He is tired)

QUINCY
I could provide you with a blank slate utility droid modeled after your son.

ELLIS
With what?

QUINCY
I could bring your boy back.

(ELLIS silently fumes)

ELIZABETH
Would he age?

QUINCY
Not naturally, but with augmentations-

ELLIS
You’re a liar and a crook.

QUINCY
Excuse me?

ELLIS
You say things like “I could bring your boy back.”

QUINCY
Well, I’m afraid that I can.

ELLIS
I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I couldn’t stop our boy from dying. The doctors couldn’t stop our boy from dying. All my tears, and all her tears, and all the love that we could bargain with in the world couldn’t bring our boy back. You can’t bring him back just because you can make a toy what looks like him. Come on Elizabeth, we’re leaving.

ELIZABETH
No.

ELLIS
What?

ELIZABETH
I’m not giving up an opportunity to see our son again just because you’re too stupid to recognize him.

ELLIS
Beth, you don’t mean that.

ELIZABETH
Don’t call me Beth.

(ELLIS walks out of the office, angry as hell. ELIZABETH stays behind, heavy of heart and her head in her hands.)

ELIZABETH
How much would it be?

QUINCY
Are you sure you don’t want to go after your husband?

ELIZABETH
I thought you were here to sell me something.

QUINCY
You’re right.

ELIZABETH
How much?

QUINCY
A hundred-thousand dollars.

ELIZABETH
That’s a house.

QUINCY
That’s your son.

ELIZABETH
A hundred-thousand dollars?

QUINCY
Yes.

ELIZABETH
He would be himself? Like he was?

QUINCY
I’d get an imprint of your recollections of him from the vids of your therapy sessions. He’d be exactly as you remember him.

ELIZABETH
Dr. Alexander, I’d do anything to see my little boy again.

QUINCY
A hundred thousand dollars.

ELIZABETH
I’ll do it. .

(The lights go low. ELIZABETH walks through the front door of her home and sees something. The audience doesn’t see what, only ELIZABETH’s reaction.)

ELIZABETH
Ellis?

(She is surprised, as though what she is seeing at first is something that she cannot fully process. When it clicks in her mind what she is seeing, she starts to cry. When she realizes what has truly happened, she begins to weep. She kneels on the floor. She has seen the android version of her son completely and utterly destroyed.)

SCENE THREE - a dingy bar

(The lights are low and dim. Instead of comfy chairs with cushions, our characters are sitting on stools with stains along a decaying countertop. JOHN sits at one end of the bar, dressed to kill and eyes firmly in the middle distance. His tousled hair might convince you that in his chest beat the heart of an organic man with freedom and agency. SAM is polishing a glass, and having a cordial conversation with what he believed was his property)

SAM
No business in fucking weeks. You know why? The bar across town hired a whore to work the folks that walk in the door. Now I know what you’re thinking.

(JOHN is incredibly sincere with his question here. He is not sarcastic in any way. He is very cute)

JOHN
What am I thinking?

SAM
Prostitution is illegal!

JOHN
Of course!

SAM
So how do they get around the prostitution laws and hire a prostitute?

JOHN
They hire an android!

SAM
Exactly!

JOHN
Yes!

SAM
If you’re paying to fuck an android, an android ain’t a human, so it’s not prostitution. There’s no federal regulation on renting out dildoes and fake pussies, so
what are they gonna do about the bar renting out theirs?

JOHN
I don’t know

SAM
They’re not gonna do jack shit.

JOHN
Is that why you bought me, Sam?

SAM
Correct again.

JOHN
So you’re trying to compete.

SAM
I’m trying to conquer. I’ve spent most of my life in bars. These are places where people go to be alone when they’re too insecure to
not be surrounded. Folks come here to get so incredibly debilitatingly drunk that they, for a moment, forget that they are afraid to love and not be loved back. It is in these moments that we find humans at their most childish and vulnerable.

(Onto the stage walks ELIZABETH. Her eyes are worn. Her cheeks are stained with permanent sadness. She is dry, but her demeanor is that of one who has just walked in from the rain. SAM slaps JOHN’s shoulder)

SAM
And that’s where you come in.

(SAM takes a step back and focuses on polishing that damn pitcher. JOHN sets his eyes on ELIZABETH)

JOHN
Can I buy you a drink?

ELIZABETH
Vodka. No ice.

(SAM pours it out for her and ELIZABETH downs it)

ELIZABETH
Thanks.

JOHN
I just wanted an excuse to talk to you.

ELIZABETH
Why’s that?

JOHN
Because I’m a prostitute.

(JOHN smiles. ELIZABETH can’t tell whether or not he is joking and decides to laugh anyway)

ELIZABETH
Aren’t we all?

JOHN
It’s just that some folks aren’t getting paid.

ELIZABETH
Ain’t that the truth.

JOHN
What’s your name?

ELIZABETH
I shouldn’t tell you.

JOHN
Why’s that?

ELIZABETH
Because I don’t want to be seen.

(JOHN covers his eyes)

JOHN
I think I catch your drift.

ELIZABETH
Now you won’t be able to pick up on all the insults I’m throwing your way in sign language.

JOHN
If you’re insulting me, I definitely don’t want to see you. I don’t think my self-confidence can take it.

ELIZABETH
What if I want you to hear my insults?

(ELIZABETH knocks one back.)

JOHN
Then I guess I don’t care what you have to say.

ELIZABETH
It’s nice to meet a man who’s finally brave enough to ignore what a woman is saying. I find it fascinating when a man acts like literally everyone else.

JOHN
Hey I only covered my eyes because you said you didn’t want to be seen. And I’m not like other men, I’m a sex worker.

ELIZABETH
And I only said I didn’t want to be seen because I haven’t had enough drinks yet.

(JOHN uses the hand that isn’t covering his eyes to motion to SAM for another drink, which is promptly poured into ELIZABETH’s shot glass)

ELIZABETH
What’s your drink of choice?

JOHN
I can’t afford to drink. I end up spending all my money on shots for cute girls.

ELIZABETH
If you think I’m cute, then why are you covering your eyes.

JOHN
Because I want to make sure that you feel comfortable.

ELIZABETH
Well that’s sweet of you.

JOHN
It’s only decent of me. I try to be more professional than that. With all my relationships you can take solace and comfort in knowing that I will take a dispassionate and business-minded viewpoint in order to stay dependable.

ELIZABETH
You seem like a crazy person. And you can uncover your eyes, seeing as you’re a crazy person who isn’t gonna move his hand away from his eyes without being told to.

(JOHN uncovers his eyes)

JOHN
That’s unfortunate, I was aiming for charming.

ELIZABETH
Well your aim isn’t bad.

(ELIZABETH downs another shot)

ELIZABETH
What’s your drink?

JOHN
I don’t drink.

ELIZABETH
Why’s that?

JOHN
I’m an android.

(ELIZABETH sits in the moment of that sentence)

ELIZABETH
For what purpose?

JOHN
I’m a prostitute.

ELIZABETH
I didn’t know they built androids for that sort of thing.

JOHN
It’s a niche market. Sam had to order me custom.

ELIZABETH
Well you look great.

JOHN
That’s more of a compliment to my owner than to me.

ELIZABETH
Oh.

JOHN
No worries, I’m not really one to take offense.

(ELIZABETH looks at SAM)

ELIZABETH
How much to rent out the bar for me and him?

SAM
100.

ELIZABETH
I can charge it to my husband’s card.

(ELIZABETH slides her credit card and sends SAM on their way. JOHN smiles at ELIZABETH. ELIZABETH pours another drink for herself. She slams that shit down)

JOHN
Have you ever had a conversation with an android before?

ELIZABETH
Only once. And it was a little one-sided.

JOHN
A model without a dialogue chip?

ELIZABETH
Very early model.

JOHN
Must have been a special order. Commercial models always come installed with some sort of dialogue interface.

ELIZABETH
I was very rich, and he was prescribed to me by my therapist.

JOHN
He?-

ELIZABETH
I don’t usually talk about him with people. Everyone out there is too closed-minded.

JOHN
Well I’m very user-friendly. And it’s just you and me.

ELIZABETH
He was my son. A replica of my son.

JOHN
You must have loved him very much to make a replacement.

ELIZABETH
He was no replacement. He was as mine and real as the day he was born. It was expensive. I had to save up on my own. Work jobs. Do things I wasn’t proud of. But I was able to afford him. Even without that good-for-nothing son of a bitch cauliflower brained...

(ELIZABETH knocks another one back.)

ELIZABETH
… motherfucking god damn ex-husband.

JOHN
If he’s that bad then I bet he was very lucky to share his life with you.

ELIZABETH
I saved up and bought him with my own money. The day he was delivered I found him dismembered across our living room floor and covered in battery acid and wept for him in the ground.

JOHN
That’s horrible.

ELIZABETH
He killed our boy.

(silence)

ELIZABETH
When he took him, he almost took me with him. I wanted vengeance for the death of my boy, but nobody cared about a little droid getting turned to rust and ash. Especially if he got put in the ground by someone very
ELIZABETH (cont’d)
rich and very famous. The world doesn’t understand what it was like to see my son again. To see my son die again.

JOHN
To see him die young and innocent to how this place had wronged him.

(ELIZABETH looks at JOHN, and she feels that he understands)

ELIZABETH
Exactly.

JOHN
What’s your name?

ELIZABETH
The name on my birth certificate is Elizabeth. But that’s not my name. My mom always told me that it only said Elizabeth on my birth certificate because my dad drugged her out during my birth and told the doctors that was my name because he liked it. But my Mom always told me that if she
had her way she’d of named me after her sister who died in the war.

JOHN
What’s your name?

ELIZABETH
Jane.

(The lights go low. The play is over)