Read Trying to Find Chinatown: The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang Online

Authors: David Henry Hwang

Trying to Find Chinatown: The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang (34 page)

BOOK: Trying to Find Chinatown: The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang

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TERRI: I mean, how can you even talk about love? When you can’t approach me like a normal human being? When you have to hide behind masks and take on these ridiculous roles?

MARK: You’re patronizing me! Don’t! Get those ropes on me!

TERRI: Patronizing? No, I’ve
been
patronizing you. Today, I can’t even keep up the charade! I mean, your entire approach here—it lets me know—

MARK: I don’t have to stand for this!

TERRI: That you’re afraid of any woman unless you’re sure you’ve got her under control!

MARK: This is totally against all the rules of the house!

TERRI: Rules, schmules! The rules say I’m supposed to grind you under my heel! They leave the details to me—sadism is an art, not a science. So—beg for more! Beg me to tell you about yourself!

(Panicked, Mark heads for the wall and tries to shackle himself.)

MARK: No! If I’m—if I’m defeated, I must accept my punishment fair and square.

TERRI: You’re square all right. Get your arms out of there! Stand like a man! Beg me to tell you who you are.

MARK: If I obey, will you reward me by denying my request?

TERRI: Who knows? Out of generosity, I might suddenly decide to grant it.

MARK: If you’re determined to tell me either way, why should I bother to beg?

TERRI: For your own enjoyment.

MARK: I refuse! You’ve never done something like this before!

TERRI: That’s why I’m so good at my job. I don’t allow cruelty to drift into routine. Now, beg!

MARK: Please, Mistress Terri . . . will you . . . will you tell me who I really am?

TERRI: You want to know—you wanna know bad, don’t you?

MARK: No!

TERRI: In the language of sadomasochism, “no” almost always means “yes.”

MARK: No, no, no!

TERRI: You are an eager one, aren’t you?

MARK: I just don’t like you making assumptions about me! Do you think I’m some kind of emotional weakling, coming in here because I can’t face the real world of women?

TERRI: That would be a fairly good description of all our clients.

MARK: Maybe I’m a lot more clever than you think! Do you ever go out there? Do you know the opportunities for pain and humiliation that lurk outside these walls?

TERRI: Well, I . . . I
do
buy groceries, you know.

MARK: The rules out there are set up so we’re all bound to lose.

TERRI: And the rules in here are so much better?

MARK: The rules here . . . protect me from harm. Out there—I walk around with my face exposed. In here, when I’m rejected, beaten down, humiliated—it’s not me. I have no identifying features, and so . . . I’m no longer human.
(Pause)
And that’s why I’m not pathetic to come here. Because someday, I’m going to beat you. And on that day, my skin will have become so thick, I’ll be impenetrable to harm. I won’t need a mask to keep my face hidden. I’ll have lost myself in the armor.
(He places his wrists into the wall shackles)
OK—I bent to your will. You defeated me again. So strap me up. Punish me.

TERRI: But why . . . why all these fantasies about race?

MARK: Please, enough!

TERRI: I mean, what race
are
you, anyway?

MARK: You know, maybe we should just talk about
your
real life, how would you like that?

(Pause.)

TERRI: Is that what you want?

MARK: No . . .

TERRI: Is that a “no” no, or a “yes” no?

MARK: Yes. No. Goddamn it, I paid for my punishment, just give it to me!

(Terri tosses away her whip, begins to strap him up.)

What are you doing?

TERRI: Punishment is, by definition, something the victim does not appreciate. The fact that you express such a strong preference for the whip practically compels me not to use it.
(Pause)
I think I’d prefer . . . to kill you with kindness.

(Terri begins kissing the length of Mark’s body.)

MARK: Please! This isn’t . . . what I want!

TERRI: Are you certain? Maybe . . . I feel something for you. After all, you’ve made me so very angry. Maybe . . . you’re a white man, I’m a white woman—there’s nothing mysterious—no racial considerations whatsoever.

MARK: That’s . . . too easy! There’s no reason you wouldn’t love me under those conditions.

TERRI: Are you crazy? I can think of a couple dozen off the top of my head. You don’t have to be an ethnic minority to have a sucky love life.

MARK: But there’s no . . . natural barrier between us!

TERRI: Baby, you haven’t dated many white women as a white man lately. I think it’s time to change all that.
(Pause; she steps away)
So—Mark . . . Walker. Mark Walker—how long has it been? Since anyone’s given you a rubdown like that?

(Pause.)

MARK: I usually . . . avoid these kinds of situations . . .

TERRI: Why are you so afraid?

MARK: My fright is reasonable. Given the conditions out there.

TERRI: What conditions? Do you have, for instance, problems with . . . interracial love?

MARK: Whatever gave you that idea?

TERRI: Well, you . . . remind me of a man I see sometimes . . . who belongs to all races . . . and none at all. I’ve never met anyone like him before.

MARK: I’m a white man! Why wouldn’t I have problems? The world is changing so fast around me—you can’t even tell whose country it is anymore. I can’t hardly open my mouth without wondering if I’m offending, if I’m secretly revealing to everyone but myself . . . some hatred, some hidden desire to strike back . . . breeding within my body.
(Pause)
If only there were some certainty—whatever it might be—OK, let the feminists rule the place! We’ll call it the United States of Amazonia! Or the Japanese! Or the gays! If I could only figure out who’s in charge, then I’d know where I stand. But this constant flux—who can endure it? I’d rather crawl into a protected room where I know what to expect—painful though that place may be.
(Pause)
I mean . . . we’re heading towards the millennium. Last time, people ran fearing the end of the world. They hid their bodies from the storms that would inevitably follow. Casual gestures were taken as signs of betrayal and accusation. Most sensed that the righteous would somehow be separated from the wicked. But no one knew on which side of such a division they themselves might fall.

(Silence.)

TERRI: You want to hear about yourself. You’ve been begging for it so long—in so many ways.

MARK: How do you know I just said anything truthful? What makes you so sure I’m really a white man?

TERRI: Oh, I’m not. After all these months, I wouldn’t even care to guess. When you say you’re Egyptian, Italian, Spanish, Mayan—you seem to be the real thing. So what if we just say . . .
(Pause; she releases him from the shackles)
You’re a man, and you’re frightened, and you’ve been ill-used in love. You’ve come to doubt any trace of your own judgment. You cling to the hope that power over a woman will blunt her ability to harm you, while all the time you’re tormented by the growing fear that your hunger will never be satisfied with the milk of cruelty.
(Pause)
I know. I’ve been in your place.

MARK: You . . . you’ve been a man? What are you saying?

TERRI: You tell me. Fight back. Tell me about me. And make me love every second of it.

MARK: All right. Yes.

TERRI: Yes . . . WHO?

MARK: Yes, Mistress Terri!

TERRI: Yes—who?

MARK: Yes . . . whoever you are . . . a woman who’s tried hard to hate men for what they’ve done to her but who . . . can’t quite convince herself.

(Terri pushes Mark to the ground.)

TERRI: Is that what you think?
(Beat)
Tell me more . . .

MARK: You went out—into the world . . . I dunno, after college maybe—I think you went to college . . .

TERRI: Doesn’t matter.

MARK: But the world—it didn’t turn out the way you planned . . . rejection hung in the air all around you—in the workplace, in movies, in the casual joking of the population. The painful struggle . . . to be accepted as a spirit among others . . . only to find yourself constantly weighed and measured by those outward bits of yourself so easily grasped, too easily understood. Maybe you were harassed at work—maybe even raped—I don’t know.

TERRI: It doesn’t matter. The specifics never matter.

MARK: So you found your way here—somehow—back of the
Hollywood Star
—something—roomfuls of men begging to be punished for the way they act out there—wanting you to even the score—and you decided—that this was a world you could call your own.

TERRI: And so, I learned what it feels like to be a man. To labor breathlessly accumulating power while all the time it’s dawning how tiring, what a burden, how utterly numbing—it is actually to possess. The touch of power is cold like metal. It chafes the skin, but you know nothing better to hold to your breast. So you travel down this blind road of hunger—constantly victimizing yourself in the person of others—until you despair of ever again feeling warm or safe—until you forget such possibilities exist. Until they become sentimental relics of a weaker man’s delusions. And driven by your need, you slowly destroy yourself.
(She starts to remove her gloves)
Unless, one day, you choose to try something completely different.

MARK: What are you doing? Wait!

TERRI: It’s a new game, Mark. A new ethnic game. The kind you like.

MARK: We can’t play—without costumes.

TERRI: Oh, but it’s the wildest interracial fantasy of all. It’s called . . . two hearts meeting in a bondage parlor on the outskirts of Encino. With skins—more alike than not.
(She tosses her gloves away)
Haven’t we met before? I’m certain we have. You were the one who came into my chamber wanting to play all the races.

MARK: Why are you doing this to me? I’m the customer here!

TERRI: No, your time is up. Or haven’t you kept your eyes on the clock? At least I know I’m not leaving you bored.

MARK: Then . . . shouldn’t I be going?

TERRI: If you like. But I’m certain we’ve met before. I found it so interesting, so different, your fantasy. And I’ve always been a good student, a diligent employee. My daddy raised me to take pride in all of America’s service professions. So I started to . . . try and understand all the races I never thought of as my own. Then, what happened?

MARK: You’re asking me?

TERRI: C’mon—let me start you off. I have a box in my closet—

(Terri runs her bare hands up and down Mark’s body as he speaks:)

MARK: In which you keep all the research you’ve done . . . for me. Every clipping, magazine article, ethnic journals, transcripts from
Phil Donahue
. Blacks against Jews in Crown Heights—your eyes went straight to the headlines. The rise of neo-Nazism in Marseilles and Orange County. And then, further—the mass-murderer in Canada who said, “The feminists made me do it.” You became a collector of all the rejection and rage in this world.
(Pause)
Am I on the right track?

TERRI: Is that what you’ve been doing?

MARK: And that box—that box is overflowing now. Books are piled high to the hems of your dresses, clippings slide out from beneath the door. And you . . . you looked at it . . . maybe this morning . . . and you realized your box was . . . full. And so you began to stumble. You started to feel there was nothing more here for you.

TERRI: If you say it, it must be true.

MARK: Is it?