Trey is about to enter a Juvenile Hall, where he is to await his trial. He is currently being psychologically evaluated before being put in an appropriate Pod or self-contained areas.
TREY
It bothers me… no it pains me to hear that he’s missed. No, I didn’t say one goddamn thing about shooting him, did I? (shakes his head) Maybe the nice little officer that arrested me didn’t tell you about his rap sheet. (pause) I’m tired. The clothes you give us are to wear here, they keep me up. They’re stiff, and couldn’t keep a damn mouse warm in these stone walls. (pause, looks the psychologist up and down) I bet you came from a good family. (smirks) Nice haircut. Well Sammy didn’t have one growing up. You know, I used to go to school with that kid, and every day, and I mean every day he’d say something about how much he hated his step father. That bastard.
I met his mother a few times, and she wouldn’t even look me in the face when I came into the house. She’d hide a lot when she had to talk to us. She was ashamed of her bruises. The ones he gave her. You know he deserved it. Anyone would have done it, seeing her battered up like that. People loved her. And deep down, you’re glad scum like that is gone from the earth. When it comes to a human being like that, it doesn’t matter how he died, but that he died. That he’s gone. So that you don’t have to read another police report about it. Men like that have no right to pick on something so, so innocent. So gentle and nurturing… and… it’s not like she deserved it- you saw her! Kindest woman I’ve ever met… kind of like… my mom. (long pause) Before she died though.
Uhm, she died last year. Fell out of her bedroom window. (stares blankly down at the table) I didn’t, I don’t know what happened exactly. The police just said it was, that she was drunk, and yea, she drank a little, or a lot, but it’s only when he… when he’d hit her. Women, mothers especially shouldn’t be mistreated in that way. That’s the worst kind of way too. You should’ve seen her when she was sober. Mother of the year… no one could even come close. I was her everything, and she was mine. I’d do anything for her… anything. When I was a kid, the kids at school used to pick on me because I was smaller than all of them. They kept calling me baby. “Baby’s gonnna cry… baby doesn’t have his bottle… is he gonna cry?” And I’d get into some stupid fight and my mom would pick me up right away. And you know she never did yell at me, or tell me how disappointed she was in me. She just understood what I had to do in that situation.
So I understand why someone had to kill Sammy’s stepfather. If anything, I respect him. Because, I wish someone would have done the same for me. My mom, she was an alcoholic, it’s true, but it wasn’t because she wanted to be. It’s because he made her. She couldn’t handle the abuse alone… there had to be something she could turn too… I wasn’t enough, I was, I was too young and dumb to help her. All she had was that liquor that cabinet with the glass windows so she could window shop her next drink for the night. And if you’re judging my poor mother, then you can fuck off. Because that clean shaven face of yours, that fuckin haircut you got there and that red tie… is that silk?... it’s all a product of a nice, healthy, loving family. But I’m not judging you either. Don’t worry. You didn’t have it like me and Sammy. You were one of the lucky ones.
Notes from Roy:
ReplyDeleteGreat monologue, and a deep look into Trey's soul, and the circumstances that torment him. This scene really does a lot to pay off the other scenes that we've seen. It's good that he denies having killed his friend's father, and you do a good job of allowing him to stumble into the revelations about his mother. Those wounds are deep and raw, and give us a window into the darkness that inhabits him.
Also, the monologue is well-constructed, moving us through the experience with a sense of rising action in the revelations. And the dual conflict of Trey with himself, and Trey with his psychologist.
Good work.
Roy