Poets of Yesterday

WESSON Put me down. (APOTH. does. WESSON strikes a pose, recites.) You who were the poet of yesterday! Today I see you as a foot soldier, a grunt, as they say. You search for truth in the entrails of the enemy: probing with your bayonet, endlessly. Lord, your mighty pen! You threw it away…. An act as defiant as it was gay…

FORLORN Jesus Christ Superstar.

WESSON He plays no part in this.

APOTH. Damn right he doesn’t!

FORLORN Hair.

WESSON Don’t pay no mind to him. Robert’s just doing his free association thing, in the hope that someone, somewhere, would analyze him. And we know it doesn’t work that way. That is what he calls a pipe dream, if there ever was one. No one cares, Robert. This is the 21^st century! You can’t find meaning, can’t find purpose by shooting in the dark. Blind. You need to work like hell, need to take care of yourself. And then maybe, perhaps, you may be granted a mission.

FORLORN West Side Story.

(Pause.)

WESSON Let’s face it. Robert, you’re an addict.

FORLORN Yeah, and?

WESSON You’ve got to admit you’re powerless over sex and drugs.

FORLORN Not rock ’n’ roll, though.

WESSON Still. You’re a male nymphomaniac, as you said yourself. You’ve got to come to grips with reality.

FORLORN I’ve always found that idea kind of horribly boring. Something that—no matter what Gary says, or Sid—New York is not. By any means.

APOTH. Who’s Gary? Who’s Sid?

WESSON Admit that your life as it is has become unmanageable.

FORLORN I kind of solved that back in ’89. (Pause.) When I died, remember?

WESSON And yet, yet… here you are. Why is that?