DOERS
by Nate Kenny
CHARACTERS:
CAMILLA — she/her, 24. Born in ’99. Wearing something thrifty, light, and a little corporate.
HAROLD — he/him, 26. Born in ’61. Wearing a Giorgio Armani coat accompanied by a plaid scarf.
SERVER — any. Somewhere in their 20s. Wearing a beige apron over some button-down with a funky design.
SETTING:
A café that exists simultaneously in Manhattan during the winter of 1987 and Denver during the spring of 2023.
Note: A slash (/) in dialogue indicates an interruption.
BEGINNING OF PLAY
(Open on a café split harshly and aesthetically in half.
On stage right: the interior of a Manhattan corner store torn directly from ‘80s New York. There’s a poster advertising a Big Apple bus tour on the window, and an out-of-order ATM in the corner.
On stage left: a modern coffee shop decorated with muted colors. On its side of the window is a poster advertising yoga lesson.
HAROLD sits on stage right, at a table the two sides share. He is currently taking the top off of a Greek coffee cup to pour in creamer while he hums the theme song for H.R. Pufnstuf. After a bit, CAMILLA enters on the stage left side of the café, carrying a laptop bag and wearing a pink surgical mask. She quickly spots HAROLD, gives a small, excited wave, and moves to sit down across, on her side of the café.)
CAMILLA
(taking her mask off) Harold, Harold, Harold! It’s so nice to finally meet!
(CAMILLA begins to take her laptop out of her bag.)
HAROLD
You sick? In China, maybe? Or did China come there? Everyone’s talking about China over here.
CAMILLA
(placing her laptop down) I don’t… Oh! The mask!
HAROLD
I always knew they’d swallow up the Russians. While they had their backs turned, I bet— (making a masturbatory motion) too busy pointing their Red Rockets at us. Never underestimate a country that’s been high on opium for the last five hundred years.
CAMILLA
A lot of things have / …
HAROLD
/ You should see the junkies we have. They could take the Pentagon.
CAMILLA
A lot’s different since your time, Harold. It’s definitely still America over here.
HAROLD
Oh, well, that’s comforting.
(HAROLD grins, as CAMILLA’s confidence begins to dim. The SERVER comes up beside CAMILLA on her side of the café. HAROLD doesn’t seem to notice them.)
HAROLD
You know, Camilla, I do have a feeling / about why…
SERVER
/ What can I get you?
CAMILLA
Oh, um, what’s your house blend?
SERVER
We have a mix of Kenyan beans, for a hit of ginger at the top, for the high note, and Arabica beans from Colombia to fill out the middle palate.
CAMILLA
Sounds… yeah, sounds great. I’ll do that in whatever your small size is. Two cream two sugar, too.
(The SERVER nods and exits.)
HAROLD
Someone just take your order?
CAMILLA
(opening her laptop) Yeah.
HAROLD
Hand and foot over there, huh?
CAMILLA
I wouldn’t really say / that.
HAROLD
/ Where are you?
(A beat.)
CAMILLA
It’s a new place that opened a / bit ago…
HAROLD
/ No, I mean, where? Area code?
CAMILLA
I’m in Denver.
HAROLD
Denver! Wow. Figures, I guess. Nukes would’ve hit the coasts, so Denver has become the new metropolis, ruled by cattle barons who herd you through the streets with branding irons.
CAMILLA
Well, I grew up in New York.
HAROLD
Oh, I’m sure you did, honey. We’ll save that for later.
(A beat.)
CAMILLA
What?
HAROLD
Nah, I want to get to know you first. I’m just surprised any of the women I slept with would move to Colorado.
CAMILLA
You don’t / …
HAROLD
/ Talk about you wanted to talk about—what you wanted to start with. I don’t want to ruin your big finish. I’ll feign surprise enough for you to be satisfied, when you get to it.
CAMILLA
I want to write a book about you, Harold. There isn’t any / ulterior…
HAROLD
/ I’ll be patiently waiting at the finish line.
(HAROLD waves at CAMILLA to start talking. CAMILLA sighs.)
CAMILLA
Where do you work?
HAROLD
Goldman Sachs. Which is a good name for it. Sacks of gold, man.
CAMILLA
What do you do there?
HAROLD
I don’t know.
CAMILLA
I’d bet it’s important, at least.
HAROLD
No, no. That’s my job. I don’t know. I do—I do things—but I don’t know. Knowing’s for librarians.
(CAMILLA looks confused. HAROLD leans forward to explain.)
HAROLD (CONT’D)
Goldman Sachs, a couple years back, underwrote the public offering of an REIT for Rockefeller Center. I helped. And I’ve never been. I don’t ever plan to, either. Ice skates make my feet swell and I stopped watching television when I was 14. So, I do things, but it is not in my job description to know them. Every lick of work I did for that thing has been secreted from my memory like the shit you have after a meal. And yet… (taking out his thick, leather wallet, displaying it, and placing it on the table) my body retains the energy.
CAMILLA
So you aren’t invested in what you do?
HAROLD
I can assure, you, Camilla, I am quite invested.
CAMILLA
You just do what you’re told? A yes man? A yuppie?
HAROLD
I think you’re using that word wrong.
CAMILLA
I don’t…
HAROLD
Oh! (laughing) You think it means “yup.” Like we’re just going around saying “yup” to our bosses. “Young urban professional,” Camilla. “Professional.” Not exactly the slur the papers make it out to be. We are the men they say “yes” to. And, well, women now, I guess. Because I do mean “we.”
CAMILLA
I am not that.
HAROLD
Wrong-o, Miss Denver. I was born in Spokane. My father owned—you should be writing this down—my father owned a lumber mill. He made damn-fuckin’-good money. He also was of the generation that expected a sort of immediate-onset rugged individualism from their children as soon as they hit 18. So, when his freshly-graduated son told him he wanted to go to New York of all places, post-fiscal crisis New York, where you could turn a corner and find up to six muggers arguing about who gets next dibs on whoever walks by, he smiled at me like I was Christopher Columbus and he was the King of Spain. He filled my coffers with gold and sent me to plant our family crest upon foreign shores. I ended up getting a place in Flatiron for a bag of tricks and a song, enrolled at NYU, and by 1978 had snorted blow off Liza Minnelli’s coke nail twice. That’s also where I met my now-boss. What I’m trying to get at here, Camilla, is poor people don’t move somewhere else. At least, poor people born in New York don’t move to Denver to write a book. Do you have a job besides that?
CAMILLA
Yes, actually.
HAROLD
Wow! Fantastic! Do you do, or do you know?
CAMILLA
I… I do both.
HAROLD
Multitasker!
CAMILLA
I write copy for a very important company that / …
HAROLD
/ You write copy? To sell things.
CAMILLA
Yes. When I’m not working on this / book…
HAROLD
/ On your book, yeah. Tell me about the last product you wrote copy for. Not what you’re working on now. The last thing.
CAMILLA
(blanking) I… We had a... a subscription… that… there was a, uh…
HAROLD
Camilla, you’re young, you’re urban, and you’re a professional. And ever since Reagan won his second term, professionals don’t have to know jack shit. I’d bet good money that that’s still the case over there. You’re a doer. You do.
(The SERVER arrives and puts CAMILLA’s coffee in front of her.)
SERVER
Here you go.
(The SERVER leaves. CAMILLA stares at the coffee.)
HAROLD
Why, it looks like your body retains the energy quite well, too. Did I hear those were Kenyan beans?
(A beat. Then, CAMILLA starts to open something on her laptop.)
CAMILLA
I’m going to read you something.
HAROLD
Is this it? The big reveal?
CAMILLA
(reading from her laptop) “Harold James Nader, the famed Midtown financier, died alone.”
HAROLD
Oh, this is / rich.
CAMILLA
/ “He kicked the bucket with an empty bottle of Laphroaig in his lap. He was 40, and the night before, the only woman he had ever truly loved had told him she didn’t want to be with him anymore.”
(HAROLD tries to interject but can’t find the words. CAMILLA eyes him, and then keeps reading.)
CAMILLA(CONT’D)
“‘Harold, I can’t bear this,’ she had said. It was like someone had cast a line into his mouth and pulled his two-sizes-too-small heart out by way of his throat, dangling now on a little barbed hook. But, he went to work the next day, took meetings, and then went home, where he added an addendum to his will. It would all go to her. The money, the investments, the cars, the apartments. Her, and their two-year-old daughter.”
(CAMILLA looks up at HAROLD knowingly. She waits for an interruption, but HAROLD doesn’t butt in. CAMILLA keeps reading.)
CAMILLA (CONT’D)
“Harold uncorked the Laphroaig alone, he swallowed the sleeping pills alone, he sat in his chair alone, he started dying alone, and he finished dying alone. They didn’t find him for a week, when a client sent an assistant to his apartment to double-check a cash flow statement.”
(CAMILLA leans back in her chair. She grabs her coffee, and takes a sip, staring at HAROLD. A beat.)
HAROLD
What’s… what’s her name? Your mother?
CAMILLA
You haven’t met her yet.
HAROLD
But… (with nervous laughter) I’m just a memory, aren’t I? A bunch of stories she told you, hobbling about in a trench coat? It couldn’t hurt.
CAMILLA
You’d like to know, then?
HAROLD
Alright. I see what’s going on here.
CAMILLA
You are a real doer, Harold. You skipped the months of depression and got right down to the nitty gritty. Expedited the process.
HAROLD
So you’re in Denver now? With my money?
CAMILLA
I am.
(CAMILLA gets up and starts putting away her laptop.)
CAMILLA (CONT’D)
You see, my mother’s of the generation that expects a sort of immediate-onset rugged individualism from their children as soon as they, in my case, graduate college.
HAROLD
Are you leaving?
CAMILLA
I think it’s going to be a good book, Harold. Even if I never decide to put it out in the world, it’s going to be good.
HAROLD
And what? Whose house are you living in? Who got evicted so you could graft yourself onto the block?
CAMILLA
I’m forging my own path, Harold.
(CAMILLA puts her mask back on and turns to leave.)
HAROLD
(yelling) You can’t paint over me, you twerp! I’m your past! Look at your side, that beige wasteland, those smoothed edges! How many cops are on your street? I’m John Wayne! I’m on the frontier, collecting scalps, and all for you!
(CAMILLA is gone. HAROLD just sits there. A beat.
Then, lights go out on the café. CAMILLA enters from stage left, crossing to end up at stage right.)
CAMILLA
(on the phone) Mhm. Yeah. I can finish that by the weekend, Janie. Then we can celebrate. Another launch in the books! It should be fun. (a beat) Yup. Uh-huh. I can— Oop. Hold on, Janie. I have another call coming in. I think we should be all set. You just do your part and I’ll do mine. Yeah. Sounds good. Bye. (picking up next call) Is this Kenneth? Oh, hi, yes! Thank you so much for calling! Does this mean… Yes! Yes, yes, yes! And still at the… the starting price? Oh, my God! I can… (checking watch) I can come over right now, and sign whatever I need to sign. Does that work? (a beat) Thank you so much, Kenneth. I am… I am giddy right now. I’ll see you soon. Alright. Bye.
(CAMILLA can’t keep the grin off her face. She dials someone else. They pick up after a few rings.)
CAMILLA (CONT’D)
(ecstatic) Mom! Mom, I got it! I got the property! I got it! I’m gonna go sign the forms now! You’ll still help, right? Okay! Yes, yes! (squealing) I’m so excited! It’s such a nice spot, and it has such a nice scene around it, and it costs hardly… Yup! Yeah! I’m gonna fix it up, I’ll send you, like, a plan, and hopefully find a tenant by the end of the year. (a beat) I love you too, Mom. Thank you so much. I miss you too. Thank you so so much.
(The call ends. CAMILLA exits stage right.)
END OF PLAY