In Heaven…

A play in one act

by Sal Gentile and Adar Eisenbruch

(NOTE: Suggestion for staging heaven – there’s a candy bowl in the center of the stage, from which Larry and Jerome eat during the course of the scene. Also, as a general note for the scene, it has a deliberately slow and somewhat awkward pace – please do not be afraid of silences.)

(LIGHTS UP: In heaven, Larry and Jerome awkwardly approach each other.)

LARRY: Hey, um, I’m new up here. And you looked, you know, sort of lost too, so I just figured I’d come by to introduce myself. My name’s Larry.

JEROME: Good to meet you. Yeah, I just got through the pearly gates myself. I’m Jerome. So how’d you end up here?

Larry (somberly): Well, uh, I died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It was agonizing. My body just died around me while my mind was conscious of the whole thing. There was nothing I could do but just feel my organs shut down as I watched my family mourn my impending death. I was so relieved when my misery was finally over. (Silence.)

Jerome: Oh my god, I’m so, so sorry to hear that. That’s awful.

Larry: April Fool’s, I’m just fucking with you. I choked on a rice crispy.

Jerome: What?

Larry: Yeah, I choked on a rice crispy. I just came up with all that other shit because it sounds way cooler than: “I choked on a rice crispy and died.”

Jerome: A rice crispy? How do you even choke on a single rice crispy?

Larry: I don’t know. I was stoned and I just really wanted to eat rice crispies one by one. Let me tell you something: it doesn’t really inspire the paramedics to save you when you’re choking to death and all you can do is giggle about it. How’d you die?

Jerome: I was lighting my farts on fire and I accidentally burned myself to death. I died in a methane inferno. My last thought was: “Man, I hope my tombstone doesn’t say: ‘Jerome Cartwright, died in a raging ass-fire.’”

Larry: Man, I’m really glad I ran into you. Everyone else around he is such a good-two-shoes. But you and I, we both have a lot in common. We both died like idiots. (Substantial silence. NOTE: Things should get awkward.)

Jerome (thoughtfully): So what’s the deal with tuna salad?

Larry: What do you mean?

Jerome (becoming increasingly agitated at his own thoughts): How is that a salad? Also egg salad and chicken salad. There is absolutely nothing salad-like about them. You can’t just add mayonnaise to meat and call it a salad. What dumb-ass thought that meat plus mayonnaise equals salad? Salad has to either go one way or the other. Salad can either be a bowl of vegetables or it can be two slices of bread away from a sandwich, but it can’t mean both. Like how come you never hear of a Greek Salad sandwich?

Larry: Well, that probably wouldn’t taste very good.

Jerome: That’s not the point! It’s the principle … and what about steak salad? I think that would be delicious. Just cut up some pieces of steak and mix in some mayonnaise, maybe some celery …

Larry: Dude, that sounds gross.

Jerome: Well, you’d have to spice the mayonnaise. (Another long, awkward silence.) You know, I’m kind of surprised that I got in here.

Larry (curiously): Oh yeah?

Jerome: Yeah, I mean, I’m almost disappointed. I had always thought that heaven was for the Mother Theresas, the Martin Luther Kings and the Michael Jordans and people like them, so I just don’t really feel like I belong here.

Larry: Really? Michael Jordan? You skipped right over Gandhi and went straight for Michael Jordan?

Jerome: You know what I mean. I just wasn’t all that good when I was alive.

Larry: Yeah, me neither. (Pause.) By the way, you know that Michael Jordan is still alive, right?

Jerome: Sometimes I would have people over to my house for a dinner party, and when I was making dinner, I wouldn’t wash the vegetables. I mean, it was never discussed, they never asked me if I had washed the vegetables, but I feel like it’s kind of assumed that the vegetables will be washed. I think I may have betrayed them.

Larry: Dude, you have real salad issues … I wouldn’t worry about it too much, that’s not that bad. Once when I was a little kid, my grandfather was in an iron lung, and I was really curious about what it’d be like to be in an iron lung, so I asked him to get out, so I could get in … turns out it’s not that much fun when you can actually breathe for yourself.

Jerome: Psh, that’s nothing. I used to park in handicapped spots. (Pause.) I’m not handicapped.

Larry: Not physically.

Jerome: Well you know what? Fuck you. The bad stuff you’ve done is nothing compared to the bad stuff I’ve done. I fathered three kids out of wedlock knowing full well that I had no intention of supporting them!

Larry: You know FDR? He didn’t have polio, I hit him on the legs with a baseball bat.

Jerome: You know Christopher Reeve? I tripped his horse.

Larry: This one time, I released fifty million barrels of crude oil into a bay, just to fuck over the wildlife.

Jerome: Yea, well, I caused Hurricane Katrina.

Larry (Pause, staring at Jerome, almost sinisterly): I was Hurricane Katrina. (Enter JESUS).

JESUS: You dumb fucks.

Larry: Oh, hey Jesus.

Jesus: Who the fuck do you two think you are? Do you guys have any idea how loud you just were? True or false: God is fucking deaf.

Jerome (Meekly): Um, I would imagine that God is probably not deaf.

Larry: I would assume that he has pretty good hearing, in fact.

Jerome (To Larry): Yeah, he can probably hear, like, super-high frequencies.

Larry: Yeah, like bats!

Jerome: Yeah, I bet God can use echolocation.

Jesus: You guys are goanna to have to leave. Not only have you just had the stupidest series of conversations I’ve ever heard, but one of you also ate the seafood salad sandwich I left in the fridge.

Larry: What are you talking about?

Jesus: Well I made a seafood salad sandwich for myself and left it in the fridge with “J.C.” written on it, and now it’s gone and I don’t think Princess Di over there ate it.

Jerome: Oh, sorry, that was me. Those are my initials too, I thought somebody left it for me.

Jesus: Why the fuck would somebody make a sandwich and just leave it for you?

Jerome: Well, it is Heaven.

Jesus: Alright, just get out. You know what, you guys were right, you don’t belong here. The only reason you two got in was that God got road head that day and was feeling generous. (Points offstage.) Now get out. (Jesus exits. Pause as Jerome and Larry start walking out of heaven.)

Jerome: God drives?

(LIGHTS DOWN)