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1.
Clarice & Jack
Story-line: Jack Kerouac meets Clarice Lispector inside a painting by Edward Hopper.
Scene 1
In the mid-to-late 1950s, a gas station near Woodstock, New York. It's summer, late afternoon. The scenery portrays the loneliness of an Edward Hopper painting.
A woman in her mid-thirties is standing beside a Studebaker, smoking and glancing up at an empty highway. Her name is Clarice Lispector, a Brazilian writer. She was born in Ukraine, and as an infant, her family moved to Brazil.
A man in his mid-thirties approaches her. He is Jack Kerouac, an American writer, and one of the pioneers of the Beat Generation.
JACK
Hello.
CLARICE
Hi.
JACK
Excuse me. Can I have a cigarette?
CLARICE
Of course.
(Clarice opens the Studebaker, takes a cigarette pack, and hands it to him. He taps a cigarette out of the pack, lights it up, and exhales the smoke with pleasure.)
JACK
Thank you.
CLARICE
No problem.
(Jack looks around.)
JACK
Are you waiting for someone?
CLARICE
No.
(Pause.)
JACK
Have you gassed the car?
CLARICE
Yeah.
JACK
Sorry. You just want to smoke quietly, and I'm here asking foolish questions.
CLARICE
I don't blame you.
JACK
What?
CLARICE
Because I never know what to say. It's very boring to say something to people that we know, and it gets more difficult when we don't know them.
JACK
Surely.
CLARICE
So, relax and enjoy your cigarette.
JACK
Yeah. Thanks again.
(Silence.)
JACK
What do you write?
CLARICE
Words.
JACK
Funny. Very funny. That's my response when someone asks me.
(Silence.)
JACK
I gotta go.
CLARICE
Right.
JACK
Thanks for the cigarette.
CLARICE
That's okay.
(As he's leaving, she talks to him.)
CLARICE
And you? What do you write about?
JACK
Well, I've been writing all these feelings I feel, that my mind brings to me. Then, I expel all that in the writing, like a factory.
CLARICE
I understand.
JACK
And you? Why do you write?
CLARICE
I write to stay alive. I die when I'm not writing.
JACK
Anyway, it's easier to write than to chat.
CLARICE
I think so. What I don't know how to say is more important than what I say.
JACK
For me too.
CLARICE
So, I prefer to write. I write as if to save somebody's life. Probably my own.
JACK
Yeah. Writing can save us from ourselves.
CLARICE
Life is a kind of madness that death makes. Long live the dead because we live in them.
JACK
You got all that from my head. I think exactly the same way. You said what I feel. Oh my God! Sometimes, my thoughts are confused in a chaotic world, and when my mind is okay, when my thoughts are all right, then, the world gets much more confusing.
CLARICE
Unbelievable. But that's true. The mind is tormented because of what we think, not because of what we see. Some people see horrible things and that's okay.
JACK
On the other hand it's the same, too. The people see good things and that's horrible.
CLARICE
I'm not like that.
JACK
Listen… I'm appreciating our chatting. Do you want a beer?
CLARICE
Yes. That'd be great.
JACK
The summer is burning our souls. Wait a minute.
(Jack goes into the convenience store.)
(Clarice lights another cigarette.)
(Jack comes out of the convenience store holding two beers. He hands her one.)
CLARICE
Thanks.
(Points to the cigarette.)
Another?
JACK
(Nodding.)
Thank you.
(She gives him another cigarette. He lights it and makes a toast with the beer.)
JACK
Cheers.
CLARICE
Cheers.
(They drink.)
CLARICE
This beer is too hoppy.
JACK
Two beers or not two beers. That's the answer. Fuck the question.
CLARICE
(Nodding.)
Yeah.
(Silence.)
JACK
Well, I still don't know your name.
CLARICE
Does it matters?
JACK
What?
CLARICE
Our names?
JACK
Of course, not.
CLARICE
Call me the woman at the gas station. And I'll call you the beer man.
JACK
Sounds good.
(They drink their beers in silence for a few moments.)
JACK
This car has a radio?
CLARICE
Yes. It's a Studebaker.
(Clarice opens the car, sits down inside, and turns on the radio. We begin to hear a piece of jazz music.)
JACK
Cool.
CLARICE
Do you like jazz?
JACK
Absolutely. At the Vanguard, I get to see inspiration materializing in front of me. It's perhaps the only moment that we can see this phenomenon.
CLARICE
Makes sense. I love it. Jazz is something like a soul's dialogue.
JACK
Exactly. I feel it in the same way.
CLARICE
The voice of the soul meeting the song? Or our inner voice gotta dance?
JACK
This stuff reminds me of a case. It happened when I was living in San Francisco. I was at a gas station like this one. I saw a couple, a young couple discussing the inner voice.
CLARICE
Really?
JACK
The girl wanted her boyfriend to hear her inner voice. But the poor guy heard nothing. Well, they started a verbal fight. A friend of mine, named Jeff, said he was listening to the girl's inner voice. She liked it so much, and soon she gave shit to her boyfriend and went to talk to my friend Jeff. The boyfriend got angry and picked a piece of wood and hit Jeff on the head.
CLARICE
Oh my God!
JACK
Jeff fell on the ground, shouting out, "your girl wanna make love with me."
CLARICE
Wow!
JACK
Then, I got into the fight and broke them up. The girl said to Jeff that she would never make love with him. Never. She was in love with her boyfriend. She just wanted him to hear her inner voice. Just like that.
CLARICE
It's very complicated.
JACK
After that, the couple left the gas station saying they were going to make love.
CLARICE
They had heard the inner voice.
JACK
I think so.
(A beat.)
How about another beer?
CLARICE
Yes. But now I'll get them.
JACK
That's okay.
(Clarice goes into the convenience store.)
(Jack keeps smoking.)
(Moments pass. Clarice gets out of the convenience store. She is holding a pack of beers.)
JACK
Thank you.
CLARICE
I suppose our night will be long.
JACK
Yeah.
CLARICE
I bet it will be more sophisticated than my life as a diplomat's wife. Those nights with banquets full of food, and full of empty hearts in the embassy.
JACK
Are you married?
CLARICE
Totally.
JACK
That's very nice. I believe in weddings.
CLARICE
Me too. I mean, for others.
(They drink.)
JACK
Sometimes I wonder when love is born. What time does it happen? It is with a look, a thought, what defines that moment.
CLARICE
I think it's born after the absence - after we've met someone else.
JACK
Maybe. Maybe.
CLARICE
In the absence, we begin to feel heavy, and the breathing gets hard. I think of it as the exact moment that love is born.
JACK
Exactly. After that, we become prisoners from the other. You know. Our life loses all meaning. Everything is strange. Even the scent of the other triggers our saddest thoughts.
CLARICE
I hate this prison.
JACK
Me too. It's not right. We're free. We need to make our thoughts go up to heaven, and not be in the darkness. It's so unbelievable that we get this way. Oh boy! We need to write, to write, and to write because the voice got lost.
CLARICE
I understand you. It's too bad for us. My writing should be more important than that. But not. It becomes cheap. It becomes foolish. Who invented love? God? Why? Adam and Eve?
JACK
It would be nicer if the paradise were just sin without love.
CLARICE
Absolutely. The world would be strange, however happier. By the way, I hate the word happy. It's so repulsive. Happiness doesn't serve anything. It's just a waste of time.
JACK
That's true. I remember when I was leaving New York and met a man named John Brawl. He was working as a taxi driver. He told me he got released from prison after some years. He went to jail because of drugs. He was a drug dealer. One day, he got caught by the police. Then, after serving his sentence, he was free and swore he would never sell drugs again, only buy them. Has he found happiness? I don't know, perhaps.
CLARICE
The eternal search for the happiness. People are sad because they have lost a good piece of their lives looking for something. It doesn't exist. Where is the island called happiness? If you find out, please, tell me.
JACK
You know. I think that this moment is full of happiness.
CLARICE
Here?
JACK
Of course. Why not?
CLARICE
Really? I'm not happy.
JACK
Where would you like to be now?
CLARICE
Who cares?
JACK
Me.
CLARICE
You? I don't believe it.
(Jack gets close to her.)
JACK
Why?
CLARICE
Why? Because you are like me. You like to dig, dig, dig in the garbage, like a rat, to find words that could save a human being.
JACK
You got me.
CLARICE
I know you.
JACK
You've known me just a few minutes.
CLARICE
It could be too much for an ant.
JACK
You're right. Sometimes I feel like a bug.
CLARICE
Sometimes? I'm a bug. A little bug. A meaningless bug.
(The two look at each other in silence.)
JACK
I don't know what to say.
CLARICE
So, drink.
JACK
Of course.
CLARICE
Do you want another cigarette?
JACK
Yeah. Thank you.
(Clarice hands him her pack of cigarettes. Jack taps a cigarette out of the pack, lights it up, and returns them to her. She picks a cigarette too.)
CLARICE
When the words falter, the thought starts.
JACK
My thoughts are starting to fly.
CLARICE
Where?
JACK
We're in a place that shines brighter than the sun. In this place, there's just the two of us. Nobody else exists. We're like Eve and Adam in the new paradise. We're there to make love and to pay for all new sins. We will make love without fear. Love without ownership. Love without anger. Love without guilt. Love without despair. Love without revenge. Love without judgment. Just love.
CLARICE
I hate to have to say it, but love doesn't exist anymore. The last one was sold.
(Clarice opens the Studebaker, picks up the first edition of Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill, and hands it to Jack.)
CLARICE
Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill.
(Jack gets the book and checks it out.)
JACK
Words, words, words.
CLARICE
Eugene O'Neill was born from some characters instead of a family.
JACK
(Excited.)
Yeah! Yeah! I think that-that-that… Yes, we can do it.
CLARICE
What?
JACK
I want you to love me with your words.
CLARICE
It'd be like sex with the words. Right?
JACK
Yes! The most beautiful experience on the Earth.
(They start a dialogue as if they are making love verbally. The cadence will grow until they reach an orgasm.)
CLARICE
I say what kind of words?
JACK
Say words like that, lemme see…
(Thinking.)
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
CLARICE
I want vast distances. My savage intuition of myself.
JACK
Yeah! I've got you under my skin.
CLARICE
(Sighs, excited.)
It always shakes me.
JACK
The summer is better in Philadelphia than Florida.
CLARICE
Do you ever suddenly find it strange to be yourself?
JACK
Yes! Yes! Yes!
CLARICE
The meaning of life ended when the last dinosaur died.
JACK
Charlie Parker lived inside the cage by day, and at night, he suffered like a bird trapped in a cage.
CLARICE
Love is now, is always.
JACK
Love supplants death.
CLARICE
Death doesn't kill soul.
JACK
Never.
CLARICE
To feel is a fact.
JACK
Underground.
CLARICE
To think is an act.
JACK
If you own a rug you own too much.
CLARICE
Ignorance of the law.
JACK
Of Mice and Men.
CLARICE
I'm a prisoner of myself.
JACK
Let's go free.
CLARICE
In the nightmare.
JACK
The pure wish.
CLARICE
To live.
JACK
To die.
CLARICE
I'm waiting for 'tomorrow'. But it will never come 'today'.
JACK
The poem killed the poet.
CLARICE
The lie is the truth of the liar.
JACK
Sex is just imagination.
CLARICE
Life only harms us when we mistreat ourselves.
JACK
Go on!
CLARICE
Where does music go when it's not playing?
JACK
The only truth is music.
CLARICE
God! Make sure I have the courage to face me.
JACK
All I write about is Jesus.
(They run directly to each other, but before they embrace, they stop.)
CLARICE
I wanna scream.
JACK
Go, go, go. go.
CLARICE
(Screams.)
Ah! Ahhhh! Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh!
(Silence.)
(Jack looks at Clarice. Two breathless moments.)
JACK
Can I have a cigarette?
CLARICE
Of course.
BLACKOUT
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