Joe
by joy waller


Characters
	STEVE	-	a man
	KAREN	-	a woman
	JOE	-	black sheep of the family


[Lights up to reveal STEVE and KAREN, at their house.]

STEVE: All I ever wanted was a coffee.

KAREN: Mmm. Frapaccino.

STEVE: Or even just instant decaf. Anything, really, so long as it contains the word 
“coffee.” You know?

KAREN: Yeah.

STEVE: Yeah. Coffee. Instead, we get a kid.

KAREN: This is something you want, right? We made cute little half-baked plans about 
this, if I remember correctly. It just happened a little sooner than I imagined it would. 

STEVE: Yes. Five years sooner.

KAREN: You’re mad. You don’t want this.

STEVE: I’m not mad! I’m far too shallow a person to get mad, you know that babe. I’ve 
been thinking of names. “Alex” is a good, strong name, don’t you think? And if it’s a
girl - “Chloe.”

KAREN: Chloe sounds so gay.

STEVE: Elizabeth then, I don’t care. Something historical.  

KAREN: We never talk about deep things.

STEVE: Sorry?

KAREN: Deep things. Things with depth. You know. Things like .. I don’t know .. Car 
wrecks. We’ve never talked about a car wreck.

STEVE: Let’s talk about car wrecks now.

KAREN: Or even just cars breaking down. We’ve never really discussed that before.

STEVE: Sure. Cars breaking down. Ready.

KAREN: Okay.

STEVE: Um … So, sorry, what specifically did you have in mind to discuss, about cars 
breaking down?

KAREN: That’s not the point, jerk! The point is that I’m trying to get us to talk about 
something meaningful, and all that comes out is confusion and mass miscommunication.

STEVE: You look like you could use a coffee. Or some hormone pills.

KAREN: I could use an epiphany.

STEVE: I could dress up like a fairy and pretend to give you a vision.

KAREN: Get me a coffee, you fool.

STEVE: Okay. Want me to brew it here or run down the street and buy you some 
Starbucks.

KAREN: Better make it Starbucks.

STEVE: You know, you could be a good corporate advertiser. Get big-name companies 
to have you mention their products in prominent places … On television talk shows, for
example, or at malls …

KAREN: Coffee.

STEVE: Right.

	[Exit STEVE.]

KAREN: I have this cousin who’s a crackhead. 

[JOE appears]

JOE: Are you slighting me?

KAREN: Forget it. 

JOE: No, I think we need to finish this.

KAREN: Okay. I have this cousin –

JOE: Joe –

KAREN: Right, right, I have this cousin Joe, he’s a crackhead.

JOE: An employed crackhead. You always try to give me a bad rap, babe.

KAREN: Okay. He’s employed. He calls the numbers at bingo games four hours a week, 
and does God knows what at the bottle depot for ten.

JOE: Have you ever heard of packagers, Karen? They package bottles for transport, and 
without their fine work and eye for detail, bottle depots could not run with half the 
efficiency that they do now. 

KAREN: Joe was a little strange growing up. He was an exhibitionist, always running 
around on tabletops and talking to strangers … Embarrassing his parents and his sisters. 

JOE: They had no sense of spontaneity.

KAREN: His family was … the conservative sort.

JOE: None of them did drugs. Ever!

KAREN: Now, most people say that kids start out on marijuana and that leads to harder 
drugs. Not Joe. He went straight from diet Coke to crack.

JOE: Steve and I were having this interesting telephone conversation the other day. You 
know how you’re looking for a career change. Well, maybe you could take up 
corporate advertising. You know how you have this, I don’t know, knack for mentioning
things at just the right time –

KAREN: Here’s the scenario. Joe’s sixteen. High on crack, failing all his courses. His 
parents think he needs a change of scenery, or maybe they were just tired of the embarrassment …

JOE: You keep screwing with the story, Karen! You know I was tired of the scenery.

KAREN: Right, right. So for whatever reason, he gets sent to live with us.

JOE: Kicked out of home at the tender age of sixteen. It ripped me apart inside.

KAREN: I was ten. The impressionable age. The inquisitive age. “Mommy, what’s 
syphilis mean?” That sort of thing. An only child, pretty messed-up due to Mom’s divorce
and re-marriage … And then the crackhead moved in.

JOE: You make it sound like I was a freak of some sort. 

KAREN: You were. Now. I was scared of him at first. He was a pretty rough-looking 
character. Wore chains, and things like that. 

JOE: Remember when I smacked you with em once?

KAREN: Yes. That particular incident reinforced some of my initial fears. But after the 
first few weeks, we started getting used to each other. 

JOE: I remember I didn’t like you at first. I thought you were a priss. Hey. I still think you’re a priss.

KAREN: The turning-point in our relationship came when he was giving me a ride to 
school and the truck broke down.

JOE: She was a beauty. ’61 Chevy Supreme. Fully restored. Leather interior.     

KAREN: Joe sent me for help.

JOE: [sixteen] Hey, loser. Go get help.

KAREN: [a mature ten] Go yourself. It’s your stupid truck.

JOE: Do you wanna get to school, or not?

KAREN: You have a responsibility to get me to school. If you don’t – if I am five 
minutes late for school today – you’ll have to go back home and live with your 
real family. And you know you don’t like the scenery there.

JOE: Who told you that?

KAREN: Mom did. She said you were involved in a bad scene.

JOE: Oh. 

[JOE leans against the truck and lights a crack joint.]

KAREN: What’s that you got there?

JOE: Cheese.  

KAREN: What’s syphilis mean, Joe?

JOE: It’s a sexually transmitted disease that’s been going around. It’s caused 
by the spirochete bacteria, and people who have it go blind, and deaf, and get 
paralyzed and have bone deformities. Sometimes they die. Al Capone died of syphilis.

KAREN: Who’s Al Capone?

JOE: He was a crime boss in the U.S. 

KAREN: Oh.

JOE: You’re not too smart, are you?

KAREN: I have the highest IQ in my class.

JOE: Yeah? What class is that?

KAREN: Grade five.

JOE: [snorts] Grade five. Yeah, like that counts for anything. No wonder.

KAREN: Listen. You can’t even fix your dumb truck. 

JOE: If it’s so dumb then why’d you get in it. Why didn’t you walk to school like you did 
before I got here. I have better things to do then drive around a bunch of under intelligent ten-year-olds, you know. 

KAREN: I have a blister today.

JOE: Yeah?

KAREN: Yeah.

JOE: Hmm. Well, I have to sympathize. Blisters suck. Where is it?

KAREN: On my foot.

JOE: Here, let’s take a look at it. 

[KAREN removes her shoe and sock while JOE continues smoking. He examines her foot, joint in one hand.]

Mmm. Nasty. No wonder you’re not walking. 

KAREN: Mom said walking would aggravate it.

JOE: She’s not so dumb, your mom … Hey. How’d you like a cast on that baby?

KAREN: A cast for a blister?

JOE: Sure! What do you think the kids at school are gonna do when they see you’re 
limping around and you tell em it’s because of a blister? They’re all gonna laugh at you and call you wimp. If you had a cast, though … That would change things. Change things dramatically. 

KAREN: Are you qualified to put casts on people?

JOE: Yup.

[JOE rummages in glove box, coming up with a paper bag containing plaster of paris and a brightly printed towel.]

KAREN: [suspiciously] Who qualified you.

JOE: St. John’s Ambulance. We need a bowl. Here. Gimme your lunch kit. 

[KAREN is silent as JOE takes her lunch kit, empties the contents, and pours the plaster of paris in.]

Kay, now we need water … Something to mix it with, make it gooey … Uh, here, this’ll work.

[JOE empties a small milk carton into the mixture.]

KAREN: That was my milk. I was going to drink it at lunch. 

JOE: Sorry kid. I’ll buy you a new one after we’re through here. 

[JOE begins stirring the mixture with his hands. He hands KAREN his joint.]

Here, hold this … And don’t you dare smoke any of it. That has to last me till payday.

KAREN: I didn’t know you found a job already.

JOE: Your mom hooked me up. I call numbers at the bingo hall. Started last night.

[Finished with the stirring, JOE wipes his hands on the towel and takes back the joint. He hands KAREN the towel]

          Here. Rip this into strips.

[KAREN rips.]

KAREN: I’m not sure if this will be the best thing for my blister. I’m thinking that it 
          might aggravate it more than walking on it would.

JOE: Remember kid, you don’t know anything. This will not aggravate you at all, and if 
          it does, it’s your fault, not mine. 

KAREN: I’m going to be late for school. 

JOE: Here, let me see your watch.

[KAREN hands it over. JOE examines it.]

KAREN: You better not do anything to my watch.

JOE: Don’t worry, I won’t do anythi – Dude! Where’d you get this watch?

KAREN: The Bay.

JOE: Well, it’s crap. This is the wrong time. No wonder you’re always thinking you’re 
        late for school.

KAREN: It is not crap.

JOE: I’m telling you, you got a bum deal. Don’t worry, I’ll fix it.

KAREN: You’ll break it!

JOE: Keep ripping!

[JOE fiddles with the watch, smacks it around a bit]

KAREN: You’re breaking my watch. I can’t believe I let you do this.

JOE: Hey, like I said … You’re no Einstein. There. Fixed.

[JOE hands it back.]

KAREN: It says January 1, 12:00. 

JOE: Here, you’re doing it wrong.

[JOE takes the towel, rips off the last piece. He begins dipping the strips in the mixture and applying a cast.]

KAREN: I won’t be able to do P.E. with this cast on my foot. 

JOE: So don’t go. See if I care. 

KAREN: You’re not a very responsible cousin. In fact, I’d say you’re unreliable.

JOE: In what way?

KAREN: You promised Mom you’d drive me to school. 

JOE: I drove you half-way. Truck broke down. Live with it. 

[There is a long pause, during which JOE confidently applies the plaster cast and KAREN 
watches him, emotions veiled.]

KAREN: [softly] I don’t like P.E. anyway. 

JOE: Stupid kid. P.E. is good for you. It builds physical fitness and promotes healthy 
relationships between children. In addition, it cultivates the competitive edge necessary for scholastic success.

KAREN: [softer still] I don’t like it. I have to run around the field and I’m not a good 
runner. 

JOE: Running is over-rated. Most kids who are slow runners are good at other things, like 
high jump.

KAREN: I can’t do high jump. I can’t climb the rope. I can’t kick the balls. I can’t catch the balls. 

JOE: Doesn’t it ever strike you as stupid? The way kids are always running after balls? 
There’s not much point, when you think about it. So who cares if you can’t do it? I don’t care.

KAREN: Mom says you don’t care about anything. 

JOE: An advantage to not caring about anything is that I don’t care that your mom is 
gossiping about me. 

KAREN: Joe?

JOE: Yeah.

KAREN: This cast … How will it come off.

JOE: I’ll have to saw it off. 

KAREN: We don’t have any saws at our house. 

JOE: I guess it’ll stay on forever, then! [trying to scare her]

KAREN: Good.

JOE: Good?

KAREN: Then I won’t have to go to P.E. 

JOE: Listen. About the running and stuff. It’s not that hard. I could coach you. We could 
practice. Hearty 6 a.m. jogs! Would you like that?

KAREN: I’ll have to think about it. 

JOE: Take your time. [laying the last strip] There. Now we’ll have to let it harden for a 
while. Don’t move, or you’ll make it crack. 

KAREN: I won’t move. [pause] My watch wasn’t broken, was it.

JOE: No. I was lying to you so you’d get off my case about being late. 

KAREN: How are we going to fix the truck? 

JOE: We can’t fix it. It’s shot to hell. And thanks to your carelessness we can’t send 
you for help now, can we? And I’m too lazy to go myself. I guess we’re going to have to wait for a kindly motorist to stop and offer us assistance. 

KAREN: Never happen. 

JOE: I know. 

KAREN: This one time I was in a race, it was a track meet in grade 3, everyone in our 
school went, and all the other elementary schools in like three different cities went, and I was the only kid from our school in the race. 

JOE: Yeah?

KAREN: I came in last.

JOE: Oh.

KAREN: I walked across the finish line. 

JOE: Mmm. 

KAREN: I gave up halfway through and walked the rest of the way.

JOE: Listen -

KAREN: It was only a fifty-metre dash! Everyone said how badly I sucked and they all 
wished I went to a different school. I dragged down our school average. We didn’t get a federal grant to update our P.E. equipment. 

JOE: That sucks. A lot.

KAREN: When I came home … Mom said, Where’s your blue ribbon. I said Jenny 
Pearson stole it. Mom phoned Jenny Pearson’s mom and they got in a big fight, and it ended with Mom hanging up the phone and telling me she didn’t know what I was better at - lying or coming in last.

JOE: Your mom said that to you?

KAREN: [bearly audible] Yes.

JOE: That’s pretty harsh. [beat] Wanna here a sucky thing that happened to me?

KAREN: Sure. 

JOE: Okay. I was fourteen years old. My parents were having one of their little fights. I 
couldn’t take it, just got up and left the house. 

KAREN: Was it dark out?

JOE: Sort of. It was around 8:30. So I just start walking, right, just walking in a straight line. I ended up in one of the parks by the lake. By that time it was dark and I was cold, and there were some crazies hanging around, shouting, drinking beer, you know. I sat on a bench and hoped they wouldn’t see me, but one of them came up and said beside me.

KAREN: [horrified] Ohhh!

JOE: So he sits beside me and puts his arm around me and calls me Daniel, cuz he thinks 
I’m his son. And he says, “Danny, I want you to come home, I’m gonna stop hitting you, I’m gonna stop hitting your mom.” And he started crying and asking me to forgive him. And he said, Remember that time I’d lost fifty dollars, well that was him. And remember that time someone stole my cd player, well that was him too. And he just kept crying and asking me to forgive him … He was crying all over the place. Tears falling down his face. Crying.

KAREN: What did you say to him?

JOE: Fuck you, Dad. 

KAREN: And –

JOE: And then I went home. And Mom and Dad were still yelling. When I went to sleep  
I could still feel his arm around my shoulder, and I could still feel his tears in my spine. And when I woke up the next morning, everything was different.

KAREN: How was that morning different?

JOE: That was the morning I started not to care. Now. About your P.E. trauma. Don’t 
worry about it kid. I’ll help you learn, and we’ll get you in shape in no time. How’s that cast? Hard yet?

[He knocks on the cast.]

Not quite ready. It’s gonna be a beaut if you keep holding still. How’s it feel?

KAREN: It makes my foot feel weird.

JOE: Good! I’m a success. How about that. 

KAREN: How long are you staying with us, Joe?

JOE: Dunno. Till your parents get sick of me, I guess. Could be quite a while. Took 
sixteen years for my parents.

KAREN: [optimistically] And my parents are a little more tolerant than yours.

JOE: Yeah. They rock. Your mom’s a bit messed though. She talk about me lots?

KAREN: She said you’re a crackhead.

JOE: Mm. Anything else?

KAREN: That’s about it. What’s crackhead mean?

JOE: It’s sort of like syphilis, except it’s not sexually transmitted. You get it from red meat that hasn’t been cooked all the way through. It bores a tiny hole in your 
brain, which soon develops into a full-blown crack. Hence the nickname crackhead. I believe the Latin term is Latus Cracki. Your mom’s not too smart, is she? Talking slang like that.

KAREN: She went to a community college. 

JOE: Mm.

KAREN: There’s a car!

JOE: Wave! Wave! 

KAREN: [waving desperately] Help! Help!

JOE: Look like you’re in more danger!

KAREN: [doubling her energy] Help! Help!

JOE: Jerks.

KAREN: They didn’t stop.

JOE: You didn’t wave hard enough.

KAREN: Well why didn’t you wave.

JOE: Are you kidding? I’m too old for that sort of thing.

KAREN: It doesn’t matter. No one’s going to stop. They’re all on their way to work; they 
won’t want to be late. 

JOE: Yeah. Okay kid, we’re walking you to school. 

KAREN: But my cast.

JOE: [mimicking] But my cast! It’s only plaster. You can limp. 

[KAREN takes a few awkward steps.]

You see? It’s not so bad. We’ll get you there in time for lunch. 

KAREN: I think we should just go home. It’s closer. 

JOE: Mm. You’re right. Let’s go. Oh, look – flowers. We should pick some for your 
mom. Then maybe she won’t kill me. That would be all I need, eh? [taps his head] Another crack.

KAREN: Those are pansies. She hates pansies.

JOE: Why?

KAREN: She says they remind her of people with big heads. 

JOE: Fine, forget the flowers. We’ll buy her some chocolate. You got any cash?

KAREN: No. 

JOE: Liar. We’ll pawn your watch.

[They begin making their way offstage.]

KAREN: Wait up, Joe!

JOE: Well hurry! They’ll think I’ve kidnapped you.

KAREN: You didn’t do a very good job on the cast.

JOE: It’s still on your foot, isn’t it?

KAREN: It’s slowing me down.

JOE: Quit your complaining!

[They exit. Suddenly KAREN comes hop-running back – she has forgotten her lunch kit. She bends to pick it up, and when she rises, she sees STEVE, who is just entering, holding a cup of Starbucks coffee.]

STEVE: Hey babe. Only the best for you. Stood in line for ten minutes.

KAREN: Steve. You’re back.

STEVE: In the flesh. What’s with the cast?

KAREN: I had a blister?

STEVE: [affectionately] You’re so weird. And you’re the only person I know who can 
make their own cast.

KAREN: Joe can.

STEVE: Joe. I was talking to him the other day. Still working at a bottle depot, the poor 
shmuck. What does he actually do there.

KAREN: He’s a packager. 

STEVE: Mm. Sounds dead-beatish to me. I didn’t get you milk. They were out of one 
percent. I figured black would be good for a change. 

KAREN: Thanks. 

STEVE: Babe?

KAREN: Mm. 

STEVE: You look sad. 

KAREN: I’m just … We’re going to be parents, Steve.

STEVE: Yeah. Freak me out. You want me to spike that? I smells kind of bland.

KAREN: If we get divorced when it’s growing up.

STEVE: We won’t. I said I do. And I will. 

KAREN: If you … Steal from it, if you hit me –

STEVE: Babe. Calm down. 

KAREN: I don’t want it to be unhappy. I don’t want it to be confused. I want it to know 
everything and I don’t want it to go through a moment of uncertainty.

STEVE: We’ll teach it things. We’ll play it classical music. We’ll put it in an art class. 

KAREN: Track and field. We’ll give it track and field lessons. I want it to be a good 
athlete. 

STEVE: The best. It’ll be the best athlete. So good, even .. That it will go to the 
Olympics. Earn us a nice little pension.

KAREN: And once in a while we could let Joe drive it to school.

STEVE: Why Joe? I could drive. You could drive. It could take a bus. 

KAREN: Joe could teach it things. 

STEVE: What sort of things could Joe teach it that we couldn’t.

KAREN: Joe things. You know. 

STEVE: It was Joe that taught you casts, wasn’t it.

KAREN: Yes.

STEVE: Well. That’s one thing, at least. 

KAREN: Yes. [pause] One thing.

END OF PLAY