Three actors. All from different time periods. Each one with a suitcase for a torso.


SUITCASE SNOB:
All manners of travel
are my forte.
The orient express
in an art deco age.
Supersonic planes,
and airport trains
a trip to the moon
or on a sea-green boat.
You name it,
I’m on it.
I am a world traveler of a superior class…
first class if you’ll have me.
Serve me bone china
with a baroque band
playing in the distance.
The journey is no means to an end,
the journey is the end,
you understand.
Fly me to the moon
and I’ll show you a day
like you never had before.
Tango to the stars.
Jupiter calls.

HOMEBODY GAL:
Me,
I’m the stay at home type.
No frills,
no thrills,
Just me and myself
in my bedroom
go on marvelous trips.
A walnut is a meal,
you know
if you chew enough.
It’ll give you chills.

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
Guys Guys Gals!
Hold your horses.
Where are you off too,
in such a hurry?
Wait for me.
The race is not begun
cause I’ve got a tale
and a long tail it is.
(Wags his strap)
Hear me out,
and hear me in
and you tell me
exactly where I’ve been.

SUITCASE SNOB:
But manners and manners
are what it’s about.
Mind your p’s
and I’ll get the q’s…
Commute.
cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute.
The way in which you do it,
the travel,
the style of it,
is what I’m about.
Don’t you see,
it’s not where you’ve been
but how
and who you’ve seen,
or had tea with the queen.

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
I don’t give a toss!
I’ll toss you for it.
Tell me a story
and I’ll fight you for it.

HOMEBODY GAL:
Guys will be guys.
You boy toy you.
Let me open up
first my straps.
Don’t look!
So personal.
Don’t peep,
I’ll weep.
How’d you like it
if I peeked into your
boy hole?

SUITCASE SNOB:
My eyes are gauged.

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
My ears are peeled.

HOMEBODY GAL:
(Pauses, sits)
It’s the long haul journeys
that tire most.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
This…
This belt around my middle
that keeps me together,
like a garter
or a gaitor,
or an alligator.
It keeps me from falling apart,
My girdle.
Ah!
Tight…
My ass.
(Unstraps herself)
That’s better.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Now my insides
can come tumbling out
for you all to see…

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
Blind man’s bluff.

SUITCASE SNOB:
My ears are peeled.

HOMEBODY GAL:
This…
(a bra)
This is the first thing I take
wherever I go.
It’s a necessity you see
to keep my breasts from bouncing,
ding dong!
So that’s the first thing I take
but the first is not always,
not necessarily
the most important.
This…
(Stripy blue shirt)
is the latter.

SUITCASE SNOB:
Pray…
don’t play games
or waste precious times.
Tell us my dear
share us your wares.

HOMEBODY GAL:
He kissed me in the moonlight-

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
I waited for a cliché?

SUITCASE SNOB:
Tut. Tut.

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
You’ve got to be joking!

SUITCASE SNOB:
Manners manners-

HOMEBODY GAL:
He did.
He kissed me in the moonlight.
My dad he did.
I wore this
stripy blue shirt
that flourescented itself
under a Persian moon.
He did.
On a bench we sat
and sat and sat
and the crisp Caspian air
brushed out our hair
and care
and now I wear
this blue shirt
whenever
I dare.
He did.

SUITCASE SNOB:
Beautiful. Beautiful.
Now let me tell you
about Monte Carlo!
(Multi-colored casino chips spill out of his torso)
I never cashed in.
A sin. A sin.
You wonder why?
It’s a story and a half
of which…
I’ll tell you only half!
(Peels of laughter)
Depressants
anti-depressants.
Where are my pals?
(Downs pills from bottle from inside his torso)
It upsets me to talk about it
but talk I must.
My cathartic habit
of chatter
that keeps me alive.
A beautiful blonde
and I on one arm
her in a mink
and me in a stink.
Who bought her a mink?
T’was me, t’was me,
and the night before Christmas ,
just think
of Saint Nick
and I in a room
nicking the mink!
But manners I must
so I excused me directly
and went away myself instantly.
Never cashed in
when the chips were all down.

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
Sad. Sad.
Sad story. Sad..
But not so bad.

SUITCASE SNOB:
Indeed.
And you…you
who have keep from us
secrets.
How can it be?
While we have bared
all there is to bare.
Bare and exposed
as a polar bear to the sun.
Yet …you are a closed book.
An open and shut case.
Care we even to spare
another moment for you?

HOMEBODY GAL:
Hurry Harry had a hat
hairy horny hat he had
had he had a hat he had
hairy Harry he’d have that.

SUITCASE SNOB:
Vaaaaaat?

HOMEBODY GAL:
Never mind.
In the space of a day
from here to eternity
I traveled to see
on an Autumn’s day
the flesh of my loins.

SUITCASE SNOB:
I’M FROM THE FORTIEsssssssss
when travel was vogue
and the Titanic boat,
was all the rage
in an age
where the stage
was shifted to the air
and supersonic
had nobody on it.
I recall
turbulence.
Aaaaaah,
such a scare .
I looked out the window
In the middle of the day.
The stars had come out,
shimmering
all over the skies
as if pieces of stars
had broken up
and covered entirities.
And then they moved
together around,
playing games,
many at a time .
Swirling, falling, rising.
Wondrous to watch!
Shooting stars in the clouds,
a show of fireworks
Performed by the heavens.
Before one was over,
another would begin.
And you barely blinked
before another show.
If you rubbed your eyes,
you saw even more.
You saw many rainbows
forming pictures you thought
of Mary the Virgin
and Jesus close by
sitting high in the clouds.
A technicolor show.
Then the stars took over,
their fire so bright,
dancing to music
you imagined you might.
And every eye in this world
could not lift off this vision.
And so it continued
the turbulence
and I,
all turbulent inside.

HOMEBODY GAL:
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
So. So. So what?
I in my bedroom
have traveled thousands of miles
with no ticket
or runway for it.
From the day you’re born
to the day you die.
Birth is the beginning
and death the end
and inbetween
comes maximum travel.
All the adventures
and thrills and frills,
all come between the
first and the end.
They happen inbetween
your two ears
inside the head is where
it’s all at.

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
I’ve been to China and Siam
and even to I-ran.
From Moscow to the Bosphorus.
From Tibet to Everest.
Never rest
is my motto.
Know all
and see all.
Every square inch ,
from her thigh
to her buttocks.
I know every inch
that please my person
and even your person,
if you allowed
your desires
to stray like mine do.

SUITCASE SNOB:
And through the decades
as travel expanded,
so our baggage adds up.
The more we travel,
the more baggage we have.
Travel through the ages,
travel through time,
travel through relationships,
all of life is one big journey.

HOMEBODY GAL:
Just the case
in my suitcase.
Here’s a photo
of a guy
and ditto
me.
So happy
we were
in my imaginings.
When time came to shove,
he pushed me
afar.
He couldn’t commit
for the long journey home.
A weekend vacation
was all that
I was.
And came Sunday night,
I was all alone.
Me and my suitcase
on the runway
to home.

SUITCASE SWINDLER:
Once a bachelor
always a bachelot!
Ha ha, aha!
You can’t catch us.
You never will!
To catch a thief
is an awfully hard thing.
And after all,
is that not what we are?
Thieves of the heart.
Your heart.
What’s worse,
we steal and we plunder
and we then throw away,
unnecessary parts
that weigh us down.
Travel light.
Travel lots.
That’s my motto
today.
Tomorrow we’ll see,
what get’s in my way.