A Life on Purpose

[JULES is a social worker in her late 50s or maybe older. DAVID is in his late 50s. And he is someone who needs her help. Both of them are looking at us.]

JULES: He’d failed at two clumsy attempts to kill himself, but I knew he was going to keep trying.

DAVID: I was just practising.

JULES: I tried to set him up with organizations, clubs, anywhere he could maybe find some people he could talk to. 

DAVID: I wouldn’t know anyone.

JULES: You’d meet people.

DAVID: Sad people. People who are all alone just like me.

[And now they look at each other.]

JULES: Well you won’t be alone when you’re there. 

DAVID: But being somewhere always ends eventually. Then we’ll all just go home alone again.

JULES: Only because that’s the way you want it.

[JULES moves away from DAVID.]

JULES: Which was kind of like saying that he’d brought all this misery on himself. And maybe, God help me, I only said it so I could be done with him. And then just concentrate on all my other cases. All the truly sick and in peril people I at least had some slight idea of how to help. But the problem was I knew there was something really wrong with him. I mean beside this deep unrelenting sadness he carried inside him. A year ago he walked into a hospital and declared that he needed help. That’s all he said. “I need help.” Then he shut up. Never said another word. Just sat down at reception and waited for them to deal with him as best they could. He told me later it was because he didn’t want to mislead them. It had to be up to professionals to determine what was wrong with him if they could. Not that it really mattered because he knew it was just a matter of time before it all had to end. He had to end. In the meantime whatever they did, they’d be doing it without any input from him. So they just ran a battery of tests. And what they found was evidence of a traumatic brain injury.

 EMILE: [a doctor, walking on] So that might be the problem. 

DAVID:  What problem? 

JULES: Which were the first words he’d spoken since he’d stopped talking.

EMILE: The one that you asked for help with.

DAVID: Yeah but what is it?

EMILE: First maybe you should tell me what happened to you.

DAVID: I was in a bad car crash. 

EMILE: Do you want to talk about that?

DAVID: No. I just want to know what it means about my problem. Whatever that is.

EMILE: Well traumatic brain injury can lead to many things.

JULES: [to Us] So the doctor listed a few of them but didn’t include the fact that many serial killers have suffered a serious brain injury. Personally I would have told him that too. But for some reason the doctor didn’t.

EMILE: What would have been the point?

JULES: What was the point of not telling him? You didn’t want to alarm him?

EMILE: Something like that.

JULES: [to Us]  Something like that. Idiot.  Yeah a low paid government social worker fast approaching burnout, totally disagreed with a highly trained, experienced doctor. Something I had the urge to do almost every day. But fuck it. I just let them go through the diagnostic list.

EMILE: Are you able to sleep?

DAVID: Not well.

EMILE: How’s your appetite?

DAVID: I don’t like food, so I’m not sure.

EMILE: What about your sex drive?

DAVID: What about it?

EMILE: Do you have one?

DAVID: Not that I’m aware of.

EMILE: Would you describe yourself as an angry person?

DAVID: I don’t have enough energy to get angry.

EMILE: Do you think about hurting yourself?

DAVID: No. Only about killing myself.

EMILE: How often? I mean do you think you’ll be trying to kill yourself any time soon?

DAVID: Depends if I perfect my technique.

EMILE: So you want it to be a one and done kind of thing.

DAVID: Well let’s just say I’m tired of fucking it up.

EMILE: Right.

JULES: So the doctor had him admitted to hospital. And eventually they called me.

[DAVID is putting on a hospital gown.]

JULES: Why’d you let them put you in here? You suddenly wanted someone to stop you from trying to kill yourself?

DAVID: No I thought the psych ward might be the right place to meet someone who almost got it right.

JULES: So it’s just research then. 

DAVID: I shouldn’t even exist. You know that.

JULES: Do I?

DAVID: My parents were in a concentration camp. Oh wait, I might not have told you that.

JULES: You didn’t.

DAVID: Probably because it was none of your business.

JULES: But now?

DAVID: It just popped out, I guess. [just looks at her] It was horrible of course. All of it. They tried to forget. But I made them tell me. And then I tried to picture it. Over and over. In as much detail as I could think of. I felt I had to share it with them somehow. When they saw what I was doing and how bad and how sick it was making me feel, they begged me to stop.

JULES: But you couldn’t.

DAVID: No. I just thought why should I? It was a big part of our story, right. They should have died there. I should never have been born. My life doesn’t make any sense. I mean it didn’t until two years ago when my father drove the family car off a cliff.

JULES: He killed himself?

DAVID: My mother too. Now finally something made sense. There was something about their lives that could be understood. None of us should have been alive when so many weren’t. Too much guilt. Too many memories. Too much pain.

JULES: None of you? You were in the car too?

DAVID: I thought we were just going for a drive in the country. But he knew I’d be lost without them. I’d never even left home. I was 47 when he did it. Still their useless frightened little boy. On the way down to the water, my mother turned back to me and yelled “This way is much better for you.”

JULES: Jesus Christ!

DAVID: She was probably right. Bless them for trying.

JULES: [to Us] And then he cried. And there I was. Suddenly and totally attached to him. More worried about him than even the several bi-polars I often checked up on. I met him for coffee soon after he was discharged  from the hospital.

[DAVID approaches with two takeout coffee cups.]

DAVID: They told me I suffer from severe social anxiety. 

JULES: That’s all?

DAVID: I was prescribed something and advised to get more counselling from anyone except you.

JULES: Those assholes! [to Us] But I backed off anyway. I knew he was too busy planning his demise to do anything as strenuous as going for therapy. So I thought if I could just come up with a reason for him to live. He had been given money from the sale of his parents’ house. But he donated it all to various charities in their names. 

DAVID: Because I didn’t want money tricking me into thinking I should go on existing. 

JULES: Are you sure you don’t want to see a psychiatrist?

DAVID: No. You’ll do.

JULES: [to Us] He said he knew what should happen, but he was too scared and weak to throw himself in front of a bus. Or a subway. 

DAVID: I’m not sure those were my exact words.

JULES: [to Us]  They were. Plus he was afraid of heights, so jumping off a bridge wasn’t an option. 

DAVID: I said that mostly because I thought it was funny.

JULES: [to Us] Yeah I laughed. Because sometimes I just have to. And sometimes I even have to consider saying or doing things that I shouldn’t. But first… [turning to DAVID] Are you just...really and truly unhappy?

DAVID: I miss my parents. I think about them all the time.

JULES: You mean when you’re not thinking about doing away with yourself.

DAVID: Right.

JULES: And just checking again, there’s really nothing at all that you enjoy about living?

DAVID: I told you. Living is a mistake. Once you’ve actually experienced the truth about living in this horrible world, only death makes any sense.

[DAVID leaves.]

JULES: [to Us] And then there was Annie.

[ANNIE, 20, in a hospital gown. Looks around, finding it hard to concentrate]

ANNIE: Can you ask them to give me something?

JULES: I could maybe arrange for you to get some pills.

ANNIE: Yeah. I’m okay with pills.

JULES: Just anti depressants. They might help.

ANNIE: You mean to make me happy or something.

JULES: Or something, yeah.

[ANNIE starts off.]

JULES: Where you going?

ANNIE: Like you care.

[ANNIE is gone.]

JULES: [to Us] And that was all there was to our first meeting. A week later she had them call me and ask if I could to come visit her in the hospital.

[ANNIE approaches awkwardly. Staring at the floor, her hands behind her back.]

ANNIE: What took you so long?

JULES: They just called me this morning.

ANNIE: And wasn’t that big of them. You sound kinda angry.

JULES: I’m not.

ANNIE: Well even if you are, who gives a shit. Is a sick person’s situation important to you or isn’t it?

JULES: What happened?

[ANNIE  shows her bandaged wrists.]

ANNIE: Too much blood. I shared that bathroom. And other people who live in that house were gonna go in there and see all that blood.

JULES: And you dead.

ANNIE: Yes. And it didn’t seem fair.

JULES: Does fairness matter to you?

ANNIE: Well it obviously does, you fuckwit. I just wish I could afford to hire someone.

JULES: You mean to kill you.

ANNIE: Well what else? To do my shopping? Yes to kill me. And do it suddenly. Without me knowing it was coming.

JULES: Because that would scare you?

ANNIE: Probably. So what?

JULES: Well maybe it means you don’t really want to die.

ANNIE: So what is this, a test? No I don’t want to die. I just want to be dead.

JULES: Okay.

ANNIE: Don’t fucking say okay like you know what that means.

JULES: Except maybe I do.

ANNIE: You can’t know it without feeling it, okay. Try to keep at least that much straight.

JULES: You mean feeling your pain. No I can’t. But--

ANNIE: I miss my baby!

JULES: Okay. Yeah...

ANNIE: It was a mistake. A really bad mistake. But I’ve been thinking. Maybe I can get her back. Not her exactly. But someone like her. Or who knows, it might be her again. Giving me another chance. [crying]

I want another chance.

[ANNIE  leaves.]

[DAVID is pacing. Snapping his fingers.]

DAVID: How many people die in this world every time I do that. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands? And how many of those deaths are peaceful. Painless. Non violent. From natural causes. Not from starving to death. Or being shot. Or having a...

[ANNIE comes back on.]

ANNIE: [to Us] Stop looking at me. You can only look at me after I’ve taken my medication. So until then, eyes closed!!

[She leaves again.]

DAVID: ...having a bomb dropped on your house.

JULES: Right, yeah. But--

DAVID: I think my parents were ashamed of not being able to stop it.

JULES: Stop it? You mean what was done to them? Really?

DAVID: You think there’s no shame in that? I felt ashamed just from hearing them tell me about what they went through. No that’s not right. They weren’t just telling me. They were living it again. I could feel their shame. Their fear.

JULES: But you kept asking them.

DAVID: I told you. I needed to know.

JULES: Right. And what good has it done you?

DAVID: I don’t understand that question. Why did you use the word good? What good could it have possibly done me. There was no goodness in what they went through. Why should there be any in the telling?

JULES: I don’t know but... What I’m trying to say...what you need to hear is— I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to say. Or what you need to hear.

DAVID: I don’t need to hear anything. I need to be dead. Why isn’t there somewhere I can go where people could just help me be dead?

JULES: There is, but you’d have to be sick. Sick enough to die. I mean sick enough to die soon.

DAVID: On my own.

JULES: Yes.

DAVID: So why would I need help then. And more importantly, why isn’t how I feel about living enough of a sickness. If I told them how I feel, how I’ve always felt about life... There was a heaviness in our house. My parents tried to make it go way. Sometimes it did for a while. We’d have people over for supper and there’d be some laughter. Some smiling. But next day it was back. Slowly at first. Like they were trying to hold on to that bit of lightness from supper. But eventually they just had to do what they had to do. Be what they usually were.

[JULES shushes DAVID and gestures to DELORES, who sits on a park bench, head down.]

JULES: She’s a mother of two sons. Both safe and highly educated. Despite growing up in a very high risk area, she kept them free of both the temptations and the threats around being part of any gang. And she did this by holding down two, sometimes three jobs for over twenty years. She was admired by her neighbours and feared by the hoods all around her apartment complex. She got in their faces and yelled the truth no one else dared to say.

DELORES: [looking up] I called them cowards and weaklings. I challenged them to grow up, be better. And then I headed off to clean the bank. Or the community centre. Then make it to my shift at that drive-through. But I called home to check if my boys were there. Doing their homework. And if they weren’t, there would be consequences. 

JULES: Another long lecture about responsibility. And then she would cry. 

DELORES: That always got them. I’d just sink onto the couch, put my hands over my eyes and weep.

JULES: She hated doing it, pretending to be weak and overwhelmed. But it always worked.

DELORES: Because they loved me. Very much. 

JULES: Almost everyone loved her. For almost twenty years she was a beacon of hope and strength to everyone in that neighbourhood. Not just people who knew her, but people who had only heard about her. And then one day she was gone. She just disappeared.

DELORES: Not from my sons. Oh no. They knew where I was. And they visited me every day. And I always felt better, healthier in my mind and soul when they were with me. Even in that place.

JULES:In a hospital. In a psych ward. Medicated. Broken. And maybe forever. She’d first been arrested on her forty-fifth birthday for causing a commotion at the entrance to a downtown mall. She was grabbing people, loudly quoting scripture, and urging them to stop all their shopping nonsense... 

DELORES: And instead involve themselves in the work of the Lord.

[smiles] Still the best advice they could ever be given, if you ask me.

JULES: She was gently put in a police car, and the next day she made her first of many appearances in a Mental Health Court where I was an attending social worker.

DELORES: You visited me in my cell.

JULES: Yes I did. [to Us] As she was waiting to go in front of the judge. I was drawn to her immediately. She was clearly a very impressive woman. But she was also in distress and confused about what she had done wrong.

DELORES: Which was?

JULES: You scared people.

DELORES: How?

JULES: You were yelling at them.

DELORES: All preachers yell.

JULES: Are you a preacher?

DELORES: I’m a mother.

JULES: Me too. [to Us] And that’s when everything changed. When we talked about being mothers.

DELORES: About being single mothers. About being tired. About being scared.

JULES: That’s when our very strange friendship took root. And even though I often feel I have a very tenuous connection to her, our fondness for each other has never weakened.

DELORES: Yeah I can agree with that.

JULES: [to Us] The judge ordered her into the hospital for an assessment. She was released and told to appear in front of him the next day.

She never showed up.

Where is she?

I don’t know, Your Honour.

Well maybe we should find out. Her assessment suggests there is cause to be worried

There’s always cause to be worried.

The police won’t bother, so can you try to find out?

Where she is?

Yes. And if she’s...

I leave the court thinking... If she’s what...? 

DELORES: Out preaching somewhere else? Scaring people? 

JULES: Can’t we just leave her alone?

DELORES: Now that’s something worth considering.

JULES: I went to the home address she’d given. It didn’t exist. I stood on the sidewalk in front of a vacant lot turning in circles. What now?

What now is what happened a week later.

[Lights out on DELORES.]

[DAVID is approaching.]

DAVID: I believe you were about to ask me something.

JULES: Right. Ahhh... Give me a hint.

DAVID: It was along the lines of...why didn’t I just... No sorry. But I think it was something pretty judgmental.

JULES: Why didn’t you ever leave home?

DAVID: Yeah, right. To do what?

JULES: Get a job. Have your own life. Make friends...

DAVID: I had a job with the government for fifteen years.

JULES: Doing what?

DAVID: I made pads.

JULES: Sorry?

DAVID: Scratch pads. They’d bring me unused loose papers and I’d staple them together. If people needed a pad for any reason, they could come to me and pick one out. They were in various sizes and a few different colours. Mostly white. But blue as well. And some yellow. I kept them on shelves.

JULES: In your office?

DAVID: Yes. Well it was more like a closet.

JULES: Where you kept the pads?

DAVID: No my office. Okay. And you did that for fifteen years.

DAVID: Until my mother got sick. And my father wanted me to stay at home with her so--

JULES: Sick with what?

DAVID: She developed bad asthma. I did that until the day my father killed her. Well he didn’t really kill her. Except he did, right. I mean he was the one who drove the car...over...the...

JULES: What?

DAVID: Anyway I’m sure she gave him permission to do that... Except maybe she didn’t...

JULES: What the hell was all that about, David? What you just said? You think he ended her life without having permission?

DAVID: It’s just something I think about on occasion. I’d like to go home now. 

JULES: No maybe you should just stay here.

DAVID: And do what?

JULES: Talk. Just talk.

DAVID: For how long?

JULES: For fucking ever! So I’ll at least know where you are. So I can stop thinking about how you’re doing every five fucking minutes!

DAVID: You said that all out loud, you know.

JULES: I did? Fuck!

[ANNIE comes on.]

ANNIE: [to Us] Stop looking at me. You can only look at me after I’ve taken my medication. Haven’t I already told you that?! 

[MARIUS comes on. He is in his early 30s.]

JULES: This is Marius.

MARIUS: [to Us] Hi.

JULES: Marius has a lot of fears. [to MARIUS] Tell them.

MARIUS: Okay. But will some of them judge me?

JULES: Definitely. But it might be good to air them in public anyway. Just to see what kind of reaction you get.

MARIUS: You mean it might help. To put things in perspective,  I mean.

JULES: Just a guess. But since you won’t seek medical help.

MARIUS: I’ve got you.

JULES: [to Us] Yeah. He does. Just like a half dozen other people who only have me.

MARIUS: Because we trust you.

JULES: I know. So go ahead. All the things that scare you.

MARIUS: That might take forever. Why don’t you just choose a couple.

JULES: You mean my favourites? [to Us] I actually do have a few. Marius is afraid of kittens.

MARIUS: Newborn kittens without eyes.

JULES: [to Us] He thinks the eyes aren’t there yet. [to Marius] They are.

MARIUS: That’s never been proven.

JULES: It has actually.

MARIUS: Not to me, it hasn’t.

JULES: And neither has the fact that when it rains it will always stop at some point.

MARIUS: Because it always has?

JULES: Yep.

MARIUS: Just because it always has doesn’t mean it always will. So the fear of perpetual rain makes sense. Just like there’s no guarantee that traffic lights will always function properly.

JULES: That’s actually true. Sometimes the system goes awry.

MARIUS: Possibly when I’m in the middle of an intersection with a large cement truck barreling towards me.

JULES: Okay that’s enough. I can’t listen to anymore--

MARIUS: [to Us] So never use the lights as a guide. It’s much safer to cross in the middle of a block and trust your own instincts about when it’s safe.

JULES: Okay that’ll do.

MARIUS: You don’t want me to tell them your most favourite of all?

JULES: I don’t have a “most favourite of all.”

MARIUS: Yes she does. And this is it. [he shrugs] I’m very very afraid of groups of people who have gathered together and are laughing.

JULES: For no apparent reason. [to MARIUS] Correct?

MARIUS: Yes. Well think about it.

JULES: No, no. We won’t be doing that. Now move away for a bit while I break a confidence, and tell these people more about you.

MARIUS: How much more?

JULES: Depends how much I have to get off my chest. 

[MARIUS nods and moves away from her.]

JULES: Okay first off, he looks Middle Eastern, but he says he’s Swedish. When I asked him if he was an illegal refugee, he started to shiver and ran out of the room. I found him on the street turning very slowly in circles. So I brought him back into my office and never mentioned the refugee thing again. And all the rest is the only information about his life that I could squeeze out of him. He lives alone. Which is probably not surprising. 

MARIUS: [quietly] I have a room in a faded mansion, now just a rooming house, on the edge of Rosedale. The room is oppressively dreary. I know that.

JULES: But it’s interesting...

MARIUS: Yes. Because I actually own the house and could have a much nicer room. 

JULES: But because he’s afraid of doing any job he might have to get to do that...

MARIUS: I live on the rent I collect  from tenants in the other fifteen rooms. 

JULES: The house was left to him by his step father Amir who went by the name Gordon. Apparently another Swedish name. 

MARIUS: I wish she’d just let that go. I mean how does it help to always be questioning someone’s roots?

JULES: And Amir, aka Gordon...

MARIUS: Or Gordon aka Amir...

JULES: ...was a man Marius hated and distrusted so much that he believes that the bequest was actually some kind of trap that hasn’t been sprung yet. Even though the distrusted step-father died twelve years ago.

MARIUS: I still believe that it is definitely going to happen eventually. So that’s also a pretty scary thing to live with no matter what she thinks.

JULES: I’ve tried but can’t find any reason why he’s so afraid of so many things. Including whatever it is that makes him maintain that the whole family is Swedish. It’s probably something that any psychiatrist could can get him to let go of.

MARIUS: If I wasn’t also extremely afraid of psychiatrists.

JULES: Exactly.

[DAVID has been listening.]

DAVID: [moving closer to her] If you’re trying to draw some parallel between the two of us…

JULES: I’m not.

DAVID: But if you are...

JULES: I’m not, okay!

DAVID: Okay, okay. Calm down. I’m just saying I’m not afraid of psychiatrists. I’m an unhappy man who just needs someone to talk to on occasion. 

JULES: Like me you mean. Not a friend. Not a rabbi. Not a distant relative. 

DAVID: Distant relative. Was that some kind of sick joke? What distant  relatives? Have you actually forgotten about my family’s history with the holocaust?

JULES: You mean besides what your parents went through? 

DAVID: And you think that’s all there was to it. There weren’t grandparents or cousins or cousins twice removed. You know, like distant relatives?!

JULES: Right. I mean I’m...sorry.

DAVID: Good. But sure, it’s my parents I miss the most. I think about them all the time.

JULES: You mean when you’re not thinking about doing away with yourself.

DAVID: Right.

JULES: And just checking again, there’s really nothing, truly

nothing at all, that you enjoy about living?

DAVID: How many times do I have to tell you. Living is a mistake. Once you’ve actually experienced the truth about living in this horrible world, only death makes any sense.

[EMILE has been watching.]

JULES: Can you help me out here?

EMILE: Only with drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. Don’t quote me on that.

[EMILE starts off.]

JULES: Where are you going?

EMILE: I think I can help out that scaredy cat who was here before. Got my prescription pad right here. 

[He waves it at her, laughs and leaves.]

JULES: [to Us] It’s that guy that I have most of my nightmares about. I think I might be having one right now.

[A now very pregnant ANNIE appears.]

ANNIE: Am I in it. I should be.

JULES: Yeah you should. Look, about your baby.

ANNIE: My new baby?

JULES: [taking that in] What? You’re pregnant again!? Jesus Fucking Christ!

[JULES staggers, spins and then falls.]

ANNIE: Don’t you mean congratulations?

[JULES looks at her, sits up, but doesn’t stand.]

[ANNIE watches DAVID approach.]

ANNIE: Not this guy again?

[DAVID approaches JULES slowly, almost whispers over her shoulder.]

DAVID: I want to address that shame issue again.

JULES: No need. I get it,

DAVID: I don’t think you do. I don’t think I was clear enough when you first brought it up.