Grandpa-Less
A Five-Minute Play
CAST OF CHARACTERS
SAM – (M) Early twenties.
DAD – (M) Late fifties.
MA – (F) Late fifties.
TIME
Lemon season.
PLACE
Home.
(DAD is centerstage, rocking back and forth in a rocking chair. SAM is sweeping the floor.)
DAD: You know. I can’t wait to meet your son, son.
SAM: I don’t have a son.
DAD: Oh you will, though. You say you never will, but you will. You damn sure will. I said I’d never have you. I’d never have you and I’d never love you if I did have you. But here you are, so thanks. I guess. Ha. How many push-ups can you do now? Continuously.
SAM: A small bunch.
DAD: I need to know exactly how many.
SAM: I don’t keep count. I just do it until I get tired.
DAD: You need to keep track of things. Numbers. You’ll meet someone who can do ten straight and you’ll know you’re the better man because you can do twelve. How many can you do? You put your hands down on the floor, you push yourself until you’re red in the face, how many can you do?
SAM: Thirty? Forty, maybe.
DAD: Show me. Prove yourself.
SAM: If there’s people to impress, I could probably go for hours.
DAD: Impress me.
SAM: I’m sweeping your floor right now, dad. Give me a second.
DAD: Get on the floor!
SAM: The floor is disgusting! Do you ever clean? Or dust? Every time I visit, there’s a new layer of grime on the floor.
DAD: You said you can do forty!
SAM: I said that. I don’t know if it’s all the way true, but I said it.
DAD: I give you twenty. I give you twenty, maybe twenty-two, twenty-three. One push-up for every year you’ve been alive. How old are you again?
(SAM gets on the floor and begins doing forty push-ups. DAD rocks in his chair with a bit more emphasis.)
That’s it…That’s it. You know, ever since I got surgery on my neck, I can’t do any anymore. No push-ups. Not a single one.
SAM: Eight, nine…
DAD: I’d fall apart and die right there if I tried to do one. I’d just melt into the ground. Back in the day, the eighties, I used to do two hundred a day. Easily. No sweat. There is no better feeling than getting up from a set of push-ups. Crumbles up your worries and tosses them in a lake. Really. I tended to avoid the doctor. I just did push-ups instead.
SAM: Twenty, twenty-one…
DAD: Every time I got dragged down there, though, they tried to tell me I was depressed or something. They said I was so sad that my tears could drown a village. I don’t know why they said it like that. As if my sadness was gonna be the sole reason a whole village of men, women, and children got killed. I want no part of that.
SAM: Thirty-three, thirty-four…
DAD: I don’t want to kill anybody. Just the thought of that makes me even more sad. I’m so fucking sad! But I’ve never cried. Never, not once. I just do push-ups and the urge to cry runs away. Or at least it did. I can’t make things run away anymore.
SAM: Thirty-nine, forty.
(SAM gets off the floor, unphased.)
There we go.
DAD: You’re not even sweating.
SAM: I could go all day.
DAD: You look just like my dad right now.
SAM: Is that right?
DAD: Yeah. Strong, resilient. Except you’re not nearly as dead. Both of your grandpas are dead. You’re grandpa-less. This was my dad’s chair, you know. Gave it to me before he died. About all he had to give. Broke ass. I wish I could just have five more minutes with him. I really do. Just to talk to him. He never really let me know him. Reserved. Prideful. Pushed his pain so far down, it killed him. Created a demon within him that he couldn’t suppress unless he was drinking or using. I dream of him often. It’s like he’s finally comfortable talking to me now that he’s not here. I’ll be leaving in a second, son.
SAM: Are you not impressed?
DAD: I’ll be leaving. I don’t think we’re gonna talk much anymore, either. I just have to go, you know?
SAM: Physical therapy?
DAD: Hell.
SAM: Oh.
DAD: I’ll see you later.
(DAD gets on the floor into push-up position and struggles to do a push-up.)
Shit!
(DAD collapses to the floor, dead. A moment. SAM sweeps DAD.)
SAM: I wish I had five more minutes with him. Just to hear him talk. Never did know him well. He does come to me in my dreams, though…I guess this is my rocking chair now.
(MA calls from offstage.)
MA: Sam? Honey?
SAM: Ma!
MA: Did you go outside to pick the lemons?
SAM: Not yet, Ma.
(MA enters with a vacuum. She holds it proudly.)
MA: Look at this!
SAM: You sure like that vacuum.
MA: (Joyfully.) It’s not an actual shark!
SAM: Yeah, it’s a vacuum.
MA: I always avoided the high-end vacuums because I thought I’d get bitten! You gotta go outside to the lemon tree and pick those lemons, Sam. It’s the first time they’ve grown in years!
SAM: I will, Ma.
MA: They’re ripe for the taking. That tree has been out there since before we got here. It could be ancient! It could be the first lemon tree ever and you’re here not caring about anything.
SAM: I was taking care of Dad.
MA: Looks like you did an awful job.
SAM: He had to go someplace.
MA: Hell?
SAM: Yeah. Did you try picking the lemons out there?
MA: They’re just out of my reach.
(MA starts vacuuming the floor. She vacuums DAD’s back. The sound of the vacuum drowns out her following line.)
MA: We grew so many fruits and vegetables on the farm back in Tellico Plains. We grew up and helped the Earth grow up, too. My daddy was there. It’s funny, I always thought my dad would stay with me. ‘Til the end, thought we’d have to deal with him. Sitting in that rocking chair, talking. Aimlessly. He knew everything but had nobody to talk to. Smarter than everybody.
(MA stops vacuuming.)
I always thought that my dad would sit right there. He’d sit right there forever, but then he died forever instead.
(SAM sits in the rocking chair and rocks back and forth.)
SAM: This chair is so uncomfortable, Ma.
MA: Get up, then. Get out of it. Go outside and pick those lemons. Care about something!
SAM: Ma. How many push-ups do you think you could do right now? Continuously.
END
Dane Futrell is a twenty-three-year-old absurdist playwright from Sanford, Florida. He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Florida Gulf Coast University. He now attends Arizona State University’s Dramatic Writing MFA program where he writes and develops new theatre relentlessly. He’s worked with theatre companies all around Florida and Arizona as an actor, playwright, and producer. His first full-length play, Sitting Ducks on the Sitting Dock, was produced in Fort Myers, Florida to a sold-out audience. He hopes to innovate the world of theatre by embracing the social progress of plays before and adding in an existential and absurdist twist.