ABSTRACT
Act 1, scene 2. The diningroomin a house a couple of miles south of Dublin. An evening in July.
EMILY: Well ... ah it's all so corny, it's like Lana Turner on the stool at Schwab's. I'm serving in the cafe one day, and of course the whole place is like some home for the deluded anyway - no-one really works there - here's a writer, there's an actress, hello you pair of poets - standard young hopeful stuff. So I'm serving, and this dapper little faggot is really hassling me . . . [BREDA. (I hate that word, faggot.) RORY . (I'm rather fond of it, actually. )] Now 1 know this guy a little , 1 don't know who he is, but he knows 1 paint, and we'd made small talk about the scene before, bitchy stuff mostly. But suddenly he's being really obnoxious, like 'This glass is not clean', and '1 don't believe this oregano is fresh', and '1 really need a raspberry vinaigrette', and so on, and the cafe is bunged so we're all having a ball. Comes to the coffee, he wants a double expresso, decaff., which to me is like having sex with all your clothes on. Anyway, our owner being something of a coffee zealot,
there isn't any decaff. on the premises , so he gets an ordinary expresso. Seconds later, these squeals suddenly go up, he's shrieking like a stuck pig, 'This is not decaff., this is caffeinated, I wanted decaff.', and I have had it , I stand there 'till he's quietened down, and then I say 'Listen, you big fat baby, why don't you just suck my dick?' (Pause.) [RORY. Well what else couldyou have said, dear?] Turns out this guy - Roland Michaels - owns the West 4th Street Gallery. Turns out also he's the kind of queen who keeps Bette Midler in diamonds, he loves a girl with a dirty mouth . I'm cleaning his table, he's left a $20 tip and his card, and written on the back of the card is 'If you paint as tough as you talk, I'm interested. Call me tomorrow.' I called, he saw, he offered. And four months later, I had my first show.
