BOSSMAN
Now, Jimmy, I just want to ask you, did you put the hex on the family?

BOXER

What are you talking about?  Alls I know is I lost my fight cause I was on hold for three hours!

JOEY

I'm tellin' ya, bossman, it musta been the Fontelli's.

(Miranda enters, with a bound, gagged, and stripped THUG 2.)

MIRANDA

It wasn't the Fontellis that put the hex on you, Luigi.  It was us.

JOEY

Holy shit, it's your mistress.

(Loretta enters, wielding a .45)

THUG 1

And your wife.

BOSSMAN

Miranda!  What are you doing here?  And Loretta! I thought you were playing bridge!

LORETTA

Hello, Luigi.  Kiss your ass goodbye.  I found out you're cheating on me, and she found out you're married.

BOSSMAN

It's taken you this long?

LORETTA

Forget it.  I'm not taking any of your excuses.

BOSSMAN

I wasn't making any!  Now, why'd ya put the hex on the family, ladies?

THUG 1

Okay, who should I aim at now?

LORETTA

Dontcha love me no more, Luigi?

MIRANDA

Donthca love me, Luigi?

BOSSMAN

I love both of ya. Just in different ways.  Understand?  Now why don't you two put the .45's away, alrighty?

LORETTA

I've heard that one before! Eat lead, Luigi!

SPECIAL EFFECTS

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

(Pause.  Everyone looks around.  No one is hurt.)

BOSSMAN

Loretta, you gotta work on your aim.

BARTENDER

All right, let's nobody PANIC!

SPECIAL EFFECTS

(Holds up sign bearing title of play)

BOSSMAN

Joey, remind me never to come here again.

(Randall enters, the BUM is with him.)

RANDALL

Hello, Luigi.

BOSSMAN

Good God!

BOXER

Who's that?

BOSSMAN

It's my long-lost brother Randall who had a sex-change operation and then went nuts, killed forty people in and around a Taco Bell and was committed to an asylum until, to quote the judge, "Pigs fly out my ass".

RANDALL

Thanks for the exposition, Luigi.

BOSSMAN

Why are you here?

RANDALL

I know the password.

BOSSMAN

NO.

RANDALL

Yes.

BUM

Uh...So do I.

BOSSMAN

Who the hell are you?

BUM

Just...someone who knows a password.

(The receptionist enters.)

RECEPTIONIST

EXCUSE ME SIR YOU HAVE A PHONE CALL.

WAITRESS

WHAT?

RECEPTIONIST

NOT YOU.  HIM.

WAITRESS

OH.

JOEY

Wait! Bossman, look, it's been half an hour..  It's past midnight.  The time is up!

RANDALL

NOT so fast!  True, it is no longer September 8, Grandparents day.  However, the clock has not yet struck midnight on September 15, which in Japan is also known as...RESPECT FOR THE AGED DAY!  Therefore, the day of the elders has not passed!  So, whoever has the password, gets all the secrets of your empire.  Names, dates, confessions, bank accounts.  Only by giving away that information can save your family from the hex.

BOSSMAN

You're right.  You know the password?

RANDALL

So does the bum, apparently.  Let him go first.  Whisper it in his ear so no one else hears.

BOSSMAN

...he's right.  He knows it.

RANDALL

Shoot him.  He's a cop.

BOSSMAN

What?

RANDALL

Only a cop would know the password, since I killed the fortune teller. 

BOSSMAN

You killed the fortune teller? Why?

RANDALL

Because, you idiot, SHE was a COP!  This is a big set-up! To get you to reveal all your illegal practices and to put the whole family in jail.

BUM

That's right.  Everyone here is under arrest. The entire palace is surrounded by New York's finest.

RANDALL

Your plan failed, copper.  You got nothin' on the family.

BUM

I have a confession from you that you are a murderer.

RANDALL

Everyone knows that. I was convicted!

BUM

Then I'll just make everything else up.

BARTENDER

All right, show of hands--who here is a member of the Mafia?...And who else here is a cop?   ...Are there in fact any actual customers in the lounge?  Really. (As he is walking to the door) Well--oh, look at that.  Last call.  Anyone need anything?  Very well then, I'm off.

BOSSMAN

(To JOEY,  who raised his hand earlier)

Wait a minute...you're a cop?

JOEY

Um...yeah.  I did reccomend the fake fortune teller.  And I put your son on hold.  And I told your wife about your mistress.  And I suggested that they put the curse on the family.

BOSSMAN

Good lord.  Remind me to have you killed.

BARTENDER

  Um...the door seems to be...welded shut.  Very securely.

RANDALL

That's right, nobody's going anywhere!  Underneath this coat I'm wearing about 75 pounds of plastique explosive.  If you don't do what I say, you, and everyone in a four-block radius, will all die a very nasty death.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

CLANG!!!

(Everyone onstage turns and looks at SOUND EFFECTS, confused.)

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Oh, sorry.  Not yet.  My fault.

BOSSMAN

What do you want, Randall?

RANDALL

What do I want?  Nothing!  I'm insane!  But, look at you!  You're all just a bunch of...stereotypes! The crime lord, the failed boxer, the jilted wife, the quasi-psychotic sex-driven Australian Bartender!  Uh...Anyway, my point is this.  What this story needs is a DEUS EX MACHINA.  And I'm here to provide it.

THUG 1

What?

RANDALL

You're gallavanting around as if you're doing something important! But the only people who've expressed any opinions relevant to society at large are the bar patrons who aren't in this scene and are completely unrelated to the central plot!  Whatever plot there is--it's filled with gaping holes.  Why was he bound and gagged and dragged in here?  Why?

RANDALL (CONT"D)

What happened to stories that were told for a reason, not just these creations made to imitate the actions of other stories!  Even this revealing and castigating monologue I'm currently speaking is old news in terms of dramatic themes.  Really, what's the point in going on?

In fact, we won't go on.  I've armed this detonator. 

Now there's only one thing that can make me de-activate the detonator with the ultra-secret special code.  HER. (Points to MASSEUSE.)  She might be unique.  Maybe she is the original character who will save this pathetic story.  I just don't know.  She hasn't said anything.

BOXER

She don't talk much.

RANDALL

You should follow her example.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

CLANG!

LORETTA

(Wielding a large frying pan, which she's just used to knock out  RANDALL)

Am I the only one who was tired of listening to her?

BOXER

You idiot!  She's armed the bomb!  We don't know the ultra-special secret code!

THUG 1

How much time do we have?

LORETTA

53 seconds!

BOSSMAN

(Cradling RANDALL in his arms)

How could you! She may have been crazy, but she was my brother, and I loved her!

LORETTA

I'm sorry, Luigi--

MIRANDA

She didn't kill her, she just knocked her out.

JOEY

Wait! She said the mute knew something!

MIRANDA

The code! She must know the code!

JOEY

What is it?

BOSSMAN

You idiot, she can't talk!

THUG 1

Anyone know sign language?

BOXER

Wait! Wait! She's trying to say something!

LORETTA

Forty seconds!

BOSSMAN
Ahh!  It's charades!  Anybody know charades?

BOXER

I can handle this.  I gotta thing with her. What is it, darlin'?

BOSSMAN

Loretta, baby, write this down.

MASSEUSE

(Points at her eyes)

BOXER

See.

JOEY

The letter "C" or sea like the ocean?

BOSSMAN

She didn't say "sounds like" you idiot.  She's pointing at her eye so it's gotta be spelled S-E-E, like vision.

THUG 1

No, "sounds like" has nothing to do with the spelling of homonyms.

BUM

No, wait a minute!  She's saying...not the verb, the noun!  EYEBALL!

MIRANDA

...Short.

JOEY

Short eyeball?

BOSSMAN

No, no! Short word!

LORETTA

Thirty seconds...

BUM

EYE!

BARTENDER

As in "Aye, Aye, Cap'n?"

MIRANDA

No, as in "I", the letter.

BOSSMAN

Next word...

BUM

One syllable...

JOEY

Why is she shaking her head?

BUM

It's not one syllable?

THUG 1

No, that's the word!  "No!"

BOSSMAN

"I, no?"  That's  grammatically incorrect.

RECEPTIONIST

No, no, it's know, K-N-O-W, as in knowledge, not no, N-O, as in negative.

BARTENDER

...or noh, N-O-H, as in a traditional Japanese drama.

THUG 1

Third word...two syllables..."Sounds like"...

MIRANDA

Wrist?

RECEPTIONIST

Fist? Pissed? Sunkist?

BOSSMAN

Cufflink!  sounds like cufflink.

LORETTA

Now what's she doing?

JOEY

A bird!  She's flapping her arms like a bird!

THUG 1

A bird doesn't flap like that.

JOEY

Whadda you know?

THUG 1

I know that any bird flaps like that is a stupid fucking bird.

BOSSMAN

Gentlemen, please!  We are about to die!

MIRANDA

She's doing something else...

BOXER

In one hand, there's a coin, in the other hand...

BARTENDER

Nothing.

BOXER

Right.

BOSSMAN

That's the word?  Sounds like "cufflink"?  Nothing.

JOEY

Doesn't really sound like cufflink.

BARTENDER

Not unless you're Cockney.

THUG 1

So what have we got so far?

LORETTA

"I know nothing."

BOSSMAN

Well, shit.

BUM

How much time is left?

LORETTA

Ten seconds.

BOXER

Well, I guess this is goodbye.

BARTENDER

Or good riddance.

LORETTA

Three...two...one...

(Pause)

JOEY

Hey!  It's a dud! I guess we're gonna be okay! Maybe she was wrong.  Maybe thoughtless, ill-conceived  entertainment  is just as worthy as art!

(Blackout, except for spot on SPECIAL EFFECTS)

SPECIAL EFFECTS

BOOM!!!!!

************

REPORTER

...and so, an entire mafioso family and half of the New York City police force were vaporized today by a bomb blast.  Apparently there is no point at all to this story.  The entire mess was simply gratuitous.  For American Cable News, I'm Cynthia Mason.

(A sign:  "The End")

Here’s a selection from the end of my post-postmodern existential crime drama farce performed as part of the Summer Virgins festival at Ensemble Studio Theatre in 1996.