Debris

Dennis Kelly

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781840024333
• eBook ISBN: 9781849432535
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

An odyssey of pain, blood, love and loss. An unreal journey through two disturbed minds, and the unfolding events leading up to the self crucifixtion of their father in the front room. Enter the insane world of siblings Michael and Michelle. Debris is a depraved vision of an alien world seen through their eyes. Debris was developed whilst Kelly was on attachment at the National Theatre Studio. A production by the Latchmere Theatre opened at Battersea Arts Centre in March 2004.

CRUXICIDE

MICHAEL: On my sixteenth birthday my father erected a fourteen-foot crucifix in our living room, despite the fact that the living room is only eight foot tall. He considers smashing a hole through, but – realising that this would take away from the dramatic effect – decides that the entire ceiling has to go, and so sets to work with a Kango hammer on a cleverly constructed trolley, chunks of ceiling, dust and carpet from the upstairs flat falling about his shoulders like rain and dandruff. He attaches foot-long bars horizontally to the back of the cross, which are then bolted into the wall, giving the effect of the structure being freestanding. It’s an impressive sight, which is perhaps only slightly marred by the badly framed reproductions of spitfires and puppies behind him, and the shockingly dirty wallpaper of the flat above.

The foot-ledge is six foot in the air, and my dad – fond of his bacon and eggs – is a fat bastard. Yet somehow he makes it. Once up there he is faced with the problem of staying on, the foot-ledge being small and at a forty-five degree angle, but Daddy, practical as ever, has thought ahead and at torso level two leather straps await. He buckles himself in, naked, and he pulls on a plastic tag – like the American police use – and his left arm is secured to the beam. Then… Then he pulls on a lever, and the scaffold, the cleverest part of all this, slowly wheels into position. He slips his right hand through a tag on that side of the beam and somehow manages to give it a pull, though obviously it is not as secure as the other one.

The scaffold. This construction, this ballet of cleverly put together levers, pulleys, ropes and sellotape slowly moves forward on tracks, the way having been painstakingly cleared of rubble and splintered furniture beforehand. Once in place it stops, quivering slightly, but ready for action. Four wooden tags stick out at the height of my father’s mouth painted blue, red, yellow and green (I later found that the paint was harmless if ingested – a touching gesture). These tags have been made from ice-lolly sticks, and if you look on the bottom you can still read the jokes. I didn’t though.

It’s time. My dad, firmly secured to his masterpiece, cranes his neck and grabs the blue tag with his teeth. Perhaps this was the moment of doubt, perhaps this was the moment of fear, but he jerked that tag back anyway. Levers clicked, ropes tightened, balls rolled, a frog leapt into a bucket and the trigger of the nail gun poised over the palm of his left hand was pulled, slamming a six inch nail through his flesh and into the beam of the cross.

He screams.

Fuck! That hurt, that really hurt! Imagine the shock on my daddy’s face as a fix of pain slams into his brain. Flesh rips, the delicate bones of the palm are pushed aside and splintered as a blasphemous intrusion of steel screams through his hand. Imagine him panting, gasping, muttering to himself, sobbing. Imagine him pulling the red tag – you can’t? Well he does, he does and his right hand is nailed to the beam.

He screams.

Surely this is enough. Don’t you think that this is enough? No Daddy, please, no more, not the yellow tag Pop, please Daddy, you’re scaring me – Daddy no! But yes! He pulls it and an extra large nail smashes through the bones of both feet, impaling them to that forty-five degree foot-ledge and making the crucifixion complete. There is silence now apart from the irregular breathing of my dad and the drip of his blood onto the floor.

After what seems like an age my father pulls himself together and goes for that green tag. He slowly reaches out, grabs it with his teeth, and with what’s left of his strength he pulls it back. A pin is loosened, the scaffold wobbles for a second, then falls back with a crump and a dramatic billow of dust.

Pause.

Four hours later the living room door is pushed open and I walk in. No presents, no ice cream, no jelly, no vodka, no spotty teens being misunderstood, no screaming children singing happy birthday, just a pile of rubble, scaffold, and my dad dying on the cross. My sixteenth birthday. My coming of age. I hesitantly pick my way through the disaster area, as my father, slowly surfacing from the agony that has become his world, looks down on me. He is very pale. Almost blue. His glistening white body looks like it is made of dough. At some point the contents of his bowels had sprayed themselves across the back of his legs and the upright of the crucifix. He wheezes and gurgles, his lungs filled with fluid, and snot, sweat and spittle dribble down his fat chops. His penis has been made tiny by adrenaline and pain, and the weight of him seems to have stretched the holes in his feet.

Now my old man is not stupid. Think of what he’s constructed, think of what he’s achieved, think of his eye for detail – think of the paint. He knows exactly how long it takes to die on the cross. He knows exactly what time I will open the door. I’m not saying it’s a cry for help, I’m not saying it’s a prank that went wrong, I’m not saying that it was an accusatory gesture, but what I am saying is that when I looked into his eyes they were not the eyes of a suicide.

Looking at me now he musters the last remnants of his strength. This is it, this is the moment, the crowning glory of his achievement: he must find it within himself, he must, he must. His head lifts millimetre by millimetre, his mouth opens, dribble and bile spattering to the ground, and from somewhere within that body comes a voice, a sound, a sentence:

‘My son, my son, why have you forsaken me?’

And as these words leave the air his head rolls onto his chest. There. He’s done it. It’s over. Now he can rest. It’s over.

So he thinks. I look at him. Surely this wasn’t how Jesus looked? Surely Our Lord had a bit more style, a bit more élan, a bit more pizzazz. He looks utterly disgusting up there on his fourteen-foot crucifix, his head in the home of another flat, his feet in ours. He thinks it’s over. But it’s not.

‘Forgive me father, for I know not what I do.’

And with that I carefully back away. I’m almost at the door before the meaning of this has got through his pain. I watch it trickle through his brain, and suddenly he looks at me in absol...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Characters
• Contents
• Scene 1 – Cruxicide
• Scene 2 – The Last Chicken on Earth
• Scene 3 – Divorce
• Scene 4 – UncleArry
• Scene 5 – Debris
• Scene 6 – Necroviviparity
• Scene 7 – Telly
• Scene 8 – Mister Bought and Smite
• Scene 9 – In the Beginning