Title and Deed

Will Eno

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781849434805
• eBook ISBN: 9781849433655
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Behold the newest nobody of the funniest century yet. He'salmost Christ-like, from a distance, in terms of height and weight. Listenclosely or drift off uncontrollably, as he speaks to you directly about thenotion of home, about the notion of the world. All of it delivered with theauthority that is the special province of the unsure and the un-homed, which isa word he made up accidentally. The running time, if he doesn't die or think ofanything else, is roughly one hour. Title and Deed is a provocative new work by Pulitzer Prize finalist and Horton Foote Prize winner Will Eno.

Lights up on MAN, just arriving in the middle of the stage, carrying a bag, which he sets down, at some point in the opening few lines.

MAN: I’m not from here. I guess I never will be. That’s how being from somewhere works. I’ll assume you are, though. That’ll make everything make a little more, I think your word is, sense. And it might help to move things along. Let’s hope. We don’t need to hope. Things move quickly enough. In fact, we’re practically almost done. It’s my word, too, by the way, “sense.” Oh, so, one other thing – don’t hate me, if you wouldn’t mind. Thanks. I know that’s not something you can ask a person. But, you know, what is? So, yeah, don’t walk out on me, or, if you do, try to walk out quietly. Keep the screaming to yourself, if you could, as we used to say back in the sand pits. Thanks. (Small gesture towards bag.) That’s just a bag, by the way. Just some unattended luggage. No, seriously, don’t worry, it’s just my bag, a couple of belongings.

People don’t gather enough, anymore. Where I’m from, we used to gather all the time – Midwinter’s Eve, or for Reverse Weddings, or for something we had called Terrible Saturdays. So, yeah, thank you, and, welcome – it’s nice to see a little clump.

Anyway, let’s get back down to earth, to my arrival here, and I mean, just, here. The aeroporto, I think none of us calls it. Customs. I was one of the first people in the wrong line, and then someone helped me out, and I was suddenly the last person in the right one. And then, you’ve done this, through the zigzags, kicking the suitcase, and finally up to the welcome sign and bulletproof glass. I remember my mouth suddenly getting dry and my eyes starting to water, like I was about to lie, even though I wasn’t. Maybe other people know that feeling? The truth in the heart, the lump in the throat. “Business or pleasure?,” the man asked. “Neither,” says I, jauntily. “I’m here to save us all.” “And who is us?,” he asked, writing. “Exactly,” I said, with a wink, though I would never wink and jauntily’s not the right word. The man looked at me. “Seriously,” he said. “Just visiting,” I said. “All right,” he said. I believe I have that verbatim. A number lit up over his head, a nice six in your local governmental font. “Business or pleasure,” he said, to the next one of me, some other version who’d just blown in, full of hope and in the wrong clothes for the climate, and I was on to the next line. They scanned a photo of my retina. “Can I get a copy of that,” I said, “for a, you know, for a keepsake?” They said, in the local parlance, no. Then I was in. Then I was here. I don’t know why international travel puts me in such a puckish mood. Maybe it’s the free coffee or the lack of sleep and oxygen. Maybe it’s a little hopeless glimmer of hope that I might somehow, with a change of scenery, change. Or the new bacteria, or, just, it’s exciting.

Keepsake is a word we won’t look into any further, though I bet the right type of person on the right lonely night could give himself a pretty good cry by doing the etymology. Or, herself. Trace the origin of any word and, if you’re half a man, and I can say without bragging I am, or half a woman, which is sort of my type, you’ll shed some serious tears at the long and trembling history of these frail little sounds, made up out of nowhere. Lamp. Horse. Shed. It’s like loss and wandering and some strange German joy are built right in, somehow. They almost make you want to cry, or make you want to do something else, almost. Words. Ah, but they do the job. If you need a lamp or a horse. If you live in a shed and you’re lost and trying to get home.

What next? Let me see. Let me stand here for a second and see.

The next part of my great voyage we can probably skip. It would just be different scenes of me in other lines, reading schedules, trying to get change, wishing I were home. Home where I’m from, that is, home where the hat’s hanging and the placenta’s buried. I doubt you’ve ever heard of it. Or, maybe some of you… (Very brief pause, and he somewhat defensively moves on.) No, I doubt you have, and, of course, that’s fine. It’s just a little thing, my country – down by the sea, roughly, seasonal enough, a small population, the chief exports sarcasm and uric acid. No, but I’m proud of her, the old girl. The very old woman. The lying-dying senile old mess, so far away, her milky eyes trying to focus on anything and her mouth opening and closing for some reason other than to speak.

Maybe that’s strange of me, to...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Characters
• Chapter One
• Backmatter