Mortido

Angela Betzien

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781925359459
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

'¿Como sabes que esto no es el sueño?%##CHAR13##%(How do you know this is not the dream?)%##CHAR13##%How do you know this is not the nightmare?'%##CHAR13##%%##CHAR13##%Mortido is a remarkable crime drama, revenge tragedy and morality play all rolled into one.%##CHAR13##%%##CHAR13##%Jimmy is a small-time dealer and Monte is a biggish-time distributor. Grubbe is a detective. They all want the same thing: to live out their lives in leisure. And a water view would be nice. But for Jimmy and Monte to win, Grubbe has to lose. Same goes the other way.%##CHAR13##%%##CHAR13##%It begins with a Mexican fable about death and ends in the Western suburbs of Sydney. In between it takes in the public housing on Belvoir Street, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, quinoa, Nazi Germany, Qantas, Coca-Cola, a seventh birthday party, the Surry Hills police, the property market and a body in the harbour. The connective tissue? Cocaine.%##CHAR13##%%##CHAR13##%This is Betzien's most ambitious play so far, and a brilliant portrait of the Emerald City: familiar, bizarre, glorious and mean. A quintessential Sydney tale about crime, globalisation and the killer desire for a bigger house.

ACT ONE

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GRUBBE: Once there was a boy born in the barrios of Chilpansingo, Mexico. Now the Boy’s Mother was poor. Her husband was a good-for-nothing drunkard who beat his wife. Fortunately he died when he fell off the back of a cempasùchil truck after drinking too much mescal on an empty stomach. Everyone said The Boy’s Mother was better off without that lazy chuntara and although The Mother wept for him, she had her son and he was a blessing and all a mother could pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe for. Without her husband, The Mother did not have enough tortilla. She went to all the maquiladoras begging for work but there was none.

So, The Boy said to his Mother:

Madre, let me go into the city to work and bring home some pesos so that you and I can eat.

The Mother sighed.

My child, you are only seven. What would you do?

I can shine shoes, Madre.

Very well.

For she knew that without pesos they would surely starve.

The next day The Boy did not play quietos in the dirt with the other children. Quietos is a game of freeze where you turn your enemies to stone. A game that the young hermanos of Mexico grow up to play for real. Instead, The Boy left the barrio with a stale tortilla folded in his pocket. He walked down the mountain and into the city. When he arrived at the plaza he set up his shoe-shining kit and waited. Before long, an Old German appeared.

How much for a shine?

Fifteen pesos, Señor.

The Old German scowled and turned away.

Today a special price for you, Señor! Only ten pesos!

Still scowling, The Old German put his foot on the box and The Boy set to work. When The Boy had finished he said …

Are you hungry, boy?

I am always hungry, Señor.

Come with me.

And so The Boy packed up his shoe-shining kit and followed The Old German through the streets. As it grew dark they came to his butcher’s shop. Here The Boy grew nervous.

You’re hungry, aren’t you?

Yes, Señor!

Come inside and I’ll feed you.

So The Boy, listening to his growling belly, followed The Old German inside. As he stepped over the threshold of the shop he saw two resistoleros, the ones who sniff glue to f...