Dry Swallow

Lucas Baisch

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781350291706
• eBook ISBN: 9781350291720
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: American Drama

Took me twenty years, from fetus to fuck-up,
to know what weight looked like, what
weight feels like, what weight makes a body
do in place of freedom. Sitting within the confines of a shipping container, people are rendered commodity and turf is marked for value. Chula and Pal create competition on a Boyle Heights street corner. Nasir and Porter offer medicinal intake as artistic practice. Sik and Dori turn to drastic measures in order to save their family. Dry Swallow explores surrogacy, consumption, and substance abuse, while provoking the question: who's allowed a healthy life? Lucas Baisch's play was the recipient of The Kennedy Center's KCACTF 2020 Latinx Playwriting Award, the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting (2021) and the Chesley/Bumbalo Award in Playwriting (2021).

Scene Seven

Floodlights.

The siren of megaphone—or maybe a larger siren elsewhere— making its return.

A hot and heavy white light cooks the inside of the shipping container.

Chula and Pal, stiff, unable to move.

Chula The bulldozer light.

Pal That good-good.

Chula Sucio.

Pal Hospital light. Surgical white.

Chula La Llorona, crying out at the concrete pavers, the compactors—

Pal Pneumatic. A hundred fourteen horsepower—

Chula Flattening her casita—

Pal Shoveling aside bodies—

Chula The people’s hurt trumpeting out like a thousand mariachis—

Pal (calling out) Que buscas? Tylenol? Advil? Somethin’ to make ya sleep at night?

Chula That white light’s gonna steal it from me.

Pal Gonna gift it to me.

Chula Bury me here, sick and bitter.

Pal Refurbish my insides, mariposas blanquitas.

Your condominium is my butterfly.

I’ma learn to tie my shoes.

Get a new pair from that boost in sales.

I’ma run out this joint. Promise.

The hot light shuts down.

Generators revving off to a stand still.

Chula and Pal pant like the wind knocked out of them.

The street corner.

Another day.

Early evening.

The clouds gone grey.

Chula’s at her pushcart.

Pal limps, sets his things down.

They catch their breath.

Chula Damn trigger-happy pendejos. You hear that? It is four p.m.

Pal Gonna rain soon. Real soon.

Chula Boy, you got flakes of unshaved beard hair round yer dimple. One side, lopsided.

He moves to his safety cones and begins stacking them, removing flowers.

Chula What’s wrong with you?

Pal You want these?

He offers Chula the bundle of flowers.

She takes them.

Chula Bonitas.

Pal begins to spread his blanket of wares, organizing items for sale.

He sits.

Pal Yeah, thank Pops.

Brought ’em to inpatient ’n’ he goes:

‘I don’t need none o’ that fag shit.’

Y’know he—he said that.

Just tryna make his sick ass feel loved or somethin’

And he still gotta play cabrón.

Chula You corny.

Pal This look corny to you?

Pal rolls up his pant leg—below the knee a bloodied wound.

Chula Puta—

Pal It look bad?

Chula It don’t look good, that’s for damn sure.

Pal Fuck.

Chula Oughtta put some VapoRub on top.

Rub it in. Blow on it.

Mira, got some right here.

Pal I’m fine!

Chula Shoot, all right, big boy, got his big chonies on.

Pal —

Chula Ah. You did him bad, huh?

Pal I didn’t do no one bad. I just—nah, fuck you.

I don’t gotta tell you nothing.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Chula finds her VapoRub.

Chula Ven aquí.

She removes her work glove.

Pal sits,

Resting his leg in her lap

She makes contact.

He winces.

The droning of the Interstate 10.

Cars passing and passing.

Pal You got kids, vieja?

Chula Not really.

Pal Whatchu mean “not really?”

Chula —

Pal One o’ Marco’s boys dropped me off.

Saw me walking from County General.

Told him I was just headin’ east a coupla blocks,

But he’s all: “Naaaah, man. I gotchu. Yer load’s heavy.”

So we chillin’, tryna roll a joint.

Has me sittin’ in the back seat,

Talkin’ Lakers, girls, whatever—

Thought I was good.

Y’know.

Good.

Then right as I’m ’bout to get outta the car

He turns to me from the driver seat,

Takes a box cutter,

You know, for like, opening boxes,

Holds my knee down:

“A graft.”

A sample.

Driver says Marco wanted a piece of me.

A fuckin’ piece.

A gift he says.

Chula —

She rubs his leg.

Chula They got ridda my girl Paola’s hair salon. Put up a “gallery.”

Pal That’s chill.

Chula Ain’t chill, puto.

Ya see—when I was a little girl, I usedta have my braids all did. Thought I looked cute. Had my cute dress, my cu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dry Swallow
• Acknowledgments
• Characters
• Engineering Space
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Scene Three
• Scene Four
• Scene Five
• Scene Six
• Scene Seven
• Scene Eight
• Scene Nine
• Scene Ten
• Scene Eleven
• Scene Twelve
• Scene Thirteen
• Scene Fourteen
• Scene Fifteen
• eCopyright