BATHHOUSE.

PPTX 1

Bathhouse.pptx
by Jesús I. Valles

Development:
Brown University, Writing is Live Festival, 2022
The Flea, development reading, 2022
The Flea, staged reading, 2023
The Flea, Yale Press, David C. Horn Foundation, Yale Drama Series Reading, 2023

Awards:
Yale Drama Series Winner, 2023, selected by Jeremy O. Harris
The Flea’s Production Commission Program Winner, 2023
The O’Neill Playwrights Conference 2023, finalist

Contact:
Bonnie Davis, Bret Adams, Ltd, [email protected]
Jesús I. Valles, [email protected]
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 2

“We use the word ‘landscape,’ that is, to refer to a system of relations that are actually too
complicated for us to hold in our heads with any concreteness. I think we use this word because it is
an abstraction that lets us feel we have a handle on things AND because what it evokes is precisely
the opposite of abstraction: a picture you can see, in which sharp, often poignant details combine to
form a whole that is also an invitation to tactile adventure. ‘Landscape’ is an abstraction disguising
itself as a sensory experience, and vice-versa.

The challenge this semester is to make a landscape for performance. Take us somewhere. We are
lost; tempt us with the possibility of knowing where we are, for once. But show us the richnesses,
the thicknesses, the peculiarities, the outcroppings that, if truly rendered, will always also interfere
with our (that is, your) knowing…On April 15 (our last class), you will conduct a 20-minute
LANDSCAPE PLAY POWERPOINT PRESENTATION (I write these words with a great deal of
pleasure at how awful they sound).”
- Julia Jarcho, Syillabus, Workshop Spring 2021

“Okay. So, we have to do a PowerPoint?”

- Jesús I. Valles
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TIME: When bathhouses have ceased to exist.

PLACE: A 10th grade honors informative presentation in a cafetorium. A school that was once a
bathhouse. The glimmers of a bathhouse at the end of the world. The Presenter.

A NOTE ON CASTING/CHARACTERS: First, no version of this play should exist with an all-
white cast. Like, read the play. Go to a bathhouse in Los Angeles. Be for real. Second, unlike many
bathhouses, invite the version of this play that has an entirely trans cast. What might this do for
notions of possibility in these places (bathhouses, schools)? Finally, this play can be done with six
actors, or a very large cast, if you so desire. Below, there are suggested character tracks for actors,
but have fun with re-configuration if needed. Many of the characters are concepts, ideas, grievances,
ghosts, or irritations. Please, play inside the garish, the grotesque, the cartoonish, the cruel, the
horny, the muscular, the spectral, the heart. This play is a group project for perverts. Go for it.
Poppers are strongly encouraged.

So, THE CHARACTERS:

THE PRESENTER … a 10th grader but not really, played by someone who is undeniably an
adult; a pervert obsessed with extinctions. Also, in another world, THE ATTENDANT of a
bathhouse at the end of the world. Also, (NOT) LAURA LINNEY.

ACTOR 1 (The CHELA track) … plays JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY? /
CHELA / SHE’S SELLING THE SHIT OUT OF THIS! / WHAT IT SMELLED LIKE / A
WOMAN IN A RIDICULOUS PERIOD COSTUME WITH A HORRIBLE ACCENT / A
GHOST UNDER THE STAIRS / LAURA LINNEY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CDC! /
THE BATH BEAUTY

ACTOR 2 (The MX. VASQUEZ track) … plays LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING
TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ / WILLIAM FEETHAM / THE CDC / A CONQUISTADOR!
WEARING ONE OF THOSE HATS! / CDC FEETHAM WEARING A CONQUISTADOR
HAT! / A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE
OTHER / JUST VASQUEZ / GHOST BEHIND THE CLOCK

ACTOR 3 (The SHAUN track) … plays JUST DOING THIS FOR A GRADE / SHAUN /
IT’S BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK / MAN IN A TOWEL / A GAS CAN, AN
EDUCATIONAL FILM, BROUGHT TO YOU BY QVC / A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON

ACTOR 4 (The DANIEL track) … plays SO NERVOUS ABOUT THIS, OH GOD / DANIEL
/ A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE / A WHOLE-ASS ADULT / A LOOK BUT
DON’T TOUCH TYPE / GHOST BEHIND THE DOOR / A VERY REAL TWINK

ACTOR 5 (The CARLOS track) … plays STRONG PICK-ME ENERGY / A PLANT IN THE
AUDIENCE, MAYBE AN ACTUAL PLANT, I DON’T KNOW / SOME “MEXICAN” THEY
HIRED DOING A TERRIBLE SPANISH ACCENT / HOW IT SOUNDED / CARLOS / A
MASCOT EINSTEIN / A VERY TALL EAGER WHITE MAN THEATRE COLLABORATOR
ETC./ GHOST UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 4

PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE: This is a pandemic play. I started writing it in January of 2021, when I
was missing my high school public speaking classroom the most (I was a high school teacher for
many years), when I was missing the queer clubs and the bathhouses most, when I was missing
theatre most. I didn’t think we would return to any of these places again. If we did, they wouldn’t be
the same. Many of our students would be gone, as would many of our colleagues, queens, lovers,
friends, tricks; all the people that populate the landscapes I love most. Bathhouse.pptx is a symptom of
loneliness and longing. It’s a paranoid, silly little gay thing. I wrote this play mostly to make Mysia
Anderson, Nkenna Akunna, Alexa Derman, Julia Jarcho, and Seayoung Yim laugh on Zoom. I
wrote this play because I love Chela. So, if you’re holding this play, I hope it’s of some use to you.
Mostly, I hope you read it and think about the things you want most. I hope you remember
someone.

FINALLY, A NOTE ON STYLE: This play is a mess. If you choose to stage it, I hope you have
fun. I hope it’s wild, cheap, and inventive. Try not to think too much about the logics of anything
here. Things are because I wanted them to be. This play is an indulgence. Indulge (me). This play is
shaped like a poorly structured informative speech. The play’s scenes are divided into “SLIDES.” In
a full production, you might have a hastily put-together PowerPoint presentation that signals our
transition from scene to scene. The play is a swirl, a little maze: move quickly until you can’t, then go
again.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 5

WARM UP, TITLE SLIDE

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Alright, who’d like to go next?

THE PRESENTER enters.

THE PRESENTER:
Uh. I can, uh,
I could go next, Mx. Vasquez. I’d like to present next, if that’s okay. Is / that okay?

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ booms; a voice from a booth. Panopticon.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Sure, if you feel like you’re ready. Go ahead.
And the topic is going to be….?

THE PRESENTER:
Oh. Cleanliness.
Well bathing.
Baths. / Bathho –

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Do you need time to set up visual aids or
Confer with your … will you be doing this solo or
With a group?

THE PRESENTER:
Uh. Yes.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Yes?

THE PRESENTER:
Yes, I’ll be doing this alone. But I’ll have some assistance.
So, alone. / With others.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

How can you be alone with others? That / doesn’t make any sense

THE PRESENTER:
They’ll just be helping me through some sections. For extra credit.
We just need a / minute to – Guys?

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?, STRONG PICK-ME ENERGY, JUST DOING THIS FOR A GRADE
enter. Peers pour in.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 6

Come on. He’s about to start! (To THE PRESENTER, a machine gun of helpfulness.) Do you want some
water? You look like you need some water. I finished the costumes last night, so just let me – Oh, I
also have some questions about your notes? The order feels – hey, are you okay?

STRONG PICK-ME ENERGY:

She’s Not. Look At Her. (To THE PRESENTER, a machine gun.) You’re doing that thing with your
hands again. Look, If you don’t want to do this right now, I’m good to do My Presentation First, if
you want? I can Totally Go First, if you want. I Finished My PowerPoint on Bolivia Last Night. /
Why don’t I just –

JUST DOING THIS FOR A GRADE:

Goddamn, I gotta take theee fattest shit.
You guys cool if I go before we start, cuz / I’m fuckin torn –

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Stop being gross! Ugh, / guys are so gross.

JUST DOING THIS FOR A GRADE:

It’s natural to take a / shit –

STRONG PICK-ME ENERGY:

Actually, In My Research, I Found that Bolivians Believe that Some People are Anal Retentive / as a
Result of –

THE PRESENTER:
Guys! I’m fine! (He’s not.) Can we please / just get back –

SO NERVOUS ABOUT THIS, OH GOD enters, late.

SO NERVOUS ABOUT THIS, OH GOD:

Uh sorry I’m late … um sorry, I just wanted to know…Sorry. Are there – do we have, like, notes
Or anything like – sorry, I just wanted to – uh

THE PRESENTER:
No, yeah, yeah for sure. I can share the, uh, yeah.
I got you. I’m – I’m pretty nervous, too.

SO NERVOUS ABOUT THIS, OH GOD:

Hehe, yeah. Thanks.

THE PRESENTER:
Okay, so the plan is –

They huddle and confer. They are in fact 10th graders, but they aren’t.
They are actors playing anxieties in the shapes of 10th graders.
They consult. Chatter. Anyway, here they go.

THE PRESENTER:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 7

…which should be fine, since we’re all legal and then we’ll just switch and I can take it from there.
Got it?

JUST DOING THIS SO NERVOUS STRONG PICK-ME JUST HAPPY TO

FOR A GRADE ABOUT THIS, OH ENERGY HELP! ARE YOU
GOD OKAY?
I guess. Sooner I can Shitshitshitshit Of Course I’ve Got It, We got it! Okay, let’s
get to the bathroom. Hehe uh… yeah… but Really, if You’d go! Are you sure you
Fuck, I’m tired – shit – Rather, Not – don’t want some
water before –

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Whenever you’re ready, I’ll start your time. I’m ready. Would you like oral,
Or written feedback?

THE PRESENTER:
Uh … whatever you / think is –

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Oral it is! Great! My hand’s exhausted.

THE PRESENTER:
Uh. Okay.
Guys? Slide!

THE PRESENTER takes the stage, while the group finishes set up.

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 8

SLIDE 1

Ah, a slide show. Here, a timeline of the history of bathing.

THE PRESENTER:
Hello, good afternoon… shit… Evening. Thank you all for being here, for what is sure to be a time.
A good time… fuck… Uh, It’s an honor to be with you, as I present this mandatory 10th grade
honors presentation. I am a 10th grader. Go class of 2036! And this is My Honors Presentation…
fuckIalreadysaidthat…Uh…Titled: Show(er) & Tell: Cleanliness, Baths and – well. You’ll see!... shit…
Before we begin, we’d like to – I would like to thank the teachers, friends, and mentors who’ve
come to provide moral support, my parents, who unfortunately could not want to be here tonight,
and, of course, our good friends from the federal government, the state legislature, and its various
agencies who are here to kindly. . . to uh … fact check these presentations… for some reason?
Okay! We will begin! Ahem.
…
Ahem. We Will Begin!

JUST DOING THIS FOR A GRADE:

Oh, shit. Uh, yeah, an attention getter (Screams very loudly and briefly.) and a shocking fact you may not
know: 1 in every 4 Americans this year ALONE will shower. The other 25% will be involved in a
driving accident. The choice is Yours! And then I hand it off to the next person.

THE PRESENTER:
WOW! Shocking! Now, you may be asking yourself?

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

“HEY, Now, What’s THIS Presentation All About?”

THE PRESENTER:
Well, I’m here to talk about Cleanliness! How do we do it? And why?! As social creatures we desire
to be less alone and so, to be clean in order to be close to others and not embarrass ourselves with
our smells, such as some people in this class… Uh… Furthermore . . . Oh. Sorry, everyone. My
notes seem … uh, here is someone else!

THE PRESENTER shuffles through his notes. The others vamp and vie. They are a lot.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

But hey, you may be asking yourself, WIIFM!?! What’s In It For Me?! Well, I’ll tell you. Not
showering can lead to terrible diseases like dysentery, dyphteria, (Off-script, free-word association.) Dialga,
doo-doo, Dimetapp, Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun, dead babies. So clearly this topic has
social impact, and it is important to learn the history of showers because history repeats itself.

SO NERVOUS ABOUT THIS, OH GOD:

But hey, you may be asking yourself, WIIFM?! Oh shit. No, you already – Shit. Uh. Shoot. Yes, I… I
agree! History is incredibly important to repeat. It’s important to look back at way-back-when in
order to keep going to now when it’s not so way back. Did you know 19% of people don’t scrub
their legs in the shower! White people / have fascinating –
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 9

STRONG PICK-ME ENERGY:

EXCUSE ME! Hi, I’d actually like to guide us Back to The Facts Here. As a Student of History, I
would argue that we have to begin with HOW we moved from showering under Natural Water
Formations to the NEXT point in the timeline, which is SERVANTS. WITH. WATER JUGS. I
would posit that under a Lacanian framework, our relationship to water and cleanliness is always
already ontologically and epistemologically bound to shame. Aqueous shame, from the Greek, “AH
– GUA” or WA-TER and / the ways in which –

THE PRESENTER:
(Finally, landing at a certainty, wresting some control.) Ah, yes! Historically, you’ll notice how we evolved
through time along with the shower. Once we were all beautiful long-haired hour-glassed waterfall
sprites. And then, sometime later, we cut our hair and become more square-ish. Now, given our
desire to be with others, I’d like to shift our focus to communal baths. As you can see here, ancient
Romans / were some –

JUST DOING THIS FOR A GRADE:

Oh shit. Yeah, that’s when everybody got real gay, yeah? In this group shower / situation?

STRONG PICK-ME ENERGY:

OOP! UM, Actually, it’s Very Violent to Assume Homosexuality as Early Motivation for Communal
Cleansing. In his work, Michel Foucault Incorrectly/ Argues That –

JUST DOING THIS FOR A GRADE:

I dunno, man, whenever I see three or more figures in a shower, I just assume, like, “Oh hey, look at
all those people being gay in the shower. I bet they’re all doing, like, butt stuff. Or like, docking,
throat gapes, / lemon parties, goatsees –

THE PRESENTER:
ANYWAY, our relationship to showering and bathing evolves alongside our notions of cleanliness
which closely follow how we feel about shame. What I will attempt to do here, through this multi-
modal presentation is to show you this relationship, by focusing on some… uh, specific artifacts,
such as the shower and / the bathhou –

SO NERVOUS ABOUT THIS, OH GOD:

BUT Hey student, you / may – ohshit I’m sorry, oh wait, that’s your part oh—

JUST TRYING TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

“HEY STUDENT,” You may be asking yourself, “But who invented the shower?” I’m going to
count us down to 5, for our special first “guest.” Okaaaaayyyyy …. Yeah?
1
2

JUST DOING THIS FOR A GRADE:

3, 4, 5! There.

THE PRESENTER:
Now, in 1767 AD ENGLAND, generously played by our Home-Ec teacher, Mr. Guerrera,
WILLIAM FEETHAM!
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EVERYONE TOGETHER!:
WILLLLLLLIIIIIIAAAAAAM FEETHAM!

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 11

SLIDE 2

WILLIAM FEETHAM enters.

He’s a Victorian nightmare, a terrible British cartoon, the “inventor” of the mechanical bath.
While he speaks, the students do a pantomime of what is being explained here; a pantomime of servitude and the early
shower. Again, this is a group project for now.

WILLIAM FEETHAM:
It is important to remember that I invented the shower! And why?!
Because children are willful, hideous, clawing things that hate showers and must be made to do so!
Filthy! And it is important to remember that perhaps children reveal our desire to revel in what’s
dirty! But We Mustn’t!
Thus, I give you the mechanical bath!

A 10th grade-assembled diorama/replica of the mechanical bath is revealed.

It is important to remember, of course, that the mechanical bath requires hands –

A maid to fill the water source, a maid to warm the water prior, a servant boy to carry the bucket,
The maid’s child perhaps. Servant children are, arguably, less troublesome than one’s own children;
they have use, you see. Servants and their children.

Servants are needed to clean and it is important to be clean and it is important to corral our filthiest
creatures so they may clean and be cleaned, and it is important to ensure that the water runs hot and
to ensure that there are maids to attend to the water and above all it is important to try not to think
of all the hands needed to make one clean, to never think of the maid’s sad children, and the sad
maid, and it is important that children be scrubbed clean, and cold scolded, and scalded, and
scalloped, and above all to cleave cleanliness from all the hands that make it, and in doing so, make
oneself the standard for what cleanliness is! Thank you!

WILLIAM FEETHAM dissipates.

THE PRESENTER:
And then time passes. This is a transition.
Slide, please.

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 12

SLIDE 3

The group shuffles, takes in the next slide quickly, and begin. Costume changes. Places.

THE PRESENTER:
The invention of the mechanical bath ushered in a complex era of commodity and
commercialization. Bathing, this essential, often communal practice of care eventually became an
individualized technology of pleasure and exclusion. A marker of capital…ism, and –

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

(From the above, a yawn, a groan. Ugh.) Kill me.

THE PRESENTER:
Sorrysorrysorrysorry! Here’s something exciting! Here’s somebody everyone can agree on! Here To
Drive the Point Home, Help Me Welcome Our School Mascot and the Avatar of Innovation,
ALBERT EINSTEIN!

A MASCOT EINSTEIN bursts through with a giant fucking Nerf water gun on a light-up hoverboard.

A MASCOT EINSTEIN:
A RAAANGE OF PRODUCTS WERE EVOLVING! IN NEW AND EXCITING
DIRECTIONS! ALL TOGETHER NOW!

EVERYONE, ALL TOGETHER NOW!:

A RANGE OF PRODUCTS WERE EVOLVING IN NEW AND EXCITING DIRECTIONS!

A MASCOT EINSTEIN:
INTRODUCING! ELECTRIC! HOT! WATER! SHOWERS! TAKE IT AWAY, MEIN SCHATZ!

A Marilyn Monroe type emerges. SHE’S SELLING THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!

SHE’S SELLING THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!:

Oh my god! Wow, is that what I think it is? Is that a NEW SENSATION for the LUXURIOUS?

EVERYONE, ALL TOGETHER NOW:

HOOOOOOOT WATER OOOOOOOH.

SHE’S SELLING THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!:

Wow! So hot! All this hot water and Ooops! Just little old me! Here LUXURIATING in my
LUXURIOUS hot shower-bath!
OOOOH! Slow, soapy circles - oh my!
Remember, gents: If it’s not hot water, you’re a poor person!

EVERYONE, ALL TOGETHER NOW:

Poooor!

A MASCOT EINSTEIN:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 13

AND YOU’LL NEVER STOP THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN INNOVATION! WATER JETS!
HOT TUBS! SHOWERSHOTS!

A MASCOT EINSTEIN rides away and the group shifts to return to the PowerPoint.

THE PRESENTER:
OKAY! Yes, excitement! So, clearly, you can see class … is a thing, and um – Oh god –
Shit. I think…I’m sorry. Mx. Vasquez, could I take it back? I think I skipped / my thesis –

From above, the voice.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

I missed your thesis statement. The thesis is needed for clarity.
Are we still in the milieu of last week?
When you proposed focusing your / presentation on –

THE PRESENTER:
Yes. Yes, it’s that. I promise. I just –
Sorry. Okay, pivot.
Mx. Vasquez always says, anecdotes are the best way to serve up a thesis. So, uh, here we go. An
anecdote: When I was younger and didn’t know much about men,
this guy asked me if we could… um… sorry.
The thing is when I was younger, I was just so eager to please, so so so, so I’m in this bathroom,
washing my hands. You know? Cleanliness. And… and uh…
this guy asked if he could /… um…

THE CDC interrupts from the audience.

THE CDC:
UH OH!! UH-OH! EAGER TO PLEASE?! BATHROOM?! MEN?! Sounds dirty! Nope, nope
nope! Here we go!
LET’S LOAD UP MY SLIDE /PLEASE!

THE PRESENTER:
Um, wait, please… /wait, no —

THE CDC:
THANK YA! SLIIIIDE!!
Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 14

SLIDE 4

What if a weird, nepo baby ran the CDC? It’s frightening and stupid. THE CDC begins.

THE CDC:
Hello, I’m The CDC! The Center for Disease Control! Or The Christian Defense Coalition! Just
depends who’s in office that day!

THE PRESENTER:
Uh… hello. Thank you so much for being here to uh…adjudicate? Um… Would you mind if I just
finish my anecdote, so I can get to my – /… Mx, Mx. Vasquez, c-c-could we –

THE CDC:
Doesn’t sound like ya wanna finish! N-E-way! Thank You Soooo Much! for bringing such important
issues to the table today, young man! Now more than ever! I mean, Water?! Cleanliness! Wow!
So, because this is an educational event, we’d like to Take this opportunity to educate with scenes
from Love, (in the Time of) Cholera!, a new public works project from the greater cultural arts
division of the CDC co-sponsored by Gilead as part of our water diversity initiative.
You like theatre,right,kid?GOOD! Here we go!

THE CDC begins the number! Here, perhaps, THE CDC is joined by A CHOLERA CHORUS LINE – 5, 6, 7, 8!

THE CDC (& A CHOLERA CHORUS LINE – 5, 6, 7, 8! ?):

WE’VE GOT CHOLERA! WE’VE GOT CHOLERA! YES, WE DO!
WE’VE GOT CHOLERA! WE’VE GOT CHOLERA! HOW ‘BOUT YOU?!
BOIL ALL THAT WATER, / BOIL IT –

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE asks a question.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Uh. Excuse me.
Sorry.
Hi, Sir. I’m a very small child in the audience, and gee, I was just wondering,
if my city issues a boil-water notice, can I still shower with that water?

A CHOLERA CHORUS LINE – 5, 6, 7, 8! disperses.

THE CDC:
Uh. Sure. Why…why wouldn’t you shower?

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

I’m just worried about showering because my mom got really sick / after –

THE CDC:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear ya, uh here –
I’m sure we’ve got some, uh,
Public health alternatives for dealing with, uh –
Your problems. SLIDE!
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 15

SLIDE 5

A slide. A haphazard Google search result – a Mexican worker being sprayed with chemicals at the border.
History now, then. The designs of the gas baths, imagined and erected here, then taken elsewhere. History flooding in.

A GAS CAN, AN EDUCATIONAL FILM, BROUGHT TO YOU BY QVC:

Mexicans and Cleaning! Here are the facts!
Here’s how you delouse a Mexican!
With white.
Let the white run down the body
Cryolite if they’re dirty dirty
Dirty Mexicans, teeming with lice, and typhus, and Mexico!

THE PRESENTER:
Wait./No, this is –

A GAS CAN, AN EDUCATIONAL FILM, BROUGHT TO YOU BY QVC:

Shave their heads, Steam dry the clothes until the shoes melt, and then
Clean ‘em up with gas baths!
Line ‘em up for the showers!
Fumigation! Like a house!
A dirty, dirty house in Mexico!
Fumigation on the mandate of The Mayor:
“We should bathe and disinfect all the dirty, lousy people who are coming into this country from
Mexico…We shall continue the work of killing lice and curbing the effects of immigration at the
Mexican border for many years to come.”
Remind them at every turn, conquest begins with the dirt
And their dirty, dirtied selves.
So remember: before you use your Mexicans,
Make sure to sterilize them!
You don’t want to get your family sick.

The film ends. THE VERY SMALL CHILD REMAINS.

THE PRESENTER:
Oh my god. Uh…
No, that is not…
I mean, sure, the history of showers, I guess / but that’s not –

THE CDC:
Alright, kid! I hope that helps!
Now, are there any other questions at this time that a pamphlet can’t answer? No? Great!
I believe the children are our future, teach them well and remember,
Cholera remains an insidious scourge.
Goodbye!

THE CDC slowly exits on a shitty Tesla jet-pack.

 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 16

THE PRESENTER:
Um… thank you. To uh, our esteemed guests from the CDC … for continuing to … continue.
I’m really sorry, kid. If you want, after this, / I can –

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

I’m confused. You’re not doing a great job at signposting for your audience. I can see they’re
confused, too. Maybe you shouldn’t interrupt your own / speech.

THE PRESENTER:
But I didn’t inter/rupt –

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

It can be distracting. For the audience. You don’t want them to know you’re self-aware.

THE PRESENTER:
You mean self-cons/cious?

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

No. “Don’t stop now! Keep going!” I’m motivating you! Does anyone have a charger? / I’m on 2%.

THE PRESENTER:
(Oh, actually!) Sorry, yes! Actually… actually, I think maybe it is important, before we get to anything
salacious, to think about how often structures of cleanliness and dirt are used to organize how we
treat one another. In class, we’ve talked about how shame often makes it difficult to be in front of
others. But we don’t talk about how we learn to feel shame for our very being. The gas baths at the
border are a prime example of how the state deploys racist logics of purity and danger, dirt, to
enforce a public shame that makes those subjected to the baths disposable; refuse. For example,
when my great-great-grandfather first came to this country, / he –

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Hi.

THE PRESENTER:
Hello.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Do you mind if I ask my question up there. Maybe someone else here can help me?
It’ll just be a minute. Please?

THE PRESENTER:
Okay, sure. Hey, but then I really need to get back / to my pres—

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Okay. Next slide, please.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE adorably gets up on stage.

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 17

SLIDE 6

In this slide, a Mexican baby, bathing in a giant metal tub.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Hi. I’m a Very Small Child. Well, not really, but that’s where I want to speak from. Because of this
water crisis in my city. My mother is from a very small ranch in Chihuahua, Mexico. And when I was
a very, very small child she would tell me that when she was a very small child my very large
grandmother would bathe her in one of these very large metal tubs. A hot bath for a clean child
takes time, but when you don’t have much, cleaning children must be done fast and rough, with hot
water, because if you were a very, very poor person cleaning other people’s homes, the best thing
you could have was a very, very clean child. And because most dust in people’s homes is just skin,
the best way to ensure a clean home is to scrub your children very, very hard, until they are red, so
they don’t make mess in other people’s homes and in your own. There are pictures of me, red,
somewhere in a tub like this one, from when I was a very, very small child, unimaginably small in
comparison to the present.

Anyway, my city just got a boil-water notice and we stocked up as much water as we could, but we
still don’t have any clean running water, and I just wanted to know if I should boil the water before I
bathe with it, or if it’s okay to just wash myself / with it –

From the audience enters A VERY EAGER, TALL WHITE MAN THEATRE COLLABORATOR THAT GIVES YOUR
COMPANY THAT AUTHENTIC ‘THIS IS A THEATRE COMPANY! LOOK AT THIS QUIRKY, VERY TALL
WHITE MAN UP HERE WITH US! MY GOD! WHAT WILL HE DO!? HE’S SO VERSATILE! SUCH A GREAT
CHARACTER ACTOR! AH, I KNOW HE’S GOING TO PLAY A RACIST IN THIS ONE BUT HE’S ACTUALLY
REALLY NICE IN REAL LIFE. HAVE YOU MET HIS PARTNER? SHE’S FROM VENEZUELA! ANYWAY, HE’S
ACTUALLY REALLY GREAT! PLEASE ENJOY. That’s his name. Okay, here he is!

A VERY EAGER, TALL WHITE MAN THEATRE COLLABORATOR THAT GIVES YOUR
THEATRE COMPANY THAT AUTHENTIC ‘THIS IS A THEATRE COMPANY! LOOK AT
THIS QUIRKY, VERY TALL WHITE MAN UP HERE WITH US! MY GOD! WHAT WILL
HE DO!? HE’S SO VERSATILE! SUCH A GREAT CHARACTER ACTOR! AH, I KNOW
HE’S GOING TO PLAY A RACIST IN THIS ONE BUT HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY NICE IN
REAL LIFE. HAVE YOU MET HIS PARTNER? SHE’S FROM VENEZUELA! ANYWAY,
HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY GREAT! PLEASE ENJOY:
Wait, okay, I actually totally have a story like this too, kind of! Wait, hold on. I’m gonna get up there
real quick with you.
Hold on.
Okay. Slide / please.

That white man’s up there now.

THE PRESENTER:
No. SIR?! NO!

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 18

SLIDE 7

A VERY EAGER, TALL WHITE MAN THEATRE COLLABORATOR THAT GIVES YOUR
THEATRE COMPANY THAT AUTHENTIC ‘THIS IS A THEATRE COMPANY! LOOK AT
THIS QUIRKY, VERY TALL WHITE MAN UP HERE WITH US! MY GOD! WHAT WILL
HE DO!? HE’S SO VERSATILE! SUCH A GREAT CHARACTER ACTOR! AH, I KNOW
HE’S GOING TO PLAY A RACIST IN THIS ONE BUT HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY NICE IN
REAL LIFE. HAVE YOU MET HIS PARTNER? SHE’S FROM VENEZUELA!” ANYWAY,
HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY GREAT! PLEASE ENJOY:
Hi, everyone! I’m –
Wow, this presentation is just really forcing me to think – (His voice starts to crack. He’s really feeling it.)
Sorry, it’s just / I –

From the audience, A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON supports very loudly.

A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON:

No, no, stop it, don’t apologize. I totally get it.

THE PRESENTER:
No! No, what are you / doing?! Stop it!

A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON:

I’m aiding a person in pain.
I’m a counseling and intervention specialist here on campus – so, I want to ask everyone here, as a
way to hold space, and just know this is a safe space – No! This is a brave space! I want to ask
everyone, what are some things you like doing in the shower?
For example, I cry in my shower. So, that’s my brave example. Anyone else?

THE PRESENTER:
Well, I uh, Sure, I practiced this presentation / in the shower–

A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON:

Thank you. I honor that. (Pivot, to A VERY EAGER…) Do you want to share something you do in the
shower?

A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON is very supportive through the next monologue.

THE PRESENTER and A VERY SMALL CHILD are still up there, enduring this.
A slide of a gorgeous, upper-middle class family’s glass shower door appears.

A VERY EAGER, TALL WHITE MAN THEATRE COLLABORATOR THAT GIVES YOUR
THEATRE COMPANY THAT AUTHENTIC ‘THIS IS A THEATRE COMPANY! LOOK AT
THIS QUIRKY, VERY TALL WHITE MAN UP HERE WITH US! MY GOD! WHAT WILL
HE DO!? HE’S SO VERSATILE! SUCH A GREAT CHARACTER ACTOR! AH, I KNOW
HE’S GOING TO PLAY A RACIST IN THIS ONE BUT HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY NICE IN
REAL LIFE. HAVE YOU MET HIS PARTNER? SHE’S FROM VENEZUELA!” ANYWAY,
HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY GREAT! PLEASE ENJOY:
Oh, gosh. Um. Yeah, I would love that, actually. Thank you.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 19

When I was a kid, I was 9 maybe, we had this huge, beautiful shower in my parents’ house, with
gorgeous glass doors. And I remember I would get in that shower, and seductively turn it on, and I
would play this game called “Prostitute in the Rain.” That’s what I would call it.
I would stand there under the rain, on the street,
Cold and alone, waiting for someone to love me.
My high heels, they hurt so much, so I would press my hand against the shower door,
pretend it was a car window, and I would beg the men,
Please, please, take me home with you, stud. But these men,
They would always drive away. And I would just sit there crying, in the rain.
I’ve always had this tremendous capacity for empathy
And I think that’s why I became an actor.
I think sometimes the purest way to feel something,
really feel something, is through somebody else. Y’know?

A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON:

Mmmm. Yeah, I’m an empath. Sometimes, on my hardest day, I pretend I’m Julianne Moore in The
Hours, and the world just really opens up. Such Clarity. (To THE PRESENTER.) You ever do that?

THE PRESENTER:
What? Pretend I’m somebody else? / No

A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON:

You should try it. It really helps you unclench. It’ll make you less tense. With this whole public
speaking thing. Do you have any actresses you like? Toni Colette? Helen Hunt?

THE PRESENTER:
Uh…I like Laura Linney. She really seems to have a tremendous amount of certainty. I’d like that. I
really liked her in Ozark.

A VERY EAGER, TALL WHITE MAN THEATRE COLLABORATOR THAT GIVES YOUR
THEATRE COMPANY THAT AUTHENTIC ‘THIS IS A THEATRE COMPANY! LOOK AT
THIS QUIRKY, VERY TALL WHITE MAN UP HERE WITH US! MY GOD! WHAT WILL
HE DO!? HE’S SO VERSATILE! SUCH A GREAT CHARACTER ACTOR! AH, I KNOW
HE’S GOING TO PLAY A RACIST IN THIS ONE BUT HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY NICE IN
REAL LIFE. HAVE YOU MET HIS PARTNER? SHE’S FROM VENEZUELA!” ANYWAY,
HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY GREAT! PLEASE ENJOY:
Oh, interesting! Throwback! Mmm. So, maybe now if any of you want to ask questions about my
process?

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Okay, so would any of you know if it’s safe to shower with the running water since the boil water
notice, or if we should boil it before bathing with it?

A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON:

Oh, I’m so sorry. I see you. You are my other me.

A VERY EAGER, TALL WHITE MAN THEATRE COLLABORATOR THAT GIVES YOUR
THEATRE COMPANY THAT AUTHENTIC ‘THIS IS A THEATRE COMPANY! LOOK AT
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 20

THIS QUIRKY, VERY TALL WHITE MAN UP HERE WITH US! MY GOD! WHAT WILL
HE DO!? HE’S SO VERSATILE! SUCH A GREAT CHARACTER ACTOR! AH, I KNOW
HE’S GOING TO PLAY A RACIST IN THIS ONE BUT HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY NICE IN
REAL LIFE. HAVE YOU MET HIS PARTNER? SHE’S FROM VENEZUELA!” ANYWAY,
HE’S ACTUALLY REALLY GREAT! PLEASE ENJOY:
In Lak’ech My wife is from Venezuela, so I get it. Lo siento.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Thanks, but I really actually just want to know. Please. I haven’t showered in like three days because
I’m / not sure if –

A VERY SUPPORTIVE PERSON:

We’re actually leading an accountability workshop in like an hour, so we gotta go. But good luck!

The two wraiths exit.

THE PRESENTER:
What the fuck is happening?!

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

You keep conjuring a series of invasive thoughts that manifest in the shape of authority figures and
men taking up too much space, effectively rendering all of your anxieties into fractals of your own
shame so that you can keep yourself from saying what you actually want to say, probably.

THE PRESENTER:
What did you say?

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

I dunno. Just something my mom used to say.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to / stop you. Sorry.

THE PRESENTER:
(Nearing his limit.) Are you done here?! Please! I need to move on, okay?! So, you should / go –

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Your hands are shaking. Are you nervous? You’re nervous, huh?

THE PRESENTER:
(Disarmed.) Yes.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Maybe you should hold a pen while you talk.
So you have something to do. I fidget sometimes. If you’re nervous, it also helps to have a very clear
want. Why do you want to keep talking about this stuff if makes you so nervous?
What do you / want?

THE PRESENTER:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 21

I want to finish this presentation!! That’s what I want most right now!!! / I feel like you had
somewhere to go!

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

You’re yelling so that doesn’t seem, right, either /but would you happen to know where I might be
able to take a shower?

THE PRESENTER:
NO! I’M SORRY! I WANT YOU TO GO / AWAY!!

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE exits. MX. VASQUEZ booms.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

THANK YOU! FINNNAALLY! Good work! Gorgeous! You’re doing a fantastic job projecting!
Now, stay focused! Go on!

THE PRESENTER:
THANK YOU. NEXT SLIDE!

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Breathe.

THE PRESENTER:
Yes. (He breathes. A kind of confidence. Curiosity.) Today, I want to focus on a specific artifact from the
annals of the shower’s history. I’d like us to turn to the bathhouse. California’s earliest bathhouses
date back to the gold rush, when entrepreneurs established bathhouses as a way for those
manifesting destiny to bathe and sleep after all the murder they were doing.
However, I’d like to attend a less violent history. I’d like to focus on the gay bathhouse.
In preparing for this presentation, I was advised by Mx. Vasquez to tell less and show more.
So we’re going to show you. With words. By telling you.

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 22

SLIDE 8

In this slide, the vestiges of the places that were, the defunct Midtowne Spas, the last days of The North Hollywood
Spa, the twilight of the Steamworks. Then, someone in the audience speaks.

A PLANT IN THE AUDIENCE, MAYBE AN ACTUAL PLANT. I DON’T KNOW:

“The GaY BathHouse? What IS That?”

THE PRESENTER:
Great Question, Rhetorical Device! Some of you may not know what a gay bathhouse is. And it
makes sense that we’ve forgotten. Many shut down in 1984.
Less than 70 were left in the United States by 2014. Less than 37 remained open by 2023.
Years later, today, in 2034, after so many, um, political shifts, no bathhouses remain.
The corpses of these places gutted and repurposed for parking lots, for Paneras, debtor prisons.
Even schools. This one, for example. Here. Our school.

Yes! The Academy for Innovation and Thought (Go Einsteins!), this school was once a bathhouse!
A Fun Fact: Once lovingly known as “that shithole near the North Hollywood Metro Station, not
far from Cobra and The Bullet,” all places now closed, this school was once The North Hollywood
Spa!

The ghost of club music trickles in; trace matter, a portal. Lights flicker.
THE PRESENTER is channeling. WHAT IT SMELLED LIKE, HOW IT SOUNDED, and MAN IN A TOWEL emerge
and prepare the space. Ritual.

THE BATHHOUSE SPEAKS - WHAT I SMELLED LIKE:

Here’s what I smelled like -
Ammonia as in cleaning products, but also piss
Ammonia to clean piss, and piss-poor, and poppers
is what it smelled like, like skin sloughed, and scalp-sweet,
and that yuck-yum, sweat-sweet of rough opened legs,
and bleach, chemical flowers, like cleaned floors dirtied and dirty floors cleaned!

THE BATHHOUSE SPEAKS - HOW I SOUNDED:

Here’s how I sounded:
“And I’m to the middle and around again / up to the middle
Up up to the middle and around again / 100% pure love!”
Room number 45 room number 45 we need your key room number 45
More Yes No More yes please Oh daddy Oh baby Ow papi
Click Spark Door lock Slap slap slap I’m gonna Oh god I’m gonna
Key ring key ring key ring huff huff huff THANK YOU.

THE BATHHOUSE SPEAKS – A MAN IN A TOWEL:

Here’s who was here:
Mostly men, mostly things that look like men
In the darkness, mostly alone, mostly hard-hungry,
Mostly lube-slick, slightly love-sick, mostly stained sheets,
and men in stained towels. I’m a man in a towel.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 23

I’m going to die a little death in here

Not for real die No too messy. If I die I’ll empty myself
and No I’ve emptied all my insides to come die here
I flushed water up myself to come here, to be what I want to be,
Clean Dirty Nasty and Good Oh look It’s a Tuesday special!
8+ inches get in for free! That’s me! Look –

The cafetorium/classroom this presentation began in, it looks so much like what it was once. It’s pulsing.

THE PRESENTER:
We are now in the milieu of last, last, last week.
The North Hollywood Spa. The Bathhouse.
Always, somewhere entirely in plain view, somewhere hidden
Always, someone is coming inside, someone is leaving
Always: steam baths, dry saunas, showers, water, bleach, wood oil.
Here, through this door, a sling, a hallway of mirrors, a maze, a hailstorm of hands,
a glory hole, a cage, a cot, a St. Andrew’s Cross,
a gym nobody is using, a sad vending machine,
and someone next to it is aging and wants.
Don’t you want it?
Always these places aging. Longing. Ending.

THE PRESENTER returns to himself, the dust of flow state still on him.

THE PRESENTER:
So, in the spirit of less tell and more show, today, we’ll pretend that every place is always
everywhere. That architectures are always haunting each other across times and geographies. Today,
let’s imagine this place as it was once.
Today, let’s imagine the very bottom floor of the bathhouse.
The gold-foil numbers on the door of room 32. Here.
Let’s imagine.

A club mix of Crystal Waters’ “Destination Unknown.” CHELA enters in her North Hollywood Spa uniform,
wheeling her cleaning cart, headphones in. Room 32. She opens the door. Smoke clouds drift. Someone is there.

CHELA:
Oh. I’m sorry.
You’re not –
are you doing drugs?

CARLOS:
No. (CARLOS scrambles to hide a little glass pipe and lighter. Their key ring jingles.)
No.

CHELA:
You look like you’re on drugs.

CARLOS:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 24

It’s just hot in here.

CHELA:
Your eyes look crazy.
What’s wrong with your mouth?

CARLOS:
Nothing.

CHELA:
Okay, well, I’m supposed to clean this room right now. Go home.

CARLOS:
I came here with my friends.

Gloria Estefan’s “Get On Your Feet” starts playing, interrupting Crystal Waters. God, what an awful mix.

CHELA:
Go home with them.
You want me to call them – we can page them if –
if / you want

CARLOS:
They weren’t my friends.

CHELA:
Why’d you come with them then?

CARLOS:
I didn’t come with them.
I came by myself. I just met them here.
They said they wanted to fuck me.

CHELA:
Both of them?

CARLOS:
Yeah. They’re married.

CHELA:
Oh? And they’re okay with that?

CARLOS:
With being married?

CHELA:
With having relations with you. In front of each other?
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 25

CARLOS:
No, they were gonna fuck me at the same time. They were gonna dp me.

CHELA:
Virgen Purisima! That’s a lot. I get tired even looking at one.

CARLOS:
Do you think I can just stay here?

CHELA:
No, you gotta go. I’m gonna get in trouble cuz you didn’t pay for extra time.

CARLOS:
I don’t have any money.

CHELA:
You can’t stay here.

CARLOS:
My phone’s dead.

CHELA:
Charge it.

CARLOS:
I don’t have a charger.

CHELA:
I can lend you mine.

CARLOS:
I don’t actually have a phone. I lost my stuff.

CHELA:
Ay, dios. Muchacho pendejo.
What are you chewing?

CARLOS:
My cheek.

CHELA:
You’re gonna bleed.

CARLOS:
I’m already bleeding.

CHELA:
Oh. Do you want mouthwash?
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 26

CARLOS:
No, I’m bleeding from my –
In my –

CHELA:
Oh. Oh no. Do you need –
You wanna borrow my phone? To call your friends.

CARLOS:
I told you, I just met them!! I don’t know / their number!!

CHELA:
Who you yelling at, cabron?!

CARLOS:
I’m sorry. I’m just –
Can you – do you think
maybe I can get a ride home with you?

CHELA:
Absolutely not.

CARLOS:
Please.

CHELA:
Where do you live?

CARLOS:
To … your home?

CHELA:
Fuck no.

CARLOS:
I don’t know where I live right now.

CHELA:
Ay chavalo. You’re so dumb.
God, you’re so young to be this sad and this dumb

CARLOS:
If you don’t take me home I’m going to stay here.

CHELA:
The manager’s gonna call the cops if you stay here!
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 27

CARLOS:
Then help me.
Please. I just need somewhere to be
If you had a kid
If I was your kid
How would you feel if -

CHELA:
I don’t got kids.

CARLOS:
But if you did.

CHELA:
I did. Then I didn’t want no kids. So I don’t got no kids.
I gotta clean this room. Get up.

CARLOS:
I can help. I’ll clean this room! Since I made it dirty!
Look, I’ll clean it.
I’m cleaning it now.

CHELA:
Ay dios. Fine. Fine! Okay, I will give you a ride home. Not mine. Another home. You can pick.
Anywhere between here and Canoga Park, or Van Nuys, or Reseda, or Woodland Hills, or
Chatsworth. You would probably like Chatsworth.

CARLOS:
Thank you so much! Thank you! You’re a life-saver! I’m gonna go shower,
(CARLOS moves for the door with his stuff. CHELA stops him with a broom.)

CHELA:
Nah uh, baby. You can’t get something for nothing, y’know?

CARLOS:
But I don’t have –

CHELA:
You’re going to help me, You got it? Between now and then, you’re going to help me clean.
We’re going upstairs to get you some clothes.
I have an extra shirt. It’s gonna be big. And a hat for you.
Don’t talk to nobody and you can’t do no sex things again.
You can’t make more mess, okay?

CARLOS:
I’ll try.

CHELA:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 28

No. You can’t make more mess and if you do, I’m gonna hit you.
I got a broom and I can punch really hard and I never lost a fight ever in my life, not even when I
fought my cousin That fuckin’ puta, So you better do what I’m telling you. What’s your name?

CARLOS:
Carlos.

CHELA:
Okay. You’re Sharlie now, okay?

CARLOS:
Won’t people know I don’t work here?

CHELA:
Pendejo, nobody cares if anybody works here!
They just want more towels. And lube. Barely.
If anybody asks, just …
Just tell them…
I don’t fuckin’ know …
You’re an intern!
Just no more dicks or butts or nuts or nothing, you got it, Sharlie?
Let’s go. And grab your shitty sheets, cochino.
I’m Chela, okay? Chela.
Come on!

CHELA and CARLOS exit.

THE PRESENTER:
And they wheel the cleaning cart out, so you guys exit, okay? Thank you for showing! Great work!
And Chela hates gloves at home, and Carlos, they hate condoms here. And Chela thinks, How will
you know your dishes are clean clean if you wear gloves? How will you know you’ve killed the germs
if your hands are gloved?
If germs had lungs, if germs were things you could hear dying, that would be satisfying, yeah?
That’s why Carlos hates condoms, is they mute all that good noise. This is a place to let the skin feel
its living, accompanied. Who wouldn’t want to feel together, next to someone else, yeah? Most days,
I would like –

A flow state, club music trickles in again, faint. Lights flicker.

Attuned with the bathhouse, trying to stay on track with the presentation, but the bathhouse wants to be again.
It wants to exist.

THE PRESENTER:
We are in the milieu of last last last week. We are in a place of limbs and skin. A Fact: Fully
stretched, human skin is roughly 22 square feet, so imagine all those bodies next to one another, this
canvas of want, stretching and longing and sagging, all taut and wrinkled, all outstretched on a lawn
chair, on a bed, on a rubber sheet. We are now in the deep downstairs. We are with every animal we
might be when we are at rest, when we are at want. Here, an echo. A handsome, older man rests.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 29

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK is here, resting.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

I came here to rest
Here, to age here.
I came here because me and my friends used to come here.

THE PRESENTER:
And then perhaps, one of those Look-But-Don’t-Touch-Types enters.

A LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH type enters.

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH:

I came here to be looked at. But don’t touch!
Sometimes, in the dark, hands pop up like flowers
Bouquets of fingers.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

That’s how Tony Kushner describes the genitals of angels.
Bouquets of ‘em; every kind of everything

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH:

Oh, is that, like, one of your friends?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

No.

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH:

Okay.
…
I’m not interested.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

I don’t want anything you can give me.

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH:

Why not?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Because you don’t have anything I want

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH:

Well, why are you here then?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Because my friends used to come here.

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH:

 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 30

Okay, but don’t you wanna fuck me?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Do you want to fuck me?

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH:

No.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Then, I don’t. I just came here to rest.

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH:

(Dramatically and for no good goddamn reason, a gay banshee.) Are you looking at me, you fucking creep?!
Ugh, This fucking old man is looking! Help! I’m being groomed!

From under the red cushions, A GHOST emerges.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

Oh, shut up! You’re 24, you fucking cum-bucket! Will you shut the fuck up and just let him rest?!

LOOK BUT DON’T TOUCH exits, terrified and gay!

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Thank you. It has been a very hard week.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

Yes, it has been and we miss you very much.

IT HAS BEEN AVERY HARD WEEK:

And I miss you all very much.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

Why not miss us from home?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Because I like missing you here.
I like going missing here.
I miss going here.
I’m going missing
I keep forgetting.
Whenever I start to go missing, I come here and rest and remember all the things that keep trying to
forget themselves.
It’s been such a long time since you were here.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

I am always here.
This is where I was, always, when I met you.
You remember?
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 31

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

I don’t. I can’t make out any moment clearly.
But when I sit here, it feels like you, like then.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

Then, the cushions weren’t plastic.
And we met when you were already old enough to be the age I was
When I first came here, so I was old enough to have people to miss already,
which is why I came here.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Yes, that’s what it feels like here.
Like I was always going to be older here.
Because you were. When we met.
You were older here. I was not.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

You were a wild thing with open legs and hungry arms
And every time you smiled with open legs, I swear, you looked like you’d won.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

I was younger then, so I was always winning.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

I was older then, so I always let you win.
I’ve been gone for a shorter time than I was alive.
So I’m younger now, than I was then.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

And me? I am older now?

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

Than me? Yes, you are older now. Here.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Is there anywhere I am not?

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

Older? Yes. Back then you aren’t.
Someday you won’t be at all.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Someday I won’t be older at all.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

No, someday you won’t be at all.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 32

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Oh. Someday I won’t be.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

The same way I am not.
But by then, the time between us,
it’ll make you a boy again.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

And that will make you a very young daddy.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

The math all does itself. So, tell me,
if you can’t remember, what does it feel like?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Like, you’re laying next to me, and like the good poppers.
The kind that would make you go blind if you did too much.
And like when you’d laugh at me like I didn’t know any better.
I didn’t know any better.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

And I’d say, “It’s not the same here anymore.
Back when I first started coming here, I tell you, we didn’t have rights, but we really used to fuck!
We used to do everything here. And there was a lady sometimes. She would sing right over there.”

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

And I would listen to you.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

You wouldn’t. You were a very bad listener.
You were just watching for your turn in the conversation.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

I was waiting for you to breed me. I just wanted you to want me.
Do you remember much more? I am trying very hard and I just keep getting lost.

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

Are you trying to remember me or you?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Both of us. I miss you.
I miss myself with you.
Every time I try to remember, I go missing all over the hallways here.
Sometimes, I go missing in the hot tub.
We met there, yes?

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 33

You remember!
We miss you, too. All of us in the cracks too hard to scrub.
All of us still here, caked in the cracks, we miss you, too.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

One day, will I be there?

A GHOST CRAWLING FROM UNDER THE RED CUSHIONS:

In the cracks? Oh, yes. One day, you will be here so hard you’ll be almost impossible to scrub off.
And one day, this spot is going to feel like you so much, you’ll be hard to miss.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Where is everyone else?

All these GHOSTS emerge.

A GHOST EMERGES FROM UNDER THE STAIRS:

Here.

A GHOST EMERGES FROM BEHIND THE DOOR:

And here.

A GHOST EMERGES FROM BEHIND THE CLOCK ON THE WALL:

And here.

A PARTY OF GHOSTS! WITH THEIR LIMBS SPRAWLED ALL OVER THE PLACE, THEY
ARE SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU!:
We are so happy to see you here, with our limbs sprawled all over the place! We miss you so much!

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

I miss you all, too.

A VERY REAL TWINK enters.

A VERY REAL TWINK:

Hey.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Hey there.

A VERY REAL TWINK:

You here by yourself?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Yes.

ALL OF THE GHOSTS, WITH THEIR LIMBS SPRAWLED ALL OVER THE PLACE:
Oooooooooh!
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 34

A VERY REAL TWINK:

I’m not bothering you, am I? If I just lay here next to you?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

People usually don’t talk in these kinds of places.

A VERY REAL TWINK:

Oh, I’m sorry.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

No, don’t be. It’s nice to talk to someone nice.

ALL OF THE GHOSTS, WITH THEIR LIMBS SPRAWLED ALL OVER THE PLACE:
Ooooooh!

A VERY REAL TWINK:

(He reaches for IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK’s body.)
May I –

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Sure. Are you okay if I –

A VERY REAL TWINK:

Please. Do.

ALL OF THE GHOSTS, WITH THEIR LIMBS SPRAWLED ALL OVER THE PLACE:
You’re not supposed to ask. You Just do.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

I like the talking. The asking. I think it’s sweet.

A VERY REAL TWINK ENTERS:

What?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Oh, not you. Sorry.

ALL OF THE GHOSTS, WITH THEIR LIMBS SPRAWLED ALL OVER THE PLACE:
And now!

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK and A VERY REAL TWINK are too close now, the ghosts returning a bit more
clearly at the sight of this possibility. The lights flicker, then dim.

THE PRESENTER:
(He commands it; his own stunted desire.) Here it is too dark to clearly see the details of what they are
doing, maybe only the outlines of want. So it’s best if we just imagine your favorite time in the dark,
naked, with someone who made you feel like you weren’t missing.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 35

Just imagine. That is the extent of desire sometimes, no?

The impossibly thick border between want and the actual thing wanted. So, we imagine.

And now imagine THE PRESENTER swirling, up, down into another world’s version of himself, jealous, flustered.
Angry horny? The lights of the cafetorium/classroom start to leak back like molasses.

THE PRESENTER:
For example, I imagine the attendants at the bathhouses, stationary, behind a cash register, in front
of a wall of keys, a rack of flip-flops and Rhino boner pills. How frustrating, to usher in everyone’s
wants and see so little of them, and do much less than that. How painful to be a disembodied voice
while other people get to be bodies, get to be / touched –

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Hold. You’re telling us again. You were doing so great showing. Show us what you mean.

THE PRESENTER:
(THE PRESENTER returned. Then, his ATTENDANT voice emerges; a wall of keyrings and receipts, and a
microphone manifest!) “Locker 74, please come turn in your key, please! Locker 74, your time is up.”

THE GHOSTS disappear, A VERY REAL TWINK and IT’S BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK do, too. THE PRESNTER
watches them go. The ugly, charter school cafetorium/classroom lights return.

THE PRESENTER:
Wow. Um. More on them later, maybe, but there may not be time.
There may just be a Google Form at the end of this. Feedback for the department.
So make sure you fill out that Google Form!

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Oh, come on!

THE PRESENTER:
(A panic button!) Slide!

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 36

SLIDE 9

Technical difficulties. Word clouds. Fuck.

THE PRESENTER:
(A pause. Hunger lingering.) So sorry everyone. We actually…
Okay, so, oh – wait – sorry.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

You shouldn’t apologize to / your audience.

THE PRESENTER:
Fuck – oop – fudge! Wait.
I lost my place.
Oh god.
I lost my place
Uh –

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY? comes to the rescue.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Uh… Hi everyone! We’re going to do some free-word association audience participation here!
Just respond back with whatever word pops into your head!
Just to –
So it feels less –
Just to feel less! Okay, here we go!!
Water!
(Wait for one word response, then no matter what say this next word anyway.)
Steam!
(Same as above. We are going to follow a pattern and I’m not going to write this again.)
Gymnos!

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Nice work! Collaboration! Audience participation! It’s like The King’s Speech in here! What a movie!
Now, /can you get back –

THE PRESENTER:
YES! SO, GYMNOS! is the Greek word for naked. So, Gymnasium is like the Greek way of saying
to train naked and where do we spend most of our naked time? IN THE SHOWER! And what are
we training for in there?! Is the shower a gym? Is the rectum a grave? Is the mother a place? I argue
that the shower is a place where we train; to have difficult conversations, to process grief, to practice
attuning ourselves to all the smells we make, to temper all the smells we made, to train ourselves to
think of smells as evidence to be hidden! To Not Use shampoo or liquid soap from the school
bathroom as lubricant! / To –

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Oh god, that’s just awful.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 37

THE PRESENTER:
Yes, it is.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Oh my god. Did you do that?

THE PRESENTER:
Well…

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Well, what happened?

THE PRESENTER:
Oh. Um. Well, well, I was I was on campus and um, I was in the restroom and I was washing my
hands. And this guy I had this huge crush on in my English class, he um –
Yeah, he walks in and he sees me and I guess, I dunno. He just sees me
and he asks if I wanted to –
Well no,
Well, he said he wanted to fuck me, um, and I, I really liked him a lot. I’d look at his hands
sometimes and just think about his fingers in class randomly. What his palms might feel like.
I just really wanted him to like me and,
And he was there in the bathroom and I was there
and he closes the door. I try to kiss him but
But he doesn’t kiss me and
And uh
I didn’t know you could use spit as lube
so he just sort of reached for the hand soap dispenser
and, yeah, He used the soap to –

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

That’s not supposed to go in there.

THE PRESENTER:
I know.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Well, what did you do.

THE PRESENTER:
I let him finish.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Oh. And?

THE PRESENTER:
And it hurt a lot. It burned. And
Hehe uh then, uh, haha ugh
then I saw him in class that afternoon and
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 38

He wouldn’t look at me at all. He wouldn’t look

And I just sat there in my tiny desk, burning.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Oh, you poor thing. That must have been awful.

THE PRESENTER:
I mean, sort of. But whatever. Well, okay, maybe this is just me, but the burning from the soap sort
of made me feel like maybe I was cleaner than I started out. I felt cleaner inside all day, while I
burned. And I felt clear about me and him. That’s when you feel cleanest, and clear about how
things work, is when it’s painful.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

I… I don’t think that’s a very healthy approach to cleanliness at all.
Or boys, / like, at all.

THE PRESENTER:
And that’s why this isn’t a question and answer period!
That’s why this is still a presentation, and nobody asked you to open your mouth. Okay!
Now where were we?

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY?:

Asshole.

JUST HAPPY TO HELP! ARE YOU OKAY? exits.

THE PRESENTER:
I’d like us to return to the broader topic of cleanliness now, to just, yeah –
It might feel less – Yes!
Bathing provides an / opportunity –

From the audience A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS! interrupts.

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!:

This bath. Why?

THE PRESENTER:
I’m sorry?

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!:

Why do you bath?

THE PRESENTER:
Bathe?

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!:

You will not speak to me this way!
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 39

THE PRESENTER:
Um, did we…who let this man in?

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!:

I AM HERE ON A MISSION FROM GOD AND I NEED NO PERMISSION BUT DIVINITY
TO OPEN THE WAY TO ANY LAND I SEE FIT! I AM THE ONE WHO RIDES
THROUGH GROUNDS DANGEROUS AND UKNOWN! I AM FRANCISCO GAMEZ
LOPEZ DE GAMA MARQUEZ FERNANDEZ DEL TORO VILLACRUZ AND I AM SENT
HERE BY THE VERY SAME FORCES THAT COMPEL THE STORM AND THE RAIN! I
WILL NOT BE QUESTIONED!

THE PRESENTER:
Okay, but did you register through Eventbrite, though, or… Oh, this won’t turn into the AA space
until after 8, / so –

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!:

YOU WILL ANSWER MY QUERY!
WHY DO YOU BATH!?

THE PRESENTER:
(He approaches THE CONQUISTADOR. Then:) Alright, sir, that’s – Oh- wow – Oh - oooof – You –
That smell is –
Oh god. Ugh – (Retching.)

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!:

Hey, that’s not nice.

THE PRESENTER:
Christ! Are you dead?! This is like,
Somebody shit inside a bag of parmesan and baked it inside a corpse in some hideous oven powered
by burning hair and even then
My god!

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!:

Hey! (He starts to weep.) That’s not very nice at all! You stop that right now! (Weeping!)

THE PRESENTER:
Are you… are you crying? Oh no, Not the little conquistador crying?
Aww, little shitty-diaper baby conquistador, pobrecito, chiquito!
I think
I think now is a really great time
To Imagine. Yes. To play. Let’s play!
WASH! THAT! FUCKER!
SLIDE PLEASE!

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 40

SLIDE 10

It’s a game! It’s a show! We’re playing now! A sign flashes “Applause!” or maybe a random in a banana hammock
comes on stage with a cardboard sign reading the same. It’s a colonial revenge fantasy! It’s impossible!

THE PRESENTER:
We’re role-playing now! We’re doing this in the space of play, okay, so there’s no scary identity
breaks! It’s like Kahoot! So, FRANCISCO GAMEZ LOPEZ DE GAMA MARQUEZ
FERNANDEZ DEL TORO VILLACRUZ!

A sign flashes “Boo this fucker!” or just another sexy person in a thong holds up some posterboard.

THE PRESENTER:
Francisco, you’ll be playing the floor of a Very dirty private room in a bathhouse. Are you up for the
challenge?

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!:

Please, don’t –

THE PRESENTER:
TOO BAD! WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
(A dom.) Get on the floor.
You’re now the Very dirty floor, of a Very dirty private room in a bathhouse. Got it.
(A boxing match!) And now, all the way from Canoga Park, she’s 5’ 7”, she’s Mexican-American and
kinda mean but at least she’s got a car now! It’s her fourth day on Herbalife shakes and She! Is!
Tired! Straight from the Saturday night shift at The North Hollywood Spa! Here’s CHELA!

CHELA enters with her cart, her lunchbag slung over her shoulder. Another sign flashes. “Silence is complicity. Cheer
for Chela!” – if posterboard, then the sexy person flashes this and exits.

A CONQUISTADOR! WITH ONE OF THOSE HATS!

Please, no. I am unsuitable to be a floor! / Please

THE PRESENTER:
GET DOWN THERE, PIG!
We’ll imagine I’m an attendant, so I’m the manager, so I’m daddy and not baby.
(THE PRESENTER’s ATTENDANT voice emerges.) “Chela, We need room 76 clean, please! We need you
in room 76! Thank you, hon.”

CHELA:
Goddamn it! I can’t even fucking eat here.
One day, I’m going to sit down and I’m going to eat my sandwich right here.
I’m gonna drink a Mickey’s or a King Cobra. One of these days, I’m really gonna take a goddamn
break.

THE PRESENTER:
“Room 76 needs cleaning, / please!”
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 41

CHELA:
One of these days, I’m gonna take off my bra and let my tits breathe, right here
I’m gonna put my feet in some warm water. Get epsom salts and lotions.
I’m going to have my hair down one day.
Wear pretty earrings, pearls maybe, and put cucumbers over my eyes.
But then I’ll eat one, like in the movies.
And then someone will come and wrap my legs in plastic so they’ll be pretty.
Maybe someone will paint my toenails a cute color. A tangerine.
I’m gonna have good nylon stockings, the ones with the line running down the leg
And a pair of Loubitins but with arch support
I’m gonna smell like mint and money.
I can’t wait to sit down one day. I just wanna sit!

THE CONQUISTADOR, NOW PLAYING THE FLOOR:

(Empathy.) Okay, but I kind of see this for her. She is tired. / I think I understand what –

THE PRESENTER:
“CHELA, We really need you to do your job, please! So, Room 76 needs cleaning!”

CHELA:
YES!
Pinche puto.
PIVOT!
I will wheel my war and will through this place
I will win my war of dirt and bleach and sickness and steam
And I will win!

THE CONQUISTADOR, NOW PLAYING THE FLOOR:

PLEASE, / DON’T!

CHELA:
(She scrubs with spite. With murder.) And a floor can’t speak, a floor can’t feel things.
But I can, in this room, alone, I can speak and I can feel,
So I will say, “God, it smells disgusting!”
So, I’ll scrub it hard, hot water clean. Hot, bleach, clean!
I’ll imagine the germs screaming in every voice that ever called me dirty! In all their oldest names
and every uniform they ever wore when they called us that! / Dirty!

THE CONQUISTADOR, NOW PLAYING THE FLOOR:

OH CHRIST! DIOS, OS ROGAIS, ESCUCHA /MI PLEGARIA!

CHELA:
And a floor is not allowed to have a god that isn’t me!
If this floor had skin it would break.
I’m that good at getting things clean,
which is why I don’t have kids, because I’d clean them till they burst, and all kids ever do is get dirty,
is make mess.
So I never had no kids!
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 42

No, I clean here for the boys,

Ay no, crazy, crazy boys
So sweet sometimes, so sweet.
But they make things so, so dirty.
So dirty sometimes. Don’t say hi sometimes. Sometimes don’t say hi never. So rude.
“Pass by quickly, Chela! Quickly, Chela!
You’ll scare the customers. If they see you, you’ll scare them, Chela!
Get in and clean quick.”
Like shit and blood don’t take time, don’t take a hard heart
to clean, don’t take a hard hand and a hard stare
to leave myself while I clean all that smell and skin
and I’m good.
I’m
That
Good!

God.

CARLOS enters.

CARLOS:
I brought the Clorox. / Oh god, it smells.

CHELA:
Throw three caps in that water right there.
You’re going to mop the floor.

CARLOS:
How do you mop stuff?
I don’t know how.
My mom said I wouldn’t be good at it.
so I never did it.

CHELA:
You’re a shit son and a worse intern.
Take the mop, and the bleach water, and run it on the floor.
Put your weight on it. Like you’re mad at yourself.

CARLOS:
Like, this?

CHELA:
Yes, just like that, but sadder. Yeah, that’s good.
This is you paying me back, okay? For making that other room dirty.

CARLOS:
I’m sorry I made a mess.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 43

CHELA:
Ya, pinche mitotero. Shut up. It’s okay to like mess. It’s fun.

CARLOS:
Really? You think it’s okay /to –

CHELA:
Ey, puto! I didn’t say stop mopping!
Okay, okay, that’s good.
That’s how you mop. Nice.

CARLOS:
And what are you going to do?

CHELA:
I’m gonna …
I’m gonna supervise you. I’m your supervisor now.
“That’s really good, Sharlie! Good job!”
(She pulls out a gorgeous lipstick color and applies it to her lips.)
What do you think, Sharlie?

CARLOS:
Werq.

CHELA:
What?

CARLOS:
It’s nice. (He winces. His hole.)

CHELA:
Okay, I think that floor looks pretty good.

THE CONQUISTADOR WHO WAS THE FLOOR, NOW STANDING BY THE DOOR:
I think this floor looks fucking great. (THE CONQUISTADOR vapes.) Wooo, Shit. God, I feel…I Feel
New. Mmm.

CHELA:
Yeah, give it an hour. It’ll end up just as shitty as we found it. I hate it here.

THE CONQUISTADOR WHO WAS THE FLOOR IS NOW STANDING BY THE DOOR:
FUCK! I’m so fucking horny now! I will leave this scene and fuck everything in another one!
For the sake of allegory. In a different costume. But with the same ethic of rigidity and control!
Here I go. Footstep footstep footstep.

THE CONQUISTADOR exits.

THE PRESENTER:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 44

Okay, that was great, guys. But wait a minute, you might be saying, I thought / this was about bath –

CHELA:
Sharlie, take the sheets and the pillow cases y bring me clean ones.
We gotta do the VIP rooms after. And then the downstairs.

CARLOS:
Yes ma’aam.

THE PRESENTER:
Uh, guys. We’re good.
As I was saying, / you might be –

CARLOS:
(To CHELA.) Hey. Do you think if I –
If I do a really good job,
Do you think I could fuck for a little bit?

CHELA:
No! / Estas loca, o que? Muchacho pendejo…

THE PRESENTER:
… Uh, guys? Can …uh – you might be asking, “Why was there / a conquistador?”

CHELA:
(To CARLOS.) Oye, y luego go see if anybody is in the little hammock.

CARLOS:
The sling?

CHELA:
Andale, esa madre.

CARLOS:
What if someone’s using it?

CHELA:
Tell them they got ten minutes. That we gotta let the room breathe. Put the “closed for
maintenance” sign up. I don’t wanna clean that shit again.

THE PRESENTER:
(Dialing into his ATTENDANT voice.) “We need custodial in the hot tub area, please! The bears are
eating ass in the hot tub again and we don’t need any more cases of giardia or shigellosis! Custodial!
Now!”

CHELA:
Ugh, come on, Sharlie. They’re calling you.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 45

CARLOS and CHELA exit.

THE PRESENTER:
“Thank you, huns!”

CHELA:
Fuck you.

THE PRESENTER:
Anyway, I would like to return to our earlier discussion and highlight the ways in which racialized
notions of cleanliness and sexist forms of desire have contributed to the demise of bathhouses,
exacerbated by the various pandemics we’ve endured over the years. / Here, I would also argue –

THE CDC from off-stage.

THE CDC:
UH OH! Did I hear the R-word AND the P-word?! NOPE NOPE NOPE!
Slide!

THE CDC enters and forcefully moves THE PRESENTER into a seat.
Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 46

SLIDE 11

And now, state-sanctioned smut! With Laura Linney!

THE CDC:
HI THERE! CDC Here. Kids these days, huh? (To THE PRESENTER, saccharine and cruel.) What a
precocious little pig, you are! (To the audience, PR crisis management.)
Now, I get asked a lot, “What’s it like, being the Center for Disease Control?”
And I’ll tell you, it isn’t easy. Diseases don’t follow the rules! They rule the night!
Now yes, admittedly, we’re currently in another p-word; you know what I’m talking about. (THE CDC
sprays Fabreeze in the air.) Given the current p-word we really recommend that if you MUST
intercourse, if you absolutely haaave to intercourse, we recommend um… well
Here, we’ve brought Laura Linney to explain.

LAURA LINNEY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CDC! enters.

LAURA LINNEY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CDC!:

Hi, I’m Golden Globe Award winner and coping mechanism, Laura Linney! You might remember
me from my stunning turn as a white woman on the brink of emotional collapse, but with a great
deal of certainty and authority!

THE PRESENTER:
(Starstruck!) No fuckin’ way!?

LAURA LINNEY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CDC!:

(With absolute grace.) Yes fuckin’ way.
Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about Glory Holes. A Glory Hole is a hole to present the genitals for
oral, digital, or penetrative stimulation. This is key in a pand-

THE CDC:
Nope. We can say p-word. Or Panera.

LAURA LINNEY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CDC!:

Thank you. In a Panera, it’s important to avoid the spread of particles that may carry disease such as
…. Co.. uh, Monk…nope…other things. Like…mumps?

THE CDC:
Good. Yeah, if you name any disease post-’82, we might alienate our voter base. Just skip to the
tutorial. We can only afford you for two more minutes.

LAURA LINNEY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CDC!:

Thank you.
Find a wall somewhere near you, or put up a strong, plastic shower curtain at a threshold in your
home, or maybe go to the restroom of a liberal arts building of a college in Texas and just put a hole
in that barrier, big enough to present your cookies. Your jewels.
Once the hole is there, you never have to look at anyone.
And voila!
Glory!
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 47

THE PRESENTER:
Wow. Uh. Thank you, Miss Linney. Huge fan!

LAURA LINNEY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CDC!:

Thank you. I’m playing a homo’s sister again next month, so this feels right. I’m gonna go do
Meisner in the porno room.
I’m Laura Linney.
I’m Laura Linney.

LAURA LINNEY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE CDC! exits.

THE CDC:
Wow! Yes. You can certainly tell she was in Tales of the City! Am I right?
So yeah, again, we just wanted to make sure we cover some basics, with all the bathhouses closed
down, please remember: so long as you’re in a p-word, maybe just carry some plywood around with
a hole in it, put some handles or a harness on it!
Like a GoPro Glory Hole! / GoProHole!

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE returns.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Hi. This is all very informative. But / I still

THE PRESENTER:
Oh god. No, kid, I told / you –

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

just wanted to know about the boil water notice in my city. There’s been so many slides since we last
talked about this and it’s been months and we still don’t have potable water.

THE CDC:
Potable?

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Oh, water you can drink. It’s the same word in Spanish and English.
I learned that weeks ago. When we stopped having potable water.
I want to know if we should boil the water we shower with. I got this rash / and –

THE CDC:
Look, we are barely scraping by as a credible agency.
Most of that information was just Linney winging it.
Here. Have this small bottle of hand-sanitizer.
Maybe someone can help you in the next section of this thing.

THE CDC runs away.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 48

I just want somewhere to shower.

Do you know where I can shower?

THE PRESENTER:
Uh… Yes, that is a fantastic transition!
Next slide, please!

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 49

SLIDE 12

THE PRESENTER:
We are in the milieu of last last last last last week. At the bathhouse. At the North Hollywood Spa.

THE PRESENTER’s ATTENDANT voice emerges again. The classroom walls tremble with the bathhouse past; a
summoning. A locker room area blooms. The shower area and toilets spring forth, too.

THE PRESENTER:
Sometime, in another world, I greet you at the door, and I say “Do you have a membership with
us,” And you’ll say

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

“No.”

THE PRESENTER:
“Locker or room?” I’ll say, and resent you.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

“Locker,” I’ll say

THE PRESENTER:
And I’ll say “It’s $35 for a locker if you’re not a member.” And you’ll hand me some cash, and I’ll
buzz you in and hand you a towel.
Envious, I’ll watch you go inside the locker room area. You have a copy of Howards End in your
book bag. Ugh. What the fuck is that about? Anyway, you just want somewhere to shower, but you
haven’t showered in four days, and if you took your clothes off in front of all these people, they’d
sniff you out. What to do?

A VERY SMALL CHILD enters the bathhouse. Then, a man enters; A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS
ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER.

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Hi, uh, excuse me. I saw that this was a bathhouse.

A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER:
Your first time here?

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Yeah, I just wanted to know if I could shower here. My city just issued a boil-water notice –

A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER:
You like to suck dick?

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

That’s a really weird question, given my character’s name.

A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 50

Oh, I apologize. It’s just, you’re actually a whole-ass adult right now, so I just figured –

A VERY SMALL CHILD IN THE AUDIENCE:

Oh.

A VERY SMALL CHILD undresses and becomes A WHOLE-ASS ADULT, waiting to shower.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Oh, I see it now. I forgot. No Thanks on the dick, though.

A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER:
Your loss. Anyway, there’s showers over there, right around the corner. Just put your clothes in your
locker and you can shower.
Hey, before you go,
can you suck it a little?

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Thank you. Uh. No, I – I don’t think so.

A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER:
Is it because one of my balls is abnormally larger than the other one?

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
No, it’s not that. I really just came to shower.

A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER:
Liar!
I bet anything I’m gonna see you later out here with another guy.
Someone with a more modest testicle, a more reasonable nut,
And I’m going to be so mad.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
I promise this has nothing to do with your one giant ball.
I just feel filthy right now and nobody in my city has fixed our water yet.

THE PRESENTER:
“Room 56, your time is up. Room 56, come upstairs to return your key!”

A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER:
That’s me. I gotta go, but if I ever see you again and you don’t suck my dick, I’ll know you lied
today. That’ll make you a liar. And you’re going to have to live with yourself.

A COCK GOBLIN, ONE OF HIS BALLS IS ABNORMALLY LARGER THAN THE OTHER exits.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
…Okay.

THE PRESENTER:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 51

And a Whole-ass Adult enters the shower.

There are other people here, naked.
Who came to get clean, to do things others think are dirty.
In the shower next to him, a man is scrubbing off lube from his hand, wrist, and forearm.
Imagine putting that much appendage in someone?
No, really. Do it right now.
While this guy showers.
Imagine being so inside someone you can feel their pulse from inside their rectum
Imagine trusting someone so much you risk the potential of being emptied by the fistful.
Imagine that much trust.
Imagine trusting anyone so much you empty your guts.
You flush all your guts with water, and spill your guts so someone can rearrange your guts.
Spilling your guts is just an expression,
But I think someone can rearrange your guts. I’ll have to look that up.
According to Tim Dean, / the d –

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK enters the shower area with his little fuck-n-go bag. He takes out a Fleet and
some Gun Oil. The club music insists on itself.

THE PRESENTER:
(Surprised.) Oh. Oh no. No no no. I was telling because I don’t think we should show in this part!
We shouldn’t show this –

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Oh, please, then, tell some more.

THE PRESENTER:
(New possibility.) Oh. Uh. (And what he tells, happens.) And a Whole-Ass Adult ends his shower. Clean.
He sees this handsome man, an enema bottle in his hand. This handsome man, he’s had a very hard
week, so he’ll fill himself with Fleet. Here, beauty, risk, a chance.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

(To A WHOLE-ASS ADULT.) You come here often?

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
No, I’ve never cum here.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

So, it’s your first time coming?

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
No, I’ve cum before. Just not here.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Oh. What brought you here?

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
I just came here to get clean. Why do you come here?
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 52

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

I wanted to remember my friends.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
And now?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

And now I want more than the past. I want a whole load of futures in me. So I’m cleaning my hole
out.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
I hope for future loads in me, too.

THE PRESENTER:
(Hesitant.) No.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

(To THE PRESENTER.) We can’t really tell here. It’s best to show.
(To A WHOLE-ASS ADULT.) Here, then. (IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK takes an extra Fleet from his
bag.)
You’re welcome to join me.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Thank you.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT and IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK lube themselves up.
They lay down and insert their Fleets. In Fleet pose, with one another.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

You’ll want the water to run as far into you as it can.
You’ll repeat this again two or three more times, depending on how much you’d like inside you.
Depending on how much fiber you take.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Oh, Thanks for the tip.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Sure thing. I work at a hospice. Sometimes we do this for our patients. To help them with blockage.
Sometimes we do this to make the dying a cleaner thing.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Doesn’t that make this feel weird for you?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Not really. I’m always practicing to die.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 53

Is that what it will feel like in here?

IT HAS BEENA VERY HARD WEEK:

Like you’re dying? When it’s really good, on your worst day, yes. Mostly it’s just cleaning your hole
and waiting for someone to appreciate it.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Like cleaning tripitas or panza before you cook it.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Yes, something like that. Something like getting clean to be eaten. I like to think it’s getting cleaned
to take. Even when I bottom, I grip tight around the dick and I tell people my hole fucks them. And
eventually if you say it long enough, only the really good ones stick around.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
I like that. Thank you.
How long should I hold the water until I’m clean clean?

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Until you need to go. There’s toilets right there.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Thank you. I appreciate the conversation.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

Sure thing. My pleasure.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Oh- I think. I think I gotta go.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

You go ahead. Gonna hold my water for a bit longer.

A WHOLE-ASS ADULT:
Okay. This was nice. I’m Daniel.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK:

It has been, Daniel. I’m Shaun.

IT HAS BEEN A VERY HARD WEEK is now SHAUN and A WHOLE-ASS ADULT is now DANIEL. DANIEL exits.
SHAUN remains.

THE PRESENTER:
Oh. Oh no, you
You guys shouldn’t have names here. This is just hypothetical, so – (Crisis management.)
And they both leave!

SHAUN:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 54

Oh. It’s time.

SHAUN leaves.

THE PRESENTER:
Thank you guys for that um – (His notes. Oh god. What’s in here?) Um…
No! No no – I got this!
(Bootleg Meisner-ing. What the fuck is Meisner?)
I’m Laura Linney
I’m Laura Linney
I am Laura Linney! (Yay! A false resolve!) Okay, I’ve got this –
As I was saying, the bathhouse represents for many a by-gone marker of community, / connection –

CARLOS enters.

CARLOS:
Hey.
Hey.
Hello. Hey dude.
Are you okay? You good?
Um. Were you parTying, too?
Hello?

THE PRESENTER:
Me?

CARLOS:
Yeah… Sorry. I don’t mean to be weird.

THE PRESENTER:
Oh, no, no, no – I’m not here. I’m not partying.
I’m telling, so I’m not here. I’ve got a time limit / and I think

CARLOS:
You’re really sexy.

THE PRESENTER:
No.
…
I mean, that’s really kind of you. But no. Thank you.

CARLOS:
Sure thing. Oh, I don’t work here, by the way.

THE PRESENTER:
Okay. (Pivot. Impossibly now trying to do a public speaking presentation in a bathhouse.) What I have found
along this honors presentation is / that nostalgia –
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 55

CARLOS:
I know the uniform is throwing you off, but I don’t work here. Just tonight. But I don’t.

THE PRESENTER:
(Nervous. Danger, and the promise of delight.) So you’re technically on the clock tonight, then! So you
should go! In My Research, / I have found –

From off, somewhere else in the bathhouse, we hear CHELA.

CHELA:
SHARLIE!! ARE YOU TRYING TO FUCK THE MANAGEMENT?! YOU CAN’T FUCK THE
MANAGER!!!

CARLOS:
No, ma’am! I’m not. He’s / the one –

CHELA enters, looking increasingly snatched.

CHELA:
I told you not to fuck anybody! I’m gonna beat the shit out of you! / I swear to god!

THE PRESENTER:
Yes, please beat him! This fuckin’ presentation – is not going great. Goddamn it.
“Again, we need ALL custodial to the hot tub area for scat / management”

CARLOS:
I told you, I don’t work here. And I don’t think you really want me to go. Otherwise, I’d be gone,
right? That’s how / this works?

THE PRESENTER:
(Caught.) I hate this so much. Look, there is no sex slide here, okay! So, you can just go!

CARLOS:
Relax, dude.

THE BATHHOUSE speaks.

THE BATHOUSE SAYS:

Relax. It’s okay. Relax.

THE PRESENTER:
I am! I wanted to, I just wanted to explain here that –
Can you / go?!

CARLOS:
You really are very cute.
When you’re nervous. / So cute.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 56

THE PRESENTER:
What? No –
Slide / please

CARLOS:
Wait.

The slide does not go.

THE PRESENTER:
Um…/ Sli –

CARLOS:
Do you want to come –

THE PRESENTER:
No. No, I don’t. What I want is for you to let me finish / my –

THE BATHOUSE SAYS:

You don’t. Relax. Just relax.

CARLOS:
Oh, it’s okay, if you don’t want to. Do anything. All good. You’re cute, though. I hope you actually
know that.

THE PRESENTER:
Thank you. So
So are…y—eah. Yeah. Thanks.

CARLOS:
Why are you here?

THE PRESENTER:
Because, I go to this school and this is a presentation / and –

CARLOS:
This is ideation; a fantasy, at best, but go off.
I think imagination is sexy.

THE PRESENTER:
Why are you still here?!

CARLOS:
Just to fuck. To feel, more or less, y’know?

THE PRESENTER:
I don’t.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 57

CARLOS:
Clearly. You could / if –

THE PRESENTER:
It seems like you got what you wanted already, so you should go home! (A flimsy pivot.)
Okay, / sli –

CARLOS:
I can’t. Too far. I just flew in tonight, years ago, from Boston.
I’m not from there. I’m from Texas, but I flew to Los Angeles years ago, and I needed somewhere
to feel safe. Alive.

THE PRESENTER:
So, you came here?

CARLOS:
Yes.
On the way here, at The Logan airport, I was waiting for my flight at the bar, bored,
and then there was my hometown, on the news, on all these screens.
I watched this man, on television, enter a Wal-Mart with an assault rifle.
He drove almost twelve hours to my hometown in Texas, to this Wal-Mart my mom loves, to shoot
the Mexican clean off it.
He killed 23 people in my hometown, at a Wal-Mart there, years ago, to help clean his country.
I watched it happen at the airport in Boston, and people just rolled their bags through, like the world
wasn’t ending.
And when I got here, when I landed here in LA, years ago, being alive didn’t make sense.
So, I came here, to The North Hollywood Spa, because it’s the closest thing I have to a home in any
city I visit. Always almost the same in every city. The mirrors, this maze. And no history of bullets.
Not like a Wal-Mart, or a school, or a gay bar or…
I came here to be almost home, because my home was just bullets, bodies, television / screens.

THE PRESENTER:
You felt safe here?

CARLOS:
Enough, I think?
I think I wanted to die here? I can’t remember.
I think I’m crashing. The comedown is always weird.
It was hours ago, in these hallways, years ago, this short, stout Filipino daddy, so sweet, he calls me
in, and I’m not ready to ready to bottom, but who ever is after a national tragedy?
He fills me in this room, with himself, he feeds me little clouds from his glass pipe,
Blows clouds on my skin, kisses them into me,
and there I am, in that room, full of clouds in my lungs and this beautiful man inside me,
like his dick was the only thing binding my bones together.
I am here, years ago, full of all the things that I’ve been told will kill me,
and tonight, they are the only things to possibly keep me alive tomorrow,
years ago, in this place.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 58

Is that why you like it here?

THE PRESENTER:
…At… At this school?

CARLOS:
(Amused at the delusion, then clearly.) In the past. In this place you’ve never been.

THE PRESENTER:
You should probably go. You have rooms to finish, right?

CARLOS:
And myself. Are you sure you don’t want to come?

THE PRESENTER:
Where?

CARLOS:
Wherever you want

THE PRESENTER:
I/–

CARLOS:
No pressure. I’ll be around.
Should I go now? Do you need me / to go?

THE PRESENTER:
(No.) Yes.
Um… “Uh, we need custodial in / the hot tub –

CARLOS:
(Yes, daddy.) Yessir.
See you around.

CARLOS exits. THE PRESENTER gets hard and covers himself in the most mortifying way possible.

THE PRESENTER:
Oh god.

THE PRESENTER rushes out to the bathroom with the saddest boner. From elsewhere, THE BATH BEAUTY,
dazzling!

THE BATH BEAUTY:

Here she is world!
Here she is boys!

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 59

SLIDE 13

From darkness, unintelligible bottom noises, horrifying and hungry. The sound of furious bottoms turns into cheers and
applause. The doll, the diva, THE BATH BEAUTY emerges with a microphone and a gorgeous cocktail!

THE BATH BEAUTY:

Here’s, Googie Gomez! Oh, wrong bathhouse! I’m joshin’ ya! That’s an old, gay joke! Ya love me
for it! Oh, boys! It feels so special to be here again and always with you, on these floors, in the walls!
God, you boys are so beautiful.
Now, I’m gonna sing for you. This is the song where people get up and leave to do what you do!
What’s a dick anyway? It only takes a song, right?

She sings “My Man.” SHAUN enters, and with him, his private room.
THE PRESENTER hurries in with a sad little stain on his pants.

THE PRESENTER:
Oh, no, no, Fuck no! WE ARE IN THE MILLIEU OF – / Slide, please!

SHAUN:
Hey guy, look, I’m gonna ask you, and I mean this kindly. I come here because it’s quieter than the
bars. Could you keep it down, for just a bit –

THE PRESENTER:
No! This is my presentation and I / want to finish –

SHAUN:
You can watch, if you’d like, though.
You can watch what happens next. Would you like to?

THE PRESENTER:
… No / I –

SHAUN:
Do you want to?

THE PRESENTER:
Yes.

SHAUN:
Quiet, then. Just watch. We are in room 15. This is my private room. Where I come to fuck, and
where I come to sleep when I don’t fuck and there are no ghosts in this room. They’re always
cruising. Ghosts hate closed doors –

DANIEL enters.

DANIEL:
Hey, sorry to interrupt you –
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 60

SHAUN:
Oh, don’t sweat it.

DANIEL:
So… did, did you –

SHAUN:
Not, yet no. Did you –

DANIEL:
No, not yet.

SHAUN:
That’s how it goes here, some Thursday nights into Friday mornings into Sunday evenings.

DANIEL:
It feels that way. Late and early. It feels like a long time ago right now.
It feels like we happened a long time ago.

SHAUN:
We did. We’re going to happen again. We just have to wait. That’s the best part of coming, is
waiting.

DANIEL:
It’s a silly name. Bathhouse. Things live in houses. Nothing lives here.

SHAUN:
Some people do. Cheaper than a hotel. Better than a sidewalk. Shit, I’ve been coming here long
enough to feel like I live here.

DANIEL:
You seem like it.

SHAUN:
Old?

DANIEL:
No, like you live here.

SHAUN:
Sad?

DANIEL:
Comfortable.

SHAUN:
I am.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 61

DANIEL:
Can I join you?

SHAUN:
Here, in my room?

DANIEL:
Yes.

SHAUN:
Sure.

DANIEL:
Thanks. (DANIEL sits next to SHAUN. He lifts his hand to place it on SHAUN’s thigh. Before he does:) May I?

SHAUN:
Sure. That feels nice. You have nice hands.

DANIEL:
I think they feel rough.

SHAUN:
They do. I like that. You work?

DANIEL:
At Wal-Mart, yeah. I unload trucks.

SHAUN:
They feel good. The work on your hands. It’s nice.

DANIEL:
…I like…
Your thighs

SHAUN:
Okay. (DANIEL grabs SHAUN’s dick. SHAUN melts into it. SHAUN lifts his hand to touch DANIEL’s thigh.) May
– (DANIEL grabs SHAUN’s hand and pulls it toward his balls.) Oh.

DANIEL:
Sorry.

SHAUN:
No, this feels – You feel great.

DANIEL:
So do you.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 62

SHAUN:
Do you like verbal?

DANIEL:
What?

SHAUN:
Dirty talk.

DANIEL:
Sure.

SHAUN:
Wanna tell me something sexy?

DANIEL:
Uh –
Yeah. Um –

SHAUN:
You get nervous?

DANIEL:
Talking, yeah. I don’t wanna sound silly…
…I like your… dick. It feels nice.
It’s a big dick.
You like when I touch your fat –

SHAUN:
(Stifling laughter.) Not quite, man. Here. Close your eyes. I’ll close mine.
Tell me a story. I’ll tell you one, too.

With eyes closed, SHAUN and DANIEL stroke each other through this scene.

DANIEL:
I had this co-worker, he was older.
We were unloading a truck once.

SHAUN:
I had a lover once, he was older.
We fucked wild here once.

DANIEL:
My co-worker. He was married and mean,
And he smelled like my dad’s compadres.
I wanted to bury myself between his thighs.

SHAUN:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 63

I was mean and we weren’t married,

But he smelled like Aspen and cigar
I wanted to bury myself between his thighs, too.

DANIEL:
He’d piss out back sometimes, outside,
when we were unloading, and my neck would get hot.
I wanted to see him piss.

SHAUN:
He’d piss on my back sometimes, inside sometimes
before he’d leave his loads in me. God, I wanted anything I could get from him.

DANIEL:
And one time, I got curious, so
So I went to piss next to him, but he was just standing there.
Hard in his own hand. Waiting.

SHAUN:
Hard. I’d wait for him here.
At the end of the night, when he’d had enough of everyone else here.
He was so tired some nights. So I’d just lay here, sleeping next to him.

DANIEL:
I touched him.
Just like this. Just like this.

SHAUN:
Just like that. Oh, fuck yeah.
God. I’d touch him just like this.

DANIEL:
Fuck. Oh, god.

SHAUN:
Yeah? Keep going.

DANIEL:
And I kept touching him, and I bent over quickly
I put him in my mouth

SHAUN:
I miss him in my mouth.
I miss touching him, being bent over.
Keep going.

DANIEL:
It was quick. I was real quick.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 64

But he tasted like I made sense.

And just as quick he pulled away.

SHAUN:
It was quick. It was really quick.
It didn’t make sense. He was here once.
And it seemed so quick when he went away.

DANIEL:
And he got meaner and wouldn’t speak to me after that
And that night, I just smelled him on my mouth, and I swear
I’ve never wanted anything more than to drink him whole on my four legs.
Animal. I’ve never wanted so bad to knock someone to the ground and lap them up.

SHAUN:
And he never came back, and I got meaner,
And at night I would miss him, and I never wished I’d kept someone so bad.
He’d went so fast, his body, all of it went. I was furious and I wanted him.
I wished I’d kept him clamped shut in me and saved him, kept him inside me.

DANIEL:
Fuck. (DANIEL growls, hungry; he cums.)

SHAUN:
Fuck. (SHAUN growls, hungry; he cums.)

DANIEL:
And now.

SHAUN:
Waiting. Until we can go again.
But you’re so welcome to stay here.
While everything ends. I’d like you to.

DANIEL:
I’d like to. I’d like to stay here.

SHAUN:
When you are older, I’d like you to remember me here, yeah?

DANIEL:
So long as the place stands, yes.

SHAUN:
And if it doesn’t, so long, then.
But not for now. For now, us. This.

They wait with each other. THE BATH BEAUTY finishes the remainder of “My Man”.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 65

THE PRESENTER:
(Full of what he’s seen. Terrified of being in love with it.) Oh God.

THE BATH BEAUTY:

(To THE PRESENTER.) I’ve never met god, but I think I got close in here once. That’s what I would
feel like. Like Venus right here.
Propped up on that little stoop over the hot tub.
Champagne and gin and whiskey flowing,
And all these little cherubs in towels ushering me in
it would smell like mint and eucalyptus.
It wasn’t here. Not in this place, exactly.
But this place is everywhere. Was.
I’m telling you, we thought the world was just starting back then, too.
It felt like we were on the verge of something big! It felt like we were about to happen!
And then the boys started going, and coming less, and city government thought this little heaven
wasn’t heavenly.

THE PRESENTER:
Why –
Why are you telling me this?

THE BATH BEAUTY:

I’m telling you because we felt the world ending back then, too. Just like it does right now. Doesn’t
it always? Can’t you feel it?

THE PRESENTER:
(The weight of how true it feels. The terror of that end, of that beginning. That possibility.) No more. No more of
this. No!
We’re done. No more showing! No More!
Slide!
(The slide doesn’t go. He commands.) SLIDE!
(He begs.) PLEASE!
No! We are today! We are today, in linoleum and bells that are too loud and cafeteria trays and
scoreboards and lockers and alone and alone and and and –
(Desperate. Heartbroken. Monstrous!)
SLIDE!!!!!!!

And SHAUN and DANIEL go away. And THE BATH BEAUTY vanishes. The bathhouse retreats. The ugly
cafetorium returns.

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 66

SLIDE 14

Anxiety, shame, & hydrotherapy.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ descends. Hallelujah! A body!

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Sweetie, you seem upset. Why did you choose this topic?

THE PRESENTER:
(To LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ.) Mx. Vasquez, you said we should speak
about a subject we care about!

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

So you chose … bathhouses?

THE PRESENTER:
…Why do you care so much?

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Excuse me?

THE PRESENTER:
Why does it matter why I chose this topic?

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Because you’re a 10th grader!

THE PRESENTER:
Who is being played by an adult! (THE PRESENTER is in fact an adult. This is a play, after all, and the only
fiction I can muster is flimsy.)
An adult who is a pervert!
A pervert fascinated by extinction!
By Armageddons!
One day these places were and then they were gone and nobody seems to miss them!
Isn’t that important?!

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Wow. Okay, there we go! That’s it. That’s a voice!

THE PRESENTER:
I’m sorry –

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

No apologizing. That’s the thing with public speaking, is mistakes are going to happen and you can’t
let the audience know. Audiences don’t know any better.
And that’s the thing with better, is we never get to it in history
History is full of mistakes and claims poorly researched and anxiety.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 67

And that’s the thing classrooms and bathhouses are full of. People being horny about their own
anxieties in concert with those of others. And THAT is what public speaking is all about, what being
public is all about.
You remind me so much of myself, years ago. This place.

THE PRESENTER:
This school?

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Oh, hun, it’s not a school anymore. Got shut down by the state years ago, after they fired all the
homos. Look around.

And it is not longer a cafetorium/classroom, but the bones of one. It is abandoned, too. It is a foreclosed building.

THE PRESENTER:
Oh. / Yes.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Yes. This shithole. It’s scheduled for demolition next week,
and tomorrow, and tomorrow
And you keep trespassing here to obsess about what it was once.
Before this. And thank god, because I can remember, now
What I was here.

THE PRESENTER:
My teacher?

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Before that, sweetie. “Locker or room?”

THE PRESENTER:
You worked here? When / it was…

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKIN TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

A bathhouse. Yes. And I didn’t Work here, kid. I ran this place. My voice ran these halls. Sounded
like yours did just now.

MX. VASQUEZ compels the voice from the attendant. Witchcraft.

THE PRESENTER/ATTENDANT:
“Lockers are $35 dollars if you’re not a member.” (The clarity is surprising; the power in it.) Whoa.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Just like that. This place, it’ll do that you.
It’ll make you want control. Certainty.

THE PRESENTER/ATTENDANT:
Authority. “Okay, I’m gonna buzz you in, and we’ll keep your ID till you bring your key back.”
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 68

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

It feels good to begin the world for someone doesn’t it?

THE PRESENTER/ATTENDANT:
…Yes.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

It feels good to end the world for someone, too

THE PRESENTER/ATTENDANT:
“Locker 90, your time is up! Locker 90, please turn in your key.”

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

It is the wildest thing inside you. That feeling.

THE PRESENTER:
It’s lonely.

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

It’s power. Over pleasure.
It’s why they came here, hungry for pilgrimage.
Begging for permission to be.

THE PRESENTER:
To be what?

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

Anything. Lovers. Strangers. Nameless mounds of flesh clumped together on a couch. Heads
leaning into shoulders, on chests.
Sweet swans and goblins blurring into one another.
They came here to be anything they couldn’t say they were out there, to live everything they couldn’t
live out there. And I rang them up. Watched them come in and become nothing together.
Then I watched them leave. Watched the sunlight turn them back into themselves.
It’s a dangerous thing. Too much possibility. And they did nothing with it out there. All of it
squandered on what? Selfish faggots who hoarded their pleasure.
It’s part of how these things ended.

THE PRESENTER/ATTENDANT:
But these places could have been so much more!

LONG TIME PUBLIC SPEAKING TEACHER, MX. VASQUEZ:

But they weren’t! I can’t tell you how many times I turned away trans women right at the door. We
had posters that said “No Girls Allowed!” like it was cute! Turned away men we said couldn’t pass
for themselves, too. Turned away people we called family.
Some house, right?
And it feels like nobody learned anything some days. How cruel we were to each other here
sometimes, too. This wasn’t paradise, kid.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 69

What place could be?

And still, I miss it. It misses itself. / My god, I miss myself,

THE BATHHOUSE SPEAKS:

My god, I miss myself,
My god, my mirrors,
Every door, my mouth,
Every hall, my hole,
Every way to let up,
Every way to cum in /
My god, I miss me.

THE PRESENTER:
(In séance, with THE BATHHOUSE):
My god, I miss me.
(And now himself, and the pleasure of having not been.)
Oh, shit. I remember / it –

JUST VASQUEZ:
You don’t. It’s not memory.

THE PRESENTER:
Oh. Oh, I feel / it –

JUST VASQUEZ:
YES! That’s it! This place, just like any of us, it longs to be longed for! Yes!

DANIEL enters. The showers return.

DANIEL:
Hey, do you know, if –
If we wanted to stay longer, could we?

THE PRESENTER/ATTENDANT:
(THE ATTENDANT voice breaks through, flirting, laying it on.)
“We can extend your locker four more hours for 15 dollars.
I can make it 10 for you, chulo.”
Oh god! No, sorry!

The walls vibrate; the ghost of Bette Midler’s “Friends” slowed and reverbed comes through. The lights flicker.

THE PRESENTER:
That music?

SHAUN enters, his private room enters with him.

SHAUN:
That’s the old bones of this place. That’s what they sound like when they’re rattled.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 70

Like music, while waiting. “Cuz you gotta have friends.” God, I miss them.
God, I miss me.

DANIEL:
I’ll remember you. (To THE PRESENTER.) Can I please get more time?

THE PRESENTER:
No, let / me –

CARLOS enters, still uniformed, backed by mirrors.

CARLOS:
Hey, boss daddy, one of the glory holes has a bunch of Crisco on it. Do we have any cleaner that’s
special for Crisco? / How do I get it off?

CHELA enters, trailed by a St. Andrew’s cross, another wall of mirrors, too.

CHELA:
Are you fucking kidding me? Otra vez!? Ay no, / como me chingan el alma, pinches jotos!
Ya tengan piedad, por el favor de dios!

CARLOS:
I know! J-Lube is so much better! I guess Crisco is / kinda retro, so it makes sense

DANIEL:
(To THE PRESENTER.) You think I could take you up on the discount, /then, papi? I’d really like to –

SHAUN:
(To DANIEL.) We used to sit right on that couch, in our towels, /sometimes, just watching the news,
holding each other until –

THE PRESENTER:
CAN YOU ALL PLEASE JUST LET ME FINISH! Please!

CHELA:
Then get to the pinche point! I need this shift to end! It’s time!

CARLOS:
The pinche point so we can finally get to the fucking!

THE PRESENTER:
What’s the point, since you all know every fucking thing!?

A shower emerges.

SHAUN:
(And now, a timeless daddy. A tender daddy-ing. The thesis.)
To question nostalgia, and think of mourning as a joyful thing. To consecrate all the places and
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 71

people nobody took the time to remember. So, to imagine, and then move on. That’s the thing we
did best here, was remember. And then let go.

JUST VASQUEZ:
And the best way to let go is just let the audience picture you naked. So, you can just let go now. Tell
us. How did we all get here?

THE PRESENTER undresses, gets in the shower. Naked, he begins.

THE PRESENTER:
Debris. Rubble. Longing. Envy. (Slowly, slowly, from the shower, time travel. Morphing. All his times
collapsing, shimmering through his throat, in his bones.) We are in the milieu of last
Last
Last
Last last last week.
Years ago,
I am assigned a presentation.
Really, this is what I want to do though.
I want to hurl myself through a mirror and hope time can be cut across that way.
I am in 10th grade. Not now, of course. Then. I don’t want to be.
I want to be 1970s and 1980s, but I’ve never been any of those things.
I was an 8th grader when I first read about bathhouses; they were all gone by then.
By the time I am a 9th grader I have a man I call my lover and sometimes he tells me stories about
places that happened when I was his age.
By the time I am an 10th grader, I don’t have time to answer complicated questions about my
former lover because I am ugly, so all I’ve got is young, so I don’t have much time.
Butterflies don’t live very long. I wonder if they ever think about dinosaurs.
By the time I am an 11th grader I will have primed myself to long for lovers who will pass, who will
pass me around, who will pass me by, and that is the closest I’ll have to lineage, is I’ll know loss is a
kind of love.
So by the time I am the age I am now, by the time I am thirty-something, by the time it is 2052, by
this impossible time, I will become a very young ghost haunting the hallways of my adult self, I’ll be
here and loving a back-then always,
a stain of myself on myself.
And somedays I’ll wish I wasn’t a body. I’ll wish I was a search result, a webpage, a PowerPoint
slide. I’ll wish myself a Google image, but nerve endings will insist on themselves.
Anyway, by the time I am a 10th grader I am a pervert fascinated with things that end.
So, we are in the milieu of the end of things.
We are wrapping things up. We’re almost at the end.

The walls vibrate, rumble, the music, the bones, the ghosts, the lights, all of it pulsing.
Yes, not a nostalgia, but a joyous mourning for all the gorgeous darkness that once was.
The world returns, just well-lit enough to see almost see everyone in this dark room, a summoning.

Into the bathhouse, at the end of the world.

THE PRESENTER And the beginning.

 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 72

JUST VASQUEZ:
These little temples. Where else might we learn to begin, we who are always ending? Where else
might we be bored in such a shattering way?

THE PRESENTER:
I was just curious, is all, about these places.
About what it might feel like, to be less alone. “Would you like a locker or a room today? Rooms
are—”

JUST VASQUEZ:
Oh, sweetie. You can’t learn that from a presentation and you’ll hardly know that from the front
desk.
I can take your shift.
You should go inside, while time is cracked open like this.
“It’s free for sad bitches today. I’ll buzz you in.”

Buzz

CHELA:
Por fin. Puta madre. SLIDE!

Slide
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 73

SLIDE 15

Checking in.

THE PRESENTER:
Am I… I am… I am in the milieu of last, / last –

CHELA:
No, no, no. No mas pinches, millieus! YA! Shut the fuck up Go look around so I can finish here.

THE PRESENTER:
Yes ma’am. (He starts to go.) Um… where should I start? / What do I –

CHELA:
Ay, dios! SHARLIE!! HIJO DE TU CHINGADA MADRE! CARLOS, I SWEAR IF YOU WENT
TO SUCK / A PEEPEE –

CARLOS enters again.

CARLOS:
Right here, boss. (To THE PRESENTER.) Oh, hey, you stayed –

THE PRESENTER:
Hey. Yeah, I did. Um, just for a visit.
Would you like to… Would it be alright / if you –

CHELA:
Ey, he’s still on the clock!! Aver, reportate cabron!

CARLOS:
Yes, ma’am! I threw the load of towels and sheets in the wash, and I got the upstairs rooms, too!

CHELA:
And you didn’t touch no peepees, right?

CARLOS:
You wanna smell my hands?

CHELA:
No! How do I know you didn’t put a pajarito in your mouth?

CARLOS:
Do you want to smell my breath?

CHELA:
No, cochino! Don’t be a nasty. Okay, pos then, that’s it. You’re done.

CARLOS:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 74

Are you proud of me?

CHELA:
No.

CARLOS:
Oh.

CHELA:
This is just work. It’s hard to be proud of work.

THE PRESENTER:
This is a lot of work. I didn’t know.

CARLOS:
Did I do good? Can I fuck now?

CHELA:
You can do whatever you want. I’m not your fucking mom.

CARLOS:
Thank you. (CARLOS removes his uniform. He grabs a clean towel from the cart. Then, to THE PRESENTER.)
Shift’s done. I can show you around.

CHELA:
Ey, Sharlie, you like it here?

CARLOS:
It’s cleaner than The Slammer. And it’s way cleaner than The Zone.

CHELA:
Pos aguevo, mi rey. But do you like how you feel here, Sharlie?

CARLOS:
I like when people want me here.

CHELA:
People are going to want you for a good while. When you’re young, that’s how it goes.

CARLOS:
Yeah. Can I still get a ride? After?

CHELA:
You can get a ride to Chatsworth.

CARLOS:
I’ll take it.
I’m going to go fuck now.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 75

CHELA:
I’m going to embarrass you over the loudspeaker when it’s time to go. I’m gonna tell everyone you
got cuts in your butt. (To THE PRESENTER.) You really wanna be in here with a nasty peepee boy
with a cut up butt?

THE PRESENTER:
(Thrilled for what’s to come. Smitten.) It could be worse.

CHELA:
Ugh. Oye, Sharlie, the steamroom, is it –

CARLOS:
Yup. Empty. And clean. I taped the “Out of Order” sign outside the door.

CHELA:
“You keep this up, you might own this place one day.”

CARLOS:
“Aww thanks, boss. That’s the dream.”

CHELA:
Shut up, Sharlie. That’s not a good dream. I’m going to take my break. (To THE PRESENTER.) Me lo
cuidas, a Sharlie! (To CARLOS) Y tu, portate bien, nene.

CARLOS:
Yes, ma’am. (To THE PRESENTER.) Come.

THE PRESENTER enters the bathhouse with CARLOS. They exit.

Steam
Slide.
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 76

SLIDE 16

Imagine a coda.

THE PRESENTER:
And here we’d like you to imagine you are a door, that every opening is a new way in. Imagine our
dissonant pleasures can move in concert. Imagine you are a way in, a door, a hallway. Imagine
reprieve, respite, repose, respair, resurrection.

SHAUN:
Imagine through the door all your dead returned. Imagine every pleasure you took with the dead and
not with their dying. Imagine the last tea dance, last dance, last chance for love. Imagine what
compelled Donna to sing like that. Imagine then, the time you wanted most.

DANIEL:
Imagine that smallest version of yourself, that teenage fury, terrified and terrifying. Imagine all that
longing that small person held in their desk, in their body rebelling with and against them, imagine
that moment that young person knew touch could feel good?

CHELA:
Imagine ecstasy was a precipice and you couldn’t wait to keep falling. Imagine that fall down below
and up into all the things that most beg your lips to part and ah, ooh, unf. Imagine the thing your
skin wants most, makes you weep most, the risk. Imagine the thing that makes you cum hardest
now, next to someone doing the same, perhaps a stranger.

JUST VASQUEZ:
We have often been told that audiences do not like to be told what to do. Bratty bottoms. We have
been told that self-disclosure is the only way to build a relationship with someone, and perhaps this
is why audiences sit in silence; they may disclose what makes them want to cum. This is why
audiences cannot sit with silence for too long; they might cum.

CARLOS:
So, again, imagine the thing that makes you cum hardest now.
Imagine your last lover.

CARLOS exits.

SHAUN:
Imagine, instead, your lover lasts.

SHAUN holds DANIEL.

DANIEL:
So, imagine the impossible.

SHAUN and DANIEL exit together.

THE PRESENTER:
 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 77

Your body at its most everlasting and all that distance since then.

THE PRESENTER exits.

 BATHHOUSE.PPTX 78

SLIDE MISSING: STEAM

There are no slides here. Just CHELA relaxing.

She enters the sauna, carrying a beautiful towel and a cute bag of toiletries.
She removes her work uniform.
There is steam everywhere.
She rubs oils on her body.
The heat feels good. Her muscles unknot.
She spreads her legs.
She spreads her arms and leans back.
She fills the sauna.
It smells like rose, and mint, and Chanel No. 5.
She breathes in, deep. She exhales.
She leans back and closes her eyes.
A slowed version of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” plays.
She sings along quietly.
She laughs to herself.
She laughs.
She laughs until she sobs.
My god, she’s tired. She sobs until she laughs.
She runs her hands over her body. Every inch of it.
She enjoys herself, this place, the work she’s put in.
Then, she speaks.

CHELA:
We are in the milieu of last, last, last week.
My god, where does the time go, in a place like this?
My god.
So much of my life, gone here.

masturbates.
CHELA
A chorus of key rings, and popper huffing, and breath joins the ghost of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.” Outside,
demolition sounds, crumbling. This world ends. Outside becomes a parking lot, another Panera, maybe.
But not this room here. Not yet. Just CHELA in the steam. Ecstasy. I feel love.

END OF PLAY