Z=The little hand on the Seven

Little hand on the Seven

by Martin Holdcroft

Night in an american city, 1967. The stage is divided into the two
rooms that comprise a tattoo parlour. From the left facing the stage;
An entrance lobby, several chairs surrounding a low table on which sits
an ashtray and an untidy pile of biker magazines. There is a water
dispenser on a stand with sign next to it which reads: " CUPS 5cents ".
The walls are covered in pyschedelic posters. There is a curtain of
plastic ribbons which fills the doorway to; the inner sanctum, two
chairs facing each other, a trolley full of inks and needles, a long
black leather couch. There is a lamp on a long extending arm which
illuminates whatever the tattoist is working on. On a shelf next to the
couch sits an ashtray and a radio, the radio is constantly tuned to a
soft country and western station. The tattoist, RAY, sits on his chair
with his back to the audience and is leisurely wiping his tools clean,
one by one.

VICTOR enters the lobby, brushing the rain from his suit. He puts his
briefcase down and sits heavily on a chair, wiping the rain from his
forehead using the sleeve of his jacket. He is in his early thirties
and looks tired on it. The suit is of some quality but has been
neglected, or is being worn carelessly for some reason. Victor looks
around for about ten seconds, then rises and crosses to the ribbon
curtain, he listens. There is a pause of twenty seconds.

VICTOR(quietly)

Hello?

PLEASE NOTE THAT RAY'S DIALOGUE IS NOT HEARD AT ALL
DURING THE PLAY, VICTOR'S REACTIONS ARE ALL WE KNOW OF RAY'S WORDS.
RAY'S BACK IS ALL WE SEE OF HIM.

VICTOR

Yeah sure. Shall I leave my things out here? Or bring them-. Yes, okay
(mumbles) stupid question stupid.

Victor picks up his briefcase and enters through the ribbon
curtain. He puts down the briefcase and takes his jacket off and hangs
it on a hook on the wall. Victor unbuttons and rolls up the left sleeve
of his shirt. He takes his watch off, and shows it to
RAY.

VICTOR

I want a watch tattooed on this wrist and I do know that it will be
painful - I know I know. Single colour ink, black. A design just like
this watch - No, I dont' have any blood diseases, venereal diseases or
anaemia - on the face? oh, right, the big hand on the eleven, and the
little hand on the seven.

Ray begins delving into his tray of tools and gestures for
Victor to lie down on the couch. Victor approaches the couch warily, he
sits and then lies down. Ray stands and brings the extended lamp arm
down to just over Victor's left wrist. Ray pulls at a swab of cotton
wool, tips a bottle up against it, and dabs at Victor's left wrist.

VICTOR

I'm quite drunk, really drunk. I guess I was trying a little
self-anaethesis, huh, you know - I heard it was painful so- no, no, go
ahead. I'll shut up now, no problem

The tinny whine of the tattoist's needle is heard, Ray applies the
needle gun to Victor's wrist and he squirms for ten seconds, staring
madly at the sight of the needle on his wrist.

VICTOR (Through clenched teeth)

It's okay. Kinda ticklish but deep in there, know what I mean?- Yeah.
Yeah. Relax.

VICTOR

I guess drunks must be just about your biggest customers, huh? But not
many chickenshit lawyers wearing creaseproof pants

Victor looks down at his crumpled clothes.

VICTOR

Well, I left the court this afternoon and the mood just got me, you
know? I just wanted to lose the rest of this day just like the many
many days that end up the same, I got drunk because it was there. (He
brightens up) Hey Ray, I must be the first member of the prosecutors
office to use your services eh? You could put our department crest up
there on the wall, next to death in a top hat and the spiders web. The
buffalo of wisdom and the eagle of justice, all hail America!

Ray pauses to light a cigarette and looks intently at Victor
for a few seconds, then returns to his work on Victor's wrist. Victor
sighs heavily.

VICTOR

I've probably seen your work many times before, when I'm standing in
court number three. There they've been, wearing your... your stuff, on
their way down to a five to ten for robbing a 7-11 for thirty dollars.
They usually carry a knife or a small piece, and they have dragons
across their shoulders. You can see the tails right down their arms.
Now I'm not saying that having a tattoo means you're a criminal. But
I've seen so many down in the court that they're like part of the
scenery, there's the judge in his big black dress, there's the people
with tattoos, and there's us, the lawyers in our suits.

Ray takes a wad of cotton wool and rinses it in a chemical,
dabs daintily at Victor's wrist, he turns it this way and that, under
the light. It looks medical.

VICTOR

I only ever had the small change, it suited me, the shop robbers, the
auto thieves, the exposers, the drunk drivers. Do you remember the
Manolo kid? - Yeah, the very one, you got it. I was dragged into that
case, right at the end. Remember all those appeals? Last minute
reprievers? The anti demonstrations? More exciting than the superbowl,
that's what the papers said. It was on TV just as much. On channel
eleven, did you see that? No? They had a mock up, get this, a
life-sized model of the electric chair, it had a dummy sitting on it,
when they pushed the button, Wham! The screen went black and good old
George Sangster was there, with his sad old face on, they stuck a big
black cross on the dummy's chest, like he was cancelled out. Stupid.
Stupid.

Victor lies back, breathing heavily. The whine of the needle
intensifies and wavers up and down, up and down. Victor covers his eyes
with his right hand.

VICTOR

Well I was there. At the execution. A goddam cert-ee-fied witness. The
DA must have thought he'd do me a great big favour. Hey. Let's give
that schmucko Jankowsky a wonderful thing, just what every DA's
assistant needs. A good, old fashioned, technological American
execution. That kid shot his pusher, then his landlord. Holy shit! They
should have given him a citation, the order of good sense and necessary
action. But after he had admitted to it, with no special circumstances,
there was no way he was going to escape the chair, no way. I knew
it.

Victor watches Ray at work, studying the needle and the blood
and the ink. Ray turns his arm around to check how the lines will meet
up. In the distance we hear the banshee wail of a fire
engine.

VICTOR

And so, therefore, to this tattoo, this watch. I don't know why, never
thougth of it till this afternoon, hell, you'd never ask. If I came in
here, said put Abe Lincoln on one cheek of my ass, and George
Washington on the other, your only question would be, whose on which
side? But I'd put Nixon right down the middle of them.

Victor looks at Ray and laughs a little, as if they were
sharing the joke.

VICTOR

Anyhow. On the day of execution, six thirty am and I'm in the office,
I'd been up all night drinking enough coffee to float the Brazilian
Navy. That last, pointless appeal. We heard first , down town. We
called the Mayor who was in some hotel balling his girlfriend. The
mayor called the Governor, The Governor called the DA, who made the
call in the first place! Everbody acting like its an extra fourth of
July. It was " Thank you Governor, we hate your miserable guts day in
day out, but not today, no sir. Today you earnt your money, you finally
did something".

Pause

You know they put these things together weeks in advance? A whole team
of people spending their working days together for weeks, thinking,
talking, planning, rehearsing. All for the death of one dumb schmuck,
that's what I call scary. You want to know the sickest, most mind
screwing thing? When you're in jail, you ain't got late nights, you're
usually asleep by ten. So in the morning you feel really awake, no
hangover, plenty of sleep cos it's your biggest escape, and then when
you've just woken up and you're really alive. They put you to sleep
forever. That's why executions happen so early in the morning, because
by the time night comes around you just might want it.

The whine of the needle stops. Ray shakes a bottle of ink and
drops it in the bin. He picks another up and loads the needle
up.

VICTOR

And then it stops being a punishment. So the Manolo kid is going to
die, I'm at the pen by quarter to seven as a representative of the DA's
office. Well I'm sure not there representing the so-called human race,
shit, I still don't know why I didn't just run, check out there and
then. But there was no time. I had all these things to go check, to see
that everything was, uh, proper. All the names had to be checked, the
guards, the door lockers, the door openers, the button pushers, oh yes,
and the padre.

He looked like he was having a little problem with it too, he kept
looking at the floor, or his shoes, any goddam thing, the whole time.
After I had done my checks I had to go and sit in the witnesses
gallery. It was like a tiny little cinema, a tiny cinema for the creme
de la creme of sadists. All the seats were numbered and allocated. I
guess I got lucky, the front row. Between us and the chamber was a
blind, a thick grey blind, so the kid wouldn't see us as he went in, or
maybe it was the other way round, anyway, we couldn't see a thing at
that moment in time.

After a long wait I heard them approach the chamber. A lot of heavy
feet, all in time, couple of voices. Then I heard the kid, this
kinda... shout. It could only have been him, sounded like he stubbed
his toe or was hit by panic or something. I heard the straps being put
on, they creaked as they were tightened. Then footsteps leaving the
chamber. Then they lifted the blind. Jesus Christ. I nearly screamed. I
tried to shrink down into my seat, he was so fucking small in the
chair. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt and they had cut the
trousers so that the straps on his shins made good contact. He looked
about twelve. Jesus.

The mask made his head look bigger. You couldn't see his face, not one
part of it was visible. Then he pissed himself. For crying out loud,
this kid, this man, I'm sitting there with this human being so scared
so dying that he pisses himself. His breathing was so loud, so fast.
Then the lights flickered as they prepared to do it, the door to the
chamber closed and they pushed that electricity through his body.

At first you couldn't see any difference apart from some twitching,
then the kid seemed to be trying to stand up. He really started to
burn, around the mask came this smoke, and spit and blood started to
run down his chin. Somebody behind me said, the tongue, he sounded like
somebody pointing out their favourite scene at the movies. Then I saw
the watch.

I kept my eyes and my mind on the watch so that I didn't have to
actually see the death when it came. It was sliding down his arm, a
cheap sports watch, way up here, by his shoulder, from under the short
sleeve. He had smuggled in a watch for the last three minutes of his
life, what good is a watch? Anyway, it caused quite a stir in our
little gallery, they said it was against the regulations, personal
effects were not allowed. Somebody's balls would be on the Governor's
carpet.

The watch had slid all the way down to the kids wrist. It came to rest
against the chair strap. By this time they had decided that he was
dead. You could tell, his neck was stretched, real far, frozen in
spasm. They cut the juice, some guards went in, pushed the kids head
forward. The doctor came in next, looked for signs of life, he gets to
the wrist with the watch on and he has to remove it, the regulations
say so. The warden signalled to him to break the watch, the doctor
pulls and pulls on the strap until it's stretched out nine or ten
inches, then SNAP. The strap broke and a piece of it hit the gallery
window, I think we all jumped. Where the watch had been on his wrist,
there on his arm, a perfect shadow, a bluey black burn in the shape of
a cheap sportswatch.

Therefore the reason for this Ray. This tattoo. It's been six months
since that day, I can't sleep, I can't screw, all I can do is drink and
remember, remember that kid.

Ray has finished his work for the last few minutes. He starts
taping on cotton wool over the tattoo. Victor stops him, and looks at
the tattoo. Ray finishes taping the tattoo. Victor stands, puts his
jacket on and fishes in his trouser pocket for money. He hands a couple
of bills to Ray.

VICTOR

Twenty dollars. Thanks for the tattoo and everything.

Victor picks up his briefcase and goes through the ribbon
curtain. Ray dissembles his needle gun. The door of the shop closes
silently as Victor steps out into the night.

The End