MA: Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack. Quack . . . quack.
(He looks around)
Quack . . . quack . . . Lone? . . . Lone?
(He waddles around the stage, looking for Lone)
Lone, where are you? Where’d you go?
(He stops, scratches his left leg with his right foot)
C’mon—stop playing around. What is this?
(Lone enters as a tiger, unseen by Ma.)
Look, let’s call it a day, okay? I’m getting hungry.
(Ma turns around, notices Lone right before Lone is about to bite him.)
Aaaaah! Quack, quack, quack!
(They face off, in character as animals. Duck / Ma is terrified.)
LONE: Grrrr!
MA
(As a cry for help)
: Quack, quack, quack!
(Lone pounces on Ma. They struggle, in character. Ma is quacking madly, eyes tightly closed. Lone stands up straight. Ma continues to quack.)
LONE: Stand up.
MA
(Eyes still closed)
: Quack, quack, quack!
LONE
(Louder)
: Stand up!
MA
(Opening his eyes)
: Oh.
LONE: What are you?
MA: Huh?
LONE: A Chinaman or a duck?
MA: Huh? Gimme a second to remember.
LONE: You like being a duck?
MA: My feet fell asleep.
LONE: You change forms so easily.
MA: You said to.
LONE: What else could you turn into?
MA: Well, you scared me—sneaking up like that.
LONE: Perhaps a rock. That would be useful. When the men need to rest, they can sit on you.
MA: I got carried away.
LONE: Let’s try . . . a locust. Can you become a locust?
MA: No. Let’s cut this, okay?
LONE: Here. It’s easy. You just have to know how to hop.
MA: You’re not gonna get me—
LONE: Like this.
(He demonstrates)
MA: Forget it, Lone.
LONE: I’m a locust.
(He begins jumping toward Ma)
MA: Hey! Get away!
LONE: I devour whole fields.
MA: Stop it.
LONE: I starve babies before they are born.
MA: Hey, look, stop it!
LONE: I cause famines and destroy villages.
MA: I’m warning you! Get away!
LONE: What are you going to do? You can’t kill a locust.
MA: You’re not a locust.
LONE: You kill one, and another sits on your hand.
MA: Stop following me.
LONE: Locusts always trouble people, if not, we’d feel useless. Now, if you become a locust, too . . .
MA: I’m not going to become a locust.
LONE: Just stick your teeth out!
MA: I’m not gonna be a bug! It’s stupid!
LONE: No man who’s just been a duck has the right to call anything stupid.
MA: I thought you were trying to teach me something.
LONE: I am. Go ahead.
MA: All right. There. That look right?
LONE: Your legs should be a little lower. Lower! There. That’s adequate. So how does it feel to be a locust?
(He gets up)
MA: I dunno. How long do I have to do this?
LONE: Could you do it for three years?
MA: Three years? Don’t be—
LONE: You couldn’t, could you? Could you be a duck for that long?
MA: Look, I wasn’t born to be either of those.
LONE: Exactly. Well, I wasn’t born to work on a railroad, either. “Best of both worlds.” How can you be such an insect!
MA: Lone . . .
LONE: Stay down there! Don’t move! I’ve never told anyone my story—the story of my parents’ kidnapping me from school. All the time we were crossing the ocean, the last two years here—I’ve kept my mouth shut. To you, I finally tell it. And all you can say is, “Best of both worlds.” You’re a bug to me, a locust. You think you understand the dedication one must have to be in the opera? You think it’s the same as working on a railroad.
MA: Lone, all I was saying is that you’ll go back too, and—
LONE: You’re no longer a student of mine.
MA: What?
LONE: You have no dedication.
MA: Lone, I’m sorry.
LONE: Get up.
MA: I’m honored that you told me that.
LONE: Get up.
MA: No.
LONE: No?
MA: I don’t want to. I want to talk.
LONE: Well, I’ve learned from the past. You’re stubborn. You don’t go. All right. Stay there. If you want to prove to me that you’re dedicated, be a locust ’til morning. I’ll go.
MA: Lone, I’m really honored that you told me.
LONE: I’ll return in the morning.
(Exits)
MA: Lone? Lone, that’s ridiculous. You think I’m gonna stay like this? If you do, you’re crazy. Lone? Come back here.
Scene Four
Late that night. Ma, alone, still in locust position.
MA: Locusts travel in huge swarms, so large that when they cross the sky, they block out the sun, like a storm. Second Uncle—back home—when he was a young man, his whole crop got wiped out by locusts one year. In the famine that followed, Second Uncle lost his eldest son and his second wife—the one he married for love. Even to this day, we look around before saying the word “locust,” to make sure Second Uncle is out of hearing range. About eight years ago, my brother and I discovered Second Uncle’s cave in back of the stream near our house. We saw him come out of it one day around noon. Later, just before the sun went down, we sneaked in. We only looked once. Inside, there must have been hundreds—maybe five hundred or more—grasshoppers in huge bamboo cages—and around them—stacks of grasshopper legs, grasshopper heads, grasshopper antennae, grasshoppers with one leg, still trying to hop but toppling like trees coughing, grasshoppers wrapped around sharp branches rolling from side to side, grasshoppers’ legs cut off grasshopper bodies, then tied around grasshoppers and tightened’til grasshoppers died. Every conceivable kind of grasshopper in every conceivable stage of life and death, subject to every conceivable grasshopper torture. We ran out quickly, my brother and I—we knew an evil place by the thickness of the air. Now, I think of Second Uncle. How sad that the locusts forced him to take out his agony on innocent grasshoppers. What if Second Uncle could see me now? Would he cut off my legs? He might as well. I can barely feel them. But then again, Second Uncle never tortured actual locusts, just weak grasshoppers.
Scene Five
Just before dawn. Ma is still in locust position.
LONE
(Offstage, singing)
: Hit your hardest Pound out your tears The more you try The more you’ll cry At how little I’ve moved And how large I loom By the time the sun goes down
MA: You look rested.
LONE: Me?
MA: Well, you sound rested.
LONE: No, not at all.
MA: Maybe I’m just comparing you to me.
LONE: I didn’t even close my eyes all last night.
MA: Aw, Lone, you didn’t have to stay up for me. You coulda just come up here and—
LONE: For you?
MA:—apologized and everything woulda been—
LONE: I didn’t stay up for you.
MA: Huh? You didn’t?
LONE: No.
MA: Oh. You sure?
LONE: Positive. I was thinking, that’s all.
MA: About me?
LONE: Well...
MA: Even a little?
LONE: I was thinking about the Chinamen—and you. Get up, Ma.
MA: Aw, do I have to? I’ve gotten to know the grasshoppers real well.
LONE: Get up. I have a lot to tell you.
MA: What’ll they think? They take me in, even though I’m a little large, then they find out I’m a human being. I stepped on their kids. No trust. Gimme a hand, will you?
(Lone helps Ma up, but Ma’s legs can’ t support him.)
Aw, shit. My legs are coming off
. (He lies down and tries to straighten his legs out)
LONE: I have many surprises. First, you will play Gwan Gung.
MA: My legs will be sent home without me. What’ll my family think? Come to port to meet me and all they get is two legs.
LONE: Did you hear me?
MA: Hold on. I can’t be in agony and listen to Chinese at the same time.
LONE: Did you hear my first surprise?
MA: No. I’m too busy screaming.
LONE: I said, you’ll play Gwan Gung.
MA: Gwan Gung?
LONE: Yes.
MA: Me?
LONE: Yes.
MA: Without legs?
LONE: What?
MA: That might be good.
LONE: Stop that!
MA: I’ll become a legend. Like the blind man who defended Amoy.
LONE: Did you hear?
MA: “The legless man who played Gwan Gung.”
LONE: Isn’t this what you want? To play Gwan Gung?
MA: No, I just wanna sleep.
LONE: No, you don’t. Look. Here I brought you something.
MA: Food?
LONE: Here. Some rice.
MA: Thanks, Lone. And duck?
LONE: Just a little.
MA: Where’d you get the duck?
LONE: Just bones and skin.
MA: We don’t have duck. And the white devils have been blockading the food.
LONE: Sing—he had some left over.
MA: Sing? That thief?
LONE: And something to go with it.
MA: What? Lone, where did you find whiskey?
LONE: You know, Sing—he has almost anything.
MA: Yeah. For a price.
LONE: Once, even some thousand-day-old eggs.
MA: He’s a thief. That’s what they told me.
LONE: Not if you’re his friend.
MA: Sing don’t have any real friends. Everyone talks about him bein’ tied in to the head of the klan in San Francisco. Lone, you didn’t have to do this. Here. Have some.
LONE: I had plenty.
MA: Don’t gimme that. This cost you plenty, Lone.
LONE: Well, I thought if we were going to celebrate, we should do it as well as we would have at home.
MA: Celebrate? What for? Wait.
LONE: Ma, the strike is over.
MA: Shit, I knew it. And we won, right?
LONE: Yes, the Chinamen have won. They can do more than just talk.
MA: I told you. Didn’t I tell you?
LONE: Yes. Yes, you did.
MA: Yang told me it was gonna be done. He said—
LONE: Yes, I remember.
MA: Didn’t I tell you? Huh?
LONE: Ma, eat your duck.
MA: Nine days, we civilized the white devils. I knew it. I knew we’d hold out ’til their ears started twitching. So that’s where you got the duck, right? At the celebration?
LONE: No, there wasn’t a celebration.
MA: Huh? You sure? Chinamen—they look for any excuse to party.
LONE: But I thought
we
should celebrate.
MA: Well, that’s for sure.
LONE: So you will play Gwan Gung.
MA: God, nine days. Shit, it’s finally done. Well, we’ll show them how to party. Make noise. Jump off rocks. Make the mountain shake.
LONE: We’ll wash your body, to prepare you for the role.