Hello, I have attached my short one-act play, Absolution, to this email for consideration in your magazine. I am a student at Saint Mary's College pursuing a BA in English Writing and a BFA in Studio Art. I've maintained a particular fascination with playwriting due to my involvement with theatre as a backstage technician. This play was inspired by personal struggles with giving and receiving forgiveness. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or responses to my work. Thank you for your time.

Caitlin Duerinck



Absolution

(The scene is a six-by eight prison cell which contains one bed, a chair and toilet facilities. There is also a folding table supporting a tray which contains deep-dish pizza, fried chicken, garlic bread, orange cream soda and white cupcakes with chocolate frosting. LIGHTS rise on BOBBY, a convict, sitting on the bed, consuming the food. A GUARD unlocks the cell and MATTHEW, a young priest, enters, standing nervously.


Bobby
(Glancing up and gesturing with a half-eaten cupcake)
Look. Look at this! They managed to get Gino’s East all the way from Chicago, but they couldn’t find funfetti cake mix!
(muttering)
They’re obviously communist. Can’t even get a man’s last meal right.
(pauses)
You’re not the normal guy.



MATthew
No, Father Machlon’s been ill recently. I’m Father Williams.

Bobby
(eating pizza)
Huh. You’re too young to be father of anything. What’s your real name, kid?

Matthew
(reluctantly)
Matthew.

Bobby
Well, Matt, I’m Bobby Padon.

(BOBBY extends his hand. MATTHEW hesitantly shakes it, then sits on the spare chair.)

BOBBY
Thanks for coming down.

Matthew
(somewhat sharply)
It’s my duty. Are you ready to make peace with the Lord?

Bobby
(scoffing)
Please. I’m in the middle of my dinner.

(BOBBY eats a cupcake in silence. MATTHEW shifts uncomfortably, leaning forward.)

MATTHEW
Are you a Christian, Mr. Padon?

BOBBY
Nah, eight years of Catholic school beat God right out of me. And the name’s Bobby.

MATTHEW
(exasperated)
Then why, in the name of all that is good, would you request religious counsel when you have no religion?

(BOBBY puts down the cupcake and pauses.)

BOBBY
I’ve got no faith. Haven’t for years.
(pause)
But the one boy did. He, he had this medal, ya see, and he was holding onto it, holding it so hard. And he wouldn’t let it go, not even when I was whaling on him. He just, just curled up and held onto that damn medal.

(MATTHEW stands, leaving the bible on his chair.)

MATTHEW
Do you want to make a confession?

(MATTHEW paces, fingering his saint medal. BOBBY shakes his head, laughing bitterly)

BOBBY
I never denied what I done. I killed him and the two other boys he was with. That medal’s what got me convicted, did ya know that? I ripped it outta the boy’s hand and took it home, idiot that I was. I didn’t want him to have it if it meant so much. Not after what they took from me.
(picks up his cupcake)
Funfetti cupcakes were her favorite.

(MATTHEW walks behind the folding chair and grips it.)

MATTHEW
I don’t understand. What do you want from me?

BOBBY
(introspectively, while eating)
It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? The thing I stole from the body of that kid sent me here. It’s almost like divine justice.

(BOBBY puts down his food and turns to face MATTHEW.)

BOBBY
I don’t know what to say. The guards said I should prepare some last words. That I should ask for forgiveness from the families. But I don’t want it, not from them. Never from them.

(BOBBY pauses, looks at his hands, then at MATTHEW.)


BOBBY
It’s not like it would change anything. I’d still be here, and their boys, their boys would still be dead by my hands.

MATTHEW
You could apologize. They might-

BOBBY
(cutting off MATTHEW, shouting)
NO! No. I can’t do it. I won’t.

MATTHEW
(frustrated)
Why? Don’t you think it will give them some measure of comfort that the murderer of their sons at least regrets his actions?

(BOBBY stands, nearly knocking over his tray. BOBBY leans towards MATTHEW. MATTHEW steps backwards, away from BOBBY.)

BOBBY
(suppressed anger)
Maybe. Maybe it would help ‘em, but I’m no liar, and I’m not liable to start now.

(BOBBY points a finger at MATTHEW)

I don’t regret it.

MATTHEW
(leans further away from BOBBY)
How can you not regret your actions?

BOBBY
(Shouting)
Because they deserved what they got! They fuckin’ deserved it!

MATTHEW
(desperately)
They were seventeen years old!





BOBBY
And had been dealing for years.
(Barking laugh)
You can bet they didn’t give a rat’s ass when their customers, young idiots like my sister, started dropping from their tainted drugs. I was doing the city a favor, getting scum like them off the streets.

MATTHEW
(viciously)
But they weren’t all criminals, were they?

(BOBBY backs off and sinks onto his seat. He rests his head in his hands. MATTHEW stands tense.)

BOBBY
(weakly)
No. no, they weren’t all worthless. Tony Lombardi and Eric Freeman, they got what was coming to them. They hurt me, so I hurt back. If it hadn’ta been me, it would have been some other brother or father or husband who watched their loved one overdose and die in some piss-poor little clinic.
(pause)
But that one boy… Elliot… he was different. And what the hell could I possibly say to his family that would make what I did even the least little bit less painful, huh?

(MATTHEW moves toward BOBBY.)

MATTHEW
Anything. If you had said anything at all, expressed even the slightest shred of remorse then maybe, maybe we wouldn’t have hurt so bad for all these years.

BOBBY
(looking up at MATTHEW, sharply)
We?

MATTHEW
Elliot Williams was my older brother.

(BOBBY leans away from MATTHEW, keeping his head up but not looking at MATTHEW. MATTHEW stands behind chair, holding it tightly.)



BOBBY
Your…you… and they let you come here? The priests sent you here, knowing?

MATTHEW
(sharply shakes head once)
They didn’t know. Father Machlon suspected, but he didn’t ask. I think he knew that I needed to see you.

BOBBY
(growing angry)
Why? Why now?

MATTHEW
For eighteen years my parents kept me away from what you did. They didn’t let me go to the trials or watch the news. They didn’t even take me to the funeral.

(MATTHEW looking down, unhappily)

I missed by brother’s funeral. And he was a good brother.

(MATTHEW pauses, touches his saint medal)

Elliot’s birthday was last week. He promised me he’d have a Pulitzer by the time he was 35. He wanted to be-

BOBBY
(cutting MATTHEW off)
A journalist. Yeah, I know. They told me that’s why he was out there. An expose on teen drug dealers.

MATTHEW
(showing medal to BOBBY)
I gave him that medal when he started that piece. Saint Maximilian Kolbe, patron saint of Journalists and drug addicts. I thought it would guard him. Turns out it wasn’t the gangsters he needed protection from.

BOBBY
(Angry)
He shouldn’t have been out there.





MATTHEW
I know. You think I don’t know that, that I don’t regret doing it?
(pause)
I’m the one that covered for Elliot, told our parents he was staying over at a friend’s so he could get an “accurate perspective”. He was out there that night because of me, because I lied. And then you killed him. If I’d just told him no…

(MATTHEW picks up the bible on the chair and sits, leaning forward and looking at the bible.)

BOBBY
He would have found another way. Nothing would be different.

MATTHEW
Maybe. Maybe, but it hurts, knowing that I could have saved him and didn’t.

(BOBBY stands, going to the window and looking up at it, his back to MATTHEW.)

BOBBY
He was a fool, a moron for going places he didn’t-

(MATTHEW jumps to his feet, gesturing with the bible threateningly. BOBBY turns to face him.)

MATTHEW
(furiously)
Don’t you dare! Don’t you even dare try to defend what happened! You beat an innocent child until he stopped breathing.(despairingly) And my brother priests? They want me to forgive that? I can’t even forgive myself.

(MATTHEW sits, exhausted.)

BOBBY
I don’t need their forgiveness. Or yours.

MATTHEW
But don’t you…



BOBBY
(sharply)
Don’t I what? Wish I could go back in time and beat my own stupid, angry self so I don’t do anything brash? Done something, anything so those boys might have survived?(pauses) No. of course not. There’s no point in wishing for might-have–beens. Wishes don’t change anything.

(BOBBY walks to the cot and sits. He pokes at the food on the tray with a fork.)

MATTHEW
That doesn’t mean the wishing hurts anyone.

BOBBY
(tossing the fork on the tray with flair)
Oh, doesn’t it now? Then tell me, Father Williams, has your wishing done any good? Have your most heartfelt prayers been answered? Has your brother risen from the grave like Jesus-the-Lord hisownself? How does it feel to know that your God has ignored your wishes?

MATTHEW
(defensive)
He has not ignored my prayers. Since his funeral I have never, not once, prayed that Elliot would rise from the dead.

BOBBY
Then what do you pray for, oh benevolent and all-knowing Father?

MATTHEW
(angrily)
I prayed for the strength to come here and look into your eyes. To find out, after all these years, if you really are the monster I’d built up in my head as a child. But you’re not. You’re just a man. And somehow that makes it worse.

(MATTHEW stands, holding the bible, and walks towards the window, speaking almost to himself.)

MATTHEW
I don’t understand. How could you hurt someone so badly when you’re just a man?


BOBBY
What do you want me to say? That I was angry? Or young? That I was stricken out of my mind with grief? Even if those are true, excuses are worthless.

MATTHEW
(turns to face BOBBY)
But so is revenge. Retribution only ever increases pain, by magnifying it in our hearts and spreading it to others.

BOBBY
I know that now. But back then all I saw was my sister seizing on the floor and it hurt so damn much. It still hurts.(softly) How the hell was I supposed to make it stop?

(MATTHEW stands behind his chair.)

MATTHEW
The lord teaches us that the only way to ease pain is to forgive the one who hurt you.

BOBBY
But how do you do that?

MATTHEW
(in disbelief, near tears)
I don’t know. I pray and I pray and I pray for guidance but I just don’t know.

(MATTHEW paces wildly, talking almost to himself. BOBBY follows with his eyes but doesn’t try to interrupt or move.)

MATTHEW
Father Machlon told me that forgiveness involves two steps undertaken between two people. The guilty must ask for absolution and the wronged chooses to grant it. The wronged chooses to let go of the pain and forget.

(MATTHEW pauses near the window with his back to BOBBY, looking upwards.)

He always said forgiveness was a choice, a choice which must be made freely.



(MATTHEW turns quickly and throws his saint medal against the upstage wall somewhat near BOBBY, but not directly aimed at him. BOBBY flinches, but otherwise sits motionless, face downcast.)

MATTHEW
(angrily, with a hit of despair)
But it isn’t. It isn’t a choice at all, not for me.
(pause, clenches fists)
My faith requires that I forgive you. God, I wish I could forgive you. But every single time I try to let go, to forget, I imagine what was left of my brother after you finished with him and I’m reminded of how much I hate you.

BOBBY
(softly)
I hate me too. God, I hate me.

(GUARD enters. BOBBY and MATTHEW turn quickly to face him, surprised at his entrance. GUARD gestures towards the door. BOBBY nods, stands, pauses at the door to the cell and exits, moving downstage center. GUARD exits. MATTHEW faces audiences, but stays in the cell. LIGHTS fade to two spotlights on MATTHEW and BOBBY as they move into position.)


BOBBY MATTHEW
To the families of Tony God the Father of Mercies has
Lombardi, Eric Freeman and reconciled the world to
and Elliot Williams, I want Himself through the death
to apologize most sincerely and resurrection of His Son
for the pain and sadness I and has poured forth the Holy
I have caused you. I thought Spirit for the forgiveness of
what I did was right, but it sins. May he grant you pardon
wasn’t. It wasn’t and I’m and peace through the
sorry. I’m so sorry. Ministry of the Church.

BOBBY
I hope you can forgive me one day.

(BOBBY’s LIGHT fades instantly to black. MATTHEW pauses, picks up the medal and looks at it closely while crouching. MATTHEW clutches the medal in a fist and stands.)


MATTHEW
And I absolve you from your sin in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

(LIGHTS fade to black. The end of the play).