Burying Your Brother in the Pavement (NHB Modern Plays)

TOM. They’re a – having a funeral downstairs.

I’m supposed to be there. Down there. With them.

I mean, it’s not like a guy missing his own wedding – I mean, it’s not my

mine through drugs.’ ‘I caught mine through sex.’ ‘I just, well, I just sort of got it.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I’m unlucky.’

There are loads of other examples – the time I thought I’d developed a cure for blindness in biology class because I seemed to be able to see things with my eyes closed – the time when I thought I may have inadvertently started a war between Korea and the Isle of Sheppey with some stuff I’d written on my blog – the time when I thought I’d accidentally castrated my dog –

A dog howls in the distance. TOM frowns.

Okay, well, I sort of did castrate my dog. That’s a long story… my point is this…

It’s normal to be centre of your own world, in your head, star of your… and me… I don’t just star in my head, I kind of suffocate all other forms of life. But this – finally – I’ve got the opportunity to actually be some kind of star and I’m –

TOM hears something. He freezes and turns off the light. He indicates to us silence, takes a deep breath and holds it.

It’s dark. Very dark indeed.

TOM lights a torch. A pathetic torch. But it’s almost blinding in this darkness.

As our eyes adjust, we take in his surroundings… He’s underneath a table. A small table that he’s had to squeeze himself underneath of. The table is in a large dusty attic.

TOM is an ordinary-looking teenager in his early teens. He is wearing the hand-me-downs of a cooler older brother. But he wears them slightly wrong. Too many buttons done up on a polo shirt, that sort of thing…

TOM. I first had the idea that I was the son of God, when I was nine.

I’d just read the Bible.

Not the whole Bible, not cover-to-cover but – you know… extensive dipping… Anyway, the more I read, the more it sort of made sense, that I was the second coming. Jesus Christ. Two.

The sequel.

I mean, my mum a virgin? Well, looking at her you could certainly believe so. Check. Dad not my real dad? We never did have much in common. Check. Me leading a sad-and-tortured-life-where-everyone-hates-me-and-I-have-to-die-for-the-good-of-humanity-who’ll-be-sorry-when-I’m-gone?

Check.

But then I tried to cure a leper – well, a kid with really bad eczema… it didn’t work. He just bled a lot. I tried to – rip some of his skin off and…

Beat.

I first got the idea I might have Aids after a particularly aggressive sex-ed class – you know, the sort of class where your teacher just repeatedly shouts –

Spotlight on a harassed-looking teacher, in a tatty-looking blazer. He’s spitty.

MR WILKINS. You must NEVER have sex. Never. Ever. Ever.

Spotlight off.

TOM. I mean, talk about premature, I hadn’t even persuaded a girl to kiss me yet. But he always was premature, Mr Wilkins.

Spotlight on MR WILKINS inflagrante (tastefully) with a blow-up doll.

MR WILKINS. I’m not normally like that. I’m a good lover, really I am… oh, don’t look like that…

The blow-up doll looks back, the same open-mouthed expression on its face it always has.

TOM. So Aids – me? Unlikely! But then I had a tetanus shot and it took them ages to find a vein and I thought – well, maybe I had a mutated version of Aids – the sort where you don’t get to do anything good to catch it. ‘I caught