The collected stories of John and Gladys, the young grieving couple at the center of swingset/moon (see "Full Length Plays"), can be purchased here.
While it is best to read the stories in order, it won't kill you to read this one out of sequence as a taste of their world.
While it is best to read the stories in order, it won't kill you to read this one out of sequence as a taste of their world.
2.
John and Gladys moved out of their house. They did this because there was a place in the pantry where they always used to measure each other every year. There were five little marks, one on top of the other, for John, and four for Gladys, with a fifth that was a little bit shorter from three years ago that they still did not understand.
Albert used to watch them do this and say, “You’re still the same! You’re still the same!” So now whenever Gladys got any pasta out of the pantry she thought of Albert, and of being the same, and with that sort of thing enough becomes enough.
They moved from their house to a neighborhood in the city that everyone said was a good place to live. It was gen-tri-fy-ing, which meant that they had torn down the basketball hoops and filed lawsuits about the public housing. Sometimes neighborhoods gentrify with homosexuals, but this neighborhood was gentrifying with young, eighty-percent-straight people who like craft beers.
The neighborhood had lots of interesting restaurants in it. These restaurants were always in the important magazines and such.
One of them was a restaurant that only served mushroom caps, and across from that was the restaurant that served your food in edible shoes, and next to that was a place that only served foods which had been eaten in Ingmar Bergman films, which confused John and Gladys but they ate the strawberries which cost $18.
One day John and Gladys were walking down the street, holding hands, and they saw a long line coming out of a restaurant and snaking down the street. Everyone in the line was wearing old-fashioned pajamas – tops and bottoms – and fuzzy slippers. They also all had on sunglasses, and most wore hats.
John said to Gladys, ?
And she said, _____.
So they got in line. They did not want to know what they were waiting for and in fact if anyone started talking about the restaurant they would plug their ears or stand really close and whisper old nursery rhymes to each other.
When they got in the restaurant they saw that the tables were race car beds and there were TVs at the foot of each one playing old cartoons and sitcoms. And there were toy chests where you could play with Barbies and Ninja Turtles.
They got into a blue race car and were handed a menu by a waitress who was wearing a scrunchie and told them to keep it down because her boyfriend was on the phone and they only have thirty more minutes before bed anyway.
John and Gladys looked at the menu. One item said “Cap’n Crunch” and then “$18.” Another one said, “Count Chocula” and then “$18.” You can imagine the rest of the menu.
John and Gladys thought “when in Rome” so they ordered “Apple Jacks” and “Trix.” The waitress with the scrunchie rolled her eyes and said keep it down and reminded them about her boyfriend and said he might come over just for a few minutes so don’t freak out and don’t go and tell your parents like dorks.
John and Gladys waited for their orders and watched Captain Planet.
When the orders came they were in glasses that used to be jelly jars and they had Gonzo flying in a space ship on them.
It was just milk.
But the milk tasted like the cereal. It was cereal milk.
John and Gladys asked the waitress if they could have the cereal, too. She said, why?
They said, for eating. She said she would get the manager.
John and Gladys looked around the restaurant and saw all the people in their pajamas and sunglasses pouring shots into their cereal milk, watching the cartoons and giggling and kicking each other.
The manager came out. John asked for the cereal. “No, señor,” said the manager.
“He’s Hispanic,” Gladys whispered.
“I think the term is illegal Mexican,” John whispered. “More PC.”
“Why be PC? This man is clearly a stereotype.”
The manager smiled. “Yess. We are Latin-os here. Like the cereal!” He licked his arm, then offered it to them. They passed.
“We cannot geev you dee cereal. You weel get dee crumbs in dee bed,” he said. “Beeside, dee meelk is dee best part.”
John said, “But what do you do with all the cereal?”
The manager looked to his left, and then he looked to his right. “You are weeth dee FBI?” he asked.
“No,” said Gladys. “We hate the FBI.”
“Yeah, fuck the FBI,” said John, more loudly than necessary.
“Okay then. I weel show you.”
The manager took them through the kitchen where other Latin-os were scooping soggy cereal out of huge vats of milk. Then he took them through the back doors to an alley crowded with giant bins full of soggy cereal. Then he showed them crusher machines that compressed the cereal into heavy cubes about a foot on each side. Then he drove them to a landfill where other Latin-os buried the cereal. And licked each other.
John said, “But?”
The manager said, “We used to geev the cereal to the homelesses. But it make them crazy with sugar. They knife each other. More than usual. So ees no good. Thees ees the way.”
Gladys said, “Where does the cereal come from?”
The manager looked to his left, and then he looked to his right. “CIA?” he asked.
FUCK THE CIA. They said. BUNCHA ASS PIRATES.
So he wrote them an address on a cardboard box top. (If they saved seven more box tops they would get a free DVD of Encino Man.)
John and Gladys set off to see the cereal fields. They drove and they drove and they went through the mountains and they went under the ocean.
In the tunnel under the ocean Gladys said she had to go to the bathroom. John got angry and said we have three days left in this tunnel you should have gone two days ago. Gladys said she didn’t have to go two days ago.
John said well that is dumb.
They came out of the tunnel and drove through the grasslands and they were so sleepy that it wasn’t until they started to hear CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH that they realized they had made it.
It was the flattest land they had ever seen. It stretched on and on, with only a few beautiful Lion King trees to break up the view. And there were rows and rows of cereal crop.
There were hearts and stars and clovers. There were the different Trix fruits from before they turned them into those weird multicolored balls.
One field was nothing but mini-wheats; if you walked through it without long sleeves you would get scratched up.
It was the flattest land they had ever seen. It stretched on and on, with only a few beautiful Lion King trees to break up the view. And there were rows and rows of cereal crop.
There were hearts and stars and clovers. There were the different Trix fruits from before they turned them into those weird multicolored balls.
One field was nothing but mini-wheats; if you walked through it without long sleeves you would get scratched up.
It was breathtaking. Far off in the distance in the Golden Grahams fields there were what looked like lots and lots of ants but actually they were people.
The people were picking the cereal. The people had backs like question marks from bending over so much, and feet like watermelons from standing so much, and fingers like opened paper clips from picking so much. The people picked all day and the cereal was put into boxes and flown across the world and the people got a few cents and they went home and if they stole any cereal a leprechaun shot them.
John and Gladys saw all this as they walked through the fields, holding hands. When they got back in the car, John asked Gladys if she had to go, and she said no, and he said Gladys, and she said no really I’m fine for at least like six days.
They got in the tunnel again and of course she wasn’t.
Back in their neighborhood the restaurant had turned off the TVs and dimmed the lights for nap time. As the customers snuggled under their dinosaur sheets in their race car beds, many of them snored because they were so drunk.
The people were picking the cereal. The people had backs like question marks from bending over so much, and feet like watermelons from standing so much, and fingers like opened paper clips from picking so much. The people picked all day and the cereal was put into boxes and flown across the world and the people got a few cents and they went home and if they stole any cereal a leprechaun shot them.
John and Gladys saw all this as they walked through the fields, holding hands. When they got back in the car, John asked Gladys if she had to go, and she said no, and he said Gladys, and she said no really I’m fine for at least like six days.
They got in the tunnel again and of course she wasn’t.
Back in their neighborhood the restaurant had turned off the TVs and dimmed the lights for nap time. As the customers snuggled under their dinosaur sheets in their race car beds, many of them snored because they were so drunk.
