Boy in the Basement

from Monologues that Kick Ass

by David-Matthew Barnes

Boy is a sixteen-year-old runaway who has hidden in the basement of an abandoned warehouse. Inadvertently, a young woman has interrupted his planned suicide.

BOY: I didn’t know Shelley that well. We smoked out a couple of times together and one time we crashed at this guy’s house. He was a skinhead and he tried to get down Shelley’s pants in the worst way. She let him do it, just so we could be warm that night. It was Christmas Eve. Shelley said she just wanted to wake up on Christmas morning in a house. She didn’t care whose house it was, as long as it had four walls... and a fireplace. The guy did her, right there on the living room floor, right in front of me. Shelley kept looking at the fire, like she was some place else. I didn’t realize that you and Shelley were that close.

(Beat.) I wish we had a plan. Like you and Shelley did. Then, we would have something to look forward to.

(Beat.) I want a house someday. Far away from my parents. My father is a corporate pig and my mother starves herself to death.

(Beat.) Carlos gave me some pills. The kind of pills Shelley should have had with her when they killed her. These pills are lethal. It only takes three to kill you. Their illegal. Carlos got them in Mexico.

(Beat.) You can leave if you want to... or you can stay here and watch me die. I already took two pills. I was waiting to take the third one.

(Beat.) I don’t know. I just had this feeling that something was coming, something was about to happen.

(Beat.) Maybe it was you.

(Beat.) I have some extra pills...