Bream Gives Me Hiccups by Jesse Eisenberg Page B

accident. The “seat belt” is just a frail bandage on my reckless life!
    MY NEPHEW: Why?
    ME: Because I’m damaged. I’m in pain! And I’m not gonna get better. Not without real help. So can you strap in? Just for now?
    MY NEPHEW: Okay.
    ME: Thanks, little buddy. Thanks a lot.

III.
    HISTORY
    Â 

MEN AND DANCING
    NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN: Your people are starving! There has been no rain! The crops cannot grow!
    NATIVE AMERICAN MAN: The rain gods have ignored all my pleas.
    WOMAN: It’s because you are not appealing to the gods in the right way.
    MAN: I was going to sacrifice another sheep but you get skittish around blood.
    WOMAN: We don’t need another dead sheep, the only solution to our famine is the sacred rain dance.
    MAN: The only solution?
    WOMAN: Yes, you must do a rain dance or we’ll all starve to death.
    MAN: Okay, I’ll just go into the woods and do the dance.
    WOMAN: No, in order to appeal to the rain gods, you must dance in front of the whole tribe, while we point and laugh at you, as is our native custom.
    MAN: You know who’s actually a really good dancer? Two Dogs Prancing Unselfconsciously Across New Horizon. Two Dogs could probably do a great rain dance.
    WOMAN: No, it must be you.
    MAN: And what about bear meat? I can go hunt some more bears.
    WOMAN: We have enough bear meat for ten moon cycles. What we need is rain!
    MAN: And I hear that. I totally hear you. Listen: You wait here. I’m just going to go to the forest, make sure there aren’t any other bears, check in with Two Dogs, and I’ll be right back to do the dancing thing.
    KING’S AIDE: The king requests a performance.
    JESTER: Great. What’s he looking for this time? I could do my bit about the moat.
    KING’S AIDE: No, the king would like to see a dance.
    JESTER: Are you sure? He loves moat jokes. You know: What do you call a moat in winter? Useless. Get it?
    KING’S AIDE: Yeah, ’cause it’s frozen.
    JESTER: Or: How many alligators does it take to stop an invading Hun? Thirty-one. One to kill the Hun and another thirty to get rid of the stench.
    KING’S AIDE: Right, because Huns smell bad. I get it. But that’snot gonna work this time. The king demands a dance.
    JESTER: And what happens if I don’t do the dance?
    KING’S AIDE: If you don’t dance, His Highness has requested that your body be slowly torn apart for his amusement.
    JESTER: I see.
    KING’S AIDE: Yes, it would be a slow but hilarious death.
    JESTER: Right . . . Maybe I’ll open with the moat bit.
    PROTESTOR 1: Hey, brother, you ready for the big protest?
    PROTESTOR 2: Absolutely! What’s the plan?
    PROTESTOR 1: We’re all gonna take LSD and protest the Vietnam War on the Washington Mall.
    PROTESTOR 2: Great! Finally those bastards in Washington will learn that the way we’re imposing our hegemonic capitalist ideology on this poor Asian country is reprehensible.
    PROTESTOR 1: Exactly! So just pop some LSD under that tongue so we can get to dancing.
    PROTESTOR 2: Excuse me?
    PROTESTOR 1: You’re not scared of a little LSD, are you?
    PROTESTOR 2: No! Not at all. I’m totally good with LSD. But did you say dancing?
    PROTESTOR 1: Yeah. That’s our protest. Just let our bodies loose on the Washington Mall, flailing them around freely in opposition to the war.
    PROTESTOR 2: Oh. That sounds fun, really. But, just to playdevil’s advocate, do you really feel we’ve exhausted all of our options? Have you considered making signs?
    PROTESTOR 1: None of that stuff works! What we need to send a message to those hawks in DC is some good old-fashioned, unselfconscious dancing.
    PROTESTOR 2: Right, sure. But have you considered all sides of the war? I mean it’s not so clean-cut. Aren’t you worried about the domino effect?
    PROTESTOR 1: The domino effect?
    PROTESTOR 2: Yeah. Say we get out of Vietnam, everyone goes home, a tiny country turns communist,