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MEG
When my father had his first affair, that's when it hit me. I watched him systematically dismantle his life, his family, his job of twenty years, his place in the community. Then I find out his father was an alcoholic.
(beat)
Now my little sister sniffs white-out. Right at her desk. It's cross-generational. Same disease, different drug.
BRAD
Yeah, yeah.
MEG
And my other sister's anorexic.
BRAD
She's in the middle?
MEG
Right.
BRAD
(Significantly)
The starved child.
MEG
She's one of those people, you can almost hear her metabolism, it's geared so high. Once, when she was about fifteen, she gained some weight. We all told her she looked great. She immediately stopped eating. She’s gonna’ go out like that 70’s chick from Downey, California, what's her name?
BRAD
Karen Carpenter.
MEG
Just lying in her bed one morning, mother brings up breakfast on tray to a corpse. I almost forgot. My mother's a compulsive shopper.
BRAD
You're the oldest.
MEG
Of course. The hero.
BRAD
You're like...what?
MEG
What?
BRAD
Twenty-five?
MEG
(Adjusts herself in her chair.)
I'll be twenty-seven next month.
BRAD
(Nodding, looking at her.)
That's a nice age.
MEG
So, with me, it was, like, forget it. I like ran around trying to take care of my sisters, keep my mother from going crazy, my father from raping children. I actually thought I'd read about some mass grave outside of town, and when they exhumed the bodies, they'd find out someone in my family did it.
BRAD
What did you end up with?
MEG
(Looking at him.)
I'm very oral.
BRAD
Really.
MEG
I'm also an anal-compulsive, neatnick, control-freak.
BRAD
(Nodding, smiling.)
All right.
MEG
Nothing in moderation.
(THEY both sip their beers.
Pause.)
BRAD
Rescuing is my drug of choice.
MEG
Uh-huh.
BRAD
And food, sure. I'd pick something off the floor and put in my mouth before I'd throw it away.
MEG
Brush it off a little.
BRAD
Like there'd never be another piece of food, ever.
MEG
On the planet.
BRAD
Right. And if I'm not taking care of somebody, I go crazy inside.
MEG
That's the only way you feel good.
BRAD
Me?
MEG
Anybody.
BRAD
Exactly. I mean, before my sister went crazy, she sold all my parent's furniture to these tourists from Cleveland and I actually helped them move it out of the house. My father drove up while I was rolling the dinette down the front walk. He gets out of the car, asks me what I'm doing. And I honestly didn't know. I was in a fugue state.
MEG
A trance like.
BRAD
I might as well be sleep-walking when my sister starts on me. She calls me on the phone and I just start to lose it. I once threw my phone through the window. I mean, it was bouncing around the fire-escape, people were scattering on the street, glass was falling...
MEG
Really?
BRAD
Every phone I've ever had gets broken. Or when I get off the phone, sometimes, I'll get so angry, I'll... take it out on my refrigerator.
MEG
How exactly do you do that?
BRAD
Just slam the door twenty, fifty, a hundred times, whatever it takes. Until it never closes again--that's the idea. Then I feel normal inside.
MEG
You know, there are... other ways.
BRAD
It's like I "come to" after I break something. Like I've been released from some spell, I don't know.
MEG
Well, you're striking back.
BRAD
(Thinking back)
I've broken a couple of toasters...kicked the stove door in.
MEG
(Studying him.)
Okay.
BRAD
I have this sense my life is improving.
(Beat.)
I just don't have any appliances.
MEG
As long as it's not a person. I mean, you wouldn't hurt, like, a girl for instance.
BRAD
No way.
MEG
Just inanimate objects.
BRAD
Most of the girls I've known.
MEG
You're terrible!
(SHE reaches over and pours
the rest of his beer for him,
pouting.)
BRAD
(Smiling.)
I'm just kidding.
(SHE downs her beer.)
MEG
No, you aren't.
(beat)
I have these cousins, their family system is so toxic, they each sacrifice a different body-part so they won't have to go home for the holidays.
BRAD
(Looking at her.)
Which parts?
MEG
My one cousin, he loses his legs in a car accident Christmas Eve, the other one goes in for blood work for a month, comes out in February. The third one puts her eye out in a department store.
BRAD
That's a statement.
MEG
Sick.
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