Sensitive
A play
by Carrie Stewart


The Scene:
A BOY is sitting on subway bench. He's tall and thin. He's got an effeminate face, except for a strongly-defined forehead and thick eyebrows that just serve to make his eyes more mysterious. He's wearing a T-shirt with the words The Pretenders on it. His hair is attractively messed-up. A GIRL is standing at the edge of the platform, looking to see if a train is coming. She is Irish, bright-faced with big round eyes -- so round that it would be difficult for her to look tired. He is slouched back against the wall. She looks back at the boy and makes eye contact before returning to scan the track. He keeps looking at her. He places the book on his lap face-down and considers.

BOY:
Hey...

GIRL:
(turns quickly to face him)
No, stop.

I already know you -- and you're trouble. I mean I've never met you but I've met you a thousand times. You come off as shy and endearing. You stutter like High Grant. And you probably have an arsenal of cute stories of dumb things you've said in bars to try and meet women -- all of which failed because you're so 'harmless', right?

But I know you're type. You're not shy. You're just scared of confrontation. You want everyone to like you and you have learned, correctly, that the best way to get people to like you is to not say anything. So you hem and haw and shuffle your foot and let the girl fill in the blanks about the things you don't say.

You come off as sensitive. Your CD collection probably has a lot of sensitive but reassuringly heterosexual selections like Blondie, Wilco and maybe early David Bowie.

But you're not shy. You're self-confident enough to talk to girls in the subway. You seduce them and then get bored. Maybe you have things going with two or three at the same time. And no one's the wiser.

You don't even feel guilty about it because you just compartmentalize your feelings about each of them. You're detached, not shy. You're calculating, not stumbling. You're mean, not cute. You are the worst kind of heartbreaker because you look so good at the start and then turn out to be such a shit.

Yes, I know you. So don't try talking to me.

(GIRL looks back to the track. BOY waits, then picks up his book and continues reading)

BOY:
You got me.

(Train arrives)

3/20/00

Carrie Stewart is from Ohio. She and Spite editor Will Hines were in the same second grade class.


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