Lente, lente, currite noctis equi
(slowly, slowly, run ye horses of the night).
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, sc. 13, l. 70.
How fate loves a jest. Behold me ambushed,
taken in the rear. My battlefield a gutter;
my noble foe a lackey with a log of wood. …
I have missed everything. Even my death.
Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Act V.
Introduction
The scene: Mid-autumn in a fast-food parking lot at 2:00 a.m., poorly lit, cool, drizzling.
The players: Yammo (the loan shark); Lenny (the liar); Huxley (the butler); and Jones (the state trooper).
Yammo — (kneeling on asphalt, Lenny’s head on his lap) — Lenny, who did this to you, buddy?
Trooper Jones — (notepad in hand) — Speak loud, Lenny!
Lenny — (bleeding from temporomandibular bullet wound) — Huxley, my butler, did it.
Yammo — (friendly, nonconfrontational) — Lenny, you don’t have a butler.
Lenny — (expiring) — … so … what … (expires).
Trooper Jones — (writing slowly and repeating) — Huxley ... my ... butler ... did ... it.
The sacrosan
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