"At the bar, Samantha gobbles peanuts.
She avoids making eye contact with herself in the mirror,
but as the hour approaches for Mark to meet her here,
her heart grows colder and colder.
She is disgusted.
Why did she call him after all these years?
He never really meant anything to her.
Now, she has made the impression,
before even meeting, that she cares.
Entering the bar, Mark Braun looks peevish
in a tight-fitting ski jacket and slim loafers.
His hair is combed back into a precise shape,
wrapping his skull like banana peels.
The combination of self-consciousness and suavity
is remarkable, poignant even.
Samantha, in spite of her reluctance,
decides to go whole hog.
'I wanted to tell you in all honesty,
she begins, I've had some problems in my life with men,
women, whatever.
I've always wanted to tell my secrets to someone,
and there's something about you, I feel I could tell you.
But where should I begin?
I had a dream the other night.
There was a woman in it who was very fat,
and her skin wasn't hard.
It was spongy.
She opened a closet door, and inside, was an Easter basket
filled with rancid eggs--
the shells painted with pastoral scenes and bunny rabbits.
The woman-- don't know who she was exactly--
put her hand to her mouth and started eating her own
fingers.'
Samantha laughs nervously.
Mark laughs nervously, very nervously.
Remembering her manners, Samantha
asks, 'but what about you?
Do you still wear a blue overcoat?'
'An overcoat, yeah.
I'm in corporate marketing now.
I'm taking a class at Yale this semester.
I still live with my mother.'
'Fascinating', Samantha says, in a booming voice.
Some teacher with pink lathery hands
once told her, if you have nothing to say,
at least say it loudly.
'I remember your mother, she continues,
she didn't seem to like you very much.
She was always yelling at you.
I remember what she did that time you wet your pants.
You had to clean them out in the kitchen sink.
Letitia, and Max, and I waited in your room.'
'I don't know if that was me.
I don't remember that.'
'Well, you always were clever.
Shall I tell you?
I still love you.'
Mark has a consternated, perhaps even constipated, look
on his face.
Maybe he doesn't appreciate her offensive line of action.
It must be hard to warm up to a torpedo,
not that he couldn't seduce her.
Oh no, Mark knows how to make the moves on any girl.
He must have had five women, at least.
Samantha can see it all now-- the conquistador and his soon
to be conquered senorita sitting on a couch together.
Mark edging over an inch at a time--
one inch when he gets up to change
TV channels, one inch when he examines her lovely earring--
did she get that from her mother?
One inch, the final one, with no explanation at all.
It's hard to know whether to exhale or inhale
when approaching a woman.
Should you have just taken a slug of beer
so that lukewarm smell dominates the airspace?
Should you have lit a cigarette or just put one out?
Should you go to the bathroom first?
But that might seem like too much planning.
Mark has surely learned to add some spontaneity
to the process.
You've got to watch her for cues.
When she extends her arms, stretching, yawning,
and saying, oh, I'm so tired, It's
a good time to move forward.
'Love, huh?' Mark says at the bar, swilling his beer.
Samantha peers at Mark's glimmering forehead.
He looks charming in the semi darkness.
Aloud, she muses, 'over the years,
things have been funny in terms of boyfriends.
I've had my heart broken a few times.
I've been in love with the most garlicky individuals.
In fact, I have a fascination with the mediocre.
I love gas station attendants, better yet the unemployed.
I love men who have rats nests for hair
and murderous intentions.
There's something about a man who
hasn't taken a shower in days--
primal.
I like a man who doesn't require any stupid preliminaries.
It's just me and you, babe.
I love a man who seems to be winking at the waitress,
making a phone call when I go to the ladies room.
But sometimes it's hard to find a balance.
My therapist-- oh, did I tell you I'm in therapy?
Isn't everyone?' Nervous laughter again from Samantha,
rejoined by Mark's fixed grin.
'A balance, it's hard to--
can I just tell you something?'
Mark interrupts. 'You have a beautiful nose,
so why don't you relax.
You're a little anxious it seems.
Finish your drink.
You haven't touched it.
Go ahead.
I'll be right back, OK?
I'm going to the men's room.'
Samantha doesn't have a beautiful nose.
That should have been the tip off.
She blinks her newly violet eyes.
'Sure', she says, a purr of a sure.
She waits at the bar, chin in hands.
Samantha Braun, Miss Braun, Mrs. Mark Braun,
Samantha Brown Braun--
Mark seems clearly to understand her.
She has never felt so frank, so forward.
At last, she's discovered the secret of romantic union.
She knows she can say anything to the right man.
Samantha's gin and tonic has turned into a tepid lake.
The ice cubes have gone back to their mother, water,
and the tonic has given up its captive princess air.
Only the gin remains poised for action.
Samantha taps her freshly manicured fingernails
on the bar--
that Mark constipated after all?
She begins watching the door with a stick figure on it,
men hoisting their pants, tugging their underwear,
realigning their belts, come lumbering out like immigrants
from an underwater country.
Samantha is getting irritated-- just finish your business
while you're in there.
The bartender has already wiped up the bar
in front of Mark's stool.
Samantha stops watching the bathroom door.
How could a person leave in the middle
of a conversation like that?
How uncouth, unsatisfactory.
Perhaps he was raped and murdered
in the stall, a crowbar denting his mastodon forehead.
Perhaps a huge lizard has him pinned to the toilet
and strips him away limb by limb.
Giving the bartender a generous tip,
Samantha leaves in the guise of a murder."
And that's it for a "Look at the Moon."
[APPLAUSE]