Barbarians
August 14th, 2020
Starring: Lena (female, early 50’s), Dwayne (male, early 50’s)
Lena and Dwayne are in bed. Dwayne’s reading, Lena’s scrolling her phone:
LENA
Hey
Do you know what this 64.99 charge for PPV is?
DWAYNE
Yeah. That’s the pay per view.
LENA
What?
DWAYNE
The fighting thing.
LENA
Boxing?
DWAYNE
No it’s where they’re in the cage and they’re pummeling eachother. I forget the name.
LENA
Why would we get that?
DWAYNE
Jon was begging me. I caved.
LENA
You didn’t want to check it with me?
DWAYNE
I didn’t think it would be an issue.
LENA
You just said the people beat the crap out of eachother. It’s barbaric.
DWAYNE
Porn’s more barbaric.
LENA
How do you know he’s watching porn?
DWAYNE
He’s 16...
LENA
Ok, well we can’t control that.
DWAYNE
Right. We can’t control anything anymore. As soon as we got him that laptop, we gave up our ability to shield him from the corruptibles of the world. It’s over. We lost.
LENA
I know.
But that doesn’t mean we have to lean into giving him the corruptibles.
DWAYNE
I know.
I’m sure it’s his friends that are into it. He just wants to be included.
LENA
Mm.
People kicking eachother’s asses: the new social currency.
DWAYNE
If you watched it, you’d probably like it.
LENA
I would not—
DWAYNE
Sure you would. A little family barbarian bonding.
LENA
One day, maybe.
...
Have you ever even been in a fight?
DWAYNE
Nope.
...
You?
LENA
Kind of.
I slapped a kid in 5th grade for calling my little brother a fatass.
DWAYNE
Oh
I’d say that counts.
…
Are we in a fight?
LENA
No.
We’re just fighting.
...
‘Night.
DWAYNE
‘Night.
They each turn off their lights and go to bed.