Act I, Scene 5

[The courtroom.  The sign has been changed to one that reads "Theatrum Discordiae."  Enter Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera.  They try to stay close together as a group, even clinging to each other at times.  They should try to project a certain attitude ...  creepy?]

Alecto:     My name is Alecto.

Tisiphone:  I'm Tisiphone.

Megaera:    Megaera.

Alecto:     We are the Furies.

[all hiss]

Alecto:     The goddesses of blood vengeance.

Tisiphone:  Avengers of fratricide.

Megaera:    Patricide.

Alecto:     Brother against brother.

Tisiphone:  Husband against wife.

Megaera:    Mother killing son.

Alecto:     Daughter killing father.

Tisiphone:  Brother killing sister.

Megaera:    Third cousin twice removed on her father's side killing mother-in-law's aunt's next-door neighbor.

[Alecto and Tisiphone hiss at Megaera.]

Alecto:     I am the unceasing one.

Tisiphone:  I avenge acts of murder.

Megaera:    I am She who holds a grudge.

[All three switch positions.]

Tisiphone:  Some of you might remember a play.

Megaera:    The Eumenides by Aeschylus.

Alecto:     The Kindly Ones. 

Tisiphone:  Where at the end we are given a place of honor.

Megaera:    In exchange.

Alecto:     For our pledge. 

Tisiphone:  To never bother humans.

Megaera:    To let you settle your own affairs.

Alecto:     To eschew blood vengeance. 

Tisiphone:  Put away rage.

Megaera:    Toss aside revenge.

Alecto:     And let justice decide. 

Tisiphone:  Impartially.

Megaera:    Fairly.

Alecto:     And with honor.

[All shift positions.]

Megaera:    It was just a play.

Alecto:     A fiction.

Tisiphone:  A lie. 

Megaera:    You humans never gave us up.

Alecto:     Never.

Tisiphone:  Not once.

Megaera:    Naughty monkeys.

Alecto:     You still seek revenge.

Tisiphone:  Retribution.

Megaera:    Lex talionis. 

Alecto:     Vendettas.

Tisiphone:  Nightriders.

Megaera:    Nasty monkeys. 

Alecto:     Filth.

Tisiphone:  Death's spawn.

[All shift positions]

Alecto:     You set aside courts and reason.

Tisiphone:  And insist on personal vengeance.

Megaera:    You pack trucks with fertilizer and diesel fuel. 

Alecto:     You launch cruise missiles in the night.

Tisiphone:  Pipe bombs.

Megaera:    Take a gun to work. 

Alecto:     Lay in wait outside abortion clinics.

Tisiphone:  Start fires.

Megaera:    Crash planes. 

Alecto:     Land mines.

Tisiphone:  Bear false witness.

Megaera:    Lie. 

Alecto:     Pass laws.

Tisiphone:  Persecute.

Megaera:    Sue. 

Alecto:     Beat up gays.

Tisiphone:  Blacks.

Megaera:    Chinks. 

Alecto:     Rednecks.

Tisiphone:  Whores.

Megaera:    Tear nasty little chickens to shreds and rip the flesh from their bones with your teeth ...

[Alecto and Tisiphone hiss at Megaera.  All shift postions]

Tisiphone:  You think you are better than the wolves.

Megaera:    But you are merely animals with language. 

Alecto:     Opposable thumbs. 

Tisiphone:  Fire.

Megaera:    Tools. 

Alecto:     Funerals. 

Tisiphone:  God.

[All hiss.]

Megaera:    You achieve destruction on a grand scale. 

Alecto:     Push buttons. 

Tisiphone:  Start wars.

Megaera:    Drop bombs.

Alecto:     Burn cites.

Tisiphone:  You murder millions without getting personally involved. 

Megaera:    Let your leaders make the decisions. 

Alecto:     Make your poor butcher the enemy. 

[All shift positions]

Tisiphone:  When we have finished.

Megaera:    With this unfortunate. 

Alecto:     We're coming for you.

[All hiss.  Enter Taylor.]

Taylor:     It's all your fault!

Alecto:     Excuse me?

Taylor:     It's all your fault.  You go on and on about revenge.  You make us kill ourselves.

Megaera:    Who us?

Alecto:     I think you have us confused with someone else.

Taylor:     It's all about revenge, isn't it?  We kill them.  They kill us.  It goes on and on.  Forever.  That's it, isn't it?  That's why they flew those planes into the tower.  That's why I'm dead.

Megaera:    Well. 

Tisiphone:  Actually.

Alecto:     No.  Revenge doesn't have anything to do with it.  The reason you died, that is.  Revenge is just an excuse.

Tisiphone:  Like patriotism.

Megaera:    And religion.

Alecto:     It doesn't have anything, much, to do with any of those things.  Revenge just happens to be the piece of the cosmos that was cut out for us, so we kind of go with it.

Tisiphone:  Our job, so to speak.

Megaera:    Beats oblivion.

Taylor:     What do you mean it didn't have anything to do with religion?  All the people who flew those planes were religious fanatics.

Alecto:     That is true.  All the terrorists were Islamic fundamentalists. 

Tisiphone:  Kind of helps you kill yourself when you think you are doing it for God.

Megaera:    Shortcut to paradise.

Tisiphone:  Blow somebody up.

Megaera:    And win God's lottery.

Alecto:     Point is, dear, while some of the people thought they were doing God's work, that really didn't have anything to do with it either.  That's just what their leaders used to get them to go along.

Megaera:    A signing bonus.

Taylor:     They were Saudis, right?

Alecto:     Most of them.  The leaders anyway.

Taylor:     They did it to free their homeland.  They want the U.S. out of the Middle East.

Alecto:     Yes.

Tisiphone:  Absolutely.

Megaera:    Yankee go home.

Alecto:     A lot of terrorists want freedom for some homeland.  They think America is a Great Satan, crushing their culture and spreading it's hegemony over the world.

Tisiphone:  American music.

Megaera:    American T.V.

Tisiphone:  American values.

Megaera:    American hot dogs. 

[Tisiphone hisses at Megaera.]

Megaera:    Well, I like hot dogs.

Alecto:     To the people behind it all, though, liberation of the homeland is just a convenient rallying cry, a slogan to fire up the troops. 

Taylor:     If it doesn't have anything to do with revenge, or religion, or nationalism, then why am I dead?

Alceto:     Well, dearie, I'm afraid it's about what it's always about.  Wealth and power.

Taylor:     Wealth and power?  That doesn't make any sense.  I wasn't rich.  I didn't have any power.

Alecto:     Oh, no.  Nothing so mundane as the little money you had, and, well, you didn't really have any power.  It's about real wealth, real power.

Tisiphone:  Controlling industries.

Megaera:    Countries.

Alecto:     Continents.

Tisiphone:  Having millions chanting your name.

Alecto:     Bringing down Kings and making them grovel at your feet.

Tisiphone:  Having the best of everything and leaving the scraps for everyone else.

Megaera:    You know, being a god.

Taylor:     I don't understand.

Alecto:     It's like this.  There's a man in the Middle East named Osama bin Laden.  He's like a lot of other men down through history.  Born into wealth and power.  But when he looks around, he sees there are men with more wealth and more power than him.  He wants more.

Tisiphone:  Greed.

Megaera:    Envy.

Alecto:     He can't have more because the people who have more won't give it up.

Tisiphone:  The Royals.

Megaera:    His family.

Alecto:     He blames them for his failures and found men who think they should have more as well.

Tisiphone:  Some deserve it.

Megaera:    Some do not.

Alecto:     They hatch plans about how to get more, most of which involve the removal of people who are in their way.

Tisiphone:  Assassinations.

Megaera:    Desert revolts.

Alecto:     One problem: the people who have real power, own armies.  And all he has is some fertilizer.

Tisiphone:  And diesel fuel.

Megaera:    And a bunch of used trucks.

Alecto:     But he has one thing the princes and presidents don't.

Tisiphone:  Hopeless people.

Megaera:    Religious fanatics.

Tisiphone:  Cannon fodder.

Megaera:    Human bombs.

Alecto:     He has people who were willing to die.  To free their families.  To leave this existence and unite with God.  To win the lottery and have someone else pay all their family's bills.  All they have to do.

Tisiphone:  Is blow themselves up.

Megaera:    And take some Jews.

Tisiphone:  Or Americans.

Alecto:     With them. 

Tisiphone:  That's what it is all about.

Megaera:    Wealth and power.

Alecto:     Wanting to be top dog. 

Tisiphone:  Be a god to your people. 

Megaera:    Get rid of all those who stand in your way. 

Alecto:     Be the King of the Middle East. 

Tisiphone:  Have everyone bow down to you.

Megaera:    And control the oil.

Alecto:     Make all the princes and presidents kiss your ass.

Tisiphone:  Because you're the King.

Megaera:    Of all that oil.

Taylor:     (pause)  Damn them.  Damn you.  You should all go to hell.

Alecto:     Sorry, sweetie.  You can't get rid of us.

Tisiphone:  We're just fantasies.

Megaera:    Creatures of your imagination.

Alecto:     As long as there are people.

Tisiphone:  As long as you hate each other.

Megaera:    As long as you want revenge.

Alecto:     As long as you want more.

Tisiphone:  We will never be far away.

Megaera:    Nasty monkeys.

Taylor:     Damn you all to hell!

[Taylor runs off stage.]

Megaera:    I don't think she was very happy with you, sister.

Tisiphone:  She wanted to know who to blame.

Alecto:     No.  She has a lot of people to blame. 

Tisiphone:  Then what did she want?

Alecto:     She wanted to know that her death had a purpose.  She's looking for meaning where there is none.

Megaera:    No meaning?

Alecto:     She wants to know that she mattered.  That she wasn't just a statistic.  Remembered perhaps by a few family members, but eventually to be forgotten, buried forever in the numbers for the day she died.

Tisiphone:  You're saying that she doesn't matter?

Alecto:     The only people who matter are the very rich and powerful.  The rest are just the supporting cast.  There for their potential to be exploited.  So the rich and powerful don't have to do any work to get what they want.

Tisiphone:  All the rest are meaningless?

Alecto:     Yes.

Megaera:    Including us?

Alecto:     Especially us.

[The Furies sit.  Enter Louis, Judge, Bailiff and George.  Cheney enters and sits in the witness stand.]

Megaera:    The Prosecution calls Richard Cheney to the stand.

[Cheney enters and sits in the witness stand.]

Louis:      Oh, dear.  I was afraid they would do this.

George:     Do what?

Louis:      Call Vice President Cheney.  This undermines all the good work I have done.

George:     Work?  What work?  What have you done?

Louis:      I have gone to great lengths to demonstrate that you are responsible.  And now they do this to me.

George:     Responsible?  For what?  Who's side are you on?

Louis:      Our side, of course.  The rulers and powers who shape history.

George:     Who are you?

Louis:      Your defense attorney.  Louis XIV, Sun King of France.

George:     I couldn't have gotten Johnny Cochran?

Megaera:    Your name?

Cheney:     Richard Cheney.

Megaera:    Your occupation?

Cheney:     President of...  Vice President of the United States of America.

Megaera:    Where were you on the morning of September 11th?

Cheney:     I was in the White House.  In the situation room. 

Megaera:    Where was the President?

Cheney:     He was in Florida.  At a photo-op.

Megaera:    That's more important than being in the situation room?

Cheney:     There are many parts to being President of the United States.  You can't barricade yourself in the White House.  You have to get out and let the people see you.  Show that you are in touch.

Megaera:    I see.  So the President of the United States was in Florida touching little school children.

Cheney:     He was teaching them, reading them a story.

Megaera:    You were in Washington and the President was in Florida.  I assume the President raced back to Washington as soon as he heard about the planes.

Cheney:     Actually, no.

Megaera:    No?  What is more important than securing the reins of government during a time of crisis?

Cheney:     We determined that the President would be safer not returning to Washington.

Megaera:    So it is better to be safe than to be in charge?

Cheney:     The President is always in charge. He's in constant communication.

Megaera:    His ear pressed to the phone the whole time?

Cheney:     In a manner of speaking.

Megaera:    But you were in Washington and he was in a school room in Florida when the planes hit and for several minutes afterwards, is this not correct?

Cheney:     Yes.

Megaera:    So the President was absent during the most serious crisis since, what, the Gulf War a decade earlier?

Cheney:     The President was not absent.

Megaera:    You just said...

Cheney:     I know what I said!  The President was engaged in political business when the crisis began, but I was on site to handle the details of our response.

Megaera:    So, the President made the decision to shoot the airplanes down?  (pause)  No?  He's not the one who made that decision.  You made that decision.  Only, the plane in Pennsylvania crashed before the decision could be implemented.  That's what happened, isn't it?

Cheney:     There wasn't enough time.

Megaera:    Enough time?  For what?  To make the decision?  Or to ask the President what should be done?

Cheney:     The decision was obvious.  Anyone would have done the same.

Megaera:    Shoot a plane out of the sky?

Cheney:     It was going to crash into Congress.

Megaera:    Or the White House.

Cheney:     Or the White House.

Megaera:    (pause)  Do you find yourself in charge a lot?

Cheney:     Constantly.  The world is a dangerous and frightening place.  There are people, clever and resourceful people, who wish us harm.  We have to be alert.  America needs us to be in control.

Megaera:    That's important to you?  To be in control?

Cheney:     Someone has to be.  It's not an easy job.

Megaera:    Why is that?

Cheney:     You are making decisions based on incomplete, even erroneous, information.  The American people are subjected to constant political propaganda, so much so they have a difficult time knowing what's right.  I often have to make a decision knowing that it will be unpopular.

Megaera:    But you are willing to make that sacrifice?

Cheney:     Yes.

Megaera:    For the good of the country?

Cheney:     Yes.

Megaera:    To ride in expensive limousines, eat lobster and prime rib at state dinners, attend private concerts, live in a multi-million dollar estate without paying rent.  These are the sacrifices you make?

Cheney:     My personal comfort is immaterial.  A lot of that has to be done just to maintain America's prestige in the world community.

Megaera:    Everyone else lives like kings, so it would be unseemly for you to do otherwise.

Cheney:     Something like that.  It's expected by the diplomatic community.

Megaera:    The caviar and champagne set.

Cheney:     If you wish to characterize them as such.

Megaera:    So, if it weren't for the fact that everyone else is so greedy, you would live like ordinary people, say, on a cot in a YMCA somewhere.

Cheney:     I have to make a lot of hard decisions, decisions that affect people's lives.  Whether or not they get to live the American dream.  I can't afford to be distracted by a lot of petty concerns.

Megaera:    Other peoples' lives are just petty?

Cheney:     That's not what I said.  I work hard for this country.  I do what is right.  I make the world safe for Americans.

Megaera:    How about everybody else?

Cheney:     That's not my concern.

Megaera:    The lives of everyone else is not your concern?

Cheney:     They have their own leaders.  They can take care of themselves.  I'm just concerned with America.

Megaera:    Peoples in other countries have to fend for themselves.

Cheney:     That's right.

Megaera:    What if they can't take care of themselves?

Cheney:     Then they need new leaders.

Megaera:    People like you?

Cheney:     That's right.

Megaera:    That's what you are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Providing leadership for people who can't take care of themselves?

Cheney:     The Taliban and Saddam Hussein were a threat to world stability.

Megaera:    World stability?  I thought you weren't concerned with the world, only Americans.

Cheney:     World stability affects America.  Our way of life is threatened by terrorists.  If they're able to disrupt our economy, terrorize our citizens, then our way of life could be destroyed.  The cost of living rises.  Employment drops.  Stock markets plummet.  Corporations go bankrupt. 

Megaera:    Internet fraud!  Hurricanes in Florida!  Martha Stewart goes to jail!

Cheney:     What?

Megaera:    Sorry.  What you are saying, is that, in order to protect the American way of life, you are justified in attacking other countries and overthrowing their governments, if, in your opinion, they constitute a threat to world stability?

Cheney:     It's called the Bush Doctrine.  Our security strategy justifies the use of preemptive strikes against parties who have the capability and intention of doing us great harm.

Megaera:    So, since the North Koreans most likely are close to building nuclear weapons, and have certainly stated publicly their animosity towards the United States, you will be invading them soon, right?

Cheney:     The North Koreans do not represent an imminent threat.

Megaera:    No?  What would happen if they nuked Tokyo and took the Japanese economy off the grid?  How about they nuke China and stop the flow of all those "Made in China" products to the United States.  How could Wal-Mart and internet shopping sites survive?  What would happen to Christmas?  Or eBay!  Wouldn't that strike right at the heart of the American way of life?  How could you possibly replace all that cheap labor?

Cheney:     You are not well, you know that, don't you?

Megaera:    Isn't maintaining the American way of life just another way of saying, you want the rest of the world to work for you really cheap?

Cheney:     The rest of the world envies our freedom.  Hundreds die every year trying to reach the U.S.

Megaera:    Do they want to be free?  Or have they been inundated with American culture and desire to go there because Americans are fat and have expensive cars, Play Station 2 and slender, curvaceous women in transparent teddies?

Cheney:     You are making a mockery of the finest country on the planet.

Megaera:    I have not yet begun to mock you.

George:     I think it is going well, don't you?

Louis:      Well?  This testimony is devastating.

George:     What do you mean devastating?  Dick's standing up for the Bush doctrine.

Louis:      He's taking credit for everything.

George:     Dick?  No, he's the vice president.  He just gets to work with the oil companies and Halliburton.  I do everything else.

Louis:      Like what?

George:     Well, I get to give the speeches in the Oval Office.  And the nuclear codes.  The guy with the nuclear codes follows me around, not Dick.

Louis:      After all the work I have done to prove that you are responsible for everything.

George:     Hey!  I am not guilty of anything.  Remember that!

Louis:      Guilt and responsibility are not the same thing.

Megaera:    One of the principles your government operates under is the so-called "measured response."  Could you explain that to the jury?

Cheney:     Each incident of violence against a sovereign nation, needs to be met with a clear, measured response.  We have to hit back in kind to demonstrate that we can not be intimidated, and to discourage future incidents. 

Megaera:    Been working well so far?  So, if they blow up one of your embassies, you bomb several of their terrorist training camps?

Cheney:     Exactly.

Megaera:    Kind of the way it was before Moses changed the law to "An eye for an eye."  Back when it was, "If you kill my brother, I take out your entire clan."

Cheney:     Not exactly.

Megaera:    Even though mankind claims to have moved on from the concept of justice by revenge to a more enlightened system of legal jurisprudence; in international matters you are still pursuing the ancient code of retribution and vengeance. 

Cheney:     That is not what I said.  We try to keep the loss of life to a minimum.

Megaera:    To a minimum?  If a country like Iraq were to plot to assassinate a former U.S. President, a measured response would be to destroy Iraq's military intelligence headquarters and a few of their military installations with cruise missiles, yes?

Cheney:     That certainly sounds appropriate.

Megaera:    And in order to minimize the taking of life you would launch this missile attack in the middle of night?

Cheney:     Yes.

Megaera:    When the only persons about would be the janitors and the cleaning ladies and maybe a few guards.

Cheney:     Well...

Megaera:    All the important people, the generals and the politicians, would be home.  The only people killed would be insignificant, just some poor schmucks mopping up the floors.

Cheney:     That's an unfair characterization of...

Megaera:    Unfair?  But isn't that your measured response?  To leave the people responsible for the attack alive and kill some low life whom nobody would miss anyway?

Cheney:     He's in the headquarters of Iraqi military intelligence.  That makes him a target.

Megaera:    He's emptying wastebaskets in the middle of the night to support his family and you drop six tons of explosives on his head?

Cheney:     If he's there, he's part of the system.

Megaera:    Even if it's the only way he can support his family? 

Cheney:     He should find another job.

Megaera:    That is your answer to him, find another job?

Cheney:     If he doesn't want to be a target and answer for what his government has done.  Yes.

Megaera:    So if you work for the wrong government at the wrong time, taking out the trash can get you dead.

Cheney:     Listen, I work hard and sacrifice a lot.  I do the best job I can.  Do you think it's easy what I do?  I'm responsible for preserving the freedoms the American people enjoy.  I'm bringing freedom to the rest of the world.  To Afghanistan and Iraq where they haven't had freedom in so long they probably don't even have a word for it anymore.

Megaera:    And the janitor in Iraq?  You are bringing him freedom?

Cheney:     You bet your ass, I am.

Megaera:    Well, I guess, now that's he's dead, at least he is free of you.