The Tale of the Midnight Society

                (GARY, BETTY ANN, KIKI, TUCKER, MEGAN, and SAM are all sitting around a fire.)

MEGAN:  What time is it?

GARY:  It’s midnight.  Seriously, Megan?

MEGAN:  Oh God, it feels like 4am.

KIKI:  When was the last time you stayed up until 4am?

MEGAN:  College.

KIKI:  Then how would you remember what 4am feels like?

MEGAN:  It feels like now, that's what it feels like.  Did we always stay up this late?

GARY:  Yes, we stayed up until midnight.  Otherwise we would’ve been called the 10pm Society, and we would’ve been losers.

TUCKER:  Are you sure we weren’t losers anyway?

GARY:  You know, nobody asked you to be here, Tucker.

TUCKER:  It’s a reunion, right?  Both leaders of the group should be here.

GARY:  You were leader for, like, five seconds.

TUCKER:  Are we really going to do the sibling rivalry bullshit now?

BETTY ANN:  No, we’re not, because I’m freezing.

MEGAN:  I know!  Was it always this cold?

SAM:  When do I throw the dirt on the fire?

GARY:  It’s not dirt.  It’s magic powder.

KIKI:  It’s dirt, Gary.  Just because you put it in a little pouch, that doesn’t make it magic.

GARY:  I bought the pouch from a creepy guy at a magic shop.  Whatever you put in the pouch turns magical.

TUCKER:  Can you put my checking account in there?  My rent’s due on Monday.

GARY:  I said I would give you the money.

TUCKER:  I’m not taking your charity.

GARY:  It’s not—

BETTY ANN:  Guys, come on, I’m freezing.

MEGAN:  I should have brought a pillow.

BETTY ANN:  Sam, how long is your story?

SAM:  Well, I know it’s supposed to be half an hour, but we since we usually take a few breaks to pee and stuff, it’s only about twenty-two minutes.

MEGAN:  I need more breaks now than I used to need.  My doctor says I have a shrinking bladder.

BETTY ANN:  Did anybody bring snacks?

KIKI:  I brought gluten free trail mix.

GARY:  You’re all really killing the mysterious vibe.

TUCKER:  Gary, we’re thirty-years-old, sitting in our parents backyard at midnight on a Saturday.  Trust me, there is no mysterious vibe.  There never was.

GARY:  It is not the backyard.  We are in the woods.

TUCKER:  The woods outside our parents house.  Otherwise known as—the backyard.

BETTY ANN:  Did anybody bring a blanket?

MEGAN:  Can I put my head in someone’s lap in a non-sexual way?

GARY:  Oh my God—Sam!  Tell your story.

                (SAM dumps all the dirt on the fire putting it out.)

BETTY ANN:  Great.  Now I’m really going to freeze.

GARY:  What did you do?!?

SAM:  I did the thing!

GARY:  You don’t dump the WHOLE pouch on the fire!  What are you—telling the story to end all stories?

MEGAN:  It better be, because I am never coming out here again.

KIKI:  Yeah, Gary, this is our last reunion.

GARY:  What?

KIKI:  It was fun the first few times, but now it’s just weird.

TUCKER:  My wife thinks I’m having an affair.

GARY:  I’ll tell her you’re not.

TUCKER:  But the thing is, I am, like, just as a total coincidence.

MEGAN:  You’re such a pig.

TUCKER:  It’s only an emotional affair.

MEGAN:  Oh yeah?  How does that work?  Do you get a hotel room and read poetry to each other?

TUCKER:  You’re just bitter because your husband was doing it with Sam on the side.

SAM:  Tucker!

MEGAN:  It’s fine, Sam.  We’re cool.  Although I would like you to stop telling my son that I spend too much money on eyebrow threading because IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.

GARY:  Can we get to the story?

KIKI, TUCKER, MEGAN:  Please!/Yes!/I can’t feel my ears.

GARY:  Sam, tell your story.

SAM:  Okay, so I get this phone call—

GARY:  No, Sam—do it the right way!

SAM:  What?  Oh!  God!  Sorry.  Yeah, um—Okay, so—but I don’t have any dirt left.

GARY:  Just pretend like you just threw a reasonable amount of dirt on the fire.

BETTY ANN:  While you’re at it, pretend there’s still a fire.

MEGAN:  And that we’re all not insane.

SAM:  Um, okay—

                (She pretends to throw dirt on a non-existent fire.)

                Submitted to the, um—

ALL, but SAM:  --Approval.

SAM:  --Of the Midnight Society.  I call this story—My Student Loans.

                (A beat.)

GARY:  Really?

SAM:  Oh right, sorry.  Um—The Tale of My Student Loans.

GARY:  No, that’s—I appreciate the title correction, but—is that really what your story is going to be about?

SAM:  Yeah.  It’s a story about my student loans.

MEGAN:  What?  Did you miss a payment?

SAM:  Have you heard this one before?

GARY:  That’s not a scary story.

BETTY ANN:  (To GARY.)  Have you ever missed a payment?

TUCKER:  Gary paid off his student loans a year ago.

KIKI:  You make that much as a high school teacher?

TUCKER:  That’s not how he paid them off.

GARY:  Shut up, Tucker.

SAM:  Guys, I said the title.  You’re supposed to be quiet.

GARY:  Yeah, be quiet, Tucker.

MEGAN:  No disrespect, Sam, but I really don’t give a shit about your student loans.  Although it’s nice to know Dan left me for someone who can’t even handle a payment schedule.

SAM:  If you’d listen to the story, then you’d know—

KIKI:  Gary, do you have another job?

TUCKER:  You could say that.

GARY:  Tucker—

BETTY ANN:  Okay, even I’m interested now.  Tucker has that look on his face.

TUCKER:  What look?

BETTY ANN:  The look men get right after they take a dick pic.  Like they’ve got a little secret.

TUCKER:  It’s not little.

KIKI:  The secret, or—

SAM:  Guys!

GARY:  Let’s get back to Sam’s story.

TUCKER:  I’m hijacking.

GARY and SAM:  What?

                (TUCKER grabs some dirt from the ground, throws it where the fire was, and announces--)

TUCKER:  Submitted for the approval—

GARY:  No!

TUCKER:  --Of the Midnight Society—

GARY:  Tucker!

TUCKER:  --I call this story—

MEGAN:  I bet he’s extreme couponing.

TUCKER:  --The Tale of My Brother Gary Writes Gay Erotica.

                (A beat.)

BETTY ANN:  Wait, what?

GARY:  I hate you.

TUCKER:  What?  It’s not I’m outing you.  Gary’s not gay.  He just makes money off the backs of poor, sad, lonely homosexuals.

GARY:  Gay people aren’t the only ones who read what I write.

TUCKER:  Yeah, I’m sure tons of straight people are reading Taken by a T-Rex.

MEGAN:  Ew!  A T-Rex?

KIKI:  Ohhhh, you write those kinds of books?  I read about them on Gawker.

MEGAN:  Gary, that is disgusting.

TUCKER:  That’s not even the worst one.  Boned by a Turbo Jet is the worst.

GARY:  What did you do?  Read them all?

TUCKER:  You’re my brother.  I’m proud of you.

SAM:  You’re proud he’s writing gay porn involving dinosaurs and planes?

TUCKER:  I’m proud that he made two million bucks last year.

KIKI, SAM, MEGAN, and BETTY ANN:  Two million?

GARY:  It’s a lucrative market.

BETTY ANN:  I think I read Boned by a Turbo Jet.

GARY:  See?  Straight people read them!

BETTY ANN:  Well, I’ve always been very interested in planes.

MEGAN:  I think we can safely say this night was a wash.

GARY:  We’re not even going to hear a story?

SAM:  I still have mine!

KIKI:  What if Gary tells one?

TUCKER:  Yeah, tell the one about the guy who gets head from Bigfoot.

MEGAN:  I would never date a guy from the Pacific Northwest.

KIKI:  Gary, tell an older one.

GARY:  Why bother?  There’s no fire.  There’s no magic powder—

ALL, but GARY:  Dirt.

GARY:  --Dirt, whatever.  It’s cold, it’s late, we’re tired, we’re hungry, we’re in my parents’ backyard.  I remembered this being all cool and whatever, but apparently, it was just stupid.

SAM:  Gary, come on, it wasn’t stupid.

KIKI:  It was a lot of fun.

BETTY ANN:  Would we have all come back here if it was stupid?

MEGAN:  I actually did think it was really stupid, but I also lost my virginity to Frank the night after he told his first story, so I can’t say it was a total waste of time.

SAM:  I lost my virginity to Frank too!

MEGAN:  Jesus, Sam, can’t ANYTHING just be mine?

GARY:  Fine!  Fine—I’ll tell a story.  An old story.  Everybody, just—settle in.

BETTY ANN:  Tucker, I’m cuddling with you.

TUCKER:  Sweet.

BETTY ANN:  If I feel anything on your body move, I’m cutting it off.

TUCKER:  Fair enough.

                (GARY picks up some dirt and holds it in his hand.)

GARY:  Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story—

MEGAN:  I’m actually sort of scared.

BETTY ANN:  Me too.

KIKI:  You know, it’s kind of nice knowing you can still get the shit scared of you.  Fear is, like, the one thing that you can still feel as strongly as when you were a kid.  I mean, you’re never as happy as you are when you’re a kid.  You’re never as excited.  You’re never as much in love.  But you can still be scared.

SAM:  You can be even more scared.

TUCKER:  Yeah, because you know more than you did then.

MEGAN:  The more you know, the more scared shitless you are.

TUCKER/SAM/MEGAN/BETTY ANN:  It’s true./So true./Yup./I should have brought a warmer jacket.

GARY:  I call this story—

                (He throws the dirt on the ground and the fire comes back.  EVERYONE, but GARY screams.)

GARY:  The Tale of the Phantom Cab.

               (Lights.)