Moment 15

Question 1

Presley: What … what you doing?

Answer 1

Cosmo: Looking for something.

Question 2

Presley: What?

Answer 2

Cosmo: We’ve all got them.

Question 3

Presley: What?

Answer 3

Cosmo: You … must … have … one … somewhere …? Come on, my beauties.

Question 4

Presley: Will you tell me what you’re doing please?

Answer 4

Cosmo: Aha! Here! Here’s one. What a whopper!

Question 5

Cosmo enters with something cupped in his hands.

Cosmo - slowly, carefully - shows Presley what he’s holding.

Presley: Take it away!

Answer 5

Cosmo: Just tell me what it is. Say it’s name.

Question 6

Presley: … Cockroach.

Answer 6

Cosmo: That’s right. Cockroach. Costs nothing. Am I right? Cockroaches are free. Am I right?

Question 7

Presley: Yeah.

Answer 7

Cosmo: Come here.

Slight pause.

Cosmo: Look at it. Beautiful little thing. They can live on next to nothing. Two grains of soap powder will keep them alive for months.

Cosmo laughs.

Question 8

Presley: Why you laughing?

Answer 8

Cosmo: Its legs are tickling me. I’ve got sensitive skin.

Stares at cockroach

Cosmo: Oh, they’re little survivors all right. In the event of a nuclear war, the cockroach alone will survive.

Question 9

Presley: That can’t be true.

Answer 9

Cosmo: It’s true, Mr Chocolate. No one believes me but that don’t make it a lie.

Slight pause.

Cosmo: I perform in pubs. In clubs. Anywhere people will pay me. Some nights I get through a hundred of these things.

Question 10

Presley: How’d you mean?

Answer 10

Pause.

Cosmo eats cockroach.

Cosmo: Feel a bit queasy?

Question 11

Presley: Yeah.

Answer 11

Cosmo: People do. They feel queasy - but they love it. That’s why they pay. And the queasier it gets the more they pay. I eat other things as well. Caterpillars. Maggots. Worms. Beetles. Moths. Goldfish. Slugs. Spiders. I suck live snails from shells. Bite wriggling eels in two. Gnaw heads from live mice. My speciality, Mr Chocolate, is a live canary.

Question 12

Presley: It’s disgusting - And stop calling me Mr Chocolate!

Answer 12

Cosmo: … Why don’t you eat one?

Question 13

Presley: Wh-what?

Answer 13

Cosmo: A cockroach.

Question 14

Presley: No.

Answer 14

Cosmo: Go-on. Yum-yum.

Question 15

Presley: I … I can’t.

Answer 15

Cosmo: I’ll find you one, Presley.

Question 16

Presley: You will?

Answer 16

Cosmo: With my own hands.

Slight pause.

And… it would please me, Presley.

Question 17

Presley: Really?

Answer 17

Cosmo: Oh, yeah. Just let me find one. Shall I do that? Let me find one and we’ll take it from there. That’s all. No promises. How about it, Presley?

Question 18

Slight pause.

Presley: Well…

Answer 18

Cosmo: Yesss!

Slight pause.

Cosmo: Ooh it’s a whopper, Presley.

Question 19

Presley: Really?

Answer 19

Cosmo: Take a look.

Presley flinches away.

Cosmo: Just one peek. That’s all, Presley.

Question 20

Presley: Just… a peek?

Answer 20

Cosmo: Just a peek.

Question 21

Presley looks at cockroach.

Presley: Oh … yeah.

Answer 21

Cosmo: Looks juicy, eh?

Question 22

Presley: Mmm.

Answer 22

Cosmo: Take another peak. Longer this time. Go on.

Question 23

Presley looks at cockroach again.

Answer 23

Cosmo: What d’you think?

Question 24

Presley: It’s very … dark.

Answer 24

Cosmo: That’s right.

Question 25

Presley: Like a spit of tar.

Answer 25

Cosmo: Ooo, yes. Never thought of it like that. Very good, Presley. What an imagination you’ve got.

Slight pause.

Cosmo: Go on, Presley.

Question 26

Presley: Eh?

Answer 26

Cosmo: A nibble.

Question 27

Presley: I… I can’t…

Answer 27

Cosmo: For me, Presley.

Question 28

Presley: I …

Answer 28

Cosmo: I’ll be upset if you don’t.

Question 29

Presley: You will?

Answer 29

Cosmo: Very.

Question 30

Slight pause.

Presley: Kill it first.

Answer 30

Cosmo: Nah, nah. Has to be alive. That’s the whole point.

Slight pause.

Cosmo: I’d feel very close to you, Presley. I’d feel as if we … shared something.

Question 31

Presley: Shared something.

Answer 31

Cosmo: Something special.

Question 32

Presley: Like a … communion?

Answer 32

Cosmo: Yeah. That’s it exactly. Trust you to think of the right word. It’d be a communion. Between us two. A special communion between Cosmo and Presley.

Very slowly, Presley takes the cockroach from Cosmo’s hands.

Cosmo: Oh, Presley … Presley …

Presley puts cockroach in his mouth and eats it.

Cosmo: Don’t forget to chew it well. They’re apt to crawl back up if you don’t.

Question 33

Presley: I need some chocolate.

Answer 33

Cosmo clicks out of his ‘carressing mood’.