Pretty Blue was my first professionally produced play. It is about a poor unemployed drifter, who is so lonely he steals a parrot from a pet shop one New Year's Eve to keep him company. He ends up enlisting the services of a legal aid lawyer to defend him in court, and gets involved in the life of the lawyer and the lawyer's wife.

When I wrote this play, I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, other than trying to write funny lines and scenes, (most people do comment that it is a funny read).

Here's a scene:

FRANK: I'm sorry Mr. Rice. You're going to have to pay for that window. I know this sounds like I'm not trying very hard, and you're probably thinking, well, what do you expect from legal aid? But even if you paid an expensive lawyer there isn't much more to be done in this case. Do you understand?

RICE: I get it.

FRANK: Are you willing to make the reparations?

RICE: Got to.

FRANK: We can arrange for payments. How much can you afford?

RICE: Maybe spare fifteen or twenty.

FRANK: Twenty bucks a month isn't bad.

RICE: A year.

FRANK: Mr. Rice, you'll have to do a bit better than that.

RICE: Not working.

FRANK: Yes, I know.

RICE: On welfare.

FRANK: I know.

RICE: Don't make a lot of money on welfare.

FRANK: Could you borrow the money?

RICE: Tough to get a loan on welfare. Don't got friends. Why I went to see him. Couldn't stand it. He was alone, too.

FRANK: I don't think he notices he's alone.

RICE: He does. He does. Talked to me so he must know, 'cause if he's alone he isn't talking to no one.

FRANK: Yes, but I'm not sure he knows what he's talking about.

RICE: He talks; he knows.

FRANK: A lot of people talk without knowing what they're talking about. Trust me on this. I'm a lawyer.

RICE: Gotta know when he's alone, man.

FRANK: Mr. Rice. We're talking about a parrot. A parrot is a bird that imitates the sounds that it hears, and that's all. It can't feel lonely because it doesn't know what lonely is. It's just a bird, Mr. Rice, just a bird. It isn't even aware of its own mortality.

RICE: Mortality?

FRANK: The fact that you're going to die and that's it.

RICE: Oh God.

FRANK: Why don't you ask a woman out? Then you'd have a real companion.

RICE: Hard to get a date on welfare. What you wanna do? Eat some snow? Share a smoke?

FRANK: Why can't you get a job, Mr. Rice?!

RICE: Nobody'd want a guy like me.

FRANK: Why not?!

RICE: I steal parrots.

FRANK: You haven't always been a parrot thief. What about before you stole the parrot?

RICE: Got myself a lizard. Iguana. Kept it in the coset. Got loose and took off on me. Closet's a bad place for a lizard. Got out the hole for the heat pipe. Started living in the walls. Be lying on my mattress on the floor. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle, right past your head, in the walls. Be eating your Cheerios. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle, up over your head in the roof. Be shaving your face. Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle, right behind the sink. Kept expecting to see them bubble eyes spying at me outta the drain. Then, one day, never heard it no more. Kicked off in there. Something, huh? Never smelled no stink.

FRANK: Why didn't you save up a bit of money and buy a cage?

RICE: Don't--

FRANK: You don't have the money to save, I know.

RICE: Pet'd be a good thing for me. Guy I know's lonely too. He got himself a cocker spaniel dog. He takes that cocker spaniel dog every place, and he goes a lot of places, 'cause he don't have no job either, so he spends his time walking 'round 'cause he's got to fill in his days with events and attractions. That cocker spaniel dog puts on a lot of miles with this guy.

FRANK: Would you like a dog?

RICE: Have to get rid of it after three or four days.

FRANK: Why would you have to do that?

RICE: If I didn't, it'd kick off just like that lizard. I'd give a dog water an' brush it, an' a place to sleep, you know, but I couldn't feed it.

FRANK: Table scraps?

RICE: Eat my table scraps.

FRANK: What were you going to feed the parrot?

RICE: I'd walk down to the flour mill and pick up stray grain. It'd be easy to feed that parrot. You should hear him talk to me: "Hi, Mr. Rice. How are you, Mr. Rice? What are you doing, Mr. Rice?" He asks me things, an' no one else does. An he keeps asking till I answer. He really wants to know. No one else does.

FRANK: Uh huh. Okay. Well. Anyway, that's it then. We'll see you tomorrow in court. (Pause.) Wear something nice and comb your hair. (Pause.) Nice talking to you. (Pause. Rice doesn't leave.) Mr. Rice, I have to see someone else now.

RICE: That's all?

FRANK: That's all. We'll see you tomorrow.

RICE: Okay. (He stays.)

FRANK: Mr. Rice, you'll have to leave.

RICE: Ya, ya, ya, I know.

FRANK: There's the door.

RICE: Can I stay and watch?

FRANK: No, you can't stay and watch! Mr. Rice you'll have to get a grip on yourself. You have to set your emotions aside and be strong!

RICE: I can't! I live in a hotel room! Yellow walls. No view out the window but the bricks next door. I need some of that June sunshine! I need to see somebody.

FRANK: I can put you in touch with a counsellor.

RICE: Had a counselor. He shouldn'ta been counselling, he wasn't even listenin'! I don't need no counselor. I need someone to talk to. I can talk to you, Frank.

FRANK: Don't you have any family?

RICE: No.

FRANK: Look I don't know what to do.

RICE: You said you get lonely.

FRANK: Yes.

RICE: You lonely now?

FRANK: I wish I was.

RICE: But you get lonely sometimes.

FRANK: Everybody gets lonely sometimes.

RICE: Well when you are lonely, you gotta know you got a friend somewhere.

FRANK: Sure.

RICE: Frank, will you be my friend?

FRANK: I can't. You're a client.

RICE: You don't care.

FRANK: I care professionally.

RICE: Be my friend. Care more.

FRANK: I can't be your friend. You'll have to leave.

RICE: I'll look after myself in court tomorrow. Can't be that bad.

FRANK: Mr. Rice, you need representation. It isn't costing you anything.

RICE: Ya. Well maybe if you were gettin' more money outta me, you'd care about me as a friend ought to.

FRANK: All right! I'll be your friend. For a little while. But friendship can be very complicated and confusing.

RICE: You're a lawyer. You know about those things.

FRANK: And if you're going to be my friend, you've got to realize I have work to do.

RICE: I know.

FRANK: Then you'll excuse me. And I'll see you tomorrow.

RICE: Now I'm happy. Now I know I'l seem my friend again.

FRANK: You can live on in anticipation and hope.

RICE: Hope's a great thing, Frank.

FRANK: Hope leads us forward, Mr. Rice.

RICE: Good-bye!

FRANK: Good-bye. (Rice leaves. Once he is out the door, Frank mumbles to himself.) Hope is a whore full of promises, and like all whores, you end up paying. (Frank picks up the phone and speaks to his secretary:) See if you can get somebody to peel that guy off me after court tomorrow. He's going to be a problem.