EMOTIONAL RESERVE – r2
A Two-Hander in One Act
JACK JYN
A bare stage.
Two chairs. Two pools of light.
At first, the men sit separately, each holding a phone. They are not quite speaking to one another. They are speaking into the little illuminated rectangles in their hands.
As the play progresses, the phones become less important.
Eventually neither man is holding one.
1. STILL WATERS
Lights up.
JACK I'm gonna apply for another job.
(He looks at the phone.)
That I'll probably turn down.
JYN Why?
JACK Pay's better.
(Beat.)
Graphic design.
JYN Ah.
JACK Exactly.
(He types.)
Blerg.
I think we really need to move away from here.
I'm praying about it.
(He looks at the phone again.)
Can I use you as a professional reference?
JYN Of course.
(A beat.)
Funny.
I was just about to text you.
JACK Yeah?
JYN “Hola, sir. How is your friend who's in the hospital?”
(He smiles faintly.)
“And how is the emotional arc of your world in general?”
JACK That's an ominous way to ask how I'm doing.
JYN I've been reading about this thing.
People who feel like outsiders in their own lives.
JACK That's not ominous at all.
JYN Where would you move?
JACK Don't know.
Somewhere else.
Somewhere—
(He searches for it.)
not here.
JYN Still waters think alike.
JACK Apparently.
2. THE HOSPITAL
JYN How's your friend?
JACK Hospital's a mess.
He's fine.
Happy as a clam in rehab.
Private room.
Waited on hand and—
JYN He made it to his sixties with joy still in his heart.
That's something.
JACK Yeah.
JYN Your life sounds like a whirl of good activity.
JACK That's one way of putting it.
JYN Inspiring.
JACK Don't say that.
JYN Why?
JACK Because I'm about to tell you about Saturday.
3. THE DARK NIGHT
JACK puts the phone down.
JACK She had a dark night.
We had the study on principles.
And I spent—
I don't know—
four or five hours listening to what a twerp I am.
(He smiles, but it doesn't quite work.)
Not fun.
It's been—
up and down.
Lately.
So I'm trying to keep busy.
Do-gooding.
Anything.
I figure I need about fifty—
(He makes quotation marks in the air.)
“Unadulterated”
—life events before I can get this cloud of me to go away.
JYN That's a lot of good deeds.
JACK Apparently I am a very complicated sinner.
JYN How about you?
JACK What?
JYN How are things in general?
JYN takes a breath.
4. THE IDEAL
JYN I've been realizing something.
About myself.
(Beat.)
I've spent most of my life pursuing an ideal relationship.
Not consciously.
I mean—
I never sat down and wrote it on a piece of paper.
But somewhere underneath everything was this idea that eventually—
I'd find the right person.
And that person would—
(He gestures, searching.)
unlock something.
I'd shed all the old stuff.
All the damage.
All the stupid patterns.
I'd become—
the person I was supposed to be.
JACK Yeah.
JYN And I'm realizing that's baloney.
JACK Bruh.
JYN I know.
JACK Same.
JYN Apparently we're both idiots.
JACK Apparently.
JYN So now I just keep trudging forward.
And hope incremental improvement eventually adds up to something.
JACK That's depressing.
JYN It's also strangely comforting.
5. MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION
JYN Annie and I are at peace right now.
JACK Good.
JYN But we're always—
(He holds two fingers very close together.)
one or two steps from the abyss.
Sometimes everything is bright.
Lovely.
We're laughing.
She's wonderful.
I'm wonderful.
We're this little family and everything makes sense.
And then—
(His hand drops.)
sometimes it feels like the threat of mutually assured destruction is the only thing keeping us from nuclear war.
JACK If only.
JYN What?
JACK If only it was just a little different.
(He counts them on his fingers.)
If only I was seen.
If only I was met.
If only I wasn't judged.
(A long pause.)
If only.
JYN Yeah.
JACK That's the whole thing.
They're a two-sided coin.
The shiny side—
(He smiles.)
best person in the universe.
Makes you believe in yourself.
Makes you feel like you could—
I don't know.
Conquer Mars.
JYN And the other side?
JACK You know.
(Beat.)
MAD is a good analogy.
JYN I'll pray for you.
JACK I know.
JYN No, I mean it.
JACK I know.
6. EMOTIONAL TONE
JYN I've been learning something.
The emotional tone matters more than the argument.
More than logic.
More than facts.
I can have every fact on my side.
I can be completely right.
And if the emotional tone is wrong—
I've already lost.
So I'm trying to build up—
(He searches.)
reserve.
JACK Reserve.
JYN Yeah.
JACK Like shields?
JYN Kind of.
JACK Okay.
Because I think—
that's where my story begins.
7. SHE GOT ME
JACK stands.
For the first time, he is not talking to JYN. He is remembering.
JACK She got me.
(Beat.)
That's it.
She got me.
She never judged me.
She accepted me.
And—
(He almost laughs at himself.)
showered me with appreciation.
If compatibility were the only qualification—
we were qualified.
No question.
We could talk.
Everything flowed.
We understood each other.
There just—
weren't things we didn't disagree about.
JYN But you weren't living together.
JACK No.
(Beat.)
And that's the qualifier.
We didn't live together.
Didn't have bills.
Didn't have—
real life.
I used to tell her—
“You would absolutely lose your mind if you knew how financially irresponsible I am.”
And I would lose my mind if I had to ignore every opportunity in front of me just to make sure there was a plan and comfort and a financial safety net.
We were compatible.
In theory.
(He smiles.)
Which is a dangerous kind of compatibility.
JYN Yeah.
JACK She has this bizarre ability not to care what anyone thought.
“I am who I am. Love it or not.”
That was basically her mantra.
Meanwhile I'm constantly trying to convince my wife that nobody is out to get her.
JYN And you wished you could communicate with your wife the way you communicated with her.
JACK Yeah.
(Quietly.)
That's the part I don't know how to explain.
It felt—
easy.
8. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN
JACK And then I remember—
my wife.
When she's on?
There is no one better.
Nobody.
She's hilarious.
She's fluid.
She's—
alive.
She can roll with a moment in a way nobody else could.
There are things we've done—
things that happened—
that could only have happened because she is exactly who she is.
If she were somebody else, those moments wouldn't exist.
(Beat.)
And that's the thing.
The same person can make you feel like a superhero—
and make you feel like you belong in the abyss.
Same person.
Same relationship.
Same love.
JYN Yeah.
JACK So when I say it began with this issue—
I mean worth.
Value.
Importance.
The feeling that I matter.
(He looks directly at JYN.)
The emotional tone is wildly important.
9. THE NAP
JACK I woke up from a nap in a terrible mood.
Post-meeting.
I knew it immediately.
I could feel it.
Taste it.
I told her—
“Hey. I'm in a really lousy mood. Don't take it wrong if I'm grouchy. It's not your fault. I don't know why I woke up like this.”
And then I stopped talking.
Not because I was angry.
Because I didn't want to hurt her.
So I just—
kept my mouth shut.
For half an hour.
(Beat.)
That was the grenade.
JYN The silence.
JACK The emotional tone.
She couldn't experience it as anything except an attack.
My words were an attack.
My silence was an attack.
My face—
probably an attack.
And of course—
the explanation was that something else was causing it.
(Beat.)
The old lightning rod.
JYN And you couldn't do anything right.
JACK Exactly.
That's what I don't know how to solve.
I can speak positively.
I can watch every word.
I can shut my mouth.
I can try to be—
safe.
And sometimes—
there's still a grenade.
JYN So what do you do?
JACK That's why I'm asking you.
What does emotional reserve actually mean?
Is it—
“Shields up?”
10. RAW NERVES
JYN For me?
Yeah.
Sort of.
Annie and I can absolutely give each other what we need.
When we're okay.
That's the strange part.
We're damaged in similar enough ways that sometimes we understand each other almost instinctively.
But if one of us gets low enough—
the good programming disappears.
Temporarily.
Everything we've learned.
Everything we've practiced.
Gone.
And what's underneath?
(Beat.)
Raw nerves.
Toxic defense mechanisms.
Destruction.
JACK So your job is—
JYN My job is to maintain my emotional health whether or not I feel supported in doing it.
JACK That's hard.
JYN Yeah.
It is.
So I do things.
I talk to friends.
Real friends.
People I can talk to about things underneath things.
I go to therapy when I need it.
I go to the gym.
Usually after Annie and the baby are asleep.
So I don't trigger that—
(He hesitates.)
abandonment thing.
I draw.
Especially when something inside me is unstable.
I listen to spiritual programs even when I absolutely don't want to.
JACK You force yourself.
JYN Sometimes.
JACK Why?
JYN Because I know what happens when I don't.
(Silence.)
All of it adds up.
Layers.
Not armor exactly.
More like—
protection around the raw nerves.
So when Annie says something cutting because she's hurting—
I have a better chance of hearing—
“I'm hurting.”
instead of—
“You are worthless.”
JACK That's the trick.
JYN Yeah.
Because growing up, everything was computed as a threat.
Every mood.
Every silence.
Every expression.
Everything meant something.
Everything meant—
“You are in danger.”
So that's the default.
Now I'm trying to teach myself—
this is not then.
This is now.
This isn't life or death.
This isn't worth or worthlessness.
This isn't—
(He stops.)
the end of the world.
11. THE INNER CHILD
JYN It's almost like bargaining with my inner child.
(JACK sits.)
I tell myself:
You can do the boring thing.
You can do the repetitive thing.
You can survive the hard thing.
Because later—
we're going to recharge.
There's going to be time for you.
We're not abandoning you.
And somehow—
that makes the mundane stuff bearable.
Which means I'm more engaged when I'm around Annie.
I'm in a better mood.
And she feels that.
And then she can relax.
And when she relaxes—
I relax.
JACK So the reserve isn't just protection from her.
JYN No.
JACK It's protection from yourself.
JYN Sometimes.
(Beat.)
Maybe that's most of it.
12. MOM'S MOOD
JYN There's another thing.
I had to tell myself—
I cannot live or die based on what Annie thinks of me.
Or how she's treating me right now.
Because when I was a kid—
the goodness of a day depended almost entirely on what mood my mom was in.
If she was good—
the world was good.
If she was bad—
the world was bad.
And somehow I carried that all the way here.
JACK So you're still checking the weather.
JYN Constantly.
JACK Is the sky safe?
JYN Exactly.
And being a people pleaser made it worse.
Because I thought—
if I can just manage the mood,
if I can keep everything smooth,
if I can make myself okay—
then she'll be okay.
But Annie can tell.
She knows when I'm pretending to be okay so I don't create waves.
And she knows when I'm actually okay.
JACK And the second one—
JYN The second one is what she needs.
Not my performance.
My actual stability.
JACK That's brutal.
JYN Yeah.
Because I used to think the goal was that we'd provide each other equal amounts of emotional stability.
(He shakes his head.)
That's not possible.
And sometimes it's not fair.
Sometimes she can't give me what I need.
And sometimes—
I can't give her what she needs.
JACK So you build your own reserve.
JYN Yeah.
13. THE RIVER
Silence.
JACK picks up his phone.
He looks at it.
Doesn't unlock it.
JACK I think that's what I was trying to say with my essay.
I didn't need emotional reserves with her.
The other one.
The person I fell in love with.
It was like—
(He looks up.)
falling into a river.
JYN A river.
JACK Yeah.
No effort.
No calculations.
No—
“How do I say this?”
No—
“Is this going to set something off?”
You just fall.
And the water takes you.
(Beat.)
Way too good.
Way too easy.
JYN Idealized fiction.
JACK Yeah.
Except—
it wasn't fiction.
That's the problem.
JYN No.
JACK It was real.
Just—
not all of reality.
14. THE SHORE
JACK My life with my wife is better.
(JYN looks at him.)
Not easier.
Not always happier.
Better.
Because it's real.
It's tangible.
Present.
And when it's good—
God.
It's great.
We have so many amazing moments that could only have happened because of who we are.
If she were somebody else—
they wouldn't have happened.
If she didn't have the capacity to roll with the moment—
the energy—
the punches—
we never would've stumbled into the life we've had.
(He smiles.)
And it's been epic.
JYN Yeah.
JACK And it'll be epic again.
JYN You believe that?
JACK It has to be.
(Beat.)
It simply must.
15. THE HARD EDGES
JYN I can't say I understand completely.
JACK No?
JYN I feel like I understand completely.
(They laugh.)
JYN I've been thinking about that too.
The ease of idealized fiction.
Versus the hard edges of reality.
JACK The river.
JYN And the shore.
JACK You'd rather be in the river.
JYN Of course.
JACK Why?
JYN Because you don't have to swim.
JACK And the shore?
JYN You have to learn how to stand.
(Silence.)
JACK That's the whole damn thing, isn't it?
JYN Maybe.
JACK You can't live in the river.
JYN No.
JACK You can't spend your whole life trying to get back into it.
JYN No.
JACK So what do you do?
JYN You build a life on the shore.
(A long silence.)
JACK And when the water comes back—
JYN You go swimming.
They look at each other.
Neither smiles.
Then, almost imperceptibly, both do.
Lights fade.
BLACKOUT.
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“May your seas be wide enough for wonder, your harbor always waiting, and your light never fail when another soul is searching.” – The Lantern Keeper