Dutchman

Lula enters the train car. Eating an apple, she moves toward Clay and is “waiting for [Clay] to notice her before she sits” (5). He does and looks up at her, and the two begin to converse. Lula asks why Clay was staring at her through the window and accuses him of checking her out, saying he was “staring […] down in the vicinity of my ass and legs” (7). “Wow, now I admit that I was looking in your direction. But the rest of that weight is yours” (7), Clay responds. Lula says that she boarded the train to search for him. Thinking she’s flirting with him, Clay starts flirting back, before Lula calls him out, saying, “You think I want to pick you up, get you to take me somewhere and screw me, huh?” (8).

Lula starts to infer things about Clay, telling him that he “look[s] like you live in New Jersey with your parents and are trying to grow a beard” (8). “You look like death eating a soda cracker” (8), she says. Because her presumptions are mostly correct, he assumes she must know him in some way. She insists that she doesn’t and starts flirting with him more, putting her hand on his knee. 

Lula then offers Clay an apple, which he accepts. “Eating apples together is always the first step” (11), Lula says. Lula asks if Clay wants to “get involved” (11) and Clay responds, “Sure. Why not?” (11). Lula takes Clay by the wrist and starts shaking it, while asking him, “I bet you’re sure of almost everything anybody ever asked you about…right?” (11).

Clay urges Lula to explain how she knows so much about him, and she insists he’s a “well-known type” (12) that she’s very familiar with. They keep talking, and Lula suggests that Clay take her to the party he’s going to. Clay agrees, but first asks her name, which she first says is Lena). She asks for his name and insists again that he take her to the party, but when he asks, she responds, “I’d like to go, Clay, but how can you ask me to go when you barely know me?” (16). She then escalates her flirting, “grab[bing] his thigh, near the crotch” (17), before slumping in her seat and thumbing through the pages of a book, silent and seemingly bored. 

Clay starts engaging Lula in conversation again, asking if she’ll go to the party, and she becomes “strangely irritated” (17). “Don’t get smart with me, Buster. I know you like the palm of my hand” (17), she says. Clay asks if he’s said something wrong and she gets animated again, asking why he’s wearing a jacket and tie. Though she first asks because of the heat, she adds, “What right do you have to be wearing a three-button suit and striped tie? Your grandfather was a slave, he didn’t go to Harvard” (18). Clay says his grandfather was a “night watchman” (18), and Lula says Clay must have gone to a “colored college” (18). Lula asks Clay, “Who did you think you were?” and though Clay responds he thought he was Baudelaire in college, Lula responds, “I bet you never once thought you were a black nigger” (19).

Lula once again becomes friendly, telling him that everything he says is “perfect” (19) and he should be on television. Lula claims she’s an actress and immediately denies it, explaining that “I always lie” (19).

The two start talking about Clay’s parents and their political affiliations; Lula begins toasting to them and then to Clay, saying, “yea yea for you, Clay Clay” (20). Though joking at first, Lula’s statements take a turn as she says, “May the people accept you as a ghost of the future. And love you, that you may not kill them when you can” (21). Clay is confused, and Lula accuses him of being a “murderer,” saying, “You know goddamn well what I mean” (21). Lula says that “we’ll pretend the air is light [… and] the people cannot see you” (21). “And that you are free of your own history. And I am free of my history,” she continues, before yelling “GROOVE!” before the stage goes black (21).