A letter to Canada about Australia

I sort of stuffed up a lttle with this letter, writing way over my audience's head. My partner's cousin had a school project where she had to ask someone from another country to describe that countries geography. I thought the cousin was about 16, but she was actually only 8! I wrote this in October - November 2004.

Dear L____

G'day from Australia, the smallest and driest continent, the biggest island - I'm Josh, N____'s partner. I read your letter and liked the idea, so decided to respond. I've travelled a fair amount around Australia, though not yet to West Australia or Tasmania. My partner and I met while at University in Wollongong. In a funny way, it is a good example of most of the populated areas of Australia.

Wollongong sits along a mostly flat strip of land about three kilometres in width, between the Pacific Ocean and an escarpment that forms part of the great dividing range(1). It relies on fishing, farming, the steel works and the university in the main, as well as the assorted occupations required in a city.

One spring morning, on top of Hospital Hill, while the mist rolled in slow motion waterfalls from the escarpment that stretches away to the north, and the flares from the industrial hell of Port Kembla to the south lit the twilight sky in shades of yellow, orange, blue and pink, I found a wallaby(2), lured into the town by the new buds and flowers in gardens, struck dead by a car or ambulance, in the gutter outside Emergency.

Further away to the south is Macquarie Pass, once a logging track that is the main route up to the Southern Highlands, where N____'s parents live. It is a lovely road that wends its way through subtropical rainforests, mosses and waterfalls. There are a number of rainforests in Australia, all the way down the east coast, in wet pockets between the dry sclerophyll(3) woodlands. In Tasmania, the island state south of the mainland, the climate is much wetter, and they have the oldest plant in the world; a type of cycad or holly - I forget how old it is, 43 000 to 120 000 years, but the remains of its own leaves are partially fossilised around is base.

My mum's farm is in C_________, also on the Southern Highlands, about three hours drive from Sydney. It is a lamb and potatoes region, though my mum farms goats and has heavy horses. At the moment the whole south east of Australia is in drought, and although the rolling hills around C________ that stretch to the horizon are as green as the fields of Ireland right now, it is all a lie. There haven't been enough winter and spring rains to properly soak the soil or fill the dams, and when Summer comes the fields will turn brown and bare. When you walk in them clouds of dust puff up around your ankles.

In times past, due to the application of European agricultural techniques, which aren't suited to Australian soils or climate, the farmers used to lose a lot of topsoil to wind and also rain(4) erosion. In the 1980's a giant dust cloud covered Melbourne. This is mainly under control now, it is illegal to log along creeks and rivers, but the big problem these days it that due to the removal of so many trees for pasture and crops, the water table has risen in many places. This is a problem, especially in Western Australia, because the water is very salty, a legacy of the continent's past when there were inland seas, and the salt ends up coming to the surface where it clogs up the soil and basically destroys any chance of anything growing there. This is a nation-wide disaster in waiting.

Another is the overall way that Australians use water. We waste a lot of it, using drinking water in toilets, for example. Things are starting to change a bit now though, but only due to impending calamity; Sydney is due to run out of water in two years if the drought doesn't break- some towns are already trucking in water. Under much of the country there are acquifers, including the Great Artesian Basin. There are many bores that for many years have been bringing these subterranean waters to the surface, at a greater rate than they can be filled, a slow process that takes thousands of years. In many areas the bores are no longer attended- when I was twelve on a trip around the country, we found an oasis in the desert, an abandonded train station where steaming hot water gushed from a broken pipe. Most of the water, of course, evaporates. Another oasis was a meteorite crater. Because most of the rock had been fused at the bottom by the heat and force of the impact, it made a bowl where water would collect- not enough to see, but enough for the plants. Where there are plants, there are birds, reptiles and marsupials- the desert hopping mouse never has to drink in its life, it can make its own water in the chemical reactions in its stomach from the carbohydrates it eats.

It is very hot in the deserts, a different type of heat to the coasts' because the air is so dry. It doesn't really even feel that hot, though the beads of sweat that run as fast as a tap should warn you that it is. It can be very dangerous. People used to die (different now with mobile phones) if they ran out of petrol in the outback and didn't have heaps of water. The distances are huge: on that trip when I was a boy we did 9 000 kms in three weeks.

When you think of deserts you probabaly think of the Sahara, all sand and death, but our deserts aren't like that. In the Northern Territory, around Uluru and Kata Tjuka (Ayers Rock and The Olgas) the sands are a rusty red, and it is hot and dry, but life abounds; there are allocasaurinas, eucalypts, wattles(5), many more species of trees and bushes, and of course, spinefex(6). Even in Sturt's Stoney Desert, the remnants of an ancient sea bed, where pebbles and dust stretch to the horizon,and it seemed that here was a death place, I saw galahs, emus, kites, kangaroos and of course, spinefex (though not many or much).

Outside of the perenially wet pockets the plants have to be tough to survive. Most have leaves with very few stomata(7) and thick layers of wax to avoid water loss. Eucalypts actually angle their leaves through the day so that they present a sidewards (the thinnest) profile to the sun. It is very dry and hot, but also our soils are particularly poor in their quality. This is because Australia is a very old continent. The lack of tectonic activity for millions of years has seen our mountains eroded down to stumps- look up Mount Warning on the web; our highest peak in the Snowy Mountains, Mt Kosciusko, is only 2230 metres. It always snows in the Snowies, but it is practically the only place where it does(8).

Because our soils are so poor, and differ from mineral content from area to area, t makes it difficult for one species to dominate, so we have a wonderful biodiversity amongst our plantlife. Eucalypts create a huge amount of oil impregnated bark and leaf wastes, that in our hot and dry conditions will carry a fire with ease across a landscape. They burn well, and like it because it kills competitors and makes nutrients available again in the form of ash. Eucalypts have special epicormic buds, just below the surface of the bark, that burst out when a fire has passed through, feathering their trunks and branches in fresh growth, gentle reds at first that change to the distinctive blue-grey-green of an adult leaf. Many other plant's seeds, like wattles and banksias, actually rely on a fire scorching them to germinate.

When Captain Cook first arrived, he described the landscape as being open woodlands; grass beneath a fairly continuous canopy of Eucalypts. This was because the Aboriginals(9) used fire to farm. They would ensure that the undergrowth and waste never built up too much, smothering the grasses that the kangaroos liked to eat. They burnt the land in little patches, always. Captain Cook reported the smoke of many fires the way along the coast(10).

You might see on the news now and again we have huge bushfires every few years; houses are burnt, people die, huge areas laid waste. Many native animals that survive the fires die of stavation afterwards because the fires have burnt everything for as far as they can travel. This is due to the land being improperly managed, as we no longer follow the procedures the Aboiginals utilised.

There are a few reasons why Australia is so dry. One is due to it being situated along the Tropic of Capricorn; there are corresponding deserts in Chile. This is something to do with the cold of Antartica meeting up with the heat of the equator. Deserts also lie along the Tropic of Cancer. The reason we get droughts in cycles (for the south east cost at least) is due to a Pacific Ocean current called El Nino, which oscillates the rain back and forth between South America and Australia. With Global Warming, the current is becoming erratic, which has dire implications. The North of Australia is monsoonal, so they are usually drought struck through winter and flooded in summer, while Tasmania's climate shares that of New Zealand- similar again to England's. I don't really know much about West Australia's except it is much drier than the East Coast but roughly corresponds, and South Australia's is also very dry. At the moment the drought there is killing the sorts of trees that normally survive.

We get cyclones across the north of Australia sometimes, in 1973 our territory capital Darwin was destroyed by one. When I was four, holidaying in Queensland, we got stranded by the accompanying floods. Because I had chicken pox, and the authorities didn't want an epidemic, my family was given separate quarters from the rest of the refugees, in a stilted hut amongst the tall dark trunks of eucalypts that doubled their length in the ankle deep waters at their base.

In Sydney, our winters are mild- 14C is a cold day. Spring is characterised for me by cold winds that slip through your jumper while the sun warms your face and a deep blue sky. Summers are hot, and so still and muggy it's like swimming in mud, you wish you could cut the air with a knife. On days like these we long for the Southerly Buster, those cool winds from Antartica. On the beach in Summer you can see them coming- a cloud that looks like a rolled up carpet. When it hits, pandemonium! The golden white sands so hot underfoot sting your legs, beach umbrellas soar sixty metres or more, and everyone scuttles towel clad for safety. Autumn doesn't really exist except for the imported deciduous trees: at some indefinable point, summer just becomes winter.

So- to finish, Australia is a continent, so we have all sorts of climates and terrains, but mainly we cluster along the arable strip of our coastlines, fighting to survive the droughts and attendant bushfires, that, with Global Warming, are to become more prevalent and longer, especially in the south eastern corner of Australia where the bulk of our population lives. Next time you drink a glass of the water that abounds in your country, think how precious it is to people, plants and animals on the other side of the world.

yours sincerely

Josh Avila

ps. Sydney's topography is essentially a slanted plateau sloping to the ocean- this means we just allow our stormwater and sewage to go to waste, taking the path of least resistanace to the sea. This topography is also responsible for Sydney's summer conditions- inversion layers blanket the city (cold air sitting on top of warm air, like thermoclines in water)

(1)An ancient mountain chain that blocks the rain clouds from getting inland.

(2)Like a small kangaroo

(3)Any woody plant with leathery leaves retaining water.

(4)When it does rain it pours. In 1998 in Wollongong we had 400mm of rain in 24hrs, most of it falling in one. There were flash floods and two people died.

(5)One species, the Golden Wattle, is our national flower. It is now a weed in many areas because it has been planted outside it's natural range.

(6)A very important spiky native grass, whose clumps form microclimates that give shelter to many small marsupials and also form the basis of the diet of termites, whose role in the ecosystem is critical.

(7)Very small holes that allow the plant to 'breathe' in Carbon Dioxide and 'exhale' oxygen and water vapour. These littleholes actually pull the water up from the ground through a process called transpiration.

(8)There is a very big dam in the Snowy Mountains that was built largely by migrants in the 1950's when Australia had a 'populate or perish' policy, driven by fear of 'the Yellow Peril' of Asia, also reflected in its 'White Australia' policy. World War two saw huge numbers of Europeans displaced, and many came to Australia. The value of migration began to be seen, my parents arrived in the sixties as 'Ten Pound Poms.' By the 1980's we, with Canada, had the best record for immigration and a resultant vibrant multi-cultural society (in the cities at least). Also by then Australia had begun to revise its opinion of how the Aboriginals were treated through history. It is true to say that the English came here and made war on them with guns, germs and alcohol, destroying their culture, stealing their land, then their languages and children.
The cultural progression has been halted in recent years, and the ugly spectre of racism has gained under the aegis of our Prime Minister, whose government has provided adequate financial management for the economy at the cost of our health, education and morality. His small minded stance and divisive politics that trade on fear and greed has seen refugees denied lawful entry, children imprisoned, the denial of Aboriginal history and landrights, a continued debasement of the environment, involvement in an illegal war and an alliance so tightly knit with the USA that we have become a non-voting American state and a resultant terrorist target, to name a few.
We have a lot of myths in Australia about 'a fair go' and 'Aussie battlers' and 'independence of spirit and disrespect for authority,' but that's all nonsense. This nation has always been about criminals, convicts and sheep. The brittle and grasping attitude of our PM could well be a relectin of the country; facile, we cling to the coast the way around, our interior shied away from, even in name, the outback.

(9)The Aboriginal tribe that inhabited the Sydney region were called the Eora. Try to find out about the wars fought between the colony and Pemulway. It will be hard, because they tried to cover up all evidence of conflict.

(10)A lot of my information comes from a book called 'The Future Eaters,' by Dr Tim Flannery. It is very easy to read and well worth finding.

the history of my surname as i know it

It’s not clear how or exactly when my ancestors arrived in England, but they were without doubt Sephardic Jews. Somewhere along the line the surname became anglicised slightly, in that the pronunciation changed from ‘a villa’ to ‘avala’ with a hard middle ‘a’. Given the persecution that the Jews were subjected to through Spain, and the rest of Europe across history, the actions of my great great grandfather should come as no real surprise. He had a daughter and three sons, one of whom I am descended.
By that stage, I was told, my family had accrued a huge manor house in the country, with peacocks strutting across the lawns. He was a real freak, who doted on his daughter, and condemned the sons to grow up in the workers’ cottages at the bottom of his estates. When they turned 18 he horse-whipped them from his lands.
My great grandfather, foreswearing Judaism, was a drunk who died at the age of 45, having moved from the UK to Canada to the UK, he abandoned his wife, daughter and son after moving to Australia. My Great Grandmother was forced to become a ‘private nurse’ for wealthy old men. She had to leave my Grandpa Jim and Great Aunt in care, and wouldn’t see them for months. At one of these places when my grandpa Jim was seven, the carer, basically a mad farmer, had some odd ideas about hygiene. He would hose them down in a courtyard in the middle of winter once a week, and circumcised my grandfather with a kitchen knife.
Grandpa Jim met and married granny Molly, nee Bedford, and Andrew, Ian (my Dad) and Kay were the resultant issue, Kay apparently very quickly: upon the first contraction, Molly grabbed the bucket kept handy (because they slept upstairs and the loo was downstairs) and as her waters broke they carried Kay out along with them. My Dad tells me that Jim was pretty tough with them when they were kids; bashing his brother Andrew about. Dad once related a tale of defenestrating to escape Grandpa Jim’s rage. Fortunately, Jim managed to mellow across the years. His method of estimating what sort of a person you were was, upon first meeting, to immediately insult you, and then laugh like a drain. You either laughed along or were affronted, which meant he could relax or treat you with gloved disdain.
The night before Dad was born, so the story goes, granny Molly had seen a film about werewolves. Dad was born in 1943, with a caul, a wrapping of hair that lines the amniotic sack in the womb and is superstitiously regarded as proof against drowning, so Molly thought she’d borne a lycanthrope. Dad told me once of how a doodle bug landed a few houses away, bringing down all the plaster from the ceiling, and how scared Molly was, which made him very scared, and the crater was big enough to fit a London double decker into, which must be a very early memory indeed.
Perhaps because of a troubled home life, or the impact of the war on his childhood, Dad didn’t achieve much at his schooling, though became passionate about scouting. At 16 he went on a solo holiday to Spain, and at 18 signed up with ‘the big brother’ movement, an organization that exported young British men to help populate Australia. It was not the greatest of voyages, though Dad only really remembers the excitement of it. There were some problems on the ship, and because of his beard and the maturity his experiences had given him, he was unofficially delegated by the other boys on board as their spokesman. When they arrived in Sydney, they were all taken out to a farm at Cabramatta, at that stage still a rural area. Dad protested at being used as slave labour, a charge the ‘big brother’ movement represented as agricultural training, and told him to get stuffed,
On the word of a bloke that he met in a pub in England, he hitchhiked all the way up the east coast to Townsville, through the wet season. The road was unpaved back then, and I can recall Dad describing the difference between the two sorts of mud: black and red. The Red was the worst and easiest to get bogged in, as it was so slippery.
He arrived in Townsville in the middle of a recession. Luckily, the last lift he got into town was with a decent fellow, who, after establishing with Dad that his connection didn’t exist, gave Dad a bed for the night and use of a shower. The next morning Dad was driven to the labour exchange, where he was told of a job as a cowboy, on a station near Cloncurry, a remote township near Mt Isa. He couldn’t believe his good fortune: it was the dream job of his childhood. After reassuring the employment agency that he wouldn’t have any troubles sharing his quarters with a black, not sharing the incipient racism most Australians bore at the time, he made his way to the train station.
As he tells it, this was the first of many cultural shocks. The plan was to catch the train to Mt Isa, then hop a lift with the postman out to Cloncurry and the station. Dad had in his mind ‘English’ distances and standards. The train was effectively a goods train that never sped up and took forever. The postman was not a little red van but a road train. A cowboy in Australia mucks out the cow stall; those that ride the horses we call stockmen. After a few months, Dad begged the station manager to let him be a stockman too, which was granted, provided he maintained his previous duties, which he did.
After some time at this, dad and Ray, another stockman of the same age he’d befriended, took off round the country working on a carnival. After a further while at that, he and Ray set off in 1962-3 to go to England overland through Asia, the middle East, Eastern Europe (where they had a run in with the secret police), and Western Europe. When they got to the UK, they were pretty crook with hepatitis, though Ray kept sneaking out to the pub. When he was better, Dad looked up Mum first of all his old crew, as she was the only one who’d maintained contact with him through his adventures.
One thing followed another and in 1965 my older brother was born. After a couple of years in the UK, my parents became 10 pound Poms, and migrated to Australia. Dad says he’d been feeling a growing desperation in England, where the freedom of spirit he’d gained had been worn down by the relentless slog of being in England, and putting up with the English, so for him it was a great relief to arrive in Surfers Paradise.
Looking for the riches that the frontier of Australia had to offer, Dad went fossicking for opals in SW Queensland for six months with an English bloke who claimed to be ex WW2 SAS. At the end of the trip, they were ready to kill each other, and split the prospected boulder opal between them.
My parents moved to Sydney, where Mum got a job and Dad went to Uni. I was born toward the end of his degree.

short play: 10 minutes

This was supposed to be a period specific piece, utilising the art movement of the time as inspiration and writing within the movement's approach. I chose absurdism, looking more at Harold Pinter than Beckett. One thing Pinter does really well is a 'comedy of menace', (especially in The Caretaker) which I strove for, but didn't quite reach. . . Despite this, the piece works in its own right, and is due to be preformed at Uni pretty soon.


The Custom

by Josh Avila 2005

Characters:

Paul casually dressed mid 20s to early 30s
Katrina smartly dressed mid 20s to early 30s
Waitress casually dressed in black early 20s
Steve smartly dressed mid 20s to early 30s


The Cafe should be set up with a number of tables and chairs. White table cloths, a little vases with posies. The door to the street is off stage, the kitchen opposite. Paul and Katrina should barely look at each other while they sit at their table. Katrina sits alone at a table, looking out aimlessly into the audience. She does not see Paul enter from the street.


PAUL: G’day, g’day

KATRINA: Paul!

PAUL: Sorry I’m late, have you been waiting long?

KATRINA: You’d be late to your own funeral, so no, I haven’t been waiting long. I came
late myself.

PAUL: I don’t mean to be late.

KATRINA: It’s alright. Don’t worry about it.

PAUL: Well. . . this is a nice spot.

KATRINA: Where?

PAUL: Here. This café. I like it.

KATRINA: Yes. I often have lunch here. It’s close to my work.

PAUL: Wooden tables, comfy chairs. Pot plants, pretty waitress. I like it. So how
long has it been again? About a year and a half?

KATRINA: I guess so. About that.

PAUL: Everything’s changed a lot since then.

KATRINA: It certainly has.

Pause

PAUL: You know, one time he told me, it would have been at a place like this, I
mean not this café, but one like it. Maybe with the tables on the street,
yes, that was it, anyway, he was walking past it, this café: he’d just been to
another one, I think he’d had lunch with Steve, you remember Steve, at a different
café, it was probably a bit like this one too, I mean they’re all a bit the same aren’t
they. . . I don’t know if he ate, but they would’ve had coffee, anyway he was walking
past this café on his way to his girlfriend‘s, when he heard yelling from across the
street, from this café—

KATRINA: I thought he was walking past it.

PAUL: What?

KATRINA: This café.

PAUL: What, here?

KATRINA: No, the Café.

PAUL: No, he was on the other side of the street to it. The other side.

KATRINA: He loved a good coffee.

PAUL: Yes.

KATRINA: They make a good one here.

PAUL: I hope so. . .

KATRINA: When was all this again?

PAUL: It would have been about two years ago.

KATRINA: Not long before then. . . before . . .

Pause

PAUL: Yes. I guess you could say it was symptomatic.

Pause

What he did, see, was there was this yelling from across the street, from this
café with the tables outside, what do you call it? Al, al fresco, al fresco. . . so
this guy was screaming at the waitress on the footpath, I don’t know what
about, but really angrily, like, just full of rage, I think it was about the service, or the
food, or something, and he had a bad headache, from being in the city he said, you
know how he loved the country, I mean he was living there wasn’t he, so anyway he
waited until there was a gap in the in the traffic and a. . . pause in the torrent of
abuse and called out for the guy to shut up, and that he should be polite, and then
the guy came over the road at him, and screamed at him and swung a punch that
he dodged, and then another that he said he mostly dodged, but it kind of grazed
his ear a bit, and then he said he looked the guy in his eyes and said ‘You punch
like a girl.’ He said the guy turned purple with rage, purple, and started to belt him,
but some other blokes who were friends of the waitress came over the road and
started fighting with the guy, so he went across the road and talked to the waitress
and she gave him a coffee.

Pause

And then a few hours later he was at a bookshop and someone who must
have seen the fight asked him if he was okay, and he said for a moment he knew
what it was to be a celebrity.

Pause

Yes, it pays to be polite.

Enter waitress

WAITRESS: Are you order to ready now?

PAUL: A long double black with a side serve of chilled milk thanks.

KATRINA: Could I have a latte, please?

WAITRESS: Okay. Do you want any thing to eat? The soup’s good today.

PAUL: What sort of soup?

WAITRESS: Tomato. It’s good.

PAUL: Alright then. You’ve sold me.

KATRINA: Could I have the BLT today, please?

WAITRESS: Sure.

Exit waitress

PAUL: So have you seen Steve at all?

KATRINA: No, not since. . .

PAUL: No, me neither. Yes, it was a sad day. But there were signs. In hindsight.

KATRINA: So reckless.

PAUL: She’s quite fetching, isn’t she?

KATRINA: I suppose.

PAUL: Yes. And chivalrous.

Pause.

KATRINA: He was that too.

PAUL: But a real risk taker. Like you say, reckless.

KATRINA: Yes.

PAUL: One time I remember, it was, oh, years ago. We were all very drunk, me Steve and
him, and we went down into the train tunnels, because it was late, and we didn’t’
have any money for a cab, those were the days, free. . . we could see what we
were doing well enough, but we thought the trains had stopped running only they
hadn’t, and we felt that rush of air from an oncoming train, and had to run to the
spaces they make for people like us, so I went for the nearest, and Steve the one
after, but he, well, he ran past two or three before jumping into the shelter.

KATRINA: I guess you can see some connections. In hindsight.

PAUL: Yes.

Enter waitress with coffees

WAITRESS: Your latte—

KATRINA: Thank you.

WAITRESS: and a long black. (as the waitress places the coffee down she spills some in Paul’s lap)

PAUL: Bloody Hell!

WAITRESS: Oh dear! Here, let me—

PAUL: No, I’m alright thanks.

WAITRESS: Please—

PAUL: Don’t worry about it.

WAITRESS: I’m really very sorry.

PAUL: Look, I’m dry all ready.

Pause as waitress exits

PAUL: Well!

KATRINA: He was very important to me. We were going to. . . we had plans.

PAUL: And she’s forgotten my milk.

KATRINA: I miss him.

PAUL: Service like that in a place like this?

KATRINA: I really miss him. I’ve had. . . a hard time of it, you know.

Pause

PAUL: I don’t like to complain, you know, but it’s the principle. . . still, she’s easy on the eye. That’s probably how she got the job. Life’s easier for beautiful people.

KATRINA: There’s Steve!

PAUL: What?

KATRINA: Steve! (exits)

PAUL: (looking off) Why so it is. Fancy that.

Pause. Paul sips his coffee and grimaces. Enter Steve and Katrina

KATRINA: We were just talking about you—

PAUL: Fancy meeting you here.

STEVE: Hello Paul.

PAUL: Steve.

KATRINA: What have you been up to since we saw you last?

STEVE: Just the same old stuff.

PAUL: Typical.

STEVE: What?

KATRINA: Paul.

PAUL: I said typical. My life has been drastically changed since, since. . . and Katrina’s—
no don’t interrupt, this needs to be said— it’s just typical. You live your life in a
moral vacuum, Steve. And if anyone could have done something. . . You were the
one responsible! It was your fault he—

KATRINA: Paul!

Pause

STEVE: Yes. . . Well, it was nice to see you, Katrina. We should catch up some time.

KATRINA: Yes. Steve, I’m sorry for—

STEVE: You’re not to blame, Katrina.

PAUL: (rising to his feet) And I am, is that it? Well, stuff you Steve. You better watch it.
Stuff you. Go on, get out of it. We were doing fine before you appeared on the
scene. What do you want to hang around here for? Why couldn’t you just keep
walking? Go on, piss off, piss off then, you parasite.

STEVE: I see you haven’ t changed a bit. Katrina. (exits)

Pause. Paul sits down again.

PAUL: Don’t say a word.

KATRINA: I can’t believe you, Paul. It’s been over a year. You could have at least tried. . .

PAUL: Maybe you can forget. . .

Enter Waitress with food

WAITRESS: Here we are then, your usual BLT—

KATRINA: Thank you.

WAITRESS: and a tomato soup. (as the waitress places the soup, Paul turns and knocks the bowl, spilling some over himself)

PAUL: Bloody Hell! (rises, knocking his chair over)

WAITRESS: I’m so sorry! Please, let me—

PAUL: Just get out of it, leave me alone!

WAITRESS: I’m so sorry, it was an accident.

PAUL: It’s incompetence, that’s what it is.

WAITRESS: Look, I didn’t—

PAUL: You probably got this job on the strength of your looks, hey? What did you do, fuck
the manager?

KATRINA: Paul!

WAITRESS: I don’t have to take this.

PAUL: You stupid incompetent cow.

KATRINA: /Paul!

WAITRESS: /You overbearing pig!

PAUL: How dare you speak to me like that. I’m a customer, the customer is always
right.

WAITRESS: They don’t pay me enough for this.

PAUL: A customer.

KATRINA: Paul!

WAITRESS: I already apologized, not that you’ve noticed. What more do you want?

PAUL: I’m a customer! I pay your wages.

KATRINA: I’m so sorry.

WAITRESS: I think you should leave.

PAUL: I’ll leave when I’m ready. I’m a customer. I tell you what to do, that’s how it works.
I’m the customer. . . You can forget about a tip.

WAITRESS: I’m not your slave, dickhead.

KATRINA: I’m so sorry, I never meant—

PAUL: What did you call me? You can’t talk to me like that. How dare you?

WAITRESS: If you don’t call the police, I’m going to leave now.

KATRINA: I’m so sorry. (exits)

PAUL: (exiting) Who’d want to eat in a shit hole like this anyway? You’ll be lucky if I don’t
call the health department. Incompetence. Fucking incompetence.

WAITRESS: Don’t let the door hit you. . .

PAUL: Typical. Incompetence. It’s symptomatic.