Furry the Dog By Jackson C. Characters: FURRY the dog, male MOM, a dog, female Setting: junkyard by BART/West Oakland, Beach in San Francisco Time: day into evening At Rise: at the junkyard MOM Today my son is leaving to go the beach and even though he’s promised to return, I really doubt he will. A long, long time ago I’d been to the very same beach FURRY My whole life I’ve lived in a noisy junkyard in West Oakland. The train tracks were 100 feet away, and all day and all night cars and trucks went by. The shipping containers on the trucks made a loud bang with every bump or pothole they went over all my life. I’ve yearned to make it to the beach in the city. It was quiet and open . . . I could do whatever I want. Today I was planning my trip there. I was gonna take the BART, and today was the last day I could sneak on BART and back before they remolded tomorrow. My mom thinks that if I go to the beach I won’t be grateful for where we live when I return. I convinced her to let me go already, but I can tell she still doesn’t want me to go. MOM Good Morning Furry. FURRY Morning. MOM What’s your plans today? FURRY I want to go to the beach today. MOM The Beach? All the way in San Francisco? FURRY Yes, but before you say no, today is the last day I can go because they’re remodeling the train station and I won’t be able to sneak on anymore! MOM I’ve already told you why you shouldn’t go there and you shouldn’t be sneaking on trains anyways. FURRY How can you say no?! It’s so nice there and you don’t have to worry about me getting hurt. MOM Because Furry, even though the destination is safe, the journey there is long and dangerous. (pause) I have to tell you something Furry. FURRY What? MOM It’s about your Father. FURRY (who hasn’t seen his Dad since a very young age) What about him? MOM Two dog years ago today on the fourth of July, someone threw a M-1000 in the street and your dad thought it was a dog treat so naturally he ran into the street to fetch it. Next thing you know his entire head and neck exploded into a million pieces in a loud BOOM and everyone in he crowd watching the fireworks that night laughed at what just happened. If you go to the city tonight I’m afraid you’ll make the same mistake. FURRY I thought he was hit by a car! How come you never told me? MOM I didn’t think you could handle the truth. FURRY I’ll be safe, how much worse can it be than here? MOM I just want you to be safe. FURRY I will be safe. MOM And another thing. FURRY What? MOM I’m warning you now that once you see the beauty of the beach you may never want to come home. FURRY You sound crazy. MOM Trust me I’ve been there myself, it was very hard to go home after. FURRY Okay well I promise to come home. MOM Okay. FURRY So you’ll let me go? MOM I guess so. FURRY Thanks Mom I promise to come back! MOM If you’re not on that train my 8:00. I swear. FURRY Yea, I will be. (Furry says as he bounds off toward the train station) MOM Today my son is leaving to go to the beach and even though he’s promised to return, I really doubt he will. A long, long time ago I’d been to that very same beach, and it took everything my mom had to get me to finally leave. I’m too old to be sneaking onto trains, but without my accompanying him there probably won’t be anything that could make him want to come back. FURRY Wow, the beach was everything I imagined. I checked the time it was 7:34 I only had 26 minutes to BART or I could never go home. I thought about those last four over and over; did I really want to go home? I could see myself living here forever. It was always hot, the ocean was nice and cold against my fur and the beach went on for miles and miles just like I imagined. But then I thought about my mom, this is exactly what she said would happen. Had she been here before? If she had why didn’t we live here? Instead of that noisy junkyard, full of trash and rusty metal . . . But at least I wasn’t a stray, my mom provided everything for me and it would be unfair to abandon her. I made my decision. As I bounded back to the BART I was sad to leave the beach. Not sure when I would return, I took one last look at the ocean, the little blue waves forming and then gently falling apart into a smaller piece of white, the yellow sand, great in the post sunset colors. It wasn’t till I was on BART that I completely knew I made the right decision. MOM The clock confirmed my fear. Fury still wasn’t back; I hadn’t even gotten a call from him. I knew he wasn’t coming back but I still checked the crowd for him. Every time a train left the station, I slowly made my way home, looking over my back every few steps . . . As I climbed into the burnt-out trailer, I vividly remembered the sounds of his bark, collar and footsteps. I knew I must be going crazy, that this must be some weird side effect of him leaving, I heard the bark again, it startled me, then I turned around and Furry was home. – The End –
