Zoo Creatures
rated T * completed 3.28.21 * could use a rewrite
• • •LANCE: Why is it like the only girls that like me have super low self-esteem?
SHANE: Maybe it’s because with low self-esteem comes bottomless standards.
LANCE shoves SHANE with his free hand that’s not steering the van.
LANCE: Shove it up your ass. At least the girls that liked me are still girls, Shane.
SHANE: (warning) Leave that out of this, that’s different and you know it.
LANCE: (mordant) I can’t see why you break it off whenever they make the change
SHANE: Because I’m looking for a girlfriend, not a… nevermind. This is about you, isn’t it?
LANCER stops mocking SHANE and he returns to the topic at hand, clapping his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.
LANCE: This is the second girl to hit on me when I never even looked at her that way.
SHANE: (bitterly) Oh, lucky lucky.
LANCE: Yeah, and she just told me out of nowhere she’s got some nasty feelings for me— after I treated her like garbage all year! That’s weird, you know? (enunciated) Weird.
SHANE: (disinterested) Ha. Not a good sign.
LANCE: Right? Blakely’s a weirdo!
Immediately, SHANE sobers and a stupefied expression lands on his face— like he’s been slapped.
SHANE: Blakely? Blakely North? Like, my-slutty-co-worker-at-Starbucks Blakely North?
LANCE: Uh, yeah, pretty sure that’s the only Blakely around. What about her?
SHANE: Lancer, I… dammit! Augh, you get everything you want, just for being a cringey joke!
LANCER raises an eyebrow and gives SHANE a hard, quizzical glare.
LANCE: Everything I want? I never wanted Blakely! She’s just been funny to troll, she’s jumpy and a crybaby. What makes you think I want her?
SHANE: (flabbergasted, shaking) I-I’m… so many dudes want her… (sober, beat) But obviously not for her personality. She’s really stupid and desperate, they say. She must really, really hate herself to wanna fling herself on you…
LANCE: (actually getting pissed) Yeah, so you’re definitely jealous the flighty gamer broad didn’t text you back on Discord. Try having a personality next time, maybe. Why do you freaks want her if she’s so fuckin’ dumb anyway?
SHANE: Easily, she’s hot! Look at her body, do you even look at girls’ bodies?
LANCE: Duh, of course I do— chicks are all I ever think about! But you think I’m really going to go out my way and waste my time on trying? It’s a trap. And I’m not gonna trick myself into thinking I’ve got a chance!
SHANE: (cynical) Clearly you don’t; you’ve always been weird about real girls. It’s always been you and your “waifus” and you or some unrealistic crush, a chick straight out of your league! Remember when you “loved” Vivi?
LANCE: Fuck off…
SHANE: (disingenuous) Lance. You think that could be why you've never had an actual girlfriend? You don’t want a real girl. You want your fantasy, you want something that’ll never happen. And it’s like you weaponize your virginity at every girl that tries you!
SHANE laughs snidely at his blow, and LANCE’s face begins to crumble in indignation.
LANCE: Fuck off! Leave me alone. You know the both of us have it bad, and I’ve never cared about having a girlfriend as much as you do. It’s hard knowing what girls want, and it’s hard talking to them. I hate girls! They make everything harder than it needs to be.
SHANE: How can Blake of all bimbos make things hard for you? She’s a neon flashing open sign, she’d be easy-mode in your head.
LANCE: It isn’t that simple! You think it’s easy to get anything you want from a girl once she says she thinks that way about you, but now it’s just impossible to talk to her like normal. Now, I can’t even think about her the same! I didn’t even know she was like that before... She made everything weird!
LANCER gestures “like that” by spreading two of his fingers open with pure peril on his face.
SHANE: (baffled) What?
LANCE: Of course you don’t get it… (muttering) You’re just a douche now.
LANCER rolls his eyes toward the window and sort of pouts himself away from SHANE while still driving the car. SHANE laughs emptily once more while staring at LANCER’s face before repeating:
SHANE: What???
LANCE: What are you what-ing about? I said my problem, and it’s that she made it fucking weird!
SHANE: You’re soooo elementary— she’s telling you she wants to smash, date, or something! Can’t you read the room, Lance? Ugh, I feel like I’m talking to a middle schooler here! Are you gonna turn her down? She can always find another man, a real man if you don’t man up and do something!
LANCE: And I think that’s fuckin’ ridiculous! What’s up with this chase and all if it doesn’t mean anything in the end? Why can’t… Why can’t girls just make sense? Why me? What have I done for Blakely besides being a jackass and a bully? I thought it was funny at first, and now it’s just creepy since she’s… like that about it!
SHANE: (chuckling, cocky) Maybe she’s into that kinda mayhem. If you’re gonna keep prude-ing, you might as well shoot her my number. I’m fine with taking up her offer if you’re getting cold feet. I tend to think myself kinda vanilla, but hey, if it keeps her online…
LANCE: Fuck off. I’m not getting cold feet, and you’re not going to get anywhere even if you tried. I’m just… getting confused! I didn’t know it was going to turn out this way. Why do girls take jokes so seriously?!
SHANE: You’re either gay or you’re not, Lance.
LANCE: (flat) I can’t talk to you if all you’re going to do is be a douche.
SHANE: (defensive) I’m not a douche, what are you acting such a baby over? I’m an opportunist! I was repressed and trapped back at Fairchild and I’m finally going to score like I never could back there! Nothing wrong with that.
LANCE: Yeah, right. I’ve already got more points than you and I don’t even want a girl.
LANCE throws him a bragging grin, braces gleaming and all. SHANE replies with a dirty bird.
SHANE: So you want boys? You’re a fag?
LANCE: Hell, no. I don’t want herpes, I don’t want to give my mom grandkids, and I don’t want to make mistakes. (growing annoyance) I’m not flighty and insane like you and all your dickhead friends at the bar, and I don’t need a random fleshbag to empty my balls into! Girls are … yuck! They’re the butt of jokes, walking punchlines with a pair of tits on ‘em. Why would I inflict willing suffering on myself by stuffing my commitment-inducing dick into one? That’d open Pandora’s Box— complications, contraception, chlamydia! I don’t want to be stuck with a woman and all the hell they bring. What a disturbing concept…
SHANE stares at LANCE for a beat with an unamused expression. LANCE obliviously continues to drive his van, still shuddering at his thought.
SHANE: And now, you’re talking about women like zoo creatures. If you could get along with them, I bet you wouldn’t be poking Brianna with a stick from the sidelines. You’d get some for real.
LANCE: (incredulous) Bri’s a dyke.
SHANE: (beat, self-assured) And surely, that’s the only reason you like her. See? There’s your problem again!
LANCE: (resigned) You haven’t heard a word I just said…
SHANE: What stopped you from landing Blakely?
LANCE: Are you even listening to me?
SHANE: What’s there to listen to? You’re lost and jaded, that’s why you’ve given up. Hear me out, Lance: one bad experience can’t color your perspective of women… You gotta let Emily go.
LANCE: (taken aback) You think I’m still upset about that?
SHANE: You gotta be, I mean you galactically fucked it up! Your first and final shot at a relationship… tsk tsk.
LANCE: (pissed off) I didn’t fuck anything up. I’d woke up an hour before she decided the morning when her parents reenacted an episode of Divorce Court as I almost mowed down her mailbox trying to get in her driveway was the best one for her to ask me out. She fucked up her timing, I’d never even driven someone who wasn’t my mom before that day! My nerves were shot, and she held it against me!
SHANE: The question is: you had feelings for her too, didn’t you?
LANCE: I mean, she was pretty and I was nervous. I felt like she was out of my league and talked to me out of pity, like she needed me as a shoulder to cry on. I think I cared more than it seemed like she did, I guess… I just didn’t find myself capable of carrying the thousand tons every female emotionally weighs. What’s the criteria for having feelings for a girl? What’s the answer you’re looking for?
SHANE: (uninterested) Yes or no, Lance.
LANCE: (sarcastic) I sure wish emotional confusion was as simple as “yes or no” and I could turn all my feelings off with the switch of my dick, like you, Linus, Bo and the rest... (beat) The answer is … maybe? All I got is a maybe, and it’s leaning toward no.
SHANE: Would you have said yes if you could go back?
LANCE: Knowing she’d be a cagey bitch about it, hell no! (pouting) Girls are allergic to reason.
SHANE: (chuckling) Proving my points as usual. So how does the Emily incident fare against Blakely? You freeze up on her too? Slipped into Lancer Paralysis?
SHANE mimes what he calls “Lancer Paralysis” by hiking his shoulders, t-rex-ing his arms, and making a deer-in-headlights expression. He puckers his lips for extra mockery. LANCE notices and swipes his hand at the back of SHANE’s head. SHANE cruelly cackles to himself while recovering as LANCE smoulders over the steering wheel.
LANCE: Pick a better time to be an asshole before we end up in a ditch. And my reaction has nothing to do with how ridiculous and inexplicable her coming-onto-me was in the first place! That’s the problem, here!
SHANE: The problem is your reaction proves you’ve built defense mechanisms against getting game. A girl is throwing herself at you, but you dodge— you’re a self-fulfilling prophecy of virginity, and quite frankly it’s hard to watch!
LANCE: Note to self: Never tell Shane about my personal life ever again.
SHANE: (laughing) You just don’t get it, Lance! I wonder if you’ll ever learn. We aren’t in high school anymore, and I can’t tutor you forever!
LANCE: It’s not such a big change if you think about it, but you keep making a big deal over it. Pussy isn’t gonna flock to us like our place in this system changed. I’m still a loser and you’re the cheeky nerd that tags along wherever I go— everyone sees us that way. It doesn’t matter how much you kick a ball or how long you grow your hair.
SHANE: (sarcastic) That’s not true. You’re the sidekick, not the other way around.
LANCE: You’re a passenger in my car!
SHANE: (scoffs) Money and cars are second to the fact that everyone’s growing up except for you.
LANCE: Wherever I go people are like, “Where’s Shane?” and I have to go “Oh, he’s trying to disrupt the natural order with Linus.” And they’re like, “Oh, that’s weird.” And I go, “Yeah, I know,” and then play video games like I always have been. Because I don’t walk around trying to be someone I’m not!
SHANE: Sounds like you don’t know much of who I am anymore. People change, and it’s beginning to seem you’re stuck in the past.
LANCE: (riled) Past, present, or future, I’m fine having the time of my life trolling douches and pwning noobs— What do you have on that?!
SHANE: How do I stomach you?
LANCER’s van pulls into the Starbucks parking lot. It jerks to a stop, and SHANE has the gall to look offended by LANCE’s hard brake.
LANCE: (cold) Get out of my car and go to work.
SHANE: (after a beat, dismissive) Same time tomorrow?
LANCE: I don’t wanna hear it… You better pay me, or I won’t be your taxi anymore
SHANE hides his chagrin behind a cynical smile, and wordlessly steps out the van. He slams the door behind him, and LANCE watches him stride into work with his chin held high and his ass clenched like he’s worth a million bucks. LANCE feels a migraine blooming from the top of his head. He checks his phone and spots voicemails and texts from five other douchebags without cars that require his ferrying. He begins to flip through them and various volumes of jerks bark from its speaker.
VOICEMAIL 1: Ranch, if you don’t pick me up in ten minutes, I’m calling off the hundred! I’m on thin ice with Mickey-Dee's and if I’m late to work one more time, it’s gonna be—
VOICEMAIL 2: What’s taking you so long?! I thought you were cool. You better be here and have me in your van before eight, or I’m never letting you hang with the cr—
VOICEMAIL 3: Hey, Lance! Sorry for such short notice, but you gotta send me down to the football field before nine. You know what building I’m in, and if you don’t I’ll text it to ya. Be quick about it, ‘cuz the coach needs me bad. Thank—
LANCE turns off his phone and shoves it deep in his glovebox. In his force, some papers fall out of the box. He slams it shut and tries to lock it with as much aggression he can muster— he’s pissed! He groans, gripping his temples with both hands. After a moment of head-massaging, a polaroid in the mess he made beneath the glovebox catches his attention— he has a couple of them around from hanging with Jake. It’s a photo of him and Blakely. They’re in the courtyard and she’s got her usual petrified look on her face while LANCE chases her.
LANCER wonders why Jake took that picture. He doesn’t pick it up.
LANCE: (injured) A girlfriend is starting to sound really nice right about now.
LANCE keys the ignition and pulls out the lot to retrieve his next passenger.