Me & Mine

37. Nothing, Twice

"So, tell me, what happens in the play?" I ask, the three boys sitting across from me on the bar stools of Max' kitchen. Travis scratches his head and takes a sip from his Scotch.

"Nothing, really," he shrugs and I shake my head. I look at Max instead and he looks down for a second. "Well," he finally says, "you've got these two dudes–"

"Didi and Gogo," I interrupt and Max smirks.

"Yeah," he continues, "they just stand around for awhile and talk, I guess. But it doesn't really make sense. And then there's those two other dudes, the slave and that weird one–"

"Pozzo and Lucky," I roll my eyes and Max chuckles.

"Uhu, and then they make the slave– Lucky, I mean. They make Lucky dance and think, or something, and then they leave and the dudes just stand around for awhile again, until night falls."

"You actually read it," I say, my eyes widening and Max shrugging in defense.

"Hey! I did too!" Travis shouts and I chuckle. "But like I said, nothing really happens."

Kane shakes his head slowly and twirls his glass around. "Except that nothing happens, twice."

I glance at Kane and smirk. He gets it. I know he gets it. So why is he here?

"That doesn't really help," Travis shrugs, "it's still about nothing."

I spend the better part of an hour telling the boys about the Theatre of the Absurd, about popular readings of the identity of Godot (I take a great deal of time reminding the boys that the play was originally written in French, by a Frenchman, and that the French word for "God" is "Dieu" and not "God"), about Beckett's experience in the French resistance in the Second World War, about Modernism and finally, as all discussions of great works of art inevitably lead to this, about the meaning of life itself.

Max and Travis sit there in silence, blinking and scratching their heads and nodding at the mute thoughts in their head. Kane just stares at me, his arms crossed and his head cocked slightly to the side.

"So," Travis says, "you could say that it's all about the journey, not the destination?"

I shrug. "If that's your takeaway, then sure! Honestly, Beckett is dead, so the play means whatever you want it to mean."

"And what do you want it to mean?" Kane asks, his eyes still pierced on mine. I bite the inside of my lip and inhale deeply. "I always liked the interpretation that Waiting for Godot is heavily influenced by Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, in that Sisyphus is condemned to push a boulder up a mountain for eternity, only to see it roll down again every time he makes it to the top. Just like we're constantly looking for meaning, for belonging, for reason, in the utter chaos of our universe. So Didi and Gogo try some of the things Camus outlines as common responses for dealing with the absurd: they think about suicide, they try religion, they talk about escaping in alcohol, et cetera. But nothing works, of course, because Camus says that the only thing we can do is accept. Just like Lucky accepts his absurdist position as Pozzo's slave, even when he has every chance to run away, he still chooses to stay. Camus concludes that we must imagine Sisyphus happy, when he sets out to push that boulder up the hill again, when he reaches to top, when he chases the rolling boulder down, and when it all starts over again. We must imagine Sisyphus smiling."

Kane nods silently and takes another sip of his Scotch. "I like the interpretation in which Didi and Gogo are two gay lovers gone mad, and that there's no Godot. The messenger-boy is a non-existing memory of the son Didi always wanted to have, and Lucky and Pozzo are merely illusions produced by their deteriorating mental health."