A monologue from the play by Bradley Slaight
Marvin speaks of the violent world he hopes to escape.
MARVIN
I spend a lot of time just hangin’ in the halls, checkin’ out some of the kids in the school. I start thinkin’ about what it would be like to be them, to live their lives.
And I wonder what it must be like to live in a house that has plenty of room. In a neighborhood where helicopters don’t fly overhead all night long.
I wonder what it would be like to have both a mom and a dad.
To not worry about my little sister gettin’ hit with a stray bullet because somebody’s fightin’ over a street they don’t even own.
To have my own bedroom where I have my own things that no one will mess with. To not have to watch my brother racing to the grave with a never-ending need for twenty dollar pieces of rock.
And I wonder what it’s like to go places— like the beach, another state, another country. To go somewhere . . . anywhere.
To buy a pair of hundred dollar Nike basketball shoes instead of stealin’ them. To not worry about the electricity bein’ turned off, or the car bein’ repo’ed.
I wonder what it’s like to have dreams instead of nightmares and to know that those dreams someday may actually come true.
To look through brochures of colleges and universities and know that I have a choice. To see myself living long enough to become an adult.
(He watches several more students as they walk past him.) And as I watch the lucky ones, I wonder most of all, what it would be like to have hope.
To have just a little bit of hope. (Marvin exits.)
