_At home, transient home._ HIM: I have some news for you. ME: Tell me tell me tell me oh I beg you please please tell me. HIM: It’s in the form of a song. _[singing]_ I just gotta do it even if I can’t do it! Just gotta do it even if I do it wrong I said I just just gotta do it even if I can’t do it! And I know that I can do it cuz I’ve done it all along! ME: _[catching the tune]_ You know I’ve waited too long, gettin everyone’s permission! I didn’t understand it doesn’t matter how you sound. You just gotta sing if singin songs is what you feel like! It doesn’t have to be good and it doesn’t have to rhyme! HIM: _[abruptly not singing]_ Oh and by the way, we’ve been evicted. ME: What the peelu are you talking about, neem-head!? HIM: Well. It seems that neither of us has paid the rent— ME: But I’ve sent a check in every month like a god damned RELIGION for the last however long we’ve lived here! HIM: —sufficiently. What I— ME: What? HIM: —didn’t realize is that I didn’t read the lease closely enough, and instead of money for the rent we were supposed to have provided periodic proof of our deservedness to exist. ME: Excuse me, our— HIM: That what the lease says. I called up the landgod, and he/she/it said that yeah, that’s pretty much the new standard in month-tomonth leases. You can just get it off the Internet and photocopy it and everybody signs it without reading it, like we did. And that’s what it says. We have to prove that we have a right to exist, or else we get kicked out. And, well, buddy, I, uh . . . ME: We’re getting kicked out. HIM: Um. Yes. ’Fraid so. ME: _[singing softly]_ Just gotta do it even if I can’t do it! # HIM: _[echoing softly]_ Just gotta do it even if I do it wrong. _They make as if to pack their bags, then look at each other and sigh. They have nothing of value to pack, really. They go out the door. They go out the door. They go out the door_