PART 1

The counter in a bank, at which Zorana, a young woman in a beautifully ironed white shirt is sitting. Her long hair is neatly combed and tied back securely in a ponytail.

Cocky, a thin, unshaven twenty-five-year-old dressed in shabby jeans and a faded Vietnamese jacket goes up to the counter.

COCKY: Good morning.

ZORANA: Good morning.

COCKY: I’m interested in the state of my raccoon.

ZORANA: You mean the state of your account (in BCS the word for account is pronounced “rachoon”).

COCKY: No, I mean the state of my raccoon.

ZORANA: Of your raccoon?

COCKY: Yes, of my raccoon. You know, raccoons – small American mammals with a bushy tail.

ZORANA: Sir, I really don’t have time for jokes. If you’re interested in the state of your account, then please say so.

COCKY: I’m not interested in the state of my account. I’m interested in the state of my raccoon. Of my raccoon, to or for my raccoon, by, with or from my raccoon… I’m interested in everything about my raccoon. And it should interest you as well, for by all accounts you know nothing at all about raccoons. Come on, let’s hear you – what colour is a raccoon?

ZORANA: Look, sir, please…

COCKY: It was obvious you had no idea at all. Grey, or to be more precise, greyish-brown. Except for their striped tail and black fur round the eyes, which looks like the mask that bandits wear in cartoons. Yes, that’s why you display such antipathy towards raccoons – they remind you of bank robbers. My pretty little thing, you’ve been watching too many cartoons. Believe me, there’s no reason to be afraid. It’s true that raccoons have very deft forepaws and are able to tear apart the firmest bag or box, but up to now there’s no evidence that they’ve broken into a bank. If they had, there would most likely be a song about it. Something in the style of: “The raccoons come on the scene, and wipe the accounts clean.” Or “The bank was robbed by a band of raccoons. They arrived as paupers and left as tycoons.” But there isn’t such a song. At least, I haven’t heard anything like that. Perhaps you’ve heard one like that – or something similar?

ZORANA: Bocky!

COCKY: Is that the title of song about raccoons that you know? Like the Beatles “Rocky Raccoon” but changed to “Bocky Raccoon” for the domestic market? I don’t know about Bocky, but Rocky Raccoon didn’t rob any banks. He bought a pistol to do away with a chap who had snatched his girl. Some beauty, just like you. So you see even a raccoon with a pistol doesn’t present any danger to a bank.

ZORANA: Bocky!

Bocky, a close-cropped security officer, appears on the scene.

BOCKY: What seems to be the problem, sir?

COCKY: Be off with you, little one, I saw her first!

ZORANA: He just goes on about some raccoons.

BOCKY! Raccoons?

COCKY; Yes, raccoons. You know, striped tail, black fur around the eyes? Am I really the only person who knows what raccoons are?

BOCKY: Sir, this is a bank. We don’t have any raccoons here.

COCKY: But you do have accounts?

BOCKY: We certainly do. Would you like to open an account?

COCKY: I’m not mad.

BOCKY: Then please look for your raccoons somewhere else.

COCKY: There’s no need. I am completely sure that I’ve come to the right place.

BOCKY (in a mildly threatening tone of voice): Sir, please leave the bank.

COCKY: I’ve no intention of doing such a thing.

ZORANA: Careful, Bocky, he mentioned a pistol.

Bocky puts his hand on the pistol in his belt.

COCKY: Don’t worry, Bocky, sweetheart, I’ve got no pistol here. The lady was obviously taken with my masculine appearance and didn’t listen carefully to what I was saying. If she had, she’d have known that I was talking about the pistol that Rocky Raccoon bought. But not even he, as I’ve already explained, took a pistol into the bank, but into the saloon. So there’s absolutely no need to worry about Rocky’s pistol. Mind you, if he’d gone to Solun (Solun is the BCS name for Salonika or Thessaloniki) instead to the saloon, you would have had reason to worry.

BOCKY: Sir, I must ask you to leave the bank quietly.

COCKY: You’re not listening to me, Bocky! By the way, I’m Cocky. Isn’t that just wild: Cocky and Bocky? And Raccoon Rocky? We could write a song in that style. It would be a real hit.

BOCKY: Sir…

COCKY: You’re right, that’s enough messing around. Let’s get back to the matter in hand. Listen carefully, so I don’t have to repeat everything three times. Saloon and Solun. They sound similar, but the difference between them is huge. A Raccoon in a saloon, even if he has a pistol, doesn’t represent the slightest danger to you in a bank, but a raccoon in the Greek town of Solun, even without a pistol, should scare you. Everything connected with Solun and everything connected with Athens should scare you. Why? Because it’s a civilized environment, in which a bomb explodes in a bank at least once a month. Yes, there it’s not like it is here – there they have numerous anarchist and communist organizations, well-organized and influential. Mind you, you two have no need to be afraid of working in the centre of Athens, because there are never any victims in these explosions. The aim is to cause damage and to send messages and not to kill people. You can’t say that the Greeks aren’t emperors. Everyone just goes on about the ancient Greeks, while right under their noses are the modern ones, Greeks who are a hundred times stronger. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that it was the Ancient Greeks who thought up banks. What do you think about that?

BOCKY: For the last time, I beg you to leave the bank of your own accord.

COCKY: Am I talking to myself? I’m telling you that I don’t have any kind of pistol. The pistol’s with Rocky Raccoon, who isn’t in Solun, but in the saloon.

BOCKY: Please come with me, sir.

COCKY: To Solun? Or to the saloon?

BOCKY: I’m just going to take you out of the bank and then you can go wherever you like. Come on, let’s go.

COCKY: I’m not going anywhere until I’ve found out the state of my raccoon.

BOCKY: Come on, then. Let’s go! Don’t get on my nerves.

COCKY: Why do you hate raccoons so much? What have the poor raccoons done to you?

BOCKY (takes hold of Cocky’s arm): Get going!

COCKY: If I were you I’d remove that arm before I do something to harm you. I may not look dangerous, but, believe me, my appearance has deceived a lot of people before you.

Bocky grabs him by the arm and pulls him away from the counter. Cocky pulls himself free, but Bocky immediately puts both arms round him, lifts him off the ground and slowly carries him out. Cocky unsuccessfully tries to free himself from his grip.

COCKY (thrashing out): Let me go, you faggot, or else I’ll… Let me go, do you hear? Motherfucker! So you hate the poor raccoons, do you, you fascist? Just wait and see what I’m going to do to you! Greek banks will have a field day compared with what’s going to happen to you. Long live raccoons! Ouch! Bocky, fuck you! Down with accounts. Freedom for raccoons! Ouch! Down with acc…

PART 2

A part of a street in front of a bank. Cocky appears, carrying a large placard on which is written: DEATH TO ACCOUNTS, FREEDOM TO RACCOONS!

Cocky enters the bank. Less than a minute later, the door of the bank opens and Cocky flies headfirst through it, landing stretched out on the pavement. Bocky appears at the door.

BOCKY: And I don’t want to see you in here again.

Bocky goes back into the bank and closes the door behind him. Cocky sits up, rubbing his back with a painful expression on his face.

An old man and an old woman appear in the street. Their dress is old-fashioned and well-worn, but even so it is clean and perfectly ironed. They are walking slowly, arm-in-arm and in a dignified manner; they arrive at the bank and turn their grey heads in Cocky’s direction.

COCKY (notices that they are looking at him): Good morning.

OLD MAN: Good morning, young man.

The old man and woman go off. At this moment the door of the bank opens again and just before it immediately closes again, Cocky’s placard comes flying out.

COCKY: What’s up, you cunt! Come out if you dare, you fascist!

Not getting an answer, Cocky gets up, cautiously approaches the bank door and stops a few feet in front of it. He leans forward, trying to see what is happening inside. While he is busy looking, a fifty-year-old man with an unkempt black moustache appears behind him. He goes past Cocky and stretches out his arm to open the bank door.

COCKY (grabbing him by the arm): Please don’t go in.

MAN: I really don’t want to go in, but I have to.

COCKY: You’re not going to give money to that scum, are you? They’ll take a thousand Euros from you and use it to make a hundred thousand, and in a year’s time they’ll give you eight point three Euros. Don’t do it, please!

MAN: You can be sure, young man, that if I had a thousand Euros, this gang wouldn’t set eyes on me. If I had that money, I wouldn’t give them as much as a dinar. But I haven’t. So I just have to hope that they will want to give me something.

COCKY: You’re taking out a loan?

MAN: A loan. What else can I do?

COCKY: Is there no way you can manage without one?

MAN: No, this is my last chance. I owe money all over the place. If I don’t get hold of some, they’ll break both my legs.

COCKY: If I had some, I’d lend you some, but I haven’t got a dinar to my name.

MAN: I know how it is. I’d like to be able to lend someone some money. Actually, I’d like it if nobody had to borrow anything from anyone.

COCKY: Perhaps that time will come one day.

MAN: No way. I thought like that when I was younger, but now I know that there’s no hope of anything like that.

COCKY: There is, believe me. Don’t spread this around, but I’ve got hold of confidential information that a secret organization is in the process of being formed, the aim of which is to completely fuck up this scum.

MAN: You mean the banks?

COCKY: Banks, politicians, the rich… All those who live at other people’s expense. Can I rely on you to be discreet?

MAN: Don’t worry, I have experience with the underground. Strictly confidential.

COCKY: O.K. I trust you. I’m one of them. There aren’t many of us, but we’re all serious people. When we start, all sorts of things will happen. If you’re interested in joining us, I’m prepared to vouch for you.

MAN: Willingly, young man, but I haven’t got the time. I work two shifts, otherwise I’d willingly join you. The only thing I can suggest is that you give me a call when they start to try these politicians, so that…

COCKY: What trials? We’re going to do that summarily.

MAN: Even better. If possible I like to do one of them. I’ll make a list of several of them, and let one of them be mine. So that he can feel my belt on his backside.

COCKY: No problem, we’ll organize that. But until then, if you have to take out a loan, do it, but not with this lot. Choose another bank. There are about ten in this street alone.

MAN: It’s all the same, young man. They all rook you in the same way.

COCKY: No. This lot are worse, believe me.

MAN: What have they done to you?

COCKY: Well, they beat me up as soon as they set eyes on me. But that doesn’t matter. The point is that everyone employed in this bank is well-known for hating raccoons from the very depths of their being.

MAN: Hating who?

COCKY: Raccoons.

MAN: Raccoons?

COCKY: Yes, raccoons. Just imagine. Not only do they make money off other people’s misfortunes, they do all they can to make life as difficult as possible for raccoons. It’s not enough that they trick people and make them unhappy, on top of that they have to trample all over raccoons, who have never done anyone any harm. It’s quite incredible how much they hate them. They love accounts, but hate raccoons.

MAN: And you’re really worried about raccoons?

COCKY: Don’t ask. I haven’t slept for two nights in a row. But I’m not going to let it blow over just like that. I’m going to protest until I’ve helped the poor raccoons. So, get your loan from another bank, and we can fight together on behalf of the raccoons. What do you think of that?

MAN: It would be better if I didn’t tell you what I think of that.

COCKY: What’s got into you so suddenly?

MAN: What’s got into me, you little shit-face? You’re sorry for raccoons, are you, shit-face? But you’re not sorry for people, is that the case? You’re sorry because someone goodness knows where beats up a raccoon, and here people have been slaughtering each other all around you. You’re not sorry for them, then? You no-good son of a bitch! You’ve come here to protest about raccoons. Why didn’t you protest when they turned me and my wife out of our home? Why didn’t you protest when we lived in a sports hall with a hundred other people? When we sold panties on the Boulevard? Eh, why didn’t you protest then? It didn’t interest you, I suppose? You don’t care a damn about human suffering, just raccoons’ – is that the case, shit-face? And my troubles count for nothing compared with how some people live – and die. But you, Mr. high-and-mighty, couldn’t care a damn about people, you’re only interested in beasts. People like you are as common as shit. I’ve just met two more, carrying placards about whales. “Save the whales, save the whales!” It’s almost impossible to believe. All around them people are starving to death, and they can’t sleep because of the whales. Fuck them all, for God’s sake! And where the hell have they seen a whale? In Wales perhaps? Or climbing up the Wailing Wall?

COCKY: Well put! I like a good pun.

MAN: Shut up! Don’t interrupt me, shit-face! Shut up so that I don’t go completely mad. Compared with you, they’re kings! Let them worry about the whales, if they’re incapable of seeing human suffering. Let them worry about them – at least whales have never done anyone any harm. But your raccoons – fuck your raccoons! What do you know about raccoons? Eh? What do you know about raccoons?

COCKY: Dark grey North American mammals…

MAN: Shut up! Shut up and don’t interrupt me! Are you normal? Do you want me to get really angry? You lump of shit! What do you know about raccoons? Have you ever seen a raccoon? Shut up! Shut up before I take off my belt! Off course you haven’t! Nor have I, but at least I know what they get up to. Do you know that because of people like you they have become so impossible that nobody knows what to do about them? Did you know that they march into towns at night like paramilitary units and destroy everything in their path? Did you know that at night they empty my cousin in Canada’s dustbin and spread rubbish all over his yard? Did you know he works the night shift? And that every morning, when he gets home from work, he has to clean up his yard because of them? He went there without anything at all and worked like a dog to once again have something of his own, and they come every night and fuck up his dustbin. Every night! And he can’t do anything about it, because of people like you! He knows very well that if he got hold of a gun and blew them to bits, he’d finish up like me. He knows that people like you would immediately turn him out of Canada, just as they chucked me out of America. They made a monster out of me, just because I defended my wife. In the war, I was unable to defend her, they broke into our home, both our lot and their lot – and a third lot – robbed us and maltreated us and in the end turned us out without anything. But that was all right, compared with how some people ended up. We were among those who were lucky. At least we kept our heads and limbs. And then a year later they accepted us in America, in a town by the sea. They gave me the job in an automobile factory. I worked like a dog, all day, on the production line. Pulling covers over the seats. All day. Up: grab hold! Down: pull it over! Up! Down! Up! Down! All the livelong day. But it wasn’t difficult. I enjoyed it. My wife stopped fainting for no reason at all. It was enough for me to watch her laughing at my attempts to speak English, it was enough to know that there was an ocean separating us from the war cries of fraternal Yugoslavian tribes. It seemed that our suffering was over at last. And then he appeared. It was their big festival, when they kill and eat a ton of turkey. I got a week’s holiday, and in the evening we walked along the quay, ate ice cream and sipped beer on the beach. One evening, just after we’d bought some ice cream, one of your pet creatures turned up. He jumped at my wife with such a shriek that she started to scream. I was afraid too – I remembered the war and the ravens who, driven mad by the shooting, attacked passers-by in our street. This one was white and not black, but its shriek was the same. Suddenly, the war was starting all over again. It struck her on the head and began to grab at her ice cream. What was I supposed to do? To just watch it hitting her and taking her ice cream which I’d paid for with my hard-earned cash. To listen to her screaming and do nothing? To let it, after a whole lot of armed scum, do what it wanted with her and steal what was ours? Is that what I was supposed to do? Was I supposed to say: “Feel free, Mr. Seagull, hit her on the head and take her ice cream, it’s quite in keeping with the federal law about protecting migratory birds?” So that’s what I was supposed to say was it? Well, perhaps I should have done, but I didn’t. Fuck that seagull! I grabbed it by the neck and beat it to pulp. I got my own back on them all for everything. The war, refugee status and poverty! The Ustasha, Chetniks and the Mujahedin! And Sloba and Alija and Tudjman! And Clinton and Yeltsin and Kofi Annan! Everything that I couldn’t do to them, I did to the seagull. When they grabbed it out of my hands it didn’t shriek, it cheeped like a chick. And while I was waiting for them to congratulate me, they arrested me, took three hundred dollars from me and threw me out of America. And during those two months I was on all the news bulletins. I became the “Monster from the Balkans” and “slaughterer of innocent birds”. People like you protested during the trial, asking that the deed should be treated like the murder of a human being. It turned out that I had made an invalid of the bird, so that they had to put it down. Let’s get things clear – I didn’t want to kill it and I’m not pleased that it all ended the way it did – I simply lost control. But I’m not sorry that I gave as good as I got. It was a classic case of self-defence. It attacked us, not we it. If it was as impudent as to attack someone stronger than itself, it had to be prepared to accept the consequences. Not everyone can piss on respectable people and then expect to get away scot free. If it attacked me again, fuck it, I would do exactly the same. You faggots can protest as much as you like, I don’t give a fuck. You didn’t protest when they attacked us, but you protest because of seagulls and raccoons. It doesn’t worry you when they hate people, but it worries you when they hate raccoons. Well, I’m jolly well going to get a loan from this bank. They can charge me a thousand percent interest – I couldn’t care less. Let it cost whatever it costs. Get out of my way! Shift your arse while I’m still in control of myself. You scum!

The man pushes Cocky aside and goes into the bank. Cocky follows him in, but immediately flies out again and lands on the pavement. As he sits up, the old man and old woman appear again, this time from the other direction.

COCKY (from his sitting position): Good morning.

OLD WOMAN: Good morning.

OLD MAN (after taking a few steps): What a well-mannered young man.

OLD WOMAN: Yes, well brought-up. There aren’t many of them around nowadays.

While they go off to the right, a twenty-year-old girl appears from the left, and immediately behind her a young man of the same age. The young man walks a few paces behind her, carrying a placard with the words SAVE THE WHALES!

GIRL: Save the whales!

YOUNG MAN: SAVE THE WALES!

GIRL: Whales are becoming extinct!

YOUNG MAN: WHALES ARE BECOMING EXTINCT!

GIRL AND YOUNG MAN: WHALES ARE BECOMING EXTINCT!

When he sees them, Cocky quickly gets up and stands in front of the door of the bank. He starts to yell, trying to drown out their shouting.

COCKY (as the couple approach): FREE THE RACCOONS! FREE THE RACCOONS!

The girl and young man stop beside him and cease chanting.

GIRL: What are you going on about? Raccoons aren’t an endangered species.

COCKY (stops yelling): Aren’t they?

GIRL: No.

COCKY: Incredible. What ignorance. And you consider yourself champions of animal rights, and you aren’t in touch with the latest facts.

GIRL: Don’t talk nonsense. If anyone knows anything about endangered animals then it’s us. We have a precise list of all species whose survival is endangered at this moment. And raccoons, we are pleased to say, are not among them.

COCKY: If that’s what you think, then be on your way. I knew I couldn’t rely on your help… FREE THE RACCOONS!

The girl and young man hesitate.

GIRL: And what is it that you say you know that we don’t?

COCKY: No, no, just carry on. You’re better informed than I am.

GIRL: Don’t be stupid. We haven’t got time for stupidity. The meeting starts in the square in ten minutes. If you want our help, tell us what it’s all about.

COCKY: All right. So I can rely on you?

GIRL: Yes, you can.

YOUNG MAN: YOU CAN!

COCKY: All right. This is what it’s all about. Half an hour ago, I happened to pass by here. I hadn’t the faintest idea what was in store, I was just strolling along, whistling, you know how it is…

GIRL: Come to the point.

COCKY: All right. I was just passing by, when suddenly a white van arrived. It was going very fast and without any warning parked on the pavement, hitting me and throwing me to the ground. Suddenly two characters appeared, one jumped out of the van and the other ran out of the bank. It all happened in a couple of seconds. The second man took a raccoon into the bank and the other jumped back into the van and drove off. There, that’s what happened. What do you say?

GIRL: Hmm. Did the raccoon look underfed?

COCKY: Completely underfed. Like Jagger. In fact he looked a bit like Jagger. You know, that black around the eyes.

GIRL: Was it in a cage?

COCKY: In a cage.

GIRL: How big was it?

COCKY: What can I say? About like this – normal raccoon size.

GIRL: The cage!

COCKY: Look, I don’t know the exact dimensions.

GIRL: Did it have enough room? Had they made some attempt to make it look like his natural habitat?

COCKY: Oh, no. No room at all, nothing like its habitat. The cage was so small that its tail hung outside. And inside it was dirty and, as far as I could make out, covered with machine oil.

GIRL: Terrible!

YOUNG MAN: TERRIBLE!

COCKY: I know. I was quite astounded myself. Who knows what they were going to do with it.

YOUNG MAN: They probably put it in the safe.

COCKY: That’s certainly not out of the question. So you’ll help me to free it?

GIRL: I really don’t know. I’m worried we might be late for the meeting on the square. After all, this is a matter of just one raccoon, while there we’ll be protesting about all whales, about a whole species.

COCKY: Now you really disappoint me. I thought I was involved with broad-minded people, people with integrity – in a word with true individuals. But you give priority to the collective over the individual. The survival of a species is indeed important, but that survival is extended to them by individuals. Now we all have electricity, but like hell would we have had it if Tesla and that other chap hadn’t fucked around with all those wires and light bulbs.

YOUNG MAN: He’s right. Perhaps that raccoon is actually some sort of Tesla raccoon.

GIRL: All right, what you’re saying isn’t complete nonsense. Perhaps it really is a matter of a raccoon, or a female raccoon, with special genetic material, which could act as a magnet for individuals of the opposite sex and thus guarantee the continuation of the species.

COCKY: That’s just what I was thinking. That’s why I’m asking you to help me. You’ll have enough time afterwards to get to the square.

GIRL: All right. We’ll organize ourselves here. It’s a pity we haven’t got a suitable placard.

COCKY: I’ve got one.

Cocky picks up his placard from the ground, and then all three of them form a rank, facing the door of the bank.

COCKY: O.K. Shout after me. Death to accounts!

YOUNG MAN: DEATH TO ACCOUNTS!

GIRL: Wait – what’s all this nonsense? What do you mean “death”? What’s all this about “accounts”? What are you talking about?

COCKY: That’s what it says on the placard. “Death to accounts, freedom for raccoons!” Good, isn’t it? It reminds me of that “Death to fascism, freedom for the people!”

GIRL: But what’s the connection between accounts and raccoons?

COCKY: Every connection! Look, they’ve just kidnapped a raccoon and taken it into the bank. Which means we have to fight for the raccoon and against the bank. And since what the bank has most of is accounts, it’s logical that we should attack them. And anyway, I think that as well as helping the unfortunate, one should always fight against those who bring about the misfortune. At one time various emperors and kings ruled the world and brought misery to ordinary folk and raccoons, then their place was taken by quasi-communists, and now it’s the capitalists who are at our throats. That’s why it’s logical to fight against the bastion of capitalism, multinational companies, banks and similar institutions.

GIRL: You’re so behind the times. Such old-fashioned ideas have been superseded for ages. True fighters against injustice and suffering no longer try to destroy the social order in the process. Perhaps liberal capitalism isn’t ideal, but everyone knows that it’s better than anything else and is the only system that functions. That’s why we make no attempt to destroy it, rather to adapt it and correct its faults. We fight against its imperfections, but at the same time we struggle to maintain it and to find the best place for us within it, to climb as high as possible up the social ladder and thus be in a position to improve it even further.

YOUNG MAN: Yes. That’s precisely why I started to protect whales. To climb as high as possible up the social ladder.

GIRL: Stop talking nonsense, please! Gosh, he does get on my nerves sometimes. If he wasn’t so obedient and so good at chanting slogans, I’d have got rid of him ages ago… In any case, forget about the accounts. Chuck that placard away and stand next to him. And just repeat after me. Freedom for the raccoon!

COCKY AND YOUNG MAN: FREEDOM FOR THE RACCOON!

GIRL: We demand that you set the raccoon free!

COCKY AND YOUNG MAN: WE DEMAND THAT YOU SET THE RACCOON FREE!

Bocky comes out of the bank.

BOCKY: Why are you shouting like that? Oh, it’s you again. If you don’t disappear in three seconds flat, I’ll really start using my fists. Do you hear?

COCKY: How dare you speak to them like that? Do you have the faintest idea who they are? They’re representatives of a well-known organization for the protection of animals.

GIRL: Yes, we are. Our organization has branches all over the world. Only today we are organizing a big protest, which will begin at the same time in seventeen world capitals.

BOCKY: You can organize whatever you bloody like, but somewhere else. You can’t shout here.

COCKY: We’re not going anywhere until we’ve rescued the raccoon.

BOCKY: And please take this idiot with you. I’ll knock his block off.

COCKY: Don’t change the subject, but own up about what you’ve done with the raccoon.

GIRL: Precisely. We insist you tell us what you intend to do with the raccoon.

YOUNG MAN: WITH THE RACCOON!

GIRL: If you don’t, we’ll call the press.

YOUNG MAN: THE PRESS!

COCKY: Did you hear? Let’s see if you look so dangerous when faced with the press.

BOCKY: Look, what’s got into you folks? We’re a perfectly normal bank. We have nothing whatever to do with raccoons.

COCKY: Lies, all lies! A moment ago he came out to meet a van and took hold of a cage. He even twisted the raccoon’s tail while he was carrying it.

GIRL: Terrible!

YOUNG MAN: TERRIBLE!

GIRL: Where on earth did you get the idea that you had the right to behave like that with another living creature? You’ll pay for this, believe me.

BOCKY: But look, I’ve never seen a raccoon in my life.

COCKY: He’s lying! He’s lying! Stop lying, you ruffian – just tell us where the raccoon is.

BOCKY: I’ve never seen one, honestly.

COCKY: He’s lying! Call the press and let’s see whether he’ll remember.

GIRL: Look, take it easy. After all, he’s only security.

COCKY: He’s a mercenary. He beats up people for money! And raccoons!

GIRL: Take it easy. Perhaps he really doesn’t know where the raccoon is. We need to speak to someone more responsible.

COCKY: That’s right. Who knows what the responsible people have been doing to it, if this irresponsible type twisted its tail.

GIRL: I insist we speak with someone who knows what’s happened to the raccoon.

BOCKY: Look, let’s be sensible about this. There’s no raccoon in our bank at all.

COCKY: Stop lying and call your boss!

GIRL: That’s right. If there’s nobody who’s responsible for the raccoon out here in two minutes, we’ll call the press.

YOUNG MAN: THE PRESS!

COCKY: And Ban Ki-moon! What are you waiting for? Quickly, call someone!

Bocky goes into the bank and the three of them continue chanting.

GIRL: Free the raccoon!

COCKY AND YOUNG MAN: FREE THE RACCOON!

GIRL: Let the raccoon go!

COCKY AND YOUNG MAN: LET THE RACCOON GO!

GIRL: No one has the right to twist a raccoon’s tail!

COCKY AND YOUNG MAN: A RACCOON’S TAIL!

COCKY: Nor a cat’s tail!

YOUNG MAN: NOR A CAT’S TAIL!

COCKY: Nor a seagull’s tail!

YOUNG MAN: NOR A SEAGULL’S TAIL!

COCKY: Except in self-defence!

YOUNG MAN: EXCEPT IN SELF DEFENCE!

Bocky comes out of the bank with the bank’s PRO, a young man in an expensive suit and shiny shoes with square toes.

PRO: Good morning, gentlemen. And young lady.

COCKY: What sort of shoes are those, for God’s sake? Have you ever tried to run in them? I wouldn’t put those on if you paid me.

PRO: Different people have different tastes, sir. That is the basic idea on which our bank bases its services. Aware that different people have different needs, we have enabled…

COCKY: Stop waffling, just buy some normal shoes. You look like a half-wit.

PRO: Sir, if my shoes worry you so much, I’ll take them off immediately. But what I’ve heard is that you are protesting about some raccoon.

COCKY: Now look at who’s playing the fool. Behaving as if he’s never seen a raccoon at all, when he’s definitely just been kicking him around the vault. Who do you think you are, mate? We asked to see someone responsible, wearing responsible shoes.

PRO: I am precisely the person you need to talk to if you have a problem. I’m the bank’s PRO.

COCKY: Pro! Did you hear that? We asked for the boss and they’ve sent us a prostitute. Call the press immediately.

YOUNG MAN: THE PRESS!

GIRL: Let’s wait to hear what the man has to say. You haven’t let him get a word in edgeways.

PRO: Thank you, young lady. If we could just listen to each other, I’m sure we could solve our differences quite easily. Tell me, what’s your problem?

GIRL: We are representatives of the society for the protection of animals.

PRO: Congratulations. A very worthy cause. I can assure you that our bank makes a special effort not to endanger any animal species in the course of its work. In fact we have special…

COCKY: Don’t lie, you prostitute! I saw what you did to that raccoon.

GIRL: He insists that he saw the security officer carrying a starving raccoon into your bank in a dirty cage. What interests us is what you intend to do with that raccoon.

PRO: It was you who saw this?

COCKY: Yes, me.

PRO: And you’re sure it was our employee?

COCKY: Stop waffling. It wasn’t your employee, it was him. (Points to Bocky.) And when I tried to stop him, he hit me over the head with a pistol.

BOCKY: He’s lying. I never touched him. He keeps on coming into…

COCKY: And he twisted the raccoon’s tail! As hard as he could!

PRO: Ah, now it’s clear to me what it’s all about. I’d completely forgot – you know all day I’ve been thinking about the protest against killing whales that was supposed to take place on the square…

GIRL: That’s our protest. We’re organizing it in seventeen capital cities in the world all at the same time.

PRO: Well, why didn’t you say so? I’ve just been looking at your site. All day I’ve been wondering whether I’ll have the time to join the protest – today we are up to our ears in work and so I completely forgot about the raccoon.

GIRL: So there really is a raccoon in your bank?

PRO: Yes, there is. But the young man has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The raccoon really is in our bank, but we are certainly not behaving cruelly towards it. On the contrary. It was handed over to us precisely so that it would get the best possible care. You know, people often get the idea that banks deal exclusively with money, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Proper, large banks, and I must emphasize that our bank particularly stands out as one of these, are, in the first place, reliable partners to our clients. Our aim is to be someone to whom people can always turn for help. On whom they can rely in any situation whatsoever. If you look at the broad range of our services, you will realize that we have considered every possible need of a grown man in advance. Our partnership starts as soon as you turn eighteen and get an identity card and it lasts for the rest of your life. One might also say that in our bank you find your new parents. As soon as you become independent and are separated from your biological parents, we, your new parents, accept you under our wing. Just as your mummy and daddy took care of you while you were growing up, by feeding you, clothing you and protecting you, we take care of all your needs for the rest of your life. We help you to stand on your own feet, we help you to start your own family. You can’t find a job? Start your own firm! You have an idea but not the means of realizing it? Come to us and together we’ll put your ideas into practice. As partners. You invest the idea and we the money. Of course, as a true, reliable partner you will return the money to us threefold, but thanks to us, enough money will remain for you to pay the rent for your new flat. You’ll be your own man, in control of your own job and who lives in your own flat. And then you’ll meet a wonderful person, a person who will love and understand you, a person with whom you will want to spend the rest of your life. However, love and understanding aren’t always enough. Your flat is too small for the two of you, the lack of space will create continual stress and will cause quarrelling that will eventually lead to divorce. What can you do? It’s very simple: move into a bigger flat! You haven’t got enough money? Come to us, to your tender mummy. We have special loans for young married couples. You’ll repay them over decades, working like a dog, but is that a problem when you have the person of your life beside you? And what’s most important, she’s not right beside you, but in the next room. Then comes a baby, screaming, shouting and shitting – you have to buy bottles, vests, baby food and nappies. All this costs money, and you’re already paying back at least two loans. What does that mater? Take out one more! We have a special offer: a suckling loan, financed by the Goethe Institute. You can’t find anyone to look after the baby while you’re working and all the kindergartens are full? Come to us. For a reasonable sum of money, we’ll look after your baby in the most luxurious of safes, along with your other valuables. Just imagine the idyllic picture: your baby, your money and your jewellery – all your treasures lying together in the same safe. But when the baby outgrows the dimensions of the safe, when you need to buy new clothes, when you have to buy school books, where will you come?

YOUNG MAN: To you?

PRO: Bravo! That’s it! To us, to us and always to us! Whatever problem faces you, whatever accident happens to you, we have a solution. Just when you think that no one understands you, when you think that no one before you has found themselves in such a seemingly hopeless situation, be sure that we’ve already been thinking about it. The person of your life starts to get on your nerves? Get a divorce! You don’t have the money for another flat and you can no longer go on living in the same one? There’s nothing easier! Come to us!

YOUNG MAN: TO YOU!

PRO: To us, to us, and always to us!

YOUNG MAN: TO YOU, TO YOU AND ALWAYS TO YOU!

PRO: Do you want to get married again? Do you want a new child with the new person in your life? Do you want to get divorced again? Do you want to start a new business? Do you want another car? Do you want to receive a pension? Do you want to move house? Do you want to die? Do you want to arrange a murder? Do you want to save the whales? No problem! You have a partner? You have a mummy! You have us!

YOUNG MAN: YOU!

PRO: That’s right! Us, us, and always…

COCKY (finally realizing that the PRO has taken over the game): Stop waffling and tell us why you twisted the raccoon’s tail!

PRO: Oh, yes. I do apologize – I’ve rather gone off the subject, but our bank worries so much about its customers, about its dear little children, that we all think continually about all the benefits we offer our customers. That’s why it’s not the tiniest bit odd that I find it difficult to talk about anything else. It often happens that I forget the question I’ve been asked, and start listing the benefits of our service. For example, only this morning my wife asked me: “Where have you been all night, you good-for-nothing son of a bitch?” and I described in detail thirteen different kinds of life insurance. Quite simply, we’re so keen on…

COCKY: The raccoon!

PRO: Oh yes, the raccoon. As I said, banks don’t deal exclusively in money, like some people think, but also…

COCKY: We know, we know… Carry on. The raccoon!

PRO: As I said, the raccoon was given to us by one of our clients to look after. It’s a matter of a world-famous personality, whose name, I regret to say, I can’t tell you. This is further evidence of how well we take care of our customers, our partners, our children. Complete discretion. Just as your mummy and daddy probably won’t tell the police if they see you breaking your neighbour’s window, so your financial wrongdoings, secret accounts and secret safes remain just between us. We have strict…

COCKY: Raccoon!

PRO: As I said, he’s a world-famous person, well-known for his humanitarian work, a person who has founded more than ten humanitarian organizations, a person who every morning soaks himself in a bath full of fresh milk, but this doesn’t stop him from every year, and I mean every year, even leap years, donating a cow to the starving inhabitants of the African continent. He has enough, but doesn’t forget others, either. He is a person who is well-known as someone who fights for the human rights of the citizens of a country whose government does not allow him to buy dairies in their own country, a person…

COCKY: The raccoon!

PRO: A person you certainly know, because he is known especially as someone who fights against cruelty to animals, who has succeeded through his connections in various intelligence organizations, to learn about the cruel kidnapping of a North-American raccoon. With the help of Interpol and our government agencies, the raccoon was rescued before the criminals managed to arrive at their final destination, China, where government representatives were planning to eat it as a starter. The main dish was going to be the Dali Lama himself.

GIRL: Terrible!

YOUNG MAN: TERRIBLE!

PRO: I agree. This is why the famous person insisted that we take responsibility for the raccoon’s convalescence, aware that he could not have more confidence in anyone else other than our bank, their reliable partner and caring parent…

COCKY: He’s lying! I saw how they were torturing the raccoon! They twisted its tail!

GIRL: Yes. Why did you twist its tail if you had to take care of it?

PRO: We didn’t twist its tail.

COCKY: Yes you did! I saw it with my own eyes!

PRO: We didn’t. On the contrary, we untwisted it.

GIRL: Untwisted it?

PRO: Yes. Untwisted it. Having been informed by the famous person that the kidnappers had tortured the raccoon during the journey, twisting its tail in a clockwise direction, we were asked to gently untwist its tail over the first few days, meaning we had to twist it in an anticlockwise direction. Not only did this not hurt the raccoon, it gave it a pleasant, stimulating feeling and helped its tail to recuperate.

COCKY: Stop lying! The raccoon screamed with pain while this chap twisted its tail.

PRO: It didn’t.

COCKY: Yes it did, it screamed. I heard it.

PRO: But not with pain, but because of the stress it had undergone ever since it was kidnapped. I can assure you that at the moment the raccoon is purring with pleasure in our vault, stretched out on a couch, with a Cuban cigar in its paw, while our bank’s general manager is personally untwisting its tail in an anticlockwise direction.

GIRL: The general manager?

PRO: Yes, yes, the general manager. Everyone in our bank, and especially the general manager, has just one aim: to meet all the needs of our partners. Wanting to show how much he appreciated that the famous person we have already mentioned had chosen our bank as a partner, the general manager decided to spend the next three days untwisting the raccoon’s tail. I saw him doing this personally, just before I came to see what I could do for you. This is why the mention of the raccoon’s tail immediately reminded me of the raccoon, about which, while I was thinking about our clients, our little children, and about the protest against killing whales on the square, for which you will probably be late if you don’t leave immediately, I had totally forgotten.

GIRL: Yes, the protest begins in a minute or so. We must leave immediately. If we don’t we’ll be late.

YOUNG MAN: BE LATE!

GIRL: And let the other sixteen world capitals down! Let’s go!

YOUNG MAN: LET’S GO!

GIRL: Goodbye.

PRO: Goodbye. And don’t forget that we have special loans for humanitarian organizations, with special benefits for societies for the protection of animals. With minimal interest. Call in when you’ve finished with the protest to discuss the various options.

GIRL: We’ll do that.

Bocky and the PRO go into the bank, and the girl and young man set off.

GIRL: Save the whales!

YOUNG MAN: SAVE THE WHALES!

COCKY: Wait a moment, where are you going?

GIRL: We’re going to the protest. Because of you we might even be late.

COCKY: But they’re torturing the raccoon.

GIRL: No they’re not, they’re taking care of it. You heard what the man said. The general manager is taking personal care of it.

COCKY: They’re lying. How can you believe bankers – those loan sharks and exploiters?

GIRL: Keep away from us, you reactionary terrorist. We haven’t got time for your stupidity. We’ve got to save the whales!

YOUNG MAN: THE WHALES!

The two of them leave, chanting.

COCKY (shouting after them): But do you really believe that you can help the whales by protesting on the square? You’ll go there, shout a bit, they’ll give you five seconds on the news and then what? Nothing. Don’t let your good intentions be chucked away in vain. The very fact that you are worried about the fate of the whales, means that you’re not worthless, that you’re capable of feeling the suffering of others. Don’t let a mere five seconds satisfy your conscience. You must put your effort into doing something really worthwhile, to really change something. We must all fight. I don’t know how, but I do know that a mere five seconds on the news isn’t enough. Until recently I thought the same as you, that this world is actually good, in spite of a few minor imperfections, but now I know that things aren’t like that. The slight injustice and minor suffering that I’ve experienced have opened my eyes and helped me to see the injustice and suffering that others have to put up with. I’ve realized that the history of the human race is actually the history of lies, injustice, greed and crime, the history of moans and tears. This is why we have to make fundamental changes, to shake this world of ours from its very foundations. Humans, raccoons, whales and seagulls will suffer unjust cruelty until we completely change both man and society. Because right up until we realize that our bodies, our hearts, lungs and minds are our greatest wealth, while money remains our most valuable possession, whales will be killed, because their huge and wonderful bodies contain vast supplies of cash. Money is the root of all evil, of all suffering, of all deaths. Because of money, wars are waged, people are uprooted, robbed and killed. Because of money, forests are destroyed, water is polluted and animals and plants are endangered. This is why protests should be held not on the square, but in front of a bank. We must knock down the banks – if necessary we must knock down whole states, the whole legacy of human civilization. We must… Wait! Wait a moment, please…

Without saying a word, Cocky gazes in the direction the two of them have gone.

COCKY: That PRO has totally fucked me up. (He turns and resolutely enters the bank, shouting.) DEATH TO ACCOUNTS! FREE THE RACCOON!

Cocky very soon dashes out of the bank, holding his bottom and chased by the man with a moustache who had gone in earlier.

MAN (trying to give him another kick): Fuck the raccoon and fuck you! Just let me catch you…

Cocky runs off and the man, out of breath, goes back into the bank, from which the PRO appears.

MAN: The scum’s escaped.

PRO: Don’t worry, sir. What do you care? You’ve got your loan.

MAN: I have?

PRO: Yes. We’ve just seen that we can rely on you as a trustworthy partner and we’ve decided to offer you a loan under the best possible conditions.

MAN: Thank you so much. You’ve saved my life.

PRO: Please don’t thank me. Our bank thinks unceasingly exclusively about its clients. Our greatest reward is your satisfaction. That’s why we’ve approved a loan under the best possible conditions. You will have to pay interest of a mere three hundred and eighty-seven percent of the amount you’ve been given.

MAN: Oh, thank you, thank you.

PRO: Come in, to sign the documents.

The two of them go into the bank. After a while, the man comes out clutching a wad of banknotes. He cools himself with them, as if with a fan, and goes off singing and skipping in time to the song.

MAN: “Save the whale” is an old wives’ tale,
“Save the whale” is an old wives’ tale,
“Save the whale” is an old wives’ tale…
Keep the harpoons
For the raccoons…

PART 3

A counter in the bank, at which Zorana is sitting. The noisy opening and closing of doors can be heard, followed by Cocky’s voice.

COCKY’S VOICE: DEATH TO ACCOUNTS! FREE THE RACCOON! DEATH…

Cocky appears beside the counter.

COCKY: Hello beautiful. What’s this, is there nobody here?

ZORANA: Bocky!

COCKY: It’s no good shouting. Bocky’s nowhere to be seen. There’s no Bocky, no PROs, no customers, your little children. There’s no one alive or dead.

ZORANA: Bocky!

COCKY: What’s up – has your bank collapsed? Have your little children realized that their mother’s heartlessly robbed them of all they had and decided to go to the orphanage of their own accord? That’s good. If that’s the case, there’s always hope.

ZORANA: Bocky!

COCKY: I’ve told you that I haven’t seen Bocky anywhere in the vicinity. There’s no one around except you and me. That’s why we have to manage on our own. As it’s obvious that you don’t want to tell me what the situation is with my raccoon, we shall have to talk about something else. Look, you’re free to choose any subject you like.

ZORANA: Bocky!

COCKY: With so many subjects for conversation available, you’ve picked Bocky. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t talk about him, but as soon as his name is mentioned I get an ache in the small of my back. For this reason I suggest talking about something else. Actually, the best thing is for us to get to know each other. I’m Cocky. What about you?

ZORANA: Bocky!

COCKY: Pleased to meet you. Is everyone in this bank called Bocky? You and Bocky and the PRO and the general manager who calmly twists the raccoon’s tail? Good for you! It’s obviously a serious firm. All for one and one for all. I assume they force you to change your name as soon as you get a job, eh? Just as they force you to dress like that, and fix that sign on you, as if you’re for sale. I’m really fascinated to know how much you cost. Don’t worry, I’m not like them. I’ll buy you and set you free immediately. Hey – so that isn’t your price, it’s your name. (Zorana covers the badge on her blouse with her hand.) It’s too late, I’ve already read it. Zorana! What a lovely name! As fresh and lovely as the dawn – as the break of day. It suits you perfectly. In English-speaking countries they’d call you Dawn or Donna. There’s a song: “Donna, Donna, Donna…” Mind you, I think it’s a song about a cow, but no matter – the song is lovely.

ZORANA: BOCKY!

COCKY: Don’t tell me you’re offended because of the cow? I had no intention of actually comparing you with a cow. But if somebody should do that, what would it matter? When it comes down to it, what’s the difference between me and an ox? None at all, particularly as recently I too have grown horns. But even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have differed greatly from a respectable ox. Until we realize that, there’ll be no progress at all in the world. Only when we start to behave towards animals as we do towards each other, since they really are the same as us, can we expect the world to be any better. Because if we kill animals, torture them and use them for experiments, it’s natural that someone will get the idea to do the same to humans. Concentration camps are nothing more or less than a reaction to farms. If it’s all right for cows and pigs, then why shouldn’t it be all right for Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and communists? If I can buy a cow and sell its milk, why shouldn’t I be able to buy five or six girls and open a brothel? If Donna in the song can be bought, sold and killed, why shouldn’t I be able to buy Zorana and dress her as I want? That’s precisely how your general manager thinks, or whoever it was who forced you to show your breasts.

ZORANA: Bo… What breasts?

COCKY: What do you mean, what breasts? Half your breasts are showing.

ZORANA: No they’re not.

COCKY: Yes they are, they’re showing. Do they force you to dress like that, or do you do it of your own accord. And if you do it of your own accord, do you do it outside the bank, as well? What I’m trying to say is, is your aim to cause all men to start drivelling over you, or just those who come to the bank? Because if you’re just aiming at the customers, who you want to attract to please your boss, then it’s just the same as if he’d forced you to show your breasts. Don’t get me wrong, but it’s just the same as being a prostitute. He pays you to show your breasts. I mean, is there a fundamental difference between offering the service of a glance at your breasts and the service of touching your breasts? Mind you, that male obsession with breasts is actually pretty unnatural. I mean, what are women’s breasts other than a lump of fat that serves to feed her young? What I’m trying to say is, what normal ox is aroused by a cow’s udder? Look, I’m not the slightest bit excited by the sight of your naked breasts.

ZORANA: What do you mean, sight? Look, I’m buttoned up to the neck!

COCKY: All right, if that’s the way you want it. But even if you are, your colleagues aren’t.

ZORANA: Yes they are, we’re all wearing the same uniforms. Our firm has very strict rules…

COCKY: All right, all right, don’t you start. The PRO explained everything to me. Actually, I wasn’t thinking about your colleagues in the bank.

ZORANA: Then about which colleagues?

COCKY: The ones in the big supermarkets, for example… A few days ago, I went in to buy some beer, when an almost naked girl leaped out right in front of me carrying a football. Being experienced, I jumped behind a fridge, but then she caught another chap. While I was standing at the cash-desk, I saw some half-wit carefully listening to everything she was saying to him. She showed him the ball, while he just stared at her breasts. Later I saw him going down the street carrying the ball. It was a football made of the cheapest synthetic leather, that was obvious, and he hadn’t kicked a ball for at least a decade – that was also obvious – but he still bought it. He had to buy it – he couldn’t not buy it after he’d got her to describe all its good points to him. Also, he couldn’t get away in time, because he couldn’t take his eyes off her breasts. In other words, he paid to look at her body, just as in a brothel he would have paid to touch her body. Is there any real difference?

ZORANA: But what has all this got to do with me and my colleagues?

COCKY: It’s got everything to do with you. It’s all connected. Her boss, in league with your boss, forced her to show her breasts so that this half-wit and men like him would buy something they didn’t need. Because your aim is for us all to buy as much as possible, to carry on buying when we have all we need, to buy, buy, buy. Your aim is to take all the money we’ve got, so that we then come here to take out a loan. This is when you and your colleagues take the stage. First they planned to force you to show your breasts, to lure us into signing your evil contracts without reading them, but then they realized that some of us, perhaps subconsciously, would see the connection between the sight of your breasts and those of the girl with the football, and start being cautious. This is why, just as they force them to bare their breasts, they force you to button yourself up to your neck. So that it looks as though there’s no connection between you. But there’s a very close connection between you. Banks, shops, advertisements, breasts, brothels – they’re all part of the same network, sectors of the same organizations whose aim is to get money from people. It’s the modern tax system of modern emperors, who you faithfully serve. (Bocky appears.) You and your Bocky. So what’s with you, Bocky, you modern emperor’s stooge?

ZORANA: Where have you been up to now? I’ve been dying of fright.

BOCKY: I had to go to the loo.

COCKY: The chap had to go for a pee! Well done, Bocky – peeing during working hours. I know that they’ll hold it against you here, but, believe me, one day it will be counted as an extenuating circumstance. Because one day we’ll see the end of today’s emperors, as has always happened. And then you two will fall together with them, even though you’re only small, insignificant parts in the tax-collecting machinery. But even if you are the most insignificant parts of all, you’re still part of it and one day you’ll pay for it. And then it will be no good saying: We hadn’t the faintest idea what we were involved in. I simply showed my tits, while Bocky simply showed his cock.

ZORANA: But I don’t show my tits!

COCKY: Then it will be no good saying: “we didn’t know”, because I’ve just explained what you’re up to. So the best thing to do is immediately, while you still have time, to go over to the right side. Join my secret organization. It’s called RACCOON, short for Radical Anarchist-Communist Organization. I’ve only recently started to think and read about it, so I’m still not entirely certain whether my convictions are nearer those of the communists or the anarchists. But I’m pretty certain that both of them hate banks. That’s why to start with I’ve included them both in the name of the organization. At the moment we have only one member, me, but with you there’ll be three of us. (Bocky grabs hold of him and twists his arm behind his back.) Ouch! I’ll forgive you for this if you immediately join RACCOON.

Bocky leads him outside.

COCKY’S VOICE: Hey, mate, that hurts! You’d better be careful or you’ll pay for it when RACCOON achieves all its aims. Ouch, fuck you… Ouch! DEATH TO ACCOUNTS! Ouch! FREEDOM FOR THE RACCOON! OUCH!

The loud opening and closing of a door can be heard.

PART 4

The counter in the bank where Zorana is sitting. Cocky appears and goes up to the counter.

COCKY: Good morning…

Before he manages to say anything, Bocky dashes in, twists his arm and starts to pull him away from the counter.

COCKY (struggling to free himself): Hey, take it easy, what’s got into you? Look, everyone, look at this! They don’t allow a respectable citizen to open an account. Incredible! If you don’t let me go, I shall go at once to another bank. And I advise all of you never to come here again, when they behave like this to respectable people. Fascists!

There is a sound of disapproval from the other customers in the bank. Bocky seems hesitant and stops pulling Cocky, but he still holds his arm twisted behind his back. The PRO appears.

PRO: What seems to be the problem?

COCKY: I came in here to open an account, like any other normal citizen, and this bully of yours immediately threw himself at me. You can ask these people. In other banks they treat you with respect, but here…

PRO: I must ask you to accept our deepest apologies. It’s a matter of a quite ordinary misunderstanding. I can assure you that the respect shown to you in other banks is nothing compared with the way our bank behaves towards…

COCKY: Its children?

PRO: Exactly. Our relationship with our clients is like the relationship of the tenderest of mothers towards her tiny baby. Our bank…

COCKY: All right, that’s quite enough empty words. Tell this chap here to let me go, or we’ll all go off to another bank.

PRO: Of course. Bocky, please let the gentleman go. And apologize to him for the misunderstanding.

BOCKY: What misunderstanding? Look, he’s that – you know…

PRO: I know. But the gentleman says that this time he wants to open an account. He’s behaving quite properly and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t offer him our services. Actually, this is the greatest virtue of this bank. Like any other caring mother, it’s ready to forgive its little children for all their previous misdemeanours, when it sees that they are genuinely sorry. So let the gentleman approach the counter. Of course, if he starts behaving inappropriately again, then gently and considerately escort him from the bank. (More quietly.) If there’s no one in the street, break both his legs.

COCKY: There’ll be no trouble in that respect. I’ve finished with RACCOON.

PRO: Congratulations. I knew that it was just a matter of the short-lived errors of a misspent youth.

COCKY: Thank you. You know, I underwent therapy and they explained everything to me there.

PRO: Splendid. So does that mean that your recovery is complete?

COCKY: Absolutely. They explained that my conviction that the whole world was fucked up was simply the result of a lack of bow-chicka-wow-wow. You know, shortly before we met, my girlfriend gave me the boot.

PRO: Permit me in the name of our bank to express our deepest sympathy.

COCKY: Thank you. You’re wonderful. You should know that she left me because I didn’t have a bank account and went off with a guy who had ten of them. He’s got even more, but they couldn’t find all of them.

PRO: Yes, I know what you’re getting at. You should know that if you ever need a service like that, our bank is the perfect choice. When we hide an account, it doesn’t exist as far as the authorities are concerned.

COCKY: I’ll keep that in mind, because I’m certain that I’ll soon be needing such a service. You know, during my therapy they explained to me that neither my girlfriend nor a world in which some people have both visible and invisible accounts – while others don’t have an account at all – is responsible for my bitterness – I myself am totally to blame.

PRO: Most wise.

COCKY: Incredible, isn’t it? Instead of attacking other people’s accounts, I simply had to open one myself. This wonderful world is full of possible ways of getting hold of money, both legal and illegal. I’ve already started with the legal way and as soon as I’ve saved my first slightly larger amount, I’ll make a start with the illegal method. I work like a dog all day – it’s boring, routine work, which I don’t enjoy and which develops neither my creativity nor my intellect, but that doesn’t matter. What’s important is that this work brings in the money, and the money brings the bank accounts and the bank accounts bring the sexual partners. You see, I’ve realized that all women are the same, as long as they offer enough bow-chicka-wow-wow. Instead of getting in a state because of my former girlfriend, because of how she treated me and because of the fact that it’s also my own fault for loving someone to whom bank accounts are more important than personality traits, I simply have to open a bank account and hunt for another girlfriend. Instead of crying because of a lack of genuine love in this world, I have to thrust this fairy tale aside and realize that a sexual relationship is in fact just a contract. Two adults draw up a contract and sign it, just as you sign a contract with your customers in the bank.

PRO: What a wonderful comparison. You know, the relationship between us and our clients is just like the relationship between two lovers. Every day we also fu… Er, maybe it’s not the best comparison after all.

COCKY: Maybe, but you’ll agree with me, just as I agreed with my psychiatrist, that this wonderful world exists solely of contracts, contracts concerning money and contracts concerning bow-chicka-wow-wow. Instead of expecting love and understanding, instead of hoping and suffering and then experiencing bitter disappointment, you simply draw up a contract with the first healthy woman of your age – one with reasonably good looks, of course. Thanks to this wonderful world of ours, hundreds of men’s and women’s magazines, hundreds of popular books as well as television and the Internet teach us how such contracts are drawn up and how they are best complied with. Thanks to progress in our wonderful world, we have no problem in spending our life with someone we neither love nor respect. Instead of combing the world looking for our soul mate, we simply pop into the nearest café in the evening and place a contract on the table. Naturally, the choice of café will depend on the number of accounts we have, that is on all our former contracts with the bank, which proves that everything begins with the bank, that in fact banks help us to find a partner.

PRO: That’s precisely what I said last time! When you want to get married, where do you come?

COCKY: To you!

PRO: That’s right! To us, to us and always to us!

COCKY: And we make a contract with you, and then another with our sexual partner and our life is perfectly organized. The whole day doing a dull, routine job – the whole day on the bow-chicka-wow-wow production line, but it doesn’t matter. Because in the evening the bow-chicka-wow-wow on the production line will be taken over by the bow-chicka-wow-wow with the other contracted party. Bow-chicka-wow-wow at work, bow-chicka-wow-wow in bed…

PRO: Bow-chicka-wow-wow in the bank!

COCKY: That’s it. Non-stop bow-chicka-wow-wow, bow-chicka-wow-wow. Totally pointless bow-chicka-wow-wow. But that’s precisely what’s good about it. No thoughts, no problems, no bitterness and suffering. If we stop thinking about the suffering of animals and people, it ceases to exist. Instead of laborious books and works of art, which anyway we don’t have the energy for after all that bow-chicka-wow-wow at work, there are television and the Internet and there are those colourful books and easy-listening music which go perfectly with the bow-chicka-wow-wow rhythm. And it’s true, as soon as I found a job, I found a girl and threw away all my records and all my books. Bow-chicka-wow-wow in the factory, bow-chicka-wow-wow in bed, bow-chicka-wow-wow on MTV…

PRO: Bow-chicka-wow-wow in the bank!

COCKY: That’s right! Bow-chicka-wow-wow everywhere. In the shop: buy, buy, buy! At the table: eat, eat, eat! All the time and everywhere. But that’s why I don’t worry about the raccoon anymore. Neither about the real raccoon, with its bushy tail, nor about RACCOON, short for the Radical Anarchist-Communist Organization. If I start thinking about animals on which they carry out monstrous experiments, what do I do? I just turn up the Bow-chicka-wow-wow.

PRO: Long live bow-chicka-wow-wow!

COCKY: And what do I do if I start thinking about wealthy men who live it up and throw their money about while millions of people are starving? Bow-chicka-wow-wow, bow-chicka-wow-wow!

PRO: BOW-CHICK-WOW-WOW! BOW-CHICKA-WOW-WOW!

COCKY: Long live bow-chicka-wow-wow!

PRO: Long live bow-chicka-wow-wow! I can see that you’re really completely cured. Bocky, there’s no need to stand there. We two will withdraw and allow the gentleman to open an account in peace. Zorana, please be especially cordial towards our naughty little boy, who has returned weeping to the warm lap of his mother.

COCKY: Thank you.

Cocky and the PRO shake hands.

PRO: Don’t mention it. I’m sure that you will soon be one of our best customers.

Bocky and the PRO leave and Cocky goes over to the counter.

COCKY: Good morning. I’d like to…

Pause.

COCKY: To check the state of my raccoon.

ZORANA: Oh, don’t start that again, I beg you.

COCKY: What, so you’ve got something against raccoons, have you?

Bocky dashes in, grabs him by the collar and drags him away from the counter.

COCKY’S VOICE: But that’s nothing compared with what RACCOON has against you! Fuck you all…Oooow! DEATH TO ACCOUNTS! Ooow! Ooow!

PART 5

An old man and an old woman are standing in front of Zorana’s counter and taking the money that she has counted out for them. There is the sound of a door being opened and closed loudly.

COCKY’S VOICE: Nobody move! This is a stick-up!

The elderly couple turn round, alarmed. Panic-stricken shouts can be heard.

COCKY’S VOICE: Easy, Bocky, where are you off to? Keep still or I’ll fill you full of holes like a Swiss cheese. That’s it. Now slowly pass your pistol over here. Slowly. That’s it. What’s this – what sort of toy is this? Couldn’t your bosses buy you a real man’s gun? Look at this cannon of mine. Eh, what do you say? If you like, I can get you one. Nothing easier – the place is swarming with weapons. I got it for a guitar, on which I’d never played anything worth listening to, anyway. Incredible, eh? You know that bit from the nature and society lessons we had at primary school – the circulation of water in nature? Well this is the circulation of arms in the former Yugoslavia. So if you want something serious, we’ll have no trouble in finding it. What’s the matter – do you need something or not?

BOCKY’S VOICE: I don’t need anything.

COCKY’S VOICE: That’s it – just say so. Why are you being so gloomy? It seems you aren’t as aggressive as you usually are. Come on, now, get moving. Let’s go to the counter, I need to take out some money.

The two of them appear at the counter. Bocky appears first, his hands in the air. Cocky is dressed in a shabby brown fur coat, on the back of which a fox’s tail has been attached. It has black stripes which have obviously been painted on. Over his head he has wound a black scarf with slits for his eyes. In his left hand he is carrying Bocky’s official pistol, and in his right a large silver revolver with a long barrel, which looks as though it has been stolen from Clint Eastwood.

COCKY: Hi, Zorana, my lovely. Have these two finished?

ZORANA: Yes, they have.

COCKY: Come on then, make room for the next customer. (The old man and old woman move away from the counter.) That’s it. Zorana, please fill these bags with cash. Only please, don’t put in anything smaller than a thousand dinars. Come on, do it straight away, and give a bag to your colleague over there so she can help you. (Cocky looks to his right.) Come on, all of you now lie on the floor. Come on, Bocky, faster. (Bocky, encouraged by a kick on the behind, lies down on his stomach. The old man and old woman begin slowly to bend their knees.) No, not you. You don’t have to. In fact, women, children and the elderly can leave. Has Zorana given you your money?

OLD MAN: Yes, she has.

COCKY: Then you’re free to go. Zorana, hand over that bag. Here, take this as well and divide it up among the others outside.

OLD MAN: Thank you, young man, that’s very kind of you.

COCKY: Not at all, not at all. I apologize if I scared you.

OLD WOMAN: No you didn’t. I recognized you as soon as you came in. I immediately thought to myself: “It’s that well-mannered young neighbour of ours. The one who always greets us so politely.”

OLD MAN: Yes, unlike the majority of today’s youth.

COCKY: Yes, yes… Er, if it’s no problem, I would ask you to leave. The conversation is interesting and I’d love to carry on talking with you, but I have to rob the bank before the police arrive.

OLD WOMAN: Of course, we quite understand. We’re leaving.

COCKY: Goodbye.

OLD MAN: Goodbye, young man. And good luck with robbing the bank.

COCKY: Thank you, thank you. (The elderly couple leaves and Cocky turns to his right.) Come on, you, a little faster! Women, young and old raccoons and female raccoons – outside. The rest of you – I don’t want to see any of you move!

MAN’S VOICE: But why can’t we leave?

COCKY: I beg your pardon?

MAN’S VOICE: You’ve let the women leave, and left us lying here afraid that in an attack of madness you’ll kill us all. It’s not fair! Where’s the equality of the sexes?

COCKY: This is really incredible. Look, this isn’t a kindergarten, for God’s sake, it’s an armed robbery! All right, come on. All of you get out of here. Come on, come on, you can go. (Bocky lifts himself up onto his elbows and knees.) Not you, Bocky. (Cocky puts his foot on Bocky’s behind and returns him to his lying position.) Where do you think you’re going? You stay here with me.

A young man approaches Cocky from the right.

COCKY: What do you want? Get outside! You asked to go – what are you waiting for now?

MAN: Money.

COCKY: What money?

MAN: In the bag. So that we can divide it out, like the women and old folk.

COCKY: Be off with you, fuck you! Get out of here before I break your knees!

The man quickly runs off.

COCKY: That’s it. Any more dissatisfied customers? No? Excellent. (Puts Bocky’s pistol in his pocket.) Let’s see what you’ve collected. (Zorana hands him her bag.) Bravo, my beauty as fresh as the dawn. Full to the brim. Well done. (Cocky stuffs the bag inside his fur coat.) And you, what are you waiting for? Hand the bag here. (Another clerk appears beside Zorana and hands Cocky her bag.) What’s this – it’s not even half full?

CLERK: There wasn’t any more.

COCKY: What do you mean, there wasn’t any more? This is a bank, for God’s sake.

CLERK: Yes, but not all the money is kept here. We keep only…

COCKY: All right, all right, I’ll take what there is. (He stuffs the second bag inside his fur coat.)

CLERK: You won’t get away with this.

COCKY: I beg your pardon?

CLERK: You won’t get away with this unpunished. You think you’ve got a successful disguise, but I recognized you immediately. You’re that madman who’s been annoying Zorana. We all know what you look like. We’ll tell the police and they’ll capture you in the twinkling of an eye.

COCKY: That’s what you think, tell-tale. They’ll never capture me – not alive, anyway. This is just the beginning of Cocky Raccoon’s career, simply collecting resources. First I’m going to rob several banks so that I can get my hands on enough weapons. Then I start my war against the masters of the world and the injustice that they cause. I shall kidnap and kill politicians, rich men, bankers and their obedient servants. This isn’t a mask, it’s a uniform. I didn’t want simply not to look like myself – I wanted to look like a raccoon. Perhaps I haven’t quite succeeded, but this is the best I could lay my hands on. I whipped a fur coat and a fox’s tail from my neighbour’s washing line. If those two animal protectors were to see what she wears, they’d demonstrate under her window all day. But now I’ve got some money, I shall get hold of a proper costume. Just imagine me dashing into a bank as a real raccoon, armed to the teeth to boot. Just imagine me appearing at some minister’s door, merciless and relentless, like death. This is just the beginning. Everyone will hear about Cocky Raccoon and his Radical Anarchist-Communist Organization. Songs will be sung about me. Young revolutionaries will sit round a camp-fire, their weapons laid down beside them, and to a guitar they’ll sing about Cocky Raccoon. “Cocky Raccoon” will be a hundred times better than “Rocky Raccoon”. And like Rocky, Cocky will be left by his bird who will go off with some other guy. And like Rocky, Cocky will get hold of a pistol, but not to kill the pathetic chap, but to finish off as many bank managers as possible, seeing that his loved one left him because he didn’t have accounts in the bank like the other guy. Rocky Raccoon went to a saloon, but Cocky Raccoon will go to Solun and join up with the Greek leftists. With them he will blow up banks, kill rich men and politicians and then he will transfer the experience gained in Greece to the rest of the Balkans, then to Europe, and then to the whole world! As I was coming here I tried to think up a song about Cocky Raccoon, to make it easier for the song-writer who will give it its final form, but I only managed to think up a few verses. Nothing special, but it’s just the beginning. Bocky, you’ll repeat the last line of each verse. Is that clear?

BOCKY: Yes.

COCKY: Good. So it goes like this…
Once a raccoon whose name was Cocky
Lived a carefree life by the river Milwaukee,
At catching trout in Lake Michigan he was a winner
And he ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Cocky looks at Bocky, and then gives him a push with his leg.

BOCKY: And he ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

COCKY: He lived the quiet life of a wild raccoon,
With a female raccoon he liked to spoon,
Being lit by the sun and her beautiful face,
Of troubles and worries there was not a trace.

BOCKY: Of troubles and worries there was not a trace.

COCKY: But one day his lady raccoon so dear
Broke with Cocky with three words, I fear,
Packed her things and then pointblank
Left him for a chap with an account in the bank.

BOCKY: Left him for a chap with an account in the bank.

COCKY: Because Cocky ate trout and drank beer
And didn’t know what foreigners ate, I fear,
A Japanese raccoon, or a Dane or a Yank,
He didn’t have a car or an account in a bank.

BOCKY: He didn’t have a car or an account in the bank.

COCKY: But her new lover ate all he could find,
Everything on which a raccoon wined and dined.
He despised beer – it was champagne that he drank,
He had a yacht and an account in the bank.

BOCKY: He had a yacht and an account in the bank.

COCKY: Bravo, Bocky, you were excellent. Well, that’s it, I didn’t manage any more. I know it’s not much, but just you try to write a song while you’re going through the town dressed like this. Everyone was looking at me and it destroyed my concentration. In any case, it’s just an outline for a more talented songwriter. It’s just the introduction – the proper thing’s to follow. But, as I said, there’s plenty of time. This song will appear after my heroic death in the struggle against the arrogant rulers of the world. (Police sirens can be heard coming from the street.) Whose faithful dogs are just arriving. At one time the oppressors used to send their armed slaves to collect taxes, but today that’s your job. The armed followers don’t arrive until someone dares to oppose you, as I’m doing at the moment. They don’t get mixed up until now. But they’ve made rather a mess of it. They haven’t the faintest idea who they’re dealing with, isn’t that so, Bocky? (Shoves Bocky with his leg.)

BOKI: Isn’t that so, Bocky?

The door can be heard opening and the man who had been in favour of equality of the sexes comes in.

COCKY: What do you want now?

MAN: Their megaphone isn’t working, so they sent me in with a message.

COCKY: Speak, faithful dog of the faithful dogs.

MAN: They say that you’ve got two minutes to come out unarmed and with your hands in the air, or else you’re finished. They’ve surrounded the bank and you’ve got no chance of escape.

COCKY: It looks as though they’ve been watching too many Hollywood films. Now you take them my message. Tell them that I’ll be out soon and that it would be better that before I do so, they throw down their arms and put their hands up. Do you understand?

MAN: But they say…

COCKY: Get out, you pathetic megaphone, before I blow you to bits!

The man leaves.

BOCKY: You shouldn’t have sent him away. You should have taken him hostage and used him as a shield when you go out.

COCKY: It seems you’ve been watching too many films as well, Bocky.

BOCKY: I’m serious. I’ve witnessed real bank robberies. Being experienced, I immediately lie down and then calmly watch the course of events. I’m telling you, without a hostage you’ve no chance of getting away. It’s a shame you sent him out. Actually, you can take her (points to Zorana’s colleague), which is perhaps a better bet. They might have shot at him, he would have certainly got on their nerves, but they certainly won’t shoot a woman. Mind you, by doing that you’ll have public opinion against you.

COCKY: Out of the question. Cocky Raccoon doesn’t take women as hostages. Mind you, for a moment I was tempted to take your advice. This tell-tale here gets on my nerves.

BOCKY: And mine. In the morning, when she arrives for work, she walks straight past me as if I don’t exist. Zorana always says good morning, chats with me, but from her there’s not so much as a “hello”. And when she sees that PRO she melts completely.

COCKY: You don’t say? She goes for that PRO, the one in the big shoes?

BOCKY: Yes, for that faggot.

COCKY: It’s a shame he’s not here. I’d use him as a shield with the greatest of pleasure.

BOCKY: It wouldn’t do you any good. They’d shoot him without hesitation.

COCKY: Yes, as soon as they saw his shoes.

Cocky and Bocky laugh.

CLERK: You’re the one they’re going to shoot without hesitation. You dare to criticize a gentleman’s shoes and just look at how you’re dressed. When the police see what you look like, they’ll know that you’re mad and they’ll shoot you like a dog.

ZORANA: He’s not mad.

CLERK: Then I am. Just look what he looks like.

ZORANA: He’s not, He’s just momentarily confused, overcome by pain, grief and disappointment.

COCKY: What are you talking about?

ZORANA: Er, about your… lady raccoon. The one that left you. I know precisely how you feel. The same thing happened to me a year ago. The faggot moved in with some rich old whore. And I was tempted to buy a pistol and then fuck the living daylights out of both of them. If you’d broken into the bank with a pistol then, I’d certainly have joined you.

COCKY: It’s still not too late now. Here, Bocky’s ladies’ gun fits your hand perfectly. Your most beautiful hand.

ZORANA: Thanks, but I now know that neither he nor she is worth it.

COCKY: Who cares a fuck about them? Let the two of them and my lady raccoon and her glutton go to hell. We’ll go straight for the source of your and my and everyone else’s suffering – for the politicians, bank owners and multinational companies. We’ll kill them mercilessly, blow them up and rob the banks and then we’ll passionately and tenderly make love. Eh, what do you say to that? They’ll sing songs about us. Raccoon Cocky and his lady raccoon Zorana, shortened to Zocky. We’ll be more famous than the Baader-Meinhof gang. And our name will be easier to remember: the Cocky-Zocky gang, or if you prefer it: Zocky-Cocky. Of course, in the end they’ll kill us, just as they killed them and made it look like suicide.

CLERK: That’s not true. I saw the film. Nobody killed them, they killed themselves when they realized how mad they were. One of them admitted as much at the end of the film.

COCKY: Didn’t you find it just a bit suspicious that the scriptwriters decided to end the film precisely like that? Didn’t it look as though they were actually trying to emphasize that they had committed suicide, just as they’d tried to emphasize that Ulrike had tried to send her children to an Arab terrorist camp? Didn’t it occur to you that the German authorities were involved in the writing of the scenario, or were at least in control of it, so that the audience would get a specific picture of those people? That they all killed themselves on the same night, with pistols they’d smuggled past the guards, after years spent behind bars, at a moment when they still had influence on and sympathizers among the public? Give over, please! I’d like to see the prisoner, particularly a prisoner of that type, who managed to get a pistol into his cell past a Kraut. They had no kind of pistol whatsoever, they just burst into their cell in the middle of the night and shot them. Just as they hanged Ulrike before that, as the group’s spokesperson and thus the most dangerous member. To anyone with an ounce of sense this is as clear as day, and the film was made exclusively as an attempt to cover up this fact just a little bit at least. However, in spite of all their efforts, you have to be pretty stupid to believe in their version.

CLERK: It’s you who are stupid. In fact you’re not – you’re mad, just as they were. You’re talking the same drivel as they did. I hope the police beat you up just as they beat them up.

COCKY: I really am mad to waste time discussing things with you. Instead, Zocky, what do you think of my suggestion? If you like, take Bocky’s pistol so that we can get past the police together. Don’t be frightened – I’ll go first and fuck the living daylights out of them. While you shoot in the air to increase the effect. And then tomorrow we start our serious clash with the system. What do you say – do you agree?

ZORANA: No, I don’t agree. I don’t want to kill anyone. I think there’s already quite enough violence in the world without me. I don’t want to cause more victims myself.

COCKY: But what victims are you talking about? They’re deserving condemned criminals.

ZORANA: Do you consider policemen killed in the line of duty deserving condemned criminals?

COCKY: Of course. They should be protecting the law, while in fact they are breaking it themselves. They use weapons and the power they’ve been given by us to behave like criminals. You know what they say – those who join the police are the guys who haven’t the balls to become real criminals. Usually I don’t like such generalities, but I think that in this case it’s largely true. Most of them take part in criminal acts in one way or another. They’re always talking about human trafficking, for example, but you don’t see any significant success in reducing it. Why? Because the police also get advantages from these activities, whether they directly take part or whether the criminals just pay them to leave them in peace. No one can convince me that with their numbers, equipment and organization they are not in a position to put an end to this phenomenon. In China, as soon as the communists came to power, the number of people addicted to opium was reduced by tenfold. Quite simply, people wanted it to happen. Give me a thousand armed men and in a year not a single victim of human trafficking will pass through here. But they quite simply don’t want this, because they’re actively taking part in it. They should be protecting the law, but instead they’re breaking it themselves. They should be taking care of the security of citizens, but instead they’re taking care of the security of their bosses, politicians and the rich. Just as the aristocrats once had their own guards and soldiers, who maltreated and robbed the peasants, so today’s bigwigs have the police. When the nationalists were in power, their servants clubbed pro-western demonstrators to death, while today, while protecting their pro-western bosses, they beat to death nationalistically orientated demonstrators. And by protecting their bosses, they maintain the entire world order, because the powerful people in smaller countries are simply the employees of the powerful people from the big powers that rule the world. And when someone really needs the help of the police, they’re nowhere to be found. For example, a couple of days ago some young kid was trampled to death in front of their noses and they didn’t move a finger to help. So why should I, after all that, think twice before shooting them? Come on, tell me, don’t they deserve it?

ZORANA: No they don’t deserve it. I agree with you that among the police there are many individuals who don’t deserve to carry arms, who are mixed up in crime and corruption, but even these policemen have families, wives, children, who love them. Remember how you felt after your lady raccoon left you, and then think about the pain a child must feel when someone kills his parents. It’s not out of the question that after that he’ll get hold of a weapon himself and kill someone who doesn’t deserve it at all. Violence and suffering simply create new violence and new suffering. Not to mention that among the police, as in any other social group, there are bad, but also good individuals. Some of them certainly didn’t become policemen simply because they didn’t have the balls to be criminals, but from a desire to help people and protect those who really need protection. I truly believe that such policemen exist.

COCKY: So do I, but I am also certain that they are in the minority.

ZORANA: Perhaps. But even if there is only one such policeman, it’s possible that he’s the one in front of the bank at this very moment. And if the others are really as you think they are, they’ve certainly sent him out front, to be the first in the line of fire if you start shooting. Do you really want to kill such a policeman?

COCKY: I don’t want to kill anyone, I just want to go. Since they won’t let me, I shall have to get through them using force. If they use weapons to stop me, I’ll shoot too. I’ve started my struggle against the masters of the world honourably and I’m not going to give up now. Since you don’t want to go with me, I’ll get through them on my own. Unless you want to join me, Bocky? When the PRO gets on your nerves, there’s some hope that you could become a true fighter against the system. Agree, and I’ll return your pistol immediately. Instead of the Cocky-Zocky group, we’ll be the Cocky-Bocky group, which is just as impressive and easy to remember. We’ll sow horror in the hearts of the lords of the world, rob banks and kill the powerful. Do you agree?

BOCKY: No thanks, mate, I’m quite satisfied with the job I’ve got. I stroll up and down here and frighten children with my treacherous looks.

COCKY: Are you sure? I hope you didn’t think that the bit about making love applied to you as well? I’m not attracted to men raccoons, only lady raccoons.

BOCKY: It’s not that, it’s just that I don’t want to get involved with the police. I’ve had occasion to go to prison and I don’t want to experience that again. And I want you to avoid it as well.

COCKY: Don’t worry. Believe me, they won’t catch me. All right then, so that’s it. As for you, tell-tale, I won’t even ask you. So, I go on my own. Into the breach, to fame and glory!

ZORANA: Don’t go. They’ll kill you.

COCKY: Maybe. But I’ll take a lot of them with me. You know that a raccoon surrounded by dogs become a fanatical fighter? It takes at least a handful of dogs to overcome him. Perhaps dogs dressed up by politicians and the rich will overcome me as well, but many of them will pay with their lives first.

ZORANA: Please don’t go.

COCKY: What do you care? I invited you to come with me, to help me, but you refused.

ZORANA: But I didn’t refuse your other offer.

COCKY: Which one?

ZORANA: The one involving passionate and tender love-making.

COCKY: You mean… We haven’t got time for that now.

ZORANA: I didn’t mean now. I’m not promising anything, but I shall be waiting for you to contact me when you get out.

COCKY: When I get out of where?

ZORANA: Out of prison. Give yourself up, serve as much as you have to and then get in contact with me. By then all this madness of yours will have passed. It’s only a passing phase. You haven’t got a girlfriend, you probably haven’t got a job, and you just look on the bad side of things. Give yourself up to the police, serve your sentence and you’ll see that everything will look much brighter when you come out and start all over again.

CLERK: Are you normal? Perhaps his madness isn’t a passing one.

ZORANA: Perhaps. But what can I do when he has such beautiful eyes. (To Cocky.) What do you think?

COCKY: I don’t know myself.

BOCKY: Come on, mate, why not? We could give you a job here. The boss has mentioned more than once that he’s thinking of employing someone else in security.

ZORANA: There you are – you’ll have both a job and a girlfriend. You’ll be a new man. What do you say?

COCKY: Come off it – who’s going to give a job in a bank to someone who tried to rob it?

BOCKY: That’s precisely why they’ll employ you. As a kid I was put away for robbing a post office. And when I came out this was the only place where they wanted to hire me.

COCKY: But there’s not much logic in that.

BOCKY: There is. You know, it’s not uncommon for security employees to take part in robbing the bank where they work directly or simply by offering information to the robbers. To avoid this, banks employ the very people who were known to the police earlier. They reckon that they won’t dare do anything like this, because they’re aware that during their investigations the police will pay particular attention to them. That’s precisely why they employed me. And they’ll employ you, when I recommend you.

ZORANA: Are you going to accept?

COCKY: I don’t know…

CLERK: But don’t change your mind now. Go outside with your pistol and let them kill you.

COCKY: I’m jolly well not going to. To spite you.

ZORANA: That’s right. Give yourself up. Nobody’s been hurt, you’re temporarily mentally unbalanced – that will be obvious to them as soon as they see how you’re dressed. You’ve realized your mistake; you’ll return the money and give yourself up. We’ll all give evidence in your favour, so you won’t get very long.

COCKY: Will you visit me in prison?

ZORANA: Yes, I will. I promise.

CLERK: What’s all this? You’re selling yourself out? What about your struggle against the system?

COCKY: What can I do when she has such beautiful hair? All right, Bocky, up you get. Here’s your gun. Here’s mine as well. See you, mate. (Shakes hands with Bocky.) Zocky… (He offers his hand to Zorana through the counter, and then takes off his fur coat.) I shan’t be needing this anymore, either. Bocky, please return this to my neighbour. That’s it. So, off I go.

ZORANA: Bye! I’ll come and visit you.

BOCKY: Bye, mate.

Cocky walks a few steps and then quickly returns to the counter.

COCKY: Listen, Zocky… Er… (Goes down on one knee in front of the counter.) Will you marry me? I mean, when I come out? (Zorana doesn’t answer.) I know this is a bit of a surprise. I realize that we hardly know each other, but I’d find it much easier if I knew that there was someone really waiting for me when I come out. (Zorana still doesn’t answer.) Please say yes. I won’t be angry if you change your mind when I come out. (There is still silence on the other side of the counter.) You won’t? All right, I quite understand. I went too far.

ZORANA: No you didn’t. It was just a bit of a surprise… And somehow it seems a bit stupid to give you an answer when I can’t even see you.

COCKY: So you don’t actually turn down my offer?

ZORANA: Get up, so that I can see you properly, ask me again and then you’ll find out.

COCKY: Oh, no. It must all be done by the rules. You know, raccoons are real gentlemen.

ZORANA: But I really can’t answer such a question to a bank counter.

COCKY: And chivalry doesn’t allow me to ask such a question standing up.

ZORANA: What are we going to do, then?

COCKY: I don’t know.

BOCKY: Stop all this waffling and one of you go to the other side of the counter. If you don’t, I’ll start to shoot.

COCKY (getting up): All right, Bocky, calm down. Or we’ll call the police.

Cocky disappears and turns up on the other side of the counter. He goes down on one knee beside Zorana and disappears from view.

COCKY’S VOICE: Will you marry me?

ZORANA: I will.

CLERK: I’m going to throw up.

Cocky gets up. Zorana and he hug and kiss each other. At that moment the man who the police are using instead of a megaphone comes into the bank.

MAN: They say you’ve got another sixty seconds to come outside with your hands up, or to let the employees come out. Otherwise, they’re coming in.

COCKY: Get outside at once! No, actually, stop, wait… Tell them that I want them to bring me a priest in five minutes, or else I’m going to kill this clerk. (He points to Zorana’s colleague.)

MAN: A priest?

COCKY: Yes, a priest.

MAN: But what denomination?

COCKY: Whichever you like – you choose. A rabbi, hodha, priest – it’s all the same to me.

ZORANA: What do you want a priest for?

COCKY: So that we can get married, while we have the chance.

ZORANA: But I’m not a believer.

COCKY: Nor am I. I’m a communist. Or an anarchist. I don’t know which, precisely.

ZORANA: Then we need a registrar.

COCKY: You’re right. But in films they always ask for a priest, and that’s what gave me the idea. In the end films will completely fuck us up. Hey, you – did you hear? I want a registrar in five minutes, or anything can happen.

The megaphone leaves.

COCKY: There you are – we’ll manage to have the wedding before I go to prison.

ZORANA: But we haven’t got any witnesses.

COCKY: What do you mean we haven’t got any witnesses? I’ve got Bocky and you’ve got tell-tale.

CLERK: I’d rather die.

BOCKY: Come on, for God’s sake, don’t spoil things for them.

CLERK: No way.

BOCKY: Then I’ll tell the PRO what you did with the manager at the New Year’s Party.

CLERK: I didn’t do anything.

BOCKY: Yes you did. I saw you. When the PRO hears about it, all your plans for getting married from an account will fall through.

COCKY (to Zorana): You want to get married from an account?

ZORANA: No, I want to get married to a raccoon.

They both laugh.

CLERK: All right. I agree.

COCKY: Wonderful – then everything’s sorted out. My love, I can’t wait to get out of all this.

ZORANA: Me too. As soon as you start to work here we can take out some credit for a flat.

COCKY: Why not? The PRO says that your bank can’t wait to make young married people happy.

ZORANA: Did you know that that we have especially favourable credit for the employed. When you start working, we both become employed. That’s twice as favourable as favourable.

COCKY: Splendid! Long live our bank!

ALL: Cheers!

Suddenly the PRO appears.

PRO: Cheers!

CLERK: When did you turn up?

PRO: I’ve been here from the very beginning. I took up a strategic position under the table and have been keeping an eye on the situation.

COCKY: You’re leaving. I admit I’ve sold myself, but I haven’t gone that far.

PRO: But I’m the very person for you. I hear that you’ve got wedding plans, a life together, a family, infidelity, divorce…

ZORANA: Just you keep away from me, for fuck’s sake!

BOCKY (pointing his pistol): Come on, get out. If you don’t I’ll let your wife know about that flat she doesn’t know about.

The PRO goes.

COCKY: And tell those faggots to hurry up with the registrar.

ZORANA: Calm down, my dear, he must be on his way by now. (Noise is heard from the street.) This must be him.

The door can be heard opening and a thin girl appears, with very long hair that is not particularly well looked after.

GIRL (approaches the counter): Good moorhen.

ZORANA: Good morning.

GIRL: I didn’t say “good morning”, but “good moorhen”. Do you find it so difficult to say the word “moorhen”? Why do you hate moorhens in banks, eh? In fact why do you hate us all? Why do you create so much misfortune amongst us with your immoral green note business, in league with the world political and economic scum? But you’ll pay for all of it. The day is approaching when banks will start to burn, like in Greece. We’ll burn them all down, from this hole of yours right up to the World Bank. What’s this then, why have you all frozen stiff? Haven’t you thought about this before? Well, now it’s too late, now…

COCKY (pulling himself free from Zorana’s embrace): Excuse me, but could you accept me in your organization? So that together we can blow up banks, police stations and ministers? We’d be more famous than Ulrike and…

GIRL: Blow up banks with you? When I came in you were embracing a bank employee. Mind you, she’s only a cog in the machine for making people and moorhens unhappy, but even that cog is an important part of the machinery.

COCKY: I know – I know all that! You haven’t understood me correctly. I came here to rob them, to collect resources for the fight against the machinery. Look, you can ask them.

GIRL: Don’t lie. As far as I can see you’re standing on the wrong side of the counter. You’re part of the machinery. This glass between us is an impassable barrier. On top of everything, you all disgust me – I’m going. But you haven’t heard the last of me.

The girl leaves.

COCKY (turns to Zorana with an uncertain smile): What a twit.

ZORANA: Keep away from me. We’re not married yet and you’re already prepared to be unfaithful to me. And with a terrorist at that. You’re worse than my first.

COCKY: But the registrar’s nearly here.

ZORANA: There’s no need for him to come. I don’t want to marry you.

Zorana goes off, leaving him behind the counter with the other clerk.

COCKY: Will you marry me?

CLERK: Ha, ha!

She also leaves him. Cocky is now alone behind the counter, while the other three stand on the other side and look at him.

Pause.

COCKY (with a dumb look on his face): Have you got “Patience” on this computer?

He sits at Zorana’s computer and begins to play “Patience”. At one moment a bearded man appears.

BEARDED MAN: Good morning. I’m the registrar. I pronounce Cocky and Patience to be man and wife.

2009

Originally published in BCS (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian) in Par grama drama (A Few Grams of Drama) in 2010. Translated by Timothy John Byford. Translation copyright by Kosta Tadic.

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