Marvin Heemeyer – My monologue

Hello. I figured I might as well post my five-minute monologue as Marvin Heemeyer, builder of the Killdozer, that I performed at Intrepid Theatre’s Bring Out Your Dead, and blogged about on a couple of occasions. The performed ending went a little different, as I decided to improvise the last few lines to match the feeling of the piece on the night. I also risked staying seated for much of it, to give you a sense of the staging.

Thanks again to Janet Munsil for the opportunity. Enjoy!

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Lights up. A defeated Heemeyer looks up and laughs from inside his homemade tank.

HEEMEYER
Pick-axes. Pick-axes. See, this is why all law enforcement officers should at least go through basic army training, give them a brain and a pair of balls. Should’ve called in an air strike from the get-go.

My name is Marvin Heemeyer, and this is the inside of Granby, Colorado’s very own homemade tank, roadside attraction. I got beverages in the cooler if you want one, or you can use the cameras to enjoy the view – what you can see through the smoke of the damn carburator. Won’t be long now.

Still, you reasonably ask, what drives a God-fearing, responsible man to modify a Komatsu D355-A bulldozer with 12 inches of concrete, steel armor and gunports? Why, that’d take the whole world caving in, that’d take the damn devil moving in next door and taking over city hall, corruption the likes of Jesus throwing the money lenders out of the holy temple.

I was Marv the Muffler Man, they tell you that? Ran my own shop, ads on the TV station. “Come to Marv the Muffler Man, and I’ll change yer muffler, single-handed, 20 minutes flat, guaranteed.” I was about to get married, buy a dog, American dream and all that. Then that son of a bitch Cody Docheff, devil himself, paid off City Hall to rezone the acres right next to my shop, built his cement plant right on top of the only road to me.

I went to the mayor. “My customers need a way to access my tax-paying business, sir!”

He told me to “Quit whining”; what the city had done was all perfectly legal. I fought for years. They trumped up fines against me.

So I took out a loan and bought myself a bulldozer, told city council I’d build myself and all the town a road around the plant. They wouldn’t let me. Newspapers called me unreasonable.

I was always willing to be reasonable until I had to be unreasonable.

I worked for a year and a half, nights, putting this beauty together. Inspector came by and the damn thing was hiding under a tarp! Thirteen feet tall! I thought, this is it, they’ll haul me off. But something holy clouded his vision.

Darla, my fiancee, cheated, left. Dad died. Left me with no one to leave behind – just a purpose. God blessed me for this task.

I sealed myself in, drove straight for the cement plant.

Heemeyer laughs.

HEEMEYER
Or should I say, straight through the cement plant. It snapped and crumbled as I tore through its walls. The unstoppable force of truth. Beautiful. Employees streamed out the exits like rats at a fire.

As I left, you know who was waiting for me? That son of a bitch Cody, in his front loader, blocking the way. I fired a few. He drove away… Coward.

Town Hall, ‘Liberty’ Bank, fire station – every corrupted power of the government’s tyranny, demolished. Sky-Hi Newspaper folded. Took out the mayor’s house, brick by brick.

And all along the way, police officers walking alongside, SWAT teams, unloading clips into my baby, PING! PING! PING! Bouncin’ bullets. Crushed three cop cars.

Then the damn carburator blew, tread got stuck in a basement, and here we are.

Just because they’re the government doesn’t mean they’re safe. We, the people, are the real authority. Always.

I sacrifice my life, my miserable future that you gave me, to show you what you did is wrong.

And the destruction I have wreaked upon you, I did in the name of God, justice, and revenge.

Heemeyer pulls out the handgun.

HEEMEYER
I was just Marv the Muffler Man.

Heemeyer shoots himself in the head.

Lights down.