by David Ives
FRANK: What’s the news today, Joe? Something hot in the paper?
JOE (doesn’t look up): Hm?
FRANK: Some kinda … you know …
CHARLIE: International developments?
FRANK: International developments? How’s things in Europe? Any news?
JOE: The news is that history is a cesspool.
FRANK: Oh.
JOE: As it always was. We also find out that a woman in Astoria Queens lived with a guy for fifteen years, didn’t know the guy had five other wives.
FRANK: Five other wives?
JOE: In the same neighborhood.
FRANK: Did you hear this, Charlie?
CHARLIE: Many things are possible in this world.
FRANK: A guy with that many wives—is that still bigamy?
JOE: It’s geometry.
FRANK: Huh. Well gimme the TV page, will you? Let’s see what’s on the tube.
CHARLIE: Don’t let me hear anything about TV.
FRANK: I just want to see—
CHARLIE: Don’t let me hear no talk about TV. We got bowling tonight.
FRANK: I just want to see what I’m missing.
CHARLIE: Speaking of which, who’s in for tonight?
FRANK: I’m in.
CHARLIE: Joe, are you in?
JOE: I can’t this week, Charlie.
CHARLIE: You want to bowl a few games tonight?
JOE: I got things I got to do at home.
CHARLIE: What, you gotta nail up some doilies in your wife’s powder room or something?
JOE: I got some things I got to do at—
CHARLIE: So do ’em tomorrow.
JOE: Bridget wants me to do ’em tonight.
CHARLIE: So bring her along and do ’em tomorrow.
JOE: I can’t do ’em tomorrow, I—
CHARLIE: Hey who’s the king in your house, anyway? Who is the king? Who makes the rules?
FRANK: Gentlemen …
JOE: When Maggie wanted you to put in that new floor, you didn’t bowl for two weeks, Charlie.
CHARLIE: That was different.
JOE: And because you couldn’t bowl, you wouldn’t let us bowl either.
CHARLIE: That was different.
JOE: Yeah why was it so different?
CHARLIE: Just don’t get small on me, Joe, okay?
JOE: Why was it so—
CHARLIE: I hate it when you get small on me like that.
FRANK: Gentlemen, please! (After a moment.)
JOE: And it’s not doilies.
FRANK: Joe. (JOE is quiet.)
CHARLIE: How’s your wife doin’, Frankie?
FRANK: She’s good.
CHARLIE: The doctor fix her all up and everything?
FRANK: Looks like it. She was out there mowing the grass yesterday.
CHARLIE: That’s a sign.
FRANK: That’s a sign. But howbout that lawn mower you just bought, Charlie? How’s that working?
CHARLIE: Aaaaah, it’s busted.
FRANK: No.
CHARLIE: Yeah, it’s …
FRANK: Already?
CHARLIE: Yeah.
FRANK: So did you take it back?
CHARLIE: I don’t know why I ever cut my grass in the first place. I like it long. I like to sit on my porch and look at it long. Where do you think the word “lawn” comes from in the first place? From “long,” because grass was always long. Originally people said, “I’m gonna plant some seeds and grow a long.” Then some moron thought he’d be different and cut his long short. The rest is the history of fashion.
FRANK: I didn’t know that, (JOE snickers.)
CHARLIE: You say something, Joe?
JOE: Who, me? No, I didn’t say anything. (A paper floats by. CHARLIE plucks it out of the air, glances at it, and lets it float away again.)
FRANK (looks up and calls): Yo, Peptak! You got any of those sugar cubes? (He holds out the cup of his thermos and a sugar cube drops into it from above.) Thanks! (An air mattress floats by. No comment from any of them.)
CHARLIE: You guys ever think about hang-gliding home from here?
FRANK: Hang-gliding home?
CHARLIE: Yeah, instead of driving or taking the Path?
FRANK: Wouldn’t you have to learn how to hang-glide first?
CHARLIE: Well sure, you’d learn. But then after you wrapped up work you could just strap on your wings—walk off the top floor—and sail home. Be the first person in history to fly from Thirty-second Street and Tenth Avenue to Tenafly, New Jersey. With a fabulous view all the way. (Small pause.) Maybe after I retire.
FRANK: You know I been sitting here eating this thing and I still don’t know if it’s tuna or liverwurst?
CHARLIE: Yeah well that’s all the ozone up here.
FRANK: The what?
CHARLIE: The carbon dioxide at this altitude compresses the things in your nose, and you can’t taste nothing, (JOE snickers, louder than before.)
CHARLIE: Did you say something, Joe?
JOE: Not me. I guess the carbon dioxide was compressing my nose or something.
FRANK (from the newspaper): Speaking of flying, Charlie, they got that movie about the Lindbergh kid on again tonight.
CHARLIE: They got the what?
FRANK: That show about the Lindbergh baby who got kidnapped, with—
CHARLIE: Let me see that. (He grabs the paper.)
FRANK: Hey, what’s up? What the hell are you doing?
CHARLIE: I just want to see. (Reads intently.)
FRANK: Did you see that movie that time it was on?
CHARLIE: Yeah …
FRANK: With Anthony Hopkins, as what’s his name …
CHARLIE: Bruno Hauptmann.
FRANK: Hey didn’t that happen someplace around—?
CHARLIE: Hopewell, New Jersey.
JOE: What are they bringing that turkey back for?
CHARLIE: “Turkey”?
JOE: Yeah, who wants to see that garbage all over again?
CHARLIE: It happens to be a very thoughtful movie, for your information. And as it happens today is the anniversary of the day that Charles Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped.
JOE: That happened fifty years ago! What’s the big deal about—
CHARLIE: Jesus Christ died on Easter, they show The King of Kings that weekend.
FRANK: Gentlemen …
CHARLIE: If you’d ever done anything more important than glue your wife’s cat pictures into a photo album, they’d show the Joe Morelli Story on your birthday. Does that explain to you why the movie is on today?
FRANK: Gentlemen, please!
CHARLIE: And don’t let me hear the word “turkey.”
FRANK: Hey what’s with you today, Charlie? What’s the matter?
CHARLIE: Nothing’s the matter.
FRANK: You’re acting all weird.
CHARLIE: I’m not weird.
FRANK: So what’s up?
JOE: Turkey.
CHARLIE: I TOLD YOU I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THE WORD “TURKEY”!
FRANK: Something sure seems up.
CHARLIE: Nothing is up. Forget about it. Nothing’s up.
FRANK: Here, bird. (He whistles to a passing bird and tosses it a crumb. CHARLIE takes a cupcake out of his lunch pail, unobtrusively puts a candle in, and lights it.)
FRANK: What the heck is that?
CHARLIE: What does it look like? It’s a cupcake.
FRANK: Hey Joe, will you look at this?
JOE: Isn’t that nice. Maggie made him a cupcake.
CHARLIE: My wife did not make me this cupcake, I bought this cupcake.
FRANK: What’s the … you know …
CHARLIE: Celebration?
FRANK: The celebration, Charlie?
CHARLIE: Who says there’s a celebration?
FRANK: Corned beef and pastrami and a chocolate cupcake?
CHARLIE (pointing to the cupcake): If you will notice—a somber color. Maybe I’m observing a very solemn day for some private reason.
JOE: N
ext thing you know he’s going to be putting out doilies around his house.
CHARLIE: That’s it, Morelli!
FRANK: Gentlemen—
JOE: And your taste in movies is lousy!
FRANK: Gentlemen—
JOE: And if you ask me, Charles Lindbergh is overrated.
CHARLIE: Overrated?
JOE: Yeah, overrated! So he flew across the—
CHARLIE: The greatest hero in American history?
JOE: He flew across the ocean. Big deal.
CHARLIE: Oh big deal, huh?
JOE: Yeah. And as for the Lindbergh baby—who cares?
CHARLIE: Who cares?
JOE: Yeah who the hell cares, it’s old news!
CHARLIE: Oh yeah?
JOE: It’s ancient history that kid got stolen.
CHARLIE: Well for your information—
JOE: Working people get kidnapped every day in the world and they don’t make no movies about them.
CHARLIE: Maybe they’re not as important as the Lindbergh baby.
JOE: So why am I supposed to care about the goddamn Lindbergh baby?
CHARLIE: You don’t care about the Lindbergh baby?
JOE: No, I don’t care about the Lindbergh baby!
CHARLIE: You don’t have any feeling for the Lindbergh baby?
JOE: No I don’t have any feeling for the Lindbergh baby!
CHARLIE: Well for your information, I am the Lindbergh baby! (Long pause.)
FRANK: You’re the … ?
CHARLIE: Yes. I am the Lindbergh baby. I am the rightful son of Charles Lindbergh, kidnapped from the home of my parents, and I didn’t mean to tell you but you forced me into it. And the hell if I will listen to my family being insulted! So there!
JOE: You’re the—?
CHARLIE: Yes.
FRANK: But your name is Petrossian.
CHARLIE: Oh sure. That’s what I was brought up to think my name was.
JOE: YOU THINK YOU’RE THE LINDBERGH BABY?
CHARLIE: Go to hell, Joe.
JOE: Have you gone off your head?
CHARLIE: No I have not gone off my head.
JOE: I don’t believe this!
CHARLIE: Yeah well the truth is always strange at first sight. So live with it.
JOE: Do you know that there are separate asylums to hold all the people who think they’re the Lindbergh baby?
CHARLIE: Just mind your own business, will you? Read your newspaper. Stick to pickle and pimento loaf, Smalltime.
FRANK: Charlie, there are people who might wonder a little, if you claimed to be the Lindbergh baby.
CHARLIE: But it all fits, doesn’t it? I mean—“Charles”? “Charlie”? Was I not born in New Jersey and brought up in the town of Hopewell, where the crime was perpetrated?
FRANK: He was brought up in Hopewell, Joe.
JOE: Yeah? That makes about fifty thousand other Lindbergh babies.
CHARLIE: Well they’re impostors.
FRANK: I thought the police found the kid’s body.
CHARLIE: That was another kid’s body.
FRANK: Whose body?
CHARLIE: I don’t know whose body. But it wasn’t my body.
FRANK: Obviously not.… How come you kept this a secret all these years, Charlie?
CHARLIE: Well naturally a lot of people wouldn’t believe me.
JOE: OH REALLY?
CHARLIE: Plus I was already pretty well established as Charles Petrossian. You know—driver’s license, credit cards, bank account…
FRANK: Sure, it’s hard to make a change.
CHARLIE: But mostly I didn’t want to upset the feelings of my true mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
JOE: Whose books are bullshit.
CHARLIE: You shut your trap about my mother!
FRANK: Come on, Joe, you know better than that.
JOE: Have you read her books?
CHARLIE: Yes I have and I think they’re very beautiful.
JOE: She made a goddamn fortune offa you, writing about that kidnapping.
CHARLIE: It happened to be a very traumatic experience for her.
JOE: That don’t mean she has to go peddle it on the street corner. You oughtta ask for a cut of her royalties. You could retire early, take up hang-gliding.
CHARLIE: I’m through talking to you.
FRANK: Joe’s got a good point, Charlie. You ought to contact the family. You could try to pick up your inheritance. You coulda been a rich guy, Charlie!
CHARLIE: Actually … I did write to mother, once.
FRANK: You did?
CHARLIE: Yeah. But she never answered back. I figure the letter never got to her.
FRANK: Did you tell her—you know—who you were?
CHARLIE: I hinted who I was.
JOE: Oh sure. “Dear Mom. Guess who?” And then he signed it, “Your loving son, Charles Petrossian. P.S. Send the inheritance.”
CHARLIE: Knock it off.
JOE: Real subtle.
CHARLIE: Anyway I told her how I was from her area. That’s how I put it, I said that I was “from her area.”
FRANK: That’s a hint.
JOE: Sigmund Freud would’ve had a picnic.
CHARLIE: I told her how I saw their house lots of times.
FRANK: You saw the house you were kidnapped from?
CHARLIE: Sure. I used to go by it all the time when I was a kid. Then later on when I knew who I really was I used to drive out there sometimes and just park and look at it. I’d park under this tree and sit there thinking to myself, This is yours, Charlie. This is your kingdom.
FRANK: So your old man flew the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis.
CHARLIE: And my grandfather was ambassador to Mexico.
FRANK: I didn’t know that.
CHARLIE: Yeah, my mother’s father.
FRANK: I seen the movie lots of times on the late show, The Spirit of St. Louis. Must be great, having Jimmy Stewart play your father and all.
CHARLIE: I wrote to Jimmy once, under my nom de plume of Petrossian.
FRANK: He ever answer back?
CHARLIE: I got a signed picture in the mail.
FRANK: You never told me that!
CHARLIE: Yeah.
FRANK: You never told me you had a signed picture of Jimmy Stewart!
CHARLIE: Well I been keeping it a secret in case people start getting ideas about my true identity. Somebody puts a few clues together, it could have repercussions.
JOE: Yeah, they’d throw you in the loony bin.
CHARLIE: Go ahead. Scoff if you will!
FRANK: But this means Anthony Hopkins didn’t really do it.
CHARLIE: You mean kidnap me?
FRANK: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Obviously not. Not unless he was in league with the Petrossian family, and handed me over to them.
FRANK: Yeah—what about the Petrossians’ role in all this?
CHARLIE: My foster parents, as I like to think of them? Pawns in a bigger game, Frank. Pawns in a bigger game.
FRANK: But how did you make the transition? I mean, from being a Lindbergh to being a Petrossian?
CHARLIE: Let me just say, I got my ideas, Frankie.
FRANK: You know it’s very funny you should be saying all this.
CHARLIE: What, that I’ve been the Lindbergh baby all these years and you never knew it?
FRANK: Yeah. Because you see, I’m the son of Czar Nicholas the Second of Russia.
CHARLIE: No.
FRANK: Yeah.
CHARLIE: You’re kidding.
FRANK: It’s the truth.
CHARLIE: The kid that got killed in the Russian Revolution?
FRANK: That’s me. The heir to the throne of Moscow.
CHARLIE: Holy shit.
FRANK: And Sovereign of the Ukraine.
CHARLIE: I saw that movie. Nicholas and What’s-Her-Name.
FRANK: Alexandra. That was my mother.
CHARLIE: But I thought you got shot.
FRANK: A faithful servant smuggled me out.
Nobody knows I survived.
CHARLIE: And you had Laurence Olivier in your movie and everything. I mean, Anthony Hopkins is one thing—but Sir Laurence Olivier!
FRANK: Yeah, I felt pretty honored, having him in my movie. Though I did have a few quibbles about the, you know, historical details.
CHARLIE: So what’s your real name?
FRANK: Alexei Nikolaievitch Romanoff.
CHARLIE: By what name would you prefer to be called?
FRANK: Why don’t you just keep calling me Frank. It’ll be easier.
CHARLIE: Besides protecting your incognito.
JOE: THE CZAR OF RUSSIA?
CHARLIE: Now Joe—
JOE: THE CZAR OF RUSSIA?
CHARLIE: I don’t want to hear a word from you, Joe.
JOE: Do you know how old you’d have to be, to be the Czar of Russia?
CHARLIE: Never you mind, Frank.
JOE: You’d have to be ninety years old!
CHARLIE: You want to hurt his feelings?
JOE: And a hemophiliac!
FRANK: I’ve always been a heavy bleeder.
JOE: That don’t make you the goddamn Czar of Russia! I mean, the Lindbergh baby is one thing, but—
CHARLIE: Will you just shut up? Please? Shut up? You’re on a lot of very sensitive ground. We are talking families, Joe. And Frank here lost everybody in the Revolution, so have a little sympathy. You got orphans here.
JOE: Okay then, Alexei. How do you know all this? How do you know you’re the head honcho of the Ukraine?
FRANK: Well… one day I saw this picture in a book, a picture of Moscow with the … you know … the Kremlin, and those domes—
CHARLIE: Yeah, those onion-shaped domes.
FRANK: And I said to myself, I’ve been there! I’ve been there sometime! It was like I could remember it.
CHARLIE: Of course you’d remember it. Those communist bastards tried to rub you out there.
FRANK: And then when I saw that movie it was like I knew all the streets. Before they’d even go around a corner I’d know what was going to be on the other side. It was home.
CHARLIE: Musta been painful.
FRANK: It was pretty painful.
CHARLIE: Seeing everything you lost out on.
FRANK: It only got really bad when I had to watch myself get killed.
CHARLIE: Understandably, Alexei. Understandably. But how’s your Russian these days?
FRANK: Oh, I’ve forgotten most of it by now.
CHARLIE: The whole trauma probably made you—you know—
FRANK: Repress it.