America Finding Her Way
Page 3
did you go, Jack? And why come here?
Jack: (Hand on her arm to silence her) Wait.
(Anne frustrated, looks at Dave, realizing Jack may not want to speak in front of him. Beth above, dazed from sleep, starts down stairs)
Dave: Jack was really smooth. Walked in like he was an old salt.
Anne: You didn't ask how to use it?
Jack: Better to seem hip. I worked construction in high school.
Dave: He told them he needed the stuff to rip out some rotten old stumps. He was speaking truth. The man’s wasted as an engineer; he's a fucking poet.
(Beth comes into Jack's view. He looks at her, startled. Seeing him has stopped her descent)
Anne: Stuff really turned you on, huh, Davey? (To Jack) This kid work out?
Dave: Did I pass the nerve test, you mean. (Notices Jack's look, then sees Beth) Oh. Didn’t I tell you she’s here? Pleasant dreams, princess?
Beth: Everything's happened without me. (Joins them, but ignores Jack)
Jack: Hello, Beth.
Anne: They just now got here.
Beth: This is it?
Dave: That's the stuff.
Beth: (Light laugh) Well. (Beat) Why’d you bring it here?
Dave: (Looking at them, uneasy) That’s what I’d like to know.
Anne: (Glare at Jack, who avoids her) I gather the only answer is “Later?”
Beth: (Accepts the mystery, and– ) Can I see it?
Dave: Sure. (Moves, but stops) or...you know how to proceed, Maestro?
Jack: I do. (Moves to crate) We just have to be careful of sudden or sharp moves. (Opens crate, as they all look, he picks one up) This isn't a gun. If it's in your hand when it fires, there's no use aiming at the other guy. (He holds it toward Beth. She takes it from his hand) See how you have to trust your friend?
(She ignores his double entendre, hands it back. He puts it gently in the crate)
Dave: I was scared shitless when we loaded it in. But you know what? It made my head very clear, like a shot of oxygen; it dropped the temperature – tzoom.
Jack: (Tense - staring at Beth; no response) Better move it. Where to, Anne?
Anne: (Off-guard) I hadn't... Woodworking room, I guess.
Jack: Show me.
(Anne moves down steps to cellar. Jack follows.)
Dave: (In kitchen) You know it was one thing to bring the stuff...
Anne: (In cellar) All right? It's cool and dry.
Jack: Never any flooding?
Anne: Never since I played pirates and ghosts.
Dave: ...but I hadn't thought about living with it.
Beth: Sort of...alters the atmosphere.
Jack: Perfect. OK, here it stays. (Starting back up stairs)
Anne: What is coming down?! You were just supposed to bring the cash to Barton.
Jack: Ask me again when we're finished. And watch Dave.
Anne: (Following him upstairs) What?
(Jack picks up a crate. So does Dave)
Beth: Can I carry them?
Jack: (Looks at her; she meets his gaze) Yes. But walk it first. You too, Dave.
Dave: (Setting crate down) Good idea.
(Beth goes down first, followed by Jack with crate, then Dave. Anne adjusts lights on the way)
Jack: Dave, carry a crate, then stay down there. We'll work a relay. Anne knows her space.
(A relay begins, so each has fewer steps to go, with Jack above, Beth from top to mid-stair, Dave, from mid-stair to Anne, below, who regulates stacking)
Dave: (Carrying to Anne) Whooh, sure about this new tenant, Gorgeous? There's enough sauce here to rattle a whole block of landmark mansions.
(Dave climbing for a crate, back and forth as dialogue continues. Beth, silent, ignoring Jack's attempts to lock eyes with her, makes circuits, handing crates to Dave)
Anne: The mansions could use rattling. Way down to their rightful Indian bones.
Dave: My, my, what would Daddy say?
Anne: That he’d trust Indians if it weren't for their Jew noses.
Dave: Ooooo, straight to my heart. (Hands her his crate, makes another circuit as he talks) This is death, Anne. I rattled over every pothole sitting on this stuff today, but my brain was alive...like with a sniff of ammonia. I wasn't afraid.
(Arriving down, he swiftly picks up a stick of dynamite, waves it in air, then speaks softly)
Dave: Do you know what that feels like? Like I could take you in one bite. Dare me?
Anne: (Tempted) If you're that high, you don't need a dare.
Dave: Right. (Turns away, continues circuit) So I’ll track the layers your coolness sits on. When they dig up this street for a gas leak, they find the Manhattans, mild people. And on top of them the shrewd puchasers of this 24 dollar island, and up and up to your daddy's own workshop, stuffed with dynamite. (Beat) Ordinary house when it was built, but you can't buy one now. Unless you're an oil sheik. And the people who’ve always had them are very sure who they are. (Very close to Anne)
Anne: And who their daughters are?
Dave: (Leaving) Oooo you are so elegant. That's the sleekness of knowing all eyes are on you. Have you ever doubted yourself...by so much as a jagged fingernail?
Anne: (Laughs) And that makes you curious?
Dave: It arouses, yes.
Anne: I'm tough meat.
Dave: Chance I take. (Close to her) Didn't anybody ever tell you violence is sexy.
Anne: Violence is not sexy.
(As Beth ascends to get a crate, Jack blocks her, and takes her in a deep, desperate kiss. She responds)
Dave: The most consistent–and bizarre–reaction to death...is copulation.
Anne: You mean someone else's?
Dave: Death? Yes.
(Dave's fondling her, Anne does not resist)
Dave: It’s a system check. Checking out life to be sure you've still got it.
(Dave and Anne bend over the crates in a clinch, while Jack and Beth come up for air– )
Jack: (Relieved) Well.
(Beth moves immediately past him to get another crate)
Jack: Now wait a minute...
Beth: (Picking up the crate) This is the action.
Jack: That's right, but...
Beth: Right.
(She moves past him)
Jack: Do I have to grab you again?
Beth: Try it.
Jack: (Beat) No. You grab me.
(Beth holds look, then starts down with crate. Angry, Jack blocks her, takes hold of the crate, pulls it away. Beth gasps, alarmed by the danger. Jack sits on step with dynamite in his lap)
Jack: (Terse confession) I got back two days ago.
Beth: Anne knew?
Jack: Yes.
(Beth starts away)
Jack: Three weeks organizing – Seattle, then San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, Atlanta. (Beat) Was it bad for you?
Beth: I was gone, too.
(Jack sits silent, watching her. She breaks his gaze, leaving– )
Beth: They were right to split us.
(Anne, below, breaks from clinch, with an outburst– )
Anne: Violence is sexy? I've never heard such a pile of macho, sexist...
Dave: Don't turn on me, sshweetheart (Draws Anne into another kiss, but…) Nothing sexy about Ghandi, or Martin Luther K...
(Anne shoves Dave away, climbs stairs to Beth, who’s continuing with crates)
Dave: I mean, nobody ever got it up by swaying to the ooms of "We Shall Overcome."
Anne: That's enough!
Dave: Oops. Could’ve sworn I was playing with voluptuous Ms. Pick-up-the-gun.
Anne: (Shouts) You ass. I was there. You think giants come along so you can sneer?
Dave: So you worshiped him; he said "believe in me, and..."
Anne: You have no idea what it takes!
Dave: …a
nd now look at you.
(Anne on stairs becomes rally, like she's speaking to thousands. Beth carries crates, and Dave will join her, piling dynamite higher)
Anne: Do you!? The colossal soul it takes – to be nonviolent in this world. The immensity of him. (Begins quietly) When they told me what happened...I laughed. A funny little laugh. It was so silly. Not possible...that such a gigantic force could be effected by something so ludicrous and crude as a bullet. You can't shoot a messiah in the midst of his work. But America could. (Beat) There is a moment when nothing is the same again. When some...injustice enrages you as nothing has before. And you know you must act, and keep on acting, until that injustice, that crime, is wiped from the universe. The odd thing is, you don't have to be a strong, or brave, or forceful person. You just have to be angry. It will frighten you. It's a primal instinct – cataclysmic. You must act. Or you will cease to be human.
Dave: (Still) Act…with violence.
Anne: It was simple. They shot him. America's answer to his nonviolence was to shoot him. I changed then.
Jack: (From kitchen, where he's reserved one crate) Anne?
Anne: (Snapping back to present) Yeah?
Jack: Got room in the refrigerator for a crate?
Anne: (Quickly inventorying her situation, turns abruptly) Make it.
Jack: OK.
(Jack opens refrigerator, takes out beer, lifts in last crate, shuts refrigerator. They all gather)
Dave: (Collapsing) "Excuse us, Officer, it's only a miniature eclipse we’ve got here. You know, like a million earth's worth of burning gas."
Beth: (Handing him a beer) Pretend it's silage, Davey. You're in trouble if that gets too hot, too.
Dave: Hey – this whole house could go up, like– (Snaps fingers. Chill, as everyone imagines it) But the up-side? Then the whole freaking world could not deny...you cats are serious.
Jack: (Sharp) You got this guy roped in?
Anne: Only tenderized.
Dave: And implicated. Or is it "accompliced."
Anne: However you want to tell it, David.
Dave: I said I’d help you move the stuff, and that’s all I said.
Jack: And you’re still here.
Anne: (Finally bursts– ) Why the hell have I been dangling over a pit for two hours? Why’d you order a shut down?!
Dave: “Shut down”?
Beth: Are we shut down?
Anne: Yes. This king-pin called it after you went to sleep.
Jack: I had to.
Anne: Why!
Beth: What went wrong?
Dave: What the hell are you talking about?
Jack: (Beat, then, glaring at Dave) East Third Street's been busted.
Anne: What!
Dave: Jesus!
(Beth sits down without a word, will remain very still. Silence)
Anne: (Suddenly) Ned... ?
Jack: (Drained) I saw them put him in a pig car. Barton and Josy too.
Anne: My god. (Sits lost an instant, then shouts) You've known this since you called me?
Jack: (Beat) I have.
Anne: You bastard. Why didn't you tell me?!
Jack: What would you have done?
Anne: Something to help them. Like you should have been doing.
Jack: Like throwing myself in front of the pig-mobile?
Anne: Like getting the lawyers over to the 9th precinct.
Jack: They can do that for themselves, Anne. You know the rules.
Dave: Then, when you flagged me...?
Anne: You didn't even get to Third Street?
Dave: Only far as Avenue A. Jack practically jumped off the curb. Said I was late, and we better get going.
Anne: But you didn't call me then. It was later than...
Jack: Anne, think. I couldn't be sure I wasn't tagged. I didn’t call till I was sure.
Dave: That's what all the twisting back on the Parkway was. Thought it was just paranoid...
Anne: You didn't tell him either? You just ran off to Connecticut.
Jack: I just went ahead as planned.
Anne: As though nothing had... Not as planned. Barton was supposed to go, not you.
Jack: I carried out the action, made sure the action was accomplished.
Anne: Born-again conservative.
Jack: Anne...
Anne: You'll go on trimming tomato plants when your mother drops from sunstroke!
Dave: What if Anne had called East Third? It must be staked out. What if she’d gone over there?
Beth: Jack told her "shut down." Shut down means lay low. Contact no one.
Anne: No. Shut down meant "squeeze your ass, lady." Cross your legs and sit on it till Daddy decides what to do.
Jack: You'd have gone storming out and lost everything, Anne. The rule is "scatter