Take Ten II

by Eric Lane

  RON: Or Miami Beach.

  SCOTT: Now you're talkin'.

  RON: How's Angie? (SCOTT stares at him.) Does your wife know? (SCOTT stares at him.) About Angie. Does she know about Angie?

  SCOTT: How do you know about Angie?

  RON: You told me.

  SCOTT: I did no such thing.

  RON: There's this girl named Angie—you said. You don't know her—you said. Friend of Dee's. And we've been sort of, you know … seeing each other.

  SCOTT: Jesus, Ronnie—

  RON: Those were your words. (Silence.) Does she know?

  SCOTT: Is that a threat?

  RON: No, it's—

  SCOTT: Like you'll—what—like you'll TELL HER?!

  RON: Hey, I didn't—

  SCOTT: My wife who you do not even know—not really—never made the effort—not really—all these years, Ronnie— Christmas, New Year's, birthdays by the lake—all these years and you never made the effort to know her—

  RON: Hey—

  SCOTT: People like you—my wife is wasted on people like you.

  RON: HEY—

  SCOTT: Your loss, pal. Dee is a remarkable woman.

  RON: I know that.

  SCOTT: Bullshit.

  RON: I KNOW THAT.

  SCOTT: THE HELL YOU DO.

  RON: I HAVE MADE AN EFFORT!

  (Silence.)

  SCOTT: Meaning what?

  (A bell rings—or a whistle blows—and they ALL stand and rearrange themselves at the table, sitting in a new order. Left to right:RON, DEE, SCOTT, ANGIE. Beat. Then: RON immediately turns toDEE.)

  RON: Haven't I made an effort?

  DEE: More than you should have. More than both of us should have.

  RON: (troubled) Why would he say that?!

  DEE: HOW should I know? He's your friend.

  RON: He's your husband. (Beat.) It just—I mean, you have no idea—it just eats at me.

  (Silence.)

  DEE: YOU want me to ask him?

  RON: (quickly, eager) Could you?

  DEE: You've got to be kidding.

  RON: Dee—

  DEE: You're taking me to bed three days a week, but you want me to ask my husband why you never tried to be my friend?!

  SCOTT: How should I know? (DEE turns immediately toSCOTT) How should I know? That's just Ron. Lives in a box. Doesn't reach out. It's his loss.

  DEE: DO you? (Beat.) Do you reach out?

  SCOTT: Say again.

  DEE: TO my friends. Do you … reach a little? A little more than I know. A little more than you should?

  ANGIE: What did you say?

  (SCOTT turns immediately to ANGIE)

  SCOTT: The phone rang. Saved my ass.

  ANGIE: Who was it?

  SCOTT: What does it matter?

  ANGIE: It matters.

  SCOTT: How does it matter?

  ANGIE: It might matter. It just might matter.

  SCOTT: I don't care who it was—it rang—saved my ass—Dee changed the subject.

  ANGIE: Just like that?

  SCOTT: What are you—

  ANGIE: Just: BOOM—NEW SUBJECT.

  SCOTT: YES.

  ANGIE: And you don't think it matters —you think it could have been just ANYONE on the phone.

  SCOTT: It wasn't just ANYONE. It was NO ONE. There was NO ONE on the phone. I answered. THEY HUNG UP.

  ANGIE: NOW.

  SCOTT: WHAT?!

  ANGIE: NOW, you get it.

  (Bell or whistle, as before, and they ALL rearrange themselves again: Left to right: DEE, SCOTT, RON, ANGIE)

  DEE: That was a week ago.

  SCOTT: Yes.

  DEE: YOU expect me to remember a phone call from a week ago?

  SCOTT: Was it Ron?

  DEE: What? (Silence.) Why would it be Ron?

  (SCOTT turns immediately to RON)

  SCOTT: Was it you?

  RON: Why would it be me? (Silence.) If I called your house, why would I hang up?

  (Eye to eye.)

  SCOTT: That's what I'm asking. (Silence.) Do you know why we go on The Trip, Ronnie?

  RON: What kind of ques—

  SCOTT: You think we go on the trip to fuck around —is that it?

  RON: I'm not gonna talk about this. You're not—

  SCOTT: (overlapping) We go on The Trip—we go on The Trip to stay friends. The day we stop going on The Trip—the day we stop knowing something about the other that we're not supposed to know—well, that day, Ronnie, that day we are done.

  RON: Whatever you say.

  SCOTT: Did you call my house?

  (Silence.)

  RON: (simply) Hey, I met Angie. (Beat.) She's nice.

  ANGIE: What can it hurt?

  (RON turns immediately to ANGIE)

  RON: Right.

  ANGIE: A little get-together. Casual. Just the four of us. Sounds great.

  RON: Good.

  (A beat. A shared smile.)

  ANGIE: YOU got my number from Dee, didn't you? (Beat.) Well. I'm glad. Dee talks about you all the time. Says you're the one friend of her husband's who really makes an effort.

  RON: Scott.

  ANGIE: Hmm?

  RON: I got your number from Scott.

  (Silence. She stares at him.)

  ANGIE: (to RON) Would you pass my coffee? (RON looks at DEE DEE lifts the coffee. It is handed to SCOTT, then to RON, then to ANGIE) Thanks. (She does not drink the coffee. She merely looks down into the cup.)

  RON: What does it matter?

  ANGIE: Hmm?

  RON: Who I got your number from. It doesn't matter.

  ANGIE: (simply) It might. It might matter. (She takes a sip of her cof fee.) Just the four of us.

  RON: Right.

  ANGIE: Casual. (Beat.) When?

  RON: Next week. When Scott's back from his trip. (Off her look.) Tahoe. (Beat.) Business, I think.

  (Silence. ANGIE smiles.)

  ANGIE: Dee told me all about those trips.

  (ANGIE takes a long sip of her coffee.)

  RON: (quietly) Really.

  ANGIE: (re: the coffee) And this. Dee told me all about this. Said you're the one who turned her on to it.

  RON: What are you talking ab—

  ANGIE: Shade grown. (Beat.) Kept in the dark.

  (End of play.)

  THE LEVEE

  Taylor Mac Bowyer

  The New York premiere of The Levee was presented by Vital Theatre Company (Stephen Sunderlin, Artistic Director. Sharon Fallon, Managing Director). Marc Parees directed the following cast:

  KEITH Al Hasnas

  PAIGE Denis Joughin Casey

  (Two o ' clock in the morning. August in the central valley of California. Lights up on a small kitchen. KEITH, late thirties/early forties, is fixing the sink. He wears boxer shorts and a dirty T-shirt. There ' s the sound of a car driving up. KEITH stops his work, not bothering to get up from under the sink. PAIGE, late thirties, comes in. She is still in her polyester-blend work dress, nylons, and sensible high-heel shoes from her day job. She carries a purse and is drunk. She stumbles into the kitchen and sees KEITH)

  PAIGE: Jesus Christ. (Louder than she needs to be.) Hello there.

  KEITH: Shhhhh.

  PAIGE: Someone sleeping?

  KEITH: I was getting worried.

  PAIGE: Were you?

  KEITH: Couldn't sleep.

  PAIGE: And so you thought you'd fix the sink?

  KEITH: Needed fixing.

  PAIGE: So accomplished you are.

  KEITH: You've been drinking.

  PAIGE: Am I not allowed?

  KEITH: Just different.

  PAIGE: You shouldn't have waited up.

  KEITH: Wasn't sure where you wanted me.

  PAIGE: To sleep?

  KEITH: Didn't want to assume. Did you drive home like that?

  PAIGE: I skipped. Thank you for being here. Vows and all. You could be so many other places. Should I be handing you something? Isn't that what bystanders are supposed to do? Hand the dirty han
dymen something?

  KEITH: I got it.

  PAIGE: Come out come out wherever you are.

  KEITH: Maybe you should sit down.

  PAIGE: You're concerned. (PAIGE attempts to sit but falls on the kitchen floor.) No laughing. I love this floor. So cold. Like silk pillows. Went to the baby doctor today.

  KEITH: You didn't tell me….

  PAIGE: Hopes.

  KEITH: SO.

  PAIGE: It took.

  KEITH: And you thought you'd go get sloshed to celebrate?

  PAIGE: Of course the problem isn't the conception.

  KEITH: Still.

  PAIGE: Still.

  (KEITH puts his hand on PAIGE ' S belly.)

  KEITH: Can you feel it?

  PAIGE: Like it's swimming around? No. Feels like the absence of something larger. You notice, my body's so used to being pregnant I don't even have morning sickness anymore?

  KEITH: Might not happen again.

  PAIGE: My miscarriages.

  KEITH: It might work yeah?

  PAIGE: A woman at work quit her CPA job, declared bankruptcy and is now working at Dairy Queen. I thought that was something only men did. Aren't women supposed to just be happy to have the high-paid office job—midlife crisis to hell. We're developing a whole new area of land. Farmers be damned. Building more track housing. Here's to another inception. (Seeing his arm for the first time, which has a brand-new tattoo on it.) What the fuck did you do?

  KEITH: Took you a while.

  PAIGE: No. You don't get to destroy … how could you?

  KEITH: My body.

  PAIGE: NO. Not your body. My body. ALL MINE.

  (PAIGE tears her nylons off in an attempt to cause some bodily harm without actually hurting herself. She cries.)

  KEITH: Shhhhhh.

  PAIGE: Don't do that. I'm fine. Things are lovely for me. The doctors bet on a girl. I don't know about that. What would I do with a girl?

  KEITH: We.

  PAIGE: Let's just take it one second at a time. No celebration. Not yet. Fix the sink. I'll be wanting to throw up in it later.

  KEITH: YOU okay?

  PAIGE: YOU can sleep on the couch. Or come to bed. Whatever you'd like. I'd like to give up, you know. Get a dog. I do it by rote now. Don't even know if I want it anymore. At one point I wanted it more than anything. More than you. Remember? Baby ultimatums.

  KEITH: I'm older.

  PAIGE: Now it's all turned around—

  KEITH: I can handle—

  PAIGE: Now you want it more than—you don't even look at me—just my midriff.

  KEITH: That's not true.

  PAIGE: What goes around … please let it work Keith. Please let it work. Please please please. Whatever you'd like. I won't wait up.

  KEITH: Shhhhhh. You stink like booze.

  PAIGE: Not sexy?

  KEITH: Not right now.

  PAIGE: I have a mint somewhere.

  (She dumps the contents of her purse on the table, which include, among other things, a pack of cigarettes.)

  KEITH: You're smoking.

  PAIGE: No comments.

  KEITH: Just thought…

  PAIGE: Didn't do much good to quit.

  KEITH: Just thought.

  PAIGE: Woman at work just found out she's pregnant. You can imagine how tippy toe that makes everyone. Parties when I'm out of the room that suddenly hush into sorrowful looks every time I walk in. Should never have told anyone. I can hear her talking on the phone, everyone can hear her talking on the phone, and she's telling her mother, her mother no doubt, that the doctor says the baby should be twenty inches but only eighteen inches if she continues to smoke and she says to her mother, “Two inches, I can sacrifice two inches,”they have a good laugh and she hangs up to have a puff. I swear they do it sometimes just to get more breaks.

  KEITH: That's not why you do it?

  PAIGE: Were you really worried?

  KEITH: It's two o' clock in the morning.

  PAIGE: Did you call the police?

  KEITH: I worried.

  PAIGE: File a missing persons report?

  KEITH: Didn't know what to do.

  PAIGE: So you fixed the sink.

  KEITH: Needed fixing.

  PAIGE: Daddy hates tattoos. Says they keep you working-class.

  KEITH: He's no better off than us.

  PAIGE: Still hates them.

  KEITH: Tired of not being enough.

  PAIGE: Supposed to consult me about stuff like that right?

  KEITH: Didn't feel like it.

  PAIGE: We stopped being friends huh?

  KEITH: Been working two jobs.

  PAIGE: And then coming home to fix the sink.

  KEITH: Needed …

  PAIGE: Fixing, I know. No time for me.

  KEITH: I was home.

  PAIGE: But not me, I was off getting hammered.

  KEITH: I should finish up. (PAIGE sits and cries. KEITH sits with her for a while and then gets behind her on the chair and starts making soft motorcycle noises.) rmmmmmmmmmm. (Pause.) rmmmmm-rmmmmmm.

  PAIGE: Where are we?

  KEITH: The miracle mile.

  PAIGE: At sunset.

  KEITH: Hot summer night.

  PAIGE: Like now.

  KEITH: Right.

  PAIGE: Passing all the homeless men and abandoned shops.

  KEITH: rmmmmmmmmmmmm.

  PAIGE: So much wind.

  KEITH: Blowing your hair in my face.

  PAIGE: In your mouth.

  KEITH: Can't see.

  PAIGE: So I'm your eyes.

  KEITH: Right.

  PAIGE: Faster.

  KEITH: You got it.

  PAIGE: Faster than the eyes can focus. Everything zooming by.

  KEITH: rmmmmmrmmmmm.

  PAIGE: So beautiful. You feel that baby girl—all them lights just stretching on out as you pass ' em.

  KEITH: Think she can see ' em?

  PAIGE: Where to now?

  KEITH: The levee.

  PAIGE: Up on top.

  KEITH: Even faster.

  PAIGE: Dodging all them bugs.

  KEITH: That's why you're in front.

  PAIGE: So chivalrous. Come and get me buggies. NOTHING CAN TOUCH ME NOW.

  KEITH: You'll wake the neighbors.

  PAIGE: Fuck ' em. Where'd my soundtrack go?

  KEITH: Sorry. (KEITH continues to make motorcycle noise.)

  PAIGE: Gravel looks like the sea when it goes by fast. You can just dip right in if you want. Tumble and discombobulate into little stones.

  KEITH: Hold on tight.

  PAIGE: NO rules. Not today. (PAIGE stands up on the chair.)

  KEITH: What are you doing?

  PAIGE: Acrobatic art.

  KEITH: You should get down.

  PAIGE: The Hippodrome Stand.

  KEITH: Baby won't be too happy if I let you break your neck.

  PAIGE: You'd never let me.

  KEITH: Can't see with your ass in the way.

  PAIGE: Thought you liked my ass.

  KEITH: You're gonna bust it wobbling like that.

  PAIGE: Besides I'm your eyes right?

  KEITH: Can't be doing that kind of stuff.

  PAIGE: YOU concentrate on driving.

  KEITH: Just get down.

  PAIGE: Sourpuss. (KEITH picks her up off the chair like a newlywed.) HA.

  KEITH: Ha yourself.

  PAIGE: Such a man.

  KEITH: Playing the concerned father. (He sets her down on the table.)

  PAIGE: SO good you are. When can we do it for real?

  KEITH: Once I get my bike.

  PAIGE: How much longer?

  KEITH: Once you have the kid, once we figure out the money situation.

  PAIGE: Will there be a horn?

  KEITH: Always is.

  PAIGE: A horn to say good-bye with. And for the fun of making noise and for the fun of just pressing.

  KEITH: If you want.

  PAIGE: I want to move. I don't want her growing up her
e. There's nothing here, only leftover dust that doesn't know where to go. Used to grow stuff. Used to have a purpose but doesn't anymore. I don't want that for her. Can we do that?

  KEITH: We can decide when she comes.

  PAIGE: Cause she might not? I miss making love to you just cause. Will you come to bed tonight? Will you clean me up and put me to bed. I must look pretty awful huh? Have I failed too much to know what to do with me?

  KEITH: We're gonna have a baby.

  PAIGE: And then everything will be okay?

  KEITH: And she'll have ten fingers and ten toes and tons of hair.

  PAIGE: Cause all the babies on your side of the family have tons of hair, when they're babies.

  KEITH: Right. Paige?

  (PAIGE puts her hand up her dress and pulls it out —there is blood.)

  PAIGE: Spotting.

  KEITH: Let's get you to the hospital.

  PAIGE: Stupid little girl.

  KEITH: Baby.

  PAIGE: Stupid little weak little girl.

  KEITH: Baby let's go.

  PAIGE: Don't want to.

  KEITH: I'll call an ambulance.

  PAIGE: Don't want it.

  KEITH: Might be all fine.

  PAIGE: Tired of investing so much.

  KEITH: Could just be spotting.

  PAIGE: She doesn't want to grow into this. Doesn't want this. Can't force things. Tired of investing. Don't have any more to give. Everything already used up. What if she scraped her knee? I don't have any more to give. Any more caring. I'm tired. Want to let it go.

  KEITH: Baby.

  PAIGE: Just want to let it go.

  KEITH: Please don't.

  PAIGE: Can we let it go?

  KEITH: Please.

  PAIGE: Just let it go.

  KEITH: There might still be time.

  PAIGE: Stay here.

  KEITH: They could help.

  PAIGE: Just stay here.

  KEITH: Let her die?

  PAIGE: Just rest here.

  KEITH: Here.

  PAIGE: Just here.

  KEITH: With you?

  PAIGE: Yes.

  KEITH: Just here.

  PAIGE: Yes.

  KEITH: I'm so sorry.

  PAIGE: Just here.

  KEITH: I love you.

  PAIGE: So sorry.

  KEITH: Okay.

  PAIGE: So so sorry.

  KEITH: Okay.

  (Lights out.)

  MARRED BLISS

  Mark O'Donnell

  Marred Bliss was commissioned and first produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kentucky. It premiered on May 26, 1987. It was directed by Larry Deckel; the set design was by Paul Owen; the lighting design was by Cliff Berek; the costume design was by Kevin McLeod. The cast was as follows: