The Lyons

by Nicky Silver

  BRIAN: Dawn is my girlfriend. We live together.

  CURTIS: I don’t think that’s true!

  BRIAN: I’m gonna go.

  CURTIS: I think your name is Brian Hutchins. And you live at 163 West 83rd Street. You live on the sixth floor, in the front apartment. And you date men.

  BRIAN (Stunned): . . . Who are you?

  CURTIS: I think you had sex, last night, with a man. Dark hair. Maybe Spanish. He was wearing a red sweatshirt.

  BRIAN (Quiet): Holy fucking god.

  CURTIS: He was there from eight-thirty, until ten-thirty. You had sex, and then he left. He got in a taxi. And you watched the news. Until you went to bed.

  BRIAN: Who are you?

  CURTIS (Fragile): I’m just someone, who happens to live at 164, West 83rd Street. On the sixth floor . . . In the front apartment.

  BRIAN (Horrified): Oh my god.

  CURTIS: Do you think, in a million years, that I would buy this apartment, this shitty apartment, with its leaks and its northern exposure!?

  BRIAN: You watched me?

  CURTIS: I have been. Watching. For a long time.

  BRIAN: Fucking Christ.

  CURTIS: Until this week, your name was Peter. In my head. I named you Peter . . . And I loved you very much. And we never fought.

  BRIAN: Sick motherfucking . . .

  CURTIS: Only yesterday I looked at your name on the buzzer and I searched until I found your face, on a real-estate website.

  (Brian approaches Curtis.)

  BRIAN (A threat): Stay the fuck away from me.

  CURTIS: Answer my question.

  BRIAN (Cruel): I don’t answer your fucking questions!

  CURTIS: Am I right?

  BRIAN: Fucking pervert!

  CURTIS: Is that why you lied?

  BRIAN: You better move!

  CURTIS: Was I right?!

  BRIAN: Find another place to live!

  CURTIS: Is that why?!!

  BRIAN: You understand me?! Find another place!

  CURTIS (Standing his ground): NO.

  BRIAN: I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!

  CURTIS: I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

  BRIAN: I MEAN IT.

  CURTIS (A challenge): FUCK YOU!

  (Brian hits him hard, in the stomach. Curtis doubles over in pain. Brian hits him again in the stomach, and then on the back of the head. Curtis falls to the ground. Brian kicks him, twice, hard. And then looks at him.)

  BRIAN: Shut the door on your way out.

  (Brian exits. Blackout.)

  Scene 2

  MOST POOR SONS OF BITCHES

  The lights come up on another hospital room, or the same hospital room. Curtis is in the bed, looking somewhat bored and annoyed. After a moment, the Nurse enters, carrying a food tray, which she puts in front of him. Her patience is short.

  NURSE: Here you are.

  CURTIS: What time is it?

  NURSE: Four-thirty.

  CURTIS: Four-thirty. I see. So what meal is this?

  NURSE (Obviously): Dinner.

  CURTIS: Who on god’s green earth eats dinner at four-thirty?

  NURSE (Strict): People in hospitals.

  CURTIS: Well, it’s insane.

  NURSE: You’re not gonna eat?

  CURTIS: If I don’t eat it, I won’t get anything until tomorrow. I’ll starve to death. I’ll die.

  NURSE: I don’t think so. You’re in a hospital. We wouldn’t let that happen.

  CURTIS: I was speaking hyperbolically.

  (Beat. She runs a thermometer across his forehead, then reads it. He has no fever. She notes that on his chart.)

  NURSE: Does your incision hurt?

  CURTIS: No, it feels fantastic. My single regret is that I only have one spleen you people can rip out of me.

  NURSE: Please, you were lucky. All that internal bleeding and it turned out to be something so useless.

  CURTIS: Lucky me.

  NURSE (Bossy): I’ve seen people come in here looking better than you and go out in plastic bags.

  CURTIS: Well, that’s comforting.

  NURSE: It happens all the time. Mr. Cornfield, down the hall, came in here with shortness of breath, three days later they were fitting him for a box.

  CURTIS: Wonderful.

  NURSE: This is a hospital. There’s death around every corner. So you’re missing a spleen? So what? The earth continues to spin.

  CURTIS: Are you the only nurse on this floor?

  NURSE: Just eat.

  CURTIS: Couldn’t they assign me someone a little less . . . jaundiced? I’m not asking for someone cheerful, I’ll settle for quiet.

  NURSE: You just want to complain.

  CURTIS: I thought you were nice when you took care of my father. You seemed like the picture of silent efficiency.

  NURSE: Are you gonna eat?

  CURTIS: What would it take to put you back in your shell?

  NURSE: Personally, it makes no difference to me, but it’s my job to see that you do.

  CURTIS (Sighing): What is it?

  NURSE: Salisbury steak.

  CURTIS: I’ve had the Salisbury steak.

  NURSE: What does that mean?

  CURTIS: The cuisine here makes me wonder why they stopped me from bleeding to death in the first place.

  NURSE: You think you’re amusing?

  CURTIS: I have moments.

  NURSE: You’re exhausting.

  CURTIS: Says you.

  NURSE (Snappish): You have to eat.

  CURTIS: No, I don’t. Not that. It’s disgusting.

  NURSE: You’ll want it later, when it’s cold and congealed.

  CURTIS: Never.

  NURSE: And then you’ll be sorry.

  CURTIS: Well, we’ll just see.

  NURSE: I should take it away. That would teach you. There’s nothing to eat in here. It’s not like you’ve been showered with gift baskets, now is it? It’s not like your relatives have sent fruit towers. I’ve seen homeless people with more generous friends.

  CURTIS: I’d like a club sandwich.

  NURSE: What?

  CURTIS: I want a club sandwich. Turkey, white toast, mayonnaise.

  NURSE: Where do you think you are?

  CURTIS: And not that turkey roll. Not that pressed crap. I want turkey breast. Real turkey.

  NURSE: You’re in a hospital, not a delicatessen.

  CURTIS: I’m not eating! I’m not eating until I get what I want!

  NURSE: Yes, you will.

  CURTIS: I won’t! It’s official, I am on a hunger strike! Do you hear me? Stand by with a glucose drip, because I’m not going to touch that. I mean it. I will not eat. I will not!

  NURSE: You get hungry, you’ll eat.

  CURTIS: We’ll just see won’t we!?

  NURSE: There’s nothing wrong with your dinner. It’s perfectly fine.

  CURTIS: Don’t you have other people to torture?

  NURSE: Mr. Lyons, I have tried very hard to maintain a professional demeanor. But you are testing me. And I will not be tested. Do you understand? Do you understand me? You are going to eat that dinner!

  CURTIS: Who do you think you’re talking to? Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?!

  (They glower at each other for a moment.)

  NURSE (A threat): When I come back, I expect that to be gone.

  (She exits.)

  CURTIS (Calling after her): You call this bedside manner!?

  (Ben enters from the wings, dressed casually, and addresses the audience. Curtis neither sees nor hears him.)

  BEN: Dying, as you’d expect, turned out to be not all that exciting. I was asleep when it happened. One minute I was dreaming of rabbits and then all at once, nothing. I don’t mind it here, wherever I am. We don’t call it heaven—but we don’t call it hell. It’s all right—although the lines for everything are incredibly long. I was scared, of course, at first. But then this man came up to me, this old man. I didn’t know him. He was old. And very small. And his skin was gray. I didn’t speak. An
d then he put his arms around me. And I smelled him. And I knew. He found me . . . My father found me. And I wasn’t afraid.

  (Rita appears in the doorway.)

  RITA (To Curtis): Are you up?

  CURTIS: I’m awake.

  RITA: How are you feeling?

  BEN (To Rita): People smell like who they are!

  (Ben exits as Rita breezes into the room. She is wearing a black dress and holding a floral arrangement, which she places on the windowsill.)

  RITA: You look better, so much better. You look fine. You’re losing that eggy pallor you had yesterday. Your sister’s right behind me. She stopped to say hello to that nice young man down the hall.

  CURTIS: What nice young man?

  RITA: Leonard something. I told you about him.

  CURTIS: The one who’s dying?

  RITA: Lymphoma. She went to his room by accident, the day they brought you in. She thought it was your room. And they struck up conversation. I think there’s a spark—she could do worse. She’s done worse.

  CURTIS: He’s dying!

  RITA: People aren’t perfect, Curtis. You expect too much. I think that’s why your boyfriends have all been imaginary. You create them so you can make them perfect.

  CURTIS: As it happens, they weren’t perfect.

  RITA: Really?

  CURTIS: Ethan, for instance, had a lateral lisp.

  RITA: How could you tell?

  CURTIS: I don’t want to talk about it.

  RITA: Hmmm.

  CURTIS: How was the funeral?

  RITA: The police called again this morning.

  CURTIS: What did you tell them?

  RITA: I told them it was up to you.

  CURTIS: Good.

  RITA: That you must have your reasons. They think I can get you to cooperate. I assured them I can get you to do nothing.

  CURTIS: I want to let it go. All right? I want to put it behind me.

  RITA: I still don’t understand what you were doing in that empty apartment to begin with.

  CURTIS: I told you! A drug buy.

  RITA: A drug buy? Really? A drug buy? What kind of lingo is that? You don’t do drugs and since when do you talk like a character from Cagney & Lacey?

  CURTIS: I wanted to experiment.

  RITA: You’re too old to start experimenting. Stick with things you know. Is that your dinner? I’m starving.

  (Rita lifts the lid on Curtis’s dinner, takes the Jell-O, restores the lid and eats the Jell-O.)

  CURTIS: What did they say?

  RITA: Who?

  CURTIS (Slightly annoyed): The police.

  RITA: They want you to press charges. They want you to look at pictures.

  CURTIS: Absolutely not. I want to pretend the whole thing never happened.

  (Lisa appears in the doorway, wearing a black dress.)

  LISA: Hello?

  RITA: Come in, dear.

  LISA (To Curtis): How are you feeling?

  CURTIS: The same.

  LISA: We shouldn’t stay too long. The sitter’s on the clock and Raymond is waiting.

  RITA: He should come up.

  LISA: I told him.

  CURTIS: Who the hell is Raymond?

  RITA: Her sponsor. Since she fell off the wagon last week he’s been on her like flies on paper. They’ve both been staying at the house. It’s been fun really—except for all that “testifying.”

  LISA: He’s new. He’s my new sponsor.

  CURTIS: What happened to your old one?

  LISA: He stopped returning my calls. But Raymond is very sweet and better looking. He understands that this is a very tricky time. I need constant supervision.

  RITA: How’s Leonard, dear?

  LISA: They just put in a Hickman catheter.

  RITA: Isn’t that nice? That’s nice. You’re a sweet couple.

  CURTIS: It doesn’t bother anyone that this guy’s about to expire!?

  LISA: It would, I suppose, under normal circumstances. But these aren’t normal circumstances. I’m feeling very vulnerable.

  CURTIS: Still!

  LISA: Did I tell you David called? He did. He asked if he could bring someone to the funeral. Bring someone! Can you believe that? I told him I was driving through a tunnel and then I hung up. —He brought a date to his ex-father-in-law’s funeral!

  RITA: Very bad taste. Is there more Jell-O?

  (Rita checks. There is none. She restores the lid.)

  LISA: She was dressed like a floozy. I hate him. I do, I mean it. (To Rita) Did they look happy? I don’t think they looked happy. Maybe it won’t last.

  RITA: He beat the crap out of you, dear. Let it go.

  CURTIS: How was the funeral?

  RITA: I thought more people would show up. But it looks like rain. I suppose the weather kept them away.

  CURTIS: And the fact that no one very much liked the deceased.

  RITA: It was touching, really. And, I feel, somehow important. You know I never said good-bye—when it happened. I missed it. Did I tell you that? I was sleeping. I sat there day after day, waiting, watching him. Asleep. Awake. Hour after hour. And then I drifted off. And then it happened. And so I missed it.

  LISA: Who brings a date to a funeral?

  RITA: Your Uncle Seth was there. He’s fat now.

  CURTIS: He was always fat.

  RITA: Well, he’s fat-er. He looks like a white Mills Brother.

  LISA: Who?

  RITA: But it was a charming service. I cried beautifully and Lisa read a poem by e. e. cummings.

  CURTIS (To Lisa): Why on earth?

  LISA: I have no idea.

  CURTIS (Ironic): It sounds very nice.

  RITA: I’m having your father cremated. I have a catalog in my purse and I thought we could vote on an urn. I’m thinking something very ginger jar.

  CURTIS: Maybe later.

  LISA: I’ll look!

  (Rita hands Lisa a catalog from her purse. Lisa leafs through it. The Nurse enters.)

  NURSE: Did you eat?

  CURTIS: No.

  NURSE: I’ll be back.

  (The Nurse exits.)

  CURTIS (A confidence): She hates me.

  RITA: What are you talking about?

  CURTIS: She seems pleasant enough—but the reality is, behind closed doors, she’s a Nazi.

  RITA: Well. Have you been friendly to her?

  CURTIS: Of course.

  RITA: You have?

  CURTIS: Why wouldn’t I be friendly?

  RITA: Have you shown an interest?

  CURTIS: Yes.

  RITA: Really?

  CURTIS: Yes!

  RITA: What’s her name?

  CURTIS (No idea): . . . I’ve been very friendly!

  RITA: You don’t even know her name.

  CURTIS: Of course I do! It’s Eunice!

  RITA: You’re making that up.

  CURTIS: Of course I am.

  RITA: You see?

  LISA (Regarding an urn in the catalog): I like this one.

  RITA (Looking): Vile.

  LISA: It’s sweet.

  RITA: It has antelopes all over it.

  LISA: I like them.

  RITA: No. Absolutely not. No, antelopes.

  LISA (Pouting): Fine.

  (Lisa resumes browsing the catalog.)

  CURTIS (To Lisa): Why do you take her side? I mean, I tell you the woman is nasty and you blame me.

  RITA (Ignoring that): Curtis, have you thought about what we discussed?

  CURTIS: What we discussed?

  RITA: Your coming to live with me.

  CURTIS: Oh Christ.

  RITA: You’re going to need someone. You’re going to be recuperating. You can’t look after yourself.

  CURTIS: I have so far.

  RITA: And where did it get you? Bleeding on the floor of a vacant apartment, that’s where. You’re not exactly a tower of self-sufficiency, are you? I don’t mean you should live with me forever. Just for a while. A few weeks. A few years—

  CURTIS (To hims
elf): Oh my god.

  RITA: Until you’re on your feet again. In the past you’ve always said you couldn’t. You had Peter to think of. But now that he’s evaporated I don’t see how you can turn down my—

  CURTIS: NO! . . . No. I will not live with you. I cannot make my feelings on this subject any clearer. It was bad enough that I was sentenced to live with you for the first eighteen years of my life. But I’ve been paroled and, trust me, I’m not going back!

  RITA: I remember only good times.

  CURTIS: Then you’ve had a lobotomy. I refuse to relive the Hindenburg of my childhood. Just accept the fact I am not going to live with you. Not for a month. Not for a day. Not for an hour! I realize you’re afraid to be alone. But maybe you should have thought of that before you came at me with a letter opener when I was seven. Or crept into my room, in tears, in the middle of the night. Or threatened to send me to foster parents if I didn’t go antiquing with you! So, for the last time, I will not visit, cohabitate or rehabilitate in your home! So please, once and for all, dear god, let the subject die a natural death!!

  RITA: Do you want to think about it?

  CURTIS: NO!!

  RITA: Fine.

  (Beat. Rita gathers herself.)

  In that case, I think you should read this.

  (Rita produces a letter from her purse. He takes it.)

  CURTIS: What is it?

  RITA: A letter.

  CURTIS: I see that. What’s it got to do with me?

  RITA: Lisa, pay attention.

  LISA: What?

  RITA: I’ve made a decision.

  LISA: About the urn?

  RITA: About my life.

  CURTIS (Regarding the letter): Who is this from?

  RITA: Just read it.

  (He opens the letter and looks at it.)

  CURTIS: I can’t. This handwriting is terrible.

  RITA: It’s from Raymond.

  LISA: My Raymond?

  RITA: I don’t think of him as your Raymond.

  LISA: My sponsor, my new sponsor—who’s been staying with us?

  RITA: The very same.

  LISA: He’s writing you letters? Why is he writing you letters?

  CURTIS: What’s going on?

  RITA: Read it.

  CURTIS: I said I can’t.

  RITA: Then I’ll tell you what it says.