Writers

by Barry Gifford

What if it’s an animal? Or a friend don’t know the wire’s there?

  HEMINGWAY

  There’s always collateral damage in a war, Case.

  GELLHORN comes out of the house onto the porch.

  CASEY and HIGBE

  Evenin’, Missus Hemingway.

  GELLHORN

  Mister Casey, my husband tells me you have trouble pitching to Ducky Medwick.

  CASEY

  Yes, ma’am. He pretty much owns me.

  GELLHORN

  I’m from St. Louis.

  CASEY

  Yes, ma’am, we know. A great baseball town.

  GELLHORN

  I’ve had the opportunity to study Mr. Medwick’s batting method. It seems to me that he has a hard time laying off an inside pitch just above the hands, especially when he’s deep in the count.

  HIGBE

  Shoot, Case, she might could have somethin’ there.

  CASEY

  I’ll keep that in mind, Missus H. I appreciate the advice.

  GELLHORN

  Ernest, you and your posse please remember to pick up the body parts before you call it a night. I don’t want to have to clean up after you in the morning. Buenos noches, gentlemen.

  GELLHORN goes inside.

  CASEY and HIGBE

  Good night, ma’am.

  CASEY

  She’s all right, Ernest.

  HIGBE

  You done good marryin’ her, I think, Ernesto. Inside above the hands. That’s what Mr. Rickey would call a keen observation.

  HEMINGWAY

  I’m beginning to think you fellows have had far too little experience with women.

  CASEY starts to speak but HEMINGWAY raises his hand.

  HEMINGWAY (cont’d)

  Shh. I heard something.

  (He stands and picks up the shotgun.)

  You think it horrible that lust and rage

  Should dance attendance upon my old age;

  They were not such a plague when I was young;

  What else have I to spur me into song?

  CASEY

  Hell, Ern, you ain’t but forty-two. That ain’t old.

  HEMINGWAY sits down again, holding the shotgun across his lap.

  HEMINGWAY

  Mr. Yeats understood his own words, gentlemen. Age is a state of mind.

  HIGBE

  Yeah, when my arm goes dead I’m goin’ back to the state of Arkansas and stay put. Just enjoy the peace and quiet.

  HEMINGWAY

  I envy you, Higbe, truly I do. For many of us, a peaceful denouement is not in the cards.

  There is a loud CLICK, followed by a few seconds of silence, then a small explosion. A man shouts and then there is the sound of running.

  CASEY

  I think maybe you scored, Ernest.

  HEMINGWAY

  Manuel, take a look.

  MANUEL leaves the porch and disappears into the darkness. There are thirty seconds of silence.

  MANUEL

  (from the darkness)

  Hay nada, Ernesto. He run away.

  HEMINGWAY

  It’s okay. The bastards know we mean business now.

  GELLHORN comes back out onto the porch.

  GELLHORN

  I’m afraid to ask.

  HIGBE

  Scared off whoever it was.

  MANUEL comes back and stands at the front of the porch steps.

  MANUEL

  It worked well, Ernesto.

  HEMINGWAY

  Yes, Manuel, it did. But they’ll be back tomorrow.

  GELLHORN

  I won’t.

  GELLHORN turns and goes back into the house.

  CASEY

  I’m beginning to see what you mean about women, Ern.

  HEMINGWAY stands and leans the shotgun against the chair.

  HEMINGWAY

  Case, what would you say to our sparring a few rounds?

  CASEY

  Sure, but let’s have a drink first.

  (They all go into the house.)

  ***

  SCENE FIVE

  HEMINGWAY stands alone on the porch. It is just before dawn. The light advances incrementally as he speaks.

  HEMINGWAY

  I know you’re out there, all of you, waiting for me to make a wrong move. Well, keep waiting you sons of whores, you won’t get the drop on me. You don’t have the guts of the New York critics. At least we know their names. My consolation is that those names will pass from memory faster than a summer squall peters out on Lake Tanganyika.

  You think you’re not alone in your enterprise, but you are, we all are. Morning, however, is not the time to stab at being profound. No matter what or how well we write or play baseball the light of the world puts every one of us to shame. We humans are all assassins, anyway, and only the very best among us save our bravest act for last. As God is my witness, He witnesses also for Martha and Manuel and Case and Hig, and I am here this beautiful fucking new day to testify that only God can get Ducky Medwick out.

  END

  ONE NIGHT IN UMBERTO’S CLAM HOUSE

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Jack Kerouac, American writer, author of many novels, most notably On the Road

  Joey Gallo, a notorious New York City organized crime figure, popularly known as “Crazy Joe”

  A Waiter

  SETTING

  Four thirty in the morning in Umberto’s Clam House, a restaurant in Little Italy in New York City, in 1962. Joey Gallo, thirty-three years old, a mobster, is seated alone at his favorite table eating clams and mussels and drinking wine. Umberto’s is his regular hangout. Jack Kerouac, the writer, is standing at the bar, drinking boilermakers, when he spots Gallo, whom he does not know personally but he recognizes, having seen the gangster’s photograph in the newspapers. Kerouac is more than a little drunk, a not uncommon condition for him.

  KEROUAC

  (stops a passing waiter)

  Hey, isn’t that Crazy Joe Gallo, the gangster, sitting over there?

  WAITER

  Yeah, but he don’t like nobody callin’ him crazy. The Columbos hung that on him.

  JK knocks back a shot of whiskey, puts the glass down on the bar and carries his beer over to GALLO’s table. JK stands in front of GALLO, weaving a little, obviously unsteady on his feet. GALLO keeps eating.

  KEROUAC

  Mr. Gallo, my name is Kerouac. You may have heard of me. I’m a famous writer.

  GALLO looks up at KEROUAC.

  GALLO

  I read On the Road. I liked it, especially the part with the Mexican chick in the dumpy hotel room in L.A. throwin’ shoes at Sal. Rang true. I didn’t like your next one, though. Too much weird religious stuff in it.

  KEROUAC

  The Dharma Bums. I’m a Buddhist.

  GALLO

  Sit down before you fall down.

  KEROUAC sits down in a chair opposite GALLO.

  KEROUAC

  Aren’t you afraid to be in here alone?

  GALLO

  I ain’t afraid of nothin’. You know who I am, huh?

  KEROUAC

  Sure, Crazy Joe Gallo.

  GALLO

  Call me Joey. I ain’t crazy.

  KEROUAC

  That’s what Melville said.

  GALLO

  Guy who wrote Moby Dick?

  KEROUAC

  He wrote that in a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne in defense of his novel. Nobody understood it.

  GALLO

  (laughs)

  Some people don’t understand me, either. They call me crazy ’cause I take chances, only I don’t, really. I know what I’m doin’, keepin’ people on their toe
s so’s they don’t take advantage. Know what I mean, Kerroway?

  KEROUAC

  Kero-wack. I’m French-Canadian. Iroquois, actually. You read a lot, huh?

  GALLO

  You think tough guys can’t read? I’m thinkin’ about writin’ a book someday. I’m too busy now. If I ever hafta do hard time, I’ll do it.

  KEROUAC

  Dostoyevsky wrote The House of the Dead about his prison experience.

  GALLO

  Don’t know that one. Tried Crime and Punishment but I never finished it. Lost interest when the guy lets his conscience bother him. You can’t have a conscience in my business. A man does what he’s gotta do just to stay in business. Know what I mean? You ever been inside?

  KEROUAC

  I got married in The Tombs.

  GALLO

  (stops eating for a moment)

  No joke? How’d that happen?

  KEROUAC

  Got arrested for being an accessory after a crime. The judge let me marry my girlfriend, who was in college. Helped me get off.

  GALLO

  What was the beef?

  KEROUAC

  Murder.

  GALLO

  Christ, Kerroway, you’re a reg’lar Dostoyoosky yourself. What an experience.

  KEROUAC

  Know what Oscar Wilde called experience?

  GALLO

  Tell me.

  KEROUAC

  Mistakes.

  GALLO

  He wasn’t half wrong.

  KEROUAC

  You think intellectuals can’t have real life experience? I was a football player, too. Halfback for Columbia until I broke a leg.

  The WAITER comes over.

  GALLO

  Bring this man more of whatever he’s havin’, and another glass of wine for me.

  (to Kerouac)

  I stay away from the browns. Gives me the shakes.

  The WAITER leaves.

  KEROUAC

  I’m an alcoholic. So was my father.

  GALLO

  You won’t live long, you keep it up. How old are you?

  KEROUAC

  Forty.

  GALLO

  I’m thirty-three. You still married?

  KEROUAC

  Naw. Twice divorced.

  GALLO

  But you’re a Catholic, ain’t ya?

  KEROUAC

  I told you, I’m a Buddhist.

  GALLO

  Oh, yeah. It’s why you wrote a bad book.

  KEROUAC

  I just published another one, a confessional, like Fitzgerald’s The Crack-Up, only he didn’t live to finish his.

  The WAITER brings their drinks and goes away. GALLO lifts his glass and toasts KEROUAC.

  GALLO

  To your success.

  KEROUAC raises his whiskey and they clink glasses and drink.

  KEROUAC

  You’re a swell guy, Joey. I’m glad we met.

  GALLO

  As the Frenchman said, two ships passin’ in the night.

  KEROUAC

  Dr. Louis-Ferdinand Celine. Voyage au Bout de la Nuit. Almost dawn. He’d be pissing into the Seine about now.

  GALLO

  I got a story you can write.

  KEROUAC

  Let’s hear it. But I need another drink first.

  GALLO signals to the WAITER, pointing to KEROUAC.

  GALLO

  A guy’s married, has a couple of kids, but falls in love with another woman, a showgirl, as it happens. He keeps the showgirl on the side but she cheats on him with some mug, so he threatens to kill the mug unless he lays off the girl.

  KEROUAC

  But the guy’s cheating on his wife.

  GALLO

  That don’t matter. He’s payin’ her bills.

  The WAITER brings two more whiskeys. KEROUAC gulps one down.

  KEROUAC

  Why doesn’t he divorce the wife and marry the showgirl?

  GALLO

  He does. But then he catches the new wife bangin’ the same mug. He drills the mug and is about to drill the girl, too, only he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.

  KEROUAC

  He loves her too much.

  GALLO

  I suppose. She helps him dump the body into the East River.

  KEROUAC

  He tosses the gun in after.

  GALLO

  Right.

  KEROUAC

  That’s why I got arrested, for dropping the knife my friend used to kill someone down a storm drain. So now the guy has to keep her ’cause she’s got the goods on him.

  GALLO

  You got a brain works like Poe’s, Kerroway. Right again. But for some reason, she don’t do it for him no more.

  KEROUAC

  He can’t make love to her?

  GALLO

  Not can’t, don’t want to. He begs the first wife to take him back, but she don’t want him, and besides, she’s engaged to be married.

  KEROUAC

  So he gets another girl.

  GALLO

  He’s already got another girl in mind but she won’t tumble unless he gets rid of wife number two.

  KEROUAC

  Who won’t give him a divorce, anyway, for obvious reasons, and he can’t force her.

  GALLO

  Yeah, for obvious reasons and some other reasons not so obvious. What does he do?

  Grayish light streams through the windows. KEROUAC knocks back his last shot, then staggers to his feet.

  KEROUAC

  Like the brilliant but demented doctor, he goes off to micturate in the river but stumbles drunkenly as he’s pulling out his pecker, falls in and drowns.

  GALLO

  That’s no solution.

  KEROUAC

  Closure is always a problem, Joey.

  GALLO

  Lay off the browns, Kerroway, and you’ll live to write another day. You’re losin’ your looks, too.

  KEROUAC gives GALLO a half-wave and wobbles away, out of the restaurant. The WAITER comes over.

  WAITER

  Another glass, Mr. Gallo?

  GALLO

  No, thanks. Just the check.

  WAITER

  There’s no charge, Mr. Gallo.

  GALLO pulls a roll of bills out of one of his pockets, peels off a couple and hands them to the WAITER.

  GALLO

  These are for you.

  WAITER

  Thank you, Mr. Gallo. Will your friend be coming back?

  GALLO peels off two more bills from his roll and places them in one of the WAITER’s hands.

  GALLO

  If he does, this should cover him.

  WAITER

  Certainly.

  The WAITER walks away. GALLO stands up and faces the audience.

  GALLO

  In ten years, at just about this time of the morning, the Columbos are going to gun me down in front of my family, right here in Umberto’s Clam House. Kerouac will have drunk himself to death three years before, twelve years after he became a best-selling author. I never wrote a sentence, but I never served one, either. How’s that for closure?

  END

  THE PITH HELMET

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  B. Traven, aka Hal Croves, writer, a man in his late forties/early fifties, provenance uncertain, author of many novels, one of which, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, is about to be made into a feature film, starring Humphrey Bogart, that will make Traven’s fortune and him world famous.

  John Huston, Hollywood director and screenwriter (The Maltese Falcon, et al.) set to embark on the making of the mov
ie based on Traven’s novel. Son of the actor Walter Huston, who will co-star with Bogart (and win an Academy Award for his performance). John Huston’s reputation as a drinker, brawler and womanizer precedes him.

  Humphrey Bogart, an actor

  SETTING

  The year is 1947. Traven and Huston are about to meet for the first time at the Hotel Reforma in Mexico City. Traven, however, is masquerading as Traven’s “agent,” Hal Croves, for reasons unknown by Huston. The play takes place in the director’s hotel suite.

  A knock at the door. JOHN HUSTON, a tall, lanky man in his early thirtiess, opens it.

  HUSTON

  Ah, Mr. Croves, I presume.

  TRAVEN/CROVES enters. He is wearing a slightly soiled white sportcoat, white trousers and a beige pith helmet. HUSTON is dressed casually, slacks and open-collared shirt; half an unlit cigar protrudes from one corner of his mouth. TRAVEN/CROVES surveys the front room of the suite, then stands by a window overlooking the Paseo, his eyes inspecting the director.

  HUSTON

  I’m quite alone here at the moment, if that’s what’s worrying you.

  TRAVEN/CROVES

  (with German accent)

  I am not worried, Mr. Huston, just suspicious. There is a difference.

  HUSTON

  Nothing to be suspicious about, Croves. Would you like a drink?

  TRAVEN/CROVES

  I never drink when I am negotiating.

  HUSTON

  It’s the lawyers do the negotiating, not us. Have a seat, won’t you? I’ve been looking forward to meeting and having a conversation with you.

  TRAVEN/CROVES sits down in a chair. HUSTON sits on the couch and pours himself a drink from a bottle of tequila on the coffee table in front of him.

  HUSTON

  When in Mexico.

  (He takes a sip of tequila.)

  Now, Mr. Croves, I’ve been given to understand that you are an agent for Mr. Traven.

  TRAVEN/CROVES

  That is correct.

  HUSTON

  Why don’t you take off that pith helmet? There’s not much sun in here.

  TRAVEN/CROVES

  If it is all right with you, I will leave it on for the moment.

  HUSTON

  When do I get to meet Traven? I’ve got a few questions to ask him.

  TRAVEN/CROVES

  You can ask questions of me and I will relate them to Señor Traven. If he wishes to answer your questions, I will deliver his replies.

  HUSTON

  See here, Croves, I don’t work for the FBI. I just want to make a good movie out of Traven’s book. I’m here to discuss any concerns he might have regarding how I go about it and to tell him what I have in mind.