Coronado

by Dennis Lehane

  [DOCTOR’S beeper goes off. He looks at the number.]

  PATIENT The missus?

  DOCTOR I’ll tell her I left it in the car.

  PATIENT How’s the baby?

  DOCTOR Took his first steps last week. You hear about it, but you’re never prepared for how…miraculous it seems.

  PATIENT I know.

  DOCTOR Oh, I didn’t realize you were around long enough.

  PATIENT For what?

  DOCTOR To see your son take his first steps.

  PATIENT I wasn’t. I watched from afar. They might not have been his first steps, but they were the first I saw him take.

  DOCTOR Are you finally ready to confront what leaving him did to you?

  PATIENT Is it true men are most likely to fool around on their wives in the first year after childbirth?

  DOCTOR Is that what happened to you?

  PATIENT That’s what happened to you. To your wife. Why do you think that is?

  DOCTOR Because…

  PATIENT What?

  DOCTOR Because suddenly we’re replaceable.

  PATIENT Let me tell you something—you’re always replaceable.

  DOCTOR Suddenly we realize it. Men need to feel useful. Needed.

  PATIENT Yawn.

  DOCTOR I’m serious. Nothing makes you feel more…ancillary than seeing the love that used to be reserved for you transferred to a child.

  PATIENT Men need to feel worshipped. But once they have it, they get bored and go trolling for new parishioners.

  DOCTOR You reduce everything to a negation of honest emotion.

  PATIENT Who’s rationalizing now? You put your dick in my mouth because you felt ancillary? Boo-hoo.

  DOCTOR I love my wife.

  PATIENT Ha!

  DOCTOR I love my wife. And I strayed, I failed. I did. But I love my wife. Hurts to hear, doesn’t it? Because if one person can love—love deeply, if not flawlessly—then your belief that love is nothing but linguistic finery, well, it all goes up in smoke, doesn’t it? And you’re revealed as a fraud.

  PATIENT Ooooh. Doctor. My. Cutting to the quick, are we? I never said I didn’t believe in love. I believe in love plenty. And no, my husband wasn’t unfaithful after the baby was born. My husband was dead. My lover killed him.

  Scene 15

  GINA returns from the bathroom, settles into the booth. She is nine months pregnant. WILL is throwing back the Buds and shots of Jim Beam. They are silent for a long time.

  WILL We just don’t talk anymore.

  GINA What do you want to talk about?

  WILL I’s just fucking with you, baby. In a nice way.

  GINA I wasn’t.

  WILL Oh god, here it comes.

  GINA Did you quit your job?

  WILL Who ratted?

  GINA You don’t deny it.

  WILL No. I just want to know who ratted.

  GINA I might be on maternity leave but I still have friends.

  WILL Saved your life in ’Nam, did they?

  GINA Did you quit your job?

  WILL I already said I did.

  GINA Why didn’t you tell me?

  WILL I’m telling you now, right?

  GINA Only because I asked. Only because I—

  WILL ’Member when we used to have fun? You remember that?

  GINA I’m nine months pregnant. What do you want me to do—snort some blow and do it standing up against the chain-link fence?

  WILL I want a friend. A companion. Someone with balls and no fear of this bullshit life.

  GINA I’m pregnant.

  WILL That’ll change. But you? Since Hal—

  GINA You promised you’d never say that name.

  WILL Fuck that. Since Hal, you’re a wart. All sad and sniffling and drag-ass bitchy. You’re your mom. You’re my mom. You’re standing locked to the earth and letting it suck you dry instead of moving and telling the earth it ain’t got no fucking title on you until it chases you down and swallows you.

  GINA There’s no end to you. You never stop sucking.

  WILL We’re here for a blink, baby. Father Time burps and clears his throat? We’re over. And you want Barca-loungers from me? Fucking cookouts and layaway? We work our lives and save up just enough and get a time-share or some shit?

  GINA I’m wet.

  WILL Fucking mortgages and trade-ins and trips to the mall on Saturday? So—what—we can play by the rules and still fucking die? That ain’t going to be me. Take your fucking world. Take it. Let it suck you.

  GINA My legs are wet, Will.

  WILL It’s a good speech, yeah? That’s what I’m saying. We can go all Bonnie and Clyde and blow up this—

  GINA My water just broke, you moron.

  WILL “Moron” ’s kinda harsh, don’t you think?

  GINA Will.

  WILL All right, all right. What do we do?

  GINA Can you drive?

  WILL Fuck no.

  GINA Flag down your girlfriend and tell her to call the taxi.

  [WILL waves his arm wildly and the WAITRESS appears.]

  WILL Call us a cab, V?

  WAITRESS Gonna leave that sweet new truck of yours in the parking lot?

  WILL Uh, V—

  GINA A fucking cab, please!

  WAITRESS Oh.

  WILL Yeah.

  WAITRESS Oh!

  [The WAITRESS bolts. WILL finishes his shot.]

  GINA I am not having this baby with you.

  WILL Thank god, I was going to mention—I’m not into that delivery-room concept either. All the guck? I mean, I love you and all, but—

  GINA You will not be the father of this child.

  WILL A little late for that.

  GINA Yeah?

  [Slams the table in pain.]

  I’m having this baby and you’re fucking MOVING OUT.

  WILL We’ve had this discussion. You know how I feel about—

  GINA It’s Hal’s, you dumbshit.

  [The WAITRESS appears.]

  WAITRESS It’s on the way, guys. It’s on the way. Hold on.

  WILL [Nods.] Kind of a private moment, V.

  WAITRESS Oh. We’re all pulling for you all.

  [She runs off. WILL takes GINA’s hand.]

  WILL It ain’t Hal’s.

  GINA Your trip to Hartow and Rangely and Coronado, remember? Our vacation after you got back? Do the math.

  WILL Ain’t Hal’s. Know how I know? Because it’s mine. It’s mine.

  GINA Have fun proving that, you shit. God! Get me to a fucking hospital!

  WILL [Yanks her hand toward him.] Suck that pain up. Suck it up. You want to eat Cheetos on the couch watching Donahue the rest of your days and getting pig-fat, that’s your prerogative. But don’t you think—not for one fucking second—that you’re taking my child.

  GINA I will cut your throat.

  WILL You wish.

  GINA I will.

  WILL That’d be great. Two dead lovers within a year. You get out of prison, the kid’ll be—what—thirty-five?

  GINA Let me go.

  WAITRESS [Offstage.] Three minutes on the cab!

  WILL You’ll drag your tired ass to some fucking trailer park and knock on the door and tell this adult that you’re its momma. And it’ll spit in your face. Killed both its daddies? Damn. What a piece of shit you are.

  [He lets go of her hand.]

  GINA I will kill you.

  WILL Kill you first, bitch. You try and run. Just try.

  GINA I’ll kill you, Will.

  WAITRESS [Offstage.] Dispatcher says “Two minutes!”

  WILL Make a deal?

  GINA [Screaming from the contractions.] Fucking deal? I’ll—

  WILL Yeah, yeah. Kill me. I got that. Baby, look in my eyes. You wouldn’t make the county line. Come on. Look in these baby blues. Look.

  GINA [Teeth clenched.] Your fucking deal?

  WILL Girl, it’s yours.

  GINA I don’t…

  WILL Girl, it’s yours. Simple as that. You pop out
an “X,” go with god.

  GINA This is my child.

  WILL If it’s a girl, it is. Can’t mold no girl, that’s for sure. But if it’s a boy? Baby, I can show that child a world within the world that no one ever imagined. A true world.

  WAITRESS [Offstage.] We’re down to seconds now, Will!

  GINA There’s laws.

  WILL Not for me. You high? I will hunt you down. You know that. Ends of the earth, baby.

  [WILL proffers his hand. GINA clenches her fists, screams through gritted teeth.]

  GINA You’ll never touch her?

  WILL You have my word.

  GINA Never see her.

  WILL Never.

  GINA Write? Nothing?

  WILL I never existed.

  GINA I would empty the gun.

  WILL And hit a barn. But whatever. If it’s a boy, though?

  GINA I despise your breath. Your sweat. Your—

  WILL Shake my fucking hand, Gina.

  WAITRESS [Offstage.] Taxi, Will!

  GINA I can’t. I—

  WILL I don’t know how to stop anymore. You know that. I don’t know how.

  WAITRESS [Offstage.] They’re right over there!

  GINA If it’s a girl you—

  WILL Disappear. Come on. Cab’s here.

  [He grabs her hand. Shakes it. GINA looks at the hand.]

  ACT II

  Scene 1

  The fairgrounds. Night. BOBBY strolls with GWEN. In the background, the sounds of a carny in full summer swing.

  GWEN So tell me about her.

  BOBBY I can’t remember her.

  GWEN Baby, everyone remembers their mama.

  BOBBY I can, a bit. Here and there. But there aren’t any pictures.

  GWEN There’s gotta be pictures.

  BOBBY If the old man ever took any, he burned ’em after she died.

  GWEN That’s crazy. How could he not have taken one single picture?

  BOBBY He said, “You think it’d bring her back? No really, that’d be cool. Maybe if we had a whole stack of pictures, she’d pop up from time to time, make us breakfast.”

  GWEN Your father did not say that.

  BOBBY He did.

  GWEN Even he can’t be that cruel.

  BOBBY He can.

  GWEN Well, you’re not cruel.

  BOBBY Never been tested. Hell, everyone’s nice until some kind of hard choice is put in front of them.

  GWEN Bobby, I hate to break it to you, but you’re good. You just are.

  BOBBY You’re good. Jury’s out on me. I mean, Christ, Gwen, I’m nineteen years old and I’ve been on the short con since I was six.

  GWEN You never conned me. You tried…

  BOBBY It worked.

  GWEN Only because I let it.

  BOBBY You say.

  [They kiss, a peck that turns into something longer.]

  GWEN Owned your ass then. Own it now. Say it, bitch.

  BOBBY Never, never.

  [He lifts her and she slides her legs over his hips.]

  BOBBY You own me.

  GWEN You own me too.

  BOBBY Shit’s about to get real serious.

  GWEN I know. I—

  BOBBY This is my old man we’re talking about. My old man and money.

  GWEN Baby, how many times are we going to go over this?

  BOBBY As many times as we have to. Look, he thinks we’re going to burn him. Because we’ll be the first ones to touch that diamond. Shit, because on general principle he thinks everyone’s out to burn him. Because he’d burn us if he had the chance.

  GWEN But we’re not. We’re—

  BOBBY That won’t save us if anything goes wrong. If everything doesn’t go exactly according to plan, he’ll get it in his head that there was a double cross. He will. It’s how he thinks. It’s all he thinks. If this thing goes south, Gwen? Jesus.

  GWEN It won’t.

  BOBBY So walk me through it.

  GWEN Bobby!

  BOBBY Come on. One more time. Baby, please. I got to know you can do it in your sleep.

  GWEN [Sits. By rote.] Our best assumption is that poor, lonely George hid the diamond in his mother’s room at the assisted-living place. But he still has to get out of town with it and his mother’s been stuck in the home. But—lucky us—transportation date out of state set for…?

  BOBBY Gwen.

  GWEN For…?

  BOBBY Day after tomorrow.

  GWEN So we go in tomorrow in our spanking new nurse and orderly uniforms and find where he hid it.

  BOBBY Which entrance we use?

  GWEN Southeast rear.

  BOBBY That’s the exit.

  GWEN Sorry, sorry. Northwest entrance, key code one-six-four-three. Up the north staircase to the third floor. Her room is first on the right through the door. Three-ten.

  BOBBY Nurses’ station?

  GWEN Twenty-two yards to the left.

  BOBBY Janitor’s closet?

  GWEN Directly across from Three-ten.

  BOBBY Security rounds?

  GWEN Ten-ten, ten-forty, eleven-ten.

  BOBBY Fire escape?

  GWEN To the right, end of the hall.

  BOBBY We run into a security guard?

  GWEN I rip my blouse, scream rape, and point at the guard.

  BOBBY Run into a nurse and a guard?

  GWEN Point at the nurse.

  BOBBY I’m laughing all the way to prison here. Laughing hard.

  GWEN Okay, okay. You take the security guard, I take the nurse, it’s every robber for herself.

  BOBBY In the event we’re split up?

  GWEN Rendezvous right here.

  BOBBY If I don’t make it?

  GWEN Bobby.

  BOBBY If I don’t make it, Gwen?

  [GWEN stares at him.]

  Scene 2

  The fairgrounds. Night. The DOCTOR and the PATIENT.

  PATIENT Used to be a train ran past here. Route dried up, so they killed the service. Still see the tracks, though.

  DOCTOR It’s too dark.

  PATIENT They’re there. Dated a cop once. He drank so much I always figured he became a cop for the drinking. He told me once, swear to god, “Ever want to kill someone, Gina? Do it with water or a train. Fucks the evidence all to hell.” Irony, right?

  DOCTOR So your name’s Gina.

  PATIENT According to the birth certificate, yes, sir.

  DOCTOR You killed your husband with a train.

  [Beat.]

  He scream? He cry? Beg?

  PATIENT Not so much.

  [GINA, WILL, and HAL enter. HAL’s arm is swung around WILL and all three have been drinking. HAL’s carrying a bottle.]

  HAL It’s fucked-up. I mean, I have kids from Number One. Now Number Two had no interest. She was nutritionally imbalanced anyway, so what the fuck. But Gina? Shit, boy, I never dared dream.

  WILL Well, boss, dreams have a way of coming true.

  GINA At a price, of course.

  HAL Ain’t that the Bible truth? But, baby, trust me, ain’t no price on this. You could leave my ass and take half my money and the beach house in Corpus, and I wouldn’t care. Ha! Long as I had me a little shit kicker to kick shit with?

  [HAL sits suddenly. He laughs and hoots at the moon. GINA and WILL can’t stop staring at him and then each other.]

  HAL Yeah, a little tyke! A little tyke! Yee-hee. Got-damn!

  DOCTOR So…?

  PATIENT I know. Right?

  DOCTOR But, you could have—

  PATIENT Oh, Doctor. Please. We are all—all of us—about the children.

  Scene 3

  Headlights cut across the fairgrounds. BOBBY and BOBBY’S FATHER exit their car offstage and enter the fairgrounds.

  BOBBY’S FATHER So we getting warm?

  BOBBY I’m feeling all tingly.

  BOBBY’S FATHER I always liked this place off-season, the tarps flapping in the wind, faint smell of elephant shit.

  BOBBY Ain’t no elephants at a fair.

&
nbsp; BOBBY’S FATHER No?

  BOBBY You’re thinking of the circus.

  BOBBY’S FATHER The circus. I hate trapeze artists. Women all look like men and the men all look like cock smokers. And don’t even get me started on fucking clowns.

  [BOBBY stops at a freshly turned mound of dirt. He kicks it lightly with his foot.]

  BOBBY Mandy?

  BOBBY’S FATHER Who the fuck’s Mandy?

  BOBBY The hooker.

  BOBBY’S FATHER That was her name? Huh.

  [BOBBY kicks the mound again.]

  BOBBY Oh, no, right, you drove her home. Which was where again?

  [BOBBY’S FATHER chuckles softly.]

  BOBBY’S FATHER This has been nice, reconnecting and shit.

  BOBBY A time to treasure.

  BOBBY’S FATHER You think I’m shitting you, but I missed you, boy. I’m the only daddy you’ve ever known and you’re the only son I’ve ever known and we had ourselves some times over the years.

  BOBBY Name one.

  BOBBY’S FATHER I could name a hundred.

  BOBBY Try one.

  BOBBY’S FATHER Why you gotta be cold?

  BOBBY I’m not being cold. I’m asking—

  BOBBY’S FATHER

  You’d a preferred going to some same-as-every-other-fucking-kid grade school? Playing video games in some stink-ass suburban basement? Some stink-ass suburban town with a mall looks like every other mall? You get through high school and go to college, study business or poli-sci? And then get you a job, a 401(k), marry the receptionist because she smiles at you right and gives okay head? And then you’re thirty-five and she ain’t giving any head anymore and you’ve got two kids crying for fucking video games and sneakers and your soul feels like a tomato left on a warm porch, but, wait, you got a couple pornos in the closet and a new fucking car and the supermarket’s right down the street! So—hey—living large! And there’s only fifty-five years to go if you live right, don’t smoke or drink or eat food that tastes good, all so you can die in Florida in a nice white house while Guatemalans water your lawn. Hey, have at it.

  BOBBY You do like to spew, don’t you?

  BOBBY’S FATHER You were born off the grid, raised off the grid, and lived off the grid. Shit, you don’t even have a social.