by Sarah Willis
CHIP STARK. There’s not enough liquor in the world to keep me here. (He grabs the bottle of scotch from JIMMY and takes a slug.)
VICTOR PETERS. Something smells rotten. Smell it?
FRANK TUCKER. It’s the dog. Or Jimmy. Changed your socks this month, McGovern?
LARS LYMAN. (Quietly, but with strength.) Leave the dog alone. BEN WALTON. I’ll have to put the mattress on the floor.
(A bat flies through the barn from stage left.)
THREE OR FOUR VOICES. Shit!!!
VICTOR PETERS. Bats eat spiders.
FRANK TUCKER. No they don’t, Victor. They eat flying insects. JIMMY MCGOVERN. Who the hell cares what they eat? I’m going back to the house.
BEN WALTON. (Testing out the mattress, which is now on the ground.) We can’t. Will wants to talk to Myra.
CHIP STARK. Talk? I’ll tell you what he ought to do. The woman needs …
FRANK TUCKER. Shut up, Chip. We don’t need your filthy talk. CHIP STARK. (With a big, dramatic shrug.) Hey, man, I just call it as I see it. She’s one unhappy-looking woman, if you ask me.
BEN WALTON. No one’s asking you, Stark.
LARS LYMAN. (Quietly, but everyone hears.) She does, though … look sad.
(After a pause, Jimmy’s flashlight flickers, then dies.)
JIMMY McGOVERN. I’m outta here. (He heads toward barn door but stops when BEN speaks.)
BEN WALTON. How about charades?
CHIP STARK. Are you nuts, Walton?
BEN WALTON. (Still sitting on the floor.) I dare you, Stark. You’ll be captain of one team. I’ll be the captain of the other.
CHIP STARK. You are nuts. There aren’t fucking captains in charades.
BEN WALTON. (With a grin, standing up.) Bet you five bucks my team wins.
CHIP STARK. You and what fucking team?
BEN WALTON. Me, Victor, Lars, and Nate against you, Jimmy, Frank, and Norton.
CHIP STARK. Why do I get Norton? Hell, he’s not even here! He’s upstairs in a soft bed laughing at us suckers. And where is Nate anyway?
(Everyone looks around.)
(In the narrow extra room between the barn doors and the rest of the barn, NATE JOHNSON sits on his bunk listening to the sound of men. He was wondering when they would miss him. If they would. Now they only need him to make the teams even. Nothing’s ever even, he thinks. Nothing. He wouldn’t mind some company right now, but he’s drawing the line at playing charades with a bunch of drunken white guys.)
BEN WALTON. Hey, Nate, get your ass in here and play charades with us!
NATE JOHNSON. (What the hell, Nate thinks. He’s never played charades. And he ought to do his part to keep everyone from going in the house, disturbing Will and Myra. Lars is right. She’s looking sad. Will ought to spend some time alone with her.) Thought I wasn’t supposed to be coming in the big room, Mr. Walton. Mr. Will Bartlett be saying—
BEN WALTON. Cut the crap, Nate. Will’s just a horse’s ass sometimes, and you know it.
WILL BARTLETT. (Walking into the barn, through Nate’s room, carrying a six-pack and a carousel of betting chips.) Hey, Nate. (He walks into the main room and holds up the chips.) Poker, anyone?
CHIP STARK and JIMMY McGOVERN. Count me in.
LARS LYMAN. Sure. Okay.
BEN WALTON. Hey! We were going to play charades!
CHIP STARK. In your dreams, big guy.
JIMMY McGOVERN. What’s the limit?
CHIP STARK. The sky, my friend, the sky.
(NATE, in his narrow room, stays on his bunk and turns off his flashlight. Limit’s much closer than the sky, he thinks. Limit’s right here. What the hell was he thinking?)
BEN WALTON. (He walks over to the opening between the main room and Nate’s room.) Nate! Now it’s poker. These sissies can’t handle a game of charades. Come on in and join us. NATE JOHNSON. No thanks. I’m going to bed.
BEN WALTON. You sure? Nickel ante. Stakes won’t be that high. Come on.
NATE JOHNSON. (He shakes his head.) Too high for me, Ben. But thanks.
BEN WALTON. (He stands in the doorway for a beat, then raises his hands in surrender.) You change your mind, you know where to find us. We’ll be the group of assholes making too much damn noise in the next room.
NATE JOHNSON. (With a chuckle.) You got that right, Ben.
BEN WALTON. Night, Nate. (He goes back into the main room.)
NATE JOHNSON. Night.
(The lights fade to the shuffle of cards and the laughter of men.) FRANK TUCKER. Where the hell is my pillow?
Tuesday
Under a dreary gray sky, the actors stand outside the barn smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. “Come on, let’s get started,” Will says, feeling a rasp in his throat. They’ll have to cut back on this late night stuff. “Let’s meet in the barn. Put out the cigarettes. Bring in your coffee. Let’s go.” He takes a last puff of his Viceroy and looks for a can of sand, but there aren’t any. On the ground, just outside the doors, there’s a pile of butts, like offerings made to the barn god. At least they’re not smoking in the barn. Will knocks three times on the door. It doesn’t fall down.
Nate Johnson walks over to Will, shaking his head. “Guess I’ll just go home.”
Will’s muscles tighten so quick, he worries he might have pulled something in his back. “What?!”
“You said I’m supposed to stay out of the main part of the barn, but seeing that’s where you all are going, I’ll just go home. You make up your mind, let me know.”
Will counts to five, worried Nate might leave before he gets to ten. He knows Nate didn’t sleep well. He said something crawled over him in the middle of the night.
“Okay, Nate, I get your point. Let’s just say that you don’t come in the main part of the barn when we’re rehearsing or doing improvs. How’s that sound?”
“You don’t want to know how it sounds, Will. Trust me.”
Will puts his arm around Nate to lead him into the inner barn. “When this is over, I’ll treat you to dinner at the Brown Derby. Promise.”
Nate slips out from under Will’s arm with a little twist of his shoulder. “If I haven’t been eaten alive first.”
“Nothing’s going to eat you, Nate. You’re too tough.”
“Quit while you’re ahead.”
Will does.
In the barn, those who slept on bunks glare at those who slept in beds. Everyone complains about cold feet and long lines for the bathroom. There’s not enough food. Will has to promise everyone they can take a shower today just to quiet them down.
Will knows there’s a lot to be done, but wasn’t that the idea? “Okay, now I’ve got assignments for chores, which we’ll do in character. This will be fun!” He notices no one smiles. Well, physical labor will help work out the tension. Maybe that’s how the ranch hands survived living together—they were too weary each night to hold on to yesterday’s anger. Will imagines himself as a laborer, large tan muscles, sweating in the hot sun. It gives him an extra boost, and he assigns the tasks with vigor.
Chip Stark, Jimmy McGovern, and Frank Tucker will build the outhouse. Victor Peters will find cans and fill them with sand. (Will has given Victor something he can accomplish between naps and do one-handed, since his character has lost a hand in an accident.) Ben will carry the building materials and help the outhouse gang. Nate Johnson is to rake out the barn and putty the holes. Greg Henry will pick up the cigarette butts and mow the lawn. Beth will wash the dishes and clean the kitchen—the dishes are technically props, although this explanation seems to annoy Beth all the more. Norton Frye is to figure out the approximate cost for items on the “to get” list (which is so long—blankets, flashlights, lanterns, ashtrays, toilet paper, napkins, matches, cigarettes, garbage bags, toothpaste, pillows, electrical heaters—Will decides to fine-tune it later). They do need blankets. It did get pretty damn cold out here last night. He asks Myra to borrow blankets from the neighbors. For himself, Will has to make phone calls and plan the rehearsal schedule.
Think in character, he tells them. Move in character. Breathe each breath in character. He is wounded by the eye-rolling. Don’t they know art is hard work?
While doing the dishes, Beth watches Greg Henry mow the lawn. Shirtless. Her heartbeat is erratic. It’s the way he mows, going all the way around the house in a circle; Greg is in her sight for about two minutes, then out of sight for four minutes. Two minutes of bam bam bam against her chest, holding a dish tight in her hand. Then she leans to her left to watch him go around the corner of the house, and then her heartbeat goes back to normal (sort of) as she washes the plate, or bowl, or glass, or pot (there are so many dishes!), then her heart picks up again; hearing the mower (the rumble of the mower!) makes her heart, like that Pavlov’s dog thing, start to bam bam bam.
She’s wrong. He doesn’t really look like Kurt Russell all that much. Paul McCartney—that’s who he looks like. Paul McCartney with curly hair. Paul McCartney not wearing a shirt. Every time she thinks she’s done with the dishes and can go outside, someone brings in a dish from the barn or, worse, takes a just-washed plate from the cupboard, and just-dried knives, forks, and spoons from the drawer, and proceeds to make something to eat. Beth herself is starving, but she won’t eat a thing that needs silverware or plates. SpaghettiOs sounds great, but she can vividly imagine the sticky orange mess in the pan and decides to go on a diet. Everyone should, she thinks, glaring at Chip Stark as he opens the cupboard for a plate. Beth’s father made it clear that if she didn’t do every dish in sight, he would consider hiring another prop girl. Right. Like who? Her mother? Still, if she goes outside, it’ll be more obvious that she is watching Greg Henry mow, and from here, well, she has to stand in front of the sink. She can’t help it that he walks by her window every four minutes.
Mac watches as, after the meeting in the barn, the actors break up like a toy being taken apart, which makes him think of the toys he’s lost, like the red metal fire truck. One day it was on his floor at home, the next day, gone. He looked all over for it, and when he couldn’t find it anywhere, he began thinking maybe Beth took it. That was when Mac realized Beth was different from him, not just on the outside but on the inside. People were different, each and every one. They might see blue when he sees red, or feel hot when he feels cold. How would he ever know? It’s a lot to think about.
His family is like a toy falling apart too. Lately, his mom and dad hardly talk to each other, and they keep forgetting he’s around. Even Beth’s ignoring him. She hasn’t tried to trip him in days.
But Jimmy McGovern is his buddy now. The way Jimmy says Mac, it sounds like a tough name. Mac can almost see himself as a construction worker when Jimmy says Mac. Big muscles and a hard hat, wearing one of those huge tool belts. Mac says “Mac” out loud, to see if it still sounds tough. Not as tough as when Jimmy says it.
His dad didn’t give him a job, so he hangs around the back of the house watching Jimmy McGovern, who’s standing with Mr. Tucker (who talks down to Mac as if Mac were standing in a hole) and Chip Stark (the guy in black who walks real slow).
“Hey, Mac!” Jimmy yells. “How the hell are we supposed to build an outhouse without you? Come over here, kid, and grab a shovel!”
Mac knows Jimmy’s kidding, that they don’t need him to build an outhouse, but he runs over anyway, kind of hoping they do. Jimmy puts his hand out for Mac to slap, and Mac does. He likes the way that slap sounds, and what it means. He stands next to Jimmy as the actors talk about how to build an outhouse.
“Hell,” Jimmy says, “let’s just dig a hole way back there near the woods, put the dirt to the side, and leave the shovel.”
“What am I supposed to sit on?” Mr. Tucker says, petting his mustache. Mac wonders if it is fake, like the ones his dad wears sometimes, and if it might fall off if he plays with it too much. “And what about privacy? What’s to keep anyone from watching?”
“Hell, I won’t look at you. Honest, Frank. And I’m betting no one else will either.” Jimmy says. “Right, Mac?”
Mac grins. “No way!”
“See? So let’s do it.”
“But Will said we were to build an outhouse.”
Chip Stark sticks his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth in his shiny black boots as if he were standing on a baby teeter-totter. “Hell, Frank, no one’s going to use it. Will’s smart. He told us to build it just to get us to do something and quit griping. Let’s just dig a hole and call it a day.”
Mr. Tucker shakes his head. “Fine, fine, whatever you say.”
Jimmy hands the shovel to Mac. “Ready, Mac?”
Mac nods. The shovel is pretty heavy, but he picks it up as if it weighs nothing. As they walk across the field, Mac thinks he just might grow up to be a construction worker. He hopes his dad doesn’t mind.
Nate Johnson putties the holes in the barn, thinking about his character, Crooks. Here was a guy who had to live separated from everyone, and it made him so bitter he became the kind of man no one wanted to be around anyway. It’s easy to understand how that could happen. As a kid, growing up in Harlem, Nate hadn’t thought much about bigotry—everyone was black. The war changed all that. He’d been nineteen when he’d enlisted; he needed more than religion and the odd job to satisfy him, and he thought enlisting was the answer. It took a long time to understand his help wasn’t wanted. After half-assed training for over a year at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, he was assigned to the Ninety-third Division, one of the few black combat units, and sent to Italy. His white southern commander called him “boy” and refused to let anyone carry live ammo. He saw little combat until the battle in the foothills of the Apennines, outside of Rome. It was a disaster. Their training had been so poor that half the men turned and fled. Dozens were killed. Nate had carried a kid named Mitch, blood oozing from his stomach, seven miles back to base, where he died from lack of Negro blood. They wouldn’t give him a white man’s blood. That day Nate stopped loving God, who was as much a part of him as Harlem and his own skin. He had carried God with him all through the war—or as his mother would say, God carried him—but watching Mitch die, Nate decided he didn’t want anything to do with God. That loss scared him as much as the war. If you couldn’t count on God, who could you count on? No one but himself, that’s who.
When he came back to New York City, Harlem had changed; it was no longer a place you could hide from prejudice. But he had to stay there. His mother had gotten sick, and he had to support her, so he got a job filling cigarette machines. He took his mother to church each week, but he wouldn’t speak to God. God had something to say, he could talk to Nate. He could explain some things. But God wasn’t talking.
One day while filling the machine at a theatre, the manager gave Nate a ticket to a play as his Christmas tip. The Iceman Cometh. It was a strange, mesmerizing play, and for hours he had forgotten about the war and the world he would return to that night. It was magic, that’s all he knew, and he wanted more of it. Not only did he want to see another play, he wanted to be in them.
It took years, but he never quit, and he began getting good parts, the few there were for a black actor. When he heard about an audition for regional theatres, he decided to give it a try. His mother had died a few months before, and he wanted to get out of the city. Nate was the only black man at the audition, but he got offered a job. He’d been smug about that for a while, until he realized he’d been hired simply because he was black. By then it didn’t matter. Not much did, but acting.
He still went to church. He did it for his mother, and because he was still waiting for God to notice he was mad at Him. Do something about it. Strike him with lightning or pull him back into grace. Seemed to be at a standstill. Nobody giving an inch.
It had been close to fifteen years since he left New York, and he’d never gone back. He could almost claim he had forgotten about the war—how it made him feel dirty, how it made him turn his back on God. But now, trying to understand his own past to understand Crooks, he has to admit that h
e turned his back on more than God. His closest friends are the actors, and he doubts if even one of them knows his birthday, or his age.
Nate throws the putty knife against the barn wall, where it wedges into the soft wood. Enough! He doesn’t have to make himself miserable to play the part of Crooks. He’s never been a method actor, and he’s done just fine, thank you. And what is this “fix up Will’s place and call it acting” malarkey? Maybe it’s time to move on.
When Beth is finally finished with the dishes, she decides to take Greg Henry a glass of lemonade. She has to make the lemonade first, which makes her grind her teeth, but she does, then washes off the wooden spoon and wipes up the counter, where sticky lemonade has sloshed over the side of the plastic pitcher. She fills the tallest glass she can find with five ice cubes, pours in the lemonade, and looks out the window to see where Greg is. He is standing by his car with Norton Frye, who’s wearing a red scarf around his neck. Her father hands Norton something, and then Norton and Greg get in his car and drive off. She can’t believe it!
Mac walks into the kitchen, his shoes two clumps of wet mud. He actually asks her if she’ll make him a grilled-cheese sandwich. She tells him he’d better get lost or she’ll grill his butt. The little creep actually smiles.
Beth pours the lemonade down the drain and leaves the dirty glass in the sink to rot in hell.
Myra is uncomfortable with asking the neighbors for blankets. Even though she runs into them at the grocery store now and then, she doesn’t know them all that well. She passes up their nearest neighbors, the McCrearys, because they are somber people who don’t approve of Will and Myra, especially after the outdoor rehearsal of Midsummer Night’s Dream a few years ago. She decides to try the Griggses first, who have a small dairy farm about a mile down the road. She first met the Griggses when their bull got loose, and Mr. Griggs (Tom, she thinks) came looking for it. Every time he sees her in the store, he asks if she’s seen any stray bulls. His wife (Mary?) is a small woman with a gentle smile. Myra drives down the road rehearsing her words. “Hi, I’m Myra, remember me? Your neighbor? I was wondering if …”