by Brian Hodge
You talked to Sadie about modeling?
JOS
It was too fast, too fast…
ATT
Then you “struck” her…(slight sarcasm)
JOS
When you say “struck” I don't like to hear that. She was very upset, number one, letting me in. She wasn't a tramp, she was a good person. She let me in on the pretense of work. She didn't want to let me in, yet she did. She seemed scared. I'm seeing her feelings too now, you understand?
(beat)
We talked, maybe a minute, then she turned her back…
ATT
She was a strong girl. How come she went out so fast? Were you surprised? Did you expect it?
JOS
I didn't expect anything. She was doing some writing, studying or writing, on the coffee table. Afterwards I looked through some magazines there.
ATT
You were taking your time?
JOS
I don't know how to answer you. You might say I seemed calm, but if you were there to see it, when this happened…
PAUSE
JOS
There was no need for it to happen.
ATT
No need to kill her?
JOS
No.
ATT
You could have had her?
JOS
This is where the whole thing is messed up. There was no need to be there, period. There was no reason for her to die!
(beat)
Nothing was taken away from her, no money, no nothing.
(beat)
How can I explain it to you? I'd sit there, looking to find something, looking through photographs like I was looking for someone…
BLACKOUT
A PAUSE
Lights up.
JOS
She said everyone's gone out of town, but she stayed home because she had to be at work Monday morning. We started talking…”wait a minute, I'll put some coffee on.” “Okay, want me to go out and get some doughnuts?” Oh, no, she said. We sat in the kitchen for a few minutes. Then we moved into the living room.
(beat)
She put on a record, I think it was a Christmas song of some kind, on her record player, it was blue and white. And we listened. But I was looking at her and getting worked up. I went over, I was on my knees…she said, “take it easy.” I said, “nobody's here, nobody can hear you, I can do what I want to you…”
(beat)
Next thing I had my arm around her neck. She fell back on top of me, and she passed out. She had very sexy leopard-like pajamas. I ripped them off. I don't know how exactly, but I did reveal her busts. I picked her up. I remember seeing her on the floor stripped naked. I took to the left bed because the other one had Christmas packages on it. I had intercourse with her…I don't know if I did this, well, for a sex act, or hatred or for what reason.
(beat)
There was no thrill at all.
PAUSE
ATT
What did you strangle her with?
JOS
Some gloves here hanging there…nylon stockings…at the end, I covered her up.
ATT
Why did you cover her up, Joseph?
JOS
She was so different.
(beat)
I didn't want to see her like that, naked and…
(beat)
She talked to me like a man, she treated me like a man. I remember covering her up all the way. She was still breathing, her face was swelling up. I put the stockings around her neck. Her face still kept getting bigger…
(beat)
That Sunday we had coffee. Do you follow me? She did me no harm…and yet I did it. Why did I do it? Why did I do it to her?
ATT
She must have got to you.
PAUSE
JOS
We talked for about an hour. I asked if she was married or going steady. It all happened before eight a.m. I was home before nine.
(beat)
JOSEPH remembers and for the first time tears begin to come.
JOS
She treated me like a man…
BLACKOUT
A LONG PAUSE, then:
JOS (Cont'd)
I don't drink.
(beat)
I know you had to be drunk to do this one, but I wasn't.
Lights begin a slow rise to full.
JOS (Cont'd)
You're thinking this is so different from the rest, right? And you're saying to yourself, why is he bringing in this one? He's better off to leave her out because she doesn't match.
(beat)
I could just as well forget it. I don't have to explain nothing to you.
ATT
That's right. You can do that with all of them, Joe.
PAUSE
JOS
I picked up the pipe, put it in my back pocket. I knock at her door. I tell her we got to paint the kitchen, I got to see it. There's a table there with a little radio, to the right a refrigerator, a sink with little brass faucets. As she walked in, her back to me, I hit her with the pipe. She went down. She had on a blue square-print housedress with buttons. Her things were ripped open, her busts were exposed. I got a sheet from a chair and covered her.
(beat)
I kept hitting her and hitting her…this is terrible…because her head felt…it felt like it was all gone…
ATT:
The sheet you covered her with, it must have been bloody.
JOS
Oh, was it! My god!
ATT
Were you upset? Did you check your clothes for blood?
JOS
No.
(beat)
PAUSE
I remember stabbing her in the bust, the right one…and leaving it in her.
BLACKOUT
PAUSE
Lights up to full.
JOS
I spotted her name. I didn't know who she was, what she looked like, but it was the only single girl's name. All the others were businesses and married couples. It was the only logical name, right? It was a very cheap apartment with really cheap furniture, even the Salvation Army wouldn't take it. Just like she were living out of a suitcase. “Well,” she said, “I'm expecting some company. Somebody‘s coming to pick me up for dinner.”
PAUSE
ATT
How'd you keep her from screaming? Or was she too scared?
JOS
I had a knife.
(beat)
I says, I'm going to tie you up. She didn't want no part of being tied up. I put the knife away. Somebody went by the door outside, I told her to be quiet. She was standing up, she turned around, and I put my hand right around her neck and pulled her backwards on the bed and we fell on the bed, and she was on top of me…and she passed out. I got up from underneath her, I took off her clothes, I ripped off her blouse. Her busts were large, thirty-eight, very smooth. Hefty, well-built, beautiful body.
(beat)
But she had no face.
(beat)
I'm sure I stripped her naked. That's how I see her in my mind, her legs over the edge of the bed toward the door. I played with her busts. I possibly may have bitten her…not to draw blood. Possibly on her body. I just had intercourse with her and that was it. It was very fast, all over in a matter of ten minutes, fifteen minutes, from the time I went in…
BLACKOUT
PAUSE
Lights up to full.
JOS (Cont'd)
I had supper, washed up, played with the kids until about eight o'clock, put them to bed, sat down and watched TV. It came over. About her.
ATT
Did you get any…kick…when the news of Hanley broke?
JOS
I knew it was me. I didn't want to believe it. I was not excited. I didn't think about it. I sat down to dinner and didn't think about it at all.
SLAM TO BLACK
PAUSE. In the dark, a match FLARES. JOSEPH lights a cigarette, inhales deeply, exhales smoke
, shakes out the match, then:
JOS (Cont'd)
Oh, jesus! I don't want to talk about her. I don't want to! I say to myself it could have been my daughter too. I just don't want to talk about it now.
Lights up to full.
ATT
(gently)
Joseph, you must…
PAUSE
JOSEPH speaks wearily now.
JOS:
She had on blue jeans, short ones, with little ragged edges on the border, and a yellow blouse. We went into the kitchen. It looked like she was fixing the shelves there, but I didn't get too good a look at what was in the kitchen because that's when I put the knife to her. Don't scream and I won't hurt you, I said. I took her into the bedroom. There were two twin beds with backboards…and I tied her wrists with some long, dark thing…
ATT
A necktie?
JOS
No, a scarf of some kind. I tied her feet also.
(beat)
This is what bothers me…to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it.
ATT
You've got to.
JOS
I know.
PAUSE
ATT
Did she plead with you?
JOS
She did talk to me. I put that thing on her face, I covered it. I know she had no gag on her mouth. I just tied her hands in front of her and then while her hands were like this here…
(He crosses his wrists.)
…I got up on top of her so she couldn't be in any position, you know, to reach up and scratch me.
(beat)
I…strangled her.
ATT
While she was lying on her back?
JOS
Yes.
JOSEPH'sgaze is distant now, as though he were not in the room at all but somewhere else, the spectator to a murder. ATTERLEY, realizing a change has come over him, plays along.
ATT
You have the gag in her mouth now?
JOS
No.
ATT
You just have that thing over her head?
(JOSEPH nods)
She still has her clothes on?
(He nods again)
And this is before or after you tied her feet?
JOSEPH drifts slowly back, becomes himself again.
JOS
It…it was after. The whole thing was…hands like this here, crossed. Her feet were tied right here, at the ankles…and I straddled her so that her hands…
(beat)
I was sitting on them. She was fighting viciously, trying to get up…you know…for life.
PAUSE
ATT
When did you get her clothes off, Joseph?
JOS
I'd just as soon forget the whole thing.
ATT
You strangled her with her clothes on?
JOS
She was alive when I had intercourse with her, she was alive…
(beat)
She allowed me to do it to her, y'understand?
(beat)
But I did strangle her…
ATT
Face to face?
JOS
When you say “face to face”…
ATT
Her face was facing you, but she had a sweater over her head.
JOS
So I couldn't see her.
ATT
And you strangled her by using your thumbs against her…
JOS
Throat.
ATT
Her Adam's apple, right?
JOS
Yes.
ATT
Were you all heated up again?
JOS
It was just that a different person altogether…
ATT
Was it like Anna Michaels?
JOS
It was all the same, always the same feeling…
ATT
And it's the hardest to remember because you don't want to remember.
PAUSE
JOS
As I was going out, the broom happened to be there and I picked up the broom and…did that…
(beat)
I did not insert it, at least I hope I didn't, to hurt her insides. You might say, what do you mean, hurt her insides. She's dead anyhow. But it's still…it's…it's to me a vicious thing. I never did it again. I never killed anyone after that. I only tied them up, I didn't hurt them. Once I was in three places in a row after that and I started to cry and I said, “I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm here“…and I…took off…
BLACKOUT
A LONG PAUSE
Lights up.
JOSEPH has risen from his chair. He paces nervously back and forth across the stage. ATTERLEY remains seated, watching him.
JOS
I walked up to the second floor of this building and I knocked on the door of the corner apartment. This old lady opens it. I said, we got to do some work on the apartment. We went in together and sat down. I was in an armchair, she in a rocking chair. I…well I…
He has great difficulty speaking.
A MAN, seated in the audience, questions him.
FIRST MAN
Does this bother you more than the others?
JOS
It all bothers me! It's like a nightmare, going back.
(beat)
She looked like my grandmother, my mother's mother. Last time I saw her she was in Danvers, when I came back from Germany. I went to see her with my mother. She was out of her mind, just talking…it does something to you…
He becomes excited.
JOS (Cont'd)
She used to care for me when I was small, when my father wasn't living with us. She reminded me…she died in my arms, this woman!
A second MAN, seated, addresses him from the audience.
SECOND MAN
(kindly)
We're almost done now, Joseph.
JOS
She got up from the rocker, turned around, she was talking nice…and I don't know what happened. All I know is my arm went straight around her neck. I didn't even squeeze her…and she went straight down. I tried to hold her. I didn't want her to fall on the floor.
(beat)
It's not a dream anymore…it's true…all these things happened!
He begins to sob, he can't catch his breath.
ATTERLEY watches him, expressionless.
JOS
I didn't mean to hurt nobody. I didn't mean to hurt…they all think it's a big joke, they think, oh, he's trying to make money on this. I don't want a goddamn dime! I got feelings as well as anybody else.
(beat)
These people…I stay awake, I wonder. My grandmother, my daughter. These things happen…
ATT
You've come a long way, Joseph. You couldn't even talk about this before.
JOS
I have a daughter, and I have a son and Hildegard, a good wife. But when my children get older, I want them to have an understanding of me. There's got to be a reason. I don't think you're born like this.
(beat)
Why did I start? Why did I stop?
(beat)
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have acted this way.
ATT
I'm not surprised, Joseph. You've a lot to carry. I'm surprised you haven't broken down more often.
JOS
In my room. I do it in my room.
ATT
You want to come back in two or three days?
JOS
No. Whether it's today or tomorrow or the next day I got to tell you when you come back.
ATT
Then what about the girl, Paula Samuels?
A third MAN stands and questions him from the audience, then sits.
THIRD MAN
Where did you put the knife to her?
JOS
I didn't…I mean, she never knew she was stabbed. I showed her the knife. I said, don't scream and I won't hurt you. I want to make love to you. She said, I won't let yo
u. I won't have intercourse with you.
(beat)
I said, I'll just play around with you. She said, promise me you won't get me pregnant, you won‘t rape me. I was going to have intercourse with her anyway, and she began talking. “You promised, you said you wouldn't do it to me, don't, don't!” The words kept coming and coming. I think she couldn't hear me saying, “keep quiet, keep quiet.” I can still hear her… ”don't do it, don't do that to me,” just like hearing something over and over. Everything I was doing to her, no matter what I did, she didn't like it. And she wouldn't keep quiet. And she wouldn't shut up.
(beat)
I did have the knife out. I promised I wouldn't hurt her. I'd put the knife on the edge of the coffee table. The typewriter was there. She said she wouldn't scream, but she started to get loud and loud and loud. She was stripped naked on the bed, my hands under her…
THIRD MAN
Then she got scared.
JOSEPH hesitates.
ATT
You have to make it, Joseph.