(WITH HEAVY LIMP, STARTING TO THRUST THOMAS ASIDE)
Make way then, Christ! Make way!
THOMAS
(SEIZING HIS SHOULDER, FORCING COINS ON HIM)
Hear me out . . .
SOLDIER
(STANDS BACK, STARES AT COINS IN HIS HAND)
Twelve dollars?
(WITH SCATHING CONTEMPT)
You . . . funny fellow!
(FLINGS COINS DOWN)
Four months of a man’s life, and war . . . you’d buy that for twelve dollars!
THOMAS
(KNEELING, SEARCHING FOR THE COINS, IN DESPERATE TONE OF APPEAL)
Wait! No, I don’t want your pay . . . This, it’s all I have with me, take it . . .
SOLDIER
(STOPS, EMBARRASSED, TAKES COINS SLOWLY AND REACHES FOR THOMAS’ ARM TO HELP HIM UP)
I . . . your pardon, sir . . .
THOMAS
(REMAINING RIGIDLY ON ONE KNEE, COVERING EYES)
Take it and go!
(AS THE SOLDIER PERSISTS IN APOLOGETIC ATTENTIONS, THOMAS SHOUTS)
And go!
Withdrawing his hand, the SOLDIER stares a moment longer in consternation, then hurries offstage right. THOMAS remains rigidly kneeling, then draws a hand over his face and starts to rise as a cry and shout offstage left bring him slowly to his feet, still unaware that a YOUNG MAN has emerged from darkness left, running as though pursued, and now seeing him circles behind him and leaps upon him like an animal. Almost to his feet, THOMAS casts him off, and confronts him: the YOUNG MAN, in torn and soiled working clothes, is simply brute force incarnate.
YOUNG MAN
(BACKED UP AGAINST THE WALL)
You!
THOMAS
You know me?
(ADVANCING UPON HIM)
You know who I am?
(SEIZES THE YOUNG MAN BY SHOULDER MUSCLES, SHAKES HIM)
What’s the meaning of this then? I demand it!
(FLINGS HIM BACK)
YOUNG MAN
(COWERING, DEFIANT)
There’s none!
THOMAS
None!
(ADVANCING UPON HIM AGAIN)
I’ll have it, do you hear? I’ll have . . . order here!
As they confront one another sounds of laughter and broken song come from offstage right.
(SLOWLY SEIZING HIM AGAIN BY SHOULDERS)
If . . . you . . . think . . .
YOUNG MAN
(AS THOMAS’ HOLD TIGHTENS)
I . . . was made . . .
THOMAS
(HOARSELY, HIS HOLD APPROACHING THE YOUNG MAN’S THROAT)
Made!
YOUNG MAN
(STRUGGLING TO HOLD THOMAS’ HANDS AWAY)
. . . for something . . . better!
Laughter and sounds of revelry come closer offstage right as the YOUNG MAN, held down by THOMAS standing over him with his hands on his throat, stares up with fascinated horror but speaks with simple wonder, as a brilliant burst of flame offstage right illuminates them.
You would . . . kill me!
They stare, in flaring illumination, transfixed with one another, THOMAS’ hold loosening until the YOUNG MAN, with sudden twist away, escapes him, takes wild step toward stage right, sees figures approaching and turns and flees across stage to exit left as BAGBY enters from right with two others: a flamboyantly dressed and mannered elderly man, white-maned, pompously absurd, THE SENATOR, and a stridently caricatured TART, both somewhat drunk, and played respectively by the persons who play THE MAJOR and GIULIELMA in Act I.
BAGBY
(HURRYING ONSTAGE OFFICIOUSLY)
Ah, it’s you sir! I saw it, I saw it myself! and they’ll get him, have no fear . . . yes . . .
(AS THOMAS STARES AT THEM WILDLY, DRAWING A HAND DOWN HIS FACE LIKE A MAN TRYING TO SHAKE OFF NIGHTMARE)
Yes, out having a time for yourself . . . ! Here, you must meet my friend, my close associate the Senator, yes . . . and this lady . . .
(TURNING TO THE SENATOR, WITH HIGH HANDED CORDIALITY)
I’ve spoke in the past of our new owner, yes . . . a gentleman . . .
(TURNING BACK TO THOMAS)
You’re all right, sir? and . . . there, that tear in your pants? There by the pocket?
TART
(TAKING THOMAS’ ARM, PUTTING A HAND UP TO HIS CHEEK)
Here, you’re hurt dear . . . Here? on your cheek . . . ?
(AS HE PULLS AWAY ABRUPTLY, COVERING THE SCAR WITH HIS HAND)
I’m sorry dear, there! I didn’t do it!
(TURNING TO OTHERS)
It looked like it had just happened!
BAGBY
(EXPLAINING IN AN EMBARRASSED PAUSE)
The militia draft’s what’s turned their heads . . .
As THE SENATOR speaks, the SOLDIER reappears from stage right, to engage BAGBY in transaction.
THE SENATOR
An odious necessity, the militia draft. As odious to those who have volunteered their very lives in the noble, the enduring, the steadfast and the noble service of their country . . . as to those souls too craven . . . ! too craven to give, to offer, the last full measure of devotion upon the field of battle! Who? who among us? would want such a man for his comrade in arms? To share the strife, the heartaches and the glorious pains of battle!
BAGBY
(ASIDE TO THOMAS)
The Senator is a very influential man, you know.
(RETURNS HIS ATTENTION TO THE SOLDIER)
THE SENATOR
Where union and strife face one another, across the terrible abyss of war! Where only union! the Union! can unite, and only strife put asunder . . .
TART
(PULLING THOMAS ASIDE)
Will you come with me, dear?
(AS HE PULLS FROM HER)
You’re not going to run off . . . ?
(MOCKINGLY, REACHING FOR HIM AGAIN)
You, the only man here?
BAGBY
(JOVIALLY UPSTAGING ALL, TO THE SOLDIER)
Yes, that’s a fine way to wear shoes, or did no one ever tell you what they was for? Here, you wear them on your feet, so . . .
(EXTENDING A FOOT BEFORE THE SOLDIER)
SOLDIER
(SULLENLY)
You do when they’re made of calf leather and don’t rub you raw to the bone, don’t be clever with me. What do you say now, six for five.
BAGBY
You have my offer.
THOMAS
(LOOKING ABOUT HIM)
Where are we?
TART
Norwegian Street, dear. Yes, the fire? That’s Mister Bagby’s home, where he’s always entertained us so nice . . .
SOLDIER
(TO BAGBY, HOLDING OUT MONEY AND LOOKING AT IT)
Wait a minute, you said . . .
BAGBY
(TO SOLDIER)
Take it or leave it!
(POCKETING PAPERS AS THE SOLDIER WITHDRAWS, LIMPING PAST THEM TO WARD STAGE LEFT)
And be glad to have it while you’re still alive . . . !
TART
(TO THOMAS)
They set it on fire as we finished dinner . . . but we can find another place, dear . . .
BAGBY
(FOLLOWING AS THOMAS STARTS OFFSTAGE RIGHT TOWARD THE FIRE)
I’ve just kept an eye on it now and again, sir . . .
THOMAS exits offstage right, BAGBY, the TART and THE SENATOR following in that order.
I suspected some trouble brewing tonight, and come down to defend it . . .
TART
(CALLING, TO THOMAS, FOLLOWING OFFSTAGE)
You’re not running off, dear . . . ? You coming back here to us at all . . . ?
Alone on stage, the SOLDIER crosses limping slowly left, counting the money and stowing it inside coat as he reaches shadows. The sound of a child, crying as at opening of scene, brings his head up; he stops, and from darkness the YOUNG MAN leaps upon him and bears him to the ground where they struggle an instant, are still, and blackout
, with the sound of the child’s crying declining to a whimper.
—Now! Was that in it? that scene? Was there a scene like that in the movie? Jed? Any of you?
—Only I didn’t quite get it Mister Crease, right at the end there where the . . .
—Didn’t get what. It was a mugging wasn’t it? Do you think muggings are a modern phenomenon?
—A what?
—A mod, a new invention, listen. All this crime, greed, corruption in the newspapers, you think they’re just part of the times we’re living in today? that our great Christian civilization is breaking down here right before our eyes? It’s just the other way around. These petty swindles of Mister Bagby’s outfitting the Union army, the only difference is all that was in the tens and hundreds of thousands and today it’s in the millions and billions, false invoices, double billing, staggering cost overruns and these six hundred dollar toilet seats all wrapped up in the American flag? Pick up the papers and it looks like our defense industry’s one gigantic fraud, that nothing gets built without bribes and payoffs, that Wall Street’s nothing but a network of fraud?
—Oscar . . .
—It’s not the breakdown of our civilization that we’re watching but its blossoming, greed and political corruption it’s what America was built on in those years after the Civil War where it all got a start, so it’s not whether corruption’s a sign of decay but whether it’s built into things right from the beginning. All these cases Bagby’s talking about were in the newspapers then just like ours today, that’s where I got them. This soldier selling his pay slip for food for his family those things really happened and this brutalized young man who mugs him, they’re both victims of this world of vast overpowering greed and corruption and industrial slavery that built this great country almost overnight that’s the irony, that they’re each other’s prey isn’t that clear? whoever said you didn’t get it?
—No I just meant the child, at the end there where there’s this child crying, so you mean it’s supposed to be this soldier’s child crying because it’s hungry and . . .
—It’s no one’s! It’s no one’s child it’s the whole world’s, it’s the cry of desolation and innocence and, and of sadness and loss for all humanity in these two men, that they’re each other’s victims that’s the tragic irony, that’s what makes drama if there’s a scene like this in the movie they stole it didn’t they? in this complaint?
—Right there in the charge of unjust enrichment Oscar, see but the problem is . . .
—How can there be a problem! If you can’t call a mugging unjust enrichment right on the face of it I don’t know what the language is for!
—See but you have to prove it, now where you’re talking about something really happened, based on a true story, things you saw in these old newspapers you’re putting it all right out there in the public domain again where anybody’s got a right to . . .
—I just said that’s what makes great drama didn’t I? the dramatic expression of the idea that . . .
—Oscar what your lawyer’s trying to tell you is it’s not a question of great drama. There’s no question of tragic irony, no question of greed and corruption that built this great country overnight or whether it’s a great play or the movie’s a ghastly movie. It’s all simply whether somebody profited taking something from you even if it wasn’t great drama, even if it was something stupid and fatuous that was yours in the first place, isn’t that what this circus is all about?
—All right then! Just, if you’ll just stop interrupting Christina that’s what I’m talking about, you’re just wasting time and you don’t have to call it stupid and fatuous either. Just because something really happened doesn’t mean I can’t use it in a play does it? Didn’t drafting men for the Union army and people hiring substitutes really happen? That’s where Mister Kane from the first act shows up here in this scene where Bagby’s looking for something in the morning mail.
THOMAS
(COMING DOWNSTAGE TO HIM, HANDING HIM A PAPER)
Possibly this? A wholesale order for trusses?
BAGBY
(TAKING IT)
Yes . . . a small commission. There’s many wearing them now, with the draft boards springing up all about. A rupture has become quite the thing, you might say. And . . . was there . . . nothing else?
THOMAS
What you have in your hand behind you.
BAGBY
This? Yes, I picked it up from the floor where it had fallen.
THOMAS
It didn’t fall. I threw it there.
BAGBY
(READING FROM IT)
Yes, to ‘report to the county seat within five days . . . ’ Well, that journey won’t take you long, for this here is the seat of Schuylkill County, you know.
THOMAS
(TAKING THE PAPER, CRUMPLING IT AGAIN)
And you expect to see me marching off to the draft office in one of your trusses? Do you think I take this seriously?
BAGBY
A bit of influence, and you might have . . .
THOMAS
Have you looked at the paper? It will be over in a matter of weeks, of days . . .
BAGBY
That’s still time enough to find yourself court-martialed, and when you can buy your commutation for three hundred dollars . . .
THOMAS
And you want me to pay three hundred dollars for a week’s peace of mind?
BAGBY
That’s what Section 13 of the enrollment act is for, you know, to provide for the better class of people like ourselves. Of course this commutation is only good until the next draft, and the rate things are going that might be tomorrow. You’d do better to pay a bit more, wouldn’t you, to buy a substitute to go up in your place. I can dig one up for five hundred dollars, and then let the war last as long as it likes. You can put it out of your mind.
(AS THOMAS SITS DOWN, LOOKING AT NEWSPAPERS, WAVES HIM AWAY)
Of course if it was me, you know, if I was financially situated like you are, there’s the owner of the iron works here, you may know of him? He raised a regiment of cavalry for twenty thousand dollars and for that they made him a colonel. And where is he? Why, in Washington, showing his uniform, rubbing his elbows at the White House with high officials and senators, and nuzzling their wives when they turn their backs. And what will become of him? They’ll nominate him a brigadier general and set him off somewhere to guard an empty barracks until things settle down, and you’ll see him back here with ‘General’ printed on his visiting cards . . .
(RETIRING A STEP UPSTAGE)
Shall I dig a man up for you, then?
THOMAS
Dig up nobody. It’s all nonsense.
BAGBY
Nonsense? And when you’re court-martialed and shot for a deserter, will that be nonsense?
THOMAS
(ABRUPTLY, LOSING PATIENCE)
I’ve seen that, do you hear? That’s . . . enough!
BAGBY
Seen . . . what, sir?
THOMAS
(GLANCING UP TOWARD UPSTAGE RIGHT)
Just tend your business, Bagby. A particularly unattractive bundle of it just arrived at your desk.
As THOMAS speaks, KANE has appeared at desk upstage right carrying a small case, and is heedlessly entering door as BAGBY hastens to intercept him.
BAGBY
(TO KANE)
Here, where are you going? You don’t just march in and see him like he was a public monument. I’m the man you see here.
KANE
(STOPPING, AS THOMAS TURNS SLOWLY TO LOOK, CONFUSED)
You might be . . . Mister Bagby?
BAGBY
You got my name at the barber shop in Coal Street, did you? Let’s see your teeth.
(KANE OBLIGES)
Not that you’ll need them for eating. And you’ve got all your fingers and toes, have you? You’ll do, if your breath don’t knock them flat first. Go back to that barber shop, do you hear? Tell them I sent you. Mist
er Bagby, do you hear? They’ll know what to do with you. Trim you up and get this thing off your face, why, they may find a boy of twenty hiding behind it! And then you come back here to me, do you hear? And I’ll take you down and enroll you. Now get on!
THOMAS
(STANDING, SLOWLY)
Wait a minute!
BAGBY
(TURNING TO HIM, HOLDING KANE’S ARM)
You want him, sir?
(STANDING OFF, LOOKING KANE OVER AGAIN)
I’ll be frank now, on second look, he don’t look like he’ll get far. They can’t shave that belly off him in a hurry, and his breath would stop a train. I’ll dig up better by sundown.
KANE
(ALMOST APOLOGETIC)
I’m sorry if I’ve misled you, sir. All I have to volunteer is my wares here. I’m a commercial traveler in tobaccos,
(COMING DOWNSTAGE TO DESK)
and I’ve a fine bright leaf that may interest you . . .
THOMAS
(COMING ROUND, PROFFERING A CHAIR BESIDE THE DESK)
Yes, sit down. You’ll forgive Mister Bagby here. His enthusiasm to recruit, feed, worm, and outfit the entire Union army from head to toe sometimes gets the better of him.
(TO BAGBY, DRILY)
Though I hadn’t realized you were recruiting.
BAGBY
I, sir? Yes, volunteering my services, you might say. Why, since Lee crossed the Potomac there hasn’t been a moment’s peace, and a man must come forward and lend a hand . . .
THOMAS
And you’ve been lending hands from the mines? Is that why the payroll is smaller every time I look at it?
BAGBY
And why not, with the mines closed down? If we’ve been ordered to suspend operations until the draft is ended, should we let the poor men go unemployed?
KANE
Yes, I understand Harpers Ferry has fallen, and General McClellan is marching out of Washington with every division he can pull together to meet them before they reach the Pennsylvania line here. I passed a fine set of lads drilling down near the river . . .
BAGBY
Them? Buckeyes, you mean? And do you think they’re getting ready to fight Lee and Jackson? They’re getting themselves ready to fight off the draft officers, that’s what they’re doing.
KANE
(HIS FACETIOUSNESS LOST UPON BAGBY)
Frolic of His Own Page 16