by Edward Albee
MARTIN
I take it you haven’t gotten up and spoken yet.
BILLY
(Noncommittal) Nope. Haven’t. (Waits a little) You know what I’m going to tell them—when I get up there on my hind legs?
MARTIN
(Winces) Do I want to know?
BILLY
Sure; you’re a big guy.
MARTIN
I am diminished.
BILLY
Yeah? Well … whatever. I think what I’ll tell them is this: that I’ve been living with two people about as splendid as you can get; that if I’d been born to other people, it couldn’t have been any better. (MARTIN sighs heavily, puts a protesting hand up) No; really; I mean it. You two guys are about as good as they come. You’re smart, and fair, and you have a sense of humor—both of you—and … and you’re Democrats. You are Democrats, aren’t you?
MARTIN
More than they are, sometimes.
BILLY
That’s what I thought, and you’ve figured out that raising a kid does not include making him into a carbon copy of you, that you’re letting me think you’re putting up with me being gay far better than you probably really are.
MARTIN
Oh, now …
BILLY
Thank you, by the way.
MARTIN
It’s the least.
BILLY
(Nodding) Right.
MARTIN
(Feigned surprise) You’re gay!?
BILLY
(Smiles) Shut up. Anyway, you’ve let me have it better than a lot of kids, better than a lot of “Moms and Dads” have, a lot closer to what being grown up will look like—as far as I can tell. Good guidance; it’s great to see how two people can love each other …
MARTIN
Don’t!
BILLY
At least that’s what I thought—until yesterday, until the shit hit the fan!
MARTIN
Billy, please don’t.
BILLY
(Big crying underneath) … until the shit hit the fan, and the talk I was going to do at school became history. (Exaggerated) What will I say now!? Goodness me! The Good Ship Lollipop has gone and sunk. (More normal tone) What will I say!? Well, let’s see: I came home yesterday and everything had been great—absolutely normal, therefore great. Great parents, great house, great trees, great cars—you know: the old “great.” (Bigger now, more exaggerated) But then today I come home, and what do I find? I find my great Mom and my great Dad talking about a letter from great good friend Ross …
MARTIN
(Deep anger) Fuck Ross!!
BILLY
Yes? A letter from great good friend Ross written to great good Mom about how great good Dad has been out in the barnyard fucking animals!!
MARTIN
Don’t … do this.
BILLY
Animals! Well, one in particular. A goat! A fucking goat! You see, guys, your stories are swell or whatever, but I’ve got one’ll knock your socks off, as they used to say, wipe the tattoos right off your butts. Ya see, while great old Mom and great old Dad have been doing the great old parent thing, one of them has been underneath the house, down in the cellar, digging a pit so deep!, so wide!, so … HUGE! … we’ll all fall in and (crying now) and never … be … able … to … climb … out … again—no matter how much we want to, how hard we try. And you see, kids, fellow students, you see, I love these people. I love the man who’s been down there digging—when he’s not giving it to a goat! I love this man! I love him! (Drops whatever he’s holding, moves to MARTIN, arms out) I love him! (Wraps his arms around MARTIN, who doesn’t know what to do. Starts kissing MARTIN on the hands, then on the neck, crying the while. Then it turns—or does it?—and he kisses MARTIN full on the mouth—a deep, sobbing, sexual kiss. ROSS has entered, stands watching. MARTIN tries to disengage from BILLY, but BILLY moans, holds on. Finally MARTIN shoves him away. BILLY stands there, still sobbing, arms around nothing. They have not seen ROSS.)
MARTIN
Don’t do that!!
BILLY
I love you!
MARTIN
Sure you do, you … you …
BILLY
Faggot? You faggot?
MARTIN
(Enraged) That’s not what I was going to say!!
BILLY
(So sad; so sincere) Dad! I love you! Hold me! Please!
MARTIN
(Holds him; strokes him) Shhhhhh; shhhh; shhhhh now.
BILLY
(Disengaging finally) I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to …
MARTIN
No; it’s all right. (Arms out) Here; let me hold you.
(BILLY moves to him again; a momentary silent embrace)
ROSS
Excuse me. (They are startled, split. Maybe BILLY stumbles over something.) I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to interrupt your little …
MARTIN
(Cold fury) What!? See a man and his son kissing? That would go nicely in one of your fucking letters. Judas! Get out of here!
BILLY
(To ROSS) It wasn’t what you think!
MARTIN
(At BILLY) Yes! Yes, it was! Don’t apologize. (To ROSS) Too bad you couldn’t have brought your fucking TV crew over! Don’t you and your son ever kiss? Don’t you and—what’s his name?—Todd love one another?
ROSS
(Hard; contemptuous) Not that way!
MARTIN
(Angry and reckless) That way!? What way!? (Points vigorously at BILLY) This boy is hurt! I’ve hurt him, and he still loves me! You fucker! He loves his father, and if it … clicks over and becomes—what?—sexual for … just a moment … so what!? So fucking what!? He’s hurt and he’s lonely and mind your own fucking business!
ROSS
(A sneer) You’re sicker than I thought.
MARTIN
No! I’m hysterical!
BILLY
(Rueful wonder) It did. It clicked over, and you were just another …
MARTIN
It’s all right.
BILLY
… another man. I get confused … sex and love; loving and … (To ROSS) I probably do want to sleep with him. (Rueful laugh) I want to sleep with everyone.
MARTIN
(To quiet him) It’s all right.
BILLY
(Still to ROSS) Except you, probably.
ROSS
Jesus! Sick! What is it … contagious?
BILLY
(Confused) What? Is what?
MARTIN
(Moves over to comfort BILLY) There was a man told me once—a friend; we went to the same gym—he told me he had his kid on his lap one day—not even old enough to be a boy or a girl: a baby—and he had … it on his lap, and it was gurgling at him and making giggling sounds, and he had it with his arms around it, (demonstrates) in his lap, shifting it a little from side to side to make it happier, to make it giggle more … and all at once he realized he was getting hard.
ROSS
Jesus!
BILLY
Oh my God …
MARTIN
… that the baby in his lap was making him hard—not arousing him; it wasn’t sexual, but it was happening.
ROSS
Jesus!
MARTIN
… his dick was rising to the baby in his lap—his baby; his lap. And when he realized what was happening, he thought he would die; his pulse was going a mile a minute; his ears were ringing—loud! Very loud! And he was going to faint; he knew it, and then the moment passed, and he knew it had all been an accident, that it meant … nothing—that nothing was connected to anything else. His wife came in; she smiled; he smiled and handed her the baby. And that was it; it was over. (Shrugs) Things happen. Besides—I’m hysterical. Remember?
ROSS
What are you doing? Defending yourself?! Jesus. You’re sick.
MARTIN
(Contempt) Do you have any other words? Sick and Jesus? Is that all you ha
ve?
BILLY
(Shy) Was it me? Was it me, Dad? Was the baby me?
MARTIN
(To BILLY; after a pause; gently) Hush.
BILLY
(Almost frightened) Was it?
MARTIN
(Turning to ROSS) So, what do you want here now, motherfucker!? Judas!?
ROSS
Stevie called—what? An hour ago? More? She said you needed me; she said to come over.
MARTIN
I don’t! Get out! (Surprise) She called you?
ROSS
Yes. (Shakes his head) Getting hard with a baby! Is there anything you people don’t get off on!?
BILLY
(Once more) Was it, Dad?
MARTIN
(So clearly a lie; gently) Of course not, Billy. (To ROSS; hard, eyes narrowing) Is there anything “we people” don’t get off on? Is there anything anyone doesn’t get off on, whether we admit it or not—whether we know it or not? Remember Saint Sebastian with all the arrows shot into him? He probably came! God knows the faithful did! Shall I go on!? You want to hear about the cross!?
BILLY
(Quietly; smiling) No, of course it wasn’t … wasn’t me.
ROSS
(Shaking his head; sad, but with a lip curled) Sick; sick; sick.
MARTIN
(At ROSS; growing rage) I’ll tell you what’s sick! Writing that fucking letter to Stevie—why doesn’t matter!!—that’s what’s sick! I tell you about it; I share it with you, the … the … whole … awful … thing, because I think I’ve lost it, maybe; I tell you; I share it with you because you’re … what!? … you’re my best friend in the whole world? Because I needed to tell somebody, somebody with his head on straight enough to hear it? I tell you, and you fucking turn around and …
ROSS
I had to!!
MARTIN
No! You didn’t! You didn’t have to!
ROSS
(Dogmatic) I couldn’t let you continue!
MARTIN
(Near tears) I could have worked it out. I could have stopped, and no one would have known. Except you, motherfucker. Mister one strike and you’re out. I could have …
ROSS
No! You couldn’t!
MARTIN
I could have worked it out! And now nothing can ever be put back together! Ever!
BILLY
(Trying to help) Dad …
MARTIN
(Savage) You shut up! (BILLY winces. MARTIN reacts) Oh, God! I’m sorry. (To ROSS) Yes; all right, it was sick, and yes, it was compulsive, and …
ROSS
IS! Not was! IS!
MARTIN
(Stopped in his tracks) I … I …
ROSS
IS!
MARTIN
(Gathering himself) Is. All right. Is. Is sick; is compulsive.
ROSS
(Pushing) And it was wrong!
MARTIN
It was … it was … what?
ROSS
Wrong! Deeply, destructively wrong!
MARTIN
Whatever you want. (Rage growing) But I could have handled it! You didn’t have to bring it all down! You didn’t have to destroy both of us; you didn’t have to destroy Stevie, too!
ROSS
Me!? Me bring you down!? This isn’t … embezzlement, honey; this isn’t stealing from helpless widows; this isn’t going to whores and coming down with the clap, or whatever, you know. This isn’t the stuff that stops a career in its tracks for a little while—humiliation, public remorse, and then back up again. This is beyond that—way beyond it! You go on and you’ll slip up one day. Somebody’ll see you. Somebody’ll surprise you one day, in whatever barn you put her in, no matter where you put her. Somebody’ll see you, on your knees behind the damn animal; your pants around your ankles. Somebody will catch you at it.
BILLY
Let him alone. For God’s sake, Ross …
ROSS
(Waving BILLY off; to MARTIN) Do you know there are prison terms for this? Some states they kill you for it? Do you know what they’d do to you. The press? Everybody? Down it all comes—your career; your life … everything. (So cold; so rational) For fucking a goat. (Shakes his head sadly; BILLY is weeping quietly)
MARTIN
(Long pause) Is that what it is, then? That people will know!? That people will find out!? That I can do whatever I want, and that’s what matters!? That people will find out!? Fuck the … thing it self!? Fuck what it means!? That people will find out!?
ROSS
Your soul is your own business. The rest I can help you with.
MARTIN
Of course it’s my business, and clearly you don’t have one.
ROSS
(Mild interest) Oh?
MARTIN
So that’s what it comes down to, eh? … what we can get away with?
ROSS
Sure.
MARTIN
(Heavy irony) Oh, thank God! It’s so simple! I thought it was … I thought it had to do with love and loss, and it’s only about … getting by. Well, Stevie and I have been wrestling with the wrong angel! When she comes back—if she comes back—I’ll have to set her straight about what matters. (Intense; not looking at ROSS or BILLY; pounding his hands on his knees perhaps) Does nobody understand what happened!?
ROSS
Oh, for Christ’s sake, Martin!
BILLY
Dad …
MARTIN
(Crying a little) Why can’t anyone understand this … that I am alone … all … alone!
(A silence. Then we hear a sound at the door.)
BILLY
Mom? (BILLY going into the hall. Gone.)
MARTIN
(Pause; to ROSS, begging) You do understand; don’t you.
ROSS
(Long pause; shakes his head) No.
(STEVIE is dragging a dead goat. The goat’s throat is cut; the blood is down STEVIE’s dress, on her arms. She stops)
ROSS
Oh, my God.
MARTIN
What have you done!?
STEVIE
Here.
BILLY
(Generally; to no one; helpless; a quiet plea) Help. Help.
ROSS
Oh, my God.
(MARTIN moves toward STEVIE)
MARTIN
What have you done!? Oh, my God, what have you done!?
(BILLY is crying. STEVIE regards MARTIN for a moment; ROSS is immobile.)
STEVIE
(Turns to face him; evenly, without emotion) I went where Ross told me I would find … your friend. I found her. I killed her. I brought her here to you. (Odd little question) No?
MARTIN
(A profound cry) ANNNNNNH!
STEVIE
Why are you surprised? What did you expect me to do.
MARTIN
(Crying) What did she do!? What did she ever do!? (To STEVIE) I ask you: what did she ever do!?
STEVIE
(Pause; quietly) She loved you … you say. As much as I do.
MARTIN
(To STEVIE; empty) I’m sorry. (To BILLY; empty) I’m sorry. (Then …) I’m sorry.
BILLY
(To one, then the other; no reaction from them) Dad? Mom?
(Tableau)
End