CALVIN: You’ve been around.
PETERS: And around again, yes—Pan Am captain twenty-six years. I’m really much older than I look. If you planted an apple tree when I was born you’d be cutting it down for firewood by now.
CALVIN: I was going to say, you don’t look all that old.
PETERS, a chuckle: I am older than everyone I ever knew. All my dogs are dead. Half a dozen cats, parakeets . . . all gone. Every pilot I ever flew with. Probably every woman I ever slept with, too, except my wife. I doubt there’s a government in the world that hasn’t been overthrown at least once since I was born, except for us and England. I still pick up the phone to call some old friend, until I realize . . . Chuckles: Maybe some broken nerve in my brain won’t register the vacant pillows and the empty chairs. I wonder sometimes, have I without knowing it been embalmed? Or maybe death is polite, and we must open the door to let him in or he’ll just hang around out there on the porch. Frowns, mystified: Why am I so fluent? I’m not, usually. I’m known for not saying anything for eight hours at a time. —What about this powder room, why are women so crazy about it? . . . I’m enjoying this, but what is the subject?
CALVIN: Women love to redecorate.
PETERS: Oh, of course, yes. A man will never notice the paint floating off the ceiling onto his head, but a woman can count dust. —You always have an answer, don’t you.
CALVIN: Not always.
PETERS: Often, though.
CALVIN: Pretty often.
PETERS: Do you enjoy being so right?
CALVIN, shrugs: I can live with it.
PETERS: I’m very different; I enjoy being right but you have to let the woman think they’re right so you can take your nap in peace. The older you get, you know, the more you tend to chuckle. I do a lot of it. I mean, who can hit a man when he’s chuckling, right? I had a dream, many years ago: this enormous fireplace; and I got up from my chair and said goodbye to my wife, and walked into it. The back of it swung open and I stepped out into the most perfect room I’d ever seen. Everything in that room—the furniture, the color of the walls, the carpet—it was all absolutely right. Not a single thing out of place or painful to me. And I looked out the window and the street was perfect. And I felt perfect too. It was all so satisfying, as though that is where I really belong. In fact, I begin to yearn for that house every now and then until I realize—and with some surprise—that it never existed. And the subject, you said, was . . . ? Well, never mind. Looks about. . . . I can’t imagine anyone thinking he belonged in this place, can you? You absolutely remind me of someone, don’t you.
CALVIN: Show your wife the powder room, she’ll love you for it.
PETERS: Let’s not go into it any further, okay? I have no interest whatsoever in this place. It’s not my kind of place at all.
CALVIN: Maybe give it a little time, you might get used to it.
PETERS, chuckles angrily: I don’t want to get used to it, will you stop irritating me? The only reason I’m even in this neighborhood is . . . I can’t recall . . . oh yes, Calvin is motionless, unaffected. I decided to buy shoes. I have very narrow feet.
CALVIN: Not as narrow as mine, betcha—triple-A.
PETERS: Quadruple-A. Extending a foot. Narrow as herrings. —So I said I’d meet her here.
CALVIN: I used to take a quintuple-A but I don’t have time to go running all over the city looking for them anymore . . . I am busy!
PETERS: Well I’m busy too . . .
CALVIN: Not as busy as I am.
PETERS: I assure you, I am just as busy as you are. I got these in that shoe store right on the corner.
CALVIN: You went in there?
PETERS, shamed: . . . Well only for a couple of minutes.
CALVIN: Phew! Well, it’s your funeral.
PETERS, embarrassed: Why?—what’s wrong with going in there?
CALVIN: There isn’t time now; I really need to know what you think of this place? Yes?
PETERS: Well let’s see. . . . Oh, the hell with this, I’m leaving. Starts to go.
CALVIN: You can’t!
PETERS: Don’t you tell me I can’t, I have very low cholesterol! He turns and starts out.
CALVIN: What about your wife?
PETERS: God, I almost forgot. Sits meekly. Thanks for reminding me. . . . You always need a reason to stay. I have to stay because of my wife. Why because of my wife?
CALVIN: You’re meeting her here.
PETERS: Right, yes! Short pause. Why am I meeting her here?
CALVIN: Probably because that was the arrangement.
PETERS: But why here?
CALVIN: What’s the difference? One has to meet somewhere.
Cathy-May appears in a filmy dress; Peters goes to her, hesitantly.
PETERS: Could we walk together, darling? Just side by side? I’m sure you can get out of this if you exercise. Please—concentrate, darling! Desperately. You must try to move more! Here, let me help! He gets in front of her, grasps a thigh and gets her to take a stiff, doll-like step. Alarm in his voice. Relax! You must stop being so stiff. Angered. Why are you doing this, are you spiting me?! Here, do this and stop being an idiot! One-two, one-two . . . He jumps up and down flapping his arms. She remains inert. He turns to Calvin. Could you applaud?—she loves me, but she’s forgotten. Calvin claps his hands; she doesn’t change. He’s applauding, dear . . . listen! To Calvin, indicating her: Are you sure we’re both in the same place?
CALVIN: How can two occupy . . . ?
PETERS: . . . the same space, yes, that’s right. Moves away from her. That’s one thing you have to say for the war, you always knew where you had to be . . . you had to be where you could get killed, you see. Taking off after a couple of dozen missions you’d naturally wonder, “Is this my last moon?” And so on. But funny, you know?—remarkably little fear—I don’t recall actual fear; I suppose because we knew we were good and the Japs were evil, so the whole thing was necessary, and that can soak up fear like a blotter. On that order. Desperation, loudly: Whereas now, I just cannot find the subject! Like I’ll be strolling down the street, and suddenly I’m weeping, everything welling up. —What is the subject? Know what I mean? Simply cannot grasp the subject. —I can’t understand why I’m so fluent here!
ADELE: Something you forgot hasn’t forgotten you. You should take up drinking, it might all come pouring out.
PETERS: But I had a wonderful childhood.
ADELE: Famous last words.
PETERS: No-no, in fact, as a kid of sixteen . . . good God, I’d bicycle out to Floyd Bennett Field and wash airplanes for the Army pilots. Dollar a plane, plus they taught me to fly those little Stinsons all over the clear Brooklyn sky. Imagine that nowadays, a kid handed the stick of a fighter plane?—things are never going to get that good again, I tell you we had the best of it, the sweetness. Take Pan Am; Pan Am was not an airline, it was a calling, a knighthood. A Pan Am Captain . . . hell, we were the best of the best and when you took off, the sweaty little corporate statistician, for Christ’s sake, did not climb into your lap, they stayed back there on the ground where they belonged. And God—when you got suited up in your whites and your gold epaulettes, the girls inhaled and puffed their feathers and achieved womanhood right in front of your eyes. Chuckle. I cannot understand why I’m so fluent in this building.
CALVIN: And what about this place?
PETERS: I don’t flaunt my opinions, but I’d say the best way to redecorate this place would be a small bomb . . .
CALVIN: Some people think this could be a gold mine.
PETERS: Oh I’m sure! ’Specially the powder room, probably.
CALVIN: Then why do you have this browbeaten attitude?
PETERS, angering: Absolutely not! If I were younger I’d be champing at the bit to get in there . . .
CALVIN: But you’re skeptical.
PE
TERS, suddenly in distress: I’m asking you to stop talking about this . . . you’re disturbing me!
CALVIN: Listen, you’ve got to start facing reality.
PETERS: No-no, I’m too old—facing reality is for the young who still have time to avoid it. An old man talking about a . . . a woman’s powder room—?—it’s obscene! Look at the veins in the back of my hands?—shall these warped fingers stroke a breast, cup an ass . . . ? And you call life fair? No . . . no-no . . . Fumbling. Why don’t I just sit here acting my age, quietly reading my paper till my wife comes? Tell you the truth, I’ve just had lunch and it makes me drowsy . . . Head raised, eyes shut. But I’ll be okay in a minute . . . Begins panting in anxiety.
CALVIN: I really don’t mind, I like explaining, and I have a right to explain.
PETERS, panting anxiously, nearly shouting: I respect your rights but whose nap is this? Breaks off.
CALVIN: It’s why I’ve always felt just slightly . . . you know . . . under par.
PETERS, anxiously: Oh no, Calvin, you musn’t say that; you don’t look at all under par. In fact, I wish I looked as successful and vigorous and trustworthy as you.
CALVIN: But you are successful. Although I am, in my way.
PETERS: Of course you are. We’re both equally successful and promising.
CALVIN: Yes. Although in a way, I am more.
PETERS: It’s a relief to hear you say that.
CALVIN: You’re relieved because it’s not true.
PETERS: If you feel it’s true, it’s true.
CALVIN: I’d feel it more if it was. True, that is.
PETERS: We’re depressing one another, don’t you think? Why don’t we both be quiet and, if necessary, just think about each other, okay? Shhh. Shhh. And maybe the time has come to forget this powder room.
Sleeps, breathes deeply.
ADELE: Those toilet seats are solid African mahogany. Ask any detective—the imprint of woman’s flesh on solid mahogany can never be entirely washed away.
PETERS: I can’t bear not understanding this.
ADELE: Think of it—if science could come up with a way of reading those mahogany seats, we could identify women who went to their reward over a hundred years ago. We could inquire about their lives, their shoes, and their deaths. When I enter that powder room it’s like the silence of a cathedral, a place of remembrance where dead women linger. It’s always three o’clock in the morning in that room, and thoughts come up from the depths. And the dusty oval mirrors still reflect the forgotten beauty of long-departed women in their sweeping satin gowns.
PETERS: This fluency is alarming—can they all be dying?
Larry Tedesco enters.
CALVIN: Yes? Can I help you?
LARRY: I’m from Posito’s. Indicates. The shoe store?
PETERS, sits up: Yes! —I was just in there, you sold me these shoes! Raises a foot. Quadruple-A! Alarmed. My God, I paid you, didn’t I?
LARRY, to Calvin: My wife come in here?
PETERS, to himself: But he can’t be dead, he just sold me these . . . Breaks off, looking at his shoes, then looks about. Listen, please—these are real shoes! I paid with money! To Larry: . . . Or rather a credit card, didn’t I?
LARRY: You got some kind a problem?
PETERS, intimidated: . . . No. No problem.
CALVIN: Do I know your wife?
LARRY, suspiciously: I wouldn’t be surprised; I’ll look around, okay?
CALVIN: . . . Go ahead, but I don’t know what she’d be legitimately doing in here; you can see for yourself, it’s all torn apart.
LARRY, indicates off: Okay?
CALVIN: But what would she be doing here?
LARRY, shrugs—not saying: You mind?
PETERS: Please let this man look for his wife, if he loves her he might hear her call and jump into the water and save us all!
CALVIN, to Larry: Well, okay, go ahead. But no fooling around back there, wife or no wife, got it? Larry saunters off. Suggestive sneer. You know that broad?
PETERS: Me? Embarrassed. I’ve never been in this neighborhood before. Not that I’m trying to deny her—she’s very lovely, I say that openly.
CALVIN: She’s juicy. A prime sirloin. A ripe pomegranate. A Spanish blood orange. An accordion pleated fuck.
PETERS, recalling: Yes, I know, but please; I hate talking like this about a woman behind her back . . .
CALVIN: What’s the difference?—she’ll never know.
PETERS: Why won’t she? Oh! You mean . . . Breaks off. Oh . . .
CALVIN: All her underwear has been sold, stolen, or given away. And the phones don’t ring that deep.
PETERS: Yes. I see. —And where she is . . . ?
CALVIN: She’s nowhere.
PETERS: Yes, but is she older now? Has she grown into herself at last?
Cathy-May appears, in a middle-aged woman’s coat.
Glasses?
She takes out a pair and puts them on.
Would it be a little less angry between us now that she’s complete and her fires are banked?
She turns slowly to him. A calm, slow smile spreads across her face. He smiles back familiarly. They both rise.
Oh yes, darling, smile . . . do that!
Music: a Big Band—“Just One of Those Things.” They dance close, the music speeds, they separate with hands clasped, and when he moves to draw her back she disappears into darkness.
CALVIN: Anyway, once upon a time this building was a bank.
PETERS, desperation: Oh don’t, I beg you do not start explaining this building, will you? I’m too old for sad stories!
CALVIN: Why sad? I’m telling about a bank!
PETERS: Yes, but recalling a dead bank is painful. In those days . . . in those days . . . banks were built like fortresses, not salad bars. They had those gigantic, beautifully filigreed brass gates, and they did not go around shystering people, begging them to borrow money. No, they sat behind their little brass grills and suspected you. So you had to be upright, honest, and good or you were practically under arrest the minute you walked in from the street! And the clerks—what about their cute white blouses with those little rounded collars—you don’t call it sad that all that is no more?
CALVIN: But think of the high-class ladies who used to come in to talk over their inheritance, and also, incidentally, to have a pee. And the dense perfumes those women wore! And the way they crossed and separated their legs!
PETERS, clapping his ears shut: Stop it, I beg you!
CALVIN: Well then don’t go on saying you have no interest in this place! Sooner or later, as I said, these rich ladies, after spending the afternoon shopping or having coffee or tea . . .
PETERS: Or probably a sip of champagne . . .
CALVIN: Right. They had to pee, so they stopped at the bank . . . Peters sighs openly, rests head tiredly on hand. This is very important. —As early as the turn of the century—Peters stretches out in the chair, arm over his eyes—the women already held most of the money in this country. Probably all countries. Because they live longer. Because of the salads, in my opinion. Without women you could forget lettuce. Peters sleeps. Sir?
PETERS, awakened: What? —Oh no, I enjoy salads, my father was Italian. Especially arugula and even some nice fresh spinach. My mother was Spanish as a matter of fact. God knows what I am anymore.
CALVIN: I personally crossed the River Don with two hundred pounds of the family silver under my shirt, I was twelve and very brave, and the weight built up my legs.
PETERS: None of that is true, is it.
CALVIN: Well in a way . . .
PETERS: It’s all right; it’s just that you remind me of somebody who used to make up stories like that. But I can’t remember who he was.
CALVIN: Then let’s say it was me.
PETERS: Okay.
&nb
sp; CALVIN: Look, you’re not flying anywhere, are you?
PETERS, sitting up: Flying! They haven’t let me into a cockpit for eighteen years! I had at least five years of flying left in me when they dumped me like a bag of shit! And the Democrats are no better!
CALVIN: Then let me finish; this could soothe you, it’s very educational.
PETERS: Is this the subject?
CALVIN: Let me finish.
PETERS: No! I have a right to know the subject! Precious days are passing! Hours! I will need this time!
CALVIN: After the bank it was a library. The Morris family, the largest privately owned public library in America, I was told—the idea was to educate the working class.
PETERS: Whose idea? Quickly amending: Unless you’re not supposed to tell.
CALVIN: Rich people; they had ideas like that in those ancient times. You know—the Frick Museum, the Astor Forty-second Street Library, Morgan, Rockefeller—
ADELE: Carnegie?
CALVIN, reluctantly: Carnegie is correct.
ADELE: The Frick has very nice toilets too . . . lots of marble.
CALVIN: Right. Those bastards stole but they gave back; now they steal and they fly the coop. And what’s the answer?—religion; those old-time crooks were afraid of God. Anyway . . .
PETERS: Not that I love the rich; in fact, between their greed and stupidity they wrecked the greatest airline in the world.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 130