An even greater sensation.
Jerry. The State of Idaho is nothing but a bunch of mountains. I’ve traded it to the nation of Irish Poland for the BuzzardIslands.
Mr. Jones hands the treaty to Judge Fossile.
Fish [on his feet]. Judge Fossile, the people of Idaho — —
Snooks. Treason! Treason! Set down, fella! You’re a subject of the nation of Irish Poland.
Jerry [pointing to Fish]. Those foreigners think they can run this country.
The other Senators shrink away from Fish.
Judge Fossile [to Fish]. If you want to speak as a citizen of the United States, you’ll have to take out naturalization papers.
Snooks. I won’t let him. I’m goin’ to take him with me. He’s part of our property.
He seizes the indignant Fish firmly by the arm and pins a large “Sold” badge to the lapel of his coat.
Doris[heartily]. Well, I’m certainly glad I didn’t marry a foreigner.
Just at this point, when Jerry seems to have triumphed all around, there is the noise of a fife and drum outside, and General Pushing marches in, followed by his musical escort. The General is in a state of great excitement.
General Pushing. Mr. President, I am here on the nation’s business!
The Senators. Hurrah!
General Pushing. War must be declared!
The Senators. Hurrah!
Jerry. Who is the enemy?
General Pushing. The enemy is the nation of Irish Poland!
All eyes are now turned upon Snooks, who looks considerably alarmed.
General Pushing [raising his voice]. On to the BuzzardIslands!
The Senators. Hurrah! Hurrah! Down with Irish Poland!
Judge Fossile. Now, Mr. President, all treaties are off!
General Pushing [looking scornfully at Jerry]. He tried to trade the State of Idaho for some islands full of Buzzards. Bah!
The Senators. Bah!
Snooks [indignantly]. What’s ee idea? Is this a frame-up to beat the nation of Irish Poland outa their rights? We want the State of Idaho. You want the BuzzardIslands, don’t you?
General Pushing. We can take them by force. We’re at war. [To the Senators.] We’ve ordered all stuffed Buzzards to be removed from the natural history museums. [Cheers.] And domestic Buzzards are now fair game, both in and out of season. [More cheers.] Buzzard domination would be unthinkable.
Judge Fossile [pointing to Jerry]. And now, Senators. How many of you vote for the impeachment of this enemy of the commonwealth?
The five Senators stand up.
Judge Fossile [to Jerry]. The verdict of a just nation. Is there any one here to say why this verdict should not stand?
Dada, who all this time has been absorbed in the contemplation of the heavens, suddenly throws down his telescope with a crash.
Dada [in a tragic voice]. It’s too late!
All. Too late?
Dada. Too late for the world to end this afternoon. I must have missed the date by two thousand years. [Wringing his hands.] I shall destroy myself!
Dada tries to destroy himself. He produces a pistol, aims at himself, and fires. He flounders down — but he has missed.
Doris[standing over him and shaking her finger]. You miss everything! I’m going to send for the lunatic-asylum wagon — if it’ll come!
Dada [shaking his finger back at her]. Your parents brought you up very unsuccessfully — —
Judge Fossile. Silence! I will pronounce sentence of impeachment on this enemy of mankind. Look upon him!
They all look dourly at Jerry.
Now, gentlemen, the astronomers tell us that in the far heavens, near the southern cross, there is a vast space called the hole in the sky, where the most powerful telescope can discover no comet nor planet nor star nor sun.
They all look very cold and depressed. Jerry shivers. Fish picks up Dada’s abandoned telescope and begins an eager examination of the firmament.
In that dreary, cold, dark region of space the Great Author of Celestial Mechanism has left the chaos which was in the beginning. If the earth beneath my feet were capable of expressing its emotions it would, with the energy of nature’s elemental forces, heave, throw, and project this enemy of mankind into that vast region, there forever to exist in a solitude as eternal as — as eternity.
When he finishes a funereal silence falls.
Jerry [his voice shaken with grief]. Well, Judge, all I’ve got to say is that no matter what you’d done I wouldn’t want to do all those things to you.
Judge Fossile [thunderously]. Have you anything more to say?
Jerry [rising through his defeat to a sort of eloquent defiance]. Yes. I want to tell you all something. I don’t want to be President. [A murmur of surprise.] I never asked to be President. Why — why, I don’t even know how in hell I ever got to be President!
General Pushing [in horror]. Do you mean to say that there’s one American citizen who does not desire the sacred duty of being President? Sir, may I ask, then, just what you do want?
Jerry [wildly]. Yes! I want to be left alone.
Outside the wall Mr. Stutz-Mozart’s Orang-Outang Band strikes up “The Bee’s Knees.” The Senators arise respectfully and remove their hats, and General Pushing, drawing his sword, stands at the salute.
Four husky baggage smashers stagger out of the White House with the trunks of the Frost family, and hurry with them through the gate. Half a dozen assorted suitcases are flung after the trunks.
The music continues to play, the Senators continue to stand. The Frost family gaze at their departing luggage, each under the spell of a different emotion.
Charlotte is the first to pick up her grip. As she turns to the Senators, the music sinks to pianissimo, so her words are distinctly audible.
Charlotte. If it’s any satisfaction to yon, I’m going to be a different wife to him from now on. From now on I’m going to make his life perfectly miserable.
Charlotte goes out to a great burst of jazz. Dada, with some difficulty, locates his battered carpet-bag.
Dada. I find I missed the date by two thousand years. Eventually I will destroy myself.
Dada is gone now, hurried out between two porters and Doris is next. With dignity she selects her small but arrogant hand-bag.
Doris. All I want to say is if Cecil B. Demille ever saw the White House he’d say: “All right, that may do for the gardener’s cottage. Now I’ll start building a real house.”
As she leaves she tries desperately to walk out of step with the music and avoid the suggestion of march-ing. The attempt is not altogether successful.
President Jerry Frost now picks up his bag.
Jerry [defiantly]. Well, anyways I showed you you couldn’t put anything over on me. [Glancing around, his eye falls on the “Special Tree.” He goes over and pulls it up by the roots.] This was given to me by some natives. That sign’s mine, too. I had it invented. [He pauses.] I guess you think I wasn’t much good as a President, don’t you? Well, just try electing me again.
General Pushing [sternly]. We won’t! As a President you’d make a good postman.
At this sally there is a chorus of laughter.
Then Charlotte’s voice again. Does it come from outside the gate, or, mysteriously enough, from somewhere above?
Charlotte [very distinctly]. Shut the door! I can smell that stuff up here!
A bewildered look comes into Jerry’s eyes. He says “What?” in a loud voice.
Then with the tree in one hand and his grip in the other, he is hurried, between two porters, briskly toward the gate, while the Orang-Outang Band crashes into louder and louder jazz and
The Curtain Falls
Act III
Now we’re back at the Frosts’ house, and it’s a week after the events narrated in Act I. It is about nine o’clock in the morning, and through the open windows the sun is shining in great, brave squares upon the carpet. The jars, the glasses, the phials of a certain memorable night have been
removed, but there is an air about the house quite inconsistent with the happy day outside an air of catastrophe, a profound gloom that seems to have settled even upon the “Library of Wit and Humor” in the dingy bookcase.
There is brooding going on upon the premises.
A quick tat-tat-tat from outdoors — the clatter of someone running up the porch steps. The door opens and Doris comes in, Doris in a yellowish skirt with a knit jersey to match, Doris chewing, faintly and delicately, what can surely be no more than a sheer wisp of gum.
Doris[calling]. Char-lotte.
A Voice [broken and dismal, from upstairs]. Is that you, Doris?
Doris. Yeah. Can I come up?
The Voice. [It’s Charlotte’s. You’d scarcely have recognized it.] I’ll come down.
Doris. Heard anything from Jerry?
Charlotte. Not a word.
Doris regards herself silently, but with interest, in a small mirror on the wall. In comes Charlotte — and oh, how changed from herself of last week. Her nose and eyes are red from weeping. She’s chastened and depressed.
Doris[with cheerful pessimism]. Haven’t heard a word, eh?
Charlotte[lugubriously]. No. Not one.
Doris[impressed in spite of herself]. Son of a gun! And he sneaked away a week ago to-night.
Charlotte. It was that awful liquor, I know. He sat up all night and in the morning he was gone.
Doris. It’s the funniest thing I ever heard of, his sneaking off this way… Say, Charlotte, I’ve been meaning to say something to you for a couple of days, but I didn’t want to get you depressed.
Charlotte. How could I possibly be any more depressed than I am?
Doris. Well, I just wanted to ask you if you’d tried the morgue yet. [Charlotte gives a little scream.] Wait a minute. Get control of yourself. I simply think you ought to try it. If he’s anywhere you ought to locate him.
Charlotte[wildly]. Oh, he’s not dead! He’s not dead!
Doris. I didn’t say he was, did I? I didn’t say he was. But when a fella wanders out tight after drinking some of this stuff, you can’t tell where you’ll find him. Let me tell you, Charlotte, I’ve had more experience with this sort of thing than you have.
Charlotte. The detective is coming to report this morning.
Doris. Has he been combing the dives? You ought to have him comb the dives, Charlotte. I saw a picture last week that ought to be a lesson to any woman that loses her husband in a funny way like this. The woman in this picture lost her husband and she just combed the dives and — there he was.
Charlotte[suspiciously]. What was he doing?
Doris. Some vampire was sitting on his lap in a cafe. [Charlotte moans.] But it does show that if you do have the dives combed, you can find ‘em. That’s what this woman did… There’s where most men go when they wander out like that.
Charlotte. Oh, no, Jerry wouldn’t go to the dives, or the — the morgue, either. He’s never drank or done anything like that till that night. He’s always been so mild and patient.
This is a new note from Charlotte.
Doris[after a thoughtful pause]. Maybe he’s gone to Hollywood to go in the movies. They say a lot of lost men turn up there.
Charlotte[brokenly]. I don’t know what to do. Maybe I’m re-responsible. He said that night he might have been P-President if it hadn’t been for me. He’d just been analyzed, and they found he was per-perfect.
Doris. Well, with no reflections on the dead or anything like that, Charlotte, he wasn’t so wonderful as you make out. You can take it from me, he never would have been anything more than a postman if you hadn’t made him be a railroad clerk… . I’d have the dives combed.
Charlotte[eulogistically]. He was a good husband.
Doris. You’ll get over it.
Charlotte. What?
Doris. Cheer up. In a year or so you’ll never know you ever had a husband.
Charlotte[bursting into tears at this]. But I want him back.
Doris[reminiscently]. Do you know the song? Do you know the song? [She sings:]
“A good man is hard to find
You always get the other kind
And when you think that he is your friend
You look around and find him scratching
‘Round some other hen — — “
She has forgotten her ethical connection and begins to enjoy the song for itself, when Charlotte interrupts.
Charlotte[in torture]. Oh, don’t! Don’t!
Doris. Oh, excuse me. I didn’t think you’d take it personally… It’s just about colored people.
Charlotte. Oh, do you suppose he’s with some colored women?
Doris[scornfully]. No-o-o! What you need is to get your mind off it for a while. Just say to yourself if he’s in a dive, he’s in a dive, and if he’s in Hollywood, he’s in Hollywood, and if he’s in the morgue — —
Charlotte[frantically]. If you say that word again. I’ll go crazy!
Doris. — well, in that place, then, just say: “I can’t do anything about it, so I’m going to forget it.” That’s what you want to say to yourself.
Charlotte. It’s easy enough to say, but I can’t get my mind — —
Doris. Yes, you can. [Magnanimously.] I’ll tell you about what I’ve been doing. I’ve had sort of a scrap with Joseph.
Charlotte. Joseph who?
Doris. Joseph Fish. He’s that fella I brought around here, only you didn’t meet him. I told you about him. The one I got engaged to about ten days ago. His parents were in the mortuary business.
Charlotte. Oh.
Doris. Well, I been trying to make him stop chewing gum. I offered to give it up if he would. I think it’s sort of common when two people that go together are always whacking away at a piece of gum, don’t you?
There’s a ring at the door-bell.
Charlotte. That’s the detective.
Doris[prudently]. Have you got that liquor hidden?
Charlotte. I threw that horrible stuff away. Go let him in.
Charlotte goes to the door and ushers in the detective. The detective wears an expression of profound sagacity upon his countenance.
Have you found him?
The Detective [impressively]. Mrs. Frost, I think so.
Charlotte. Alive?
The Detective. Alive.
Charlotte. Where is he?
The Detective. Wait. Be calm. I’ve had several clews, and I’ve been following them up one at a time. And I’ve located a man, who answers to the first name of Jerry, that I think is your husband.
Charlotte. Where did you find him?
The Detective. He was picked up trying to jimmy his way into a house on Crest Avenue.
Charlotte. Good heavens!
The Detective. Yep — and his name is Jerry. He had it tattooed on his arm.
Charlotte. Good God!
The Detective. But there’s one thing that’s different from your description. What color is your husband’s hair?
Charlotte. Brown.
The Detective. Brown? Are you sure?
Charlotte. Am I sure? Of course I’m sure.
The Detective [to Doris]. Do you collaborate that?
Doris. When he left here it was brown.
The Detective. Well, this fella’s hair was red.
Charlotte. Oh, it’s not Jerry then — it’s not Jerry.
Doris [to Charlotte]. Well, now, how do you know? Maybe — [She turns to the detective.] You see, this fella had been drinking some of this funny liquor you get around here sometimes and it may just have turned his hair red.
Charlotte[to the detective]. Oh, do you think so?
The Detective. I never heard of a case like that. I knew a fella whose hair was turned white by it.
Doris. I knew one, too. What was the name of the fella you knew?
Charlotte. Did this man claim to be my husband?
The Detective. No, madam, he didn’t. He said he had two wives out in Montana, but none that he knew of in these parts. But o
f course he may have been bluffing.
Doris. It doesn’t sound like Jerry to me.
The Detective. But you can identify him by that tattoo mark.
Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald UK (Illustrated) Page 385