by James Reston
D.J.: Attaboy.
DOCTOR: So?
D.J.: So?
DOCTOR: Do we have a deal?
D.J.: Hit me with the “summation.”
DOCTOR (Closes up his folder): There is nothing to say that you don’t already know. The only question is what to do about it. (D.J. laughs) It was a badly damaged self that you brought back to this country, and nothing has happened here, you see, to help you—
D.J. (Cutting him off): You’re leaving a little something out, ain’t you? Man, they gave me the Congressional Medal of Honor!
DOCTOR: So they did. And what happened?
D.J.: Well . . . I became a big hero!
DOCTOR: You became a big hero. . . . You appear on TV. The head of General Motors shakes your hand. You get married. You reenlist—reenlist!—travel around the state making recruiting speeches. You get a new car, a house with a big mortgage. Everybody gives you credit . . . for a while.
D.J.: Rags to riches, man.
DOCTOR: And then? (D.J. makes a gesture of self-deprecation, meaning, more or less, “Here I am”) Back to rags again.
D.J. (Challenging): But I got the medal! Didn’t that medal save me from a lot of shit?
DOCTOR (Beginning to pack up): Did it ever occur to you that the medal, in some ways, might have made things worse?
D.J.: Worse? What are you talking about, man?
DOCTOR: Well, that’s where we can begin our next session. . . . If you will simply commit yourself to being here. That’s all I’m asking, you know.
D.J. (Opening up the DOCTOR’s folder again): No! I want to talk about it now. I mean, it sounds like you’re just getting down to the nitty-gritty, am I right?
DOCTOR: It’s all nitty-gritty, D.J. It’s one layer of nitty-gritty after another, until you feel like living again. But we can’t just extend this hour arbitrarily—
D.J.: Why not? Just tell the cowboy out there to take a walk. You got the rank here. . . .
DOCTOR: That’s not the issue. Look, for one thing I’m a little tired, too. I got up at five this morning, and—
D.J.: Yeah. Well that should be the worst would ever happen to you!
DOCTOR: All right. Let’s just say for now, that it’s the rules of the game, by which we both can—
D.J. (Pouncing on the word “gante”): So we are playing games! You hear?
DOCTOR: We’re playing a game for your life!
D.J. (Studies the DOCTOR): What do you want from me, man?
DOCTOR: I want you to get better.
D.J.: No, you said you were going to tell me what I had to do.
DOCTOR I said that?
D.J.: Yeah, you did—after a long speech about killing, when you got all excited. Probably, it slipped out, huh?
DOCTOR Well, that gives us something else to look into, next time.
DJ. (Sullen): No, man. You want something from me. I been getting used to that . . . I think you’re a star-fucker.
DOCTOR: A what?
D.J.: A star-fucker. Like, in the Rock world, or in the movies, these chicks who hang around close to the stars. They get their kicks, their thrills out of that.
DOCTOR: I’m not a “chick.”
D.J.: But you’re like one.
DOCTOR: Meaning?
D.J.: You come down here, you sniff me out. Because in your world, I’m probably a famous case. Because of my medal. Am I right?
DOCTOR (Gets up, and starts to escort D.J. to the door): I think we’re back to where we started the hour. None of this will be easy, D.J., but I will be here the day after tomorrow, and as you say, we’ll see what happens . . .
D.J. (Interrupting): You want to take that medal away from me, don’t you?
DOCTOR (A little stunned): No. Why do you say that?
D.J.: Now be honest with me, man. Otherwise you’re going to turn my head around backwards, for good. . . .
The DOCTOR and D.J. look at each other for a long beat.
DOCTOR: No, D. J., I don’t want to take that medal, or anything else away from you. But when the time is ripe, when you are ready, you may not need it anymore. That’s why you spoke, early this hour, of wanting to get rid of it, sometimes, and of “throwing it in their faces.” You see, part of you already wants to throw it away, while—
D.J. (Pulling away): Throw it away!? (Angrily) You’re the one who’s crazy. You know what I’d be without that medal? I’d be just another invisible Nigger, waiting on line and getting shit on just for being there! I told you about that, man! You just don’t listen!
DOCTOR: That’s one of the very things that’s driving you crazy.
D.J.: What is?
DOCTOR: That once again, in Detroit, you have been singled out from all the others.
D.J.: What are you talking about?
DOCTOR (Pursuing D.J.): You know what I’m talking about! It’s the same story as the tank, all over again. Why are all the others suffering, on the streets, and only you have been spared? But you haven’t been spared, and you are suffering. . . .
D.J.: So what are you doing? You going around telling every dude who has the Congressional Medal of Honor to just throw it away? You just dropping out of the sky into every hospital and nuthouse in the country, scrambling up the brains of everybody who—
DOCTOR (Pouncing): You think, then, that everybody with the Medal of Honor must be in some kind of hospital?
D.J.: Did I say that?
DOCTOR: You did. You let it slip out. . . . In some deep way, you agree with me.
D.J.: That what?
DOCTOR: That the medal can make a man sick—drive him into a hospital.
D.J.: The whole thing makes a man sick! There’s a lot of sick vets who didn’t get no Medal of Honor! And they’re mainlining and getting beat up in the streets and sucking on the gin bottle, and they didn’t get no Bronze Star, no nothing except maybe a Purple Heart and a “less than honorable discharge”—bad paper, man, you can’t get a job, you can’t get benefits, you can’t get nothing if you got bad paper. Now you tell me, what does my medal have to do with that?
A knock on the door—on the words “bad paper, man”—and the GUARD immediately enters. Poker-fitced, HE listens to the end of D.J.’s tirade.
GUARD: Has the summation been concluded, sir?
D.J.: God damn.
DOCTOR: Will you please wait just a minute?
GUARD: You’ll have to contact chief of section, sir, about that.
D.J.(Heated): Didn’t you hear the man? Now, fuck off!
DOCTOR: D.J.—
GUARD: Look, Sergeant. To him you’re an important case, but to me you’re just another nut.
D.J. (Makes a threatening move at the GUARD): Just another nut. Okay . . .
The GUARD prepares to subdue D.J. with his club, if necessary. In no time, a serious scuffle is ready to break out.
DOCTOR (Throwing himself between them): Will both of you stop this! That’s an order!
GUARD: Sorry about that, sir. (Returns to parade rest; stares stonily ahead)
D.J.: I’ll bet you are.
The DOCTOR looks from one to the other of these near-combatants. D.J. is still simmering, with his back to him.
DOCTOR: D.J. Do you watch TV here?
D.J.: Some.
DOCTOR: The news?
D.J.: Not if I can help it.
DOCTOR You didn’t see it? The other night?
D.J.: What?
DOCTOR The medals . . . (‘Watching D.J. closely) Vietnam vets. Heroes? In wheelchairs, some of them; on crutches? At the Capitol steps? Washington? Throwing their medals away? A kind of miracle-scene, like the old—
D.J. (Breaking in): And that’s what you want me to do! Hop right on down there and toss it up—
DOCTOR: You saw it?
D.J.: I didn’t see nothing!
DOCTOR: Some of those men . . . I happen to know some of those men. . . .
D.J.: You cured them?
DOCTOR: They’re curing themselves. And they’re a lot like you. (D.J. wa
tches, noncommittal) . . . But they refuse to stay isolated. They meet, in therapy groups, which they started. Up in New York. “Rap sessions” . . . a new kind of unit, you might say. . . . Everybody tells his story. You see? They’re people who have been through the same fires you have, who were there, whom you can trust. . . .
D.J. (After a pause): Doc, those dudes on TV are all white.
DOCTOR: You have been watching them.
DJ.: Yup, and I’m going to tell you something. You got your reasons for wanting to see no more war, right?—and no more warriors. I dig that, for your sake. But a lot of folks don’t want the black veteran to throw down his weapons so soon. Know what I mean? Like, we are supposed to be preparing ourselves for another war, right back here. Vietnam was just our basic training, see? I’m telling this to both of you, y’see, so you won’t be too surprised when it comes.
The GUARD looks to the DOCTOR for instructions.
DOCTOR (To D.J.): Why are you saying this right now?
D.J.: I want you to have something to think about, for the next session. Give us a good starting point. . . .
DOCTOR: Still poking fun at me?
D.J. (HE waits a moment, then smiles and gives the DOCTOR a pat on the arm): Don’t you worry, Doc. I’ll be seeing you. You just sit down now, and write your notes. In the folder.
D.J. walks to the door, where the GUARD momentarily blocks him, in order to give a last, official salute to the DOCTOR. The DOCTOR gives a half-despairing wave as D.J. watches. D.J. turns to the door, stops, and gives the GUARD an imperious cue to open the knob and make way for him. The GUARD does so, grudgingly. It is a minor, private triumph for D.J. THE TWO exit. The DOCTOR reflects for a moment, at his desk. Then, showing his weariness, HE packs up his belongings, gives the room a last look, and prepares to leave. Light on stage is reduced until HE is alone in the light with darkness around him. The feeling must be of a change in time. The DOCTOR steps forward out of the confines of the room, to the edge of the apron, and addresses the audience.
DOCTOR: When I drove down again from New York, two days later, Dale Jackson did not appear for his hour of therapy. He was in fact AWOL, back in Detroit. He intended to do something about his money troubles. His wife was in a hospital for minor surgery, and he had been unable to pay the deposit. There were numerous protectors he might have gone to in the city for help—people who would not have allowed a Medal of Honor winner to sink into scandalous debt. But he went to none of them, this time. His wife was disturbed about the bill. This was on the evening of April 30. He promised her that he would come back to the hospital that night with a check, and also with her hair curlers and bathrobe. As he was leaving, he said, “Ain’t you going to give me a kiss goodbye?” And he put his thumb in his mouth like a little boy, which made her laugh. He asked some friends to drive him to a place where he claimed he could get some money, and asked them to park—in a white section of town. He walked down the block, entered a grocery store and told the manager he was holding it up. He took out a pistol, but never fired a shot while the manager emptied his own gun, at point-blank range, into D.J.’s body. Death came, a few hours later, in Detroit General Hospital, of five gunshot wounds. His body went on a last unexpected jet airplane ride to Arlington National Cemetery, where he was given a hero’s burial with an eight-man Army Honor Guard. I wrote to his mother about him, about what a remarkable human being even I could see he was, in only sixty minutes with him. She wrote back: “Sometimes I wonder if Dale tired of this life and needed someone else to pull the trigger.” In her living room she keeps a large color photograph of him, in uniform, with the Congressional Medal of Honor around his neck.
Lights slow-fade down to darkness, as the DOCTOR walks off. Blackout; and then lights up as the DOCTOR, DALE JACKSON and the GUARD converge, stand side-by-side, and bow to the audience.
END OF PLAY
MOONCHILDREN
Michael Weller
About Michael Weller
Born in New York in 1942, Michael Weller studied music composition at Brandeis before taking his graduate degree in theatre at the University of Manchester in England. He taught, acted, wrote and directed in England, Italy and Germany for a number of years before returning to the States. Moonchildren is the first play of what may be thought of as a Weller trilogy about growing up in America; the middle play, Fishing, was premiered by the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1975 and revived by New York’s Second Stage in 1981. Loose Ends, the third play, opened at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. and then moved to New York’s Circle in the Square in 1979. Originally a one-act, Split evolved into At Home (Split, Part 1) and Abroad (Split, Part 2), and was so presented by Second Stage in 1980. Weller’s most recent play, The Ballad of Soapy Smith, was originally produced by Seattle Repertory Theatre before playing at New York’s Public Theatre in 1984. Weller is the author of the screenplays for two Milos Forman films, Hair and Ragtime.
Production History
Moonchildren premiered under the title Cancer at the Royal Court Theatre in London in September 1970, in a production co-directed by Roger Hendricks Simon and Peter Gill. The American premiere took place at Arena Stage in November 1970, under the direction of Alan Schneider. Schneider’s production opened on Broadway in February 1972.
Characters
MIKE
COOTIE
NORMAN
RUTH
DICK
KATHY
BOB
RALPH
WILLIS
LUCKY
SHELLY
BREAM
EFFING
MURRAY
COOTIE’S FATHER
MILKMAN
Time
1965-66.
Place
A student apartment in an American university town.
The Play
Moonchildren
Scene 1
The stage is dark. You can’t see anything.
MIKE: I heard something. She definitely made a noise.
RUTH: Shut up.
MIKE: I’m telling you, I know the noise they make. That was it.
RUTH: For crissakes, be quiet. You keep talking and she’ll know we’re here.
COOTIE: I was just thinking. I read somewhere about how they can see in the dark.
RUTH: I never read that.
COOTIE: No shit, I read they got these hundreds of thousands of millions of tiny, submicroscopic, photosensitive cells in each eyeball, so when it gets dark they can just turn on these cells and see like it was daytime.
MIKE: He’s right, Ruth. Hey, Cootie, you’re right. I remember reading that in a back issue of the Vertebrate Review.
COOTIE: That’s it, that’s the one. Special eyeball issue.
MIKE: Yeah, yeah. July.
RUTH: You guys must be pretty stupid if you believe that. What do you think they have whiskers for? The whole point of whiskers in the first place is so you can get around in the dark. That’s why they stick out so far, so you don’t bump into things. Chairs and refrigerators and that.
MIKE: Hey, shhhh. I think she’s starting.
RUTH: Well, you’re the one that got me going about whiskers in the first place, so don’t tell me shhhh.
MIKE: O.K., O.K., I’m sorry, O.K.?
RUTH: So shut up if she’s starting.
COOTIE (Pause): How many kittens can they have at any one session?
MIKE: There’s a recorded case of thirty-eight.
RUTH: Shhhh, for chrissakes.
COOTIE: What I want to know is how are we gonna see her when she starts giving birth?
RUTH: Jesus, how stupid can you get? We’ll turn on the light.
COOTIE: Yeah, but the whole thing is how do we know when to turn on the light? Like, what if we’re too early?
MIKE: Or too late?
COOTIE: Yeah, what if we’re too late?
MIKE: Or right in the middle . . .
COOTIE: Holy shit, yeah, what if we flip on the old lights when she’s halfway through a severe
uterine contraction? She’ll go apeshit and clamp up and kill the kitten. And if the kitty gets really lucky and wriggles free, it’ll grow up into a pretty fucked-up animal.
MIKE: We’re sowing the seeds of a neurotic adult cathood . . .
COOTIE: . . . doo-wah, doo-wah . . .
RUTH: Hey, shut up, you guys, willya? Willya shut up?
COOTIE: We’re just pointing out that’s a shitty way to start life.
RUTH: I know the noise, all right?
MIKE: I think there’s probably a more scientific way to watch a cat give birth.
RUTH: Everybody shut the fuck up.
A long pause.
NORMAN: How much longer are you guys gonna have the lights out?
COOTIE: Jesus Christ, Norman, why do you have to go creeping up like that? We forgot you were even in here.
NORMAN: I’m not creeping up. I’m just sitting here. Maybe you didn’t notice when you came in, but I was reading this book. I mean, I thought you were only gonna have the lights out for maybe a few minutes or something, but you’ve already been in here for about an hour and . . . I really can’t read very well with the lights off. I mean . . . you know . . .
COOTIE: Norman, you can’t rush a cat when it’s giving birth. You try to rush a cat in those circumstances and you come smack up against nature.
MIKE: Norman . . .
NORMAN: What?
MIKE: Don’t fight nature, Norman.
NORMAN: I’m not. I’m just trying to read this book.
COOTIE (Pause): Is it a good book?
RUTH: For chrissakes, what’s the matter with everyone?
NORMAN: I don’t know. It’s a pretty good book. I don’t follow all of it. It’s written in a funny kind of way, so you forget a lot of it right after you’ve read it. A lot of guys in the mathematics department say it’s pretty good. I don’t know though.
RUTH: Hey, Norman, can’t you go to your room if you want to read?
NORMAN: I don’t want to.
MIKE: Why not, Norman?
COOTIE: Yeah, why do you want to creep around in here being all spooky and everything when you could just go to your room and read, huh?