See also PICTURES OF ROBERT PATRICK – 2

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(flyer for reading by Andrew Adam Caldwell)

HETEROSEXUALS
By
Robert Patrick

The Time: Just before and during “Desert Storm”
The Place: Flatwater, a small American town
(1) The road beside a convenience store
(2) Sis’s car
(3) The yard of Bil’s and Sis’s house
(4) The living-room/kitchen “family room “of the house
(5) An embankment by a canal

THE CHARACTERS:
Bud – a gay hippie in his fifties
Bil – Bud’s brother-in-law, an ex-officer in his sixties
Sis – Bud’s sister, Bil’s wife, in her sixties

(The play flows cinematically. Bud often addresses two friends inLos Angeles, “Penn and “Aaron,” who do not appear.)

(The setting will be principally the “family room” of Sis and Bil’s home in Flatwater. All that’s required is a Barcolounger for Bil and an ottoman for Bud. Behind them, across a low divider is a kitchen table and two chairs. This is where Sis reads her books. To one side, an American flag on a pole and a mail-box on post. A bench to the other side to serve as “car” and “embankment”.)

(At rise, Bud stands downstage center with a ratty duffle bag and other tacky “luggage”. Bud is a leftover hippie in his fifties. He sits on his “luggage” and writes a postcard.)

BUD
Dear Aaron and Penn. Well, here I am in Flatwater. Or on the outskirts of it, anyway. This is where the Greyhound bus lets you off. I’m in front of a convenience store called “Park ‘n’ Barf”. A sign in the window says “Puke Burritos”. I may be making part of this up. I miss you both already. I’m waiting for my brother-in-law to come fetch me. I don’t miss him already. I haven’t seen him or my sister for thirty years. I never thought I would again. All the time I was marching for peace, he was bombing in Viet Nam. Those were horrible days. I miss them already. I wish I could have found a job in Los Angeles and stayed with y’all. I hope Penn sells his script to the movies. I hope Aaron gets a break making karaokes. I hope y’all get a house with a room in it for me. I hope my brother-in-law comes soon. I hope he never comes. I don’t know what I’m getting into. I haven’t been alone among heterosexuals since before y’all were born. Oh, here comes a car. Must be Bil. Who else would be out in this wilderness at this time of night? Will write soon. Bud.
(Bil enters. He is older than Bud, very energetic, neat, and trim.)
BIL
Gimme all your money or I’ll kill you!

BUD
New York already did. Bil

BIL
Haw! Gotcha, didn’t I? Well, come on, welcome to Flatwater. Here, come on, get into the car. Shit, is that cher luggage or is it garbage? Haw! We sure have missed you, buddy boy. Hurry, your sister is waitin’ at the house.
(Bil tosses Bud’s luggage into the “car” and starts car. Bud fumbles with seat belt)

BUD
Just a second..I’m not sure how to work this…

BIL
Shit, don’t you people in Jew York know how to work seat belts? Get it fastened now.

(Bil stops the car and reaches over and fastens Bud’s belt)
There, I’ll do it for you.

BUD
Well, if you just show me how…

BIL
There you are.
(Bil starts the car again)

BUD
They’re different in every model of car…

BIL
I don’t drive with nobody that don’t wear a seat belt. Shit, if we had a accident, you could sue me for a million dollars.

BUD
I would never sue someone for my own carelessness..

BIL
Shit, you don’t never know. Everybody’s out to get choo. Your sister’s been thinking of nothing but choo for the whole week.

BUD
I’m very grateful to y’all for letting me come…

BIL
We hope you’re gonna stay for a good long visit.

BUD
Well, I….

BIL
So you lost your candy shop, did ja?

BUD
It was a candle shop…

BIL
Never did think you’d have a head for business.

BUD
I ran it for twenty years…

BIL
You was always more the artistic type.

BUD
They suddenly tripled my rent…

BIL
Everybody’s out to getcha. What do you think of this car?

BUD
It’s pink.

BIL
Damn right. Your sister won it for being the best Mary Kaye representative in six counties!

BUD
You must be proud of her….

BIL
She’d never of done it if I didn’t drive her all the time! She’d give everything away if I let her!

BUD
Are we in Flatwater yet?

BIL
Shit, yes. Didn’t you read the signs?

BUD
It’s dark…

BIL
You ain’t gonna see no tall buildings here like they got in Jew York. Haw!

BUD
It is strange…

BIL
Haw! You hear that? “JewYork!” That’s what Bash Rambo calls it.

BUD
Bash Ram…?

BIL
He’s the best man on the radio. Shit, ain’t you people in Jew York never heard of Bash Rambo?

BUD
I don’t believe I ever….

BIL
He tells it like it is. See that?

BUD
Good lord, what’s that?

BIL
That’s the water tower. The senior class done painted that world globe on it. For educational purposes.

BUD
It’s bizarre

BIL
I think that’s the most beautifullest thing I ever seen. Now that’s art a fella like me can understand.

BUD
It’s unique.

BIL
Course some of them rowdies climbed up and painted the “F” word all over it. Shit, I hate dirty talk.

BUD
Where are we now?

BIL
We’re almost there. This here’s our section. It’s called Hillcrest.

BUD
Where’s the hill? Where’s the crest?

BIL
Shit, I don’t know. Some Wop developer called it that to fool suckers. Everybody’s out to get choo. Here we are.

(SIS appears, a lovely, rather addled woman in a long housecoat, wearing a hearing aid. She stands beside an American flag. She is looking anxiously for the car. She wears a pair of glasses shoved onto the top of her head. One of her hands holds a volume of condensed books, with a finger marking her place.)

BIL
There she is. She lives in that damned housecoat. She ain’t so pretty anymore, is she?

(He hops out and uploads Bud’s luggage. Bud wrestles with the seat belt)

BUD
She’s beautiful.

BIL
Shit, she ain’t no better than a old dog. Here, let me get that for you.

(He unfastens Bud’s seat belt)

BUD
If you’d just show me how….

BIL
That’s all right. I know you’re the artistic type. Haw!

(Bud is released from the belt and walks over to Sis.)

BUD
Sis?

SIS
Oh, Bud!
(She embraces him and begins weeping.)
Oh, my little budder!

BIL (shouts)
Shit, get inside the house before you scare the neighbors.
(Normal voice to Bud)
She shouldn’t come out without her face-paint on, she’ll scare the dogs.

SIS
Oh, my little budder! I missed you so much.

BUD
Oh, Sis. Me too. I didn’t know how much.

(Bil is already on his way to the house with the luggage.)

Bil, let me carry those.

BIL
Shit, I can carry ‘em!

SIS
(Clinging to Bud as they move into the house)
Oh, my little bitty Bud. I missed you so much.

BUD
Bil, let me have the cardboard box, please…

BIL
Shit, don’t go unpacking and dirtying up the family room.

BUD
No, please, I have presents for you….

BIL
Oh, shit, here then!
( He throws the bag and box down angrily.)

SIS

Bil, be careful with Bud’s things!

BIL (normal voice)
Oh, shut up, you old ugly pig.
(Grins. To Bud)
She can’t hear nothing you say if you talk normal! Haw!

BUD
(takes beautiful elaborate candles from box.)
Here. These are the last candles from my shop. I brought them for y’all.

SIS
Oh, it’s so pretty!

BIL
Shit, I hope they ain’t no Jew York cockroaches in there. You better let me fumigate that box before you open it all up.

SIS
Oh, it’s so pretty! Thank you little budder
(she kisses him)

BIL
(hands the candle Bud gave him back)
You should of insured them. Then if that Greyhound had broke ‘em, you could have sued them big. Haw!

BUD
I brought you all the prettiest ones I saved.

SIS
Oh, look, Bil. They’re so pretty. I’ll save ‘em and give ‘em for Christmas and birthday presents.

BIL
(swooping up bags angrily)
Well, y’all don’t want to talk to me. I’ll put these in your room
(As he exits)
Welcome home, Buddy boy.

SIS
(Moves to kitchen table, sits. Does not offer Bud a chair. After a while, he sits.)
I’ll save all of those and give ‘em for Christmas and birthday presents. You be sure and tell me if I forget and give you one, hear?
(She opens her book and puts her glasses on her nose, starts to read)

BUD
I will, I will. Oh, god, there’s so much I’d like to talk with you about.

SIS
(Slightly annoyed, lifts her glasses and marks her place in her book.)

Oh, well, all right, then. What would you like to talk about?

BUD
Well, I don’t know. You. Y’all. Myself, I guess. What have you been doing for thirty years?

SIS
Oh, lord, I don’t know. Raising a family and starting a business.

BUD
I saw your pink car. Congratulations.

SIS
Well, that’s my third one. I sell Mary Kaye.

BUD
You must be proud of yourself.

SIS
They give ‘em for most sales. I like selling Mary Kaye. It helps women feel more proud of themselves.

(She keeps going back to her book.)

BUD
I don’t know where to begin telling you about my last thirty years. It almost seems unreal here in this house.

SIS
We got it on a home loan for Veterans…You can watch TV if you want to.

BUD
Good lord, no. What about your family. Where are they?

SIS
Sonny lives right near. He finally kicked the drugs. Missy lives in the East. She got married again. You can microwave something if you want to.

BUD
I’d rather talk to you.

SIS
(Somewhat uncomfortably closes her book..carefully marking her place..and raises her glasses)
Well, if you really want to. What did you say you wanted to talk about?

BUD
Well…What are you reading?

SIS
Condensed true crime books. They have four in each month. That way I can read four books in the time it would take to read one.

BUD
And what’s the one about that you’re reading now?

SIS
Oh, I don’t know. Some woman killed her husband. Most of ‘em are.

BUD
I brought some of my favorite books. I’ll read some of yours and you can read some of mine. Then we can talk about them.

SIS
I won’t be upset if they’re gay books. I realized a long time ago you must be gay. But how could I cast the first stone after the things Bil and I did even before we were married.

BUD(amused)
Oh, well, that’s a relief to know.

SIS
We used to have some gay boys here in Flatwater. I used to do their make-up for their Halloween drag ball. I’d introduce you to ‘em, but they all moved toSan Francisco and died.

BIL
(re-enters, vigorously)
I put all your clotes in the washer and sprayed all of them candles with bug spray.
( He walks right past them and sits on the barcalounger. Whe whips open a newspaper and clicks on the TV.)
(NOTE: the TV is in the audience. When it’s on, there should be a flickering colered light on the faces of Bil and, when he’s watching, Bud. There should be an annoying, gibbering nolice accompanying it, which can be lowered to allow for dialogue.)
(Bil’s dialogue is continuous)
What was that I heard on while I was out? One of them talk shows with two of them intellectual guys each trying to prove they’s smarter than each other?

BUD
No, Sis and I were just talking…

BIL
Shit, she can’t hear nothing you say. She just sits there reading them asswipe books when she should be resting so she can make more money tomorrow.

(Indeed, at the first opportunity, Sis has returned to her book.)
(Bud stand uncertain of what to do. Sis is absorbed in her book. Bil is watching the TV and simultaneously whipping sections out of the paper. Bud wanders into the family room and sits on the ottoman.)
BIL
You can just sit there. We used to have two barcaloungers but she stopped watching TV so I just junked hers if she didn’t want to sit by me and watch TV but read them shitass books.

BUD
I haven’t been near a TV for years and…

BIL
(Clicking channels with a remote)
Haw! Here! Looky! This one’s a good one! See that little nigger kid? Haw! He’s a smart-ass! He gets ‘em all! Shit! Don’t nobody never put nothin’ over on him! Shit! Haw!

(Bil becomes completely absorbed in the TV show. Bud looks back and forth between reading Sis and enthralled Bil and wanders to mailbox)

BUD
Dear Penn and Aaron, And so a sort of way of life has emerged. Sis sits there reading condensed plans for murdering husbands, and Bil watches sit-com after sit-com where, for half an hour, nobody don’t put nothin’ over on him. And I? After thirty years among the bravest, finest people in the world, marching for peace and lighting little candles wherever I could…I sit and watch them. I suppose you guys, being younger and having been raised in such towns, could have told me. I didn’t know. I really didn’t. Sis and I grew up in towns like Flatwater. I haven’t been in one in three decades. I didn’t know. I really didn’t know what had become ofAmerica. All those years they were watching people like me on TV. I had no idea how we had been made to look to them.

(puts card in box)

BIL
(Suddenly galvanized by something on TV)
Shit! Looky! Look at them protestor turds! What are they on about now?

BUD(back in family room)
They’re fighting for the preservation of the rain forests.

BIL
Shit! Them’s the same people protest against everything! Them’s the ones think more of white owls than of lumberjacks’ jobs!

BUD
But the rain forests are being decimated at the rate of an acre a second. Species are being destroyed.

BIL
Shit! Who gives a shit!

BUD
Forests make the very air we breathe.

BIL
Shit, you think they care. They get paid to march, is all.

BUD
Paid by whom?

BIL
Shit, the communists.

BUD
What communists?

BIL
Shit, Bash Rambo told the whole story. You gotta listen to him. Them’s the same protestors for from town to town everytime you one of them shit marches! They all get paid big money from the international communists.

BUD
Someone said this on the radio?

BIL
(jams a Walkman headset on Bud)
Shit, yes, he ain’t afraid of nothing. Listen to this!

BUD
And there suddenly began to pour into my defenseless ears the orotund voice of Bash Rambo. He said, indeed that all protestors were paid agents of an international communist conspiracy. He said they were all ugly Lesbians who couldn’t get a man. He said ecologists were paid to destroy the American lumber industry. He said vegetarians were paid to detroy the American beef industry. He said animal rights people were paid to destroy the American fur industry. He said that there are untold millions of these evil paid agents, paid fortunes to lay American to waste. He said they were a menace that threatens the very fabric of capitalistic Christian democracy. Then he took a sip of water and said that there were really only a few of them, that they were all ineffectual wimps and misfits, and that nobody really needed to worry about them at all. In sixty seconds he scared his listeners to death and them made them feel that everything is really all right. He said there was nothing to be afraid of and we had better elect the strongest meanest leaders we could to protect us from it. I hadn’t been subjected to such adroit mountebankery since the first time I ran into a three-card monte dealer onTimes Square.

(Bud takes off earphones. To Bil)

This man is on the airwaves all the time?

BIL
Shit, yes! Three hours a day! Got more listeners than even Bob Hope used to have! Most popular radio personality of all time!

BUD
And he complains that protestors are being paid?

BIL
Shit, yes, they are.

BUD
He must get paid a fortune himself.

BIL
Yeah, he’s a multi-millionaire already!

BUD
So he’s a paid protestor himself.

BIL
Right!

BUD
Doesn’t that strike you as at all hypocritical? Or paradoxical? Or ironic? Or something?

BIL
Well, somebody’s gotta contradict all that commie propaganda.

BUD
What station can I hear communist propaganda on?

BIL
Shit, they ain’t no commie shows on.

BUD
Then what propaganda is he contradicting?

BIL
Shit, they ain’t none. Wouldn’t nobody listen to that!

BUD
(To “the boys”)
He’s able to do that. F. Scott Fitzgerald said the test of a first-class mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas and still function. By that test, Bil is a first-class mind.
(To Bil)
Bil, if nobody is a communist, where does all this money these people are supposed to get paid come from?

BIL
Why, shit, from the Russian government, of course.

BUD
But, Bil, the Russian government is no longer Communistl.

BIL
Shit, no, we licked ‘em in the arms race!

BUD
So they don’t have any money?

BIL
Shit, no, they’re bankrupt.

BUD
So where do they get all this money?

BIL
They tax us middle-class people to death, that’s where!

BUD
Wait, who does?

BIL
Our government.

BUD
Our government is communist?

BIL
Shit, yes!

BUD
Bush’s government?

BIL
Shit, no!

BUD
Reagan’s government?

BIL
Oh, shit, no!

BUD
Then where do the millions come from to pay the protestors?

BIL
Why, shit, Bud, from the Japanese industrialists.

BUD
Japanese industrialists pay American communist protestors?

BIL
Sure, they’re out to destroy American industry!

BUD
Wait, wait, I thought you said it was tax money from the American middle-class.

BIL
Sure, then Japanese industrialists pay communists in our government millions to spend our tax money to support them communists.

BUD
(Bewildered)
Jap capitalists pay millions to get red Feds to pay tax millions to communists to march?

BIL
No, shit, not just to march, but to pay our millions to them nigger welfare mothers.

BUD
Bil, I am so confused.

BIL
Shit, yes, that’s what they do, they confuse you!

BUD
Who does?

BIL
All of ‘em. Everybody’s out to get you!

BUD
Bil, the money paid to African-american single mothers is less than one percent of the welfare budget. It’s nothing compared to, for instance, the military budget.

BIL
No, welfare is the biggest item in the budget.

BUD
Only if you include Social Security, which is in fact a self-supporting sytem requiring no tax expenditures.

BIL
But they take the Social Security money and spend it on other things so Social Security has to come out of taxes.

BUD
Yes, and most of it goes to the military!

BIL
Damned right.

BUD
In fact, the military is the most socialistic institution in government. Why, Bil, you were in the service for twenty-something years. You live on a military pension even now. Your family has eternal medical care from the government. Your whole life has been lived in a socialist economic loop.

BIL
Right! And I deserved it! Because I was out fighting wars against Communism!

BUD
And now you’re fighting against the Japanese Capitalists?

BIL
Shit, yes! They’re a menace!

BUD
Bil, you heard on your favorite news show, just the other night, you heard Barbara Walters say that the Japanese companies are all owned in large part by the American companies we call their competitors!

BIL
Damned right! All of them Capitalists is communists!

(Bil storms out of the house)

BUD(speaks to the boys)
And then he stormed our of the house to mow his already perfect lawn. At two in the morning. I didn’t know. I really didn’t. Sis sits through these increasingly frequent discussions with the aplomb of a religious statue, turning her pages and smoking her Parliaments. That’s an image for out time, itsn’t it? Smoking Parliements? She sits in the kitchen because it’s the only place in the house Bil will let us smoke in. I said to him once…
(To Bil, who strolls across)
But, Bil, the real menace to American lungs is the emissions from internal-combustion engines. We should long ago have switched to electric cars.

BUD(in passing)
You won’t never get me to drive no electric car. What if they was an emergency and I needed to rush some member of my family to a hospital?

BUD
(shouts to Bil who has gone offstage)
But the majority of major medical emergencies are automobile accidents caused by speeding! (no reply) Maybe Sis has the right idea.
(He wanders over to Sis)
Hi, Sis.

SIS
(With a sigh, closes her book, removes her glasses, closes her book with a finger still in it)
I guess you want to talk?

BUD(Lighting up)
Or smoke?

BIL
(Passes through with laundry basket)
Oh, shit, you two still smoking
(He waves his hands as if to clear smoke, fakes coughing)
SIS
Shut up, Bil. This is my house too and I can smoke in it if I want to.

BIL
Yeah, but two of you smoking!

SIS
Go mow your lawn.

BIL
You’re gonna die first and I’ll be left alone.

SIS
Well, then, you take up smoking too and we’ll die together.

BIL
(exiting)
Shit!

BUD
(To boys)
It’s the only thing she ever stands up for herself about.

SIS
He’s so snotty every since he gave up smoking. Just because he got cancer.

BUD

Bil got lung cancer?

SIS
No, he got these skin cancers.
(She starts laughing)

From too much sun exposure mowing that poor helpless lawn of his!

(Sis and Bud laugh together. She actually puts her book aside.)

He’s a good man. You’re all alike. So how you doing, little budder?

BUD
I seem to put my foot in my mouth with Bil all the time

SIS
Oh, don’t listen to him. He just talks a lot on nonsense.

BUD
I don’t remember him being like this. Was he always like this?

SIS
God, I don’t know. I raised two kids and when I looked up he was a grouchy old man.

BUD
He went through two wars.

SIS
I guess. He like to think he knows everything. I don’t even try to talk to him.

BUD
Tell me about your business.

SIS
Oh, it’s doing real well. Bad times, good times, women want to look good. Mary Kaye is a great woman. She makes women independent. Bil can’t stand that I have my own money.

BUD
But he keeps urging you to make more.

SIS
It’s just because I’m his wife. He wants his wife to be the best. That’s why he’s always working, though

BUD
I don’t know if I quite get that.

SIS
He has to keep proving he works more than me. That poor lawn.
(They laugh again. She notices something on TV, puts on her glasses.)
Oh, look! What are they doing?

BUD
Hm? Oh, someone’s burning an American flag.

SIS
Oh, god, why do they want to do that?
(She gets up and moves into the family room. Bud follows her.)

BUD
I believe it’s a protest against that judge inTexas who let the kid off scot-free for shooting two gay guys.

SIS
Oh, but why does he want to do that? Burn the flag? That’s awful!

BUD
Well, it’s a highly visible way to show disapproval..

SIS
But that’s our flag!

BUD
He thinks it’s dishonored.

SIS
But that flag stands for all the ideals of our country.

BUD
He thinks those ideals have been violated.

SIS
But that’s so awful! That flag used to stand for so many beautiful things. And one by one all those beautiful things have disappeared! Now everything is just awful. Everybody’s turned against everybody! Our cities are filthy! The streets aren’t safe! People are homeless! Crime has everybody scared! Kids are on dope! Nobody can stay married! Children take guns to school! All we have left is the symbols, and he’s destroying them!

BUD
Sis, that’s wonderful. Don’t you see? He feels the same way! All the freedom and security and opportunity that the flag once stood for are gone! We’re left with just the empty symbols! That’s what he’s saying! He’s saying “This is nothing, this is meaningless!” He’s saying, “This is what you’ve done to the flag!”

SIS
But he’s doing it!

BUD
He feels as you do! He agrees with you! You’re brother and sister in thoughts!

SIS
No, no! I’d never do that! People like that leave us with nothing! Nothing! The symbols are all we’ve got and they destroy them!
(She runs off in tears. Bud comes down to talk to the boys)

BUD
Dear boys: I’m writing you from a concrete embankment by the irrigation canal. I spend a lot of my time taking walks along the canal. I usually take a book with me. There are always a few joggers, either old men from the retired Air Force community, or vigorous young women who are in the Air Force now. They don’t stop to talk much. They’re always busy. Everyone here is busy all the time. They don’t seem to relate much. There have been no guests at Sis’s and Bil’s in the months I’ve been here. I thought at first they were ashamed of me..but then I noticed that there are almost never any guests’ cars in front of any of the houses in Hillcrest. I asked Bil about it once…

BIL
(Passing through with laundry.)
Shit, I don’t want a lot of people in and out of here messing up my rugs.

BUD
How, after all, could they have friends? Everybody’s out to get you. I am glad to hear that Penn’s movie script may be about to get bought. I hope the studio likes the changes they told him to make. I hope you get your home soon. I hope it does have a room for me. If not, I’ll sleep on the porch. I ain’t proud buddy-boys. Oh, believe me, a man who makes his sister cry..is not proud

(Bud seals his letter and heads for the mailbox. Bil enters with some yard implement.)

BIL
Good morning, Buddy-boy. You still writing them letters?

BUD
Oh, yes. I was just going to leave it out here for the mailman.

BIL
Shit, don’t leave no mail in the box. They see that flag up, they’ll come steal your mail for any checks that might be in it.

BUD
Oh, have you had mail stolen?

BIL
Shit, no, I wouldn’t leave nothing out to get stole.

BUD
Oh, well, I’ll just wait here for the mailman then.

BIL
Yeah, well, you take your mail, but leave the rest out here. I’ll bring it in.

BUD
Oh, all right.

BIL
The other day you bring the mail in and she got three of them begging-letters from them missionary organizations and she sent ‘em all checks.

BUD
I see.

BIL
I get the mail, I go through and throw out everything but her business mail. That way she don’t give no money for them shit-eating church things.

BUD
I see.

BIL
She gives you any mail to mail, you give it to me. She sends out them checks, I tear ‘em up and throw ‘em away.

BUD
I see.

BIL
Not all of ‘em. Some I let through. But, shit, some of ‘em is for relief for them Cambodian andVietnam refugees moving in here.

BUD
I see.

BIL
Shit, I didn’t spend my life bombing ‘em so she can send our money supporting ‘em to take over here. You smell that?

BUD
What?

BIL
That shitty smell.

BUD
Curry?

BIL
That’s some of ‘em moved right in here to Hillcrest. Shit, they stink up the whole neighborhood.

BUD
I think they’re Pakistani.

BIL
Stinks like shit! You going walking?

BUD
I thought I would, yes.

BIL
Don’t bring back no more of them flowers like you did for her birthday, hear? I throwed them out soon as she forgot they was there. You can’t never tell. Might be some of ‘em people is allergic to. They come in and get sick, they’ll sue us. For millions.

BUD
Everybody’s out to get choo.

BIL
Hey, you’re learning, Buddy-boy.
(Bil exits.)

BUD
(Starts to write a post-script on back of letter)
Dear boys—Bil says I’m learning. He may be right—

BIL
(re-entering)
And watch your step on that canal

BUD
Huh?

BIL
Down to the lawnmower store they was talking about you. They said they was this old guy walks along the canal reading a book while he’s walking. You fall in that canal won’t nobody jump in to save you. They’d stand and watch you drown and pretend they never saw. They pull you out and you die anyway, we could sue them. Haw!
(Bil exits)

BUD
I think I may be about to go crazy. Bil manages to fill every second of life around him with fear. You’ll fall into the canal. Gangs of thugs will jump out of bushes and kill you.
(During this litany, Bil appears in the wings and starts reciting along with Bud)
You stroll past a schoolyard and they’ll get you arrested for a child molester. You get too friendly with them women run the magazine store they’ll sue you for sexual harassment. You get too friendly with they neighbors and they’ll come over here wanting to borrow money. You stand out on the lawn looking at the stars and someone’ll report you for a burgler. You better stay in. But don’t stand too near the microwave, it’ll give you cancer. Don’t fry eggs over-easy, you’ll get salmonella. Don’t take too hot baths, the steam will set off the smoke alarm.
(At some point, Bud stops speaking and lets Bil handle the admonitions solo. But just nods and mutters “Yes, Bil.”)
Don’t leave your crossword books out, your sister gets distracted by ‘em and don’t work enough. Don’t try to use the VCR, you don’t know how to work it and I lost the instruction manual and I’m too busy to teach you. Try not to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I might think you’re a burglar and shoot you. I keep a twenty-two beside the bed. Haw!
(Bil goes off laughing. Bud holds his head in his hands and stands quite still for a moment. Bil re-enters, wearing Walkman)
BIL
You come back from you walk when you smell barbecue! I’m barbecuing! You can smell it clear out to the canal! Ol’ Bash Rambo says they ain’t no truth in the rumor that barbecues pollutes the air. I think I’ll call in and ask him about curry! Haw!
(Bil exits)

BUD
(to boys)
I have been everywhere in town to ask if there are any jobs. There aren’t. The fast-food places hire only kids, and the hospital, where they advertised for typists, has a quota system. They have about a hundred black, Hispanic and asian women to hire before they they have another opening for one of us oppressive white males…I’m very sorry that the studio wanted Penn to change his script that way. Of course, he isn’t going to add the senseless violence and gore they want. I wouldn’t want him to. He has to stand up for the integrity of his work. All of us good folk in Flatwater feel that way. It says in the local paper that we are horrified by all the senseless violence and vile language in the media. Horrified. Horrified.
(Bill bursts on, wearing Walkman, excited out of his mind)
BIL
Shit! What are you doing out here? Don’t you know nothing? Get your ass in here! That turd Sadaam Hussein has invaded Kuwait! Shit, Bush’ll show that asswipe! Get in here! Shit, didn’t you hear what I said? Get your ass in here and watch! Shit! We’re gonna have us a war!
(He grabs Bud by the arm and drags him into the family room. The TV glares brightly and idiotic TV Noise grows to gigantic proportions. Sis at the table looks up, shakes her head, takes off her hearing aid, and holds her book in front of her face.)

(Throughout the next sequence, Bil is intently watching TV, with his Walkman on, and newspapers constantly fluttering. Sis sits at her table, reading through her books rapidly. She should finish several during the sequence, ever-faster. Bud moves freely from his seat on the ottoman, to sit with Sis—he often takes a drag from her cigarette—to the mailbox, to the seat by the canal. Bil often comes and drags Bud back to the ottoman.)

BIL
Sheee-it! That son-of-a-shit! Who does he think he is? Look at them refugees! Who the shit are they? (Listens to Walkman briefly) Shit, they’re just a bund of oil-rich shit-eating Arab shieks! Shit! (Listens to the Walkman)
BUD
Hussein wants the oil.

Shit, he’s got the fourth biggest army in the world! Shit! He’s invincible! (listens to Walkman)

We armed him to help us lickiran

Shit, he’s committed hundreds of atrocities! Shit, he’s a madman! (listens to Walkman)
We didn’t do a single thing to stop him.
Listen to this! Listen! Why, shit, he’s like Hitler! That what he is! He’s like that turd Hitler! He’s a menace to the free world! He’s gotta be stopped! (listens to Walkman)
They’re telling Bil that Sadaam Hussein is like Hitler. Like they just noticed it.

Shit, where did he get all them armaments?
I just told you.
They’re starting an investigation to find out who sold him them arms!

Wanna bet it’s the Russians?

Shit, he’s got Russian advisors right there in his court.
Don’t nobody put nothing over on me.
Shit, Bush is sending troops over there.
Sing the ballad of the green berets.
Shit, congress don’t wanna pay for a war!
That’s all right, we’ve fought the last two on credit.
Shit, them protestors is out again protesting the war!
Well, we won’t let the Japanese have an army, so they bribe protestors with their money.

Look at them poor boys out in the dessert.
Got the desert gear together pretty quick, didn’t they?

BIL
And, look, Bud, you oughta approve of this. They got all them women soldiers over there, too.
BUD
Oh, well, it’s all right to have a war if they let women play.

Bush is getting tough! He says them protestors is deserting them soldiers.
Hey, he sent them there.
He says he can’t even bring them home unless
Congress pays for it.
Here is where I lose touch. They’re there. They have the weapons. What are they waiting for? If they’re going to do it, do it!

Bush ain’t gonna let no one trick him into starting no undeclared war!
Now I understand it.

What’s he gonna do? He can’t abandon all them poor soldier boys.
And girls.
And women.
Even though the women have been asked to stay out of the sight of the Arabians, who can’t really approve of women wearing pants.

Look, the polls say people don’t want a war!
I want to believe that.
They say Congress ain’t gonna vot to let Bush have a war.
I really want to believe that.
What’s she saying? “I support the troops but I don’t support of war?”
The heterosexuals have some song about a yellow ribbon; you tie it around an oak tree to say you still love somebody. I don’t know. Suddenly every perpendicular object in Flatwater has a yellow plastic ribbon tied around it..including ourn paperboy!

Hey, look, the polls is starting to turn around! More people want war.
Maybe they just can’t figure out how to support the troops without supporting the war.

Hey, look! Bush is fed up! He’s had it with that Democratic Congress!
Should I believe this?

BIL
Shit! Hot shit! Bush went to the U.N. and they’re gonna give him the money for the war.

BUD
And in an amazing end run George Bush outflanks all rational opposition and gets the go ahead for the gang-bang!

Shit! He’ll show ‘em now!
Suddenly it’s all stopped seeming funny. They’re actually golint to do it. They’re actually going
Shit!
To start flinging leftover weapons or weapons
They need to test, into that pathetic
Hot shit!
Primitive country with its gimcrackery conscripted
Army. They’re going to blow up god knows
Don’t shit me!
How many quivering Iraquis, already enslaved
to that great insane ape Hussein
Shit!
They’re going to bomb and shell and
Missile and shoot them to save the oil
Hot shit!
We wouldn’t need if we’d put half the
Intelligence into making gasless cars
Don’t shit me!
That we’ve put into piling up the
weapons of Armegeddon!
Shit!

Haven’t we seen enough of this
(Noticing Bud)
Huh? What?
(Takes off Walkman)
What did you say?
For the love of God, how can we do this again? Haven’t we seen enough of this? Enough blood and lies?

BIL
What are you talking about? We ain’t even started shooting yet.

BUD
But we’re going to. We’re going to do it all again!

BIL
Aw, I know, you think this is gonna be another shitty mess like Vietnam, but listen…
(holds Walkman out to Bud)
Bush swears this won’t be noVietnam. We’re gonna go in there and clean ‘em out and finish it up and do the job right this time.

BUD
(to boys)
Dear God in heaven, he’s got them. All these skulking ex-officers like Bil, hiding in their houses, defoliating their lawns, sleeping with their twenty-twos beside their beds, he’s got them! He’s told them this will erase the shame of our not stopping Hitler, the horror of our losing in Vietnam! He’s made them need this war the way the commercials on Nickelodeon make the kids believe they need the
Bouncer Ball or the Barby-and Transformer Marriage Chapel! He can’t offer anyone a future, so he’s offering them a chance to improve their pasts. He’s got them! It’s going to happen! They’re going to—-

BIL
Whooooooo-eeeeee, holy shit! There it goes! The first missile! The first blow for freedom! The first strike of the war! Holy sucking shit!

(Bil goes to dinner table without taking his eyes off the TV or removing his Walkman. Sis sets the table while Bil brings out food. Bud joints them.)
Shit, what’s she saying, the causes of this war has to be looked for in the psychology needs of George Bush?

BUD
Because there’s no rational justification for it.

BIL
You wouldn’t go in to help a neighbor if you saw his house being attacked?

BUD
They’re not our neighbors, and we armed their attackers.

BIL
If we don’t stop ‘em, they’ll invadeSaudi Arabia.

BUD
SaudiArabia won’t let women drive cars.Saudi Arabia has asked that Jewish and Christian soldiers hide their crosses and Stars of David to avoid offending.Saudi Arabia throws homosexuals off of cliffs.

BIL
But they’re our ally.

BUD
Why?

SIS
(Fooling with hearing aid)
Well, I think women can be as good soldiers as men.

BIL
What’s this one saying now? She’s losing her home because her soldier pay won’t cover her mortgage?

BUD
God, the rich send these people off to murder to protect their oil profits and their munitions profits, you’d think they could at least pay their rents.

BIL
Yeah, but if they started doing that, then all them soldiers would move into million dollar penthouses.

BUD
(just about at the breaking point)
Why? Why do you automatically say that? Why do you think everybody in the world is so dishonest? Crooked? Out to get everybody else? If you’re so convinced everybody in this country is completely untrustworthy, why did you agree to fight in two wars to protect them?

BIL
(in a red rage, standing)
Yes, yes, yes, they are dishonest! They’re all crooks! Everybody’s out to get you! You have to watch every minute or somebody will put something over on you! And I didn’t fight for them! I wouldn’t lift a finger if it was one of them. I fought for my family! I did it all for my family!
(Bil is holding a knife, which seems very much to be at the ready to attack Bud. There is a frozen moment. Then Bil throws down the knife and storms out of the house)

SIS
(After a moment)
Well, I don’t care what he says, I think women can be every bit as good soldiers as men.

BUD
(to boys)
Dear boys, Today he asked me to ride with him to the lawnmower repair shop

(Bud sits it car, Bil fastens his seat belt)

BIL
Here, let me get that for you.

BUD
(to boys)
He broke a blade mowing in the dark last night. All the way to town and back he was super nice to me.

BIL
You comfortable over there? You want the air conditioner

BUD
(to boys)
He told me all the gossipy little stories about every inch of real estate on the way.

BIL
They graft almond trees onto then pecan trees trunks to get a better yield. They had to tear down that filling station and pay a million dollars to de-pollute the ground under it from leaked gas. T
Them Cambodians runs all them roadside fruit stands now.

BUD
(To boys)
He was very careful.

BIL
Of course, a lot of them is good hard-working people.

BUD
(To boys)
He told me a lot about a subject he is expert on..navigating by the fixed stars.

BIL
See, you take a fix on one of them stars, and you can’t never go wrong. You trust them and can get right in there and drop your load on a enemy gasoline facility and turn right around and get your men back alive.

BUD
(To boys)
There is a human being in there, frightened and hurt.

BIL
Shit, we shouldn’t never have been there in the first place. You’re a young man, they wave a uniform at you, they tell you somebody’s threatening your family, you’ll go out and kill for ‘em. For the rich people, that’s who all makes money off of wars. It’s all for them, all for their profits. They’re out to get you. We shouldn’t have never been over there at all.

BIL
(To boys)
And so we came back reconciled. He drove…he’s an excellent driver when there’s no other traffic for him to yell “shit” at…he drove around the Flatwater water tower, with the pretty peaceful pastel globe painted on it. At a certain angle, the sunlight hitting it revealed the shiny area where they had painted over the “F” word. There it was, still occasionally glistening in the sky to the whole quiet town…but I didn’t say it, and of course Bil never said it. We were getting along. I even made him laugh once. (To Bil) God, don’t you get tired of seeing those yellow ribbons everywhere? I’ll bet Bush’s son bought stock in a yellow-ribbon factory. (Bil laughs). (To boys) he likes any story that shows anyone as corrupt and dishonest. Given sufficient time, I could learn to amuse him.
(They get out of car and come into the family room. Sis looks up. Bil throws his arm around Bud.)
If it hadn’t been for Jane Fonda.

Bil
Honey, get your nose out of that book. Do you know what your little budder said? He said the reason why they wanted us all to tie all of them yellow ribbons around everything is that George Bush’s son probably bought a controlling interest in a yellow ribbon factor! Haw!
(He slaps Bud on the back)
Let’s catch up on what’s happening in the war.
(He turns on TV)
Oh, shit, look! They’re bringing bodies out of a bunker.
(He jams Walkman on his head)
Hell, ol Bash says that’s enemy footage, sent out by the Iraqis. It’s okay. It’s just an Iraqi bunker. Them ain’t none of our people. Shit!
(Bud moves slowly closer to the screen, horrified by the pictures)
Wouldn’t you know it? Them protestors is saying that was a civilian bunker, that them is civilian bodies, and that our boys knew it. Shit, Bash says that ain’t so, that it was a well-known military control intelligence bunker. Shit! Bash has a caller on now. Listen. The caller says he knows for a fact that that was a military bunker, and that them bodies…oh, y’all listen to this shit!…that them bodies is probably political enemies of Hussein’s that he killed and stuck in that bunker just to give the United Nations a bad name! See, Bud? See what they do to protestors inIraq?

BUD
(To boys)
Worse than anything that the studio wants you to put into your scrip, Penn…. (BIL: Shit!) …Worse than anything you’ve ever seen in a nightmare, the bodies kept coming out of that hideous hole in the ground, red, blood-splashed flesh, looking like today’s pasta special, like puke burritos microwaved at the Park and Barf, like leftover wax blobs congealing on the floor of my shop when I made red, white and blue candles!

BIL
Shit, listen to this!
(He drags Bud close to him and they each listen over one of the earphones on the Walkman headset)
It’s one of them crazy old ladies that phones in! Bash always lets them make fools of themselves!

BUD
(muttering in echo of caller)
“I don’t think they ought to show us these pictures. I think there’s too much violence on TV already”
(Bil and Bud laugh together)

BUD
Oh, my god.

BIL
Ain’t that the shits? Ain’t she a idiot? People is really idiots. Aint’t they?

SIS
Well, it’s good to see you two getting along together for once.

BIL
She’s even stupider than you, Bud.

BUD
Sis?

BIL
No that caller. Ain’t she stupid?

BUD
Very.

BIL
(Tousling Bud’s hair)
You know I’m just kidding, don’t you Bud? You know we love you. You know we want you here.

BUD
Yes, I know. Thank you. You put up with a lot from me.

BIL
Shit, we love you Buddy-boy. Oh, shit, he got another one…Listen!
(Once again they listen simultaneously)
Hear her?
BUD
(echoing caller)
“No wonder there’s so much of this pro-Hussein propaganda on CNN like saying our boys bombed a civilian bunker. CNN is full of communist propaganda. After all, we all know Ted Turner is sleeping with that Jane Fonda.”
(The two men rare back and laugh like fools.)
Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Hussein a communist! Oh, God!

BIL
Ain’t that rich! Ain’t that something! Ain’t that too much!
(They relax .Bil again puts his arm around Bud.)
Hell, you got to laugh sometime.
BUD
(Puts his arm around Bil)
Yes, yes you do. You do. Sometimes you do.

BIL
Hell, she’s probably sleeping with Hussein.

BUD
Huh? What? That old lady? And they had a lover’s spat?

BIL
Hell, no. I mean Hanoi Hannah.

BUD
(Pause, then)
You mean Jane Fonda?

BIL
Hell, yes, Hanoi Hannah. That communist shit.

BUD
Bil. You can’t mean that. She’s a vigorous anti-fascist.

BIL
Hell, don’t tell me nothing about that whore. She’s a whore.

BUD
Bil, Jane Fonda has been a consistent fighter for human rights and peace…
BIL
Aw, shit, don’t give me none of that. That whore went behind enemy lines inVietnam and betrayed her own people to the enemy.

BUD
Bil, she risked her life and her career and being condemned as traitor to try to show us all what a horror that war was…Vietnam was.

BIL
Hell, what does she know about it? Was she there? I was there! Don’t say nothing good to me about that communist bitch!

BUD
But she WAS there!

BIL
Well, she shouldn’t of been! Shit!

SIS
(Not looking up from her book)
Watch your language, Bil.

BIL
Well, shit, if you can smoke up the house I can say anything I want in it. It’s my house too!
(To Bud)
That woman sided with the enemy in time of war!

BUD
(Trying to make a joke of it)
Who? Sis?

BIL
(Not to be placated)
No, no, no, goddamit, no! That Jane Fonda whore! She told everybody we was bombing civilian targets!

BUD
Which we were…

BIL
I never bombed no civilian targets! And all her saying so don’t make it true!

BUD
Bil,….

BIL
And even if I did, even if I had have, all them so-called civilians was hiding Vietcong soldiers! They was all Vietcong! You couldn’t trust any of them! They was hiding grenades in their shirts and walking in and blowing up G.I. bars.

BUD
Bil, not all of them.

BIL
And if they wasn’t how coiuld you tell which ones of them was and wasn’t? They wasn’t none of them innocent! They wasn’t none of them you could trust! They never wanted us there and they killed all of us they could to get us out! We never should of helped them! We never had no business there in the first place! I hated that war! Hated it!

BUD
Bil, that wonderful, that’s exactly what Jane Fonda believed! See, you agree with her! She hated the war too, and had the guts to stand up and say so!

BIL
And so all our soldiers was treated like shit when we come back, and spit on because of people like her!

BUD
Bil, everybody was crazy from that war! You can’t blame her. Long before she entered the protest movement, hundreds of thousands of us had marched against the war! I marched dozens of times!

BIL
But them marches called our soldiers pigs!

BUD
Bil, not all of us! Most of those kids were very young. When they understood we were carrying on an unjust war, they marched against it. And when their own parents sent police against us with guns and dogs and gas, some of them went crazy! My God, Bil, try to understand what we went through, with cops and dogs coming at us, and us totally unarmed.

BIL
Armed? What did you need to be armed for? When was they violence against you?

BUD
Bil! Everywhere! Three green berets in Greenwich Village threw paving blocks at me! I was carrying a poster saying “Bring our boys back alive!” and they threw blocks of paving stone at me! Here, I had to have stitches.
(Parts his hair to show scar)

BIL
How do you know them was Green Berets? Them could have been anybody in uniforms!

BUD
Well, yes, and those could have beenCIA men in ponchos who spat at our soldiers! What does it matter? What does it matter if we saw that the war was wrong before you did? You see it now, too. It’s over. Let’s not do it again inIraq! Or anywhere! Not even here!

BIL
You don’t understand! You wasn’t there! You don’t know what It did to us to hear all that shit! Don’t lecture me about that Jane Fonda slut! If I had her here I’d kill her!

BUD
Bil, she wasn’t to blame. Anymore than you were. Anymore than I was. I marched. I spoke. I protested. I’d have gone to Vietnam if I could. We all know it was wrong. Don’t hate her. You might as well kill yourself.
(They are standing facing one another. Bil is almost paralyzed with rage.)
……You might as well kill me.

BIL
(Finally)
You’re family. You’re fucking family.
(Bil suddenly turns, sits, grabs papers and Walkman, turns up TV noise.)
But don’t talk to me about that….shitty cunt. Let’s watch the war. It’s just a war. That man is like Hitler. It ain’t going to be like Vietnam. We can win it. And we will. By bombing only military targets. And we will. It ain’t like Jane Fonda..Vietnam. Everyone’s behind it. Everyone supports it. And we can win.
(He holds up a finger to indicate he’s echoing his Walkman)
Analysts predict all offers of peace will be rejected. A ground war will commence. Iraq will be humbled.
(In his own voice)
Shit! I guess Bush showed them people. Thought he was a wimp. Don’t nobody never put nothing over on him.
(Bil buries himself in paper, the TV, the Walkman)

BUD
( to no one in particular)
I … I think I’ll go outside.

SIS
(without looking up)
Wear something. It’s cold.

BUD
(startled)
Then you could hear us all along?

(Sis sighs and sets her book aside, holding her place with a finger.)

SIS
I left him once. For four years. For a fortune teller. Lord, that man could make the Tarot cards sing. Bil stayed with the kids. We were in San Antonio, then, living in young officer’s housing on the base. I think it cost him some advancements, and some promotions, having the kids to feed and keep dressed. But maybe not. You know how he is. I don’t know if he’d have advanced a whole lot farther. He wrote me then, those four years – more than he ever did when he was away at war. When Garrick – that’s the Tarot reader – died, Bil asked me to come back. He bought me a car for a coming-home present. A white Plymouth. Lord, he was proud to have saved up enough money to buy me that car. He never asked a word about while I had been away. Never objected when I said I wanted to work and earn my own money now. Then, when it got clear I was going to win my first Cadillac, he got so unhappy. He had been so happy when I came back, I’ve never seen him happy like that again since the first Cadillac. He got mad and hurt and flirted with a young wife, named Nancy, that lived across the street then. She looked like me, like I used to look before I left him and came back. But they never did anything, not that I would have cared. But he couldn’t do anything, I realized after a while, he couldn’t do anything that he thought might make me leave him. He can’t be alone, that’s all. I never saw a man so much like that. He’ll put up with anything or anybody, you wouldn’t believe it, just not to be alone.
(She sighs and slides her book back before her, flips it open with her finger, and begins reading again.. Bud walks slowly out to stand beside the flagpole)

Dear boys: It is cold. The flag hangs still. The educational earth hangs among the unchanging stars. I feel as though I’m living on the moon.

-Curtain-

A play

By

Robert Patrick

FOR Steven Davis, “The Chief” (photo: James D. Gossage)

(The stage is covered, walls, floor, and ceiling, in a matte black fabric, quite lusterless, so that even a spotlight directly on it does not show until a character steps into its path.

(At curtain’s rise, the CHIEF, a magnificent youth of enormous presence, lies asleep on the floor, downstage right.. A spotlight is focused directly above him. He begins to toss and turn as if dreaming a troubling and exciting dream.

(Suddenly his WIFE rises from beside him in a kneeling position. It is as if she had sprung from his side. She gazes down at his now once again immobile form and brushes her hair away form her brooding face. He stirs again, mumbling.

(She rises, and exits right. The Chief has a last oneiric spasm, his arm reaching into the air as if hoisting a sword,  and wakes, though he lies yet on his back, staring up into the light. His breathing is audible.

(His wife returns, her hair pulled back, an earthen bowl in her hands. She comes to his side.)

WIFE: Wake up, wake up. It’s time.

CHIEF: (Sits up into the light.) How do you know?

WIFE: It’s time for you to go and lead the hunt.

CHIEF: (Stretches, still sitting.) How do you know?

WIFE: (Turning away, setting the bowl down.) It’s morning.

CHIEF: It’s been morning for hours. I lie here half awake and feel the sun moving across me. You are asleep by my side. Then suddenly you awake and tell me, “It’s time.” How do you know?

WIFE: It’s morning. It’s time to start the hunt. The sun will be here soon. (His persistence irritates and puzzles her.)

CHIEF: There was a time when I decided when it was time to start the hunt. I woke and smelled the air and judged how high the sun had climbed into the trees. You would be asleep, and often I would leave you sleeping there and tiptoe out to meet the men. Then you began to waken with me. Now you wake before me and tell me, “It’s time.” I want to know how you know.

WIFE: (Trying to make a pleasantry of it.) How do you know what time of year to hunt the deer and when to hunt the lion?

CHIEF”: The old man who was Chief of the people before me taught me who to watch the sky and the winds and to judge the flights of birds. He watches with me and we decide from all these things what we should do each day. But you are alone here with me, and asleep. What tells you when to wake me?

WIFE: Have I ever wakened you early, or too late?

CHIEF: No, never. (This is said as farther reproach.)

WIFE: I wake you so that you may eat before the other men come to call you.

CHIEF: And how do the other men know when to come to me? I have asked them. Their wives tell them. (A long pause. Contemptuously.) Oh, it is because you move helplessly with the moon. You feel its movements even when it is hidden under the Earth.

(He rises, sensuously, lazily.)

WIFE: (In awe of his beauty.) You should be moving with the sun. The other men are waiting.

CHIEF: (Sharply.) How do you KNOW?

WIFE: (More miffed than triumphant.) I hear them calling you.

(And indeed we discern, beyond the light, the figures of three men, quietly calling, “Lord. My lord.”.)

CHIEF: (Gathering his dignity.) Be careful. Bring me my sword. (She goes off right and returns dragging a huge sword.) Be careful… (He takes the sword and swings it effortlessly.)…before you try to rule the people. You would have to fight me for the place of Chief as the second man fights me, and who do you think would win?.

WIFE: I have never fought you.

CHIEF: Stay at home with the children and tend the fields. (He starts out, strutting like a great bird.)

WIFE: (Her worship evident.) Where will you go?

CHIEF: Where the deer go.

WIFE: When will you be home?

CHIEF: When we have found them.

WIFE: How long will you be gone?

CHIEF: (With a vengeful smile.) How do I know? (He leaves the light.)

WIFE: (Starts off right, turns and speaks angrily after his vanished figure.) I feel you tossing beside me, restless at the touch of the sun. I hear you muttering, making the sounds of the hunt. I hear the rattling of arrows and of swords. I smell the fires as the women start their work. I hear the children crying for their fathers. And I know that you will go. (She exits right.)

(Stage left are three waiting men. They are a BOY of twelve or so, the OLD CHIEF, forty or fifty, and THE RIVAL, of an age with the Chief and almost as impressive, a sullen and dissatisfied male.

(They are squatting on their haunches, making sketches in the sand with an arrow. As the Chief approaches, they stand almost at attention.

(The Chief surveys them disdainfully and raises his face to the sky to calculate the weather.)
CHIEF: (To the boy.) Have you gone across the valley to the opposite ridge as I told you to? Have you seen signs of deer passing that way?

BOY: (With a nudge from the Old Chief, he steps forward.) I went across the valley to the opposite ridge. At the top of the far rise, I found their tracks. They come this way, across the valley to our ridge.

CHIEF: Then we will meet them in the valley between the ridges. (To the O.C.) What rain will there be? What winds must we consider?

O.C.: There will be rain soon, but only for a short time. The wind will blow from this ridge where our women’s fields are, across the valley to the far ridge.

CHIEF: Then we must come from behind them and take them in the valley. What are their numbers?

BOY: Fewer than yesterday. Every day they are fewer.

CHIEF: Some animal follows them, a wolf or lion. I will take care of him. While the rain lasts to confuse their sense of smell, we will track them this way from the far ridge. But with this thing following them, if it attacks, they may break too soon across the valley. One of us must remain here on our ridge to frighten them back if that should happen. You (to the Rival.) will wait here in the forest at the top of our ridge. While the rain lasts, you may shoot birds from the trees. You are very silent and very sure with the bow. When the rain ends, watch for us on the slope that faces you across the valley. If the deer catch scent of us and run, I will throw my sword into the air to catch the sun. When you see this sign, break from your cover with loud yelling to frighten them back our way.

RIVAL: And if they don’t’ break? If they catch no scent of you or if there is no frightening beast following them? Am I to remain on this ridge shooting birds until I see you bearing the kill home?

O.C.: Quiet. The Chief will tell you his plans.

CHIEF: (To the Rival.) You have keen eyes and great skill. I set you were you are needed for the hunt. Whether the deer break or not, when the time comes for the kill, I will fling my sword into the air to call you. There is a great stag leading these deer. When they run in fear to follow him he will stand and fight to keep his flock in order. I know your strength and your quickness from the times you have fought me for the place of Chief. When there is danger, I will always want you at my side.

(The Chief and the Rival stand facing one another for a moment. The Chief turns away and speaks to the Boy.)

CHIEF: You, run low now in the underbrush to where you saw deer sign. The old Chief and I will cut lower around the ridge in case the deer have strayed that way. Stay at the highest part of the ridge and we will meet you there to follow the tracks. Whistle three times like a redbird and wait for us. (He demonstrates the redbird’s distinctive cry.) When the rain halts, we will make for the deer. Go. (The Boy dashes off, right.) Go. (The Rival exits slowly, left.) Come. (The Chief and the Old Chief start off right.)

(The Rival lingers for a long look after the Chief. The wife emerges to watch the Chief leave. She sees the Rival, who then sees her. They hold one another’s eyes for a long moment. She looks after the Chief and back at the Rival. He turns and leaves quickly. She stares after him as the stage goes dark.)

(Up instantly on a rain effect center stage, which spreads to include the whole empty stage. The Boy enters from the right, tracking. He locates the trail of the deer, which leads off left, then starts to make the redbird’s cry toward the right. A reply comes from stage left, and he wheels in surprise. He looks quickly stage right, then makes a reply to the left. The reply is immediate, though some distance away. He laughs and calls again, thinking it a real bird. A reply comes from stage left, and then, quite suddenly and quite near, from stage right. He turns, frightened to face the Chief and the Old Chief as they enter from the right.)

(The Boy indicates the tracks, and the Chief and Old Chief discuss in sign language the direction the deer are going, the weather conditions, et cetera. During this, the call comes from the left and the Boy looks quickly in that direction, then back to the discussion.)
CHIEF: Very well. We will wait here for the rain to stop. (He and the Old Chief squat to wait.) We need full sunlight for the sign of my sword to call my Rival to us. The deer will seek shelter in the forest till the rain is over. (The call comes from the left.) Why does that one bird call in the rain?

BOY: It must be in answer to my call. Before you answered, I thought it must be you, coming from that way.

CHIEF: (Stands.) I heard you calling many times.

O.C.: (To Boy.) You must not play games with the birds and risk frightening the game. You should be left at home with the women.

(The call comes again from the left—and then an answer, from farther away.)

CHIEF: (As the Old Chief stands.) Something comes this way.

O.C.: No, the birds would make a different cry if there were danger.

CHIEF: What would you do?

O.C.: This is very strange. You must decide.

CHIEF: (To Boy.) You. Go very low and very quietly. Follow the track of the deer halfway down the ridge to see if there are tracks following them. Call back to us with this cry every hundred paces. (He demonstrates a different bird call.) When you can no longer hear my reply, come back. Go no farther and make no other sound. (The redbird cries are heard again.) Hurry. Quickly. Quietly.

(The boy exits left.)

O.C.: What do you think?

CHIEF: I wanted the boy away. I think he will be safe. We must talk.

O.C.: You think it is your Rival whom you set to watch, coming this way.

CHIEF: No bird calls and calls in the rain. Have you ever heard one?

O.C.: I have seen many things, but I have never seen this.

CHIEF: What do you mean?

O.C.: When I was Chief of the people, I fought many men many times for my place. There were many men whom I feared—I may say this now, though you may not—but I never feared a man who had challenged me before other men. Whenever you show your strength to your rival, you show also that you know his strength and his pride, and that you honor him. Do you think he would come hunting you in secret and in the rain, so that his strength would be in doubt and all would know he had no courage? Would the people follow him then?

CHIEF: Then what do you think? A bird is crying in the rain. How do you read the sign?

O.C.: I read it as something strange, and as something I do not know. When the boy returns, we will know something more.

CHIEF: He must come soon. When the rain ends, we will lose this thing in the cries of all the birds. When the boy calls, I will make no reply. (Boy calls.)

O.C.: I think you have forgotten that we came to hunt the deer.

CHIEF: We will hunt this instead.

O.C.: We are here to hunt fro food to feed the people.

CHIEF: There is a man hunting me in the forest. Without me, where will the people be?

O.C.: You do not know this.

HIEF: I do know it.

O.C.: How do you know? (The Boy returns.)

CHIEF: (Pulling rank.) I am the Chief and I will decide what will be done. Would you rule instead?

O.C.: (Helpless with the Boy present and listening.) The Chief is the head of the people. Like a man, the people cannot think with two heads. The Chief should listen to the thoughts of the people, but he may not be questioned nor his choice disputed.

CHIEF: And I have chosen to hunt this thing down. (To Boy.) What have you found?

BOY: I do not know who to say it.

O.C.: Tell the Chief what you have seen.

BOY: I found the track of a man.

CHIEF: I knew that he would hunt me. I knew that he would kill me, even though he could never lead the people. He has no thought of the people, but only thinks of me.

BOY: But…

CHIEF: Did you see him? Did he see you? From which way does he come?

BOY: From the wrong way. From the way the deer came, but across their trail and then with it. And…I do not know what to say…

CHIEF: Tell me. Tell me or I will throw you off the ridge.

BOY: There were the tracks of more men, two men, three.

CHIEF: (After a pause.) Our own tracks from the hunt two days ago.

O.C.: No, we were nowhere hereabouts.

CHIEF: But what then? Has he brought the women with him? Or the old men?

BOY: No, they were light tracks, young men, and not of the people. I know the tracks of the people. Our people.

CHIEF: Then—other men.

BOY: Other men? Are there other men? Where are there other men?

CHIEF: (To O.C.) Where are there other men?

O.C.: There are other men following the deer.

(The cry comes, three times, from different directions.)

CHIEF: We must be silent, and we must be fast.

O.C.: What do you man to do?

CHIEF: They are near. They have heard the boy’s cries, and our. They come this way. They will be upon us soon.

O.C.: But—Do you think thy mean to fight?

CHIEF: Certainly they mean to fight. They will not bear our following the deer. (The cry comes again.) Three of them at least. We must not be caught here.

O.C.: But unless they are very many, there are deer enough for many people.

CHIEF: (Ignoring Old Chief.) Boy, quit hopping up and down and listen to me. You will go back, behind us. We will all run low and go separately, down through the forest to the valley, making the cry of the mallard – (Demonstrates it.) – so they will think we are many. Wait until we are past them before we begin to make the cry. They will turn and follow us and we will wait for them at the bottom of the ridge., where the sun will blind their eyes. The boy will run in the tall grass to the meadow, making the cry first here, then there, as if we had many men with us.

O.C. Why do you wish to fight them?

CHIEF: If they come upon us, they will kill us. They will take our hunting grounds. They will come to the village and take our women.

O.C: How do you know they will do this?

CHIEF: How? Because it is what I would do.  Come.

(Exeunt in three directions. The redbird cries grow nearer and nearer. Then we hear the mallards’ cries. The stage goes dark.

(The sounds rise to a high pitch, then suddenly diminish and vanish. The lights come up on the Rival, a string of red birds over his shoulder.)

RIVAL: When will you throw the sword? I am tired of shooting birds asleep on the limbs. The rain has left this ridge now and the meadow is turning yellow in the sun. Are you already in the tall grass cutting the stag and taking his antlers for your son? Will you call me only to help you tote it into the village? I have heard you calling with the voice of the redbird, again and again, to let me know that you are deep in the forest without me. The redbirds. You told me to stay and shoot the sleeping redbirds. What if I were to track the cry of the redbird and let an arrow fly? What then? Who then would be Chief? Who then would meet the stag and hear the women sing his name into the old songs tonight around the fire while he gives the antlers to his son? Whose wife will sleep under the skin of the stag? No, I would not have my wife sleep under your skin with the mark of my arrow in your back. I will meet you again on the open field when the spring comes, and we will know if my strength has grown to match yours. Then we shall see who waits in the wet trees for the sign of the Chief’s sword thrown into the air. I shall show you mercy for your strength and courage when I have you down before all the men in the village. I shall plant my foot on your chest and hold my sword above you while they see that I am Chief, first and strongest of men among them all—then I shall smile in your face and throw my sword away into the air so that you remember this day. Oh, you swore that I would be in on the kill, that I should be at your side, that I should be the second one. I have obeyed you, I have followed you. At your word, I have stayed behind. I have sung the songs with your name woven into them. Do not make me nothing or I shall come at you, I who know your plans, I who know where you will be, I who am at your side when you tell your plans, I shall come upon you like the stag in a dream, and bear down upon you while I smile, while you smile, thinking I am safe and loyal. What? The cry! They all cry! Or is it birds? No, the clouds still rest on the far ridge, the birds still sleep or whimper in the wet woods. It must be them. But why do they make the dry again and again to one another? The mallard’s cry. Why do they make the mallard’s cry? So many. Are they all there? Has he called the women or the old men to hunt with him and left me here alone? What have I done? Throw your sword into the air, call me, my lord, I cannot move without your word. Oh, I shall see you slain! There are other men there. What is that? Ha1 The flash of your sword. I come, my lord, your death comes. Another. And another. Have they given the boy a sword? I hear metal on metal. What voices are those? No! No! No other man shall touch my Chief! (Exit with a cry. Darkness.)

(The bird-cries and the battle sounds crescendo. The sounds stop abruptly. The Chief’s wife enters downstage, calling.)

WIFE: Come back! Come back! Don’t fight! Don’t play over there.

(An OLD WOMAN enters. They set to work pulling weeds.)

WIFE: Oh, they won’t do anything they’re told. They’re his sons. All they want to do is run away into the forest.

O.W.: He goes to the forest to hunt. He returns to feed the people.

WIFE: He hunts only so that he can run away. But he loves the hunt.

O.W.: And where would the people be if he did not?

WIFE: We could raise enough here in the fields, if we had the men to help us, to feed the people. But no, he must take the men away to chase his deer and lions while I do the work.

O.W.: The men follow him gladly.

WIFE: They are as bad as he is. They are like the children, nothing but games and noise and trouble. The children and the men only come back to us to be loved and fed.

O.W.: Then they will always return.

WIFE: Do you think so? I wish I did. Someday—I have dreamed it—someday he will go into the forest. I have seen him in a dream, his back turned to me, his hair in the sun, golden as the sun, disappearing into the forest forever. There he finds some one great beast to follow, and follows it far away, and I never see him again.

O.W.: He would return.

WIFE: Only to flaunt the beast before you all, to hear you sing songs about him. He loves to hear you all call him the strongest, the best, the bravest, the loveliest, the savior of the people.

O.W.: Gladly we offer him our praise.

WIFE: Even that can never hold them away from the forest. Do you remember last year when they made the great killing of deer, when we had food for many days dried and strung in the huts? At first he laughed and played with the children all day, and at night we feasted and drank and danced around the fire. He and the other men built new huts and repaired the old ones, and even helped us to clean the skins of the deer, and came out into the fields with us. And every night we made love, and every morning. Then he began to be restless. He would rise early to sharpen his sword and make arrows. They would meet to practice with the bows and arrows, shooting first at trees and then at birds. I could hear them making battles with wooden swords all around the huts. They would sit in the sun in the hot part of the day, talking and singing about the great hunt., and about old hunts, and when they talked of them they laughed. He began to toss and turn all night, making noises and running in his sleep—like a dog. He taught the boys to hold spears

O.W.: So they must learn.

WIFE: Learn? They learn by themselves. Every twig is a sword and every bush a great deer. They beat the birds out of the bushes and throw stones at the birds. But it was not enough for him to make hunters out of the children, to make them unruly and troublesome for me. He began to quarrel with the other men. He began to stay in the house and quarrel with me, and to want to make love whenever there was work to do. The men stopped gathering together and stayed in, or wandered about alone among the huts. They began to hunt one another. He watched the other men through the window of the hut, and there would be no words between them as the men went by. I was glad to see him at last go back to the hunt, for he was of no use to the people.

O.W.: Yes, it is good to see them go.

WIFE: He goes for no reason but to show that he is strong, that he is bravest of men, as in your songs.

O.W.: Hs strength is the strength of the people. His courage is our protector and our provider. His eye watches over our safety, and his rule keeps the people one. You should be happy in his love.

WIFE: He does not love me. Only because the other men wanted me. Only because I was called the most beautiful, the fairest in the tribe. When he chose me, no other man would have come near me. It is not that he loves me. It is that I am his own. All things are most glorious that are his own. His sword, his bow, his sons. He would not come back to me if it were not for that. That and the glory you give him, and the comfort of his home.

O.W.: Without him there would be no comfort and no home.

WIFE: Then how long will they be gone? Why does he not stay here with the people instead, here in his home? Why must he fool around in the forest? Why does he not stay here with the elders and his sons? I have to stay here. Why must I stay with the old people and the brats? The meadow, he said he was going to the meadow. How far is that? Not far. Once when I first came to stay in his hut, we walked to the meadow. It isn’t far. He is gone long because he cares nothing for his people and his home. We are nothing to him.

O.W.: Many things can happen to make the hunting long.

WIFE: What things?

O.W.: The deer may hide, or they may be few and the finding hard.

WIFE: He said there was something following the deer, that their numbers grew few.

O.W.: Or at times they sit around a fire and sign after the hunt.

WIFE: No, he would not. He knows I would be furious if he did. He said there was something following the deer. He would follow it, he would, he would chase it into the mountains, however hard it was to follow, no matter if he caught it, no matter who long.

O.W.: You must have faith in him and be patient.

WIFE: No, he is gone too long, I know it, much too long.

O.W.: You must wait.

WIFE: Why should I be forced to wait for a fool like him?

O.W.: You must tend his sons.

WIFE: For what do I tend his sons if he is gone?

O.W.: What can a woman do? You must wait and be still.

WIFE: I will not wait! I know the way to the meadow. I will go to him. If there is nothing, if he stays to sit around a fire with them and boast, I will call him a fool before them all. If there is harm, if he is hurt, no one else must touch him. I must be there.

O.W.: Will you leave his sons alone?

WIFE: You will watch his sons—or you will be beaten out into the forest to starve. I am the wife of the chief. Do not leave his sons for a moment alone.

(Wife runs off.)

O.W.: Come back!  Come back! Oh, children come here! Come back! Hide in your homes!

(Darkness. The cries of animals, the cries of men, cries that could be the cries of animals or the cries of men. The crashing and breaking of branches.

(The light come sup center on the Chief, revealing only his chest and head. He bears his sword and speaks in a rage as he swings his sword in the darkness. The sounds continue.)

CHIEF: I know this, I know this, this is not new. This has been in a dream. I have seen this while I slept, when all men would rise against me, when I would fly through the forest swinging my sword at the darkness, and hear the screams of men whose faces I could not see. Die, die—leave me alone, go away or I will kill you. Are you my men? Oh, my sword, I cannot see. Hear me, hear me, my men, leave the forest. I am your chief, and I tell you, if you obey me, leave the forest now, for I can see no faces and I will kill whatever stands in my way. All who do not obey me will die—will die—will die. Call back to me and go on. (We hear “Hallo’s.”) I cannot tell who I fall upon with my blade, I cannot tell what. I cannot tell if it is the limb of a man or the limb of a tree, the trunk of a tree or the trunk of a man, until I hear a cry. I cannot tell if the forest is empty or filled with men waiting, waiting to challenge me for the land and the deer and the women, until I have cleared the forest, until I have cut down every limb, and every man, and nothing stands between me and the huts of the village. I cannot return to the village. I cannot leave the forest and lead them to my home. My home, my village, my people, my wife—I hate them. I hate them. Them. The men who keep me in the forest where the leaves are wet with blood, My men!  Hallo! Halloooo! (No reply.) I will kill. I will splinter the limbs of the trees where the birds cry. I will slash down the thickets where the deer hide. I will thrust my sword into the caves where the lions lie, and set a fire to the stubble until they are gone, till the forest burns like a bonfire to celebrate the hunt. (choral music comes on.) And the people, my people, will sing that I have saved them, that for them I killed, that for them I ravage the Earth, that for them I came through the forest killing men right and left, and laying the land to waste. It was for this that she wanted me to stay from the forest, she knew that this would happen, she knew that men would hunt me through the woods. I will go home, and she will tell me how she knew. I will show her no mercy until I am told. I will go home. I will go home. I will go home.

(The music comes to a peak. He brings the sword above his head. The light spreads suddenly to reveal that he is smeared with blood, and that his wife lies before him, fallen at his feet, staring up at him. Tableau.

(The Chief drops his sword behind him.)

CHIEF: You are here. Yu have come for me. Yu have come to lead me home.

(She takes his hand in one hand, and drags his sword with the other, leads him home as they talk.)

WIFE: I heard your cries. Your cries rang through the forest. The other men have come home. Come home. Come home.

CHIEF: The other men. The other men have come to our home?

WIFE: Yes. The other men of our people. Your men. Our men have come home.

CHIEF: There are other men. We have fought with them. I do not know how many I have killed. I do not know if they are gone.

WIFE: Other men?

CHIEF: They were like animals. They came out of the forest. There were so many of them.

WIFE: Forget them now. We have not seen them. Come home. You see we are near home. We are home.

CHIEF: And they are not here?

WIFE: No, we are here alone.

CHIEF: What are those cries?

WIFE: All the people know their leader has come home.

CHIEF: I cannot hear their song. Do they say my men have come home?

WIFE: They say—They say the young men have come home.

(The Rival and the Boy enter left, bearing the body of the Old Chief.)

RIVAL: Lord!
CHIEF: (Takes his sword.) They are here.

WIFE: Rest, rest, you are wounded.

CHIEF: They have come to my door.

WIFE: It is your own men.

CHIF: I cannot trust them. They left me alone in the forest.

RIVAL: My lord!

(Wife goes to the door.)

RIVAL: Send the lord of the people to us.

BOY: Has he come home?

WIFE: The Chief is here. What do you want?

BOY: The Old Chief is dead.

RIVAL: He was slain by the other men. We have brought his body home.

WIFE: The Chief is weary. Talk to him tomorrow.

RIVAL: Tell him—Tell him that we are here. And that we will follow him forever against these other men. He shall know no challenges and no disputes. We are his people.

BOY: Listen to the song.

RIVAL: All things of any nature are his forever. We will obey him in all things—forevermore.

CHIEF: Who is it? Who is there?

WIFE: Your men. They have come home. They are gone now. (To Rival.) You must go.

O.W.: (Entering, running to the body of the Old Chief.) Oh, my lord! Oh, what will happen to the people now, with their chief dead?

WIFE: Hush! The Chief lives.

O.W.: Your foolish boy? Do you think he can lead the people on his own? With my old man dead, the people will be like the body of a snake without its head, lashing and flinging about without eyes. (To Rival and Boy.) Come, and bring him with you. This day have the people died.

(Old Woman, Rival, and Boy exit with the body of the Old Chief.)

CHIEF: Who is there? Are my men home?

WIFE: Yes. You are—all home. Now, rest. Rest. I will wash your body. I will clean your wounds.

CHIEF: No. Your touch makes me weak. I must be strong.

WIFE: …..You think that the other men will come here.

CHIEF: How do you know? Tell me how you know. I was thinking they will not rest. They will come after me in my own home. How did you know my thoughts? How did you know?

WIFE: I do not know how I know.

CHIEF: You know all. You knew that they would come. You came into the forest because you thought I would not come home. How did you know?

WIFE: If I had not come for you, would you have not come home? Would you have not come home to me?

CHIE: Why do you say that? How do you know?

WIFE: My chief is strong. He would not rest while there was danger to his home.

CHIEF: You try to hide from me. You fear my anger.

WIFE: My lord is strong. He would not fight with women. I am here to soothe his body and to make him strong.

CHIEF: You make me weak.

WIFE: No. No. I strengthen you. I give you rest. I pour cool water on your arms. I wash your brow. The body of my lord is hot and burning and golden as the sun. I wash him with cool water, cold as the moon. He must rest and once again grow strong. For in this strength is my strength and the protection of the people. I stroke new strength into his arms that it might flow into his sword. I press my lips upon his body that my breath might beat against his own. I give my body to him that he might fight for it, for my body is his body. I would have him know I am his body. My body is his own.

CHIEF: No. You want to bind me here that the other men may come upon me. They will come upon me and find me weak, with my strength in your body and not in my own.

WIFE: I would hold my lord’s strength that he might take it back more strong. That he might rest without his strength, to renew it in the deep well of my love.

CHIEF: No, this will not be done.

WIFE: You need not fear that you must fight the more for owning me. The men would come to fight you even if you were here alone.

CHIEF: How do you know? How do you know all things? Tell me how you know.

WIFE: I do not know all things.

CHIEF: You hide it from me when it could make me strong. You make me weak, claiming to make me strong. I will go now, I will go out and find them. You know nothing in truth, For you are foolish and weak and poor. I must go out and meet them while I am still strong.

(Enormously, weakly, pathetically, he stands, lifts his sword with difficulty, and starts out, limping horribly.)

WIFE: NO! You mustn’t go!

CHIEF: You are a woman and a liar and a weakling. I must go.

WIFE: You do not have to go. They will come here.

(He pauses, his back to her.)

CHIEF: How do you know?

WIFE: By—by the movement of the moon as it moves beneath the forest. Yu were right this morning. Women have—special ways of knowing things that no man may know. The other men will go to their homes and their women to rest. But then they will come after you.

CHIEF: You speak the truth. They will come.

WIFE: Yes, do not go. Let them come here. Your strength is here. Let them come frightened and weak and unaided far from their homes if they will. Wait for them here, here where you have weapons and food and men, here where you know the land. Wait for them. They will come before long.

CHIEF: Always tell me the truth. Do not hide from me and make me afraid , like the men in the forest.

WFE: They will come. But you will be here. You will be rested. You will be strong. You will be washed and cared for. And I will tell you. I will watch the sun as it grows more strong. I will watch its clouds and its disturbances—and I will tell you—by the sun—when they will come.

CHIEF: You know all things.

WIFE: I know all things.

CHIEF: Tell me of their leader. I must know of him.

WIFE: Their leader? Their leader is a bold and powerful man. His people love him, for he promises them nothing and gives them everything. He is a fool who believes that he can defeat all things. His dreams are fevers, he sleeps in terror, and in the day hunts down his fears in the forest. But he can be defeated, for he refuses to know himself. That will be his downfall.

CHIEF: Oh, you are right. He is a fool to come against me.

WIFE: But he will come. Be sure of that. When he is recovered from his terror in the forest—

CHIEF: Oh, I did, I terrified him!

WIFE: –then he will call his people and he will come. And always, always, the people will follow him.

CURTAIN

[ONE] RICHARD BARR, ELLEN STEWART, LANFORD WILSON, and ME – NEW YORK, 1976 — Shot in Phebe’s Bar and Ellen Stewart’s apartment — includes scenes from plays of Lanford’s and mine.
THIS IS AN EXHAUSTIVE EXAMINATION, INCLUDING ELLEN STEWART DISCUSSING JOE CINO.

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[TWO] BAD EXPERIENCES IN THEATRE – NEW YORK, 2006

MY “COFFEEHOUSE CHRONICLE,” ABOUT TWO HOURS, WITH SONGS AND JOKES AND SAD STUFF, TOO, ABOUT THIRTY YEARS IN THEATRE.

FAIRLY FUNNY. AT ABOUT 5 MINUTES IN, THERE’S A LONG, SILENT CLOSE-UP OF THE SCRIPT WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE AN AMUSING VOICE-OVER DESCRIBING THE PLAY’S PLOT. AT THE END, THE EMPTY VAN WAS SUPPOSED TO CARRY OFF THE CAST AND THE SET ON TOUR!
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[FOUR] THE ART OF PLAYWRIGHTING – MINNESOTA, 1990

AMUSING INTERVIEW BY STUDENTBrian Mastre

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[FIVE] INTERVIEW – MONMOUTH NEW JERSEY – LATE 1980S
DONNA DOLPHIN DOES IT WELL

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[SIX] “THE 4 WILSONS – TYPES OF GAY THEATRE” – MINNEAPOLIS 1990

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[SEVEN] THOUGHTS ON ELLEN STEWART

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[EIGHT] TRIBUTE TO LANFORD WILSON 2011

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

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[NINE] TRIBUTE TO DORIC WILSON

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[TEN] AUTHOR’S INTRO TO “KENNEDY’S CHILDREN”

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[ELEVEN] DEDICATION OF CINO PLAQUE, April 8, 2008

Part 1 of 2: Dedication outdoors, about 30 minutes

Part 2 of 2  Speeches by Cino Survivors indoors, about 1 hr.

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[TWELVE]

Televideoed 2011 interview with a Chicago paper. I’m afraid you must log oto Facebook for these four videos.

(a little slow because I pause to hear questions)

above: PART 1 of 4–”Kennedy’s Children” and Off-Off Broadway

above: PART 3 of 4–”Kennedy’s Children” and Off-Off Broadway

above: Part 4 of 4 –”Kennedy’s Children” and Off-Off Broadway

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[THIRTEEN]

PART 1 of 2 - WILLIAM M. HOFFMAN interviews LANFORD WILSON – 2004

PART 2 of 2 - WILLIAM M. HOFFMAN interviews LANFORD WILSON – 2004

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[FOURTEEN]

PART 1 of 2 – WILLIAM M. HOFFMAN interviews DORIC WILSON – 2011

PART 2 of 2  - WILLIAM M. HOFFMAN interviews DORIC WILSON – 2011

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[FIFTEEN]
2007 TRIBUTE TO DORIC WILSON

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[SIXTEEN]

DVD talk on “Caffe Cino: Birthplace of Gay Theatre” 1 1/2 hrs.

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[SEVENTEEN]

“In the Life”: Cino artists descibe founding gay theatre. 2007

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[EIGHTEEN]

Director Marshall W. Mason describes meeting his lifelong artistic and professional partner, playwright Lanford Wilson.

Much more of Marshall on Lanford and himself HERE.

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[NINETEEN]

H.M. KOUTOUKAS, BOB HEIDE, and JOHN GILMAN, 2005

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[TWENTY]
14 minutes of RADIO with only my crummy apartment to watch, with sections of me eating while beaming approval of my own performance as I am interviewed by Vash Equality Boddie. (: 2011

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38-Minute 2002 interview shows Ellen as director in rehearsal from about 20:25

109 second prelude to a PBS special on the occasion of La Mama’s 25th anniversary, generously shared by director Demetria B. Royals

6 minutes, 34 seconds. BOB DAHDAH praises Ellen for saving the Caffe Cino; Ellen tells how La Mama is run.

2 minute, 59 second song written for La Mama’s 40th anniversary

1 minute 15 second plea for funds by Ellen

48 seconds, Ellen at a ceremony naming a theatre after her

2 minutes, 47 seconds–one of Ellen’s thousands of  “biddies” praises her

28 minute, 54 seconds rather restrained interview with Ellen

6 minutes, 1 second DONALD L. BROOKS’ video of Ellen’s Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Longer 5 minute 25 second version of song written for La Mama’s 40th anniversary

13 minutes 53 seconds My first response to news of Ellen’s death

MY BRIEF STINT WITH FAME

videoed at La Mama E.T..C. October 1990

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ACT TWO – NATIONWIDE

13 SUPERSTAR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z0tgzryvj8&feature=channel

14 PRODUCER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f5-Fb0ppSs&feature=channel

15 DRAMA TEACHER 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FnVLV_ttf0&feature=channel

16 DRAMA TEACHER 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwC6TrInehA&feature=channel

17 FARMER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCFx1nUARMU&feature=channel

18 TV STAR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqMyk_cK1IU&feature=channel

19  OFFICE WORKER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bltvq1mb0As

20 LABORER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s02NGJUiD7k X

21 PROTESTOR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXirirUEz54 X

22 HUSTLER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdGksWjPl0k&feature=channel X

23 NIECE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0-J8KKUWPM

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photo by Andrew Adam Caldwell
Robert Patrick
1837 N. Alexandria Ave.
#211
L.A. CA 90027
tel: 323-661-4737
e-mail: rbrtptrck@aol.com
IM: rbrtptrck
SKYPE: robotpetrock
74 Caffe Cino Picture pages HERE.
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I was brought back to Hollywood to write a TV special for Marlo Thomas.  She housed me in the Beverly Hilton Hotel with an IBM Selectric, the greatest of all typewriters.  Inspired by the fortune she was paying me, the fact that my crush Lily Tomlin was to be her co-star, and by my own unpleasant experiences with friends since I got famous, I whipped out a playlet about two roommates whose relationship changes when one of them becomes a star.  It took me an hour, and would have taken less if the typewriter ribbon hadn’t run out.  The hotel was terribly embarrassed that it couldn’t supply one on Sunday.  I called Marlo and told her that “the pages” (as they call scripts in TV) wouldn’t be ready until the next day.  She said, “Oh, don’t worry.  I have several other writers writing things for me in that hotel.  They must have ribbons.”  She called back and sent me up to a suite occupied by Elaine May, the genius who wrote A NEW LEAF.  We two New Yorkers dished the silly Hollywood people for a while, and then she gave me what I needed and we returned to working for their silly money.

Marlo was astonished that I’d turned out the work in a day.  She insisted I stay my contracted month for “rewrites.”  As it turned out, none were needed, but I spent a lot of time at her Brentwood mansion while she asked her agent, her manager, her chauffeur, and her cook what they thought of the script.

Dave Geffen, at that time her lover and the CEO of Warner Brothers, was camped in her house with a cold.  On the day he felt well enough to come downstairs, this movie mogul wore himself out trying to impress a mere ratty writer.  “You know how important I am?” he bellowed.  “I get to cast the lead role in THE EXORCIST II, the most-coveted lead role of this decade.  You don’t believe me?”  I quite believed him and only wanted him to quit shouting, but he went on, “I’ll prove it to you!  I’m gonna pick up this phone right now and give that role to—to–Jon Voight!”  Though clearly he had improvised the choice, he determinedly began to dial.  Marlo winked at me and said quietly, “Jon Voight?  As a minister?”  Geffen broke out in a sweat, slammed the phone down, and asked, “You don’t think so?”  Making faces for my benefit, Marlo mused, “Oh, I don’t know.  Don’t you think more maybe, oh,…Richard Burton?”  Geffen slapped his thigh.  “Of course!” he exclaimed, “Richard Burton is the ideal choice.” And in front of me, he called Burton’s agent, and two days later Burton was in Hollywood in a beautiful sweater for a press conference alongside Max Von Sydow.  I complimented Marlo for her acuity about the casting.  She replied, “Oh, Bob, I don’t care who plays in THE EXORCIST II.  Nobody really cares.  I just wanted you to see how things get done.”

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