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Steamboat Chambers
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Posted: Tue Feb 19th, 2008 02:05 am |
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Sorry it's so long. Hope a few of you are able to make it to the end, so I might hear some feedback. i've been lurking on this site for about a month now, frequenting the forum on competitions and submission opportunities. Thanks for putting that stuff up there. Very helpful. I'm happy to be on board!
Canaries Down a Mineshaft
*For mother's everywhere, who know what is best and, in place of what they don't, intuit the rest.*
-1,000 Welcomes
Scene 1
At curtain, Thomas straddles a stool in the center of the stage, bent over a soft, white block of wood resting on his knee balanced by his hand. The other hand carefully guides the blade of a pocket knife across the edges of the wooden block. A low lit lamp sitting on an end table lights his work area. Dust and shavings flitter off the block and shower to the ground; an accumulation collects around his feet. He wears a long-sleeved plaid flannel shirt with its unbuttoned cuffs rolled back above his wrists and a pair of snug carpenter jeans bespeckled by a spectrum of dried paint stains and threadbare. To his left, a pillow and blanket lay on the floor. His foot taps, gradually louder, and the pounding wakes his mother Constance who sleeps in a nearby room. Constance is a mixture of all things domineering and all things sweet, from which escape is impossible and unwanted. Thomas takes for granted that her decisions bear his wants and needs in mind, and because of this, he is reluctant to act willfully on his own behalf, and because of this, his age has cut in front of him, and he has not fully grown out of late youth into a rootless adulthood.
CONSTANCE (off-stage) Thomas! Thomas, what's going on up there?
(He doesn't hear her.)
CONSTANCE Tom! Tooommm!
He straightens, and his hands come to a halt, his attention given to listening. She is heard climbing the staircase to his room. Her speech increases in volume as she nears. Thomas sets his knife on the stool, switches off the lamp, and crouches to the floor to blow away the dust and wood pieces. Forgetting his knife, he scampers to the blanket and pillow and assumes an asleep pose.
CONSTANCE What's going on up there? Did you sneak a girl into the house?
CONSTANCE (knocking lightly) Tom? Caution me, please, if I shouldn't trespass. Are you decent in there? I'm giving you a four count--one, two, three, four. I'm coming in.
Constance enters carrying a glass of water and two nighttime sleeping tablets. She reaches around for the light switch, turns it on. Conditioned by the darkness, her eyes automatically squint to narrow slits and her head veers away from the light source. She wears scarlet satin pajamas, the sash around the waist tied in a bow. Her face appears paralyzed, still needing to undergo the thaw that reanimates facial expression after a deep sleep. An entanglement of statically-charged fly-aways spring from her head in the likeness of dandelion fuzzies bent crooked by the surge of a child's warm breathe. She finds the knife on the stool and picks it up.
CONSTANCE What's going on in here? Hey...answer me. It's two in the morning. Quit your playing possum--it's unrealistic. (She nudges him with her foot.) Alone down there? You tried this on me Thursday night, and when I came to rouse you Friday morning, long after you overslept for your interview I scheduled with the roofers, the Tylenol P.M.s had disappeared and the water glass was half-empty. (She sits the glass of water and the pills on the end table.) Take these would you?!? Slow down these activities. Your nocturnal habits are the only thing saving this poor portrayal of a possum. (She nudges him again.) Answer me. (examines knife) I tell you every time I find one of these that I don't want this weaponry in my house. They are the tools of criminals, and downstairs--oh, I won't tell you where--but downstairs, I have, collected, an assorted cache to equip a small army. Are you drunk? (She smells his shirt, sighing when she stands back up.) This isn't a boardinghouse I'm operating, and I'm no nightwatchman. I'll evict you. (pause) Go to sleep boy.
(She looks over the knife in the light before switching the lamp off. She exits. )
Blackout. (very brief)
Scene 2
Upstage center, a rectangular metal frame suggests the area of a large window. Flutted cream curtains, the richness of buttermilk in a saucepan, hang at both sides of the frame, tied back in the middle of their length by rose ties. The scene upstage center, as it appears framed between the curtains, has the snapshot quality of changelessness, the same static replication of a place in time we would see if looking through the eye hole of a child's shoe box diorama.The stool from scene one sits behind the window, intended to be outside the house's interior. Stray rays of muddied orange and copper light intermingle with a grand saffron exuberance to flood the space. A birdbath with three stuffed birds perched on its rim captures the yellowest rays, lending it the luridness of a holy altar. Birds sing in the distance. A table, on which lies a gallon of milk, bread, sugar, spoons, and two bowls, has been moved into place stage right. A ragged corduroy jacket hangs from a coat rack, stage left. The end table remains, on it the same lamp and a rotary dial telephone. Business attire, shirt, slacks, and tie, drapes over the table’s complementing chair. Constance, with coat on over her pajamas, tears bread into the bowls, shakes sugar over them, and pours milk into both. Thomas huddles in the chair.
CONSTANCE Put your coat on if you're cold.
THOMAS I'll be okay.
CONSTANCE You have anti-freeze in your veins? You don't appear to be, o-kay.
THOMAS (stutters) I am okay.
CONSTANCE The energy man turned the heat off. Your father quit sending payment. I got a call from the energy man that he was cutting off service. Thought you should know the reason for the artic temperatures in here. Put your coat on if you're cold.
THOMAS I'm just fine.
CONSTANCE You don't appear to be, just fine.
THOMAS Well I am.
CONSTANCE Where's the puss this morning?
THOMAS Meeoooowww!
CONSTANCE Where is she?
THOMAS Meeeoooow!
(Constance slides bowl across table to Thomas.)
CONSTANCE Eat your pussy soup and give the puss hers.
(Thomas eats a bite of the mush. At the window, Constance smoothes the curtains and looks outside for the cat.)
CONSTANCE I'd prefer you didn't sit on your interview outfit. You are sitting on it. (pause) Don't sit on the clothing!
(Thomas stands and lifts spoonfuls to his mouth.)
CONSTANCE How come you have no appeal to the hiring men? (brushes off dress shirt)
(Thomas shakes his head.)
CONSTANCE Well?
THOMAS (stutters) They know what they like?
CONSTANCE Yes, they do. And what men in your position gotta do is figure out what they like and show them you have or, at the very least, pass yourself off as having figured out their likes, when infact you're still searching.
(Thomas grunts. Constance picks up loaf of bread.)
CONSTANCE Psshhh! It's sad--you and your father--breadwinners. Three months have come and three months have gone since your father and I said our goodbyes before he departed on the ship. He took me to the Carnegie Inn on that night, which was strange to begin with. In all the years I have known him, I have never known him to spend over $20 for dinner, total. Not that night--he shot his wad: appetizers, entrees, deserts, coffees, wine. I was eating extravagances I never knew tasted so good or were even edible. His guilt must have picked up the check because I haven't heard from him for three months or received a check from him in three months; and you got the social overtures of a brick, and they don't pay shit. (pause) His tanker docked in port on the 20th, last month, more than two weeks ago. I know he's back. I had to hear about it from Denise. She says her David told her my Jeffrey walked off the ship with the rest of the crew just as happy as a jaybird, struttin', but your father hasn't so much as called--has he? (pause) He's failing us, you know.
THOMAS (stutters) Lost your appeal?
(Constance moves back to the window.)
CONSTANCE No wife wishes she was someone else when the job picks up, and the bonus checks are in the mail. And they are in the mail. Matter of fact, the checks reached their destinations at most homes. (to Thomas) The crew your father was part of got a bonus check. Denise ran at the mouth to me about the things David bought for her after he got off the ship; the check must be pretty cushy: perfume, a silver bracelet, and a hot air balloon ride--of all things in heaven--a hot air balloon ride? I can hardly believe that. Thomas, is he failing us? Thomas?
THOMAS I don't know.
CONSTANCE Maybe he's just...just...preparing himself for a comeback.
(Thomas shakes his head.)
CONSTANCE I believe, Jeffrey, you've been dropping your loose change in some other lady's meter. Take breakfast out to the cat.
(Bowls in his hand, Thomas exits. Offstage, he calls the cat's name, "Minerva!" fracturing the word with his stutter. Constance pulls the confiscated knife from her pocket. She unties the curtains and makes several long, horizontal cuts down each curtain. Thomas sits both bowls down on the porch. Constance frights when she spots him through the window and quits cutting. She reties the curtains back and puts the knife away. Thomas enters empty-handed.)
CONSTANCE Is she out there?
THOMAS (stutters) No, she isn't.
CONSTANCE Where's your breakfast?
THOMAS (stutters) On the porch for the cat. (pointing to the window) See? I ate what I could stomach.
CONSTANCE Ohhhhh, you had all you could stomach. I see.
THOMAS (stutters) I throw out the leftovers I don't feel like eating.
CONSTANCE Nevermind.
THOMAS (stutters) Do you have candy?
CONSTANCE (laughing in disbelief) No, there's no candy.
(Thomas begins to exit.)
CONSTANCE Stay here. Stay right there! Don't move. (Thomas stops in his tracks.) I hardly had a chance to ask you last night--how was your interview at the bank yesterday?
THOMAS Oh.
CONSTANCE How was it?
THOMAS (stutters) Fine. Seem like real nice people.
CONSTANCE Did you perform well?
THOMAS (stutters) I guess. I didn't stutter any.
CONSTANCE Al took time to introduce you to the harem of pretty, young tellers he has working in there, I hope. It's never too soon to be looking.
THOMAS No.
CONSTANCE (gibingly) No? Doesn't seem like Al not to introduce you to the people you'll be working with. I want you to get on serious with a girl, so I can start compiling a hope chest for you, Thomas, and one of Al's girls matches you perfectly 'cus she'll have the finance background you don't. (laughs) I opened the lid on your hope chest just the other day to see the kind of shape things were in--looked hopeless.
THOMAS (stutters) I'm going out to watch the birds now, Mother.
CONSTANCE You are not. You're going to tell me all about the nature and turns of the conversation you and Al shared. What did the two of you talk about?
THOMAS (stutters) ...baseball, his new motorcycle, highway construction, and the weather. He taught me how I could open an account.
CONSTANCE Don't do that. Opening an account there will blow your chances with those pretty, young tellers. The girls will be able to see your account balance, and your chances will be blown. He didn't ask you to count bills?
THOMAS No.
CONSTANCE Good. Demonstrate on me how you shook Al's hand after he was finished questioning you. Did you shake the doubts out of him?
(Thomas sticks his hand out. Constance takes it and shakes.)
THOMAS (stutters) I reached across his desk and I shook his hand the same way we practiced. I said, "Thank you Al for letting me talk to you. I appreciate your giving me a chance during your busy day to talk to you."
CONSTANCE (shakes harder) Just like this? With your hands just like this?
THOMAS (stutters) Firm, very firm...just like this.
CONSTANCE You didn't talk to him, did you? You would remember the strangeness between two people with opposite sides of dominace when they try to shake hands. Al's left-handed, Thomas, and you are a righty. Stick out your left hand. (Thomas obeys, and simpering, she awkwardly shakes his outstretched hand with her right hand.) There's a lasting impression for ya'! A lot of water over the damn though. I'm so well-adjusted to your lies that I'd be shocked if I couldn't disprove your stories. The lies are squeezing through your teeth, again. (She erratically grabs him by the collar.) Look at my face! Up around the corners of my eyes and along my jaw, notice the snaking faultlines?-- the roadsigns of aging. Everyday my face requires a little more time and effort to make it look like it did the day before. I daub a dab more concealer on every morning to patch the cracks that have grown wider than they were the day before! (She releases Thomas, now cooly...) Time is the world's greatest non-renewable resource. (pause) Evelyne told me where you hide when you are supposedley on interviews for these jobs, under her shrubs, in her backyard, watching her birds. Do different species hang around three doors down?
THOMAS (stutters) I wouldn't say so.
(Constance smoothes the curtains.)
CONSTANCE (calmly) A bird snuck in the house one time, this was before you were born. I might have told you the story.
THOMAS Inside?
CONSTANCE (nodding) Yes, inside. Your father was winterizing the windows, taking out the summer screens and replacing them with the glass panes, and a bird flew into this room, up, over, under, around, and into just about everything worth any salt. Aware that he wasn't welcome and thinking in his small bird brain he could fly through glass back outside, the bird beat himself senseless flying into a closed window to escape when the open window was a foot away.
THOMAS (stutters) Did he die?
CONSTANCE Not in the house. Your father managed to shoe him out and then the damned, winged beast did the same thing in reverse, flew into the glass from the outside trying to get back in. He did die, finally, from this strange flagellation.
(The phone rings. Constance answers.)
CONSTANCE (into phone) Hello. Yes, speaking. Doctor Essock, I was starting to worry I might not get confirmation from you. Thank you for doing this. Ummhmm, badly. Ohh fine thank you; I am fine. Three o' clock is well and good. We'll see you then. Yes. Bye now. (to Thomas) Doc Essock is stopping by this afternoon to examine you, to see if I qualify for a state reimbursement. You won't have to go on any more interviews if you can manage one winning performance for me today--no more dressing up, no more handshakes. (She touches the clothes on the chair.) I want you to act your natural best in front of the doctor.
THOMAS (stutters, picks up dress shirt from chair) Should I dress up?
CONSTANCE What did I just say? No! Put that down! Success depends, this time, on airing all your phobias and wearing that heart of yours--that palpitating ticker that jumps out of your chest whenever you speak--on your sleeve. And talk the way you always talk. Don't swallow your stutter for the doctor, and don’t shake his hand. It sounds contrary--I know--because I try so hard to teach you the right way to act in front of superiors, and I'm no good at explaining things or I would make an effort, but it's come to this. Comfort for me, since your father cut off support, is riding on this visit from Dr. Essock. It's very much a reflexive response to having more than I can stomach. (pause) I should have saved my receipt or the lifetime warranty for the maintenance and upkeep of a clear mind. The thing I'm after now is a clear mind. I'm talking about contentedness, an occasional afternoon walk beside still waters. You're excused. Go watch the birds. (Thomas exits left and reenters behind the curtains. He calmly sits on the stool and stares out at the birdbath.)
BLACKOUT. (brief)
Scene 3
Hours have elapsed. It's mid-afternoon. The set stands unchanged, except for a copy of the National Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, which rests on the table. Thomas still sits outside on the stool. Constance stares out the window at him, in a homey, knit sweater, black polyester pants, stocking feet, and hair band to restrain the reaching fly-aways. A knock on the door.
CONSTANCE: Come in. Please come in doctor.
Dr. Essock enters, an Italian man, mid-50s, short in stature, sable hair and mustache. He is dressed casually for a house call, barn coat over a blue sports shirt tucked into khaki pants, wide-brimmed stetson atop his head, and carries with him a leather medical bag. He sets the bag down on the table and removes his jacket.
DOCTOR Good afternoon.
CONSTANCE Let me take your coat.
(He hands it over to her.)
DOCTOR Gosh God, it’s freezing in here.
CONSTANCE Would you like your coat back?
DOCTOR No ma'm.
CONSTANCE (snatches his hat) And the hat has gotta come off as well.
DOCTOR Aren't you going to ask first?
CONSTANCE (hangs hat on peg) Pretty soon after Jeffrey got back from the war--Jeffrey's my husband--he took me to Baltimore to watch the Colts play. He had on the cap a friend gave him before the friend was killed in the war. Their platoon insignia and the rank and name of his buddy were stitched on the hat and as we were walking past a bus full of evangelicals, probably in town for some big crusade, an idiot reached out the window and pinched the hat off Jeff's head right as the bus started pulling away.
DOCTOR He got the hat back, I hope?
CONSTANCE Certainly did. Banged on the door 'til the driver slowed down. Surged onto the bus, ordered the driver to put the monster in park. The hat was lying in the center aisle 'cus, at this point, the evangelicals could sense there wasn't gonna be any divine intervention and that they had more to fear than God the Father. Jeff had to administer close-fisted justice to four men before he got to the real perpatrator.
DOCTOR Getting between a marine and his fraternity is about the dumbest thing to do.
CONSTANCE Yes, it is.
DOCTOR Where's the boy?
CONSTANCE (pointing) On the porch.
( Doctor Essock moves to the window. Much like visitors watch animals contained in a zoo's captive habitat, the two observe the boy, flanking either side of the window frame.)
DOCTOR What ails him?
CONSTANCE That's why you are here...to find out. I have my suspicions.
DOCTOR What are his physical symptoms?
CONSTANCE Oh, no visible symptoms, Doctor, 'cept for a stutter. You've got the wrong idea about him. Something inside the boy is blighted. No amount of surface level inspection could reveal the deficiency. His is a deep rot. I can't generate any original spin to bend the facts favorably. Thomas is a bad seed. I thought he was a kid making bad decisions, but now I believe he's a bad person facing the devil around every corner. In any case, I figured the comet's tail of his bad streak would burn out, but I miscalculated.
DOCTOR Propaganda in flesh to receive a newly-minted crazy check from the state, Constance?
CONSTANCE (disgustedly) That's crazy.
DOCTOR I can recognize the scent of despair and have seen enough to know what's cooking when its hangs in the air.
CONSTANCE That's crazier still. I think I saved an extra sachet somewhere, should I find it?
(She looks around.)
DOCTOR No. This visit is not to visit, Constance. I am on call to make a ruling on your son's condition, not as your family practitioner but on behalf of and in the service of our commonwealth.
CONSTANCE (talks through feigned laughter) So today you are playing government man? It's all so cloak and dagger. You can decide if I qualify for a crazy check, Mr. Government Man. I'm after my son's health you know.
DOCTOR (hands her a clipboard) Fill this form out for me, please.
CONSTANCE Do you have a pen I can use?
DOCTOR Yes, sorry.
(He fetches the pen, gives it to her, she writes. Silent moment passes.)
DOCTOR (hands in pockets, looking out window) Did you support Joseph Papeleo and the Democratic party in last year's gubernatorial race?
CONSTANCE It's been too long. I can't remember. But I have been a lifelong party supporter.
DOCTOR For which side?
CONSTANCE Sides? Any outting where people have room to dance and drinks to move them along. Why should you ask?
DOCTOR The point I am driving at is that the program that's brought me here was the touchstone of the Democratic platform in the last gubernatorial race. It was their foothold. Governor Papeleo mandated and had legislated this last ditch lifeline.
CONSTANCE (writes) God bless him. I don't mean to behave like I am.
DOCTOR How do think you are behaving?
CONSTANCE Mean as a snake, with undulating enthusiasm, the trait I'll bet you search for on these calls, (points to form) a check box on the bottom part of this form. It’s the traces of maverick Texas cowboy blood I’ve got in me.
DOCTOR: Texas, huh? A proud ancestor of the ol’ Republic.
CONSTANCE: My grandmother was a Texan from Breckenridge, close to Abilene.
DOCTOR: Wish I knew where Abilene was on the map. Probably help me locate Breckenridge. What was your grandmother like?
CONSTANCE: Guess now is as good a time as there ever will be to confess my family’s medical history.
DOCTOR: It’s important for me to know that sorta thing, yes.
CONSTANCE: Do you want me to write it down somewhere?
DOCTOR: No.
CONSTANCE: (hands back clipboard) Good, then here you are. First, you need to know about the properties of Texas blood. Most importantly, it’s like mercury. A person with even a drop of it in them experiences the entire spectrum of emotions in their full intensity.
DOCTOR: So she was…
CONSTANCE: Untreatable. They tell me the lunacy Thomas has is a generational curse and that it skips a generation or two, and if you would have known my grandmother, my mother’s mother, you’d believing the theory with me.
DOCTOR: It’s true in some case. Susceptibilities can be hereditary, but for mental sickness to leap generations is not widely accepted wisdom. What was her name?
CONSTANCE: She had three I called her by. (Doctor jots down notes on clipboard.) Me and my younger sister Percy called her Gran Ha-Ha when we were tiny; she made us laugh. Then it changed to Gran Wild; she had lotsa energy. And Gran Drunkard by the time me and sis were old enough to realize why her wildness made us laugh. That’s the title she took with her to the grave, Gran Drunkard. She watched me and Percy on weekdays, but really we were our own guardians and looked out for each other. Mornings, she sat us on the capitol steps to wait , about the time the rank-and-file boys filed up the steps on the heels of their shiny black shoes, shined to mirror glass, for a song, by the black man Leon, and he was a sitter too, on the curb around the corner in front of Don’s Beverage, the cause for Gran’s abandonment. Gran and Leon were longtime…lifetime pals. They pooled the day’s loose change to buy liquor drinks to loosen their nights. Drink like a drain drinks when a drain feels thirsty is how that pair lived life. (pause) The miracle of all miracles is she survived my granddaddy.
DOCTOR: Was he a drinker too?
CONSTANCE: No.
DOCTOR: Natural causes?
CONSTANCE: Nope.
DOCTOR: Just what’d he die of?
CONSTANCE: Consumption. She consumed the booze. The booze consumed her, and together, they consumed him. –OR— Consumption. The booze consumed her, and she consumed him.
DOCTOR (writes): Let’s classify him: a secondary consumptive.
CONSTANCE: Her drinking habits took a strange detour one morning, shortly after granddaddy’s death. No one in the family was sure what Gran had done with his ashes, but I watched her mistakably drink the dust one morning. She had an old heirloom handcrank coffee mill she didn’t even use and had his ashes holed up in the bottom drawer (compartment). Well, the lunacy had her thinking these were fresh coffee grounds, so she took the remains and put the pile in a filter, brewed herself a batch of mud and drank the entire pot—no complaints. (pause) But you know, from my year’s in your care at your practice, it's nothing pathological in me.
DOCTOR: As a rule, I operate on a different level herein, herein being right here in this house, separate from the relaxed friendship we share at my office. My duties for the state are diagnostic, Constance, nothing else. The state decides on the cure and the best prescription. I mustn’t give pity wiggle room because she’ll fog the objectivity attendant on a fair decision.
CONSTANCE I understand. It's that when I close my eyes (she closes them) I just can't see you in anything but a labcoat. Hold on...oh no. An image of you holding a baby projects onto the underside of my lids. The baby cries, your taking her pulse at the wrist, it's Dr. Essock all right in technicolor and stereo, but you are a dyed-in-the-wool physician. (She opens her eyes.) Give me your hand.
DOCTOR Don't.
CONSTANCE ...for a second. Give me your hand. (she grabs his wrist, and runs her fingers over his hand to his fingertips) Oh, yes, a doctor. I can always spot a doctor in wolf's clothing by his hands. (drops his hand, pause) I’m sorry. I should really be telling you about my son.
DOCTOR: Yes. You should.
CONSTANCE Have you heard the old-time saying--still waters run deep? (Doctor nods.) Well, it's true, they do. Thomas is a bottomfeeder in this river of dreams. He is down there schooling around with the flounders, crabs, and clams. He's an oddity.
DOCTOR To my knowledge, you won't catch a flounder in any river.
CONSTANCE Ohh. (pause, then nasal squeal) Haa! ...what about the (annunciates word) flounder-ers, crabs, and clams?
DOCTOR I don't think so.
CONSTANCE Months back, I approached our minister McKenzie and asked him to place Thomas' name on the churches' prayer chain. He kindly did and told me to allow a couple weeks for angelic mainfestation. I did. Prayers can spend an unbearable length of time in transit, so I waited, patiently and eagerly, but nothing happened. Thomas continued his aloofness. I confronted Pastor McKenzie about there being a lack of improvement, and you know what he told me, he said, "Your guess is as good as mine, Constance." That next week during service, when the pastor was delivering prayer and calling for the names of church members the congregation should pray for, I stood up and shouted, "Thomas (last name)!" A thousand eyeballs turned up toward me, and I heard (pounds tabletop)--thump! thump! thump!--the sound of chins and vertical petitions hitting the floor. It felt like the second-coming, air as thick as gravy. I turned to the people in the pews and declared, "Quit wasting your breath! There is no wish-fulfillment in this sanctuary. Yokes are being destroyed, burdens are being lifted, strongholds are being broken, but not in this sanctuary, no! You'll have better luck fixing your problems with a wrench and hammer. Throwing loose change down a wishing well will serve you all better than dropping it in these bronze offering plates." Then I took Thomas by the hand and we left by the back doorway.
DOCTOR (digs in leather bag) I can imagine how difficult it must be, but tell me about his symptoms.
CONSTANCE A person paying attention to his habits, his ticks and quirks, can't overlook that he's...he is...well, he's taken by a mania. The boy could use an exorcism. It's like looking at a billboard through a telescope, it is. You can't miss it.
DOCTOR But the signals?
CONSTANCE I said, he has no obvious symptoms. It's more complicated than that.
DOCTOR What then is it I can't miss? I'll need to document recordable symptoms and behaviors to evidence this m-a-n-i-a, mania.
(Constance smoothes the curtains)
CONSTANCE (demures bashfully) I suppose I make myself forget the real cause.
DOCTOR I don't suppose facts! Supposing is simple folly where I am concerned!
CONSTANCE Oh no. Than I will say confidently, yes, I do make myself forget the real cause. One credit I accept in myself is the virtue that I can convince myself of anything at any time, even what isn't true, so long as what I am able to convince myself of safeguards me from actuality. There are ways to make the mind forget what it shouldn't remember.
DOCTOR We can either do this the professional way or you can save me the trouble, and I'll get home to my wife earlier than usual.
CONSTANCE How is Ellen doing?
DOCTOR I can handle this the professional way or not at all, I said.
CONSTANCE But Doctor Essock why limit your options when there are so many ways to choose: (counting on her fingers) byways, sideways, highways--two lane or four lane, doorways, secret passageways, skyways, wrongways. They're just some suggestions. You can go however you like.
(Doctor collects his bag and coat.)
DOCTOR I'm leaving...by the doorway.
(Constance turns and falls to her knees, pulling on his shirt tail.)
CONSTANCE No! Please, I need you. His silver lining needs polished. That's what it is, his silver lining needs polished. Corrosion bites away the shine. Stay, won't you?.
DOCTOR I'm not a silversmith.
CONSTANCE (desperately) Stay. Won’t you? Can’t you? Just stay.
DOCTOR (peeved) How does he perform?
CONSTANCE (pleadingly) His performance? Oh geez....I got a good medical analogy for your biological orientation. Thomas, in any endeavor he undertakes, any, is like an ameoba. He pussyfoots around like a slow ameoba made slower under a good spray of methylcellulose. That is, when he decides to move at all. See him out there? (She points to the boy.) You're wondering why he spends ninety percent of his waking hours seated right there--aren't you?
DOCTOR I didn't know he spends ninety percent of his day sitting outside.
(Constance staggers to her feet.)
CONSTANCE He does, excepting, of course, inclimate conditions, snow and rain. The cold is no bother. (She clanks two spoons together so that they might resonate like a tuning fork.) Thomas has perfect pitch. To his ears the finches sing a half step sharp in the key of C and the sparrows are two steps higher than the finches. He is downright obstinate about those birds. He could tell you the placement on the scale for any bird in nature nesting out there.
DOCTOR Is he an idiot-savant?
CONSTANCE Partly.
DOCTOR How so?
CONSTANCE (seditiously) Well he's not a savant! (rationally) Would you look at him out there? It feels like the second-coming. He looks like he's waiting for judgement.
DOCTOR He is.
CONSTANCE Honestly Doctor, Thomas is one of God's blue notes lost somewhere off the grid of life's time signature, a castaway adrift among constellations. An undertow that sucks him into himself has caught him by the ankles and is dragging him out. The world's a stage, but Thomas treats it like a dress rehearsal. I fear he'll become a miscellaneous man, one of the lazies or nay-do-wells. (She grabs the copy of the Audoban.) This book belongs to him.
(Constance tries to hand the book to Doctor. He looks it over, then moves to the window. Dr. Essock taps on what would be the glass that separates him and Constance from Thomas. Thomas is unflinching.)
DOCTOR An ornithologist.
CONSTANCE What?
DOCTOR The experts who study birds are called orinthologists. You could classify Thomas an amatuer ornithologist, for his love of birds.
CONSTANCE (leafs through book) I call him a bird watcher. I don't know anything about the -ologies or the -isms--atheism, capitalism, commercialism, optimisim--not a one, single thing. Don't care to. The -ists are working for the -isms--that's a God-proven fact-- and the whole damned partnership is wretchedley contagious. To ever be a card- carrying -ist, I gotta first be punch-drunk, raving mad...sick with the -ism. (gazes out window, beside Doc) Life's a long, sad fight against invisible elephants.
DOCTOR (tapping window) Bring him in.
CONSTANCE Have I told you about my husband, The Drifter?
DOCTOR I'm ready to see the boy.
CONSTANCE His bundle of admirable traits has been unraveling unnoticeably. You can look at water rushing over a stone and see no change, but little-by-little the water reshapes the stone and takes along downstream with it the stone's original appearance. Pride has soured into arrogance, patience swapped for laziness, ambition for entitlement, honor and dignity for brutishness. I can't understand how a man as beautiful as Jeffery, who Nature obviously took great pains with, could be tossed to the buzzards. An assasin white-washed his personality. He's one of the invisible elephants. I never get any help from him. He works on ships. I haven't seen him in months, so I am strictly guessing that he's working because he hasn't sent any proof of his labors home.
DOCTOR I'm sorry to hear that, Constance. There are thousands of temptations out there. His first move, I am guessing, when he returns from sea, isn’t to move from one place of solitude to another.
CONSTANCE (distractedly) In my own way, I'm an elephant.
DOCTOR Don't be ridiculous.
CONSTANCE But you see, I am. All the work I do to get ahead is for peanuts. What I get from him are peanuts. (She touches Dr. Essock's hair and half whispers in his ear.) I'm just a circus elephant workin' for peanuts. And Jeffrey makes good money on those ships, but I get peanuts.
DOCTOR What's good money exactly?
CONSTANCE I don't believe you, of all men, need me to color it in for you.
DOCTOR You're right, I don't. It's color by numbers. We all know that.
CONSTANCE (contemplatively spellbound) Yes, color by numbers.
DOCTOR A different shade of green for every man. Please, bring him in so the examination may begin.
CONSTANCE (loquaciously) Yes, yes...I mean--No! Not for me. Mine is a shade of red, sanguinely, bloody, scarlet red. I haven't explained to you how I have been keeping this house running and Thomas and me alive. I don't think I have, have I? (Doctor begins to respond, but she cuts him off.) If I haven't told you, the reason is I prefer not to talk about what turns me blue. Blood donation for a few greenbacks a week, blood money. (laughs) The volunteers are happy to have it, I'm happy to give it, and the complete exchange thrills me: I won't have to claim the cash on my taxes, so don't tell Governor Papeleo. I imagine my red blood tracing through a dying soldier's veins, and the thought turns me blue. (A silent moment passes. Constance pulls from her pocket a handful of candies.) You can try to coax him. Explain to him what you'll be doing and then offer him a candy, (Dr. Essock takes the candies and starts to exit.) but good luck, he was born a taurus. Fittingly, a bull's head sits on his shoulders and making appeals fails altogether, usually, without candy. The sugary (Saccharine) sedatives help to prime him a little. They tranquilize him to a point. They are a short-lived playground for his senses, and as a rule, I don't bother building a case to sell my beliefs or to persuade him without these. (Dr. Essock unwraps a candy and pops it in his mouth. He exits.)
(Constance stares out the window, repeats several times to herself, "I've got a bull, but no cash cow." Outside, Doc Essock, holding out the candies, entices Thomas, who hesitantly eats one. After he convinces the boy, Doctor Essock reenters with the breakfast bowls, trailed closely by Thomas.)
CONSTANCE And along came a spider. (sturdily hitting the table) Sit up here Thomas and let Doctor Essock take a look.
(A long moment of silence passes. Doctor Essock sets the bowls on the table.)
DOCTOR ESSOCK (slapping the same spot) C'mon Thomas right here. Up ya go.
CONSTANCE Oh now, just a moment, and I'll have these dishes out of your way.
(Thomas slowly climbs on to the table and sits facing the audience. Constance collects the bowls and spoons and clears them off the table to the end table.)
CONSTANCE There you are, a makeshift examination table.
(Doc retreives a reflex hammer from the leather bag.)
DOC I'm going to tap on your knee Thomas and watch for your leg to kick. This tells me how your lower reflexes are performing.
CONSTANCE What'd I tell you Doctor? He has no obvious symptoms, no ripples on the surface, but do whatever you must do.
(The Doctor knocks on Thomas' knee. His leg kicks abruptly. Thomas laughs.)
DOCTOR Very good. Those are what I call quickdraw reflexes.
THOMAS (holding out his arm, stutters) Knock my elbows--are the reflexes in my elbows?
DOCTOR They are, but I...
CONSTANCE (sarcasticly) Reflexes aren't restricted to the body. (She places a hand on the doctor's shoulder.) They are in the things we do, our actions. (Doc ducks under her hand and fishes in his bag.) Ticklish, Doctor?
(He replaces the hammer with a stethoscope. He puts it on and comes back tableside. Constance moves her hand back to his shoulder.)
CONSTANCE There may be no circumstance in life where reflexive actions are more visible than between a man and a woman making love in the darkness.
(Docotor ignores her and touches Thomas' chest with the stethoscope end.)
DOCTOR: Cough for me please.
(Thomas coughs.)
CONSTANCE I compare it to climbing a mountain blindfolded. (moving her hand lower on the Doctor's shoulder) To find your way you gotta feel for the hills and valleys and over the body's naked relief, its topography. Hahahaha! Masculine architecture is very easy to read. Invisible blueprints tell the hands where to move. Michelangelo cut bodies from stone this way, that is on the principle of invisible blueprints.
(Doctor moves stethoscope to new location on chest.)
DOCTOR (concurrently with Constance) Another for me.
(Doc moves stethoscope, speeds up as Constance continues above explanation.)
DOCTOR Again. (moves stethoscope.) Again. (pause) Good, good. Looks spotless to me.
(Constance grabs the dangling stethoscope end.)
CONSTANCE (touches her heart with stethoscope) Objectionable. You want to hear what's wrong with the situation? Listen, Doctor. This will speak to your heart. Feel it, hear it? The hammer in my chest taps an S.O.S. in Morse Code. Can you hear it in there among the mangled phonetic cries for help, as foreign as Chinese?
DOCTOR (jerks stethoscope out of her hands) Indecipherable! Now stop this game Constance!
CONSTANCE I dont' see this as a game.
(Doctor puts stethoscope back in bag).
DOCTOR I am yet to report and recommend to the state a family for assistance with a patient among them who exhibits the peaceble health your son does.
CONSTANCE But Doctor, you are going off precedent. I have been presenting evidence. Were you listening when I explained to you still waters run deep? There aren't ripples on the surface. Thomas hasn't got a dog in the fight.
DOCTOR (vexed) Evidence? You're evidences are questionable at best. A recitation of home-grown fairytales grounded in poetic license.
CONSTANCE Non-believers. Smokescreens huh?
DOCTOR That's right, window dressing.
(Constance draws a deep breath, turns her back. She roots around for something.)
DOCTOR (to Thomas) Tell me boy, how you feel inside?
THOMAS (stutters) Calm.
DOCTOR Calm all the time or right now?
THOMAS (stutters) Mostly all the time.
(Doctor takes from bag small light and wooden tongue spatula.)
DOCTOR Open your mouth for me. (Thomas opens mouth. Doctor inserts spatula.) Say, "ahhh." (Doctor looks down throat.)
DOCTOR Thomas, are you aware why I came over?
THOMAS (stutters) So I never have to go on more interviews and to never again shake hands again.
DOCTOR That's not true.
THOMAS (stutters) Mom told me that's why.
DOCTOR But it's not, I want to shake your hand. (shakes Thomas' hand) You shouldn't feel ashamed for me being here. Are you embarrased that I have to...
(Constance turns around.)
CONSTANCE (sniveling) Would you like to see the smoking pistol?
DOCTOR Can you show it to me or are you gonna fill in the spaces with a story?
(Constance faithfully lines seven knives, varying in size, on the table.)
CONSTANCE (gestures to knives) The stockpile of cutlery I've seized lately, happy Doctor? His hobbies are criminal.
(Thomas droops his head.)
DOCTOR You took them from him?
CONSTANCE That's correct.
DOCTOR (to Thomas) She took these from you?
CONSTANCE Late at night I caught him fooling around with these in his bedroom. And it was not good.
DOCTOR (acrimoniously) No?
CONSTANCE No....oh no,no, he sits up there and sharpens the knives for the, for this...(Constance unties the curtains, and they fall slack, gaping splits where she made cuts earlier.) He slashed my curtains lengthwise, twenty times yesterday. Don't think for a second the cat did this. Minerva is a tabby, not a tiger.
THOMAS (nervously stutters) Where's Minerva?
(They ignore him.)
DOCTOR Are the knives yours, Thomas?
THOMAS (stutters) The curtains...I didn't cut 'um.
CONSTANCE They're his.
DOCTOR Are they Thomas?
CONSTANCE (pushes curtains) Do you finally see what I mean? I could set a watch to his...
DOCTOR Let him answer Constance! (pause, picks up a knife, to Thomas) These yours? (Thomas looks forlornly at Constance. She stares back blankly for a second then averts her gaze to her feet.) These yours? (Thomas nods in affirmation.)
CONSTANCE I have no money to turn the heat back on.
DOCTOR He's going to have to leave with me. Sixty day mandatory residency at Anna Rose beginning tomorrow. At the end of his stay, the doctors there make the final decision.
CONSTANCE He's not going anywhere! He's my son.
DOCTOR It's procedure, bureacracy. It's how this ugly sort of thing unfolds.
CONSTANCE Your're talking out of both sides of your mouth. No fretting, he's spotless all around. But wait, yes, he must come with me.
(Thomas stares at his feet, swings them back and forth over edge of table.)
CONSTANCE (concurrently) I can see this isn't plain open and shut, that the t's aren't all crossed and the i's aren't all dotted, but can't you just jump through a couple hoops for me--have them cut me a check?
DOCTOR (concurrently) Then give me the chance to talk from each side seperately, one at a time, clear as the sky. (slowly and pronounced, leans close to her face) I will put you on the roster for a support check; however, your son must be committed for evaluation at Anna Rose for sixty days. End of story.
CONSTANCE Is she a nice woman?
DOCTOR Who?
CONSTANCE Anna Rose.
DOCTOR (laughing, helps Thomas out of his shirt) I am giving you what you wanted from the start--lift your arms for me Thomas--complete control of the situation. (sits bag back down, takes dress shirt from chair) Thomas, slide your arms in. (buttons up shirt on Thomas, grabs tie, sizes it on Thomas) This is always tricky tying it on someone else's neck, but I think if I tie first on my neck it won't snug up to a good length on you. Make a decision Constance.
CONSTANCE Tie a double windsor. A more professional knot.
DOCTOR So he's coming with me?
(Constance nods, looks at floor. Doc begins to tie the tie in a double windsor.)
DOCTOR Now you are sure you aren't going to show up at Anna Rose in two hours a complete change of heart? He doesn't need to be torn in two directions.
CONSTANCE I won't do that. (pause, Doc fumbles with tie.) I gotta send my canary down the mineshaft. (stands in front of window) Take his book when you leave. (she speaks as though no one is present to overhear, Doc continues with tie) I'll stay awake and worry myself sick tonight until I get a visit from the Great Emancipator--forgetfulness, and his disinfectant handshake. Then this whole incident will seem like just a small blip on the radar, seismically irrelevant.
DOCTOR There are ways to make the mind forget what it shouldn't remember. Right? (motions Thomas to stand up) He's dressed and ready. Would you like a moment alone?
(Constance assuredely throws one estatic wave goodbye, turns her back to the men. Lights slowly fade out.)
CONSTANCE (whispers) So long. (raises voice) Please keep in touch Doctor.
DOCTOR (collects his coat, hat, and bag) Somebody will. (to Thomas) Say goodbye.
THOMAS (stutters) Ga'bye.
CONSTANCE Don't forget the book.
(Doctor grabs book from table. They exit right.)
BLACKOUT.
SCENE FOUR
Later that night. Crickets drone in the background. Constance is behind table in darkness, no lights. Her arms move busily. Quietly she hums, slowly louder until the tune, "My Favorite Things," is recognizable, then she alternates between singing the lyrics and humming, continuously until she speaks. She slams something down hard on the table and switches lamp on. The lamplight should be soft, not flooding much of the stage. The sliced curtains hang open. In front of Constance on the table are the knives, blades drawn, an unsealed envelope off to one side, and five or six of Thomas' bird carvings, unfinished but unquestionably meant to be birds. Selecting a knife and one of the decoys, she carves away at the wood.
CONSTANCE Mr. Washington. Mr. Washington. The Redcoats are coming. (chuckles) Where are all my wishes? I said, the Redcoats are coming. Hide the wishes. Are the troops in formation? I see that they are. At ease gentlemen. Make your wishes before you go to bed tonight Thomas. (compassionately) Oh child, you have nothing to sail your wishes away on. Fine! (Slams knife and carving down on table, finds Swiss Army knife, pulls out its retracted components. Steadily, using tiny scissors feature on the knife, she cuts her eyelashes into her cupped hand.) Wishes can't make out of the stratosphere without a vessel. Thomas, wish on these. Make them count. (She empties her hand into the envelope, which, when she holds it up, the audience can see has been addressed and stamped. Cuts more eyelashes.) On Mother's Day I'm gonna wish I hadn't sent you these to wish on. Be grateful. On that day I'll look for the breathing proof of my motherhood and wish I had an eyelash left to blow off my finger when none turns up. (puts eyelashes into envelope) Checks will be in the mail for me soon. (licks envelope, seals it) I think you'll like getting mail. I always have. (signs "My Favorite Things")
CURTAIN.
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in media res
Member
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Posted: Wed Feb 20th, 2008 07:49 pm |
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steamboat,
For some reason you have reverted to "guest" rather than member status. Try to sign on a member again. PM edd as to how.
Otherwise no one will want to critique further, but I will post this partial for you, to encourage you to re-register.
in media res
I just read the first scene so far. I am intrigued to read the rest. Here are some quick impressions for you. I’ll get to the rest later.
I really like your honest portrayal of these incredible characters. Iam very taken with them. Very specific. I am looking forward to more.
Remember, these are just my own quick opinions.
I like the description at the beginning very much but I would edit it.
This part is good:
At curtain, Thomas straddles a stool in the center of the stage, bent over a soft, white block of wood resting on his knee balanced by his hand. The other hand carefully guides the blade of a pocket knife across the edges of the wooden block. A low lit lamp sitting on an end table lights his work area. Dust and shavings flitter off the block and shower to the ground; an accumulation collects around his feet. He wears a long-sleeved plaid flannel shirt with its unbuttoned cuffs rolled back above his wrists and a pair of snug carpenter jeans bespeckled by a spectrum of dried paint stains and threadbare. To his left, a pillow and blanket lay on the floor. His foot taps, gradually louder, and the pounding wakes his mother Constance who sleeps in a nearby room.
We know a lot about where he lives and how he lives by the visual you paint. And you paint it well.
But, I would cut all the following and I will tell you why. You do not need it: “Constance is a mixture of all things domineering and all things sweet, from which escape is impossible and unwanted. Thomas takes for granted that her decisions bear his wants and needs in mind, and because of this, he is reluctant to act willfully on his own behalf, and because of this, his age has cut in front of him, and he has not fully grown out of late youth into a rootless adulthood. “
In the play, through the beautiful, colorful dialogue you have written, we understand this relationship very clearly without all the prefacatory remarks. Let us discover it, rather than you tell us ahead of time. Constance – I love her name – is a great character so far.
I want to know how old Thomas is.
When you write the name of the character speaking use a colon : after the name so it separates the dialogue from the name. It just helps for clarity.
THOMAS: then dialogue
For staging purposes, not sure you need the stairs as things like that cost money to build. But it could be just a closed door and she knocks. But as I read on they also might be vital to the staging.
Great line: Her face appears paralyzed, still needing to undergo the thaw that reanimates facial expression after a deep sleep.
Don’t need: Thought you should know the reason for the artic temperatures in here. We know it already
Great line: and you got the social overtures of a brick, and they don't pay shit.
Don’t need: (pause) He's failing us, you know.
Great line: I believe, Jeffrey, you've been dropping your loose change in some other lady's meter.
Don’t need: I hardly had a chance to ask you last night— this slows it down.
Great line: Good. Demonstrate on me how you shook Al's hand after he was finished questioning you. Did you shake the doubts out of him?
Great line: Everyday my face requires a little more time and effort to make it look like it did the day before.
Eliminate these two lines: I might have told you the story.
THOMAS Inside?
Let Constance just go on telling the story. Those two little teensy lines slow it down and throw us into past tense. Not good.
shoe him out should be “shoo him out”
Great line: I should have saved my receipt or the lifetime warranty for the maintenance and upkeep of a clear mind.
Anyway, welcome to the Forum
Best,
in media resLast edited on Wed Feb 20th, 2008 07:53 pm by in media res
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Steamboat Chambers
Member
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Posted: Thu Feb 21st, 2008 06:48 pm |
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Hey thanks for having a look. I'll keep checking back for more comments. Hope you continue to try and get through it.
Cheers,
Steamboat
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Steamboat Chambers
Member
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Posted: Fri Feb 29th, 2008 12:09 am |
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I know it seems absurd to post replies in my own topic when no one seems to be interested, but if any of you could have a look at this or a chunk of it and make revision/edit suggestions, I'd be greatly indebted. Iplan to submit this to a contest or two, the earliest with a March 15 deadline, so please, if you get a chance comment.
Bests,
S.C.
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