The Plays
Global Warming
by C H A R L E S L . M E E
In the beginning, the stage is dry. During the piece, water slowly rises, until everyone is underwater and has drowned. While the audience waits for the piece to begin: the sound of ocean waves, the occasional call of a tropical bird.
Music, interspersed and overlaid with other sounds, plays throughout the piece. It should begin the piece, as an overture of five or ten minutes, to set an estranged opening viewpoint
The lights come up slowly on a vast, white space, with overtones of tropical pink, orange, crimson. To one side is an astonishingly large vase of fresh flowers. A sense of perfect cleanness, simplicity, and purity.
Seven people are on stage, all with their heads slightly turned, listening intently. Two men, Gallejas and Stanton, sit on cushioned white wicker chairs. The men wear white linen suits. Gallejas wears white gloves and yellow (sunlight) tinted glasses. Stanton wears glasses tinted pink.
They will speak first—and as they talk, projections of them are shown on a screen that fills the entire rear stage, seated in various postures, as though they are pictures from a fashion magazine. The projections fall on different places on the screen. Some are simultaneous, spill over one another, or are projected from the side and distorted
From time to time, during the course of the piece, sentences will appear in moving lights; these are meant to look like the lights for the news of the world above Times Square.
Many of the silences indicated throughout the script, whether long or short, should feel as though a life has ended, the actors drift away into their preoccupations, and then society is reconstituted, with the actors having drifted to new thoughts.
Gallejas is half English and half Spanish or West Indian. Stanton is American Presbyterian.
In another similar wicker chair slightly removed from them sits Lady Aithen with her Lhasa Apso in her lap. She, too, is dressed in white, with a straw hat.
Her husband Howard sits all the way upstage at dead center, apart from all the rest, alone, in a wheelchair. He has had a stroke, and holds his drink in one hand that is suspended from a sling that keeps it near his lips. He wears beige. He will not speak at all for the first forty minutes. (If it is thought that the audience requires more biographical information about Howard, his biographical sketch can be passed out with the program.) Just next to Howard stands a bodyguard in dark suit, arms folded, dark sunglasses. On a chaise longue is Meridee, a young woman, stretched out getting a sun tan She wears pastels. Seated on the end of the chaise is Peter, a young man in white and pastels. At the opening
he is applying sun tan lotion to Meridee. Later he will apply a white facial made of lime blossom extract, which she will keep to the end.
Everyone is drinking a red drink. They eat throughout, choosing from copious amounts of fresh fruits, cheeses, delicacies.
STANTON (To Gallejas.)
Did you hear that?
GALLEJAS
What?
STANTON
That scream.
GALLEJAS
Ah. Yes.
STANTON
I couldn't tell whether it came from inside or out.
GALLEJAS
No.
(They are silent, listening.)
STANTON
I was saying. About the Englishman who was instructing me to hold my
bat. We were on a green in a small village near London, in the direction
of Oxford. A sunny day. He was dressed in flannels, quite correct. In
point of fact, I was extremely happy, so that I was surprised when the
Englishman, in showing me how to handle one sort of pitch or another,
suddenly said, "If you miss them all, then just throw your bat at
the
pitcher's head"—and with that, he threw his bat with terrific force
directly at my head, barely missed me, and shouted, "run!" "But,"
I
said, "that's not cricket." "Cricket!" he said, "I'm
talking about how
to get to first base."
(Gallejas laughs happily and too long. The call of a tropical bird.
Pictures of Lady Aitken join the projections.)
LADY AITKEN
I went to Saks the other day, and I saw, I don't think I've ever seen
them anywhere before, very large, eighteenthcentury Chinese wall
hangings, all in silk, brilliant reds, and blues, and yellows, vast
silks, four by eight feet, beautifully woven, with heautiful moire
patterns, scintillating, appearing and disappearing as the silks
billowed out from the wall, and the silks had on them the faces and
figures of famous Chinese actors and actresses.
STANTON
Amazing.
LADY AITKEN
And no one was buying them! I couldn't understand it. And then I
realized: no one knew what to do with them. No one could even imagine
how to get them home. They were so big. No one knew how to fold them.
Only I knew the secret: a very rare technique for wrapping them around
a
bamboo pole to take them home with me. And I took one. I took the red
silk, and wrapped myself up inside it, and now you can see what's
happened to me!
GALLEJAS
What?
LADY AITKEN
I came out a butterfly!
(All laugh, too long.)
STANTON
Ah!
(A silence.)
Yes.
(He smiles.)
Aren't we all butterflies, really?
(All laugh again. As the conversation continues, pictures are projected
of 12 stages in the preparation of a Mediterranean sea bass. )
STANTON
Have you ever been to Howrah?
GALLEJAS
(After a moment.)
Across the Hooghly River from Calcutta.
STANTON
Yes.
GALLEJAS
(After a moment.)
Trading center.
STANTON
Since 1560.
GALLEJAS
Dusty roads.
STANTON
Old warehouses ...
GALLEJAS
Called godowns.
STANTON
That's the place, yes.
GALLEJAS
Street dwellers huddling under thin blankets at night.
STANTON
Yes. On cool evenings, sometimes, rats will crawl under the blankets,
apparently to get warm.
GALLEJAS
Evidently. We had a factory there.
STANTON
Yes. So do we. Some of the workers sleep in the godowns.
GALLEJAS
I did myself.
STANTON
Really?
GALLEJAS
Dark, dusty place, hot, made rather unpleasant by the cockroaches,
thousands of large brown ones, flew about in the dark and kept getting
into my hair.
STANTON
Nasty business.
GALLEJAS
Yes. At times, more than a hundred rats would be feeding in my room at
one time.
STANTON
Bandicoot rats, were they?
GALLEJAS
Lesser bandicoot rats, Bandicota bengalensis. The adults are seven and
a
half inches long, excluding the tail. Blunted snouts. Rarely more than
ten ounces in weight. Otherwise they resemble the Norway rat. You've
seen them, I'm sure.
STANTON
Of course.
GALLEJAS
Found from Nepal to Sri Lanka, from Pakistan to Indonesia.
STANTON
Extraordinary.
GALLEJAS
Dominant in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras.
STANTON
I should have thought so.
GALLEJAS
Feed on wheat, rice, garbage, insects, dead birds. Preferred wheat or
rice actually. Drank from the gutter, or sometimes from the nearby
latrines. At times I could watch them there drinking my urine.
STANTON
Really?
GALLEJAS
They didn't go out of their way to bother me, I must say. They
investigated me, of course, as they would any object, walking over me,
sniffing. Licking. That's all. Sometimes one of the boys I was with
would kick one of them, or even beat it to death.
STANTON
Really? Why was that?
GALLEJAS
No point to it, really.
(Gallejas laughs. All laugh. A black butler enters, passes a tray heaped
with little sandwiches. Gallejas waves them away. Stanton carefully
chooses a single one. The laughter of a myna bird.)
GALLEJAS
(To butler.)
You didn't scream a moment ago?
BUTLER
No, sir.
GALLEJAS
Do you know who did?
BUTLER
I don't know, sir. It must have been one of the maids.
GALLEJAS
Will you ask her to see me when she has a moment.
BUTLER
Yes, sir.
(Long silence.)
Will that be all, sir?
GALLEJAS
Yes, thank you.
(They are silent until the butler leaves.)
STANTON
Of course they're not easy to prepare.
GALLEJAS
Not easy to bone.
STANTON
Not that hard to bone, but how would you have them? Filets sauteed with
butter, perhaps?
GALLEJAS
A light cream sauce.
LADY AITKEN
I think you might do them as one does quail.
STANTON
How is that?
LADY AITKEN
Well, I don't cook, dear, but however one does quail is how one would
do
rat. I think.
MERIDEE
I'm ready for desert!
STANTON
Haven't we eaten dessert?
GALLEJAS
(politely)
What will you have?
MERIDEE
(Bored)
Well, I know what I want: a sort of an ice cream soda, in a tall,
fluted, crystal goblet, very large, very tall and very big around, you
know what I mean?
GALLEJAS
Yes.
MERIDEE
And it is brought to me.
GALLEJAS
Yes.
MERIDEE
And then, after it is set down on the table in front of me, then the ice
cream is put into it—four, five, six scoops, maybe eight scoops,
vanilla, and chocolate, fudge swirl, strawberry, something with nuts...
[IN MOVING LIGHTS: What was she doing here? Had she been so bored
where she had been? And thought this might be interesting?]
GALLEJAS
Black walnuts...
MERIDEE
Right, or maple fudge nut.
GALLEJAS
Yes.
LADY AITKEN
I don't know.
MERIDEE
And when the ice cream is put in, then the whole thing reacts like an
atomic bomb—I mean the tumult and the churning and the shaft rising
up...
GALLEJAS
Yes?
MERIDEE
And the swirling turmoil, the mushroom cap on top—oh, it's amazing,
you've never seen anything like it; you can see through the sides of the
glass the beautiful swirling and churning, powerful, intricate, complex
movements, and it goes on and on and on, after you think it can't go on
any longer, it still does, going on and on. I'm a visceral person.
(Sound of a helicopter overhead. A long silence. To Stanton. )
What are you having for desert?
STANTON
Oh...I...hadn't thought about it.
MERIDEE
Think about it.
STANTON
Well I think I might have a chocolate mousse.
MERIDEE
Unhhunh.
[STANTON'S VOICE THROUGH LOUDSPEAKER, OR DIRECTLY
TO AUDIENCE: I saw at once that she was disappointed by my choice, so
I
tried to improve it.]
STANTON
I see it arriving, being brought in from the kitchen on the back of a
horse, and I get up to go and meet the horse and take its lead rope to
bring it to the table.
MERIDEE
It's the only way to serve a mousse, really, if you don't want it to
bore you to death.
PETER
The other night at Nigel's, they served Jamaican food, while a Jamaican
band played steel drums and penny whistles, you know, yams, sweet
potatoes, lentils, all warm and steamy, and it all smelled wonderful,
such a wonderful warm happy satisfying meal, and when they brought in
the main course, I knew it would be exquisite, and I had to smell it
right away, it smelled so good, and somehow quite familiar. Why! I said,
it smells like shit! Yes, sir, said the maid. And it was! Jamaican shit!
(He gives a long, loud shrill, whinnying laugh, hoping he has impressed
Meridee. No one else laughs. He subsides.)
MERIDEE
(To audience.)
I don't think of myself as rich. I think of myself as comfortable, yes,
but not rich.
PETER
Well no, yes. I mean no. Doesn't everybody?
INTERLUDE
THE ACTORS sit, silent, all looking out at audience.
MUSIC: Beautiful, quiet, pure—Brian Eno perhaps.
VOICEOVER: A quiet, soft, female voice, a monologue: instructions on how
to care for a gun.
PROJECTIONS: A movie of a young woman at a health spa, with stills, on
a
second scrim, of the same young woman.
NOTES ON INTERLUDES IN GENERAL: These interludes "bleed" both
ways—that is to say, they may begin before the preceding scene is completed, and
the succeeding scene may begin before the interlude has been concluded.
Usually, just one element of the interlude will bleed to form a bridge
with the preceding and succeeding scene.
(During the ensuing scene, Meridee, restless, tries Iying first one way
and then another, gets up, paces, lies down on terrace in front of
others, turns over, drapes herself over the chaise, etc. )
LADY AITKEN
Do you swim?
GALLEJAS
Of course. In hot water.
LADY AITKEN
It's the only sport I can do, really. Good for my back.
GALLEJAS
Yes.
STANTON
I swim when I'm in Greece, Corsica, the Porto Rotondo. Off Cavallo.
LADY AITKEN
Do you swim the breast stroke?
STANTON
Yes.
LADY AITKEN
It's my favorite stroke. I like to do the breast stroke in the nude,
don't you?
STANTON
No.
[IN MOVING LIGHTS: And why had she come with him? Could it have been a casual affair?]
LADY AITKEN
I like to swim at night. Howard and I used to swim in the bay at
Acapulco. That used to be my favorite for swimming at night. Not now,
of
course. Sometimes I go into a pool now, the one at the Hotel Nikko. But
I much prefer to swim off the yacht near the Turkish Islands. With my
little surfboard. I hold it and kick my legs behind. Don't you love the
feeling of being able to swim and swim anywhere?
STANTON
I usually stay in one area, actually.
(One beat.)
Fear of sharks.
(Silence. )
LADY AITKEN
To me, swimming is like being baptized. It just washes away all
your sins and troubles.
(Howard looks up, around, back down. Lady Aitken asks
politely.)
Do you shoot?
GALLEJAS
Of course.
LADY AITKEN
La Chasse is out.
GALLEJAS
Certainly not.
LADY AITKEN
I think you'll find it is.
(As Lady Aitken continues to speak, superrealist still life paintings
by Jeanette Pasin Sloan are projected: DietRite, 7Up, Heller mug.)
Loose face powder is in.
Linen bath towels are in.
But la chasse is out.
STANTON
Ahha.
LADY AITKEN
Swiss bank accounts are out, as you know, I'm sure.
Loulou de Waldner is in again.
Omelettes are out. Too bad.
But mashed potatoes are in.
STANTON
Ahha.
MERIDEE
The Forties are out.
LADY AITKEN
Surfing is out.
MERIDEE
Belgium is out.
LADY AITKEN
Scotland is in.
MERIDEE
Fucking is out, although you wouldn't know it, the way people talk
about it all the time.
LADY AITKEN
Chintz is out.
MERIDEE
Owning your own island is in, for sure, and I can see why, too.
STANTON
Small dinner parties at a round table are in, I think.
LADY AITKEN
Blue hydrangeas are in.
GALLEJAS
Collecting old airplanes is in.
STANTON
Dining in your green house is in.
PETER
Sicily is in.
LADY AITKEN
(Gently.)
No, dear, Sicily is out.
GALLEJAS
Hunt breakfasts are in.
STANTON
And whalewatching.
LADY AITKEN
Tiny cookies at tea time are in,
White cotton Indian nightdresses are in.
And letter writing.
And fringe.
But loofah sponges are out.
GALLEJAS
That's too bad.
LADY AITKEN
Chopin nocturnes are in. The Bristol Hotel in Paris.
Placing your furniture at an angle is out.
The rockhard derriere is out.
MERIDEE
No, the rock hard derriere is still in, you can take my word for it.
LADY AITKEN
Oh?
MERIDEE
And firm thighs.
And the exposed back is in,
you can count on it.
LADY AITKEN
Really?
MERIDEE
Walking your mother is in, too, I'm told.
LADY AITKEN
Uhhuh.
(Resuming.)
Floral sachets in the closet are in.
MERIDEE
Bachelors are out. Face it. You know what I mean.
LADY AITKEN
Long nails are out, too, really.
PETER
Onion soup is out.
LADY AITKEN
Yes.
Bonsai cherry trees are in.
STANTON
Swedish antiques are in, I think.
MERIDEE
Caviar is out.
LADY AITKEN
Thoughtfulness is in.
Lunch under an apple tree is in.
Politics are out.
(The music eases into the sound of ocean waves.)
LADY AITKEN
I've seen all the inaugural parades, you know, since McKinley. We
watched the McKinley parade from our rooms in the Blackstone—or is that
Chicago? After a while, they all look alike. The motorcars change, the
dresses change, but nothing else changes. After a while, you think:
well, what difference does it make? And: what can I do about it? After
the First War, the peasants cut down my family's woods in Vienna to use
for firewood. It was dreadful.
STANTON
That they cut down the trees.
LADY AITKEN
Yes.
[IN MOVING LIGHTS: But was this fun? Were these her kind of people,
after all?]
MERIDEE
That they suffered so.
GALLEJAS
The peasants.
LADY AITKEN
Yes! It was such a crime.
STANTON
What woods were they?
LADY AITKEN
The Vienna woods.
STANTON
The Vienna woods belonged to your family?
LADY AITKEN
Well, we're all immigrants, aren't we?
(The sound of ocean waves.
Several moments silence.)
MERIDEE
Let's talk about your servants.
GALLEJAS
Ah, yes. They're from Rhodesia. Trained by the English.
MERIDEE
You don't like the locals?
GALLEJAS
They're rather too tied in with the situation.
STANTON
What do they want, anyway? What do servants want?
GALLEJAS
I don't think you can blame the servants.
LADY AITKEN
I don't think you can blame Howard.
GALLEJAS
(Sharply.)
I haven 't blamed Howard.
STANTON
I don't think I'm at fault.
PETER
Sometimes the way they look at you, you think you might be at fault.
STANTON
At me?
(Beat.)
Well. How do they manage? I sometimes wonder.
PETER
Of course, servants are a different thing from peasants. For a lot of
these people. This is the choice they've made, after all.
(Silence.)
STANTON
(Uncertainly.)
Yes. Indeed.
LADY AITKEN
Annie Whitlaw was raped, you know.
GALLEJAS
After her massage.
LADY AITKEN
In Rhodesia.
GALLEJAS
Not the place to fall asleep.
LADY AITKEN
I don't think you can say it was Annie Whitlaw's fault.
PETER
Do you sleep with a gun?
LADY AITKEN
I think it's in their genes.
MERIDEE
Genes? I think it's in their toilet training. They have this very
macho toilet training where the mothers smear feces on the babies'
faces.
PETER
Who is this?
MERIDEE
The natives.
PETER
Is this true?
STANTON
Surely it's more organizational. Historical, perhaps, really.
LADY AITKEN
Well, of course. Isn't everything?
MERIDEE
You mean the way the English have treated them?
LADY AITKEN
(Very carefully.)
Treated? I wouldn't say that. The English are a very decent people
really.
STANTON
Indeed.
LADY AITKEN
They suffer for it.
STANTON
(Almost catching her drift.)
The English.
LADY AITKEN
Who?
STANTON
Suffer for it.
LADY AITKEN
Yes. I sometimes think that's why they indulge themselves so in
food and drink and comfort.
(Silence. No one comprehends.)
They need an anesthetic.
(Insisting.)
It's not a good situation. The natives are enraged, and the English are
anesthetized. And these are graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, mind you.
These are people who have read philosophy and history and poetry. They
have studied astronomy. They have read the Bhagavad Gita. These are the
finest minds that have chosen to spend their lives half asleep. This is
a tragic situation. It is as though you were to take a fine piece of
crystal and just throw it to the floor and shatter it.
(Silence.)
The call of a tropical bird. The actors contemplate. The call of a myna
bird.)
GALLEJAS
Yes, well, history makes neurosis. We repress things. Nothing personal
in it.
STANTON
No. One can't be too careful.
GALLEJAS
It's not a pleasant continent, Africa.
MERIDEE
This isn't such a pleasant continent either!
(The Butler enters. A movie is projected during the following scene and
then on through the succeeding interlude: of a black man running away
in the countryside. )
BUTLER
I beg your pardon, sir, but I wonder if I could speak with you for a
moment.
GALLEJAS
It is a bit awkward just now. Can it wait?
BUTLER
Oh, yes, sir, I think it can, sir. Certainly, sir, if you wish.
(Silence.)
All look at Butler. Is he too obsequious?
Projections of a black man assaulting his wife. A half dozen still shots
of a man beating a woman. Done fairly quickly, in a count of six or
eight.
IN MOVING LIGHTS: And had she meant to stay with Peter this long,
really?)
GALLEJAS
Weren't you going to send in one of the maids?
BUTLER
Yes, sir, if you wish, I certainly shall.
GALLEJAS
That is what I wish, yes.
BUTLER
Right away, sir?
GALLEJAS
Right away.
BUTLER
(After a pause.)
Will that be all, sir?
(Long silence.)
GALLEJAS
Yes.
BUTLER
Thank you, sir.
(He leaves. All are silent. Terrified.
THE ACTORS watch Gallejas, who, having finished eating a piece of fruit,
washes his hands very slowly and carefully in a silver bowl of water and
dries his hands equally slowly and thoroughly.
MUSIC: Quiet. Contemplative. With the sound of distant jet planes high
above.
VOICEOVER: A soft, female voice, calm, beautiful, and matter of fact:
"With Saturn now passing over the midheaven point of your solar chart
no one can say you are not totally dedicated and personally ambitious.
In fact, they may well complain you have been something of a workaholic
of late. Only you realize how important it is for you to consolidate
your position. But you really do need to find time to relax and unwind
this month, especially during the first three weeks while the Sun
remains in the grueling sign of Capricorn. Astrological tradition has
it
that this is when your physical resources are at their lowest and you
are prone to minor ailments. Also, when Mercury, the planet of the mind,
turns to retrograde motion in your own sign on the eighth, you could
fail to notice storm warnings in close personal relationships and end
up
having to say you are sorry—something Aquarians find almost impossible
to do."
PROJECTIONS: Models in handcuffs, swimsuits in bombedout buildings,
models holding rifles, modeling camouflage fashions. These projections
bleed into the following scene.
PROJECTED QUOTATION: "We go to the stud sales. We don't just sit
around.
I can tell you that. "
(The sound of a jet tears across the sky from one side to another.)
PETER
(Laughing uneasily.)
Of course we don't have a servant problem in New York. I mean, I have
a
cleaning woman, of course, but she doesn't live in. Your servants live in.
GALLEJAS
Yes.
PETER
You must trust them.
(Long silence.)
GALLEJAS
No.
MERIDEE
How many servants do you have?
GALLEJAS
Five.
MERIDEE
Do they rape you quite a lot?
GALLEJAS
Not me, often. Young white women are another thing, of course.
MERIDEE
How do they do it, I wonder.
GALLEJAS
With their cocks, I'm told.
LADY AITKEN
Charles!
GALLEJAS
I don't think there's much fist fucking in this part of the world.
LADY AITKEN
(Rising.)
Really!
GALLEJAS
Buggery is another matter. I think 73 percent of all sex acts involve
buggery these days.
LADY AITKEN
Charles!
PETER
(Concerned.)
Do they really?
MERIDEE
Are you afraid?
GALLEJAS
Not for myself, although, since I've come to know you, I often think of
you in this context.
MERIDEE
What a delightful luncheon this is turning out to be.
[WORDS PROJECTED: I should really live in Cuba, I love sugar so.]
MERIDEE
What do you do all day?
GALLEJAS
Do?
MERIDEE
Yes. All day.
GALLEJAS
I give advice, mostly. Nothing official. Technical questions, you know:
what to do with the bodies, that sort of thing.
(Meridee laughs.)
What do you do?
MERIDEE
I sunbathe.
GALLEJAS
Ahha.
MERIDEE
You know, I've gotten to the point where I change my clothes thirteen
times a day. I'm getting to feel like a real professional. But I am
learning how to control my quim muscles.
STANTON
Your what?
MERIDEE
My quim muscles. You know. I can make the muscles in my quim contract
and move back and forth until it comes insideout, my quim comes right
out, like a man.
STANTON
Ahha.
(Beat.)
Well. Extraordinary.
PETER
(Still caught up in a sort of delayed action, in the excitement.)
Last night at a dinner party I got into the most incredible conversation
where this guy across the table was telling me that he had tied up a
whore in Mexico one time and carved the chart of the year's Dow Jones
averages into her, starting at her navel and going right around her
torso and back to her navel—up and down, a whole year's worth. Is that
incredible?
(Silence.)
MERIDEE
Yes.
(Silence.)
PETER
Look, don't try to make me out some kind of Goebbels or something. I
happen to be a very average sort of person, with very average typical
sort of stuff, very sort of usual human feelings. I mean, if you can't
see the humor in what that guy did then you're just cut off from half
the people in the world. I mean, some things are funny even if they're
not nice. I mean, this is the real world. Look, I'm as nice as people
get.
(Silence.)
MERIDEE
I should be working in a general store in Vermont.
PETER
Well, you're hard to figure sometimes, but we've had some wonderful
times together.
MERIDEE
Who?
PETER
You and I.
MERIDEE
Are you kidding? Are you entirely conscious?
PETER
You're goddamn right. Mexico. Lake Tahoe. Aspen that time.
(Beat.)
The Orange Bowl.
(Beat.)
I mean, I'm not a dumb person. I'm not an insensitive person. I'm a
human being, too. Some people think I'm very smart. I remember numbers,
for instance. I have a head for figures. I remember when three
monthmoney was at 19% percent at the same time it was 6 in Japan, 9 in
West Germany, 7 and 3/5 in Holland, 12 and 3/5 in France, 15 in Belgium,
11 in Britain, 11 in the U.S., 8 in Switzerland. I remember that. At the
same time that government bonds were 4.22 in Switzerland, 19.18 in
Italy. I play tennis. I've read Rosenstock-Huessy. I'm not at a loss for
dinner companions. Some people think I'm quite funny.
[PETER'S VOICE ON LOUSPEAKER (OR PETER AS NARRATOR): Just then I noticed something was gripping my left leg. I put my hand down to see what the trouble was, and I felt something furry. I looked down. A small dog was biting my leg. That was a surprise. I tried to jerk my leg away from the dog, but the dog, a little Lhasa Apso, a scrappy little dog, had a good bite on my leg and wouldn't let go. I can't say that it hurt very much; it hurt a little, sure; but mostly it was tremendously irritating. The dog was on a leash. He belonged to Lady Aitken.]
PETER
Pardon me.
PETER'S VOICE
I said to her.
PETER
Is that your dog?
LADY AITKEN
Yes.
PETER'S VOICE
she said, turning back to her champagne.
PETER: Well, look,
PETER'S VOICE
I said,
PETER: your dog is biting me.
PETER'S VOICE
She got upset at that. I guess I had somehow rubbed her the wrong way.
PETER
Your dog is biting my leg.
LADY AITKEN:
(Looks at Peter, looks at the dog, back to Peter.)
He is not.
PETER
(Screaming.)
Your dog is biting my leg!
LADY AITKEN
You're screaming.
PETER
He's biting my leg!
(She looks at him evenly; he speaks quietly.)
Call off your dog!
LADY AITKEN
My dog is not doing you any harm.
PETER
(Quietly.)
Anybody in the world could see that your dog is biting my fucking leg.
LADY AITKEN
This conversation has gone far enough.
PETER
(Calmly.)
Let's start this one from the beginning. I'm going to kill your dog. I'm
going to bash his head in with a hammer.
LADY AITKEN
You don't have a hammer.
PETER'S VOICE
But, I did have a hammer. I took it from my pocket, and I said...
PETER
But I do have a hammer, right here, and I am going to bash his head in.
LADY AITKEN
Here, boy.
PETER'S VOICE
she said—
and the dog let go.
HOWARD
(A long laugh.)
I've always worked with decent people, whatever the situation I've been
in, however bad things have gotten: you think people were always animals
but that's bullshit bullshit because I have never been associated with
anyone but people who have read Plato St. Augustine that sort of thing
Acquinas even I'm talking about you know whashisname Penny knows I'm
talking about Averell, I don't care what you might think well, sure, a
man with that kind of money, you know, 300, 400 shirts in every closet
but that's bullshit bullshit because even Averell comparatively
speaking. And he returned my phone calls.
Hello Governor, I would say, Hello Howard he would say because he knew me he knew me starting back with Stevenson and then you know Birmingham, the marches Lyndon Johnson the whole fucking thing I could tell you stories. One has vanity after all, this is no sin, one likes to be with powerful people. Even Albert Schweitzer liked to be with powerful people. Oppenheimer you know: a very civilized man. A very civilized man. We talked about the moon program, and he got up and stepped to this blackboard he had in his office and wrote out an equation on the blackboard and he said: Now we know this to be true, don't you think it's vulgar to spend all this money simply to demonstrate it? You know one likes to be with civilized people. But you people haven't been anywhere. You people haven't seen these places. I'm talking about Clare Booth Luce's house with Bush and Buckley and Al Haig I mean some of
these people I've lived with were animals I'm talking about Colby and
Teller, fucking Kraut, you know a real Krautófourteen rooms, and
lanais
and atriums and baths, God it was hard to secure, that house.
CLARK BOOTH LUCE'S VOICE OVER LOUDSPEAKER
Military people love me...
HOWARD
she said.
LUCE VOICE
and I love them.
HOWARD
She even said she might marry again.
[LUCE VOICE
But only if I find a handsome, retired, homosexual admiral.
(Movie continues as Howard continues to talk. )
HOWARD
But you haven't seen the backs of the heads blown off, brains leaking
through your fingers like Jello, flies, flies all in the mouth, in the
ears, flies in the nostrils, the eye sockets inside the skull—they fly
up against your lips, cheeks—and dogs tearing away the flesh, you've
never seen such dogs where you come from, pulling flesh from bone, until
your head is so filled with these pictures that it has to explode!!
(Silence.)
And then, when they'd finished with me, they threw me away like an old
dog. Well, I always planned to get out anyway, as soon as I could.
(Silence.)
STANTON
Well, I'm getting out as soon as I can.
LADY AITKEN
(Studying Stanton closely.)
Have you had plastic surgery?
STANTON
Certainly not.
LADY AITKEN
Just a little tuck in the fat pockets around the lower lids.
[IN MOVING LIGHTS: Was her sense of revulsion entirely aesthetic?]
STANTON
Certainly not.
LADY AITKEN
Are you afraid of the complications?
GALLEJAS
(Absently.)
Blood clots. Scarring.
[WORDS PROJECTED: Her majesty and I were both surprised by the word
"informal" on the invitation, but when we asked, we were told
"That's
Hollywood."]
STANTON
Or worse.
GALLEJAS
Going blind.
PETER
Dying.
GALLEJAS
Having a facial nerve cut, a lower lid pulled down, a red eye.
(He shrugs.)
These things happen in life.
LADY AITKEN
There's a greater chance with a doublelayered lift, so I'm told, than with the standard lift of the lower half of the face.
GALLEJAS
Or a chemical peel with carbolic acid. Do you know of that?
LADY AITKEN
No.
GALLEJAS
Quite simple, really. Just paint phenol on the face. Cover it with
adhesive tape. Leave it on for 48 hours. And your wrinkles are gone.
PETER
How long does a facelift last?
GALLEJAS
With fat excision, six to seven years. Four to five for a temporal
lift. Then you can always have another—though there is a limit.
LADY AITKEN
The face is never quite the same as when you first go in for surgery.
The effects of gravity and aging and all the things we don't really
understand are going on even during surgery; they never stop.
(Maids and Butler enter. They are covered with blood. )
GALLEJAS
What is it?
MAID
We don't know, sir.
(A pause. Gallejas ponders.)
GALLEJAS
You're covered with blood.
MAID
Yes, sir.
GALLEJAS
It looks as though someone has been murdered.
MAID
Yes, sir, it does.
(Silence. Gallejas ponders.)
GALLEJAS
Who screamed?
MAID
We don't know, sir.
(Silence.)
GALLEJAS
Did you?
SECOND MAID
Not me, sir, no.
GALLEJAS
How did you come to be covered with blood?
FIRST MAID
The body was about waisthigh, Iying on the table, when it began
to spurt blood.
GALLEJAS
It began to spurt blood.
FIRST MAID
Yes, sir.
GALLEJAS
Had someone stuck it?
FIRST MAID
No, sir, I don't believe so.
GALLEJAS
How did it get on the table?
BUTLER
It had been stuffed in the dumbwaiter, sir.
GALLEJAS
From above or below?
BUTLER
I couldn't tell, sir.
GALLEJAS
How was it?
BUTLER
Bloated, sir. Belly distended. Pustules here and there. It was as we
took it out of the dumbwaiter that its belly exploded.
LADY AITKEN
Poisoned?
BUTLER
Shot, madam, as near as I could tell.
LADY AITKEN
Was he a native?
BUTLER
Yes, madam.
GALLEJAS
It was a man, then.
BUTLER
Yes, sir.
GALLEJAS
A stranger shot elsewhere and then delivered to the premises.
BUTLER
So it would seem.
(Silence.)
GALLEJAS
Why would someone do that?
BUTLER
I'm sure I don't know, sir.
GALLEJAS
What do you think?
BUTLER
I'm not entirely certain that I understand all the things that are and
are not done, although I think I have acquired some knowledge of
appropriateness, for instance, in a given situation, this ought to be
postponed, this done at once, this calls for patience, this for
dispatch, this for acquiescence, this for courage, and this, finally,
for a certain manner of speaking which I think I can say fairly I have
mastered. And of the forms of behavior, that a certain way of moving is
not done, an attitude of the body, a certain footsound, a kind of
glance, a manner of fixing one's ascot, a way of cocking the head, a
certain presumption—all these are not done, whereas a kind of slam
dancing is done, burning one's cheek with a cigarette is done, shooting
out another's jaw is done, giving comfort to the grieving is not done,
although you may think I am not one to judge, being a dependent person
myself and yet on my day off I walk the streets, and as I cast my mind
back over my own life I find more and more I remember less and less—I
think it's fair to say I've come unhinged, having tried as I have to fit
in and go along, after all, one needs to live, it can't be wrong to take
a job, so that now as I look back I realize I have had twenty years of
misery and could not say exactly who I am, for instance, or where my
loyalties might lie at any given time, or what place I might call home,
who my people are, these are things I think about on my day off when
every week I go to a place where I sit in the front row, they do a
striptease there, and after the show the same woman every week sits in
my lap for a few minutes, and then in the park as I look around I see
others quite like myself, sitting amidst the rubble, glass and shattered
stone, and I pray to Jesus—who else?—and I feel my mind is so filled
with anguish as to have become a fire hazard—so that under the
circumstances, sir, it seems to me that anything is possible. Would that
be an answer to your question, sir?
GALLEJAS
(To the Maid.)
Have you anything to say?
(Silence.)
MAID
No, sir.
(Silence.)
STANTON
I don't mean to compare myself to a poet—really, not at all—but even
bankers actually hope that what they are doing is, in a sense, creative.
Building something. Bringing into being something that hadn't been there
before. Structures that no one had seen before you made them and not
only do you make the structure but it results in physical, palpable
things. A friend of mine, a banker, put together the money for the
Alaska pipeline. Now whatever you think of that—and you always have to
run cost benefit analyses of these things—nonetheless he put together
a
structure of private and public capital—Citibank, Deutchesbank,
underwriting companies, Morgan Stanley, Solomon Brothers. An impressive
group, Lazard Freres, government agencies, an extraordinary act of
imagination, really. Sometimes you can look at the financial plan that
has been put together to finance a skyscraper, and the financial plan
is
a beautiful thing really by itself, a novel thing, very often an
avantgarde thing, even a thrilling piece of intellectual daring, if you
are sensitive to that sort of thing. And you look at the finished
building and you actually see all these extraordinary structures of
finance and political arrangements and mechanical stress and the
molecular structure of the materials and you are moved by it. And there
is something very powerful and captivating about a structure. You
actually take some pride in what you are contributing to this society.
You even think—though I know this is difficult for some people—that
you have earned your income, or at least that it's not despicable to
accept it, because this is the way society is structured and you are
doing your part to keep it together and keep it going and make it a
humane place.
GALLEJAS
Where is the body now?
BUTLER
It's gone, sir.
GALLEJAS
Gone?
BUTLER
Yes, sir.
GALLEJAS
Gone entirely, you mean.
MAID
Entirely, sir.
(Long silence.)
GALLEJAS
Well, in that case, you may serve dessert.
MAID
Yes, sir.
(Butler and Maid exit.)
(The sound of breathing—as though of someone asleep, with occasional
sharp inhales and sobs, from here for a while.)
MERIDEE
(Very quietly.)
I think we'd better leave.
PETER
Didn't we just get here?
MERIDEE
I don't think I feel well.
GALLEJAS
That's quite normal.
LADY AITKEN
I often feel that way myself. It passes soon enough.
PETER
She'll be all right.
STANTON
This is not a usual sort of thing.
MERIDEE
What have they done with it?
GALLEJAS
Thrown it out by the roadside, I expect.
MERIDEE
Thrown it out?
GALLEJAS
Did you want to see it?
MERIDEE
See a dead body?
GALLEJAS
Some people like it.
PETER
I understand that.
MERIDEE
(Still quietly.)
Let's get out of here.
PETER
We can't just leave.
STANTON
It's not easy.
LADY AITKEN
One can't leave one's friends. One has—associations.
STANTON
Obligations.
PETER
You get used to it.
LADY AITKEN
One's life becomes so—entwined. And where would one go? Who would one
be somewhere else? I suppose one could say, really, we never should have
come to begin with; but, then, we did. And here we are.
STANTON
One thing led to another.
LADY AITKEN
I don't know whether one thing led to another, but here we are. And it
is awkward to leave. And what would you take?
MERIDEE: Take?
LADY AITKEN
I'd take my underwear, I imagine. Other things you can buy easily
enough, but one always needs fresh underwear, and it's so hard to find
on the road. When the Whitlaws left Africa, Annie Whitlaw neglected to
take any underwear with her, and she was devastated. I often remember
the little traveling case that Marie Antoinette had—a case of leather,
with a silk lining, and filled with several dozen perfumes and creams,
all in exquisite little silver jars and vials—and she kept it always
prepared and ready to go. I always thought, you know, that she was
rather an underrated person, knowing that all there was to do is wait.
STANTON
Why didn't she just leave?
LADY AITKEN
Why don't you leave?
PETER
Don't they bury their bodies here?
GALLEJAS
Not usually.
PETER
Are they that superstitious?
GALLEJAS
No, no. They'll be shot for it, you know.
(Silence.)
PETER
No.
(Beat.)
I didn't know. Is that why their villages smell so?
GALLEJAS
Do they?
PETER
When you drive through the countryside you get that dreadful odor coming
in through the window. Like you get in Mexico sometimes. I always
thought it was just the way they smell, you know, Mexicans. Sometimes
you pass one on the street and they give off this smell, too, I'm not
saying it's genetic or anything, but just, you know, well, let's face
it, they, you know, have odor.
[IN MOVING LIGHTS: And come to think of it, where would she go? And what would she do? And would that be tolerable now?]
LADY AITKEN
Oh, I'm afraid this conversation is going to get horribly boring. Mrs.
Fish, I remember, once had all the guests at her luncheon talk baby talk
to keep the conversation light. To be sure, sometimes one's mind just
takes hold of something and there's no reining it in. I remember when
Eleanor Roosevelt died, she insisted on a wooden coffin. She and
Franklin had heard that if one were buried in a metal coffin, one's
corpse would liquefy. They both meant to be buried in wooden coffins,
but Franklin died at Warm Springs, and by the time Eleanor got there he
had already been embalmed and put in a metal coffin, and the glass plate
had been sealed, and it was spring, you know, and rather warm, and they
had the train ride to take back to Washington, so she let it go, but it
always bothered her to know that Franklin had just turned to ooze.
STANTON
It's a delicate matter, no doubt of it.
GALLEJAS
Here, the dogs get them. The jackals. The vultures. It's all quite
natural.
(A monkey screams. )
STANTON
People don't think it of bankers, I suppose, but on the whole, actually,
I never was the sort of fellow to believe, well, if I don't do it
someone else will. My father was a fine man, and I was raised with
certain expectations, and then I got into this business, and before I
knew it, I thought: well, on the whole, this is not so bad. And, after
all, I'm not killing people.
(Silence. His eyes fill with tears.)
LADY AITKEN
Of course the important thing is to send the children home. Howard and
I
have sent them home. One must be realistic. You don't keep your children
with you here.
GALLEJAS
No.
STANTON
Don't you miss them?
LADY AITKEN
Miss the children?
(She tunes out, lost in thought.)
We don't think about it.
HOWARD
We think about the children all the time! We never think of anything
else! You spend your life reading them books, tucking them in, swimming,
catching them off the edge of the pool, dressing them for birthday
parties, wearing funny little hats—god knows, you can't take enough
pictures, all the time they're growing up, you take pictures, but you
can never take enough.
(He is crying—the tears just coming quietly, from a man whose emotional
"governors" simply no longer function.)
And you teach them to be decent, after all. You can't raise these
children without hope!
(Silence. The others all look at him, turn away in discomfort.)
STANTON
The oddest vision sprang to my mind not long ago about my son. His face
had been burned, a thirddegree burn, and I'd taken him to a doctor who
said he would need certain treatments, certain face packs. And then I'd
just gone off to Mexico City and left my son for a week, and, when I got
back, it was too late to do anything for him.
PETER
But I mean, not everyone thinks of leaving. Some people have just
started out, and hope they will have interesting careers—and they make
no apology for it. They came here to pitch in, and they're ready to
pitch in. I mean I am interested in opportunity And have servants: I
mean, people do think of these things, how nice it is. The servants here
are really awfully nice people, and I mean you feel so well taken care
of, and the beaches and the free time, and I mean, altogether there's
just a terrific ease of living.
STANTON
No doubt.
PETER
What do you mean by that?
STANTON
No doubt. I mean: no doubt.
PETER
(Shouting.)
You mean you think I'm a son of a bitch. That's damned easy for you to
say.
STANTON
Oh, I...No....
(He falls back on his chair, his hand instinctively to his heart.)
GALLEJAS
I must admit: I myself am rather fond of spinach frittata. I don't mind
a bit of luxury. I am rather partial to the touch of silk, aren't you?
I've seen all the films of Andrzej Wajda, would you believe it of a
provincial character like myself? I rather like the music of Philip
Glass, do you? Of course, if you wish to have a high culture, you must
have leisure, if you would have leisure, you must have excess wealth.
If
you would have excess wealth, you must exploit someone. And finally what
is human life worth if it produces nothing of excellence, nothing of
beauty, nothing extraordinary, nothing astonishing, if it only manages,
day in and day out, to get along? Don't you find that somehow less than
human?
LADY AITKEN
I believe in art. I think I would like to be a painting. Those of us who
can't paint should be painted, I think.
[IN MOVING LIGHTS: Could this be true?]
GALLEJAS
And, I must say: I'm not eager to give up my garden. My terrace. What
would be the point? What do you think would happen? After the hedges are
trampled, after the throats are cut, after the women are raped, after
the bodies are mutilated, after the mass executions throughout the
countryside?
(Beat. With contempt.)
Soon enough, you'd see a new bunch sitting here on the terrace. Possibly
without tastes as fine as ours—these are barbarians, after all, after
all these years they've been barbarized.
(Beat.)
And what would they do, except that those among them with the finest
instincts for bullying would rise to the top and society would be
reconstituted exactly as it is today, with the most elusive scum among
them moving from tax haven to tax haven in their private boats and
planes and taking their women with them.
(Beat. To Meridee.)
You look at me as though I am some particular form of scum. But look
what's happened to you: You've become my accomplice. I was born here,
but you've come of your own free will! How utterly absurd! And now you
wonder what you ought to do? Well, you ought to tear your hair out. You
ought to weep and cry out and run through the streets dressed like a
cockatoo!
HOWARD
How you start out. Who you think you are. Who you think you can become.
What you learn. What you study. How you learn to think. Plato. What you
believe. Descartes, Rousseau.
(He begins to leak tears again.)
You show you can do it. You prove you can do it. Then you begin to do
it. If you didn't have children, if you didn't fear the bad example you
would set, you'd kill yourself.
LADY AITKEN
You haven't done so badly, Howard.
HOWARD
(casually—no longer having the energy to argue)
Oh, well. Killing fourteen year old boys...
(Silence. )
LADY AITKEN
(Putting it in a good light.)
Of course one always says, well, it's a matter of the reason, a matter
of in this case or for this purpose or this time under these
circumstances, whatever it may be, and then, before one quite knows it,
it simply becomes: what one does!
HOWARD
(again without much feeling)
Shivs up their backsides.
LADY AITKEN
In the olden days, people studied the liberal arts, and conversations
positively sparkled. What do people know any more but the warning signs
of cancer, the rules of proper diet, the techniques of stress management, the knowledge of when to move money and of when to move?
HOWARD
(with sudden conviction and rage)
We agreed in the beginning and I went out there. I did it. Now we are
staying. I am not quitting. Because I am not quitting. And I make no
apology for it!
(Three scrims tear in half, one after another, and fall to the floor.
A
fourth scrim descends slowly, to cover the torn scrims, and is lit with
a beautiful light.)
MUSIC: Gentle, and beautiful, like a Salvadoran flute: piercing,
melancholy, tragic
VOICEOVER: A soft, quiet, female voice, matteroffact, not seductive:
"I dreamed last night that I needed to change. I went into the women's
room at the railroad station, into one of the stalls, and closed the
door. I took off my raincoat and laid it on the floor, and then took off
all my clothes and laid them carefully on the raincoat. And then the
raincoat, with all the clothes on it, was drawn slowly out underneath
the stall door—and I couldn't stop it, and all my clothes were gone,
and I was left alone, and naked."
PROJECTIONS: On one screen a movie, on the other stills. the stills are
the sort of bedrooms one sees in Town and Country magazine; the films
are very beautiful, slow motion, dreamy helicopters, exploding bombs,
flames, smashing buildings.
PROJECTED WORDS: I think euerything is fantasy, really. What we surround
ourselves with, how we relate to color, how we see beauty—it takes a
long time to develop, but I've reached the point where everything is
fantasy.
PETER
I dreamed last night I was coming up the stone stairway at the market.
MERIDEE
Is this the story you told me?
PETER
Yes.
MERIDEE
And he saw this man who had been burned from head to foot.
PETER
He had no eyebrows, no eyelashes. He shivered convulsively.
By the time I got to the top of the steps I was shaking with fear.
And there was a woman who had been shocked speechless by the sight of the burned man. She grabbed me. She was already weak and dying. I pushed her. And she fell backwards, down the steps.
(Pause.)
And as she fell, I thought: she would have died of her diseases anyway;
it was almost an act of euthanasia to kill her. And that's how I feel.
I
feel that way.
(The lights fade sickeningly, flicker, and resume with a dozen
explosions of strobe flashes.)
STANTON
I had the same dream.
LADY AITKEN
One is so fragile, after all.
STANTON
Sometimes it seems to me that my instincts are those of an insane
person. They seem good to me and yet I feel entirely insane.
LADY AITKEN
Yes.
STANTON
I dreamed I came into a room filled with heads, waiting for relatives
to
come and claim them.
LADY AITKEN
(Dropping her glass.)
Oh ...
(Beat.)
I'm sorry.
HOWARD
I was putting my son to bed one night, when the whole facade fell off
the front of the house—just fell away into the street, and my son's bed
was there, next to the edge. And I just told him to pull his bed back
away from the edge, and I left him there, exposed to the night.
(A horrendous, shattering explosion that rocks the theatre. Music opens
explosively. Meridee stands, in a panic, looks around with mounting
anxiety, and, during the following moments, exits.)
THE ACTORS sit and are served dessert by the servants.
PROJECTIONS: Beautiful things broken. Churches smashed. A broken tree.
A shattered vase. A child's broken toy. A ruined bedstead. One picture,
of the woman who has been hit in the mouth with a rifle butt, appears several times.
SOUNDS: Explosions. Hammering: as of hammer on stone, club on wood, fist on flesh. A highpitched piercing sound. Terrible screams. The breaking of glass as though whole walls of glass are crashing down. The siren that the Nazis used. Helicopter blades, deafeningly. A babble of shouting, laughing, panicky directions, crowds in riot
VOICEOVER: Toward the end, as the other sounds become intermittent, then fade, a soft, female voice reads a list of charity benefits for the month in Los Angeles.
(The lights ease toward twilight. Howard remains in a brighter light.)
GALLEJAS
(To Peter. As they talk their pictures are projected as at first. Their
voices are miked to echo.)
Do you shoot?
PETER
Certainly.
GALLEJAS
I go on a shoot from time to time in BadenBaden.
PETER
Really?
GALLEJAS
I find it helps relieve the tedium. One can only take so much of
buttermilk and cottage cheese and those wretched unsalted bits of
waferbread before one wants to shoot something.
PETER
Yes.
(A silence. He ingests the drug du jour.)
I know it's wrong of me, but I've never enjoyed BadenBaden. I like the
massage, but I don't care for all that water and the deep breathing and
calisthenics.
(He thinks.)
I don't mind a little brushing and scraping, having my pores cleansed,
my torso packed in astringent gels, a pedicure, but I don't care for
those sessions of Iymph drainage.
(Offering his drug to Gallejas.)
Have some?
GALLEJAS
Thanks.
SOUNDTRACK: The sound of someone breathing, panting, as though running.
(As they prepare and share drugs, their voices are heard over the
loudspeaker, very smooth, quiet, almost whispering. The conversation
drifts—long silences sometimes occur between remarks.)
[GALLEJAS'S VOICE: Life is more difficult but not impossible. I go out
a
lot—not to Paris much any more—but around here. I never really thought
seriously of doing anything else.]
[LADY AITKEN'S VOICE: It's a natural, traditional pursuit—part of our
heritage, and a recognized method of population control.]
[GALLEJAS'S VOICE: I don't know how many rooms there are. Somewhere
around thirtyfive or so, I've been told.]
[PETER'S VOICEOVER: I guess I'd have to say the way I feel is: I don't
have a problem with it.]
[LADY AITKEN'S VOICE: Sometimes I feel, you know, utterly transparent.
]
[GALLEJAS'S VOICE: In my country, I see so little difference, generation
to generation.]
[LADY AITKEN'S VOICE: There are still people who do it every day but it
isn't what it used to be. People are wearing the wrong jackets and don't
even know the rules.]
(The lights go to deep pinks and reds, the colors of sunset,
lingeringly. The sound of the ocean and tropical birds. Three distinct,
deliberate gunshots, coming almost from within the room. Startlingly
present and real in sound. They should be fired by a pistol and not come
over a loudspeaker. With the third one Howard's head suddenly explodes,
and blood is splattered all over the rear wall. The lights fade slowly.)
END
Charles Mee's work has been made possible by the support of Richard B. Fisher and Jeanne Donovan Fisher.
