KELLER: Sure, sleepin’ upstairs. We picked her up on the one o’clock train last night. Wonderful thing. Girl leaves here, a scrawny kid. Couple of years go by, she’s a regular woman. Hardly recognized her, and she was running in and out of this yard all her life. That was a very happy family used to live in your house, Jim.
JIM: Like to meet her. The block can use a pretty girl. In the whole neighborhood there’s not a damned thing to look at. Enter Sue, Jim’s wife, from left. She is rounding forty, an overweight woman who fears it. On seeing her Jim wryly adds: . . . Except my wife, of course.
SUE, in same spirit: Mrs. Adams is on the phone, you dog.
JIM, to Keller: Such is the condition which prevails . . . Going to his wife: my love, my light. . . .
SUE: Don’t sniff around me. Points to their house, left. And give her a nasty answer. I can smell her perfume over the phone.
JIM: What’s the matter with her now?
SUE: I don’t know, dear. She sounds like she’s in terrible pain—unless her mouth is full of candy.
JIM: Why don’t you just tell her to lay down?
SUE: She enjoys it more when you tell her to lay down. And when are you going to see Mr. Hubbard?
JIM: My dear; Mr. Hubbard is not sick, and I have better things to do than to sit there and hold his hand.
SUE: It seems to me that for ten dollars you could hold his hand.
JIM, to Keller: If your son wants to play golf tell him I’m ready. Going left. Or if he’d like to take a trip around the world for about thirty years. He exits left.
KELLER: Why do you needle him? He’s a doctor, women are supposed to call him up.
SUE: All I said was Mrs. Adams is on the phone. Can I have some of your parsley?
KELLER: Yeah, sure. She goes left to parsley box and pulls some parsley. You were a nurse too long, Susie. You’re too . . . too . . . realistic.
SUE, laughing, points at him: Now you said it! Enter Lydia Lubey from right. She is a robust, laughing girl of twenty-seven.
LYDIA: Frank, the toaster . . . Sees the others. Hya.
KELLER: Hello!
LYDIA, to Frank: The toaster is off again.
FRANK: Well, plug it in, I just fixed it.
LYDIA, kindly, but insistently: Please, dear, fix it back like it was before.
FRANK: I don’t know why you can’t learn to turn on a simple thing like a toaster! Frank exits right.
SUE, laughs: Thomas Edison.
LYDIA, apologetically: He’s really very handy. She sees broken tree. Oh, did the wind get your tree?
KELLER: Yeah, last night.
LYDIA: Oh, what a pity. Annie get in?
KELLER: She’ll be down soon. Wait’ll you meet her, Sue, she’s a knockout.
SUE: I should’ve been a man. People are always introducing me to beautiful women. To Joe: Tell her to come over later; I imagine she’d like to see what we did with her house. And thanks. Sue exits left.
LYDIA: Is she still unhappy, Joe?
KELLER: Annie? I don’t suppose she goes around dancing on her toes, but she seems to be over it.
LYDIA: She going to get married? Is there anybody . . . ?
KELLER: I suppose . . . say, it’s a couple years already. She can’t mourn a boy forever.
LYDIA: It’s so strange . . . Annie’s here and not even married. And I’ve got three babies. I always thought it’d be the other way around.
KELLER: Well, that’s what a war does. I had two sons, now I got one. It changed all the tallies. In my day when you had sons it was an honor. Today a doctor could make a million dollars if he could figure out a way to bring a boy into the world without a trigger finger.
LYDIA: You know, I was just reading . . . Enter Chris Keller from house, stands in doorway.
LYDIA: Hya, Chris . . . Frank shouts from off right.
FRANK: Lydia, come in here! If you want the toaster to work don’t plug in the malted mixer.
LYDIA, embarrassed, laughs: Did I . . . ?
FRANK: And the next time I fix something don’t tell me I’m crazy! Now come in here!
LYDIA, to Keller: I’ll never hear the end of this one.
KELLER, calling to Frank: So what’s the difference? Instead of toast have a malted!
LYDIA: Sh! sh! She exits right laughing.
Chris watches her off. He is thirty-two; like his father, solidly built, a listener. A man capable of immense affection and loyalty. He has a cup of coffee in one hand, part of a doughnut in other.
KELLER: You want the paper?
CHRIS: That’s all right, just the book section. He bends down and pulls out part of paper on porch floor.
KELLER: You’re always reading the book section and you never buy a book.
CHRIS, coming down to settee: I like to keep abreast of my ignorance. He sits on settee.
KELLER: What is that, every week a new book comes out?
CHRIS: Lot of new books.
KELLER: All different.
CHRIS: All different.
KELLER, shakes his head, puts knife down on bench, takes oilstone up to the cabinet: Psss! Annie up yet?
CHRIS: Mother’s giving her breakfast in the dinning-room.
KELLER, crosses, downstage of stool, looking at broken tree: See what happened to the tree?
CHRIS, without looking up: Yeah.
KELLER: What’s Mother going to say? Bert runs on from driveway. He is about eight. He jumps on stool, then on Keller’s back.
BERT: You’re finally up.
KELLER, swinging him around and putting him down: Ha! Bert’s here! Where’s Tommy? He’s got his father’s thermometer again.
BERT: He’s taking a reading.
CHRIS: What!
BERT: But it’s only oral.
KELLER: Oh, well, there’s no harm in oral. So what’s new this morning, Bert?
BERT: Nothin’. He goes to broken tree, walks around it.
KELLER: Then you couldn’t’ve made a complete inspection of the block. In the beginning, when I first made you a policeman you used to come in every morning with something new. Now, nothin’s ever new.
BERT: Except some kids from Thirtieth Street. They started kicking a can down the block, and I made them go away because you were sleeping.
KELLER: Now you’re talkin’, Bert. Now you’re on the ball. First thing you know I’m liable to make you a detective.
BERT, pulls him down by the lapel and whispers in his ear: Can I see the jail now?
KELLER: Seein’ the jail ain’t allowed, Bert. You know that.
BERT: Aw, I betcha there isn’t even a jail. I don’t see any bars on the cellar windows.
KELLER: Bert, on my word of honor, there’s a jail in the basement. I showed you my gun, didn’t I?
BERT: But that’s a hunting gun.
KELLER: That’s an arresting gun!
BERT: Then why don’t you ever arrest anybody? Tommy said another dirty word to Doris yesterday, and you didn’t even demote him.
KELLER—he chuckles and winks at Chris, who is enjoying all this: Yeah, that’s a dangerous character, that Tommy. Beckons him closer: What word does he say?
BERT, backing away quickly in great embarrassment: Oh, I can’t say that.
KELLER, grabs him by the shirt and pulls him back: Well, gimme an idea.
BERT: I can’t. It’s not a nice word.
KELLER: Just whisper it in my ear. I’ll close my eyes. Maybe I won’t even hear it.
BERT, on tiptoe, puts his lips to Keller’s ear, then in unbearable embarrassment steps back: I can’t, Mr. Keller.
CHRIS, laughing: Don’t make him do that.
KELLER: Okay, Bert. I take your word. Now go out, and keep both eyes peeled.
BERT, interested: For what?
KELLER
: For what! Bert, the whole neighborhood is depending on you. A policeman don’t ask questions. Now peel them eyes!
BERT, mystified, but willing: Okay. He runs off right back of arbor.
KELLER, calling after him: And mum’s the word, Bert.
BERT, stops and sticks his head thru the arbor: About what?
KELLER: Just in general. Be v-e-r-y careful.
BERT, nods in bewilderment: Okay. Bert exits downstage right.
KELLER, laughs: I got all the kids crazy!
CHRIS: One of these days, they’ll all come in here and beat your brains out.
KELLER: What’s she going to say? Maybe we ought to tell her before she sees it.
CHRIS: She saw it.
KELLER: How could she see it? I was the first one up. She was still in bed.
CHRIS: She was out here when it broke.
KELLER: When?
CHRIS: About four this morning. Indicating window above them: I heard it cracking and I woke up and looked out. She was standing right here when it cracked.
KELLER: What was she doing out here four in the morning?
CHRIS: I don’t know. When it cracked she ran back into the house and cried in the kitchen.
KELLER: Did you talk to her?
CHRIS: No, I . . . I figured the best thing was to leave her alone. Pause.
KELLER, deeply touched: She cried hard?
CHRIS: I could hear her right through the floor of my room.
KELLER, slight pause: What was she doing out here at that hour? Chris silent. An undertone of anger showing: She’s dreaming about him again. She’s walking around at night.
CHRIS: I guess she is.
KELLER: She’s getting just like after he died. Slight pause. What’s the meaning of that?
CHRIS: I don’t know the meaning of it. Slight pause. But I know one thing, Dad. We’ve made a terrible mistake with Mother.
KELLER: What?
CHRIS: Being dishonest with her. That kind of thing always pays off, and now it’s paying off.
KELLER: What do you mean, dishonest?
CHRIS: You know Larry’s not coming back and I know it. Why do we allow her to go on thinking that we believe with her?
KELLER: What do you want to do, argue with her?
CHRIS: I don’t want to argue with her, but it’s time she realized that nobody believes Larry is alive any more. Keller simply moves away, thinking, looking at the ground. Why shouldn’t she dream of him, walk the nights waiting for him? Do we contradict her? Do we say straight out that we have no hope any more? That we haven’t had any hope for years now?
KELLER, frightened at the thought: You can’t say that to her.
CHRIS: We’ve got to say it to her.
KELLER: How’re you going to prove it? Can you prove it?
CHRIS: For God’s sake, three years! Nobody comes back after three years. It’s insane.
KELLER: To you it is, and to me. But not to her. You can talk yourself blue in the face, but there’s no body and there’s no grave, so where are you?
CHRIS: Sit down, Dad. I want to talk to you.
KELLER, looks at him searchingly a moment, and sitting . . . : The trouble is the Goddam newspapers. Every month some boy turns up from nowhere, so the next one is going to be Larry, so . . .
CHRIS: All right, all right, listen to me. Slight pause. Keller sits on settee. You know why I asked Annie here, don’t you?
KELLER—he knows, but . . . : Why?
CHRIS: You know.
KELLER: Well, I got an idea, but . . . What’s the story?
CHRIS: I’m going to ask her to marry me. Slight pause.
KELLER, nods: Well, that’s only your business, Chris.
CHRIS: You know it’s not only my business.
KELLER: What do you want me to do? You’re old enough to know your own mind.
CHRIS, asking, annoyed: Then it’s all right, I’ll go ahead with it?
KELLER: Well, you want to be sure Mother isn’t going to . . .
CHRIS: Then it isn’t just my business.
KELLER: I’m just sayin’. . . .
CHRIS: Sometimes you infuriate me, you know that? Isn’t it your business, too, if I tell this to Mother and she throws a fit about it? You have such a talent for ignoring things.
KELLER: I ignore what I gotta ignore. The girl is Larry’s girl . . .
CHRIS: She’s not Larry’s girl.
KELLER: From Mother’s point of view he is not dead and you have no right to take his girl. Slight pause. Now you can go on from there if you know where to go, but I’m tellin’ you I don’t know where to go. See? I don’t know. Now what can I do for you?
CHRIS: I don’t know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer. My whole bloody life, time after time after time.
KELLER: You’re a considerate fella, there’s nothing wrong in that.
CHRIS: To hell with that.
KELLER: Did you ask Annie yet?
CHRIS: I wanted to get this settled first.
KELLER: How do you know she’ll marry you? Maybe she feels the same way Mother does?
CHRIS: Well, if she does, then that’s the end of it. From her letters I think she’s forgotten him. I’ll find out. And then we’ll thrash it out with Mother? Right? Dad, don’t avoid me.
KELLER: The trouble is, you don’t see enough women. You never did.
CHRIS: So what? I’m not fast with women.
KELLER: I don’t see why it has to be Annie. . . .
CHRIS: Because it is.
KELLER: That’s a good answer, but it don’t answer anything. You haven’t seen her since you went to war. It’s five years.
CHRIS: I can’t help it. I know her best. I was brought up next door to her. These years when I think of someone for my wife, I think of Annie. What do you want, a diagram?
KELLER: I don’t want a diagram . . . I . . . I’m . . . She thinks he’s coming back, Chris. You marry that girl and you’re pronouncing him dead. Now what’s going to happen to Mother? Do you know? I don’t! Pause.
CHRIS: All right, then, Dad.
KELLER, thinking Chris has retreated: Give it some more thought.
CHRIS: I’ve given it three years of thought. I’d hoped that if I waited, Mother would forget Larry and then we’d have a regular wedding and everything happy. But if that can’t happen here, then I’ll have to get out.
KELLER: What the hell is this?
CHRIS: I’ll get out. I’ll get married and live someplace else. Maybe in New York.
KELLER: Are you crazy?
CHRIS: I’ve been a good son too long, a good sucker. I’m through with it.
KELLER: You’ve got a business here, what the hell is this?
CHRIS: The business! The business doesn’t inspire me.
KELLER: Must you be inspired?
CHRIS: Yes. I like it an hour a day. If I have to grub for money all day long at least at evening I want it beautiful. I want a family, I want some kids, I want to build something I can give myself to. Annie is in the middle of that. Now . . . where do I find it?
KELLER: You mean . . . Goes to him. Tell me something, you mean you’d leave the business?
CHRIS: Yes. On this I would.
KELLER—pause: Well . . . you don’t want to think like that.
CHRIS: Then help me stay here.
KELLER: All right, but . . . but don’t think like that. Because what the hell did I work for? That’s only for you, Chris, the whole shootin’-match is for you!
CHRIS: I know that, Dad. Just you help me stay here.
KELLER, puts a fist up to Chris’s jaw: But don’t think that way, you hear me?
CHRIS: I am thinking that way.
KELLER, lowering his
hand: I don’t understand you, do I?
CHRIS: No, you don’t. I’m a pretty tough guy.
KELLER: Yeah. I can see that. Mother appears on porch. She is in her early fifties, a woman of uncontrolled inspirations, and an overwhelming capacity for love.
MOTHER: Joe?
CHRIS, going toward porch: Hello, Mom.
MOTHER, indicating house behind her. To Keller: Did you take a bag from under the sink?
KELLER: Yeah, I put it in the pail.
MOTHER: Well, get it out of the pail. That’s my potatoes. Chris bursts out laughing—goes up into alley.
KELLER, laughing: I thought it was garbage.
MOTHER: Will you do me a favor, Joe? Don’t be helpful.
KELLER: I can afford another bag of potatoes.
MOTHER: Minnie scoured that pail in boiling water last night. It’s cleaner than your teeth.
KELLER: And I don’t understand why, after I worked forty years and I got a maid, why I have to take out the garbage.
MOTHER: If you would make up your mind that every bag in the kitchen isn’t full of garbage you wouldn’t be throwing out my vegetables. Last time it was the onions. Chris comes on, hands her bag.
KELLER: I don’t like garbage in the house.
MOTHER: Then don’t eat. She goes into the kitchen with bag.
CHRIS: That settles you for today.
KELLER: Yeah, I’m in last place again. I don’t know, once upon a time I used to think that when I got money again I would have a maid and my wife would take it easy. Now I got money, and I got a maid, and my wife is workin’ for the maid. He sits in one of the chairs. Mother comes out on last line. She carries a pot of stringbeans.
MOTHER: It’s her day off, what are you crabbing about?
CHRIS, to Mother: Isn’t Annie finished eating?
MOTHER, looking around preoccupiedly at yard: She’ll be right out. Moves. That wind did some job on this place. Of the tree: So much for that, thank God.
KELLER, indicating chair beside him: Sit down, take it easy.
MOTHER—she presses her hand to top of her head: I’ve got such a funny pain on the top of my head.
CHRIS: Can I get you an aspirin?
MOTHER, picks a few petals off ground, stands there smelling them in her hand, then sprinkles them over plants: No more roses. It’s so funny . . . everything decides to happen at the same time. This month is his birthday; his tree blows down, Annie comes. Everything that happened seems to be coming back. I was just down the cellar, and what do I stumble over? His baseball glove. I haven’t seen it in a century.