America Finding Her Way

ACT TWO

  Hospital room. Jamy on raked bed, unconscious and wearing an electronic "cap." Kate sitting at control board with headphones and microphone. On scrim, brainwaves (EEG) which will blend and intersperse with images of objects being "fed" via an overhead projector. We hear Kate over the microphone-speaker, and see on the scrim the image of her hands playing a finger game.

  Kate: Jamy, Jamy, Jamy, Jamy – whoops-Jamy, whoops-Jamy, Jamy, Jamy, Jamy.

  (Kate repeats this, then waits, checks all indicators to which Jamy is wired. She's getting nothing. The brainwaves hold a constant long rolling pattern. She sighs, begins singing– )

  Kate: A little ducky duddle

  went wading in a puddle

  went wading in a puddle quite small

  Said he, it doesn't matter

  how much I splash and splatter

  I'm only a ducky after all

  (An image is forming on the scrim. It is rain raining on a street)

  Kate: (Sings, hums) "A little hmhmhm-mm." That's it, Jamy, rain! That's right. "Went wading in a puddle" Come on, put the ducky there. "Hmhmmm...quite small." Give Jamy, give me the ducky!

  (The rain continues on scrim. Now there's a sidewalk, and a large fence with a piece torn away. Alan enters with a large box, stops at entrance)

  Alan: What's that, the Project?

  Kate: (To Alan) Wait, just wait.

  (She speaks insistently toward Jamy, moves from controls to directly in front of his bed)

  Kate: Jamy Alan Marshall, thirteen years old, goes to Lincoln Junior...

  Alan: Kate...

  (Rain on scrim is fading. Brainwaves are settling into longer pattern)

  Kate: Don't go, Jamy. Stay in there.

  (Rain is gone. Kate rips headphones off, leans on her arms, head hanging)

  Alan: That's enough. Let's move him downstairs.

  Kate: What did you bring? You found his toy box?

  Alan: Call Dr Nicklaus, Kate. Jamy belongs in intensive care.

  (Kate looks at Alan, goes to box, rummages, taking out truck, books, snorkel)

  Kate: (Pulling out baseball glove) His mitt. That's good.

  Alan: Kate.

  (Kate is adjusting controls, microphone, manipulates the mitt in the overhead projector. It appears on the scrim over brainwaves, shadowy, then clear)

  Kate: You know what they can do for him? (Low chant) Here y'come, Jamy boy. Steady eye, slow swing. Cinch up. Easy – test it. That's it, give 'em a target.

  Alan: How long do you think they'll let you care for your own child?

  Kate: Eye on the ball. Y'got him. Level now, straight from the shoulder – swwwing and co-o-onnect! (She looks back and forth from her control dials to Jamy) Is he...?

  Alan: There’s nothing. He's not picking up.

  Kate: It's feeding onto his retina.

  Alan: Nothing.

  Kate: Sometimes they'll reach for the object. It'll enter their dream...

  Alan: (Near weeping) No response, Kate.

  Kate: ...and bring them closer to waking. (Beat. Looks at Alan) You know what they'll do in intensive? Nothing!

  Alan: They'll monitor. They'll watch, they'll wait.

  Kate: How much time do you think we have? A few hours unconscious are usual, not alarming. After a whole day, it's dangerous. At least I'm doing...

  Alan: You're experimenting!

  Kate: I can't let him go, Alan. I don't know where he is, but I have to try. I think I can reach him.

  Alan: You think?

  Kate: Something's pulling me. I don't...

  Alan: An instinct?

  Kate: (Looks at Alan without speaking, then– ) Yes.

  Alan: You don't believe in that, Kate. "Science is reason."

  Kate: I know what I believe, but something else is going on here.

  Alan: Because you feel it is? You're experimenting with our son's life!

  Kate: I can't make it worse! (Rummaging through the box)

  Alan: You don't know that! You could be interfering with...

  Kate: What do you know about it! (Pulling a cowboy and horse out of the box)

  (When they see the worn cowboy, their grief hits them and they collapse, giving in to it)

  Alan: (Sitting) Not a goddamned thing. I'm just one of the bastards.

  Kate: Poor old cowpoke. (Pause) Who was that old woman, Alan?

  Alan: I don't know.

  (Kate sighs, and sits up, positioning cowboy and horse in the projector. Alan watches)

  Alan How did you get the rain?

  Kate: With a song. Little Ducky Duddle. I just felt a song; song is breath.

  (Kate suddenly turns to Alan. Cowboy, on scrim and off, falls flat)

  Kate: Why did I say that? Where did I get it?

  Alan: What?

  Kate: "Song is breath."

  Alan: I don't know.

  Kate: It's as though someone else is in my brain, watching, sometimes speaking.

  Alan: Kate, you're exhausted. You've got to stop...

  (Alan's staring at scrim. The waves are lengthening. Kate sings in calm voice, through mike, puppeting horse with its droopy cowboy)

  Kate: (Sings) "I'm a poor old paint..."

  Alan: Look.

  (The waves are fading, and snowflakes begin to fill the scrim)

  Kate: "I'm leaving Cheyenne..."

  Alan: Snow! What does it mean?

  Kate: Shhh...

  Alan: Jamy!

  Kate: Don't. He's dreaming.

  Alan: It's going away.

  Kate: Cowboys in snow? Is there a story?

  Alan: There... Look!

  (Fading in, filling scrim, are many animals. Kate and Alan stand, awed)

  Kate: (Softly) My god.

  Alan: (Staring, murmurs– ) Brothers four-leg’d.

  (Scrim fades slowly, brainwaves shift to a larger pattern)

  Kate: He's going, drifting.

  Alan: She called me “a two-leg’d.”

  Kate: (Insistent, on mike) Jamy, come back here. Do you hear me?

  Alan: Kate, don't...

  Kate: You know who's calling you. Come here this minute! I need you. (Chokes) Jamy.

  Alan: (Hand on her) Kate.

  Kate: Couldn't hear me anyway. (Pulls off headphones) He slipped back.

  (She moves to look at Jamy, touches him. Alan sinks, collapsing)

  Kate: His vital signs are ok. Could be an hour before he's close again.

  Alan: Just tell me what's going on?

  Kate: The program converts electric signals from his brain into the images a patient is seeing during REM. If I introduce new images while he’s dreaming, it may prepare him to wake. We know someone comatose can hear the talk in his room, so the dreamer...

  Alan: I mean what about the four-leg’d…?

  Kate: You picked up "four-leg’d" from Jamy. He's always saying... (Stops) You're right, I've got to rest.

  Alan: Let them take him downstairs, Kate. Before they force you.

  Kate: I can't. I've got a connection they can't explain, so if I find something, anything he'll come back for... (Flops into monitoring chair, which reclines) Rest, Alan. Breathe. We have to "feel" into it, bend. Science does work that way when you're breaking through. If you hold so tight, you won't be flexible enough to...follow him.

  Alan: But this is sheer hell.

  Kate: I know. And I know I'm not myself. Jamy brought something into the room with that woman, and...

  Alan: When we carried him in he said – what? "Ah may ja– ?"

  Kate: Amay-jabul. Nobody's heard of it. They're punching it phonetically through known languages.

  Alan: I did this. It happened in that split second on the stairs. If I hadn't gotten angry...

  Kate: (Sits up abruptly) Stop it now! Blame is for shit. It means nothing. I was glad you got angry. Terrified, but s
till glad.

  Alan: Oh god, why.

  Kate: Your shouting...had life in it.

  Alan: Christ. Jamy was blocking my way, saying no. And what was I doing? Dressing up to go play power. You know what I was thinking? How proud Dad was the day I got into student politics. Said it was sure to be "useful." Christ. At least that's finished.

  Kate: (Lying back) That was the weekend you brought me home to meet Mimi and Jacob. I wore my pale green dress with rosebuds.

  Alan: A dress?

  Kate: You told me they'd like it. And Mimi scooped me up. Didn't even have to take a good look. Something told her I was for you, and that was that. Prime heiress material. It took her a whole six hours to realize I was the devil herself leading you straight to hell. In that six hours she'd shown me every window latch and corner closet on the place. She even took me to the attic. There was a painted chest filled with wooden boxes, all labeled – diplomas and deeds. Every accomplishment, tangible and otherwise, that went with the name Marshall.

  Alan: So you bought in on the spot.

  Kate: Yup, I bought. Interesting word. And made you throw it all away.

  Alan: Who made who?

  Kate: (Silence) You know, he could be drifting out there, away from us, because it's easier.

  Alan: What was it about? That old woman.

  Kate: Just some...phantom he was chasing. Then he fell back into our world.

  Alan: Or hers. You're crossing over, Doctor.

  Kate: I know. This is taking me places I didn't want to go. I need elements defined, clear...

  Alan: Controllable?

  Kate: ...where all that matters is what works, why it works, how it works. But in the brain, there's an infinite imagination infinitely creative. I can only be aware of its infinity, never its actual scope. And with that scope, comes a nearly limitless adaptability in its primary mission – caring for the body.

  Alan: Imagine...if we could develop an organ adaptable enough to care for society the way the brain cares for the body.

  Kate: (Looks at him, choked) Oh, Alan.

  Alan: (Pause) He did speak.

  Kate: It wasn't speech. Two words we don't even know, and animals, animals! Can you find anything real?

  Alan: Jen. She's real. And practical. She's poring through files on the Project.

  Kate: But what does Jamy want there? Unless, because you were running that series on homelessness...?

  Alan: Jamy's not exactly the paper's most avid reader.

  Kate: But he is exactly the partner for a crazy?

  Alan: Kate.

  Kate: I'm sorry. It's just... What about Mimi? Did you call her?

  Alan: No, I'm letting Jen deal...don't want her worried.

  Kate: This woman Gaia knew your father's name. How? Why?

  Alan: She could have learned it from Jamy. (Pause) I had Jen cross reference "Gaia". The only entry turned up a dead end.

  Kate: There was something?

  Alan: One of the City Limits relocation horrors. People had clean walls and new kitchens out there, at least at first. But there was no corner newsstand, no laundry lines, no stoop-ball.

  Kate: No life.

  Alan: Young started preying on the old, the hallways, each other. One clipping was about a young woman with a handful of kids and the isolation. Her mother refused to leave Front Street, husband gone for months working the railroad. She'd thrown herself from the twelfth floor at 4PM. Nobody even saw it happen.

  Kate: Of course.

  Alan: Her name was Gaia.

  Kate: Oh, Alan.

  Alan: So it doesn't lead anywhere.

  Kate: No.

  Alan: But he had it grease-penciled.

  Kate: The item?

  Alan: Dad did, yeah. And scratched “Fanel” in the margin: the mother’s name.

  (Jen appears, bedraggled)

  Kate: Oh, Jen, you're still in your beautiful dress.

  Jen: I haven't thought.

  Kate: Come here.

  (Jen walks over. Kate hugs her)

  Jen: Is there anything?

  Kate: No verbal response. Some imaging. I'm sorry Jen, about last night.

  Jen: Didn't turn out so bad. Nobody told you? He was nominated. You were nominated, Dad. Congratulations.

  Alan: What? (Gets up)

  Jen: Four other candidates – you got it on the third ballot. Isn't that something?

  Alan: (Walking about) I don't believe it. It's ridiculous!

  Jen: So maybe Mike was right about running. But he didn't remember what the crazy said. Did she turn up?

  Alan: Forget the nomination, Jen. I'm finished with it.

  Jen: What, because of Jamy?

  Alan: You have a better reason?

  Jen: He wants you to quit? You think that's what Jamy wants?

  Kate: Wait, wait –