America Finding Her Way

and wait."

  Anne: And sooo, certain I could not be trusted to follow the rule, you took unilateral action.

  Jack: I had the information. It was my responsibility to make the decision.

  Anne: To keep me in ignorance. To maintain the male prerogative.

  Jack: Christ.

  Anne: Scatter and wait. And warn others.

  Jack: I did. As soon as I could.

  Anne: You told me nothing!

  Jack: All you had to do was trust that I knew what I was talking about.

  Anne: All I had to do was obey you.

  Jack: All right!

  Beth: (Pause. Quietly) Should we talk about what to do.

  (Anne hits something, collapses, leaning on her arms over the table, shaking. Others uneasy)

  Anne: Ned gone. And Josy. Goddamn it all to hell.

  Dave: Maybe he's not gone. Maybe...

  Jack: There's a warrant on him. He’s gone. They'll keep the rest till they scare up something.

  Anne: How did they...?

  Jack: Exactly.

  Dave: What?

  Beth: ...find out.

  (All look at Dave)

  Jack: I don't think it's him.

  Dave: What are you...

  Jack: I could be wrong.

  Dave: You...

  Jack: That's why I didn't tell him on the way. Trying to gauge his response to everything. And why I waited till now, with all of us here. To watch him.

  (All still looking at Dave. He looks dumbly at them)

  Anne: How long has he had the Third Street address?

  Dave: Now just a...

  Jack: Since Ned ran into him on Monday, and he asked about us.

  Dave: Just a goddamn minute. Would I drive my wagon for you?

  Anne: You could collect more intelligence.

  Dave: You're going to have me screaming in a...

  Beth: Then why haven't they hit here yet?

  Anne: Unless he hasn't had time to report.

  Dave: Stop it! Just shut up.

  Beth: Could he have been tagged?

  Jack: Not likely. He’s been cold quite a while. Could have been a tag on any one of us... Or someone inside. A plant.

  Anne: God, I don't want to think about that.

  Jack: Yeeah.

  Beth: (Beat) What are the chances...

  Jack: That they know this place? We just have to wait.

  Anne: Shit. Wait to be hit.

  Beth: What will they have found on Third Street?

  Jack: My stuff. There wasn't much left...

  Anne: Oh! Thank god we moved the office here. All the files. And correspondence.

  Jack: ...but a couple more hours and they'd have found dynamite.

  Anne: (To Beth) You said you had stuff there.

  Beth: Books. A few clothes.

  Anne: Not this address?

  Beth: No. Josy gave it to me in code on the phone. I only kept it on me till I got in town.

  Anne: Ned had a personnel book.

  Jack: He might have had time to dump it. We don’t know how much warning they...

  Anne: We were so few already. (Sinks into chair)

  Jack: Arsenal safe. Army wiped out.

  Anne: Is there anything we can... If they're gone, maybe there's noth...

  (Silence)

  Beth: What If none of this happened...if Jack didn’t tell us...like we’re in a fantasy...

  (Beth gets up, walks away. Jack reaches for her. She avoids him)

  Anne: She's right. We'll go crazy if we sit. Teach us to build these things.

  Dave: Accomplish the action! Set a bomb on the Ninth Precinct?

  Anne: (Reacting sharply to mockery) What about him.

  Jack: Your instinct?

  Anne: (Beat) Nooo.

  Jack: Probably 85% no. Pretty ugly.

  Dave: Do you mind!

  Jack: What have you got to say for yourself?

  Dave: Shit-heads.

  Anne: He's caught here, no matter...

  Jack: Yeah.

  Dave: What?

  Anne: You were planning to stay?

  Dave: I'm a prisoner?! (Looks at them both. No response) Oh no. Nothing doing. No way.

  Anne: You got a big-time thrill on this caper.

  Dave: Forget it. Came for the laughs, got no dog in the family fight. Just a temporary-type felon.

  Jack: Is anyone expecting you?

  Dave: No, but...

  Anne: Good. Sit tight.

  Dave: There is no way I'm missing the eclipse. It'll be 2017 before there's...

  Anne: That's tomorrow, Dave. We'll talk about it tomorrow.

  Jack: Did you pull the phones – so no one connects who could be traced?

  Anne: Of course.

  (They stand, taut with the pain and emergency)

  Anne: Let's go then.

  Jack: Yeah.

  (Jack opens refrigerator, Dave watches warily, as Jack lifts crate of dynamite, sets it down, opens)

  Jack: I felt so...helpless. Half a block from me – there’s Ned and the Pigs and the rest. People lounged in broken glass, gaping. I felt like my brain was flashing red: "Me too, you want me too!" But no one saw me. (Sits, helpless)

  Anne: Is this the hardware? (Gets box with bags she’ll set out)

  Jack: There's got to be something we can do besides waiting to show on their radar!

  Anne: No, you were right. They expect us to flap now they've entered the hen house. We wait.

  Jack: And gamble.

  Anne: That they don't know where to look. Yes.

  Dave: Have you got a telescope here? I read in the paper that...

  Jack: You know what this means? We've got to go under.

  Anne: Cool it. This is temporary.

  Jack: (Gets up swiftly – opening bags, setting out wires, tape, nails, blasting caps) Shutdown has got to become our status quo.

  Anne: Christ, Jack, you're such an alarmist. We'll wait to see what happens with Ned and...

  Jack: You think we can scurry out setting bombs in the morning, and still pop into a rally at noon?

  Dave: (Uneasy watching) Not noon. 2 PM Saturday, Washington Square Arch. Raindate: ...

  Anne: Action’s the perfect cover. And multiple actions can look like multiple groups. Just because there's been a bust doesn't mean...

  Jack: How long do you think it'll take them to find us?

  Anne: If they're looking.

  Jack: For Christ's sake, your daddy's in the phone book. They can call directory assistance!

  Anne: You're running scared, Jack. What kind of power can we maintain if we hide?

  Jack: That what you're in it for – power?

  (Beth moves, will climb a few stairs, get a rifle, and sit breaking it down, checking, cleaning it)

  Dave: Ooo, you hit it there. The lady likes to get behind a microphone.

  Jack: Why balk at going under, Anne? We've seen it coming. We're in small units, connected, but able to operate in isolation, if cut off. So this is it. Ahead of schedule.

  Dave: Just one farewell performance. Think of her public.

  Anne: (To Jack) You can organize yourself straight into a pile of shit.

  Dave: Pow! Secure in your isolation booth, hunched over a key transmitter...

  Anne: Shut up, Dave.

  Dave: …you'll be found in 91 years, with crumbling eyelids...

  Anne: Christ.

  Dave: ...still waiting for the connection.

  Jack: There's no waiting, wise ass! This whole fucking globe is about to boil. (Jack straightens, speaks as at a rally) How much fatter could we get? Like a parody of Santa wheezing ho‑ho‑ho, I'm the great father. Bring me your poor, and I will exploit them, batten down the screws of their crumbling dictatorships, exterminate them if they should rebel.

  (Jack finishes passionately, towards Beth
; she’s turned on watching him)

  Dave: Right on! That what you smuggled out of junior exec summers at your dad's multi-national?

  Jack: Don't strain for cutes, Dave. My dad trades in futures. All I could have smuggled was cows.

  Dave: This your line, too, Beth?

  Beth: You smell the burning flesh, Dave. Why are you hiding?

  Jack: Hiding's worse than being drugged or asleep.

  Anne: Right! And if we’re underground, we’re muzzled. Who can we wake?

  Dave: What did I tell you. She wants to lead the parade. Strut them thighs.

  Jack: She should make up her mind – revolutionary or movie star!

  Anne: (Stunned, attacks Jack) You can't stomach that a woman has power, that after you screw her she doesn't curl up and gurgle.

  (Beth startled, looks at Jack, and he at her, uneasy)

  Dave: You mean, you two...?

  Anne: (Interrupting) You're a jealous prick because you can calculate and structure till your balls fall off, but it's me...me that stands up and takes the people with me.

  Dave: Jack hasn't got your legs.

  Beth: If Anne's legs make them listen, what’s the problem?

  Dave: Hitler wasn't very sexy.

  Beth: Castro is. You've got to know your market. Sex sells. Americans don’t go much for rank. Or talent. And you've got no chance at all if they suspect you've got brains. So what's left?

  Jack: We can't have it both ways. If our intent is outside the law, our public action is finished.

  Dave: I'd like to know how the hell you painted yourself into this hot little corner, where you start heaving bombs?

  Beth: Dave...

  Dave: I mean, you cats have escalated faster than the Joint Chiefs.

  Anne: How dare you.

  Dave: I can see Anne doing it. She'd pick up the gun if somebody scuffed her boots. And maybe Jack could compute himself onto such a gangplank. But Beth? There's no way Beth could arrive at such a brutal, suicidal...

  Anne: You lazy coward.

  Jack: You quit! You have no right to touch what we've been through.

  Dave: And you're all fantasizing. Like failed revolutionaries. Guns, bombs...

  Anne: Yes it's criminal, and no one will help. But watch how many hundreds of thousands cheer when the first draft center is blown.

  Dave: Who do you think you're kidding? The movement was grandiose, but you've upped the stakes because you can't admit it's over.

  Jack: The old game was more fun, huh, Dave? Marches, rallies, sleep-in's…if you forget the murders down South, it was better than old times, actually: There were flowers!

  Anne: Pretty memory to retire on, huh, Dave? But that was the fantasy. (Rising to lead a rally) ...that our country was what we'd been taught. And the farther we marched, the more we saw, what welled in our footsteps was blood. So we stopped our happy march. The land of the free was a fantasy.

  Jack: The buck stops here. And it costs us: Isolation. Exile. Jail. (Beat) Now you're retired, what do you think of the war, David?

  Dave: (Wary) What do you mean.

  Jack: What do you think about children jumping up and down...trying to shake off napalm.

  Dave: (Shaking) You...

  Anne: Or National Guard, splattering freshman who stopped to watch a rally on their way to class.

  Beth: Or Maya, leading me to her dismembered father.

  Jack: Have you met any happy Vets lately?

  Dave: (Hoarsely) What are you saying.

  Jack: What are you doing?

  Dave: (Furious) You bastards! I spent years working against this war.

  Anne: Then how could you quit. The war didn't. Good god, your own brother was...

  Dave: Shut up!! (Shaking. Pause) My brother died. That's the best reason in the world for me to chuck all this shit, to get out and live. He was just a kid, but he’s everything I knew about life. I remember when he was born. He shoved himself into my life, like an extension of me. I could love him because I wasn't alone anymore, and still hate him for taking my space. But if he could die...then I've seen the beginning and the end. I've seen that the end can come...to even a kid. I want to live.

  Beth: But how? And for what.

  Dave: (Upset) I’ll tell you what he lived for. He was not much like me, you see, not so sharp, so overbearing. He was always easy. Did whatever I could, but without the strain. And gentle-hearted. He hated my bullying, but never made noise. Quietly resisted, never cried. Only once in his life did he stand up and shout at me. It shocked me so I shut up He said my politics disgraced our parents. He said I never thought of who I hurt. He said he was ashamed of me. (Beat) Next morning he enlisted. (Pause, looking at them) Of course he was happy. He believed in it. At least... The last card I got came two days after the notice of his death. It said the usual stuff about the food, his