Escape Velocity

by Charles Portis

  MR. PALFREY. Be careful. Easy now.

  DUVALL. (Exasperated) Careful of what?

  MR. PALFREY. I think she’s under compression. Easy does it—when you find those catches under there. Gently! Watch it! Watch it now! Just release those catches one at a time or she’ll go off in your face like an air bag!

  Duvall, alarmed, jerks his hands clear and draws back. He stops work altogether and stands up, looking down at Mae. The others also look at her, in silence, for a time.

  MRS. VETCH. (Sighing) It seems so long since we had anything to eat.

  MR. NIBLIS. We never got our lunch, that’s why. Much less our breakfast.

  MRS. VETCH. Nothing like this ever happened when Miss Eula was running things.

  MR. MINGO. Nothing even remotely like this.

  MR. PALFREY. More and more people are fainting these days. Have you noticed that? Left and right, all over the country. The least little bit of bad news and they keel over like possums, with their paws up in the air. I never passed out in my life.

  LENORE. Can’t we even get a sandwich? A nice chicken salad sandwich on toast?

  DUVALL. The kitchen is closed. Delray’s orders.

  MR. PALFREY. These new people will serve you a rat salad sandwich on toast if they feel like it, Lenore. The paying customer don’t have any say in the matter.

  MRS. VETCH. I’ll bet Kate could find us a little snack.

  MR. NIBLIS. Kate has run off with Prentice. You saw her go yourself.

  MRS. VETCH. Oh yes, I forgot. I hope he’s kind to her. Is Sammy back there?

  DUVALL. He’s gone too, with all our prime K.C. steaks.

  MRS. VETCH. Where is Delray?

  DUVALL. Upstairs, dealing with some morons in Room Six.

  MRS. VETCH. Morons? What do they want here?

  DUVALL. We don’t know yet. I think some cruel mother was driving through on the Interstate and just dumped them off here.

  MR. MINGO. Maybe you could make a run down to the barbecue joint for us, Duvall.

  DUVALL. I can’t do everything!

  LENORE. Can you do anything? You sure can’t fix a car.

  DUVALL. I’m not the handyman around here. I wasn’t hired to do all this menial work. I should be back in college working on my psychology degree.

  MR. PALFREY. You’d be better off dead, son.

  FERN. (Holding the backs of her fingers to Mae’s forehead) But what about Ruth Buttress? We really ought to do something. She doesn’t seem to be coming around. Her color is not good at all.

  DUVALL. I’ll put her on the bed back there. Then I’m through. That’s all I intend to do. I’m not unlacing Ruth Buttress.

  Duvall takes Mae by the wrists and begins dragging her away.

  MRS. VETCH. (Scandalized) Not on the same bed with the strange man! Wearing the heavy shoes!

  Duvall says nothing. He continues to drag Mae in a rough manner. One of her shoes comes off.

  LENORE. Shouldn’t he put her on rollers or something?

  Duvall drags Mae offstage. There is a flash of lightning, followed by a clap of thunder. The hotel lights flicker and go off, leaving the room dim.

  MR. NIBLIS. (Gleeful) There it goes! There went the transformer! That’s it! Lights out! Sweet dreams, everybody!

  Act III

  A bit later. The room is now dimly lighted by candles. Mrs. Vetch, Mr. Niblis and Mr. Mingo are seated as before, but are now holding Avalon balloons on strings, and wearing Avalon caps, which are baseball caps with very long bills. Conspicuous yellow shipping tags are wired to their lapels. Mr. Palfrey and his daughters are seated as before. Lenore is eating a pecan log. Marguerite, Delray and Duvall are absent.

  MR. MINGO. What was I saying? Someone broke my concentration there. Where was I? Someone broke my stride.

  MRS. VETCH. Still air.

  FERN. How the still air in here reminded you of your boyhood home.

  MR. PALFREY. I thought he said stale air.

  LENORE. (Putting aside the pecan log, licking her fingers) Where is that Duvall boy with our barbecue sandwiches? We can’t live off these big nut logs. They’re way too sweet and sticky.

  MR. PALFREY. People don’t know what stale air is until they’ve been in an old folks home.

  MRS. VETCH. Miss Eula loved fresh air. How she loved throwing the windows up with a bang every morning! No still air for her!

  MR. PALFREY. Stale air was what I thought Mr. Mingo said.

  MR. NIBLIS. Or a veterans’ hospital. Talk about your stale air. Try that and see how you like it. A good long whiff of that and your knees will buckle, Mr. Palfrey.

  MR. PALFREY. It’s all them bathrobes.

  MRS. VETCH. Bathrobe fumes. Yes, you may be right. And those flannel pajamas. Reeking pajamas.

  MR. PALFREY. It’s all them bathrobe vapors is what it is.

  MR. MINGO. Still air was what I said, but—

  MR. NIBLIS. Can you wear shorty pajamas at Avalon?

  FERN. Not out in the lobby, no, I wouldn’t think so.

  MRS. VETCH. Certainly not! Did you expect to lounge about in the parlor and receive guests in your shorty pajamas, Mr. Niblis? What very strange notions of propriety you have!

  MR. PALFREY. Is he so proud of his shanks? Why would he want to show his old shanks to all the guests?

  MRS. VETCH. Two white sticks.

  MR. NIBLIS. I wasn’t thinking of guests. I’ve never had a guest.

  MRS. VETCH. And you a preacher, too. You might have made some friends, you know, if you had attended to your pastoral duties instead of just hollering at people on street corners.

  MR. NIBLIS. I wasn’t called to do social work. I wasn’t called to offer cheap comfort. I was called to preach the living Word, not to clap people on the back.

  MRS. VETCH. I think I’d rather die myself than go out and address strangers in public like that. Didn’t smart-alecks come up and make fun of you and try to provoke you?

  MR. NIBLIS. (Snort of laughter) Tried to is right! The harder they pressed me, Mrs. Vetch, the better I liked it. I made mincemeat out of those hecklers. I got the best of every argument.

  MRS. VETCH. Watch out—spiritual pride.

  MR. NIBLIS. I blistered their hide good. All they could do was sputter for a little bit and then slink away.

  MRS. VETCH. That sounds like boasting and pride to me.

  MR. NIBLIS. Maybe so, but I ripped ’em up one side and down the other. My street corner was only a street corner to you, Mrs. Vetch, but it was Mount Carmel to me and I was Elijah the Tishbite facing down the eight-hundred-and-fifty prophets of Baal and Asherah. I had the devil on the run there for a little while. You look at me now and wonder, but I was a lot better man back then.

  FERN. (To Mrs. Vetch) But you don’t mean Miss Eula would throw the windows up when it was raining, do you?

  MRS. VETCH. No, no, weather permitting. I thought that would be understood. How we miss her! Such a good country cook, and such a good woman too, always so cheerful and understanding! (Sighing) But her loving presence is no longer felt here.

  MR. NIBLIS. You could feel it for a few days after she left.

  MRS. VETCH. There was a brief afterglow, yes. (Looking about) Now all quite gone from these rooms.

  MR. MINGO. Still air was what I said, but Mr. Palfrey was right when he—

  MR. NIBLIS. I can’t say we miss Ramp. We don’t feel his absence.

  MRS. VETCH. But did we ever feel his presence much?

  MR. NIBLIS. Still, he was smarter than us.

  MRS. VETCH. I miss my son too. My gallant son. At least he was spared all this. He won’t be like us. They can’t put him away. He’ll always be twenty-six years old.

  Pause.

  MR. PALFREY. Bus station air is pretty bad air.

  MR. NIBLIS. Bus station air is sweet air compared to the air in your flophouse hotel across the street from your bus station. The Hotel Central, the Commercial Hotel, the City Hotel, the Terminal Hotel, the Vagrants Hotel. I know those places. Your one-s
heet hotels, your no-sheet hotels, your gray-sheet hotels. Talk about sharp air! It would make your eyes water! It would turn your knees to jelly, Mr. Palfrey.

  MR. MINGO. Still air was what I said, but—

  MR. NIBLIS. Like Belshazzar’s quivering knees. When he was at his profane feast and he saw those burning words on the wall. (Quoting, grave delivery) “So that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.”

  MR. MINGO. Still air was what I said, but you were right, Mr. Palfrey, the air in our house was stale too, quite dead. All our windows were nailed shut and my mother stuffed rags under the doors to keep out drafts. That stagnant air stunted our development in so many ways. I believe it accounts for our dull Mingo eyes. The dead air, the perpetual gloom. We had red curtains that were never parted or drawn. We lived in that twilight, about like it is here now, except that ours had more of a reddish, infernal tone.

  MRS. VETCH. Why do we have to wear these fool caps?

  MR. NIBLIS. Duvall said we couldn’t take them off till we get to Avalon.

  MRS. VETCH. We look like a bunch of cancer patients.

  MR. MINGO. Not that there weren’t signs of life. There was murmuring around our dinner table as we aired our grievances. We didn’t look directly at one another, you understand. Our eyes seldom met, and then only for a moment. Just a darting glance to identify the speaker, then quickly back to the business of ripping and tearing our food. Mingos have teeth like dogs. We gobbled our food and muttered away, making our halting points in Mingo family debate. Nothing dramatic, no raised voices, just smoldering family quarrels that went on for years, unresolved. There wasn’t enough oxygen in our house to feed a real blaze.

  MR. NIBLIS. A little of the Mingo family goes a long way with me.

  MR. PALFREY. How big is your cancer, Mrs. Vetch, and where is it?

  MRS. VETCH. I don’t have a cancer, thank you.

  MR. MINGO. Did I mention the long tradition of defeat in the Mingo family? It’s a miracle the line is not extinct. In the survival of the Mingos you see Darwin’s theory exploded. Mingos lose heart easily. I remember one night—

  MR. NIBLIS. What is he off on now? More Mingo stuff?

  MR. MINGO. It was a Thursday night—sandwich night. We were sitting around the table holding our sandwiches with both hands before our face. Like this, before our downcast faces. (Mimes holding of sandwich, chewing) So there we were, our faces in partial eclipse, our Mingo eyes—the glaucous eyes of cavefish—rolling sluggishly about over the tops of our sandwiches—when my sister Neva suddenly spoke up and said she had an important announcement to make.

  MR. NIBLIS. Can’t somebody break his stride again?

  MRS. VETCH. His stride? Mr. Mingo striding? Why, it takes him ten minutes to get up the stairs!

  LENORE. I think that Duvall boy has run off with our sandwich money. That boy with the blue ribbon in his hair.

  MR. NIBLIS. Where is that delivery van? I’m starving to death. At least they’ll have to feed us at Avalon. I’m ready to be put away. Let Mole do his worst.

  MRS. VETCH. The van turned over! Didn’t you hear about that bad wreck on the highway? That was the Avalon van!

  MR. NIBLIS. Somebody said it was a school bus. With a lot of little children killed.

  MRS. VETCH. No! Can’t you pay attention for one minute! That heavy woman who took a tumble right here before your eyes! That was Ruth Buttress! She was driving the van!

  MR. PALFREY. (Quoting) “That thing was as big as a pumpkin but we think we got it all.” That’s what these cancer doctors say to you after they’ve cut some great big tumor out of your guts. Then you go back for a check-up and they say, “Well, it looks like we didn’t get it all, after all. It looks like we missed a right smart of it. Here’s some dope pills for you and some BC powders. Go on back home and go to bed. You’re just all eat up with cancer and your days are real short now.”

  MRS. VETCH. I don’t have a cancer, thank you.

  MR. MINGO. Well, of course, we all stopped eating and looked at Neva. We were holding our sandwiches up with both hands, like this. Like so many mouth harps. Yes, like mouth organs. If some sly Gypsy or some skulking tramp had peered through a crack in our curtains he might well have thought he had stumbled on to a harmonica academy. We were stunned. I mean, Neva speaking up like that, with such urgency, on sandwich night. What was she going to announce? What could it possibly be?

  MR. NIBLIS. I’ve got a bellyful of the Mingo family.

  LENORE. One thing we know—it’s not going to be sandwich night here. That Duvall boy has run off with our money.

  Enter Marguerite.

  MARGUERITE. No, he hasn’t. I saw him down at the barbecue joint. The lights are back on down there. Duvall said he would be back directly.

  She squeezes into a chair with Tonya—a wooden chair with arms. She tickles Tonya in the ribs and makes her laugh.

  MR. MINGO. So, when Neva spoke up again, out of that expectant hush—

  MRS. VETCH. I must say, Mr. Mingo—you don’t paint a very pretty picture of your family circle on sandwich night.

  MR. MINGO. (Dismissive wave) That was nothing. That was a lovely dinner party. You should have dined with us on soup night, Mrs. Vetch. The noise alone was enough to—

  FERN. But what was it that Neva announced?

  LENORE. That she was pregnant, Fern, what else? I could see that coming a mile away.

  MR. MINGO. Not at all. She announced that she was going away to jewelry school, to improve her skills. My father, you see, had told Neva more than once to stay away from art, but she wouldn’t stop making bracelets. She spent all her time in her room making bracelets, at her little workbench.

  Pause.

  FERN. Well, we’re waiting. What happened? Did she go off to jewelry school?

  MR. MINGO. Oh yes. Or at least she made the effort. She packed a grip and went down to the Missouri-Pacific depot and got a daycoach seat on the northbound Eagle. When she arrived at the site of the jewelry school she found nothing but wet ashes. The school had burned down the night before. Neva lost heart and came back home, on the southbound Eagle. Her flight was brief.

  MR. NIBLIS. We’ve had more than enough of the Mingos at their food. My attention is flagging again. You’re all talk, Mingo. Just one idle word after another. Look at us. We’re sheep waiting for the slaughter. We sit here talking nonsense all day while Ramp is running around out there free as a bird. Traveling incognito and incommunicado.

  FERN. So did Neva go on making bracelets against her father’s wishes?

  MR. MINGO. Yes, she did. He lost heart too, you see, and gave up. But I don’t know that Neva ever sharpened her workbench skills very much.

  MRS. VETCH. But why would Mr. Ramp travel incognito? I don’t see the point. Hardly anybody knew who he was anyway. They wouldn’t even know him as Mr. Ramp.

  MR. MINGO. An obscure man seeking a deeper darkness.

  MR. NIBLIS. Don’t sell him short.

  MR. MINGO. With every passing day I lose a little more interest in Mr. Ramp.

  MR. NIBLIS. He was a lot smarter than you. All you do is run your mouth, Mingo. Ramp was a man of action. He cleared out before Ruth Buttress could lay her hands on him.

  MR. PALFREY. (Turning to Marguerite and Tonya) What are y’all doing over there? Putting red paint on your fingernails?

  TONYA. No sir. She’s just drawing a little green bird on my hand.

  MRS. VETCH. I wonder how she’s doing.

  MR. PALFREY. Who? How who’s doing?

  MRS. VETCH. You know. Back there on the bed. Ruth Buttress.

  MR. MINGO. Has Ruth rallied then?

  FERN. I hope she’s resting comfortably.

  Enter Delray, coming down the stairs with a flashlight.

  DELRAY. I hope she’s all doubled up with cramps in her belly. Don’t talk to me about Ruth Buttress. She comes here out of the rain with broken glass in her hair. She drinks a big Coke. The second van is on the way, she tells me. Then
she goes to bed. All right, where is this second van? I never even saw the first one. So where are all these phantom vans from Avalon?

  MARGUERITE. Look at us, Delray.

  DELRAY. What, two girls in one chair? I’ve seen everything now. Where has Duvall got off to? Have you seen Duvall?

  MARGUERITE. He’s down at the barbecue joint eating parched peanuts and watching the football game. The lights are back on down there.

  DELRAY. The lights are on everywhere in America except at Delray’s New Moon. Which has just paid an enormous deposit to the Arkansas Power and Light Company. (His flashlight flickers and goes out. He shakes it) And now they’ve shut off my flashlight. (He gives Marguerite a quarter) Here, Marguerite, go to the barbecue joint just as fast as your little legs will carry you. Tell Duvall the roof is leaking in Room Three. I want him back here pronto. Tell him those people upstairs have scattered and I need his help in rounding them up. Tell him I am deeply disappointed in him.

  MARGUERITE. I can’t remember all that.

  DELRAY. Just tell him I said to get back here on the double. And tell him…tell him…tell him that until he learns steady application to his work he can never expect to…no, that’s enough. Go!

  Marguerite runs for the door.

  DELRAY. No, wait! Tell him not to come back! Do you hear? Tell Duvall he’s all done at Delray’s New Moon! Tell him he’s out! Tell him I never want to see his face again! Tell him he is no longer a part of Delray’s dream!

  She starts again.

  MR. MINGO. Find out the score, Marguerite.

  MARGUERITE. Duvall wouldn’t tell me the score, Mr. Mingo, but he said the Hogs are driving again.

  DELRAY. Go! Go! Tell him he’s useless! Tell him he’s worthless! Tell him he’s hopeless!

  She starts again.

  MRS. VETCH. Marguerite! Wait! Will you please see about our sandwiches while you’re at it?

  MARGUERITE. I’ll bring ’em back myself, Mrs. Vetch! As soon as I tell Duvall he’s all done here at the New Moon! I won’t be long!

  DELRAY. You have your instructions! Go!