by David Ives
RUTH: Oh and by the way, Savonarola.
JACK: Uh-oh! I don’t like the sound of that at all.
RUTH: You be nice to Esther tonight.
JACK: But you know how much I love Esther Trendstein.
RUTH: Tewnstein.
JACK: Despite her being a complete maroon.
RUTH: One of these days you’re going to slip and really call her that.
JACK: A maroon?
RUTH: I mean it. None of your usual tonight.
JACK: I will be Mister Charm.
RUTH: You said that the last time, when you left the room every time she was in it.
JACK: Do you think she noticed?
RUTH: I think she got the idea.
JACK: Maybe it was the trumpet I used for my exits. What I don’t understand is how you and that gold-plated Jap ever got to be friends in the first place, (RUTH says nothing.) Winner of the Golden Palm de Boredom. (She still says nothing.) Did I say something?
RUTH: You know I hate that word.
JACK: Boredom?
RUTH: Jap.
JACK: It’s the only word that applies.
RUTH: I still hate it.
JACK: The United Nations unanimously declared Esther an international Jewish American Princess. An IJAP.
RUTH: Wouldn’t surprise me, coming from the U.N.
JACK: Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it.
RUTH: Let’s not talk about it.
JACK: Anyway Esther hates me too, so it’s mutual.
RUTH: She doesn’t hate you.
JACK: She thinks I’m a loser, which is the same thing.
RUTH: But you are a loser, darling!
JACK: Oh well that’s all right, then.
RUTH: You haven’t exactly been a shining financial success up till now, teaching mathematics to fourteen-year-olds for odd change and a school lunch.
JACK: But the lunches are so good.
RUTH: You’re not exactly Mister Solvent.
JACK: Who ever said I wanted to be? Who ever said I should be?
RUTH: Nothing wrong with a few comforts and a little security.
JACK: I have all the comforts I need, thank you.
RUTH: The complete works of John D. MacDonald and a bottle of Wild Turkey do not comprise a kingly existence.
JACK: With thou beside me in the wilderness they represent a completely fulfilling human life.
RUTH: A bottle of Wild Turkey which I bought you, Mister Walden Pond.
JACK: Yeah, send over a refill when you get a chance, will ya?
RUTH: I don’t even know how you and John D. MacDonald and the turkey manage to fit into that rathole of an apartment you have.
JACK: Rathole? Rathole?
RUTH: Okay. Parakeet cage.
JACK: Maybe it’s a parakeet cage but it’s certainly not a rathole. Besides, there’s plenty of room over here.
RUTH: Is that what you call comfort?
JACK: In my life there is simplicity, there is integrity, there is unattachment to the things of this world. To Esther Trend-stein, the human steam shovel, these things make me about as appealing as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Unlike the toilet-paper tycoon she married.
RUTH: Waxed paper.
JACK: The Jewish Prince Charming. The sheikh of West Ninety-ninth Street. (Middle Eastern accent.) “Let me show you my tent. My sheep. My flocks of goats. My beautiful wife. I own her. I have branded my name into her forehead. Someday she will bear me a son. Then I will roast her and eat her.”
RUTH: That’s not a sheikh. You sound like Dracula.
JACK: “Have I told you that my toilet-paper company earned over four-point-five zillion dollars last year? Now I have bought my fifth Mercedes and the entire state of Montana, for my summer home.”
RUTH: What do you want, he’s an Israeli.
JACK: Ah-ha! Anti-Semitism!
RUTH: I can say that. You can’t.
JACK: You know what Esther gave him for Hanukkah?
RUTH: I’m afraid to ask.
JACK: His dick, in a small box.
RUTH: Jack …
JACK: My lips are sealed. In wax.
RUTH: You are impossible.
JACK: I’m not even probable, but I’m here. Now show me one of your legs. (She sticks one out.) I’m young again. Oh God if I had ten lives I’d spend one of them just watching you put on your stockings. I’d just cream my underwear very slowly for threescore and ten years.
RUTH: Is there anything but sex for you?
JACK: Nope. Freud was right. Everything is sex. Except sex, which is money. Which is actually feces. But everything else is sex. The world is ruled by hormones. Estrogen. Endrogen. Nitrogen. Bombay gin.
(The phone rings.)
RUTH: Is there anything but sex for you?
JACK: Nope. Freud was right. Everything is sex. Except sex, which is—
(The phone rings.)
RUTH: Isn’t there anything but sex?
(The phone rings again.)
JACK: Anyway, it’s not like I haven’t had money-making non-loser ideas in my life.
RUTH: Do you mean the punk-rock toothpaste?
JACK: “Deca-Dent”? No, this is different.
RUTH: The bumper stickers? “Have a Nice Bidet”?
JACK: No, this is new. Listen. Prophylactics for dogs. (TV commercial.) “Love can be a bitch, so give your dog Cockers! Lubricated or regular.” Market it right and I could make a million. And Esther would shit in her Hammacher-Schlemmer diapers.
RUTH: What is this mishegaas men always have about their girlfriends’ friends?
JACK: Mishegaas? Moi?
RUTH: It’s so weird. At least you like Bob and Sandy.
JACK: I love Bob and Sandy. But that’s because they’re tall, thin and funny, like us.
RUTH: You like Morrie and Jean.
JACK: I adore Morrie and Jean.
RUTH: And Harry and Robin.
JACK: I venerate Harry and Robin.
RUTH: I wish we could’ve had some of your friends over.
JACK: I don’t have any friends. Not to call up, anyway.
RUTH: It’s true, isn’t it …
JACK: Only to hang up on.
RUTH: Why is that? Why don’t you have any friends?
JACK: You’re my friend. You and the fourteen-year-olds. (He notices the shoes she is putting on.) Good God!
RUTH: What.
JACK: What are those?
RUTH: They are called shoes in my language.
JACK: I recognized the general species, but—blue shoes?
RUTH: What’s wrong with them?
JACK: BLUE SHOES?
RUTH: Yeah. Blue shoes.
JACK: Do you need a pair of blue shoes?
RUTH: I got them to go with my dress.
JACK: Oh the socialist police will be on your ass about this one. Karl Marx is going to cream you, down at the station.
RUTH: Hey, it’s my birthday, asshole.
JACK: Tell that to the starving children of India.
(The phone rings.)
It’s the socialist police! Hide, quick!
(The phone rings again.)
Go away! We don’t want any!
RUTH: Somebody’s probably late. Want to get it?
JACK (picks up the receiver): Gotham porno line, Pinky speaking.—Hello? (Listens.) I know you’re there, sir. I can hear you breathing.
RUTH: Give me that.
JACK: It’s just me, the goyish boychekel.
RUTH: Jack, give me that. (Takes the receiver.) Hi, Dad. Sorry about that.… What’s up, chronically late again, or—? (Stops, listens.) Oh. (Listens.) Uh-huh … (Listens.) No, it’s not all right, actually.… (Listens.) Well I hope you’re going to change your— (Listens.) Okay. Okay. (Listens.) No, don’t call me later in the week. I said don’t call me. ’Bye! (She bangs down the receiver.)
JACK: What’s the matter?
RUTH: They’re not coming.
JACK: Oh. Did he bother to make any flimsy excuses?
RUTH: No.
JACK: Did he say anything?
RUTH: He said they’d take me out to dinner later in the week.
JACK: Well that was nice of him. Usual understanding, sensitive guy.
(Silence.)
RUTH: I’m sorry.
JACK: Don’t be sorry.
RUTH: I’m sorry anyway, I feel sorry. God, they are such assholes.
JACK: They’re parents, what do you expect? And you don’t have anything to be sorry about.
RUTH: They’re my parents. That’s all.
JACK: Look. Do you want me to leave so that they can come to your party?
RUTH: What? Don’t be crazy.
(Pause.)
I don’t know what I’m going to tell people when my parents don’t show up at the party.
JACK: Tell them the truth. Say that your father’s rounding up a posse for me down at B’nai B’rith. (RUTH says nothing.) Does anyone expect a woman of your, ah, age to have her parents at her birthday party anyway? It’s not like we’re bobbing for apples, here, (RUTH says nothing.) Well! It’s never been this bad before. Who says there’s no such thing as progress?
RUTH: I could just kill him.
JACK: Oh what the hell. Say antidisestablishmentarianism. (She says nothing.) Say “pork bellies.” (She says nothing.) Say “vagina.”
RUTH: Vagina.
JACK: Say it happier.
RUTH: Vagina.
JACK: Say “magic fingers.”
RUTH: Magic fingers.
JACK: Say— (She kisses him.) Don’t say a word. You are cured. Arise, take up thy pallet and go.
RUTH: Oh shut up.
JACK: And behold, he did shut up.
RUTH: You know what I should have said to him? Never mind. It’s not important.
JACK: The French have a term for that.
RUTH: For what.
JACK: Stairway thoughts.
RUTH: Stairway thoughts? What’s the English for that?
JACK: It’s what you think of when you’re out on the stairs going down and you realize what you should’ve said to the bastard back there. Stairway thoughts.
RUTH: Trust the French.
JACK: Esprit d’escalier.
RUTH: Don’t be pedantic.
JACK: Hey don’t blame me, blame the French. They thought of it. (She says nothing.) Is everything ready in the kitchen?
RUTH: We just have to put it all out.
JACK: You okay?
RUTH: No.
JACK: Don’t let it get you down.
RUTH: Of course it’s going to get me down.
JACK: They’re just parents. And I’m not hurt.
RUTH: Sure.
JACK: Okay, I’m hurt and I hate the bastards and I think we’ll have more fun without ’em anyway. And I’ll get more food because I won’t have to fight your father for the chip dip.
RUTH: I didn’t even really want them here, I just invited them to be nice. To be a good daughter. Why do I always do that? Don’t I ever learn?
JACK: They’re just parents. Fuck ’em.
RUTH: Who invented parents, anyway.
JACK: Psychiatrists. But who invented children? Ha! Can you answer me that question, Professor? Those beings designed by some wicked deity to scream in your ear, shit in your hand, and bankrupt you? (She says nothing.) What. What’s this gimlet-eyed look?
RUTH: I want them sometime, you know. Kids, I mean.
JACK: I know.
RUTH: The two of us could make wonderful kids, Pinky.
JACK: We are wonderful kids.
RUTH: We could breed a whole crop of tall, thin and funny children. The vanguard in that Utopian future when everybody will be tall, thin and funny. And we’d be the ones who started it.
JACK: What would you do if they ended up short, fat and dull?
RUTH: Stretch ’em, put ’em on a diet, and teach ’em some jokes.
JACK: Well no matter what they turned out to be, if they had any of my blood in them your mother would have them kidnapped and sent to a kibbutz for deprogramming. And bye-bye Utopia.
RUTH: You know that’s why Bob and Sandy went to Aruba.
JACK: To join a kibbutz?
RUTH: To make a baby.
JACK: Oh.
RUTH: We’re not twenty-five years old anymore, Jack.
JACK: So I hear.
(Pause.)
JACK: Well listen, you have to be your thin, witty and charming self in about fifteen minutes, so you’d better get it together. People will think we’ve been having a serious conversation or something.
RUTH: We do have a good time together, don’t we.
JACK: Sure. We’re friends. It’s a new concept in relationships. Friends and lovers simultaneously instead of consecutively. The way things are supposed to be in that world without canned spaghetti or toupees. Remember? So hey. Since we are such good friends … you wanna fuck, pal?
RUTH: Ohhhhhhhhh no … (She moves away and he pursues.)
JACK: Come on, just a quickie.
RUTH: Why does this always happen right before a party?
JACK: I won’t even take my pants off. We’ll do it Polish-style.
RUTH: Get away from me, you fiend!
JACK: All you have to do is lower your panties and we can do it on the floor.
RUTH: We’re always late for things because of this.
JACK: One last fuck.
RUTH: Exactly.
JACK: Only we’ll make it quick and steamy instead of the usual slow and luscious.
RUTH: You always say that and we’re always forty-five minutes late.
JACK: We’ve never regretted it yet.
RUTH: You have to do something about this chronic horniness.
JACK: It’s my tragic flaw. Horniness is next to tardiness. (Suddenly pointing in the air as a diversionary tactic.) Look! (As she looks there, he dives across the bed to catch her, but she jumps back, eluding him.)
RUTH: Everybody’s coming here this time. We can’t keep them waiting at the door.
JACK: We’ll let ’em in and they can watch.
RUTH: Jack …
JACK: It’ll be the real thing, right in front of their eyes. The zipless fuck. The beatific vision. The second coming. Or third or fourth. So come on, what do you say? Huh? Hm? Huh? Bed? Sex? Bed?
RUTH: Will you ever grow up?
JACK: Nope. Come on. You’ll love it. So will I.
RUTH: Do you promise we’ll be quick?
JACK: Scout’s honor. Ten minutes or under.
RUTH: One foot on the floor at all times?
JACK: And both hands on the ceiling.
RUTH: You’re on.
(They start to undress. The doorbell rings. They stop.)
JACK: We could still do it really quick.
RUTH: Sorry, pal. Fate has spoken.
JACK: Oh my balls are going to be sapphire blue all night.
RUTH: Good. They’ll match my shoes.
JACK: If you see me walking funny, you’ll know why.
RUTH: Just keep your legs crossed.
JACK: And it’ll be your fault. (Doorbell.)
RUTH: Just a minute!
JACK: Last chance.
RUTH: Down, Casanova. And remember what I said.
JACK: What did you say?
RUTH: Are you ready to face the world? Balls tucked in?
JACK: You may fire when ready, Grisley.
BLACKOUT
ACT TWO
Just after the party. Streamers and confetti all over the floor.
JACK: Wooooeeee!
RUTH (jive talk): Everybody lookin’ good! (They jitterbug a couple of steps.)
JACK: Great party, Pinkerstein.
RUTH: Oh you think so?
JACK: I do, I do, I do. I definitely do. The bash of the year.
RUTH: Everybody seemed to have an all-right time, all right.
JACK: Oh will you wipe that goddamn false modesty off your beautiful face?
RUTH: Hee hee hee.
JACK: You should�
��ve had the Times here to review it! This party could’ve run for months!
RUTH: With a touring company.
JACK: With touring companies playing Peoria, Paris and Bangkok!
RUTH: Now this is the way to get old.
JACK: With Lauren Bacall playing you.
RUTH: Hey. Not that old.
JACK: Oops.
(They collapse crosswise on the bed and take breaths.)
RUTH: Phew.
JACK: Well.
RUTH: Wow.
JACK: Yeah.
RUTH: Decompression chamber, please!
JACK: Nothing like a good party to give you a case of the bends.
RUTH: The aerobic hostess. Only if everybody was having such a good time, what was that loud stampede to get out of here?
JACK: Yeah. It’s not even that late.
RUTH: The way everybody headed for the door I thought my apartment had hit an iceberg or something.
JACK: Maybe everybody started worrying you’d ask them to clean up. They sure did a great job of turning your place into a pig sty. Are you sure those were your friends?
RUTH: Could be a new brand of terrorist. They drive up in a van and dump garbage all over your floor, then vanish into the night.
JACK: Are we something?
RUTH: We are something. (Silence.) What are we?
JACK: Expert party-givers.
RUTH: Oh yeah. Well I guess we might as well start excavating. (She rises.)
JACK: Aw, leave it for tomorrow. Come on back down and give your old pal a nuzzle.
RUTH: A nozzle?
JACK: A nuzzle. The nozzle is mine. (She joins him on the bed and he puts his arms around her.)
RUTH: Nuzzle nuzzle nuzzle.
JACK: And may I say—you looked fabulous.
RUTH: For my age. I know.
JACK: I can’t speak for anyone else, but I spent the entire evening in a state of sexual arousal, just looking at you. Maybe it was the expensive blue shoes.
RUTH: Oh I’ll never hear the end of them, will I.
JACK: I wanted to make violent passionate love with you right on the floor, but then I saw that Esther had covered it with tortilla chips. No doubt part of a conscious plot to keep us apart.
RUTH: By the way.
