by David Mamet
Mike: So: you play your jack, you skip the man to your ri—left; second jack, two, men. Et cetera.
Joe: Right.
Mike: It's simple.
Joe: And the last card that you cover must be the same suit.
Mike: Right. Just like any other card. (Pause.) Or denomination.
Joe: Right. Except that that would be a jack.
Mike: Right. Right. I'm sorry. Or an eight. (Pause.)
Joe: What's this thing with fours?
Mike: Fours. Very simple. When you play a four . . . when you play a four . . . ?
Joe: Yes?
Mike: The direction of play changes. (Pause.) Right?
Joe: Right. (Pause.)
Mike: It's very simple: Man on your right plays, you play. You play a four, it goes right back to him. Now he must play again. (Pause.) You see?
Joe: Yes. And then the man on his right.
Mike: Yes. (Pause.) You must change the direction.
Joe: Right.
Mike: Good. (Pause.) That's it. Other than that it's regular.
Joe: How do you score?
Mike: Aces are fifteen . . .
Joe: . . . yes . . .
Mike: Face cards are ten . . .
Joe: Uh-huh.
Mike: And every other thing is what it is. (Pause.) Okay?
Joe: Yes.
Mike: Wait. (Pause.) You know about the queen of spades?
Joe: No.
Mike: Queen of spades, the next man takes five cards. (Pause.) If you play the queen of spades, the next man must take five cards.
Joe: From the stack.
Mike: Yes. (Pause.) Unless he plays the queen of spades right back at you.
Joe: Can he do that?
Mike: Of course. There's two, right?
Joe: Right.
Mike: And that's the game. You want to try a practice hand? Wait! Wait: This is an important rule. Now: When you have . . . wait. When you've played all of your cards but one card . . . huh?
Joe: . . . yes?
Mike: When you have only one card left to play, then you say, “Last Card.”
Joe: “Last Card.”
Mike: You must announce: “Last Card.” If you fail you must take ten cards from the stack. (Pause.) You must say “Last Card” before the next man on your left plays. Or wherever. Before the next man plays. This is important, because sometimes you'll have one card and you'll forget to announce, so there's two guys on the far side, right, sitting over here, and you can call it any time until the next man plays, and save yourself, so we're here waiting for the next guy to play, right? And you can call it any time. So we're avoiding your eyes . . .
Joe: Right . . .
Mike: And trying not to call attention . . . so that he will play, and we can call it on you. Before you remember. (Pause.) Ha.
Joe: Does that happen very often?
Mike: Oh. Oftener than you might think. Oh yeah.
Joe: Mm.
Mike: Oh yeah. (Pause.) And that's the game. (Pause.) That's it. Do you want to try a practice hand?
Four A.M.
An announcer seated at a radio studio console desk. He wears earphones and speaks into a microphone. We hear the voice of the caller over a loudspeaker.
Interviewer: Hello, you're on the air.
Caller: Hello, Greg, how are you?
Int: I'm fine.
Caller: Good. Greg, it's a pleasure to talk with you. I had the pleasure of talking to you three-and-one-half years ago, and I've been a continual listener of yours since you started out with the twenty-two stations, and I admire you very much.
Int: Thank you.
Caller: Thank you, Greg.
Int: What's your problem?
Caller: Greg, we need your help to publicize our plan. We've been trying to get our organization together to raise money to be able to hire a public relations firm like Wells and Jacoby to publicize our organization. (Pause.) Where are we going to get the money . . . ? I don't know . . .
Int: To publicize your .. .
Caller: In the movie 2001, based on the writings of Arnold Toynbee, they speak of the plan . . .
Int: Excuse me, excuse me, but the movie 2001 was based on the writings . . .
Caller: . . . all human life is made of molecules . . .
Int: . . . based on the writings of Arthur C. Clarke . . .
Caller: All human . . . no, Greg, if you examine . . .
Int: . . . it was based on the writings of Arthur C. Clarke . . .
Caller: Oh, Greg, No. We have the . . .
Int: Well, go on.
Caller: . . . we have the writings.
Int: Okay, go on.
Caller: Greg: In the writings of Arnold Toynbee he discuss cusses a plan whereby all human life could be easily reconstituted on the planet Jupiter.
Int: Uh-huh . . . (Pause.)
Caller: Greg?
Int: Yes? (Pause.) I'm listening.
Caller: Greg . . .
Int: Yes?
Caller: In the wr . . .
Int: Yeah. I got it. Go on.
Caller: In the . . .
Int: No, no. No. Go on. I got it. Arnold Toynbee, human life on . . .
Caller: As we're made of molecules, Greg, and the atoms of all human life that ever lived are still in all of us . . .
Int: Okay, I got it. They exist, they've just been rearranged. (Pause.)
Caller: Yes. (Pause.)
Int: So?
Caller: We'd like to publicize our organization, Greg. We're very young. We've just been in existence over a year and we want to publicize our theory. And, Greg, we don't know how.
Int: You . . . how do you publicize your plan to bring dead people back to life on Jupiter.
Caller: Yes.
Int: Why? (Pause.) Why would you want to do this? (Pause.) Hello?
Caller: Yes?
Int: Why would you want to do this? (Pause.) You see what I'm saying to you? (Pause.) What is the aim of your group?
Caller: Greg . . .
Int: What are your plans? (Pause.)
Caller: I . . . (Pause.)
Int: What?
Caller: I . . . Greg, I told you.
Int: You said that you want to bring dead people back to life.
Caller: Yes.
Int: On the planet Jupiter.
Caller: Just as they showed us in the mo . . .
Int: Well, I'm not sure that's what the movie was about, but be that as it may, why would you want to do that?
Caller: Oh, Greg, you can't mean it . . .
Int: Well, yes, I mean it. Why would you . . . what's the idea . . . ? You're walking down the street, there's Abraham Lincoln . . . is that the idea?
Caller: Yes.
Int: . . . so anybody that you want to talk to, so forth, there they are. Is that the idea? (Pause.)
Caller: Yes.
Int: Who do you pick? Who picks ’em?
You? Your organization? . . . or do you just bring ‘em all back? (Pause.) What is your . . . I mean, do you have a program for this? Or . . . what are your goals . . . ? (Pause.)
Caller: To bring . . .
Int: Naah . . . it's too broad. It's too broad. Don't you see what I'm talking about? You can't bring’ em all back. (Pause.) Can you?
Caller: I don't know.
Int: Well, think about it. (Pause.) Think about it.
You're talking about billions of people. Eh?
They've lived at different times. They speak different languages—the ones that speak our language, it's changed over the years. The dialects are different. Customs change. Their lives are different. Some of them died violent deaths . . . some are disfigured . . . they've been decomposing . . . . Now: listen to this: At what point do you bring them back? (Pause.) Right before they died? What if they were ill? What if they were infirm? And so you don't do it then, when do you do it? At what point? You see what I'm telling you? Someone wants to come back at age twenty, so you bring him back at fifty- five . . . is he allowed to chang
e? And who's to say if he can or he can't? What if he never wanted to come back?
Caller: . . . Greg . . . ?
Int: What about people who killed themselves. Because they didn't want to live? Some of them we know. We could leave out. What about ones that we don't know? Who's going to pass on this? You and your group? Well, then you're talking about something very much like fascism. Is that what you want? Because I'll tell you what you get very quickly is a State where only the Pure can come back. Or the good-looking . . . or whatever the people in charge that day seem to feel is the ultimate good . . . and tickles their fancy. Or do you just press a button and everyone comes back? And what do you have then? I'll tell you what you have: wars. You've got wars. Unless you think that that being dead improved them. You see what I'm saying? You've got the same jealousies and . . . misunderstandings you had the first time. And how do you explain the technology to some guy who's just come back from 1565 and all of a sudden he's in some space suit and he's alive again . . .
Caller: He wouldn't be in a space suit.
Int: . . . whatever. And who governs this august group? Or do they just “get along"? Not in this lifetime, friend. What do you think? Because they're on a foreign planet that it's going to be cooperation and good will? They're going to forget about their human nature and just live in joy? You're talking about heaven, my friend. Heaven doesn't exist. You think the fact that they've come back is going to make them all philosophers? I don't think so. For a day, yes. Maybe. A week, a month later, and I'm going to tell you something: It's going to be worse than it was before, and you know what you've got? Chaos. And any time you get a State like that you have a populace that thinks the world owes it a living. And you've got a tragedy. It doesn't hold up. Even as a dream. It's not thought out. And what do they eat?
Caller: Toynbee says we can bombard the atmosphere with oxygen and reclaim the soil.
Int: Does he? And what if he's wrong . . . ? (Pause.) You see what I'm saying? (Pause.)
Caller: I . . .
Int: You see what I'm telling you?
Caller: I . . .
Int: Listen to me: The world is full of histories of people trying to live in Utopias. It doesn't work. We wish it did, it doesn't. (Pause.) Alright? (Pause.) Alright?
Caller: Um . . . yes.
Int: Alright. Thank you for calling. (Loudspeaker goes dead.) Let's move along:
The Power Outage
The Power Outage was first published in the New York Times on August 6, 1977.
I: The thing which I'm telling you is no one enjoys being equal.
2: Yes. Yes. I agree with that. We have our fictions. And what did you do when the lights went out?
1: Stumbled around in the dark. (Sotto voce.) . . . taking goods away . . . they took the goods away. (Full voice.) Goods cannot take away heat.
2: No.
1: As if, if they were stolen, they could take the dark away.
2: No. I agree with you.
1: A flashlight runs on batteries, as does a candle, if you follow me.
2 (Sotto voce): No.
1: But here we find electric light has a connection.
2: Yes. I see your point. Yes.
1: Like a road, eh?
2: Yes.
1: It is the same road. One for all. A dirt path in the Hinterlands, of some worn blacktop in the Ozarks. It is all the same. One road.
2 (Sotto voce): One road.
1: Now we see the same of electricity. Why do we need these things?
2: The goods?
1: Yes. (Pause.)
2: They keep us cool.
1: Oh. (Sighs.) I tell you. It's like being at the Y.
2: The Blackout?
1: Yes. When you have taken off your clothes and they cannot see where you bought your watch.
2 (Sotto voce): Mmm.
1: When they turned the power off. So when the men were in the streets all bets were off.
2 (Sotto voce): When they went after goods. I know. It says they put them forty to a room too small for ten.
1: They did?
2: I read they did.
1: When they had caught them.
2: Yes.
1: You know, when you go in a record store you see the men with guns.
2: I know.
1: In Medieval England we learn they had seven hundred crimes which they could hang you for. We see that, and we are aghast. But now, today, you see them in the Supermarkets with their guns. They are empowered to kill you for the theft of record albums. (Pause.) Of some diversionary device or machine.
2 (To self): And they were very hot in there.
1: So when the men were in the streets, they said all bets are off. “You cannot live in Darkness. You insure your power by the gun.” (Pause.) What audacity.
2: I think so, too.
1: Today you cannot buy a flashlight.
2: It is difficult, but you can buy them.
1: Do you know, the folks directing traffic . . .
2: Yes.
1: Controlling traffic in their nightdress, as in Revolutionary Times. This is not altruism.
2: No. We'd all like to direct it.
1: It is wish-fulfillment.
2 (To self): Until they came to Trial. ..
1: Or they would go destroy a mercantile concern.
2 (To self, continuing): which would not be soon . . .
1: And cause much unhappiness. (Pause.)
2: Someone should write a book.
1: There. In the dark. Our dreams of courage, or The Indians. Of foraging.
2: We all revert.
1: You think so?
2: Yes.
Food
Two men: C and D
C: I've loved eating and I've always loved eating. My father died of insulin shock. The day they put him in the hospital his blood pressure was twenty over eighty, wanted to dose him with insulin, he told them “no.” They killed him. He, one time, had a saccharin reaction, in the fifties, when they took it, when it was in everything. He proved their case. (Pause.) He was the one, the cases of his type, why it's no longer in . . . in sodas . . . (Pause.) in food . . .
D: You're saying that it was his case?
C: Yes.
D: In what way, you're saying he took them to court?
C: Not in that sense, no. Cases of his type. You understand?
D: Yes.
C: (Pause.) And he overate. Those days . . . you know . . .
D: Yes.
C: You know how it was. Later we had no sugar in the house. You couldn't find it, for we didn't have it there. Nothing. And my mother was assiduous in cleansing it out; you remember, though, when we were young. It was in everything. The cereal . . . the tea . . . the coffee . . . rolls . . . you could go right through the day . . . . Lunch . . . (Pause.) My idea later of dessert was half a grapefruit, but then and you, too, I know. When we were young . . . the oatmeal . . . ? My father put sugar on fruit.
D: My father, too.
C: My father put sugar on watermelon.
D: My father did, too.
C: Looking back, he was a sick man. He was a very sick man. (Pause.) He must have been. All of the effort that he spent in balancing his diet; or, to say it on a different plane (because, finally, his diet did not admit of a balance), to achieve rest; he was trying to find rest. In himself. In food. For one moment. I think. In his life. Because of the food he ate. To overcome the harm that he had done, as I'm sure that he knew. The milk to overcome the sugar; the caffeine to overcome the cloying effect of the milk, which, I think, in the future, will be seen to be the worst. The worst of what we eat, for all that we say it is natural.
D: What?
C: Dairy.
D: Dairy products.
C: Yes. And nicotine to calm the harm that he did with caffeine. And meat to give him energy he needed. Not for “life.” Not for his daily “life,” but to combat the effects of the food. He, I saw him put butter on his steak . . .
D: I've seen that, too.
>
C: And salt. (Pause.) Salt on everything. Sugar and salt. We put sugar on strawberries . . . (Pause.)
D: What about your mother? (Pause.)
C: She . . . my mother . . . (Pause.)
D: Yes.
C: As a cook . . .
D: Yes.
C: How was she as a cook . . . ?
D: Yes. (Pause.)
C: You know she died . . .
D: No. (Pause.)
C: She . . . she . . . (Pause.) She was the cook. (Pause.) She, uh, (Pause.) she cooked as she was taught. What else could she do? Nothing. What any of us know? Nothing. “Eat Milk. It's Good for You!” And alcohol. Drink . . . ? (Pause.) He drank all night. That's how I was brought up. You, too. No—I won't touch it now.
D: You don't touch drink?
C: I'll tell you what else: I don't miss it. Not one bit. The hardest I think was caffeine. Aaaaaand salt. Well, it's in everything. I used to drink club soda. No. You can't drink that. It's salt. That's all it is. That's why they drink it. You can't lie to yourself. Because if you do, your body will inform you. If you're lying to yourself. (Pause.) You see? (Pause.) As it starts to cleanse itself it will inform you. (Pause.) Cigars. You know me . . .
D: Yes.
C: Someone gave me one at Thanksgiving . . .
D:Mm.
C: An Uppman. I'd eaten too much. Eh? (Pause.) My body was acid, so I craved nicotine. And so I told myself: “Waaal, it's a holiday," as if it were a reward to poison my system . . . So I smoked the cigar . . . (Pause.) I didn't even want it. While I smoked it I had to remind myself that it was a reward. I woke up in the night in sweat. My sweat stank of cigars. The sheets stank. When I washed them they still smelled. Your body's a machine. As trite as it is, it is true. If you don't change it today when are you going to change it? (Pause.) Never. He died as he wouldn't change. He knew more than they knew. They killed him anyway. Why? Because he was helpless. Because he was ill. Then he was at their mercy. And, I want to tell you, any time that that occurs your opponents will harm you. That's the nature of the world. Not me. Not me. My body is my friend. It does not want to do me ill. It does not want to be diseased. It is my friend. (Pause.) It is not my enemy. It killed my father. It will not kill me. It killed my brother—it will not kill me. It has killed many. will not kill me. It is my friend. My body is my friend.
