by David Mamet
Here we're awake. All by ourselves.
Oh, Nicky. All alone.
(Pause.)
NICK: I'm glad that you're happy.
(Pause.)
RUTH: Drip, drip, drip. The snow makes sound, too. Do you think?
NICK: I don't know.
RUTH: We could sit out here in Winter. We could watch the snow come down. Huh?
What about that?
Bundled up in coats and blankets with our scarf around our neck and stocking hats. Huh?
(Pause.)
Wouldn't that be funny?
NICK: Yes, that would.
RUTH: Just sitting out here in the Winter.
Bundled up. Not moving.
Like some married couple in a picture.
Rocking back and forth.
(Pause.)
Come here. Come here.
Oh, you're sleepy.
Come here and I'll tell a story. (He moves close to her.)
I will tell a story and then we can go to sleep.
I'm going to tell a bedtime story.
NICK: Alright.
RUTH: That my Grandmother told me.
You would of loved her. I think.
She was old.
NICK: HOW old was she?
RUTH: Well, she was old. When she died, she was eighty-six.
She saw a lot of things.
She always told us bedtime stories.
And then we would go to sleep.
Come here.
NICK: Is it wet?
RUTH: No. No. I'm going to keep you dry.
NICK: I'll get wet.
RUTH: No, you won't.
NICK: It's going to blow all over me.
RUTH: I'll shield you, come here. (Pause.)
It's going to blow the other way.
NICK: How do you know?
RUTH: I know.
NICK: How?
RUTH: Because I just know. (Pause. He goes to her.)
RUTH: Now, this feels better. We could never do this in the city. Are you comfortable?
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: Good.
(Pause.)
There was the moon and wolves and these old women and small children.
NICK (softly): It's dry here.
RUTH: I told you.
And there always was a moon . . .
A crescent moon . . . a new moon . . .
What's a new moon?
NICK: I don't know.
RUTH: Does it mean big or small?
NICK: I don't know.
(Pause.)
RUTH: And I was always in them. And my brother.
She would tell us—now relax.
One day at dinnertime, these children had gone to their Granma's house. They loved her very much.
While she was cooking, they asked could they go and play—the house was near the woods—and she said yes, they could, but that they had these wolves in them, and bears lived in them, too.
NICK: Some brown bears.
RUTH: Yes.
NICK: Some European Brown Bears.
RUTH: Now, be quiet. So we must be careful in the woods.
We had to take care of each other, and be very careful not to go too far.
The moon came up. The breezes blew.
The sun was going down.
The little children went into the woods.
It became cold.
They found that they had lost their way.
They could not see the moon.
Birds called to one another.
(Pause.)
“ The Sun is Down.”
The rain began to fall . . .
Oh, Nicky, are you sleeping?
NICK: No.
RUTH: You want to take a walk?
NICK: No.
(Pause.)
I have to ask you something.
RUTH: What?
NICK: Do you like it up here?
RUTH: Yes.
(Pause.)
NICK: What happened when you got there?
RUTH: When we got inside?
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: In the woods . . .
We became lost.
We lost our way. (To self:) The sun is down, the rain began to fall. (Aloud:) I think that always at the end our parents found us in the morning.
(Pause.)
Although I don't remember.
NICK: Is she dead now?
RUTH: Granma?
Yes. She died.
(Pause.)
NICK: Do you miss her?
RUTH: Very much. I miss her all the time.
I think about her. (Pause.)
I lost her bracelet. That her husband gave her.
Well, I told you.
(Pause.)
I dropped it in the Lake.
I can still see it.
Falling.
Falling.
Are you cold?
NICK: A little.
(Pause.)
My father fell into this old abandoned mine with Herman Waltz.
RUTH: Uh-huh.
NICK: Waltz told him that they'd never leave that hole alive.
RUTH: And how deep was it?
NICK: Deep. Deep. Very deep.
RUTH: Did they have stuff to eat?
NICK: No. (Pause.) And they were cold.
RUTH: I bet they were.
NICK: And battered.
(Pause.)
RUTH: How long did they stay down there?
NICK: And the rain fell.
(Pause.)
RUTH: And they were down there how long?
(Pause.)
NICK: They got out that afternoon.
RUTH: Oh.
(Pause.)
NICK: The rescue party found them.
RUTH: Mmm.
NICK: It rained the whole time.
RUTH: Many times the best and worst things happen over just a little while.
NICK: My Dad said all he talked about was his new wife.
RUTH: Waltz.
NICK: In Chicago. How he'd never see his wife again.
RUTH: Sometimes when you stay up you get these visions.
NICK: Do you want a drink?
RUTH: Sure.
(NICK goes inside.)
NICK (from inside): When he got back to Chicago, he would beat her up.
RUTH: What?
(Pause. NICK comes out with bottle.)
NICK: He used to beat her up.
RUTH: He used to beat his wife up?
NICK: Yes.
(Pause.)
RUTH: Why?
NICK: I don't know.
RUTH: Oh.
(Pause.)
NICK: H e was crazy.
RUTH (to self): Yes.
NICK: My Dad said he was an unhappy man.
RUTH: This is the man that saw the Martians.
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: He said he saw them here.
NICK: Near here.
RUTH (to self): Actually right near here. (Pause. She drinks.)
I like this stuff.
NICK: Uh-huh.
RUTH: My Granma never slept.
She had this couch out by the window and she had a quilt.
(NICK takes bottle.)
She'd keep the window open. We were on the first floor. Sometimes I would see her in the morning, all wrapped up in her quilt and looking out the window.
She would tell these stories.
They had Cossacks.
They had bears there.
People were escaping and she hid them underneath her petticoats. They took them all to safety through the Forest.
(Pause.)
NICK (to self): That could of been our rowboat . . .
RUTH: She loved her husband very much.
He was killed.
NICK: What was he?
RUTH: A blacksmith. He was older than her.
NICK: What did he die of?
RUTH: He was killed. I used to ask my mother how come she was sitting in the window.
She just sat
there. Granma.
She would tell me, in the Winter, they would make love. Him and her. For hours.
NICK: Your grandmother told you?
RUTH: Yes.
NICK: How old were you?
RUTH: I don't know.
They would lay in bed.
I saw the Photographs of what she looked like. And of him.
When she was little, too.
She looked like me.
She said he was like Iron. He could lift her in one hand.
They'd lie in bed all day and never speak . . . they'd take long walks.
(Pause.)
Oh, she told me many times. The way his hair smelled.
In the rain.
The singed forearms. The smell . . .
(Pause.)
Granma married this man in Chicago.
(Pause.)
He was a nice man. Jacky Weiss.
(Pause.)
But she missed her husband so. She used to watch the window in the snow. It was cold. You could hear her whispering. I don't know. Maybe she was praying.
(Pause.)
She loved him. They were married.
Nothing, even he was crippled—or she was—could separate them.
She was his. Forever.
They had made a vow.
NICK (to self): Some pagan vow.
(Pause.)
RUTH: He gave that necklace to her.
Can you think, Nick?
All the secrets, all the things they shared?
At night. In bed.
(Pause.)
She was like the Earth.
She knew so many things.
I think about her all the time.
I wish I had not lost her bracelet.
(Pause.)
She used to wear it.
(Pause.)
NICK: Who killed him?
RUTH: I don't know.
Some farmer.
(She takes wine. Drinks.)
(She declaims:) Wine, wine, wine.
The Earth. The Sky. The Rain.
NICK: The Water.
RUTH: Yes.
(Pause.)
NICK: Women are immortal.
RUTH: No. They have no sense of values.
No, I know.
(Pause. She goes over to an oar.)
An oar. What is this? It goes in the oarlock. What is it called?
NICK: An oarlock pin.
(Pause.)
RUTH (to self): Oarlock pin.
This thing could be the color of the boat. This is from your boat?
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: Then I think it's the same one. I think it is.
NICK: It's going to come down.
RUTH: To really come down.
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: The rain.
The water brings the fishes out.
(Pause.)
After the rain they huddle near the surface.
(Pause.)
And then you can catch them.
Fish come up for insects. When the storm is over.
NICK: For the larvae.
RUTH: Larvae?
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: The little insects?
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: The fish come up to eat them?
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: I know they do.
(Pause.)
Drip drip. Rain comes down, drip. It makes rings. It makes these circles.
Ripples. Plop. A fish comes up. Fishes come up. They make the same ripples from underneath.
(Pause.)
NICK: Larvae are really eggs.
RUTH: I know that.
(Pause.)
I used to say that we are only fish beneath the sea. I read this book when I was small—it said that we live in an ocean made of air and we are only fish beneath the sea.
NICK: You said that?
RUTH: Yes. You know, except we couldn't swim or anything. (Pause.) You want to come with on my walk?
(Big lightning flash.)
Look at that!
NICK: Lightning.
RUTH: Jesus, Nicky, huh?
NICK (to self): A storm.
RUTH: I bet that you watched them a lot. Storms.
If I was out here, I would sit all day.
I would.
We always used to know, it rained, the thing we had to do was go and put the boats onto their side. To turn them upside-down.
You know?
You ever sit inside a boat that way?
Some rowboat or canoe?
NICK: Yes.
(Pause.)
RUTH: It's nice.
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: All warm . . .
Look at that!
The wind howls and howls, but you're warm.
NICK: I'd sit here.
RUTH: Yes.
NICK: And think about things like that.
RUTH: Would you? (Pause.) What things?
NICK: You know.
(Pause.)
RUTH: Tell me.
NICK: Homes and things.
RUTH: When the storms blew.
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: What about them?
NICK: Living in them. Being warm.
(Pause.)
RUTH: Being in them with somebody.
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: Please tell me.
NICK: I don't know.
(Pause.)
RUTH: Tell me.
NICK: Just these thoughts I had.
RUTH: When you would settle down.
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: Here?
NICK: I don't know.
RUTH: Who with?
(Pause.)
NICK: I don't know.
RUTH: And what would you think?
NICK: How it would be.
RUTH: How would it be?
NICK: I don't know.
RUTH: Yes. You do. Tell me.
NICK: I don't know.
RUTH: Please tell me. (Pause.) Please tell me. (Pause.)
Please.
(Pause.)
NICK: We would meet.
RUTH: Uh-huh.
NICK: And . . . you know, we would meet and we would just be happy.
RUTH: You would.
NICK: Yes.
(Pause.)
RUTH: What, with Houses?
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: Here?
NICK: No.
(Pause.)
RUTH: Somewhere.
NICK: Yes. And maybe it was raining.
RUTH: It was raining?
NICK: In my dream.
RUTH: When you would be with someone.
(Pause.)
NICK: Do you think that is childish?
RUTH: What?
NICK: Daydreaming.
RUTH: No.
NICK: You don't?
RUTH: Not if you thought it. (Pause.) But sometimes things are different than the way you thought they'd be when you set out on them.
This doesn't mean that, you know, that they aren't . . . that they aren't . . . Wait. Do you know what I mean?
NICK: No.
RUTH: That they aren't good.
Just because they're different.
(Pause.)
NICK: What's your surprise?
RUTH: Things can be unexpected and be beautiful if we will let them. (Pause.) And not be frightened by them, Nick.
NICK: What did you bring me?
RUTH: I will tell you later.
Do you understand me?
NICK: No.
RUTH: You do, though.
(Pause.)
You don't have to be nervous when a thing is new.
NICK: I am not nervous.
RUTH: No, but that is all I mean. (Pause.) Sometimes things are different.
(Pause.)
NICK: This drink is good.
RUTH: I know. Drink it. It's good.
Do you know what I mean?
We all have fantasies.
And dreams.
I have them.
&nb
sp; Many things I want.
(Pause.)
Or would dream about.
I know they can be frightening.
T o do them.
(Pause.)
I know.
NICK: You know that, eh?
(Pause.)
RUTH: What?
(Pause.)
(Lightning flash.)
The lightning doesn't look like anything.
Do you know what I mean?
NICK: No.
(Pause.)
RUTH: It doesn't “look” like anything.
(Pause.)
Do you know what I mean?
NICK: No. (He chuckles.)
RUTH: What's funny?
NICK: Nothing.
RUTH: All I meant, like clouds, or something.
They look like something.
You know what I meant.
NICK: I'm sorry.
(Pause.)
RUTH: I wasn't trying to be funny.
NICK: I know.
RUTH: Then you shouldn't laugh at me.
Do you think that I'm funny? Huh?
I know I'm funny sometimes . . .
(Pause.)
There's nothing wrong in being serious.
NICK: I ‘m sorry.
(Pause.)
RUTH: It's alright.
(Pause.)
I understand. (She starts to go.)
NICK: You going?
RUTH: Yes.
NICK: Hold on. I'm sorry.
RUTH: I'm just going for my walk.
NICK: Where are you going?
RUTH: B y the Lake.
NICK: Come here a minute.
RUTH: What?
NICK: Come here.
RUTH: I'll be back in a while.
I'll be right back. (Pause.) I'm getting sticky in this suit if I'm not in the rain.
NICK: Come here.
I want to tell you something. Sit down.
(Pause.)
RUTH: You want me to sit down now?
NICK: Yes.
RUTH: Alright. (She sits down.)
NICK: I'm sorry that I laughed at you.
RUTH: No. That's alright. I understand. (She gets up to go.)
NICK: Hold on.
RUTH: I'll be back. I just want to be out there with the lightning.
NICK: Come here. (He begins to pull her down to the floor.)
RUTH: What? It's wet. (NICK begins making sexual overtures.)
NICK: Mmm.
RUTH: It's wet. This stuff is sticky.
NICK: You smell good.
RUTH: I was out in the sun today. Come on, the floor is wet, Nick.
NICK: Lift up.
RUTH: I'll be back. Just let me go, and I'll come back.
NICK: Come on.
RUTH: Alright. We'll go inside. (She starts to get up.)
NICK: Lift up a minute.
RUTH: Wait. Hold on. We'll go inside.
NICK: This is all knotted.
RUTH: Hold on, Nick.
(He tears her pants off.)
You tore ‘em, will you hold on, for chrissake? This thing is rough.
(He kicks over the bottle.)
You're knocking the bottle.
Alright. Alright.
Wait.
Just hold on a second.
(He pushes the rainshell up over her face.)
Just a second. Oh. Okay. Hold on a second, though.
