Prayer for My Enemy
Page 3
TAD: Did you have one?
BILLY: I died, man.
MARIANNE (Mouthed or sotto voce): Have what?
BILLY: And I was onto another world when I started to ache for the people I love, Mom and Marianne and you and my buddies . . . Dad . . . I chanted their names and moved back through all the stages, back into this world, you know, like someone who chooses to be reborn so they can help others, I wanted to find out how all your stories come out, I mean, I wanted to help and love you all.
TAD: Come home, okay?
BILLY: I will.
TAD: I gotta see your fuckin’ face.
BILLY: I will.
TAD: You gotta go back to school, you gotta write this shit down, you gotta—
BILLY: I will. / But—
MARIANNE: Let me . . .
TAD: Hold on.
MARIANNE (Takes the phone): Hey.
BILLY: Hey.
MARIANNE: Did he tell you?
BILLY: What?
MARIANNE: You sitting down?
BILLY: What?
MARIANNE: We’re, you’re gonna be an uncle.
BILLY: Hey!
MARIANNE: Yeah.
BILLY: How about that?!?
MARIANNE: Are we nuts?
BILLY: Oh!—
(Billy cries.)
MARIANNE: What a zoo, huh? I’m gonna try and give you a normal one this time. Nephew.
TAD: Don’t say that.
BILLY: It’s a boy?
MARIANNE: I’m just—yeah. Hey. So . . . thanks for bringing your friend over! Are you . . . ?
BILLY: I’m so good.
MARIANNE: We love you, are you okay?
BILLY: That is— Oh, congratulations.
MARIANNE: Yeah.
BILLY: I’m sorry.
MARIANNE: So. Here, I’ll give him back.
TAD: No.
MARIANNE: Oh, well—
BILLY: It’s okay.
MARIANNE: Mom and Dad both send their love.
BILLY: Are they there?
MARIANNE: No. I mean . . .
BILLY: Okay, well—give ’em my love.
MARIANNE: You, too.
BILLY: And I’ll call—
MARIANNE: Theo’ll tell me what’s going on.
BILLY: Okay.
MARIANNE: Okay? / So.
BILLY: Okay.
MARIANNE: You’re sure you’re okay?
BILLY: I love you!
MARIANNE: You’re sure you’re—? Love you, too!
(Billy hangs up.)
Aww.
TAD: Don’t say that.
MARIANNE: Oh, I don’t know, I’m just . . . He cried. Like a baby.
TAD: Well sure. Life. That’s gotta be . . .
MARIANNE: I know.
TAD: Don’t say that about Tony.
MARIANNE: I know.
TAD: I love him just as much as—
MARIANNE: I know. I don’t know. What is it with men? You get so emotional. (Pause) Okay.
Scene 9
Dolores alone.
DOLORES: “My mother is dying,” I said, “please come up.” And he says, “Honey, she’s in a coma, she doesn’t even know you’re there, hop on the train!” Hop on the train? You, hop on this, you . . . (Pause) I keep getting in the car, driving over, driving back, there’s nothing to do, I don’t want to leave her alone, but— And everyone is so nice, the head nurse, all the staff, even the cleaning people smile and say, “Excuse me.” But it is really . . . so beautiful right here right now, why didn’t I know that growing up? I’m so attuned to everything, the beauty, Mom holding on to her life, bit by bit, all of it, the past and the present, it’s all so . . . unbelievably rich. (Pause) “Hop on the train.” I’d like to hop on your fucking head and suffocate you with my thighs and whatever else you don’t pay enough attention to, you’re so tired and . . . Ugh. Listen to me.
(Phone.)
Oh god, here it comes. (Into phone) Hello? . . . Oh! Thank you. Thank you very much. (Hangs up) She woke up!
Scene 10
Austin, Tad and Billy in front of the TV: the sixth game of the American League Championship between the Red Sox and the Yankees; bottom of the eighth. Karen and Marianne, visibly pregnant, are in the kitchen. The action moves back and forth between these two rooms and a corner of the dining room where there is a liquor cart.
BILLY: Shake my hand.
AUSTIN: Come on.
BILLY: See? Already you insulted me. You pulled away first. They look you in the eye. They want to feel your spirit. It’s the cradle of civilization.
TAD: The Garden of Eden, I read that: right in Iraq.
(The umpire calls Rodriguez out, and Jeter is forced to return to first base.)
AUSTIN: He didn’t mean to knock it out—
TAD: Yes, he did.
AUSTIN: He was just running.
TAD: Look at it. He knocks it, there. They’re too freaked-out and getting desperate.
AUSTIN: Oh, come on!
BILLY: Game, Dad, it’s not real. Nobody’s gonna die.
(Karen comes in with snacks.)
AUSTIN: Oh, he goes abroad, now he’s the He-Man.
KAREN: Stop that, you know you’re proud of him; he’s risking his life.
AUSTIN: I didn’t say he didn’t risk his life. I said killing people isn’t the same as courage.
(Austin exits for the bathroom, off.)
KAREN: It’s the Yankees.
BILLY: Don’t they know they can’t lose? Our family’s equilibrium depends on them.
KAREN: If only it were a joke.
BILLY: He’s fine.
KAREN: He’s very worried about you.
TAD: Can we help?
KAREN: Can the Yankees really lose?
BILLY: They are losing.
MARIANNE (Entering): I hope they lose. I hope they’re ground to dust.
KAREN: Shhh.
MARIANNE: I hope the Yankees go out of business. I hope we never watch or have to listen to another game as long as we live. I hope he has to hang his head in shame—
KAREN: Stop it.
MARIANNE: —and stop terrorizing us with his ignorance.
AUSTIN (From off): I’m sorry, I’m upset! I apologize!
BILLY: It’s okay.
MARIANNE: Why is it okay? It’s not okay.
KAREN: Stop it.
MARIANNE: I hate him.
KAREN: Stop it, everyone. We’re together. Billy’s home. We’re alive, can’t we be grateful.
MARIANNE: Tell him. He pulls me aside to tell me Tad’s an alcoholic. We’re married now, I’m pregnant.
KAREN: He’s just trying to protect everybody.
(Flush. Austin returns.)
AUSTIN: I’m sorry, I was wrong; it was wrong. Do you accept that?
MARIANNE: Sure.
(Marianne exits. Austin turns the sound up on the game.)
AUSTIN: Look how complicated life is! I mean, what a— Televisions! Computers! Modern warfare. Hey, I didn’t mean you aren’t . . .
BILLY: I know.
AUSTIN: You know I love you.
BILLY: I know.
TAD: But if life is so complicated and amazing that there has to be a God . . . then who made God? How come you can’t accept the idea that life and the universe have always been here, that all this marvelous complexity couldn’t be without a God, but something even more marvelous and complex and all-encompassing than this, God, doesn’t have to have some explanation.
AUSTIN: Faith defies logic.
TAD: It sure does.
(Pause.)
AUSTIN: Look at this sorry-assed . . .
BILLY: I haven’t. I haven’t killed anyone.
(Pause.)
TAD: I’m glad.
BILLY: I haven’t killed anyone.
AUSTIN: What?
TAD: He hasn’t killed anyone.
(Pause.)
BILLY: You should know that.
AUSTIN: It’s good news.
(Pause. Billy gets up and moves into the kit
chen.)
(Regarding the game) Look at this shit.
TAD: How we must puzzle the angels, huh?
AUSTIN: The Angels?
TAD: Above.
AUSTIN: Oh.
TAD: Marianne always says that. How we must puzzle the angels.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
(Billy, Karen and Marianne in the kitchen. Billy uses his laptop.)
BILLY: He had this camera with this incredible lens, you know, and tripod; he could take pictures in almost total darkness, and you can’t make any light where we were, they see you light a cigarette and blam you’re in their sites, you’re done.
KAREN: Oh my god.
BILLY: So he wants to do this portrait of me in the moonlight, right, and he sets it all up, tells me how to cock my head, where to look and he presses the button, he’s forgotten to turn off the flash.
MARIANNE: Oh no.
BILLY: It took his head off.
KAREN: What?
BILLY: The missile.
MARIANNE: In front of you?
BILLY: That’s, a piece of that, what got my eye.
KAREN: Oh, don’t say anymore.
MARIANNE: Why didn’t you write us?
BILLY: I have the picture. It came out. I’m looking so serene. One like fraction infinitesimal fraction of a second before this guy’s head, I mean—
KAREN: Please.
BILLY: And we go off into different universes in that tiny blink—
MARIANNE: You’re lucky it hit your eye.
BILLY: Lucky? Oh, you mean instead of my heart.
MARIANNE: No. Well, yes, but no, I mean, if you’d just stayed standing there, watching, you had your own things to worry about.
KAREN: What’s this?
BILLY: The picture.
KAREN: Oh, I don’t want to see it.
MARIANNE: He’s fine in it.
KAREN: I know.
(Karen moves out of the room.)
MARIANNE: She doesn’t understand how that makes you feel, not wanting to see it. She doesn’t think you’re bringing her death—
BILLY: Yes, she does.
MARIANNE: No, you feel that—you’ve brought it home. It’s written all over you, that you feel that.
BILLY: That isn’t the way it’s happening.
MARIANNE: Is it true we blew up the hospital in Fallujah so there wouldn’t be a way to know how many casualties there were?
BILLY: Where did you hear that? No.
MARIANNE: Somebody came into the deli.
BILLY: You’re working?
MARIANNE: Of course.
BILLY: Who said that?
MARIANNE: Some lady I didn’t know, she saw I was watching the news, she said it.
BILLY: It’s bad. But it’s not bad like that.
MARIANNE: How is it bad?
KAREN (Reentering): Let him put it behind.
BILLY: Let you put it behind.
KAREN: No. I didn’t mean that.
BILLY: It’s bad because somebody forgets to tell the Iraqis we have a curfew and somebody steps out to get a coffee and one of ours blows him away. It’s bad because when we run out of cigarettes we break into their houses and pretend it’s a raid and we’re looking for guns but we’re just stealing their cigarettes. It’s bad because the insurgents are the people who live there. Probably. It’s bad because it was bad before we got there and now it’s bad in a new way.
(Pause.)
KAREN: I see. Well, you never have to see any of it ever again.
BILLY: I’m going back.
MARIANNE: Something’s wrong. Yes, it is. What?
KAREN: What?
BILLY: Nothing.
KAREN: Let’s go watch your father’s game. And be ready to shore him up.
MARIANNE: I’ll be right in.
BILLY: Me, too.
(Karen moves to the TV room.)
MARIANNE: Did you volunteer to go back?
BILLY: We got a new commanding officer once we moved south and he wants combat on his record, so I’m going back.
MARIANNE: Why can’t they send new people?
BILLY: Because I’m in his battalion, I have more time.
MARIANNE: But with what happened to your eye?
BILLY: Shhhh.
MARIANNE: You almost lost it.
BILLY: It would have been better if I did.
MARIANNE: No.
BILLY: Shh. Let me see the ultrasound.
MARIANNE: It’s not fair.
BILLY: They can hear. (Looks at the ultrasound pictures) Look at that!
MARIANNE: His little balls?
BILLY: Why are you working?
MARIANNE: What else am I gonna do?
BILLY: Is Dad not working?
(Head shake.)
Why?
MARIANNE: Why do you think?
BILLY: Has he had a . . . ?
MARIANNE: No, but she’s worried, we’re all worried.
BILLY: He’s not drinking?
MARIANNE: He’s stopped going to meetings.
BILLY: It’s all been so good. For so long.
MARIANNE: Things have a habit of not staying the same, have you noticed?
(Tad, Austin and Karen are in front of the TV.)
TAD: You had a lot of years of winning. And they’ve waited how many years? Eighty?
KAREN: Six.
AUSTIN: Let ’em wait.
TAD: A lot of people think the Yankees bought their way to the top and that’s no way to keep winning. Maybe it’s karma. I mean, that’s a long curse.
AUSTIN: You’re on something besides alcohol, aren’t you? I see it in your eyes. You’re flushed, you’re sailing on something. You can’t face becoming a father. You can’t stop thinking she’s gonna have another autistic one, your whole life is gonna be tethered to failure and toilets flushing. And you’re right. We’ll never have more than the little we eke out of the deli, bought our way to the top. You should be so lucky. It costs you and costs you. I saw babies raped in Vietnam, I saw children on fire, you try it on. You couldn’t do what Billy’s doing. You put your mitts all over my daughter and come in here and talk about the Yankees!? Suck my fuckin’ dick.
KAREN: They’ll pull through, you watch. They won’t lose.
(They watch the game. It is the top of the ninth inning. Billy returns from the kitchen, sits. Everyone watches the game. Marianne, alone in the kitchen, eats pie directly from the pie tin.)
MARIANNE: He wouldn’t have enlisted if you’d ever made him feel like a man. Mother wouldn’t have had to represent you if you’d spoken your own damn piece, if you’d taken any responsibility for your own feelings and said how proud you were; she had to do it and she hates war. You’re the only one who likes waving your big fat veteran ass around so everybody can see it, why don’t you go kill some animals or something and work it out?! Is that true? Is any of that true?
(Marianne returns to the TV room, still eating.)
Would someone tell me the truth? Someone tell me what’s true. I can’t sort it, I can’t sort anything out.
TAD: Are you all right?
MARIANNE: I’m great. Our family’s here. Everything’s great.
AUSTIN: Are you being sarcastic?
MARIANNE: What is wrong with you?! Everyone hates you.
TAD (To Billy): Hey, let me show you something.
AUSTIN: You aren’t going to watch?
TAD: You keep the plane up.
(Tad and Billy go into the dining room. Tad offers Billy a pill.)
Want one?
BILLY: What is it?
TAD: Ecstasy.
BILLY: Did you take one?
TAD: About half an hour ago.
BILLY: Sure, why not.
TAD: It’s good stuff.
BILLY: Is everything okay?
TAD: When can we talk?
BILLY: Why?
TAD: I want to know how you are. All that shit about God, seeing God.
BILLY: Oh, I know. Did I freak you out?
TAD: Were you on d
rugs?
(Head shake.)
I kept writing you.
BILLY: I was afraid they’d see my email.
TAD: Marianne? She doesn’t read my email.
BILLY: I didn’t know. You were never by yourself when I called.
TAD: Oh, come on!
(They embrace.)
I love you.
BILLY: I love you, too.
TAD: We’re family now.
BILLY: We’re family.
TAD: This is good stuff.
BILLY: Okay. Thanks.
TAD: No more God shit.
BILLY: Okay.
TAD: Come on.
(They return to the TV room.)
KAREN: Well. We’d better start praying for the Sox.
TAD: You’ve come over to my side?
KAREN: No. So we don’t resent them. It’s an AA thing. Somebody hurts you, you pray for them.
TAD: Really?
AUSTIN: Why, is that so strange?
TAD: It’s—no, it’s—no.
AUSTIN: Makes good sense. Rather than sitting there, stewing, or building up a case against, maybe you should think about it.
TAD: Maybe I should.
AUSTIN: Pray for me.
TAD: I don’t resent you. Austin. I love you.
KAREN: He loves you, too, we all do.
MARIANNE: Love love love.
BILLY: What’s the score?
AUSTIN: The same.
KAREN: Four-two.
TAD: What would I resent you for?
MARIANNE: Calling you a drunk?
KAREN: I’m going to bed if everyone doesn’t stop. This is a celebration. Our son is home.
MARIANNE: Not for long.
KAREN: Our family is all together, and a new one on the way!
(Cabrera steals second.)
AUSTIN: Get him! Get him! Get him! Wake up! It’s finished.
KAREN: We have a whole half inning still. Please everybody.
BILLY (To Karen): You work so hard holding it all together.
KAREN: No, I don’t.
BILLY: You’re heroic.
KAREN: Oh, stop it! You’ve just come back from . . .
BILLY: When the shit is flying, it’s not like you’re making a choice. There’s no choosing. You know this, Dad—
AUSTIN: Shh.
BILLY: The military is about no thinking. What is it Dad says? Stay out of your head, it’s a bad neighborhood.