In 1997, my friend Mary Higgins Clark invited me to submit a story for an anthology in aid of literacy. The book would be called The Plot Thickens, and each story would be required to contain three things—a thick steak, a thick fog, and a thick book. If anyone else had made the request, I’d have replied that the whole idea made me thick to my thtomach, but who in the world could possibly say no to Mary?
Good thing. “How Far It Could Go” is a favorite story of mine, and that it grew out of such a gimmicky notion shows the unfathomable nature of the creative process. It was indeed published in The Plot Thickens, and reprinted in EQMM, before being gathered up into my own omnibus collection, Enough Rope.
Then, a couple of years later, someone in the theater pointed out that it would make a workable one-act play. I read it and discovered that it was already a one-act play, that all it required was to be recast in stageplay form. So I sat down to that task, shortened the title, and here’s the result.
I believe it was performed once in Australia. One simple set, two characters—what could be simpler to stage? if anyone out there wants to take a shot at this for local or amateur theater, just get in touch. I’m game.
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HOW FAR
a one-act stage play
by Lawrence Block
SCENE: A restaurant in Hoboken, New Jersey. BILLY CUTLER is at a table for two, reading a thick hardcover novel. DOROTHY MORGAN enters, looks around the room, unsure if this is the man she’s supposed to meet. She goes offstage and returns accompanied by a WAITER, who steers her toward BILLY’s table. BILLY looks up, and closes his book and stands as she approaches.
BILLY
BILLY Cutler. And you’re DOROTHY Morgan, and you could probably use a drink. What would you like?
DOROTHY
I don’t know. What are you having?
BILLY
Well, night like this, minute I sat down I ordered a martini, straight up and dry as a bone. And I’m about ready for another.
DOROTHY
Martini’s are in, aren’t they?
BILLY
Far as I’m concerned, they were never out.
DOROTHY
I’ll have one.
BILLY
Joe?
(The waiter withdraws)
It’s treacherous out there. The main roads, the Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State, they get these chain collisions where fifty or a hundred cars slam into each other. Used to be a lawyer’s dream before no-fault came in. I hope you didn’t drive.
DOROTHY
No, I took the PATH train. And then a cab.
BILLY
Much better off.
DOROTHY
Well, I’ve been to Hoboken before. In fact we looked at houses here about a year and a half ago.
BILLY
You bought anything then, you’d be way ahead now. Prices are through the roof.
DOROTHY
We decided to stay in Manhattan.
BILLY
And you knew to take the PATH train. Well, I drove, and the fog’s terrible, no question, but I took my time and I didn’t have any trouble. Matter of fact, I couldn’t remember if we said seven or seven-thirty, so I made sure I was here by seven.
DOROTHY
Then I kept you waiting. I wrote down seven-thirty, but—
BILLY
I figured it was probably seven-thirty. I also figured I’d rather do the waiting myself than keep you waiting. Anyway, I had a book to read, and I ordered a drink, and what more does a man need? Ah, here we go.
(The waiter appears with two drinks on a tray. She takes a sip, relaxes visibly.)
DOROTHY
That was just what I needed.
BILLY
Well, there’s nothing like a martini, and they make a good one here. Matter of fact, it’s a pretty decent restaurant altogether. They serve a good steak, a strip sirloin.
DOROTHY
Also coming back in style, along with the martini.
BILLY
So? You want to be right up with the latest trends? Should I order us a couple of steaks?
DOROTHY
Oh, I don’t think so. I really shouldn’t stay that long.
BILLY
Whatever you say.
DOROTHY
I just thought we’d have a drink and—
BILLY
And handle what we have to handle.
DOROTHY
That’s right.
BILLY
Sure. That’ll be fine.
DOROTHY
(She picks up her drink, sips it, looking for a way back into the conversation.)
Even without the fog, I’d have come by train and taxi. I don’t have a car.
BILLY
No car? Didn’t Tommy say you had a weekend place up near him? You can’t go back and forth on the bus.
DOROTHY
It’s his car.
BILLY
His car. Oh, the fella’s.
DOROTHY
Howard Bellamy’s. His car, his weekend place in the country. His loft on Greene Street, as far as that goes.
BILLY
But you’re not still living there.
DOROTHY
No, of course not. And I don’t have any of my stuff at the house in the country. And I gave back my set of car keys. All my keys, the car and both houses. I kept my old apartment on West Tenth Street all this time. I didn’t even sublet it because I figured I might need it in a hurry. And I was right, wasn’t I?
BILLY
What’s your beef with him exactly, if you don’t mind me asking?
DOROTHY
My beef. I never had one, as far as I was concerned. We lived together three years, and the first two weren’t too bad. Trust me, it was never Romeo and Juliet, but it was all right. And then the third year was bad, and it was time to bail out.
(She reaches for her drink, surprised to note it’s empty.)
He says I owe him ten thousand dollars.
BILLY
Ten large.
DOROTHY
He says.
BILLY
Do you?
DOROTHY
(shakes her head no)
But he’s got a piece of paper. A note I signed.
BILLY
For ten thousand dollars.
DOROTHY
Right.
BILLY
Like he loaned you the money.
DOROTHY
Right. But he didn’t. Oh, he’s got the paper I signed, and he’s got a canceled check made out to me and deposited to my account. But it wasn’t a loan. He gave me the money and I used it to pay for a cruise the two of us took.
BILLY
Where? The Caribbean?
DOROTHY
The Far East. We flew to Singapore and cruised down to Bali.
BILLY
That sounds pretty exotic.
DOROTHY
I guess it was. This was while things were still good between us, or as good as they ever were.
BILLY
This paper you signed.
DOROTHY
Something with taxes. So he could write it off, don’t ask me how. Look, all the time we lived together I paid my own way. We split expenses right down the middle. The cruise was something else, it was on him. If he wanted me to sign a piece of paper so the government would pick up part of the tab—
BILLY
Why not?
DOROTHY
>
Exactly. And now he says it’s a debt, and I should pay it, and I got a letter from his lawyer. Can you believe it? A letter from a lawyer?
BILLY
He’s not going to sue you.
DOROTHY
Who knows? That’s what the lawyer letter says he’s going to do.
BILLY
The minute he goes into court and you start testifying about a tax dodge—
DOROTHY
But how can I, if I was a party to it?
BILLY
Still, the idea of him suing you after you were living with him. Usually it’s the other way around, isn’t it? They got a word for it.
DOROTHY
Palimony.
BILLY
That’s it, palimony. You’re not trying for any, are you?
DOROTHY
Are you kidding? I said I paid my own way.
BILLY
That’s right, you did say that.
DOROTHY
I paid my own way before I met him, the son of a bitch, and I paid my own way while I was with him, and I’ll go on paying my own way now that I’m rid of him. The last time I took money from a man was when my Uncle Ralph lent me busfare to New York when I was eighteen years old. He didn’t call it a loan, and he sure as hell didn’t give me a piece of paper to sign, but I paid him back all the same. I saved up the money and sent him a money order. I didn’t even have a bank account. I got a money order at the post office and sent it to him.
BILLY
That’s when you came here? When you were eighteen?
DOROTHY
Fresh out of high school. And I’ve been on my own ever since, and paying my own way. I would have paid my own way to Singapore, as far as that goes, but that wasn’t the deal. It was supposed to be a present. And he wants me to pay my way and his way, he wants the whole ten thousand plus interest, and—
BILLY
He’s looking to charge you interest?
DOROTHY
Well, the note I signed. Ten thousand dollars plus interest at the rate of eight percent per annum.
BILLY
Interest.
DOROTHY
He’s pissed off that I wanted to end the relationship. That’s what this is all about.
BILLY
I figured.
DOROTHY
And what I figured is if a couple of the right sort of people had a talk with him, maybe he would change his mind.
BILLY
And that’s what brings you here.
(She nods. She’s toying with her empty glass. He points to it, raises his eyebrows. She nods, he raises a hand, catches the offstage waiter’s eye, signals for another round.)
DOROTHY
(pause)
I didn’t know who to call, and then I thought of Tommy, and he said maybe he knew somebody.
BILLY
And here you are.
DOROTHY
And here I am, and—
(He holds up a hand, cutting her off, and the WAITER appears, and they’re silent until he has served their drinks and withdrawn.)
BILLY
A couple of the boys could talk to him.
DOROTHY
That would be great. What would it cost me?
BILLY
Five hundred dollars would do it.
DOROTHY
Well, that sounds good to me.
BILLY
The thing is, when you say talk, it’ll have to be more than talk. You want to make an impression, situation like this, the implication is either he goes along with it or something physical is going to happen. Now, if you want to give that impression, you have to get physical at the beginning.
DOROTHY
So he knows you mean it?
BILLY
So he’s scared. Because otherwise what he gets is angry. Not right away, but later. Two tough-looking guys push him against a wall and tell him what he’s gotta do, that scares him, but then they don’t get physical and he goes home, and he starts to think about it, and he gets angry.
DOROTHY
I can see how that might happen.
BILLY
But if he gets knocked around a little the first time, enough so he’s gonna feel it for the next four, five days, he’s too scared to get angry. That’s what you want.
DOROTHY
Okay.
BILLY
(Sips his drink, looks at her over the brim)
There’s things I need to know about the guy.
DOROTHY
Like?
BILLY
Like what kind of shape is he in.
DOROTHY
He could stand to lose twenty pounds, but other than that he’s okay.
BILLY
No heart condition, nothing like that?
DOROTHY
No.
BILLY
He work out?
DOROTHY
He belongs to a gym, and he went four times a week for the first month after he joined, and now if he gets there twice a month it’s a lot.
BILLY
Like everybody. That’s how the gyms stay in business. If all their paid-up members showed up, you couldn’t get in the door.
DOROTHY
You work out.
BILLY
Well, yeah. Weights, mostly, a few times a week. I got in the habit. I won’t tell you where I got in the habit.
DOROTHY
And I won’t ask, but I could probably guess.
BILLY
(grinning)
You probably could.
(back to business)
Martial arts. He ever get into any of that?
DOROTHY
No.
BILLY
You’re sure? Not lately, but maybe before the two of you started keeping company?
DOROTHY
He never said. And he would, it’s the kind of thing he’d brag about.
BILLY
Does he carry?
DOROTHY
Carry?
BILLY
A gun.
DOROTHY
God, no.
BILLY
You know this for a fact?
DOROTHY
He doesn’t even own a gun.
BILLY
Same question. Do you know this for a fact?
DOROTHY
Well, how would you know something like that for a fact? I mean, you could know for a fact that a person did own a gun, but how would you know that he didn’t? I can say this much—I lived with him for three years and there was never anything I saw or heard that gave me the slightest reason to think he might own a gun. Until you asked the question just now it never entered my mind, and my guess is it never entered his mind, either.
BILLY
You’d be surprised how many people own guns.
DOROTHY
I probably would.
BILLY
Sometimes it feels like half the country walks around strapped. There’s more carrying than there are carry permits. A guy doesn’t have a permit, he’s likely to keep it to himself that he’s carrying, or that he even owns a gun in the first place.
DOROTHY
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t own a gun, let alone carry one.
BILLY
And you’re probably right, but the thing is you never know. What you got to prepare for is he might have a gun, and he might be carrying it.
(he waits while she takes this in and nods)
So here’s what I’ve got to ask you. What you got to ask yourself, and come up with the answer. How far are you prepared for this to go?
DOROTHY
I’m not sure what you mean.
BILLY
We already said it’s gonna be physical. Manhandling him, and a couple of shots he’ll feel for the better part of a week. Work the rib cage, say.
DOROTHY
All right.
BILLY
Well, that’s great, if that’s how it goes. But you got to recognize it could
go farther.
DOROTHY
What do you mean?
BILLY
I mean you can’t necessarily decide where it stops. I don’t know if you ever heard the expression, but it’s like, uh, having relations with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you decide. You stop when the gorilla decides.
DOROTHY
I never heard that before. It’s cute, and I sort of get the point, or maybe I don’t. Is Howard Bellamy the gorilla?
BILLY
He’s not the gorilla. The violence is the gorilla.
DOROTHY
Oh.
BILLY
You start something, you don’t know where it goes. Does he fight back? If he does, then it goes a little farther than you planned. Does he keep coming back for more? As long as he keeps coming back for it, you got to keep dishing it out. You got no choice.
DOROTHY
I see.
How Far - a one-act stage play Page 1
