Landscape of the Body

by John Guare

  RAULITO You like the name Lillibet?

  BETTY It’s a name. People have names. I take the Queens phone book.

  RAULITO Do you know what Queen Elizabeth’s secret name is? If you were in her royal family, what you would call her?

  BETTY Elizabeth. They’d call her Elizabeth. They’d call her Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth is short for Queen Elizabeth.

  RAULITO They’d call her Lillibet.

  BETTY I thought I was safe when I came in here, when I met you at my sister’s funeral I thought, This guy’s a weirdo but I’ll be safe.

  RAULITO Lillibet is the queen’s secret name. What Prince Philip calls her when they’re alone. I read that in People magazine. Alone must mean also in the royal bed. Prince Philip calls over to her: Lillibet? He turns on the royal radio station. A little English Latin music comes on the royal radio.

  Music: mambo.

  RAULITO I should call you Lillibet. Tell me your story? Unfold yourself to me?

  BETTY I’m Betty. Betty’s short for Elizabeth. I’m a Betty. That’s all I am. I have no story. I’m no guest on any talk show. No story. I am a middle-aged woman. I’m a young girl. I’m regular. Quiet. Normal. Human person. (She is shaking violently. She plays the cheering on the cassette and dials the telephone.) Is Miss Lillibet Culkin there? Hi! This is Bride’s Magazine calling. The lottery of love twirled and stopped at … Oh? The wedding is off? The groom is dead? Head injuries? Attacked by a monkey wrench? Greenwich Village? Beaten brutally? Watch stolen? I don’t care. Don’t tell me your troubles. You won a honeymoon. That’s all I want to tell you. That’s all. (She clicks off the cassette and hangs up.) Lillibet Culkin. Corona, Queens. I don’t want the job. I can’t handle the job. I’m not my sister. I am not Rosalie. I can’t do her job. I’m not Lillibet. I’m not Queen Elizabeth. I’m nobody. I’m me. I can’t do the job. I don’t want the job.

  Raulito has picked her up. He tangos her away into the dark. Rosalie appears.

  ROSALIE Frightened of you

  All of these years

  Never secure

  In your embrace

  Sleep through the night

  Dream that I’m dead

  Feeling your weight

  There in the bed

  One little bag

  Never unpacked

  Hidden away

  In case

  I get the nerve

  One day to leave

  Finally that fact

  To face

  What’s getting me through my life?

  What’s my excuse inside?

  What’s keeping me in my life?

  The molehill of lust or the mountain of pride?

  Forgive me, my dear

  A slip of the tongue

  Forget what I said

  Erase

  I meant to say

  My life is brightened by you

  The darkness whitened by you

  Each moment heightened by you

  My life enlightened by you

  But not I’m frightened of you

  Forgive me

  I’m sorry

  Don’t hit me

  I love you

  A year and a half later. Eighteen count ’em eighteen months. My sister has moved into my life. It’s like two days before the boy’s murder.

  The lights reveal Betty and Raulito necking, passionately. He has gathered his evening gown up under his trench coat. Betty is a lot more sure of herself in the last months since we’ve seen her, and a lot sexier.

  Rosalie observes the scene.

  Rosalie’s apartment. Bert sits on a red beanbag, winding watches. Betty comes in the room. She takes off her dress. She stands in a slip.

  BETTY I bought this new dress today. You like it? (She takes another dress out of a shopping bag.) Or do you like this one? (She puts on Rosalie’s robe.) What do you think moving maybe to Miami? I got a chance finally after eighteen months at Raulito’s. A free trip for two. National Airlines. There’s a lot of cities we could fly to. LA. Round-trip ticket but we could just stay. Stop winding all those watches. I never saw anyone for finding so many watches. Find ’em and wind ’em. That’s your name. The watch monster. That’s what I gave birth to. Can’t you say anything? Jesus. Who’d’ve thought you’d grow up to be your father. To have to live through all that again. Can’t you say anything?

  BERT How’s Honeymoon Holidays?

  BETTY Raulito called me a professional today. He gave me a gold star. (She picks up the phone.) Miss Mary Louise Nicholson? The lottery of love twirled and twirled and stopped at your number. It don’t hurt to start a marriage with a good honeymoon. (She slams the phone down.)

  BERT Did you and Daddy have a good honeymoon?

  BETTY If I had a good honeymoon, you think I’d be working at Honeymoon Holidays?

  BERT You going to marry Raulito?

  BETTY Raulito already has a wife and about nineteen children. He gave me this butterfly pin. It was his grandmother’s. (She bends it.) Now you bend it. I don’t want anybody doing nice for me.

  Bert bends the pin. Betty throws the pin away.

  BETTY I don’t want anybody giving me presents. I don’t want to be reminded what I missed out on. We should’ve had a family. We could’ve had a family. A regular dynasty. I had a family. I should’ve passed one on to you. If we’d had a family, we’d go to the movies and eat at McDonald’s and take summer trips to Maine to see your grandmother and see free Shakespeare in the park and take long rides on the subway to the Bronx Zoo and the Brooklyn Botanicals. If we had a family, things’d be a lot different around here.

  BERT Why can’t we go do all those things now? They’re all free.

  BETTY Because they’re things families do together. Because they remind me how I screwed up my life. If we don’t do nothing, I don’t get reminded. But I don’t want to turn you against your father. I want you to love your father. Your father was a god. Your father was the handsomest man I ever saw. Your father had a body you could see through his clothes. Your father had shoulders out to here and a waist you could clasp your thumb and index finger around. A brain of a fucking wizard. He could remember telephone numbers. Addresses. He could remember lottery numbers and the social security numbers of people he met a hundred years ago. Serial numbers of guys he was in the army with. He was kind of creepy when you come to think of it.

  BERT He sounds great.

  BETTY We bumped into an old army buddy and your father said, “I remember you. 19769982.” The guy says, “Hey, why’d you remember my serial number?” Your father says, “Hold on. I haven’t been thinking about you all these years. I just happen to have that kind of memory.”

  BERT So why’s he forgot where we live?

  BETTY A blind spot. He forgot you. He forgot me. For a guy with a memory. What I think is us living on Christopher Street. Ever since the Catholic Church said St. Christopher doesn’t exist, maybe he thinks Christopher Street doesn’t exist either.

  BERT But you left him.

  BETTY I didn’t mind him, well, I did, him putting my head down the toilet and flushing it. But you. When he put your head down the toilet and flushed it, I said that’s it. And I told him to leave.

  BERT I have dreams sometimes of water rushing by me.

  BETTY That comes from your father putting your head down the toilet.

  BERT I think I’ll join the navy when I can. The submarine service.

  BETTY You been seeing too many Walt Disney movies.

  JOANNE (Runs in, breathless) You know what my mother told me today? A lady in her office knew a lady who died and they couldn’t find a reason why she died. She was healthy.

  BETTY I don’t want to hear any more black widow spiders. You get me?

  JOANNE This isn’t black widow spiders. This is the truth. This lady died and they traced all her steps and they found she had gone to Korvette’s department store and on her dead body they found her wearing a beautiful Indian blouse with pieces of mirror sewn in it.

  BETTY Sound
s pretty. Korvette’s?

  JOANNE And they traced all her steps and went to Korvette’s and opened the drawer where the Indian blouses came from and they reached in and the detective pulled back his hand because it almost got bit by a cobra. Which is what happened to the lady. These blouses had come in from India. And cobra eggs had got woven in beneath the mirrors while the blouses were being made and the cobra eggs hatched from the heat of being mailed over here and the lady reached her hand in the drawer and got bitten and died.

  BETTY Where is this woman? How come you always have these friends who are getting bit by black widow spiders? Bit by cobras.

  BERT It was her mother’s friend.

  BETTY I don’t believe her mother.

  Bert puts his arms around Joanne.

  BERT Then you don’t believe me. Are you calling me a liar?

  BETTY I don’t want you hanging around together. I don’t want any more stories about black widow spiders and black widow cobras. I’m up to here with it.

  Joanne runs out.

  BETTY And you be careful with her. I don’t want any fourteen-year-old fathers living in my house. I’m not ready to be a grandmother yet.

  BERT You old hag. You old crone. I know how old you are. You’re thirty-six and you’re gonna die soon and I’m fourteen and I’m going to live forever. I hate you. You’re going to die. You know what I want for Christmas? You in a coffin under a Christmas tree. Why did Aunt Rosalie have to die? Why couldn’t you be the one that bicycle hit. Maybe that guy is around right now speeding down streets looking for you.

  BETTY You know why you can’t hurt me? ’Cause I have X-ray eyes and I can see right into your heart.

  BERT Bullshit.

  BETTY Remember that old man with the pushcart in Bangor who called out “Old clothes”? You used to follow him for hours. What did you do with that filthy old man? Old clothes. I place my X-ray eyes over you and I see deep in you. Old Clothes. Old Clothes. Old Clothes.

  BERT Don’t say that.

  BETTY Old clothes. Old rags. Old rats. X-ray eyes.

  BERT Don’t say that! Don’t say that!

  BETTY Don’t have to say it. I feel it. I’m being very quiet and saying it to myself over and over. (Wordless: Old Clothes.)

  Bert hits her. She hits him back.

  BERT Shut up! Shut up!

  BETTY I’m not saying anything. (Wordless: Old Clothes.)

  BERT It’s what you’re thinking. Can’t think that. Stop! Stop!

  BETTY I love thinking. I can think anything I want.

  BERT I’ve killed people.

  BETTY Don’t make me laugh.

  BERT I haven’t killed them. Donny’s killed them.

  BETTY There you are. You couldn’t hurt a fly. I don’t mean that as a compliment. I mean that as a truth. You could not wound a mosquito. If David and Goliath had a fight, Goliath would reach down and squeeze your head like a seedless grape.

  BERT I lure them up here while you’re away and Donny and I kill them. Hit them on the head with the monkey. Take their watches. Roll them out in the hall. They don’t dare call the cops on us. I can so hurt a fly.

  BETTY (Slaps him) Lure? Where’d you learn a word like lure?

  BERT I know a lot of words.

  BETTY There’s a whole series of murders going around.

  BERT Maybe that’s me.

  BETTY Decapitations.

  BERT What’s that?

  BETTY Down at all these rough bars down by the river. Raulito told me at work they find people with heads chopped off. The police don’t bother to check them out. It’s not worth the trouble. You’re not part of those murders, are you? I told you to stay away from those docks, you little faggot.

  BERT What’s decap— decap—

  BETTY Chop their heads off!

  BERT I didn’t do that! I swear! I’m just into watches. Money. The monkey wrench. I don’t think any of them ever died. I swear.

  A man appears at the door—a large man, carefully dressed in a wrinkled white linen suit, Panama hat. He carries flowers.

  BETTY (Terrified) Is this one of them?

  MAN Betty? Betty Mandible?

  BETTY (A pause) I was.

  BERT Are you the police?

  MAN You got married.

  BETTY Oh yes. My husband here and I are very happy. Some people say he’s too young. I say why not?

  MAN Hello, Betty.

  BERT My mother says go away. She doesn’t know you. Ma? Is this guy bothering you?

  BETTY I know who you are.

  MAN I was hoping you would.

  BETTY In Bangor. Summer of—

  MAN Nineteen years ago. I’m Durwood Peach.

  BETTY Durwood Peach. The Good Humor Man. Pushing that white ice-cream truck.

  DURWOOD Name like a flavor of ice cream. The special may be blueberry ripple but I’m pushing the peach.

  BETTY You were from North—

  DURWOOD South.

  BETTY Carolina. You came up to Bangor, to visit your aunt.

  DURWOOD Can I sit down for a minute? Excuse me for not being on my toes more. Oh, I have been driving. I drove from South Carolina straight up to Bangor, Maine, and looked up your name in the phone book. Your mother answered. She told me your swell sister had passed on. She told me you were here. You were the one I wanted. I got back in my car and drove from Maine nonstop here to Christopher Street. So this is Greenwich Village. Sure is lively. Mexican restaurant and a Chinese restaurant and an Indian restaurant all on one block. A lot of variety. Your mother didn’t mention you had a little boy. Is he yours?

  BERT I’m hers.

  BETTY Why are you here?

  DURWOOD See. Now I should have said that soon as I arrived. I never forgot you nineteen years ago and even though we never talked much and you had other boyfriends and you and me never went out, I have recently realized you are the only girl I ever loved, ever will love. My doctor gave me a note saying all this was true.

  BETTY Doctor?

  DURWOOD I been in a hospital and I got out and I been going to a doctor and you appeared to me like a holy movie when the Blessed Virgin appears and tells the holy children what to do. You appeared in my analysis. Here’s the note.

  BETTY Thank you. (She takes the note.)

  DURWOOD Now my knees are shaking. I’m gonna faint.

  BERT Should I call the police?

  DURWOOD No! I’m all right. It’s all the driving from South Carolina to Bangor, Maine, back to New York. Betty, I love you. I’ll always love you. I’ve never loved anyone else. I’ve told my wife. She understands. She’s written a note to you giving me up to you.

  BETTY (Reads) “Dear Betty. I surrender all rights to Durwood heartbroken and bereft as that leaves me.”

  DURWOOD My grandfather, the only surviving member of my natural family, the head of the clan, welcomes you into the family. I’m rich, Betty. I’ve got a farm and I lease it out to a racetrack and I make lots of money. Here’s a thousand dollars in newly minted ten-dollar bills as a sign of faith. You remember me. I didn’t have to introduce myself. I thought I’d have to introduce myself. That’s a good sign. You remember me.

  BERT You want me to get my monkey? Bang him down on his head? I can get Donny down here.

  BETTY I never even kissed you.

  DURWOOD To pursue the unattainable. My doctor says that’s my problem.

  BETTY The unattainable I’m afraid I must remain.

  DURWOOD No, you won’t. I won’t lie to you. I have been sick. And to be cured, I must once in my life obtain the unobtainable or I will die. I’m staying at the Dixie Hotel on West Forty-second Street. (He takes a stack of bills from his jacket and places it on the table.) I’ll return there now and leave this one thousand dollars to show my good faith. I’ll leave these photos of my farm and all that you’ll be mistress of. A mountain. A river. Caves that are closed to the public. I’ll give you time to peruse my offer and would like to ask your permission to call tomorrow night after which time perhaps we could leav
e immediately. You cannot escape from me or the power of my mind. We will begin a family. I’ll be cured. We’ll be happy. All these years. I’ll be back tomorrow evening at six p.m. with my bags packed. I’ll make a reservation at the Mexican restaurant for two.

  BERT For three.

  DURWOOD For two, Betty. You and me.

  BETTY I don’t think you need reservations at Taco Trolley.

  DURWOOD Until tomorrow, Betty. Your mother’s angry at you. She said she sent you down here to bring your sister back and you never returned. She said she had messages for you. She said get in touch. If I can bring you together, you and your mother, that’ll be doing good. My doctor will be so happy. He said if you really want her, you’ll find her. I didn’t have to call. You were home. One of the largest cities in the world. You were here. Now I’m here. I’ll be back tomorrow. The special is blueberry. But I’m pushing the peach.

  Durwood goes. Bert has been counting the money Durwood left behind.

  BETTY I got to sit down.

  BERT You think it’s counterfeit? You bend the face in half on two bills and if they fit together, the two faces into one face, that proves it’s not counterfeit.

  BETTY I remember him.

  BERT You must have been the prettiest girl around that summer.

  BETTY I was pretty. But not this pretty. Do you think maybe he’s telling the truth? South Carolina? Should I go? Maybe he does have money. Get us out of here. Who cares if he’s a nut. It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday. It sounds like one of those uplift songs in a musical comedy. (She sings) “It’s amazing how a little tomorrow…”

  BERT (Sings) “Makes up for a whole lot of yesterday.”

  BETTY “It’s amazing how a little tomorrow.” Do you have a joint? A jay? Don’t do lies to me. I found them in the Saltine box the last time.

  BERT This time I hid the dope in the one place you’d never look.

  BETTY Stop making with the funnies... I want to keep this moment. I feel it going away already and I’m hanging on to it. Don’t go away, magic moment. I’ll be right there.

  BERT The one place you’d never look.

  BETTY I give up.

  BERT The broom closet.

  BETTY You’re right. The one place I’d never look. I like giant dustballs. It gives me a flavor of the Old West.