by Edward Albee
MARTIN
(Warning hand up) I hear Billy.
(BILLY enters)
BILLY
Are you hitting her!? (Sees the carnage) What the fuck!?
STEVIE
We’re redecorating, honey. No, he’s not, by the way—hitting me. I’m hitting myself.
BILLY
(Near tears) I hear you two! I’m up there and I hear you! STOP IT! JESUS GOD, STOP IT!!
MARTIN
(Gentle) We will, Billy; we’re not quite done.
STEVIE
Go away, Billy. Go out and play.
BILLY
Go out and …?
STEVIE
(Harder) Leave the house! Leave us alone!
BILLY
But …
MARTIN
(Calm) Do what your Mother says. “Go out and play.” Make mudpies; climb a tree …
BILLY
(A finger in MARTIN’s face) If I come back and find you’ve hurt her, I’ll … I’ll … (BILLY lunges at MARTIN, shoves him, recoils. MARTIN steps forward, stops. BILLY sobs, runs from the room. We hear the front door slam)
STEVIE
(After) Mudpies?
MARTIN
Well … whatever.
STEVIE
(Calm) What will you do if he comes back and finds you’ve hurt me? … when he comes back and finds you’ve hurt me?
MARTIN
(Absorbed in something) What?
STEVIE
(Smiles) Down from the trees, hands all muddy? (Sad) Nothing. (Cold) You were in the middle of your Epiphany.
MARTIN
(Sighs) Yes.
STEVIE
(Sad) God, I wish you were stupid.
MARTIN
(He, too) Yes; I wish you were stupid, too.
STEVIE
(Pause; businesslike) Epiphany!
MARTIN
Yes. It was at that moment that I realized …
STEVIE
… that you and the fucking goat were destined for one another!
MARTIN
… that she and I were … (Softly; embarrassed) that she and I were going to go to bed together.
STEVIE
To stall together! To hay! Not to bed!
MARTIN
(Sits) Whatever. That what could not happen was going to. That we wanted each other very much, that I had to have her, that I … (STEVIE screams—a deep-throated rage—and lunges at MARTIN. He rises, grabs her wrists and shoves her into a chair. She attempts to get up, but he shoves her back again) Now stop it! Let me finish!
STEVIE
You’ll be fucking Billy next.
MARTIN
(Ice) He’s not my type.
STEVIE
(Rising again. Rage) He’s not your type!? He’s not your fucking type!?
MARTIN
No; he’s not. (She is about to strike him) You’re my type. (The shock of this stays her gesture; we see her confusion) You’re my type.
STEVIE
(Stands where she is; hard) Thank you!
MARTIN
You’re welcome. (A gesture) Oh, Stevie, I …
STEVIE
I’m your type and so is she; so is the goat. (Harder) So long as it’s female, eh? So long as it’s got a cunt it’s all right with you!
MARTIN
(Huge) A SOUL!! Don’t you know the difference!? Not a cunt, a soul!
STEVIE
(After a little; tears again) You can’t fuck a soul.
MARTIN
No; and it isn’t about fucking.
STEVIE
YES!!
MARTIN
(As gentle as possible) No; no, Stevie, it isn’t.
STEVIE
(Pause; then, even more sure) Yes! It is about fucking! It is about you being an animal!
MARTIN
(Thinks a moment; quietly) I thought I was.
STEVIE
(Contempt) Hunh!
MARTIN
I thought I was; I thought we all were … animals.
STEVIE
(Cold rage) We stay with our own kind!
MARTIN
(Gentle; rational) Oh, we fall in love with many other creatures … dogs and cats, and …
STEVIE
We don’t fuck them! You’re a monster!
MARTIN
(Pinning it down) I am a deeply troubled, greatly divided …
STEVIE
(No quarter) Animal fucker!
MARTIN
Sylvia and I …
STEVIE
(Hideous) You’re going to tell me she wants you.
MARTIN
(Simply put) Yes.
STEVIE
What does she do—back into you making awful little bleating sounds?
MARTIN
That’s sheep.
STEVIE
Whatever!! Presented herself? Down on her forelegs, her head turned, her eyes on you, her …
MARTIN
Stop it! I won’t go into the specifics of our sex with you!
STEVIE
(Contempt) Thank you! You take advantage of this … creature!? You … rape this … animal and convince yourself that it has to do with love!?
MARTIN
(Helpless) I love her … and she loves me, and …
STEVIE
(A huge animal sound: rage; sweeps the bookcase of whatever is on it, or overturns a piece of furniture. Silence; then starting quietly, building) Now, you listen to me. I have listened to you. I have heard you tell me how much you love me, how you’ve never even wanted another woman, how we have been a more perfect marriage than chance would even allow. We’re both too bright for most of the shit. We see the deep and awful humor of things go over the heads of most people; we see what’s hideously wrong in what most people accept as normal; we have both the joys and the sorrows of all that. We have a straight line through life, right all the way to dying, but that’s OK because it’s a good line … so long as we don’t screw up.
MARTIN
I know; I know.
STEVIE
(Don’t interrupt me!) Shut up; so long as we don’t screw up. (Points at him) And you’ve screwed up!
MARTIN
Stevie, I …
STEVIE
I said, shut up. Do you know how you’ve done it? How you’ve screwed up?
MARTIN
(Mumbled) Because I was at the vegetable stand one day, and I looked over to my right and I saw …
STEVIE
(Hard and slow) Because you’ve broken something and it can’t be fixed!
MARTIN
Stevie …
STEVIE
Fall out of love with me? Fine! No, not fine, but that can be fixed … time … whatever! But tell me you love me and an animal—both of us!—equally? The same way? That you go from my bed—our bed … (aside-ish) it’s amazing, you know, how good we are, still, how we please each other and ourselves so … fully, so … fresh each time … (aside over) … you go from our bed, wash your dick, get in your car and go to her, and do with her what I cannot imagine myself imagining? Or—worse! … that you’ve come from her, to my bed!? To our bed!? … and you do with me what I can imagine … love … want you for!?
MARTIN
(Deep sadness) Oh, Stevie …
STEVIE
(Not listening) That you can do these two things … and not understand how it … SHATTERS THE GLASS!!?? How it cannot be dealt with—how stop and forgiveness have nothing to do with it? and how I am destroyed? How you are? How I cannot admit it though I know it!? How I cannot deny it because I cannot admit it!? Cannot admit it, because it is outside of denying!?
MARTIN
Stevie, I … I promise you, I’ll stop; I’ll …
STEVIE
How stopping has nothing to do with having started?! How nothing has anything to do with anything!? (Tears—if there—stop) You have brought me down, you goat-fucker; you love of my life! You have brought me down to nothing! (Accusatory
finger right at him) You have brought me down, and, Christ!, I’ll bring you down with me!
(Brief pause; she turns on her heel, exits. We hear the front door slam.)
MARTIN
(After she leaves; after he hears the door; little boy) Stevie? (Pause) Stevie?
End of Scene Two
Scene Three
(An hour or so later. MARTIN is sitting in the ruins. Maybe he is examining a broken piece of something. The room is as it was at the end of Scene Two. The front door slams; BILLY enters; MARTIN rises and stands in the middle of the room.)
BILLY
(Looking around) Wow!
MARTIN
(Realizing BILLY is there) Yes; wow.
BILLY
(Seemingly casual) You guys really had it out, hunh.
MARTIN
(Subdued; almost laughing) Oh, yes.
BILLY
Where is she?
MARTIN
Hm? Who?
BILLY
(Not friendly; overly articulated) My mother. Where is my mother?
MARTIN
(Mocking) Where is “my mother”? Not “Mother—where’s Mother?” Not that, but … “Where is my mother?”
BILLY
(Anger rising) Whatever! Where is she? Where is my mother?
MARTIN
(Arms out; helplessly) I … I …
BILLY
(Angrier) Where is she?! What did you do … kill her?
MARTIN
(Softly) Yes; I think so.
BILLY
(Dropping something he has picked up) What!!?
MARTIN
(Quietly, with a restraining hand) Stop. No. No, I did not kill her—of course not—but I think I might as well have. I think we’ve killed each other.
BILLY
(Driving) Where is she!?
MARTIN
(Simply) I don’t know.
BILLY
What do you mean you don’t …
MARTIN
(Loud) She left!
BILLY
What do you mean she left? Where …
MARTIN
(Snappish) Stop asking me what I mean! (Quieter) She said what she wanted to say; she finished … and she left. She slammed the front door and left. I assume she drove somewhere.
BILLY
Yeah, the wagon’s gone. (Harder) Where is she!?
MARTIN
(Loud) She left! I don’t know where she is! It’s English! “She left.” It’s English. No, I did not kill her, yes, I think I did, I think we killed each other. That’s English, too: one of your courses!
BILLY
(Is his rage close to tears? Probably) I know who you are. I know you’re my father. I know who you are, and I know who you’re supposed to be, but …
MARTIN
You, too?
BILLY
Hunh?
MARTIN
You don’t know who I am anymore.
BILLY
(Flat) No.
MARTIN
Well … neither does your mother.
BILLY
(Trying to explain, but, still, rage underneath) Parents fight; I know that; all kids know that. There are good times and rotten ones, and sometimes the blanket is pulled out from under you, and …
MARTIN
(Can’t help saying it) You’re mixing your metaphors.
BILLY
(Furious) What!?
MARTIN
Never mind; probably not the best time to bring it up. You were saying … “There are good times and rotten ones”?
BILLY
Yes. (Quick sarcasm) Thanks.
MARTIN
(Noncommittal) Welcome.
BILLY
But sometimes the whatever is pulled out from under you.
MARTIN
Rug, I think.
BILLY
Right! Now shut the fuck up! (MARTIN opens his mouth, closes it. Spits out) Semanticist!
MARTIN
Very good! Where did you learn that?
BILLY
I go to a good school. Remember?
MARTIN
Yes, but still …
BILLY
I said, shut the fuck up!
MARTIN
(Subsiding) Right.
BILLY
There are good times, and there are rotten ones. There are times we are so … deep in content, in happiness, that we think we’ll probably drown in it but we won’t mind. There are some of those—not too many. There are times we don’t know what the fuck’s going on—to us, with us, about us—and that’s most of the time. I’m talking about us so-called adolescents.
MARTIN
I know.
BILLY
And then there are the times we wish we were old enough to … just walk out the door and start all over again, somewhere else—blank it all out.
MARTIN
(Quietly) And this?
BILLY
(Hard) One guess, you fuck!! (Huge) What have you done with my mother!!??
MARTIN
(Calm) We finished our conversation (gestures at ruined room)—you see how we talk?—we finished our conversation, and she said a final … thing, and she left. She walked out, out the front door, slam.
BILLY
How long ago?
MARTIN
(Shrugs) An hour; maybe more; maybe two. I’m not very good at time and stuff right now.
BILLY
Two hours? And you haven’t …
MARTIN
(A little angry himself) What!? called the police? (Awful imitation of distress) “Oh, Officer, help me! My wife just found out I’ve been doing it with livestock, and she’s run off, and can you help me find her?” What!? Take off after her!? She’s a grown woman; she could be having her hair done, for all I know.
BILLY
(Dogged) What did she say to you?
MARTIN
(Rueful chuckle) Oh … quite a few things.
BILLY
(Bigger) When she left! What did she say when she left!?
MARTIN
Something about … bringing me down—or whatever.
BILLY
Be specific.
MARTIN
Well, it’s hard to be specific. We were busy after all, and …
BILLY
(Big) Exactly what she said, and now!
MARTIN
(Clears his throat) “You have brought me down, and … I will bring you down with me.”
BILLY
(Puzzled; trying to get it) What does that mean?
MARTIN
(Almost sweet) No one’s ever brought you down? No, I suppose not—not yet. It means … (fails) it means what it says: that you have done to me what cannot be undone and … and you won’t get away with it.
(BILLY stands for a moment and then spontaneously cries for a little, stops)
BILLY
(Wiping his eyes) I see.
MARTIN
(Further explanation) You destroy me—I destroy you.
BILLY
Yes; I see. (Indicates wreckage) Then there’s no point in setting all this right.
MARTIN
(Sad chuckle) It does look pretty awful, doesn’t it.
BILLY
Let’s do it anyway.
MARTIN
Set the stage for the next round? (Some self-pity and irony) Hunh! What next round!? It’s all behind me, isn’t it?—everything? All hope … all … “salvation”? (Fast litany) Dead-end-rock-bottom-out-with-the-garbage-flushed-down-the-toilet-ground-up-spit-out-over-the-edge with heavy weights, down-down-sunk … whatever? All hope, everything? Gone? Right?
BILLY
(Shrugs) Whatever. (BILLY begins to right a few things, not much; then quits) What is it going to be then? Divorce?
MARTIN
(Simply) I don’t know, Billy; I don’t know that there are any rules for where we are.
BILLY
Beyond all the rules, eh?
MAR
TIN
(Some rue) I think so.
BILLY
I wouldn’t know. I guess I’ve never been in love. Yet, I mean. Oh, lots of crushes, and all.
MARTIN
Only twice for me—your mother and … Sylvia.
BILLY
You’re really holding onto this, aren’t you.
MARTIN
To …?
BILLY
(Sneering) This goat! This big love affair!
MARTIN
(Shrugs) It’s true.
BILLY
Grow up!
MARTIN
Ah! Is that it! (BILLY laughs, in spite of himself. MARTIN tries to right a chair) Help me with this. (BILLY helps him) Thanks!
BILLY
(Shrugs) Any time. (Pause) They asked us at school—when? Last week, last month?—they asked each of us in this class to talk about how normal our lives were, how … how conventional it all was and how did we feel about it.
MARTIN
What kind of school is this!?
BILLY
(Shrugs) You chose it; you two chose it. And a lot of the guys got up and talked about—you know—our home lives, how our parents get on, and all; and it wasn’t very special except the guys whose parents are divorced or one has died or gone crazy, or whatever.
MARTIN
Really? Crazy?
BILLY
Sure. Good private school. All guys, too; thanks. I mean, it was all about what you’d expect. Maybe everybody left all the juicy stuff out, or they didn’t know it. (Picks up a shard) Where does this go?
MARTIN
Trash, I suspect.
BILLY
(Looks at it) Too bad. (Drops it) So, it was all pretty dull, pretty much what you’d expect.
