[He does so.]
I don’t know what it would be like being old without good health. In that regard I’ve been lucky. A West Coast friend got me started decades ago on a Pritikin diet and a Pilates fitness program. You can’t beat the West Coast when it comes to setting the standards for us East Coast slackers; that goes for health, style, cosmetic surgery, and a penchant for multiple liaisons.
[He drinks, thirstily.]
After good health, I’d list the necessity to keep busy. Busy with career, with avocation, with hobby, craft, chess, tennis, golf, gardening, with whatever activity engages you, brings a rush of gratification. So far that hasn’t been a problem for me. I work every day, seven days a week, writing plays, exclusively. For me, there’s nothing more challenging, particularly when writing a play I choose to write, of my own volition, and not for monetary gain. I believe it was Samuel Johnson who said, “No man but a blockhead wrote, except for money.” Considering his time and circumstances, I wouldn’t argue the point. But writing what one chooses to write? What an exhilarating thought that is. And yet, along with it, a negative thought immediately follows. I do worry about running out of ideas for future plays. When you’ve been at it for as many years as I have, there aren’t that many new ideas loitering about in your imagination waiting for you to explore. Old age, apparently, is a period of reaping, not of planting. Recently, I was encouraged by reading a list of artists who continued to be prolific during their nineties and eighties. Here are a number of them.
[He gropes through one, two, or three pockets of his cardigan sweater, pants pockets, and shirt pocket for the relevant piece of scrap paper or newspaper/magazine cutout he’s searching for. Several pieces of scrap paper, stapled together, catch his eye.]
This isn’t what I was looking for, but I’d like you to hear it. In my opinion, it’s the best brief definition of comedy ever written: “If nothing is serious, nothing is funny.” That’s from the inimitable Oscar Wilde.
[Glances at the scrap paper behind it.]
Ah, here’s another. It’s from Jonathan Swift: “Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” Not bad, huh?
[Glances at the scrap paper behind it.]
And one more: “Comedy is an escape, not from the truth, but from despair.” Christopher Fry.
[He returns stapled scrap papers to pocket, continues searching in his other pockets.]
Now let me see, where did I put that list . . . If I had half a brain, I’d file my scrap-paper notes and printed cutouts into the computer. But I’m so damned . . . Ah, here it is. I have it. On the list of artists continuing to be prolific during their nineties we have:
[Reads from magazine cutout.]
“Sophocles, Titian, Bernard Shaw, Somerset Maugham, Jean Sibelius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louise Bourgeois, Knut Hamsun, P. G. Wodehouse, Oskar Kokoschka,” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Prolific in their eighties we have: “Michelangelo, Goya, Tolstoy, Goethe, Wordsworth, Monet, Brancusi, Matisse, Stravinsky, O’Casey,” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
[JOE guffaws. MURRAY returns cutouts to pocket.]
You may find it amusing, Joe, but I assure you, my best work lies ahead of me, of that I’m confident.
[JOE speaks.]
What was that?
[JOE speaks.]
Yes, Joe, I believe the improbable name of Murray Schisgal is right up there with the best of them. That may strike you as a classic case of megalomania, but I am firmly convinced that I have already written plays of lasting significance. Otherwise, I don’t see how I could have survived as a writer this long.
[JOE speaks.]
[MURRAY laughing.]
What? You agree? You don’t have to . . .
[MURRAY laughing.]
No, stop, I wasn’t fishing for . . .You don’t have to . . . Stop, that’s enough already!
[JOE speaks.]
Thank you, Joe. Thank you. That’s awfully kind.
[Nodding.]
I will. I am. I have no intention of quitting. You have my word on that.
[He rises, paces around the table and chairs, hands clasped behind his back.]
Now let’s get back to answering your question, Bob: How does it feel to be an old man? Following the prerequisites of good health and keeping busy, I’ll add having a few bucks in the bank. Poverty is demoralizing. This from growing up during the Depression. Success and wealth are the primary incentives for a satisfying creative life. This from the ’60s, ’70s, and early ’80s when everything I wrote was produced because of the early kudos I received from the New York critics. My professional decline began in the late ’80s, after a few theatrical bombs and a number of perverse screenplays that never got made. I breezed along, nonetheless, primarily on the monies I earned at Commedie Productions as a consultant and producer. Of course, I continued to write plays, many of which were published and produced, both here and abroad; that brings us pretty much up to date.
[He sits on the upstage rectory table.]
So far we have good health, keeping busy, and an interest-bearing nest egg in the bank. And here I’m compelled to append a fourth essential ingredient to my recommendations for vigorous aging. Perhaps of even greater value than any of those I already mentioned is being fortunate enough to have at your side a wife, a devoted, affectionate wife-pal, if you will. That’s how it goes, fellows. I don’t make the rules. And here, once again, I’ve been a lucky man. It may have worked out in my favor because I married a younger woman.
[BOB speaks.]
[MURRAY grinning.]
You guessed correctly, Bob. She turned eighty in July. Since I’m eighty-two, she’s, by definition, a younger woman. We recently celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary. I met Reene when I was twenty-seven and the strangest thing in the world happened when I met her. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was loved, genuinely, unequivocally, and unconditionally loved. And once I felt that emotion coming from another human being, I was capable of loving another human being. This revelation brought home to me a reality that I had been totally ignorant of. I can only love when I feel I’m being loved. I’m incapable of initiating love. I can only respond to it.
[He scrounges through his pockets for a handful of scrap paper.]
I had a thought this morning, just before getting out of bed. That’s become a bad habit of mine, jotting down every half-assed idea I have, first thing in the morning. One second.
[He reads from scrap paper.]
“Old age is an incomparable high, from which there is no coming down.”
[He looks at scrap paper stapled behind it, then the scrap paper behind that one.]
By the way, anticipating your arrival, I filled my pockets with some personal notes I wrote on scrap paper and cutouts from newspapers and magazines I’ve collected these past few years. I thought they might be of interest to you. Listen to these.
[Reads the first.]
“Recently a man of ninety-five said to me, ‘I’ve taken a vow of celibacy.’”
[Waits in vain for a response.]
Nothing? You don’t find it amusing? Okay. Here’s another one.
[Reads the second.]
“The eighty-one-year-old man shouted in my face: ‘You will not rob me of my youth!’”
[Waits in vain for a response.]
Still nothing? Anyway, that’s how I felt last year.
[He returns scrap papers to his pocket.]
Where was I? Oh, yes. I can say, without hesitation, I cherish every single day I’m with my wife. The simple truth of it is that I love her more today than I did yesterday. And I have no doubt I will love her more tomorrow than I do today. Talking about my wife brings to mind a grievance of mine, a decidedly unpleasant aspect of growing old. And for this inexcusable atrocity, I blame, in tandem, Almighty God and evolution. Bo
th are guilty of imprinting, arbitrarily and senselessly, the male genome with the blight of senescent impotency.
[JOE speaks.]
You heard me right, Joe, senescent impotency, the inability of a healthy, physically-fit elderly man to have sex with his wife or his girlfriend or his boyfriend or with whomever else he damn pleases! You want to talk about insidious age discrimination, there you have it in a nutshell!
[JOE speaks.]
Never mind the argument that senescent impotency is initiated to prevent elderly men from conceiving offspring. I wholly disagree with . . .
[BOB interrupts.]
What was that, Bob? Because they won’t be around long enough to raise and protect their offspring? That is such bullshit! How many teenage fathers or fly-by-night fathers are around to raise and protect their offspring? Google the figures and then we’ll talk about it. Imagine what it’s like living with a woman for fifty years and holding her, kissing her, fondling her, desiring her and . . . you can’t, you’re physically incapable of making love to her!
[BOB speaks.]
[MURRAY angrily.]
Yes, yes, at eighty-two, Bob; to a woman of eighty! Yes, yes, precisely! What is most hateful in all of this is to be forced to keep your hands off your own wife and pretend you’re too tired or too old or too preoccupied watching television to indulge in that silly, infantile game of fornication. Bullshit! I’ll offer you this platitude: neither Almighty God nor evolution ever had our best interests at heart. They’ve both proven themselves, again and again, insensitive, indecisive, and totally indifferent to the well-being and happiness of our species!
[He sits in his chair at the head of the table, empties his glass. JOE and BOB protest.]
[Raising his hands in self-defense.]
Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. I apologize. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. I thought you might like to hear one of the negatives of reaching eighty-two. Let’s drop it and get back to the positives. It helps, enormously, if you have devoted children, caring in-laws, and a gaggle of rambunctious grandkids. Granted all those ifs, ands, and buts . . . Growing old feels pretty damn good and being alive . . .
[Grins.]
feels even better. After much deliberation I’ve come to the conclusion that luck is a more valuable asset to possess in the long run than talent, wealth, intelligence, breeding, and the personal friendship of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
[JOE speaks.]
Who do I hang out with? That’s an easy one to answer, Joe. As I said, except for you fellows, friends of mine are few and far between. Mobility and mortality have taken their toll. More than ever, I find myself hanging out with my wife. It’s, frankly, embarrassing for me to always be waiting for her to come home from bridge or from lunch or dinner with her friends or . . . whatever. I was wondering. Could you fellows possibly come to visit with me once a week on a regular basis? Let’s say every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.?
[Turns from one to the other.]
Could you . . . arrange it? Same time, same place. You needn’t stay for more than an hour. Is that possible?
[He turns from one to the other, waits anxiously to hear a response. They respond positively. Excitedly, beaming, he bangs with fist on table.]
You agree? It’s unanimous? That’s great, that is great! I sincerely appreciate it.
[He rises to refill his glass at serving table.]
How’s it going, Bunny? How are you doing? You’ve been awfully quiet.
[BUNNY speaks.]
How stupid of me! I am sorry.
[Turns to others.]
Bob, Joe, my first cousin and my first and best friend of nearly eighty years, Arthur Emanuel Kugelman, better known as Bunny by members of our family. He retired as a creative director at Benton and Bowles a number of years before he . . .
[Drops it; turns to BUNNY.]
Don’t be intimidated by these two. They come on like hard-asses, but they’re quite harmless. Did you get to hear about Uncle Hymie? He died last year, one hundred years old. That’s something, huh? I don’t know if you’ve been counting, but we have three aunts left. Aunt Dora will be one hundred this year, Aunt Annie ninety-seven, and Aunt Rhoda eighty-eight. My mother died four years ago at ninety-nine. You have to admit we inherited a couple of good genes. Even you, in spite of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day since high school, lived for seventy-one years.
[He returns to his chair at table.]
I remember the day you came into my office at Commedia Productions. We planned to go out for lunch at Shun Lee West, chicken chow mein with plenty of crispy noodles, the way we liked it. I knew you had seen a neurologist that morning. He had completed a series of tests because you were having trouble reading. I asked you what he said. “You don’t wanna know,” you mumbled, turning away from me. “I do want to know,” I said. And you said, turning toward me, your expression indecipherable. “I have lung cancer. It’s metastasized to my brain.” And then we both turned away from each other and said nothing . . . for a minute . . . for an hour . . . for an eternity.
[A hesitant beat.]
I was wondering, Bunny, what . . . what’s it been like since you . . . ?
[BOB interrupts.]
[MURRAY excitedly.]
All right, all right, I heard you, Bob! What are you getting excited about? I was just going to ask him if . . . !
[JOE interrupts.]
I heard him, Joe. I’m not deaf. You don’t have to repeat what Bob said. I get the message. Why are you . . . ? You want me to say it, I’ll say it. I am not allowed to talk about what it’s like . . . for the three of you: what you do, what you see, what you feel. It is not permissible.
[JOE speaks.]
Fine. Fine. But it seems grossly unfair to me that you can tell me what I can and cannot say when I place no restrictions on what you can or cannot say!
[JOE speaks.]
All right, all right, we’ll drop it. End of discussion. I’m not wasting the time I have with you fellows on nit-picking technicalities. Now I’d like to tell you something that’s totally unrelated to what I was going to ask Bunny. Since it happened to me and not to him, it is permissible. Those are the rules, am I right, Bob?
[He waits for BOB to nod assent.]
Thank you. We had services for Bunny at the Frank Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue. That was in 1999, the same year you left us, Joe. Anyway, I was asked to say a few words. Fortunately, I kept a copy of what I said that morning.
[Turns to BUNNY.]
I’d like to read a part of it to you, Bunny. In case you missed it . . . the last time.
[He rises, stands behind his chair as he removes a page from a pants pocket.]
I highlighted what I wanted to read somewhere down at the . . . I have it.
[After clearing his throat, he reads from near the bottom of the page.]
“Bunny was the loudest and the happiest of us all. He loved his family and he loved being with his family. And as he grew older and matured and struggled to find his way, he carried with him a steadfast enthusiasm for family life. Eventually he found it in a second marriage and in fathering a pair of priceless daughters, Sarah, named after his mother, and Dana, named after his brother, David, who was killed on the Anzio Beach during the Second World War.
[A beat.]
“Bunny said two things to me toward the end of his life that haunt me to this day. He said that he was not afraid of death and he said what he resented most about dying was being pitied by others.
[A beat.]
“We are not here to pity him or to mourn for him. He lived a full, rich, and fulfilling life. He was and is a brave man; he was and is an irreplaceable friend and a revered member of our family.
[A beat; without looking at page.]
“It’s not in bad taste to cry when you lose someone you love. If you forgive me my tear
s, I’ll forgive you yours.”
[A beat to collect himself before he returns papers to his pocket and sits at table.]
[To BUNNY.]
Wasn’t it in the emergency room at Mount Sinai hospital you said that about dying to me?
[BUNNY speaks.]
I’m glad I didn’t misquote you.
[A beat.]
That brings to mind the time I visited you at the Rusk Institute, Joe. Guillain-Barré syndrome brought you there. You couldn’t move your legs, barely move your arms, and it wasn’t easy understanding what you were saying. While we were talking, this tall, attractive nurse kept walking in and out of the room, wiping your perspiring face, lifting you up so you could sit properly in bed, taking your temperature and, overall, seeing to it that you were comfortable. None of that surprised me. What did surprise me, though, is when, responding to a gesture of yours, she lifted your body off the bed, seemingly without effort, and carried you to a wheelchair, cradled in her arms as if you weighed no more than a diapered baby.
[Enjoys the telling of it.]
And . . . what was really a shocker, as she . . . carried you . . . you turned to me . . . and you said to me, quite seriously. . . in that slurry voice of yours: “I’m gonna marry this woman.” And you did, you married your nurse, who, at the time, you only knew for a few weeks!
[MURRAY spontaneously breaks out in laughter; quick to apologize.]
No offense, Joe. She was a wonderful nurse and turned out to be a wonderful wife, I mean that.
[Turns.]
Bob, do you remember when Joe and I went to visit you at New York Hospital?
[BOB speaks.]
That’s right. You were there for some tests. You thought you’d be getting out in forty-eight hours. Instead, you died before the week was over.
[BUNNY speaks.]
You guessed right, Bunny. The same, lung cancer. Kent for you, Lucky Strike for him.
Best Monologues from the Best American Short Plays, Volume Three Page 4
