The Penguin Arthur Miller

by Arthur Miller

  LEE: I never knew you were religious.

  RALPH: I’m sort of religious. They pay pretty good, you know, and you get your house and a clothing allowance . . .

  JOE, comes to Lee, extending his hand in farewell: Don’t forget to read Karl Marx, Lee. And if you’re ever in the neighborhood with a toothache, look me up. I’ll keep an eye out for your byline.

  LEE: Oh, I don’t expect a newspaper job—papers are closing all over the place. Drop me a card if you open an office.

  JOE: It’ll probably be in my girl’s father’s basement. He promised to dig the floor out deeper so I can stand up . . .

  LEE: What about equipment?

  JOE: I figure two, three years I’ll be able to open, if I can make a down payment on a used drill. Come by, I’ll put back those teeth Ohio State knocked out.

  LEE: I sure will! . . . So long, Rudy!

  RUDY: Oh, you might still be seeing me around next semester.

  JOE: You staying on campus?

  RUDY: I might for the sake of my root canals. If I just take one university course I’m still entitled to the Health Service—could get my canals finished.

  LEE: You mean there’s a course in the Lit School you haven’t taken?

  RUDY: Yeah, I just found out about it. Roman Band Instruments.

  JOE, laughs: You’re kiddin’!

  RUDY: No, in the Classics Department. Roman Band Instruments. He pulls his cheek back. See, I’ve still got three big ones to go on this side.

  Laughter.

  Well, if you really face it, where am I running? Chicago’s loaded with anthropologists. Here, the university’s like my mother—I’ve got free rent, wash dishes for my meals, get my teeth fixed, and God knows, I might pick up the paper one morning and there’s an ad: “Help Wanted: Handsome young college graduate, good teeth, must be thoroughly acquainted with Roman band instruments”!

  Laughter. They sing “Love and a Dime” accompanied by Rudy on banjo.

  RALPH: I’ll keep looking for your byline anyway, Lee.

  LEE: No, I doubt it; but I might angle a job on a Mississippi paddleboat when I get out.

  RUDY: They still run those?

  LEE: Yeah, there’s a few. I’d like to retrace Mark Twain’s voyages.

  RUDY: Well, if you run into Huckleberry Finn—

  LEE: I’ll give him your regards.

  Laughing, Ralph and Rudy start out.

  RALPH: Beat Ohio State, kid!

  JOE, alone with Lee, gives him a clenched-fist salute: So long, Lee.

  LEE, returning the salute: So long, Joe! With fist still clenched, he mimes pulling a whistle, dreamily imagining the Mississippi. Toot! Toot!

  He moves to a point, taking off his shirt, with which he wipes sweat off his face and neck as in the distance we hear a paddleboat’s engines and wheel in water and whistle. Lee stares out as though from a deck. He is seeing aloud.

  How scary and beautiful the Mississippi is. How do they manage to live? Every town has a bank boarded up, and all those skinny men sitting on the sidewalks with their backs against the storefronts. It’s all stopped; like a magic spell. And the anger, the anger . . . when they were handing out meat and beans to the hungry, and the maggots wriggling out of the beef, and that man pointing his rifle at the butcher demanding the fresh meat the government had paid him to hand out . . . How could this have happened, is Marx right? Paper says twelve executives in tobacco made more than thirty thousand farmers who raised it. How long can they accept this? The anger has a smell, it hangs in the air wherever people gather. . . . Fights suddenly break out and simmer down. Is this when revolution comes? And why not? How would Mark Twain write what I have seen? Armed deputies guarding cornfields and whole families sitting beside the road, staring at that food which nobody can buy and is rotting on the stalk. It’s insane. He exits.

  ROSE, from choral area, to audience: But how can he become a sportswriter if he’s a Communist?

  Joe, carrying a large basket of flowers, crosses downstage to the sound effect of a subway train passing. He sings a verse of “In New York City, You Really Got to Know Your Line.” He then breaks upstage and enters Isabel’s apartment. She is in bed.

  ISABEL: Hello, honey.

  JOE: Could you start calling me Joe? It’s less anonymous. He starts removing his shoes and top pair of trousers.

  ISABEL: Whatever you say. You couldn’t come later—hey, could you? I was just ready to go to sleep, I had a long night.

  JOE: I can’t, I gotta catch the girls before they get to the office, they like a flower on the desk. And later I’m too tired.

  ISABEL: Ain’t that uncomfortable—hey? Two pairs of pants?

  JOE: It’s freezing cold on that subway platform. The wind’s like the Gobi Desert. The only problem is when you go out to pee it takes twice as long.

  ISABEL: Sellin’ books too—hey?

  JOE: No, I’m reading that. Trying not to forget the English language. All I hear all day is shit, fuck, and piss. I keep meaning to tell you, Isabel, it’s so relaxing to talk to you, especially when you don’t understand about seventy percent of what I’m saying.

  ISABEL, laughs, complimented: Hey!

  JOE, takes her hand: In here I feel my sanity coming back, to a certain extent. Down in the subway all day I really wonder maybe some kind of lunacy is taking over. People stand there waiting for the train, talking to themselves. And loud, with gestures. And the number of men who come up behind me and feel my ass. With a sudden drop in all his confidence: What scares me, see, is that I’m getting too nervous to pick up a drill—if I ever get to practice dentistry at all, I mean. The city . . . is crazy! A hunchback yesterday suddenly comes up to me . . . apropos of nothing . . . and he starts yelling, “You will not find one word about democracy in the Constitution, this is a Christian Republic!” Nobody laughed. The Nazi swastika is blossoming out all over the toothpaste ads. And it seems to be getting worse—there’s a guy on Forty-eighth Street and Eighth Avenue selling two hotdogs for seven cents! What can he make?

  ISABEL: Two for seven? Jesus.

  JOE: I tell you I get the feeling every once in a while that some bright morning millions of people are going to come pouring out of the buildings and just . . . I don’t know what . . . kill each other? Or only the Jews? Or just maybe sit down on the sidewalk and cry. Now he turns to her and starts to climb up on the bed beside her.

  ISABEL, looking at the book: It’s about families?

  JOE: No, it’s just called The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, by Friedrich Engels. Marxism.

  ISABEL: What’s that?

  JOE, his head resting on hers, his hand holding her breast: Well, it’s the idea that all of our relationships are basically ruled by money.

  ISABEL, nodding, as she well knows: Oh, right—hey, yeah.

  JOE, raising himself up: No, it’s not what you think . . .

  ISABEL: It’s a whole book about that?

  JOE: It’s about socialism, where the girls would all have jobs so they wouldn’t have to do this, see.

  ISABEL: Oh! But what would the guys do, though?

  JOE, flustered: Well . . . like for instance if I had money to open an office I would probably get married very soon.

  ISABEL: Yeah, but I get married guys. Brightly: And I even get two dentists that you brought me . . . Bernie and Allan? . . . and they’ve got offices, too.

  JOE: You don’t understand. . . . He shows that underneath our ideals it’s all economics between people, and it shouldn’t be.

  ISABEL: What should it be?

  JOE: Well, you know, like . . . love.

  ISABEL: Ohhh! Well that’s nice—hey. You think I could read it?

  JOE: Sure, try. . . . I’d like your reaction. I like you early, Isabel, you look so fresh. Gives me an illusion.

  ISABEL
: I’m sorry if I’m tired.

  JOE, kisses her, trying to rouse himself: Say . . . did Bernie finish the filling?

  ISABEL: Yeah, he polished yesterday.

  JOE: Open.

  She opens her mouth.

  Bernie’s good. Proudly: I told you, we were in the same class. Say hello when you see him again.

  ISABEL: He said he might come after five. He always says to give you his best.

  JOE: Give him my best, too.

  ISABEL, readying herself on the bed: Till you I never had so many dentists.

  He lowers onto her. Fadeout.

  Lights come up on Banks, suspended in a painter’s cradle, painting a bridge. He sings a verse of “Backbone and Navel Doin’ the Belly Rub,” then speaks.

  BANKS: Sometimes you’d get the rumor they be hirin’ in New York City, so we all went to New York City, but they wasn’t nothin’ in New York City, so we’d head for Lima, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Duluth, Minnesota; or go down Baltimore; or Alabama or Decatur, Illinois. But anywhere you’d go was always a jail. I was in a chain gang in Georgia pickin’ cotton for four months just for hoboin’ on a train. That was 1935 in the summertime, and when they set me free they give me thirty-five cents. Yes, sir, thirty-five cents is what they give me, pickin’ cotton four months against my will. Pause. Yeah, I still hear that train, that long low whistle, whoo-ooo!

  Fadeout. Lights come up on Rose, seated at the piano, playing. Two moving men in work aprons enter, raise her hands from the piano, and push the piano off.

  ROSE, half to herself, furious: How stupid it all is. How stupid! Prayerfully: Oh, my dear Lee, wherever you are—believe in something. Anything. But believe. She turns and moves off with the piano stool, as though emptied out.

  Lights come up on Lee, sitting at an open-air café table under a tree. Isaac, the black proprietor, brings him a watermelon slice.

  ISAAC: You been workin’ the river long? I ain’t seen you before, have I?

  LEE: No, this is my first trip down the river, I’m from New York City—I’m just kind of looking around the country, talking to people.

  ISAAC: What you lookin’ around for?

  LEE: Nothing—just trying to figure out what’s happening. Ever hear of Mark Twain?

  ISAAC: He from round here?

  LEE: Well, long time ago, yeah. He was a story writer.

  ISAAC: Unh-unh. I ain’t seen him around here. You ask at the post office?

  LEE: No, but I might. I’m kind of surprised you can get fifteen cents a slice down here these days.

  ISAAC: Ohhh—white folks loves watermelon. Things as bad as this up North?

  LEE: Probably not quite. I sure wouldn’t want to be one of you people down here . . . specially with this Depression.

  ISAAC: Mister, if I was to tell you the God’s honest truth, the main thing about the Depression is that it finally hit the white people. ’Cause us folks never had nothin’ else. He looks offstage. Well, now—here come the big man.

  LEE: He trouble?

  ISAAC: He’s anything he wants to be, mister—he the sheriff.

  The Sheriff enters, wearing holstered gun, boots, badge, broad-brimmed hat, and carrying something wrapped under his arm. He silently stares at Lee, then turns to Isaac.

  SHERIFF: Isaac?

  ISAAC: Yes, sir.

  SHERIFF, after a moment: Sit down.

  ISAAC: Yes, sir.

  He sits on a counter stool; he is intensely curious about the Sheriff’s calling on him but not frightened. The Sheriff seems to be having trouble with Lee’s strange presence.

  LEE, makes a nervous half-apology: I’m off the boat. He indicates offstage.

  SHERIFF: You don’t bother me, boy—relax.

  He sits and sets his package down and turns with gravity to Isaac. Lee makes himself unobtrusive and observes in silence.

  ISAAC: Looks like rain.

  SHERIFF, preoccupied: Mm . . . hard to know.

  ISAAC: Yeah . . . always is in Louisiana. Pause. Anything I can do for you, Sheriff?

  SHERIFF: Read the papers today?

  ISAAC: I couldn’t read my name if an air-o-plane wrote it in the sky, Sheriff, you know that.

  SHERIFF: My second cousin Allan? The state senator?

  ISAAC: Uh-huh?

  SHERIFF: The governor just appointed him. He’s gonna help run the state police.

  ISAAC: Uh-huh?

  SHERIFF: He’s comin’ down to dinner Friday night over to my house. Bringin’ his wife and two daughters. I’m gonna try to talk to Allan about a job on the state police. They still paying the state police, see.

  ISAAC: Uh-huh. Well, that be nice, won’t it.

  SHERIFF: Isaac, I like you to cook me up some of that magical fried chicken around six o’clock Friday night. Okay? I’ll pick it up.

  ISAAC, noncommittal: Mm.

  SHERIFF: That’d be for . . . let’s see . . . counts on his fingers . . . eight people. My brother and his wife comin’ over too, ‘cause I aim to give Allan a little spread there, get him talkin’ real good, y’know.

  ISAAC: Mm.

  An embarrassed pause.

  SHERIFF: What’s that gonna cost me for eight people, Isaac?

  ISAAC, at once: Ten dollars.

  SHERIFF: Ten.

  ISAAC, with a little commiseration: That’s right, Sheriff.

  SHERIFF, slight pause; starts to unwrap radio: Want to show you something here, Isaac. My radio, see?

  ISAAC: Uh-huh. He runs his hand over it. Play?

  SHERIFF: Sure! Plays real good. I give twenty-nine ninety-five for that two years ago.

  ISAAC, looks in the back of it: I plug it in?

  SHERIFF: Go right ahead, sure. You sure painted this place up real nice. Like a real restaurant. You oughta thank the Lord, Isaac.

  ISAAC, takes out the wire and plugs it in: I sure do. The Lord and fried chicken!

  SHERIFF: You know, the county ain’t paid nobody at all in three months now . . .

  ISAAC: Yeah, I know. Where you switch it on?

  SHERIFF: Just turn the knob. There you are. He turns it on. They’re still payin’ the state police, see. And I figure if I can get Allan to put me on—

  Radio music. It is very faint.

  ISAAC: Cain’t hardly hear it.

  SHERIFF, angrily: Hell, Isaac, gotta get the aerial out! Untangling a wire at the back of the set: You give me eight fried chicken dinners and I’ll let you hold this for collateral, okay? Here we go now.

  The Sheriff backs away, stretching out the aerial wire, and Roosevelt’s voice suddenly comes on strong. The Sheriff holds still, the wire held high. Lee is absorbed.

  ROOSEVELT: Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy, indeed, a fullness of life . . .

  SHERIFF: And nice fat chickens, hear? Don’t give me any little old scruffy chickens.

  ISAAC, of Roosevelt: Who’s that talkin’?

  ROOSEVELT: . . . greater than that of most nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties . . .

  SHERIFF: Sound like somebody up North.

  ISAAC: Hush! To Lee: Hey, that’s Roosevelt, ain’t it?

  LEE: Yes.

  ISAAC: Sure! That’s the President!

  SHERIFF: How about it, we got a deal? Or not?

  Isaac has his head close to the radio, absorbed. Lee comes closer, bends over to listen.

  ROOSEVELT: . . . new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought. We seek not merely to make government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the embodiment of human charity. We are poor indeed if this nation cannot afford to lift
from every recess of American life the dark fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

  Sidney and Doris enter as lights fade on Lee, Isaac, and the Sheriff.

  SIDNEY: What’s the matter? Boy, you can change quicker than . . .

  DORIS, shaking her head, closing her eyes: I can’t help it, it keeps coming back to me.

  SIDNEY: How can you let a dope like Francey bother you like this?

  DORIS: Because she’s spreading it all over the class! And I still don’t understand how you could have said a thing like that.

  SIDNEY: Hon . . . all I said was that if we ever got married I would probably live downstairs. Does that mean that that’s the reason we’d get married? Francey is just jealous!

  DORIS, deeply hurt: I just wish you hadn’t said that.

  SIDNEY: You mean you think I’d do a thing like that for an apartment? What must you think of me! . . .

  DORIS, sobs: It’s just that I love you so much! . . .

  SIDNEY: If I could only sell a song! Or even pass the post office exam. Then I’d have my own money, and all this garbage would stop.

  DORIS: . . . I said I love you, why don’t you say something?

  SIDNEY: I love you, I love you, but I tell ya, you know what I think?

  DORIS: What?

  SIDNEY: Honestly—I think we ought to talk about seeing other people for a while.

  DORIS, uncomprehending: What other people?

  SIDNEY: Going out. You’re still a little young, honey . . . and even at my age, it’s probably not a good idea for us if we never even went out with somebody else—

  DORIS: Well, who . . . do you want to take out?

  SIDNEY: Nobody! . . .

  DORIS: Then what do you mean?

  SIDNEY: Well, it’s not that I want to.

  DORIS: Yeah, but who?

  SIDNEY: Well, I don’t know . . . like maybe . . . what’s-her-name, Margie Ganz’s sister . . .

  DORIS, alarmed: You mean Esther Ganz with the . . . ? She cups her hands to indicate big breasts.

  SIDNEY: Then not her!

  DORIS, hurt: You want to take out Esther Ganz?

  SIDNEY: I’m not saying necessarily! But . . . for instance, you could go out with Georgie.