(Rest)
Remember how Dads clothes used to hang in the closet?
Booth
Until you took em outside and burned em.
(Rest)
He had some nice stuff. What he didnt spend on booze he spent on women. What he didnt spend on them two he spent on clothes. He had some nice stuff. I would look at his stuff and calculate thuh how long it would take till I was big enough to fit it. Then you went and burned it all up.
Lincoln
I got tired of looking at em without him in em.
(Rest)
They said thuh fella before me—he took off the getup one day, hung it up real nice, and never came back. And as they offered me thuh job, saying of course I would have to wear a little makeup and accept less than what they would offer a—another guy—
Booth
Go on, say it. “White.” Theyd pay you less than theyd pay a white guy.
Lincoln
I said to myself thats exactly what I would do: wear it out and then leave it hanging there and not come back. But until then, I would make a living at it. But it dont make me. Worn suit coat, not even worn by the fool that Im supposed to be playing, but making fools out of all those folks who come crowding in for they chance to play at something great. Fake beard. Top hat. Dont make me into no Lincoln. I was Lincoln on my own before any of that.
The men finish dressing. They style and profile.
Booth
Sharp, huh?
Lincoln
Very sharp.
Booth
You look sharp too, man. You look like the real you. Most of the time you walking around all bedraggled and shit. You look good. Like you used to look back in thuh day when you had Cookie in love with you and all the women in the world was eating out of yr hand.
Lincoln
This is real nice, man. I dont know where Im gonna wear it but its real nice.
Booth
Just wear it around. Itll make you feel good and when you feel good yll meet someone nice. Me I aint interested in meeting no one nice, I mean, I only got eyes for Grace. You think she’ll go for me in this?
Lincoln
I think thuh tie you gave me’ll go better with what you got on.
Booth
Yeah?
Lincoln
Grace likes bright colors dont she? My ties bright, yrs is too subdued.
Booth
Yeah. Gimmie yr tie.
Lincoln
You gonna take back a gift?
Booth
I stole the damn thing didnt I? Gimmie yrs! I’ll give you mines.
They switch neckties. Booth is pleased.
Lincoln is more pleased.
Lincoln
Do thuh budget.
Booth
Right. Ok lets see: we got 314 dollars. We put 100 aside for the rent. 100 a week times 4 weeks makes the rent and—
Lincoln and Booth
—we dont want thuh rent spent.
Booth
That leaves 214. We put aside 30 for the electric leaving 184. We put aside 50 for thuh phone leaving 134.
Lincoln
We dont got a phone.
Booth
We pay our bill theyll turn it back on.
Lincoln
We dont need no phone.
Booth
How you gonna get a woman if you dont got a phone? Women these days are more cautious, more whaddacallit, more circumspect. You go into a club looking like a fast daddy, you get a filly to give you her numerophono and gone is the days when she just gives you her number and dont ask for yrs.
Lincoln
Like a woman is gonna call me.
Booth
She dont wanna call you she just doing a preliminary survey of the property. Shit, Link, you dont know nothin no more.
(Rest)
She gives you her number and she asks for yrs. You give her yr number. The phone number of yr home. Thereby telling her 3 things: 1) you got a home, that is, you aint no smooth talking smooth dressing homeless joe; 2) that you is in possession of a telephone and a working telephone number which is to say that you got thuh cash and thuh wherewithal to acquire for yr self the worlds most revolutionary communication apparatus and you together enough to pay yr bills!
Lincoln
Whats 3?
Booth
You give her yr number you telling her that its cool to call if she should so please, that is, that you aint got no wife or wife approximation on the premises.
(Rest) 50 for the phone leaving 134. We put aside 40 for “med-sin.”
Lincoln
The price went up. 2 bucks more a bottle.
Booth
We’ll put aside 50, then. That covers the bills. We got 84 left. 40 for meals together during the week leaving 44. 30 for me 14 for you. I got a woman I gotta impress tonight.
Lincoln
You didnt take out for the phone last week.
Booth
Last week I was depressed. This week things is looking up. For both of us.
Lincoln
Theyre talking about cutbacks at the arcade. I only been there 8 months, so—
Booth
Dont sweat it man, we’ll find something else.
Lincoln
Not nothing like this. I like the job. This is sit down, you know, easy work. I just gotta sit there all day. Folks come in kill phony Honest Abe with the phony pistol. I can sit there and let my mind travel.
Booth
Think of women.
Lincoln
Sometimes.
(Rest)
All around the whole arcade is buzzing and popping. Thuh whirring of thuh duckshoot, baseballs smacking the back wall when someone misses the stack of cans, some woman getting happy cause her fella just won the ring toss. The Boss playing the barker talking up the fake freaks. The smell of the ocean and cotton candy and rat shit. And in thuh middle of all that, I can just sit and let my head go quiet. Make up songs, make plans. Forget.
(Rest) You should come down again.
Booth
Once was plenty, but thanks.
(Rest)
Yr Best Customer, he come in today?
Lincoln
Oh, yeah, he was there.
Booth
He shoot you?
Lincoln
He shot Honest Abe, yeah.
Booth
He talk to you?
Lincoln
In a whisper. Shoots on the left whispers on the right.
Booth
Whatd he say this time?
Lincoln
“Does thuh show stop when no ones watching or does thuh show go on?”
Booth
Hes getting deep.
Lincoln
Yeah.
Booth
Whatd he say, that one time? “Yr only yrself—”
Lincoln
“—when no ones watching,” yeah.
Booth
Thats deep shit.
(Rest)
Hes a brother, right?
Lincoln
I think so.
Booth
He know yr a brother?
Lincoln
I dunno.
Booth
Hes a deep black brother.
Lincoln
Yeah. He makes the day interesting.
Booth
(Rest)
Thats a fucked-up job you got.
Lincoln
Its a living.
Booth
But you aint living.
Lincoln
Im alive aint I?
(Rest)
One day I was throwing the cards. Next day Lonny died. Somebody shot him. I knew I was next, so I quit. I saved my life.
(Rest)
The arcade gig is the first lucky break Ive ever had. And Ive actually grown to like the work. And now theyre talking about cutting me.
Booth
You was lucky with thuh cards.
Lincoln
Lucky? Ain
t nothing lucky about cards. Cards aint luck. Cards is work. Cards is skill. Aint never nothing lucky about cards.
(Rest)
I dont wanna lose my job.
Booth
Then you gotta jazz up yr act. Elaborate yr moves, you know. You was always too stiff with it. You cant just sit there! Maybe, when they shoot you, you know, leap up flail yr arms then fall down and wiggle around and shit so they gotta shoot you more than once. Blam Blam Blam! Blam!
Lincoln
Help me practice. I’ll sit here like I do at work and you be like one of the tourists.
Booth
No thanks.
Lincoln
My paychecks on the line, man.
Booth
I got a date. Practice on yr own.
(Rest)
I got a rendezvous with Grace. Shit she so sweet she makes my teeth hurt.
(Rest)
Link, uh, howbout slipping me an extra 5 spot. Its the biggest night of my life.
Lincoln
Booth
Lincoln gives Booth a 5er.
Booth
Thanks.
Lincoln
No sweat.
Booth
Howabout I run through it with you when I get back. Put on yr getup and practice till then.
Lincoln
Sure.
Booth leaves. Lincoln stands there alone.
He takes off his shoes, giving them a shine.
He takes off his socks and his fancy suit, hanging it neatly over the little wooden chair.
He takes his getup out of his shopping bag. He puts it on, slowly, like an actor preparing for a great role: frock coat, pants, beard, top hat, necktie.
He leaves his feet bare. The top hat has an elastic band which he positions securely underneath his chin.
He picks up the white pancake makeup but decides against it.
He sits. He pretends to get shot, flings himself on the floor and thrashes around.
He gets up, considers giving the new moves another try, but instead pours himself a big glass of whiskey and sits there drinking.
Scene Three
Much later that same Friday evening. The recliner is reclined to its maximum horizontal position and Lincoln lies there asleep.
He wakes with a start. He is horrific, bleary eyed and hungover, in his full Lincoln regalia.
He takes a deep breath, realizes where he is and reclines again, going back to sleep.
Booth comes in full of swagger. He slams the door trying to wake his brother who is dead to the world.
He opens the door and slams it again. This time Lincoln wakes up, as hungover and horrid as before.
Booth swaggers about, his moves are exaggerated, rooster-like. He walks round and round Lincoln making sure his brother sees him.
Lincoln
You hurt yrself?
Booth
I had me “an evening to remember.”
Lincoln
You look like you hurt yrself.
Booth
Grace Grace Grace. Grace. She wants me back. She wants me back so bad she wiped her hand over the past where we wasnt together just so she could say we aint never been apart. She wiped her hand over our breakup. She wiped her hand over her childhood, her teenage years, her first boyfriend, just so she could say that she been mine since the dawn of time.
Lincoln
Thats great, man.
Booth
And all the shit I put her through: she wiped it clean. And the women I saw while I was seeing her—
Lincoln
Wiped clean too?
Booth
Mister Clean, Mister, Mister Clean!
Lincoln
Whered you take her?
Booth
We was over at her place. I brought thuh food. Stopped at the best place I could find and stuffed my coat with only the best. We had the music we had the candlelight we had—
Lincoln
She let you do it?
Booth
Course she let me do it.
Lincoln
She let you do it without a rubber?
Booth
—Yeah.
Lincoln
Bullshit.
Booth
I put my foot down—and she melted. And she was—huh—she was something else. I dont wanna get you jealous, though.
Lincoln
Go head, I dont mind.
Booth
(Rest) Well, you know what she looks like.
Lincoln
She walks on by and the emergency room fills up cause all the guys get whiplash from lookin at her.
Booth
Thats right thats right. Well—she comes to the door wearing nothing but her little nightie, eats up the food I’d brought like there was no tomorrow and then goes and eats on me.
(Rest)
Lincoln
Go on.
Booth
I dont wanna make you feel bad, man.
Lincoln
Ssallright. Go on.
Booth
(Rest)
Well, uh, you know what shes like. Wild. Goodlooking. So sweet my teeth hurt.
Lincoln
A sexmachine.
Booth
Yeah.
Lincoln
A hotsy-totsy.
Booth
Yeah.
Lincoln
Amazing Grace.
Booth
Amazing Grace! Yeah. Thats right. She let me do her how
I wanted. And no rubber.
(Rest)
Lincoln
Go on.
Booth
You dont wanna hear the mushy shit.
Lincoln
Sure I do.
Booth
You hate mushy shit. You always hated thuh mushy shit.
Lincoln
Ive changed. Go head. You had “an evening to remember,” remember? I was just here alone sitting here. Drinking. Go head. Tell Link thuh stink.
(Rest) Howd ya do her?
Booth
Dogstyle.
Lincoln
Amazing Grace.
Booth
In front of a mirror.
Lincoln
So you could see her. Her face her breasts her back her ass. Graces got a great ass.
Booth
Its all right.
Lincoln
Amazing Grace!
Booth goes into his bed area and takes off his suit, tossing the clothes on the floor.
Booth
She said next time Ima have to use a rubber. She let me have my way this time but she said that next time I’d have to put my boots on.
Lincoln
Im sure you can talk her out of it.
Booth
Yeah.
(Rest)
What kind of rubbers you use, I mean, when you was with Cookie.
Lincoln
We didnt use rubbers. We was married, man.
Booth
Right. But you had other women on the side. What kind you use when you was with them?
Lincoln
Magnums.
Booth
Thats thuh kind I picked up. For next time. Grace was real strict about it. Magnums.
While Booth sits on his bed fiddling with his box of condoms, Lincoln sits in his chair and resumes drinking.
Lincoln
Theyre for “the larger man.”
Booth
Right. Right.
Lincoln keeps drinking as Booth, sitting in the privacy of his bedroom, fiddles with the condoms, perhaps trying to put one on.
Topdog / Underdog Page 3
