The Inheritance
Page 2
Jason 2 Or English Patient? Something English.
Jason 1 Maybe The Talented Mr Ripley?
Jason 2 Oooh! We should totally watch that again.
Eric Here, let me skip to the second movement.
He skips ahead in the piece.
Isn’t that nice? I love all that plucking.
Toby Eric’s into hard-core plucking.
Tristan It sounds like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.
Eric Yeah, I hear that.
Jason 2 Or a bumblebee racing around a meadow.
Eric Yeah, I hear that too. All right, I’m gonna check on dinner.
Young Man 1 Excuse me.
Eric Hey, babe, can you open another bottle of wine?
Toby Absolutely.
Young Man 1 Um, excuse me?
Tristan What are you making? It smells so good.
Eric I got this enormous leg of lamb at Dickson’s.
Young Man 1 enters, carrying a bag from the Strand.
Young Man 1 Excuse me. I’m so sorry to interrupt your party. Do you remember me?
Eric No.
Young Man 1 I was sitting next to you today at the Strand. Do you remember me?
Eric Sorry …
Young Man 1 When they were playing that music? Do you remember me?
Eric Umm …
Toby Oh yeah, the twink who asked us what piece they were playing.
Young Man 1 Yes.
Jason 2 It’s Ravel.
Eric And now you’re here.
Young Man 1 Yes.
Toby Why are you here?
Young Man 1 It’s, um, my bag.
Toby The bag in your hands?
Young Man 1 No, that bag over there.
He points to another Strand bag on the floor.
I think you took my bag.
Toby What?
Young Man 1 Accidentally. We both had our bags on the floor and when you left, I think you may have grabbed mine. Accidentally.
Eric Oh my God, we are so sorry. Toby, you did it again!
Jason 1 ‘Again’? You mean he’s done this before?
Eric Constantly! He’s always taking things that don’t belong to him. Scarves, gloves, umbrellas.
Jasper Virginity.
Eric Seriously baby, you’re becoming a real kleptomaniac.
Toby I didn’t even notice.
Eric We are so sorry about that.
Young Man 1 You’re Toby Darling, right? You wrote the book Loved Boy?
Jasper Oh wow, that just happened.
Tristan Toby, you just got recognized.
Young Man 1 Oh, well, I –
Eric Toby’s book has quite a following among gay teenaged boys.
Jason 2 You’re a teen idol!
Toby Is that how you recognized me? You read my book, it changed your life, you saw me in the bookstore and so you followed me home for an autograph, making up a story about switched bags?
Young Man 1 Actually, you left your wallet in the bag. Also …
Young Man 1 removes five copies of the same book from the bag he brought in.
Jason 1 Is that your book, Toby?
Jasper You bought six copies of your own book?
Toby Yeah, laugh it up, guys. If you must know, I promised the ladies on the ninth floor that I would bring them each a signed copy for their book club.
Eric Have you read Toby’s book?
Young Man 1 No, but I do know people who are obsessed with it.
Eric Obsessed? Wow, baby, did you hear that?
Jason 2 grabs Young Man 1’s bag.
Jason 2 So what books did you get?
Young Man 1 Oh, I’m –
Jason 2 A Cavafy collection.
Eric Ooh, which translation?
Jason 2 Mendelsohn.
Jasper What else has he got?
Jason 2 Giovanni’s Room. Call Me By Your Name. The Swimming-Pool Library.
Jason 1 I’m sensing a theme here.
Toby You’re buying all these queer books, why didn’t you buy mine?
Tristan Because you’d already bought every copy in the store, Toby.
Jason 2 You should turn it into a movie, Toby.
Jason 1 Yes! It would make a great movie!
Toby Eventually, yeah. I’ve actually started adapting it as a play.
Toby (to Young Man 1) Take a copy.
Young Man 1 You don’t have to / give me –
Toby Do you plan to read it or are you just going to throw it on a shelf?
Young Man 1 No, I’ll read it.
Toby Then it’s your book.
Young Man 1 Thank you. I should let you get back to your / party.
Eric No, stay.
Jason 2 It’s Eric’s birthday!
Young Man 1 Happy birthday.
Eric Thank you. Are you hungry? I made tons of food.
Young Man 1 Oh, I couldn’t –
Tristan Eric is an amazing cook.
Eric Or maybe a glass of wine? We were just listening to the piece they were playing at the Strand.
Young Man 1 Oh God, I really loved that piece.
Eric Yeah, me too. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Young Man 1 Yeah. It, um … it yearns.
Eric Yes, it does! That is the perfect word. I think it’s about mourning.
Young Man 1 Oh, interesting.
Eric You don’t agree?
Young Man 1 I think … I think maybe it’s about unrequited love.
Eric Really? How?
Young Man 1 It’s romantic but in a way that feels unresolved.
Jason 2 Huh. Funny, I don’t hear that at all.
Young Man 1 Maybe I’m wrong.
Toby Don’t let them bully you.
Young Man 1 Okay. Well, in the first movement, the phrases are legato, rising and falling, like breath – no – like a sigh. I imagine someone looking at photos of someone they’ve loved for a long time. There’s sadness in the music. Then the second movement starts with plucking instead of bowing. It’s summery and fresh. It makes me think of a butterfly flitting through a meadow.
Jason 2 I said a bumblebee.
Young Man 1 But then, halfway through the second movement, the sadness returns, as if our character suddenly sees the object of their desire in the flesh. That painful, yearning feeling that comes when you want someone so badly and you know you can never have them. Then the last movement is really agitated, like a raging fire that completely consumes the person. Burned alive by their own desire.
They all look at Young Man 1.
Toby A raging fire? You got all that from listening to it once at a bookstore?
Young Man 1 That’s just the way my brain works.
Eric You’re not drinking your wine.
Young Man 1 Oh, I don’t / really –
Eric Do you want something else?
Toby Maybe something stronger?
Young Man 1 Oh, no / I –
Eric I could make you a cocktail.
Toby Eric makes a mean Manhattan.
Jason 2 Ooh, I want a Manhattan!
Tristan Yeah, me too.
Toby Eric, you have been commissioned to make Manhattans.
Eric Yes! On it!
Tristan (to Young Man 1) You’re gonna be crawling home, I promise.
Toby So what’s your story, kid?
All eyes on Young Man 1.
Young Man 1 I should probably go.
A great protest from the Lads.
Eric Oh no, stay. Please.
Toby They’re harmless, don’t mind them.
Eric We’ve got tons of food, lots of good wine.
Young Man 1 No, I should go. Thank you, though.
Eric Will you come back, then? Now that you know where we live?
Young Man 1 Thank you. Thanks.
He grabs his bag, exits. Eric looks at his friends.
Eric You are all just the worst.
Tristan Don’t look at me.
Jasper We just asked him about himself.
; Eric You couldn’t have made him feel just a little more welcome? Did you hear how he talked about that piece of music? And we chased him away.
Toby So look him up on Facebook.
Eric Yes! Good idea, Toby. What was his name?
They all stare at each other blankly.
We didn’t think to ask him his name.
Toby Who wants a Manhattan?
2. Eric Interlude
Morgan Eric Glass did not keep many secrets. But there was one truth he kept to himself, even from Toby.
Eric What truth is that?
Morgan Eric Glass did not believe he was special. He was not as brilliant or as accomplished as his friends. He thought of himself – in all things and in all ways – as painfully ordinary.
Eric Eric had taken the first job he was offered out of college, working for his friend Jasper, whose brilliance he glimpsed from their earliest days as classmates at Yale.
Jasper Jasper started his own company at the age of twenty-one, working as a social justice entrepreneur. Eric was his first employee.
Eric He met Tristan his first year after college. They went on three dates and decided –
Tristan – they were each other’s best friend. Tristan is a physician.
Eric He works in the emergency room at NYU Medical Center.
Eric met Jason while working as volunteers on the Kerry campaign in 2004.
Jason 2 We lost that election. But the friendship remains. Jason is a lawyer.
Jason 1 And his –
Jason 2 And his boyfriend, also named Jason, is a lawyer at the same firm.
Jason 1 Fine. But one thing, though –
Young Man 2 slips a ring on to Young Man 8’s finger.
They’re not boyfriends. They’re married.
Morgan To each other?
Jason 1 Yes, of course.
Morgan Are all of you married?
Tristan Find me a man who is worth a damn and I will marry the son of a bitch.
Morgan What about Jasper?
Jasper Jasper is not the marrying kind.
Morgan Why not?
Young Man 6 Jasper dates young guys.
Young Man 4 Like, just out of college young.
Jasper Jasper doesn’t like complicated men.
Morgan Are Eric and Toby married?
Young Man 1 Not yet.
Young Man 3 I have a question:
Morgan Yes?
Young Man 3 How can he afford such a nice apartment?
Young Man 7 Yeah, I was wondering that too.
Morgan In order to understand who Eric Glass is, one first has to understand the significance of his family’s apartment on the Upper West Side.
Young Man 1 Eric’s grandfather, Nathan, was a veteran of the Tenth Armored Division, which helped liberate Dachau. His grandmother, Miriam, a refugee from Germany.
Morgan In the fall of 1947, they signed the lease on a rent-controlled apartment on West End Avenue. This was back when middle-class families could afford such places.
Eric This apartment became the first place Eric’s grandmother felt safe in the world. She raised her family here in this apartment. Voted in every election at the public school around the corner. She watched John Kennedy’s death, Richard Nixon’s resignation, and Barack Obama’s election from the living room of this apartment. It was in this apartment that Miriam Glass became an American.
Young Man 1 After her death in December 2008, Eric took up residence in the apartment in order to continue the family’s claim on the cherished dwelling. He met
Toby Darling a week later.
Toby Toby Darling entered Eric’s life like a typhoon.
Young Man 1 The two instantly fell in love and Toby moved in four months later.
Eric For Eric, it was everything he’d ever wanted in a relationship.
Toby For Toby, it was …
Young Man 1 For Toby, it was a home that was safe and stable and loving.
Morgan Toby inspired Eric. Eric protected Toby.
Toby Toby fucked the living daylights out of Eric.
Eric Eric and Toby had really great sex.
Morgan Thank you, gentlemen. Now that we know what Eric cares about most, we must give him something to fight against. A few days before Christmas that year, Eric receives a call from his father informing him that the building’s management company has finally decided to begin eviction proceedings against the Glass family.
Eric No, please not that.
Young Man 1 They’re hiring a lawyer and planning to fight it.
Morgan But it is possible that 2016 could be Eric’s last year living in his family’s cherished home.
Eric Not my home, my grandparents’ home.
Morgan What would Eric do after receiving such news?
Eric He would want to be comforted by Toby.
Morgan Is Toby particularly good at providing comfort?
Eric Well …
Young Man 1 No.
Morgan So what could Toby do that would make Eric feel better right now?
Young Man 1 He could fuck the living daylights out of Eric.
Eric Toby is very good at that.
Morgan Yes, but so soon in the story?
The Lads insist: definitely, yes.
If that’s what you need.
End of Scene Two.
SCENE THREE
December, 2015.
1. Eric and Toby’s Apartment
Toby I have got to find a way to permanently disable the wi-fi on my computer. I’m not getting any writing done.
Eric Why don’t you just turn the wi-fi off and use a little will power?
Toby Clearly you don’t understand the creative process. Wait, are you naked?
Eric Why don’t you join me and find out?
Toby What about dinner?
Eric We can order in.
Toby Yeah, but if we wait too long it’ll take forever and you know I have to eat by eight / or I won’t be able to sleep.
Eric Remember that time you told me to meet you at the Whitney in the tightest jeans I owned and no underwear?
Toby I miss the old Whitney.
Eric It was a John Currin exhibition and you kept trying to slide your hands down inside my jeans.
Toby The new one is so far away.
Eric My jeans were so tight you couldn’t even get your hand in. But you huffed and you puffed and then finally you got your hand down in there.
Toby But I do like the views from upstairs.
Eric And then you couldn’t get it out.
Toby You were the one who decided to do squats all week.
Eric Oh I do have your attention.
Toby You definitely had my attention in those jeans.
Eric We had to shuffle over to a corner so I could unbutton and release you.
Toby God, your ass is amazing.
Eric I’ve spent a lot of time at the squat rack this week.
Morgan Toby undresses, and joins Eric in bed.
Toby Get over here. That ass needs a face in it. How does a Jewish boy from Westchester end up with an ass this nice? Must be from your mother’s side of the family.
Eric Can we not talk about my mother while I have an erection?
Toby You have an erection? I want an erection. How come he has an erection and I don’t?
Eric Here …
Young Man 1 Eric dives under the covers and starts blowing him.
Toby Okay! Get me hard, baby.
Oh wow.
Oh yeah.
Oh fuck, baby, yeah.
Remember that time on Fire Island when we watched those two guys fucking in the Meat Rack? That was so hot. I wish we’d done that. Nearly there … You riding my cock on a sheet in the Meat Rack. Oh yeah, there we go.
Eric Fuck me, Toby.
Toby Yeah, you want me to fuck you?
Eric I just said that I did.
Toby Right. I was just going along with, I … Right, I’ll fuck you like we’re in the Meat Rack.
Eric What is with you and the Meat Rack all of a sudden? That was like, / five years ago.
Toby I don’t know, I thought it was hot, didn’t you?
Eric Yeah, but I haven’t been obsessing on it ever since.
Toby I wouldn’t say I was obsessing. It just popped into my mind just now is all.
Eric Toby, slide your dick inside me right now.
Toby Yes sir!
Morgan Toby starts to enter Eric.
Toby That okay?
Eric Hold on …
Okay, try again.
Slowly.
No. Wrong angle.
That’s … not even close.
Toby Well, did it move?
Eric Same place it’s always been.
Toby How’s that?
Eric There you go. Slowly.
Toby More?
Eric A little.
Morgan Toby slides in more.
Toby Fuck, that feels good.
Eric Okay, more.
Toby ‘More’ is the rest.
Eric Yeah, go for it.
Morgan Toby slides in all the way. They both moan, feeling good. They fuck slowly.
Toby Wow, you’re tight. When was the last time you –
Eric What?
Toby Did you … you know … hook up with anyone when I took that trip to LA last month?
Eric Why? Did you?
Toby This one boy on Grindr.
Eric How was he?
Toby Kinda hot actually. What about you?
Eric Last for me was this guy last fall. I forget where you were.
Toby How was he?
Eric Eh. He fucked me like he was doing me a favor.
Morgan They fuck silently.
After a moment:
Toby Should we order Chinese tonight?
Eric We had Chinese last night.
Toby You like Chinese.
Eric Toby, I don’t know. Can we talk about this after?
Toby It’s just that I’d like to know what we’re ordering when we’re done so we can get right on it.
Eric Get on my ass, motherfucker.
Toby Yeah, you want my dick, little boy?
Eric Toby, ew.
Toby Sorry.
Eric Fuck me, Toby.
Toby Like that?
Eric Harder.
Toby Like that?