The Inheritance

by Matthew Lopez

  Young Man 4 Will your wife and kids be there?

  Young Man 3 They’re away for the summer.

  Henry Come back to my place.

  Young Man 4 What if I don’t want to leave?

  Young Man 3 And in that moment, you knew you didn’t want him to. And so you said:

  Henry Would that be such a bad thing?

  Young Man 3 Finally, you left. Your legs could not move fast enough as you ran the four blocks to your sublet.

  Young Man 4 Racing up the stairs.

  Young Man 3 Five fucking flights.

  Young Man 4 You maneuvered so that I was in front of you.

  Young Man 3 So you could stare at his ass.

  Young Man 4 Finally into the apartment.

  Young Man 3 Both completely naked by the time you hit the bed.

  Young Man 4 God how you fucked me.

  Henry God how I wanted him.

  Young Man 3 God how you loved him. How it felt to swallow all the shame, the guilt, the fear.

  Young Man 4 And to listen to those four words escape from your lips –

  Young Man 3 As you exploded inside him –

  Henry I love you, Walter.

  Young Man 4 Finally, after years of fighting against it, after a lifetime of shame –

  Henry – to hold you in my arms –

  Young Man 3 – delighting in his body –

  Henry – in your smell –

  Young Man 4 – in my skin –

  Henry – in your warm breath on my shoulder –

  Young Man 4 I love you, Henry.

  Young Man 3 And to know the peace that comes from finally telling the truth about yourself, about your heart.

  Young Man 4 Then you asked me to stay.

  Young Man 3 Not just that night.

  Young Man 4 But for hundreds, thousands, ten thousand nights after that.

  Eric When did you stop loving him, Henry? When did that end?

  Henry That day at the house.

  Young Man 4 You wanted to surprise me.

  Henry I’d been in London, working.

  Young Man 3 Hiding. Men were dying there too, but you didn’t know their names.

  Henry I flew home to surprise you.

  Young Man 4 I ran across the yard to you.

  Henry Barefoot.

  Young Man 3 I almost called from the airport but I wanted to see the look on your face as I pulled up.

  Young Man 4 Henry …

  Henry God, I’ve missed you.

  Young Man 4 Henry, Peter is here.

  Henry and Young Man 3 Peter?

  Eric Peter West.

  Young Man 3 He’s visiting?

  Young Man 4 He’s dying.

  Henry He came here?

  Young Man 4 I brought him here.

  Young Man 3 To the home you bought to save him, to save yourself.

  Young Man 4 He had nowhere else to go.

  Henry What room is he in?

  Young Man 4 Upstairs, in the room across from ours.

  Young Man 3 The room where your children sleep.

  Henry Get him out of there.

  Young Man 3 No, you screamed at him.

  Henry YOU BROUGHT THAT DISEASE INTO OUR HOME!

  Young Man 4 Henry, our friend is dying.

  Young Man 3 After all these years, you can still see Walter’s face in that moment, contorted with fear and confusion.

  Young Man 4 and Eric Look at me.

  Henry I can’t.

  Young Man 4 He is our responsibility.

  Henry I’m responsible to you, to my boys, to myself and to no one else.

  Eric You got back in the car.

  Young Man 4 Henry!

  Eric You drove away.

  Young Man 3 You decided that no house, no community, no nation would ever be strong enough to save you.

  Eric You had to save yourself.

  Young Man 3 You had to turn off the part of you that fears. The part that reaches with desire.

  Eric The part that loves.

  Henry I couldn’t touch another man without thinking about death.

  Young Man 3 And so you never touched him again. Your mouth never uttered the words ‘I love you’ ever again.

  Henry Men were dying all around me. Men I knew. Men I loved. My friends. My peers.

  Young Man 3 You decided that if you didn’t love him, it wouldn’t hurt as badly to lose him –

  Henry For thirty-six years I held you at a distance.

  For thirty-six years I did not love you the way you needed me to.

  For thirty-six years I protected myself from the pain of losing you.

  Young Man 3 And then, after thirty-six years, you lost him anyway. And it hurt just as badly as you feared it would.

  Henry And worse because I knew that for thirty-six years I should have loved you more than I did. I should have held you tighter. I should have loved you more.

  The ghosts disappear. Eric and Henry are alone once again.

  I can’t change the past but I will not stare at it. I choose to close the door on it and leave it where it is. That is my right as someone who was there, as someone who survived. It is my right as someone who cannot close his eyes without seeing the faces of those he lost. If you cannot understand that, if you cannot accept that, if that is not enough for you, then I will release you from this marriage. I’ve only ever wanted to protect you, Eric. But I can only do that in the way I know how.

  A moment, then Eric tentatively reaches to Henry, who takes his hand, holding it.

  End of Scene One.

  SCENE TWO

  1. Beach on Fire Island

  The sound of waves. A full moon shines brightly. Leo sits in the sand, watching the waves.

  Leo That night, back in the city, back in Toby’s bed, Leo dreams he is once again on Fire Island.

  A figure enters, walking along the shore. He stops, sees Leo. It is Morgan.

  Morgan You’re out late. Or are you up early?

  Leo Both, I guess. You want to join me?

  Morgan I probably shouldn’t. What would the other characters think? If Toby found out, we’d never hear the end of it.

  Leo He won’t be up for hours.

  Morgan sits down next to Leo. They look out at the ocean, the moon shining in their faces.

  Morgan Beautiful night.

  Leo I never want to leave here. I love the moon, I love this beach, I love our house, I love Toby. I probably shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. I don’t think that’s going to end well.

  Morgan Well, if it’s any consolation, no love affair does.

  Leo Some do.

  Morgan In books, perhaps. In actual romance, there is no such thing as a happy ending. Whether by death or dissolution, to fall in love is to make an appointment with heartbreak.

  Leo Ugh, maybe I should just read about it instead.

  Morgan No, you should experience it for yourself, heartbreak and all.

  Leo Were you ever in love?

  Morgan I was. More than once. It was not love in a way you might recognize. But it was love to me.

  Leo I learned how to fuck when I was fourteen but no one ever explained to me how to love.

  Morgan So many of us were never given a healthy example of what it means to be homosexual. Which means, of course, no one ever taught us how to be ourselves, how to love, how to accept love. We couldn’t find it in our cultures and so we had to find it in each other. Clandestinely, fearfully. And sometimes joyfully. Our educations occurred in parks, in public bathrooms, on these very dunes of Fire Island. Or Hampstead Heath, busier than Oxford Street on some summer nights. It was all dangerous and forbidden and furtive and wonderful. And along the way we hurt each other. Sometimes we caused each other great pain.

  Leo Maurice and Alec never hurt each other.

  Morgan That’s because I ended my story before they could.

  Does the name Edward Carpenter mean anything to you?

  Leo No.

  Morgan That is regrettable if unsurpr
ising. Edward Carpenter was a Victorian-era poet, philosopher, and one-time Anglican priest. He lived in the English countryside with his husband George Merrill. Of course, they didn’t use that word to describe their relationship but theirs was a true marriage. You’ve never seen two people more grateful for each other. And you cannot know what it was like in 1912 to encounter two men living together openly, happily, as a couple. It shook me to the core. They opened their home to me, shared their life, their books, their wisdom, and their love. By this time, I was thirty-three and, while I knew that I was homosexual, I had still never touched another man with desire. The day was getting on and Merrill invited me into the kitchen to help him prepare the dinner. As we talked, ever so deftly, Merrill reached over and touched me, feeling me at the roundest part of my buttock.

  Leo He came on to you?

  Morgan He made a play. I’d never been touched like that before. It unleashed a creative spring in me unlike any I’d ever felt. Who knew that my creative forces were to be located just north of my buttocks?

  This electric charge seemed to go straight through the small of my back and into my ideas. It was in that instant that I conceived the whole of Maurice. I wanted to capture what I saw, to write a simple love story about two ordinary affectionate men. Now remember, this was 1912. That kind of story had never been written before. It would be as revolutionary as Carpenter and Merrill’s relationship. And it was imperative that it have a happy ending. The newspapers were filled with too many stories that ended with a young lad dangling from a noose or carted off to prison for his nature. I was determined to change that narrative, at least in fiction. Writing Maurice was the most terrifying, and the most exhilarating thing I had ever done. Hiding it from the world was the most shameful. And my greatest regret is that I never lived to understand the impact that it had on its readers. If I had even an inkling that people needed to read it as badly as I needed to write it, I might have been braver. You have shown me that my book was then, as you are now, a link in this chain of gay men teaching one another, loving one another, hurting one another, understanding one another. This inheritance of history, of community, and of self. And from where you sit on this beach today, you have no idea whose lives you will touch, and which ones you will save. But in order to do that, you must love. Even if you know that your heart will be broken by it. The only way to heal heartache is to risk more.

  Silence a moment.

  Leo Will my story have a happy ending?

  Morgan I can’t tell you where you’re going, Leo. I can only help you understand where you’ve been. You have lived quite a lifetime in your nineteen years. Far more than I had when I was your age. I think you are a remarkable person. Perhaps you have more to say than you know.

  Silence a moment as they listen to the waves. The sun starts to rise. Morgan stands.

  The sun’s coming up. Time for you to wake up now.

  Leo Not yet. Please.

  Morgan reaches out a hand to Leo. Leo stands and takes it. Suddenly, we are in:

  2. Toby’s Apartment

  Leo lies in Toby’s bed, alone.

  Leo Leo wakes from his dream. He is back in the city, back in Toby’s bed. He tries to remember the events of the night before –

  Young Man 8 – a cab ride upstate –

  Young Man 6 – a wedding –

  Young Man 2 – an ugly scene –

  Young Man 5 – shouting –

  Young Man 7 – violence.

  Leo A seething cab ride back to the city.

  Young Man 3 Toby silent.

  Leo A frightening silence.

  Young Man 4 Leo walks into the living room and finds Toby’s note.

  Leo ‘Leo, I’ve left you $500. I wish I were the man you think I am. I can’t save you. I can’t even save myself. You don’t need me. In fact, you’ll be better off without me.

  ‘xo,

  ‘Toby.’

  Young Man 4 And with that, Leo was once again alone.

  End of Scene Two.

  SCENE THREE

  1. David Koch Theater

  Christmas Eve, 2017.

  Eric Eric Glass was now thirty-five years old. Not exactly a young man, but not yet a middle-aged man, he was, quite simply, a man.

  Young Man 6 He certainly possessed all the markers of adulthood. He was able to enumerate them:

  Eric One husband.

  Young Man 3 One personal trainer.

  Young Man 4 One Pilates instructor.

  Young Man 5 One favorite yoga instructor.

  Young Man 8 One primary care physician.

  Young Man 7 One dentist.

  Young Man 2 One allergist.

  Young Man 3 One town house in the West Village.

  Young Man 4 One 200-acre property in Dutchess County.

  Young Man 5 One 10-acre farmhouse further upstate (empty, used for storage).

  Young Man 6 One pied-à-terre in London (Mayfair).

  Young Man 7 And one in Paris (the eleventh arrondissement).

  Eric And, if he were to be absolutely technical about it, two stepsons and two daughters-in-law.

  Young Man 6 Eric Glass was an adult.

  Eric And yet, on occasion, Eric would wake in the night to the fear that his life was amounting to nothing, and that his days were accumulating as inconsequentially as autumn snow. He would lull himself back to sleep by reminding himself that he was loved, that he was protected, that he was fortunate. And that, he knew, was far more than most people could say.

  Young Man 3 Christmas Eve arrived and with it, Eric’s annual visit with his friends to The Nutcracker. Their seats had been upgraded to Prime Orchestra as an early Christmas present from Henry.

  Eric Henry, you’re going to love this –

  Young Man 3 Unfortunately, Henry could not attend because he was called away with an urgent business matter.

  Eric Oh. Well, Eric and Jasper …

  Young Man 7 Jasper did not join them that year. He had not spoken to Eric in months.

  Eric Well, the Jasons arrived –

  Young Man 2 The Jasons also begged off –

  Young Man 8 Sorry!

  Young Man 2 – traveling instead to visit family in Pennsylvania for their new son’s –

  Young Man 8 – first Christmas!

  Eric Eric stood by himself in the lobby, waiting for Tristan to arrive.

  Young Man 4 The first-act bell rang.

  Young Man 3 The crowd moved into the auditorium, and Eric stood alone with his two tickets.

  Young Man 5 When finally …

  Tristan enters.

  Tristan Hey baby. Sorry I’m late. I’ve been on the phone with my mother all morning. Shall we go in?

  Eric Is everything okay?

  Tristan Yes, never better.

  Eric You’re a terrible liar. You know that, right?

  Tristan We can talk after the show.

  Eric Oh no, what? Now you have to tell me. Is she okay?

  Tristan takes a breath.

  Tristan I told her this morning that I’m moving to Canada in the new year. See? I told you you didn’t want to have this conversation right now.

  Eric What are you talking about?

  Tristan They’re offering visas and fast-track citizenship to medical professionals willing to work in under-served areas.

  Eric I … I don’t even know what to say.

  Tristan I know this is huge and they’re ringing the bell. We can talk about this after the show.

  Eric No, Tristan, please. Why are you moving to Canada?

  Tristan I’ve been thinking about it a while now.

  Eric For how long?

  Tristan Since the election.

  Eric Tristan.

  Tristan This whole year has been … Well … This country is destroying itself. And I don’t see how it can ever be made whole again. And I just can’t stick around to watch it happen.

  Eric But Tristan, you’re an American.

  Tristan No, Eric. I’m a gay, HIV-positive black man who l
ives in America. There’s no place for me in this country any more. I don’t think there ever was. The last eight years were like a fantasy. But this year has shown us who we really are.

  Eric Do you really feel that way?

  Tristan Honestly? It feels like America is reenacting the last thirty minutes of Titanic in slow motion – only in this version, they’ve rammed the boat directly at the iceberg. And there is no one coming to our rescue. I ain’t drowning for this fucking country. I’m gonna be Kathy Bates, watching the carnage from the safety of my lifeboat.

  Eric Do you know how cynical that sounds? What about the people in this country who don’t have that option?

  Tristan Eric … you married a billionaire that you don’t love. You’re floating in a gold-plated lifeboat. The rest of us are not that lucky.

  Offstage, the Nutcracker Overture begins.

  Eric But this country needs people like you, Tristan.

  Tristan This country doesn’t deserve people like me. I don’t owe this country a goddamned thing. America isn’t worth saving anymore.

  But I am.

  He exits.

  Eric After the performance, Eric walked to Henry’s office.

  2. Henry’s Office

  Henry at his desk, hard at work. Eric enters.

  Eric Merry Christmas, Mister Scrooge. I can’t believe you’re at the office on Christmas Eve.

  Henry It’s not Christmas in Dubai.

  Eric No, but it is the middle of the night there.

  Henry How was the ballet?

  Eric Wonderful. I’ll be humming the score for days.

  Henry What a treat that will be for me. I just need twenty more minutes.

  Eric Take your time.

  Henry’s assistant enters, hands Henry some paperwork, exits.

  Eric You’re making your assistant work on Christmas Eve?

  Henry He works when I work.

  Eric Henry!

  Henry Oh please. Bob Cratchit would murder Tiny Tim to make what that kid earns in a year.

  He returns to work.

  Eric Henry, how much money do you have?

  Henry I’ve probably got a couple hundred on me, why?