Coming to Terms

by James Reston

  RICHIE, lying on his belly, shudders. The sobs burst out of him. HE is shaking. COKES, blinking, turns to study RICHIE.

  What’s up? Hey, what’re you cryin’ about, soldier? Hey? (RICHIE cannot help himself) What’s he cryin’ about?

  ROGER (Disgustedly. HE sits there): He’s cryin’ ’cause he’s a queer.

  COKES: Oh. You a queer, boy?

  RICHIE: Yes, Sergeant.

  COKES: Oh. (Pause) How long you been a queer?

  ROGER: All his fuckin’ life.

  RICHIE: I don’t know.

  COKES (Turning to scold ROGER): Don’t be yellin’ mean at him. Boy, I tell you it’s a real strange thing the way havin’ leukemia gives you a lotta funny thoughts about things. Two months ago—or maybe even yesterday—I’da called a boy who was a queer a lotta awful names. But now I just wanna be figurin’ things out. I mean, you ain’t kiddin’ me out about ole Rooney, are you, boys, ’cause of how I’m a sergeant and you’re enlisted men, so you got some idea a vengeance on me? You ain’t doin’ that, are you, boys?

  ROGER: No.

  RICHIE: Ohhhh. Jesus. Ohhhh. I don’t know what’s hurtin’ in me.

  COKES: No, no, boy. You listen to me. You gonna be okay. There’s a lotta worse things in this world than bein’ a queer. I seen a lot of ’em, too. I mean, you could have leukemia. That’s worse. That can kill you. I mean, it’s okay. You listen to the ole sarge. I mean, maybe I was a queer, I wouldn’t have leukemia. Who’s to say? Lived a whole different life. Who’s to say? I keep thinkin’ there was maybe somethin’ I coulda done different. Maybe not drunk so much. Or if I’d killed more gooks, or more krauts or more dinks. I was kindhearted sometimes. Or if I’d had a wife and I had some kids. Never had any. But my mother did and she died of it anyway. Gives you a whole funny different way a lookin’ at things, I’ll tell you. Ohhhhh, Rooney, Rooney. (Slight pause) Or if I’d let that little gook outa that spider hole he was in, I was sittin’ on it. I’d let him out now, he was in there. (HE rattles the footlocker lid under him) Oh, how’m I ever gonna forget it? That funny little guy. I’m runnin’ along, he pops up outa that hole. I’m never gonna forget him—how’m I ever gonna forget him? I see him and dive, goddamn bullet hits me in the side, I’m midair, everything’s turnin’ around. I go over the edge of this ditch and I’m crawlin’ real fast. I lost my rifle. Can’t find it. Then I come up behind him. He’s half out of the hole. I bang him on top of his head, stuff him back into the hole with a grenade for company. Then I’m sittin’ on the lid and it’s made outa steel. I can feel him in there, though, bangin’ and yellin’ under me, and his yelling I can hear is begging for me to let him out. It was like a goddamn Charlie Chaplin movie, everybody fallin’ down and clumsy, and him in there yellin’ and bangin’ away, and I’m just sittin’ there lookin’ around. And he was Charlie Chaplin. I don’t know who I was. And then he blew up. (Pause) Maybe I’ll just get a little shut-eye right sittin’ here while I’m waitin’ for ole Rooney. We figure it out. All of it. You don’t mind I just doze a little here, you boys?

  ROGER: No.

  RICHIE: No.

  ROGER rises and walks to the door. HE switches off the light and gently closes the door. The transom glows. COKES sits in a flower of light. ROGER crosses back to his bunk and settles in, sitting.

  COKES: Night, boys.

  RICHIE: Night, Sergeant.

  COKES sits there, fingers entwined, trying to sleep.

  COKES: I mean, he was like Charlie Chaplin. And then he blew up.

  ROGER (Suddenly feeling very sad for this old man): Sergeant . . . maybe you was Charlie Chaplin, too.

  COKES: No. No. (Pause) No. I don’t know who I was. Night.

  ROGER: You think he was singin’ it?

  COKES: What?

  ROGER: You think he was singin’ it?

  COKES: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah; he was singin’ it. (Slight pause. Sitting on the footlocker, HE begins to sing a makeshift language imitating Korean, to the tune of “Beautiful Streamer.” HE begins with an angry, mocking energy that slowly becomes a dream, a lullaby, a farewell, a lament)

  Yo no som lo no

  Ung toe lo knee

  Ra so me la lo

  La see see oh doe.

  Doe no tee ta ta

  Too low see see

  Ra mae me lo lo

  Ah boo boo boo eee.

  Boo boo eee booo eeee

  La so lee lem

  Lem lo lee da ung

  Uhhh so ba booooo ohhhh.

  Boo booo eee ung ba

  Eee eee la looo

  Lem lo lala la

  Eeee oohhh ohhh ohhh ohhhhh.

  In the silence, COKES makes the soft, whispering sound of a child imitating an explosion, and his entwined fingers come apart. The dark figures of RICHIE and ROGER are near. The lingering light fades.

  END OF PLAY

  BOTTICELLI

  Terrence McNally

  About Terrence McNally

  Born in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1939 and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, Terrence McNally is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Columbia University. McNally’s first important play, And Things That Go Bump in the Night, premiered at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 1964; it opened on Broadway the following year. Other Broadway credits include Noon, Bad Habits, The Ritz, which was later adapted for film, and the 1984 musical The Rink, with a score by John Kander and Fred Ebb. Off Broadway productions include Sweet Eros and Witness, Next, Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone? and Whiskey. The 5:48 and the recent Mama Malone were written for television. McNally has received two Guggenheim fellowships, an Obie award and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Currently Vice President of the Dramatists Guild, he is a former winner of its Hull-Warriner Award.

  Production History

  Botticelli was first produced by Channel 13 in New York City in March 1968, directed by Glen Jordan. Its stage premiere was in August of that year, at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

  Playwright’s Note

  If the play is produced in an arena-type theatre, I would suggest the Man make his appearance through the audience. In a proscenium theatre, he might make his way down the center aisle with a follow spot on him. He must be center stage at the end of the play, a single light on his face.

  Characters

  WAYNE

  STU

  MAN

  Time

  An afternoon in the mid-1960s.

  Place

  A jungle in Vietnam.

  The Play

  Botticelli

  Jungle foliage. Afternoon sun and shadows. Insect noises. Two soldiers, WAYNE and STU, crouching with rifles.

  WAYNE: No, I’m not Marcel Proust.

  STU: Proust was a stylist.

  WAYNE: And he died after World War I.

  STU: You sure?

  WAYNE: 1922.

  STU: Yeah?

  WAYNE: November 4, 19—

  STU: All right! (Then) What’s up?

  WAYNE (Stiffening): I thought I heard something. (Relaxes)

  STU: Are you a . . . let’s see . . . are you a Polish concert pianist who donated a large part of the proceeds from his concerts to the cause of Polish nationalism?

  WAYNE: Oh, that’s a real braincrusher, that one is!

  STU: Well are you?

  WAYNE: No I’m not Paderewski.

  STU: Are you sure you’re dead?

  WAYNE: Oh brother!

  STU: A dead European male in the arts beginning with P?

  WAYNE: Why don’t you write it down?

  STU: Got it! You’re a controversial Russian poet, novelist, dramatist and short-story writer.

  WAYNE: Sorry. I’m not Pushkin.

  STU: Pushkin wasn’t considered controversial.

  WAYNE: Who says?

  STU: I do.

  WAYNE: He was part Negro.

  STU: What’s controversial about that?

  WAYNE: Dumas père?

  STU: Don’t change the subje
ct. Controversial Russian writer. Come on. I’ve got you stumped, hunh? Look at you. Drew a blank. Hunh? Hunh?

  WAYNE: I hope it’s not Boris Pasternak you’re crowing about.

  STU: Drop dead, will you?

  WAYNE: Then give up, hunh? (Tenses) Sshh! (Relaxes) Not yet.

  STU: You’d think he’d starve in there by now.

  WAYNE: Maybe he has. Why don’t you go see?

  STU: And get a grenade in the face. That tunnel could be half a mile long for all we know. He’s buried in there like a groundhog. No, sir, I’m holding tight, staying right where I am, sergeant’s orders. I got all the time in the world to wait for that bugger to stick his head out. (WAYNE starts making cigarette) Are you a . . .? I’m running dry. P’s the hardest letter in the alphabet.

  WAYNE: Wanna turn on?

  STU: How much we got left?

  WAYNE: If he’s not out of there by tonight we’re in trouble.

  STU: Do you keep a diary?

  WAYNE: Sure. Every night.

  STU: No, who you are! Does he keep a diary?

  WAYNE: I’m not Samuel Pepys.

  STU: Smart-ass! (THEY smoke) Would you say this is the best part of the whole war?

  WAYNE: What is?

  STU: This. Pot.

  WAYNE: No. I’d say Raquel Welch.

  STU: Yeah.

  WAYNE: What’d you think of her?

  STU: I didn’t.

  WAYNE: Those goddam white leather boots up to here . . . and that yellow miniskirt . . .

  STU: Hey, are you the outstanding English Baroque composer?

  WAYNE: I’m not Henry Purcell. I thought Raquel Welch looked like a sexy . . . ostrich.

  STU: Do the words “Rape of the Lock” mean anything to you?

  WAYNE: No, and they don’t mean anything to Alexander Pope either.

  STU: Nuts!

  WAYNE: Look, let me tell you who I am, hunh?

  STU: No I said.

  WAYNE: Brother, you’re stubborn.

  STU: And you’re a Victorian playwright!

  WAYNE: I’m not Arthur Wing Pinero.

  STU: Sir.

  WAYNE: Hunh?

  STU: Sir Arthur Wing Pinero.

  WAYNE: I know!

  STU: You didn’t say it.

  WAYNE: I’d rather talk about Raquel Welch.

  STU: Sure you would. You’re getting stoned.

  WAYNE: I’m not getting anything else.

  STU: You still worrying about that letter from Susan?

  WAYNE: Not since Raquel Welch I’m not.

  STU: I bet.

  WAYNE: Let her get a divorce. I don’t care. Hell, the only mistake I made was thinking I had to marry her. I should’ve sent her to Puerto Rico. She could’ve had a vacation on me, too.

  STU: Only you had scruples.

  WAYNE: Leave me alone.

  STU: Jesuit high school, Dominican college scruples.

  WAYNE: God, you’re insensitive. Wait’ll you get married.

  STU: Maybe I never will.

  WAYNE: Yeah!

  STU: I might not.

  WAYNE: You’d marry the first girl who looked twice at you. Yours is one wedding I wouldn’t want to miss. There’s always Marlene Schroll.

  STU: As You Desire Me!

  WAYNE: What the—?

  STU: You wrote As You Desire Me.

  WAYNE: I’m not Luigi Pirandello.

  STU: Okay, but simmer down, hunh?

  WAYNE: It’s a dumb game.

  STU: Your idea.

  WAYNE: I was trying to kill time.

  STU: Well if we had something intelligent to discuss . . .

  WAYNE: What’s wrong with Raquel Welch?

  STU: Nothing. She’s the quintessence of intelligence.

  WAYNE: I’m gonna bust you in the mouth. (Pause) I wish I’d burned my draft card.

  STU: Are you a Russian composer?

  WAYNE: I’m not Prokofiev.

  STU: An Italian composer?

  WAYNE: I’m not Puccini.

  STU: An Italian composer?

  WAYNE: I’m not Ponchielli.

  STU: An Italian composer?

  WAYNE: What are you, a record?

  STU: An Italian composer?

  WAYNE: All right, who?

  STU: Pizzarella.

  WAYNE: Go to hell.

  STU: What’s wrong with Pizzarella?

  WAYNE: There’s no Italian composer named Pizzarella.

  STU: How do you know?

  WAYNE: I know!

  STU: Well maybe there is.

  WAYNE: Yeah and you just made him up. Pizzarella. Look, if you’re gonna play, play fair. Boy, you haven’t changed since college. Even in charades you’d try to put something over

  STU: Like when?

  WAYNE: Like when you did The Brothers Karamazov. Only you did it in Russian. How could anybody guess The Brothers Karamazov in a game of charades when you were doing it in Russian?

  STU: It would’ve been too easy in English.

  WAYNE: No wonder you never made the chess and bridge teams. Those are precise games. You don’t muck with the rules in them. (Pause) Typical. Sulk now.

  STU: I’m thinking.

  WAYNE (Rolls over on back, looks up at sky): You know what I can’t get over?

  STU: Mmmmmm.

  WAYNE: Poor Father Reilly.

  STU: Yeah.

  WAYNE: I mean just dropping dead like that. God, we were lucky having him for a teacher. And of all places to drop dead. He loved Rome the same way some men love women. I think he lived for his summer vacations. As much as he gave his students, his heart was always in Rome on the Spanish Steps or the Pincio. And I guess it was all those steps and hills that finally killed him. A great man.

  STU: Wayne?

  WAYNE: Yeah?

  STU: An Italian composer?

  WAYNE: You see this fist?

  STU: I just thought of two more.

  WAYNE: Real ones?

  STU: Give up, you’ll see.

  WAYNE: If they’re not, buddy . . .!

  STU (Looking at watch): You’ve got fifteen seconds.

  WAYNE: Unh . . . unh . . . unh . . . quit making me nervous . . . unh . . .

  STU: Ten!

  WAYNE: Palestrina!

  STU: Who else?

  WAYNE: Palestrina and . . . unh . . .

  STU: Pizzarella?

  WAYNE: Can it! Palestrina and . . .

  STU: Five seconds.

  WAYNE: Pergolesi. Giovanni Pergolesi! (Burst of machine-gun fire, THEY both flatten out) That dirty little . . . (Aims, ready to fire)

  STU (Terse whisper): Homosexual Greek philosopher.

  WAYNE: Brother, are you warped. I mean that’s disgusting.

  STU: Come on.

  WAYNE: Plato wasn’t homosexual.

  STU: You were right there, climbing the Acropolis.

  WAYNE: Your mind is really sick. A remark like that turns my stomach.

  STU: Who made any remarks?

  WAYNE: It’s not even funny. (Firing stops) Where the hell is he? Come on, buster, stick your neck out. He’s shooting to see if anybody’s out here. We’ll just have to sit tight.

  STU: Apropos the Parthenon, did you by any chance supervise the rebuilding of it?

  WAYNE: I’m not Phidias. What are we on now? Your Greek kick?

  STU: You’re a fine one to talk about that.

  WAYNE: There’s something crawling on you.

  STU: Hey! What the hell is it? This country. Bugs in your shoes, bugs in your hair, bugs in your food. Look at him go. Eight legs . . . no, ten! . . . I guess those are wings . . . nice antennae . . . I used to be scared of bugs.

  WAYNE: Do you have to have a conversation with him?

  STU: Bon soir, bug. (Crushes bug)

  WAYNE: I could never do that.

  STU: Bugs have souls now, too?

  WAYNE: Shut up about all that, will you?

  STU: I don’t suppose you’re an Italian poet?

  WAYNE: I’m not Petrarch, Einstein.


  STU: It was just a wild guess.

  WAYNE: You’re never going to get me.

  STU: I’m not going to give up either.

  WAYNE: Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn!

  STU: I’d lose all self-respect if I weren’t.

  WAYNE: Sshh.

  STU: I mean the only reason to begin a game is to win it.

  WAYNE: I said shut up!

  The MAN has come out of the tunnel, HE’s young, emaciated. HE pauses at the entrance, quivering like a frightened rabbit. Spot on him.

  Look at the little bugger.

  STU: Not so little through these sights.

  WAYNE: Not yet! He has to come this way. Wait’ll he’s closer.

  STU: You’re not a French painter? A great master of the classical school?

  WAYNE: I’m not Poussin.

  STU: I’ve got another one. Impressionist.

  WAYNE: French.

  STU: Yeah.

  WAYNE: I’m not Pissarro.

  STU: I can’t think of any more P’s.

  WAYNE: All right, you gave up, I’m—

  STU: No!

  MAN has begun to move cautiously away from tunnel opening.

  WAYNE: Here he comes. Quiet now.

  STU: Were you an Italian sculptor working with Giotto on the campanile in Florence.

  WAYNE: I’m not Pisano. Get ready.

  STU: Okay, and this is it, Wayne. Did you write a famous “Lives”?

  WAYNE: I’m not Plutarch. Let’s go.

  MAN’S face contorts with pain as HE is cut down by a seemingly endless volley of gunfire, HE falls, twitches, finally lies still. WAYNE and STU approach.

  STU: Is he dead? I just asked!

  WAYNE: Let’s get back to camp.

  STU: Okay, I give up. Who are you?

  WAYNE: Pollaiuolo.

  STU: Who?

  WAYNE: Pollaiuolo. Antonio del Pollaiuolo.

  STU: That’s like Pizzarella.

  WAYNE and STU start moving off. Spot stays on MAN’s face.

  WAYNE: Italian painter, sculptor and goldsmith. 1432-1498.

  STU: Well I never heard of him.

  WAYNE: Famous for his landscapes and the movement he put into the human body.

  STU: Never heard of him.