by James Reston
RUTH: That’s the most beautiful thing I ever heard.
WILLIS: Listen, I got carried away. I didn’t mean none of that.
MIKE: Mr. Willis, if you’d’ve had the opportunities we’ve had you’d’ve probably ended up one of the great poets of the century, and I mean that includes Rimbaud, Rilke, Williams, Pasternak, and Ginsberg.
COOTIE: And Whitman.
MIKE: Yes, Whitman included.
WILLIS: Oh, Jesus, you kids. I feel like I can tell you anything. Somebody could’ve thought I was pretty screwy if I told them some of them things.
RUTH: How many landlords have poetry in their soul?
WILLIS: Yeah, yeah. Hey, I gotta run now. Listen, it’s really great having you guys around. If I could get some of them other tenants to come up here and listen to you, the world would be a better place to live in, you know what I mean?
MIKE: It would be a much better place.
COOTIE: A hundred percent better, at least.
RUTH: You’re a beautiful person, Mr. Willis. Never be ashamed of it.
WILLIS: No, I ain’t. I ain’t ashamed of myself. Hey, you know what I was sayin’ before about all them complaints. I lost a lotta tenants on account of you. I can’t afford any more, so keep it quiet or I’ll have to get rid of you. Wonderful coffee, sweetheart. Seeya. (HE leaves through front door)
RUTH: I wonder how long before they put him away?
KATHY, clothes a bit messed up, flounces into the kitchen and gets a glass of water. DICK follows her as for as the kitchen, as if HE was trying to stop her, but when HE gets to the doorframe HE stops, feeling the tension in the room. HE tries to button his shirt casually, not sure whether HE wants the others to know what just happened between him and KATHY.
COOTIE: Hi, Dick, how’s it hanging?
KATHY stiffens at the sink. DICK turns and goes down the hall out of sight.
MIKE: I still can’t figure out what to get good old Bob for Christmas.
Before KATHY can reply, the doorbell rings. NO ONE moves.
COOTIE: Whose turn is it?
KATHY: You’re a miserable bastard.
COOTIE: What’d I say? We’re just playing a chess tournament.
KATHY: Listen, this is my scene, mine. You guys stay out of it. O.K., Ruth!
RUTH: It’s her scene, guys, you stay out of it.
COOTIE: Roger.
MIKE: Sam.
COOTIE: Larry.
MIKE: Richard.
COOTIE: What’s Richard getting Bob for Christmas?
The doorbell rings again, and MIKE jumps up to get it. SHELLY’s standing there.
MIKE: Hello there, I don’t know you.
SHELLY: Hi. Does Norman live here?
MIKE: Does anyone here know a Norman?
SHELLY: He said he lived here. I met him at the march today. He said to come here and wait for him. I been standing out in the hall ’cause, like, I heard someone talking and I didn’t want to disturb anyone and then this guy just came out so I figured, well, it’s now-or-never kind of thing. I’m Shelly.
RUTH: Come on in. I’m Ruth.
SHELLY: Oh, good, then Norman does live here because I wasn’t sure when he gave me the address. Sometimes you meet a guy at a march and he’ll like give you an address and you end up waiting for a few days and he never shows. Did that ever happen to you? It’s happened to me a lot of times.
KATHY: Listen everyone, I’m serious, I don’t want him to know. I’ll tell him when the time’s right.
RUTH: It’s your scene.
KATHY exits down the hall. SHELLY, meanwhile, goes under the table and sits down on the floor.
SHELLY: I’m sorry about this. If you want to laugh go ahead, I’m used to it. It’s just I’ve got this thing at the moment where I keep sitting under tables and I figured I’d better do it right away instead of pretending for a while I didn’t sit under tables. I mean, sitting under the table is “me” at the moment, so why hide it? Have you ever done it?
RUTH: Want some coffee, Shelly?
SHELLY: I’m a vegetarian.
MIKE: Coffee’s made from vegetables.
SHELLY: I don’t drink coffee, thanks. I’ll just wait for Norman.
COOTIE: Where’s Norman?
SHELLY: Well, he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, but he said it’s O.K. because he has a permit. He’s really a total-action freak, and he’s very committed to the whole peace thing.
COOTIE: Oh.
MIKE: Well now . . .
COOTIE: How about that?
Fade-out.
Scene 4
NORMAN is trying to read. SHELLY is under the table blowing bubbles. MIKE and COOTIE are playing chess.
MIKE: I still think you should’ve said something, Norman. I mean it’s got nothing to do with putting you on. If Dick said we didn’t have a cat, all right, I mean he’s got a right to think that but, I mean, it’s really irresponsible of him to go running all over the place saying we don’t.
NORMAN: Well, you turned off the lights that time when you came in. I was trying to read.
MIKE: Yeah, but that was the nitty-gritty, no-nonsense, down-to-earth needs of the moment because a cat just won’t give birth with the lights on.
NORMAN: Dick says you don’t have a cat.
MIKE: Will you listen to what I’m trying to tell you?
COOTIE: You can’t move there.
MIKE: Why not?
COOTIE: Mate in thirty-four.
MIKE: Shit, I didn’t see that. O.K., your game, (HE and COOTIE start rearranging the pieces)
COOTIE: Yeah, you see, Dick gets these things and he’ll tell you, like, we don’t have a cat or something like that. We would’ve explained if you’d just come out and asked instead of getting all hostile and paranoid and thinking we were putting you on.
SHELLY: Wow, bubbles are really something else. I think they’re maybe divine.
MIKE: Bubbles are divine, Shelly.
COOTIE: So’s Bogart.
SHELLY: Oh, Bogart, wow.
COOTIE: You’re pretty happy, aren’t you, Shelly?
SHELLY: Oh . . . yeah. Like, it’s the right foods. And being under the table.
MIKE: You gotta watch the paranoid thing, Norman.
NORMAN: You were putting me on about the cat.
MIKE: See, you got this very paranoid thing about the cat.
NORMAN: I have not . . .
COOTIE: And the worst thing is how you get all defensive about it every time we bring it up. We’re not denying your validity to doubt, Norman. We’re not rejecting you as a human being. It’s just you have a very paranoid personality because your father’s a cop and that means you grew up in a very paranoid atmosphere.
SHELLY: Wow, your father’s a cop?
NORMAN: Well, you know . . .
SHELLY: You never told me that. I think that’s really great. My brother always wanted to be a cop.
COOTIE: My uncle’s a cop.
MIKE: Yeah, that’s right, our uncle’s a cop.
NORMAN: That’s what I mean, you see . . .
MIKE: What do you mean?
NORMAN: Well, I mean, you’ve got to go making fun of my father being a cop.
MIKE: Look, Norman, it just so happens our uncle is a cop and why the hell should you be the only one around here with a cop in the family. You see, you got paranoid again, thinking we’re putting you on. I mean, we could do the same thing. How do we know your father’s a cop? We don’t. We trust you.
COOTIE: Yeah, and if you’d’ve been more outer-directed maybe you’d’ve seen you have a lot in common with us. A lot more than you ever expected.
MIKE: Then maybe we could’ve prevented that whole tragic episode with the gun.
NORMAN: Yeah, well, I don’t know about you guys.
MIKE: You’re not trying to say it wasn’t a tragic episode?
COOTIE: It was an abortion of academic freedom, pure and simple.
MIKE: Hear! Hear!
COOTIE: I mean, when they ca
n kick mathematics graduate students out of school just for trying to murder a few cops. . . . And, by the way, Norman, I’ve heard that your being kicked out of school was the doing of the Dean of Admissions, a man who is known far and wide to be cornholing his widowed sister in the eye-sockets regularly . . .
MIKE: And without love.
COOTIE: And when the moon comes up he ties her to this plank . . .
MIKE: Mel . . .
COOTIE: So put that in yer pipe and smoke it. And don’t try to tell us you enjoy having to schlepp down to the Hays Bick every night to wash dishes for a dollar ten an hour.
NORMAN: Oh, I don’t know.
SHELLY: Hey, are you guys brothers?
MIKE: Now there, look at that, Norman. Shelly’s wondering about the relationship between Mel and me, and instead of being all paranoid about it and going crazy wondering, she comes right out and asks.
SHELLY: Hey, are you?
COOTIE: Yeah, we’re brothers.
SHELLY: Wow, I didn’t know that either. I keep learning all these things about you guys.
MIKE: See, everything’s cool now. Everybody trusts each other. That’s what it’s all about.
NORMAN: Well, I mean, with washing dishes I get more time to read. I’ve been thinking a lot and I guess it’s like Dick said. I was pretty irrelevant before. Mathematics is pretty irrelevant no matter how you look at it, and bad mathematics is about as irrelevant as you can get.
SHELLY: I left school after the first month. I’m not saying I’m really relevant, yet, but like, some of my friends in school are really into bad scenes. School is evil. You can’t find out where it’s at when you’re studying all the time to fit your head into exams. I’m getting to where I can read recipes all day and really get something out of it.
NORMAN: Yeah. I’m learning all this stuff about Vietnam. It’s really something. I mean, I’m getting to the point where maybe I can do something really relevant about it.
MIKE: I wouldn’t call the gun business relevant.
NORMAN: I was still in school when I thought of that.
SHELLY: Norman’s got this fantastic idea.
NORMAN: Well, I haven’t thought it all out yet . . .
SHELLY: No, Norman-baby, don’t like close all up. It’s the most relevant thing I ever heard of.
COOTIE: Jesus, Norman, how long have you been walking around with this idea all locked up inside you?
NORMAN: I didn’t get it all at once. It sort of came in stages, but I think it’s about right.
COOTIE: Man, you’re gonna go crazy if you keep everything inside like that.
SHELLY: Tell them the idea, Norman.
NORMAN: Well, you see . . . (Pause) I’m gonna set myself on fire as a protest against the war. (COOTIE and MIKE look at him and exchange brief glances) I’ve thought about it a lot. I mean, I’ve read I guess about a hundred books about the war and the more you read the more you see it’s no one thing you can put your finger on. It’s right in the middle of the whole system, like Dick said. I shouldn’t’ve tried to kill those policemen, but I didn’t know then they were part of the system like everything else. No one’s got the right to take anyone else’s life, that’s what I’ve decided. But I’ve still got the right to take my own life for something I believe in.
SHELLY: I’m gonna burn with Norman. We’re gonna burn together. We’ve thought it all through and, like, if he bums himself alone that’s just one person. Everyone’ll say he’s insane, but if two of us do it . . . wow. Two people. What are they gonna say if two of us do it?
MIKE (Pause): Three of us.
COOTIE: Four of us.
MIKE: You, too, huh?
COOTIE: It’s the only way.
NORMAN: Hey, wait a minute. I’ve read a lot about the whole subject and I really know why I’m gonna do it. I’m not just doing it for fun or anything. You can’t just jump into it.
MIKE: Listen, Norman, you don’t have to believe this if you don’t want to but it’s the truth, on my honor. Me and Cootie talked about the exact same thing a year ago. We were all ready to burn ourselves . . .
COOTIE: It was more than a year ago.
MIKE: More than a year?
COOTIE: Almost a year and a half.
MIKE: That’s right, a year and a half, boy, time really goes quick . . .
COOTIE: It sure does . . .
MIKE: The thing is, we decided against it because we figured two isn’t enough.
COOTIE: You know how the papers can lie. “Brothers Burn!”
MIKE: Yeah, “Hippie Brothers in Suicide Pact.” That kind of shit.
COOTIE: But think of it. With four of us!
NORMAN: You really want to do it?
MIKE: It’s the only way.
NORMAN: I mean, I wasn’t sure yet. I hadn’t made up my mind definitely. I was still looking for another way.
SHELLY: No, Norman-baby, it’s the only relevant gesture. Like you said.
A long pause while NORMAN thinks.
NORMAN: O.K.!
COOTIE: After the Christmas vacation.
MIKE: No, no, after graduation. We’ll study like mad and get fantastic grades and graduate with honors so they can’t say we were cracking up or anything.
COOTIE: Yeah, we’ll get Phi Beta Kappa. I’d like to see them say we’re insane when two Phi Beta Kappas go up in flames with the son of a policeman and the daughter of a. . . . Hey, what does your father do?
SHELLY: Well, it’s kind of funny. I mean, he’s a pretty weird head in his way. He’s got, like, six or seven jobs at any one time.
COOTIE: That’s O.K. Daughter of a weird head with six or seven jobs at any given time. That covers the whole spectrum.
NORMAN: What does your father do? I mean, I know your uncle’s a policeman because I trust you, but you never said what your father did. I was curious. Like if they bring our fathers into it what’ll they say about you?
COOTIE: He’s a trapper.
SHELLY: Wow, that’s really something else. Like, a fur trapper?
MIKE: Furs and hides, you know. Rabbit and mink and muskrat and beaver and elk and reindeer and seal. Some otter. Penguin.
SHELLY: Wow, penguin.
COOTIE: Well, you know, he works the Great Northwest Territory up to the mouth of the St. Lawrence Seaway and over to the Aleutians.
SHELLY: Boy, this’ll really blow everyone’s mind.
MIKE: Yeah, this’ll make everyone think twice, all right.
COOTIE: You know, we can’t tell anyone about this. If word gets out they’ll send squads of police around here and we’ll get arrested and put under psychiatric observation and we’ll get subjected to a battery of tests that make you look nuts no matter how you answer.
NORMAN: I won’t say anything.
SHELLY: Oh, wow, like you don’t even have to worry about me.
NORMAN: I didn’t even know there were any trappers left.
A knock on the door.
MIKE: Come in.
VOICE: C’mon, c’mon, open up in there.
MIKE opens the door and finds two cops standing there. BREAM is elderly and EFFING is young.
BREAM: You live here?
MIKE: Yes, sir.
BREAM: Look, you know what I mean, you and who else.
MIKE: Well, there’s me and my brother Cootie . . . um, Mel, and there’s Norman, Dick, Bob, Kathy, and Ruth.
BREAM: Kathy and Ruth, huh? Those are girls’ names.
MIKE: Kathy and Ruth are both girls, sir.
BREAM: Don’t block the doorway. (MIKE stands aside as BREAM and EFFING enter. EFFING wanders around the room, inspecting. BREAM indicates SHELLY) Which one’s she? You Kathy or Ruth?
SHELLY: I’m Shelly.
BREAM: Shelly, huh? You didn’t say nothin’ about no Shelly.
MIKE: She doesn’t live here, sir.
BREAM: Visiting?
SHELLY: I’m with Norman.
BREAM: You’re Norman, huh?
NORMAN: She’s my girlfriend.
&
nbsp; BREAM: Good, we got that straight.
EFFING: Hey, Bream, this here’s a map of Europe.
BREAM: Yeah. Now listen. There’s been a complaint from the people across there. I know you kids are students and you probably think you own the goddamn country, but I got some news for you. There’s laws around here and you gotta obey them just like everyone else.
MIKE: We appreciate that, sir.
EFFING: Hey, Bream, look at all them milk bottles.
BREAM: Yeah. Now listen. I don’t want to hear any more complaints about you guys. I’m a reasonable man, which is something you can get verified by askin’ anyone on the force, but when I gotta put up with a lotta stupid complaints I can cause trouble and I mean real trouble, with a capital T.
EFFING: Hey, look at all them dishes in the sink, Bream.
BREAM: Yeah.
NORMAN: What was the complaint?
BREAM: What do you mean, what was the complaint? The complaint was guys and girls parading around in here bare-ass. Now look, I’m not the kind of dumb cop that goes around throwing his weight everywhere to prove he’s some kind of big shot. I don’t need to, you follow me. I know what I know and I know what I don’t know, and one of the things I know I don’t know is what the hell the kids are up to nowadays, but O.K. That’s my problem. If you wanna run around naked that’s O.K. by me, and I hope you kids take note of the fact that I’m winking one eye when it comes to the law about cohabitation.
