by James Reston
MEGS: Just talkin’.
DAVE: What you’re talking about! We’re not there, we’re here!
MEGS: Damn right! We’re here and now and that’s what counts. Talking doesn’t hurt, Davey. (Pause) Maybe you don’t do it often enough.
DAVE: I was never there, Megs.
MEGS: I ain’t followin’ that.
DAVE: Look, as far as I’m concerned it never happened. It’s done with, understand?
MEGS: How come I’m standin’ here then?
DAVE: You got me.
MEGS: How come I’m wearin’ Bobby’s lucky hat?
DAVE: Burn the fuckin’ thing.
MEGS: It was Bobby’s.
DAVE: Bury it with him. (And HE suddenly knocks the hat from MEGS’s head. An ugly silence) Yeah . . . this trout fishing is a great time. (MEGS picks up the hat. Pause. MEGS begins picking up empty beer cans) Hey listen . . . Megs . . . leave that stuff. Martha’ll do it.
MEGS: My pleasure, stud. (And MARTHA comes down the stairs) By God, woman, look at you! Straight out of an L.L. Bean catalogue!! The fish are gonna take one look at you and walk out of the water with their hands up!
MARTHA: Thank you.
DAVE: Better get your glasses on or you’ll trip over them when they do.
MARTHA: I don’t need them. I have on contact lenses.
DAVE: Contacts!?
MARTHA: I’ve had them. I’ll take those, Joseph. They get under foot like marbles, don’t they?
And a hard look passes between DAVE and MARTHA.
DAVE: Have another beer, sis. Where’d you get the clothes?
MARTHA: I took some of my classes on a field trip to a freshwater pond. I couldn’t very well collect samples in a skirt.
MEGS: Hell, no. Would I change a muffler in a three-piece suit? You look terrific, Martha, just terrific. God, are we going to catch the limit or what? Listen, I’ll start the car. Opening day, ladies and gentlemen, opening day! Look out, trout, we’re on our way! (HE grabs the beer and exits)
Pause.
MARTHA: You’re drinking.
DAVE: You want to try this too?
MARTHA: I’ll pass, thank you. You ready?
DAVE: Who you trying to impress, Martha, huh? Contact lenses? You drinking beer? Give me a break.
MARTHA: What is wrong, David, with me having a good time for once?
DAVE (Gesturing in MEGS’s direction): You’re that desperate?
MARTHA: He’s nice.
DAVE: Or maybe he’s just as desperate as you.
MARTHA (Softly): Fuck you, David.
DAVE: Ooh, Miss Peach! Nice mouth for a schoolteacher. You talk that way to your students?
MARTHA: No. (Pause) Go back to bed if you want to. I’m going fishing. (SHE exits)
DAVE: Go on. The two of you have a great time! Hell with you both! (Pause. There is the sound of a car starting up, rewing. HE runs to the door) Martha!? I’m coming! (HE grabs his jacket, a fatigue jacket, HE picks up the bottle, HE exits) I wouldn’t miss this for the world.
Lights to black.
Scene 2
MARTHA enters through the kitchen door, stage right, SHE has a blanket around her. Her pants and shoes are wet. Her hair is damp. SHE is shivering with cold.
MARTHA: Ohhh . . . (SHE runs through the kitchen, into the living room and up the stairs)
Pause.
MEGS: Martha! Hey, Martha!? (HE enters through the kitchen door. DAVE is out cold over his shoulder. DAVE groans) It’s A-OK, sweet bear, I gotcha. My wits are weak but my back is strong, (HE almost slips) Whoops! Good Christ, guy, there’s water on the floor. I almost took us both out. (DAVE groans) You gonna be sick again? You alive back there, hah? Hey, nobody ever said trout fishing was gonna be easy. Martha!!? (HE enters the living room) Whew, you are heavy, stud. We’ll have to make room for you in the trophy case. Have you stuffed and we’ll hang a little sign on you. This is what we brought back alive. Barely. Martha, where’d you go, woman!? Don’t worry, stud, we’ll follow the puddles, we’ll find her. Let’s get you settled, stud, (HE puts DAVE on the couch) It’s OK, sweet bear, it’s A-OK. Some of us, we didn’t drink, we’d cut our wrists, huh? You don’t have to explain. I know. You know I know. Looking good, studhoss, looking real good. You and me, we paddled twenty miles a shit creek, huh? Yeah. With our bare hands, we did. Me, I don’t forget that. I’m like an elephant, short on smarts, long on memory. You sleep, stud. Ole Megs is on watch. You sleep.
MEGS takes off his jacket, drapes it over the sleeping DAVE, and sits. MARTHA enters in warm, dry clothes.
MARTHA: I was so cold. Is he all right?
MEGS: He’s in dreamland is all. His head’s gonna feel like a bowling alley when he wakes up but he’s fine.
MARTHA: He finished off the whole bottle, the poor fool.
MEGS: Guzzled it is what he did. Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last, (HE begins to laugh)
MARTHA: What?
MEGS: You. You was a bedraggled cat, woman. You looked like you been on the spin cycle of a washing machine for fourteen hours.
MARTHA: If you hadn’t had that blanket in the car I’d of frozen to death.
MEGS: You were terrific, Martha.
MARTHA: Every trout for a hundred miles is probably hiding under a rock in a state of shock.
MEGS: Martha, your fish was gettin’ away!
MARTHA: Yes, I know! But I never thought you’d push me right in after it!
MEGS: I got excited! I mean, I knew you wanted the brainless thing so badly. God . . . he was beautiful, huh, Martha? A real rainbow. Hey, if I’da known you was gonna throw down the pole and try haulin’ him in hand over hand, I’da got you a drop line.
MARTHA: I was startled! I felt as though I’d stepped on a frog. I could feel him through the string.
MEGS: He felt you.
MARTHA: He was heavy.
MEGS: Woman, he was cousin to the Loch Ness monster! Enormous! You got him onto that bank and I thought, look out, Martha! That baby’s gonna take your leg off!
MARTHA: No!
MEGS: Yes!!
MARTHA: Really?
MEGS: Hey, would I lie? It’s a good thing he threw the hook. He was gettin’ pissed!
MARTHA: No. He was desperate. My heart went out to him.
MEGS: You’re something, Martha. You are. Didn’t I tell you there’d be one waitin’ with your name on it? M-A-R-T-H-A! It was a good time?
Pause.
MARTHA: It was a wonderful time, Joseph.
MEGS (Softly): Yeah? That’s just great.
MARTHA: You are having some soup.
MEGS: Soup would be great.
MARTHA: Come on. To the kitchen. Sit. Split pea with ham. Homemade.
MEGS: You’re kiddin’. By God, if food doesn’t come out of a can, I usually have a hard time recognizing it.
MARTHA: I’ll have you know I’m a very good cook.
MEGS: Well, goddam, we’re a team ’cause I like to eat.
MARTHA: Do your girlfriends cook for you?
MEGS: Tell you the truth, Martha, most a the girls I know don’t know a waffle iron from a frisbee. I been keepin’ a kinda low profile in the girlfriend department. Got kinda tired of mud wrestlers and hog callers. What about you, Martha? You must have to fight’m off with tomahawks.
MARTHA: I’m sorry to inform you I’ve given up the fight.
MEGS: Come on, woman, you’re built like a brick shithouse!
MARTHA: What?
MEGS: Oh, goddam. Me and my mouth again. Sorry, Martha, but you are. I noticed it straight off.
MARTHA: That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
MEGS: No.
MARTHA: I’m shapeless.
MEGS: Solid. You’re sturdy. You’re a battleship!
MARTHA: Agreed. With the face of an icebreaker.
MEGS: No-oh.
MARTHA: Yes.
MEGS: No— . . .
MARTHA: Stop contradicting me! I know what I am. Plain and unattractive.
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br /> MEGS: Martha, I saw the picture in there. You used to be.
MARTHA: You’re very nice to try and convince me otherwise but I look in the mirror every morning. I live with what I see. The soup will be ready in a moment.
MEGS: Y’know, Martha, some people, they get awful ugly the minute they open their mouths. And other people, like you, Martha, they grow on you. The more you get to know’m, the better lookin’ they get.
MARTHA: Very few share your opinion.
MEGS: Oh. You give’m a chance to?
MARTHA: Look, I’m not one of those pieces of fluff you see in men’s magazines. Does that make me less a woman? It does not. (Pause) And I’m a fool because for some stupid reason I think it does. And so I buy contact lenses and clothes I can’t really afford. You think I’d of learned by now. You think I’d of learned at the start. (Pause) The soup is almost hot. (Pause) David had to even get me a date for my high school formal. I was on the decorations committee, the tickets committee. I put together the whole thing. Nobody asked me to go. David rounded up his friends and told them one of them had to invite me or he’d beat them all up. I think perhaps they drew straws. I didn’t know. Suddenly I was invited, that’s all that mattered. I was so happy. Well, it was something that couldn’t be kept quiet, David’s blackmail. I heard rumors. I confronted David. He wouldn’t admit what he’d done but I knew.
Pause.
MEGS: You go?
Pause.
MARTHA: I got very sick the night of the prom. A twenty-four hour thing. David meant well.
MEGS: I crashed mine. Yeah, I did. Just walked in wearin’ a motorcycle jacket, steel-toed jack boots, and shades, stood there like a madman, grinnin’ at all those tuxedos, hopin’ somebody’d try to throw me out. I think perhaps I also was very sick on the night of the prom.
MARTHA: Wouldn’t we have made a lovely couple.
MEGS: You’da gone with me?
MARTHA: What?
MEGS: If, y’know, I’da like, asked you, you’da gone with me?
MARTHA: Well . . . yes.
MEGS: Nah.
MARTHA: Yes.
MEGS: Nah.
MARTHA (Angrily): Why do you always contradict me? Yes, I would have gone with you.
MEGS: Well, goddam, woman! We’da had a great time!! I can see it! (HE jumps up, moves to the kitchen door) I come to pick you up. I knock on the door. (HE exits out the door. HE knocks three times)
MARTHA: What are you doing? What are you doing?
MEGS (Opening the door, stepping in): This ain’t detention, Martha. It’s the prom. Answer the door.
MARTHA: You’re in.
MEGS realizes that HE is. HE grins, HE shuts the door. HE does a slow spin as if showing off something.
MEGS: Hah!? Hah!?
MARTHA: What?
MEGS: Your mom. She thinks I look very dashing in my tuxedo.
MARTHA: Oh, you do.
MEGS (Whipping off his hat): The corsage is as big as a goddam dogwood tree. (HE tosses his hat into the refrigerator) Your father comes over to shake hands. He smells my breath to see if I’ve been drinking. (HE exhales) I have!
MARTHA: He approves. And offers you an aperitif for the road.
MEGS: Too late! You make your entrance down the stairway! You look . . . terrific!
MARTHA: My gown is silk and gossamer.
MEGS: Yeah. And you look terrific. Your hair is just so. Hey! Know what it is?
MARTHA (Breaking the spell): Preposterous.
MEGS: No! It’s beautiful.
MARTHA: My shoes?
MEGS: Listen, you could click your heels three times and they’d take you to Kansas.
MARTHA: Ridiculous.
MEGS: No! (HE retrieves his hat from the refrigerator) There is a moment of embarrassment as I try to pin on your corsage. I am timid.
MARTHA: Of the occasion?
MEGS: Of your gunboats!
MARTHA (Giggling, slapping at MEGS): Stop! (SHE takes the hat and puts it on her head, the bill facing backwards) I smile reassuringly. (SHE does)
MEGS: And the air is heavy with the portent of things to come! (Offering his arm) Shall we go?
MARTHA: The chariot awaits?
MEGS (HE mimes opening a car door for MARTHA): ’57 Chevy, roars like a PT boat but smooth as glass. In accord with the occasion I have thrown all the empty beer cans in the back seat.
MARTHA: How thoughtful. We arrive?
MEGS: We knock’m dead. You’re beautiful.
MARTHA (Softly): You’re handsome.
MEGS: We dance! (HE does a ferocious dance: a combination of the jerk and the swim. HE sings the instrumental lead to “En-A-Gada-Da-Vida” by the Iron Butterfly as HE dances. HE stops, grinning) They play a slow one. (HE begins to sing “Michelle” by the Beatles. HE opens his arms to MARTHA. SHE comes to him. THEY sway) What a terrific dancer you are.
MARTHA (Shyly): And you.
MEGS: If I step on your feet you give me a shot to the kidneys, OK?
MEGS pulls MARTHA very close, his hands going down around her waist. SHE stiffens.
MARTHA: This is stupid.
MEGS: Just dancing. (And HE holds MARTHA tighter still)
MARTHA (With a growing terror at MEGS’s embrace): Please Stop it. Get your hands off me!
MARTHA struggles free from MEGS, rips the hat from her head, tosses it away from her, staggers to the stove. Pause.
MEGS: That’s the thing about shy people, Martha. They think everybody’s looking. Nobody is. ’Cept me, (Unable to hide his anger, his frustration, his hurt) And I like what I see!
MARTHA: For God’s sake, sit down. The soup is ready.
MEGS: That bad a dancer, huh? Yeah . . . (HE moves to exit out the kitchen door and suddenly, almost without thinking, HE punches out one of the panes of glass in the door) Oh God, I’m sorry . . .
MARTHA (Simultaneously with MEGS’s last line): Joseph! Your hand . . .
MEGS: I’ll pay for it, I promise, oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll pay for it.
And MEGS is hiding his hands from MARTHA. SHE is trying to see if they’re cut.
MARTHA: I don’t care about the glass! Is your hand cut!?
MEGS: No, they’re fine! (And MARTHA sees the scars on his hands. Embarrassed, HE tries to hide them. SHE won’t let him) My hands . . . they ain’t so pretty. . . .
MARTHA: You’ve done it before. . . .
MEGS: Yeah. . . .
MARTHA: Why . . .
MEGS: I dunno why, Martha. I’m real sorry. Listen, you tell Davey so long for me. (HE starts to leave, going into the living room, heading for the front door)
MARTHA: Joseph? (MEGS stops) I’d have wanted you to take me to the prom.
Pause.
MEGS: Yeah?
MARTHA (Softly): Yes.
MEGS: Really?
MARTHA (Softly): Yes. (Pause) Will you sit and have soup with me?
Pause.
MEGS: Only ’cause you asked ’stead of ordered. (HE enters the kitchen, HE sits. MARTHA puts a bowl filled with soup in front of him) Look at this. China. (Looking at the plate the bowl is on) They match too. I almost got a set a tableware once. Every time you bought groceries at the store, they gave you a plate. I just didn’t shop often enough.
MARTHA: Go on. Start.
MEGS: No, I’m waitin’ for you. It’ll stay hot. I hate eating alone. You eat alone much, Martha?
MARTHA is getting crackers.
MARTHA: Sometimes I eat with David. David, however, eats alone. (Pause) I usually correct papers while I eat.
MEGS: Sounds to me like you give out way too much homework, Martha. (Pause) Sure smells good.
MARTHA (Sitting): Thank you.
MEGS: Good as Campbell’s, I bet. I haven’t even tasted it yet and I like it.
MARTHA: Now you can.
MARTHA puts her napkin in her lap. MEGS is on the verge of digging in but notices this. HE puts down his spoon and carefully unfolds his napkin, placing it in his lap. HE tastes his soup. HE tastes it agai
n. Perplexed, yet again. HE grins.
MEGS: Good.
MARTHA smiles, pleased. THEY eat. Pause.
MARTHA: David said you two were in Vietnam together.
MEGS: Basic right through we were.
MARTHA: He never talks about it.
MEGS: No? Me, I talk about it all the time. To myself when there’s no one around to listen. You ever had an ugly melody in your head? You can’t get rid of it no matter how hard you try to hum something else.
MARTHA: David gets furious if you even mention it. (Pause) Did you know David’s friend, Bobby?
MEGS: He told you about ole Bobby? Ole Bobby, Martha, he was. . . . You take a guy who does something well, he practices, right? Well, ole Bobby, he could just look at it once and do it better right off. Yup. And was he smart? He knew things. But see, he knew’m from here (Tapping his chest) as well as from here (Tapping his head). Ole Bobby was our heart. A regular waterwalker. We loved him. Oh, but we was some trio, Bobby, your brother and me. They thought I was lucky. Davey did anyway. Used to. He was always goin’ on about how I was a lucky dollar, a rabbit’s foot . . . yeah, I ain’t foolin’. Really! Lucky Megs! (Pause) That all kinda ended when we lost ole Bobby. It was when, y’know, Davey got hurt and me, I uh . . . I got in the way like I got a habit a doin’. Oh, I’ll tell you, Martha. Your brother is one sweet bear but ole Bobby was worth him and me rolled together. (Pause) You wouldn’t a liked me much when I got home. Crazy. I got in fights a lot, dumb ones, five against one where I got the piss kicked out a me. It was not a nice time. And what it got down to was . . . well . . . one night I was lyin’ around, contemplatin’ the rafters, wonderin’ if they could take my weight, and like . . . don’t laugh or nothin’, please . . . I prayed. I felt better. What was done, was done, y’know? For some reason we’d lost ole Bobby. And it was up to me to make that reason a good one. ’Cause ole Bobby, he deserved that. I think I’ve liked myself a little bit more ever since then. (Pause. MARTHA starts to take the bowls) Hey, no way, Jose! Cook doesn’t clean. My turn. (HE takes the bowls to the sink)
MARTHA: I think I’m going to cry.
MEGS: Huh?
MARTHA: You make me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I rarely do either one.
MEGS: Oh. Guess I oughta get goin’, huh? Sure wish we’d caught some trout. (HE starts to exit)
MARTHA: You’re coming for dinner anyway!
MEGS (In disbelief): I am?
