ggg

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FRIDAY NIGHT -- ggg1: background is where live Berowne, Dumaine and Longaville; characters are Berowne, Dumaine and Longaville.

Berowne and Dumaine are on with TV/net set.

BEROWNE
I think...I think I'll have another beer.

DUMAINE
And if it's thinking it takes you to reach conclusions long foregone, rest easy, 'cause you're in no danger from becoming different from most -- who crank up their thinking but to gin up justifications for decisions their habits have already made.

BEROWNE
And so much the better for it. Think of the mess it'u'd be if we could just decide to act different than we do, and succeed. Already it's so uncertain, the truth about others. Believing someone won't act out of character is all we can mean when we say they're someone we know. And I got the sense not to expect change from others -- any more 'n I got the sense to expect it from me.

DUMAINE
Yeah, yeah. Look would you stop zapping around, you're not even listening.

BEROWNE
I'm soundtracking in my mind just from the images.

DUMAINE
Yeah well why not lie there and listen to just one imagetrack at a time in mind?.

BEROWNE
Cause I'm seeing all of 'em, all at the same time.

DUMAINE
Uh-huh.

BEROWNE
Yeah. Well, matter of fact, I'm not doing that at all -- I'm not trying to picture all the transmissions on all the different channels: I'm watching right through the sounds and pictures, watching all the different Americas watching them -- all out there now watching their different ones.

DUMAINE
Okay, but how 'bout just one for more 'n five seconds?

BEROWNE
Cause when I watch just one the others fall out of sight, so I got to keep hitting on 'em to fix 'em back in mind. Think of it like a sigint thing, man -- I'm just reading her comms to see who all's out there. It's not like the whole story or anything, but it's windows to glimpse who's in some of her rooms.

DUMAINE
Yeah, and what does my America watch?

BEROWNE
Dumaine, your America watches CSPAN. And I can tell you, your America is small in number.

DUMAINE
And yours?

BEROWNE
My America couldn't care less what she's watching -- doesn't actually watch at all, come to think of it, just has the thing on all the time, like some kind of gabbling, lit-up shrine to some all-pervading power, ever present, and not connected to the daily life you're living while it's on all 'round. I haven't like watched a whole show in who knows how long -- and never feel like I've ever missed anything. My America just zombs in now and again -- just taking in whatever's on at the instant -- for the instant, and then...hey, it's been on, and now it's gone.

DUMAINE
Come to think of it I guess I will have another beer.

BEROWNE
And if it's guessing it takes you

DUMAINE
Never mind.

BEROWNE
I'd get 'em but I'm too tired to move.

DUMAINE
I'd be too tired to do anything too if I'd done nothing all day.

BEROWNE
I didn't say I was too tired to do anything. I said I was too tired to move.

DUMAINE
Uh-huh.

BEROWNE
Right, tired -- blissful tired like some old hound home on them high plains laying in the shade of some cottonwood tree, tired, like even here in the shade the sun done shriveled up my soul and set me free of all willpower and desire, laying me out just these cells and systems still ordered alive, but untroubled by no personhood.

DUMAINE getting beers
Right. Sounds more like when you'll be laid out that way upon the undertaker's tabletop like six feet plus of fresh-clam cadaver. You'll be free of all willpower and desire alright, cause for you there'll be no more, any other of no human primates to be in need and confused connection to.

BEROWNE
Sounds good to me, man -- me and them heavenly angels just honky-tonkin' in that mighty mansion aback them pearly gates.

DUMAINE
Here. Unless of course you're free of all desire for it, you're going to have to move to drink it.

BEROWNE
Sad to say but true. You know, when I write my will, first thing I'll say is order the undertaker to not use embalming fluid, but beer instead.

DUMAINE
That way you can smell the same when you're alive as when you're dead, right? It's Friday night; what're we going to do?

BEROWNE
Same thing as always, go to some club or party and get drunk, and if that one's no good, go to some other.

DUMAINE
And get drunker.

BEROWNE
You and Longaville might -- as usual -- but not me, uh-uh, no sir. Me, I'm going to find me a sweet-loving babe and have her own laughter spring her into my arms. Then tumble down, spinning out, by each other's newness so exited, into the city's lights at night that like a bangle-go-round careen past our eyes. Hargh! The crazing, deepening kiss in the taxicab's back seat -- the cascade of longing, like a breaker surging to the throat -- the strange dismay as the decision's made and the traffic's noise is heard again, to head, for her place or here to become another of the millions of the city's doubling primates, straining tiny, for that blinding lightening, in another little cubby of this vast and concrete honeycomb.

DUMAINE
You make it sound like so puny and so futile in such nameless, crowded desolation.

BEROWNE
It's not, not when like you feel you're the world's own helix-knitting fountainhead, vessel for that power that's life's own desire to persist on to its end. But all that changes when you put your mind up above in orbit and watch your living body, with the other six billion -- here below. Dumaine, you ever ask yourself why I've always got girlfriends and you and Longaville don't?

DUMAINE
Nope.

BEROWNE
Why not?

DUMAINE
What's the point of asking yourself what you already know?

BEROWNE
How else can you check if you're wrong?

DUMAINE
No need to -- since I know. Berowne, after a woman's met you a minute she thinks to herself, "This guy's a jerk". But when you start talking her up -- so beguiling, talkingly laconic -- and making her laugh, she comes round to "This guy's a handsome, empty, sweet and stupid jerk". And in what's likely the warmthlessness and yearning of her life -- blaming herself for her own loneliness -- she'll say like silent to herself, "And I don't care; if he comes desiring me tonight, oh...I'll, I'll..." cause she doesn't want to know she's not deciding for herself. And the rest you take care of, never giving her any reason to stop the carefree, catch herself and think of turning you away. You're just thinking, -will this sex be safe?, while leaving her think, -will this sex be love? Berowne, you're the equivalent of a good-looking slut.

BEROWNE
And like the best of 'em, impossible to forget.

DUMAINE
I don't doubt it. But it's still no way to live. Speaking of which, I've been thinking again 'bout that idea of mine and

BEROWNE
No way. And anyhow is your loveless life any less pathetic? Dumaine, when a woman looks at you she thinks to herself in her mind, "What a pencil-necked geek". But once you take to talking with her -- so respectful and assured -- her mind can't believe how it's changing about you, "What a...what a really nice guy, and seems so honest even -- can't believe it, thought they were extinct -- like a gentleman even". And you keep that impression confirmed and what just might be possible in her imagination with you changes, and she thinks, "Well, let's take this slowly and see...he'll call to see me again". And you don't; you always find something wrong with her and chicken out. Dumaine, you are the equivalent of some hopelessness-loving Romantic.

DUMAINE
No wonder I never get laid.

BEROWNE
You said it.

DUMAINE
I used to. But I gave it up. I've come to see, sex is for teenagers.

BEROWNE
Best thing you ever did, get rid of that

DUMAINE
I didn't get rid of her, she left me.

BEROWNE
And every night when you say your prayers you should give great thanks for having been saved, saved from a fate worse than death: marriage to a whining, simpering, sap-headed, spoiled, little tinkerbelle brat. All time ever did for her was add on the years with no growing up.

DUMAINE
A lot like you. She really hated you, you know.

BEROWNE
Of course she hated me; I saw right through her. And if she hadn't been so self-absorbed it wouldn't have taken her so long so to see through you and that you weren't at all the fantasy she had planned on for you.

DUMAINE
She loved me. I know it. I mean, she seemed sincere.

BEROWNE
Right, sincerely, totally selfish, and completely unaware of it. Heck, she could've been a man like me. Think of all the life you wasted trying to be what she thought she wanted?

DUMAINE
That's what I've been saying -- think of all we could accomplish if we weren't so wound up about women.

BEROWNE
Forget about it. Not me anyway. Your radproj to live the perfect life is for others -- the perfectly removed from sad reality.

DUMAINE
To their own more intense reality? Like Longaville?

BEROWNE
For instance.

DUMAINE
But you need it more than both of us put together. The way you run around, you're in a high-risk category, boy.

BEROWNE
Get serious. Look, I play the lottery everyday, and, yeah, I'm at risk of winning. Come on, count.

DUMAINE
Yeah why do you do that? That's for poor people, man; you don't need the money.

BEROWNE
So I can experience solidarity with the wishful.

DUMAINE
And the poor?

BEROWNE
Not possible. I may be imaginative, but I ain't deluded.

DUMAINE
It's you the project would do the most good. Think of it

BEROWNE
Absolutely not. Just imagining the effort of such relentless striving and self-discipline makes my mind scared of its own thoughts.

DUMAINE
We wouldn't be doing it out some Puritanical...whatever, but for what we could accomplish because of it.

BEROWNE
One's the flip side of the other and you can only live by both or neither -- and I'll just do without altogether, if that's alright with you -- no guilt, and no ambition either, thank you very much.

DUMAINE
Pathetic. I bet Longaville'll do it.

BEROWNE
I bet he will too -- he's living that way already, he's so broke and so ambitious. Hey, you ought to set your mind on the necessary and important -- like finding a new girlfriend.

DUMAINE
The woman of my destiny, I'll come on in good time.

BEROWNE
No you won't. Knowing you, you won't come on at all, and miss making any destiny your own out of the diffidence of self-containment and the arrogant idealism that keeps you from living life like it's really lived.

DUMAINE
Stop zut-zut-zut-zut-zapping alright already?

BEROWNE turning off TV
What? You want to change the channel too? They ought to make a cycle setting -- couple seconds each and you can watch them all at the same time all with no mouse pushing.

DUMAINE
What time is it? Where's Longaville?

BEROWNE
Who knows? Probably still working.

DUMAINE
And what's his reason for failing -- at your one and only mode of achievement?

BEROWNE
He scares them women half to death, and he's scared of them himself -- they're just different ones like us, not some alien other. And with that colossal pride, unselfconscious disdain, and total certainty about himself, but all this self-anger for failing to achieve works to the height of his intention -- and for being broke all the time -- he believes no woman will have him till he's a success and makes some money.

DUMAINE
He will. He's a real painter.

BEROWNE
So? Nobody's going to buy his stuff. You see the last thing he's doing?

DUMAINE
Yeah. Awesome. Big as a big Rubens
and just as full of cyclone life:
the view from just onshore and down along
the railing wiring in the pack by force
as along beneath, the ferry's hull's about
to mash its mooring at Ellis Island's dock.
Behind, the statue twisting in construction up
out of the bay, on past, on to the city
low and smoky on the distant shore --
and back onto the foreground's looming frieze
of faces each so wild determined, anxious and
exhausted in their borderings of caps and curls,
ribbons and tresses, spangled shawls and somber coats --
with them faces of their kids so tense and blazing in
the press of bundles, skirts and trousers jumbling underfoot.
All painted so so well you easily imagine
the twitter and groan that's the sound a crowd makes
as raced through with apprehension
it restlessly readies to pell-mell hurtle
when will the gangplank poised beside
the wary, sidelong glancing sailor fall
against the landing's wood to signal the stampede.
Stampede to wait, jostling in the shade
of the awning's metal, and then stutter-wend
up and on through the Hall of Registry,
and finally out..or in..or what?..home anyway, soon enough.
But still it must have felt so strange back then.
Still, like in his painting it's the eyes
that fix into your mind though you
would rather cringe away your viewer's face
at the smell of weeks of steerage borne
in on that wind -- but them eyes,
pale lit like the light on northern plains,
hard lit like the light on southern hills,
aglint like hooks into our memory
of hope and fear at life in this new land.

BEROWNE
And nobody's ever going to buy it. Americans that buy paintings want visual mind-toys to color up their walls, not works that slam them with their past.

DUMAINE
Still, he paints so well, that...well

BEROWNE
Well nothing. My great, great something grandaddy fought the Comanches -- and if I bought paintings you think I'd buy one to live with staring on the wall of some posse of drunken Plainsmen shooting terrorized Indians at close range?

DUMAINE
You ought to tell him about that, he'll paint it. Besides, it's not exactly the same.

BEROWNE
Yeah it is.

Longaville comes on.

LONGAVILLE
Harragh! Ho!

DUMAINE
Hey Longaville.

LONGAVILLE
I want to eat. Any beer?

BEROWNE
Hey man, how goes?

LONGAVILLE
Good. Totally, tremendously, terrific.

BEROWNE
Oh-oh, you paint any great paintings today?

LONGAVILLE
Part of one.

BEROWNE
You know, Longaville, sometimes you'd never know modesty was one of your strongest qualities.

LONGAVILLE
You think I'd put up with this life if I didn't know what I was doing? Man... Hey, we're out of beer. There's like one left

DUMAINE
And we won't be needing any.

BEROWNE
Dream dream, dream dream, dream on.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah, I could be like mister steady job here in the global financial economy, getting paid grown-up dollars to shuffle other people's.

DUMAINE
You would know?

LONGAVILLE
'Bout trading and investment, no...no more than he does who's got all the money he doesn't even have to work.

DUMAINE
From all that oil great something or other daddy stole from the Indians?

BEROWNE
Hey, I buy paintings to atone. You look sharp, Longaville. That a new shirt?

LONGAVILLE
Yeah. My mother sent it to me.

BEROWNE
We figured. Your mother sends you all your clothes.

LONGAVILLE
So what?

DUMAINE
So they're exactly the ones she dressed you in when you were in third grade.

LONGAVILLE
Now that's the edge beyond fashion. Besides, beats you. You should've joined the Navy, that way you can wear a white shirt and blue suit everyday.

DUMAINE
Navy uniforms are black.

LONGAVILLE
And beats you too. Whatever it is you call what you wear.

DUMAINE
Hey..hey..that there's Haute Patio, boy -- the true East Texas latest leisure style -- real American clothes made in China for real American men to drink beer in.

BEROWNE
What do you want me to dress like? Nouveau-twerp-tries-to-look-cool? This here's a real McCoy, boy.

DUMAINE
You know, if you put that soup in a pan and heated it up you wouldn't be drinking it out of the can.

LONGAVILLE
Too complicated.

DUMAINE
And most people eat muffins for breakfast, and when they do they put them in the toaster first.

LONGAVILLE
If I got to cook it, I don't want to eat it.

BEROWNE
Hey. Ho! Let's go.

LONGAVILLE
Wait a minute. I got to finish dinner first.

BEROWNE
Forget it. Party time.

DUMAINE
Hold one. Yo! I wanted to talk to you about making a pact to lead the perfect life.

BEROWNE
Later. The woman of your destiny is out there now, waiting for you.

DUMAINE
Yeah. But exactly where?.

BEROWNE
This party

LONGAVILLE
What if it's a bad party?

BEROWNE
Ain't no such thing as a bad party, just partygoers that don't know what they're doing.

All go off.

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Guise of Gals and Guys

ggg2: background is street out front below, and building's windows and fire escape above; characters are Kenny and Stan, and Rosaline, Katherine and Maria, and Alvin.

Kenny is on below; Rosaline goes on below.

KENNY
Hey, huh?

ROSALINE
Yheeoo! Oh! Oh no!

KENNY
What are you doing?

ROSALINE
Look

KENNY
I'm not going to hurt you.

ROSALINE
That's alright. Just go away.

KENNY
Why don't you go away? I live here.

ROSALINE
You live here? There?

KENNY
Yeah. You got a dollar?

ROSALINE
No.

KENNY
Yeah you do. But that's okay. You'll talk to me. Then I'll ask you later.

ROSALINE
I don't want to talk to you.

KENNY
Then why don't you go away?

ROSALINE
I'm waiting for someone. And I want to be alone.

KENNY
You can't. I'm here.

ROSALINE
You are. You live here? There?

KENNY
Yeah. Well not always the same one, but the same place for a while. Sometimes the garbage men come and take it away, but they don't so much so by the time they do me and Stan got to build with new stuff anyway cause it's all gotten rotten. That's who the dollar's for. It's not for me. It's for Stan.

ROSALINE
Stan, huh?

KENNY
Yeah. He's my bodyguard.

ROSALINE
Is he? Does he also sing?

KENNY
Huh?

ROSALINE
Never mind. Bodyguard, right?

KENNY
Yeah. See, he's so skeled out, everybody, even the hoodmen, run from him -- run from him like they'd hack on and rip me. So we got this..mutual usefulness, 'cause everybody -- well, almost -- gives me money, 'cause I'm totally sincere and truthful.

ROSALINE
You should be in politics. You'd be so natural. See, if saying made it so... Right? So why does Stan need a dollar?

KENNY
Buy wine.

ROSALINE
No? And why don't you need it?

KENNY
I don't. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do no dope. I already ate once today, whole half cheeseburger, couple fries in there too. I was just standing there, saw the bag toss right out the car window, hit the street by the can -- wasn't any reach in and pick through -- just bent down and served it right up. I could taste just still a touch warm too.

ROSALINE
What can I say to you?

KENNY
Don't say anything. Just give me a dollar.

ROSALINE
Right. What else do you do here?

KENNY
Me? Mostly I just take care of Stan...and wait for her.

ROSALINE
What's the matter with Stan? He sick?

KENNY
No, he just drinks. Somebody's got to take care of him.

ROSALINE
Hm-hm? Who's her?

KENNY
Her. She lives here. That's why I live here.
Like I was walking by one night and here
she shining cut across right by me from the door,
so close her perfume came inside me,
and the face she swirled at me -- almost close
enough we kissed -- exploded on my mind.
And like I was held back so strange, I stopped and waited,
waited half the night for her to come back here,
where I've been living since, living to glimpse
again and then again that face, and for instants
be so filled in a presence so more real
than any in magazines or on TV.

ROSALINE
She's some famous model or actress or something?

KENNY
She is to me. The most beautiful celebrity on earth. And I love her.

ROSALINE
And she also lives here?

KENNY
Yeah. Third, fourth floor maybe. I've never been inside. You know her?

ROSALINE
No. I'm just moving in right now. I'm waiting for my roommates to come with our stuff.

KENNY
So you live here now?

ROSALINE
To my growing consternation.

KENNY
That's good. I'll see you. Then you can tell me about her.

ROSALINE
Why me as a co-conspirator?

KENNY
'Cause how you're talking to me. I just know right away with people. You got to, living like I do.

ROSALINE
I can imagine.

KENNY
No you can't. But it's nice you try. You want to know a secret?

ROSALINE
Probably not.

KENNY
I'm not going to tell you if you don't want to know.

ROSALINE
Suit yourself.

KENNY
I want to tell you. What's a secret for if you can't tell anybody?

ROSALINE
Okay. What secret?

KENNY
I write her poems.

ROSALINE
Lucky girl.

KENNY
But I don't give them to her.

ROSALINE
That's probably just as well, I'd say.

Katherine and Maria go on.

MARIA
So this is the place?

ROSALINE
Yes. It's not what it looks like.

MARIA
What do you mean it's not what it looks like? Look at it.

KATHERINE
We have got to get out of here, right now. Look at the look of this place. It's falling apart in every way, like they brought in some piece of a third world city and dumped it in America. This is no time to think. We all make mistakes.

ROSALINE
It's fine inside.

KATHERINE
Yeah, like model prison -- you still can't go out. Let's just go; it's okay.

MARIA
We can't go back.

ROSALINE
Try it Kate, don't make my effort a failure.

KATHERINE
Come on, of course I'm with you. But I just don't believe I live here. I just don't believe I live here. And when my mom and dad find out -- I don't want to think about it. So I won't. But that never works.

ROSALINE
We'll just take the stuff from the van and move in. Brent told me the neighborhood's not so bad in the daytime.

KATHERINE
No, so only depressingly bad -- not so dangerously bad.

MARIA
Who's Brent?

ROSALINE
The guy the sublet's from.

KATHERINE
And what did you think he'd tell you? Real estate and politics -- two areas you never have to feel any anxiety -- any anxiety whatsoever -- because you know -- you know you're getting told what you want to hear.

KENNY
You got that dollar?

ROSALINE
Yes, it's right here.

MARIA
I don't believe you're giving him that money. You're encouraging them.

KATHERINE
She's right. You're doing more harm than good. You want to help people, then support organizations that..help. I mean do you know what these people do with their money?

ROSALINE
Same thing I do with mine. Spend it. All of it.

MARIA
Open the doors Rosaline, we'll start bringing the stuff in.

KATHERINE
And now we get to carry everything in?

MARIA
We carried it out.

KATHERINE
Yeah, but that was down the stairs.

MARIA
Katie, this is no time for that -- I'm apprehensive in all this -- the stress of it I guess.

KATHERINE
So what is it time for? First we get evicted with two weeks notice -- we should've sued that woman, she can't just take her apartment back.

MARIA
It was her apartment and the two weeks was in the lease.

KATHERINE
So then we have to find a place to live -- that fast, that we can afford. You know how hard that is? If Roz hadn't found this we could be...we could be out here right now junior bag ladies just starting out.

MARIA
Katie... Stop halucinating.

KATHERINE
Okay, so we have jobs and we have families. But some of these people do too, and somehow it got started for them, with some unforeseen event and they can't recover right away, and day by day down step by step...

ROSALINE
Down to the dregs of whatever weakness and abuse they've made themselves the unprotected prey.

KATHERINE
What if it's not their fault?

ROSALINE
What if it is? And nothing and no one made them do it. They did it all by themselves, with no help from anybody?

MARIA
Yeah -- exactly, that's

KENNY
Huh?

ROSALINE
Never mind.

KATHERINE
So that way you can pity them from separate, superior calm -- and give them charity? Pfft! I'll stick with my dumb guilt okay, and in solidarity, accept responsibility and pay my part for the social welfare institutions we got to have to fight this.

ROSALINE
And pay and pay and pay -- or well, borrow and borrow.

MARIA
Well even if it was our fault and we lose our jobs and can't get another one or anything we can always go back home and move in with our parents.

ROSALINE
Hmm...

KATHERINE
Huh? ... Nah -- nowadays people don't move back in with their parents until after they've had kids.

MARIA
Oh... Well, one thing at a time. You take that end. We'll start moving things in.

ROSALINE
Okay, we're good to go.

KATHERINE
Who lives here anyway?

ROSALINE
Besides him, I have no idea.

KATHERINE
Maybe the're some dreamy guys live here. They'll sweep us off our feet and we'll have an excuse not to be responsible for a while.

MARIA
We got enough problems without guys.

ROSALINE
We don't have problems; unhappy people have problems. All we've got is a colossal series of pains in the neck in super short order.

KATHERINE
Yeah? So where do you put the difference between unhappy and unfulfilled?

ROSALINE
Where your awareness of one, makes you the other.

MARIA
I don't get you guys. I just don't.

Stan goes on.

KENNY
Hey, Stan!

STAN
Sheeeurgh! Harugh! Harugh! Got...get...get 'em...stand up! I can! I'll take 'em all on! Harugh!

KATHERINE
Well here comes another of your happy problem pains in the neck.

KENNY
Hey, Stan...Stan! They're alright. You can help them.

STAN
Help? Heef, heef, heef, heef...help. Harugh! Heef, heef, heef...

KENNY
I already got a dollar.

MARIA
Hey! No! Stop!

STAN
Gimme! I don't care... I can...I can!

MARIA
Not...oh! I give up.

ROSALINE
Yeah. Go. Five, ten, any dollars.

KENNY
I'll go inside. I'll see her.

STAN
I don't need your money. I'm just heef, heef, heef, helping. Helping, heef, heef, heef. Harugh!

KATHERINE
Wait a minute...be careful!

STAN
Gimme more! Heef! Helping! No problem. Heef, heeerraagh!

Alvin goes on above at window.

ALVIN
What is going on here? You're the girls! Oh, golly! Oh, gosh! Brent told me. Yes of course. You're coming to live here..but I thought that was tomorrow. And I was going to do like a welcome wagon. Who cares! Oh, it's wonderful you're here. I'll make some tea.

ROSALINE
Why not a stiff drink?

ALVIN
Derek! Derek! They're here! They're here!

Alvin goes off above.

KATHERINE
Who was that?

ROSALINE
The neighbors, I guess. You said guys.

KATHERINE
Not that kind.

MARIA
Hey, help me with this.

STAN
Harugh!

MARIA
Not you!

Alvin goes on.

ALVIN

Hi, I'm Alvin. You're going to love it here. This building is so, so terrific. Like an oasis in the city. So welcome to it now.

ROSALINE
Why..thanks ever so much. (See, it's not what it looks like.)

KATHERINE
Yeah. Great. Thanks. (The jury's still out on this one.)

ALVIN
And Brent told me you would add so, so much.

KATHERINE
What does Brent know?

MARIA
Evidently, what these guys wanted to hear.

DEREK from off
Alvin!

ALVIN
Oh that's my Derek. Got to go. Get the boys to help you -- but maybe they're not home. They're almost never home. I'm always home. And let me tell you girls, it is such a relief from having to go to the office.

DEREK from off
Alvin!

MARIA
Who are the boys?

ALVIN
The three that live here. Didn't Brent tell you about them? They'd love to meet you; oh, would they love to meet you.

DEREK from off
Alvin!

ALVIN
Yes, coming! I'll introduce you. They're wonderful too -- in their own way. Oh gosh, I've got so much to do. I'll be over tomorrow morning -- with my special cake.

DEREK from off
Alvin!

KENNY
You'd better hurry up, Alvin.

ALVIN
I know, I know. Oh.. He can't stand having to wait -- like he was running out of time. I'll tell you everything. What are your names? Oh, we'll do that tomorrow. Bye, everybody.

Alvin goes off.

KATHERINE
Sheesh.

STAN
Harugh! Heef! Hey lady, how 'bout a break? Heef! How 'bout an advance?

ROSALINE
I thought you didn't want our money?

STAN
I don't. I just want something to drink. Harugh! Heef heef, heef.

ROSALINE
So do I -- but we can all wait till we're finished.

KATHERINE
Three guys live here, like not attached and not gay?

ROSALINE
I have no idea. And right now, we get the rest up, set it up sort of, and get some sleep.

KATHERINE
Right. Yeah. You don't know anything about these guys?

ROSALINE
Nope. First I've ever heard of them.

MARIA
Likely as not, there'll be something wrong with them.

KATHERINE
And if it comes to that, let's make sure we find out what's wrong before, rather than after.

ROSALINE
Yeah. Now let's put this move to bed. You return the van, get a cab back, and Katie and I'll finish getting the rest upstairs.

MARIA
Okay, see you guys later. Hey, it's like an adventure, you know, this whole life in this place. We lose sight of that sometimes 'cause it's so wearing. I'm glad it's with you, that's what I'm trying to say.

ROSALINE
That's sweet of you Maria.

KATHERINE
Be safe, Maria.

Maria goes off.

ROSALINE
Let's go.

STAN
Heef. I help alright, huh? Heef! You can say that again huh? Heef, heef!

ROSALINE
Absolutely. Bravo Zulu. Couldn't have done it without you.

KENNY
Which calls, I believe, for pecuniary remuneration.

ROSALINE
A guerdon, no less, if I'm not mistaken.

KENNY
Uh-huh.

KATHERINE
How do you know all that?

KENNY
I went to college. I loved college. It was after. I just couldn't handle it all somehow. I don't know. It happened.

ROSALINE
Here.

KENNY
Stan! Oh! Thank you!

ROSALINE
Think nothing of it.

STAN
Give me. Harragh!

KENNY
No! Hey! Stan!

KATHERINE
I'm not going to ask you how much you gave them. Rosaline, we can't afford to make extravagant gestures.

ROSALINE
The empty gestures are the ones we can easily afford.

KATHERINE
I said extravagant; that's different.

KENNY
Stan, I said no. You can't take it!

KATHERINE
Oh... Rosaline... Okay, let's just make sure the doors are locked. What's Bravo Zulu?

ROSALINE
My Dad used to say that. Means job well done. My Dad...

KATHERINE
Yeah...

Rosaline and Katherine go off.

KENNY
Give it back, Stan. Give it back. I don't want to take it, I just want to keep it.

STAN
Yargh! Don't tell me. I can do. I worked for it didn't I?

KENNY
You're going to pay triple from some corner man. It's too much -- somebody'll see -- they'll rip it right off you -- it'll all be gone. Stan!

STAN
Yargh! I'll bring change back.

KENNY
Even if you get it, you won't get back with it. Stan, no! Please.

STAN
No! Hargh! I just want one drink. Just one. Harrugh! You want to, you come with me, hahgh, Kenny.

KENNY
I can't..she. She's coming..I know it. I got to stay, Stan, to see her. You know that. It'll all be gone, Stan.

STAN
Hurrgh! Leave me be. I know what I'm doing. Dumb, dumb, Kenny. Harrugh! I don't care, don't care, don't care. Heef, heef, heef, heef...uurgh. Get...urgh...heef, heef, heef, heef, harrugh....

Stan goes off.

KENNY
Oh...oh...but she. Stan.... I've got to write for her, that's what I got to do.

Kenny is on below. Axelina and Peter go on below.

AXELINA
Why can't we be rich? I don't know why I married you. You're such a sap. Why can't we have real money?

PETER
Yes dear, I mean I'm doing

AXELINA
No you're not...well, yes you are -- that's just it. You're so routine and our life is so unglamorous. There's no fire in you, Peter. Your life is all satisfaction and no desire.

PETER
Well, you know some people might say

AXELINA
Oh, do I know? At parties you're an embarrassment to me. I have to lie about who we know and where we go. And you don't care -- you're just your stupid, sap self making no impression on anybody who's anybody. How can we be, you know, one of the ones. You're married to me, me! Axelina! You don't realize how glamorous I am.

KENNY
(Oh she, here in my eyes again at last.)

PETER
Of course I do hon, it's just that

AXELINA
You don't want to understand. I really do want to be a celebrity -- like they take pictures of and write gossip about, don't you understand? I want to be part of something bigger...better than just everyday life. I want to go to the parties where the rich and glamorous get their pictures taken so they can be fantasy for newsmagazine readers. Don't you see? I don't want to be me. I want to be somebody other people want to be. That's all I want -- and you're not helping me get it.

PETER
Well I'm doing

AXELINA
It's not enough. We're going nowhere. I know we just got married a few months ago, darling, but it..before..I thought marriage would be different. For instance, I thought living here might be exotic..and chic.

PETER
"Chic?" Sheesh... Yeah, yeah..like cutting edge?

AXELINA
Yeah.

PETER
It is. Yeah. Poppa bought buildings in this neighborhood believing in a resurgence of urban life in America, knowing in time

AXELINA
Look at this place. Don't you see? It's totally unacceptable. Real people find it..find it despicable. It's declassification for us, that's what.

PETER
Maybe that's why living here's such a well kept secret.

AXELINA
Huh?

PETER
Nothing..nothing. See, honey, we own the building -- and a bunch of others besides.

AXELINA
Well if we're so rich, why are we still living here?

PETER
Darling... Besides, that's not how people see it. The performance piece evening I've arranged for tomorrow night -- they're all coming (maybe) -- I've invited a select group of celebrities, artists, movers and shakers, and millionaires.

AXELINA
Millionaires? So what? What is this, the nineteen thirties? Now absolutely everybody's a millionaire -- except us.

PETER
Well, actually, that's far from true, we're

AXELINA
Peter, you know how many millionaires there are in America today?

PETER
Yeah, maybe..well, depends, oh

AXELINA
Yeah, millions. You know how many millions is? Practically the entire population.

PETER
Yeah..but that's 'cause you got two kinds of millionaires in the world today. You got the few like us that own real, useful stuff like this building, and then you got everybody else that owns empty electronic promises in the global financial economy.

AXELINA
Peter..look... This dump isn't worth the space inside it.

PETER
Darling, don't you see

AXELINA
Get out the keys before we get mugged. I can't stand living here. Every time, every time when my eyes and see, my mind can't help but say, "This place..this place is social equivalence of distressed..distress...". See this slime living outside. Ohgh!

KENNY
(Oh she, such wonderment of beauty
here, in triumph's radiant display...)

AXELINA
Right now we're rich for nothing, so we might as well be poor. We've got to be rich for something -- like for not having to live around the people that live around here! Peter we have to move. You hear me?

PETER
But honey, we just remodeled spending -- well, that's not important -- you expressed yourself artistically and we own the building, right?

AXELINA
Wrong. Cause it's in the wrong place -- you pip-squeak of perception. This address is status humiliation -- it's socially Siberian! That's what it is!

PETER
The gulag slice of the American social salami.

AXELINA
What?

PETER
Nothing, dear, just

AXELINA
Were you making fun of me? Peter, I've told you before -- you make fun of me and you'll be a former husband sooner than expected.

PETER
Yes. Yes, dear.

AXELINA
And with all the wrong type people living here. Don't try introducing me to any of them again because I don't want to know them. I'm me! Axelina! A big -- big future social celebrity, and I'm not going to be friends with just anybody, understand?

PETER
Yes dear but this whole neighborhood is changing utterly.

AXELINA
Towards yuppiefied, yuk-family respectability -- like living suburban life in the central city. That's practically worse clunkhead. When are we going to start making the real scene with the real people, that's what I want to know. You can't just be a guy who owns buildings. Get some ambition. You've got to be a real estate tycoon, so I can be. You don't think I'm just going to keep living a dumb life reading about the rich and famous like everybody else, do you? I'm better than that. And living here isn't part of what I've got in store for me. Ohgh! I'm so humiliated by my life. Peter!

PETER
Axie, baby. But this is a great place to live. Alvin's vision of what a building with its neighbors can be is right on -- the most natural basic unit of self-government in the urban environment of this extraordinary century.

AXELINA
Heeyah! Gobbledygook! Some screaming queen political idealist up there -- and don't even try having me meet any of the others. Oh, I'm revolted just hearing those three thumpers as they come banging down with their big, low-class laughs as I'm going on the stairs. Oh! Peter, our marriage is in trouble, in trouble you hear me? It's not serving my ambitions, and I refuse to repress them.

PETER
Well

AXELINA
Hurry up!

PETER
Maybe if you adopted an ambition that made you a celebrity for having done something...

AXELINA
Why? I don't want to be a celebrity for something -- I want to be a pure celebrity. I'm going to be famous for being famous with the famous. Now hurry up.

PETER
Yes dear, coming.

Axelina and Peter go off.

KENNY
All my days now all I see is trouble,
now all I know's contempt and pain;
my life's a constant seeing double --
one I knew then, one I know now that's not the same.
But when my love in my eyes shines,
her splendor like a Virgin shrined in church
forgets me from these bones inside like splines,
bathes like light ideal, this dark life hurt.
Oh she, that in the hard gray shamble
choked with crumpled lives in concrete angles
that's all that's pushed into my mind's ramble
lives there so bright like an unearthly angel.

Dumaine and Longaville go on.

DUMAINE
Of course we can do it. And so we ought to.
Look at what a waste this world conspires
to make of our lives' time that squandered once
won't be gotten back to spend again.

LONGAVILLE
Not if you stand up to its temptations. Or can't afford them.

DUMAINE
Not really. Look at all the time you waste -- the fat, dumb, happy umpteen hours boobingly exited watching at tubes and sports. that's no way to live -- to care so much about the meaningless.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah, but it's like I want to care about what other people care about so I'll be like them.

DUMAINE
That's not what they want from you so why try?
And take all the beer we glut down in gallons
so as to live in such befuzzlement
that we don't have to see, stretching away
like images from mirrors face to face
on facing walls, the rat race's next heat tomorrow.

LONGAVILLE
That's the race you're in -- with the living.
But what I don't get is why no women too.

DUMAINE
It's neither sex nor women I'm against
that makes me want to cut that out --
it's that I can't stand to have to think
about it all the time. It's no way to live,
to always look at others like
their bodies held no person to desire
but weren't but flesh on bones shaped to take a turn
on the broken record of our mind's pornography.
I mean doesn't it get tired?

LONGAVILLE
No.

DUMAINE
Come on, sign on with me -- we just don't see
how diminished our habits have made us live.
I've got the contract for us all drawn up:
for a time we'll pledge by our friendship
to live free of video, junknet, drink and women,
hard partying and all other wasting time.
We'll mutually support each other
in the strong-minded, passionate pursuit
of poetry, philosophy, science, and citizenship.
It'll be the most purposeful and vibrant time
of all our lives.

LONGAVILLE
Okay -- but what do you think people going to say?

DUMAINE
Nothing. Cause we're not going to tell them, anyway they're too self-absorbed to notice.

LONGAVILLE
Okay. Sign me up. You know me. What about Berowne?

DUMAINE
If we both lean on him, he'll push over. We'll nail him
when we first see him -- tomorrow or tonight. Put it there.
Done deal?

LONGAVILLE
Done deal. Hey Kenny, how goes?

KENNY
You guys huh? You didn't see what I was doing did you?

LONGAVILLE
What were you doing?

KENNY
Hey, I was talking to myself, okay? Guys like me we do that all the time. ... I was writing poems, but you don't know anything about it -- that's strictly on the QT between us.

LONGAVILLE
Relax. I know.

Maria goes on. She hides.

MARIA
(Oh no. Now what? Better wait a minute...see what these men are.)

Stan goes on.

STAN
Harughgh! Heef, heef, heef heeeeeee! Arrraaaghghgh!

KENNY
Stan!

MARIA
(I just want to get inside. Go home.
How can I be standing out here hiding?
I'm just outside my door in the city where I live.
What sense does this fear make?
I stay and jerks they slow down driving by;
I move and who knows how gone these guys are.
Has my imagination sickened here
and overdone how aggressed I feel?)

STAN
Harrgh! Wa! Wa! Ooooogh-hee! I am...

KENNY
Stan, where's the money?

STAN
Have a drink. Heef! Heef! Heef!

KENNY
Stan, you got the money?

STAN
I kill 'em. I kill 'em. Now have a drink!

KENNY
Oh Stan. Oh I knew it. All of it.

DUMAINE
What happened?

LONGAVILLE
What difference does it make? Come on, we can't do anything about it.

DUMAINE
No reason not to find out or try.

LONGAVILLE
All we can do's just posturing. Let's go.

DUMAINE
Wait a minute.

MARIA
(That must be them...those guys he mentioned.
Boy, does knowledge change perception fast.
Oh...he seems so sure like he's not afraid,
and cares enough to want to know.)

DUMAINE
Just tell me what happened. What money?

STAN
Harrugh! Get away! Get in your big fat bed and die! Arrugh!

DUMAINE
Listen, Kenny

LONGAVILLE
Dumaine, check out. It's not something you can fix.

DUMAINE
Yeah, alright. Oh, man... See you tomorrow, take ca...take

LONGAVILLE
Take all the oblivion you can get.

DUMAINE
Good night.

Dumaine and Longaville go off.

KENNY
Come on, Stan, let's go to sleep.

STAN

Haruph! Heef, heef, heef. Owowuhuh...

MARIA
Hi...I'm coming back now.

STAN
Hargh! Have a drink. You paid for it already. Heef, heef, heef, heef, heef, harrugh-ugh.

MARIA
Auh!

KENNY
Stan, Stan! He won't hurt you -- worst that could happen is the lice on him'u'd jump from his hair onto yours. Stan! Lullaby time -- going to sleep city, going to bye bye bye, see the dream babes by the surf in sun, wah wah wha wha wha whaei...

MARIA
Ohhh...

KENNY
Relax.

MARIA
Oh yeah. Sure. Say, who were those guys?

KENNY
Huh? Oh, the ones that live here..you know, like Alvin said.

MARIA
And they..um..like, like live here by themselves?

KENNY
No, they live here together.

MARIA
Yeah, but..uh..with anybody?

KENNY
Yeah, exactly; with each other. You know, like I live with Stan.

MARIA
Uh-huh, right. but with their girlfriends?

KENNY
Well, I don't think they have girlfriends now.

MARIA
Oh yeah? You sure?

KENNY
I don't kow. I think so. Why do you want to know?

MARIA
Oh, no reason, just... What were their names?

KENNY
Them two just here? Dumaine and Longaville.

MARIA
The one that wanted to know what happened, that was...Dumaine?

KENNY
Yeah, that's him.

MARIA
Okay, thanks. Bye.

KENNY
No problem.

MARIA
(Dumaine...Dumaine... The things people name their children.)

Maria goes off.

KENNY
Oh... Come on Stan, you got to get something under you. Uh! It gets... And it'll get me too no matter what. So come and take me one more night of this.

Kenny and Stan go to sleep. Berowne goes on.

BEROWNE
Oh aye, it's gotten so if you weren't there
like that at night so fast asleep as sure
as habit, like them of all that live around us
anchoring us to our daily life, I'd fear something amiss
and go to sleep myself like nagged a touch
by what might've changed with you or gone plain wrong.
But I ought to wonder more at what went right
that by the blind luck of inheritance I got
this life like mine and not one like yours
where there but for fortune I'd be hard asleep
between you both. So..., I'm here and you...
and you, you're there. And that's what there's to that.

KENNY
Yeeooh! Awwoh... Don't you know better than to scare me like that? How do I know it's you? Don't you ever come sneaking on people up that way.

BEROWNE
Hey, last thing I meant to do was wake you. I..I Was just
talking to myself while I thought you were asleep.

KENNY
We were.

STAN
Harrugh! Get away! They coming for me! Hie! Hie! Hie! Now where...?

BEROWNE
Right there.

STAN
Heeyegh! Have a drink. Call it a nightcap.

BEROWNE
Call it all-night indigestion.

STAN
Whoa!

BEROWNE
Yiih! Yiih! Yiih! Yiiooh! Whoo! If how this nepalms the insides going down is how it sears the senses, you're not living buzzed but cauterized.

KENNY
Big surprise, huh?

STAN
Gimme back that.

BEROWNE
Ho! Ho! Hey, you know, I know what you need, you need what I need.

KENNY
No we don't.

BEROWNE
You don't even know what it is yet.

KENNY
I already got a woman and she...she's all I'll ever need.

BEROWNE
Yeah, yeah. Anyway that's not all there is to me.
So sometime you tell me why you so like
so many to keep your living simple so insist
on seeing but one of a man's so many faces
to have that hide for you the whole and complex mess.
And anyway, you still need what I need.

KENNY
Yeah?

BEROWNE
Yeah.

STAN
Yeah?

BEROWNE
Yeah.

KENNY
What?

BEROWNE
A sandwich.

STAN
Yeah, what kind of sandwich?

BEROWNE
What do I look like? "Hi, I'm Dufus, and I'll be your waiter for tonight, and the special of our chef tonight is greasinnis alla farfaloca with condemented booger sauce."

STAN
Harugh! I don't want to know but what kind of sandwich you're going to give.

BEROWNE
Same kind I'm going to get. And so much depends...so much depends...on what's lazing in the icebox. Now wait here.

KENNY
Where else we going to wait?

STAN
Hey, how 'bout a beer with that? That's a special every day and every night, all day and all night. Heef! Heef! Heef! Heef!

KENNY
Stan...

Berowne goes off below. Kenny and Stan are on below. Katherine and Maria go on above at window.

MARIA
{What are you doing?}

KATHERINE
{I'm opening the window, see what's going on.}

MARIA
{Hopefully nothing, or just another tiff of snarling like everywhere here by humans in the night.}

KATHERINE
{Breaks out from the dark almost like dogs barking in the countryside at night.}

STAN
Harugh! He's not going to give no sandwich. What're you believing...? They all...whole world...just talk and go and never nothing.

KENNY
Hey, you never know, sometimes some are different.

MARIA
{What's that?}

KATHERINE
{Shshshsh...}

Berowne, Dumaine and Longaville go on above at window.

BEROWNE
Peanut butter's all there is. Hey!

KENNY
Huh?

BEROWNE
Up here.

DUMAINE
You're going to sign on Berowne, that's all there is to it.

BEROWNE
No I ain't.

LONGAVILLE
We'll see about that.

MARIA
{It's them.}

KATHERINE
{Don't let them see us.}

BEROWNE
You want it?

MARIA
{Why not?}

KATHERINE
{Because.}

STAN
Harrgh, harrgh, harrgh! I don't...where's the beer? Harrgh, Harrgh!

KENNY
That means yes.

BEROWNE
And no beer. There's only one and it's left for me.

DUMAINE
And he won't need it 'cause he's about to give it up.

BEROWNE
Hah!

LONGAVILLE
Hah nothing. That beer's coming to you.

BEROWNE
I'll be right back. And no beer.

STAN
Noooow!

DUMAINE
First, you sign.

BEROWNE
No way, Jose.

DUMAINE
Berowne...

Berowne goes off above.

BEROWNE from off

Dumaine...

DUMAINE
Now what?

LONGAVILLE
Now we keep at him. Like anything else. Attack and attack again. I signed. He will too.

MARIA
{Signed what?}

KATHERINE
{Search me.}

MARIA
{These guys are weird.}

KATHERINE
{Yeah, but not scary weird.}

MARIA
{Yeah, I know.}

Berowne goes on above at window.

DUMAINE
Berowne, listen to me. This matters. It's worth the abnegation.

BEROWNE
It's not even worth the aggravation.
What's it for? To wallow in the smugness
of our will's success at shaking off
the piss-ant itchings of weakling habits?
Hah! Turn me into some pruned-out, fearful,
anemic yupo long before my time --
like you. You were practically born concerned,
responsible, exasperated and middle-aged.

DUMAINE
What are you laughing for?

LONGAVILLE
Same reason you are. It's kind of true.

BEROWNE
Hey, here.

DUMAINE
You can't drop them like that; take them back and wrap them up.

STAN
You got my beer?

Berowne goes off above.

LONGAVILLE
And don't forget the man's beer.

KENNY
See what I told you.

Rosaline comes on above at window.

ROSALINE
{What're you guys spying on people?}

MARIA
{Shshsh...}

KATHERINE
{It's those guys.}

DUMAINE
I'm going to read it to you again, Berowne; now listen. ... Hey!

Dumaine and Longaville go off above.

ROSALINE
{And with all "the guys" that this world suffers from, what's so special about these guys that they deserve to be "those guys".}

MARIA
{I don't know, but I'm watching one like he was.}

KATHERINE
{Yeah? Which one?}

MARIA
{Him. His name's Dumaine.}

KATHERINE
{Doo-doo who? That's his name? And how do you know what it is anyway?}

ROSALINE
{Which one's him? They aren't there any more.}

MARIA
{Him, the one that's trying to make the one named Ber...Ber something who was going to throw down the sandwiches sign something about giving up like his drug habit.}

ROSALINE
{Oh. How weak-minded of me not to have grasped it at a glance.}

KATHERINE
{Who said anything about drugs? I didn't get it but it was something about pussant...puissant...I don't know.}

ROSALINE
{Oh, puissant. It mean's strong, powerful. It's an old French word. They said that? A bit old-fashioned, but then again...}

MARIA
{Ohh... You know Rosaline, I'm always so impressed with you, how you always know everything like that...and so natural-like.}

KATHERINE
{"Ohh..." Give me a break.}

MARIA
{I mean I thought he said piss-ant.}

KATHERINE
{Piss-ant? Maybe that is what he said. What exactly is a piss-ant, anyway?}

MARIA
{Yeah you don't hear that that much these parts.}

ROSALINE
{Which parts?}

KATHERINE
{Yuee. Okay, so}

ROSALINE
{Quiet! They're coming back.}

KATHERINE
{Ohhh...}

MARIA
{And the other one's name is Longaville.}

KATHERINE
{Longaville? Nyuh...}

Berowne, Dumaine and Longaville go on above at window.

BEROWNE
Okay. Here. Hey!

KENNY
Over here.

STAN
Hey. Hey. Beer. Beer.

Berowne goes out on fire escape with beer can.

BEROWNE
Alright, let me get out here.

STAN
Harugh! Harugh! Beer! Beer!

BEROWNE
Good buddy, I know just how you feel. But this one's got to be mine cause it's the last one there is and

STAN
Aurrgh! See! See what I mean.

KENNY
Well

LONGAVILLE
That finger you got crooked on that can's top,
you pull, and in my heart there falls
in deep dismay the admiration I
have always held you in as a man and as a friend.

BEROWNE
(Pull..so..so slight a motion just
like to a trigger, that in the snap
of thoughtless action has so often made
for regret so long cause there's no way
you can pull the heart-aimed bullet back.)

KENNY
Hey, what're we waiting on now?

STAN
Harugh! Yeah! Harugh! You don't want that beer.

BEROWNE
Yeah I want it.

LONGAVILLE
Right. So drop it. Right where it belongs, into them trembling hands below.

Berowne drops sandwiches. Dumaine and Longaville climb out on fire escape.

BEROWNE
Here, start with these. This other we're still working on.

DUMAINE
Come on. For all the times we talked so long
at once at work and play to say as much
as one mind can an to another.

BEROWNE
It's not that, it's that what you want is so unreasonable.

LONGAVILLE
So what?

DUMAINE
No it's not. Not at all. This is eminently reasonable.

BEROWNE
Ahh... Okay, tell me again what's written there
so we, in pursuit of some ideal perfection,
can crash and burn our silly selves
by trying to exceed what common sense
and nature and our place and times,
dictate is the only way that we can live.

DUMAINE
"We, whose names are underwritten, by our friendship and our honor, are resolved to team up to work for our individual and mutual good by"

LONGAVILLE
Skip the legal-eagle stuff. Just what we got to do. He just heard the whole thing when you read it to him looking for the cellophane and wrapping the sandwiches.

BEROWNE
Okay, so what's this no partying and no dancing to crazed besotment and sleeplessness-exited senses?

DUMAINE
It's what you're out doing every other night, and as often as not we're out there with you, that's what. And now, no more.

KATHERINE
{Perfect. I can't believe how lucky we are. They would've asked us out -- maybe. But now "no more". When was the last time any of us got asked out to dance ourselves senseless.}

MARIA
{They'd never ask us out.}

BEROWNE
Let me see that again.

DUMAINE
Here.

LONGAVILLE
You know what's in it. Sign.

KATHERINE
{Maria, how can you say that.}

MARIA
{I mean look at them, they're so...so total.}

KATHERINE
{So? Beautiful, strong, smart, full-of-life women like us, how could any man with half a brain not see...sure they'd ask us out if they got the chance.}

MARIA
{No they wouldn't. Katie, these are guys that go for the air heads that puff out the big curls, not..not girls like us. And you know it -- the body babes with super-sway in the walk -- and all decked out in colors like loud music...}

ROSALINE
{It's men's eyes through which that judging's done
so we're still blooming on the wall
like others like us did in their time's ways
that now long gone are in a way like ours still.}

KATHERINE
{And I still don't care. I'm not going to monkey myself to that game. Absolutely not.}

ROSALINE
{Playing it best can be submitting to it least. You know it's not like a commitment or actually serious or anything. In fact, it works best when all pretend they believe, and all see right through it.}

KATHERINE
{But, in the end, you can't stop pretending.}

MARIA
{Ohh would you just look at him, intense,
so restless, twisting round and staring hard
like his own skin fit too tight to hold him easy.
Ohh and he's so handsome too.}

KATHERINE
{"Ohh..." Quick, the nurse, I got to go to the nurse..quick..the attack's coming on...emotion sickness...Yeeuughghgh!}

ROSALINE
{Stop laughing, both of you. They'll hear us.}

BEROWNE
No video at all -- not even the news?

DUMAINE
Absolutely not -- and the news shows worst of all
since despite some effort that's sincere
they always must be first and completely just TV
where style and image ever overwhelm
all substance leaving only mere entertainment.

BEROWNE
What's wrong with that?

DUMAINE
Nothing, unless you want to amuse yourself to mental death.
For authenticity give me teen TV any day.
But if in our minds reason is to rule
and strongly, tubes and TV's got to go. It's way
does to the doing of sustained and purposed thinking
like what Alzheimer's disease does to remembering.

BEROWNE
Whoa! You're pretty hard and rad pal, like in some
other incarnation you'd be a revolutionary.

DUMAINE
You laugh?

LONGAVILLE
Yeah. Go, come on -- you're in for that Berowne. It's not forever.

BEROWNE
What about news TV? Man, what about my favorite foreign correspondents?

DUMAINE
Forget it. And I still can't believe you really like her. She's a dumb, fat, cow, man.

BEROWNE
She's a real woman, man; she's got that Eurogloss all on her -- the soul and common sense to be true to her own and her man's honest pleasure. And you're so guilt-ridden and scaredy you don't appreciate that run deep, run strong, run simple womanhood. Look at your favorite, she's like little miss perfect prissy -- sliding into her'u'd be like sliding into warm, living mouthwash.

DUMAINE
Forget it. You don't understand anything. She's the porn queen underneath the girl next door -- a sex thoroughbred, at a true man's urge uncoiling to gallop more madly that you can imagine. And you're such a lout, that kind of woman's to strong and too subtle -- too individual -- for you to appreciate.

LONGAVILLE
Hey you guys are really fixated on your favorite news reporters, aren't you?

BEROWNE
Yeah we watch 'em every day

DUMAINE
and like compare and contrast.

BEROWNE
I'm going to miss it, seeing "Hey, let's see what's new in that hair-do today?"

DUMAINE
And "Check out that loser color outfit", and how well that top fits.

BEROWNE
They can always fit better.

DUMAINE
"Hey how's that make-up today?

BEROWNE
Ohh...looking a little weary this morning.

DUMAINE
Maybe had a long night last night, huh?"

BEROWNE
Ohh yeah... She comes on and I just pull up to that screen and mesmerize in them eyes. She might be an older woman boy, but man, I'd sure like to be the sleeplessness in her night one time.

LONGAVILLE
You know, I always knew I was missing something not being a well-informed person. Hey, you'll never miss her. Cause now, no more.

BEROWNE
Okay. Now this that's written there
that we shall not in any way partake
of alcoholic beverages nor tobacco --
that of course does not include beer and cigarettes?

DUMAINE
You ask because you want an answer?

LONGAVILLE
He's right. You couldn't possibly mean no beer at all.

DUMAINE
You already signed it.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah but you don't think I actually read it. I mean like all the words completely exactly.

DUMAINE
What?

LONGAVILLE
I understood your central purpose, the details I figured we'd negotiate them when we got to them.

DUMAINE
You're not going back on

LONGAVILLE
No. But that was theory and now we're improvising our way to action.

DUMAINE
Theory? This is a fact contract! It means everything it says, exactly like it says it. And you signed it.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah, but it couldn't possibly have been intended to say anything so dumb.

BEROWNE
As a practical matter, it doesn't say that at all. Surely, you, as all, were well aware all along that beer is merely incidentally an alcoholic beverage -- primarily, it's a staff of life. And to deny to any, in any way, anything of such fundamental import to the possibility of happiness

DUMAINE
You're transforming what it really says to fit what you want now.

BEROWNE
I come from a long line of Constitutional lawyers -- and besides, I want the right thing.

LONGAVILLE
Hey, how 'bout three beers and three cigarettes a day for them that want 'em.

BEROWNE
One six and one pack.

DUMAINE
A day?!

BEROWNE
Yeah. That's not so much.

DUMAINE
You will never reach middle age.

BEROWNE
Thank God.

LONGAVILLE
Three and three -- that's plenty self-denial for anybody. Hey and what you don't use you can offer up.

BEROWNE
Hey Stan, you want to climb up on this wagon too?

STAN
Hargh! I ain't ever got up no wagon -- so I ain't ever fell off. Heef, heef, heef, heef.

DUMAINE
Two and two.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah. Take it.

DUMAINE
Look, when I said one and one, I was thinking a week.

LONGAVILLE
You want all or nothing? Or you want a doable deal?

BEROWNE
Understood. Change it. I'm in at two and two.

DUMAINE
Here.

LONGAVILLE
You don't have to actually change it. We all know what it means now.

DUMAINE
I'll do a re-write -- that way it'll say what know it says..in case we forget.

ROSALINE
{I'm glad they didn't sign on to any teetotalling all-or-nothing.}

KATHERINE
{Why not?}

ROSALINE
{Because you can't trust a man who doesn't drink.}

KATHERINE
{Why not?}

ROSALINE
{I really don't know, but I know it's really so.}

KATHERINE
{Ohh... You know, Rosaline, I'm always so impressed by you, how you always explain yourself so logically and comprehensively.}

MARIA
{Shshshsh! Now you two stop laughing.}

BEROWNE
Alright, now for this last but far from least that here
you write: that for the duration of our quest, we'll not
in any way interact with women save when we absolutely must
and then we'll see them with complete neutrality
and be with them completely indifferent to their sex.
Come on! It's undoable Dumaine -- there's ten million years
of primate evolution fighting that every second.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah, like I'm hip to safe sex, but -- just say no -- that's going a little far don't you think.

DUMAINE
It's got nothing to do with sex.

BEROWNE
Of course not, Puritanical fundamentalism never does -- it's got to do with God?

DUMAINE
this project has nothing to do with sex. It's got to do with living
in calm and dignity -- living without obsessing. And it can
be done -- for a while anyway. We'll be just like...just
like in those moments in boyhood, when all that are other --
like girls and adults -- are completely forgotten and you
can be completely intent, one with what you're doing.

LONGAVILLE
No obsessing, huh?

DUMAINE
I'm tired of all this pussy in my face all day -- I mean, cause it's not really there.

BEROWNE
What if it is?

LONGAVILLE
So? Then the obsessing makes it something else.

DUMAINE
Right. And there's a diff'rence he knows --
like day, like night, my man, creation from play,
creation from pain. And anyhow, we'll just be polite,
direct and over with -- and not a spark
of taking them up in your imagination.
I know, it seems extreme I understand
to try to treat all women sexlessly,
specially given our times' temper but --
and I've thought about it long and hard --
it's going to have to be that way if we
are to be free to concentrate, intent
upon the ends we have determined on.

BEROWNE
I never think about them. I just try to be with them.

DUMAINE
All the time. So you don't think about anything else -- ever.

BEROWNE
That's not true. Like right now I'm thinking about having this one beer.

LONGAVILLE
No you're not. He wants it more than you do, and you're going to give it to him. Hey Stan, you rest easy in relax mode -- salvation's coming.

STAN
Aaarrgh! Huh!

KENNY
Stan, you still don't know.

DUMAINE
Look, this part isn't personal against any woman, and certainly not against women in general out there in life. It's

BEROWNE
Dumaine, I don't doubt, you, in your theory and motives, are sincere. It's just sheer coincidence your girlfriend just left you.

MARIA
{That means he's not with anybody.}

KATHERINE
{Ho! Easy, girl, easy.}

LONGAVILLE
Don't make up connections where there aren't any.

DUMAINE
Look, it's connected to why we're through
with pornsites and sex fashion, ads for dumb things,
the endless posturings and depictions --
the whole damned avalanche of invidious image --
that insistent like some methodical cancer
infests away in our person's self-containment
and emaciates our relations to others till all's
just a jumble of bodies, possessions, and mirrors.

BEROWNE
I don't see women by comparison to some image jammed on me by the picboos and the marketing. I see them..I see them, and I just want to be with them, exactly as they are. Look, I won't keep them hanging around. They'll just come in and go.

DUMAINE
No, cause all you'll be thinking about is their coming.

BEROWNE
Not something I have to think about.

LONGAVILLE
Berowne, think of it like you're sending your dick on vacation.

BEROWNE
So I can put my hand to work?

ROSALINE
{Yuk!}

KATHERINE
{Absolutely, yeeuukk!}

MARIA
{I didn't get it.}

ROSALINE
{Good for you.}

BEROWNE
How 'bout two women a day if they want you?

DUMAINE
What?

BEROWNE
The same woman twice? Same woman two ways?

LONGAVILLE
Sure, so long as you don't use the same dick.

BEROWNE
No problem. After every time I just cut the old one off, weld a new one on.

KATHERINE
{Are you hearing what I'm hearing?}

ROSALINE
{Mm, unmistakable, isn't it?}

KATHERINE
{The tailgate mind at work.}

MARIA
{Tailhook.}

KATHERINE
{Oh yeah. Of course.}

DUMAINE
You haven't understood anything.

BEROWNE
I haven't?

ROSALINE
{I've often wondered about that -- the motives of the women of the serial seducer.}

KATHERINE
{Start with hope and innocence, end with despair and self-contempt -- and there's a long list in between that mostly's got to do with boredom's infinite, single variation.}

ROSALINE
{Yeah? So where do you put the difference between strong excess and weak debauchery?}

KATHERINE
{Where it's still from will and not yet mere habit.}

MARIA
{I don't get you guys; I just don't. And I don't get those guys. But... Is he a dreamboat, or his he a dreamboat?}

KATHERINE
{Yuieie...}

BEROWNE
So what is it we will come to understand
by volunteering, so full of fine fire
to meet the truth and prove that we can stand it,
in this war of learning and seeking
that will leave us veterans, even victors,
all extinguished, dully mourning
the bliss of our ignorance before.

DUMAINE
Learning earns men knowledge.

LONGAVILLE
And knowledge makes them wise.

BEROWNE
And wisdom makes them sad.

DUMAINE
And you have to anyway.

BEROWNE
No I don't.

DUMAINE
Then to hell with it. The hucksters have you and the hucksters can keep you.

LONGAVILLE
Berowne. Hey Stan, you get ready.

STAN
Haarrugh! Yeah! Hey! Here, haarrugh!

LONGAVILLE
Berowne, this is it for your chances.

DUMAINE
Berowne.

Berowne drops beer can.

STAN
Aaarrgh!

KENNY
See what I told you.

BEROWNE
So how long we going to do this for?

DUMAINE
Three months for starters, option to renew.

BEROWNE
And I, my friends, 'll be the only one who'll last to take it.

LONGAVILLE
Shut up and sign.

DUMAINE
Good man.

STAN
Haaarrrugugugh!

Alvin goes on above at window.

ALVIN
What is going on here?

KATHERINE
{It's that other guy.}

ALVIN
Oh. I should've known.

MARIA
{Yeah, Alvin.}

ALVIN
Mh! Our very own vitelloni. Hello boys.

DUMAINE
Alvin, what a surprise.

BEROWNE
Hey man.

LONGAVILLE
Ho...Alvin.

ALVIN
And speaking of surprises...oh do I, do I have...I can't bring myself to tell you...it's such wonderful news...I'm sure you know already.

DUMAINE
Know what?

ALVIN
Mh! You're so serious -- that's why I like you. Well...well, they're here. They moved in just tonight, the three of them. I told them about you, and I know they're just dying to meet you.

ROSALINE
{We are?}

MARIA
{Mhmmmh.}

KATHERINE
{Uhie.}

LONGAVILLE
Who?

ALVIN
And I'm going to introduce you. I'll see right to it; tomorrow morning, first thing. And you will make them feel right at home and not...not jump all over them. They seemed so nice and so sensible -- just the kind of people we need around here.

BEROWNE
Good buddy, little do you know but what you're implying about us now is history. No matter what these new folks are, compared to us now, they're party animals so wild not even this jungle's night life could scare them to tameness.

LONGAVILLE
Alvin, meet three what?

ALVIN
Women. You know, girls.

DUMAINE
Yeah? They good looking?

BEROWNE
Gorgeous.

DUMAINE
Hey, I was just asking.

BEROWNE
Yeah, and any one of them surprises your eyes
and your breathing jumps in startled
cause the sight of her so rushes your blood.
Each is -- and each in her own way -- in body
and person and dress an amazing harmony
of ideals of beauty with flesh and blood fact.

ROSALINE
{Why...how nice of you to say.}

KATHERINE
{That's us alright.}

LONGAVILLE
Sounds like we're headed for a living beer commercial.

MARIA
{That's what they really want.}

DUMAINE
What time tomorrow?

ALVIN
Ten say? I'm baking my special cake. So maybe you'll deign to emerge by then?

BEROWNE
Not twenty seconds after you've done preaching, and there you go, consorting away, taking them up in your imagination.

DUMAINE
I can't take them up until after I've seen them -- and then I won't.

BEROWNE
With you, if it comes to between the spirit and the letter -- the most convenient always wins, scrambled to mean something else.

DUMAINE
Shaped to fit the facts that count.

BEROWNE
Right. Anyway Alvin, forget it. We don't want to meet them.

KATHERINE
{Is that right?}

ALVIN
You...the three of you? Some other guys I might believe it.

BEROWNE
Believe it, we just gave up women.

ALVIN
No? No... No. I didn't think so.

BEROWNE
It's all right here, official as you please.
Read it, and no dumb wisecracks as you amaze
at how, led on by this man's proud anger,
we have put off from the shores of common sense
and sanity in the frail and leaky boat
of noble ambition -- and so will soon be sunk
by the lassid swells of torpid will,
truculent habit and unregenerate nature.

LONGAVILLE
And I'd begun to miss your optimistic self.
Glad to see beneath the drawl and oh-so-sleepy
it's still seething -- all apocalypse and fatalism.

DUMAINE
Now there's a sure recipe for a restless consciousness.

BEROWNE
Now with no whiskey to put it to sleep.

ALVIN
Stop laughing; this is a terrific project. Oh gosh, yes...all I can do to help you... Still, I'll bet you what you want, you three won't make it.

LONGAVILLE
We'll work something out, one way or the other. We'll be lucky and we'll be stubborn. Or maybe we'll decide the whole thing's not worth it.

DUMAINE
Longaville, just because we're not employing any lawyers doesn't mean this isn't a real contract which you are bound to honor.

BEROWNE
Exactly, honor bound.

LONGAVILLE
And I'm a real free man. I freely signed it, and -- if I let you know ahead of time -- I can just as freely forget it. Hey, I'm not like doing this because of it, I'm doing it because it's with you.

DUMAINE
Exactly, that's the whole idea -- that's why our compact's expressed in this contract.

DEREK from off
Alvin!

ALVIN
Yes, dear, coming! Well boys

DUMAINE
We know, you got to go.

ALVIN
Still, I'm impressed, impressed, impressed, as impressed can be. It's what I've been after you all this time -- this part about the practice of citizenship -- when you actually get out there working on it you'll see, it's not you or most others don't care, it's that it's..it's so dismaying --feels un-American -- how little governing power citizens in reality have, even once they find the time to try to do it. For deciding about the things that matter to our life in common now, at best, there's just manipulated mass democracy out there, not representative self-government at all. Oh I knew you'd listen to me eventually. You'll see why that's why you've always been resisting me with the bored and guilty "well, I really ought to, but what difference..." -- you're right! Besides, we're all too busy -- got to work...got to get a life, if I can get any time off work for living. So no wonder only millionaires and talking heads have time for politics. If you're just a regular citizen your long term interests make absolutely no difference. And it's not they're bad people and it's not that they're out to oppress anybody -- most couldn't care less and some really do care, just they're so tied in to the set up of big money and big interests running big simplism in big Washington. Elections are just for employing contribution-collecting office-holders so they can't be free to freely represent -- so hell, no wonder you feel that way. It's all so..so lacking in real empowerment that they love talking about so much -- participation feels like for sheep consumers not free persons -- like you get to choose your brand of identity, resentment and suspicion voting against or for this or that master of mass electioneering. And it is democratic and it is legitimate and it's nowhere. Nowhere no way in our kind of mass democracy is there any risk, risk of solidarity to decide on destiny in common and live, answerable for the way we chose. It's not self-government at all so we got to

DEREK from off

Alvin!

ALVIN
Yes, in a minute.

BEROWNE
Whoaohoh... See what you're getting us into?

DUMAINE
The price of empowerment is the endless hassle of staying in there fighting.

BEROWNE
He set you up for this brilliant idea?

DUMAINE
To inspire is not to effect.

LONGAVILLE
Come see us tomorrow.

BEROWNE
Yeah, you can be like a guest speaker for our group -- talk on your ideas about making representative self-government live for real in all America today -- that's the kind of sap stuff we're interested in now.

ALVIN
Interested in? Get to acting on! Are you going to wait, like me, until some searing change forces you?

DEREK from off
Alvin!

ALVIN
Yes!

DUMAINE
I reckon not.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah.

DUMAINE
Alvin, you're right. Even with the millions and millions -- I mean as many as there are -- of individuals, you can still vision

BEROWNE
Two thousand eight hundred, hundred thousands, three hundred million soon enough -- that's how many there are are in America today. Dumaine, at that scale self-government's just not doable. The best you can do is mass democracy, and that's damn good.

ALVIN
So you're going to just bleat and give up? Settle for less, hope for the best

DUMAINE
Let the hucksters have you

ALVIN
And lose, lose the heart of our true greatness? Not me, pal. No matter how bad the odds.

LONGAVILLE
Odds of doing exactly what, Alvin?

DEREK from off
Alvin!

ALVIN
Yes, yes. Ohh... It happened over my lifetime that we jumped a transforming quantum change in scale...like the institutions of government stretched and stretched to cover more and more people and bigger and bigger... And relatively all of a sudden, phtt!.., wisped out past their limits of genuine representativeness and effectiveness. So now we got to culture up...but even denser and more inter-nexed than before, this web of political life, tough and thick like self-government has got to be.

BEROWNE
To where there's real representation with real accountability to plain citizens about the things that make our life together -- on the scale of the United States today? Come on, Alvin, dream on.

DEREK from off

Alvin!

ALVIN
Aye, aye.

Axelina goes on above at window.

AXELINA
Look! Look! Peter! Peter! Now!

ALVIN
Time to go -- landlord's wife on rampage.

KENNY
Oh, she...

MARIA
{Oh boy, now what?}

KATHERINE
{Get back.}

AXELINA
There are our neighbors -- your tenants -- clambering around out on the fire escape in the middle of the night like...like monkeys in their cage at the zoo -- the only thing missing is the tails.

ALVIN
Ahhh! Our favorite sourpuss.

BEROWNE
Stick a dick in, it comes out pickled.

LONGAVILLE
Her husband's big sweet dill she sucked in,

DUMAINE
And he jerked it right out a sour, baby gherkin.

ALVIN
Mh! If you boys were art, the National Endowment wouldn't fund you.

KATHERINE
{Wouldn't fund the mind of the average American man either.}

Peter comes on at window.

PETER
Yes dear?

STAN
Yaarrgh! I see you, you cheap cheapskate.

AXELINA
Ohrgh! And isn't there some exterminating service you can call when you're infested with derelicts?

PETER
Darling

STAN
Yaarrgh!

DEREK from off

Alvin!

ALVIN
On my way.

DUMAINE
Yeah, see you.

LONGAVILLE
Tomorrow.

BEROWNE
So long.

ALVIN
What do I tell the girls?

BEROWNE
Tell 'em...tell 'em the truth. It just ain't their lucky day.

DUMAINE
Or night.

KATHERINE
{That we knew already -- it's the night we laid eyes on}

ROSALINE
{the three little piglets}

KATHERINE
{squealing and capering in self-satisfaction}

ROSALINE
{and unregenerate misogyny.}

MARIA
{Yeah but you know I'd anyway still like to you know, see 'em.}

ROSALINE
{So would I, like stretched out on silver salvers with their eyes crinkled shut and apples in each of their mouths.}

ALVIN
Bye boys. Still, I'm impressed -- proud of you. Mh, who would've thought? You guys. Oh, I knew you'd listen to me. And what could that man have been thinking when he married that woman?

Alvin goes off.

AXELINA
Peter, this has got to stop, got to stop, you understand me?

PETER
What, did they say something to you?

AXELINA
I don't know, I don't listen to people like that, you know that.

ROSALINE
{That's probably just as well, I'd say.}

AXELINA
And not just that. This! The whole thing!

STAN
Hoorrghurrugh!

AXELINA
If this doesn't change, if this doesn't change and soon, you're going to be a first husband much sooner than expected. Peter, I am sending you a signal and you don't seem to be receiving me. I do love you, Peter but...

MARIA
{Oh, love!}

PETER
Okay, okay. Hey. Ahem! You

DUMAINE
Relax, Mister. You can color us gone.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah. (Whatever it is that got your middle-aged dander up.)

BEROWNE
Yessir. What we did was wrong. Whatever it was, we're not going to cover it up or make excuses. We're truly sorry and we promise not to do it again. (And we know you'll continue to elect us to be your happy tenants).

DUMAINE
(Amen). And if we do we won't lie about it either.

KENNY
Hey. Hey that was a good sandwich. Yeah.

AXELINA
Ohgh... And all I know is this party tomorrow better be good. Who's coming anyway?

PETER
Oh, tha...that's a surprise. (Oh boy.) But from that magazine, they're sending a reporter and photographer, definite.

AXELINA
They are? Oh Peter, this could be the break that starts it all going. Which one?

PETER
You know, the one...the one for now that you're always studying.

AXELINA
Peter, if this and the rest is a success, I'll be so glad I married you.

KATHERINE
{I bet.}

Peter and Axelina go off.

BEROWNE
You take care now, you hear?

KENNY
You now, it reminded me. It's been a long time since I had peanut butter -- I mean at the right time for remembering -- at the shelters you don't taste it the same -- my mom used to make them when I came home from school.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah.

KENNY
Thanks.

BEROWNE
Anytime.

DUMAINE
And in the long run useless.

LONGAVILLE
Who knows?

DUMAINE
Goodnight.

STAN
Har-ugh-ugh-owowgghgh.

DUMAINE
And how do you know they're so gorgeous anyway. You've never seen them.

LONGAVILLE
Yeah?

BEROWNE
And what if they really are, huh?

DUMAINE
Nyah... They're probably some sort of crazed and ferocious fem fanatics -- fat, with greasy hair and always dressed in black.

MARIA
{You wish.}

DUMAINE
Okay, tomorrow morning we start. Get up, PT, breakfast, read the Constitution and then discuss it.

LONGAVILLE
What?

DUMAINE
Yeah, you've never read it.

LONGAVILLE
No, been too busy all my life -- watching TV.

BEROWNE
Hey Dumaine, you going to paint yellow footprints in the hall -- so we can start out right on your Parris Island of the mind?

DUMAINE
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very funny.

Berowne, Dumaine and Longaville go off.

STAN
Hourgh-hgugh.

KENNY
You going to sleep, huh Stan? Really did remind me, just like...just like that was me. G'dnight, Stan. G'dnight, Kenny. I love you.

Kenny and Stan are on below. Maria climbs out on fire escape above; Katherine and Rosaline follow.

KATHERINE
What are you doing?

MARIA
Climbing out on the fire escape. I've never been on a fire escape. But I've seen them in movies...like musicals...and in history class photographs. It's like they're a little element of urban life -- or used to be and have more of a place in memory now. Maybe your parents played on them when they were kids.

KATHERINE
Mmm, don't think so -- no fire escapes in suburbs. But my grandparents -- and their parents, definitely... It was a part always there of that whole neighborhood...that...tenement cityscape both within and without...even slept on them I bet, sometimes, hot, hot Summer nights.

MARIA
Yeah, it's a little exiting for me to be on one for the first time. It's like I'm living a bit of somebody else's mythology...like I'm trying on a small part of another's version of America.

KATHERINE
Uh-huh. I think I know.

ROSALINE
You know I don't think I have one anymore.

MARIA
And?

ROSALINE
And? It's nothing new.

MARIA
Rosaline, half the time I don't understand half of what you're saying. You're so...so enematic.

KATHERINE
Enigmatic. Believe me, an enema is something else.

MARIA
Oh, I knew that. I...um...uh...just didn't want to say that way. You know, didn't want to bring up that whole...slur thing.

KATHERINE
That's ridiculous. That's the word. It just is.

MARIA
Still, the sound is there, and it reminds people. It does. Enigmatic. You can't miss it, and you didn't? Didn't you?

KATHERINE
I think some people's sensibilities are just pressure dropped a little too tight? Right, which people's? Maybe not. Anyhow Roz's not hard to understand -- she's just someone that makes everything more complicated that it is. When what you know about life you learned more from art than from living, you know too much and not enough. So everything's always excruciatingly complicated -- even when it doesn't have to be. Right, Rosaline?

ROSALINE
Maybe. Maybe not.

MARIA
Right.

ROSALINE
Oh you do understand, you just might not express it my way, so it sounds to you like you don't. So don't you dare ever sell yourself short on what's for you and what's not, what you do or you don't, or ever be embarrassed when you don't know some little thing. It's all the same book of human experience. Like loose-leaf binders in high school, everybody just decorates their covers different and writes it up in their own speech, and mine just doesn't feel all that home grown anymore that's all...not that I'm at home abroad by any means. Anyway...

MARIA
Yeah. And anyway what?

KATHERINE
Anyway what are we going to do?

ROSALINE
Go to sleep, eventually.

KATHERINE
Rosaline.

ROSALINE
I know. I'm thinking.

MARIA
I am too.

KATHERINE
Oh no.

MARIA
Yes. And I can't help it. And why shouldn't I? A little daydreaming never hurt anybody. You know it's not every guy that's out there that's trying to do like he...like they...are.

KATHERINE
And we don't even know them -- and they're already practically the only guys we know. Uhie... They're guys everywhere I know, but like you look in our lives now... You know what I mean... We can't just sit back and let these three turkeys...you know...take themselves out of circulation just cause they want to do some kind of goofy social experiment.

MARIA
See, I knew it. I saw you looking at him.

KATHERINE
What?

MARIA
"Whuh what?" Yeah. I saw you. Your eyes...eyes, not brighter, but like trying harder like time's too fast, like they couldn't get enough of him to take in.

KATHERINE
No. It's the principle of it.

MARIA
Oh, of course, the principle -- tuh tuh tuh tah, tah tah, tah tah! Katie... I bet he's some kind of artist or something.

KATHERINE
How do you know that?

MARIA
By how he is...he's a little to himself and still with them...like he doesn't get in to fight with them, but they do what he says. That's why you like him.

KATHERINE
I don't even know the guy. I've just seen him once; I've never met him or anything. I don't even know his name.

MARIA
Katie, I saw you looking at him, so it's not me you're lying to. And you know his name.

KATHERINE
Yes... Longaville... Ahrghr...

MARIA
Ohhh...

KATHERINE
Ohhh...

MARIA
He's so...

KATHERINE
He really is...

ROSALINE
Terrific. Don't mind me; luxuriate right on
in the envisionings I sense you flesh
up out of wishfulness to then display
(adoring yourselves and your own rapture in them)
to your mind's eye like the objects of
some self-devotion. Yes, I think I'll leave
you two to your moonlight and magnolias
in the acid orange of the streetlights,
the midnight traffic's thump and skree,
the insistence of the fumes, the waftings from
the garbage heaps, and the laughter of the passing
and the shouts, the threats, the fearful shrieks,
the wailings from the wreckage in this street below.
You heads, look how they lean so heavy
like a weight of sighs had made them lead inside;
your eyes, look how they like liquid stones --
so soft and deep, so hard and blank -- just stare,
seeing nothing, so intent you are on the scene inside
where the bodies turn and ravel, and turn retangling,
and talk and gaze, and surge again, and arc and buckling --
ache and shaken to the soul -- and let, let
like a tide released at last to ebb,
to turn to talk to gaze again in eyes
to eyes in endless instants as when,
girl and baby, we to that face above that held us,
locked up our gaze and made the center
round which the whole world turned so strong and slow.
Oh dream, dream and picture on, you and your lovers
set free of time and place by Romance's power
in a love and couple that's all proud respect
and wild renewal, where there's no using
and no anger, no deceit and no paltry end.

MARIA
Rosaline, I think you're jealous.

ROSALINE
I am in a way. I too was a good Romantic,
but fought to win my disillusion; did,
and now despair in my lust to live
a truth that's Romanesque.

MARIA
Oh Rosaline, it's not so radical.
It's just like normal everyday -- you know
you see some guy looks like he just
might be one to reach you -- and there you are --
in your mind with him doing all you wish
there was a real one to do with in your life.
That's all -- must be a million crushes in just the
metropolitan area going on right now.

KATHERINE
Not that many. Aren't enough people innocent enough. Couple hundred thousand, maybe.

ROSALINE
Innocent or not, I guess it is that daydream life that's all too many've got to keep them going -- otherwise why go on like tomorrow might be new?

MARIA
No, it's not like that -- just continuing into your future all for phantom reasons. It can be and I've seen it -- proud insistence against all the odds on making it all you first wanted it to be no matter how bad the changes your life lays on you. Take...

ROSALINE
Yes?

MARIA
I'm thinking 'bout my own mom and then hers --
for generations marrying them sent
to foreign wars, to came back men destroyed,
or nearly so, with that despair inside.

ROSALINE
Is it that many after all now?

MARIA
Sure is where I'm from, and I don't know
what duty or what hope kept them in there
with their soldier boys and striving so
to live like marriage and fam'ly life --
despite the wounds to body and to mind,
their buried anger, feeling of betrayal
so able to explode even the strongest love,
and sense of service and of duty.

KATHERINE
Uh-huh, and in the end?

MARIA
Hard to believe, but they're, they're all still married
if not so wise or deeply happy then
at least resigned that theirs is the lot
of those whose unsung suffering remains
once all parades disperse and brassy promises
from politicians' mouths have proved
as empty as the echoes of the band
that played and then marched permanently past.

KATHERINE
What..that it was just they never recovered?

MARIA
And never could decide to keep the wounds
so sealed inside

ROSALINE
or let them out and have
them hurt in sympathy the ones they love?

KATHERINE
Why?

MARIA
Hey how do I know; maybe that's the way
from mother down to daughter it's passed on,
like habit patterns pressing on your life
from past unspoken, yet that will not be denied.
My mother told me once like she was
blaming herself for all was going wrong
at home -- she didn't rightly know why 'cuz
all she was was but a child then all along.
But she learned, and once, was long after he'd started
being a better father there, but more,
letting her in and not so angry-hearted,
she asked him, "Daddy, why'd it hurt you so that war?"
And all he said was, "We blew into them vills
sometimes like there weren't persons living there at all".
And thinking back I think she saw how killing blindly kills
a soul with shame so the man can't never stand up tall.
She said she used to want to know so bad what happened
that its mem'ry like burned away his best in life,
but all she tried to know brought no answer's end
to why the memory of war leaves men no rest in life.
That was my grandad's war and sure enough
my mom she up and marries a warrior herself.
You know just back in college I'd still
break away to simply