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American Manners

A short time later.

TIM (To the others, glancing at Jane): It’s all about manners. A kind of social history of American manners. (To Jane) Right? They’re interested.

BARBARA: She never wants to talk about her books.

TIM: She says—

JANE: Tim.

TIM: They want to know. She says that by studying manners—which after all are just customs—such as, say, how people greet each other, how— (Gestures around the room and to the table of food) they eat together. Their etiquette. That it’s a way of getting to the heart and soul . . . of us. Right?

RICHARD: I guess then it’s like—tell me if I’m on the wrong track, Jane.

JANE: Why is everyone suddenly so interested in my book?

TIM: It’s a very interesting book.

JANE: It’s not even a book yet.

RICHARD (Continuing): It’s like—a way of taking one element of behavior—which society has organized, the culture has, the country has organized—and if we look close enough, examine it thoroughly enough, put it under the microscope, we maybe see what’s behind it, what real purpose it serves. And get some insight into—us.

BARBARA: America?

RICHARD: I think that is her point, yes.

(Then:)

Is it?

(Jane hesitates, then puts down her plate.)

JANE: What I’m after is: I want to describe or dissect how Americans—court? And marry. How they raise their children. Treat their old people. Dress. Decorate their homes. Eat and entertain. How they spend their money—not on what, but how they address that action, how they think about it, talk about it. How they behave at ceremonies. How they mourn their dead. All of these customs—manners are ways in—to an understanding. Conventions have had to be agreed upon—why are they necessary? What are they protecting? Hiding? I don’t know what.

BARBARA: What do you mean—hiding?

JANE: If you get people to agree to behave in a certain way, then you are trying to get them not to behave in another way—or, and this I’m getting more and more convinced of as I research this—or, what are they trying to disguise?

(Short pause.)

I haven’t settled on a structure. I’m mostly doing individual essays, and hoping it all makes a whole. (Smiles and shrugs) We’ll see.

RICHARD: When’s it due?

JANE: Pretty soon. A first draft. That’s why I’m up here working.

MARIAN: Oh. That’s why.

(She “looks” at Tim.)

RICHARD: And it’s Random House?

(Jane nods.)

JANE: They really liked the pitch. It’s in the air now—all this. Once the Times started that whole Style section some years ago—I think that gave this sort of thing a real legitimacy—as news. There have been a couple of books already. How we see ourselves. Or better, how we wish to see ourselves or be seen. Or rather what we want others not to see in us. What we are pretending to be? What are we hiding?

(Looks to Benjamin who is listening to all this as he eats.)

I even thought of doing an entire chapter—about a dinner party. (Gestures: “like this”) Actually, I was thinking of inviting a group of friends to dinner—a doctor I know, a friend who teaches, my yoga instructor, someone in my building, and so forth. And then analyzing that. Beginning with the generally agreed—where we put our silverware and why. Simple, mundane things we don’t even think about. The napkins. The order of the meal. The chair arrangement. Who sits first. That’s more interesting. Who chooses where who sits. That’s very interesting. Who talks first. Then what is talked about. Among strangers. Among friends. What isn’t talked about.

(Short pause.)

BARBARA (Suddenly): You’re not thinking of using—? (“us”)

JANE: No. No, of course not.

(Then:)

I could if you—

MARIAN: Please. No. Don’t.

BENJAMIN (To Jane): I don’t understand what you are saying.

(They all look at him.)

BARBARA: Jane’s writing a book, Uncle.

BENJAMIN: I heard that. I just have amnesia; I’m not an idiot.

RICHARD: The book’s about etiquette.

MARIAN: How—we talk to each other.

BENJAMIN: And that’s an interesting book?

JANE: I hope so.

BENJAMIN: How people talk to each other? Don’t we know that? Won’t that just seem boring?

JANE: I hope not.

TIM: Jane’s come across a number of interesting historical kinds of manners. That are very—revealing, she thinks. Things people did—customs—I’d never even heard about. I’m not sure what they say about us—

JANE: Maybe nothing. Maybe something.

RICHARD: What do you mean, “historical”—?

TIM (To Jane): Where’s that book you found? You had it in the car.

BARBARA: What book?

TIM (Getting up): I’ll get it from the car.

JANE: Tim—

TIM: They’ll be interested.

(Tim heads off through the kitchen and outside.

Pause.)

BARBARA: A whole chapter about people having dinner? Now I’m going to be self-conscious for the rest of the evening.

JANE: I promise you, Barbara, there are no hidden cameras, and all iPhone microphone apps are off.

BARBARA: Good.

JANE: No one is listening.

MARIAN (To Barbara): What did she just say was off?

BARBARA: I don’t know.

BENJAMIN: What are we doing?

RICHARD: We’re waiting for Tim. He’s going to read something to us. Something that’s very very interesting.

JANE: Don’t build it up.

BENJAMIN: Who’s Tim?

(The others look at each other.)

RICHARD: Tim is Jane’s new boyfriend.

MARIAN (Hesitates, then to Jane): He doesn’t look at all like your husband.

RICHARD: He’s younger.

MARIAN: He looks a bit like you, Richard. There’s a definite resemblance. (Smiles)

JANE: Why are you smiling?

MARIAN (To Benjamin): Tim’s an actor, Uncle Benjamin. But I’ve never heard of him.

JANE: He’s been in a lot of shows. When do you go to New York anyway?

MARIAN: I teach.

JANE: I know.

MARIAN: I do the books for Adam’s lawn business.

JANE: I know.

(Short pause.)

BARBARA (To Jane): What does that say?

JANE: What?

BARBARA: What does that tell you? What you two just said to each other. You said you could analyze—

JANE: Nothing. It tells you nothing. Not everything does, Barbara.

BARBARA: I am so self-conscious now.

(Tim has returned with a book.)

TIM (The title): Bundling. We found this in a funky bookshop in Livingston. In a barn for about seventy-five cents. What?

MARIAN: We were talking about you.

BARBARA (To Jane): When did you go to Livingston?

JANE: I don’t know. (To Tim) A couple of days ago?

BARBARA: I thought you didn’t have a car until . . .

JANE: We borrowed one. We went to a bookshop. For my work.

BARBARA: If you’d already borrowed a car, you could have also come here.

RICHARD (To change the subject): How old is that book? It looks very old.

(Tim opens it and looks.)

TIM: “1871.” They didn’t know what they had.

MARIAN: And you didn’t tell them? They’re trying to make a living.

TIM (He keeps going): It was published in Albany.

RICHARD (To Barbara, teasing): “And fuck Albany and . . .”

MARIAN: What?

TIM: It’s all about bundling.

JANE: I’m now thinking of doing a whole chapter on bundling.

RICHARD: What is—?

BARBARA: I think I know—When a man and a woman—

TIM: Here. There’s a definition: “Bundling: a man and a woman lying on the same bed with their clothes on; an expedient practiced in America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such occasions, parents frequently permitted travelers to bundle with their daughters.”

(It sinks in.)

RICHARD: What??

BARBARA: That’s what I thought it was.

RICHARD: I’ve never heard of this.

BARBARA (To Richard): I have. (To the others) I have.

TIM: It says this definition is from The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. It’s sort of—pornographic, this book.

RICHARD: Let me see—

JANE: It reads like some sort of bundling “rule book.”

MARIAN: May I see?

(Tim continues to look through the book.)

TIM: How you weren’t supposed to take off all your clothes—you kept on your underwear.

JANE: And even what happens if the woman gets pregnant.

BARBARA: What happens?

TIM: The man’s “obliged” to marry her. And if he doesn’t and doesn’t “abscond,” then he’s excommunicated.

JANE: So the church seems to be involved too.

BENJAMIN: Are there any pictures?

TIM: No.

JANE: Read them the poem, or song, or whatever it is.

MARIAN: What poem?

JANE (To Tim): It’s toward the back . . .

TIM: Here it is . . .

JANE (To the others): Sh-sh. Listen.

TIM (Reads):

Since bundling very much abounds . . .

JANE: It’s from the very late 1700s.

TIM (Reads):

. . .abounds

In many parts in country towns,

No doubt but some will spurn my song . . .

JANE: It’s actually a song.

TIM (Reads):

And say I’d better hold my tongue . . .

Some maidens say, if through the nation,

Bundling should quite go out of fashion,

Courtship would lose its sweets; and they

Could have no fun till wedding day.

RICHARD: Case made. I vote for bundling.

(Laughter.)

BARBARA: Me too!

MARIAN: You? You’re an old maid.

BARBARA: What the fuck does that mean?

RICHARD: She’s had boyfriends, Marian.

BARBARA: Don’t defend me.

RICHARD: What did I do?

BARBARA: Keep reading.

TIM (Reads):

It shant be so, they rage and storm,

And country girls in clusters swarm,

And fly and buz, like angry bees,

And vow they’ll bundle when they please.

(Reactions: “Ohhh . . .”)

Some mothers too, will plead their cause,

And give their daughters great applause—

BARBARA: Not Marian.

MARIAN: Be quiet.

BARBARA (Getting even): She thinks her daughter’s become a slut.

MARIAN: Shut up!!

(Short pause.)

TIM (Reads):

And tell them, ’tis no sin or shame

For we, your mothers, did the same.

I’ll skip . . . (Turns a page)

MARIAN: It’s so easy to just start reading into things that we know nothing about. From a long time ago. There weren’t enough beds. Barns weren’t heated—

TIM (Reads):

Some really do, as I suppose,

Upon design keep on some clothes.

MARIAN: There you go.

TIM:

But then she’ll say when she lies down

She can’t be cumber’d with a gown,

And that the weather is so warm,

To take it off can be no harm . . .

RICHARD: Marian, she’s stripping . . .

TIM:

But she is modest, also chaste,

And only bare from neck to waist,

And he of boasted freedom sings,

Of all above her apron strings.

BARBARA (To Richard before he can say anything): Shut up.

TIM:

I leave now for others to relate,

How long she’ll keep her virgin state.

(He looks up.)

RICHARD: Marian still thinks they’re just being polite. “Move over daughter, give the stranger a little room.”

MARIAN: They’ve got their clothes . . . Some of their clothes on. I’m not saying things didn’t happen. But that couldn’t have been the point . . . We just don’t know.

RICHARD: It sounds to me like that was precisely the point. Tim, my sister here believed to the bitter end that Monica’s dress must have been stained by Coca-Cola. (Laughs) Or was it Dr. Pepper?

MARIAN: Shut up! I never said that. I never did. Why are you making fun of me? What have I done to you? And that was over ten years ago.

RICHARD: I hate to see you get hurt. And Tim, she was really hurt.

JANE: Read the rest.

(Short pause.)

TIM (Reads):

But you will say that I’m unfair,

That some who bundle take more care . . .

For some we may with truth suppose,

Bundle in bed with all their clothes.

BARBARA (To Marian): There . . .

(Short pause.)

TIM:

But bundler’s clothes are no defence,

Unruly horses push the fence.

(He closes the book. Short pause.)

RICHARD (To Marian): “Horses push . . .” Marian, you know what that—?

MARIAN: I know. I know.

(Pause.)

RICHARD (To the others): What did I do?

(Jane takes the book from Tim and hands it to Marian.)

JANE: Here.

RICHARD: How come she gets the book first?

JANE (To the others, about the book): Is it some potentially wonderful insight into the underbelly of those times? A possible peep hole? For historians? Does examining a custom like this—maybe open up—

RICHARD: “Open up.” Is that the best choice of words?

(Off, a phone begins to ring.)

JANE (Ignoring him): Open up new avenues for understanding—people? At least some people. Our ancestors.

MARIAN (To Barbara): Your phone is ringing.

BARBARA (Getting up, to Jane): What do you think it shows?

JANE: I don’t know. I just know from our own lives—we hide things. I know I do.

BARBARA: What do you hide? (She goes off)

JANE (Calling after her): By being polite. I think we all do. With our manners. (She turns back to the others) We pretend we’re one thing because—that’s what’s expected, I suppose. Or we’re embarrassed or scared of what we—feel. What we need. What we want. Obviously our ancestors built an entire “rule book,” for this “custom”—and if you peel it away—what you find is—

RICHARD: Sex?

(Marian looks at an uncomfortable Tim. Off, Barbara has picked up the phone; the ringing stops.)

JANE: I suppose, manners are ways of disguising what is basic to us. We all know it’s there, but we don’t want to admit it. “Sex.” Love. Survival. Hunger. Maybe power, authority. Control. Or what we fear. I don’t know. That’s what I meant earlier about the dinner party. Who speaks first, and so forth. What else is going on? Strip it all away—what is underneath?

(The lights fade.)