Читать книгу The Apple Family - Richard Nelson - Страница 19

The Republican

Lights up. A minute later. Jane is looking to eat something else. The others are as they were; Barbara still off.

BENJAMIN (To Jane): You’re not eating the chicken?

JANE: I’m vegetarian.

MARIAN: Since when?

JANE: For about two years. So is Tim.

BENJAMIN: He’s eating the chicken.

JANE: And I don’t know why he is.

TIM: I’m fine. I’m okay.

MARIAN: I think Barbara has a pasta salad in the refrigerator.

TIM: I’m fine. Please.

JANE (Sitting again; to Tim): You didn’t have to eat the chicken. You don’t have to be so polite.

(Barbara returns.)

BARBARA (To Marian): That was your husband. Uncle Benjamin, you haven’t voted.

BENJAMIN: What?

BARBARA: That’s what he was calling about. They’re trying to drag in everyone. I told him you hadn’t. (To Marian) Adam’s sending someone over to walk him to the polls.

(Benjamin starts to stand up.)

JANE: Who are you going to vote for, Uncle Benjamin?

BENJAMIN: I don’t know. I’ll see who I like.

MARIAN: There will just be names. Vote Democrat.

BARBARA: They have those awful new machines. Tell him how to use the new machine. (To the others) What was wrong with the old ones?

MARIAN: They’ll tell him. You just color in the bubble wherever it says Democrat, Uncle. Following the line with your finger. That’s what I did. “Democrats,” Uncle.

JANE: Why don’t you write it on his hand?

MARIAN: Give me your hand.

BENJAMIN: What are you doing? I’m going to vote for whom I want to.

MARIAN: You’re going to vote Democrat. Or you’re not going.

BARBARA: You’re going to vote for Schumer and Gillibrand and Cuomo.

MARIAN: They don’t need his vote. Murphy—that’s going to be close. Make sure you vote for Scott Murphy.

BENJAMIN: Who’s that?

MARIAN: He’s our congressman, Uncle Benjamin. Vote for him.

BARBARA: He’s the one with the red hair and big family. In the TV commercials? You said you liked him.

MARIAN: And everyone else. I don’t know who the hell they are, but vote for them. Ask Adam, he’ll tell you who you’re voting for.

(Benjamin stands up.)

BARBARA (Gesturing back to the kitchen): Where’s the dog?

RICHARD: What?

BARBARA: The dog. He’s not in the kitchen.

RICHARD: What do you mean he’s not—

TIM (Smiling, raising his hand. Richard looks at him): He was scratching at the door. He wanted to go out. When I was getting the book. (Gestures to the book about bundling) I let him out.

RICHARD (Standing, incredulous): You let him “out” where?

(The doorbell rings off.)

MARIAN: That’s your escort, Uncle.

TIM: Into the backyard. There’s a fence.

RICHARD: There’s a fence—not a gate. It’s open to the street. For Christ sake, Tim—!

TIM: Then why have a fence?!

JANE (To Richard): Don’t blame him, he’s your responsibility—

RICHARD: Shit! . . .

(Richard runs out into the kitchen to search for the dog.)

TIM: I should help him.

JANE: It’s not your fault—

(Doorbell again.)

BARBARA: Let’s go, Uncle Benjamin. They’re in a hurry.

(Barbara leads Benjamin off.)

JANE: And Uncle Benjamin goes off to vote . . . (To Marian) They got here fast. Must really be desperate.

MARIAN: We vote at the town hall. Just around the corner. They’ll have him back in two minutes.

JANE (To Tim): Everything is so simple here.

TIM: I knew there wasn’t a gate. We came in that way. I saw that. I should look for him . . . (Stands)

(Off, the dog barks.)

JANE (Grabbing Tim’s arm): The dog’s back. No harm done. See? (Patting Tim) He needed to go out. (To Marian) What is so confusing—is that he doesn’t look—physically that different. Uncle Benjamin. So I keep forgetting—that he can’t remember.

(Barbara returns.)

BARBARA: That dog’s been skunked.

(Reactions: “What?” “Oh god.” “What does that mean?”)

MARIAN: Do you have tomato juice? (Standing) I have cans—

BARBARA: I have it. Richard’s already doing that.

TIM (Confused): Tomato juice?—

MARIAN: You pour tomato juice—cans of it—The only thing that really gets rid of the—Christ, you can smell him in here.

JANE (Smelling him): I smell him.

TIM (Smelling): My god . . . Does Richard need—?

BARBARA: No.

TIM (To anyone): I feel terrible—

(No one is listening to him.)

MARIAN: He’s sorry he went out for a pee now, I’ll bet. And he’s a city dog, isn’t he?

BARBARA: The man who came to pick up Uncle found him on the steps, he said he looked scared shitless.

TIM: It was my fault—

JANE: You don’t have to keep apologizing. And you don’t have to eat the chicken.

(Short pause.)

If it makes you feel better, go help Richard.

TIM: I’ll just see if he needs another pair of hands . . .

(Tim goes out to the kitchen.

Jane stands and looks over the food, still deciding. She is near Benjamin’s seat. She moves his plate. Barking off from the yard.)

JANE: He . . . seems worse.

MARIAN: Who?

BARBARA: Richard? He does seem out of sorts, doesn’t he?

MARIAN: Pamela’s put our brother through quite a lot, I’m sure.

JANE: I meant—Uncle Benjamin.

BARBARA: Oh. Does he?

JANE: Maybe because I haven’t been around him. So maybe it’s me. But he was always so . . . I remember him having all this energy. Could do eight shows a week, and then something, a talk, a reading on his day off. Like a bull.

BARBARA: I think he’s happier.

JANE: I sort of doubt that.

(Tim returns.)

TIM (“Smiling”): He says he doesn’t need any help.

(Short pause. Tim is uncomfortable.)

JANE (Explaining to Tim): We were just talking about Uncle Benjamin.

TIM: I was worried you were talking about me.

(He smiles. They ignore him.)

BARBARA: He seems happier to me. He was a very wound-up man. Also, I thought, tense. There was aggression in there, inside him. An anger that he couldn’t get out. Now—it’s out. It’s gone.

JANE: Because he can’t remember?

BARBARA: I suppose. I don’t know.

JANE: Because he can’t remember what he was angry about?

BARBARA: Maybe.

(Short pause.)

TIM (To Barbara): How long ago exactly was the heart attack?

(Barbara lets Jane answer.)

JANE: Couple of years.

BARBARA: He wasn’t happy for a while. That took some time—

JANE: I know that.

(Then:)

BARBARA (Looking at Benjamin’s plate, to Marian): He likes your bean salad. He’s eating it. I’ll give him some more . . .

(She begins to serve him some more beans.)

TIM: Jane told me, he was in a “home” for a while.

(This stops the sisters.)

MARIAN (“Smiling”): I wouldn’t call that—a home.

(Short pause.)

Our uncle had to be protected from himself, Tim. He did a lot of bad things. When he came out of the coma—he was upset. And so we had him committed. We all got together . . . We all decided. In fact, we sat right here at this table.

BARBARA: The worst day of my life.

MARIAN: Then we went to see the place. There’s Uncle Benjamin . . .

(Marian tries not to cry, looks to Barbara.)

BARBARA: Right away you know, this is wrong. Didn’t we? He’s got a brain injury, not a mental illness. He shouldn’t be tied up. (To Jane) Did I tell you this, Jane? (Barbara turns to Tim) One day, Tim, I arrive and Uncle Benjamin is kicking in his door. He said—someone had stolen—something. A checkbook.

JANE: You’ve never told me this.

BARBARA: He couldn’t understand why he was forgetting and losing things and what was happening to his mind. “Oh let me not be mad.” (She looks to Tim and smiles) You know where that’s from. (Continues) So, first, Tim, he constructs a world out of his imagination, where he’s being—the victim. Then—next, it all became a play to him. The other patients—he criticized their acting, remember?

JANE (Smiling): He did. I remember that.

BARBARA: Then drugs kicked in, and after a while—it seemed forever—

MARIAN: Seven months . . .

BARBARA: He could remember he’d had a heart attack. He could remember that he had no checkbook . . . At least, he’d accept this if we told him.

JANE (To Tim): And then he came here.

(Short pause.)

BARBARA (To her sisters): When I sit with him, sometimes it’s as if he’s trying to put the pieces endlessly back together. Endlessly doing this puzzle in his head. I ask him about this. And he says, “I’m just counting.”

MARIAN (To Jane): Sometimes he sits outside and you hear him just saying: “yes, yes, yes.”

BARBARA (Smiles): Or—“oopsie doopsie doo.” (Shrugs) “Oopsie doopsie doo.”

JANE (Repeats): “Oopsie doopsie doo.”

(Richard appears in the doorway, his shirt soaking wet.)

RICHARD: I hosed him off outside, but now he smells of tomato juice.

TIM: Richard, I really am sorry.

JANE: For Christ sake, Tim, you let a dog out to pee! You did nothing to apologize for! (To Richard) I’m learning things about Benjamin I didn’t know . . .

BARBARA (To Tim): He was playing Gaev when it happened.

TIM: Really?

MARIAN: Not actually during—

TIM: I understand.

(Richard sits.)

RICHARD: Our sister, Barbara, is a saint, Tim.

BARBARA: Not true. His investments more than pay for this. I’m now a kept woman. (Smiles) It’s good for me to have him here. It’s good to have all of you here. Jane’s been avoiding us.

JANE: That’s not true.

BARBARA (To change the subject): And how are you doing, Richard? Your sisters are worried about you, too.

(No response. He looks to Jane.)

JANE (To Richard): I didn’t say anything.

BARBARA: When do you start this new job?

RICHARD (At the table): Are we done? Should we have dessert?

BARBARA: Marian made dessert. Pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream.

JANE: Did you make the ice cream? Do you still do that?

MARIAN: No.

RICHARD: Maybe we should take some of this back into the kitchen . . .

MARIAN (To Richard): You’re not going to tell us about your new job?

RICHARD: So what are you worried about? It’s not about giving up, Marian. I can do a lot of good there.

(She smiles.)

Don’t smile like that. I always hated that smile. I’ll be doing pro bono. That’s in my deal. I was recruited. Mr. Cox himself. It’s exciting. As I’ve told Jane—I’m being groomed. At my age. (Smiles)

MARIAN: And I never liked that smile.

BARBARA: What do you mean? Who’s Cox?

RICHARD (Ignoring her): Groomed for exactly what, I’m not sure. But—if you can believe it, State Attorney General has even been mentioned. I’ve told them I am no politician. Just ask my sisters. (Smiles) But it’s flattering. This is not a big thing, Marian. I’m changing jobs. I need a change. I really do.

(Then:)

Mr. Cox is a senior partner in Patterson, Belknap—

MARIAN: Is that the “Richard Nixon–son-in-law” Cox?

RICHARD: Yes.

MARIAN (To Barbara): Who runs the state Republicans? . . .

JANE: Richard’s being groomed to be a Republican.

(Pause.)

That’s what I think. That’s what I’ve told him.

RICHARD: I’m being hired to be a lawyer. I’m a good lawyer.

MARIAN: A Republican, Richard?

RICHARD: For Christ sake, I’m changing jobs—And what if I was? (Shrugs) Javits was a Republican. Mayor Lindsay—

MARIAN: Paladino.

RICHARD: You know I don’t mean—There’s a fine tradition—

MARIAN: Who? Bloomberg?

RICHARD: I’m not talking about—

MARIAN (To Tim): We don’t have elections anymore, Tim—we just have money contests.

RICHARD: Why are you saying this to Tim?

TIM: I don’t mind.

MARIAN: Fucking Bloomberg. I liked him too. Once. A man with so much money—they seem incorruptible. That was the argument that got me. The problem is—we’re corruptible by a man with lots of money. So a Republican like Bloomberg.

RICHARD: No.

BARBARA: We don’t have to talk about this.

MARIAN: This is Pamela’s doing—

RICHARD (Upset): This is not about my wife!

JANE: We can clean up later.

RICHARD: You really don’t have the right to judge her. Maybe I was at fault too. Could that be possible?

MARIAN (To her sisters): I think she’s got him into therapy.

RICHARD: Shut up!!

MARIAN: The party of Javits is long gone, Richard. Don’t kid yourself. You’re being used. Who’s being naive now? Who’s going to be hurt now?

RICHARD: You don’t understand.

MARIAN: And there’s going to be a new Attorney General. He seems fine. We just voted for him.

JANE: I didn’t.

RICHARD: He’s an Albany politician.

MARIAN: Give him a chance. Maybe he’s different.

RICHARD: The politicians like him. Because he’s a politician. I don’t owe you this, but . . . let me try to explain.

(He hesitates.)

MARIAN: We’re listening.

RICHARD: When Eliot—resigned? That was a god-awful week. I’d almost gone to the governor’s office with him. I went up two, three times in the transition? You can’t believe the jokers who are up in Albany. You can’t imagine the incompetence, greed, the stupidity . . . Eliot maybe came on a little too strong, sure. True. But all of us—we’d have walked off a cliff for him.

(Then:)

It was worse for those who went to Albany of course. But it was bad for the rest of us too. We were crushed. Betrayed? (Shrugs) I don’t know. And then Andrew—(Smiles) For Andrew everything is politics. Celebrity politics. What gets noticed. What makes the impression. And so, he couldn’t forgo the opportunity. And he denigrated Eliot. Just sat on his carcass and ate . . . I’ll never forgive him for that. (Shrugs)

MARIAN: Spitzer’s got a TV show now. Have you watched it?

RICHARD: I can’t.

But then, I suppose they’re all shits. Remember Grandpa always telling us—they are all crooks.

MARIAN: He was talking about Chicago. Everything was always crooked in Chicago.

JANE (To Tim): Tim, another uncle, not Benjamin, he got a job in the parks department—and everyone in the family had to promise to vote for the Democrats. To get his job, and then keep it. (Shrugs, to Marian) How did they know how everyone votes?

MARIAN: Rhinebeck for one is not Chicago.

(Short pause.)

RICHARD: No. But the whole thing—it needs something. Something to happen. To change where we’re headed . . .

MARIAN: Another Republican? Is that what’s needed, Richard? If that’s the case, then let’s just wait another— (Looks at her watch) Forty-five minutes and we’ll have a whole lot more of “them.”

(Doorbell rings.)

BARBARA: That’s probably Benjamin back from the vote. (She hurries off)

JANE: Must not have been any line. Is that a good sign?

(She is gone.)

RICHARD (To Marian): So our enemy is “them”? You love to say that, don’t you? “Them.” As for me, I always get a little suspicious when it’s “them.” “Them” tea partiers. (Smiles) “Them” crazies. “Them”—

MARIAN (Upset): Don’t you fucking condescend to me, Richard!

RICHARD: What have I done? (“Innocently”) Tim, what have I done?

JANE (To a confused Tim): Stay out of this.

RICHARD: I’m just trying—perhaps foolishly—to get you to open your goddamn small town self-righteous closed “liberal” mind!

MARIAN: Fuck you.

RICHARD: Language.

MARIAN: Fuck you. I’m so sick of your smugness, Richard. It’s not cute anymore.

RICHARD: I didn’t think it was—

MARIAN: Get off your fucking ass and quit smirking at everything.

RICHARD: I’m smirking? I didn’t think I even knew how to smirk.

MARIAN: Fuck you!

RICHARD: You should have been the lawyer with that gift for argument.

MARIAN: Fuck you! Fuck you!

RICHARD (To the others): And she teaches second graders?!

(Barbara enters with Benjamin behind.)

BARBARA: I leave for one second. We could hear you on the porch.

If I want to hear stupid arguing I can watch television.

Not here.

(Short pause.)

RICHARD (Under his breath): “Them” . . .

JANE (To Benjamin): How was the voting? Did you color in the right bubbles?

BENJAMIN (In a sudden panic): The “right” ones?

JANE: I mean the correct ones.

RICHARD: Did you vote Democrat, Uncle?

BENJAMIN: I don’t know . . .

(He sits, looks at Barbara for help.)

BARBARA: I wasn’t there.

(Short pause.)

RICHARD (To Barbara): How’s Toby?

BENJAMIN: Who’s Toby?

BARBARA (Stops): I think we closed the kitchen door.

RICHARD: I better check . . .

TIM (To no one): I can check!

(As Richard heads off:)

RICHARD: Don’t people close doors in the country?

(He is gone.

Short pause.)

BARBARA (Calls): I’m sure we closed it!

(They look at each other. Then:)

MARIAN (To say something): It was very crowded earlier. The town hall. A lot of old people . . .

JANE: So you said . . .

MARIAN: At least we have Benjamin’s vote.

(Then, as they watch Benjamin eat:)

Maybe.

(The lights fade.)