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Clearing the Table

A short time later. Richard has not returned. All except Benjamin have finished eating; their plates rest on their laps or on the floor or one of the tables.

JANE (To Benjamin): Do you remember playing Gaev? In The Cherry Orchard?

BENJAMIN (Eating): No. I don’t remember that production at all, unfortunately. I have a poster of it.

BARBARA: I put it up in his room.

JANE: That was a good idea.

BARBARA: Might help him—

JANE: Yes.

BENJAMIN: I’ve met people who remember seeing it.

(The siblings look at each other.)

MARIAN: You have? And you remember them?

BENJAMIN (Without answering the question): But I don’t remember being in it, saying any of the lines. I’m immensely proud of the play. I couldn’t tell you any of the lines. Probably if my memory were not affected by my illness I could remember more. Perhaps not.

(Short pause.)

JANE: I thought you were wonderful in it.

BENJAMIN: I would love to do it again. Someone has to ask me I suppose. Actors have to be asked, don’t they?

JANE: Tim’s an actor, Uncle.

TIM: Can I ask you something? (To the others) Jane and I were talking about this in the car on the way here . . . (To Benjamin) Is there a point where your memory stops? Do you remember some things, and then it just . . .?

BENJAMIN: I think the only trouble I have remembering—I don’t remember the heart attack, and everything after that. But I can remember . . . I did a reading.

TIM: I saw that. I was there.

BENJAMIN (To Barbara): Of Oscar Wilde?

BARBARA (Smiling): That’s right.

BENJAMIN: And I remember on the back of the program were all the parts I’d played. And I can certainly remember some of them.

TIM: Which ones?

(Pause.)

MARIAN: Sometimes, Uncle, I think you tell us what you think we want to hear. And then we probe . . .

(She looks at her siblings.)

JANE: Do you remember playing the piano?

BENJAMIN: I do remember playing the piano. I don’t play it very much now.

MARIAN: Then sometimes you do play now?

(She looks to Barbara, who shakes her head.)

Barbara has a piano.

BENJAMIN (Ignoring her comment): I was a good pianist. I was an amateur. If I was playing something I knew and understood well, I was really good. And people would take pleasure in it. I was lucky because I started the piano very young.

JANE: You also liked to sing.

BENJAMIN: I did.

JANE: You used to sing to us when we were kids. Do you remember doing that?

BENJAMIN: Of course.

BARBARA: Do you remember what you’d sing?

(They wait.)

MARIAN (To Tim): He was around a lot. He helped raise us. Especially me and Jane.

BARBARA: Especially them.

JANE (Smiling): I remember you singing “Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” (To Tim) This was even before Dad left. And tell us stories. He has wonderful stories.

BARBARA: I remember— (Softly sings:)

Sweetly she sleeps, my—Barbara—fair . . .

(Explaining) He’d change the name—

JANE AND THE OTHERS:

Her cheek on the pillow pressed . . .

Sweetly she sleeps while her flaxen hair,

Like sunlight streams o’er her breast.

MARIAN (Over this, singing): “All Through the Night.” I remember you singing that. I remember falling asleep to that.

MARIAN AND THE OTHERS (Singing):

Sleep my child and peace attend thee,

All through the night,

Guardian angels God will send thee,

All through the night.

BARBARA AND THE OTHERS (Singing):

Sweetly she sleeps my Janey fair,

Her cheek like the first May rose,

Sweetly she sleeps and all her care

Is forgotten in soft repose.

JANE: Do you want to sing something to us now, Uncle?

(Richard returns.

No response.)

(To Tim) And Mother said whenever he could, he’d come.

(To her sisters) I remember seeing him more than Dad. (To

Benjamin) And I always loved it when we visited you . . .

(Short pause as the sisters notice Richard.)

What have you been doing out there, Richard? We missed you.

RICHARD: I stepped outside to get some air.

I got to watching these young couples walking down the street. Well, younger than me. And I suddenly realized they must be on their way to vote.

BARBARA: We vote just around the corner.

MARIAN (Looking at her watch): The polls are still open.

RICHARD (Smiles): They seemed—young.

BARBARA (To Marian): That’s good, isn’t it? That they’re young?

TIM: How’s the dog?

RICHARD: Asleep. I left him some water. He’s had a very busy day.

JANE: Richard, we’ve been trying to get Uncle to sing for us, like he used to.

RICHARD: I’d like that too, Uncle. What do you remember singing to us?

I think I was this big— (Very small) —and Uncle was the only one who could get me to calm down. And get me to sleep. By singing . . . What are you going to sing?

(No response. They look at Benjamin.)

JANE (To Tim): When Dad left us, Uncle Benjamin became our father.

MARIAN: Not exactly.

TIM (To Jane): You told me.

JANE (To her sisters): I hardly remember Dad.

RICHARD (To Benjamin): Do you remember when we visited you over Thanksgiving?

JANE (To Tim): He was in a show. In New York. I was like five?

RICHARD: And Mom drove all the way from Chicago with us?

(To sisters) Did we sleep somewhere on the way?

BARBARA: I don’t know. I don’t think so.

MARIAN: Where was Dad?

JANE (Over this): Do you remember any of that, Uncle Benjamin?

(He nods.)

What do you remember?

(No response.)

You don’t want to tell us? He has secrets.

(Short pause.)

BARBARA: How are we doing? Anyone want any more? Tim?

TIM: I’m fine, thank you.

JANE (To Tim): There’s more chicken. (Looks at Benjamin) He looks like pictures of our father. Barbara’s lucky, she gets to have him here all the time.

BARBARA: Yes, I do.

JANE: I didn’t mean—

BARBARA: He does suddenly remember things sometimes. I don’t know where they come from. A couple of weeks ago he suddenly— (To Marian) I told you this— (To Jane and Richard) —suddenly remembers putting on shows with Dad when they were boys.

RICHARD: What?

JANE: I’ve never heard about this. Dad?? He hated plays.

BARBARA: In their backyard. In a tent with flashlights. (Shrugs. To Benjamin) Remember telling me that?

BENJAMIN (New thought): I remember . . .

(This gets their attention.)

All of you coming to visit me in New York at Thanksgiving.

RICHARD: He does remember.

BENJAMIN: And I took all of you and your father and mother to the Rainbow Room. And then to a show. (Smiles) At each place setting at the Rainbow Room was a little orange-and-black candle in the shape of a turkey that each of you took home with you.

MARIAN: That wasn’t us, Uncle Benjamin. That was Uncle Fred and his children. That wasn’t our Thanksgiving. (To the others) I talk to him all the time—to get him to remember things. (Then to Benjamin) Benjamin—why did our father leave us?

RICHARD: Marian—

MARIAN: He doesn’t answer. Maybe some day he will. What do we know? What do we think we know? (To Tim) Tim, when our mother was ill, Barbara sat night and day with her, trying to get her to tell her things—

BARBARA: That’s not why—

MARIAN: So she could write them down. But she said, when I die, just ask Benjamin, he knows all the secrets. He knows everything . . .

(They all look at Benjamin.)

Why Father left. Where he went. Who paid for us to go to school?

RICHARD: Father paid—

MARIAN (Dismissive): We don’t know that. We know what we were told. (Talking through Tim) Tim, when Father visited Barbara . . . She was the only one he ever visited. I think we all resented that. She was teaching then on Long Island. And he found her. He took her to lunch. (To Barbara) You said he looked successful?

BARBARA: His shirt was ironed.

MARIAN: And you went to the cafeteria. And he told you he was going to write us all a letter and explain. We never got a letter. And then—

BARBARA (To Tim): He put a folded twenty-dollar bill in my hand. Kissed me on the cheek and said one more thing, before vanishing. He said, “Barbara, I know you’re my child, but I’m not so sure about your brother and sisters . . .”

(Pause.)

Is everyone done? Should we wait to have dessert?

JANE: Why would we wait to have dessert? (To Tim) Marian’s pumpkin pie . . .

(Long pause as all except Benjamin stand to clean up the table, etc.)

RICHARD: Sit down, Tim. Sit. You’re a guest . . .

(Tim sits.)

JANE (To say something, as they pick up the dishes): Tim just visited his father. He lives in Texas.

BARBARA: Texas. I don’t know anyone who’s ever lived in Texas.

RICHARD: You’re not from Texas?

TIM (Shaking his head): My father retired there.

MARIAN: I’ve never been to Texas. I’ve been to Virginia. I’ve been to Florida. (She heads off with plates) So what’s Texas really like?

(She is gone.)

JANE (Shouting off): He said it was very Southern.

BARBARA: What does that mean?

(Barbara goes off.)

TIM (To Richard): They do wear cowboy hats, but there are no prairies. There are pine forests actually . . .

RICHARD: In Texas? That’s not how I picture it.

JANE (Picking up, etc.): He said he was in a restaurant waiting for the plane in Shreveport, Louisiana—I love saying that. (Bad Southern accent) “Shreveport, Louisiana.” And everyone in that restaurant was not only fat, they were obese.

(She heads off with plates. As Richard follows her off:)

RICHARD: That doesn’t surprise me.

(Tim and Benjamin are left alone for a moment. They look at each other. Then:)

BENJAMIN: Who are you?

(Marian and Barbara return for more dishes.)

BARBARA: Decaf? Should I make a pot of decaf too?

(Richard and Jane are right behind them.)

RICHARD: I’d like decaf.

BARBARA: Anyone else?

(No response.)

MARIAN (To Richard): Your dog still smells of skunk.

(As they pick up more plates, etc.:)

JANE: Tim said that the moment they heard he was from New York? And—an actor? Down in Texas?

(The others stop and listen.)

First they wanted to know if he was famous.

MARIAN: And he isn’t.

JANE: He could just feel the hatred. They hate us.

(As Barbara goes off with dishes to the kitchen:)

MARIAN: Well we hate them. (She follows Barbara off)

JANE: You looking forward to Marian’s pumpkin pie, Uncle? (She goes off)

TIM (To Richard): I passed a car repair shop—this was in Texas? It had handwritten signs: “Guns for Sale.” Like you’re selling lemonade.

RICHARD: That doesn’t surprise me.

TIM: Or just: “Guns!” exclamation mark.

RICHARD: Like: “Jesus Saves!”

(The women come out together, talking, carrying the pie, plates and ice cream.)

BARBARA (To Jane): How did he know that those Texans hated us? I assume you all want vanilla ice cream?

JANE: It’s how they—just say things. In that ridiculous accent. You know, how they’d ask a question—how they heard people in New York walk so (Bad accent) “fast.” And just the way they said “theater” or “play.” It was like they were talking about shit.

(They begin serving the pie and ice cream.)

MARIAN (To Richard): And now you’re one of them.

RICHARD: One of what?

MARIAN: A Republican.

JANE (To Tim): How many churches did you see in Texas? (To the others) He told me he stopped counting.

RICHARD: I try and make sense of things for myself. I try like hell not to just let my buttons be pushed.

MARIAN: And we let our buttons just be pushed? (She smiles)

(The pie and ice cream is served.)

BARBARA: Is that too much ice cream on your pie, Uncle Benjamin?

(No response. The women have sat down. Everyone starts in on the pie.)

MARIAN (Taking a bite): So—we just let them push our buttons . . .

(They eat. Short pause. Then:)

RICHARD: “Sarah Palin.”

(All hell breaks out: “Oh my god!” Marian even drops her plate of pie and ice cream. Barbara starts to go and help Marian.)

MARIAN: I’ll pick it up.

JANE: Let me cut you another piece?

BARBARA: Did it break?

(She cleans up the mess.)

RICHARD: It’s like I stuck a pin in a voodoo doll.

MARIAN: For Christ sake, Richard. What is there to say? What can you say?

RICHARD: Tim, I’ll talk to you because I don’t think my sisters will even listen.

JANE: Why drag Tim in?

RICHARD: Palin—is the creation of people like them.

MARIAN: I’m not listening to this.

RICHARD: Run away. Go ahead. (Continues) The creation of people—like us. Me too at the time. We remember all those outrageous things. “Drill, baby, drill.” Writing on her hand. Not knowing anything. But—if we go back to the weekend when McCain chose her? I think he chose her on a Friday. By that night, and I don’t think she’d really actually said anything yet—but by that night, we’d made her the devil. Demonized. Ridiculed. Lied about. Ripped apart. Rumor-mongering about her Down syndrome child not being hers. Soon the feeding frenzy about her daughter’s pregnancy? Attacks on her accent. For her hair, her clothes. Her state? For being a woman?? Didn’t that bother any of you women at the time? There seemed to be such a rush of hatred—this need to crush her. It was beyond ugly. And, eventually, made me sick to my stomach.

(Then) Of course the irony was that this particular woman pretty much thrives on that, on attacks like that—and so, she became, in front of our eyes—Sarah Palin. Because on the other side, they’re thinking anyone that hated, anyone who bothers them—us—that much, must be pretty darn good. Pretty darn great. She must be a star!

There was that “progressive” reporter renting the house next to her—to what? Spy on her in the shower? Imagine if someone had done that to Obama? Think what we’d say. Think what we’d believe.

What I’m saying is—how come we cut off—turn off—our sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair, just and unjust—just in order to win. Or under the banner of: winning.

What have we become?

MARIAN: Sarah Palin was not ready to be Vice President of the United States.

RICHARD: No, she wasn’t.

MARIAN: That was the point being made.

RICHARD: No, it wasn’t. That day wasn’t about her competence. Or her knowledge. Of course that came into it later, eventually. But no—this was about crushing someone. Destroying someone. And relishing that. That’s what I saw. This is something different.

And this is about various groups and organizations with nice-sounding names which feed upon our insecurities and frustrations, so we will give them money. (Short pause) “They’re racists.” “They’re bigots.” “But you”—they tell us—“we—are good.”

MARIAN (To her sisters): Am I the only one upset?

(No response.)

(To Richard) Have you ever even bothered to look at a conservative website? And see what they’re saying, how they’re raising money?

RICHARD: Why is it that every time I question what we’ve become—with my friends, people at work—I’m met with the same: “But they’re worse.” Since when has not being worse become what we are?

MARIAN: I don’t believe I’m hearing this.

BARBARA: If we don’t win elections, Richard, what can we get done? You want to be Ralph Nader?

MARIAN: Good thing no one’s listening to this.

RICHARD: I am not defending Sarah Palin. I am criticizing us.

MARIAN: I don’t see the distinction.

BARBARA: And their side doesn’t do the same thing?

RICHARD: I’ve said—“they” do.

BARBARA: So what’s your point?

RICHARD (Quietly): Our elections are a mess. I think that’s obvious.

JANE: And—thanks to the Court—even worse now.

(Her sisters look at her.)

(Explains) Richard and I agree about this. We talk about this. He’s been good to talk to. I suppose one big reason I came today was maybe to talk about this. It builds up and then what happens? You feel like you can’t even question . . . That that’s some sort of heresy. I figured, maybe as a family, we could talk . . .

(Then) I didn’t vote. I didn’t want to.

RICHARD: I didn’t vote either.

BENJAMIN: I did. Didn’t I?

BARBARA: Yes.

JANE: We want to win. But what are we winning?

(Then:)

MARIAN: What do you want to say? What do you need to say? We’re family . . .

JANE (After a look at Richard, very quietly): When Obama got to the Senate, do you remember what he tried to make his signature issue?

(No response.)

(Answering) Campaign finance. Others thought he was muscling in on their territory, but he pushed forward. It’s what he believed in. He understood its importance.

BARBARA: And then he abandoned—in his election. I know. I know.

MARIAN (Shrugs): So he broke a promise. (Shrugs) He changed his mind. He was raising a shitful of money.

RICHARD: That’s right. A shitful. Well said.

MARIAN: And the Republicans were trying to do the same—

JANE: No they weren’t, Marian. At least not the one and maybe only Republican who believes in campaign finance reform. He took public financing. And then we outspent him five to one or something. We swamped him.

BARBARA: But Obama won.

JANE: Yes.

(Then:)

(To Marian and Barbara) Should we stop?

(Short pause. They shake their heads.)

RICHARD: When I went up to Albany those few times for Eliot—a friend up there took me aside one day and said—there are three types of politicians here. About a third want to do some good. They usually don’t last long. A third are here to have sex. They last a little longer. And a third are here—to get rich. And they’re the ones in control. Everyone knows this. Look at any piece of legislation and you see the fingerprints of money.

TIM: I agree with that.

(The others look at him.)

BARBARA: You do?

(He looks around the room. Then, to Jane:)

TIM: Can I . . .?

(She nods.)

I wonder if we got together, say, in a year. How many Wall Street boards the soon-to-be retired senator from Connecticut will be on? Or how many Wall Street clients his consulting firm that he’s sure to start up will have.

JANE (To Barbara): He’s the head of the finance committee—

BARBARA: I know.

JANE (To Marian): He’s written the new rules for Wall Street. (Smiles)

MARIAN: Obama was getting money from normal people. Five dollars, ten dollars . . .

RICHARD: True.

MARIAN: How is that corrupting? It was sort of like a kind of election—

JANE: What kind of election? Where your vote counts only if you give money?

MARIAN: Normal people giving him money.

JANE: And getting money from Goldman, Bank of America—more money from Wall Street than any presidential candidate had ever received before. That too is true. We forget that. We don’t want to face that. Money—from people who know which side of the bread to butter.

(Marian laughs.)

What’s funny?

MARIAN: There are so many more important problems this country now faces than campaign finance.

RICHARD: Are there? I always thought of elections as the trees which bear the fruit. They tell us everything about ourselves. Not just who we want. But what we are. And to always remember, that for a politician—they are something else. They are hurdles, obstacles, things to overcome and ride out. But for us—the rest of us—shouldn’t elections be our voice?

TIM: They appointed a place holder in Delaware for Biden’s seat, to wait for Biden’s son. That blew up in their face.

(He stops himself. Then:)

They changed the law in Massachusetts, when Teddy was ill and Romney was governor, so if Teddy died, they have to have an election. That blew up their face. Illinois, Obama’s own seat blew up. Pennsylvania—pressing the guy not to run against Specter. Boom. The White House pushing Caroline Kennedy on us? Protecting Gillibrand from—us? So on and so on.

(Short pause.)

I’m sure the Republicans have been much worse. But these guys are still bad . . .

RICHARD: Marian, I admire all the work you do. Your commitment to your town. To Rhinebeck. I admire the teas you have for the Democrats. The phone banks. All the work your husband does. I’m not trying to denigrate that . . .

MARIAN: I’m surprised at you, Jane. Very surprised.

JANE: Well, I guess we don’t really talk . . .

MARIAN: People are out of work. That’s what all this is about. If they had jobs everything would be different.

JANE: Would it? (Short pause) What do you think, Barbara?

(Barbara looks at the others.)

BARBARA: We’re just talking? We’re not arguing about anything.

RICHARD: No, no one’s arguing.

BARBARA: I have been thinking of writing a short story.

MARIAN: You haven’t written in years—

TIM (To Jane): She writes too—?

JANE: She used to write great stories. She had a story in the Atlantic. How old were you?

MARIAN: She was twenty-two.

BARBARA: I had this idea. I hadn’t wanted to write for a long time. One of my AP students, she was writing about Afghanistan. And looking for books about war—poetry, novels, plays. That got me reading the Greeks for the first time in I don’t know how long. Euripides. It helps to be older to read Euripides. (Smiles to herself) I remember seeing you in some Greek play, Uncle.

TIM (To Benjamin): Do you remember?

(He thinks, says nothing.)

BARBARA: I came across a play I’d never read—Helen.

(No one knows it.)

About Helen of Troy and how she hadn’t been taken to Troy, that hadn’t been her—that was an apparition created by a god. She’d been kept hidden on an island. A soldier from the wars washes up on this island and sees her, and realizes what’s happened, and that all the deaths, all the destruction, the rapes, the pillaging, everything, all of that, had been for nothing. It had all been a kind of test—by the gods, to see what sort of people they were. How they handled their—rage.

(Smiles) It seemed reading it, to be maybe the smartest thing I’d ever read about war. How they all went to war—the Trojan War—the epitome of war—because of something only imagined, not real, only in their minds.

(Short pause.)

I started to think, what if a character, a woman, on a ship, in, say, the Caribbean, is washed overboard and ends up on an island where she meets all the people who died during 9/11. And they’re not dead. Because it was their apparitions we saw on that day, that we’d seen die in the fires and in the collapse. Now all these people had been spirited away, safe and sound, onto this island. I wondered if I could make a similar point, that it all had been a test to see what sort of people we are, and how we handle—being hurt. I’d have the woman realize, like the soldier, that it had all been for nothing, the hundreds of thousands on all sides dead, those young boys and girls whose faces we watch in silence on the NewsHour, the billions and billions spent, year after year after year—which could have been our national health care, our schools, our poor, our children. Nothing, because when you think about it—it’s hard to figure out—what have we gained. What it’s all been for . . .

(Short pause.)

Of course I know people did die. I know that there are people who want to kill us. And I know I want to be protected from them. But how we reacted to . . . It all feels so out of proportion. Doesn’t it?

(Short pause.)

MARIAN: Isn’t Obama trying to fix that? He’s doing all he can. He’s tried talking to the Muslims . . .

TIM: And added tens of thousands of more American soldiers.

BENJAMIN: When did that happen?

RICHARD: It’s still happening, Uncle.

MARIAN: There’s a timetable—

RICHARD: For what?

JANE: I wish to god I sometimes couldn’t remember.

(Then:)

TIM: When I was in the Shreveport airport . . .

JANE (Bad accent): “Shreveport.”

TIM: Last week. It’s a very small airport. An armed guard, with a machine gun, stopped my rent-a-car on my way in, and made me open the trunk. (Shrugs) Shreveport. Going through security? It’s a really tiny airport. There was no line. I was the only person. And there were nine—nine uniformed security people at that post. What are we doing?

(Short pause.)

At noon—inside the airport, they now play the national anthem over the intercom. This since 9/11 I was told. And everyone—everyone has to stop what they’re doing, stand, and most people put their hand to their heart. Someone yells at you—or worse, I think—if you don’t. Why does that seem so wrong?

BARBARA (Quietly): When he began, he was the anti-war candidate.

MARIAN: I know. I know.

TIM: He was anti–Iraq War. He said Afghanistan was the right war.

MARIAN: Is it now?

(They are surprised by Marian.)

I’m not convinced. I’m not. About all the other things. But if we’re being honest . . . We are being honest? And we’re just talking?

RICHARD: Yes. Yes.

MARIAN: This war makes no sense . . .

(Pause. Jane looks at Richard and Barbara.)

JANE (Quietly): How did it happen?

TIM: I think as a candidate he just didn’t want to appear weak.

MARIAN: He couldn’t do that. Such a young man. A black man. He had to. I know. I know.

TIM: He never would have been nominated . . .

MARIAN: No.

But now? What he’s afraid of now? What are we doing?

(Pause.)

BARBARA: He’s a very good man.

JANE: I believe that too. I think we all do. That’s not the point.

MARIAN: Who wants to do the right things. (To Richard) You disagree?

RICHARD: I think that is complicated. I think he wants to do good things for this country. I think he’s honest. I think he has a big heart—whether he shows it on his sleeve or not, doesn’t matter to me.

JANE: Me neither.

BARBARA: Me too . . .

MARIAN: I don’t need to see him emote.

JANE: I think he has surrounded himself with the wrong people.

TIM: I agree.

JANE: That chief of staff? I hated all that giving the finger, macho stuff.

BENJAMIN: What?

JANE: Thank god he’s gone.

RICHARD: He gives people the finger, the chief of staff. He shouts and screams and swears. That makes him tough? Why did he choose him?

JANE: He’s back in our hometown.

RICHARD (More names): Geithner. Summers. He’s going too. But it took too long.

(The others agree.)

You just always get this feeling that they are protecting something. Not us. What? A system they know and believe in? Maybe. (Shrugs) Their friends?

TIM: “There’s no such thing as shovel-ready.”

BENJAMIN: What?

JANE: The stimulus, Uncle. What we were told. Maybe what he was told.

BARBARA: Maybe it’s because this is the first president who has been younger than us. Maybe that’s our problem.

(No response.)

RICHARD: He’s been running this country like he’s the president of a university. Congress, they’re the deans. And I suppose—we’re the students . . . That’s not good. But it is what he knows . . . (Shrugs) He’s trying hard.

JANE: And why does he seem so scared to ask anything from us? It’s all—“we’re going to give you things.” We know that doesn’t work. Why doesn’t he ask?

RICHARD: Is a country led by its leaders, or its leaders by us?

TIM: Before becoming a senator, what actually had he done?

BARBARA: Part-time teacher. (Looks to Richard) Part-time lawyer. Part-time legislator. (To Jane) Writer . . . What did we know about him?

But I don’t fault him. Not him . . .

RICHARD: No.

JANE: No.

BENJAMIN: Why not?

(Pause.)

RICHARD: Maybe we voted for him to feel good about ourselves.

(The others look at him.)

To feel we were good people, people without prejudice.

To have all that over and done with. And just feel good . . .

(The lights fade.)