A LINE ALLOWS PROGRESS

ACT I:

Scene 1:

(Int. the Evans’ suburban home. Edith and Brad watch tv together.)

Brad: How am I supposed to accept that? That monkey! That…liar. How can he lie like that? How can he be so nonchalant? It’s like we’re in an alternate universe. I don’t know where the truth ends and the bull begins because there may be no truth in any of what he says.

Edith: He’s got a lovely haircut. His father didn’t have half the hair he’s got.

Brad: We’re going to start judging world leaders on their hair now?

Edith: Well if I remember correctly, the CIA had a plan to poison Castro’s beard to weaken his appeal.

Brad: Facial hair is a whole other ballgame, to get metaphorical with pithy sports analogies.

Edith: You know it always turns me on when you roll out the sports metaphor.

Brad: Another one knocked out of the park, a touchdown, a strike.

Edith: Strike. Strike out.

Brad: That’s cold.

Edith: Cold. I step out today and the whole place is cold. So I saw a doctor. I made an appointment and went. He was very accommodating.

Brad: Are you entering menopause? Do I get the joys of hot flashes?

(Pause)

Edith: You get to hold my hand for a week while we wait for the results of the biopsy.

Brad: Biopsy? What are you talking about- What- Biopsy.

(Edith pulls back one side of her blouse to present a mole.)

Edith: It’s the abnormality that worries them. Irregular, one side not congruent with the other. And a weird coloration. It’s a bit sore.

Brad: And that’s where-

Edith: That’s one. There are six of them. Should have seen me in there, stripped me naked and probed my acreage for moles. You see, I say acreage to show I’ve got a sense of humor about this.

(Brad lifts a hand and covers his mouth, on the verge of tears.)

Edith: Moley Evans. The French Mole. Hans Moleman.

Brad (choking back tears): Just stop.

Edith: Edith Melanoma. The Great Mole Flanders.

Brad: Stop. Please, stop.

Edith: Aren’t I handling this well? One mole, maybe you’ll get lucky. Two, you’ve got a problem. Six? Six of them? Having to do four biopsies in one day?

(Pause.)

Edith: I think I’m going to die.

Brad: How have you just sat here all night? How could you not tell me?

Edith: Oh, Brad. I know you. I know all about you and your fear of death. What was I supposed to say? Hey, honey, glad you’re home, and I’ve got cancer and will die soon. (Bursts into tears.) I can’t help anything and neither can you! What am I supposed to do? How do I deal with this?

Brad (Openly crying now): Just- I don’t know. I don’t know anything.

(Blackout)

Scene 2:

(Int. Morgan Procter’s hospital room. Morgan is in bed with IV hooked up and heart machine monitoring him; Charlotte, the nurse, is taking his blood pressure.)

Morgan: Can you at least take the needle out? It’s not healthy to have metal in your body.

Charlotte: That’s why I threw out my vibrator.

Morgan: Hey, I’m gonna live, here. I’m a survivor.

Charlotte: Are you gonna live? Sure. You’ve got low-grade pneumonia, nothing life threatening, even in your case. You’re in a hospital and you’ve got great people looking after you. You didn’t show up in an ambulance, that alone increases your chance of survival 300%.

Morgan: So how about I give you a call when I get out of here? You’re missing a certain something now, as you’ve just said.

Charlotte: I said I threw the vibrator out. I didn’t say it wasn’t replaced.

Morgan: What’s the lucky fellow’s name?

(Charlotte stares at the blood pressure gauge and then makes a note on Morgan’s chart.)

Morgan: Well, what’s his trade? A craftsman? An artisan?

Charlotte: Wall Street.

Morgan: Oh, high finance. Bulls and bears and WASPs with four names and a title.

Charlotte: Something like that.

Morgan: Any kids?

Charlotte: We’ve been trying to adopt for ages but no luck so far.

Morgan: Hey. Hey. You’d tell me if…you know.

Charlotte: If I was having marital difficulties?

Morgan: I meant if I wasn’t going to make it. But do you have marital difficulties?

Charlotte: We have difficulties without being married.

(Morgan begins coughing furiously. Charlotte shoves his bedpan into his face and instructs): Spit it up.

(Morgan stops coughing gradually.)

Morgan: God. Pneumonia. Never spent a night out in the rain.

Charlotte: And here you are anyway.

Morgan: Puts me in mind of fate.

Charlotte: Fate’s for the righteous to exalt in. It has no bearing on us lowly mortals.

Morgan: But can you take the needle out?

Charlotte: That’s up to the doctor. As long as you’re malnourished and sickly it’ll stay in. So I suggest you get well as fast as you can.

Morgan: And miss this? The beautiful décor of death’s waiting room?

(Charlotte gives him a pitying look and begins walking out.)

(Blackout)

Scene 3:

(Int. Charlotte and Rose’s apartment. Rose sits on the couch, reading a magazine while talking on her cell phone. Charlotte enters through door.)

Rose (into phone): Oh, Governor, is it? Well I’m sure you know the strict scrutiny that state officials fall under with the SEC. I’m not trying to- Hold on.

(She switches to her other line.)

Rose: Yes? Oh, hello, Thomas. No, I hadn’t considered it. Can you hold on?

(Switches back.)

Rose: Senator? Excuse me, Governor. Yes, I’ve got someone on the other line that may be able to help in this situation. Yes, he does work for me in such a capacity.

(The phone rings on the coffee table.)

Rose: Can you excuse me, Alderman? Excuse me, Governor.

(Rose picks up the phone.)

Rose: Kleidecke’s. Oh, Jeremy. Just what I need. I’ve got a Governor on the phone wanting to dump and plunder, in that order. No no, no corporate raiding, all privately held. Excuse me.

Rose (to Charlotte): Oh what I wouldn’t give for three clones. Just enough to assist me to a functional level.

Rose (to cell phone): Governor? Oh, Mrs. Roth. Well where is the governor? And why is that more important than talking to me? Well he called me. I’m not making calls to Podunk- Yes, I know that’s the capital. Yes, I know that’s the state’s capital. No, I do not consider it a great state or even a good state. It’s just another star alongside 48 others, coming in with the last ten of them for that matter. Yes, I know there are fifty states in the accepted sense but I’ll be dead in the cold ground before I recognize Alabama.

Rose (to Charlotte): This woman’s voice is an eerie facsimile of a dentist’s drill. Her face is no better. Seen her at those Senate hearings on music censorship that were on tv a while back.

Rose (to cell phone): Mrs. Rat? Roth, Rat, it’s all the same to me. Can you get the Governor back on the phone? Well I didn’t tell him to do that. No, the Headline News stock ticker is not more up to date than what’s on Wall Street. No, I can assure you it’s not. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway because he has to buy the stock before the numbers will really mean anything. Can you hold on?

(Rose switches lines on her cell phone): Jeremy? Oh, Tommy. Even better. Jeremy? He’s our super. We’re discussing rent control. So I’ve got something lined up for you. Dump and plunder, possible insider scoop. I want you to funnel some of my funds into it as well. What’s to lose? Can I hold? No. What do you mean, can I hold? Who do you think you’re talking to? That’s right. Okay, can you hold?

(Rose picks up the phone off the coffee table.)

Rose: Jeremy? Okay, standard deal. Tax shelters for our friends and Trojan horse on our end. Yes, some of my own into it as well. Okay, I’ll get back to you with details. I can’t, I’ve got his wife on the other line. I hope you’re joking. Fine, I’m wearing a lace bra and panty set, an evil grin, and am holding a big knife. Yeah, you make of that what you will.

Rose (to Charlotte): You’re just in time. I think he’s ready to join us.

(Charlotte locks the door and walks into the kitchen.)

Rose (to her cell phone): Mrs. Governor’s Wife? Yes, there’s something wrong with the account. Tell him to call me back immediately when they go to commercial.

(Rose hangs up both phones and leans back.)

Rose: Pretend you didn’t hear any of that.

Charlotte (from the kitchen): I always pretend that I didn’t hear any of your business.

Rose: Okay, fine. I submit. You’re sulking because I’m so busy. Well you know this is my busy time of year.

Charlotte: No such thing in the stock market. All year is the busy season.

Rose: You’ve picked up more than you let on.

(Charlotte exits the kitchen and immediately disappears into the bedroom.)

Rose: Charlotte! Oh, don’t be that way. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll-

(Her cell phone rings.)

Rose: I’ll make it up.

(The phone on the coffee table begins ringing. Rose picks it up.)

Rose: Governor? Oh. Well, your eminence, that was a joke. You know I wouldn’t cavort with a public official. No, you’re not a public official because you can’t be voted out. Yes, I will put in a good word for you. Can you hold on?

(Rose answers her cell phone): Kleindecke’s. Yeah, we can set that up. No, it wouldn’t be a problem if we spread the money out. Well I’m not saying a slush fund but if the shoe fits… Why do terms upset you? I could call you a cocksucking faggot and it means nothing because it’s not true. No, I don’t believe you’re a cocksucking faggot.

(Blackout)

Scene 4:

(Int. Brad and Edith’s suburban home. They lay in bed.)

Brad: I don’t ever have a clear line of sight towards the finish line. I figure you, me, anybody, your father… Your father is some piece of work. You know how I feel about him. I always think, you know, when someone has to go, if someone’s going to go, then it’ll be him, right? He’s not made for long wear and he’s starting to tear.

Edith: He’s got my sister. She’s good for him. I can’t believe what she’s given up for him. What I should have given up. You know that’s why I never go to see her. She has that look deep in her soul. That ‘Why are you even here?’ look.

Brad: She doesn’t have a look. She’s always happy when we visit.

Edith: She has the look in her soul. It’s a deeper thing.

Brad: And what if there is no soul? What if we shouldn’t even be thinking in that way?

Edith: What way should we think?

Brad: What if life should be seen as a whole and not sectioned out? Like the time you waited in line behind some angry customer and never complained about the waste of time, what if that’s as important as changing your life to accommodate a child?

Edith: You want a larger patchwork?

Brad: I’m just speculating. But wouldn’t it be great if your whole life is measured and not just the good deeds?

Edith: Or the bad deeds.

Brad: Or the bad deeds. And we don’t have to worry if the good outweighs the bad because there’s so much inconclusive evidence clogging up the works. Good and bad being irrelevant, little deeds gaining prominence. That would be the best. Redemption for everyone.

Edith: I like when you get philosophical. It makes thinking of death so reassuring.

Brad: You’re not dying, Edith.

Edith: Well. My hair’s fallen out from the chemo. My t-cells are plummeting from the treatment so a bad flu could do me in. And the melanoma’s spreading. I wouldn’t say any of this bodes well for…

Brad: You never tell me-

Edith: I can’t tell you. Oh, sure, I can’t hide the hair thing. You men may not notice women but if you’ve been married to one for 25 years then you’ll notice that she is wearing a wig pretty quick. But I don’t tell you because it’s no use. It frightens you. It kills you inside to see me dying so I put on my best face for you. But I’m scared.

Brad: I can’t…I can’t handle…

Edith: I know. When Jason had pneumonia when he was six, I chose to put him in the hospital rather than at home because I knew you couldn’t take it.

Brad: He had to be there. He was deathly ill.

Edith: They said I could bring him home after five days. I never told you that. But I had to leave him there. So you wouldn’t leave.

Brad: Would you hate me forever if I left?

Edith: Yes, I would.

Brad: I know.

(Pause.)

Brad: I hated Jason for getting sick.

Edith: What?

Brad: He worried me crazy. I was going insane with worry. I hated him.

Edith: Father of the year over here.

Brad: You didn’t? I hated him. It was killing me how much he could die. And it’s almost 20 years since then and I still hate the possibility of death. It’s not something that goes away when your son is 16 or 18 or even 21, it just keeps going. He could always get hurt. He could always die. I hate that. I hate the whole situation.

Edith: And now you hate me.

Brad: Not in a literal sense. I don’t hate the person, I hate the circumstances.

Edith: Well, look. I’ve got another round of treatment tomorrow. I need sleep. Goodnight, dear. Don’t ever leave me.

(Edith rolls over and begins to sleep. Brad stands and begins pacing.)

(Blackout)

Scene 5:

(Int. Edith’s hospital room. Edith is unconscious. Brad stands by her side, very pale. Charlotte is checking Edith’s blood pressure.)

Brad: What does stabilized mean, exactly? This won’t happen again? This is a one-time thing that will never ever happen again?

Charlotte: It means what it means. She’s stabilized and under our care.

Brad: I just found her collapsed on the stairs. I didn’t know what to do. I called an ambulance and I’m sitting there thinking, “Okay, does the health plan cover this whole thing or will I be doing co-pay?” Isn’t that awful? Isn’t that the most awful thing you can think of? My wife is…(he gets choked up with emotion) And I’m wondering if I can afford this.

Charlotte: A lot of people see the cost of health care as a viable way to stay in denial. To not accept what is happening by focusing on something irrelevant.

Brad: Well it was all an abstract construct. The illusion of a dying person. But now it’s pain and suffering and…whatever this is.

Charlotte: Her immune system is weakened from the chemo and her electrolytes were depleted. She didn’t have a cardiac episode and her brain didn’t boil in her head.

Brad: She was bleeding!

Charlotte: Ruptured blood vessels in the esophagus from the vomiting.

(Pause.)

Charlotte: This must be hell for you.

Brad: Hell, yes. Hell, purgatory, a little bit of limbo. And how low can we go?

(Pause.)

Brad: Will she sleep? Through the night?

Charlotte: She’s been given a sedative and we’re pumping her full of Interferon. She’ll wake up feeling much better tomorrow.

Brad: Well…I have to go. Tell her goodbye. Tell her…I’m sorry.

Charlotte: Go? Go where?

Brad: Just tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I can’t do this.

Charlotte: You’re walking out on-

Brad: Or maybe I could write a note so you won’t have to tell her. I could…

Charlotte: Why don’t you at least stay and tell her yourself?

Brad: I’m sorry. Tell her I’m sorry.

(Brad exits. Charlotte grabs a bedpan off the nightstand and throws it across the room.)

(Blackout)

Scene 6:

(Int. hospital corridor. Nurses in scrubs walk through the set and exit. Brad enters. Rose is sitting on a bench with a bouquet of flowers slightly under her. She sits on them.)

Brad: Excuse me. Uh.

(Rose looks up.)

Rose: Yeah?

Brad: Oh god, why am I doing this now?

Rose: What?

Brad: Those flowers.

Rose: No, they’re not store-bought. I got them in the flower district specifically to support some street urchin with no parents.

(Beat.)

Brad: You’re sitting on them.

(Rose looks down and sees that she is.)

Rose: Oh, shit.

(Rose looks up at him.)

Rose: They’re dying anyway. Just like everyone here.

Brad: Well that’s a pessimistic-

Rose: It’s all dead. ALL DEAD!

(A voice on the intercom says, “Dr. Stevenson, please report to operating theater 5.”)

Rose: There’s another dead one.

(Pause.)

Rose: Who are you seeing off?

Brad: You just assume that everyone here is dying. But do you even know what death is?

Rose: Sure I do. Death is a part of life, turn turn turn and all that. There is a season.

Brad: My, uh…

Rose: Ah, you’re here with your uh.

Brad: Yes. But I was just leaving.

(Brad stands uncomfortably, try to think of something to say.)

Brad: I had a dream that she was in here already. I had a dream that I came to see her and everyone was gone. Like the whole world had just emptied. My son was here, her sister, my boss, everyone that could make it. They said to meet them here. And I got here and it was empty. But she was here. Her… The melanoma was worse. The lesions, the moles, had become exit points and blood was dripping out. But not just blood, her soul. I can’t say how I knew that but it was there. Her whole soul was pouring out of her through this cancer.

(Pause.)

Brad: This cancer.

Rose: I’ve had that same dream. I go to Wall Street, coffee in my hand, little Starbucks down the block, and it’s empty. There’s echoes but nobody there.

Brad: Were you scared?

Rose: Scared? I wanted to scream. A scream of relief. That every single thing that mattered to me had flown away on wings of amber. That everything I owed any allegiance to was just gone and I was reborn as this new person.

Brad: So it was a good dream?

Rose: Sometimes you have to let go of the things that hold you down. It only took me 27 years to have a mid-life crisis. I’m ahead of the track.

Brad: It’s really great to let go? Because I’m doing it right now and, shit, it’s not great. I can’t see straight. My heart is beating a mile a minute. I have the feeling that every second I stay in here is one more nail in the coffin because she’ll wake up or a team of orderlies will come restrain me and drag me back there to watch her die an inch at a time. The only thing keeping me from rushing out the door right now is the fear of tower guards picking me off as I approach the parking lot.

Rose: I was hoping that I was the reason you’re still here.

Brad (uncomfortable): What would anyone say? It’s bad enough that I’m doing this, what if I were to make an advance on you? And I know that’s probably unwanted and that’s wrong and it would be the worst thing I could do but it’s like…

Rose: Sometimes you have to be willing to do what’s wrong if it makes you feel good. I learned that on Wall Street. Although there was a whole other economy of need in that world.

(Rose’s cell phone rings.)

Rose: Hold that thought, this must be important.

(She answers the phone.)

Rose: Kleindecke’s. No. No, I didn’t come to the hospital. I’m stuck at work. Well don’t blame me for technical difficulties. I know it’s our anniversary. What do you mean walked out?

(Staring at Brad)

Rose: How could anyone just walk out on someone they love? Well what do you want me to do from here? I didn’t tell you to work in another borough. Fine, be angry. I am following the doctor’s advice. Fine. I understand that you’re angry and I agree with your right to be angry. But this is my job.

(Brad begins to exit.)

Rose (to the phone): Hold on.

(To Brad) Don’t leave. I lied for you, you’ve got to lie for me.

(To phone) Listen, I’ll throw Bobby on the phone and he’ll tell you why I’m here so late.

(Rose pushes the phone at Brad. Brad does not take it.)

Rose: Well he’s a bit shy right now but Bobby is here and we’re working with the IT guys to get something straightened out. I’ll see you when I get home.

(Rose hangs up the phone.)

Rose: So she’s looking after your uh.

Brad: I guess she is.

Rose: I know you don’t understand but it had to be done. I’ve been in serious dereliction of duty. I’ve fucked around and I’ve ignored her and tried to buy her off. And tonight was supposed to be the night to save all this but…

(Pause.)

Rose: I guess we’re both walking out because it’s the easiest thing to do. Because we can’t face whatever it is that we have to face. Now take me to your house, unless this son of yours is still there. I just need to feel something instead of this numbness.

(Pause.)

Rose: Isn’t that the worst part? That you’re doing this and you don’t even feel anything?

Brad: It’s what comes after the doing that’s hard.

Rose: But you can live with it if you’re the right type of person.

(Rose stands and grabs Brad’s arm, the flowers in her other hand.)

Rose: Just take me someplace and fuck me so hard I actually feel something other than greed.

(They exit. Rose drops the flowers on the ground at the foot of the exit.)

(Blackout)

End ACT I

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