Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (492 page)

CASSIUS: He hasn’t showed up. I came in here and I found Bugs writing Skedaddle on the board. It’s some camp his sister goes to. Some name, hey?

BUGS: (Indignantly) It wasn’t Skedaddle; it was Wedoodle.

CASSIUS: What’s the difference? Skedaddle, Wedoodle, Skedaddle, Wedoodle — BUGS: Skedaddle doesn’t make any sense. CASSIUS: I suppose Wedoodle makes a lot of sense.

BUGS: Sure it does. It’s the name of a camp. What’s the sense of the name of our camp, Rahewawa?

CASSIUS: But shucks, Rahewawa is a regular camp.

BUGS: So’s Skedaddle — I mean Wedoodle.

Bill Watchman comes in. He is a cheerful boy, full of energy and apparently quite unaware that his family has been featured in the public prints.

BILL: All right, fellows, let’s get together. I met the Old Man on the way over and he said to go ahead. Does everybody know their parts?

BUGS: I only got two lines. The best one is when I say (quoting), “Mr. Jenkins says the team’s ready to go to bat down there, Doctor.”

BILL: Well, he wants us to run through it once before he gets over here.

The face of a handsome young man of twenty appears momentarily at the door.

RICKEY: (the young man) You guys ought to bo able to go on under your own steam; you ought to be old enough so you don’t have to be watched over. How about rehearsing this thing, so we can give your play decent?

The boys are instantly on their feet.

BOYS: All right, Mr. Rickey. When he goes the excitement subsides gradually,

HENRY: When my father brought mo up here he said, “I don’t know about the head man but if they are all like that counselor I know you’re going to be happy up here.”

CASSIUS: He certainly is a swell guy. Boy! BUGS: (at the blackboard) Guess the Old Man’s wife thinks so.

Bugs draws a large heart on the board and erases it just as Cassius produces from his pocket a much mangled part or rather two parts for it has been torn in half and he can read it only by a process of heavy concentration.

HENRY: Let’s begin.

They move the table so that Cassius is sitting behind it in a judicial attitude.

HENRY: (feeling his pockets) Shucks, I forgot my part.

BILL: You ought to know it by this time.

BUGS: I don’t really have to have any part because I only got two lines. One of them is, “Mr. Jenkins says the team’s ready — “

HENRY: Shut up. Bugs. Come on, let’s get going, Cassius.

He stands tentatively at one corner of the table, dashes to another corner and then goes back to the first corner.

CASSIUS: Well, I’m ready.

HENRY: Well go on then; you got the first line.

CASSIUS: (reading from his notes) “So then, Play-fair, you are your own worst enemy.”

HENRY : No, that comes later. It’s the upper half of the sheet.

CASSIUS: Oh yeah, I started to write home on this the other night. (coughs) “So, coach, you think we cannot win without Play-fair?”

HENRY: “It all depends on him, Doctor McDougall. He is our best pitcher and speed ball delivery artist and say, brother, is he good at the bat. If we are to beat St. Berries we need his services badly.” BUGS: Now do I — BILL: Shut up, Bugs. Go on, Cassius. CASSIUS: (fumbling with his notes) “So then, Playfair, you are your own — “ No, I see what you mean you want to start from the beginning. “So, coach, you think we cannot win without Playfair.” Oh you know all that stuff anyhow.

HENRY: What’s my cue? Oh yes. “Doctor McDougall, I happened to stop by the school post office and while asking for my mail they gave me this for you.”

Cassius goes through business of adjusting glasses and opening a letter. He bends over as if reading the letter.

CASSIUS: (reading) “So, Playfair you are your own worst enemy — “ Say, I can’t read without some kind of letter. I keep reading my part all the time.

BILL: Here’s a letter. Pretend that’s it. Say, I’m very glad we can go on without any supervision and do the thing because we feel we ought to. Don’t you feel that way? He hands a letter to Cassius.

The Old Man, an ex-athlete of sixty or thereabouts, comes in with young Rickey, a bland, suave, blond young man who looks like all the coast guards in the world. Rickey is impatient and full of nervous energy. He makes a sort of energetic spring, signifying nothing, and gooses Bill and Henry toward the door.

The OLD MAN: I think we’re not going to have a rehearsal today, boys, I think we’re going to postpone this rehearsal until a lot later.

BILL: Aren’t we going to rehearse the play today?

RICKEY: Hold your horses. (He turns to the Old Man.) Want to go in my bedroom?

The OLD MAN: No. Now, boys, I’m sorry to have to interrupt your rehearsal. What was that little play you were doing?

HENRY: We just as soon not do it because all of us are drawn for the swimming trials, two of us for the canoe and two —

The OLD MAN: Oh I want you all to do this play later. It’ll bring a lot of credit on the camp and next Monday is parents’ day. Do you all know your parts?

BUGS: (from the doorway) I know my part complete. I was just thinking if I have just my two lines to say, I needn’t come to rehearsal and could go to first swimming instead.

The OLD MAN: Now we have to have all four boys here because it’s supposed to be a play for four boys. You’ll just have to learn to be patient, Trevellion. Now you can go to swimming and I want Bill to wait just outside the door.

The boys go out and the two men are now alone in the room.

The OLD MAN: I suppose you think you are indispensable to us, don’t you?

RICKEY : Well, Doe, I got marks all over my face from playing heads up football and I’ll ? play anywhere, in the line or out of it. My father he’s got sense and I go back and sleep in the same bed with him in the fall and he says some of these men go in there and get two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, and I go up to the State with you and what do I get?

The OLD MAN: You get your board and tuition.

RICKEY: Yes, but what I mean to say is what do you get? You taught me a lot, I know that, but I could throw a pass like a baseball forty-five yards before I ever saw you. Gimme a ball now and I’ll show you.

The OLD MAN: (patiently) When I go up to college this fall it’s understood that you go with me. I thought that had all been agreed upon.

RICKEY: Sure I’ll go with you. Eleven other boys that learned the game in normal school. (He spits contemptuously.) I know what everyone got. I know what Lawson’s got, I know what Catheart’s got. They come out clean and take the sorority girls out in the night-time. Sure they do. They go in with one shoulder out and the eyes closed. Needn’t tell me how you played football at Michigan — do you think I like going around with my nose broken Sunday, Monday and Tuesday?

The OLD MAN: Shut up now, shut up now.

RICKEY: Oh shut up and have all these kids admire me.

The OLD MAN: I know football is different than it was in my day. 1 didn’t know what fear was.

RICKEY: I don’t know what fear is. I know where a play’s going. My business is to bump into a play so where I go there isn’t going to be any more play.

The OLD MAN: That’s why you’re a great football player. I thought we’d agreed on everything.

RICKEY: Agreed, hell.

The OLD MAN: Don’t talk so loud. You know what I wanted to ask you. Stay away from my wife; she’s only a baby and don’t know what she’s doing.

RICKEY: Then why did you marry her? Go on, anything you say, I’m willing to leave. I can go up to Temple maybe.

The OLD MAN: (earnestly) Well, let’s give these kids some example of decency. (at the door) Hi, boys, we’re going on with the play. Start right in where you left off.

The boys come in.

CASSIUS: I can still use your letter, can’t I, Bill?

BILL: Sure.

CASSIUS: Well let’s go on.

The boys go directly to work. The Old Man nods at Rickey — a gesture that Rickey returns with a somewhat insolent wink. They go out.

CASSIUS: “Dear Dr. McDougall, we have hoard that your star athlete, Dick Playfair, was a star in professional baseball this summer and therefore cannot compote against our team in the game this afternoon. Sincerely yours, Hiram Jones, President, St. Berries College.”

HENRY: (in a great flurry of acting.) “What horrible news, Doctor! This means we haven’t a chance. Wo might as well give them the ball game now. But what proof have they?”

CASSIUS: “He gives plenty of proof here.” (He fumbles for a moment) “Playfair, you are your own worst enemy — “ Now wait a minute it goes over to the other side. “He has positive proof.”

HENRY: “I would not care so much for the loss of eleven men but this man. When ho begged me to send him into the game it would become different. Playfair would take the pigskin and before anyone had known it would run the full length of the field. I have coached many teams in my time — “

CASSIUS: “Go away; leave me to my thoughts. Send Playfair to me.” Now this is the place I was supposed to walk up and down. “The integrity of my school means more to me than the athletic success of my teams upon the playing field.” (He studies his manuscript.) “Now, stay a moment.” You know you’re supposed to stick around now.

HENRY: I know perfectly well what I’m supposed to do. You’re supposed to walk up and down. Why don’t you walk up and down?

CASSIUS: How about giving me a chance? Anyway it says Bugs here.

BUGS: (turning from the blackboard) I haven’t got anything to do till Jenkins goes out.

CASSIUS: Well, anyway it says something that looks like Bugs. (resuming his perusal of the manuscript) “Well let us go on with what material we have and atone by sheer something for anything we may have lost or something.” (He sighs and puts down paper.) “I am afraid we must lose a game for once.”

The Old Man, puts his head in at the doorway.

The OLD MAN: All right, boys — I’m glad you are going ahead on your own. I want to get the canoes off and I’ll be with you in no time.

The head disappears.

HENRY: Gosh, let’s quit this. Let’s wait till Cassius learns his part.

BUGS: Why not go on till we get to my line.

BILL: Give me back that letter from my father. I haven’t really read it and you’re getting it all mixed up with your part.

CASSIUS: (handing over the letter and at the same time bringing out the clipping) I thought you might want to see this, Bill. It’s got a lot about your father. (He reads:) “Mr. Watchman seemed depressed during the trial even though it was increasingly apparent that he would be acquitted. He was like a man who had lost all interest.”

Bugs at the blackboard has just written the first two syllables of Wedoodle. Bill, looks once more at the letter, evidently confused.

BILL: I guess my father’s going away — for a long trip, maybe to Europe probably. Gee, this is the nutsiest letter.

HENRY: Well, what’ll we do, rehearse some more?

BILL: (absently) Sure, we might as well. (He walks to the side of the stage, the letter still in his hand, reading half aloud.) “Good bye and good bye and good bye. Home day when you are grown you will forgive all this.”

CASSIUS: What are you talking to yourself about?

BILL: Nothing. (He tucks the letter into his pocket and says:) Well come on, let’s rehearse.

Cassius resumes his place at the table.

CASSIUS. I’m willing.

HENRY: “Well, the game must go on. I will tell the boys to get their bats and balls ready.”

CASSIUS: “Do, and send young Playfair to me. He and I must have a word or two about this.”

Henry walks from the scene, replaced immediately by Bugs, all eager and ready to go.

BUGS: “Mr. Jenkins says the team’s ready to go to bat down there, Doctor.”

CASSIUS: (confused) I haven’t got that or I haven’t got any answer —

BILL: Oh yes, that’s me. (He draws himself up.) I come in now. “Good morning, Dr. McDougall.”

CASSIUS: “Sit down, sir. I hear bad news of you.”

BILL: “I was afraid so, Doctor.”

CASSIUS: “Why did you do this, playing professional ball when you were still a student at CrescentRange? Was it for sordid money?”

BILL: (shaking his head) “No, sir. I’d rather lose my arm than play for money — but I can’t tell.”

CASSIUS: (standing up quickly) “Then I think you had better leave the school.” (The other characters move out of the room with an expression of alarm, then come back when they realize that this is part of the play.) “You are no longer a fit companion for my other pupils. Contamination once abroad smells like a verminal plague.” (He eyes his manuscript.) Say that can’t be right. “Contamination once abroad spreads like a veritable plague. Do you think you can have your baggage ready for the school bus this afternoon to take you into Troy?”

BILL: “Yes, sir.”

BUGS: That’s near Wedoodle.

CASSIUS: There isn’t a single line in my whole part that has anything about Wedoodle in it.