Frolic of His Own (21 page)

T
HOMAS

(HORRIFIED, THRUSTING PAPERS AT HIM)

But . . . by heaven! You ask me to . . . would that be just? Do you think I could . . . buy your pay? What do I look like?

S
OLDIER

(ANGRILY, GRABBING PAPERS FROM HIM)

Don't get high and mighty with me, by God! and . . . to tell me what's just! When I've seen your damned justice swallowed up in more suffering pain and fire . . . With a pound of grape shot in my leg, and does that make you the better man? What do you look like in your damn fine boots? Yes, I'd like to see you taking my place in the line now, going back in . . . !

(WITH HEAVY LIMP, STARTING TO THRUST
THOMAS
ASIDE)

Make way then, Christ! Make way!

T
HOMAS

(SEIZING HIS SHOULDER, FORCING COINS ON HIM)

Hear me out . . .

S
OLDIER

(STANDS BACK, STARES AT COINS IN HIS HAND)

Twelve dollars?

(WITH SCATHING CONTEMPT)

You . . . funny fellow!

(FLINGS COINS DOWN)

Four months of a man's life, and war . . . you'd buy that for twelve dollars!

T
HOMAS

(KNEELING, SEARCHING FOR THE COINS, IN DESPERATE TONE OF APPEAL)

Wait! No, I don't want your pay . . . This, it's all I have with me, take it . . .

S
OLDIER

(STOPS, EMBARRASSED, TAKES COINS SLOWLY AND REACHES FOR
THOMAS'
ARM TO HELP HIM UP)

I . . . your pardon, sir . . .

T
HOMAS

(REMAINING RIGIDLY ON ONE KNEE, COVERING EYES)

Take it and go!

(AS THE
SOLDIER
PERSISTS IN APOLOGETIC ATTENTIONS
, THOMAS
SHOUTS)

And go!

Withdrawing his hand, the SOLDIER stares a moment longer in consternation, then hurries offstage right. THOMAS remains rigidly kneeling, then draws a hand over his face and starts to rise as a cry and shout offstage left bring him slowly to his feet, still unaware that a YOUNG MAN has emerged from darkness left, running as though pursued, and now seeing him circles behind him and leaps upon him like an animal. Almost to his feet, THOMAS casts him off, and confronts him: the YOUNG MAN, in torn and soiled working clothes, is simply brute force incarnate.

Y
OUNG
M
AN

(BACKED UP AGAINST THE WALL)

You!

T
HOMAS

You know me?

(ADVANCING UPON HIM)

You know who I am?

(SEIZES THE
YOUNG MAN
BY SHOULDER MUSCLES, SHAKES HIM)

What's the meaning of this then? I demand it!

(FLINGS HIM BACK)

Y
OUNG
M
AN

(COWERING, DEFIANT)

There's none!

T
HOMAS

None!

(ADVANCING UPON HIM AGAIN)

I'll have it, do you hear? I'll have . . . order here!

As they confront one another sounds of laughter and broken song come from offstage right.

(SLOWLY SEIZING HIM AGAIN BY SHOULDERS)

If . . . you . . . think . . .

Y
OUNG
M
AN

(AS
THOMAS'
HOLD TIGHTENS)

I . . . was made . . .

T
HOMAS

(HOARSELY, HIS HOLD APPROACHING THE
YOUNG MAN'S
THROAT)

Made!

Y
OUNG
M
AN

(STRUGGLING TO HOLD THOMAS' HANDS AWAY)

 . . . for something . . . better!

Laughter and sounds of revelry come closer offstage right as the YOUNG MAN, held down by THOMAS standing over him with his hands on his throat, stares up with fascinated horror but speaks with simple wonder, as a brilliant burst of flame offstage right illuminates them.

You would . . . kill me!

They stare, in flaring illumination, transfixed with one another, THOMAS' hold loosening until the YOUNG MAN, with sudden twist away, escapes him, takes wild step toward stage right, sees figures approaching and turns and flees across stage to exit left as BAGBY enters from right with two others: a flamboyantly dressed and mannered elderly man, white-maned, pompously absurd, THE SENATOR, and a stridently caricatured TART, both somewhat drunk, and played respectively by the persons who play THE MAJOR and GIULIELMA in Act I.

B
AGBY

(HURRYING ONSTAGE OFFICIOUSLY)

Ah, it's you sir! I saw it, I saw it myself! and they'll get him, have no fear . . . yes . . .

(AS
THOMAS
STARES AT THEM WILDLY, DRAWING A HAND DOWN HIS FACE LIKE A MAN TRYING TO SHAKE OFF NIGHTMARE)

Yes, out having a time for yourself . . . ! Here, you must meet my friend, my close associate the Senator, yes . . . and this lady . . .

(TURNING TO
THE SENATOR,
WITH HIGH HANDED CORDIALITY)

I've spoke in the past of our new owner, yes . . . a gentleman . . .

(TURNING BACK TO
THOMAS)

You're all right, sir? and . . . there, that tear in your pants? There by the pocket?

T
ART

(TAKING
THOMAS'
ARM, PUTTING A HAND UP TO HIS CHEEK)

Here, you're hurt dear . . . Here? on your cheek . . . ?

(AS HE PULLS AWAY ABRUPTLY, COVERING THE SCAR WITH HIS HAND)

I'm sorry dear, there! I didn't do it!

(TURNING TO OTHERS)

It looked like it had just happened!

B
AGBY

(EXPLAINING IN AN EMBARRASSED PAUSE)

The militia draft's what's turned their heads . . .

As THE SENATOR speaks, the SOLDIER reappears from stage right, to engage BAGBY in transaction.

T
HE
S
ENATOR

An odious necessity, the militia draft. As odious to those who have volunteered their very lives in the noble, the enduring, the steadfast and the noble service of their country . . . as to those souls too craven . . . ! too craven to give, to offer, the last full measure of devotion upon the field of battle! Who? who among us? would want such a man for his comrade in arms? To share the strife, the heartaches and the glorious pains of battle!

B
AGBY

(ASIDE TO
THOMAS)

The Senator is a very influential man, you know.

(RETURNS HIS ATTENTION TO THE
SOLDIER)

T
HE
S
ENATOR

Where union and strife face one another, across the terrible abyss of war! Where only union! the Union! can unite, and only strife put asunder . . .

T
ART

(PULLING
THOMAS
ASIDE)

Will you come with me, dear?

(AS HE PULLS FROM HER)

You're not going to run off . . . ?

(MOCKINGLY, REACHING FOR HIM AGAIN)

You, the only man here?

B
AGBY

(JOVIALLY UPSTAGING ALL, TO THE
SOLDIER)

Yes, that's a fine way to wear shoes, or did no one ever tell you what they was for? Here, you wear them on your feet, so . . .

(EXTENDING A FOOT BEFORE THE
SOLDIER)

S
OLDIER

(SULLENLY)

You do when they're made of calf leather and don't rub you raw to the bone, don't be clever with me. What do you say now, six for five.

B
AGBY

You have my offer.

T
HOMAS

(LOOKING ABOUT HIM)

Where are we?

T
ART

Norwegian Street, dear. Yes, the fire? That's Mister Bagby's home, where he's always entertained us so nice . . .

S
OLDIER

(TO
BAGBY,
HOLDING OUT MONEY AND LOOKING AT IT)

Wait a minute, you said . . .

B
AGBY

(TO
SOLDIER)

Take it or leave it!

(POCKETING PAPERS AS THE
SOLDIER
WITHDRAWS, LIMPING PAST THEM TO WARD STAGE LEFT)

And be glad to have it while you're still alive . . . !

T
ART

(
TO
THOMAS)

They set it on fire as we finished dinner . . . but we can find another place, dear . . .

B
AGBY

(FOLLOWING AS
THOMAS
STARTS OFFSTAGE RIGHT TOWARD THE FIRE)

I've just kept an eye on it now and again, sir . . .

THOMAS exits offstage right, BAGBY, the TART and THE SENATOR following in that order.

I suspected some trouble brewing tonight, and come down to defend it . . .

T
ART

(CALLING, TO
THOMAS,
FOLLOWING OFFSTAGE)

You're not running off, dear . . . ? You coming back here to us at all . . . ?

Alone on stage, the SOLDIER crosses limping slowly left, counting the money and stowing it inside coat as he reaches shadows. The sound of a child, crying as at opening of scene, brings his head up; he stops, and from darkness the YOUNG MAN leaps upon him and bears him to the ground where they struggle an instant, are still, and blackout, with the sound of the child's crying declining to a whimper.

—Now! Was that in it? that scene? Was there a scene like that in the movie? Jed? Any of you?

—Only I didn't quite get it Mister Crease, right at the end there where the . . .

—Didn't get what. It was a mugging wasn't it? Do you think muggings are a modern phenomenon?

—A what?

—A mod, a new invention, listen. All this crime, greed, corruption in the newspapers, you think they're just part of the times we're living in today? that our great Christian civilization is breaking down here right before our eyes? It's just the other way around. These petty swindles of Mister Bagby's outfitting the Union army, the only difference is all that was in the tens and hundreds of thousands and today it's in the millions and billions, false invoices, double billing, staggering cost overruns and these six hundred dollar toilet seats all wrapped up in the American flag?
Pick up the papers and it looks like our defense industry's one gigantic fraud, that nothing gets built without bribes and payoffs, that Wall Street's nothing but a network of fraud?

—Oscar . . .

—It's not the breakdown of our civilization that we're watching but its blossoming, greed and political corruption it's what America was built on in those years after the Civil War where it all got a start, so it's not whether corruption's a sign of decay but whether it's built into things right from the beginning. All these cases Bagby's talking about were in the newspapers then just like ours today, that's where I got them. This soldier selling his pay slip for food for his family those things really happened and this brutalized young man who mugs him, they're both victims of this world of vast overpowering greed and corruption and industrial slavery that built this great country almost overnight that's the irony, that they're each other's prey isn't that clear? whoever said you didn't get it?

—No I just meant the child, at the end there where there's this child crying, so you mean it's supposed to be this soldier's child crying because it's hungry and . . .

—It's no one's! It's no one's child it's the whole world's, it's the cry of desolation and innocence and, and of sadness and loss for all humanity in these two men, that they're each other's victims that's the tragic irony, that's what makes drama if there's a scene like this in the movie they stole it didn't they? in this complaint?

—Right there in the charge of unjust enrichment Oscar, see but the problem is . . .

—How can there be a problem! If you can't call a mugging unjust enrichment right on the face of it I don't know what the language is for!

—See but you have to prove it, now where you're talking about something really happened, based on a true story, things you saw in these old newspapers you're putting it all right out there in the public domain again where anybody's got a right to . . .

—I just said that's what makes great drama didn't I? the dramatic expression of the idea that . . .

—Oscar what your lawyer's trying to tell you is it's not a question of great drama. There's no question of tragic irony, no question of greed and corruption that built this great country overnight or whether it's a great play or the movie's a ghastly movie. It's all simply whether somebody profited taking something from you even if it wasn't great drama, even if it was something stupid and fatuous that was yours in the first place, isn't that what this circus is all about?

—All right then! Just, if you'll just stop interrupting Christina that's what I'm talking about, you're just wasting time and you don't have to call
it stupid and fatuous either. Just because something really happened doesn't mean I can't use it in a play does it? Didn't drafting men for the Union army and people hiring substitutes really happen? That's where Mister Kane from the first act shows up here in this scene where Bagby's looking for something in the morning mail.

T
HOMAS

(COMING DOWNSTAGE TO HIM, HANDING HIM A PAPER)

Possibly this? A wholesale order for trusses?

B
AGBY

(TAKING IT)

Yes . . . a small commission. There's many wearing them now, with the draft boards springing up all about. A rupture has become quite the thing, you might say. And . . . was there . . . nothing else?