The Ferrari in the Bedroom (24 page)

BUTCH:
“It was starting to work. I could feel that old anger coming back. You wanna start over?”

GROOVY:
(scratching his stomach disconsolately) “Yeah, might as well. I sure as hell need it. No shit, Butch, I don’t know what the hell’s happening to the world. They don’t have
any
standards. No values. These kids of today don’t even think about hair, much less care about it. Jesus Christ! When I was a kid you were nothin’ unless you had at least seven pounds of good solid hair. They don’t even care any more. I can’t get nobody even mad, which shows they really don’t
care. Wow, when I was a kid…” (He trails off moodily, running his fingers through his scraggly greying mane.)

BUTCH:
“Why, you
are
a kid. Why, you’ve hardly turned fifty.” (A look of anger crosses G
ROOVY’S
face.)

GROOVY:
“Look, Butch, how many times have I told you…” (His tone is menacing.)

BUTCH:
(hastily) “I’m sorry. I forgot. Your generation doesn’t recognize years.”

GROOVY:
“There’s only Now, goddammit, only Now! Y’hear that?” (He screams wildly.) “I’m ONE OF THE NOW PEOPLE! I’LL ALWAYS BE ONE OF THE NOW PEOPLE! THERE’S ONLY NOW!”

BUTCH:
(nervously loosening his tie) “Now, Groovy, son, don’t get excited. I was only trying to help. Maybe we shouldn’t do anything today. Maybe…”

GROOVY:
(crossing over to Butch and patting him on the shoulder) “I’m sorry. I guess we better start easy instead of going right into the Hair thing. That’s one thing I just don’t understand today. They just don’t care about hair.”

BUTCH:
“
I
still do. You make me mad every time I see you. I want to grab you, give you a shampoo and cut it all off. Make you look like a human being!”

GROOVY:
(patting his arm) “That’s okay, Butch. It was a nice try. I guess I just don’t feel it today.”

BUTCH:
“Well, how bout you starting? Maybe if we work the other way today, like the time you got at me for liking scotch. Boy, that was a great day. I felt good for weeks afterward. How bout you starting?”

GROOVY:
(shuffling across stage pensively, stroking his beard) “Okay. Lemme think. Uh…how’s this?…uh…
YOUR WORLD IS DEAD, YOU HEAR ME? DEAD! VIOLENCE AND JOHN WAYNE AND MONEY IS ALL YOUR OLD DEAD WORLD BELIEVED IN!
MAKE/LOVE/NOT/
WAR!/MAKE/LOVE/NOT/ WAR!/MAKE/LOVE/NOT/WAR!” (The last two lines are screamed in a Demonstrator type chant.)

GROOVY
rushes over to the corner of his room, digs among the rubble for a few seconds and comes up with a sign. It is old and has seen much use. The handle is taped and has been patched up. It is, in fact, ancient. It reads: FASCIST PIG! FREE THE BLACK PANTHERS!

BUTCH
rises slowly in anger from his chair, his face reddening.

BUTCH:
“Why, you long-haired fag! You pansy! What you need is a good bath. They oughta draft every one of you crummy rotten Hippie bastards. A good First Sergeant would straighten you guys …” (G
ROOVY
has now hoisted his sign high and is marching about the room, shouting.)

GROOVY:
“FASCIST PIG, FASCIST PIG, OINK OINK, FASCIST PIG, FASCIST PIG, OINK OINK, FASCIST PIG FASCIST PIG, OINK OINK!”

BUTCH:
“I’ll show you who’s a fascist pig, you fag bastard!”

GROOVY:
“Fascist pig, fascist pig, oink oink!” (He makes Peace sign with free hand.)

BUTCH:
“Beautiful, beautiful! I haven’t seen that in years. You’re really getting it now, Groovy, you’re swinging.”

GROOVY:
“Oink oink!”

BUTCH:
“Turn that goddamn noise down! You call that crap music? Just a lot of banging around. You can’t even understand none of them words.”

JOE
COCKER:
(screaming)
“I’ll get
HIGH
…
graaaak
…
I’ll get
HIGH
…
graaak
…
I’ll get
HIGH
…
graak
…
I’ll get
HIGH
…
graaak
…
I’ll get
HIGH
…
graaak
…”

GROOVY:
“Oh Christ, what a time for that goddamn thing to get hung up. Son of a bitch!” (He throws his sign at the stereo.)

“COCKER:
“Graaaaak
…” (stereo now silent)

BUTCH,
his face still red with anger, returns to seat; sits down heavily.

BUTCH:
“Whew! That was as good a session as we’ve had in months. That was damn near the real thing.”

GROOVY:
“Right on! Just like the old days. I’ll never forget one day outside the UN, back in the good old days. Jerry Rubin was there. Oh man, what a mind-blower! Dy-na
-mite!”

BUTCH:
(his face lighting up) “Jesus, Jerry Rubin! I ain’t heard of him for years. Boy, he used to really piss me off!”

GROOVY:
“Yeah, those were the good old days.”

BUTCH:
“Yeah.”

They both sit silently for a moment, contemplating the glorious wonderful past, each lost in his own world.

GROOVY:
(somewhat nostalgically) “Hey Butch, you’ll never guess what I found today.”

BUTCH,
still drifting nostalgically in a dream of old wars, merely grunts. He scratches his grey crewcut. G
ROOVY
stands, somewhat arthritically, and peers at his psychedelic light for a long moment.

GROOVY:
“You wouldn’t believe it. I found a place down in the Village where this little old tailor makes real bell bottoms. Jeez, they’re outasight. The kids of today ain’t got no style. He says that Paul Krassner comes around once in a while.
He’s
getting on, but he’s still trippin’ out.”

BUTCH:
“You’re right about the kids of today, you know. It’s hard to believe it… none of these so-called kids hardly ever even
heard
of the Generation Gap. They don’t know what they’ve missed!”

GROOVY:
(rifling among the ancient copies of
Screw, Rat, The Realist
on his floor, speaking thoughtfully) “That ain’t nothing, Butch. Hardly any of ’em even heard of Woodstock! And them that has think it’s funny. They make fun of it, like those ridiculous marathon dances and stuff.”

BUTCH:
“Now hold it, Groovy. Don’t start knocking marathon dances. Remember, I don’t knock Woodstock.”

GROOVY:
(his long, greying mane drooping disconsolately over his shoulders as he slumps at his table, head in hands) “You know what happened to me the other day? I’m walking down the street, and…well…” (He trails off, his body racked with sobs.)

BUTCH:
“Come on, Groovy. We all go through it. I went through it when your crowd put down Pearl Harbor Day and Okinawa and…go ahead, tell me what happened. I went through it, remember?”

GROOVY:
“Well, this so-called kid was walking behind me, and he said to another kid ‘Hey, there’s one of those old Soul diggers!’ And then, Butch, they both laughed, and…” (He trails off and appears to be fumbling for a match in his jeans. He finds it and tries to light what’s left of his roach. He coughs violently.)

GROOVY:
(gasping) “I can’t… smoke as much grass as I used to. Gets me in the throat.” (Hack Hack)

BUTCH:
“Yeah, I know. I can only have one finger of scotch a day, and I’m really not supposed to have that.”

GROOVY:
“And then, Butch, you know what he said?”

BUTCH:
“No! Don’t tell me.”

GROOVY:
“Yeah. He said, ‘He’s one of those old Love Generation freaks. Boy, the one thing I’m never gonna do is get old. Man, I can’t stand old people’” (G
ROOVY
ends this sentence with a sob, lowers his head to the table.
BUTCH
pats him on the shoulder.)

BUTCH:
“Don’t worry, Groovy. You get used to it.”

GROOVY:
(sobbing) “But I’m a Youth! My generation invented Youth! We
are
Youth! Who the hell are these phonies? My generation invented Youth. They don’t
listen
any more.”

BUTCH:
“Yeah, I know. My generation invented Guilt. And
who cares any more? Jesus, those were the days. God, I can remember when every editorial, every record, every play, every book, every cartoon did nothing but tell you how rotten guilty you were. God, it was great! You don’t know how good it feels to have everybody tell you that
you,
personally, ruined the world. Man, that’s power!”
(BUTCH
is excited at this point, obviously exulting in and savoring his guilty past.) “God, I remember one day when five SDS activists tied me up in my swivel chair and took turns hitting me with rubber hoses, all the while hollering ‘Make Love, Not War.’ One kid knocked the cap off this back tooth.” (He points to tooth) “And another grabbed my ear with a pliers and… God, it was great!”

GROOVY:
“Stop! I can’t stand it! Those were the days. These idiots today never heard of Warhol, or…” (He trails off.)

BUTCH:
“Yeah, but you never heard of Billie Holiday, or even Miles Davis.”

GROOVY:
“Now look, Butch, don’t get sore. Remember, we’re in it together. We can’t start fighting now. We’re about the only survivors left of the old Generation Gap war. We can’t start hassling.”

BUTCH:
“Yeah. We need each other. You can’t have no Communication Gap without me. And how the hell can I have any guilt without you?”

GROOVY:
“Yep. You old bastard. You never could understand Soul.”

BUTCH:
“Horse shit. You never could understand
swinging.
”

(There is a pregnant pause at this point, and then Groovy, staring straight out at the audience, speaks in a low voice.)

GROOVY:
“Yeah, but
they
don’t understand either one. We only got each other, Butch.”

BUTCH:
“What the hell
do
they understand?” (He suddenly
brightens as if he has remembered something.) “Hey Groovy, wait till you see what I got. It cost me an arm and a leg and then some, but…”

GROOVY:
(laughing sardonically) “Holy Christ, an arm and a leg and then some. I haven’t heard that expression since my Old Man left the scene. Arm and a leg. Wow, man, you talk like an old Pat Boone movie.”

BUTCH:
(ignoring him) “I came across it in Brooklyn, in this shop a little old lady runs. I couldn’t believe it!” (He carefully unwraps his package on the table, obviously afraid of breaking what is inside.) “Look, there it is. How do you like that? A genuine, mint condition Little Orphan Annie Ovaltine shake-up mug!”

GROOVY:
“Yeah, I guess it’s all right if that’s where your head is at. Wait’ll I show you what I just got. This’ll really blow some charges with you. A real skull buster!” (He rushes over to orange crate and scrabbles amid the paperbacks, with a great flourish whips out an object.)

GROOVY:
(announcing triumphantly) “A genuine, working, absolutely authentic Spiro Agnew watch!”

BUTCH:
“My god, I’d almost forgotten. The Silent Majority! Let’s use that in our next session. We haven’t even touched on the Silent Majority. I forgot all about it!”

GROOVY:
(getting excited) “Yeah, I’ll dig out my old
IMPEACH
NIXON
buttons, and I got one that shows Agnew with a Pig face, and…”

BUTCH:
“This is gonna be great! I’ll bring my hard hat.”

GROOVY:
“You got a real hard hat?”

BUTCH:
“Yep. It’s yellow. It’s got an American flag on it.”

GROOVY:
(excitedly) “Oh, wow. Zap! And I’ll dig out my Viet Cong flag, and we’ll…”

BUTCH:
(his voice tense with anticipation) “I got a bumper sticker that says:
AMERICA. LOVE
IT
OR
LEAVE
IT.
And I’ll…”

GROOVY:
“Don’t tell me! Surprise me. I can hardly wait. It’ll be like the good old days again. When people really hated with style, and life had
meaning
!”

BUTCH:
“And you can hit me with a rotten egg, and I’ll…”

GROOVY:
“Don’t spoil it! Let’s wait till the next session. Outasight, man, it’s starting to happen already!”

BUTCH:
“You’re right, Groovy. Say, does that Agnew watch say ten minutes after
ten?
Already? My doctor says I have to get to bed by ten o’clock every night, and…”

GROOVY:
“Yeah, I can’t stay up as late as I used to either, what with my sinus headaches and…”

BUTCH
rises, carrying his shake up mug, dodders to the door and pauses before the threshold.