Writers (3 page)

END

 

 

ONE
NIGHT
IN
UMBERTO'S
CLAM
HOUSE

 

 

CAST OF
CHARACTERS

Jack Kerouac
, American writer, author of many novels, most notably On the Road

Joey Gallo
, a notorious New York City organized crime figure, popularly known as “Crazy Joe”

A Waiter

SETTING

Four thirty in the morning in
Umberto's
Clam House, a
restaurant in Little Italy in New
York
City,
in
1962
. Joey Gallo,
thirty-three years
old,
a
mobster,
is
seated
alone
at
his
favorite
table
eating
clams and mussels and drinking wine.
Umberto's
is his regular
hangout. Jack
Kerouac,
the
writer,
is
standing
at
the
bar,
drinking
boilermakers, when he spots Gallo, whom he does not know personally but he recognizes, having seen the
gangster's
photograph in
the newspapers. Kerouac is more than a little drunk, a not
uncommon condition for him.

 

 

KEROUAC

(stops a passing waiter)

Hey,
isn't
that Crazy
Joe
Gallo, the gangster, sitting over
there?

WAITER

Yeah,
but he
don't
like nobody
callin'
him
crazy.
The
Columbos hung that on him.

JK
knocks back a shot of whiskey, puts
the glass down on the bar and carries his
beer over to
GALLO
's
table.
JK
stands in
front of
GALLO
,
weaving
a
little,
obviously
unsteady on his feet.
GALLO
keeps
eating.

KEROUAC

Mr.
Gallo, my name is Kerouac.
You
may have heard of me.
I'm
a famous
writer.

GALLO
looks up at
KEROUAC
.

GALLO

I read
On the Road
. I liked it, especially the part with the Mexican chick in the dumpy hotel room in L.A.
throwin'
shoes at Sal.
Rang true. I
didn't
like your next one, though.
Too
much weird
religious stuff in
it.

KEROUAC

The Dharma Bums
.
I'm
a
Buddhist.

GALLO

Sit down before you fall
down.

KEROUAC
sits down in a chair opposite
GALLO.

KEROUAC

Aren't
you afraid to be in here
alone?

GALLO

I
ain't
afraid of nothin'.
You
know who I am,
huh?

KEROUAC

Sure, Crazy
Joe
Gallo.

GALLO

Call me
Joey.
I
ain't
crazy.

KEROUAC

That's
what Melville
said.

GALLO

Guy who wrote
Moby
Dick
?

KEROUAC

He wrote that in a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne in defense of
his novel. Nobody understood
it.

GALLO

(laughs)

Some
people
don't
understand
me,
either.
They
call
me
crazy
'cause I take chances, only I
don't,
really.
I know what
I'm
doin',
keepin'
people on their toes
so's
they
don't
take advantage. Know what
I mean,
Kerroway?

KEROUAC

Kero-wack.
I'm
French-Canadian.
Iroquois,
actually.
You
read
a
lot, huh?

GALLO

You
think tough guys
can't
read?
I'm
thinkin' about
writin'
a
book
someday.
I'm
too busy
now.
If I ever hafta do hard time, I'll do
it.

KEROUAC

Dostoyevsky wrote
The House of the Dead
about his prison
experience.

GALLO

Don't
know that one.
Tried
Crime and Punishment
but I
never finished
it.
Lost
interest
when
the
guy
lets
his
conscience
bother him.
You can't
have a conscience in my business. A man does
what
he's
gotta do just to stay in business. Know what I mean?
You
ever been inside?

KEROUAC

I got married in The
Tombs.

GALLO

(stops eating for a moment)

No
joke?
How'd
that
happen?

KEROUAC

Got arrested for being an accessory after a crime. The judge let
me marry my girlfriend, who was in college. Helped me get
off.

GALLO

What was the beef?

KEROUAC

Murder.

GALLO

Christ,
Kerroway,
you're
a reg'lar Dostoyoosky yourself. What
an experience.

KEROUAC

Know what Oscar Wilde called
experience?

GALLO

Tell
me.

KEROUAC

Mistakes.

GALLO

He
wasn't
half
wrong.

KEROUAC

You
think intellectuals
can't
have real life experience? I was a
football
player,
too. Halfback for Columbia until I broke a
leg.

The
WAITER
comes
over.

GALLO

Bring this man more of whatever
he's
havin',
and another glass
of wine for me.

(to
Kerouac)

I stay away from the browns. Gives me the
shakes.

The
WAITER
leaves.

KEROUAC

I'm
an alcoholic. So was my
father.

GALLO

You won't
live long, you keep it up.
How
old are
you?

KEROUAC

Forty.

GALLO

I'm
thirty-three.
You
still
married?

KEROUAC

Naw. Twice
divorced.

GALLO

But
you're
a Catholic,
ain't
ya?

KEROUAC

I told you,
I'm
a Buddhist.

GALLO

Oh, yeah.
It's
why you wrote a bad
book.

KEROUAC

I just published another one, a confessional, like
Fitzgerald's
The
Crack-Up
, only he
didn't
live to finish
his.

The
WAITER
brings their drinks and
goes
away.
GALLO
lifts
his
glass
and
toasts
KER
OUAC
.

GALLO

To your success.

KEROUAC
raises his whiskey and
they clink glasses and drink.

KEROUAC

You're
a swell
guy, Joey. I'm
glad we
met.

GALLO

As the Frenchman said, two ships
passin'
in the
night.

KEROUAC

Dr.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine.
Voyage au Bout de la Nuit
.
Almost dawn.
He'd
be pissing into the Seine about
now.

GALLO

I got a story you can
write.

KEROUAC

Let's
hear it. But I need another drink first.

GALLO
signals to the
WAITER
,
pointing to
KEROUAC
.

GALLO

A
guy's
married, has a couple of kids, but falls in love with
another woman,
a
showgirl,
as
it
happens.
He
keeps
the
showgirl
on
the
side but
she
cheats
on
him
with
some
mug,
so
he
threatens
to
kill
the mug unless he lays off the
girl.

KEROUAC

But the
guy's
cheating on his
wife.

GALLO

That
don't
matter.
He's
payin'
her
bills.

The
WAITER
brings
two
more
whiskeys.
KEROUAC
gulps
one
down.

KEROUAC

Why
doesn't
he divorce the wife and marry the
showgirl?

GALLO

He does. But then he catches the new wife
bangin'
the same
mug. He
drills
the
mug
and
is
about
to
drill
the
girl,
too,
only
he
can't
bring himself to pull the
trigger.

KEROUAC

He loves her too
much.

GALLO

I suppose. She helps him dump the body into the East
River.

KEROUAC

He tosses the gun in
after.

GALLO

Right.

KEROUAC

That's
why I got arrested, for dropping the knife my friend used
to kill someone down a storm drain. So now the guy has to keep
her 'cause
she's
got the goods on
him.

GALLO

You
got a brain works like
Poe's,
Kerroway.
Right again. But
for some reason, she
don't
do it for him no
more.

KEROUAC

He
can't
make love to her?

GALLO

Not
can't,
don't
want
to.
He
begs
the
first
wife
to
take
him
back, but she
don't
want him, and besides,
she's
engaged to be
married.

KEROUAC

So he gets another
girl.

GALLO

He's
already got another girl in mind but she
won't
tumble
unless he gets rid of wife number
two.

KEROUAC

Who
won't
give him a divorce,
anyway,
for obvious reasons, and
he
can't
force
her.

GALLO

Yeah,
for obvious reasons and some other reasons not so
obvious. What does he do?

Grayish light streams through the
windows.
KEROUAC
knocks back his
last shot, then staggers to his feet.

KEROUAC

Like the brilliant but demented doctor, he goes off to micturate
in the
river
but
stumbles
drunkenly
as
he's
pulling
out
his
pecker,
falls in and
drowns.

GALLO

That's
no
solution.

KEROUAC

Closure is always a problem,
Joey.

GALLO

Lay off the browns,
Kerroway,
and
you'll
live to write another
day.
You're
losin'
your looks,
too.

KEROUAC
gives
GALLO
a
half-wave and wobbles
away,
out of the
restaurant. The
WAITER
comes
over.

WAITER

Another glass,
Mr.
Gallo?

GALLO

No,
thanks. Just the
check.

WAITER

There's
no charge,
Mr.
Gallo.