American Buffalo Read online

  BOB: Okay.

  DON: Things are not always what they seem to be.

  BOB: I know.

  Pause.

  DON: There’s lotsa people on this street, Bob, they want this and they want that. Do anything to get it. You don’t have friends this life. . . . You want some breakfast?

  BOB: I’m not hungry.

  Pause.

  DON: Never skip breakfast, Bob.

  BOB: Why?

  DON: Breakfast . . . is the most important meal of the day.

  BOB: I’m not hungry.

  DON: It makes no earthly difference in the world. You know how much nutritive benefits they got in coffee? Zero. Not one thing. The stuff eats you up. You can’t live on coffee, Bobby. (And I’ve told you this before.) You cannot live on cigarettes. You may feel good, you may feel fine, but something’s getting overworked, and you are going to pay for it.

  Now: What do you see me eat when I come in here every day?

  BOB: Coffee.

  DON: Come on, Bob, don’t fuck with me. I drink a little coffee . . . but what do I eat?

  BOB: Yogurt.

  DON: Why?

  BOB: Because it’s good for you.

  DON: You’re goddamn right. And it wouldn’t kill you to take a vitamin.

  BOB: They’re too expensive.

  DON: Don’t worry about it. You should just take ‘em.

  BOB: I can’t afford ‘em.

  DON: Don’t worry about it.

  BOB: You’ll buy some for me?

  DON: Do you need ‘em?

  BOB: Yeah.

  DON: Well, then, I’ll get you some. What do you think?

  BOB: Thanks, Donny.

  DON: It’s for your own good. Don’t thank me . . .

  BOB: Okay.

  DON: I just can’t use you in here like a zombie.

  BOB: I just went around the back.

  DON: I don’t care. Do you see? Do you see what I’m getting at?

  Pause.

  BOB: Yeah.

  Pause.

  DON: Well, we’ll see.

  BOB: I’m sorry, Donny.

  DON: Well, we’ll see.

  TEACH (appears in the doorway and enters the store): Good morning.

  BOB: Morning, Teach.

  TEACH (walks around the store a bit in silence): Fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie.

  DON: What?

  TEACH: Fuckin‘ Ruthie . . .

  DON: . . . yeah?

  TEACH: I come into the Riverside to get a cup of coffee, right? I sit down at the table Grace and Ruthie.

  DON: Yeah.

  TEACH: I’m gonna order just a cup of coffee.

  DON: Right.

  TEACH: So Grace and Ruthie’s having breakfast, and they’re done. Plates . . . crusts of stuff all over . . . So we’ll shoot the shit.

  DON: Yeah.

  TEACH: Talk about the game . . .

  DON: . . . yeah.

  TEACH: . . . so on. Down I sit. “Hi, hi.” I take a piece of toast off Grace’s plate . . .

  DON: . . . uh-huh . . .

  TEACH: . . . and she goes “Help yourself.”

  Help myself.

  I should help myself to half a piece of toast it’s four slices for a quarter. I should have a nickel every time we’re over at the game, I pop for coffee . . . cigarettes . . . a sweet roll, never say word.

  “Bobby, see who wants what.” Huh? A fucking roast-beef sandwich. (To BOB) Am I right? (To DON ) Ahh, shit. We’re sitting down, how many times do I pick up the check? But (No!) because I never go and make a big thing out of it—it’s no big thing—and flaunt like “This one’s on me” like some bust-out asshole, but I naturally assume that I’m with friends, and don’t forget who’s who when someone gets behind a half a yard or needs some help with (huh?) some fucking rent, or drops enormous piles of money at the track, or someone’s sick or something . . .

  DON (to BOB): This is what I’m talking about.

  TEACH: Only (and I tell you this, Don). Only, and I’m not, I don’t think, casting anything on anyone: from the mouth of a Southern bulldyke asshole ingrate of a vicious nowhere cunt can this trash come. (To BOB) And I take nothing back, and I know you’re close with them.

  BOB: With Grace and Ruthie?

  TEACH: Yes.

  BOB: (I like ‘em.)

  TEACH: I have always treated everybody more than fair, and never gone around complaining. Is this true, Don?

  DON: Yup.

  TEACH: Someone is against me, that’s their problem . . . I can look out for myself, and I don’t got to fuck around behind somebody’s back, I don’t like the way they’re treating me. (Or pray some brick safe falls and hits them on the head, they’re walking down the street.)

  But to have that shithead turn, in one breath, every fucking sweet roll that I ever ate with them into ground glass (I’m wondering were they eating it and thinking “This guy’s an idiot to blow a fucking quarter on his friends” . . .)

  . . . this hurts me, Don.

  This hurts me in a way I don’t know what the fuck to do.

  Pause.

  DON: You’re probably just upset.

  TEACH: You’re fuckin’ A I’m upset I am very upset, Don.

  DON: They got their problems, too, Teach.

  TEACH: I would like to have their problems.

  DON: All I’m saying, nothing personal . . . they were probably, uh, talking about something.

  TEACH: Then let them talk about it, then. No, I am sorry, Don, I cannot brush this off. They treat me like an asshole, they are an asshole.

  Pause.

  The only way to teach these people is to kill them.

  Pause.

  DON: You want some coffee?

  TEACH: I’m not hungry.

  DON: Come on, I’m sending Bobby to the Riverside.

  TEACH: (Fuckin’ joint . . .)

  DON: Yeah.

  TEACH: (They harbor assholes in there . . .)

  DON: Yeah. Come on, Teach, what do you want? Bob?

  BOB: Yeah?

  DON (to TEACH): Come on, he’s going anyway. (To BOB, handing him a bill) Get me a Boston, and go for the yogurt.

  BOB: What kind?

  DON: You know, plain, and, if they don’t got it, uh, something else. And get something for yourself.

  BOB: What?

  DON: Whatever you want. But get something to eat, and whatever you want to drink, and get Teacher a coffee.

  BOB: Boston, Teach?

  TEACH: No.

  BOB: What?

  TEACH: Black.

  BOB: Right.

  DON: And something for yourself to eat. (To TEACH) He doesn’t want to eat.

  TEACH (to BOB): You got to eat (And this is what I’m saying at The Riverside.)

  Pause.

  BOB: (Black coffee.)

  DON: And get something for yourself to eat. (To TEACH) What do you want to eat? An English muffin? (To BOB) Get Teach an English muffin.

  TEACH: I don’t want an English muffin.

  DON: Get him an English muffin, and make sure they give you jelly.

  TEACH: I don’t want an English muffin.

  DON: What do you want?

  TEACH: I don’t want anything.

  BOB: Come on, Teach, eat something.

  Pause.

  DON: You’ll feel better you eat something, Teach.

  Pause.

  TEACH (to BOB): Tell ‘em to give you an order of bacon, real dry, real crisp.

  BOB: Okay.

  TEACH: And tell the broad if it’s for me she’ll give you more.

  BOB: Okay.

  DON: Anything else you want?

  TEACH: No.

  DON: A cantaloupe?

  TEACH: I never eat cantaloupe.

  DON: No?

  TEACH: It gives me the runs.

  DON: Yeah?

  TEACH: And tell him he shouldn’t say anything to Ruthie.

  DON: He wouldn’t.

  TEACH: No
? No, you’re right I’m sorry, Bob.

  BOB: It’s okay.

  TEACH: I’m upset.

  BOB: It’s okay, Teach.

  Pause.

  TEACH: Thank you.

  BOB: You’re welcome.

  BOB starts to exit.

  DON: And the plain if they got it.

  BOB: I will. (Exits.)

  DON: He wouldn’t say anything.

  TEACH: What the fuck do I care . . .

  Pause.

  Cunt.

  Pause.

  There is not one loyal bone in that bitch’s body.

  DON: How’d you finally do last night?

  TEACH: This has nothing to do with that.

  DON: No, I know. I’m just saying . . . for talk . . .

  TEACH: Last night? You were here, Don.

  Pause.

  How’d you do?

  DON: Not well.

  TEACH: Mmm.

  DON: The only one won any money, Retch and Ruthie.

  TEACH (Pause): Cunt had to win two hundred dollars.

  DON: She’s a good card player.

  TEACH: She is not a good card player, Don. She is a mooch and she is a locksmith and she plays like a woman.

  Pause.

  Fletcher’s a card player, I’ll give him that But Ruthie . . . I mean, you see how she fucking plays . . .

  DON: Yeah.

  TEACH: And always with that cunt on her shoulder.

  DON: Grace?

  TEACH: Yes.

  DON: Grace is her partner.

  TEACH: Then let her be her partner, then. (You see what I’m talking about?) Everyone, they’re sitting at the table and then Grace is going to walk around . . . fetch an ashtray . . . go for coffee . . . this . . . and everybody’s all they aren’t going to hide their cards, and they’re going to make a show how they don’t hunch over, and like that. I don’t give a shit. I say the broad’s her fucking partner, and she walks in back of me I’m going to hide my hand.

  DON: Yeah.

  TEACH: And I say anybody doesn’t’s out of their mind.

  Pause.

  We’re talking about money for chrissake, huh? We’re talking about cards. Friendship is friendship, and a wonderful thing, and I am all for it. I have never said different, and you know me on this point.

  Okay.

  But let’s just keep it separate huh, let’s just keep the two apart, and maybe we can deal with each other like some human beings.

  Pause.

  This is all I’m saying, Don. I know you got a soft spot in your heart for Ruthie . . .

  DON: . . . yeah?

  TEACH: I know you like the broad and Grace and, Bob, I know he likes ‘em too.

  DON: (He likes ‘em.)

  TEACH: And I like ‘em too. (I know, I know.) I’m not averse to this. I’m not averse to sitting down. (I know we will sit down.) These things happen, I’m not saying that they don’t . . . and yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I lost a bundle at the game and blah blah blah.

  Pause.

  But all I ever ask (and I would say this to her face) is only she remembers who is who and not to go around with her or Gracie either with this attitude. “The Past is Past, and this is Now, and so Fuck You.”

  You see?

  DON: Yes.

  Long pause.

  TEACH: So what’s new?

  DON: Nothing.

  TEACH: Same old shit, huh?

  DON: Yup.

  TEACH: You seen my hat?

  DON: No. Did you leave it here?

  TEACH: Yeah.

  Pause.

  DON: You ask them over at The Riv?

  TEACH: I left it here.

  Pause.

  DON: Well, you left it here, it’s here.

  TEACH: You seen it?

  DON: No.

  Pause.

  TEACH: Fletch been in?

  DON: No.

  TEACH: Prolly drop in one or so, huh?

  DON: Yeah, You know. You never know with Fletcher.

  TEACH: No.

  DON: He might drop in the morning . . .

  TEACH: Yeah.

  DON: And then he might, he’s gone for ten or fifteen days you never know he’s gone.

  TEACH: Yeah.

  DON: Why?

  TEACH: I want to talk to him.

  DON (Pause): Ruth would know.

  TEACH: You sure you didn’t seen my hat?

  DON: I didn’t see it. No.

  Pause.

  Ruthie might know.

  TEACH: (Vicious dyke.)

  DON: Look in the john.

  TEACH: It isn’t in the john. I wouldn’t leave it there.

  DON: Do you got something up with Fletch?

  TEACH: No. Just I have to talk to him.

  DON: He’ll probably show up.

  TEACH: Oh yeah . . . (Pause. Indicating objects on the counter) What’re these?

  DON: Those?

  TEACH: Yeah.

  DON: They’re from 1933.

  TEACH: From the thing?

  DON: Yeah.

  Pause.

  TEACH: Nice.

  DON: They had a whole market in ‘em. Just like anything. They license out the shit and everybody makes it.

  TEACH: Yeah? (I knew that.)

  DON: Just like now. They had combs, and brushes . . . you know, brushes with the thing on ‘em . . .

  TEACH: Yeah. I know. They had . . . uh . . . what? Clothing too, huh?

  DON: I think. Sure. Everything. And there’re guys they just collect the stuff.

  TEACH: They got that much of it around?

  DON: Shit yes. (It’s not that long ago.) The thing, it ran two years, and they had (I don’t know) all kinds of people every year they’re buying everything that they can lay their hands on that they’re going to take it back to Buffalo to give it, you know, to their aunt, and it mounts up.

  TEACH: What does it go for?

  DON: The compact?

  TEACH: Yeah.

  DON: Aah . . . (You want it?)

  TEACH: No.

  DON: Oh. I’m just asking. I mean, you want it . . .

  TEACH: No. I mean somebody walks in here . . .

  DON: Oh. Somebody walks in here . . . (This shit’s fashionable . . .)

  TEACH: (I don’t doubt it.)

  DON: . . . and they’re gonna have to go like fifteen bucks.

  TEACH: You’re fulla shit.

  DON: My word of honor.

  TEACH: No shit.

  DON: Everything like that.

  TEACH: (A bunch of fucking thieves.)

  DON: Yeah. Everything.

  TEACH (snorts): What a bunch of crap, huh?

  DON: Oh yeah.

  TEACH: Every goddamn thing.

  DON: Yes.

  TEACH: If I kept the stuff that I threw out . . .

  DON: . . . yes.

  TEACH: I would be a wealthy man today. I would be cruising on some European yacht.

  DON: Uh-huh.

  TEACH: (Shit my father used to keep in his desk drawer.)

  DON: (My father, too.)

  TEACH: (The basement . . .)

  DON: (Uh-huh.)

  TEACH: (Fuckin’ toys in the backyard, for chrissake . . .)

  DON: (Don’t even talk about it.)

  TEACH: It’s . . . I don’t know.

  Pause.

  You want to play some gin?

  DON: Maybe later.

  TEACH: Okay.

  Pause.

  I dunno.

  Pause.

  Fucking day . . .

  Pause.

  Fucking weather . . .

  Pause.

  DON: You think it’s going to rain?

  TEACH: Yeah. I do. Later.

  DON: Yeah?

  TEACH: Well, look at it

  BOB appears, carrying a paper bag with coffee and foodstuffs in it.

  Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby.

  BOB: Ruthie isn’t mad at you.

  TEACH: She isn’t?

  BOB: No.

  TEACH: How do
you know?

  BOB: I found out.

  TEACH: How?

  BOB: I talked to her.

  TEACH: You talked to her.

  BOB: Yes.

  TEACH: I asked you you weren’t going to.

  BOB: Well, she asked me.

  TEACH: What?

  BOB: That were you over here.

  TEACH: What did you tell her?

  BOB: You were here.

  TEACH: Oh. (He looks at DON.)

  DON: What did you say to her, Bob?

  BOB: Just Teach was here.

  DON: And is she coming over here?

  BOB: I don’t think so. (They had the plain.)

  DON (to TEACH): So? (This is all right.)

  (To BOB) All right, Bob.

  He looks at TEACH.

  TEACH: That’s all right, Bob. (To self) (Everything’s all right to someone . . .)

  DON takes bag and distributes contents to appropriate recipients.

  (To DON) You shouldn’t eat that shit.

  DON: Why?

  TEACH: It’s just I have a feeling about health foods.

  DON: It’s not health foods, Teach. It’s only yogurt.

  TEACH: That’s not health foods?

  DON: No. They’ve had it forever.

  TEACH: Yogurt?

  DON: Yeah. They used to joke about it on “My Little Margie.” (To BOB) (Way before your time.)

  TEACH: Yeah?

  DON: Yeah.

  TEACH: What the fuck. A little bit can’t hurt you.

  DON: It’s good for you.

  TEACH: Okay, okay. Each one his own opinion. (Pause. To BOB) Was Fletcher over there?

  BOB: No.

  DON: Where’s my coffee?

  BOB: It’s not there?

  DON: No.

  Pause.

  BOB: I told ‘em specially to put it in.

  DON: Where is it?

  BOB: They forgot it.

  Pause.

  I’ll go back and get it.

  DON: Would you mind?

  BOB: No.

  Pause.

  DON: You gonna get it?

  BOB: Yeah.

  Pause.

  DON: What, Bob?

  BOB: Can I talk to you?

  Pause, DON goes to BOB.

  DON: What is it?

  BOB: I saw him.

  DON: Who?

  BOB: The guy.

  DON: You saw the guy?

  BOB: Yes.

  DON: That I’m talking about?

  BOB: Yes.

  DON: Just now?

  BOB: Yeah. He’s going somewhere.

  DON: He is.

  BOB: Yeah. He’s puttin’ a suitcase in the car.

  DON: The guy, or both of ‘em?

  BOB: Just him.

  DON: He got in the car he drove off??

  BOB: He’s coming down the stairs . . .