The Old Neighborhood Read online

  BOB: Yes.

  JOLLY: God bless him. And they’d say: “Jol: Jolly. We, waaal, he just …” And “We don’t feel …”

  BOB: Uh huh …

  JOLLY: “Your mother and I. ‘Just Don’t Feel’ that Carl is the Right Sort.”

  BOB: Mmm.

  JOLLY: The Right Sort. The right fucking sort. Huh? For who? For a piece of shit like me. For a piece of shit they despised. Like me.

  BOB: … mmm …

  JOLLY: Am I wrong? For us. And what in the world gave them that right? Who never thought a moment of my happiness …? Eh? And the finest and the best man, and he loved me, you understand? That was the thing, do you see, that disqualified him, Bob. He loved me. That was what they hated, Bob. For how could a man who loved me be any good? BUT WHOSE MARRIAGE WORKED—(Pause) WHOSE MARRIAGE WORKED? Out of the pack of them. Three generations. And I don’t mean you, Buub …

  BOB: No, I …

  JOLLY: No, I don’t mean you. I mean of them. Who Had the Marriage That Worked? And it’s been, what has it been, “easy”?

  BOB: No.

  JOLLY: You are Fucking in Hell Right it hasn’t. And, you know. When we thought we would have to move. Out of work. And she’d come, “Mom” … She’d come to see us … “Mom” … (Pause)

  BOB: It’s okay, Jol. (Pause) It’s okay. (Pause) It’s okay, Jol.

  JOLLY: Gimme a cigarette. (Pause. He gives her one.) I can’t smoke these.

  BOB: Break the filter.

  JOLLY: I can’t smoke these.

  BOB: Yes, you can. (She smokes.)

  JOLLY: When we were moving. We Had No Cash, Buub.

  BOB: I know. (Pause)

  JOLLY: And she would come (Pause) And I’d say, “Mom … you know …” she’d first, she’d say, “What do the kids need?” And I’d say “Shoes. They need shoes.” (Pause) Well, you know how kids …

  BOB: I know …

  JOLLY: … grow out of shoes.

  BOB: I know.

  JOLLY: You know what they cost …

  BOB: Yes.

  JOLLY: Uh huh. “The Kids Need Shoes.” The end of her stay, she would give them, God bless her, these, two, incredibly expensive, what are they, “vanity” sets. A desk. A desk to put on makeup … a “vanity set”?

  BOB: … I don’t know …

  JOLLY: And I would say … Carl would say “forget about it.” I … I’d say … No. “Mom … Mom …” (Pause) “Mom …” And the fucking skis. The Christmas skis. One thousand generations we’ve been Jews. My mother marries a sheigetz and we’re celebrating Christmas.

  BOB: … hey.

  JOLLY: … huh?

  BOB: Mockeys with a Mistletoe …

  JOLLY: Isn’t it …

  BOB: Yes. It is. (Pause)

  JOLLY: Jingle Bells. (Pause) Ah, what the hell. (Pause) And The Big Present. (Pause)

  BOB: I remember.

  JOLLY: I’m sure that you do.

  BOB: The Big Present.

  JOLLY: “Waal, we’ve opened everything …”

  BOB: “Oh, wait a second … ‘What Is That Behind the Door.’ ”

  JOLLY: And the fucking skis year it was this expensive, this, Red Leather Briefcase. And I was behaving badly. I was behaving oh so badly. And the one time in my life I said “no.” And I said “no.” God knows where I got the courage. I said no. And I was “behaving hysterically.” I got sent to my room. And “why must I ruin these occasions?”

  BOB: Why did you ruin those occasions, Jol?

  JOLLY: Well, that’s right. I ruined them … I ruined them … because I was an Ungrateful Child. Why did you ruin them, Buub?

  BOB: Because I was an ungrateful child.

  JOLLY: I know that you were. (Pause) You know, and I carried, I had to carry that fucking red briefcase for three or four years, all day, every day, full of books, These Are Your Skis. Did I tell you …

  BOB: What?

  JOLLY: I had a dream about her.

  BOB: About Mom …

  JOLLY: Uh huh. (Pause) I’ll tell you later. Can I tell you later. You know, because, what was I saying? (Pause) Hm …

  BOB: The Red Briefcase.

  JOLLY: Yes. (Pause) You know, the girls. So adore having you here.

  BOB: It’s good to be here.

  JOLLY: You … it’s good of you to come.

  BOB: Jol …

  JOLLY: No, I know that …

  BOB: Jol, I’ve been, well fuck “remiss.” … It’s been criminal of me not to …

  JOLLY: I know. You’ve got a Busy Life …

  BOB: No, I’ve just …

  JOLLY: Buub …

  BOB: Hey, I’ve been lazy. I’m sorry. I owe it to you. I’ve been …

  JOLLY: … and I know it’s been a difficult time for you, Buub … (Pause)

  BOB: And so I came here to get Comfort.

  JOLLY: Times of stress, you …

  BOB: Isn’t that “selfish” of me …?

  JOLLY: … times of stress, you … We need comfort. You think that you can do without it? You can’t. (Pause) You can’t, Bob. (Pause) No one … (Pause) Carl and I … you know, many times … (Pause)

  BOB: How are you getting on?

  JOLLY: We’re (Pause) Hey, what the fuck are you going to expect. From the Sort of a Background That We Come From. It’s a miracle that we can Wind our Watch. (Pause) That’s what Carl said about you. And, you know … how good you’re doing.

  BOB: He said …

  JOLLY: He said that he knows. How incredibly difficult this has been for you, and he thinks that you are doing, that he thinks that you are doing well. And that’s the man, you understand … that’s the man they made fun of. That they said “wasn’t good enough for me.” (Pause) Fuck them. Fuck the lot of them. (Pause) And carried that fucking bookbag around for three years. (Pause) What are you gonna do?

  BOB: About?

  JOLLY: About your life. (Pause)

  BOB: I don’t know.

  JOLLY: You don’t know. Tell me. You gonna go back to her?

  BOB: I don’t know.

  JOLLY: ’Cause I wanted to tell you. If you do. No one’s going to think you foolish. I swear to you.

  BOB: I’m not going back to her.

  JOLLY: If you do. (Pause) I’m not saying you should …

  BOB: I un …

  JOLLY: Or you should not. But if you do, always …

  BOB: … I know …

  JOLLY: You remember, Bob. Carl, Carl said it: He said it, baby. You, you can Kill the Pope, and you are wel …

  BOB: I’m not going to go back …

  JOLLY: … if you should. And I am not “plumping” for it.

  BOB: I know. (Pause)

  JOLLY: I WANT ONE THING. And that is: The thing that is best for you. Period. Paragraph. And the rest of the world can go to hell. I don’t give a fuck. I’m too old. (Pause) And there you have it and that’s the story of it. (Pause) All I want to say … (Long pause) … Fella comes up to me, I’m driving, fella comes up to me I’m drivin’ the girls somewhere, “Don’t you know,” No. “Did you know. This is a One-way Street …” I’m … never in my life, Bob. I’m sick. I’m a sick woman. I know that. I’m aware of that, how could I not be. My mind is racing “Did you know,” “Didn’t you know …” Did I drive down on PURPOSE? I did not know … IS YOUR QUESTION … what? The proper, I would say, response, is “One-way Street!” Smiles. One way. You, we would assume, did not know that you are, why would I, and even, I HAD, how terrible is that. Some piece of shit JUST LIKE ME. Whether or not I knew, your … your “rights” end with “this is a one-way street,” and what I MAY HAVE KNOWN is none of your concern, and FUCK YOU, and I’m SEETHING at this, this emasculated piece of shit who has to take out his aggression on some haggard, sexless, unattractive housewife, with her kids in her station wagon … (Pause) and this is my fantasy life. (Pause) A rich, “full” life. (Pause)

  BOB: You should go to bed.

  JOLLY: Why should I go to bed?

  BOB: Because you have a husband up
there. (Pause)

  JOLLY: I thought you gave up smoking.

  BOB: You know, some times I can’t … I can’t, it seems I can’t … (Pause) Oh, God, I get so sad sometimes, Jol. I can’t, it seems, getting up from the table … (Pause) I wake up in the night. “Where am I?” Three times in a night. And I saw that I was waking up.

  JOLLY: To go pee the kids.

  BOB: To pee the kids. You get a Red apple.

  JOLLY: Your kids are going to be okay.

  BOB: No, they won’t. Of course they won’t. We’re not okay …

  Morning. CARL. BOB comes in.

  CARL: How did you sleep?

  BOB: Like a rock or like a baby. (Pause)

  CARL: (To Bob) You know, he dumped this stuff here.

  BOB: Jolly was telling me. (Pause) What was it?

  CARL: It was trash, you’d say. It was …

  BOB: … my stuff …

  CARL: Your stuff. Stuff you couldn’t want. Canceled checks. Twenty years old. It was nothing anyone could ever want to keep. Just some … “trash,” really … (Pause) You know. There was so much stuff Jolly wanted. Some of your mother’s … When he sold the house. (Pause)

  BOB: How can you put up with it?

  CARL: Well what “it,” then …?

  BOB: The misfortune of our family. Do I overstate the case …?

  CARL: Oh, I don’t … that’s a very personal question, isn’t it?

  BOB: Yes. It is.

  CARL: (Pause) Well, you know. I love Jolly.

  BOB: … are we that … are we that …

  CARL: That what?

  BOB: Are we … you know, I feel so pathetic sometimes, Carl.

  CARL: Well …

  BOB: No, what can you say about it? (JOLLY enters.)

  JOLLY: Sleep well?

  BOB: Yes.

  JOLLY: How well?

  BOB: Very well.

  JOLLY: Why?

  BOB: ’Cause I feel “safe” here.

  JOLLY: How safe?

  BOB: Very safe.

  JOLLY: Safer than Other Places …?

  BOB: Yes.

  JOLLY: Safer than Anyplace Else in the World?

  BOB: Yes.

  JOLLY: Well, hell then.

  BOB: Hey.

  JOLLY: That’s what I’m telling you. (Pause). The girls say good-bye.

  BOB: Good-bye to them. (Pause)

  JOLLY: Um. Call me when you get where you’re going.

  BOB: Why?

  JOLLY: So I’ll know you got there. (Pause) You okay?

  BOB: Yeah.

  JOLLY: Thanks for coming.

  BOB: Oh, hell.

  JOLLY: No, no. Thank you. We …

  CARL: Jol, he wanted to come.

  JOLLY: Was I talking to you …?

  CARL: No. Good-bye, Bob.

  BOB: Good-bye, Carl.

  JOLLY: Did you know, this stupid shmuck. Drove two hours to Hillcrest to pick up three boxes of, turned out to be, drafts of your term papers, something, junior high. (Pause) Carl …?

  CARL: Bye, Hon.

  JOLLY: … canceled checks. Something. Cocksucker: He calls up: “We have some stuff of Bob’s …” Carl drives there to pick it up. Like fools. We, he goes over there. It’s garbage. That they saved. We’re s’posed to take it. (Sighs)

  CARL: Bye, Hon.

  JOLLY: See you at six.

  CARL: Yes.

  JOLLY: The girls at gymnastics.

  CARL: Yes, I know. Bye, Buub.

  BOB: I’ll see you, Carl.

  CARL: You hang on.

  BOB: All right.

  CARL: Thank you for coming.

  BOB: It was good to come.

  JOLLY: He was glad to come. He was glad to come. One time in nnnnnnn years, you should be glad to come. A house full of folks who love you.

  CARL: Good-bye, Bob. (To JOLLY) Bye, Sweetheart. (He exits.)

  JOLLY: Don’t go. (Pause) We could go back. To Seventy-first Street is where we could go. To the Jeffrey Theatre. And Saturday kiddie shows. Twenty-five cartoons and a western. For a quarter. And the Chocolate Phosphate at J. Leslie Rosenblum’s, “Every Inch a Drugstore.” Do you remember? Dad, he used to take us there?

  BOB: Yes. I do.

  JOLLY: Do you remember how it smelled?

  BOB: Yes.

  JOLLY: And we’d go to the Peter Pan Restaurant. On the corner of Jeffrey, and get a Francheezie, and the french fries, and a cherry Coke. And we would go to the South Shore Country Club, where they wouldn’t let us in. And we would sit in the window in the den, and Dad would come home every night, and we would light the candles on Friday, and we would do all those things, and all those things would be true and that’s how we would grow up. And the old men, who said that they remembered Nana. Back in Poland. And, oh. Fuck it. Oh the hell with it.

  BOB: I never came to see you.

  JOLLY: I don’t care …

  BOB: … I never came …

  JOLLY: No. I don’t care … (Pause) Oh, Bobby. (Pause) Oh, God …

  CARL: Well … (Exits)

  JOLLY: And I’m having this dream. How’s this for dreams …? They’re knocking on my door. All of them. “Let me in,” and I know that they want to kill me. Mother: Mother’s voice, from just beyond the door: “Julia, Let Me In.” “I will not let them hurt you …” the sweetest voice. “You are my child …” and it goes on. “I won’t let them hurt you, darling … you are my child. You are my child. Open the door. Oh. Julia. I will not let them Hurt You. OH. My Dear …” I open the door, this sweetest voice, and there is Mom, with this expression on her face … (Pause) And she wants to kill me. (Pause)

  BOB: Well.

  JOLLY: … and I knew that she did. So why did I open the door …? (Pause) Isn’t that the thing of it.

  BOB: “Thank God it was only a dream …”

  JOLLY: Yes. (Pause) Isn’t that a mercy …? (Carl reenters. Pause. Picks up sheet of paper.) The address of the gymnastics.

  CARL: Mm.

  JOLLY: What a good man.

  CARL: What are you doing?

  JOLLY: We’re being bad. We’ve been bad. We’re being punished. And we’re going to go to our rooms. And cannot come out until we’re prepared to make, a … what is it …?

  BOB: A Complete and Contrite …

  JOLLY: A Complete and Contrite Apology. (Pause)

  CARL: Do you want me to stay home?

  JOLLY: No. Thank you. Bobby will be here a while, you see. And he’s the only one who knows. (Pause) ’Cause he was there …

  DEENY

  CHARACTERS

  DEENY a woman in her thirties

  BOBBY GOULD

  SCENE

  A restaurant

  DEENY: (Pause) They say there’s going to be a frost tonight.

  BOB: Do they?

  DEENY: Yes.

  BOB: Y’always liked that.

  DEENY: Yes. I did. It made me wish I had a garden. (Pause)

  BOB: Uh hmm.

  DEENY: You know?

  BOB: Yes.

  DEENY: And you could go out to it, the morning; and see, well, you could go out to it the night before, and “cover” things … cover things, or “bring them in.” (Pause) You could, certain spots, they put smudge—is that the word? Smudge pots, you know, not a very pretty word, is it?

  BOB: No.

  DEENY: To keep the plants warm. (Pause) But I was saying, in the morning. You would go out, do you know, even, well, I was going to say To Get Up Early, but I think that if you were a gardener you probably would be up early. Do you think?

  BOB: Yes.

  DEENY: … out of love. (Pause) Rather than what? Rather than … what?

  BOB: Rather than a sense of duty.

  DEENY: Yes.

  BOB: … or the two would be one.

  DEENY: Well, that is the thing I’m saying. Isn’t it?

  BOB: I know.

  DEENY: That would be love.

  BOB: Indeed it would.

  DEENY: And I had a vision of coffee. Coffee, certainly … I
thought, you see, I thought that the unfortunate thing about it was that it closed us off. And that coffee …

  BOB: … yes.

  DEENY: Coffee, or cigarettes tended to …

  BOB: … to …

  DEENY: … paralyze.

  BOB: Yes.

  DEENY: … natural functions, you see, in that the one, with the digestion, or the other, with the lungs, cut down our …

  BOB: … our …

  DEENY: … abilities … to … to … (Pause) you know, to use the world, I think—those things of the world we could take in: food, or air, you know, and use them. Perhaps. So we say, “It’s too much.” I had a vision of a frosty morning. Myself with a cigarette. And with a cup of coffee. Smoking. As I look out of my window. And I see a garden. In this garden there are plants that I have planted and perhaps I have raised them from seeds or cuttings, do you know? The way they do …?

  BOB: Tell me.

  DEENY: To raise them inside, you know, from the year before. They call it “forcing.” Or they call something else forcing, and they call this something else. (Pause) But that’s a nice word, isn’t it?

  BOB: What?

  DEENY: Forcing.

  BOB: Forcing. Yes.

  DEENY: If you talk about it. As, you know, as “bringing out.” These little green cups. Seeds that you have put in by the radiator. In the most … (Pause) Wait a moment. (Pause) In the most safe and in the most protected of all settings in the world. Otherwise, they would not be born, (Pause) you see; and that is what I saw when I looked out the window. (Pause) I think about sex sometimes, and I think about all the times you think of a thing and vary between thinking that “it is a mystery,” and “it is a convenience.” And many times, you do not know which of the two it is. Do you think of that?

  BOB: I think that of various things.

  DEENY: Of what?

  BOB: Of life, of work. Of sex, of success.

  DEENY: Of all things.

  BOB: I think.

  DEENY: You go back and forth.

  BOB: Yes.

  DEENY: Without a certainty.

  BOB: Or with one which changes.

  DEENY: … and I think about the stupid molecules. Whatever the smallest unit is. They always tell us, in the newspapers, every day, some new unit, and you think, “surely this is, the thing you tell us now, must be the smallest unit.” Or, “you should,” you think, “you should confess that there is no end to it. That there is no smallest unit, and it is your science that is lacking,” do you know? “… either the instruments or the humility to say, ‘There is no end to it.’ ” And oriental faiths, you know, posit a pathway, or say there is an extra nerve in the spine, science cannot find, the “third eye,” they’re talking about. Or, or an “aura,” and I think: “Yes, well, of course, you can approach it through spiritual practice,” you know, what, what, I suppose that you would call it “faith”; it isn’t that much different from believing something we see in the newspaper.