Five Television Plays (David Mamet) Read online

  ALBERT: Oh.

  (JOHN finishes “The Song of the Arid Intellectual Life, “ and sits down to the approbation of his comrades.)

  RUDY: Real well sung, John.

  JOHN: I'm glad you think so. (To ALBERT:) So, what do you do?

  ALBERT: I'm locked in.

  JOHN (as to some novelty): Oh!

  ALBERT: Could you help me get out?

  JOHN: It would be my pleasure to.

  RUDY: Please pass the Twinkies.

  ALBERT: Thank you.

  JOHN: Not at all. Cloris!

  (CLORIS appears.)

  CLORIS: John?

  JOHN: This is . . .

  ALBERT: Albert Litko.

  (CLORIS nods.)

  JOHN: Albert has been locked in . . .

  CLORIS: Uh huh . . .

  JOHN: And would like to be shown the way out.

  CLORIS: Glad to do it.

  JOHN (rising): You're in good hands.

  ALBERT: I'm sure. I, uh, well . . . (He rises and moves to CLORIS. To RUDY:) Well, It's been a pleasure meeting you.

  RUDY (rising from his plate): Likewise.

  (CLORIS begins to lead ALBERT out of the museum. As they move away from the table and into the darkened museum we hear the eating noises of the FARMERS in the background: ’Anybody want a Snickers?” etc.)

  ALBERT: Someone threw a boomerang at us earlier.

  CLORIS: Goddamn Potawatamies.

  ALBERT: Oh. Does, uh, does anybody know you people are in here?

  CLORIS: Well, of course.

  ALBERT: Oh.

  CLORIS: We are not loafers, we are not moochers. We are not here at the whim of some demented officialdom. We perform a useful agrarian function.

  ALBERT: Yes?

  CLORIS: Yes. Many things. We, uh . . . we polish the cows . . . Many things . . .

  (As they walk past the entrance to the coal mine they hear singing. They see a group of old men [some in wheelchairs] clustered around the entrance, and before them, on a soapbox, is TIMMY, a seventy-year-old man dressed in the style of the thirties. He has on baggy pants, suspenders, a shirt with the collar detached, and a battered felt hat on the back of his head. He is trying to lead the men before him in a rendition of “Miner's Life.”)

  ALBERT: What's that?

  CLORIS: Miners’ meeting.

  ALBERT: Could we watch for a minute?

  CLORIS: You're the guest.

  (They stop and listen. The song is finished, and TIMMY starts to speak.)

  TIMMY: World's full of freeloaders, friends: “Lemme see what the Union's going to do for me.” Full of fellas kind enough bet on a sure thing came in yesterday. Well, friends, this does not work. This ain't going to make you happy, and it ain't going to make you strong, and it ain't going to build a Union, and there's no way in the world it will. No sir. You don't get strong unless you do the work yourself . . . it's the same if you're down at the face, and it's the same if you're on a picket line. Brothers, here's how you get strong: (Espies CLORIS.) Evening, Cloris.

  CLORIS: Evening, Timmy.

  (The MINERS, severally, say hello to CLORIS, she acknowledges them.)

  TIMMY (to CLORIS): Where was I?

  CLORIS: Right before “You get strong if you are strong.”

  TIMMY: Thank you. (To MINERS:) Friends, you get strong if you are strong . . . (To CLORIS): Who's your friend?

  ALBERT: Albert Litko, I got locked in.

  CLORIS: I'm getting him out.

  TIMMY (confidentially, to CLORIS): Nice lookin’ fella.

  CLORIS; Not bad.

  TIMMY (To ALBERT): Timmy O'Shea.

  ALBERT: Pleased to meet you.

  (They shake hands.)

  TIMMY: Rest of the group: Lars Svenson, Bo Lund, Stosh Zabisco . . . feller in the funny hat's named Harry.

  HARRY: Hiya, Pal.

  ALBERT: Hi.

  TIMMY (to ALBERT): Why don't you sit down a minute. Holdin’ a meeting.

  ALBERT: Well, thanks, but we're kind of. . . uh, what Union do you work for?

  TIMMY: Don't work for any union. Used to work for the U.M. W of A. Now, I'm on a pension, same's these fellas here. Siddown. (To MINERS:) Friends:

  ALBERT: Do you guys actually mine coal in here?

  TIMMY: Nope. All show. Miners're real, though.

  STOSH: Goddamn right.

  TIMMY: Known Stosh all my life. Grew up together.

  ALBERT: And he never joined the Union?

  STOSH: Joined the Union 1928. Mass Meeting. John L. on the Dais. Never forget it. Fought all m'life. Dug, fought . . .

  ALBERT: You're a Union member?

  BO: Ve vas all Union.

  ALBERT: But, then, what's the lecture for?

  TIMMY: Pass the time . . . old times . . . bringing back old times. Just passing the time . . .

  BO: Ve vas all in de Union.

  ALBERT: And, uh, what do you do in the Museum now?

  TIMMY: Reminisce.

  ALBERT: Ah.

  TIMMY: Yup.

  HARRY: We're doin’ a little reminiscin . Ain't been inside a mine, 1952. ‘Tober fourth, 1952. Worked 21 years in the mines.

  (TIMMY starts to sing “The Song of the Thirties.” The song of the depression, the little steel strike, and violent labor troubles, Ethiopia, Spain, the Lincoln Brigade.)

  Yup. Had things happen to me you wouldn't believe. Seen things I didn't believe. West Virginia . . . Pennsylvania . . . spent sixty-two hours once in a four-foot seam . . .

  (The MINERS join TIMMY in song.)

  LARS: Feller must share de action and excitement of his time, on pain of having been judged not to have lived. Oliver Vendell Holmes, a great American.

  TIMMY (to ALBERT): What do you do?

  ALBERT: Well, I'm out of work right now.

  HARRY: No shame in that.

  ALBERT: No.

  HARRY: Might as well be, though, huh?

  ALBERT: Yes.

  TIMMY: You know anything about organizing? I like the way you look.

  ALBERT: Well, no, I uh . . . I'm flattered but . . . I really should be getting . . . home.

  TIMMY: Wide-open field . . .

  ALBERT: Uh, no, I uh . . . I mean, my father was a Republican.

  HARRY: He outta work?

  TIMMY: Well, if you ever change your mind . . .

  ALBERT: Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.

  (A tableau. Both groups, obviously taken with each other, are loathe to part.)

  Well I guess we really should be getting on.

  (ALBERT and CLORIS start to walk away.)

  HARRY: YOU take it easy now, Brother.

  ALBERT: You, too, it's a pleasure to have met you.

  (As they walk away the voice of TIMMY haranguing the MINERS can be heard. TIMMY shouts after CLORIS.)

  TIMMY: Cloris, where was I?

  CLORIS: “The way to get strong is to be strong.”

  TIMMY: Right. (To MINERS:) The way to get strong is to be strong. Country wasn't founded by a bunch of sissies: “What's in this for me” . . . founded by a bunch of men and women not afraid to take a chance . . . (His voice fades out.)

  ALBERT: What nice guys.

  CLORIS: You said it.

  ALBERT: And you support them, huh?

  CLORIS: They support us.

  (Their stroll takes them through the turn-of-the-century street.)

  ‘Member you got a boomerang thrown at you?

  ALBERT: Yes. I do.

  CLORIS: Potawatamies. Neo-Potawatamies. Bunch of nowhere creeps. Trying to knock off Rudy.

  ALBERT: Why?

  CLORIS: For his pension check. Everybody in here lives off the pension checks of the old folks.

  ALBERT: Oh.

  CLORIS: So prices go up and Pierre and his Neo-Potawatamies come up with the bright idea that if we whack out the old folks and take their checks, there's more food for the lot of us.

  ALBERT: That's terrible.

  CLORIS: The terrible thing is that Pierre has been talking with John an
d the Farmers, trying to get their help getting rid of the old folks . . .

  ALBERT: (Senior citizens.)

  CLORIS: (We just call ‘em old folks) . . . and John is starting to come around.

  ALBERT: No.

  CLORIS: Yes. Pierre comes in there with all this garbage about Survival of the Fittest, Natural Selection, The Law of Life, and so on, and the Farmers listen. (You can convince an intellectual of anything, ever notice that?) (Pause.) It's terrible. I mean, growing old is no joke . . .

  ALBERT: No . . .

  CLORIS: But it's not a crime, huh? How you going to beat Entropy? It's a surefire losing proposition. (Pause.) Had a guy used to live here, used to be the office boy for Robert Todd Lincoln. Used to tell us stories Robert Todd told him, his father told him. I mean, we're talking about the transmission of information, here.

  ALBERT: Yes.

  CLORIS: I mean, we're talking about real history here. (You don't get close with the old people, who's going to tell you about life, Nevins and Commager?) What are you going to do when you get up there, jump off a building? It's very adolescent.

  ALBERT: Uh huh.

  CLORIS: Best goddamn organizer in the Country. John L. treated him like a son. I'm glad to have him here. (Sonofagun knows a lot of songs.) Goddamn Potawatamies should be ashamed of themselves. What kind of a society is frightened of its history? (Pause.)

  ALBERT: I like the way you talk.

  (CLORIS shrugs.)

  I like it a lot. You impress me. Would you like to come home with me?

  CLORIS: I live here. And besides I hardly know you.

  ALBERT: Oh. (Pause.) It's been a very rough day.

  CLORIS: That doesn't necessarily mean that I should go to bed with you.

  ALBERT: No, you're right. I got stood up.

  CLORIS: I'm sorry.

  ALBERT: I like the way you look.

  CLORIS: I'm glad. (Pause.)

  (ALBERT sings the sad song of “The Myth of Free Love and the Myth and Reality of Promiscuity.” CLOKIS joins him. At the end of the song there is a

  long pause. The two look at each other. DIETER, a wizened man in a somewhat military-looking fatigue costume approaches. He is in his sixties.)

  DIETER: Guten abend.

  CLORIS: N'abend.

  ALBERT: N'abend.

  (Pause.)

  DIETER: Someone srew a boomerang at me.

  CLORIS: They're starting.

  DIETER: Zis is terrible. Terrible.

  CLORIS: I know it.

  DIETER: Somesing must be done.

  CLORIS: The question is but what. (To ALBERT:) This is Dieter Gross.

  ALBERT: Albert Litko.

  DIETER: Enchanted.

  CLORIS: He got locked inside.

  DIETER: He didn't.

  ALBERT: Yes, I did.

  DIETER: That is too bad.

  CLORIS: Dieter used to work on the U-505 submarine.

  ALBERT: Yes? What, as a janitor?

  DIETER: No, I vas radioman and forvard damage control. (Pause.)

  ALBERT: When did you work on it?

  DIETER: Sirty-nine srough forty-sree.

  ALBERT: Oh.

  DIETER: I vent home on leave, I get sick, I am separated from ze ship.

  ALBERT: Oh.

  DIETER: I rejoin ze ship in 1959 as Janitor at her present moorings in Chicago. In 1964 I am retired, and now I just hang out.

  (ALBERT nods.)

  CLORIS: Show him your medal, Dieter.

  DIETER: Nooo.

  CLORIS: Go on.

  (DIETER grudgingly and ceremoniously takes a felt pouch from his clothing, and removes a medal from it, which he shows to ALBERT.)

  ALBERT: What . . . what is it for?

  DIETER: Oh, nosing special. Ze North-Atlantic. Forty-one. Nosing Special.

  CLORIS: It's the Iron Cross.

  DIETER: I von it on dat ship. (Points toward submarine. Pause.)

  ALBERT: And now you just hang out here?

  DIETER: Ya. I like it here. You like it here?

  ALBERT: Well, uh, yes.

  DIETER: I like it here. It has some assmosphere, ya?

  ALBERT: Yes.

  DIETER: It has some . . . weight. Zis building is a Monument to Science.

  ALBERT: Yes.

  DIETER: Zis building is a Monument to Orderly Understanding, and a Stark Affront to all ze ravages of Time.

  CLORIS: You think so, Dieter?

  DIETER: Ya, I sink so, else I vould not live here. (I live here out of choice) . . .

  ALBERT: . . . uh-huh . . .

  DIETER: . . . to be close to ze ship I love . . . of course . . . and out of respect for ze larger principles on which ziz building stands.

  (DIETER sings the song of his attempts to find “A Reasonable Life.” He sings of his youth in Germany, of the Depression, of the Nazis, of his life in the navy, of the end of the war. At the end of his song he turns to ALBERT.)

  So, you are locked in here, eh?

  ALBERT: Yes, I . . . I'm on my way out.

  DIETER: Hmmm. You know Szoreau? Szoreau is in jail, Emerson comes to visit him. Emerson says “Szoreau, vat are you doing in a Museum?, “ Szoreau says, “Ralph, what are you doing not in a Museum.” Ziz is how I feel.

  ALBERT: But I have to get home.

  (DIETER nods. The air is rent by the screams of the POTAWATAMIES. The camera peeks over the second level balcony to reveal the POTAWATAMIES, paunchy types in Glaneagles raincoats, herding the MINERS with spears.)

  CLORIS (shouting): Pierre, you sonofabitch, you leave those men alone.

  TIMMY (shouting up): We're alright, Honey.

  (TIMMY gets whacked on the head with a spear.)

  CLORIS (sotto voce): FUCKING CREEPS. (To ALBERT:) Come on, we gotta do something.

  DIETER: I go for help to ze landsmenschen.

  CLORIS: Good luck.

  (DIETER goes for help.)

  CLORIS (shouting): Dammit, Pierre, you leave those guys alone.

  (CLORIS, with ALBERT in tow, runs down the stairs and after the POTAWATAMIES. A chase throughout the museum. A reprise of “The Song of the Thirties” [as it would be sung by the Soviet Army Men's Chorus] is in the background. The chase takes them through a large part of the museum and culminates in a remote part of the first floor, where CLORIS and ALBERT encounter PIERRE and his POTAWATAMIES about to do harm to the MINERS.)

  CLORIS: Okay, Pierre, give it up.

  PIERRE: This is just dialectic, Cloris, this is the Law of life.

  CLORIS: I'll give you the Law of life, Pierre, pick on someone your own age, for Chrissakes.

  PIERRE: It's not for nothing that we're younger than they are . . .

  CLORIS: No?

  PIERRE: There's a plan in this.

  CLORIS: This is strongarm and robbery.

  PIERRE: That's a very limited view, Cloris.

  CLORIS: Well, you just let ‘em alone.

  PIERRE: Or you are gonna what?

  (The shouts of DIETER are heard.)

  CLORIS (shouting): Dieter! We're over here. Now you're gonna get yours, creep.

  (DIETER appears with the FARMERS behind him.)

  CLORIS (to JOHN): Alright alright alright. And about time, too. (Thank God.)

  JOHN: What, uh, seems to be the trouble here?

  PIERRE: Hi, John.

  JOHN: Pierre.

  CLORIS: They want to whack out the miners.

  JOHN (to PIERRE): This true?

  PIERRE: Yes. (Pause.)

  JOHN: You don't, uh, really want to do that, do you, Pierre?

  PIERRE: Yes.

  JOHN: But, why?

  PIERRE: Money.

  (A pause. PIERRE and the POTAWATAMIES advance on the MINERS brandishing blunt instruments.)

  TIMMY (to MINERS): Sing, boys!

  (MINERS break into “Solidarity Forever,” which continues behind ensuing dialogue.)

  CLORIS: You hold it right for Chrissake there, Pierre. John. John . . .

  (JOHN starts surreptitiously edgin
g away from scene of conflict.)

  CLORIS: John, where are you going?

  JOHN: Going? I'm not going anywhere.

  CLORIS: Then why are you getting farther away? (Pause.) John? John where are you going? (Pause.) You can't do this, John. You come back here. You come back here. (CLORIS interposes self between POTAWATAMIES and MINERS. To FARMERS:) Douggie, Fran, Bruce, where do you think you're going with him?

  JOHN: We have a social function to fulfill, Cloris, which does not encompass getting hit on the head. This is a struggle for property between two naturally opposed groups, and the intervention of our faction would be the sheerest gaucherie. (Pause.) White-collar liberalism. (Pause.) These people are much closer to the roots of the problem than we, Cloris. There are variables in this conflict whose existence we are not even aware of. (Pause.) The urge to acquire property is a primordial and (we may assume) in the final analysis, a constructive urge. (Pause. Summoning FARMERS:) Friends . . .

  (RUDY separates self from FARMERS and stands with CLORIS.)

  RUDY: That is the lowes’ bunch of verbige I ever did hear. You come back here, John.

  JOHN: I have a responsibility to these people (indicating FARMERS. A POTAWATAMIE advances on a MINER.)

  POTAWATAMIE: Gimme your wallet, Gramps.

  ALBERT (to POTAWATAMIE): Okay, okay, this has gone about far enough. Here's what we're going to do . . .

  (ALBERT gets whacked across the head with a quarterstaff. He falters.)

  CLORIS: John, I swear to God . . . you come back here.

  JOHN (reverting to a childish tone): If they're so smart, how come they're old?

  ALBERT (to POTAWATAMIE): Why don't you put down those things and go home?

  POTAWATAMIE: We live here.

  CLORIS (to JOHN): If you're so smart, how come you're living in a museum on Twinkies?

  JOHN (incensed): What did you say?

  CLORIS: You heard me.

  (JOHN screams, and runs at CLORIS. The POTAWATAMIES, sensing their bloodlust condoned, turn on the MINERS in force. ALBERT interjects self into the fray.)

  ALBERT: You leave these folks alone, you goons. (He gets another whack in the head.)

  (A major fight. RUDY is seen fighting bravely. CLORIS and ALBERT gravitate toward each other in the fray.)

  POTAWATAMIE (eerily): Youth is Nature's Gift to the Young!!

  (The MINERS continue to sing. Suddenly, the tide of battle turns so that MINERS, RUDY, CLORIS, and ALBERT find themselves in a cul-de-sac. The POTAWATAMIES and the FARMERS control the exit. All, sensing the imminence of the end, fall silent. A pause. The POTAWATAMIES and the FARMERS close in on the opposing faction. ALBERT unconsciously slips his arm around CLORIS. A pause.)