WILSON How could you just suddenly: disa...

WILSON How could you just suddenly: disappear?

SUSAN I didn't.

WILSON I thought you did. And I thought you loved me.

SUSAN Well, I do love you.

WILSON Oh, yes, you love me, but you don't love me in that way.

SUSAN I never pretended to love you in that way.

WILSON I can't go on in life without being loved in that way.

SUSAN A lot of people are never loved in that way.

WILSON How can you tell if you are really alive if you're never loved in that way?

SUSAN What do you mean: in that way?

WILSON Unless I thought you were crazy for me so crazy for me you couldn't stand it you just had to kiss me you just had to knock me down and kiss me because you couldn't stand it that you laughed at my jokes or thought I was so cool or like said really intelligent things that made you think maybe not all of those things but even just any one of them just one of them

Silence

You see what I mean, not even one.

SUSAN I'm sorry.

WILSON Why did you live with me, then?

SUSAN I thought I loved you but I guess I didn't know what love was. I liked you in a way not much but in some ways or at least in the ways I thought guys could be likeable and the rest of it I thought maybe that's just how guys are and as time went on maybe it wouldn't matter so much but then I find it does matter I can't help myself some stuff you do I just can't get over it and the stuff I liked: that I thought you were a responsible person and mature solid and dependable all those turned out not to be true at all so what am I left with?

WILSON It's not your fault.

SUSAN No, it's not.

WILSON Or maybe it is that you weren't thinking very clearly or being very focused when you made your choice and a lot of people were depending on that choice being really clear or at least I was

SUSAN I know. I'm sorry.

WILSON Being sorry doesn't cut it somehow. I know people always say they're sorry and probably they are and I don't think it means nothing I'm sure it means something and it's essential for people to feel it and to say it in order for life to go on at all and yet the truth is it doesn't cut it. I'm sorry: but it doesn't.

SUSAN I'm sorry.

WILSON Is that somehow now supposed to cut it?

Charles Mee, bobrauschenbergamerica, 2001, pp. 14-17. Full play text

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