(Archibald, holding the knives straight...

(Archibald, holding the knives straight out like swords, looks poised to lunge at the portrait.)

Char: (stepping forward.) Archibald, destroying the portrait will only harm you. You will be arrested. Come down. No harm, no foul. (Pauses.) I know life is not perfect. You have had tough times, and we may not have been very helpful. But you can’t unbundle your life. You can’t bring a kid back from the dead. Maybe that loss will be with you forever. Maybe you will be lucky enough to forget it. That does happen. (Pauses.)

You can’t ever get a divorce from the facts of your life. The consequences continue to haunt you in some way. The facts just don’t go away. Life is just a combination of events, emotions, and decisions that tie you to your past, frame your present, and limit your future. You can never unbundle these events. The best you can do is unload some baggage and use whatever mind you have left after these events are over to move forward. (Pauses.)

Archibald, put the knives down. Come down off the table. You have a long career ahead of you. Come down. Archibald, I know you have had more than your share of troubles, but I was with you. Come down for me.

(Tears in Char’s eyes, voice shaking.) Archibald, life is such a long and winding road, with so many turns it’s hard sometimes to find your way back to yourself. Don’t make it any harder by doing something stupid. These people would like you to do something stupid. But doing something stupid would only reinforce their belief that they are perfect and you are not. Don’t help them. Don’t give them that pleasure.

(Everyone in the room pauses silently, as Bernie shakes his head and bounces up and down with nervousness.)

Bernie: Archibald, that portrait only reflects reality as it is today. I earned that portrait. I truly did support you. I gave you a paycheck; that is what you wanted. That’s what you got. That was the deal. You traded your life for money. That was the deal. It was voluntary. You didn’t add exceptions to the agreement, like time off for a dead kid. (Pauses.) You got plenty of time off to see your family. You went home nights. You saw your kid while I was here making sure that everything worked, that bills were paid, and that you got your paycheck. (Walks closer to Archibald, his arms extended as if to help him off the table, looking in Archibald’s eyes, using an emphatic voice.) Damn it! I earned that portrait. That is what I get for my sacrifice. You got your salary, you spent it, and you got yours. That portrait is payment for my sacrifice.

(Archibald moves his body in a Kung Fu manner and jabs the knives at Bernie. Bernie moves back.)

Bernie: You know, Archibald, I get tired of doing. I have no one to help me, either. When things go bad, I just keep trooping along. (Pauses.)

Like you, growing up my father did not help me much but he paid the bills, took me to school and sporting events. He even bought me an ice-cream cone once in a while. Not that he did much for me—far from it. But I always believed he would help me if I needed it. It was very reassuring to believe that there was one person that I could count on if I needed help. Now there is no one to help me. Do you know what it is like to be totally alone, to know there is absolutely no one in the world that can help you? Do you know how cold isolation can be?

(Archibald alternately shakes and nods his head, nods and shakes, shakes and nods.)

Archibald: (mumbling.) I guess not. I still have my wife.

Bernie: Can you really count on her? Really? Will she really listen and offer advice, or does she have her own agenda and all decisions move in that direction? That’s not help; it’s manipulation.

(Archibald is still shaking and nodding his head—yes and no, no and yes, yes and no.)

Bernie: Maybe you are as alone as I am. Is your aloneness cold? Is it like looking into a long, dark tunnel? Is your tunnel just endless darkness? I know there are two openings in the tunnel, but I don’t know how I will ever make it to one. It’s just cold and dark. (Pauses.)

My life has been a journey into that cold, dark tunnel for the last several decades. Someday…I honestly believe there is a limit to how much coldness and darkness a human being can bear.

I have tried to help. What you needed—at least, what you thought you needed—was a salary, and I gave it to you. When you received the salary, you later thought that it was an indignity because it had strings attached. But you never wanted to face the tunnel alone. You wanted support. The salary was your support. It allowed you to believe you were not in the tunnel. It kept your wife happy so she could pursue her agenda, whatever it was. Your salary allowed her to believe you were not in the tunnel.

Then your kid died, and suddenly your life changed. You reexamined things, what you were doing and where you were. Instantly, you were in the tunnel. You had always been in the tunnel; you just hadn’t focused on it. This time, you didn’t know how you got in there. You didn’t know how to get out. You blamed me—or the firm. That’s easy, but it won’t get you out of the tunnel. You’re there, and there is no one in the world in that tunnel with you. You’re just stuck. Yes, stuck. You just need to have the courage to move, even if you don’t know which opening is closer or what’s outside.

Archibald: What’s your point? You’ll help me?

Bernie: I helped when you needed it. Maybe, in retrospect, you didn’t ask for the most important of things, but I gave you what you sought. I was there to pick you up when you needed it. The exchange, well, it was your time. All of your time. No time off, at least not much, even for death. If you needed more time, you needed to take it on your time, not time that I paid for.

(Archibald is at the center of the table with the knives still extended.)

Bernie: (calmly.) Archibald, put down the knives. They are cake knives. They are not sharp enough to kill you or us. If you stab someone, it will only mess up the room and not accomplish your purpose.

(Archibald looks confused and comically scary as he stands on the table holding the cake knives.)

Archibald: I can still destroy the portrait.

Bernie: Why? It won’t hurt me!

Archibald: Won’t it? Let’s see. (Lunges as if to jump off the table into the portrait with the knives.)

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