VINCENT: gay, mid 50’s, pudgy, public school science teacher
MOTHER: Vincent’s mother, as she lives in his head. Begins with mild dementia, moves into full-blown aphasic stage of Alzheimer’s disease.
JERRY: gay, just turned 40, dedicated nurse on the geriatric ward that houses Vincent’s mother
GRANDPA: Jerry’s Grandpa Damiano, who died when Jerry was 15, but lives on inside his head. Italian accent, immigrated from Italy with his family when he was 10. As remembered by Jerry, he is dying of emphysema.
PERFORMANCE NOTE: All of these characters can be played by a single actor. It is also possible to perform this with all four roles played by a different actor. A third production possibility is to have the actor who plays Vincent also play his Mother, and for the actor who plays Jerry to also play his Grandpa Damiano.
TIME
The present day
PLACE
London
PROPS AND COSTUME REQUIREMENTS
This is best performed with a few costume pieces and props to suggest each character, highly recommend using a coat rack up-center that has all the props and costume pieces pre-set. Transitions between characters are to be performed as quickly as possible. Cole Porter tunes (easily available on I-Tunes) can be used during these brief transitions, especially songs referred to in the script, such as: Begin the Beguine, Anything Goes, etc. Especially useful is the early 1930’s Fred Astaire version of “Night and Day” available on I-Tunes; this has a poignancy to it that fits as both opening music to introduce the show, and instrumental interludes perfect for moments when the actor needs to change character.
VINCENT: a suit coat, pair of glasses, a bag of candy with a handgun in it.
JERRY: a stethoscope draped around the neck, sometimes wears an old sweater once worn by his Grandpa and lovingly preserved; his Grandpa’s old cane hangs on his coatrack. No glasses.
GRANDPA: wears the old sweater, huge glasses, a handkerchief in his pocket for coughing and expectorating, a cane he depends on when he walks.
MOTHER: wears huge dark sunglasses, glamorous frames; a huge diva-style scarf.
Editor's Note: This play contains adult language. This is the original script, as shared by the author.
(Lights up on Vincent, who is dancing to the music of Cole Porter: “Night and Day”: if possible, use the Fred Astaire version on I-Tunes. Vincent is in the first flush of a new love, and high on the excitement of it. As the song fades, he stops, laughs, and turns to the audience)
VINCENT
(direct address)
Somebody just proposed to me on the fucking phone. What’s up with this? It’s our third god damn date! Ever since the Fucking Gay activists started messing with this marriage thing…crap! Now, anybody gets interested in spending some time with you, before you know it, there’s that WORD. People getting married just so they can have their pictures taken in matching tuxedos, those ridiculous cakes with two grooms on top…okay, okay, I get it, you’ve already been together twenty seven years, you’ve raised kids and/or golden retrievers together, and you want to be able to hold the guy’s hand in the ICU when the time comes. Fine. But on the third damn date??
On the other hand, it’s not as if I am swamped with offers, have to see if I’ve got room in my schedule. A faggot over forty, I don’t care how hard he works out, and I work out hard, to stay hard, if you get my drift. But still, unless you can afford the nip and tuck, and what public school science teacher can afford the nip and tuck?
And Jerry, well…Jerry is a fountain of flattery. Not just an occasional little something, but a steady stream of the kind of stuff I haven’t heard since…well, nobody’s talked to me like that since I only had to shave once a week!
So yes, part of me wants to run to Facebook and post it in all caps, with four exclamation points: Fag Over Forty Gets Proposal From Guy Who’s Not Awful. Is that too cruel? How about Fag Over Forty Gets Proposal From Guy Who is Okay-Looking? And he’s a nurse, for fuck’s sake. How many fantasies does that one fulfill? Sponge bath: check. Take my temperature: oh, please do! Last night I asked him to keep his little uniform on. The best part is he’s not an actor. Gay in Manhattan, if they don’t design anything, they’re actors. Or think they are. My mother had a very short career as an actress, followed by a very long career of marrying actors. After my father, the ridiculous character actor Stevie Chase; there was Peter, then Scott, and that dipshit who called himself R. Gregory Portnoy, she finally had it with the whole genus and species. That last one, “R. Gregory”, like we all don’t know what an ego trip that is, like putting your insecurity up in sixty-point Arial fucking- bold. Mother used to say that R. Gregory asked her for a divorce at a West End musical during intermission. Who breaks up with somebody at intermission, for fuck’s sake? According to Mother, he broke up with her after standing in line all intermission to get her a highball, and she said, loud enough to be heard in Hell’s Kitchen, “Jesus, Rodney! Can’t you wait until after the chandelier comes down to stomp all over my fucking heart!” Mother’s a pistol. Or, to be technical about it, she used to be a pistol. Now, she’s more like a potted plant.
VINCENT
(con’t)
They were terrible husbands, my own father included, but they were actors, you know? And acting came first. I get it. Believe me. I do. According to Mother, Stevie Chase used to say to her that “all actors are selfish pricks.” And then he proved it. By walking out on her when I was still in diapers. To take a second banana job on a sitcom. Finally, one happy marriage, one out of five. Husband number five? He inherited a company which he cheerfully ran into the ground while spending most of his time fishing. After forty, you don’t call them step-fathers, you call them…I called him Dave. Which used to piss him off, because his name was Harold. Harold, who’s chief virtue was that he wouldn’t even attend the theater, not even for something manly, by Sam Shepherd.
One happy marriage out of five. Now, one could use that data set to come to the conclusion that marriage itself is crap. But Mother and Harold had a great ten years. And there’s a lot to be said for anything that can give you a great ten years. Or five. I’d settle for one. One good year. One good marriage out of five…Four out of five sushi restaurants are crap, but you find that right one…it’s heaven. And Jerry has his moments where he is so perfect, it’s almost as if somebody took my order for take out, and had him delivered.
So now I’m all hot. And you know what, when I get hot, I eat pasta. On account of the first guy I ever had it all over for, half-Jewish, half-Italian. Carlo Levine. Used to call him my Israeli- Italian Stallion. We’d do it three times in a row, and then he’d cook. Brisket lasagna. Surprisingly good. Jerry’s one hundred percent Italian. But he’s more of an Italian Shetland Pony. But cute. And younger than me, hallay-fuckin-luya! So I’m going over to Alberto’s and I’m going to eat lasagna until I know what to say to that outrageous marriage proposal. I can go to the gym tomorrow.
JERRY
Twenty-five years of datin’, and after the first twenty you begin to learn somethin’. And this is what you learn, if you’re smart. Go slow. Go slow!! Give yourself time to find out that he organizes his sock drawer alphabetically, by designer. Let it just naturally come up in the conversation that he can’t sleep unless he’s had four shots of bourbon. So, of course, I proposed to him after the third date. On the fuckin’ phone!
(re-creates the phone call)
Vincent? You’re gonna laugh at me, but I started looking at flats yesterday, and I saw this amazing two bedroom near the park, it’s almost in Notting Hill, you can see it from there. You can pretend you live in Notting Hill, and I’ll pretend my face isn’t forty and…and we can go up to Brighton. They got a package deal up there, at the Theatre Royal, we can see a matinee of “Anything Goes”, and then we can…vicar, witnesses, and a cake. Hotel room on the water… I am not rushing!…Okay, I’m sorta rushing…No, don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!…Yes, it could be because I’m a psycho nut job but I’m not, I know ‘em when I see ‘em, I’m the one that puts them in restraints…that gets you hot doesn’t it? Now who’s the psycho nut job?…
JERRY
(cont)
(back to addressing the audience)
I’ve got to get ready for the big date. He doesn’t want to say yes or no on the phone. I mean, I put him in a helluva spot.
My grandfather Damiano used to say “You gonna make some lucky boy a good wife”, he’d say that, and he’d laugh until he couldn’t breathe any more. That’s how he died. No, really. He died laughing. In my arms.
Don’t know why all of a sudden I’m thinking about Grandpa D. He used to help me run lines, my very first part in a musical.
(As he puts on his jacket and combs his hair, he sings acapella an excerpt from“Friendship,” from “Anything Goes”)
IF YOU EVER LOSE YOUR MIND, I'LL BE KIND.
IF YOU EVER LOSE YOUR SHIRT, I'LL BE HURT.
IF YOU'RE EVER IN A MILL AND GET SAWED IN HALF,
I WON'T LAUGH.
IT'S FRIENDSHIP, FRIENDSHIP,
JUST A PERFECT BLENDSHIP,
WHEN OTHER FRIENDSHIPS HAVE BEEN 'FORGATE'
OURS WILL STILL BE GREAT!
He’d love Vincent.
GRANDPA
Anybody out there wanna know, this is where you go when you die. Well, this is ONE of the places you go when you die. I dunno about no heaven, hell or purgatory, but this here’s where I went when I died. I went into my grandson’s brain. For to give him agita, when he’s not doin’ what he’s supposed to be doin’.
Bein’ in Jerry’s brain, it’s kinda strange. Not because of what you’re thinking. I never cared one way or the other that Jerry’s one of those, what’s the word they use these days, when they’re trying to make it sound like it’s no so much a big deal? “Gay”, like they’re all happy all the time.
When I saw him for the first time, I said to him, “Bet you just had your Confirmation. Here’s five bucks from your Grandpa Damiano.” As I’m opening up my wallet, the little guy stops me, and he says “So, you’re my Grandpa? How come you weren’t here for my Confirmation?” I’m tryin’ to give the kid money, he won’t take it! He says, “How come you weren’t here for my First Communion?” I tell him, “Way back then, I wasn’t speaking to any of my children, not even your sweet Momma. On account of one stupid lie, one lousy, stupid lie. Listen to me, boy; the truth, it matters. Without it, waddaya got?”
GRANDPA
(cont)
That shut him up. His Momma tell him, Grandpa D, he is gonna be here for a couple of weeks. He gonna share your room, is that okay? He never seen me before, I gotta do something to let him know it’s okay, share the same room with the strange Grandpa. Told him if he was a good boy, no bother me, Grandpa Damiano would give him a special treat once a month. The very first time I took him to the Metropolitan Opera, it was Rigoletto. Lucky for me, the kid fell in love with the whole deal. Sang half the damn opera back to me on the subway, all the way home. Actin’ out the scenes, pretty good. Not so hammy, but with dignity, like the Great Ones. I start to think, he got the gift.
I stayed in Jerry’s room for five years and sixteen days, four hours, and twelve minutes. That’s when it caught up with me, the Lucky Strikes. What a name for somethin’ that kills you slow, like you’re drownin’ just sittin in a chair, just tryin’ to take one more breath. Just one more. Just…one…more…
(he pretends to die: then jumps up)
Then I’d jump up and say, Just teasin’ you kid! Hey, what are you cryin’ about, like a baby! Some day, you gonna come in here, and, like I said, it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be.
For the last 28 years, since I been dead, I been tryin’ to get this kid’s attention. Because, if you got the gift, you gotta use it. And the job he’s been doing, a very important job, still, it’s not the place for him. And I’m not gonna rest until he’s where he gotta be. So I give him some agita. Somebody gotta do it.
(he yells)
Hey, Jerry! You gotta the gift, you gotta go out there and use it!
VINCENT
In a way, in a deeply weird way, my mother fixed us up. I’d made up my mind last month, it was going to be the last time I went out there, to that sad creepy place they called Ward A: Ward A for Alzheimer’s. It sounds terrible, that I wasn’t going to come back, but it isn’t, because she does not know me. She thinks I’m the aide, or the man she once screwed on a cruise ship, or the undertaker at her last husband’s funeral. Apparently she had him right then and there, on his desk, while he was trying to sell her a top of the line casket for husband number five. Talk about TMI! No wonder I was freaking out in the hallway, thinking I am not ever coming back to this fucking freak show when this cute male nurse came by and took me to the cafeteria. Jerry, he was so… calm, you know? Some people just have the gift.
He looked concerned, not that phony professional type, the kind of look they give you when looking concerned is part of their fucking job description. And then he got specific, like he knew that was the only way my mind would slow down; he made me follow him, dropping little breadcrumbs of logic, a trail leading me out of chaos into order. He knew what to say: “This happens all the time. They may not even be real memories. Nobody knows.” And then, he started to cite… research.
VINCENT
(cont)
What can I say? Science makes me hot. And there we were. Our eyes locked onto each other for dear life, and we ended up in that old cliché of TV medical shows everywhere, in the supply closet, making love in a room full of catheters, bed pans, and the biggest supply of Depends I’d ever seen. That was date number one. Well, I count it as a date. Date number two, I took him out. Cabaret night. The music of Mister Cole Porter…. There is nothing more romantic than Mister Cole Porter. Mother practically raised me on Cole Porter. Went to sleep in the cradle with her singing “Begin the Beguine.” Mister Porter was such a part of my life, when I lost my virginity I could hear myself singing, “When you are screwed by Carlo Levine”….Maybe it was just the music, but… Jerry and me, we made love at my place for about six-times longer than I’ve been able to make love since the Clinton administration. Without a pill or anything. Just…Cole Porter and Jerry. Date number three, I thought for the first time ever, this could be The One. The One to Keep.
It’s not as if I planned it, or anything, but when he asked me about my mother, I told him that I’m adopted. I had to. So he wouldn’t be looking at me for signs, every time I forgot where I put my keys. So he wouldn’t look at me the way I look at her… if we ever…if we could have… a future.
MOTHER
(while unwrapping and sensuously licking a huge red-striped candy cane)
This is where every mother goes when she dies. Into the brains of her children. Did I ever tell you, I was about to become a star? My West End debut. Would have knocked their fucking SOCKS off. But no, I had to get knocked up. By the time the show opened out of town, I couldn’t hide it any more. When Vincent was a little boy, I made him watch me. All those hours, I’d be trying to get back my figure. Figure it out. Outrageous. The size of me, after I had him. Big as a beach ball, balled up, bawling. I used to say to Vincent, “If you hadn’t come along right in the middle of rehearsals, I would have been a star.” But I gave it all up for you, my darling boy. All for you. How many times did I say it? After a while, I didn’t need the words. Just a look. I got a whole suite of rooms here. Doesn’t matter that I’m not technically dead. What’s odd is having some sense when he’s actually visiting what’s left of me, you know? It’s like I can see what’s left of myself through him, and that can be very disorienting, like that scene in the movie…with the mirrors, all those reflections in all those…most famous movie in the world…who wrote the damn thing?…Bells? Dells? Welles! Orson Welles!
(she takes an exaggerated bow)
Pretty good, I got both first and last names of a guy who’s been dead a long time, a guy who used to sell wines, but not before their time…What the hell was the name of that movie? I’m thinking about candy, and Christmas…
MOTHER
(cont)
I used to love these peppermint things that have the loop thing, and you can hold them in the loop part and lick the straight part. Striped like a zebra, but not the color of the zebra…well, one color of the zebra. The white part. But the other color, that’s the color of the people in Russia. Candy cane! And here it comes…the name of the movie…Citizen Kane!
(she takes an exaggerated bow)
If I could still talk, for fuck’s sake, I’d tell him, marry this man, Larry. Barry. Jerry! He reminds me of my last husband… what’s his name. That wasn’t his name. If you remember what it was, will you let me know?
GRANDPA
Well, I’m awake now, because Jerry’s talking to his head doctor. Not the “Head Doctor”, the HEAD doctor, for to working on Jerry’s head. And I’m awake because the one thing Jerry wants to do more than anything, the minute he sits down with his head doctor, he wants to smoke.
The head doctor, she think his mind is all busy thinking about the things she tell him, all the kind of ways he can get fixed up. She would laugh like crazy, she know what I know…All he’s thinking about is SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE!
(he laughs again until he can’t breathe)
I come to his house, nobody smokes no more but me. His Momma, his Poppa, they all gave it up when the government started putting that shit on the side of the pack, all about cancer. CANCER, CANCER, CANCER, CANCER, CANCER! Hah! I smoked every damn day from the time I was nine years old, and I never once got cancer!
(he laughs again until he can’t breathe)
Emphysema, that I got.
I used to make Jerry go buy my Lucky Strikes for me. Nowadays, maybe they wouldn’t sell Lucky Strikes to a little boy, but in 19 75, all you gotta say is “I buyin’ these for my Grandpa.” Now, it got a little tricky when they put me on the oxygen. They tell me, that tank gonna explode, I smoke with the oxygen. My daughter Marie, Jerry’s Momma, she thinks she’s won, by golly. Says my smokin’ days are over, by golly. But I’m so much smarter than her, by golly! That’s the way it’s supposed to be, the man does what he wants, when he wants. Even if he gotta sneak off sometimes to do it.
A week after I died, Jerry found the last of my Lucky Strikes, and that was the first time he smoked. That was also the first time I woke up in his brain.. I kept yellin’ at him, “Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it!” But the more I yell, the more he smoke. After a while I don’t even try no more.
So nowadays, Jerry, he gotta sneak around to smoke, too. The other nurses, they think he quit. now he has to walk five blocks away, make sure nobody sees him smoke.
GRANDPA
(cont)
Sometimes, he only got a few minutes, he gotta RUN the five blocks! Then, he starts to cough so hard, he almost decides not to smoke when he gets there!
(he laughs again until he can’t breathe)
Two things I need to see, two things; he gotta be on the stage, and he gotta stop smoking. But I don’t know how I’m gonna get him to do these things. I try yelling, it don’t do any good. I try dropping little hints, it don’t do no good, either. One thing I manage to do, I get him to go to the Head Doctor. And god damn, the Mrs. Head Doctor, SHE gets it! Like I can’t get to Jerry if I scream at the top of my lungs…
(he laughs again until he can’t breathe)
Or what’s left of my lungs.
But I whisper the tiniest little thing to him, and SHE hears it.
JERRY
(speaking to his unseen shrink)
Doctor Lieberman, you’ll be happy to know, I’m down to just a pack a day. Really! Well, maybe a few more. But not a pack and a half. Those days are gone! I know, I know. you’ve been telling me for years, but Vincent…he wants me to quit. Says he wants me around for a long, long time.
The most attractive thing about him is… who knows? Chemistry, I guess. All those same old same old things, the tried and true things, it just feels right, yadda yadda yadda. And he keeps visiting his mother. He’s adopted, which makes it even sweeter, the bond they have together…You should see the care he takes when he brushes her hair.
And I’m kind of jealous, in a way, watching the two of them, together. I mean, my mother…You know why I keep going out to that little shit-hole row house where I grew up… man, she lets me know, if I don’t come, she’ll feel…well, she feels like that anyway, no matter how many times I go all the way out there. She’s not shy about telling me, my sister, anybody within earshot. Thank God she doesn’t know how to use a computer, she’d update her Facebook every five minutes…4:15, and kids still have not called. 4:20, still abandoned in Queens with three sick cats and an old goat who won’t take his medication…4:25, I know Jerry’s off shift at 4, so why no phone call? 4:30, took the quiz, “Which Abandoned Mother Type are You”, and it came out, “Mother Who Deserves Better.”
But Vincent’s mother, she’s gone to the Other Place. That’s what we call them, on the ward, when they don’t even recognize their kids. We don’t want to say it out loud, sometimes we just say, “Looks like Mrs. Silverstein went to the O.P. this weekend.” After that, the family, they freak out. If she doesn’t know if they’ve been there or not, then…it’s easy to stop coming. They don’t get any points for showing up or not showing up, you know? On the ward, we give extra props to the ones who come… after that.
JERRY
(cont)
That says something about a person, doesn’t it? They aren’t there to get the gold star, the hug and kiss, the “thanks for coming”, a moment where she lays her head on your shoulder and says, "aren’t you a good son to come and see me every week”. At least I get that, along with a side order of guilt to go. At least I get something back. Vincent gets…he just gets to brush her hair. You should see how he does it. So careful, it breaks your heart.
That’s how I know it’s right, it’s right to get married so soon, it’s right to skip the months of dating and the obsessing and the awful ups and downs of maybe, maybe not…I’ll tell you how I know. He’s coming out of the closet for me. No offense, Dr. Lieberman, but there are certain things about being gay that even a good shrink doesn’t know, not really, not like we do. I was never in the closet…but Vincent’s generation, they all grew up lying about themselves. But my generation, we’re here, we’re queer, and…well, you know. So when I found out Vincent still hadn’t come out, I put my foot down. Yes, little scaredy-cat me put my dainty little nurse’s foot down, and said it was time. Because, truth matters, you know? I mean, without it, waddaya got?
He makes me want to have a backbone, Dr. Lieberman. He makes me want to fight for him. And I’ve made him come out from the dark. You should see him, he’s got a lightness to him now, and it’s a gift I gave him. Little me.
And besides, he makes me feel like…like I can take a stab at it again. I know I said I’d never go back to it, but Vincent makes me feel like I can do anything, like it’s not too late! Every other man I’ve been with, I want to make them happy. That’s what I thought it was, you know? Them letting me in far enough, I can make THEM happy. But Vincent, he wants to make ME happy.… And when I think about what makes me happy…what used to make me happy…I signed up for acting classes again. Neighborhood Playhouse. I’m not gonna say anything to Vincent, not yet, don’t want to jinx it, I’m not sure, it may not lead to anything…And it would be awful to make the Big Announcement and then find out I don’t have it any more. My Grandpa D, he used to call it “the gift,” like it arrived, and you didn’t have to work for it. Part of it comes from some place, like it “arrives.”. But if you don’t work at it…. Maybe it’s gone. We’ll see.
VINCENT
I didn’t mean to say “yes” or “no.” We were going to live awhile with “maybe.” But he looked at me, looked at me when I was totally naked, the lights were on…That was Jerry’s idea. Wanted to make love with the lights on. God, I didn’t think I could ever get it up knowing that somebody could see the love handles. I mean, the fat just jiggles. And the phrase “pleasingly plump” went out with Elvis, for God’s sake. Nobody’s “pleasingly plump”, the only way to be pleasing is to have abs. Six pack. Washboard. Even the fucking President has abs!! Somebody sent me a card with Obama’s swim-suit picture on it, “Solid as Barack”! Not an ounce of fat on him, the bastard! Obama on the beach is practically soft-core porn!
VINCENT
(cont)
Whereas a picture of me on the beach is so horrifying, it belongs in a Jenny Craig ad. One of those awful before and after things. Only I’m doomed to be a perpetual “before”, no matter how many of those spoon-sized meals I manage to choke down. They come in the mail, the Jenny Craig meals. Plain brown wrappers. Used to have my porn sent that way, and now…
He had to get me drunk before I’d do it. So now I’m sailing under the power of Captain Morgan, if you know what I mean… That’s why the Jamaicans are a happy people, mon! Used to go down there, when I was a hot, young thing, every year during the winter break; drink anything with rum in it, and lay out on the beach, advertising. Look at this 30 year-old body, take a good look, it could be yours, tonight!
Since the love handles moved in, I’ve learned to love the dark.
But Jerry got me drunk, and stripped my clothes off, one garment at a time, in the light, and he kissed me everywhere. When he got to those parts of me that I hate the most, he kissed me there with the most exquisite attention and..tenderness…that I cried. Look, there are queens who cry at the opening credits of a Golden Girl’s episode, and I’ve always hated that. I’m gay, but I’m not a fairy, I don’t know if that sounds harsh or not, I don’t give a fuck. Whoever said you had to be a quivering mass of sentimentality just because you like to fuck men, well, fuck that. Like my lab partner, freshman bio, the flaming queen who got all weepy, and blubbered all over the frog we dissected. Went on and on about the last moments of this poor frog, as if it had been a freaking Muppet or something, started singing to it, “It wasn’t easy being green”…Gives homosexuality a bad name. I prefer the term “homosexual.” Perfectly good term, Latin classification, clinical, descriptive.
Christ, Jerry’s got no idea what would happen if I actually came out. What the little bastards who sit in the back row would say, Jesus H., forget about…forget about…when they’re supposed to be, but they aren’t, and you have to make them, but you can’t, it’s in the classroom, it’s them in the classroom, it’s… you HAVE to IMPOSE it on the classroom…distinction…distraction…discipline. Discipline in the classroom.
FUCK ME!!
When the doctor first told me, sometimes it runs in the family, I said to myself, if the time comes…I’ll just go out in the woods someplace, anyplace, and put a gun to my head. But Jerry, the way he talks about it… he says, Alzheimer’s has… a tenderness to being cared for, to being fed by another’s hand, a sweetness…Jerry says they still enjoy a touch, a kiss, only they enjoy it with more intensity, because they know it’s all they have. Sometimes it is just enough, to put your arms around another human being, and feel that…total acceptance. He says, some times…there’s joy there. The land of Total Acceptance.
So…Three weeks from now. In Brighton. We’re gonna have rings, and a cake! But dignified. And when none of my fellow teachers show up to our “gay wedding”, I’m gonna tell him it’s because they can’t afford to go all the way to Brighton and spend the night in a fancy hotel. And eventually, I’ll tell him everything. I will. I’ll tell him…everything. Eventually.
Or…I could tell him before. Give him the choice…That would be the right thing. If I could find the right words…exactly the right words.
GRANDPA
This is the happiest I ever been since I died! No kidding! He’s stopped smoking, and he’s goin’ to the acting classes every week, every week! And now, he’s started back with the voice lessons again. I got to hear him sing. Sing in Italian! Like I died and went to heaven! All these years of me being in here, and nothing comes of it, until this fella Vincente. Vincente, Vincente, Vincente! Te amo, Vincente!!
When he was a little boy, every time Jerry sing, his father give him that look. That look say, “I know what you are.” Jerry goes into his room. I don’t say nothing to the father, it’s not my place. He the man of that house. Besides, I gave that look to my own kids so many times, for so many stupid things… So I say to the kid, in private, “keep going, you go to music school, I pay your tuition, you gonna make me proud.”
And the kid was happy, singing, dancing, practicing day and night. It’s only natural he didn’t notice. See, his job was to fill my oxygen tank, the one I used when I went to bed every night. That thing had dials and numbers so small, I never got the hang of it. That was okay. Jerry had good eyes, and strong arms, for a little fairy boy. He used to come home every day and fill the tank in my bedroom, fill it from the big tank in the living room. But on the opening night of his show, he was so excited. Too excited. Too excited to remember.
That night, I went to bed, and put the mask on my face, like always. But in the middle of the night, the tank, it ran out of air. I was trying to breathe, trying so hard, and I don’t know why, I started laughing. That shit about your life passing before your eyes, that shit you can believe. I’m gonna die, broke, wife dead, four out of my five kids hate my guts, and the one person who’s gonna remember me when I’m gone that doesn’t have some hate mixed into the memories, is this little tap-dancing fairy grandson of mine, who forgot to fill my oxygen tank, on account of he’s the star of his school’s musical!
(he starts to laugh again, until he’s out of breath)
Well, there it is. It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be. Goodbye, Jerry. Your Grandpa, he’s so proud of you.
MOTHER
So I started screaming in Vincent’s head, “You’re not going to tell him the TRUTH, are you? “
Darling Boy! Marry him, that’s the thing, cut the ring together and wear your wedding cake. Because pretty damn soon you’ll lose more than just a word here and there, everywhere, and you won’t be able to cover it up with a laugh, or a joke. Then you’ll need to be watched, so you don’t burn the drapes, like I did. Or leave the door to the house wide open, like I did. Or pee your pants, like I did, right in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Yes, he’ll end up taking care of you night and day, you’ll be the one. But that’s what he does all day anyway, darling. Doing it for strangers in dangers, he might as well do it for true.
(in a spotlight, a big diva production number, to the tune of “Anything Goes”)
IN OLDEN DAYS YOU CAUGHT DEMENTIA
BUT THEN THE PNEUMONIA’D GET YA
BEFORE IT SHOWED;
EVERYTHING GOES
WHEN GRANDMA THOUGHT SHE WAS A SAILOR,
AND THEN ALL HER WORDS WOULD FAIL HER,
THE SEED WAS SOWED;
EVERYTHING GOES
IT SEEMS THAT UP IS DOWN, AND YOU CAN’T BE FOUND,
AND YOU WANDER ‘ROUND, THEN YOUR WRISTS ARE BOUND,
AND THEY TIE YOU THERE, AND YOU’RE LYING THERE,
WEARING BED SHEETS FOR CLOTHES.
SO IF YOU’VE FOUND YOURSELF A SAVIOR, THEN
SON, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR,
BEFORE HE KNOWS
EVERYTHING GOES.
JERRY
(to his shrink)
Jesus, Dr. Lieberman! We had it all set up, the cake, and the candles, the friends came in from everywhere, my sister came in from Canada, for Christ sakes! Can I smoke? Can I please just smoke?? I don’t think I can get through this if you won’t let me, just this once…
(he lights up, and takes a drag, and calms down a bit)
Thanks, Dr. Lieberman. You’re a mensch. Or whatever the word is for female mensch. Sorry. I know lots of slang in Italian, but my Yiddish is rusty. We got a woman on the ward who only speaks Yiddish now. Husband said he didn’t even know she spoke it until…
So there we were, twenty minutes before the ceremony is supposed to start, and I wish we had done what they do when a man and a woman get married, bad luck to see the bride before…Smart, very, very smart. That way, you won’t say anything at the last minute to fuck it up, you know? But Jesus, how would I know it would set him off so much, just to say …
(now he is back in time, speaking to Vincent)
I got a surprise for you. I started taking acting classes. And voice lessons. Going back to my first love, never thought it would happen, but being with you, I got back my confidence. And now, instead of being married to some mousy nurse on a geriatric ward, you’re gonna be married to an actor. A singer. Taking classes with a guy who’s a big deal, and he told me, flat out, I got a gift, I gotta use it. This is the happiest I’ve ever been since I was fifteen years old, rehearsing in my school production of “Anything Goes.”
(Jerry sings to Vincent)
IT'S FRIENDSHIP, FRIENDSHIP,
JUST A PERFECT BLENDSHIP,
WHEN OTHER FRIENDSHIPS HAVE BEEN 'FORGATE'
OURS WILL STILL BE GREAT!
And he looked at me like he had no idea what I was saying to him. Not a word. Just a look. And he got up, and left. I stood there, all the breath knocked out of me, I couldn’t breathe…I..just…couldn’t…breathe! And when I finally figured out how to breathe again, I ran out to the parking lot, thinking it had to be a joke. A very bad joke. I’d find him out there, laughing, and we’d go back in together, and say our vows, and cut the cake…But he was gone.
I keep thinking he’s got to explain this to me. He owes me that much! I keep thinking, he HAS to see me sometime. He has to see his mother, and when he does, I’ll be there, and he’ll kiss me all over and beg my forgiveness. That’s what will happen. Has to be. He won’t leave her. He can’t…You should have seen the way he took care of her. Vincent, when he held her in his arms…you can’t fake that. How can somebody like that just…just…leave?
I can’t go back to the acting classes. Not now. They need me on the ward, and at least when I’m there, I’m useful, you know? Maybe, it’s good enough to be useful. I’ll be there, to take care of his mother. I know what she likes. She likes to have someone brush her hair…
VINCENT
The night before the wedding, I was trying to get my courage up, because I didn’t want us to say those vows, I knew it wasn’t right, not unless I told him first. All night long, I sat there, in my flat, with a pen in my hand trying to write it out, like a little speech, because I didn’t trust the words to come out…to say what…it had to be the right words, you know?
All night long, I looked for those words, and when I tried to write them down, they just…faded. Like that disappearing link…disappearing ink. Grab it and wrestle it on to the rage…onto the page. How can you tell the man you love what’s happening to you, if the words…if the words….
Twenty minutes before we were supposed to get married, before I could say anything to HIM, Jerry was saying these things to ME. These things that didn’t make any fucking sense. I couldn’t say a fucking word. My feet started to move, and then…I got in my car and drove someplace, anyplace. There I was, in Anyplace, Kent. That’s where I saw it: The Hunting Edge Country Sports, Hunting and Shooting Store. Where I bought the most elegant hand gun in the place. Stylish. Small, fit in my hand like the two of us were…. So, there I was, In King’s Wood outside Challock, with this thing in my hand…Then I remembered something my Mother used to do. Five years ago, when she first started to lose it, one of her doctors said, give her a cell phone, where she can get you on speed dial, through her voice. So I went out and did what I was told. But Mother, she never used it like that.
MOTHER
I was still pretty clever. I figured out how to write a little letter, but it’s not called a letter…but it’s made with letters. And it’s right away, like the coffee you can make with just the hot water, or the mashed potatoes that start out like little flat flakes, but then they become…in a moment. Moment coffee. INSTANT! INSTANT MESSAGE!
(she takes an ostentatious diva bow for remembering this: then she stops, puzzled)
No, not that. I used to use those, but then I couldn’t, so, I just…rhymes with sex. Next? Writing on paper, no good. But punching those letters, one at a time…I couldn’t find the birds, so I nexted on my phone! And the birds came! And they flew!
(a beat)
You can still have your one good year, my darling boy. Take it!
VINCENT
So I texted him. I texted, “I have Alzheimer’s.” I knew how to spell it. Just knowing I could still spell the fucking thing, that in itself, made me…happy. And then I waited. Maybe his phone was turned off. Maybe the Vodaphone assholes dropped the most important next I ever sent. Then, two words flew into my phone, like electric birds. “Come home.”
(slow fade to black, while music plays, “Night and Day”)
END OF PLAY
