BOG
BY
HAL LIEBERMAN
ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE
FROM ‘THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE BOG’
BY JOHN NORTON. AMERICAN BOOK AWARD
1997
BOG
In he darkness we hear the sound of an airplane. In a
single spot, we see TIM HAGARTY, a man in his early
60’s, wearing an Airline Captains jacket and cap. He speaks
to audience.
TIM
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Return your mind to its
original locked position. Make sure your heart is securely fastened. Check the
overhead for personal obsessions.
(pause)
delusions, manias,, flagellation anyone?
(We hear noise of airplane groaning and vibrating)
The sounds and vibrations you are experiencing come from the wings ripping
free of the fuselage. Do not be alarmed. This is normal procedure. I've turned on
the NO TALKING sign. Please extinguish all communication. When we land,
special agents will meet this flight at the gate and take you into custody. Once
inside the terminal, proclaim your faults and transgressions; please have them
ready
for introspection. This is the captain Tim Hagarty. Its been my pleasure to serve
you.
(Airplane motor faltering badly)
Oh, by the way, we are going down. Pay attention to the faltering motor and
make an effort to stay as relaxed as you can when we hit the ground. The Force
will not be with you so, but to show you our spirit of tolerance; in the
compartment you will find a list of every possible God that man has devised for
moments like this. So pray joyfully and have a good, good night, one and all.
(Sound of airplane crashing. Lights out. Lights up. At rise, we see a
small STORAGE BOX, and a COATRACK on which hang the play's
WARDROBE; , a MOTORMAN'S CAP, a WOMANS BONNET,
Center stage we see a part of the GLASS LINED FRONT OF A
TROLLEY CAR with two HANDLES , that motormen use to move
and stop the vehicle. Above is BELL with ROPE hanging down.
JOHN HAGARTY, a youthful man in his 40’s enters and pulls the
bell.
JOHN
All aboard. Last stop - the cemetery.
(Pulls on bell again)
I ring it to remind me that he's really gone: that he's out of my life forever.
Empty my mind, say the handbooks. Drain away the chatter, and in the silence
I’ll wade into that thigh deep ooze of the past and approach the still intact
shriveled stumps of my mother and me, buried in that reservoir of his
inattention. I’ll thrust my whole hand into his hidden places groping for
evidence of another life he made just for me. But all that ever surfaces is his tired
jumbo size hostility, the ancient anger of a failed Irish bard.
(Pulls on bell again)
This bell is my only legacy. It looks ordinary, but because it was his, it has a very
sour sound.
(Rings bell again)
JOHN (cont)
Can you hear his boisterous bitterness? Can you hear his words saying nada,
nada? It takes genuine talent for a poet to say nothing.
(Pauses)
Good. I think I’m going to like it here, so you can have a small snatch of my
autobiography. All my family are or were motormen. My brother, cousins, and
uncles, were all taken into the union by my father. The more seniority you had
the better the choice of route. So for my initiation, he chose a Sunday morning
route, knowing the masses would be at mass. The car was empty as he hoisted
me up and placed each of my arms on the handles that made the car stop and go.
(Put his hands on handles., Mimics his father)
"You'll make a great driver," he said. I told him this was better than heaven and
he beamed at my heresy. "The priests won't get their hands on you, John." It was
the only time I remember my father and me feeling utter pleasure with each
other. But it was not the life I chose. Megabytes not trolley cars. Each working
day, I take the train to the land of Silicon implants. On every trip, I see coming
towards me, a man with a ticket
puncher in his hand and a cap that reads CONDUCTOR, and when he bends
over to make a hole in my ticket, I smell the soap of goodness and say to him
silently I’d have liked you as my father. You'd be no black bog in my life. You’d
be ordinary, God, how I love ordinary. Now wouldn’t that be more like it.
(Moment of reverie)
When I pushed the stolen skiff slowly seaward, you'd rescue me and we'd
voyage away to adventure. And when we'd land in the island with the green
forest, you'd tell me we're home and fold me into you shore. Empty my mind,
the handbook says, but my mother says never you mind what your books tell
you , Johnny.. I got more to say than any of them.
(Goes to rack and puts bonnet on. Assumes role of Mother)
MOTHER (JOHN)
Ah, John, I remember the day I found you sniffling in the pantry. You had lost
the sweater I knitted for you and you wouldn't be consoled. Something good for
a mother, with a child like that. . Makes me, a special mum, more priest like.
(Imitates priest by gesture)
Don’t like confessions, really. All talk you know. I like the emptiness so my
memories screen themselves in my head like a silent movie. No Rudolph
Valentino’s here.
(Taps her head)
All I see are graves. Nothing gets my mind going like an old graveyard and all
the people in them You know it’s awfully easy to settle old scores with them.
“You’re this or that I can tell them as I pass and I always have the last word. So
you now know my little secret. Shake my noggin
(shakes her head)
And out come memories like old needles, sharp and steely. Gravestones, really..
(Mimics hanging clothes out on line)
Everyday on my clothes line. I”d hang out hope and pain. I'd be half out the
window, two stories up, gossiping to a neighbor reeling out the family's doings
with the days wash. I'd pin each item, then wheel it out for airing. Our clothes,
ourselves, here is the latest news, I'd sing out like a newsboy announcing a war.
My husband's uniforms. Good "steady bring the pay check home without fail, it
proclaims. But what do I hang out when he puts a brick on his tongue only
MOTHER (JOHN) (cont)
where I'm concerned. He wears his silence with me like a Sunday suit. An
Irishman that keeps his mouth tightly dosed is ready for the wax museum.
And better yet someone I can throw dirt on, so he can’t answer when I tell him
what needed saying, and I’d never ever have to live with my tongue twisted out
of fear. (Mimics hanging clothes on line)
Bras and stained panties. My daughters advancing puberties. And holding up
the
rear are my sons shirts. He got caught on my line without a role to hide in.
"Here's my John, just look at him."
(Puts bonnet back on the rack)
JOHN
Just look at me. Still without a role to hide in. My mother hangs me out to dry
and my father would like to remove the clothes pin and let me drop to the
concrete floor. Every family assigns their children at least one identity. Somehow
my parents blinded by their animosity towards each other left me to fill in my
own coloring book.
(Rings bell)
I work in the space and time that you can only see on a screen. You can't
feel or touch it. It's like trying to catch your own breath. That’s why
I like the old time things, stuff you can touch and squeeze with your hand. A
sound that isn't programmed to say the same thing every day. Not like this bell.
(Rings it)
Sounds the same but it’s how and when you hear it that lets you program it.
My father used this bell to say many different things. He'd jangle it whenever he
wanted to hand out free counsel to his passengers whether they asked for it or
not.
TIM
(Head in single spot)
Never back away, folks. Never try to unthink what's already grabbed your
attention. Back away and it all dribbles away like piss. Ideas, like bread, have to
be kept fresh or else you won't know the leader from the led.
(Spot out)
JOHN
Not bad for a man who could not read until he was fourteen. His father didn't
think it was necessary. To spite the old man, he taught himself, and fell in love
with poetry. God, how that man could embroider words. He thought of himself
as a modern poet, so nothing got directly stated, except his acrimony. And when
the dark mood overtook him, he knitted his phrases in tight knots and I felt
them like a whip across my face. But when the spirit calmed him, he had some
splendid advice to give for others, not himself.
TIM
(In single spot)
Roots head for each other. Tendrils reach for anything. Try to make some
possible connection. Everything makes the same moldering way into earth, turns
into the stuff of future lives. The roots and tendrils eventually transform into
flowers and seeds, into insects and rabbits, cows, trees, people.
(Spot out)
JOHN
Sounds great doesn't it? Only our roots went in opposite directions. If we did
reach out to each other, it was only to try to bring one of us down. It was the lack
of love between us that forced us to wrestle in the muck. Over the years, we
transformed ourselves into war weary combatants.
(Rings bell)
That adversary, my father, was buried this week. Tim Hagarty, the self-
appointed poet laureate of the Boston Motor-men's Association. He fed visions to
his gut in the hope that a belch or a fart would smoke out a poem.
(Rings trolley bell again. In the darkness we hear a voice)
TIM (V.O.)
Louder, John. . Ring it to announce my second coming.
JOHN
I didn't like your first time here, so why would I want to help you come back
again.
TIM (V.O.)
I've something important to tell you.
JOHN
I don't care to hear it.
TIM (V.O.)
Want me to wander like a gypsy stiff because you don't care?
(No response)
I must get the rock off my chest. Can't bear the load any longer.
JOHN
Why must it be to me?
TIM (V.O.)
I made you. Don’t forget that. And now you’ve got to make me.
( No response. Exasperated)
Ring the damn bell or I'll haunt you like a batty banshee.
(Makes blood curdling scream)
You'll never get that sound out of your head, so do it.
(Screams again. John rings the bell softly)
You can do better than that.
(John rings the bell loudly)
That did it Johnny boy. You woke me from the dead.
(TIM HAGARTY, a man in his late 60's enters. He's dressed in a
Motorman's uniform. He goes to rack and takes cap and puts it on)
TIM
FUCK AND CREATE
BE WILLIE BLAKE
TIM (cont)
THEN YOU MAY COME INSIDE
MY WILD WORD STAINED HIDE
(John stares at him in silence)
What the hell kind of greeting is that? Aren't you going to say anything?
(John continues to stare)
I didn't come back for you to stare at me. I had enough of that before.
(Holds out his arms)
Come on. Give your old da a little peck on the cheek.
(He holds out his arms. John doesn't move)
God, I said to myself, he'll be so glad to see me, he'll wet his pants. Okay, I know
I
should have called before barging in like this.
(Laughs out loud. John continues his silent stare)
Is that all you can do is show contempt for your old man?
(Jabs finger into John's chest)
Why the very first time your mother handed you to me after you'd slid out of
her foxhole, I found you giving me that same stupid look. Damn it, you should
have given me a smile or something to indicate that you were grateful to me for
making room for you in this crowded world. No, all I got from you was some
kind of baby evil eye.
(Silence)
What did you know about me in that moment, John
JOHN
Knew you weren't happy to see me.
TIM
The undisguised disapproval on your part had something to do with that, you
know.
JOHN
I didn't know I was giving you any special kind of look.
TIM
Oh yes you did. I could see how delighted you were flashing it in my face.
JOHN
Nothing to do with me. Must be your guilty conscience.
TIM
Why'd you say that?
JOHN
Your face was always full of secrets.
TIM
So you think you found me out, huh.
JOHN
You found me. I'd never go looking for you.
TIM
Think you know my deepest secrets, do you?
JOHN
Not as well as you do.
TIM
It’s not every dad that comes back to visit, you know.
JOHN
And its not every son that gets to lives that nightmare.
(After long silence)
Jesus H Hagarty. . Is it really you?
TIM
No - I'm Hamlets ghost sent back by the IRA. Something rotten in my state and
ifs up to you to find a proper ending to my story. I'll be dropping a hint now and
then, so pay close attention
JOHN
How in hell did you manage to get here?
TIM
You played with my bell. That’s what you get, my rats tail of a son, when you
come on with my jangling jingle.
JOHN
God damn it, why'd you leave that expensive coffin I got for you?
TIM
Because it was so boring and lifeless in that shitty metal box you had me put
into.
When I was a lad, and still under the spell of the wine and wafer, I used to
wonder if paradise was always in session, just waiting for me to put in an
appearance and join the festivities, but I saw nothing of the sort where you sent
me. Know what its like in there. Somebody in authority hired Sam Beckett to do
the set. Nothing but empty space. Light grudgingly creeping in through the
cracks. Nobody to see or hear or wait for. So I decided to take myself a snooze
and
there was no dreaming. And then my eyes opened, not at my command, and
standing there was my father.
JOHN
Oh, that must have been a thrill.
TIM
He wasn't exactly jumping for joy, either. He kept giving me that look.
JOHN
Him, too. You got a bad case of dumbstruck
TIM
(Makes a puzzled face)
You know something, he wouldn't give up the grudge.
JOHN
Can you?
TIM
Sure – that’s what dying is for, among other things.
JOHN
So your da is still not willing to let you go.
TIM
He thinks he's got good cause.
JOHN
Knowing you, I bet he does.
TIM
Can't speak for him.
JOHN
What really happened between you two?
TIM
Oh, the unusual.
JOHN
A walk on the darker side?
TIM
Something like that. Memories that make forgetting impossible. Never letting
go.. Never...not even in that bog you had me covered with..
JOHN
You always told the family what a bastard he was and how much you hated him.
Has dying made you feel more charitable towards him?
TIM
Are you more charitable to me now?
JOHN
I might be if you left ….now.
TIM
Can't, not just yet.
JOHN
What’s keeping you here?
TIM
Something I need to…dispose of.
JOHN
Get it off your chest and go.
(Tim doesn't answer)
Okay, then, let’s talk about us.
TIM
You always did like boring subjects, didn't you?
JOHN
We were anything but that.
TIM
How do you really feel about me?
JOHN
The same way you felt about your father.
TIM
-Ah, but you didn't do anything about thaat hate, I did
JOHN
So that’s why you've come.
TIM
You'd like it to be that, wouldn't you?
JOHN
Sure, maybe I could do the same to you.
TIM
You can't; times run out on you. I'm in the public domain now. You'll just have
to wait until I'm good and ready; wait like a patient priest.
JOHN
Don't tell me you're here as a penitent.
TIM
You won't get any comfort-
JOHN
-And I won't give any, either.
(They stare at each other)
TIM
So how's my cyberspace sonny boy today? Still hacking away at the ether, eh?
You should have been like your cousins and got yourself a steady job with the T,
where you deal with people, not paper. But no, you had to go fancy on me and
pick a job where you can be downsized like a turd being flushed away. (Sticks
his finger in John's chest)
Tell the truth for a change. Aren't you really glad to see your old da again?
JOHN
Like smelling my own shit.
TIM
Show you how up to date I am. Think of me as a virus that’s infected your
software.
JOHN
I'm paid to get rid of bugs like you.
TIM
You don't want to spend your time doing that.
JOHN
Time? That’s what you got plenty of nothing.
TIM
Not nothing. Got me a story. Sad and scary and I’m the star and producer. Want
a part?
JOHN
Not if it has to do with you.. When you were really here, all you had to do is pay
the slightest attention to me and I'd have been your biggest fan. But all I was to
you was a fly at the dinner table...to be swatted by your cruel wordplay at my
expense. Now, what do you want of me, pity, redemption, what?
TIM
I know its too late for any of that. Not what I had in mind.
(He rings the bell and announces stop)
Next stop John Hagarty. You can step on him getting off the car. He loves to feel
the boot on his ass.
(He kicks John. John hesitates, then slaps him in the face)
JOHN
How'd that feel?
(Tim shakes his head. John slaps him harder)
TIM
Taking advantage of my lack of feelings.
JOHN
You had none when you were alive either.
TIM
You didn't dare slap me then. .
JOHN
No, I was afraid of your rage.
TIM
Well that hasn't changed.
(Tim wrestles John to the ground and sits astride him)
Can't even beat a corpse? You don't get muscles by typing. Don’t you wish you
could beat me up
(He stands up)
JOHN
My wishes are weeds where you're concerned. But it’s so comforting to know
that your mouth will be stuffed forever with earthworms.
TIM
Spoiling for a fight, are you?
JOHN
Won't do any good against a dead man.
TIM
Maybe gone, but not forgotten.
JOHN
And not forgiven, either
TIM
Just like my father. It's part of our legacy or didn't you know that. A difficult
people the Irish. Difficult. Stuck in the past. Stuck in the arse. We emerged out of
the bogs, looked around long enough to go back, farther inside than they
ventured out.
JOHN
Farther inside than you, father?
TIM
Oh the wound was deep - deep
OHN
Not deep enough.
TIM
Your da, heave ho, over the cliff, eh?
JOHN
No one pushed you. You jumped.
TIM
No,no,no,no,no
(Rings bell)
Next stop, the land of No.
(Lights out. He steps into monologue spot)
Where I came from, no was always more important than yes. No, no, no, no, no!
There was no light, no telephone or radio, no autos, but that's not what I'm
talking about, for there can be yes in living that way. There was no touching, no
love and everything I felt the urge to do was no to someone or no to a lot of
people. There was always more no than yes. It was a world of no. Then they
learned yes to electricity and telephones, yes to cars and radios. Still it's the land
of no, where hundreds of thousands gather on the Green and then on the
Common to state their faith in no-no to pleasure and no to life.
(Pause)
Why they made saying no the greatest test of faith and love strikes me as very
odd. We're all born saying yes- yes to the world and to life, yes to reaching for
more, but before but you're old enough to realize what’s happening, the no's
begin to gather and shape you into saying no with them. They plot to tell you no,
not yet, wait till we get home and finally yes just leaches out of you. You're
almost glad to get rid of it. If you touch yourself, feel and stroke your own body,
no again. If you touch another's, no, unless there are circumstances. The yes of
touching is nearly buried under circumstances, yes if you're old enough, yes if
you're married. Only if you’re married.
(Takes out pipe. Puts it in mouth. Then removes it)
Yes if ... yes if.... No way they could always say no, so they invented yes if, which
is hardly yes at all. Hundreds of thousands, millions they say, turning out to
pray
no together, wanting to make it sound like yes. No is still the test of faith and
those who say no the longest and loudest are the leaders for the rest to follow, all
praying no together, as if a lifetime of no qualifies them for the eternity of yes. If
anyone could tell yes from no at that point.
(Spot out. Lights up)
JOHN
Drown everyone in the world but her, with words.
TIM
Your mother didn't want to hear anything from me.
JOHN
How can you be so certain, since you never tried.
(Puts on bonnet to indicate he'll play the mother)
MOTHER (JOHN)
Ah Tim, Tim! Why couldn't you be a loud mouthed drunk like all the other self
respecting Irishmen? You came home every night and filled our sober bed with
silence. Why'd you have nothing to say to me? Did you think I wouldn't get
your precious verses. After all I was the one who graduated from parochial
school with honors. And yet I wasn't good enough to hear what you wrote.
Every
drunk down in Murphy's bar could foam at the mouth trying to understand or
repeat your lines, but your wife was good only for empty air. Well now that I got
your attention, I'll regale you with my words. And don't you dare interrupt me.
This is my chance of a lifetime.
TIM
Lifetime? We're both dead, you know.
MOTHER (JOHN)
Still think you know it all. Well dead or not, you'll be doomed to listen to me,
something, I never had the pleasure of, from you. I've created a brand new Irish
folk tale just for you, my mute.
TIM
I hope its-
MOTHER (JOHN)
-Shut that trap of yours. You sure knew hhow to do it when it came to me.
(She looks at him to demand his attention)
There once was a husband/ who couldn't be bothered saying even a word to his
Wife. Even when he was in the throes of passion under the sheets, he was afraid
to utter a sound, lest she be carried away by his loquacious lasciviousness.
(Tim mutters something. Her stare produces silence)
She goes to the local fairy doctor and tells her she wants a special potion to make
her husband more communicative. "Oh, says the fairy, "to find a lively mouth
in Ireland will be easy enough." So they go to the local cemetery and she searches
the gravestones until she finds one for a buried poet. She opens the grave and
snatches what she hears from the man's mouth. From them she makes a special
concoction and gives it to the wife who hurries home with her prized possession.
The following morning she mixes it in her husband's porridge and during his
nightly exertions,,he begins to moan and groan so loudly when he has her
pinned to the mattress, even the bedsprings are shocked by his foul mouth.
During the day he would
talk and talk and talk, never stopping to listen to anything she might say in
response. "God", she thought, "it doesn't matter if this man talks too much or
too little. Either way I don't exist.” So here’s not a place to stay.
(Stares at Tim, removes bonnet and places it back on rack)
TIM
She was in too much of a hurry to leave me.
JOHN
She certainly was.
(Tim issues forced laugh)
JOHN (cont)
How'd you like your funeral?
TIM
Sullivan outdid himself this time.
JOHN
It was I who organized the whole thing.
TIM
What do you know - didn't think you had it in you. Truth to tell, John, I felt like
an old time Irish king.
JOHN
I hoped you'd get by dying what you couldn't get any other way.
TIM
It was a splendid procession, I'll give you that. A royal cortege of trolleys
negotiating the long winding S of El Camino Real into Colma the showplace of
cemeteries outside of San Francisco.
JOHN
The Chinese in the earth lay higher than the Italians, and the Russians topped
Both. I loved the idea of you being stacked in Colma. Ten deep. Each resting on
the other.
TIM
The only place I've ever experienced true brotherhood is in that suburb of the
dead.
Rain-black streets mirroring the vintage funeral wagons on rails and celebrities
are on board to toast me, the dead conductor. We sailed past Columbkille
Church, where the statues of the saints never blink even when they’re fondled.
(He goes to rack and takes cap and puts it on)
Here’s my black shroud; a salver badge with my number 525.
JOHN
It was retired and dropped into the hole with all your dead rhetoric.
TIM
However long you live, I'll be right there at your side whispering my
unforgettable verse in your ear.
(Declaiming)
DID JOYCE TAKE THE BLOOM
OFF THE ROSE OF MOLLY
FOR TICKLING HIS BALLS
WITH CHRISTMAS HOLLY
(Stops and preens a bit)
Notice I said tickling not biting. You don't prick a prick that’s showered you with
its jism. Desire like poetry always has its pants down. It has no patience and is
always looking for an opening. And never forget, Dead poets can vote in Boston.
TIM (cont)
(Sings)
I'm dreaming of a dead Christmas.
With every Christmas card I spite
(stops singing)
Oh how I enjoyed roasting those high minded Brahmins who looked down their
noses at us Boston Irish. Three days before Christmas, I made the front page of
the Herald.
(Tim goes to prop box and takes out picket sign with NO SHIT ON
OUR LAWN speaking the words as he marches back and forth.
John puts on hat and coat. Takes microphone from prop box and
thrusts it at Tim)
REPORTER (JOHN)
Mr. Hagarty, can you tell our viewers why are you picketing the city's Nativity
creche on the Boston Common. After all this is the holiday season of peace and
good will.
TIM
And it’s also when I’m reborn. don’t you forget that. Who but me, could stand
with the tormented and the damned and sing to the end of all suffering.
(Sings snatch of a Gregorian chant.to his words)
“And in life neverlasting. Namen”.
(Stops singing)
The unpardonable within me fills every church. A poet like myself is a toad
unless he glorifies the heretical,. So when I utter the unforgiveable, ,why haven’t
you high and mighty Dantes dropped me straight into hell? No road maps,
gentlemen?
REPORTER (JOHN)
Is there any truth to the rumor that you’re being hospitalized?
TIM
They’d never dare do that to me. Now if you don't mind ifs time for me to
browse the adult book stores.
.
JOHN
(Goes to handle. Clangs bell)
Next stop – Bedlam
(John goes to rack, puts on white coat from rack. Assumes Doctor's
pose)
DOCTOR (JOHN)
I've some bad news for you, Mr. Hagarty.
TIM
They're abolishing Christmas so I'll never have the chance to picket again.
DOCTOR (JOHN)
No, but you could seriously undermine your case, if you insist on continuing
your provocative behavior. You've had your preliminary hearing and psychiatric
DOCTOR (JOHN) (cont)
evaluation and I'm here to tell you that one more arrest, one more public
episode and you'll find yourself in Boston State Hospital.
TIM
Oh no not that. The staff is all Jungian and not at all sympathetic to my shadow.
DOCTOR (JOHN)
That’s where you'll be putting in your time. So, if you don't want to be shut
away,, mind your manners
TIM
( Declaiming)
OLD CRAZY JANE
GAVE YEATS A FIT
WITH ALL HER TALK
OF TWAT AND SHIT
You know. Doctor, poets should not be held to same standards as normal people.
We're coated with leprechaun and angel dung. I muck around in their excrement
and pick up my finest lyrics.
(Doctor can't believe what he's hearing)
Ah, I can see you don't believe angels defecate. Well I'm here to tell you they do.
Angel shit is the poets perfume. My fly boys give me word tips like a racetrack
bettor. When I'm stuck in the middle of a verse, they give me options; a
heavenly thesaurus is what they are. They wait for me to read to them. And
when they make suggestions they insist they don't want credit. They're forever
whispering into my ear, "very good Tim, but wouldn't alacrity go better in that
line."
DOCTOR (JOHN)
Alacrity on your part will get you out sooner.
(Takes off white jacket. Puts it back on rack. Lights out. Lights up)
TIM
(Closes his eyes. To John))
Have you got a drink, John?
JOHN
What’s got into you? You never would touch the stuff before. Didn't want to
pickle your verses in brine like Dylan Thomas, you always said.
TIM
Christ, can't a man change his ways when he's dead.
(John hands him a bottle. Tim turns it over. Ifs empty)
I'm not particular. Anything you have will be greatly appreciated.
JOHN
I never touch the stuff.
TIM
Not a drop?
(John shakes his head)
What the hell kind of welcome is that
JOHN
Don't like it; crawl back into your hole.
(John takes out a joint. Light's it. Takes deep puff)
Want a hit?
TIM
Sure, why not?
(Takes a puff)
Not bad.
(Takes another puff. Picks up empty whiskey bottle and holds it in
one hand and the joint in the other. Acts as if he's weighing them.
John goes to the bell and rings it)
JOHN
Next Stop - Reefersville.
TIM
What if cannabis and not whiskey was the national drug of Ireland?
JOHN
Revising another chapter of our sad history?
TIM
How the course of history would have veered onto another road, what different
track's man would have made over the countryside. We'd have turned out a
different people, more like the Burmese, I suspect, or the Turks. Now I know the
Koran doesn't traffic in alcohol, but my point is we'd replace it with marijuana.
JOHN
Drunks are intolerant of others behavior. Not so with weed wankers.
(Holds out joint)
TIM
I can see them, John; the green hills of County Clare with their curving terraces
of cultivated marijuana. Fertile acres in the west of Ireland. Long warm sunsets
extending into evening. Moisture and light, good soil for a rich crop. Pastures of
plenty.. They drown out my harsh memories of the land, the bitter struggles with
my father over that sad patch of soil.
JOHN
(Getting into spirit of the idea)
We'd grow our own plants. We'd have our try at botanical eugenics, wait for the
strongest and most potent, the sweetest plants to appear
TIM
We'd change the history of the Irish people. We'd outplant the thistles of
clannish loyalties, Welsh leeks, even the Thorns' of Faith. There would be five
feasts of the Transfiguration on the calendar, not one. We'd sell it in the London
shops. Then, even the snakes would volunteer to return.
JOHN
I see a stoned St. Brendan navigating westward over the ocean towards a vast
undefined bulk of continent.
TIM
Ireland could have been the New Burma, where Brendan would step ashore
holding a cross woven from green plants and embrace his fellow heathens.
(John goes to Tim and embraces him, Tim pushes him away)
Hey, dead men don’t go in for stuff like that.
JOHN
Live men like you never did--
TIM
--Don’t go fluffy on me now ,boyo. I never missed a days work to keep you in
books. That’s what really counts, not fancy arm waving,
(Mimics hugging by waving his arm)
My passengers tipped their hat to me every time they got off. That shows how
they felt about me.
JOHN
I always envied them and wondered how I could be one of them.
TIM
You were never on my side in family matters. Always going with your mother,
no matter how she treated me.
JOHN
She made you clam up like a Sphinx?
TIM
She helped.
JOHN
Don't you start giving me the usual malarkey about the cold bed she made for
you. How the hell could anything good happen without ever sharing a nice
word with her?
TIM
How the hell do you know what happened in our bedroom?
JOHN
Dying washed away all her shyness. She told me everything.
TIM
Did you tell her what you did in your room?
(Hums snatch of Bolero by Ravel, then hums melody while he
mimics masturbation)
Saw you once, pulling on your sausage to the beat of the Bolero. You were so
into
it you never even noticed me. And I, like a good Dad, never so much uttered a
word about it. I could have made you the laughing stock of the family since you
played that piece almost every day, but I kept it to myself.
JOHN
Thanks, didn't think you could ever miss a chance to humiliate me.
TIM
Didn't only do it for you. Wanted to spare your mother the embarrassment. You
know she never touched me there, ever. Snake in the garden, she called it.
JOHN
Did you ever ask her to?
TIM
I'm not supposed to ask. She's supposed to know.
JOHN
She would have done anything. Anything you wanted
(Shakes head at what he's hearing)
TIM
That’s a god damned lie.
JOHN
If only you had talked to her, you would have had a lifetime of pleasure.
TIM
How could I tell her "John's making love to his bolero.
(Hums snatch of the Bolero)
Go right ahead. Don't mind me. I wish I could still do that
JOHN
Don't need to do that any more.
TIM
Got yourself someone to pull it for you?
JOHN
Yeah, too bad you'll never get to meet her.
(Looks at his watch)
Going to have to go soon.
TIM
Can't go till I've finished my business here. I wish we could have been... a bit...
(Hesitates).
JOHN
You would have had to be a different man, not cold and distant as the bog you
were
always obsessed about.
TIM
Really, I don’t remember talking about them.
JOHN
What’d you do. kill your memories, Mr Alzheimer. Bog,bog, bog. Why don’t
you go and get lost in that damned bog?
TIM
(Suddenly feigning remembering)
Ah, so that’s what you’re talking about. Why don’t you make yourself clear, son?
A bit of lucidity goes a long way.
JOHN
Forget the bog. Sorry I brought it up.
TIM
Forget it! Wish I could but I can’t. It’s a stain that’ll never wash out. God damn
that bog.
(Becoming calm)
Ever been in one?
(John shakes his head)
Mysterious place. Stuff this high
(Holds hand to indicate height)
All of us used to start out early in the morning. Treacherous place. Some of us
never made it back.. Happened to my father, you know.
JOHN
I didn't know.
TIM
Got up at the crack of dawn and left. He hated them; called them the bogs of
prejudice. The bog probably didn't like his attitude.
JOHN
The bog strikes back, eh?
TIM
Needed some help... from me.
JOHN
How come you waited till now to tell me how he died?
TIM
(With mock British accent)
Never wanted anyone to solve the case, Inspector
JOHN
You always hinted it was the British that did him in.
TIM
Wouldn't have been the first Irishman in the wrong place.
JOHN
You never said he was political,
TIM
He wasn't.
JOHN
So why the English?
TIM
To keep it top secret, you know.
JOHN
Who'd you want to keep it from?
TIM
Everybody. In my time here, I was a master of prevarication.
JOHN
And now that life's passed you by?
TIM
I’ve finally discovered what life really is. It’s a prime number divisible only by
itself. Divide whatever you want; time, years, experience, divide that into
nothing... into zero...into nowhere…into no one… and you get...
(John looks at watch again)
What’s the rush, John?
JOHN
I still don't know what you want from me?
TIM
I need you to listen.
JOHN
You n ever needed anything or anyone. Then or now.
TIM
I do. This very moment. now. What would you say if I told you I was
ashamed….ashamed of being a father.
JOHN
Ashamed? Makes me want to laugh
TIM
So you think it’s ha , ha, ha?
(John shakes his head in disbelief)
Now that the comedy’s over, can I go on?
(John waves his hands)
So back to the matter at hand. . My father and me, we never toed the mark. We
burnt each other with branding irons, so we'd be marked men, as you marked
me. Yes, you marked me. I could see, like a good Greek king, that you had
murder in your heart, the very first time you looked at me..
JOHN
You've always read me wrong. Wouldn't waste my life: no, no, not to do you in.
TIM
You never ever thought of getting rid of me?
JOHN
Killing, you mean?
TIM
Yeah.
JOHN
No, but there were times, I wished you dead.
TIM
Not talking about wishes. Did you ever seriously consider it?
JOHN
Don't think so.
TIM
Not sure?
JOHN
Yes, I'm sure. You deserved scorn and pity but not assassination. Sorry about
that.
TIM
You turned out to be one sorry son of a bitch.
JOHN
Tim, you're bringing me old news.
TIM
It’s all new. Hot off the press. The bog, it kept mum all these years.
JOHN
Like you did with mum
TIM
(Shakes his head at John's riposte)
Never talked about it with anyone. Never till now. That day my father walked
out into the bog-
JOHN
-What has that got to do with me?
TIM
Everything. You'll get to finally know who I am and why I always feared you.
JOHN
You, afraid of me,, thats a laugh. So he walked into the bog...so what?
TIM
I was the one who saw him last.
JOHN
You were with him?
TIM
At his side.
J JOHN
So how'd he get lost?
TIM
I did that for him. Made sure he could never turn back. Never.
(Long beat)
I murdered him.
JOHN
You're not pulling a PLAYBOY on me, are you, Tim?
TIM
No, my play didn't end happily....his ending. He bent over to pick up something
and I
hit the back of his head with a rock. Over and over that rock came down on him
but before he fell he managed to turn his bloody face towards and you know
what the bastards last word was to me…”jackdaw”. In that final moment he got
it right. Jackdaw, the black bird of prey. Swoops down and suddenly makes the
catch.. Like me!
JOHN
(After a long pause)
A cold blooded killer...my father, the alchemist, turning life into stone.
TIM
You know, sometimes I think I tried to provoke you into killing me; to keep it as
a family business. Too bad you didn't bite. We could have been real soul mates.
JOHN
Another pipe dream, Tim. You weren't worth it.
TIM
Your grandfather earned every blow.
(Mimics bringing a rock down on John's head)
Couldn't stand what he did to me. I only made your life miserable, but I never
beat you. He used his fists and his feet, and iron chains when they were handy.
He
deserved to die by my hand.
(Pause as if he's remembering that moment)
I buried him as deep as I could, then ran back to my house, got under the covers,
and was awakened by my brother, telling me my father was missing. Turned out
they'd both been drinking the night before and my brother couldn't remember if
they came home together. The whole town thought he'd wandered drunk into
the bog and so they went looking. Every spring I waited for his body to surface.
When it did, I'd say,” I did it”. Waited and waited. Didn't happen until the
week before I was on my way to America, when a body surfaced, its skin
blackened. Bog juices had soaked through the skin and the body had the same
sour smell of those of us in the village. I went to look at it, thinking it would
make me die of shame, but what I saw was a small man, nowhere near the size
of my father. When they finally got around to giving him an autopsy, they
dated him from the middle ages. So I got a reprieve. Never did hear of
another body rising from the murk so the bog kept its secret. I got away with it.
But the sight of him rolling over and giving me the look, that's never left me.
And then you were born and I knew from the way you stared me down that you
knew.
JOHN
I didn't have a clue. You were always seeing yourself in my eyes and my eyes
saw
a forlorn man, a recluse from his family, who couldn't share anything with us,
but was always at his desk writing for everyone else.
TIM
Poetry didn't give me any peace. For me it created an abyss into which I could
drape my soul with words and then drop myself down a deep dark well so no
one would ever truly know me. And no one did. What a success. What a pity.
(Pause then quietly)
NOW TIM'S BENEATH THE WORLD
DARKNESS HIS ONLY KIN
DAMNED BY SILENCE
FOR THE MURDERING SIN
(He takes John's arm and looks at clock)
You can go now.
JOHN
How will you find your way back?
TIM
Same way I came
(Goes to rack and puts on pilots jacket and cap)
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain speaking. We have just landed. The
temperature outside is 156. Central control predicts fire storms will last for the
next two thousand years. Hope you're dressed for Purgatory. I know I am. I wan
t to wish you al a happy crossing. Beyond time. Beyond light and dark. Without
words. Beyond father, mother, other, the cosmos. Beyond me and you.
(He starts to exit as lights slowly down)
END