The Pardon

a play in two acts

by Charles Deemer

 

First performed at Theatre Workshop in Portland, Oregon, on March 16, 1979. Directed by Steve Smith.

 

 

THE CAST (4M, 4W):

Frank, the narrator

Horace, his father

Evelyn, his mother

Sheri, his sister

Carl, his brother-in-law

Les, his uncle

Harriet, his high school sweetheart

Jocelyn, his Canadian lover

 

THE TIME:

Spring, 1977; and other events, before and after.

 

THE PLACE:

Rutherford, on Maryland's Eastern Shore; and in the mind of the narrator


 

ACT ONE

 

 

(We are in the landscape of the conscience, where time and space are awash. The stage area is open and free: boundaries flutter, actors move through time and space in an instant, sometimes "presenting" the action, sometimes "representing" it, often quickly moving back and forth between the two forms.

The actors never leave the stage. When not "in" the action, they sit in chairs or on stools — or, in Horace's case, in a wheelchair.

These areas must be defined: a radio station; a living area; a podium area, with an open area adjacent to it.)

 

(AT RISE: all the actors are in their chairs. Then FRANK gets up and moves forward to speak to the audience.)

 

FRANK: There was a war. Perhaps you remember. There was a war but there were no heroes.

I assumed I'd never return. Who could have foreseen a Presidential pardon? So I'd learned to live with it. At least, after ten years, a few things were going my way again. I found a job in my profession, which is radio. And I met someone. You'll meet Jocelyn later. I really don't know where I'd be without her. Not that a sense of debt is the best foundation, if you know what I mean.

 

(Frank moves toward the radio station area.)

 

FRANK: When I arrived I didn't phone my parents. I wasn't sure whether they wanted to see me. Father hadn't approved of my leaving and mother ... perhaps she didn't either. I think I understand Dad's reasons: like many of his generation, he had sacrificed much to his war. A pair of functioning legs, in Dad's case, and his sex. This gave a certain coloring to his opinion about me. He'd returned home a hero. His medals and chevrons and discharge couldn't be missed in our home, they were hung where some families hang Jesus. Like father, like son, was his notion.

 

(Frank is in the radio station area. SHERI moves into the living area.)

 

SHERI: ("answering the phone") Hello?

FRANK: I was speechless. After ten years it came to this: an automatic, straight-forward "hello".

SHERI: Hello? ... Who is this, please? ... Hello! Will you at least breathe heavy or something? ... Creep!

FRANK: So I stiffened my courage with a few drinks and called back. Sheri told me that she and Carl had been thinking about me ever since Carter offered the pardon.

SHERI: Are you at Dad's?

FRANK: At the Greyhound depot. Can you pick me up?

SHERI: Of course. We'll be there in ten minutes.

 

(LIGHTS OFF living area.)

 

FRANK: Sheri's older by a year, and there are just the two of us. We used to be very close.

When I went to the radio station, I found it hadn't changed at all. I shouldn't have been surprised. Uncle Les would never risk upsetting his advertisers. Middle-of-the-road pap: something for everyone, and everything for no one. There were a few exceptions, however, to keep the FCC off his back. I became one of the exceptions.

 

(He sits down "at the board.")

 

FRANK: The same antiques. The studio was obsolete ten years ago. Walter Winchell's hand-me-down mic ... and these pots, they always gave me the feeling I was flying a World War II bomber. ... Well, here goes ...

 

(And he is "on in the air" as in the past.)

 

FRANK: Yes indeedy! This is Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man! Bringing you the very best in rhythm-n-blues, from bebop to boogie, from blues to ballads, the Golden Hits and the Silver Also Rans. We got the gamut, we got it all! The sound of the 1950s! And it's all for you, baby, on WRUT radio! In rah-rah-Rutherford, Maryland!

 

(MUSIC: Sh-Boom by The Chords, preferably. Otherwise another classic 50s R&B song: it need only be vintage, black and up-tempo. Sheri enters the radio station area.)

 

SHERI: Want to dance?

FRANK: (getting up) The advantage of having an older sister was that I could bop as well as any guy in high school.

 

(They dance, doing the bop: lights come up on HORACE and EVELYN in the living area. Evelyn is working on the books of the family business; Horace is in his wheelchair.)

 

HORACE: Frank! You turn that off and get down here!

EVELYN: Horace, I'm going to order another two thousand brooders next quarter.

HORACE: I've told him a hundred times about playing nigger music. Frank!

EVELYN: Do you approve, dear?

HORACE: What?

FRANK: Oh brother ... what do we do now?

SHERI: He's calling you, not me.

 

(She moves off.)

 

FRANK: Sheri! ... I thought Dad was outside where he wouldn't hear us. He raises broilers.

EVELYN: It will help pay for the extension and we can make room by storing the feed in the barn.

HORACE: The feed arrived this morning. It has to be stacked. Frank!

EVELYN: What I'm suggesting is —

HORACE: How can you think with that racket going on? Frank!

FRANK: I'm coming! — hold your horses ...

 

(The music stops. Frank moves into the living area.)

 

EVELYN: It's what the kids are listening to.

HORACE: Not in this house.

FRANK: (entering) You wanted me? ... I'm sorry about the volume. I thought you were outside. I was studying when Sheri —

HORACE: Was she playing that record or were you?

FRANK: I was.

HORACE: I thought we'd reached an understanding last month.

EVELYN: Frank, do you think if we moved the feed to the barn we could handle another two thousand chicks?

FRANK: Sure, I guess so.

HORACE: If you don't mind, I am settling something here.

FRANK: Dad, I haven't been playing those records. (To the audience) Well, that wasn't true.

HORACE: (to audience) I always knew when he was lying.

FRANK: (to audience) Sometimes late at night, after everyone had gone to bed, I'd listen to the records he wouldn't let me play. I was supposed to have taken them to the dump because the records were obscene, he thought. Incredible records ... Work With Me, Annie, by The Midnighters, The Dominoes' Sixty-Minute Man, The Clovers' One Mint Julep ... you could get the records across the river in colored town.

HORACE: That's exactly why I disapproved.

EVELYN: Horace was the disciplinarian of the family but it was only Frank he picked on. Sheri could get away with murder.

FRANK: The music had so much energy, it made you want to explode, to pop right out of your skin. And some of the songs, the ones we liked best — well, they sounded kind of wicked actually. Dirty. I have to admit that was an attraction.

HORACE: (back to Frank) I trusted you to destroy those nigger records yourself.

FRANK: But Dad —

HORACE: There's plenty of decent music in this house.

EVELYN: (to audience) Benny Goodman and Spike Jones.

HORACE: If you can't listen to decent music —

EVELYN: Didn't you want Frank to stack the feed, dear?

HORACE: I haven't finished, if you don't mind.

EVELYN: (starting another sequence to audience) The harsh words that passed through this house about that music. The more parents got upset about rock-n-roll, the more the kids wanted to listen to it.

HORACE: I'm not talking about Elvis. At least he's white. I'm talking about nigger music.

FRANK: Rhythm-n-blues.

HORACE: The Supreme Court decision about schools was bad enough. Mingling had to stop somewhere. Social mingling, I mean, because I've worked with Negroes all my life. But playing their music went too far.

 

(And back to Frank.)

 

HORACE: Can I trust you to destroy those nigger records or do I have to do it myself?

FRANK: What difference does it make?

HORACE: I think you'd learn more by doing it yourself.

 

(A Benny Goodman record begins to play.)

 

EVELYN: How can you argue to the King of Swing?

 

(She moves Horace's wheelchair around, dancing.)

 

EVELYN: (to Frank) You should have seen us when they had dances on the pier.

FRANK: I bet you were great.

HORACE: (stopping "the dance") That was a long time ago.

FRANK: You could bop to this.

EVELYN: The bop, I'll have you know, is nothing but the jitterbug.

 

(She and Frank begin to dance, as Horace moves off.)

 

EVELYN: What do you think, dear? Wouldn't you say this is —

 

(She sees that Horace is gone. The music stops.)

 

(The phone rings.)

 

FRANK: It's probably Harriet.

 

(He moves "toward the phone".)

 

EVELYN: (to audience) What died in Horace after the war was not a part of his body but a part of his spirit. He couldn't have fun, and that's what I missed most of all — just having fun.

 

(She moves off.)

 

(LIGHTS UP on JOCELYN in the open area; Frank remains in the living area.)

 

FRANK: ("on the phone") One step at a time, Jocelyn. At least I made it here.

JOCELYN: Where are you staying?

FRANK: With Sheri and her husband.

JOCELYN: When will you be seeing your parents?

FRANK: Tomorrow, I guess.

JOCELYN: You're doing the right thing. There was no other way, Morris.

FRANK: (to audience) Morris Appleway. It had been the first name to pop into my head. In Ontario they had a regular factory going, almost all the new parts anyone would need — a phony driver's license, draft card, social security, you name it. They had everything you needed except a new head. A new memory. So I told them I'd try being Morris Appleway this time around, and I swear to God that over a year went by before it hit me that Morris rhymed with Horace.

JOCELYN: I think you should stay as long as it takes.

FRANK: I'm due back on the air Monday.

JOCELYN: Someone can fill in for you. You're doing something very important. Will you call me as soon as you've seen your parents?

 

(Sheri and CARL enter the living area.)

 

FRANK: One step at a time, okay? Listen, I'm running up Sis's phone bill.

JCOELYN: Call me tomorrow, Morris.

 

(Frank hangs up.)

 

FRANK: (to Sheri and Carl) She's fine. She misses me already.

JOCELYN: (to audience) As soon as he left for the States, I told myself that when he called I'd tell him that it wasn't working out. I was going to get my own apartment. I needed time alone, to think. Then he phoned, I heard his voice, and I didn't have the heart to say it. It wasn't that I was afraid of hurting him. I was afraid of breaking him.

 

(LIGHTS OFF Jocelyn.)

 

SHERI: I'd like to meet her.

FRANK: She's very Canadian. People are different up there, you know.

CARL: In what way?

FRANK: They don't start wars.

SHERI: (to audience) Well, it wasn't going at all as I'd imagined it would. I expected a homecoming, a grand reunion. He was so bitter.

CARL: Who can blame him?

SHERI: So I got out our best dope and tried to loosen everybody up.

CARL: (back to Frank) How long will you be in town?

FRANK: I'm not sure.

 

("The joint" is passed around during the conversation below.)

 

CARL: You know, Frank, I really admire what you did.

FRANK: Leaving or coming back?

CARL: Leaving. They should pass out medals of honor with the pardon.

FRANK: I saw enough medals on the wall growing up.

SHERI: You must feel like you've been in a time warp.

FRANK: Why did you ask me if I was at Dad's? You singled him out. Have they split up?

SHERI: Frank ... Mother's dead.

CARL: It's been six or seven years.

SHERI: 1970. Dad moved to Oyster Island.

FRANK: I see.

SHERI: (to audience) I couldn't handle it at all. He has no contact with the family for ten years and returns to learn that Mother's been dead like forever. I just wanted to change the subject. I just wanted to deal with something I could handle.

 

(Back to the others: she laughs.)

 

CARL: What's so funny?

SHERI: I was thinking of the first time I offered Frank dope. God, was I loaded. Carl was speaking in the park.

CARL: 1966: the war had just been escalated.

 

(They move into the podium area.)

 

SHERI: (to audience) I think it must have been the first time anyone had protested anything in Rutherford. Not that anybody showed up to listen. A few of Carl's students were there, and every now and then someone would pass by, listen a minute, and hurry on.

FRANK: I was on my way to work at the radio station.

CARL: (behind the podium) Even if we believe that only military targets at Hanoi and Haiphong were bombed, who can believe for a minute that we will stop there?

FRANK: Uncle Les had given me a job at WRUT as soon as I graduated from college. He also sat on my draft board. This was no small advantage in 1966.

CARL: Who can believe for a minute that we are not setting loose a military arsenal aimed at no less than genocide in Southeast Asia?

FRANK: I'm sure I'd never heard the term "genocide" before. But it was Sheri who interested me most, sitting in the middle of Rutherford Park, sharing a joint with college students. I couldn't believe it.

SHERI: Hey, Frank! Want a toke?

FRANK: Do you know how obvious you are?

SHERI: Take some literature. Read it on the air!

FRANK: (to audience) And with the pamphlets she handed me a small flag. I didn't know at the time it was North Vietnamese.

SHERI: Are you going to share this with me or not?

FRANK: I'm late for work.

 

(Frank moves toward the radio station area as LIGHTS COME DOWN. And LIGHTS UP on LES at the station, "on the phone," talking to EVELYN in the living area.)

 

LES: Evey, a day wouldn't be complete without flirting with you. You know you love it.

EVELYN: I appreciate the compliments. I didn't know it was flirting.

LES: Damn right, it's flirting. You married the wrong brother.

EVELYN: I don't remember you asking me.

LES: Regrets! I love it. Let's fly to Reno.

EVELYN: If there's one place I've never had a desire to see —

LES: The Rutherford courthouse, then. That would raise some eyebrows.

EVELYN: (laughing) Les, you're an absolute tonic.

LES: Is that good or bad?

EVELYN: Good! You make me laugh. But I do have to run.

LES: Will you settle for an affair?

EVELYN: Goodbye, Les. Thank you for cheering up a very dreary day.

 

(LIGHTS OFF Evelyn.)

 

LES: (to audience) Oh, it was harmless enough in the beginning, flirting with Evey. I could make her laugh but it was a far cry from the way she used to be. As a young woman she'd been the life of the party wherever she went.

 

(Frank enters the area.)

 

LES: Frank, do you have a minute?

FRANK: Sure.

LES: We have a little problem. Some busybody's filed a written complaint that we aren't serving the colored community. He's challenging our license renewal. Coloreds are over thirty percent now, he claims, and we don't have any programming for them.

FRANK: (to audience) The station wasn't serving my interests, for that matter.

LES: I was speaking to your mother a moment ago and she mentioned that you used to listen to colored music in high school. It occurred to me that maybe you could put together a program for them.

FRANK: I still have a collection of 50s rhythm-n-blues.

LES: Makes no difference what it is, as long as we protect ourselves. What's the flag?

FRANK: They were handing them out in the park.

LES: Looks South American. Anyway, why don't you give it some thought and get back to me at the end of the week.

FRANK: (to audience) And that's how I became Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man. Sixty minutes of pure 50s vintage rhythm-n-blues, every Saturday night. The show went over so well that soon I had three hours. The Saturday show made my week.

LES: Frank, do you have a minute?

FRANK: Whenever Uncle Les had something on his mind, he came to me. Perhaps he thought of it as keeping business in the family.

 

(And back to Les.)

 

FRANK: What's up?

LES: On Memorial Day —

FRANK: This would be 1967.

LES: I want to sponsor a dance supporting our boys overseas. Something patriotic to counteract all the protesting.

FRANK: (to audience) Protesting in Rutherford was pretty much of a farce.

LES: Something like that can devastate morale over there. I want to do something positive. On TV you hear all this stuff about a Vietnam summer. I want to nip them in the bud.

FRANK: So what's the problem?

LES: None at all. I'm just asking you to emcee the show. I want to honor the real patriots in the community — our boys in Vietnam.

 

(Carl and Sheri move forward to lead, like cheerleaders, VOICES OFF.)

 

VOICES OFF: Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?

 

(Etc.)

 

FRANK: (moving toward the podium area) On Memorial Day, a small crowd of protesters met us outside the hotel. Sheri, of course, was among them.

VOICES OFF: All we are saying, is give peace a chance.

 

(Etc.)

 

(HORACE, Evelyn and Les join Frank in the open area near the podium.)

 

EVELYN: Horace, ignore them. She doesn't know what she's doing.

HORACE: What the hell do they think they're accomplishing?

VOICES OFF: Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh!

 

(Etc.)

 

HORACE: Listen to them. They're cheering the Communists. They want a Communist victory.

EVELYN: Ignore them.

HORACE: If you don't like this country, then get the hell out, you goddamn slackers!

FRANK: Dad, you're reacting just how they want you to.

HORACE: What did we fight Hitler for? Love it or leave it!

VOICES OFF: Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?

 

(Etc.)

 

EVELYN: (to audience) Sheri was rebellious even as a child. Horace had doted on her and now she was hurting him, screaming her head off out there. Horace and I belonged to a different generation. We had no time for yelling in the streets.

SHERI: (coming forward, breaking in) You lived through the depression. There wasn't yelling in the streets going on then? (To audience) She was blind to everything that interfered with raising chickens on her safe little sandbar.

 

(Les moves away from the others as we move toward a new time frame.)

 

EVELYN: You think I liked doing that? We went into the business because it was something Horace could manage after the war.

SHERI: I just wanted to live my own life.

EVELYN: You certainly did that. You wouldn't raise a hand to help us with the business. If it wasn't for Frank, I don't know how we'd have managed.

 

(Sheri moves off. New time frame.)

 

HORACE: Now don't you fret, Evelyn. Sheri's dating a good boy. Mrs. Adams told me herself that she would keep an eye on them, no matter how late the party went.

EVELYN: Are you trying to marry her off to that boy?

HORACE: She could do far worse, couldn't she? Relax and come to bed.

EVELYN: I'd be awake anyway.

FRANK: Here're the totals you wanted.

HORACE: The chickens grow by themselves, without all that book work.

EVELYN: Goodnight, dear.

 

(They peck, and Horace moves off.)

 

FRANK: What's our taxes?

EVELYN: Oh, I've a ways to go before figuring them.

FRANK: Anything else I can help with?

EVELYN: Maybe your father's right. I am tired.

FRANK: Just tell me what to do.

EVELYN: You could add these receipts.

FRANK: Be glad to.

EVELYN: I don't think we could stay in business without your help.

FRANK: You did fine when I was little.

EVELYN: I was younger then. Would you mind waiting up until Sheri gets home?

FRANK: Sure.

EVELYN: Goodnight.

 

(Evelyn moves off. Frank turns on "the radio": low rhythm-n-blues from Philadelphia.)

 

(A beat. Sheri enters.)

 

SHERI: Everyone in bed?

FRANK: Mom just went.

SHERI: Is she mad?

FRANK: A little, I guess.

SHERI: What're you doing?

FRANK: Helping Mom with taxes.

SHERI: Yuk. Philly's coming in great tonight.

FRANK: Weather must be perfect.

SHERI: I can't wait to see Philly.

FRANK: You sound like you've got plans.

SHERI: I'll see it next year. I'll have my own apartment in College Park and every weekend a bunch of us will go to Philly.

FRANK: You'll probably end up going to Rutherford College and living at home.

SHERI: Oh, I love this song ...

 

(The R&B music fades into VOICES OFF: "hey, hey, LBJ" etc.)

 

(Horace, Les and Evelyn move back into the playing area.)

 

HORACE: I think we should call the police.

LES: They'll get bored with themselves if we ignore them. Let's enjoy ourselves. May I have permission to dance with Evey, brother?

 

(Carl and Sheri softly sing and hum "We Shall Overcome" as Les and Evelyn dance.)

 

HORACE: (watching them, then to audience) That was the night it occurred to me that she was capable of having an affair. I didn't suspect Les, not yet. It really didn't matter who it would be. But watching her laugh as they danced —

EVELYN: (laughing) Oh Les ...

HORACE: — something of the young woman I married returned. She was different before the war. Evelyn had her wild side.

FRANK: Mother, wild?

HORACE: You'd be surprised.

FRANK: She was always working. Who can imagine someone like that being wild? I can't even imagine my parents making love.

HORACE: She was one of a kind ... and dance, boy, did she love to dance. We could out-step any couple on the peninsula.

 

(Horace gets out of his wheelchair and walks over to cut in on Les. The music becomes something from the big band era. Horace and Evelyn dance to a fast number, and they are quite good together.)

 

EVELYN: (stopping) Come outside for a minute.

 

(She leads him to another part of the playing area.)

 

EVELYN: Now close your eyes. I have a surprise.

HORACE: What is it?

EVELYN: Just close your eyes — and no peeking!

 

(He does. Evelyn "holds a small bottle" under his nose.)

 

HORACE: (opening his eyes) Dandelion wine!

EVELYN: Daddy opened the first bottle this afternoon.

HORACE: And you snitched a little

EVELYN: Well, not much ...

HORACE: Your dandelion wine puts crazy thoughts in my head.

EVELYN: Like what?

HORACE: Oh, like what I might be doing a few years from now.

EVELYN: Don't tell me if I'm not there, too.

HORACE: There's a girl there, all right. She's holding a baby. And I'm just coming up to the dock with enough oysters to want to celebrate a little. I think we should get a baby-sitter. Yep, I think we owe it to ourselves to celebrate tonight.

EVELYN: Who's the girl?

HORACE: The one responsible for putting crazy thoughts in my head.

 

(Laughing, they embrace. Les moves to them as Frank moves to the podium.)

 

LES: I think Frank's ready to begin.

 

(Horace returns to the wheel chair.)

 

FRANK: (to the audience) Uncle Les had written a poem for the occasion. The author was to remain anonymous.

CARL: We'd made our point and I suggested we leave. Several disagreed and elected to stay. I didn't like this division because it was always my notion that we were stronger together than apart. So Sheri and I decided to stay, too.

FRANK: (reading the poem) I'm proud to be an American

Of the red, white and blue

In God's own chosen country

I'm free and so are you

For Jefferson and Thomas Paine

And countless others, too

Gave their lives for liberty

Of the red, white and blue

They died, as others die today

In a far-off foreign land

Fighting the hammer and sickle

For the glory of Uncle Sam

(breaking from poem) I think you get the drift. The damn thing went on for over twenty stanzas! I think Uncle Les was born a century too late.

LES: Actually the poem took considerably more skill than most people realize.

SHERI: There was no place to pee and I had to go pretty bad. So I went back into this alley between the hotel and a tavern where I could use the facilities and that's where I heard a couple guys talking about the balloon bombs.

LES: For example, "land" and "Sam" make what is called an off-rhyme. It's a very effective poetic device. English had been my minor in college.

SHERI: They'd filled balloons with chicken blood and were going to throw them inside.

FRANK: And now, ladies and gentlemen, I want to present a very special award.

 

(Harriet comes forward.)

 

CARL: As soon as Sheri told me, I knew we had to try and stop it.

FRANK: The man whom we honor next gave as much to his country as a man can be asked to give. He gave his life. Killed in action in December of last year, Daniel Truitt became the first in our community to make the supreme patriotic sacrifice. Accepting this plaque in his memory —

CARL: They must've found another entrance because by the time I explained to the guards at the door what the problem was, they'd had time to get in and throw them.

FRANK: — is Daniel's widow, Mrs. Harriet Truitt.

 

(Harriet screams and Frank ducks, miming reaction to the blood bombs being thrown.)

 

LES: Grab them!

CARL: (moving to the podium) On behalf of the Rutherford Against Genocide Committee —

HORACE: Shut him up!

CARL: — we don't condone violence of any kind!

HORACE: Get them out of here!

SHERI: It was awful, being arrested with Dad there shouting at us. They didn't let us go until one of the guards who'd been at the door explained how we'd warned them and tried to stop it.

 

(All but Evelyn, Frank and Harriet move off.)

 

EVELYN: Horace drank himself into oblivion after that. Les had to help me get him into the car. He suggested a nightcap but I didn't want to leave Horace alone. Les was so insistent that we settled on coffee, which we drank in his car parked beside mine in the lot. It was there that Les made his first advances, and there that I realized my rejection of him was without will and that if he chose to pursue me, he would have me.

 

(She moves off.)

 

FRANK: We hadn't been hurt but we were drenched in chicken blood.

HARRIET: It was a very unnerving experience.

 

(Hand in hand, they move forward.)

 

FRANK: I have a gross analogy: this wasn't the first blood we'd shared.

HARRIET: That's awful.

FRANK: Harriet, you see, married Daniel while I was at the University of Maryland. I thought I was still in love with her then, so it hurt. In 1959, when we were seniors at Rutherford High, our petting had finally, inevitably, reach its (ahem) climax on a spring moon-filled night in the back seat of my '52 Merc convertible. We had the top down.

HARRIET: Were you a virgin? It's not so unfashionable to ask today.

FRANK: I plead guilty.

HARRIET: At the time I thought I was the only virgin over sixteen on the planet.

FRANK: In 1959, genitalia hadn't gone public yet. We didn't have Penthouse. We had nudist magazines filled with naked families playing volleyball, and to a person their genitalia were depicted as hairless smudges. This wasn't much help.

HARRIET: Despite this handicap we succeeded — how does one put it? — in lining ourselves up properly. I believe we did.

FRANK: Eventually.

HARRIET: I believe I told you I loved you.

FRANK: And not for the first time.

HARRIET: And did you love me?

FRANK: Of course. This was 1959.

HARRIET: Then what went wrong?

FRANK: I'm not sure. Perhaps it was the special logic of the fifties. Or maybe it was only Rutherford. Or only us. I do know this: that if you slept with a nice girl in 1959 —

HARRIET: And was I a nice girl?

FRANK: I knew no other kind. If you slept with her, then ipso facto you were in love with her.

HARRIET: Ipso facto.

FRANK: The times knew no other moral possibility. And if you loved her, ipso facto you married her. One's sense of moral responsibility was strongly syllogistic in those days.

HARRIET: Shoo-be-do-be: we were in love, therefore we made love.

FRANK: Sha-na-na: we made love, therefore we were in love.

HARRIET: Ipso ...

FRANK: ... facto.

HARRIET: Actually I felt like a tramp afterwards. I was sure you'd drop me in a minute.

 

(A beat: Frank clears his throat.)

 

FRANK: Will you marry me?

HARRIET: Yes. I believe I said yes.

FRANK: Yes.

HARRIET: What else could I say? There was blood all over his back seat upholstery. He loved that car!

FRANK: So we were engaged, and not thirty minutes after sharing our loss of virginity.

HARRIET: Very secretly engaged.

FRANK: And very secretly rehearsing, continuing to rehearse, for the real thing: the marriage bed.

HARRIET: Four months later I missed my period.

FRANK: But no slinky abortion, folks!

HARRIET: The proverbial false alarm. But it did scare the hell out of us.

FRANK: And she means both of us.

HARRIET: So thereafter we refrained from climbing into the back seat.

FRANK: But not without wall-climbing discipline, certain insatiable appetites having been whetted.

HARRIET: And he means in both of us. Though, of course, a nice girl didn't admit such a thing in 1959.

FRANK: Unsatisfied appetites lead to frustration; frustration to arguments —

HARRIET: And to make a long story short, since we really didn't want to get married quite yet anyway, we did the next best thing.

FRANK: We broke up.

HARRIET: Rationally and only temporarily.

FRANK: We were biding time until we finished college. I went away to the University of Maryland. I would date other girls.

HARRIET: I stayed home and attended Rutherford College and would date other men. Why do you say girls and I say men?

FRANK: The times were chauvinistic all the way around.

HARRIET: Then I met Daniel and was swept off my feet and we were married the summer after my Junior year.

FRANK: So ends the love story of Frank and Harriet. Still friends?

HARRIET: Still friends.

 

(They peck, and Harriet moves off.)

 

FRANK: The blood-throwing incident rallied the community behind "our boys overseas", as it was usually put. What was called Vietnam Summer on the mainland became, on our little peninsula, a summer of preparations for Christmas. Sweaters were knitted and vegetables were canned; Rutherford would flood Vietnam with Christmas packages for our boys overseas.

 

(Behind him now, Horace, Evelyn, Carl and Sheri seat themselves as if around a dinner table. An empty chair waits for Frank.)

 

HORACE: Let us pray ...

FRANK: But what had impressed me about the incident at the dance was Carl, that he would criticize the blood-throwing even though he led the protesting against the war. I hardly knew him at all. Sheri had met him during summer vacation, shortly after he'd started teaching at the college. They had a whirlwind courtship, married, and kept to themselves.

HORACE: ... for the bounty of food on our table that the less fortune do not share ...

FRANK: Mother was forever trying to bring us all together. One of the few times she succeeded was on Dad's birthday, 1967.

 

(He takes his seat "at the table.")

 

HORACE: ... and bless, too, our brave soldiers overseas who fight to preserve our precious freedoms. Amen.

SHERI: I was on my best behavior.

CARL: I was on my best behavior.

EVELYN: We were still a family. Differences of opinion did not change the fact. We were a family and ought to be able to sit around the same table without arguing.

 

(The sequence below is very fast.)

 

EVELYN: We've been blessed with good weather.

FRANK: Weather's been perfect.

HORACE: Reminds me of a story General Eisenhower used to tell.

SHERI: The beach crowds are huge.

FRANK: Weather's been great.

HORACE: Ike had this saying about the weather.

EVELYN: But the humidity will be here soon enough.

SHERI: The beach crowds are fantastic.

CARL: Most of them my students.

FRANK: Weather's ideal.

HORACE: If you don't like the weather, Ike used to say, wait a while. He used to tell us that.

 

(A beat: the doorbell rings.)

 

EVELYN: (getting up) I'll get it.

LES: (entering) Hi, Evey. Sorry to interrupt your dinner.

HORACE: Grab a chair and dig in.

LES: Can I speak to you for a moment?

HORACE: Sure.

 

(Les and Horace confer privately.)

 

CARL: Students would rather sunbathe than study.

SHERI: I'm not sure I blame them.

FRANK: Weather's sure been great.

HORACE: (with bad news) Goddamn it!

EVELYN: I thought, My God, Les told him about us!

LES: And seeing the fear on her face, I wished I had phoned.

EVELYN: (to change the subject) Does everyone want dessert?

LES: Horace, we need all the persuasion we can get.

EVELYN: What happened?

LES: The war took Tommy Adams. Tom Senior went crazy when he got the news. He's got a gun and is drinking over at the tavern. We've got to get it away from him before someone gets hurt.

CARL: People are dying this very minute in Vietnam.

HORACE: You know what I saw on television the other night? I saw a mock funeral. I saw North Vietnamese flags draped over coffins. Who the hell are you really mourning?

SHERI: I won't sit here and be attacked.

FRANK: Does everyone want dessert?

SHERI: Let's go.

 

(Carl and Sheri move off with Horace following them.)

 

HORACE: Tommy Adams has given his life for his country over there, and you have no right to —

SHERI: I didn't marry Tommy Adams, I married Carl! And they are having a civil war over there!

HORACE: A communist takeover is not a civil war!

SHERI: Don't you know that Ho Chi Minh — !

HORACE: Get out of my house!

 

(Carl and Sheri are gone. A beat: Frank moves off. Horace waits off. Les and Evelyn are alone.)

 

LES: I have to see you again.

EVELYN: Les —

LES: It was good. You know it was good.

EVELYN: I'm sorry it happened. I had too much to drink.

LES: It was bound to happen sooner or later. I love you, Evey.

EVELYN: Please don't tell me that.

LES: I love you.

EVELYN: I'm so confused, I —

HORACE: (returning, interrupting) We'd better get that gun from Tom Senior.

 

(Frank returns, carrying a birthday cake. Evelyn, under great control, begins to sing.)

 

EVELYN: Happy birthday to you.

EVELYN & FRANK: Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday, dear Horace

EVELYN & FRANK & LES: Happy birthday to you.

 

(Frank moves toward radio station area, others move off. Voices rise.)

 

VOICES OFF: Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! etc.

FRANK: I'm not sure when, during this Vietnam Summer of 1967, that I became a closet critic of the war. It no longer made sense to me to fight a war so far from home, with so little support at home. Television told a story that was not true in Rutherford, that hundreds upon hundreds of young men who were being asked to fight this war, and their sisters and girl friends and wives who were being asked to send them off with blessings, were in open rebellion. In Rutherford what little protest there was continued to be cliquish, with Carl at the center of it. Sheri and Dad had stopped communicating altogether.

EVELYN: (in living area, with Les) It was the summer of my adultery.

FRANK: Then, near the end of July, Black Panther Rap Brown came to Cambridge on the bayside of the peninsula, only thirty miles from Rutherford. What began as a speech ended in the smoldering ashes of a race riot. The Vietnam War was a white man's war, Brown had said, a white man's war waged against the non-white peoples of Vietnam. The war was racist.

EVELYN: Oh Les, this is wrong. I know this is wrong.

FRANK: After the riot, everyone seemed on edge. Uncle Les started carrying a gun and he told his employees to do the same. Even as sweaters were knitted and vegetables canned for our boys overseas, there was a new feeling of uncertainty in town. The race riot had struck too close to home.

EVELYN: Poor, poor Horace.

LES: Poor, poor Evelyn ...

FRANK: Then, on a Wednesday in hot, humid August ...

LES: ... she can't admit she loves me.

FRANK: I was doing production work at the station when it happened. We had less than an hour left in our broadcast day, and the DJ and I were the only ones at the studio.

VOICES OFF: Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh! etc.

FRANK: Students, only a few of whom were local, entered the station, kicked out the DJ and came on the air as People's Liberation Radio. I couldn't believe what I was hearing on the monitor. They hadn't noticed me in the production studio, so I got out while I could and phoned the police from a pay phone. Then I tried to reach Uncle Les. When he didn't answer, I decided to leave him a note on his door.

 

(LIGHTS DOWN on Frank in the studio area.)

 

EVELYN: I can't leave Horace.

LES: I haven't asked you to.

EVELYN: One day he'll find out.

LES: Yes.

EVELYN: I want to stop before that happens.

LES: Evey, I love you. I can't give you up now.

 

(Horace appears outside the living area.)

 

HORACE: (he is drunk) You're goddamn right, I knew. You don't hide much in a small town.

FRANK: (moving to Horace) Dad, what are you doing here?

HORACE: I'm not sure yet.

FRANK: I've got to find Uncle Les. Some radicals took over the station.

HORACE: You'll find him right inside.

FRANK: He didn't answer his phone.

HORACE: He doesn't want to be interrupted. Your mother's in there.

FRANK: Dad?

FRANK: Your mother and Les are lovers.

 

(LIGHTS OFF Horace and Frank.)

 

LES: We can work something out. Maybe if we level with him, he'll understand.

EVELYN: I don't want anything to be understood. I want to leave you and forget that anything happened.

LES: You know you love me.

EVELYN: No, Les, I don't know.

LES: You still love Horace?

EVELYN: I betray him.

 

(The door bell rings.)

 

LES: You'd better get in the bedroom.

EVELYN: Of course, the bedroom.

 

(She moves off. The bell rings again and Les moves forward to meet Frank.)

 

LES: Why Frank—

FRANK: Turn on the radio. Some radicals have taken over the station.

LES: What?

FRANK: I phoned the police; maybe they've arrested them by now. They threw Joe off the air and came on as People's Liberation Radio.

LES: I'd better get down there right away.

FRANK: Dad's outside. He said mother's here.

LES: Well, she was here. She brought over an apple pie, the sweetheart.

FRANK: Dad has another explanation.

LES: I'd better get to the station.

HORACE: (coming forward) Where is she?

LES: Horace, I don't know what gave you the idea that Evelyn is here. She did come by this afternoon and —

EVELYN: (coming forward) I'm here.

LES: Jesus Christ, Evey. Look, I've got to get to the station.

HORACE: I have something to say.

LES: Radicals have overthrown the station, and I intend to do something about it.

FRANK: I already called the police.

EVELYN: Will someone take me home?

HORACE: What makes you think you have a home to go to?

LES: For Christ's sake, Horace, she's not herself, can't you see that? She needed someone to talk to. She's not well.

EVELYN: I am perfectly well. I just don't feel able to drive. Someone take me home.

 

(Frank starts to move away.)

 

EVELYN: Frank?

HORACE: Let him go.

EVELYN: Take me home, Frank.

LES: I'll take you home.

HORACE: Don't think I don't know what's been going on.

EVELYN: Frank!?

LES: Horace, you're drunk and making a mountain out of nothing.

HORACE: I know why she's here.

EVELYN: I want to go home. Frank!

HORACE: Maybe this is your home now. It's where your bed is.

LES: Jesus Christ, Horace —

FRANK: Stop it! Just shut up!

 

(Frank moves off and is met by JOCELYN, in half-lights, dreamlike.)

 

EVELYN: (after him) Frank, don't leave me here!

JOCELYN: Morris, what is it?

EVELYN: Frank!

JOCELYN: Morris!

FRANK: Everything keeps coming back.

JOCELYN: It's Jocelyn. I'm right here.

EVELYN: Frank!

JOCELYN: Morris, I'm right here.

EVELYN: It's not like you think, Frank!

JOCELYN: You have to resolve it, Morris.

FRANK: I'm a coward.

JOCELYN: Morris, listen to me. It's safe to go back now. You have the pardon. Use it. See them again.

FRANK: They wouldn't let me in the house.

JOCELYN: Of course they would.

FRANK: I'm a coward. I ran. He doesn't forget a thing like that.

JOCELYN: Ten years have passed.

EVELYN: Please, Frank ...

FRANK: He'll be living World War II until he dies.

JOCELYN: Are you any different? The past is still speaking to you. You have to resolve it before it eats you alive.

EVELYN: Forgive me, Frank ...

JOCELYN: Maybe going back will be a kind of exorcism. Get rid of the past, Morris. For our sake.

FRANK: I put her on such a pedestal. She ran everything: the business, the home, us, him. How could she betray him?

JOCELYN: Go back. Learn to know them again.

EVELYN: Please forgive me ...

JOCELYN: Go back, Morris.

EVELYN: Frank ...

 

(Frank moves off alone. A beat.)

 

FRANK: I left and went back to the radio station. The radicals were gone but the police were still there. I told them what I knew about it. When the police left, instead of closing down the station I pulled out the on-the-air cable and did almost an hour of my Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man show. I thought it was one of the best sequences I'd ever done but of course no one could hear it. ... We'll have an intermission now.

 

(LIGHTS DOWN: end of Act One.)


 

ACT TWO

 

 

(AT RISE: Frank is at the phone in the living area. First he speaks to the audience.)

 

FRANK: The next morning, my first in the States in ten years, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and asking myself, Morris Appleway, what now, Frank White? Frank White, what next, Morris Appleway? I mean, who the hell was I? When I got up, I went to the phone and called Jocelyn first thing.

 

(LIGHTS UP on Jocelyn in the radio station area.)

 

JOCELYN: When the phone rang, guessing it was Morris, I hesitated. I knew I should say to him, Morris, I love you, I think I love you, but I can't live with you now because you have no future until you settle with your past. But with Morris, it was always difficult to get to the heart of a matter. He was fragile. Sometimes I felt that it was I alone who was holding his life together. His new life, I mean: it was the old life that kept haunting him.

FRANK: ("on the phone") I guess I'll look around town this morning.

JOCELYN: Will you be seeing your parents today?

FRANK: Dad's moved to Oyster Island. It's in the Chesapeake.

JOCELYN: Is that far?

FRANK: No. Maybe I'll get out there today. I haven't decided. Maybe I'll catch the first bus out of town.

JOCELYN: Don't run away, Morris. I know it's not easy.

FRANK: Christ, Jocelyn ...

JOCELYN: What is it?

FRANK: Mom's dead.

JOCELYN: Oh Morris, no.

FRANK: She's been dead for years.

JOCELYN: I'm so sorry.

FRANK: At least it's one less thing to resolve. My morbid sense of humor.

JOCELYN: Please see your father today.

FRANK: Don't take any bets.

JOCELYN: You need to. Call me tonight and tell me how it went.

 

(LIGHTS OFF Jocelyn. Sheri enters the living area.)

 

SHERI: You're up early. Sleep okay?

FRANK: I slept fine.

SHERI: What's on the agenda for today?

FRANK: I thought I'd look around town and maybe catch the mail boat to see Dad.

SHERI: Does he know you're here?

FRANK: No.

SHERI: He'll be glad to see you. I mean that.

FRANK: Do you see him often?

SHERI: He has us out for dinner.

FRANK: He and Carl get along?

SHERI: Real well in football season.

FRANK: I thought he'd have shamed you out of town.

SHERI: He tried hard enough. You know how stubborn I am.

FRANK: But you've kissed and made up?

SHERI: We just don't talk about those days.

FRANK: Well, that's convenient, isn't it? If you don't talk about it, then none of it really happened. Why didn't I think of that?

SHERI: The country made a mistake. Everyone admits that now.

FRANK: So you grant a pardon, shake hands, and everything is forgotten.

SHERI: I know it hasn't been easy for you. But a pardon's better late than never, isn't it?

FRANK: Good question.

SHERI: What you had to go through is criminal.

FRANK: What the hell do you know about what I've been through?

SHERI: I'm sorry. I just imagine it must've been terrible.

FRANK: Not any more. I'm not washing dishes. I've not digging ditches. I'm not even selling dope. I didn't sell my body to any dirty old men — that's about all I haven't done. I finally got into radio again. It's a beginning.

SHERI: You're going to stay in Canada?

FRANK: (reacting to her surprise) You never really realize how obnoxious Americans can be until you live apart from them. The pardon doesn't necessarily change anything. The United States is not the only country on the face of the earth.

CARL: (entering) Morning. I'd like you to come to my Ethics class today.

FRANK: I want to catch the mail boat to Oyster Island.

CARL: Day after tomorrow, then. My students can learn one hell of a lot from you, Frank. The Vietnam War is ancient history to them.

FRANK: Only to them?

SHERI: To all of us.

CARL: I swear to God, Carter should've given every one of you the medal of honor.

FRANK: You think so?

CARL: You're the closest that damn war came to having heroes.

 

(A beat.)

 

FRANK: Where's mother buried?

CARL: In Rutherford Memorial.

 

(Frank moves forward, the others move off.)

 

FRANK: It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, wandering through the cemetery, going from gravestone to gravestone, looking for my mother's marker. Sheri offered to show me but I wanted to be alone. (He kneels.) When I found it, it was stark marble like the others — cold, immaculate, bearing her name and date but no epitaph. Perhaps no one knew what to say.

 

(Harriet comes forward, as in mourning, and kneels.)

 

FRANK: (rising) I was about to leave when I ran into Harriet. She had come with flowers for Daniel.

HARRIET: (rising) It was good seeing you again. I'm not sure why you decided to leave but it was the right thing to do. You're alive.

FRANK: Yeah, I'm that.

HARRIET: I wish Daniel had run to Canada, too.

FRANK: Goodbye, Harriet.

 

(Frank moves into the radio station as Harriet moves off.)

 

FRANK: If only Daniel had gone to Canada. It sounded so easy. Go to Canada and save your neck. At least I'm alive, she said. I'd been right all along and ten years never happened and welcome home, American hero.

LES: (in radio station area) Frank! Jesus Christ — I didn't know you were in town.

FRANK: I got in yesterday.

LES: Did you now? Well, Jesus. You're looking good.

FRANK: The station looks the same.

LES: We're the Rock of Gibraltar. You worked here long enough to know that.

 

(Les laughs and slaps Frank on the back.)

 

FRANK: His laughter was like a release of obligation. In it was the feeling that we no longer had anything of substance to talk about. We were left with the social graces — we'd politely inquire how each had been, I'd take the nostalgic tour of the station, I'd turn down the mandatory invitation to lunch, and I'd leave.

LES: What the hell, he walks in without warning after ten years. I'm supposed to drag out the past?

FRANK: No. I didn't want that either. The first time through was plenty.

 

(A beat. Time frame changes.)

 

LES: Frank, do you have a minute?

FRANK: There's nothing to discuss.

LES: You jumped to conclusions last night.

FRANK: Did I?

LES: Your mother and I are dear friends. You had no right to imply the rest.

FRANK: If you'll excuse me, I have production work.

LES: It can wait. I think we'd better clear the air. We do work together.

FRANK: I work for you, not with you.

LES: I think a good deal of your mother. I show her considerably more respect than you did last night.

FRANK: Is that all?

LES: You judge her too harshly. She loves you very much.

FRANK: Look, I have work to do.

LES: I care for her very much.

 

(Les moves off. Frank sits down at the board.)

 

FRANK: The next few weeks were like a long downer. I avoided Uncle Les during the day, then went home to stare at the same depressing TV images of students being clubbed by police. I felt drugged and only straightened up on Saturday nights, when for a few hours I was transformed into Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man.

Oh yes indeedy, The Chords from 1954! Life could be a dream, sh-boom! You get nothing but The True Word from Lovin' Dan. Life could be a dream, sh-boom! Can you dig it? Yes indeedy, we got the Golden Hits and the Silver Also Rans. The sound of the 1950s. And it's the only thing left, my friends. Can you dig it? The only thing left — and it will stand! Yes indeedy! Going way back to 1948 now, back to Baltimore's own Sonny Til and the Orioles, a little tune called It's Too Soon To Know ...

 

(LIGHTS UP on Horace and Evelyn in the living area, while remaining on Frank as Lovin' Dan.)

 

HORACE: Do you want a divorce?

EVELYN: No.

FRANK: And here's The Five Satins, In the Still of the Night ...

HORACE: How long have you been sleeping with him?

EVELYN: My God, does it matter?

HORACE: Has he asked you to marry him?

EVELYN: I don't love him. I've never loved him.

FRANK: It's Lovey Dovey by The Clovers! Honey Love by The Drifters!

HORACE: You go to him.

EVELYN: I've never loved him.

FRANK: Pledging My Love by Johnny Ace!

HORACE: He satisfies you in a way I no longer can.

EVELYN: No, he doesn't even do that.

HORACE: Then why?

EVELYN: I don't know why.

HORACE: (to audience now) We were getting nowhere, and I had to get out of the house. If she wanted her freedom, she could have it but she was going to have to ask for it herself.

EVELYN: I just wanted the past to disappear. I wanted to continue on as if nothing had happened.

HORACE: I went out to do chores in the chickenhouse. When I came back inside, I found her on the floor of the bathroom.

FRANK: Altar of Love by The Channels! Goodnight My Love by Jesse Belvin!

EVELYN: I don't even recall doing it.

FRANK: The Ten Commandments of Love by The Moonglows!

HORACE: She'd slashed her wrist. Blood was everywhere.

EVELYN: No — I'd struck at one wrist, once, lightly. Seeing the blood, I must have fainted.

FRANK: Symbol of Love by the G-Clefs!

HORACE: I was sure she'd killed herself.

FRANK: Treasure of Love by Clyde McPhatter! Chapel of Love by the Dixie Cups!

EVELYN: It would always seem like a bad dream to me. If I'd meant to do that, I think I would have succeeded.

HORACE: I was the last thing I'd expected her to do.

FRANK: Ship of Love by The Nutmegs!

 

(The studio phone rings.)

 

FRANK: Glory of Love by The Velvatones!

 

(He "answers the phone")

 

FRANK: WRUT, Lovin' Dan.

HORACE: ("on the phone") Frank?

FRANK: Dad?

HORACE: Get here as soon as you can. Something terrible has happened.

 

(LIGHTS DOWN in living area, up on Les in radio station area.)

 

LES: (to audience) It was the last thing I expected her to do. We had been together for several hours only the night before. She hadn't given me a clue that she was unhappy. She always felt sorry for Horace, of course, but it wasn't the kind of thing that would lead to desperation. When Frank attacked me in the studio, I thought he'd reached the breaking point. It never occurred to me that she was in the hospital. I'd been with her only the night before.

 

(Frank attacks Les.)

 

FRANK: You son-of-a-bitch!

LES: What the hell!

 

(They struggle until Les finally gets Frank in a controlling headlock.)

 

LES: What the hell is going on?

FRANK: She tried to kill herself because of you ... You and your fucking respect ...

LES: Where is she? What happened?

FRANK: At the hospital. You goddamn —

LES: You don't understand the first thing about this!

FRANK: I understand what drove her to it.

LES: I'm not going to try to explain it to you. When I let you go, you're going to stay put and shut up. Am I right?

FRANK: Fuck you.

 

(Les tightens his grip.)

 

LES: Am I right?

 

(Frank groans in pain, and Les lets him loose.)

 

LES: I'll talk to you later.

FRANK: Stay away from her.

LES: This is not your business.

FRANK: If I had a gun, it would be. I'd blow your fucking head off.

LES: The only reason you're not carrying a gun in the jungle over there is because I thought you had something to offer this community. Watch your step, boy. You can fight that war over there yet.

 

(Frank moves toward the living area.)

 

LES: Of course, it was an idle threat. Evey would never forgive me for that. I loved her very much.

 

(LIGHTS OFF Les and up in the living area as Frank meets Carl there.)

 

CARL: Frank, what's the matter? Are you all right?

FRANK: I need some help ...

CARL: Of course.

FRANK: My whole world is collapsing ...

CARL: What happened?

FRANK: Listen, I've got to get the hell out of here. I have to go somewhere. I think I'm going to be drafted.

CARL: Christ almighty.

FRANK: I don't know what to do.

CARL: I know some people in Canada, Frank. Listen to me: you have options. They'd be glad to help you. It's an honor with them, helping someone who has the moral courage to skip that crap over there.

FRANK: I don't have moral —

CARL: (quickly, to audience) He seemed to be on bad acid or something, which wasn't like Frank at all. I phoned Canada and made the arrangements and the next morning we put him on a bus.

SHERI: (coming forward) She's resting comfortably.

FRANK: Did you tell her that I ...

SHERI: No.

CARL: No one knows but us.

SHERI: You can write them later.

CARL: I don't think you should let anyone know your return address. Including us.

FRANK: Was Uncle Les with her?

SHERI: Not while I was.

CARL: Keep in touch, Frank. And be careful.

SHERI: I know you're doing the right thing — but God I wish there was another way.

 

(She moves forward to embrace him but Frank backs away.)

 

(Jocelyn moves forward.)

 

JOCELYN: Morris?

SHERI: Frank?

FRANK: Jocelyn ...

JOCELYN: I'm right here.

CARL: (to audience) I'd asked him to phone collect when he arrived in Ontario. When he didn't, I phoned my friends to see if he'd made it.

FRANK: I'm a coward, Jocelyn.

JOCELYN: Don't, Morris.

FRANK: I ran.

CARL: He'd arrived all right. He arrived and hit the sack and had been sleeping twelve hours when I called. I was relieved, believe me. Frank seemed so unsure of himself. He was doing a very courageous thing.

FRANK: I ran from everything.

CARL: And we needed him up there — we needed all the moral heroes we could get.

JOCELYN: It was an immoral and terrible war.

FRANK: I didn't run from the war. I ran from myself. How can I be pardoned when I'm a coward?

JCOELYN: You're not a coward. Not if you go back to the States and resolve it. The past is eating you alive, Morris.

SHERI: It occurred to me that I might never see him again.

JOCELYN: Go back, Morris.

 

(Carl, Sheri and Jocelyn move off.)

 

FRANK: When I took the mail boat to Oyster Island, I spent the entire trip at the railing on the upper deck. The spring day was the peninsula at its best, the sky flat blue and punctuated by white gulls that followed our wake. I watched alone in the wind and spray of the day, under the flat blue sky filled with gulls, as silent as a sailor on watch, a navigator who reckoned not where he was going but where he had been.

 

(Horace wheels forward into the living area.)

 

HORACE: I expected you to come back.

FRANK: Then you know more than I did. The visit is, well, impulsive.

HORACE: What do you do in Canada?

FRANK: I have a radio job. And you? I don't see any chickens.

HORACE: I have my disability and social security. It's enough on the island.

FRANK: I've never been on the island before.

HORACE: More tourists are visiting all the time. Of course, they don't stay but an hour before the mail boat goes back. We've got no facilities for them.

 

(A beat.)

 

FRANK: I heard about Mom. Sheri told me how it happened. (To audience) She died in an auto wreck. Hit broadside by a drunken driver.

 

(LIGHTS UP on Les and Evelyn in front of the podium area.)

 

EVELYN: (drunk) I want another.

LES: I think you've had plenty.

HORACE: Les was driving.

FRANK: Sheri didn't tell me that.

HORACE: He got out with hardly a scratch.

LES: Please, Evey. You're already past your limit.

EVELYN: I'm finding a new limit. That's just what I'm doing.

LES: You're a three-drink woman, and you'll always be a three-drink woman.

HORACE: It surprised me. I thought she'd stopped seeing him.

EVELYN: (to audience, sober) He was so persistent. I didn't want to hurt him. I didn't want to hurt Horace. I didn't want to hurt anyone.

HORACE: I made her make a choice. She said she wanted to save the marriage.

EVELYN: I did, I did.

LES: I'll drive you home.

EVELYN: (drunk) One for the road?

LES: No more, Evey. I mean it. Let's go.

EVELYN: I'm going to call Toronto.

LES: Evey, we tried Toronto. We tried Ontario and Quebec and Vancouver. Don't you remember?

EVELYN: I'm just going to ask if there's a listing.

LES: He wouldn't be using his real name.

EVELYN: I want to talk to Frank!

LES: Come on, goddamn it.

HORACE: I guess she'd been seeing him all along.

EVELYN: (to audience) That's not true. This was going to be the last time. I meant to tell him so.

LES: Come on. (To audience) We started off. I'd had a few drinks myself but there's nothing I could've done, the fellow ran a red light. All the same, I've never forgiven myself for what happened. I know that it wasn't my fault but it doesn't help. I loved her so much.

 

(Les and Evelyn move off.)

 

HORACE: Can you stay overnight?

FRANK: I have to be back on the air Monday.

HORACE: Then you have to head back tomorrow?

FRANK: I'm afraid so.

HORACE: You won't want to miss the boat. You'd be stranded here until tomorrow afternoon.

FRANK: My boss wouldn't appreciate that.

HORACE: I've often wondered how you were making out.

FRANK: No complaints.

HORACE: That's more than most of us can say.

FRANK: Well, I don't want to miss the boat.

HORACE: No, it would be a long swim.

FRANK: I'll write.

HORACE: You don't need no more address than Oyster Island.

FRANK: Dad, I don't know how to say this but there were things you were right about. More right than I was.

HORACE: A lot of folks were wrong. I don't know anybody who was right about that war. It wasn't a time when being right was possible.

FRANK: It wasn't so much the war ... I just shouldn't have gone when I did.

HORACE: There are parents who wish their sons had gone to Canada.

FRANK: In a way it was easier leaving than coming back. I feel so removed from everything here.

HORACE: I felt the same thing, coming home in '45. I had to adjust.

FRANK: Maybe more than I did.

 

(A beat.)

 

FRANK: I'd better get that boat.

HORACE: Frank ... son ...

FRANK: Dad?

HORACE: Have a safe trip. And write.

FRANK: I will.

 

(Horace moves off as Carl and Sheri enter the living area.)

 

CARL: I told my class about you today. They were only kids when the Vietnam shit was hitting the fan, and it's hard for them to realize how divided the country was then. You have my eternal admiration, Frank.

SHERI: Have a safe trip. And write.

CARL: Hell, visit again. And bring your girl.

SHERI: I'd love to meet her.

FRANK: I'll be in touch.

 

(Carl and Sheri move off. LIGHTS UP on Jocelyn in the radio station area, to which Frank now heads.)

 

JOCELYN: I was directing commercials for TV when he came to work as a DJ. He was American and there was a lot of speculation, since his age was about right, that maybe he was in exile from the States. There were so many Americans who had come here that way.

FRANK: I'd seen her a few times in the hallway. I asked someone her name. I looked for a ring but she wore none.

JOCELYN: He asked me to dinner. It was strange — he looked as if he were ready to burst into tears.

FRANK: We dated. And we danced.

 

(An R&B classic begins to play, an instrumental, perhaps "Honky Tonk" etc.)

 

JOCELYN: I can't dance to this.

FRANK: Sure you can. You've got a great teacher.

JOCELYN: I'm going to need one.

FRANK: Just copy me.

 

(They begin to dance.)

 

FRANK: I'll have you know I was once the best rhythm-n-blues jockey on the Eastern Shore.

JOCELYN: I can believe it.

FRANK: Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man! From bebop to boogie, from blues to ballads, the sound of the 1950s! It will stand!

JOCELYN: How am I doing?

FRANK: Terrific.

JOCELYN: What do you call this?

FRANK: The bop. Yes, indeedy! We're boppin' in Canada from coast to coast! The dance with the most! Lovin' Dan your host!

JOCELYN: Morris, you're amazing. I thought you were shy.

FRANK: Hey, who's Morris? You're dancing with Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man.

JOCELYN: (breaking away) We danced and danced and danced. I don't know when I'd had so much fun.

FRANK: Then one night we made love.

JOCELYN: It was the best ever for me, on merely a physical level. This was going to keep me with him longer than I might have stayed, once I learned about the rest. Then President Carter granted the pardon, he could return to the States without consequences, and I expected him to jump at the opportunity.

FRANK: Things were finally going well for me again.

JOCELYN: On the surface.

FRANK: I wanted to forget the past. The pardon was a vivid reminder.

JOCELYN: You had to go back.

 

(A beat. Time shift.)

 

JOCELYN: How did it go?

FRANK: I told Sheri and Carl about you.

JOCELYN: That's not what I mean.

FRANK: Maybe you'd better ask a direct question.

JOCELYN: How did you and your father get along?

FRANK: We exchanged war stories. I didn't have much to say.

JOCELYN: And your sister?

FRANK: Her husband thinks I'm a goddamn hero. He thinks I deserve a fucking medal.

JOCELYN: Obviously you don't agree.

FRANK: Nobody wants to talk about anything real.

JOCELYN: Is that so surprising?

FRANK: There's nothing for me there any more. No one wants to deal with it. With the family, with the war, nothing. It's like none of it happened. The past is just past. Forgotten. Dead. Silent.

 

(The others move forward and surround the action, dream-like.)

 

JOCELYN: Maybe that's necessary. Maybe only then can we live in the present.

EVELYN: Someone please take me home.

FRANK: But so much happened. So goddamn much happened!

CARL: I told my class about you today.

FRANK: Doesn't it mean anything? Doesn't it influence anything?

JOCELYN: You. It influences you, Morris. Still.

LES: I show her considerably more respect than you did last night.

HORACE: It wasn't a time when being right was possible.

FRANK: Jocelyn, I may or may not be a coward. But I know I'm a liar.

JOCELYN: Why are you always so hard on yourself?

FRANK: Listen to me.

JOCELYN: No, Morris, it's time you listen to me.

SHERI: I just wanted to deal with something I could handle.

FRANK: A liar, do you understand?

JOCELYN: Morris, I —

FRANK: There! Right there!

JOCELYN: We have to talk, Morris. About us.

FRANK: My name is Frank.

 

(A beat.)

 

FRANK: I said my name isn't Morris, it's Frank. I've been lying to you.

JOCELYN: To yourself, not to me.

HARRIET: I wish Daniel had run to Canada.

FRANK: Doesn't it mean anything to you? My name is Frank White!

JOCELYN: Fine. I'll change my vocabulary. Your name is Frank. I love you, Frank, but I can't live with you just now.

FRANK: What?

HARRIET: You're alive.

JOCELYN: I've taken an apartment. We can still date, Morris. Frank. I'm glad you went back. It's a beginning.

FRANK: Yeah, great. A goddamn moral hero, that's me.

JOCELYN: I'm moving out because I think it's important that you spend time with yourself. You have to learn to be Frank again.

FRANK: My name is Morris Appleway! Frank White's dead. He got killed in the war.

JOCELYN: Frank— ... Morris ... let's have dinner together soon.

FRANK: You think it's easy doing what I did? Killing yourself? Sticking a phony driver's license in your wallet, a social security number you never saw before, you think it's easy to look some well-meaning clerk in the eye who's asking you what goddamn name you want to use, what goddamn name you want to spend the rest of your phony life with, you think it's easy to go through with that?

HARRIET: But you're alive.

FRANK: To have a trade but be afraid of using it because they can trace you that way? To cross the street thinking every son-of-a-bitch you meet is a spy out to blow your cover, you think that's pleasant?

HARRIET, SHERI, CARL: You're alive.

FRANK: It stinks. That whole country stinks. They pretend it never happened, it was just something that's come and gone, like the goddamn seasons, first it's goddamn winter and then it's goddamn summer.

HORACE, EVELYN, LES: But you're alive.

FRANK: Okay, so I went back. I went back because you said I should resolve it.

JOCELYN: And learn to forgive. I still think so.

FRANK: So I resolved it. Want to hear how? I hope the United States disappears from the face of the earth.

JOCELYN: That doesn't solve anything.

FRANK: So what do I get? I come back to learn I'm being jilted by the woman I was going to marry. I was going to become a Canadian citizen. I was going to marry and live happily ever after. I was going to have children and they were going to grow up with accents and never cross the border their entire lives. Carter giving me a pardon? What a joke. What incredible gall! It's me who should be giving out pardons.

JOCELYN: Yes, I agree.

THE ENTIRE CIRCLE: But you're alive, you're alive.

 

(A beat.)

 

FRANK: He's been through hell, Jocelyn. He's been through hell.

JOCELYN: Who?

FRANK: His war took his manhood from him. It's a hell of a lot more than I lost. Mom couldn't handle it and ran. I'm my mother's goddamn son, Jocelyn. And my father's goddamn son.

JOCELYN: (gently) We'll have dinner soon.

FRANK: I need you, Jocelyn.

JOCELYN: I love you.

SHERI, CARL, HARRIET: You're alive, Morris.

HORACE, EVELYN, LES: You're alive, Frank.

JOCELYN: I'm so glad you're alive.

SHERI: Dear Frank: Dad died peaceably in his sleep last night. I tried to call but you've moved. I assume this will be forwarded and reach you. I enclose your letter to Dad, which arrived in this morning's mail.

 

(Everyone moves off except Frank.)

 

FRANK: There was a war. There was a war but there were no heroes. Perhaps you remember. ... Goodnight.

 

(BLACKOUT. The play is over.)