scene for playwriting II
Two people in a kitchen. They are sitting across from each other at the table. MARY looks at her food. It is a casserole. HUGH looks at her looking at her food, waiting. A window is behind MARY, it is slightly open, early evening. She picks up a bite of casserole. Puts it in her mouth.
HUGH
What do you think?
(MARY tosses it in her mouth with her tongue, trying to articulate words. Garbles.)
What?
MARY
It’s hot.
HUGH
I just got it out. What do you think?
MARY
It’s hot. I can’t tell. I think I burned my tongue.
HUGH
Well, I just got it out. You should’ve blown on it.
MARY
Ah. It’s definetly burned.
HUGH
Drink some water dear. You should’ve waited. Now you can’t taste it.
MARY drinks water, looks at the food.
MARY
I’m waiting.
HUGH takes a spoonful, blows on it, eats it.
HUGH
Hm.
(Chews.)
Can you close the window? It’s getting cold.
MARY
It feels fine over here.
HUGH
I’m freezing.
MARY waits for her food to cool. HUGH gets up, walks to the window and slides it completely shut. He looks at it. A bird slams into the glass.
HUGH
Jesus!
MARY
What did you do?
HUGH
Nothing. A bird hit the window.
(HUGH looks at the bird, yellow, a bundle on the windowsill, he stares. MARY takes a big bite of food, loudly.)
It’s right there!
MARY
I like this!
HUGH
Do you?
MARY
Yes, the temperature is perfect.
HUGH
Goldilocks.
HUGH smiles, MARY smiles. He continues to eat. She turns and looks at the bird on the windowsill, a yellow bundle. Goes back to eating. He remembers something, grumbles, gets up quickly, walks into a different room, and puts on a record. Jazz ballad, something by Erroll Garner. MARY stops eating.
I’m sorry. I forgot. Things have been going on. I’ve just had so much with work. And the proposal in Dallas. I just don’t know what I was thinking. And then the bird died. I’ve been cooking all day, you weren’t here but I was. And then the train. I didn’t tell you about the train. The birds. Did I tell you about the train?
MARY
No.
HUGH
The train, it—it—the train. Okay. I was on the train. Coming home from work. I am on the train and it is packed. It’s always packed. Sardines. And everyone is jostling and it’s just a sea of heads. It’s so much talking. I kept picking out words. Someone yelled Fuck you asshole! And I looked around. And then I heard something, Mary. Something through all of the words. I heard birds. They were everywhere and soft, very small, it was hard to hear. At first. And I looked around. It was just a sea of heads. Up and down, hats, hair, swaying. I heard bird sounds, everywhere, small and light. And I look down to my feet. And there are birds. Small ones. Robins, with their red chests, breathing and singing under all of these coats, between all of the legs, just…singing. And the train was so rough, it just threw them around hitting the seats and walls and the people shifting their fat weight, stamping and slamming down with their horrible boots, just stomping.
(He hits the table with his hands, rattling the silverware.)
And I reached down to scoop up as many as I could but they kept rolling off of my arms. And their singing changed. It was loud and sharp and I had to leave, I had to get off, so I got off on a different stop than I normally do. Too early, way too early. And I walked, I walked all the way here. I was sweating, it was hot, so I took off my jacket and put it on a mailbox and I left it, I suppose. I walked home. And I cooked for you, Mary. It was just the music, I forgot.
MARY starts eating again. She thinks, blows on her food. Smiles.
MARY
Birds.
HUGH
Robins. I swear, Mary, there were hundreds. Tens of hundreds, thousands. Sardines.
MARY
You walked home.
HUGH
All the way home. Sweating, with everyone looking at me. Why is he sweating? It’s freezing. But it was so hot, Mary. I was boiling. I liked that coat, I really did, I cherished that coat. The navy one. The one you bought me, last winter. And it’s so hot. It’s hot in here, do you feel that? I need to open the window.
They both stand. HUGH walks to the window, MARY turns. He opens it and breathes deeply, freely. They both look at bird on the windowsill. Soft, small, broken, gold. He reaches for her hand, she notices and clasps her hands behind her back. His arms hang long. The record skips, repeating the same chord. It sounds hollow and false. HUGH shakes his head, looks at the glass, blows onto it. A cloud he draws a circle into with his finger. The needle frees itself. Song continues.
So. How about you?
MARY
My day was fine. It was normal.
(Pause.)
My day was fine.
HUGH closes the window. He turns to her. MARY looks back at her food.
HUGH
Why?
MARY
Why what?
HUGH
Why was it fine? What did you do? What did you see? Anything?
MARY
I saw children in the park, deer when I was driving home, and a water tower from the highway. It was turning orange, water was leaking out of all of it. They pumped it too full and it was so swollen. It hurt.
HUGH
What did you do?
MARY
I kept driving.
(She turns to him.)
I drove home and you were in the kitchen and I sat in the car. Hugh.
HUGH
What did you do?
MARY
You didn’t see me?
HUGH
I was cooking. You sat in the car.
MARY
Yeah.
(The view down the street, the car idling as it hummed, the steering wheel, leather, warm. Pause.)
I lied down across the console and tried to sleep, I thought you could see me through the window. I was trying to sleep, but I couldn’t.
HUGH
Why couldn’t you sleep?
MARY
I couldn’t—
HUGH
Why couldn’t you sleep? Why not?
MARY
I can’t, I can’t—
HUGH
Talk to me Mary, speak. I will sit down. I am sitting down.
(HUGH sits down.)
Talk to me Mary.
MARY
You—
HUGH
Yes!
MARY
You were in the kitchen and I couldn’t fall asleep. You can’t just stay in the car Hugh! There are rules. There are rules everywhere, speed limits, traffic lights, coming home, opening the door, kissing Hugh, eating food, birds, listening, feeling so dizzy and tired and swollen. I couldn’t sleep in the car because you were in the kitchen, waiting. I imagined rose petals, and candles, and bottles of wine. You in a suit and gold—so much gold. You aren’t some king Hugh, from a forest or a castle, you aren’t a king. You tell me these stories and say I love you Mary, in a way where you see me melt and fall into you and feel so safe and whole, like someone found me. You found me!
HUGH
I tried ordering the roses, they are out of season.
MARY
Roses are just more rules.
(MARY is lost and tries to find something to look at, a reference point, the horizon on a rough, thrown, boat.)
I don’t care about the coat, Hugh. I don’t care about the mailbox and your sweat.
(Pause.)
Every turn through our neighborhood, all of the rights, it makes me so dizzy. Now my tongue is burnt and all I wanted to do was make one left turn. One! Just to see if I could. What it would be like to do that. To drive out of the neighborhood as the streetlights were coming on, guiding me out into town, to the highway, and I would see the water tower and say I love you. Driving out of the county I would see the deer and his family standing by a wall of rock, dripping with icicles. I would put my hand out of the window and feel it go to sleep and turn purple and touch my neck. I would go west. I would find a job, lose it and drive further west. And maybe I would come to the ocean and park my car on the beach and take off my clothes and just swim and keep swimming and swimming and swimming and swimming and swimming, and I would float on my back and see birds, water would rush into my ears and I would hear whales crying. And my skin would turn black like soil and grass would grow. Trees. Yucca. Flowers.
HUGH
(Softly, almost a whisper.)
Your food is getting cold.
MARY
I would just sway and drift further and further. Drift wood caught in my arm pits, and the trees would grow tall.
HUGH
Your food is getting cold.
MARY
Tall.
MARY takes a bite of food. Another. HUGH eats. They eat.
