Etiquette and Vitriol (11 page)

(Otto points the gun at Bea.)

Ya look good, Otto. You've lost weight, haven't you? It shows up in your face.

AMANDA:
It was very nice of you to stop by, Mrs. Woodnick. I appreciate your concern, but we're actually—

BEA:
What are you doing here anyway, Otto? Shouldn't you be out looking for work? My son was fired recently.

SERGE:
He mentioned it.

OTTO:
I followed Serge.

BEA:
Why Otto? Why do you have ta make such a pest of yourself? What good can come of that? None. Why'd you follow Serge here?

OTTO:
So I could kill Ford.

BEA:
Who's Ford?

(Ford raises his hand.)

I see. Why?

OTTO:
Because Serge is in love with Ford!

BEA
(Angry)
: So what good comes of that?! EAT! GO AHEAD EAT! You make no sense when you talk, so eat.

AMANDA:
I apologize for hanging up—

BEA:
You know, Ford, you have the most beautiful name I ever had in my mouth. And, Amanda, or Betty, or whatever the hell you're calling yourself today, I can see why you were so upset. I'd be upset too, if I thought this one was leaving me for him—

AMANDA:
He's not leaving me for anyone!

SERGE
(Grabbing Ford's arm)
: He's coming with me!

AMANDA
(Grabbing Ford's other arm)
: I HATE YOU!!

SERGE:
Tell her, Ford. Let's go.

OTTO:
Stay with
her
, Ford. She loves you. He stinks.

BEA:
Mind your own business.

OTTO:
If you fall apart, Serge, I'll pick up the pieces! You could love me again, if I picked up the pieces!

SERGE
(Releasing Ford, who falls)
: Never!

OTTO:
You could love me again on the rebound!

AMANDA
(To Ford)
: Tell him you never want to see him again!

SERGE
(To Ford)
: I have a taxi waiting. We could be in bed in twenty minutes. I'll have you hog-tied, horse-whipped and begging for more—

AMANDA
(Out of control)
: IF YOU DO NOT SHUT UP I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS!! I'M
LIABLE TO KILL SOMEONE! I CAN DO IT, TOO! THIS IS MY HOME! WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING HERE AT THIS HOUR!? YOU HAVE COME TO DRIVE ME MAD! PERVERTS AND FAT PEOPLE AND STRANGERS FROM THE TELEPHONE! IT CAN NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR YOU TO BE HERE! I'M CALLING THAT HOTLINE AND REPORTING YOU! This has been a very bad couple of weeks! What did I do?! I WAS A GOOD GIRL! SO WHY IS GOD PUNISHING ME NOW?—I may have killed some children yesterday, BUT THAT WAS NOT MY FAULT! IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!

SERGE:
You're unbalanced.

AMANDA:
OF COURSE I'M UNBALANCED!! I HAVEN'T EATEN IN A WEEK! FAGGOT!!

OTTO:
Have a bagel.

BEA:
Ya got a bialy?

OTTO:
Let me look—

AMANDA:
I WILL NOT BE REDUCED TO THIS GROVELING, WHINING STATE! I WILL NOT BE MISS HAVISHAM!

SERGE
(To Ford)
: We could be fucking right now.

AMANDA:
Otto!!! SHOOT HIM!!

BEA:
STOP IT! God, stop it already with the shouting. Enough already. You're giving me a headache.

AMANDA:
SHOOT HER! SHOOT ME! SHOOT SOMEONE!

BEA:
You listen to me, darling. I have had extensive crises intervention training, and I
BELIEVE
I can be of some assistance.

AMANDA
(Collapsing in despair)
: I give up.

BEA:
Ford, you haven't said much and it seems to me that you are the apex of this unfortunate pentagon. Now . . . I ask you. Look at Serge. Think before you answer. Would you say you had feelings for him? Would you say you cared for Serge? Would you say you loved him?

(Ford paces and thinks for a very long time before answering.)

FORD
(Nodding)
: Uh-huh.

AMANDA
(Under her breath)
: Shoot the fairy, Otto. Shoot the fairy.

BEA:
Quiet! . . . Now, Ford. Look at Amanda.—Who, I'm assuming has looked better. Would you say you also had feelings for her? Do you love Amanda?

(Ford paces and thinks for a very long time before answering.)

FORD
(Nodding)
: Uh-huh.

BEA
(Sagely)
: I see . . . I see. . . . All right. If I were to ask you which one you preferred, what would you say? Let's imagine that the building is on fire and you can only get one of them out alive. Which one would you save? Which one do you love more?

(Ford looks at Amanda and Serge, respectively. He paces, thinks, tries to decide, then gives up.)

SERGE:
What is the point of—

BEA:
Listen to me. I spend all my time on the phones at the crisis center. I listen to hundreds of people. And they all got a different story. But it's only the details that are different. Basically, they all got the same story: they're alone. They've got nothing. They never found someone who made them feel, something. I never found someone. Well, I let someone slip through my fingers, but that's another story. You are all so lucky. Why choose? Can't you all just love each other? Must you condemn yourselves to lives of regret and resentment?

(She seems to step out of the play for a moment to make a grand point)
These are miserable times for the artist in America, spiritually and economically. It seems to me you should be banding together, not pulling apart.

AMANDA
(Pause, then grudgingly)
: I must admit, Serge, I enjoyed kissing you. Although I found your tongue hyperactive.

SERGE:
My apartment is tiny really and it's terrifically overpriced. A few years ago it went co-op and I didn't buy in. Now I regret it.

BEA:
There are seven days in the week and only three of you.

SERGE
(To Amanda)
: I like the way you smell.

AMANDA
(To Serge)
: I can tell you have a big penis.

(Ford smiles at that.)

SERGE:
Thank you.

BEA:
That all right with you, Ford?

(Ford shrugs “sure.”.)

OTTO:
WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

AMANDA:
Aw, poor Otto.

OTTO:
It's all very fine for the three of you to realize you're shallow to the point of convex, but where does that leave me in your polygamist equation?!

SERGE:
Out in the cold.

AMANDA:
Sorry.

BEA:
Don't binge.

OTTO:
Where's the justice?! Fuck justice, where's the symmetry?! I HATE ALL OF YOU VERY MUCH!!—I don't mean that—YES I DO MEAN IT!! I AM SO UNHAPPY! I HATE MY BODY! My skin is so stretched out of whack it's all different textures! Everything shakes! I'm afraid to let people see my feet! I have the ugliest feet in the world! I have no nail on my pinkie toe! I'M A FREAK! I hate the smell of me! My teeth are rotting in my mouth! I have to put antiperspirant on ALL over my body because there's no telling where some new fold of flesh is going to POP up spontaneously! I wish I could hope for a change, but at this point I consider it a triumph just getting through the day! I WILL NOT GO ON LIKE THIS! I CAN NOT GO ON LIKE THIS!!

(Otto inserts the gun into his mouth. There is a long moment during which the others put their hands over their ears and squint, awaiting the bang, terrified only of the noise. Then Bea steps forward and yanks the gun from Otto.)

BEA:
MUST YA PUT EVERYTHING IN YOUR BIG FAT GREASY MOUTH!?

OTTO:
Gimme the gun!

BEA
(Pointing it at Otto)
: You're outa control, Otto. I should never a' let you get your own apartment. Look at yourself! Ya look like sumthin' got loose from the Macy's parade!

OTTO:
Give me that—

BEA:
LISTEN TO ME! From now on you don't leave my sight!

OTTO:
But—

BEA:
Not for a minute! Startin' tomorrow: sit-ups before breakfast! Push-ups before lunch! Five-mile walks twice a day and no more mayonnaise! Low-fat foods and Diet Coke!

OTTO:
But—

BEA
(Marching Otto to the door at gunpoint)
: MOVE! MOVE IT, YA TUB A' GUTS! I'll have ya looking like a HUMAN BEING in a year or two! We'll wire your jaws shut! We'll get ya to a gym. Ya need aerobics—Step aerobics! Jazzercize! We'll get ya one of them “Sweatin' to the Oldies” tapes! And a treadmill, and a stationary bike and a Nordic Track and a Soloflex and a ThighMaster! And no snacks! GREENS! GREENS AND COLONICS TWICE A WEEK! GREENS, COLONICS and for God's sake—VERTICAL STRIPES! Everyone looks one hundred percent better in vertical stripes!

(Otto and Bea are gone. Amanda shuts the door. There is a pause.)

AMANDA
(Disturbed)
: He should've killed himself.

SERGE:
I would've.

FORD:
Hmmm.

AMANDA:
What time's your appointment?

SERGE:
Ten.

AMANDA
(Rushes to the bedroom)
: That gives us twenty minutes. . . . Come on!

(She goes into the bedroom, followed by Serge. Ford sits and eats Otto's groceries. We hear Serge and Amanda's lovemaking at once.)

AMANDA
(Offstage)
: Oh God.

SERGE
(Offstage)
: Oh Christ.

AMANDA
(Offstage)
: Oh God.

SERGE
(Offstage)
: Oh Christ.

AMANDA
(Offstage)
: Oh God!

SERGE
(Offstage)
: Oh Christ!!

(There is a pause.)

SERGE
(Offstage)
: Ford!!

AMANDA
(Offstage)
: We're waiting!

(There is a violent knocking at the front door.)

OTTO
(Offstage)
: Serge! IF I SIT,
QUIET IN THE CORNER
. . . COULD YA LOVE ME!!?

(Blackout.)

END OF PLAY

This is the ending of the play as it was performed at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington D.C. The text is essentially the same to the point where Ford shrugs in acquiescence to Bea's suggestion that he live with both Amanda and Serge. Otto's reaction, you will see, is quite different
.

OTTO:
WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

AMANDA:
Aw, poor Otto.

OTTO:
It's all very fine for the three of you to realize that you're shallow to the point of convex, but where does that leave me in your polygamist equation?!

SERGE:
Out in the cold.

AMANDA:
Sorry.

BEA:
Don't binge.

OTTO:
Oh, I don't care! I just don't care anymore! I've had it. I AM SO UNHAPPY!! I've always been unhappy! You say they're lucky to feel something? Well, I'm not so sure. I feel plenty. I feel everything. And it feels pretty goddamn terrible!

BEA:
Here he goes!

OTTO:
Where's the justice! Fuck justice! Where's the symmetry?! . . . No one ever liked me. Mother, you carry pictures in your wallet of people you never met, instead of pictures of me! . . . When I was a child, I was in the sixth grade, I think, we had a dance at my school on the first day of May, a Sadie Hawkins dance. It was silly, it was nothing—is it hot in here as Buchenwald, or what?—Anyway, the girls were supposed to ask the boys to dance. And I was not an unattractive child! Tell them, Mother. I wasn't fat then. I didn't have clubbed feet or dandruff or anything. I was quite normal looking, and maybe even a little better than normal looking. But NO ONE asked me to dance . . . no one. The entire dance went by and not one little girl ever came over and
asked me to dance. I went to the cloak room and cried and cried. The teacher, Miss MacFarland, I'll never forget her, Miss MacFarland heard me. She came to the cloak room, drawn there by my hideous, shrieking sobs. And she knelt down, next to me, down to where I'd curled myself into the fetal position, on the floor, buried under a mountain of coats. She uncovered me and said . . . “Otto? Otto, why are you crying?” I could barely talk. But I spoke in that spastic, convulsive way children do when they're sobbing. I said, “No one will dance with me.” She nodded very sagely, the chain that held her glasses around her neck bobbed up and down. And then she said, “Oh.” I wasn't satisfied. That wasn't the comfort I needed. I asked her, “Why?” She thought for a very long time. And then she answered me . . . “No one likes you, Otto. No one likes you and no one ever will. . . .” Well. It's hard to argue with a figure of such authority as Miss MacFarland. But I knew she was wrong. Or lying. Sometime, somewhere, someday, someone would! I thought Serge did. For a moment—I mean people have pretended to like me, when it suited their needs, if there was something they wanted—help with their homework. But, I thought, Serge . . . I thought . . . well, it doesn't really matter what I thought at this point, does it?