ACT TWO
The four couples enter livingroom from diningroom and seat themselves. PAT and TRISH have brought trays of coffee and dessert.
PAT: I think it’s so much nicer to have coffee in here. This room seems made for relaxing.
THE FIRST LADY: We used to do the same thing when we were staying here—serve the afterdinner coffee in the livingroom. Every room in this house seems to have its own character—its own personality. Have you noticed that?
PAT: Yes, that’s certainly true.
THE FIRST LADY: It’s a happy house. We were very happy here—
THE OLD MAN: We’ve lived in a lot of houses, but this one was my favorite. I always wanted to find out who built it. [To RICHARD.] Did you ever investigate that?
RICHARD: No—but I’m sure we could find out. There must be records for a thing like that somewhere.
R.N.: I remember going to the National Archives once—or maybe I just thought about going there —to research the history of this place.
THE FIRST LADY: They don’t seem to be able to build houses like this anymore. Why is that?
TRISH: I imagine it’s because this kind of architecture is the natural expression of a certain civilization. It can’t be extrapolated from text books or abstract theories. It takes centuries of social and cultural history to evolve. The people who built this house just had a feeling inside them and they expressed it in this form. I doubt if the answer is in any archive. The answer is right here. The house itself is the answer.
RICHARD: [Pause.] Yes. I think you’re probably right on that.
THE OLD MAN: You’re saying they didn’t have to intellectualize to put up a house in those days. They just went ahead and did it.
TRISH: Yes! It was spontaneous; it was honest.
PAT: It is an honest house—
A Pause.
THE OLD MAN: Did I tell you what a wonderful lunch that was, Pat?
PAT: Yes. Yes! You certainly did!
THE OLD MAN: I can’t remember from one minute to the next, now and then. Funny, the way the mind behaves when you’re old. The distant past is so vivid to me; but something that might have happened only a moment or two ago gets totally lost.
RICHARD: It happens to all of us—
THE OLD MAN: You don’t have to pretend, Richard. I know it’s senility. I was just curious about the physiological process. That’s another thing about old age. You develop a craving to understand the simplest things; things you always took for granted when you were in the prime of life. Like why the sky is blue. Right in the middle of doing something or thinking about something, that question will pop right into my head—the same question we asked when we were children. Did we ever get the answer to why the sky is blue? Does anyone in this room full of educated people know the answer to that simple question? [ALL exchange looks, then smile and laugh at their ignorance.] Isn’t that the damnedest thing?
RICHARD: I’ll look it up in the encyclopedia—
THE OLD MAN: Maybe we’re better off not knowing. Let the color of the sky be just another unanswered question—one of life’s many mysteries. I doubt if the encyclopedia could really explain it anyway. Not how beautiful it is. When you get to be as old as I am, you do a lot of looking at things like the sky and the sea and the earth. You realize you might not be here much longer to enjoy it all—
PATRICIA: That’s nonsense. You two look as if you could go on forever.
PAT: You really do seem very fit.
RICHARD: It’s quite remarkable, really.
THE FIRST LADY: What were you expecting?
R.N.: It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other.
THE FIRST LADY: Yes. It has been a long time. We live in different worlds almost, don’t we?
THE OLD MAN: We know how it is with you folks. Here there is so much turmoil—so many, many things happening. Everyone is so busy! I’d forgotten about that. Sitting in my study and looking back on it all, it seemed much calmer. But that’s just a trick of the mind, eh? Everything looks so neat when you lay it all out on a desk. When you’re dissecting the past— doing a post mortem on your life; you lose sight of the pandemonium there once was when all those cold facts were alive and kicking. That’s why it’s so difficult to know—to judge—what happened—and why things turned out the way they did.
RICHARD: You need that kind of detached perspective, though. We should all take more sabbaticals and let the fresh air of some honest introspection blow some of the cobwebs out of our attics.
R.N.: It’s not easy to get away—to wrench yourself away from this town—
PAT: It can be done, though.
R.N.: Physically yes. You can go anywhere you want; but it all seems to follow along with you—
PAT: We should try harder. We should force ourselves to get away—
PATRICIA: How many times we tried to make it back to Cape Cod!
THE FIRST LADY: We never made it back there either—
THE OLD MAN: You’re right. We should have tried harder—
R.N.: It’s not the same—
PATRICIA: It might be.
R.N.: I don’t mean the Cape isn’t the same. The situation is—your second honeymoon plans get all polluted with the entourage, the telexes, the secret service—everything follows you, haunts you—pursues you.
THE OLD MAN: All that baggage. The baggage of the office. And of the years.
R.N.: Trying to go back there to find what you had then—it can’t be done. What you had then was —nothing. Nothing but yourselves and a future whose options were infinite.
PATRICIA: And the present. The present was all that mattered. Each day was a lifetime.
R.N.: Now you spend your todays thinking about getting through your tomorrows. And your tomorrows will all be spent thinking about surviving the day after tomorrow.
THE OLD MAN: Or what happened 40 years ago—or 60 years ago!
TRISH: Or what will happen 20 years from now—or 40 years from now.
THE FIRST LADY: Are you thinking that far ahead already?
TRISH: Not thinking, really; daydreaming is closer to the truth.
THE FIRST LADY: Ah the dreams we had! That is something else we should all do more of, isn’t it? It’s so sad to stop dreaming. What does it matter if our dreams seldom come true? [To THE OLD MAN.] I think we should include dreaming as part of our daily routine.
THE OLD MAN: You think we can squeeze such an activity into our busy schedule? How much time does it take to dream?
THE FIRST LADY: We’ll allocate 10 minutes to start with. [To TRISH.] Does that sound realistic for starters?
THE OLD MAN: We mustn’t overtax ourselves!
TRISH: I think 10 minutes would be just fine.
THE OLD MAN: I forget now: is daydreaming done with the eyes open or closed?
TRISH: Oh, I do it with my eyes wide open!
THE OLD MAN: [To FIRST LADY.] We will definitely have to practice doing that!
A gust of wind blows French doors open. RICHARD goes to close them.
RICHARD: Mother Nature is trying her darnedest to do something out there all right! Not much blue in the sky now—
THE OLD MAN: I always liked the stormy days here. We don’t get much weather on the West Coast.
RICHARD: That’s why they call it the Pacific—
THE OLD MAN: Yes—it is—pacific—
A lull develops in the conversation.
R.N.: I could use a cigar. Have you got any of those Jamaicans left, Richard?
RICHARD: I’ve got a fresh box. [To THE OLD MAN.] How does that sound? Brandy and cigars in your old study?
THE OLD MAN: It sounds like the recipe for a heart attack, but what the hell—[Rises.]
THE FIRST LADY: Now you fellows behave yourselves in there.
THE OLD MAN: You see what a dangerous life I lead? Brandy and cigars hold more terror for me now than both Houses of a Democratic Congress did 20 years ago!
THE FIRST LADY: Don’t forget; it was brandy and cigars that put Winston Churchill prematurely in his grave!
Laughter from all.
THE OLD MAN: [To DICK.] What about you, young man? Surely you’re not afraid of alcohol and tobacco.
TRISH: He should be! Cigars turn him green and brandy gives him the blues!
THE OLD MAN: [Putting arm around DICK.] He just needs a little seasoning, that’s all.
The four men cross to darkened study.
PAT: I’ll just clear away the dishes. [Begins doing so.]
TRISH: Let me help.
PAT and TRISH gather dishes, take them out through diningroom.
THE FIRST LADY: How is he holding up?
PATRICIA: Can’t you see?
THE FIRST LADY: It’s a terrible, terrible thing—
PATRICIA: It’s hell. It’s worse than hell.
THE FIRST LADY: Yes. It is. But you will survive it.
PATRICIA: [Ironically.] Will I?
THE FIRST LADY: Yes, you will. You are strong. Much stronger than you think.
PATRICIA: If I were that strong I would—
PAT and TRISH RE-ENTER from diningroom.
PAT: Well, what would you like to do now? Should we ask Trish to play the violin for us?
TRISH: Oh, no. I couldn’t. Really—
THE FIRST LADY: You can’t refuse a command performance, young lady!
PAT: [Gets violin case from near piano.] What would you like to play?
TRISH: What would I like to play? Or what can I play? [Looks through music with PAT.]
PAT: How about Mendelssohn’s E minor?
TRISH: If you’re all game?
FIRST LADY applauds. PATRICIA joins her.
THE FIRST LADY: Let it be Mendelssohn!
TRISH: We should begin with a moment of prayer, I think!
PAT sits at piano. TRISH has music on stand. Violin is briefly tuned. Lights are fading here and rising in study, where the men are receiving brandy and lighting cigars. Trish begins with either First or Second Movement. Her playing is exceptionally good—astonishingly good. When livingroom is nearly dark, the violin playing diminishes under the early conversation in study, and then dies out.
THE OLD MAN: You’ve certainly got a fine collection of books, Richard.
RICHARD: If only I had the time to read them!
THE OLD MAN: Books, books, books—you think that would make a difference?
RICHARD: What would make a difference?
THE OLD MAN: Reading all those books.
RICHARD: A difference in what?
THE OLD MAN: What we are. What we try to be?
RICHARD: They do—they are—the difference between us and—the lower life forms. Between us and a rock. We think—and that is what books are, aren’t they? Thoughts. Thoughts that are written down on paper?
R.N.: Are you saying all the answers are in books?
RICHARD: It’s not that simple. Not like looking up the definition of a word in a dictionary or a legal ruling in a casebook. Not the answers we’re looking for anyway.
THE OLD MAN: What do you think about that, Dick?
DICK: I’ll buy that. Knowledge is a fundamental resource. But you have got to recognize that at the moment you use it—it is never complete, never totally relevant. There will always be just that much missing—the part you have to supply from your own personal resources.
THE OLD MAN: So there is a time for reading and a time for doing.
DICK: Right.
THE OLD MAN: And sometimes we get that all ass backwards don’t we; acting when we should be reading and reading when we should be acting.
DICK: That’s the difference between the way things should be and the way they are!
THE OLD MAN: I must say Dick, you impress me with the maturity of your thinking!
DICK: Thank you, sir.
R.N.: Don’t let the old buzzard set you up, kid—
RICHARD: He said the same thing to us!
THE OLD MAN: What I said about you was true. It still is true! You’ve all got good brains. Your achievements bear more than adequate testimony to that.
DICK: That doesn’t apply in my case, sir.
THE OLD MAN: Your achievements will come—they will most certainly come.
RICHARD: Dick says he’s not going into politics.
THE OLD MAN: Well maybe he’s right. Maybe he shouldn’t. There must be some other field to challenge him. Some calling without all the hazards and heart ache of politics.
RICHARD: And what might that be, oh wise one?
THE OLD MAN: I don’t know. Maybe just the law. Just the law and leaving out the politics.
R.N.: That’s like a marriage without the sex.
THE OLD MAN: We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?
RICHARD: Dick should be the one to tell us, I think. He has obviously done his homework on it. This will be just about the biggest decision in his life. As it was in ours. Isn’t that right, Dick? [Pause.] What’s the matter?
DICK: I’m not used to being crossexamined.
R.N.: It’s not so easy when you’re under the gun, is it?
THE OLD MAN: Like a press conference. Remember those goddamm press conferences?
R.N.: Remember them!
RICHARD: You’ve got to learn to think on your feet. You’ll find that ’s when you do some of your best thinking, actually; when you’re tested to the limits—
DICK: Right now I’m failing the test. Maybe that’s good. Maybe that’s a sign I haven’t got what it takes—
RICHARD: We’re not going to go all "introspective" now, are we? We’re not going to put on our hair shirts and flagellate ourselves I hope.
THE OLD MAN: It doesn’t have to be like that when you take a look at yourself. There are good things and there are bad things in each of us. But, on balance, there are many more good things, and many more good qualities than bad.
R.N.: Do you really believe that?
THE OLD MAN: Yes. I do.
R.N.: You always said history would be the final judge. Well, the judgment on you is coming in.
THE OLD MAN: And what’s the verdict so far?
R.N.: What the hell do you think?
THE OLD MAN: I would think, overall, I compare pretty favorably with—especially in the foreign policy area —with—
R.N.: With who? Who do you compare favorably with!
THE OLD MAN: How about Benedict Arnold—or Aaron Burr?
R.N.: You make Burr look like the fucking Tooth Fairy, for Christ’s sake!
THE OLD MAN: It’s that bad, is it? [Looks to others for a favorable comment.]
R.N.: What did you expect the historians to think of your socalled "presidency?" What did you think of it?
THE OLD MAN: I don’t know. At first it all seemed like a nightmare. Really. Just a bad dream I would wake up from. Then, when the dust had settled, there were thoughts of a comeback. There was still a mathematical possibility. I wasn’t that old. The phoenix could rise again from the ashes of defeat as it had so many times before. I would let them see if they could get along without me for a while. Scenarios were discussed. Theories were mooted—some kind of backlash would develop—
R.N.: Horseshit.
THE OLD MAN: That is what it all amounted to in the end. So much horseshit. But I needed something to cling to—any piece of wreckage to help me stay afloat until I could face the reality of the thing.
R.N.: I’ll tell you what the reality of the thing is—
RICHARD: Hasn’t this gone far enough?
THE OLD MAN: I want to hear what he has to say. He’s the one with the bullet between his teeth now. Let him say what the "reality" is.
R.N.: The reality is that for me—for all of us—you are an unmitigated disaster! [Pause.] As long as you kept to the terms of your exile, it was something we could all live with—like some hereditary disease that would get forgotten in the frenzy of daytoday living. But now you are threatening to come out of the closet and reopen the old wounds.
THE OLD MAN: I’m not doing that for myself.
R.N.: For who, then? For me?!
THE OLD MAN: Yes. For you!
R.N.: You wrote your memoirs for me?
THE OLD MAN: I thought you would see that!
R.N.: I’ll tell you what I see! I see an old, old man whose whole life has been nothing but a series of catastrophes and now seeks somehow to justify it all by dragging everybody else down with him. That’s what I see—and I’m not going to let you do it!
THE OLD MAN: I wouldn’t think of doing anything without your consent—
R.N.: That’s just not good enough. I can’t rely on the discretion of a feebleminded sentimentalist. My political life is at stake and I have got to be absolutely ruthless to save it.
THE OLD MAN: I understand—
R.N.: I don’t give a damn whether you understand or not. I’m telling you the way it is going to be. You are going to turn over to me every last copy of those memoirs. You are going to give me the names of everybody who knows anything about them. And you are going back into hibernation under the protection of the secret service. Now, that’s the way it is going to be.
THE OLD MAN: If you think that’s what is best—
R.N.: That is the way it is going to be.
THE OLD MAN: Are you going to destroy the book?
R.N.: That’s for me to decide. You said it was written for me, didn’t you?
THE OLD MAN: Yes. It’s your book. I don’t need it any more. It’s all up here—[Taps temple.]
DICK: You can’t destroy a book.
R.N.: Oh no? You just watch me—
DICK: The book isn’t what you’re afraid of. It’s the ideas that are in the book; and you can’t burn them.
R.N.: Does that mean you’re not going to hand over your copy?
THE OLD MAN: If he wants you to do it, Dick, than I want you to give it to him.
R.N.: I want it. You can either give it to me voluntarily—or otherwise—
DICK: I’ll give it to you—but you’re making a big mistake.
R.N.: Maybe I am. It’s not just the book that is the problem. It’s the people who’ve read the book too, isn’t it? I’ve got to do something about them.
DICK: What does that mean?
R.N.: I think that means you.
THE OLD MAN: Surely you can trust Dick. He’s not "a feebleminded sentimentalist."
R.N.: You really want me to put my fate in the hands of an unknown quantity like him? No, no; I’ve gone down that road too many times already. Trusting people. Jesus, the people I’ve trusted! I trusted you! And you! And I’ll be goddammed if I’m going to trust him! There is nobody I trust anymore. Nobody!
DICK: Does that include yourself?
R.N.: I know what I’m doing. From now on I know what I am doing. No more nice guy from now on.
DICK: What are you going to do with Trish and me? Have us assassinated?
R.N.: I don’t think that’ll be necessary. There are more conventional methods—
DICK: Meaning the secret service? Or do you have connections with the Mafia? Are you going to exile us to an Elba? What makes you so sure we won’t escape? Prisoners of war have that obligation, don’t they?
R.N.: I have people who will make sure that doesn’t happen.
DICK: People you can trust?
RICHARD: Come on, R.N. You can’t be serious about detaining them. It’s a really sick idea. I’m just as much against disclosing what’s in the memoirs as you are; but I won’t go along with a scheme like that—
R.N.: Since when do I have to get your approval for anything!
RICHARD: Since right now. Since you lost control of yourself.
R.N.: [Rises, goes to phone, dials.] I’ll show you who’s lost control. Hello? Rob? It’s me, R.N. I want you to get hold of Scribner and have him send a team of his best operatives over here. I’m at Richard’s place in Georgetown—No, no—I’m not in any physical danger but I want them here as soon as possible. It’s absolutely top priority. And, Rob? Tell Scribner I want two of his best men. This is a maximum security thing—o.k.—Fine, fine. Yes—goodbye. [Hangs up and retakes his seat.]
An awkward pause.
RICHARD: [To DICK and THE OLD MAN.] Well, what do we do now? Get ready for a shootout? I’ve got a Magnum in the drawer here and Pat has a little pearlhandled .22 up in the bedroom. If we ambush them we might have a chance to at least put up a good fight!
THE OLD MAN: This is a very sad state of affairs—
DICK: It’s insane, isn’t it? Isn’t that the only word to describe what is happening?
RICHARD: If it isn’t, we’re a very short step away from it.
THE OLD MAN: You’ve got to cool it, R.N. Pushing buttons and throwing your political weight around isn’t the answer. That’s what I did and it just doesn’t work. You’ll see that—
Phone rings. RICHARD answers it.
RICHARD: Hello? [To R.N.] It’s for you.
R.N.: [Hesitates with suspicion before taking phone.] Hello? Yeah?—No! Goddammit! I told Rob exactly what I wanted!—There was absolutely no need for you to confirm a fucking thing with me! Shit! I’ve got some people here I want placed under protective custody, that’s all—No, no, not like that—it’s—What the hell do you mean you need a court order!—I don’t give a fuck what the justice department boys think! You just do it on my sayso. I’m giving you a direct order!—Who says you only take orders from Salazar! Salazar takes his orders from me, for Chrissake!—[A long pause as conversation is dominated by other end. What R.N. hears is sobering. His voice is dry as:] Alright, alright, you sonofabitch, but you had better start cleaning out your desk right now—right now, you understand that!
R.N. slams phone down, takes whiskey glass and smashes it on floor. He sits. Pause. He breaks down and cries as lights dim in study and come up in livingroom. TRISH is ending her concerto. Applause from the three women. Suddenly a very loud, sharp crack of thunder followed by sounds of torrential downpour. The storm is unnaturally ferocious. PAT and TRISH cross to French doors and peer out.
PAT: What an incredible downpour!
TRISH: That tree! It’s been struck by lightning!
PAT: No—That happened some years ago—
TRISH: But it’s still smoldering. The rain has put out the fire—[PATRICIA joins them.]
PATRICIA: Trish is right. It has been struck again.
Sound of rain diminishes.
PAT: The rain is stopping.
PATRICIA: Why don’t you have the thing cut down. It’s so ugly—all black and withered—
PAT: But it’s still alive—or was, until just now. Every spring it manages to put out some green buds and a few leaves. It seems a shame to kill something that struggles so hard to survive—there—the rain has stopped completely now. Maybe the sun will come out again.
PATRICIA: It spoils the garden, that tree.
TRISH: I think it gives the garden a certain—quality; a certain character. I think you’re right. It shouldn’t be cut down. Not while there’s a single trace of life left in it—
THE FIRST LADY: The burning tree—
The three women return to their seats.
PAT: What’s that you said?
THE FIRST LADY: The burning tree—that’s what it’s called. That’s what we were told it was called when we moved in. "It’s a very old tree and you mustn’t cut it down." That’s what they said.
PAT: Yes. That’s what we were told!
TRISH: Like a charm: it keeps the house safe from lightning. Is that it?
THE FIRST LADY: There is something special about it—because of the lightning, because of the way it seems to attract the lightning—
PAT: And after it is struck, the tree itself becomes charged with certain—"properties"—
TRISH: Because the electricity penetrates it—
PAT: When you approach it, there seems to be a sort of—feeling; a strange sensation.
THE FIRST LADY: You’re not supposed to touch it. Did they tell you that?
PAT: Yes. That’s what we were told.
TRISH: Have you? Ever touched it?
PAT: No. No, I haven’t.
PATRICIA: It’s a stupid superstition. It should be cut down.
PAT: Did you ever touch it?
PATRICIA: There was never any need to touch it.
THE FIRST LADY: Have you noticed? Even the birds avoid the burning tree?
PAT: That’s true!
PATRICIA: You could call somebody in to do it, to cut it down.
PAT: Why didn’t you call somebody in to cut it down?
PATRICIA: Because I was a fool—like you. I believed the story that it was a lucky tree. But it wasn’t good luck that it brought. It was just the opposite.
PAT: Somehow the garden just wouldn’t be the same without it. It adds something—a minor chord, maybe, that sets off the rest of the garden.
PATRICIA: It’s your house, your garden. But someday someone will do it—someone will chop it down. Someone will change everything—
TRISH: Not me! I will keep it!
PAT: What are you saying?
TRISH: I meant if—if I ever had such a garden and such a tree—
An awkward pause.
THE FIRST LADY: You played quite beautifully just now, Trish.
TRISH: Thank you.
THE FIRST LADY: You seem to be very talented in many ways. Have you thought of a career? In music, perhaps?
TRISH: Music is a possibility. But it would involve—
THE FIRST LADY: Yes? What would it involve?
TRISH: It would mean a total commitment.
PATRICIA: Yes. A total commitment—
PAT: That’s true—
TRISH: [To FIRST LADY.] Did you play too?
THE FIRST LADY: Of course I played! Not nearly as well as you, though.
PATRICIA: That’s not true. You had an extraordinary talent.
THE FIRST LADY: We all know that having "talent" is not always enough.
PATRICIA: Oh, yes!
PAT: It’s the commitment part, isn’t it? That is where we failed.
THE FIRST LADY: We didn’t fail. It was never really in us to do it. That certain quality—
PAT: The quality that Richard has: the drive to succeed.
THE FIRST LADY: The drive to succeed—yes. That is a talent too.
PATRICIA: Is it? Is it really a talent?
PAT: What else?
PATRICIA: A curse. A sickness. Like that stupid, ugly tree which keeps on struggling for what purpose? What sense does it make to go on like that. It’s hideous! [Pause.] What sense does anything make?
THE FIRST LADY: That’s a very large question. As for the tree, we only know it does go on and on; there has to be a reason for that. There are times, when you get older—when you get to be as old as I am—that you catch a glimpse—just a tiny glimpse of the truth. Just a lightning flash so you can’t actually see the whole shape of it, but you are left with the impression, the feeling, that it does exist and that it is good—
PATRICIA: Every cloud has a silver lining!
THE FIRST LADY: I think that might be so.
PATRICIA: Not this cloud! Not the one that’s hanging over me! Tell me about the silver lining in my cloud!
THE FIRST LADY: I thought you might see that today.
PATRICIA: Today? What is that supposed to mean? What’s so special about today?
TRISH: Can’t you see?
PATRICIA: No! No! I can’t see!
PAT: If you can’t see what’s right in front of you, Patricia, we can hardly tell you what it is.
THE FIRST LADY: Yes we can. I think we can tell her. I think we must tell her. She can’t see what you see. That’s the way it is when you’re in the midst of so much darkness. [Pause.] I am the silver lining, Patricia.
PATRICIA: You?
THE FIRST LADY: I know how pretentious it must sound for me to say it—but I think it is true.
PATRICIA: Are you supposed to be my good fairy? Is that it?
THE FIRST LADY: [Laughing.] Certainly not! I didn’t bring a magic wand or a bag full of tricks. I can only offer you myself and show you what I am. Show you that to survive is not simply to linger on like that blasted tree out there. Show you that there is much to be salvaged, much life ahead of you if you want to have it. Maybe your best years—
PATRICIA: [Laughs.] You want me to look forward to my old age?
THE FIRST LADY: I’d like you to. I hope you will. It might surprise you as it has surprised me. Would you believe I’m writing poetry in my old age?
PAT: You? Writing poetry?
TRISH: I think that’s wonderful!
THE FIRST LADY: You might not think so if you read some of them!
TRISH: Can we? Have you brought any of them with you?
THE FIRST LADY: They are very short poems. The kind you can carry around in your head. The kind the Japanese write.
TRISH: Haiku? You’re writing haiku?
THE FIRST LADY: That’s right. Haiku. Tiny little jewels. Only 17 syllables long. The perfect size, I thought, for somebody lazy like me. But they’re not that easy to create, I found out. There are all sorts of rules. All sorts of complications in the way you use those 17 syllables. You try to put so much into them—a whole world, a whole lifetime. Of course you never quite succeed in doing that! At least I haven’t! But it’s a challenge. A way of keeping one’s mind from going permanently to sleep—
TRISH: You must recite some of them!
THE FIRST LADY: I’m not sure you’ll understand. They’re extremely personal—
TRISH: I don’t know about that. We seem to have an awful lot in common!
THE FIRST LADY: What I meant was—the thoughts which are crystallized in Haiku come from a very deep place inside us—a place so deep it can only be reached with poetry—
TRISH: What you’re saying is that we’re not very poetic!
THE FIRST LADY: I’m afraid it’s my poems that are not very poetic!
PAT: Let us be the judge of that!
THE FIRST LADY: Well, let me see. There is one that seems appropriate. It’s called "The Burning Tree."
TRISH and PAT applaud.
TRISH: Is there anything special we have to do while listening?
THE FIRST LADY: It might help if you close your eyes. That’s how I write them. With my eyes shut. The words appear more like pictures then.
PAT: Now? Should we close our eyes now?
THE FIRST LADY: All right.
The women close their eyes, except for PATRICIA who looks intently at First Lady as she recites.
THE FIRST LADY: The burning tree is struck
Before the summer growth
Why can’t the fire wait?
TRISH: [Pause.] Again. Please do it again.
FIRST LADY repeats poem. Then TRISH repeats it to herself, seeking its meaning.
TRISH: Yes—yes! I think I have it!
PAT: You understand its meaning?
TRISH: Only partly—just a feeling of what it’s about.
PAT: What is it; tell us. It’s like a riddle, isn’t it?
TRISH: I think it has something to do with—with the way we see things. The tree being struck by the lightning. We see the tree. The tree is the obvious thing. But in the poem we are being asked to think about the lightning too.
PAT: The lightning?
TRISH: The lightning has its own existence, its own point of view—its own reason for being. The lightning must have something to strike, some way to complete itself—is that part of it?
THE FIRST LADY: Yes. That’s part of it.
PAT: That’s why the tree is never totally destroyed—
TRISH: The lightning must be discreet!
PAT: It must leave enough life in the tree to keep the balance—
THE FIRST LADY: Yes. Balance. Everything must be balanced, mustn’t it.
TRISH: It’s a very good poem! I like it! It gives that tree such a powerful meaning.
PATRICIA: But don’t you see? She’s not talking about trees and lightning!
PAT: What do you mean?
PATRICIA: [To FIRST LADY.] That’s not what your poem is about, is it?
THE FIRST LADY: There are other levels—
PAT: What other levels?
PATRICIA: Us! We’re the other levels!
TRISH: [To herself.] The lightning and the tree—
PATRICIA: Don’t you see what she is saying? The burning tree is struck before the summer growth. That’s us, being in love, getting married before we really have a chance to grow, to blossom.
PAT: And the fire?
PATRICIA: In your case the fire is Richard. Each of us has our fatal fascination with lightning bolts.
TRISH: And the lightning bolt must have its tree—
PATRICIA: Not the happiest arrangement for we trees!
TRISH: [To FIRST LADY.] Is that what you are saying? Your poem is about us?
THE FIRST LADY: I don’t know! Maybe it’s about us. Maybe it’s about everybody and everything! And, maybe, it’s just a terribly vague poem!
TRISH: Are there other levels? Even deeper levels?
THE FIRST LADY: Do you think there are?
TRISH: —Yes.
PAT: What are they?
TRISH: [Rises, goes to French doors.] It’s not easy to capture the thought—[Looks out at tree.] It has something to do with the way we look at things—interrelationships that are difficult to see, difficult to understand—difficult to accept. The lightning can’t exist without the tree. It must have an object to strike, something to enter, something in which to consummate itself. But the tree; the tree, somehow, can’t exist without the lightning. Not that particular tree. In it, life and death, living and dying, are all mixed up together. Happiness and sadness, love and hate—how, when something happens to us, it really doesn’t happen to us, it happens with us. We are part of the process, just like the tree is. [Turns.] Is that right?
THE FIRST LADY: I think so. That’s part of what I was trying to say; or what the burning tree is trying to say to us—
TRISH: The fire can’t wait because it has its own being, its own needs, its own essence. But it has to involve itself with the requirements and essence of the tree—
THE FIRST LADY: Mustn’t there be a certain—tenderness, in the lightning? For its own sake?
TRISH: And the tree must understand this, for its own sake. And everything that happens to us is like that—part of a process involving opposites.
THE FIRST LADY: [Clapping hands with delight.] Yes!
PATRICIA: In the poem, that is! That is what we are talking about—just a poem. Life is not like that. Not real life. Not real lightning bolts. No poem can make sense out of what I am going through!
THE FIRST LADY: I wrote the poem to explain what I went through. I thought it might help you to see—
PATRICIA: I told you! The tree is hideous! It should be cut down! The lightning can find some other tree!
TRISH: That’s the same as saying—
PATRICIA: What? The same as saying what?
TRISH: That you want to cut yourself down.
PATRICIA: [Pause.] So—?
PAT: Patricia!
PATRICIA: What’s so terrible about that! Is it any worse than lingering on like that "thing" out there? What’s the sense of going on and on and on! [Pause.] It seems as if I’ve been through this so many times before—
PAT: And the sun always comes out again, doesn’t it?
PATRICIA: Christ! What a pathetically trite thing to say!
PAT: I’m sorry! I was only trying to—
PATRICIA: You were only trying to be your usual sweet, naive self! All of you! Pretending that somehow we deserve what they do to us! Well, maybe we do! Not because we’re trees—but because we’re foolish enough to put up with it! Whose fault is it but ours if our lives have been ruined? And if the only choice is ending up like you and The Old Man or blowing my brains out—well, that has got to be a very simple choice!
Lights dim as other women exchange glances. PATRICIA seems triumphant. Lights rise in study. R.N. has gotten himself under control but otherwise the four men are as we last saw them.
RICHARD: Are you all right now?
R.N.: —I could use a drink.
RICHARD: No. No more booze. From now on you’re going to face things sober.
R.N.: You’re giving me orders?
RICHARD: In that regard, yes.
R.N.: Well, we’ll see about that—
RICHARD: Don’t you understand what that telephone call means? You’re politically bankrupt! Not because they wouldn’t obey your orders, but because you had to call them. All of your power is at the other end of a wire now—and the wire has been cut.
R.N.: I still have the power of the presidency. Nobody can take that away from me!
RICHARD: Nobody has. Nobody took it away from you. You threw it away! You squandered the greatest political fortune of all time. And now you can’t even cash a check at the local grocery store! You’re nothing but a used car salesman with gravy stains on your tie and not enough credit to buy yourself a shave, let alone a shot of bar whiskey!
R.N.: No matter how low I go, Richard, you will always have to get up on a stepladder to reach my shoes—
THE OLD MAN: Are you both through lacerating each other? If so, I think it’s time we got to work on the problem—
RICHARD: It’s too late for that. He’s finished. Washed up. A corpse who just won’t fall down. A chicken with its head cut off—
THE OLD MAN: I’m sorry Richard, but you’re the one who’s starting to sound like a headless chicken.
RICHARD: Well maybe it’s my head that’s on the block! He’s ancient history but I’ve still got a future—a pretty good future. I don’t want to be dragged down by him.
THE OLD MAN: That’s why I think we should put our heads together. You all have a lot to lose—but we have a tremendous resource here, too—
RICHARD: What resource?
THE OLD MAN: Us. The four of us. Our minds. Our points of view. Our collective wisdom. That may be all we have left but it is a hell of a thing to have on our side! There is no problem we can’t solve by calmly applying ourselves to it; by taking a blank sheet of paper and transforming it into a document, a plan of action, a weapon, a tool that can bend and shape the hardest reality to our will.
RICHARD: We’ve already consumed a gross of legal pads trying to do just that.
THE OLD MAN: I’m only asking that we try—one more time; with all of us taking part.
RICHARD: All of us? Is there supposed to be some kind of magic in that? Who the hell are we? A boy who’s still wet behind the ears with collegiate afterbirth? An old man deeply tarnished by the folly of his own disgrace? And a moral bankrupt who is teetering on the brink of insanity? Is this the braintrust that is supposed to crack the hardest political nut of all time?
THE OLD MAN: You left yourself out of that litany, Richard. Maybe you are the one with the answer?
RICHARD: Oh, I’ve got the answer all right!
THE OLD MAN: Well, what in God’s name is it!
R.N.: He thinks I ought to blow my brains out.
THE OLD MAN: [Pause.] Alright. We can start with even that radical proposition. I don’t think we can afford to leave any stone unturned, can we? Suicide is an option. It was an option in my case, too. I almost went that way. There was a time when—
RICHARD: What’s the point in rehashing all that? We all know what he’s going to do in the end. He’s not in control anymore.
THE OLD MAN: Is that true? Is that the way you feel?
R.N.: [After pause.] No. I’m willing to consider options.
THE OLD MAN: Any options?
R.N.: Any options.
THE OLD MAN: You’ve got a clear head now?
R.N.: I’ve got a clear head.
THE OLD MAN: Can you climb out of that skin of yours and look down on the man you left behind?
R.N.: I can be as objective as hell about this.
THE OLD MAN: Alright, Richard—let’s have some legal pads and pencils and get to work, goddammit! We’ve got one hell of a challenge here! This beats anything we’ve ever been up against before, doesn’t it? This is that moment of truth you only find at the very summit of greatness! This is the ultimate crisis!
RICHARD passes yellow legal pads around, gets pencils from container on desk holding several dozen freshly sharpened ones. The lights dim as:
THE OLD MAN: So—the first option is "suicide." That’s option Number One—agreed?
They all write. Lights rise in livingroom. Four women are as they were in their previous scene.
PAT: Suicide? Are you serious?
PATRICIA: Yes Miss Goody Twoshoes. I’m serious about that.
PAT: My God—
PATRICIA: Are you really that sorry for me?
PAT: Of course I am! What else could I be!
PATRICIA: Don’t waste your pity on me. You’ve got enough problems of your own.
PAT: What is that supposed to mean?
PATRICIA: If you don’t know there is no point in my telling you.
PAT: I want you to tell me! [Pause.] Is it my Richard? Is it Richard you’re referring to? You think he’s going to go down the same road R.N. has gone down? Well, that’s only what you would like to believe, Patricia. But even you can see that that is not going to happen. Richard is not going to make the same mistakes—
PATRICIA: No. I’m sure Richard will manage to create his own, custom made, fiascoes—
PAT: They’re not made the same way. They are different. In many, many—oh, so many ways—
PATRICIA: [Laughs.] Your Richard is 20 years younger than mine—that’s the only difference. And you are 20 years younger than me. Ask her. She knows. She’ll tell you!
THE FIRST LADY: I can’t do that. I really don’t know.
TRISH: We’re not all the same!
PATRICIA: Don’t you want to be like me, little girl and like her—that sweet whitehaired old lady who writes Haiku?
TRISH: I just want to be myself!
PATRICIA: But just who the hell are you if you aren’t us? We were you—we were exactly like you! All of us were, weren’t we?
TRISH: Then how can you kill yourself? If I can’t change, if none of us can change, how can you?
PATRICIA: I’m not going to change anything. I’m going to end everything!
PAT: I don’t believe you.
As lights fade. PATRICIA rises, gets purse and takes small pearlhandled revolver or automatic pistol from it.
PATRICIA: Maybe this will convince you—
Puts muzzle to her head. Blackout. Lights come up in study.
R.N.: Is that it then? A grand total of 9 options?
DICK: There should be one more, shouldn’t there?
R.N.: What’s that?
DICK: The publication of the Memoirs.
RICHARD: I don’t see that as an option. I don’t see that as having any relevance.
DICK: It’s absolutely relevant to the central issue.
RICHARD: The central issue? What the hell is the central issue?
DICK: Credibility—the truth!
RICHARD: Jesus! Isn’t it just a little bit late for the truth?
R.N.: Would they believe the truth if we told it?
DICK: They’ll believe what’s told in those Memoirs.
RICHARD: That’s just it! There’s one hell of a lot of dirty laundry in there—
R.N.: There is too much in there. We can’t let all that hang out. All that personal stuff.
DICK: But that’s exactly what you do need. Not just a bandaid. You need the intensive care unit, massive transfusions, radical surgery—a heart transplant!
RICHARD: There won’t be anything left of him but a basket case! Can you imagine the field day the press will have with all that domestic dirt?
DICK: Isn’t that what we want them to do? Let them have their field day? Let them crucify the man? And for what? Because he drinks? Because he’s got problems with his sexlife? Because his underwear is soiled? Because he is nothing more and nothing less than a very ordinary, very flawed human being?
RICHARD: [Pause.] But is he really? Is he really just an ordinary, vulnerable human being?
DICK: You bet your sweet ass he is! In spite of what we think or what he thinks he is, that’s what it comes down to—that’s the bottom line. That’s what is written in The Old Man’s book. The story of one very ordinary, very vulnerable, and hence: very dimensionalized human being!
R.N.: [Pause.] You think they’ll buy that?
RICHARD: Buy what? The propaganda or the fact?
THE OLD MAN: The question is R.N., do you buy it?
DICK: Yes! If you’re willing to buy the idea you’ll be able to sell it.
RICHARD: How many times can we sell the same old used car, for Christ’s sake! Those cholos out there have been driven right up the frigging wall with those 30 dollar paint jobs of yours. They know all about the banana peels in the transmission, the sandbags in the trunk and the chewing gum in the radiator—
DICK: This isn’t just a cosmetic job we are talking about.
THE OLD MAN: This time you’re going to tell them the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
R.N.: Let me get this straight. Just what is it I’m supposed to believe? That it will fly? That it will work?
DICK: Just that it’s true. That what The Old Man has written is the truth!
R.N.: The truth about me?
DICK: Yes! It is the truth about you, isn’t it?
R.N.: [Looks at THE OLD MAN.] What do you say? Is it me or you in that book?
THE OLD MAN: That’s up to you.
R.N.: [Pause.] It could be me—
DICK: And not just you: everybody. Everybody who has ever had ambition, dreams and desires. Everyone who’s ever compromised his principles or told a lie or made a mistake. Everyone who is involved in a failing marriage or—
RICHARD: Yeah, professor—now that’s where I have got to raise my hand and point out that what you’re really proposing here is a kind of Gotterdaemmerung where we all fling ourselves into his funeral pyre. Let’s face it, these Memoirs aren’t just about The Old Man or R.N.—there’s an awful lot of stuff in there applies to us.
DICK: You mean applies to you.
RICHARD: No I don’t! I mean us! Pat and I and you and Trish!
DICK: That’s total bullshit! I’ve got nothing to be afraid of—certainly not from the truth!
RICHARD: You stupid, naive bastard; that’s the same attitude that got them in trouble. They could never see the truth about themselves until somebody beat them over the head with it.
DICK: Alright; you tell me. You tell me what the truth is about me!
RICHARD: I’d rather let The Old Man do that. You seem to be impressed with his credibility.
THE OLD MAN: [Pause.] Maybe it is the best way—to start at the beginning—[Lights begin to fade.] Then we can all see the truth. The truth about ourselves. All of us. We shouldn’t be afraid of the truth. It might hurt like hell, like going to the dentist. But if you don’t face up to it you go all rotten. The decay sets in and keeps spreading until you crumble and fall apart from the inside out—and that’s no way to go, is it?
Darkness in study. Lights up in livingroom. PATRICIA still with pistol to her head.
PAT: [Giddy with relief.] There; I knew you wouldn’t do it.
PATRICIA: [Lowers pistol.] No. I can’t do it. Suicide would be the easiest thing in the world for me to do—
PAT: Then why didn’t you?
PATRICIA: I suddenly had an idea. A brilliant idea!
PAT: Oh?
PATRICIA: That I shoot you all first, and then kill myself.
TRISH: That’s not funny. This whole thing is not funny.
PATRICIA: No?
TRISH: No! Frankly I’m more than just a little fed up with your hysterical selfpity.
PATRICIA: I’m sorry if I bore you.
THE FIRST LADY: I wrote a haiku about the suicide of a disenchanted wife. Would you like to hear it?
PATRICIA: I would like you to shut up! [Aims pistol at her.]
THE FIRST LADY: Are you afraid to hear the poem?
PATRICIA: I’m not afraid of anything, now. Do you know how many bullets there are in this thing? More than enough to go around—[Approaches PAT.] Now who’s afraid? [Moves to TRISH.] You know I’d do it, don’t you? [Moves to FIRST LADY.] And you? Have you got a poem about the massacre that took place at the house of the burning tree!
THE FIRST LADY: No. But maybe I could compose one now. We could all work on it together. I could teach you how it’s done.
PATRICIA: That would be a nice little trick, wouldn’t it? Another little game of lies. I’ll tell you what I want to hear from you old woman. The truth. Just once before you die—the plain, simple truth. I want her (indicating Trish) to hear it. I want to see the look on her face when she hears it.
THE FIRST LADY: What do you want me to say?
PATRICIA: Tell her what you really feel: what you’ve always felt about your marriage—from the time of that very first misgiving you had—
THE FIRST LADY: Surely we can discuss my marriage without a gun—
PATRICIA: No! I want the truth! We’ll pretend it’s a little game. Truth or consequences. The first one who tells a lie from now on gets shot! Those are the rules—
THE FIRST LADY: Where do we start?
PATRICIA: Where I told you. With that very first misgiving.
THE FIRST LADY: Alright. There were some misgivings at the start. There were things about my husband I didn’t like. Right from the start—
PATRICIA: Did you love him?
THE FIRST LADY: [Pause.] No.
PATRICIA: Ah, you see what a good game this is! Have you ever loved him?
THE FIRST LADY: The kind of allconsuming, passionate love that every woman dreams of?
PATRICIA: Yes, yes! That kind of love.
THE FIRST LADY: No. That never happened.
PATRICIA: [Aiming pistol at PAT.] What about you?
PAT: There have been times—times when we have come close.
PATRICIA: Close? How close?
PAT: Not close enough—[Turns head away.]
PATRICIA: [Aiming pistol at FIRST LADY.] Alright. Go on. Why did you marry him if you didn’t love him?
THE FIRST LADY: Because he loved me. He loved me so desperately I couldn’t resist—
PATRICIA: You felt sorry for him—you pitied him!
THE FIRST LADY: Yes. I pitied him. There was a vast weakness in him—an incompleteness whose aching to be filled pressed against me.
PATRICIA: His incompleteness?
THE FIRST LADY: Yes.
PATRICIA: The sheep feeling guilty because the wolf is hungry!
THE FIRST LADY: Maybe that is the way it was—
PAT: Richard worshipped me like a goddess. That is the way it was with me. He adored me so much—
PATRICIA: You enjoyed being his goddess—
PAT: I liked the feeling—
THE FIRST LADY: He exalted me with his baseness—
PATRICIA: Yes! He was like a drug, wasn’t he? And we thought there would always be time to kick the habit. We thought we would be strong enough to do that when the time came. But that’s only the delusion of every drug addict in the world, isn’t it? And we were addicted.
PAT: Addicted to what?
THE FIRST LADY: To our own selfpity. Our loathing for him was the fuel for that cold inner fire of ours.
PATRICIA: It’s not any different now, is it?
THE FIRST LADY: I don’t despise him anymore. The loathing has gone.
PAT: But you did? You once thought of him in those terms?
THE FIRST LADY: Yes. I did. But that’s not to say I was right. That’s not to say he was loathsome.
PATRICIA: That’s a lie!
THE FIRST LADY: How could I despise him for being what he was—a weakling?
PATRICIA: Yes! Weakness is despicable in a man!
THE FIRST LADY: But we need his weakness just as the lightning needs the burning tree!
PATRICIA: That’s backwards; we are the tree. He is the lightning—he is the thing that destroys us!
PAT: But if he is weak and we are strong, what you are saying doesn’t make sense.
PATRICIA: [Aiming pistol at FIRST LADY.] Alright. Go on. Why did you marry him if you didn’t love him?
PAT: What difference does it make who is the stronger and who the weaker when we are destroying each other!
THE FIRST LADY: [Pause.] It doesn’t have to end in destruction. That is what I have been trying to show you these past 20 years.
PATRICIA: These past 20 years? What have they been but the final chapter in a life that was already ruined?
THE FIRST LADY: They’ve given me the chance to see the marriage as it really was—with all the nonsense pushed to one side, without the drugs and the delusions—the chance to poke through the ruins to see what it was we had built—
PATRICIA: That’s all there was left, then—ruins?
THE FIRST LADY: A landscape of ruins. Everything came crashing down. So much of what we had was built on a foundation of misunderstanding—
PATRICIA: And lies!
THE FIRST LADY: And lies. Plenty of lies. Lies we told each other and lies we told to ourselves. But there were good things too. That is what we do now—as they do after a war: search through the rubble, sorting the good bricks from the bad, salvaging the sound timbers from the firewood. There is much that can’t be used again. But, surprisingly, there is much that can.
PATRICIA: At 80 you think there is still time to build something new!
THE FIRST LADY: We’ve already done that!
PATRICIA: That’s just another lie you’re telling yourself! A new fairytale! "Love Among The Ashes!"
THE FIRST LADY: It’s not love. We are really not lovable people. That’s something we found in the ruins very early on.
PAT: Then what is left if there is no love—what hope is there?
THE FIRST LADY: That’s not easy to say. We’ve come to understand each other: at least we have started to do that. Started to see ourselves and each other as we really are and really were. Maybe as far back as that first moment we met. The first time the lightning struck the tree. And to understand everything that happened after that happened because of what we were: what we both were.
PAT: We seem always to be coming back to the idea in that poem about the burning tree.
THE FIRST LADY: Yes, we do.
PATRICIA: It should be cut down.
PAT: But nobody has had the heart to do it!
THE FIRST LADY: It has endured so much. Who has the heart to end something that has struggled so long to survive?
PAT: [To PATRICIA.] You’re not going to do it, are you? [Pause.]
THE FIRST LADY: Maybe now you’ll listen to the poem?
PATRICIA: I don’t care. It’s not up to me anymore. She’s the one you have to ask.
TRISH: I’d like to hear it.
THE FIRST LADY: The Suicide Of A Disenchanted Wife:
The bride’s suicide
Went unnoticed in the course
Of the honeymoon.
TRISH: Again!
Lights fade as FIRST LADY repeats poem. Women ponder its meaning. Lights up in study.
THE OLD MAN: [To DICK.] The question seems to be whether you are different from us—
RICHARD: And whether we are different from one another!
R.N.: Isn’t that the same damned thing? If we answer his question, we’ll be answering our own.
RICHARD: I don’t see where the situations are identical—
THE OLD MAN: There is one situation—one time, when everything matches up, for all of us. When the situations are identical.
R.N.: The marriage.
THE OLD MAN: The marriage. Where Dick and Trish are now, we all were.
DICK: Except that I know things you didn’t know. I have had a look into the future. [Pause.] Isn’t that so?
R.N.: We all had that same look into the future, kid.
THE OLD MAN: We were bright enough, weren’t we, to look ahead and at least glimpse some of the implications?
DICK: The implications of what?
THE OLD MAN: Of what we were. And what our women were. And what that combination would inevitably lead to.
DICK: I don’t accept that. I don’t see anything inevitable about Trish and me except that we love each other and want to spend a lifetime enjoying that love.
R.N.: Do you believe that—that she loves you?
DICK: Hell, yes, she loves me! Didn’t they love you?
The three other men exchange looks.
THE OLD MAN: We thought of it as love—but maybe we were fooling ourselves.
R.N.: We made them fall in love with us—
THE OLD MAN: Yes! That’s what we did!
DICK: What difference does it make how it happened? The fact is they did fall in love with us.
R.N.: It makes a hell of a difference, kid. Don’t you see? That’s always been the problem with us. We have always had to make things happen!
RICHARD: Jesus, you make it sound like there’s something sinister in getting a woman like Pat to fall in love with me! Let’s face it: none of us was what you would call a prize catch. Not in those early days, anyway.
THE OLD MAN: No. We weren’t. So we felt compelled to reach for something that was just beyond us, didn’t we?
RICHARD: I’m not going to say that’s anything to be ashamed of. Good God—if we’ve got any talent at all, that’s what it is: That we have been able to achieve things that were beyond our capabilities—
R.N.: Yeah kid, we’re superachievers alright!
DICK: Ambition? Is that the word?
THE OLD MAN: If there has to be one word; yes, that might be it. We are ambitious men.
DICK: Then that’s where I’m different.
R.N.: Is it?
DICK: Politically it is. I don’t give a damn for politics.
R.N.: Just saying something doesn’t make it happen, unfortunately.
DICK: It is happening.
THE OLD MAN: Don’t you see, Dick; your love affair with Trish was itself a form of politics?
DICK: Oh, come on!
R.N.: There is a lot of truth in that. Courting Trish was your first campaign. She was your first constituency. Getting her to fall in love with you was tantamount to winning your first election, kid. And after that everything you do becomes a reenactment of that first sweet victory. After that you want the whole goddamm world to fall in love with you.
THE OLD MAN: Was winning Trish really such a total victory? Or did your "political" relationship become the continuing struggle to convince her you were worthy of a love she could never give you? [To R.N.] Even the ultimate political triumph didn’t bring that, did it? In fact, it is the victories that drove us farther apart. The closest we ever come to love is in the defeats; they seem to bring us together somehow. Somehow trouble seems a lot closer to the truth of our relationship. There is something precious in the ashes—
RICHARD: I can only say that, personally, I find your whole theory ludicrous. It’s the kind of argument you fall back on when you’re a failure. I don’t intend to be a failure. I think Dick feels the same way. He can make of his life what he wants: and both of us can be man enough to accept the responsibility for failing—if we fail. I just can’t accept the notion of finding salvation in failure. The whole purpose of this discussion was to help R.N. avoid failure, I thought.
THE OLD MAN: It still is. I am saying that only the truth can help him. Not just the truth about his present difficulties; but the whole truth about everything.
DICK: Yes. That’s what we’re talking about. The truth.
RICHARD: But none of us seems willing to accept the truth about himself; so how can we expect R.N. to do it? Especially under these circumstances! Why should he do what you didn’t do?
THE OLD MAN: Because of what we are saying now, all of us, in this room. Because he knows I failed to be persuaded by the very same arguments. Because, right now, I see something in his eyes that was never in mine. Somehow the truth is getting through to him. Isn’t it?
R.N.: I don’t know!
THE OLD MAN: Well, that’s something, believe me. I always knew. I was always so sure of what I was doing!
R.N.: I think the big question is: do I have enough credibility left?
THE OLD MAN: To hell with credibility. A man is either a liar or he isn’t. If you believe in what you’re doing, they’ll believe you.
DICK: Can you accept the idea that you’ve been wrong? That this whole thing is nobody’s fault but your own?
R.N.: Can you? Can you accept such an idea?
DICK: Me?
R.N.: Yes, you!
DICK: That’s a hell of a lot to ask!
R.N.: You’re telling me?!
DICK: Christ! [Pause.] Alright. Yes. I accept the idea. It’s true. It’s true!
THE OLD MAN: At last! The truth! How sweet it is to hear it!
R.N.: [Smiling.] Yes. I can feel it happening. Something tremendous is happening! There is a core of steel building inside me! How can that be? How the hell can that be? To admit your entire life has been a fraud; your whole life! And to feel good about it?!
RICHARD: The hangover comes later—
THE OLD MAN: There’s not going to be any hangover, Richard. This is a different kind of intoxication. The truth is rolling; it’s a steamroller—only this time we are in the driver’s seat!
DICK: Don’t you see? This isn’t just a denial of the past. It’s a first step into the future.
R.N.: I haven’t felt like this since—hell, I’ve never felt like this! Here I am in the middle of the goddamnedest mess anybody’s ever been in and I feel better than I’ve felt in my whole life! It’s crazy, crazy—
RICHARD: Then you’re going ahead with the publication of the Memoirs?
R.N.: Hell, yes! I only wish I could put my own name on them.
THE OLD MAN: Why can’t you?
R.N.: Why you old sonofabitch—you wrote them with that in mind all along, didn’t you?
THE OLD MAN: I knew you were too busy to sit down and write a book, so I did it for you—for all of you. Now: I think this calls for a drink.
R.N.: No more booze! No more drinking!
DICK: This is a different kind of drink.
THE OLD MAN: We deserve a celebration drink, don’t we Richard?
RICHARD: Why not—[Pours brandy for them.]
THE OLD MAN: Who’s going to do the honors?
R.N.: I think it ought to be the kid.
THE OLD MAN: I’ll second that. Well, Dick—what are we drinking?
DICK: How about—Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
As lights dim, they raise their glasses in a toast.
ALL: Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
Lights come up in livingroom.
PAT: The bride’s suicide
Went unnoticed in the course
Of the honeymoon—
TRISH: The bride must die to become a wife—
PATRICIA: [Having put pistol away.] But we never did that, did we? We never accepted the bride’s death.
PAT: No. I can see that now. We must accept many things. We must understand so many things. That is where the happiness lies.
THE FIRST LADY: We must even understand that "happiness" is too powerful a word—too vain a hope. Contentment, maybe. Contentment is a better word. It has a measure, just a measure of sadness in it.
TRISH: Contentment—
PAT: A measure of sadness—
PATRICIA: I’ll settle for that—for just a measure of sadness—
The MEN enter livingroom from study. They are just ending a boisterous conversation.
PAT: What’s going on here? Why all these happy, smiling faces?
R.N.: We’re celebrating!
PATRICIA: Celebrating?
THE OLD MAN: The publication of my memoirs!
PAT: You’re going to let them be published?
R.N.: Damned right! Isn’t it about time we hung out all the laundry in the fresh air and sunshine? We’re going to shake the bejesus out of that family tree and see just who falls out of it! What is it those radical students used to say? We are going to tell it the way it is!
PATRICIA: I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it’s really you, saying that.
R.N.: Maybe it isn’t really me. Maybe I’ve been reborn—or passed through some kind of purifying fire. But this is what I’m going to be from now on; like it or not.
PATRICIA: Like it or not!
R.N.: It’s not going to be easy. You know what the book says about us—
PATRICIA: Yes—but that was the old us, wasn’t it?
R.N.: I hope so. I hope they’ll give us just one more chance. We don’t deserve it; I don’t deserve it, but—
PATRICIA: No, you were right the first time. "we" don’t deserve it—
R.N.: But there’s a chance the people will—
PATRICIA: Will it really matter that much if they don’t?
R.N.: No. I guess it won’t. Not now—[Aborts eye contact with PATRICIA.] Well, I’ve got a lot of things to do back at the office—
THE FIRST LADY: We understand. This day could not have been more perfect. A very strange day but full of miracles. And now is just the right time to end it—
R.N. and PATRICIA kiss FIRST LADY’s cheek.
PATRICIA: Thanks for the poetry—
R.N.: Thanks for everything; all of you—[Shakes hands with men, kisses women.]
RICHARD: How are you getting back?
R.N.: The same way we came, I guess.
DICK: Do you think that’s necessary now, sir?
R.N.: We can’t risk being—[Catches himself.]—Well, maybe we can risk it! [To PATRICIA.] Hell’s bells Old Girl—you think we could actually walk all the way back to that palace of ours?
PATRICIA: We can certainly give it a try! And, if we don’t make it all the way—if we’re too decrepit to walk that far we can always hop on a bus, can’t we?
R.N.: I don’t see why not! It’s still a free country, isn’t it?
RICHARD: Don’t be silly. I’ll give you a lift back to the White House—
R.N.: We’re not being silly, Richard—
PATRICIA: I think we are! I think we’re being gloriously silly—and I love it! To think of walking on a city street again; just the two of us, arm and arm. That’s an unbearably, deliciously silly thing to contemplate—
PATRICIA puts her arm in R.N.’s. They look into each other’s eyes and make their EXIT like that through the audience.
PAT: What a fantastic day this has been!
TRISH: The sun is shining again.
PAT: Yes, it is—
THE FIRST LADY: With a soft, silvery light?
PAT: You sound tired. Would you like to take a nap?
THE FIRST LADY: I’ll just sit here I think. It’s so comfortable—
THE OLD MAN sits next to her. He puts his hand on hers.
THE OLD MAN: Sometimes we forget—just how old we are, don’t we? When you close your eyes—and all the weight and the aches and the little pains leave you—just before you drift off—as lightly as a feather in a gentle summer breeze—I always wonder about three things—Who I am—What dream I’ll have—And if this sleep will be my last—
Lights fade. For a few moments entire stage is dark. Then lights rise in study. RICHARD alone at his desk, writing. DICK ENTERS.
DICK: We’re going now, sir.
RICHARD: You’re leaving tonight?
DICK: We don’t have much time.
RICHARD: There’s plenty of room for you here—
DICK: We appreciate the offer, but—we’d really like to get going.
RICHARD: Sure, sure—I understand. [Pause.] Well, it’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?
DICK: Yes, sir, it has been quite a day.
RICHARD: I hope—
DICK: Sir?
RICHARD: I hope you’ll understand—why I took the position I did.
DICK: I think I do.
RICHARD: You’ll see that I was right.
DICK: About what?
RICHARD: This has happened before; this burst of euphoria. It won’t last. He won’t go through with it. Just about now he’ll be having second and third thoughts, and sometime tonight, late tonight, he’ll call me and ask me what I think.
DICK: And what will you tell him?
RICHARD: It doesn’t matter what I tell him. It doesn’t matter what any of us tell him. He’ll do the same thing The Old Man did; he’ll do what every drowning man does—thrash around for a while and then—drown. You can’t reason with a drowning man. He’s preoccupied with the process of drowning. What we saw this afternoon was just the flashing past of his lifetime in that instant before oblivion. That’s all it was; a drowning man grasping at straws.
DICK: We’ll see—
RICHARD: Yes, we’ll certainly see. We’re the spectators on the shore; waiting to see what will happen to that poor devil out there screaming for help when he should be calmly swimming and conserving oxygen. That’s what we would do, wouldn’t we? If we were out there in that cold, black water?
DICK: That’s easy when you’re standing on the shore.
RICHARD: Sure. But we know that someday our turn will come. Someday we all find ourselves in the midst of that acquatic nightmare; with the first mouthful of water already in our lungs. We will be the drowning man struggling to remember the simple requirement for survival. What is it? What is it! This thing I have to remember—this thing all drowning men seem always to forget?
DICK: But we know what it is.
RICHARD: Oh, yes! We know now! But when fate takes us by surprise? Will we know then? Will we remember? There are so many waters to drown in. It’s not just politics and politicians. We are all trying to walk on water, Dick—but the time comes when you find yourself pulled down, struggling to get back to the surface and not knowing which way is up in all that darkness and terror. The water is already in your lungs, choking you; and you are suddenly fascinated by the flashing by of your lifetime. You’ve got until your next breath to decide whether it is life or death—
DICK: I say he’s made the decision to live. We’ve all made that decision today. I think for a while we were all drowning. Right here in this house. And now we are calmly swimming for the shore. Exhausted and shaken but still confident that we can make it.
RICHARD: And, maybe, when we’ve made it to the shore, we will find out we have left someone behind—in all that darkness, in the struggle to save ourselves, we might find the one we tried to save has disappeared beneath the surface. That out there, there is nothing but silence—and now there is nothing we can do about it. Except to imagine what it must be like to be the one who slowly sinks into the bottomless reaches of an infamy no other man has ever explored.
DICK: It won’t be like that! We will all make it! And we will all lie there on the shore trembling for what might have been, maybe, but opening our eyes to see a sky strewn with stars. And we will fill our lungs with the sweet night air—
ENTER TRISH and PAT.
PAT: What’s that?
RICHARD: We were just talking—about drowning.
PAT: Yes. The ocean can be treacherous at the Cape. We were very nearly swept away ourselves, weren’t we Richard?
RICHARD: I’d almost forgotten the time we came close to drowning.
PAT: If it hadn’t been for Richard’s levelheadedness, we wouldn’t be here now!
TRISH: We’ll remember that. Thank you. Thank you for everything.
DICK: Are they still sleeping?
PAT: Yes. They must be exhausted.
DICK: Like two swimmers—
PAT: Swimmers?
DICK: Like two swimmers who have almost drowned but made it to the shore.
PAT: Like Richard and I on our honeymoon. Is that what you meant?
DICK: Yes—I don’t think we should wake them just to say goodbye.
TRISH: I left a note telling them how much we enjoyed seeing them—and what a special day this has been for us.
DICK: Well, I guess that’s it, then—
PAT: You will write to us, won’t you? You will keep in touch?
TRISH: Yes, we will—
RICHARD: Good luck in the Navy—Good luck in everything. [Shakes DICK’s hand.]
DICK: Good luck to you, too, sir.
RICHARD: Here. You can leave this way—
RICHARD shows DICK and TRISH to exit hidden in study wall.
TRISH: Goodbye!
PAT: Goodbye! Don’t forget about those treacherous crosscurrents!
EXIT DICK and TRISH. Pause.
RICHARD: You think they’ll make it?
PAT: Make it?
RICHARD: To Cape Cod—in that old jalopy.
PAT: Oh. I thought you meant would they make it as husband and wife. Yes. I think they’ll make it. We made it—didn’t we?
PAT and RICHARD exchange looks as light fades to darkness.
End of Play