Scene One
Contact?
Friday, one a.m. As the scene progresses there will be several re-groupings of the characters, each facilitated by black-outs. Each grouping should be lit by spots, the back-ground fairly dark. Otherwise the set remains the same. It should be staged a bit dream-like, reminiscent of talks we have all had in the middle of the night...
Enter Georg, carrying a suitcase, followed by Rob from a bedroom left.
Rob: (holding Georg’s arm, to detain him.) Georg, will you please try to be reasonable? It’s one in the morning. How do you think you’re going to get anywhere at this time of night?
Georg: I called a taxi. The number was on a pad next to the phone.
Rob: But why? Listen, I know you hated what went on here today, but…
Georg: (Sets his suitcase down, and takes Rob by the shoulders.) Robert, I think we both know that it wasn’t right for me to come here. You were only being stubborn. I should have listened to my instinct.
Rob: You shouldn’t have listened to all that yelling and taken it seriously.
Georg: Your mother has a heart attack, and that is not serious?
Rob: No! Besides, the doctor said it was only a minor circulatory collapse and not too severe. You were there, or weren’t you listening? Please, Georg, don’t leave me alone here.
Georg: Terry will look after you. (Enter John right, unseen by them.)
Rob: I need you! (a sudden thought) Are you going for good?
Georg: Don’t be so absurd, ja? (exasperation) I will never understand you Americans. You are all so intense, so emotional. I try, Robert, and just when I think you are the same as me, boom! We have the great melodrama, fix and fertig.
Rob: People in Austria can be like that, too.
Georg: I do not know them, and do not wish to in the future either.
Rob: Me included?
Georg: (embraces him) Do not carry your family manners into our personal lives. (John winces)
John: (spot up) Hearing it is one thing, seeing it is terrible. (spot out)
Georg: You know I have often told you how I feel. (tiredly) Let me go for tonight, Robert. I will stay in a hotel in town, and when you are finished here, we will go someplace nice together. I do not feel right here. (smile) And in Austria, the people are sleeping. I will call you tomorrow and we can make plans.
Rob: No need. (kisses Georg) Seeing as this has been a disaster, I will join you in town tomorrow at noon.
Georg: But your mother!
Rob: Didn’t stick around when I needed her either.
Georg: I don’t know… My mother…
Rob: Loved you very much. That’s the different.
Georg: (small chuckle) Difference. I guess you could be right. (heads for the door) Until tomorrow, then. And then we will have a real vacation.
Rob: (suddenly depressed) Ok. Ciao, Bear. (exit Georg, then separate spots on Rob and John. ( to the closed door, barely audible) I’m sorry. I love you.
John: And he left home for that?!?
Blackout
Lights up on Rob and John, standing together, defensive
John: So your ‘friend’ decided to cut his losses and split, huh?
Rob: Why ask me? You were in the doorway listening. Get an earful?
John: You can’t seriously expect me to condone what you are doing to yourself and to our real family.
Rob: (pacing) Families! They expect you to toe the line, and God help you if you budge one inch over it. Then you get two choices: either you go the sackcloth and ashes route, or you get on with your life and they refuse to have anything to do with you. It’s my life, John. I don’t need anyone’s approval.
John: Well, at least you were decent enough to do what you did outside of the country, I suppose. When I think about your so-called reasons for staying in Austria, I could explode. That was dishonest, all those ‘rational’ arguments, and in reality you indulged yourself in one long debauched fling.
Rob: Boy, your mind has been working overtime, and in the gutter at that! (stops) Try to be sensible, hey. We work eighty hours a week trying to make a go out of running the hotel. That hardly leaves much time over for decadence, don’t you think? I didn’t set out to disgrace myself, and I’ll be damned if I can feel like that now.
John: Then why did you let it happen?
Rob: (impatient) Because that’s the way I am, for God’s sake! You act as if I were a slur on your reputation. What are you afraid of, anyway? That it’s catching, or what? WHAT?
John: (begins to cry) I… I just didn’t want it to be true. I always thought that that was how you’d turn out. I looked up to you!
Rob: (embraces John, brotherly) Shhh! There’s no reason for you to upset yourself like this. In two weeks, we’ll be back home and Ma isn’t in a position to make much of a stink after today. (steps back) Look at it this way: I am content. I didn’t set out to disappoint you all, but I can’t live a lie either. And Georg is a good person, take my word for that.
John: (re-gaining control) I guess….
Rob: (persuasive) He is. (confidential) You know, he only left because he was totally horrified at American manners.
John: (stiff) I hope he realises we aren’t representative!
Rob: You really haven’t the foggiest, do you? You know Ma always used to ask ‘What’s it like, out there? As if it were outer space or something. Not to worry, they’re often far better informed about us than vice versa. Hey I got an idea. Let’s scout around for a bottle of booze and you can ask me anything you like. I’ll shoot straight from the hip, ok? (John nods) Let’s se how AA Ma really is. (They laugh go toward the dining area as the lights fade)
Blackout
Lights up on Terry in a flannel night-gown. During the first part of the following, she searches restlessly in the living room area for something to drink.
Terry: Oh where oh where has the scotch bottle gone? Oh where, oh where can it be? (Looks under the sofa.) Huh. I know damned well she keeps one around for her male company. Not that she’ll have too many nowadays. Naw, now she’s into bounty hunting. Inheritances from people she turned against herself years ago with her silliness. (Removes a cushion from an armchair, looks beneath it.) Family reunion in-deed! She’d have been better off doing her own version of ‘This Is Your Life—house would’ve been chock-full of men. (straightens up, shrugs.) Then again, they couldn’t handle her either. (giggles)
Spots up on Rob and John in back. John suddenly laughs.. Terry jumps with a little yelp.
Rob: (waving a bottle, coming forward) Lookin’ for this, Sis?
Terry: Bingo. Wanted a night-cap. Where did you find it? Under the sofa?
Rob: Nope, it was in the cupboard. (Hands her a glass, pours) Some day, wasn’t it. Georg fled a little while ago, John threw a tantrum, and since then we’ve been discussing little-known facts of life. And what’s with you?
Terry: Ginnie and Anne are of the opinion that you and I are the main culprits. We aren’t talking, and that very loudly.
Rob: A dubious art, that...
(John joins them from the back)
John: Left field went quiet all of a sudden. Having a good time?
Terry: Just came in for a night-cap. You ok?
John: I’ve been better. How did you two get together after so long a time, anyway? I’ve been meaning to ask you that all day.
Terry: If you’d kept in touch, I would have told you about it.
Rob: Ma wrote me one of her cryptic letters in early Oracle of Delphi style, with the one-liner: Your sister lost her husband. Period. So I shot back with: ‘Where, in the supermarket?’
Terry: Mom was so much afraid of what I’d say if she told him that she gave him my address, and the rest, as they say, is history.
John: So that’s why. I read your book, you know. Shocking.
Terry: (shrugs) Writing it was my way of coming to terms with Mark’s death. It was so senseless.
John: And there’s no danger that you’ll come down with AIDS?
Terry: A little late to be asking, but no, no danger.
John: I’m sorry we stopped talking with one another. I wish I’d known, but then again I probably wouldn’t have been of much help.
Terry: It’s over. Let’s just try to do better in the future, ok?
John: I suppose you know the risk you’re taking, Rob?
Rob: I don’t want to get into that. I lost two good friends this Spring, and it is something that you can’t understand, believe me. I’m a one person person. I trust Georg enough so that I don’t worry.
John: Well I do.
Rob: Not to change the subject, but to change the subject, what are we going to do about Ma?
Terry: Oh no, you don’t! Tomorrow noon I’m out of here and it’s back to the kids. No way!
John: Don’t look at me! You’re the only one without any real ties, Rob. Maybe you should stick around. She’d have a field day giving you good advice on safer sex.
Rob: You didn’t listen to a word I said before, did you? I repeat: this is the first vacation we have taken in five years, and I’m beginning to wish I’d gone to Cuba, Halifax, anywhere but here. Then I have to get back to the hotel. We only have three weeks left, and I am definitely NOT going to spend them with Louise. You’re the logical candidate. You only live an hour’s drive away.
John: I’m leaving for business on Monday, though. California for a week.
Rob: Then cancel, or something.
Terry: Now don’t get to arguing, you guys. We all have good reason to be leaving tomorrow. So let’s just leave it to the others, why don’t we?
Rob: I don’t know….
Terry: (brightly) Re-fill?
John: Let me. (grabs the bottle) This time we’re going to keep in touch, right?
Rob & Terry: I’ll drink to that! (pause, they look at one another surprised, then laugh. Enter Martin.)
Martin: Hey, hey! A party…. And you didn’t even invite me?
Blackout
Spots up on Rob, Terry, Martin and John, laughing.
Martin: Shhh! We’re gonna wake Mom up if we don’t stop, and you know what that will be like.
Terry: (holding her side) Then stop making me laugh.
Rob: I never realised that the fire department could be such a hot-bed of hilarity.
Martin: (chuckles) I’d say that it can compare with your crazed hotel guests.
John: (dour) You certainly inherited the ‘family’ sense of humour.
Martin: (suddenly sober) If you say so….
Terry: (not catching the mood swing) Too bad you guys didn’t know him when he was growing up. He kept us all going when things got unbearable.
Rob: ‘Things’ being Louise?
Martin: She’s still our mother, Rob.
John: I won’t accept that, ever.
Rob: As if you get to pick and choose! Come off it.
Terry: Re-fills, anybody?
John: You ought to go easy on that, Terry, or Ma will have a case-worker on your back in no time.
Martin: Aw, let her tie one on, if she wants. It was a hard day all around. In a way I feel bad for Mom, though, you know?
John: Bad enough to stay with her till she is back on her feet?
Martin: Oh no, you don’t. She wouldn’t be able to stand me after twenty-four hours, man… (pause, struggle to gain control over animosity) Look, you guys just have no idea what it was like growing up with her.
Rob: I've heard enough to get the general picture.
Martin: Bullshit, man! You weren’t around for the beatings. You weren’t around when she threw me out onto the streets when I was sixteen, because she was too selfish to want to spend any more money on my up-keep. And up to that time, I paid for my father’s defection, believe me.
John: You’re not making any sense, Martin. You just said you feel bad for her and now you’re running her down.
Martin: There were times she was almost a normal human being. It gets mixed up. I feel the same way about you two, and I can’t even put a label on it. It has to do with blood ties, and what the world demands you are supposed to feel for family.
Ours is so complex that we aren’t ever going to come to terms. Yes. I do feel something like pity, for lack of a better word. She is a master of self-delusion, and never seems to realise that, whatever she’s done, she always leaves a trail of emotional carnage behind her. Still, understanding doesn’t lead to acceptance, you know. So I’m leaving tomorrow.
Rob: All in all, this weekend reunion seems to have been a rotten idea. All it seems that we have to offer one another is our animosities.
Terry: Not true, not true. (goes to a side table, re-fills her glass) We’re finally talking here.
John: I hardly see what good it’s doing. We’ve only established that we resent one another, and that we hate Louise.
Rob: (laughs) Freud would have a field day.
Terry: Isn’t that more than your average family would do? My husband’s family visited him all of twice while he was in the hospital. They all knew one another well, but didn’t dare let anything surface. No anger, lots of unresolved guilt feelings all around.
Then he died and now everyone else has the burden of not having said what they really wanted to say. We seem detached enough to be honest, at least. Talking might bring us closer than a ‘normal’ family lets themselves be. Isn’t it worth a try?
John: No! (anger breaking through) You all were only a burden to me, a hindrance to all that was normal around me and all that I wanted to be part of. And now I’m supposed to play the liberal and accept you all? All I want is to be left alone. I want my family, and 2.5 children, a house and car, and not a bunch of brothers and sisters I would be ashamed of in front of the people I do business with.
You are masters at breaking taboos, and can go right on being in the vanguard of any new decadence that comes along, but without me, if you please!
(Martin grins, Rob shifts from one foot to the other, not sure whether to be offended or laugh, Terry considers)
Martin: I think I’m going to turn in. We don’t seem to be making any progress, here.
Terry: You always were the one for getting out while the going was good. Always afraid of the waves. (Martin makes a gesture of protest) No. Don’t say another word. Good night: (Kisses him as Ginnie enters.)
Ginnie: (crosses to the group, picks up the bottle, looks severely at the others, and frowns) Have you all gone crazy or what? Good thing Ma’s under sedation, is all I can say. Get to bed, all of you!
Martin: I was just going, Sis. Calm down.
Terry: I’ll go to bed when I damn well please.
Rob: Let’s not get riled, or we’ll waken the wrath of the Oracle.
John: Rob, get me another drink. (to Ginnie) And I’ll go do bed when I damn well please, sister.
Martin: Oh-oh, storm warnings. Night, all. (exits)
Ginnie: You’re all beasts. First you nearly kill Ma, and then you’re so indecent, you celebrate!
Terry: Want to come down off your high horse, dear? We are in the process of trying to forgive and forget. May you be as successful, at least.
Rob: Night-cap, Ginnie? (She glowers, gets a glass from the sideboard) Too bad we didn’t wake you earlier. We’ve been talking for a change. And even if we aren’t agreed, it’s been a start. (raises his glass) To us.
The others: (partly accepting, partly to assuage) TO US….
Blackout
Spots up on two seating groups. Rob and John on the sofa, Ginnie and Terry in armchairs.
Ginnie and John: (to their respective partners) You took the easy way out. You just up and left us with the real problems. And had a good time.
Rob and Terry: It wasn’t the way you think!
Terry: She’d gotten way out of hand. I was tired of taking your beatings for you.
Rob: Georg had nothing to do with my going away. I was tired of being perceived as a freak.
Ginnie: I needed you when I got pregnant. Where were you then, huh? With Mark. And a lot of good it did you.
John: You may have looked after me when I was little, but whenever I needed your help later in making the big decisions, where were you then? Europe!
Terry and Rob: You’ve got a hell of a nerve Sister/Brother!
Terry: Ginnie, as long as I can remember I felt like I didn’t belong. I was shrivelling up inside, and if I had stuck it out, all that would have been left of me would have been ashes. And I wasn’t ready for an urn.
Rob: John, if I had stayed, I would have become everything I hate. I couldn’t cope with this society. Austria has its’ problems too, but it was the first place where I ever felt like I was at home.
Terry: I felt at home with Mark. He hurt my feelings sometimes, but he loved me as best he could. I found I was able to settle for what he had to offer.
Rob: Austria has culture, that was the most important thing to me. And Georg made me feel even more like I was at home.
John: What do they have that we don’t have?
Terry: I wasn’t what you would call educated, except on the street. Ma ruined all our chances on that score. Mark gave me knowledge, and a sense of culture.
Rob: They have a sense of themselves and their history. All we have is an over-developed sense of the myth that we are the best.
Ginnie: I still can’t forgive you for taking off and leaving the rest of us to bear the brunt of her anger!
John: I saw you in there with George. It made me sick. All the rest of what you’re saying is bunk.
Terry: Oh bullshit! I was supposed to be sacrificed so that everyone else would be happy? Come off it! She’s only happy when we’re unhappy! I’ve done my best for you since. Don’t I take Tom every summer so that you can have your peace and quiet? Don’t you think I’d like to spend a summer without a pack of children underfoot twenty-four hours a day? Don’t be such an ingrate.
Rob: Sorry. (sudden heat) What am I saying? How would you feel if I told you that I feel the same way when I see a hetero love scene? Everything is relative, brother dear. And I'm also sick of being of being in a place where I have to consider every word and action so as not to frighten the horses.
Ginnie: It still doesn’t make up for the past.
John: And it doesn’t matter what your ‘life-style’ does to me or Mom and Dad?
Terry and Rob: STOP IT! STOP IT! I’m sick to death of your selfishness!
Blackout
Spot up on the four, change of partners, John with Ginnie, Terry with Rob
All four: I’ll never understand him/her.
John and Rob: He was always the complete opposite of me.
Ginnie and John: Her/his main concern was looking out for number one and to hell with the rest of us.
Ginnie and John: When Terry left… (stop., look surprised) What? You first.
Ginnie: She was only thirteen. God knows how she ever survived in those homes. Ma imagined the worst and fed us wih horror visions---daily.
John: I kept an eye on her for a while and tried to keep her out of trouble. Rob never bothered to find out what was going on.
Terry: She was always aggressive. Yet one of these days she’s going to have to learn to make her own decisions.
Rob: John never told me that you had run away from home. He just went very quiet and distanced and I was the enemy all of a sudden, only because I went to visit Ma.
Terry: Well, John looked after me as well as he could, but I was stubborn. The only bond between us was our hate for Louise.
Ginnie: Rob was selfish just like Terry. He’d come to the house, and it would be like a circus.
John: He’s always followed his own bent interests. And he calls me selfish.
Rob: I only visited because I was confused, and wanted to piece the vague memories I had together so that they made sense.
Ginnie: When he visitied, Rob never paid much attention to us. Mother used to say to watch out for him, that he was a more dangerous racist than you were, because he hid it so well.
John: I didn’t have any feelings about race one way or the other, although I did feel it could hurt my career later. … (stops, struck by what he’s said.)
Rob: I spent all that time trying to figure out where she really stood, and felt guilty because there were some people of colour I couldn’t bring myself to like. Therefore I had to be racist, right?
Terry: People are people, Rob. She knows how to play the mind games all right. One Easter she gave Sarah a white chocolate bunny, presumably because she has such light complexion, and Susan got a dark chocolate bunny.
Rob: My God, that’s like that film. She’s like Lana Turner---without the mink.
John: I was only trying to find out if she was the immoral person I took her to be. I’m sure she was already carrying Terry when the divorce went through. Who the father was was beside the point.
Ginnie: Terry has been trying to find him for years. I could care less. Where was he when we needed him?
John: Knowing her, you can’t really blame him.
Ginnie: (Acidly) Seems like there’s a whole lot of folks in this family running away from their responsibilities.
Terry: We went all over this in Vienna, Robbie. John doesn’t really hate you. He wouldn’t be so upset if he did. Give him a little time. I wish it were that simple with Ginnie.
Rob: Ginnie has always been an advantage taker, and she isn’t going to change. She’s running on a lot of hate, but is inhibited, too.
Ginnie: Actually, it’s funny, you know. You were out there looking after Terry as much as she would let you, and Rob did try to help me, but I wasn’t having any, if the truth be known.
John: What do you mean?
Rob: You know, she was wrong about no one having tried to help her. The last time I saw her she was several months along, and I did my damndest to try to find out how she felt, because I could see how unhappy she was. All I got for my trouble was: ‘have a good trip’.
Ginnie: He tried to pry the truth out of me when I was carrying Tom. I thought it was one of Ma’s intrigues. Looking back, maybe he was being honest after all, and trying to help.
John: That’s his main fault. Take today as the perfect example.
Terry: Ginnie was never one for saying what was on her mind. Face it, Rob, you do what you can in this life, and leave the rest alone.
Ginnie: Face it, John, you just can’t stand the idea that your brother isn’t perfect.
Rob: I feel like I’ve failed to connect somewhere along the line.
Terry: You can only show that you’re willing. If no one takes you up on an offer, that’s ok, too. You were there when Mark died. I could just as easily have told you to go to hell.
John: But it’s high time he settled down. You can’t call the life he’s living acceptable.
Terry: But the fact is, I needed you.
Rob: And John , I envy him sometimes, but just imagining living his life….I’d be bored to death.
Ginnie: The life Terry has led is so intensive that it scares me to the point where I hate her sometimes. (quietly) Just like you hate him, sometimes.
Terry: There are days when I hate her. If only I could get along with her like I get along with you.
Rob: I’m not so irresponsible as they all make me out to be.
Ginnie: I’m not the harpy you all take me for.
John: Now Terry and Rob are closer than they ever were, and all because of Mark. It makes me angry.
Terry: John meant so well, but he never would really have understood, and Ginnis is all wrapped up in herself.
All Four. I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND HIM/HER!
(enter Martin and Anne)
Martin: You all going to finally calm down and get some sleep, or what?
Anne: What in the blue blazes is going on here, anyway?
Blackout
Lights up, grouping as above,
Anne stands before the rest, aggressive. The others are on the defensive.)
Anne: All right!!! What is this, a party? Or What? I mean, I’m not exactly thrilled at being kept awake by your caterwauling till all hours of the night but the least you could do is show a little respect for our mother!
Terry: Give it a rest, Anne. She’s obviously out like a light.
Rob: We were just about to turn in, so leave us alone, why don’t you.
Anne: Don’t you tell me what to do, Robert. You and Terry have caused enough damage to last us a decade. Every time you show up you cause us grief to last years. I was listening to you all. Aren’t we the dutiful family, though?
John: Why didn’t you come in, if you were so curious=
Anne: Because you all make me sick.
Marin: Anne!
Anne: You do! NO one willing to stick around and help mother when she really needs us.
Ginnie: Well, you got any suggestions that we can all live with, or are you just here to condescend?
(Louise appears in her bedroom doorway, dazed, but becomes more and more attentive as she listens.)
Anne: Condescend? God, how typical, Ginnie. You’ve always done whatever you could in order not to be bothered. And John’s hopeless, always has been. Robert will back out of his family responsibilities as he always has.. Martin will disappear with some girlfriend or other—just like his father did, and Terry will go back to the wilds of Vermont under the pretext of having to take care of her girls, and end up going from one moral dilemma to the next.
Rob: How well you have us typed. But what about you? From what I’ve heard, you don’t have any reasons for showing such familial affection.
John: Terry told me Louise spent all the money your father left you that was intended for your college education. You can’t maintain that that didn’t constitute a reason for your being less that well disposed toward her.
Anne: You don’t know the first thing about it, so shut your mouth, why don’t you? I never had any intention of going to college. And it didn’t seem to get you very far, Robert. And it didn’t serve to save your husband, did it, Terry? You all took what you could get and left Mother in the lurch as soon as you possibly could.
Martin: Your perspective is very slanted, Sis.
Anne: Call it what you will. At least I’m not going to be running out on her tomorrow like the rest of you.
Terry: Don’t give us the martyr act, Anne. Your return ticket isn’t valid for another three weeks, and knowing you, you don’t have enough spending money to last on your own meanwhile.
Anne: That’s right, just twist the facts to suit your opinion.
Ginnie: So that’s it! I knew there had to be some ulterior motive. You always were devious, girl.
Anne: Well lookee lookee, the pot calling the kettle…
Louise: ( approaches them from the bedroom door, slightly unsteady from the sedation she’s received, pale) That’s enough out of all of you!! What are you trying to do, bring me to an early grave? (The rest have gotten a scare, show their chagrin in various ways, Terry defiant, Martin sheepish, Robert blushing, John acting as if nothing were unusual, Ginnie as if she weren’t present, and Anne defensive and wary. Louise draws herself up, delivering an edict)
I don’t know what’s been going on in here but I heard enough to get the picture. I don’t want any of you in my house tomorrow. You all got that? I never needed any of you before and I won’t need any of you in the future. Now get to bed before you really do succeed in killing me before my time!
Rob: (tentative) Ma…
Louise: Get! All of you! (They disperse to their various bedrooms giving one another sceptical glances on the way.) I SAID GET! (alone, begins to cry quietly) What was I thinking? Just what the goddamn hell was I thinking?
Blackout
Graz, May-December, 1989
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