What We Have been Considering Of is on the market for full productions and readings. events might contact me by my Substack e-mail deal with.
(David stays seated as Charles leaves. Sara enters and joins him on the bench in Grant Park, in a wintery Chicago. She locations an overcoat round him.)
DAVID
All these years of questioning the place he was, hoping to listen to from him once more. And now — why do you suppose he asks that: “The place is my daughter?” And “Who’re my sons?” What the hell is that about? That is what he writes eleven years after he fell off the face of the earth?
SARA
Look who he wrote to.
DAVID
Look what he wrote.
SARA
She’s your daughter, David.
DAVID
What if he needs her again?
SARA
You are so foolish. She’s a grown lady. It isn’t as if he might get custody. Nobody might be her father if she does not need it.
DAVID
What if she needs it?
SARA
Now you are being actually foolish. That is what comes of solely speaking to her each three months. Name her. I hate it when you do not.
DAVID
She might name me.
(On the display above, the phrases, “The Safety Council authorizes Member States co-operating with the Authorities of Kuwait, except Iraq on or earlier than 15 January 1991 totally implements…”)
SARA
Oh, you are such a baby. You each look ahead to the opposite one to name after which you do not discuss to one another for ages. The whole lot’s very unsure proper now. She might use to listen to from you.
DAVID
Why cannot he simply write, “Sorry. I had my causes. Let me clarify.”
SARA
Is that this Bud we’re speaking about?
DAVID
(beat)
Would you wish to see him once more?
SARA
(standing, shifting away)
God, I do not know. I do not know.
(beat)
Cease watching me. What do you suppose you are going to uncover you have not had each cause to know lengthy prior to now?
(David appears away)
So who’re you bonking this semester? Is it the sensible younger grasp’s pupil who sees the sunshine in your eyes? Or have we lastly graduated to put up docs?
DAVID
(standing)
She’s a doctoral candidate. I’m advising her. It is nearly a 12 months now.
SARA
A 12 months? Congratulations. However you’re her dissertation advisor? Don’t screw that up. Sounds severe, although. Are you in love together with her?
(at David’s silence)
You are not sleeping round on her, are you?
(Sara immediately regrets the remark.)
DAVID
What about that assistant D.A. you had been seeing? Barney?
SARA
Bernard. That is been over for months. I found, would you consider it, {that a} D.A. and a public curiosity legal professional haven’t an incredible quite a bit in frequent.
(Sara comes near him. She factors to a tree. On the display above: The entire world is watching.)
SARA
(persevering with)
Look. That is the place we slept. The three musketeers.
DAVID
No.
(holding up two fingers.)
Two musketeers.
(holding up one finger.)
One mouseketeer.
SARA
A few lefty sexist bozos. Why did I ever put up with both of you?
DAVID
(pointing)
That is the place you went off with Delinger.
SARA
(pointing)
That is the place you two went off with Hayden. And when the preventing began, it was you who got here to search for me.
DAVID
(softly)
Not Bud.
SARA
(nearly as softly)
I do know that, David. That was my level.
DAVID
A variety of ghosts.
SARA
Not for me.
DAVID
For me.
SARA
I do know.
(beat)
So what are you going to do now? Are you going to search for him?
DAVID
I am suppose I will go to Salt Lake Metropolis. See if I can discover myself a Mormon Sam Spade.
(David watches Sara stroll away to the place Bud sits at a typewriter, his again to David. Bud arms Sara a stack of flyers. David follows. On the display above: “Cease the Struggle (Machine). Be a part of us in Chicago and inform the Democrats NO! College Pupil Mobilization.”)
BUD
You distribute these on North Campus. David can do South.
SARA
In case you hadn’t observed, David’s not right here proper now. Why cannot you assist?
BUD
As a result of I am ready for a name from Hayden.
SARA
All proper. So the place is David?
BUD
Ensnared by the tendrils of the spider flower, little question.
(Sara pauses to grasp, then sees David. He places a finger to his lips.)
SARA
(taking a look at David)
You imply he is with Rita. What an fascinating method to put it.
(David blows her a kiss. She blows one again.)
BUD
I simply report what I see.
SARA
They’re in love. You realize — such as you and me.
BUD
He is in love with the thought of affection. Proper now he sees it in her.
SARA
You are very unfair.
BUD
I am not unfair. I am not incorrect.
(Now David enters. Bud glances in his route, retains typing.)
BUD
(persevering with)
Good of you to affix us. When you’d waited a bit longer, Chicago can be over. Then you possibly can have missed all of the work.
DAVID
Do not bust my chops.
BUD
You bought any chops left?
DAVID
I would like to speak to you.
BUD
I am busy typing a letter. There was nobody else to do it.
DAVID
Sara was right here.
(Bud stops at this. He stares at David.)
SARA
I will North Campus. While you boys are executed having enjoyable, you are able to do South.
(She exits.)
DAVID
I will not be right here subsequent month. Rita and I are driving to New Mexico.
BUD
(standing)
You are not going to Chicago?
DAVID
I will be in Chicago. Possibly after, you and Sara will drive down with us. There’s quite a bit happening down there. Individuals are gathering from in every single place.
The so-called “Battle of Michigan Avenue,” August 26, 1968 — within the phrases of the “Walker Report” a “police riot”: “The entire world is watching.”
BUD
Man, I noticed this coming.
(indicating David’s crotch)
You are spending an excessive amount of time pondering together with your head as an alternative of your mind.
DAVID
Possibly you must spend a bit extra time pondering together with your head.
BUD
Fuck you!
(Awkward silence. Bud pulls out a joint.)
BUD
(persevering with)
Blow one?
(David nods. Bud lights up. They share the joint.)
BUD
(persevering with)
You realize, I do not care that you simply’re a lot in love with this chick, however do it’s important to let her lead you round by the nostril?
DAVID
That is your manner of creating up?
(beat, teasing)
Simply on your data, Rita’s opinion is that you simply put out an excessive amount of detrimental power.
BUD
Fuck her.
DAVID
I do.
(beat)
I am simply not in love with all this the best way you might be, Bud. I imply I care — that is why I will Chicago. However I do not wish to do that on a regular basis. There’s an excessive amount of else happening on the planet. Individuals are attempting new methods to stay, new methods to be. The politics is meant to be within the service of life. It isn’t life.
BUD
Oh, actually? Man, you by no means be taught, do you? How do you suppose you get to stay in new methods, pal — to be one thing new, when the entire construction of life is designed to stop it? Politics is life. It is all political. They make it that manner. They usually hold it that manner by convincing folks such as you that it is not.
DAVID
Oh, right here you go.
BUD
You see a person lose his job, and also you suppose that is simply the best way it’s. That is life, nothing to be executed about it — he’ll simply have to search out one other, when he can. You see folks held down by hatred and prejudice, and also you suppose, that is simply the best way it’s. Individuals are like that. That is life. You see warfare —
DAVID
Okay, cease. Subsequent factor you may have me voting for Nixon.
(taking a protracted drag on the joint)
You wish to know what the worst factor is about warfare — worse even than the demise and destruction? When folks neglect why they’re preventing it. When it turns into a machine that simply must carry on going, the gears hold turning, to grease themselves and work themselves, as a result of that is what machines are for — to work. They suppose they simply wish to full a activity — obtain victory. However they actually simply wish to carry on working, as a result of the movement within the elements, up and down, , again and again, is what they’re all about. It is their cause for being. And I do not know, Bud, perhaps you do want one other machine to cease the primary. However we’ve to know when to show it off. Now we have to understand how. In any other case nothing is new in any respect. We have simply modified machines.
BUD
And also you suppose the time has come to show our machine off?
DAVID
No.
(beat)
However I wish to stroll away from it typically. I wish to get off and stand on the bottom wherever I’m and have a look at what’s throughout me, and see a factor for what it’s, simply what it’s, with out it being an thought.
BUD
You do not need it to be an thought?
DAVID
Only a factor. A tree or a constructing or a bunch of individuals collectively, with out their being someone’s thought of the underlying construction of life, or of institutional oppression, or… Generally I simply wish to stay.
BUD
You’re an idealist! An aesthete in all probability. And also you do have the posh, do not you, of seeing issues simply as issues, and never as forces that decide your life in methods you don’t need, in ways in which hurt you. However everyone does not have —
DAVID
Simply typically, Bud. Generally. Is not that what everyone —
BUD
I’ve these visions! I see issues. I see issues completely different. I see issues completely differently. I assumed you probably did, too.
DAVID
I do.
(Lengthy pause. They’re at a standstill, agreeing and disagreeing in methods their phrases cannot even reveal.)
BUD
Bear in mind in highschool, once we used to get excessive after which hyper-ventilate? Let’s do it.
DAVID
Now? I assumed there was work to do?
BUD
We’ll work higher after. Come on.
(They squat and cross the joint forwards and backwards for a few lengthy hits every. Then they take a sequence of deep, fast breaths, holding the final. On Bud’s sign they arise shortly, exhaling and spinning. Dizzy, they each stumble to the ground. Bud scrambles over to David, holds his hand in entrance of David’s face.)
BUD
(persevering with)
See all the celebs? Do not attempt to shake them off. Stick with them. Each’s a door — a door of notion. Undergo one. Inform me what you see.
DAVID
I see the woods behind your dad and mom’ home on the Chesapeake.
BUD
Shit. Do not be so fucking retrospective. See one thing new.
DAVID
No. No. Wait. I see you and me taking part in there, exploring within the underbrush, pouncing from the tree limbs. All of the enemies we fought off collectively. All of the worlds we made up. Simply you and me.
BUD
That is proper. That is proper. They usually had been new worlds, too. With out the greed and the corruption and the lies. Imaginary folks in imaginary worlds. We mentioned we would make them actual.
DAVID
We mentioned that.
BUD
(slowly standing, drifting again and away)
We did, David. You and me. Now the query is, how can we make them actual? What are you keen to do to make the world new?
AJA
