Buried Child Read online

  DEWIS: I remember Ansel. Handsome lad. Tall and strapping.

  HALIE: Of course! You remember. You remember how he could play. (She turns toward SHELLY.) Of course, nowadays they play a different brand of basketball. More vicious. Isn't that right, dear?

  SHELLY: I don't know, (HALIE crosses to SHELLY, sipping on the flask. She stops in front of SHELLY.)

  HALIE: Much, much more vicious. They smash into each other. They knock each other's teeth out. There's blood all over the court. Savages. Barbaric, don't you think? (HALIE takes the cup from SHELLY and pours whiskey into it.) They don't train like they used to. Not at all. They allow themselves to run amok. Drugs and women. Women mostly, (HALIE hands the cup of whiskey back to SHELLY slowly. SHELLY takes it.) Mostly women. Girls. Sad, pathetic little skinny girls. (She crosses back to FATHER DEWIS.) It's just a reflection of the times, don't you think, Father? An indication of where we stand?

  DEWIS: I suppose so, yes. I've been so busy with the choir—

  HALIE: Yes. A sort of bad omen. Our youth becoming monsters.

  DEWIS: Well, I uh—wouldn't go quite that far.

  HALIE: Oh, you can disagree with me if you want to, Father. I'm open to debate. (She moves toward DODGE.) I suppose, in the long run, it doesn't matter. When you see the way things deteriorate before your very eyes. Everything running downhill. It's kind of silly to even think about youth.

  DEWIS: No, I don't think so. I think it's important to believe in certain things. Certain basic truths. I mean—

  HALIE: Yes. Yes, I know what you mean. I think that's right. I think that's true. (She looks at DODGE.) Certain basic things. We can't shake the fundamentals. We might end up crazy. Like my husband. You can see it in his eyes. You can see the madness almost oozing out. (DODGE covers his head with the blanket again, HALIE takes a single rose from DEWIS and moves slowly over to DODGE.) We can't not believe in something. We can't stop believing. We just end up dying if we stop. Just end up dead, (HALIE throws the rose gently onto DODGE ‘s blanket. It lands between his knees and stays there. Long pause as HALIE stares at the rose.)

  BRADLEY: Ansel never played basketball.

  HALIE: Bradley, I'm warning you. (SHELLY stands suddenly. HALIE doesn't turn to her but keeps staring at the rose.)

  SHELLY: (To HALIE.) Don't you wanna know who I am? Don't you wanna know what I'm doing here?! Standing in the middle of your house. I'm not dead! (SHELLY crosses toward HALIE. HALIE turns slowly to her.)

  HALIE: Did you drink your whiskey?

  SHELLY: No! And I'm not going to either!

  HALIE: Well, that's a firm stand. It's good to have a firm stand.

  SHELLY: I don't have any stand at all. I'm just trying to put all this together, (HALIE laughs and crosses back to DEWIS.)

  HALIE: (To DEWIS.) Surprises, surprises! Did you have any idea we'd be returning to this?

  DEWIS: Well, actually—

  SHELLY: I came here with your grandson for a little visit! A little, innocent, friendly visit.

  HALIE: My grandson?

  SHELLY: Yes! That's right. The one no one seems to remember.

  HALIE: (To DEWIS.) This is getting a little far-fetched.

  SHELLY: I told him it was stupid to come back here. To try to pick up from where he left off.

  HALIE: Where was that?

  SHELLY: Wherever he was when he left here! Six years ago! Ten years ago! Whenever it was! I told him nobody cares. I told him nobody cares anymore. Nobody's going to care.

  HALIE: Didn't he listen?

  SHELLY: No! NO, he didn't. We had to stop off at every tiny little meatball town that he remembered from his boyhood!

  HALIE: My grandson?

  SHELLY: Every dumb little donut shop he ever kissed a girl in. Every drive-in. Every drag strip. Every football field he ever broke a bone on.

  HALIE: (Suddenly alarmed, to DODGE.) Where's Tilden?

  SHELLY: Don't ignore me! I'm telling you something!

  HALIE: Dodge! Where's Tilden gone? (SHELLY moves violently toward HALIE.)

  SHELLY: (To HALIE.) I'm talking to you! I'm standing here talking to you. (BRADLEY sits up fast on the sofa, SHELLY backs away.)

  BRADLEY: (To SHELLY.) Don't you yell at my mother!

  HALIE: Dodge! (She kicks DODGE.) I told you not to let Tilden out of your sight! Where's he gone to?

  DODGE: Gimme a drink and I'll tell ya.

  DEWIS: Halie, maybe this isn't the right time for a visit, (HALIE crosses back to DEWIS.)

  HALIE: (To DEWIS.) I never should've left! I never, never should've left! Tilden could be anywhere now! Anywhere! He's not in control of his faculties. He wanders. You know how he wanders. Dodge knew that. I told him when I left here. I told him specifically to watch out for Tilden, (BRADLEY reaches down, grabs DODGE's blanket, and yanks it off him. He lays down on the sofa and pulls the blanket over his head.)

  DODGE: He's got my blanket again! He's got my blanket!

  HALIE: (Turning to BRADLEY.) Bradley! Bradley, put that blanket back! (HALIE moves toward BRADLEY. SHELLY suddenly throws the cup and saucer against the right door, DEWIS ducks. The cup and saucer smash into pieces, HALIE stops, turns toward SHELLY. Everyone freezes, BRADLEY slowly pulls his head out from under the blanket, looks toward right door, then to SHELLY, SHELLY stares at HALIE. DEWIS cowers with the roses, SHELLY moves slowly toward HALIE. Long pause, SHELLY speaks softly)

  SHELLY: (To HALIE.) I am here! I am standing right here in front of you. I am breathing. I am speaking. I am alive! I exist. DO YOU SEE ME?

  BRADLEY: (Sitting up on the sofa.) We don't have to tell you anything, girl. Not a thing. You're not the police are you? You're not the government. You're just some prostitute that Tilden brought in here.

  HALIE: Language! I won't have that language in my house! Father, I'm—

  SHELLY: (To BRADLEY.) You stuck your hand in my mouth and you call me a prostitute! What kind of a weird fucked-up yo-yo are you?

  HALIE: Bradley! Did you put your hand in this girl's mouth? You have no idea what kind of diseases she might be carrying.

  BRADLEY: I never did. She's lying. She's lying through her teeth.

  DEWIS: Halie, I think I'll be running along now. I'll just put the roses in the kitchen. Keep them fresh. A little sugar sometimes helps, (DEWIS moves toward left, HALIE stops him.)

  HALIE: Don't go now, Father! Not now. Please—I'm not sure I can stay afloat.

  BRADLEY: I never did anything, Mom! I never touched her! She propositioned me! And I turned her down. I turned her down flat! She's not my type. You know that, Mom. (SHELLY suddenly grabs her coat off the wooden leg and takes both the leg and coat downstage, away from BRADLEY.) Mom!

  Mom! She's got my leg! She's taken my leg! I never did anything to her! She's stolen my leg! She's a devil, Mom. How did she get in our house? (BRADLEY reaches pathetically in the air for his leg. SHELLY sets it down for a second, puts on her coat fast, and picks up the leg again, DODGE starts coughing again softly.)

  HALIE: (To SHELLY.) I think we've had about enough of you, young lady. Just about enough. I don't know where you came from or what you're doing here but you're no longer welcome in this house.

  SHELLY: (Laughs, holds the leg.) No longer welcome!

  BRADLEY: Mom! That's my leg! Get my leg back! I can't do anything without my leg! She's trying to torture me. (BRADLEY keeps on making whimpering sounds and reaching for his leg.)

  HALIE: Give my son back his leg. Right this very minute! Dodge, where did this girl come from? (DODGE starts laughing softly to himself in between coughs.)

  DODGE: She's a pistol, isn't she?

  HALIE: (To DEWIS.) Father, do something about this, would you! I'm not about to be terrorized in my own house!

  DEWIS: This is out of my domain.

  BRADLEY: Gimme back my leg!

  HALIE: Oh, shut up, Bradley! Just shut up! You don't need your leg now! Just lay down and shut up! I've never heard such whining, (BRADLEY whimpers, lies down, and pulls the blanket around him
. He keeps one arm outside the blanket, reaching out toward his wooden leg. DEWIS cautiously approaches SHELLY with the roses in his arms, SHELLY clutches the wooden leg to her chest as though she's kidnapped it.)

  DEWIS: (To SHELLY.) Now, honestly, dear, wouldn't it be better to talk things out? To try to use some reason? No point in going off the deep end. Nothing to be gained in that.

  SHELLY: There isn't any reason here! I can't find a reason for anything.

  DEWIS: There's nothing to be afraid of. These are all good people. All righteous souls.

  SHELLY: I'm not afraid!

  DEWIS: But this is not your house. You have to have some respect.

  SHELLY: You're the strangers here, not me.

  HALIE: This has gone on far enough!

  DEWIS: Halie, please. Let me handle this. I've had some experience.

  SHELLY: Don't come near me! Don't anyone come near me. I don't need any words from you. I'm not threatening anybody. I don't even know what I'm doing here. You all say you don't remember Vince, okay maybe you don't. Maybe it's Vince that's crazy. Maybe he's made this whole family thing up. I don't even care anymore. I was just coming along for the ride. I thought it'd be a nice gesture. Besides, I was curious. He made all of you sound familiar to me. Every one of you. For every name, I had an image. Every time he'd tell me a name, I'd see the person. In fact, each of you was so clear in my mind that I actually believed it was you. I really believed that when I walked through that door that the people who lived here would turn out to be the same people in my imagination. Real people. People with faces. But I don't recognize any of you. Not one. Not even the slightest resemblance.

  DEWIS: Well, you can hardly blame others for not fulfilling your hallucination.

  SHELLY: It was no hallucination! It was more like a prophecy. You believe in prophecy, don't you, Father?

  HALIE: Father, there's no point in talking to her any further. We're just going to have to call the police.

  BRADLEY: No! Don't get the police in here. We don't want the police in here. This is our home.

  SHELLY: That's right. Bradley's right. Don't you usually settle your affairs in private? Don't you usually take them out in the dark? Out in the back?

  BRADLEY: You stay out of our lives! You have no business interfering!

  SHELLY: I don't have any business, period. I got nothing to lose. I'm a free agent. (She moves around, staring at each of them.)

  BRADLEY: You don't know what we've been through. You don't know anything about us!

  SHELLY: I know you've got a secret. You've all got a secret. It's so secret, in fact, you're all convinced it never happened. (HALIE moves to DEWIS.)

  HALIE: Oh, my God, Father! Who is this person?

  DODGE: (Laughing to himself.) She thinks she's going to get it out of us. She thinks she's going to uncover the truth of the matter. Like a detective or something.

  BRADLEY: I'm not telling her anything! Nothing's wrong here! Nothing's ever been wrong! Everything's the way it's supposed to be! Nothing ever happened that's bad. Everything is all right here! We're all good people! We've always been good people. Right from the very start.

  DODGE: She thinks she's gonna suddenly bring everything out into the open after all these years.

  DEWIS: (To SHELLY.) Can't you see that these people want to be left in peace? Don't you have any mercy? They haven't done anything to you.

  DODGE: She wants to get to the bottom of it. (To SHELLY.) That's it, isn't it? You'd like to get right down to bedrock? Look the beast right dead in the eye. You want me to tell ya? You want me to tell ya what happened? I'll tell ya. I might as well. I wouldn't mind hearing it hit the air after all these years of silence.

  BRADLEY: No! Don't listen to him. He doesn't remember anything!

  DODGE: I remember the whole thing from start to finish. I remember the day he was born. (Pause.)

  HALIE: Dodge, if you tell this thing—if you tell this, you'll be dead to me. You'll be just as good as dead.

  DODGE: That won't be such a big change, Halie. See this girl, this little girl here, she wants to know. She wants to know something more. And I got this feeling that it doesn't make a bit a difference. I'd sooner tell it to a stranger than anybody else. I'd sooner tell it to the four winds.

  BRADLEY: (To DODGE.) We made a pact! We made a pact between us! You can't break that now!

  DODGE: I don't remember any pact. (Silence.) See, we were a well-established family once. Well-established. All the boys were grown. The farm was producing enough milk to fill Lake Michigan twice over. Me and Halie here were pointed toward what looked like the middle part of our life. Everything was settled with us. All we had to do was ride it out. Then Halie got pregnant again. Out the middle a nowhere, she got pregnant. We weren't planning on havin’ any more boys. We had enough boys already. In fact, we hadn't been sleepin’ in the same bed for about six years.

  HALIE: (Moving toward the stairs.) I'm not listening to this! I don't have to listen to this!

  DODGE: (Stops HALIE.) Where are you going?! Upstairs?! You'll just be listenin’ to it upstairs! You go outside, you'll be lis-tenin’ to it outside. Might as well stay here and listen to it. (HALIE stays by the stairs. Pause.) Halie had this kid, see. This baby boy. She had it. I let her have it on her own. All the other boys I had had the best doctors, the best nurses, everything. This one I let her have by herself. This one hurt real bad. Almost killed her, but she had it anyway. It lived, see. It lived. It wanted to grow up in this family. It wanted to be just like us. It wanted to be part of us. It wanted to pretend that I was its father. She wanted me to believe in it. Even when everyone around us knew. Everyone. All our boys knew. Tilden knew.

  HALIE: You shut up! Bradley, make him stop!

  BRADLEY: I can't.

  DODGE: Tilden was the one who knew. Better than any of us. He'd walk for miles with that kid in his arms. Halie let him take it. All night sometimes. He'd walk all night out there in the pasture with it. Talkin’ to it. Singin’ to it. Used to hear him singing to it. He'd make up stories. He'd tell that kid all kinds a stories. Even when he knew it couldn't understand him. We couldn't let a thing like that continue. We couldn't allow that to grow up right in the middle of our lives. It made everything we'd accomplished look like it was nothin’. Everything was canceled out by this one mistake. This one weakness.

  SHELLY: So you …

  DODGE: I killed it. I drowned it. Just like the runt of a litter. Just drowned it. There was no struggle. No noise. Life just left it. (HALIE moves toward BRADLEY.)

  HALIE: (To BRADLEY) Ansel would've stopped him! Ansel would've stopped him from telling these lies! He was a hero! A man! A whole man! What's happened to the men in this family?! Where are the men?! (Suddenly VINCE comes crashing through the screen porch door up left, tearing it off its hinges. Everyone but DODGE and BRADLEY back away from the porch and stare at VINCE, who has landed on his stomach on the porch in a drunken stupor. He is singing loudly to himself and hauls himself slowly to his feet. He has a paper shopping bag full of empty booze bottles. He takes them out one at a time as he sings and smashes them at the opposite end of the porch, behind the solid interior door, right, SHELLY moves slowly toward right, holding the wooden leg and watching VINCE.)

  VINCE: (Singing loudly as he hurls bottles.) “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. We will fight our country's battles in the air on land and sea.” (He punctuates the words “Montezuma,” “Tripoli,” “battles,” and “sea” with a smashed bottle each. He stops throwing for a second, stares toward right of the porch, shades his eyes with his hand as though looking across to a battlefield, then cups his hands around his mouth and yells across the space of the porch to an imaginary army. The others watch in terror and expectation. To the imagined army.) Have you had enough over there?! ‘Cause there's a lot more here where that came from! (Pointing to the paper bag full of bottles.) A helluva lot more! We got enough over here to blow ya from here to Kingdom come! (He takes another bottle, mak
es the high whistling sound of a bomb, and throws it toward right porch. Sound of a bottle smashing against a wall. This should be the actual smashing of a bottle and not taped sound. He keeps yelling and heaving bottles one after another. VINCE stops for a while, breathing heavily from exhaustion. Long silence as the others watch him. SHELLY approaches tentatively in VINCEí direction, still holding BRADLEY’s wooden leg.)

  SHELLY: (After silence.) Vince? (VINCE turns toward her. Peers through the screen.)

  VINCE: Who? What? Vince who? Who's that in there? Is someone in there? (VINCE pushes his face against the screen from the porch and stares in at everyone.)

  DODGE: Where's my goddamn bottle?!

  VINCE: (Looking in at DODGE.) What? Who is that? Who's speaking? Whose voice is that?

  DODGE: It's me! Your grandfather! Don't play stupid with me! Where's my two bucks!

  VINCE: Grandfather? Grandfather? You mean the father of my father? The son of my great-grandfather? That one? When did this start?

  DODGE: Where's my bottle?! (HALIE moves away from DEWIS, upstage, peers out at VINCE, trying to recognize him.)

  HALIE: Vincent? Is that you, Vincent? (SHELLY stares at HALIE, then looks out at VINCE.)