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The Athanor
Edward Guetti
421 Graham St.
Highland Park, NJ 08904
(732) 406-1318
e.guetti@gmail.com
The Athanor
A Play in Four Acts
Gene - Guru hippie
Susan - Perhaps the one honest person in this play
John - Spiritual seeker
Liz - Deserves better
Act 1 - Ataraxia
Act 2 - Adagio lacrimoso
Act 3 - Chromoluminarism Astride a Grave
Act 4 - the mind lays by its trouble
What things real are there, but inconceivable thoughts!
- Melville
Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put a hook into his nose? Or bore his jaw through with a thorn?
Will he make many supplications unto thee? Will he speak soft words unto thee?
Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?
Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
- Job
Yet what a difference there is between our beginning and our end! We begin in the madness of carnal desire and the transport of voluptuousness, we end in the dissolution of all our parts and the musty stench of corpses. And the road from the one to the other too goes, in regard to our well-being and enjoyment of life, steadily downhill: happily dreaming childhood, exultant youth, toil-filled years of manhood, infirm and often wretched old age, the torment of the last illness and finally the throes of death - does it not look as if existence were an error the consequences of which gradually grow more manifest?
We shall do best to think of life as a desengaño, as a process of disillusionment: since this is, clearly enough, what everything that happens to us is calculated to produce.
-Schopenhauer.
Thus man is unmade according to his image.
-Genesis
The reform of consciousness consists solely in…the awakening of the world from its dream of itself.
-Marx
Scene: The scene is the two bedroom apartment formerly shared by Liz and Susan alone. The bedroom stage left is shared by Gene and Susan, while right is shared by Liz and John. Gene and Susan’s room, in every way the expression of their optimistic faith in humanity, has a poster of a large peace sign, and another of the infamous Che Guevara image, as well as a poster of the hammer and sickle, maybe some posters proclaiming peace, or band posters from the 60s; the only window of the entire scene is surrounded by the unkempt overgrowth of various plants. There are plenty of chairs in that room, candles, pictures of Gene and Susan, ashtrays as well as a few empty beer bottles, next to an image of Buddha perched alongside the bed which is directly in the middle of the room with the window at stage left.
Stage right is the room shared by Liz and John. The bed is pushed to the stage right wall, there is one desk with a lamp, which is on as the curtain rises, books are strewn about all over the floor, one perhaps can pick out a few covers, perhaps a few “Idiot’s Guides” or popular covers (e.g, Nietzsche’s The Will to Power, Beckett’s Waiting for Godot) but any assortment of books which would suggest a flair for the modern, existential and postmodern is acceptable. There is a distinctly out of place crucifix hung above the bed, next to a Picasso (perhaps Guernica or Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon). No window in this room, but a bookshelf which is also packed with books, a framed picture of Liz and John sits on top of the bookshelf alongside an ashtray.
1.
The common room is somewhat empty in terms of furnishings surrounding central exit, there is a couch, love seat and coffee table in the middle, a television on the stage left wall and a stereo on the stage right wall; the couch facing the audience, with the love seat perpendicular stage right of the couch (i.e. to watch television). The audience should be able to tell the influence of both parties on the common room, perhaps seeing the common room’s accoutrements as compromises between the two groups. Say, Matisse’s La Danse, or some souvenirs from a trip to Africa or India.
Act 1 - Ataraxia
As the curtain opens we see GENE reclined on the bed he shares with SUSAN who is rolling a joint at the foot of the bed facing the audience; LIZ is reclining on the center room loveseat, watching television (though the audience cannot hear it, or see what is on), her arm holding the remote control dangles off the edge of the loveseat. The lamp in the stage right bedroom is on, and JOHN is asleep, lying face up, on the bed, a world religions book open on his chest. There are a few moments of silence while the audience takes in the scene.
LIZ sighs and turns off the television as
GENE: (singing) To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn. (mumbles, not knowing the words) A time to laugh, a time to cry, a time to get drunk, a time to get high (pauses and grins widely, expecting a reaction from SUSAN who remains focused on rolling the joint). Oh come on, Sue, don’t you want to sing?
(LIZ gets up from loveseat, begins to move into the stage left room, with SUSAN and GENE)
SUSAN: You don’t even know the words
GENE: That’s not even the point, Sue.
SUSAN: Well, you should know the words by now (finishes rolling), you listen to all of those 1960s albums all the time. (laughs at GENE and in excitement)
LIZ: All that sappy stuff, there’s no art in it anyway.
GENE: Whoa. Man, you just miss the boat on some really great tunes. The whole point is not any concern for accuracy in repetition, that counts for very little, but if you feel the spirit in you, if you do some wild dancing, then you’re able to make it your own song.
LIZ: (impatiently) Whatever you say, are we ready to go, yet?
SUSAN: Yeah, should we wake John?
LIZ: You know how he’s been; I think he was up all night reading anyway.
GENE: Wow.
SUSAN: It seems like his schedule is completely flipped around
LIZ: This is the fifth day in a row that dawn has found him collapsed over something about the Kabbalah or something wondrous mystical.
GENE: He’s still on this religion kick, huh? I would have thought that his engine would have run out and he would stop caring for all that dogmatic knee-bending. (looks at the others who seem to agree) It just seems someone with John’s mind wouldn’t get lassoed into holy commandment stuff and see the world for what it is.
LIZ and SUSAN: (pause, then as if reciting a line) What is the world really like, Gene?
GENE: (too serious to be anything but a parody, sitting up in the bed, eventually standing up in the bed) Well, my darlings, that’s ‘Guru Gene’ to you. Well now, the real world as it has been related to me by an ancient wisdom, that great big glorious love of mine. (jesting LIZ is not amused and SUSAN too grows tired of this game) are you recalling your Spirit animals? Good; they’ll lead you through the jungle and over the frozen underwater cities, become now one vast barrier reef for the spiritual world of peace and all around groovy folk…
SUSAN: I’m sorry to interrupt, but we aren’t waiting for John, are we?
LIZ: I’ll go check to see if he’s awake or just avoiding the clichés (leaves stage left room and begins across to stage right room)
GENE: It’s not a cliché. (pauses) Do you think that my music is good? (SUSAN smiles and nods at GENE who is getting back into the Guru routine) In any case, Sue, not that you need to hear this of course, but people are just like you and me, and that’s why love is the rule. (LIZ now has looked in on JOHN, goes over and turns out the desk lamp and leaves the room, returning to stage left room)
SUSAN: Of course it is,
GENE: And you also know that I love you
SUSAN: You’d better, (laughs) I would hope I’m included with everyone.
GENE: No I mean, I love everyone in the abstract but you I love here and now for the rest of my life.
LIZ (returning, having heard the last few words, flatly): Sorry to interrupt anything
SUSAN takes a drag.
GENE: There’s nothing to apologize. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
SUSAN: (to GENE) You’re like a great big star crashed on earth. You really do sound like a guru sometimes.
LIZ: (scoffs) Please. He farts out all that sunshine and feel-good done to death stuff that you blare on that beaten up record player every single damn Sunday, but you can’t tell me that it sounds good to you. It just sounds easy to live through.
SUSAN: Well I’m sorry it bothers you so much.
LIZ: Don’t be sorry just stop with all the typical blah blah nonsense.
GENE: Hm. It’s not nonsense, and since when is the ease of belief related to its truth? You really need to seriously begin to consider some of this. Beyond any of the guru bull, it may be just the thing that sets you right and maybe John too. (LIZ scoffs) You weren’t meant to be angry or miserable most nights, and you know that (takes the joint offered to him by SUE), everything it’s all there and if you want good things to happen, you should start appreciating all that has already happened. (takes a drag)
LIZ: Shit is it really true? (pause) Is it two already? I’ve got to go see my mom, but I’ll have plenty of time to try to remember all my good fortune while I’m driving to and from the clinic chugging down black milk.
SUSAN: (a bit exasperated) Liz, come on.
LIZ stares at SUSAN and then GENE about to reveal something further, stops herself turns to the couch, grabs her purse and leaves through the center door.
GENE: What’s up with her?
SUSAN: It’s been a tough week for her.
GENE: But I’m really just trying to…you know…help.
SUSAN: I know, but you’ve got to have some feel of her. You know?
GENE: Yes, but now I can’t remember what I was going to say to her in that silence before she left. It was…Hm. (takes a drag and passes to SUSAN)
SUSAN: Well, (takes a drag) we can at least enjoy this and ourselves for a while.
GENE: I mean you’re right and all about being sensitive to her feelings, but it has to be important sometimes to lay the hard truth to her that she’s looking…(lost the train) how is she looking?
SUSAN: Weren’t you saying before that the truth shouldn’t be difficult?
GENE: (recalling) Yeah!
SUSAN: So? (long pause, she takes another drag and passes to GENE)
GENE: So? Everyone must pick up their spiritual tails so far unwagging, it takes a long time to get your self straight, to get that peace feeling that shantih. (GENE takes a drag, pauses as if reflecting)
SUSAN: Yeah. (after a pause GENE passes to SUSAN who takes a drag in silence)
GENE: I think I’m starting to feel it.
SUSAN: I’m feeling pretty good. Want to listen to some music or something? (offers the bit remaining to GENE who declines it)
GENE: Um, no. I think I do want to go lie down actually
SUSAN: (somewhat excited, stamping out the butt) Really?
GENE: Yeah, I don’t know why but I just got really tired.
SUSAN: (disappointed) Oh, so you don’t want me to come?
GENE: I guess if you want to come you can.
SUSAN: Sure. It’ll be nice.
GENE: Yeah. (GENE gets up)
SUSAN: Do you think I’m pretty?
GENE: Huh? Of course I do!
SUSAN: It’s ok if…you know…you want to be honest.
GENE: You’re gorgeous, you know you are.
SUSAN: Really?
GENE: I get a feeling from you that you are some kind of woman Buddha waiting to blossom into a gorgeous lotus.
SUSAN: Do you really mean that?
GENE: Yes. Now lets go lie down. I can tell something’s troubling you and some consciousness relaxation is probably best for now. If you want to work some stuff out later after laying down I’m all ears.
SUSAN: Ok.
SUSAN gets up and follows GENE to their bed, but GENE loses his balance stepping over some beer bottles and falls into the Buddha statue perched next to the bed. The statue falls to the ground and breaks. The fall also takes down the peace flag that was fastened to the Buddha. SUSAN shrieks a bit when she sees GENE falling. This, the statue and the commotion afterward wakes John abruptly.
GENE: Ow!
SUSAN: Oh goodness, are you alright, Love?
GENE: Shoot! The Buddha.
JOHN gets up and starts to walk over to the noise
SUSAN: Are you ok?
GENE: (embarrassed) God. Yeah. The flag too.
SUSAN: Come on and lie down with me, we’ll talk later. I’m sorry for getting excited before.
GENE: That’s alright. I’m sorry for making an ass of myself.
SUSAN: You didn’t make an ass of yourself.
JOHN: (coming into the room) I’ll be he did. Whatever it was.
SUSAN: Hey! Look who’s up.
JOHN: I heard you scream I think and I thought that maybe Gene was forcing himself on you…which I thought would be worth seeing for some reason.
GENE: Ha!
SUSAN: (only half-joking) If only…wow. I didn’t mean it to sound so serious.
JOHN: That’s alright, did anything serious break or just hippie stuff.
SUSAN: Hippie stuff
GENE: (quickly) But that doesn’t mean it’s not a shame that the Buddha has toppled over.
JOHN: Psh. Well maybe it means something. Maybe there’s a curse on all those who harm the Buddha, but maybe too there’s a blessing. Get him out of this world, you know? To that spiritual nothingness, right? That’s how it goes. (All pause as GENE attempts to place everything back on the stand next to the bed) On the other hand it still is mass produced so a couple have to get broken in shipping, so it still isn’t that important. I smell weed though.
GENE: Well it’s all gone. I think.
SUSAN: Yeah, he’s right.
JOHN: Oh, I didn’t want any, I just wish you both would try to turn a fan on afterwards or something. Do you think that’s within your capabilities at this point? Should we designate someone prior to smoking next time?
GENE: Well, maybe. (jabbing) How did the overnight conversion go?
JOHN: Ha!
SUSAN: Oh, you know how Gene gets after he’s buzzed - who knows what’s going to come out?
GENE: That’s right, I get the spirit in me after a wee burnt offering and start trying to get the truth to folks.
JOHN: Oh yes, yes. What is truth? Is that my line now? I must say, Gene, the spirit did look an awful lot like you in this dream of mine last night.
SUSAN: Go on! It did not.
JOHN looks to GENE but GENE remains flummoxed.
JOHN: No matter, Gene. The spirit does look a whole lot like you, actually. Would you believe it? Only in this dream-vision I had, sometime back out there in the wilderness (gesturing to his room), you wore nothing but peacock feathers and a bowler hat. It was a marvelous display of dance and striptease, right up to the point when you tried to kiss me.
GENE: (shocked) I did not.
JOHN: You certainly did, and that really hurt Susan. I suppose its karma what has forced your hand against the dear sweet Buddha.
Pause
GENE: You aren’t really dreaming of anything spiritual, are you?
JOHN: I seem to recall tan, bearded, swarthy men clamoring about the sanctity of ox-bones and prophesying an archer’s plague on defilers.
SUSAN: (baffled) What?
GENE: So really nothing, then?
JOHN: Yes, nothing. No wait, nada. But not an uninstructive nada.
GENE: You’re terribly let down, I’m sure. (looks to Sue for support, but she remains silent) No need to feel guilty or saintly, it must be terribly disappointing, I’m sure.
SUSAN: Don’t get upset Gene. Let’s go lay down for a bit.
GENE: (as if not the first time quoting this) When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known…There. That’s the only St. John you need know.
JOHN: Well! (unimpressed) yes, Monsignor, sir.
SUSAN: Why don’t you both calm down?
GENE: I am calm. / JOHN: Yes ma’am.
JOHN: I think I’ll get back to my studies with this new lesson Guru Gene has kindly recited.
GENE: John, man, seriously I believe it, ok? So when you start acting like it’s all a joke and worthless or artless like Liz said
JOHN: Artless?
SUSAN: Artless.
GENE: (appalled) Can you believe that?
JOHN: I believe she said it. (pauses) I mean, hm, I suppose there technically is an art in believing this pananimism of yours, but that really only means that you both do believe - which I assume is true. But of course that wasn’t what she was talking about. No. And I suppose she didn’t mean anything along the lines of being endowed with some superhistorical capacity, reaching out past all the bloody contingencies of the here and now, because that’s what you’re all about as well. The beyond, right? The beyond as it pulls the sheets back and touches us in our earthly sleep, right?
GENE: You could say that. I think she was just lashing out.
JOHN: Oh?
SUSAN: I think so too. Gene put her in a position where she was made to recall not only all of the tragic moments of her life but also to make her feel guilty about the happy times.
JOHN: Wow…good job, Gene?
GENE: (defensively) Well she essentially was calling Sue and I idiots simply because we don’t agonize over the smallest thing like she does. When I pointed out to her that there is a grand scheme, a greater image that anyone can plainly see she jumped all over me and left to see her mom.
JOHN: Well maybe its her that’s the artless one. I mean agony has never been the path of the artist. I look at all these pictures Liz hangs up, even the crap you hang up in here and all I can think is that any artist in painting or even writing is too far gone in the hope of meaning something. You know, that it matters how a brush is held, that a color can make a painting, that each and everything is special in its aesthetic intent or whatever. To think that some of those little brushstrokes or even some of the words that you and I both use often when typeset and bound to a name mean more than you or I. To think that any of the images Liz treasures so could buy and sell each of us three times over amazes me.
SUSAN: Wow (as if coming to a revelation) It is just paper and ink or paint. That’s wild.
JOHN: But that’s not what’s so wrong about it.
GENE: What are you talking about?
JOHN: It’s that hope and trust in the singular movement, word or image. For anyone to think that they’re able to make it as an artist has to be possessed by an even loonier hope than you, Gene. To be an artist now, a painter, say, you have to be incredibly gullible. Not only in valuing what it is you do but also to believe that Art will somehow adopt you into its fold if you do the right sorts of things and say the right artsy prayers. History shows there to be no artistic afterlife, and very little glory most of the time. In fact if history teaches us anything it is that art is history’s pet. But instead artists live with the illusion that with each opening of a book or exhibit we find something new or valuable, a new life for us, but it is truly one that we are fervently whipping on to Golgotha.
(Both SUSAN and GENE nod, though both appear that they haven’t paid attention)
JOHN: Forget it. Preaching to the choir, right?
SUSAN forces out a laugh, GENE lays down in the bed. After seeing GENE lay down JOHN walks to his bedroom. SUSAN lays down with GENE who is lying on his back with his eyes closed with his hands behind his head. SUSAN kisses GENE on the head and assumes the same posture. JOHN, when he gets in his bedroom, should also lie down on the bed and should flip through a Bible. After flipping for a period of time, scribbling something to himself, it should be evident that he has fallen asleep again)
GENE: He’s really messed up.
SUSAN: You know you probably shouldn’t egg him on like that.
GENE: Who’s egging? I’m honestly concerned about him. I hope the best for him and his life, you know? I really do hope this soul-searching works for him, but I can’t help like he feels like you and me are morons. (GENE looks to SUSAN for reassurance and finds none, only a puzzled look) What do I care? I love him. I do, he’s a real nice guy, and I’m glad he’s made such a turn from like a year ago. Any which way he decides is fine by me, so long as he believes it. You know? Its not worth it otherwise, him making me feel stupid, to say nothing of what this religious game of his might do to Liz.
SUSAN: You don’t think…?
GENE: (despairingly) Think what? That he would isolate himself again? Make his life a strained hermitage until he runs out of money and grudgingly call on another poor sucker like Liz for a pillow for his world-weary head.
SUSAN: I can feel it too in Liz, Liz putting on the airs of that zombie fatalism that she’s invested so much of her time and money into, but desperate to keep John around. She asked me yesterday if I could ever see them getting married, and my jaw dropped.
GENE: Wow. Marriage?
SUSAN: Those two appearing before a judge - is it a judge? a priest or rabbi or whatever the muslims have?
GENE: Ha, whatever John decides!
SUSAN: and the both of them sprinting through their lines and vows while holding back smirks and giggling as the judge says “I now pronounce you…” (pause) But there was no irony in her question. She wants it…with or without the cliché fanfare.
GENE: Do you want any of the fanfare? I would smile the whole time for you, we could have a rabbi, a priest, a guru, whatever you want. We could be like real hippies and be naked the whole time. Except for a stray dandelion behind your ear.
SUSAN: (gleefully) Sure, lets get married. Why not?
GENE: (agreeing) Why not?
SUSAN: But who needs to get married, we don’t have the money for any of that.
GENE: Who needs money?
SUSAN: We do. Or we will, otherwise we’ll end up like poor John was (embarrassed pause), well you know. How would we support each other?
GENE: We could get addicted to heroin and never eat again. (GENE laughs, but SUSAN sits up concerned)
SUSAN: I wish John would marry Liz. I also wish I hadn’t said anything bad about him.
GENE: Aw, it’s alright, I know you mean well for him and Liz.
SUSAN: You know I do?
GENE: Sure, only good vibes from you, always. It’s why I absolutely love you.
SUSAN: Aw. You know I love you.
GENE: I only wish that John could start to see things this way, I know he would be so much happier, he wouldn’t look to lock himself up, I was going to say ‘by himself’ but we both know he’s always be stuck between a lot of fun-house mirrors.
SUSAN: Fun house mirrors?
GENE: Sure, the Bible, the Koran, Shu-pen-hower, Nietzsche, miserable Kafka, all those sad folk that have to feel better making everyone else sad.
SUSAN: What about John Lennon?
GENE: He’s ok. He can stay.
SUSAN: Yeah, I guess the Buddha can stay to?
GENE: Poor little broke Buddha. Yeah.
SUSAN: You think we’ll be like this five years from now?
GENE: What, escaping John?
SUSAN: No. Well, yeah, I guess.
GENE: Well what did you mean?
SUSAN: Nothing, I don’t want to start you getting worried about something, but do you think we’ll ever find a place of our own?
GENE: Sure I do.
SUSAN: Are you just saying that?
GENE: Of course not.
SUSAN lies back down, but still nervous
SUSAN: Just promise me that you won’t leave me alone. That we can at least be like this in the future even if it is in this bummy squalor (pause as GENE sits up)
GENE: I foresee you looking very nice and professional while I, a stay at home dad, take care of poor little Pablo, Cody, Lilly, Yevgeny junior, Susan junior and, of course, little Jesus-Jerry too - and I say poor only because they’ll be continually and oppressively smothered by the love that carries me away when I think of marrying you.
SUSAN: (very satisfied) It sounds good, but those are terrible names, dear.
They both sit in silent enjoyment. JOHN discovers something in his reading and begins furiously scribbling it down on a piece of paper and tucks it in his pocket. During this, LIZ enters carrying an open bottle of vodka and smoking a cigarette. It is not a loud entrance, and the other characters only seem to realize that someone else is in the house when she turns on the television sitting on the couch with the bottle in hand. SUSAN sits up and checks the next room
SUSAN: I thought you were trying to quit.
LIZ: Trying - I did succeed for a time.
SUSAN: Yeah. (pause, LIZ takes a big, painful swig)
SUSAN: I heard that nicotine is only less addictive than heroin.
LIZ: (quickly, somewhat aimlessly) Oh, it’s not all that bad.
SUSAN: What?
LIZ: You know. Of course you know. He feeds it to you and you lap it all up without even thinking twice.
SUSAN: Whatever, Liz. Are you alright?
LIZ: Oh? (takes a swig) Why? Are you concerned? Hm? Is that restless love for all and sundry kicking into overdrive?
SUSAN: Come on, Liz, just maybe take it easy on the vodka is all I’m saying.
LIZ: Orders from above? (stamps the cigarette out on the floor)
SUSAN: What’s going on with you?
LIZ: Me? Oh. Nothing. (drinks, shudders) Too long thinking. I avoided my mother today because I wanted to be drunk and skip around in the puddles from this morning.
SUSAN: Why didn’t you see your mother?
LIZ: I had all the wrong flowers picked out and look! (pulls up each pant leg) My socks don’t match! So I ate each flower slowly in between sips in the parking lot to her building.
SUSAN: What?
LIZ: And I thought to myself that no one would want to see this. My display. So I decided to distract myself with smoking and thoughts of my poor heart murmuring and aching.
SUSAN: What are you doing it for?
LIZ: I don’t know. (takes another swig, is revolted, puts the bottle on the floor, long pause, JOHN asleep by now)
SUSAN: What are you thinking about?
LIZ: My mother I guess. No, more me. Well. Me and My mother. Like either I see her or I don’t, and I don’t have any control at all on the outcome. If I see her she barely says anything or recognizes me, if I don’t see her I feel guilty, but still I feel like I’ve let her down. I feel like we both know, even she, that we’ve lost all capacity for language. It is impossible now to do anything but make noise and present an image of yourself to my mother. (during this, GENE has gotten up to check on SUSAN)
SUSAN: It always is really hard (GENE walks in, and both LIZ and SUSAN look up at GENE)
GENE: (noticing the vodka) I just wanted to see what was going on.
SUSAN: Well…uh,
LIZ: Forget it, Susan.
SUSAN: Liz, really?
LIZ: Yeah, I don’t want to get into it anymore. I know already what I’ll hear from the both of you. There’s your dream and that’s it with the two of you.
GENE: (trying to comfort) Don’t be so sure.
LIZ: (picking up the bottle) Oh, don’t worry. There’s nothing I’m more sure of than the general uselessness of everything that you say (takes a swig, and shudders) as for me, well, I don’t know yet.
SUSAN: Liz, you shouldn’t be so hard on us. Gene really is trying to help.
LIZ: Give it up! Help? Help! Help what? You both want me to smile? There (smiles wide). Now (pulls a cigarette from the carton, and puts it in her lips where it is snatched by SUSAN). Oh, come on Sue. (pulls another one from the carton which SUSAN grabs again, LIZ puts the vodka down, stands up and starts to walk to the other end of the room while fumbling, drunkenly, for a cigarette)
SUSAN: Liz! Don’t do this to yourself. (stands up after LIZ, GENE reaches out to try and stop SUSAN but thinks better of it halfway through)
LIZ: (noticing SUSAN at her back, having lit the cigarette) Sue! Come on! Can I just please have my own problems without having to lay everything bare to you and your gasbag lover? Back the hell off! You don’t know a damn thing about me anymore.
GENE: (hurt) Wow, Liz.
SUSAN: Fine, Liz. Fine, but I think there’s a lot going on that you don’t quite see.
GENE goes back to the bedroom and lies down.
LIZ: Sure I don’t see it, but it’s either the blind or the stupid around here.
SUSAN: You’ve been pretty bitter for the past couple of days, and you’re right, I’ve got no idea what’s going on.
LIZ: (sarcastically) Well it’s I who have been bitter, hasn’t it? What does that to do with you? Have I been bitter? Bitter, huh. Wow. You poor lovebirds you, or whatever. I’m not sure if it’s the warmth of that singular glad soul between you that keeps you warm at night, Susan, because it seems to me that neither one of you is all that interested in the other beyond those nice little comforts of ideas. It is plain from here why he’s so indecisively involved with you, why he goes guru and soulful on you when all you want is a lover and a body, but I suppose you can’t be blamed for being stupid when you’re out-of-body most of the time anyway.
GENE: (shouting from the other room) Just because we don’t go at each other like drunken apes at every opportunity does not mean that our relationship is any less
SUSAN: Please! Please! (slowly and beginning to betray resentment) I know that sex is a fragile subject, overfull of its own observance
LIZ: What?
SUSAN: (suddenly very relaxed, calculated) For you matters of love have not been kind. You know all about love, connubial joy, flopping alongside you in those evening hours, propelling you and he into close and gentle words approximating matrimonious exchange. The promise of alignment becomes only a beguiling ornament on a simple wish. Unguarded, generative, it has spoiled that world which you and I had shared and pulled a cruel, patchwork veil over you. You had something taken away from you, that much is easy to see, but you need to get the hell over it.
LIZ: (catching on) Susan!
SUSAN: What? You thought I didn’t catch on? You can’t hide something like that from me, from your only friend of the past two years. Well I never wanted to bring it up, but you’ve been going through more than spiritual death, no?
LIZ: You crazy bitch! (sobs)
LIZ sobs into her hands at first, then looks for a seat.
GENE: Something’s wrong. This has gone too far, Susan..
SUSAN: (sheepishly) I’m sorry, Gene, Liz. I only (to LIZ, sitting on the couch) I wanted to get you out of this anger that drives you against Gene. You can’t turn Gene and me into you and John.
LIZ: No, who would want that, right? (slowly) God damn it.
SUSAN: (let down by LIZ’s sadness) Oh, sweetheart.
LIZ: (mocking) Yes, sweetie? Darling? Hm? Is this thing here worth such thoughtless naming? Give me instead something without circumference, just slap me or something. (SUSAN shakes her head and GENE just looks dumbly on, LIZ starts to sob) Were does the cruelty come from here? The terribly frail cruelty indivisibly whole microscopic atoms of cruel indifference to life and happiness which make me say this.
GENE: (clearing his throat, assuming the guru role) In the beginning was the body and the body was wedded to desperation, but half the battle is know that. Whatever happened that made you upset, Liz, I don’t know - most of the time that’s true - but I do love you. Just like I love John and like I love Susan. (reassuringly) You have to let your love of others lead you out of your body.
LIZ only sobs more.
SUSAN: It might be best to leave her alone.
GENE sits on the floor, frustrated
LIZ: I thought while I was out in the parking lot, letting my imagine bouquet drift away from the car like a kite, that (pause) if I didn’t miscarry I would be seven months worth of pregnant now. (vacantly longing) Plenty ripe, full of life, narry a trace of grace. The child came, the statistical possibility, purely an academic affair, it formed inside of me, sharing my being with his in something new now tumescent, a thing bound now in time. Isn’t that awful, thing, it, however gendered. (sobs). If a boy it would look like me, if a girl it would still look like me, poor creature, he said. (laughs) But there it was, poor phenomenon, through the chemical defense, arriving at the center beginning of life, an ending. I think of it becoming, but not yet being, think of the mathematical struggle of predetermined uncertainties warring into struggling life connected to this poor body, corded now and to me for the rest of time.
GENE is taken aback, SUSAN sits next to GENE and during LIZ’s recitation holds GENE’s arm
LIZ: Someone now in time, begot by winedrunk us, vainly obliterated, thinking ourselves to be alone were really in the presence of that secret suffering other. For at least five weeks, motionlessly sobbing in me without any sign of it. Someone get me a drink. GENE abruptly gets up, grabs the vodka, and gives it to LIZ
SUSAN: (as if comforting) Liz, you don’t
LIZ: You began it, your holy prelude and immodest accusation. Here, the creation in but not yet of this world, immaculately departed since with but a few signs of its absent presence now in my and his heart. Choirs of angels singing the requiescat in pace where our fierce indignation can no longer lash at and beguile his so tiny heart. (sobs)
LIZ takes a big gulp
LIZ: Dear Gene and Susan, We still have tiny hearts. Yours, Liz.
SUSAN: It’s a very sad idea.
GENE: But it’s only sad if you think only of the thing inside you and not the thing going through you always with every new and lost spasm. Some invisible light which turns you, the empty, broken thing you think you are, into a shadow, while the spirit, love, the one marvels at its own light.
LIZ: P.S. Gene is still full of shit, watch out for him Susan, because he’ll make you unhappy yet. (flaring up) In any case, do not speak to me of your love which so easily comes from this boring spiritual perception, when my love for something that was both determined and contingent, which never had any spirit or its share of life equal to yours, that love, mine, has now made my life, its support, a series of variations on the same funereal games - commenting on and commemorating its lack with ever deteriorating incommensurates, this thing no longer person, child of none but a desperate intellect, epithet epithet epithet, dust in dust becoming dust, a flood, from within, of empty distance.
GENE: But listen Sue,
SUSAN: Just give her some time, Gene.
LIZ: (despairing) Yeah, just wait until John comes back from wherever he is and I’ll put on a happy face again, and let myself pretend like I can see that poor child only as some accident, a bump on the road, in any case everything just becomes something to cover up anyway with words or love for some (screaming) I’m so stupid! (whacks herself in the head a few times, covering her eyes, this wakes JOHN)
SUSAN: Sweetie, it’s nothing you can’t get through.
GENE: Yeah, you just need some time. Probably away.
LIZ: (coming around after a pause) Some quiet life salvation for some years, no doubt. A lot of snow and rain, smoking and drinking. But cleansing still.
SUSAN: Ways away. Nowhere harbor on the misted ocean.
LIZ: It might be nice.(after a sizeable pause, JOHN stretches and resumes his reading, after a while gets up) Where is John, anyway?
SUSAN: He’s in his room I think.
LIZ: I think I’m going to go outside for a while then. Give me my cigarettes back, Sue.
SUSAN does so, reluctantly, LIZ exits.
GENE: Why didn’t I ever hear about any of this? And what the hell is the matter with John? You know he barely cares about any of this.
SUSAN: Yeah. I did mention to you that I thought something maybe was going on with them.
GENE: I mean, I could tell something was up, but nothing foresaw that. (silent accord from SUSAN) I really do think, Sue, that she would benefit from an earnest spirit quest with us sometime.
SUSAN: Gene!
GENE: I mean it, Sue, we could all go out west and camp in the desert, no distractions for miles, it would just be the four of us, well, maybe John shouldn’t go, if you think it’d be a good idea, anyway, we could go out there with not a lot of food and everyone would feel so much better afterwards. I swear.
SUSAN: I don’t know
GENE: Isn’t this a desert already, actually? If you’ve got the right kind of way of looking at the world there are no distractions. Everything is blessedly how it has been spared to be without trespassing or being trespassed on.
SUSAN: I love you, you know.
JOHN enters the center room
JOHN: Oh, I thought I heard Liz. Wow. Really guys, if you could smoke outside, I really don’t mind too much, but I know Liz is trying to quit and the smell can’t be too good.
SUSAN: Liz isn’t quitting anymore.
JOHN: Really? Is she still around?
GENE: Sure.
SUSAN: (quickly) But she wanted to have some time alone.
JOHN: Ah yes, right, something with her mom, I guess. Poor old girl.
SUSAN: Is everything alright with the two of you?
JOHN: Right now? I don’t see why they wouldn’t be. There’s always the unfolding of the thick things of the future, things neither she nor I can control. The tectonics of our consciences are always shifting pressures, but for now we’re good.
SUSAN: Really, John?
JOHN: Huh
GENE: It seems like you’re screwing Liz up pretty bad
JOHN: Does it seem like that? From where did all this get dredged up?
SUSAN: Liz told us.
JOHN: (surprised) Did she?
GENE: Yeah. She told us a lot.
JOHN: Really? Well I bet you still don’t know anything. Is it me? Can you be sure it isn’t something about her? I mean she hasn’t exactly been kind to you recently at all. How do you think I feel? Having to be nothing but a support, having to use half of my day on nothing but generating a feeling of ease for her. It’s a waste! You can appreciate what it means to try and keep her happy, don’t you?
SUSAN: Well, I do know
JOHN: Sure, I haven’t felt quite like myself for some months now. These habits of mine now, these nocturnal glimpses of life, have fallen into me, me, who was else innocent of any God tics or holy spiritings. Now what? I hurt Liz by it. I know. But you both are initiates into the spirit, into the Geisterwelt, and when you begin to appreciate the necessity of that terrible ordering, it is impossible to turn away.
GENE: (grinning) Oh, yeah.
SUSAN: Is it impossible?
JOHN: It defines me, you see. The idea that there are eventually and somehow words whose employment entail inhuman consequences would destroy me with worry if I were sure that there is a God at the center listening. Fortunately for now I am only now straddling Liz and Transcendence.
SUSAN: You can’t keep up that illusion that you have to make the choice between the two.
GENE: Sue’s right, John. Neither one of you will be happy if you keep acting like you have to choose either some idiosyncratic curiosity or Liz. When I see her and you and you are both feeling good, or when Sue and I are good I can’t see how anyone manages to ever see themselves doing anything else. You know?
JOHN: Yeah. I do know, but it also isn’t anything past a feeling.
SUSAN: Love isn’t just a feeling, happiness isn’t just a feeling.
JOHN: I think the best idea for either one of you to have is that the world or God don’t understand what you mean by happiness and they don’t care about love. There aren’t words for the order of the universe because the world and God don’t deal in words. The preferred economy of holiness and the universe is structured in useless toil, destruction and often blood, tears; the illusion of conception and procreation giving way to the grim, though ineffable, reality.
GENE: Whoa, where is that coming from?
JOHN: Where? I don’t really know if it’s so much in space as it really is just the echo of all your whining about the spirit.
SUSAN: (suddenly) You must feel really lost, John.
GENE: (angrily) So what are you so worried about, John?
JOHN: She wants to be left alone?
GENE/SUSAN(at the same time): Yeah.
JOHN: Poor darling. Lovesick puppy.
SUSAN: You jerk. You absolute jerk.
JOHN: Amen, Amen, I say to you, as you both know so well, my kingdom is not of this half of the building, and otherwise has been overrun by vikings. (pause a few moments) In all seriousness I don’t know how much more of this is going to fly.
GENE: (attending to SUSAN) Try not to let John get you down, sweetheart.
JOHN: (picking up some of SUSAN’S bitterness) Right, don’t let unhappiness win, even though everything in the world is geared towards suffering, still act happy, happy. Just know that while you go on about the spirit when it’s handy for you to do so, there are those that are serious about these things. Days of judgment, final days, attend.
SUSAN: (still angry, to JOHN) What’s wrong with you!? You both share something like that and you don’t even care to make her feel better because she feels rotten now from it.
JOHN is silent, turned away from both GENE and SUSAN
GENE: (attempting to end tension between them) Well I think now is a good time to go lie down.
SUSAN: We don’t have any left. (taking out a cigarette and lighting it) This is pathetic, lets just drop it please, John, I didn’t mean to bring that up. (pause) OK, Gene, lets go.
GENE and SUSAN walk to their room together. Curtain.