They vanish, pumping, but to reappear, wave, pass, and go off in darkness, alternating lines of song, vanishing at last as the mist and dark take over:
HEEBER FINN “. . . singing cockles . . .”
THE OLD MAN “. . . and mussels . . .”
HEEBER FINN “. . . alive! . . .”
THE OLD MAN “. . . alive! . . .”
BOTH TOGETHER “. . . Ohhhh! . . .”
By this time the curtain has hushed down on the mist and the play is at. . .
THE END
The First Night of Lent
CHARACTERS
THE YOUNG MAN (DOUGLAS)
MIKE (THE OLD MAN)
HEEBER FINN
TIMULTY
NOLAN O’CONNELL
PURDY
KELLEEN
SEAN (TELEPHONE OPERATOR)
Curtain up on darkness.
THE YOUNG MAN strolls along in the dark to a single spotlight where he stands debating with himself, hands in pockets, head down.
Off somewhere, a harp begins to play a few bars of “Mollie Malone” or some such ditty.
THE YOUNG MAN raises his hands.
THE YOUNG MAN
Please. No harp. That will only muddy the waters and stop us from thinking clear about Ireland.
The harp rushes to the end of the next few bars, as if to get it all in, then ceases, THE YOUNG MAN nods, not surprised at this maneuver, and continues, looking out at the audience.
Does anyone understand the Irish?
No.
Will anyone ever understand them in all of time?
No.
Can there be some system or method to size and sort them, tincture their ganglions so we can slide them under a microscope and see what makes them dance? {Shakes his head)
No history can date them, no psychiatrist’s couch lure them, no song explain them. And yet, as others tried, now so must I.
Did I ever know one solitary Irish fellow well?
I did. His name? Mike.
MIKE sticks his head out of the wings, left.
MIKE Ya called, sir?
THE YOUNG MAN In a moment, Mike—
MIKE Take all the time in the world!
MIKE’S head vanishes.
THE YOUNG MAN I knew Mike for two hundred consecutive nights—
MIKE’S VOICE (offstage) Two-hundred-o/jc/
THE YOUNG MAN
—two-hundred-one consecutive nights of one fall, winter, and early spring when I went to Ireland to write a film. I lived in Dublin, and every day when I finished ten new fresh pages of script, I would hire a taxi out to Kilcock, show my director my work, and at midnight go back to Dublin. How? By hiring the only taxi for miles around. So, every night I’d call the village exchange.
He picks up a telephone. And perhaps to one side, now, spotlighted, we can see SEAN, THE TELEPHONE OPERATOR, bent over the village switchboard.
SEAN Are ya there?
THE YOUNG MAN Hello, would you—
SEAN Ah, it’s you, Mr. Douglas.
THE YOUNG MAN Who’s this?
SEAN Why, Sean, of course!
THE YOUNG MAN Sean?
SEAN
The wife’s got the uneasies. I took over the village ex-change for tonight.
THE YOUNG MAN Good . . .
SEAN A fine night.
THE YOUNG MAN It is.
SEAN It must be up to at least fifty degrees on the damn thermometer.
THE YOUNG MAN All of that.
SEAN Warm for this time of year.
THE YOUNG MAN I always said, Dublin is the Riviera of Ireland.
SEAN
Did ya, now? I must remember to tell the wife. I suppose Heeber Finn’s is where you’re calling?
THE YOUNG MAN If you don’t mind, Sean.
SEAN Mind! I’ll put ya through like a bolt of lightning!
There is a hissing crackle. From the phone now pours a veritable millrace of voices, laughter, tinkling bottles, toasts, brags, and general multitude of hilarity. In the background, through a scrim, we see Finn’s, and the crowd there at the bar, THE YOUNG MAN listens, fascinated.
(At last) I have reason to believe you are through to Heeber Finn’s, sir.
THE YOUNG MAN (listening) I don’t doubt it, Sean.
We see FINN, behind the bar, maneuvering drinks and the phone.
FINN’S VOICE (shouting) Heeber Finn here! Who’s on the other end!
SEAN
Heeber, it’s himself from the big house!
THE YOUNG MAN starts to speak but is cut across.
FINN Mr. Douglas, is it?
SEAN The same!
FINN
Always glad to hear from Mr. Douglas.
THE YOUNG MAN starts to speak, but—
SEAN Did you know he was a writer?
FINN (awed) I did not!
THE YOUNG MAN opens his mouth, nodding.
SEAN He is! Writes them science and fiction stories!
FINN (dismayed) How’s that?
SEAN
You know; them shiny magazines with the green monsters chasing raw naked women over the Martian Hills on the covers!
FINN (pleased) So that’s what he’s up to!
THE YOUNG MAN opens his mouth, but—
SEAN He is also writing the fillum with the title Moby Dick.
FINN Is he?
THE YOUNG MAN nods, defeated. He does not try to open his mouth any more.
SEAN You know the story, about the Whale!
FINN
And Jonah hi his belly!
THE YOUNG MAN NO-SEAN No, man. Ahab!
FINN
What?
THE YOUNG MAN (getting it in fast) Ahab!
FINN
Who else is on the line, Sean?
SEAN Himself!
FINN Ahab?
SEAN Mr. Douglas, ya dimwit!
HELLO, MR. DOUGLAS
THE YOUNG MAN NOW WHO’S THIS AHAB?
SEAN Ahab is the captain that hunts the White Whale, man!
FINN
A fine story. Are ya there, Mr. Douglas? I said . . .
THE YOUNG MAN
Mr. Finn. Could you find Mike, the taxi driver, for me?
FINN
He’s good as found.
There is a long silence. We watch and hear the mob at Finn’s and FINN himself catting off and away: “Mike, Mike!”
SEAN It’s a fine night, Mr. Douglas.
THE YOUNG MAN (by rote) A bit warm for this time of year.
SEAN (admiring the other’s sense) Just what / was thinking !
We see a man jog through the crowd, rear, and grab the phone.
ANOTHER VOICE (breaking in) Hello, Mr. Douglas?
THE YOUNG MAN Mike?
ANOTHER VOICE No. He’ll be here when he finishes his game of darts!
We see MIKE, rear, playing the game out.
THE YOUNG MAN Never mind, just tell Mike—
We see MIKE forging toward the phone.
ANOTHER VOICE Hold on, here comes the triumphant victor now!
THE YOUNG MAN There’s no—
MIKE’S VOICE Mr. Douglas, congratulate me!
THE YOUNG MAN Mike, is that you?
MIKE’S VOICE Who else? And I won!
THE YOUNG MAN Mike, can you drive me to Dublin, now?
MIKE I’m halfway to the door!
There is a thud as, presumably, the phone is dropped at the other end. The crowd noises swell, THE YOUNG MAN holds the receiver off and looks at it with bemusement, then addresses the audience again.
THE YOUNG MAN
Halfway to the door. It is but thirty feet, I’d wager, from the bar of Heeber Finn’s to the far side of the pub where the door, neglected, abhorrent, waits. Yet that thirty feet is best negotiated carefully, and may take all of one minute per foot. In other words, it may take Mike half an hour to go from the phone to the outside world and five minutes to drive the half-mile up the road to where I am waiting for him. Listen to them.
He holds out the phone, taking his hand off the earpiece so the noise swells.
Mike’s on his way. He’s halfway to the door, plus one foot.
And this is true. During all the above, in dim pantomime behind the rear scrim, we see MIKE turning in slow circles, moving his head here, there, touching this person, touching that, trying to finish a stout thrust in his hand, answering a jest with another, laughing at one man, scowling at a second, blinking at a third. The pantomime continues during the following speech.
Do you see how patient I am? Do I yell or threaten? I do not. I learned, early on, that Mike’s “headin’ for the door” was no nerve-shattering process for him. He must not affront the dignity of the men he moves among. He must admire, on his way out, the fine filigree of any argument being woven with great and breathless beauty at his elbow or behind his back. It is, for him, a gradual disengagement, a leaning of his bulk so his gravity is diplomatically shifted toward that far empty side of the public room where the door, shunned by all, stands neglected. On his way, a dozen conversational warps and woofs must be ticked, tied, and labeled so next morn, with hoarse cries of recognition, patterns may be seized, the shuttle thrown with no pause or hesitation.
THE YOUNG MAN produces a long instructor’s pointer or baton.
To give you an idea of Mike’s debilitating journey across the pub, here, for instance—
He points to one of the men who, approached by MIKE now, breaks into a kind of jig or reel.
That’s old Timulty, who will dance for any reason or no reason at all.
MIKE is appreciative of the jig and perhaps joins in a once-around.
THE YOUNG MAN points to a second man ahead.
Here’s Pat Nolan. A fierce outcaster of politics. A banger, a smasher and a shouter, to the wonderment of all.
Now that TIMULTY has been gotten by, MIKE is confronted by NOLAN, who has two other men by their ties or lapels—that is, when he is not banging his own knee or smashing his fist into one palm. Now, as MIKE happens along, NOLAN sees him and, in pantomime, grabs out for him and starts bellowing on some vasty argument or other, MIKE is totally impressed, and nods, nods, nods.
THE YOUNG MAN points farther on—one, two, three.
While up ahead waits O’Connell with his jokes.
We see O’CONNELL laughing at his own stories, holding to someone’s shoulder.
Purdy with his harmonica.
PURDY is guzzling his harmonica as we see him swaying there.
And Kelleen with a brand-spanking-new poem he is just finishing …
We see KELLEEN, using someone’s back for a desk, scribbling furiously on a crumpled paper.
There! Mike’s almost to the door. He’s got the doorknob in his hand!
Which is true. We see it! Now, he—
At this instant, far across the pub, on the other side, a man waves and shouts in pantomime, MIKE turns, lets go the door, waves, and, to fast harp music, jogs back through the crowd to where it all started! THE YOUNG
