A Trumpet Sounds (A Play for Two Voices)
Hanny and Manny in a row boat.
Hanny:
You really raise my hackles.
Manny:
There are many stars in a barrel.
Hanny:
You make my heart sing.
Manny:
Count the waves, count your toe nails.
Hanny:
You make my stomach flutter.
Manny:
This tongue,
this tongue that feeds the worms.
Hanny:
Oh yes. Oh yes.
You turboprop of love,
you bestial palace of passion.
Manny:
I heard a mouse, I heard
a thousand soldiers crossing a bridge.
Hanny:
Take me, break me, send me.
Manny:
Impossible.
Hanny:
I’ll climb Everest,
I’ll dive the Mariana Trench.
Manny:
A truck came by with fifty children,
but I wasn’t there. An old man told me
when I crossed the sea.
Hanny:
Baby, baby!
Manny:
I once had a family.
My mother left when I was three,
came back when I was twelve.
She smelled like a bear.
My father was an Anabaptist,
grew a long beard to his chest,
welded bridges, slaughtered cattle,
cleared half an island of heathen.
My sister? My sister was a sweet thing,
belly fuzz and tender breast.
Hanny:
I feel you burning up
inside me like a pillar of fire,
like the soul of a volcano.
Manny:
Winter came and went.
Mother died of batrachosis.
Somebody sprinkled salt on her.
She bloated up, then bloated down
until there was only skin
and bones. She gave a final sigh
that went on all afternoon,
past dinner, into breakfast the next morning.
Summer was a whisper
and hogs fattening. The chickens
lost their feathers. Then it rained,
it rained like never before.
The river rose and rose
and the house became an island.
Father thought for sure the end
had come. And the middle
and the beginning too.
Hanny:
Lick my toes, fondle my knee.
Manny:
He made a raft
with plywood and styrofoam,
grabbed his Bible, a toothbrush,
and a couple of hens
that were perched on the dogwood out back,
and rowed away to meet his maker.
“Repent,” he said to us. “The end is
here.”
He rowed past the roof of the truck,
he rowed past the corpse of a mare
and disappeared into the brown muck.
Hanny:
I’m your prisoner, your slave.
Remember that night in Rio,
that day in Duluth? You drank to me,
you fed me mussels,
you made my liver lather.
Manny:
My sister and I were on the second floor,
waiting for the water to recede.
Days we spent eating
barbecued potato chips
and canned black beans left over
from when Father thought he was Cuban.
Hanny:
My blitzkrieg, my duodenitis,
my little piece of Paradise!
Manny:
We found Father’s whiskey,
which he hid in his boots.
We found his cigars in the bedroom
under the bed. We found pornographic
magazines rolled up behind the radiator.
Hanny:
My interpretive dance, my regal boutonniere.
I don’t know, truly I don’t,
what I would do without you.
You are my Christ, my Buddha,
my Muhammad, my Jerry Falwell.
Manny:
One thing led to another.
Hanny:
I will cook for you,
do your laundry, pave your driveway.
pick your zits, butter your grits.
Manny:
And another and another.
The whiskey, the cigars,
the naked girls.
Hanny:
When I think how you hold
your pinky when you drink espresso,
my bowels shiver. When I watch
you trim your eyebrows,
I want to call an AM talk show and rant
about my love. When I hear you say,
“Two pounds of ground chuck, please,”
to the butcher, I hear conga drums
in my ears.
Manny:
It’s hard to explain.
Hanny:
Yes, my love, my baby,
my tequila sunrise, my cup of tea.
How many children would you like?
I want three, two boys and a girl.
And a house in Grosse Pointe, Michigan,
and you’ll be Vice-President of Ford
Motor Company, in charge of Manual
Transmissions and Power Trains.
Manny:
We were alone and afraid.
Hanny:
We’ll have a maid, with a green card.
We’ll vacation in Palm Beach, winter in Vail.
We’ll shop in New York
and travel to Europe
so you can make… big deals!
We will dine with presidents,
prime ministers, papal nuncios.
Manny:
We were afraid and alone.
Hanny:
Should we have a dog?
What do you think?
Should we, should we, should we?
I think we should.
A German shepherd, a cocker spaniel,
a Labrador, a Shih Tzu, a Jack Russell,
a Great Pyrenees? How about a cat?
A Manx, a Persian, an American shorthair,
a Siamese?
Manny:
I touched her here, I touched her there.
Hanny:
Private school or public school?
For the children, I mean.
Private school offers
the obvious advantages:
small class size, guaranteed SAT scores,
the right connections,
the proper inflection,
and just enough foreigners,
all of them with green cards,
so that everyone knows his—
or her—place in society.
But public school is more democratic.
Now, take me.
I mean metaphorically, of course.
Let’s leave the literal for when
your mother is a hen
and we’re alone, alone like clones.
I’m a product of a public
education. Look how I turned out.
Manny:
I kissed her here, I kissed her there.
Hanny:
I have this feeling about you.
I just know. Don’t tell me.
What is it? I got it.
You like to exercise.
You want a swimming pool!
Better yet, a lap pool, heated too.
Anything you want, baby.
Anywhere you want it.
Under the ground
or over the sky.
Manny:
Before we knew,
we were naked in Father’s bed.
Everything bore the scent
of mildew and dead water.
We were certain we were going to die.
Hanny:
You won’t mind if my mother
comes to live with us, do you?
She’s a lonely old woman
with nowhere to go.
Besides, it will be good for the children.
Oh, sweet daddy,
thinking about our future makes me randy.
Manny:
There was no one around
as far as the eye could see,
and the rain kept coming down.
Father the Anabaptist was gone
with his prayers and his Bible
and that do-good look in his eye.
A dove flew by
our window with a twig in its beak,
but we knew nothing of signs and symbols.
It was darkness and grayness,
the water sloshing against the aluminum
siding Father put up last year,
the dead fish floating under
Mother’s velvet painting of Elvis.
Hanny:
What do you say, macho mío?
Manny:
We did it.
We did it in ways we saw in the magazines
and ways not even the magazines
dared print.
We broke every rule,
we reached the very depths,
loved every thing
about the other.
In those slow moments waiting for death,
we became the scourge
of the Christian right,
the nightmare of public funding for the arts,
the author still without a grant
and the waters rising, the waters rising…
Hanny:
Oh but you’ve got a wild tongue.
I just know you’re going to blister
me up from head to foot.
Manny:
Sister wouldn’t stop.
Day and night, night and day,
like the tide, like the ocean,
we moved and we rocked
and we broke and we surged
and we waxed and we waned and we rose
and we fell. We puffed and we
huffed and we wailed and we gnashed
and we wept and we laughed.
We froze and we thawed
and fondled and trundled,
we flummoxed, we lummoxed,
we whistled, we clanged.
Then we sighed.
It was over.
Elvis no longer walking on water,
a dead tuna rotting
on the ruined rug.
Hanny:
Come on, sweet daddy.
Do it to me like a Vice President
of Ford Motor Company in charge
of Manual Transmissions and Power Trains.
Manny:
We looked at each other.
There was no shame in our eyes,
and we were ashamed
that we had no shame.
We gathered up the empty cigar box,
the half-filled bottle of Scotch,
the stained and wrinkled magazines
and, lastly, our clothes.
We walked out into the sea
of mud the universe had become,
kissed each other lightly on the cheek,
like goodly brothers and sisters
do everywhere on earth
and we parted.
She went South Southeast,
I went North Northwest,
figuring if we lived long enough,
we would meet again
on the other side of the world.
Hanny:
Do it like someone who gets
midnight phone calls from the Pope.
Row me with your boat.
Fry me with your burger.
Roast me on your spit.
Fact me with your figures.
You can do it, big boy.
Manny:
A world free of slime and incest.
Hanny:
I’ll be stallion to your mare.
I’ll be bull to your frog.
I’ll be river to your valley.
I’ll be boogy to your woogy.
Manny:
A world free of love and money.
A world where the girl from Guatemala
meets Bob Dylan and they walk away
into the Alaskan Tundra. A world
where brother and sister are one
and two and one again.
Hanny:
My daddy was an itinerant toilet
salesman, one of the wisest
people I ever did know.
He said to me after three months
lugging two hundred pounds
of porcelain all over the country,
he said, “Freckle-face”
—that’s what he always called me—
“Freckle face, if there’s ever
something
you don’t like or it doesn’t like you,
don’t think twice, just flush it.”
Manny:
I never saw her again.
Hanny:
But I’ll never flush you, baby.
Manny:
And so I wander.
Hanny:
I’d just as soon flush my daddy
or my mommy.
Manny:
In a straight line until I reach the point
where North Northwest becomes
South Southeast.
Hanny:
Or my brother or my sister.
Manny:
Sister, you said?
Hanny:
And my brother too.
Manny:
Are you my sister, my long lost sibling?
Hanny:
No.
Manny:
Are you sure?
Hanny:
Yes.
I’m the person who would flush
her whole family down the toilet
for you, then marry you and move
to Grosse Pointe, Michigan,
where you’ll be Vice President in charge of
…in charge of… in charge of
something,
something big and powerful.
Manny:
You look like her with a moustache.
You have that sad, shameless leer
in your eye.
Hanny:
I said N-O, no.
I’ve never seen you before in my life.
Manny:
What are you doing here?
Hanny:
I’m trying to get your attention.
I want to marry you, I want to live
with you for the rest of my life,
I want to have your children,
I want to rhumba and meringue with you,
I want to support you while you quit
your job and write
the Great American novel…
Manny:
Stop! You are not my sister.
Hanny:
I’ll shave my moustache.
Manny:
No! You don’t have her breasts
or her skin or her wild fiery lips
like the worms of hell.
Hanny:
I’ll change my sex.
I’ll be man or woman,
animal or mineral for you.
I’ll be Moses Maimonides,
Francisco Franco, Marlene Dietrich for you.
Just say the word,
you unwashed animal you.
Manny:
Oh God, I think I’m getting a headache.
Hanny:
We seem to be hitting it off,
don’t you think?
Manny:
Listen, you’re not supposed
to be in this spot at this time.
Who put you here?
Hanny:
Fate, fortune, destiny.
Call it what you want.
Manny:
I’m calling it quits.
You are not my sister
and I shouldn’t even be talking to you.
You’re wasting my time.
Where’s the author of this farce?
I’ve had enough.
Doesn’t he know how to end things?
Where’s my sister, where’s my sister,
where’s my sister?
(Pause.)
Hanny:
Baby?
Manny:
Yes?
Hanny:
Don’t cry. I’ll talk to the author.
I’ll get him to find your sister.
Manny:
And the whiskey and the cigars.
And the magazines?
Hanny:
And the magazines.
Manny:
Undiluted and unexpurgated?
Hanny:
Undiluted and unexpurgated,
even if I have to twist his nipples
until he cries for mercy.
The incest monger.
Manny:
Ok.
Hanny:
Now go to sleep, my rubber ducky,
my inflatable doll, my bundle of need.
Manny:
Ok.
Hanny:
Mommy will give you breast milk
and white bread in the morning.
Manny:
Ok.
Hanny:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Manny:
Ok.
(A trumpet sounds.)
Otium
