Bradbury, Ray - SSC 10 (5 page)

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
finish
ing
...

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 man,
dismayed, readjusts his
face to the situation.

(Philosophically) Well . . .
that's
how it goes.

He ambles back to the telephone,
picks it up, listens.
So I do not yell,
threaten, or rouse my blood.

He holds the phone out toward the audience so it can hear the
tumult and the shouting inside the earpiece.

Who
would hear me?

He hangs up.
Silence.
The pub lights go out. The
pub vanishes.

While
I'm waiting at the old house way out in the Irish wild, I take a little drink
(Drinks),
get into my coat and cap
(Does so),
and go out
(Goes)
into
the night to look at the clear stars. Until
at last, down through the night forest the nineteen-thirty-one
Chevrolet comes thrashing, peat-turf-colored on top
like Mike
himself
, and inside the old car—

Through the darkness from stage left comes
mike,
gliding on a car seat with an apparatus to hold the
steering wheel. The car,
no more than
seat, steering wheel, doors, circles the stage. From
it comes the gasping, choking sound of a very old
vehicle in
deed,
mike
and his framework auto stop dead-center stage. The
engine, with a hiccup, strangles and
dies.

Mike?

Mike
(waving
easily)
None other!

the young man
opens the car door.
Ain't
it a fine warm
evenin
'?

The Young Man
(hesitates;
rubs jaw)
Mike . . . ? Have you
ever visited
Sicily
or
Spain
?
The south
of
France
?

Mike
No, sir.

The Young Man
Paris
, the north of
France
, even?

Mike

I
guess you'd say the furthest south I've ever been is the Tip-
perary
shoreline, sir.

The Young Man
I
see.

He gets in. He looks at
mike,
breathes
the air, exhales,
slams
the
door.

Well
. . . it's a fine
warm
evening, Mike.

Mike
You hit it right on the head, sir!

We hear the motor roar, shadows and stars move on the scrim
behind them, the men's bodies bounce a little.

The Young Man
Mike,
how've you been since?

Mike
(wheeling
the car slow and easy)

Ah,
I got me health.
Ain't
that all-and-everything, with
Lent
comin
' on
tomorra
?

The Young Man
(muses)
Lent. What will you give up for
Lent, Mike?

Mike

I been
turnin
' it over.
(Sucks the cigarette which
hangs from his
lip until his
face glows cherry-red)
And why
not these terrible
things
ya
see in me mouth?

The Young Man
Cigarettes?

Mike

Dear
as gold fillings and a dread
congester
of the lungs
they
be
!
Put
it all down, add '
em
up, and
ya
got a sick loss by the year's
turnin
',
ya
know. So ya'll not find these filthy creatures in me
face again the whole time of Lent—and, who knows,
after!

The Young Man
Bravo!

Mike
(suspicious
at this outburst; glancing over)
I
see you don't smoke yourself.

The Young Man
Forgive me.

Mike

For
what! Bravo, says I to
meself
if I can wrestle the
Devil's
habit two falls out of three!

The Young Man
Good luck, Mike.

Mike
And do you know something? I'll need it!

We hear the motor roar. The stars over
Ireland
swirl this way
and that behind the car moving in darkness. At this point,
the
young man
quietly rises up and steps down from the car and
addresses
the audience.

The Young Man

Well,
now! We're on our way! But I want to make a few
points . . .

He reaches out and with one hand swings the car about so it
points its hood and bumpers stage left. The car
purrs happily on,
mike
at the wheel, smoking
and humming to
himself
.

Look
upon Mike. The most careful driver in all God's world,
including any sane, small, quiet, butter-and-milk
producing country you'd want to name. Mike, all innocence—a saint!— when
compared to those drivers who switch on paranoia each
time they fuse themselves to their bucket seats in
Los Angeles,
Mexico City, or Paris!

We hear various cars roar by, see flashes of light, hear honking
of
horns,
mike
philosophically
watches the imaginary cars pass,
waving them
on with calm good nature.

Compare
him to those blind men who, forsaking tin cups and
white canes, but still wearing their
Hollywood
dark glasses,
laugh insanely down the Via Veneto in
Rome
, shaking brake-
drum linings like carnival serpentine out their race-car doors!

During the above we hear the approach of a carnival of cars,
sput-sputs
, hornets, wasps, swarms of big and little
blasters and
blowers, and mixed with
it hilarious voices, shouting,
many
horns: picnic day at
Indianapolis
Speedway
.

mike
smiles
at it all, blinking gently, driving along between
the bogs. The voices, horns, motors avalanche away
into si
lence.

THE
YOUNG
man
circles the car,
turning it till
mike
faces
another way, before he
continues the lecture.

But
Mike, now . . . See his easy hands loving the wheel in a
slow clocklike turning . . .

The car makes a vast, lovely swirl around a bend in the road
—
we
can guess as much by the magical rotation of
mike's
arms.

Listen
to his mist-breathing voice all night-quiet as he charms
the road . . .

Mike
(singing)
"As I was walking
Through Dublin City . . .
Around the hour of twelve at night . . ."

The Young Man

...
his
foot a tenderly benevolent pat on the whispering
ac
celerator . . .

Mike
(singing
softly)
"I saw a maid,
So
fair was she . . ."

The Young Man
.
. . never a mile under thirty, never two miles over . . .

Mike
(singing)
". . . combing her hair by
candlelight."

the young man
steps back into the car and settles
himself,
looking
kindly on this older man.

The Young Man

Mike, Mike, and his steady boat gentling a mild
sweet lake where
all Time slumbers.
Look: compare. And bind such a man to
you with summer grasses, gift him with silver,
shake his hand
warmly at each
journey's end.

Mike
{reaching
for the hand brake)
Here we are!
The Royal Hibernian Hotel!

The Young Man
What
a fine lilting name!

Mike
(thinks on it)
The
Royal Hibernian Hotel! Sure, it falls right off the tongue!

THE YOUNG MAN
climbs
OUt
.

The Young Man
It
does. See you tomorrow, Mike!

The car drives off into darkness.

Mike
God willing!!

The car is
gone,
the young man
turns and walks in a grand
circle, vanishing for a moment behind a curtain but
reappearing
on the instant, checking
his watch.

The Young Man

Now.
Let twenty-three hours of sleep, breakfast, lunch, supper,
late
nightcap pass, and here I come again, another
mid
night
. . .

He suits word to action, going in and coming out the door far
stage right.

Out
the door of that Georgian mansion, to tread down the steps
to feel
Braillewise
in
fog for the car which I know bulks there.

The stage has darkened during part of this speech, and in the
dark, unseen by the audience, the car has returned,
mike
in it,
to
center stage. We hear the car faintly now. The lights are be
ginning to come up as
the young man
gropes forward.