The Vietnam Reader (14 page)

HARRIET. Good night.
(Slight pause.)
You get a good rest.
(Silence.)
Try …

[FROM ACT TWO:]
David descends with Zung behind him. Calmly he speaks, growing slowly happy.

DAVID. Do you know how north of here, on farms, gentle loving dogs are raised, while in the forests, other dogs run wild? And upon occasion, one of those that’s wild is captured and put in among the others that are tame, bringing with it the memory of when they had all been wild—the dark and the terror—that had made them wolves. Don’t you hear them?
And there is a rumbling.

RICK. What? Hear what?
It is windlike, the rumbling of many trucks.

DAVID. Don’t you hear the trucks? They’re all over town, lined up from the center of town into the country. Don’t you hear? They’ve stopped bringing back the blind. They’re bringing back the dead now. The convoy’s broken up. There’s no control … they’re walking from house to house, through the shrubbery, under the trees, carrying one of the dead in a bright blue rubber bag for which they have no papers, no name or manner. No one knows whose it is. They’re at the Jensens’ now. Now Al Jensen’s at the door, all his kids behind him trying to peek. Al looks for a long, long time into the open bag before he shakes his head. They zipper shut the bag and turn away. They’ve been to the Mayers’, the Kellys’, the Irwins’ and the Kresses’. They’ll be here soon.

OZZIE. Nooo.

DAVID. And Dad’s going to let them in. We’re going to let them in.

HARRIET. What’s he saying?

DAVID. He’s going to knock.

OZZIE. I don’t know.

DAVID. Yes. Yes.

A knocking sound. Is it David knocking with his fist against the door or table?

OZZIE. Nooooo.

RICK. Mom, he’s driving Dad crazy.

Knocking loud: it seems to be at the front door.

OZZIE. David, will I die?

He moves toward the door.

HARRIET. Who do you suppose it could be so late?

RICK,
intercepting Ozzie, blocking the way to the door.
I don’t think you should just go opening the door to anybody this time of the night, there’s no telling who it might be.

DAVID. We know who it is.

OZZIE. Oh, David, why can’t you wait? Why can’t you rest?
But David is the father now, and he will explain. He loves them all.

DAVID. Look at her. See her, Dad. Tell her to go to the door. Tell her yes, it’s your house, you want her to open the door and let them in. Tell her yes, the one with no name is ours. We’ll put it in that chair. We can bring them all here. I want them all here, all the trucks and bodies. There’s room.
(Handing Rick the guitar)
Ricky can sing. We’ll stack them along the walls …

OZZIE. Nooo …

DAVID. Pile them over the floor …

OZZIE. No, no …

DAVID. They will become the floor and they will become the walls, the chairs. We’ll sit in them; sleep. We will call them “home.” We will give them as gifts—call them “ring” and “pot” and “cup.” No, no; it’s not a thing to fear.… We will notice them no more than all the others.

He is gentle, happy, consoling to them.

OZZIE. What others? There are no others. Oh … please die. Oh, wait …

(And
he scurries to the TV where it sits beneath the stairs.)

I’ll get it fixed. I’ll fix it. Who needs to hear it? We’ll watch it.

(Wildly turning TV channels.)
I flick my rotten life. Oh, there’s a good one. Look at that one. Ohhh, isn’t that a good one? That’s the best one. That’s the best one.

DAVID. They will call it madness. We will call it seeing.
Calmly he lifts Ozzie.

OZZIE. I don’t want to disappear.

DAVID. Let her take you to the door. We will be runners. You will have eyes.

OZZIE. I will be blind. I will disappear.
Knocking is heard again. Again.

DAVID. You stand and she stands. “Let her go,” you say; “she is garbage and filth and you must get her back if you wish to live. She is sickness, I must cherish her.” Old voices you have trusted all your life as if they were your own, speaking always friendly. “She’s all of everything impossible made possible!”

OZZIE. Ricky … noooo! …

DAVID. Don’t call to Ricky. You love her. You will embrace her, see her and—

OZZIE. He has no right to do this to me.

DAVID. Don’t call to Ricky!

OZZIE,
suddenly raging, rushing at David, pushing him.
You have no right to do this.

RICK. Nooooooo!

(Savagely he smashes his guitar down upon David, who crumples.)
Let Dad alone. Let him alone. He’s sick of you. What the hell’s the matter with you? He doesn’t wanna talk anymore about all the stupid stuff you talk. He wants to talk about cake and cookies and cars and coffee. He’s sick a you and he wants you to shut up. We hate you, goddamn you.

Silence: David lies still.

ZUNG. Chào ông!
(Ozzie pivots, looks at her.)
Chào ông! Hom nay ông manh không?

OZZIE. Oh, what is it that you want? I’m tired. I mean it. Forgive me. I’m sick of the sight of you, squatting all the time. In filth like animals, talking gibberish, your breath sick with rot.… And yet you look at me with those sad pleading eyes as if there is some real thing that can come between us when you’re not even here. You are deceit.
(His hands, rising, have driven to her throat. The fingers close.)

I’m not David. I’m not silly and soft … little David. The sight of you sickens me. YOU HEAR ME, DAVID? Believe me. I am speaking my honest true feelings. I spit on you, the both of you; I piss on you and your eyes and pain. Flesh is lies. You are garbage and filth. You are darkness. I cast you down. Deceit. Animal. Dirty animal.
And he is over her. They are sprawled on the ground. Silence as no one moves. She lies like a rag beneath him.

RICK. I saw this really funny movie last night. This really … funny, funny movie about this young couple and they were going to get a divorce but they didn’t. It was really funny.
Ozzie is hiding the girl. In a proscenium production, he can drag her beneath the couch; in three-quarters, he covers her with a blanket brought to him by Harriet which matches the rug.

HARRIET. What’s that? What’s that?

RICK. This movie I saw.

HARRIET. Anybody want to go for groceries? We need Kleenex, sugar, milk.

RICK. What a really funny movie.

OZZIE. I’ll go; I’ll go.

HARRIET. Good. Good.

OZZIE. I think I saw it on TV.
They are cleaning up the house now, putting the chairs back in order, dumping all of Ozzie’s leaflets in the waste can.

HARRIET. Did you enjoy it, Rick?

RICK. Oh, yeh. I loved it.

OZZIE. I laughed so much I almost got sick. It was really good. I laughed.

RICK. I bet it was; I bet you did.

OZZIE. Oh, I did.

    
Even David helps with the cleaning: he gets himself off the floor and is seated in a chair.

HARRIET. How are you feeling, Ricky?

RICK. Fine.

HARRIET. Good.

RICK. How do you feel?

HARRIET. Oh, I’m all right. I feel fine.

OZZIE. Me, too. I feel fine, too. What day is it, anyway? Monday?

HARRIET. Wednesday.

RICK. Tuesday, Mom.
Now all three are seated on the couch.

OZZIE. I thought it was Monday.

RICK. Oh, no.

HARRIET. No, no. You’re home now, David.…

RICK,
moving to David, who sits alone in a chair.
Hey, Dave, listen, will you. I mean I know it’s not my place to speak out and give advice and everything because I’m the youngest, but I just gotta say my honest true feelings and I’d kill myself if I were you, Dave. You’re in too much misery. I’d cut my wrists. Honestly speaking, brother to brother, you should have done it long ago.
(David is looking about.)

DAVID. What?

RICK. Nooo. She’s never been here. You just thought so. You decided not to bring her, Dave, remember? You decided, all things considered that you preferred to come back without her. Too much risk and inconvenience … you decided. Isn’t that right? Sure. You know it is. You’ve always known.
(Silence. Harriet moves to look out the front door.)
Do you want to use my razor, Dave?
(Pulling, a straight razor from his pocket)
I have one right here and you can use it if you want.
(David seems to be looking at the razor.)
Just take it if you want it, Dave.

HARRIET. Go ahead, David. The front yard’s empty. You don’t have to be afraid. The streets, too … still and empty.

RICK. It doesn’t hurt like you think it will. Go ahead; just take it, Dave.

OZZIE. You might as well.

RICK. That’s right.

OZZIE. You’ll feel better.

RICK. I’ll help you now, Dave, okay?

HARRIET. I’ll go get some pans and towels.

RICK, moving
about David, patting him, buddying him.
Oh, you’re so confused, you don’t know what to do. It’s just a good thing I got this razor, Boy, that’s all I gotta say. You’re so confused. You see, Dave, where you’re wrong is your point of view, it’s silly. It’s just really comical because you think people are valuable or something and, given a chance like you were to mess with ’em, to take a young girl like that and turn her into a whore, you shouldn’t, when of course you should or at least might … on whim … you see? I mean, you’re all backwards, Dave—you’re upside down. You don’t know how to go easy and play—I bet you didn’t have any fun the whole time you were over there—no fun at all—and it was there. I got this buddy Gerry, he was there, and he used to throw bags of cement at ’em from off the back a his truck. They’d go whizzin’ through those villages, throwin’ off these bags a cement. You could kill people, he says, you hit ’em right. Especially the kids. There was this once they knocked this ole man off his bicycle—fifty pounds a dry cement—and then the back a the truck got his legs. It was hysterical—can’t you just see that, Dave? Him layin’ there howlin’, all the guys in the truck bowin’ and wavin’ and tippin’ their hats. What a goddamn funny story, huh?

    
Harriet has brought silver pans and towels with roosters on them. The towels cover the arms of the chair and David’s lap. The pans will catch the blood. All has been neatly placed. David, with Ricky’s help, cuts one wrist, and then the other, as they talk.

DAVID. I wanted … to kill you … all of you.

RICK. I know, I know; but you were hurt; too weak.

DAVID. I wanted for you to need what I had and I wouldn’t give it.

HARRIET. That’s not possible.

OZZIE. Nooooo.

DAVID. I wanted to get you. Like poor bug-eyed fish flung up from the brief water to the lasting dirt, I would get you.

HARRIET. David, no, no, you didn’t want that.

OZZIE. No, no.