August: Osage County (9 page)
Read August: Osage County Online
Authors: Tracy Letts
BILL: Now? This time of night?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: These guys run those lines early.
BILL: He drowned. That’s how he died, from drowning.
SHERIFF GILBEAU: Yes, sir.
BILL: Is there any possibility . . .
any
possibility that it’s not him?
any
possibility that it’s not him?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: Given the proximity of the boat to where the body was found, we’re pretty sure it’s Mr. Weston.
(Barbara suddenly dries her eyes, shrugs Johnna’s grasp, stands.)
BARBARA: All right. Okay. So what happens? What do we do now?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: I need a relative to come with me to positively identify the body.
BILL: To your station house.
SHERIFF GILBEAU: No, sir, he’s still at the lake.
BARBARA: Oh God, I don’t think I can do this.
SHERIFF GILBEAU: I’m sorry.
BILL: I’ll go. Can I go? Can I do it?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: I need a blood relative. But if Barbara is the one to identify him, I suggest you come along.
BARBARA: Bill, I can’t do it.
BILL: Honey, what choice do we have?
JEAN: I can do it. I’m a blood relative.
BARBARA: No, no. No, I’ll do it. I will.
(Johnna exits to the kitchen, turns on the lights, starts a pot of coffee.)
BILL: Can we have a couple of minutes to get ready?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: Yes, sir. Barbara?
(She turns to him.)I’m very sorry. This is the hardest part of my job. And I’m . . . to do it for someone you know . . . I’m just . . . very sorry.(She nods.)
BILL: What do you want to do about your mother?
BARBARA: I . . . I . . . fuck it.
(Laughs)
Fuck it. I’ll go . . . put some clothes on.
(Laughs)
Fuck it. I’ll go . . . put some clothes on.
BILL: I’ll be right up. Jean, help your mother, okay?
(Barbara and Jean exit down the second-floor hallway. Bill pulls Sheriff Gilbeau into the study.)Is there any way to determine if he—I mean, is this an accident, or suicide?—
SHERIFF GILBEAU: There’s really no way to tell.
BILL: What do you think happened? I mean . . . what’s your guess?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: Suicide. I would guess suicide. But the official cause of death is “drowning.” And that’s the extent of it.
BILL: I understand.
SHERIFF GILBEAU: I should warn you. That body has been in the water for all of three days.
BILL: Right.
SHERIFF GILBEAU: I think you should try to prepare your wife, if you can.
BILL: “Prepare her . . .”
SHERIFF GILBEAU: What happens to a body. It’s very bloated. It’s an ugly color. And fish have eaten the eyes.
BILL: Oh Christ. How does a person jump in the water . . . and choose not to swim?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: I don’t think you do unless you really mean business.
BILL: Choose not to swim.
(Lights shift to the second-floor landing as Barbara and Jean enter. Jean sits on the window seat as Barbara rakes a brush through her hair.)
JEAN: What about Aunt Ivy?
BARBARA: I guess we’ll stop there on the way back and tell her. Christ, I need to call Karen, too. What the fuck am I brushing my hair for?
(She throws the brush. She slumps on the window seat next to Jean.)I used to go out with that boy. With that man.
JEAN: What man?
BARBARA: The sheriff.
JEAN: You did?
BARBARA: Yeah, in high school. He was my prom date.
JEAN: You’re kidding.
BARBARA: The day of the prom, his father got drunk and stole his car. Stole his own son’s car and went somewhere. Mexico. Deon showed up at the door, wearing this awful tuxedo. He’d been crying, I could tell. And he confessed he didn’t have a way to take me to the prom. I just felt awful for him, so I told him we’d walk. About three miles. I busted a heel and we both got so sweaty and dirty. We gave up . . . got a six-pack and broke into the chapel, stayed up all night talking and kissing. And now he’s here telling me . . . oh, it’s just surreal. Thank God we can’t tell the future. We’d never get out of bed.
(She fixes Jean with a look.)
Listen to me: die after me, all right? I don’t care what else you do, where you go, how you screw up your life, just . . . survive. Outlive me, please.
JEAN: I’ll do my best.
(Bill enters.)
BILL: You ready?
BARBARA: Give me a second.
(Lights shift to the study, where Sheriff Gilbeau waits. Violet, wearing silk pajamas, shakily descends the stairs, crosses into the study.)
VIOLET: Izza story.
SHERIFF GILBEAU: Hello, Violet.
VIOLET: Barely’s back.
SHERIFF GILBEAU: I beg your pardon?
VIOLET: Did sum Beer-ley come home?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: Ma’am.
(Violet shuffles up to Sheriff Gilbeau.)
VIOLET: Gizza cig . . . some cigezze? Cig-zezz, cig-zizz, ciguhzzz.
(She laughs at her own inability to speak. Sheriff Gilbeau takes a Pall Mall from his shirt pocket, hands it to her. She stands, sways, holding the cigarette in her mouth. He lights it.)In the archa, archa-tex? I’m in the bottom. Izza bottom of them. Inna . . . ell.(She shuffles to the stereo in the living room . . . )His master’s voice.( . . . and plays a song: “Lay Down, Sally,” by Clapton. Sheriff Gilbeau trails her into the living room.)Mm, good beat. Right?
SHERIFF GILBEAU: Yes, ma’am.
(She does a jerky little dance, puffing on her cigarette.)
VIOLET: Barbara?! Is Barbara here?!
SHERIFF GILBEAU: She’s upstairs.
VIOLET: Barbara?! Izza time in duhh . . . izza time? What’s time?!
SHERIFF GILBEAU: It’s about 5:45.
VIOLET: BARB’RA! BARB’RA!
(Barbara, Bill, Jean and Johnna enter from various points in the house. Violet sees them, continues her tight little dance.)Idn’t it’s good beat? Inna good beats. Mmm, I been on the music . . . pell-man onna sheriff. C. J.’s boy. Right? Donna two inna school? Armen in tandel s’lossle, s’lost? Lost?! From the day, the days. Am Beerly . . . and Beverly lost?(Violet abandons her dance, separates invisible threads in the air. The others stand frozen, staring at her.)And then you’re here. And Barbara, and then you’re here, and Beverly, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here, and then you’re here . . .(Blackout.)
ACT TWO
The house has been manifestly refreshed, presumably by Johnna’s hand. The dull, dusty finish has been replaced by the transparent gleam of function.
Of note:
The study has been reorganized. Stacks of paper are neater, books are shelved. The dining room table is set with the fine china, candles, a floral centerpiece. In a corner of the dining room, a “kid’s table,” with seating for two, is also set. The warm, clean kitchen now bubbles and steams, redolent of collard and kale.
At rise:
Three o’clock of an eternal Oklahoma afternoon. The body of Beverly Weston has just been buried.
Violet, relatively sober now, in a handsome modern black dress, stands in Beverly’s study, a bottle of pills in her hand.
Elsewhere in the house: Karen and Barbara are in the dining room. Johnna is in the kitchen.
VIOLET: August . . . your month. Locusts are raging. “Summer psalm become summer wrath.” ’Course it’s only August out there. In
here
. . . who knows?
here
. . . who knows?
All right . . . okay. “The Carriage held but just Ourselves,” dum-de-dum . . . mm, best I got . . . Emily Dickinson’s all I got . . . something something, “Horse’s Heads Were Toward Eternity . . .”(She takes a pill.)That’s for me . . . one for me . . .(She picks up the hardback copy of
Meadowlark
, flips to the dedication.)“Dedicated to my Violet.” Put that one in marble.(She drops the book on the desk. She takes a pill.)For the girls, God love ’em. That’s all I can dedicate to you, sorry to say. Other than them . . . not one thing. No thing. You think I’ll weep for you? Think I’ll play that part, like we played the others?(She takes a pill.)You made your choice. You made this happen.
You
answer for this . . . not me. Not me. This is not mine.(Lights crossfade to the dining room. Barbara and Karen, wearing black dresses, fold napkins, munch food from a relish tray, etc.)
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