Red-Dirt Marijuana: And Other Tastes (19 page)

STAGE DARKENS AS THEY SLOWLY START FOR THE DOOR.

Scene Two

A dark stage. The sound of footsteps is heard on the stairs, off-stage-right, then the sound of the door opening. The lights come up, and we see
DOCTOR FREUD
, his hand on the light switch just inside the door; he enters, followed by
FRANZ
and
FRAU KAFKA
.

DOCTOR FREUD
: [Ushering them in, rubbing his hands together.] Well, here we are! Here we are!

[It is a huge loft-like room, bare of furniture except for a table, chair and a couple of mattresses; it is strewn with books, crumpled papers, and discarded food cans. Two trunks stand askew, lids up, near the wall, their contents sprawling out of them onto the floor. Against the wall, stage-left, is a small booth about four feet square. Near it, center-stage, is a hole in the floor about three feet square.]

FRAU KAFKA
: [On appraising the scene.] Good God! [
FRANZ
looks about, frowning terribly.]

DOCTOR FREUD
: [Walking quickly toward the booth.] Have a look round, I won’t be a minute. I just want to check on this . . . [voice trails off as he reaches the booth, opens a peek-hole, peers in, extracts a notebook and makes a few hurried notations in it, then contemplates the notebook and what he has written.] Hmm. Interesting I should say that. Curious, curious. [Closes the notebook, then addresses the others:] Well, what do you think of the place? Plenty of freedom here, eh Franz?

FRANZ
: If by “freedom” you mean to convey the sense of—

FRAU KAFKA
: [Interrupting:] But there are no . . . no facilities here, Doctor! Where is the kitchen? Where is the bathroom?

DOCTOR FREUD
: [Impatiently:] Kitchen, kitchen, of course there is no kitchen. Beyond sustenance, food is merely an escape, surely you know that. As for waste-disposal, that goes here. [Points to the hole in the floor.]

FRAU KAFKA
: [Aghast, she comes over, peers into the hole, shudders, and nearly swoons.] Franz! Take me home!

FRANZ
: [Trying to be reasonable:] Now Mother, while our own values may not exactly coincide with, or rather, may not seem to exactly coincide with, values which we impute to, or at least—

DOCTOR FREUD
: [Firmly:] Making a great to-do over waste-disposal is often where the trouble begins. Now take this case, for example [indicates the booth] . . . here is a young Samoan couple whom I’ve been observing . . .

FRAU KAFKA
: [Shocked:] A young couple? What on earth! Do you mean to say there is someone in that thing? [Walks toward the booth.]

FRANZ
: [Following her:] Mother!

doctor freud: [Shrewdly,] You realize, of course, that they do not go with the flat.

FRAU KAFKA
: [Arrives at the booth, opens the peek-hole and peers in, is stunned by what she sees, reels backwards, shrieking:] Franz! [She tumbles into the waste-disposal hole.]

FRANZ
: MOTHER! [He leaps in after her.]

DOCTOR FREUD
: [He rushes across the room to fetch a rope and a flashlight, shouting:] Hold on! Hold on! [He hurries to the hole and peers in, kneels down, playing the flashlight about in the hole. His expression changes from alarm to fascination; he quickly lays the rope aside, takes out his notebook and begins making notations in it as he peers into the hole; he speaks with terse excitement.] Yes, yes . . . that’s it . . . excellent! . . . yes, yes, react! . . . react! . . . hee-hee . . . REACT!

STAGE DARKENS, LEAVING ONLY THE BEAM OF THE FLASHLIGHT DARTING ABOUT IN THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THE HOLE.

F
IRST [SPLENDORED]:
A
Call of Certain Import

Scene:
A winter evening of 1914 at Kafka’s home in Prague, where he lived with his mother until the following year, when he reached the age of thirty-three.

FRANZ
has just come in from his clerical job at the bank and is seated by a reading-lamp in the small living room. The evening paper is on his lap and, after looking thoughtfully at the floor for a moment or two, he begins slowly unfolding it—when the telephone rings. From the adjoining room, where she is arranging the table for dinner,
HIS MOTHER
quickly enters, wiping her hands and giving
FRANZ
a sharp accusative look, as she picks up the phone,
FRANZ
stops unfolding the paper and strikes an attentive attitude towards his mother at the phone.

HIS MOTHER
:
[Frowning:]
Hello?

VOICE
: Hello, is young Kafka there? Franz Kafka?

HIS MOTHER
:
Franz?
Why . . . yes. Who is this calling?

VOICE
: This is Sig.

HIS MOTHER
:
Who?

VOICE
: Sig. I’m a friend of Franz.

his mother:
[Rather annoyed:]
All right, you’ll have to wait a minute.
[To
FRANZ
,
with a pained smile:]
It’s for you.

FRANZ
: [Raising his brows:] Oh? [He starts to refold the paper with care, then after a minute decisively lays it aside, gets up and crosses the room to where his mother stands holding the phone, one hand over the mouthpiece.]

his mother: [As one not to he easily fooled:] It’s Sig.

FRANZ
: [In consternation:] Who is it?

[
HIS MOTHER
does not answer, but gives him a knowing look as she hands him the phone and leaves the room abruptly. She returns at once, however, and stands between the dining-room and the telephone, hands on hips, apparently waiting for
FRANZ
to finish the conversation.]

FRANZ
: [Darkly intent at the phone:] Hello.

VOICE
: Hello, Franz? Is that you? Sig here. Eh?

FRANZ
: Yes. Yes, this is Franz. Who is calling? I’m afraid I didn’t . . .

VOICE
: Oh, don’t be afraid, Franz. Hal It’s Sig. You remember. Sig? Siggy. You know, Vienna. Sig. Sigmund Freud.

FRANZ
: [Astonished:] Sigmund Freud? Doctor Sigmund Freud? [Eagerly:] Why, this is a . . . a . . .

voice: [Jovially:] Yes, it’s Doctor Freud all right! Ho-ho! I was hoping we could get together, Franz. I’ve got some new ideas, you see—quite a lot of them actually, ha-ha . . . and, well, I’d like to go over a few things with you. What do you say to that, eh?

FRANZ
: Well, I . . . Doctor Freud, I hardly know what to say. I mean, I never dreamed that I . . .

voice: [Shrewdly:] You never what?

FRANZ
: No, no. I mean . . . well, naturally I wouldn’t have dreamed it, would I? [Laughs nervously:] May I say I never dared to hope, or rather that I couldn’t have imagined that my opinion . . . that is to say, that my . . .

VOICE
: [Impatiently:] Now look here, Franz, I need your help and I need it badly! Now then, tell me this: Does desire—and, of course, I mean in the very strict sense of the word—does this so-called desire for ejaculation . . . eh? . . . desire-for-ejaculation precede state of erection? OR does state-of-erection precede this desire? Eh? Tell me that, Mister Franz Kafka! Eh? [Laughs uncontrollably for a full minute: Ho-ho-ho! Ha-ha-ha! He-he-he! Etc.] Franz! Hey, Franz! Still there? Eh? Well, it’s merely a joke, Franz! Merely another joke at your expense! HAW! [Hangs up.]

FRANZ
: Hello. Hello, hello. [Jiggles the phone-hook:] Hello, operator, we’ve been cut off. Hello, hello.

his mother: [Crossing to the phone and snatching for it, demanding crossly:] What on earth is going on here?

FRANZ
: [Anxiously, backing away, clutching phone:] It’s Doctor Freud calling, Mother. We’ve been cut off. I’m trying to get the operator now. Hello, hello. [Jiggles the hook wildly:] Hello, operator, hello . . . hello . . . hello . . . hello . . .

SLOW CURTAIN

SECOND [SPLENDORED]:
An Orderly Retreat

There is tiredness in a soldier’s walk through nights of winter rain that holds off fear like a grotesque brother. Tonight how they move as each were apart, away, and alone—it is the incredible walk of the wooden doll, the heartbreaking walk of the huddled, shutting things out. Are they dead or alive?

Only Singer is smoking now. Beside him walks a man half-conscious, his feet too deep in the mud. He is bored, terrifically bored; the boredom has come all down into his chest and stomach, leaving his insides shot through like a torn sieve, threaded with morphine.

“Let’s have some of that before you put it out, Singer.”

Singer, withholding it, looks at him in concern. “Listen, Joe, you din’t see Al back there, when was the last time you seen him?”

“I ain’t seen him for chrissake, I told you, I ain’t seen him since they come down off the road back there.”

Singer passes the cigarette, heavily, as though it weighed more than a cocked rifle.

“What happen over past where you were at, Joe?”

What is talk but diluted hysteria? And how in his cupped hands now in the night rain the cigarette burns as a chemical light, soundless and without heat.

“Are you kiddin’?”

“I mean where them tanks come down off the road, how’d it look there where they were comin’ down off the road?”

“Are you kiddin’ for chrissake?”

“How’d it look when you seen it, Joe, it look like it was takin’ everthing, didn’t it, how’d it look when you seen it?”

The fear of the infantry stretches out through time into a single quivering wire of tedium—or it may shatter tiredness, hunger and cold, on one bleak afternoon when inside the head, somewhere just behind the eyes:
the world pops open.

“Listen. You seen past the house from where you were at, din’t you Joe? You seen along that ditch, din’t you?”

“Are you goin’ to start that again for chrissake?”

“I’m not goin’ to start anything, you son of a bitch.”

THIRD [SPLENDORED]:
A Bad Mother-hubber

An extraordinary thing happened at City Clerk’s Office the other day, where I went to get married.

The whole procedure, beginning with blood-tests, had come off quite casually. Granted, there had been certain delays—the usual thing, I suppose; but, in any case, the event I speak of occurred independently of the marriage, did occur, in fact, only just
after
the marriage, at the moment when the Clerk pronounced us “husband and wife.” At that moment, my “wife” asked me what time it was, wanting, I suppose, to make some sentimental note of it—which didn’t strike me as particularly objectionable, because it was in a more humorous than romantic spirit that she had asked—so I raised my arm, to uncover my wristwatch. In doing so, however, I upset a very large bucket of
paste
which had been sitting on a shelf at about head level just to my left. It fell on the Clerk, emptying all over the ceremonial robe he had donned before beginning the marriage. A paste,
this
muck had apparently once dried out because of the overheated office, and then had been remixed with too much water, so that now it was an incredible lumpy slop.

I was extremely embarrassed—and especially so, I believe, because I had made no previous attempt to be friendly with the man; in fact, by having allowed my face to remain in repose, had appeared to ignore his one or two little overtures towards informality during the service. Moreover, I now realized I had no handkerchief to offer him, and I could not even bring myself to make the empty gesture of reaching for my pocket. Neither could I bear to imagine the sound of my voice saying, “I’m sorry,” in the small room; that, too, would have been such a hollow gesture—such a
drop,
so to speak—for this man literally covered with a watery paste gone sour, a stinking muck.

My wife, appalled by my apparent indifference, sank into the nearest chair without a word, and remained there throughout the scene that followed. I at once became so absorbed in my new relationship with the Clerk that I forgot about her.

When I finally dared look at the man, I realized immediately that he was an eccentric. With his head bent down, brows furrowed, he kept clawing at the muck, muttering the while, and somewhat angrily—but
not at me,
and that was the queer thing about it. It was as if he had been standing alone on a street-corner, and a passing car had thrown mud, a lot of wet mud on him. He was raking off great globs of it and flinging them on the floor. From time to time he would stop and look down at himself in amazement, holding out his hands which were several inches thick with the muck. “How do you like
that?
” he would demand, “how do you like
that?
” Yet, he was not blaming
me,
that was clear enough; it was as though I had just arrived. But, even so, I could not meet his eyes: I was compelled to look past, over his shoulder. And it was then that I noticed the plaque on the wall directly behind him; it was a framed certificate, and I could make it out easily:

GERRARD DAVIS

NEGRO MINISTER AND NEGRO MAN

I forced myself to look directly at his face. With all that muck on his face, he was so w
hite,
or rather, so unlike anything I had ever seen before, that I asked at once:

“Are
you
Davis?”

He replied by immediately dropping his interest in the paste and robe and reproducing almost exactly the last lines of Michael Redgrave in the ventriloquist sequence of
Dead of Night;
and with precisely the same insane smile:
“I
. . .
I
. . .
I’ve . . . been . . . waiting
. . .
for you
. . .
Sylvester.”
It took me thoroughly aback, but my previous humiliation had been so sharp that I was still on the offensive.
“Look,”
I said evenly, “that gag is old hat to me, Davis—
if,
in fact, you
are
Davis.”