Page 6
Pinteresque
North CaroUoa School of the Arts
JOE. Are you a prostitute?
(pause)
SYLVIA. No.
(pause)
JOE. Oh.
(pause)
SYLVIA. Blow.
JOE. Blow?
SYLVIA. Blow.
(pause)
JOE. No.
SYLVIA. What’s your name?
(pause)
JOE. Guess.
(pause)
SYLVIA. Joe.
(pause)
JOE. How did you know?
SYLVIA. Intuition I guess.
JOE. Yes.
(pause)
JOE & SYLVIA (simultaniously)
Well (they laugh at this
coincidence and start to do the
same thing again.)
JOE. Wait! This kind of thing
hai^ens all the time in plays and
television. Do you know what I
mean?
SYLVIA. No.
JOE. You know. When two
characters start to say something
simultaneously. They always
laugh a little and look em
barrassed and then they do it
again. It’s an old comic bit, and I
don’t think we should fall into that
trap.
SYLVIA. I know what you mean.
It’s like when two characters try
to go through the door at the
same time, and crash into one
another. They always apologize
and gesture for the o&er fellow to
go first. Then after thedr
elaborate politeness they crash
into one another again. It’s
ix-obably very symbolic.
JOE. I agree.
(pause)
JOE & SYLVIA (simultaneously)
WeU....
JOE. I guess we’re just doomed
by fate.
SYLVIA. Great.
(pause)
JOE. Jew?
SYLVIA. Who?
JOE. You.
Sylvia. I’m Catholic, probably.
JOE. You are vague.
SYLVIA. Now what does that
mean?
JOE What?
SYLVIA. The word “are.” I mean
when you think back, aU those
verbs, all those conji^ations, and
their different definitions and
usages. It’s mind boggling.
JOE. Quite (pause) right.
SYLVIA. I might have eq>ected
that from you.
JOE. Oh?
(pause)
SYLVIA. Joe Shmoe.
JOE. How did you know?
SYLVIA. It fits.
JOE. rt’s just a name, (pause)
What’s in a name? (pause) It
doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a
couple of words. You know, if you
take a word, any word, and
repeat it enough it will lose it’s
meaning.
(pause)
SYLVIA It it it it it it it it it
it....(etc.) (During this speedi
Sylvia begins to look puzzled, and
pretty soon it becomes obvious
she doesn’t know what she is
saying) Joe?
JOE. Yes?
SYLVIA. WHAT DOES “IT”
MEAN?
(pause)
JOE. I don’t know.
SYLVIA. Guess
(pause)
JOE. “It” means— I think ‘It”
means— “it means—
SYLVIA. WHAT?
JOE. “It means a thing.
SYLVIA. Therefore-
JOE. —it doesn’t mean anything.
It means no-thing. IT MEANS
NOTHING!!!
SYLVIA. You’re right (pause)
But I think we’re safe as long as
nobody knows.
Frank Woolf
To Jim Bobbitt, Maybe
The winter had softened. The
world was still the same, except
that I was no longer sensitive to
smells. I was not cold; I stopped,
took a few steps, stopped once
more. The air was heavy,
compact, resistant as though one
had to tear it to pass. Suddenly,
my legs gave way, I fell again. I
tried mechanically to rise, slid,
and gave up. I stretched out on
my back gently.
Once I felt pity for what had
grown gray, for the music which
had stopped, for the forgotten
voices. Once there had been leafy
sfM-ings, the river, the bridges of
a city, and lights in the night.
Leaves had moaned in the gentle
wind, leaves moaned and the rain
start^ to fall. It had happened
before. Rain is a balm; I could
feel it on my face. I have always
been here and dreamed all the
rest.
I wanted to climb the moun
tain. Once on a clear morning, at
the age of twelve, I had left the
house in a hollow of the valley, a
hazelnut stick in hand. At first the
road was pebbly and sharp. At
each step I ran the risk of a
siH-ain. It was summer. One could
see the blue sky through the
leaves and branches. I must have
been in August. The harvest had
been gathered, in the fields the
stubble pricked my feet, and an
old woman coming down one of
the roads asked: “Where are you
going?” I was tc take the road on
the other side of the clearing. Hie
trees on either side of that path,
which seemed quite rocky, were
higher, thicker, drier. I was
accompanied; suddenly I was left
alone with the echo of voices
vanishing in the distance. As I
walked the trees grew sparse,
spare, small, and the slope hard
to climb. I continued perspiring
with fatigue as much as witii
heat...Yes, I remember, I could
recall.
An arid land ap-
peared...abandoned tracks of a
funicular, no more trees, stones,
just dry earth...To climb further I
had to hang on to clumps of dry
grass, to sand. I had continued to
climb on bloody hands and knees,
up, up...Before me, I could see
the sharp drop of a mountain
slope. Thirst had dried my throat,
my ears were buzzing. I knew I
should not stop. Before me there
was only a rock, an immense
vertical desert. Maybe I could
still stop for one second, not to
drink, but to imagine a spring, to
stop for a while and enjoy the
memory of an inhabited place...a
room, shady in the summer,
fresh, in a thick-walled house
overgrown with moss, Weltered
from this implacable heat. I
could go down, take a few steps
back toward a hut, a mountain
refuge.
It was at this moment that the
slide down had started. I had let
go, roUed down slopes edging on
waterfalls, thentherewere ponds,
the humid earth of the plauis. It
was a memory. It was the
remembrance of a memory. It
was my fall. That was how I got
here where I was lying on my
back. Despite the knotted clouds,
I could see as though beyond, the
night, a starry sky.
I had been a child once. My
father held me in his arms and
told me a story. We were walking
along a fence. It was a country
rather than a city suburb. I
closed my eyes. I could still recall
a blue sky, dry, illuminated
summits. I opened my eyes, but
no longer knew how many hours,
or days, had passed. I’d forgotten
where I had come from, and felt
no surprise at lying here. The
memory of the fall had grown
vague. Painlessly, my right arm
detached itself from my
shoulder. It fell in the mud with a
soft thud and sank slowly. Where
the elbow had been there was a
puddle, only my hand emerged,
white inert, res^g upon a round,
fiat leaf. A frog leai>ed toward
niy hand, looked at it, and
di^ppear^. Stiff rushes) rustled
in the wind. The sight of my right
hand made me sii^e: it was a
kind of animal and a plant, which
could stretch, dilate. The fingers
moved like thick, lazy little
snakes.
My left arm, closer to the
heart, was still fastened to the
body; the hand hooked to a dirty
wrist, the finger nails black. It
shuddered once in a while. My
bloated stomach pressiMl on my
heart which struggled wildly like
a bad swimmer ready to give up.
A few soft ribs had split, and the
skin, like a canvas bag giving
way under the weight of its load,
had cracked.
I made an effort, was able to
move my head to the right; I
could see a thick boot (half
hidden in the roots of the rushes)
letting a toe emerge through a
large hole. How far it was from
me. I could not feel my feet, legs,
or pelvis. Only my Uver and
stomach fought for the
supremacy of ^ half-body. I
must have bought this shoe once,
for I had a blurred memory of a
shop with a woman in it. My
lover. She had smiled. It was my
lady or my mother. Nothing
definite save her smile emerged
from the mist. Despite my coated
tongue, the penetrating cold, I
would have felt comfortable were
it not for the wet earth against
my back.
The air I breathed was dense,
but the air I exhaled was denser
still, almost a liquid substance.
The mist passed through my
vertebrae, swelling my chest,
filling my mouth, coming out of
my ears. TTiis had been my
nourishment for many weeks. I
could feel the hairs of my beard
growing tough, deeply rooted in
my skin. My cranium was still in
place and my eyes were dry. I
could see clearly the outline of
things: the undulating reeds, and
vapors rising over the marsh.
Only my hand appeared to me as
some hazy, moist whiteness,
rapping once, twice...one.
two...one, two...as though self-
impelled...on the leaf, round as a
dish. My ears buzzed again.
In order to look in I
closed my eyes; I saw
burning forests, braziers, empty
land, and heard distant cries.
When I opened my eyes again
everything was in order. The
reeds were there, and the water
into which my hips and belly
sank, detaching themselves once
and for all, swayed. For a
moment I identified myself with
a kite in flight, a body free of
weight, then I found I was still in
mist and water. My left arm had
detached itself as the remnants of
sensitivity and physical pain
were disappearing. I was there: a
pair of eyes, a cranium, a heart
slowing down. Water, mud must
have risen, for all of a sudden I
could not see snything; I did not
see my body, except for an
outline where my body must have
been. Fear had disappeared long
ago, so had desire. No, no, not
quite. Of course, I had failed, but
I would start over again. I will
start, everything will start, fi-om
birth, from the seed...I will start,
I said, closing my eyes. The mist
had lift^, and it was with the
blue vision of a slnr washed clean
that I left.
Robin Kaplan
N s