CONTENTS
1. RIVERSIDE DRIVE
2. OLD SAYBROOK
3. CENTRAL PARK WEST
WRITER'S BLOCK
RIVERSIDE DRIVE
Curtain rises on a gray day in New York. There might even be some hint of fog. The setting suggests a secluded spot by the embankment of the Hudson River where one can lean over the rail, watch the boats and see the New Jersey shoreline. Probably the West Seventies or Eighties.
Jim Swain, a writer, somewhere between forty and fifty, is waiting nervously, checking his watch, pacing, trying a number on his cellular phone to no response. He's obviously waiting to meet someone.
He rubs his hands together, checks for some drizzle and perhaps pulls his jacket up a bit as he feels at least a damp mist.
Presently, a large, homeless man, unshaven, a street dweller of approximately Jim's age, drifts on with a kind of eye on Jim. His name is Fred.
Fred eventually drifts closer to Jim, who has become increasingly aware of his presence and, while not exactly afraid, is wary of being in a desolate area with a large, unsavory type. Add to this that Jim wants his rendezvous with whomever he is waiting for to be very private. Finally, Fred engages him.
FRED
Rainy day.
(Jim nods, agreeing but not wanting to encourage conversation.)
A drizzle.
(Jim nods with a wan smile.)
Or should I say mizzle—mist and drizzle.
JIM
Um.
FRED
(pause)
Look at how fast the current's moving. You throw your cap into the river it'll be out in the open sea in twenty minutes.
JIM
(begrudging but polite)
Uh-huh …
FRED
(pause)
The Hudson River travels three hundred and fifteen miles beginning in the Adirondacks and emptying finally into the vast Atlantic Ocean.
JIM
Interesting.
FRED
No it's not. Ever wonder what it'd be like if the current ran in the opposite direction?
JIM
I haven't actually.
FRED
Chaos—the world would be out of sync. You throw your cap in it'd get carried up to Poughkeepsie rather than out to sea.
JIM
Yes … well …
FRED
Ever been to Poughkeepsie?
JIM
What?
FRED
Ever been to Poughkeepsie?
JIM
Me?
FRED
(looks around; they're alone)
Who else?
JIM
Why do you ask?
FRED
It's a simple question.
JIM
If I was in Poughkeepsie?
FRED
Were you?
JIM
(considers the question, decides he'll answer)
No, I haven't. OK?
FRED
So if you haven't, why are you so guilty?
JIM
Look, I'm a little preoccupied.
FRED
You don't come here often, do you?
JIM
Why?
FRED
Interesting.
JIM
What do you want? Are you going to hit me up for a touch? Here, here's a buck.
FRED
Hey—I only asked if you came here often.
JIM
(getting impatient)
No. I'm meeting someone. I have a lot on my mind.
FRED
What a day you picked.
JIM
I didn't know it would be this nasty.
FRED
Don't you watch the weather on TV? Christ, it seems that all they talk about is the goddamn weather. You really care on Riverside Drive if there are gusty winds in the Appalachian Valley? I mean, Jesus, gimme a break.
JIM
Well, it was nice talking to you.
FRED
Look—you can hardly see Jersey—there's such a fog.
JIM
It's OK. It's a blessing …
FRED
Right. I don't like it any better than you do.
JIM
Actually I'm joking—I'm being—
FRED
Frivolous? … Flippant?
JIM
Mildly sarcastic.
FRED
It's understandable.
JIM
It is?
FRED
Knowing how I feel about Montclair.
JIM
How would I know how you feel about Montclair?
FRED
I won't even bother to comment on that.
Er—yeah—well—I'd like to get back to my thoughts.
(Looks at watch.)
FRED
What time you expect her?
JIM
What are you talking about? Please leave me alone.
FRED
It's a free country. I can stay here and stare at New Jersey if I want.
JIM
Fine. But don't talk to me.
FRED
Don't answer.
JIM
(takes out cell phone)
Hey look, do you want me to call the police?
FRED
And tell them what?
JIM
That you're harassing me—aggressive panhandling.
FRED
Suppose I took that cell phone and tossed it right into the river. Twenty minutes it'd be carried off into the Atlantic. Of course, if the current ran the other way it'd wind up in Poughkeepsie. Do I mean Poughkeepsie or Tarrytown?
JIM
(a bit scared and angry)
I've been to Tarrytown in case you were going to ask me that next.
FRED
Where'd you stay there?
JIM
Pocantico Hills. I used to live there. Is that OK with you?
FRED
Now they call it Sleepy Hollow—sounds better for the tourists.
JIM
Uh-huh.
FRED
Cash in on all that Ichabod Crane crap. Rip Van Winkle. It's all packaging.
JIM
Look—I was deep in thought—
FRED
Hey—we're talking literature. You're a writer.
JIM
How do you know that?
FRED
C'mon—it's me.
JIM
Are you going to tell me you can tell because of my costume?
FRED
You're in costume?
JIM
It's the tweed jacket and the corduroys, right?
FRED
Jean-Paul Sartre said that after the age of thirty a man is responsible for his own face.
JIM
Camus said that.
FRED
Sartre.
JIM
Camus. Sartre said a man assumes the traits of his occupation— a waiter will gradually walk like a waiter—a bank clerk gestures like one—because they want to become things.
FRED
But you're not a thing.
JIM
I try not to be.
FRED
Because it's safe to be a thing—because things don't perish. Like The Wall —the men being executed want to become one with the wall they're put up in front of—to lose themselves in the stone—to become solid, permanent, to endure, in other words, to live, to be alive.
JIM
(considers him—then)
I'd love to discuss this with you another time.
FRED
Good, when?
JIM
&nbs
p; Right now I'm a little busy …
FRED
Well, when? You want to have lunch, I'm free all week.
JIM
I don't really know.
FRED
I wrote a funny thing based on Irving.
JIM
Irving who?
FRED
Washington Irving—remember? We had talked about Ichabod Crane.
JIM
I didn't know we were back on that.
FRED
The headless horseman is doomed to ride the countryside, holding his head under his arm. He was a German soldier killed in the war.
JIM
A Hessian.
FRED
So he rides right into an all-night drugstore and the head says—I have a terrible headache—and the druggist says, here, take these two Extra Strength Excedrin—and the body pays for them and helps the head take two. And then we cut to them later in the night, riding over a bridge, and the head says, I feel great—the headache is gone—I'm a new man—and then the body begins to get sad and thinks how unlucky he is because if he gets a backache, he can't find relief, not being attached to the head—
JIM
How can the body think anything?
FRED
Nobody's going to ask that question.
JIM
Why not? It's obvious.
FRED
That's why. That's why you're good at construction and dialogue but you lack inspiration. That's why you have to rely on me. Although it was a pretty sleazy thing to do.
JIM
Do what? What are you talking about?
FRED
I'm talking about money—some kind of payment and a credit of some sort.
JIM
Look, I'm meeting someone.
FRED
I know, I know, she's late.
JIM
You don't know and mind your own business.
FRED
JIM
What business?
FRED
In a minute you're gonna tell me this whole thing is Kafkaesque.
JIM
It's worse than Kafkaesque.
FRED
Really? Is it—postmodern?
JIM
What do you want?
FRED
A percentage and a credit on your movie. I realize it's too late for a credit on the prints that are already in distribution, but I should have a royalty on those and a cut and my name on all subsequent prints. Not fifty percent but something fair.
JIM
Are you nuts? Why should I give you anything?
FRED
Because I gave you the idea.
JIM
You gave me?
FRED
Well—you took it from me—
JIM
I took your idea?
FRED
And you sold your first film script—and the movie seems like a success and I want what's due me.
JIM
I didn't take your idea.
FRED
Jim, let's not play games.
JIM
Let's not you play games and don't call me Jim.
FRED
OK—James. Written by James L. Swain—but everyone calls you Jim.
JIM
How do you know what everyone calls me?
FRED
I see it, I hear it.
JIM
Where? What are you talking about?
FRED
Jim Swain—Central Park West and Seventy-eighth—BMW— license plate JIMBO ONE—talk about vanity plates … Jimmy Connors is Jimbo One, not you—and I've seen you trying to hit a tennis ball so don't try and con me.
JIM
Have you been following me?
FRED
That mousey brunette—that's Lola?
JIM
My wife's hardly mousey!
FRED
OK, “mousey” was the wrong word—she's—not rodentine exactly—
JIM
She's a beautiful woman.
FRED
It's all very subjective.
JIM
Who the hell do you think you are?
FRED
I'd never say it to her face.
JIM
I'm her husband and I love her.
FRED
Then why are you cheating?
JIM
What?
FRED
I think I know what the other one looks like. She's a little on the cheap side, no?
JIM
There is no other one.
FRED
Then who are you meeting?
JIM
None of your goddamn business, and if you don't get out of here I'm going to call the police.
FRED
That's the last thing you want if you're having a clandestine rendezvous.
JIM
How did you know my wife's name is Lola?
FRED
I've heard you call her Lola.
JIM
Have you been stalking me?
FRED
Do I look like a stalker?
JIM
Yes.
FRED
I'm a writer. At least I was years ago. Till my visions overtook me.
JIM
Well, your imagination is too creative for me.
FRED
I know. That's why you ripped me off.
JIM
I didn't steal your idea.
FRED
Not just my idea. It was autobiographical. So in a way you stole my life.
JIM
If there were any similarities between my film and your life, I assure you, they're coincidental.
FRED
I'm not the kind of guy who sues. Some people are litigationprone.
(with some suggestion of menace)
I like to settle between the parties.
JIM
How did I take your idea?
FRED
You overheard me tell the plot.
JIM
To who? Where?
FRED
Central Park.
JIM
I heard you in Central Park?
FRED
That's right.
JIM
To who? When?
FRED
To John.
JIM
Who?
FRED
John.
JIM
John who?
FRED
Big John.
JIM
Who?
FRED
Big John.
JIM
Who the hell is Big John?
FRED
I don't know—he's a homeless guy. Was. I heard he got his throat cut in a shelter.
JIM
You told some tale to a homeless man and you're saying I overheard you?
FRED
And used it.
JIM
I never saw you in my life.
FRED
Christ, I've been stalking you for months.
JIM
Stalking me?
FRED
And I know everything about you but you never even noticed me. And I'm not a little guy. I'm big. I could probably snap your neck in half with one hand.
JIM
(nervous)
Look—whoever you are, I promise—
FRED
The name's Fred. Fred Savage. Good name for a writer, isn't it? For Best Original Screenplay, the envelope please—and the winners are Frederick R. Savage and James L. Swain for The Journey.
JIM
I wrote The Journey. And it was my idea.
FRED
Jim, you overheard me telling it to John Kelly. Poor John. He was walking on York Avenue and they were hoisting a piano and the rope came undone—God, it was awful …
&n
bsp; JIM
You said he was knifed at a shelter.
FRED
Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
JIM
Look, Fred—I never stole anybody's idea. First, I don't need to because I have my own ideas, and second, I wouldn't even if I ran dry, OK?
FRED
But the story's all there. My breakdown, the straitjacket, my last-minute panic—the rubber between my teeth, then the electric shocks—my God—of course I was violent—
JIM
You're violent?
FRED
In and out.
JIM
Look, I'm starting to get a little alarmed.
FRED
Don't worry, she'll be here.
JIM
Over you, not her. OK—if you think you're a writer—
FRED
I said years ago—before my collapse—before all that unpleasantness occurred—I wrote for an agency.
JIM
Unpleasantness?
FRED
It's morbid, I don't want to relive it.
JIM
What kind of an agency?
FRED
An ad agency. I wrote commercials. Like that idea for the Extra Strength Excedrin one. It didn't fly. We ran it up the flagpole but it just didn't fly. Too Cartesian.
JIM
And you became—unhinged.
FRED
Not over that. Who cares that they reject my idea? Those gray flannel philistines. No, my problem arose from other sources.
JIM
Like what?
FRED
Like small cadres of men who had banded together to form a conspiratorial network—a network dedicated to my undoing, to my humiliation, to my defeat both physical and mental. A network so vast and complex that to this day it employs undercover agents in organizations as diverse as the CIA and the Cuban underground. Forces so malevolent that they cost me my job, my marriage, and what little bank account I had left. They trailed me, tapped my phone, and communicated in code with my psychiatrist by sending electrical signals from the top of the Empire State Building, through my inner ear, directly to his rubber raft at Martha's Vineyard. So don't give me your goddamn sob stories and deal with me like a mensch!
JIM
I'm frightened, Fred—I gotta level with you. I want to do the right thing by you—
FRED
Then do it. There's no need to be scared. I haven't been off my medicine long enough to lose control—at least I don't think I have—
JIM
What do you take?
FRED
A number of antipsychotic mixtures.
JIM
A cocktail.
FRED
Except I don't drink it out of a stemmed glass.
JIM
But you can't just go off those things—
FRED
I'm fine, I'm fine. Don't start accusing me like the others.
JIM
No, I'm not—
FRED
Let's talk turkey.
JIM
I had intended to prove to you logically I couldn't have taken your idea—
FRED
My life, my life—you stole my life.
JIM