Tell Me You Love Him

(A two-act play.)

 CHARACTERS

Linda: A woman in her mid-forties. She once was a beauty but her body is marked by the ravages of childbearing and years of frustration—professional, sexual, perhaps also spiritual.

Roger: Linda’s husband, also in his mid-forties. Roger is tall, portly and carries himself with a slightly self-important air.

TIME

1972

ACT 1

SCENE

The bedroom of Linda and Roger’s suburban, split-level ranch. A suitcase is open on the bed. Linda is furiously rummaging through her closet and dresser for essentials, which she hurls into the maw of the suitcase. Roger follows her pitifully, trying to calm her down, trying to appeal to her in some way.

Linda: I’m going to destroy you.

Roger: How can you… Jesus. Linda.

Linda: I swear to God I’m going to get a lawyer and fucking destroy you, Roger.

Roger [imploringly]: Linda, Linda, Linda! Sweetheart. Linda.

Linda: Mark. My. Words.

Roger: Sweetie, sweetheart. Don’t.

Linda: I’m taking the house. I’m taking the other house. I’m taking the kids.

[Roger shakes his head in sorrow and frustration.]

Linda: I want the American Express. I want the Diners Club. I am going to take everything and destroy you. I hate you.

Roger: Stop. Please. Quiet. Stop.

[Linda pauses outside the closet, a loosely folded dress in her arms, and looks at Roger. A trace of a smile crosses her mouth.]

Linda: I always thought you were a faggot. [She turns around again and continues gathering clothes.]

Roger: Linda!

Linda: I should know.

Roger [angry now, gesticulating]: Just because I’m not the one who’s out there cheating on you! Fucking! Fucking other men!

Linda [as she bends down to pick up some shoes, not even bothering to turn to him]: You’d like to fuck another man.

Roger: Fuck you! What the fuck is wrong with you?

Linda: Faggot. I’m leaving you. [In a sing-songy voice] At. Once.

Roger: Linda. Linda, Linda!

Linda: I swear I will destroy you and leave you broke. And sad.

Roger: What did I do to you for Christ’s sake?!

Linda: If you have to ask me a question like that after all these years, well—

Roger: Yeah! That’s a fucking perfectly reasonable quest—

Linda [in a sighing tone]: Then I don’t know. Then I don’t know what to tell you, Roger.

Roger: Tell me something!

Linda: What do you want me to tell you.

Roger: Why!

Linda: Why what, Roger?

Roger: Why are you leaving? Honey?

Linda: You know why.

Roger: I should be the one to leave!

Linda: Then fucking leave.

Roger [enumerating with his fingers]: You fuck Sam Barnes. You fuck Kyle Gray. You fuck Aaron Wyatt! Aaron Wyatt!

Linda: So what?

Roger [shouting, breathless]: A man I play tennis with!

[Linda stares at Roger for few moments. She almost flashes a look of pity, but just as soon her face hardens again.]

Linda: You will never, ever, get it, Roger.

Roger: Get what?!

[Linda shrugs and continues packing.]

Roger [defiantly]: I could have fucked some women!

Linda [chuckling, bitterly sarcastically]: Right!

Roger: I could have fucked women! I could have fucked students!

Linda: Well you should’ve fucked ‘em then.

Roger [imploringly]: What the hell kind of thing to say is that? To say to your husband.

Linda: Not for long.

Roger: Not for long!

Linda: I'm going to divorce you, Roger.

Roger: Sweetie.

Linda: I'm going to divorce you within an inch of your life.

Roger: Honey. I don't want to fuck my students.

Linda: Not the female ones maybe.

Roger [livid]: I don’t want to fuck my students!

Linda: Don't flatter yourself, Roger. They don't want your tired, old cock. They don't want that inside of them.

Roger: Jesus, Linda.

Linda: Trust me.

Roger [still hot]: Sharon Lindstrom flirts with me in my office. I could FUCK her!

Linda [with a derisive guffaw]: Oh Miss New Hampshire? Miss New Hampshire runner up, 1969? In your dreams, mister!

Roger: I don't even want to fuck her!

Linda: No shit, Sherlock.

Roger [trembling with rage]: Stop it, Linda. Drop it. Stop it.

Linda [insouciantly]: Roger, I have long suspected that you're a homosexual. Those are the facts.

Roger [trying hard to compose himself]: If I were, how could I love you so much?

Linda: Beats the hell out of me.

Roger [screaming]: What’s the matter with you?! What happened to you?!

[Linda has her back to Roger and gives no reaction whatsoever. Roger paces, puts his hands on his hips and off them again, trying to calm down.]

Roger: I'm going to marry Susan Perotti.

Linda [matter-of-factly, surprisingly unsarcastic this time]: Roger, honestly. I talk to Susan. She's my friend.

Roger: I'm going to fuck her and I'm going to marry her!

[There is a pause, almost as though Linda did not hear Roger.]

Linda: Whatever floats your boat.

Roger: I could!

Linda: No you couldn't. You can't. And you won't.

Roger [suddenly grabbing Linda’s arm]: Do you love him?!

Linda [trying to jerk away]: Let go of me!

Roger: Do you LOVE HIM?!

Linda: What do you think?!

Roger: Do you LOVE him?

[Linda closes her eyes. Her body deflates slightly. She seems like she’s on the verge of either tears or laughter.]

Linda: I'm very fond of him.

[Roger lets go of her arm and turns away.]

Roger: Do you love me?

Linda: I'll do you one better: I hate you.

Roger: Come on. Come on now. That's not true.

Linda: Suit yourself.

Roger: Do you love me?

Linda: I fucking hate you.

[A few seconds pass. Linda finishes packing and zips up her suitcase.]

Roger: Tell me you love him.

Linda [softly]: I need to get to the airport.

Roger: Tell me you love him.

Linda: I'm very fond of him. I need to get to the airport.

Roger: Tell me you love him.

Linda: Roger, stop being a baby. I need to get to the airport.

Roger: We're not going anywhere until you tell me you love him.

Linda [with pointed perfunctoriness]: I love him. Let's go.

[Linda walks out the bedroom door. Roger waits for a second, appearing a bit helpless, then picks up her suitcase and follows her.]

[Curtain.]

ACT 2

SCENE

Same as Act 1.

[Roger and Linda reenter the bedroom. Roger places the suitcase back on the bed, where it was before. Linda proceeds to unpack as Roger sits on the edge of the bed and slowly takes off his shoes and socks. About a minute passes.]

Linda: You hungry?

Roger: No. Yeah. A little bit, yeah.

Linda: Lemme unpack and I can fry us some eggs.

Roger [lying back on the bed wearily]: Sure. Great. Thank you, sweetheart. That'd be great.

[Another minute or so passes as Linda finishes unpacking. When she’s done she places her suitcase on the floor by the wall and sits on the edge of the bed to remove her shoes.]

Roger [slightly nervously]: You gonna put away your suitcase?

Linda [placing one hand up to Roger in a “pushing back” gesture]: I’ll put it away tomorrow, honey.

Roger [with slightly exaggerated deference]: OK! OK, OK, OK.

[A few seconds pass.]

Linda: Carson's on.

Roger: What?

Linda: Carson's on?

Roger: Oh sure. Yeah.

[Roger takes the remote control from his bedside table and turns on the TV. The opening theme of the “Tonight Show” can be heard. Roger stares dully at the screen.]

Linda: OK. Eggs. Toast?

Roger: Yeah sweetie. That's great.

Linda: Jam on one piece or jam on both pieces?

Roger: Jam on one piece.

Linda: OK—

Roger: No, jam on both pieces.

Linda: OK. Raspberry or peach?

Roger [after a beat]: Peach.

Linda: OK.

[Linda turns toward the door and begins to move away when Roger stops her, putting his hand on her arm.]

Roger: Kiss?

[Roger and Linda kiss lightly, dispassionately. Linda exits. Roger looks back toward the TV as Johnny Carson continues his monologue. A few seconds pass with Roger watching the show, apparently absorbed by it.]

[Curtain.]

TROOPS

I thought about it. It actually wasn't

TROOPS

wonderful coaches that Patty learned discipline

I waded out into the surf, up to my ankles, to my knees. It went on for a long ways without getting too much deeper. Finally I was up to my hips and I dove in, reemerged, and swam frantically, trying not to touch the bottom, wanting to really swim, at least a little while. I lifted my chin up with the swells, aware all the while of the scary power of the ocean. I swam out a little more and treaded water, finding that I could barely touch the sand. I swam along the shore, turned around and swam the other way, and then turned in. When I put my foot down again I felt an angry stab from a sentient thing, something trying to save its life. I recoiled and swam away fast, back to the beach, and limped up on a little clot of blood and sand.

TROOPS

Burke walked quietly awhile in the sun

The Pickpocketers

Twice in France they tried to pickpocket me. The first time, I was walking up the metro steps in Paris. I must have been carrying Jackie in her stroller, holding up the handles as Sara held the front. I felt something on my ass. A feathery, faint sensation I might have ignored had it been momentary. But it persisted, deliberately, for two seconds or so, and I understood. I swung my arm around behind me, feeling nothing. I patted my pocket, felt my wallet, and looked for the thief. There were two people, I think, one to either side, a woman to the right, a man to the left—I think. They appeared absolutely oblivious. Neither looked up at me. Neither betrayed a bit of guilt. Was the man reading a folded-up newspaper? I don’t know. It couldn’t have been either of them—could it? Was the criminal somehow among the two or three others, further down the stairs? Or had he disappeared completely?

The second time, we were walking up the streets of Nice to the train station, hurrying for our train back to Cannes. I was carrying Jackie. There it was again, that telltale, wispy feeling. I turned around and pushed my wallet back into my pocket. Behind me were two very young boys, maybe 11 or 12. I lifted my right hand, Jackie still cradled in my other arm, and prepared to slap one of them—the one to my right, closest to me, who evidently had done it—across the face. He lifted his arms above his head and mumbled a vague plea: M’sieur… non... His face bore a mixture of insolence and shame, the Fallen Angel’s grimace. I hesitated. I did not strike him.

“Salaud!” I yelled. I turned back around and they ran away.

TROOPS

Chief Larry returned to his store and fell into a severe depression.

Something Bad Happened

We were turning onto the rue Saint-Honoré, after spending the afternoon in the Tuileries riding the ferris wheel and the merry-go-round and the little roller coaster. It was beginning to get a little dark. We’d watched a police car scream up the narrow street we’d just been on. Now I could see, down the block, across the street, that something bad happened. Some people, in a semicircle, were staring gravely down at something—someone—concealed behind parked cars. Even a few passersby on our side of the street had stopped to stare. The cop car was double parked nearby. In the distance we heard the siren of another approaching. I wheeled the stroller around and we decided to take the long way home.

What’s Going to Happen Now?

9/11/13. What’s going to happen now? 11/13/15? 13/15/17?

Home Exchange

When you live for a little while in someone else’s home, you think: how can they live like this? With the plates and bowls piled up together and a dozen pots but a single lid, and the misshapen cheese knife, and the bric-a-brac drawer with the rubber bands and the roll of freezer bags and one cardboard-and-plastic package, rent open, contents gone. There’s an old jam jar on the counter with what appears to be a thin layer of little pink plastic flower petals at the bottom. There’s a shaker bottle of thyme right beside the stove, as though it’s their favorite spice: does everything get thyme? Steak and thyme, rice and thyme, eggs and thyme. The dishwasher gloves are out of reach.

In the bathroom the soap is flavored with milk and honey. The linen closet’s in the study. In the master bedroom, one side has a table and the other doesn’t. Who decides to live this life?

There’s a tiny stereo in the living room; the speakers, not far apart, point nowhere in particular. There are CDs piled up on a shelf in another room, unalphabetized—REM, Dire Straits, Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. Tracy Chapman. Bob Marley. Who are these people?

The answer of course is they are us. We live like this. We’re now momentarily caught in a mirror world, and the odder it seems the more certain we can be that the mirror is true.

The corners of the streets in Paris are marked with a variety of graffiti tags, glyphs and icons, some affixed, some stenciled, some painted freehand. They look like an array of medals on a military man, or more likely an arrangement of runes. There’s a deliberate quality to them, as though this illicit urban project, begun in a frenzy of outrage and audacity forty years ago, had now settled into some calm, methodical phase 2.

We walked along the canal and two painters were creating a vast mural, the mist from their spray cans blowing into the faces of dogs and babies, wherever the wind might carry it.

The Enterprise - 47

I plunged into meaningless pursuits, idle amusements, intemperance. Accompanied by Sean most nights. Pool games, foosball games. Whisky, whisky, whisky. There was a video game, a golf game. Golden Tee. You swung the club by spinning the top of a sphere whose crown protruded from the console. If you jabbed at it, fast, you could get a good drive going, four hundred yards or so, over the pixel trees and water hazard. You’d be rewarded with a crease of torn flesh at the base of your palm. And the chance to putt for eagle.

What were we doing?

There was a place we went on the Upper East, frequented by our friend Ron. Nice guy. Ingenuous. Devastating foosball player. He could pass the ball from his midfielders to his forwards, dribble back and forth between adjacent players—even wing to wing, flipping the center up as the ball whizzed by. He could tip, nudge, cajole the ball into control. It seemed to be magnetically attracted to the little stub at the bottom of each man that counted for feet. His signature shot was a deception: he’d jerk the player back and forth, wind him up like he was about to slam it, really slam it this time; he’d watch you with a gaping smile as you made your goalie wide by thrusting him back and forth maniacally. Then he’d tip the ball ever so lightly so it rolled inoffensively toward the goal. It seemed not to have enough momentum to get there. But it did, and you were so nervous and worried and tense with your goalie that you’d let it slip by and hit the bottom of the goalmouth with a derisive, ambivalent clunk. Nothing was more humiliating.

Sometimes Ron and I would team up and play against a portly, middle-aged Indian man named Raj. Sometimes he’d play by himself, sometimes he’d team up with whoever else was around. It didn’t matter. Raj was the best foosball player I’ve ever seen. He’d work the ball up to his center forward and wait there with it, making the tiny statue tremble as though in anticipation, savoring the moment. He’d take a few fake swipes on either side of the ball—or sometimes he wouldn’t. He maintained a light, vaguely taunting banter the whole time. I’d be moving the goalie back and forth as fast as possible to create a blurry barrier, giving myself, I thought, a small statistical chance of stopping the ball. When it came all you knew was the sound it made at the back of the metal goal, an angry crack like a gunshot. He never missed. When the game was over he’d walk away with his Stoli Vanilla and Coke as I wiped my sweaty palms off on my jeans.

We usually wound up at the Irish place on Third. It had a long bar on the left and two pool tables in the back, in a space ringed with Guinness mirrors and elevated flatscreens perpetually showing ESPN. It was the place to be if you were a guy who wasn’t getting laid. The ceiling was covered in a giant tangle of white Christmas lights, enmeshed in some sort of twine. A starrier sky. It did impart a bit of cheer.

I played great for a few weeks. As though my heartbreak had unlocked something new and great within me, something magnificent, and that new, great thing was very specific: it was the ability to lean over a felted table, to aim a stick at a ball, to knock it into another ball so that the second ball would fall into the pocket of my choosing. And to do it many times again. To do it drunk.

What a pleasure it was to destroy other men. To see them approach confidently, maybe even arrogantly. Eager to impress their dates, or girlfriends, or each other. We’d all introduce ourselves and shake hands at the outset. Trying hard to be polite. But I muttered to myself as I went to rack ‘em up. Douchebags.

Sometimes I’d feel guilty, if they were nice enough. For wanting to destroy them. Usually they were nice enough.

Some were nice enough, some were cunts. Telling me how to rack. I know how to rack. Trying to play that head game. I know you.

A guy came in one night with his cue stick from home. Never, ever bring in your cue stick from home. Not the one your girlfriend got you for your birthday, not the one your mom got you. Not the one got passed down from your grandpa. Not that one or any other one, not ever. Don’t bring in your cue from home. Not unless you’re the Black Widow or Minnesota Fats.

He took the navy-blue case out of its protective, zippered nylon bag and laid it on the table. Unbuckled one, two, three little silver buckles. There it lay in two pieces, cradled in velour. He lifted them out, screwed them together, and held the polished, filigreed object aloft a moment, ostensibly to verify that it was true but really to make us look at it in the fake starshine. He lost.

Some were nice enough. A tall, swarthy guy with a moustache, maybe from Egypt or Iran. I was on a run, then I missed and sat back down. Reached up to the shelf along the wall. The feeling of the little glass in my hand, ice chips swimming in the amber fluid. I took a good, cold sip, letting the rubber end of the stick bounce a little on the floor. The guy’s partner missed, then Sean missed, then it was me again. I lined up a long shot. Made it.

The guy got up and approached me with a look of concern.

“That was my ball,” he declared.

“Your ball?” I shouted. “No. That was mine.”

I made another shot and strode around the table, workmanlike, looking for the next problem to solve. What the fuck was wrong with this fucking guy?

“No, no, no, no,” the man protested. “That was my ball.”

“No way it was your ball.” I leaned across the table to line up another one. Just then Sean walked up and whispered in my ear.

“That was his ball.”

“What?”

“That was his ball,” repeated Sean. “It wasn’t our ball.”

I took my shot and missed. Rattled. Angry. Confused.

“What are we? Stripes?”

“We’re solids. Solids, solids, solids.”

“I hit his ball?”

“I think you did, dude.”

I made some words and gestures of apology and invited the man back to the table. He stood now, chalking his cue, peering at the remains of my disordered efforts. Everything was different now. Everything but the feeling of the little glass in my hand.

Overheard at work, a woman’s voice emanating from the open door of a conference room: “I’m having a hard time opening my mind to what this could be if it isn’t this.”

The F train got hung up at Carroll Street for some reason, some train stuck up ahead or something. I kept watching the woman sitting across the way from me, nodding in and out of sleep.

The conductor made some announcement how this was a signal problem, or the emergency brake on the track was on. I don’t know. Nothing he could do. The doors were open; every now and then some fool would hustle in, thinking how lucky they were to catch the train. Then stand around and look at us. Realize we’re going nowhere.

A woman ran down the platform, yelling and screaming. She seemed to be wearing very little, maybe a bikini and a T-shirt, flip-flops. No one could tell what she was saying. She ran past and everyone looked up and looked out the window at the space she’d run through, as though that would tell us what the hell was going on.

We got stuck again between Smith-9th Streets and 4th Ave. Perched way up high, in the open, with the heatwave sun going down at last. And then we started to roll for good.

New York's Proudest

If you look up the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority Police it says they’re New York’s Proudest. But that’s bullshit. Bartenders are New York’s proudest motherfuckers.

Whenever a bartender doesn’t know how to make a drink, this is what he says: “It’s been a long time since I’ve made one of those.” And he doesn’t ask you how to make it. He waits for you to tell him, or to order something else. And as you’re telling him, he pretends to remember.

Last night I drank with Jim, in Midtown, at the bar of a restaurant I think I’d been to many years ago, with Aimee. The food back then was terrible—overpriced, butter-saturated. This time the drinks, at least, were fine. Jimmy ordered a negroni and since I’d been drinking scotch at a work party all afternoon, I ordered a Rob Roy.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve made one of those,” the bartender said uncertainly.

“It’s scotch—”

“Scotch, triple sec...”

“No,” I said. “Scotch, sweet vermouth.”

“Right! Right.”

“And a dash of bitters.”

There are five plastic forks arrayed on my desk at work: one tan, one white, one gray, two clear.

The sun was angry today on Third Ave. There seemed to be pockets of extreme heat, as though it emanated from springs in the atmosphere.

Baseball fans in town for the All-Star Game stake out the hotel, next to my work, where the players stay. There’s a little barrier on the sidewalk, with a cop at one end. Dutifully, unthinkingly, the fans form a little line along it. Maybe twenty people or so, mostly grownups, some kids. They peer at the revolving doors, waiting for someone to emerge. Taxis and limos pull into the semicircle and they crane their necks: Who’s that? Nobody? Nobody. For hours, nothing. Nothing. Some leave. Others drift by to take up the vigil. Something’s bound to happen if they wait. But how long?

Overheard on the corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue this morning, between an older man and a teenage boy:

"How often does she call you?"

"Not that often. My dad calls more."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. But he's really paranoid."

"Really? About what?"

"About everything! You name it."

At the base of the long escalator into the Grand Central 7 stop there was a fat, middle aged lady, sitting on the cement. Legs out. Whimpering softly. She held up her hand as a trickle of blood flowed from her palm. A small group of good Samaritans stood by, vaguely tending to her. We all turned our heads toward the little scene as we disembarked. Wondering what to do. Hoping it was nothing. Then, on the stairs to the platform, a police officer climbed against the rush-hour stream to find her.

TROOPS

slapping the tree trunk with frustration