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Updated 7/31/03

MONOLOGS FOR OLDER WOMEN (CONT'D)

(The times given
are informed guesses)

#6 (1:15 min.)

(Vito Vitale's Master Bedroom in a NYC East Fifties Brownstone, First Saturday in May, 1973. A betrothal party is in progress: LAURIE VITALE, Vito's third wife, is a slim, attractive 60-ish woman, with an easy manner and style. She has just astonished her son's fiance by remarking that she remembers the first time she saw her husband)

LAURIE: Oh, yes, Miss Delbert, I do indeed remember the first time I ever saw my husband. I auditioned for him. Eight bars and he stopped me. (self-mockery) I was a singer. (laughs) In the choir of The Farmdale New Hampshire Congregational Church. Oh, I remember the day. That was some day. August 22nd, 1933. Tuesday. I remember the day of the week, the hour of the day, the minute of the hour: (beat: relishing the remembered drama, she paints the scene) I have struck out all the way down and across 52nd Street - "Swing Alley" it's called. Leon and Eddie's, Famous Door, Three Deuces, Tony's. Heat stinking up the fronts of the clubs - spilled booze and dead cigar butts. One face after another slamming closed in front of me - all the way down the block. Never mind getting stopped, I don't even get started: We wanted a singer, it wouldn't be you, sister. (beat) I come out of Tony's - it's going to be dark soon, I haven't eaten in two days. Across the street, last on the block - is Vito's Place. I feel the sweat plastering my dress to my backside, my legs, my belly - (frank) - By the time I get to Vito's Place, I'm auditioning everything. (shrugs) Vito's Place wasn't exactly The Farmdale Congregational Church. Like I said, eight bars and he stopped me. (beat) But -- I did get a chance to use my voice --- as cigarette girl. (smiles) And, as matters turned out, being Mrs. Vitale wasn't such a bad job, either.

#7 (1:30 min.)

(Vito Vitale's Master Bedroom in a NYC East Fifties Brownstone, First Saturday In May, 1973. A betrothal party is in progress. MILLIE VITALE, English-born, 49-50, Mano Vitale's wife, has never fully recovered from the death of her only son in war maneuvers. Tipsy from champagne, she has just spilled some on one of the guests, and this propels her into a ritual-type, often indulged, but none the less heartfelt, litany)

MILLIE: Oh, no, no, no, no! Oh, god, oh, god - champagne all over your dress -- I'm so sorry, Miss Delbert -- I never can do anything right. Not anymore. Not since - - - my son. He - was killed, you know. Tony. (wails) He was killed. The Army said it was an accident. (beat) A mortar shell. Not Vietnam. Kentucky. It blew up in Kentucky. Testing weapons, the Army said. Our only child. In Kentucky. (beat) I've never been to Kentucky. (beat) Tony was 20. His name was Antonio Eden Vitale. Antonio for Mano's greatgrandfather. (smiles) Eden, to make me feel at home - I was born in London. (beat) That's where I met Mano - - in the crypt of St. Mary's Islington - (smiles again) - our parish church ... during an air raid. (her eyes wander into a farther past) Air raids ... our house ... bombed out. Nothing left - but a piece of wall - holding part of the window frame in our sitting room - (eyes return to now) - I'm sorry about your dress. I'll pay for it. Just send me the bill and - and - Oh, god, god - (she starts off) In Kentucky, they said. A mortar shell. It blew up in Kentucky. Testing weapons, the Army said. Our only child ... (she is Off)

#8 (2:30 min.)

(Summer, 1970. The Morgan Yard in a Missouri Ozark Mountain-Top family graveyard. CARRIE MORGAN, a widow in her early 60's, confides to Davey, her buried husband, and her dead children, what she has just learned: that the government plans to move them all from this private burying ground to another place, so that the Yard can be annexed to The Indian Landing Arms Depot)

CARRIE: (calls to departing Mayor) You just go back, Mister Mayor, an' tell the Army that orders or no orders, they'd best think things over fore they come runnin up here to where they ain't wanted. (stares at grave) They think they can come it over me cause I'm a woman. (calls) Tell 'em I can shoot the eye out'n a fly at 80 yards, an I'll shoot on sight! (to husband's grave) They can call in the whole Army from Fort Leonard Wood, Davey. They can march 'em all down from Jefferson Barracks. I ain't goin to let nobuddy dig up the family an move us. Not less'n they kill me first. (embarrassed at being so outspoken) Tch, tch, them weeds! (kneels, picks up grass shears and begins to "redd up" grave) No, sir. Not less'n they kill me first. (blinks back tears) More'n 40 years this has been the place I knowed I was goin to lay when I got my Call to Come Up Higher. (sits back on heels) January 22nd, it was ... 19 an 26 ... I was just up an around after birthin Jincy ... when your Daddy come into the ole house - we was still up on the farm, then -- an he said,"Bundle yourselfs up good - the young'un, too. Cause I want to show you somethin." He had Cora, our ole piebald mare already hitched up to the sled. An he packed us in good under the bearskin, an carried us all three out here to the buryin yard. He led us down the slope to where I am now. He said, "With that young'un, you're a family, Davey. You got to have a place where you know you're all goin to rest together, someday - a place that's yours till the Last Trumpet." That's what he said - "Till the Last Trumpet." Lord, I can still see him sayin' it. "They's room in this plot for 10," he said. An he pointed right there where you are. "That's room for you 3, an 7 more young'uns." He looked at me, then - his eyes snappin an laughin real wicked. "You come up with more'n that, Carrie," he said, "an we'll see what we can do." (the pleasure in her face is new-minted) That was your Daddy's way a sayin I was really a Morgan, now. Not that they was anythin wrong with bein a McCrossen, but I had give up my own name an I hadn't got full broke to "Morgan", yet. I was just 2 days shy a bein 17 that day he give us this lot, you remember, Davey. So when he said that, I come as proud as I thought I had a right to be. (beat) An I've knowed ever since, that when my Call come from the Lord, my place was goin to be right here beside you - like your Daddy said - "Till the Last Trumpet." So I ain't goin to let nobuddy dig up the family an move us. Not less'n they kill me first. (leans forward and resumes "redding up" the grave)

#9 (2:30 min.)

(Summer, 1970. The Morgan Yard - a Missouri Ozark Mountain-Top family graveyard. CARRIE MORGAN, a widow in her early 60's, tells her grandson, Jess, how she got to be a sharpshooter)

CARRIE: How'd I get to shoot so straight? ... Well, now -- when I was a girl - (cocks her head at him) - I wasn't always a little ole lady, you know. Well, when I was a girl, we didn't have no inside plumbin. Had to go to the backhouse. Now out on the farm where we was at it was pretty wild - bounty on pumas, an timber wolves, big grey things they was. An bobcats - they was the worst. They'd wait up in a tree an come down on your head, spittin an snarlin an clawin as they come. So everbuddy took a gun when they went out back for a visit. But not your Great Aint Elvira. Elvira Minnith, she was, fore she married your Uncle Dan. Her folks was Flat-Land people pushed up into the hollers by floods along the Dry Fork River. Pretty little thing, Elvira was. But Lord, she allus had to put on airs, an butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. (beat) Well, Elvira had come to our house for a stay, an her first night, my big brother Dan - that's your Great Uncle Dan McCrossen that later married Elvira - he warned us all about this mean ole bobcat. Actual it turned out to be a Canadian Lynx driv south by scarce game that year. Anyhow, your Uncle Dan tole us females, try to get a man to go with you fore you go out at night, but if you caint wait, for the Lord's sake, take a gun. But your Aint Elvira had her cap set for Dan. So she tried to make out she was above nature. Well, sir, the poor thing waited till everbuddy had got snugged down for the night, an then she sneaked out to visit the backhouse. Suddenly there was this awful scream - like Death comin to warn us all of Judgment - that was the bobcat landin. Then next there was this second scream - that was Elvira bein landed on. Next thing I knowed - (her face is a battlefield, as she struggles with concern and ribald laughter at Elvira's long-ago comeuppance) - the poor woman comes runnin in, the bobcat caught on her head like a coonskin cap - (she acts it out with relish) - an he was clawin an clawin that poor thing's face to a fare-thee-well. (the drama of it is full on her) Well, sir, suddenly there we all was, face to face - the men, the women, us kids -- an Elvira an the bobcat - an I don't know which was the most froze at the sight. The cat was the first to gain his wits. With one more scream he was off an gone. An poor Elvira Minnith - - Lord but her face was a mess - bore the mark a the cat all the rest of her days. (she can see Elvira now, and after all the years is still having trouble repressing laughter at the poor woman's misfortune) Howsomever! That's when I decided I wasn't goin to let no cat come it over me - nor have to wait on a man to take me to my comfort. So I practiced with ever shootin iron I could lay hand to. An pistol or rifle, I can take the left eye outen a fly at 80 yards, if I do say so myself, as shouldn't.

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