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Updated 7/31/03

MONOLOGS FOR OLDER MEN (CONT'D)

(The times given
are informed guesses)

#6 (1:55 min.)

(Budapest, Winter, 1955, Office of SANDOR KARACS, 40, Minister Of Police. At the moment he is in a delicate situation: Central Europe is in the grip of the worst cold in more than a century, the Danube has flooded the coal mines, Malenkov, the Soviet Prime Minister, has been suddenly deposed, and a Soviet 3-Star General has arrived in Budapest, unannounced)

SANDOR: (reads teletype page: to secretary) Malenkov has been ousted, a Soviet general visits us unannounced, and we have a twenty degree drop in the mercury before nightfall. (dry) That will not improve the temper of the people, will it, Miss Kadar? The coldest winter on record and Father Danube has to flood our coal mines! (beat) Make a note for Bela: None of his men is to disturb the Black Market in Karloti Street. Those without coal will need anything they can find to help them last out the night. (fights despair) It's already below freezing - even if the forecaster were wrong by fifty per cent, which he is not, the result would be the same - (not really to her) So impersonal, the weather - today a weight of cold air invades us. Like a foreign army seeking out targets at random. And tomorrow -- someone's wife, father, child, is no longer with us. (beat) Shall I make you a joke, Miss Kadar? In a world where the only Constant is Scarcity, life becomes a matter of -- degree. (beat) Ask the Minister of Supply whether he has enough coffins on hand. Let me know immediately if he hasn't - with a Soviet General paying us a surprise visit we don't want rioting in our streets, do we? (sighs) Do you know why I am here, Miss Kadar. When I was at the university, I made a discovery in history class one day. The professor was praising our brilliance in battle - I forget which one of the hundreds of battles in which we Hungarians have been brilliant - and suddenly I saw that I had been born into a country where the strengths of larger, more powerful countries than ours always overlap. That by accident of geography it didn't matter how brave Hungarians might be. Or how many battles we might win. What had been true for a thousand years would continue to be true: we would always be, at best, an enclave surrounded by a superior power; at worst, Occupied. At that moment, I decided to become a policeman. Because whatever the Ruling Power might be, one thing was certain - it would have to be Policed.

#7 (1:25 min.)

(A Remembered Street in Budapest, the Night of Feb. 8, 1955: DOCTOR JUSTUS [pronounced "Yoush-Tush"], 55-65, recalls for the Audience his house-calls in midst of a flu epidemic on that night)

DOCTOR: Even the memory of the wind of the night of February 8, 1955, chills me. The Minister of Police would say it was the change in weather which kept me out in its night-long cold. My diary says it was the influenza. This influenza was sweeping across all Europe like a judgment. As though the fierce god of Sinai was saying to the proud and booted men who had trampled two generations of my people into our fields - "You have broken my Commandments. Therefore shall I visit Death and Confusion upon you." (beat) There are those who would tell us that what we must give our children is a better future. But I sometimes wonder about the past we leave our children. What if that past is all ugliness, all hate - a dark and bitter path - lit only by the Iron Lamps of Dogma. (his anger surfacing) Do not argue with me about this. I have tended too long those who have been ravaged by Dogma's wars, hot and cold. Have you ever tried to aid a child burned by a flame thrower - or one whose guts are disintegrating from chronic privation! Well, I have, and let me tell you - I have never found a Creed worthy of the brutality which creeds impose upon their enemies - and their friends.

#8 (2:10 min.)

(The Municipal Building NYC, the Morning Of The Day "The System" Collapses - and The Bureaucrats, as the only ones possessing any kind of organization - and funding, take over. Citizens wanting services have come to the Municipal Building and have been been herded into a "Processing Line". One of them, SAMUEL PRING mid-60's, a man of refined sensibilities - has just been yelled at by the young man in line behind him)

PRING: No, no, no, young man! (wails to world-at-large) Why must it always turn out this way - it always turns out this way, someone screaming at me! (outraged indignation) Every day I go out into the world expecting it to be different, and I turn into a Walking Target - a Designated Victim. What happened? - I was born unique - (realization) - I had forgotten that: I was born unique! (discovery) Yes! This is my moment! (to his fellow Members Of The Line) Listen, everybody! - I have something important to tell you! (without waiting for their attention) This -- is my moment! (sees they are not paying attention) Listen to me! - I have only this moment. And I must not permit you to rob me of it. I am trying -- to experience my uniqueness. I was born to a Class - and in a Society whose greatest pretence was that it was Classless - that was a handicap. No matter - that Society is gone. But! I remember! Within the Class - in the Society now no more - I was born Unique! Never felt it until now. All I have felt until now - is being -- different. And irrelevant. That is why this moment is so important. (beat) All of you can feel any way you like - I don't mind that. You can say that what I am experiencing in this moment is something like what you are experiencing. I don't mind that. But nobody can experience what I am experiencing in quite the way I am experiencing it. Because - for this one moment, at least - I am feeling what I was born to be - Unique. (beat) It will probably make no difference in the end. I shall go to my grave, Number 47642, Head Reservations Clerk, Federated Hotel Corporation, Ltd. But for now, it is something to have felt - and to see that it was recognized - that I was born Unique. (fervently) I want to thank you all for giving me this one moment. (overcome with emotion, he turns, faces forward, On Line)

#9 (2 min.)

(Budapest, Winter, 1955, an army Quartermaster Dispensary. Hungary, in the grip of the coldest winter on record - with her coal mines flooded, a shortage of medicines, and a raging flu epidemic - has had to ration even army blankets. Those with the proper requisition forms, wait patiently in line for a blanket. One such is PISHTA - perhaps 65 and a retired school teacher)

PISHTA: It does not matter, it is all the same - whether I keep my place in line - or lose it. (he holds up his hand for silence, going from gentle to awesome, oracular, prophetic) Excuse me, but I wish to inform you all of something. Today I will get the blanket. You will see. One month - I came every day for one month, and did not get the blanket. But today! Today I will get it! (glares at his fellow Members of The Line) Ha! You don't believe me! You think Old Pishta has lost his mind. Who is Pishta Horvath, that he can foresee the future? That is what you are all telling yourselves, isn't it! I am no fool, I can tell. You will not meet my eyes. If you believe me, look me in the eyes and say that you believe me. Ha! You won't! (a Messianic fervor lights his eyes) Listen to me, all of you! It is important that you listen! You have all seen me, every day for a month. And you have never before heard me speak with certitude. Have you! No, you have not! For always I questioned. That is my way. The way of a lifetime of teaching. Does it not seem strange to you, then, that Old Pishta - Pishta the Questioner - should now speak with the voice of eagles? (he looks to each one in his line, fiercely) No! For all of you are sunk below questioning! Yet it is important that you learn something before you die, and was I not a teacher? (he nods his own affirmation, vigorously) Therefore, I, Pishta the Teacher, will teach again. I will teach you something now. Today I will get the blanket. When I get it, you will all remember that I told you this as Truth. As Fact. Because I, Pishta Horvath, have discovered the reason behind all things! The Law that governs all happenings. And what is this Law? It is that Nothing Happens Until It Is Too Late. And today I will get the blanket -- because the blanket is for my Muki --- And my Muki is dead.

#10 (2:40 min.)

Adapted from THE NIGHTGATHERERS (A Work In Progress) © 1999 Kevin O'Morrison

(An abandoned subway tunnel off Times Square, NYC. Time: Now, early evening. ARLEY POWELL, a man in his vigorous 60's comes on)

ARLEY: (tentative) I - am I. (beat) I know that. I now that I am I. (ponders) But why? Why -- if there is no purpose? (careful, now) Therefore - the fact - (growing confidence) - the fact that I am I - is (triumph) SIG-NI-FI-CANT! (pleasure at this thought prompts him to reach into his coatpocket, take out a pint bottle in paper bag, and drink from it. In mid-drink, however, a counter-thought assails him. He lowers bottle and returns it to pocket) But then - why am I here -- at the bottom? (ponders) Perhaps - perhaps - it is because Others are THEY. And know that they are THEY - and that makes THEM -- MORE significant. (growing realization) There is only one conclusion to draw from this: I am -- GUILTY. (beat) And THEY are out to do me in! Everybody and everything! Take Infinity - you know what's the trouble with Infinity? It's all of a PIECE! Nothing to measure up to. No SCALE, no DIRECTIONS, no LANDMARKS! (confides - knowing) Used to be. Used to be you could picture where something was by a phone number, even! MUrray Hill 7-4400 - right away you knew that was New York. And not only New York - MANHATTAN! MUrray Hill - Manhattan! That 7 - Midtown! 4400 - you make a guess -(winks)- the 44 means 44th Street. Two zeros means Something Important - Voila! Say, MUrray Hill 7-4400 - The Algonquin Hotel! You knew where you were with a number like that. But could THEY leave it alone! (takes piece of paper from pocket, waves it) See this! (reads from slip of paper) 8-4-0---6-8-0-0! That's what THEY changed it to! 840-6800 Where the hell is THAT! THEY have cut The Algonquin HOTEL loose in a sea of numbers, drifting in the Void - (waves slip of paper) Unless you've got it written down somewhere. (glares) Because THEY'VE taken away the bloody PHONE books. You think that's unimportant - a piece of Trivia? Multiply it, MULTIPLY it and you'll SEE! (knowing) There's more to this old world than meets the eye, remember. (confides) Because THEY are The Unseen - (intense whisper) The Unseen - all around us, all the time -- never sleeping - the Ghost World, fingers into everything. Out to get you. (starts off - stops, turns back) Anybody asks you, you can say I told you. Yes, sir. Just tell 'em Arley Powell old you. (goes)

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