THE SUICIDE CLAUSE

A One-Act Play

by

Karl J. Sherlock

© 2003 Karl J. Sherlock

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

Dramatis Personae

Setting

Writer's Note

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

The End

CONTENTS

Characters

EVELYN CLEARY:

Once a teacher of English literature; embittered; brash but honest; an atheist; now at age 52 a retired, disabled stroke victim, partially paralyzed on the left side. Because of this, the character's dialogue is occasionally communicated in slurred pronunciation. Still, the character's insistence that a lifetime of teaching, preceded by a rigorous education at Oxford, not be abandon results in the frequent use of vocabulary that sometimes will seem incongruous with the character's physical abilities to utter or even pronounce polysyllabic words. All this is intentional and an assertion of the character's will over the effects of the stroke. [Note: If the actor is more comfortable playing paralysis on the right side, so mote it be; for the sake of continuity, though, the relevant alterations to all directions should be made in advance; actors are encouraged to interpret the effect of occasionally slurred speech in any manner artistically interesting to them, provided the part is played with dignity and relative clarity.]

KELLY JESKI: A first-generation, Georgia Southerner with a Polish-born father, though this is the subject of some confusion: KELLY's father married a Polish-American woman with Southern ties, but this heritage has often been derided or mistaken. KELLY has tried with little success to reconcile the cultural idiosyncrasies of both sides of the family; surely missed a calling in life. (As what? Who can say? Perhaps an article writer.) KELLY is an agnostic looking to believe in something, but too busy by the causes and missions that have taken up daily living. Oh, and, by the way, KELLY is dying: glioblastoma multiforme. It's just a matter of time.

TABLEAUX

CHARACTERS:

Several men and women to wear the costumes and assume the tableaux of the stories told by KELLY and EVELYN. Any and all iconoclasm with regard to the gender of these actors is encouraged, as the tableaux represent the imagination of the main characters and are not necessarily factually accurate events. The same actors may be used to stage multiple tableaux.

Setting: Present day; someplace in Southern California; in an older but somewhat shabby-chic house or apartment.

DOWN STAGE CENTER are a small dinette and chairs; the table is strewn with documents and bordered with several empty liquor bottles, a single, tall prescription pill bottle, and a cheap tumbler. STAGE RIGHT, a swivel recliner with its back to the dinette and a small lamp table to its right bearing an older lamp; a zimmer frame walker is within arm's reach of the recliner. FAR STAGE RIGHT is the exit/entrance to bedrooms and bathrooms. STAGE LEFT, an implied exit to the outside, indicated by a coat and hat rack (or an umbrella stand) and a few bags of trash waiting to be taken outdoors. DOWN STAGE LEFT, a computer table the back of the VDT to the audience: cables and cords, more strewn papers and books--in short, a typical desk. UP STAGE is a typical Pullman kitchenette area with a door and a large, opening onto the dining area; the action taking place in the kitchen must be seen through these spaces and include an unencumbered view of cupboards and counters, but the sink and stove areas are unseen, off to STAGE LEFT.

The directions, "{BEGIN TABLEAU}" and "{END TABLEAU}", will appear at times throughout the play. These tableaux, written to augment the the family stories told by the characters, should be staged, alternately, either UP STAGE LEFT or UP STAGE RIGHT. The tableaux may, more elaborately, be framed in the style of old photographs, or they may be very simply highlighted under spotlights; while they are indispensable elements of the play, their content and their staging are solely within the artistic discretion of the director.

Writer's Note:

Len Pellettiri (English, Grossmont College, 1968-1986), scandalized San Diegans and his Grossmont College colleagues after assisting in the suicide of his wife, Emma, in 1984. Len Pellettiri and his son, in fact, were guests on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show in 1987 as representatives of the San Diego Chapter of the Hemlock Society, which, as some may already know, is an organization committed to advocating the right of self-deliverance: ending one's own life in the event of a terminal illness, usually with the aid of physicians or family members.

The following play was written, in part, using Len Pellettiri's experience and cause as a starting point, but inspiration also sprung from my own experiences as a caregiver and partner to a seriously medically disabled man, and from the many books that have been written on the subject since.

CONTENTS

SCENE ONE

At Rise: With exaggerated choreography, KELLY enters with difficulty from STAGE LEFT carrying two heavy sacks of groceries, wipes shoes on the mat, then steps out of the shoes, leaving them behind on the mat. KELLY heads for the kitchen through the dining area, still with bags in tow; setting down the bags on a counter, KELLY begins removing items: some go directly into cupboards; other items remain out, on the countertops. Soon, KELLY reenters the dining room with a garbage pale and two unopened bottles of vodka in hand, and a plastic cup in mouth. KELLY puts down the new bottles of vodka on top of the papers scattered on the table and, still with cup in mouth, shovels the empty bottles into the pale with an open arm. Cup is put down, tumbler is taken up, and KELLY takes the pale to the door STAGE LEFT, then returns to the kitchen with the tumbler.

KELLY

(annoyed/amused)

Jesus, those were hard to find. Apparently, no one wants pistachios without the shells. That comes official from a fifteen year old at the Irvine Ranch Market who claims customers "have more fun with the shells on." I said, "Is that what you do with them?" Next I caught him looking over my shoulder in the direction of the security guard. Then he bolted. I can't trust anyone but you to find the humor in bad grammar. Have you taken your meds?

The swivel recliner with its back to the audience now turns slowly in a sweep, to face KELLY. It's EVELYN, pushing the recliner around with the good foot. EVELYN's left arm is kept close to the chest, and is not extended except with the greatest difficulty.

EVELYN

At twelve?

KELLY

No your 2 o'clock meds for . . . . Oh for god sake, I set the timer. It was supposed to have . . .

(picking up a pillbox timer from the lamp table)

It went off forty-two minutes ago. You didn't hear it?

EVELYN

I nodded off.

KELLY

And you didn't hear this timer going . . . Well, okay, g'on then and take 'em now, while I'm . . . .

(sees EVELYN struggling to rise)

Need help to the . . . ?

EVELYN

.

KELLY

Up and at 'em then. C'mon. Get a move on. And there's a clean tumbler of water there. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the amount you slobber in a day . . .

EVELYN rises slowly and with difficulty, and, using a walker, gradually begins to relocate to the dinette.

EVELYN

(whilst perambulating)

Slobber and effluvia: it's all part of life.

KELLY

And don't touch any of that vodka, please. If you won't tell me when you need to go to the toilet, the least you can do is not piss the seat cushions. That was fifteen dollars a yard this time.

EVELYN

Pissing these seat cushions would be an improvement. I warned you not to reupholster; I said it would be a waste of money. Besides which I've never cared for flame stitch . . .

KELLY

No, Evie, a wheelchair van collecting tree sap is a waste of money. I wish you'd made better use of that when you could.

(distracted)

Do you know what I heard in the car on the way back? That cedar closet I was keen to build, when we had the house? It was absolute nonsense, all of it. Not a single moth has ever fled from cedar wood--unless it's on fire, I guess.

EVELYN

A fool and their money . . .

KELLY

Yes, well. More of the fool now, less of the other these days. Anyway, never mind. While I was out I got the idea to make something I haven't had in . . .

(counting)

no, fifteen years? Pierogis[1].

EVELYN

[shrug]

KELLY

We made them once, remember? Course you do. Tracy's . . .

(again, counting)

33rd birthday. Mashed potatoes and cheese.

(a command)

I'm telling you, you remember.

EVELYN

[shrug]

KELLY

No, you . . . They're dumplings, right. Polish dumplings. It took us all bloody afternoon . . . well, it took me all afternoon to make them. It took you all afternoon to get falling down drunk. It was the same with my father's . . . whatchama call her--I think the word is "kurowa"[2]; "slut," basically--she used to make 'em. Dozens of 'em. Jesus, when I think of my poor mother washing up that woman's dishes afterwards!

EVELYN

Six long hours of vodka martinis.

KELLY

Ah, you see. You do remember that afternoon. Well that's what I said to myself by the time I gathered the ingredients. I thought, you know what? I can PAY someone to make these? So I did.

(Produces two packages from a paper bag.)

I bought two dozen of them at the Polish deli; 5.99, end of story. Let me just plop them in some boiling water later and have a late lunch. Okeydokey?

EVELYN is reticent, already preoccupied with shuffling around some of the papers on the table, looking for something.

KELLY

Hello in there. Okay?

EVELYN

[shrug]

KELLY

All right. Now what's up?

EVELYN

Me. Sick ol' me. Medicare. Physical therapy, not as yet paid. And now they're sending the bills straight to me.

KELLY

Don't fret. It's the traditional tactic of health management: if the insurance company falls through, at any juncture, euthanize the patient; better still, scare the patient to death. You see, I told you. It's not the doctors who play god; it's the medical billing departments. Never mind. I'm sure that college student they just hired is to blame. Wrong billing code, something innocent like that.

EVELYN

Innocent? My greatest fear is that a student I failed once will now be totally in charge of my life.

KELLY

Believe me, your fears are unwarranted, Evie: if they were too lazy to pass your course, they're probably too lazy for acts of petty revenge.

(Sees Evelyn wearing sneaker's with long, untied shoe laces.)

And look at you, anyway. Lot of good P.T. is going to do if you trip on those and break your hip. Why not wear the booties my aunt[3] knitted. Ingratitude for a woman's hard work: it's a universal constant.

EVELYN

You honestly think those were made by a victim of distaff?

KELLY

(Considers it.)

Fair enough. But, by god, Evie, they're safer than walking around with untied laces!

EVELYN gives KELLY a withering and hurt look. KELLY rummages under the front of the swivel lounger and produces the booties. KELLY goes to EVELYN and bends silently to replace EVELYN's sneakers with the booties.

KELLY

Try to put your left foot out. No, Dear, your other left foot. That's it.

EVELYN

It's not so easy.

KELLY

Bless your heart, no, it's not easy. But why kill yourself in therapy just to keel over at home because of a stupid pair of . . . ?

EVELYN

(belligerent)

You would joke about me killing myself? You think that's funny?.

KELLY

(clearly backpedalling)

Only in the poorest taste. It was bad joke. They all are. They're the only kind I know. Forgive me, Sweetie.

EVELYN eats the shelled pistachios. Silence. More silence. Then . . .

KELLY

Okay then. Do you know what? I thought I might want to go to my aunt's party this year, but then I just smelled the gin on the invitation and I said nahhh . . .

EVELYN

(interrupting)

Oh, do go! For my sake, Kelly, please, go. Do something you enjoy.

KELLY

Enjoy?! Please! They're like a monster-truck rally, a human monster-truck rally. Do you know, my Aunt Gwen still thinks her birthday picnic's going to be at my mother's place, and she's been dead for--what is it?--twelve years. She just keeps coming back, like a predator, who feeds on the innocent.

EVELYN

(Silence. Resisting the temptation, then . . . )

Vaginasaurus . . .

{BEGIN TABLEAU}

KELLY

... Rex. Yes, that's the one. Eventually she did crack Uncle Lev across the face for that. Fair enough, I say. Never liked him either. Do you know, six years ago by the end of the weekend it is was just Gwen, a gin bottle, and a pack of burnt out Lucky Strikes crushed into the lawn. Like watching a drag queen on a hay ride.

EVELYN

Hay ride?

KELLY

And this of course is when Lev pulls out the Brownie camera he's been hiding behind his back.

{END TABLEAU}

EVELYN

If you hate it so, why did you bother last year?

KELLY

Well, don't know really. I suppose--I'm loathe to say it--I suppose it's out of tradition.

EVELYN

The Confederate Poles have their traditions?

KELLY

Yes, in fact. It's not all moon-pies and R.C., Yankee child.

EVELYN

Now you've insulted me.

KELLY

My father always spun some yarn about our connections to the Pulaskis.

EVELYN

And my pedigree is Edward II.

KELLY

Yes, well, as a Savannah businessman, better to ankle yourself to the great Kasimir Pulaski than to be branded a Freemason.

EVELYN

Say "Jew" if that's what you mean.

KELLY

Oh please. No self-respecting Southerner comes right out and says what they mean.

EVELYN

Especially the Georgia Pulaskis. You just make these up as you go, don't you.

KELLY

I make up traditions wherever they are sorely lacking. They have a way of concealing the worst of human nature . . .

EVELYN

(mockingly)

With 'right charming hospitality? Listen, to a cynic like me, all human nature is the worst of human nature. There's no face charming enough to hide that. Well . . . Except yours, of course.

KELLY

(could be cross)

Oh you have paid attention, haven't you, Evie. Anyway, let me get back to what my sister and I used to call our "summer infestation of aunts[4]."

EVELYN

Aunts![5], I beg of you. Now who sounds like a Yank.

KELLY

(not insulted; examining the grocery packages)

You know, when I was very young I used to think--naively--that pulling out a hand-full of my sister's hair was about as ugly as siblings could get. But then you see . . .

(exaggerated)

your own Mum and her sisters have at it, over, say, who paid the most for Papa's Barko lounger; and caught in that kind of crossfire, we kids knew just what kind of rank amateurs we were. Except, though . . . Except that one year, when my Cousin Boogie . . .

EVELYN

Oh stop now! Boogie?

KELLY

It's too horrible. Christian name, Bogolzata.[6] Don't ask.

EVELYN

Ah. I see now. And am I correct in assuming there are no vowels in the Polish alphabet?

KELLY

(back-stretching a little)

I did say not to ask, but, no, there are a few. And sometimes "Z". Anyway, Cousin Boogie was one of these old souls trapped in a ten-year-old's body. The aunts, they just mostly avoided her like she was the imp of the perverse, which of course she was. Overheard one of my Aunt Lucy's japes,

(turning up the Southern accent)

"For graduation, I'm gonna buy that child bail bonds 'stead of savings bonds." But, . . . but then at one of those infamous picnics . . .

EVELYN

The picnic that was "no picnic" . . .

KELLY

You're catching on now. One summer, at one of those picnics, I had twisted my ankle, how d'ya do, and was stuck in a lawn chair and just got to drink lemonade and watch people and was blissfully left alone. But there was Cousin Boogie. And one of her favorite games was to make those paper things, like . . . what were they? Fortune telling, was it? Origami lotus thingies . . .

(makes an open-and-close diamond out of two hands, then pulls them apart)

Cootie-catchers, I think called them. where you'd pick a number, then a color, then unfold a petal and . . .

EVELYN

Thus spake the Great Oracle of Bogol . . . Bgzhbgzhbgzh . . .

KELLY

Don't embarrass yourself, Dear. Anyway, the whole routine's as harmless as Miss Cleo, let's face it. So, Boogie was famous for pestering the aunts to play this with her. And there, poor, eccentric Aunt Peony, thinking someone actually wanted to talk to her, picked out her favorite color . . .

{BEGIN TABLEAU}

EVELYN

(smiling, talking over KELLY, almost sotto voce)

Mine's Kelly green.

KELLY

... and her lucky number. Well, you know how it goes. It's usually--"Kelly green" my ass--it's usually some rubbish about, you are a kind person, you like Billy from church. Blah, blah, blah. But when the moment of truth arrives,

(gesticulating)

Aunt Peony turns from giggles to absolutely stone faced, grabs sweater and purse, snaps her fingers at Aunt Mildred, and growls, "Idjemy do autobus[7] ", and off they went to catch the No. 49 home.

{END TABLEAU}

EVELYN

Two aunts down, how many to go?

KELLY

You have no idea! See, Boogie, all those years pretending to be the bashful introvert--in reality a consummate listener. And unbeknownst to the aunts, she made up one of them thingies for each of them, custom written-like. And when

(coming to join EVELYN now, and nibble at the pistachios)

you opened the flaps, instead of fortunes, she had written down all the things the aunts were saying about each other over the years.

EVELYN

What do you mean?

KELLY

Like whenever she went with them to St. Hedwig's Bingo, or played croquet with them, Labor Day out the backyard, you know what I mean. She must have kept an absolutely wicked diary. Because--listen, here it comes--"Aunt Lucy tells people that you're a lesbian"; or "Aunt Mildred said she'll take your amethyst brooch when you kick the bucket;" and "Uncle Lev stares at the way way your bra cuts into your fat when you're playing Euchre." Getting the picture?

EVELYN

Yes, but that last one's not an aunt.

KELLY

(short fused)

I'm just improvising now.

EVELYN

Was any of it true, then, what she said?

KELLY

You mean what the aunts said? Well, touché, that's it exactly. Down South, we say, a true gossip won't lie if the truth will do more harm. My Aunt Mildred is a lesbian, you see. Point of fact, that's one of the reasons I call my grandmother "The Troll" so often. This is off the point, but . . .

EVELYN

Hardly. Besides which I have a theory that Margaret Thatcher made the despicable English granny au courant. What's your granny horror story then?

KELLY

Grandmother Matilda--Busia[8] Matty, we called her sometimes--with the generous support of her church pastor and the local pork butcher . . . Well, I don't know how else to put it, so I'll just say it: the three of them abducted my aunt and put her in an institution.

{BEGIN TABLEAU}

EVELYN

Her butcher? What the blazes?

KELLY

Six-foot two; 285 lbs. I'm going on just memory now, but use your imagination. He wasn't invited just to manhandle the pork cutlets. Anyway, what happened next was a whole lot of shock treatment; that much is certain. Frances Farmer stuff. Torture, essentially. I'm roiled now. All told, I was pretty fond of Aunt Mildred.

{END TABLEAU}

EVELYN

Bloody hell. I suppose then there's no point keeping this secret any longer: my brother Adrian was arrested once, for football hooliganism.

KELLY

(incredulous)

That's a family secret?!

EVELYN

In the end, Kelly, an English family's strength is its shame. The sooner it's accounted for, the greater its dividends.

KELLY

I think the House of Windsor was never so succinctly explained.

EVELYN

Very droll. Tell me, what came next for poor Mildred?

{BEGIN TABLEAU}

KELLY

Revenge, naturally. She escaped. Somehow. It was the 1950s. I'm sure there were just as many lesbians in nurse's uniforms as there were in straightjackets. Soon after, though, Mildred had her own mother kidnapped to a dyke bar in Atlanta. They forced a Micky Finn into her, and some hours later that crazy old bitch woke up in a public urinal singing "My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl". They never troubled each other over the issue again. So I'm told.

{END TABLEAU}

EVELYN

(conflicted between fury and laughter)

You're embellishing, I hope.

KELLY

(shrugging nonchalantly)

Eahh.

EVELYN

Where is she now?

KELLY

Busia Matilda? Quite dead, thank you very much. I was there in the hospice at the end. Lots of us were--not Aunt Mildred, naturally. Me neither, honestly, if Matty were dying now, but at the time I was pretty keen to watch her die. That sounds cruel, but it was really just academic. Though, it could never match her own cruelty when she was alive.

(raises a hand to forehead and gesticulates)

"There's a hand in my head. It's making a squiggle." Those were her final words. What do you make of that for Bartlett's Quotations?

EVELYN

In fairness, it sounds like the royal hand wave.

(with the good arm, EVELYN lifts up the paralyzed arm and waves its hand in traditionally rotated, royal fashion)

I meant, however, what happened to charming Cousin Boogie?

KELLY

Oh, where is she now? Occupational therapist. Trenton, New Jersey. Forty-two. And--wait for it--unmarried.

EVELYN

Ahhh! The gay gene strikes again.

KELLY

Totally.

EVELYN

Oh, the irony.

KELLY

Mind you, I don't think she stays in touch with anyone but a couple of other cousins.

EVELYN

Not even you?

KELLY

Especially not me.

EVELYN

You'd think . . .

KELLY

No, no, no, no. You don't understand. We could never be close. Surely she knew I watched her like a hawk. No one, Evie, wants to think they can be read that completely.

EVELYN

I can read you completely.

KELLY

No, true enough. You read me right well, Sweetie. But you get special dispensation, on account I'm the only person half the time who understands what the hell you're saying.

EVELYN

You'd make fun of my slurred speech? Half the time I . . .

No, Dear. Your right-perty verbiage. You Brits are born with six syllables on your tongue.

EVELYN

I believe the word you're looking for is "sesquipedalian," besides which I wish that were even a modicum of truth to it in Colchester. You wouldn't have me apologize for . . .

(grand gesture)

my words, would you? If you're ever bothered by them, try sometime to converse with a freshmen writing student: nineteen years of talking

(clearly, not comfortable with the vernacular)

"in, like, pantomime, y'know," and suddenly, when taken to task, they have no opinions--nothing to back them up, anyway--and not even an interesting way of telling you as much. And here I am . . .

KELLY

The very type to insist on voting, of course.

EVELYN

The selfsame. And here I am, with several times the lexicon, I can't seem to get through to a single one of them.

KELLY

Big words are not everything, Evie. Besides, you exaggerate again. I've always thought you were god's gift to the teaching establishment.

EVELYN

Oh yes. Florence bloody Nightingale of college English. Twenty-two years--all I did was manage to broaden their minds to one sickening but tempting reality: the dark, gaping void that is the future of Humanity. Not much of a gift, I should imagine.

KELLY

You need to learn the lesson of the Little Drummer Boy. Anyway, the world is radically changed. A solid education used to be like flour and water to these kids. If you were clever enough you could make whatever you wanted with it. Now, they get paid a hundred thousand a year just for pressing the "Escape" key, while the woman who once taught them what a pronoun is . . .

EVELYN

... lives in squalid retirement in a fashionable ghetto?

KELLY

To guarantee wage slavery: it's the only reason public education exists at all.

EVELYN

No more Arianna Huffington for you. Besides which, Kelly, English Literature is not a job skill.

KELLY

Ah, but there's the rub. You gives a damn if they can't put it in their resume. Somewhere, twenty long years from their retirement, standing on an assembly line, hoping they've put enough away for the kid's college tuition, at least one or two of them will have made you the little voice in the back of his mind and deliver himself from the moment wit a line from Yeats.

EVELYN

Keats. I never liked Yeats.

KELLY

You can't think of even a few of them that you reached.

EVELYN

I guess there was Eric.

{BEGIN TABLEAU}

KELLY

Ah, you see?

EVELYN

And Julie. And Jason.

KELLY

Virtually all young men!?

EVELYN

Yes, well, even Julie changed her . . .

KELLY

No!

Last I heard, was calling himself "Jules".

KELLY

That took balls.

EVELYN

Can't argue with that. Then there was Rob. And Tarquin. Tarquin, he . . .

KELLY

Tarquin?!

EVELYN

Tarquin, I think, kinda fell in love with me.

KELLY

Fell in love with you?

EVELYN

Well, if that's why they pay attention, I'm grateful.

KELLY

Uh-huh. Something you want to tell me?

{END TABLEAU}

EVELYN

Oh, God, Kelly, but was it worth it? For so few?

KELLY

That's the point, Evie. No one knows. . . .

(smiles)

Until the very last.

EVELYN

I guess it's a moot point, now that I've been . . .

KELLY

. . . warehoused. Yes. I still think you're a better person for having cared. Let's leave it at that. Whatever happened to that slogan you used? "Read a book. It makes you" . . . ?

EVELYN

"Read a book. It's the human thing to do." It went the way of slogans.

KELLY

Don't fret about it; reading these days is like goin' fishing: you do it in your downtime.

EVELYN

Yes, but to reconnect with . . . with your humanity. With . . .

KELLY

Uhhm, for people like yourself who aren't afraid to connect with humanity, yes. For the rest of us poor crackers, it's a way not to have to listen to our own screaming, scare-the-shit-out-of-yourself thoughts. "Hmmm, will it be E.M. Forster this weekend, or People magazine?

(exaggerating the choices with hand movement)

Forster, People? Forster, Peop... I know!: read People now and wait for the Merchant-Ivory film."

EVELYN

(dejected)

What did you say before about not lying if the truth does greater damage?

KELLY

Would you have me lie to you, Sweetie.

EVELYN

So, a literary masterpiece, you're saying, though it hold great insight into the human and the personal condition, can never be adequately escapist. Obviously, I've been a hobbyist for twenty-two years.

KELLY

That's a bit of a non sequitur. But, I'm just suggesting you have more courage to listen to truth--and certainly to say truth--than most. If we faced ourselves, really faced ourselves for one dark and truthful minute, Evie, we'd probably all . . .

EVELYN

(interrupting; pointing to the feet)

That naturally explains your Aunt Booty.

KELLY

(confused shrug)

I don't have an Aunt . . .

EVELYN

(pointing to the feet)

Knit, ball, pearl. Whatever it's called.

KELLY

My Aunt Boo . . . Oh, Gwen? Oh, I suppose she's the loneliest coward of us all, poor thing. Evie, in the South, you see, an American family's strength is that it's utterly shameless. A maiden aunt 'll marry the entire extended family, spreading dysfunction, dissension and bad knitting projects wherever she goes.

EVELYN

I should feel like a member of the family, then?

KELLY

Don't get carried away now. The knitting needles were still stuck in them when you opened the box. Maybe, though, after fifteen years, when her head cleared, she was finally hit by pangs of guilt.

EVELYN

Why? Because she accused me in front of an entire wedding reception of corrupting you, and then threw her drink in my . . . ?

{BEGIN TABLEAU}

KELLY

You're absolutely sure she didn't merely accuse you of spoiling me?

EVELYN

Yes, as evidenced by the sting of vodka tonic in my eyes. And how the blazes did corruption have anything to do . . .

KELLY

It's just how that generation feels. You know, you turning me into . . .

EVELYN

What, a vegetarian?

(downshifting)

KELLY

A yankee vegetarian.

EVELYN

Don't be concerned. I haven't been embittered by the actions of a lunatic. Not that one, anyway. Besides which I feel more sorry for the woman than you do, I think. Ever return the knitting needles?

{END TABLEAU}

KELLY

I haven't, actually, no. I use them as back scratchers.

EVELYN

You should, you know. Give them back, I mean.

KELLY

Please! I won't encourage her bad knitting.

EVELYN

But, if I understand what you've just told me, then it would mean a great deal to her if you returned them.

KELLY

Oh for heaven's sake, they can't be her only needles.

(reflection)

Can they?

EVELYN

It would be gross negligence to deny her her occupational therapy. I speak from experience.

KELLY

(mockingly)

Look, if this little olive branch is important to you, then take that yarn from storage and those two pot holders from the middle drawer . . .

EVELYN

Do we even keep hanks of yarn? Wait, pot holders?

KELLY

Those pair of blue knitted pot holders I bought from the Blind. Wrap her needles in them, include the skeins and a little note of thanks, and leave the package on the mailbox. Frank will pick it up when he delivers.

KELLY is seen in the kitchen, absorbed in thought while going through the motions of preparing a large pot of water, opening packages slowly, et cetera. Meanwhile, EVELYN picks at pistachios and from time to time scowls at the paperwork on the table. Some perfunctory silence between them, then . . .

KELLY

(gasps, then)

Oh Evie, how I love your mind! That pathetic, cunning, forlorn woman! Do you know I believe she's been waiting for us to return those needles all this time. I wondered how the hell we got onto a mailing list for the Yarn Barn.

EVELYN

Yarn Barn? Kelly, what the blazes are you talking about?

KELLY

You wouldn't know; I've been throwing out the catalogs.

EVELYN

I see you're calling forth some dark, hereditary trait now; Lucy Ricardo's wheels are a'turnin'.

KELLY

Listen, listen to me. I want you to send back those knitting needles, exactly as I just explained, except you give them to her when you see her next week. She won't know what to make of it at first, but . . .

EVELYN

This doesn't strike you as absurdly all-of-a-sudden?

KELLY

Oh, Sweetie, all we have, you and I, is all-of-a-sudden. Next month, maybe when things have settled down, you can to invite her here for her birthday. Keep that mini bar stocked.

EVELYN

(beginning to understand implications)

No! My God, Kelly, no! What are you trying to . . .

KELLY

Evie, you mustn't say no. Today is not a day to say no.

EVELYN

(still shouting)

Why? Because every request you make is a final request? Do you imagine that moves me all-of-a-goddamn-sudden?

KELLY

All right, fair enough, fair enough. We'll put a combination lock on the liquor cabinet; that'll stall her at least until she finds the hacksaw in the utility closet.

EVELYN

(reaching for lame diversions off the topic)

I'll starve to death unless you're here to cook for me. Who'll cook? Gwen? The anti-Christ to vegetarians?

KELLY

You wouldn't think to look at her, but that woman carries all the hopes and blessings of my family's secret sourdough biscuit recipe. If we can keep her cigarette ash out of the milk gravy, you'll have good eatin' around here. When my mother went into hospital to have my kid sister, I lived with Gwen for a while. I'm telling you, every day, at 5:00 a.m., the lights would flick on in the kitchen and Gwen would be pulling out the biscuit tins and . . .

EVELYN

(blown fuse)

Would you please shut up! Please! You misguided blatherskite, there will be no milk gravy and biscuits! Do you not get it? How can you be so bloody pleased with yourself?

KELLY

(calmly now; more sensitive to EVELYN)

I guess I've had more time to think about this. Believe me, not has much time as I'd like. But I guess, because of that, I'm more open to the spontaneity of ideas. Forgive me, Evie. I shouldn't expect you to be as ready.

EVELYN

Look, Kelly, I . . . I just don't know what to say. I don't know how to . . . how to be pleased for you. I want to be there for you, but . . .

KELLY

I understand. I'm sorry. Let's just get ready to eat, and talk about this later. You're getting hungrier, aren't you?

EVELYN

Please. Take more time. Please. I mean, I know it might seem like the oldest cliché on record, but . . . Time, Kelly, it heals all manner of . . .

KELLY

I know, I know, Evie. And you're right, of course: time heals absolutely everything. I know that. But I also know that

(tapping head with fist)

I haven't got that much time. No one does, really.

(returning to the task of cooking)

So eat your pistachios up.

(with a look that says, "No one will ever buy them for you with as much love as I have.")

By the by, I don't know if we have sour cream. I didn't get any. You can't eat these without it. Pierogis, I mean. It's even in the directions: garnish with sour cream; serve hot. If there is any, . . .

(deciding to take notice of EVELYN)

Stop fretting. At least until after we eat these pierogis. There's nothing as bilious as indigestible pierogi, especially if . . .

EVELYN

Especially if this is your last meal with me?

KELLY

I'm just trying to stay true, Evie. So much damage can happen. So much . . . so much greater harm. People are going to gossip. I want you to be prepared.

EVELYN

I want us to be prepared too. But, as you say, neither one of us really has that much time.

KELLY

Well . . . First, . . . at least . . . time enough to eat.

LIGHTS FADE

End of Scene One

CONTENTS SCENE TWO At Rise: An hour or so has passed. The table that once held papers is now haphazardly strewn with half-filled plates, dirty silverware, crumpled napkins, stacked bread plates, crumb-festooned buttery knives, clouded glasses. The bottle of vodka that appeared unopened previously unopened is now clearly half-empty. Two sloppy cordial glasses should be easily visible, above all else if necessary. The dinette chair occupied by EVELYN seems kicked backwards, on its side. In the kitchen area, in back, pots, pans and food containers and other kitchen disasters are everywhere, suggesting that the simplicity of cooking store-bought pierogis was not as simple as anticipated. KELLY is in the kitchenette (again, seen through the window-like opening), scraping the leavings of a plate into an unseen trash pail and looking a little more haggard. SOUNDS of utensils on ceramic plates should be exaggerated. Once plates are finished, KELLY moves on to the pots, grimacing at their filth; the SOUNDS of pot metal are even louder than the ceramic plates. As in the beginning of Scene One, KELLY's process is overtly methodical to suggest it has been mentally choreographed ahead of time. Once pots have been finished, KELLY disappears to the stove (O.S.), from which we hear now the loudest SOUND EFFECTs yet: tugging and banging that implies KELLY is at times even pulling the stove off the very floor in an effort to remove its range top. KELLY (shouting) Cholera! Jesus "H" Kochany![9] (self-mocking) "Let me get a pot to boiling. This won't take too long. This won't be much work. This won't be bad. Oh, this'll be fun. Oh, I don't remember when I've had such fun." As God as my witness, . . . (loud, loud bang now) C'me on, damn it. From STAGE RIGHT, EVELYN slowly, stealthily enters using the walker, heads back to the overturned dinette chair. KELLY Is that you, Evie? EVELYN No. I'll be in there in a sec. Just have to get this one pierog that slipped under the (grunting, head buried somewhere) ... under the range top . . . (distracted) before it . . . before it . . . Gotcha, you son of a . . . Evie? EVELYN Hmmm? KELLY Don't mess with the chair. I'll take care of it. EVELYN (Germanic) Ja, alles klar. KELLY Did you just call me "Alice"? KELLY returns to the visible kitchen area; with sleeves rolled up, KELLY wrings the dish towel in hand, then tosses it to the side. EVELYN Uh, take your time. KELLY (while unrolling sleeves) They just jump out of the pot sometimes like idiot goldfish. EVELYN Kelly, bring the tea cloth with you, please. KELLY Yes'ms. While EVELYN nears the dinette, KELLY emerges just in time to set the chair to rights. KELLY returns hastily to the kitchen. EVELYN arduously collapses into the seat as KELLY returns with a platter of pierogi in one hand, a spatula in the other, and a dish towel draped over one forearm. EVELYN I'll take two; no more. Two pierogi are flushed onto EVELYN's plate, then KELLY finds a crowded spot on the table for the entire platter, after which time KELLY collapses into the seat. KELLY tosses the dish towel in EVELYN's direction. EVELYN, using the good arm, naturally, takes up the dish towel and begins blotting a nearby area of the table. Meanwhile, KELLY has taken up a sour cream container tipped over by dessert spoon and begins spooning sour cream onto EVELYN's plate EVELYN Go easy. KELLY You don't like it. EVELYN I just don't need that much for two of these. KELLY To be fair, I wasn't altogether sure about the sour cream. Expiration date might have been bit . . . EVELYN Expiry. Say "expiry," if you would, please. KELLY Yes, my liege, expiry date. You Brits. First time I read that word I thought it said "expire-y." I thought, who's going to eat something that's "expire-y"? Some people would, of course. Take my Aunt Helene; that woman would lick out the egg shells in the trash pale if you let her. And the biggest poor-mouther this side of the Mississippi. EVELYN This is the "mischiveous" aunt you always talk about. KELLY The same. Stories of her "mischiveous" adolescent . . . EVELYN ... years. Yes. You've told me. Suffice it to say, that one would get on my nerves. KELLY Yours and everyone else's. And as big a poor-mouth she is, she's one of these passive-aggressive shoppers who will get you to break your own bank so she won't feel guilty. EVELYN A classic shop-a-holic alibi. KELLY In fact, her manipulations got to be pretty complex as the years went on. If you agreed to go shopping with her she'd entice you to like something, something expensive, then she'd promise it to you. EVELYN (mockingly) Well that sounds a mite friendly of her. KELLY Two things she keeps well empty: your wallet; her promises. Two lifetimes could pass before you ever got what she promised. EVELYN These are just carpings now. Clearly you don't like the woman, but . . . KELLY No, Evie, you're not getting it. The point was to manipulate you into saying, "Thank you, Aunty Helene. That's very generous of you. Let's pick out something for you now. You deserve it." EVELYN It still doesn't make her Satan. KELLY You don't know the extent of this woman's buyer's remorse. If you fell for her trick, she could blame you later on for her impulse purchase. And, believe you me, no one escaped her blame. Come Thanksgiving, her entire ensemble was a catalogue of accusations. You could just tell who was going to be sniped by the layers of clothing she took off. She even lifted her skirt once--that sent us running--to complain to Aunt Peony about the tight leg holes of her panties. EVELYN The capitalist's Sheherazade. Surely there's comeuppance for a woman like that. KELLY Of a sort. My Cousin Ronnie--Aunt Peony's boy, drives a truck now after a stint in the Peace Corps--very defensive about his mother. Understandably, I guess. NAWWAA. EVELYN National Association of Whacky Women Aunts Anonymous? KELLY (interrupting) Not-A-Well-Woman-At-All. Good gracious, you are a Yankee. EVELYN I warned you about that. Besides which I'm a f'reigner. {BEGIN TABLEAU} KELLY Honey, in Georgia if you're one, you're the other. Anyway, Helene goes off on Aunt Peony about her "mischiveously" bamboozling her into buying old lady's pantaloons, and Ronnie spits out the cranberry sauce, rises from the table and says, "Take 'em off then. Go on. Give 'em here. We'll give 'em to charity." She just tries to laugh it off, you know, the way Republicans do. So, he says it again, "Go on. Give 'em up. Let's have a look at 'em." Well, bless my soul: Aunt Helene excused herself, took them off in the toilet, dropped them into Ronnie's lap at the table, and went commando for the rest of the goddamned afternoon. EVELYN Ewwww. KELLY No, two years in a septic village of Sierra Leone, and that boy was unaffected. Without so much as batting an eyelash, he just raises those pantaloons to his mouth and wiped the gravy right off his beard. EVELYN Jesus! {END TABLEAU} KELLY For a mother it was a proud moment. Aunt Peony twittered like a debutante for the rest of the day. Oh, and for good measure, as the family were leaving, Ronnie--he's still carrying Aunt Helene's gravy-stained underpants, mind you--Ronnie shouts from the Buick, "It's 'mischievous'!, you old git." EVELYN He called her a git? KELLY Well, maybe that last part he said to himself. (licking the sour cream spoon) By the way, did you remember the fiber tablets? How are your bowels moving? Cheese is binding, you know. EVELYN Everything came out, lickety-split. KELLY (a turnoff; puts the spoon down.) Yes, well . . . that's enough of that. EVELYN Thank god for Ducolax. Though maybe you can help me find a good high colonic. KELLY You don't need to take it that far. EVELYN Believe me, paralysis on the outside is one thing. On the inside, it's altogether . . . KELLY I shouldn't have forced the next six pierogis on you then. You want some prunes? EVELYN Oh, God, Kelly. Do you recall when we were ever self-conscious about these things? KELLY Oh, I recall. I just can't recall exactly when we stopped. EVELYN That one is simple--simple for me, anyway. KELLY Simple? EVELYN The first day I lurched into my World Literature classroom on two canes instead of one. KELLY Chalk one up for self-pity. Though, that "Lion King on Broadway" joke about you was unkind. EVELYN Then came the zimmer frame and the wheelchair, and I it occurred to me that physical therapy wasn't going to make a bloody difference every again. KELLY Don't for a minute think I wasn't proud of you. Terrified for you, yeah, every day I dropped you off. But you were so courageous and . . . EVELYN Every self-aggrandizing moment I thought I was being an inspiration, though--all the prancing back and forth, fooling myself that I had uncommon panache, implacable dignity--all of it came to a crashing, utterly self-conscious halt when I pissed myself in the midst of a lecture. KELLY Evie, I say this with the greatest respect for your years of devoted service, but . . . Fuck 'em! EVELYN Well, there wasn't much room to feel otherwise after that. KELLY Consider it your final homage to the stinking, urine-soaked existence that awaited them because some bureaucrat with a junk bond where a heart should be decided education was better off without the humanities. Consider it commentary. EVELYN Believe me, I've said it thousands of times since. But I swear at myself just as much. KELLY I've never heard you swear at yourself. When? EVELYN I wait for those private moments, when I can be alone with my thoughts, while I'm sitting in a bath chair under the shower, or waiting for the enema to work its magic: Evelyn Cleary, you pathetic waste of a human being, just piss off! KELLY I won't have you do that to yourself. I mean it. EVELYN Do something Monty Python-ish and sell your body to science. Make a right quick, righteous end of it. KELLY What's the matter with. Are you not listening to me. I just told you, I will not have you annihilate yourself like this. EVELYN Except that would make you a hypocrite, wouldn't it. KELLY (not missing the point) You still think that, for me, it's about this little pity--party called "life." (had enough of the food) Oh, fuck this. Well, you're wrong. It's not. It's not about self-pity; I used up that pretty quickly, as self-pity goes. I might have used it up more slowly if other people had some pity to give, but it's generally in short supply. That's a rule of human nature. And those that offer it don't have the stomach to offer all of it, much as they'd like to be thought of as people endlessly generous with their love for their fellow man. EVELYN Is that how you feel about me? You think you've used me up? Or, worse, you think I'm holding back? What, because I'm sick? KELLY I think you would keep nothing back if I didn't demand you not. I think I would be all consuming to you if I let you share in this misery. EVELYN But what makes you feel you have the right to stop me? Or the power to stop me, for that matter? What makes you think your own suffering makes this insane idea of yours to . . . well, makes you any more justified than the next person. KELLY That's just it. It doesn't, Evie. I'm not any more special. In fact, I'm even less special than I was. And certainly a universe of "less special" than you, my Sweet. I guess, whenever I came to realize that is when I stopped being self-conscious. EVELYN You. You're an utter shit sometimes. I spend my adult life dedicated to this indispensable thing in my life called Kelly Jeski, and you reduce it to this little fiction about who is worthy and who isn't. KELLY This is exactly why, Evie. You don't get it. I don't want you to get. I know, even if I could explain it to you, and use the same words that you would use, the same seven-syllable words you rely on to "interact with the world" . . . EVELYN Now they're seven-syllables, are they? I can't even keep my jaw muscles open for that long any more. KELLY Even if you could be reached on this point, I wouldn't do it, Evie. I wouldn't do it! It's not me you're living with any more. I'm changed. Look at me. Who is this person screeching at you? You, you go on. You go to Physical Therapy, and you come home and maybe knock a chair over and struggle to say words like "indubitably" in a sexy accent, but it's still you in there, the Evie I love. Do you have any idea what's in me? EVELYN Right now? A raving lunatic with a penchant for leaden, constipating food. KELLY You know, when you have cancer, people imagine some Sloan Kettering wunderkind with a scalpel sharper than Oscar Wilde's wit, declaring war on your illness, like it's not even something real. Like your cancer is . . . yeah, in fact, like cancer is like a cancer, not a real cancer, but only like one. But it is, literally, all that and more. It's literally going to make me its pod-person after awhile; it, literally, is going to become me. EVELYN Not you--all of you. You're not seeing the bigger picture. It's just a part of you, like my paralyzed arm. It's just the tumor I wish would go away, not you. KELLY Yeah, well, wishing is for Willy Wonka, Evelyn. For Kelly Jeski it's a gleoblastoma multiforme,. The physics of the known universe are over; now I've got this creature in my head, Evie, and it's taking over my brain. It's becoming me. The tumor, in fact--and I do mean "in fact"--it's making its own arteries and its cloning other parts of my head. Its having a debutante's ball up here. Did you know that? It's already moved in to certain rooms of my mind. EVELYN All this, Kelly. It's just . . . KELLY Eventually, soon, I'll be--it will be--just one crab living in another crab's shell. It won't recall the oh so charming hair loss; or think about bowel movements that routinely skinned my anus; it won't have any recollection of the burning, throbbing headaches so bad that I'm liable to puke in very the sleep induced by the Compazine I needed for the feeling like I wanna puke in my sleep; and I haven't even begun with the side effects of thalidomide and a thousand other things--things I used to be too self-conscious to discuss once upon a time. You once asked me what I was afraid of more than anything else. Well, this is it: free falling into an abyss without touching bottom. EVELYN This surely is not you, Love; it's just the cancer talking now. KELLY Well of course it is, Evie, that's what I am trying to tell you! And you need to understand this, if nothing else: from here on out, I start to become the Kelly-blastoma. Pretty soon, it would only be the cancer talking to you! How can you imagine I would let that happen? Can you? How? Tell me. EVELYN How could I imagine . . . KELLY Well, Dear, it's pretty much beyond your imagination--mind you, just as it should be. And all your proper English words for it. That's why, between you and me, we'd better get used to saying "euthanasia" right now, . . . EVELYN Kelly, please, I need . . . KELLY No, no! Listen! Because tomorrow, one way or another, of the two of us, only you'll be left. Do you get it? Say it with me. "Euthanasia.' KELLY pushes away from the table and looks in every direction but at EVELYN. EVELYN, it is clear to everyone, has begun to cry in fits and starts, struggling to move the paralyzed arm up to the face but letting it sit in the lap after all. EVELYN is the first to break a gathering silence with . . . EVELYN Kelly, I . . . KELLY Don't say it, Evie. You don't have to say it. I was just kidding. In fact, strike everything I just said from the . . . EVELYN Kelly! KELLY What? EVELYN I've . . . I've pissed myself again. KELLY (looking over in EVELYN's lap) Yep. I can see that for myself now. EVELYN Sorry, Love. KELLY (a gesture more than a word) No, no. KELLY takes up the dish towel and blots EVELYN's thigh several times. It's not working, obviously. KELLY Don't fret about it, Sweetie. We'll have to change your clothes, though. This towel's just making it wetter. EVELYN Who'll help me afterwards. KELLY No one. Just keep your legs crossed. The absurdity of this seems to satisfy them both. KELLY stands up. KELLY I don't know who. Well . . . yes, I have a short list, anyway, but . . . . Move to the recliner and start getting out of these. I'll get you some clean underpants and another pair of sweats. EVELYN Make sure you don't put that tea cloth back in the kitchen . . . KELLY (while leaving STAGE RIGHT) It's history. EVELYN'S makes the arduous trip back to the recliner in "The Dance of the Pissed." A moderately damp area to the crotch and hip area is visible now. The recliner's back is to the audience. (If actors are bolder about this scene, the disrobing can take place with the recliner in Full Monty.) Before lowering to sit on the edge of the recliner seat, EVELYN begins pushing pants and pantaloons down low enough to make their removal from a seated position much easier. A familiar routine is suggested. Meanwhile, KELLY can be heard O.S. slamming drawers or closets, or both. KELLY (calling, O.S.) White or red underpants? EVELYN (tired) White. Grey sweatpants, though. KELLY returns bearing gray sweatpants and red briefs underpants. The exchange of clothing ensues like the changing of a diaper. EVELYN Did you not hear me? I asked for . . . KELLY I heard you. Tumor wants to see you in red, though. It's got a . . . EVELYN a mind of its own. Yes. I get the joke. I can anticipate them now. KELLY Even the good ones? EVELYN (not even amused) As you said, they're all bad. KELLY (pleased) Yes. (offhanded and almost sotto voce) Baby powder next. EVELYN (now bemused) Oh fuck off. A smile from KELLY, a quick glance up from EVELYN's feet, then the final settling of the raiments. KELLY Do y'know, you have a remarkable ability of looking up even while you're looking down? EVELYN I'm sure it's all part of the sex appeal of this moment. KELLY You have . . . you have attributes . . . lasting attributes. You're lucky. People don't always keep them. EVELYN I think you'd have been the type to see the emperor's new clothes. KELLY Nah. That'd have taken a kind of optimism I know I don't have. EVELYN Are you telling me you are an optimist or you're not? KELLY I'm saying I'm a certain kind of optimist. EVELYN That being . . . ? KELLY That being the kind who can hope for tomorrow because it's very simply not today. Any other kind of optimism is a matter for prayer. (shudders) EVELYN That takes some strength. Some people would keep an habitually prayerful attitude in your condition . . . KELLY . . . if they knew what's good for them. Yes, I've heard that one before too. (singing) Back on my knees again For that's where I know he wants me Back on my knees, agai-ain In a prayerful attitude. EVELYN What the blazes are you singing . . . KELLY Sshh, sshh. I'm taking my little trip to Bountiful now. Asking the Lord for mercy Back on my knees again. EVELYN You can get up now, Geraldine. KELLY I used to hear my Aunt Lucy singing that one. EVELYN (talking over KELLY) They're starting to all sound like one aunt. Are talking just one side of the family? KELLY (oblivious) Not at the High Masses of course. After the all-day tent revivals. Some sweaty preacher . . . {BEGIN TABLEAU} EVELYN (talking over KELLY; smart-alecky) Come for the brainwashing, stay for the pie. Sensing EVELYN's impatience, KELLY begins a foot rub, first the paralytic foot, then the other. EVELYN relents and leans back to enjoy it. KELLY ..., the seventh son of a seventh son. She met her Mr. Reginald Hannigan at one of those. The man who would convert her to the Pentecostals. (singing, again!) For that's where I know he wants me Back on my knees, agai-ain In a prayerful attitude. Has no one figured out the sexual fetish in these Southern hymns? "In a prayerful attitude"? C'mon, who wrote that? Sophie Tucker? From the first moment some lonely artist tacked up an image of Jesus in a loin cloth, Christianity and sexual sublimation would be synonymous forever, (crossing fingers tightly) and Jesus Christ would be just another pinup model in the minds of sexually frustrated, oppressed Southern women and sexually repressed bi-curious good ol' boys. Am I the only one who gets that? {END TABLEAU} EVELYN Now you're stooping to the level of a gossip. KELLY Look me in the face and tell me the entire two-thousand year old tradition of Christianity is not about the power of the gossip, to use the truth in whatever way causes the greatest torture. You know the language; tell me "gossip" and "gospel" aren't from the same . . . EVELYN Bloody hell, stop now. You're obviously now channeling the ghost of Madeline Murray O'Hare. Where are the bodies buried, Kelly? Your grandmother did it, I know she did. You can tell me. KELLY No, Dear Evie. Experience has taught me that all religion is a pustule on the human condition. Once you've left behind the training wheels of your Faith, there's only one direction to go: away. Far and away. EVELYN This certainly doesn't sound much like a Klan approved position, either. It's a wonder you're still alive. KELLY Let's just say I hid the scapular under my sweater--which is the history of scapulars, anyway--and confused them with hifalutin words they never learned because they wasn't in the King James Bible. And the King James Bible, as I was told once by a corner preacher in Tuscaloosa, was the version good enough for the Good Lord himself to use. For these morons, religion is just a matter of choosing AOL over Earthlink because their ads are louder. EVELYN Born-Agains did launch the success of the internet. KELLY I never did quite figure that out. Sounds like Al Gore all over again. Enlighten me about that sometime. EVELYN (counterfeitly philosophical) We mustn't be ungrateful to the universe for the little things, or the birds will stop bringing us flowers. KELLY Which reminds me. EVELYN I haven't checked today either. KELLY rises and walks across to STAGE LEFT to the computer desk. KELLY Doing it right now, then. KELLY bends over the computer chair and remains standing, mouse-clicking along to the e-mails. EVELYN (calling) So, in other words, you kept them guessing, long enough to get out of . . . KELLY Good God! EVELYN What?! KELLY Why is it, all I want to do these days when I open our e-mail is wince. Every day, the gallery of horrors becomes grosser and meaner. Rape fantasies? Are prison inmates running these web sites? Listen to this: (reads with deliberation) "Tight young teenaged sluts-devirginized by . . . EVELYN "Devirginized"? God, the abuse of the language! KELLY . . . devirginized by farm beasts--Come see! Trial offer." (shudders) EVELYN It's pure haiku. KELLY Pure what? EVELYN Haiku. All right, not so pure. But haiku. Porn haiku. KELLY (counting with fingers) "Tight young hdhdhh-hh-hm hh-hm . . . ." Dead on! Well done, Evie. What an ear! EVELYN An Oxford education well spent. Look away, Kelly. You'll turn into a pillar of salt. KELLY Let's see. Delete, delete. Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. Delete! Blech! Look at this one. It's a junk ad for a water softener, for god's sakes. You shouldn't have to know this man dresses left. EVELYN Some guys can't hide it. It only crosses the line when you can tell whether or nor they're circumcised. {BEGIN TABLEAU} KELLY Yes. That used to be another way for the Klan to pick you out. I saw that one in action. A merchant friend of my father's, who repaired watches on 4th St. Dragged him out of his house one night and dropped his drawers for all to see, even his own family: pronounced him a Jew-lover, and burned a cross on his lawn. EVELYN (incredulous) A Jew-lover. KELLY The whole thing was about him adopting a Jewish orphan. Rules change, apparently. Now their own kids are cut before they ever leave the hospital. It's the American thing to do. {END TABLEAU} EVELYN What causes people to hate like that, on such a phenomenal scale? KELLY What makes them ever wake up from it, is what I wanna know. The good folks who carry out the Klan's complex charter, they're almost too stupid to be compared with honest, stupid folk. But petty stupidity is pretty much the Klan's fuel of choice. They hate the homos because "fags is fags"; I almost don't have to say more than that. They hate the Blacks, and, why not, a good many of them taught themselves out of their poverty-stricken conditions, despite the best of Antebellum efforts--why, it shakes a white feller's confidence. The Jews--now, the Jews killed Our Lord and Savior--again, that argument from folks who think "Christ" was the last name of the Holy Family, . . . EVELYN (talking under KELLY) Christ? (in a deep, officious voice) "Mr. Joseph Christ? Step up to the counter. You're prescription is ready." KELLY And the Klan Baptists and other Christians hate the Catholics--at least this is the impression I got growing up as one--the Klan says it hates the Catholics so much because they do not worship the risen Lord. But the truth is, their own tribe is not nearly as well invested and old monied as the Catholics. EVELYN (again, in a deep, officious voice, talking under KELLY) "Mrs. Mary-Margaret Christ to see you, Doctor. Yes, thank you; send her in." (a pronouncement) It works. KELLY And just look at the assets of the RCs: a king on a throne; a castle that's its own city; a set of crowned jewels; and the leavings of the Roman centurions--now the dreaded Italian Mafia--to act as its private army. Envy, pure, unrefined envy. EVELYN Ah, but, Kelly, the Pope now is a salt-of-the-earth Pole, like yourself. KELLY He's the greatest joke ever perpetrated on the world, and I'll tell you why. Look, the Mafia is well aware that the Catholic church as we know it won't survive more than another seated pope, perhaps two at most. They just want the hoard when the dragon dies. It's always been about the power struggle. With Vatican II, the Church parlayed with the Mafia and lost; the Mafia deployed two strong arms and a pillow to put Pope John Paul One to bed after just a month, emasculated him with the epithet "The Little Pope", and so saw to it that all his grand schemes for reform--the ones that would have bartered off the Vatican Raphaels--had the kibosh put on them. It was pay-back. The College of Cardinals, (gesticulating wind) smelling further assassination on the wind, they elect the Howdy Doodie of all popeks strictly as a private joke. I mean, really, an incomprehensible Polack sitting half asleep among the Bernini columns? Surrounded by Italian cardinals who couldn't pronounce his last name much less suffer his vulgar pronunciation of Latin. They expected Mehmet Ali Agca, or someone like him, to deliver the punch line; it was in the contract. EVELYN You've obviously given this some thought. EVELYN and KELLY (simultaneously)
EVELYN Too much thought, Kelly.	KELLY When you're forced to take your aunts to Mass on a daily basis, your mind has to go somewhere, doesn't it.
KELLY returns to EVELYN'S feet to replace the booties. KELLY By the by, I went to . . . Lift. That's it. I went to the Hemlock Society web site the other day--you know--thinking it was the best place to find out what the fatal cocktail might be. . . . Again. Okay, you can rest your foot. Of course, you know the incorrigible consumer in me--that little voice of Aunt Helene in the back of my head: straight to their Hemlock Shop on-line! Bought their tote bag for you. It should arrive it in eight to ten business days. EVELYN I should attend Physical Therapy with a Hemlock Society tote bag? You're joking, aren't you? KELLY Fair enough. Not sure if it's durable. Anyway, no luck at the Hemlock Society. I had more success with the Physician's Desk Reference and a little inspiration from Aunt Gwen: X amount of Haldon taken with X number of martinis. Just shuts down your autonomic system. I have the recipe written down; should only take several hours to work. And we'll have a gay ol' time as well. I mean, you'll have a gay ol' time, drinking martinis. I'll have a . . . well, point of fact, I'll be out of time, wont' I. Lord, if Aunty Gwen could see us now. EVELYN Give me a second. I'm still getting my mind around this Hemlock Society tote bag thing. KELLY Despite what they tell you, you can not take it with you. A bit of gravity and silence between them. EVELYN You can take those with you if you like. (doesn't quite get the pronunciation right) Your pierogis. KELLY Nah. Don't fret about them. They were just . . . A Silly and last minute . . . well, a lark. You know what I mean. I need to tell you . . . EVELYN (even greater gravity) Oh Kelly, look at the kitchen. Will we ever have enough time to . . . (unable to continue) KELLY It's about the money. The insurance, I mean. EVELYN (even greater gravity) I told you. I don't care about the money. I just care about you staying. KELLY I found someone, a man in Santa Ana. He was very polite, very respectful. He said many people in my position were doing it. EVELYN looks down with unconcern masking concern, but says nothing. KELLY I . . . I sold him my policy. For eighty-five thousand in cash. It's a little less than if I . . . you know. But it yours, Evie. It can't be withheld from you now. They won't . . . EVELYN The clause, you mean. They'd have used the clause. Against me. KELLY that's the one. (setting the moral compass, now, to true north) I'm not ashamed I did it. I'm just ashamed I kept it from you till now. We see now that EVELYN, with lump in throat, is glassy-eyed and ready for tears, staring into a distance unwaveringly. EVELYN I'll be sure to keep every penny of it in the tote bag. KELLY We'll think of a better place than. In a while. We'll talk about it. Together. When you feel more like talking to me. KELLY squints at first to see into that same distance but understands it is a private place for EVELYN; KELLY instead looks unwaveringly into EVELYN's eyes, and takes in hand one of EVELYN'S feet to continue a foot and leg rub. LIGHTS FADE. End of Scene Two

CONTENTS SCENE THREE At Rise: A couple of hours have passed. The table has been cleared of lunch dishes and papers, and now bears a couple of fine china plates, and fine crystal goblets. The same bottle of vodka, prescription pill bottles, and tumbler, present from the beginning of the play, are still in evidence. Slightly STAGE LEFT of the table, between dinette and computer desk, is a video camera on a tripod, with cables hooked up to computer. In the kitchen, KELLY is just putting away the remaining pots and pans from lunch. KELLY's clothing is a little less slapdash than in previous scenes: a dressy cardigan over a turtleneck top. Nevertheless, sleeves are rolled-up comfortably for the kitchen chore. There's a peculiar sort of "padded-ness" to hips and bottom, though. From STAGE RIGHT, EVELYN shuffles in reliant on a single, but beautifully crafted cane and wearing even nicer finery than KELLY: a white shirt with French cuffs, a bow tie (suitable to gender), and a white, fitted vest of raw silk trimmed tastefully on the edge of the fob-pocket with a hint of crochet-work, and finished with brass buttons. Completing the lower half of the outfit are a pair of black sweats and Aunt Gwen's booties, brown and incongruous. KELLY (seeing EVELYN; after a wolf-whistle) Where's the cotillion? Am I invited? EVELYN It's a bit out of fashion. KELLY (rolling down sleeves) Nonsense. You look . . . you look younger. Like . . . EVELYN I just graduated the Sixth Form College, Colchester Essex? That's pretty much its age. KELLY Sit down. Sit pretty for me. KELLY is rapidly undertaking a cover activity in the kitchen, which culminates in the lighting of a candle. EVELYN You made yourself sick again over dishes. KELLY emerges with a small chocolate torte, candle lit, on a fine china plate.
KELLY (interrupting; singing ala "Happy Birthday") Happy Anniversary to you. Happy Anniversary to you. (Who gives a damn?) Happy Anniversary, Dear Evie, Happy Anniversary to you.	EVELYN (reacting, relieved, touched, infuriated) Look at you, you hackneyed fool. (Your allergic to choc-o-late.) And Dear Kelly. . . . to u-u-u-u-u-u-s
EVELYN I'd applaud, but . . . KELLY Yeah, yeah. Sound of one hand clapping, and all. EVELYN Note to Kelly, though. KELLY (lowering the torte onto the table) Hhhm? EVELYN Our anniversary isn't until . . . KELLY Live in the eternal now. EVELYN (interrupting) You made this just now, then, I take it. KELLY Not now, not ever. Deli woman, Dorota[10]. And her miraculous Polish hands. {BEGIN TABLEAU} EVELYN Another descendant of Kasimir Pulaski? KELLY No, a camp survivor. She has a scar on her forearm . . . (illustrating) just about here. EVELYN Where the number used to be. KELLY Hhh-hhm. EVELYN And, what God would that be? KELLY I'm not an atheist outright. Not yet. I think you can use God just to have someone to complain to, if for nothing else. EVELYN The cosmic scapegoat? You can take the child out of Catholicism, but you can't take Catholicism . . . KELLY It was offered strictly as dispassionate observation. EVELYN There's no such thing, Love. KELLY Fair enough. EVELYN Anyhow, I didn't take you to be the "punish God" sort. KELLY I've been punished. I've been punisher. Now I just want . . . EVELYN Chocolate torte ala Dorota KELLY Amen. To Dorota of the Camp Survivors. Bet she had time to think about God there. EVELYN What? You live seventy-something years? And life is summed up by a blank tattoo. {END TABLEAU} KELLY Blow. EVELYN blows out the candle. KELLY and EVELYN exchange a little kiss--a very matter-of-fact, married kiss, implying a comfortable relationship that once held passion. KELLY takes up a cake knife, clearly one piece in a silver service, and prepares to cut the torte, but . . . KELLY Oh, wait. I've got . . . KELLY produces a champagne picolo from beneath the table. The crystal glasses on the table are beginning to make sense. KELLY begins removing the foil and unwinding the wire basket. KELLY We can't go on without this. Here, hold. EVELYN holds down the bottle with the good hand whilst KELLY pops the cork. A sugar cube is dropped into each of the glasses, and the champagne is poured. EVELYN Charming. Kippis, then, as the Finnish say. KELLY Nazdrowie, as the Polish say. EVELYN Zum wohl, at the Germans say. KELLY Sláinte, as the Irish say. EVELYN A vortre sante. KELLY Proost. EVELYN Mazel tov. KELLY Salud. EVELYN Skal! KELLY Okole maluna . . . EVELYN Okole malune. KELLY Here's mud in your eye. EVELYN Bottoms up. KELLY Cheerio, Evie, Dear. EVELYN To your health, my Love. KELLY To love, itself, then. EVELYN To Dorota. KELLY And to us. They klink-and-drink. Torte is served. Eating commences slowly. KELLY I haven't seen you in a vest in years. Particularly that one. EVELYN Worn in loving memory of my Aunt Phillida, she was the best of aunts. Hand sewn for me after she retired from a job as a seamstress in Dorchester. "Seamstress"--hardly a fit description. She was a proper tailor-ess. After the war, she put butter rations on the table with it, and then it turned into a cottage industry outright. One more example: distaff makes a woman into the indispensable man. KELLY Hon', all women are the indispensable man. Nothing--I mean nothing--would have gotten done in my family if it weren't for my mother and her five sisters. As nuts as they all are--were. EVELYN Aunt Phillida was the mother and the older sister to me Dad; and her aunts were mums to her, as it were. Extended families--like we ever actually called ourselves that--but the extended family has fairly disappeared in England. Practically the rule, still, in Ireland. KELLY It's kept some staying power down South, though. Mostly so's to keep the men folk under close watch. EVELYN Do tell. KELLY My Aunt Gwen used to say the Georgia mating call was, "Sis', you awake?" EVELYN Now there's a story. KELLY One she never told, far as I know. But I have no doubt. EVELYN I'm beginning to understand your feelings about your grandmother. KELLY Never mind The Troll; tell me more about your favorite Aunt. I feel I've never listened half as much to your stories as I should 'ave. EVELYN How do you know she's my favorite? KELLY You're a li'l bit wistful when you say her name. EVELYN Because, alas, we cannot all be blessed with sainted aunts. KELLY More's the pity, then. EVELYN I'll try my best, but I'm hopeless with storytelling. Mind you, even worse at jokes. But you insisted, so I'll tell you this: When my Dad met me Mum--that was still in Dorchester, about a month or so after Coventry, or was it Colchester? No mind. KELLY (talking under EVELYN) You and your-chesters. EVELYN I'll never get started if I don't just keep going. Skipping all the foggy details, let's just say the marriage plans were on, and there was a family row[11] over who would take Mum down the aisle. Everyone's families kept to the usual traditions, Church of England tradition. KELLY (talking under EVELYN) I'm biting my tongue. EVELYN Only both Mum's parents had been killed in Coventry. Grief still fresh, and all. And me Dad's Dad, who to me is just Granddad since, obviously, I never met the other side of the family. KELLY You're so cute with the "me Dad's" and "me Mum's". EVELYN (feeling self-conscious and clumsy) since my Dad's mother died when he was young, and my Granddad knew a little bit of loss, himself, he was just aching to be asked to walk her down at the wedding. Having uncanny clairvoyance about these things, Dad's sister--I'm talking about my Aunt Phillida now--she spoke with my Mum directly and suggested it, herself. Mum refused outright, and with no brothers or uncles of her own to undertake the job, we thought it--"we"! like I was there!--folks thought she was just being headstrong. My Aunt didn't go in for gossip, nor tolerate it. So next, . . . KELLY (Anglicizing) Have another spot of bubbly. EVELYN I'll piss myself again if I overdo it. KELLY Piss, or be pissed. Exercise you free choice now and then. EVELYN So next, my Aunt Phillida tried to strike up a bargain. All right, it was a bit of bribe. She had a nice white crepe de chine (I think it was) and some French lace . . . KELLY You think it was white? EVELYN No, it was white. Of course is was white. KELLY (talking under EVELYN) Just checking. EVELYN I think it's crepe de chine. I'm not good with fabrics. So, along with that and some beautiful French lace, would she be willing to let my Aunt her make her a wedding dress in exchange for the privilege of letting my Granddad give her away. Well, as the story goes, Mum took great offense. Someone threw a punch. (Sounds like pure Errol Flynn.) But, when all was said and done, the answer was still a very loud "no" to Granddad giving away the bride. A bit of a meditative pause. KELLY Gawd, that can't be the end. Or, you are bad at storytelling. EVELYN Shush, shush. I'm just gathering the details in my head. I want to do it justice. KELLY Fair enough, Dear. Drink up. EVELYN So, the morning of the wedding. Or, before the wedding. KELLY It was a morning. I get it. EVELYN Be patient. (comfortably matter-of-fact now) On a morning before the wedding ceremony, still no one chosen to walk Mum down the aisle. And, everyone's afraid that she's going to say, "Bugger all" anyway. Y'know, the wedding's off, right? But happy news: at least my mother's Granny's wedding dress has been fished out of the sacrosanctity of a matrimonial chest, locked up in a little Victorian attic in Kent, right? Driven out and hand delivered, because they virtually had to stop my Mum's relatives from burying her own mother in it. Box is popped open. Satin ribbons are untied. They smell a bit of smell, but all's forgiven--not exactly any dress shields in my greatgrandmother's day, yes? So a little lavender's in order, okay then. Unfold the dress and--no warning--there's been a rat--long since passed on, but with which, by now, everyone's on a first-name basis anyway, . . . {BEGIN TABLEAU} EVELYN (starting to appreciate the humor; another drink of champagne) and the rat, you see, has nested in the dress box--oh, say, twenty years earlier--and there's a stain about crotch level that's just about the size of the broodmare's brood--honestly, I feel like I've gone down the pub now with my mates, telling you this--following me so far? KELLY (laughing) Rat. Broodmare. Down to pub. Here we go . . . {END TABLEAU} EVELYN Well, by now, Aunt Phillida's gotten word of what's quickly being called a bad omen, and, Oi, the blokes who have been calling themselves me Dad's "matees" are passing around a few jokes in very poor taste. The last straw, really. And Aunty Phillida says, "Right, then. Enough's enough." She's up all night . . . KELLY On the morning of the wedding? EVELYN Okay, caught me. On the morning of the previous day, Aunty is up all night, pissing away tea into the wee hours, hand sewing this wedding dress she'd offered my Mum in the first place; pulls together her sewing baskets and the unfinished gown, stuffs them into an overnight trunk . . . KELLY Oh, Evie, my willing suspension now . . . EVELYN No, wait! KELLY Stuffed? EVELYN Honestly. KELLY Into an overnight trunk? EVELYN Stuffs them into a trunk, straps the whole thing somehow onto her back, and, at 5:30 a.m. on the morning of the wedding, arrives huffing and puffing at my mother's flat on a girlfriend's bicycle. And there, she finished sewing the wedding gown . . . KELLY Right onto your Momma's haunches. EVELYN I've improvised with the bicycle thing. KELLY I figured that. EVELYN So, then, at St. Cecil's, at one o' clock, me Dad's bride steps into view, to everyone's incredulity, head-to-foot an absolutely glorious vision of white crep de chine and French lace with a train several feet behind her, an ivory cameo on a string of pearls around her neck, which, in fact, belonged to her mother-in-law, and, finally, the coup de gras . . . KELLY, delighted, is hanging on EVELYN's words. {BEGIN TABLEAU} EVELYN Arm-in-arm with my own Granddad in a borrowed top hat, several sizes too large for the man; it's falling into his eyes, tears pouring down the cheeks of the both of them. I can see now you're not believing any of this. KELLY No, no! It's just . . . well . . . This kind of honesty in romance, Barbara Courtland could never quite . . . Never mind me. Your Aunt must have been . . . EVELYN (finishing KELLY's sentence) Suffering a complete nervous breakdown, but doing it in the first pew--on the bride's side, mind you. After all that, my Mum and Aunt Phillida: inseparable. Even when she and my father were not. After the divorce--apparently--they were just waiting for Mary--bless her--to move into the college dorms so they could call it finished. {END TABLEAU} KELLY But that wedding dress! God almighty! I'll bet that's no rat's nest in Mary's attic! EVELYN 'Fraid not. You see, the dress is now no more. KELLY No! EVELYN Well, after the divorce, my mother entrusted it to my Aunt Phillida again. And my Aunt Phillida--who by now more than loved my mother dearly--Aunty Phillida wanted to grace my mother's memory once again. So, that same year after Mum died, after the Midnight Service--Christmas morning--my Aunt invited us to return with her to her house . . . KELLY I think I know where this is heading, but I wouldn't stop you for all the world. EVELYN And at her house, draped across the backs of the high-back chairs in the dining room, with a little spread of tea cakes and little place cards for each of us . . . KELLY reaches across the table and, with reverential gentleness, touches EVELYN's vest. Tears. KELLY My God, Evie! EVELYN I was afraid you'd just laugh, . . . KELLY It's . . . ! EVELYN and say (with a little bit of Hollywood) "Starring Melissa Gilbert as..," so I kept it to . . . KELLY stops EVELYN by bring a hand gently to EVELYN's mouth KELLY (more mouthing than speaking, with a little shake of the head) No, no. KELLY interrupts EVELYN with a kiss that lingers, not with sexual motivation, but with profound appreciation. It's followed in silence by as deeply motivated a hug. KELLY I want to hold this image of you in my mind for a second. No visible response from EVELYN KELLY God, Evie, I don't know what I'd have done without you. No visible response from EVELYN, just the warm appreciation in kind. Then, EVELYN takes notice of the padding around KELLY's midsection, pulls back, and gives the area a bit of a fleecing. EVELYN What's going on around the middle here? They separate finally. KELLY begins to gather--a familiar sight now--the dishes, but leaves the glasses and the tumbler. EVELYN sits back down. KELLY (a tad embarrassed; preferring to remain mysterious) The miracle of diapers for adults. Good for what ails 'ya. EVELYN And you were worried about me wetting the . . . KELLY Point of fact, it's because I don't want you to have worry about . . . (changing mind) I was just worried about messing up my good slacks. Bit of urinary retention. That's all. EVELYN Bit of a squirt, is it? KELLY Bit of a squirt, exactly. EVELYN I guess this is what they mean by "sickness and health." KELLY I've given that some thought over the years, le' me tell you. EVELYN Not what you bargained for? Me, I mean. Not what you thought a life together would be like? KELLY (interruptive) No, point of fact, I think it's the only part of the promise that matters. Everything else--bad luck and money--those are just a matter of endurance. You can get used to those. EVELYN Who says you can't get used to sickness? KELLY Sure, you can. It's just, you shouldn't. EVELYN Has anyone ever told you, you set impossible standards? KELLY I stand by that one. EVELYN (singing, in a false country twang) Stand by your man Give him two arms to cling to And something warm to come to When nights are cold and lonely Stand by your man KELLY (interrupt EVELYN, early on in the singing) Everything else in that tired, little prose poem is about breaking the trust that leads to the dissolution of a contractual agreement, in the eyes of the law. But sickness and health . . . EVELYN Is this you or your tumor talking to me again? KELLY Don't be so glib. If I didn't think you loved me enough to stick this out because of . . . EVELYN Why let a little thing like death and dying get in the way. KELLY You prove my point, Evie. You're amazing, you're strong. Stronger than . . . EVELYN (cutting off KELLY) Said as I slink back into my chair. KELLY Most of my aunts--the ones who married--they weren't loved by their husbands. They weren't in love with their husbands, for that matter. It's a man thing, isn't it. EVELYN What? KELLY Well, it's the unspoken rule in Southern culture, that if a man's wife is pregnant, and he goes off to--you know--get a bit of the other, as you say. Well, I'm just saying that, with the state of health a woman's in when she's pregnant, a man automatically assumes there's a sort of bank holiday from the state of matrimony. And if he can't stand by a partner in sickness and health for nine months, how likely is it that any man'll "stand by" someone under even worse circumstances? EVELYN You're swimming some pretty sexist waters now. KELLY Okay, fair enough. If a woman consents to this gross retreat from a connubial contract, in fairness, why should she feel obliged to stand by her man? EVELYN Women, you forget, have an extra half-chromosome. From an evolutionary standpoint, they're more advanced than men. KELLY My Aunt Lucy . . . EVELYN Again, with the aunts. KELLY . . . told me once, "Kelly, Darling, I love men. But I just hate husbands." EVELYN Yes, they are a bother, aren't they. KELLY This from a woman who became a Pentecostal just to marry a man she later divorced, then married again after four other husbands! EVELYN You need to slow down now. You're tiring yourself and making no sense. KELLY Am I? Hhhm. Then, Kelly, my friend, you'd better pull this together. I don't want to look like I'm not coherent. (takes a deep, cleansing breath, and . . . ) Okay, listen to me, then. What's the point of being together if sickness and--I'm just going to strip down the euphemisms now, okay?--if dying makes loving someone impossible? Look at Tracy, for god's sake. EVELYN What about Tracy? KELLY Just thirty-two weeks on interferon, and Robin closes the bank account, buys Tracy a forty-thousand dollar Tiffany lamp, climbs into the back seat of their Lexus with a volume of Percy Bysshe Shelly's poetry and waits out a fog of carbon monoxide. EVELYN I still don't know where you're going with this. KELLY Well, do you think Tracy sits under that Tiffany lamp crying, "Suicide. Why suicide?" Or, is there an understanding there? That Robin did it out of complete and utter . . . hope . . . for Tracy's love? EVELYN "Starring Melissa Gilbert as . . . " KELLY Look, people are going to talk. They're going to look at it as a suicide. As cowardly. EVELYN "Coming to the Lifetime Movie Network . . . " KELLY They're going to say you should have . . . EVELYN I'm scared out of my wits now, Kelly. KELLY I'm . . . well, forget what I am. I want you to know that you never failed me. You're not failing me now. You've been a hundred percent with me, in sickness and health. Whatever they say, whatever they try to make you think . . . EVELYN You're spoiling a good time. Just let it be, Kelly. Besides which, why not a Tiffany lamp instead of a pecuniary gift: (in spontaneous recitation) Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.--Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! EVELYN seems to be turning attention to the vest, fingering its buttons, straightening it, et cetera. EVELYN Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart? Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here They have departed; thou shouldst now depart! Class, what is Shelly's trope in these lines from Adonais? What are the "hopes" that have "gone before"?