The Old Neighborhood

Read The Old Neighborhood for Free Online

Book: Read The Old Neighborhood for Free Online
Authors: David Mamet
Tags: Drama, General
won’t.
We’re
not okay …

Morning
. CARL . BOB
comes in
.
    CARL : How did you sleep?
    BOB : Like a rock or like a baby.
(Pause)
    CARL :
(To Bob)
You know, he
dumped
this stuff here.
    BOB : Jolly was telling me.
(Pause)
What was it?
    CARL : It was
trash
, you’d say. It was …
    BOB :
… my
stuff …
    CARL : Your stuff. Stuff you couldn’t want. Canceled
checks
. Twenty years old. It was nothing anyone could ever want to keep. Just some … “trash,” really … 
(Pause)
You know. There was so much stuff Jolly wanted. Some of your mother’s … When he sold the house.
(Pause)
    BOB : How can you put up with it?
    CARL : Well what “it,” then …?
    BOB : The misfortune of our family. Do I overstate the case …?
    CARL : Oh, I don’t … that’s a very personal question, isn’t it?
    BOB : Yes. It is.
    CARL :
(Pause)
Well, you know. I love Jolly.
    BOB : … are we that … are we that …
    CARL : That what?
    BOB : Are we … you know, I feel so
pathetic
sometimes, Carl.
    CARL : Well …
    BOB : No, what can you say about it?
(
JOLLY
enters.)
    JOLLY : Sleep well?
    BOB : Yes.
    JOLLY : How well?
    BOB : Very well.
    JOLLY : Why?
    BOB : ’Cause I feel “safe” here.
    JOLLY : How safe?
    BOB : Very safe.
    JOLLY : Safer than Other Places …?
    BOB : Yes.
    JOLLY : Safer than Anyplace Else in the World?
    BOB : Yes.
    JOLLY : Well, hell then.
    BOB : Hey.
    JOLLY : That’s what I’m telling you.
(Pause)
. The girls say good-bye.
    BOB : Good-bye to
them. (Pause)
    JOLLY : Um. Call me when you get where you’re going.
    BOB : Why?
    JOLLY : So I’ll know you got there.
(Pause)
You okay?
    BOB : Yeah.
    JOLLY : Thanks for coming.
    BOB : Oh, hell.
    JOLLY : No, no. Thank you. We …
    CARL : Jol, he wanted to come.
    JOLLY : Was I talking to you …?
    CARL : No. Good-bye, Bob.
    BOB : Good-bye, Carl.
    JOLLY : Did you know, this stupid shmuck. Drove two hours to Hillcrest to pick up three boxes of, turned out to be, drafts of your
term
papers, something, junior high.
(Pause)
Carl …?
    CARL : Bye, Hon.
    JOLLY : … canceled
checks
. Something. Cocksucker: He calls up: “We have some stuff of Bob’s …” Carl drives there to pick it up. Like fools. We, he goes over there. It’s garbage. That they saved. We’re s’posed to take it.
(Sighs)
    CARL : Bye, Hon.
    JOLLY : See you at six.
    CARL : Yes.
    JOLLY : The girls at gymnastics.
    CARL : Yes, I know. Bye, Buub.
    BOB : I’ll see you, Carl.
    CARL : You hang on.
    BOB : All right.
    CARL : Thank you for coming.
    BOB : It was good to come.
    JOLLY : He was glad to come. He was glad to come. One time in nnnnnnn years, you
should
be glad to come. A house full of folks who love you.
    CARL : Good-bye, Bob.
(To
JOLLY
)
Bye, Sweetheart.
(He exits.)
    JOLLY : Don’t go.
(Pause)
We could go back. To Seventy-first Street is where we could go. To the Jeffrey Theatre. And Saturday kiddie shows. Twenty-five cartoons and a western. For a quarter. And the Chocolate Phosphate at J. Leslie Rosenblum’s,“Every Inch a Drugstore.” Do you remember? Dad, he used to take us there?
    BOB : Yes. I do.
    JOLLY : Do you remember how it smelled?
    BOB : Yes.
    JOLLY : And we’d go to the Peter Pan Restaurant. On the corner of Jeffrey, and get a Francheezie, and the french fries, and a cherry Coke. And we would go to the South Shore Country Club, where they wouldn’t let us in. And we would sit in the window in the den, and Dad would come home every night, and we would light the candles on Friday, and we would do all those things, and all those things would be true and that’s how we would grow up. And the old men, who said that they remembered Nana. Back in Poland. And, oh. Fuck it. Oh the hell with it.
    BOB : I never came to see you.
    JOLLY :
I don’t care …
    BOB : … I never came …
    JOLLY : No. I don’t care … 
(Pause)
Oh, Bobby.
(Pause)
Oh, God …
    CARL : Well … 
(Exits)
    JOLLY : And I’m having this dream. How’s
this
for dreams …? They’re knocking on my

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