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| (Otter turns on the light while Mann sits oblivious, reading the dictionary.) | |
| OTTER: | I had a dream. |
| (Mann says nothing, continues to read.) | |
| OTTER: | A man and a woman met on the coldest night of the year. They had been total strangers. He had gotten drunk and plopped his pants and she found him lying in the doorway of her walk-up apartment. She dragged him up two flights of stairs, the plop dropping down his pant legs. She undressed him, bathed him, washed his clothes, tucked him into her bed. She went to sleep on the couch and awoke to find him lying on top of her, his P inside her V. In the morning he held her in his arms and rocked her back and forth singing a song about John Henry, the railroad worker who’d had the race with the machine to tunnel through a mountain, who’d beat the machine only to step out into the sunlight and drop dead. And then I awoke and I was the one living in a walk-up apartment, I was the one washing his clothes, I was the one on the couch, I was the one tunnelling through the mountain, and I was the one dropping dead. And then I awoke. |
| (pause) | |
| MANN: | (looks up, alarmed, as if he has heard a burglar) Did you say something? |
| OTTER: | We should move. |
| MANN: | And live where? |
| OTTER: | I wouldn’t mind trying a walk-up apartment. |
| MANN: | If you think you have a hard time sleeping here, I’d like to see you in a walk-up. You see, there is something cheap and sleazy about a walk-up, something about the odours of other people’s food that waft down the hall, something about the illicit sex that seems to occur in every room of a walk-up. You get single mothers on welfare with no education, white-trash babies playing the sort of doctor that involves sticks and pointed pencils and a tight clothes peg on the sensitive spot. The cries of the underfed, undereducated, underloved children and the blood of the battered wives cake your every waking moment. The claw of death that descends on your soul in the middle of a bleak February afternoon when all the televisions are tuned to a soap opera, that claw will be the claw that scrapes on your inner eyelids every night your spongy head nestles into your greasy pillow. A sense of rape lingers on the mouths of everyone. Don’t talk to me about walk-ups! |
| OTTER: | Since when were you such an expert on walk-ups? |
| MANN: | The walk-up is something I’ve spent many an hour contemplating. |
| OTTER: | Apparently. |
| MANN: | No, you just listen. |
| OTTER: | I’m listening. How could I not listen? |
| MANN: | Listen to me. |
| OTTER: | I’m listening. |
| MANN: | No, you’re not, you’re talking. |
| OTTER: | I’m talking to tell you I’m listening. |
| MANN: | You can’t talk, tell and listen at the same time. |
| OTTER: | I can. |
| MANN: | Don’t start up. |
| OTTER: | Talk to me about walk-ups. |
| MANN: | You better start counting down your days. |
| OTTER: | Walk-ups. |
| MANN: | Because it’s not going to be long ... |
| OTTER: | Walk-ups. |
| MANN: | … with this attitude of yours. |
| OTTER: | Walk. Ups. |
| (pause) | |
| MANN: | The walk-up – |
| OTTER: | (cutting him off) Yes. |
| MANN: | You were an anemic child, you know. |
| OTTER: | Yes, I know. |
| MANN: | You don’t have a lot of friends. |
| OTTER: | I noticed. |
| MANN: | You’re more interesting than outgoing. |
| OTTER: | Yes, I’ve always found you much more outgoing. |
| MANN: | People take advantage of this weakness of spirit of yours. |
| OTTER: | Do they? |
| MANN: | Yes. |
| OTTER: | I hadn’t noticed. |
| MANN: | My point exactly. Because I – |
| OTTER: | Because you … protect me. |
| MANN: | Exactly. I protect you from a certain number of harsh realities which I often have to shoulder myself. The strain is enormous. I field abuse and torment that’s intended for you and often come through a little the worse for wear. |
| OTTER: | I’m sorry. |
| MANN: | Completely my decision. |
| OTTER: | Thank you. |
| MANN: | Not at all. |
| OTTER: | So why do you spend so much time thinking about walk-ups? |
| MANN: | I was not a child of love. I was a child of rage. The kind of rage that a walk-up embodies. I will tell you this story only to stop you from fantasizing about walk-ups. It I will tell you for your own good. But also know that this story may cause you some pain. Do you have a complete understanding? |
| OTTER: | Completely. |
| MANN: | On the coldest night of the year, many years ago, before she had met Father, Mother returned home from work to her walk-up apartment to find him lying drunk on the front steps, steeped in his own excrement. She dragged him up two flights of stairs, the stool rolling quietly down his pant legs to softly bounce down step by step. She bathed him, laundered his clothing. By hand. Then tucked him into her bed while she made a nest of it on the couch. And after all that kindness she awoke to find him forcing himself on her. He remained on her until I was conceived in that most putrid act. How and why they remained together until their untimely deaths is another story, but suffice it to say, from that day forward, my knowledge of walk-ups is entirely extensive. |
| (Otter has fallen asleep on the couch. Mann hesitates, then moves to her and begins to stroke her hair. He pauses, then plugs her nose. She gasps for breath, reaches blindly out, and turns off the light.) |