4000 Miles by Amy Herzog

Author:Amy Herzog
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OBERON BOOKS Ltd

SCENE FIVE

Several days later, around dusk. LEO and VERA sit, staring out into space. Something is different, though we don’t know right away what it is. A silence.

VERA: Weren’t you on a sailboat for a while?

LEO: Yeah. Yeah. In Mexico.

Pause.

VERA: And he was there? What’s-his-name.

Pause.

Micah.

LEO: Yeah. He was there.

Pause.

And Ally was there too, for a while, but she got hepatitis and had to be evac-ed back to St. Paul.

VERA: Hepatitis? What were you eating?

LEO: Fish, mostly. Rice.

VERA: You caught the fish?

LEO: Yeah, with a, like. Harpoon kinda thing. You shoot them with this spear thing.

VERA: Aren’t they fast?

LEO: Yeah.

VERA: Isn’t it hard to hit them?

LEO: Yeah. They’re fast. Micah was good at it.

Pause.

And the spear has a flotation device so after they’re speared they rise to the surface.

Pause.

VERA: What does?

LEO: What?

VERA: I forget what we were talking about.

Pause. Pause.

LEO: Me too.

More staring.

VERA: You know your father never did anything for me in bed.

Pause.

LEO: What? My father?

VERA: Yeah. Joe.

LEO: Joe was my grandfather.

VERA: Oh. Right.

LEO giggles.

Well he never did anything for me in bed. Neither of my husbands did. There was only one man who ever did anything for me in bed and it wasn’t one of the ones I married.

LEO: Who was it?

VERA: My lips are sealed.

LEO: I won’t tell.

VERA: Nope. Taking it with me to the grave.

Pause.

LEO: I’ve been incredibly horny since Micah died.

Pause.

VERA: Sure.

Pause.

LEO: Bec has kind of a weird pussy. But I like it.

Did you hear me?

VERA: Yes, but I don’t want to discuss it.

Pause.

LEO picks up a bowl and lighter that we haven’t noticed from the table.

LEO: You want some more?

VERA: No thank you, I didn’t like the way it made my throat…

Whaddayacallit.

He lights and pulls.

And I don’t think it’s really doing anything for me, besides.

LEO: (Holding the smoke in his lungs.) Were my parents ever in love?

He exhales.

VERA: Which ones are your parents? Oh right. (She thinks.)

I never really understood your father. He’s not very. Whaddayacallit. (She thinks.)

Forthcoming. He doesn’t…

LEO: Come forth?

They both laugh.

VERA: You know, your mother was always nervous. About… stupid things. She always thought she had offended someone, and then when she thinks that she starts acting peculiar and she does offend people.

What was the question?

LEO: Were my parents ever in love?

VERA: I think at first he made her stop worrying, and now he makes her worry more. But that’s just what I think, and that and a dollar fifty will get me on the subway.

Pause.

LEO: Biggest regret?

VERA: Maybe I would have liked to have one of my own children. I didn’t know I wanted one until I married Joe and his kids were around and then I thought, that would have been nice, to have one from the very beginning instead of coming in late like that.

Pause.

LEO: Thank you for celebrating the autumnal equinox with me this way.

She nods.

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