Landscape of the Body by John Guare

Author:John Guare [Guare, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802199652
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2007-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

The interrogation room at the police station.

HOLAHAN We had trouble tracking you down. You left town. Everybody thought you had taken the boy with you.

BETTY I went away for a few days. He’s a big kid. He’s supposed to be able to take care of himself. Boy Scouts go off. Survivor camps where they go off, kids, for three months, four, in mountains. Kids go in forests for weeks and months and they come out men and parents are applauded.

HOLAHAN Bleecker Street ain’t exactly survival camp.

BETTY He was supposed to stay with people in the building, people were supposed to look after him.

HOLAHAN A fourteen-year-old kid? Where’s your head, lady?

BETTY Here. This whole area above the neck. I didn’t just desert him. I left him with money. I left him with a thousand dollars.

HOLAHAN You left your kid with a thousand dollars?

BETTY My friend that I traveled with gave it to him. To me. I gave it to Bert.

HOLAHAN Even with inflation, a thousand’s a lot of money.

BETTY What I’m saying to you is find the person stole the thousand dollars, you’ll find who murdered Bert. Said it. I said murdered Bert. I promised myself everything would be all right if I never mentioned the word murdered. If I just never said the word, I’d be all right. If I never said the word, the person who … did it—

HOLAHAN The murderer—

BETTY Would be found.

HOLAHAN Stop running away from the fact!

BETTY I am not running away from the fact—

HOLAHAN Of the murder—

BETTY I just promised myself I wouldn’t name the fact. Not ever. You made me say the word.

HOLAHAN Can I make you say another word you’re avoiding?

BETTY Confess? Mister, I can say the word confess all that I want because saying the word confess is like saying the word desk. Chair. Necktie. Dirt. Room. You. I have nothing to confess.

HOLAHAN Where is this millionaire now?

BETTY It was only a thousand.

HOLAHAN This thousand-aire. Where is he right now?

BETTY South Carolina.

HOLAHAN That’s where you went?

BETTY Solomon Ferry. The Peach family. Durwood. His father’s name. He was a junior.

Holahan dials the phone.

Rosalie appears. She drags a chair and sits in it.

ROSALIE Scene. In which Betty wishes her sister was still alive so she could tell her what happened.

Betty sits against Rosalie’s knees.

BETTY We got down to South Carolina two days after what a night at the Dixie Hotel. Durwood wasn’t kidding all right. We came down this alley of trees and he says, “Close your eyes and now turn ’em on.” He had this farm with white fences. I never saw so many white fences. I’m not even talking about what went on inside the white fences. I’m a country girl. No stranger to the green. The horses and cattle. I never saw such fences. And roads. White-painted rocks lining the roads pointing the way where you go up to the big house. I said, “Boy, old girl, you hit pay dirt this time. Boy, old girl,” I said, “you have been on adventures in your short lifetime, but this is the key adventure.

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