The American Clock by Arthur Miller

Author:Arthur Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-11-17T00:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

Rose, at the piano, has her hands suspended over the keyboard as the band pianist plays. She starts singing “He Loves and She Loves,” then breaks off.

ROSE: But this piano is not leaving this house. Jewelry, yes, but nobody hocks this dear, darling piano. She “plays” and sings more of the song. The crazy ideas people get. Mr. Warsaw on our block, to make a little money he started a racetrack in his kitchen, with cockroaches. Keeps them in matchboxes with their names written on—Alvin, Murray, Irving . . . They bet nickels, dimes. She picks up some sheet music. Oh, what a show, that Funny Face. She sings the opening of a song like “’SWonderful.” The years go by and you don’t get to see a show and Brooklyn drifts further and further into the Atlantic; Manhattan becomes a foreign country, and a year can go by without ever going there. She sings more of “’SWonderful.” Wherever you look there’s a contest; Kellogg’s, Post Toasties, win five thousand, win ten thousand. I guess I ought to try, but the winners are always in Indiana somehow. I only pray to God our health holds up, because one filling and you’ve got to lower the thermostat for a month. Sing! She sings the opening of “Do-Do-Do What You Done-Done-Done Before.” I must go to the library—I must start taking out some good books again; I must stop getting so stupid. I don’t see anything, I don’t hear anything except money, money, money . . . She “plays” Schumann. Fadeout.

ROBERTSON, from choral area: Looking back, of course, you can see there were two sides to it—with the banks foreclosing right and left, I picked up some first-class properties for a song. I made more money in the thirties than ever before, or since. But I knew a generation was coming of age who would never feel this sense of opportunity.

LEE: After a lot of jobs and saving, I did get to the university, and it was a quiet island in the stream. Two pairs of socks and a shirt, plus a good shirt and a mackinaw, and maybe a part-time job in the library, and you could live like a king and never see cash. So there was a distinct reluctance to graduate into that world out there . . . where you knew nobody wanted you.

Joe, Ralph, and Rudy gather in graduation caps and gowns.

Joey! Is it possible?

JOE: What?

LEE: You’re a dentist!

RALPH: Well, I hope things are better when you get out, Lee.

LEE: You decide what to do?

RALPH: There’s supposed to be a small aircraft plant still working in Louisville . . .

LEE: Too bad you picked propellers for a specialty.

RALPH: Oh, they’ll make airplanes again—soon as there’s a war.

LEE: How could there be another war?

JOE: Long as there’s capitalism, baby.

RALPH: There’ll always be war, y’know, according to the Bible. But if not, I’ll probably go into the ministry.

LEE: I never knew you were religious.

RALPH: I’m sort of religious. They pay pretty good, you know, and you get your house and a clothing allowance .

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