Attachments by Judith Rossner

Author:Judith Rossner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE

A FILM BY KENNETH MCDOUGALL

The setting is primarily a farmhouse in New Hampshire, a state with no growing season to speak of. It is spring of 1969. The mud season has just ended. Two children are running and playing in the backyard. Suddenly what has been an idyllic scene dissolves into tragedy as the children get into a fight and the older one, a girl, starts hammering at the head of the younger one, a boy.

PHILIP (screaming): Mommy! Mommy! Carly mashed my head.

He runs toward the house, crying hysterically. His “sister” stands in the yard, waiting to see what will happen next.

NADINE SMITH comes out of the house trailed by DAISY, a child of two.

NADINE: What happened?

CARLY: He got mud on my shirt.

NADINE: Why didn’t you change after school?

CARLY: YOU didn’t make me.

PHILIP (sobbing steadily): It hurts. My head hurts. I think she broke it.

DAISY, watching PHILIP, begins to cry.

NADINE: Oh, shit. (She picks up DAISY, seems about to go back into the house but changes her mind, turns back to CARLY.) YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HIT ON THE HEAD!

CARLY (beginning to cry now, too): I didn’t mean to. He was too low.

PHILIP: I was not, I was standing up. CARLY: You’re still too low.

NADINE: Carly, go to the shop and stay with the daddies for a while.

CARLY: I don’t feel like it.

NADINE: Go anyway.

PHILIP: What’ll I do?

NADINE: Come on in the house with me. We’ll bake some brownies. As a matter of fact, you take Daisy in and I’ll be right there. But keep your hands off her.

PHILIP and DAISY go up the back steps onto the porch and into the house, NADINE grabs the hand of the still crying CARLY and heads toward the garage.

Close-up: Two sets of legs coming out from beneath a car whose end is jacked up. The legs are intertwined but only visible from the knees down, somehow conveying the impression that parts of the car’s engine have dropped out and are having an orgy.

NADINE: Hello? Anyone home? (A low grunt is heard from under the car.) Carly’s here. She’s going to stay with you for a while. I mean, she has to stay with you for a while because I’ve had it. CAN YOU HEAR ME, GODDAMN IT?

Laboriously the two sets of legs inch out from under the car, followed by two sets of arms and two attached torsos, then two heads.

CARLY (sinks to her knees on her father’s side, her tears renewed): Philip got mud all over my new shirt!

EDDIE twists to embrace his daughter, leaving huge grease stains on her face and her blouse, which neither appears to notice, NADINE turns around and walks out of the garage. Camera dissolves to NADINE, putting tin of brownie batter into the oven, slamming the door and plopping down on a chair.

NADINE (laughing nervously): It’s funny, instead of making me act better than I usually am, the camera seems to be making me worse. I guess I have the feeling that I have to show you the true me.

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