Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 7 • Fall 2003 • Featured Writer • Drama

My Unknown Son

Daniel Curzon

Scene 1

Scene 1

Enter FATHER to his apartment from lunch, very perturbed.

FATHER
The nerve! The nerve of her! I told John we shouldn't have told anybody! (mockingly imitating his lover, John) "Oh no, Glenda will understand. She's my friend!" Friend, indeed! (mockingly imitating Glenda) "You've done what? Sired a baby with a lesbian couple! Have you no sense of responsibility! That's not right. Bringing a little baby into the world that way! That's immoral!" Well, the deed is done, Glenda. Done! (Types, is blocked. Then, to himself) I've got to live with it now. But how? (holds his head for a moment as though he has a headache) Oh, my head! (almost whimpering) I don't want to write this book!

FATHER plays back his messages on his answering machine, possibly pushing an imaginary button.

SECRETARY'S VOICE
(Beep) This is Alice calling from Random House in New York. Mr. Berg asked me to check on the manuscript. Is it ready yet? Please call us. You may call collect. Thank you.

FATHER plays the next message.

PUBLISHER'S VOICE
(Beep) Hello, this is Mike Berg from Random House. Your manuscript on the history of the theater was due in my office last week. How's it coming? Don't want to put too much pressure on you. We know you're working hard... Aren't you? You may call collect. We need that manuscript!

FATHER
(typing, to the machine) I'm working on it! I'm working on it, for god's sake! (Mimes throwing a hand grenade. Tries to type, stops. Exploding.) Fuck the theater anyway! What's it ever done for me! (Sighs, can't concentrate, holds his aching head. The figures in the play are his headache.)

MIDWIFE enters with the baby now visible. She is dressed to suggest her roles as Earth Mother, Assistant to Fertility, the Eternal Female, Witch, and Father's conscience.

MIDWIFE
Here he is!

She beckons to FATHER, who gets up, points to himself questioningly, then goes to her. MIDWIFE hands him the baby very gently.

FATHER
(to baby) How you doing, little fellow? You're just as cute as you can be, aren't you? (looks more closely) You look like me. Same ears. Same nose. (Touches the baby's ears, then his own) Of course I'd love you even if you didn't.

MIDWIFE
(abrasively) Would you? Would you really? (rushing over, grabbing the baby out of his arms, speaking on the run) Your time is up! (MIDWIFE doesn't attempt to be gentle, just takes the baby and runs off.)

FATHER
But I just got here.

MIDWIFE
(almost offstage) Tough!

FATHER
That's my baby! I have a right to see him! To hug him!

MIDWIFE
(returning intimidatingly) You gave up those rights, buster! You signed the paper when you donated. Don't you come in here now and start asking for more time with the baby. You've had your one visit. That's more than the mothers agreed to in the first place!

FATHER
I just want to --

MIDWIFE
You trying to get this baby away from the biological mother and her lover? I've seen your kind before. "Deranged Father Snatches Baby as Innocent Mother Pleads."

FATHER
I'm just trying to see my son.

MIDWIFE
(accusingly) Do you pay child support?

FATHER
No, we agreed I wouldn't have to --

MIDWIFE
Do you change the baby's diapers? Feed it, day in, day out?

FATHER
No, but if I could just --

MIDWIFE
You agreed to be an anonymous doner? Anonymous!

FATHER
I did, but I don't see how a few more minutes will hurt.

MIDWIFE
Siring a baby is the easy part! Raising it takes lots of --

FATHER
It's the only time in my whole life I'm going to see my son! I don't want him to grow up thinking his father didn't care enough to even hold him for a few minutes.

MIDWIFE
He's getting plenty of love as it is. He's a very happy baby. (fiddling with the baby's chin, cooing to it) Yes, him is!

FATHER
I want him to be a happy adult. I want to have some influence on the way he turns out!

MIDWIFE
I don't imagine your hugs are going to make that much difference. Rather egotistical of you! (hands him an oversized photograph.) Here!

FATHER
What is it?

MIDWIFE
A photograph of your child when he was two.

FATHER
He's two already?

MIDWIFE
Cute, isn't he? You may keep the photo.

FATHER
It's out of focus.

MIDWIFE
Here's another one. (pulls out second photograph) When he was six. Look how he's growing! They say he's just like you.

FATHER
(taking the photograph, examining it) Really? In what way?

MIDWIFE
That his mothers did not give me liberty to divulge!

FATHER
Can't I see him?

MIDWIFE
He's fifteen in this one. (Starts to hand it to him)

FATHER
Wait! The time's going too fast! What's he like?

MIDWIFE
You may keep the photographs. (Starts to leave)

FATHER
Is this all I get?

MIDWIFE
Isn't that what you always wanted? You hold the perfect child in your hands.

FATHER
(shaking the photos) These aren't a child. I want the real thing!

MIDWIFE
Let me think about it. (a super-fast think) No.

FATHER
(angry) Give me that baby!

MIDWIFE
(holds it away from him) Hands off!

FATHER
(grabs for it suddenly) Give me my baby!

MIDWIFE
Don't you touch this child!

FATHER
It's mine! You're just the goddamn midwife!

MIDWIFE
I knew this would happen if we let you see the baby. I warned the mothers! Men!

FATHER
I'm going to hold my baby! That's all I want! That's all I want!

FATHER grabs the baby. FATHER and MIDWIFE struggle, each pulling on the child, until finally they rip it apart.

MIDWIFE
(looking at the remnant in her hands) Oh, my God!

FATHER
(looking at his remnant) Oh, sweet Jesus!

MIDWIFE
See what you've done! You've dismembered your only son! You're going to have to live with this for the rest of your life! Baby-murderer!

FATHER
You're just as guilty as I am. You pulled too!

MIDWIFE
Why have a child if you don't know how to handle it?

FATHER
I didn't get a chance to handle it! I could have done so much with that baby.

MIDWIFE
Done so much? What? Plucked his heart out after you killed him?

FATHER
(trying to put the remnants back together) Picked where he went to school, what religion he had -- what religion he didn't have! Lots of things.

MIDWIFE
You'd have lost interest -- like most men. It's well known how they operate!

FATHER
(bitterly) Thanks for delivering my son for my one visit. Now get out of here.

MIDWIFE
I do my job well! I'm a professional.

FATHER
(touching remnants) Yeah, I can see. Go. Go screw up somebody else's life.

MIDWIFE
I'll go, but I leave you my curse. (hissing, putting a hex on him) My hideous curssse!

MIDWIFE exits hissing.

FATHER
What curse? (runs after her, worrying) What hideous curse? (returning to the remnant of his baby, picking it up) My poor baby! What goddamn curse is she talking about?

MIDWIFE enters.

FATHER
(frightened) What do you want?

MIDWIFE
Satisfaction guaranteed. Okay, you asked for it, daddy! (Olympian) The story of the Father and his Unknown Son as told to us by -- (gestures off toward SON)

SON enters, a young man dressed in the garments of Greek tragedy. He picks the remnant of the baby out of his father's hands, moves away. In this section SON and FATHER should never stand together in realistic ways. SON looks at the ripped baby, voice quavering.

SON
So this is what would have befallen us if left to thee! O hateful father!

FATHER
You're alive! Thank God! You're grown up now!

SON
Only because the midwife did not place our frail baby's body within thy evil grasp!

FATHER
She didn't?

SON
At the last moment she lay a shepherd's child in our place, fearing thy dread love. It was the shepherd's child thou rent asunder!

FATHER
Oh, good! I mean --

SON
The shepherd will not be pleased -- though he was but a peasant. (drops the remnants) We live because he died!

FATHER
I'm so glad you're alive!... So you're my son? (goes to embrace him)

SON
Lay not thy hands upon our kingly frame! We have been sent by the Furies to end thy life.

FATHER
End my life?

SON
Vengeance! Vengeance! Thou took our life, and now we must take thine.

FATHER
I didn't take your life. You're obviously here!

SON
Yea, another perished in our place, but Zeus has told us in a dream that thou must not live, lest thou make another attempt upon our life, most wicked parent!

Enter MIDWIFE as the Furies, in a headdress with several hideous faces on it.

MIDWIFE
(epic voice) Spill his blood upon the altar or Zeus will be unsatisfied!

FATHER
What about the shepherd's child? Isn't that enough needless bloodshed?

MIDWIFE
(as Furies) There can never be enough needless bloodshed! And the horrid profusion of blood paid must be of royal spillage!

FATHER
I'm not royal, so you can't spill mine.

SON
If thou art our father, thou must be of royal blood, for we are royal king of all of Thebes. Prepare thyself. (Takes out a large dagger, sharpens it, perhaps on his shoe)

FATHER
You can't kill your own father! That's -- that's --

SON
Patricide is the word thou wantest! The Furies must be heeded.

FATHER
Fuck the Furies. Everything is cleared up between us now. You've done pretty well. You're a king and everything. Let's get to know each other, make up for lost time.

SON
All our life -- all our life! -- we have wondered who our father was. We had two mothers, and so we knew we were twice blessed, knew we were born to be a king, and yet... and yet?

FATHER
And yet what?

SON
We were different from the other children of Thebes, who had but one parent of either sex. The little Theban children pointed their little children's fingers at us. They sneered. And sneered! (sneers)

FATHER
That made you strive to get ahead -- to be king. Most kids fit in and turn out to be quite dull.

SON
We wanted to be dull! But they would not let us. The vicious little bastards! (slashing dagger) I wanted to drink their blood!

FATHER
That's all past now. You've grown up... splendidly.

SON
Verily we are great; nevertheless, thou must die -- and at our hand. (Raises the dagger)

FATHER
You're joking. You can't do this.

MIDWIFE
What's wrong? Can't you handle the truth about your paternal crime?

FATHER
I can't die now. I've got a book on the history of the theater to finish! That's it -- you're merely a deadline! A headache!

SON
Wert thou a writer? (Beat) O, woe for thee.

FATHER
No, no woe for me! Get away!

SON
We will have thy book read to us when thou art dead! As we listen, we will weep many salt tears and eat green grapes. (weeping) O, the pity of it all!

FATHER
Listen, let's talk about this.

SON
Why didst thou sire us? That is our deepest question.

FATHER
I was helping out these two women.

MIDWIFE
Nay! Lies!

FATHER
Yes, I was!

SON
There's more here that must be speaked! (not sure of his diction) Spaked? Spooked?

FATHER
There is more! I wanted a child.

SON
But why? Why? WHY?

FATHER
It was expected. I was Catholic . . . or Jewish or something. That's why!

MIDWIFE
The Oracle knows!

SON
Wert thou told in a divine vision to sire me?

FATHER
(flippantly) No, my dick told me to do it.

SON
Dick?

FATHER
At least I didn't do it for the usual reasons -- to have somebody to work the farm or to look after me when I'm old.

SON
At least why not have one the usual way -- one dam, one sire?

FATHER
Because I was gay, and it wasn't possible to have a child the usual way.

SON
Gay? What is gay?

FATHER
I loved men.

SON
(dismissively) Oh, that! Well, we're "gay" in Thebes, too. We still manage to have sons and daughters!

FATHER
Lifestyles have changed a lot since your time. Under the circumstances, I did the best I could.

SON
(moving away) One more gnawing, tormenting, agonizing question.

FATHER
Yes?

SON
Where placed thou thy parts? (slashes the dagger close to FATHER's groin, then points with dagger at them)

FATHER
(moving the dagger farther from his "parts") Ah, I arranged with a midwife to give a donation of my seed to a lesbian couple.

SON
Sappho! But donation? What did thou do with thy seed?

FATHER
First we had a medical history -- on both sides -- and a sperm check.

SON
Did thou consult at Delphi?

FATHER
No, modern science is really something. A midwife told me I was able to have a child.

SON
They can predict fertility before the act now?! Would have saved much trouble in times past.

FATHER
I helped by taking garlic pills.

SON
Thou art more cryptic than the Oracle!

FATHER
Then I jacked off into an artichoke jar. With my lover, John. It was my sperm, but we held each other while I did it. I guess you were sort of our child, you see.

SON
(falling back) Our mind reels!

FATHER
And then the midwife came in her van and took my sperm away, wrapped in a towel, between her legs, and drove it to the mother-to-be, who was waiting with her lover, and then all three got in the van, and the midwife took something like an eyedropper and sucked up my sperm...

SON
Even Zeus in all his disguises never thought of this!

FATHER
That's why he told you to kill me. He's envious!

SON
(afraid, looking at heavens, whispering) Do not anger the gods! They will rip our eyelids off!

MIDWIFE exits, afraid.

FATHER
Surely the gods have better things to do than rip off eyelids.

SON
Do not blaspheme! (looking at the heavens) Or we are doomed!

FATHER
Some of us have a smarter way of looking at things nowadays.

SON
And that's why thou hast come to this pass -- sacrificed horribly at the hand of thy only son. (Raises the dagger)

FATHER
Wait! You're being old-fashioned!

Enter MIDWIFE with a drum, as the Gay Marching Band.

MIDWIFE
(banging away) Gay pride now! Gay pride now! I'm so proud, I'm so proud to be gay! To be gay! To be gay! (with a final bang) To be gay! (to SON suddenly) -- Kill him!

FATHER
What is this?

MIDWIFE
I'm the Gay Marching Band -- and Twirling Corps. (She twirls and throws a baton high, not necessarily well)

FATHER
No, you're the Furies!

MIDWIFE
Same thing! You tried to get around being gay by having a child. Doesn't sound like gay pride to me! You're a fake heterosexual! (Bangs the drum)

FATHER
It's just another option. People should have options!

MIDWIFE
(to SON, as the Furies) Kill him or suffer Zeus's lingering revenge!

SON
(uncertain) How can I kill my only father?

FATHER
Exactly!

MIDWIFE
It's done all the time, past and present. Revenge! Revenge! (bangs the drum) Do it!

SON
Our heart bears a burden.

FATHER
I'm going to stop this. (holds his hand up) All it takes is a little toughness with figments! I didn't have a son so that he would turn out to murder me!

MIDWIFE
Who does?

FATHER
I gave him the precious gift of life!

MIDWIFE
Not enough. Kids never forget their pain, especially ancient Greek ones. You should have adopted!

FATHER
But I wanted my own flesh and blood.

MIDWIFE
Well, you're going to get the blood anyway.

SON
Farewell, Father. We are distraught that we must do this to thee. (SON comes over and grabs FATHER from behind across the chest and raises the dagger high.) Dost thou have anything to say? Speak now, for it will be more difficult once I slit thy throat.

FATHER
I was just trying to live modern!

SON
But thou must die ancient!

SON slits FATHER's throat. Red ribbons fly out, representing the streams of blood.

FATHER
(dying, getting into the Greek spirit) Oh! Oh, my son, my son! Thou hast taken my life even as I gave thee thine! (He collapses)

SON
The deadly deed is done. We are our father's murderer. We are content.

MIDWIFE
(immediately as the Furies) Oh, be not content! We are sent to chastize thee for the wanton act of killing thy own father!

SON
But thou didst goad me to it!

MIDWIFE
Even as we must now goad thee for doing what we told thee to do! After all, that's what Fate means.

SON
O, what have we done! Away, bloody dagger! (Tosses it aside) He was a true father, even though we never knew him. If only we could take it back! But it is too late! Ye gods, it was thy doing! We will run mad and pluck out our eyes and kill our wife and every second citizen, and then we will take an army and sack seven other cities beginning with Athens and Sparta and then later we'll --

SON runs off, maddened, in several directions before exiting.

FATHER
(coming to life) Oh no, you don't! I won't put up with this madness! Come back here!

Bloodcurdling scream from SON is heard from offstage.

FATHER
That's not my son. That's just your stupid curse.

MIDWIFE
(as MIDWIFE) Well, what else can you expect from a patriarchy?

FATHER
I don't want my son to turn out like that. Hating me.

MIDWIFE
You started the ball rolling. Not me.

FATHER
If I were around him, if I raised him, then he wouldn't hate me. I will have influence in this matter!

MIDWIFE
That's not what you agreed to!

FATHER
Well, I've changed the game plan. How do you like them apples? I'm in charge now!

MIDWIFE
How many have thought that, only to see their children turn out quite differently from what they had in mind?

FATHER
It takes good stock, good genes, like mine, and some intelligence! Take away your goddamn curse and let somebody who knows what he's doing handle this.

MIDWIFE
Don't bite off more than you can chew, dickhead.

FATHER
Come on, come on!

MIDWIFE
It's your headache. (un-hexing him) Curse, be gone! I knew the mothers would do a better job of this!

FATHER
I won't have them monopolizing my little boy. Those lesbians think they can create some cozy female nest, where no nasty old cock can ever bring his nasty old worm!

MIDWIFE
One real son coming up! Heavy on the worm! (ironically)

MIDWIFE exits.

FATHER
(looking offstage) Son? Are you there? Son?

Next Page:   Scene 2   (page 3 of 6 pages)

All Pages:   See the entire play on one page

Table of Contents:   My Unknown Son

Daniel Curzon's works include the landmark gay protest novel Something You Do in the Dark (1971), The World Can Break Your Heart (1984), Superfag (1996), Only the Good Parts (1998), and Not Necessarily Nice: Stories (1999) as well as the play Godot Arrives (winner of the 1999 National New Play Contest). He has also written and published non-gay fiction and plays.

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