Lodestar Quarterly

Issue 7 • Fall 2003 • Featured Writer • Drama

My Unknown Son

Daniel Curzon

Scene 4

Scene 4

SON enters dressed as a Sam Shepard type, muddy work boots, plaid shirt, heavy coat, baseball cap -- crazy. In his arms he carries a bunch of celery. Several bunches if the budget can stand it. Probably just one bunch or else many would be funniest.

FATHER
Son, are you back? I didn't mean to hurt you. Are you angry with me?

SON
(entering backwards) Celery is growing out of my ears. (MIDWIFE stops massaging FATHER.)

FATHER
Son?

SON
(mumbling) Zeke.

FATHER
Geek?

SON
Zeke! You had a son once, but you buried him in the celery out back.

FATHER
I did? I'm your father.

SON
(melodramatically) Wait? Do you hear that?

FATHER
What? (Both stop to listen.)

SON
Those coyotes howling across the desert.

FATHER
(listens) Can't say that I do.

SON
(hands him the celery) Hold this. (Takes out a flask of alcohol, takes a swig.) Sure, you hear them. (suddenly, madly) I hear them! (howls like a coyote)

FATHER
(holding celery) Geek -- I mean Zeke? Are you okay?

SON
How do I know you're my father? You haven't broken down a door even once. You're not drunk! Have you ever stayed in a cheap motel?

FATHER
(in a Sam Shepard father's voice) I've come back, Zeke. Those are my clothes you're wearing.

SON
Let me smell that celery! (Rushes over and buries his face in it as FATHER holds it) Smells like you, but I can't be sure. I can't be sure of anything these days. I need to get away in a Packard. A '49 Packard.

FATHER
Uh, tell me about yourself. Are you married?

SON
Yup.

FATHER
Kids?

SON
(Takes another swig from his flask) Sixteen. All just like me.

FATHER
Just like you?

SON
Yeah, the real people. Not like those zombies out there.

MIDWIFE enters as a stalking zombie.

SON
Not like those zombies who are trying to take away our -- our --

MIDWIFE
(stalking, trying to grab the celery) Give me your celery! (with swipe at FATHER) Your male celery.

SON
No, we're the good people. Normal. Farmers, ranchers, cowhands, not the corporate zombies like that! We made this country what it is!

FATHER
(with a real dig) What is it?

SON
Wait! (listens melodramatically) Hear them coyotes? (no sound) Hear 'em!

FATHER
(as though assuring a crazy man) Sure.

SON
You don't hear that in the city, do you!

MIDWIFE
Give celery!

FATHER
(starts to give it to her)

SON
(getting a rifle) Hands up, both of you! (FATHER and MIDWIFE put their hands up, dropping the celery everywhere. SON falls to his knees, keeping the rifle trained on them while chomping on the celery, ravenous.) I'm hungry! I'm hungry! I'm hungry! (stopping, then out of nowhere) ... I feel like stealing a toaster!

MIDWIFE
(with hands up, looking at FATHER) Humor him.

FATHER
Zeke?

SON
I've been arrested for malicious vandalism, breaking and entering, assault with two deadly weapons. I'm the real American!

MIDWIFE
I've gotta leave. (Backs off)

FATHER
I thought you were my conscience.

MIDWIFE
So you have a bad conscience, what can I say.

SON
(to MIDWIFE) Mom? Is that you? Mom?

MIDWIFE
(coming back, now a beaten-down, passive woman) Yes, son.

SON
I want to build me a door!

MIDWIFE
You go right ahead. You build yourself anything you please.

SON
Mom!

MIDWIFE
Yes, son?

SON
I want to slam me a door!

MIDWIFE
You go right ahead, boy! Slam away. Your mother gave up long ago. (SON runs off, slams a door. He runs back on. Then he slams another door or the same one again. They must be loud bangs. It's also possible to use FATHER's desk drawer to make the slamming noises)

SON
I feel better now.

FATHER
Good.

SON
Now you!

FATHER
Me?

SON
How will I know you're my father otherwise?

FATHER
I don't want to slam a door.

SON
Slam it! (Threatens with the rifle)

FATHER
This is crazy. (He goes over, slams a door. The noise isn't loud.)

SON
(wields the rifle) Another one. Prove who you are.

FATHER
(slams a door again, but it's quieter still) Okay?

SON
I don't know yet. You didn't do it right! My father would do it right! (Suddenly SON starts rummaging through FATHER's apartment, emptying drawers, tipping chairs over, throwing papers everywhere, general mayhem)

SON
That's how my real father would do it.

FATHER
Did not having a father make you like this?

SON
(sudddenly vulnerable) Yeah, he fucked me over but good! But good!

FATHER
Because I wasn't around? Is that what you mean? (with dig at MIDWIFE) Or because your mother was?

MIDWIFE
(to SON) Which was it?

SON
(Takes drink.) But I grow up strong, right? A real man! (Bangs rifle on floor) A man-man!

FATHER
Zeke, you don't seem to catch on. I'm your father.

SON
(listening hard) Hear that?

FATHER
The coyotes?

SON
No! The Packard coming over the hill. (Makes loud car sounds) Zoom! Zoom! ZOOOOOOOM! Zoom! Zoom! (to FATHER) Did I ever tell you the story of the time I was out castrating the neighbor boys?

FATHER
I don't think so.

SON
Yeah, there I was cuttin' off their balls and throwing them up on the roof of this shed. It was one of them beautiful days when balls really look good up on a shed. And then suddenly after about my fifth boy, I seen this shadow up in the sky. Coverin' up the whole ranch, it was. And I looked up and seen this huge bird coming at me. It was a robin. But huge! And this here robin comes hurtling down at me and grabs those boy balls in his beak and flies off to feed its young. And later it came back and stood on that shed and chirped at me. Just chirped and chirped. And ever since then nothing's been the same for me. (Makes a chirping sound twice)

FATHER
That's profound. (to MIDWIFE) What does it mean?

MIDWIFE
Beats me.

FATHER
How about a drink?

SON
(turning quickly) Dad? Is that you?

FATHER
(Takes flask from SON) I'm trying to tell ya. What more proof do you want? (takes a drink)

SON
(getting up) I know how I can tell. I know! (He approaches FATHER slowly. When he gets to him, he suddenly takes off his baseball cap and puts it on FATHER) Daddy, it's you!

FATHER
(taking the rifle out of SON's drunken hand) I'll just have this as a memento of this time together.

SON
(Seizes FATHER around the legs and won't let go) I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!

FATHER
(stumbling) Wait a minute now.

SON
You're the best father a guy could ever have! You're down-to-earth. You're the salt of the earth. You're the earth of the earth. You're the spit in the wind. You're --

FATHER
Calm down now.

SON
(holding FATHER'S legs) I'll never let go of your legs again! I forgive you for the terrible way you neglected me.

FATHER
Wait a minute now. I don't want your forgiveness. You weren't any worse off than any other son who loses his father for whatever reason. The world is unfair, and we make the best of it... I have something to tell you.

MIDWIFE
(a warning) Uh oh!

SON
Tell me?

FATHER
About myself.

SON
Yeah?

FATHER
(after steeling himself) Your father is gay.

SON
(after a take) My father is gay?

FATHER
I know we can come to some understanding about this.

SON
Understanding? (removing his arms from FATHER's legs) Why, you goddamn queer!

FATHER
Now, son. You seem like... an intelligent person --

SON
I wouldn't be intelligent if I was the last person on earth! Why don't you act right? Huh? Why don't you act like me? Huh? (Puts his arm around FATHER's head in a condescending way.) Let me walk you around this room until you get straight. (Walks him) You need a good talkin' to. That's what you need. You need some lessons in how to behave, boy! That's all you need! You got me, boy?

FATHER
(pulling away) Yeah, that's what the world really needs -- macho fuckheads like you! You do so much for the goddamn world, you do! (grabs the rifle) I ought to shoot you. Not that it would make that much difference 'cause they are so many of you in the goddamned world already. But I'll feel better.

MIDWIFE
(as MIDWIFE) Okay, this is getting out of hand. This is a comedy.

FATHER
Is it? Is it?

MIDWIFE
Put that rifle down. Before you hurt somebody.

FATHER
I want to hurt somebody! The way I've been hurt.

MIDWIFE
No, you don't.

FATHER
Yes, I do! You don't know me.

MIDWIFE
I know you. You're a gentle man -- inside.

FATHER
(with a snort) Is this what happens when there's too much male? Or is it too much female? Or not enough of each? Or is it something --

MIDWIFE
All I know is you don't want to kill him. (pointing to SON) Your only son?

FATHER
But I don't like him!

SON
You don't like me?

FATHER
(to MIDWIFE, about his feelings) Is this common?

MIDWIFE
Most people don't admit it.

FATHER
Is that why people have several children? That way, at least one of them might turn out right? It's just a matter of the chemistry. The right son with the right father! Is that too much to ask?

MIDWIFE
Have you thought of getting counseling? Talking to someone?

FATHER
Oh, crap!

MIDWIFE
What way do you want your son to turn out?

FATHER
Not just any old way. Not "just as long as he's happy" -- that junk. Something special.

MIDWIFE
And do you think you're special?

FATHER
(going over to SON) Why do I have to accept any child I get? Anyway he turns out! That's sentimental. What are human beings for? To eat and shit and reproduce? So the next generation can eat and shit and reproduce? Is that what we're for? To use up all the world's goods and leave garbage behind?

MIDWIFE
Were you loved as a child?

FATHER
Cheap shot!

MIDWIFE
Did you love your parents?

FATHER
We lived in the same house. I guess that means I loved them.

MIDWIFE
You don't sound very positive.

FATHER
Sure, I "loved" my parents, but I would never have chosen them as friends!

MIDWIFE
Do you think a son of yours would love you?

FATHER
I don't think a child understands the way a parent loves a child, because the child isn't a parent, only a child. Does that make any sense? (to his SON) Only a parent fully understands those feelings of tenderness and concern and protection --

SON
(as baby) Goo-goo! (then makes a sputtering, dismissive sound) Peww! (SON gets up and walks off deliberately in the middle of his speech to get a lasso. FATHER shakes his head.)

FATHER
What I'm trying to say is that as a child I never truly felt the same warmth about my parents. I used to catch my mother smiling fondly at me when she thought I wasn't looking. Even my father. I didn't know why they were doing it. But now I think I understand. It was because they had made me. I was their creation!

MIDWIFE
It's time you stopped worrying so much about what your son is like and a little more about what you are like.

FATHER
(loudly) I don't want to hear!

SON brings in his lasso, which he proceeds to throw around his FATHER, maybe more than once.

SON
In my man-grief at findin' out my daddy's a faggot, and after listening to the celery grow, and after destroying something valuable, I've decided --

FATHER
(standing up, over-reacting) No more posturing, obnoxious males, please! No more tragic white trash!

SON
Dad, I knew that one day you'd come back.

FATHER
And are you finally glad to see me?

SON
I've got to sort these things out. Didn't I ever tell you about the time I went searchin' for my real father?

FATHER
I don't want to hear another soliloquy!

SON
(ignoring him, searching) I left home on my souped-up Harley when I was sixteen and started searchin' in a grubby little motel in East Los Angeles, because I'd heard you were there... You weren't. Then I hopped a Trailways bus to Modesto. Someone said you were working there in a 7-Eleven store as a cashier. Untrue! But I kept searchin'. Always searchin'. Sure, mom (Becky Brisbane) was good to me, but "Who is my father?" kept pounding in my head! (banging his hand on his head) Who? Who?

FATHER
Finished? (lassoed) And now that you've found me?

SON
No, I don't want a homo for a father! I can't live with it! I'm going to drink bad booze and kill myself! (SON takes a bottle marked "BAD" out of his pocket)

FATHER
(ironic) But you can't do that, not now that we're together at last!

SON
(trembling) You're not what I thought you'd be!

FATHER
What did you think I'd be?

SON
I don't know. Better! Not queer!

FATHER
Talented, sensitive, productive, and non-violent men aren't good enough for you?

SON
(puts bottle to his lips) Goodbye, Dad! (He drinks booze and falls to floor. He writhes and retches in an exaggerated way.) I'm a-goin'!

MIDWIFE
He's a-goin'.

SON
I'm a-goin'!

MIDWIFE
(to FATHER) I think he's a-goin'.

FATHER
I got the message.

SON
I'm a... I'm a goner! (He croaks, legs twitching in the air.)

MIDWIFE
(trying not to laugh) He's a goner.

FATHER
(turning sharply to MIDWIFE) Don't trivialize my life!

MIDWIFE
I'm just standing here!

FATHER
You think my problems are just something to laugh at.

MIDWIFE
Nothing I do seems to satisfy you! (nodding at SON, who's still twitching) Your son's dying.

FATHER
No, he's not! He's got at least five more obscure soliloquys left. (to SON) Get up! Be real!

SON
(getting up) What is it that you want from me, Father?

FATHER
I spend all this time and energy and this is all I get?

MIDWIFE
(as herself, to SON) You, out! Your visit with your father is over.

SON jumps up, confronts MIDWIFE.

SON
(having a vision, out of nowhere) I reckon I'll go lasso me a poodle.

SON leaps up, kicks his heels, and exits.

MIDWIFE
He always was a fireball!

FATHER
(still tied up) I'm not finished with him!

MIDWIFE
Yes, you are.

FATHER
(struggling to get free) I have a lot more to say. I want some seriousness here! I will not take this any longer! I will not.

MIDWIFE
No, I have a lot more to say! You want to hear it? Well, you're going to whether you want to or not. With every son you've had there's been something wrong with him. He was too this or he was too that. He didn't love you. You didn't want him. Enough already! You can't be satisfied. Goodbye. It's over. I'm sorry we met.

FATHER
Is that all? That's the end?

MIDWIFE
In seeking your son, did you at least find yourself?

FATHER
Maybe I did. A little bit, yes.

MIDWIFE
(disgusted) No, you didn't! Not even close!

FATHER
What do you mean?

MIDWIFE
You've been through all this, and you still don't see it?

FATHER
See what?

MIDWIFE
How do you feel?

FATHER
Great! (bitingly) How do you feel?

MIDWIFE
I've tried to lead you gently all this time. I've even tried to keep you from what's coming now, you self-satisfied bastard!

FATHER
Hey, wait a minute!

MIDWIFE
What did you expect your child to be?

FATHER
Nothing. I'm sorry I asked. It didn't work out. I don't have a son. You didn't fulfill your side of the contract. That's just fine with me. (Starts to leave)

MIDWIFE
You want reality? You want depth? Try this on for size. Let's take a look inside the great masculine mind. (tries to touch his head)

FATHER
Stay away from me, you!

MIDWIFE
Can't take it? "Give me this son, give me that son!" You don't know the first thing about having a child! It's work. And the rewards are very uncertain!

FATHER
Is that the great message you've got to tell me?

MIDWIFE
You want to know more than that? How much more?

FATHER
What do you mean?

MIDWIFE
You know what I mean. Can't you take it?

FATHER
I can take anything you can give.

MIDWIFE
I want you to say it. Or shall I say it? Yeah, let me say it.

FATHER
(his pain starts) No!

MIDWIFE
Then you say it. (loudly) Say it! Daddy. Mister. Dick! Head! (MIDWIFE slaps or pushes FATHER.) Say it!

FATHER
(gives out with a cream of pain, but a pain deeper, louder than warranted by the slap or push) AHHH!

MIDWIFE
More.

FATHER
AHH! I...

MIDWIFE
It's coming out. Breathe deeply.

FATHER
(in a labor of the mind, breathing hard, building, building the breaths, as though he's having a baby himself, played believably as though in physical pain.) No! It hurts! It hurts! (holds himself, breathing hard)

MIDWIFE
Good. You'll remember it. What is it? What is it?

FATHER
Go away. Leave me alone!

MIDWIFE
No more leaving. You knew all the time that you couldn't get rid of me. You needed me. You need me right now.

FATHER
... No.

MIDWIFE
Yes. To create you! Is there a human being there? Are you there yet? Are you there yet? (FATHER collapses, breathing hard.)

FATHER
AHH!... (MIDWIFE lays her hands on his head or body, assisting in the birth.)

MIDWIFE
Say it. You say it.

FATHER
(almost crying) I... I wanted all the good in having a child.

MIDWIFE
And?

FATHER
(painfully) And none of the bad.

MIDWIFE
More.

FATHER
No more!

MIDWIFE
Lots more!... You know it has to come out.

FATHER
(slowly, crying)... I'm not very loving or generous. No son would have been good enough.

MIDWIFE
Yes?

FATHER
And I'm not as nice a person as I thought I was. (hurting) Not very nice at all.

MIDWIFE
And?

FATHER
It's a good thing I never had the chance to raise any child, any at all. I couldn't even get one right. I'm a failure as a father!

This admission costs FATHER a lot. MIDWIFE enjoys her victory quietly; FATHER is wrung out. Both are.

MIDWIFE
(after a pause) You want me to contradict you?

FATHER
(hoping she will, but knowing she shouldn't) It's just hard to live with, that's all.

MIDWIFE
Think of it as though you just had a baby. You've got to deal with who it is. (hammering it in) You've got to deal not with the one you want but the one you get, the best way you can!

FATHER
... I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

MIDWIFE
You've had a son who wanted to kill you; a stupid son; a gay one you wanted to kill; a gay-hating, violent, crazy one -- all your worst fears come to life. Such a raving pessimist you are!

FATHER
What can I say?

MIDWIFE
(feeling generous after her victory) You know something? I'm not so sure myself anymore what's the best way to raise a kid. (thoughtful) It's all a matter of individuals, isn't it? Individuals and mystery... I'm so, so tired of this man/woman stuff.

FATHER
God, are you ever right!

MIDWIFE
(giving in, being kind) You want one more try?

FATHER
Could I? Could I?

MIDWIFE
Just a teeny weeny one. (calling offstage) Can you come back one last time? The son he's really and truly going to have?

SON
(offstage) I think so.

MIDWIFE
Somebody here wants to meet you.

SON
Who is it?

MIDWIFE
Your father. (to FATHER) No encores! (exiting) Try harder this time, okay? This is the very last child this midwife is going to deliver! If you can't get this one right...

MIDWIFE shakes her head and exits.

FATHER takes a deep breath, readies himself, somewhat apprehensive, as though meeting his grown-up son for the very first time.

Next Page:   Scene 5   (page 6 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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