Pagina 17 di 22
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Scene 6
Split stage, dining room, kitchen
[Alma & Bill’s dining room. The Thanksgiving dinner is over. Bill, Alma, Francine and Alma Jr., are still seated at the table.]
ALMA
Too bad your daddy never showed up, but that’s how he is.
He drives that broken old truck.
He’s not dependable, like Bill.
He don’t take you to the movies and buy you popcorn, like Bill.
[Ennis enters hastily.]
ENNIS
Sorry I’m late. Truck wouldn’t start.
[He goes around the table, kisses daughters, shakes Bill Jones’s hand, comes to Alma and hands her the pink princess phone.]
I know you favored this thing. Remembered it when I was halfway here and turned around to get it. I can sure live without it. Anyway, I am moving to a trailer house out on the ranch. Got no use for it there.
ALMA
Want some turkey?
ENNIS
I ain’t hungry. I fried some eggs. But I’ll help you clean up.
[Picks up dishes. Ennis and Alma carry dishes to the kitchen. Bill, Francine, Alma Jr. stay in the dining room and start a game of monopoly. Ennis sets a stack of dishes in the sink near Alma. ]
[The Jones kitchen. Angry duet, intensifying]
ALMA
[A certain tension in her voice.]
Well. How are you, Ennis?
ENNIS
Ok, I guess.
ALMA
Why don’t you get married again? It might be good for you. [pause, then urgenty]
For your own sake get married again, Ennis.
ENNIS
[Snorts derisively] Once burned…
ALMA
You wasn’t burned. I was the one got burned.
ENNIS
[increasingly loud and angry]
What the hell do you mean, ‘you got burned’? Had your way about everthing. EVERTHING.
I give you the divorce. I pay you child support. I stay out of your way. I hardly ever see the kids.
So what do you mean, you got burned?
ALMA
[furious but cold, the long-smothered knowledge erupting.]
You always blow up, don’t you? Just get mad.
ENNIS
[angrily]
I am NOT MAD!
ALMA
Well, I can get mad, too. You think I am dumb, but maybe I am not so dumb.
ENNIS
[clenched teeth, trying not to shout]
I don’t think you are dumb.
ALMA
All them fishin trips? You never brought any fish home. So once I tied a note on the end of the fishin line. It said ‘Bring some fish home, love, Alma.’
[She weeps a little at the memory of her naivete, then recovers her pent-up anger]
You told me you caught a whole mess of brown trouts. You ate them up. With him. Remember? When you went to work I looked. There was my note still tied on the end of the line. That fish line was never near water!
ENNIS
That don’t mean NOTHIN. I used one of Jack’s rods.
ALMA
Don’t lie, don’t try to fool me, Ennis.
I KNOW what it means.
Jack Twist? Jack Nasty!
You and him—[chokes up] You and him…..
IT MAKES ME SICK!
ENNIS
Shut up!
ALMA
That’s why you don’t want to get married again. Why should you? You got HIM!
ENNIS
[wild]
SHUT UP! SHUT UP!
[He seizes her wrist and twists, she drops a dish, goes to her knees, but he continues to twist.]
ENNIS
[In a violent passion]
Shut up! Mind your own fuckin business. You don’t know nothin about it.
ALMA
I’m gonna yell for Bill.
ENNIS
Go ahead. I’ll make him eat the floor. And you too!
[He shoves her, hard, and storms out of the kitchen. Bill Jones, alarmed by the shouting from the kitchen has risen and is advancing toward them. ]
BILL JONES
Whoa! What’s goin on?
[Ennis rushes at Bill Jones, swings at him, misses, crashes out the door.]
ALMA, FRANCINE, ALMA JR. , Bill Jones
Stop!
Wait!
Daddy, wait!
Ennis!
No. No!
Get back here Del Mar!
[Interlude]