A Certain Unsoundness of Mind
A Play in One Act
by
Michael Thomas Tower
Performance time: Approximately 30 minutes
© 2000-2003 Michael Thomas Tower
All Rights Reserved
Any query regarding production or presentation of this play
in any manner whatsoever should be directed to the author
MTTower@aol.com
15CU0303a
Perhaps no person can be a poet,
or even enjoy poetry, without
a certain unsoundness of mind.
Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay (1800–1859)
Synopsis
When a college professor discovers the true talents of one of his students, he attempts to set the course for the student's future. But the student has very different ideas about the order and demand of his priorities.
Their common love of poetry brings the professor and the student together, and their sexual orientation strengthens their association -- but these are the very elements that fuel their war ... and truce. (The characters' homosexuality is a meaningful part of the story, delicately integrated.)
Without providing specific answers, this story poses the questions: What is the value of Art? What is an artist's obligation?
Characters
Dr. Davis -- In his 60s or thereabout. Any race except Latino. A professor of English.
Geraldo -- In his late 20s. Latino. A student at the university.
Setting
A park bench on a university campus.
The present. Noon.
A Certain Unsoundness of Mind
(dr. davis sits on a park bench. His lunch is on the bench beside him -- a sandwich cut in half, an apple cut in quarters, an open drink. he is engrossed in a book as he takes a bite of the sandwich. geraldo approaches, hesitates, then continues his approach hesitantly. he is carrying books and notebooks.)
geraldo
Doctor Davis?
dr. davis
Hm? ... Oh. Yes?
geraldo
You wanted to see me?
dr. davis
Uh, no -- I don't, uh -- I'm, uh, having my lunch now ...
geraldo
I had a phone message that you wanted to see me ...
dr. davis
I, uh, apologize -- don't know ... sorry, don't know who you are ...
geraldo
Oh I'm sorry. I'm Geraldo Muñoz.
dr. davis
Oh! Oh, yes, so you're -- Geraldo Muñoz. You are he. Yes -- I was hoping you could drop by my office this afternoon ...
geraldo
Have to be at work by one. Tried calling your office ... see you eating here, most days. If we could talk now? ... hope you don't mind ...
dr. davis
I apologize for not knowing who you were. Used to know all of my students. Maybe the eyesight is waning, though I'd rather think it's because my classes have gotten much too large.
geraldo
You're a very popular teacher.
dr. davis
And there is the university's teacher-to-student ratio doctrine that's just about destroyed any possibility of personal acquaintance.
geraldo
Isn't the small university it once was.
dr. davis
Far from it. I do recognize you now, of course. You're one of the quiet ones. But lacking the lethargy.
geraldo
I learn more by listening.
dr. davis
Others could. If they truly listened. But we mustn't let silence deny us risk. Please, sit. Would you like half of my sandwich? It's more than I'll eat. Always take half of it back -- she doesn't notice. Today it's tuna ...
geraldo
Oh, no, thank you -- I'll eat later.
dr. davis
It's very good. My sister made it. We live together. After my companion died, then my sister's husband died, and, well, the unexpected happens. As children, we fought like cats and dogs. Now -- it's just dogs.
It isn't ordinary tuna ...
geraldo
It looks good ...
dr. davis
No, it looks very ordinary -- but it's better than it looks. Please. I'm taking your time, it's noon, you need to eat ...
geraldo
Well ... thank you.
dr. davis
Here.
geraldo
(Takes sandwich half)
Was there a problem? -- you wanted to see me about? That paper on Rossetti? -- I know I didn't give it the time I should have ...
dr. davis
Dante Gabriel Rossetti -- at times more melodious in name than poetry. You'll get that back tomorrow -- with your usual A. I don't think I agree with some of your conclusions, but that's just my reaction. You presented your case well -- the points are valid.
geraldo
That's a relief.
dr. davis
We can let Rossetti rest in peace for now. God knows he's been trying long enough. ... You do very good work in that class. I looked over your grades just yesterday ...
geraldo
It's my favorite class.
dr. davis
Apple? You need it with the sandwich. They go together -- opposites ... complementing ... the dressing tart, the apple sweet ...
(geraldo takes an apple quarter, takes a bite.)
geraldo
Thank you. ... It is good.
dr. davis
Harder to find good apples than it used to be. Don't know why. Can't imagine that dirt or grafts or the habits of bees have degenerated that much over the years. But, then, maybe I just haven't noticed.
You're some older than most students here.
geraldo
After high school, I worked for three years to get money for college.
dr. davis
Good. That alone will double what you learn. What kinds of jobs?
geraldo
Construction, tutoring, waiting tables, mowing lawns -- whatever earned a buck. Dropped out, couple of times, semester or two -- get the money to keep going.
dr. davis
No family help?
geraldo
My parents never had money for college educations. Hard-working folk ... kept us clothed, fed and happy. But no extras. I have three brothers and four sisters. I'm the youngest -- the mid-life baby that wasn't supposed to happen. Well, I think there were three of us that weren't supposed to happen. I'm the only one to go to college. Sometimes I think they're all living vicariously through me.
dr. davis
Does the family support you? In other meaningful ways?
geraldo
Oh, yes. Even financially, as they can -- my brothers and sisters. My parents are elderly -- dad's in the final throes of diabetes, mom's in the early stages of Alzheimer's. They live with one of my sisters. I go home weekends to do what I can. We're a close family. Everyone pitches in. We help each other.
dr. davis
How good it is that some cultures manage to preserve the real meaning of family -- the bond and the promise of it.
geraldo
Yes. La familia. But it's more than anyone's culture. It's the individuals that give meaning to "unity" and "hope."
dr. davis
And it doesn't just happen.
geraldo
Takes determination ... effort. And I've learned that people don't have to be related by blood to experience the attachment and joy of family.
dr. davis
Well said.
I wish I could know all of my students more personally. So easy to let you become mere names and numbers on a page, colors and eyes in a classroom. We neglect a bit of our humanity -- don't you think? -- when we fail to remember that every life is a burning sun, with its very own orbit and its planets and their moons.
geraldo
Talking with you this way, even out here, feel I should be taking notes.
dr. davis
Then I've become a burdensome conversationalist. I was afraid of that.
geraldo
No no. I didn't mean that.
(A beat)
I bought a first-edition of Another Man's Gold last week.
dr. davis
Good Lord, didn't know that was possible. Published so many years ago.
geraldo
Your first volume of poetry ... thirty-five years ago.
dr. davis
Still remember the thrill -- a writer losing his literary virginity. Where did you find it? -- in the rummage bin of some old ghost-haunted, mite-ridden second-hand bookstore?
geraldo
Wish it had been that simple. Had a rare-book dealer searching for it. Took a few months.
dr. davis
Then you paid too much.
geraldo
Would like to have gotten it for less ... but it wasn't too much. That completed my collection of your books of poetry. Oh, I've had all of your books for years -- well-worn, marked and dog-eared. But that completed the collection in first editions.
You know, I think -- God, I can't believe I'm sitting here talking to you this way -- but I feel as though there's a depth in your later work that's, uh, more than your earlier writing ... it has a weight, an attachment, that has to be, well, mined, dug up, to be ... examined and assayed. Like, uh, jewels that lie near the surface, little bits sparkling and tempting, and you have to put some effort into delving to find the great, rare, beautiful gems.
dr. davis
How laborious it is to find me. Sounds as though I have to be strip-mined.
geraldo
No! Not at all. It's just that, well, seems to me, you expect more of your reader now, you demand more thought and scrutiny than when you ... well, your earlier work is ... simpler, lighter. It -- well, much of it -- kind of floats -- like clouds that, uh, silently sail across a clear blue horizon, implying texture as they pass but never quite casting shadow, so that I'm aware of a difference in my world without feeling threatened by storm or ...
Sorry. I'm probably not making any sense.
dr. davis
I'm enormously enjoying the attempt.
geraldo
Well, it's just that ... your later work could never ... float. Most of it. That's just my observation. I've enjoyed the development of your poetry -- the phases, transitions -- finding what new energy, dynamics, emerge next.
dr. davis
I make no comment. As I say in class, a poet should never be expected to explain or examine his own work.
geraldo
Yes. As you put it ...
(Opens a notebook, quickly finds a page)
as well as I could get it down: "The value of the words to the one who reads them may bear no resemblance to the value assumed by the writer of the words, for the reader seeks to find answers in a different life at a different time, influenced by different forces, powered by different passions, wounded by different losses" -- or something like that.
dr. davis
I've got to revise my notes. That's better than what I've been saying.
I haven't read Another Man's Gold for a very long time. Doesn't seem quite right, does it? Like not having gone to visit one's first child.
geraldo
Why haven't you?
dr. davis
Hm. Why haven't I? ... Perhaps I'm afraid to.
geraldo
Afraid?
dr. davis
So much has changed since those words were written. So much has come and ... gone. Then I was bounding up the hill with hope that springs the step; now I'm trudging the farther side with the weight of a life that's lived. ... You'll see.
geraldo
Do you ever read any of your earlier work?
dr. davis
Rarely. The words look like what someone else would write. Unsettling.
geraldo
I've noticed you seldom refer to your own writing in your classes.
dr. davis
I leave that to others.
geraldo
Which is the reason I've taken two of Doctor Bergman's classes. By the way, I don't agree with her conclusion about the symbolism in "The Waltz of Spring and Death."
dr. davis
Neither do I -- but if there's something to be gained from what I've written, the reader will find it, in the reader's own way.
geraldo
You're pretty blasé about what you've done.
dr. davis
I'd like to say it's because I live fervently in the present. But that could be a lie.
When I look at a slice of my sister's chocolate cream pie, I see a mound of meringue, with its golden face and billowy interior, resting intimately on a deep rich brown pudding held in place by a flavorful crust of the flakiest crunch. Only she knows that she forgot to put in the vanilla, that she had to run to the store to get sugar after she'd started heating the milk, and that the Baker's chocolate was grabbed from the floor as the cat came to lick it because she spilled the box of it. The experiences of those who bake are very different from those who eat. Believe me, I do appreciate that there are people who perceive my work to be acceptable by some quite questionable standard. But they can never see it from my perspective, for only I know the pain and purpose and pleasure that went into its making. Whatever solace, value and provocation the reader finds, it is his, not mine.
geraldo
And mightn't that keep the one who eats from knowing the real taste of the pie that's served?
dr. davis
The real flavor is determined by each separate tongue. There is nothing so simple as one taste.
geraldo
Well ... if I read your work, and I find just what you were saying to and of yourself, and I find that because it matches my need, wouldn't our connection be better, purer, than if I'd reshaped your point to find what I wanted?
dr. davis
Good Lord, Mister Muñoz, you take lunchtime conversation to a level that discourages digestion. Indeed, the point deserves consideration.
geraldo
This may sound strange, but uh, well, over the years, I've read articles about you, but those just told me what you did. I always felt I had a better ... acquaintance with you -- knowing you through your work -- that that told me what you are -- who you are.
It's just that -- if poetry tells your truth, the writer's truth, as you say it must, then I know you. I ... know you. Perhaps different taste buds do explore the same ingredients, yet make their own discoveries. But isn't it all you?
You've published twelve books of poetry, four books of essays, two books on the writing of poetry, one book of short biographies of American poets, and edited several compilations of poetry. I've read them all -- not all of the collections, but the others. Much of your poetry I've memorized -- not always intentionally; sometimes we let words in and they refuse to leave.
dr. davis
And do you see an improvement over the years? -- in what I've done, or what I am? In how I ... "taste"?
geraldo
You've traveled a course. Isn't that what we do? There's then, and there's now. The experience is the time and space between -- the living, or the writing, along the way. You've made changes. I think you are, much of the time ... now ... more solid, deeper-rooted ...
dr. davis
A poet observes, experiences, ponders, then speaks in a way that turns keys and cracks codes. You have such a voice, Mister Muñoz.
geraldo
I love reading poetry. I could never write it.
dr. davis
Really?
(A beat)
When did you discover poetry? -- not in a classroom, but in your heart.
geraldo
(Not having to think about it)
Ninth grade -- the last day of school. It was a music teacher who saw needs I didn't recognize myself. Miss Reynolds gave me a copy of A River Always Bends. That was my introduction to you.
dr. davis
Oh, my. ... My third book -- and not without its critics. And several years old when it fell into your young hands.
geraldo
Read every poem in it many times, marveling at how language, in its brevity and selectivity and delicate positioning, could ... open up and illuminate and inspire and excite in such commanding ways. I'd never known words could do that.
One poem, in particular, became very special to me ... an indelible memory. There was a creek behind our house, and I'd go there to read under a big willow tree that trailed its branches in the slow summer drift of the water. It took me a long time to get through that book, because I would read and re-read and read again and again every page of it. Finally, on page one twenty-three, the last poem ... I couldn't believe what I was reading. It so startled me, so gripped me, I sat there and sobbed when the words burst open inside me with their meaning. The final stanza of that poem ...
"Let me touch your manly face,
"With my trembling manly hands.
"Let me hold you close to me
"With the love my heart demands."
That day, Doctor Davis -- you freed me. I finally knew: I wasn't evil ... and I wasn't alone.
By the way, that was your fourth book. The Trouble with Mama's Bread Pudding was your third -- revealing a humorous side that's seldom exposed.
dr. davis
Ah, yes. Written the summer I fell in love -- the time it really counted -- with all the memories one needs to soften the later blows.
Thank you for letting me know of my impress on your life. That is, truly, valued payment.
When will you be graduated?
geraldo
One more semester after this one and, with luck, I'll have my degree.
dr. davis
In your case, Mister Muñoz, I think luck has very little to do with what you accomplish. In what field of literature are you specializing?
geraldo
Engineering. Structural analysis.
dr. davis
Lord, someone's gotten deadly serious about the techniques of composition.
(A beat)
You were joking, weren't you?
geraldo
As much as I love poetry and literature, there's no way I could earn a living from it. I've gone for the practical.
dr. davis
You've gone for the money.
geraldo
I have obligations.
dr. davis
Of course you do.
geraldo
I'm very mindful of those.
dr. davis
Yes. Su familia. ... What about the obligation to yourself, Mister Muñoz?
geraldo
I have to help take care of my parents. I have to make a living -- help those who've helped me. That fulfills my obligation to myself. ... I do have a bent for my field of study.
dr. davis
Finding the crack of the concrete? -- the stress of the steel? What a fulfilling job for the artist's heart.
geraldo
It's not as mundane as all that.
dr. davis
Why the hell are you taking my class on nineteenth-century English poets? -- and doing so well in it?
geraldo
For the same reason I took your classes on Early American poetry, Milton, Mexican and Spanish poets, the Brownings -- the same reason I'll take every class of yours I can possibly squeeze in -- because I like poetry. I like your teaching. I'm studying engineering here because you teach English lit here.
dr. davis
What a grotesque compliment. We've had an elective relationship all these years and I didn't even know it. ... How much poetry have you written?
geraldo
As I said, I don't write poetry. I read it -- I'd never presume to be able to write it.
dr. davis
The reason I phoned you for an appointment ...
Yesterday, after class, I found this notebook on the floor. I wondered whose it was ...
geraldo
Thank God, I thought I'd lost it. Been looking everywhere ...
dr. davis
I looked in it to see if I could find a name, and I, uh, started reading some of what's there.
geraldo
My name is on the inside of the front cover.
dr. davis
That's not where I first looked, I'm afraid.
geraldo
What's in there is very personal -- not what I would want anyone else to read.
dr. davis
So an apology is in order, and I offer it with all humility.
However, I'll be honest enough to admit, Mister Muñoz, that curiosity got the best of me and I seem to have read everything in it. Then awareness took over and I read it several times more.
geraldo
Not intended for anybody else. Just ... things come to mind ... thoughts ... ideas ... at odd moments ...
dr. davis
All expressed in most intriguing ways.
geraldo
I'm embarrassed you read it ...
dr. davis
I apologize for violating your privacy. But ... those words ...
geraldo
Thank you for getting it back to me. And thank you for the sandwich, the apple. I appreciate it. Saves the lunch money for today.
dr. davis
These words, the words in this little book -- they demand to be freed, Mister Muñoz.
geraldo
I don't even know what that means.
dr. davis
You're afraid of what that means. I'm wondering why.
geraldo
I've enjoyed talking with you, more than you can know. But, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get to work.
dr. davis
(Flips the notebook open and reads from it)
"Oh, I long for a quiet, green and calming place
to rest by the rocky and twisted trails
of my rutted and tangled whirligig mind;
to take a deep breath from the fresh-plowed fields
scented only with the roots and thrust of hope;
to drink from a silver stream
fed by crystal threads pulled from soft velvet clouds --
cold, hard gulps that surge across the heart
to quench the parch of neglect;
to listen to the great songs of small creatures
that mend the raveled edges
of thoughts too carelessly stitched or worn too long;
to rest in the gentle nocturne down
that cradles me in the palm
of tomorrow --
to rise -- resurrected! -- with the bright new sun
and laugh
and reach
and fly."
(A beat)
That's one of my favorites.
Sometimes when we invite words in, they refuse to leave. Especially when they are the words of ... poetry.
geraldo
That was just ... something that came to mind one day.
dr. davis
This little book seems to be filled with things that ... just came to mind. Things that wouldn't "just come" to the ordinary mind. And my guess is, there are other notebooks.
There are things in this book that made me laugh -- unexpectedly and explosively, so vivid they were in the few words that unmasked the pure humor of a moment most of us would never have caught. There are the words that brought tears to my eyes -- stirred memories, jiggled and niggled and probed and soothed. You made me think ... you made me care ... you made me sigh with sweet relief and deep hope.
What is in this little book goes far beyond simple record of thought or mood. It would rouse the mind, the heart, the soul of any person reading it -- and the world should have that opportunity.
Someone had to break the news to you, Mister Muñoz: You are a poet.
(A beat.)
geraldo
I guess I don't know what that means. Even if it were true, what does that mean? -- what's the good of it?
dr. davis
The meaning and value of art shouldn't have to be explained.
geraldo
Well ... yes, it does. When you grab hold of it and hit me on the head with it, I need an explanation.
dr. davis
Mister Muñoz, I, uh -- I'm afraid I have more to apologize for than just the reading of your notebook. I, uh -- it seems I kind of faxed the whole damned thing to a friend yesterday.
geraldo
Oh, no ...
dr. davis
With the exception of "Ode to the Backside of Robert" and "The Man at the Fountain Who Never Did See Me."
geraldo
Thank you for that.
dr. davis
Those pieces were well-written, indeed, and very artistic in their explicitness -- and, voyeuristically, I enjoyed them immensely. But I decided not to share those with her, though I'm sure she would have understood.
geraldo
"She"?
dr. davis
Debra Grant -- my editor, Oak Canyon Press. She phoned this morning -- eager to talk with you. She thinks they'll want to publish some of your work. A book, she's thinking -- of your poetry. Do you know how rare that is for a new poet? They'll do a beautiful job of it.
We discussed titles -- taking lines from your poems. She suggested The Love Most Nearly True. I preferred something more visual, even visceral, from one of your short poems about the vagaries of religion: Nailing Bread to the Table. That should get people's attention. Of course she'll want your ideas -- about a title ...
geraldo
No.
(geraldo takes the notebook from dr. davis.)
dr. davis
Pardon?
geraldo
No, I can't get into something like that -- being a writer, poetry of all things. Out of the question.
dr. davis
What do you mean? Mister Muñoz, I don't think you understand. This will be the beginning of a career. An honest-to-God real-life literary career -- the first step in what could be a long and --
geraldo
(Interrupting)
Doctor Davis, what was the most money you ever made from one of your books? Hell, all of them? What's the total that you've earned from your books?
dr. davis
No one publishes poetry, or, for that matter, biographies or essays, to make money. That isn't the point. If it must have some material worth -- well, it does lead to other things.
geraldo
Like teaching?
dr. davis
And lecturing. I've had a good career. It's been rewarding.
geraldo
Not in any way that shows up on a bank statement.
dr. davis
Teaching isn't about making money.
geraldo
Nothing is about making money to you, Doctor Davis. And I don't fault you for that. The world needs people like you. It's just that ... it isn't the way I'm going to live.
dr. davis
If you want, you can still be the engineer. Measure and calculate and make your dire predictions. But save a fair portion of your time for the writing.
geraldo
But the time involved. Two careers. It wouldn't work.
dr. davis
It could, if you cannot devote yourself fully to the one that will matter most.
geraldo
You publish books that earn you admiration, but little money. You teach at a university that pays you a fraction of what you're worth. And that's fine with you. You are a renowned man of letters with a name that's honored and work that's respected. I admire that. You've made a lasting mark on my life, and I value that more than you can ever know. But my obligations, the expectations, require a different use of my time.
dr. davis
Time to reach the pots of gold.
geraldo
I am not greedy. But I want more than I would ever make as a part-time this and part-time that. You are the poet and the writer. That is your calling -- not mine.
dr. davis
Your mission, Mister Muñoz, must be to share your gift with the world, that others may benefit from the artistry of your heart and the power of your words.
geraldo
The world will never long for the sorrowful rhymes or metered complaints of one more Mexican searching in vain for la vida de amor. A book of poetry, read by dozens? Maybe a hundred, or two? A thousand times that wouldn't change even one city block, much less the world, in any significant way.
dr. davis
You don't know that! At least let the world see what you have written. Let them decide what you can do for them. And as good as these beginnings are, this is not the best you will do! You'll deprive us of ever knowing what could have been. For God's sake, let the world be the judge of what you --
geraldo
(Interrupting)
The time involved? The hassle? And for what? No! My obligation is my studies, my mission is my family. I'll graduate soon. I'll be out of here ...
dr. davis
And making money.
geraldo
Yo soy un niño pobre del barrio, Doctor Davis -- a poor kid from the wrong side of a very wide freeway. Some of us, if we are very fortunate, battle the traffic to make the crossing. We overcome the odds through ambition, opportunity, and what my mother calls las sonrisas dulces de Dios -- the sweet smiles of God. Then maybe we make something of ourselves. There are those who need my help. It is my turn.
dr. davis
Su familia.
geraldo
Sí. Mi familia.
dr. davis
But aren't you forgetting about la otra familia, Señor Muñoz? -- the other family? The one in whose embrace you find a certain peace?
(A beat)
You have the opportunity. You mustn't pass it up -- one of your talent. Please! You don't see the real value of it. It sets you on a road that will forever give you what you could not --
geraldo
(Interrupting)
You do not know the demands on me, Doctor Davis. You do not know the road that I must take.
dr. davis
And you're refusing to look at the road you could take.
What will become of your work?
geraldo
My "work"? A bunch of cheap notebooks filled with the scribbling of cheap ballpoint pens. Packed in boxes, on a shelf in a closet. That is their place. Now perhaps if it were quill pressed to parchment ...
dr. davis
It is not a joking matter. Someday, you'll read them with regret.
geraldo
I'll probably read my old stuff as often as you read yours.
There are many closets, many shelves, hiding notebooks filled with poems, boxes packed with stories, envelopes crammed with music -- even paintings, sculptures, weavings -- the yield of a heart, a soul, a life -- the longing, pain, delight and dreams. Each was born because it had to exist, grown from the seed of sadness or bud of joy in one single, unnoticed life. Some of them would fill you in unimaginable ways, if only you could see them, hear them, read them, feel them. But they weren't produced for that purpose. People whose names we'll never know, whose faces we'll never see, brushed dabs of paint on a canvas, squeezed bits of clay in their hands, threw a thousand letters onto a page and gave them order -- and the result is whatever it is because of the heart from which it flowed, the life it revealed, the soul it celebrated or mourned. They lie in closets now, high on a shelf, back where it's dark -- beginning to smell with the musty sighs of forgottenness. No one will notice if they disappear, as things in closets do.
If there is a talent, for those like me, it's to be the closet artist. Having written the words, I fulfill my need -- and the obligation.
dr. davis
No. Art is never born to be hidden away. Never! That is totally against its nature.
geraldo
And "art never expresses anything but itself."
dr. davis
Hmph! If one is to believe Mr. Wilde, whose wisdom was more accidental than his wit.
geraldo
And I seriously doubt that poetry ever saved a life.
dr. davis
But it certainly has the power to change a life, does it not?
geraldo
Touché ...
dr. davis
Whether in its writing or reading, poetry heightens the feel, the sight, the taste of what is inside the human heart. Poetry enables us to filter, focus and clarify so that our souls open up to enfold thoughts whose demand we did not know before; our eyes, at last, open wide enough to look past the darkness of our confusion to the bright promise of what we know will fulfill us; our feet turn in directions to new paths of joyous enlightenment that we otherwise would never have found.
geraldo
Is it always as grand as that?
dr. davis
(Laughing at his own pomposity)
Of course not. Sometimes it's no more than a mere second of recognition or discovery. But it's still worth it.
geraldo
I'll tell you what. You keep doing what you do so well -- writing and teaching. That is your place. And I'll do what I know I can do well -- and within ten years I'll lead the campaign to erect the Robert Cass Davis Library of Poetry. It'll go up right here, where this bench is.
dr. davis
I hope I'm retired by then.
geraldo
Then you'll have a place to spend your days.
dr. davis
That would bug the hell out of them, wouldn't it?
I really fear, Mister Muñoz, that you are not listening to the real words of your heart. That always brings one grief.
geraldo
The reading ... your classes ... my scribbling -- really, Doctor Davis, that gives me all I can handle of the literary life. I appreciate your concern ... but I can't take on the needs of the world.
Getting to talk with you this way -- means an awful lot to me. I won't ever forget this day. But ... no, I'm sorry. I can't do what you ask.
dr. davis
The time will come, I think, when you'll wish you had.
geraldo
If I bring my first editions by your office, would you autograph them for me? I'd really appreciate it ...
dr. davis
Of course.
geraldo
Thank you. Very much. For everything. And I'm serious about the library. Ten years. You be thinking about what you want.
(geraldo turns and moves to exit. As he is about to step off stage ... )
dr. davis
Mister Muñoz, I recall something else you wrote in there:
"This is the life that I must live.
"I've found the joy of it!
"The curse of it, at last, is gone
and all that's left is blest."
Those are words that could only be written by someone who comes to know himself, and accepts what he finds.
I do owe you an apology. I've been throwing the entirety of civilization at you, and that was unfair. You're right: All of the people of this great world -- they are not waiting and longing for your words.
(A beat)
But somewhere ... there is one who is.
(dr. davis turns to gather up his lunch paraphernalia and book, not in a rush to do so. geraldo is caught in thought, then recovers ... and exits. When dr. davis has finally picked up everything, he turns to exit in the opposite direction from Geraldo's exit. Just as dr. davis is about to step off stage, geraldo enters.)
geraldo
Okay, Doctor Davis, I, uh, know I don't have any kind of great big obligation to the world. But, maybe ... well, what if it is only my voice that might get through to just one ninth-grade boy out there somewhere, having trouble making sense of things -- just one tortured kid who needs to know he isn't evil ... and he isn't alone.
dr. davis
I never said such words.
geraldo
I heard them somewhere.
dr. davis
That is the way the world will find you, Geraldo Muñoz -- one, by one, by one. Poetry is a lonely path of discovery. But a most delightful one.
It's after four o'clock in New York. Shall I see if I can reach Ms. Grant before she leaves for the day?
geraldo
It's just this, for now, one book ... see how things go ...
dr. davis
Fair enough.
(they start their exit together.)
geraldo
Still getting my engineering degree ...
dr. davis
Of course you are! You owe me a library!
(they are off, Lights out.)
-- The End --