Cast
Yale Lawfirm, one of the ten leading New York doctors
Bruce, a Gordon setter
Mrs. Lawfirm, Baby Lawfirm, Baby Lawfirm, friends to Bruce
Stanley Dubie, a spackle and grout man
One Messenger
Another Messenger
Kate Smith, once one or another’s mistress
Chorus, people waiting for a bus
Act One
Scene One
The set suggests a sewer. It is too dark to tell. Voices are heard.
Voices
I wish the bus would come.
If only the bus would come.
Yes, that’s right.
A clank. A shaft of light from above.
Another Voice
The bus is here.
Voices
Thank God for that.
Curtain
Scene Two
Yale Lawfirm’s office in the city. He is eating cole slaw for his sinus. It doesn’t help. Neither does anything else.
Lawfirm
Miss Pod, send in the first patient.
Stanley Dubie enters, Stage Left
Lawfirm
Good morning, Mr. Dubie. Say, aren’t you
the spackle and grout man?
Dubie
(Frowning) Thank God for that.
Curtain
Act Two
Later that day in Yale Lawfirm’s office in the city. He is eating cole slaw again. As he eats he examines pictures of soft palates.
Lawfirm
I am one of the Ten Leading New York Doctors. Yet why, at night, should I, who have everything. . .
He loses track and goes back to the soft palate pictures. Miss Pod enters seductively.
Lawfirm
What is it, Miss Pod?
Miss Pod
A messenger, Doctor.
The messenger is already in the office. You can’t see how he got there.
Messenger
You Lawfirm?
Lawfirm
I am Doctor Lawfirm.
Messenger
Be that way. I got a telegram here from a Kate Smith. Says all your children and your wife and dog was killed in a fire.
Lawfirm
Who is Kate Smith?
Messenger
You see, that now, that you, who had everything, and in the evening the sense of something by the fire, were but. . . .
He gets fed up and leaves. You can’t see how he gets out.
Curtain
Act Three
Scene One
Later that day in the park. Lawfirm is lying on a bench. A statue of Olivetti curing the pimento stands behind the bench. A pigeon doesn’t notice it.
Lawfirm
But when, at first, before, that is, perhaps, and the approach of the children’s faces smeared with raspberry candy —
Just as he gets going good a policeman raps his shins. Lawfirm cringes away. So does the policeman. Everyone else feels so bad they decide to pull the curtain.
Scene Two
Seventeen years later in the sewer. A new administration has put in lights. It was better before. A very old man enters, SR. Other people stand around.
First Old Man
Say, aren’t you Stanley Dubie, the spackle and grout man?
Second Old Man
No, I am another.
Voice from Above
The bus is here.
Chorus
Thank God for that, etc.
They all go up the ladder. The First Old Man hangs back. He faces the audience, takes a deep breath, thinks better of it and goes up the ladder to catch the bus. It’s a good thing because another policeman comes by right after. He saunters across the sewer, whistling.
Curtain
