EULOGY
by Pam Carter
CHARACTERS:
MIKE, the ex-reporter
CUB, the .com reporter
COP
PAPER CHILD/ TIMES REPORTER, HAL BERNTON
SHANDRA, the mother
SETTING:
Graveside. Backdrop: the P-I building.
All quotations are Sophocles.
MIKE sits at end of open grave, reading newspaper, his legs dangling in, a large
cardboard box at his side. Closes newspaper. SHANDRA enters in black. SHANDRA
stands by grave, looking in. COP enters. COP stands nearby, looking “on guard.” Each
is in his/her own world. HAL BERNTON stands as far away as possible from the grave.
HAL BERNTON
(Shouts through bullhorn,) Journalism Is a Passion that Never Dies!
SHANDRA
(To the air,) Remember the dead. I am here to remember the dead. Sophocles said, “A
human being is only breath and shadow.”
MIKE
(To self,) These minds may not be so steady. All these voices loose at once. Down in their
cellars, tapping on keys. Blogging babble to the universe. How do we weed them? Is
there a “we” any more? Who knows what they have seen? Who knows if they have seen
or are merely fantasizing? Our craven new world journalists. Who will watch over them?
A no-newspaper town. Am I fantasizing? A single-paper town. The oldest business in
town: dead. My career: dead. (Tosses newspaper into open grave.) “Ignorant men don’t
know what good they hold in their hands until they’ve flung it away.” And wise men--CUB enters with open cell phone in hand.
CUB
(To self,) I don’t know how to do this. (Sees MIKE, runs to join him,) Mike! Thank god
you’re still here. This investigation thing, Mike. (Crouches beside him.)
MIKE
And wise men are weeping.
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CUB
Mike, a word?
MIKE
There’s also tact.
CUB
I have tact.
MIKE
This is a funeral.
CUB
Really? Already? (Looks around.) I’m sorry for your loss. My deadline-MIKE
Mmmm. Thanks. And you’re looking forward to some free advice. Here. Now.
CUB
Oh sorry. Were you doing something else, Mike?
MIKE
Be an altruist, why not? All this free time on your hands. Little liar. You know what
you’re doing.
SHANDRA
(To the air,) I’m here because of a reporter.
CUB
(Speaks to MIKE while texting,) I was a big fan.
MIKE
Not big enough.
HAL BERNTON
(Shouts through bullhorn,) Journalism Is a Passion that Never Dies!
CUB
What could I do? Any way, I’m investigating this death. (Indicates grave.) It’s my first!
My first death! We don’t have to be enemies, Mike. We aren’t, right? I don’t want to be.
Look, I don’t know why Hearst waited so long to tell you that it was the end of the line.
For you. I mean, that the newsroom would shrink. That the paper wasn’t going to be a
“paper” any more. There’s no paper in it!
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SHANDRA
(To the air,) I am here because a newspaper lies dead. My daughter lies dead. Remember
the dead.
MIKE
Left us to investigate the date of our own decease?
CUB
Hold on; let me get that. (Texts.) See, I have some quotes. Over on the wall somebody
wrote this great thing. First there’s the Thomas Jefferson thing, (She checks her phone
notes, reads,) “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government
without newspaper or newspapers without government I should not hesitate a moment to
prefer the latter” and then the writing on the wall, the real wall, under the globe over
there says, (reads from phone notes again,) “Or at least an online version with greatly
reduced staff and plenty of links.” Funny, huh?
MIKE
Karen, look where you are, please.
CUB
Come on, Mike. I could use some of your old guard quotations, please. Truce?
MIKE
“For the dead there are no more toils.”
CUB
Huh?
MIKE
That was a very-old-guard quotation.
CUB
Don’t worry. You’ll find something else. You’re not that old, Mike.
MIKE
Sophocles. That is Sophocles… I gave at the office.
CUB
(She texts,) Oh, that’s right. You were like a paleontologist or something.
MIKE
(Winces.) Classicist.
CUB
Where’s your humor, man? But you care about the truth? I know you want me to get it
right. Right?
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MIKE
Everyone here is wounded. Go slowly.
CUB
Bodies get cold, Mike. Or so I have heard.
HAL BERNTON
(Shouts through bullhorn,) Journalism Is a Passion that Never Dies!
MIKE
You have nothing to run with?
CUB
Nothing sexy.
MIKE
Ugh! Karen, death is not sexy.
CUB
I can’t help it. I am sexy. They read me for sexy. My audience is going up. It’s about
saving trees, Mike. I guess I’ll just have to write around you then.
MIKE
“What you cannot enforce, do not command.”
CUB
Huh?
MIKE
Sophocles. Twitter that. (She does.) If you aren’t willing to be there, don’t ask to go.
CUB
Oh, but I’m willing. You went. You think I can’t? I’ll deal with the corpses and the police
and the murders and killers and—
MIKE
Don’t enjoy it too much, will you?
CUB
I heard that Gary Ridgway sent the P-I a letter once. You once got a letter from the Green
River killer.
SHANDRA turns her back, sits, cries.
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MIKE
I did.
CUB
You touched the same object that the sinister and mysterious killer had touched.
MIKE
Yes.
CUB
No shit. See, I could totally do that. That’s a sexy story. The subject of the investigation
making contact with me.
MIKE
(Wipes hands.) Actually, that was not a story at all. The F.B.I. discredited the letter. It
sat. I wrote something else that day.
CUB
But you had a letter. Write that you’d gotten a letter.
MIKE
Can’t print without substantiation. I copied it. I wrote on it. Gave it to the cops.
CUB
That’s so sad.
MIKE
It was very sad.
CUB
You had such a story. In your hands. I’m sure I could’ve made it a story.
MIKE
Could be, Karen. It didn’t become a story until later. When he confessed. Turns out the
F.B.I. hadn’t taken it seriously, the letter. I wrote about it then. The sadness? Yes, it is all
sad. The sadness was that so many teenagers and young women were killed by him. The
sadness is that people cause each other so much pain. And more pain. The sadness is that
you are not sad. My advice today: avoid adding hurt. And talk to the cops. That cop. My
source, at one time. My ex…(More to self,) There’s nobody manning the corridors. The
snicker alongside the sublime. The snarky alongside the sententious.
HAL BERNTON
(COP makes her way over to HAL BERNTON. Shouts through bullhorn,) Journalism Is a
Passion that Never—(COP seizes bullhorn. HAL, in ordinary voice,) Dies! (HAL exits.)
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CUB
No one wants to read “sententious.”
MIKE
No, of course not. It’s about pandering now. No lessons. No need. No nutrition. Empty
journalistic calories. Who needs what they write? Side by side with the salads and tofu—
yet no one can discern—
CUB
It’s about choice.
MIKE
It’s about danger. Sadness. No overseer of content, tone, meaning. The reader abandoned.
SHANDRA
My girl was gone. He honored her in the paper.
CUB
The reader is powerful. This is democracy. It’s not sad. It’s just change.
MIKE
News is news. It’s not democratic. Where is the corporate media when we need them?
CUB
I don’t need the corporate media.
MIKE
You do. Those of the big guns. Those of the deep pockets. Those of the fancy-pants
lawyers. Could always make power talk.
CUB
Really? Ok. I gotta get some coffee.
CUB exits, texting all the while. SHANDRA steps forward.
SHANDRA
I am here because my daughter was killed but this paper kept her from being killed twice.
That meant the world to me. My daughter. She meant the world to me.
PAPER CHILD enters, running and waving a newspaper. Runs around COP and MIKE;
corrals them.
PAPER CHILD
Extra! Extra! "P-I Presses Fall Silent." Read all about it! Extra! "You've Meant the World
to Us."
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COP
(Bullhorn whisper,) Shut up, kid. (Sets down bullhorn.) Shut up, kid.
PAPER CHILD
Just doing my job.
COP
This is a funeral.
PAPER CHILD
It doesn’t look like a funeral. (Gestures toward P-I building.) Everybody’s taking stuff.
Looks more like a looting.
COP
Shows how much you know. The family always rifles the house after the ceremony. They
want what’s rightfully theirs.
PAPER CHILD
They don’t trust each other. This is during the ceremony, isn’t it?
COP
Can’t trust anybody.
MIKE
But it’s about their relationship to the diseased. They want a little piece of the diseased
and they can’t wait for a reading of the will. But, of course, there’s no will, in this case.
PAPER CHILD
Death came unexpectedly.
MIKE
Some saw it coming…
COP
“The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.”
MIKE
(Smiles.) That’s not really fair. And quoting my man, to me.
COP
They don’t want these things to go to waste.
PAPER CHILD
Isn’t it stealing?
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MIKE
When there’s no one left at home?
COP
I can’t tell you, kid. Go hock your stuff somewhere else. (Indicates SHANDRA,) I want to
hear.
PAPER CHILD
Come on. Buy one. I’ve been out here all day.
COP
None of them’s buying, notice?
PAPER CHILD
Ok. So I don’t know how to choose my venue.
COP
It’s unkind. Go away. Be a good kid.
PAPER CHILD
You’d think they’d at least want to see the jobs section.
MIKE
Not funny.
COP
Go away. Or wait. Let me see that.
PAPER CHILD
That’ll be $1.50.
COP
Shhh. I’m borrowing. Hold on.
PAPER CHILD
I’m not a library.
COP
Shut up. Let me read.
COP walks away from grave. PAPER CHILD follows. MIKE stays, stares into grave.
COP
(Reads.) Unnamed sources. Huh. He didn’t need me. It was never about me. I wasn’t
even the muse. Now I’m really depressed. And now it’s all over. He’ll never need me
again. I’m second-hand news. Ha.
8
PAPER CHILD
Maybe he’ll call. At least you have a good steady line of work.
COP
Like yours.
PAPER CHILD
Thanks a lot.
COP
Do me a favor, kid. Go in there and see if you can find Karen.
PAPER CHILD
Can’t you go in? You’re a cop. Isn’t that like having a key to the city?
COP
No, that’s firefighters. Man, it’s always the firefighters get the good---This is different.
See if you can find this wom—girl--blogger. Give her this. (Writes note.)
PAPER CHILD
Want me to wait for a reply?
COP
She’ll find me if she wants to. Thanks, kid.
PAPER CHILD
You didn’t even pay for the paper.
COP
What do you expect around here? (Hands paper back.)
PAPER CHILD
You’re depressing. I aspire to greater things.
COP
Lucky you. Now get lost.
PAPER CHILD
I’ll be back.
COP
I’ve heard that line before.
9
PAPER CHILD
So one thing. What’re you doing here if you’re not stopping them from taking the
computers and chairs and the archives?
COP
I’m just traffic. That’s all.
PAPER CHILD exits, running. Beat. CUB enters from other side of stage.
CUB
So, you’re homicide? I thought this was natural causes? Who found the body, anyway?
(CUB hands COP a coffee cup.) Grease, for the wheels. I’m the death and murder
reporter, now. I could use some words…
COP
(Looks offstage, after PAPER CHILD.) Don’t sound so excited about it. There is no body.
SHANDRA
Remember the dead.
CUB
So how do you know …? Who called in the murder? Without a body how’re you going to
make a case?
COP
You might say there’s a ghost or an avatar. Roaming the halls. There has been a murder.
That’s you story.
CUB
Paul Allen? Has good places to hide the body—all those construction sites around the
lake. Nice deep holes, already dug.
COP
He didn’t move a muscle. Complete inaction, the perfect alibi. You’d think he’d’ve
wanted to be seen as a savior. Anyway, they’ve already thought of that. The higher ups. I
just work here.
CUB
Exert a little initiative. We could do it together. I’ll do the angles you need to keep out of
sight of the higher ups and we’ll share. Both get what we want.
COP
You didn’t hear me and I doubt we want the same things. (Looks toward MIKE.)
CUB
A little fame? A little action? Aren’t you ambitious?
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PAPER CHILD runs in, sees COP and CUB together. Comes to stand by graveside.
COP
That’s what you want. I want a nice glass of wine, the dog curled at my feet, the night
off. Listen to Soundgarden. You’re the one who’s burning up. I said, there has been a
murder, not, solve the murder.
CUB
I need something definitive. The general population: too vague. The Hearst Company:
too narrow a view. The bloggosphere: maybe, a little. The economy: maybe a lot. Paul
Allen: well, he could have stepped up.
COP
Not a whodunit. We know whodunit. But you should stick around. This is your story.
CUB
This is a lot of folks. Everyone gonna say a few words? I could be here a-SHANDRA
Hello, I’m Shandra. I am here to mourn with you the passing of a newspaper. I had a
daughter. My daughter mystified me. I knew what teenagers were about. I remembered
being a teenager. But my daughter was-- It wasn’t the age. It was us. We had some
words. She ran. In fact, I told her to go. Told her to. She heard that. I didn’t know that
she would really go. She’d never left before. We’d had words before. Everyone has
words. They’re just words, you think. But then the words make a daughter leave. I don’t
know where she stayed. I couldn’t find her. I phoned all her friends. She didn’t come
home that night. Her friends didn’t know where she was. I called the police. It was too
soon. She didn’t come home the next day. She hadn’t gone to school. She never called.
We didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know who she met. Didn’t know. Months and
months of nothing. She said nothing. No word. No word from her. No word from anyone.
Anywhere. They did not protect my child. My young, mystifying teenager was lost. She
ran at my words. And then I did know. And then phone calls. Police. Talk of a corpse.
That was my daughter. My daughter was a corpse. She was never coming home again.
Talk of dental records. That was how they learned that the corpse was my mystifying
daughter. My angry words were the last words she heard from me. That man had found
her when I couldn’t. That man had talked to my daughter. That man had used some words
on my daughter. The words became traps. She thought they were the right words. She got
in his truck. That man had killed my daughter. In that mystifying time when my
mystifying daughter ran away from me. Because we’d had words. Then there was the
kind man. The just man. The newspaper man. He phoned too.
MIKE
(Into the grave,) I was good at the calls.
11
SHANDRA
He listened to me tell of my mystifying daughter. Wrote about her. More words. Fair
words. Telling words. He never said an ugly thing about my daughter.
MIKE
“It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds.” I called
and called. New dead every day. New pain every day. Who am I calling today?
SHANDRA
Never turned her into a job. Or a crime. Kept her a person. My mystifying daughter. The
reporter told the story. Kept my daughter a teenager, my girl. Gave her name. Told her
story. I thank him. Good bye, P-I.
SHANDRA steps back. A moment of silence.
CUB
Even I feel the sadness. When did this sadness set in? (Sits at graveside and texts.)
COP
(To self,) It’s been sneaking up. The sadness. And now, every time I look at the globe…
MIKE walks over to COP.
MIKE
Hello, Rachel.
COP
Mike. I remember Shandra. I remember her daughter. The story. Here to say your
farewells to those you won’t be seeing again? Clearing out from the neighborhood?
MIKE
Looks like you found Karen. Forgetting your protocols?
COP
You guys are gone, Mike. So go the protocols. Who else am I to call? No watchdog at the
gate now. (She swigs coffee.)
MIKE
Ah, we return to the dark ages. “Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.”
COP
“A short saying oft contains much wisdom.”
MIKE
She speaks my language!
12
COP
Ancient Greek? Well, translated Ancient Greek. I always have, Mike...I’m sorry for your
loss.
MIKE looks over his shoulder at grave, nods thank you.
MIKE
She forgot to get you a doughnut. (Pulls a doughnut from his pocket and hands it over.)
COP
Some of us talk anyway. (Nods thanks and bites doughnut.)
MIKE
Some of you did.
COP
You pissed me off sometimes.
MIKE
And then I came to face you.
COP
Always. And I loved you for it.
MIKE
Did you?
COP
Respected. Respected you for it. You screw up, you own up. That’s how I see-MIKE
Sometimes you screwed up. I was agreeing to disagree.
COP
Karen’s covering the story, Mike.
MIKE
The youngster on the loose with an iPhone. She’ll do fine. Bright thing. Big eyes—sees
the details.
COP
Big nose? Smells a rat?
13
MIKE
Now, now. I told her some of the essentials of the trade. Tell the stories of the good cops.
Told her to print the story when she thinks the cops have it wrong. Hold the bad ones
accountable. And if your source lies, burn ’em. A reporter could look for what was being
held back. What the police didn’t tell.
COP
“The truth is always the strongest argument.”
MIKE
Smart guy that Sophocles. How is that he knew so much about us? The pain is eternal,
cycling, chronic. The phone calls. Every day I called the shadows of the dead. The leftbehind. Who will it be today? What is the story today?
COP takes MIKE’S hand. They stand by the grave together while SHANDRA sings. CUB
stops texting to listen. PAPER CHILD stands at graveside.
SHANDRA
(Sings,) They tell me it’s dead. So I’m wearing
black. I am here because of a newspaper.
I am here because of a man who tells
stories in the newspapers. Told her story
in the newspaper.
reporter
He told her story in the P-I
Seventeen. She ran. I didn’t know
that she would really go. We had
some words.
They tell me it’s dead. So I’m wearing
black. We’re here to pay our respects
My daughter mystified me. Seventeen.
We had some words. She ran. I didn’t know
that she would really go. She’d never left
before. I don’t know where
she stayed. I couldn’t find --phoned all her friends.
I didn’t know--She didn’t come home
that night.
I didn’t know--her friends
didn’t know where she -police didn’t know—
She never called. We didn’t know
where --- Didn’t know
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who she met. Didn’t know.
Months and months, didn’t know
No word. No word from her.
No word
She ran at my words.
And then I did know.
a corpse,
that was my daughter.
She was
never coming home again.
In that mystifying time
when my mystifying daughter
ran away from me.
And then the phone---a kind man.
The newspaper man.
heard me tell
of my mystifying daughter
never said an ugly thing
about my daughter
My mystifying daughter
Gave her a name. Told her story.
I thank him.
Remember the dead.
Every day he called
the shadows of the dead.
Who will it be today?
What is the story today?
PAPER CHILD drops the papers into the grave.
END
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