An Adaptation of Teddy
by J.D. Salinger
Adapted to the stage by Max J. Eber
1
SYNOPSIS
American family returning from Europe after visiting doctors and
therapists are hounded by a young teacher due to their young son’s
peculiar philosophies and seemingly prophetic abilities that have
caused a small scandal back in Academic Boston. His pestering
culminates one morning when the teacher catches the boy before a
swimming lesson, and the unreliable boy divulges on his philosophies.
CHARACTERS
TEDDY MCARDLE
MR. MCARDLE
MRS. MCARDLE
BOOPER MCARDLE
NICHOLSON
PURSER CLERK/ENSIGN MATHEWSON
NONSPEAKING ROLES
MYRON
Two to three other cruise line sunbathers. Can be Mr. And Mrs. Mcardle
doublecasted with costume change or stage crew. The toddler Myron does
not have any lines.
TOTAL ACTORS: 7-9
2
ACT ONE SCENE I:
CABIN
The sound of the ocean can be
heard outside. Stage left there
are two twin sized beds standing apart
and parallel to each other, a
nightstand in between. The room is
dim, a person lying in each respective
bed. On stage right there is a
porthole on the wall, white light
shining through. On the floor, between
the two beds is a pillow and used
ashtray.
On stage right, TEDDY, a small, underweight boy of ten years of
age stands upon a cowhide leather luggage bag to lean through and
view out of the porthole. He is wearing an overly washed and
starched t-shirt, with a dime sized hole on the right shoulder,
extremely dirty white ankle-sneakers without socks, oversized
seersucker shorts cinched tight with a black alligator belt. He
needs a haircut, his hair outgrown of a former clean-cut style
now curling about the nape of his skinny neck. A person in the
bed closest to TEDDY, MR. MCARDLE, stirs on lights up.
MR. MCARDLE
I’ll exquisite day you, buddy, if you don’t get down off that bag this
minute. And I mean it.
(He kicks off the sheets. MR. MCARDLE is shirtless, wearing only
a pajama bottom. He is sunburned, lying rather supine, smoking a
cigarette. He flicks the ashes outwards towards the ashtray. He
groans.)
MR. MCARDLE
October, for God’s sake! If this is October weather, gimmie August…
(He looks back at TEDDY.)
MR. MCARDLE
C’mon, what the hell do you think I’m talking for? Get down off there
please.
(No response. TEDDY sticks his head back out the porthole.)
MR. MCARDLE
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Teddy? Did you hear me?!
(Beat. No response.)
MR.MCARDLE
Teddy. God damn it – did you hear me?!
(TEDDY pulls his head back in and turns at the waist, looking at
his father innocently as if he had been calling him for the first
time.)
MR. MCARDLE
I want you to get down off that bag, now. How many times do you want
me to tell you?
(MRS. MCARDLE stirs in the other bed.)
MRS. MCARDLE
Stay exactly where you are, darling.
an inch.
Don’t move the tiniest part of
(She has whole body covered with sheets and blankets, her body
turned towards TEDDY, her back to her husband. She pulls the
blankets up closer to her chin.
MRS. MCARDLE
Jump up and down. Crush Daddy’s bag.
MR. MCARDLE
That’s a Jesus-brilliant thing to say! I pay twenty-two pounds for a
bag and I ask the boy civilly not to stand on it, and you tell him to
jump up and down on it. What’s that supposed to be? Funny?
(MRS. MCARDLE doesn’t stir or open her eyes.)
MRS. MCARDLE
If that bag can’t support a ten-year old boy, who’s thirteen pounds
underweight for his age, then I don’t want it in my cabin.
(MR. MCARDLE takes offense.)
MR. MCARDLE
You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to kick your goddamn head open.
4
MRS. MCARDLE.
Why don’t you?
(MR. MCARDLE props himself on his elbow and noticing that the
ashtray is on the floor and out of reach and frustrated,
squashes out his cigarette on the nightstand’s glass tabletop.)
MR. MCARDLE
One of these days…
MRS. MCARDLE
One of these days, you’re going to have a tragic, tragic heart attack.
(She clings the covers even closer to her body.)
MRS. MCARDLE
There will be a small, tasteful funeral, and everybody’s going to ask
who that attractive woman in the red dress is, sitting there in the
first row, flirting with the organist and making a holyMR. MCARDLE
Oh you’re so goddamn funny it isn’t even funny.
(He lies down flat again. TEDDY looks back at his parents,
withdrawing his head from the porthole and into the cabin.)
TEDDY
We passed the Queen Mary at three-thirty-two this morning, going the
other way if anyone’s interested.
(He looks at his parents.)
TEDDY (CONT)
Which I doubt. That deck steward Booper despises had it on his blackboard.
MR. MCARDLE
I’ll Queen Mary you, buddy if you don’t get off that bag this minute.
Get down from there, now. Go get yourself a haircut or something.
(He addresses the back of his wife’s
head.)
5
MR. MCARDLE (CONT)
He looks precocious, for God’s sake!
TEDDY
I haven’t any money. I’d like to go journal soon.
(He places his hands on the porthole’s sill and rests his chin on
them.)
TEDDY
Mother, you know that man who sits right next to us in the dining
room? Not the very thin one. The other one, at the same table. Right
next to where our waiter puts his tray down.
MRS. MCARDLE
Mm-hmm…Teddy. Darling. Let Mother sleep just five minutes more, like a
sweet boy.
(TEDDY interrupts but doesn’t move his chin up from up resting
on his hands and looking outside at the ocean.)
TEDDY
Wait just a second, this is interesting! He was in the gym a little
while ago, while Sven was weighing me. He came up and started talking
to me. He heard that last tape I made. Not the one in April. The one
in May. He was at a party in Boston just before he went to Europe and
somebody at the party knew somebody in the Leidekker examining grouphe didn’t say who- and they borrowed that last tape - I made and
played it at the party. He seems very interested in it. He’s a friend
of Professor Babcock’s. Apparently he’s a teacher himself. He said he
was at Trinity College in Dublin, all summer.
(MRS. MCARDLE opens her eyes and looks over at TEDDY wearily.)
MRS. MCARDLE
Oh? At a party they played it?
TEDDY
I guess so, he told Sven quite a bit about me, right while I was
standing there. It was rather embarrassing.
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MR. MCARDLE
Why should it be embarrassing?
(TEDDY hesitates.)
TEDDY
I said ‘rather’ embarrassing. I qualified it.
MR. MCARDLE
I’ll qualify you, buddy, if you don’t get the hell off that bag.
(He sits up and lights a second cigarette.)
MR. MCARDLE
I’m going to count three. One, God damn it…Two…
(MRS. MCARDLE suddenly stirs a bit.)
MRS. MCARDLE
What time is it? Don’t you and Booper have a swimming lesson at tenthirty?
TEDDY
We have time…OOH!
(He thrusts his head out of the porthole, keeps it there for a
few seconds and then draws it back in. He reports to his
parents;)
TEDDY
Someone just dumped a whole garbage can of orange peels out the window.
MR. MCARDLE
Out the window. Out the window.
(He flicks out his ashes.)
MR. MCARDLE
Out the porthole, buddy, out the porthole.
(He looks over at the back of his wife’s head again. TEDDY looks
back out the porthole.)
7
MR. MCARDLE
Call Boston. Quick, get the Leidekker examining group on the phone.
MRS. MCARDLE
Oh, you’re such a brilliant wit, Why do you try?
(TEDDY withdraws his head completely from the porthole.
TEDDY
They float very nicely. That’s interesting.
MR. MCARDLE
Teddy. For the last time. I’m going to count three, and then I’mTEDDY
I don’t mean it’s interesting that they float, it’s interesting that I
know about them being there. If I hadn’t seen them, then I wouldn’t
know they were there, and if I didn’t know they were there, I wouldn’t
be able to say that they even exist. That’s very nice, perfect example
of the wayMRS. MCARDLE
Teddy! Go find Booper for me. Where is she? I don’t want her lolling
around in that sun again today, with that burn.
TEDDY
She’s adequately covered. I made her wear her dungarees.
(He looks outside the porthole again.)
TEDDY
Some of them are starting to sink now. In a few minutes, the only
place they’ll still be floating will be inside my mind. That’s quite
interesting, because if you look at it a certain way, that’s where
they started floating in the first place. If I’d never been standing
here at all, or if somebody’d come along and sort chopped my head off
right while I wasMRS. MCARDLE
WHERE is she now? Look at Mother a minute, Teddy.
8
(TEDDY turns around and looks at his
mother.)
TEDDY
What?
MRS. MCARDLE
Where’s Booper now? I don’t want her meandering all around the deck
chairs again, bothering people. If that awful manTEDDY
She’s all right. I gave her the camera.
(MR. MCARDLE lurches up in bed on one arm, alarmed.)
MR. MCARDLE
You gave her camera! What’s the hell’s idea? My goddam Leica! I’m not
going to have a six-year-old child gallivanting all overTEDDY
I showed her how to hold it so she won’t drop it, and I took the film
out, naturally. She’s quite a capable…
MR. MCARDLE
I want the camera, Teddy. You hear me!? I want you to get down off
that Gladstone this minute, and I want that camera back in this room
in five minutes- or there’s going to be one little genius among the
missing. Is that clear?
(TEED turns around on the bag completely and then jumps down. He
bends down and starts to tie his laces on his tennis shoe.)
MRS. MCARDLE
Tell Booper I want her. And come give Mother a kiss.
(TEDDY finishes his sneaker lace, and gives his mother a pefunct
kiss on the cheek. She tries to hold TEDDY, but he has already
pulled away. He goes in between his parent’s beds, picks up his
father’s pillow and places it underneath his arm as he then picks
up the ashtray. He transfers the ashtray to his other hand and
brushes his father’s cigarette ashes from the nightstand into the
ashtray with the edge of the hand. He then wipes the entire
nightstand with his forearm, to remove the filmy wake of leftover
9
ash. He looks at his forearm and wipes it on his shorts. He then,
ceremoniously, places the ashtray dead center on the nightstand.
His father, agitated, stops watching him and looks away.
TEDDY
Don’t you want your pillow?
MR. MCARDLE
I want that camera young man.
TEDDY
You can’t possibly be very comfortable in that position. It isn’t
possible.
(He places the pillow at the foot of his father’s bed.)
TEDDY
I’ll leave this right here.
MRS. MCARDLE
Teddy, Tell Booper I want to see her before her swimming lesson.
MR. MCARDLE
Why don’t you leave the kid alone? You seem to resent her having a few
lousy minutes’ freedom. You know how to you treat her? I’ll tell you
exactly how you treat her, You treat her like a bloomin’ criminal.
MRS. MCARDLE
Bloomin’! Oh that’s cute! You’re getting so English, lover.
(TEDDY lingers at the door, fidgeting with the door handle,
turning it slowly back and forth.)
TEDDY
She’s afraid of her, that’s why.
(TEDDY sighs.)
TEDDY
You know, after I go out this door, I may only exist in the minds of
all my acquaintances. I may be just an orange peel…
10
MRS. MCARDLE
What, darling?
MR. MCARDLE
Let’s get on the ball, buddy. Let’s get that Leica down here.
MRS.MCARDLE
No, no, come give Mother a kiss. A nice big one.
TEDDY seems absent.
TEDDY
Not right now. I’m tired…
(He pauses and looks at his parents. He exits and closes the door
behind him.
BLACKOUT
11
ACT ONE SCENE II:
LIGHT’S UP OCEAN LINER DECK
(TEDDY walks out along the main deck, reading the ship’s
newspaper pamphlet he picks up from a stand. Before him in center
stage there is a counter, the Purser’s desk, with another young
attractive woman in a naval uniform. She is stapling
pieces of paper together. TEDDY walks up to the counter.
TEDDY
Can you tell me what time that game starts today, please?
PURSER CLERK
I beg your pardon?
TEDDY
Can you tell me what time that game starts today?
(She smiles.)
PURSER CLERK
What game honey?
TEDDY
You know. That word game they had yesterday and the day before, where
you’re supposed to supply the missing words. It’s mostly you have to
put everything into context.
(The girl goes to staple another stack of papers but then
refrains and withdraws her hand from the stapler.)
PURSER CLERK
Oh…not till late afternoon, I believe. It’s around four o’clock. Isn’t
that a little over your head dear?
TEDDY
No it isn’t…you underestimate me. Thank you.
(TEDDY starts to leave.)
PURSER CLERK
Wait a minute, honey! What’s your name?
12
(TEDDY turns around.)
TEDDY
Theodore McArdle. What’s yours?
PURSER CLERK
My name?
(She smiles.)
PURSER CLERK
My name’s Ensign Mathewson.
(She finally presses down on the stapler as Teddy watches.)
TEDDY
I knew you were an ensign. I’m not sure, but I believe when somebody
asks your name you’re supposed to say your whole name. Jane Mathewson,
or Phyillis Mathewson, or whatever the case may be.
(ENSIGN MATHEWSON grips the stapler.)
ENSIGN MATHEWSON
Oh really?
TEDDY
As I say, I think so. I’m not sure, though. It may be different if
you’re in uniform. Anyway, I may not be able to play after all if it’s
at that time this afternoon. Thank you for the information. Goodbye!
(He turns and walks on. ENSIGN MATHEWSON looks befuddled and
snippily staples another packet of papers as TEDDY walks out onto
the the adjoining Sports Deck. BOOPER, TEDDY’S six year old
sister with blonde hair stands on stage right with a small two to
three year old boy, MYRON, standing by her, observing. She is
squatting, overseeing two stacks of twelve to fourteen
shuffleboard discs stacked neatly into color coordinated stacks
of red and black. She notices as TEDDY approaches.)
BOOPER
Look!
(She seems to command her brother to look at her two stacks. She
surrounds the two stacks with her arms, as if to frame them. She
13
looks over to MYRON beside her and then incredibly hostile,
says;)
BOOPER
Myron! You’re making it all shadowy, so my brother can’t see. Move
your carcass!
(She shuts her eyes and haughtily waits until the young boy moves
back. TEDDY walks up to the two stacks.)
TEDDY
That’s very nice, very symmetrical.
(BOOPER looks viciously back over to MYRON.)
BOOPER
This guy, never even heard of backgammon. They don’t even have a
board!
(TEDDY looks objectively over at MYRON, who looks back at TEDDY
rather innocuously.)
TEDDY
Listen…I’d like to go journal as soon as I can…
(He turns back to BOOPER.)
TEDDY
Booper, where’s the camera? Daddy wants it right away…
(BOOPER doesn’t seem to listen, she carries on.)
BOOPER
He doesn’t even live in New York…
(She gets up in his face.)
BOOPER
And his father’s dead. He was killed in Korea!
(She turns back to MYRON.)
BOOPER
WASN’T HE?
14
(She doesn’t wait for a response.)
BOOPER (CONT)
Now if his mother dies, he’ll be an orphan! He didn’t even know that!
(She looks back to MYRON.)
BOOPER (CONT)
Did you?!
(MYRON folds his arms, noncommittal. BOOPER becomes even more
shrieking.)
BOOPER
You’re the stupidest person I ever met! You’re the stupidest person in
this ocean. DID YOU KNOW THAT?
TEDDY
He is not.
(TEDDY looks at MYRON.)
TEDDY
You are not, Myron.
(He grabs BOOPER’S shoulders and pulling her away from MYRON
holds her still.)
TEDDY
Give me your attention a second. Where’s the camera? I have to have it
immediately. Where is it?
(BOOPER flails her arm in no particular direction.)
BOOPER
Over there…
(She pulls away from TEDDY and kneels down and draws her two
stacks of shuffleboard discs in closer to her.)
BOOPER
All I need now are two giants. I could summon up two giants and they
could play backgammon till they got all tired and then they could
15
climb up on that smokestack up there and throw these at everybody and
kill them!
(She looks at MYRON, almost sadistic.)
BOOPER
They could kill your mother. And if that didn’t kill her, you know
what you could do? You could put some poison on some marshmallows and
make her eat it!
(TEDDY spots the Leica camera nearby away against the railing in
the drain gully. He walks over and picks it up, places the strap
around his neck. He pauses, then removes it and then walks over
to BOOPER and holds it out to her.
TEDDY
Booper, do me a favor. You take it down, please. It’s ten o’clock. I
have to write in my diary.
(The girl responds in an overtly girly tone.)
BOOPER
I’m busy.
TEDDY
Mother wants to see you right away.
(BOOPER quickly looks over to TEDDY, enraged.)
BOOPER
You’re a liar!
TEDDY
I’m not a liar. She does. So please, take this down when you
go..c’mon, Booper, Pavarti…
(He tries to give her the camera. She stays hunched over her two
stacks.
BOOPER
DON’T CALL ME THAT! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS CALL ME THAT?! Besides…what’s
she want me for? I don’t want to see her.
16
(MYRON slowly tries to take a shuffleboard disk from the red
stack. BOOPER suddenly strikes his hand.)
BOOPER
Hands off!
(TEDDY places the camera strap around her neck.)
TEDDY
I’m serious, now. Take this down to Daddy, right away, and then I’ll
see you at the pool later on. I’ll meet you right at the pool changing
room at ten-thirty. Be on time, now. Leave yourself plenty of time to
get there.
(He turns and starts to leave, stage left. BOOPER starts to
scream after him.)
BOOPER
I HATE YOU! I HATE EVERYBODY IN THIS OCEAN!
(She kicks her two stacks, scattering the shuffleboard chips
which frighten MYRON, who dashes away. She wretches the camera
off her neck and throws it onto the ground hard in front of her,
then stomps away, swiping up the strap as she passes, and, fake
crying, drags it, now broken, behind her.)
BLACKOUT
17
ACT ONE SCENE III: SUN DECK
Lights up on the Sun Deck, a long
stretch of flat space devoted to three
lines thick of white lounge chairs,
some occupied by sunbathers, who
either splay out completely prostrate
or lean back in the chairs in a higher,
more upwards angle to read. On stage
left there is an entrance to a
stairwell going down with a sign
with a large red arrow that reads
ENTRANCE TO POOL. The sports deck can
be seen above the Sun deck, a set of
railed stairs extends down
across from stage right to stage left
connecting the two levels, the stairs
ending right at stage left at the
entrance to the to the pool.
(TEDDY, now wearing a pair of large wayfarer sunglasses and
carrying what looks like a cheap notebook, enters stage left and
explores the lines of chairs, reading the name placards on the
empty chairs that reserve them for certain guests. He comes
across his families four cushioned chairs on the middle row,
stage right and sits down in an chair. He props up the notebook
on his thigh and opens it. He reads out loud :)
TEDDY
Last entry, Diary for October 27th, 1952. Property of Theodore McArdle,
412 A Deck. Appropriate and pleasant reward if finder promptly returns
to Theodore McArdle if found. Note; See if you can find daddy’s army
dog tags and wear them whenever possible. It won’t kill you and he
will like it. Answer Professor Mandell’s letter. Ask him not to send
me any more poetry books, I am quite sick of them, though do not make
that apparent.
(He seems to make an edit with a ballpoint pen he withdraws from
his pocket. He sighs.)
TEDDY (CONT)
A man walks along the beach and unfortunately gets hit in the head by
a coconut. His head unfortunately cracks open in two halves. Then his
wife comes along the beach singing a song and sees the two halves and
recognizes them and picks them up. She gets very sad of course and
18
cries heart-breakingly. That is exactly where I am tired of poetry.
Supposing the lady just picks up the two halves and shouts into them
very angrily “Stop that!” Do not mention this when you answer his
letter, however. It is quite controversial and Mrs. Mandell is a poet
besides.
(He turns the page.)
TEDDY
Note; Get Sven’s address in Elixabeth, New Jersey. It would be
interesting to meet his wife, also his dog Lindy. However, I would not
like to own a dog myself. Pomeranians especially are not to be trusted
much, especially Miss Adgerton’s, the nasty…
(He makes an edit.)
TEDDY
Insufferable little thing.
(He keeps reviewing his previous entry. He scratches something
out. The legs and shoes of a man wearing charcoal grey trousers
appear stage left on the Sun Deck level.)
TEDDY.
Words and expressions to look up in the library tomorrow when you
return the books- nephritis, myriad, gift horse, cunning, triumvirate.
Be nice to the librarian. Discuss some general things with him when he
gets…kittenish.
(He then starts to write full force, speaking what he writes as
he goes.)
TEDDY
Diary for October 28th, 1952. Same address and reward as written on
October 26th and 27th, 1952. Note; I wrote letters to the following
person after meditation this morning; Dr. Wokawara, Professor Mandell,
Professor Peet, Burgess Hake, Jr., Roberta Hake, Sandord Hake, Grandma
Hake, Mr. Graham, and Professor Walton. I could have asked mother
where daddy’s dog tags are but she would probably say I don’t have to
wear them. I know he has them with him because I saw him pack them.
(He pauses.)
19
TEDDY(CONT)
Life is a gift horse in my opinion. I think it is very tasteless of
Professor Walton to criticize my parents. He wants people to be a
certain way. He pauses…Booper has certainly forgotten her time as a
goddess, being part of God. She does not realize who she is. Mother
has said it was very wicked of me to say that but she is who she is, I
have seen her truer form after all.
(He sighs again.)
TEDDY
It will either happen today or February 14th, 1958, when I am sixteen.
It is ridiculous to mention even. But, it’s probably inevitable…
TEDDY sits, poised, ceasing to stop writing but keeps his pen in
place upon the paper as if waiting for more. He looks disturbed.
The pair of legs walk down to the stairs and descend, exposing as
it descends NICHOLSON a young man in his mid-twenties to thirties,
wearing button down shirt with no necktie and a well-aged if not
slightly ugly Ivy League type of herringbone jacket. A few people
look up at him for disturbing their sun. He gets down onto the
Sundeck and moseys over and then stops in front of TEDDY, who
does not notice. He places one hand in his pocket and genially
says;)
NICHOLSON
Hello, there!
(TEDDY is knocked out of his little trance and looks up at the
man, all the while shutting his notebook from view.)
TEDDY
Oh you, from the gym…what do you want?
NICHOLSON
Mind if I sit down a minute?
(He signals to one of the McArdle’s chairs.)
NICHOLSON
This anybody’s chair?
20
TEDDY
Well these chairs belong to my family, but my parents aren’t up yet.
NICHOLSON
Not up?
On a day like this?
(He lowers himself into the chair anyway next to TEDDY, who
doesn’t seem too amused by the gesture.)
NICHOLSON
That’s sacrilege, absolute sacrilege.
(He stretches out. He is not fat but it becomes apparent he has
large legs. Not athletic. He holds up a hand to his face, like a
visor over his eyes as he squints into the sun.)
NICHOLSON
Oh, God, what a great day, I’m an absolute pawn when it comes to the
weather.
(He crosses his legs.)
NICHOLSON
As a matter of fact, I’ve been known to take a perfectly normal rainy
day as a personal insult, so this is absolute manna to me.
(He looks down to TEDDY, who has been staring forewords, rather
stoic.)
NICHOLSON
How are you and the weather? The weather ever bother you out of all
sensible proportion?
TEDDY
I don’t take it too personal, if that’s what you mean. It is splendid
though.
(NICHOLSON gives a deep laugh.)
NICHOLSON
Wonderful!
(He leans back forward.)
21
NICHOLSON
My name, incidentally, is BOB NICHOLSON. I don’t know if we quite got
around to that in the gym. I know your name, of course.
(TEDDY shifts his weight and puts away the small notebook into
his shorts.)
NICHOLSON
I was watching you write from up there, Good Lord you were working
away like a little Trojan.
TEDDY
I was writing something in my notebook. It’s very important, in case I
ever leave it behind.
(NICHOLSON nods.)
NICHOLSON
How was Europe? Did you enjoy it.
TEDDY
Yes, very much, thank you.
NICHOLSON
Where did you all go?
(TEDDY scratches the calf of his leg.)
TEDDY
Well, it would take me too much time to name all the places, because
we took our car and drove fairly great distances. My mother and I were
mostly in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Oxford, England, though. I think I
told you in the gym I had to be interviewed at both those places.
Mostly the University of Edinburgh.
NICHOLSON
No I don’t believe you did. I was wondering if you’d done anything
like that. How’d it go? Did they grill you?
TEDDY
I beg your pardon?
22
NICHOLSON
I mean, how’d it go? Was it interesting?
TEDDY
At times, yes. At times, no. We stayed a bit too long. My father
wanted to get back to New York a little sooner than this ship. But
some people were coming over from Stockholm, Sweden and Innsbruck,
Austria, to meet me, and we had to wait around.
NICOLSON
It’s always that way.
TEDDY looks at NICHOLSON truly directly for the first time. He
takes off his sunglasses.)
TEDDY
Are you a poet?
NICHOLSON
A poet? Lord, no. Alas, no. Why do you ask?
TEDDY
I don’t know. Poets are always taking the weather so personally.
They’re always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.
NICHOLSON smiles and reaching into his jacket pulls out
cigarettes and matches.)
NICHOLSON
I rather thought that was their stock in trade. Aren’t emotions what
poets are primarily concerned with?
(TEDDY is not paying attention, gazing off. NICHOLSON lights his
cigarette and leans back.)
NICHOLSON
I understand you left a pretty disturbed bunchTEDDY
Nothing in the voice of the cicada intimates how soon it will die,
along this road goes no one, this autumn eve.
23
NICHOLSON
What was that?
He smiles.
NICHOLSON
Say it again.
TEDDY
Those are Japanese poems. They’re not full of emotional stuff.
(TEDDY leans up and gives his right ear a clap with his hand.)
TEDDY
I still have some water in my ear from my swimming lesson yesterday,
excuse me it’s started to bother me.
(He gives his ear a few more claps and leans back into the chair,
looking smaller than ever.)
NICHOLSON
I understand you left a pretty disturbed bunch of
After that last little set-to. The whole Leidekker
more or less, the way I understand it. I believe I
rather a long chat with Al Babcock last June. Same
of fact, I heard your tape played off.
pedants up at Boston.
examining group,
told you I had
night, as a matter
TEDDY
Yes you did, you told me.
NICHOLSON
I understand they were a pretty disturbed bunch, from what Al told me,
you all had quite a little lethal bull session late one night- the
same night you made that tape, I believe.
(He takes a drag from his cigarette.)
NICHOLSON
From what I gather, you made some little predictions that disturbed
the boys to no end. Is that right?
24
TEDDY
I wish I knew why people think it’s so important to be emotional. My
mother and father don’t think a person’s human unless he thinks a lot
of things are very sad or very annoying or very-very unjust, sort of.
My father gets very emotional even when he reads the newspaper. He
thinks I’m inhuman.
(NICHOLSON flicks away his cigarette.)
NICHOLSON
I take it you have no emotions?
(TEDDY pauses, reflecting.)
TEDDY
If I do, I don’t remember when I ever used them, I don’t see what
they’re good for.
NICHOLSON
You love God don’t you? Isn’t that your forte, so to speak? From what
I heard on that tape and from Al Babcock you know quite a lotTEDDY
Yes, sure I love Him. But I don’t love Him sentimentally. He never
said anybody had to love Him sentimentally. If I were God, I certainly
wouldn’t want people to love me sentimentally. It’s too unreliable.
NICHOLSON
You love your parents, don’t you?
TEDDY
Yes, I do-very much. But you want to make me use that word to mean
what you want it to mean- I can tell.
NICHOLSON
All right. In what sense do you want to use it?
(TEDDY thinks.)
TEDDY
You know what the word ‘affinity’ means?
25
NICHOLSON
I have a rough idea.
TEDDY
I have a very strong affinity for them. They’re my parents, I mean,
and we’re all part of each other’s harmony and everything. I want them
to have a nice time while they’re alive, because they like having a
nice time…but they don’t love me and Booper- that’s my sister- that
way. I mean they don’t seem able to love us just the way we are. They
don’t seem able to love us unless they can keep changing us a little
bit. They love their reasons for loving us almost as much as they love
us, and most of the time more. It’s not so good, that way.
(He leans over to NICHOLSON.)
TEDDY
Do you have the time, please? I have a swimming lesson at ten-thirty.
NICHOLSON
You have time.
(He pushes back his cuff to look at his wristwatch.)
NICHOLSON
It’s just ten after ten.
TEDDY
Thank you.
(He sits back into the chair.)
TEDDY
We can enjoy our conversation for a few more minutes.
(NICHOLSON notices his cigarette end and puts it out with his
shoe.)
NICHOLSON
As I understand it, you hold pretty firmly to the Vedantic theory of
reincarnation.
26
TEDDY
It isn’t a theory, it’s as much a partNICHOLSON
All right.
All right..
(He holds up his hands as if in
surrender.)
NICHOLSON
We won’t argue that point, for the moment. Let me finish.
(He crosses his legs again.)
NICHOLSON
From what I gather, you’ve acquired certain information, through
meditation, that’s given you some conviction that in your last
incarnation you were a holy man in India, but more or less fell from
Grace.
TEDDY
I wasn’t a holy man, I was just a person making very nice spiritual
advancement, that’s all. There’s a difference.
NICHOLSON
All right- whatever it was, but the point is you feel that in your
last incarnation you more or less fell from Grace before final
Illumination. Is that right, or am ITEDDY
That’s right. I met a lady and I sort of…stopped meditating.
(He takes his hands off the arm rests of the chair and puts them
under his thighs.)
TEDDY
I would have had to take another body and come back to earth again
anyway- I mean I wasn’t so spiritually advanced that I could have died,
if I hadn’t met that lady, and then gone straight to Brahma and never
again have to come back to earth. But I wouldn’t have had to get
incarnated in an American body if I hadn’t met that lady. I mean it’s
very hard to meditate and live a spiritual life in America. People
think you’re a freak if you try to. My father thinks I’m a freak, in a
27
way. And my mother- well she doesn’t think it’s good for me to think
about God all the time. She thinks it’s bad for my health.
(NICHOLSON looks at him, studying him.)
NICHOLSON
I believe you said on that last tape that you were six when you first
had a mystical experience. Is that right?
TEDDY
I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up and
all that. It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was only a very
tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of the sudden
I saw that she was God and the milk was God. Chaos and Order swirling
and entering, exiting, everything about her was Pavarti, and Durga and
Kali, all separate, all equal. I mean, all she was doing was pouring
God into God, if you know what I mean.
(NICHOLSON doesn’t say anything.)
TEDDY
But I could get out of the finite dimensions fairly often when I was
four. Not continuously or anything, but fairly often.
(NICHOLSON nodded.)
NICHOLSON
You did? You could?
TEDDY
Yes, that was on the tape…or maybe it was the on the one I made last
April. I’m not sure.
(NICHOLSON takes out his cigarettes again but keeps his eyes on
TEDDY.)
NICHOLSON
How does one get out of the finite dimensions?
(He laughs.)
NICHOLSON (CONT)
I mean, to begin very basically, a block of wood is a block of wood,
for example. It has length, width28
TEDDY
It hasn’t! That’s where you’re wrong. Everybody just thinks things
keep stopping off somewhere. They don’t! That’s what I was trying to
tell Professor Peet.
(TEDDY shifts in his seat, takes out an ugly handkerchief and
blows his nose.)
TEDDY (CONT)
The reason things seem to stop off somewhere is because that’s the
only way most people know how to look at things. But that doesn’t mean
they do. It’ like my parents looking at my sister and not
understanding her power. Would you like to hold up your hand a second,
please?
NICHOLSON
My arm? Why?
TEDDY
Just do it. Just do it a second.
(NICHOLSON raises his forearm an inch or two above the level of
the armrest.)
NICHOLSON
This one?
(TEDDY nods.)
TEDDY
What do you call that?
NICHOLSON
What do you mean? It’s my arm. It’s an arm.
TEDDY
How do you know it is? You know it’s called an arm, but how do you
know it is one? Do you have any proof that it’s an arm?
29
NICHOLSON
I think that smacks of the worst kind of sophistry, kid, frankly it
does. It’s an arm. We call it an arm. It has to have a name to
distinguish it from other objects. I mean, you can’t simplyTEDDY
You’re just being logical.
NICHOLSON
I’m just being what?
TEDDY
Logical. You’re just giving me a regular, intelligent answer; I was
trying to help you. You asked me how I get out of the finite
dimensions I feel like it. I certainly don’t use logic! Logic’s the
first thing you have to get rid of!
(NICHOLSON looks sour.)
TEDDY
Do you know Adam?
NICHOLSON
Do I know who?
TEDDY
Adam. In the Bible.
NICHOLSON
Not personally.
(TEDDY hesitates.)
TEDDY
Don’t be angry with me. You asked me a question and I(NICHOLSON shouts a bit too loudly.)
30
NICHOLSON
I’m not angry with you, for heaven’s sake!
(A few sunbathers look over at Nicholson, who seems rather
agitated. A sunbather turns on a portable radio. A jazzy,
orchestral tune now plays softly in the background.)
TEDDY
Okay. You know that apple Adam ate in the Garden of Eden? You what was
in that apple? Logic! Logic and intellectual stuff, That’s what was in
it. So-this is my point- what you have to do is vomit it up if you
want to see things as they really are. I mean if you vomit it up, then
you won’t have any more trouble with blocks of wood and stuff. You
won’t see everything stopping off all the time. And you’ll know what
your arms really is, if you’re interested! Do you know I mean? Do you
follow me?
NICHOLSON
I follow you.
TEDDY
The trouble is, most
They don’t even want
just want new bodies
with God, where it’s
people don’t want to see things the way they are.
to stop getting born and dying all the time. They
all the time, instead of stopping and staying
really nice.
(ENSIGN MATHEWSON passes with a large stack of papers.)
TEDDY
I never saw such a bunch of apple eaters.
(He shakes his head. BOOPER, in a one piece bathing suit with an
unfortunate pattern, a towel on her shoulder walks down across
the Sun Deck and to the entrance to the stairs to the pool. TEDDY
and NICHOLSON look over, BOOPER catches sight of TEDDY. She
tense up and, gives out an aggravated groan, and then stomps her
way down the stairs flippantly. NICOLSON looks over to TEDDY.
TEDDY
My sister…she’s a bit early.
31
NICHOLSON
If you’d rather not discuss this, you don’t have to. But it is true,
or isn’t it, that you informed the whole Leidekker examining bunchWalton, Peet, Larsen, Samuels, and that bunch- when and where and how
they would eventually die? Is that true or isn’t it? The rumor around
Boston.
(Beat.)
TEDDY
No. It’s isn’t true.
( NICHOLSON looks distraught.)
TEDDY
I told them places, and times, when they should be very, very careful.
And I told them certain things it might for them to do…but I didn’t
say anything like that. I didn’t say anything was inevitable, that way.
Anything can happen. And I didn’t tell Professor Peet anything like
that at all. Firstly, he wasn’t one of the ones who were kidding
around asking me a bunch of questions. I mean all I told Professor
Peet was that he shouldn’t be a teacher anymore after January- that’s
all I told him.
(He pauses.)
TEDDY
All those other professors, they practically forced me to tell them
all that stuff. It was after we were all finished with the interview
and making that tape, and it was quite late and they all kept sitting
around smoking cigarettes and getting very kittenish.
NICHOLSON
But you didn’t tell Walton, Larsen, for example when or how they would
eventually die?
TEDDY
No. I did not. I wouldn’t have told them any of that stuff, but they
kept talking about it. Professor Walton sort of started it. He said he
really wished he knew when he was going to die, because then he’d know
what work he should do and what work he shouldn’t do, and how to use
his time to his best advantage, and all like that. And they all said
that…so I told them a little bit. I didn’t tell them when they were
32
actually going to die, though. That’s a very false rumor. I could have,
but I knew that in their hearts they really didn’t want to know. I
mean I knew that even though they teach Religion and Philosophy and
all, they’re still pretty afraid to die.
(They sit in silence. Beat.)
TEDDY
It’s so silly, all you do is get the heck out of your body when you
die. My gosh, everybody’s done it thousands and thousands of times.
Just because they don’t remember it doesn’t mean they haven’t done it.
Or because you don’t see it something happens. It’s so silly.
NICHOLSON
That may be. But the logical fact remains that no matter how
intelligentlyTEDDY
It’s so silly! For example, I have a swimming lesson, as you know, in
about five minutes. I could go downstairs to the pool, and there might
not be any water in it at all. This might be the day they actually
change the water or something. A child had an “accident” in the water.
What might happen, though, I might walk up to the edge of it, just to
have a look at the bottom, for instance, and my sister might come up
and sort of push me in. I could fracture my skull and die
instantaneously. Then Kali could finally appear and lap up all the
blood. Then again, I could push her into a pool, and it could be
absolutely full. I could trip in on my own accord. There are those
possibilities as well. There are infinite possibilities as to what can
happen really, just as there are infinite ways to evoke and reach a
sleeping God.
(He looks at NICHOLSON.)
TEDDY
Any of those could happen. My sister’s only six, and she hasn’t been a
human being for very many lives, and she doesn’t like me very much nor
do our parents know how to handle her either. They likewise don’t know
how to handle me.
(He pauses.)
TEDDY
It’s a rather fractured affair.
33
(He pauses, looking genuinely, for the first time, a genuinely
sad and lonely boy, and most importantly the possibility of a
fraudulent liar.)
TEDDY
I mean, what would be tragic about it all though, if I was to die?
What’s there to be afraid of, I mean? I’d just be doing what I was
supposed to do, that’s all, wouldn’t I?
NICHOLSON
It might not be a tragedy from your point of view, but what about for
mother and dad? Ever consider that?
TEDDY
Yes of course, I have. But that’s only because they have names and
emotions for everything that happens. You know Sven, the man that
takes care of the gym?
(NICHOLSON nods.)
TEDDY
Well, if Sven dreamed tonight that his dog died, he’d have a very,
very bad night’s sleep, because he’s very fond of his dog. But when he
woke up in the morning, everything would be all right. He’d know it
was all a dream and he could be at peace.
NICHOLSON
What’s your point kid?
TEDDY
The point is if his dog really died, it would be exactly the same
thing. Only, he wouldn’t know it. I mean he wouldn’t wake up until he
died himself. The loss wouldn’t leave.
(NICHOLSON, rather detached, massages the back of his neck. The
sunlight
becomes really bright, as if coming out from behind a
veil of clouds. TEDDY stands up.
TEDDY
I really have to go now, I’m afraid. I have a few minutes and I need
to go change for my swimming lesson in the changing room before I’m
too late.
34
(NICHOLSON stands up, a bit bit panicked to the idea of TEDDY
leaving. He gestures out as if to stop TEDDY.)
NICHOLSON
Can I, May I ask why you told Professor Peet he should stop teaching
after the first of the year? I know Bob Peet. That’s why I ask.
(TEDDY sits on the edge of his chair again.)
TEDDY
Oh, only because he’s quite spiritual, and he’s teaching a lot of
stuff right now that isn’t very good for him if he wants to make any
real spiritual advancement. It’s time for him to take everything out
of his head, instead of putting more stuff in. He could get rid of a
lot of the apple in just this one life if he wanted to. He’s very good
at meditating.
(TEDDY stands up and again.)
TEDDY
I better go now…I don’t want to be too late. I have to see how the
lesson will be going today.
(NICHOLSON looks at him pleadingly, holding onto his arm not to
go. The sunlight gets even brighter.)
NICHOLSON
What would you do if you could change the educational system? Ever
think of that at all?
TEDDY
I really have to go. We might do butterfly stroke.
He struggles against NICHOLSON’s hold. NICHOLSON almost seems
childlike. He pleads.)
NICHOLSON
Just answer that one question! Education’s my baby, actually, that’s
what I teach. That’s why I ask!
TEDDY
Well…I’m not sure what I’d do, I know I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t start
with the things schools usually start with.
35
TEDDY
I’d probably show all the children how to meditate, I’d try to show
them how to find who they are, not just what their names are and
things like that..I guess even before that, I’d get them to empty out
everything their parents and everybody ever told them. I mean even if
their parents told them an elephant’s big, I’d make them empty that
out. An elephant’s only big when it’s next to something else, a dog,
or a lady with a funny hat, for example. I wouldn’t even tell them
what an elephant has a trunk. I might show them an elephant, if I had
one handy, but I’d let them just walk up to the elephant not knowing
anything more about it than the elephant knew them. The same thing
with grass and other things. I wouldn’t tell them grass is green!
Colors are only names. I mean if you tell them the grass is green, it
makes them start expecting the grass to look a certain way… I don’t
know I’d make them vomit up every bit of the apple their parents and
everybody made them take a bite out of.
(NICHOLSON gets agitated again.)
NICHOLSON
There’s no risk you’d be raising a little generation of ignoramuses?
(The same woman who had looked over at him from her sunning spot,
looks over, bothered. NICHOLSON, catching sight, lets go of
Teddy’s arm.)
TEDDY
Why? They wouldn’t be any more be ignoramuses than an elephant is. Or
a bird. Or a tree. Just because something is a certain way, instead of
just behaves a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s an ignoramus.
NICHOLSON
No?
TEDDY
No! Besides if they wanted to learn things, all that other stuff, they
could do it, later on when they were older, if they wanted. But I’d
want them to begin with all the real ways of looking at things not
just the way all the other apple-eaters look at things. I really have
36
to go now, I have to see what will happen in our lesson today.
Honestly, I’ve enjoyedNICHOLSON
Just, one second!
(He touches Teddy’s arm again. TEDDY tries to draw away.)
NICHOLSON (CONT)
Please sit down a minute. Ever think you might like to do something in
research when you grow up? Medical research, or something of that
kind? It seems to me, with your mind you might eventuallyTEDDY
I thought about that once, a couple of years ago, I’ve talked with
quite a few doctors.
(He shakes his head.)
TEDDY
That wouldn’t interest me much. Doctors stay too right on the surface.
They’re always talking cells and things.
NICHOLSON
Oh? You don’t attach any importance to cell structure?
TEDDY
Yes, sure I do. But doctors talk about cells as if they had such
unlimited importance by themselves. As if they didn’t really belong to
a person that has them.
(TEDDY messes with his hair and pushes it off his forehead.)
TEDDY
I grew my own body. Nobody else did it for me. So if I grew it, I must
have known how to grow it. Unconsciously at least. I may have lost the
conscious knowledge of how to grow it sometimes in the last hundred
thousand years, but the knowledge is still there, because obviously,
I’ve used it. I would take quite a lot of emptying out to get the
whole thing back- I mean the conscious knowledge but you could do it
if you wanted to. If you opened up wide enough, and stuff like that.
37
TEDDY picks up NICHOLSON’S hand and
shakes it, once, cordially.
TEDDY
Goodbye. I have to go. I might have to correct myself, we might do the
breaststroke after all. I’d like to know what we’re doing beforehand
and I need to change, and well, I’m going to be late…so, again.
Goodbye.
(The sunlight reaches its brightest. TEDDY leaves and walks
through the chairs and to the stairwell down to the pool and out
of sight. NICHOLSON sits, holding his hand up to the sun. He sits
and, distressed, lights and smokes a cigarette in silence. The
music of the sunbather’s radio playing in the background. He then
looks over in the direction of the stairwell down to the pool. He
snuffs out his cigarette and, almost in a panic sits up and walks,
weaving in and out of the chairs of sunbathers again, towards
the stairwell. As he approaches the opening, an all piercing,
scream, from a small, female child can be heard, highly
acoustical, as if reverberating within four tiled walls.
NICHOLSON runs down the staircase.
38