from Dogcatcher: a play in one act
Characters
MR. BERNARD SETTLE, owner of B&D Market
MR. EUSTIS CHASTAIN, owner of Tidal Realty Co.
MRS. CAROLINE BYERS
MRS. GLORIANNA LIMEHOUSE
NORMAN, aged 52, owner of a pick-up truck
PAUL, a potter and a dog owner, balding with long hair
MAD JOHN, a dog owner, in his thirties
MRS. FAYE PETTY, librarian
BEMISS, postmaster, in his sixties
Scene: A town meeting. A small island community immediately off the coast of South Carolina.
Chairs on stage, some empty, the others seating: on the front row, down right, Mrs. Limehouse and Mrs. Bayers; on the same row, Mr. Settle and Mr. Chastain. Behind them: Mad John and Paul. In the back: Bemiss and Mrs. Petty. There is a door up left.
Mrs. Limehouse and Mrs. Byers work during the meeting on a piece quilt from which they rarely look up (even when speaking to one another). Bemiss sleeps much of the time. The characters face and address the audience as if the audience were the Mayor. When not speaking or being spoken to, they are listening to "the Mayor."
The stage is dark. Sound of the ocean - long, slow waves, with protracted intervals between their breakage - about 20 seconds. Sound fades as lights come up on stage. Characters have their heads bowed for the completion of the invocation. Silence.
ALL A-men. (THEY LOOK UP. LIMEHOUSE AND BYERS PICK UP QUILTING.)
PAUL (RISING) Mayor Shepherd? Suicide Prevention has an announcement to make. . . . Sir? . . . Oh, well, whenever you can get to it. (SITS)
BEMISS (RISING) Mr. Mayor, I move we adjourn the meeting.
SETTLE You can't do that way, Bemiss.
BEMISS Well nobody came, Bernard! (POINTING OUT FRONT) Look: there's no one up there!
SETTLE They resigned, Bemiss. The whole council resigned in protest over the island being washed away. That's what the whole election today was about. If you'd of come to the last two meetings, you wouldn't have to ask.
BEMISS Oh. (SITS.)
BYERS (TO LIMEHOUSE) I appreciate Mayor Shepherd keeping on like he does, till we get the new mayor.
LIMEH (NOT LOOKING UP) Somebody has to.
BEMISS (RISING) Mayor Shepherd?. . .The reason I missed the last two meetings is my mother was sick.
CHAS It's all right, Bemiss.
BEMISS She gets sick.
CHAS We're real sorry about it.
BEMISS It's arthuritis. (SITS)
BYERS (TO LIMEHOUSE) I don't see Steinberg tonight. I wonder if he's coming.
LIMEH I saw him this evening. On my way to the Exchange dinner.
PETTY (RISING) Mayor Shepherd?
LIMEH He wasn't doing anything. I saw in his window.
PETTY Mayor Shepherd!
LIMEH He wasn't doing a thing. Just sitting there, staring into space.
PETTY Over here, Mayor Shepherd!
LIMEH In front of his typewriter.
PETTY Some dogs got two pair of shoes from my back porch last Thursday, Mr. Mayor.
BYERS He must have been creating.
PETTY What?
LIMEH He wasn't doing anything. Just sitting there.
SETTLE He said you're out of order, Miz Petty.
LIMEH I would have stopped.
PETTY Do what?
LIMEH I usually do stop and visit when I see him like that - I figure he must be lonesome.
PETTY Well it took me forty-five minutes to find them. (SITS.)
LIMEH I was afraid I'd miss the oysters, though, if I stopped.
BYERS I'd be ashamed to write those things.
LIMEH That's right.
BYERS But it sells.
LIMEH You can't argue with that.
SOUND OF APPROACHING VEHICLE AND
LOUDSPEAKER, RISING AND THEN
FADING OUT: "Don't forget to vote in the
election today. Let's all get out the vote. Come
on out everyone and vote in the election."
BYERS (TO LIMEHOUSE) Is Norman still driving around with that thing on his truck?
SETTLE (TO CHASTAIN) Norman and his dogs are the sorriest thing on this island.
LIMEH He's been doing like that all day.
BEMISS We can't hear back here, Mayor Shepherd!
BYERS The polls have been closed for two hours.
CHAS (RISING) I'd like to apologize for the PA system being out tonight, Mr. Mayor. (SITS.)
LIMEH Norman never could tell time. He'll have a beer for breakfast.
SETTLE (TO CHASTAIN) Norman acts like he's zoned to do whatever he wants with his property but he's not.
CHAS It's his nature. You can't do anything to change nature.
SETTLE You can try. I'm going to change his nature right off the island tonight. I'm going to rezone him.
BYERS (TO LIMEHOUSE) Bernard
will talk, won't he?
LIMEH Talking's one thing.
BYERS That's right.
PETTY (RISING) Mayor Shepherd? . . . I'd like to know why you said I was out of order back there a while ago.
SETTLE You're interrupting the minutes, Miz Petty.
PETTY Oh. (SITS.)
SETTLE (TO CHASTAIN) Did you sign the petition on surfers for tonight?
CHAS I can't go along with you on that, Bernard. It's a public beach.
SETTLE That doesn't mean we have to encourage it.
LIMEH (TO BYERS. INDICATING MAD JOHN.) Look at that hair in back of us. Have you ever seen hair like that on a
human? Would you let your child look like that? I wouldn't do my child that way.
BYERS (TO PAUL) Sugar, do you know that boy? Where does he live?
PAUL It's just Mad John. He usually finds someplace under somebody's house. They don't bother him. Some will even let him come up and use their shower.
LIMEH (NOT LOOKING UP) Now who in the world.
PAUL I believe he's living under Mr. Steinberg's house right now.
LIMEH (TO BYERS) He looks like one of those protesters to me.
PAUL He's gone three years without having to go off the island into the city for anything. He's got the record.
BYERS He looks like he's fluctuating in his mind to me.
PAUL He's a very deep person. I saw him disintegrate a butterfly once just by staring at it. He doesn't like to talk about that, though.
LIMEH (TO PAUL, WITHOUT LOOKING UP) You didn't bring your wife out tonight, sugar?
PAUL She had another meeting. Her women's group.
LIMEH Circle?
PAUL C-R.
LIMEH Do what?
BYERS (TO LIMEHOUSE) They revive people.
LIMEH (TO BYERS) That girl will visit Steinberg in the afternoon.
BYERS You think so? How do you know?
LIMEH I saw in his window.
ALL (OUT FRONT, ABRUPTLY) Aye!
SETTLE They didn't bother to send a copy of those minutes to my box, Mayor Shepherd.
CHAS (RISING) I'd like to apologize, Mr. Mayor, that some didn't get any copy in their box this week, but the copy machine is out and the repairman can't fix it. (SITS)
SOUND OF TRUCK APPROACHING AGAIN (". . . all get out the vote. Come on out everybody and vote in the election."), ENGINE SHUT OFF, DOOR SLAMMED. DOGS BARKING.
PETTY (RISING) Mr. Mayor! Did you know people brought their dogs with them to the meeting? There's a pack of dogs outside the door this very minute
PAUL It's not a pack, Mayor Shepherd. It's two dogs - mine and Mad John's.
CHAS We can't object to two dogs waiting on their owners, Miz Petty. (PETTY SITS.)
BYERS (TO LIMEHOUSE) Anybody that doesn't like dogs has got something wrong with them. (PAUSE.) I always say.
NORMAN ENTERS, SPEAKING AS HE
ASSUMES A SEAT BEHIND LIMEHOUSE
AND BYERS.
NORMAN Mayor Shepherd, I'd like to know why do we have the police if they're not going to arrest people. There's been people trespassing on my property again trying to get evidence against me. Some people think they're above the law, Mr. Mayor, and you know what the next step after that is. Dictatorship. This is how Nazi Germany began, and I personally feel like we shouldn't let it happen again. Now that's just my personal opinion but I have to say it. (SITS.)
LIMEH (NOT LOOKING UP) You're late, Norman.
SETTLE He was born late
NORMAN (RISING) Sorry I'm late, Mayor Shepherd; but we've had trouble all day at the polls. Plus I had to go hunt Steinberg and ride him over there this evening. The tabulator machine broke down and they're having to do all the results by hand. Steinberg is counting for them.
LIMEH (NOT LOOKING UP) Is Steinberg a poll-watcher this year?
NORMAN He was down for it. But he overslept.
PAUL Mad John was watching the polls when I voted this morning.
THEY ALL LOOK AT MAD JOHN. HE
SMILES AT THEM.
LIMEH (RESUMING QUILTING) Is it something wrong over at the polls, Norman?
NORMAN (OUT FRONT) Just conspiracy, that's all, Mr. Mayor. Did you know the candidates' names weren't even listed in alphabetical order? Now that wasn't done in public or in front of the candidates, that was done behind closed doors.
PETTY If you don't keep the door closed, the dogs will come right in here,
SETTLE You don't have to do alphabetical order anymore, Norman. I can show you where it says it.
NORMAN If it was a law once, there must have been a reason.
CHAS You're going to have to wait on New Business for all this, Norman - you hear the Mayor? We haven't even had the announcements yet. Now just sit for a while.
NORMAN I should have been right up at the top. (SITS.) Right there after Airdale.
SETTLE Top or bottom, you'll never be the Mayor, Norman.
NORMAN (RISING) I at least got nominated, Bernard.
CHAS Sit down, Norman.
SETTLE Your sister nominating you doesn't count.
NORMAN She's a average citizen, isn't she?
CHAS Norman: sit. (HE DOES.)
PAUL (RISING) Thank you, Mayor Shepherd. I do. Suicide Prevention wants to invite everyone to a oyster roast at the Washout on Friday the twelfth.
CHAS Now isn't that fine.
PAUL We want all ages to come - kids, grownups, teenagers, grandparents, grandkids.
LIMEH (TO BYERS) I wouldn't advise going to something just anyone can go to.
BYERS The beach is not like it used to be.
PAUL Yes sir, we'll provide daycare for the kids. And there'll be a volleyball game afterwards for everybody to join in no matter what age.
LIMEH (TO BYERS) It was all those protesters moving in, that's what did it.
PAUL That's right, Mayor Shepherd.
LIMEH Those kids driving their cars up and down Atlantic Avenue all the time. Up and down, up and down.
PAUL Yes, it's all free.
LIMEH For three years my husband and I never got to sleep before eleven o'clock at night.
PAUL Free oysters, free water, free air.
BYERS (TO LIMEHOUSE) It's a Love-In. I read about those. They had them all the time in the sixties.
PAUL (REACHES UNDER CHAIR) I have some fliers we did on it right here, Mr. Mayor. (HE PASSES THEM OUT. LIMEHOUSE AND THEN BYERS SHAKE THEIR HEADS, BUT THE REST TAKE AND READ A FLIER.) I thought maybe you could send the rest out with the water bills, Mr. Mayor. Yes sir. Thank you. (HE EXITS DOWNSTAGE LEFT, INTO AUDIENCE, WITH FLIERS. CROSSES STAGE IN FRONT OF FIRST ROW, LEAVING OFF THE FLIERS, WHILE THE FOLLOWING CONVERSATION TAKES PLACE.)
LIMEH (TO BYERS) You know what will happen, don't you. It's going to bring in the blacks.
BYERS Blacks don't have oyster roasts.
LIMEH You think that will stop them?
BYERS They'd rather be with their own kind. They don't want to come where they're not wanted.
LIMEH Listen. If there's free food, they'll be here.
BYERS Plus they don't like the beach. (PAUSE.) They can't take the sun.
(PAUSE.)
LIMEH It's the water. They don't like water to
touch them.
PAUL RE-ENTERS, DOWNSTAGE RIGHT.
LIMEH (TO PAUL) What is it you do with this group, sugar?
PAUL Well I wear a lot of different hats, Miz Limehouse. This one is Suicide Prevention. We've got a open line for anyone that's in crisis.
CHAS (OVERHEARING) That's fine, isn't it.
LIMEH Have you had many call?
PAUL No. I can't say any have called. Yet. But we keep hoping.
LIMEH You have to keep on hoping. (PAUSE.) I always say.
BYERS I know someone that killed themselves once.
PAUL That's right. We all know someone, don't we. We've all felt like that at one time or another.
LIMEH I've never felt like that.
BYERS It's not Christian.
SETTLE (OUT FRONT) When are we going to get onto condemnations, Mayor Shepherd? I've got someone to propose.
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* What follows is the opening third of a one-act play.