The Play's the Thing; Park Your Car in Harvard Yard; Part 2

You know that I have known this beast for 14 years. Yes, each year, years was eight cat years eight, 14, there's 102. Nathaniel is 102. Cassilly and I'm just a kid alongside this old codger, 112. Mussad, 112. You said Nathaniel was 102. Eight fourteens is and twelve. You got it wrong. Well, my God, you're quite right, Kathy. Yeah. Yeah I guess I am. Yeah. Yeah. Harumph. Yeah. Well I was, I was I we both counted up Nathaniel's age. You got it wrong. And I got. Come on, I've had a lot of dialogs. I'm going to get my paper. What do you think?

No, Ravenscraig. In fact, you can tell me the weather's changing. I think we're in for rain. What an odor coming from the fish. Hard to believe that stuff they're breaking is going to be focused on that. Already haven't been food that makes a lot of jobs. Yeah, as far as what? It'll be your fault. This is your home, home. Can you imagine, with John François

Playaz conducting his chamber orchestra? How can you call? Oh, my God. Schapira son of a bitch. Oh, I knew when I saw his cat on the beach, he'd pull up like a Schavan son of a bitch. Oh, I was discovered. Son of a bitch. The day I met him, I was five years old, Kathleen, five years old. And I could tell competitive to the point is something very nearly illegal comp.. I mean, I'd get it. He got a name. Plus I'd buy a bike. He'd buy a red bike. Appetitive son of a bitch. He didn't bother me at all. And he beat me out for valedictorian. But when he went into graduate school, goddamn graduate school,

well, I knew he was directly competing with me. I mean, I got my BA from the finest, right. As did he had two foster boys going off to Harvard like we did. Hell, as far as I was concerned, the competition was finished, a dead tie over, but not now. By now, he had to keep competing. M.A. from Yale English Literature. Isn't that just about the most goddamn absurd thing you ever heard of? Oh, well, I should I should have let it go. I shouldn't have gotten down to his level and competed, but I did. I went back to Harvard for two more miserable years, taking the heart and soul out of the likes of Byron and Keats and Shelley, and learning a list of what Dr. Johnson had for breakfast on his two hundred mile walk with Boswell, making maps of goddamn words was God

damn walks around the goddamn lake district. And the sooner I get back to Gloucester and back to teaching bang, I pick up my times. And there's Nobby Ellis again off to Trinity College, Toronto, Canada for APHC. And yes, watch right English goddamn literature. I still get my nipples up. Kathleen, if you'll pardon my anatomical reference page D in E-L. That's out back. I go into Harvard and over to Cambridge on the MTA. You think I was working for the MTA? I wrote it often and then back I come to Gloucester four years older and carried more letters after my name and a postman could fit in his goddamn sack. Apiata teaching high school music appreciation and English in Gloucester, Massachusetts. And what do you think happened next?

Nobby Ellis goes off to England, to Oxford University to teach English to the English competition. Never ended, Kathleen. Never retire the overeducated son of a bitch at sixty five, the same as they retired me. But where does he come for his twilight years? Does he stay in merry old you know where you know he doesn't write back to merry old Gloucester. Yeah, I have to pitch horseshoes against Jimmy Good Harbor Beach every warm day and play gin rummy against him every cold day right here in my living room. For 18 years. Until they take this stupid bastard away to raise old age home down, wait be because Noby and got the brains and guts to simply say, no, I ain't goin to any old age home anywhere in any condition.

Well, the take that pencil Pennsylvania move in here with me here offered them free rent works practically even 100 games. And I was way, way up pitching horseshoes. But he, when he got them, went over a year, not a single word until this first die award, Knobi went dopehead bastard going up and leaving me like this. He was two months and a week older than me. Kathleen, you know that. Do you know what that makes me now? I am officially the oldest living man in Gloucester, Massachusetts, U.S. of A.. Noby, was it now? I outlasted him. I took the title. Edwin.

We're ready for you to for all thank you. Like 30 bucks instead of my bed. Don't talk with the thermometer in your mouth. What hell's the difference? We know I got a fever. Thermometer is a waste of time. If you ask me the same thing as a calendar, you don't know what date it is already. A calendar is no use at all. I mean, really just try to stare at one if you really don't know the date. All I can give you is 365. Yes, you have to content 1866. And what do you hear that Byron sick to

how this sickness that you caused is going through this child like wildfire? I have one foot in the grave and Senate was up there half dead, sweating away in college. Oh, God, I'm sick of this hearing aid out here. We are here. We better use the blackboard now. The last time I took the vapors in my hearing aid and rushed, rusted the damn thing. Brown get the blackboard, huh? Get under the towels, what go on the towel. I thought you weren't interested. Ninety nine point one, I can't hear you. Damn it, right, at ninety nine point one ninety nine point one. That's nothing. I mean, I bring it up, I'm well over 100 kilometers

useless. Go under the tower. I raise my glasses steamed up. Now I can't see what. I can't hear you say something. Nothin. I didn't say nothin. Oh, oh, oh. I cannot bear this. Yeah. Well, tough luck, huh? Oh, you know, philosophically speaking, the ultimate danger for a deaf man and not hearing a tree falling in the forest isn't that the sound doesn't exist. It's that goddamn tree is going to fall on his head. That is my personal life. I'm United Parcel with my record. Did you call him? Yes, I did. Three times. Three, one, two, three times.

Oh, there's no need to write that. I counted your fingers. I'm not blind. You know I'm deaf. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, don't take my wife. She would be Kathleen. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh. Oh I hate this. Oh come on, Donna. I am an educated man. I don't want to die facedown in a bowl of victory by Rob. Yeah. Oh oh oh. This is this is your fault really. You know that. Oh that opening and closing of the door for the trick or treaters that supported me and yeah. One of their horrid little snot noses brought us a trick and treat this virus that's has been encouraging with cupcakes to get me one of those.

Ah. Oh yeah. Why is this from orange. What did you use the color to taste. Weird carrot juice. What carrot juice I got here. Yeah. You forget carrots talking. Yeah. Oh. Will you please put your goddamn hearing aid back in? Josh, correction, cupcakes, carrots, vegetables, you feed them carrots they'll be able to see in the dark come out here every night. Is this your idea of music? This isn't music. This. Oh, my God. You can hear. I'm talking to you, young lady. And it's OK, but you put in front of me is called you have a simple

job here, young lady, to keep things hot. I must insist that you keep your half of the bargain, I provide wages, a place for you to hang your hat and you provide assistance to me as I need it and I need it now. Please. No. Please. Let me just put a record on first, Mr. Brackish. One of your favorites. Of course, you won't be able to hear nothing. What with your hearing aid out of your ear and on the table, right? Right. Pablo Casals, Bach Suite for unaccompanied cello, 1936 to 1939 at Sabbat Sharp Drop

Dead. Kind of a miracle how you hear and improve so much it. Anik. I. But a check on Nathaniel. I'm sorry to have to shut down shop for a while, I'm I'm sick as a dog and I'm just going to hop up to and go and get myself. And this is Burnwell Cellino,

individual from Gloucester, Massachusetts, on Cape. And this is on World Bardwell's nephew, Uncle Bernie, died last night about a single bit before he died. He told me to tell you that, in fact, none of his. I'm taking over the station for the moment and WGAL live in Gloucester, Mass. Is going to be playing more 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s rock and roll than any other station north of Boston from the 70s. Here come the Buzzcocks. Oh, I said that bastard. Six dollars a week, 52 weeks a year for 41 years in a row and all that, did he put my name on the radio, even

watch only one? I cannot tolerate his ingratitude and I cannot tolerate the ingratitude of my former students. Either one of them called comes around a lot of one other whom I have never married because of my students. You know that. I mean, did I have a need for children? I had thousands. Right. They don't you know, that nonverbal communication reveals an ignorance if you have a thought to express expressive in language, speak English words. So here I sit alone. Except for the likes of you, Kathleen O'Hara and Nathaniel Hawthorne, a fact half blind, half dead, neutered male house cat.

So what added up? What accumulated, what married lifetime? The teaching in Gloucester High School. A lifetime. Thousands and thousands of students and not a single one of them can come around and say hello. Not a single one of them, but you ought to be thankful nobody came around and stuck a knife in your heart. You ought to be thankful, thankful. I might remind you, young lady, to my hearing is working just fine and your obscenities are coming in loud and clear, loud and clear. Really? Really. Kathleen O'Hara should have gone to college and been somebody, but you crept it up, Jacob Brackish at Harvard and tortured real students, but you crept it up. Oh, are you writing to God dammit, sitting there

that mousy way, stretching, stretching, stretching? Oh no. Oh, none of your damn business. I don't know what to sit in the chair. I don't want these terrible flashing pains inside my head, under my arms at all, my gums pulling back and my keep falling out of the street. And I don't want you sitting there that mousy white scratching your letters in my house. Oh. You, me. You bastard, you hit me. I'm writing to my mother and father, ladette, I'm still writing to. My husband princi to all of them brackish, I'm telling all of them, you're

squealing on me, Kathleen. I am. I'm telling them everything I know, every goddamn thing about you. I picked up and I've seen it all because I've seen it all. Oh, what about me? Lonely, miserable old fuck who lives alone with a half dead cat named Scrooge voice that drops dead on the radio. They're all leaving your brackets. Every last one of them. Same way I'm going to be cut. Nadhir myself. Grateful little Bettcher deserved a plaque. Oh yeah, sure. I deserve to plonking. And and so did Mama and and Don and Princi and and Josie Evangelist and Chloe Resow and Fast Eddie Ryan and Ruthie Flynn. You want to hear the whole list. I got it all written down every last one of us. You wrote know what I sick wasting your time. I just making up a list like that. You've really got somebody to be talking to me about a sick waste of time. How's about that. Sick. Wasted your time. Never married, huh? Nobody in this town was never good enough for you. Brackish. You were too smart to too sophisticated, too worldly

for any of the local crop. Right. So yeah. You keep yourself up in this pathetic of 50, 60, 70 years. You keep yourself up pissed off and gutless and you've got the whole goddamn town of Gloucester and you talk to me about a waste of time. What are you crazy? I did not young lady from the whole town. I got nothing on the car. No mother, father, husband made for you. Your family. They are. Are you to. I may not be proud of my in my goddamn life. But I am pretty goddamn proud of my teacher, so don't you attack it and don't you act like I live by like you, that I got no regrets? None of what? Well, I think it is this year old part of it being trapped inside this body doesn't work. I hate, I hate.

And most of all, I hate being trapped inside a house. I like. I go. Then what did you begged me to come here for, you answered and asked for money. I have never begged anybody in my life. Then try it, it'll do you some good try saying thank you and you're welcome and you ain't so smart, but you ain't nothing. You ain't some piece of toast, a goddamn lobster shell on a beach. I say in that bracket, try saying you ain't Einstein, but you certainly do deserve a pat on the back for getting through the winter because it's miserable, wicked, awful cold and lonely. And it's tough. It's. Oh, cry, cry, cry. Angela Masad of this.

I may have been a Depledge dodo in music appreciation, Mr. Bracket, but I know how to give a hug and a kiss and I know how to get a hug and a kiss. And you didn't. And now look at you. You've got no friends at all cooped up alone with a goddamn radio in a and a half blindfolded cat who, by the way, faking his blindness bracket, picking a handicapped like some of I know, trying to win sympathy of love, hiding behind fake deftness by him. It's pretty fucking pathetic if you ask me. I'll give you another dose of the truth. I came here to watch you die. I came here to enjoy your death. I opened the paper to see the obituary. I phoned in for my princi and it ain't their bracket. It ain't in the paper. I call Nan Cobbe, who I've known since Girl Scouts, and she's now some kind of deal down the Times. And then she don't know. And then she calls back an hour later and she says The Times is sorry they left it out.

That little blank hole in the page is where it was supposed to be. But after the paper got pasted up, Prince's article fell off somehow. Princi fell off the goddamn page. She asked me that I know why hold on a newspaper page is called a Widow and isn't this a gross irony? And then she gives me her sympathy and the next thing I see in the paper is your ad stuck to the page, like got himself glued it down. And I knew I had to take your job. I knew I had to do it. There was nobody at Prince's wake down the funeral home, Mr. Brackett, just me and not so bad starshine and messed up with anybody's body overnight. So long as you're given the guinea bred. I felt relief when Princi died, Mr. Brackett. I did. I felt relief. He was a very nice. I started in fifth grade with a nickname like Titmouse, and it don't do a

whole lot for your spine. They tell you when you're seven that you better learn to type. I came because you ain't going to no college are ending up intellectual or even hopeful. OK, oh, that's a great little set of initials to start out with Chayo, that both Kayode right at the first real bell. Yeah, I've never heard such self-pity. And I get my life. The world was out to get Kathleen O'Hara right. The world was out to get even me out. That's right. I gave you a D plus not because of what you earned, but because I was perverse, vindictive, whimsical. It had nothing whatsoever to do with your actual achievement. Right. Am I correct that. Am I correct? Am I correct? I did it all to myself.

Nate. I did it myself, OK? I only got myself to blame. OK, I've been my own worst enemy. OK, OK. I've got a. OK. Oh, yes, please. Kathleen, please tell me what I can do for you that I want so very much to help you. I want to know that this time you've spent with me. Was worthwhile. Please.

Please tell me what I can do for you. A makeup test, a music appreciation. I want private tutoring and I want another chance. To my great. A makeup test. That's what I want. There's a time limit, you know. I know, I know.

You know, I've got one sec, one sec. Oh, God. OK, OK, got it. Three to go. Ready? One sec, one sec. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. OK, Betty, the final part is the penultimate. OK. The last one. Oh, God.

Oh, God, oh, God, God, God, God, God. Dun dun. Oh, my brain's inside out. Oh, you want to check all the government? I heard him once there. Hey, would you like a cup of tea before you turn them in? What are you so nervous about? Ready when you are nervous, Ohara. No one was Strauss, definitely late romantic period, Strauss number two is Bach, Baroque G major, the Brandenburg concerto number three was hard, impressionistic Debussy. My guess is one of the nocturnes. I'll go with that. Debussy not changed. Number four was romantic.

Brahms fairly easy. Number five was a gift. Thank you very much for the birthday present. Chopin Ballade in F Minor six was romantic. I'll have to say Mendelssohn. OK, number seven was another piece of cake. Thank you very much for the birthday present. Schubert unfinished symphony number eight was snakey, but I'm going to go with Mozart and I think it was number forty in G minor. I don't know, but I'm relatively certain it was Mozart. So that's my answer. Classical period. Mozart number eight and number nine was Baroque back zakar, no doubt about it. And number ten was a wicked, awful sneaky thing for you to pull on me, because, you know, I don't really know very much about Rachmaninoff. I would say Rachmaninoff. Maybe not. But my hunch is Rachmaninoff number two in a minor,

and that's it. Oh, and lick it off. Sorry, I scratched the Casals record. How do I do? That was precisely the section of my freshman General Myers had dropped the needle midterm and Hobert, I got six out of 10, which was good enough to pass, but just I saved my bluebook here. Look, I missed Rachmaninoff. I also missed Mendelssohn, Bach, Chaconne and that piece of cake. Chopin Ballade in F Minor. Thank you very much. You. Didn't miss anything. You went in for quite a bit. Well, yeah, I know I did. Now, the I.D. section counted only 50 percent. Yes, the other 50 percent is all on Section two, which I have decided

to make oral. One question. Oh, you ready? I am. Yeah. All right. Here goes. The final question was 50 percent. This is probably the most important question you'll ever have to answer in your entire life about classical music. You ready? Yes, I'm ready. Oh, did you enjoy the music, Kathleen? I did very much, Mr. Backus. I did. Congratulations, a perfect score. Oh, oh, yes. And as you suggested, you know, I listened to your Miss Phoebe Snow singing the Paul Simon song something so. Right, and I do see what you mean as I'm a phonic romantic, reminiscent of English court ballads in the Sonata form. Lyrically, quite sound, really. I liked it.

I regret never having the vision, the talent or the discipline to compose beautiful music. I also regret never learning to read ancient Greek or Chinese. I also regret never having had an ounce of talent as a painter, Winslow Halmos, paintings of Niall's pond and braces. Oh, still thrill me, silly. I was conceived on a Niall's Pond sandbar. Oh, I'm blushing. That's all right. My mother told me that towards the end, just before she passed on, I was dozing off beside a bed. She was sleeping all the time. All of a sudden I heard her say, Kathy, you started into life on the Niaspan sandbar. Your father and I lay together there and I knew a child would come of it.

And you did. Had a lot of trouble going after I found out it took me maybe a year, but I went there and two big dogs, Labrador retrievers, were well, they were doing it, doing it. They were right there in the same spot. Well, relatively the same. But it made me laugh. God, they made me feel good. Are the people that love. At. Well, I always loved taken morning walks across the Niaspan sandbar. Yeah, especially in summer where sharks are feeling at all wet goldenrod and Angelica against

my naked like. Smell the wild roses, honeysuckle. Any other regrets? Oh, yeah, yeah, I regret never sleeping with certain women, which women specifically? Well, Grace Kelly, the actress for one. And Agnes Virgilio from the bread store, she married Kozmo Whose's, she's about 80. This is not a recent regret. We are talking about a lifetime of regret, you ever sleep with her? Oh, no. All right. This is a regret. Right at the top of my list, Princess Grace Kelly and Agnes Virgilio. What held you back from sleeping with her?

She married. I mean, Agnes Virgilio. She saw through my hair and age the same as, you know. You know, both my mother and father went deaf early on. I shall. Sure, I was going deaf. I started to wear my father's heritage as I went to school, but they didn't. I could hear a pin drop that one day right in front of my sophomore English class. It fell out and I said, I'm deaf as a post without my hearing class. I can't hear a thing. And one of the little sons of bitches up in the back of the room yells out, You're a wicked asshole, brackish. From that day forward, I had my own secret way. No one was actually what was on my students minds. They told me themselves, same as you. Oh, God. Oh, I'm sorry about my swearing and saying bad things about you and. Oh, God, I don't apologize.

I deserved every word of it. And a man who peeked through a keyhole deserved to get a key. And as I said, if I walked into class today, would you. You know, feel a little blind and. Had to breathe kind of thing. Kathleen, if I could live my life over, I would have you walk into my class and I would choke Foxygen, you would cause these spontaneous pneumothorax. I would Dellacqua. Melkert. I have a regret I regret never asking my mother. I remember being home alone and getting a call from Serum's

the the bar down by the head of the harbor, my father had caused the commotion of fight. He struck somebody opposite. He got himself creamed by some big malkia and they call for mama to come and get him. Mama wasn't in the house and I felt panic, something wicked. I rode my bike down there and about a minute flat down over your hill, we will live on top of Mount Pleasant just near here. Yeah, papa was laying on the floor drunk, all bloody singing red roses for a blue lady. Can't ever forget it. Me coming into this dark pit of a barroom seven years old, wearing a pada blue dress with little tulips printed on it and find it my dad thing in a way dripping his blood. Nobody paying the slightest attention to either of us. I don't think Papa knew who I was. I try to lift him, but I can't. And he keeps singing the very same words over and over again. I got some red roses for a blue lady.

I got some red roses for Blue Lady. The cops came in, papa stood up and started walking and I followed him up Haskell Street hell here. He just kept singing the same words over and over till we got to your yard here. Mama had taken our car and it was parked out at the end here. No, parked the car in your yard and the brackish. People walked up to our car face still all bloody, and he rubbed his fingers in his own blood after spitting on him and he takes his hands and he does like finger painting on the windshield. He painted red roses all in his blood. But a half dozen other maybe. Then papa walked up home, I cleaned off the windshield, says Mama wouldn't get scared when she got in the car, you know.

Mama parked her car in your yard, Mr. Brackett. Did you sleep with my mother a lot? Yes, I. I would have to say a lot. Francine and I began seeing each other long after you and your sisters were born. Your father had hit her and for some reason he came here to me. After that, I was here for her whenever she needed me. And being with your mother was the most terrifying and exciting thing I've ever done in my life for the poor, the poor, everybody, it was bellowing a song about the roses outside my gate.

Your mother and I went to my window, looked down, and there was you two tiny little thing off to one side, scared as we were. She never came back to me after that day. I adore your mother, Kathleen. So why do flunk? Why did I fly in France and flying, are you kidding? Your mother was a terrible student. Kathleen how could I pass a student like Francine Flynn just because I would choke for oxygen when she walked into my class? Because my vision darkened and dimmed whenever I try to look at a lot of reasons to pass, a poor student man has got to have some

standards. Kathleen. Gloster. Cluster bomb blast the bread a couple of days, I'll be glad to do it. I got to get some rest now. And wicked, awful tired. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went week long and short of breath. Maybe my cherry. I had some really great news from Mrs. Donlan down at the high school, their name in a prize for you. It's official, the Jacob Prakash Prize

for Outstanding Scholarship in English Literature and Music Appreciation. Mrs. Dolin is working out the final details with MC Burga, who's president of the Gloucester National Bank. Now, devilly that if the graduate goes to Harvard, he or she gets double. Great news, huh? I'm sorry. I'm confused. Me, you're confused. We had to use. They've all been calling from 10 towns around, you think it was the pope himself that was sick? Honest to God, some of them wanted to run right over here and give you their get well quick wishes in person. But I told all of them to wait until you're feeling a bit less. And maybe I've got to give that you can call, huh? I won't let them take it any hospital. I'll keep my promise on that, but maybe he better come over and just have a look, huh?

Oh, hey, you remember Sadie Timmons from my year, he called they all called Augusta Mory Franny and Eddie Farina, Harry and Margaret, but John Sharp, the shimmies got everybody you really respected around these blocks. Jacob, you can imagine. This was Mama's locket, my baby pictures in one side, and mama herself is

in the other from when she was, you know. I was thinking you might want. I got other stuff of hers to keep from myself. I'll always be grateful. Pachelbel, Canon and Major. 18TH century. Larocque. Oh, hello, I want to report a death.

This concludes our broadcast of Park Your Car in Harvard Yard by Israel Horovitz. The cast in alphabetical order was Judith Ivey as Kathleen Hogan, Christopher Plummer as the voice of Byron Weld and Jason Robards as Jacob Brackish. Directed by Mark Ward. Associate producer, Robert Robinson. Technical director, Raymond Guarna. Sound design, John Gromada. Sound engineer, James Makowski. Stage manager, Amy Strong. Executive Producer. Susan Albert Loewenberg. To order this and other cassettes in the series or to receive our free cassette catalog called L.A. Theater Works at three one zero eight 2007 08 08. That's three one zero eight 2007 08 08. L.A. Theater Works Radio Theater Series four new plays is brought to you through the courtesy and support of the following agencies, organizations

and individuals. The California Arts Council, L.A. County Board of Supervisors, L.A. County Music and Performing Arts Commission, Guest Quarters Suite Hotels, Arko Foundation and the many friends and contributors who are the producing partners of L.A. Theater Works. L.A. Theater Works Radio Theater Series for new plays. The play's The Thing Is produced by L.A. Theater, works in association with A.W. Santamonica. Ruth Seymour, general manager.