Monday, June 23, 2014

Leaving Rhode Island: Las Vegas


     (Right outside a casino.  TERRY takes out a cigar.  Before he can light it, AMY appears.)

AMY:  Those’ll kill you, you know.

TERRY:  (Without looking at her.)  So will an ex-wife.

AMY:  A little bird told me you’re heading back to Rhode Island.

TERRY:  Was the little bird a stripped named Dana?

AMY:  We talked about this, Terry.

TERRY:  Did we?  I don’t recall.

AMY:  You going back.  I don’t like it.

TERRY:  You don’t need to like it.  We’re not married anymore.  We don’t have kids.  You stay here in Vegas, I’ll go back to Providence.  Everything will be copacetic.

AMY:  I know why you’re going back.

TERRY:  Do you?

AMY:  He’s not there.

TERRY:  We’ll see.

AMY:  You’ve had your guys looking for him for five years.  Don’t you think they would have found him by now?

TERRY:  You think he’s the only reason I’m going back?

AMY:  You’re doing good here.  You got a nice business.  A nice wife.  A few nice girlfriends.  Don’t screw it up trying to go back and fix the past.

TERRY:  I don’t like leaving things undone.

AMY:  Please stop embodying the stereotype of the jealous husband, Terry.  It wasn’t attractive when we were married, and it’s even more obnoxious now.

TERRY:  I figured you’d be happy I was leaving.

AMY:  Why?  What do I care where you are?

TERRY:  Then you’d be the only player in town.

                (A beat.)

AMY:  You think I got something going on?

TERRY:  Let’s just say if you were a guy, I’d have had a talk with you by now.

AMY:  I have my bakery, Terry.  That’s all I do.

TERRY:  Oh right.  Those cupcakes.  They’re good.  Probably not as lucrative as some of your other ventures, but—

AMY:  You are losing your mind.

TERRY:  Don’t bullshit me, Amy.  Nothing happens in this town that I don’t know about.

AMY:  Listen Fredo, if I was competing with you, you’d already be out of business.  I know where all your bodies are buried, so don’t kid yourself.

TERRY:  Look at her, stepping up.  I don’t remember you being this tough back home.

AMY:  I didn’t need to be this tough back home.  I let you be tough for me.  That was before I knew how much better at it I was than you.

TERRY:  You saying I wasn’t tough?

AMY:  I’m saying you shut down.  You made it all about that kid.

TERRY:  No, I made it about our kid.

AMY:  We don’t have a kid.

TERRY:  Not anymore.

                (A moment.)

AMY:  We did things the right way.

TERRY:  Yeah, and look where it got us.  Anybody in jail?  Anybody convicted?  Anybody dead besides Dominic?  I did things the way you wanted—

AMY:  Hey—

TERRY:  --The way YOU wanted, and look where it got us.  Now I’m going to do what I should have done in the first place.  It won’t have anything to do with you.  We’ve been divorced all this time, nobody’s going to think you had anything to do with it.

AMY:  If you find the kid.

TERRY:  What makes you think I haven’t already found him?

                (A beat.)

AMY:  Don’t screw with me, Terry.

TERRY:  I haven’t—but I will.  I’ll find him.  And when I do—I want to do it myself.  I want it to be me, who does it.

AMY:  It’s not like he put a bullet in his head.

TERRY:  He might as well have.

AMY:  Where’d he get the drugs from first, huh?

TERRY:  This again?

AMY:  Where’d he get them from?  And who hired the kid, huh?  Who was the kid running drugs for?

TERRY:  He was thirteen.  I told them never to sell to anybody that young.  And he goes and gives it to my son?  Tries selling on the side to my son?

AMY:  I’m not blaming you, but—You and me.  We’re not innocents.  We both know that.  We’re not good people.  And you can’t be like us and then turn around and ask for something like justice.  Ask for what’s fair.  Our whole lives were built on the people we stepped over—and so when it crumbled, it crumbled fast.  And that’s nobody’s fault but ours.  You don’t get to choose how you pay for what you’ve done.  What the currency is going to be.  They took our son.  I’m not saying it’s what we deserved, but…But we knew they were going to take something.

TERRY:  Now I got something to take.

AMY:  Terry—

TERRY:  One last thing.

AMY:  You do and I don’t want you coming back here.

                (A beat.)

TERRY:  That’s not your call.

AMY:  I’ll turn you in.

TERRY:  You’re lying.

AMY:  Try me.  You get on that plane, and the first thing I’m doing is calling the Providence police.  They’ll be on your ass the whole time you’re there.

TERRY:  Why?

AMY:  Because enough is enough.

TERRY:  You know what broke us up?

AMY:  We lost a kid, Terry.  That’s what broke us up.

TERRY:  What broke us up was you letting me be mad for the both of us.  That’s what broke us up.  You letting me carry all that with me—by myself.

                (She slaps him.)

AMY:  I have a room…You know, it’s one thing to keep a room in the house you’re living in when your kids dies, to—To keep his room the same?  But when we split up, and I got my own place?  I made up a room for him in it.  I took the half of his stuff that you let me have, and I put together a room.  I even bought some new stuff for it.  Every year I buy Christmas presents—they go in the room.  Birthdays—I hang up little streamers.  Some days I have to keep the door closed, because I can’t…But there’s a room.  Like…Like one day he’s just going to show up and move in there.  Bet you didn’t know that, huh?  Where’s the half of the stuff you have?  Huh, Terry?  The half you kept just to piss me off?  Where is it?  You got a room too?  Huh?

                (A beat.)

TERRY:  I wish there was a word that meant something more than sorry.

                (Pause.)

AMY:  You don’t need to go.

TERRY:  Yeah I do.  You want to hate me for it?  Add it to the list of things you already—

AMY:  He’s dead, Terry.

TERRY:  I know he’s—

AMY:  No, not Dominic.  The kid.  He’s dead.  I…He’s dead.

TERRY:  You…?

AMY:  So don’t bother, okay?  Don’t bother going back.

TERRY:  What did you do, Amy?

AMY:  I took care of it.

TERRY:  But you—

AMY:  You really thought they just couldn’t find him, huh?  That he’d be that good at hiding?  That he’d even try?

TERRY:  What did you do?

AMY:  You learn things as a wife.  You absorb.  You take it all in.  That’s what I did.  I took it all in, Terry.  Every last bit.

TERRY:  When?

AMY:  Right before we left.

TERRY:  How?

AMY:  It’s better you not know, Terry.

TERRY:  I—

AMY:  And you thought I wasn’t mad?

TERRY:  It…It wasn’t your—

AMY:  I was his mother.  And you’re right—I did want to do things the right way.  But when that didn’t work out, I just wanted him…

TERRY:  So it’s done?

AMY:  Yup.

                (A beat.)

Feel any better?

TERRY:  …No.

AMY:  Yeah.  Neither did I.  Isn’t that funny?

                (She starts to walk away, and then turns around.)

By the way, as far as your business goes, don’t go branching out into other parts of the city without permission.

TERRY:  You said—

AMY:  I say a lot of things.  Stick to your own territory, okay?  I don’t want to have to come talk to you again.

                (She exits.  He stands there for a moment.  Lights.)

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