THE SETUP
Byron, still moving under his own steam, but aware his health is failing, has come to visit Gabby at the bar where she works to ask for a favor.
Gabby is the long-term girlfriend of Vincent, Byron’s best friend, and also a friend to Vincent’s younger brother Cian.
“Women are weak and clingy and fragile when you need to free yourselves from us, but when you need us to step in and clean up the mess you guys make, then we have ‘a kind of strength’”
The bar emerges from the dark.
BYRON holds up a drink and calls out to GABBY.
BYRON
So what’s the damage?
BYRON gets out his wallet.
GABBY crosses to the bar.
GABBY
On the house.
BYRON
Gabby —
GABBY
I insist.
(a toast, from Shakespeare’s “Pericles”)
Wishing it so much blood unto your life.
BYRON
Take care of Vince and Cian for me, will you? When I die.
GABBY
If.
BYRON
OK, if. You know they’re going to be complete basket cases.
GABBY
And it’s not going to affect me?
BYRON
Not the same way. And I mean that as a compliment.
GABBY
Oh that is such — ! You’re doing it again.
BYRON
Doing what?
GABBY
Like the time you got tested and only told me, so I had the pleasure of worrying with you for two weeks over impending test results, while Heckyll and Jeckyll got another fortnight of blissful ignorance. You don’t think for a minute I’m going to let you get away with that again just because you think you’re dying, do you?
BYRON
I don’t think I’m dying. I am dying.
GABBY
We’re all dying. Get over it.
BYRON
You see? This is why you can handle it.
GABBY
Don’t try and turn this into another compliment. I’m mad at you.
BYRON
You have a kind of strength that comes from —
GABBY
Right. Women are weak and clingy and fragile when you need to free yourselves from us, but when you need us to step in and clean up the mess you guys make, then we have “a kind of strength”.
BYRON
I’m talking about you specifically.
GABBY
Then be specific. Stop handing me all this insincere generic “nurturing earth mother” crap.
BYRON
You believe.
GABBY
Thank you. That’s so much more specific.
BYRON
Well, you know what you believe. I don’t.
GABBY
Yeah, well maybe I’m not all that sure myself anymore.
BYRON
You’re still angry.
GABBY
Of course I’m angry.
BYRON
At me?
GABBY
At you dying. Which is not the same thing. It just plays havoc with my idea of a well-ordered universe. And I want to keep believing — not for you or our friends the Hardy Boys — for me.
And for the record, I am going to be just as big a mess as Cian and Vince when — if you die — maybe worse.
BYRON
I’m flattered.
GABBY
Don’t be. I’ll probably do it just to prove you wrong.
BYRON
You’re the only one I can talk to about dying. Vince, Cian, my family, they all avoid the subject or fall apart, usually both. All they see is some bottomless pit — THE END in big capital letters– and you see —
I want to ask you a question. And I need an honest answer.
GABBY
It’s yours if I’ve got it.
BYRON
Do you believe — really believe — in heaven?
GABBY
(pause)
I believe — irrationally — without a shred of proof, but with all my heart — that there is a place without pain. If you want to call that heaven, then — yes.
(photo: cast of 1996 production by The Early Stage (Minneapolis, MN); l-r, William T. Leaf as Andrew, William Franke as Cian, Jim Lichtscheidl as Byron, Renee Werbowski as Gabby, Eriq Nelson as Vincent)
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