Gerald Nicosia

JACK IN GHOST-TOWN

ACT ONE (cont'd)

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SCENE: (A 'Forties hipster party. Two "RASKOLNIKS," ultra-cool young hipsters, are seated on the floor, passing a joint back and forth and doing their best to look cool. We hear laughter from offstage, suggestive of sexual play; the RASKOLNIKS ignore it. The FIRST RASKOLNIK takes out his rolling paper and stash of pot and starts to roll another joint.)

NEAL CASSADY (voice offstage): This don't look like no party to me, boys 'n' girls!

(NEAL CASSADY, a strong and handsome young man, and his pretty teenage wife LUANNE enter arm in arm. NEAL wears a sports coat over his T-shirt. YOUNG JACK and PAULINE trail behind, not nearly as cozy. PAULINE'S dress and hairstyle subdue rather than enhance her attractiveness. NEAL trips over the FIRST RASKOLNIK'S feet, scattering his pot.)

FIRST RASKOLNIK: Hey, man, you just ruined my stick of tea.

(NEAL stoops down.)

NEAL: Let me help you clean this up.

SECOND RASKOLNIK: What're you doin'? That's our tea!

NEAL: How you gonna get high listenin' to that cool in-t'-lect-you-uhl music? Now listen here, children, to what I brought you!

(The FIRST RASKOLNIK starts rolling a fresh joint. NEAL capers over to the phonograph, takes a 45 record from his coat, and puts it on the phonograph. PAULINE leads YOUNG JACK toward the forestage.)

PAULINE: My God, Jack, I didn't know your friends use drugs!

YOUNG JACK: Tea's not a drug! It just makes you feel good!

PAULINE: You're not an addict, are you?

YOUNG JACK: Aw, it's New Year's Eve, baby! Loosen up!

PAULINE: You never talked that way to me before Neal got here.

(A raw sex blues comes on, preferably Wynonie Harris's "I love My Baby's Puddin'." NEAL snaps his fingers and gestures for LUANNE to come to him, and he starts bouncing her against him to the music, with great sexual suggestion. The RASKOLNIKS make scornful faces and do their best to ignore them. YOUNG JACK stares with sexual intention at PAULINE, who looks away, crosses her arms, and does her best to show him she's not happy with the place he's taken her to.)

NEAL: Now don't get all hung up, you two! Just listen to this cat blow about how much he loves his baby's puddin' and dig this! Watch me!

YOUNG JACK: Yeah! Go! Go! Go! Yeah!

PAULINE: Stop trying to imitate Neal!

YOUNG JACK: What's the matter?

PAULINE: I don't like you acting like a wild man!

YOUNG JACK: This's what life is all about, Pauline! We're here to grab it up--to drain every drop of joy!

PAULINE: When you're with them it feels like you're trying too hard.

NEAL: Here! Catch, Jack!

YOUNG JACK: Mmm, mmm! What a luscious blonde football!

(NEAL runs back as if waiting for a pass.)

NEAL: Hit me with her, Jack!
(YOUNG JACK throws her to NEAL, who runs with her for a "touchdown.")
Touchdown! ... Now watch this! Greatest seventy-yard passer in the history of New Mexico State Reformatory!

(NEAL makes as if to throw her across the whole stage.)

LUANNE: You sure you're still strong enough, Neal?

(YOUNG JACK runs toward NEAL, who "hands off" LUANNE to him, and YOUNG JACK runs her "across the goal line." YOUNG JACK falls to the floor with LUANNE; they all laugh.)

YOUNG JACK: I always knew I'd score with you someday.

PAULINE: This's where I draw the line.

NEAL: Wait a minute, darlin'! Where're you goin'?

PAULINE: I'm going back to my husband! He's not a bastard like the likes of him!

NEAL: I'll be glad to give you a ride.

PAULINE: Where?

NEAL: Wherever you wanta go, darlin'!

PAULINE: Just get me out of here.

(NEAL escorts PAULINE out. YOUNG JACK and LUANNE get up.)

LUANNE: I found a letter from Carolyn in Neal's coat--he's planning to move back in with her as soon as we get to San Francisco. Why don't you come too, Jack? Then we'll finally be alone together.

YOUNG JACK (hugging her): I'd always hoped that we'd become lovers, but the time was never right.

LUANNE: The time has come.

YOUNG JACK: I guess it's plain that Pauline and I have hit the skids. She wants me to get a job driving a truck to support her and her kid. But who's going to support me while I write? ... She doesn't know the first thing about my confusion.

LUANNE: It didn't take her long to get her hands on Neal.

YOUNG JACK: You think he's banging her right now?

LUANNE: There's nothing else he knows how to do with women.

YOUNG JACK: Then how come you came to New York with him?

LUANNE: I've always had more fun, and felt more alive with him, than with anyone.

YOUNG JACK: So why do you want to live with me?

LUANNE: I just can't take living with Neal anymore. I mean caring about him and living with him too. I still love him, you know, but you can't care for him, it gets to be too awful.

YOUNG JACK: When that happens, it's time for a change of record.

FIRST RASKOLNIK: What's with you, man? You think the whole world belongs to you?

NEAL: Why, these boys are too uptight! They don't know how to pick up properly!
(NEAL takes the joint from ALLEN, takes a deep drag on it, then tosses it back to the RASKOLNIKS.)
Now that's how it's done!

ALLEN: Check out these Raskolniks!

NEAL: These what?

ALLEN: Raskolniks. You remember Raskolnikov, the morbid intellectual.

NEAL: Why, "Crime and Punishment," of course.

YOUNG JACK: Yeah. Plotting to ax his landlady for her little box of rubles!

ALLEN: They're just indifferent young teaheads who think it's cool to rebuff people 'cause real engagement takes too much effort. They have no mercy in their hearts...

NEAL: But we love 'em anyway, don't we?

LUANNE (coldly): Was she a good lay, Neal?

NEAL (ignoring her): I don't have time for hangups like that, honeypie, I just rock back and forth with the music, let it all out, go in every direction... Listen to Old Blind George! That's God Shearing! He's got it! Yes! Yes! Yes!
(He dances more wildly to the music.)
If you keep going like this all the time you'll get it too.

YOUNG JACK: Get what?

NEAL: It! It!

YOUNG JACK: What's it?

NEAL: It's what you get when you stop asking what it is and simply find it. It's where time stops--it's you and you're it! That's the shot!

(YOUNG JACK takes out his notebook and writes down NEAL'S words.)

ALLEN GINSBERG: Stop this nonsense, shrouds and angels!

SECOND RASKOLNIK (to his friend): Man, dig that aggression!

NEAL: Who're you talking to, boy?

ALLEN: Just where do you think all this folly and fury will get you? (to LUANNE) You, fair womanly spirit, what mean you by traveling back and forth across the country with this sweating madman?

LUANNE: You're letting your jealousy show, Allen.

ALLEN: The days of wrath will soon befall all of you, if you do not seriously consider your intentions toward one another!

NEAL: My intentions are to get out of this frosty fagtown as soon as possible.

ALLEN: An abstract intention! A balloon that will soon burst and bring you crashing back to the earth.

NEAL: I know you're a great writer, and I'm just a slum kid, but please cut that Voice of Doom crap.

ALLEN: You made a pledge to me...

LUANNE: He makes those to everyone.

ALLEN: Is that true, Neal?

LUANNE: It promised me it was going to enroll in college and become a great writer itself ... and that was three years and about three hundred women ago.

NEAL (to LUANNE): And what about all the times I made you happy, huh?

LUANNE: That was only when I was completely deceived!

NEAL: What about the day I showed you Times Square?

LUANNE: Yeah.

NEAL: Hector's Cafeteria. You went back to the counter twelve times...

LUANNE: Thirteen!

NEAL: And all the giant billboards? The Camel sign with the man blowing smoke rings, and the black washerwoman bending over a tub of suds...

LUANNE: And that huge neon comic strip of Felix the Cat.

(YOUNG JACK opens a bottle of beer, drinks it down, and goes over to talk to the RASKOLNIKS.)

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