Crazy Jodie

SCENE 4

The living room. Several hours later. All is quiet. Enter BETH and JERRY. They’re exhausted.

JERRY: Worst yet, if you ask me.

BETH: You’re memory’s not so good. It wasn’t as bad as last time. Anyway, it’s done.

JERRY: It’s always bad.

BETH: Her judgment: it’s improving, a little. I’m talking about after we got her there. You think?

JERRY: No.

BETH: She’s more familiar with the routine. But I guess it doesn’t help much.

JERRY: Did you see the stars outside? It’s a clear night.

BETH: What’s happened to my life?

He doesn’t hear her.

JERRY: You saw the stars, didn’t you?

BETH: I think it’s a ruined life.

JERRY: What?

BETH: I can’t believe I’ve let it happen. I gave it to you, and now it’s gone.

JERRY: Please, Beth. We’ve gotten through this before.

BETH: I’m not talking about Jodie.

JERRY: Of course you are. Too many stresses. Your mother…we’ll just have to see what the doctor says.

BETH: I’ll check on her in a minute. I’m talking about what you did.

JERRY: And Charlie. This was an icebreaker. He’ll be back. Everything will be all right.

BETH: I’m talking about Charlie, either. You.

JERRY: Did what?

BETH: My father was an intelligent, talented man. He sacrificed everything for me.

JERRY: And you did okay.

BETH: No I didn’t. He was disappointed. I’ll bet it shortened his life by fifteen years.

JERRY: Don’t be ridiculous. He was proud of you.

BETH: He wanted more. He didn’t want me to stay in this town forever. He just stopped here by accident himself. I was an honor student.

JERRY: You still are.

BETH: I’m through with families. I want to go off somewhere.

JERRY: Who says you can’t?

BETH: I’m too old now.

JERRY: Anybody can go anywhere. You know that. You’ve told me that.

BETH: No, I’m starting to see what caused all this. This home broke a long time ago, and we never repaired it. It’s too late.

JERRY: Listen, this genetic thing of hers came from your side of the family. I didn’t know that before and neither did you. But we’ve done our best.

BETH: Jodie is not a gene.

JERRY: You know what I mean. My family is normal. I’ve done everything I can for her, and I’ll keep doing it as long as I can.

BETH: Ha.

JERRY: I never expected it to turn out this way. At my age, I shouldn’t be taking care of a forty-fiveyear old child – but I will.

BETH: We’ve done a bad job.

JERRY: We’ve done a good job. We took her to the hospital in time, didn’t we?

BETH: We don’t know, really, if it was going to get out of hand.

JERRY: We both know where it was headed.

BETH: We can’t be sure.

JERRY: I’m sure.

BETH: She might have been fine. Maybe she could have helped me with mother in the morning.

JERRY: She would have made it worse. We would be listening to her right now. Neither of us would have gotten a minute’s sleep. This way, Jodie’s better off, and Clemmie can help.

BETH: Clemmie’s not going to live forever.

JERRY: Your mother’s not going to live forever.

BETH sits down. She relaxes, exhausted. She closes her eyes.

BETH: Jerry, tell me the story.

JERRY: The story?

BETH: Yeah. You always tell it to Jodie. Tell it to me.

JERRY: The same as with her?

BETH: Please, Jerry.

JERRY: Well. I think, if I recall, there were no clouds in the sky. Or, if there were, they began to clear. We were on Highway 912, between Elbeeton and Rakefield, doing fifty-five in a forty-five – and there wasn’t another damn car on the road. You said, “You think we ought to turn back?” And I said, “After that scene with your father? Turn back to where?” And you said, “Good point.” So we kept going.

BETH: And where did we go?

JERRY: You know where we went.

BETH: Where?

JERRY: Well, we went…here.

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