Etiquette and Vitriol by Nicky Silver (classic fiction .txt) 📗

AMANDA: He was staying with friends. So we came back here. And, of course, we’d both been drinking a bit. I wouldn’t say we were drunk, but we’d had some drinks. He said he’d like to hear some poems.

BEA: Very, very smooth.

(As Amanda speaks, Bea’s light slowly dims.)

AMANDA: And so I read him some poems. I read him “Untitled 24,” and “Untitled 87,” and one I hadn’t titled yet at all. He listened. We looked out the window, and from my apartment one can see into the building across the street. It seemed that everyone was home. There were lights in all the windows. And in each apartment, I know this sounds farfetched, but in each apartment there was someone watching television. Every window was a painting of isolation. Every television reflected blue, onto a solitary face. And somehow, the power of that sight filled me with a huge sorrow—I wrote a poem about it later: “Untitled 106.”—I was overwhelmed with a mammoth despair. . . . I started to cry. And Ford said nothing. He understood. I didn’t need to explain; he felt it as well. And he comforted me, without words. He touched his lips to my tears and traced his hand, so lightly, on the side of my face, touching my cheek and jaw, then neck . . . he smelled of white wine and his own body. I felt his lips on my ear and I shut my eyes as he unbuttoned my blouse. He put his mouth on my nipples and I was no longer crying. Or thinking. He shed his shirt, so I could feel his skin as I stepped out of my skirt. Our clothes blew, crazy down the block as he kissed my stomach. I took his head in my hands, and looked at him and his face was very beautiful to me, so I kissed him and put my tongue in his mouth, which tasted wonderful, and he held me from behind, with one hand, while he slid the other between my legs and into me, where I was wet and wanted him to be. He was smiling, like a bad child, as we simply, had each other, again, and again! Until it was morning.

(A long pause. Bea’s light returns revealing that she has been deeply affected by the sexual content of Amanda’s story. Bea breathes deeply, her hand on her chest.)

Of course later, I realized that if I could see them, my neighbors could, naturally, see me and now I feel compelled to wear dark glasses whenever I put out my garbage.

BEA: That was . . . very . . . well, there are no words.

AMANDA: It was wonderful.

BEA: So . . . you had an orgasm?

AMANDA (Of course): Yes.

BEA: I never.

AMANDA: Oh?

BEA: I never much cared for it.

AMANDA: I’m so sorry.

BEA: My late husband was not an attractive person.

AMANDA: I’m sure he had fine qualities.

BEA: And that’s where you’d be wrong.

AMANDA: Oh.

BEA: He had hair coming outa places you cannot imagine.

AMANDA: And yet you were devastated when he died.

BEA: Well, as for company, he was better than a book.

AMANDA: Now you have your children.

BEA: One. Child. But don’t get me going. A meeskite.

AMANDA: A what?

BEA: An ugly thing. A sad thing. Pathetic.

AMANDA: That’s too bad.

BEA: So. The two of you met and fucked on the first date. What happened next?

AMANDA: Well, the next day, we did, actually, talk. We got to know each other and found we had an enormous number of things in common.

BEA: Such as? List please.

AMANDA: Well, we’re both intense Fassbinder fans.

BEA: Uh-huh.

AMANDA: And we both had rather unpleasant childhoods.

BEA: How so? Elucidate.

AMANDA (Irritated): I don’t want to go into it. I don’t see how it’s pertinent.

BEA (Insulted): Fine.

AMANDA: So we were in bed for several days—

BEA: Does no one in your social circle have a job?

AMANDA: We have jobs!! We write!! We’re artists! We make art. That’s our job. People think if you don’t make a shoe, or, or a desk, or something tangible that you’re not worth anything. We make something for the soul, something for the spirit. Is that not tangible enough for you? Your attitude is just symbolic of everything that’s wrong with people today.

BEA: I asked a question.

AMANDA: A question heavy with the Sisyphean burden of judgment.

BEA: Excuse me.

AMANDA: Where was I?

BEA: In bed.

AMANDA: And I suggested that we should spend the rest of our lives together.

BEA: And he said?

AMANDA: He . . . —smiled. He agreed. We were married by my friend Caitlin’s brother. It was lovely. We wrote our own vows. I, of course, wrote a poem. Ford read from Tess of the D’Urbervilles— I have no idea why. And then we were off to Martha’s Vineyard and now he’s gone and I don’t know what I’m going to do!!

BEA: What’ve you been doing?

AMANDA: Waiting. Waiting and waiting, as women have always done since Miss Havisham’s wedding dress got covered in cobwebs.

BEA: Have you seen anyone?

AMANDA: You mean professionally? Is that what you mean?

BEA: I mean socially. A friend. Friends are very important. When my late husband keeled, I woulda dropped dead if it wasn’t for my friend Thelma, a lovely human being, who picked me up with a ladle.

AMANDA: Well, I haven’t. I mean I planned to. I was supposed to see—I was on my way to visit my friend, Binky, this morning. But I never made it.

BEA: What happened?

(As Amanda tells her story, Bea’s light dims again. Amanda’s lighting should reflect both her emotional state and the facts of the story.)

AMANDA: Well, I left my apartment. It was about noon and it was a nice day, so I thought I’d walk to her house. She lives on 75th and Columbus, which, I realize, is a very long walk, but I thought the exercise would do me good—I hadn’t eaten anything yet, so I stopped at the diner on my corner, for some breakfast, and I picked up a newspaper so I’d have