Linda Rosenkrantz - Talk

VINCENT: I don’t know, but I am.

MARSHA: You’ll work it out, darling. He probably looks like somebody you once hated.

VINCENT: Oh no, it’s too embarrassing to put everything on that level.

EMILY: Who is sexual? I think Marsha’s sexy, I think you’re sexy. I don’t find Nico sexy, exuding sex — I’m just telling you, Vinnie.

VINCENT: I want you to be honest.

EMILY: I think Emil’s sexy.

VINCENT: You know he’s sexy because you know he’s good in bed.

EMILY: I don’t call a person sexy just because he has a big prick.

VINCENT: It helps.

EMILY: If someone is small, I can still find him very attractive. Listen, Michael Christy’s much sexier than a lot of these people, and his penis isn’t that special.

VINCENT: I bet Norman Mailer’s very good.

MARSHA: I’ve always thought that. What is sexual? Let’s talk about what sexual is.

EMILY: I think sexual is the least distance between yourself and the object of gratification.

MARSHA: She’s got these ready-made fires.

EMILY: My mind is a steel trap. The first time I slept with Nathan Fass, which lasted seven hours, it was the most incredible thing in my life. That man is so tight and so crazy, he went out of his mind wild, like some kind of soldier goes beserk one day?

VINCENT: You know that’s the second time you said soldier tonight.

EMILY: No, Joan said it the first time.

VINCENT: And she isn’t even here.

EMILY: Marshie’s falling asleep.

VINCENT: I am too. It’s got nothing to do with you; I’ve been up since six o’clock.

EMILY: What about the party?

VINCENT: We could pass by it. I’m going to read my Willa Cather, but the two of you go.

EMILY: We can’t go without an escort.

VINCENT: Don’t be silly — two girls are an escort.

EMILY: You just said we could pass by.

VINCENT: Yes, because it’s on my way home, but I’m not going in. Oh come on, don’t make me out to be a rat. I just want to read my Willa Cather and then go to sleep and wake up early so I can get three hours of painting in before I go to the beach with my girls.

EMILY: I’m sort of interested in the party because I’ve been in seclusion in Woods Hole for three weeks.

MARSHA: I’ve been in seclusion in East Hampton for six weeks.

EMILY: But I certainly don’t feel about parties the way I did the last time I was here. I just want to go and see what the men are like.

MARSHA: You know my nature is similar to Vinnie’s. I’d like to go to bed early and get up early.

EMILY: I wish you’d stop in for five seconds, Vincie. If we walk in and hate it, we’ll leave.

VINCENT: No, I’m not in the mood. I haven’t been in the mood for parties for about four months, particularly if there’s no dancing, so please leave me out of it. But the two of you should go. Put the dishes in the sink and we’ll leave.

MARSHA: Don’t start pushing me.

VINCENT: I could walk home, actually.

MARSHA: No, you’d get raped.

VINCENT: I think the two of you should go.

EMILY: It’s a stupid literary party.

MARSHA: I don’t want to talk to people I don’t know. I can hardly talk to the people I do know.

EMILY: I’m not saying a word until the car pulls away.

MARSHA: She can’t hear.

EMILY: I’m waiting for the absolute departure. Okay. Now, first of all, there are certain things about Joan that I cannot stand. I cannot bear the suffering, the alcoholic waste bullshit. They make me feel rage and anger and fantastic contempt. Her sickness scares me, darling, because I get scared for myself. I mean Jesus Christ, she’s my oldest friend and if she ruins her life, I’ll feel very responsible. I don’t have to identify with her, I don’t have to feel her pain, but I’m an intelligent person who loves her and I should certainly be able to give her something constructive as a human being. But I can’t be her mother, sister, therapist, brother, father.

MARSHA: You can’t, especially if you start getting healthier this winter, which I’m sure you will, and get interested in doing something for yourself — you’re going to find out that a person only has a limited amount of energy.

EMILY: Marsha, I know I only have a limited amount of energy, and instead of it being for myself, it’s always for other people.

MARSHA: You’re not going to want to do that much longer.

EMILY: No, I’m not.

MARSHA: You know what keeps coming back to me about Joan? When her mother said that her tear ducts were going to dry up. It’s incredible. That girl has an absolutely unlimited supply of tears. I don’t know where she keeps them.

EMILY: An emotional gangster, that’s what someone once called her. Brilliant, isn’t it? By the way, have you seen how I’ve changed in relation to her? She still affects me emotionally, but she has absolutely no power over me anymore. I feel sick things stirring, but they’re completely in control. But I’ll tell you something, last night, after she went into her crazy hysteria over nothing, I was lying in bed, just a touch high from the wine because I haven’t been drinking at all lately, and the mind started filling up, you wouldn’t believe it, with who is there for me to get, to love, the utter desperation. But as that’s happening, I check it, because I’m strong enough now at least to know how fucking sick it is. But one drink brings all the pain and loneliness in on me, the feeling of emptiness and being alone, and I try to fill it with some man who’s completely pointless — just escape, fly, flee. The thing that’s hard for me to believe is that this is Emily Benson and that it’s in my head and that I think is part of why I act so strangely when I’m high. I mean I always have anxieties, but I don’t think about sleeping with Emil. He came right popping into my skull last night; go out and look for him, round him up, track him down.

MARSHA: That’s how I used to get, but last night when Joan got so hysterical, I had only one thought in my mind: to get to the typewriter. I walked out on the whole scene, I had no interest in discussing it for the rest of the evening.

EMILY: Neither did I. I’m not interested in discussing anything for the rest of any evening. These sick things are fucking boring.

MARSHA: It’s bad enough we let them happen. You asked me why I got so upset — it was because these were someone else’s problems being dumped on me, and I don’t need them or want them.

EMILY: But that’s part of life, darling. Life is being dumped shit on that doesn’t necessarily belong to you.

MARSHA: And being healthy is standing up and brushing it off. You know something else? I never realized before the totality of Joan’s lack of humor. She doesn’t get anything we say.

EMILY: She’s too paranoid.

MARSHA: She takes everything literally.

EMILY: Give me an example.

MARSHA: You say, Joan, I’m getting sick of seeing your face around. She’d answer all right, Marsha, I’ll leave. You would answer you’re getting sick of seeing my face? I’m getting tired of seeing your cunt, or some such ladylike remark. That’s one reason I find it impossible to deal with her. If you can’t joke about these things, you’re absolutely lost.

EMILY: But she’s not lost.

MARSHA: I hold very little hope for her.

EMILY: She was very good in Woods Hole.

MARSHA: You know what that adds up to, don’t you?

EMILY: Zero, zero amount of zero. You know when I said Joan should kill herself, which is a terrible thing to say, I really felt it, that at this point she’s incurable. She needs drugs, she should be on tranquilizers twenty-four hours a fucking day.