Linda Rosenkrantz - Talk

MARSHA: Have a good time.

EMILY: What was I going to tell you? Oh yes, about my sister. This is the theory she’s been traipsing around town with, she’s been doing political canvassing.

MARSHA: Who for?

EMILY: Lindsay. At the same time, she’s been doing some birthday canvassing. What she comes up with is she thinks it’s a crying shame that at some point in a child’s life, whether he be ten or forty-five or whatever, the birthday parties and the fuss over that special day completely come to an end.

MARSHA: Canvassing for Lindsay she found this out? She asked people at the same time about birthdays?

EMILY: She said I really think it’s a crime and we should initiate a whole new law that adults continue to have birthday parties with favors and baskets of candy. I swear to God she said that. It’s very sad. Now what have we here? A little Jonquil? A black and white creature from Mars with bad breath and a yellow collar? You were really sweet to let me bring her out here, Marshie. Now please let me talk about something dear and important to my heart — my birthday. August 19th, 1935. August 19th, 1965. Thirty years separating those two dates. I’m scared.

MARSHA: I just realized that a minor present I sent away for you never arrived.

EMILY: From the looks of my other presents, it’s probably pretty major. Marshie, remember you sent me letters in France saying will you be here to hold my hand on the seventeenth of May?

MARSHA: Yes, and were you?

EMILY: Where was I, darling? Struggling for my life and my survival.

MARSHA: What’s that compared to my birthday?

EMILY: But you weren’t really depressed about punching thirty, were you?

MARSHA: I certainly was, and nobody paid me any attention, either.

EMILY: I paid you a label-maker machine. That was this year.

MARSHA: Last year you didn’t give me anything for my thirtieth birthday.

EMILY: You didn’t give me anything either.

MARSHA: You haven’t had it yet.

EMILY: I mean my twenty-ninth. You just gave me a couple of hand-me-down books.

MARSHA: I was trying to re-educate you.

EMILY: I only read about 404 books when I was in Europe.

MARSHA: I made the gesture.

EMILY: You did, you’ve always been very kind and generous to me, it’s true. I still haven’t figured out who you represent in my life.

MARSHA: Do I have to be someone else?

EMILY: One thing you do is that you listen. I think you’re the only person I know who does. Do I listen?

MARSHA: Yes.

EMILY: I do? I feel very cut-off when I listen.

MARSHA: Vince doesn’t listen.

EMILY: I know, he doesn’t hear word one.

MARSHA: Except when he’s listening.

EMILY: Go to your Marshie, Jonquil babes. How long were you with Vinnie in Europe that first time?

MARSHA: About four months.

EMILY: Was it all set up beforehand that you would stay with him?

MARSHA: I was invited there for two weeks, I stayed four months.

EMILY: That’s when you got so close to each other?

MARSHA: We had a fantastic time. He was much more mature then, seven years ago.

EMILY: Vinnie’s very immature, but his immaturity’s important.

MARSHA: To whom?

EMILY: All around. He’s really unique. I don’t think there’s another young man in the world like him. I absolutely don’t think he’s queer, by the way, and he’s getting panic-stricken about it. You know why I was screaming this morning?

MARSHA: Why?

EMILY: Because he was raping me. He had to put his hand over my mouth.

MARSHA: Are you serious? Weren’t you scared? I get terrified.

EMILY: I get scared, but do you know he had an erection? Got scared out of my wits.

MARSHA: You or he?

EMILY: Both of us. Don’t forget you let him look at your breasts last night. Now that’s a very erotic thing to do.

MARSHA: I think he’s done it before.

EMILY: Remember what he said when Joan was here about what the relationship is? That what we all love about him is that he treats us badly by not fucking us, that everyone thinks it’s about safety, but it’s really about masochism.

MARSHA: I don’t think of it as safety. In fact it’s the sexiest relationship I’ve ever had, isn’t it?

EMILY: It is very sexy. Do you and Vinnie want to sleep with each other?

MARSHA: No, I don’t think so.

EMILY: I don’t either, but I do think it’s a sexual relationship and you could get married. Yes? No?

MARSHA: No. Did you tell him you think he’s not queer?

EMILY: No, I don’t want to put the pressure on him, because then he’ll use it with his doctor. The reason he doesn’t want to continue with that doctor is because her thesis is to make him healthy and making his healthy means making him straight.

MARSHA: You know I get a very scary feeling sometimes that I’m pushing myself into a corner — all of a sudden I’m beginning to find everyone except you and Vinnie very dull. We’ve set up such a stimulating, total, free, hysterical, intimate, intense relationship that I find it impossible to relate to other people, they leave me completely cold. If someone else comes into the house, I get annoyed because they cut down on our communication. I haven’t met one person all summer that I’d want to spend a single evening with.

EMILY: Yes you have.

MARSHA: I haven’t . Who?

EMILY: If you didn’t know Merrill Johnston, you might want to spend an evening with him.

MARSHA: He’s not fun, I’m talking about people who are fun.

EMILY: Serious people can be fun.

MARSHA: They have to be both, that’s the whole thing.

EMILY: Michael Christy isn’t fun really. He can be, but he’s not. Was Zeke fun?

MARSHA: Zeke — may I speak the truth now after all is said and done? — bored me most of the time.

EMILY: Michael bored me a lot too.

MARSHA: Really?

EMILY: Yeah, when he was turned off, like the next morning he would bore me, until he warmed up.

MARSHA: That’s the thing, you always have to warm these guys up, keep the fires burning, have the blankets ready and the hot tea, all these spiritual heating pads. Who needs it?

EMILY: Forget it. As far as getting ourselves into a corner though, I know exactly what you’re saying, but it’s misleading because there are other very interesting people. They aren’t interesting instantly the way Vinnie and I are because you know us so well.

MARSHA: I hope you’re right.

EMILY: You certainly don’t begin to imagine that we’re the only interesting people in the world, do you? Pretty scary thought.

MARSHA: That’s the thought I’ve been having.

EMILY: Then let me ask you something. When you’ve been in love, didn’t you feel like that person had all the qualities, that combination of rare properties, that you would never find again? It’s exactly the same thing.

MARSHA: I’ve never thought that all the couple of men I’ve loved had the great properties. I thought I’d be linked to them for life, but I never imagined they were the most fantastic people in the world.

EMILY: Oh I did , you see. I thought Emil Reinhardt, for example, had absolutely everything I’d ever want in a man.

MARSHA: I always knew Eliot was lacking certain things — a heart, a soul, a couple of things.

EMILY: The only thing I thought Philippe lacked was money. I thought he had everything else, brains, sensitivity, I loved his looks, I was sexually attracted to him, he interested me — the fucking bore.

MARSHA: He was very boring.

EMILY: God , was he boring!

MARSHA: He came over one afternoon and bored the hell out of me, talking about the bomb or space or something.