HOMECOMING: A Vignette in 4 Scenes and an Epilogue

Setting: The guestroom (stage left) is completely dark. The daughter and her twelve-year-old daughter (who hasn't seen her grandparents for some time) are sound asleep. It’s 9:00 a.m., Day 2 of their visit. On stage right, the grandmother and grandfather are standing in the sunlit porch. He exchanges one hat for another on a brown utility board with four pegs, one for each hat that he uses for different kinds of yard work. At 85, he is still a handsome man. His white hair shows no sign of thinning; his mustache is meticulously trimmed; and his olive skin is smooth. The grandmother stands short, as if she’s legless, a legless anima, incomplete, un-whole. Her legs, in fact, are in a hole in the stage floor. She is about 5’ to his 6’ and 10 years younger. Her thick black hair mixed with gray is curly but cropped close to her head. At the opening scene, she is standing "dumb," frozen in the service position, holding a platter of bacon, anticipating serving breakfast to her daughter and granddaughter. He is carefully changing hats, putting one on, then another.

Scene 1

Note: Grandfather has already had his breakfast (6:00 a.m.)

G.Father: They’re not up yet? They’re missing the day. The day’s practically over. This is the best part of the day. (He adjusts his hat, reaches for a White Owl cigar in his pocket and goes out the back porch door, stage right.)

When the door clicks shut, the grandmother comes alive. She bends over, putting the platter of bacon on the round formica table set for three. Then she heads for the guest bedroom (stage center) and stops and paws at the door, making a scratching noise. The startled daughter and granddaughter awaken, slowly stretching and yawning under heaps of blankets.

The grandmother scratch-scratches again, then moves one hand inside the door. Hand looks left, then right.

Daughter (laughs at her mother's silliness): We’re just getting up. Come in, come in.

G. mother: I have a big platter of Smithfield bacon, sugarless & salt-free, and English muffins and marmalade. Your father says you’re missing the best part of the day. (She chuckles. This is her best time of day, before her aches and pains creep up on her.)

Scene 2

The three sit around the formica table, the bacon piled high in the center.

G.daughter: Why is sugarless good? And salt-free? (she asks while munching a strip of bacon)

G.mother: Oh, it just is. It’s good for you. Sugar and salt aren’t good for you.

G.mother (to daughter): I didn’t make your coffee. I make it too strong for you. You said so. You’ll have to make your own. Instant’s fine with me.

Daughter rises and makes coffee.

G.mother: I can’t drink coffee anymore. My stomach won’t take it.

Daughter sits down with coffee. G.daughter rises and goes to refrigerator off stage.

G.daughter: No one got me a drink.

G.mother: There’s plenty in there. All kinds of juices—orange, pineapple, grapefruit, prune…(Her voice trails off.)

Offstage the voice of G.father can be heard.

G.father: Don’t stand there with the refrigerator door wide open.

G.daughter returns with a glass of cranberry juice and turns on the TV. An old Judy Garland movie ("Me and My Gal") comes on. The three (grandmother, daughter, granddaughter) watch.

G.father (changes his hat again and passes through): TV at this hour? I hate TV. Any hour. I’m going to put some weed killer on that damn north side and see if I can kill those damn stinging weeds.

G.father: What rubbish!

G.mother: Don’t forget. Tomorrow is rubbish day.

G.father: I know, I know. I haven’t forgotten yet, have I?

G.father exits. Sounds of trash cans can be heard in the background.

Scene 3

They turn off the TV and the three women go outside and sit side-by-side in lounge chairs in the bright sun.

G.mother: I remember when I was dying nineteen years ago—the doctor said so

---he said I was dying—and I remember I was drifting & drifting on a cloud to where there was no pain.

G.daughter: What was it like? What’s dying feel like, Gran?

G.mother: It was a lovely feeling. It was nice, very, very nice.

G.daughter closes her eyes.

Daughter goes in to get a drink of water and sees Father playing solitaire in a darkened living room, shades drawn.

Daughter (to Father): Hey, you’re missing the best part of the day!

G. mother curls up with a book: Love’s Bold Journey:

Rachel got up, as if in a dream, and without mind or will of her own, allowed Rankin to lead her to the bed. There he began undressing her…

Daughter (returns): I think it’s a good idea if grandfather takes his granddaughter out to lunch, just the two of them. She wants a book to read. He can buy her a book and take her to lunch.

G.mother: That’s a good idea. I can’t eat much these days. He likes to go out to lunch. He can take her to lunch at The Clock. They all know him there.

Scene 4

In the parking lot on the way into The Clock, G.father’s cap flies off. Damn! he says. Damn it!

G.father doesn’t make conversation during lunch.

Epilogue

All the G.daughter can remember of her G.father is his saying Damn! when his cap flew off in the parking lot.