Class of 29 | Page 7

it was nothing.
LAURA. She's going to leave Ted.
KEN. Good! The man's a leech.
LAURA. But he is so helpless.
KEN. He won't starve. We have no jobs in America, but we don't starve.
LAURA. Ken, are you in trouble?
KEN. In trouble?
LAURA. With your father?
KEN. No. No, indeed--I merely sent dad's check back. It's time, don't you think? [With elaborate unconcern.] And as for this arrangement here ... we're getting on each other's nerves. And Tippy ought to get out on his own.
LAURA. And you?
KEN. I, too. On my own.
LAURA. But how?
KEN. I don't know. But I'll manage somehow.
LAURA. Oh, Ken ...
KEN. Why don't you clear out like Kate? Forget me. I'm no good to you. I never will be.
LAURA. Don't talk like that.
KEN. It's true, Laura. Face it. [She puts her arms around him.]
LAURA. Ken, let's get married.--We've put it off too long.
KEN. Married!
LAURA. Not married then. But let's be together. Let's ...
KEN. It's too late for that. If that was what we'd wanted it would have happened three years ago.
LAURA. I love you more now than I did then.
KEN. And I'm not saying I love you less.
LAURA. Then?
KEN. In the last three years I've seen a man I used to love and respect degenerate under my eyes, become a lousy parasite, living off a woman whose whole income isn't enough for her to live on decently.
LAURA. How can you compare yourself to Ted?
KEN. Good God, I don't! Yet Ted was once all right.
LAURA. Ted expected the world to support him. He had nothing to give it. You have ability and ambition. You want to give things to the world.
KEN. [Flatly.] I want a job.
LAURA. Of course you do, darling!
KEN. [Fiercely.] That's all I want. A job. I lay awake nights, saying over and over, "I want a job, a job, a job ..."
LAURA. Oh, I know!
KEN. I don't think about you when I lie awake at night. I don't think how nice it would be to have you there in my arms. All I think about is a job. If it were a choice between you and a job I'd take the job.--What's the use of kidding ourselves any longer? [She is silent. He goes on desperately.] I'm not the same fellow I was three years ago. People slam doors in my face. Do you understand? They look at me. They see my clothes, my eyes.... They're antagonized before they speak to me,--just as people are to a beggar. They say "no" before I ask for anything. No, no, no. They say it as if I were asking for charity instead of a job. "Nothing for you." "Sorry." "Nothing today."--It makes a beggar out of you!
[TIPPY enters, carrying tea tray.]
TIPPY. Hello! Where's the rest of the tea party? [Neither answers.] Well, we'll have double portions, that's nice.
LAURA. Tippy, doesn't your world ever fall out from under you?
TIPPY. Certainly not! [Pause.]
LAURA. [With forced gayety.] I say, where's Martin?
TIPPY. Can it be that you are asking for Martin!
LAURA. Uh-huh. I'm ready for him to turn me into a Communist.
TIPPY. That is news!--Where did Kate go?
LAURA. To make a date with her boss. He's sixty and rich--and serious.
TIPPY. No kidding?--No, my world doesn't drop out from under me. It merely turns wrong side out in my hand.--Your tea, Ken. It contains teaffein, which stimulates the heart but quiets the nerves. Teaffein in tea is the same as caffein in coffee. But under the profit system we don't know that yet--because no one has invented a teaffeinless tea.
[KEN accepts sandwich and tea and tries to be a sport and make the party.]
KEN. I wouldn't need Martin to turn me into a Communist. All I'd have to do would be to knock out the partition in the middle of my brains and let the left side mingle with the right.
TIPPY. As if your brains weren't muddled enough already!
[MARTIN bursts in, carrying two Soviet posters. Leaves door ajar.]
MARTIN. Hey, fellows, see what I've got! [He hangs one up while the others are inspecting the first.]
LAURA. It's ugly.
KEN. I like them. Why can't Americans make ugly things look beautiful?
TIPPY. [To MARTIN.] Sow your seed now, Soviet sower. The powers of darkness have been fertilizing the ground.
[TIPPY takes thumb tacks and bottle of red ink and goes to kitchen.]
KEN. A Soviet poster compared to an American lithograph is like a Soviet film compared with the stuff they grind out in Hollywood.
MARTIN. By God, you're right.--It's the same in all the arts.
LAURA. [Hysterically jovial.] 'Fess up, Ken. Who's been taking you to American movies?
KEN. I still remember some I saw during Hoover's administration. You don't mean they've changed them?
MARTIN. Only the revolution will change that tripe.
LAURA. Gently, Martin. I just told Tippy I was all ripe to turn Communist. But let's enter by the Socialist door. I don't like revolutzia. It's