Killing Him: A Radio Play

LISTEN TO THE RADIO PLAY JOE, a doctoral candidate in literature RACHEL, his fiancée POET/CRITIC SCENE 1 POET: Again like a rebellious nation my heart Stands and cries: forward, to the battle! To the battle? Now? What's a battle to an old man Like me. O barricades of washed-up words, Stanzas filling books with my heart's murmurs, My love is lined with lies and sweetened With the sweetest white sugar. My thoughts are rusty, My feelings but smoky furniture And scraps of youthful rage gone by. All this, piled on the barricades. But whither my flag, my withering flag? Spring is in my heart again and winter in my eyes, Fall in my arms and frost in my toes. O desire, O vain rebellion, What more . . . [The voice fades into the background.] JOE:   This is the end. This is the end. [We hear knocks at the door.] This is the end. This is the end. [RACHEL enters as JOE continues grumbling.] RACHEL: Joe, Joe, what's with you? JOE:   This is the end. [We hear him furiously tearing newspaper.] The end! The end! The end! The end! RACHEL: [Anxiously.] What's wrong with you? The end of what? What happened? Good God. I have never . . . JOE: [Apathetically.] This is the end. Read the newspaper. RACHEL: Which newspaper? Where? JOE: There, that ball, that ball of paper. [RACHEL opens it.] Well read it! RACHEL: One moment. You've torn and crumpled it . . . hold on . . . this is a   serious act of archaeological reconstruction. JOE: Come on, read it out loud! RACHEL: . . . and frost in my toes. O desire, O vain rebellion, What more do I ask? O dark desperation In a tenebrous valley like a ship of ghosts. But behold! What is that light on the horizon, Yonder as if from a distant cave? My legs fail me, yet my heart Soaks up hope like a big sponge in the bathtub. [She laughs.] A big sponge in the bathtub! JOE: Go on. Go on. RACHEL: [A little hurt.] Fine, fine, stop rushing me . . . one moment, one moment . . . it's hard to make out . . . OK: Three maidens sit in that cave weaving my fate. Spin-spin on the spindle, no not on the spindle, no. They crouch over books by lamplight. The students. How studious! Till dawn breaks they study and maybe read my poems of yore. JOE: Go on! RACHEL: Slowly I'll sneak through the rustling summer grass And watch, struck with awe. There is a window Ancient, arched, and there she sits with her hand stroking The hair of her . . . head. O, my studious one, I begged to see you, only to see, not to touch, Not to sit in your room, only to know your name, To call your name, O your name, your name and your name and your name. I'll peep stealthily . . . Enough, I can't read anymore. JOE: Do you know what this means? RACHEL: I know. JOE:   The end of my glorious dissertation. The end of the literature department's rising star. I'll remain a teaching assistant forever. I might as well go back to the army. RACHEL: I won't let you, I love you. JOE:   So what? I'll sit and start writing on a new subject. Come to me in four years when I'm done . . . RACHEL: You're out of your mind. JOE:   . . . only to discover, like Sisyphus, that it was all for naught. [Despairingly.] What an idiot! And just yesterday I wrote the final chapter! [Sarcastically.] Here, look, the dissertation that will revolutionize the appreciation of D.G. Castleman's poetry. RACHEL: [Sweetly.] And I drew the letters on the cover: "D.G. Castleman's Poetry and its Interpretation." JOE:   The long silence of D.G. Castleman . . . [Slight pause, then with anger.