Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth (6 page)

EDITH.
Very interesting. What has it to do with John?

DAN.
I wonder if he, somehow, exists outside of time, as we know it.

(
GRUBER
has his hand in his jacket pocket. Speaks up suddenly:)

GRUBER.
People do go around armed these days.
(as all react)
If I shot you, John, you are immortal? Would you survive this?

JOHN.
I never said I was immortal, only that I’m old. I might die, and you could wonder the rest of your incarcerated life what it was you killed.

(
GRUBER
fishes around, takes a pipe from his pocket.)

GRUBER.
May I?

(Relieved expressions.
JOHN
nods.
GRUBER
lights up.)

HARRY.
Preferable to a gun, anyhow.

DAN.
That was a little much, Will.

(Brief silence.
GRUBER
glances at the last box by the door. Books.)

GRUBER.
Books, Doctorates. Yes, you’ve grown and changed, but there is always innate nature. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable squatting in the back yard?

(Several startled looks at
GRUBER
.
DAN
’s expression says, “What the hell?”)

SANDY.
That’s a nasty thing to say!

JOHN.
Sometimes I do, Will. I look up at the stars and wonder.

GRUBER.
What did primitive man make of them?

JOHN.
A great mystery. There were gods up there then. Shamans who knew about them told us so.

HARRY.
They still do.

GRUBER.
Have you ever wished it would end?

JOHN.
(beat)
No.

GRUBER.
Fourteen thousand years. Injuries, illness, disasters, you survived them all. You’re a very lucky man.

(Silence.
JOHN
considering Gruber’s last line. A sound is heard. A truck pulling up outside.
JOHN
goes to the door and opens it, revealing a
MOVING MAN
.)

MOVING MAN #1.
John Oldman?

JOHN.
Yes.

MOVING MAN #1.
Charity Now. We’re here to pick up the furniture.

(
JOHN
steps aside. The
MOVING MAN
enters, followed by another
MOVING MAN
.)

JOHN.
It’s all yours.

(An awkward moment as the group realizes they’ll have to leave their seats. They all rise.)

MOVING MAN #2.
(to
SANDY
)
Sorry, miss.

SANDY.
That’s all right.

(
MOVING MAN #2
picks up
SANDY
’s chair, heads for the door. Under following, the two movers are back and forth, in and out, carrying chairs, tables, lamps, etc., to their truck.)

(
DAN
is staring at
JOHN
.)

DAN.
You’re donating it? Everything?

JOHN.
I’ll get more.

EDITH.
Do you always travel this light?

JOHN.
Only way to move.

(A brief silence, as all realize just how completely
JOHN
is severing his ties. Nothing to weigh him down. Finally:)

GRUBER.
(to
JOHN
)
You’ve talked a good deal about your extraordinary amount of living. What do you think of dying, John? Do you fear death?

JOHN.
Who wouldn’t?

GRUBER.
How did primitive man regard death?

JOHN.
We had the practical concept. You stopped. You fell down, didn’t get up, started to smell bad and come apart. Injuries we could understand. If somebody’s insides were all over the ground. Infections were mysterious, aging was the greatest mystery of all.

GRUBER.
You realized you were different.

JOHN.
Much longer to realize
how
I was different, to synthesize my experience into a view of myself. I even thought for a while there was something wrong with everybody else! They got old and died. So did animals. But not me.

(
THE MOVING MEN
are carrying out the box-spring. One gives the other a look. They move on, deadpan.

LINDA
is looking at Gruber’s pipe, not happily. She coughs.
GRUBER
notices.)

GRUBER.
Ah, forgive me, my dear.

(
GRUBER
moves toward the front door, opens it.)

GRUBER
(cont’d) (to
JOHN
)
You live simply.

(
GRUBER
moves onto the porch a bit.
JOHN
moves to follow him outside.)

JOHN.
I’ve owned castles. When you’re always leaving, why leave a lot? I have money…

HARRY.
Got into Microsoft at fifty cents?

(
JOHN
smiles, and steps outside.
GRUBER
looks at John’s yard. Scrub and cacti, green-brown hillocks beyond. Now
GRUBER
must move aside, as the moving men return for more. During following, he will move out of their way several times.)

GRUBER.
As one grows older, the days, weeks, months go by more quickly. What does a day or a year or a century mean to you? The birth-death cycle.

(
JOHN
looks past
GRUBER
, eyes distant.)

JOHN.
Turbulence. I meet people, learn a name, say a word, and they’re gone. Others come, like waves, rising and falling. Like ripples in a wheat-field, blown by the wind.

(Brief silence.)

GRUBER.
Do you ever get tired of it all?

JOHN.
I get bored now and then. They make the same stupid mistakes, again and again.

GRUBER.
“They?” Then you see yourself as separate from the rest of humanity?

JOHN.
I didn’t mean it that way! But, of course, I am.

GRUBER.
Are you comfortable knowing that you have lived, while everyone you knew –
everyone
you knew, John – has died?

JOHN.
I’ve regretted losing people. Often.

GRUBER.
Have you ever felt guilt about that? Something akin to survivors’ guilt?

JOHN.
I suppose I have, in strict psychological terms. Yes, I have. What could I do about it?

GRUBER.
Indeed.

(For the first time,
JOHN
is dark. There have been reactions from our group. Some not liking the tack
GRUBER
has taken.)

(The movers start to pick up the couch.)

JOHN.
(to the movers)
Hold on, think I’ll keep the couch.

(
THE MEN
shrug, not caring one way or the other, and begin taking down drapes.
JOHN
indicates the couch.)

JOHN
(cont’d)
Ladies? You, too, Will, and don’t grump about it. You have a heart problem.

(
GRUBER
knocks out his pipe on a porch-post, comes back inside.
EDITH
,
SANDY
,
LINDA
are on the couch.
GRUBER
joins them.
ART
squats on the floor.
DAN
and
HARRY
stand about.
JOHN
leans against a wall by the door.)

HARRY.
Could we get away from dying?

GRUBER.
But this is the flip side of his coin, Harry. I’m very curious to know his feelings. Would you prefer I asked him about his father?

JOHN.
I thought you always started with, “Tell me about your mother.”

GRUBER.
But prehistory was strongly patriarchal. Certainly you remember your father?

JOHN.
I’m not sure. There’s a figure I remember, but he may have been an older brother, a social father.

GRUBER.
No matter. I can scarcely remember mine.

(
JOHN
is silent for a moment. Looking off at nothing, at memories past.)

GRUBER
(cont’d)
Do you feel that as a vacancy in your life, John? Something you wish could be filled by a face, a voice, an image?

JOHN.
Not at this late date.

GRUBER.
There must be someone, probably many, that you valued intensely. Loved. You saw them age and die. A friend, colleague, a wife? Certainly you have had wives. And children.

(
SANDY
reacts.)

JOHN.
I’d move on. I had to move on.

HARRY.
Making him history’s biggest bigamist?

GRUBER.
Have you ever in your life thought, “It should have been me?”

JOHN.
(beat)
Maybe.

GRUBER.
Art has told me that your early fellows feared you were stealing their lives.
(off John’s nod)
Have you thought that perhaps you were, perhaps you are? There have always been legends of such a thing. Creatures, not quite human, taking not blood but the force of life itself.

DAN.
My God, Will.

GRUBER.
Unconsciously, perhaps, by some biological or psychic mechanism we might only guess at. I’m not saying you would do such a thing deliberately. I’m not saying you would even know how to. Would you?

(The others definitely don’t like what’s going on.
DAN
, especially.)

GRUBER
(cont’d)
Would such a thing be fair?

JOHN.
You believe me, then?

GRUBER.
I am exploring what you have said. Whether I believe or not is of no importance. We will die, you will live? Will you come to my funeral, John?

DAN.
Will!

SANDY.
You’ve gone too far. John didn’t ask to be what he is.

GRUBER.
And we did not ask to hear about it. If it were true, is there one of us who would not feel envy? Even, somewhere, a touch of hatred? You’ve told us of yourself, John. Can you imagine how we feel?

JOHN.
I never thought of that.

GRUBER.
Since you may not die, while we assuredly will, there must be a reason for that, no? Perhaps you are an expert.

(
MOVING MAN #1
pauses at the door, carrying an end-table.)

MAN 1.
That’s it, Mr. Oldman. Have a good one.

JOHN.
Thanks. You too.

(
THE MOVING MEN
leave, looking a little relieved. During remainder of the play, we now and then detect the distinctive echo of an empty house.)

GRUBER.
Are you a vampire, John? Even an unknowing one? Do you stand, alive and tall, in a graveyard you helped to fill?

DAN.
(hard)
That’s going too far!

GRUBER.
Bored? Perhaps lonely, because your heart cannot keep its treasures. Is that your doing? Have you had a wrongful life? Perhaps it is time to die.

(His hand, having moved back to his pocket, he now quickly draws out an old revolver.
GRUBER
aims it at
JOHN
, unsteadily.)