The Road to Amber (10 page)
(Taking his hand)
I know. I offered.
Don’t! I—I—
The shadowy figure of MORRIE passes in the twilight. Faint strains of the theme from “Remembering” accompany him.
What do you mean?
Don’t wait. It’s too long.
I’m willing, Dave. I’m willing. You do want me one day, don’t you?
(Drawing away)
I’ve got to go now, Betty. Don’t wait.
(He turns away and begins to walk.)
David! We never talked about it in so many words, but I thought—I thought you cared for me. I thought we had an—understanding.
No. No understanding. Don’t wait. Good-bye, Betty.
(Walks away. Spotlight remains on Betty.)
{SONG: WHY’S GOOD-BYE SO EASY FOR HIM?}
Why’s good-bye so easy for him?
How can he walk away
As if I never mattered?
He shattered my world and went his way.
Why’s good-bye an easy thing,
So easy for him to say?
Did I do something wrong?
He never told me so.
I cared for him so long.
I thought one day we’d be
—just him and me.
Now he gives me a quick good-bye,
Has nothing more to say.
How can it be so easy for him
To turn and walk away?
I’ll miss him, I’ll miss him.
I wish it weren’t so.
My dreams have ended with the day.
Never thought I’d see him go.
Does he even know I’ll miss him,
My man who went away?
Spotlight shifts to DAVID, farther along the road (other side of stage).
{SONG: REMEMBERING}
Remembering, remembering, where candles burn and spirits sing,
A girl I knew when I was but a lad.
She walked with me, she laughed with me. We shared a dream or two—
That girl I knew from whom I’m walking sad.
We played together, we held each other,
In field and city above. Remembering her tears, her smile,
I fear to remember a longer while—
I might remember I’m in love.
Remembering, remembering, as I walk away,
The days of skinned knees, frogs, and fading dreams,
The nights of homework, games, and school dances.
He’s right, I know. I’ve no time for romances.
Forgetting now, I walk away. Out there it’s push and shove.
There won’t be time to remember that once I was in love.
Remembering, remembering, a thing I must not do.
Where candles burn and spirits sing I cast away remembering.
I walk away from field and city above. Good-bye, I sing,
Remembering. Good-bye, good-bye to love.
DAVID’s song is finished, MORRIE joins him and they exit. BETTY’s voice is heard, singing the last stanza of “Why’s Good-bye So Easy for Him?” again.
I’ll miss him, I’ll miss him.
I wish it weren’t so.
My dreams have ended with the day.
Never thought I’d see him go.
Does he even know I’ll miss him,
My man who went away?
SCENE 1
A hospital. DAVID, wearing whites and a stethoscope, stands looking at a medical chart at the nurse’s station, a cup of coffee resting beside him. MORRIE enters, walking down the hall toward him.
Hi, Dave. That one in Number Seven. She’ll be checking out at 3:12 a.m.
(He sits down next to DAVID.)
Too bad about the fellow in Number Sixteen.
Ah, he was fading fast. We knew it was just a matter of time.
You could have saved that one, Dave.
We tried everything we knew.
{SONG: “OH, HOW THE DYING GOES ON”}
Oh, how the dying goes on, goes on; oh, how the dying goes on.
The wards are full of people in irreparable shape
Whose vital signs are going off the charts.
Their hearts are ticking wackily, their coughs are coming hackily,
And some are missing major body parts.
From their fevers, chills, and stupors they slip off one by one,
In the dead of night they
are
the dead of night.
A few of them will linger, a few will jump the gun,
One by one. Some folks can’t do anything quite right.
And oh, how the dying goes on, goes on; oh, how the dying goes on.
I check a pulse, prescribe a pill, I order tests and scans,
Massage a heart, reduce a dose, leave orders for the nurse
And I wonder whether Morrie is their blessing or their curse.
He touches them, they sigh away to dark unknown lands,
He gathers all things mortal with cold immortal hands.
I hear their sighs, I hear their cries, give comfort where I might.
This place is a necropolis, a city of the night.
He comes for them, he comes for them. In the end his will prevails.
I’m proud to be related to one who never fails.
But sometimes it’s discouraging to lose to him this way.
Has he a weakness, I wonder? Some thing he’d never say?
I took this job to learn to heal, to cure, to lengthen life.
Instead I hear a coughing and the weeping of some wife
Who soon will be a widow, chic in black. I tried each trick
But none would click. Morrie has his way.
I cannot call them back, alack, and Morrie wins the day.
He comes for them, he comes for them. He takes them far away.
Morrie takes them to him, Morrie has his say—
And oh, how the dying goes on, goes on; oh, how the dying goes on.
Guess you’re going to have to learn a few more things, then.
If you’re teaching, I’ll take notes.
Not yet, but soon.
(He reaches out, touches DAVID’s cup of coffee. Steam begins rising from it. He rises and faces the window.)
About time.
(A car horn blares o.s., followed by the sound ofa collision.)
I’m needed. Good night.
(exits)
Lights fade, come up on a park. DAVID addresses the audience.
He didn’t mention it again for a long while, and I almost thought he’d forgotten. Then, one day the following spring, a sunny and deliciously balmy occasion, I went walking in the park. Suddenly, it seemed that I cast two shadows. Then one of them spoke to me.
Lovely day, eh, Dave?
(He is dressed entirely in black, and carries a potting trowel.)
Morrie, you’re very quiet when you come up on a person.
Indeed.
You’re dressed awfully solemnly for such a fine, bright morning.
Working clothes.
That’s why you’re carrying a potting trowel?
Right.
They walk in silence. A small band of hikers passes. MORRIE reaches out and touches one on the shoulder. The man immediately clutches his chest and falls to the ground. MORRIE and DAVID pass cross-stream to a place where MORRIE abruptly drops to his knees at the foot of a small rise, extends his hands amid the grasses, and spreads them. A flowering plant lies between his extended forefingers and thumbs, bearing both blue and yellow flowers. DAVID looks at the plant closely.
Yes, study it.
I can’t identify it.
I would be most surprised, if you could. It is quite rare, and the only sure way to know it and to find it when you need it is by means of introduction and by words of summoning, which I shall teach you.
I see.
And in your case it will be necessary to place samples under cultivation in your apartment. For you must learn its usages more deeply than any other who knows of it. Roots, leaves, stalks, flowers—each part has a separate virtue, and they can be made to work in a wide variety of combinations.
I don’t understand. I’ve spent all this time getting a first-rate medical education. Now you want me to become an herbalist?
(laughs)
No, of course not. You need your techniques as well as your credentials. I am not asking you to abandon the methods you have learned for helping people, but merely to add another for…special cases.
Involving that little plant?
Exactly
What’s it called?
Bleafage. You won’t find it in any herbal or botany text. Come here. Let me introduce you and teach you the words. Then you’ll remove it and take it to your home to cultivate.
Lights fade. DAVID comes forward and addresses the audience.
I ate, drank, and even slept with the bleafage. Morrie stopped by periodically and instructed me in its use. I learned to make tinctures, poultices, salves, plasters, pills, wines, oils, liniments, syrups, douches, enemas, electuaries, and fomentations of every part and combination of parts of the thing. I even learned how to smoke it. Finally, I began taking a little of it to work with me every now and then and tried it on a number of serious cases, always with remarkable results.
{SONG: “OH, WONDROUS WEED”}
Oh, wondrous weed! Sovereign of ills!
Your virtue is greater than all the world’s pills.
Modest, shy, retiring weed, to know you’re there in time of need
Is balm unto the stricken, hope for all who sicken,
Mercy to the ailing, a hand unto the failing.
You tonify and purify and fix up damaged parts;
You outbiot the antis and you stabilize our hearts;
You lower our blood pressures and you clean our livers, too;
You halt the great attritions of the worst human conditions without a bit of fuss.
You even speed digestion while you’re clearing up congestion.
You’re good for everything that ails us.
But weed, weed, weed, weed, such a name as bleafage
Is too simple for your power. Such a name belies
The virtues you possess. You come to us in darkest hour,
Trailing clouds of bliss and balm.
You save our lives and banish pain.
You deserve a better name—than bleafage.
For you’ve advanced degrees in life and mess and pain.
So just between the two of us, I’ll call you Morrie’s Bane.
Yes, just between the two of us, I’ll call you Morrie’s Bane.
Oh, wondrous weed! Sovereign of ills!
Your virtue is greater than all the world’s pills.
You save our lives, you banish pain;
You outbiot the antis and you flush our kidneys, too.
I’m glad I found a better, more descriptive name for you,
My distinguished colleague Morrie’s Bane
(I think I see the beginning of a beautiful friendship),
Dear friend and colleague Morrie’s Bane.
SCENE 2
(addressing audience)
My next birthday, Morrie took me to a restaurant in town, and afterwards an elevator in the parking garage seemed to keep descending, finally releasing us in his office.
(DAVID takes his place with MORRIE in cavern, and addresses MORRIE)
Neat trick, that.
They walk through the tunnel. Shadowy servants light fresh candles and remove the remains of those which have expired. MORRlE stops and removes a stump of a candle from a case, lights it from the guttering flame of another one upon a ledge, and replaces the old one with the other, just as the former goes out.
What did you just do, Morrie? I’ve never seen you replace one before.
I don’t do it often. But that woman you fed the bleafage to this afternoon—the one in 465—she’s just rallied.
(He measures the candle-stump between thumb and forefinger.)
Six years, eight months, three days, seven hours, fourteen minutes, twenty-three seconds. That’s how much life you’ve bought her.
Oh.
I’m not angry, if that’s what you’re wondering. You must try the bleafage out if you’re to understand its power.
Tell me. Is it a power over life or a power over death that we’re discussing?
That’s droll! Is it one of those Zen things? I rather like it.
No, it was a serious question.
Well, mine is a power over life. And yours is vice-versa. We’re sort of “yin-yang” that way.
But you’re not restricted to your specialty, not when you have this bleafage business going for you, too.
David, I can’t use the herb. I can only teach you about it. I require a human master of bleafage to use it for me.
Oh, I see.
Not entirely, I’m certain. Go ahead and experiment. It may seem that the people you treat with it all come to you by chance, but this will not always be the case.
(DAVID nods and studies the flowers.)
Do you have a question?
Yes. That candle-stub you used for purposes of extending Mrs. Emerson, of Room 465, for six years plus…how did it come to be snuffed out at just that point, rather than having burned itself all the way down? It’s almost as if you’d—snuffed someone prematurely.
(grinning)
It is, isn’t it? As I mentioned, death is a power over life. Let’s have some coffee and our brandy now, shall we?
Lights fade. DAVID comes forward and addresses the audience.
I was more than a little puzzled by the way Morrie ran his business. But it was his show and he’d always been kind to me. He’d given me a whole wardrobe for a birthday present, and when I completed my residency he gave me a new car. Dorel was still in fine fettle, but I needed a car once I began my practice. I moved Dorel to the rear of the garage and rode him only on weekends. But I found myself going out there more and more, evenings, sitting on the high stool beside the workbench, popping the tab on a cold one and talking to him the way I had when I was a kid.
