Day 73

Scene Five.

Stanley: You thirsty?

Flo: Not today. I don’t know when we have to leave. He has it all, it’s a new place, a new doctor.

Stanley: Were the old doctors not working?

Flo: My father said, “They were acclimatizing you,” meaning me. He said that they were getting me used to coming each week, so that he would keep paying. He said these new people would be better.

Stanley: Is the place far from here?

Flo: I don’t know, he has the appointment written down. I wanted to go somewhere before we had to leave, to go out.

Stanley: Its nice you chose here.

Flo: I like it here. It’s cool in the shade of the clocktower.

(Beat)

Stanley: Do you feel better?

Flo: I’m not sure. I feel less tired, but I think that might be because of the dust in the house. Its very clean here.

Stanley: I try to keep it up…

Do you want to see a new doctor?

Flo: I think that my father wants me to. And I think every doctor is just about the same, check your heart, take your breath. Blood. All that.

Stanley: My father was a doctor. Did you know that?

Flo: I thought you got this place from him.

Stanley: No, I bought it with the money he left me. He died when I was twenty, and he did well so he gave us all a bit of money.

Flo: Didn’t you want to be a doctor?

Stanley: Why?

Flo: Because of your father.

Stanley: I was never good with people, touching them, telling them bad things. Decided to serve drinks instead.

Flo: What about your brothers and sisters?

Stanley: Doctors, all of them.

(Luca enters, he stands at the door.)

Flo: Time already?

Luca: We have to go all the way across town. I bought a cab, it’s waiting.

Stanley: No drink today?

Luca: Do you have gin?

Stanley: No, I bought the clock instead.

(He looks)

Luca: Then we have to go.

Stanley: Maybe later then? I’ll keep it open.

Luca: I’m not sure, we might not have time.

Stanley: I’ll have gin.

(Beat)

Luca: We’ll see how she’s feeling.

Scene Six

(Lights are off. There is a candle burning low by Stanley’s head as he lays, head on the bar, staring out towards the windows. There is a bottle of gin on the opposite side of the candle. Pause. Stanley stands up, looks out the window, tries to read the clock tower, then goes back to the counter and opens the bottle of gin. He pours himself a glass and drinks it. Beat. He pours himself another.)

Scene Seven.

(Stanley is asleep with the empty bottle of gin in his hand. Luca goes through the open door, walks over to Stanley’s body.)

Luca: Wake up.

(Luca tries to rouse him)

Luca: Wake up.

(Luca takes the bottle from him, then puts it back, seeing as it’s empty. He leans over the counter and searches for a glass and puts it on the counter. He puts in a couple handfuls of ice. He lifts bottles, checking labels, but deciding on nothing. He stands playing with the glass and then takes in a mouthful of ice, slamming the glass back down.)

Luca: Wake up…

(Stanley rouses)

Stanley: What?

(Beat)

Luca: Do you have any gin?

Stanley: We have rum.

Luca: I would like gin.

Stanley: We don’t have that. We are all out.

Luca: None left?

Stanley: Nope.

(Beat)

Luca: I’ll have rum. No ice.

(He dumps the rest of ice out of his glass. Stanley makes the drink.)

Luca: More than that, to there.

Stanley: Its too early to drink this much.

Luca: I don’t care.

Stanley: You’ll get sick later.

Luca: I don’t take advice from drunk men.

(Beat)

Luca: She had an operation.

Stanley: That so?

Luca: Last night. Doctor said they had to do it, it was later than they like to do it.

Stanley: Last night?

Luca: She asked them what would happen if they didn’t. They told her it would get in her blood.

Stanley: Is she all right?

Luca: It isn’t in her blood.

(Beat)

Luca: Another.

(Beat.)

Luca: I told her to do it.

Stanley:…That so?

Luca: She wasn’t sure and I told her. Her father said that he still had the money, but it would be hard, and she was scared about everything, money, her father. And I told her to do it. That we had to keep moving forward. She was scared. But I said if she did it, I would help her. She agreed. But she’s very frail, she’s a very frail girl. I’m not sure…what to do.

(Beat)

Stanley: Another?

Luca: I think so.

Stanley: You have time?

Luca: I think so.

(pause, finishes the third drink)

Luca: I should go. She’s probably awake.

Stanley: Where is she?

Luca: Hospital, town over.

Stanley: That so?

Luca: I should go.

Stanley: I’ll stay open. Come by later.

(beat)

Luca: All right.

Scene Eight.

(Stanley has another bottle of gin. Its night and there is a candle again. He doesn’t drink it, but sits behind the counter, slowly spinning the bottle in his hands.)

Scene Nine

(Stanley, day, looking up at the clocktower. He goes from the window to the clock hanging and dial the time correctly. Then goes back to check it again. He goes to the bottle of gin sitting on the counter and picks it up, holds it for a moment, then sets it down and goes to the window one more time to check the clocktower.