What We Were Thinking Of, 2
“Where is my daughter? Who are my sons?”
⇐ Part 1, “The words and the things we do”
⇒ Part 3, “The water's edge is a good place for secrets” (June 21, 2025)
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Recap last week: David has briefly introduced his, Bud’s and their fathers’ histories and recalled inauguration day 1961, when Bud challenged his father’s CIA past and did not attend JFK’s inauguration.
This week: As David conducts a book tour for Culture Wars, he receives a mysterious and disturbing letter. The complicated relationships of his life are revealed.
(Lights come up again as Jarrod and Kate wheel on a television with VCR, and cross to David, now in his office. The three stand together and watch.)
(On the screen above, Clausewitz, from On War: "War is a continuation of politics by other means.")
KATE
(in the voice of a television talk show host)
So what you're saying, Professor Rich, is that the current debate over "values," education, and the like, isn't really a new phenomenon at all, but just a continuation of the conflicts of the 60's — in new forms.
JARROD
(as David on television)
You've read my book.
KATE
(as the talk show host)
What are the implications of that, do you think?
JARROD
(as David)
I'd say the implication is — to revise Clausewitz — that culture has become a continuation of politics by other means.
(as himself, to David)
That line is my favorite.
KATE
(as the talk show host)
Our guest has been Professor David Rich. The book everyone is talking about is Culture Wars.
(Jarrod and Kate laugh and applaud as Jarrod shuts off the television. David nods his acceptance of it in good fun, enjoys the attention.)
DAVID
Thank you. You're very kind. It may cheer you to know that the end result of all your hard work, the bright light like a city on a hill that you've both been pursuing with such naked ambition, is one day to appear on a television talk show and make pompous asses out of yourselves just like that.
JARROD
(laughing with Kate)
And be academic flavor of the month.
DAVID
I'll see you on Thursday with the rest of the class. We'll kiss the semester good-bye with a little brandy and some other treats.
JARROD
Brandy? How about some tequila?
DAVID
I don't think so. Lacks the veneer of the academy. Don't worry. You'll catch a buzz.
JARROD
We still on for tomorrow? My outline?
DAVID
Three o'clock. Finnegans.
JARROD
You buying the beer?
DAVID
You're selling your soul, my friend. The least I can do is buy you a few beers.
(Jarrod wheels the television away.)
(George Gray passes by, pauses.)
GEORGE
Caught you on TV yesterday, David. It's reassuring to know we'll be putting the Center for Cultural Studies in the hands of someone who wants to lead it according to the principles of Clausewitz's On War.
DAVID
(a pained smile)
Thank you, George. I knew you'd be pleased.
(George moves on, yes, pleased with himself.)
(Kate digs around in her briefcase, on the floor.)
(David suddenly remembers the envelope in his hand.)
DAVID
(continuing, to the audience)
But the letter!
(David opens the envelope and reads the letter. He is stunned. On the screen above: "Where is my daughter? Who are my sons?")
(Kate pulls a manuscript from the briefcase.)
KATE
Chapter one: Kate's dissertation. For your bedtime reading. I was hoping we could discuss it over lunch tomorrow. You have no classes, right?
(beat, as David seemingly ignores her)
Hello? Remember me? I've been standing here?
DAVID
(absently)
I flunked you, didn't I?
KATE
Oh, I don't think so. I am your protege, your muse, your intellectual heir, the ripe fruit of your furrowed farming — the youthful light of your advancing middle age. To flunk me would be to fail all that is best in yourself.
(Pause)
Hey, I'm overwrought with cleverness here. Where are you?
DAVID
Right here.
(Beat)
Twenty years ago.
KATE
That’s intriguing. What are you looking at?
DAVID
A letter from an old friend.
KATE
How nice. Who?
(slowly)
Bud Powell. We were best friends — almost brothers, really. I'm not sure I ever told you about him.
KATE
A minor oversight, I'm sure, during our pillow talk.
DAVID
I haven't heard from him in nearly eleven years.
KATE
You grew apart?
DAVID
In a manner of speaking.
KATE
Okay. And so you are or you're not glad to hear from him again?
(David doesn't answer)
I love you, you know. I'd like to think you share things with me. I'm suddenly feeling a little doubtful.
(David offers Kate the letter. She takes it uncertainly.)
KATE
(continuing, reading the letter)
Very strange.
DAVID
(facetiously)
You think so?
KATE
Who is his daughter?
DAVID
(beat)
My daughter.
KATE
Hannah?
(beat)
There is so much you haven't told me.
(beat)
Why is he writing you -- that -- now?
DAVID
I don't know. I'm not sure.
KATE
Hm. You going to write him back?
DAVID
How exactly does one respond to a letter like that? There's no return address.
(beat)
I need to think what to do.
KATE
Why do you have to do anything? It's odd, I admit, but --
DAVID
Because...I do.
KATE
(feeling rebuffed and shut out)
Got it.
DAVID
Stop.
KATE
Stop what?
DAVID
Pouting. I had a life for forty-two years before I met you. I can't tell it all to you in a single afterglow.
KATE
You bastard.
DAVID
I don't even necessarily --
KATE
You're such a bastard when you're troubled.
DAVID
-- I don't even necessarily want to tell it all to you. You think I'm so immeasurably fascinating --
KATE
Hardly.
DAVID
-- that I don't have warts, ugly fucking warts, with pus running out of them even, that I don't actually want to "share" so that other people can have the comfort of "knowing" me.
KATE
But isn't that the excitement of it? That we might think you're so fascinating.
DAVID
We?
KATE
All glowing and new -- without any of the weaknesses or failures I suppose your wife was so aware of -- because you don't have any history with us? You get to be reborn every time. What romance.
DAVID
(beat)
You're a little young to be nastier than I am already. It doesn't bode well for your development.
(David takes Bud's letter from Kate's hand.)
DAVID
(continuing)
This is troubling.
KATE
I know. I gather. I just don't know why, exactly.
AJA
⇐ Part 1, “The words and the things we do”
⇒ Part 3, ““The water's edge is a good place for secrets” (June 21, 2025)
Poet. Storyteller. Dramatist. Essayist. Artificer.
Great dialogue! And I’m intrigued by this contact from out of nowhere after so long. 💕
Jay, I so agree with all that Maureen Doallas as she so well laid out here and on part one. I add that the play seems prescient of today's dilemmas but will have to wait to read the rest. Somehow, you have a way of "knowing" that reaches the depths of our emotions, our fears and our hopes that in today's Presidential administration seem dashed, at best. The play appears to me to be a terrific companions to your outright political essays. Not sure of that, but you may, as politicians say, "confirm or deny."