What We Were Thinking Of, 7
“I want to know who my father is”
What We Were Thinking Of is available for full productions and readings. Interested parties may contact me through my Substack email address.
⇐ Part 6, “You think your life will go a certain way”
⇒ Part 8, “What are you going to do? Who are you going to be?” (July 26, 2025)
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Recap last week: The controversy over Bud’s newspaper memoir expanded. Kate challenged David over his commitment to her. The FBI renewed its investigation.
This week: Hannah visits David seeking clarity about their relationship before being deployed to the Persian Gulf. David recalls the time he, Bud, and Sara spent on New Mexico commune in 1968.
(Hannah appears at the door in the uniform of an army Black Hawk helicopter pilot. David turns and stares. Touched at the sight of her, he is slow to speak.)
HANNAH
I guess this is what happens when you surprise people. They're speechless.
(beat)
Stop staring at me like that.
DAVID
It's been a while since I've seen you.
HANNAH
It's been a while since I've seen you.
DAVID
It's been a while since I've heard from you.
HANNAH
And you.
(beat)
It's just because I hate your guts.
(They embrace, hug hard.)
DAVID
As long as I know the reason.
HANNAH
Don't get all messy on me, old man. You're supposed to make jokes.
DAVID
Getting a little harder these days.
HANNAH
I know.
DAVID
(looking her over in her uniform)
You look very impressive.
HANNAH
You should see me fly a Black Hawk under radar.
DAVID
I'll bet that's a sight. Never done anything like that myself. Hope it's only in the U.S.
HANNAH
We're going.
DAVID
When?
HANNAH
I don't know. Pretty soon, I think.
DAVID
(nods sadly)
So we'll be seeing each other in a few days for Christmas. Why the special trip here? Couldn't wait to fence with me again?
HANNAH
I needed -- wanted -- to talk with you about some things. Alone. You know?
DAVID
Okay.
HANNAH
(beat)
What do you think about a war?
DAVID
(beat)
I have mixed feelings.
HANNAH
You didn't have mixed feelings about Vietnam.
DAVID
Actually, I did. I have mixed feelings about everything, Hannah. It's in my blood. I allow for multiple interpretations.
HANNAH
But this war would be different?
DAVID
Everything in life is different from everything else. That's what makes living so hard.
HANNAH
I passed the campus on the way here. The students are demonstrating. A lot of them. They've got these signs. "Bush's war, not our war." "No blood for oil."
DAVID
Well, I'm pretty sure I agree with half of that.
HANNAH
And it would be okay for me to go to war and die?
(David looks at her quickly, with pain. He takes her face in his hands.)
DAVID
Why do you say something like that to me?
(Hannah reaches into her duffel bag, pulls out the newspaper with Bud's story, hands it to David. On the screen above: And then David quoted Thomas Jefferson -- he was always quoting, never seemed to have a clear opinion of his own -- "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.")
HANNAH
You and mom told me what Bud did. You never told me you were involved.
DAVID
Why are you ready to think I was?
HANNAH
He says he had accomplices. You were his best friend. You two were the leaders on campus.
DAVID
And Jefferson and Adams didn't speak for years. Stalin murdered Trotsky.
(Hannah doesn't get it)
Read a little more history, little one. Sometimes "friends" disagree.
HANNAH
So you weren't involved in it?
DAVID
(mimics her words uncertainly)
"Involved." "It."
HANNAH
That bomb killed someone. And I found out he was army.
DAVID
(beat)
I know. That's why he did it.
HANNAH
In case you haven't noticed, I'm in the army. I believe in the military. I believe in this country.
DAVID
I believe in it, too.
HANNAH
Since when? Now?
DAVID
I've always believed in it.
HANNAH
Then why can't you give me some simple answers?
DAVID
Because the answers aren't always simple. What do you want to do, instantly explore the subtleties of history? Argue the fine points of geopolitics? Philosophize about "just" wars? You were never interested in that before.
HANNAH
I want to know who my father is.
DAVID
(slapping at the newspaper)
Read this. Read this grandiose slab of prophetic self-justification. You'll learn who your father is.
HANNAH
(backing away from him)
I meant you.
(Lights quickly fade on Hannah.)
DAVID
(alone, yelling after her)
He never loved anyone! He never worried who might not love him. He never wondered what was really his. Love was just an "idea" to him.
(Night. Tim Buckley's "Good-Bye and Hello," plays from loud speakers strung, along with lights, about a hippie commune in the New Mexico desert. David turns and walks to a boulder upstage, climbs it. He stands looking down, lost in his own world as Bud takes his place below amid a small circle of hippies, including Sara. Bud reads aloud from a book of poetry. Everyone is tripping on acid.)
(On the screen above: And I wave good-bye to America/And smile hello to the world.1)
BUD
(holding up his hand)
"Still, I was a really bad poet.2
(laughter)
"I didn't know how to take it all the way. I was hungry. And all those days and all those women in all those cafes and all those glasses. I wanted to drink them down and break them. And all those windows and all those streets. And all those houses and all those lives.
(Sara looks up at David. She rises and heads to the rear of the boulder to climb it.)
BUD
(continuing)
"And all those carriage wheels raising swirls from the broken pavement. I would have liked to have rammed them into a roaring furnace. And I would have liked to have ground up all their bones. And ripped out all those tongues.
(Sara reaches the top of the boulder. She stands back, observing David.)
BUD
(continuing)
"And liquefied all those big bodies naked and strange under clothes that drive me mad ... I foresaw the coming of the big red Christ of the Russian Revolution ... And the sun was an ugly sore, splitting apart like a red-hot coal."
SARA
(to David)
You're not God.
(Applause for Bud. He kneels within the circle for a moment to talk, then sees David and Sara and heads for the boulder. Lights dim on all but the boulder.)
DAVID
(long beat)
I'm not?
SARA
If you jump, you'll die.
DAVID
(beat)
I thought I might float.
SARA
It would be nice.
DAVID
God floats.
(beat)
So you never know where he is.
(Sara comes up behind David. She places her hand on his shoulder. David looks at her.)
SARA
She broke your heart.
(David looks away. He nods. Sara takes his arm, sits down with him at the edge of the boulder. Bud appears at the rear. Sara lays her head on David's shoulder.)
SARA
(continuing)
I love you, David.
(Bud sits quickly on David's other side, taps his shoulder. David turns.)
BUD
We both love you.
(Sara kisses David's cheek. Then Bud does. They shower him with kisses. He shrinks with embarrassment. They all laugh. They stare up at the stars.)
BUD
(continuing, to David)
She was in love with the idea of love.
(Sara looks away.)
DAVID
Love's not an idea.
(beat)
Is it?
BUD
It's a name we give a feeling. Feelings come and go.
DAVID
(pause)
Is that why I never know whether I'm coming or going?
(They all laugh, subside. Bud stretches his palms out to the sky. Then he points to a star.)
BUD
That's me.
(to David, pointing to another)
And that's you.
SARA
(pointing)
That's me.
DAVID
(to Sara, confidentially)
We're closer.
SARA
(confidentially)
I know.
(Pause. Bud grabs David's arm suddenly, excited.)
BUD
I solved it!
DAVID
You did?
BUD
Solved it all.
DAVID
(understanding, wanting to know)
What?
BUD
(beat)
I forgot.
(They all laugh. Bud taps David's arm, motions for them to go. The three descend the boulder. Bud leads Sara off upstage. Before she exits, Sara turns to look at David, who looks back. Then he is alone again in the near darkness. He thinks a moment, then continues downstage, where Sara enters her kitchen with a tray of dishes from Christmas dinner. David dries dishes at the sink. Sara washes.)
AJA
⇐ Part 6, “You think your life will go a certain way”
⇒ Part 8, “What are you going to do? Who are you going to be?” (July 26, 2025)
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Poet. Storyteller. Dramatist. Essayist. Artificer.
“Goodbye and Hello,” music by Tim Buckley; lyrics by Tim Buckley and Larry Becket
The antique people are down in the dungeons Run by machines and afraid of the tax Their heads in the grave and their hands on their eyes Hauling their hearts around circular tracks Pretending forever their masquerade towers Are not really riddled with widening cracks And i wave goodbye to iron And smile hello to the air O the new children dance ------ i am young All around the balloons ------ i will live Swaying by chance ------ i am strong To the breeze from the moon ------ i can give Painting the sky ------ you the strange With the colors of sun ------ seed of day Freely they fly ------ feel the change As all become one ------ know the way The velocity addicts explode on the highways Ignoring the journey and moving so fast Their nerves fall apart and they gasp but can't breathe They run from the cops of the skeleton past Petrified by tradition in a nightmare they stagger Into nowhere at all and they look up aghast And i wave goodbye to speed And smile hello to a rose O the new children play ------ i am young Under the juniper trees ------ i will live Sky blue or gray ------ i am strong They continue at ease ------ i can give Moving so slow ------ you the strange That serenely they can ------ seed of day Gracefully grow ------ feel the change And yes still understand ------ know the way The king and the queen in their castle of billboards Sleepwalk down the hallways dragging behind All their possessions and transient treasures As they go to worship the electronic shrine On which is playing the late late commercial In that hollowest house of the opulent blind And i wave goodbye to mammon And smile hello to a stream O the new children buy ------ i am young All the world for a song ------ i will live Without a dime ------ i am strong To which they belong ------ i can give Nobody owns ------ you the strange Anything anywhere ------ seed of day Everyone's grown ------ feel the change Up so big they can share ------ know the way The vaudeville generals cavort on the stage And shatter their audience with submachine guns And freedom and violence the acrobat clowns Do a balancing act on the graves of our sons While the tapdancing emperor sings "war is peace" And love the magician disappears in the fun And i wave goodbye to murder And smile hello to the rain O the new children can't ------ i am young Tell a foe from a friend ------ i will live Quick to enchant ------ i am strong And so glad to extend ------ i can give Handfuls of dawn ------ you the strange To kaleidoscope men ------ seed of day Come from beyond ------ feel the change The great wall of skin ------ know the way The bloodless husbands are jesters who listen Like sheep to the shrieks and commands of their wives And the men who aren't men leave the women alone See them all faking love on a bed made of knives Afraid to discover or trust in their bodies And in secret divorce they will never survive And i wave goodbye to ashes And smile hello to a girl O the new children kiss ------ i am young They are so proud to learn ------ i will live Womanwood bliss ------ i am strong And the manfire that burns ------ i can give Knowing no fear ------ you the strange They take off their clothes ------ seed of day Honest and clear ------ feel the change As a river that flows ------ know the way The antique people are fading out slowly Like newspapers flaming in mind suicide Godless and sexless directionless loons Their sham sandcastles dissolve in the tide They put on their deathmasks and compromise daily The new children will live for the elders have died And i wave goodbye to america And smile hello to the world
from Blaise Cendrars, “La prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France,” 1913. https://www.themorgan.org/book/export/html/1412391