scene one

“shirts and the universe”

The curtain rises on a department of Continental Shirtmakers. There is only the minimum equipment on the stage, such as Mr. Gum’s desk and the enormous clock at the front of the office. The rest is suggested by the movements of the workers. They sit on stools, their arms and hands making rigid, machine-like motions above their imaginary desks to indicate typing, filing, operating a comptometer, and so forth. Two middle-aged women are reciting numbers to each other, antiphonally, in high and sing-song voices. The girl at the (invisible) filing cabinet has the far-away stare of a schizophrenic as her arms work mechanically above the indexed cases. There is a glassy brilliance to the atmosphere: one feels that it must contain a highly selected death ray that penetrates living tissue straight to the heart and bestows a withering kiss on whatever diverges from an accepted pattern.

Gum is glancing at an enormous sales record book; he suddenly slams it down on the desk.

gum [bellowing]: Alfred!

alfred [turning quickly, snake-like]: Yes, sir?

gum: Where’s Murphy?

alfred: He’s been away from his desk about six minutes!

gum [to the office boy]: Johnnie, go fetch Murphy out of the washroom.

johnnie: He’s not in the washhroom, Mr. Gum.

gum: How do you know?

johnnie: I just been.

gum: Fetch him out of the warehouse, then.

alfred: He’s not in the warehouse either, Mr. Gum. —I just been.

gum: Well, where the hell is he then?

alfred: I don’t know, Mr. Gum. He disappears like this every once in a while.

gum: Where does he disappear to?

alfred: That is a mystery, Mr. Gum.

gum: We don’t have any mysteries in the Continental Branch of Consolidated Shirtmakers.

alfred: I didn’t think we did. But Benjamin Murphy seems to have created one for us.

gum: Aw, created one, has he? Johnnie, go look for Murphy and bring him back dead or alive.

[An effeminate young man enters rapidly from the rear holding a stiff-front colored shirt.]

designer: Oh, Mr. Gum, this No. W-2-O wasn’t made up according to specifications! The stripes on the dickey should have been pale, pale blue but they’re al-most pur-ple!

[Gum glares at him ominously.]

These little accessory buttons are mother-of-pearl— [He rolls his eyes heavenward.] —I don’t know what type of person would wear a shirt like this!

gum: You don’t but I do! —Take it up with Frankel in Specifications.

[The Designer exits quickly one hand to forehead, the other holding the dickey thrust out behind him. Ben Murphy enters. He is a small young man with the nervous, defensive agility of a squirrel. Ten years of regimentation have made him frantic but have not subdued his spirit. He is one of those feverish, bright little people who might give God some very intelligent answers if they were asked. He has on white duck pants, a shirt with broad blue and white stripes, and—oddly enough—a pair of cowboy boots.]

gum [with a bull-like roar]: MURPHY!

[Ben halts, paralyzed for a moment. He turns slowly to face the boss. His eyebrows climb in tense, polite enquiry.]

Murphy, come here to my desk.

[Ben crosses stiffly to Gum. Gum looking him up and down.]

What’s the idea of coming down to work in an outfit like that? That belt—emerald studded?

ben: A souvenir of a summer in Arizona a long time ago. I wear the belt to be reminded of it.

gum: No matter how small a man’s position may be, it still has got some dignity attached to it.

ben: Yes, sir.

gum: Where have you been for the last ten—fifteen minutes?

ben: Been? I—went to the washroom.

gum: Johnnie’s just been in the washroom and says you weren’t there.

ben: I also went to the warehouse for a minute.

gum: Alfred’s just come from the warehouse. He didn’t see you.

ben: Well—I—I went upstairs for a minute.

gum: You went upstairs. Murphy, you may not know it, but you have just now made a remarkable statement.

ben: How is that, Mr. Gum?

gum: You say you went upstairs. To my best knowledge, Continental Branch of Consolidated Shirtmakers is on the sixteenth floor of a sixteen-story building.

ben: I know that, Mr. Gum.

gum: Then—how did you—go upstairs?

ben: Mr. Gum, you probably never dreamed of such a thing but—there’s a stairs to the roof.

gum: A what?

ben: A stairs to the roof.

[Activity in the office is momentarily suspended. Everyone stares at Ben.]

gum: So there is a stairs to the roof?

ben: Yes, sir.

gum: How did you find out about it, Murphy?

ben: Necessity, Mr. Gum. I was stifling in here.

gum [ominously]: I see. Necessity being the mother of invention, you finally came to invent the stairs to the roof.

ben: No, sir, I didn’t invent them, they were already there, just waiting to be discovered.

gum: And you discovered them?

ben: Yes, sir.

gum: I suppose you might be termed the Christopher Columbus of the Consolidated roof—and who was, so to speak, your Queen Isabella?

ben: Curiosity, Mr. Gum. One day I noticed a little door at the top of the elevator shaft. I simply opened it and there they were—a little, narrow, winding flight of stairs that led to the roof.

gum: Well!

ben: After that, instead of smoking my cigarette in the washroom with the rest of the boys, I smoked it up there where I could take a look at the world, the sky, the bluffs across the river—and I must say it’s definitely more inspiring to look at them than the plumbing fixtures in the men’s lavatory. Also the air up there’s a whole lot cleaner and fresher.

[Pause.]

gum: The air down here don’t suit you?

ben: No, sir. I can’t say it does. Since they’ve had that new cooling system installed we’re not allowed to open up the windows. —Frankly the air in here gets just as thick as molasses. The air outside is hot—but even so you don’t know what a blessed relief it can be to step out there and fill your lungs with it and know it’s exclusively yours and not just borrowed a moment from somebody at the next desk.

gum: Aw. —Uh-huh. Well, Murphy, I guess we’ll have to scrap that fifty-thousand dollar cooling system now that it don’t agree with your—respiratory system!

ben: I didn’t say to scrap it, Mr. Gum. But just to—revise it a little.

gum [getting warmed up]: Or build you a little private office, a penthouse kind of, where you can associate with pigeons.

ben: Pigeons are very good company, Mr. Gum.

gum: Especially for you, Mr. Murphy.

ben: Sure. We have lots in common.

gum: And just about the same amount of intelligence, too.

ben: No, sir, pigeons are smarter than me—a whole lot.

gum: You admit it?

ben: Yes, sir. They take the liberty of the sky. Me, Mr. Gum, I never get any further than the roof.

gum [rising abruptly]: Your work in this office has placed too many restrictions on your freedom.

ben: Freedom, Mr. Gum, is something my forefathers had when they marched down through Cumberland Gap with horses and women and guns to make a new world. They made it and lost it. Sold it down the river for cotton and slaves and various other commodities sold at a profit created by cheating each other.

gum [furious and alarmed]: Be careful, Murphy!

ben: There hasn’t been very much freedom in the world since. There’s still the need of it, though. So people have got to find stairs to the roof.

gum: Hush up! This isn’t the fourth of July!

ben: I’m not shooting off firecrackers.

gum: You’re not, but I am! [He shoves the sales record book in front of Ben.] What’s this?

ben: It looks like the August sales record book to me.

gum: That’s what I thought it was. What’s this here got to do with “white broadcloth, tab collar, reinforced cuff seam, style number X92”?

ben [pointing]: This?

gum: Yes, that. Read it out loud, Murphy, so everyone here in the office can get a load of it.

ben: I can’t.

gum: Why not?

ben: It’s private.

gum: Read it, Murphy.

ben: The earth is a—wheel—

gum: I said to read it out loud, Murphy.

ben [shouting]: The earth is a wheel—in a great big gambling casino!

[The office workers stop short in their mechanical activity. Alfred’s giggle gives them the cue and they titter for several moments.]

gum: Did you intend for that statement to be embroidered on the back of your shirts?

ben: No, sir.

gum: Then why did you put it in our business records? Did it appear to you to have some particular bearing on broadcloth shirts?

ben: No particular bearing.

gum: Aw. But a general bearing?

ben: It seems to me, Mr. Gum, that reflections on the nature of the universe have got some general bearing on everything there is.

gum: We have a philosopher here—Benjamin Murphy, Ph. D.

ben: No, sir, only B.A.

gum: B.A. your—! Is this a kindergarten for your amusement?

ben: I didn’t write that for amusement.

gum: What for, then?

ben: Because it’s—instinct with an artist—to find some means of expression.

gum: A what? An artist? —So you’re an artist, are you?

ben [wildly]: I didn’t say that! You’re putting words in my mouth!

[Alfred giggles.]

[Ben continues, turning desperately.] Make that ape stop giggling! [He seizes Alfred by the collar.] Stop that giggling, you ape! [Ben chokes him, forcing Alfred down to his knees.]

alfred: Help, help, help, Mr. Gum!

gum: Murphy!

[The Designer bustles in. He shrieks at the scene of violence. The bell in the clock rings for noon with a piercing clamor.]

Murphy, let Alfred go!

[Murphy reluctantly lets go of the spindling stool pigeon.]

This is the first time in my twenty-five years as a—manager of this department that anyone’s made such a scene! [To the office]: You all go to lunch! —Murphy, you stay here.

[The workers file rapidly out with timid, backward glances. Murphy is left alone with the boss. Murphy’s bravado deserts him. Now he is white and trembling. He suddenly collapses into a chair and covers his face. Gum continues, lighting a cigar.]

Apparently you are beginning to realize the enormity of your actions.

ben [brokenly]: Yes, sir. [He blows his nose.]

gum: Why don’t you comb your hair, Murphy?

ben: I do but it won’t stay down.

gum: Even your hair—rebellious! I remember the morning you first came here to look for a job. A fresh young college boy, clean looking, alert, ambitious. Maybe a little too smart in your use of the language, but I figured that would wear off in time. I said to myself, “Here is a possibility for Continental Branch of Consolidated Shirtmakers. Give this boy an office job so he can get the necessary background—then put him on the road where he can put to use these more individual characteristics of his.”

ben: Mr. Gum—

gum: Two years—three years—six years. No development. Oh, you did your work, you got down here at the usual time every morning—but what you gave was just a routine performance, nothing to single you out as a man who deserved to be given his chance on the road.

ben: Mr. Gum—

gum: Yes?

ben: Let me ask you a question, just as one member of the race of man to another— What chance does anyone have to develop “individual characteristics” in a place like this? I’m not a great social thinker, I’m not very much of a political theorist, Mr. Gum. But there’s a disease in the world, a terrible fever, and sooner or later it’s got to be rooted out or the patient will die. People wouldn’t be killing and trying to conquer each other unless there was something terribly, terribly wrong at the bottom of things. It just occurs to me, Mr. Gum, that maybe the wrong is this: this regimentation, this gradual grinding out of the lives of the little people under the thumbs of things that are bigger than they are! People get panicky locked up in a dark cellar: they trample over each other fighting for air! Air, air, give them air! Isn’t it maybe—just as simple as that?

[The bell at the front of the office sets up another harsh clamor. The workers return from their lunch. Gum stares dumbly at Murphy and Murphy stares dumbly at Gum.]

gum [finally]: You have a wife?

ben: Yes, sir.

gum: Children?

ben: Not yet. One’s expected.

gum: I intend to look back through your records from “a” to “z.” If I can discover any ray of hope for your future with Continental Branch of the Consolidated Shirtmakers, I’ll let you stay on here. But if I don’t find any— Then out you’ll go, Ben Murphy, regardless of the wife or the stork or any other tender consideration. —You understand that?

ben: Yes, sir.

gum: Come back to my desk at exactly noon tomorrow and I’ll let you know.

ben [faintly]: Yes, sir.

gum: Go on! Get back to your work!

ben: Yes, sir. [He turns mechanically and marches back to his desk. He slowly raises an enormous ledger to cover his agonized face.]

[Everyone works with puppet-like precision. The middle-aged spinsters recite their numerals in high and sing-song voices. Gum sits glowering for a moment in his swivel chair at the great yellow oak desk. Then suddenly he wheels the chair about to face the audience. He spreads his arms in a wide and helpless gesture—it is the gesture of Pilate—“What can I do?”]

fade

[Mr. E laughs offstage.]