scene nineteen
“the roof? what roof?”
The roof.
This is the roof of a city office building. But is it actually the roof? Everything points upward like so many fingers that say “In that direction!” We have the sky (as blue as you can make it), the tops of various white stone towers, a few little lamb’s wool clouds. The towers have fluttering pennants with curious symbols and glittering weathervanes on them. Below this region the world may be grooved repetition, but here it is the transcendental—Light, light, light! The last high reach of the spirit, matter’s rejection, the abstract core of religion which is purity, wonder and love.
Onto this roof top Benjamin Murphy steps out. He is momentarily stunned and blinded by the brilliance around him. He takes off his bookkeeper’s glasses and flings them away, likewise the book containing the August sales records. From his pocket he removes the little bag of Golden Bantam corn. He scatters the grains moderately at first, then with reckless abandon, finally splitting the bag wide open and throwing all the remaining corn high in the air. —If it is feasible, there should be a few pigeons.
All at once the Girl steps out behind him. She is all in white like a swan and her thin white scarf is blown out wing-like behind her. They stare at each other raptly for several moments and there is a faint, faint whispering of music.
girl [shyly smiling]: Hello, Rabbit.
ben: Hello, Alice. How did you get up here?
girl: You told me last night about the stairs to the roof. You made me promise I’d feed the pigeons after you leave, so here I am with a nickel’s worth of Golden Bantam corn. [The Girl scatters a handful in the air.]
ben [wonderingly and joyfully regarding her]: I never suspected that you would have the nerve to follow me up here.
girl: Didn’t I follow you to Wonderland last night?
ben: Yeah, but that was relatively easy. This is a lot more difficult than that.
girl: It doesn’t matter how difficult a place may be to arrive at—if the man is there, the woman will ultimately grace that place with her presence. No matter how high it is—no matter how low it is—no matter how precariously suspended in the middle! —It becomes Wonderland to the woman the very instant that she can stretch out her hands and with the tips of her fingers touch the tips of his!
ben: What a little idealist you are. You almost make me think it might be worth my while.
girl [scattering grain]: Worth your while to do what?
ben: To undertake your further emancipation.
girl: You’re so modest. How do you know it needs to be undertaken?
ben: We’ll see.
girl: We’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see—so far it takes my breath! There’s the park where we went walking last night!
ben: There’s the fox-cage—empty!
girl: There’s the lake.
ben: Where I met the swan and you met a man named Warren.
girl [laughing]: Yes, a rabbit-warren.
ben: There’s the carnival grounds. The lights are out but tonight they’ll come back on and Beauty will dance for the Beast and the acrobat will swing from the highest trapeze!
girl: Oh, don’t let’s ever go down from this high place.
ben [smiling strangely]: Maybe it won’t be necessary to.
girl: How can we avoid it?
ben: By going up.
girl: We can’t go up any further. We’re on the roof already.
ben: The roof! What roof! The roof is only the jumping-off place to a man with my ambitions.
[Sound: great laughter.]
girl [awed and frightened]: What’s that?
ben [awed but not frightened]: That? I don’t know. But I’ve heard that sound before.
[A clap of thunder is heard and a cloud of smoke rises. Mr. E appears on the roof. He wears his beautiful sky-blue robe sprinkled with cosmic symbols and in his hand he holds an enormous sparkler. Daylight has faded all of a sudden and the first few stars are beginning to emerge among the towers of stone. Mr. E’s beard flows purely and whitely in the freshening wind of a summer twilight. There is a faint and lovely strain of music from the turning spheres. The Girl clings timidly to Ben’s arm but Ben steps boldly forward.]
ben: Hello, Doc. How are yuh?
mr. e [deeply and graciously]: Hello, Murphy. How do you do, young lady?
girl [clinging to Ben’s arm]: We’re—we’re fine, I think.
mr. e: Ben Murphy!
ben: Yes, sir?
mr. e: Did I understand you to say that you are a man whose ambitions extend beyond the roof?
ben: That’s right, Doc.
mr. e: Very good, Murphy. You may be the man we’re looking for.
ben: For—what?
mr. e: Murphy, how would you like to undertake the colonization of a brand-new star?
[Pause—faint music is heard.]
girl [frightened]: Oh, Rabbit!
ben [intrepidly]: Which one is it, Doc?
mr. e: Why, that one, way up there. [He points with his sparkler.]
[Ben peers through his cupped hands.]
ben: Aw, that one, huh? Gosh, it sure is bright. It looks brand new.
mr. e: We just turned it out this morning. We call it World Number Two.
ben: Completely furnished?
mr. e: Everything that a man requires to live on.
girl: And a woman?
mr. e: Young lady, I am talking to Mr. Murphy.
girl: Oh, but you’re talking to me, Mr.—
mr. e: Mr. E is the name—Mr. E!
girl [agitated]: You see—see—see, Mr. E—we’re indissoluble partners, he and I!
ben: Since when?
girl: Yesterday—and always!
ben: I’ve got a wife.
mr. e: You did have a wife, Mr. Murphy. You wife has left you.
ben: I’m going to have a baby.
mr. e: Definitely, Mr. Murphy! You’re destined to be the father of untold millions.
ben: On that—new star?
mr. e: On that new star!
ben: Oh, then, then, —I—can’t be a bachelor, then!
girl: No! You see?
ben: Shhh! —Mr. E is talking!
mr. e: We have been thinking of trying out something new. Something that has only been tried so far in the vegetable kingdom. Our reason for this experiment is the rather sorry mess that having two sexes has made of things down here on World Number One.
ben: How’s that, Doc?
mr. e: I suppose you’ve heard of monosexual reproduction?
ben: Huh? —Yes—vaguely!
mr. e: One sex doing the whole thing all by itself!
ben: You mean—me? —Have babies?
mr. e: A man with your ambitions—why not, Mr. Murphy?
girl [alarmed]: Ohhhhhhhhhhh!
ben [terrified]: Noooooooooooo! No dice, Doc!
mr. e: What?
ben: I don’t like the idea. What do you think, Doc? Sex is pleasant, but is it necessary?
mr. e: Well, Murphy, it’s up to you.
ben: Me have babies? All by myself? That’s out! Sister, you’ve bought your ticket, she’s comin’ up there with me! —Or I don’t go!
girl [dancing with joy]: Hooray—!
ben: Come on, sweetheart! [He picks up the Girl.] How do we get there, Doc?
mr. e [moving his sparkler in a wide circle]:
Jack be nimble!
Jack be quick!
Jack jump over—
Arithmetic!
[There is a blinding flash. Thunder. Smoke clouds the stage. Great laughter. When the smoke clears away, Murphy and the Girl have disappeared. Mr. E stands alone on the rooftop and there is a faint whistling sound and a delicate far-away music of the spheres. Mr. E. looks up and his laughter dies slowly out. He raises an arm and slowly wipes off a tear on the edge of his starry sleeve.]
mr. e [to the audience]: What a fool I am. What a sentimental old fool I am. At last I come to the inescapable conclusion that I made a dreadful mistake when I created the race of man on earth. I decided to correct it by blotting the whole thing out. Good! —But what happens? My heavenly spyglass happens to fall on a little clerk named Murphy. No hero out of books, no genius, mind you, but just an ordinary little white-collar worker in a wholesale shirt corporation, a man whose earning capacity has never exceeded eighteen-fifty per week. At first I am only a little amused by his antics. Then I chuckle. Then I laugh out loud. Then all at once I find myself—weeping a little. [He blows his nose on a starry handkerchief.] This funny little clown of a man named Murphy has suddenly turned into the tragic protagonist of a play called “Human Courage.” Yes, the wonderful, pitiful, inextinguishable courage of the race of man—has played me for a sucker once again. In the middle of my laughter—I suddenly cry. What do I do? Rectify the mistake, as planned, by fire and everlasting damnation? No. Quite the contrary. Instead of exterminating the human race, I send it off to colonize a brand-new star in heaven. [He gazes raptly upward. His long beard flows in the wind. Music of the spheres is heard.] Ah, well, there’s no fool like an old fool, as they say— And I, by God, am the oldest fool of them all! [With gentle laughter he raises the sparkler and begins to describe a circle.]
Jack be nimble!
Jack be quick!
Jack jump over—
[Gum and the four stockholders suddenly burst out on to the roof.]
gum: Murphy! Murphy! Ben Murphy!
q [catching sight of Mr. E]: Hey, Grampa, have you seen Murphy?
mr. e [angrily]: Arithmetic!
[Flash of light. Thunder. Mr. E disappears in smoke. Distant band music. With an anxious outcry, Mr. Gum rushes back to the door.]
gum: P! D! Q! T! We’re being followed!
q: Who by?
gum: Everybody! They’re all on the stairs to the roof!
[The band is heard very distantly.]
q: Lock that door!
p: Hold it shut!
[They mass against the door to the roof.]
gum [assuming authority in the crisis]: Don’t try that. The jig is up. It’s too late now to try to obstruct their progress.
[The band music comes up.]
q [frightened]: What’ll we do?
gum: Smile, you sons of bitches! Act delighted. Play like this is what you always wanted!
[They all assume false smiles and line up in a welcoming attitude by the door as all the employees of Continental Branch of Consolidated Shirtmakers troop gaily out on the roof. They cast their ledgers, their papers and pencils away with joyful cries of freedom.]
employees [together]: We want Murphy, we want Murphy!
[Thunder.]
murphy [from a long way off]: Hello—good-bye, everybody!
[There are loud cheers. The band strikes up a stirring martial air. Heavenly days! Bells are ringing all over the whole creation! Roman candles and pinwheels are filling the pale blue dusk with the most outrageous drunken jubilation! What is it? The Millennium? —Possibly! Who knows?
Voices in the crowd repeat, “What is it? The Millennium?” “The Millennium” grows to a repeated murmur as the crowd looks upward to where Ben has disappeared. Perhaps a banner reading THE MILLENNIUM appears from that direction.]
the curtain falls
the end