The Books: “the dreamer examines his pillow” (John Patrick Shanley)

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:

Next play on the script shelf:

More John Patrick Shanley! The next play in the collection is the dreamer examines his pillow.

First of all, I just love that title.

And the play itself – so rich, so weird, so deep … I’ve read it about 10 times and I still can’t really picture it, how it should be done, how it should be played … It is not a realistic play, and yet it has a realistic surface. Fascinating – I know many Shanley fans who call dreamer examines his pillow their favorite of his plays.

It’s a three-scene play – about 30 pages long. There are three characters – Tommy, Donna, and Dad. Tommy and Donna once had a torrid love affair. Well – not torrid. Let’s just call it volatile. Addictive. Painful. Beautiful. Tommy has now broken off with Donna, and is going out with her 16 year old sister Mona. Not only that but he robbed his mother of money, and is living in a filthy apartment, and appears to be losing his mind. The play opens with Donna coming over to confront him about this. They have a long tormented scene, with Donna asking him why why why, and Tommy fighting back … Occasionally they can’t help themselves and they fall into a torrid embrace … Donna eventually storms out.

The next scene is Donna going to confront her father, who was not a very good father – cheated on her mother, etc. etc. But she goes there to ask for his aid in dealing with the situation. What should be done about Mona seeing a 27 year old guy? On a deeper level, though, she’s going to her father to ask him why men are the way they are, and what she should do about being in love with Tommy. The scene between Donna and the father is so wonderful – and that will be what I excerpt from.

EXCERPT FROM the dreamer examines his pillow, by John Patrick Shanley

DONNA. Dad. Somethin’s happened to me. It’s made me have a lotta ideas. And I’m very upset. About it. And it’s got to do with you.

DAD. How?

DONNA. Well, inna couple a ways. There’s this guy. His name is Tommy. I’m in love with him.

DAD. So go kiss him or somethin.

DONNA. He’s hurtin me. A lot.

DAD. So then go talk to him.

DONNA. I just did that. Listen. He … Well, he’s been foolin with Mona, too.

DAD. He’s seein you an Mona?

DONNA. Yeah.

DAD. My, my, my.

DONNA. He’s all fucked up. He’s stealin now. He looks like shit. But all that I can deal with. Even the Mona thing, I think. But this is the thing. In the whole way that this has come down, I thought I knew what I was doin. The me part of it. Till today. Another like level came into it. I always heard that girls went after guys who reminded em of their fathers. An I guess I kinda believed that idea or was spooked by it at least, so … I’ve always made double goddamn sure never ta go near any guy I thought was like you, because then I’d turn into my mother, right? A thought that makes me think a the phrase, Fate Worse Than Death. Anyways, I always steered clear of this certain kinda guy for that reason. Like this guy Tommy. I’m like absolutely sure he’s totally different than you. And then today, I go to him, inta this pit where he’s livin, and up on the wall is a painting a drawing he did.

DAD. This guy your seein?

DONNA. An Mona. A really lousy picture, self-picture. But it scared me. I think more than anything that’s ever happened to me. I heard the fuckin Twilight Zone music. Cause here I am, goin along, thinkin things are one way, that I’m choosin an goin my own way, an maybe doin a terrible fuckin botch a that, but doin it. An then I see this picture. And I think, Do I really know what’s goin on in my life? Or am I just a complete molecule or some shit. If this guy Tommy is turnin into you, then I’m in some kinda car I don’t even know I’m in, and some guy inna scary mask is drivin, an he’s had the route the map since the doctor smacked my ass. Where am I? I’m in love with this guy Tommy. He’s drivin me crazy, yeah. He’s tearin my heart out an steppin on it, yes. The whole thing I’m doin looks to be a total fuckup, but I can deal with that I can live with that. But what I wanna know gotta know is IS THIS MY LIFE OR WHAT? Is this my pain? My love? Or if what’s goin on here like history? You treated my mother like shit. You cheated on her. You lied to her. You humiliated her in public. When you had money, you wouldn’t give her any. When she had money, you took it. You walked on her face with muddy shoes. When she was in the hospital, you didn’t visit her. And then finally she just fuckin died. Now I hate your fuckin guts for that, but I decided a long time since that I wasn’t gonna spend my whole life wishin you dead or different, cause I didn’t want my life bossed by your life. I even thought, Maybe she deserved it. I knew I didn’t know the whole story and never would an what was it my business anyway? But that was before. Today, I saw that picture on Tommy’s wall, an it was writin on the wall to me, an the writin said, Watch Out. You could be in the middle of somebody else’s life. So that’s why I’m here. Because before I thought I didn’t have to know about you to do my life, and now I see I better find out a few things. It’s like medical history.

DAD. What bullshit.

DONNA. That’s what you say when I pour out my heart to you?

DAD. I’m sorry. What you’re afraid of just cracks me up, that’s all.

DONNA. I don’t understand.

DAD. Alright, you want your father’s smarts, I’ll give you your father’s smarts. What you have are women fears.

DONNA. Women fears.

DAD. That’s right.

DONNA. I hate what I’m hearin.

DAD. Well, tough shit. You got women fears. That’s what I know and I’m tellin you. When I talk to a woman, I feel like I’m yellin across the Indian Ocean. That’s cause I’m a man. Do you wanna hear this or not?

DONNA. Yes.

DAD. Women are very concerned about bein trapped. All women, or virtually, anyway. They worry about it, that’s been my experience. So what they do, a lot of em, to feel strong, they trap a man. They trap some guy in their dream. And then they feel trapped cause they gotta guard what they caught. At least let me say, this is what happened with me an your mother. But there’s a certain universal here.

DONNA. And men don’t feel that?

DAD. What happens with men is a little different. I think that men recognize or make up that they are trapped, already, an what they do is, the man feeling is, they long to be free. Of mother, wife, job, art, whatever.

DONNA. Do you hear yourself? You sound like a total jerk. This stuff you’re sayin can be knocked down by a three-year-old with a feather.

DAD. So what? I’m tryin to tell you somethin to get somewhere, somewhere maybe you’d like to get to. Don’t think you can get everywhere by algebra, honey. Things ain’t that straight. Life ain’t at all like the psychological section in the New York Times three-warning-signs-to-look-for bullshit. Things ain’t like that at all. If somebody’s willin to talk to you an tell you shit they think is true, don’t be so quick to knock it. People don’t usually part with the weird shit they personally know because theyh know how easy it will be to punch holes in. Now I’m tellin you somethin. It’s for you to poke through the soup an find the meat. So listen up. There’s a level where you fear an want that’s a woman level. This shit you just told me about bein afraid you’re turnin inta your mother, that’s on the woman level, that’s a women fear. So my suggestion about that is, you go talk to a woman about that. But there’s another place under that place, where men an women can meet an talk, if you know what I mean. It’s way down. An it’s dark. An it’s old as the motherfuckin stars. If you want somethin from me, or if you wanna tell me somethin, that’s where we’re gonna haveta be.

[A long pause]

DONNA. Alright. [a long pause] Tommy an me … When he loves me. In bed. When he puts his arms around me, and I can feel his skin, his heart beating, his breath, and I smell him, it’s like Africa. It’s like, I get scared because all of my guts shake … Sometimes I press my hands against myself because I think things are coming loose inside. He just touches me, starts to barely touch me, and I’m so frightened because it’s so much, it’s so hot, it’s so close to losing my mind. It’s beyond pleasure. It’s … he takes me over. Like there’s a storm, I get caught in this storm with electricity and rain and noise and I’m blind I’m blind. I’m seeing things, but just wild, wild shapes flying by like white flyin rain and black shapes. I feel I feel this this rising thing like a yell a flame. My hair I can feel my hair like slowly going up on its toes on my skull my skull. Everything goes up through me from my belly and legs and feet to my head and all these tears come out but it can’t get out that way, so it goes down against my throat swells an through down to where it can get out GET OUT GET OUT. But it doesn’t go out, so I, I EXPAND. Like to an ocean. To hold the size of it. An then it’s maybe something you could speak of as pleasure, since then somehow I can hold it. I’m this ocean with a thousand moons and comets reflecting in me. And then I come back. Slowly. Slowly. From such a long way. And such a different size. And I’m wet. My body my hair. The bed is just soaked, torn up and soaked. There ain’t a muscle left in me. I’m all eyes. My eyes are the size of like two black pools of water in the middle of an endless night. And Tommy’s there. And he did it to me. He took me completely. I wasn’t me anymore. I was just a blast a light out in the stars. What could be better than that? What could be better? It’s like gettin to die, an get past death, to get to the universe, an then come back. In the world where we talk and fight and he fucks me over, it all just seems so unimportant after that. I don’t understand how he can do that for me an then turn around an be such a, well, smaller. It is a small world this world, in comparison to where we go in bed. And I guess we gotta be smaller in it.

DAD. What are you tryin to tell me, Donna?

DONNA. I’m afraid.

DAD. Of what?

DONNA. I’m afraid to leave him or that he’ll leave me. I’m afraid to be without the sex we get to. Everything else seems like nothin next to it. But I can’t give up who I am to be his love slave. That’s what I’m afraid of. That I’ll lose myself if I stay with him, and that I’ll lose the sex if I get away.

DAD. I’ve felt that.

DONNA. You have?

DAD. Yeah.

DONNA. But that seems like a woman thing to me.

DAD. Nope. Men have that too. It’s a very down thing. It’s very near the bottom.

DONNA. In one way, he don’t know a thing about me, not really. And in another way, what he knows is the key that lets me outta my life. It’s like what he don’t know about me is exactly what I don’t care about anyway.

DAD. Yeah.

DONNA. You’ve really had this?

DAD. Oh yeah. I had this with your mother. It’s why I always kept a girlfriend on the side. I hadda keep somethin away from her, so I didn’t lose everything when we went nuts in bed. And too, because I wanted to protect what we had in bed by havin somethin else goin that was not that intense. Sort’ve a comparison, a reminder. Somethin common to underline the extraordinary. Your mother was the love of my life.

DONNA. But if that’s true, how the fuck could you treat her like you did?

DAD. That bed was what we had. When I got outta that bed, I didn’t walk, I ran. When I got outta that bed the most important thing was that my feet hit the ground, found the fuckin ground. Do you understand? If there was gonna be anything else a me outside a that bed, it hadda be without her. Otherwise, she woulda taken me over all the way. I hadda create a second place in me and outta me where I could work. Do my painting. I got the studio. I got the girlfriend. WHY DO YOU REMIND ME OF THESE THINGS? It’s so fuckin painful. Your mother’s dead. My baby’s dead.

DONNA. I can’t believe this. You mean, you really loved her?

DAD. Shut up shut up. Can’t you understand? All I have now is that little bit I kept from her. That little room. I can’t even paint anymore. Why would I want to? What do I care what I see, why would I describe it? I hid a part a me from her to save somethin cause I was scared. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I shoulda given her that, too. If I’d given her everything, then when she died, I woulda died, too, and that woulda been the merciful end of it. Why did I save something? What for? It wasn’t worth it. What I saved wasn’t worth a goddamn thing. If I only known.

DONNA. I’m here.

DAD. I can’t stand the sight a you. You remind me just enough ta make it unbearable. At least Mona don’t look like her. You. Sometimes, the way you … Sometimes you could be her. But you’re not. Sure I treated her like shit. I was so angry cause she had so much a me. I thought it was too much to let somebody have. And when she was dyin in the hospital, sure I didn’t go an see her. I couldn’t bear it. Don’t you get it? I just couldn’t bear to watch her leave me. You come here to tell me things you think I don’t understand. So maybe you were right. Maybe you are turnin inta your mother. And maybe this guy Tommy is turnin inta me. I don’t know. But the big news is you don’t know who those people are. I promise you.

DONNA. You never told me.

DAD. It just woulda sounded like an apology for abuse.

DONNA. All my memories seem wrong now.

DAD. Good. Maybe now then you can remember a few things.

DONNA. Who am I?

DAD. Don’t worry about it. I think you worry too much.

DONNA. I love this guy.

DAD. Come here, baby. I hate the sight a you, but let me hold you in my arms.

[He holds her]

DONNA. I don’t see any future for me.

DAD. Good.

DONNA. It’s not good.

DAD. You can’t see the future anyway. It’s a very realistic feelin you’re havin.

DONNA. Can I move back home?

DAD. No.

DONNA. I want to.

DAD. You probably feel like suckin your thumb, too. But there’s a time an place, an that an place called home is gone now.

DONNA. What am I gonna do?

DAD. Well, that’s a question. You could run away to the circus.

DONNA. This is the fuckin circus.

DAD. You wanna grapple an go inna single direction and stick with it, ride it out inna straight line right to heaven, the grave or whatever?

DONNA. Yes.

DAD. There’s only one thing that goes straight, my baby, and it’s not love. It is not love. You can chase that one forever, it won’t come to you. It won’t bow, it won’t serve, it won’t do what you want, what it should, it won’t be how you thought, or was taught how it was meant ta be. You can’t lead it cause it’ll be draggin you wherever it wants. If you wanna go inna straight line, give up people. People are what zigzag. I’d rather predict the weather three months in advance, my sweet girl, than try to tell you one thing about the future of the dullest heart.