by
James Shankman
copyright © 2001

Both are seniors in college when the play begins.

SCENE 1

TIME: 1973, an October afternoon
PLACE: A soft sandy beach on Cape Cod.
AT RISE: We hear the sounds of the seashore, including the breaking of waves, seabirds and a stiff breeze. As the sounds recede, a cold October sun reveals Cathy and Timmy downstage facing out toward the ocean. She is lightly dressed. She has a jacket around her waist. He is wearing a heavy sweater and a scarf around his neck. He has wrapped himself in a very large woolen blanket. He moves about fighting the cold. She stands entranced.

CATHY
Isn't it great?
TIMMY
Yeah. That wind is....
CATHY
Can you smell it? Do you smell that? It's wonderful
TIMMY
It's like a knife.
CATHY
Timmy.
TIMMY
Can't help it.
CATHY
(She offers him her jacket.)
Here, put this on.
TIMMY
You don't want it?
CATHY
No, I like it. Go ahead.
(He takes the jacket, slips it on beneath the blanket.)
TIMMY
Jesus. I can't believe we're doing this.
CATHY
Just give it a chance.
TIMMY
(He starts hopping up and down.)
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
(Cathy takes off her shoes.)
What are you doing? Seriously? You're taking off your shoes? Why are you taking off your shoes?
CATHY
The sand. Is warm.
TIMMY
Warm? It's warm?
CATHY
Try it. Go ahead. Just try it. I'm serious. You won't believe it. It feels like warm slippers.
TIMMY
It does not.
CATHY
It does. Try it. Please, you promised me. Just try it.
TIMMY
OK. (He sits and unlaces his boots.) I can't believe I'm taking off my clothes. Ancient seamen are rising from their watery graves to laugh at me. Look at me. What am I doing? (He has his shoes off.) Do I have to do this?
CATHY
No, you don't have to do this. I just thought maybe you would like it, if you would just let yourself try it. I'm not going to make you.
TIMMY
OK. (He whips off his socks.) OH. OH MY GOD. WHOA. Oh, oh.
(He jumps around, then digs his feet into the sand.)
Oh, jesus. Oh, that's better. Whoo-oo-oo-oo. I love it. It's great.
CATHY
Timmy.
TIMMY
No, it's ok. (Pause.) They're going numb, I think.
CATHY
It could be really wonderful if you give it a chance.
(A long pause. They stand. He digs his hands into his pockets and stiffens against the cold. She gives herself to the weather.)
It smells like the sea.
TIMMY
It is the sea. That's exactly what it is.
(Pause.)
Ok. Sorry. It smells like... old fishermen with grey beards.
CATHY
It does, doesn't it?
TIMMY
With huge hands.
CATHY
And ruddy cheeks.
TIMMY
Ahoy matey. Helms arudder, matey.
CATHY
Ahoy, captain.
TIMMY
Ahoy, the Peaquod.
CATHY
Ahoy, the lighthouse.
TIMMY
Aye, Aye there Quee Queg.
CATHY
Ahoy there, we're three sheets to the wind and hellbent for leather.
TIMMY
What?
CATHY
We're hellbent for leather and three sheets to the wind. Isn't it great? It's fantastic. You're not cold anymore, are you?
TIMMY
No.
(Pause. He is.)
CATHY
Ok, let's go back.
TIMMY
No.
CATHY
Yeah, come on. We'll go back. We’ll go home and study for midterms. You have a thirty page paper due. We leave now we can be back on campus by midnight.
TIMMY
We don’t have to.
CATHY
It's too cold.
TIMMY
It's not. Not yet, anyway.
CATHY
Well, there's no point starting something you're not going to finish.
TIMMY
Ok, it's not going to be. It's fine. Ok?
CATHY
Ok. It's just that I thought it would be real neat. It would mean something nice. But it won't work at all unless you want it to.
TIMMY
I do. I do.
CATHY
I can't get over that smell. I love it.
TIMMY
Yeah.
CATHY
If I ever thought I was gong insane, this is where I'd come. Right here. This would make me sane again. This place. The shoreline, it's so....
TIMMY
Yeah, it's....
CATHY
Like it beckons.
TIMMY
I don't know. It's kind of sinister to me. You know? Sunken ships. Dead sailors. I mean what a way to die, right? Freezing cold, exhausted, suffocating, choking, slipping beneath the waves, flailing about, trapped underwater. God, can you imagine?
CATHY
That really happened, didn't it?
TIMMY
Yeah.
CATHY
They must have really loved the sea.
TIMMY
Well, I mean, it was economics. You could starve on land, or you could seek your fortune and take a chance on drowning at sea. It's sociological.
CATHY
Who could?
TIMMY
The poor people. The peasants. The working class. They had no choice.
CATHY
I could be a sailor. A merchant marine. And marry a sea captain and live in a lighthouse.
TIMMY
Captains always go down with their ships.
CATHY
I'd have the sea to console me. I would.
TIMMY
I know you would.
CATHY
It's like a painting.
TIMMY
Are we really going to do this?
CATHY
Are you still cold?
TIMMY
Me? Yeah, I'm pretty cold.
CATHY
You want to go?
TIMMY
No, I just thought.... (He wraps himself around her.) This is how sailors conserve body heat. (He nuzzles her vigorously.) That guy at the desk, whoa, he caught me be by surprise.
CATHY
Me too.
TIMMY
I mean I think it's against the law if you use a false name, isn't it?
CATHY
I don't know.
TIMMY
He had no idea. I mean he didn't have the slightest idea.
CATHY
Where did you get that?
TIMMY
It suddenly occured to me if I didn't say we were married, he wasn't going to give us a cabin. I mean it never dawned on me, but it's like your typical capitalist, landbaron ploy, right? If I rule the land, I rule your morality.
CATHY
Mr. and Mrs. James Joyce. I love it.
TIMMY
He didn't have the slightest idea.
CATHY
Where did you get that?
TIMMY
Just popped into my head.
CATHY
You want to sit down?
TIMMY
Right here?
CATHY
Yeah, you want to?
TIMMY
OK. (They sit.) Oh god.
(He huddles with her for warmth, wraps blanket around them both.)
What if somebody comes along. We're right out here in the open. What if some cop comes walking down the beach?
CATHY
That's not going to happen.
TIMMY
It already happened.
CATHY
When?
TIMMY
Last spring? Right after we met? That time? I think someone was seriously drunk on Cuervo Gold perhaps. And someone else was a little bit stoned out of his mind. And someone took advantage of the situation.
CATHY
In the quad you mean? Under that tree? That was a total fluke.
TIMMY
One step further and it could have been pretty embarrassing.
CATHY
It wasn't so bad.
TIMMY
One step further and.... Hey, it's not so bad for you. You're just standing there smiling sweetly. I've got this potential problem poking up there going oh now excuse me Mr. Officer, sir, top o' the morning Mr. Security Guard. What am I doing out here? I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Oops!
CATHY
It was a total fluke.
TIMMY
It was not.
CATHY
They were looking for some burgler from some dorm.
TIMMY
There wasn't any burgler. They saw us through the foliage.
CATHY
There is no way they could have seen us under that tree at night if they weren't specifically looking for someone.
TIMMY
They saw us through the foliage and they thought well, we'll just have to take a look see at the action here, so they made up some dumb story. It was very nearly totally embarassing.
CATHY
Too bad they didn't wait a little bit longer. We could have really shown them something.
TIMMY
Yeah, no kidding.
CATHY
This isn't right. Come on.
TIMMY
No, stay.
CATHY
It isn't right. You have to want to.
TIMMY
I do want to. I just don't know if I can.
CATHY
Try.
TIMMY
No, I mean....
CATHY
What?
TIMMY
Have you ever seen a five year old's dinger?
CATHY
No, I have never seen a five year old’s dinger.
TIMMY
Well, it looks like a pencil stub. That's what the cold does to you. It turns it into a pencil stub.
CATHY
Come on. (She starts to spread the blanket on the sand.)
TIMMY
No, don't . It's so warm.
(He picks up the ends of the blanket and wraps them around them both as they sit on the blanket. They huddle together looking out at the sea.)
CATHY
Timmy?
TIMMY
Yeah?
CATHY
Are we getting old? We're not getting old, are we? Tell me we're not getting old.
TIMMY
I can't believe I'm twenty years old. I guess this means I'm going to keep getting older and older unitl one day I die.
CATHY
Are we old? I mean are we getting old?
TIMMY
No, we're not getting old yet. We're young. We're only twenty.
CATHY
That's still young, isn't it?
TIMMY
Yeah.
CATHY
I don't want to grow old.
TIMMY
Well.
CATHY
I would rather commit suicide.
TIMMY
I would rather grow old.
(Pause.)
CATHY
Come on down here.
(They lie down on the blanket in each other's arms. They roll the blank around themselves. They are bundled together. They lie like this a minute.)
TIMMY
Now what are we going to do?
CATHY
We'll figure something out. You have to be a little ingenious. (They shift around a bit.) Like that?
TIMMY
Oh. Oh god you're hands are cold. What was that?
CATHY
Where?
TIMMY
Somebody's coming.
CATHY
Where?
TIMMY
What if it's cop?
CATHY
So we're just lying here.
TIMMY
Yeah but what if he....
CATHY
Over there? That's a bird, Tim. It's some seabird.
TIMMY
It is?
CATHY
Yeah.
TIMMY
Jesus, it's huge. That is a big bird.
CATHY
You want to get on top or should I?
TIMMY
Hey, what if some eighty year old cape cod eccentric grandmother type comes walking down here with her ten year old granddaughter, one of those weird old beachcombers with the stupid straw hats and her granddaughter is like some emotionally withdrawn child, whose like stunted by her rich parents' inattention, and the old bat walks right up to us with her stainless steel clam digger, and she pokes us in the butt and tells us to get off this here beach which has been in her family since Christopher Columbus, and she starts screaming bloody murder, and the granddaughter starts crying, and we have to make a run for it with this blanket draped over us, and this crazy woman is chasing us dow the beach going "shameless hussy, nastly little baggage, beast, beast! Buffin, this man is a beast. They're all beasts!"
CATHY
Buffin? Her name is Buffin?
TIMMY
Yeah right, because her mother wanted to name her Muffin and her father was a Buffy Ste. Marie freak, like some SDS radical who sold out to a corporate law firm and made a fortune, and now they spend the whole summer in Newport dropping acid and partying away, and they have to send little Buffin to stay with her twisted grandmother on the Cape so she doesn't get wise to their dissipated, leisure class lifestyle. And from now on whenever poor little Buffin sees an erection, she's going to smell clamshells and start to cry. It's terrible. She'll have a lousy sex life for years until one day.... Jesus, Cathy, that bird is coming right at us.
CATHY
Don't move.
TIMMY
He's coming right up....
CATHY
Hold still. (Whispering.) Oh my god, he's beautiful. He's so gnarly.
TIMMY
(Also whispering.) He's a dirty old cus, isn't he?
CATHY
He's outrageous.
TIMMY
I'm eyeball to eyeball with an albatross.
CATHY
Timmy.
TIMMY
Maybe he's an undercover cop. Some of them are very clever at disguising themselves.
CATHY
Will you be still?
TIMMY
It's just some poor mangy overgrown seagull.
CATHY
He's probably starving and cold and very tired. But he gets to fly high over the sea and the shore, and he sees everything from way up where it's quiet. I would love to be a sea bird. They mate for life, don't they?
TIMMY
Some do. Others are hardcore loners, drifting in and out of relationships with no meaning, feeling nothing, experiencing none of the exhiliration of true love, seeking only the momentary high of intense sexual pleasure, finding only the emptiness on the other side of orgasm. And here. He. Comes. Yikes!!!
(The bird flies away. They each let out a sound of relief.)
CATHY
Oh my god.
TIMMY
Whoa, momma.
CATHY
That was incredible. He's beautiful. And so sad. What a hard life. He must be
lonely. (They lie still a moment in silence.) What's this?
TIMMY
Hey, what do you know. I wondered when you were going to notice.
CATHY
Here, try....
TIMMY
No, move your arm. Your other arm. It's....
CATHY
Wait. Wait, I can't....
TIMMY
Ow. Careful.
CATHY
Why don't you get....
TIMMY
Wait a sec. Wait a sec. Wait, please.
CATHY
Why don't we get on our sides? (They struggle a bit.)
TIMMY
Can we just lie here a moment. I'm exhausted.
(They lie huddled face to face. Silence. The lights dim for a moment. Sounds of the seashore rise then fade. Lights rise but not as brightly. They are still bundled together. They seem to have moved a bit. Timmy speaks in a drowsy half-whisper.)
Oh. Oh. This is, it's incredible. I'm floating. Oh, god I'm floating.
CATHY
(Gently.) Shhhhhhh.
TIMMY
Oh. I feel like I'm rocking up and down. Up and down. It's like a dream.
CATHY
Feels good?
TIMMY
Oh god, Cath. What are you? Are you a, you are, you're a witch. You're magic.
CATHY
Am I really?
TIMMY
Yes. Yes. Oh my god, yes.
CATHY
Shhhhh.
TIMMY
Shhhhhh. You can feel the sea. Shhhhhh. You're so warm. Oh god. It feels so
warm. It's rocking like a dream. Oh Cath. How do you know these things? You are amazing. You're amazing.
CATHY
See, I told you.
TIMMY
You're so amazing. How did you know?
CATHY
Shhhhhh.
TIMMY
Hold me. Hold me forever. Never let me go.
(Lights fade on the beach as the sounds of the sea rise and then diminish to reveal Debussy's Sonata in G Minor for Violin and Piano.)