Labor Day

Cast of Characters
Gerald: African American man, 23-year-old dance student in NYC. He is traveling and has happened upon the community Labor Day picnic of a little town in Ohio. He's wearing T-shirt, shorts, and athletic shoes.

Gerry: 39-year-old IT professional woman. Gerry has lived in this little town all her life. Gerry's casually dressed, but not for actual exercise. Maybe has a broad-brimmed straw hat at her side.

Scene: Labor Day Picnic in City Park, in the shade of a tree near the volleyball game.

[Lights Up. Sounds of volleyball game from off left. Gerry is sitting on a blanket, leaning against the tree, drinking a soda and reading a book. Gerry has a little drink cooler at her side—obviously planning to stay a while. Occasionally looking up to watch the game off left.

There's a masculine cry of pain, some Ooos and Ohs, the game stops. Gerry looks up at the first cry, puts down her drink, and watches attentively, then relaxes. Sounds of the game resume. She goes back to reading her book.

He limps on stage from left. Game sounds fade as the conversation starts.]

He: [flopping down at right angle to her, winces] Oh, Jeez. Mind if I share your tree?

Gerry: [Shifts away from him a little. Says nothing. A brief silence.]
He: [Looks at her to evaluate if Gerry's interruptible.] You from here?

Gerry: [Looks up questioning]

He: Not here, the park, I mean. Here, Emmitt, Ohio.

Gerry: Yes. And from your question, I deduce you are not.

He: You deduce correctly.

Gerry: [Nods. Returns to her book.]

He: [Wiping sweat from brow and neck on his T-shirt] This is nice, though, a little Labor Day celebration, the whole town turns out. I've been in school—never see little kids for months at a time. Didn't know I missed them.

Gerry: [Without looking up] Hm.

He: They sure are short.

Gerry: [Puts book down.] You're long on conversation. Would you like a frosty cold Mountain Dew?

He: Oh, yes, please. [Gerry hands him one from cooler] Caffeine choice of champions… Thank you!

Gerry: A professional hazard… [Offers her hand] I'm Gerry.

He: Funny! [Shakes] I'm Gerald.

Gerry: So, Gerald, how's your ankle?

He: [briefly places cold can against ankle, wiggles ankle] That'll heal by next week.

Gerry: What's next week?

He: Back to school.

Gerry: Yes, a guy with a limp doesn't really attract the women -- until he's old and grizzled. Then it's a little like a dueling scar, can work for you.

He: Huh. Never thought of it like that. Actually, I'm studying dance at NYU, so it would be a serious problem.

Gerry: Oh, a dancer. I should have realized. I think that was a pirouette you were executing when you went down?

He: (It almost executed me.) And—let me guess—you're a… librarian—No!—an English teacher.

Gerry: IT for the community college. But I write a little as a hobby…

He: [Reaches across her to pick up her book, playfully] And what's this you're …

Gerry: [Grabs it from him and tries put it out of his reach, embarrassed] Never you mind… That's …

He: [snatches it from her grip and reads the cover] Love's Savage Rebellion. Whoa, cover art of white woman in clingy nightie clinging to Native-American-looking man with long hard …knife at his hip…

Gerry: [Taking the book back] It's escape literature.

He: [Sighs] Yeah, I guess everyone's got something to escape. If I was a geek working for the community college, I'd want to escape, too. [He rises on his one good leg, performs a little dance to Escape, on one foot, returns gracefully to his spot by the tree.]

Gerry: [ Brief applause] Is that why you're in Emmitt, Ohio? You escaping [flaps her arms in teasing imitation of his dance] something?

He: No-- [Booming of cannon offstage]

Gerry: What? [More cannon fire off]

He: Nice, peaceful little town, Emmitt, Ohio. Let's see, it's Labor Day, so the cannon is for…?

Gerry: They shoot it off at any excuse. The Boy Scouts love it.

He: They let little kids shoot it off?

Gerry: The Cub Scouts used to do it, but somebody suggested maybe they were too young to be playing with live explosives.

He: So they took it out of the hands of the 8-year olds and handed it off to the 12 year olds?

Gerry: [sardonically] We're very safety-conscious here with our youth.

He: [Brief silence while they contemplate the safety of youth. Gerry offers him another Mountain Dew, which he accepts, raises in silent toast] Any kids?

Gerry: [Hesitates, confused about something, then jokes] No, thanks, I've had enough. You?

He: What, me?

Gerry: [Shrugs] You could have mis-spent your youth.

He: Instead of shooting off artillery in Emmitt, Ohio, like a good boy?

Gerry: [a tad bitter] Even a Boy Scout in Emmitt, Ohio, can mis-spend his youth

He: [kind of keeping tabs on her out of the corner of his eye—he is suspecting Gerry has a story and is working on getting her to dump it] High school is hard an everyone. Everyone. [Again he rises on his one good leg and dances, this time to the Agony of Adolescence. Limps back to the tree and flops down]

Gerry: [Adroitly shifting the conversation back to his life] It must have been hard for a good boy who wanted to dance when he grew up.

He: Nah.

Gerry: No?

He: I was on the track team. They have to catch you to kick your ass!

Gerry: Good to know things haven't changed.

He: And what about the good girls at Emmitt High School?

Gerry: [Looking away] Yeah, I wouldn't know.

He: [Looking inquiringly]

Gerry: [Resigning herself to telling the story] I got pregnant. [Standing, swinging her arms, pacing a bit]

He: Mm. One little slip—

Gerry: --Twice.

He: [Smiling] Hard-headed, eh?

Gerry: Ha! Not one, but two failures of the diaphragm. I swear on my mother's grave, if I find the guy who sold me that thing…

He: Oh, wow. [Another thought strikes him] OH, oh, wow.

Gerry: [Too wrapped up in her story to notice] Turns out, my mother got me courtesy of a diaphragm. Two generations--Maybe three. It's not the kind of question you ask your grandmother.

He: Hell, no. So, what did you do?

Gerry: I put the second child –a boy—up for adoption. [Sits back down under the tree. Poping open another Mountain Dew]

He: A boy, huh?

Gerry: Mm hm.

He: Hardest thing you ever did?

Gerry: Well, up to that point. I had kept the first one, see. [Wistfully] A beautiful girl, a wonderful girl. She was sociable, thoughtful, verbal, creative, funny. I didn't think I could raise two kids on part-time work and go to school. [A little apologetically:] She died in a swimming accident.

He: Oh, I'm sorry.

Gerry: Yeah, so… So the hardest thing I ever did was survive that. Sort of.

He: [Nodding] Sort of... You know they have these web sites now where parents who have given up kids for adoption can register and… [He rises, limps, pacing back and forth]

Gerry: [Sarcastically] Yes, Gerald, in IT, we have heard of such wonders.

He: Because your little boy might be looking for his mom.

Gerry: Gerald. It's not something you do lightly.

He: [Daring to hope. Drops to his hands and knees] What year did you have that little boy?

Gerry: Why?

He: Well, I mean, was he—was your boyfriend—

Gerry: What do you mean?

He: [Crawling toward her on all fours] Gerry, what do you think I'm doing in Emmitt, Flyspeck, Ohio?

Gerry: Visiting stations on the Underground Railway? Research for a blog on the most boring places in America? I have no idea.

He: [Now on his knees] I'm looking for where I was born. Maybe going to look up my birth mother.

Gerry: In Emmitt?

He: Well, I know I was born at Memorial Hospital down the road there in Josephstown… And my mom—my adoptive mom—said my birth mom's name was… Gerry…

Gerry: [Mildly interested in the coincidence] No shit?

He: No shit. [Waits] But… your boy wasn't Black, was he?

Gerry: No.

He: Not even a little…?

Gerry: [Touching his shoulder] Oh, God, I'm sorry, Gerald, no.

He: [Head to ground, covering his head with his hands] OK, I feel silly.

Gerry: At least you have the courage to hope. At least you're trying to find out.

He: [Stands, does a little dance on one foot to Hope] Gerry, suppose he is looking for you?

Gerry: [Stands, mimics his gestures] Ok, Gerald. I'm supposing. Sort of. [Stops moving.] Gerald, suppose he died in a swimming accident?

He: [His dance deflates, then flutters back to life] Fat chance, Gerry.

Gerry: [mimicking his gestures again] Or a car accident.

He: [His dance deflates again, then again flutters back to life] Nah.

Gerry: [Refusing to follow along] You have no idea how many bad things can happen to a kid.

He: [Facing her] You have no idea how many kids make it to adulthood! Look, I did. Somebody put me up for adoption, and, look! I'm fine—other than the purely temporary ankle problem... I'm even happy. Gerry, sometimes things do work out.

Gerry: [Suddenly something in the distance, left, catches her attention] Gerald!

He: Gerry?

Gerry: That's the hot dog cart. Come on! I'll treat you to a genuine Labor Day dinner in Emmitt, Ohio. [They exit left]

[Lights down and End of Act]

The Black Gown

The long, satiny black dress is cut on the bias. It fits…it fits the way it's supposed to, revealing the chest between my small, well-shaped breasts. Even lower in the back, but you can't see that in the photo. There are several shiny necklaces around my young neck and a bracelet on each wrist. There's a dangly earring on each ear—clip-ons—partly obscured by the corkscrew curls a cast member has created at each of my temples. My glossy dark hair is parted, pulled back in some kind of a bun. I'm wearing makeup, also courtesy of the young woman who did my hair. I loved her looking intently at my face and her gentle touch as she applied the make-up. In the photo I give the camera a baleful look, standing with one hand on my hip and the other bent up and touching my bare shoulder. The stance and the baleful look are all my mother's. The strange cocked position of my arm is hers, as well, one she adopted after she cut the arteries, tendons and nerves in her wrist on a broken window. To me it reads sexy. The hint of wariness in my eyes and reserve on my mouth is all me, though.

My arms are buff—a term we aren't anywhere near using in 1970, when the Hunterdon Repertory Company puts on Dracula. At 16, I've been carrying two buckets of water up the slope from the well to my horse twice a day for several years already, and at this point I am also taking a night school fencing class. It has occurred to me that I will most likely not have a man protecting me once I leave for college, and I've started running the perimeter of the fallow field behind our house, because, as I've articulated it, I may have to run someday.

There is a women's liberation movement starting and a gay liberation movement as well. This is not an historical note, but a matter of desperate importance to me. I hear about women's liberation and gay liberation from the TV news that reaches central New Jersey from New York. I've been to the libraries, both Flemington's and Hunterdon County's, to search for books on feminism, but all I found was Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. The disappointment I felt was like dry bone meal in my mouth.

The real capital of New Jersey is not Trenton, but New York City. The rest of New Jersey is decentralized, a backwater. Nobody goes from Flemington to New York except on school field trips, as far as I know. New York might as well be a foreign country. Dracula will be interesting for me. An ancient actress who belongs to the Company speaks with a whisky voice, and smokes Tiparillos. She, it is said, is a lesbian. I seldom see her, and I don't know why she's hanging around the women's dressing room on opening night, but that night she growls to me, "Knock 'em dead." And then there's Berta, who plays Mina, Dracula's second victim. Her husband is the dentist who has crafted Dracula's fangs. Between the fangs and the thick Transylvanian accent, Dracula is barely intelligible at times. But Berta, his stage lover, is perfect. Delicate, slim, dark, and a good actress. Years later, when I return to New Jersey from college on Christmas vacation, my mother will tell me that Berta has left the dentist and run away with a woman to Florida. "She's a homosexual" my mother pronounces carefully. I pretend indifference. Anyway, the romance is short-lived and she straggles back after a while.

Just as interesting are the dreams all the female cast members have of being attacked by a vampire. My part in the play is not exactly cast. The director has decided to do live ads instead of a program. It's a clever idea, giving more people a chance to be involved in the production and saving printing costs. I'm one or two of the commercials. She's also got the blood bank parked outside taking blood—a nice tie-in. We are blessed on opening night by the appearance of the theater bat—or if not, it becomes theater lore anyway. I never see it.

In 1970, it's not de rigueur for kids to run like crazy from one activity to another, and the Repertory Company is a rare social opportunity for me. The 4-H horse club. That's about it until next year, my senior year, when I'll take Russian and join the Russian Club. I love the theater group. I get to hang out with adults and some other teenagers. I've had a stagecraft class in high school, so I know as much about that as a lot of the adults. Early in my involvement with the theater group, I actually went on some dates with the son of one of the directors.

My mother and my brother have both had major roles in Hunterdon Repertory productions. They run pretty hot-blooded. My father and I are cooler. He takes pictures of rehearsals. He took this picture of me. This live commercial for Bram Stoker's Dracula will be my only appearance on the stage of the Clinton Theater. The high point of my involvement there will be in a later production, Once Upon a Mattress. I will have a hand in designing the set and crafting props. It's a marvelous production with fine actors, music, comic dancing, colorful costumes and a set so encrusted with gold glitter that it swirls around on the stage as the actors move, interfering with their contact lenses, and looking positively magical from the audience.

My closest friend is Debbi. She comes to a Dracula rehearsal and sits in the seats with me coloring drops of blood on the play's posters with red magic marker. I am in love with Debbi, who shows every sign of being heterosexual. She dates a football player named Hans, who turns up in one of my fencing classes. She complains in a general way about boys wanting to handle her. I dream nightly about "handling" her. I have been working assiduously since I was 13 not to touch her, not to tell her I love her. I have developed very good self-control.

The sophisticated black gown is a costume. The teenager is wary and reserved.