Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Page #5

my chromosomological partnership...

...in the creation of our blond-eyed,

blue-haired son.

Oh, I'm so glad.

- That was a very pretty speech, George.

- Thank you, Martha.

You rose to the occasion good.

Real good.

- Well. Real well.

- Honey.

- Martha knows. Martha knows better.

- That's right.

I've been to college

like everybody else.

George, our son does not have blue hair.

Or blue eyes for that matter.

He has green eyes like me.

- Beautiful, beautiful green eyes.

- He has blue eyes, Martha.

- Green.

- Blue, Martha.

Green, you bastard.

Tut-tut-tut yourself, you old floozy.

He's not a floozy.

He can't be a floozy.

You're a floozy.

Now you just watch yourself.

All right.

I'd like another little nipper

of brandy, please.

- I think you've had enough.

- Nonsense.

- We're all ready, I think.

- Nonsense.

Okay.

George has watery blue eyes,

kind of milky-blue.

Make up your mind, Martha.

I was giving you the benefit of a doubt.

Daddy has green eyes too.

He does not. He has tiny red eyes.

Like a white mouse.

In fact, he is a white mouse.

You wouldn't dare say that if

he was here. You're a coward.

You know that great shock of white hair

and those beady red eyes?

A great big white mouse.

George hates Daddy. Not for anything

Daddy's done to him, but for his own...

Inadequacies?

That's right.

You hit it right on the snout.

Wanna know why the SOB

hates my father?

When George first came to the History

Department about 500 years ago...

...Daddy approved of him.

And do you wanna know what I did,

dumb cluck that I am?

I fell for him.

Oh, I like that.

Yes, she did. You should have seen it.

She'd sit outside my room at night on

the lawn and howl and claw at the turf.

I couldn't work, and so I married her.

I actually fell for him.

- It. That. There.

- Martha's a romantic at heart.

That I am.

I actually fell for him.

And the match seemed practical too.

For a while Daddy thought

George had the stuff to take over...

...when he was ready to retire.

We both thought that...

- Stop it, Martha.

- What do you want?

- I wouldn't go on if I were you.

- You wouldn't? Well, you're not.

You've already sprung a leak

about you-know-what.

- What? What?

- About the little bugger. Our son.

If you start in on this, I warn you...

- I stand warned.

- Do we have to go through all this?

So anyway, I married the SOB.

I had it all planned out.

First he'd take over

the History Department...

...then when Daddy retired,

the whole college.

That was the way it was supposed to be.

Getting angry, baby?

That was the way it was supposed to be.

All very simple.

Daddy thought it was a good idea too.

For a while.

Until he started watching

for a couple of years.

You getting angry?

Until he watched for a couple years...

...and started thinking maybe

it wasn't such a good idea after all.

That maybe Georgie-boy

didn't have the stuff.

That maybe he didn't have it in him.

- Stop it, Martha.

- Like hell, I will.

You see, George didn't have much push.

He wasn't particularly aggressive.

In fact, he was sort of a flop.

A great big, fat flop.

I said stop it, Martha.

I hope that was an empty bottle, George.

You can't afford to waste good liquor.

Not on your salary.

Not on an associate professor's salary.

So here I am, stuck with this flop...

...this bog in the History Department.

- Oh, go on, Martha.

Who's married

to the president's daughter.

Don't.

- Who's expected to be somebody.

- Who 's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

- A bookworm who's so complacent...

- Who 's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

...that he can't make anything

out of himself.

That doesn't have the guts

to make anybody proud of him!

- In the morning

Who 's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

- Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf?

- All right, George, stop it!

I'm gonna be sick. I'm gonna be sick.

Jesus.

She'll be all right.

I'll make some coffee.

- You sure?

- She'll be okay.

I'm really very sorry.

She really shouldn't drink. She's frail.

Slim-hipped, as you'd have it.

Where's my little yum-yum?

Where's Martha?

I think she's going to make some coffee.

She...

She gets sick quite easily.

Martha? No, she hasn't been sick

a day in her life.

Unless you count time

she spends in the rest home.

No, no. My wife.

My wife gets sick quite easily.

Your wife is Martha.

Why, yes.

I know.

She doesn't really spend any time

in a rest home?

Your wife?

No, yours.

Mine?

Oh, no. No, she...

She doesn't. I would.

I mean, if I...

If I were her... She.

- I would.

But then I'm not and so I don't.

I'd like to, though.

It gets pretty bouncy

around here sometimes.

Yes, I'm sure.

- Your wife throws up a lot, huh?

- I didn't say that.

I said she gets sick quite easily.

By "sick," I thought

that you meant she...

It's true, actually.

She does throw up a lot.

The word is "often."

Once she starts

there's practically no stopping. I mean...

...she'll go right on for hours.

Not all the time.

Regularly.

- You can tell time by her?

- Just about.

May I...?

Oh, sure.

I married her because she was pregnant.

But you said you didn't have

any children when I asked you.

She wasn't really. It was...

...a hysterical pregnancy.

She blew up and then she went down.

And when she was up, you married her?

Then she went down.

Bourbon.

Bourbon.

When I was 16...

...and going to prep school,

during the Punic Wars...

...a bunch of us used to go to town

the first day of vacation...

...before we fanned out to our homes.

And in the evening,

this bunch of us would go to a gin mill...

...owned by the gangster father

of one of us...

...and we would drink with the grownups

and listen to the jazz.

And one time, in the bunch of us...

...there was this boy who was 15...

...and he had killed his mother

with a shotgun some years before.

Accidentally. Completely accidentally...

...without even

an unconscious motivation...

...I have no doubt. No doubt at all.

And this one time,

this boy went with us...

...and we ordered our drinks.

And when it came his turn, he said:

"I'll have 'bergin.'

Give me some bergin, please.

Bergin and water."

We all laughed.

He was blond and he had the face

of a cherub, and we all laughed.

And his cheeks went red,

and the color rose in his neck.

The waiter told people

at the next table...

...what the boy had said

and they laughed...

...and then more people were told

and the laughter grew...

...and more people, and more laughter.

And no one was laughing more than us...

...and none of us more than

the boy who had shot his mother.

Soon everyone in the gin mill

knew what the laughter was about...

...and everyone started ordering bergin

and laughing when they ordered it.

Soon, of course,

the laughter became less general...

...but did not subside entirely

for a very long time.

For always at this table or that...

...someone would order bergin...

...and a whole new area

of laughter would rise.

We drank free that night.

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