by Larry Kraft
Cast of Characters
PHILLIP REYNOLDS
male, early 30s, attendee at 10-year college reunion
SARAH
female, same age, another attendee at reunion
PAUL
Sarah’s husband, same age, another attendee
BARTENDER
College student
Time
1980
Place
A bar near a college campus
Scene
The bar of an off-campus restaurant. A banner hanging on the wall reads Welcome Class of 1970, and another smaller one says 10 Years Strong. There is one couple sitting at the bar. Their name tags read Sarah and Paul. They are trim, fit, dressed to impress and appear to be in their early thirties.
Phillip Reynolds enters and walks to the bar. He is tall, wears wire-rim glasses and has a full head of blond hair. He also appears to be in his early thirties. He is wearing a long-sleeved black tee shirt under a corduroy sports jacket. He sits to the left of the couple, leaving two open seats between himself and the man. They do not acknowledge him. Bartender, who has been conversing with the couple, takes a step toward Phillip.
BARTENDER
Good evening, sir. What can I do for you?
PHILLIP
Leans forward.
What did you have in mind?
BARTENDER
Taken aback.
Excuse me?
PHILLIP
It’s a line from the movie “Harvey.”
BARTENDER
Ah, I see. So, you were in the Arts College then.
PHILLIP
Guilty as charged. And like Elwood P. Dowd, who spoke that line several times in the movie, I will have a martini. But just one.
Smiles.
Harvey is on the wagon.
Phillip folds his hands on the bar and looks forward.
Bartender prepares drink and places it in front of Phillip.
BARTENDER
Enjoy.
PHILLIP
That will do just fine. Thank you.
Phillip looks at the martini with obvious appreciation. He takes a sip.
BARTENDER
I guess you are skipping the special panel discussion. That is where most of your classmates are. Some professors who taught here in the late sixties are telling their stories.
PHILLIP
For me, college professors were people who talked in my sleep.
BARTENDER
That sounds familiar. Did you—
PHILLIP
Interrupts.
Why is it called a re-union anyway?
Points to banner.
That presumes we had union—a joining together if you will—in the first place. And that we are having it again. Neither is true. A fallacy that even an undergraduate such as yourself can see.
BARTENDER
First of all, I am a graduate student. Engineering. So, I wouldn’t know a fallacy from a falafel.
Phillip raises his glass to Bartender.
PHILLIP
I stand corrected and . . .
Gestures to himself.
. . . I sit humbled. I tended bar myself for a while after graduation. I respect your work.
Bartender nods and walks past the couple to the end of bar where he opens a book.
PAUL
To Sarah.
I’ve got to use the bathroom. I will be right back.
He stands and leaves.
Sarah looks across the empty bar stools toward Phillip. He looks back at her.
SARAH
You are not wearing a name tag, I see.
PHILLIP
Scoffs.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom. Even a dead fish can go with the flow. At least those tags . . .
Point at hers and reads her name.
. . . Sarah, do not have “Hello, my name is” on them.
Sarah moves over to the stool next to Phillip.
SARAH
Leans forward toward Phillip.
I wasn’t sure until I heard you talk. Do you remember me?
Not coyly. Not seductively. But plainly, in a level tone.
PHILLIP
Without hesitation.
Of course. A starry-eyed idealist never forgets someone who has made a difference in his life . . .
Pauses.
. . . changed his life really.
SARAH
Face lights up.
I am impressed.
PHILLIP
You know . . .
Leans forward even closer to her.
. . . during that short conversation on the quad, when you put me in my place and sent me on my way, all I wanted to do was kiss you. But I did not know how.
SARAH
Don’t be silly.
PHILLIP
With false bravado.
You may have dismissed a boy then, but you are facing a man now.
Sarah leans back and arches her eyebrow.
PHILLIP
I am not that awkward college sophomore anymore.
Playfully.
So, perhaps I should address that situation, here and now.
Phillip leans toward her, his lips leading him closer to hers. But before he gets halfway to his intended target, she raises her hand to her mouth. Her left hand. The one with the sparkling diamond ring on her finger.
PHILLIP
Alrighty then.
Phillip leans back and takes a sip of his drink.
Paul returns, picks up his drink, and stands between them.
PAUL
Suspiciously.
Am I interrupting something?
Phillip sits up straight and looks directly at Paul, making no move to offer his hand.
PHILLIP
Your wife and I had a brief encounter, a conversation really, while we were both in college here. What she said to me then made me examine who I was and where I was going. I have never forgotten her or what she said, so when I recognized her after all these years, I was caught off guard. Nonplussed, if you will.
PAUL
Doubtfully.
You had a conversation.
PHILLIP
I was pretty full of myself back then. Change the world, that kind of thing. For me, she was a person of interest. For her …
Looks at Sarah.
. . . I was merely a curiosity, someone who amused her for a few brief moments.
Sarah has not acknowledged Paul since he returned. She continues looking at Phillip, eyes wide and unblinking, as if she is studying him.
PAUL
Sounds like a pretty important conversation. But it looked to me like you were going to kiss my wife.
PHILLIP
To Paul.
Yes, it was important, that conversation I mean. At least to me.
Dismissively.
My interaction with her here tonight is just one of many friendly greetings with fellow alums.
PAUL
Yeah, well, I’m not so sure.
Phillip raises his hand as if to say this is over.
PHILLIP
Not to worry.
He glances at Bartender to let him know he is leaving. He stands and puts a bill on the bar.
PHILLIP
I am going to check out that panel.
To Sarah, who continues to stare at him.
It was nice seeing you again.
He touches her elbow as he walks past her.
Paul looks at Sarah.
PAUL
Interesting guy. Did you notice that he wasn’t wearing a name tag?
Paul finishes his drink, the ice rattling in the glass, and asks Bartender for another.
Later that evening.
Phillip is the only person at the bar. He is sitting in the same seat with his hands folded in front of him. Bartender is preparing a drink.
PHILLIP
You know how I quoted Elwood P. Dowd when I came in earlier.
BARTENDER
Yes, sir, I remember.
PHILLIP
Well, Dowd also said “In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.”
Bartender places a drink in front of Phillip.
PHILLIP
Me? I stayed with the former.
BARTENDER
So, do you think you made the right decision?
PHILLIP
I do not think that I had a choice.
He takes a sip of his drink.
Sarah enters and walks to the bar and stands next to Phillip.
SARAH
Drinking alone?
PHILLIP
Looks straight ahead.
My usual response to that question is “Preferably.”
Turns to Sarah.
But in your case, I will make an exception.
Phillip nods to the open stool next to him and Sarah sits down.
PHILLIP
What’ll you have?
SARAH
A conversation with you if that is okay.
Bartender acknowledges Sarah and then sits at seat at end of bar and opens a book.
PHILLIP
Alrighty then.
SARAH
Paul had a meeting so I told him I would meet him here.
PHILLIP
A conversation about what?
SARAH
I want to know if you really believe your account of our short walk together one spring evening on campus.
PHILLIP
Was it spring?
SARAH
See? That’s just it. You do not even remember the time of year.
Phillip takes a sip of his drink.
SARAH
How did we get on the quad? What did we do after our conversation? I am guessing that you did not even know my name tonight until you read it on my name tag.
She removes her name tag and puts it on the bar.
SARAH
So maybe you should revise your opinion of these harmless little conversation starters.
PHILLIP
Stiffly.
I do know a lot about a lot of things. But you are right, your name was not among them.
Looks at her name tag.
Until recently.
SARAH
But you do remember our conversation. Very specifically, too.
PHILLIP
True.
SARAH
I know that you remember what I said to you that day, but do you remember what you said?
He looks at her without speaking.
SARAH
Continuing.
You said that crossing the line or going over the line was not a concern to you.
PHILLIP
I am not surprised. It is the way I talked back then.
Pauses to remember.
I repeated words that I had read, as if something that is written should be taken as true.
SARAH
And now?
PHILLIP
Now.
Pauses.
I would say that my inner freedom is basic and irreducible. My intuition clashes with any contingency or limitation that might destroy this freedom.
SARAH
Laughs.
You certainly have learned more words in the last ten years.
PHILLIP
Irritated.
As I told you rather facetiously earlier this evening: Back then, you dismissed a boy. Today you confront a man.
SARAH
And now, we are having another conversation.
PHILLIP
To what end, I wonder.
SARAH
How about so that you can see beyond yourself.
PHILLIP
As long as one knows himself, that is sufficient.
SARAH
Necessary, perhaps, but not sufficient.
PHILLIP
Perhaps.
SARAH
Back then, I thought you were naive, but intelligent, articulate, and totally convinced of the protest movement du jour. Yes, I did call you a starry-eyed idealist. I meant that you had a romantic vision of the world and your role in it.
Pauses.
But I did not mean it as a rejection, although that is exactly what it was. I simply could not commit to someone like you.
PHILLIP
Repeats.
Someone like me.
Pauses.
But you did commit to someone like Paul.
SARAH
Yes, I did. He took college a bit more seriously than you. Graduated summa cum laude and is now on our . . .
Gestures back and forth to Phillip.
. . . class committee. That is where he is now.
PHILLIP
And you are here.
SARAH
Do not make this something it’s not. What happened between us back then is not about someone being right and the other one being wrong.
PHILLIP
It is to me.
SARAH
I thought you believed in not accepting limits and not caring about crossing a line.
PHILLIP
The Sufi mystic and poet Rumi said, “Look inside yourself. Everything that you want, you already are.”
SARAH
So, why did you blather your hackneyed version of how we met to my husband?
PHILLIP
Well, first of all, it’s true. And, I was hoping for charming. Failing that, at least disarming.
SARAH
And now what?
PHILLIP
Now I focus on my purpose. Mental discipline averts wasting one’s freedom.
SARAH
But why?
PHILLIP
So that even if I cannot say that I found the truth, I can say that I looked.
SARAH
Laughs.
I can see that you have not changed a bit. Everything is still always about you. What you know, how you see the world.
PHILLIP
Seriously.
Objectivity only makes me like everybody else. Subjectivity defines me, makes me unique.
Pauses.
And that is what is important.
SARAH
You told my husband that you were full of yourself then and I can see that you still are now.
She stands and starts to walk away from the bar.
PHILLIP
To her back.
Just so you know. Who I am is more of a door than a window. I have found an “I,” but it may not be the true “I.”
She stops and turns.
SARAH
Phillip Reynolds, why are you here?
Bartender looks up and reacts at the mention of Phillip’s name.
BARTENDER
To himself.
Wow. That guy is the novelist, Phillip Reynolds. He wrote “The Starry-Eyed Idealist” about his college days here.
He returns to his station at the bar.
PHILLIP
That is a question I ask myself every day.
SARAH
No, I mean do you know why you are here—in this place—at this time. Not the eternal, just the immediate.
PHILLIP
Now . . . here . . . I would say it was to meet you again.
SARAH
And I would say that you are here because you had no other place to go. Your incomplete memories and half-truths—
PHILLIP
Interrupts.
But not halfhearted.
SARAH
Continues.
—brought you back here. Ten years after we lived through four hazy, crazy years of college during the celebrated sixties.
PHILLIP
When we were bombarded with messages of freedom. Songs, movies, books. Freedom was thrown in our faces.
SARAH
And yet, as you brag about your precious concept of freedom, you have neglected the only true freedom. Freedom from self.
PHILLIP
I know people who call themselves a child of the 60s. Me, I was more like its orphan.
SARAH
Shakes her head.
Enough already.
Paul returns to the bar.
PAUL
To Sarah.
Everything okay?
SARAH
Yes, I was just leaving.
PHILLIP
Solemnly.
I think that our lives are like a wheel. What makes us strong is not the size or number of spokes but the spaces between them. It is the space where there is nothing that gives us stability and balance.
Phillip raises his right arm and with his fingers makes a V, the ubiquitous peace sign of the 60’s.
PHILLIP
Peace.
SARAH
I don’t usually do this. But I am going to give you a piece of advice.
Paul and Phillip look at her expectantly.
SARAH
Do not believe everything you think.
She takes Paul’s arm, and they leave.
As they walk out, Sarah raises her right fist, another frequently seen gesture of protest from their shared decade.
SARAH
No justice, no peace.
Phillip nods his head, smiles, and turns back to the bar.
PHILLIP
Alrighty then.
He finishes his drink and signals to Bartender for another.
BARTENDER
While making drink.
I guess she must not have read your book, huh, Mr. Reynolds.
PHILLIP
Oh, she read it all right. It is full of . . .
Makes air quotes.
. . . incomplete memories and half-truths.
Bartender places the new drink in front of Phillip.
BARTENDER
Enjoy.
Phillip looks at the martini with the same obvious appreciation. He takes a sip.
PHILLIP
That will do just fine. Thank you.
Looks off stage where Sarah and Paul exited.
You know, she is probably right.
Turns back to his drink.
But I cannot think about it now.
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