Read Sexual Perversity in Chicago and the Duck Variations Online
Authors: David Mamet
SIXTH VARIATION
“What Kind Of A World Is It”
| GEORGE : | What kind of a world is it that can't even keep its streets clean? |
| EMIL : | A self-destructive world. |
| GEORGE : | You said it. |
| EMIL : | A cruel world. |
| GEORGE : | A dirty world. Feh. I'm getting old. |
| EMIL : | Nobody's getting any younger. |
| GEORGE : | Almost makes a feller want to stop trying. |
| EMIL : | Stop trying what? |
| GEORGE : | You know, life is a lot simpler than many people would like us to believe. |
| EMIL : | How so? |
| GEORGE : | Take the duck. |
| EMIL : | All right. |
| GEORGE : | Of what does his life consist? |
| EMIL : | Well, flying . . . |
| GEORGE : | Yes. |
| EMIL : | Eating. |
| GEORGE : | Yes. |
| EMIL : | Sleeping. |
| GEORGE : | Yes. |
| EMIL : | Washing himself. |
| GEORGE : | Yes. |
| EMIL : | Mating. |
| GEORGE : | Yes. |
| EMIL : | And perhaps getting himself shot by some jerk in a red hat. |
| GEORGE : | Or “Death.” |
| EMIL : | Should we include that as one of the activities of life? |
| GEORGE : | Well, you can't die in a vacuum. |
| EMIL : | That's true. |
| GEORGE : | So there we have it: the duck, too, is doomed to death . . . |
| EMIL : | As are we all. |
| GEORGE : | But his life prior to that point is so much more simple. He is born. He learns his trade: to fly. He flies, he eats, he finds a mate, he has young, he flies some more, he dies. A simple, straightforward easy-to-handle life. |
| EMIL : | So what's your point? |
| GEORGE : | Well, lookit: |
| EMIL : | Okay. |
| GEORGE : | On his deathbed what does the duck say if only he could speak? |
| EMIL : | He wants to live some more. |
| GEORGE : | Right. But remorse? Guilt? Other bad feelings? No. No. He is in tune with nature. |
| EMIL : | He is a part of nature. He is a duck. |
| GEORGE : | Yes, but so is man a part of nature. |
| EMIL : | Speak for yourself. |
| GEORGE : | I am speaking for myself. |
| EMIL : | Then speak to yourself. |
| GEORGE : | Who asked you to listen? |
| EMIL : | Who asked you to talk? |
| GEORGE : | Why are you getting upset? |
| EMIL : | You upset me. |
| GEORGE : | Yeah? |
| EMIL : | With your talk of nature and the duck and death. Morbid useless talk. You know, it is a good thing to be perceptive, but you shouldn't let it get in the way. |
| GEORGE : | And that is the point I was trying to make. |
SEVENTH VARIATION
“Yes, In Many Ways”
| GEORGE : | Yes, in many ways Nature is our window to the world. |
| EMIL : | Nature is the world. |
| GEORGE : | Which shows you how easy it is to take a good idea and glop it up. |
| EMIL : | So who do you complain to. |
| GEORGE : | Well, you complain to me. |
| EMIL : | Do you mind? |
| GEORGE : | I'm glad I got the time to listen. |
| EMIL : | A man needs a friend in this life. |
| GEORGE : | In this or any other life. |
| EMIL : | You said it. Without a friend, life is not . . . |
| GEORGE : | Worth living? |
| EMIL : | No it's still worth living. I mean, what is worth living if not life? No. But life without a friend is . . . |
| GEORGE : | It's lonely. |
| EMIL : | It sure is. You said it. It's good to have a friend. |
| GEORGE : | It's good to be a friend. |
| EMIL : | It's good to have a friend to talk to. |
| GEORGE : | It's good to talk to a friend. |
| EMIL : | To complain to a friend . . . |
| GEORGE : | It's good to listen . . . |
| EMIL : | Is good. |
| GEORGE : | To a friend. |
| EMIL : | To make life a little less full of pain . . . |
| GEORGE : | I'd try anything. |
| EMIL : | Is good. |
| GEORGE : | For you, or for a friend. Because it's good to help. |
| EMIL : | To help a friend in need is the most that any man can want to do. |
| GEORGE : | And you couldn't ask for more than that. |
| EMIL : | I wouldn't. |
| GEORGE : | Good. |
| EMIL : | Being a loner in this world . . . |
| GEORGE : | Is not my bag of tea. |
| EMIL : | Is no good. No man is an Island to himself. |
| GEORGE : | Or to anyone else. |
| EMIL : | You can't live alone forever. You can't live forever anyway. But you can't live alone. Nothing that lives can live alone. Flowers. You never find just one flower. Trees. Ducks. |
| GEORGE : | Cactus. |
| EMIL : | Lives alone? |
| GEORGE : | Well, you take the cactus in the waste. It stands alone as far as the eye can tell. |
| EMIL : | But there are other cacti. |
| GEORGE : | Not in that immediate area, no. |
| EMIL : | What are you trying to say? |
| GEORGE : | That the cactus, unlike everything else that cannot live alone, thrives . . . |
| EMIL : | I don't want to hear it. |
| GEORGE : | But it's true, the cactus. |
| EMIL : | I don't want to hear it. If it's false, don't waste my time and if it is true I don't want to know. |
| GEORGE : | It's a proven fact. |
| EMIL : | I can't hear you. |
| GEORGE : | Even the duck sometimes. |
| EMIL (looks) : | . . . Nothing that lives can live alone. |
EIGHTH VARIATION
“Ahh, I Don't Know”
| EMIL : | Ahh, I don't know. |
| GEORGE : | So what? |
| EMIL : | You gotta point. . . . Sometimes I think the Park is more trouble than it's worth. |
| GEORGE : | How so? |
| EMIL : | To come and look at the Lake and the Trees and Animals and Sun just once in a while and traipse back. Back to . . . |
| GEORGE : | Your apartment. |
| EMIL : | Joyless. Cold concrete. Apartment. Stuff. Linoleum. Imitation. |
| GEORGE : | The park is more real? |
| EMIL : | The Park? Yes. |
| GEORGE : | Sitting on benches. |
| EMIL : | Yes. |
| GEORGE : | Visiting tame animals? |
| EMIL : | Taken from wildest captivity. |
| GEORGE : | Watching a lake that's a sewer? |
| EMIL : | At least it's water. |
| GEORGE : | You wanna drink it? |
| EMIL : | I drink it every day. |
| GEORGE : | Yeah. After it's been pured and filtered. |
| EMIL : | A lake just the same. My Inland Sea. |
| GEORGE : | Fulla Inland Shit. |
| EMIL : | It's better than nothing. |
| GEORGE : | Nothing is better than nothing. |
| EMIL : | Well, it's a close second. |
| GEORGE : | But why does it hurt you to come to the park? |
| EMIL : | I sit Home, I can come to the park. At the park the only place I have to go is home. |
| GEORGE : | Better not to have a park? |
| EMIL : | I don't know. |
| GEORGE : | Better not to have a Zoo? We should forget what a turtle is? |
| EMIL : | Aaaaah. |
| GEORGE : | Our Children should never know the joy of watching some animal . . . behaving? |
| EMIL : | I don't know. |
| GEORGE : | They should stay home and know only guppies eating their young. |
| EMIL : | Let ‘em go to the Country. Nature's playground. The Country. The Land that Time Forgot. Mallards in Formation. Individual barnyard noises. Horses. Rusty Gates. An ancient tractor. Hay, barley. Mushrooms. Rye. Stuffed full of abundance. Enough to feed the nations of the World. |
| GEORGE : | We'll have ‘em over. We don't get enough riffraff. |
| EMIL : | Enough to gorge the countless cows of South America. |
| GEORGE : | Did you make that up? |
| EMIL : | Yes. |
| GEORGE : | I take my hat off to you. |
| EMIL : | Thank you. |
| GEORGE : | “Feed the many” . . . how does it go? |
| EMIL : | Um. Stuff the nameless . . . It'll come to me. |
| GEORGE : | When you get it, tell me. |
NINTH VARIATION
“At The Zoo They Got Ducks”
| EMIL : | At the Zoo they got ducks. They got. What do you call it? . . . A Mallard. They got a mallard and a . . . what is it? A cantaloupe. |
| GEORGE : | You mean an antelope. |
| EMIL : | No . . . no, it's not cantaloupe. But it's like cantaloupe. Uh . . . |
| GEORGE : | Antelope? |
| EMIL : | No! Antelope is like an elk. What I'm thinking is like a duck. |
| GEORGE : | Goose? |
| EMIL : | No. But it's . . . What sounds like cantaloupe, but it isn't. |
| GEORGE : | . . . Antelope. I'm sorry, but that's it. |
| EMIL : | No. Wait! Wait. Ca . . . cala . . . camma . . . grantal . . . |
| GEORGE : | Canadian ducks? |
| EMIL : | No! I've seen ‘em, the ones I mean. I've seen ‘em in the Zoo. |
| GEORGE : | Ducks? |
| EMIL : | Yes! Ducks that I'm talking about. By God, I know what I mean . . . They're called . . . The only thing that comes up is canta. Pantel. Pandel. Panda . . . Candarolpe . . . |
| GEORGE : | They ain't got no panda. |
| EMIL : | I know it . . . Panna . . . |
| GEORGE : | They had a panda at the other Zoo but it died. |
| EMIL : | Yeah. Nanna . . . |
| GEORGE : | There were two of ‘em. Or three. But they were all men and when they died . . . they couldn't have any babies, of course . . . |
| EMIL : | Randspan? |
| GEORGE : | . . . so the Pandas . . . |
| EMIL : | . . . lope . . . |
| GEORGE : | Died. |
| EMIL : | Lo ... lopa? Loola . . . |
| GEORGE : | Not Swans? |
| EMIL : | NO. Please. I know Swans. I'm talking about ducks. |
| GEORGE : | I know it. |
| EMIL : | Can . . . |
| GEORGE : | Those Pandas were something. |
| EMIL : | Yeah. |
| GEORGE : | Giant Pandas. |
| EMIL : | Yeah. |
| GEORGE : | Big things. |
| EMIL : | I've seen ‘em. |
| GEORGE : | Not lately you haven't. |
| EMIL : | No. |
| GEORGE : | Cause they been dead. |
| EMIL : | I know it. |
| GEORGE : | From the Orient. Pandas from the Far East. There for all to see. |
| EMIL : | Mantalope? |
| GEORGE : | Black and White. |
| EMIL : | Palapope . . . |
| GEORGE : | Together. |
| EMIL : | Maaaa . . . |
| GEORGE : | The Giant Panda. |
| EMIL : | Fanna . . . |
| GEORGE : | Over two stories tall. |
| EMIL : | Raaa? |
| GEORGE : | It got too expensive to feed it. They had to put ‘em to sleep. |