Speaker 1: Come in.
Speaker 2: Welcome.
Speaker 1: I'm E. G. Marshall, conductor of this occult omnibus which
stops at your station seven times each week. It is
said of some people that they live in the past,
but of course we know this isn't true. Nobody can
actually genuinely physically live in the past. Yes, it's possible
to spend one's life in reverie in daydream, but live
in the past, that's incredible. You can only live in
the present, and the present is a vehicle that can
only travel in one direction, forward into the future. At
least that's what we've been led to believe.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to be nineteen again.
Speaker 3: No, I wouldn't want to be nineteen again.
Speaker 2: It's better to be fifty five.
Speaker 3: In some ways it is.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't want to be nineteen.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't want to be back there, back where.
Speaker 3: Listen, grow up, Bill, please grow up.
Speaker 2: I have grown up and I don't like it.
Speaker 3: Like it or not, you've got to live with it.
Speaker 4: That's where you're wrong. I don't have to live with it.
You don't have to live with it either.
Speaker 3: Come back with me back where.
Speaker 2: We could be nineteen again.
Speaker 3: You're crazy.
Speaker 2: There's a key. I phone the key bill. Please Zelda,
I've got the key.
Speaker 4: I know how to go back. Come back, Zelda, come
back with Me.
Speaker 1: Our mystery drama Come Back with Me, was written especially
for the Mystery Theater by Sam Dan and stars Howard
Da Silva. The city is a living organism, and because
every living thing must one day die, the city must
die too. Like the human beings who build it, the
city has its periods of youth, maturity, and old age.
The city dies by degrees. A house here, a street there,
block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood. The boarded up, shuttered
buildings stand empty, decayed, deserted, dead. But that part of
the city which still lives can used to go through
the motions. It sends water through the mains electric current
to illuminate the street lights and police cruisers on their
slow patrols. Tonight, Officer Tombergen suddenly stiffens to attention behind
the wheel of his car and loosens the strap of
his holster. Just up ahead, a man is walking slowly
along the sidewalk, and anyone out here this time of
the night had better be questioned.
Speaker 2: Okay, sir, something wrong? Officer? An answer oh, might you
stop me? I don't stop here.
Speaker 4: I'm walking along the street minding my own affairs, and
you accost me as if I were a common criminal. I, oh, yes,
if something was wrong?
Speaker 2: Why should something be wrong?
Speaker 4: While, sir, just some sort of search and seizure or
stopping frisk as you might call.
Speaker 2: Aw.
Speaker 1: Look, you see a person out on at night in
this neighborhood.
Speaker 2: But what's wrong with this Neighborhoo? What's wrong with this?
Speaker 4: Is there a better neighborhood than the entire city in
the whole world. You are insulting my neighborhood, aw loox
here you assure me of nothing. You imply that this
neighborhood is a hot, better vice of crime.
Speaker 2: I didn't say that.
Speaker 4: That was a nasty insinuation in your voice. I only
wanted to make sure he's an insultant. It's a fighting insult.
Speaker 1: Aw Look, here's just getting excited over nothing.
Speaker 4: This is my neighborhood, and I'll fight for it. For
how can man die better than by facing fearful odds
for the ashes of his father's and the temples of
his gods?
Speaker 2: Well, how can he?
Speaker 4: I God don't believe he can McCaulay wrote that Thomas
Babington McCauley, and when I was a kid, that's what
we were taught in high school. They don't teach Horatius
the Bridge anymore. You know that, don't you.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I guess they don't.
Speaker 4: You know, why don't you? Because because it's not relevant.
You hear that it's not relevant. That's a great new
word today.
Speaker 2: Relevant, Ah, yes, yes, yeh.
Speaker 4: Look, how would you like to honor duty?
Speaker 2: Respect? These things? They well, they just aren't relevant anymore.
Speaker 1: Why don't you get in, mister, and I'll give you
a lift home?
Speaker 4: And I'm not relevant anymore either.
Speaker 1: It's very late, and you look to be a little
unsteady on your feet.
Speaker 4: Tell me, also, look me straight in the eye and
tell me what is relevant today?
Speaker 2: Like I said, it's very late. Oh no, it's early.
It's very early.
Speaker 4: The crowd is first starting to get together at Morris's. Morris's,
Jack Morrisse's. You mean you're the cup on this beat
and you never heard of Jack Morris's. Everybody from the
neighborhood goes there.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, there used to be a Jack Morris's saloon.
But you're going back thirty thirty five years.
Speaker 2: It's here now, right here, Like.
Speaker 1: We say, any minute now, it's going to start to rain.
Speaker 4: So don't you think you any officer. I'll just go
to Morrissey's. See you later, Sara.
Speaker 1: You can't go anywhere. That's an old condamned boarded up building.
Speaker 4: You. Oh, you're a pretty good guy for a cop.
Come on here, let me buy you a beer.
Speaker 2: Well, where are you going? Where do you think I'm going? Inside?
It's a Morrissey there's no such place. Are you sure
you're okay? Officer? The joid's jumping? Can't you hear?
Speaker 3: Can't you hear the music?
Speaker 2: No, sir, I don't hear it? Sing listen? Don't you
hear that? A the jukebox?
Speaker 3: The jukebox.
Speaker 2: Don't you know where the jukebox is? Yeah? Sure, I
got the stuffy old prof.
Speaker 4: Doc Combri One night the gang of us invite him
down here, you know, to see how the people live.
Speaker 2: It's shot in the rain, and you're gonna hear this
jukebox of morrises. Yere hell out it is, and I
don't hear nothing? Can you believe it? Old Doc? Can
never seen one before? What's that? He asked?
Speaker 4: It's a jukebox, I answered. He says, probably named after
remember the Jukes family. You don't get it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: In psychology. You study this very retired family.
Speaker 1: Look the rains beginning to come down, very high. It's
a classical clinical study.
Speaker 2: Nothing there.
Speaker 4: Hey, they take your hand off me. I said, I'm
going there tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I can't go in there. The building is condemned. You
see what the sign said.
Speaker 2: I said, take your hand on me.
Speaker 1: You know okay, mister, I can see your I don't
want to have to use force, but I warn you.
Speaker 2: Don't you swing at me again. Along, I'll come. I'm
going inside. You're not let me alone? Let me alone,
I said, they can't. I'm up. Yes, you're up sold.
What time is it?
Speaker 3: It's almost new No.
Speaker 2: I didn't wake me. I have to beat the off.
Speaker 5: Phil, don't get out of bed.
Speaker 2: What do you say it out?
Speaker 5: Dr Davis said he wants to see you as soon
as you're awake. Before there, you don't know what for
what happened last night?
Speaker 2: Last night?
Speaker 3: A policeman brought you home.
Speaker 2: What are you saying there?
Speaker 3: It was midnight.
Speaker 5: I answered the doorbell, and you were practically draped over
the policeman's shoulder like a.
Speaker 3: Sack of wheat.
Speaker 2: You're kidding, Phil.
Speaker 5: The cop said he didn't want to book you, book
me for assault. You were obviously disturbed. He felt that
treating you like a criminal wasn't the answer.
Speaker 3: He was a very decent.
Speaker 2: Cop, Selda, What is all this?
Speaker 3: I must say?
Speaker 5: In addition to everything else, the publicity could have been
the last straw.
Speaker 3: That's all we would have needed. So he'll shut up.
Speaker 5: What were you doing in that deserted, god forsaken neighborhood?
Speaker 2: God forsaken? Don't say?
Speaker 3: Why were you wandering around there?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: I don't know?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 3: Bill, I'm trying to hold on.
Speaker 4: What was I doing there? I was looking for something?
What if I tell you think I'm crazy?
Speaker 3: I think you're crazy now.
Speaker 4: I was looking for you and for me, all right,
all right, I was a fool desk.
Speaker 2: You really don't want to know.
Speaker 5: I want an intelligent responsive answer.
Speaker 4: I guess you would intelligent responsive answer.
Speaker 2: You use those words the very first night we met.
Speaker 3: Oh Bill, please please?
Speaker 2: We met in Morrissey's I fell in love with you at.
Speaker 5: First sight of the Western United Industries is making the
offer today.
Speaker 3: How can you talk about it.
Speaker 2: Can I talk about love?
Speaker 3: Our lives depend on it?
Speaker 2: Yes, our lives do depend on it.
Speaker 3: They'll save us. Let them bias.
Speaker 2: You mean to sell out.
Speaker 5: You can call it whatever you like. It's our only
chance to get out of debt, to say something from
the wreck?
Speaker 2: What reck?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 5: Norman's had some preliminary discussions with their attorney.
Speaker 3: It's a fair offer.
Speaker 4: I remember I walked into Marris Sees that night and
I saw you sitting there.
Speaker 2: You remember the two that was on the jukebox? Listen?
Listen to what can't you Hear? It?
Speaker 4: Fits Dorsey himself on the bills gone?
Speaker 3: Bill? Will you please try to concentrate?
Speaker 2: Can't you hear it? No?
Speaker 3: I can't hear it.
Speaker 2: You didn't have to kill it.
Speaker 5: Now, look, Bill, you try to relax. I'll have doctor
Davis come over here right away.
Speaker 2: There's no point to it.
Speaker 4: You wanted to convince me to accept some basic facts
of life. Well I accept them. I'll go down there
and sign my death warrant.
Speaker 3: Why do you have to call it your death warrant?
Speaker 2: Because that's what it is.
Speaker 3: It is nothing of the sort. You'll still run the company.
Hundreds of small businesses have been taken over by big corporations.
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 3: They still want you to manage it.
Speaker 4: I said, I'm willing to do it. Why do we
have to talk about it. Let me shave and get
dressed and get down to the office.
Speaker 3: Wear that new dark suit.
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, dark has always been the proper shade for executions.
Taxi I go to South Broadway in Torrance and we're
on Hella.
Speaker 2: No, look till good does it? There's gonna be a law. Well,
there has to be a war. What do you mean
now has to be? No? I figured out nobody was
willing to stop. And when it was easy, was he
going to do it? Now that it's hard, they just.
Speaker 4: Keep grabbing and grabbing until nobody will have any choice.
Speaker 1: He'll uh, just just who are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Who do you think I'm talking about? Who else is
called the Lord Hitler? Hitler? Oh? Yeah, well, I guess
that sounded crazy to you. No, no, no, no, no, no,
not really.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I kind of well, I go back, Oh, well,
that's perfectly all right.
Speaker 2: I go back all the time, myself, do you.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the old days.
Speaker 1: Were better or if it's just that we were younger.
Speaker 2: I tell you one thing, the music was better.
Speaker 1: What great bands they had in them days.
Speaker 4: Huh, Marie, the dawn is breaking, Hurrie, you'll soon be waking.
Speaker 2: Duddy the driver up, Huh, yes, I changed my mind.
Take me to tuity Lesalle. You even remember the number.
It's the corner of Tremont.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just made yourself a deal. Hey, he's sure
you want to go there.
Speaker 4: I'm positive. But that neighborhood, they're just a nothing. Okay,
you're the doctor.
Speaker 2: Three months just offless sound, then keep a changing. Hey,
you mean you want to get out here? That's why
it came.
Speaker 4: Listen, listen for blocks around it.
Speaker 2: It's deserted, it's all coming down.
Speaker 1: I mean you can even hear the wrecking cruise.
Speaker 4: Some of these buildings that got chunkies, all kinds of
weird characters.
Speaker 2: It ain't safe. You know, you're a character.
Speaker 4: I just go into Morrissey's Jack, Morrisy's Maris He's hip.
Speaker 2: But all the cab drivers seem to be characters? Is
it part of the union rules? Can't you hear the music? Music?
You were just singing it here?
Speaker 4: It well?
Speaker 2: I tried, like they say to each their own.
Speaker 4: Bold Jackie, Where.
Speaker 2: You look good? Really?
Speaker 1: Boy?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Can we say that Morrissey's lives? Let me give you
some actual data. Jack Morrissey opened a neighborhood bar in
nineteen thirty three. In nineteen forty one, he closed it
when he enlisted in the army. Jack Morrissey was killed
in North Africa at the Casserine Pass in nineteen forty two.
The place was never reopened. But here we find ourselves
as part of the busy, happy crowd of Jack Morrissey's.
How do you account for it? Well, you know, we
account for everything eventually, and part of the accounting will
occur when I return in just a few moments with
act too, I would give a thousand tomorrows. A poet
said for just one of my yesterday's, Well, today is
yesterday for Bill Harlowe. He has just walked through a door,
and almost thirty five years have suddenly fallen away. The
far away and the long ago has just become the
here and the now here. He is in Morrissey's where
the college crowd hung out, and here are the girls,
just as he remembers them, with their hair parted in
the middle, high in the front and curled up at
the shoulders. Here are the guys in sweaters and peated
pants and loafers and the music. Oh that music.
Speaker 2: Where how are you doing? Middy?
Speaker 4: I may just been with Oh now that's a drastic step,
as will get in there first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, never rehearsing it. I think Billy lets some other
guy do the spade work?
Speaker 2: Is he? What I mean? Who's her out tonight? Jack?
Speaker 4: Well, well there's your old buddy in Norman nice dish
sitting there with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very very nice.
Speaker 4: I think she's given you the eye although she belongs
to the lower Oh, woman belongs to nobody.
Speaker 2: What do you want me to do is steal from
my best friend. He'd steal it from you and me? Hi, folks,
Oh what are you doing here? I just fell in
love with Norman, with that girl you're sitting with. What
kind of an answer is that?
Speaker 5: I think you could call it an intelligent responsive man? Oh,
you caught absolutely intelligent because he shows good case and.
Speaker 3: Responsive because it answers the question. What's your name?
Speaker 2: Billy? Get lost?
Speaker 5: My name is Alda Neisan.
Speaker 2: Thank you?
Speaker 3: Where were you all this time?
Speaker 2: Know me? We mustn't let the music die? Put a
Nick on the juke box. Wait a minute, I thought
this was my date.
Speaker 3: Anything by Glenn Miller.
Speaker 2: They have everything by Glenn Miller, know me? Do the honors?
Behave yourself with my date?
Speaker 3: Well my question?
Speaker 2: Where was I?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I was out there looking for you.
Speaker 3: Well, now you found me.
Speaker 2: I would like to give you an engagement rapper.
Speaker 3: Oh are we engaged?
Speaker 2: Sure, except I don't have one.
Speaker 4: I could give you my fraternity pin, but I don't
belong to a fraternity.
Speaker 5: Oh well, I'm not sure I could be interested in
a propert.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm not completely without wealth?
Speaker 3: Oh are you a millionaire in disguise?
Speaker 2: You see this?
Speaker 3: And what is that supposed to be?
Speaker 2: It's not supposed to be anything.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Now the average person would.
Speaker 4: Look at this and say it's just a little black pebble,
But it is.
Speaker 2: This is a small stone.
Speaker 4: See how he polished this from the tomb.
Speaker 2: Of King tutt I an impress. You should be. It's
my most precious position.
Speaker 3: I'll keep it always?
Speaker 2: Shall we dance well of it?
Speaker 4: Ain't my old buddy, officer Tom Bergen, how come you
ain't made chief?
Speaker 1: Hey? What are you doing on this gun? For a second, neighborhood.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get out of it. How'd you get
into it?
Speaker 4: I had up there.
Speaker 1: You mean somebody wanted to come down here?
Speaker 2: You believe it.
Speaker 1: I had a guy wanted to go to LaSalle corner
Tree Mina next week. That joint ain't gonna exist. The
wrecker's ball is gonna lay it over the way.
Speaker 7: This was a genuine eighteen carrot nut take me tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Wait a second, A tall guy, kind of distinguished, looking
at a little bit great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. The guy looked at it.
Speaker 1: He points to this building that's falling apart.
Speaker 2: That's Morrisy's.
Speaker 1: He says, just like it was a live swinging joint,
and then he.
Speaker 2: Walked Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah he would.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Jerry, thanks for telling me.
Speaker 2: I have a couple of beers shack for me and
my girl. You're a girl alone.
Speaker 1: You come in here with Norman and I say Ormond
has gone Hold.
Speaker 2: Well, I would have done the same for him.
Speaker 1: What is this gift you've got with the girl's belief?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: What can I tell you? You have to be born
with it or you do without happy. She's just another
name you're telling me. Hey, I think that Norman was
gone on her. She made the choice. Hey, hope he
hear gives you. I know me and I were like brothers,
blood brothers. Yeah, anyhow, he wasn't sore when he left.
Speaker 2: Oh, I seen that big smile of his.
Speaker 1: Know how a guy he's taking it inside.
Speaker 2: Come on, that guy himself may not even know how
he's taking it like.
Speaker 1: It may be boiling away deep down where he don't
know it. And then maybe ten, twenty, even thirty years
from now he could suddenly make you pay the price.
Speaker 4: I could stand here at be enriched by your wisdom
forever Jack. But the most beautiful girl in the world
is sitting there at the table. Waitful man, as you well.
Speaker 5: What was that earnest conversation you were having with my host?
Speaker 2: Jack morrisy just mad, a mad conversation?
Speaker 3: Tell me about it?
Speaker 2: Do you mean I have to tell you absolutely everything?
Speaker 3: Absolutely well?
Speaker 2: Sol solo is what's happening to us? Hey, mister hand Sella,
She's she's.
Speaker 4: Gone here, mister Hollow, Morrisey's gone.
Speaker 2: It's all gone, pretty gone, mister Hollow. You can't stay here.
It was all here, Jack Morris, don't.
Speaker 1: You understand you don't want to get yourself from the trouble,
mister Hollow.
Speaker 4: It was here July thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine, the night
I met Zelda.
Speaker 2: She was Norman's days.
Speaker 4: Yes, sure, sure, sure, but don't you patronize me.
Speaker 2: I won't. I'll tell you straight out. You imagined it.
I didn't. It was real. Case, so it was real
to you. So is a dream.
Speaker 1: But you wake up and the dream is gone, right,
and now this is gone too, Yes, it's gone.
Speaker 2: You better be getting out of here. This place is dangerous.
Morrissey's dangerous.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The buildings are being knocked down on all sides,
and the vibrations could come on.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, officer, I'll come along quietly.
Speaker 4: And the policeman is your best friend. That's what my
mother used to tell me to mothers to let to
their today.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't know, sir, I wouldn't know either. We never
had kids, Zelda and I.
Speaker 4: Maybe if we'd had them, it might have been different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, come on, I think we better go now. Yeah, wait,
or does the matter?
Speaker 4: Look where on the floor A little stone, a little
black stone?
Speaker 2: Say okay, what about it? Here? Hey, look at it.
It's the stone I just gave to Zelda. This is it.
This is the exact same stone. Now, look, mister Harlow,
how's you live? Thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine? In this place?
Speaker 4: I gave a girl named Zelda Newsom a little black stone,
and here it is.
Speaker 2: How do you account for it? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't account for anything. All I know is that
this joint's been deserted for years and the loss says
no trespasm.
Speaker 2: So do we go? All right, let's go Phil Hello, Zelda? Norman? Hell?
Speaker 3: Is that all you can say? Hello? What are you
doing here at home?
Speaker 4: It's obvious I've been listening to one of my favorite records.
Speaker 3: Turn that thing off.
Speaker 2: It used to be your favorite record too.
Speaker 1: Now, please, Bill, do you mind? We have some serious
matters to discuss.
Speaker 4: Oh, we certainly do. We certainly do, Zelda. That night
we met, I gave you a stone, remember.
Speaker 5: Norman, and I waited for you at the office. The
man from United Western Industries was there.
Speaker 2: You don't remember that little black stone, Zelda.
Speaker 1: They'll excuse me.
Speaker 2: I have to say this.
Speaker 1: You did not create a favorable impression.
Speaker 2: You said you'd always keep the stone.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, I think we saved the situation.
Speaker 3: Be so modest, Norman, you saved the situation.
Speaker 2: Why didn't you keep the stone? Solda?
Speaker 3: I don't know what stone you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Listen to us.
Speaker 4: And less than an hour ago we spoke to each
other with such love. We were so thrilled, we were
so excited by each other's presence.
Speaker 3: Less than an hour ago. You are crazy?
Speaker 2: We did. We met for the first time. You don't
want to remember.
Speaker 5: Bill, Will you please please concentrate.
Speaker 3: I am trying to tell you. Norman worked out.
Speaker 2: The deal, did you, Norman?
Speaker 1: Yes, you see, Zelda and I and yes, we have worked.
Speaker 3: Very closely on it for a long time. Norman and I. Yes,
Norman and I. It had to be Norman and me.
Who else would have kept the business alive.
Speaker 2: You've been very close with Norman, haven't you. Huh?
Speaker 3: Just what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Well, maybe you think you made the wrong choice back
there in Morrison. Maybe she did.
Speaker 4: I'd better go now, No, stay, would you have been
happier with Norman?
Speaker 2: Sober, steady, reliable? Norman?
Speaker 3: Disregard all of this.
Speaker 5: Norman, We have to discuss what happened today.
Speaker 3: Why you weren't there.
Speaker 1: Bill, Bill, Look, you'll still be president of the company.
Speaker 2: That's nice, but ah the butt I.
Speaker 1: Become chief executive officer in charge of operations.
Speaker 4: I see, well, you know what it proves Check Morrissey
was right. Now what are you saying? Oh, Norman, you
kept it bottled up all these years, but you never
forgave me, and today you buried the knife.
Speaker 2: Phil, I didn't want the job. I bet you kicked
and screamed.
Speaker 3: Won't you try to understand?
Speaker 5: It's the only deal United Western will accept it.
Speaker 2: I don't accept it.
Speaker 1: Do you want to know the truth? Bill, the awful,
terrible truth. They don't have to give us any kind
of deal at all. They can wait a year until
you go bankrupt and then just move in and pick
up the pieces.
Speaker 4: You You really don't remember the stone, Seldan.
Speaker 3: Can't we have a sensible conversation?
Speaker 1: You're getting off lucky?
Speaker 2: Bill? Am I why the truth is?
Speaker 1: You don't know how to run a company in today's market.
Speaker 2: That's true. I believe in quality.
Speaker 1: Yes, you justify yourself with that word quality.
Speaker 2: But quality is a thing of the past. It costs money.
People refuse to pay for it. As long as I
run this company, and it did you ever run this company?
I carried you shut up. Look, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm going back to the office, and you should go
back too. We have to meet with the United Western people.
Speaker 2: You sure spoke your peace, didn't you. Oh Bill, Bill, you.
Speaker 1: Were a big, friendly boy with a gift of gab.
Speaker 2: But after a while it all wore a bit thin. Goodbye.
Speaker 3: You better go back to the office.
Speaker 4: Yes, but let's go back. But none to the office.
Let's go back to Jack Morrissey's.
Speaker 5: Jack Morrissey is dead and gone, and you and I
can't do the Lindy anymore.
Speaker 2: We were happy.
Speaker 3: We were so happy because we were children.
Speaker 5: You never wanted to grow up except responsibility.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you like to go back to him? We were
really in love.
Speaker 5: You're still a kid, and you still ask a child's questions.
Speaker 4: But I've gone back once again. I felt that thrill,
the thrill I knew the night we met.
Speaker 3: He even sounded like a song of thirty years ago.
Speaker 2: I saw how you looked.
Speaker 4: You didn't have a line on your face, a doubt
in your heart, a worry in your head.
Speaker 5: Please, Bill, go to the office, salvage something.
Speaker 2: I have to go back. I can't live here anymore.
What do you mean by here the present.
Speaker 3: The present is all we have. The future never comes
in the past is dead.
Speaker 4: This time, I won't let anybody break into it. I'll
know how to hold onto us. Come back with me, Zelda,
Come back.
Speaker 1: It was Albert Einstein who said the past, the present,
and the future are all mixed up. You can go
forward in time and you can go backward in time.
Exactly how is not crystal clear, but the theoretical possibilities
are accepted by science.
Speaker 3: Act.
Speaker 1: By such assurances, we can certainly give Bill Harlowe a
little bit of creedence, can't we. I'll be back shortly
with Act three. The promise of youth who has seen
it fulfilled? Not most of us, that's for sure. And
so maturity becomes a matter of more or less graceful
reconciliation between the dreams of the boy and the realities
of the man. We say more or less gracefully to
describe the reconciliation, because while there are people who accept
failure with very little grace, at least they do accept it.
Then we have Bill Harlowe, who refuses to accept it
at all.
Speaker 4: Come back with me, Selda, Silda, you and I We're
still there, we're still sitting in Jack Morrissey's We never.
Speaker 5: Left, Bill, How can we be sitting in Jack Morrissey's
if we're sitting here.
Speaker 4: I don't know that I was there and a hour
ago I think of how beautiful you looked.
Speaker 2: It breaks my heart.
Speaker 3: Bill, It won't work.
Speaker 5: We're what we are now with the last thirty five
years have made us.
Speaker 3: You simply cannot accept life.
Speaker 2: That's not life, that's death.
Speaker 3: Death is also a part of life.
Speaker 2: Please come back to Jack Morrissey's.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, you can still get a.
Speaker 5: Big glass of beer for a dime, and you can
dance all night, and there's no gray in your hair
and only love in your heart and all.
Speaker 3: The world it is friendship and music.
Speaker 5: Was that the only time in your life that you
were really happy?
Speaker 2: Is it a crime to want to hold on to happiness?
Speaker 3: No, it isn't a crime. It's a delusion, but it
isn't a crime.
Speaker 2: We can go back. I don't want to hear.
Speaker 3: Any more about it.
Speaker 2: But I can prove it. I've got the proof.
Speaker 3: You go back to your office and you grow.
Speaker 2: Up, Zelda, I said, I could prove you.
Speaker 5: Go to the office, or I'll walk out on you
right now, Zelda.
Speaker 7: I mean, oh, come on in, Norman.
Speaker 2: What's on your mind?
Speaker 4: Bill? I?
Speaker 2: Well, excuse me.
Speaker 1: The reorganization and well it was decided that this would
become my office.
Speaker 2: Oh then I better get out of here right away.
Speaker 1: Oh it is really no hurry, I mean no, take
a few days.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: I uh, look, I'm sorry. We had those words back
at your apartment.
Speaker 2: We never really were friends, were we. Norman. I don't
know what you're talking about, and now you're getting back
at me for everything.
Speaker 1: Now I know we can work together and justify the
faith of the new management has in us.
Speaker 4: Oh that's a terrific speech, Norman. Terrific, precise, pungent, and pithy.
What one of us answers that this is now your office?
But it's probably for me.
Speaker 2: I'll come on. Yes, yeah, you.
Speaker 5: Expected to meet with the United Western people in the
conference room in twenty minutes, along with mister Hollis.
Speaker 3: And oh your.
Speaker 4: Wife is here, tig you mus name, send the dear
girl in. So you and I are going to meet
with the new management and the last questions and they'll
see how bright you are and how stupid I am. Bill.
Speaker 2: That is ridiculous? Is that how you set it up?
Speaker 3: Sans nothing?
Speaker 4: That's right, nothing, It's just old Bill being paranoid again.
Speaker 1: I've got to get some figures together. I'll see you
in the conference room. Bill.
Speaker 3: I know it's hard. It's hard for you to work
with Norman.
Speaker 5: As well on an adult level, to accept him as
an equal. Brilliant Bill plotting Norman. But you need each other.
Speaker 4: You mean you really don't remember the stone Zilda.
Speaker 3: The stone king Tut's royal stone?
Speaker 2: Then why did you pretend maybe.
Speaker 3: I wanted to forget? Why? Because so much has happened
to us, Zilla, don't try to rake it up. Bill.
Let's have it out all right, All right, let's talk
about Marie.
Speaker 2: I was never in love with Marie.
Speaker 3: That didn't make it any easier for me.
Speaker 2: I thought we agreed to forget about that.
Speaker 3: I never said I would forget Marie.
Speaker 5: I only agreed not to let her break up our marriage.
Speaker 4: Sold that she was the only one in all these years,
the only one.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that calls for some sort of medal.
Speaker 2: How long does it last? A couple of months?
Speaker 3: And what's a couple of months in a lifetime?
Speaker 2: You promised you'd never get that stone.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, the stone. That was the day I learned
I had.
Speaker 5: An associate, another partner in my marriage. You know what
I did with that, that funny little black stone, which
you said came from King Tut's tomb.
Speaker 2: Well it really didn't.
Speaker 3: Oh, I always knew that.
Speaker 5: I went for a walk on the start Straight bridge
and I stopped at the rail over at the middle
of the river, and I had a wild idea to
throw myself off the bridge, but I threw the stone instead,
and by now it sunk deep into the river bed,
under one hundred feet of water.
Speaker 3: So you see it's gone.
Speaker 4: Zelda, if we could get that stone back, Oh sure,
that stone, the stone I gave you the night we met,
the night it began for us.
Speaker 3: That stone is gone.
Speaker 5: It's gone forever, It's gone beyond recall.
Speaker 3: No, Bill, you have to grow up. You have to
accept it.
Speaker 5: Because the stone is like the past, dead, buried.
Speaker 3: You cannot bring it back.
Speaker 2: I have brought it back.
Speaker 3: Oh Bill, please look.
Speaker 2: Look here, Look at what I have in my hand.
Take it?
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 2: You know what it is?
Speaker 3: That can't be the stone?
Speaker 4: You remember you took it to a jeweler. You had
our initials engraved on it. B Z.
Speaker 3: You found another stone just like it.
Speaker 4: Hold it, look at it, feel it. It's the stone,
our stone.
Speaker 3: I threw it off this Darren Straight Bridge. Nobody could
ever find it.
Speaker 4: But I went back and found it before you threw
it away. I went back to the night of July thirtieth,
nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3: You couldn't.
Speaker 2: We were nineteen years old.
Speaker 3: I don't believe it.
Speaker 4: We're still nineteen years old. Come with me, I'll prove it.
We're in Jack Morris's at the corner of the Salad
Tremont and we're nineteen.
Speaker 3: It's impossible.
Speaker 4: Listen, don't you hear the juke bucks is playing the
slow tube.
Speaker 2: Let's go bash, Let's be nineteen again. It's another chance.
There's another chance to live another life at this time.
This time, I'm no better. This time. I won't waste it.
This time, I'll grow up. Don't you want to be
nineteen again?
Speaker 1: I'm afraid.
Speaker 2: There's nothing to be afraid of, or were we afraid of.
But we were nineteen. We didn't know what the word meant.
Speaker 3: It's gone the neighborhood, it's all gone.
Speaker 4: Hurry, we're not supposed to go into the building. Why
because oh it doesn't matter here this is it?
Speaker 3: This was Jack Morris.
Speaker 2: It still is inside now that's stuck in quickly before
we're seen.
Speaker 3: No, I'm afraid to go in there.
Speaker 2: Why hurry before somebody comes along.
Speaker 5: It's a crazy looking building. It looks as if it'll
fall apart any minute. Come on, can't you see there's
nobody inside?
Speaker 2: There isn't listen do you hear it?
Speaker 4: What are we waiting for? It's July thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine,
and we're about to meet for the first time. You
see that table near the wall, that's where.
Speaker 2: You were sitting with Norman.
Speaker 4: Go there, I'll join you in a minute.
Speaker 3: World.
Speaker 4: Wait, wait, it's really the very room.
Speaker 2: And how was married life? I recommended highly try Jack.
Speaker 1: I've done without it for forty years. You look hancer
in that uniform.
Speaker 2: Believe well your list Jack. If we get into the war,
I will oh no, no, no, this rounds on me. Hold
you bad?
Speaker 4: Well, it's about time you see see darling, it's just
as it was the night we met.
Speaker 2: There's something.
Speaker 3: Something's wrong.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
Speaker 5: If this is the night we met, where's Norman Norman.
It was Norman who brought me here.
Speaker 3: I was his date. Remember, well, and you're in uniform.
Speaker 5: This can't be July thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3: You didn't enlist to August of nineteen forty.
Speaker 2: Well, well, what's the difference.
Speaker 5: Look at the calendar over the bar. What does it say?
Speaker 2: Tell me December sixth, nineteen forty one?
Speaker 3: Tomorrow is Pearl Herber.
Speaker 4: What's the difference that we pick up our lives on
December the sixth, nineteen forty one or July thirtieth, nineteen
thirty nine.
Speaker 3: We were here that night.
Speaker 5: I remember, I remember everybody who was in this place.
Speaker 2: What's to remember? You can see them.
Speaker 5: There's Jack Morrissey behind the bar. Norman isn't here. He
wasn't then, either, Ziba. No, listen, there's Tommy Burke and
Fred Novak and Bert Ullman and Jacqueline Myers and Kitty
and Edith.
Speaker 6: Of course, and all of them are dead today.
Speaker 2: They can't be dead today. Here they are.
Speaker 5: I don't mean December sixth, nineteen forty one one. I
mean now the boys, every one of them.
Speaker 3: Was killed in the war.
Speaker 5: The girls, Jackie died in childbirth, Kitty was killed in
an accident.
Speaker 3: Leda's had an operation and she never.
Speaker 2: Knows to do it.
Speaker 5: Don't you see it won't be different, It'll be all
the same.
Speaker 3: We'll do it the same way again.
Speaker 4: No, no, we'll make it different. How this time we'll
know better?
Speaker 3: Why how will we know better?
Speaker 5: We'll have forgotten. I'm starting to forget already.
Speaker 3: Afraid I can't help it. Look at this place. It's
the place of the dead.
Speaker 2: Don't say dead.
Speaker 5: Everything is dead here. All these people are dead now.
The music is dead, the building is dead. And if
we stay here, we'll be dead too.
Speaker 2: No, this is where we can start a new life.
Speaker 3: Let's get out of here.
Speaker 2: How can you say dead? Can't you see everybody? Can't
you hear the music?
Speaker 5: No, I don't hear anything. I don't see anything. I'm
in an old, battered, broken down building. The ceiling is
gonna cave in any minute. The walls are ready to collapse.
Speaker 2: Why do I hear it?
Speaker 1: Why do I see it?
Speaker 2: Why is it so real to me?
Speaker 3: Because you need it all right?
Speaker 2: You need it too.
Speaker 3: No, No, I'm not afraid to live to grow.
Speaker 2: Where are you going home?
Speaker 3: Please come with me home.
Speaker 2: I'm home now.
Speaker 5: They're tearing down the building. Do you want to stay
and die?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna stay and live.
Speaker 6: Confide them Selda, Selda, wait at all?
Speaker 2: Why what's toil?
Speaker 3: And by why my my husbands inside? E din't know? Felny,
somebody going a get around?
Speaker 2: Nobody can go on?
Speaker 1: Then al any long?
Speaker 8: God they never found his body. Fuck then again, they.
Speaker 1: Never found the bodies of anyone else inside the place either,
all the people who were in Jack Morrissey's the night
of December sixth, nineteen forty one.
Speaker 3: Maybe Morrissey's is a.
Speaker 1: State of mind. After all, doesn't everyone have a price,