Speed-the-Plow Read Online Free PDF Page B

Talk about purity.
    G OULD : Okay. ( Pause. ) If you don't have principles, whatever they are . . . then each day is hell, you haven't gota compass. All you've got is “good taste” and you can shove good taste up your ass and fart “The Carnival of Venice.” Good taste will not hack it. ‘Cause each day the pressure just gets worse. It gets more difficult. ( Pause. ) I want you to do me a favor. Read that book for me.
    K AREN : I should read it. . .?
    G OULD : Yes.
    K AREN : The Radiation Book?
    G OULD : Let's be frank: it's probably, it's almost definitely unsuitable, it probably is artsy. But as you said, maybe it isn't. You read it, you'll tell me, and I'll tell Mr. Ross.
    Karen: . . . I. . .
    G OULD : . . . and then, you're right, and then at least we looked.
    K AREN : I'd be flattered to read it.
    G OULD : Good.
    K AREN : Thank you.
    G OULD : Not at all. I thank you. I'll need a report on it. . .
    K AREN : . . . of course.
    G OULD : By tonight. How long will it take you to . . .
    K AREN : Well, I won't be able to start reading it ‘til after work. . .
    G OULD ( simultaneously with “work" ): Fine. Tonight, I'm going to be home. When you're finished, you bring the report to me and we'll discuss it.
    K AREN : Absolutely. Thank you.
    G OULD : Not at all. Now, I've . .. Please call the Coventry. Tell them, a table for Mr. Fox and me, twenty minutes . . .
    K AREN : Yes, I will.
    G OULD : I'm going to clean up here before I go. Call Mr. Fox's girl up on the phone, get her to page him or to try him in the car.
    K AREN : Uh huh.
    G OULD : . . . and tell him that I'll be ten minutes late. K AREN : Of course . . .
    G OULD : . . . and tell him he owes me five hundred bucks.

TWO
    Gould's apartment. Night . G OULD and K AREN. K AREN is reading from the book.
    K AREN : He puts his hand on the child's chest, and he says “heal,” as if he felt he had the power to heal him, he calls on God. . . it's in here. . . something to the effect that if ever in his life he had the power, any power, that now is the time. . . list. . . ( She reads :) “. . . in that lonely place, the low place, the tramp, under the bridge, he finds him. Faced with his troubles, and pours out his heart.” We hear the rain, and we see, in his misery, it is forgotten, wet, cold . . . and the problems which assaulted him: they do not disappear, but they are forgotten. He says: years later: it did not occur to him ‘til then that this was happiness. That the thing which he lacked, he says, was courage. What does the Tramp say? “All fears are one fear. Just the fear of death. And we accept it, then we are at peace.” And so, you see, and so all of the events . . . the stone , the instrument , the child which he met, led him there.
    G OULD : They led him.
    K AREN : . . . in his . . . yes, you see—I know that you see—and that's, that's to me, that's the perfection of the story, when I read it. . . I almost, I wanted to sit, I saw, I almost couldn't come to you, the weight of it . . . ( Pause. ) You know what I mean. He says that the radiation . . . all of it, the planes, the televisions, clocks, all of it is to the one end. To change us—to, to bring about a change —all radiation has been sent by God. To change us. Constantly.
    G OULD : To change us.
    K AREN : Yes.
    G OULD : How?
    K AREN : To this new thing. And that we needn't feel frightened. That it comes from God. And I felt empowered. ( Pause. ) Empowered. ( Pause. )
    G OULD : Empowered . . .
    K AREN : You've felt that, I hope you've felt that, when something made sense, you'd heard it for the longest time and finally you, you know what it means. So . . . so . . . it's not courage , it's greater than courage. Perhaps it is courage. You've felt like that.
    G OULD : I have.
    K AREN : Yes.
    G OULD : Felt like . . .
    K AREN : Like they say in stories : where, where one thing changes you.
    G OULD : . . . have I felt like that? I don't know.
    K AREN : . . . and that it puts you at Peace. And I'll tell