Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers," Act II

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Continued from Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers," Act I, Part II


"Comrades and Lovers," Act II

Copyright by Jonathan Ned Katz. All rights reserved.


SCENE TITLE: 1 Peter Doyle, "Yes, I will talk of Walt"


DOYLE SPEAKS AS A VITAL OLD MAN REMINISCING ABOUT THE YOUNG MAN HE WAS WHEN HE MET WHITMAN; TO THE AUDIENCE AS SYMPATHETIC INTERVIEWERS WHO HAVE COME TO ASK ABOUT WHITMAN

DOYLE:

Yes, I will talk of Walt,
nothing suits me better.
How we met
is a curious story.
We felt to each other at once.
I was a street car conductor
in Washington.
The night was very stormy --
he came down to take the car --
the storm was awful.
Walt had his blanket --
it was thrown around his shoulders --
he seemed like an old sea-captain.
He was the only passenger,
it was a lonely night,
so I thought
I would go in and talk to him.
Something in me made me do it
and something in him
drew me that way.
He used to say
there was something in me
had the same effect on him.
Anyway, I went into the car.
We were familiar at once --
I put my hand on his knee --
we understood.
He did not get out
at the end of the trip --
in fact
went all the way back with me.
From that time on
we were the biggest sort of friends.


WHITMAN:

TO DOYLE
I think of you very often,
dearest comrade,
and with more calmness then when I was there--
I find it first rate
to know I shall return,
and we shall be together again,
Dear Boy.
I don't know what I should do
if I hadn't you to look forward to.


Here in New York
there is pretty strong enmity
among certain classes
toward me
and Leaves of Grass --
that it is a great mass of crazy talk
and hard words,
all tangled up,
without sense or meaning
(which by the by
is, I believe,
your judgment about it).
But others sincerely think
that it is a bad book,
improper,
and ought to be denounced
and put down,
and its author along with it.


DOYLE:

TO AUDIENCE]
Yes, Walt often spoke to me of his book.
I would tell him


DIRECTLY TO WHITMAN
I don't know
what you are trying to get at.


TO AUDIENCE
And this is the idea
I would always arrive at
from his reply.


WHITMAN:

All other peoples in the world
have their representatives
in literature;
here is a great big American race
with no representative.


DOYLE:

He would furnish that representative.


WHITMAN:

DIRECTLY TO DOYLE
Dear Pete,
I have made a change of base,
from tumultuous, close-packed,
world-like New York,
to Providence
this half-rural,
third-class town.


At both places I stop
we have plenty of ripe fresh fruit
and lots of flowers.
Pete,
I could now send you
a bouquet every morning,
far better than I used to,
of much choicer flowers.


GIVES DOYLE BOUQUET; DOYLE HOLDS IT IN HIS ARMS


In the evening
I went by invitation
to a party of ladies and gentlemen --
mostly ladies.
I made love to the women,
and flatter myself
that I created
at least one impression --
wretch and gay deceiver that I am.
You would be astonished,
my son,
to see the capacity
for flirtation with the girls --
I would never have believed it of myself.


Fortunate young man --
ain't you --
getting such instructive letters.


DOYLE:

TO AUDIENCE
I never knew a case
of Walt's being bothered up
by a woman.
His disposition was different.
Women in that sense
never came into his head.
I ought to know about him
in those years --
we were awful close together.


Towards women generally
Walt had a good way --
he very easily attracted them.
But he did that with men, too.
It was an irresistible attraction.
I've had many tell me --
men and women.
He had an easy, gentle way
no matter who they were
or what their sex.


WHITMAN:

DIRECTLY TO DOYLE
My darling boy,
if you are not well
when I come back
I will get a good room or two
in some quiet place,
and we will live together,
and devote ourselves
to making you healthier than ever.
I have had this in my mind before
but never broached it to you.
My love for you
is indestructible.
LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE; WHITMAN'S SEXUALLY UNCONSUMMATED PURSUIT OF DOYLE HAS LEFT HIM DEPRESSED AND HUMILIATED. HE DECIDES TO END THE PURSUIT; GRABS BOUQUET HE GAVE DOYLE AND FLINGS IT ON FLOOR. LOOKING INTENTLY AT DOYLE:
It is imperative
that I remove myself
from this incessant,
enormous
PERTURBATION.


SPEAKERS FOCUS ON DOYLE

SPEAKER 1:

To GIVE UP ABSOLUTELY


SPEAKER 2:

and for good,


SPEAKER 3:

from this present hour,


SPEAKER 4:

this FEVERISH,


SPEAKER 1:

FLUCTUATING,


SPEAKER 2:

useless,


SPEAKER 3:

UNDIGNIFIED


SPEAKER 4:

pursuit of P.D.


SPEAKER 1:

so humiliating --


SPEAKER 2:

(It cannot possibly be a success)


SPEAKER 3:

LET THERE BE NO FALTERING


SPEAKER 4:

avoid seeing him,


SPEAKER 1:

and meeting him,


SPEAKER 2:

or any talk or explanations


SPEAKER 3:

or ANY MEETING WHATEVER,


SPEAKER 4:

FROM THIS HOUR FOREVER,


SPEAKER 1:

FOR LIFE.


SPEAKER 2:

Depress the adhesive nature.


SPEAKER 3:

It is in excess --


SPEAKER 4:

making life a torment.


WHITMAN:

All this diseased, feverish, disproportionate adhesiveness.


SPEAKER 1:

TO WHITMAN
Remember Fred Vaughan.


LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE


WHITMAN:

We parted there,
you know, Pete,
at the corner of 7th Street,
Tuesday night.


Parting though it was
something in that hour
left me pleasure
and comfort for good --
I never dreamed
you made so much
of having me with you
nor that you could feel
so downcast
at losing me.
I foolishly thought
it was all on the other side.
I now see clearly,
that I was all wrong.
Love to you,
dear Pete,
my darling boy.


LIGHTING CHANGE. NIGHT. STARS. A PAINTED, CARDBOARD MOON MIGHT DESCEND ON A VISIBLE WIRE


DOYLE:

TO AUDIENCE
How different Walt was then
in Washington
from the Walt of later years!


TO WHITMAN
I knew him to do wonderful lifting,
running, walking.


TO AUDIENCE
I would go up to the Treasury building
and wait for him to get through.
Then we'd stroll out together,
going wherever we happened to get.
This occurred days in and out,
months running.


TO WHITMAN
We went plodding along the road.
Walt always whistling
or singing.
We would talk of ordinary matters.
He would recite poetry,
especially Shakespeare
he would hum airs
or shout in the woods.
He was always active, happy.
Many of our walks
were taken at night.


TO AUDIENCE
He never seemed to tire.
When we got to the ferry
opposite Alexandria
I would say,


TO WHITMAN
"I'll draw the line here I won't go any further."


TO AUDIENCE
But he would take everything for granted --
we would cross the river
and walk home
on the other side.


TO WHITMAN
Walt knew all about the stars.
He was eloquent when he talked of them.


WHITMAN:

TO DOYLE
Dear Pete,
Dear son,
I can almost see you
drowsing and nodding
and I am telling you something deep
about the heavenly bodies
and in the midst of it
I look around
and find you fast asleep
and your head on my shoulder
like a chunk of wood --
an awful compliment
to my lecturing powers.


Good night, Pete --
Good night,
my darling son
here is a kiss for you,
dear boy --
on the paper here --
a good long one --
I will imagine you
with your arm around my neck
saying


DOYLE:

QUIETLY, TO WHITMAN
"Goodnight, Walt" --


WHITMAN:

and me --
"Goodnight, Pete."


LIGHTS OUT ON DOYLE. WHITMAN CONTINUES, ADDRESSING AUDIENCE. WHILE WHITMAN SPEAKS A SERIES OF PHOTOS OF HIM MAY BE PROJECTED, TRACING IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER HIS CHANGING IMAGE FROM YOUTHFUL, EFFETE, BOHEMIAN DANDY TO OLD, POET PROPHET
TITLE: 14 Walt Whitman, "Publish my name"


WHITMAN:

Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely poured it forth;
Who often walked lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers;
Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night;
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly be indifferent to him;
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, on hills, he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men;


DOYLE JOINS WHITMAN, PUTS HIS ARM AROUND WHITMAN'S SHOULDER; WHITMAN PUTS HIS ARM AROUND DOYLE'S SHOULDER


Who oft as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend -- while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.


BLACKOUT.


ANOTHER O WHITMAN'S MEN, JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, APPEARS AGAIN, IN THE SPOT VACATED BY DOYLE. SYMONDS' PHOTOGRAPH MAY BE PROJECTED


SCENE TITLE: 2 John Addington Symonds, "I fear"


SYMONDS ADDRESSES WHITMAN DIRECTLY, AS IF THEY ARE IN THE SAME SPACE; WHITMAN IS SEATED WITH HORACE TRAUBEL


SYMONDS:

I fear
that the last time I wrote
spoke something amiss.
I then asked you
questions about Calamus.
Since that time
I have kept silent,
fearful I was ill-advised
in what I asked.


WHITMAN:

TO TRAUBEL
He harps on the Calamus poems again --
always harping on "my daughter."
I suppose you might say:


TRAUBEL:

Why don't you shut him up by answering him?


WHITMAN:

TO AUDIENCE
There is no logical answer to that.
But I may ask in my turn:


TO SYMONDS
"What right has he
to ask questions anyway?"


TO TRAUBEL
Symonds' question
comes back to me
almost every time he writes.
He is courteous enough about it
that is the reason
I do not resent him.
But it always makes me a little testy
to be catechized about the Leaves --
I prefer to have the book
answer for itself.


SYMONDS:

TO WHITMAN
The reason why
I have not published
more than I have
about your poems
is that I cannot get quite
to the bottom of Calamus.
I wish I had your light upon it.


SYMONDS REACHES OUT TO WHITMAN, BESEECHING


WHITMAN:

TO SYMONDS
That question,
he does ask it,
again and again:
asks it, asks it, asks it.


TO SYMONDS, TENDERLY
Anyway,
Symonds is a royal good fellow.
Look at the fight
he has kept up with his body --
his consumption --
yes, and so far won.
I have had my own troubles
but Symonds is the noblest of us all.


TO TRAUBEL
Symonds has a few doubts
yet to be quieted
not doubts of me,
doubts rather of himself.
One of these doubts
is about Calamus:


SYMONDS:

TO WHITMAN, PLEADING FOR A RESPONSE
What does Calamus mean?


WHITMAN:

That is worrying him a good deal --
my poems' involvement,
as he suspects,
in the passional relations of men with men --
the thing he reads so much of
in the literature of southern Europe
and sees something of
in his own experience.
He is always driving me about that:


SYMONDS:

is that what Calamus means?


WHITMAN:

because of me
or in spite of me,


SYMONDS:

is that what Calamus means?


WHITMAN:

TO TRAUBEL
I have said no,
but no does not satisfy him.
He is very shrewd,
very cute,
in deadliest earnest:
he drives me hard --
almost compels me --
is urgent, persistent:
he sort of stands in the road and says:


SYMONDS:

I won't move
till you answer my question.


WHITMAN:

TO SYMONDS
He is still asking the question.


SYMONDS:

What the love of man for man
has been in the past
I think I know.
What you say
it can and shall be
I dimly discern in your poems.
But this hardly satisfies me
so desirous am I
of learning what you teach.
Some day, perhaps,
in your own chosen form --
you will tell me more
about the love of Friends.
Till then I wait.
Meanwhile
you have told me more than anyone.


TRAUBEL:

TO WHITMAN
That's a humble letter enough.
I don't see anything in it
to get excited about.


WHITMAN:

CLEARLY EXCITED
Who's excited?


TRAUBEL SHAKES HIS HEAD, PUZZLED BY WHITMAN'S VEHEMENCE


TO SYMONDS
That question,
he does ask it.
Anyway,
I love Symonds.
Who could fail to love
a man who could write such a letter?
I suppose he will have to be answered,
damn, 'im!


QUIETLY, TO HIMSELF
Sometimes I wonder
whether Symonds doesn't come under
St. Paul's famous category --
men leaving the natural use of women.


SYMONDS, MOVES TO A PODIUM AND ADDRESSES AUDIENCE AS A SYMPATHETIC CONFIDANT


SYMONDS:

In February 1877
I gave three lectures
on Italian history and culture
in the theatre
of the Royal Institution, London.


One day,
an old acquaintance
asked me to go with him
to a male brothel
near Regents' Park Barracks.


A BRAWNY YOUNG SOLDIER APPEARS


There,
moved by something stronger than curiosity,
I made an assignation
with a brawny young soldier
for an afternoon
in a private room at the house.


Naturally,
I chose a day
I was not wanted
at the Royal Institution.


SYMONDS STOPS TALKING, TURNS TOWARD THE SOLDIER WHO UNDRESSES SLOWLY, WATCHING HIMSELF IN A MIRROR. SYMONDS WATCHES THE SOLDIER WATCHING HIMSELF IN THE MIRROR. THE AUDIENCE WATCHES A MAN WATCHING A MAN WATCHING; THEN SYMONDS DRAWS A CURTAIN OVER THE AREA WITH SOLDIER AND TURNS BACK TO THE PODIUM


For the first time
I shared a bed
with one so ardently desired.
He was a very nice fellow
as it turned out:
comradely and natural,
regarding the affair
from a business-like
and reasonable point of view.
For him
it involved nothing unusual,
nothing shameful;
and his simple attitude,
the not displeasing vanity
with which he viewed
his own physical attractions,
and the genial sympathy
with which he met
the passion they aroused,
taught me something
about illicit sexual relations
I had never before conceived.
Instead of yielding to any brutal impulse,
I thoroughly enjoyed
the close vicinity
of that splendid
naked
piece of manhood.
Then I made him clothe himself,
sat and smoked and talked with him,
and felt,
at the end of the whole transaction,
that some of the deepest moral problems
might be solved
by fraternity.
Within the sphere
of that lawless, godless place,
human relations --
affections,
reciprocal toleration,
decencies of conduct,
asking and yielding --
concession and abstention --
find a natural expression:
perhaps more
than in the sexual relations
consecrated by middle-class matrimony.


Meanwhile,
I was giving my lectures.
Very dull lectures they were,
for my soul was not in them;
my soul throbbed for the soldier,
for escape
from that droning lecture desk
into a larger, keener existence.
Little did I care
what the gentlemen in frock coats
and ladies in bonnets
thought of my lectures.
I knew
the real arena was not
in the theatre of disputations
and explications of theories.
It lay in a world each penetrates
when the voice of the lecturer
is no more heard
in the theatre.


SYMONDS TURNS AND JOINS SOLDIER, BEHIND CURTAIN. LIGHTS UP ON WHITMAN, WHO STEPS UP TO THE PODIUM SYMONDS HAS VACATED: THE VOICE OF THIS LECTURER IS HEARD IN THE THEATER


TITLE: 3 Walt Whitman, "It is to the development"


WHITMAN:

It is to the development,
identification,
and general prevalence
of that fervid comradeship,
the adhesive love
of man and man
at least rivaling
the amative love
of man and woman,
if not going beyond it,
that I look
for the counterbalance
to our materialistic,
vulgar
American democracy,
and for the spiritualization thereof.
Many will say
it is a dream,
and will not follow my inferences;
but I confidently expect a time
when there will be seen,
running like a half-hid warp
through all the myriad
worldly interests of America,
threads of manly friendship,
fond and loving,
pure and sweet,
strong and life-long,
carried to degrees
hitherto unknown --
not only giving tone
to individual character,
making it unprecedently emotional,
muscular,
heroic,
and refined,
but having the deepest relation
to general politics.
I say democracy infers
such loving comradeship,
as its most inevitable twin,
without which
it will be incomplete,
in vain,
and incapable
of perpetuating itself.


LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE


SCENE TITLE: 4 Walt Whitman, "City of Orgies"


SPEAKER 1:

give me now libidinous joys only!


SPEAKER 2:

Give me the drench of my passions!


SPEAKER 3:

Give me life coarse and rank!


WHITMAN JOINS HIS SPEAKERS


WHITEMAN:

Today, I go consort with nature's darlings -- to-night too,


SPEAKER 1:

I am for those who believe in loose delights,


SPEAKER 2:

I share the midnight orgies of young men.


SPEAKER 3:

I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers,


SPEAKER 4:

The echoes ring with our indecent calls,


WHITMAN:

I take for my love some prostitute -- I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,


SPEAKER 1:

He shall be lawless rude, illiterate,


SPEAKER 2:

he shall be one condemned by others for deeds done;


SPEAKER 3:

I will play a part no longer -- Why should I exile myself from my companions?


SPEAKER 4:

o you shunned persons! I at least do not shun you,


WHITMAN:

I come forthwith in your midst -- I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest.


EDWARD CARPENTER RESPONDS TO WHITMAN'S LAST LINES, INSPIRED. PHOTO OF CARPENTER MAY BE PROJECTED. HERE, CARPENTER IS 30-YEARS OLD


SCENE TITLE: 5 Edward Carpenter, "There are many"


CARPENTER INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO WHITMAN

CARPENTER:

There are many here in England
to whom your words
have been the waking up to a new day.
When I say "many"
I do not mean a multitude
(I wish I did)
but many individuals
each himself
(or herself,
for they are mostly women -fluid, courageous, tender)
the centre of a new influence.


Yesterday, there came
(to mend my door)
a young workman
with the old divine light in his eyes,
and perhaps,
more than all,
he has made me write to you.
See,
you have made the earth sacred for me.
Because you have given me
the ground for the love of men
I thank you continually in my heart.
(And others thank you
though they do not say so.)
For you have made men
not ashamed
of the noblest instinct of their nature.
It is a pleasure to me
to talk to you,
for though I am a teacher,
and speak publicly
on issues of the day,
there are many things
I find it hard to say
to anyone here.


WHITMAN:

I wish to infuse myself among you:::till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand.


CARPENTER:

Friend,
you have so infused yourself
that it is daily
more and more possible
for men to walk
hand in hand
over the whole earth.
My work
is to carry on
what you have begun.


WHITMAN:

TO CARPENTER
The best of Carpenter
is in his humanity:
he was a university man,
yet managed
to save himself in time.
So many university men
sympathize with the struggle of the people
but only see the battle from afar.
Carpenter manages
to stay in the middle of it.


Carpenter is a radical of the radicals:
a come-outer:
one of the social fellows
who stir up thought.
He is a youngish man.
What will come of his life
is yet to be developed.


CARPENTER:

On June 30, 1884,
in the morning,
I paid my last visit
to Whitman's small house
at 328 Mickle Street,
in Camden, New Jersey.
We had a long and intimate conversation.
He was very friendly and affectionate:
sat by the open window
while he talked about his book.


WHITMAN:

What lies behind Leaves of Grass
is something that few,
very few,
one here and there,
perhaps oftenest women,
are at all in a position to seize.
It lies behind almost every line; but concealed,
studiedly concealed;
some passages
left purposely obscure.
There is something in my nature
furtive like an old hen!
You see a hen
wandering up and down a hedgerow,
looking apparently unconcerned,
but presently
she finds a concealed spot,
and furtively lays an egg,
and comes away
as though nothing had happened!
That is how I felt
in writing Leaves of Grass.
I think there are truths
which it is necessary
to envelope
or wrap up.


TWO TRUTHS STEP FORWARD. THROUGHOUT THE NEXT EPISODE STAFFORD, CATTELL, AND WHITMAN MOVE AROUND EACH OTHER IN ANOTHER TRIANGULAR DANCE OF ATTRACTION AND RETREAT


SCENE TITLE: 6 Walt Whitman, Harry Stafford, Ed Cattell, "The hour, night"


PHOTO OF STAFFORD MAY BE PROJECTED. STAFFORD AND CATTELL INTRODUCE THEMSELVES TO WHITMAN


STAFFORD:

Harry Stafford, eighteen-years-old.


CATTELL:

Edward Cattell. Twenty-five.


STAFFORD TURNS AWAY FROM WHITMAN. CATTELL MOVES CLOSE TO WHITMAN AND KISSES HIM


WHITMAN:

The hour, night.
Ed Cattell and I
at the front gate
by the road.


WHITMAN TURNS AWAY FROM CATTELL TO STAFFORD, WHO MOVES CLOSE TO WHITMAN


Talk with Harry, gave him ring.


WHITMAN GIVES HARRY RING: BRIDE AND GROOM TABLEAU. WHITMAN, PUTS HIS ARM AROUND STAFFORD, BOTH TURN STAGE FRONT; WHITMAN ADDRESSES JOHNSTON, INVISIBLE IN THE AUDIENCE IN FRONT OF THEM


Thanks, my dear Johnston,
for your invitation.
to stay at your house.
My (adopted) son,


INDICATES STAFFORD


a young man of eighteen,
is with me now,
sees to me,
and occasionally transacts my business affairs;
I feel somewhat at sea without him.
Could I bring him with me,
to share my room?


WHITMAN, ARM STILL TIGHT AROUND STAFFORD, REFOCUSES ON JOHNSTON, IN AUDIENCE


My dear Johnston, my nephew


INDICATING STAFFORD
and I when traveling
always share the same room
and the same bed,
and would like best
to do so there.
I want to bring on a lot of my books --
that is what my young man is for.


WHITMAN SMILES CONTENTEDLY AT STAFFORD; STAFFORD SMILES BACK; THEN, WHITMAN TO HIMSELF


Evening.
Sitting in room,
had serious inward revelation
about Harry.
Saw clearly what it really meant.
Happy and satisfied
that this may last now
without any more perturbation.


WHITMAN TURNS TO CATTELL


Ed, Don't . . .
Do not call on me
any more
at the Stafford family,
and do not call there at all
any more.
Don't ask me why.
There is nothing in it
that I think I do wrong,
nor am ashamed of,
but I wish it
kept entirely
between you and me --


As to Harry,
you know how I love him.
Ed,
you too
have my unalterable love,
and always shall have.
I want you to come up here.
When will you come?


WHITMAN TURNS TO STAFFORD WHO SITS PRACTICING HIS WRITING. WHITMAN SITS OPPOSITE, READING -- A HAPPY PAIR


STAFFORD:

It is now a fine evening,
with an occasional gust of wind,
and the moon at times
shines out brightly.
Mr. Whitman and I
are sitting here
in the room together;
he is reading The New York Herald,
and I am writing these lines
for exercise
for exercise.


STAFFORD REFOCUSES


It is a beautiful morning
and you and I
are feeling well and hearty.
My friend and I,
he says,
have had a happy night and morning.


LIGHTING/MOOD CHANGE; STAFFORD JUMPS UP, POUNDS WRITING TABLE IN ANGER


It makes me feel so bad,
Walt,
to think how we spent
the last day or two;
and all for my temper.
I will have to controle it
or it will send me to the states prison
or some other bad place.
I know how I have served you
on many ocassions before.
I know it is my falt
not yours.
Can you forgive me
and take me back
and love me the same?
I will try
by the grace of God
to do better.
I cannot give you up.
You may say
I don't care for you,
but I do,
I think of you
all the time,
I want you to come up tomorrow night.
I hope you will not disappoint me.
You are all the true friend I have,
and when I cannot have you
I will go away someware,
I don't know where.


WHITMAN:

TO STAFFORD
Not a day or night passes,
Harry,
but I think of you.
Dear son,
how I wish you could come in now,
even but for an hour
and take off your coat,
and sit down in my lap.
I want to see the creek again
and I want to see you,
my darling son.


STAFFORD:

TO WHITMAN
I will be up to see you on Thursday
to stay all night with you,
don't want to go to any bars then,
want to stay in
and talk with you,
when I sar you,
did not get time
to say anything to you,
did not have time
to say scarcely anything.
I want to get up to see you
and have a good time
for I can't let myself out here
they are too nice for that.


WHITMAN:

TURNS FROM STAFFORD TO CATTELL
Meetings --
Ed Cattell
by the pond
at Kirkwood moonlight nights.


STAFFORD:

DEMANDING WHITMAN'S ATTENTION
I want you to have some place to go
when I come down,
some place where there is plenty of girls,
I want to have some fun
when I come down this time.
STAFFORD IMPULSIVELY STRIPS OFF HIS SHIRT, READYING HIMSELF FOR WRESTLING
The fun I had last night
was with a fellow
that has been thinking for a long time
he could throw me,
so last night
him and I came together
and down he went.


STAFFORD WRESTLES WITH ANOTHER BARE-CHESTED YOUNG MAN, THE IMAGE IS THAT IN A THOMAS EAKINS PAINTING; THE WRESTLERS FORM BRIEF, MOTIONLESS EMBRACE; THEN, STAFFORD TRIUMPHS, WRESTLERS BREAK APART. STAFFORD PUTS ON HIS SHIRT)


When I am not thinking of my business
I am thinking of what I am shielding,
I want to try to make a man of myself,
and do what is right.


WHITMAN TURNS AWAY FROM STAFFORD, REFOCUSING ON CATTELL

WHITMAN:

Edward Cattell with me.


STAFFORD:

DEMANDING WHITMAN'S ATTENTION
I was very lonely Saturday night,
I wanted to come up to see you.


WHITMAN TURNS AWAY FROM CATTELL, REFOCUSES ON STAFFORD


I wish you would
put the ring on my finger again,
it seems to me
there is something wanting
to complete our friendship.
I have tride to study it out
but cannot find out what it is.
You know how you put it on --
there was one thing
to part it from me
and that was death.
I wish you would put the ring on my finger again.


WHITMAN TURNS AWAY FROM STAFFORD TO CATTELL, WHO SPEAKS TO HIM AFFECTIONATELY


CATTELL:

i was glad to har from you
my loving old friend.
i would com up to see you.
But i cant get off a day now
we ar so Bisse Husking Corn.
i went to the pond to day
and seen your old chir
floting down the streem.
I think of you old man.
Think of the time
down on the Creek.
It seems an age
since I last met with you
down at the pond
and a lovely time
we had of it too
old man.
I would like to see you
and have a talk.
Would like to com up some Saterday
and stay all night with you.
i love you Walt
and all ways will.
i know my love is returned too.


WHITMAN STAYS FOCUSED ON CATTELL. STAFFORD SPEAKS TO WHITMAN, DEMANDING HIS ATTENTION

STAFFORD:

I cannot enjoy myself
any more at home,


WHITMAN TURNS FROM CATTELL TO STAFFORD


if I go up in my room
I always come down feeling worse,
for the first thing I see
is your picture,


PHOTO OF WHITMAN MAY BE PROJECTED


and whenever I do anything,
the picture
is always looking at me,


STAFFORD PUTS ON WHITE SLOUCH HAT


I have been thinking
about fifty times
since you spoke of it
of the suit of clothes
I am to have
like yours;
I have had myself all picture out
with a suit of gray
and a white slouch hat on --
the fellows will call me Walt then.
I will have to do something
great and good
in honor of his name.
What will it be?


LIGHTS ON WHITMAN, WHO ADDRESSES STAFFORD


WHITMAN:

My darling boy,
I want to see you very much.


STAFFORD:

Times have become settled,
and our love sure
(although we have had

very many rough times together)

but we have stuck to each other
until we die,
I know.


WHITMAN:

62-YEARS-OLD; REMINISCING
The occasional ridiculous little storms of the past
I have quite discarded from memory --
and I hope you will too --
the other recollections
overtop them altogether,
and occupy the only permanent place in my heart --
as a manly loving friendship for you does also,
and will while life lasts.


Of the past I think only
of the comforting things --
I go back to the times at Timber Creek
beginning most five years ago,
and my hobbling down the old lane
and how I took a good turn there
and commenced to get healthier,
stronger.


Hank,
if I had not known you--
if it hadn't been for you
and our friendship
and my going down there summers
to the creek with you --
and living with your folks,
and cheering me up --
I should not be a living man today --
I remember these things
and they comfort me --
and you,
my darling boy,
are the central figure of them all.


Continued at: Jonathan Ned Katz: "Comrades and Lovers," Act II, Part II