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Story-line: Babe Ruth and Jack Kerouac have an imaginary encounter between them outside space-time.
The stage is divided into two parts. On the right side, a cafe-bar, and on the left, a baseball locker room.
Lights up on the cafe-bar. Vesuvio Cafe, San Francisco, California, 1958. It's a typical bar of that time. Behind the counter, a shelf with bottles and a door to the kitchen. A bottle of whiskey and an empty glass are on the counter. In the background, there is a door to the restroom.
We hear someone singing a Frank Sinatra song while doing the dishes in the kitchen. Jack Kerouac (36) gets out of the restroom. He's wearing a blue jacket and brown pants. He sits on a stool in front of the counter and glances up to the kitchen.
JACK
Stan! Your bathroom is dirty!
(To himself.)
Dirty like the mundane life of a fucking man.
(Jack fills his glass with whiskey.)
BLACKOUT
Lights up on the locker room. Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York, NY, 1934. A box with bats placed next to the door, and a baseball mitt hanging on the wall.
Babe Ruth (39) enters. He is tired, wearing the Yankees uniform. He sits in a chair, takes off his shoes, and wipes his face with a towel.
BABE RUTH
(To the audience.)
All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.
(He sighs.)
BABE RUTH
(To the audience.)
We lose 5-0 to Red Sox! 39 years and my body tells me that my time is finishing.
BLACKOUT
(Lights up on the whole stage. Jack writes on a paper, while Babe Ruth is playing with his bat and baseball glove. Suddenly, Babe Ruth glances up towards the cafe-bar. He gets a little upset.)
BABE RUTH
(To Jack.)
Hey! Hey, man.
(Jack looks around until his eyes meet Babe Ruth.)
JACK
(To himself.)
Oh, my God!
(Jack Kerouac and Babe Ruth start a conversation with the two separated by space and time.)
JACK
(To Babe Ruth.)
You?
BABE RUTH
Me?
JACK
It's you? Really?
BABE RUTH
I think so.
JACK
I don't believe that I'm talking with you.
BABE RUTH
Yeah. It's me.
JACK
Bambino! Oh, my God!
(Babe Ruth smiles.)
JACK
Nice to meet you.
BABE RUTH
Thank you. And you? What's your name?
JACK
I'm just a Jack. Jack, like many others.
BABE RUTH
Right.
JACK
It's a dream. A crazy dream.
BABE RUTH
It's real. Real and truthfully.
JACK
(Changes his tone.)
I don't know. I suppose the only truth is music!
BABE RUTH
Really? Are you a musician?
JACK
I'm writer.
BABE RUTH
I thought you were a musician.
JACK
No, no. I just said the only truth is music.
BABE RUTH
What about baseball?
JACK
It's no lie!
BABE RUTH
That's enough?
JACK
Depends on...
BABE RUTH
Depends on what? The truth?
JACK
Maybe on the nothing.
BABE RUTH
Why?
JACK
If the nothing'exists, we have a truth, but this truth can be a lie because nothing is nothing. And if there's a nothing, it means that we have something, despite being nothing.
BABE RUTH
(Puzzled.)
Stop. Stop it. I don't want to understand anything about nothing!
JACK
You don't need to know about nothing!
BABE RUTH
No?
JACK
Yes.
BABE RUTH
That's better.
JACK
Your art is hitting the ball out of the stadium.
BABE RUTH
That's true!
(He swings his bat.)
Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.
JACK
I'd like to have been a baseball player instead of a writer.
BABE RUTH
Bullshit!
JACK
Yeah!
BABE RUTH
Why?
JACK
Because I would be happier!
BABE RUTH
But you're a writer. That's good.
JACK
I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. It's my work. Be confused and make people confused. Just one drink got me in the way.
BABE RUTH
You know, if it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery. That's why I drink.
JACK
As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind.
BABE RUTH
I learned early to drink beer, wine and whiskey. And I think I was about five when I first chewed tobacco.
JACK
This is not your fault.
BABE RUTH
Whose is it? The life? My passions?
JACK
I don't know. I know my fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.
BABE RUTH
Sure?
(He gets up and glances at Jack.)
JACK
What?
BABE RUTH
I see.
JACK
What?
BABE RUTH
I'm seeing your unhappiness.
JACK
My unhappiness?
BABE RUTH
Yeah.
JACK
If you see my… my sadness, so… tell me what is happiness?
BABE RUTH
Yeah, of course. The happiness is…
JACK
So…?
BABE RUTH
I won't be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat. And you? How are you meant to be?
JACK
Happy? Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running,-that's the way to live.
BABE RUTH
I think life is something else!
JACK
Like what, for example?
BABE RUTH
Let me show you how it's done...
(Babe Ruth swings his bat.)
(Babe and Jack look up, seeing an imaginary ball.)
JACK
Great!
BABE RUTH
Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.
JACK
You're not afraid of strikeout?
BABE RUTH
Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
(He sits down.)
JACK
Cool!
(There's a brief silence.)
(Jack Kerouac writes on paper.)
BABE RUTH
What do you want for your life?
JACK
I'm a writer. I'm going to marry my novels and have little short stories for children.
BABE RUTH
Reading isn't good for a ballplayer. Not good for his eyes. If my eyes went bad even a little bit I couldn't hit home runs. So I gave up reading.
JACK
Really?
BABE RUTH
Yeah.
JACK
I'm sorry, Bambino.
BABE RUTH
That's all right!
(There's a brief silence.)
(Jack writes.)
BABE RUTH
What are you writing?
JACK
I'm writing this book because we're all going to die.
BABE RUTH
(Baffled.)
I don't want to die. I love to live ever minute of life!
JACK
My witness is the empty sky.
(There's a brief silence.)
BABE RUTH
Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?
JACK
About wealth... I think... There is no wealth without human misery!
BABE RUTH
Very sad!
JACK
That offends you?
BABE RUTH
Sometimes.
JACK
Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.
BABE RUTH
This is the end, I guess.
JACK
Exactly! Life is so fast! No time for a hero! Just for the legends! The legends are more important than the heroes.
BABE RUTH
Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.
JACK
It all ends in tears anyway... This is our reality!
BABE RUTH
Wait a minute! That's not fair. Will humanity exist in the future?
JACK
Mankind is like dogs, not gods…
BABE RUTH
I don't understand.
JACK
...as long as you don't get mad they'll bite you - but stay mad and you'll never be bitten.
BABE RUTH
Got it!
JACK
Dogs don't respect humility and sorrow.
(There's a silence.)
(Babe Ruth gets up and swings his bat.)
BABE RUTH
Every time I hit a home run, later after the game, everything is easy for me.
JACK
It doesn't happen to me!
BABE RUTH
You're not a ballplayer.
JACK
But I write poetry. I also need to make a perfect rhyme, like a home run.
BABE RUTH
Good point!
(Babe Ruth swings his bat and follows the imaginary ball as if he had hit a home run.)
BABE RUTH
We'll always have hope.
JACK
Sure.
BABE RUTH
Tomorrow will always be possible.
JACK
For those who like to start again.
(Babe Ruth stares unsatisfied.)
BABE RUTH
Foul Ball!
JACK
Sometimes you can't hit.
BABE RUTH
No.
(Babe Ruth sits.)
JACK
Are you a genius all the time?
(Jack sips his drink.)
BABE RUTH
Maybe when I play.
JACK
That's how you win.
BABE RUTH
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success.
JACK
But life is different! Life is time. And time is death!
BABE RUTH
Bullshit!
JACK
Life has only one inning!
BABE RUTH
That's why I love baseball!
JACK
Me too!
BABE RUTH
You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.
(Jack looks toward the kitchen door.)
JACK
(Calling.)
Stan!
BABE RUTH
Who is Stan?
JACK
The bartender. He loves to sing the songs of Frank Sinatra!
BABE RUTH
Who?
JACK
Sinatra. Frank Sinatra. The singer. The voice.
BABE RUTH
I don't know him.
JACK
But one day you will.
BABE RUTH
Is he in this place?
JACK
Sinatra?
BABE RUTH
Yes.
JACK
No. I was talking about Stan, the bartender.
BABE RUTH
Oh! I got it.
JACK
Stan went to take out the trash and hasn't returned. He stopped singing.
BABE RUTH
Call him.
JACK
I did.
BABE RUTH
Then, wait.
(There's a brief silence.)
BABE RUTH
But what if he is dead?
JACK
I think not. He was singing.
BABE RUTH
To die it is enough to be alive.
JACK
I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.
BABE RUTH
How do you see life?
JACK
Living is our train to death.
BABE RUTH
Or the last train station before eternity.
JACK
Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.
BABE RUTH
Before it's too late! I don't want to die.
JACK
Life must be rich and full of loving!
BABE RUTH
It would be nice if it was always like this.
JACK
But unfortunately it's not. Life tends to hurt a lot!
(There's a brief silence.)
BABE RUTH
The bartender hasn't returned.
JACK
Yeah. Poor Stan! Today he throws away trash, tomorrow, he is going to be thrown away.
BABE RUTH
Write about that.
JACK
No way.
BABE RUTH
Write something! You're a writer.
JACK
That's what the New York Times calls me. I'm broke, but I'm a writer.
BABE RUTH
Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks.
JACK
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
BABE RUTH
Simple like a home run.
JACK
A home run is simple?
BABE RUTH
Yeah.
JACK
My poem is not so easy. I thought to hit a home run was very complicated.
BABE RUTH
Not for me.
JACK
Of course. You always hit.
BABE RUTH
I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.
JACK
What do you do to hit many home runs?
(Babe Ruth gets up and swings his bat.)
BABE RUTH
How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball. The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.
JACK
I think it's great to be exaggerated!
BABE RUTH
Sometimes it's not good.
JACK
Have you suffered because of this hype?
BABE RUTH
Many times. I've been booed for my exaggerations.
JACK
I don't believe that you have been booed.
BABE RUTH
I've been booed.
JACK
Awesome!
BABE RUTH
I never heard a crowd boo a homer, but I've heard plenty of boos after a strikeout.
JACK
The important thing is that you never gave up the game.
BABE RUTH
Never. It's my way.
JACK
Great things are not accomplished by those who give in to trends and fads and popular opinion.
BABE RUTH
No matter where the arrow points, I just follow my opinion.
JACK
You're right! Now I understand why you hit so many home runs.
BABE RUTH
Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.
JACK
That's when we have to improvise, like jazz.
BABE RUTH
I improvise very much. I do things I never thought I would.
JACK
How to be a pitcher, for example. For you it was good to play another position?
BABE RUTH
As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher's mound. It was as if I'd been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.
(From the kitchen we hear the bartender singing another Frank Sinatra song.)
JACK
Stan!
BABE RUTH
He's alive.
JACK
He already dumped the trash.
BABE RUTH
Living is knowing how to separate the trash. Throw away what's worthless... just pick what can be salvaged.
JACK
Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love of some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH...
BABE RUTH
I don't give a lot of laughs! Just socially!
JACK
A sociable smile is nothing but a mouth full of teeth!
(Jack nods to Babe Ruth.)
JACK
Are you listening?
BABE RUTH
No.
JACK
Stan stopped singing again.
BABE RUTH
So?
JACK
He's still in the kitchen.
BABE RUTH
Call him.
(Jack looks toward the kitchen.)
JACK
Stan! Stan! Stan! Can you hear me?
(There's a silence.)
BABE RUTH
Why don't you go in there?
JACK
I can't.
BABE RUTH
Why?
JACK
Stan doesn't like to see anyone in the kitchen.
BABE RUTH
If you can't enter the kitchen, there's nothing else to do.
(There's a brief silence.)
JACK
Can you hear?
BABE RUTH
Is it Stan?
JACK
No.
BABE RUTH
Who is?
JACK
Just listen.
BABE RUTH
I can't hear!
JACK
Please.
BABE RUTH
I can't.
JACK
Listen to the silence.
BABE RUTH
Silence?
JACK
The silence is magic.
BABE RUTH
I prefer the sound!
JACK
I prefer the fury of the silence!
BABE RUTH
The sound of the crowd roaring with my home run!
JACK
I like the fury of words. The fury ignites our imagination.
BABE RUTH
Wow!
JACK
The page is long, blank, and full of truth. When I am through with it, it will probably be long, full, and empty with words.
BABE RUTH
The empty is important?
JACK
Like the silence!
(A beat.)
JACK
Shakespeare wrote that "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player... That struts and frets his hour upon the stage... And then is heard no more: it is a tale... Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury... Signifying nothing."
BABE RUTH
Nothing is everything!
JACK
And everything is nothing. Unless everything is possible.
BABE RUTH
And what is possible?
JACK
The imagination.
BABE RUTH
The imagination?
JACK
Yes. We can do everything with our imagination. Like this meeting.
BABE RUTH
Oh, boy! Then, let's play ball.
BLACKOUT
LIGHTS UP
(Babe is in the Jack Set, and Jack is in the Babe Set.)
(The two scenes happen at the same time: Babe regards the pub and then sits on the stool; Jack is enchanted, exploring the locker room; Babe fills a glass with whiskey; Jack picks up a baseball bat; Babe drinks; Jack puts on a baseball glove; Babe writes on a sheet of paper; Jack swings his bat.)
(Stan enters singing a Sinatra song and begins sweeping the floor; Stan doesn't see Babe or Jack.)
(Babe keeps writing and Jack swinging. Stan still sweeping leaves from behind the cafe-bar and goes to the locker room, as the light fades.)
END
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Other plays in...
A TRILOGY ABOUT JACK KEROUAC
1. Clarice & Jack
Jack Kerouac meets the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector inside a painting by Edward Hopper.
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