Murphy an Elderly bachelor- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2008

Murphy an Elderly bachelor

A one act play

Cast

Murphy-    An elderly bachelor, about 60 years old, big, buff and gregarious

   Farrell- Another bachelor, about 53 years of age, small, stocky, naïve and good natured in personality

     Barman- A frail skeletal figure with a yellowish tinge to his complexion, with a thin wispy moustache

Act 1 scene 1

The scene is set in the almost vacant, wooden furnished perimeter of Reily’s bar on a darkened Thursday night. The room is filled with wooden furniture lying adjacent to a pair of old, pine made, circular tables which are laid precisely in the centre of the pub. Stacks of chairs lie in the right hand  corner of the pub, like ornaments with old cobwebs gathering slowly over time. In the extreme right      hand side of the room there lies a hidden barely visible doorway, blockaded by two stacks of chairs in front. To the left of the door within its close proximity there is a small wooden bench, two small armchairs and a table with beer mats housed on top. The ambiance of the scene is non-existent and at the far side of the pub, centre stage, the long wooden, rectangular structure of the bar counter, the pub taps, several presses and the bartender himself can be seen. The barman is wearing a dickie bow, and a white and black suit and he is standing and leaning over, while his eyes are affixed on the cash register before him where he make his estimations on the pubs takings. On the top of the presses behind the bar counter, there are varies different bottles of bourbon, Irish whiskey, Scotch, vodka, Gin and Bacardi. At the far left hand corner of the pub, the entrance to the bar, is seen through the opaque, tinted glass door.

-suddenly the door opens and two gentlemen dressed in spring raincoats enter the pub. They remove the hoods from their heads, and one of them the older and taller of the two, clasps his hands and rubs them together to try and make some kinetic heat. The other man, the stocky younger approaches the bar counter, while the other older gentleman stands near the doorway surveying the atmosphere for just a brief moment. The bar man is no longer distracted counting his takings and suddenly he looks up at the two gentlemen and forges a smile to greet the rare rewards of two paying customers.

Barman: Ah lads! It’s a divil of a day! It’s a day to warm the aul cockles up with a glass of Jameson and a pint of Guinness am I right?

Farrell: Well the weather is predictably bad      (smiles at the barman, who stands before him leaning over the counter)

Barman: You’re wet, soaking wet, I’ll take you’re coats and dry them on the radiators in the

back room if you like.

Farrell: I don’t want to trouble you with minding coats

Barman: No, it’s no trouble at all. I must first concern myself with the needs and troubles of my paying customers so to make a successful business. (Smiles for a minute)

Farrell: No thanks I’ll manage. I don’t want to forget them anyway; I have a terrible tenancy to forget things when I go out at night. I can be terribly absent minded.

Barman: Oh you can say that again! I forgot to ring the brewery again today, so I am out of lager once again. The barrel is dried up!

Farrell: Oh well were only human.

Barman: You’re right (Both laugh in a show of false pretence)

Barman: So what will it be gents?

Farrell: Two pints of ale and two double measures of Bushmills with plenty of ice please.

Barman: No problem gents.

(Barman stops still and glances over at the older, taller gentleman who now sits at the centre of the bar at one of the large awkward wooden tables, opposite him)

(Barman waves quietly to the gentleman at the table)

Barman: Murphy! My favourite and best paying customer, finally you’ve returned to me. I thought the pigeons had flown. (He speaks in an excited tone of delight)

You haven’t graced me with you’re presence for over two months. Since you’ve left business had been awful, in fact it’s plummeted completely.

(Murphy looks over to the barman and waves to him, with great reluctance and a hidden feeling of discomfort, wrought within him)

Murphy: Oh! Bill, hello!                            (He stands upright and walks several paces towards the counter)

Barman: You don’t paint the town red these days?   (Smiles with a creepy corpse like grin)

Murphy: No, I’m getting old, and I’m set in my ways and I certainly don’t want to go boozing after all my problems and a bad, rotten marriage behind me.

Barman: Nah! You’ve got to do what you feel like, but still try and enjoy you’re retirement whatever way you feel best.

(He pulls two pints of ale away from one of the taps at the bar and pours two measures of whiskey from a bottle into two small glasses at the front of the counter)

Murphy: Business doesn’t seem to come these days for you.

Barman: Oh no it’s drab. I had to sack to several of my staff, including two French boys, who are students working over here, you know the pair whom I incessantly argued with. Damn blow in’s from the continent.

Murphy: (Nodds) Oh yeah, I think I can faintly remember them.

Barman: As well as that my old regulars, aul Nora Sullivan from up the road, roaring red faced Willy Brown, Mr Lawlor and his misses and young Peter Moore have all suddenly stopped coming here.

By the way did aul Willy Brown ever give up the drink? I don’t see him anymore.

Murphy: He gave up the ghost, let alone the drink. I don’t see him anymore. I reckon he’s moved from the area.

Barman: Well that’s a shame. (Changes the subject)

Sit you’re self down, make you’re self comfortable, stay as long as you like, no need to rush while you’re in the company of friends, isn’t that right

(He laughs mechanically out loud to himself)

Murphy: Right whatever (He looks facing down, sighs briefly and frowns)

  (The two men stand on either side of the bar standing silent, while the barman starts to clean the    counter with a jay cloth. Then Murphy pays the barman, while both the men carry their drink over to the centre of the pub, to the table)

  Farrell: He’s a sandwich short of a picnic, definitely not the full shilling (He looks bemusedly at Murphy)

        Murphy: Tell me about it, once you enter the vicinity of the pub, you can never leave. Well you can’t leave until he’s plagued you into buying more drink.

Farrell: Is he an old acquaintance of yours? (Sips on his drink)

 Murphy: Him? No way! I’ve been kind enough to keep his business going, as a sort of charity fund for a man on his bleedin knees.

Farrell: What do you mean?

 Murphy: Ah to tell the truth, I used to not give a damn where I drank, just so I could drink by myself  after coming home from the Irish Times. Any pub would do. I became familiarised with the pub, got acquainted and that’s another story! (Both smile to each other in jest)

Farrell: This dive is dying a death

Murphy: This pub was dying in its unwanted dreary birth, let alone its death (Both men sip on their drinks)

Farrell: So why do come here? It’s ludicrous for me to dwell on the fact!

Murphy: I come here to remind myself what age is all about, the loss of fulfilment, waste, sorrow, reflection, buried hopes that abscond our lives and of course I genuinely want to be alone, but sometimes he comes over to me and everything is lost! (Laughs)

(Raises his eyebrows up to the heavens)

Farrell: You’re a sentimentalist and a peculiarity, who knows what floats in that fish bowl brain of yours.

Murphy: Well I have always been very enigmatic to women, until they see my true colours, then they usually come after me with a hatchet.

Farrell: Really? (Says sarcastically)

Murphy: No not really, I fabricated the last part, about women and hatchets.

(Both men sip contently on their pints)

(While the men converse, the barman proceeds over to the counter and starts vigorously to clean and wipe down the counter and the surfaces of the bar, paying close attention to his work)

Farrell: Do you want a pack of peanuts?

Murphy: No I’m grand

Farrell: Well I want some (Looks over at the barman)

Have you got any peanuts? (Speaks loudly)

Barman: I haven’t had any for two months? (He doesn’t look up from his cleaning chores)

Farrell: Well I’ll have a packet of Cheese and onion crisps instead, please.

Barman: I haven’t got any left, there’s no demand for them I’m only trying to avoid the bailiffs these days and not stock up on some crazed commodities for strange new customers to my pub!

(He continues to clean the surfaces)

Farrell: (Looks at Murphy beside him) whatever happened to the needs of the customer!

I didn’t make a strange request at all!

Murphy: No, Not at all. You have to adjust to the situation; he’s not so grand and cheery behind that sulking mass of wrinkles and absurd behaviour.

Farrell: No! He didn’t graduate from the charm academy.

Murphy: Not at all.           (Both of the men frown)

(The barman walks to the extreme right hand side of the room and starts to remove the stacks of chairs which blockade the door before him. He places the chairs to his right and walks through the door and switches the on the light bulb before he disappears behind the door)

Murphy: He goes off on a tangent of his own!

Farrell: It’s a wonder how his place hasn’t been robbed yet, anyone could shaft this aul sod.

Murphy: What’s there to rob! Who wants that rotten pine furniture, who would bother to pocket his pennies.

Farrell: (Laughs in jest) literally! Who would rob his pennies?

Murphy: No one

Farrell: (Nods in approval) Exactly! Well said

Murphy: His coiffeurs are empty, his customers naught and that’s the forecast for the future for the establishment.

Farrell: You’re premonition

Murphy: My own premonition

Farrell: Let’s just change the subject please (Putting emphasis on the word please)

By the way do you remember Lara Flynn?

Murphy: Vaguely.

Farrell: I was just reminiscing on my past. I always wanted to go with her; I had a mad crush on her which I took years to get over. She was a wild, rebellious, scantily dressed devil and I was a timid, book inducing hermit. I went to live with her brother in Düsseldorf during my college days at the end of my summer semester. Do you remember her?

Murphy: Oh Helen of Troy herself, I think I remember that mare, did she have jet black hair?

Farrell: Oh yes, and a fine Hispanic complexion, to match her fine sultry summer regalia.

Murphy: Many a man would wet himself in the burning passion of excitement and a fine mare in all her formed beauty can bring about the greatest game of sporting chivalry and jest in a huddled congregation of male admiring devotees.

Farrell: I tried to ask her out, but of course my instincts were warded off by sight of older more rugged and robust men going out with her.

Murphy: How do you know she was seeing them?

Farrell: She would link them, hold hands and kiss behind the lockers, while the janitor would indulge and watch in secrecy.

Murphy: What was she doing with two fellas?

Farrell. No she didn’t date them at the same time; she dated them on different occasions.

Murphy: You don’t need ladies like her. Have you forgotten I’m Butch Cassidy and you’re the Sundance Kid? Were as tough leather me and you, with steel made determination. We can have any woman we want, were the troubadours who serenade and infatuate damsels with our very presence.

Farrell: But in reality were not!

Murphy: No, were not! (Shakes his head and laughs)

Certainly not!

Were a pair of old smelly socks, a pair of red nosed, whiskey drinking wafflers, still harbouring old grudges and distasteful interests from our past.

Farrell: Well I’m not old at all, I’m a middle aged man with a fine muscular tone to my body.

(Both men finish the last of their whiskey to drain the glasses completely)

(The hungry, voracious howls of the wind are heard outside near the entrance)

(The barman is still nowhere to be seen, since he has not returned from the back room)

Farrell: Is he alive? (Sarcastically)

Murphy: Yes somewhere or other. I suspect that he’s rummaging around, looking for his old dartboard, hoping to extend our custom.

Farrell: Well he can deceive himself all he likes, but I’m leaving now. (Stands up)

Murphy: (Gestures to Farrell to sit down) Sit down, I’m having another double measure of whiskey and so are you.

Bill come out here! I need a whiskey and the same for my good man here. (Calls out loud)

Farrell: (Frowns) you’re getting a bit too boisterous for my liking.

(The clatter of the barman’s activities are heard, with an immediate but brief silence)

(Barman then appears at the doorway)

Barman: coming up, anything for my two favourite customers

(The barman goes behind the counter and pours two double measures of whiskey into two small glasses and then proceeds towards the two gentlemen)

(Murphy then pays the barman and collects the drink. He then sits down next to Farrell and hands him his drink)

Murphy: two glasses of whiskey measure my consolation in life, four glasses are to help me forget my legacy in life, while five glasses of whiskey and a pint of ale measure happiness in all its brief but bliss existence.

Farrell: Well whatever you’re into

Murphy: exactly! (They both laugh together)

(The barman stares over at them affixed on the two men)

Barman: I think I found an old bottle of beer at least four years old, if you’re interested.

Farrell: No I don’t want to be poisoned any time soon

Barman: What did you say; it’s hard to hear in this left ear

Murphy: He said he’s fine; he’s nursing his whiskey instead.

Barman: alright take you’re time, relax and unwind, stay as long as you like.

(Barman returns to his position behind the bar counter. He resumes his work of cleaning the counter)

Murphy: I’d nearly expect some tumbleweed to go by slowly through the centre of the pub

Farrell: Who comes to this pub?

Murphy: The regulars

Farrell: Who are the regulars?

Murphy: Oh woodlice, beetles, spiders cohabiting in the presses and a family of moths living underneath the carpet near the toilet.

Farrell: What’s the toilet like?

Murphy: Scary enough! Its over there (Points) past the doorway, if you want to see for you’re self.

Farrell: No I’ll leave it to my imagination

Murphy: Come on drink up and we’ll leave this place and shake the dust off our feet.

(Farrell looks over at the barman at the counter, who is busy lifting out two pints of ale which he has just pulled from the bar taps)

Farrell: Oh no! He’s trying to get us to stay

Murphy: Oh feckin hell! (Looks over)

Barman: (approaches the table carrying two pints of ale) Here you go gentlemen just as you like it, two fine pints of ale to your satisfaction. Stay awhile and I’ll get the Juxbox going, we’ll have a lad’s night in, three friends together. No one can complain about my bar, all the good times are remembered at O’Reily’s.

(Murphy and Farrell stand up in protest and place their raincoats around their shoulders as they prepare to leave)

Murphy: Goodbye and good riddance (speaks in disgust)

Barman: No don’t leave Murphy! I’ll give you a free drink, I’ll give you the keys to the bar if you stay, I’ll give you all the drink you can handle, just don’t go please don’t go.

(Both men walk quickly to the door and ignore his calls)

Barman: I need you Murphy! Don’t you know that I need you (shouts after them although they have gone through the door)

Barman: Come back don’t leave you’re best friend to rot in this musty, beer stinking hell!

Barman: Oh hell!

(The barman walks to the extreme right hand side of the bar and walks through the door and closes it behind him)

(The light is turned off, all is silent)

(The sight of one of the wooden tables collapsing can be seen in the centre of the bar)