The Banana Eater
© John G. Rodwan, Jr.
He did, thereby undermining his moral credibility with his outraged children and costing him at least one reader.
The Second World War had just ended and with it the German blockades that kept England from importing food. During the war, the country relied on what it could produce: bread, butter, fish and meat – heavily rationed. Afterwards, austerity measures persisted, but the government endeavored to provide long-deprived children with a new and unusual taste experience. It issued coupons redeemable for bananas – one for each child. Children born soon before or during the war – such as the three Evelyn Waugh had at the time – had never seen an actual banana and certainly had never tried the exotic item.
The Waugh siblings no doubt looked forward with giddy anticipation to their mother’s return from the greengrocer with the three designated bananas. When she did, Evelyn had seven-year-old Theresa, six-year-old Auberon and three-year-old Margaret gather around the dining room table and watch as he devoured their bananas.
My wife and I were preparing dinner when she asked me if the novelist had truly done this. When I had told the story to Nancy a few weeks earlier, Waugh’s calculated cruelty shocked her, just as it had many readers when his son’s autobiography containing the story appeared in 1991. “It would be absurd to say that I never forgave him, but he was permanently marked down in my estimation,” Auberon writes. “From that moment, I never treated anything he had to say on faith or morals very seriously.” An understandable response.
Evelyn does have his defenders, including Auberon’s son. In Fathers and Sons, Alexander Waugh does not explicitly deny that the banana incident occurred, though he raises the possibility by claiming that his aunts did not remember it. Besides, he says in trying to brush aside his father’s complaints, even if the fussy youngsters had been permitted to try the unfamiliar bananas, they may have disliked them anyway. He concedes that his grandfather had been greedy, but expresses disappointment that his father let the banana-eating bother him for so long. He insists that “it was not the shocking example of parental cruelty that the press at the time [when Will This Do? The First Fifty Years of Auberon Waugh was published] tried to portray.”
A fawning admirer of Evelyn Waugh, David Lebedoff, whose book The Same Man I had been reading when I relayed the tale of paternal gluttony, seeks other excuses for him. Unlike Alexander Waugh, he has no doubt that it did happen. Not only did Auberon vividly recall it, but his older sister (despite what her nephew chooses to believe) remembered it as well. She confirmed it to Lebedoff. Nonetheless, the cold-seeming father was not really giving evidence of pronounced character defects by depriving his children of a special treat, so his reasoning goes, because the banana-eater was a born actor making yet another attempt to be outrageous and shocking and funny. He was not a beast, you see, he was just pretending to be one.
Motivation does not matter here. Acting like a petty tyrant cannot be distinguished from being a petty tyrant, especially by wronged children. That was how Evelyn Waugh appeared, and that is what he was, to young Auberon.
After hearing about the bananas, Nancy, like Auberon, wondered whether she ought to bother attending to anything Evelyn had to say.
“Now I don’t think I’ll ever read Brideshead Revisited,” she told me as she chopped an onion and I grated cheese – the making of a meal having returned us to that unforgettable and bothersome anecdote. I said I did not think she would miss much by passing over that overrated book, but that some of the other novels really are quite funny. Still, it could be hard to laugh at Scoop if its title simply provided an unwanted reminder of those spoonfuls of hard-to-be-had cream and sugar the author put on top of his disappointed children’s bananas before he ate them.
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-- The Play Below Is An Excerpt; See The SLM Hardcopy For The Complete Text --
Little Kings © Susan Hansell
A neon sign: “I Am the
King.” In three chairs: Lear, Mrs.
L., Cordelia.
Lear stands, gives a long straight-ahead leer.
Lear: I was.
FatherSonHoly BreadWinner BuckShot of theBlock. Me. theKing. Of everything
I knew. And anything else I
pretended did not exist. Got nasty
with questions I couldn’t answer.
Ridicule worked too. In
other words King of my Castle. Be
it ever so so-so. Air conditioning
was soon to make Everyman in America a Master. Drill to 1960. My castle like so many others. The earth in neat rows. Rectangular clear cuts. Yet I insisted on a King’s touch. A trip to the Russian River. Put the Troops to work gathering
stones. Blue green polished swirls
of Crab Nebula. Aurora Borealis. THAT looked good studded in
concrete. Up on the castle walls.
It’s a long way from covered
wagons but not so far in miles or years.
Butte County gold rush.
Hills brushed Straw. Sure
go ahead and drive it in your car.
That’s why they call it theGoldenState. The gold is in the land El Stupido. That same sepia color in old family
photographs. Hang ‘em high on
DryWall. This photo.
My handsome newlywed parents and
their parents uncles aunts cousins the women in long black dresses brothers
nephews holding their hats all standing in front of theFarmHouse. I don’t mind saying a good-looking
bunch too. Though dead they stare
into the camera at what HellHowShouldIknow theFuture.
Now CHEESE for the snapshot
mister we like perfect teeth we like to be looked at By Whom. No one in ThisHome where I lie a PinDot
un conscious of my name my existence did I exist. InThisHome they say I will die. I will die without a spongebath without applesauce cleaned
from my lips without the family I once ruled we’ll see.
Rows and rows and the white
stones roll over silent Colma.
First come first hole. Free
if you lost a son in a war or were such a one. My own brother father mother buried somewhere in those
million military pickets. Shuffled
together. When you walk fast
between the headstones turn your eye to the left or to the right and see the
rows fly by fly by.
No one visits me no one touches
me no one knows exactly where they are buried or cares much why should they
except her. The one we got rid of. theFieldMouse. She sits in her cage looking
skinny. She cries. But since I can no longer speak I can
no longer humiliate her so I ask you how bad can it be. Can I be worse than anything else.
Lear sits; Cordelia stands.
Cordelia: I have no father mother father
mother. I want no heredity
marriage husband ancestors children dragging me into the LimePit called
family. Yes no. Goodbye.
Cordelia remains; Mrs. L. stands.
Mrs. L.: Dear Cordelia. Try to be a realist. Remember when you came home from
college and wanted to see Grandma after we put her in theHome. I wanted to protect you at least from
that but you insisted. You were
always headstrong JustLikeYourFather.
Love, YourMother.
Cordelia: I will not speak I speak. I am cast out I cast myself out. I take no leave all the while bothering
a great deal to say I am leaving.
Hello. I am the facts of
bone blood DNA human or otherwise fixed side by side with the bluegreen
bottleneck fly. Pinned to
HisInsectChart there can be no pretense there can only be pretense. Yum-yum. Thank you.
You’re welcome. Cheerio.
Beat.
Mrs. L.: Cordelia. Hi. Let me ask
you a question. IF with your thumb
you decide to smash one ant does that ant see AND understand your thumb coming
thus saying to ItsAntSelf OH GOD I AM HERE THEN GONE OH WHAT WILL BCOME OF THE
WORLD WITHOUT ME WILL THERE ONE DAY BE BITTY NANOTECH ANTS WHO WILL LIVE
FOREVER AND WHO WILL VISIT MY GRAVE IN TEN THOUSAND YEARS. (beat)
My my my silly girl I think not.
Cordelia: Did you know ants carry their dead?
Mrs. L.: Why would they carry their living?
Beat.
Lear: You have to believe me I tried! WHERE ARE THEY TAKING ME WHERE ARE THEY
TAKING ME DON’T LET THEM TAKE ME.
please.
Cordelia ignores Lear, holds up a hand mirror and looks into it.
Cordelia: The living and their struggle to look
so.
Mrs. L.: Humph. I think I’ll go bake a cake. Adios.
Mrs. L. sits; Cordelia primps into the hand mirror.
Cordelia: Hello. Hello.
Goodbye. Goodbye. (beat)
Hello again. Hello again. Goodbye again. Goodbye Again.
Cordelia smiles into the hand mirror and talks baby-talk.
Cordelia: Say. Bye-bye.
Cordelia smiles into the hand mirror and notices her teeth and gums.
Cordelia: Oh my!
Enter TheSisters, as Twins “joined” at the Hip. TheSisters split their lines, split
parts of their lines, etc., as desired.
One “Sister” is “obviously” a “guy” in “drag.”
TheSisters: Say bye-bye say bye-bye! Say bye-bye say bye-bye! We never get over that do we? No, we don’t! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Cordelia: Oh me!
TheSisters: (as
a vocal warm-up) Oh me me me me me!
Oh my my my my! Me oh oh oh
oh oh! My uh uh uh uh uh!
Cordelia: Oh no.
TheSisters push Cordelia into a chair and take the hand mirror away from
her.
TheSisters: She needs help sister. Check it sister. It’s pathetic sister. Creepy sister. Skeevy sister. Right sister. She stinks!
One Sister paints red smiling lips and black arching eyebrows onto
Cordelia’s face. The other Sister
then places the mirror back into Cordelia’s hand and pushes her face into it.
Cordelia: Oh!
TheSisters: OH. Oh-oh-oh.
OH. Oh God. Oh God! Yes! Yes! OH OH. YES.
TheSisters snicker. Lear
stands and sings.
Lear: O O O IT’S MAGIC. Oh oh! How this mother swells up toward my head! And makes me want to SHOUT. Throw my hands up and shout!
Lear grabs Mrs. L.; they sing and dance. TheSisters tap their toes, snap their fingers and move to
the beat/s. Cordelia stares into
the mirror. Lear and Mrs. L. stop
and breathe heavily.
Mrs. L.: Oh yes. That was a good one dear. Wheeee whoopee.
Lear: You betcha.
TheSisters applaud politely.
Lear begins to cough.
Cordelia stares into the hand mirror. Lear finally stops coughing then spits loudly.
Mrs. L.: I haven’t the foggiest notion why she’s
always bringing up ants. (to Lear) Do you?
Lear: Huh? No! Yes! What?
Mrs. L.: The ants. Her.
Lear: Who?
Mrs. L.: Your last born.
Lear: Oh.
Beat.
TheSisters: The NutJob! (indicating Cordelia)
You remember!
Lear and Mrs. L. ignore TheSisters.
Mrs. L.: I mean ants are out there every day in
the billions trying to take over the world. Just like we are.
Lear: Just like my funny castle?
Mrs. L.: Exactly like your funny castle.
Lear: Well well well. The apple doesn’t fall far from the
tree. Nope. Yep.
Mrs. L.: Dolphins eat their young too.
Lear: Excellent excellent.
Mrs. L: Then it’s settled.
Cordelia puts down the hand mirror.
Cordelia: I NEVER WAS ANYTHING LIKE YOU WILL
NEVER BE YOU OR YOU.
Mrs. L. stands.
Mrs. L.: Oh don’t make us laugh it hurts I have
cancer you know. Besides. You’ve seen the photographs of me with
my mother that you thought were photographs of you with some lady -- which had
to have been me with Grandma when I was about seven I guess but that was soooo
long ago I can’t recognize myself myself let alone anyone else -- still I KNOW
you remember asking me WHO’S THAT thinking you were ALREADY CRAZY and thusly
STUNNED since HOW COULD IT BE YOU in the past in the black&white in the
strange clothes. Am I right? Ahhhhhhh my Cordelia. You look just like me. I’ve heard it said that in the end all
women turn into monsters. (thinks) Who said that? (to
Lear) Was that you dear? (Lear
ponders) Any-way. You already
are me. Is that what’s bothering
you, pumpkin? If I’m a monster
you’re a monster. Is that what’s
the matter? Hmm?
Beat.
Lear: Women? Monsters? Wait
just a - ! Monsters? (beat) I think I did say that! (forgets
immediately) What was I
saying?
Mrs. L.: Has anyone seen my glasses?
Beat.
Lear: (to
Mrs. L.) Who are you?
Mrs. L.: Where am I?
Lear: Where am I!
Mrs. L.: Who are you!
The sound of a TV laugh-track.
TheSisters snicker and move to stand over Cordelia.
TheSisters: HEY THAT’S NOT FUNNY.
Cordelia: I wasn’t the one laughing!
More TV laugh-track.
TheSisters: Where IS that coming from?
The laugh-track stops.
TheSisters snicker.
TheSisters: Now.
What WERE we talking about?
Cordelia shrugs.
Mrs. L. shrugs and sits.
Lear raises his hand and waves it around to get attention.
Lear: Oh oh oh!
I know I know! I KNOW YOU
THINK I DON’T. But I do know I
do! Uh. How. How
sharper. How sharper than. A serpent! How much sharper than a serpent it is to have a tooth! No!
TheSisters snicker.
Mrs. L.: Everything’s going... serpentine!
Lear: Serpent?
What? No serpent? What? Tooth?
What? No tooth? What what? No serpent? No
serpent! Doc.! Do something! Don’t they have pills for that now? Pump it up! Pump it up pump it up PUMP IT UP!
TheSisters sing a few bars of “Pump It Up” a la Elvis Costello.
Lear dances a few beats then drops at Cordelia’s feet, panting.
Cordelia: You’re drooling on me!
Lear crawls to Mrs. L.’s feet and howls.
Lear: Mot-her!
Your thankless children have no feeling for me other than fear and
loathing. Unless I count their
greedlust coveting for my possessions.
Just remember when you see what you THINK is my second foot slipping
into the grave HAVE A NICE TRIP SEE YOU NEXT FALL don’t count on me you might
be going there first whoever you are and I’ll be the one to throw in the
dirt. UP ‘N AT ‘EM.
Beat.
Cordelia: He’s gonna freeze himself like Disney.
TheSisters: He’s gonna strategically starve himself. Like that scientist with the rats. He’ll make 120 easy. The lout. He could outlive me.
No, me! Me! ME.
Lear: (on
all fours) Ciao babies.
Cordelia: My cats could outlive me.
Lear purrs against Mrs. L.’s leg.
Cordelia: What will they do without me?
TheSisters: Oh don’t be so literal. You’re always so literal. She’s always so literal. You have no imagination. She has no imagination. That’s right. That’s right.
Anything can happen.
Haven’t you heard about mad cows?
Mrs. L. stands and kicks Lear; Lear yelps and scurries away.
TheSisters: See-eee. Nice shot mom!
Mrs. L. sighs.
Mrs. L.: Anyway anyway ANY WAY. Can we get back to the story I was telling in the beginning
about GRANDMA. (beat) Gee whiz thanks.
Not MY mother I’m talking about HIS. But I went to feed her EVERY MORNING even though he wouldn’t
HAVE my mother in his HOUSE. DO
YOU UNDERSTAND. She never knew I
was there and still I went.
Kow-Tow-Ing. (to Cordelia) And because YOU insisted on seeing her I drove the
station wagon to Petaluma for the second time that day.
Beat.
Cordelia: I could have gone with you in the morning.
Mrs. L.: You were asleep. Is it coming back to you? Miss Lazy Boy.
TheSisters: Lazy-boy lazy-boy! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! She called her boy! Boy-oh boy! IT’S A MAN, BABY.
(beat) Hey! Watch your mouth! YOU watch your mouth! No, you! You. YOU.
TheSisters kick each other.
TheSisters: Ouch!
Ouch!
Cordelia clears her throat and stands.
Cordelia: As a matter of fact. It is coming back to me. Like you she reminded me of a dog when it concentrates HARD
on scratching itself behind the ear and its back paw starts thumping on the
ground thumpthump thumpthumpthump thumpthumpthumpthumpthump. Unnoticed by the doggedly unconscious
dog.
Lear: (from
a corner) IT’S A DOG WHADDAYA
EXPECT.
Cordelia: Uh-huh.
Mrs. L.: But when it’s a senile old lady lying
in a nursing home bed pressing her knuckles between her legs THEN it’s
embarrassing. You try to stop her
but she won’t she won’t she won’t stop and you look over your shoulder at your
twenty-year-old daughter and flash-remember pushing away the baby fist too and
even though you’re pushing fifty you blush. What IS there to say?
Beat.
Cordelia: Margaret Mead was right?
Lear: (struggling
to rise, panting) I’LL TELL
YOU. WHAT YOU CAN. DO WITH IT. LICK MY.
NIKES. WORTH. 2-BITS. MADE IN.
PAKISTAN. TELL ME. I WAS. NEVER WRONG.
MADE NO. MISTAKES. WILL HAVE NO. DEATHBED. I
PAID. RETAIL. YOU LIKE-A THE COLOR. OF MY. WAD. WHY. DID THEY HAVE TO GO. AND CHANGE. THE FACES. ON
OUR BILLS. THAT WAS WHAT MADE OUR
MONEY. BETTER. IT DIDN’T LOOK. FAKE. LIKE MONOPOLY MONEY.
LIKE THEIRS. CAN’T
YOU. UNDERSTAND. I DON’T. WANT TO BE.
TALKING. ABOUT. ANY OF THIS.
Lear coughs and spits.
Lear: You people disgust me.
Lear collapses into a chair.
TheSisters: (after a
beat) Whew. What was that about. Who knows. Quien sabe. I
don’t want to even think about it.
Me neither. Me
neither. Right. Right. Ready set RE-PRESS.
Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh. I’m
astral. Me tooooooooo.
TheSisters sit together in one chair and sigh contentedly.
Cordelia: What is it about masturbation, anyway?
TheSisters slap each others hands.
Cordelia: Oh, I remember. (to
Mrs. L.) I looked back at you with the most quizzical expression on my
face.
Mrs. L.: I remember too!
I was so pleased!
Cordelia: It took me a few more years to catch on.
Mrs. L.: I wonder why!
Cordelia: Gee. Let’s enumerate the reasons.
Lear: LET’S NOT.
Cordelia: Come on. It’ll be fun.
Lear: IT WILL NOT BE FUN I WAS BORN IN THE YEAR NINETEEN
HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE AND I SAID NO.
Cordelia: He said Simon says my dick is your
kingdom come.
Mrs. L.: Well Really.
TheSisters: He said no! He said no! He
said no! He said no!
Mrs. L.: Where’s your sense of adventure,
dear-hearts?
[MORE]
-- This Play Continues For A Total Of 60 Minutes In A One Act Form -- All Rights Reserved and Protected By US Copyright Law --
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