Read Online The Old Neighborhood by David Mamet - Free Book Online Page A

that was yours …
    BOBBY : … okay …
    JOEY : “Why’s this black stuff coming out of the salt shaker?”
    BOBBY : … some intellectual giants …
    JOEY : … that’s right …
    BOBBY : “Tell us about Moby Dick” …
    JOEY : You wished …
    BOBBY : And so which broad was mine?
    JOEY : Rosen … I don’t know … Rubovitz … Some Jew broad … some folk dancer. I don’t know … some JAP … some Eskimo … 
(Pause)
How’s Laurie?
    BOBBY : Fine.
    JOEY : Yeah, but how is she, though …?
    BOBBY : She’s fine. What did I say?
    JOEY : You said that she was fine.
(Pause)
    BOBBY : All right.
(Pause)
    JOEY : So?
(Pause)
    BOBBY : So what?
    JOEY : Yeah. So what, so how is she, you give me this shit all the time … you never fuckin’ changed you know that, Bob: “Fuck you, I don’t need anyone, fuck you” …
    BOBBY : And what are you, huh? You been reading
Redbook
…? What is this all of a sudden … 
(Pause)
You want to know how she is? She’s fine.
    JOEY : Well, that’s all I asked. I ast you how she is, you barked at me. Fuck you.
    BOBBY : Hey, you know, Joey, you know, people get married …
    JOEY : Yeah. I know they do.
    BOBBY : They … 
(Pause)
    JOEY : What?
(Pause)
What?
(Pause)
What? Mr. Wisdom … speak to me.
    BOBBY : I should never have married a shiksa.
    JOEY : Yeah. I know. ’Cause that’s all that you used to say, “Let’s find some Jew broads and discuss the Talmud …”
    BOBBY : This is something different.
    JOEY : Is it?
    BOBBY : Yes. I’m talking about marriage, you asked a question, I’m answering you. You don’t want to fuckin’ talk about it, we’ll talk about something that you like.
(Pause)
    JOEY : Tell me.
    BOBBY : You know what she said?
    JOEY : Who, Laurie?
    BOBBY : Yeah.
    JOEY : No, what.
    BOBBY : Listen to this: “What are we going to tell the kids.”
    JOEY : She said that?
    BOBBY : Yes.
    JOEY : When?
    BOBBY : Right before I left …
    JOEY : “What are you going to tell the kids …?”
    BOBBY : Yeah.
(Pause)
    JOEY : What
are
you going to tell the kids?
    BOBBY : What is there to tell? The kid is a Jew.
    JOEY :
(Pause)
Well, Bob, the law says he’s a Jew, his, you know what the law says, he’s a Jew his mother is a Jew.
    BOBBY : Fuck the law.
    JOEY : Well, all I’m saying, that’s what the law says …
    BOBBY : Joey, Joey, what are you saying, a kid of mine isn’t going to be a Jew? What is he going to be? Look at him …
    JOEY : I’m, I’m only talking about …
    BOBBY : I know what you’re talking about. What I’m saying, common sense? They start knocking heads in the schoolyard looking for Jews, you fuckin’ think they aren’t going to take my kid because of, uh …
    JOEY : No. No.
    BOBBY : Well …?
    JOEY : What I’m saying …
    BOBBY : … are they going to take him, or they’re going to pass him up ’cause he’s so …
    JOEY : I’m talking about the law.
    BOBBY : ’Cause he’s so blond and all, “Let’s go beat up some kikes.… Oh, not
that
kid.…”
    JOEY : Hey, Bobby, don’t make me out the bad guy here, I only brought it up.
    BOBBY : Well, listen to this, Joe, because I want to tell you what she says to me one night: “If you’ve been persecuted so long, eh, you must have brought it on yourself.”
(Pause)
    JOEY : She said that?
    BOBBY : Yes.
(Pause)
    JOEY : Wait a second. If we’ve been oppressed so long we must be doing it.
    BOBBY :
(Pause)
Yes.
    JOEY : She said that.
    BOBBY : Yes.
(Pause)
    JOEY : And what did you say to her?
    BOBBY : I don’t know …
    JOEY : What do you mean you don’t know? What did you say to her?
    BOBBY : Nothing.
(Pause)
    JOEY : She actually said that?
(Pause)
    BOBBY : And
(Pause)
And I mean it got me thinking …
    JOEY : Ho, ho, ho, ho, hold on a minute, here, ho, Bobby. Lemme tell you something. Let me tell you what she feels: She feels left out, Jim. Don’t let that white shit get into your head. She feels left out. They got, what have they got, you talk about