My Name is Bill - An Afternoon with an Alcoholic
SCENE
An elegant, Art Deco-style hotel lobby in the American city of Akron, Ohio. It's early afternoon, Saturday, May 19, 1935.
The setting is suggested by a leather armchair center stage with a small table at its side, on which a newspaper can be seen. Upstage is a tall telephone table with telephone, and behind it is a display stand with a directory of local churches. Downstage center is a small table with a radio on it. The barroom is suggested by an offstage exit, preferably downstage through the audience.
A spotlight illuminates the table and we hear a scratchy radio program and the sound of rain.
Bill Wilson enters, holding a drink and a bar towel. He is in his forties, tall, gaunt and socially awkward. He stares at the floor, utterly preoccupied. He wears a stylish but ragged suit that once fit him, but now hangs loosely.
The radio blares and the announcer says, "This is WHLO, Akron Ohio's Hit Parade of Dance Music." Bill walks over to the downstage radio, places the drink on it, and angrily switches the music off. He throws the bar towel on the side table and sits down in the chair. (The drink is now placed between him and the audience for the rest of the play.) He looks up for the first time.
BILL: Oh! Sorry, I didn't see you there. (He looks at the radio and grins sheepishly.) What can I say, I'm not really in the mood for a dance. (Pause.) Not that I would have invited you.
(He realizes his inadvertent insult and then waves his arms, as if to say, "Let's just forget I said anything." He tries to distract himself by picking up the newspaper, but he sees the audience out of the corner of his eye. He looks at them, smiles nervously, and goes back to his paper.)
(He gets up and wanders over to the church directory and phone. He looks at the names, looks at the phone, gets an idea, picks up the phone but realizes again that the audience is watching him. He turns to look at them, laughs nervously and replaces the handset. Finally at the end of his rope, he sits down and addresses the audience.)
BILL: How you doing there? Some rain, huh? Nothing to do I guess but sit it out.
(After a long pause.) I'm sorry, I'm not too good at small talk. People from Vermont are like that. There's actually a tombstone in Vermont that says: "I…was…somebody. Who…is none of your business."
But while we're heremy name's Bill, and I'm here in Akron on business. What time is it? 2.05. (Pause.) There's a train bound for New York, just pulled out. (Pause.) Maybe I should have been on it. (Pause.) To be honest with you, I'm in a bind. Let's say you've got two choices. One: the one you want to make, but know that you can't. And the other one: the one you don't want to make, but know that you should. Does that make sense? (He looks over his shoulder at the phone.)
Me neither! (He looks at the drink.) What I need is a drinkbut I'm trying to cut back. Still: shame to let it sit there. And let the ice melt. You know what you get when you let the ice melt in a gin and tonic. Alcohol abuse! (Pause.) Tell you what though, I'll never forget my first one. Me, a fresh, young officer about to be shipped overseas to fight in the First World War! I was so homely my face hurt. And here was love, applause, war!
(MUSIC: a brief phrase of bittersweet ragtime piano music.)
and dinner parties.
(He becomes lost in a flashback.) You see, I've always been a bit shy and awkward. And this is the first time I've ever been out in society, first time I've ever seen a butler. I'm as graceful as an elephant trying to use a typewriter.
And then somebody puts into my hands a Bronx cocktail. All during college I had steered clear of drinking because of what it did to my family. I was terrified of the stuff. But here it is.
Well, everybody is looking at me so I simply have to take that drink. So I take itand another oneand then: pow!
(MUSIC: gentle ragtime piano music. This becomes Bill's 'Alcohol Theme' throughout the play.)
"Hi, there." That strange barrier that has existed between me and you seems to instantly go down. That feeling of inferiority and that craving for approval is gone. What's in this instantly turns me into the man I know you want me to be! (Growing euphoria.) I finally feel that I belong where I am, I belong to life, I belong to the universe, I am part of things at last I had found the elixir of life.
And I guess you could say that dinner party led me all the way here to the last showdown in the 'Rubber Capital of the World'. You see, our team was going to breeze into Akron and take over a floundering company a veritable cakewalk during this Depression I was going to be the new president, my business career would be back on track and I'd be the Number One man again. No big deal for the inventor of market analysis and the greatest mind of the 20th century. But the shareholders of the National Rubber Mold Machinery Company well we had some disagreements. And right now, Howard he's my business partner Howard and the rest of the gang are on a train back to New York, and I'm going to walk right into a lawsuit on Monday and be the laughing 'stock' on Wall Street again. That is, if I'm still here on Monday.
So it sure would do me a world of good if I could go on chewing the rag with you do you mind? (Quickly.) Thanks, you're a real peach! Well, after that first dinner party, my battleship was about to sail for Europe. So Lois she's my wife a well-to-do Brooklyn beauty whose friends all said, "Where'd Lois get that one?" well, we get married. Then off I sail to serve in the Great War.
Then let's see: twenty-two years old and a decorated veteran, I sail home from Europe and see my whole life ahead of me. I fancy myself a leader, for hadn't the men of my battery given me a special token of appreciation? My talents for leadership, I reckon, will place me at the head of vast enterprises, which I will manage with the utmost assurance.
Well, like all returning vets, I run into difficulties. Treat me like royalty, I'll think it's normal treat me normally, I'll be insulted.
(MUSIC: moderate, obsessive ragtime piano music.)
(He's pulled back into the past.) So in the New York subways, when the guards fail to salute me and the passengers push me around, it burns me up. How dare they! Don't they realize who I think I am?
So the drive for success is on! I'll prove to the world I'm important. The inviting whirlpool of Wall Street has me in its grip, and I sense that there might be a shortcut to domination.
"Joe," I say to my boss, "You've had me investigating frauds in stock exchange firms, and it seems to me a lot of people are losing a lot of money because they invest with so little investigation. In Vermont, we say you'd better look in the horse's mouth before you buy him."
JOE: What are you getting at, Bill?
BILL: Well sir, there's no such animal on Wall Street as an analyst who meets with companies around the country, walks the production line, kicks the tires and then writes reports for investors. And Joe, I think I'd be just the man!
JOE: That's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard of!
BILL: Well, I'll show him: Lois and I hop on the Harley Davidson and go on our own anyway. We cover the whole eastern United States in a year. At the end of it, my reports to Wall Street get me a seat on the stock exchange and a large expense account. Well, put that in your pipe and smoke it, Joe. I have arrived!
(He returns to the present under a black cloud.) I'll show you. I'll show this town. I'll show Howard. As a matter of fact I'll show the whole goddamned world!
(He grabs the glass. Then he comes to his senses and looks at the audience.) Aw nuts, will you listen to me, I'm sorry. It's just that (Pause.) Okay, I told you I was in a bind, right? You see that drink? I want that drink. As a matter of fact, I'm dying to have that drink. But if I have that drink, I will die. Now that's what you'd call being on the horns of a dilemma!
That's right, I'm a rumhound, a dipsomaniacan alcoholic. And you're probably thinking, "Funny, you don't look like you sit on a park bench!" Sorry, that's rotten to those who do sit on park benches. But you'd think, I've been soberwhat, six months now; you'd think, well, he's found the way out…what's your problem?
(He points to his temple.) Let me put it this way so you can understand: you tell mewhat's your favorite guilty pleasure? the kind of thing that you just love to eat! (He waits for someone in the audience to reply. If there's no response:) Let's say it's chocolate, okay? You're a choco-holic! You wake up in the morning and the first thought on your mind is how awful you feel because you had too many chocolates last night. You're so sick you have to go into the bathroom and upchuck, and you swear to yourself "I'll Never Do That Again!" You clean yourself up, get dressed, and you're on top of the world because today is a brand new day! Around lunchtime you've forgotten about your chocolate binge last night, and you start thinking how good it tastes but NO, tonight you're going to be strong. Early afternoon you start thinking: that actually wasn't so bad last night, so tonight I'll just have one piece. By the end of the day you're in a state of euphoria because that one piece of chocolate is going to be so good. So you stop by the shop and you know you're only going to have one but you start thinking: I might as well get a whole bag, so that will last me into next week! You get home, you have one piece, and that's so good you can't wait to have the next one because that'll be even better! So you have another, and then another and before you know it the whole bag is gone. You stumble off to bed, nauseated and ashamed of yourself, and you say to yourself, "I'll Never Do That Again!" This goes on day after day, year after year. You're either thinking about chocolate, or you're eating chocolate, or you're thinking about not eating chocolate. No life, no friends, no relationships nothing in your life that will get between you and chocolate. Now such a person would be mentally ill, right?
Substitute booze for chocolate and my last drunk I damn near diedstumbling in, putrid, bloody, vomiting in the hallway and Lois taking me down to my mattress in the basement, that she put there so I wouldn't jump out the upstairs window to get away from 'them'. And then one more trip to the nuthouse to watch the snakes crawling around the ceiling. They all told me: "Bill, go on one more bender: you'll either die or have a wet brain." Now, I know all this! (He points to his temple.) But then I start thinking: they're not here! I'm hereall aloneand nobody will ever know. Or care.
You see, there's a danger: I reach a point where there is no mental defense against that first drink. So it would help me so much if you could just put up with me for a little while longer so I don't take that drink. Do you mind?
Let me just talk through how I got here, because there is a solution I know somewhere in this mess. And who knows, you might save my life today.
[end of extract]