based on “The Harbinger,”

a short story by O HENRY

© 2017 Roy Proctor
Inquiries regarding performance rights for “The Dollar Bill” should be addressed to the author at royproctor@aol.com.

PUBLIC DOMAIN:  “The Harbinger,” which was included in O Henry’s 1908 short story collection, “The Voice of the City,” is in the public domain.

 

Time

Around noon on a sunny spring day in 1908

 

Place

A Manhattan park and a cold-water, walk-up flat in a nearby tenement

 

Characters

JAMES PETERS, 40s, unkempt, shabbily dressed

CLARA PETERS, 40s, his wife, plump and plain, but with the last vestiges of youthful beauty

RAGSDALE, young to middle-aged, Peters’ companion in park idleness   

KIDD, young to middle-aged, Peters’ companion in park idleness  

 

Setting

ESSENTIAL: Stage right, park represented by park bench. Stage left, walk-up flat represented by a small kitchen table with two chairs. OPTIONAL: Other scenery and furnishings to suggest park and meager home settings.

 

Incidental music

No music is indicated in the script. However, composer Scott Joplin’s immense popularity paralleled O. Henry’s in the first decade of the 20th century. Directors might want to consider using Joplin’s rags, all of which are in the public domain, as incidental music in their productions.  


(Lights up on bench occupied by PETERS, RAGSDALE and KIDD.)

RAGSDALE

So your wife has a dollar?

PETERS

Yes, she has a dollar.

KIDD

A whole dollar bill, good and receivable by the government for customs, taxes and all public due?

PETERS

Well, listen to you.

RAGSDALE

How do you know it’s a dollar?

PETERS

(exasperated)

The coalman seen her have a dollar. She went out and done some washing yesterday. And look what she gave me for breakfast – the heel of a loaf and a cup of stale coffee—and her with that dollar hid away!

RAGSDALE

It’s fierce, I tell you, fierce.

KIDD

Say we go up and punch her and stick a towel in her mouth and snatch the dollar. Y’ aren’t afraid of a woman, are you?

RAGSDALE

She might holler and bring in the cops. I don’t believe in slugging no woman in a tenement full of people.

PETERS

Gentlemen, gentlemen, remember that you’re referring to my wife. A man who would lift his hand against a lady except –

RAGSDALE

Look! (pointing over audience’s heads) Maguire’s putting his bock beer sign on the sidewalk again. If we had that dollar, we could drown in suds.

PETERS

(licking his lips at the mention of beer)

Hush up!  We got to get that banknote somehow, boys. Ain’t what a man’s wife has is his, too?

RAGSDALE

Napoleonic code!

KIDD

English common law!

PETERS

Every other law!

KIDD

Now you’re talking, Peters.

PETERS

Leave it to me. (stands up) I’ll go home and get it. Wait here.

KIDD

I’ve seen ‘em give up quick and tell you where it’s hid if you kick ‘em in the ribs.

PETERS

(virtuously)

No decent man kicks a lady. A little choking maybe – just a touch on the windpipe – with no marks left. (crossing upstage left to flat)  Wait for me here. I’ll be back with that dollar, boys.

(Lights fade on park, rise on flat, where CLARA PETERS. plump and plain, but not without vestiges of youthful beauty, sits at  the kitchen table darning a sock. PETERS enters behind her.)

CLARA

That you, James?

PETERS

Who else?

CLARA

You’ll get nothing more to eat till night. Take your hound-dog face out of the room.

(PETERS mimes choking her behind her back.)

PETERS

You ain’t seen my face yet.

CLARA

Don’t want to see it.

PETERS

You have a dollar.

CLARA

I have.  (pulling the precious bill from her bosom and crackling it teasingly) But you’re not getting it.

PETERS

(sitting  at the table)

I need it.

CLARA

Well, you aren’t getting it. Don’t turn those fox-terrier eyes on me.   

PETERS

I’ve been offered a position in a – in a tea store. I start work tomorrow. But I have to buy a pair of –

CLARA

You’re a liar. You haven’t earned a penny in five years while I’ve worked my knuckles to the bone scrubbing other people’s floors and washing other people’s clothes.

PETERS

Oh, Clara. Don’t be like that!

CLARA

You’re a liar, I tell you. No tea store, no liquor store, no junk shop would have you, and you know it. I rubbed the skin off both me hands washing jumpers and overalls to make that dollar. Do you think my skinless hands come out of those suds just to buy the kind of suds you crave?

PETERS

But Clara –

 

CLARA

(stuffing the dollar bill back in her bosom)

Skiddoo! Get your mind off the money.

PETERS

(pleadingly, almost lovingly)

Clara, to struggle further is useless. You’ve always misunderstood me. Heaven knows I’ve striven with all my might to keep my head above the waters of misfortune, but –

CLARA

Don’t pull that rainbow stuff on me. I’ve heard it too many times before, all that blarney about walking cheek to cheek through the roses in the narrow streets of Spain.  

PETERS

But it’ll be different this time.

CLARA

Liar! We don’t even walk hand in hand at Coney Island.

PETERS

Believe me, Clara.  

CLARA

Say, there’s a bottle of carbolic acid on the shelf behind the empty coffee tin. Drink hearty.

PETERS

(tearing up)

Clara, you don’t mean that.

CLARA

Don’t I?

PETERS

What happened to all our hope?

CLARA

You killed it.

PETERS

Why, I remember when we would melt in each other’s arms. We used to run all over ourselves doing things for each other. I remember lying in the meadow and weaving daisies in your golden hair and snapping your garter and — (pauses, stands up, walks behind CLARA and places his hands gently on her shoulders)   Oh, Clara! Why should we ever have harsh words? Ain’t you still my own tootsum-wootsum?

(CLARA looks up over her shoulder and notices PETERS’ tears. She reaches up to cup his hand in hers as a tear tries to rivulet down her cheek.)

CLARA

Do you still love me, James?

PETERS

Madly, but –

(PETERS plunges his hand down CLARA’s bosom. She furiously shoves it away.)

CLARA

See! Empty words!

PETERS

I just wanted to love you like we used to.

CLARA

Liar! Liar! Liar! You just wanted that dollar bill.  (suddenly looking at PETERS with concern)  You look ill, James. (standing up and placing her hand on his forehead) Why are you so pale and tired looking?

PETERS

I do feel weak, Clara. I think I’m weak with love.

 

CLARA

(moving away from the table)

Wait, James! I know how to fix that.  

PETERS

Are you going downstairs to tell Mrs. Muldoon that we’re reconciled?

CLARA

Better than that.  Wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.

(Lights fade on flat and rise on park, where RAGSDALE sits on bench and KIDD is pacing.)  

RAGSDALE

Wonder what’s keeping Peters.

KIDD

Maybe he and his old lady patched it up.  

RAGSDALE

But it’s our dollar.

KIDD

It’s her dollar ‘til he gets it. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

RAGSDALE

Maybe we should have got hitched, Kidd.

KIDD

Who needs it?

RAGSDALE

I remember, back when we all worked together at the warehouse, Peters was swimmy-headed with love.

KIDD

Clara would look at him in that foxy way. She could twist him around her little finger.

RAGSDALE

Peters was like a puppy at her feet.

KIDD

Maybe we shoulda got married,  after all.

RAGSDALE

Don’t think about it. Thinking don’t do no good.

(Lights fade on park and rise on flat, where PETERS is sitting at the table. CLARA enters left with a bottle in her hand.)

 

CLARA

I’m glad I had that dollar, honey. You’re run-down for sure.  (unscrewing the bottle cap, lifting a spoon from the table and pouring liquid into it from the bottle) Open up! Open your mouth, I say.

PETERS

What’s that?

CLARA

(forcing the liquid into his mouth)

Cod liver oil. Good for anything that ails you.

(PETERS makes a horrible face as he swallows.)

Call me tootsum- wootsum again, James, just one more time for old time’s sake.

(PETERS, defeated, looks straight ahead as lights fade on flat and rise on park.)

RAGSDALE

Wonder what’s keeping him.  

KIDD

I can taste those suds for sure.  

(PETERS enters upstage.)

RAGSDALE

Well?

KIDD

Did you get the dollar?

PETERS

(staring them down)

I should have choked her first.

(Blackout)

END OF PLAY

 


Roy Proctor wrote his first play in 2012 after retiring from a 30-year career as the staff theater critic on the two daily newspapers (one long gone) in Richmond, Va. Since then, he has completed more than 50 short plays – 55 minutes down to one minute – and combined many of them into larger one-act and full-length formats that are thematically related. They have been performed in 21 fully staged productions and more than 50 staged readings in an arc stretching from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York to London to Bangalore, India, and in dozens of cities in between. His audio adaptations of some of his plays have been broadcast or produced as podcasts by radio theaters in San Francisco, San Diego, New York and Woodstock, Vermont. He writes all kinds of plays, but specializes in short-play adaptations of short stories in the public domain. He is perhaps best known for his adaptations of Chekhov stories, which, in particular, have developed a British following in London and  other cities in England and Wales. He has adapted 13 Chekhov tales into short plays so far, and five more are in process. Proctor grew up in Thomasville, N.C., and holds a BA in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Iowa, where he wrote fiction under Philip Roth in the Iowa Writers Workshop. He lives in Richmond and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.