Goldberg Street by David Mamet Page A

twenty, if I was even ten years younger . . .
    Where am I going to go? I got to move the press , I got to move the racks ; by the time I put in I put in all my savings to the business to go somewhere else and I have nothing. And I have to start again. Twenty-six years.
    I told him, “I hate to remind you what your father said.”
    He shrugged.
    My wife went. I was getting sick. He said he'd give us an extension for six months.
    It's the same all the neighborhood.
    Let the depression come, and see who pays the rent.
    Twenty-six years I've been here, and there are no more services on this street anymore.
    What will people do I don't know what he thinks.
    I don't know.
    I don't know what I can say.

Steve McQueen

     

    A monologue . The speaker is a man in his mid-to-late thirties .

     

    . . . well, I'm from Hawaii—I met him when he was at the Kalona Mar, he was there two months.
    He wasn't well. You know. We'd talk . . . we got to talking motorcycles. He asked if he could borrow my bike, I said of course. He got to taking it out every day. He was registered there as “McGuire.” He was keeping a low profile, you know? But after a week or two, you know, I think that he was lonely. I'd see him around the pool. He must have seen me one morning coming to work on my bike, because he asked me about it: How was it riding , something; and we started talking about bikes. He had at that time over one hundred bikes in his collection . . . I don't know where they were . . . in the States.
    You know, The Great Escape . . . ? He did those stunts himself. You know where he jumps the barb wire? He did that himself—though it wasn't barb wire.
    He found out that I was into martial arts and we took to sparring. He was in great shape—even though his disease—he was strong as a horse at that time. A fifty-sixty-minute workout was nothing to him. I'll tell you something else is he would drink a case of beer a day. Twenty-four beers a day. Lowenbrau. I know because I used to bring them to him. And smoke like a chimney. I guess he was just one of those men who are blessed with a completely perfect constitution. Though he was in great pain. I know that he was.
    Indians . . . Harleys . . . Nortons . . . he had all of them. Did you know on the old Indian the oil used to go through the frame? It flowed through the frame.
    You know the stunt on The Great Escape where they get the bike? The German motorcycle rider's coming down the road, they stretch a wire . . . ? They had the greatest motorcycle rider in the world . . . Rusty , something . . . Rusty . . . they told him “Just drive down the road.” They told him, “Be ready for anything.” That's why it's so authentic. He runs into that wire . . . ? He didn't know it was there. They did it in one take. ( Pause .)
    I met his son. ( Pause .) At that time he was training as a flight instructor. I stayed at his house in Malibu. Three days.

Yes

     

    Two men: A and B.

     

    A: People don't know when they're well-off.
    B: Now that's for sure.
    A: That's for goddamned . . . what did you say? It is for sure. It's for god -damned sure. I swear to Christ. I swear on the grave of my mother, may she roast in peace . . .
    B: What did you say? “May she roast in peace"?
    A: Did I say what?
    B: You said your mother.
    A: Yes?
    B: May she . . . ( Pause .)
    A: May she what? ( Pause .)
    B: She's dead, right?
    A: Is she dead?
    B: Is she?
    A: Is that what you're asking me? ( Pause .) Is my mother dead?
    B: Am I asking you that?
    A: Are you?
    B: Well, is she dead? I assume that . . . she's dead , right?
    A: ( Pause .) Yes. ( Pause .) Yes . She is .
    B: ( Pause .) I, um . . .
    A: You're “sorry"?
    B: I am sor . . . of, yes, of, ab . . . did she . . . of course I'm . . . did she . . .
    A: Did she die recently?
    B: Yes.
    A: Recently? Peaceably . . . ? I don't mean “peaceably,” I mean peacefully . . . peacefully. Yes. Recently. Yes . . . . I suppose they're the same thing. No . . . of course . . . of