JOHN: As you’ve said, there’s talk of my not aging, and when that happens, I move on.
DAN: Well, it might make sense to set up your next identity, your next ten years, and then just drop into it.
JOHN: I’ve done that a few times, even passed as my own son. "Oh, you’re an engineer, too? You’re Ben’s son. He was a good man." Saves trouble with credentials and references.
On the other hand, I’ve been busted a few times. Spent a year in jail, Belgium, 1862— I won’t forget that— For faking a government application.
LINDA: When’d you come to America?
JOHN: 1890, right after Van Gogh’s death, with some French immigrants… Moving On.
Pause.
ART: An answer for every question. Except one, John. Why’re you doing this?
JOHN: A whim. Maybe not such a good idea. I… wanted to say goodbye to you as me, not what you thought I was.
ART: Well, since this isn’t funny, we think you might have a problem. A very serious problem.
JOHN: I’ve got boxes to move.
SANDY: I’ll give you a hand.
DAN: Wouldn’t you have some relic, an artifact to remind you of your early life? Like this, maybe? (holds up the burin)
JOHN: Thrift shop. Really.
If you lived a hundred— a thousand years…
(holding up a pen)
Would you still have this? What would cause you to keep it? As a memento to your beginnings, even if you didn’t have the concept of beginnings? It would be gone, lost. No. I don’t have artifacts.
(tosses the pen to Harry)
(to Dan) Keep that.
DAN: Interesting. You could have lied about that.
JOHN: Don’t talk about me while I’m gone.
Scene 7: Sandy
John and Sandy load a few boxes. Sandy pauses
SANDY: I love you, you know.
Soft music.
JOHN: I know.
SANDY: Since my first week at the office…And?
JOHN: I care very much about you, but now you know what you’d be getting into.
SANDY: Do you really think you’re a caveman?
JOHN: Do you?
SANDY: Could you love me, or don’t you believe in that anymore?
JOHN: I’ve gotten over it too many times. Fond of you… Certainly attracted to you.
Sandy giggles.
SANDY: That’s it?… I can work with that.
JOHN: If what I’m saying is true, you and any children will age. I won’t. And one day I’ll leave.
SANDY: You’ll go back to your May-December romances.
JOHN: The simple fact is that I can’t give you forever.
SANDY: How long’s forever? Who ever really has it? My parents split up before I was born, and then my mom’s next marriage lasted what, a whole three years?
Then there’s death, illness, acts of god…no one knows how long they have. Or how little. I love you. Take whatever you can get.
JOHN: Like ten years?
Scene 8: Cave-paintings and Buddha
DAN: Is he serious?
Art walks over to the phone.
EDITH: If he is, I’m sorry to say he’s… Oh, how could he have concealed that for ten years?
HARRY: At least he doesn’t appear to be dangerous.
DAN: What are you doing?
HARRY: Checkin’ for a hidden mic. Candid Camera.
Art is on the phone to one side.
ART: He’s fabricating these wild stories. I’ve never seen him acting like this. Oh, it’s crazy.
Alright. Alright, a-as soon as you can, then.
As John enters the room, Harry jumps him, yelling.
HARRY: Ah! Ha ha ha!
John expertly counters, and pushes him to the floor.
HARRY: Uhn! Jeez! Oh.
JOHN: Why did you do that?
HARRY: I wanted to see how fast you were. Check your reflexes.
JOHN: I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, I can’t hear a flea walking, I am not in any way superman.
HARRY: Yeah. Well, I’m a second-degree black belt.
JOHN: Give it another thousand years. (Gives him a hand)
HARRY: Well. I got it, I got it, I got it.
(Struggling to his feet)
Oh. Jesus.
DAN: Smooth demonstration, Harry.
HARRY: Sit on it, Dan.
LINDA: I still have questions.
ART: Ya, I–I do too, John. I mean, a-a-are we done with prehistory yet? Remember any of your original language?
JOHN: A little. One thing hasn’t changed much…
(wolf whistles towards Sandy, causing her to blush)
LINDA: Did you ever do any cave Art?
JOHN: Do you know the rock Art at Les Eyzies?
LINDA: Mm-hmm?
JOHN: It was the work of a man named… Giraud. He did a pretty good job. He would draw the animals that we hoped to find to eat. One day after a fruitless hunt, our chief stomped his teeth out because his magic had failed him. After that, someone had to chew his food for him. Finally, he got— I suspect— An infected jaw, and he was abandoned.
EDITH: That’s awful.
JOHN: You have to know what to kill.
LINDA: Is this why all your students say your knowledge of history is…so amazing?
JOHN: No, that’s mostly based on study. Remember, it’s one man, one place at a time, my solitary viewpoint of a world I knew almost nothing about.
DAN: Well, let’s talk about what you say you do know about— Historical times.
EDITH: Don’t encourage him.
DAN: Edith.
JOHN: Next few thousand years, it got warmer.
ART: A few thousand years— See, now, I know you’re guessing.
JOHN: You can’t get there from here, Art.
ART: Well then, pray, continue.
JOHN: We hunted reindeer, mammoths—
ART:…Bison, horses. The game retreated northward as the climate changed, you got the idea of growing food rather than gathering it, raising animals rather than hunting them. Am— Am I— Am I getting warm, here? I bet I am. Lakeside living becomes commonplace! Fishing, fowling— Come on! John, this is out of any textbook.
JOHN: Even yours. You got most of it right. Eventually I headed to the East. I’d grown curious about the world. I’d gotten the hang of going it alone, learning how to fit in when I wanted to.
DAN: East. Towards the rising sun?
JOHN: Yes. I thought it might be warmer there. That’s when I saw an ocean. The Mediterranean, probably. It was around the beginning of the Bronze Age, so I followed the trade routes from the East. Copper. Tin. Learning languages as I went. Everywhere, creation myths, new gods, so many, so different. I finally realized that it was…probably all hogwash.
So I was Sumerian for 2,000 years, then finally Babylonian under Hammurabi. Great man. And I sailed as a Phoenician for a time. See, moving on had been easier as a Hunter- Gatherer…difficult when villages emerged. Tougher still in city states where authority was centralized. Strangers were suspect. It seemed as though I was always moving on.
I learned some new tricks— even faked my death a couple of times.
I continued east to India, luckily at the time of Gautama Buddha.
ART: Luckily.
JOHN: Most extraordinary man I’ve ever known. He taught me things I’d never thought about before.
HARRY: You studied… with the Buddha?
JOHN: Until he died. He knew there was something different about me. I never told him.
Scene 9a: Dr. Gruber
DAN: This is fascinating. I almost wish it were true.