The Early Ayn Rand

MICK WATTS: Well, keep your mouth shut! Keep your mouth shut! MISS SAYERS: That, young man, is precisely what I am doing. [Exits] McNITT: [Lurching furiously at MICK WATTS] Why, you drunken fool!

FARROW: [Interfering] Wait a moment! What happened? Where did you find him?

SALZER: Down in the publicity department! Just think of that! He walked right in and there's a mob of reporters pounced on him and started filling him up with liquor and —

FARROW: Oh, my Lord!

SALZER: — and here's what he was handing out for a press release! [Straightens out a slip of paper he has crumpled in his hand, reads:] "Kay Gonda does not cook her own meals or knit her own underwear. She does not play golf, adopt babies, or endow hospitals for homeless horses. She is not kind to her dear old mother — she has no dear old mother. She is not just like you and me. She never was like you and me. She's like nothing you bastards ever dreamed of!"

FARROW: [Clutching his head] Did they get it?

SALZER: A fool you should think I am? We dragged him out of there just in time!

FARROW: [Approaching MICK WATTS, ingratiatingly] Sit down, Mick, do sit down. There's a good boy.

[MICK WATTS flops down on a chair and sits motionless, staring into space]

McNITT: If you let me punch the bastard just once, he'll talk all right.

[SALZER nudges him frantically to keep quiet. FARROW hurries to a cabinet, produces a glass and a decanter, pours]

FARROW: [Bending over MICK WATTS, solicitously, offering him the glass] A drink, Mick? [MICK WATTS does not move or answer] Nice weather we're having, Mick. Nice, but hot. Awfully hot. Supposing you and I have a drink together?

MICK WATTS: [In a dull monotone] I don't know a thing. Save your liquor. Go to hell.

FARROW: What are you talking about?

MICK WATTS: I'm talking about nothing — and that goes for everything.

FARROW: You could stand a drink once in a while, couldn't you? You look thirsty to me.

MICK WATTS: I don't know a thing about Kay Gonda. Never heard of her... Kay Gonda. It's a funny name, isn't it? I went to confession once, long ago — and they talked about the redemption of all sins. It's useless to yell "Kay Gonda" and to think that all your sins are washed away. Just pay two bits in the balcony — and come out pure as snow.

[The others exchange glances and shrug hopelessly]

FARROW: On second thought, Mick, I won't offer you another drink. You'd better have something to eat.

MICK WATTS: I'm not hungry. I stopped being hungry many years ago. But she is.

FARROW: Who?

MICK WATTS: Kay Gonda.

FARROW: [Eagerly] Any idea where she's having her next meal?

MICK WATTS: In heaven. [FARROW shakes his head helplessly] In a blue heaven with white lilies. Very white lilies. Only she'll never find it.

FARROW: I don't understand you, Mick.

MICK WATTS: [Looking at him slowly for the first time] You don't understand? She doesn't either. Only it's no use. It's no use trying to unravel, because if you try, you end up with more dirt on your hands than you care to wipe off. There are not enough towels in the world to wipe it off. Not enough towels. That's the trouble.

SALZER: [Impatiently] Look here, Watts, you must know something. You'd better play ball with us. Remember, you've been fired from every newspaper on both coasts —

MICK WATTS: — and from many others in between.

SALZER: — so that if anything should happen to Gonda, you won't have a job here unless you help us now and...

MICK WATTS: [His voice emotionless] Do you think I'd want to stay with the lousy bunch of you if it weren't for her?

McNITT: Jesus, it beats me what they all see in that bitch!

[MICK WATTS turns and looks at McNITT fixedly, ominously]

SALZER: [Placatingly] Now, now, Mick, he doesn't mean it, he's kidding, he's —

[MICK WATTS rises slowly, deliberately, walks up to McNITT without hurry,

then strikes him flat on the face, a blow that sends him sprawling on the floor. FARROW rushes to help the stunned McNITT. MICK WATTS stands motionless, with perfect indifference, his arms limp]

McNITT: [Raising his head slowly] The damn...

FARROW: [Restraining him] Discipline, Bill, discipline, control your...