The Early Ayn Rand

I am not a regular movie fan, but I have never missed a picture of yours. There is something about you which I can't give a name to, something I had and lost, but I feel as if you're keeping it for me, for all of us. I had it long ago, when I was very young. You know how it is: when you're very young, there's something ahead of you, so big that you're afraid of it, but you wait for it and you're so happy waiting. Then the years pass and it never comes. And then you find, one day, that you're not waiting any longer. It seems foolish, because you didn't even know what it was you were waiting for. I look at myself and I don't know. But when I look at you — I do.

And if ever, by some miracle, you were to enter my life, I'd drop everything, and follow you, and gladly lay down my life for you, because, you see, I'm still a human being.

Very truly yours, George S. Perkins...

S. Hoover Street Los Angeles, California

When the letter ends, all lights go out, and when they come on again, the screen has disappeared and the stage reveals the living room of GEORGE S. PERKINS.

It is a room such as thousands of other rooms in thousands of other homes whose owners have a respectable little income and a respectable little character.

Center back, a wide glass door opening on the street. Door into the rest of the house in wall Left.

When the curtain rises, it is evening. The street outside is dark. MRS. PERKINS stands in the middle of the room, tense, erect, indignant, watching with smoldering emotion the entrance door where GEORGE S. PERKINS is seen outside turning the key in the lock. MRS. PERKINS looks like a dried-out bird of prey that has never been young. GEORGE S. PERKINS is short, blond, heavy, helpless, and over forty. He is whistling a gay tune as he enters. He is in a very cheerful mood.

MRS. PERKINS: [Without moving, ominously] You're late.

PERKINS: [Cheerfully] Well, dovey, I have a good excuse for being late.

MRS. PERKINS: [Speaking very fast] I have no doubt about that. But listen to me, George Perkins, you'll have to do something about Junior. That boy of yours got D again in arithmetic. If a father don't take the proper interest in his children, what can you expect from a boy who...

PERKINS: Aw, honeybunch, we'll excuse the kid for once — just to celebrate.

MRS. PERKINS: Celebrate what?

PERKINS: How would you like to be Mrs. Assistant Manager of the Daffodil Canning Company?

MRS. PERKINS: I would like it very much. Not that I have any hopes of ever being.

PERKINS: Well, dovey, you are. As of today.

MRS. PERKINS: [Noncommittally] Oh. [Calls into house] Mama! Come here!

[MRS. SHLY waddles in from door Left. She is fat and looks chronically dissatisfied with the whole world. MRS. PERKINS speaks, half-boasting, half-bitter]

Mama, Georgie's got a promotion.

MRS. SHLY: [Dryly] Well, we've waited for it long enough.

PERKINS: But you don't understand- I've been made Assistant Manager— [Looks for the effect on her face, finds none, adds lamely]— of the Daffodil Canning Company.

MRS. SHLY: Well?

PERKINS: [Spreading his hands helplessly] Well...

MRS. SHLY: All I gotta say is it's a fine way to start off on your promotion, coming home at such an hour, keeping us waiting with dinner and...

PERKINS: Oh, I...

MRS. SHLY: Oh, we ate all right, don't you worry! Never seen a man that cared two hoops about his family, not two hoops!

PERKINS: I'm sorry. I had dinner with the boss. I should've phoned, only I couldn't keep him waiting, you know, the boss asking me to dinner, in person.

MRS. PERKINS: And here I was waiting for you, I had something to tell you, a nice surprise for you, and...

MRS. SHLY: Don't you tell him, Rosie. Don't you tell him now. Serves him right.

PERKINS: But I figured you'd understand- I figured you'd be happy — [Corrects his presumption hastily] — well, glad that I've been made —