The Bridge

Introduction

The Bridge is a one act play I wrote as part of my submitted work in a playwriters' course conducted by the Fishamble Theatre in Dublin in 2001. Highlighted in red are the characters and in blue the stage directions.

Location: Visitors' wing of Calypso Road Correctional Facility. Stage scene consists of simple set with a table and two chairs and one wall of iron bars with a door in the middle. Stage in near- darkness at curtain up with one highlighting spotlight that moves back and across the front of the audience before focusing on the figure of one sitting man who faces the audience. He sits there for a while just staring out at the audience and around the room as the lights gradually go up. There is the sound of footsteps and a guard comes to the door, opens it and ushers in another character into the cell.



Guard: Murphy! Your lawyer Costelloe has arrived. He’s left it very late so you’ll need to be quick. Time is nearly up. (Costelloe comes in and throws his briefcase on the table and then walks around the table in an anti clockwise direction before standing with one foot on a chair and looking down at Murphy. Murphy meantime has followed him around with his eyes.)

Murphy:

I was beginning to wonder if you were coming at all.

Costelloe:

Wonder? What a strange choice of word. (Walks around the table again and touches the bars and walls before looking at Murphy) I would think that Calypso Road Correctional Facility is conceived to forsake any element of wonderment either in its fabrication, function or fornication.

Murphy:

I don’t need reminding of the surroundings or the conditions, particularly from someone like you. (Slams down hand on table and speaks angrily) Just get on and do your job! (Pushes the briefcase towards him, it slides off the table to the ground.)

Costelloe:

(Touches the corner of the table) I don’t take kindly to imperatives . . . from anyone. (Goes to pick up briefcase.) I think our meeting is already at an end. Guard!

Murphy:

Hold it. (Stands up, walks around and picks up the briefcase) Hold it! I’m sorry. We’re getting off on the wrong foot. (They face each other.) I’m sorry for shouting but I’ve been waiting to see you for nearly a week, ever since I heard about the parole board meeting.

Costelloe:

I was aware of that. What of it?

Murphy:

I just wish you’d have come sooner. (Places case on table and walks back to his chair and sits down.) We don’t have much time.

Costelloe:

We! Hah! (Sinister change to voice.) Listen carefully my wondering friend and understand this. We, as you have foolishly assumed, do not exist. Unlike you, my time is my own and I felt no inclination to communicate with you unless it was absolutely necessary? I’m already fully aware of the circumstances of your case and examining them any more would irritate me.

Murphy:

Then why are you here now?

Costelloe:

I’d like to say it amuses me, ‘See that you do not despise one of these little ones.’ Mathew- 17, I think, but the truth is, (Sits down and begins to open briefcase not looking at Murphy) I’m obliged by the parole board to help you prepare your presentation on at least one occasion. For all the good it will do!

Murphy:

It was Mathew 18-10 as it happens. (Costelloe looks up at him. Murphy has a slightly smug expression ) They said you were arrogant?

Costelloe:

Who did?

Murphy:

The other lifers! They said that you took on all of the parole hearings for the murder cases but that you were . . . a weird bastard.

Costelloe:

Weird! Hah! That’s almost a complement, coming as it does from those stalwarts of society. Was it the HIV positive queer-killer Flanagan or the terrorist vegetarian O’Brien, or perhaps even Strychnine Joe, the mascara-plastered crack dealer, who spoke so highly of me? You must find the coven meetings a bit unnerving?

Murphy:

It doesn’t matter who it was. It’s just the general talk.

Costelloe:

May I give you a bit of advice?

Murphy:

Sure! That’s what you’re being paid for isn't it.

Costelloe:

Don’t ever trust your destiny to the walking dead. Flanagan, Strychnine Joe and O’Brien are beyond help and beyond giving help.

Murphy:

At least they understand my misery and I theirs.

Costelloe:

Ahh! That’s very touching but . . . completely misplaced. George Bernard Shaw once wrote- (Costelloe gets up and starts to walk around the table again but stops to put his hand on Murphys’ shoulder) you’ve heard of Shaw haven’t you (Murphy nods defiantly) - that we should not be oppressed by the frightful sum of human suffering because there is no sum. You should not attempt consoling yourself by trying to understand those three; it’s impossible to dilute one’s own suffering.

Murphy:

Christ suffered for us all. Wasn’t that the message?

Costelloe:

(Costelloe stops and sits down) It was a cop out. Martyrdom is a liberation from responsibility and a public acknowledgement of the absence of reason. The only true miracle is that Christ was given a second opportunity to experience the living. I don’t recall too much emphasis on suffering second time around. You, on the other hand, might not get that opportunity.

Murphy:

(Pauses for a moment, looking at Costelloe) I still think that helping one another eases things so I try and get on with the others. Integration is better than disintegration.

Costelloe:

My oh my. I see that the prison school classes have moved way beyond joined-up writing and subtraction. How very profound . . . profoundly depressing I fear. As a modern maxim and the clarion call of the new social ethics integration compromises everything humanity was and is. It demands coalescence and that will be the vanishing point of our progress and the survival you so wish for. Integration is annihilation, and I for one have no desire for that.

Murphy:

So! You’re a racist so!

Costelloe:

(Leans back with hands behind head –sneering) You see Murphy. You are already confused. You’re thinking of segregation and isolation because of class, creed or colour. Desegregation is the opposite. People are in here because of their actions not their pigmentation.

Murphy:

(Murphy gets up and walks around the table) But, and believe me when I say that I’ve learnt this from bitter experience, if you isolate yourself in prison then every echo and every shadow frightens you. I hate the fear that solitude brings. (Pauses before pointing down at Costelloe’s papers) If you took the trouble to read your brief then you would know that I have tried to participate fully in the rehabilitation programme, even to the extent of completing an Open University degree. That must count for something! (Expectant voice and face.)

Costelloe:

(Ignores Murphy as he looks at the papers. Cannot find the information.) In what? ( Irritated voice. )

Murphy:

(Murphy’s face changes to one of disappointment. He shakes his head before mumbling.) Sorry!

Costelloe:

I cannot find it in these fucking papers. What did you study?

Murphy:

Religious studies. It’s helped me find God again.

Costelloe:

Huh! God has a tendency to go missing at the most inopportune times!

Murphy:

I also organised Bible classes for the inmates in the other prison.

Costelloe:

The guards must have been delighted to have such a model prisoner.

Murphy:

The screws I’ve met all along seemed all right. I’ve never experienced any aggro.

Costelloe:

The only thing separating them and you is cowardice, and some steel of course.

Murphy:

Cowardice! What do you mean?

Costelloe:

You haven’t copped it, have you? The prison officers, and, by extension society, are afraid of you.

Murphy:

I don’t understand. (Sits down) Why should they be afraid of me? They have control.

Costelloe:

They fear you because of what represent! Somebody who has ignored society's constraints and laws, and acted on basic instinct. They will not admit it, of course, but there is almost an approval and admiration for your actions and the primitive morality of those actions. Each day that they come in here, they are faced with the smugness of true freedom and each day it eats away at their souls.

Murphy:

I don’t feel free. They can come and go!

Costelloe:

To what? To transfer the brutality of their fear from you to their families or to the bottom of a whiskey glass.

Murphy:

They’re not all that bad!

Costelloe:

You seem very comfortable for someone who is in, what I consider to be, the (shouts towards the bars) most corrupt stinking prison in the entire system.

Murphy:

Go easy would you! I’m here by choice. I asked for a transfer . . . to be closer to my children.

Costelloe:

To the high security wing? (Costelloe checks his papers again) Some transfer!

Murphy:

There were no spaces left in the general block so I was given this. It won’t be for long, I hope.

Costelloe:

Prison is like that?

Murphy:

Like what?

Costelloe:

Full of false hope and false people. The same people, who, if they were anywhere else wouldn’t give you the time of day, want to share their expectations with you. I have little tolerance for that type of false intimacy but . . . as you are so keen to point out, I’m being paid to be here so I might as well listen to your woes.

Murphy:

Don’t bother.

Costelloe:

No! No I’d like to. It will be a tawaf.

Murphy:

A what?

Costelloe:

Did you not study Islam in your Religious Studies course?

Murphy:

Yes but I don’t remember particular mention of a tawaf!

Costelloe:

I expect it doesn’t feature highly on the born-again agenda of prison rehabilitation. (Costelloe gets up and starts circling the table again, anti-clockwise.) The tawaf is a very old, and pagan, ritual of running around a sacred object best seen persisting in the circling of the Kaba at Mecca. (He goes round and round in a manic fashion until stopping suddenly and reaching out to touch one corner of the table.) In prison you tend to run round the truth as the sacred centre, afraid to touch its eastern corner for fear of undermining that truth, as you perceive it. Are you prepared to be truthful?

Murphy:

You’ve a very round about way of asking yourself.

Costelloe:

If I am to help you with the parole hearing we must do things my way. (Shouts.) Do you understand?

Murphy:

I don’t like being pushed around. I don’t like your attitude Costelloe.

Costelloe:

What you think of me is irrelevant because in here you have no substance and no glory, least of all in the eyes of the parole board. It is easy for the Gods in heaven to glorify or debase a man. Do you want to talk or not?

Murphy:

Yes . . . yes I do.

Costelloe:

(Spreads out his papers while standing up) What are you in for?

Murphy:

But you know that already!

Costelloe: ( Sits down) I want to hear you explain it.

Murphy:

Murder . . . well manslaughter really? I’ve seven years of a twenty-year sentence done.

Costelloe:

Whom did you kill?

Murphy:

My wife. I was drunk.

Costelloe:

Why?

Murphy:

Why what?

Costelloe:

Why did you kill her?

Murphy:

I said I was drunk?

Costelloe:

That’s a condition not a reason. Why did you kill her?

Murphy:

It’s none of your business.

Costelloe:

You initiated this meeting. (Gets up and moves around the table again.) See the tawaf through or don’t bother me again.

Murphy:

Do I really have a choice?

Costelloe:

No. Sad isn’t it?

Guard: (Standing outside bars looks at Costelloe circling for a moment and then runs his night stick along the bars.) Time’s up you two.

Murphy: (Looks over. Distressed.) What? Why?

Guard:

Because I say so bollocks. (Rattles nightstick along bars again.)

Costelloe:

(Costelloe goes to the bars and confronts the guard.) Is it important for your happiness?

Guard:

What?

Costelloe:

To jerk off by hitting my client?

Guard:

I’m warning you. I’ll . . .

Costelloe:

Fuck off! (Retreats from the bars to far side of cell)

Guard:

(Hesitates before looking at Murphy) If I were you Murphy I’d watch the company you keep. You’ve a big day tomorrow! Now hurry up.

Murphy:

Right. Ok! We wont be long. (Guard walks off and there is a pause until a far off door clangs shut and silence returns. Turns to look at Costelloe) Thanks for sticking up for me.

Costelloe:

Why did you kill your wife?

Murphy:

I don’t know. (Puts head in hands.) I don’t know.


Costelloe:

Do you think they will mind the possibility of you getting parole?

Murphy:

Who?

Costelloe: (Sits down) Your wife’s family? The collateral victims.

Murphy:

I don’t know. At the end of my trial one of the deBrise brothers promised to get me when I got out. He tried to hit me in the courtroom.

Costelloe:

deBrise. Oh yeah! I'd forgotten that. Your wife had an unusual name.

Murphy:

The family were originally. . . Protestants. Eh...ehmm Huguenots.

Costelloe:

Where are they from?

Murphy:

Who?

Costelloe:

Your wife’s family.

Murphy:

France. They were Weavers.

Costelloe:

I meant now, you arsehole, not in the 16th century.

Murphy:

Milltown, Co. Carlow.

(A long silence.)

Murphy:

You’ve gone very quiet!

Costelloe:

What about the significant others. Would they mind?

Murphy:

Who?

Costelloe:

Your dead wife and your motherless children of course.

Murphy:

I’ve done my time.

Costelloe:

Time! Do you mean prison time?

Murphy:

Yes.

Costelloe:

You’re a fool so!

Murphy:

What are you talking about?

Costelloe:

Time! The concept of time. What do you understand by it?

Murphy:

A punishment; a set period of imprisonment where you come to terms with your past and resolve to better your future.

Costelloe: Well said my learned friend but absolute bullshit of course! There is no past or future.

Murphy:

What are you on about?

Costelloe:

“Not vengeance nor pardon nor jails nor even oblivion can modify the invulnerable past.” Borges, an Argentinean writer, said that.

Murphy:

What did he mean?

Costelloe:

Every moment is autonomous. Like the moment your wife died at your hands. The moment her heart stopped. The past cannot be relived and therefore there is no real punishment. Equally, hoping for something that has not yet happened in the future is also misguided. Doing Time, as you call it, is this moment and nothing else. It is here and it’s gone and the next moment arrives.

Murphy:

But I truly regret what happened in the past.

Costelloe:

Why bother? The past and future are products of our recollection and imagination, but they should hold no fear, as they don’t really exist. This moment exists. That’s all. (Gets up and starts walking again – slowly) I suppose your wife would not agree with those sentiments.

Murphy:

Why?

Costelloe:

Jasus are you thick or what. She's fucking dead. She’s dead and you’re alive and she’d want you to roast in hell for ever. Mind you, it would not be the hell of uncertainty that you are experiencing about the parole board hearing. No! I suspect she’d want every successive moment to bring with it the hell of pain, real physical pain, drawn out interminable pain. She'd want you to share in the evil justice of it all.

Murphy:

But I’m not evil.

Costelloe:

I doubt whether your wife feels, and I’m certain she can still feel, that you have paid your dues.

Murphy:

It was a flash of anger. I was provoked.

Costelloe:

So it was murder.

Murphy:

I was drunk!

Costelloe:

All that the alcohol did was blur your parameters of retribution. It is a convenient plea bargain but not a reason. You still had a will Murphy. Did you respond to something she said or did? Was it a reaction on your part to a perceived threat. What was that threat then Murphy? Did she want to leave you? Was she happier shagging somebody else?

Murphy:

You have no right to judge me!

Costelloe:

(Sits down and leans towards Murphy) Why not? Society did! Your children did and I’m sure as hell your wife still does.

Murphy:

Leave my children out of it. You don’t know my children?

Costelloe:

Oh I think I do. They, obviously, were not making the effort to come and see their father in the other prison, so he had to move closer to make it easier for them. He wants to explain his actions to them, and they don’t want to listen. They don’t recognise reason in your reasoning, or justice in you justification. I’d say they still think you’re evil. Do they actually want you to be free?

Murphy:

Leave my children out of this.

(Long pause again)

Costelloe:

What did you do . . . work wise before prison.

Murphy:

It's all in the file. I was a fitter with the gas company . . . oh you are a sick bastard. You’re enjoying this!

Costelloe:

Of course I am otherwise I would have left long ago! Prison visits allow me to wallow in other’s innocent guilt and rejoice in the misfortune of the guilty innocent.

Murphy:

I’ve never claimed to be innocent.

Costelloe:

Oh I know you poor misunderstood sod. (Sarcastic tone) You were just a drunk man who killed his wife by holding her head in the gas oven. On high flow too be gob.

Murphy:

Yes. That's it. I didn’t mean to kill her.

Costelloe:

(Looks at his papers) They found your semen splattered all over her and around the floor of the kitchen. So you raped her as well ...on high flow as well I suppose.

Murphy:

I was drunk. I didn’t mean to . . .

Costelloe:

Why did you do it Murphy? What was it again? Oh yes it's all here in black and white and bluelight semen stains! She was screwing your own brother. How pathetic . . . how basic . . . how tribal a reason.

Murphy:

You don’t know anything you bastard! (Gets up and walks towards Costelloe and confronts him at very close distance. Costelloe doesn’t flinch) You don’t know anything! (Murphy screams this out and walks towards the bars. He shakes them and then turns to look at Costelloe. The guard comes running in)

Guard:

This is the last warning you two. Wrap it up. Do you hear me? (The guard prods Murphy in the back who turns to glares back at him) Do you hear me?

Murphy:

I’m not fucking deaf you moron. (Murphy’s hand goes through the bars giving a middle finger insult to the guard.)

Costelloe:

(a sniggering laugh) Touchy.

Guard: I warned you Murphy. (He crashes the nightstick down on Murphy’s hand) Now you’ll shut up. (Leaves. Murphy pulls his hand back and initially looks at it mouth open in shock. The pain sets in and he cries out.)

Murphy:

Aaaaaaagh.( Turns to look at Costelloe and is half-crying.)

Costelloe:

Why did you not kill him? Your brother. I think your children would have understood that better.

Murphy:

I told you. Leave my children out of it (Now sobbing and looking at his hand as he slumps down to the floor.) Jesus! He broke my finger. can't you do something about that.

Costelloe:

What. Nah not my business. No. What I want.... I want to know? Why did you kill your wife and not your brother? Would you like to get him now?

Murphy:

Of course not!

Costello:

Why not or was it that you liked the idea of your brother sleeping with your wife? Were you the inseparable siblings sticking together to ride out the storms of a drunken father and an intolerant society? Did he protect you when you were young?

Murphy:

My Da was a footballer who broke his leg. Couldn’t find work . . . began to drink . . . but he never hurt us.

Costelloe:

What about your mother. Did he hurt her?

Murphy:

We tried to stop him but . . .

Costelloe:

But what?

Murphy:

We were too small. Ma . . . didn’t fight back. (Stops sobbing) We couldn’t do it on our own.

Costelloe:

Did your wife fight back . . . when you were killing her.

Murphy:

Shut up! Shut the fuck up! I was drunk. It was a blur. I didn’t mean to kill her.

Costelloe:

And that makes it all right so?

Murphy:

I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I tell you. I never wanted to hurt her. (Starts sobbing again)

Costelloe:

Well you can’t anymore. She’s dead!

(Murphy curls up on the floor of the room holding his hand against his chest in the foetal position. Sobbing away. After a while he speaks again.)

Murphy:

Why are you so cruel? I’ve never done anything to you. You are meant to help me.

Costelloe:

What did you expect? Sympathy!

Murphy:

No but I thought you might . . .

Costelloe:

What? Understand! Get with the program murphy you prick. This is a prison boy, a steel encrusted vacuum of understanding. Why should I care about your misfortune?

Murphy:

I just thought . . .

Costelloe:

The trouble is you’re not thinking and that will be your downfall.

Murphy:

What do you mean?

Costelloe:

Tomorrow!

Murphy:

Tomorrow?

Costelloe:

The parole board you stupid shite. If you think I was being hard on you wait until tomorrow. Now get up off your arse and get over here.

Murphy:

You .... you mean you were testing me? All this time? (Murphy sits and then stands up)

Costelloe:

And you failed miserably, as I expected. You need to get your thoughts together more.

Murphy:

(Murphy makes his way to the table) Right! Thanks! God you had me going!

Costelloe:

I know. It was easy.

Murphy:

I hope I don’t run into a bastard like you. (Sits down) God this hand is sore!

Costelloe:

You better be prepared for it?

Murphy:

Will you help me?

Costelloe:

Perhaps! Tell me about the suicide attempt.

Murphy:

I don’t want to think about it.

Costelloe:

(sorts through some of his papers.) Why not? After all it was only just over a year ago. It says here that you were upset after a visit by one of your children and that you nearly succeeded. Tried cutting yourself with a sharpened fork. (Looks up again) I’m impressed Murphy. In fact I admire you. It takes some determination, and desperation I suppose, to kill yourself with a fork.

Murphy:

What would you know about the desperation that someone like me can feel. I know I did wrong and I willingly accepted my punishment. My wife was everything to me and I loved her. I loved her too much and couldn’t bear the thought of her being with somebody else, sharing their bed, laughing at their jokes, whispering secret thoughts. The night of the . . . the night I killed her, my brother and I had gone to the dogs together, as we always did every Thursday. We talked of the old times. We were drinking heavily and he told me that I was a lucky man. He said I had three wonderful children and that my wife was the most beautiful woman he knew. I knew then. . . I could see it in his eyes as they misted over. I had always been aware of how close she and he were, but put it down to a family thing. I suspected there was more but didn’t want to think about it. But that night something snapped. Something went in me that I couldn’t control and when I got home I confronted her. She laughed at me and said I was stupid for not realising it before. I went for her . . . I just wanted to show her how much I felt about her. I was holding her head in the oven when my eldest son Tel ..Terence came into the kitchen and saw what I was doing. It was too late. He ran out screaming to the neighbours. Last year he came to the prison and said that he hoped I would never be free and that he would never forgive me. I just wanted to end it all.

Costelloe:

Would you try doing it again?

Murphy:

What? Kill someone!

Costelloe:

No. Kill yourself. Commit suicide!

Murphy:

No!

Costelloe:

Not even if you, say, don’t get the parole, or if your other two children also reject you.

Murphy:

No!

Costelloe:

(Looks at Murphy for a long moment and shakes his head.) In that case I won’t be able to help you.

Murphy:

What the fuck? Why not?

Costelloe:

A man should know when he has reached the Bridge Brendan . . . may I call you Brendan?

Murphy:

(Murphy nods) I prefer Bren.

Costelloe:

Fine! Don’t you realise it yet Bren. When there is nothing left in this life for someone, no family, no legacy, no love, no past and no future, I would admire them more if they crossed the Bridge.

Murphy:

I thought you said earlier that suicide was an absence of reason.

Costelloe:

I said martyrdom was an absence of reason. There’s a difference.

Murphy:

In what way?

Costelloe:

Suicide is personal; it’s an individual’s cause, happiness and decision. Martyrdom on the other hand is usually for somebody else’s cause, and their happiness. You know the other person you think you are ...who did'nt really kill his wife. Hence the absence of reason Bren. Mind you, come to think about it, your wife, your wife’s family, your own family probably wouldn’t care whether in your own case it was suicide or martyrdom, as long as it was over.

Murphy:

No damn it. I’ll fight it. I can make amends; make it better.

Costelloe:

I doubt you can. (He starts packing away his papers.) I knew a Jenny deBrise once. She was from Milltown.

Murphy:

What the hell? Jenny was my wife’s name. But you know that!

Costelloe:

I remember she worked in the . .eh . . .where was it?

Murphy:

The Post Office.

Costelloe:

Ah yes. The post office. She was nineteen or twenty. A very pretty girl!

Murphy:

Jesus. That had to be my Jenny. We met at her twenty first-birthday party.

Costelloe:

Your dead Jenny now. Flew too close to the sun. No more dancing at the crossroads. No longer able to throw her smile to someone in need of a smile. No longer able to feel the vibrations of laughter and love from people whom she loved. No longer able to reach out, as only she could, and touch the resonance of a man’s soul. She was full of life back then.

Murphy:

I told you I was drunk. I didn’t mean to kill her. (Starts crying again) I didn’t mean it.

Costelloe:

But you did. You snuffed out a beautiful life?

Murphy:

How well did . . .?

Costelloe:

Do you want to know if were ever lovers? (Guard comes back but Costelloe holds up his hand showing five fingers and stares at him. Murphy doesn’t see this interaction) That I loved her better and with more passion than you ever could?

Guard:

You have five more minutes and that’s it. (Murphy looks over at him.) Visiting time at the Zoo is over. (Leaves)

Murphy:

You were going to tell me about Jenny(sobs) and you.

Costelloe:

What? Was I? Do you remember, Sparta deBrise, Jenny’s brother, who threatened you in the courtroom after the trial-

Murphy:

What about him! (Murphy puzzled) How did you know which brother it was? Were you there?

Costelloe:

I told you I knew all the details.

Murphy:

Jesus! (Frightened sobbing)

Costelloe:

If I were you Murphy I would be worried. Sparta’s a very strange character. At the trial he seemed to like hearing what Jenny got up to sexually. The details of the rape and murder made him excited. I could see. I often wondered was there more to their relationship than it appeared on the surface. Wow Jenny could get men going.

Murphy:

You’re disgusting! I don’t believe you. (Gets up to confront Costelloe who moves around the table with Murphy following him)

Costelloe:

You going to kill me now Bren? You see there is no change. Stop the tawaf Murphy. The Truth is there, right in front of your eyes. Why not ask your own brother what Jenny was like in bed. Or even better still ask your children. They would have been the silent witnesses to the love and excitement that Jenny deserved. They would know how she found happiness when their drunken father was missing. They would have heard the cries of joy in place of those of pain that their father inflicted. If you are their father that is!

Murphy:

Shut up! Shut up! (Stops) It’s not true! (Leans against the table) Oh no! (Murphy still touching the table slides to the floor and curls up crying.)

Costelloe:

Touch the corner Murphy. Understand the truth. Did you know that they are all living with your brother now? A real happy family I hear. They are better off without you Murphy.

Murphy:

(On floor-cries out) Noo! Noooooooooo!

Costelloe:

Walk the Bridge of Separation Murphy. (Smiles as he looks down at Murphy) There comes a point in time when every man should stop second-guessing himself. You’ve done it before. Trust your intuition. Take up that fork again! There is nothing left here. (Gathers up his papers) Look to your own happiness.

Murphy:

(Murphy crying uncontrollably) Noooo! Nooooooo! God nooooooooo!

Costelloe:

Guard! Guard!

Guard:

(Rushes in) Are you finished at last? (He looks down at Murphy.) Jesus Costelloe. What is it with you? All your recent clients, seem to be basket cases. It was only last month that Phillips strung himself, and there was Grogan before that.

Costelloe:

I know. (He looks back at Murphy smiling.) I reach out to do what I can for them. In jure alterius!

Guard:

What?

Costelloe:

On Another’s behalf my friend! On Another’s behalf! (Looks at guard) Listen! (pause)

Guard:

Yes.

Costelloe:

I’m sorry about the confrontation earlier. It’s just-

Guard:

I understand. Part of the client-lawyer game I suppose. Getting them on your side.

Costelloe:

Yeah! (Looks down at Murphy) I try to meet people like Murphy half way. Doesn’t always work though.

Guard:

You’re more successful than most. Even if some of them end it. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again soon.

Costelloe:

Yes. Count on it! (Looks at guard) There’s plenty of opportunity in my line of work and I really enjoy it. Good night.