Romance by David Mamet Read Free Book Online Page B

Your Life.
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your Honor.
    JUDGE: Was Shakespeare a Jew? You go first. Whaddaya
    say?
    PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, the introduction of Religion, into a Court of Law …
    JUDGE: Don't take that tone with me. Jeez. You can't even be civil with your
Boyfriend … {Pause)
What
did
he do?
    B ERNARD: He made me burn the pot roast.
    JUDGE: YOU
SWINE.
Y OU come
in
here, with your, your highfalutin’ tales of Peace and, all the what, the lions will lie down with the lambs.
Bullshit. Bullshit
, is what I say. Pure
Bullshit.
    PROSECUTOR: … Your Honor …
    JUDGE: Because the fucking
lambs
are
already
lying down with the lambs.
    PROSECUTOR: Your …
    JUDGE: At
nighttime.
What are the fucking lambs gonna do? “Yawn yawn, time to turn in, think I'll go bunk with the
lions”}
    BERNARD : No.
    JUDGE: You're fucking A. They're
going
to lie down with the lambs. Now …
    PROSECUTOR: Your Honor …
    JUDGE: The
lions
, on the other hand: They're never
ever
going to lie down with the lambs. THEY'RE GOING TO EAT THEM.
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your Honor, they depart tomorrow. But for the moment, in these fleeting moments, the representatives of two great and warring powers …
    JUDGE: D O you believe those sheenies and those … uh, uh …
    BAILIFF: … fine, upstanding Arabs …
    ALL: Mmm.
    JUDGE: … can ever stop their stupid bitching?
    PROSECUTOR: He didn't look like a Jew in his pictures …
    JUDGE: Pictures are deceiving. Did you know that Theodore Roosevelt was a Mulatto?
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your Honor, my client…
    JUDGE: Your client. Yeah, yeah. What did he do? What is it? Insider trading?
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your …
    JUDGE: Child molestation?
We ‘re
all friends here …
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your Honor, my client has pleaded Not Guilty, to …
    JUDGE: Well, DUH,
I
get it.
I'm
in on the joke. I understand. All that he's got to do. Okay,
off the
record, just for the, the, the, you concur …
    PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, make him say “I'm sorry.”
    JUDGE: Y OU bet. Come on now.
    B ERNARD: Would somebody help me find my contact?
    JUDGE: Whatever the fellow did, you have him come up here n'say “I'm sorry” —then we'll save the Middle East.
(Pause)
    (DEFENDANT
and
DEFENSE ATTORNEY
confer.)
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your Honor, my client has asked me to forward to this Honorable Court his statement, which consists in but those two, blest, blessed words: I'M SORRY.
    PROSECUTOR: Make him
say
it.
    JUDGE: Say it, pal.
    (All murmur
, DEFENDANT
comes forward)
    B ERNARD: I think that he should say it.
    DEFENDANT: I'm sorry.
    JUDGE: I CAN'T HEAR YOU.
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Speak up, please.
    DEFENDANT: I'm sorry.
    JUDGE: That's all it takes. And now:
    B ERNARD: I know that voice … I KNOW THAT VOICE … GEORGE BERNSTEIN?
IS THAT YOU?
IS THAT YOU, YOU SONOFABITCH?
    DEFENDANT: I, I…
    B ERNARD: HOW DARE YOU COME IN HERE AND SHOW YOUR FACE?
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Who is George Bernstein?
    B ERNARD: After you hung me out to dry in Hawaii? You sonofabitch.
    PROSECUTOR: Who is George Bernstein?
    B ERNARD: And you gave me a False NAME?
    DEFENDANT: Bunny. Buns …
    B ERNARD: Don't you “Buns” me. I sat in that hotel room Three Days, waiting for you to come back from the Ice Dispenser.
    DEFENDANT: Bunny. My wife.
    JUDGE: Bunny … ?
    B ERNARD: Eating macadamia nuts. Do you have any
notion
the amount of carbohydrates I consumed?
    DEFENDANT: Bunny I wanted to stay my wife.
    B ERNARD: “Oh Bunny let me Take you to Hawaii…”
    PROSECUTOR: … take you to Hawaii…
    JUDGE: “Bunny.” I
know
that name …
    PROSECUTOR: YOU LITTLE WHORE. HE TOOK YOU TO HAWAII? WHEN?
    B ERNARD: Last November.
    DEFENDANT: Bunny my wife called, she …
    PROSECUTOR: Y OU told me you were going to Atlantic City with My Mother.
    B ERNARD: I lied, I lied, all right? D'that ever happen to you?
    DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your Honor …
    PROSECUTOR: Where did you meet him?
    B ERNARD: Is it important?
    PROSECUTOR: I want to know.
    B ERNARD: The small leather-goods counter at Saks.
    DEFENSE