One Step fromma Streets!

INSIDE THE CHURCH.

The parishioners are making their ways to the door. A few silent penitents still kneel here and there in the long empty rows of pews. The large, almost empty church is filled now with organ MUSIC. Both Marty and his mother seem a little depressed as they stand at the doorway just inside the church, as the nine o’clock mass people flow out, and the first of the ten o’clock mass people file in.

MRS. PILLETTI
That was a nice girl last night, Marty.
(Marty nods)
She wasn’t a very good-looking girl, but she looks like a nice girl.
(she pauses, Marty makes no reply)
I said, she wasn’t a very good-looking girl… not very pretty…

MARTY
(still amiable)
I heard you, Ma.

MRS. PILLETTI
She looks a little old for you. About thirty-five, forty years old?

MARTY
She’s twenty-nine, Ma.

A nearby kneeling penitent looks disapprovingly at Mrs. Pilletti and shushes her. The mother nods briefly.

MRS. PILLETTI
She’s more than twenty-nine years old, Marty. That’s what she tells you.

MARTY
What, Ma?

MRS. PILLETTI
She looks thirty-five, forty. She didn’t look Italian to me.
Marty frowns but remains silent.

MRS. PILLETTI

I said, is she Italian girl?

MARTY
I don’t know. I don’t think so.
It’s Mrs. Pilletti’s turn to frown. A silence. She turns back to Marty.

MRS. PILLETTI
She don’t look Italian to me. What kinda family she come from? There was something about her I didn’t like. It seems funny, the first time you meet her, she comes to your empty house alone. These college girls, they all one step fromma streets.
Marty turns, on the verge of anger with his mother.

MARTY
What are you talking about? She’s a nice girl.

MRS. PILLETTI
She didn’t look Italian to me.
A silence hangs between them.

MRS. PILLETTI
I don’t like her.

MARTY
You don’t like her. You only met her for two minutes.

MRS. PILLETTI
Don’t bring her to the house no more.

MARTY
What didn’t you like about her?

MRS. PILLETTI
I don’t know! She don’t look like Italian to me. Plenny a nice Italian girls around.

MARTY
Well, let’s not get inna fight about it, Ma.
The kneeling woman shushes them again. By now the nine o’clock worshipers have filed out, and Marty joins the flow of ten o’clock people moving in. His mother turns back to him again.

MARTY
(stopping her before she gets started)

What are you getting so worked up about? I just met the girl last night. I’m probably not gonna see her again.
They continue down the aisle of the church.
Marty by Paddy Chayefsky

This is a scene from MARTY the morning after his date with Clara where his Mom begins to be worried that he might marry Clara and then she would be on her own. An idea planted in her head by her sister.

But Thursdays are for flowers. This flowertography session took place in my yard. Although it is actually a little light on flowers.