Tom Flanders
I think I'm in the wrong room.
No Dad, this is your room.
Where's Martha?
Who's Martha?
My wife.
Your wife's name was Ruth.
What do mean was?
She died ten years ago.
Martha?
No Ruth.
Who's Ruth?
Your wife.
I think you're in the wrong room. My wife's name is Martha. We've been married for...what year is it?
2004
Fifty seven years. Can it be that long?
Dad, what are talking about?
It seems like only a couple years.
Dad, what happened to Martha?
She left me.
When?
I forgot about that.
Why did she leave you?
Drinking.
Yours or hers?
Both as I recall.
How many times have you been married?
Just once. No, twice. That's it. You're Ruth's boy!
That's right. How come you never told me?
Told you what?
That you were married before Mom.
None of you dammed business. Where's that Swede?
Swede?
Hanson. It's not really him but it looks like him.
Who?
The nurse guy, brings me my food.
He's Swede?
Hanson, the wrestler. He looks just like him.
Did you have any children with Martha?
Martha? No. I never had any kids.
You had me.
What do they call it? Sperm count. Never had enough little sailors.
But you had me. I'm your son.
Nah, wasn't me. That was the milkman.
What?
The milkman. Handsome devil. I wasn't mad. She wanted a kid so bad.
You're not my father?
Eh, technicalities. They say it was the morphine.
The morphine?
During the war, some years after, couple times a day, does things to you.
You were a morphine addict?
We all were.
We?
The bastard poets of the sea.
The what?
I'm tired.
You wrote poetry?
Nothing delivers us from temptation like the inability to pay for it.
You wrote that?
None other than.
Why'd you stop?
Tired.
You got tired of writing?
What? Yeah. No. I'm just tired. Turn on the TV it helps me sleep.