Quiet Please - And Jeannie Dreams of Me

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The American Broadcasting Company presents Quiet Please, which is written and directed

by Willis Cooper and which features Ernest Chappell.

Quiet Please for today is called And Genie Dreams of Me.

There were always the trees, the tall, great oaks and the silent cypresses.

The distant weeping willows and the holly trees beside the pathway, spreading their sturdy

arms, flotting their green and red in the twilight, and the tall columns of the house

gleaming quietly beyond the trees.

I remember the silence too.

The desky silence that lay always about the place, the silence that was always there

when the dream began.

The silence that dissolved to the music as I hurried up the long winding pathway toward

the tall white house that waited for me.

For the urnest little boy and nick-a-buckers that I once was, for the haggard young soldier

and muddy battle dress that was myself five years ago, for the unhappy, they're well-girded

man I am today.

I had no remembrance of a time when the dream was not a part of my life, and I know the

trees and the path and the house better than I know the streets of the city I lived

in.

In all the years they have not changed, they've seen me change, but they remain timeless and

always the same.

The old dream-friend, I know a man who remembers a road from his dreams, a place

that doesn't come to a road that wins its dusty way past broad, smiling fields and

along the skirts of a lofty green forest, a road that speaks to him of memories, unremembered,

a road that promises and beckons on over the next hillside, and waivers and fades and vanishes

and the cold darkness as he opens his eyes.

And comes again another night to sue this spirit so that he smiles in his sleep and wakes

to weep silent and alone for his lost dream.

Be a dream of long forgotten friends for the hillside under the clouds of an island in

a sunlit sea.

Do you know the desperate longing to return to the dream place, the hopeless nostalgia

for the world that lies beyond the curtain of sleep, and do you ever return?

Christmas to me, but perhaps we are keen.

I was ten I think that time I came into the front room where a mother was sitting at the

piano.

She turned when she heard me, smiled at me, and I said, Mother, I want to ask you a question.

Mother, I want to know about music.

A music? A song you mean? I guess it's a song.

What about it?

I want to know if you know the name of it.

I don't know, son. Can you play it for me?

I can't.

I like it.

I like it.

It's you, no one that is more important.

No, of course.

Is this it?

No.

Yes, yes, yes.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, no, three.

What's your name of it, mother?

That girl.

Ginny with a light brown hair here.

Hi, life.

Where did you ever hear it?

I don't think I ever played it.

Where do you hear it?

In my dream.

What?

I dream about it all the time.

Oh, but where did you first hear it?

In my dream, I told you.

That's the dream about there, to find the music.

I dream the same dream all the time.

Tell him what it about.

Well, I, I, I walk up the pathway, past the tree.

Yeah.

And it's pretty so when I hear the music,

then I go up to the house.

Our house?

No, it's a great big, high house.

And there's big, high things that hold up the porch.

And it's a wine.

And it's pretty, it's different.

How are they different?

I never saw that kind of forest.

There's some trees that, that the leaves and the new woods barely grow on.

That we have the leaves and the window and Christmas.

How do you see them?

Yes, I guess that's what it is.

How many?

When I, I go up to the big door and I try to open.

But it's lost, and I can't open it.

It's my half to open it more than before, yeah.

Why do you have to open it?

Because I know where somebody is.

There's somebody that wants to see me.

What makes you think that's why?

Well, I don't know why.

I just know.

Who do you suppose it might be?

Well, who made you see me, mother?

That's very strange, Troy.

You dream the same dream, not?

Every time I go to sleep, I think.

Then do you have any other dreams?

Oh, yes, but they're not mine.

This one I like, kind of.

But I wish I could open the door and find you.

Dear, I don't know quite what you were thinking, mother.

Could you maybe get me a key?

Oh, my son, you couldn't take a key into your dream, did you?

I think I'd call it if I had one.

I don't think so, dear.

Really?

I think so.

But I'm going to make sure things go.

Well, I'm going to make sure things go.

Well, I've brought this back to my dreamer.

Tony, do you know what this is?

Of course, mother.

It's calling.

See, I scratched my finger when I broke it off the tree.

Dr. Hogan said there was nothing wrong

with me that fresh air in great quantities

and plenty of holes in food would not remedy.

Then for a time, the dream went away from me

and I could not conjure up the visions of the towering oaks

and the rugged, holly trees of the White House

and the long winding, graveled walk.

There were nights when I caught a tortured view

of the white pillars and the broad white steps.

But hasten as I might, the picture faded

before I could gain a porch.

And I fell away in the deep, black, dreamless sleep

of exhaustion.

And always the hungry melody of Stephen Foster's song

floated through my sleep.

But there was never any key to unlock the door either.

And I resigned myself to an endless dream of frustration

in which I must struggle endlessly to reach the one I loved

and never find her.

For I knew, Jeannie was there.

And I hoped and still the dream came and went.

I might sleep peacefully on the strip for a night

for two nights, a week.

And then I was a young man grown before I found the key.

It was a time when young men found out

that there were to be a troubled one.

When wars and rumors of wars weighed heavily on our youth.

And I, with all the young men, felt the inevitability

of tragedy.

My mother, remembering the day a quarter of a century ago

and my father went away, fell ill,

brooding on the bitter destiny that

was to take her son from her.

And likely I sat huddled in an easy chair beside her bed,

keeping that hopeless ghostly watch over the stricken

that we humans dote upon.

Another midnight I fell asleep, one easily.

And after a while in a darkness,

I thought I heard my mother speak my name,

but I could not break the wretched bonds of fatigue.

It seemed to me that I was struggling

through some horrid, hateful dark swamp.

The swamp seemed to be alive with voices that

spoke my name in a blackness.

Thus perhaps it was not my mother who spoke to me.

And when I heard my name again, clear, by answer,

not with my mother's name, but with a name of my beloved

whom I had never seen.

Genie.

And magically the darkness dissolved.

And behind me were the trees of a part that

hollowed through the mistletoe clutching

at the lofty branches, the distant leaping

willow in the glossy, holly trees.

And I stood on the majestic porch of the White House

before the great door.

And there was a key in the lock.

I do not think my hand trembled as I turned the key,

an orphaned the great door that led beyond my dreams.

And she was there.

You found the key of life, didn't you, boy?

Genie.

I've been dreaming of you so long now.

When I was a little girl and you were a little boy,

I dreamed of you in the old schoolhouse,

the one with the red brick tower with the cloth faces painted

on old floor side.

And the hands painted on, too, said it has to face.

And there was another little girl.

You grow her red cinnamon drops in the dark stall, remember?

Her name was Ruth.

Ruth.

Yes, I remember.

And I was so jealous of a troll.

That was the first time you dreamed of this time.

I knew you were here that you couldn't unlock the door.

You dreamed of me.

I dreamed of you the time you brought the holly branch back

to your mother and learned my name from her.

And wanted her to give me the key.

I know all about you, darling.

I've watched you in my dreams all those years.

Do you remember the camping trip?

Where was it three years ago?

Three years ago.

I remember.

When you stood on that little headland above the lake

and watched the sun rise all alone,

that morning, from what you stayed.

And you thought there was nobody to you.

I said, I wish Jeanne could be here with me.

And you said, when will I ever see you, Jeanne?

I remember.

And I was there beside you to find my dreams.

And now it's last you found the key.

I found you, Paul, Jeanne.

To find my key.

But what will we do?

This is a dream.

Is it a dream, Troy?

Or is it your other life that's a dream?

My other life?

That's a dream to me.

Paul, try to stay here with me.

But I can't.

I know I can't.

Fry.

I can't.

We'd walk through the woods every day,

and I know places, secret places,

that we could have for our own.

And there's the house.

I want to stay more than anything else in the world, Jeanne.

I've been there for so long.

And I've been there for you, Troy.

I remember.

But this is a dream, Jeanne.

I'm asleep in the chair beside my mother.

My mother's ill, Jeanne.

Stay.

No.

I'm afraid, Jeanne.

I waited so long.

Stay.

But my mother.

Your mother's dead, Troy.

What did you say?

Your mother died.

No else did you think you found a dream, Jeanne.

And I was awake again in my mother's room.

And Jeanne had told me the truth.

While I dreamed, how I kissed Jeanne,

I stood up in something drop from my lap to the floor.

The key.

A great old-fashioned brass key that I had last seen

in the lock of the door of the house where Jeanne lived.

The day my mother was buried, that was the day I was drafted.

It was perhaps as well.

It kept me from brooding over her.

All my personal problems were swept aside

in the swift enterprise of becoming a soldier.

No, I didn't dream of Jeanne for a long time.

And then one night, during the maneuvers in Tennessee

and a bivouac on a windy hill, I came

wearily back to my sorry bed.

And as I drifted off to sleep, a sudden thought

crept into my mind.

I wondered if Jeanne was dreaming of me now.

And instantly I was walking up the long curving path

to the old house, still in my dirty fatigue

clothes carrying my life over the same heavy old jean

at the bottom of my hand.

I unlocked the door, and I called Jeanne.

And the door was hung open.

Oh, I don't go back.

Why, Jeanne?

No, no, don't just go.

But come with me, Jeanne.

No, no.

I said you're all quick, quick.

And she sees my arm and shook me.

And I awoke back on the Tennessee hillside,

just in time to roll frantically out the mud

of the tracks of a roaring tank that had come questing

blinded me through the woods and over the spot where I'd

been asleep in the morning.

There was no more sleep, no more dreaming for me that night.

There was no more dreaming of Jeanne for a long, long time.

Jeanne dreamed of me.

I know she did, but she told me so again.

That was when I was in North Africa.

That night I fell asleep in my dream first.

I remember the old schoolhouse with a painted clock,

a little girl named Ruth.

The one I used to buy the cinnamon drops for.

And in the dream, Ruth was angry at me for something.

I couldn't figure out until she stamped her foot

when I picked up her books to carry them home

and she cried out at me, no.

You let me alone.

You go find Jeanne.

And I was unlocking that great door again.

Troy.

Jeanne, oh Troy, I've got great news for you.

It's so wonderful to see you.

I've seen you every single day.

I'm worried about you getting so thin,

not having enough to eat and the fighting and everything.

You were horrible dreams for me.

I hoped every night I dreamed of you.

I wanted you to so badly.

But I suppose I wasn't strong enough of something.

Is it you that makes me dream of you, Jeanne?

Yes, of course.

And now you have the key.

Yes.

Yes, I have the key.

I'm sorry about that, Troy.

But it's the only way.

I can't help it.

I love my mother.

Yes, Dearest, I know.

But you wanted to find me.

Yes.

Do you love me?

Need you ask that?

Oh, Troy, I wanted you to come back so badly.

What did you mean about not being strong enough?

I couldn't make you dream of me into somehow or other.

You dreamed of that little girl you were in love with

when you were a child, that little roof.

Yes, I remember.

But what does that have to do with it?

Why, I don't know exactly.

You remember what happened to her?

Why, she died, if I remember.

Yes, that's right.

She died.

About the time you started dreaming of me.

But I don't understand.

That's all there is, Troy, darling.

You're here now.

Yes.

Kiss me, and I'll tell you the wonderful news.

I dreamed of this for so long.

Now, aren't you tired of the dreadful war?

I'm sick to death of you.

I know.

I've heard you say to that man with a red face.

What's his name?

Jack Cherry?

I heard you say just last week that you'd give

anything, do anything if the war would just stop.

Yes, I did.

I said more than I have.

I know you did.

I heard you.

Jane, you can't imagine the stinking horror

of it, the obscene, debasing.

I'm sorry.

Yes, I can imagine it, Troy.

I know it very well.

I dreamed of it.

I know.

The day when your captain was killed,

and you tried to pull him out of the house track.

I'd give anything to be out of it.

But it's got to be done.

You said you'd give a leg.

That's what I said to Jack, wasn't it?

Yes.

I don't know.

And what's the good news you have for me?

You're going to stay this time.

Why can't?

You've got both your legs here.

What do you...

Early tomorrow morning, there's going to be

an air raid.

A bomb is going to fall on the building where you're asleep.

Jamie?

I know, Troy.

You can't go back.

How do you...

You're going to stay here with me.

And be happy with me forever, Troy.

But I can't.

You won't wake up for months.

The month, the month, maybe never.

Even that, the most wonderful news.

Am I going to die?

You're going to live.

But I've got to go back.

You can't go back, Troy.

I cannot.

I will.

I can be awake and get the others out of that building in time.

They wouldn't be leave you, darling.

Yes, they...

Of course they wouldn't.

And you don't want to die, do you?

Why do you say that?

If you go back, you might die, dear.

Jamie...

Stay here.

Stay here with me and be happy and you'll never know anything about it.

No pain, no lying in the hospital for long, long months, something.

Trying to dream of me and never finding me.

Don't you see, Troy?

But I can't...

I can't believe it was hard to believe the dreams that it wasn't it?

Well, but...

Do you believe in me, Troy?

I love you.

I've loved you ever so long.

And I always love you.

I...

And...

I'll do anything to keep you there.

I won't feel any pain.

I will...

lose my leg.

Here?

No, Troy.

Here is only you and I.

Jamie and Troy.

And...

and love as a lasty.

But I don't know whether I...

There isn't anything you can do about it, Troy.

Four years.

Four long years of...

What shall I call it?

There must be a word for that kind of life.

If it is life,

Jamie told me her dream sometimes.

The doctor said the patient hasn't regained consciousness.

Not in all the years.

And here the great law was green

and the sound of magnolias was quiet.

Overpowering, sweet.

Doesn't recognize anything.

And here I looked into the clear blue eyes of Jamie.

Her light brown hair was a magic spell to me.

Sometimes these screams and then they give him mercy.

And here there is no pain.

No sorrow.

Only the magnolias,

clawing, sweet.

And Jamie...

The doctor said the patient talks sometimes in the sleep

and he calls the name.

In my dream here I call your name, Jamie.

And we shall live happily ever after.

But what if I...

What if I die in my sleep, Jamie?

Then I'll die, too.

Will I go back there to die, Jamie?

Why must we speak of dying, dearest Troy?

Tell me you love me.

And so the long days and the peaceful nights went by.

Why then another world meant fought and murdered each other?

Had no thought of another world that might be a world of dreams?

And then might not be.

For which is the real one?

I found myself as the endless days

and nights went by wondering and secretly wishing

for the other world I'd left behind for my dream of Jamie.

I stood under the high pediment of a porch

and watched the sun set in magnificence

beyond the rolling forest plight hills.

And I thought of another sunset.

The sunset at the end of a dusty grubby city street

with smoke-griming the tawdry buildings.

And I knew home sickness.

I thought of a sunset past a frozen lake in wintertime.

And the long shadows on the snow

and the shouts of gay youngsters.

And in my mind's eye I saw a man standing

watching the skaters on the lake.

A man with stooped shoulders of thin beaten men

with a crush instead of a right leg.

And my heart turned over with it, lady.

I thought I thought of a goodness of pain.

And a happy bitterness that other men might know.

And of work, our straining labor

and the good-tiredness that comes at nightfall.

And again of a bed in a hospital somewhere

and doctors puzzling over a man

who had slept for five years and more.

While I pleasureed myself in a country of dreams.

A new love of Jamie.

And heartily I wished myself away from this peace

and contentment and love.

I let you go, Troy.

I let you go for just as long as you want to stay.

Take the key, Troy.

Lock the door.

Be the key in the door so you'll find it when you come back.

Because you will come back, Troy.

You think you want the world again, but you won't.

I see you, Troy, remember?

In my dream.

I can dream of you any time I want to.

You leave the key in the door, Troy.

It'll be there when you're ready to come back to stay.

I hear, Wolk, you intolerable pain.

But I couldn't help laughing at the faces of the doctors

and the nurses who crotted around.

You'd think I'd risen from the dead.

And maybe I had.

But the pain.

And when I looked down at the bed I lay in.

Yes, my right leg, just as I'd imagined.

And the doctors did things to me.

So the pain went away a little, but it was always there.

And I welcomed it.

I suffered.

But I was my own man again.

And I did sleep, but I don't remember sleeping.

I didn't dream.

Then last week they told me I was good enough to be transferred to another hospital

where a great specialist was to treat me and make me well.

And again, my heart turned over within me for now I was to live

and be my own man forever.

Genie?

Yes, I thought of her.

The first time I thought of her was when I got in the airplane.

I'd never been in an airplane before.

The second time I thought of her.

Well, I'll tell you the dream in the airplane.

The drum of the motors made me drowsy.

And the drum of the motors made me drowsy.

And the drum of the motors made me drowsy.

And there were the trees again.

And that's all white house and the winding path.

I walked reluctantly up to the door and the key was still there.

I opened the door and I called Genie.

And it was a long minute in the darkening hallway before I discovered her.

It sprawled across the bottom steps of the huge stairway her eyes closed.

I hurried to her and took her in my arms.

Genie, what's happened?

Genie, don.

Try.

Genie.

Try.

Listen.

Listen to me.

What is it, Don?

I'm dying.

Oh, God, give me.

Genie?

No, don't tell me.

Listen.

A door.

Somebody.

Help.

What can talk to her?

What do you mean, darling?

Don't.

Don't go near them.

The door.

The man means.

A window.

Never see you again.

For you.

And the whole scene wavered before my eyes.

And there was a sound like thunder.

And I'm here sitting in the front seat on the right in the airplane full of people.

What did she mean, I thought?

And there's the lighted sign above the door, flashed on fastened seatbelts,

I glanced up at the other little signs on the wall in front of me,

steward, isn't it?

Somebody, second officer, Harry, somebody, pilot.

Jim J. McKinthuck.

And the ship is moving strangely now.

We're going down fast.

Must be coming in for a landing.

But the door.

That's where the pilots are, where McKinthuck is.

The smoke is coming out from under the door.

The title of today is Quiet Please Story.

It is, and Genie dreams of me.

It was written and directed by Willis Cooper.

And the man who spoke to you was Ernest Chapel.

And the mother was Anamard Morath.

The voice of a little boy was that of Sarah Fussle.

Claudia Morgan.

Play Genie.

Thank you for being with us, Mr. Chapel.

As usual, the music to Quiet Please is played by Albert Burma.

Now, put a word about next week.

Here is our righted director, Willis Cooper.

Thank you for listening to Quiet Please.

My story for you next week is called The Good Ghosts.

And so, until next week, at the same time,

Quietly yours, Ernest Chapel.