ACT TWO

Whose Fault Is It?


ISABELLA: (seated at the desk with the psychologist.): I want you to know that I’m only here because my husband doesn’t understand me or care about my gambling problem.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Isabella, perhaps you should have sent your husband in for counseling if he can’t understand you.

ISABELLA: I wish you could fix him. I’ve been trying to do that myself for years.

PSYCHOLOGIST: If you thought that he cared, how would that help you?

ISABELLA: Well, he’d understand that sometimes I lose track of the checks and can’t balance the account. Sometimes I come up short with the grocery money. But I’m not a bad person. I’m just hooked on the new slot machines.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Do the good people you know write bad checks?

ISABELLA: Well, no, but I’m not a criminal. We always make the checks good! I just wish he wouldn’t yell and get so upset.

PSYCHOLOGIST: So, he makes the checks good, or do you?

ISABELLA: He does, of course. I’m at home with the kids and I only work part time.

PSYCHOLOGIST: If he just smiled and kissed you every time you wrote a bad check, would that help you stop gambling?

ISABELLA: Who said anything about stopping gambling?

PSYCHOLOGIST: You didn’t answer my question. Do you want to stop gambling?

ISABELLA: I probably could if I could get my husband to understand the problem.

PSYCH OLOGIST: Do you understand the problem?

ISABELLA: Sure, I just get carried away sometimes. You know how the casinos are. They get you to gamble over your head and then they expect you to pay off the markers like you really owed them money. And when we visit our out-of-state relatives, the advertisements for all those state lotteries get me to throw away our vacation money. Then there are those convenience stores with their little banks of slots and video poker machines.

PSYCHOLOGIST: So you gamble because your husband doesn’t understand you and the casinos or lotteries have such great power over you.

ISABELLA: Actually, I’m a strong-willed person.

PSYCHOLOGIST: How does a strong-willed, intelligent woman like you manage to lose control of your gambling?

ISABELLA: I told you. It’s my family, and all those people who try to get you to gamble.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Let’s remember, only a rather small minority of people have gambling problems. I don’t gamble in spite of the temptations we all face, and in spite of the fact that my patients don’t understand me.

ISABELLA: You get paid, stupid. What’s to understand?

PSYCHOLOGIST: So, if we paid you not to gamble you could stop? How much would you want per day not to gamble?

ISABELLA: Has anyone told you that you’re annoying? If I talked to you long enough I’d have go gambling to forget you

PSYCHOLOGIST: So, perhaps I, too, have the power to make you gamble?

ISABELLA: Lots of things set me off and make me want to gamble. My kids are age three, six and twelve. They take a lot out of me. A person needs some fun sometimes.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Do your kids make you gamble?

ISABELLA: Don’t distort what I say. I love my kids. They just annoy me sometimes, and then I have to get out for a little relaxation.

PSYCHOLOGIST: If you got a divorce and gave your husband custody of the kids, then you’d be on your own and have less stress, so maybe then you could stop . . .

ISABELLA: You have to be some kind of idiot! You’re a simple-minded fool!

PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, I try to keep things simple, and I just thought that if so many people cause you to gamble, maybe you could make a better life by yourself.

ISABELLA: Nobody makes me gamble. You know what I’m saying.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Sorry, I got confused there for a minute. If nobody makes you gamble then gambling must be the result of a decision you make.

ISABELLA: O.K. I’m in charge, but it’s so hard to resist the urge to gamble.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Urge? You have an urge to gamble? Tell me about that.

ISABELLA: I just get nervous and I snap at people. I have the urge to gamble most of the time. I think about gambling all the time. Everything reminds me of gambling. People respond to their urges, you know.

PSYCHOLOGIST: All people respond to all their urges?

ISABELLA: Dang, you’re dense. No. Of course people aren’t dominated by animal urges.

PSYCHOLOGIST: But you are controlled by your urge to gamble?

ISABELLA: So, I don’t have willpower when it comes to gambling. I need willpower.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Have you tried tying a string around your finger to remind you not to gamble?

ISABELLA: Of course not! But so many times I’ve sworn to myself I wouldn’t gamble, and then I end up losing everything I have.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Sworn on the Bible? Or have you lost that, too?

ISABELLA: No, not on the Bible. What good would that do?

PSYCHOLOGIST: None at all, I’m sure.

ISABELLA: Well, maybe if I worked out at a gym, went to church more, took a course at the college, or learned mental discipline with Yoga, then I could get more willpower.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Why don’t you just decide not to gamble any more?

ISABELLA: I don’t want to stop.

PSYCHOLOGIST: You just want the pain to go away but not have to make a decision to stop?

ISABELLA: Now you’re thinking, Pops.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Why is deciding to stop so hard?

ISABELLA: It’s like deciding to shoot my best friend.

PSYCHOLOGIST: If your best friend turned your husband against you, alienated your children and caused you to lose. . . let’s see here, your papers say you’ve lost over $35,000 in the past few years. If your best friend stole all that from you, then would you think of shooting your friend?

ISABELLA: She’d be dead meat for sure.

PSYCHOLOGIST: So you could decide to shoot your best friend, but you can’t decide to stop gambling?

ISABELLA: That’s a heck of a way to put it, but, yes, I think that’s right.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Just checking out your priorities, that’s all. You could commit murder but you won’t stop gambling.

ISABELLA: But that’s a scary idea, to decide to stop gambling.

PSYCHOLOGIST: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Nixon said that.

ISABELLA: No, stupid, it was Roosevelt. He was right, then? But, you know, somebody would have to help me.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Gamblers Anonymous is a group of people who have stopped, or are trying to stop gambling.

ISABELLA: They could make me stop?

PSYCHOLOGIST: No, but they can offer choices and tell you how each one of them was able to stop and stay stopped.

ISABELLA: What’s so important about me deciding to stop? Why something, someone, or even a psychologist, stop me?

PSYCHOLOGIST: It’s the difference between freedom and slavery. You either make choices or you follow directions. I think you know which the real path to happiness is.

ISABELLA: I’ve always loved my freedom!

PSYCHOLOGIST: Personal responsibility is the path to freedom, isn’t it?

ISABELLA: You’re saying I’ve not been a responsible person?

PSYCHOLOGIST: I’m saying that sometimes such slavery is more comfortable than having to make up your own mind.

ISABELLA: Don’t you think that sometimes people should just let go, have some fun and not worry about the consequences?

PSYCHOLOGIST: Your irresponsibility is what keeps people like me in business. On the other hand, taking personal responsibility is what makes us human and lifts us to become the most we can be. As long as you’re willing to live with the consequences, you can do anything you like.

ISABELLA: And you don’t want to try to stop me?

PSYCHOLOGIST: Do I look like some kind of psycho-cop? I don’t mind sitting here and talking with people all day, but I certainly don’t want the job of running all those lives every day all day.

ISABELLA: You’re no cop, but it couldn’t hurt if you lost a few pounds, Mr. Smart Psychologist!

PSYCHOLOGIST: You may be a gambler, but you’re not stupid, I can see that. Eat too much and you get fat. Gamble too much and you get poor. What’s your decision?

ISABELLA:  I’ll quit, but you’re responsible for the consequences if I go nuts or shoot my husband. He’s never going to stop nagging me.

PSYCHOLOGIST: There you go again putting responsibility for what you decide to do on other people. My only responsibility is to send you a bill for this happy little session. Has it occurred to you that if you decide to stop gambling you’re only entitled to a normal life, nothing more, and that’s not so easy, either?

ISABELLA: I’ll send my hubby in and he can nag you.

PSYCHOLOGIST: Maybe, after you stop stealing from your family, he’ll stop nagging.

(ISABELLA: stands, straightens her skirt, grabs up her purse and stomps out slamming the door behind her. Close curtain. Spotlight on a man who enters dressed in a Boy Scout uniform and carrying a tuba. He comes center stage and plays Beer Barrel Polka for several minutes, bows and exits. Act Three begins.)
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