Two for the Seesaw

Jerry Ryan:
You've nothing better to do.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I've eleven different things I could be doing!

Jerry Ryan:
Different isn't better. Why aren't you doing them?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
How'd I get in the wrong? Did you call about the icebox or not?

Jerry Ryan:
Not.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Well, I can't follow this. You called.

Jerry Ryan:
I called because I was going out of my head in solitary.

Jerry Ryan:
I called to make contact with someone of the weaker sex, who's weaker.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
OK, here I am. Contact.

Jerry Ryan:
I called to ask you to dinner tonight. And a show, if you like.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Well, why didn't ya?

Jerry Ryan:
I was afraid you'd say yes or no.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I would have said "Sure"!

Jerry Ryan:
Right away we have problems. What show? Where to eat?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Wait! Now I'm not so sure. I don't know if I want to get involved. You sound complicated.

Jerry Ryan:
Oh.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I'm the girl, right? And you're the man. Make up your mind, ask me, and I'll make up mine.

Jerry Ryan:
Been trying for a month.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
To ask me to dinner?

Jerry Ryan:
No, to get unstuck from a piece of flypaper. After you've broken your leg in five places you hesitate to make that first step. Reason I hung up on you was because I didn't want to say, "Please, help me"

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Is it OK enough to?

Jerry Ryan:
Is what OK enough to?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Your leg?

Jerry Ryan:
It may have affected my head!

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I'm late.

Jerry Ryan:
Yeah, I know.

Jerry Ryan:
Next time I'll make sarcastic remarks.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
We're on next time already!

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
What have you been doing in New York?

Jerry Ryan:
Mostly walking, by day and by night.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Monotonous but healthy.

Jerry Ryan:
Be safe, be homeless.

Jerry Ryan:
I'd say you were a born victim.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Of what?

Jerry Ryan:
Yourself.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I feel sorry for you. What's so terrible?

Jerry Ryan:
You feel sorry for me?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Sure.

Jerry Ryan:
Gittel, how old are you?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
29.

Jerry Ryan:
Stop talking like 28. Start worrying about your own worries.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Why so sore? 'Cause I feel sorry for ya?

Jerry Ryan:
I don't think I can afford you. I'm not ready for a whole human, complete with weaknesses...

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Who asked ya? Who made an offer?

Jerry Ryan:
I did, but I take it back. I'm neither ready nor able to be responsible for anything these days. Least of all an ingenuous nitwit. That's why I'm sore. Disappointment.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
What does ingenuous mean? Smart?

Jerry Ryan:
Dumb. Naive.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
First thing you said was "Help me", on the telephone!

Jerry Ryan:
No. I said I wouldn't say...

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
You said "Help me"! I said "Sure"

Jerry Ryan:
That birthday candle you lit under me cast a light all the way to Omaha.

Jerry Ryan:
Will you stop walking up and down?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I'm nervous.

Jerry Ryan:
So am I, but this walking around isn't helping us any.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I was just waiting to be stopped.

Jerry Ryan:
Gittel, when you've been married to somebody for 12 years, lived together for 12 years, you don't just break up. You can't just forget it like it was... Well, anyway, I cut out. Ran.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Stop running, it's the Atlantic Ocean already.

Jerry Ryan:
I'm not running any more.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Don't you see? If you can't talk to her, you're running.

Jerry Ryan:
Didn't you understand one word I said?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Sure! As a juror I'd give me five years.

Jerry Ryan:
I'm not kidding. Need someone.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Let go!

Jerry Ryan:
Need someone.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Or what? Let me go or I'll yell.

Jerry Ryan:
No, you won't.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Help!

Jerry Ryan:
You lunatic. Somebody'll come.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Nobody'll come, it's New York.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I gotta get outta here before you slug me.

Jerry Ryan:
Slug you? That what you expect from your romances?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
When it comes to men, I expect the worst.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Pick up the phone if you're so strong.

Jerry Ryan:
Do you want me to?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Sure I want you to. I don't know where I stand. I could scream my head off and nobody comes. Who can I count on besides me?

Jerry Ryan:
Me!

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Yeah. Lean on you and I'll fall in that big hole, someplace in Nevada!

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Jerry?

Jerry Ryan:
What?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
You don't like me any more?

Jerry Ryan:
I hate you. Is that passionate enough?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
It's like when I was a kid, we used to neck in the vestibule. She's inside you and I'm always outside in the vestibule. Everything you did here was to prove something to her.

Jerry Ryan:
To you. To myself.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
To her. With her you couldn't stand on your own two feet, so with me you will, only I gotta stand on them too. You'll show her. With her you took handouts, with me you'll give handouts. Lofts, presents. Never mind if I want 'em, you'll show her. When you're blue, I don't have to worry what I did wrong. She called, she didn't call. She wrote a letter, she didn't write a letter. It's always her.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
So then you say, "need you". I need you. Who says these things in black and white? You care about somebody, you don't make 'em ask. Like a bill that's gotta be paid. What kind of giving is that? So when you ask me to hand myself over on a platter... Well, what do you hand over, Jerry? What'll I get? Jake, I pay a penny, I get a penny candy. But you... You're a big 10-buck box and all I'll get is the cellophane. You short-change people. You make it look like you're giving but you don't.

Jerry Ryan:
It's true. Half of me hasn't even been in this town.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I tried Jake.

Jerry Ryan:
Of course.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
So we're both flops.

Jerry Ryan:
No. Not both of us. Not you. I've tried to make you over so you'd be more like me - like everyone, I guess. Stingy, holding back, guarding what we have because we've got so little. Everything you get, you give back double. No, you're not a flop. You're a gift, infant. Underneath that beautiful face there's a street brawler. But underneath that there's someone... that no one, nothing has ever dirtied. The way people were meant to be. That's what you are.

Jerry Ryan:
3.30, Friday, and any time thereafter.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Any time thereafter for how long?

Jerry Ryan:
You say something?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I said I love you.

Jerry Ryan:
When you have something like that to say, don't mumble.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
All right, I'll holler it.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
All my life I never yet been able to beat up one lousy man.

Jerry Ryan:
This... This isn't true. All the courts in the worid will tell you it's true but it isn't. The bonds can't be "held for nought".

Jerry Ryan:
I told you to make a claim on me, to depend on me. I practically forced you. Gittel, I care for you. I don't want to see you hurt or lost or short-changed.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
So what's the future, Jerry? You gonna think any less about her? A little time'll pass, everything'll be hunky-dory? How am I gonna give her competition? Have a hemorrhage twice a year? Trap you that way? I got half of you by being a wreck, is that how we'll go on? Oh, you gotta short-change me, Jerry.

Jerry Ryan:
I've tried not to.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
That's what's outta whack. How hard you try. Who works that hard if everything's OK?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Things aren't even-Steven with us, Jerry. You do all the giving. What I have to give, you don't want. And what I want, you can't give. Doesn't matter if I learn shorthand or to play a bugle standing on my head. If you don't love me, you don't love me. And time isn't gonna make one lousy bit of difference.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Listen, Jerry, I'm the one in a trap. You move in with me, I'll... I'll nudja you into marrying me, I know I will. And then what'll I have? I don't wanna have to spend the rest of my life begging. It's not good enough for me, Jerry. Not any more. I want somebody who'll feel about me... what you said about her before. What do you say we give each other the gate, huh?

Jerry Ryan:
For my sake? So I can go back?

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
No. Whether you go or stay. To tell you the God's honest truth, Jerry, I didn't take one free breath since that hemorrhage. I wanna get outta here so I can breathe.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Things look a lot different to me now. You did me a worid of good, Jerry.

Jerry Ryan:
Did I, Gittel? Really? Because if I could think that...

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
You helped me. This is the first time I come out with more than I went in. Whoever this guy is, he'll owe you.

Jerry Ryan:
Thank you. She'll owe you, too. More than she'll ever know.

Jerry Ryan:
Well... so long, honey.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
I love you, Jerry. As long as you live, remember the last thing you heard outta me was I love you.

Jerry Ryan:
I love you too, infant.

Gittel 'Mosca' Moscawitz:
Nebraska. That's right next to California, isn't it?

Jerry Ryan:
No, I think that's Nevada you're thinking about.

Jerry Ryan:
Just testing. Like the old lady said, how do I know what I think, until I hear what I say?

Jerry Ryan:
[after Gittel saying she would take shorthand] Shorthand is one thing this romance has lacked from the beginning.