Buried Child Monologue – Vince
Overview:When Vince introduces his sweetheart, Shelly, to his kin for the first time, she is initially enchanted by their seemingly ordinary farmstead, which she likens to a picture-perfect “Norman Rockwell illustration”. However, this idyllic impression is quickly shattered upon encountering his eccentric family. His grandparents, given to constant tirades and seemingly perpetually inebriated, have two sons: Tilden, an intimidating figure with limited intellectual capabilities, and Bradley, who is missing a leg as a result of a chainsaw accident. Oddly enough, nobody initially recalls Vince, and they regard him as an outsider. Over time, though, they gradually acknowledge him as a component of their tumultuous and dysfunctional family
Suddenly, Vince stumbles through the porch screen, in a state of inebriation. At long last, Dodge and Halie acknowledge their grandson. Vince discloses to Shelly that he felt a compelling pull to return to the farmhouse, driven by a vision of his kin.
Vince: I was gonna run last night. I was gonna run and keep right on running. Clear to the Iowa border. I drove all night with the windows open. The old man’s two bucks flapping right on the seat beside me. It never stopped raining the whole time. Never stopped once. I could see myself in the windshield. My face. My eyes. I studied my face. Studied everything about it as though I was looking at another man. As though I could see his whole race behind him. Like a mummy’s face. I saw him dead and alive at the same time. In the same breath. In the windshield I watched him breathe as though he was frozen in time and every breath marked him. Marked him forever without him knowing. And then his face changed. His face became his father’s face. Same bones. Same eyes. Same nose. Same breath. And his father’s face changed to his grandfather’s face. And it went on like that. Changing. Clear on back to faces I’d never seen before but still recognized. Still recognized the bones underneath. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same breath. I followed my family clear into Iowa. Every last one. Straight into the corn belt and further. Straight back as far as they’d take me. Then it all dissolved. Everything dissolved. Just like that. And that two bucks kept right on flapping on the seat beside me.
