The Bean Counter
by Norbert Hruby

About the Play:
Joe Smith, accountant, has just received a gold watch at his retirement dinner after 41 years with the firm along with a set of golf clubs, which he has no use for, and a Mason jar full of beans, which he accepts in good humor because he has indeed been a “bean counter.” He places the jar on the mantelpiece at home as a symbol of his life’s work.

Joe is exultant at being liberated from a career he has always secretly hated. Millie, his wife, sets out to teach her workaholic husband how to ìplayî ñ golf, bridge, whatever ñ in order to save their respective sanities. He finally succumbs to her pressure. Within a year he is playing golf and bridge regularly. Dawn, a beautiful widow, becomes his regular partner in both golf and bridge to the dismay of Millie, not at all what she intended. When Joe volunteers to help Dawn with her income tax and teach her how to drive a car, the fat is in the fire ñ until Joe backs off, frightened by this predator. ìOnce a bean counter, always a bean counter,î he grumbles to himself.

Seven years go by. Joe is called upon to make a speech at the retirement dinner for Bill, an old friend at the firm. It is filled with advice on ìHow to Retire without Becoming a Pain in the Assî ñ none of which he follows himself. He is well on his way to becoming an alcoholic idler. When his younger brother suddenly drops dead, he is still unmoved ñ until he himself has a minor heart attack. Millie persuades him to join her in a creative writing class for senior citizens. Grudgingly he admits that he enjoys it, reviving a long dormant desire to be a writer. Off booze at last, he shows signs of being redeemed.

Time passes. Now an octogenarian, Joe, hard of hearing and short of memory, is once again counting the beans in the Mason jar. Dawn, now twice more married and widowed ñ and rich ñ drops by. Obviously she is still out to get him, but he remembers in time that he is still happily married to Millie.

Millie dies. Jenny, his older sister, always his feisty protector, finds and brings him a long-forgotten, rejected manuscript of a novel he wrote decades before. She urges him to complete the novel, which he admits is the story of his life, up to a point. She also tries to persuade him to ask Dawn for the money to get the novel published, even if it is only by a ìvanity press.î But he canít. He is haunted by the voice of Millie which, conscience-like, threatens ìnever to talk to him againî if he dares to ask Dawn for the money.

So Joe settles down to writing and revising and re-writing the manuscipt which, he says, he will submit to publisher after publisher until it is accepted or he dies, whichever comes first. At the final curtain Joe dumps the jar of beans into the fireplace, finally emancipated from the career forced on him by his father, finally the writer he had always wanted to be, finally content in his world of memories.

The Characters:
Millie Smith : Housewife in her late 50s or early 60s. Married to Joe Smith
Bill: Joe Smith’s fellow worker and friend
Joe Smith: An accountant of retirement age
Claire Smith: His sister-in-law
Jenny: His married older sister
Dawn: A beautiful widow, ageless

Setting:
Living room of the Smith residence.

Time:
June 1987

From the Play:

BILL: Well, folks, I gotta go.
JOE: How about a nightcap? (MILLIE’s look vetoes that idea.) Well, maybe another time. (Rising) Hey, buddy, thanks for everything.
BILL: (At the door) For what?
JOE: (Pointing at the jar of beans he received at his retirement dinner) These! Y’know every one of these little buggers represents a ledger entry, a balance sheet, a profit and loss statement, a . . .
BILL: Yeah, and a case of gas. (Leaving) Good night, Millie. Joe. (Exit.)
JOE: (Settling back in his chair) Billís a good guy.
MILLIE: Should I give the golf clubs away? Or maybe you can sell them. . . .
JOE: C’mere! (Pulling her down beside him affectionately) I think it was real sweet of you.
MILLIE: (Resisting) There’s no point in keeping them if they’re just going to lie around and gather dust.
JOE: I promise to dust them every day, OK?
MILLIE: (Pulling away) You’re drunk, Joe.
JOE: Yeah, a little ‘n and wide-awake. Let’s celebrate!
MILLIE: (Extricating herself and sitting opposite him) Be serious, Joe. What’s there to celebrate?
JOE: Emancipation.
MILLIE: “Emancipation”?
JOE: Free at last! Free at last! Thank goodness, I’m free at last!
MILLIE: Joe, you are drunk!
JOE: Drunk with freedom! Nobody to tell me what do and when to do it ever again! For the first time in my life I’m my own man. I can go where I want and do what I want!
MILLIE: Where do you want to go? And what do you want to do when you get there?
JOE: (Leaping out of his chair, he takes her in his arms.) I dunno. Let’s talk about it in the morning. Tonight let’s celebrate!

About the Playwright:
Norbert Hruby's work is well known to local audiences. His one-woman play, PEGGY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MRS. BENEDICT ARNOLD, was recently performed at the Gerald R. Ford Museum as part of Women's History Month, and is now being performed around Michigan under a grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Humanities. A second one-act play, BRIGGS, received a staged reading at the Actors Theatre, and has been produced by Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. Some of his other titles include DEAREST D., THE KRIZ BOYS and THE BEAN COUNTERS, and these have been produced by such groups as Chicago's Primus Company, Parkland Community College, and elsewhere.