The America Play

Act 2 is divided into short scenes, beginning with “A. The Big Bang.” The gunshot echoes again. Lucy and Brazil are at the hole. Brazil digs, and Lucy listens with an ear trumpet. The gunshot echoes again, and Lucy says they’re echoes of past gunshots. She urges Brazil to keep digging until he finds something. Lucy explains that it’s necessary for someone in her line of work to be able to tell the difference between memories and things that are present. Brazil’s father hadn’t been able to do that. He had become confused and died alone without a proper burial, an embarrassment that his family is there to correct. Lucy states that there’s a difference between the truth and what people believe is the truth, something that she has learned as a Confidence, or a person who keeps the secrets of the dead.

Lucy talks about a man named Bram Price. All his loved ones claimed that his last words were one thing, but Bram Price told Lucy something different, and she has kept his secret ever since. When his son Bram Price Junior died, he had “burned [Lucy’s] eardrums” (175) with his secrets. Brazil interjects that he had wailed at his funeral.