Fool For Love Third section of major events Summary & Analysis

Summary

Eddie and May hear the Mercedes drive away. Eddie sees that the Countess has blown out the windshield of his truck. May tries to turn the lights back on but Eddie will not let her. Eddie decides they have to leave or keep the lights out because the Countess will surely come back. As May and Eddie face off with one another, the Old Man talks to the audience about how neither May nor Eddie resemble him.

Eddie tells May he will not leave without her. May says she doesn't love Eddie anymore. Headlights cross through the window again. Eddie tries to push May into the bathroom but she gets away from him, screams threats and teases the Countess from the doorway. It turns out the driver of the car is May's date, Martin, not the Countess. He thinks May is being attacked by Eddie and after a short scuffle, throws Eddie to the ground. May breaks up the fight and introduces Eddie as her cousin.

While May gets ready to go in the bathroom, Eddie verbally intimidates Martin though Martin does not challenge Eddie or even know that Eddie is his competition. Eddie confuses the situation by negating May's description of their relationship as cousins. Eddie will not let Martin leave. Eddie reveals that he is May's half-sister and that they "fooled around" in high school before they knew of their blood relationship. Eddie tells Martin about the day he found about his father's secret life with May's mother. The Old Man occasionally contributes his point of view. Martin cannot hear him.

May comes out of the bathroom towards the end of Eddie's story and listens in silence. When Eddie finishes, May slams the bathroom door shut and screams at Eddie for involving Martin in the story and getting the story "all turned around." May tells the story from her point of view and the way it affected her mother and her youth with her mother who was always desperately waiting for the Old Man to return. May's story is about how her mother finally decided to track down their father in his other life and found him at Eddie's house eating dinner. May ends her story by saying that when her mother tried to stop Eddie and May from having a sexual relationship, Eddie's mother shot herself in the head.

The Old Man is surprised and disturbed by this revelation, claiming that no one ever told him that tragic part of the story. He pleads with Eddie to be on the male side of the story and deny this pain that he caused his mother, but Eddie refuses. Eddie adds that his mother killed herself with the Old Man's shotgun.

The Old Man tries to justify his actions in the past to May and Eddie but they ignore him. They move toward each other and embrace. Headlights flash across the stage again and we hear a loud collision. Glass shatters, an explosion goes off and horses scream and hooves gallop outside the motel room. Martin looks out the window and tells them that Eddie's horse trailer is ablaze and the horses have been let loose.

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