Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page #11

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Blackout.

SCENE SEVEN:

SILENCE. Pitch blackness. The sounds of a Nazi rally come

up slowly:
"Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!" Spotlight

comes up on MAJOR SIEGFRIED VON KONIGSWALD, and officer in

the dreaded SS. He is in full ceremonial uniform. The

sounds fade.

VON KONIGSWALD:

(sadly, resignedly, remembering)

Ja ja. Ja ja.

(pause)

I am Major Siegfried von Konigswald.

They used to call me "The Beast of

Yugoslavia," on account of all the

people I had tortured and shot--and

hanged. We'd bop 'em on the head.

We'd hook 'em up to the electricity.

We'd stick 'em with hypodermic

syringes full of all kinds of stuff.

One time we killed a guy with

orange juice. There was a train

wreck, and two of the freight cars

were loaded with oranges, so we had

oceans of orange juice. It was a

joke--how much orange juice we had.

And we were interrogating a guy one

day, and he wouldn't talk, and the

next thing I know--somebody's

filling up this big syringe with

orange juice.

(pause)

There was a guerrilla war going on.

You couldn't tell who was a

guerrilla and who wasn't.

Even if you got one, it was still a

civilian you got. Telling

Americans what a guerrilla war is

like--that's coals to Newcastle.

How do you like that for idiomatic

English? "Coals to Newcastle."

(laughs)

That Harold Ryan--he says he spoke

to me in perfect German? He talks

German like my ass chews gum. I'm

glad to hear the wonderful thing he

said before he killed me. I sure

didn't understand it the first time

around. I figured he was a

Lithuanian or something, which will

give you an idea of how wrong you

can be. All I knew was he was very

proud about something, and he had a

machine pistol, and it was aimed at

me. The woods were full of all

kinds of nuts who were proud of

some damn thing or other, and they

all had guns. They were always

looking for revenge. You find a

way to bottle revenge--that's the

end of Schnapps und Coca-Cola.

(pause)

Harold Ryan said he killed maybe

two hundred guys. I killed a

hundred times that many, I bet.

That's still peanuts, of course,

compared to what that crazy

Looseleaf did. Harold and me--we

was doing it the hard way. I hope

the record books will show that.

There should be a little star or

something by the names of the guys

who did it the hard way.

(pause)

I'm up in Heaven now, like that

little Wanda June kid. I wasn't

hit by no ice-cream truck. Harold

Ryan killed me with his bare hands.

He was good. My eyes popped out.

My tongue stuck out like a red

banana. I sh*t in my pants. It

was a mess.

(pause)

When I got up on the day I died, I

said, "What a beautiful day this is.

What a beautiful part of the

world." The whole planet was

beautiful. Up here I meet guys

from other planets.

(laughs)

We got some really crazy-looking

guys up here. Their planets

weren't anywhere near as nice as

Earth. They had clouds all the

time. They never saw a clear blue

sky. They never saw snow. They

never saw an ocean. They had some

little lakes, but you couldn't go

swimming in them. The lakes were

acid. You go swimming, you

dissolve. We got some guys up here

who got shoved in them lakes. They

dissolved.

(pause)

Harold Ryan stopped talking German

to me there in Yugoslavia. He

switched to English, so I finally

got some kind of idea what he was

so burned up about. He wanted

revenge for the guy we killed with

orange juice. I don't know how he

ever found out about it. There was

just three of us there when we did

it--me and two regular military

doctors. Somebody who cleaned up

afterwards must have squealed. If

I'd lived through the war, and they

tried me for war crimes and all

that, I'd have to tell the court, I

guess, "I was only following

orders, as a good soldier should.

Hitler told me to kill this guy

with orange juice."

Blackout.

SCENE EIGHT:

DARKNESS. Lights come up on living room. HAROLD has just

finished telling his true war story to PAUL.

HAROLD:

Mhravitch. Remember that name.

PAUL:

Mhravitch.

HAROLD:

The name will live forever. It was

there that Harold Ryan slew the

Beast of Yugoslavia. Mhravitch.

PAUL:

When I grow up, I'm going to go to

Mhravitch.

HAROLD:

It's rather a disappointment these

days. It isn't there any more.

PAUL:

Sir?

HAROLD:

The Germans shot everybody who

lived there, then leveled it,

plowed it, planted turnips and

cabbages in the fertile ground.

They wished revenge for the slaying

of the Beast of Yugoslavia. To

their twisted way of thinking, your

father had butchered an Eagle Scout.

(abruptly)

Play lots of contact sports?

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