Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page #17

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HAROLD:

Could have happened to anybody.

LOOSELEAF:

First Nagasaki--now this.

HAROLD:

How about breakfast, wife?

PENELOPE:

Breakfast?

HAROLD:

(as though to a waitress)

Scrambled eggs, kippered herring,

fried potatoes--and a whole onion.

I want to eat the onion like an

apple. Do you understand?

PENELOPE turns away.

HAROLD:

And lots of orange juice--oceans of

orange juice.

PENELOPE:

Mrs. Wheeler is dead.

HAROLD:

All right--bring me a side order of

Mrs. Wheeler.

(regarding LOOSELEAF,

resigning himself to

being stuck with his

company for a little

while longer)

Oh, hell--sit down, Colonel.

Penelope will bring you some chow.

PENELOPE:

That is the most heartless

statement I ever heard pass between

human lips.

HAROLD:

(honestly mystified)

Which one?

PENELOPE:

(chokingly)

"Bring me a side order of Mrs.

Wheeler."

HAROLD:

She's up in Heaven now. She didn't

hear. She is experiencing nothing

but pure happiness. There's

nothing nicer than that.

(suddenly, angrily,

slamming a table with

his fist)

Chow! Harold Ryan wants chow!

PENELOPE:

What a honeymoon.

HAROLD:

Honeymoon temporarily canceled.

(catching sight of

PAUL, whose physical

appearance really

offends him)

The boy should still go out and

exercise. I have the impression he

never gets any exercise. He simply

bloats himself with Fig Newtons and

bakes his brains over steam radiators.

PENELOPE:

You're wrong.

HAROLD:

Then let me see him go out and get

some exercise.

(explosively)

Right now!

PAUL goes reeling in terror to the front door, opens it.

PAUL:

(to HAROLD, abjectly)

What kind of exercise?

HAROLD:

Beat the sh*t out of someone who

hates you.

PAUL exits. HAROLD pounds on a table.

HAROLD:

Chow, chow, chow! God damn it--

nutriment!

PENELOPE:

We're all going to have to go out

for breakfast. The cook quit

yesterday.

HAROLD:

You're a woman, aren't you?

PENELOPE nods.

HAROLD:

Then we have a cook.

PENELOPE hesitates.

HAROLD:

Cook, by God! Cook! You're the

n*gger now.

PENELOPE:

People don't use that word any more.

HAROLD:

Don't lecture me on race relations.

I don't have a molecule of

prejudice. I've been in battle

with every kind of man there is.

I've been in bed with every kind of

woman there is--from a Laplander to

a Tierra del Fuegian.

If I'd ever been to the South Pole,

there'd be a hell of a lot of

penguins who looked like me. Cook!

PENELOPE:

You leave me so--so without--

without dignity.

HAROLD:

People now have dignity when frying

eggs?

PENELOPE:

They don't have to feel like slaves.

HAROLD:

(grandly)

Then go now--and fry with dignity--

sunnyside up.

PENELOPE attempts to respond to this, but is too enraged.

She exits, making a tiny mosquito-like hum.

LOOSELEAF:

I dunno, boy.

HAROLD:

The educational process.

LOOSELEAF:

I guess. You're lucky you don't

have any old people around here.

HAROLD:

She was about to get married again.

She locked me out of the bedroom

last night.

LOOSELEAF starts to laugh. HAROLD shuts him up.

HAROLD:

What's funny about that?

LOOSELEAF:

(apologetically)

You know me, boy.

PENELOPE enters from the kitchen with a question on her lips.

HAROLD:

I should have torn that door off

its hinges. Should have scrogged

her ears off. Should have broken

the bed.

(seeing PENELOPE)

What do you want?

(words fail her)

Well?

PENELOPE:

I--I was wondering--is there

anything you shouldn't eat--because

of jungle fever?

HAROLD:

I could eat a raw baby crocodile.

(turning to LOOSELEAF crassly)

The way to get your wife back is in

bed. Do such a job on her that

she'll be lucky if she can crawl

around on all fours.

(to PENELOPE)

We're starving. Do you mind?

PENELOPE exits dumbly, detesting the word "scrog," which she

has never heard before.

HAROLD:

She had two lovers, by the way.

LOOSELEAF starts to laugh again, stops the laugh as HAROLD

glowers.

LOOSELEAF:

Excuse me.

HAROLD:

One of them is the doctor, whose

weapons are compassion,

unselfishness, peacefulness--

maudlin concern.

LOOSELEAF:

Huh.

HAROLD:

He and his love are like a

retiarius. Do you know what a

retiarius is?

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