Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page #20

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LOOSELEAF:

I didn't know we had any women left.

HAROLD:

The world is teeming with women--

ours to enjoy.

LOOSELEAF:

Every time I start thinking like

that I get the clap.

Lion doorbell roars.

HAROLD:

(going to the door)

This could be my next wife.

He admits HERB SHUTTLE, who carries a bouquet of roses.

SHUTTLE:

(puzzled by HAROLD)

Hello.

HAROLD:

How are you, honeybunch?

SHUTTLE:

Is Penelope in?

HAROLD:

The posies are for her?

SHUTTLE:

I wanted to apologize.

HAROLD:

You've come to the right man.

SHUTTLE:

I forgot my vacuum cleaner.

HAROLD:

I forget mine for years on end.

SHUTTLE:

(suddenly realizing

who HAROLD is)

Oh my God--

(pause; points)

And you are Looseleaf Harper.

LOOSELEAF:

Hi.

SHUTTLE faints.

HAROLD:

(crowing)

It's what I've dreamed of all my

life, Looseleaf! To have a grown

man realize who I was--and faint!

(to audience)

End of Act Two.

Blackout.

ACT THREE:

SCENE ONE:

MILDRED enters drunkenly up aisle, sits precariously on

apron of stage and speaks to audience.

MILDRED:

Two days later. The afternoon of

the day of Looseleaf Harper's

mother-in-law's funeral. You got

it? Two days later.

(pause)

You know what happened in Heaven

today? There was a tornado. I'm

not kidding you--there was a

Goddamn tornado. Tore up fifty-six

houses, a dance pavilion and a

Ferris wheel. Drove a shuffleboard

stick clear through a telephone

pole. Nobody got killed. Nobody

ever gets killed. They just bounce

around a lot. Then they get up--

and start playing shuffleboard.

(pause)

I never saw a tornado when I was

alive, and I grew up in Oklahoma.

There's this big, black, funnel-

shaped cloud. Sounds like a

railroad train without the whistle.

I had to come to Heaven to see a

thing like that. A lot of people

got photographs.

(pause)

After the tornado was over, a man

had some film left and he wanted to

take pictures of me--to use up the

roll. I don't like people who go

around taking pictures of everything.

Nothing's real to some people

unless they've got photographs.

(pause)

Two days later--right?

She exits clumsily, the way she came. Silence. Lights come

up on the living room, which has become a pigpen. LOOSELEAF,

HAROLD, SHUTTLE and PAUL sit around a dinner of nearly raw

beefsteak set on the coffee table. LOOSELEAF wears an ill-

fitting uniform, which he has rented.

LOOSELEAF:

I told you the uniform wouldn't help.

HAROLD:

It helped more than you know. Down

deep, people were deeply affected.

LOOSELEAF:

You keep on saying "deep" and

"deeply." I wish something good

would happen on the surface sometime.

SHUTTLE:

I can't get over how you guys are

my friends. Harold Ryan and

Looseleaf Harper are my friends.

HAROLD:

Our pleasure.

SHUTTLE:

Eight years you guys were together--

through thick and thin.

HAROLD:

For seven and a half of those years

we were heavily drugged--or we

would have been home long before

now, believe me. We were saved

from starvation by the Lupi-Loopo

Indians, who fed us a strange blue

soup.

SHUTTLE:

Blue soup.

HAROLD:

It sapped our will--made us

peaceful and unenterprising. It

was a form of chemical castration.

We became two more sleepy Indians.

LOOSELEAF:

(to PAUL)

So, kid--how they hanging? Or

don't you say that to a little kid?

HAROLD:

He's a man.

(to PAUL)

Tell him you're a man.

PAUL:

I'm a man.

HAROLD:

We've got to do something to make

this boy's voice change. I wonder

if we couldn't get bull balls

somewhere, and fry 'em up.

(to PAUL)

Still miss your mother?

PAUL:

(weakly)

No.

HAROLD:

You're free to go to her, if you

want. If you'd rather be a woman

and run with the women, just say

the word.

SHUTTLE:

Are we really going to find out

where the elephants go to die?

HAROLD:

I'd rather go to Viet Nam.

SHUTTLE:

Would somebody please pass me the

catsup?

HAROLD:

What you say is, "Pass the f***ing

catsup."

SHUTTLE:

Pass the f***ing catsup.

LOOSELEAF gives it to him. SHUTTLE dumps catsup on his steak.

SHUTTLE:

I keep thinking about Africa--and

the elephants.

LOOSELEAF:

I don't think I'll go.

HAROLD:

Of course you'll go! You're going

to fly the helicopter.

LOOSELEAF:

I dunno.

HAROLD:

You're so low! Look at that

beautiful red meat. You haven't

touched it.

LOOSELEAF:

Sorry. At least you've got a place

to come back to. I don't have a

place to come back to anymore.

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