Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page #21

---

HAROLD:

All the more reason to go to Africa.

LOOSELEAF:

I dunno. You know.

(pause)

I used to really love that Alice.

Do you know that?

HAROLD:

You know her for what she is now--

garbage.

LOOSELEAF:

I dunno.

HAROLD:

She was always a rotten wife! She

was against everything manly you

ever wanted to do.

(to SHUTTLE)

He was the most daring test pilot

in the country at one time, and his

wife made him quit. She made him

become a life insurance salesman

instead.

SHUTTLE:

I'd think any woman worth her salt

would be proud to be married to a

test pilot. I know I would.

LOOSELEAF:

She tried to like it. She was a

very nervous woman.

SHUTTLE:

I could tell that at the funeral.

(to PAUL)

Would you please pass the f***ing

catsup again? Was it dangerous

testing planes?

LOOSELEAF:

I dunno. Who knows? You know--

you're up there, and you're in some

plane nobody ever flew before. You

put her into a dive, and everything

starts screaming and shaking, and

maybe some pipe breaks and squirts

oil or gasoline or hydraulic fluid

in your face. You wonder how the

hell you ever got in such a mess,

and then you pull back on the

controls, and you black out for a

couple of seconds. When you come

to, everything's usually fairly

okay--except maybe you threw up all

over yourself. It's just another

job, but you try and tell Alice that.

HAROLD:

Insurance!

SHUTTLE:

You actually sold insurance!

LOOSELEAF:

I tried.

(indicating HAROLD)

I sold him some. That was the only

insurance I ever sold.

Hyena doorbell laughs.

SHUTTLE:

What an awful sound!

HAROLD:

Get used to it.

(to PAUL)

Back door, Paul.

PAUL exits to the kitchen.

HAROLD:

(to SHUTTLE)

It's possible, of course, that

you'll die in Africa.

SHUTTLE:

I've considered that.

HAROLD:

Selling vacuum cleaners isn't the

best preparation you could have.

SHUTTLE:

I just want one true adventure

before I die.

HAROLD:

That can be arranged.

PAUL appears at the mouth of the doorway. He has something

amazing to announce.

PAUL:

Dad?

HAROLD:

Who was it?

PAUL:

It's Mom.

He steps aside. PENELOPE appears. HAROLD and SHUTTLE

stand, HAROLD angrily.

LOOSELEAF:

(openly, cheerfully)

Hi, Penelope.

HAROLD:

(to LOOSELEAF)

Shut up, you ninny!

(to PENELOPE)

You were never to come here again--

for any reason whatsoever!

PENELOPE:

I came for my clothes.

HAROLD:

Sneaking in the back door.

PENELOPE:

I rang. It seemed like the proper

door for a servile, worthless

organism to use.

HAROLD:

Your clothes are at the city dump

by now. Perhaps you can get a map

from the Department of Sanitation.

PENELOPE:

I came for Paul as well.

HAROLD:

If he wants to go.

PENELOPE:

You took him to the funeral, I hear.

HAROLD:

He'd never seen a corpse. He's

seen a dozen now.

PENELOPE:

A dozen?

HAROLD:

It's a big and busy funeral home.

PENELOPE:

(to PAUL)

Did you like it, dear?

HAROLD:

It isn't a matter of liking. It's

a matter of getting used to death--

as a perfectly natural thing.

Would you mind leaving? No woman

ever walks out on Harold Ryan, and

then comes back--for anything.

PENELOPE:

Unless she has nerve.

HAROLD:

More nerve than the doctor, I must

admit. He hasn't been home for two

days. Has he suddenly lost

interest in sleep and color

television--and the violin?

PENELOPE:

He knows you shattered his violin.

HAROLD:

I'm dying to hear of his reaction.

The thrill of smashing something

isn't in the smashing, but in the

owner's reactions.

PENELOPE:

He cried.

HAROLD:

About a broomstick and a cigar

box--and the attenuated intestines

of an alley cat.

PENELOPE:

Two hundred years old.

HAROLD:

He feels awful loss--which was

precisely my intention.

PENELOPE:

(moving toward the

violin, and,

incidentally, placing

herself much closer

to SHUTTLE)

He had hoped that someone would be

playing it still--two hundred years

from now.

HAROLD:

(echoing, expressing

the futility of such

long-term expectations)

Hope.

He spots the vacuum cleaner, probes it with his toe, asks

SHUTTLE with seriousness.

HAROLD:

Do you hope with all your heart

that someone will be using this

vacuum cleaner two hundred years

from now?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes