Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page #23

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SHUTTLE:

I wouldn't drop my gun.

HAROLD:

You're hollow, like a woman.

SHUTTLE:

I'm smarter than Looseleaf.

HAROLD:

He can shoot! He can hold his

ground! He can attack! You're in

your proper profession right now--

sucking up dirt for frumpish

housewives, closet drunkards every

one.

SHUTTLE:

(close to tears)

How do you know how I'd act in Africa?

HAROLD:

Look how you're acting now! This

is a moment of truth, and you're

almost crying. Slug me!

SHUTTLE:

You're my buddy.

HAROLD:

Out! Out!

SHUTTLE:

No matter what you say to me, I

still think you're the greatest guy

I ever knew.

HAROLD:

Out!

SHUTTLE:

You--you aren't going to have any

friends left, if you don't watch out.

HAROLD:

Thank God!

He propels SHUTTLE out the door and slams it. He faces

PENELOPE and PAUL, speaks with malicious calm.

HAROLD:

Well--what have we here? A family.

PENELOPE:

Almost a Christmas scene.

HAROLD:

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

PENELOPE:

Just one favor.

HAROLD:

Money? There's plenty of that.

Mildred got the brewery. You'll

probably get the baseball team.

PENELOPE:

I want you to tell me that you

loved me once.

HAROLD is about to dismiss this request majestically, but

PENELOPE cuts him off with a sharp, dangerous warning.

PENELOPE:

I mean it! I must have that, and

so must Paul. Tell him that he was

conceived in love, even though you

hate me now. Tell both of us that

somewhere is our lives was love.

HAROLD experiments inwardly with responses of various kinds,

obviously saying them to himself, directing himself with his

hands. Nothing quite satisfies him.

HAROLD:

Testimonials of that sort are--are

beyond my range. I don't do them

well.

(sincerely, not

liking to fail in any way)

That's a failing, I know.

PENELOPE:

(accepting this ruefully)

I see.

PAUL:

I don't care. I don't care if

there was love or not. That's all

right. I'm going to go to my room

and close the door. I don't want

to hear any more.

PAUL exits wretchedly to his room.

HAROLD:

See how you've upset him. He was

so merry and hale before you came

home.

PENELOPE:

How unhappy he's going to be--alone

in his room.

HAROLD:

He'll play with his rifle, I expect.

That will cheer him up.

PENELOPE:

Rifle?

HAROLD:

I bought him a twenty-two

yesterday--on the way home from

Hamburger Heaven. And where is the

good doctor? Have you two

feathered a love nest somewhere?

PENELOPE:

He's in East St. Louis with his

mother--visiting an aunt.

HAROLD:

Last I heard, his mother was going

alone.

PENELOPE:

He's afraid of you, Harold. He

knew you'd want to fight him. He

doesn't know anything about

fighting. He hates pain.

HAROLD:

And you, a supposedly healthy

woman, do not detest him for his

cowardice?

PENELOPE:

It seems highly intelligent to me.

HAROLD:

What kind of a country has this

become? The men wear beads and

refuse to fight--and the woman

adore them. America's days of

greatness are over. It has drunk

the blue soup.

PENELOPE:

Blue soup?

HAROLD:

An Indian narcotic we were forced

to drink. It put us in a haze--a

honey-colored haze which was

lavender around the edge. We

laughed, we sang, we snoozed. When

a bird called, we answered back.

Every living thing was our brother

or our sister, we thought.

Looseleaf stepped on a cockroach

six inches long, and we cried. We

had a funeral that went on for five

days--for the cockroach! I sang

"Oh Promise Me." Can you imagine?

Where the hell did I ever learn the

words to "Oh Promise Me"? Looseleaf

delivered a lecture on maintenance

procedures for the hydraulic system

of a B-36. All the time we were

drinking more blue soup, more blue

soup! Never stopped drinking blue

soup. Blue soup all the time.

We'd go out after food in that

honey-colored haze, and everything

that was edible had a penumbra of

lavender.

PENELOPE:

Sounds quite beautiful.

HAROLD:

(angered)

Beautiful, you say? It wasn't

life, it wasn't death--it wasn't

anything!

(anger still mounting)

Beautiful? Seven years gone--

(snapping his fingers)

like that, like that! Seven years

of silliness and random dreams!

Seven years of nothingness, when

there could have been so much!

PENELOPE:

Like what?

HAROLD:

(becoming dangerously

physical, seizing a

battle-ax)

Action! Interaction! Give and

take! Challenge and response!

He splits a coffee table with the ax.

PAUL:

(rushing in with his

.22 rifle at a high

port arms)

Mom?

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