by Lowell Uda
* * *
NARRATOR: The title of this sketch is "Four Drumsticks." The characters are: Mom; Dad; Alice, 12; Jessie, 9; and Mary, 6. The scene: the family's dining room.
MOM: (ENTERS THE DINING ROOM WITH A PLATTER OF CHICKEN, PLACES IT IN THE CENTER OF THE TABLE, THEN CALLS INTO THE LIVING ROOM.) Dinner!
(MOM RETURNS TO THE KITCHEN. SOON ALICE, JESSIE, AND MARY ENTER THE DINING ROOM NOT IN TOO ORDERLY A MANNER. THEY SIT AT THE TABLE. ) ALICE: Oh, goody, a drumstick! (GRABS A DRUMSTICK)
MARY: I got dibs on the other drumstick!
JESSIE: No, you don't. I've got it. (GRABS THE DRUMSTICK)
MARY: (PROTESTING LOUDLY.) It's my drumstick!
JESSIE: No, it isn't!
MARY: You always get the drumstick!
JESSIE: I'm older than you are.
MARY: Mommy, Jessie won't let me have the drumstick! I said I had dibs on the drumstick! Mommy!
MOM: (ENTERS THE DINING ROOM FROM THE KITCHEN) Jessie, why don't you be a good boy and give Mary the drumstick?
JESSIE: I was here first, and I got it!
MOM: (SIGHS AND TURNS TO HER OLDEST CHILD, ALICE.) Alice, honey...?
ALICE: (AFTER A MOMENTS HESITATION ) Oh, all right! (PLUNKS DRUMSTICK DOWN ON MARY’S PLATE)
MARY: (POKIMG AT THE DRUMSTICK) Oh, goody! My drumstick....
MOM: Thank you, Alice. I wish chickens had four drumsticks. You know, your Dad likes them too.
ALICE: (ALICE'S EYES LIGHT UP) They do! Have four legs, I mean. Chickens.
JESSIE: They do not.
ALICE: They do, too.
JESSIE: Do not!
ALICE: Do too!
MOM: Will you two stop it! Listen...your Dad's in the driveway. (MOM GOES TO THE WINDOW AND LOOKS OUT. )
ALICE: I read about it in school. Scientists have made a chicken with four legs. We could have a chicken with four drumsticks--one for Dad, one for me, one for Jessie, and one for Mary.
JESSIE: Scientists don't make chickens. Chickens make chickens.
ALICE: Scientists make chickens, too.
(THE DOOR SLAMS IN THE LIVINGROOM WHILE THE ARGUMENT GOES ON, AND SOON DAD ENTERS THE DINING ROOM.)
JESSIE: Do not!
ALICE: Do, too!
DAD: What's all the racket in here? No hellos...?
MARY: (RUNS INTO HER DAD'S ARMS.) Alice says chickens have four legs.
DAD: How's little Mary?
ALICE: I did not say that. I said that I learned in school that scientists have made a chicken with four legs.
DAD: ( DAD SITS MARY DOWN IN HER CHAIR, THEN TAKES HIS PLACE AT THE TABLE.) What good would that do, Alice?
ALICE: Then each of us could have a drumstick, except for Mom. She likes white meat anyway.
DAD: Hmm...I see that Jessie and Mary have the drumsticks already. I see what you mean, Alice. Please pass the chicken.... (DAD TURNS TO MOM, WHO PASSES THE CHICKEN, THEN SITS DOWN AT THE TABLE. DAD TAKES A CHICKEN BREAST AND PASSES THE PLATE TO MOM. SHE SETS THE PLATE DOWN.) ...How are you, honey? Kids been driving you crazy?
MOM: Oh, I'm all right. Nothing three hands wouldn't help--one for grabbing each of you by the scruff of the neck!
ALICE: (BRIGHTLY) Scientists can do that, too, if they wanted to--make us with three hands, I mean.
JESSIE: That's stupid!
ALICE: What's stupid about it?
JESSIE: Three hands! We'd look ugly. Where would I put my extra hand when I'm pitching!
MARY: In your pocket!
JESSIE: Yuck! I've got only two pockets.
MOM: Harold, this is not funny. Will you take charge?
DAD: (FINALLY DAD HOLDS UP HIS HAND.) Okay, okay. Quiet! Let's pray and eat. (LET’S THE TABLE GET QUIET, BUT THEN) I wonder what God would think...would God want us to make a four-legged chicken, and a human beings with three hands? (DAD CLOSES HIS EYES, THEN OPENS THEM AGAIN.) Would God be pleased or displeased?
MOM: (IMPATIENTLY) Harold, please pray.
DAD: Okay. (ADDRESSING THE CHILDREN IN THE CONGREGATION) Will you children in the front row pray with our family? Put your hands together. (DAD CLOSES HIS EYES AND PRAYS.) Thank you, God...for this food...for chickens with two legs...so we must learn to take turns...and for work for many hands...so we may learn to pitch in. In Christ's name, amen.
ALL: Amen.
Brief Bio of the Author
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I have taught English at the U. of Hawaii and the U. of Montana, and worked in Montana state government. After that I became a United Methodist minister, pastoring churches in Colorado and Montana. My short story, “The Cherry Tree,” won first prize in the 2011 Common Review Short Story Prize contest. Stories, poems, and creative nonfiction of mine have appeared in literary and other magazines, including The North American Review, the Hawaii Review, the Chariton Review, and, most recently, A River and Sound Review, Written River, The Whirlwind Review, 5x5, Assisi, In Our Own Voice, Divide: Journal of Literature, Arts and Ideas, Poems Across the Big Sky, Moonrabbit Review, and The Other Side.
Neither Good Nor Bad: How Prometheus Stole Fire for Humankind by Lowell Uda
Price: Free! 4740 words. Published by Rice Universe Publishing on March 27, 2013. .
In this retelling of a Greek myth, the author explores and comments on the human character and condition through the story of how the Titan Prometheus so loved the creatures he had created that he stole fire from the gods and gave it to them to further their intellectual and technological development and the development of civilization. But was there a price to pay, for Prometheus and us?
Parable of the Uncoordinated Pigeon by Lowell Uda
Price: Free! 3340 words. Published by Rice Universe Publishing on November 29, 2012. When launched miles from home, as many of us are, King suffers with his homing instinct. Paradoxically, the harder he tries to wing his way home, the further and further away from home he finds himself. In the end, he learns where home really is.
Parable of the Promise by Lowell Uda
Price: Free! 1820 words. Published by Rice Universe Publishing on November 28, 2012.
A childless couple, the Man of the Forest and the Woman of the Forest, spend many happy years caring for God's creation but nurture one sadness in their life together. God makes them a promise: "Some day you will care not only for the trees, waterways and creatures of the forest, but also for your own children." But the years go by and the old couple remain barren.
Where to find Lowell Uda online
Blog: lowelluda.wordpress.com
Website: https://www.riceuniversepublishing.com
Twitter: UdaLowell
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/lowell-uda/50/282/506
